Doodle Champion Island Journeys!

Special: Voice

A cheerful voice, an energetic voice, one that resonated with pure energy to light up your whole day.

Lucky's voice.

Lucky Maneki was not always the girliest of female cats. Even back when she still had her fur long and fluffy, and enjoyed snuggling into the stomach of everyone she found sitting, she showed a strong character. She didn't like playing princess and questioned why every fairytale girl had to wait for her prince when she could totally weave a ladder out of bedding and swing down the isolation tower - the hero would tell her to do so, anyway. The way she tilted her head as she asked those questions and the way she pouted when no answers came showed that she did take it seriously. Sun sometimes wished Bells had more time off from school instead of handing the job of taking care of their little sister to him, someone who was better around books than living beings. But who could he blame? Bells just entered primary school, and their parents wanted to use this opportunity to help enhance his reading skills - he just learned to read, by the way.

Sun was never ready enough for a hyper little sister. Lucky took every chance to climb the chairs with an umbrella in her hands, sometimes even climbing the windows, acting like an adventurer set off to fight monsters or something. In other words, Sun knew nobody could be blamed here but Lucky herself. It was the same method of reading fairytales about princesses and heroes for female young, but this girl showed more personality from her early days than anybody else. Soon, he learned that his sister was just good at voicing herself. She chose the kind of outfit she wanted to wear, pointed out the kind of book that she enjoyed, and marched to the beat of her own drums. He had to state it clearly that, of course, Lucky was not any abnormal kid. She still had a couple of things in common with the others of the same kind, such as liking playing yarn balls and video games.

And the shouting, how could he forget? Lucky shouted a lot. Holy, she was louder than necessary. She talked about almost everything. That's why she could talk quickly without biting her own tongue, and why her voice sounded a bit raspy and boyish.

But she seemed to...change since Bells bought that one video game. That was where she truly turned into an entirely different creature from what she was supposed to be. "I want to do magic too..!", that's what she said. He, of course, jokingly went with it. Who would dare to dismiss the imagination of a kid? Sun Maneki wouldn't, even as realistic a creature as he was. But he didn't expect Lucky to take it honestly. His sister was more believing than he thought, and it would be the end of her. When he realized how invested she was in finding magic, spending hours whenever she could by the window, gazing at the sky with a million thoughts in those amber eyes, or disappearing into the wisteria hill of the town just to come back with her hands full of scrapes under her milk-white fur, he tried to reason with her.

Of all characteristics of a creature that kami-sama could've put together, Lucky had faith and determination - to word it more correctly, over-honesty and stubbornness. And there was his crazy big sister who thought it would be right to support Lucky in her naive dream! He was worried alright. It wasn't like he wanted to crush her, but he was afraid of how she would be treated. A non-existent feeling of protectiveness clung to him despite how much he hated to admit it, that he actually enjoyed having a little sister like her. And the way that she was acting, wasn't it EXACTLY the way an ordinary outcast would act? Strange ideas, unusual habits?

Lucky was too innocent. Her voice, energizing and pure, he didn't want it to vanish away. Sounds were the best mean of recognition to cats, and he felt like melting whenever those bright sounds of hers came to his ears. She didn't have the usual mewling in cats, but resonated with more power. Perhaps because it was something new that he could never grow tired of. Amulet and Meteor, even after they came into his life, hadn't got the same effect on him as their sister. She always seemed to be giving everyone a good mood, but he dared not to imagine if there would to be a time when that energy was shut down, when she finally learned the harsh reality that fairytales should remain fairytales. He just didn't want that light in her to die out!

Yet, she kept pushing herself.

Hoarse voice, tired voice, caught up between breaths for support. Watery eyes, heavy eyes, catching every single glimpse of fire left, not letting it go so desperately. Lucky didn't realize how far she had pushed herself, but she refused to turn back for all he knew. When he first found her scene on the wisteria hill, he had a huge temptation to hug her, comforting her, but it felt weird. He wanted to say that she was getting herself in a dead end, and that she should just go around with normal life.

Lucky Maneki seemed to not find the mocking in the sarcastic comments sent at her, though she did hear more straightforward ones too. For once Sun understood just how unmoving her mentality was. She lived through it all and responded with an intact positivity.

"I will get there."

"Nothing's impossible."

"I will make it."

"I don't believe tales come from nothing but mere imagination. I don't believe the scripts of ancient times are totally false. The feeling is real, I almost got there."

Lucky said, her voice brimming with confidence. Her amber eyes a few times flickered with doubt but she kept her faith in a world where the yokais - the demons of fairytale - exist and live as normally as themselves.

Sun couldn't bring himself to tell his sister the cruel truth. While Bells... Bells was just as crazy as Lucky. He felt his heart drop whenever Lucky came back, too exhausted to even speak beside a murmur of "tadaima", and crashed onto the couch, leaving consciousness soon after. She often left home early in the morning, running to who-knew-where; she kept her hair short, sometimes even shorter than his; and she went around barefooted, saying that she needed to extend her sensations as much as possible.

For Sun, it was like Lucky was practically turning to a male. A wild one. Those who met her for the first time tended to make that mistake, still, she...accepted it, as part of herself.

Hopeful voice, raspy voice, whispery voice. Lucky talked to herself, though she addressed it as if she was talking to many creatures at a time. Sun caught her sitting on a tree, dangling her feet and tail, muttering in a singsong voice. Those were the times when he at least saw peace in her.

The sun itself was setting. His namesake... His parents named him after the very sun. Nova and Scarlet Maneki had named their children after good omens: the purity and gentleness of jiggling bells, the light and warmth of the sun, good luck charms, prayers of an amulet, and a spectacular meteor shower. Sun knew a thing or two about the expectations in his name, he should be the one to give aid to others, but he felt helpless. There was nothing he could do to help his sister out of her trance of delusion.

The humming stopped. Without her voice, everything felt like void. A dead silence. Lucky sat still. Sun felt bad that at that moment, he wished she could've screamed, even out of pain, so that his ears wouldn't feel deaf anymore.

She opened her eyes. Purple flares glimmered out for a split second. It felt surreal. Lucky was... radiating power. She seemed to have become an entirely different being from what he thought he knew. But this was the real her, the true self she had been working hard to awaken. He had no doubt that it was not an illusion of the twilight.

She did it.

Warm voice, happy voice, a shout of clearance and satisfaction and a great smile. How he loved it. Lucky had convinced him of the existence of myths and dreams, a new aspect of life. She showed him how dreams could take you so far. Sun was more worried about her than he could admit himself, but he was glad it ended well.

After everything, Lucky kept burying herself in newfound theories of folktales, but he wouldn't mind anymore. That was what she loved to do, and if she could nail it, then why stopping her?

She was stronger than what she put on, and her voice would remain as cheerful and energetic as she was. That was the one nature he wanted to hold onto forever. Until the sun dies out.