Sakura

Ch.1 The Xenobotanist

In a mosque town surrounded by low lying mountains is a place controlled by government affairs and species of humans that take on a animalistic look. Human's delve into their DNA and try to do new types of life. Some failures, some not. Above these scientists and mad men were the lords that ruled over them, their creations, deciding if they would keep them or kill them. A good creation was worth keeping; if it had flaws then it wouldn't make the grade and was to be killed off at once.

The King of the Swallows, King Nokuro, Taught a handful of botanists. His reason for doing this was to have beautiful flower maidens among his lands, brothels, and anywhere else he could put them. Of course each maiden would have a price on her head if someone wished to take her, use her, flaunt her. Each and every botanist that the King taught learned well and went on to become great scientists that made plenty of usable maidens, none with issues. One excelled more than the rest before his mind went on him and he became crazed.

The King decided to put him aside and replace him but then again the methods he had taught he man were exceptionally illegal, he would have to put him to death. The King decided not to have that happen but had him evaluated and checked regularly. The man's symptoms seemed to have gone away where they weren't as serious. The King decided to place the scientist under alienation for just causes and purposes, locking him to his work in a mosque that the King had no use for. Xeno botanist Toyama Mototoku has been there now for several years, making maidens and shipping them out to the King when asked.

While sitting about in the lab, Toyama began to write down ideas for a new maiden, one with a higher genetic DNA, better breeding statistics, longer life span, and a higher knowledge base than the others. The only thing that could sustain such a thing would be within the tree DNA lineage. Oaks were too firm, muscular females, and husky voices. The pines were too soft and wispy. Toyama studied the tree DNA chart for days trying to see which would be the perfect type for his idea and began to experiment with a handful he had chosen.

Each one had a flaw except one. It had surpassed the others in every testing he had placed the seedlings under. The Sakura tree. Toyama gazed upon the seedling in the tank of nutrient based water that it fed off of. It growing daily more and more, getting bigger and stronger. Suddenly the tank shattered before him and the seedling died from the air that humans breathed. Its skin dried up into it was a scrawny, scraggily looking withered being. Toyama looked over in shock to see the King's son leanng on a counter holding a gun in his hand that he had shot. "This won't be allowed. The King hates Sakura's. Who's order did you get to make that?"

Toyama shook his head at him with silence as his hand traced down the withered arm of the seedling. "It was no one's yet it was someone."

The Prince stared at him putting the gun away. "My father should've killed you when you went crazy. I don't know why he keeps you around."

Toyama stared down at the withered being, its face full of pain when it had died. The door slam made his heart skip a beat.

"Sir?"

"Hm?"

"Sir? Wake up!"

"Wha-? What is it?" Toyama asked groggily blinking as he stirred from his nap. He looked up to see his assistant standing over him with a clipboard.

"She failed the tests," he replied boredly. "This makes the tenth one today. Sir, the Prince won't be happy. The deadline is fast approaching and we have only sustained three out of twenty that he asked for."

Toyama sighed rubbing his eyes. "The Prince can go suck…-" He paused to reword this without sounding mean or wanting to be bitched at. "A lollipop for all I care. The species of maiden he's asked for can't sustain life or have knowledge of anything around her. These tests prove that."

The assistant sighed putting the clipboard down on the desk. "I'm getting tired of this. The King himself put me under your knowledge and eye for being a superior intellect on this kind of thing and you can't make these types breath life correctly."

Toyama picked up a can of soda moving it back and forth to see if it contained anything. "Well this is how some things go, young man. You win some, you lose some. All in the hand of science."

"All I've seen is failure!" snapped the assistant angrily. The other assisstants stopped to turn at the commotion. "Everything you've done this entire week is fail! You're not a Xenobotanist one bit! You're just a crazy fool of a man!"

Toyama grabbed the assistant by the front of his face pulling him to his face. He glared into the assistants eyes. "I am a Xenobotanist, I'm not crazy, and you have no right to be snapping like this. The tests show that the Prince will have to look elsewhere to make the flowers breath life."

His hand let go of the assistant who touched his lower jaw line where the botanists fingers had dug in. "You can make them breath life, you didn't add Xenoril like the others. Why not?"

Toyama leaned back in his chair looking calm. "Xenoril would've cost the whole testing to go up in flames. It would do nothing but hinder their functions, unlike the others."

"No it wouldn't," the assistant replied flipping pages on the clip board. "I added Xenoril to a daisy; its abnormalities were greater than the rose or the sunflower without it."

"If you inject Xenoril and Isomorphic Chromus they wouldn't mix, therefore early stages of shriveling from stress, or the chromosomes didn't form correctly. The DNA will have a hexagonal spiral instead of a circular structure."

The assistant sighed letting the pages lay down flat. "Ugh. I'll go get more."

"While you're out, gather me some smokes. I'm out." Toyama held up a box that was empty. "I only have one cigarette left."

The assistant waved a hand over his shoulder as she stepped from the lab, heading out. Toyama sighed sitting there resting his head on his elbow. "This has been a very unproductive day but I already knew the outcome anyways. No one listens to me though."

He gazed at the clipboard, his hand turning it towards him and dragging it down. He flipped to the blue rose that he had been specified to create. It hadn't taken any of the tests well at all. If only he had an incomplete seedling that he could acquire, these tests would no doubt go better. It's what most of these flowers were going to have to be created from.

The only problem was that the King had no authority over the unfinished seedlings. Nor could he buy them off. He could make an artificial unfinished seedling but it wouldn't be as pretty nor smell as good. He tapped the paper before letting the page slip from his finger, being buried amongst the others. "What a great bother for nothing. Something's gotta give."

He stood going over to his Seedling farm. About a hundred tanks with synthesizing seeds, all female. He leaned on the railing that blocked anyone from getting closer to the multi-chambered glass tubes that were filled with mineral water. He was doing things illegally yet legal. How did that work out?

He wasn't sure himself. He had illegally created beings yet legally created them. Farming in other words. These flower maidens were made from seeds that were mixed and genetically altered. The process to make is very difficult to explain, it requires many steps.

Once finished you have what looks like an embryo. Inject whatever you want within and watch it mutate. Inject things that don't mix, you'll have a wild vine-like creature. That's not what you want at all. You want a being that holds its shape; its heartbeat can be seen through its translucent skin, tinged green slightly. Its veins clearly visible in early growth.

They were adorable seedlings but you had to fight the urge to remove them from the tanks. The seedlings were much like fish. They breathe water for now and die if they breathe air. Seedlings were water based creatures until the Morphium was added along with Necromite, the stuff the skeletal structure was formed with. Morphium kicked the transformation process into over drive, massively developing cells and cloning along with reproducing of the required stabilizing elements that was needed to create an air breathing maiden.

This process would take thirty minutes. If he hadn't had any of these injectants then the process would take days to finish. Toyama looked over to his other assistants as they were checking water levels and mineral oxidation in the tanks. They all were a hard working bunch. Some human and some cross species.

Toyama pushed off from the railing walking out of the lab. "I'll be back in a few. I'm going to go get some air."

The assistants all replied their answers as they worked. He walked out down the hallway towards the entrance dome. His hands in his pockets, lab coat fluttering behind him. If only he could find a person that could see through the eyes of a maiden, feel for her like he had. These maidens that he created were like daughters to him that only lived a short time.

A flower maiden's reproductive life span was very short. If her span allowed her to survive through pregnancy then the child that was born would have a longer life expectancy than its mother since it's mixed with whatever that had mated with the flower. Usually the child of a flower was quite a beautiful child, if it were allowed to live. He had only seen four or five children that had grown from infant stage to almost teen until the government seized them and took them away. Once the government seized the plant cross bred children there was no stopping it from happening.

The light filtered through the stain glass windows down upon him as he walked the granite tile. Assistants walked past him talking, busy with their work. "Evening, Mototoku."

He would nod his head towards them as they passed. The life of a Xeno botanist was a sad one. No time for any outside life like a human normally would. No time for relationships. Just a scientist and his creations.

He, Toyama Mototoku, was thirty years old and stood six foot two. He had long white hair that came down to his lower back and blue eyes. He was handsome enough to the woman outside but he was also tied to the government like a dog. He barely had the chance to go to his apartment and get rest. All the other times he'd pass out in the lab.

The demands of the Prince were getting more and more exotic. He wanted more types of flower maidens that he could barely get breathing. Let alone to go from seedling to Metamorphosis stage. How these flowers were like butterflies sometimes he wasn't sure? They were like many things

Fish, butterflies, feral creatures, man eaters, lap pets. Every flower maiden he had ever created took on some of those characteristics or more. He had created them all and killed them all. His poor children had such cursed lives. He hated to do it to them but it had to be done, for the name of the Prince.

The doors of the mosque opened for him automatically and closed behind him as he stood outside beneath the tray ceiling awning. On either side were pillars with gargoyles and angels atop dancing or looking over the people that strode up the cracked brick walkway. He looked out at the town that expanded out around his mosque, listening to all the noisy sounds that were deflected off the outside exterior of the mosque by sound proofing the inside. Such tranquility he acquired can be found nowhere else. He looked over to his left where a garden lay beneath the shade of trees he had created just for that purpose.

Being a Xeno botanist had its perks, like having the ability to make plants that served multiple purposes, creatures that could be grown into pets, things that could be created for war or to save lives. All you needed was water. There were also the types that didn't need water, just nutrients. Those were his favorite type because they could be quite flexible and versatile in many ways in the creating process. They were also great help with the elderly.

He made pretty good money from this. A couple thousand with a few extra bonuses thanks to his early stage of insanity that seemed to be cured for the time being. Still, the King allowed him to get the benefits without any arguments. It was his ways of making Toyama keep his mouth shut about everything. He was fairly happy with it all.

The breeze blew in from the East making the girls beneath the tree cry out slightly as their work skirts were blown up. Toyama turned away with a smirk at the peepshow that he got with easterly winds. They were always pretty strong around there. He descended the steps taking his last smoke from behind his ear. He bent over to a fiery red bush that had barbed wire around it to keep people away.

This had been one of his first creations, an Ashbloom bush. He called it that because when the leaves fall off that turn to ash. Around fall, the bush loses its leaves and ash can be seen flying about with the smell of burning wood in the air. His assistants always have to keep the area well plowed so that nothing catches fire from the bush. If left alone and untrimmed it could spread vines that like to creep towards trees and create a forest fire.

He learned that when the bush hadn't been kept up properly by the assistants and half of his botany was burned to the ground, just from a single vine that had grown. The vines themselves were more dangerous than the leaves. They were a type of smoldering vine. The leaves, if brushes against or touched, could give you severe burns. If touched you would need to seek immediate medical assistance to get treated.

He loved his job though. The leaves of the Ashbloom finally caught the cigarette end on fire allowing him to bring the cigarette alive and blow out a cloud of smoke. The female botanists spotted him and called out. "Mister Mototoku! Mister Mototoku! Over here!"

He turned to look over his shoulder and sighed. He strode over to them looking down upon them, his cigarette lighting up his face under the shade. "What is it, Uemori?"

She and her friend smiled at him. "We were wondering how the testing was?"

He let the cigarette dangle out of the side of his mouth. "Horrible. None of the plants were up to par and withered."

Uemori gasped. "No! I made certain that the blue rose would live!"

He raised a brow. "I thought Zento said he added the…"

Uemori stared at him wondering what he was talking about. "Added what? I was the one with the blue rose the entire day. How did it wither? I made damn sure it would handle the tests!"

He looked to the side thinking. "Hmm. What did you do?"

"I did what I always do. I added the right amount of minerals and injectants and had it go through the staging process like always. Everything registered just fine." She looked to her friend who agreed.

"I was with her looking over her results, sir. It was all in the positive." The cross breed human said, her doe eyes looking up at him with honesty. "If Zento went behind us…"

Toyama held up his pale hand to cut her off. "I'll look into this, girls. Let me look over the tests to see what happened. If you're telling me that the maiden would've survived the training then it might have. None of them made it through though. They all showed signs of wither near the end."

The doe-like human looked to her friend Uemori. "Damn! I wanted the blue rose to walk too! She was a beautiful maiden!"

He chuckled at her turning away. "If that's all, girls, I'll be on my walk now."

They sprang up after him. "Wait! Can we come with you?"

He gestured to them with a hand sign that said 'come on'. The two girls squealed springing to his side excitedly, each taking a sleeve of his coat to hold onto. "Where are we going, sir?"

"To look over the park plants," he replied calmly striding out of the gate with each girl on his arm, his hands in his pockets. "I hear that some of them have gotten a bit 'wild' if I may say that?"

Uemori looked up at him wondering what he meant. "How can that be? They're plants."

He looked both ways at the cross walk before stepping off the curb and crossing. "Yes, but they also contain wild genes. I created them to be posing bushes. They haven't been well maintained and have become wild on the park grounds."

The doe-like human gasped leaning over to look at her friend. "I saw one just yesterday! It was a great elk chasing a kid and his dog!"

A frown came to Toyama's mouth. "Damn. I was hoping they hadn't gotten that bad. But, no worries, they can't leave the park premises."

A great green bush dragon passed by in front of them, its leaves and twigs rustling with agitation at everything around it. The two assistants stared at the dragon as it passed by and freaked out. "Toyama! The dragon!"

He stood there fixated on the size it had grown too. "Huh. Who would've imagined it would break the ground barrier?"

He continued walking towards the park. If the dragon was free and had grown to such a size he wondered just how bad it was at the park. The assistants gawked as he pulled them along. "Aren't you going to take care of him?"

Toyama didn't reply. "I'll get someone on it."

They continued on their way to the park. It was only two blocks away. Ahead, Toyama could see police put up barricades to keep people from going there. He sighed smoke seeing as it had gotten much worse than he thought. "Girls, run back to the mosque and gather the Level Red team, please? I need their assistance."

The two girls nodded without further questions and ran off to do their job. He continued towards the park alone. As he neared a chief of police turned to him when a officer pointed him out. "Xeno botanist, Toyama!" The police chief, a squat chubby man, waddled over to him the rest of the way looking angry. "Look at what you've created!"

He pushed past the policeman to see what he was talking about. On the field of the park he saw over grown bushes wandering about wildly. A tortoise, horse, flamingo, and a bull. He couldn't forget the dragon that he had seen wander in front of him. He sighed taking the cigarette from his lips and tapping the ash. "This is annoying as everything else this afternoon. How long has this been going on?"

The chief of police stood next to him watching. "We got a call about two missing children. They were last seen in the park. We came down yesterday and saw them like this but smaller."

"Fertilizer," he sighed closing his eyes. "I have a team on its way to handle this. If you would have the police stay back, I don't want any injuries."

The chief nodded. "Don't worry. We'll stay way back for this. Next time, keep the bush animals none living."

His eyebrow twitched slightly. "Yes. We'll see into that, chief."

He looked to his left to see the two assistant female's running back with the Level Red team, all carrying the required items to battle with. The five members lined up in front of him awaiting orders. He turned back to the field looking about. "Surround them but do not push. They are aggressive as is. I don't want them berserk. Light the way with fire and we'll go from there."

The team nodded and ran off circling around. He stood there smoking his cigarette relaxed, the chief side glanced him a few times. "Aren't you going to step in too?"

He shook his head. "They'll handle it. They don't need me to do this job. I trained them for this sort of purpose. It'll be however much they ask in payment. Ciao."

The chief stopped to think about that for a moment and gawked as he watched Toyama leave. "Hey! Wait! Aren't you going to watch?"

Toyama continued to walk smoking. "No. There's no point."

There was a huge explosion of fire as the plants caught fire. Their screams like wood rubbing on wood made him plug his ears with his fingers. "Such an annoying sound."

"Well, if you didn't make such things you wouldn't have to have this happen nor listen to it."

He stopped, side glancing to the right. There stood Prince Sakito Aomori of the Swallow Clan. "Prince. How goes it?"

Sakito glared at him, not too happy with what had happened. "Crazy bastard. What made you want to create such things like them and put them in a public place? Don't you know that you've scared, maimed, frightened people, mothers, children into not coming back to that park?"

He sighed tapping the cigarette of ash before letting it dangle from his lip. "It isn't my fault. It's the gardeners that were put in charge. I told them specifically what to do to keep it from happening."

Sakito grabbed him by the front of his coat and pulled him to be face to face. "Bastard, you're asking to be killed…!"

Toyama glared back not liking the man handling. "My apologies, Prince, I was just telling the truth of the matter. So, if you would so kindly as to let me go. You're drawing a scene."

Just as Toyama has said, a few passerby's had stopped to gawk at them. Sakito let loose his coat and shoved past him roughly. "You'll be hearing from me, Toyama. Father too."

Toyama smiled over his shoulder to his back. "I'll make tea and those cookies that the King likes so much, sir! Beware of the dragon, by the way!"

"Shut your shit hole and get this shit fixed!" snapped Sakito angrily spinning on him ."I'll have you gone for this, Toyama! Father doesn't pay you to make this shit! He pays you for maidens!"

Toyama smiled rubbing the back of his head. "Well, of course your dad didn't pay me for them. The town mayor did." He waved him goodbye as he turned away. "Ciao."

Sakito narrowed his eyes angrily. "Fucking…Toyama…!" He spun around stalking angrily towards the police chief raising hell while the Level Red Team dealt with the wild bush animals. Sakito pulled out a cigarette from his shirt breast pocket and lit it. A cloud of smoke was blown above his head and dissipated. He watched as the last of the bush animals had been taken care of. A bush dragon appeared behind them roaring, the sound of trees rubbing against one another. Sakito spun around along with the chief of police and his police squad to come face to face with the wild bush dragon. It suddenly went up in flames from a blast that came from the side. They turned to see Toyama holding something small in his hand that stood on its small two feet. It slightly resembled a lizard but it was…fluffy like a dandelion.

"The hell is that…?" Sakito asked letting his cigarette bounce on his lip as he spoke. The dragon falling over in the street turning to ash. Dark smoke filled the sky as Toyama stood there for a moment before turning away and heading back to the mosque. Sakito looked from the smoldering dragon bush to the retreating Toyama.

"He has odd ways of handling things," voiced the chief of police.

Sakito turned towards the park to see that the bush creatures had been finished off and none of Toyama's group to be seen. "Damn it all. They could've at least cleaned it up."

A person drove up then in a great big vacuum truck and began to hook up hoses and nozzles. He lifted the hefty hose and began to drag it towards the great big piles of ash. Sakito raised a brow and saw that he was sucking up the ash. The chief of police and Sakito stared in silence as the man turned the vacuum off and began to drag the hose back to the truck, putting it away. Sakito had no retorts and no bad mouthing to say now. He turned on his heel and strode away, the cigarette smoke trailing behind him.

"Sir? Should we write this up in the reports?" the chief of police asked watching the Prince leave.

"Fuck the paper work." He replied and got into a passing car to be driven away.

The chief and his squad looked to one another shrugging before they too left. Toyama returned to his mosque, tossing the butt of his cigarette onto the Ashbloom where it was incinerated near the trunk of the bush. He smiled at his bush with tender love. "You were quite the handful back then and you still are now, Ashy."

"Talking to plants isn't healthy," spoke an assistant from the shadows.

Toyama turned to have a pack of cigarettes tossed to him. He caught them with ease and smirked. "You're quite the slow poke, Zento. What took you?"

The assistant stood holding a bag from the convenience store. "Nothing. Slow people in the way. Crowded streets. The usual." He strode over to him giving him an envelope. "The shop keep wanted to me to give you this. He says it's urgent."

Toyama took the envelope while sticking the cigarette pack in his front lap coat pocket. He slit the flap open and pulled out two pages folded together. Unfolding them he saw it was a resume. He folded it back placing it inside his coat. "It will be dealt with. Right now I must deal with you."

Zento began to turn away but was grabbed by Toyama. He looked at him in silence. Toyama kept a grip on his arm. "Go to my office. I'll be there in a bit."

Zento shook off his hold and left as he was instructed. Toyama looked down at the Ashbloom to notice it was producing blooms. "Hmm. It's that time again, Ashy? How time does fly."

He turned from the plant to stride inside quietly, the stain glass windows casting their rainbows upon him as he strode towards his office. Something within him stirred something familiar. Where had he felt this before? His mind pondered upon it a little before voices that were arguing caught his attention. "The hell…?"

"I told you, I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" the male snapped.

"You botched the testing up! What the hell?" a female snapped.

"I didn't do shit! You did it!"

"You had it last!"

Toyama stood there staring down at Zento and Uemori. "If I may interfere in this little love quarrel."

They both looked to him in surprise. Neither had noticed him approach. "S-Sir?"

He grabbed Zento and hauled him off to his office. "What the fuck did I tell you? Did I tell you to argue with her?"

Zento stumbled after. "N-No! She started it! The crazy bitch!"

"Really?" Toyama whirled on him. "Must you really play that game? Pointing fingers at each other? Are you all such children?"

Before Zento could reply the door to Toyama's office slammed closed behind him and he was shoved into a hard back leather chair. He looked up at the Xeno botantist not sure of what was going to happen. "Look, if it's about this morning, I'm sorry. I felt bad for snapping at you like I did. I just…"

"I know exactly what you want," Toyama replied taking a seat behind his desk. "You want the highest rank amongst the assistants. You'd go so far as to botch every experiment."

Zento blanched. "Wait! What? I didn't!"

Toyama stared at him coolly over that desk and placed a fat stack of papers that he had taken from a drawer. "Ever since day one. You've been nothing but trouble."

Sento stared at the stack uneasily. "What's all that? Complaints?"

Toyama stared at him with no expression. "You guess."

Zento fidgeted. He was going to say something but decided not too. "I'll turn in my resignation and get transferred. I'll also help find a replacement."

Zento put the papers that he had been given by Zento earlier. "Don't bother finding a replacement. I have one right here."

Zento gaped at the papers. His hand reached for them but Toyama took them out of reach and leaned back in his chair to read them. Zento clenched his fists and got to his feet. "I'll be expecting my pay check at least!"

"Talk with the –" The door slammed cutting Toyama off. "King."

He sat there in the dim light of the lamp on his desk staring at the papers.

'Sakura Ihana.' He thought leaning farther back in his chair staring at the ceiling. 'It isn't a bad sounding name. Where on earth did the store find her though? Her perquisites are…above normal.'

His eyes narrowed as he sat straight in his chair. He pulled the papers near him to examine the girl. She was quite cute but very young. Possibly in her mid-twenties? He had met many young females in this career but something about this one was much different.

Just staring at her picture, those big violet eyes full of honest made him want to meet her face to face. 'She's quite picture perfect if she ever decided to be a model.' Toyama got to his feet placing his lab coat on the hook where his other coats hung and picked up a trench coat with no sleeves. He placed his lab shoes on the floor and put on boots that were steel toed. Tying his hair up he checked himself in the mirror and headed out the door.

He locked his office door and strode out the front doors of the mosque, heading down town to the convenience store that was keeping the little lady from the dangerous streets outside. Patting his pocket to make sure he had coin to pay the owner he sighed taking out a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. "Some negotiation on my half to the Prince or the King if I do take her in. Meh, I'll worry about it later."

He stepped outside of the front gate of the mosque, waving a hand in the air in a circular motion. "Do keep this place on lockdown, Greathand. I don't want any other people entering whilst I'm out."

A man who had skin of bark and clawed fingers appeared from the trellis that arched over the entrance gates. "Sir." His voice would be in a whisper as he bowed to the retreating Toyama. The man shrunk back into the trellis to remain unseen as he watched all about the mosque with aide of his vines that had spread along the fence.

It was nearing dark now and his master hardly ever left at this time. What errand was needed of him? The Brightshrubs began to glow faintly, a handful of bushes that were small and lined the inside and outside of the mosque, allowing the inhabitants on either side to make their way back if it was dark out. It was never a good time to be caught out at night in the town. The Azalea's would come out and prowl for a host.

"Make it back safely, Master Toyama." Whispered Greathand as a rose with a purple center unfurled to take in the night life scene that went on around it.