A/N: Once again, my wife Tarma Hartley requested a story featuring ShizNat fluff and chibi Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan antics for her birthday. This time it's more "antics" than "ShizNat," but...anyway, happy birthday, sweetheart!
Taking Wing
or
"Why Let Kagutsuchi and Yatagarusu Have All The Fun?"
(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets!)
"You guys have some weird pets." Chie Harada was not afraid to tell it like it was. "I mean, Kagutsuchi is kind of cute, and Duran and Kiyohime are vaguely like specific things, and Shiho's bird is almost normal, and I was just starting to get used to the hovering guy with an extra face in his belly and no legs—"
She gestured to where Miroku was tagging along after Mikoto, who was tagging along after the potato salad.
"—but seriously, Mai, what is that thing?"
Mai looked over to where a large spider with a general circumference about the size of a dinner plate was advancing on Aoi Senoh. The weird part was that instead of a head, the spider had the upper body of a human woman, her waist connected to the spider body's thorax.
"That's Julia. She's Nao's."
"I know, but what is she? Besides creepy."
Aoi was, in fact, shrinking away from Julia; the brunette was not good with bugs, generally. Since she and Nao roomed together, they had reached an uneasy truce (Julia didn't startle Aoi in the shower, Aoi didn't chase Julia with a broom), but even so they really didn't get along. Chie was about to go over and play the dashing rescuer when six purple snake-heads popped up out of the ground, hissing assertively. Julia jerked back, actually falling so that her back four legs slipped out from under her and her abdomen fell onto the ground. She got up in a hurry and went scuttling away.
"Thanks, Kiyohime," Aoi said, and stroked one of the hydra's heads while the others nuzzled her hand.
Watching from a distance away, Natsuki grinned at the scene.
"Hey, it looks like Kiyohime decided to play hero."
"Perhaps she has been inspired by spending time with Mai?" Shizuru offered. Natsuki's girlfriend was laid out on a towel, face-down, while Natsuki rubbed sunblock on her.
"Well, I don't think anybody will mind there being a socially-conscious hydra rescuing maidens in distress."
"Except Nao."
Natsuki grinned evilly.
"That's just a bonus."
Shizuru chuckled.
It was, Natsuki reflected, a beautiful late-August day, perfect for a barbecue at Fuuka Shrine. Everyone was in their bathing suits since Shiho and Tate had set up a waterslide on the grassy hill-slope. Natsuki figured this wasn't just for the fun, but also to make sure that a baseball game didn't break out in their absence. Though Shiho's new drill-curls were better-looking than her old tentacle-hair style, there had to be easier ways to motivate a hair change than setting it on fire with a batted fireball.
Shizuru, for her part, was wearing a backless one-piece suit with a palm tree just above the right hip. Natsuki was not a demonstrative girl for the most part, but when Shizuru had come out of the changing room, Mai had had to tell her to roll up her tongue and put it away.
Thinking of Mai reminded her of something else.
"You know," Natsuki said, letting the lotion warm slightly in her palms, "Mai said that last year you had a whole covey of fangirls fighting over who got to do this for you."
"Mm-hm," Shizuru answered. Then, apparently deciding that more had to be said, she added teasingly, "I had to be very careful to not imagine that it was Natsuki's hands that were touching me."
Natsuki started with the back of Shizuru's neck and shoulder blades and began to rub the sunscreen in.
"Do you ever miss it? Being the queen bee of the school, I mean?"
Shizuru thought that over, at least to the extent she was capable while Natsuki was massaging her bare skin.
"Sometimes, a bit. Particularly when, say, a couple of my classmates are discussing boys and then they stop and look at me and aren't quite sure what to say or do with themselves." While Shizuru did not go around in a name tag printed with, "Hi! My name is Shizuru Fujino and I'm a lesbian," she didn't do anything to hide her relationship with Natsuki, either, resulting in her sexuality becoming semi-public knowledge. "The ones who are unsure of themselves and confused are more difficult for me than the openly homophobic ones, whom I can just ignore."
"Or punch in the face."
Duran, lying in the grass next to them, woofed approvingly at Natsuki's suggestion.
"Will Natsuki, them, be my white knight rushing to my defense?"
Natsuki found herself blushing slightly. Facing up to her feelings about Shizuru and accepting a relationship between them had helped her keep from bursting into an embarrassed frenzy whenever Shizuru teased her...but that was "helped," not "completely cured."
"In truth, though," Shizuru continued—and was so sure of Natsuki's response that she didn't even need to turn and check for the blush—"if I was still in high school, I doubt that I would have a bevy of followers. At least half of them would be thinned out when my inclinations became known, forcing them to confront the difference between admiration and genuine interest. Then there would be the smaller group that leaves loudly sputtering and protesting that they wouldn't have such feelings because they do and do not want to admit it, either to themselves or anyone else. And lastly, there would be the remaining few I would have to dismiss myself since their feelings would be sincerely offered but I have my Natsuki."
Mikoto had given up on waiting for food and was attempting to cook a hot dog over Kagutsuchi's fiery breath. Mai and Tate took the opportunity to go zipping down the slide, Mai squealing happily as she went sailing along the thirty-foot stretch of wet plastic. Reito and Shiho followed them over just as Tate took a running start and launched himself with a loud "Woohoo!"
"You sound quite excited to be playing a kid's game," Reito took advantage of Mai's heading back to the top of the hill to take a cheap shot at his rival.
"Hah! I figured that the girls would prefer to take it easy, but if you want to take it up a notch, we can do that," Tate rose to the bait.
"See? Oniichan is always thinking of me!" Shiho caroled, completely missing the point.
"Look out below!" Mai called, and the three of them scrambled out of the way just in time to keep from being run over by the redhead.
"How do you plan to take a backyard waterslide 'up a notch'?" Reito asked.
"Huh?" Mai said. She'd been juggling her two love interests for several months now, and was getting quite good at recognizing the signs of testosterone poisoning in the air. Wary of the impending incident, she didn't notice that Julia had taken the next turn until the spiderlike creature collided with her leg. Nao facepalmed at the sight of her CHILD staggering around dizzily, saving Natsuki the trouble of making a wiseacre remark.
"I...that is..." Tate fought to let his brain catch up to his defense of his manhood, catching on that perhaps he should not have bothered to react to an otherwise meaningless smart-aleck comment. Then an idea hit him. "Hah! I know; we could add a jump to the end, like they've got at water parks."
"That sounds great!" Shiho said.
"Um, Yuuichi, even if you could rig it up somehow, water parks have swimming pools for people to jump into," Mai noted.
"She has a point," Reito said.
"We can get some futons out, a nice soft pile of them for people to land on," Tate suggested. "You think your grandpa would let us do that if we washed everything afterwards, Shiho?"
"It'll be fine!"
"There you go," Tate beamed smugly.
"Hey, what's going on?" Nao asked, wandering over to see what Julia was up to.
"Oniichan is going to fix the waterslide so it has a jump on the end!"
"It was mostly Reito's idea. He doesn't think it's extreme enough the way it is now."
Mai shot a glance at Reito.
"Busted," Nao said.
"C'mon, Reito, let's go get the stuff and get to work."
"I'll get Grandpa's tool box for you!"
"Exactly when did I say I would take part in any of this?" Reito protested.
"When you opened your big mouth," Mai said.
"Besides, this is a construction project and you're a guy. The rules require you to carry heavy stuff or you have to give back your—"
"Is this the Church's official doctrine?" Reito smoothly protected tender ears.
"What good is religion if it doesn't acknowledge how the world works?" Nao answered easily. "If Sister Yukariko had known what happens when Tab A goes into Slot B, she wouldn't be a mother and I wouldn't have to wear a habit for my part-time job."
"She always did seem a little vague on what, exactly, she thought the 'passions of youth' actually were," Natsuki remarked to Shizuru.
"I am glad that Natsuki does not have that problem."
"I think you're getting me confused with yourself."
"Oh? Does Natsuki genuinely think that I require sunscreen underneath my swimsuit?"
Natsuki yanked her fingertips back from where they'd been advancing just under the edge of Shizuru's bathing suit at the base of her spine.
"I never thought I'd hear you complain about me getting too forward."
Shizuru thought about that a bit.
"Perhaps I'd just prefer you to wait until we got home?"
"And what about when you tease me so I get all hot and bothered until I want to rip my hair out in frustration because I won't get you alone for three hours?"
"That is different. I am merely giving Natsuki encouragement so that she will overcome her maidenly shyness."
"...Idiot," Natsuki fell back on her old standby.
"But Natsuki loves her idiot?"
"Of course I love you."
"I love you, too."
A loud squawk distracted them from their cooing. Feathers flew as Yatagarusu barely missed getting whacked by Miroku's club.
"And stay out of the potato salad until the food is served!" Mai shouted at the crow. Miroku returned to sentry duty while Yatagarusu perched on the eaves of one of the shrine buildings and contemplated whether he could make a grab for one of the skewers of grilling shrimp. He suspected not; Shiho's grandfather had good reflexes.
Tate, Reito, and Shiho, meanwhile, took about half an hour to get a support built for the base of the waterslide. They'd probably have taken longer had Mai not dragooned everyone else into helping fetch every spare futon they could lay hands on, as well as a couple of old mattresses Nao found while casing the junk shed, so that by the time the construction was done, the landing site was ready.
"All right!" Tate said, pumping his fist. "Who's going to go first?"
"Would Natsuki like to try?"
"I can get killed on my own time, thanks, Shizuru."
"Ara, does Natsuki not trust my math in determining speed, trajectory, and landing site?"
"We don't even know if the thing will hold a person's weight!"
"I'll go!" Mikoto raised her hand. "Since ani-ue helped build it, I know it'll be safe."
"And I know it's fine since it was oniichan's idea."
"Um, shouldn't we test it out first?" Mai asked hesitantly.
"That is a very good point," Reito agreed. "Why don't we send Kagutsuchi down on the test run?"
Kagutsuchi yelped and flew around behind Mai.
"Oh, come on. If he's going to miss the futons he can just fly away, and in an absolute worst-case scenario, he can do that phoenix-resurrection thing," Nao pointed out.
"Why not send you?" Natsuki said. "Aren't you nun types supposed to make sacrifices on behalf of your flock?"
The argument might have gotten heated, had Duran not barked. Everybody turned to look, and he pointed his front paw up at the top of the hill.
"Kiyohime!" Shizuru gasped.
In the next instant, the purple hydra squirmed forward onto the slide and began to descend.
Rapidly.
It quickly became apparent that several things had not fully been taken into account. For one, Kiyohime's scales were much smoother than a human's skin, which made for less friction. For another, the ramp had been designed to launch people, and Kiyohime was only about half as heavy as Shiho. She sailed well over the piled futons and quite possibly would have made it to the shrine gate...had the cherry tree not gotten in the way. Leaves and twigs fluttered down as she crashed through the branches. Everyone rushed to the base of the tree and looked up. Kiyohime's body was caught in the crook of a large branch, and her second and fifth heads were tangled around others. Natsuki scampered up the tree at once.
"Is she all right?" Shizuru called, worried.
"Yeah, she's fine." Kiyohime's fourth head gave a hopeful hiss, which drew sour notes from a couple of the other ones. "In fact, I think she's having a vote on whether to try it again."
~X X X~
A/N: I'm sure all of you caught the reference on your own, but the bit about fireball-baseball and Shiho's hair is a reference to "Duran and Kiyohime's Omake Theater," Chapter 21, "Giving Credit Where It's Due."