A Wound No Sword Could Inflict.
Chapter One.
Raven-haired Setsuna allowed herself some small measure of satisfaction as she watched Konoka out of the corner of her eye. The happy-go-lucky girl didn't appear to have a care in the world, as she talked to both Asuna, Negi, and Setsuna all at the same time. Konoka-ojou-sama was still unharmed, but now she was aware of magic, wizards, and the special power that Setsuna held. Setsuna shook her head in mock shame as she realized that she was falling into a predictable habit, one she knew she had to break or it could be costly.
First, Setsuna would find herself protecting Konoka-ojou-sama from any harm that came their way, and for a few days after that, she would be uptight and anxious about any more attacks that might come their way. Then, guilt set in as Setsuna temporarily dropped Konoka's friendship to stay alert and on edge for attacks, and she would eventually let Konoka's warm smile and gentle touch draw her back to her side again, and her guard would drop. Then the attacks would happen again, and the cycle repeated itself. Right now, Setsuna was in the middle of allowing herself to return back to Konoka's side, for their hadn't been any threat of attack in weeks. Setsuna had allowed herself to think that maybe they had given up, but she knew that probably wasn't the case.
"Setsuna!"
Setsuna looked up from the ground automatically, hearing her name, and her gaze softened slightly as she realized it was Konoka who had called her name.
"Yes, Konoka-ojou-sama?" She asked softly. Konoka grinned wildly at her, laughing. "I don't know, I just enjoy saying your name, Setsuna-san!" She said. Setsuna almost laughed, but caught herself, instead grinning lop-sidedly as she tried to glare at her, failing miserably.
Konoka laughed again, and Setsuna took it all lightly, knowing that Konoka would never mean any disrespect by it. As they walked, Setsuna found herself wondering why she was so reluctant to have fun with Konoka anyway. She then remembered the attacks, but another side of her reasoned that, since they had attacked before, they would probably attack again, so distancing herself now from Konoka wasn't very likely to make the attacks stop. Instead, she reasoned, it was best to become even closer to Konoka-ojou-sama, and show the attackers that if they tried to attack Konoka, then they really would have a pissed off Setsuna after them. Just as Setsuna was deciding to give that a try, she was jerked out of her thoughts by Konoka.
"Setsuna-san?"
Setsuna looked at her calmly, just a hint of a smile on her face. "Yes, Konoka-ojou-sama?" She asked.
Konoka, ever happy, was smiling widely. "I've got an idea!" She said excitedly.
Setsuna, despite the fact that it was bound to be something silly, was curious as to what it was. "What?" She asked.
"Let's hold hands!" She exclaimed, grabbing Setsuna's hand before she could protest or pull away.
"B-but Kono-" She was cut off as Konoka put a finger to her lips, silencing her.
"Don't worry Setsuna-san." She whispered, winking at her. "I won't tell anyone."
Setsuna half-laughed, and half groaned, knowing full well what Konoka was up to. Everyone knew that Konoka cared deeply for each and every one of her friends, and it was plainly visible through her space-case, always happy attitude, with the way she talked to everyone and always inquired about their health and how they were doing. Now, instead of showing that caring by the treats, cakes, and talks like she used to, her mind was slowly being warped by the perverted acts of Negi and the rest of the class of 3-A, and her way of showing she cared was starting to take on just a bit of a naughty streak.
Setsuna played along, and lied to herself, telling herself that she wasn't too happy about doing this, and was just doing it to make Konoka happy. Never-the-less, Setsuna counted it too soon when Konoka suddenly let go of her hand, to point at a card shop at the corner of the street. They were still within Mahora Academy grounds, and were just wandering about, trying to find a good way to kill the rest of the friday afternoon. As Setsuna glanced at the shop, she saw their reflection in the shop's window, and she spent a few seconds admiring Konoka, before she realized that there was a man some ways behind her. That in itself presented little to be worried about, but it was the third time she had seen this cloaked man, and it was starting to worry her. An attack seemed imminent, and she sighed, fixing her sword on her back for easier drawing.
"Let's go in and see if they have any rare cards!" Konoka said, grabbing Setsuna's hand and dragging her in. As she did, she glanced swiftly behind her, and saw the same figure loitering at a coffee shop, apparently waiting for them to come out. Setsuna decided to ignore him until they exited the shop, and decided to keep all her attention on Konoka.
"Aww Konoka, your weakness for material goods is just as bad as Haruna said." Setsuna commented dryly, watching Konoka fly through the cards and toss a few select cards onto a top shelf, separating them from the large pile of Tarot cards she already had copies of.
"Well, I haven't found your weakness yet, but when I do, you're going down." Konoka said, sticking her tongue out at Setsuna playfully. Setsuna gently pushed her shoulder, but failed to move her any great amount, for she didn't want to be rough with her.
Ah, Konoka, if you only knew my weakness...
While waiting, Setsuna looked out the window, and casually glanced toward the area where she had last seen her stalker, and sure enough, he was still there, this time joined by another, slightly smaller cloaked figure.
"Set-chaaaaaan!" Setsuna looked back to Konoka, and stared at her. Konoka was holding a few cards, about six of them, in her hand, and looking at Setsuna hopefully.
"Set-chan, would you buy these for me?" She asked.
Setsuna had to forcefully hide her smile, and she continued staring at Konoka. Konoka's eyes widened, and they slowly filled with tears, rapidly breaking down Setsuna's defenses.
"Okay, okay, but you owe me Konoka." She said, reaching into her pocket to get some money. Konoka suddenly broke out into a wide grin, and put her arms around Setsuna's waist, hugging her tightly, all traces of her tears gone.
"Yaaay! Thanks Setsuna!" She said. Setsuna's eyes narrowed, and she looked at Konoka.
"Did...did you just fake cry?" She asked. Konoka giggled.
"Asuna taught me it! She said it was something about you liking me enough to give me anything I wanted if I just preten--Oops." Konoka covered her mouth, and blushed lightly, as Setsuna glared at her. She growled lightly, then grabbed Konoka and started tickling her, as "punishment."
"Hah, I'll teach you to fake cry!" She said. Konoka, weakened and laughing hard, tried ineffectively to ward off Setsuna's hands. Finally, when she couldn't take the tickling anymore, she gasped out an apology, and Setsuna let up, letting her catch her breath. When Konoka collected herself, they walked to the front of the store, where Setsuna happily bought the cards for Konoka.
"There." Setsuna said, handing her the six rare cards. "You owe me now." She said playfully. Konoka, not catching the joke, nodded. "Yes, I understand, I'll pay you back as soon as I can." She said.
Setsuna shook her head, opening the door.
"No, I was kidding," She said. "I don't want you to pa--"
"Setsuna, look out!" Konoka yelled, pointing behind her.
Setsuna whirled around, drawing her blade and blocking a downward stroke that, if it hit, would have left her paralysed. If she had lived that long. Setsuna's mind was immediately filled with thoughts of how to best protect Konoka, and it took a few seconds for it to register in her mind that she was fighting the one that had been following them. As she laid eyes on the figure, it seemed to be the form of a large man.
"Konoka, go inside the store until I come to get you." She said calmly, never taking her eyes off her opponent. When she heard a quiet "Okay", then a door opening and closing behind her, Setsuna raised her blade and grinned at the hooded figure.
"Your move." She said, and no sooner were the words out of her mouth than the man charged, swinging with the same downward stroke. Setsuna aain easily parried it, then was about to counter-attack when the man kicked at her. Setsuna dodged the kick, and circled around to the left, thrusting at the mans right side. She thrust her sword toward him, and as she had hoped, he parried it perfectly, turning her blade down and away from himself, and counter-thrusting with his own sword. Setsuna dived forward, ducking under the blade, and the blade passed inches above her left shoulder. She decided to see if it really was a man or not, and delivered a violent knee to the groin, making the figure freeze, then fall to the ground, cursing and gasping for air. Setsuna kicked his sword out of his weak grasp, and sent it skidding off into the crowd that had formed to watch the fight. Thinking she was done, Setsuna sheathed her sword, and was about to turn away when someone pushed through the crowd to stand in front of Setsuna.
"Fight me now."
The soft female voice reached Setsuna's ears, and Setsuna's eyes narrowed. She slowly drew her sword, and the hooded woman across from her did the same. Just before the second fight started, Setsuna noticed that they were wearing the same one piece dark brown cloak. From beneath the dark brown cloak appeared two shiny, very sharp-looking sabres, and Setsuna knew that the calibre of her enemy had just sharply risen. She flexed her fingers, and squeezed the hilt of her sword, taking a deep breath to calm herself, her eyes never leaving the form of the woman in front of her.
Setsuna made the first move, lunging forward and slashing at her opponent. With Setsuna's heavier blade approaching from the sky, the enemy had no choice but to employ both lighter sabres to stop the downward slash, and even then, Setsuna managed to push the sabres down a few inches. Well experienced with the use of sabres, the hooded enemy knew it would be a simple task to divert all of Setsuna's blades momentum, and did so with one sabre, turning the blade down and to the side, the slash falling harmlessly to the ground while the hooded figure used the other sabre to thrust deep into Setsuna's stomach.
A gasp reached her ears, and Setsuna looked to see Konoka hiding half in and half out of the shop's doorway, watching the fight. Setsuna looked toward her enemy again, just in time to catch a sabre-hilted punch to the face, making stars explode in front of her eyes, and laying her out on her back, wincing in pain. She had accidentally let go of her sword in surprise, and it clattered away, skidding to a stop a few feet from her outstretched hand. As Setsuna opened her eyes, her first thought was of Konoka. They had to be after Konoka, and now that Setsuna was down, they would no doubt try to take her. She looked to where Konoka was standing, and her heart skipped a beat at what she saw. Konoka was staring at the cloaked figure with a mixture of amazement and respect.
"So strong...!" She whispered softly, and at hearing those words, something in Setsuna snapped. As memory after memory flashed through her mind, all of Setsuna protecting Konoka from various dangers, then Konoka smiling at her with that admiring look and saying, "Your so strong Set-chan!", Setsuna realized that Konoka had found someone else to admire. And it hurt.
Setsuna didn't really understand it, but she felt horribly betrayed by Konoka. She had given her whole life to learning the sword, getting strong, and learning impossibly hard techniques, and the only thing that drove her to do it all was Konoka, and now it seemed that it didn't even matter to her. Setsuna felt hot anger flooding through her body, and her eyes narrowed dangerously, as she glared at the hooded woman. Ignoring the wound in her stomach and the soreness on her cheek, she jumped up, attacking the figure bare-handedly.
She took several cuts and deep slashes on her arms before her opponent finally tossed away her sabres, opting for hand to hand combat with Setsuna. As she threw her weapons aside, Setsuna clawed the hood off the figure, and revealed a beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed, scantily clad woman smiling a vixen smile at Setsuna.
"Couldn't help yourself, could you?" She asked. "Just had to get a look at the face of the one that is better than you, eh?" She asked. The woman shook her head.
"I thought that disciples of the Shinmei school were better trained to control their desires. You could have used that chance to kill me, then see my identity, but instead you do this."
Setsuna shook her head, and got into a fighting stance, adopting a slightly changed style from what Fei Ku was teaching Negi. It was an advanced Chinese martial art, and she was ready to use all of it's deadly moves on this fighter.
"No, the Shinmei school values honour, and it wouldn't be very honourable if I were to kill you while you were disarming yourself for me." She said. The woman was about to reply, but Setsuna launched an attack of her own, throwing a few easy punches and elbow thrusts to gauge the talent level of the woman as a hand to hand combatant.
The woman easily ducked under a punch, then blocked an elbow thrust, but was unprepared for the inside crescent kick that Setsuna unleashed on her, and she caught it on the jaw, knocking her back a few feet.
"Augh, damn you..."
Setsuna took a step forward, then turned, setting herself up for a tornado kick, but then faked out of it, instead ducking into a butterfly twist to gain some ground and move closer to her opponent, while forcing her opponent back to advoid being hit, thus putting her off balance. When Setsuna landed, she used the momentum of her trailing leg to spin into a 360 crescent kick, and this one caught the woman on the side of the head, close to the temple. She was knocked backwards, and hit the ground flat on her back, groaning slightly. Setsuna picked up her sword, then held it at the throat of the woman as she tried to rise.
"May I be graced with your name?" Setsuna asked. The woman smiled dangerously, slowly getting up. "Wouldn't you like to know?" She asked. Setsuna shrugged.
"Actually I don't, I just need something to call you for when I tell all my friends about how I kicked your sorry ass." She said. The woman straightened herself, and slowly walked over to her thrown weapons, retrieving them.
"If you can defeat me next time we meet, I might feel compelled to tell you, Setsuna." She said. With that, the woman shrugged on her cloak, and took off through the crowd, quickly disappearing from view.
"Damn..." Setsuna muttered. She sheathed her sword, and ignored Konoka as she called her name.
"Setsuna!" Konoka called for the second time, and Setsuna said nothing, slinging her sword over her shoulder.
"Setsuna?" Konoka asked, putting her hand on her friends shoulder, wondering what was wrong.
Setsuna looked over her shoulder at Konoka and glared at her.
"Don't touch me." She whispered, knowing her eyes were betraying the sadness and guilt she felt.
"Se-Set-chan...?" Konoka asked, feeling tears form in her eyes. Setsuna said nothing, but started walking back to her dorm, feeling sick. She didn't look back to see if Konoka was following; she didn't need to, for she could hear Konoka dragging her feet behind her, following her.
"What have I done to displease you, Setsuna?" Konoka asked, wiping tears off her cheek. Setsuna said nothing, instead she kept on walking, and occaisionally Konoka would see blood from Setsuna's wound spatter onto the concrete. Worried immensely about Setsuna, Konoka dried her tears and tried to think things through, to figure out what she could have done to hurt Setsuna. Head down and deep in thought, Konoka didn't even notice that she had followed Setsuna straight into her room, and now Setsuna was sitting on the bed, staring at her as she stood in the doorway.
"I'm going to bed, so you can leave now, unless you want to follow me into bed too." Setsuna said sarcastically. Konoka looked up, and made eye contact with Setsuna.
"Setsuna, please tell me what I've done wrong." She said softly. Setsuna shook her head. "Nothing." She lied. Konoka knew she was lying, and it hurt that Setsuna would lie so obviously to her.
"C-can I see your wounds?" She asked. "I might be able to heal them with my magic." She said.
Setsuna shook her head again. "I'm fine." She said mechanically, no emotion in her voice. Konoka was silent for a minute, then nodded, feeling tears forming again.
"Please, forgive me." She said. "Whatever I've done wrong, please forgive me." Konoka said, and with that, she turned and exited the room, unable to stand there and hear Setsuna's flat, monotonous voice lie to her. She walked back to her dormitory, and decided that sleep seemed like a pretty good idea.
Setsuna stared at Konoka until she was out of sight, then sighed and shut her door. She forgot to lock it, and fell onto her bed, feeling things that she had never felt before. Insecurity, fear, pain, anger, the sadness of defeat. They were all either new emotions for her, or ones that she hadn't experienced in such magnitude before.
"Why do I feel like I just lost my best friend?" She asked herself softly. The answer to the question was plainly obvious, she knew, and it hurt her a lot more than she was willing to admit. Konoka-ojou-sama was her best friend, then Setsuna had to go and ruin things. Not realizing that she was still bleeding out of the wound in her stomach, Setsuna rolled over and stared at the ceiling, remembering how she felt a pang of jealousy, anger, and even hatred at herself when she saw Konoka admiring the enemy. For all her worth, Setsuna couldn't figure out why she felt the way she did, and why she had reacted like that. It was almost an innate fear that Konoka had somehow come to like that other woman because she was stronger, and now that Setsuna had lost, even though she had won in the end, it felt like she had lost Konoka's trust. Her thoughts took up almost half an hour, and near the end of it she had lost quite a lot of blood, and her thoughts were becoming eratic, unlogical.
"Konoka..." She mumbled. "Am I not good enough for you now?" Suddenly feeling woozy and light-headed, she rolled back over onto her stomach, and closed her eyes, letting herself fall asleep.
Konoka laid down on her bed, ignoring both Asuna and Negi's greeting.
Setsuna, what did I do wrong? She thought, staring at her hands.
"Uh, Konoka, you alright?" Negi asked. Konoka slowly looked up at him, then shook her head. "I think the one I love the most just denied me, and won't even tell me why." She said softly, almost disbelievingly. "I don't know what I did wrong, either."
"Who was it?" Asuna asked gently, already knowing who it probably was.
"Setsuna." Konoka answered, feeling her tears forming again.
Asuna growled. "What! I'll kick her ass!" Asuna grabbed her probationary contract card, and ran out the door, headed for Setsuna's dorm. Negi, caring deeply for Konoka, stayed behind to comfort her and try to figure out what happened.
"Why don't you tell me what happened, and we'll see if we both can't figure out what went wrong." He said. Konoka nodded, and was about to start, when the door to the dorm blew open.
"Negi, got a question fo--Whoa, Aiyo, what happened here?" Kaede Nagase asked, seeing Konoka's tears. Negi patted the bunk beside him.
"Come, sit with us Kaede-san, Konoka was just about to tell us what happened."
Kaede sat down, and gave Konoka her undivided attention, letting her know that she cared, and was ready to listen to what she had to say.
Konoka took a deep breath, then started recounting the events that happened less than an hour ago.
"Well, it happened just a little while ago, about an hour or so, when we went out looking for stuff to buy..."
Chapter One ends here. Chapter Two will be updated as updates follow. Hope you enjoyed it. Pleasant reviews, hateful spam, death threats and constructive critisizm is always appreciated. :D