Author's Notes: Before you start reading, please understand that this is a collection of short stories taking place or relating to events taking place during Still Waters 3, Book 2. The individual stories will feature anything from backstory to OCs to crazy dreams and can be of any genre. If you have anything you'd like to see, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Title: What Friends Are For

Characters: Urashima Taro and Nakamura Sachiko, with mentions of Possum Cade

Genre: Angst/Friendship Through Pro Wrestling

Rated:T

Timeframe: The night before the festival, during the Pre Festival Party.

Spoilers: None, really, though it does hint around things that happened during the "Intruder" arc of Still Waters 3, Book 1.

Urashima Taro. The Street Sweeper. Star pupil of one Kagurazaka Asuna, ranked Executioner of the Shinmeiryu. A girl who routinely beat criminal thugs unconscious and took on street gangs for fun; the same girl who had taken out the infamous motorcycle gang, 'The Saitama Devils'...all of them.

And here, the night before the yearly festival in Mahora, the infamous Taro-kun found herself sitting on a park bench all alone, looking down at her mother's medallion, an ugly little thing with a turtle on one side and concentric circles on the other. Sometimes she wondered why she even carried the stupid thing, but...

Her best friend Possum was gone.

Possum, the only girl out of the class she had been on speaking terms with for more than a few months, the only girl in the class she honestly felt she could trust to watch her back in a fight. The class rep Sachiko was good, true...this had been proven during their extensive training in Eva's resort. But Sachiko's fighting style required a lot of space; she wasn't the sort of person who could fight back to back. Kagami was also out of the question. Kagami was no slouch in the magic department, but close combat? Kagami would get creamed if she let someone competent get close enough. Possum and Taro had been together a long time, and they had developed an outstanding rapport with each other almost from the start. Each knew almost instinctively what the other was about to do; they were closer than many married couples.

And now Possum was gone.

If that idiot Rally was right, and Possum had become some sort of monster... She looked down at the turtle medallion again and rubbed her thumb over the turtle's dopey looking head and sighed. Possum was the first person she had let handle the medallion...

"Taro-san."

She looked up, somehow not surprised to find that it was the class rep, Nakamura Sachiko, who had snuck up on her. While many would point out Urashima Taro as the single most intimidating person in the class, few knew that she was routinely beaten in sparring sessions by none other than the quiet, elegant class rep. Sachiko was a far more dangerous fighter; she was near-silent in her movements, amazingly quick, and if she so chose, she could take out almost anyone with a single kick seemingly out of nowhere. Taro had yet to beat her even once out of dozens upon dozens of sparring sessions. "What is it?" she asked tiredly.

Sachiko stood there quietly for a moment before turning half away. "Walk with me," she said, looking off into the night.

Taro deftly slipped the medallion into her pocket and sluggishly pushed herself up off the bench. She followed along wordlessly a fair distance behind Sachiko, not really paying attention to anything as they walked. Luckily, Sachiko seemed to sense her mood and maintained her usual silence as she lead the way off the path and into the trees. Taro glanced back at the path out of habit to see if anyone had seen them, but it was, as usual so late in the day, deserted. She looked back at the class rep, who had stopped to wait for her, and continued on.

They walked on and on through the trees until the streetlights were out of sight and Taro could no longer hear anything but the sounds the two of them made as they moved though the light underbrush.

"Do you know where you're going?" Taro asked a moment later; she had become completely turned around, and with the trees blocking out the sky she couldn't even use her (extremely) limited knowledge of the stars to figure out which direction was which...she didn't relish the thought of being lost all night in the woods.

Sachiko glanced back at her and nodded, and continued on. And, sure enough, they soon reached a fair-sized clearing with an ancient, crumbling building that, upon glancing inside through one of the broken windows, looked like an old schoolhouse.

"This is pretty cool," Taro said, circling around the small building. "Possum would-" She cut herself off before she could finish. 'Possum would have loved to explore this place,' she thought.

"I found it last month," Sachiko said quietly, as if she hadn't heard what Taro had started to say. She moved out into the clearing and stood there, waiting.

Taro glanced over at her in confusion. "What? You...want to spar?" At Sachiko's nod, she just stood there, gaping. "Why?" she finally managed to say.

"Doesn't matter."

Taro frowned. So, the class rep wanted to spar, did she? She sighed and looked back in the direction she thought they might have come from. "Look, I'm really not in the mood to—hey!" she shouted, clumsily jerking back out of the range of Sachiko's sudden kick. "What are you doing? I said I don't want to—gah!" Taro scrambled back as Sachiko darted in and whirled, her kick taking Taro painfully in the side.

Sachiko danced lightly away, giving Taro all the space she needed to recover and easily avoiding her angry retaliatory swing. "It's okay," she said, watching Taro.

Taro stiffened and clenched her teeth. "Shut up!" she said, launching herself at the other girl. Sachiko easily slipped out of the way and kicked Taro's legs out from under her. Taro was up in a flash, going after her again.

Sachiko slipped aside again, the exact same way, and kicked Taro's legs out from under her again. "It will be okay. Even if-"

"SHUT UP!" Taro roared as she came up swinging. Sachiko began to move and Taro, recognizing the movement as the intro to that same kick to the legs, moved to block it and so was caught completely off guard when the class rep abruptly spun in an unexpected direction, reached out and grabbed Sachiko's shoulders, and vaulted up over her head. The next thing Taro knew, Sachiko was back to back behind her, their arms locked together, and then the girl leaned forward, lifting her up off the ground in an absurd variation of one of the exercises they often did in P.E. Taro flailed around as best she could, but somehow the other girl managed to keep her balanced. "Let go of me...!"

Sachiko ignored her. "It will be okay. Even if Possum-san did turn into—ah...!" Taro had finally worked herself off balance enough to knock Sachiko herself off balance as well; her left leg folded under her and the two collapsed.

Taro scrambled to get some space between them, but Sachiko was after her in an instant, twisting her arms and legs and then fell back, rolling the two of them until Taro found herself lifted in the air above the other girl with her back stretched painfully. She clenched her teeth and let out a growl as she struggled to escape, but Sachiko's grip was like steel and she shifted with her, reading her movements easily.

"Even if Possum-san becomes a vampire, she will still be herself," Sachiko said, not sounding the least bit out of breath as she held Taro's squirming form suspended in the air above her.

"Shut up!" Taro bellowed, finally twisting enough to escape the wrestling hold. Sachiko's eyes widened slightly and she tried to roll out of the way, but Taro managed to get an arm around her middle and, roaring with the heat of the moment, lifted Sachiko up off the ground and swung her around, letting go mid-swing.

Sachiko snagged one of Taro's arms, dragging her off balance, and with an expert twist as she landed, dragged Taro down to the ground. The other girl grunted at the impact, but Sachiko didn't give her any time and moved down to her legs. Taro rolled over and tried to squirm away, but Sachiko snagged an arm around one of her knees and, with a quick motion, wrapped Taro's legs together, stuck the fallen girl's ankles under her arm, flipped her back over onto her stomach, sat back, and pulled.

"Gah...! Ow ow ow ow ow!"

Taro couldn't help but goggle at the bizarre situation. Sachiko, the class rep who, up until this point in their sparring matches, had never shown any inclination to do anything but jump and spin around and kick people, was fighting like a pro wrestler? That Suspended Surfboard move, or whatever it was called, was strange enough, but not this...? She yelped in real pain as Sachiko leaned back further for an instant, painfully straining Taro's lower back. Something about the way Sachiko had Taro's legs wrapped up was putting a lot of pressure on her right knee too; it felt almost like it was in danger of being popped out of joint.

"Owowowowowow!"

"Do I have your attention now?" Sachiko said quietly.

"OW! Dammit let up a little!" Taro demanded, tears appearing in the corners of her eyes. She let out an unintentional sigh of relief when Sachiko gave her an inch or so, just enough to stop the stabbing pain. Nobody had caught her like this since Keitaro-nii...!

"We are tired of you seeing you like this," Sachiko said quietly, punctuating the end of the sentence with a quick pull that made Taro wince. "Stop moping. Even if Possum-san becomes a vampire, she will still be herself." Taro tensed up at that, so Sachiko gave her legs another quick tug and the trapped girl let out a yelp.

"Let go!"

"No." Sachiko's voice was soft, low, and brooked no arguments. "Not until you stop moping. You are doing no one any good like this, especially Possum-san. Everyone is worried about her, but she is intelligent; she can take care of herself." Sachiko pulled back on her legs again and Taro clenched her teeth to keep from crying out. The other girl's next words were spoken so quietly that Taro almost didn't hear them.

"I am worried about you, too."

The pain in her back and knee let up a little after that and she found she could think again. The class rep was worried about her? She was absurdly touched, and the tears that had been brought on earlier by pain started threatening to reappear for an altogether different reason. She quickly brought one of her hands up and rubbed them away before Sachiko could see them. She didn't know why, but for some reason she really didn't want the class rep to see her crying at the moment.

When Taro maintained her silence for a moment, hitching her shoulders almost imperceptibly, Sachiko finally got up off her back and started loosening the wrestling hold. Taro took that opportunity to shove herself up off the ground, squirm around into position, and grab the other girl by the ankles. Sachiko let out a startled yelp of her own, the first Taro could remember her ever uttering, and hit the ground on her side. Taro didn't give her an instant to escape, instead forcing her legs into a hold similar to what Sachiko had done to her yet quite distinct from it, flipped Sachiko onto her stomach, and let out a victory whoop.

"Ah...AH...!" Sachiko yelped as Taro sat back to put on some more pressure.

"Ha!" Taro said, sounding and feeling more like herself than she had in days. "Everyone knows the Sharpshooter's better than the Texas Cloverleaf!" She cackled for a moment, pulling back enough to make Sachiko let out more of those pitiful little whimpering noises. She let up after a moment and released the other girl, moving quickly to get out of her range before Sachiko could try to get revenge. She wiped away more of those absurd tears as she looked at her...-what was Sachiko to her, anyway? Class rep? Sparring partner? ...friend? She decided she liked the sound of that last one-...her friend. The closest friend she had made since Possum. Kagami was a friend too, but Taro felt an instinctive comradeship with Sachiko; they ran on the same level, they understood each other. Kagami was fun to run around with, but they didn't have much in common other than shared training in Eva's resort; Sachiko knew what loneliness was like. She wiped away more of those tears that refused to go away and turned away, hoping the class rep wouldn't see them.

Sachiko stood up and brushed the dirt and grass off her clothes, looking vaguely offended. Taro couldn't help but laugh at her expression when she looked back at her, an expression which, now that she got a good look at it, was suspiciously close to a pout.

"Sorry about all the trouble," Taro said as she focused her gaze on the old building to avoid looking at Sachiko. She felt the girl move up to stand beside her.

"Don't worry about Possum-san. She can take care of herself."

It took a moment for Taro to reply. "But...but what if..."

"What if she became a vampire?" Sachiko said, finishing Taro's question. "We will find a way to make sure she is okay."

Taro gave the other girl a curious look. "What does it matter to you? I don't think I've seen you say more than a dozen sentences to her."

Sachiko made an expression that Taro realized with real surprise was righteous indignation, almost hidden in the peaceful expression that Sachiko kept on her face at all times. "She is a classmate. A...a friend..." she said awkwardly.

Taro blinked at her for a moment, then turned her gaze back toward the building. 'So that's how Sachiko sees it, huh?' she thought to herself. Taro herself had never thought about it before, but Sachiko apparently took her role as class rep very seriously. Taro's thoughts drifted back to Possum and she let out a sigh. She ignored the curious look Sachiko gave her. She knew Possum was strong and smart and could take care of herself, she did, but that didn't make her worry any less.

She sighed again.

"Thanks, Sachiko."

"You're welcome...Taro..." Sachiko replied softly a moment later.

"The festival starts tomorrow, huh?" Taro asked absently, looking up at the night sky. Sachiko nodded. "We'd better get back to the dorm then; I want to get a decent night's sleep before the first day events."