The slightest bit of wind touched the tops of the trees even as the sun trickled through their leaves, landing upon a person curled up underneath it. Green haired, tiny, and clad in a local school uniform, Shinji couldn't believe his luck. He slipped to another branch, the beginnings of a grin tickling at the corners of his mouth as he paused, poised over that oh-so-interesting person... and he pounced.
Except that that person wasn't there anymore. With an incoherent yelp and a painful thud, Minazuki Shinji found himself eating dirt with a giggling Natsuki standing over him, her eyes dancing. At least she wasn't yelling at him. Yet. "Damn. It was so much easier when we had wings, ne?"
Her giggling stopped and her eyes darkened. He winced inwardly, mentally slapping his forehead as he sprawled inelegantly in the dirt. She never did like being reminded of what she'd lost, even though what she'd gained in the end was more than she'd ever hoped, he knew. "Sorry, Natsuki-chan. I forgot."
"You always do." She'd become withdrawn now, her voice more flat and her expression even more closed to him than it had been before. A small gust of wind tugged at her hair, lifting a couple pale green strands and toying with them gently. A smile was the response to such. "God's sighing at us again," she said lightly, pushing her hair back behind her ears.
Shinji relaxed a bit, then peered up at her through his bangs. Four years younger than he was, not even out of middle school, and he already knew that he loved her. He had for eternity, it seemed, and he knew that Access - himself, in a sense - had loved Fin for as long as he'd known her.
Tossing off the brief moment of solemnity, he pulled himself to his feet, tossing his trademark grin at Natsuki. "I want some hotcakes, and I /know/ that Mother won't make them for me..." He allowed the sentence to trail off, arching one brow as Natsuki's face turned red. His grin, if possible, grew wider.
"You never give up! Never ever!" Her voice had risen to an outraged shriek that, over the years, had become far too familiar to Shinji. "Just because you helped Papa before doesn't mean that he has to help you now! And you know that Mama won't say no to whatever you want, either! Ugh!" The sound of long-held disgust was evident in her voice, but it only served to make Shinji smirk.
He moved in closer to her, leaning over her with his hands in his pockets. "And what are you going to do about it, Natsuki-chan?" he drawled, his expression altering to pure Access Time mischief. "Going to tell Marron that she shouldn't make hotcakes for me because I hinted to you that I wanted them?" He continued to lean over her as she gradually turned redder and her eyes widened angrily. Any minute now...
"You're... you're... /impossible/!" Thoroughly angry now, Natsuki clenched her hand into a fist, drew back, and, not pausing to even think about it, let the idiot have it, right on his insufferable smirk. And then she stormed off towards home, having entirely forgotten to chew him out for trying to pounce on her. Hotcakes, indeed!
****************
Marron hummed quietly under her breath as she spooned milk into the batter she was preparing. Hotcakes, since Access was likely to tag along with Natsuki when she got out of school. A door slammed behind her, and she turned to confront a thoroughly annoyed daughter. She tapped her spoon against her lips, looking over Natsuki with a thoroughly amused smile. "Did Shinji-kun do something again?"
She was always careful to refer to Access as Shinji in Natsuki's presence these days. It prevented any of those silences, or worse, tears, from her daughter and friend.
"Hotcakes! He /always/ wants hotcakes! And he tried to /pounce/ on me! He might as well have thrown an apple or two at me like he used to with how loud he was, moving around in that tree, but still!" Natsuki said, dumping her school case in the hall and removing her shoes quickly before storming into the apartment.
It was a measure, Marron mused, of how angry Natsuki was that she referred to Fin's memories. Returning to the kitchen and picking up the bowl of batter, she continued to mix the ingredients in. "Hmm. I remember that when he was little, he always used to have Miyako make hotcakes for him and then he'd come over here and eat them. Chiaki always had to steal them from him because they were dessert rather than breakfast." she said, adding another pinch of flour to the mixture.
Natsuki turned an interesting shade of red before sighing in defeat and settling into one of the kitchen chairs. "He hasn't changed a bit since... forever." She folded her arms and rested her head upon them, staring up at Marron. "Always hungry, always trying to play a joke on me or someone else - I'm surprised he hasn't gotten caught at school already, with some of the pranks he's pulled."
The griddle was hot. With a hiss, the first hotcake was poured, then another. Marron stopped at three, catching the loose drops with her spoon and setting the bowl aside for the moment. Dusting her hands off, she pulled out a chair across from her daughter, leaning back. "I've heard plenty about that from Miyako. She can't understand that it's not only Shinji-kun's nature, but also that /she/ used to do such things. I used to get gymnastics balls dumped on my head regularly." Marron bit off the final part of that sentence: '... whenever she failed to catch Jeanne.'
"Yes, I know. Whenever you had sealed off another demon and she couldn't catch you." Natsuki pushed out her chair and walked towards her room. "Tell me when the hotcakes are done, Mama? I'll be in my room." Both statements left Marron staring blankly after the girl.
*****************
Natsuki was studying. Or trying to do so. Tears kept making the page in front of her blur and waver. Finally, she abandoned her angry attempts at brushing them off on her sleeve and just buried her head in her pillow, crying.
She'd always known, from the point where she could formulate sentences, that she was not only Nagoya Natsuki, but was, or had been, Fin Fish. Memories that weren't really hers kept appearing, and most were memories she didn't want; destroying a shrine in Tokyo; being banished from Heaven; betraying Marron - her /mother/, she reminded herself - and even dying. There were the happier memories, too; bathing in a teacup, her hair bundled up under a miniature showercap while Marron - /Mama/! - blew bubbles from a tube in the human-sized bathtub beside her; Celcia and Toki and Access - Shinji! - sharing power and making her a True Angel again... and those were her barrier against the others.
"I don't understand it," she said, one hand resting across her teary eyes. "and I never will. How I was reincarnated, and how... how Fin Fish could ever be me." She had to keep her selves seperate, treading that thin line between then and now. If she didn't, Natsuki thought she'd lose herself, the one whose parents were Nagoya Chiaki and Marron, who went to school and had nothing to do with Jeanne D'Arc. "I'm not her! I can't be!"
The worst thing of all, that part of her that was Fin Fish mused, was that there was no way for the wind to reach her.
******************
A knock at the door caught Marron's attention, and, flipping the last hotcake to the other side, she glanced into the hall, smiling at the sight of Access pulling off his shoes and donning his pair of slippers. "Did you smell the hotcakes, or did you come for something else?"
He glanced up and Marron was struck by the odd expression upon his face. It wasn't the normal Access grin; in fact, he looked downright worried. "Is everything all right?" she asked.
"Natsuki-chan came home already." It wasn't a question. Marron nodded and smiled, gesturing towards the kitchen.
"Hotcakes. I thought you'd come home with her today, but you didn't... instead, she came home and was absolutely furious with you. Not," Marron added wryly, "that that's anything unusual these days." Even as she spoke, she was setting out a plate of hotcakes liberally spread with butter and syrup, along with a knife and fork. "I'll just pour some more, as you're probably hungry and I doubt if Miyako'll be back until she's finished her shopping, and Chiaki won't be home until six."
Access - Shinji, Marron reminded herself - nodded and sat down, slicing the hotcakes and taking a big bite. "Thank you. I /am/ hungry." he said, swallowing quickly. "Is Natsuki okay? She seemed a bit... worried about something." Even his tone was worried.
Marron frowned, pouring another hotcake. "Natsuki-chan seemed worried, yes. And she actually said something about Fin-chan, which is unusual for her nowadays. She's in her room if you want to talk to her... tell her that there'll be a fresh batch of hotcakes ready in five minutes."
He nodded and abandoned his hotcakes, heading for Natsuki's room. Marron stared at the full plate, with only the one bite taken out of it, then was jerked back to reality by the hiss of an over-full griddle. "Oh no!"
***************
She was curled up on her bed, a pillow being choked to death in her arms and her back to the door. Shinji entered, closing the door behind him and pausing. "Natsuki-chan..." he said, taking a couple slow steps towards her. "Your mother said that there'll be hotcakes ready in five minutes, if you want them." She remained as she was, tightly curled around her pillow.
Shinji pulled her desk's chair up to the side of her bed and sat, hands in his lap. "I'm sorry for reminding you of Fin-chan. I didn't mean to. I guess that it was something I didn't think about saying... I do that too much, I know." He sighed. Again, no response from the quiet figure upon the bed. "Ne, Natsuki-chan?" he said, reaching out hesitantly, then withdrew his hand.
He, as Access, never quite believed that Fin was his. He'd chased her for so long, been turned away so often, and had, in general, never thought he'd had a chance to capture his Fin-chan's heart. And he, as Shinji, wasn't quite sure of Natsuki's feelings. Access hadn't been, either, and it was one of the many things that made it easier to accept that he, a normal teenager, was actually the reincarnation of an angel. They were so similar that it didn't really make any difference who he was, save their situations and names.
He reached out to Natsuki once again, touching her shoulder lightly, then more tightly as she didn't respond. "Natsuki-chan?" Blankly, he stared at his hand upon her shoulder, then stood and peered over her. "Asleep." he said wryly, shaking his head. "How ironic."
There were tear-tracks down her cheeks, and a few stray hairs were plastered to her skin. Lifting his hand from her shoulder, he tenderly brushed them back behind her ears - odd, he'd never noticed that even in this life the tips were slightly pointed - and then drew the coverlet that was folded at the bottom of the bed over the sleeping girl. "I wish I knew what you were dreaming."
He never even noticed the black earring clenched in one of her hands as he left the room.
***********************
She awoke to warmth and a feeling of happiness that she'd missed since childhood. Sun was streaming through her window, and a breeze - who had opened the window? - was making her curtains billow inwards. The coverlet was just so nice and warm, and her pillow so soft...
Natsuki bolted upright, ignoring a bit of dizziness at the rapid movement. There was something she'd been missing for years... slowly, she unclenched her hand, staring at the contents within. A black earring, or maybe an ear cuff, and one that she'd had since her birth. She smiled down at it, rolling it around in her palm.
A sudden whiff of hotcakes made her swing her legs over the side of the bed, her feet immediately finding the comforting warmth of her slippers. She stood and stared into the mirror across from her bed.
It wasn't her.
It was a woman with cat-slit eyes and pointed ears, her long green hair falling between a pair of wings. Part of her recognized the reflection and greeted it as an old friend, but another part of her, that new part that she considered to be 'Natsuki', just stared at it as though it were a stranger. "That's not /ME/!"
Her hands were trembling so much that the earring fell out of them, rolling under her desk and out of sight. The reflection shimmered and melted away into her own reflection, and Natsuki sank to her knees in relief. Relief at not being someone else, someone who wasn't what she wanted to be.
Her door burst open, and Shinji bolted into the room, eyes wide. "Natsuki! I heard something... is everything all right? Did something happen?" He was frantic, Natsuki noted with a note of detachment. She couldn't quite focus on anything clearly, and there was something... something that was fluttering to get out of her chest.
"No. Nothing happened. I'm fine." She could hear her own voice saying the words, and she could see Shinji's skepticism in his suddenly arched eyebrows, but she wasn't the one really experiencing it. "A-access..." There. There it was again, that odd fluttering in her chest.
"Not Access. Shinji." His expression was odd, a mixture of surprise and worry that made his eyes look almost black instead of their normal purple color. "Natsuki... what's wrong?"
She reached for him, eyes beginning to fill with tears. "I'm scared. She's not me, but she /is/ me, and I don't want to be like her. She hurt you, she hurt Mama, she hurt /everyone/. She even hurt God." she said, almost babbling in her desperation to actually /say/ it and not caring that it might reveal more than she intended. "And I don't want to do that."
He wrapped his arms around her awkwardly, one hand rubbing her back in slow circles as she cried. "Natsuki..." he began, unsure of himself. Natsuki simply clung to him. He was warm, he was solid, and he'd always been there, in past and present. "Natsuki, you know that you weren't evil. Fin wasn't evil." She glanced up, staring at him through tears. His face was hard, almost harsh. "She - you - loved everyone too much. That's why she was so strong, and that's why she hurt people... she was trying to make too many people happy and never thought of herself, except when she wanted to continue living. And even then, she tried to make even the Devil happy."
Natsuki continued to stare upwards, eyes widening. He continued doggedly, his arms tightening around her to an almost painful pressure. "She even tried to make that /man/ happy. And he caused her to become a Fallen Angel." Shinji stared outwards, eyes unfocused. "It wasn't Fin's fault. It never was." He smiled down at her, relaxing his grip unconsciously. "And that's why Access always loved her, no matter how evil she seemed. That's why he left his most important part with you."
As though swimming up through murky water, Natsuki came to herself. "The earring." she said, realization hitting her. "That's why she was me... in the mirror. And that's why I was so happy when I woke up." Breaking out of Shinji's grasp, she fumbled around under her desk, frantically looking for the cuff. "I can't find it. It's gone again. And I only just found it again..." Desolate, she sat back on her heels.
A hint of Shinji's usual smile - and Natsuki finally accepted, Access's smile - began to light up his face. "I can find it." he said, reaching for a particularly dark corner of the shadows under her desk. "I always know where it is. It's something that's always going to be important to me." He reached for her hand, cradling it tenderly in both of his and then placing the cuff in it and closing her fingers securely about it. "Don't lose it again."
She smiled at him, hugging the ear cuff to her chest. "I won't. Never again." Moving her hair out of the way, Natsuki clipped the piece from her past - from both Fin and Access - to her ear, and glanced in the mirror. She was Natsuki, and she was Fin Fish. It was no longer a shattered reflection.
*****************
Marron watched from the doorway, her smile contrasting with the tears in her eyes as she saw her daughter clip Access's ear cuff on. She had no warning as an arm slipped around her waist, drawing her back from her vantage point. "Spying on our daughter?" asked a softly teasing voice, and Marron smiled up at her husband.
"What sort of a mother would I be if I didn't?" she said, leaning into his arms. "I think that everything will be fine now. Unless..." Amusement trickled into her voice, and Nagoya Chiaki arched a brow. "... Access winds up being foiled by a jealous father."
Chiaki stared at her for a moment, then, a mischievous grin upon his face, lifted her into his arms. "Jealous father? I'm a jealous /husband/." Carrying her towards their bedroom, he proceeded to demonstrate his husbandly abilities.
The curtains billowed in a soft breeze; God was in his Heaven, and all
was right with the world.