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Ch. 2: All in
"What was that all about? !" Marisa demanded of Remilia Scarlet.
"Huh?" the vampire asked, mouth agape previously to accept an incoming piece of cake, but now simply agape out of confusion at Marisa's sudden appearance.
Marisa, still a little mad at Alice, had what others would perceive as a silly idea that Remilia Scarlet, the mistress of the Scarlet Devil Mansion, may have the slightest interest in aiding her with her little problem.
"I mean! She was acting so strange…" Marisa sat back down and crossed her arms crossly as she looked over the balcony and onto the compound of Scarlet Devil Mansion. "She threw me out of her house too…" Marisa confided in Remilia as if she were a close friend.
I should probably do the same… Remilia was thinking, as she quickly tapped her foot, the frills of her pink dress stirring impatiently with the movement of her leg. Once again, the blue haired, petite vampire found herself inconvenienced by this, this black-white human. Weren't humans supposed to fear her? And yet this witch has desecrated her castle and gotten away with it so many times that even her ever loyal chief-maid Sakuya had given up. Not to mention her gate-guard Meiling never stood a chance in the first place…
"Sigh… I'm sorry, I sort of lost you halfway? Could you start over from the beginning?" Remilia placed a hand to her aching temple. Well… if you can't beat them… "What… What exactly is the problem with Alice?" Remilia asked as she looked up, feeling rather touchy. She might as well have added "And how can I help you?" at the back of that last line…
"That's what I want to know!" Marisa threw her hands up, completely oblivious of the fact that her very presence was annoying Remilia more by the second. "She exploded on me all of a sudden!" Marisa decried that fact under a large, reddish looking moon. Remilia looked at that beautiful moon and sighed.
Often, on such nights, Remilia loved to sit at one of her patio tables many balconies in her huge, Western styled mansion and just sit back, relax, enjoy a cup of tea and just soak in the beautiful, almost empowering lunar rays, basking in its lunatic glory, eyeing all the stars in the sky as if they were gems belonging to her. Mostly, she would be accompanied by her faithful maid Sakuya. Sometimes, she would be joined by her sister Flandre, which Remilia took joy in personally tutoring on how to be a noble lady the ladies of the Scarlet household were meant to be. Sometimes, she would be joined by her old friend Patchouli Knowledge, that was always a pleasure…
On this night though… Remilia buried her forehead in her hand, the headache starting to splinter across it. The petite, red-eyed mistress of the Scarlet household thought irritably as she looked at tonight's guest, just as the French doors to the moon-lit balcony they were on opened.
"What's the matter? I thought I heard… Oh…" Remilia's old friend Patchouli Knowledge walked in on the two seated at the balcony table with tea laid for one, her expression immediately turning to a curious mix of slight dread and anticipation at Marisa's presence. "What is she doing here…?" the purple pyjama-clad mage asked Remilia.
"That's what I want to know…" Remilia grumbled.
"Oh hi Patchy!" Marisa cheerfully greeted the long, indigo haired, resident librarian of Scarlet Devil Mansion.
"H-Hi…" Patchouli grudgingly blushed a little at Marisa using her absurd nickname for her. Well… It wasn't as though I hate her being around that much… "Marisa, just what are you disturbing Remilia for?" Patchouli asked, while at the same time giving Remilia a look that said "Might as well get this over with, right?"
Remilia sighed for the second time in two minutes and properly gave in. "Fine…" Remilia sounded her agreement with Patchouli, then looked over to Marisa with a tired expression. "You were saying that Alice exploded on you and… threw you out of her house, is that correct?"
"Yup."
"… And?"
"I want to know why."
"… No no no, I need to firstly know why Alice lost her patience with you…" Remilia was fast losing her patience.
"Oh… Well, I made some comment about her not having mirrors, and when she did not tell me why, I inquired further…" Marisa retold her tale summarily. "… And then, she just exploded," Marisa threw her hands up and mouthed "Ka-blooey".
"Did she?" Remilia's interest was suddenly piqued, if slightly. "Seems a rather trivial thing to get mad over."
"Not quite…" Patchouli added in after some thought. "Mirrors are rather powerful magical objects, despite their abundance and commonality…"
"Really?" Marisa asked. "I've never thought of that…" she absentmindedly glanced down at her pouch holding her mini-hakero, the octagonal device that powered all her ginormous lasers.
"No, no… Not that sort of powerful," Patchouli said, having taken note of Marisa's gaze, causing Marisa to look rather disappointed. "No, what mirrors do is show the truth. And I do mean the absolute truth," Patchouli elaborated.
"Is that so?" Marisa asked. "So that means…"
"They show what's physically there," Patchouli explained herself. "For instance, if you were to hide something with, like say, a magical barrier or similar, the mirror would still show it. It's very, very hard to hide something from a mirror," Patchouli concluded. "It would take extremely high-level magic to do so."
"Oooh… I get it!" Marisa said excitedly "It's like how you can see ghosts and stuff in mirrors! Or how you can't see vampires because they have no soul!"
"… Haaah?" Remilia fully perked up. "That's utter nonsense!" Remilia exclaimed, insulted.
"Huh? Does that mean you can see your reflection, Remilia?" Marisa asked Remilia.
"Pfff… But of course!" Remilia huffed. "I use one, an elaborate ruby studded one I might add, to fix my hair every evening!" Remilia gave a quick toss of her powder-blue locks as she looked to the side, frowning. They were verynicely done by the way; they had that sexy look which made her constantly look as if she had just emerged from a skin-smoothening hour-long hot bath. "What absurd superstition!" Remilia continued. "It's like saying I'll die if I stand in the sun! Or that I'll perish with a simple stake through the chest!" Remilia spat. Really! The nonsensical stuff mere mortals believe in! "I mean, a piece of furniture has no soul, and yet you see it in the mirror… Pffft… How do you explain that?"
"You mean… you won't die if I stab you in the heart?" Marisa inquired, curious.
"Young girl, look up the definition of immortal in the dictionary, would you kindly?" Remilia said dryly, "Because I'm immortal."
"Has… anyone ever tried it?" Marisa inquired further out of curiosity.
"Well… three men tried once a long time ago, during some medieval vampire hunt. Successfully too," Remilia placed a hand over her heart as she grimaced a bit from the memory of the pain.
"Oh… Ouch," Marisa winced. "Wh-What did you do?"
"I got up, got mad and tossed all three to Flandre," Remilia referenced her little blonde sister of five years younger, "Told her they were new stuff-toys."
"Ouch…" Marisa winced again for entirely different reasons.
"Yeahhh… I was there when it happened, and I was a really young child back then too," Patchouli had a look of disgust and trauma on her face. "And just for the record, Flandre's new 'teddies' lasted for less than five seconds, four of which she took to introduce herself…"
"O-kay… I didn't need to know that…" Marisa had to consciously stop herself from picturing the carnage Remilia's destroyer of a sister could do. "We were talking about mirrors I believe?" Marisa changed subject, bringing the original topic back into focus.
"Oh, yes, we were!" Patchouli said in reply. "Like I was saying, mirrors are able to 'see' through magic, sort of. So, if Alice has an issue with having mirrors in her house… Well, she could be hiding something with magic?" Patchouli suggested. "Maybe something she doesn't want people to see?" Patchouli shrugged her shoulders.
Patchouli, Marisa and Aya suddenly looked at each other wide-eyed, curiosity maxed out just as all three unanimously thought the same thing, while Remilia coolly narrowed her eyes contemplatively, despite feeling just as inquisitive as the magician, the witch and the crow tengu. Oooh… Just what was Alice hiding?
"What do you think, Aya?" Marisa asked Aya- Wait a minute…
"Aya!" Marisa and Patchouli cried out at Shameimaru Aya's sudden and unexpected insertion into the story.
"Hi, Hi! Your ever vigilant and observant Shameimaru Aya has arrived!" the short, brunette haired Aya gave a little bow, one hand holding on to her tokin hat on her head, the other holding her feather fan across her chest which was tightly wrapped in a smart looking white blouse paired with a simple black skirt, looking every bit the professional journalist.
"Go to hell!" Remilia greeted the professional journalist most courteously.
"But I've already been there!" Aya smiled, taking the aristocratic vampire's polite welcome in good stride. "There was absolutely nothing to report! Turns out Kisume's bucket does not hide a harem of men in it…"
"Why… Why would you even…? Never mind…" Patchouli just settled for shaking her head at the shameless reporter.
"Huh… I always thought Kisume's bucket would hide something controversial…" Marisa said a little disappointed at Aya's news.
"I know, right? It's so secretive!" Aya slumped her shoulders, disappointed herself. "Turns out there's nothing… Oh, and by the way guys? Kisume is fully clothed in that bucket, if you were wondering," Aya added on.
"… Could we just continue discussing about Alice and her secret?" Patchouli deadpanned.
"Right! Any ideas?" Aya looked around the four of them gathered on the balcony. "This could be the biggest scoop for the Bunbunmaru newspaper after all!" Aya trembled at disclosing some deep, dark secret of a maiden to help sell her newspaper.
"Ideas?" Remilia was lost for the second time this chapter. "For what?"
"For disclosing Alice's secret, silly!" Aya looked at Remilia as if she lacked any common sense whatsoever. Marisa clapped her hands together excitedly while Patchouli simply placed her hands on her hips and sighed.
… Remilia touched her temple. The hairline fracture of a headache was morphing into a yawning migraine…