A Faker's Wings: Practical And Stylish

"That's a headband." I accuse, pointing at the offending garment.

"Yeah," Homura agreed nervously, pointedly not looking at either me or the object of my focus. "I picked it up for you yesterday."

I look at the thing for a long time, not quite comprehending where exactly Homura was hoping to go with this. At my side, Akitsu studies the thing intensely with her normal placid expression, her hand intertwined with mine. She had yet to leave my side ever since I had first woken, and I was glad for her presence. Her simple presence dulled the aching need inside of me into something I could almost ignore.

"Why did you get me a headband?" I finally ask, giving up trying to divine his motivations.

"I thought you might like it." The host answered, though he didn't sound very enthusiastic about it. "The emblem on it was kind of interesting."

I hadn't even noticed it, as I'd been much more interested in finding out why Homura had been so keen on foisting the thing on him. But now that it was pointed out to me it did make me grin wryly. It looked like one of the silly emblems that cropped up all the time in various media: a sword superimposed over a pair of feathery wings. It looked like something a parent might give to a child more concerned with how 'cool' it might look than the practicality of it. Not the sort of gift for a grown man, however. It wasn't even winter, for goodness sake!

I give a quiet sigh and pushed the thing away.

"Thank you, but I don't think I'll be needing it for the summer." I say diplomatically.

"Maybe you could just try it on, see how it looks on you?" Homura suggested, and the almost pleading note to his voice caused me to pause before answering.

Why would he want me to wear something like this? It wasn't like it was very warm, or that it covered anything impor-

Oh.

Yes, that made sense.

I give the thing another speculative glance before shrugging and putting it on, carefully making sure that it covered my forehead.

"Did I get all of it?" I ask, deciding to do away with subtlety.

"All of what?" Homura asked nervously, his eyes flitting to my forehead for a moment.

"All of my crest." I answer blithely, annoyed that Homura was trying to dance around the subject.

Homura looks surprised for a moment, but then scowls as he realizes that I'd seen through his ruse.

"Yeah, you did." He admitted, looking away shamefacedly.

I look at him for a moment, waiting for some other response.

"So are you going to tell me why you want me to hide it?" I ask eventually.

"I don't want the others to worry." Homura answered, and levelled me a contemplative look. "They were already worried sick that you were hurt in your fight. Seeing that..."

I didn't need to hear the rest. I could easily guess just what the others might think about my newest... modification.

Most of those who knew about scrapped numbers had initially been wary of Akitsu even after they'd known about our unique situation. Tsukiumi, for one, had had to acclimatize herself to the other woman's presence. And even then, I was certain that it was only because she had come to regard her as a 'rival in love' rather than 'freakishly strong mistake of nature just waiting for the most inopportune moment to go insane', though I'm sure that now that she's actually been winged the latter view has long since vanished. I'm sure that seeing my crest would merit at least some kind of reaction, though I couldn't be certain what that might be.

I found it mildly ironic that a member of my flock was now trying to help me keep secrets, though. Such a far cry from the time when they had all been so very eager to learn of their ashikabi's sordid past. Though I suppose my harsh punishment to Matsu for her probing might have helped more than a little in curbing their curiosity.

I frown slightly, and then sit up fully. I suppose this might have also been the reason why I had yet to meet any other members of my flock than Akitsu and Homura, though I couldn't help but wonder how they had managed to keep the normally impetuous Musubi from randomly peeking in. Let alone Miya, who would likely be not-at-all deterred by their protestations.

So I can only guess that Homura would get me this gift if-

"Shirou-tan?" Matsu queried through the door, proving my suspicions correct. "Can we come in?"

Homura shot me another guilty look, and I sighed quietly to myself.

"Yes, please come in." I answer calmly, and force myself to smile reassuringly.

The door swings open, and I had only a moment to steady myself before I found myself buried in the bountiful bosom of Musubi as she hugged me tightly, sobbing happily.

"OhmygoshweweresoworriedShirou-san!" The excitable young woman gasped out all at once in one stream of words. "Wedidn'-"

Anything else was drowned out as I found myself buried in my flock, all of whom seemed to have taken it into their heads to surge forth from the hallway and hug me into submission. My arms began flailing as I soon realized that there was a real danger of drowning in cleavage in this situation.

"Mmph hmm MPH!" I try to get out, only to find that the words were muffled.

"Alright, give him some air." Homura advised, and I could hear a trace of mirth in his voice as he did so.

Traitor.

My flock seemed to realize they were inadvertently smothering me at his words, and quickly disengaged themselves from me, each one of them wearing varying expressions of either embarrassment (Tsukiumi and to a lesser degree Matsu), shamelessness (Kazehana and to a greater degree Matsu) or sheer happy exuberance (Musubi and Kusano). But they all wore happy smiles, each of them glad to see that I was unharmed.

Jealousy was never something I had been prone to, but at that moment I felt that unfamiliar feeling surge inside of me. I forced it down, trying to ignore it to the best of my ability. They shouldn't have to deal with this problem on top of all the others I had already brought into their lives. I could deal with this. For now, until the end of the Sekirei Plan at least.

"Hello." I greet wearily, smiling sheepishly at the women in front of me.

"I, it is good to see that you are well, husband." Tsukiumi says nervously, a light blush appearing on her face as she does so. "I was worried when my rival told us that you needed rest."

"Ahh, well, I'm not quite better yet." I answer remorsefully. "But what about you? I heard you were hurt."

"A, ah!" She stammers out, the blush intensifying at my apparent concern over her well-being. "It was not so bad. As if they could harm me, the most powerful sekirei!"

I found myself grinning earnestly at the boast even as I noticed that she was favouring her left side slightly. Maybe she still had fresh bruises? Or maybe just soreness? Either way, I was still responsible for her injuries. I should have been there to protect her.

"Sword!" Kusano suddenly said, snapping me out of my slump. I looked over at her, and saw that she was staring wide-eyed and pointing at my forehead with an excited grin. "And wings!"

My smile turned genuine in that moment. I couldn't help it.

"Yes, Kuu-chan." I agree with her.

The others seemed to take notice of my newest accessory, and where now examining it as well.

"Ah!" Musubi suddenly chirped exuberantly. "So it was for Shirou-san! Musubi was wondering why Homura-san got it!"

"Yes," Matsu nodded, a small frown appearing on her lips. "Matsu was wondering as well."

"Ah, I felt a bit of a chill." I explain, lying easily in answer to the unspoken question.

"A chill? Are you sick, husband?" Tsukiumi said, latching onto the word and drawing her own conclusions from it. "Hmm, I thought humans got paler when they were ill, but I might have gotten that mixed up."

I blinked at that, my smile faltering.

"What?" I ask curiously.

"Well, I thought that was how it worked. But you look a lot tanner than usual, so I could have been wrong." She elaborates.

I was tanner than usual? I look down speculatively at my hands, and I had to agree that there was some truth to that statement. Curious.

"Ah!" Musubi suddenly perks up, and points at me. "Musubi heard something like that too! Maybe it was hair that got paler?"

I look up sharply at that, my eyes wide in horror. Tanner skin, paler hair? That sounded a bit too familiar for my comfort.

Kazehana shook her head

"No, that's not right." The elder Sekirei refuted, looking at me curiously. Something seemed to grab her attention, "Kuu-chan, don't do - what the hell is that?"

The exclamation only made sense when one took stock of a few things, which I had not done while I had been focussing on the fragment of the conversation. The first thing to consider was that Kusano, still entranced by my headband, had snuck up on me in order to get a better look at it. The second thing was that she had apparently decided that she wanted it more than I did, and had lifted it off of me in one smooth movement that I didn't even notice until it was done. The last and most important thing was that my forehead was now fully exposed to my flock.

Oh no.

"Uhm, I can explain?" I said nervously as I saw my flock's relief that I was whole and unharmed change swiftly to shock and dismay that I had not come out of the ordeal unchanged.

"I should hope so!" Tsukiumi said loudly, her eyes never leaving my forehead for a moment. "And you can start with why you have something like that!"

I try to grin reassuringly, but my flock was having nothing of it. Even Musubi's ever-present cheerfulness had vanished into what looked like shocked disbelief. It seemed that some kind of explanation was expected.

Well, at least I had already steeled myself to this possibility. With a small shrug, I begin to explain.

"Remember when I said that I was given a Sealing Designation for research into forbidden magic?" I ask rhetorically, and when my flock nodded I continued. "Well, it's forbidden for a reason. My magic can, if I want, change reality itself. It can change me."

Even now I could feel that hollowness inside of me, shredding away at my being in order to reshape me into something else.

The sekirei nod at the explanation, though Matsu appears to have a thoughtful frown on her face for a moment before I continue.

"And sometimes it can even do it if I don't want it to, if I'm not careful." I add, and it seemed that for a moment comprehension dawned on my flock. "I didn't do enough research, and when I tried something out, well, it didn't work quite as I wanted it to."

Matsu frowned thoughtfully at this, then raised a hand as if to ask a question before thinking better of it and simply asked me directly.

"But you're still human, right? You aren't really a..." She seemed hesitant to give voice to the possibility, as if doing so might somehow make it more real.

"A scrap?" I supply, and shake my head with a rueful smile. Well, I might as well lie a little, just to reassure them. Best not to tell them that I'm as close to one as I could possible get. "No. I'm not. Here, let me explain what I can..."

I spent the next half-hour explaining things to my flock as best I could, trying with each question to allay some of their worries.

It was the least I could do.

*Later!*

Thinking back to a few hours ago, I was uncertain if I particularly appreciated being so thoroughly proven wrong. I had been hoping that they would have accepted the change in me with a small amount of shock and maybe dismay. I had been prepared for fear, and maybe even a bit of shunning.

What I had not expected that they would, almost to a one, unite in taking turns to baby me.

After a spending most of my young adult life taking care of myself, this state of affairs was at once confusing and more than a little dismaying. It was like they expected me to fall to pieces at any moment and start doing whatever it was scrapped numbers did when things went bad, and were doing their best to take care of everything.

They'd even tried to stop me from making dinner. I'm pretty sure the only reason Musubi and Matsu had eventually agreed to let me was the betrayed look I gave them when they announced to me that they would be taking care of it.

It didn't matter whether I had been horrifically scarred by my disastrous attempt to harness the power of the Sekirei: the kitchen was my realm!

I was just about to get started on our meal when I noticed something just outside, a sudden movement. It gave me a moment's pause, and after a quick internal debate I decided to investigate further. It was probably one of my flock squabbling amongst themselves as seemed to be the norm, but there wasn't any harm in making sure it didn't escalate.

Looking through the window, I gave a sharp intake of breath when I realized that my initial suspicions had been wrong. Very wrong. In fact, it was as horribly wrong as I could possibly think of the situation possibly being without the Clocktower being involved. Which it might be, though I was still hoping that things had not gone quite that cataclysmically wrong.

Standing outside in close formation with rifles at the ready were several squads of MBI mercenaries, attired in their crisp uniforms. It looked like they were in the process of surrounding Izumo Inn, and were doing a good job of it too.

A moment later there was a loud knock at the front door, followed by a provocative call from a voice that I recognized from an earlier skirmish: Benitsubasa, the Crimson Sekirei.

"Can Shirou come out to play?"