Standard issue disclaimer: Sunrise created and owns Mai-Hime. I am not them. This is a parody, protected speech.
Disturbing Routines
Chapter Three: Midori
May, 2004
A few weeks had passed since Mai and Mikoto began living together, and the ... unusual events of that first night had not been repeated since then. Mai assumed that this was because she had worn pyjamas from that night forward. It certainly wasn't because Mikoto had stopped creeping into her bed.
In all honesty, she still wasn't sure how she felt about that. The warm presence of someone else in her bed was actually comforting. Admittedly, she'd have preferred it to be Takumi, but things hadn't worked out that way.
At the moment, Mai was lying in her own bed, waiting for sleep to come. It'd been a long day. School, and then a long shift at the Chao Bao Zi. She was starting to think that maybe she'd bit off a bit more than she could chew there. Yes, the proprietor was one of the nicest people she'd ever met, but the restaurant did a lot of business, and Mai was one of only four waitresses taking care of all of it.
Well, technically, it was three waitresses and a waiter. She'd actually gotten a lot of help from Akane, Midori and Kazuya, who'd all worked there before. Akane and Kazuya's flirty relationship was fun (and a little painful) to watch. Midori, on the other hand ... she wasn't sure why an obvious college student like her was working part-time like that, or pretending to be 'just seventeen years old', as Midori's constant refrain would have it. (She didn't think anyone was buying it.)
At least Mai didn't find herself living a triple life. Fortunately, she hadn't run into any dangerous Orphans since that first one. There'd been a few annoying ones, like that thing that had stolen Natsuki's underwear, but nothing too serious. Mai almost found herself wondering why that was.
Natsuki, during that episode, had hinted that there were other agencies around campus that were acting to protect it from the Orphans. Predictably, though, she'd refused to elaborate. Listening to some of Chie's stories had given Mai a few ideas about what was actually going on. Her gossip about magical girls (and magical old men) showing up to help people in danger might just have something to it.
And then there was Tate and Shiho. Not only was she seeing the obnoxious jerk (who, okay, had a few reliable qualities that weren't all that obnoxious) in class every day, but she kept running into the two of them all the time. She'd even gotten roped into helping out with a wedding ceremony at Shiho's dad's temple, enduring Shiho's constant subtle putdowns all the while. It was almost enough to make her believe in karma. But what could she possibly have done to deserve that?
Okay, other than that. But she wasn't getting to do it recently anyway!
Mai shifted uncomfortably. When was Mikoto going to sneak into her bed? What was the holdup? Finally, she looked up to see if something was the matter.
Mikoto's bed was empty. And the window was open.
"Oh, great," Mai said, collapsing to her pillow. "She's gone out to look for her brother, hasn't she?"
For a moment, Mai considered going out to follow her, but then she remembered just how tired she was. So she curled up on herself and decided to sleep alone.
It was harder than she expected, but sleep did eventually come.
Where could he be?
Mikoto was a bit horrified to realize that, despite having thought about him more or less constantly since he'd run away, she wasn't really sure what aniue looked like. She could see him in almost every male face that passed by as she sat on a bench and watched the men walking by.
She had to find him. It was jii's last command. And, perhaps not as importantly, it was what she wanted to do. If she found him, everything that had happened would finally make sense.
But she had so few clear memories of him, and they were of a boy. A tall boy, but she was conscious of the changes in herself since then. Who could say what he would have become in that time?
It was very frustrating.
And then she was distracted by something odd happening on the edge of her peripheral vision. Wasn't that - yes, yes it was. What was she doing?
Mikoto got up, carrying Miroku in the bag that she'd acquired with her uniforms. (Apparently, there were a rather large number of students whose clubs or other pastimes required them to carry a sword with them at all times, such that these bags were readily available. Miroku would have rather been out, but Mikoto understood the value of camouflage.) She followed the person who'd attracted her attention, and soon found herself in an alley, watching from a concealed position.
She was somewhat surprised by what happened next.
Sugiura Midori moved gradually and peacefully out of the pleasant dream she'd been having (which, unfortunately, she was never able to remember) to a comfortable lassitude as she woke up. She felt weary but more or less content. The weariness was understandable when she looked at the clock on her nightstand and discovered that it was just after six o'clock in the morning, when she hadn't gotten to sleep until some time around two.
Ah well. A bit of fatigue was a small price to pay for a pretty good roll in the hay. Nodding at this wisdom, she turned to look at said roll in the hay, slumbering beside her, and nudged him a bit forcefully with her elbow. "Oy," she said, sotto voce. "There's a bed check at around seven, so you might want to wake up."
He did so with something of a jolt, eyes sliding open to see her leaning over him. He blinked repeatedly, and then looked to his other side. Seeing that there was no one there, he let out a relieved sigh. "At least that part of the experience isn't repeating itself," Kanzaki Reito muttered.
"Sorry?" Midori asked.
He turned back to her. "Sorry, just reflecting on the last time I had a one-night stand with a college student. Some very disturbing things happened, and, and never mind, I don't want to talk about it."
"Okey-doke," Midori replied agreeably as she sat up from her futon, letting the topsheet fall from her breasts. "You have a lot of one night stands with college students, I take it. Does your girlfriend know about that habit of yours?"
Reito blinked. "Girlfr- ah. You shouldn't believe everything that you hear. The President and I have a strictly professional relationship. I honestly don't know how the rumor about us dating got started. She finds it moderately amusing, but I'm reasonably sure that she's exclusively lesbian."
"Interesting," Midori said, since it was. "Well, you'd better get dressed and head out the window before the dorm manager checks in and finds you. Scandal and all that rot. I mean, personally I don't see what the big deal is, since we're both seventeen and all."
Now he stared.
"What?" she asked, all innocence.
"Well, setting aside the notion of you being seventeen -"
"Are you calling me a liar, you beast, you cad, after I gave you my innocence, my childhood?" Midori asked in a bland, even tone.
"- and the notion of your innocence, there's one problem with the 'get dressed and head out the window' plan. To wit - we're in a basement room, and there are no windows."
Midori looked around at the walls of her small office/bedroom, and lo, there was indeed a decided paucity of windows. "Y'know, you're right," she said, amazedly. "I can't believe I never noticed that before."
Reito discreetly rubbed his head. Was Tate right? Was it really all women, or just the ones he got to know?
"Well, there is one in the showers up on the ground floor, and I was heading that way anyway. We'll go there, and you can get out that way. Unless you'd want a quicky in the shower first."
He considered his options carefully.
Just a little later, Midori was bent over in the shower stall as the water ran down over her body, forearms pressed against the wall above the taps, as Reito stood behind her with his hands on her hips and slammed up into her. She bit her lip in pleasure, holding back her pleased cries of what a great fuck the boy was.
"I'm about to -" he gasped quietly.
She pulled forward, off of him, then whirled around as she dropped to take him in her mouth, sucking and rubbing until his orgasm hit the back of her throat. She swallowed noisily.
"Yum," she said. "Bye now."
Recognizing a dismissal when he heard one, and pleased that it wasn't accompanied by a death threat like it had been that time before, the Vice President exited the stall, gathered up his clothes and quickly pulled on his boxers before heading out through the window with the rest of his clothes under his arm.
What a great start to my day, Midori mused, as she showered in earnest.
Elsewhere, Mai was leading Mikoto out of their dorm room. "What the heck were you doing, that you were out so late?" the older girl asked irritably.
"Stuff," Mikoto said evasively.
Mai blinked. Since when was Mikoto anything other than utterly direct?
Before she could question her further, though, the door across the landing from theirs opened, and Aoi walked out leading a weary looking girl who looked kind of familiar to Mai. "I don't really care if you're tired, Nitta-sensei asked me to make sure you got to class today and - oh, good morning, Mai-san."
"Morning," said Mai, who abruptly realized where she'd seen the girl with the flaming red hair before. This was the girl that Mikoto had knocked down on that first day, and -
"Good morning, Nao," Mikoto said politely.
"Mornin', Mikoto," the other girl said in the same tone.
- and clearly, they'd become acquainted with each other in the interim.
"Does this seem a little odd to you?" Aoi asked Mai hesitantly as she walked beside her to school, a few steps behind the junior high duo.
"Well, if they're classmates, then I guess it's not that surprising that they know each other," Mai answered.
"I guess that makes sense, but ... well, it's a little odd that they're getting along. I mean, I don't really know Nao-san very well, but -"
"She's your roommate, though," Mai interjected.
"Yes, but we've only been in the same room since the start of the term," Aoi explained. "And we didn't really talk, much, even before things got a little strange."
"Eh? Strange how?"
Aoi made a face that was a little strange itself. "Well, it's kind of hard to explain. A couple weeks ago - on your first day here, actually - when I got back to our room, I found her and she was acting like, well, like she expected me to attack her at any moment. And it's really strange that she should be like that, because, like I said, we hadn't really talked a lot, and so there's no way that she could know - um. Well. Mai-san, you do know that Chie-chan and I are, uh, 'particular friends', right?"
Mai blinked. Mai coughed. Mai said, after a moment, "Well, I know now."
Aoi facepalmed. "Great. I'm worse at keeping secrets than Chie-chan is." Shaking her head, she continued. "Anyway, a few years ago, when I told one of our other friends about that, she started acting the same way towards us for a while, like she was expecting us to jump her at any time. It was funny but kinda painful, and anyway, she got over it eventually. But the thing is, that's almost exactly the same way that Nao-san was acting ... and there's no way that she could know about me, because, like I said, we don't talk much. At all."
"I see. So it's kind of strange that she's getting along so well with Mikoto," Mai said, mind racing.
"Kind of," Aoi agreed.
Try very, thought Mai. And it's stranger than you know, since Mikoto is, well, Mikoto is the way that she is, too. Mai decided that she was going to have to keep an eye on the two of them.
"I think I'm going to need your help again tonight," Nao said, quietly.
"Okay," Mikoto agreed.
"You haven't told anyone about it, have you?"
Mikoto shook her head in silence.
"Good. Don't. It's just between you and me and the two of them."
"And them," Mikoto added.
"And them," Nao agreed, with another cold smile.
Yotsuba Satsuki wasn't easily surprised, but when she was, it was usually quite obvious. Certainly she seemed very surprised as she asked Midori if she was sure about what she'd just said.
Midori nodded. "I still have to get through the last interview, Yotsuba-kacho, but it's really a sure thing. Today is probably my last day here."
Satsuki cautioned her that one should never be too certain about a supposedly sure thing when it came to one's employment. However, she also hoped that Midori would continue to be as much of an asset to her new employers as she'd been for her, this past two years. If it didn't work out, there would always be a place for her at the Chao Bao Zi.
Feeling herself blushing, Midori fought the impulse to say something funny. It was a difficult battle, but she managed, and nodded again. "Thank you, kacho. But next time I come here, I expect that I'll be a customer. I'm looking forward to it, really!"
Satsuki assured her that she felt the same way. But right now, there were customers waiting, so they'd better get to work. She did hope that Midori would give her best to the Headmaster when she saw him, though.
On hearing that, Midori stopped dead in her tracks as she headed out to take some orders. "Right," she stammered.
She hadn't said anything about the Headmaster. And she would have sworn that Satsuki was surprised by her news. How in the world had the girl known that her job interview was with him? How could someone so young be so sharp? Midori had a reasonably high opinion of herself, but she knew perfectly well that she hadn't been that sharp when she was that age, humhum years ago. If she had been ... well, she probably still would have slept with that guy, but she'd have known to break it off with him before he started cheating on her.
Or possibly pre-emptively cheat on him.
Midori let these concerns evaporate as she worked the lunch crowd, consisting mostly of students. As it happened, those students included two of her coworkers, Akane and Kazuya. She decided that she could take a little time to let them know that she wasn't going to be joining them on their evening shift.
"Eh? You have a job interview?" asked Akane, even more surprised than Satsuki had been.
"Where will you be working now?" Kazuya asked. "I hope it's not Searrbucks. I'd hate to think you'll be competing with Yotsuba-kacho."
"I really can't talk about it," Midori said, shrugging. "Well, I could, but I'd have to kill you."
Kazuya laughed at the comment, but the laugh became strained and awkward when he saw that Midori's face was perfectly deadpan. "Eh-heh," he finished. "Very funny."
"I thought so," Midori said, grinning. "Anyway, gotta go."
Of course, she probably wouldn't have to kill him if she told him about her new job. Then again, if one considered one's life to be the product of one's memories, she supposed that arranging for someone to erase those memories was probably like having them killed. Well, some might view it that way. Personally, Midori had enough bad memories that she could afford to lose a few, whether or not that would change who she was.
She was betting on not, though.
Anyway, she guessed that Akane and Kazuya were going to have to tell Mai when they saw her, since she didn't look to be eating here this lunch. Ah well. She hadn't really developed the same close relationship with the new girl that she had with the two of them, but she had a hunch that was going to change, if her guess was right about what Mai and/or that roommate of hers, Mikoto, got up to at night.
They were going to be seeing a lot of each other in the months to come, considering the job she was aiming for.
Mai was bone tired. A long day of classes, followed by a shift at the Chao Bao Zi where she suddenly had to do a larger share of the work after Midori's departure, would do that to a person. She was in no mood to play games, regardless of what sort of games were available.
So coming home to find that Mikoto was nowhere to be found didn't do anything good for her mood. Neither did knocking on Aoi's door to find her and Chie together (clothes slightly disarranged, she did her best not to notice) but with no idea where Nao was to be found. "She didn't come home after classes," Aoi told her, a bit of worry showing in her tone.
"Okay, sorry to disturb you," Mai said, fighting the urge to pat her head, which was starting to hurt. "I'll go look for both of them. Call it a hunch, but I have a feeling they're together."
"Sounds like a good hunch," Chie agreed. "Would you like some help? The three of us could cover a lot more ground if we worked together."
On the one hand, that sounded like a bad idea. On the other hand, that sounded like a horrendous idea. "No, uh, no, you should both stay here, in case they come back while I'm searching. That way you can call me and tell me about it," Mai improvised, hoping to heck that neither of them would question why they needed two people to do that.
Then she saw them exchanging glances and realized that wasn't going to be a problem. Of course.
"But, you're going out alone? Mai-san, that's not a good idea. It's not safe -" Aoi said. It had the feel of a protest for the form of the thing, but there was genuine concern there. It would have been warming if Mai hadn't been in a rush.
"It's okay, I know someone who can help," Mai reassured her.
"Who?" Chie asked bluntly. "Don't take this the wrong way, Mai-san, but you haven't really gotten close to anyone in class, except for us."
Mai flinched at the implied rebuke, but soldiered on regardless. "It's someone I know who's in the same line of work," she explained.
A few moments later, she was knocking on a door, just a bit frantically. Her efforts were rewarded when it was flung open and the barrel of a snub-nosed gun with a weird, ball-shaped magazine was pressed to her forehead.
"How did you find out where I live?" Natsuki asked, voice as cold as usual.
"You're in the student directory," Mai snapped. "And your name is on the nameplate of this door!"
Natsuki appeared to be considering the value of shooting Mai regardless of the honest answer she'd just been given. The moment passed, though, and she lowered the gun, rolling it up out of sight. "What do you want?"
"Hello, Mai, who's been moderately helpful in the last couple of weeks," Mai said, imitating Natsuki's tone.
"What do you want?" Natsuki repeated.
"I need your help. Mikoto's out doing something, and I think she might be getting into trouble."
"So?"
Mai sighed. "I am asking you for your help to find her."
"I understand what you're doing. I am asking why I should help you. All that I want out of either of you is that you stay out of my way, remember? And before you go pointing out that you've been helpful in the past, again, I think we're pretty much even on everything that's happened -"
"Fine," Mai interjected. "After this we won't be. After this I'll owe you one. Do you honestly mean to tell me you can't envision any circumstances where having some backup wouldn't be a little bit helpful?"
Natsuki answered the question with a long, level stare at Mai, who had the very clear impression that she was being weighed and measured.
But as the girl with the long blue-black hair opened her mouth to say something, there came a delicate cough from the side. "Good evening, gentles all," said a soft voice with a distinctive Kyoto-ben accent.
As one, Mai and Natsuki turned to see that a pale figure in a distinctive grey-white version of the school uniform was regarding them with interest as she stood a few feet away, one eyebrow delicately lifted above her strange reddish-brown eyes. "Might there be something the matter on this fine evening?"
"Shizuru," Natsuki said.
"Student Council President," Mai said at the same moment, then did a double take at Natsuki. Natsuki was on first name basis with the Student Council President? Natsuki engaged in yobisute with the Student Council President?
"No, nothing's the matter. I'm just having a discussion with, with my friend, Mai, here," Natsuki explained.
Since when are we friends?
"Oh, Tokiha-san has become a friend of yours. I'm glad to hear that. It's not good for a person to go through life without friends. Or even just a single close friend," the vision in grey and white said placidly, turning the stress of her regard directly onto Mai. "Tokiha-san. You're looking well. Thank you for taking the time to befriend my Natsuki."
... my Natsuki? "Um, right," Mai said aloud. Maybe I didn't hear it right. Maybe she meant to say 'our Natsuki' and she just dropped the plural. That's plausible.
"Well, Mai needs my help with, with a school project, so I'm going to go do that now," Natsuki explained, coming the rest of the way out of her dorm room and closing the door behind her. "I'm sorry we don't have more time to talk."
"Such is life," Shizuru said, spreading her hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I look forward to hearing about the project one of these days. Good evening."
"Good evening," Mai answered as Natsuki started to pull her off.
Shizuru watched them go, the smile never once leaving her face.
"So, you and the Student Council President are friends, huh?" Mai asked as they headed out into the night.
"No," Natsuki said bluntly. "She's been useful a time or two. That's all."
"Oh," Mai said. "It's just that you seemed, well, a little bit flustered when she was -"
"She's. Just. Useful."
"Got it. It's clear," Mai said, nodding. It's clear that you're full of it.
The first serious sign of trouble came at the very start of the interview, when, as she'd said she'd do, Midori passed on well-wishes from Satsuki. For a frighteningly long moment, she saw a baffled look on Konoemon's face, as though he had no notion of who this Satsuki person was or why she was wishing him well. The moment quickly passed, though. He thanked her with perfect politeness, and inquired of doings at the Chao Bao Zi.
The fact that the old man had clearly not known what a Chao Bao Zi was, for a few seconds, caused her a great deal of concern. She wasn't sure just how old he was; it wasn't the done thing to ask that question. But he'd never seemed aged until just this moment.
Some more small talk followed, and her anxiety gradually eased. Then she watched him settle back in his chair. "So," he said. "I was somewhat surprised when I read your application for the post. Any teacher, of course, hopes to have his students follow in his footsteps - in education, at least. And I am no different. It would please me a great deal if one of the last students I personally supervised became a teacher at this institution."
"I would hope to live up to the example that you set, Konoemon-sensei," she said, smiling warmly.
He answered her smile with one of his own. "Then why, Midori-kun, are you insulting me with this transparently fraudulent and fabricated teaching certificate?"
She blinked. "Transparently? I thought it was a pretty good forgery. I certainly paid enough for one."
"Evidently not," he said, scanning the alleged certificate. "The Minister of Education hasn't been the fellow who supposedly signed this for a few years now."
"I was robbed," she said, visibly stunned. "Unbelievable. So much for the notion that to live outside the law, you must be honest. Well. I guess you've got to give me the job, because I'm going to need a steady paycheque to be able to afford to get a better fake."
They stared at each other across the desk for a few moments, before Konoemon leaned back, resting his oddly shaped head against the top of his specially-designed chair as he looked up at the ceilling. "We've certainly had our share of unusual teachers here at Mahora. Negi-kun isn't the most remarkable, just the most recent. Well, I suppose he is, actually, among the most remarkable, but there have been others almost as ... but that's not what I was trying to say, really. All of these teachers have always, always been fully accredited teachers in addition to whatever odd skills or talents they might possess. We have never hired someone simply for being ... gifted," he said at length, then fell silent.
"Neither am I pleased to be the one who breaks that admirable record, sensei," Midori said, in a tone vastly removed from her usually easy-going manner of speaking. She could do formal when necessary, and if she was to keep him from talking himself into refusing her the job, it was necessary. "But the situation which now confronts us will not wait for me to finish my education. You've read my report. I still don't have the full picture, but the frame and outline are bad enough."
"Can things really be that dire?" he asked, voice almost a whisper. "Our security teams seem to be dealing with these hobgoblins."
"Not without injury, sir," she said. Hearing about the stream of increasingly serious injuries from Yohko was what had convinced her of this course of action. "An they're going to get worse. The Orphans are called the silent children of an invisible star for a reason, sensei, and it's not because they can't be seen or heard. It's because fortune telling spells and similar divinations won't suffice to predict where or when they come into being or attack. They can't be predicted. They can't be prepared for. Ultimately, they can only be fought by the other side of this cycle of myth.
"So doesn't it make sense, sir, to have one of the princesses of the legend working for you? Keeping an eye on the others who aren't?"
She'd never seen him looking so weary and lost as right then. "I -"
Please don't say you're too old for this shit. Please don't talk about retirement. Please don't go there. We all know what comes after that. Please. Please. I don't want that, even if I do want to be a hero more than anything, but I don't want it to be at that price.
"I suppose that you're right," he said at last. "You will keep me in the loop." It was not a request.
She kept the exultation under control. "Yes, sir."
"You start classes tomorrow. Japanese History, at the Coed School." He smiled a small smile. "You were always good at that, as I recall."
She nodded, trying very hard to stop herself from dancing. "Yes, sir. Thank you sir. I'll be in your care."
"Rather the contrary, I think." Konoemon mused aloud.
She finally let out the grin when she walked out of the offices.
"Congratulations on the new job, Midori-chan!" came a voice from a nearby tree.
Of course, circumstances would insist on ruining her good mood. She turned to glower up at Nagi, for indeed it was he. "Thank you," she said acidly. "Now beat it."
Normally, there'd be a lot of talk here about how attractive and sexy and cute Midori deep-down found Nagi to be, despite her obvious hostility. But some people are just blind to the obvious charm that others possess, and that was where Midori was when it came to me I mean him. It's sort of sad, really.
"Oh, harsh. And I was really trying to be nice, too," Nagi said.
"It would be nice if you stopped breathing," she told him frankly. "It would be nicer if you'd never troubled this place with your presence, but there's no point in wishing for the past to be changed. But I can wish that you were gone, or better yet, dead. And I'm gonna start working on bringing that about real soon now," she promised, smiling grimly.
"How heroic," he sighed, shaking his head. "Anyway, other than wishing you well on the new job, I actually came to get you started on part of it. You're supposed to be keeping an eye on the other HiME, right? Well, there's going to be a bit of a confrontation between a number of them this evening, and you might want to intervene."
"When?" Midori snapped. "Where?"
"All questions that I might have answered if you hadn't been such a meanie," Nagi answered reprovingly. "Bye now!" And then he was gone.
Midori felt her teeth clench, and then shook her head. "No time for this." She started running.
"You've found another one?" Mikoto asked hesitantly.
Nao nodded. "I put out signals and drew him in. We're supposed to meet in just a few minutes. I'll lure him into one of the alleys, and then you come in after a little bit. With your help, I'm sure that we'll be able to get this one to tell us where the Orphan behind all of this is hiding out."
"And there's really no other way to do this?"
Nao let out a hiss of annoyance, and shook her head. "Does your Miroku have Orphan detection powers that you haven't mentioned yet? Because my Juliet certainly doesn't. If we're going to find the thing that's doing this, we have to interrogate its pawns to find out where they might have encountered it. This is a war, Mikoto. You've got to do what you've got to do."
"I understand that," Mikoto said, her reluctance still readily apparent. Her next words were more of a whine than she really liked. "But, Nao -"
"What if it was your brother?" Nao asked abruptly.
"Eh?" Mikoto said, blinking in sudden befuddlement.
"What if it was your brother under the control of this thing? The brother you've told me about, the one you've gone to all this trouble to find. Wouldn't you want someone to do whatever it took to free him from that influence?" Nao's voice started to get very passionate as she leaned down to look right into Mikoto's eyes. "If you look at it like that, this is really a holy thing that we're doing. People shouldn't be made into slaves like this Orphan is doing. This is like an exorcism. Yes, they're hurt, but it's better to be free and hurt than well and a slave, don't you think?"
"Uh," Mikoto answered. This was all too deep for her.
Just as suddenly, Nao turned to survey the crowd outside the college nightclub where they were waiting. "There he is, gotta go. Follow us in a few, okay?"
And then she was gone, leaving Mikoto alone with her concerns.
Thinking about aniue under the control of some hidden Orphan was utterly revolting to her. But on the other hand ... what Nao did in the name of freeing them was pretty disturbing, and the thought of someone doing that to aniue was pretty disgusting too.
It was just a bit too much for her. But she had to keep going.
She'd said that she would. And Mikoto always kept her promises.
What a sap that girl is, Nao thought as she ran up to her prey for the evening. "Hiiiii," she squealed, drawing his attention to her. "You're Ken-niichan, right?"
The guy was fairly pudgy, like most of her prey were, but he wasn't exactly packing it on, either. He blinked behind his glasses as he considered her. "Wow, you really came!" he said. "I was almost sure that you were going to stand me up."
"Oh, I'd never do that," Nao said, with more sincerity than there'd been in anything she'd said that evening. "You were just sooo charming in your e-mail, I couldn't hardly wait to see you tonight." And back to complete insincerity it was.
"That's really very flattering," he said, with just a smidgen of disbelief in his tone.
Add butter. "No, really, I mean it. All the boys at my school are such geeks and losers, I was despairing of ever meeting a guy who was mature enough for me. And then I read your posts, and I knew that you were just the kind of guy I wanted to meet. The sort of guy who knows what a girl wants." She stared up at him, green eyes wide and guileless, lips slightly pursed.
The disbelief wasn't there anymore. "Well, I guess that's understandable. Girls mature a lot faster than guys do, after all."
She'd sucked him in quite perfectly, and now he was doubtless convinced that she was going to suck him in quite literally. Sucker.
"So, what would you like to do this evening?" he asked, glancing at the night club; no doubt wondering whether or not he had enough bribe money to get the doorman to let him bring in an obviously underage companion.
"Actually, there's this place I know that's supposedly really great. I've never been there myself, but my friends all say that it's a lot of fun. Why don't we go there?" she asked, pressing up against him, taking care so that he could feel her thigh pressed up against his hip.
"Hey, sure. If you know a cool place -"
"It's very cool," she said, pulling away and guiding him by the hand.
It didn't take too long to reach the entryway to the alley, and the place of concealment that she'd used so many times before. "This is the place?" he asked, looking around. If she'd had any doubts about the fundamental rightness of what she was doing, they'd have been shattered by the fact that he didn't look disturbed to be led into an alley, but rather excited.
Fucking asshole. "This is the place," Nao said, pressing up against him, starting to push him backwards towards the wall. "This is the time. This is the company I choose."
His smile wavered at that last bit. "Huh? What do you -"
And then his back ran into something that was a bit harder than he was expecting a wall to be. Confused, he turned to look over his shoulder.
The breasts probably grabbed his attention first. They'd certainly grabbed Nao's attention when she first saw them. But then he looked up at the six glowing red eyes on the half-hidden face, and the four long arm-legs stretching out to either side, and the strand of webbing holding all of this suspended from a position just a bit above the ground.
Then the human-looking mouth opened, and a pair of mandibles spouted.
That was when he let out the first gasp of terror. It turned into a scream when he turned around to look at Nao and saw that she'd produced her claws, and was licking one delicately. "We're going to have some fun tonight," she told him. "I'm a girl of my word."
By the time Mikoto hesitantly entered the alley, a few minutes later, Juliet had wrapped the prey's head and upper body up tightly in her "webbing". (Nao was vaguely aware that the substance her Child shot out bore no real resemblance to spider webbing, but she wasn't the type to care about such things. Juliet had eight legs and six eyes and shot a sticky substance; therefore, she was a spider-girl.) His legs were free, but Nao had kicked them out from under him. So he rested with his butt on the ground before her, staring up at her with a terrified expression.
"Great, you already got the sword out," Nao said to Mikoto, who did. "Okay, same as last time, right?" She turned back to the prey and smiled winningly. "So here's the deal. I'm going to cut your mouth free, so that you can tell us all about what we want to know. Start screaming, or try and get to your feet, or kick me or something like that, and my good friend here is going to turn you into shishkebab. Right, Mikoto?"
"Uh," said Mikoto. "Well, I guess so."
Ignoring the uncertainty in her tone, Nao continued on. "But first, let's get some information that can't be a lie." Well, probably, she thought as she started fishing in his pants pockets, having put her claws back where they came from. His wallet came out easily enough, as did a surprise. "Oh, you brought some condoms!" Nao cooed. "Isn't that nice, Mikoto? He's out there trolling for girls for his master, but he's sweet enough to bring protection with him. What a great guy, wouldn't you say?"
"What are condoms?" Mikoto asked, looking a bit worried. "Are they some kind of defensive weaponry?"
Nao paused in her efforts to undo the prey's belt buckle, and turned to look back at her 'good friend'. "Seriously?"
"What?"
"You're in junior high school and you don't know what condoms are? Were you raised by wolves?"
"No," Mikoto said, genuinely baffled by the question. "I was raised by jii."
That probably rated further inquiry, but the truth was, Nao didn't really give much of a shit. "No, they're not a weapon," she said, turning back to her prey as she got his pants down around his hips, exposing his smelly boxers. Nao held up her right hand and called back the bright red claw that fit on it like a glove, so that he could see it.
"This is his weapon," she said then, as she brought the claw down gently on his boxers, and cut a hole in them to expose the weapon she was talking about. The weapon that she wanted to break so badly.
It would be so nice to cut the organ open, peel it like it really was the banana that so many people thought, see the ripe red juices flowing down its sides as she started to delicately cut into the nerves that made it so sensitive to being rubbed and sucked, and that made them feel so good when they shoved it into people and held them down and hit them and made them bleed and -
She took a shuddering breath as she forced herself to calm down. It was funny, really. Before she'd had Juliet in her corner, if she'd had a guy in this position and a weapon, say the boxcutter she'd carried around sometimes, she never would have hesitated to do all that and more.
But Juliet, in a strange sort of way, calmed her. She didn't know why. She had never had a pet spider or something like that, but there was something weirdly comforting about the creature's presence. As though what she'd really wanted all this time was someone in her corner.
Of course, that was such bullshit. She wanted lots of other things besides that.
Like bloody satisfaction.
She finally opened the wallet and took a look at the ID within. "Didn't even use your real name, tsk tsk tsk, shame on you, Kakizaki Shuutaro-san," Nao said, putting as much contempt into the honorific as she possibly could. "Oh, and look, Mikoto, he's got pictures of his wife and kid in here! Isn't that sweet? Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever heard about? And she's so cute, too, just about our age, I think!"
"Uh -" said Mikoto.
"You fuck her, don't you?" Nao asked, still talking in the same cheerful tone. "Your daughter. Can't resist the sweet bird of youth, can you. I bet you love it when she cries, don't you? Love it when she screams. Love the fear and the pain in her voice. Love the power you have. It's so sweet, I bet." Needle-quick, she reached up to cut the strand of webbing around his mouth so he could answer her.
"No!" he shouted. "No, I don't, I'd never ever do such things, please, please, don't hurt me!"
"Oh, don't worry. We're not here to hurt you," Nao lied. "We're here to help you. We're gonna set you free of the sick urge that you've had for a while now. All you've got to do is tell us where it happened."
"What, what?"
"Where did you run into the thing that made you like this? Where is it hiding now?"
"I-I-I don't know what you're talking about!" the prey squealed like the pig it was.
Nao sighed in mock regret, and turned to look at Mikoto. She could tell that the other girl was right on the verge of open rebellion, so it was probably best to end this right now.
Unfortunately, Nao didn't want to do that. "You see how it is," she said, feigning regret. "He won't talk willingly. I really have no choice but to force it out of him. I'm really not enjoying this at all," she added, glorying in the oh so sweet lie. The truth of that spread across her face as she turned back to look right at him. "So I guess we've got to go there, then," she said, and brought her clawed hand down towards his manhood.
"Stop!" came a voice from behind her.
Mai had imagined Mikoto doing any number of things with Nao. Fighting had been prominent among those imagined activities. In wilder moments, she'd imagined them talking about feminine hygeine issues that Mikoto was too embarassed to discuss with her. The fact that she had trouble imagining Mikoto being embarassed about ''anything'' was the reason they were wild moments.
And, yes, she had considered the possibility that they would be doing to each other the sorts of things that Mikoto had done to her that first night they were together. She'd hoped that they wouldn't find them when that was going on. After would have been better. Before would have been ... just as good, Mai told herself. It wasn't as though she had any interest in stopping Mikoto from doing that sort of thing with people other than her.
She'd also expected that it would be a lot harder to find them. As soon as she and Natsuki had gotten into the downtown area, she'd outlined a complicated plan dividing it up into sectors to the more experienced girl, based on some things she'd seen in a movie once.
Natsuki had listened in silence, waiting until Mai ran out of things to say, then interjected, "Or we could do this." And called up Duran, gave him some instructions, and sent him up to start running on roofs. The robotic dog Child returned just a few minutes later, and after a moment of communion between him and Natsuki, the two girls were on their way.
"You can talk to him?" Mai asked as she ran just a few steps behind Natsuki.
"You can't talk to yours?" Natsuki asked back, her voice suggesting that she wasn't really interested in the answer.
Which was good, because Mai wasn't about to admit that she was too terrified of her so-called 'child' to call him up, much less talk to him.
In any event, she hadn't expected to find Mikoto so quickly, and she definitely hadn't expected that she was going to find her doing this sort of thing - standing guard over a man whose upper body was tied up like some sort of mummy, while his lower body was denuded of clothes and his, well, his business was exposed, and Nao leaning over him wearing some sort of clawed gloves. In the shadows, Mai could see some kind of spider-like creature leaning back against the wall and just observing, but for the moment, her attention was completely on Nao as she started to bring down her hand towards the man's genitals.
"Stop!" Mai shouted, panicked.
She saw Mikoto whirl, not pointing her sword at her, but looking back at her with a startled expression that swiftly turned to something else when she realized who it was. "Mai," Mikoto said.
Oh, the expression was one of shame, wasn't it? Mai found herself realizing that she didn't like seeing that expression there. What a strange time to be thinking such things.
"Smooth move, warning them before I could get off a stun shot," Natsuki hissed as she stood beside her, guns already out and pointed at them. She raised her voice as she continued. "Step away from that person, right now."
"Or what?" Nao sneered in response.
Natsuki's tactical sense pinged quite suddenly. She'd been expecting Mikoto to be the problem, here, but the fact that this Nao girl was staring down the barrel of a gun without qualm suggested that was an incomplete assessment. Her gloves and the Child both told her that she was another HiME. Another one that none of my sources had told me about.
"What are you doing, Mikoto?" Mai asked, keeping her own attention firmly on her roommate.
Natsuki approved. Getting them talking was a sound tactical - oh, wait, this was Mai. She actually cared about the answers. Shit.
"This man, Nao told me that he was, well, possessed," Mikoto explained hesitantly.
"Possessed?" Mai asked. "Orphans can do that?"
"Never heard of it before," Natsuki supplied, eyes firmly on Nao, who was starting to smirk. That strongly suggested -
"Well, they're demons, right?" Mikoto asked. "Demons can do that."
"Wow, some people really will believe anything, won't they?" Nao said, smirk turning into a wide grin.
"Eh?" Mikoto said, turning to look at Nao.
"She lied to you, Mikoto," Mai shouted. "Okay, enough, why are you doing this? What is the -"
"Because I can!" Nao suddenly roared, all amusement gone from her face as it dissolved into fury. She still didn't know what it was about this girl that put her in such a confused state, but it didn't really matter. "Because I feel like doing it! That's the only reason any of them ever do anything, so why shouldn't I do the same?"
"You ... lied to me?" Mikoto asked, genuinely bewildered now. "Why did you lie to me?"
"Why did you let me?" Nao snapped in response.
Slowly, Mikoto brought her sword around to point it at Nao. "Why did you lie to me?" she repeated, anger starting to become obvious in her voice.
"Because I could."
"Okay, enough of this Nietzchiean bullshit," Natsuki interrupted. "You're outnumbered, so step away from the guy, and -"
"Hostage," Nao interrupted sweetly, as she gently rested the talons of one her hands on his exposed member. "Snip snip. Instant phimosis cure. Unless you step away. Juliet, would you mind coming forward?"
The Child leapt, spider-like, in front of her, blocking Natsuki's line of fire and driving Mikoto tumbling backwards from Juliet's point of impact. Mai promptly ran forward to see if her friend was okay, and so left herself wide open to a strand of webbing directed at her, pinning her to the ground. Mai let out a shriek of disgust.
Okay, thought Natsuki. Serious threat.
"Now where was I?" Nao continued, turning her maniacal grin back to her prey. "Oh, yes. I was right here."
Finding them had been easier than Midori had had any right to expect. She'd been lucky enough to glimpse a mechanical dog bounding around on the rooftops, and, since this wasn't Fahrenheit 451, had concluded that it had to be connected. Getting up to the roofs herself had been fairly easy, given the enhanced strength and speed that came with her Element. That had really been the hard part.
She had watched the confrontation happening below with interest and a bit of dismay. One of the girls had a clear grasp of tactics, but the only one who had any sort of teamwork was the temporary antagonist! How messed up was that? And on top of it, the teamwork seemed to be trumping the tactics. Well, that was meet and right, but it was happening the wrong way!
Clearly, she was going to have to involve herself.
So she called up her axe, letting it burst up from the roof's surface, then gracefully leapt out into space to land just a few steps from where Nao was crouching over her hostage, behind Nao's Child. "I think this little farce has gone on long enough," Midori announced.
"Huh?" gasped Nao, rolling away from the still-bound civilian male. "Who the hell are you?"
Inwardly, Midori exulted. This girl couldn't be all bad, if she gave such wonderful straight lines! Obviously, they were just going to have to defeat her and then she'd be on their side! "Defender of the Town and the Gown!" she proclaimed. "The HiME of the Violent Wind, Sugiura Midori! For Justice, Love and Friendship! I'm gonna kick your ass!"
Nao visibly twitched. "Justice, love and - what are you, a twelve-year old boy?"
Okay, the befriending was obviously going to be a painful process for some of them. "As I was saying, I can no longer permit you to do these things - these things that even you yourself must surely regret on some level!"
"You're brain-damaged. That's it. That explains everything."
Clearly a tough case. "Mai-chan!" Midori called over her shoulder. "Are you all right yet?"
"What? Midori - no, no, I'm not! There's all this sticky gunk all over me and I don't know how to -"
"Have you tried calling up your Element and burning it off?"
Dead silence, then a whoosh that told Midori that she'd done just that.
"Okay, then," Midori said, turning back to Nao, who still hadn't moved. "You're back to being outnumbered. The three of them can certainly deal with your Child, and I have a clear shot at you. Furthermore -"
She threw her axe up into the air, dove into a sommmersault that took her in between Nao and the former hostage. She pushed him further away from Nao, ignoring for the moment his cry of pain as his genitals slammed into the ground in the process. Well, he did come out here looking for a date with a teenager, so he deserves a little karmic pain, she thought as she reached out to grab the axe as it dropped down again.
"- you don't have a hostage, anymore," she continued, and went into a low, defensive stance. "And claws might be very frightening, but if you can't get close enough to use them, you've got problems. So don't you think it might be about time to start talking about what's really going on here?"
Nao just glared at her. If looks could kill, and all that, but the glare was just a glare.
"You didn't really need Mikoto-chan's help for all of this," Midori pressed. "So why drag her into this scam of yours? Did you want a friend that badly?"
"Friend? Come on!" Nao sneered. "She was just a tool I used to get at that one!" This delivered with a sharp nod in the general direction of Mai, who was hovering in front of Juliet in the standoff that looked likely to continue for some time.
"Huh?" asked Mai. "What did I ever do to -"
"You piss me off!"
Mai started to get a little angry herself. "How did I manage to do that, this is the second time we've ever met!"
"But I've had to listen to her whinging about what a wonderful person you are all the time, and it makes me want to puke! All that rot about how nice you are, how kind you are, how powerful you are - when you're nothing more than a great big phoney!"
"What makes you think I'm a phoney? We barely even know each other!" Mai shouted, having gone from angry to bewildered in record time. Nothing about this situation was making sense to her.
"I just know!"
"Were you just accusing me of being twelve?" asked Midori, who'd been following this exchange with interest. "Because you sound like you're about ten, right now."
"Fuck you!"
"Very mature."
"Fuck all of you! Juliet, with me!" And with that, she threw up her arm and shot lines from the claw on her hand that wrapped around the railing of a fire escape on the other side of the alley. With a tug, she was catapulted up into the night sky, with her Child following along behind her.
"Well," said Midori after a moment. "That could have gone better."
"Shouldn't you, I don't know, chase her or something?" Mai asked as she settled down to the ground again. She glanced in Mikoto's direction, seeing that she was following Nao's path of escape with her eyes. Her face showed obvious unhappiness.
Midori shrugged. "Why? I know where she lives. So do you, come to that. And anyway, like I said, we really shouldn't be fighting amongst each other. There are enough bad guys out there that the good guys need to work together."
Mai coughed. "I-I'm really not sure whether Nao qualifies as a good guy, so -"
"Eh, she's just the dark, brooding but ultimately ineffectual loner who needs to learn the value of friendship so that she can become part of the team," Midori assured her. "It happens all the time."
Natsuki was staring at her in disbelief. "You do realize that this isn't a magical girls show, right?"
Midori swiveled to meet her gaze. "We are hot chicks with superpowers. What sort of show do you think this is, then?"
"It's not any kind of a show!" Natsuki snapped.
"Then why did you -" Midori started to ask in a perfectly reasonable tone.
"Y'know what, shut up," Natsuki suggested. "I feel like I'm getting stupider every moment I talk to you. Mai, you owe me, and I'm gonna collect later -"
"Right, right," Mai agreed.
"Before you go, though, we really need to talk about teamwork," Midori continued.
"You are brain damaged," Natsuki groaned, having already turned to leave.
"And you're another tough case. Kind of like Nao, that way."
Natsuki froze, then turned to fix an awful glare on Midori. Said recipient accepted it without any visible concern. Without another word, Natsuki stomped away.
"Well, anyway, Natsuki-chan was right about one thing, it was really a bad move to announce yourself before you attacked. On the other hand, she could've warned you that's what she was planning on doing, so there's fault on both sides," Midori began to lecture.
"Um, well, I'm sorry, but is shooting someone in the back really a heroic thing to do?" Mai asked hesitantly.
"A heroic thing to do is what a hero does," Midori explained.
"... right," Mai said, deciding to humor the crazy person. "Um, what about that guy, is he -"
Midori took a moment to check on him. "Well, he's fainted. Which is convenient, because it'll make it easier for the people I call in to cast amnesia spells on him. I'll do that as soon as the two of you are out of the vicinity," she added, turning to look at Mai and Mikoto, who hadn't moved or said a word during any of this.
"You can do that?" Mai asked, not taking the hint.
"Working within the system does have its perks, whatever Natsuki-chan might think," she said. "I'll see you tomorrow, Mai-chan."
This time she got it. "Oh. Yes. C'mon, Mikoto."
The younger girl silently, obediently turned to follow Mai out of the alleyway.
Midori waited until they were both completely out of sight, before turning to look down the alley. "You can come out, now."
Slowly, a girl with hair just about as red as Midori's own poked her head out from behind a garbage disposal bin. "Uh, how long have you known I was -"
"I came from up there, remember. Clear view of the whole battlefield," Midori explained. "You're Asakura, right?"
"Asakura Kazumi," the teenager confirmed, standing the rest of the way up. "I'm with the school paper -"
"- and with Ala Alba. Yes, I know about that," Midori added pre-emptively. "And yes, I will explain what's going on. But it's for you guys' ears only, not the whole school. All right?"
A bit of elan crept back into Asakura's somewhat spooked expression. "You're just going to explain it all? No tricks or evasions? You haven't been doing this very long, have you?"
Midori cocked her head to one side. "Has it occured to you that you might have been doing it just a bit too long?"
Halfway back to the dorm, Mai finally got fed up with Mikoto's silence. "Okay, are you going to keep this up forever?" she said, turning to look back at her roommate, who was trailing along behind her. "Am I going to have to drag it out of you?"
"'m sorry," Mikoto muttered.
"I'm not looking for an apology, I'd really prefer an explanation! Why were you going along with that stuff, Mikoto?"
"I thought that Nao liked me," the little girl said. "And ..."
Mai waited for the thought to be concluded. Eventually, she prompted. "And ... what?"
Mikoto was studying the ground with obvious interest. "And I thought we matched better than Mai and I do."
That rocked her. "Huh?" she asked weakly.
Still staring at the sidewalk, Mikoto continued. "Mai doesn't like fighting Orphans. Nao said that she did. So we matched. We liked the same things. I thought we did, at least."
Mai was almost completely floored. She didn't like fighting, period, but she thought that she'd hidden her discomfort with this whole situation. Clearly, she'd underestimated how well Mikoto could read her.
And with that thought came a sudden sense of shame. "I drove you to this, didn't I?" she asked quietly. "I pushed you to make friends, and the first one you made was a liar and a trickster."
Mikoto didn't disagree, any more than she looked up.
Mai let out a long sigh. "Now I'm sorry, Mikoto. You're right, I don't like fighting. But it's a funny thing, you know. I always told myself that I'd have no problem fighting if it was for someone who was important to me. But I'm just now realizing something."
Now Mikoto uneasily peeked up. "What?"
"You're important to me, Mikoto," she told her, smiling.
Now her head came the rest of the way up. "Mai!"
"From now on, when you need someone to come with you on these hunts of yours, I'll do it. Midori is ... well, kind of nuts, but she's right about teamwork. Do you still want to be a team with me, Mikoto?"
All shame banished, Mikoto nodded rapidly and then, well before Mai could brace for the impact, tackled her with a hug that rammed her face into Mai's breasts. "Mai!" she exclaimed again, nuzzling.
Mai struggled to keep her feet, but once she was steady, she gently hugged Mikoto back. Well, she thought. I guess I am a magical girl, after all. Or something.
Phonies, Nao sneered from the rooftop, looking down at the pair of phonies hugging each other in public. What a load of crap. You matter to me. Liar. Nobody really gives a damn about anyone else.
With a gesture, she sent Juliet back into the shadows, and easily made her way home, ignoring the other pair of phonies that she found asleep under a blanket on her dorm room's couch. She quickly entered the closet that she'd claimed as her bedroom, closed the door and locked it using the lock she'd bought online.
Security established, she started to settle down to sleep, thinking grim thoughts about what she'd do to all of them if she ever got a chance. (All of them, in this case, was pretty much the population of Japan.)
As she was doing so, her cell phone buzzed. With effort, she got into character and answered it. "Hello?" she asked, sounding like a sickly sweet teenaged girl.
"Ah, Nao-chan. I'm glad that I finally caught you."
Nao groaned. "What do you want?" she said, abandoning the character.
"I'm just calling to let you know that I'll be in Mahora during the festival they have there, on other business, and I might be able to stop in and see you -"
"Don't strain yourself," she said, and hung up.
Asshole, she thought. Looking back on it, half the reason she'd gotten so mad at tonight's victim was that he'd reminded her of him.
Why couldn't he have been there that day, instead of her mother?
When the two of them finally got back to their apartment, Mai discovered that there was a message on the landline's voice mail.
"Hello, Mai-chan, it's me," said her father's voice. She groaned, but listened all the same. "I'm sorry that I didn't catch you this evening. I'm just calling to let you know that I'll be in Mahora during the festival that they have there, on other business, and I might be able to stop in and see you and Takumi-kun while I'm there. Let me know when would be a good time for you. Good night." Beep.
Mai considered just erasing the message and forgetting all about it, but something stayed her hand. First of all, spending time with her family would be a good excuse to be with Takumi, as she hadn't had the chance to do in quite a while. Secondly ... well, she still didn't like him, but maybe he did deserve another chance.
Admittedly, she thought she might just be thinking that because of that guy that Nao had mugged this evening. He'd reminded her of her father, just a bit ...
NEXT: Akane.