Note: This isn't exactly a crossover, but it will help your understanding of the next couple of chapters if you know Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and Tokyo Babylon.

Chapter 4 – Mokona?

Nokoru bounded on the stage, all enthusiasm and determination, and exclaimed:

- Sakura-hime! I will find your feathers, no matter what!

- Shaolan-kun…" answered Uttôshii, her eyes glittering softly.

There was a pause.

- Come on, Suoh", Nokoru hissed. "It's your turn!"

- That's… great… Shaolan-kun…" mumbled Suoh, who was at that moment the very image of despair.

Despair wearing rabbit's ears, plushy white clothes and a red jewel on it's forehead.

- Takamura-san," Pettoni Kujaku (1), the girl at the head of the Drama Club ventured shyly, "I think you should put a little more enthusiasm in your voice, you know… After all, Mokona is supposed to be always jumping around and smiling…"

- You can do it, Takamura-senpai!" Akira said, smiling broadly and bouncing on the balls of his feet without even noticing.

- Give me a break", Suoh groaned, his head lowered. "Why do I have to play the role of that silly white-bun thing?"

- Well, let's see what you can do as Kurogane, Ijûin," suggested the turquoise-haired girl. "What was your first line?"

- Jee, why do we have to travel with that silly white bun?" recited Akira with an abundance of joy discernible in his every feature and tone of voice.

Kujaku sweatdropped.

- I think the roles may be somewhat ill-distributed… Although you, Imonoyama-senpai and Uttôshii-san, are just perfect as Shaolan and Sakura… You will simply have to practice, Takamura-san, Ijûin-kun…

"I will simply have to find some place to drown myself", Suoh reflected darkly.

- Next is the scene where we go in search of feathers at the bottom of the lake, is it not, Pettoni-san?" asked Nokoru at that moment, leafing through his script.

- Yes, but first, Mokona teases Kurogane," answered Pettoni.

"Oh, why, WHY did I ever agree to do this?" was the thought that ran through the said Mokona's mind.

He remembered very well the fateful day when Nokoru, leafing through the bulky correspondence (it could be called bulky when it towered to the ceiling in six great piles, could it not?), had come across a letter from the Drama Club.

- Suoh, Akira, the Drama Club wishes to play "Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle", he had announced.

- Why do they consult us, Kaichô?" Akira had asked in surprise. "The Drama Club can play what they choose, can they not?"

- Yes, but they want it to be a special event joining the entire High School Division," Nokoru had explained. "They suggest that the roles be attributed at random among all the high school students, and that it be played in honour of the authors' twenty-first anniversary".

- Oh, I see! It is a nice idea, Kaichô. I think the students will like it. But if the roles are to be attributed at random, we should at least make sure that feminine roles go to girls, and masculine roles to boys," Akira had suggested pratically.

- You're right. But I think it is a good idea, too. And it has been too long since the last festivities.

- It has been two weeks, Kaichô", Suoh had rectified.

- Two weeks are entirely too long, Suoh!

- So, you intend to give your okay?" The secretary, who as such had read the letter before Nokoru and knew it was signed mostly by girls, had spoken without great surprise.

- Yes, I do," Nokoru had answered. "And we will have to go see it, too. So mark that evening in our calendar as officially paperwork-free, Suoh."

Suoh had smiled.

- All right.

But it was NOT supposed to result in this.

"This" being the following distribution, which had had the blue-haired teen shivering as soon as he had set eyes on it:

Shaolan: Imonoyama Nokoru

Sakura: Uttôshii Manuke

Kurogane: Ijûin Akira

Fai: Sumeragi Subaru

Mokona: Takamura Suoh

The Dimensional Witch : Kyogoku Midoriko

The great big shining fish in the lake : Sumeragi Hokuto

The pyromaniac dancing rabbits: various students from the Kindergarten Division

Suoh had put his foot down at once.

- I am not playing that role. In fact, I am not playing at all. And you should do the same, Kaichô. I KNOW I will never get you to do so much as sign a paper before the play is over if you get yourself into it.

- Why, Suoh, we cannot disappoint the ladies! And you would… be great… as Mokona," Nokoru had pleaded, his voice breaking with laughter all through his second sentence.

- Kaichô, I have schoolwork, training, and student council work to keep me busy. Without even counting Kaichô-chasing. I have no time to take part in a play!

- What, are you chasing me, Suoh?" Nokoru had teased, fluttering his eyelashes and taking a sexy pose.

- Why, yes, all the time…" Suoh had answered without thinking, before blushing furiously. "Kai… Kaichô! Not that way!" he had fumed.

- What way? Akira had asked.

- Never mind, Ijûin…" the secretary had answered very promptly.

- But maybe you are right, Takamura-senpai," Akira had added a little sadly. "Maybe we really are too busy to take part in a play. Although I remember when I played the Dukalyon against Twenty Masks thing in elementary school… It had made me nervous at first, but in the end it was fun…"

- I am not saying you should not do it, Akira…" Suoh had protested.

- Ha! It is favoritism, favoritism, I say!" Nokoru had proclaimed, a hand on his forehead. "You are all ready to let Ijûin play, but I must work, work till I fall with exhaustion!"

- I am trying NOT to make you fall with exhaustion!

- Come on, Suoh, don't be a spoil-sport!" Nokoru had cajoled. "The ladies are all so happy to know that we will be playing! And the Drama Club puts such work into organising all this! We cannot let them down! And it will be fun!"

- You are free to do as you will, Kaichô, but I will not play Mokona," Suoh had protested more feebly.

- But nobody could play it as well as you!

Suoh sweatdropped.

- Kaichô…

- I am sure you would do it very well, Takamura-senpai," Akira agreed.

Suoh sweatdropped more.

Nokoru was looking at him with bewitching, magnificently blue, exotically beautiful elfin eyes. And just by his side were Akira's enormous, innocent, hopeful grey ones.

He was trapped.

- All right, I will do it," he agreed, although he was sure to regret it a moment later.

Well, at least he was not playing the crazy rabbits, he thought.

If that was any consolation.

After all, a marshmallow-cross-rabbit creature was hardly better…

(1) Her name means "a peacock for a pet". Because I so love the part of the manga where they exclaim incredulously "Pettoni Kujaku?" from the bushes they are hiding in.