Thanks to Sadface for beta reading! Best little brother any sister can ask for, I swear.
On the Majima Academy site's baseball section, there is team photograph. Katsuragi, a baseball glove on his left hand, kneels front and center of the team.
Youko scrolls down the page.
"Maijima Boys Make a Comeback! Youngest Pitcher Pulls Team to Victory!"
Youko's stomach churns.
"...Maijima's first time in the tournament... unexpected win... the ace, Katsuragi Keima (16) pitches 155 km/hr... high hopes for next season..."
Youko feels sick. She puts her head in her arms.
Katsuragi is the team's ace... just like her. They had high hopes for him, as they did for her.
"The truth is I was feeling really stressed.. There's a baseball tournament coming up."
Youko's heart ached... but this time, it was a different feeling from earlier.
"It's tough when everyone expects so much from you."
Youko clutches her chest. She wanted to see him!
"They don't understand how much they can be a burden, sometimes..."
He understands her. There is someone out there who understands her.
X
X
X
"Baseball?" Keima repeats, nonplussed. He is wearing a Maijima baseball uniform made from Maggie's hagoromo.
Maggie holds up a hagoromo tablet camera. "Smile!" There is a bright flash.
"That's right!" Merui affirms Keima's question brightly, hands confidently on her hips, as the photo session continues. "You will be a baseball player because there's a lot of love-drama in the world of baseball! How can you not be an Adachi fan?" she finishes disappointedly.
As Elsie plays, giggling, with several little lens-eyed bug creatures (also made from Maggie's hagoromo) on the table, Merui carries on with her explanation. "Maggie will hack into your school site and make you part of the team. Then we'll steal a couple of articles about shounen baseball aces and replace their names with yours."
Keima rubs his eyes after the most recent flash. "Since my school baseball team sucks, no one will actually check the site to know it's inaccurate. Hmm..." He looks up. "You thought that through?"
"Nope! It wouldn't matter if they found out," Merui says casually, reading over the open notebook in her left hand and idly spinning a pencil in the other.
"Yes it will!" Keima yells. "I'll be blamed for it! Don't just go off and ruin other people's peace!"
"Keima-kun, could you please turn a little to the left?"
He grudgingly turns a little to the left.
"Don't worry! We'll put it back to normal once the operation is over!" Merui snaps the notebook shut. "Manga is reality. If we make this play out like it does in stories, we'll be on the right track..." She frowns at Keima. "Can't you give a more boyish smile? And Maggie, is there anything you can do about his dead eyes? We want them sparkling with idealistic youth! As they are will just depress whoever looks into them."
"Ah!" A thought has struck the other devil, whose arm is now covered with bugs. "But Merui-san, how do we know she'll check the site?"
"Heh heh," Merui chuckles, pushing up her glasses. "Elsie-san, let me tell you something useful."
Merui declares:
"The sign of a Modern Girl! When she has a crush, she will look up her beloved's name on the internet!
- Yuigahama Merui"
Elsie is transfixed. Slowly, her face brightens. "I get it! I understand! Merui-san, it makes sense!"
Keima is still looking nonplussed. "What?"
X
The two Runaway Spirit teams stand over a table. Sports magazines, or rather, sports clothing magazines, are strewn on the surface.
Keima takes one look at them, and dives for the classroom exit.
He was fast - well, as fast as gamer's legs could take him - but the hagoromo was faster. It shoots out and wraps around God, effectively binding him.
"Sorry, Keima-kun," Maggie says with genuine apology, as she holds onto the other end.
"Elsie! Elsie save meeeee!" God pleas in desperation.
Elsie looks at each person in shock and confusion. "Eh? Eh? Eh?"
"Elsie-san," Merui begins kindly, "We're going to dress your buddy up. If he's going to play a role, he must look the part. Do you understand?"
"It's not necessary!" God shouts, struggling in the hagoromo cocoon. "A player's parameters don't affect the capture!"
"Elsie-san, wouldn't you like to see Katsuragi-kun in nice outfits? You might not have this opportunity ever again."
Keima had to grudgingly admit, the girl was good. Although Elsie looked scared and doubtful, he could already tell Merui was winning her over. He had to say something, fast.
"Fire trucks! We'll go see fire trucks together again! Remember that time we went to Narusawa station? We could go to another place! With- with more fire trucks!"
Presented with such difficult choices, Elsie finds herself stumped. "Ohhh..." Elsie moans, clutching her spinning head, "...dressing up Kami-sama, or firetrucks with Kami-sama..."
Merui coughs. "'Together' as in... a date?"
A stunned silence befalls the room. Even Keima is shocked. Merui flashes him an evil smile.
Keima growls. Dammit! She is good. Elsie would choose the dress-up because "seeing fire trucks together" is now associated with "date." And Elsie, being a non-targeted real girl, would never even consider going out with him. Or, if she did, that meant that she liked him but was afraid to tell him, so saying yes to "fire trucks" would be the same as confessing, which she isn't ready to do!
Denying or affirming its being a date would also lead to further, more complicated routes he wasn't willing to tackle.
What is the right answer? What can he do to get out of this?
Switch the target!
"MAGGIE! Your buddy is wrong!"
"Merui-chan hasn't been wrong yet," Maggie replies instantly with a smile.
God thrashes in the bind. "What good will this do?! I'll just take off the clothes again during the capture! You're only wasting your time!"
"You won't be able to take them off since they'll be made with Maggie's hagoromo," explains Merui. "She's quite an expert with the thing."
Keima glares at her. "Then I refuse to help you with the capture!"
Merui sighs. "Fanboy-kun, why don't you just give up? I already know you're too honorable to cut our deal short for something as trivial as a makeover. It's not painful. And if you stand still, it'll go by even faster."
"...Elsie?" God looks up to her as his last resort.
Elsie bows. "I'm sorry, Kami-nii-sama, but..." her expression is earnest, "...I-I want to see Kami-nii-sama in nice clothes more than I want to see fire trucks!"
So God had a makeover.
He struggled with tooth and nail, so it was hard to hold him still, even with the hagoromo. After they pacified him by letting him play his PFP, though, everything went much more smoothly.
Excited by the hagoromo camera function Maggie had taught her (or tried to teach her, but failed, so she set it up for Elsie instead), Elsie tried to take pictures of Keima in the different outfits. After the fifth picture or so, Elsie realized the nice clothes were spoiled on him because his rotten expression never changed.
"Not bad..." Merui says thoughtfully, circling him. "I mean, it'll look good when he's actually acting the part and stops being so sullen."
"Keima-kun has such a nice figure!" Maggie says admiringly. "He's so easy to dress."
"I wish Kami-sama had outfits like this," Elsie says, holding up some of Maggie's work based on the magazines. "People would notice his cute face more!"
"I don't think it's his outfit's fault that people don't notice his cute face, Elsie-san. Beauty is skin deep, after all." Merui stops circling. "O-kay! Now that we've decided on the outfit, time for a little illusion magic. Maggie, if you please?"
"An athletic Keima-kun, right?" Maggie says, pulling up her sleeves.
"Doesn't have to be athletic. Toned should be enough. If its too far from the original, Youko-san would notice."
X
X
X
Back to the present, as God enters that same classroom...
A girl with pink highlights, piercings, and a gothified Fujioka uniform greets him exuberantly.
"Masterfully done!" she applauds. "I was genuinely surprised! So that's the power of 'love'!" She sniffs. "Even I almost fell for you, I was so touched!" She dabs her eyes with a handkerchief like a proud mother. "Your acting was so smooth, even when you picked up our call-signal."
Comprehension hits God like a brick. "M-merui?"
"Keima-kun," Maggie says, looking up from her hagoromo computer and smiling, "she's looking up your name right now."
They all peer into Maggie's hagoromo, which was stretched like a wide-screen monitor. Several windows showed different parts of the Yukinoshita's apartment.
"And good job planting those bugs, Elsie-san!" says Merui appreciatively, clapping Elsie on the shoulder. "Now we have a nice view of what goes on in their apartment. It's like watching a real life drama!"
"This is stretching the Devil's Privacy Policy," Maggie says in her meek voice, "but there's no choice. It's best to keep that spirit under surveillance."
"She was beginning to get desperate... probably the effect of the spirit," Merui says quietly. "We were able to use that to our advantage by sending Fanboy-kun. Now, she will cling to her savior... You've been staring at me for a while now, Fanboy-kun. Is there a problem?"
"No." Keima is thoughtfully observing her attire. "But I'm beginning to understand your methods."
"Which makes you much brighter than the others I've worked with." Merui strides to the classroom door. Her haughty manner hadn't changed. "You may watch if you'd like... Maggie?"
"Hai!" Maggie says cheerfully. She gets up, holding a basket of spray paint. Then, with a swish of her arms, the hagoromo turns into a uniform, making her look like a Fujioka student.
X
Sagami Rei is not main character material. Her family is average. Her looks are average. Her hobbies, grades, reputation, and seventeen years of living could be described as, yes, average.
What could be said about Sagami Rei is that she was perfectly satisfied being average. She did her homework like any other school girl; she hung out with friends at ice cream parlors, crushed over boy bands, watched evening soaps, helped her mother cook, daydreamed in class, and checked her daily horoscope at the newspaper stand on her way to school every morning.
Sagami Rei was not insecure, a fact she never realized because she never thought about things like that.
She was - and still is - the upside of a kite.
While most humans tried to navigate the wind, enter other air channels, and always, always watched the ground for fear of crashing, Rei was simply lying on her back, watching the sky instead.
Her kite was so light, it was like the very breeze that carried it.
"I guess... " Merui thinks idly to herself, as she waits for Maggie's signal, "...even kites like that occasionally get sucked into storms."
X
Rei sighs as she marches quickly down the stairs. It had all gone so wrong. Yes, she had told Hina, Ruka, and Saika that she was up for the quadruple date - they had even gone shopping together for her outfit - but the date wasn't fun, they got into trouble, and the guys all turned out to be creeps.
And now, she just had a fight with them because she said didn't want to go on another one.
It had been a bad idea to try and hang out with the girls. Her other friends had told her not to, and they had been right.
Rei sighs again as she shuts her shoe locker and leaves the building.
She just wanted to be part of a flashier crowd.
...Like Youko.
But whenever she tried to fit in with a group she thought was cool, her efforts went to waste. She tried a sport, she didn't like it. She tried a club, she didn't like that either. Music? Nope. Art? No. Library committee, student council, teacher's assistant, no, no, no, no, nooooo!
"AARGH!" She kicks a tree and stubs her toe. Rei kneels in pain, clutching her maligned foot.
She sniffs.
She missed Youko. They'd been friends since first grade. But ever since Youko started taking on so much school work, they'd been drifting apart.
Youko worked hard all the time, and because Rei could see how seriously she took everything, and how everyone responded to her dedication... Rei somehow felt like she ought to do something too.
Everyone was always smiling around Youko, and Youko seemed to always accept it smilingly. It was a world Rei didn't understand, and the closer she tried to get to it, the further it seemed to get.
The further it seemed to pull her best friend away.
I want to be part of something flashy! I want to be different!
Rei turns a corner, and bumps into someone.
"Ah, gomen!" Rei looks up, and the first thing she thinks of is, "Wooow! She's cute!"
The girl had long hair and pink highlights. Her ears were covered with piercings. Her uniform, although the same as everyone else's, had been slightly re-stitched to look more sexy.
And her eyes. There was something cool and confident about them. The girl treats her to a smirk. "Watch where you're going, kid." She smiles at Rei as she walks away, "By the way, cute earrings!"
Rei blushes as she goggles after the girl.
"Yuigahamaaa!" another girl calls out to her from a distance, waving. They meet up, laugh, and saunter away, chatting happily.
Rei watches them until they're out of sight. Then, she turns away, sniffing, and quickly marches home.
X
"Kami-sama, I don't get it," Elsie whispers, pulling on Keima's sleeve. She and Keima are standing behind a tree, watching the scene unfold. "All Merui-san did was bump into Rei-san, and all Maggie-chan did was meet up with Merui-san afterwards..." When her buddy doesn't answer, Elsie looks at him. "Kami-sama?" He is still watching Merui-san and Maggie-chan coming this way. Elsie looks at the scene again, hoping to see what her buddy was so intent on. There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. She watches as Rei leaves quickly.
"It's perfect..." Keima suddenly says, his voice quiet. "...The First Meeting went perfectly... they even gave her a name to remember by."
Elsie was now utterly confused. The first meeting was perfect? What name to remember who by? It was also very strange to see her buddy complimenting something that wasn't a game. Elsie was mulling these things over when-
"Elsie. Let's go home."
"E-eh?" Keima has already resumed playing his PFP. "B-but I thought Nii-sama wanted to see how Merui-san works!"
"I've already seen it. The next phase won't be as interesting."
"Ara, you're both still here?" Merui and Maggie arrive at the tree. "We were just going onto the next phase," Merui says, picking up the basket of spray paint they had left by the tree. "Wanna help? I'm sure Fanboy-kun has already figured it out," she adds a little sullenly.
"We were just leaving."
Merui nods. "All right then."
"Let's go, Elsie." Keima starts to walk away.
"Don't forget to text Youko back once she's found an excuse to send you a message! We're gunning for three days here."
"And don't overdo it with the spray paint. They can call authorities, you know." Keima replies, without looking back.
Elsie whispers to Maggie before leaving, "Do you know what they're talking about?"
Maggie shakes her head sadly. "Not at all... Merui-chan doesn't tell me anything either. I was just told to bring spray paint."
"They seem to understand each other without saying anything!" Elsie says worriedly.
Maggie nods, smiling. "Yes, I've noticed that too."
"Elsie!"
"Maggie!"
"I should go," Elsie says apologetically. "Nii-sama will get angry if I'm too slow. Maijima is too far to walk from here, so I have to carry him."
"I understand. I have to go too. I'll see you tomorrow, Elsie-san."
The two teams go their separate ways, until the next morning, when the school is in an uproar.
Give me feedback you guys! XD It'll help me write! What are your impressions of my girls so far? I've given Keima, like, five new ones.