3. An old tradition between friends, also called 'Getting your ass kicked'.
It was time for the stupid medical. The medical staff were among the few people at the North American Branch that Fiona positively hated. Well, when they were giving her a check up anyway.
For one thing this particular branch didn't have a female doctor and Fiona always felt a little uncomfortable because of this. Furthermore, Fiona didn't feel very comfortable with having to be almost completely nude for some of the tests.
It was the usual. The doctor checked her height, weight, heart rate, breathing, then he took a blood and urine sample and sent them to the lab. He tested Fiona's eyes, ears and had a look down her throat. Then he examined her abdomen by touch to check her liver and her bowels. He tested her reflexes and then examined her skin for signs of problems with Fiona's innocence.
Then he asked about recent injuries and he had another look at Fiona's arm and leg where she'd been injured a little more than a week ago.
The part after the actual medical was also extremely annoying, as there were always a series of questions to check on the mental health of the exorcists and a talk with a professional psychiatrist to get a second opinion.
The whole process took about three hours.
It was always very exhausting, too. Not physically, even though there was a running test, but somehow mentally.
Fiona was finished just before noon and even though she had planned to go to the library she went to the sparring area, where she found a pleasant surprise waiting for her.
There were only two people there. A woman in her forties who was doing some gymnastics in a corner and a man in his early twenties with a mop of brown hair that was always just long enough to fall into his eyes, (which in Fiona's opinion was mysteriously attractive) who was standing at the weights considering them in a rather critical manner.
"Fred, you're here." Fiona ran towards him. Fred instantly looked up a broad grin on his face. He caught her up and gave her a long, bone crushing hug. "I've missed you." Fiona tightened her grip, wishing the moment to last.
"It's been so long. I've missed you, too. How have you been?" He held her at arms length to have a good look at her. "You let your hair grow out. It's better that long. Otherwise you have hardly changed." Not true, Fiona felt that certain areas of her anatomy had become more pronounced and for some reason she really hoped that Fred would notice them. But he seemed not to.
"Thank you. Yeah, I haven't grown at all since the last time we met. I've been okay, busy with travelling and killing akuma, the usual. I have my own apprentice now, you know."
"After only twelve years, that's impressive." Fred took Fiona's hand and led her over to the sparring area.
"Well, it was because no one else happened to be around and then it somehow happened that Marie and I actually work pretty well together. But how are you? Something interesting must have happened over the past two years." Fiona grabbed a wooden sword off the wall of training weapons. Fred copied her. "Well, nothing special really, killing akumas. I've mostly been travelling on my own." The two of them circled around each other slightly. Fiona experimentally twirled the sword.
"Well, shall we now begin our little tradition?"
"By all means." Fred still had a grin on his face. "Let's see where we end up this time."
"Just hopefully not in the kitchen again." Fiona lunged and then immediately moved swiftly to the one side. Fred moved seamlessly to parry both of her attacks before launching his own series of jabs and slashes. "I've been waiting for this for a long time. I love our little reunion tradition." Fred said, as he was forced back as Fiona blocked his attack and retaliated. "I'm afraid this one will be a little shorter than usual -" Fiona was forced to dive to the ground and roll out of the way. "- I just had my physical, so I was running for half an hour."
With the strength only exorcists had Fiona jumped clean over Fred, twisting in the air to slash at his back. But he evaded the attack. "Well, I didn't sleep last night so it makes us even." He charged at her. "I was working on the weights for a while as well."
They continued to exchange blows for several minutes. By this time they had already moved out into the corridor. "I'm sorry, I missed your last two birthdays, by the way." Fred said apologetically.
"Yeah, me too. There was no one to have a cake fight with."
"How old are you going to be this summer?"
"19." Fiona answered shortly as she dropped to the ground and swept Fred's legs out from underneath him.
"Oh, so just one year till your 20? Do you remember our agreement?" This stopped Fiona for just long enough that she couldn't parry Fred's attack and she was forced to dodge through an open doorway. "Surely, you don't mean the one we made when I was 14."
"I mean exactly that one." Fred followed her through and Fiona ran up a few steps of the stairwell they had just entered. "Do you still want to do it?" She asked as she rained attacks down on him from her higher position. "Yes, if you still do." Fiona blushed scarlet and her sword was knocked out of her hand and up the stairs. Fred jumped up the stairs and gained the higher ground. But he had stepped on Fiona's sword. She pulled it out, unsteadying him and with a quick jab managed to knock him over.
"Who knows if we'll see each other in a year and a few months. But yeah, I'm still up for it."
Fiona ran up another flight of stairs and out into the next corridor. They were now on the bottommost of the floors designated for quarters.
"How about we make a bet?" Fred whirled the sword above his head and brought it swishing down. Fiona ducked and aimed for his stomach, but missed.
"On the outcome of the match?" Fiona was starting to pant.
"Yeah. If I win we change the time of the bargain to now and get it over with." Fred charged forward.
"And if I win?" Fiona dodged again and forced her wooden sword through one of her belt loops. Then she turned and ran along the corridors so she could quickly tie up her hair. She could have done it faster using her innocence, but that was against the rules of the game Fred and she played.
"You get to pick the date." Fred was also huffing now as he chased after. "So, even never?" Fiona asked and turned around abruptly ready to attack, but the corridor was empty and her sword swished through nothingness.
"Yes, but then I'll just have to keep making bets until I win." Fred's voice echoed slightly in the empty corridor. Fiona moved slowly back down the corridor trying to see which doorways were open.
Then someone came along behind her. One of the scientists. She looked curiously at Fiona with the wooden sword in her hands and sweating, but walked past without comment. Fiona watched attentively, surely Fred would act when someone approached his hiding place.
"Well, hello there." The voice came from behind Fiona. She turned slowly. Fred was pointing his sword at her. It was so close to her nose that she could smell the wood. Fiona moved fluidly and instinctively. She kicked him in his shoulder, which unsteadied him enough to miss. "You haven't won quite yet."
"You sure?" He jumped at her, keeping his sword safely out of the way as not to injure her. He knocked Fiona over and out into the corridor again. But Fiona managed to free herself, pull him down to the ground and point her own sword down at him. "Yes."
But then he grabbed the sword and pulled sharply away, flinging Fiona aside and she hit the wall. "Sorry." He said as he got up.
The fight continued more vigorously now, as both of them fought to win and were less scared of hurting each other now. The blur of motion lead them through corridors and into the science department. Here, they were swiftly kicked out by the head scientist by him throwing his stationary at them until they ran out in a temporary truce with their arms over their heads. They proceeded through more of the building and then they met Marie.
"Fiona! What are you doing? Your lip's bleeding." Marie yelled in surprise.
"If you have a tissue, Marie, I would be thankful. Fred, this is my apprentice, Marie. Marie, this is Fred." Fiona gaspingly introduced them as fast as possible and Fred spent an even shorter amount of time shaking Marie's hand. "Pleased to meet you. Got to go." He gasped, then followed Fiona, who had used the few seconds to put some distance between the two.
Fred then drew back his arm and threw his sword. It tangled in Fiona's legs and she fell. Fiona gasped and struggled to get to her feet. Fred walked slowly over to her then lent against the wall, panting. "Say it." he puffed.
"No way."
Fred kneeled beside her, put a hand on her back force her back onto the ground and repeated "Say it."
Fiona gazed into his eyes and sighed. She looked away. She pounded her fists against the floor frustratedly, but huffed "Urgh, fine. You win."
Fred slumped to the ground beside her. "Okay. Before we get to our bargain, I think lunch would be appropriate."
"Agreed, but let's just lie here for a minute or so longer." Fiona rolled over and whipped sweat off her face. "And a shower would be nice as well." Fred handed Fiona a tissue so she could wipe the blood off her lip. Fiona sat up painfully, now that she had stopped fighting, aches developed all over her body.
"That was harder than last time. You've become stronger." Fred continued.
"Maybe a little, I don't get tired as quickly. You still managed to beat me though." Fiona took a long steadying breath, trying to slow her heartbeat. "So, our score is still zero to about a hundred. I think we may have set a new record with the length of that match, though." She rolled onto her back. "Marie, would you help me up, please?"
Marie, who had been watching the scene develop, stuck out her hand and pulled Fiona to her feet. Fiona in turn pulled Fred to his feet.
"I think we have to ban kicks to the shoulder, though, that really hurt." He complained. "Well, then we'd have to ban us from using swords for throwing and grabbing on to any part of it that isn't the hilt." Fiona retorted. She and Fred started to drag themselves towards the canteen for a late lunch.
"Or we could just leave things like they are?"
"Yes, we should leave the rules the way they are." They asked for their meals and gulped down some water as they waited.
"I wish we could fight with our innocence." Fred said almost wistfully. "I do wonder who would have the upper hand there. Me with my lance or you with your skin."
"Well, once I've pulled the lance out of your hand it should all be rather simple."
"Yes, but you'd have to use your level 2 innocence, at least, to guard against attacks. And as a man I have superior strength." Fred almost dropped his tray as he attempted to flex. Fiona laughed. "I, however, am obviously more intelligent."
They sat down laughing and talked about their travels.
"I was a bit surprised at Marie, by the way." Fred suddenly mentioned. "She's a very quiet girl, she didn't say anything to me at all and then she slipped away."
"She seems to only talk to me. She's very shy, I think."
"Shy? From what I saw, unsociable would be a better term."
"I gather she's been through a lot. She's not comfortable being open to people about it."
"I also noticed that she pretty much told you off." Fred stuffed another forkful into his mouth and then grinned.
"Urgh, Fred, did I really need to see that? And yes, she annoys me sometimes She has a kind of motherly streak in her." Fiona carefully dabbed at her mouth with a napkin before moving on to her main dish.
"I'm glad I have Marie for company, though. It was rather lonely wandering around on my own. I missed going on missions with you and Aldea." Fiona had spoken without thinking.
Fred froze for the briefest moment at her words, but with a slight shrug he answered. "Yeah. I miss those, too. It's sad that we can't tell him how were doing."
Fiona put down her fork. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, no one blames you." Fred said offhandedly, as if he wanted to change the subject.
"I do." Fiona pushed her meal away. Then she stood up, but Fred stopped her by speaking. "Why can we still not talk about this like two adults? We have to talk about it."
"What is there to discuss?" Fiona turned away.
This time Fred grabbed her arm. "Listen to me." He hissed. "I'm no psychologist, but if you don't deal with it, it's going to kick you in the butt some day."
"Shut up, Fred!" Fiona wrenched her arm from his grip and stalked away.
"We still need to settle our bet." Fred called after her.
"We'll do it this evening." Fiona strode in the direction of the library.
If Fiona truly had had a home since she had left her parents and entered the order, then it was not her quarters, but the library. Her mother had been a scientist and had therefore kept a wide collection of books on biology and chemistry in the house library. The library in the North American Branch was not well stocked in those subjects, (Fiona suspected the books had simply been borrowed by the scientists and never returned.) but there was a complete set of 16 volumes of a scientific dictionary that Fiona liked perusing. But today it wasn't working, she put down the third volume of the set and went over to scan the shelf for another book that would interest her. She settled on a book on Nomadic Architecture. But not even the pictures, never mind the text, concerning the tents couldn't hold her interest today.
Her mind insisted on straying back to her slip of the tongue at lunch. She wondered briefly what the psychiatrist would say if he had heard her. Would he assume that Fiona was still as mentally unstable as she had been shortly after the incident? Or would he say that it was healthy that it had cropped up in conversation? He had advised Fiona of the same thing that Fred had just told her. Talk about it. Become comfortable with it. Accept it. Fiona grimaced, she could as easily accept the fact that she'd killed someone as chop of her own head.
Fiona read another half page on tents before her mind wandered again. This time it was not her old teacher who intruded on her thoughts, but again the question of her summoning back to the order and an immediate medical and psychological check up that, now that she thought about it, was barely a half year since her last one. Surely annual medical check ups should be annual not semi annual.
Also there was a rather unusually large amount of exorcists gathered in the Branch at the time.
Fiona got up and wandered aimlessly through the corridors, she estimated she still had a good two hours before she had to report to Renny Epstain. Not wanting to particularly speak to anyone she wandered down to the lower floors of the pyramid shaped building. There was nothing down there apart from some old equipment of past experiments. Fiona was not allowed into those chambers, but she could wander the surrounding corridors that would hopefully be devoid of even the ever present scientists.
She stepped forward and then pirouetted once around. But Fiona could only do a few ball room dances and a few ballet steps that were probably very flawed and after a chassé to the side she sat down against one of the walls.
She let her mind wander. Unsurprisingly, it landed on the topics that were bothering her. She closed her mind to those two topics and thought about innocence. To her it was the greatest curio in life. She had a lot of problems with it at first, but nowadays it usually worked well.
Fiona stretched out her hand in front of her and focused her thoughts. The spaces between her fingers closed up and became webbed. She'd have to remember that for the next time she swam.
Then she sensed a kind of presence.
She looked around. It was completely silent. She shook her head. Fiona returned to looking at her hands. She willed the skin between her fingers to sever and it detached itself.
She moved so she sat cross legged and closed her eyes. Breathing in slowly and deeply, then she held out her left hand, palm up. She concentrated on the image of a single flower, a daisy. Holding the image clearly in her mind, she felt as the innocence in the palm of her hand activated at her will.
Fiona slowly opened her eyes and was disappointed. What she held in her hand looked more like a spiky kind of palm tree than a graceful daisy. Her insides shrivelled a little in shame.
Again she was shaken from her preoccupation by an odd kind of presence, she stood up this time. She could neither hear, see or smell anything, but it felt like there was someone quite close. She stood stock still, listening and wary.
Seconds lengthened into minutes, but still nothing happened. Suddenly Fiona laughed out loud at herself. It was ridiculous, she was the only one down here and if there was someone else they were probably only looking for solitude, like herself.
She'd only spent about half an hour where she was, but she decided to go back up to her room rather than stay. She took the stairs, even though she knew it would take about 20 minutes to return to her quarters that way.
"Fiona, hey! Fiona!" Marie knocked on Fiona's door rather harder than was necessary. "What is it?" Fiona asked coming up behind her.
"Ms. Epstain wants to see you now." Marie was looking curiously at the door to Fiona's room. "I'm on my way." Fiona said, still watching her apprentice amusedly.
"Okay." Marie turned around. "Hey! How did you-" She glared, then blushed in embarrassment.
With a small smirk Fiona hurried off towards the head's office.
"Hello, Renny. May I come in?" Fiona knocked softly on the door frame. Renny was standing over at the window. The head of the branch looked up with her usual slightly grim on her face. "Of course, sit down."
"So, I suppose you'll tell me now, why I was recalled and given an unnecessary medical?" Fiona asked without preamble.
"First, let me go over your results." She shuffled through the a folder on her desk to the last few pages. "You seem to be on excellent form both physically and mentally. You leg and arm are both fine. Your innocence seems to be in good shape as well. Excellent."
"Thanks you, Ma'am. Renny." Fiona corrected herself.
"You have developed remarkably Fiona. I have been able to watch you grow and learn over twelve years now and you seem almost like a daughter. You certainly came with all the trouble only a child can cause."
"Umm, thank you. I suppose." Fiona was confused. Renny was not usually a sentimental person.
"It makes the next thing I have to say all the harder." Fiona was taken aback, that didn't sound promising at all. "We're sending you to Europe, Ms. Kennedy."
"Europe, Renny?"
"Yes."
"Oh." The sound hung in the air between them. It was all Fiona felt capable of saying. She wasn't quite sure what to say. She was a little surprised, but otherwise she felt nothing.
"Well, I was expecting a little more than 'oh'." Renny sounded disappointed.
"Well, I'm not sure what I'm meant to say. It's a little unexpected, I guess. I didn't know the North American Branch sent people to Europe."
"Yes, it is rather unusual. People aren't often sent to the old world."
"Am I going alone?" Fiona asked, as she could think of nothing else to say.
"I'll have someone accompany you to the harbour, just in case. For the crossing you'll be on your own." Renny looked at Fiona thoughtfully. "Don't you want to know why, Fiona?"
"No. Well, yes. Is there a specific reason?"
"As to why we're sending someone over there, yes. They're running a little short on exorcists and they have more akuma activity there than here. As to why we picked you." She paused for just a second, as if she was making a decision. "No. You're a very promising exorcist, that's all."
"When will I be leaving?"
"In 12 days." Renny looked at Fiona intently. "Try to familiarise yourself with Europe's geography." Fiona note the tone of dismissal and stood up.
"I used to live there, I'll be alright." Fiona made for the door, but then paused. "What of Marie, Renny?"
"Marie will be assigned to another exorcist and continue her training."
"I see."
"You will be back in my office in three days for more details." But Fiona barely heard her.
A/N: Yes, another little word from me. I hope I got the fight scene down well, because it was meant to reflect the words and feelings of my two little characters. I know at least one person who would tell me I'm putting too much effort into something that is virtually unimportant.
ALSO, my course is quite heavy on the workload, so I'm not sure when I'll get another chapter out. I'm trying to keep a buffer of a few chapters and right now that is pretty much used up, so the next one might be a little longer.