Princess Tutu

Chapter of the Fledgling

Act 18.5 最も純粋な中心

le coeur le plus pur

{ The purest heart }

I can not thank all those who review and fave and alert enough, you are all the most inspirational people and it is you who motivate me every time i think 'gee i should work on that' Thanks so much again.

Please enjoy this segment i have a lot of spare time on my hands right now so I will now officially be trying to update every week. Lastly Fakir was not in the last scene as if you'll recall Mytho and rue entered before their class started, why would fakir show up early to hang with Ahiru? Also it's not my assumption Fakir is is advanced class with Mytho and rue. Yeah he's good but they've never mentioned him being in the same class have they? But he is above Ahiru's level thus why we don't see her with him either. My writing style has changed. Bleh!

; watching tutu, I want to hug raven Mytho and Rue. Why must they be fictional!

I do not now, nor ever will or have previously owned Princess Tutu. The rights belong to Ikuko Itoh, Junichi Sato and the many other incredible minds who worked on this amazing anime!

"Miss Ahiru? Ahiru?"

Wha-what?

"Ah it looks like you're regaining consciousness"

Ahiru blinked wide blue eyes open, for a moment she couldn't think straight. Words..a voice..ideas kept coming to her. She had been dancing with Mytho...she'd been so happy?

A shadow blotted out the light, bringing her mind back to the present, dissipating the previous thoughts and banishing them to the land of the forgotten. The goose nurse's long neck bowed over, close to Ahiru's head and she honked in a reproachful way startling the young patient.

'Did you hear me?"

"W-what? Oh..no sorry" The nurse sighed and rolled her eyes unsettlingly before grabbing a notepad down from her shelf, with her beak of course, to write a note excusing Ahiru for the rest of the day.

"I said you just over did yourself. Rest a little for the remainder of the day and you should be fine." There had been other symptoms nurse Goslling had noticed, but nothing modern medicine could treat, they'd yet to invent a cure for love sickness and given that it'd supposedly been senior Mytho with her when it happened she wasn't surprised, even she got a little flustered when the youth visited her office. Though he rarely did. She tore the slip from the notebook, offering it up and flapping her feathers uselessly to usher the young girl out. It was odd but she felt almost motherly towards the girl, more so than usual. Like she'd been looking after one of her own...aha must be getting clucky.

With note in hand Ahiru exited, resting her back against the closed door. Er...but did she get out of detention now or what? She couldn't even really remember what had happened. She'd been practising and then...Mytho and then? A purple fog seemed to cloud her memory of it.

Whatever it meant something strange was definitely going on!

Eep! The thought hit her suddenly hit like an icy shower. Ah, she'd been alone with Mytho! Talking to Mytho...without fakir! Ah, he'd be so angry when he found out. Oh gosh, oh drat, what would she tell him? That's it she was getting right on damage control. Outside somewhere the clock chimed four. Ok so he'd still be somewhere around the academy...she hoped.

"Why had she done that!"

Mytho's iron grip dug into the wall like talons, his other hand clutching his shirt and twisting the material. He and Rue had left together but he'd disappeared in a blur of feathers the moment they were out of public sight, she sobbing and he refusing to acknowledge her. For the first time he felt confused about Kraehe. Her feelings had always been true and belonged to him, he cared little for the crow's feelings but they were his! It was...He gasped as purple eyed faded to honey yellow then back again. As the pain subsided a smile eased his features and a dark chuckle escaped his lips. Of course, it would be...so simple.

Rue bit back a sharp cry of pain, though nothing could cause her more hurt than the way Mytho had spoken to her, ignored her. He was so angry...so hurt. But she had saved him, he didn't know but he'd been so close to...

Pathetic that's what he must have thought of her. Clinging to some idiotic friend like Ahiru.

She had fled to the top of the west gate around town, finding solace in the silence that the blackbird escort afforded her. Through her tears she wondered where her prince may have vanished off to, the dorm perhaps? Setting to destroying anything he could get his hands on? A-after Ahiru again? She pulled her knees in tighter. What could she do...what?

Fakir stared out the window towards the horizon, a group of birds took off from the western side but they were too far for him to recognise them as anything, raven or not. It was sunset, most of the classes had left already, from the far side of the school he could hear the sound of music drifting across the courtyard. The bell tolled five. There was so much on his mind lately, the flashes from books he got occasionally, the torn pages, the feeling of being watched, Mytho and Kraehe, and now Ahiru seemed unable to look after herself...As the gentleman had begun to think he had taken to the floor in a rare display of his own prowess, finding strength in his limbs and working on balance. Ballet was like the dance of a swordsman in battle, endurance, inner strength, form. It kept him on the top of his game at least.

He dropped to the floor, slightly out of breath but satisfied, letting his thoughts focus on controlling his breathing. The shadows being cast on the walls loomed at him, longer and distorted due to the setting sun. Mytho...Ahiru..He closed his eyes, feeling an uneasy quiver in the air, he jerked his head to the left towards the windows only to find empty space. Vainly he scoured the area with his eyes, propping himself up on his elbow and standing.

"Hello? Who's there?"

There was no reply, in truth he hadn't expected one. Looking down at the ground he wondered why the feeling kept returning then leaving as it did, more Raven tricks?

Speak of the devil...

From the opposite side a bemused laughter carried across the tiles. From the shadow Mytho brazenly walked out, his hands slowly clapping in mock approval. The two hadn't been alone in the same room since Fakir had returned to school after being accused of pushing the senior out a second story window. A real friendship ender really.

"Bravo Fakir, bravo..."

"Mytho..." Fakir greeted his friend with a weary caution, they both knew Fakir was unable to fight for fear of hurting the true prince, but wasn't stupid enough to let his guard down around anything with an affiliation with The Raven.

"I didn't think you'd be here. Alone."

The friendly tone was wasted on Fakir's steady features and stony facade. But what was Mytho doing here? Kraehe wasn't around he noticed. The slim pale haired boy came to lean against one of the banisters, back towards the mirrored wall. For a moment the two simply faced off, neither breaking the palpable intensity within the air.

"What do you want!" Fakir spat at last, unable to control his feelings..to see Mytho staring with such coldness, emptiness, the good within him all but diminished. Mytho's smile seemed to grow because of it.

"Have you seen Ahiru?"

fakir flinched at the sudden mention of the duck turned girl, recalling how she had hurried into his kitchen all flustered only yesterday ranting about the persons now before him. He had suspected...Was Mytho after another heart so soon? And what did Ahiru have to do with...

"Ahiru!" The thought suddenly clicked within him. A fight, between Rue and Mytho which had ended when Mytho had talked to Ahiru? He frowned, taking an offensive stance between the doorway and Mytho, aiming to intimidate with his proximity, though the prince laughed at the rouse.

"Have you seen her?" He repeated the question, rhetorical now that the knight's expression had given away his sentiments. He chuckled mirthlessly once more, twisting to the side of Fakir with ease, yet maintaining that frightening grace that fell to him so easily with the raven's blood within his heart.

"What a useless knight. Well...if you see her tell her I'll be waiting by the lake. She's usually around you, isn't she?"

Message delivered Mytho strolled out the room leisurely, the two keeping a close eye on each other until the oak door slammed shut between the two. Fakir waited a moment, listening intently for the fluttering of feathers falling through the air. He opened the door ajar, his toe nudging the stem of a black feather as he stepped into the hallway, the sun now falling at an alarming rate. He had to find Ahiru first, It seemed almost a life and death situation if he wasn't the first to get to her!

A slow mirthless grin masked the normally uninterested pale feature of Mythos, watching the back of the ill fated, yet incompetent, knight run down the hall at full speed. One down...

Kreahe had stepped down from the high walls of the gate, her hair falling in tumbles behind her, the form of Rue once more. The avian escort cawwed overhead as the night began to descend. Another day, and no hearts once more, though it seemed as if her prince had his way there might never come a day where they could all at last be happy. Father, Herself and Mytho...happy. She shook her head, it was too soon to think of such things and too much trouble was brewing. She wandered through the town, reaching the darkened halls of her own feathered dorm and collapsed on her bed. What use was being Kraehe if she couldn't have the prince. What use was kreahe if she couldn't stop him eating Tutu's heart? What use was kreahe! At this last thought she thrust herself upwards, taking off her shoe and throwing it against the wall, though there was little satisfaction in the dull thud it made on contact.

What use was Kraehe? What use?

"What's wrong?"

The lilting voice of her prince came stealthily through the door, his figure following soon after. She noticed the unbecoming smile, the one that usually preluded to a heart snatch or an infamous rage. She bulked at the unusual cheer, raising her eyes to look at his striking figure half heartedly. The day thus far would have predicted his actions to be full of malice and spite, yet no such aura emanated off him.

The soft whoosh of the cushion in the corner of the room let her know he had taken a seat, she slipped off the bed and slid out of her remaining shoe, sauntering over to pick up the other and putting the pair together, Mytho pouring himself a glass of water from the jug kept on the stand next to the chair. Long ago she had prepared a gem called love there, bathing it in raven blood. It had seemed so simple then.

"There's a heart..."

"Mm?" Kraehe turned curiously towards him, tilting her head to the side. In response Mytho looked bored and disinterested.

"I don't feel well...my...aah ARG!" His eyes clenched shut, doubling over as his hands scrambled desperately at his chest. The colours of his eyes blazed gold for but a few moments, long enough for him to look at her with a gaze that beheld all his suffering, before they became a light show of purple and yellow. A dark and a light.

"Rue.." He gasped in a final attempt, his form slumping against the fragile frame of the chair while his form trembled as if blown by a gale.

"A heart...By the lake." He let his gaze fall on her. Kraehe, her eyes wide with terror and concern, fallen to her knees and soothing him with words of a kindly future. Promising yes, she'd go to the lake and try..try for him, for father. He felt the touch of her gentle hand alleviate, the cry of her pain as flash of light as she stepped into black shoes that tore at her skin like thorns before she flew ff into the night. Princess Kraehe, off to do her prince's bidding.

He opened one perfectly clear Amethyst eye, easily shoving the prince's pure intentions aside in the same manner he had done before again and again whenever Tutu showed up. Did she still think him so week? Pathetic.

Outside the window he noticed a starless sky under the watch of a new moon. Perfect darkness. A perfect night to extinguish the light of a perfectly pure heart.

"Ahiru..." He whispered, almost feverishly, licking his lips like a mongrel starving for flesh. "Ahiru!" This time a shout, maniacal laughter following and echoing about the now empty room, the wind casing the feathers about the small abode to rise in the current then drift slowly back down to the now unoccupied space.