AN: Anyone else sick of all the Mikage-moping and excess fluff?

Let's shake things up.

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To Teito's dismay, after the luncheon with Ayanami the man started sending gifts to the house. Baskets of flowers, chocolate and other useless things started to crowd his room and because he couldn't stand looking at them anymore Teito started spending his time outside, usually in the garden.

Outside their lessons, Bishop Labrador was most often caring for the garden that grew behind the house. Apparently they weren't taking proper care of their flowers, not that Teito knew about it. He hadn't taken a good look at the garden until now and it was only thanks to Labrador's lessons that he knew what was in it.

"Teito," Labrador called, holding up a small purple flower.

"Aster," Teito told him.

"And these?"

"Geraniums."

Labrador was definitely the safest of the three bishops to spend time with, because Castor often took it as his responsibility to jam as much knowledge into Teito's head in and out of lessons, and Teito was still wary around Frau who quite honestly confused the boy to bits.

The worst Labrador did was feed him too-sweet tea and those odd colorful crackers which the bishop said were dried flowers, but Teito figured he was joking because how on earth could flowers be edible?

Teito usually got suckered into helping Labrador around the garden with the bishop quizzing him on every other plant. He was weeding the farther edge of the garden which ran straight into the gate separating the manor grounds from the forest beyond when he noticed a stick poking through the gate and lying across a patch of flowers. He reached down to pick it up and throw it away when he felt a jolt of unease go through him. Before he could figure out what was wrong, the "stick" twitched and jumped at him.

On reflex Teito jerked away and a line of fire cut across his cheek, narrowly missing his eye. The "stick" was connected to a jumble of other sticks that Teito had somehow missed in the underbrush and their paleness made them look eerily like bones. Teito's eyes went wide as he realized what he was dealing with.

Kor.

Teito stumbled back on shaky legs. The Kor was attempting to lunge at him but couldn't get its full form beyond the gate.

"Teito, you're bleeding," Labrador said suddenly, making Teito flinch.

Hurriedly he wiped at the blood on his cheek and shot the bishop a reassuring look. "It's just a scratch. It doesn't hurt." Labrador still looked concerned though and Teito was at a loss at how to reassure him.

"Kor," Labrador murmured, and then with a suddenly hard expression he got to work banishing it.

Blue zaiphon lit up the area as the Kor disintegrated and Teito found himself fixed on Labrador's glowing hands. They were manipulating pure blue zaiphon, the kind that he had seen Frau use before to spar with him.

"Why is your zaiphon blue?" he asked when Labrador finished banishing the Kor.

"Hmm?" The pale-haired bishop glanced at him in bemusement. "Ahh, yours is red, isn't it?" he said as comprehension cleared his face. "Zaiphon reflects the nature of the person using it. It's colored by intent, so when you use it to attack someone with negative intent it will show up red."

"And if you attack someone with positive intent it'll show up blue?" Teito was sure the skepticism was written on his face and Labrador smiled in response.

"In a way that's right. Using the power with the intent to harm can taint zaiphon. Your zaiphon will come up blue if your motivation to use it comes from deeper inside you." What that meant Teito didn't understand but impulsively he asked Labrador if a person could be taught to wield blue zaiphon.

His question caught the bishop off guard. "Why do you want to use blue zaiphon?" Labrador asked curiously.

Teito shrugged and glanced away. "I just wanted to try it. I've seen people use blue zaiphon before and I always wondered why." One particular person he knew had used blue zaiphon stuck out in his mind. That person had sent messages of "cheer up", "smile more" and once, an annoying "shorty" his way in glowing blue, which was so different from the violent red of Teito's zaiphon.

Labrador said gently, "The power fueling zaiphon has to come from somewhere else besides hate, anger or violence. What motivates you to fight, Teito? I think that is the question you need to answer first before all else."

Teito thought about Labrador's words later that night when he was back in his room.

"What motivates me?" Teito muttered as he stared up at the ceiling from his bed.

He thought to himself, I don't know.

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The next day, Frau sparred with Teito.

As usual, Teito's attacks didn't connect and Frau actually started looking bored in the middle of the fight.

"Fight back!" Teito growled as his lunge at the blond missed again. He was tired of being the one always attacking because none of his attacks ever hit. Frau always looked so relaxed too, like Teito wasn't anything to worry about.

It was obvious that Frau was strong but he didn't have to rub it in Teito's face.

A blow of fire-red zaiphon from Teito created a small crater in Frau's wake. As Teito backed off to take a breath, Frau started speaking. "You're always so angry when you fight. If you calm down you might actually get somewhere," the bishop advised.

Teito glowered him from behind limp, sweat-damp bangs. "What are you talking about? I'm not angry."

A blond eyebrow was cocked at him. "Aren't you?"

It was the fact that Frau had that serious light in his eyes again that Teito sighed and stopped to take an account of himself.

He was hot all over and his blood was thrumming in his veins but that was normal when exercising, wasn't it? His pulse seemed to beat a tattoo in his ears though and the heat was concentrated in his head. His hands twitched as if they wanted—what?

A sword, Teito realized with growing horror. He had used a short sword as a battle sklave when he was younger. It was standard issue and he used to hate it because it made a huge mess, much more so than regular zaiphon.

This wasn't just anger like Frau thought it was. It was bloodlust, Teito thought.

Frau stepped forward at the expression on Teito's face. "Brat, are you o—." Frau froze and spun around as he realized someone was watching them.

"Well, that wasn't very interesting," Ayanami's second-in-command Hyuuga said with a grin. "Aya-tan could probably show you guys a thing or too about sparring."

The man himself stood a little behind Hyuuga, his cold eyes locked on Frau.

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OMAKE:

Labrador had healing zaiphon, Castor had manipulation zaiphon and Frau had regular attack zaiphon.

Teito was only familiar with Frau's zaiphon since he had attack zaiphon as well. To demonstrate to Teito what their differences in zaiphon entailed, they ran a little skit.

While the bishops were explaining to Teito what the differences were they must have decided to show him instead because Castor and Frau started fighting halfway through.

Frau threw blue slices of zaiphon at Castor, who jumped out of the way and retaliated by summoning his dolls.

"This must be manipulation zaiphon," Teito wondered aloud as Castor spun the dolls after the panicked looking Frau, who did the smart thing and ran for it.

The blond bishop was doing his best to outrun the dolls and destroyed quite a few but then Castor summoned a whole army of them and promptly drowned Frau in dolls to end the fight. Frau was spitting mad but he held off on attacking Castor again to let Labrador tend to his wounds with his healing zaiphon.

"No need to be a sore loser," Castor said smugly.

"Just wait till I get you without your dolls." Frau scowled.

Teito watched avidly as the healing light from Labrador's hands neatly erased Frau's cuts and bruises as it passed over them. "So that's healing zaiphon," the boy noted quietly, nodding.

When they were done, Teito turned to the bishops and said to them happily, "I understand the differences in zaiphon now. Thank you for showing me. I thought you guys were really fighting for a moment there, but I get it now."

As Teito walked away, the bishops looked confusedly at his retreating back.

"What?" said Frau.

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AN: So I read the manga for the first time in literally years and had to catch up on about 40 chapters. Man, did things get interesting! It made me feel a bit depressed since both this and my booth story felt dull in comparison. There wasn't enough action to level out the gushy stuff I kept throwing in and I felt the plot wasn't going anywhere. Let's hope things get more interesting from here on out.