Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu was created by Tanigawa Nagaru and Noizi Ito. Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai was created by Hirasaka Yomi and Buriki. To-LOVE-Ru was created by Hasemi Saki and Yabuki Kentaro. School Days and associated properties were created by 0verflow. Other series parodied here were created by other authors. This is parody, protected speech.
Diabolical Styles
Chapter Ten: Golden Darkness
The room had sat in shadowy stillness for some time. The posters which had once bedecked its walls were gone, now, and the closets and dressers were emptied. Despite being every bit as warm as the rest of the house, the absence of the human touch left it seeming colder.
Then the door swung inwards, letting the hallway lighting shine in to warm it, as two young men entered. "Well, here it is," said the slightly older. "It used to be my older sister's room, but she's headed off to Teitou, so we let it out to students who need a place to stay."
"That'd explain the sign," the younger said, tapping a marking on the door which read "Summer" in English characters. "I'm surprised, though. Isn't there a pretty good college attached to the school, here?"
"Well, it's pretty good, but ..." Hinata Fuyuki paused, as though considering his words far more carefully than one would expect. "Sometimes, it's nice to get away from home, don't you think?" he said at last.
The new boarder, who had honestly just been making small talk, didn't know how to respond to that, and so just shrugged as he set down his canvas bag. "I appreciate it, anyway," he added at last.
Fuyuki smiled at him. "Glad to hear it. We'll try to make your stay a pleasant one, Katagiri-san."
His lips quirked as he began to suspect that he was going to be repeating himself quite a bit over the next few days. "I actually don't go by that name," he said.
"Oh, my apologies. What do you go by, then?"
The temptation to answer 'John Smith' again was strong, but he decided to be a little less snarky. "Actually, a lot of my friends call me Kyon," he admitted.
"Not the strangest name I've ever heard," Fuyuki assured him. "Need any help getting unpacked?"
"No, thanks. And I'll probably be hitting the hay right afterwards, so, good night."
Fuyuki nodded, then paused as he went to leave, holding the door behind him. "Oh. Um, I should probably warn you that this house has some ... oddities. My parents were only able to afford it because of them, but ... well, you may hear some unusual noises. I hope they won't disturb you too much, though." And with that, he departed.
'Kyon', as he was in fact called by a few of his associates - he was being a bit dishonest to call them friends - stared at him. "I'm boarding in a haunted house," he muttered to himself. "Of course I am." Deep sigh. "What was I thinking, coming back here?"
In fact, the house was haunted, but the residents had long since made peace with the ghost of the girl who'd been imprisoned there, long ago. Fuyuki had been thinking of other sources of noises when he warned the boarder, and he was still thinking of him as he climbed down the ladder to a tiny basement corridor, then opened the star-symboled door at its end.
"Okay," he announced to those within the room beyond. "We've got a new boarder, so standard rules apply. Keep it down, I'll bring your meals down to you in the evenings, and you don't have to do chores until he leaves for school in the morning. Anti-barrier at all times."
"Of course, Koyuki-dono," replied the individual who had been living under their roof for considerably longer than they'd been renting out Natsumi's room.
"It's probably for the best," mused one of the other tenants, seated in front of a computer. "We're getting chatter that Golden Darkness is going to be visiting the area. It's probably best to stay out of sight, unless you want to attract her interest." He snickered at that idea, and also because that's what he did.
"Golden Darkness?" Fuyuki asked, curiously. "Who's that?"
There is an island in the Pacific where men do not go.
Well, except when they did, since there were a few companies that were aware of this island and what lived there, and paid mercenaries very well to go there and guard 'resource acquisition teams'. And except for the people who lived there, behind very strong barriers of ancient manufacture that kept the ... animals ... at bay. Usually, at least. But neither these latter-day adventurers nor the most restless of the natives would have ever thought about approaching the tallest mountain of the island's interior chain, with its odd geological formation that might, before various earthquakes and landslides, have resembled a skull.
That was why she chose to live there. Privacy.
She opened the rest pod's lock from the inside and sat up, allowing her long golden hair to flow down her back for a moment, then swivelled so that her bare feet rested on the cavern floor. At the moment, really, all that she wanted to do was to return to her sleep. But she'd agreed to the contract, a few days ago, and now the computer installed in one of the cavern's corners was signalling her that the first half of the fee had been paid. Which meant that she was obligated to fulfill her end of the deal, and one Yuuki Rito of Japan was about to experience a terminal injury of some sort.
She sighed, then got up to walk over to where she'd left her clothes in a neat pile before getting undressed for bed. Panties first, of course, then her tunic and cape. The boots went on before she started to add the belts that she routinely wrapped around her legs. Last of all were the star-shaped pendant and the decorations for her hair. Those latter were superfluous, really, since her hair always obeyed her will to stay out of her eyes without such reinforcement - but having started wearing them, a decade or so before, she'd grown accustomed to having them.
Dressed, she took a moment to compose herself.
As often happened, when she took such a moment, odd thoughts drifted through her brain. She wondered what the point of accepting this contract had been. She didn't need the money - she paid no property taxes, she had enough saved up to pay for her minute food costs and rare emergencies for at least a century, if not more. And her previous exploits had secured her reputation, and she cared nothing at all for extending it further than it already extended. So then, why was she doing this?
Because it was what she did, came the answer, as always. On a level so fundamental that it trumped even her lost memories, she was someone who accepted pay to bring about someone else's notions of 'justice'. (Had she been one to laugh, that notion would have done it.) That was all that there was. That was all that there would ever be.
She shook her head to dispel the odd thoughts, rose again, and - as she always did when she left this home she'd claimed - glanced at the enormous skeleton of the aerie's previous inhabitant. Curiosity, when she'd first moved in, had led her to investigate that decoration, and she'd learned that it had been installed by the last outsider to visit this mountain, returning something he'd taken away, of sorts. And she'd learned a fair bit about that episode in the process.
"It was beauty killed the beast," she murmured again, as her shoulders sprouted angelic wings and she prepared to take flight. And she thought, again, Which am I?
"I think something might be wrong with Run," Lala said that day at lunch.
"Understatement," Rito muttered as he chewed his own store-bought bread. Mikan hadn't made lunch for them today. Mikan hadn't done quite a few things that she normally did that morning.
"I didn't quite hear that," Lala said, blinking.
Rito sighed inwardly. It was, from a certain perspective, sort of amazing how, in just a few weeks, he'd managed to learn so much of Lala's private language. For (an immediately relevant) example, when she said 'I didn't quite hear that', what she really meant was, 'I am generously granting you the opportunity to revise your previous statement so that I will not be outraged by it.' Rito could understand that perspective even if he didn't share it. He found it a little depressing, to be honest.
Notwithstanding his momentary depression, he took advantage of her generous offer. "Um, I said, what do you mean by that?"
Lala apparently judged the diplomatic response to be plausible enough for her to continue. "Well, it's been a few days since you met her and found out about Run. I expected, after that, for her to show up again in fairly short order to try and steal you away again, since she doesn't normally give up so easily."
With some difficulty, Rito stayed calm. "Really," he said.
"Oh, yes. It's one of Ren and Run's most admirable traits, really. They don't know how to give up. Bloody-minded stubbornness is almost the national character of Memorze, and those two exemplify it. It can be a little annoying, sometimes, but also very appealing. Most of the humans I've come to admire have the same quality," she concluded.
Rito had lost his appetite. "Um. You admire that in them."
"Well, yes. Determination is a trait worthy of -"
"Lala," he interjected. "I'm ... I'm not really sure how to go about asking this. When, uh, when you talked about how you've had marriage meetings with various ... people, and how that worked out for you -" Here Rito paused, as the words 'sentient slime mold' floated through his brain and he tried, without success, to get them out again.
After a moment, in which all Lala did was look at him with her usual expression of sweet innocence, he drew in a breath and pushed on. "Did you and Ren, um, ever -"
"Oh, wow. No, no, no," Lala replied, shaking her head as she grinned broadly. "I'm sure he'd have been enthusiastic about the idea, but no, our families are allied but not that allied."
For reasons that Rito didn't understand, he found himself sighing in relief. Short-lived relief. "Um. Okay, then, why are you getting upset that Run hasn't shown up to try and -"
"I'm not upset. I'm just ... well, a little confused. When someone you care about starts acting uncharacteristically, wouldn't you wonder why they were doing it?"
Rito looked down at his lunch for a moment.
"You should go and talk to her," he said.
"You think so?" Lala asked. "The best time to do it would be right now, and that would mean leaving you alone for the rest of lunch. I don't want to do anything that might make you uncomfortable, Rito."
He stared at her in silence.
"What?" she asked after a moment.
"Just go and talk to her," Rito said, since he suspected she would either feign a lack of understanding when he tried to point out the absurdity of that statement, or - more frighteningly - really not understand it. He wasn't sure what would be worse.
She was making him uncomfortable, wasn't she? She didn't want that, and it made her unhappy. Lala wasn't sure what it said about her that she found herself worrying about one friend as she went to check up on another one. For that matter, she wasn't sure what it said about her that she'd started thinking of Rito as a friend.
In the privacy of her own thoughts, she'd never seriously thought of him as husband material, whatever she might have said aloud. In romantic terms, he was, at best, a brief interlude and a midsummer night's fling. And of course, he was a useful pawn in her plan to escape from her father's scheming. Useful pawns were to be cherished, honored, and then sacrificed when the time came, in order to accomplish the strategy for which they'd been cultivated.
They were not supposed to become friends. And yet, here she was, thinking of Rito in those terms.
When had it happened? She had been fond of the boy from their first meeting, for his obvious qualities (among which was, of course, his usefulness) and despite his equally-obvious flaws. And yet, the previous night, as she'd watched him worrying over his little sister and - for this was the truly interesting part - completely forgetting about the interesting little drama Lala had set up by subtly encouraging and responding to his father's mild and insincere flirtations, she'd found a genuine note of empathy in her own heart. He worried, and so she worried for him.
It was rare for a mazoku to weep. It was beyond rare for a mazoku to weep because another wept.
With a vague wrench, it came to Lala that she didn't really have very many friends. Those she had were those she had been allowed to have as part of her father's schemes, and, actually, she supposed Ren and Run should be included under that header. They were the children of her father's allies, carefully cultivated to ensure their continuing alliance to his dynasty, as represented by herself. And she was well aware that they counted as pawns on his board, if not hers.
But that was a good thing! Or so she told herself. Because she was moving herself off of that board, which would, logically, pull them off as well - or so she planned. But the thought that maybe moving them off his board and onto her own wasn't actually an improvement gnawed at her, and the fact that she found herself worrying about whether she was making Rito uncomfortable was disturbing evidence that it definitely wasn't.
And why was it taking so blessed long to find Run, anyway? Was this campus really so large?
"Hrmmm," she said aloud as she ran briskly. It was as close to an expression of annoyance as she would ever allow herself.
A moment later, and she was sure that Run was nowhere to be found on campus. Or to be precise, she was not anywhere that Lala had looked at the time when she'd looked. The possibility that she might have missed her by seconds increased Lala's frustration, and so she headed back towards the school building to check on Run's classroom. That had been the first place she'd looked, of course, but now that the end of lunch was swiftly approaching, surely, wherever Run had been, she would go back there now!
Or not, she decided as she threw the classroom doors open and peered within.
"Uh ... can I help you with something?" asked the fairly cute human female with a pony tail and odd pinkish eyes who'd been seated nearest the door, chatting with several of her friends.
"Run Elise Jewelria," Lala said brusquely. "This is her class, correct?"
"The foreign chick?" asked her green-eyed friend with a headband. "Why do you want - um," she concluded as the obvious fact that she was addressing another such 'foreign chick' imposed itself on what could charitably be called her mind.
"I'll take that as a yes," Lala said.
"It is a yes," interjected the pony-tailed girl. "But she's not here today ... she hasn't been in class for a while now."
Something was wrong, then. Lala felt herself frowning, despite years of training to avoid that as damaging to her features. "Do any of you happen to know where she lives?" she asked, and read the answer on the faces of those she addressed. No, of course they didn't. Security concerns. How silly of her.
"Is this about Jewelria-san?" asked a voice from behind Lala. "Because Rika lives in the same building."
Lala whirled, looked at the petite girl in glasses and a labcoat (?) who was approaching the doorway. "You do?" she asked, somewhat redundantly. There was no reason that someone would spontaneously lie about such matters, after all.
When the person using the odd habit of referring to herself in the third person nodded, but before she could speak, Lala pressed on, "Would you be willing to take me there? I believe I must speak with her."
"Um, you mean after school?"
Lala had meant immediately, in fact, but she paused before saying so. Not chess pieces, she reminded herself. Lives of their own. "Yes, that would be most gracious of you. I will see you then," she concluded, and walked quickly to her own classroom.
"Rika didn't actually say yes," Shiguma Rika (for indeed it was she) said somewhat belatedly. "And, you know, Jewelria-san is in the student directory, so ... um. Rika suspects she is not listening, or perhaps even out of earshot. Ah well."
"What was that all about?" Otome Katou asked of her friends, who of course shrugged.
Rika, who could have answered, took a certain obscure pleasure in not doing so as she returned to her seat.
Lala returned to class just seconds before the bell rang with the most unhappy expression on her face that Rito had ever seen there. She took her seat and sat through the lessons with that same unhappy look, shaking her head when he turned to whisper a question about what she'd found. Even during the break between classes, she wouldn't talk.
Not until the end of classes. "I'm going to Run's dwelling with one of her classmates," she informed him. "I'm sorry, Rito, but you're going to have to make your way home alone. I hope that won't be troublesome for you."
Answering that it would be significantly less troublesome for him than her accompanying him would have been too cruel under the circumstances, or ever, really. "Um, yeah, okay." He wasn't really sure what prompted him to do what he did next. "Are you sure you don't want me to come along -"
"That's very sweet of you!" Lala replied, her upset face easing just a bit. "But no, I think it would be best if I handled this on my own. The dispute between myself and her doesn't really involve you except as an excuse, Rito, so it's better to do things this way."
Rito wasn't all that happy about being thought of that way, but he let her go with just a wave. It wasn't until she was on her way that he realized that she had clean-up duty ... and, with a sigh, volunteered to fill in for her.
"Thank you sooo much, Yuuki-kun," Asakura Ryoko said, smiling sweetly at him. Just as planned, she thought. Well, that's one of the several things that she thought at that particular moment.
Eventually, he was done with that, and he started to make his way home alone. He hoped that by the time he was home, Mikan would be in a better mood - or, okay, that wasn't very likely, but at least a mood more receptive to talking about the situation. That was probably the best that he could hope for, and the best that he could do.
It was funny, in a not-terribly funny way, that the boy who freaked out about talking to a girl was hoping that he could help his sister by talking to her.
On the whole, he put that more in the not-actually-funny column.
Focused on these weighty thoughts, he jostled one of his fellow pedestrians. "Excuse me," the older man said before heading off.
"Uh, sorry," Rito called after him, shaking his head to clear it. Then he blinked. "Hey, mister, you forgot your -" he called again, but broke off when it became clear that the man was out of earshot.
Shaking his head, Rito picked up the man's hat - a white number, fairly old fashioned - a fedora, he thought it was called. Maybe he'll come looking for it. Maybe I should hold onto it for him, he mused. After a few more idle speculations, he set it on his own head. It suited him, he thought.
"When the hunter is ready, the prey will appear."
She supposed that adage wasn't really in keeping with the Buddhism she'd studied off and on for the last few decades, but then again, neither was "when the student is ready, the master will appear." (That came from 19th century Theosophy, which she'd rejected as soon as she first encountered it, in the 19th century.) Yet there was, as far as she was concerned, genuine wisdom in the message of patience it contained. And so she was ready to wait until her target came into sight, rather than seeking him out.
The patience was difficult. She didn't like cities - hence her residence on an officially uncharted island - and only visited them for one of three reasons. The main reason, the most frequent motivation, of course, was because a contract required her to do so. Secondarily, she occasionally visited a number of cities where she had post offices boxes rented in order to pick up deliveries from Cyclops, the online bookstore. And more rarely still, she went so that she could smell food.
That was what she was doing now. She was standing not far from a takoyaki stand, breathing in the scent of food cooking. It was pleasant. She took care to be standing far enough away that she wouldn't be in the way of any actual customers and that the owners wouldn't get annoyed that she wasn't buying anything. It wasn't from a lack of interest, but from the fact that she never carried any money with her.
It was mouthwatering, this scent. And she, who could control every function of her body, took a strange sort of pleasure in surrendering to this primal response.
And then a ghost walked in front of her.
She blinked. Sven? she thought.
Who's Sven? she wondered a second later, as the young man whose profile she'd just seen recognized that she was staring at him and turned to look at her with both eyes, dispelling an illusion for no reason that she understood.
The boy looked at her, blinking. "Um ... are you okay?" he asked.
Ah, now I recognize him, she thought, suppressing the momentary confusion. Target acquired.
As she'd thought that, he'd looked from her to the takoyaki stand. Abruptly nodding in assumed understanding, he walked over and purchased some, then came over and offered it to her. "You're hungry, right? Oh, wait. Probably don't speak Japanese. Um." He proceeded to mime eating, then added, in fractured English, "Good-oh food-oh!"
"I do speak Japanese," she said. Why am I talking to him?
"Oh," he said, flushing. "Um, well, would you -"
"Yes," she said. "Thank you, Yuuki Rito."
"Oh, it's nothing really, don't um wait wait wait," he said as he handed her the fishcake, hesitating but not enough for her to fail to take it from his hand. "Um ... how do you know my name?"
"It was on the contract," she told him, between bites of the food.
"... contract?" he asked.
"To kill you."
Somewhat surprisingly, he did not panic on hearing that. He nodded. "Uh-huh," he said. "I don't suppose that this counts as you eating my salt."
"... excuse me?" she asked, frostily. The contract hadn't mentioned that he was so ... ecchi.
From the facial expression on the small blonde girl in the strange outfit, Rito deduced that he had inadvertently offended. He honestly thought it was a bit absurd that he should care about offending someone who had just announced that they were going to kill him, but ... well, absurd as it was, the impulse to try and avoid upsetting girls had been pounded into him by his mother (back before she became a voice on the phone) and later by Mikan as well. It was too late to change it now.
Of course, it might be too late for a lot of things, but still - "Um, that came out wrong, I was talking about hospitality and not. um, whatever -"
The frosty expression on the girl's face abruptly thawed. If anything, she looked a bit embarrassed herself. "Oh. The custom of - yes, I see what you mean. I was under the impression that you'd spent enough time around those involved in the shadow worlds to pick up the other meaning of that phrase."
"Ah-hah, no, not, not really. Um, so, then -"
"No, it doesn't apply. I'm still going to kill you. But I will try to make it relatively quick and painless, provided you aren't foolish enough to resist."
Rito flinched. "Um, listen, before you go doing that, could we -" He broke off as he realized that the confrontation between the two of them had an audience, made up of the other customers of the taiyaki stand and a few other pedestrians. It occurred to Rito that the young lady who was apparently here to assassinate him might - actually probably did - look like an outraged schoolgirl threatening a perverted older boy to them. Well, maybe that was just his complexes talking. "- could we discuss this a bit more privately?" he concluded, a bit weakly.
"I suppose so, but I'm not sure what you think you're going to accomplish that way," the girl said carelessly.
"Give him heck, girl!" called out one of the bystanders.
Apparently, Rito's complexes were far more accurate than he'd realized.
"An interesting outdoor gymnasium," the girl said as she surveyed the empty playground they'd found after a few moments walk. "I do hope you haven't cached weapons here or something of that nature. It will make this go very hard for you."
"Okay, two questions," Rito said, flushing as he followed her. "One, who the heck are you, and two, who the heck do you think I am that I'd do something like that?"
She turned back to look at him, her dark red eyes momentarily contemplative. "Yes, I suppose that it is right that you know the name of the one who will destroy you." Ignoring Rito's face fault, she continued. "In your language, I am known as Konjiki no Yami - the Darkness that is Golden."
"Because of your hair," he guessed.
"... actually, the name arose from a somewhat embarrassing episode where I was bathed in the golden blood of a gigantic vampiric entity which I had just terminated, and had not yet adequately cleaned myself when I accepted the reward for doing so."
"Yeah, I can see how that might happen," Rito sighed.
"As to your other question, you are the Yuuki Rito who has won the heart of Lala Satalin Deviluke, first princess of the Deviluke Empire, and thus obviously a warrior of remarkable skill and cunning, as she would doubtless accept nothing less. Correct? I do hope that this is not a case of mistaken identity, I hate those," Golden Darkness - as he now thought of her - said with what could only be called a pout on her face.
The temptation to disavow any knowledge of Lala was strong in him, but Rito resisted the impulse. It would be better to try and clarify the situation, right? (Go ahead and laugh.) "Well, part of that is sort of true, but - look, I'm not any kind of fighter, I don't know what Lala is thinking acting like we're married, but -"
"Dear me," said Golden Darkness, very dryly. "Are you saying that I have been lied to by my employer?"
"Pretty much, yes." A wild hope blazed up in his heart. "Does that mean you're going to break the -"
"Contract?" she concluded. "Oh, wouldn't it be a wonderful world, if I could get out of a contract just because the other party was a bit misleading. No, but you can take whatever comfort you like in the fact that I'll be extorting a much larger amount on the back half of my payment." Her golden hair abruptly surged up, and took the form of gigantic blades. "Any more questions?"
"Nope," said Rito, and ran.
"... some people always have to try to roller-skate uphill," she mused sadly, before heading after him.
"So you know about Run?" Lala asked, a bit surprised, as the two of them approached the apartment building in question.
"Well, Rika cannot claim intimate familiarity with the subject, unfortunately, but Rika is well aware that the family name 'Jewelria' is not typical of any nation presently extant on Earth," the young girl explained. "Through association with a certain group of, um, shall we say, students of the unusual here on campus, Rika has learned a fair bit about the, shall we say, hidden nations. It's kind of obvious, really."
"I'm not sure I agree with that," Lala mused. "I've noticed that a rather large number of people in this place are very good at ignoring the obvious, or at least at denying it."
Rika shurgged. "They do so for their own protection, mostly. For all that has been done to try and persuade them that they are not the center of the universe, the people of this planet, and this nation in particular, deep down still believe this to be the case. Ignoring evidence that this is not the case is safer - for both themselves and for those who represent that evidence! - than confronting it."
Now Lala blinked. When the girl didn't speak of herself in the third person - or rather, said things that didn't require her to do so - she sounded far more mature and knowing.
"Of course, there is more to it than that internal reality censor," Rika continued, apparently oblivious to Lala's speculative gaze in her direction. "While the 'CGI excuse' is not all that functional anymore -"
"Excuse me?"
"In previous years, the faculty would explain unusual phenomena by stating that it was actually just CGI."
"... seriously?"
"Rika can personally attest to it."
Lala shook her head as they reached the building entrance. "But setting aside the implausibility of that notion, you were saying that it doesn't work anymore, so -"
"- so, they are known to be looking for a newer explanations. Gas leaks of hallucinogenic substances, you are unconscious and actually experiencing a virtual reality - Rika has been called in to consult on the feasibility of that one - and so on and so forth."
The princess frowned as she followed her into the lobby. "They seem deeply invested in keeping people ignorant," she said.
Rika shrugged as she pressed the elevator call button. "There is a school of thought which holds that people learn better through overcoming obstacles to learning, rather than having information freely made available to them," she said mildly.
"I don't think I subscribe to that point of view," Lala said, still frowning. "It seems a tad self-serving. Your associates in that club you mentioned, do they -"
"In theory, they support the school policy, or at least do not actively oppose it," Rika explained. She eyed Lala. "They are, moreover, deeply invested in the 'magic' paradigm."
Now Lala grunted with obvious disdain. Satisfied that she'd kept Lala away from the Iridians, and - interestingly - having demonstrated the validity of the idea of education through overcoming barriers, Rika rode in the elevator beside her with a calm heart.
A few moments later, the two of them were standing outside the door. "Thank you for your help, but I think I can handle things from here," Lala told her.
"Rika feels a certain obligation to remain," Rika told her.
"Very well," Lala said. She'd have to be careful not to mention Run's secret, since she didn't think this girl, however well-informed she might be, would know anything about it. But that shouldn't be too much of a hassle. Thus resolved, she knocked on the door.
There was no immediate response. When the lack of an immediate response turned into a several minute long delay, Lala knocked again, just a bit more forcefully. "Ren?" she called out. "It's me. I'd like to talk to you, and I know that you're not out at the moment because I can hear you breathing. Please don't make me break the door down."
"You won't really -" Rika asked.
Lala regarded her with a cool expression and a raised eyebrow.
"... Rika is kind of sorry Rika asked."
Again, there was no response. Lala sighed, and knocked one more time. "Last warning," she announced under the knocking. "On a count of three. One. Two -"
The instant before she was to say three, the door swung open, and Run, wearing a house coat over a pair of panties and nothing else, glared out at her. "Haven't you wrecked my life enough without getting me in trouble with my landlord?" the girl hissed. There were dark circles beneath her eyes that spoke of the effects of sleeplessness.
"I'd have paid for the door out of my allowance," Lala answered serenely.
"Of course you would," Run said disgustedly.
"May we come in?" Lala continued, ignoring the response. "Your classmate is worried about you, as am I."
Run barely spared Rika a glance. "Sure," she said sarcastically. "Why not?" She held the door wide open and gestured for them to make themselves at home.
The lights were out, but a tiny trickle of light streamed in through the window shades, dimly illuminating a living room without much in the way of decorations and a kitchenette with a sink full of dirty dishes.
"I'd offer you a chair, but that's not the local custom and anyway I'm lying about offering you a chair," Run said as she stumbled towards the fridge. "Would you like a drink?"
"Yes, I -"
"Then you should go elsewhere and get one."
Lala coughed. "Run, you're being extraordinarily rude."
Run slammed the fridge door shut, then turned to look at Lala with a smug look. "Ruder than you could be?" she asked, before twisting open the cap of a bottle of juice and starting to down it.
"... if you want me to say that you're exceeding me in deliberate rudeness," Lala continued after a moment, "then I'll admit that you probably are, at that. But -"
"But you could be much ruder without even trying this hard, right, right," Run sighed, rubbing the bottle against her forehead. "I really should turn on the air conditioner, utility bill or no utility bill," she muttered to herself.
Lala considered pointing out that that had not been what she was about to say, but it seemed likely to just speed up the argument. "Run, I came to find out why you haven't been in school. I'm sure you've already had a visit from your teacher, and possibly others, but -"
"I played the foreign-type obligations card," Run explained.
"The what now?" Lala asked.
"I'm a foreign exchange student in a country where nobody knows anything about my homeland," Run continued to explain. "If I claim that I have some sort of personal obligations that are keeping me from going to class, I'll get the benefit of the doubt for a while."
"... I suppose that does stand to reason," Lala said, after a glance at Rika, who just shrugged. "So the question, then, is why are you really avoiding school?"
"Why should I tell you?" the green-haired girl asked belligerently.
"Because I asked," Lala replied simply. "And I deserve an honest answer from you," she pressed on, cutting off a sharp reply from Run. "Whatever else we might have been with each other, whatever grudge you might feel, you cannot say that I have ever lied to you." Another glance at Rika. "If it involves matters you'd rather not discuss in front of -"
"No, it's not because four of the girls in your class and now one in mine know that I turn into a male entity with a separate personality when I sneeze," Run snapped.
Lala made a mild choking noise.
Beside her, and very oddly considering the low light level in the apartment, Rika's glasses were gleaming. "Reeeally?" she asked, quietly.
"Yes, really," Run snapped, glaring at Rika.
"Fascinating! Has this ever happened when you were being intimate with a male? Actually, forget I asked that question. Would you be willing to let me observe this process while you were being intimate with a male? I could supply pepper to facilitate the sternutation."
Lala and Run both stared at her for a few moments.
"Dust might work, too," Rika added.
Shaking her head, Lala turned back to Run. "All right, clearly the thought of your people's greatest taboo becoming known no longer bothers you as it once did. I'm not sure why that happened, but I hope you'll believe me when I say that I'm glad you're no longer self-conscious about it."
"Stuff your gladness," Run retorted.
"In any event," Lala continued, doing her best to ignore that retort, "if that's not the reason for your refusal to attend classes, then what is?"
"Why do you care?" whined Run.
"Because I care about you, Run!" the princess answered. "Yes, before you say it, I haven't always been the best friend that I could be. I am somewhat selfish."
Run made a choking noise.
"Very well, I am ... quite ... selfish. But I do care about you and Ren, and I want you to be happy, and the fact that you are giving up something that apparently made you quite happy like studying here at Mahora bewilders me and I want to understand why my friend is unhappy so that I can help you!" She breathed heavily after that outburst.
"Now that I think about it, a change in lighting is also said to be a cause of sneezing in some people," Rika mused out loud as she reached for the light switch.
Run ignored her. "You want to help me," she said in a dull, angry tone. "That is hilarious. That is the most fucking hilarious -" The lights came on, and she couldn't ignore that. "I'm not going to sneeze!" she yelled in Rika's direction. Back to Lala, with a bit more intensity. "For years, Ren tries to get your attention, and never manages it, and then, just as he and I are finally in agreement about avoiding you, you show up to try and help me. It's enough to drive one mad!"
And then she blinked. "That's it," Run continued, a bit more quietly, with an air of one receiving a revelation. "I shall go mad. I shall abandon all that I have striven for in the past, and be thought insane as a consequence. It makes sense. Ren who always wanted to be by your side now wishes to avoid you, as I always have, so I shall oppose his goals and embrace you!"
"Uh ... you mean, metaphorically, right?" Lala asked, feeling just a touch of apprehension.
"No," said Run, and shrugged her shoulders to let the housecoat drop to the floor.
Lala found herself startlingly unprepared for both that action and her own reaction to it. She had no particular nudity taboo, and preferred to wear the minimum amount of clothing required for the environment. (Had she her druthers, she might have emulated one of her heroes and worn nothing more substantive than a bikini at all times.) So the dilation of her pupils, the flush of her cheeks, and the increased difficulty of her respiration when Run exposed her breasts came as an additional unpleasant surprise.
As has already been mentioned, Devilukes didn't cope well with surprises.
"Not metaphorical, no," Run said, a bit huskily, as she moved implacably towards Lala.
"Wait -" the girl finally managed to say.
"No," Run refused, and closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around Lala's form and pressing her lips up against hers. Lala's mouth, open as she tried to speak, allowed Run's tongue entry, so that the two tongues could begin to wrestle against each other and -
"Activating rape defense mode," declared Peke.
Run only had time to make a confused grunt before Lala's valet ran several hundred milliamps of electricity through the outer surface of Lala's clothing and into anything which was in contact with it - which mostly consisted of Run at the moment. She briefly convulsed before her muscles relaxed and she collapsed to the floor, obviously unconscious.
"Peke," Lala gasped.
"Lala-sama's anti-shock implant is still functional," the valet declared.
"It would seem so," Lala said, feeling the back of her neck with one hand. "Thank you, Peke. That was ... regrettable," she said at last, after searching for an appropriate word.
"Is she -" Rika asked, coming forward.
"No," Lala answered swiftly, kneeling down to check Run's pulse and confirm that it was still steady despite what had just happened. "She is not all right. Her behavior is ample proof of that ... we need to get her to a doctor. There's a doctor here, on campus, who specializes in alien problems, isn't there? I remember hearing that -"
"Mikado-sensei," Rika confirmed, nodding. "I can take you to her."
"Thank you, Rika-san."
"Not at all," the girl replied.
Things were going more or less as she'd hoped they would.
Elsewhere, Rito ran.
The same elsewhere, Golden Darkness chased him.
It was honestly a bit of a surprise to her that she hadn't caught him yet. He'd claimed that he had no skill as a fighter, and she was inclined to accept this, since surely anyone with even a bit of talent in that area would have tried to defend themselves by now. But he was probably the most elusive prey she'd ever hunted, dodging out of the path of every attack she sent in his direction and continuing his headlong dash down the streets away from her. As it happened, she didn't hold to any particular form of machismo which required her to view someone who fled rather than fought with contempt, and his ability to elude her was actually making her respect him.
For his part, Rito was also developing considerable respect - or at least fear, which passed for respect - for his pursuer as well. Anyone who could turn their hair, hands, and even feet into various sorts of weapons which they then used with considerable skill against oneself, clearly deserved considerable respect - or at least fear. And Rito was perfectly able to express that respect/fear by fleeing as fast as he could and screaming at the top of his lungs the whole way.
"You're only dragging this out, you know," she called to him as he dashed up the stairs to an overpass. Respect or no respect, comments intended to intimidate the target into surrendering were de regeur.
"That's the plan, yeah!" he yelled back at her as he started to run across the bridge.
Words were clearly not enough to drive home the message. Well, she had little talent with the spoken word anyway. Her way was that of the action. So she sent a few extended locks of her hair up to wrap around the bridge railing, then constricted her hair again to pull herself up and over it, landing just a few steps behind him.
"Ah nonononono!" Rito wailed as he kept right on running.
A strange sort of courage, Golden Darkness mused. Most people, on seeing her do that, would have panicked to the point where they couldn't run, like a small animal whose terror kept them from responding in any useful way. She supposed, as she transformed her foot into a spiked mace and drove it into the bridge in an attempt to knock him off of his feet, that his own response wasn't all that useful, but it was still a reaction.
She found that she didn't really want to kill this person.
Well, she'd killed all sorts of people that she didn't really want to kill in the past, so what was one more, really?
Rito was, of course, oblivious to the melancholy of Golden Darkness, and much more focused on the immediate problem of his own survival, as he bounded down the stairs on the other side of the overpass. He was conscious of the fact that he was quickly coming up on the limits of his endurance, where he'd have to slow down and probably stop - which would mean that he'd be slowed down forever and never be in a position to start again. But he couldn't do anything else, just run, run as fast and as long as -
"Rito?" asked a voice from one of the shops on the sidewalk where he'd just arrived. "What in the world are you -"
And abruptly, another frightening prospect occurred to him.
Mikan had been having a surprisingly nice day, all things considered.
Her friends had picked up on the unhappiness she'd still felt about what had happened last night, but been smart enough - for once - not to start quizzing her about it. Instead, they'd tried to cheer her up, and been fairly successful. The fact that she hadn't seen him all day had helped, along with the fact that there didn't seem to be anyone talking about her behind her back, which meant that there hadn't been any rumors spread.
Of course, that in itself added a bit to her unhappiness. To some degree, she would have been happier if there had been buzzing about her, and people giving her looks of disgust or envy. Then, at least, she'd have the certainty that what had happened had been significant in some way, rather than just something that might have happened to anybody. But that was her vanity talking. Nothing more.
After school, the girls had invited her to come with them to a new cake shop that had opened up to replace one that had been damaged in the previous year's strange events. (It probably said something unfortunate about the school that they had to be specific like that - not just the recent strange events, but the ones that had happened last year, instead of the ones before that, and so forth.) Mikan had decided to go with them, and even considered inviting Kobato-san to join them. But the other girl had been on her way before she could, unfortunately.
I'll make friends with you yet, she vowed privately.
She'd paused, briefly, to examine the radish logo on the cake shop's sign, wondering whether this was some new food craze she hadn't heard about. (Kokoro had paused even longer when she saw it, but didn't say anything. It might just be a coincidence, after all.) But such thoughts had been quickly banished when they found that they weren't the only ones who'd come to the shop this afternoon.
Kitty-san was there, along with Negi-sensei (whom the other girls promptly went into a panic about meeting, of course) and a high school girl with mismatched eyes and bells in her hair, whom Kitty referred to as 'sensei' for some reason. They hadn't yet gotten down to the business of introductions when the first of the distant rumbles became audible, stopping conversation.
"Should we -" asked the high schooler.
Negi slowly shook his head. "Wait for it," he counseled.
Unsure what they were talking about, Mikan went over to the cake shop's window and looked out. There, running across the overpass that went across the street outside the shop, she saw her brother running desperately.
She didn't realize she was heading out the front door until she was already through it, and calling out Rito's name as he came bounding down the stairs. He looked wildly about until he saw her ...
... and she was shocked to see genuine fear suffuse his face in place of the confused panic that had been there until now.
"Mikan!" he cried out. "RUN!"
"Eh?" she said, then looked past him to see who was chasing him.
Up above, perched on the bridge railing, was a girl in a strange black outfit with long blonde hair, looking down at them with interest. Almost as soon as Mikan spotted her, the girl was in motion, leaping down from that high perch and landing on the ground as lightly as a feather, just behind Rito.
"Too slow," the girl said.
Who is this girl? Mikan wondered. And ... why are those beautiful eyes so very, very sad?
"Too slow," Golden Darkness informed her target as she approached him. It was a bit bewildering, under the circumstances, that his attention was entirely focused on the young human before him rather than her. Why had he wasted precious seconds of running time telling that female person to run? Was this an intimate of his?
If so, he really was an ecchi person, and far more deserving of harm than she'd realized. With that in mind, she shaped one of her arms into an axe blade and raised it up.
And then the young human, whose eyes had widened at the sight, ran.
Towards her. Not away.
"Mikan!" Yuuki Rito gasped. "No -"
"RUN!" the person apparently named Mikan shrieked, as she flung herself between Rito and his pursuer. "I'll hold her off!"
"... you will?" Golden Darkness asked, moderately bewildered by this turn of events.
"No! Mikan, run! I can't let you risk yourself for my sake!" Rito protested, pulling at Mikan's shoulder. "Run! You can get away -"
"No! You run! I won't let her hurt you!" Mikan snapped back. "It's not like I have a lot to live for anyway -"
"What? What do you mean? Mikan, run! This is my problem, I can't let you -"
"Rito, start running already! You're my brother! My only - just run already -"
"Excuse me," Golden Darkness asked, having slowly returned her arm to its default state, and waving her hand to get their attention.
"WHAT?" they chorused. "We're having an important discussion here!"
"... right," she said, only slightly fazed by their obvious annoyance. "About that, though - do either of you realize that I could annihilate the both of you right now?"
Audible gulps from both of them, and then Rito tried to shove himself between his sister and Golden Darkness. She refused to be shoved, however, and just glared at the hunter. "Yes, you probably c-can," she said.
"No probably about it," Golden Darkness informed her.
"You, you can, then," Mikan continued, very unsteadily but determined to have her say. "But you will not hurt Rito while I'm alive, and there's no probably about that, either!"
"You are resolved, then," Golden Darkness said quietly. "I see. Then I will honor your resolve by dealing with you first."
She held up her hand again and shaped it into the most powerful weapon she possessed. It was of course a cell phone. She brought her hand up to her ear and announced, "Speed dial 4, loudspeaker on."
"Wha -" asked Rito, bewildered by this abrupt turn of events.
Golden Darkness held up a finger to her lips as the 'phone' rang. On the second buzzing noise, there was a click and the sound of a voice, rather weaselly, speaking. "Is it done?" the voice asked eagerly.
"There have been complications," the girl announced.
The voice made a hissing noise. "I'm paying you very well to deal with complic-"
"Not well enough," she interrupted. "The target has a bodyguard, whom I'll be obligated to terminate first." A glance in Mikan's direction. "An extremely capable bodyguard. The contract was for the elimination of a single target, you did not not pay me to sanction any other persons."
"Then, I don't know, deal with this bodyguard non-fatally, that's covered by the terms of the -"
"Not feasible."
"What, are they life-linked or something? He doesn't die until this guardian of his does?"
"Something like that," she replied, without even the trace of a smile on her face.
"... all right, fine, how much are we talking -"
"Ten billion."
Dead silence on the other end of the line for a moment, followed by a shriek. "Are you out of your twinspawning mind? That's ten times what I'm paying you to deal with the Yuuki bastard!"
Rito bristled at that, but kept quiet when Mikan pressed her hand on his forearm while she watched this 'negotiation' with a pale face.
"It is now twelve billion, I don't care to have terms like that applied to me," Golden Darkness said very coldly.
"I won't - I can't - you little -" His conversation dissolved into a mindless shriek. Some panting later, the voice, much wearier, continued. "I'll talk to my broker, see what I can do. It may take some time."
"I can wait," the hunter said with total honesty. "When the front half is in my account, I'll be in touch. Dai'stekhen." Her hand sembled back into a hand. "And that's that," she announced.
"... so ... we've got until he ponies up six billion yen?" Mikan asked, quietly.
"He'll never manage that," Golden Darkness informed her, while not bothering to correct her financial misconception. (The Japanese yen was not exactly the currency of choice for interplanetary commerce.) "He'd have to take out a mortgage on all of his properties, and no lender in the demon world would agree to that, particularly if they've heard what he wants the money for - and he went to great trouble to make everyone aware that he had me on retainer, so a certain conclusion would be inevitable." She shrugged.
"Then ... it's over, you're not going to -" Rito asked.
"No, not until your sister stops looking after you." the girl with golden hair answered, putting just a bit of scorn in the 'your sister' phrase - enough to make Rito flinch. "And even if she were to stop right this second, not for a while anyways, considering these people want to have a few words with me."
"What people?" Mikan and Rito asked in chorus.
It was at that moment that Negi-sensei, holding a crooked staff, and the high school girl, equipped with a sword longer than she was tall, appeared as if from nowhere behind the tiny girl, their weapons clearly directed towards her. Not far from the two of them, another girl in an opera dress was lowering her mask while holding hands with a young man in a jacket and jeans and wild hair whose hands looked to be slightly clawed, and a graceful looking swordswoman, a girl dressed a bit like a miko, and a pair of girls holding books (one of whom affected a wizards hat) also started to draw nearer. None of them were smiling.
"These people," Golden Darkness explained, somewhat superfluously. She spread her hands at her side, and turned to look at the boy teacher calmly. "Springfield," she said politely.
"Konjiki no Yami-san," he replied in the same tone. "Are you going to come quietly, or are we going to have to do more damage to the town than you already have?"
The girl shrugged. "It's been a long day already," she said.
"All right," the boy nodded, letting out a sigh of relief.
By now, the party - supplemented by a few more late arrivals - had completely surrounded the small girl, keeping a safe distance between her and them. At Negi-sensei's gesture, they began to move, and she kept pace, hands still at her sides.
"Wait!" Mikan abruptly called, and before Rito could do anything, she was running towards the girl again, slipping through a crack in the encircling group and approaching the girl called Golden Darkness.
"Thank you," Mikan said. "Thank you for that, Yami-chan. You're a good person." And then she hugged her.
One of the newcomers, a red-haired girl with a sharp smile, spontaneously photographed the sight of the most feared assassin in three worlds blushing brightly.
"So what do you think is going to happen to her?" Asuna asked as the group sat together in the waiting room of the headmaster's office.
"Most likely, after she gets interviewed by the headmaster, she'll be turned over to your friends at SHIELD," Negi told her ... without actually looking at her.
"They're more Takamichi's friends than mine," she objected. Then, quite quickly, "Do not roll your eyes at me, and don't let out disgusted noises at his name, unless you really want me to get ang-"
"And here we go again," Konoka muttered on the other side of the room. She was opening her mouth to perhaps reprove their team's squabbling leadership when a shriek of enormous pain (not without a certain component of ecstasy) came from the office.
When they threw open the door, the glass window looking out on the campus was shattered, and the headmaster was lying face-up on the top of his desk, naked save for his briefs, his sunglasses and a bright red "H" branded into his upper chest. He was, implausibly, smiling in his unconscious state.
"... we really should have seen this coming," Negi mused after a moment.
"I did," Nodoka muttered, looking aside.
"On the theory that this is the last place they'd ever think to look for me," Golden Darkness said, a few hours later as she stood on the front porch of a certain house, "would you mind terribly if I holed up here for a while?"
Rito and Mikan just stared at her.
"Sure," Rito said at last.
"Why not?" Mikan agreed.
Next: Mikado.