The Adventures of Team 9 Catering
by Cyberchao X
Disclaimer: All characters except for Kuroi are property of ZUN.
Chapter ⑪
"Onee-sama, what are you doing?" Rumia asked.
"What, you've never considered taking advantage of your darkness to go out in the nude?" Kuroi replied. "No, I don't suppose you would have, seeing as how you never could make it pitch-black before."
"That's beside the point! You can't just wear nothing!"
"Sure I can. I can even make 'clothing' out of the darkness." She reduced the size of her aura of darkness so that it clung to her body, looking very much like a sleeveless button-up blouse, miniskirt, thigh-high stockings, ankle boots, and a hair ribbon, all of them pitch black.
To Rumia, however, it didn't look like anything at all. "I can't even look at you right now. Now that I can see through my own darkness, I can't not see through yours as well."
"And the sight of my naked body embarrasses you?" Kuroi teased.
"No! Well…yes! It's…it still looks like my body, only, you know…sexier." Kuroi smiled at this. "Why'd you get to have curves, anyway?"
"I told you; my body won't grow on its own, so I wanted one that can accurately represent me for a while. It's not really that much, anyway; you'll probably catch up to me within a few years, and by the time a decade passes, I'll probably need a new body just to keep up with you."
"If you say so…I'm still not looking at you."
They were the last to arrive at work. "Good to have you back, Rumia-chan," Mystia said, "and welcome aboard, Kuroi-chan. You're looking good. We're going to have to get you out in the field."
"I'm not looking at her," Rumia said.
"Are you two fighting again?" Cirno asked.
"No, I just can't look at her."
"Why not?" Wriggle asked.
"Because this," Rumia replied, reaching just past her sister's leg and, to the eyes of the other members of Team 9, straight through her skirt.
Nobody said anything at first as they comprehended this, and then Wriggle replied, "She's not actually wearing anything at all, is she?" Rumia shook her head. "Yeah, and now that you can see right through magical darkness…I get it now."
"Hmm, this is even more useful than I thought," Mystia said. "You could really help drum up a lot of business like that."
"Mystia!" Rumia shouted, as Kuroi just grinned.
Mystia continued, "Is it just limited to around your own body, or could you make clothes for me like that as well?"
This time Cirno and Wriggle joined Rumia. "MYSTIA!"
"What? I was just asking! Although if I had that ability, I'd probably enhance myself a little more than that."
"Enh—THESE ARE REAL, DAMNIT!" she cried, "unbuttoning" her simulacrum of a blouse most of the way to show Mystia. "…Well, as real as the rest of me, anyway."
"Yeah, her body's a bit more developed than mine," Rumia confirmed. "But she'll need a new body every time she wants to 'grow up', so it won't always be that way."
"Well, that's probably even better, then. You just keep looking hot and bringing in the customers."
"We run a catering business," Wriggle deadpanned.
"So? It doesn't matter what business you're in; sexiness sells."
"Maybe I would have been better off just letting her get sealed away again," Rumia thought.
"Actually, we've got a job that should be perfect for the Yagami sisters," Wriggle said. "My networking in the Underworld seems to have paid off; we got a request from that Kreutzschif guy."
"Kroy-what?" Mystia asked.
"Someone I met at the surprise party for Parsee-san. And yeah, that surname sounds pretty weird to me, too. Still, even in a naturally dark place like the Underworld, Kuroi-san will probably be a real hit."
"Naturally dark?" Kuroi asked. "And here I thought the Underworld was all fire and brimstone."
"The deeper parts are," Wriggle said, "but there's a lot of stuff before that that's more like a cave."
"Huh. I guess I still have a lot to learn about this world."
"You weren't native to Gensokyo?"
"I don't think so. If we were, it was a lot different back then. Do you remember, Rumia-chan?"
"I was never much for seeing the world around me, Kuroi-san," Rumia giggled.
"Ha ha, right, my mistake."
"Well, they seem to be getting along much better," Daiyousei thought. Just then Kuroi got a mischievous look in her eye.
"W-Waugh! Kuroi-san!"
"Come on, imōto, if you're coming with me, you're going to have to look the part as well," she said, stripping her sister, who was struggling to remain clothed.
"B-but I—"
"No buts. You need to practice your control anyway. Hurry up and at least do something; your friends are going to see you naked if you keep your aura suppressed. You don't want that, do you?" Rumia quickly enveloped herself and Kuroi in darkness. "Well, at least you can do that much. Now let's see about refining it into something like what I've got going on."
"Did you even remember to 'button up' your 'blouse' again?" Rumia cried.
"I'll take care of it before we go out," she replied, as she had indeed forgotten.
"Were you always like this?"
"Like what?"
"You know, so…anti-clothing."
"I never was a big fan, but of course it's not such a great idea when you're in an area with a lot of darkness youkai."
"And yet you don't mind doing it around me."
"You're my twin sister! We shared a body for close to half a century! I don't really feel as though I need to be self-conscious around you."
Rumia couldn't help but blush. "Y-you really mean that?"
Kuroi saw her reaction and couldn't help but blush as well. "W-well, yeah, of course…Wah!" Rumia suddenly threw her arms around her sister, kissing her on the cheek. "Ha…looks like you've gotten over that whole nudity thing."
"That what, now?"
"Right…let's focus on getting you 'dressed' in darkness," she said. Rumia quickly complied. Being a bit more modest than her twin sister, Rumia's outfit was not very revealing. "Uh, Rumia-chan? You might want to try something simpler. You're going to get tired awfully quickly if you try to maintain such a fancy dress."
Rumia looked down at the frilly dress she'd dreamed up. "Guess I got a bit carried away…"
"Just…go a simple dress. You don't even have to bother with sleeves if you don't want…oh who am I kidding, of course you'll want them, because you're not comfortable with the idea of dressing sexy."
"Well, I can't really measure up with you, so…" There. A simple black dress, short-sleeved, along with tights and Mary Janes. "I'd rather be 'cute' than 'sexy' right now."
"Hmm…well, then, I think there's something you're missing, something that fake clothes won't be able to do."
"Uh…? Hey, what are you doing?"
"Just stay still. There, finished."
"I don't like it. My hair's too short to put in pigtails."
"Nonsense; you look adorable. Doesn't she look adorable?" Kuroi had failed to notice that the others had left, apparently wanting to give the sisters some time alone. She sought them out. "Doesn't Rumi-tan look adorable?"
"Eh, I don't think the ribbons really work," Mystia replied, taking them out.
"Told you so," Rumia said.
"Whatever. It's not like I know much from fashion; the last time I had a body, it was barely a meter tall. But I still think you'd look cute with pigtails if you grew your hair out."
"How old were you when you were sealed away?" Mystia asked.
"Well, that was almost half a century ago, so I guess…about 40, maybe?"
"So that means you're in your late eighties now?" Kuroi nodded. "I guess your species ages more slowly than mine, then. I'm not even seventy."
"Really? Huh."
"I noticed you flirting a lot," Rumia said. "Any of them actually interest you?"
"Nah, I'm not really looking for a relationship right now. I just want to spend some quality time with my sister that doesn't involve me being inside her head yelling at her."
"Really? That's...so...swee..." Rumia passed out, her aura of darkness reverting to its usual spherical shape.
Kuroi sighed. "What did I tell you? At least this way you made it long enough to get through our event." She picked up her sister and carried her back to the team's base of operations, letting her own aura revert to a sphere.
"...Eh? What happened?" Mystia cried.
"Rumi-tan used up all of her energy. Don't worry, Mystia-san; we were already on our way back when it happened," Kuroi replied. "I figured she probably wouldn't be able to manipulate her darkness for that long."
Mystia was a tad surprised—not all that long ago, Kuroi was far too haughty to use the "-san" honorific, and they now knew that Mystia was some twenty years her junior. "Yeah...just let her rest, I guess..."
"Probably should dress her, too..." Kuroi thought to herself, and did so.
CCX: Oh, dear, I'm making stuff up again. Exactly how quickly youkai age is not really stated, and it's probably different for different youkai. I originally had Kuroi's statement as "the better part of a century," but then I decided that having Rumia already over a century old probably wasn't a great idea, and so now I figure that one century is more or less the age of maturity for her species—hence why Kuroi said that Rumia should be catching up in no time and would easily pass her within a decade. (As Mystia's comments implied, Kuroi's current body appears to be pubescent but nowhere near fully grown.)
But seriously…what was that? And how do I justify leaving the rating at K+? Quite simply: I go by the "TV rule". If it could be put on television at PG, it can go in a fanfic at K+. And since Rumia and Kuroi were always covered in darkness, it wouldn't have set off the censors. Hey, if naked transformation sequences where the protagonists' bodies seem to turn into light can get in at PG/Y7, why not this? (Thanks for that, Digimon Tamers! I'd thank Sailor Moon, but there were so many aspects of that show that were changed for the dub that I'd rather thank a show that managed to get by the censors relatively unscathed instead.)
Of course, this chapter also went in a direction that could very well necessitate a future rating shift anyway. Luckily, just because The Scarlet Devil is more or less over doesn't mean I plan on slapping a "Complete" tag on Phantasm just yet—The Adventures of Team 9 Catering is, after all, a spinoff of TSD, and as such I feel justified in using Phantasm for any "extended" chapters of this fic as well. (I'm probably going to go back and extend Chapter 3 eventually.) Ja ne!
