Chapter Fourteen:
It was a nice, quiet, peaceful evening. A couple took a stroll through a park, holding hands and smiling.
That was when their pleasant date was interrupted a large fish-creature. They clung to each other out of fear, the man preparing to shield his girlfriend with his body.
That was when the purple strip of light unfurled overhead, striking the creature and causing the fish and jelly-fish parasite to separate.
Stunned, the couple looked up to see a tall figure of a girl standing on top of a lamppost, her shadow outlined by the bright, full moon behind her. Without a word, she leapt away, disappearing into the night.
Pie frowned from where he hid in the wood-line, his cold, dark eyes narrowing.
"Pest Number Five has entered the game," He said, his rumbling voice mistaken for thunder by the still-stunned couple.
But, perhaps, unlike the other four, this one might fall faster…
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Ichigo ran into Café Mew Mew, her eyes wide, ears out and flat against her skull, and one of her pigtails coming loose as she screamed,
"EMERGENCY, NYA! EMERGENCY, NYA!"
"Ichigo-San?" Lettuce said, looking up from the table she was cleaning as Pudding bounced over. "What's the matter?"
"Take a look at this!" Ichigo said, slamming down a newspaper on the table. The three girls crowded around.
"'The Mystery of the City: A pretty girl who fights monsters at midnight'," Lettuce read.
"WHAT!?" Lettuce and Pudding exclaimed together.
"Someone must have taken a picture of one of us!" Ichigo said fretfully. She squeezed her eye shut, tears leaking out. "Aoyama-Kun can't find out about me being Mew Ichigo now! I'm not ready for him to know now! I was going to wait for us to be a couple a little while longer before I told him!"
And if Mew Lettuce's identity is revealed, I go back to being picked on, Lettuce thought with a frown. Since she had started hanging out with the Three Ayas, the teasing and name-calling and physical bullying had stopped from the other kids. However, it did come with the price of practically being the slave of the three pretty, popular girls. But she gladly paid the price for the protection it gave her.
However, that would be gone the moment Mew Lettuce was revealed to be Lettuce Midorikawa, a meek, nerdy, book-loving girl. Lettuce found it bitterly ironic that she could stand up to fierce alien-created monsters that wanted nothing else but to kill her and the rest of her team, but she couldn't even face her own species when ganged up on.
"Never fear, Onee-Chan, na no da!" Pudding said, a smirk on her lips and a finger in the air. "The girl in the picture isn't any of us, na no da!"
"Eh?" Lettuce and Ichigo said together, each raising an eyebrow.
"What makes you say that, Pudding-San?" Lettuce asked.
"Minna…" Pudding said dramatically before whipping out a picture. "LOOK AT THIS, NA NO DA!"
Lettuce and Ichigo blinked in surprise and horror at seeing that the picture was of them and Mint standing together, all in their swimsuits. Two weeks before, Lettuce had won a contest that invited her and her friends to a spa in the mountains. However, there was a miscommunication, as the trip was for a year later… after the spa was actually built. Instead, the girls spent the afternoon in their swimsuits in the natural hot-spring that the spa was being built around. After the building crew arrived, the girls had left, but not before befriending a boy who looked suspiciously like Ichigo's boyfriend with a similar name and interests (Ichigo later mentioned on the train ride home that Aoyama-Kun was adopted, and they wondered if these boys could be twins separated at birth) and fighting another one of Pie's Spirit Chimeras.
"When did you take that picture?" Ichigo asked, not remembering anyone bringing a camera at all.
Pudding leapt onto the table and sat on it cross-legged, bringing out a long pair of scissors.
"What are those for, Pudding-San?" Lettuce asked, her brow furrowed.
They then watched as Pudding carefully cut the picture so that the Lettuce, Mint and Ichigo in the picture were all neatly out.
"The girl in the picture is tall and curvy, na no da," Pudding explained. She put the Ichigo picture next to the one in the newspaper. "Ichigo Onee-Chan doesn't have any curves, na no da."
Ichigo pouted as her cheeks turned red with anger.
Pudding then put the Lettuce outline near the picture.
"On the other hand, Lettuce Onee-Chan is too curvy, na no da," She continued.
Lettuce blushed red, looking down at herself, suddenly feeling self-conscious.
"And Mint Onee-Chan is too short, na no da," Pudding said. "And as Pudding is shorter than Mint Onee-Chan, it definitely isn't her, na no da."
"So, I have, like, no curves at all?" Ichigo demanded, twisting and turning to see if it was true. "Does that mean I don't have hips?"
"Is being called curvy a nice way of being told you're fat?" Lettuce asked worriedly, looking to both girls for answers.
"No, it's not," Ichigo answered, studying the article. "That's odd. We haven't fought anything in this area. So who could it—" She paused and turned to Lettuce. "You don't think?" She said.
"The fifth companion!" Lettuce and Ichigo said together.
"Eh? What's all the fuss about?"
The girls turned to see Mint enter, an eyebrow arched and a fist on her hip, her bag hanging from her other hand.
"What's going on?" Mint asked again.
"It's the fifth member, na no da!" Pudding cried, pointing at the newspaper. "We found her, na no da!"
"Technically, we haven't yet, Pudding-San," Lettuce said. "We know she's activated her powers. But we don't know her name, where she is or even what she looks like."
"What are you talking about?" Mint demanded. Pudding grabbed the newspaper and shoved it in Mint's face. Suddenly, the dancer's eyes widened and her mouth started opening and closing like a fish's, some incomprehensible sounds coming out of her mouth. Finally, she got out, "This… This person is…"
"Do you know her, Mint?" Ichigo asked.
"No!" Mint insisted, taking steps backward. "No, I don't know at—!" She bumped into a table, squeaked as she dropped her bag, which sent a small book skidding across the floor. On the cover was a beautiful, purple-haired girl. Mint's eyes widened and she instantly snatched up the book, holding it to her chest protectively.
"What's that, na no da?" Pudding asked, trying to get a look, though Mint kept turning away. "Can Pudding see, na no da?"
"No!" Mint snapped, trying to get away from Pudding, and failing to do so. She spun all around, Pudding leaping after her, trying to get her hands on the book. Finally, she succeeded and Mint just spun faster and faster until Pudding ended up flying across the room. She landed into Lettuce and Ichigo, a little dizzy, but grinning.
For in her hands was the book.
"Pudding got it, na no da!" She said victoriously. Mint turned white with horror.
"What is it?" Ichigo said, looking down, her scarlet eyebrows furrowed. "A idol photo book?"
"There's nothing wrong with that!" Mint insisted haughtily.
"Why do you have this, Mint-San?" Lettuce asked curiously as Pudding flipped through it.
"I-I bought it on a whim," Mint said, her voice shaky.
Suddenly, Pudding's eyes gleamed and she brought out her scissors again, going after one of the pages in the book.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ONEE-SAMA?!" Mint screamed, her eyes wide with horror, wincing at every snip. Pudding then lifted up an outline of the girl in the idol book. "Onee-Sama…" She whimpered.
"Look, na no da!" Pudding said, holding up the magazine and bringing the outline of the model to the outline of the mysterious and allusive teammate. "A perfect match, na no da!"
"That's Fujiwara Zakuro-San!" Lettuce said, her eyes wide with realization as she got a good look at the book. "She was there, at the exhibit that day, wasn't she?"
"Yeah, she was!" Ichigo exclaimed. "I remember now! For some reason, those memories were so fuzzy before…"
"EHHHHH!?" Mint exclaimed, her palms going to her cheeks. "What is this? This silhouette that looks like a marble muse? The slender waistline and the perfect hips and posture? The hair tousled ever so elegantly—"
"Eh, how long is this going to go on for?" Ichigo asked in a hiss as Mint continued to ramble on, her eyes shaped like hearts and a wide smile on her face, her hands clasped in front of her chest.
"This is what it's like when Ichigo Onee-Chan talks about Aoyama Onii-Chan, na no da," Pudding informed her.
"Pudding-San…" Lettuce said chidingly, but really couldn't disagree with her. Ichigo looked confused for a moment, then she sighed.
"I am so sorry, minna-san," She said, bowing her hand.
Finally, Mint got to the end of her rambling,
"This is indeed Zakuro," Mint said, breathing the girl's name, her eyes getting watery with happiness. "Yes, Zakuro Onee-Sama is our fifth member!"
"Thank you for summing up what we had already figured out," Ichigo said as she and the other girls sweat-dropped some.
"Fujiwara Zakuro. Born September 6th. A Virgo. Age: sixteen years old," Mint continued dreamily, knowing this information by heart. "Height: 172 cm. Weight: 49 kg. Fluent in Japanese, English, French, German and Chinese. Since suddenly appearing in the modeling world three years ago, she has gathered much attention as both model and international actress, already having appeared in two American movies, made guest appearances in three different British television shows, and has been in four Japanese movies, starring in one while being the co-star two others, and has appeared in six Japanese television shows. With her dark opal-like hair, sapphire eyes that give a mysterious glitter, and skin as white and flawless as platinum…" Mint sighed contently. "She truly is the best member we've been looking for! The true soldier that will save the Earth!"
"What are the rest of us, chop liver?" Ichigo grumbled, a tick mark forming on her forehead.
"That's right!" Mint said, though they weren't quite sure if she was still talking to herself or answering Ichigo's question. They all hoped for the former. "Why didn't I notice sooner?"
Ryou laughed as he and Keiichiro entered the room.
"So even high and mighty Mint adores idols like the rest of the commoners?" He teased, causing Mint to turn red with both embarrassment and anger.
"You're wrong!" Mint yelled at Ryou, trying to get in his face. From his extra foot and a half towering over her, Ryou just smirked down at her furious face. "Zakuro Onee-Sama is different!"
"Perhaps it is a good thing that someone Mint idolizes is one of the team," Keiichiro said. "It definitely is an odd coincidence, though."
Ryou shrugged.
"Whatever it is, you girls need to go check it out," He said, folding his arms over his chest.
"Huh?" They said together.
"How do we do that, na no da?" Pudding asked.
"There is an audition calling tomorrow afternoon for an American and Japanese musical production that Fujiwara, and Fujiwara will be there to help make selections," Ryou explained.
"Whoa, wait, audition?" Lettuce said, her eyes going wide. "What exactly are we supposed to do?"
"Dance, sing, act, do duck calls, don't care," Ryou said as he headed out of the room. "Just be there."
Lettuce gulped. Ichigo could sing and perform rhythmic gymnastics, as she was on her school's gymnastics team. Mint had her years of ballet, having started dancing on pointe at just ten years old. Pudding was a one-monkey variety show on a sugar rush.
Lettuce, on the other hand, was a sitting duck. Her talents included solving math equations and being able to read a hundred pages of a book in an hour. This was probably not what any director would be looking for.
Guess I'm going to have to work on my mallard impersonation, Lettuce thought depressingly.
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"Another one interferes with our plans?" The childlike voice of Deep Blue hissed as Pie knelt in-front of the glowing orb.
"Hai," Pie said grimly.
"And she is the last member?" Deep Blue demanded.
She had better be, Pie thought irritably. I cannot deal with one more of those annoying human pests.
"I believe so," Pie answered Deep Blue. "However, the four gathered members have not made contact with this one yet. She is working on her own. I believe that while they are divided, I can deal with this one with ease and swiftness. I have already begun taking the proper measures for making sure that this divergence stays such."
"Then put your plans into motion," Deep Blue said. "Report to me when success or failure is determined."
"Yes, Deep Blue-Sama." Pie said before disappearing.
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The next afternoon, Lettuce stood with Mint and Ichigo on a stage filled with other girls their age. They all wore leotards and soft shoes. Some, like Mint, wore toe-shoes, and some wore tap shoes or other kind of dancing shoes.
"Ryou-San sure thought of something wild to see if Fujiwara-San is our fifth member," Lettuce muttered.
"If I pass," Mint said, smiling slightly. "I'm going to get the part of Zakuro Onee-Sama's little sister!"
"Uh, is her character even supposed to have a little sister, Mint-San?" Lettuce asked, her brow furrowed as she glanced at the small numbers tapped to their leotards that also bore the kanji for 'background dancers and singers'.
"I can't believe it, nya!" Ichigo said dreamily, her eyes wide and starry, one little kitty fang poking out. "I'm doing an audition… for a musical, nya!"
Mint sighed and reached over, pinching Ichigo's bottom and causing the cat girl to squeak in pain.
"Zakuro Onee-Sama is here," Mint said haughtily as Ichigo rubbed where she got pinched, glaring at the ballerina. "I will not allow you to screw up in her presence."
"But, but, but, if I do pass," Ichigo said, still excited and having dropped her glare. "I'LL BE FAMOUS, NYA! I'll gather attention via a commercial, release a CD, and in no time at all, become a star, nya! And, and…"
Ichigo then went on to describe a (fantasy) conversation between her and Aoyama-Kun, on some beach at sunset while both were in their school uniforms for some odd reason. Aoyama would tell her that she is a big star now, that he wasn't good enough for her. Ichigo would then call him a baka and throw her arms around him as she cried, saying that even if she was a celebrity, her heart belonged to only him and, as seagulls chirped all around them, they kissed.
Ichigo held her face in her hands, her eyes closed, swaying slightly as she thought of Aoyama's lips pressed against hers. Mint smacked Ichigo on the back of the head, causing the cat girl to come out of her daydream.
"Be serious!" Mint snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.
Before Ichigo could do anything to retort, the audition announcer called for their attention, to the relief of Lettuce who was wondering how she was going to have to break up yet another fight between the bird and cat girls.
The girls watched as the judges entered the room as the cameras flashed, each taking their seats. Attention seemed to be focused on one man in particular.
"That must be the director," Mint murmured. "Junyano Koshiba."
Lettuce suddenly froze.
"Uh, isn't the one known for being strict and making new actresses cry?" She asked, suddenly really wondering if this was a good idea…
The silence she got from Ichigo and Mint, who each bit their lips, gave her the answer.
"And now, our special guest," The announcer said. "The leading actress of this musical, Fujiwara Zakuro-San!"
She entered quietly. The flashing of the cameras was the only thing that gave away that she entered the room. She wore knee-high heeled black boots, a short black skirt, a yellow shirt underneath a black jacket. She also wore black sunglasses over her eyes and a silver cross necklace gleamed from her neck. Wordlessly, she took her place at the end of the table, sitting down and folding her arms over her chest.
"That's her?" Ichigo whispered.
"She's the real one!" Mint squealed softly, her hands clasped together under her chin, her eyes twinkling. "Oh, Zakuro Onee-Sama…"
"We will now begin the audition!" The announcer proclaimed.
All the girls went backstage, all pitying the girl who had the number one taped to her leotard, but the girl with the blond braid just gulped and entered the stage with a smile.
The three mutated girls milled around, keeping to themselves. Finally, they heard,
"Number Fifteen! Aizawa Mint-San!"
Mint did a quick check of her toe shoes and then walked onto the stage gracefully.
"Hai," She said, a charming smile on her face and eyes full of determination, though with a hint of fear. Her brown eyes instantly drifted towards Zakuro and she took a deep breath.
"Mint-San seems nervous," Lettuce said as one judge asked her some questions regarding her ballet training.
"She's performed many times, but never in front of her idol before," Ichigo said with a slight frown. "I'm the same way. I've done countless gymnastics routines, but when Aoyama-Kun came to see me the first time, I froze up."
Just as Mint was getting her feet in position, about to raise her arms, they all heard from backstage,
"EMERGENCY! THERE'S A FLAME-THROWING BABY MONKEY IN HERE!"
There was screaming from backstage and everyone at the judge's table froze, and Mint stood there with wide-eyes.
"A Chimera?" Ichigo asked Lettuce with wide-eyes.
"No, Ichigo-San, it's worse than that!" Lettuce said, her own eyes widening with realization. She grabbed Ichigo's shoulders, shaking her slightly. "Who did we lock in the Café Mew Mew supply closet before coming here so that she couldn't follow us?"
Ichigo gulped.
"Uh oh," She said.
They both screamed and ducked as suddenly big bursts of flames came at them.
Pudding leapt onto the stage, still breathing fire.
She did a flip, landing in front of Mint, who looked very freaked out.
"How mean of you to leave Pudding behind just because she's an elementary school kid, na no da!" Pudding yelled at Mint. "And Ryou Onii-Chan already told Pudding that it was Mint Onee-Chan's idea to lock Pudding in the supply closet, na no da! And for the record, there was no candy wonderland in the closet, just like Narnia, na no da! Only dust bunnies and a spider, na no da!"
"Pudding!" Ichigo yelled, starting to get to her feet, her eyes wide. "Pudding, get over here now!"
"Pudding wants to attend the audition, too, na no da!" Pudding yelled, stamping her feet and waving her hands in the air. With that being declared, she breathed fire again to the horror of the judges. Zakuro was the only one who sat there unperturbed.
"Pudding-San!" Lettuce yelled as she and Ichigo jumped onto the stage, chasing Pudding as she ran around.
"Pudding! No one wants to see you breathe fire!" Ichigo yelled, leaping onto the girl.
Mint turned to the judges and pointed over her shoulder at the three girls, the older two unsuccessfully trying to hold down the younger, rolling and tumbling on the ground with cries, squeaks and grunts.
"For the official record, I have never seen these girls in my life before today," Mint said.
Pudding slipped out of Ichigo's arms, leaping back to center stage.
"Pudding can do lots of acts, na no da!" She declared as she started spinning plates that appeared out of nowhere.
"Pudding-San, not here!" Lettuce begged.
"Then how about this, na no da?" She said, wheeling out a large gong, holding a stick. "Pudding'll hit this continuously, na no da!" With that, she started banging on the gong, causing everyone to cover their ears.
"PUDDING, CUT IT OUT!" Ichigo yelled over the noise, lowering her hands from the side of her head, trying to jump on the girl only to smack to the floor.
"Pudding wants to get auditioned too, na no da!" Pudding yelled at Ichigo, who was still flat on the floor where she had face-planted it.
"Enough, Pudding-San!" Lettuce said.
[CUT IT OUT!]
Everyone froze again and turned to the director, who was fuming as he glared at all four girls on stage.
Oh, Ryou-San, this is without a doubt the worst idea you have ever come up with, Lettuce thought as she stared fearfully at the furious man with wide-eyes.