It took me a while because yes, I had a sort of panic attack. It's only been three months since the last update, but I felt really rusty (that quickly, I know) and I thought you guys wouldn't like it. Sigh.

Faito, Strawbeariiis! FAAAAIIIITTTOOO \(^o\^)

Disclaimer: I'm kinda wondering if this is a trademark thing or what


28: The Birth

Two hundred moves after, and two hundred more, just in case.

She was still a ways away from completing all that she had to. She knew it very well. She only birthed the beginning of her plans, but they had to lead somewhere – to the place where she most desired.

Success.

To begin with, Fudou Akio was not an easy…let's say, client. He was skeptical and doubtful, and he was a difficult person to convince and appease. He'd only ever made contact with The Girl for a depressing four days. Sokudone only had less than two weeks on the clock. She wasn't going to make it, even if she tried. Plus there was that complicated rumor between the two of them that resurfaced every so often: she could fix it, but Akio was more than thrilled to let it spread.

"So let's aim somewhere else more feasible," The teenage matchmaker tapped her pencil on the stack of folders on her study table. "Let's go for someone who's already there…someone who's already in on it…"

"I miss her so much, Donnie,"

The lightbulb flashed almost instantly. "That's brilliant, me!" The blackette applauded herself. "And to kill that second bird, he'll make the perfect number seven," She continued, the tapping becoming increasingly quickened. Sokudone was excited. Inactivity had caused her to plummet to boredom, but now she was digging herself out of the grave.

'Number Seven,'


"You found number seven?" Kazemaru's mocking surprise was evident in his tone. Regardless of whether his cousin had noticed it or not, she nodded a little too eagerly. "I can't believe I never did, though!" Her hands flew about, searching an outlet for her newfound energy. "It took me two months, two weeks, a sixty-day probation, and Raimon's priss!"

"Really? You needed a girl's sass?"

The blackette waved off his negative vibes. "I needed a challenge. I knew I was going to need someone from outside the country." She stood up from her perch on his bed that same night. "It's only Monday, but I'll be working overtime starting tomorrow. Walk home without me." The pale Megamino bid as she left her cousin's room and headed to hers. Kazemaru wasn't relenting.

"Who's going to walk you home?"

"I'm going to stalk people!"


The next morning, the pumped up teen immediately got straight to work. While it was a weekday and she therefore could not leave her academic responsibilities, her father's office was a great compensation. The man had installed the latest supercomputer in there, and part of the hidden library boasted a wide collection of hidden information that Garshield had acquired for Kageyama's use (it wasn't a necessary description, but she reminded herself of this every time she used it. It was like a hot rod to the neck.). Nobody within a four-meter radius disturbed her, because that was the distance from her desk to the others.

It was her only connection to him. And it was sacred.

"Kageyama-donno." A deep, gravelly voice interrupted the former's scheming very early that Tuesday morning. "I would like to talk." Gohin Takahiro sounded very reserved, guarded. Almost like a bomb close to explosion, but forced to hold back.

"Well if you must, who am I to rein that tongue?"

The older man cleared his throat, still looking very internally distressed, almost akin to a woman in labor for the first time. Sokudone was aware of this, and she worried about the plotting that she was yet to do – whatever her duty as the president of this school was always found a way to intermingle with the threads of her private life. It was difficult operating as a matchmaker without being accused of abuse of power. Meanwhile, Gohin felt like the entire Milky Way was on his shoulders and Atlas or not, he couldn't bear the weight of it. "I believe you should have a more appropriate secretary," He started, already on the offense. "With no personal jab towards your current one, I really do deem it better for your image to have a much older and more experienced assistant."

"And do you also deem it better for the image of such older and more experienced assistant?" The black-haired fifteen-year-old was quick to act. She didn't say such things because of Maki, no; maybe she could've if not for her selfish nature.

"My image, for so long as I am the president of this academy, will be relentlessly corrupted by the same people," She continued bitterly, "Right now, I am working with only the best team that my father had placed his most valuable trust on. I'm doing the same." The president and the officer didn't fail to break their heavy eye contact. "My image matters not right now," The former pushed, "At least not to the higher ups. But I don't need their satisfaction – I rather thirst for the appreciation of these students."

"Perhaps I may have reasoned it unjustly," The maroon-haired man tried again. He knew that had Kageyama-donno (the father, he meant) been alive, he would have agreed. The young Kageyama was too snuggled in her comfort zone to care about expanding it. She was growing backwards.

"A change of staff should improve your work pace," He articulated. "Especially one who knew your predecessor well; perhaps they may be able to educate you on the ways he functioned, that you may be able to learn from it and maybe even make it evolve, improve – have it adapt to you rather than you, it."


"Oh, man, and you'd think Burn and Gazelle made Chaos," Sakuma was sniggering during lunchtime, which was a first in weeks since the Prism Stars had left. There was no phone in sight either. Kidou and Genda, on the other hand, looked aptly angered. "Why does it have to be him, of all people?"

"Why'd you listen to your probationary officer?"

Sakuma was still laughing in the background. He, of course, had his own part in disliking Fudou Akio, but it was more personal with the banana-victimized Genda, and the second-hand-man-replaced Kidou. And now Sokudone, who seemed to have fate playing against her. She seethed in their booth. "Look, I don't want to play the part of Duchess Desperation, but he had a point. And I never saw Father in office; I didn't know how he worked things. Up until now, I've been operating blindly. I want a new Teikoku."

"And the one time that happened, we tried to kill you and ended up in the hospital," Genda supplied. He had seen the flurry of anxiety and self-frustration emanating from his female best friend when they had confronted each other. Sakuma had felt the anger and remorse Kidou was shouting at him and Kageyama. Shin Teikoku was not a pretty Teikoku, that was for sure. "Sokudone, don't do this," The spiky-haired keeper was ready to shave himself bald if it meant stopping his blackette best friend. She shook her head, firm in her decision. "I'll be careful," She promised instead.


'Mark Kruger.'

As the aspiring matchmaker scribbled down the American's name, she felt a wave of guilty pleasure swish about within her. She knew Mark loved Rein, she saw it in him, but the boy himself didn't know that. Not yet. She would make him realize it soon enough. Two weeks was more than enough of a generous deadline that she had been given.

As for that lovely "vampire moonchild", Sokudone also knew Rein was terrified. She didn't know of what, but she had a pretty good guess. The white-haired teen was someone who liked to assure herself of the certainty of everything. She wanted to always be one hundred percent sure. She was a girl who wanted to keep things constant and unchanging.

But could her feelings do the same?


"I think I'm psychic," Sokudone was camping over in Kazemaru's room again. "Shut up, you're not Karen Smith," The tealnet didn't even spare a glance at the bed his cousin was on. Were they really related? "But now I'm curious," He spun around on his office chair to face his bed-wallowing mirror image. "First you think you're a matchmaker, then fate, and now psychic?"

His cousin nodded "helpfully".

"I think you're crazy, really. But I still love you. Take care of yourself."

His cousin pouted appropriately.


I just read AC: The Secret Crusade, and I've acquired myself some virtual Pierve the Veil and Sleeping with Sirens albums (except for Madness, I can't find a torrent). Copeland Quinn is an adorable sweetheart, and Kellin and Vic are the baby-voiced screamo version of Patrick and Brendon. xD Or is it just me? I just discovered Falling in Reverse. I'm a band weebo. TT^TT

That wasn't even related to the story but :D Comment anyway, por favor?

-Strawbeariiis