After leaving Excalibur, Mifune stood outside the door to the Time Wasters Society. He paused, highly suspecting that he wouldn't like what he saw inside.
Then again, whatever might be happening in his absence was still happening, whether or not he was there to facepalm over it. He twisted the handle and shoved the door open.
The sight that greeted him was a new one: Angela was wielding one of the Ouran weapons: Renge Houshakuji he thought, since he was almost positive that she was the Demon Video Game Controller. Mifune hadn't actually seen what it was Renge's weapon form could do, but seeing the eager glint in Angela's eyes, as she took aim at an apple perched atop Kirimi Nekozawa's head, only served to heighten the Samurai's worries about the situation. Whether the Cat Witch was aware of what was happening or not was unclear, as she was engrossed in a manga.
At the sound of his entry, Angela's head swiveled towards him. Her eyes widened and she took a breath to explain.
"No," said Mifune.
"But—"
"No, Angie. Humans are not for target-practice."
"But Kirimi's—"
"And neither are Witches."
"Hmph."
Mifune turned to the quartet of Kasanoda, the two Fujiokas, and the elder Nekozawa.
"Well?" he asked, seeing that they were completely aware of what was happening, but hadn't done anything about it.
Ryoji Fujioka shrugged, a touch of melancholy in his eyes. "Making mistakes is part of growing up," he said. "If you keep kids on a tight leash, that just means they make 'em when you aren't there to help."
"Besides," said Haruhi, "We're Witches. Living weapons don't do much more damage to us than a paint-ball gun would do to a human." She looked thoughtful for a moment, considering what she'd just said. "As a matter of fact..."
Mifune sighed. "Maybe next week," he said, not wanting to deal with a fire-fight today. "Angela, why don't you and Kirimi go watch a movie or something?"
The two girls exchanged a quick glance with each other before the Chameleon Witch replied with a cheerful, "Okay, dad!" and scampered off to find a TV, Kirimi in tow.
The Samurai frowned, thinking they'd agreed far too quickly to be normal, but shrugged it off as something he probably wasn't going to figure out until the authority figures caught her in the act.
He shook his head slightly to clear it, and turned back to the Witches. Since he was Angela's caretaker, as they were Kirimi's, they'd developed something of a rapport.
"Still feeling like shit?" he asked, as one might a fellow warrior who'd been injured in battle.
Nekozawa frowned at the coarse language, but nodded. "Wounds of the heart," he muttered, "There are some things even curses cannot cure."
"It's more weird than it is anything else," complained Kasanoda. "Feels like someone's died, but everyone's still here."
"Well," said Haruhi, budding psychiatrist. "That makes sense, to some degree. I mean, human beings give parts of their souls to each other all the time: whenever two lovers kiss, two friends become blood-siblings, or the bonds of actual family are formed," she said, paraphrasing one of the books she'd read a few years ago.
Sensing the eyes of the other four on her, she elaborated.
"And if you lose the person to whom you've entrusted part of yourself, you lose that part of your soul," the Dragon Witch continued. "We gave up part of our souls to create a Death Scythe. The causes are different, but the actions and results are exactly the same."
"How bad is it?" asked Mifune.
"Well, if you want to quantify grief..." said Haruhi, looking mildly amused at the concept. "I'd say... worse than losing a colleague probably, but not as bad as a sibling. We'll be fine... but we're not about to take on any significant responsibilities until we're more normal, since a wounded soul is more likely to fall into darkness."
Mifune nodded in understanding, and then wracked his brains for something that might comfort one in pseudo-mourning.
"Want to eat comfort food and watch a sappy movie?" he suggested.
"Yes," said Ryoji immediately.
Haruhi, Kasanoda and Nekozawa's expressions weren't as easy to read, but they did follow them from the room.
"So," said Kirimi, as they watched the opening credits to "Batman" roll across the screen. "Any luck with your powers?"
"Kind of," said Angela. "Apparently, whatever was in those woods, it brought on the Sway of Magic much earlier than normal... and awakened my full powers."
"Really? So, you'll be able to go invisible again, and not just copy other people's looks?" asked Kirimi.
"I think so," replied the Chameleon Witch, turning her attention to the screen, where a tourist family was being mugged in an alleyway.
"Ha!" said Umehito from behind them. "I love this movie!"
He sat down beside Kirimi and faced the screen with interest.
"Really?" Mifune asked his daughter, raising an eyebrow as he took a seat.
"It was Kirimi's idea," said Angela, automatically.
"Of course it was," said the Panther Witch. "My sister has impeccable taste!"
"Not what I'd call 'sappy,'" said Mifune, checking the rating on the case as the Fujiokas and Kasanoda sat down as well, "but I suppose I should be happy it's not worse."
"Now this is strange." Yumi Azusa straightened her glasses, frowning at the computer screen in front of her.
"Japan?" asked Marie, who wasn't any good at intelligence-gathering, but who had been looking for the teacher's lounge and gotten lost, winding up in Shibusen's ops center. "What's happening in Japan?" asked the Demon Hammer.
"Nothing," replied the Crossbow.
Marie glanced at the monitor, unable to make the slightest bit of sense from the graphs and spreadsheets. "Why is that strange?" she asked.
"There's always something happening in Japan," explained Azusa, who was on exposition autopilot, while the greater part of her mind considered the data before her. "It has the highest ambient madness-wavelength of any country on earth," she told her colleague, "giant robots, borders between realms that should never be connected, a very high demon population... need I go on?"
"But nothing recently?"
"Nothing," confirmed Yumi.
"Strange," Marie agreed.
AN: Still no regular update schedule. And, in case anyone has an excellent memory for detail, I usually write using the Rule of Funny, when fleshing out my outlines, then go back and fix logical contradictions when I scan for typos. So if you see something that doesn't make sense, odds are I'll notice it and fix it... eventually.
Also, one of my friends convinced me to watch the 1989 Tim Burton "Batman" movie when we were both about six, so that's drawn from real life. I was very disturbed afterwards. Don't remember whether it was a phenomenal movie or not, just that it was dark and scary, so it seems like something Nekozawa would like, for sheer ambiance if nothing else.
