(a/n) – if anybody actually visits my links, you'll know that the whole Nerima Arc was started because of one omake post. this... would be an expansion of that post. ("forum. fanfiction. net/ topic/ 88086/ 42932494/ 18/" ; post #868)
again keep in mind that Nerima takes at least 3-4 years after Fate/School Days and its various omakes, hence the reference to koyuki not being winged yet.
it's a late arriving spoiler since it has been referenced in the nerima fics, but bit of a warning, if sister/sister incest squicks you slightly, don't feel bad, it squicks me too! still, it is 'canon' by the creators for the two characters and... i do use them a lot. i tried to keep it relatively tame. we'll see.
Fate/School Days – Sidestory 03: Karin
There is something wrong with me.
I've always prided myself on being intelligent and observant. I've known exactly the impression I tend to leave on strangers, classmates, sometimes even other family members. I know many of them see me as domineering, psychotic, or outright insane... or a combination of all three. I could argue Nature – Mom's not exactly the most balanced person around either; I could argue Nurture – in a family this large, it helps to have character quirks that let you stand out from the crowd, and I think I can safely say I've managed to pull that off with a roaring success. But I'll let you in on a dark and dirty secret: I act the way I do because it's simply fun. There's no deeper motivation than that – my family simply kicks ass and even if everyday isn't quite an awe-inspiring adventure, I wouldn't trade them for all the world. They're fun to be around and I love them to death.
Now I mean 'Love' the same way most people would talk about their families, it's that filial piety/respect most kids in happy families have. The mutual respect and relationship on a platonic level that still allows for hugs and kisses and the occasional piggy-back ride. Definitely not the romantic kind. That's something straight out of a poorly written anime or manga.
Which is why there must be something wrong with me. Because I think I'm in love with my sister.
ooo
Out of all my siblings, I'm easily the closest with Keiko, Koyuki, and Sakuya. No real surprises there. We're all pretty much the same age; the next oldest would be Aoshi and Riko but they tend to hang out with each other more; on the younger end there's Jun but he got ignored early on for being a boy. Sorry, Jun! Besides he tends to spend his time training with Lorelei-kaachan, so I doubt he misses the company. Anyhow, between the four of us, we grew together, trained together, and overall gave headaches to Uncle Gil... just like the older children before us. Family tradition you might say.
Of my sisters, I find myself most equal with Keiko. Koyuki is certainly fun to be around, if I'm not trying to provoke a reaction from her, she's very useful as a gofer. Don't get me wrong, I'd never ask her to do something she didn't want to do, but so far she's never said no to... well, anything. Sakuya is the baby of our group, the sweetheart, if you will. Normally that would be enough to trigger a protective instinct in her elder siblings, if it weren't for the fact that it was far too amusing to trick her into her Yin personality. Keiko, as the eldest, definitely possesses the take-charge type of personality I appreciate. She knows what she wants from her life, but she's not too proud to find alternatives if the situation makes her current goals unobtainable. A person like me can get behind somebody like that; be the power behind the throne sort of thing, I've never wanted to stand out in the spotlight myself.
So when she came out after the first day her Thaumaturgical Crest was implanted and I found myself suddenly short on breath and unable to concentrate on multiple thought processes, I got a bit worried. I immediately knew the reason, of course. Mom and Dad had long put together a list of factors which influenced the chances for a Sekirei's Reaction towards any individual. Unfortunately while personality was not much of a factor, magical potential was a theory which was estimated to be a large percentage, though the lack of magi involved in the Sekirei Plan meant there was very little hard data to test it with. Within our family there had been mixed results, from the couples that had involved Sekirei, the evidence supported the magical theory.
Takeshi-nii had reacted to a completely normal human girl; Kyon-nii had reacted to a purported demi-god; Chiyo-nee had triggered a reaction from another family's Half-Sekirei; Chisame-nee had reacted retroactively to a child-prodigy magus; Fuuko-nee had reacted to a normal classmate just last month... much to Aoshi-nii's chagrin; and Shinta-chan had reacted to a tiny slip of a girl who possessed almost more potential energy power than Aoko-kaachan. The only Half-Sekirei left unpaired in our family were Kaien, Aya, Koyuki, Gekkou, Kumako, and Ichigo. Reiko couldn't since she broke herself, and I had counted myself in their number... until now.
ooo
I know this should have probably been a happy time for me. Heck, I had been planning celebrations and day-long teasing for whenever Koyuki finally Reacted to somebody. But at the time all I really felt was confusion. The few times I had bothered to think about it, I had been anticipating some heroic fighter-mage swooping in to save me while I was on the run from some evil organization bent on using me for their nefarious purposes. So what if it's a bit close to what Mom went through, I never said I had a good imagination, did I?
It wasn't that I was reacting to a girl. I liked to think we were a very open-minded family, plus there were precedents. Uzume-kaachan still shared a room with Chiho-kaachan, while Fuuko-nee had reacted to that schoolgirl, though I imagine the girl's family wasn't too happy. But Keiko was my sister – a half-sister if you wanted to get into detail, but that's still closer than most laws allow for. I certainly like her enough and I'm certain she tolerated me more than the rest of the family did, but still... I wasn't comfortable with the idea. More than that, I couldn't even imagine how Keiko herself would take it.
With that in mind, I was more than relieved when my Reaction faded away towards the end of the day. I allowed myself to believe that it was just a one-time occurrence, Keiko's sudden increase in magical energy had simply caught my body off guard. Things were back to normal, we could simply just be sisters again. Then Keiko came back from another session and I was hit even harder than before. I knew the process she was going through would stretch out over most of her life in weekly, monthly, or even yearly intervals. I had just assumed that it was only the first time that made my hormones start to go crazy. When the second session's effects hit me, I was nearly floored. It took everything I had to maintain enough concentration to act normally, which made me glad – for the first time ever – that Keiko had different classes than I did.
That day was still sheer torture for a different reason – Fuuko-nee. She knew what was happening to me, having recently gone through the same thing herself. Despite how she acted, she was far from being a ditz and it didn't take her long to figure out who I was Reacting to, either. She started spending as much time with Keiko as possible that day, an easy feat considering Keiko was avoiding us while she recovered from her own set of side effects. The sudden stabs of jealousy that pierced me would have been bearable if Fuuko-nee hadn't kept catching my eye with the corner of her own and smirking at me.
Fortunately the effects wore off later that same day as well, around the same time Keiko apparently felt herself healthy enough to rejoin us. Half of me wondered if we were already bonded on some level, her pains as she adjusted to the foreign presence in her body being transmitted to me and making me want to protect my potential Ashikabi. Another half of me was just grateful that it was over and that I wouldn't have to go through this for another week, hopefully a month.
The next few days went by normally again. Keiko still maintained the illusion that she was successfully keeping her new crest a secret and made no mention of it. Likewise, my sisters and I didn't mention anything about my own behavior. I'm certain Koyuki knew what was going on, but being Koyuki, she would never say anything unless directly asked. Sakuya was definitely curious, but she was so used to coming to me for answers, she had no idea who else to pose her questions to.
It was days like these I was glad I was a genius. On a good day I could maintain almost a half-dozen completely isolated thought processes, a skill extremely useful for multitasking in general, though I generally practiced it the most when diving into computer networks while keeping some shred of attention in the physical world. I began compartmentalizing myself, I took any stray, improper thoughts towards Keiko and shoved them into the lowest, farthest process from my consciousness. After a month – and a third session/attack – had passed, I found my head flooded with everything Keiko. I had to devote two threads now, filled to the brim with observations and fantasies of her. One-third of me was now finding it not such a bad idea to pair up with my sister, an idea that the remaining two-thirds was still slightly squicked out by, but less and less as each day passed. A small part of me, though, was still scared. Even if I was getting closer to accepting this Reaction, I still had no idea how Keiko would feel about it.
Fuuko-nee still didn't help, if anything, she was making it worse. Apparently she didn't have the same inhibitions I did and she was apparently disappointed at the lack of progress on our parts, resorting to paying her close, personal attention to incite a response from me. She stopped just short of flirting My Kei – I mean her younger sister, but I refused to rise to her bait. I did trash her Social Studies presentation slides into unrecoverable, corrupted data, but that was just my usual pranking.
It wasn't delicious revenge. Not at all. Nope.
The rest of our first year of middle school ended without incident. After the Spring Break we would begin again as second-year students, Fuuko-nee would graduate on to high school, so I would never have to deal with her about this again. Unfortunately I was more right than I knew...
ooo
I kept to myself mostly, locked away in the study room Dad had provided the four of us. I had turned it into a miniature command-and-control center, though at this time I only really had control of the majority of the house's cameras. As had become my habit, I flipped through various camera viewpoints using the multiple monitors at my terminal. By this time, I had to devote four threads of thought towards Keiko to keep from getting overwhelmed, so she happened be the subject for the primary monitor, while only two other viewpoints received any active attention.
Tonight was looking to be another transplant night. Like before, Rin-kaachan and Keiko were standing in the magic circle in Rin's study while Chiho-kaachan watched carefully from the side. Dad had stopped visiting after the second session after seeing that the process was becoming routine. I watched with far too much interest as my sister peeled her shirt off. She was practiced enough that she was wearing a strappy tank-top underneath, still leaving enough of her arm and shoulder bare to facilitate the transplant. Even though I would have preferred her just in her underwear, she showed enough skin to make me happy enough. There was the ritual chant to empower the circle from Rin-kaachan, her magically peeling off sections of her own crest and running it across the field to position it in place with Keiko's, and then—
ooo
—I woke up with a slightly sore spot on the bridge of my nose where my glasses had pressed into them. Lifting my head from the desk, I glanced at the time on the display and found I had apparently been out for the better part of three... going on four hours. I struggled to remember what I had been doing before I blacked out – I was having an unusually hard time thinking anything out – and looked up at the monitor to see it still set on Rin-kaachan's study. Lying on the couch, apparently passed out as well, was Keiko.
Keiko
I shivered, hugging my arms to my chest as I suddenly felt my face grow warm. I had to struggle to tear my gaze away from the screen, nearly bending over double with the effort. I shoved myself out of the chair, collapsing onto the floor, but at least I wasn't looking at –
Keiko
– at...her. I had one shred of consciousness that remained my own. I didn't like the thoughts currently running through it. Clearly the Reaction was getting more extreme. Before I had to be near her, or see her with my own eyes before my Reaction would trigger. Now, not only had I felt it the moment her magical levels jumped, but I couldn't even look at her from the safety of a camera. I'd have to get clever to sit this one out. Since school was out, she'd be home all day. I could keep myself locked in a room – not here, I doubted I could even keep the presence of mind to move the camera viewpoint away while she was still in it. I could go to my bedroom, it had been a while since I'd actually slept in there... and then I could just stay in bed, just ask Koyuki to tell everybody I was sick and didn't want any visitors. Nobody, especially not –
Keiko
I shakily got back onto my feet, resolutely looking away from my workstation. There was no way I could sleep like this. I'd need something to take my mind off of her before I could pass out, maybe a movie...? Yeah, a movie would work. Throwing open the door, I stumbled down the hallway for the first entertainment den I could think of. I had to cross more corridors and go through a flight of stairs... did I actually head for the closest one? Nevermind, I'm here. Television, check; video player, check; movie... which one? Let's pick one at random. Ring? Sure why not. Maybe thinking of Sakuya instead of
Keiko
will help relax me. Okay, get it in, ladeeda, oh look there's the opening scene, boring. Haha stupid girls, why did you watch the tape? Curiousity really killed the cat there.
A noise from behind me made me jump and spin around. Standing there sheepishly, still just wearing her shorts and tank-top was
Keiko
She looked somewhat apologetic. "Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt," she said. Her voice sounded really nice... "I was just heading out to get some water... Why are you up so late anyhow?"
I couldn't say anything, my body decided at that moment to deny me any motor control, so I simply sat there, staring at her wide-eyed. She probably couldn't see them, or my blush, from the back-light of the movie behind me. So after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, she shrugged and continued walking down the hallway. That wasn't right. She was walking away from me.
Keiko
was walking away. My whole mind was in agreement, not even bothering to stop the movie, I slid around the couch and padded after her. She heard me, of course. She turned around in mid-stride, then froze. In the half-lit hallway, it was much easier for her to see the dazed look in my eyes and the full-on atomic blush I was currently sporting.
"Karin?" she asked warily. I stared impatiently as her own mind made the connections. Her pretend indifference was just that, pretend. She knew full well what had been happening those days and had probably been denying it just as much as I was. Well, she was always a smart girl, I loved her for that.
"Karin...?" She had one of her pistols out now, trained on one of my legs. Bless her heart, my sister is prepared for anything – even in the safety of our house. I took another slow step towards her and her eyes widened, pulling out a second pistol from her dimensional pocket. "Karin, let's not do anything hasty now..."
"Keiko..." It was a voice full of longing, of resignation, of acceptance.
She winced and squeezed a trigger. A rubber bullet embedded itself into the carpet, and she raised both pistols back at me. "L-last warning, Karin. You're not in your right mind right now."
"Keiko is worried about me," I said almost dreamily. "I knew I had good taste..."
She was backing up rapidly now and I was matching her step for step. Keiko really was a girl prepared for any eventuality. Solid bullets, metal or rubber, were all her limited tracing abilities could handle. Special ordinance she kept in weapons lockers scattered around the house, such as tranquilizer bullets. That might have worked too, except by now I was beyond caring.
"I didn't want it to be like this," she said regretfully.
That was enough to stop me in my tracks as my logical part reasserted itself briefly. "What?" I asked flatly.
"I do care for you, Sis," she said. "And I'm not blind to what you've been going through. It's... weird, but I guess I don't mind it as much as I thought I would. But... not until you're better and in your right mind. We can do it then, but not like this."
It felt like a huge weight I hadn't even known was lifted from my chest and I knew I was smiling. "You're... okay... with this? You have no idea how much I've been trying to avoid this too. How long it took me to come to terms with this. That... you don't know the relief that brings me. Thanks, Keiko."
She smiled back and lowered her guns slightly, "So... can we try this tomorrow? After we both get some sleep?"
I grinned, the light from the hallway reflecting from my glasses.
"Nope."
Her eyes widened and she raised her arms just as I leapt forward. Even though I knew she wasn't aiming for center of mass, her sudden inability to hit me stressed her out even further. I don't know if this was due to the Reaction pulling out my latent powers, or if it was just because my entire being was focused onto one, single goal, but she was unable to touch a single hair on my skin, or a fiber of my clothing. She half-ran backwards as she fired, her own anxiety letting her retrace spent bullets almost instantly, creating a withering hail that should have been impossible for me to bypass.
I was surprised myself when my body leapt against the wall and ran along it until I was past the barrage. She was completely shocked, which allowed me to tackle her almost gently to the ground, pinning her arms with one of my own and leaning across her body.
"Have I mentioned how nice you look in that tank-top?" I murmured as I leaned down to press my lips against her own.
The hallway lit up in an explosion of light.
