Things began to go wrong almost as soon as Akira delivered the knife to his mothers. The actual turning over of the blade went without a hitch; it was everything afterward that made him begin to wonder if maybe he were still dreaming.

"Breakfast!" "We want breakfast, hurry, Akira-chan, we're HUNGRY!"

"Breakfast is coming! I'm working it!" Akira cried from the kitchen, and it was only as he turned to put cheese in the pan for the omlettes that he discovered he was bleeding. "Agh!" he cried, and dropped the tray. Cheese shavings scattered all over the floor, but Akira did not bend right away to pick them up; instead, he peered at his finger, then around on the floor, and then on the counter to try to find what had cut him.

He found nothing.

"Akiraaaaaaaa!" called one of the mothers, spurring him back into motion. Sucking on his injured finger, he scooped the cheese back onto the cutting board and then into the trash. Substituting a paper towel in lieu of a bandage, he quickly shredded some more cheese and made the quickest omlettes he'd ever put together in his life.

"Here you go, I'm SO sorry they were late, I can't stay any longer or I'll be late, too, I love you, bye!" he extemporized as ran past, thumping up the stairs and to the bathroom quickly as only a rushed nine-year-old can go. Within ten minutes, he'd taken care of his wound, packed his small bag, and hurried out the door -

And proceeded to trip on something and fall straight down the steps leading to his front door.

"Oh, Akira!" cried both mothers in tandem as they raced toward him; Akira sat blearily upright and tried to see what had tripped him as they came.

"Oh, honey!" "Oh, your poor KNEES!" "We'll take care of this - " "Just leave it in our hands, we'll do what's right -" "You poor THING you don't suppose he's going to die?" "Gangrene and die, that's just what he'll do!" - big breath - "UWAAAAAAAAAH!"

Akira hunched and covered his ears. "Please! Not so loud, I'm FINE - "

"No, you're not!" they wailed, and without further hesitation, dragged him back into the house.

Twenty minutes later - and five minutes late - Akira managed to wrench himself free from the dubious maternal efforts of his home life. His left knee dressed in cute little criss-cross bandages and his right index finger wrapped in slightly clumiser gauze, Akira wore a deeply concerned face as he trotted toward class. He watched his feet very, very carefully as he went; but unfortunately, his feet were not the only parts of him having trouble.

In his 8:00 pottery class, he somehow knocked over his turntable - and while trying to rectify that, knocked over another, which smashed into their small kiln.

The 9:00 meeting with Nokoru and Suoh was uneventful - except for the ink spill that ruined his scoresheet and necessitated a re-calculation of food expenses for the past month.

In 10:00 music class, something he did sent all the Bach motets in the supply cabinet down on his head.

At 11:00, the cooking class he taught to the sophmore college students went utterly smoothly until the end, when the entire left oven exploded in black smoke.

By 12:00, Akira was bruised, tired, dirty, and exhausted; he dragged into the scheduled lunch with his fellow student council members looking nearly like he was hungover, and it was obvious from the start that he had no interest in the figures presented to him.

Nokoru looked concerned. "Akira? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, student council president," Akira said quietly, and Nokoru pursed his lips.

"Maybe you should go make us some lunch, hm?" he suggested, and Akira perked up; after all, three culinary mishaps in a day were unlikely. Weren't they?

"That's a wonderful idea, student council president! You're always so smart," he beamed. "Do you have any preferences?

"Oh... Italian is always nice," Nokoru beamed back.

"Yay!" Akira exclaimed.

"Cholesterol," Suoh warned, and Akira hesitated.

"It's a celebration, Suoh. Italian it is," Nokoru decided, and Akira looked thrilled.

"Yay!" he said again, and ran to do his chairman's bidding.

By 12:45, the meal of simple tortellini and sauce was complete.

By 12:50, it was spilled across Nokoru's lap.

Akira was beginning to wonder if he should just go home.

He ended up staying until nearly dinner time. By nature, Akira was not a quitter; and so, remaining until his full compliment of classes and work were completed was really the only thing he could do. By that time he'd created two more spills and one minor explosion; all of it had been contained and no one was hurt - but Akira was beginning to grow very, very worried. Unwilling to try to cook again today, he conscripted one of his university students to create a lovely French meal and took that home to his mothers.

There were no mishaps on the way home; Akira was beginning to think maybe the madness was over.

"I'm hoooome," he wearily announced as he came in the door; but no one answered him. Puzzled, he shut the door with his foot and trudged into the kitchen to deposit dinner.

"Hello?" he queried; still hearing nothing, he padded down the hall and checked room after room in search of his mothers.

They weren't anywhere on the first floor; puzzled, he climbed the back staircase to the second.

"Hellooooo?" he tried again; there was nothing. Frowning, he went to look in the trophy room to see if perhaps they were there.

Now, this was odd; both mothers were - but neither seemed interested in his arrival.

"There you are!" Akira said. "I brought dinner - it's downstairs and I... uh... hello?"

Neither woman looked at him. Focused, they lay stretched on their stomachs with their feet in the air, taking turns petting the dagger Akira had brought that morning.

He stared.

"Hello, Akira-chan," one of them finally said.

Akira took step closer. "Um... I brought dinner."

Mother B looked at him over her shoulder, her expression filled with things Akira did not know how to name. "Is it yours?"

"I... I oversaw the cooking."

"Then we don't want it," Mother B concluded, and turned back to look at her knife.

Akira didn't know what to say. "M... but... I can put it in the fridge."

"That's fine, Akira-chan," Mother A said, sounding utterly distracted.

He shifted. "Are... is everything all right?"

"Fine," both mothers answered him at once.

Akira hesitated. "Okay. Well... I'll see you later, I guess. I'm going to my room." He waited another moment, but no one said anything. He sighed; rubbing his temples, he trotted back downstairs to put away the food.

He spilled half of it before he even reached the refrigerator

"Uwah, what's going ON," Akira bewailed as he cleaned up the mess, putting what was left in the fridge and the rest in the trash can. Not wishing to risk another incident, he retreated to his room and shut the doors, planning not to stir for the rest of the night.

It was late; Nokoru was tired. But still, he sat at his desk, pouring over papers he'd marked in red, not even noticing when Suoh turned on the overhead light because the outside had grown too dark. An unaccustomed scowl aged his round face.

"Class chairman?" Suoh asked quietly, leaning on the desk.

Nokoru sighed and pushed back from his desk. "We have an interesting problem here, Suoh," he said, frowning at his research. "As you know, 20 Masks has made off with Hisamitsu dagger. And I have no love in my heart for thieves; however...."

Suoh waited for a count of 15, then prompted: "However?"

"However... I do have respect for a man who is a gentleman. I think you can agree, Suoh, that 20 Masks - for all his obvious faults - is a gentleman thief."

"Yes. Okay," Suoh said, really not sure where this line of conversation was going and nervous because of it. "Why is this important, Chairman?"

Nokoru pursed his lips. "Because I think this time, he may have bitten the proverbial bullet and taken more than he can chew."

"Mixed metaphor," Suoh muttered, and was ignored.

"I think, Suoh, that we need to take out an ad in the paper. 'To the infamous and most celebrated 20 Masks: Information which may be relevant to your recent exploits has come to light, and is, in fact, well worth acquisition. In order to receive is, a rendevous within the safety and privacy of a domain of your choosing is suggested.'"

Suoh scribbled madly, having grabbed his notebook three words into his chairman's speech; not for the first time, he was grateful for his shorthand training. "Anything else, chairman?"

Nokoru paused, considering. "'The life which you enjoy so highly is at stake. Please contact the editor for more information.' I think that will do, don't you, Suoh? Being sure, of course, to give the editor the proper information."

"Does he need a password, sir?" Suoh remarked dryly, pencil still poised over paper.

Nokoru considered. "Yes. Have the editor ask... which item he would have returned, if he could. If the answer is, 'the ice mermaid,' then we have our man. We will await instructions."

Suoh eyed him oddly, then nodded, made a few more notes, before closing his notebook. "This is a little unorthodox, Chairman - even for you. May I ask what, exactly, it is that we're doing?"

Smiling oddly at Suoh, Nokoru began throwing putting his papers into a manilla folder. "I have reason to believe that the Hisamitsu dagger is cursed. Not like the fabled Hope Diamond or the gold of the Nibelungs; this one, my dear Suoh... may be real."

Suoh was trying to keep his left eye from twitching. "And... we're going to warn 20 Masks."

"Yes." Nokoru folded his fingers over his stomach and regarded the ceiling. "'It is a far, far better thing I do now than I have ever done- ' so goes the quote, Suoh. I think we will not regret doing this good deed; my instinct tells me so."

Suoh sighed, resigned. "Very well, Chairman. Let me get you home safely before I go to the newspaper with this ad."

Nokoru eyed him and grinned. "So the sooner I'm home, the sooner it goes to the paper, hm? All right. Fair enough, Suoh; I thank you for your help."

Nokoru was home by 9:30pm; Suoh had the article to the editor of the CLAMP Daily Times by 10:00; and by that time, Akira was already in bed in that kind of deep, heavy sleep that can only come from exhaustion.

Upstairs, Mothers A and B finally put the dagger away for the night, locking it carefully in a glass case before leaving - although they were hesitant to leave at all. And in the darkness of the trophy room, the moon shone through the skylight and lit the dagger as though it were still a showpiece in a museum. Behind it and through the glass, the moonlight cast its shadow on the wall.

And by itself, the shadow moved. Stretching, widening, it twisted its way down the hall like blackened mercury. Within a few moments, it had curved around the doorway and stretched far enough that it literally snapped free of the dagger, leaving it shadowless.

Moving in alternated bunched and slender form, the freed shadow slid up the hallway like an macabre worm, shifting determinedly until it came to Akira's room. Suddenly darting with a purpose, it disappeared into the shadow beneath his bed.

Akira gasped softly; clenching the blankets in his fingers and sweating as he slept, he tossed and turned as if plagued by dreams far darker than his own imagination could produce.