The Cookie Pixie will be at AnimeNorth from May 21 to May 23, 2004. I'll be cosplaying on all three days. If you're in the area, please say hi to me!
Next...I guess I rushed through that chapter too quickly. Hopefully I haven't given away too much, but what should be obvious to you now is that Megami is/was the Seventeenth Paper Master, therefore was Donii's teacher; she no longer works for the British Library but does anything she can to hinder it; and something in the past kind of ruined the whole student-teacher relationship. I'll try to edit this chapter again.
To CuriousDreamWeaver: types away
To omasuoniwabanshi: (I swear, I think I spelled this wrong...) I tried to explain the whole Paper Master whatnot here. There's a lot going on in the Megami/Donii dialogue and since I didn't really edit I'm concerned that I just confused people even further. What should be explained is Megami/Donii's past, but since Megami is a bit...shall we say, unbalanced, it will likely be confusing.
Chapter Seven: Goddess of the Twisted Paper
Donii sighed, rifling a hand through his hair while the other gripped his briefcase. He stood on the doorstep of a very old house, abandoned and condemned. The deathtrap seemed to even sway in the breeze.
The Paper was nervous. It was very likely that Megami-san had set this up as a trap for him, using herself as bait. Either Joker was a total idiot or he knew exactly what was going on - which, as an afterthought, still made him an idiot.
Polite as ever, Donii pushed the doorbell. Inside her heard a tinkling sound, but nothing else. He tried the door, but it was jammed shut. Calmly Donii removed a card from his sleeve and shoved it fiercely into the crack, slicing the lock and sending him sprawling gracelessly inside.
The house was, very bluntly put, very uninviting. Dust hung everywhere - over the wooden furniture, on the floor, from the dulled light fixtures. Donii cautiously stepped around the rooms, a card in hand as he glanced around. It was eerie and gloomy, with the only light coming through mothballed curtains.
At the end of the hallway Donii found an old staircase. From outside he had seen that the house had been two storeys tall, and he had no doubts that Megami-san was hiding somewhere above him. He took an apprehensive step on the first stair, sending up a cloud of dust from the runner lying on the staircase. It creaked ominously, but seemed to hold his weight. The Paper began to climb the stairs.
As soon as his head was visible from the second floor Donii heard a faint whistling sound. Instinctively he bolted straight up, a path of paper needles sticking into the stairs right behind him. At the top of the stairs paper flew out from his sleeves, forming a shield that dozens of needles stuck too. Somewhere above him someone swore; the Paper guessed where the voice came from and fired the needles back, uprooting them from the shield and floor.
A shape appeared from the dusty shadows Donii had fired at. Paper needles hovering within a hair's breadth of its body, surrounding her like some enormous orb. They moved aside and rushed around her, a cylindrical shield of paper that covered her back and sides.
Megami Kanzeyori smiled pleasantly. She was in her mid-forties, but her black hair was already streaked with grey. It was tied up in a thickly-coiled bun, with white paper ties holding it into place. Brown eyes glittered behind gold-framed glasses, which had an attached chain looping around her neck. She was dressed as a Library worker, with the white blouse, red tie, brown vest and black skirt and shoes; a faded blue-and-white identification card was pinned to her left breast. She was very tall, about 5'10", and by the way she looked her personality seemed dangerously catlike.
"They sent you?" Megami asked.
"No one else was going to go, Megami-san," Donii replied, gripping a card tightly in his hand. The paper shield fluttered to the floor, unneeded for the moment. "They want to talk to you."
Megami snorted and held out her hand. Some paper from her own shield spiralled out to form a long thin staff, pointed dangerously at both ends.
"Talk?" Megami asked. She stabbed the javelin into the floor, thumping it to emphasize her point. Her eyes narrowed. "No. Being a common thief is a much better fate than what the British Library has."
"You tried to kill me!" Donii yelled. "Of course it's not going to be good!"
"For good reason," Megami snapped back. She expertly twirled the staff in her fingers, whirling the weapon around her body. Suddenly she stopped and pointed it at Donii. "You took my powers from me, and now I am going to get them back!"
Donii instinctively threw up his shield - lucky he did, for the shield surrounding Megami had turned back to paper needles, raining down around him. Several points stabbed through the shield, but the Paper was otherwise unhurt. He turned his shield into a bar as he dropped his briefcase, and with both hands he used it to block Megami's attack, a swipe from above.
Megami pressed down on Donii's weapon, trying to force her will into it. Donii, however, was studying Megami's weapon.
"Paper money?" he asked. He glanced aside and saw the needles were all made of dollar bills. "What - "
Megami took advantage of the distraction, kicking Donii soundly in the chest. The man was thrown into the wall and sat there coughing for a minute. Megami smirked, pointing her weapon in his face.
"Money. It's what makes the world go round," she said, casually flicking aside Donii's weapon. "Acquiring rare books for Mr. Gentleman? Why bother doing that when you can sell the book for a profit?" Her voice lowered to a whisper. "Why bother doing that when the Library will repay you with an eternity of suffering?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Donii answered. "And what does this have to do with you wanting to kill me?"
"They never told me what would happen when I took on a student," Megami snapped. She brought the weapon across Donii's face, sending his sprawling further into the house. He tried to get up, but Megami leapt and lashed out again with her staff. "'Take on a student in case something happens to you', they said. So I did when I got the opportunity - and look at what happens!"
"What?" Donii coughed.
"THIS!" Megami screamed, striking Donii across the chest. He fell backwards, now totally winded. "YOU - I LOST MY POWER TO YOU! I loved books more than you did, but training another Paper Master means giving your power into another!"
"That's selfish!" Donii retorted when he got back his breath. He backed away from the hysterical woman. "You want to kill me because of power?!"
"Not just that," Megami said. She started to walk towards him, her voice back down to a speaking level. "Because I found what happens to the Paper when he - or she - is no longer useful to the British Library."
"What happens?" Donii asked cautiously. He had been backed out into a large room, where a balcony ran around the edge. It opened up onto a view of the first floor, a cluttered mess below him. Hanging low from the centre of the room was a rusty old chandelier.
"They store you," Megami said. Her eyes glittered not with malice, but with tears now. "They keep you alive. It's not even living - it's so they can use your body, take parts of it, use it in their horrible experiments to keep Mr. Gentleman alive."
"I don't believe you," the Paper said harshly.
"It's true, you stupid boy!" Megami shrieked. "I broke into the Library and saw it myself. Saw my own Master floating half-dead in a tank, with a nice little serial number attached to it. Saw his Master, and the Master before him - ten Papers who had given their lives to help the British Empire, and this is what they get in return?!
"No, when you see something like that, you go crazy," Megami snarled. "You know that death is much better than that. Call it a mercy killing that I tried, the Paper. It wasn't like I could say anything and you'd believe me - you don't believe me now, even. But no, you were already stronger than I was, so I decided to save my own skin. Cowardly act, you might say. But I for one refuse to retire to an existence of THAT!"
At her last word Megami lunged, aiming to spear Donii through the chest. Donii, seeing nowhere else to go, threw himself off the balcony edge and landed painfully on the iron chandelier. It screeched loudly at the added weight and for a moment the two Paper Masters paused, anxious to see if Donii would fall from the swinging contraption. After another creak of protest, the chandelier stopped moving. Donii slowly got to his feet, careful not to upset the delicate balance on the chandelier.
Megami, however, had no qualms about the safety of the chandelier. With a yell she leapt from the balcony, bringing her staff up to strike the Paper down. She landed hard on the edge, but Donii rushed forward, a set of index cards streaking out of his his breast pocket to form a paper sword that deflected Megami's strike. Megami furiously drove her staff at Donii, but again and again he blocked the attacks.
Suddenly Megami lunged, striking the sword directly with the point her her staff. Donii gasped as the sword fell apart, broken pieces of paper fluttering into the air.
Megami smirked. "This is the end."
"No it isn't," Donii said. He plucked a piece of paper out of the air.
The paper in the air stiffened and rushed towards Megami in a tornado of blades. Megami screamed as again and again she was bloodied by Donii's weapons, her own staff getting shredded in the process. She stepped backwards, trying to shield herself with her arms.
"MEGAMI-SAN!"
Another step, and Megami plunged off the edge of the chandelier. She screamed and was cut off by a sickening thud.
"Megami..." Energy flowed up from the floor, catching the bits of paper that still floated around the area and building a thin rope of paper that went from the chandelier to the floor. Climbing down it, Donii could feel a strange vibration humming throught the paper.
Megami's body lay on the floor, her torso pierced in two places by stray pieces of furniture. Blood seeped from dozens of wounds all over her body - there was no way Megami Kanzeyori would be leaving this house alive. She slowly raised her head - her glasses had shattered - and peered curiously at Donii.
"You feel that?" she rasped, blood sliding from a corner of her mouth. She smiled and laid her head back down on the floor. "That's what happens, when a Paper Master kills another..."
First...Megami Kanzeyori is MINE!
Oookay...to explain everything that I was trying to explain in this chapter, I made footnotes. They grew to about a page in, well, footnotes. Which really, really sucks. So I made a whole new page for it and might stick it on my website.
I'm quite pleased with Megami's name. Yomiko, I heard, means 'child who reads'. Megami Kanzeyori, ignoring the facts that I don't know the rules of Japanese grammar and just checked everything on an online dictionary, literally means 'goddess of twisted paper'. She's a great character, although she lasted only one chapter - perhaps I should write a story based on her life?
Recipe for a Paper Manipulator (using Yomiko and Anita for examples - spoilers!):
-- one part genetics - if you parents had some special bibliophile gene, you might have it too. Yomiko's parents loved to read, Anita was made from Paper Master genes. This is why STN takes an interest in them (the the British Library keeps an eye on STN): they can become potential witches - or Paper Masters.
-- one part environment (Chomsky and Piaget, eat your hearts out) - if you grew up around books, then you'd likely develop talents. Yomiko grew up around books, Anita's life was surrounded by books, etc. etc.
-- one part catalyst event - an event that forces the Paper Manipulator to use his/her powers. Yomiko's, in this story, was having someone steal her book; Anita's was the Library fire.
EDIT: Fanfiction.net doesn't recognize the li tag. Or asterisks. I'm slightly disturbed.
May 9, 2004/May 18, 2004