Author's Note
Hi, sorry for the slooooow update and thanks to all of you who has taken the time to review my fic. I have freaking tests to do but I'm glad it's almost over. One more week and I can kiss Senior College goodbye! If anyone is wondering which path I'm going to take for this story, I think it's pretty obvious after you read this chapter and I hope you ppl out there won't tie me to a pole and start stoning me.
About Reni and Maria's huggy wuggy.... I think I've watched too much TV and personally I do feel it's a bit mushy. But hugging each other doesn't seem to be a big deal in Western civilization.
Reni, in my stories, will always be straight.
An Iris and Reni friendship? I will try to do it some time.
Disclaimer: I do not own anyone in the Sakura Taisen universe. (Honestly, I'm tired of typing this sentence.)
A dark ominous aura in stark contrast to the brightly illuminated background loomed over the main staircase of the Teigeki. The aura was like an enormous energy field of repulsion. Anyone without the same negative state of mind like the emitter of this aura would unconsciously avoid the main staircase or the main entrance, their primal instincts advising them to take another route or face something terrible.
A pair of narrowed, pale violet eyes stared straight down the many steps of the wide, carpeted staircase, waiting. The air around the balled-up figure in her yellow dress crackled and scintillated as it was being sporadically charged up by the immense spiritual energy pent up by the girl, the bear she squashed between her body and her arms stared idly ahead with its black pearly eyes, its slightly standing fur the only indication that it felt the energy.
However, the spectacular display of energy vanished immediately as two people stepped into her view. The one on the right was a tall woman carrying an even taller stack of parcels that completely covered her face. The one of on the left was shorter and her silver hair was the only thing visible above the small stack of parcels she carried.
"Reeeeeeniiiiii!" Iris leapt up in joy and bounced down the short flight of stairs towards the duo.
Reni and Maria peeked out from the sides of their respective stack of parcels at the source of the voice and both of their eyes went wide in horror when Iris stepped on the hem of her long dress and catapulted down the stairs and towards them.
"Aieeeee!" Iris shrieked as she flew headfirst towards the stunned duo, bowling them over, causing a shower of parcels and bags to cascade on them
Maria sat up first with a slightly disoriented Iris on her lap. A rather heavy parcel landed on her head just as she sat up, infuriating the already annoyed blonde.
"Iris! How many times do you have to do this to get that running down stairs is dangerous!" Maria almost hollered at the girl's face.
"Muu... But Iris just feels happy to see Reni. That's all..." Iris protested.
"It doesn't matter! You could have hurt someone else besides yourself!"
"Nobody got hurt..." Iris whispered defiantly.
"Iris! You'd better apologize to Reni and me! Do you understand?" Maria's temper was mounting.
"Iris wasn't wrong!" The unruly little girl shot back.
"Iris!" Maria was practically shouting now. She never had any patience for people who do not admit their mistakes.
Reni sat up groggily next to the two quarreling blondes and caught Maria's arm just as she raised it. Reni look straight into Maria's green eyes and shook her head slightly.
"It's all right Maria. We're not hurt after all." Reni said firmly, silently urging the furious woman to calm down.
Maria's agitated breathing slowed after a minute or two and finally she said, "Very well. I'll let you go this time Iris but if this happens again, I'm going to have to confine you to your room. Understood?"
Iris only sulked and remained silent, her defiant posture unwavering.
"I have to go see Manager Yoneda. Would you mind helping me bring all my stuff to my room please?" Maria turned to Reni, ignoring the French girl.
Reni nodded and Maria rewarded her with an approving smile. She turned towards the direction of the office, her pace suggesting that she was still more than a little bit displeased with this incident.
"Reni. Let's leave her stuff and go to my room." Iris hooked Reni's arm in hers and started to pull the teen.
To Iris' surprise, Reni resisted her pull and unhooked her arm from the girl's before she started to pick up the scattered parcels.
"Reni?" Iris ventured, a little hurt that her friend had pulled away from her.
"Leaving all this stuff at the bottom of the stairs is dangerous." Reni replied monotonously.
Iris watched in impatience as the German began picking up and stacking all the parcels in a pile. She slung all the plastic bags onto her elbows and laboured to balance the parcels in her arms. The height of the parcels altogether reached four feet in height and Reni had to move extremely slow and careful while mounting the steps. It was fortunate that her sense of balance was much superior than a normal person but her progress was slow nevertheless.
Iris, whose patience had finally dried up, used her powers to lift the parcels off Reni's arms and directed them up the stairs.
"Where do I put them?" Iris asked, feeling slightly better when all her bottled up energy finally had a chance to come out.
"In my room. I'll sort them out later." A rather relieved Reni answered back.
Reni opened the door to her room and let Iris direct the floating objects into the opening and settle them onto her floor. Reni was about to enter her room when Iris blocked her way.
"Neh! Neh! Reni. Why don't you come to my room and play with me?" The girl asked eagerly.
"Iris... I need to-"
"Reeeeni. Come on!" Iris half pleaded and half insisted as she pulled on Reni's arm.
Reni let out an inward sigh and allowed the girl to drag her out to her room. She was sure that they would probably spend the whole night playing Hanafuda or some other card game. She was also sure that it would not take long for Iris to use her powers to gain the upper hand and best the already poor player who was herself.
Maria exited Yoneda's office where she left the Manager, drunk and still drinking. She opted to look for Ohgami and ask him to do the night patrol when she noticed that light was pouring out of Kasumi and Yuri's office.
Out of curiosity, Maria popped her head into the doorway and was surprised to see Ohgami still laboring on one of the desks.
"Taicho? Why are you still working here?" Maria inquired.
"Not now Kanna. I have to finish redoing all the paperwork since 1921 by tomorrow morning." Ohgami muttered.
"K-Kanna? Taicho! You're delusional! Have you had something to eat?"
"Sure. Take a seat."
"Taicho!"
Ohgami continued to say some gibberish under his breath. Maria could have sworn that he was chanting the words "work, work, work" over and over.
"Taicho!" Maria yelled at him again, grabbing both his shoulders and trying to shake him out of his hallucinating state.
Ohgami's head bobbed forward and backwards like it was attached to a spring but he did not snap out of it. Instead, he was grinning and cackling eerily like he was enjoying it. Maria released him and took a step back in shock.
"T-Taicho! Are you all right?" She stammered worriedly.
The slightly insane captain only smiled at her question. His bloodshot eyes and pale countenance with the two black circles under his eyes made him resemble some clown from hell. He tee-heed, "Why am I not all right Maria? I'm fine. I'm fine. How are you?"
"Tai-"
"Oops. No time for yapping and more time for pushing!" With a slight giggle, Ohgami started writing and pushing the balls on his abacus, mumbling figures and adding them up wrongly.
Maria couldn't bear to leave him in this condition and resolved to pull him away from his work. She would apologize to Yoneda for violating his orders when Ohgami's in better shape. Frankly, Maria believed that Ohgami deserved to be punished for his recklessness in the past week but this was just too much for her to bear. Ohgami had literally gone bonkers.
"Taicho, come with me. You need sleep." She said firmly to the captain, pulling his arm slightly.
"Huh? Sleep? No time! No time!" Ohgami waved his arm, trying to loosen her grip but Maria remained firm.
It took some time and effort but Maria managed to pull the squirming Ohgami out of his chair and up the stairs behind Yoneda's office. Ohgami wasn't offering much resistance and acted very much like a drunk with his incoherent mumbling and sudden burst of giggles. Maria figured that Ohgami's "follow an order to the letter" personality finally couldn't cope with the stress and with the added exhaustion from lack of sleep and food, something in his mind must have snapped.
No one had bothered to switch on the lights on the second floor and this annoyed Maria terribly because it was a chore to try and not bump into walls while steadying the captain in her arms. It was a huge relief for the vice-captain when the stumbling duo finally arrived at Ohgami's door. Maria struggled to turn the knob but Ohgami suddenly leaned close to her face, a centimeter of air was what separated their noses.
Maria flushed. Her inner self was embarrassed by the close proximity while her other half chastised her for even feeling that embarrassment. He was just delirious from hunger and sleep deprivation after all. Why make a big deal out of this?
While she was still debating internally, she didn't realize that Ohgami had ceased leaning onto her. Her attention was brought back when he held her chin with one hand and his other hand snaked behind her and rested above her hip.
Maria blinked in astonishment and before she could protest, he had jammed his lips onto hers, startling the blonde. Initially, Maria tried to fight him off but the weak man had suddenly gained immeasurable strength. Or maybe it was that she wasn't really trying at all.
Ohgami's advance was fast and demanding, causing the blonde to falter in her defenses. It wasn't as if she wanted to hold the walls anyway and she slowly melted under his assault, allowing Ohgami free access to her mouth. Her arms reached behind his neck and pulled Ohgami closer, her tongue beginning its own offensive.
Their lips broke off briefly only to inhale the oxygen they both needed before they meet again, providing a small conduit for the intense sparring contest happening in between. Maria felt herself heating up considerably and any semblance of the rock solid self-control that remained in her sublimed as if it were dry ice. The small voice in her head told her to let him take her.
Finally, they called for an unspoken truce and their lips parted to allow the breathless couple inhale mouthfuls of precious air. Maria struggled to say something to Ohgami. To say that she had always felt attracted to him or something resembling that but before she could open her mouth, she found Ohgami leaning heavily on her again.
At first, the blonde thought that Ohgami was advancing onto her again but when he exhibited no movement at all, she pulled him away slightly to discover with a teeny-weeny disappointment and a huge amount of relief to find the captain asleep in her arms.
With a slight chuckle, Maria dragged the snoring captain back into his room and tucked him neatly to his bed before she headed downstairs to do the night patrol.
Unknown to Maria, three pairs of eyes had seen everything.
Kanna and Sumire had been crouching in the shadows in the dark salon all this time and both of them looked questioningly and excitedly to each other. They headed quickly back to Sumire's room after Maria left, debating enthusiastically under their breaths whether they should tell the others or keep it to themselves and see what happened next.
The other pair of eyes belonged to Kayama who had been hanging on the ceiling just above the kissing pair. Kayama smiled behind his mask as he noted the recent turn of events. He scurried off like a beetle on a ceiling, his mind pondering where all of these current affairs would lead to and how he could play a hand in it. He, unlike Kaede, always loved to spice things up a bit. If Kaede wanted Reni and Ohgami together, maybe he would make things more interesting by pairing up Ohgami and Maria.
Aside from the aforementioned trio, a pair of sparkling blue eyes witnessed the event in the dark corridor leading to the Hanagumi's room. Reni held both her hands tightly against her nose and mouth to prevent her from making any involuntary outbursts as she felt the familiar painful emotions boiling inside of her.
She slipped silently back into her dark room and locked the door just as Kanna and Sumire slipped past outside. Reni tried to make sense of what she had seen and in her distracted state, she tripped over a shopping bag that Iris had left on the floor and landed heavily on her stomach.
The teen didn't bother to pick herself up. Instead, she buried her head in her arms and slowly let the tears drop off her eyes. She couldn't help but feel like a torn, used and discarded tissue.
Reni punched her fist onto the wooden floor, not minding if anyone heard it. She saw the horrible scene replaying over and over again in her head like some cheap movie flick, jeering and taunting her.
Anger flared inside of her as she thought of Maria and Ohgami's betrayal and she sent another fist onto the floor. This time she did it wrong and her fist bent when it made contact with the hard wood, accidentally spraining her wrist.
"Damn it!" Reni groaned under her breath as she pulled her sprained wrist towards her, rubbing it absently as she felt the throbbing pain from the injured wrist.
"Damn it..."
Reni didn't understand any of it. Ohgami had told her that he loved her. Why had he kissed Maria when he loved her? She thought she had it all figured out. She thought that when a man loved a woman, he wouldn't be kissing other women.
Why had this happened?
Why?
Had Ohgami lied to her? Was Sakura right after all? Was Ohgami just a perverted womanizer? Was she just one more person to be added into his list of prizes?
Reni punched the floor in frustration and it sent shockwaves of pain back into her, making her realize that she had used her injured fist again. Reni crawled to the small corner of her room and curled up again, moaning softly. The pain sent more tears to her eyes but she wasn't sure if it was from her wrist or from inside of her. She didn't care anyway. She just wanted to cry.
After sobbing herself senseless for nearly an hour, she was able to calm down a bit but she didn't feel any better. She silently cursed the dozens of authors who had claimed that crying made someone feel better. She felt even worse when she thought of why she had cried in the first place. However, the cloudiness caused by her anger did fade a bit, allowing her think a bit more.
She thought of Maria and Ohgami. Anger and hatred materialized again but she disregarded them. She remembered her thoughts before and small pang of regret and shame overcame her.
How could she feel that she had been betrayed? How could she feel anger? She was the one stealing Ohgami, wasn't she? She tried to take him behind Maria's back didn't she?
Maria had liked Ohgami first. In fact they had known each other longer than she had. Reni wasn't sure how relationships worked but surely if someone liked the other first, that someone should have him. It's how things worked. Right?
She tried to remember scenes from Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Hermia had loved Lysander first and she ended up with him instead of Demetrius. That was how love should end right? How could she steal someone else's lover away?
She felt like Demetrius. No. More like a whore. It shamed her.
She reached a conclusion in her one-sided debate. She would leave Ohgami. She would not let herself become Maria's rival. She didn't deserve Ohgami. Maria did. It was because she loved him first and that was final. She was second and that was that. Tough luck.
Who was she kidding?
She couldn't just give him up. She wanted only him in her whole life. To give him up just when she had finally touched him was too hard. It was close to unthinkable. But she knew she had to. And she hated herself for not being able to let him go just like that.
Sadly, she indulged herself by thinking about Ohgami one final time before she slept.
Tomorrow, she would have to leave him and the thought only brought renewed tears to her eyes.
I'm preparing my sandbag barrier now and I hope they would be enough to stop your stones from killing me. R&R pls!
Oh, has anyone noticed that Reni sucks in card games? (In ST2.) I can beat her easily enough but Iris is just too annoying.