Casting Call For Act Three:

Daisuke (in the flashback)-Willow

Riku (in the flashback)-Tara

Daisuke (not in the flashback)-Buffy

Takeshi-Xander

Risa-Dawn

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Flashback to 24 hours before the last chapter. Risa's point of view, but not first-person.

Risa. It'd always been about Risa. From the first moment she could remember (which happened to be from when she was about two and a half years old), everyone who came around her and her sister always adored the sweet-faced brunette. Before they entered school, their parents would most often allow Risa to choose where they would go on their day-trips, usually ask Risa what she wanted for dinner, have Risa pick out the dresses that her older sister learned early on she would be forced to where as well. Their parents took great delight in dressing the pair of little girls in matching outfits, afterwards squealing about how darling they looked and whipping out the camera to capture their appearance (and of course, the pictures would always be slightly more centered on Risa). Even on the streets, strangers would approach the family as they walked past and compliment them on their beautiful set of daughters. Whenever Riku asked why Risa got all the attention, her parents would shush her and assure her that she was only imagining it, and certainly they loved both girls equally. But Riku knew better. She always had.

The scenario repeated itself when they entered kindergarten, but managing to spiral even further downward. Now in addition to be submitted to even more strange teachers and staff twittering over them, their classmates (and often instructors, as well) were unable to tell the twins apart from one another. With their matching outfits, identical face structures, and shining auburn hair, the pair were in every physical aspect exact to one another. To tell one from another, an inexperienced student would have to accidentally call one of them by the other's name, and watch their reactions. Risa would explode into a raging verbal barrage, demanding to know how dare that person even think she could ever be Riku. Riku would only cringe, and whispered behind clamped teeth, "I'm Riku. Riku." Sometimes, she had to repeat this even to herself, so that she would not forget she was a separate being entirely, and not simply Risa's reflection.

During the summer before they entered first grade, Riku had taken it upon herself to remedy this injustice for good. Finding her parents' sharpest set of scissors, she proceeded to chop her hair into a ragged pixie cut, while in the background her sister watched, silent and curious. Even though towards the end, Risa aided her sibling and snipped the haircut into as neat a shape as she could, her parents were still outraged upon discovery of Riku's new appearance. Though her father told her tightly that it was all right, they would take her to the hairdresser in the morning to even out the frayed locks, she could sense his disdain as he looked back and forth between the no-longer identical twins. Her mother was less graceful, openly moaning about how she had lost her matching set of little girls. Riku had told her, "We're not a set." But her mother, if she'd heard her daughter at all, had not let on.

Over the years, as they'd grown up and apart, their treatment as a set had eventually faded, torn apart by social status as well as appearance. Risa had taken her place in the popular crowd, preening and cooing to manipulate others into bowing to her will. She remained as pretty as ever in cutesy T-shirts and flouncy skirts, though at age eleven she'd dyed her waterfall of hair a rich chocolate. Riku had thrown herself into the one area of life that her sister would not touch with a ten-foot poll: Sports. During middle school, she'd briefly attempted basketball, before settling on track as her main activity. When she was not at practice or school, she'd wear shorts or jeans, and plain, solid-color shirts. The red-haired girl had never been particular popular. Oh, she'd keep a few regular friends, but she kept them more for survival than company. In school, you need to be part of a pack. Loners would be prey to the more malicious cliches (such as her sister's), and to have a group of friends was to be strong and out of the predators' reach. She'd chat cheerfully with her fellow track members, for they did not pry at her true feelings and were easy to stay friendly with. She did not ask their inner thoughts, and they did not ask hers, and all went on well enough.

Boys. Riku had never been particularly fond of the opposite sex, though at times they could make her laugh with their foolish antics. Few males ever tried to court her, for she was not particular attractive and held no great status in the unwritten laws of the society that existed in all schools. The few that did were quickly turned off by her suspiciousness of them, and would wander off to find easier game.

Until he came.

"I lived my life in shadow
Never the sun on my face.
It didn't seem so sad, though
I figured that was my place
Now I'm bathed in light
Something just isn't right"

He was nothing special, at first. Simply a stuttering classmate, who everyone but Risa knew was infatuated with her younger twin sister. But one day, when he approached her to ask advice on how to woo her sister (though he could never actually bring himself to directly ask), she found herself looking at him. Looking at him far too often. With other boys, she would gaze into their eyes, and they would lower them, looking at the ground and unwilling to meet her stare. But with this particular male, it was she who looked away first.

After that first true encounter, she began to see him more and more. It was not that Daisuke was making a special attempt to keep her company, it was simply that she began actually looking at him instead of looking through him. When he would speak to her, she found her tongue became loose and flowing, that she could tell him secrets that with any other person, even her own twin, were tightly locked away. Perhaps she was imagining it, but she liked to think that he too was encountering her more and more frequently, and not because of her connection to Risa. But Riku had long learned not to trust her imagination. It did result in disappointment so often.

"I'm under your spell
How else could it be
Anyone would notice me?
It's magic, I can tell
How you set me free
Brought me out so easily."

Before (and even a bit after) she had discovered sports, Riku had liked to draw. She would go out to her home's backyard at twilight, and sketch the shadows that stretched out from under the trees. She enjoyed looking at each leaf separately, seeing the miniscule tears in its edges, observing the bend of its stalk. But no matter how she tried, the image that appeared on the notebook before her never came close to matching the intricate artistry she had in mind. After she was twelve or so, she finally admitted that she had no artistic talent whatsoever, and burned her notebook full of drooping sketches. As she watched the flames in the burn barrel creep up over the book's cover and incinerate the pages, she felt a part of her dreams drift away with the smoke.

"I saw a world enchanted
Spirits and charms in the air
I always took for granted
I was the only one there
But your power shone
Brighter than any I've known"

He was different. When Daisuke had shown her the painting he'd entered in a contest, everything around her, even the redheaded boy himself, ceased to matter. All that existed was she, the swirling snow that piled on the blue-gray ridges, and the lonely figure standing ever out of reach beyond the pastel dunes. When he pulled the painting away, the real world came spinning back to smack her in the face, and she shook her head. All that she knew was that she must have that painting, right now, whatever she had to do so that the tranquility returned and that she could continue walking towards the figure that seemed so in danger of fading away into the singing winds. She'd begged him unashamedly for the painting. A bit startled, he had given it to her. Once she returned home with her treasure, Riku had stood in her room and stared long and hard at that painting for hours. But the figure remained out of her grasp, with its back to her, its faraway aura reminding her that her hands were not those that could fashion or hold fairy tales. Finally, she'd carefully hung the piece of artwork above her desk, and wept herself to sleep. Her dreams were plagued by howling blizzards that made you deaf and blind, and unicorns leaping out into the ocean to swim to somewhere beyond the sea.

"I'm under your spell
Nothing I can do
You just took my soul with you
You worked your charms so well
Finally, I knew
Everything I dreamed was true
You made me believe."

Now, whenever Riku was with Daisuke, she felt the way she had when she'd first gazed into that endless arctic desert. She felt as though magic could truly happen, and she was filled with unreasonable joy, in spite of her self-inflicted reservations. Her twin was forgotten, her status was forgotten, the loneliness that plagued her was gone because she realized that everyone had that loneliness, and she was not special. The news that she was alike to everyone else did not bring her sorrow, but linked her mind to a certain serenity. Whatever the danger was she was so afraid of, in his company, it had become the past. He was the solitary figure, cold and clear and very old, guiding her to paradise, or to madness.

"The moon to the tide
I can feel you inside
I'm under your spell
Surging like the sea
Pulled to you so helplessly
I break with every swell
Lost in ecstasy
Spread beneath my willow tree
You make me complete"

Riku ran a finger fondly over that same painting, her homework lying forgotten before her. She had just arrived home from the day's track practice, and her bag of sweaty clothes was still slung over the back of her chair. Around her neck was a necklace she had found, while walking the three blocks from the train station to her suburban home. It was a gothic silver chain, with a clear crystal about twice the length of her fingernail dangling at its center. Like any good crystal does, when she held it to the light, rainbow waves scattered and played across its surface.

"You make me complete
You make me complete…"

"Riku?" Her twin's voice shattered her thoughts, as Risa's head leaned around the slightly-open doorway to peer at her, eyes bright and questioning as a raccoon's. A small grin crossed the brunette's face, rarely a good sign as far as Riku was concerned. "Was that you I heard singing?"

The redhead twisted to look at her younger-by-two-minutes sister, frowning. "What are you talking about? No one was singing. You're crazy."

Carefully-glossed lips dropped from a sly smile into a pout. Voice raised, Risa said harshly, "Stop lying! I HEARD you singing!"

"Whatever, Risa," A nasty remark came into her mind. She briefly toyed with the idea of letting the matter drop, but then remembered all the events of her past that she had been pondering in the last few minutes, and instead loosed the remark she'd thought of. "Are you sure it wasn't the voices in your tiny little head?"

A more complacent person might have stormed off after hearing this, but Risa had clawed her way to the top of the school's social structure, and therefore become an expert in verbal catfighting. "Hey, don't be bitchy with me just because you're lovesick over your darling Daisuke!"

Her cheeks flushed scarlet to match her hair. Risa, noticing this, smirked with the rightful arrogance of someone who has many years' experience under her belt of manipulating others like puppets. "I…you…get out of here, Risa!"

"I think I'll call him and tell him about your little sonata. Do you have a title for it?"

In three strides, Riku rose from her desk and threw her weight against the door. "Get…out!" With a solid thump, the door finally closed. This didn't stop the redhead from hearing her twin's tittering laughter in the hallway. She wondered for a moment if Risa was serious in her threat to call Daisuke, but doubted it. Even her sister had her limits, however twisted they may be.

With a sigh, Riku slid down to sit on the floor, her back resting against the reassuring hardness of the wooden door's surface. Her fingers came up and scrabbled around the crystal on her necklace, clenching it in her palm tightly enough for its point to dig into her skin. Though no noise came from her throat, Riku's lips moved to silently form the words that if she had been in rational thought, would have disgusted her by sounding like that of a lovesick girl (for example, Risa on the subject of Phantom Thief Dark). "I wish I could go somewhere like in his painting, somewhere just for Daisuke and me, and stay there. For ever."

A cold laugh emanated from the crystal's depths, scaling up and down the harmony scale until it echoed around itself. "Hasn't anyone ever warned you about wishing like that, foolish girl? Speak it, and so shall it be." And then her world fell into darkness.

The sparsely-decorated room was now empty, but for the watch lying on Riku's desk beside her math worksheet. Unnoticing of its surroundings, the clock hand resolutely made its way around the device's face. Tick. Tick. Tick.

End flashback.

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"I bet they're not even researching," Takeshi complained. The three teenagers were walking down a street several blocks away from Daisuke's home. Daisuke had volunteered himself to walk his two friends to their houses, and Takeshi was loudly sharing his opinions on the bizarre phenomenon with Risa and the red-haired boy.

Risa turned her innocent hazel eyes to him, and asked, "Who?"

"Daisuke's mom and dad," Takeshi supplied, his tone having the air of a potential rant. "Did you see the way they were with each other? The get-a-roominess? I bet they're-" Daisuke dug his elbow sharply into the boy's side, and the would-be reporter immediately corrected himself. "Singing. They're probably singing right now."

"I'm sure they're making every effort." Risa simpered sweetly, but her eyes were glowing with sparks of amusement.

Takeshi unsuccessfully tried to hold back a snort of laughter. "Oh yeah. They're working alright."

His vision briefly spun as a hand descended on the back of his head and sharply cuffed him. "Saehara!"

Risa, deciding the game had gone on far enough, giggled softly as she told them, "It's all right guys. Believe it or not, I DO know what sex is." Her voice took on a dreamy haze, and she gazed into the distance at nothing. "Besides, it's all kind of romantic."

"What?" Takeshi demanded, incredulous.

She turned to the two boys with a sugary smile, fully aware of how her luscious hair bounced across her shoulders. "Come on, songs, dancing around. What could be wrong with that?"

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The soles of heavy leather shoes frantically thudded against concrete, as a man tap-danced down the street. His eyes were wild, mouth open in a silent scream. The scream burst from his throat as a lick of flame caressed his short black hair. It continued, an eerie high-pitched wail, as the fire slowly traveled to cover his arms, his chest, his legs.

All the streetlights were dimmed, so anyone looking out their windows would be unable to decipher exactly where the cry was emanating from, for the cold fire consuming the man radiated no light. He fell to the concrete, writhing as liquid skin dripped away from muscle and bone. A hand descended, and fingertips devoid of any solidity brushed the body's shoulder. A soft breath of wonder was the only noise.

The fingers withdrew, long and translucent. Rivulets of tan liquid slid down their sides for a brief moment, but then the shades dissipated, and there was nothing left but the mirage. A Cheshire cat's grin hung in the air above the corpse, humming a jangling tune that only it could hear. "Now this is entertainment."

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Author's Note: Well, that's over with. The next chapter will be far more entertaining, featuring the song "I'll Never Tell" and a pairing that is straight, but bizarre enough so that WolfBane2 will enjoy writing it. WolfBane2 enjoying something usually means that you should run far, far away and not look back at it. The title of this chapter's song was "Under Your Spell" which is actually sung by a Lesbian couple in the original episode. WolfBane2 has decided to reply to the reviews of the previous two chapters. FEEL HONORED. Oh, and remember when WolfBane2 said this chapter would result in revelations of Riku's kidnapper? She lied. It didn't really. Ah well. One more point, WolfBane2 is not certain what happened to the painting Daisuke gave Riku after the Second Hand of Time incident. So if something happened to it, we're pretending it didn't.

Sapphire Artemis: Well, as long as you read it, it doesn't really matter if you understood it. WolfBane2 knows you only read it because she told you to on Yahoo, but WolfBane2 finds this detail not of general interest. Kill the Mary-Sues.

Timetill: Takeshi plus bunnies equals comedy. Or some really nasty images. But Takeshi's good at conspiracies. WolfBane2 could see him being one of those people who thinks the government is plotting against us to suit their own purposes. Of course, WolfBane2 herself is certain of this.

Alowl: There. WolfBane2 updated. Your review was boring. Moving on.

0.o K-chan: WolfBane2 has had this idea for quite a while, ever since she first got into DNAngel. She wanted to do an anime parody of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer musical, and DNAngel seemed to fall into place. Albeit in a twisted way.

Dark Inu Fan: Your name…WolfBane2 remembers your name…did you ever go to a site called TV Tome? And yes, you have a high likelihood of being hit while interacting with WolfBane2.

EternallyFaithful: WolfBane2 is not a dude, but she liked your review. Spike…perhaps. No. Daisuke and Riku are not going to sing "I'll Never Tell". WolfBane2 already did one Daisuke/Riku chapter, don't push your luck. Daiki as Giles…positive likelihood. Yes, yes, we all know Takeshi and bunnies are amusing.

Naanaami: WolfBane2 is glad you appreciate Once More With Feeling. WolfBane2 is updating amazingly quickly (her usual update speed is two to three times a year) on this fic, so don't jinx her. But it's easier with parodies, when you already have a basic plot to follow.