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"Minato." - Regular Speech

'Musubi' – Thoughts

"Kaminari!" - Sekirei Incantation

Beta'd by BigCC

Chapter 21: Kazehana, Flighty Sekirei of the Wind

Kazehana was very much put out by all this. There she was, just hopping across the rooftops to return to her hideaway with a fresh bottle of sake when she had spied two Sekirei ganging up on a third. Said third Sekirei happened to be someone she was familiar with, if not a friend of; Panty Flasher-chan, the Number Nine Sekirei.

She had acted when one of the two attacking Sekirei used her Norito. She was honestly surprised that she'd had to use something close to her full power as an UnWinged Sekirei in order to deflect the two attacks. As a member of the First Generation Disciplinary Squad, her limiters were set much higher than even the younger Single Digit Sekirei. Not only was Panty Flasher-chan stronger than she gave her credit for, but that Norito had packed a surprising amount of punch. The Scythe Girl and her Ashikabi must have a strong bond to release that much power from a Double Digit.

Kazehana couldn't help but feel a bit jealous of that.

Forcing those annoying thoughts away, she glared at all three Sekirei. She was about to speak when another Sekirei, the former Discarded Number of all Sekirei, leapt up with a frazzled and windswept boy in her arms.

She recognized him immediately. Her son...Sahashi Takami's son.

Well now, wasn't this interesting?

"Number Three...Kazehana, the Wind Sekirei." Number Seven said with narrowed and wary eyes. "A former member of the Discipline Squad."

And that suspicion and distrust was one reason she was glad she'd turned down Minaka when he tried to get her to rejoin the Squad both times he'd asked. The Discipline Squad had started out as five Sekirei dedicated to protecting their unborn brethren from human encroachment. Even when Number Eight, Yume, had been in charge of the Second Generation, it had still been about protecting their fellow Sekirei while they grew and matured, and protecting MBI's interests was simply an extension of that duty since they supported and provided for the Sekirei. Now, with Karasuba as the Leader of the Third Generation of the Discipline Squad, they had become MBI's dogs in truth, dedicated solely to following the Chairman's orders.

But enough of that for the moment. Time to discover what kind of mess the wind had blown at her this time.

"Now that that little exchange has been neutered..." she said with forced calm. "Would one of you mind telling me exactly what in the name of the Maker you all are doing?!"

There was silence for a moment before the flaxen-haired Sekirei with a scythe in her hands let go of it with one hand and pointed accusingly at the blond who she had tried to shred a moment ago. "She tried to kill Minato-sama!"

One elegant eyebrow rose at that assertion before Kazehana turned to Panty Flasher-chan. "Oh?"

The blond water user spluttered indignantly. "That monkey hath defiled mine dreams!"

Idly noting the antiquated Japanese that the other Single Number used, Kazehana also noted that the blond was trying to justify herself rather than excuse herself.

"You do realize, Panty Flasher-chan, that a lot of our fellow Sekirei would be deliriously happy to have a Bonding Dream with an Ashikabi." she noted coldly. "Many of whom have had their ability to choose taken from them, while you squander and reject such a gift."

"My name is Tsukiumi, harlot, and I care not for others' opinions!" the blond snapped, bristling with outrage at the name.

"Ah...now you've done it." the bustiest Sekirei in existence said with a dangerous glint to her eyes. "No one speaks to me like that except for the Chairman and Number One! Flower Hurricane!"

With a lazy gesture from one hand, a large tornado of wind blasted into Tsukiumi, sending her flying across the rooftops until she passed out of sight.

"Well, now that she has been suitably punished...can I ask why you were attacking her so seriously if she is someone who was reacting to you?" the Wind Sekirei asked, snapping her eyes to Sahashi Minato, feeling a warm pulse emanate from her Sekirei Crest. She...she was reacting? To someone other than the Chairman?!

"She didn't exactly give my girls any leeway to treat her as anything other than a threat." the raven-haired boy replied dryly as Hammer Girl and Scythe Girl leapt over to interpose themselves loyally between him and Kazehana, the former Scrapped Number staying at his side. "I was also given the advice that she needed to be shown why becoming a Winged Sekirei was advantageous, and that battle was the best way to go about it."

"She attacked first!" the hammer-wielder added, sounding most upset. "If Akitsu-chan hadn't blocked it, Minato-sama could have been badly hurt!"

"And the double-teaming?" Kazehana exerted her will and pushed the fascination with the boy before her down for the moment. Investigate now, indulge later.

"She's a Single Number!" the scythe-wielder scowled. "How the heck were we supposed to survive after our Norito's power ran out if we didn't go all-out? Plus she attacked Minato-sama first. Attacking a Sekirei's Ashikabi is an even bigger no-go than teaming up. She broke the rules first, that means she loses their protection."

That was true. Regular Sekirei, even Number 10, Uzume, who was only one number down from Tsukiumi, were vastly weaker than a Single Number. Ordinarily, Tsukiumi would have been able to easily wipe the floor with the two Double-Digit Sekirei. Add in the fact that the scythe and hammer-wielders had a loving Ashikabi willing and able to grant them the full power of their Norito, which temporarily let them bridge the power gap.

"A fair point." she admitted with a sigh, she really couldn't fault the youngsters for going out to protect their Ashikabi, not when their love was shining so brightly and clearly for her to see. "Do not make a habit of doing that though, even with Panty Flasher-chan. I'll be most upset with you if you do not follow my advice, Sahashi Minato-kun."

"How..." the boy blinked for a moment before nodding. "You know my Kaa-san." It was not a question, simply a fact.

"We've met." Kazehana said pleasantly, deciding to omit how she and Takami hadn't exactly gotten on well as they had both fallen for the same man. Some things a boy didn't need to know, and this was one of them. Especially if there was a possibility that he could perhaps...

Mentally shaking her head, Kazehana turned around. She could think about that later. For the moment, she needed to observe the boy from a distance where her instincts wouldn't interfere and see if he was what her Crest deemed him to be.

"Be a good boy and you may see me again." she called sultrily over her shoulder before leaping away, catching a blush crossing Minato's face before she had to turn to concentrate on her landing.

He had a cute blush.

With Minato

The blush on his face had only barely faded when an enraged Tsukiumi returned, her hair still somehow almost completely immaculate despite the airtime she'd just undergone.

"Where hast that trollop fled to?!" she demanded as she landed in front of Yashima and Yomi, looking enraged. He couldn't really blame her for being angry for being sent flying, but she did deserve it for apparently pushing one of Kazehana's buttons like that.

"I have no idea." Minato answered her, making Tsukiumi whirl around to glare at him. Unfortunately, once she saw who had spoken, her eyes widened and she collapsed to her knees, panting and her face bright red.

"Wha...what...is this...?!" she gasped before shuddering, throwing her head back and letting out a very erotic cry as Minato walked closer to her.

"She must be reacting to you really strongly, Minato-sama." Yomi said as she eyed the trembling Tsukiumi. "She came just from you moving close to her. Either you two have really good compatibility or she's very sensitive to sexual stimulation from the reaction. Even I wasn't that bad when I was in denial."

"What...what hast thou done...to me?" the Water Sekirei demanded weakly.

"You're reacting to me, Tsukiumi-san." Minato replied, kneeling down to look her in the eyes. "As Yomi just said, you are having the strongest reaction to me out of all eleven of the Sekirei I've Winged before meeting you."

"I...don't need...an Ashikabi!" Tsukiumi growled out, wanting to look away from the monkey of a man kneeling before her, but for some reason she was drawn into his eyes, which were...enchanting.

"All Sekirei will have to be Winged according to the Chairman of MBI's plan, Tsukiumi-san." Minato sighed. "I have eleven Sekirei, including two Single Numbers. I have no wish to forcibly Wing you, or any need to. I just want you to not try and kill me. Or do you not know what happens to Winged Sekirei if their Ashikabi is killed?"

That made Tsukiumi flinch. Either she had been so angry at reacting to him that she forgot about that fact, or the anger at seeing him had driven the fact out of her mind.

"I...did not know that thou had any Sekirei before today." she admitted. "Other than possibly that wench who controls ice. Who art thou?"

"Number Seven, Akitsu." the former Scrapped Number declared proudly. "The Sekirei of Ice and formerly the Discarded Number."

"Impossible!" Tsukiumi's eyes widened in disbelief. "A Discarded Number is permanently unable to be Winged!"

In response, Akitsu turned to her Ashikabi and kissed him on the lips. In a burst of ice-blue light, Akitsu's wings appeared and fluttered in front of a stunned Tsukiumi for a moment before fading. Yomi and Yashima had pleasure roiling through them as well from the bond they had with Minato, but they were able to keep themselves under control. They would need some private time later though.

Damned Sekirei bonding and empowerment. It was leading to an entire houseful of angst-ridden and sexually frustrated Sekirei who really wanted the Ashikabi to 'practice making babies' with them. Even Musubi was getting pent up, and she barely knew what arousal was!

"Impossible..." Tsukiumi stammered out again, the energy from the kiss running through her. "H-How...?"

"My mother, Sahashi Takami, was able to undo what that quack of a scientist did to her." Minato said, face bright red from suddenly being kissed by Akitsu. It was nice, make no mistake, but a bit of warning would have been nice. "To get back to the point, can you please stop trying to kill me?"

"V...very well." Tsukiumi ground out bitterly. As much as she wanted to deal pain to this varlet of an Ashikabi, she also had no desire to cause the deaths any of her sisters. An accident in the midst of battle was one thing, though she'd avoid that if she could as well, but knowingly killing one of her kin without even the honour of battle was an affront to her pride, her very core as a Warrior Sekirei.

That made Minato let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you. On behalf of my girls, thank you."

That made Tsukiumi blink in surprise. He was grateful she wasn't going to kill him, not because he would die, but because his death would drag his Sekirei down with him? Just with that, he was a better person that at least 70% of the other Ashikabi she'd seen.

"As for you reacting to me, I'm sorry but I really have no idea how to do anything about that." he admitted. "I will say that if you ever do want me to Wing you, I will do so, but not before then. Until we meet again."

Dumbfounded, Tsukiumi watched as Akitsu and Yashima helped their Ashikabi down to the street, while Yomi smirked at her, making the Single Number irked.

"What?" she demanded.

"You know, you remind me of myself, just a bit." the Death Scythe Sekirei said with a slight sneer. "Maker, I was an idiot to deny how attracted to Minato-sama I was. I was around him almost 24/7 for almost a week and nearly lost my mind. I denied what I wanted and almost paid for it with my powers and sanity. You won't have that problem unless you hang around the North a lot."

She smirked then. "Thing is, you'll kick yourself for not leaping at the chance you just had here. Whether you end up Winged by Minato-sama later on or if someone manages to beat you down and Wing you against your will, you will curse your own stupidity for this moment right now. He is the best Ashikabi that a Sekirei could ask for, he treats all of us equally and lovingly and he is the favourite to win the Sekirei Plan. Later, Number Nine. You might want to change your panties, by the way; they're soaked through."

With that, the flaxen-haired Sekirei leapt down to join her Ashikabi and fellow Sekirei, leaving Tsukiumi behind, a mixture of anger, disbelief, shame and a myriad of other emotions on her face. A roar of frustration erupted from her mouth before she stood up shakily and leapt away to the high-class hotel she had been staying in since leaving the MBI Tower.

She needed time to think.

Later

Sahashi Takami's Office, MBI Tower

"Idiots." the ash-haired mother of two grumbled as she stormed inside her office, slammed the door shut and threw herself into the nearest seat to brood.

She had received a call from, of all people, Kazehana, regarding her son. While she and far more well-endowed Sekirei of Wind were never going to be friends, the scientist knew that the former Discipline Squad member did her best to look out for her fellow Sekirei, and the attempted murder of her son by Number Nine was something that rang alarm bells for Takami.

Tsukiumi's Tuner, Miyajima, was someone who even someone as crazy as her boss, Minaka Hiroto, respected. An accomplished chemist and medical doctor, she had tested an anti-ageing treatment on herself which had resulted in her looking younger than her and some of the Sekirei despite being in her 70s. She had also monopolized Tsukiumi during the Tuning process, and it had been recorded several times that just mentioning the woman while around Number Nine was enough to make the usually redoubtable and brazen Water Sekirei tremble in remembered fear.

The conversation that Takami had just had with Miyajima was almost as bad as the ones she usually got after dealing with The Idiot in the Cape. The woman was almost as insane as Minaka, which was saying something, as well as being just as strict with her charge as Takami had been with her kids, probably even worse. Oh, she had shown that she loved Tsukiumi like a daughter and that she cared for her, but she literally scared the living daylights out of the poor Sekirei whenever she trod so much as a toe out of line.

Something that also pissed her off was the woman scaring the growing Number Nine with tales of sex that would make a pornstar blush. 'In order to keep Ashikabi from getting in with her the easy way' or so the madwoman claimed.

Were it not for Miyajima's status as a special advisor to MBI, Takami would have punched her. As it was, the woman had just had her pay halved for the next six months, and she was forbidden to see Tsukiumi until she had been Winged for a good month. And that was after the pay-cut that she'd received earlier this month.

Then there were the idiots who were trying to infiltrate MBI to try and steal company secrets. About 80% of the new security measures were up across the Tower and had caught almost all of them. Those who managed to get past them and the security were caught by the Red and Blue Sekirei.

Seriously, the entire New Capital was locked down tighter than a nun's panties and these morons think they can get out of the encirclement if they somehow miraculously managed to steal something from the MBI Building and successfully managed to escape?

Idiots, every single one of them.

And then of course, there was the biggest idiot of them all, cackling inanely like a loon at every Winging that happened and gibbering and raving about 'the Age of the Gods' this and 'mankind's destined time' that. She was talking, of course, about Minaka Hiroto himself.

As always, he was already well aware of the attack by Tsukiumi, but the only thing he said about it was that it was a shame that 'their son' hadn't Winged the two Single Numbers that had been present!

She'd punched him through a wall for that. Minato was her son, not his, dammit.

'Kazehana...it's a good thing you got rejected by that psycho.' Takami mused darkly. 'Otherwise you might have killed him already.'

With his acts towards the Sekirei combined with his insanity, it was a wonder that Takami herself hadn't done anything about the man, and she had relatively normal levels of patience. Kazehana was patient with certain things, but utterly none when it came to others. Minaka would have crossed her lines long ago.

Sighing, Takami got up and moved to sit behind her desk. As she did so, a photograph caught her eyes. It was one with the senior staff of MBI back when the Sekirei Plan had still been the S-Plan. At the front of the group was herself, alongside Minaka, as well as one person who she missed a lot.

'Takehito...what would you be doing right now?' she wondered, before scoffing. 'Of course, if you were still here, the S-Plan would never have become the Sekirei Plan. Not even Minaka could have made you budge on that.'

Asama Takehito had died saving the lives of Minaka, herself, Haihane, Benitsubasa, Shiina, Kusano and a dozen other Sekirei during an experiment with a Jinki gone wrong. She couldn't even blame the Idiot for this. It had been an experiment that they all had agreed was perfectly safe, even 01 hadn't expected the chain reaction that had nearly wiped out the entire complex. Miya hadn't blamed them for it, simply requesting that no further experimentation with the Jinki was to be conducted, something that Minaka had quietly agreed to.

The fact that the lunatic had gone quiet for a few weeks afterwards before returning crazier than before showed just how badly he'd taken the loss of his best friend.

With the strongest resistance against the Sekirei Plan gone, however, Minaka had buried Takami in work and changed things as he pleased. She would have suspected him of sabotaging her experiment had it not been for the genuine panic he'd shown at the Jinki going berserk. All he'd done was take advantage of the ensuing opening that Takehito's death had allowed him.

Well, he was gone now, and things were worse than she wanted, but better than she had any right to hope for, thanks to her son and daughter. There was one more card in her hand she could play, using the lab in the Botanical Gardens to keep it isolated and away from Minaka's beady eyes. It would take some time, but with a bit of luck...

A grim smile covered her face as she pulled a writing pad from her desk drawer and she started writing in it.

'Project Lazarus is a go. I will not permit my failures to affect these Sekirei any longer!' The Head of the Sekirei Plan thought grimly.

Later

Kazehana's Hideout

Humming in pleasure at the taste of good sake, Kazehana lounged in a chair and thought about the day she'd just had. It had been far more interesting than she'd anticipated.

Right up until lunchtime, it had been the same as almost every other day she'd gone through since leaving the MBI Tower; lazing about watching TV before going out to grab a nice bottle of expensive and delicious sake for her to sit and drink and watch the sun set.

Discovering the little dust-up between Sahashi Minato's Sekirei and Number Nine had been interesting for a variety of reasons. One was that a Single Number had been forced onto the back foot by two Double Digit Sekirei. Another was that she had Reacted to Sahashi Minato. Even now, the tingle on her Crest was making her aroused.

Minaka Hiroto was the only person previous to Minato who had ever made her React, so she supposed it wasn't much of a leap that something in his son got her attention.

She'd let Takami know about the scuffle, and judging by the curses at the other woman hung up, someone was about to have a very bad day. It was something about her old rival that she respected that she tolerated no shit from anyone and managed to put the fear of herself into anyone who managed to rouse her ire. Even Minaka, loathe as he was to admit it, was slightly terrified of pissing Takami off too much.

'Still, now that all of the fuss and feathers is over and done with for the moment...' the Wind Sekirei mused as she turned her mind to far more attractive thoughts than Takami.

Sahashi Minato...he was an interesting young man. When Homura had told her about him and the Sekirei he had Winged and would Wing, she had been interested. Out of the Four Ashikabi, only Sanada Nishi and Minato were Ashikabi who only Winged Sekirei who Reacted to them, and Sanada only had six Sekirei. Minato having Winged almost double that was quite the accomplishment.

Miya was fairly stingy with information about the Sekirei home world, but she had let a few titbits slip over the years. Such as while it was possible for an Ashikabi to Wing multiple Sekirei, it was uncommon at best. Also, how it was rare that the number of Sekirei in a single 'Flock' to exceed seven, including the Ashikabi.

'Mmmm...so he exceeds expectations...' the Sekirei of the Wind mused, licking her lips. From what she'd seen, he was a good man, with a powerful aura that made her crest react to him. But even with that in his favour, after being rejected by his father, Kazehana had decided to be more careful with to whom she gave her heart to.

'I'll need to watch him, make sure he fits the bill, to see if he's truly worthy of Winging me.' she thought seriously. 'This little dust-up that he had with Number Nine was interesting, but not definitive. I wonder if something will come up that will be a useful test...?'

Several blocks away, a young man with brown hair sneezed. Looking around irritably, he reached back and cuddled the blond-haired girl beside him into his side, making her squeak in surprise and blush up a storm before relaxing into the embrace, almost purring in happiness.

"C'mon Kuno...let's go home." he said softly.

"Hai, Haruka-sama." Number Ninety-Five, Kuno, the Song Sekirei replied.

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Next Chapter: Echoing Light

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