Dissonance
Event XL
The Chapter of Temporal Temperance
Dragging herself into the cafeteria like a zombie, Honoka slammed down the huge book she was working her way through onto a table. The same table. The same as every day before this. She had lost track. "Aren't we supposed to be legendary warriors?" She complained to herself.
As of late, her spirit somewhat faltered in the mornings. She still got up with Nagisa, mostly because the thought of not spending at least a few minutes together before one of them would be incredibly worn out was pure torment.
But at the same time, she also went to bed basically as soon as she got out of training. A quick snack, a single glass of bourbon to relax the mind, a bath and then it was into bed with Nagisa, either for sex, for snuggling or just sleep. The last two days it had been just sleep, they were both too tired to get excited over each other. It didn't help either that Nagisa kept exploding in training and ended up with pain sensitive skin all over.
A number of tables were still showing signs of usage from the evening before. The left back corner of the cafeteria had become basically a bar where Miyuki, Inori, Kaoru, Urara, Regina and sometimes, oddly, Setsuna hung out in the early to late evenings. Dozens of empty glasses littered the pushed together tables and assorted small nuts were all over the ground. Half an uneaten loaf of bread was there as well. She'd half a mind to join them at times, but she feared that if she indulged in that once, she'd never be able to go back to the diligent studying she still managed now.
Sitting down, she immediately bonked the book on the table with her forehead, using it like a very hard pillow. "I didn't think this would be so ridiculously hard." She just stayed like this, numb and uncaring to whether anyone else would see her like this; still wearing pajamas, with bed hair and probably a bag or two under her eyes. It didn't bother her at all. Not like the others were doing much better.
Someone pulled up a chair to her table, making a loud scratching noise over the floor. Honoka didn't really have to guess much who this was. There were very few people who would willingly get up this early without being in the first training group. And it was kind of their little arrangement to keep each other company anyway. Neither of them knew why they did this, but it was just a thing they did. And they didn't wanna stop doing it because it meant they had to think of some other way to force themselves out of bed with their loved girlfriends.
Neither of those really managed to sneak around quietly anymore. Nagisa just earlier had walked into the wardrobe after getting her sweater stuck on her head, trying to get it through an armhole. The bonk, crashing sound and subsequent painful groaning would have woken her up no matter what anyway.
"How far through that monstrosity are you?" Mai's voice was a fair bit lower pitched than usual.
Honoka didn't look up at all and just slowly moved her head left and right while still resting on the book. "Going to take me forever. I'm on… what was it… trilinear interpolation within an unstable fermion environment." Someone blew raspberries really loudly and she could hear Mai slump in her chair. "I could not do this without you."
"I know." There was a loud thud. "Same here."
"What chapter are you at?"
"Advanced Avian Locomotion Principles chapter twelve." Mai recited her subject of study with all the dryness of a desert during a drought. "You cannot believe how boring this is."
"Trilinear interpolation, Mai. Trilinear."
"Did you know that there are three main theories of how bird flight evolved?"
"Mai… please."
"I know."
There was silence for a good few minutes between them, with only the occasional exasperated exhaling breaking through. Nobody else but them showed up. Anyone else who had been going for early mornings and studying has long since given up and adopted a more long-term sustainable approach.
"My turn?" Honoka was still kissing the book with her forehead. She just needed a while to muster the energy to sit up straight and actually let her brain absorb information.
"Uh… think so no wait it's my turn." Punctuation somewhat escaped Mai in the mornings.
Honoka exhaled very slowly and then looked up. Mai did still take the effort to tie her hair into a ponytail, but it was basically an unruly rug of a thing, with frizzly ends everywhere. She was in casual wear too. Short pants and a dress shirt. Under most circumstances, any kind of normal circumstances even, neither of those women would go out of their room like they did now. But over the last little while, the general attitude toward looking classy had taken a nosedive towards I don't care. Everyone was tired and was so all the time.
Mai sniffled and got out of her chair. The early mornings were really the worst, but they counted on each other for this. Making magical wings, functional wings, had turned out to be a much bigger design problem than expected. Some of the other teams had previously achieved states of free flight but whether it was a limitation of the nature of Mai's powers or simply that adding such an ability to the much more specialized powers of their grown up bodies was more difficult, Mai was running into a wall in her training exercises. She could manage wings for herself but they were extremely high maintenance and cumbersome. She wasn't even close to getting that battle ready, much less be a powerful ability to aid her friends.
Getting two cups of coffee for each of them, one for now and one for right after the first one, she dragged herself back to the table. Honoka's coffee was always extra strong and black. Mai on the other hand just could not take the taste of that so early in the morning and needed at least a two dollops of milk and two sugar cubes, per coffee. Setting them down in the middle of the table, she sat back down and took one cup between her hands but keeping it on the table. Covering it, letting go, covering it, she warmed up her hands. The weather was staying on the cold end of things recently and there had even been snow a few days ago.
Honoka leaned to the side, turned her head and sort of glanced towards the coffee. "Any progress lately?"
Mai sighed. "You?"
Honoka did the same. "At least we're still working on the main thing."
"Don't jinx it."
Honoka knocked on the table twice. "There."
"It's funny you even know that."
"We had a foreigner at work that did that all the time. Every time someone sneezed."
"Heh…" Mai chuckled. "I do feel bad for some of the others."
"With the way Ayumi hyped this up, I expected that we would… you know, have an easier time with this." Honoka took a deep breath and pushed herself up. "I wish this place had room service."
"Just get a thermos from Mamo."
"I do have one. But it's not the same."
"Want me to come over after Saki leaves?"
"That sounds like a secret date."
"We should be so lucky to have the energy for that."
"Considering we had problems with this before-"
"Yeah. I take it back. That's not a good idea."
"I do have a pretty clear image of what I want to do, but getting there… it took me a while to come up with [Whitelight Illumination] too, but this just feels so much more difficult."
"My [Heavenly Wings] only boost speed. I made that because Saki sacrificed speed for endurance and Michiru was kind of on the slow end."
"And we're not designing with only our own teams in mind now."
"Basically all Cures can jump really high and far, but there's barely anyone that can properly change where they're going mid-jump or the speed we go at."
"That's where your… I forgot it again, I'm so sorry."
"It's okay. I can't remember your thing either. It's [Feathers of Gaia]."
"You Splash Stars have a whole thing going on with nature."
"You can call that our theme even. Like you Max Hearts have light."
"Black light, white light and pure light."
"Still not sure what exactly pure light is supposed to be."
"I think I'm going to bleed out of my ears if I try to explain that to someone without explaining light frequency spectrums. Let's just say it's pure because Hikari is pure."
"Makes more sense to me than anything else you could tell me about that."
Honoka smiled and chuckled. "Sort of does."
"You know, It's not entirely my idea."
"What is?"
"[Feathers of Gaia]. Saki boldly told me that she is going to call her new ability [Titan of Gaia] and… her being my partner and all-" Mai stopped when Honoka subtly nodded a few times. "You get it, right?"
"Nagisa's the same. I choose [Fade to White] and the moment I told her she just smiled at me and said she'd go with [Fade to Black] then."
"I'm honestly starting to have doubts I really can get there." Mai sighed again. "Studying up on birds and anatomical design principles feels like it is helping but I am still no closer to functioning wings than I was a week ago."
"The last time I tried to actually use [Fade to White] I made a huge crater by turning myself into energy instead of covering myself in energy. I blew up Luminous and Rose."
"Wow… yikes."
"Yikes is pretty much how I feel when I think about trying again." Honoka put her head back down on the book.
"You coming to the beach tomorrow?" Mai changed the topic because that was quite enough depressing talk for her so early in the morning.
Honoka smiled. "Like I'd miss it."
"Figured you would just want to laze around in bed."
"I wanna feel the sun and move my body without having to be Cure White."
"Going to be nice. Having a day off once a week feels like… I'd prefer two, but it's something to look forward to."
"Yeah."
The conversation just sort of ended there. Silence returned to them. Mai just sat there, rotating the coffee cup slowly between her hands until it was a drinkable temperature. Honoka spent another fifteen minutes bent over on the book and briefly drifting off into a light sleep. Then it was time to actually sit up and drink her coffee.
The caffeine taking effect, both women got to work in a manner of speaking. Honoka went to page 144 in her monstrosity and Mai went to chapter twelve of the second book since she started studying up. Reading quietly, the silence only interrupted by the moving of cups, pages being turned and coffee being sipped, they spent their mornings like this all the time now.
Some time later, Honoka felt her focus wander off and leaned back, seeing Mai struggle in a similar manner, reading the same page twice. "How's Saki doing?"
Mai welcomed the break and just put the open book face down on the table, keeping it open to the page it was at. "Really not much better than us two."
"Hm… that's a lot better than Nagisa then."
"That bad?"
"Nagisa insists on doing a more… physical variation of what I'm trying to do to maintain the close up and ranged duality we have going."
"Uwah… how is she planning on figuring out how to do that when you're having such a hard time?"
"I asked her that too and she said she'd figure it out somehow."
"That's just like Saki. She's been saying she's so close to figuring out the important part for over a week now."
"How's your thing working out by the way?"
Mai smiled wide. "I like this Mai the most, says Saki. A few times too many actually." She looked really happy about that result. "Thanks for helping me sort things out."
Honoka chuckled. "Not much to thanks me for."
"A little thanks then. Like a… cover your turn to get coffee once?" Mai kept smiling.
"I see you regained a sense of humor. But I'll hold you to that, you know!" Honoka smiled back and chuckled briefly.
"Feels like forever ago we had a day off."
"It's been five days, don't be so dramatic." Honoka took it with humor and grinned.
"I'm not a seasoned salary worker like you are!"
"Ugh… ugh!" Honoka pretended to be flabbergasted. "Nagisa said something similar the other day."
"If Saki runs off to do workouts again like last week I am withholding sex for a week."
"You still have the energy for that?"
Mai paused and looked away. "Well… on beach days I do."
Honoka had to cover her mouth to avoid laughing out loud. "In another place and time, we could have been sisters."
"Don't say that!"
"Why not?"
"Just look at the Doki group! They're from another timeline. Or something."
"Timeline is right. Sort of."
"What if in the next one, when we go back, we are sisters?"
"Why would that be a problem?"
"Because…" Mai couldn't find an actual reason. "It's just weird. I'm not calling you nee-san."
"Oh I like the sound of that. Honoka nee-san."
"Never."
"Mai nee-san."
"Don't." Mai was starting to giggle. "Wanna go by the bathhouse after training?"
"And drown because we fall asleep?"
"I'll keep you awake."
"And who keeps you awake?"
"You of course."
"That sounds like a plan with a lot of holes."
"Is that a no?"
"I have been itching for real hot, steamy bath… I'm in."
"Should we tell Saki and Nagisa?"
"I'd feel bad if we left them out."
"Feels like we're going out for drinks after work."
"Really does. But how would you know that, miss not a salary worker?"
"There was lots of after hour drinking for me!"
"I've never heard of that before."
"Paintings sell a lot more after people had a couple of glasses."
"You really did that?"
"No." Mai smiled. "But I did have to go out drinking with other people in the arts world a lot to make connections."
"Nobody ever hit on you?"
"Oh, that happened quite a bit." Mai leaned further back and looked up. "I always countered with an image of Saki posing in her workout clothes. I told them I would give them a chance if they could beat her in a match."
"Ahahahaha." Honoka almost cried from laughing. "Oh my god. They must have been so intimidated."
"I would never actually give anyone a chance, I only have eyes for Saki."
"Everyone here knows that."
"Saying it out loud feels good though."
"It does?"
"Try it."
Honoka hesitated and then grinned. "Okay." Taking a deep breath, she really went for it. "I only love Nagisa, I love Nagisa so much and only Nagisa!" Almost shouting it, Honoka powerfully exhaled and sat down.
Mai burst into roaring laughter and applauded at the same time. Honoka's face was flushing from the sudden outburst and it was all just too perfect. "Amazing, amazing! Even I can't say it like that!"
"Does feel good!" Honoka was joining her in laughter now.
"That was perfect!" Mai was still laughing, unable to wind down and so they kept going for easily another minute. "Hah… that was great. I haven't laughed like that in a while."
"Laughing a bit too much there!" Honoka's grin was so big, there was no way anyone would take her seriously.
"You know what, we should do more fun stuff together."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, but I'll think of something."
"You know what Mai?"
"What?" That sounds so serious.
"It's really good to have you here."
"You had me all anxious there for a moment!"
"My bad, my bad."
"Honoka."
"What?" Oh you won't fool me.
"You've become a lot more… easy going."
"I wasn't before?"
"You were much more… like Alice or Karen."
"So is this a compliment, or…"
"It is. You're a lot more fun to talk to now."
"Thanks."
"What about me?"
"Come to think of it, you're a lot less air-headed than before."
"Hey!"
"You used to trail off into random painting thoughts in the middle of a conversation!"
"Hrrnnggf… I can't deny that." Mai tried to look fierce, but that was very difficult with a big grin on her face. Both she and Honoka broke out in laughter again. "Is this how Nagisa and Saki feel?"
"Probably."
"We can never let them know we're like this on our own."
"Never." Honoka nodded in agreement.
Mai looked down on her book. "I kind of don't want to keep studying but I also want to so I don't feel guilty later."
"We should get back to it. I don't want to take off tomorrow and be in the absolute middle of a subject."
"Oh, no, I didn't even think about that. I have like fifteen pages left until the next chapter."
"I only got three plus a diagram, but…" Honoka picked up the book, held it by the upper and lower end of the binding and showed the contents to Mai.
"Is that even Japanese?"
"Barely. Sometimes it feels like I'm reading one of Ako's books."
"That stuff just exceeds my understanding completely."
"I heard the words triangular talamene loop circuit from her once and was afraid to ask."
"This entire time I was sure we were one of the smart ones."
"We are, but I just can't comprehend what she's studying. Something about how Majorland people differ from humans, that much I get."
"You think Urara gets it?" I wonder if Saki would understand my books on birds and locomotion.
Honoka snorted loudly. "Not a chance." She paused and looked down at her book, then sighed. "Should we get started?"
"Chirp chirp." Mai didn't imitate a bird; she really just said chirp chirp out loud.
Honoka snorted but kept it together. "Okay. Bzzzzzmnnnu."
"What's that noise?"
"Lightsaber."
Mai rolled her eyes and then shook her head. Flipping her book back over, she had no idea where she had left off, so she took a deep breath and started at the top of the page. It felt kind of familiar.
Elsewhere and a little later, in a room on the upper floors, a woman was looking into the mirror and washing of her night mask skin cure. I worked pretty hard before but this is taking a toll. I'm not gonna get away with this without visiting the bathhouse every day at this point. It's costly, but that mineral bath is just so much better for my skin. Pulling on the skin just below her eyes and leaning almost right against the mirror on the wall cabinet, she stared at herself. Yuri's going to training looking like a mess and as much as I want to fix her up, I can't get up at four in the morning every day when I'm exhausted myself. I love her but I'm having a hard time just keeping myself presentable every day. And I can't exactly expect Yuri to conform to my standards just because I wish for it. I wouldn't want her to do that unless she wants to do it on her own.
Backing away from the mirror, Miki sat on the edge of the bathtub and checked her legs for any hairs and also her toe nails. Tomorrow is our day off, I want to at least look good at the beach. She rotated her right shoulder a few times. I'm kinda stiff… training is tiring but not really a balanced workout. Yuri's so crazy tired every day I can't really ask her for sex either. Not that I'm fit enough for that every night anyway.
Twisting her back and looking at her sides, just above her hips, Miki cringed. It's still blue and purple… I kinda want a one piece swimsuit. Maybe I should buy one. Ayumi did arrange for everyone to get a stipend for training in place of fighting so I should make use of that, assuming we can even buy replacements… I'm not sure I got enough after that skincare crème, the wax, the eyeliner, the moisturizer, the… am I spending too much on beauty products? I… should talk about that with Yuri. I hope I don't have a problem.
Leaving the bathroom in her underwear, Miki threw herself face down on the bed. Smells like Yuri… and sweat… a lot of sweat. I gotta change the sheets. Rolling over, she crinkled her nose. Getting off the bed, she opened up the bottom most drawer of the dresser and pulled out replacement sheets, covers for the comforter and pillows and got to work. I need to go down and get breakfast after this.
Taking a lot longer than she expected to do something as simple as changing the sheets and covers, Miki felt strangely out of breath. I really need that break. Nobody can be perfect non-stop without downtime, not even me. And I'm worried about Yuri's mental state, too. She's starting to seem a bit depressed. Alice did say that it's been going pretty poorly and she cleaved herself in half a couple days ago, but… it's not exactly any worse than the rest of us. Letting out an exasperated, drawn out breath, Miki grabbed the clothes she had laid out earlier. Nothing fancy – even she knew better than to try and be fancy at the end of the week – just a tight shirt, a long skirt and heeled sandals.
Back into the bathroom once last time to check on her face, making sure she didn't miss any crème, Miki gave herself the okay and left her room. Barely out the door, Miki noticed a familiar face down the hallway, dragging herself towards the elevator in full costume already. You look like a mess, Pine.
Just waiting for the Cure to join by her side, Miki flanked her without saying anything. They got to the elevator, Miki pressed the button and Pine leaned against her all of a sudden. "Not enough sleep?"
"Don't we all?" Pine stood up straight and rubbed her eyes, yawning. "How do you look so alive so early?"
"I go to sleep with Yuri."
Pine paused until the elevator came, stepped inside with Miki and then seemed to finally find the thought she was looking for. "Isn't she in the first group?"
"Yeah."
"So you go to sleep at…" Pine wasn't capable of math that early in the morning.
"Around six to seven."
Pine nodded a couple times and leaned against the elevator cabin wall on the right side. She didn't really say anything but seemed to be trying to work out to how many hours of sleep that equaled.
"Not like I am missing anything."
Pine nodded again and inhaled slowly before breaking out into a yawn, mouth wide open, uncovered. Scratching at her scalp, she held onto the small rail mounted to the side of the cabin and looked down. I'm so exhausted… Feels like weeks between days off, not six days.
"I know the answer already but… you doing okay, Pine?" I'm a little worried about her. She's normally so well together and prepped but this is… she's a mess. I'm pretty sure she just threw on her costume with nothing but whatever she wore for bed under it and not even a short stop to the bathroom other than toilet.
Pine sighed loudly, then again a lot quieter and she somewhat nodded. "I know, I know. I'm all messy."
"You have me a bit worried."
"Gonna be fine on Monday."
Although there were no calendars in this place, Monday was just the first day of training while Saturday was the last. Sunday was the day off. Everyone that worked a regular hours job before just agreed that this was a sensible way to determine the days.
"Really?"
"Promise."
"We ought to talk to Echo about extending the day off to the entire weekend."
"Sounds nice." Pine yawned again. I need an entire can of coffee. Rubbing her temples, she breathed in through her nose, deeply.
"Hung over?"
"From two glasses of Cognac?"
"I don't keep up with what you drink."
"No. Just a headache. Like every morning."
Miki opened her mouth, then said nothing. "Want me to be quiet?" She could tell that she was making it worse.
"Please. Thanks."
Spending the brief remainder of the elevator ride in total silence, they stepped out together, Miki in front, and headed straight to the cafeteria. Neither of them gave even a cursory glance to the empty reception desk.
Splitting up in the cafeteria – Pine headed for the coffee immediately, while Miki went for the breakfast area of the buffet – they met back up at a table as far away from the entrance as they could be, sitting in reach of the freshly baked goods, even though neither of them could stand any more pastries in the morning right then.
Having taken truly the entire can with her, Pine poured into a tall paper cup, dropped four cubes of sugar in it, stirred and immediately tasted the piping hot brew. Her tongue and lips screamed at her for that but she didn't care. Swallowing it, she felt the heat radiate out from inside her. Slumping in her chair like a slob, she looked sort of at Miki but also kind of through her.
Saying nothing, Miki filled her mixed nuts and fruits cereal containing bowl with orange juice. She already followed a healthy diet on the regular, but with how taxing the last few weeks had been – the days blurred together so much she couldn't even tell how long exactly since they had started – she had paid more and more attention to this. Yuri typically headed off without breakfast and just ate half a dozen energy bars that she compromised on with Miki's input. Forcing her will on Yuri was not Miki's way of doing things, but she wanted to at least make sure Yuri was not running herself unnecessarily ragged.
Seeing Pine try and subsist on coffee alone in the morning however drove her nuts. Eating a few spoonfuls and watching Pine just slowly sink lower and lower in posture, she couldn't take it anymore. If you're insistent on living unhealthy, don't do it in front of me! Barking angrily in her thoughts, Miki pushed her chair away and stomped off.
Pine barely had the energy to register what was happening, entirely focused on shaking off the sleepiness that was always worst just before the free day. She did good on Mondays, okay on Tuesday to Thursday, but Fridays and Saturdays were torture. And that day was a Saturday. I still not even halfway through my assignment. It wasn't a real assignment from anyone else. She assigned it to herself. Kaoru and even Miyuki were reading on similar subjects and on Tuesdays they compared notes, hoping to help each other along.
Any thought of getting ahead of the others and finishing their new ability quickly had died a while back. There was tangible, real progress being made, it just happened incredibly slowly. What was supposed to be a quick, brief period of training had turned into a horrifying boot camp of epic proportions. Echo even arranged for everyone to receive money from the system for participation somehow.
Pine was startled, off in her own little world of no thoughts, when Miki almost slammed a bowl of the same healthy stuff she was eating down in front of Pine. "Eat it. I'm going to get stress pimples just watching you ruin your health with all this coffee and no substance."
"I'm-"
"Not fine. Look at me. And look at yourself."
Pine couldn't argue with that at all. She knew that this was bad for her, but at the same time she was powerless to stop herself from keeping doing it. Trying to smile – it could hardly be called a success – she picked up the spoon that came with the cereal mix and started to get to it.
Miki sat back down and watched her old friend follow her orders without question. Normally you'd have all sorts of reasons or explanations or arguments for me. Getting back to her own breakfast, Miki kept an eye on Pine. If she starts pouring coffee onto the cereal I am hitting her in the head with [Impact].
A few tables over, Makoto looked over to the table of Miki and Pine. "Shouldn't you be over there?"
"Mh…" Reika hesitated to say anything at first. When Makoto turned back around and tilted her head in a slightly You're doing it again way, she finally gave a real answer. "She's… I do not- don't know how to handle her when she is like that."
"Give her breakfast and coffee?"
"What if she does not want any?"
"She'll eat it anyway. You're her girlfriend, right? She'll eat it."
"You think so?"
"Well, this isn't universal. Ange can be strangely picky."
"Really? She does not- doesn't give that impression at all."
"Struggling with contractions again today?"
Reika buried her face in her arms on the table. "Thank you for helping me out."
"Oh, I get it. Ange had this phase where she was like, everyone at arm's length, after… well." Makoto reached for her chest. "All polite speech, every day, letting nobody close. You're not exactly like that, but I can sense your Do not approach aura even now." There was an intense groan coming from the table and Makoto chuckled just a little. "That that frustrates you so much is a good sign though."
"Really?" I'm honestly at a loss at what to do. Inori became so busy with training and so tired all the time that we fell completely back into old routines.
"Yeah."
– Several days ago.
Reika stared like her thought process had completely crashed. Sandwich in hand, a slice of ham slowly sliding out and hanging dangerously low already, she just tried to come up with a reason for why Makoto, Cure Sword, had suddenly taken a seat at the same table as her. There's so many tables free and she's Ace's girlfriend… is this about Inori? We haven't really talked that much lately and-
"Relax." Makoto smiled at her. "Ange asked me to sit with you."
Reika's mouth went agape and she needed three attempts to get out a response. "She did?" She wanted to slap herself. How did I unlearn how to hold a conversation? I didn't spend that many years-
"Reika is always sitting on her own, she said. Don't you two have a lot in common when it comes to fighting? Can you talk to her? I feel bad for her. I would have turned her down if I thought she was overreacting but-" Makoto leaned back. "She isn't, is she? I can literally hear the gears in your head spinning at full speed just because I'm talking to you all of a sudden."
Unable to deny that, Reika put down her sandwich and looked a bit depressed. "I was not always like this."
"I used to be an idol, you know?"
Is she… making a point out of this somehow? What am I supposed to say? Doubt her? Express disbelief that someone so down to earth, so direct, would be an idol?
"Wow, this is worse than Ange thought." Makoto leaned forward, arms crossed on the table, her upper body trespassing on the space of the table's surface. "Relax. I'm not looking for any answers or want you to say anything specific."
Reika looked down on her sandwich. How… do I deal with this? I should try talking to her, but what about? Tea? No… even Inori was kinda put off by how much I care about it and- "Ow!" Someone kicked her foot. She looked at Makoto, who feigned ignorance. "Did-"
"No." Makoto smiled wide.
"You definitely-"
"No."
"Who else would-" Reika looked left and right. "There is nobody else who could have!"
"So you can talk." Makoto slapped her hands together. "Maybe I'll just have to kick you every time. Like in manga, they always slap old displays to make them work again."
"I am not a CRT Monitor!"
"Wow, you even know exactly what kind of machine I meant."
Reika's mouth stayed open and her thought process kicked back in. Is this bullying? No, someone like her wouldn't just come over here and pick a fight with me… unless this is to blow off steam? Is this her method of coping with stress? I'm not interested in having a fight- "Heeey!" She tried to grab Makoto's right arm but was not fast enough.
Having spontaneously reached over the table, Makoto pulled the ham out from the sandwich and ate it in one bite. This isn't what I behave like normally, but she's even worse than Ange was back then after Dabi and the others were sealed away. She didn't know how to interact with us anymore and by the time we had worked through enough of it, she'd become stuck like that. But this is different. It's like for every prompt she's trying to sort through an impossibly large filing cabinet and looking for the best response. Obviously she'll come across like an anti-social person. Still chewing, Makoto did enjoy Reika's absolutely flabbergasted expression. But if this is enough to disrupt her, I know how to at least give her a push forward. "What?"
"What? She says!" Reika couldn't believe the gall of that woman. "You can't just pick things out of my sandwich!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about." She was still chewing the ham even now, making a point of it.
"You're still eating it!"
"That's my ham."
"How is it- What!"
"What's it feel like, just saying things?"
"Wha-" And the gears snapped back for just a second. Seeing Makoto reach across the table, as if she anticipated Reika's thought process was firing up again, Reika pulled away. Pushing her chair back, sitting a good step away from the table. Protecting her incomplete sandwich, Reika eyed Makoto with a very irate expression. "Oh no, you do not!"
"Give me back my sandwich." Makoto was just doing one obviously irritating thing after another to shake Reika up. That was her whole plan.
"Wha- it's my sandwich!"
Makoto got up and walked right up next to Reika who now looked visibly ready to protect her sandwich by force if need be. "It's not that hard to just let go and react. Winding you up a little with nonsense and you can talk to me just fine. About nothing even."
I can't tell if I should be mad, glad or both… "Why?"
"Because I think you're actually a nice person and just so stuck in your ways that without someone to help you out a little, you're not getting out of there on your own. Ange probably had no idea. Or maybe she could sort of tell. Like That's just like me back then, something like that." Turning about, seemingly ready to go back to her seat, Makoto spun around, snatched the sandwich from Reika's hands and dashed back two steps.
She's like… no, she's not like Inori at all. She just wants to help me, not help us both. She reminds me a little of Miyuki in that way. Robbed of her breakfast, Reika stared. "Go ahead and eat it."
Makoto was already about to when she hesitated. Something's not right… she was so adamant about protecting it and now she just wants me to eat it? Did she do something to it? But I was- She bit right into it and immediately regretted it. "Ueeeeeh… what the heck?!" It tasted like fire and brimstone, somehow oily and yet like salad. Pulling the sandwich apart, she saw that there was an entire layer of thinly sliced white stuff and the smell immediately revealed what it was. Garlic! So much garlic!
Reika managed to look smug the way only a rich girl could. "Fu… fufufu…" Letting go completely and just letting Makoto dictate the pace was definitely not something she was used to doing, but she knew how to.
"You're disgusting. That's not fit for human consumption!"
"That's not true at all! Garlic is really healthy for you!"
"If you're a vampire hunter, yes."
"Actually, the idea that vampires cannot deal with garlic is an often misconstrued-"
"Gross!" Slamming the sandwich down on the table so hard it fell apart, Makoto walked off, passing table by table, all the way to where the buffet stations started.
Ah… there she goes. Maybe I should have warned her about- what is she doing? Getting another sandwich? I am not going to change my opinion- wow, she has a mean stare… Reika pulled her chair back up to the table and grabbed what remained of her sandwich. I shouldn't waste food but this is just a pile of ingredients now.
Makoto came back and slammed down a square shaped sandwich, on top of a plate, right in front of Reika. "Try that. Food that hasn't been made for the protagonist of a Dracula novel!"
Reika took the sandwich and checked the contents. Cheese, ham, cabbage, tomato… She picked it up, took a bite out of it, and finally noticed Makoto's anticipating look. "It's… okay?"
"I think your food preferences are a much bigger problem than your inability to talk to people properly!"
I can't tell if this is still a bit she is doing to rattle me or not. I… Reika hesitated. Then she pulled off the top of her sandwich, the slice of bread, and moved the entire layer of garlic, on top of a leaf of cabbage, onto her new sandwich.
"You're a monster." Makoto leaned back and her expression was ripe with disgust.
"I am the one who hunts monsters." Reika felt an inner warmth, greater than when she saved people or bundled up criminals, spread through her. She had just made an impromptu joke.
"With the breath that abominable thing is gonna give you, I believe you."
Taking out a large bite and chewing while visibly enjoying herself, Reika started to smile at Makoto's disgusted face. Swallowing, she gently breathed in Makoto's direction who reacted like someone blew cigar smoke on her, wildly flailing her hands in front of her face. "I'm gonna barf on you!"
"I have suffered worse."
"Huh… like what?"
Reika shook a little recalling it. "I was hiding out on a rooftop, following a criminal to their base of operations."
"That is ridiculously cool but not really gross."
Ridiculously cool? "I of course did so as Beauty. Jumping from one roof to another, I used a water tank as a stepping spot."
"Regina is gonna lose her mind if I tell her about this."
"The tank was… rusted. When I landed on it, I fell in. The water inside was… not sanitary."
"Define-"
"I refuse." Reika's face lost some color as she recalled and she put down her sandwich.
Oh, fun's over. That's not a good reaction. "Okay, change of topic. What are you doing tomorrow on our day off?"
"Tomorrow?"
Usually everyone goes out to the beach to tan, do dumb things, play around and eat a ton of food, but I don't really recall seeing her there. I do stick with Ange most of the time, but still. She's not exactly invisible with that hair curtain.
"I thought about just staying in bed-"
"Ange and I are planning to build a giant sand castle."
"Huh…" What am I supposed to be doing with that information exactly?
"More accurately, there's a sand castle competition, free form teams. We could absolutely use someone that understands element molding as well as you do."
"I mold ice, not-"
"Same thing."
"It's not!" Reika looked baffled. "Sand is coarse and-"
"Gets everywhere, I know. I was cleaning out my swimsuit for an hour last Monday."
"How much sand did you get in there…"
"Ange thought it would be funny to dome bury me."
"She did not strike me-"
"As someone who would do that? Yeah, people have more to them than they look like at first glance."
"I can tell you are poking fun at me with that."
"So what do you say? Join my team? We absolutely need to beat the Hikari team this time."
"The Hikari team?"
"Hikari, Kurumi and Saki. They made the leaning tower of Pisa last week."
"Wow…"
I am starting to figure out how she ticks. Not giving her enough time to get all caught up in her head is key here. Just forcing things along until she gets more used to just saying what comes to mind instead of trying to evaluate what is coming to mind. "Join? Please?"
"Do you really want me to help or is this-"
"That's that, this is this." Well, both are a little bit of each.
Rotating her sandwich between her hands, Reika nodded. I never thought Makoto had this side to her.
– Present Day.
"This week we're going to win for sure." Makoto was clenching her fist.
"You're still saying that?" Reika was still face down hiding in her arms. "It was annihilation. To equate that to a historical-"
"No historical reference before noon."
Reika fell quiet. "They… destroyed us."
"I was so focused on team Hikari, I never saw team Erika coming."
"Who knew that Rouge-"
"Rin."
"Rin. Was so good at sculpting? Not to mention Aqu- Karen's masterful application of water to the sand."
"We can't give up."
Reika inhaled deeply and looked up. "What will we be building?"
"The Wright Brother's plane."
Reika let her head plummet back into her arms where she didn't have to think about the sheer audacity of trying to make that out of sand. "Can we not just make a castle?"
"Ange offered the idea of making the liberty statue in America."
"That is easier than a plane. The sand will never hold."
"But the difficulty-"
"Is part of the appeal!"
I really appreciate Makoto so much but she is the textbook definition of an overachiever. Not that I am in much of a position to judge her for it. "What about just a really, really big Mount Fuji?"
Makoto didn't respond for a good thirty seconds and Reika looked up. "That… could work."
Really. "Please let us do that instead of an impossible plane. Even if we were to make the plane in its original scale it would be impossible."
"You think so?"
"Yes."
"Absolutely certain?"
"Makoto."
"Okay. I'll talk to Ange. But if we don't win-"
"Then it is because team Erika has built a life scale version of Naushika out of sand."
"There is no way they can do that."
Reika looked up and exchange looks with Makoto.
"No, not this time. I refuse to believe that." Makoto could be very stubborn. Such as being dead-set on winning the sand sculpting event that they only really wanted to do once but found such interest that they decided to do it every week.
While Makoto and Reika continued to discuss the odds of their probable victory the next day, others were just now dragging themselves out of bed. Or attempting to. Or not even making an attempt.
Ako breathed into her pillow. Urara makes an effort best she can but there is no way I don't wake up when my hugging pillow leaves me. Lying face down, she didn't want to get up. Not now or ever again. I keep reading and reading and the pile just doesn't shrink. I've got a few hours before I have to meet Ellen at the library… I should go back to sleep…
Lying there, quietly, she tried to think of nothing. Not of sub-dimensional sound matrixes, not of the soulsphere or static harmony severance. But the more she thought to not think of it, the more she ended up thinking about it. A problem as old as coherent thought itself.
It's bottomless. The more I learn about my own people and myself, the more I realize that I have no idea. And I can't really ask anyone for help. Ellen is constantly at a breaking point just trying to keep up with me and nobody else is even remotely qualified to study this.
Rolling over, Ako looked at the ceiling in the dark. I wish I could explain it to Urara. She's smarter than she lets on but this is… I'm sure even the smartest among us would have difficulty understanding what a triangular talamene loop is. I'm the princess of Majorland and I have trouble understanding it. Mother probably doesn't know about even half of this. Our scholars likely don't, either. When I get back, I'll… end up ruining centuries of studies based on assumptions I now know to be wrong. It's going to be a disaster. Pulling the comforter over her head, she felt her own breath return to her when pushing against the fabric.
Staying like that, she yawned, then turned to the side, hugging the sizable comforter top to bottom, squeezing it tight. I've completely gotten used to being by Urara's side. Wonder how many of us had their first serious crush work out that well. Smelling the comforter and the pillow next to hers, she hugged it all a little harder. I worry what mother will think about her though. She's not exactly nobility material… then again, father is like that so that can't really be a big point to contest. I'm more worried that the whole bloodline thing with having kids is gonna be a problem. Going silent, Ako felt a little nauseated. Just thinking about having kids is… I have so much time on that, but that I have to consider it now is making me feel all stressed out. I need to convince mother that Honoka or someone else will figure out a way for Urara and me to preserve the bloodline.
Rolling over to the other side, she closed her eyes. I'm gonna explode. I need to talk to someone or I'm gonna go boom. I spent a week pretending I'm fine but I'm not. I can confide in Urara on most things, but I need someone I can talk to that I'm not also in love with.
Rolling back and forth, Ako kept sighing and shaking a little bit. Taking an especially deep breath, her spell canceled out and she returned to what should have been normal. But to her it no longer felt that way. Everyone around her was used to the tall and curvaceous Ako. And so was she. Her view of self had become that of the self that she created to fit in better. And now it had supplanted what was her physically true self in her mind. Being short, being only thirteen, that was the incorrect state to be and she could feel it. It was wrong. Shivering briefly and feeling like someone tore off her clothes in public, she reenacted the spell and changed back into what she considered her proper self in both body and mind.
I still can't believe that this isn't just some magic ability I developed because I had Cure Muse's powers but is a silent application of the powers I inherited as the princess of Majorland. Pushing the comforter away, kicking it up, she rotated the whole thing without getting up, grabbing hold of the foot end and now using it as the top end. Not like it makes any difference to Urara or the others, but technically… even Ellen's ability to change from her original, cat like form into a human is the same thing. By changing the wave frequency expression of our triangular talamene loop we can change our physical composition. We're limited by the frequency capacity of our M-Cellophane but… wait, how did that part go again? Ako groaned. Why am I doing rehearsal in my head in bed?
One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four sheep… trying to occupy herself with meaningless mental activity, Ako tried to get some more sleep. But it was futile and she knew it. Twelve… that makes me wonder what mother's M-Cellophane frequency capacity is like… can she change her physical age like I can or is it something completely unrelated? The text said something about the M-Cellophane being linked to the genetic build composition element of the triangle talamene loop so basically our DNA I would guess… I am never going to not be bored in school after this. Ako sighed heavily. I considered myself smart but I've gotten… strangely good at processing all of this. I still have no idea about anything they teach us in high school though. I'm just good at this one subject. School. How am I even gonna go back to school after this?
Unable to keep her eyes closed, Ako yawned again and looked into the dark. The faintest of light came in through the little open space beneath the door, from the hallway beyond. That was enough for her to make out general shapes all around the room. My thoughts are a mess. Closing her eyes again briefly, she gave up. Kicking off the comforter again, she slowly scurried to the side, bit by bit without sitting up, until she could put her legs over the edge and sat up. Being able to easily touch the ground, to reach the exact amount she could reach now, those things were physically ingrained into her perception now. If I spend a few years using the spell, I won't have to use it afterward. Mother is definitely not going to be enthused by this and father… Ako made an annoyed grimace in the dark.
Getting up, she took two steps and grabbed the clothes she had left on a chair the night before. Grabbing her bra, she held it in her hand, slowly shook her head, put it back down and headed back to bed. I'm gonna be dead if I don't get in more sleep. I'll just fantasize about Urara for a while.
Crawling back under the comforter, Ako closed her eyes. Urara… wearing a dashing pants suit like a yakuza, yellow and black, our colors… and she's… she's… before she could even finish her thought, she was fast asleep.
As many of her companions followed her example and slept – and sometimes snored – away the early morning hours, the cafeteria settled down with the same usual crowd. Both Honoka and Mai were asleep at their table, the latter drooling slightly onto her book and the former's glasses having fallen off her face.
Reika and Makoto were playing shiritori very quietly. Urara was asleep in a chair, waking up every ten to fifteen minutes, quickly glancing towards the table Reika and Makoto were mat to check if they were still there, before dozing off again. Miki was somewhat half asleep in her chair, watching over the completely asleep Pine that had checked out of waking land as soon as she finished the health cereal that Miki provided.
Kaoru arrived then, already transformed into Windy, about an hour and a half before it was time for training. She did not want to wake Yayoi and Michiru a second time so she always just finished dressing in one go, putting the last piece on in the hallway. Settling into the same chair, at the same table, as always, she conformed to her daily morning ritual.
A cup of piping hot coffee, far too hot to drink still, and sugar cubes. At first half the enjoyment of it had been the no doubt bewildered looks of any of the other Cures there. But now it was just a powerful combination of sugar and caffeine. After about six cubes over ten minutes, she set out to procure herself proper breakfast. Today is Saturday so… grabbing a light breakfast consisting of raw egg on rice, tomatoes, salted cucumber slices and apple juice, she sat down and started to eat.
It wasn't long until Miyuki dragged herself in through the gates, trying to smile despite the exhaustion. "Morning, Reika." Seeing one of her oldest friends sit with Makoto every day really was a little bit of happiness on behalf of Reika for her. Akane is so distant these days and… I can't even tell when I last saw her. Nao I see when we switch groups at least, not that we can chat, but at least I see her… see her! She reiterated in her thoughts, forcing herself to smile.
"Miyuki." Miki managed to escape her dozing when she spotted the pinkish hair that belonged to someone that spent far more time with Pine than she, than Miki had in years.
"Morning." Smiling the best she could, Miyuki sat down without waiting for anyone to gesture for her to do so. Looking at Pine, she gently prodded her hand on the table. "Is Ino okay?"
"Same as you, probably."
"Hmm…" Miyuki yawned and leaned back. "I was supposed to make notes before bed but I just… fell straight asleep."
"I don't think Inori is taking any notes these days."
"Does, does." Miyuki nodded twice. "Something… what was it? Uh… involuntary expressions? I think…"
"The stuff you three are dealing with is way out of my area of expertise."
"Ahaha… hahaha… I'm so behind Kao and Ino."
"You think so?"
"I'm not as smart as they are." Miyuki's smile faded from her face. "Being smart really helps with this…"
"Being too smart gets you all wrapped up in doubt." Probably.
"I like you, Miki. You're nice."
"Am I? Just wait until we meet for sparring." Miki grinned a little and made a little punching gesture.
"Oh no~" Miyuki did her best to smile. She was about seventy percent successful.
Over at Reika and Makoto's table, Makoto surrendered and leaned back in her chair, looking up at the table. "I'm beat. That's… what's our score at?"
"I think… it was four to three?" Reika couldn't even vaguely remember the real numbers.
"Five to three then. Tomorrow I'll win."
"Good luck."
"What time is it?"
Reika looked at the clock that was mounted above the entrance. "Still early." It had not always been there. Someone had bought it from Mamo and put it there of their own accord.
Yawning quietly, Makoto took a deep breath. "This sucks but at the same time… it's still a big improvement from my old life."
"I think so too."
"You only saw a few hours of it but that was probably enough."
"No I mean… I think this is an improvement over my old life."
"Really?"
"Thanks to Inori and you."
"Her first?"
"We are currently still girlfriends."
"That's not confidence inspiring."
"I like her but not…"
"You don't love-like her."
"We are not each other's type."
"Your type is the tall, sporty type with huge curves?"
"I'm not so sure anymore."
"Just don't fall for me. I only have eyes for my Ange."
"I will not."
"How can you be sure?"
"You kick me too much."
"That's true." Makoto chuckled. "You deserve it though."
"That's… debatable."
Sitting quietly for a moment, Makoto sighed. "What am I gonna do, though?"
"Something wrong with Ange?"
"No. I mean my ability."
"You have been stuck on the implementation for over a week."
"I want to believe the theory is sound but… I just cannot work out how to do the conversion process."
Reika hesitated and was visibly a little uncomfortable. "Do you want to talk about this here or-"
"Just complaining to feel better. You should, too." Makoto paused briefly. "If you happen to have any ideas though…"
"I apologize but I have been really stuck myself."
"I know, I know. I'm not really expecting you to come up with something for me."
"Still a little hard to tell when you do that."
"You'll get it down eventually." Makoto saw the question on Reika's face. "Ability and conversation." Although I am really not teaching her anything in conversation. I'm just making her do. It's all there, just buried. Although I think it's mostly fine now. Just annoying her with random stuff and playing shiritori every day was all I had to do. She really just needed someone that forced themselves on her as company.
Reika looked at the clock again. "I'm going to head up."
Makoto turned in her seat and checked the time. "Already?"
"Bathroom." Reika didn't wanna be any more specific than that.
"Ah." She didn't say anything else and Reika just left. Sitting alone, Makoto felt the exhaustion creep up on her. There's no life or death hanging in the balance here so this is just somehow a lot more exhausting because I just don't feel the need to be alert all the time. Regina is taking to it like an invasive species though, Ange said.
With time on the first group starting to run close to its end, the second was getting ready. Inori was shaken awake by Miki and Miyuki hurriedly shoveled into her mouth as much cornflakes as she could fit. Urara woke up, saw Reika gone and just up and left like an alarm had gone off.
Slouching in the elevator going up, Urara yawned loudly, the sound reverberating off the metal walls. Sniffling, breathing heavy, she rubbed her forehead, scratched at it and then returned to slouching for a few more seconds. I'm so damn tired… I haven't even had sex with Ako in days. And training is a total crapshot of trial and error. My ass still hurts and it's been two days. And I'm worried about Ako. She's working even harder than the rest of us with all that studying. Wish I could just tell her to stop but she's so driven by this that there is no way. I love that about her but right now I also kinda hate it.
Slowly, quietly, opening the door, Urara led only a small amount of light enter into the room, squeezing through the opening and reaching into the dark – she couldn't see a thing – for a bag she had prepared the night before. Ako was in the last group and she was in the second. To top it off, Ako studied in her down time. She tried her best to let Ako sleep when she had to get up. Finding the chair she was looking for, she ran her hand down it and… did not find what she wanted. Shit, did I not put it there? I can't turn on the lights or Ako will absolutely wake up. Feeling around, kneeling down, she checked under the chair first and got lucky. Thank fuck. Pulling a bag that really closely resembled a school issued PE bag from under the chair, she turned to go out.
"Urara…" Ako yawned loudly.
Aw shit. "Be right out."
"No." Ako forced herself to sit up, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment at the influx of light from outside. Getting out of bed before Urara could say anything else and leave, Ako was a little unsteady as she walked over to the door, Urara already one foot out. Holding back her own hair to the left, she grabbed hold of the door's edge, leaned down and kissed her girlfriend with the taste of sleep and slightly dry lips. "Can you come to bed when you get back?"
"Yeah." Urara always had to get on her toes – and even that was often not enough – to kiss Ako, but this time it was just the right distance. Returning the kiss and looking at Ako's droopy sleepyhead face, Urara smiled wide. "See you in a bit." Turning to leave, she felt Ako take her hand. "What?"
"I love you."
Urara felt her heart skip a few beats. It wasn't often that Ako said it out loud. She knew of course, but hearing Ako say it was always a treat. "I love you too. My queen."
"Not queen yet." Ako smiled and had her smile taken away by a big yawn. Humming in a sleepy, inconvenienced way, Ako let go of her girlfriend and slowly walked back to bed. Crawling onto the mattress and under the comforter, Ako said nothing else and the door closed.
That's always bad for my heart. She's usually so… austere. Maybe? Stern? Something like that. Serious. Serious Ako. Having her say I love you right to my face just… well, now I'm wide awake. Opening up the bag, she looked inside, smiled, nodded. Of fucking course. Turning back to the door, she opened up. "Forgot to put my stuff in the bag. I gotta turn on the lights." She could hear the comforter being pulled and it was clear that Ako was shielding herself from what was obviously gonna happen next.
Urara bit her lip and flipped the light switch. Way to ruin the mood, dumbass. And after she said I love you, at that. Rummaging through her side of the room at high speed, she tried to be as quiet as possible, finally just realizing that her Cure outfit was nowhere to be seen and she just hadn't taken it out of the wardrobe last night. Doing that now, she hurried and hurried, turning off the lights as soon as she was finished and leaving the room for good that time.
Ako was just barely awake, coming out from under the comforter dome. She's so cute when she's panicked. It was the thought that accompanied her back to the land of dreams.
=== DISSONANCE ===
"Hah…." Exhaling like an old person, long and almost like a sigh, she slumped more and more until the escaping breath turned to bubbles because she had fully sunk into the bath.
"Karen, can you un-drown Miyuki please?" Makoto was submerged all the way up to her neck, barely even sitting and more lying in the bath.
"No drowning in the bath." Misha – Mizushita, the owner of the public bathhouse – said this completely dryly as she picked up and re-arranged the low seats nearby, rinsing away some remnants of foam from washing down. As of late she tied her silvery gray hair into a big ball that she wore like a ponytail. Her outfit had also become much more like that of a hotsprings owner, white robe uniform and sandals. "If I have to drag any of you out, there'll be a fine."
Karen fished Miyuki out from the water, pushing her against the rim of the tub itself. Turned all about, Miyuki crossed her arms onto the rim and laid her head on top. "Thanks, Karen…" Yawning, Miyuki sniffled and closed her eyes.
Inori briefly dove underwater herself and came back up with her hair sticking to her like algae, running down her back all slick. "I almost want to just stay in bed all day tomorrow. Ah, my nose is still itchy…"
"Is it just me or is this way harder than the first time around?" Karen pinched her nose. "It took me a while to refine my powers to this from when I was a teen but come on." She almost violently shrugged. "I figured someone would be done by now."
"I'll think of an analogy why this is way harder by tomorrow, promise." Inori didn't have the mental juice right now.
"What she said." Makoto was in agreement.
"Wow, this is where everyone was." Kurumi had spotted everyone from the entrance to the big room, covered in a towel and her hair crudely tied up into what looked like someone massacred the top of a few pineapples and stuck them together. Hikari came up right behind her, the braid turned into a huge golden curtain of hair that was blanketing her back. She waved to Miyuki the moment she saw her.
"Looking for us?" Karen didn't bother to turn around, she could tell who it was just by her voice.
"Just wondering why the cafeteria was so empty." Kurumi went ahead, leaving her towel by the baskets nearby, and slid into the bath. "I'm gonna come back here after training too…"
"I know Komachi is having a hard time and – obviously – so is everyone here now, but how's your group doing?"
"Hm. Well. Terrible, I guess." Kurumi said so with as much faked cheer as she could muster. "Honoka is one day away from going full mad scientist, I swear."
"That bad?" Makoto sunk even lower into the water, her mouth no longer above water now.
"She failed some kind of experiment, angrily stomped about, tried to blast, I assume, something in anger, it didn't work, she got even angrier and exploded…" Kurumi's face went several shades more red while watching Hikari de-towel and join her in the water, slowly moving through the large space toward her side.
"You're about to explode too." Inori made a slightly snide remark.
"I'm not the weird one. You're all the weird ones for being totally numb to this."
"This is new by the way." Karen commented with a smirk. "She never got all coy around me being naked in the bath."
"Shut up Karen!" Kurumi stared daggers at her ex girlfriend.
"It's because I peeled away all the bad layers!" Hikari sat down next to Kurumi, the huge hair curtain floating up behind her.
"Like a chestnut?" Inori suggested.
"Oh. I like that." Hikari smiled. "She had this prickly exterior that you can't really do much with but inside she's all sweet and precious and made to be put into macarons!"
"Good for you, huh, Macaron?" Karen smiled and mocked Kurumi with her eyes.
"At least I get to be in something tasty." Kurumi almost sneered at Karen, her expression being right on the edge of maximum haughty.
"How's Yayoi?" Miyuki hadn't talked to her in what felt like forever.
"Iunno." Kurumi shrugged.
"I know she's practicing waaaaaay off from everyone else." Hikari was a little more helpful.
Miyuki just hummed and went back to what was essentially a non-participant in the conversation.
"At least tomorrow is off." Kurumi sighed and glanced to the side where the water just barely obfuscated Hikari's breasts.
"I need a vacation." Inori yawned. "I'm going straight back to bed after I'm out of here."
"Won't you end up awake all night?" Kurumi didn't divert her eyes at all.
Hikari looked at her girlfriend from the corner of her eyes, took Kurumi's hand underwater and nudged up against her so closely that their shoulders and arms rubbed together.
"Would you? I can always just sleep more these days." Inori lowered herself into the water and breathed out strongly through her nose, making bubbles. Soaring back up, she looked miffed. "Miyuki, what were you even trying to do with this?"
"Uh… something." I have no idea.
"Kurumi." Makoto rejoined from her near underwater adventure. "What's your ability plan anyway?"
"I wanna be strong enough to fend off anything and anyone that tries to go after Hikari." After a brief pause, she elaborated. "So… using all the blue rose power to make myself super strong and kind of invincible."
"Ah. I thought you'd try something weapon based."
"No way. I can handle a sword and stuff, coat my arms in metal and what not, but I'm nowhere good enough to specialize into that like you or Reika." Kurumi managed to keep her face from turning any redder, staying at a solid and well rounded forty percent of pure blush.
"Kurumi's more of a receiver than a giver!" Hikari smiled wide.
Inori and Karen both broke into a sneer and Makoto was so surprised her posture escaped and she slid into the water.
"Wha-?!" Kurumi was now at a hundred and twenty percent of tomato.
"Did I say something strange?" Hikari put her free index finger against her own chin. "She's a knight, my knight, and knights are all about soaking up damage right? Not giving it out."
"Ah, that's what you- Ahem! Ahem! Yeah, that's right." Kurumi could see that the explanation was not being bought by the others.
"You know what scares me a lot?" Makoto was trying to change the topic before Kurumi started nose bleeding into the bath.
"Lots of options here actually. I'll just go with Ayumi in general." Karen had mercy on Kurumi and dropped any snide remarks before she could make them.
"Not that much actually. No, Erika."
"What about her?" Hikari was not going to be left out. "She's definitely working hard."
"Ah." Karen looked to Inori who made the same noise. And then everyone realized. "That is… scary."
"Huh?" Kurumi was one of three people who didn't get it.
"You were saying Honoka's one day away from full mad scientist?" Inori tried to explain.
"Hm. I mean… I'm joking. Honoka's a good person. But what-"
"Erika's the type to accidentally come up with a real mad scientist thing and try it out because it seems interesting. The sort of thing that makes what Miyuki, Kaoru and I come up with on a daily basis look like charity work."
"I don't think Erika would intentionally hurt anyone." Hikari came to the absentee's defense.
"That's what's so worrying. Intentionally. Erika just seems like the do-first-think-later type." Karen shared Inori's view on that.
"She's got water powers. How bad could this possibly be?" Kurumi didn't buy into it.
"I'm out." Karen just stood up, not caring that her naked body was in full view of everyone. Nobody else cared about that, either. "I'm leaving before Kurumi jinxes us all."
"Hey!" Kurumi objected to that.
"Feeling terrible anyway and I soaked enough." Inori got up as well, heading out.
"I'll… Miyuki, you okay?" Makoto was about to get up as well when she noticed Miyuki sliding back into the water.
"Hm…" There was just a quiet hum and Miyuki didn't really move other than the very slow sliding backward into the water.
Turning outward, Makoto put forth a question. "Karen, can you- ah, she's already gone. Oh well, she's light enough." Moving through the water, showing off the numerous tiny scars on her body that gave her the look of a sexy, seasoned warrior, Makoto pulled Miyuki up by one arm, then squatted down and pulled her body out of the water. "There might be others coming for an early bath so maybe keep that in mind while you're alone in here." She directed that at Kurumi and Hikari.
"I wouldn't-! Hikari wouldn't-!" Kurumi kept on suffering.
Carrying Miyuki out, Makoto went back without picking up either towel. Karen and Inori could be heard talking in the changing room the moment Makoto came back.
"Karen's a nice girl." Hikari smiled and leaned stronger against Kurumi.
"You think so?"
"Is it weird to see her?"
"Because we used to be together?"
Hikari nodded. "You didn't part on great terms."
"That was my fault though and I'm almost a different person now."
"Boooo, wrong."
"Eh?"
"You're a totally different person now. Just the sweet core now!"
"The chestnut thing again?"
"Makes me want to eat you up!"
Kurumi inhaled sharply. "You always says those things and then they're not at all what I- hmpfh?!" She became unintelligible when Hikari kissed her, leaving her eyes open and gazing right at her partner.
Her hand locked down by a surprisingly strong Hikari, every part of her skin was suddenly hyper sensitive to touching, pushing, against Hikari's arm. H-Here?! Hikari's making- what even- Hikari is?! Move? Me? Hikari!? Even though there was no tongue intruding into her mouth, Kurumi felt more excited by this kiss than any before.
It only lasted a few seconds, precious and devastating seconds to Kurumi, before Hikari pulled back. "Receiving, see?" Her wet skin glistening in the warm light of the room, errand strands of hair framing her face, her eyes closed by a third, Hikari managed to send Kurumi into the erotically charged equivalent of overdose. Catching her partner in her arms when she wobbled and seemed about to fall into the water, Hikari smiled wide.
"Y-You just- suddenly… I didn't think you-" Kurumi was blabbering.
"Ssssh." Hikari smirked just a little bit with her eyes closed. "I've been close friends with Nagisa and Honoka for a long time. I know a thing or two about being a girlfriend."
Kurumi's mouth just flapped open and shut close a few times frantically, like an unvoiced anime character on fast forward.
"I am not faking anything though. But if you want me to be the bottom, I can-"
"No!" Kurumi shouted and then looked like she had just done something unbelievably stupid. "I mean… I… uh…"
"I thought so." Smiling again, Hikari kissed her girlfriend on the cheek this time. "You're so cute but you're a little too… patient. But this can be our secret." Hikari's smile was as beaming and deadly as being up close to the actual sun.
And it was too much for Kurumi. Looking down while mumbling incoherently, she just shut down with no hope of recovery. Hikari saw herself content just leaning against an ever increasingly sweltering hot Kurumi and holding her hand for the time being. This reminds me a little bit of Nagisa shortly after they started dating.
"'tchoo!" Nagisa sneezed and almost rubbed her nose on the comforter before good sense kicked in and she reached for the pack of tissues on her night desk instead. "Someone's saying mean things about me."
"That is very definitely not the case." Honoka rolled onto her side, facing Nagisa's back and then hugged her from behind. "You're warm."
"Thanks?" Nagisa blew her nose and, not knowing what to do with the dirtied tissue, just left the piece of paper on her desk. "I like-" Nagisa was interrupted by a yawn. "I like clingy Honoka."
"Not clingy." Honoka rested her forehead against Nagisa's back. "Affectionate."
"I love affectionate Honoka."
"Good." Nudging up closer, Honoka breathed in deep. "Wanna just stay in bed tomorrow?"
"Maybe." Nagisa yawned again and sunk further into her pillow, dragging Honoka in the extra comfortable depths of the bed with her. "I'm so… not just tired, also… I need a break from this."
"Same." Honoka squeezed her partner tight. "We haven't had sex in days."
Nagisa tensed up a little. "Yeah."
"Wanna do it now?" Honoka looked almost sullen; she knew the answer.
"I'm all battered." She felt a tug on Honoka's arm, so small that only she could notice. Nobody else knew Honoka's tiny reflexes, the micro movements that could not be conditioned away, no matter what. "But…"
"But?"
Breaking free from the hug with a slow roll over, Nagisa looked at Honoka, straight into her eyes and smiled. Leaning forward, she bestowed a kiss onto her girlfriend. "If we don't go too wild…"
Moving on a chance she didn't expect, Honoka quickly grabbed hold of Nagisa's hands under the comforter, knowing exactly where they'd be. "Promise I'll leave you in one piece."
Pulling on Honoka's arm with more strength than she thought she'd have left, Nagisa almost pulled Honoka on top of her; almost. Half in bed, half on her girlfriend, Honoka couldn't help but snort. "And now?"
"Now you go the rest of the way so my arm doesn't fall off. Oof." Nagisa chuckled. "Ah, ow, ow… I think I'm worse inside than outside."
Stabilizing with one leg, Honoka knelt over Nagisa, the comforter creating like a tent above them, encasing them on all sides but the head. "You sure about this?"
"You barely weight more than a feather Honoka. I can handle- ow, ow, ow, okay, okay, I can't I can't-" Nagisa ached and moaned and groaned the moment Honoka so much as lowered herself onto her slowly. "Sorry."
Moving aside, lying down next to Nagisa, Honoka wasn't disappointed yet. "I don't need to be the top."
"If I try to top like this I think my arms will snap off."
"No, silly." Reaching over Nagisa's stomach, she could feel how tense her body was, how stressed out her muscles were. Lightly trailing with her fingertips over Nagisa's abs, she could feel the electricity of attraction convey all the same. "I know all your good spots." Pushing one leg beneath Nagisa's, the other above, she slowly got closer and closer until her shoulder almost touches Nagisa's, until her partner's thigh was well situated between her own. Pushing away some of Nagisa's then unruly hair, she leaned in close, as close as one could, breathing softly onto her partner's neck. She didn't need to touch the goosebumps that spread on Nagisa's arm, rushing down, she knew what action elicited what reaction exactly. Stubbing Nagisa's neck with her tongue, she got her to look, got Nagisa to turn her head, so Honoka could kiss her. Feeling each other so close, their lips connected, Nagisa turned on the spot, onto her side, all without breaking from her girlfriend's lips for a moment.
Pushing together, Honoka felt her breasts reach Nagisa's. Two thin layers of clothing between them only, it was strangely sensual compared to when they were just naked. Pressing a little more, she felt Nagisa's thigh right below her hips, her breasts squishing her own. Stopping the kiss, Honoka felt hot in the face. "This reminds me of when we just started sleeping together."
Nagisa felt the heat too, but part of it was from misguided embarrassment. "Stop it. I was so bad then."
"So bad and you still had me soak your bed."
"Don't… don't say that to my face." Nagisa felt her cheeks boil.
"More than five years together and you're still so weak to a little bit of talk."
"That's… because I still love you more every day we're together- ngh!" She shuddered when Honoka squeezed as hard against her as she could, their nipples finding each other through fabric all the same. "Hey."
"You are one to talk about saying things to the face." Honoka could feel her ears turn red.
"I didn't say anything dirty!"
"Saying that was dirty!"
"Wha-" She was robbed of any further protest by Honoka laying claim to her lips for what seemed posterity.
Staying side by side like that for a few minutes, silently kissing and briefly caressing one another, they both breathed heavy when the time came to put in more effort. "Do you think we can stay like this all day?"
"We'll dry out." Honoka's put pressure on Nagisa's navel with three fingers and descended. "You before me, at that."
"No fair. I sweat a lot more than you."
"That's not sweat." Rubbing her hand over Nagisa's soaked shorts, Honoka almost wanted to crawl down there and take care of things with her tongue. But doing that now would no doubt end with both of them in awesome amounts of aching later. So instead she settled for the next best thing and let her fingers find their way inside once and again. Nagisa inhaled sharply, and breathed out in three quick, shallow breaths.
Rubbing her thigh against Honoka's panty-less spot, Nagisa could feel her juices smear all over her leg, running down to both sides. Going underneath Honoka's arm, Nagisa angled her leg up just a little, using her foot as support, to get her arm and hand atop her leg. Feeling the sticky, wet, hot hairs of Honoka down there, she teased with one finger, then went in with two. She could feel the breath that Honoka hid by biting her lip, but when she looked, her expression was the same, a teasing smirk of satisfaction.
Feeling the push of fabric against the back of her hand was a strange, almost tantalizing sensation that took Honoka's mind back to the inexperienced fumbling about of back then. Covered in the dark, hiding beneath the large comforter on Nagisa's back, they explored each other's body, quietly, secretly, with enough clothes still on so that should one noisy parent unexpectedly appear, they could deny everything just on the spot.
That feeling of secrecy, of being found out, the thrill of it all, came back to her now, just through that. Somehow, it made her extra sensitive, extra receptive to what Nagisa was doing. Quivering on the in and outside alike, Honoka felt her expression slip, crumble, and Nagisa was quickly there to have her save face. With eyes closed her lips approached, their kiss quickly turning into a contest with no directive or rule, tongues almost mending together and drool escaping past lips and corners.
Barely breaking away, Nagisa squeezed out a few words. "Honoka, I'm gonna…!"
"Already?!" Honoka's voice broke, the experience and surprise together too much for her to stabilize.
Instead of making excuses, Nagisa used her free hand to reach over her partner, grabbing her butt. Her muscles screamed as she almost climbed on top of Honoka, pushing her down three quarters of the way, her own breasts pushing down hard on Honoka's, her own love juices running down her legs and dripping down on her partner's. A kiss ferocious and more wild than before, Nagisa wildly usurped control and her tongue dominated inside. A third finger making for a tight fit, Honoka's whole body tensed as she tried to raise her hips in a position that did not allow for that. The pressure of Nagisa being on top of her and everything else together pushed her onward.
Despite what she said, Honoka came first, shaking under Nagisa, pulling her lips away and letting out a singular loud moan, she felt a welcome rush overcome her. Moving her fingers quicker, spreading them apart, she felt Nagisa almost fall down on her, on her knees and elbows, panting heavily right into her ear. The panting did not stop even when Nagisa started to bite her ear softly, with just her lips, like the gentlest ear clip to exist.
Giving her partner the ecstasy that she had missed for the last few days as well, Honoka felt a strong sense of satisfaction, more so than just purely erotically. "We should do this more often…" Still having Nagisa's lip clasping on her ear, Honoka felt Nagisa's saliva run down her earlobe. It was hot and sticky, more glue than liquid.
"Honoka…"
"Was it that good?"
"I can't move."
"Oh."
"But also yes."
"All of a sudden I felt sixteen again."
"Don't make me relive being sixteen!" Nagisa wanted to get off her girlfriend but her arms and legs weren't under her control. "This is… such a bad time for me to go all weak."
"You don't want to go weak from my fingers and tongue?"
"Honoka!"
"That bad?"
"I can sorta move them but pushing myself up is…"
"Does it hurt?"
There was a pause and it was very obvious that Nagisa was trying to think about how to say what she was thinking. "You're… very soft. So no."
"Then-" Putting one arm around Nagisa, Honoka pushed herself, with Nagisa on top, just up a little bit and used the arm stabilizing Nagisa to pull her pillow closer. Propping herself up like that, she laid back down and embraced her girlfriend soundly. "Let's just stay like this."
"Aren't I heavy?"
"You'll have to work out like Michiru or Saki for that to be a concern."
"I… think I'm good."
"Normally it's the other way around so this is nice."
"I'm heavy, aren't I?"
"Heavier than me being on top of you."
"But I like having you on top." Nagisa managed to raise her head and look at Honoka, although it was quite taxing. "Wow, evil smirk."
"Having cute, defenseless Cure Black in my arms has a certain charm."
Lowering her head again, Nagisa relaxed. I'm not gonna fight it if she likes it. "Tell me when I get too heavy."
"Why are you so concerned with that?"
"No reason."
"Definitely a reason."
Nagisa sighed. "Itsuki joked that if I was sent flying and landed on Erika, she'd be flattened."
"Erika would somehow plop out beneath you, like a flattened cartoon, stick her own thumb in her mouth and inflated herself."
"Pffftt, ahahaha!" Nagisa shook with laughter. "Ow, ow, ow, laughter bad, ahahaha, I can imagine it so well, hahaha!"
Wasn't that funny, but as long as it takes her mind off that silly worry. "Wanna take a bath later?"
"Together?"
"Together." There was audible expectation of more sex in that response.
"I'll be the anchor."
"I'm glad I have such an understanding lover."
"Lover…"
"You are not allowed to be embarrassed by that."
"Am not! Just… I just sometimes realize all over how lucky I am I got to be Cure Black."
"How so?"
"That's what brought us together. There's so many of us now, what if someone else had been Cure White?"
"You always have the stupidest thoughts after sex." Honoka, quite strongly, poked Nagisa's cheek with one finger. "All your brain juice went out the other end."
"Hey… that's not fair. I have so little of that compared to you!"
"If that was the case my fingers wouldn't be sticky like this." There was suddenly silence. Nagisa shifted somewhat uncomfortably. Then did Honoka. "That's my bad."
"Maybe… we can take a bath now?"
If we hurry a bit… "Need help getting up?"
"No I'm good." Nagisa made an effort and didn't get very far. "Okay maybe."
Pushing Nagisa up and to the side like a huge hugging pillow that could throw a fierce punch and was exceedingly lovable, Honoka sat up and felt her panties stick to her like they were glued on. Nagisa, now on her back, started to sit up and then quickly took Honoka's helping hand. "I can't believe you'd be so worn down."
"Usually I take a long nap after training so when you get back I'm not all… this."
"You can nap after a bath. And once I come back, I will join you in nap-land."
"No studying?"
"No, screw studying. I want my hug-able girlfriend and a nap." Honoka puckered up her cheeks and made a grimace. "I can be delinquent too."
"That blowing off studying so you can nap qualifies as delinquent for you is so cute." Nagisa was smiling like it was her birthday. "So cute."
"Zip it or you walk into the bathroom on your own."
"I so can."
"Uh huh." Honoka let go of Nagisa and she plummeted right back into bed.
"Not when I get stabbed in the back like that I can't, of course!"
As everyone toiled away in the mines of self improvement, time flew past. It was the late hours at the bath house and as she did every day, Misha prepped some light sake, floating out onto the water on small buckets, and snacks, primarily various nuts.
Akane always sat off to the side by herself, covered in what looked like bruises but everyone else knew to be Nao's overflowing emotions. She looked more tired than anyone else, both mentally and physically.
Everyone else of the last group sat out in the hot springs bath, under the blacked night sky. Heavy clouds promised rain soon or in the morning. Hibiki was half asleep and so was Kanade, sitting side by side without so much as a glance at one another. Ako sat with Michiru, the two of them enjoying a drink.
Tsubomi was with Ellen, both of them surprised when Misha herself joined them. Moving aside a little to make space by the center spot, Tsubomi and Ellen both focused more on Misha's stylish hair ball than her rather voluptuous body.
"Am I intruding?" Misha didn't seem the type that would have left even if the answer was yes.
"That new look suits you." Michiru was quick to be the first to say it.
"My old look felt… inappropriate for what I do and live like now."
"Hah… if we all changed our looks every time our living situation changed, I'd have gone through a bunch of looks since we got here." Michiru chuckled.
"Changing my look once was enough."
"You changed your look?" Michiru tried to recall.
"Before we came here." Not exactly true, but she doesn't need to know.
"Hime-sa-" Ellen cut herself off.
"That's two coffees you owe me now." There had been another slip-up earlier.
"Ako, is Queen Aphrodite going to be… well…"
"We don't know if my mother is even going to be queen when we get back." And I'd rather not think about explaining a full body leather costume to mama. It will be difficult as-is to explain why I have grown to used to my older body. I absolutely need to keep Urara out of that discussion, she'd make it worse. Papa is going to have an absolute meltdown if she's there.
"What about you Ellen? Any big make-overs in your past?"
"I used to be a cat."
Michiru paused. Even for Michiru, that was hard to take at face value. "How literal do you mean that?"
"As in, an actual talking cat. Well, a majorland fairy that looked like a cat. I actually have this insanely cute friend called Hummy who is also a cat and-"
"Hummy? Where…" Kanade the paw-demon woke from her half-asleep.
Oh no. "She's not here."
"Ellen… lemme touch your cute pads." Kanade sort of staggered towards Ellen but was pulled back by Hibiki taking her hand.
"Idiot… Ellen doesn't have any pads. She's not a cat anymore."
"Okay, so, an actual cat. We talking a human sized cat or-"
"Cat sized. Cat. A cat the size of a cat." Ellen cringed. I said cat too much now.
"I have to ask Love if you purr in bed."
"Do not!" Ellen nearly shouted. Probably.
"Okay, okay."
"The lot of you is very interesting." Misha looked right at Ako. "Can you-" Ako pushed the bucket that then rode the quivering waters toward Misha. "Thank you." Taking a drink for herself, Misha looked at Tsubomi and Ellen. "Is the Sake not to your taste?"
"I'm… not so good with alcohol." Ellen had been extremely hung over from just a small amount of Sake a few days before, so little that she hadn't even felt an effect while in the bath.
"Normally I wouldn't mind, but… the other night I had some and fell asleep in the bath and Michiru had to fish me out. It makes me really sleepy."
"And those two?" Misha looked at the, once again, almost passed out Hibiki and Kanade pair.
"Loud drunk and crying drunk." Michiru shook her head. "I banned them from drinking until they learn to hold their liquor a bit better." She eyed Ako from the side. "I'm surprised you can handle it."
"Dating Urara makes you adapt or die." Ako elegantly sipped from a tiny cup that stood on a small wooden bowl, floating on the water in front of her. "This Sake is really light and sweet, a big improvement over the lighter fluid that Urara likes to call a drink."
"That bad?" Michiru seemed more amused than anything else.
"It seems worse now than it is when I drink with her."
"There is no extra charge for this, but consider continuing to come daily." Misha didn't try to sound particularly charming and continued to drink.
"This is my fix me up after I get run through the meat grinder." Michiru took her own cup and emptied it out, nodding slightly to the side and Misha pushed the bucket toward her. It didn't quite make the journey and Ako used her considerably long legs to get it close enough for Michiru to grab. "How old are you anyway?" The question was prompted by Ako's looks more so than anything else.
"What a crude thing to ask a lady." Ako dodged the question.
"Ellen." Michiru turned to the next best source.
"She has a giant laser attack. You can punch really hard." Ellen refused to betray her princess.
"A giant laser attack?" Misha looked at Michiru. "Like Bloom and Egret doing-"
"Ahahaha, much bigger." Michiru kept laughing. "Oh I wish I could face the us of back then and show them just how strong we become. We'd just walk up to you enemy generals and slap you silly."
"That's not a pleasant thought for past me."
"Saki would just let Kintoleski hit her until he'd wear himself out." Michiru kept on being amused.
"I cannot even imagine the poor Trio the Minor if they had to deal with Hibiki and Kanade like this." Ellen shuddered. "I would feel bad for them."
"It might be amusing to put the fear of me into my father." Ako looked just a little bit sadistic as she said that.
"Poor King Mephisto…" Ellen's eyes were full of pity.
"If I had my powers back when we fought Dune… Yuri could have handled of them alone, probably. I wonder how things would have worked out if Yami had always been there."
"Oh, that's an interesting thought. Kaoru and I joined up late, but Yami wasn't even there until this place revived her, right?" Michiru liked to think about such hypothetical scenarios.
"Sometimes I wonder how none of us ever even heard of the other organizations that were fighting you girls." Misha looked over at Ako and then Tsubomi. "Were they particularly localized?"
"Ours actually turned the world into a desert for a short time."
"I would think I'd remember that." Ako didn't sound convinced.
"That's the reaction everyone has when we tell them. I think there is some sort of corrective perception force at work when this happens. Otherwise we'd have seen global news reports and panic for a long time, right?"
"And here I thought Yuri was the smart one among you Heartcatch types." Michiru felt pleasantly surprised when Tsubomi grinned in response.
"If there ever appears an organization that can take you lot on, I'm not sure the planet will survive."
"Thew few of us here are one thing, but when you start involving others like Rosetta, Diamond, Mint, or worst of all, Echo, we're going to be talking weapons of mass destruction level collateral damage. Fighting them here is pretty exciting, but thinking about their powers being used in the real world with real consequences is not funny at all." Michiru could imagine Mint and Rosetta just crushing a mountain into the size of a marble if need be.
"Let's talk not about this anymore, it's gonna haunt me in my sleep." Tsubomi was the type to easily get nightmares about that sort of thing.
"When we get out and I break something, can I hit you up to fix me?" Michiru tried to smile but it ended up looking more like a smirk.
"Sure." Tsubomi smirked distinctly so. "But you'll owe me."
"I can do just about anything short of specialized labor or tech stuff. If you need furniture moved for when you move in with Erika, just call."
"Handy."
"And Kaoru can handle most of the tech stuff. She can do taxes, too."
"So what's left for Yayoi?" Tsubomi felt her core temperature go up as she took the conversation that way.
"She's the bread winner."
"Really? That's unexpected."
"Kaoru and I could support ourselves but there wasn't much to put in the bank."
"Oh."
"We don't mind though. Yayoi can focus completely on her work with us around." Smiling in a genuine, soft way, Michiru took everyone by surprise. "What about you?" She looked at Ellen.
"M-Me?"
"Tsubomi here didn't deny at all she'll move in with Erika, so how about you?"
"I basically already live with Erika anyway." Tsubomi was glad she could blame any blushing on the hot bath.
"Moving in together… Love and Setsuna were traveling and I think I want to go with them."
"And after that?" Tsubomi asked, not Michiru.
"I-I'll think about that then!"
"If you all go home, I'll go out of business." Misha stopped. "More likely is that we will stop existing altogether."
"Maybe you get to come back with us if you really behave?" Michiru offered hope with a smile.
"I appreciate the sentiment." Misha managed a smile. "At least for now I enjoy my life here, as the owner of this bathhouse."
"We definitely enjoy your life here, too." Tsubomi tried to be supportive.
"Thank you. I will be closing in about thirty minutes though."
"I am leaving now." Ako put her cup and bowl into the larger bucket and picked up a folded towel just past the stones that circled the hot spring. "Ellen, don't stay too long."
"She seems so aloof but she cares about you." Tsubomi smiled at Ellen.
"Ako's a really good person, she just likes a bit of distance." I do think dating Urara has made her more… honest about what she is thinking. Ellen had known Ako the longest out of everyone, with Hibiki and Kanade being close seconds. "Right, Hibi-ki!?" Seeing the two almost entirely submerged, Ellen made strides to get over there. "Tsu- no, Michiru, can you give me a hand?"
"I could help one of them out, too." Tsubomi didn't feel great about that pivot.
"This is more a carry than help out situation. I knew I should have kept an eye on them…"
"Ellen, we're fine." Hibiki placed her palm right on Ellen's face and pushed her away. "I swear, you decide to go for one last deep soak before-" Hibiki yawned. "-before getting out and Ellen starts thinking you're drowning."
"Your fault… you were snoring." Kanade got up on her own and stretched before almost toppling to the side.
"You were the one snoring."
"Was not."
Both of them got out together, picking up towels as they kept quietly bickering at each other before giving up on walking and sitting down on the edge of another bath, cooling down a little in silence.
"They scared me…"
"For what it's worth, I think you had the right reaction." Tsubomi could relate to Ellen in that Erika being almost underwater would have elicited the same reaction from her.
"Well, it's just us four now." Michiru refilled her cup.
"I'm getting out too. I'm feeling a little light headed already." Ellen was good with hot baths but not so good with staying in there for very long times.
"Sorry." Tsubomi briefly put her hands together and then left with Ellen.
"Just us two. I would say just like old times, but we never did meet back then."
"It is still amazing to me that you and your sister became Cures."
"Not nearly as amazing as some of the other stories you hear in this place."
"It is not a contest."
"True."
"That being said-"
"Wondering about which organization was the strongest?"
Misha cleared her throat. "A little."
"You could fight it out."
"I really would rather not. Just imagine Mamo whining for days about her nails being ruined."
Michiru broke out into a big hearty laugh. "I can imagine it, yep."
"Don't tell her I said that."
"Okay. Okay. Ahahaha."
"It isn't that funny."
"Not for you maybe." Michiru emptied her cup. "But I think I need to get back too. Kaoru and Yayoi are already asleep and tomorrow is our day off."
"Time is just flying by."
"Not a fan of how long this is taking."
"Makes it feel almost comical that back then you just picked up your powers and flew."
"It's like going from a light bulb to a calculator to an advanced processor. It gets exponentially more complicated."
"Well, good luck."
"You too."
"With what?"
"I'm sure being around all of us is… inspiring." Michiru got out of the hot spring and when she turned, she was convinced that Misha was blushing a bit.
As night set and morning came about, nobody rose with the sun. It was past nine when the first errand Cures arrived in the cafeteria, fundamentally in pairs and not alone.
"You could have kept on sleeping, Ellen." Setsuna was holding Ellen's hand, almost leading her. Love was a few steps ahead and distancing herself further, ready to pick up some breakfast for herself and the other two.
"I'm fine." Ellen yawned with her mouth wide open. "Love was getting so antsy to get up, too."
"I would have stayed with you."
"That's why I got up. I want all three of us to be together, not you picking me over Love because I won't get up." Ellen squeezed Setsuna's hand. "Sorry, I'm-"
"Not great with mornings until you had coffee and a snack." Setsuna just smiled and finally let go of Ellen's hand when they were at a table right by the wall. That way, three people could sit around a table without the fourth spot feeling empty.
"Love has so much energy." Ellen leaned into her chair.
Setsuna propped both her arms on the table and support her head with one. "She does. It's a little much for me, too, but it comes really in handy when on the road."
The road… I did tell Michiru I wanna go with them, but I can't really picture myself just randomly traveling all over. "Do you want to go traveling again?"
Setsuna reached across the table and put her hand near where Ellen would put her own hand. "Not without you."
"I swear Inori isn't the only one that can read minds." Sitting up straight, then leaning forward, Ellen put her hand on top of Setsuna's. "Last night, Michiru asked me if I was gonna move in with you two and I kinda said I want to go traveling with you, but I'm not so sure about that."
"Love and I traveled because we both agreed on it. We both wanted that. But now it's what the three of us will agree on, not just Love and me. We can take turns deciding what to get for dinner, but for big decisions like that we have to be of one mind. Sorta."
"Sorta?"
"Love did promise it would be fun."
"Was it fun?"
"Almost all the time."
"Almost?"
"Ending up looking for a ride in a super downpour is not great." Setsuna's smile didn't crack but Ellen could sense that words were definitely had when that happened.
"So you wouldn't go traveling again without me?"
"Of course not." Love put down a basket of bread rolls and petted Ellen's head. "We either all go or none of us go. We did travel pretty far already, so don't worry about anything silly like feeling bad for wanting to not go." Love smiled in such a disarming way that Ellen
Ellen looked away from Love and right at Setsuna, pointing at Love while she was at it. "What the…. that's illegal."
"Eh?" Love didn't pick up on that.
Setsuna snorted. "Very much so."
"Eh? Eeeeeeh? What is? What'd I say?"
"Nothing. Just a little thing that only the two of us would know." Setsuna grabbed one of the bread rolls. "This reminds me of when we worked at that breakfast stall."
"Ooof, don't say that! That was hell!" Love laughed it off.
"I need to hear all about the stuff you did while traveling around." Ellen felt her worries about traveling fly away already. With those two I could go anywhere and I would have a good time. Love is positive energy embodied and Setsuna is so calm and reasonable. They're a great pair.
"We-" Love paused and took a deep breath. "Setsuna can do that!"
"Love is great in the moment but when it comes to accurately recalling things… the next time I am bringing a bigger SD card for my phone."
"Oh I should give you my number." Reaching for a back pocket that wasn't there, supposed to contain a phone that she no longer had, Ellen needed more than a couple seconds to realize what was wrong. "Right. No phones."
"It hasn't really bothered me much here, surprisingly. There is no internet anyway, and everyone is just kind of around." Setsuna looked at Love. "Are you gonna sit?"
"Right. No. Forgot to bring more stuff. Ellen got me all wrapped around her finger with conversation." Dashing off, almost dashing, Love left her girlfriends behind.
"She has to be doing that on purpose."
"I thought so for years, but… I am almost certain she doesn't. She's just like that." Stretching out her legs and stubbing Ellen's feet under the table, Setsuna poked a hole into the bread roll with her index finger and breathed in the freshly baked smell. "We don't know what things will be like for us when we go back, but the three of us staying together is guaranteed."
"What if I'm in Majorland and you're in Labyrinth?"
"That wouldn't even slow Love down. I definitely wanna visit Majorland some day."
"Bring ear plugs." Ellen grinned. "I love music more than most, but it is really hard to find a quiet place in Majorland."
"As long as it is you singing, I could listen all day."
Ellen blushed. "You are definitely doing that on purpose!"
"That's correct."
"Jeez, as if Love doing that wasn't bad for my heart already."
"Too bad, you'll have to get used to that."
"I know. Having one beautiful, accomplish older girl dote on me is hard, adding another, even more beautiful and brilliant girl to that is not twice as hard."
"Hm…. A little heavy handed."
Ellen felt embarrassed but kept looking straight at Setsuna. "Well excuse me, you two had years of practice!"
"Soon enough you will be just as practiced as the two of us."
"Hmph." Ellen didn't buy into that just yet. "Anything from upstairs today?"
Setsuna's focus went up, to her own forehead. "She's been quiet."
"What are you planning to do about her?"
"About her?"
"I mean… she needs a place to live and everything, right?"
"All three of us technically have their own room, but we stay in only one of them, so she can have one of the free ones."
"Pretty sure there's no free rooms right now…"
"Hm… You sure?"
"Yeah. There's only one room for every two people." Ellen was completely sure of that.
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
"Somehow… that doesn't seem right?"
"It's always been like that, right?"
"Has it?" Setsuna hummed as she thought about it.
"What are we talking about?" Love brought a tray stacked with things back. Trying to discern what was on it was like trying to count the birds in a flock a hundred meters out, in full flight.
"Lack of rooms. Eas can't exactly stay with us." Setsuna explained briefly.
"Hm, why not?"
"Love…" Ellen made a grimace.
"Joking, joking. Two wonderful girlfriends is all I need. And I don't think Eas would be interested in that arrangement anyway."
"I'll ask Mamo if she can get us another bed or a large tent. Worst case scenario, she can get comfortable that way." Ellen was proactive about finding a fix.
"Don't knock tents! They can be pretty cool." Love had that face about her that promised a story was coming.
"Sit down before you remember another thing and zoom off again." Ellen grabbed Love's hand and didn't let go.
"Wow~." Love looked at Setsuna. "I can totally see why you were swept off your feet."
"This side of you is really attractive too, Ellen." Setsuna had fallen for the demure Ellen, not the one that was very clearly getting back to what she was really like.
Blushing, she pulled on Love's arm. "Sit. Or are you going to let your two cute girlfriends eat all by themselves without good company?"
Setsuna started to laugh and Love was just confused. "What?"
"She's-" Setsuna didn't get far.
"Not a word!" Ellen was blushing hard now and flailed in the air with her free arm, in a futile attempt to get Setsuna to drop the subject.
"Wow, wow, things are lively at the Momozono household." Miki was passing by, locked arms with Yuri, who was very much not very awake. "Or is that going to be the Higashi household? Or the… uh… Ellen, what's your family name?"
Ellen only glanced at Miki for a moment. "Momozono Ellen sounds good to me."
"You hear that Love?" Miki grinned. "But you'll have to decide who you marry, you know? Even if Japan starts recognizing gay marriage, having two wives is not happening." Ellen and Setsuna exchanged looks and then looked at Miki. "Don't devour me. I don't make the law."
"I'll just marry both." Love reached across the table, taking one hand of each girlfriend into her own. "I won't marry anyone in Japan because that wouldn't be fair. So I'll marry Setsuna somewhere overseas and Ellen somewhere else overseas."
"I'm… not sure what happens if you do that." Miki didn't really have a comeback for that. "But good luck."
"Miki… coffee…" Yuri sounded more dead than alive.
"That's rare, seeing you so tired, Yuri." Setsuna shared a training group with her.
"She had an accident last night. That's- ow, ow, ow, Yuri, stop, stop." Miki winced when her partner rather strongly pinched her ear.
Yuri showed her left hand and there were bandages wrapped around her ring finger. "I misjudged the distance to the wall while half asleep."
"Ugh…" Ellen shirked a little away from Yuri.
"Ow." Love inhaled sharply.
"It kept her up a while. I'm a bit of a failure of a girlfriend to not notice and wake up." Miki sighed.
"What are you on about?" Yuri frowned. "I deliberately kept the lights off and stayed in the bath until the painkillers kicked in so you wouldn't wake up."
"Still, I-"
"Could have what? Telepathically noticed?" Uncoupling from Miki, Yuri went the way she came.
"Ah, uh, Love, enjoy breakfast. Yuri, wait!" Chasing after her girlfriend, Miki caught up in a few seconds, a little panicked that Yuri just walked off.
Following the two with her eyes and dipping her fingers into her tea instead of grabbing the cup, Setsuna sucked on her own fingers. Idiot. "Not now, Eas."
"Morning, Eas." Love was quick to be nice. She could tell from Setsuna's expression that the small shock from the hot tea was worse than the burn that barely qualified as such.
What in the world are you eating? "What does it look like?" If I could tell, I wouldn't be asking. What is this? "It's a bread roll. Come on, give me your best shot." Setsuna could be very strong-headed when it came to Eas. Why is there cabbage and egg on it? You turning into a rabbit? What is this, the town musicians of brew? "It's Bremen and that's way too heavy on the setup!"
"This is always so surreal." Ellen was talking with her mouth full but keeping it under control so nothing spilled. "Like Setsuna has one of those earphone… phone things and is on a call."
"You should see her in a suit."
Ellen inhaled sharply. "I wanna see!"
"It's amazing."
"No, I just said- I am not wearing a suit for your entertainment Love – what do you mean you would? You don't even like Love!" She did bring me back to life as you. Maybe I should be a bit more thankful and show my gratitude to her. "You do remember you share my sensations, right?" So? "Ellen, gimme that."
"Hm? This?" Ellen grabbed the sugar container.
"No, the other thing."
"Eh… this?" It was Saishikomi Shoyu – twice brewed soy sauce. It had been among the things Love had brought but who in their right mind would add soy sauce to bread?
Don't you dare. "You know the jokes go too far when you involve Love." I get it, I get it. You're a maniac. "You're overreacting." Go ask Love if eating that on bread is something a sane person does! "She's seen me eating this lots of times."
"Were you seriously gonna put that on bread, Setsuna?" Ellen looked as grossed out as Eas sounded.
"It's actually very good!" Setsuna insisted. It's disgusting. You're crazy! I have a crazy person as my older sister! Setsuna's mouth opened and the bread roll fell out of her hand. She was in legitimate shock.
"Setsuna? It's okay, everyone has a couple of things that are weird to everyone else… I like… sardine flavored candy…" Her voice got smaller the longer the sentence stretched on.
What now? It can't be that much of a surprise that you're eating- She was interrupted when Setsuna slapped the table and jumped out of her chair. "She finally acknowledged me as her older sister!" Setsuna beamed with happiness as she looked to both her partners.
"Oh, wow!" Ellen smiled wide. "About time, Eas!"
"I knew she was just being stubborn. I'm happy you two can call each other sisters now, Eas, Setsuna!"
Wha- I did not- Wha-! Eas' voice in Setsuna's head was cracking and turned into nonsensical noises of denial. "I heard you loud and clear." T-Tsk… F-Fine. So what? "Nothing. I'm just happy!"
"Setsuna-onee-san." Ellen suggested with a smile.
Too long.
"Setsu-nee?" Love of course couldn't hear Eas' refusal.
I'm not five!
"What do you want to call me? It's up to you." Setsuna looked at both her girlfriends. "In this family we believe in making your own choices." Gonna get back to you on that. Maybe. Setsuna. "She's still prickly."
"I'm kinda looking forward to actually meeting her. Unlike Love I don't really know what she looks like." Ellen was just glad the conversation was going nicely.
"Eas is all… sexy! And leather! And kind of delinquent!" Love felt Setsuna kick her under the table. "What?" She was just short of laughing.
"That's all true but don't bring up my dark history so casually!" What do you mean, dark history? "You stay out of this!" Are you embarrassed of what we used to wear? "It was so skimpy!" It was cool! "Don't tell me-" Oh I will. "As your older sister-" Just try forcing me to wear something boring like you do. "I don't dress boring!"
"Fancy doesn't always equal nice." Love added with a smirk. "Setsuna looks lovely in almost anything, even when it's just a cropped top and pleated skirt."
"See?" Setsuna tried to prove a point. Considering Peach ran around with forty layers of frills on her skirt, I can't really take Love's fashion sense seriously. "Oh that's a low blow. She didn't decide on that!"
Love smiled awkwardly. "This is about my Cure clothes, I bet."
"Huh? But you look insanely cool as Peach." Ellen couldn't understand that line of thought at all.
"She's probably complaining about what Peach used to look like. It was very… very frilly."
"That much?" Ellen tilted her head.
"More." Love chuckled. "You could have used an up-skirt stick and still only see frills."
"Wow. That's… a lot." Ellen didn't know what to do with that information.
"We- You ran around in hot pants and high heels!" So? You wear heels all the time. And you show more thigh than I did. "Love, back me up here!"
"Eas was very sexy, but I prefer Setsuna's more realistic dressing style." Love toed a fine line. "I would probably get staff to ask me to leave if I took Eas to a restaurant."
"See?!" I wasn't exactly concerned with going on dates. "Uh huh. You do know I remember everything from back then, right?" So what? "I also remember what we were doing between the times- Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh shut up! Don't you dare tell Love about that! Eas was screaming so much in her mind that Setsuna flinched.
"Eas." Ellen called out. "Eas!" She waved and Setsuna looked at her. "Can you cut Setsuna a bit of slack? She's trying to bring you back, own body and everything. I think that deserves a bit of going easy on your sis, right?"
Oh, nicely done. Love smiled and winked at Ellen.
There was silence and Setsuna thought that Eas was not gonna say anything. She's got a point. I won't complain about the way you dress or what you eat anymore. But you cannot tell Love about- "Of course I won't." That was you too, after all. "I'd never." I like Ellen. She's less sugary than Love. "What do you wanna eat?" Just get me some coffee… I'm so sick of tea. "Hm… I can do that."
"Sometimes it is really easy to follow what is going on… other times, not so much." Ellen looked at Love.
"It'll be fun when she can just sit with us at the table."
"Hm. Yeah. Actually, yeah." Ellen smirked. "I think I'll like Eas."
I am gonna pick my own clothes though. "You can do that. Just…" Just what? Setsuna covered her mouth with both hands so Love and Ellen couldn't overhear.
She couldn't just think something to convey it to Eas. Setsuna's thoughts didn't translate to audible for Eas. She had to say it out loud, even if it was just a whisper. "If you come back close to my age instead of before… consider your figure." Are you worried that I'm going to try and seduce Love? I've no interest whatsoever in her that way. Same with Ellen. Her I can see myself being friends with though. "That wasn't really what I was worried about but that's good to know." So what then? "I just don't want my little sister being looked at with leeching gazes from all over." I'm not sure what to say to that. "Just be a little mindful, okay?" Sure. I think you're worried about nothing there. There isn't exactly a thriving single market here for me to get involved in. "Even so." Yes, yes… "And…" What now? "I love having you around" Oh shut up! Eas' voice cracked at the end.
"This takes talking to yourself to a whole new level." Ellen mused and earned a playfully angry look from Setsuna.
"So… sardine flavored chips?" Setsuna had not missed that.
"Candy. It was candy." Love corrected her with a big grin.
"I am gonna divorce both of you."
"Is your original form a point of shame for you?" Love came right out the gate and asked.
"Not at all. I was a very beautiful cat. Fairy." I really shouldn't think of myself as a cat but I did look exactly like one and well…
"Can you… turn into one? I kinda want to pick you up and carry you around." Setsuna looked positively enthused by that idea.
"I lost the ability to turn back when I got my Cure powers. I don't really know why." Ellen sighed. "For a while I kind of expected Hummy to also get Cure powers like me."
"Your white cat girl friend." Love smiled proudly. "Yes, I remember."
"I only ever mentioned her once. That is some memory."
"Love is amazing when it comes to that. It's also amazing how quick she forgets what day the trash needs to be taken out or when her dentist and doctor appointments are."
"Ahahaha… don't tell Ellen that! It'll make it harder to dodge those!"
"So Hummy didn't get Cure powers?"
"No. We stayed a group of four. At some point, Hibiki and Kanade were convinced their close friends would become Cures, too. Uh… I kind of forgot their names. What was it… Nao? No… Naoki? It was something ao in the middle… and I can't remember Kanade's friend at all."
"I really want to visit Majorland." Love stuffed the remainder of a bread roll in her mouth. "Can people just travel there?"
"Normal people can't but Cures as powerful as you two… I don't think anyone but the Queen could stop you. So we just have to get permission from her."
"The queen is Ako's mom, right?" Setsuna looked around to see if she could spot the princess. "Is she like… really strict and intense?"
"The Queen Aphrodite that I knew was very kind and maybe… maybe a little air-headed… I probably shouldn't say that around Ako though. And she had really questionable taste in husbands."
"Is the Queen also a Cure?" Love was curious about that.
"Not that I know of. Cures were still considered legendary when I became one."
"We got enough legends here to fill an entire library." Setsuna joked.
"Yeah… I thought it would take away from the magic of being one myself, but it's kind of just… takes the pressure off. Even if I can't deal with whatever big happening comes next, I know there's so many more Cures that can help me out."
"One for all, all for one?" Love took one hand each from her girlfriend's and so did they.
"Do you think we should found our own team?" Setsuna smiled. "We can include Eas too." Sure, and I'll take on some silly name to suit the theme. "She said-" I was kidding! "Too late!"
"Welcome aboard, Eas." Love grinned and chuckled at the same time. "I know Regina gave herself a name… what would be fitting for Eas?"
"What color would she be?" Ellen looked at Love, then at Setsuna. "We got pink, red and blue, so maybe yellow?"
I'd rather stay dead. "She says not that one. What about green? Like Yami." No thanks. "Such a tough little sister to please." I'm not the one who wants me to join their magic circle of friends!
"What about White? We only have Honoka and Kanade in that are." Ellen's next suggestion.
And you're gonna call me what, Snow White? No. "I think we're down to just purple and black." I can deal with black. "Black is a-go she says."
"Black… but what do we do about the theme?" Love looked at Ellen. "Suite uses music, but we Fresh girls use fruits. Not exactly something to overlap."
"If she says Black is okay, she should decide on the rest herself." Ellen looked to Setsuna. "Cure names aren't something others make up for you."
"Looking forward to what you come up with, Eas." Love was looking directly at Setsuna.
"She's gone quiet." Setsuna giggled. "I couldn't do this without both of you."
"Happy to." Love sat back. "What was the thing you were gonna do for her?"
"She wants some coffee. I'm not such a big fan, but… I can handle that."
"I-I'm also happy to help." Ellen bit her tongue briefly and recovered. "From how she is reacting, I think she'll get along well with Regina, Urara and so on."
"The bad girls crowd." Setsuna snorted. "As bad as Cures go, anyway. It'll be my job to steer her back to the right path." Setsuna smiled just as Eas got the last word. In your dreams. Aneki.
=== DISSONANCE ===
"My turn." Saki let her knuckles make a loud cracking sound as she approached the station, putting on a bit of a performance for Mai, who watched from the sidelines. Not that this was needed; Saki was a mountain with legs and everyone was impressed even after the umpteenth time.
Taking a deep breath once, twice, she picked up the ball with the rope attached to it. Taking a stance, pulling her dominant arm back, angling her foot, she exhaled slowly as she started to step forward, spinning the moment her foot hit the sand, the ball tightly gripped. With a Shhhiiish sound the ball left her hand, pulling the rope after it, every few meters a different color clothing band on it.
When the rope finally hit the ground and stayed still, Rin knelt down."Sixty-three meters!"
"Awwww, almost new record!" Saki flailed about and kicked the sand, wearing a smile nonetheless.
"This would go very differently if we had our powers." Michiru was picking a fight with Saki.
"Psh, it takes more than just brute strength to throw far."
"I'd crush your record."
"We can try this in training. I'll still squash you."
"You two done posturing or can the mortals among us have a try too?" Nao stepped up, starting to pull the rope back.
"Lemme help." Saki knew it was all in good fun so she had no problem just stopping on the spot.
"Rare to see you detached from Akane these days." Itsuki was poking fun at the fellow athlete.
"She went to get us some fried soba." Nao looked over to the shop where Akane was standing in line, waiting her turn, Kurumi and Hikari right in front of her. "And this looks fun!"
"It is pretty fun to just throw stuff as hard as you can." Michiru rotated her shoulders. "In the heat, no less."
"Ayuuuuu!" Miyuki was shouting nearby. "Naoo! Have you seen Ayu?"
"She's not with you?" Nao took a quick look around, more out of instinct than anything else. "I've no idea."
"Our demon leader went off swimming." Rin knew.
"Eeeeehhh? She didn't say anything!" Miyuki dashed off to the shore and stared out into the water.
"Rin!" Kanade was calling now, from a dozen meters away. "Your ice is melting!"
"Michiru, can you- thanks." She didn't even need to say anything and Michiru took her spot as referee. Leaving the ball throwing contest behind, she joined her girlfriend, taking an almost half molten popsicle from her hand; and followed up by licking Kanade's finger clean.
"Rin!" Kanade's face took a turn for the red because of it.
"What? Everyone knows we're together."
"Still!"
"I'm not sure I can budge on this. Ignoring how beautiful my girlfriend looks in her swimsuit and her cute fingers-" Rin started coughing and nearly dropped her popsicle when Kanade elbowed her in the side out of pure embarrassment. "O-Okay…"
"S-Sorry! Ah, ah, ah… I'm just… embarrassed."
"Because of me?"
"No! What kind of idiot would feel embarrassed having such a… a… cool… and…" Kanade heated up faster than the sun could ever have.
"I thought this would get old eventually but it's still insanely cute."
"Don't just say- Ah…. Aaaahhh!" The popsicle had gotten soft enough that it slid from the stick because of Kanade's wild arm movements. It was down in the sand now.
Rin looked down, licked her own popsicle and then held it in front of Kanade. "I know that's not your favorite flavor but the line at the shop is gonna be murder now."
Hesitating for a moment and then licking the kiwi flavored popsicle, Kanade managed to keep it together. "I'm just… not used to doing couple things in public."
"You're doing a lot better than Kurumi."
"That isn't a hard bar to meet."
"Knowing her for as long as I have, that's actually really funny to see, every time."
"I'm having a hard time imagining what she was like before."
"Selfish, noisy. She could be pretty annoying."
"Wow." Kanade paused. "Wait a second, are you poking fun at me?!"
"Of course not." Rin grinned and dodged the subsequent elbow attack. "Hit me once, shame on you, hit me twice, shame on me."
"I didn't know you were so mean!"
"Have to cool your head or it'll explode. This is the best way."
"Wha-"
"You don't feel as embarrassed anymore, do you?"
"Of course I-" Kanade's mouth flapped open and shut. "What is that supposed to mean!"
"You're most comfortable when you bicker with someone."
"Am not!"
"Point in case!"
"That's not fair!"
"Neither is that bikini or your face or your large-"
"Aaaaaaahhhhhh, shut shut shut!" Kanade flailed wildly.
"Eyes."
"That is so not what you were gonna say!"
"It isn't? What do you think I was gonna say?"
Kanade laughed in a haughty way. "Am not falling for that one!"
"I am slowly getting the hang of this."
"Of what?"
"Bickering."
"I do not feel most comfortable bickering!"
"Then maybe I should just do this?" Sticking the popsicle between her lips, Rin grabbed Kanade by her shoulders, one hand quickly moving down towards her breasts, the other going to her nape. The distance between their faces closing, Rin was close enough to kiss her when Kanade admitted defeat.
"Okay, jeez, jeez, you evil… you're right!" Looking away, as much as she could with Rin's hand keeping her head steady, she felt like her head was going to lift off from her body any moment now and fly into the sun.
"Great." Rin backed away and the moment she did, her face flushed hard. "Because this is definitely not who I am, either." She felt her heart hammer like crazy and her hands were shaking a little.
"You suck at this just as much as I do!"
"I resent that. You are most assuredly worse than I am."
"Am not!"
"Ho? Then who was it that admitted defeat first?"
"It- It… it takes a really… mature person to admit defeat!" Kanade tried to salvage things but was very much not convincing.
"You denied it twice."
"You were the one that… that… ghigmghagdf!" Just mumbling nonsense now, Kanade stormed off.
"This is pretty tiring, but also a little funny. Kanade is somehow even cuter when she's pretending to be mad." Slowly walking after Kanade, who was almost in a jog with her fake rage walk, Rin noticed Komachi and Karen sitting in the shade, the former giving a lap pillow to the latter. Saying nothing, just acknowledging that they were there by looking, Rin continued her very slow paced pursuit.
"Watch out!" Someone was screaming and Rin instinctively covered. Nothing happened for a moment and then a ball, plus rope, came somewhat slowly crashing a good dozen meters to her right. Getting back up and turning about, she saw Hibiki and Itsuki come running. "Sorry, so sorry! I was… I was trying do the thing Saki did and… ahahahaha."
"I told you that you can't just imitate a trained athlete's form, Hibiki." Itsuki had a I told you so tone. "I'm just glad you didn't hit anyone."
"Seriously sorry."
"Don't give her a hard time. Michiru nearly threw the thing into the shop earlier."
Itsuki covered her mouth and audibly snorted as she recalled that. "T-That's beside-"
"Definitely lesson learned over here." Hibiki looked kinda crumbled from having messed up.
"I can show you how to do a beginner's form, if you want."
"Really? Yes! Please!"
Rin ejected herself from the couple's conversation by walking away and, without looking, backhand waving to Itsuki after she got a few steps out. Kanade was up ahead, sitting near the vegetation line on the sand, conspicuously looking in Rin's direction every few seconds and then quickly looking away.
What is she, a tsundere anime character? "I need to figure out how much bickering is too much though. I don't want her to run off like this." It's amazing how little it takes to go from just taking care of someone to really caring about them. I never would have expected that I'd be dating Kanade of all people. Normally someone like Itsuki would be more my type, but Kanade is just… it's like finding a thing you never knew you needed until you had it. And then you can't imagine being without- "Don't be mad."
"I'm not mad." She looked like a warfare primed hamster and then turned her head all the way away from Rin.
"That's good then." Sitting down by Kanade's side, she leaned against her. "Because I would have absolutely no idea what to do if I made you mad."
Kanade's fake rage melted away in the face of Rin's obvious ploy but also brutal honesty. "Do… I really seem like I enjoy bickering?"
"At the very least it makes you not as embarrassed."
"What if being embarrassed is good?"
"You are really adorable then, that is true."
"Buuuuut… I don't mind if we bicker a little. Th-There's that thing they say about couples right?!"
"Bickering like a married couple?"
Kanade bridged her fingers and rested her head against Rin's shoulder. "Y-Yeah."
"I think you're making a phenomenal effort being honest. It makes me really happy." Rin was glad Kanade was not looking at her face, because she too was feeling embarrassed saying something like that.
"Because I was doing so badly at it before?"
"No. Well, a little of that." Putting her arm around Kanade, she swiped aside her ponytail and kissed her nape. "Because the honest, kind Kanade is the one that made me fall in love."
"Unfair." Kanade hit Rin's leg with all the power of a stuffed toy. "Foul play."
"Do I get a yellow or red card for that?"
"I'll let you off with yellow…"
Moving to the side, Rin took hold of Kanade's chin and gently led her to face her. Rin's heart beat faster at the sight of the flushed cheeks and demure eyes that were so characteristic of Kanade when she was really embarrassed. Sharing a kiss in the shade, Kanade broke it off after just a few seconds. "I… can't." She looked somewhat disturbed.
"Do I taste weird?"
"N-No!" Kanade shuffled about, unable to sit still. "I got sand everywhere…"
Rin performed an absolutely superhuman feat by not laughing, snorting or even smiling. "Wanna go into the water?"
"J-Just to get rid of the sand!"
"Hm, I'm not sure I can do that."
"Rin!" Kanade went back to angry-embarrassed.
"If I am already in the water, I definitely want to swim a few rounds."
"You are so mean!"
"If your reactions are so cute, what am I to do?"
"They're not cute!"
"They are, very, very much so."
"I'm going on my own!" Jumping up, Kanade's legs promptly failed to find good hold and she fell, right back into Rin's embrace, sort of looking down, with their faces just breaths away from another.
"I love this side of you, too."
Kanade charged up to a bellowed retort and then powered down, sighed, with an intense color on her face. "I love you too, Rin."
Helping her girlfriend stand up, Rin remained sitting. "If you want to go alone, I'll stay here."
Kanade took one step, and then stopped. "What if I slip in the water and need someone to catch me?"
What a line. Getting up, saying nothing, Rin joined Kanade, taking her hand and pulling her close. Before she knew what she was doing, Kanade was clinging to Rin's arm with both hands.
"Rin."
"Hm?"
"You're not gonna get tired of me, right?"
"I love you, I'm not infatuated with you."
"Eh? I don't get the difference."
"That's a problem."
"Why?"
"I don't either."
"Rin!" Kanade tugged hard on Rin's arm.
"If I was just infatuated with you, it would definitely wear off instead of getting more pronounced as we spend time together."
"I still don't get it."
"Hm… if you were a cupcake-"
"I knew you liked my cupcakes."
"Gotta watch my figure…"
"So if I was a cupcake?"
"A flavor you're infatuated with you eventually get sick of. But if you love the flavor, you can eat it forever."
"Oh." Kanade looked down, focusing on her feet.
"After spending time with Urara, I very much know the difference between someone I just like for their looks and someone I really care about."
"What do you like about me?"
"It's hard to pick any single thing out as a reason. It's more of how it all comes together. Of course your looks are part of it, but how easily you fret, how dedicated you are, how hard you try to be better, those are all qualities I like about you."
"H-How easily I fret?!"
"Fretting is just a show of really wanting to not lose something." Looking right at Kanade, Rin wore her best, most genuine smile. "That's why I fret a little about when you spend time with Hibiki."
"You do?!"
"You really loved her."
"I did. But I l-love you now!"
"And I still fret."
"Why? You don't trust me?"
"Why do you fret I'll get bored of you?"
"Oh." Kanade smiled. "Because I really want to not lose you."
"How are things between you two?"
"Hibiki won't shut up about Itsuki." Kanade sounded suddenly very annoyed. Rin snorted in response. "It's true! Itsuki this, Itsuki that! It's like there is nothing else to talk about!"
"What else do you wanna talk about?"
Kanade went quiet. "We do train together so that's pointless… and we don't really do anything outside of training anymore…"
"Do you talk about me?"
"Just a little!" Kanade could see that Rin did not believe her. "Honest!"
"That's a little disappointing. I guess Hibiki loves Itsuki more than you love me."
Kanade grit her teeth. "Okay, I talk about you all the time! But that's Hibiki's fault for always talking about Itsuki! You're just as cool and sexy as Itsuki!"
"You think I am sexy?"
"You're being mean again!"
Rin smiled again and they hit the wet part of the beach now. "I won't go too far, but with all the training I haven't gotten enough normal exercise. Are you going to be-"
"Go!" Kanade wildly gestured at Rin to go.
Diving into the waves and making a break for it, Rin couldn't hear or see what Kanade did after.
Taking a few steps more, until the water was almost hip height, Kanade squatted down. I'm so… turned on, if she kept saying stuff to me it would definitely be showing through my bikini… And Rin's so hot, too… I want her to push me down and… ah, no, if I start thinking about that, then… But it was too late. All she could imagine was Rin taking off just the upper half of her one piece swimsuit and running her hands over Kanade's body.
Just sitting there, trying to focus on something else, the waves constantly moving against her and having to tug and pull on her bikini bottom to get the sand out were not helping. Rin came back after what felt like an instant and Kanade hadn't managed to calm down at all. Quickly hopping further into the water, to where it was deep enough to cover her to the neck, Kanade couldn't hide how flushed her face was. Her feet just barely reached the soft, mushy ground now.
Rin's hair was stuck to her like glued on and still retained that sort of spiky and unkempt look that Kanade liked. Water drops pearled down from her forehead and face and her breath was ragged. "Do you want to swim too?"
"Y-Yeah."
"Or is there something else?"
"No!" Kanade backed away when she felt Rin touch her stomach underwater. "Rin!"
She almost continued to prod but stopped when she saw Kanade's eyes narrow a bit. That's the same as earlier. So when she's really about to be uncomfortable, that's how I can tell. "Do you see the rock over there? The one that looks like a fern?" It was quite far in the distance. The back and forth was at least eight hundred meters, a ten to fifteen minutes tour. "Do you think you can make it there?"
"I'm not that weak!" Kanade started paddling and realized very quickly that there was a huge gap between someone like her, who spent most of her time in a kitchen, and someone like Rin, who did sports for a living.
Making it three quarters of the way, Kanade started to feel like it wasn't such a good idea after all. I'm calmed down now but… my arms hurt… I definitely swallowed some water… it's so salty. Just a little further and I can rest… I need- She missed a beat and quickly submerged. Panic set in and she wildly flailed and hit something hard. Breaking surface after about four seconds underwater, Kanade felt suddenly much lighter. One of her arms was incapacitated, going over Rin's shoulder, who was carrying her by kicking water really hard. "I'm fine!" Kanade looked at Rin, who was bleeding from her nose. Did I do that?!
"You might be fine, but I nearly had a heart attack watching you go under, so for my own mental well being, I'm not letting go." Rin was not being facetious about this either.
"Did… did I hit you? So- I'm so sorry, Rin. I panicked and-" Kanade's voice was showing signs that there was a second panic coming.
"I got in your way with no warning and pulled on you. That's my own fault."
Looking a bit miserable, Kanade let Rin carry her the rest of the way. She was still pretty tired when they got to the rock that was much bigger than it had seemed from the distance, emerging almost four meters out of the water. Rin pulled Kanade all the way around to the back where the rock was cut into almost platform like sections by the constant waves. Helping Kanade out of the water so she could sit, Rin pulled herself out as well.
"I'm really sorry, Rin."
"I meant what I said. It's not your fault. And this is nothing compared to what my teammates sometimes did while we practiced. My nose is just kind of sensitive."
"Still…"
She's going to feel bad unless I let her make it up to me somehow. "A kiss will make me feel a lot better."
"Just that?"
Hm. "A deep kiss."
Kanade visibly tensed up a little. "That will make you feel better?"
"Getting you to kiss me is like the rush of adrenaline when I dribble past he enemy defenders." Rin moved closer, slowly going on all fours. Touching Kanade's cheek, looking straight at her, she licked her lips. "And if you use your tongue, that's as good as scoring a goal."
Just ten seconds after, Rin had her back tightly pushed against the smooth rock formation, with Kanade sitting between her legs, crossed around her. The saltiness of the water quickly pushed out by their tongues, moving, colliding, almost dancing about in Rin's mouth, arousal pushed embarrassment off the same way. Kanade could feel her nipples poke violently against the inside of her bikini top, so much so that it hurt to move, to have the fabric rub on her.
Pulling on the shoulder straps of Rin's one piece, Kanade pulled it down over her chest, without looking, without breaking their kiss. As long as nobody could see her, Kanade was much braver than out in the open where everyone saw.
Running her hands over Rin's chest, the knot that held her bikini in place came suddenly undone. Wrapping both her arms around Rin's neck now, Kanade squeezed herself against Rin. The sensation of cool, damp skin quickly supplanted by hot flushes and even hotter, hard nipples that poked vigorously into her soft breasts. Shifting about, just enough, she felt her own nipples rub against Rin's. Going up and down, to both sides and in circles, she felt pleasure rush to her head.
Finally parting from their enduring kiss, thick, sticky saliva trails snapped one by one between their still put out tongues. Kanade's always amazing when we have sex. It's like she flips a switch and completely forget about everything else. Grabbing her lover's face with both hands, Rin pulled her back in, greedily sticking her tongue into Kanade's mouth, seeking out the pleasure she could never get enough from.
Rubbing against each other, Kanade held on tighter and tighter, almost clawing into Rin's shoulders. Bouncing back and forth, the smacking noise of their breasts colliding was making Kanade's eyes spiral and shine with lust of the moment. "Fhuwah!" Gasping for air as she parted from Rin, she pressed herself on her, biting gently into the side of her neck, leaving a searing trail of saliva as she went down to her shoulder, nibbling and sucking on Rin's shoulder while still pressing tight against her.
Kanade flinched when she felt Rin's tongue run over her ear, down her cheek and then to her shoulder where the sensation suddenly disappeared. Repeating over, Kanade bit down, feeling Rin quiver and shake all of a sudden. Instead of slowing down, Kanade kept biting and sucking, well aware she was gonna leave a big mark.
She was almost thrown off when Kanade pushed her away, down onto the smoothed out rock bed, the waves no more than finger deep water all around her body. Panting, her face flushed red like she had a high fever, her chest free of any constraints and showing her fully erect nipples off to Kanade, Rin retreated backward, away from Kanade's face.
Pulling down her bottom piece, Rin reflexively wetted her lips although they could not get any more so. Gasping audibly over the ocean, Kanade added to Rin's face being soaked in the translucent, right the moment she felt her lover's tongue down there and go in. Doing nothing to deter Rin, Kanade struggled in futility for a moment before raising her hips, pressing her own back levied against the rock, feeling Rin in as far almost as a finger would reach.
Kanade came a second time, her arms flat on the ground and grasping at just the water as Rin brought her back toward a third orgasm before she suddenly backed off. A longing, disappointed look came from Kanade as she raised her head, seeing Rin pull on her own swimsuit, baring her red crowned spot to Kanade before pushing their hip's centers together.
Different from the heat of Rin's mouth, Kanade wildly flailed about, trying to get up, until Rin grabbed her hand. Pulling on her partner, being lifted, she managed to sit up, hastily grabbing hold of Rin's body, her neck, before kissing her with such desperation that it was like her life depended on it.
For Kanade it was the third time, for Rin, who hid it much better, the fourth, that followed; for them just instants later, for real time, a bit more. With the arousal subsiding bit by bit, Kanade voiced some complaints. "I can't believe you… you said a kiss."
"Want me to give you back your change now or later?" Rin smiled when Kanade hit her with no strength left whatsoever.
The heat of sex leaving them, Kanade got goosebumps. "Where's my…" She looked over Rin's shoulder. "Aaaahhhh!" Shouting right in Rin's ear, Kanade realized too late. "S-Sorry. But- Rin, my swimsuit is getting away!"
"What?" Looking around on the barely three by two and a half meters clearing in the rock, Rin could indeed not see the Bikini she had peeled off her girlfriend. "Kanade, you gotta-" She made her partner lean back and looked behind. Oh crap. The bikini was at least a good dozen meters out already, in open water. "I gotta get that now."
"Can you?"
"Might… be a bit tough. That's why I need to go now." Pulling her legs out from under Kanade, Rin crawled to the edge and started breathing rapidly. "Come on adrenaline. Last sprint to the goal line, there's no keeper." Psyching herself up, Rin kicked off and splashed into the water, leaving a naked Kanade behind.
Covering herself up the best she could, Kanade just sat with her back toward the open ocean. "Rin?!" There was no answer. She couldn't exactly hear Rin swimming either and turning around just felt ill-advised somehow. Waiting a moment, Kanade felt very abandoned. "Riiiin?!" Still no answer. She didn't drown or anything… right? Aaaaaah I can't just sit here! Turning around, Kanade crawled to the edge and looked out. Where did she go? "Riiiiiiiiiin, where- Gyaaaah!" She shrieked when Rin suddenly burst from the depths, dripping with water and out of breath, barely pulling herself onto the stone, connecting string of both top and bottom between her teeth. Pulling them from her mouth, she turned over and laid flat on her back, panting. "Rin! Are you okay?!"
Nodding the best she could, Rin breathed harder, deeper, trying to give her body the oxygen it craved.
Putting her bottom piece on first, Kanade grabbed the top and knelt next to Rin. "Are you really okay?"
Rin raised her left hand, just barely, nodded again and her breathing slowed. "Just… just need a minute."
"I was so scared you drowned when I couldn't see you…" Kanade looked like she was near tears. Distracting herself by putting her top back on, Kanade leaned down to kiss Rin. In that exact moment, Rin coughed briefly and their foreheads collided. "Ow!"
"Takes more than that to drown me." Sliding back, pushing herself with her legs, Rin sat up. "But I think I need a moment."
"How am I gonna get back… I'm all wobbly now." Kanade sat next to Rin, snuggling up to her.
"Give me five moments and another kiss and I can carry you back."
"Jeez, that's not funny."
"Because it's not a joke."
Despite just having had sex practically out on the ocean, Kanade felt embarrassed again. Looking at Rin, she leaned closer and kissed her. "There."
"Feeling a bit better already."
"I'm just glad nobody knows I stranded us out here…"
"We are not stranded."
"We're not?"
"If I was injured and couldn't go back, then yes. But the only thing injured right now is my pride for having such a hard time getting your swimsuit back."
"Your pride…"
"Karen would swim circles around me."
"I'm glad it's you and not her that's here." Kanade was surprised when Rin visibly blushed at that. "I love you, Rin."
"I love you too. And will even more after I teach you some better swimming form."
"Love you a little less now."
"I'll get that back later."
While Kanade and Rin were stuck, temporarily, out on the ocean, two other individuals were stuck deep in the vegetation, hiding from everyone else.
"That's six days in a row they all come out here." Midori was eyeing the Cures from the distance, mostly just hearing individual voices here and there.
"I'm worried about Hinako." Tsukiko was sitting next to Midori, both of them in their swimsuits. "She always out a bunch of stuff so we don't have to worry about food, but…" Tsukiko looked behind herself where enough food for a week was still sealed or wrapped in aluminum foil for keeping. "I'm gonna get fat and Beauty will dump me."
"You're not gonna get fat. I don't understand why Hinako doesn't get out. What's keeping her? She can't possibly like Nao that much. If it was Komachi, I'd understand, but not Nao." Midori felt a bit weird talking about her original counterpart that way. "Not that there is anything wrong with Nao."
"What I don't understand is what Akane is doing. Did they kick her out or something? Lock her up? Do they do that? Are they gonna lock us up if they find us?" Tsukiko was under a lot of stress. Sitting around all day with little to do but to think of disaster scenarios was not healthy. "Or what if they found out Hinako?"
"Then where is the food coming from?"
"Good question…"
"Those others haven't been coming around either." Midori was concerned for them.
"You mean Rin and Regina?"
"They were all serious and then they're just leaving us here."
"We got food and it's warm out even at night, but yeah."
"Something is weird though." Tsukiko saw the 'no, really?' look that Midori made. "Hinako leaves out way too much food and some of it feels like leftovers from a couple days ago."
"Yeah, some of it has gone bad when we go get it. But we can't exactly strut up to the hotel in the middle of the day."
"Would be nice if we could just get a room there."
"I just wanna go back." Midori sighed. "I miss Rouge."
"I miss Beauty too! But how exactly are we gonna get back? We can only really leave the beach at night and I'm no navigator!" Tsukiko had previously suggested making a boat.
"It sucks but for now we'll just have to… sit tight."
"At least we don't go hungry."
"I need to start running or something…"
"And then what? What if Yuri's girlfriend finds you? Can you fool her into thinking you're Yuri?" Midori shook her head. "There is no way I could… actually… if we got Nao out of there, I could take her place. Since she's with Hinako, we just have to fake things in public."
"That's the most harebrained idea you had all week. How exactly do you want to get Nao out of there? You do realize she could trash us in seconds. One second even!" Tsukiko had no illusions. "And you were a Bad End! She's not gonna be happy to see you."
"Do you have any better ideas then?!"
"Waiting! At least that doesn't end with suicide by Cure!"
"You're right… I just… who knows what's happening with the others while we're stuck here?"
"Probably getting put through the wringer by Blossom."
"The back breaking work is one thing I don't exactly miss." Midori wasn't exactly a lazy person but Mirage Blossom could really be a slave driver.
"If we could at least talk to Hinako."
"The only times I even saw her at all she was basically glued to Nao. Or rather, Nao was glued to her."
While Midori and Tsukiko were running in circles, Nao was resting out in the sun, on a towel, with the would-be Akane using her thighs like a pillow. "It's still funny that your hair doesn't go back to normal."
"Ayu said that it might be stuck that way until I… what was it… figure out the… thing. The thermo… convection… something… with my powers." That's bull, but as long as everyone believes me… at least it keeps my cover intact.
"I know you explained that to me before."
"I'm happy I got as far as a couple of words right. Probably right. Personal victory." Hinako clenched a fist and smiled. Being with Nao is fine but… Komachi is a hundred percent gonna dump me after all this time. We're going onto two months and I've slept with Nao so much it's getting hard to think of this as cover. She's such a nice girl. What the hell has Akane been doing? I know some of it based on what Nao said, but seriously, what an asshole of a woman. I can't believe I'm her doppelganger.
"Akane."
"Hm?"
"I love you!" Nao was beaming.
Hinako returned the smile best she could. "I love you too." I hate that I am doing this to her. But I hate dying even more. And I am absolutely gonna bite the dust if she finds out now. Even if Nao doesn't kill me, the others definitely will. Urara is gonna break me in half like a twig. I'm just weirded out that Rin and Regina haven't pulled me aside for anything. Akane was definitely a loner so I can't exactly pretend to be their friend or anything. And of course I am stuck in the worst group. Ako is seriously bad news. I have to stay away from her as far as possible. And Michiru is also pretty bad, but at least she seems pretty focused on Yayoi and nothing else.
A loud, much louder than humanly possible, grabbed everyone's attention, of course including Hinako and Nao. Sitting up, she felt Nao swipe some sand from her back and her guilt flared up as it did constantly, Hinako looked towards the source of it.
"Everyone, gather round!" Ayumi, with her long brown hair slick down her back and a visibly love-struck Miyuki clinging to her arm, was getting everyone together.
Urara had already been nearby, holding in one hand a crossword puzzle that did not belong to her, and in the other a bottle of something alcoholic that was very much hers. "There is no way you are roping us into impromptu training, evil leader."
"Who you're calling evil?!" Ayumi puckered up her cheeks. "Fearless leader, if you must!"
"Sure, sure, fearless evil leader. What's so important?"
Looking left and right, Ayumi ascertained that people were actually gathering. "Give it a minute."
Drinking straight from the bottle, it seemed to be beer, Urara was joined by her partner, who wore a sundress over her swimsuit and had large, deeply tinted sunglasses on her head. She exchanged a single look with Urara who just shrugged. Crossing her arms, leaning onto her right leg more than the left, Ako looked imposing with her height and the sunglasses. Like a celebrity.
Karen and Komachi arrived hand in hand, Rin and Kanade about thirty steps behind, looking like they had just crossed the ocean on a raft, sopping wet and visibly exhausted. The last to arrive were Hikari and Kurumi, the latter holding two packs of still pipping hot takoyaki while Hikari carried two soft drinks.
"Everyone here?" Ayumi looked once over. "Where's Inori?"
"Here?" Inori stepped out from behind Ako. "I didn't mean to hide or anything."
"So." Ayumi bobbed her head a few times. "Since things are dragging on longer than expected-"
"Longer than expected? You can't be serious Ayu." Urara looked annoyed.
"I might have been a little, little bit optimistic."
"Uh huh." Karen snorted and so did Komachi.
"So. Starting next week, Saturday joins Sunday as a day off. I noticed everyone bringing exhaustion from one week to the next so clearly one day off isn't sustainable."
"Hell yeah!" Urara was audible even among the shared outcry of joy. Everyone listened to Ayumi because she was the de facto most powerful among them by an inconceivable margin. When it came to getting stronger, there was nobody else to look to for guidance.
"Second-" Ayumi was drowned out by the ongoing celebration. "Second!" She raised her voice and the shouting died down. "I'm re-organizing the training groups a bit. I'll post an updated list on the hangouts board in the lobby later."
"Two days." Urara raised her hand up high and showed a victory sign. "Two days!" There was jubilant cheering accompanying her.
"They make it sound like I'm a dictator…" Ayumi sighed.
"Everyone's happy for more free time." Miyuki smiled wide and kissed Ayumi on the cheek. "Me too! You were still always kinda busy on our day off, but with two, we can finally spend more time together!"
"Looking forward to that." Ayumi smiled and kissed Miyuki back.
"Bring out the booze!" Urara was shouting and immediately put down by Ako, who took Urara's one beer away from her. "Hey."
"You realize there's five days of training before we have two days off? There is training tomorrow."
"Do you always have to bring the damn reasonable concerns into things? Arrrgghhhh!" Urara threw her arms up and knew she was not going to win an argument with Ako. She basically never did. "Fine. Bring out a moderated amount of booze!"
"That we can do." Ako was not above joining Urara's side of things as long as things didn't go out of control.
"Hey, do they have booze in Majorland?"
"Probably." Ako was honestly not sure.
Dispersing as quickly as they had gotten together, most went back the way they came. Miki and Yuri returned to the super large beach towel they had bought from Mamo a few weeks ago. It was big enough that even those two could stretch out all the way and nothing touch the sand below. Both of them wore onepiece swimsuits as usual. After Yuri asked her to, Mamo had promised to look into whether she could procure alternatives but so far hadn't reported back any luck on that front.
"You're really used to it now."
Yuri sighed just a little. The kind one showed for a trivial inconvenience that was not worth getting angry at. Like coming home and having to shoo the cat away from the door so it didn't run outside. "What choice did I have?"
"You know how I feel about it."
"I do."
"What are we doing for dinner?" Miki just abruptly changed the subject, knowing she was best served just prodding a little here and there.
"It's your turn to decide."
"How's Seafood Paella sound?"
"Are you trying to make me decide for you?"
"No. But between just picking something I like at random and picking something I like and you also like, I'm going for the second every time."
Yuri smiled and turned to the side. Despite her initial complaints almost two months ago and still substantial complaints over the weeks, she was now just used to the large chest the swimsuit put on her. Moving with that in mind didn't require too much of her attention at this point. "I do like it when my girlfriend is considerate."
"That makes two of us."
"We had Seafood Paella twice this week."
"Wait, really?"
"Monday and Tuesday."
"Both days?"
"I was so tired on Tuesday I just let you pick. And I might have snapped at you when you tried to ask me what I want."
"Oh. Yeah, I remember. Then… Yam Khai Dao?" Seeing that Yuri didn't know what that is, Miki explained. "Thai Fried Egg Salad. It's called a salad but the portions are decent and I've never gone home hungry ordering that."
"Sounds nice."
Rolling to her side and close up to Yuri with that, Miki stubbed Yuri's feet with her own. "It's really nice, having you as my girlfriend."
"Thanks, I guess?" Yuri chuckled. "Where did that come from?"
"We're able to talk about almost anything, we can sort of feel out what the other is thinking. We can establish boundaries and talk about them. And we're both not afraid to say what we're really thinking. I admit I was a bit too focused on your looks and what superficially what you seemed like when I asked you out, but it worked out much better than I could have hoped for."
"You do have the bad habit of leaving nothing for me to add to what you're saying." Yuri reached over and took Miki's hand, intertwining fingers with her. "So I always have to think extra hard if you missed anything or if I should just nod and go Uh huh."
"I love your voice too much for that, so maybe I should try and fix that."
"Maybe. But, it is attractive that you're so…"
"Clever? Smart? Perfect?"
"And also full of yourself."
"I am always very, very full."
"That isn't a compliment, Miki."
"Maybe not to someone else. I am very sure of myself."
"Yeah. I might have noticed that one or two times."
Reaching up and taking Yuri's glasses off, folding the arms and putting them down at the edge of the towel, Miki leaned in for a kiss but stopped short. "You're fine with kissing me in public?"
Putting her index finger on Miki's lips, Yuri was audibly amused. "Only you would be asking that after taking my glasses off and being a hair's breath away form my lips." Keeping her eyes open, she loved to see Miki's eyes while kissing, Yuri completed their little circuit and kissed her girlfriend.
Playing footsies while kissing, Miki parted first. "Is now a good time to ask you something?"
"Maybe. You did just score some good will with that really nice kiss."
"A while back you said I look a lot like the girl you used to date before me."
"Ah." Yuri's smile soured a bit. "Momoka. You have somewhat similar heights, you're both very out-going in your style and your hair colors are a bit similar. But it's not nearly as much as I wanted to believe."
"You wanted to believe we were similar?"
"Letting go of Momoka wasn't easy. I would definitely be having a really hard time if I had to explain us to her. So I think I just wanted to believe you were similar. Because if you are similar, I wasn't really liking someone else entirely."
"And now?"
"You're barely anything alike. Momoka had curly, lavender hair. Yours is very straight and violet. You are definitely taller than she was. And you are oh so much more full of yourself than Momoka."
"Do you love me as much as you did her?"
"That's… I think so. It's hard to quantity. I was with Momoka because she asked me out and I did love her. But I never thought about where it was going or how long we would be together. Maybe deep down I was worried about the same thing you brought up when you asked me to leave her."
"I need to know this, but I'm sorry if it's making you uncomfortable."
Yuri leaned in and kissed Miki again, smiling just after. "I know. And you were honest about looking too much… well, too much. You are more compatible with me in bed though." Yuri managed to blush only a moderate amount admitting that.
Miki handled it well, managing to keep a straight face and just grin. "Good to know I'm not disappointing. You are kind of quiet in bed."
"I'm… I'm loud enough!" Yuri averted her eyes and looked down. Unfortunately for her, this took her gaze directly to Miki's chest. And she was rather fond of touching Miki's breasts, focusing on them quite a bit during sex. So it was absolutely not her fault that she got kind of turned on there.
"Maybe. But I love hearing your voice. I wish you were as talkative as I am."
"Then we'd neither get a word in edgewise."
Miki chuckled strongly and it made breasts bounce a bit. "I do love my own voice too."
"Everyone knows that."
"Do you like my voice, Yuri?" Miki tried her best seductive voice. "Yuri~."
While she managed to not show it, Yuri got goosebumps all over from that. "I do love your voice."
"Did you get a little turned on from that?" Miki tried to match her expression to her voice. Getting closer to Yuri, gently blew air against her neck.
"Don't do that." Yuri covered her neck with her hand. Her eyes were giving a definitive yes as an answer to Miki but she was also shutting her down with body language and words both. "I'm not… a kiss and such is fine out here in the open, but more than that is… not okay."
"Would being in the water work?" Miki took Yuri's hand from her neck and kissed just the top of her hand. "Because somehow hearing you say you love my voice really turned me on."
Yuri let Miki continue kissing her hand. Her nipples were starting to get hard and she had to make a decision now before things got to the point where getting up and walking down to the water would be a disaster. "Let's go."
Pulling her hand free, Yuri could already feel how turned on she was. The swimsuit didn't exactly help. After numbing the annoyance she felt of the change imposed by it, she had found out that it wasn't just Miki that found the change enjoyable in bed. She wouldn't admit it to Miki, not now and maybe not ever, but she got off on the way Miki would fondle and touch her when they did it down on the beach.
Walking pretty quickly, Miki caught up with Yuri just as they entered the water, feeling the cool water hit their sun warmed bodies and creating quite a contrast. "Uwhh… That's a bit colder than I expected." Yuri hesitated from going in any further.
"Once you're in, it'll even out." Miki took Yuri's hand and pulled her along. "And if not, I'll share my body heat with you."
Going in further, Yuri felt the water cool her down on the outside. There was no cooling down the inside; not while seeing Miki all wet in her swimsuit, with those curves on her. Reaching a point where they were submerged close to their shoulders, Miki sort of hopped in for an embrace and was rejected.
"Something wrong?"
"We're… still too close." She looked past Miki. About fifty meters out that way were Honoka and Mai, swimming in unison imaginary lanes, up and down the beach.
"Wanna swim a little that way?" Stepping past Yuri, Miki dove into the water, showing off her butt and long legs. Yuri really liked every part of Miki, but some very much more so than others. Swimming after her, Yuri caught up in no time and then overtook Miki. Despite what she used to think of as a handicap, the extra water resistance the huge breasts added, she still made short work of just about anyone in the water. Her slim form, great technique and height made her difficult to beat. Miki had desperately tried a few times but Yuri always came out on top. In most cases Miki got her revenge later in bed.
Yuri finally stopped when Mai and Honoka were barely even blips in the distance. They had to have gone south from their initial spot by at least four or five hundred meters. Miki needed more than a minute to catch up to Yuri, panting heavily. "How… how are you so fast?" Standing up, walked around Yuri, getting behind her, leaning against her back to back. Finding Yuri's hands in the water and intertwining their fingers again, Miki took deep breaths. "It's like chasing lightning."
"Good form?" Yuri smiled. She loved that Miki kept on trying to best her and never gave up or took it in a bad way. Being perfect, to Miki, did not mean she was the best at everything. It just meant that she did everything as well as she could possibly do, and Yuri did love that about her. Seeing Miki put in such effort encouraged her to do the same.
"Beautiful form for a beautiful lady." Miki grinned and took another deep breath, then sighed. "I'm already exhausted and I have barely touched you."
Blushing just the faintest bit, it could have easily been from effort exerted, Yuri raised her head and turned it just enough to see Miki's shoulder. "Want to go just a little more shallow?"
"No." Miki squeezed Yuri's hand. "You're most comfortable here. And I don't care where I am as long as I get to hold onto you."
"You've spent too much time with Love." Yuri was furiously red in the face after hearing that.
"I love being with you, Yuri."
"It's the same for me."
"Can you say it?"
Yuri waited a moment and smiled. "I love being with you, Miki." She felt goosebumps on Miki's back. It's so cute how she reacts to me saying those things.
Letting go of Yuri, she switched back around to facing her girlfriend. Putting her arms around over Yuri's shoulders, she got close enough that their breasts squished together. She wasn't small herself, and with Yuri being pretty big now, there was more than a hand's length between their face like this. Pushing in closer, feeling the pressure that she was generating on both Yuri's breasts and her own, Miki put on the same voice as before. "I love you, Yuri." This time she got to see Yuri blush and it turned her on a lot.
Yuri could feel Miki's nipples getting harder, poking through both the swimsuits, and she wasn't any different. Instead of having Miki's breasts squish down on her relatively small chest, the pressure was a completely different, equally arousing sensation that Yuri didn't dislike at all. Embracing Miki with both arms, leaving her hands just north of Miki's butt, Yuri brought the pressure to the max before it got uncomfortable for either, bringing their faces close enough for the start of an intense kiss.
Practiced kissers by now, Yuri would let Miki lead for a while and then take over, tongues switching ballrooms to dance in when she did. Shifting back and forth, from side to side, they felt each other, could tell what prompted the most intense reaction by how much they shook, however subtle it was.
Letting go of Yuri, Miki broke their kiss after several minutes, leaning back. Reaching for her shoulder straps, she pulled them down, then freed her breasts with a powerful pull. Feeling the salty, cool water on her skin directly was not much different from before. Giving Yuri a longing, sensual look, she watched her partner just smile, giving her a you do it look.
Instead of using her hands to quickly strip Yuri, Miki slowly pulled on one strap, leaning against Yuri once more and trailed her tongue after her finger. The right shoulder was bared soon and then it was the left's turn. With both of them revealed and Yuri panting quite heavily, weakening from Miki's tongue, Miki very slowly pulled down Yuri's swimsuit, revealing the huge chest hidden under the fabric. As long as she didn't take it all off, the effect remained. And as far as Miki was concerned, Yuri was Yuri, with or without swimsuit. She just had the luxury of experiencing Yuri's body in both ways.
Fully hard and hot, enveloped by water, Yuri pulled on Miki hard, their bared breasts squeezing together. "I might… be a bit too hot." Yuri stuck out her tongue and Miki was more than happy to oblige. Sharing a kiss once again, Yuri moved one hand to the front, caressing Miki's thigh, then going down, sliding inward, and finally going back up. "Ready?"
"For you always." Miki slid her fingers under the swimsuit on Yuri's butt and let the added pressure speak through her fingertips as she moved along the high leg cut of Yuri's swimsuit and then down. "When did you shave?"
"You don't like it?"
"It makes me want to practice diving."
"Later."
No more time than absolutely necessary passed as they broke their kiss for words. Using her long, perfectly maintained fingers, Miki intruded first and felt Yuri clamp down on her. "You're really sensitive today."
"Your fault." Yuri returned the favor and Miki almost clawed into Yuri's back with her free hand, feeling it so intensely that she couldn't control her response well.
Sliding her finger in and out, twisting it about, Miki added a second after Yuri could no longer maintain a kiss, panting and a leer full of passion directed right at her. Biting her lip when Yuri quickly followed suit, moving both fingers independently of another, Miki stuck out her tongue again. "I wanna come while I kiss you."
"Sounds nice." Yuri met Miki, both of their bodies pressed together as close as possible, their breasts giving to the sides. A sloppy, open-mouthed kiss, saliva trailing everywhere, Yuri felt Miki tremble first and then she followed, Miki speeding up her movements to the fastest she could. Bending forward, unable to stand straight, the two women tightly held onto another as they came. Miki moaned right into Yuri's ear and Yuri did so for Miki, both of them getting off even more on that.
Panting, breathing heavy, with their top exposed, Miki stepped back first, then to the side, drawing Yuri a little bit deeper into the water. "I want those diving lessons now."
"Will I get a turn?" Yuri was not at all opposed to round two.
"It wouldn't be fair if you didn't."
"We have a deal then." Finding the swimsuit straps hanging loose on her arms a bit distracting, Yuri put them back up. Feeling the stretchy fabric contain her breasts used to annoy her but now it was just another turn on for both Miki and herself.
Miki took a deep breath and dove downward. Yuri could still see her through the clear waters, see and feel Miki slide to the side the bottom most part of her one piece. No matter how much she braced herself for the sensation, it always made her react the same way. Buckling, bending forward, Yuri felt her legs tense up, her stomach tingle and her mind get a little hazy.
Miki's tongue always seemed extremely long to her, when they kissed or otherwise, and it was when she was being licked that she really was convinced of it. Reaching underwater, running her hands wildly through Miki's hair, Yuri panted with her mouth wide open, her nipples poking tough through her swimsuit and her hair sliding over her shoulder.
Coming up for air, Miki seemed somehow even sexier to Yuri than before. "I love you, Miki."
Taking a greedily deep breath, Miki went back down with a spark in her eyes. Holding tightly onto both sides of Yuri's hips, she got her tongue in as far as possible. Yuri gasped for air once, then the orgasm rolled over her. Staggering backward, Yuri felt lightheaded. Miki was breathing heavy through her nose when she came up, still licking her lips, the sight of it intensifying the waves after the big one that Yuri still felt. "That's not fair." Yuri looked a bit humbled. "How can I match that?"
"I don't want that." Miki took Yuri into her arms, their breasts squished together again. "I want you to do your best and make me crazy." Kissing her partner, Yuri could only taste saltwater. But she could see in Miki's eyes that once she dove, that would change.
"Can I have a short break?"
Miki smiled. "No." Kissing Yuri again, she caressed the side of her partner's neck. "But I can go slow for you for a bit."
Enjoying the leisure of just Miki caressing her, Yuri managed to stabilize her breathing and clear up the haze in her mind. "I'm lucky to have you as my partner."
"Lucky? Not at all." Miki stopped and looked right at Yuri. "I fought to have you, and you fought to let go of Momoka. We both worked really hard to become a couple. No luck involved."
Yuri smiled so wide that her face hurt a little. "You are so full of yourself."
Sticking out her tongue, Miki managed to just barely make herself understood. "So were you just a few minutes ago."
"Miki!" Yuri blushed and pushed Miki away, inhaled and went under water. Instead of pulling aside Miki's swimsuit right away, she ran her fingertips over it, feeling her lips and hard clit through the fabric, trailing the slit between. She could feel Miki tremble just from that. Pushing her tongue against the fabric, forcing it inward just a bit, she felt Miki's hand come down on the back of her head, forcing her smack against Miki's hips.
Closing her mouth and using her right hand to pull to the side the swimsuit, she set her lips onto Miki's, sucking and using her tongue to move over them in the warmth of her mouth. Miki's fingertips pressed against her scalp, her hand shaking. Teasing her enough, she gave Miki what she wanted, slowly sliding her tongue in. Miki was so turned on already that she convulsed, bending over and having an orgasm before Yuri had to come up for her. Feeling Miki squirt, Yuri could taste it through the water, just a little. The feeling of being light-headed returned and she came up for air. Miki had tears in her eyes and was drooling out of her mouth, panting heavily. "I take it I did good?" Yuri licked her lips the same way Miki had before.
"I've never… maybe once or twice… did I come that hard."
"So is this my personal best?" Yuri pulled Miki into more shallow waters. She was in need of a real break and so was Miki.
"A tie."
"With who?!"
"Two other times we had sex." Miki pulled Yuri's hand above water and kissed her fingers. "I love you, Yuri. And I love having sex with you, too."
"You're always taking the best lines." Yuri pulled her hand back, Miki's along, and did the same as her partner; she kissed Miki's fingers. "I love you too. And having sex with you. But I really need a break."
"Good idea. My legs are gonna give out." Miki smiled but she was really tired now. Managing to get into waters shallow enough to sit in, Miki put her swimsuit back in presentable order. Sitting together, legs pulled close and arms around their legs, Yuri rested her head against Miki's shoulder. "Even if we ended up stranded on an uninhabited island somewhere, as long as I have you, I'd make do." Yuri closed her eyes.
"Me too."
=== DISSONANCE ===
"Judges, are you ready?!" Kaoru had scrounged up a microphone that wasn't plugged into anything from somewhere. And for some reason she was speaking English.
"First we have Team "Slice & Dice" and their depiction of Mount Fuji in summer! Behold the marvelous size by itself! To construct such a massive form out of the fine sand, they must have worked overtime to secure the foundation and build layer upon layer! And the skillful depicting of Mount Fuji's exterior, truly something one can expect from a team of these two fearsome blademasters! Last but not least, the breath taking crown of white sand! Where did they even get this? Nobody knows!" Kaoru was completely absorbed into her role. At least she had gone back to Japanese.
"Who came up with that name?" Makoto looked like she just lost all her enthusiasm.
"Just because the two of us use swords…" Reika felt the wind taken right out of her sail.
"I don't even use a sword…" Ange was with them.
"Wait, if you and you didn't come up with it, and I didn't, then who-" Reika turned to Kaoru, who just winked at her. "She!"
"Hey, what's with that name!" Makoto was shouting at her.
"Now judges, please take three minutes to observe from all angles!" Kaoru stepped back and the three judges got to work. They were chosen at random from the non-participants every week and that time they consisted of Hikari, Karen and a very not enthused looking Ako.
Walking circles around the at least one and a half meter high, more than four meter wide sand Fuji, Karen was the most impressed while Ako couldn't quite figure out what to look at. Hikari was much harder to gauge than the other two, always looking very happy anyway.
"And the verdict is in! What you say, Judges!"
"Six. It is really big, but quantity is not always the most important part, you know?" Hikari was unexpectedly harsh.
"Nine. Building something so big requires a lot of stressful calculations and know-how of how to support the weight and distribute harder sand spots to take stress from the center. It shows a lot of technical know-how." Karen was visibly impressed.
"Four. Sure, it's big and it wasn't easy to build, but this isn't exactly a delicate construct. If you make a big enough pile and make the outside craggy, it gets pretty similar." Ako was just harsh.
"A total score of nineteen. The judges were quite strict in their assignment there! Can Team "Slice & Dice" recover from this?!"
"Stop calling us that!" Reika and Makoto complained as one.
"Next up we got Team "Hot, Set, Jump!" and their depiction of what appears a full course dinner! Does it look good enough to eat or is this going to go back to the kitchen?!"
"Kaoru's annoying me right now…" Hinako frowned in Kaoru's direction.
"What does Hot, Set, Jump even mean… is she making fun of us?" Nao wasn't happy either.
"I wouldn't even know where to begin guessing…" Inori just shook her head.
"Second round, second chance, judges, you are up!" Kaoru was visibly enjoying herself doing all of that.
The sculpture consisted of a long rectangular table, hip height for Hikari, with seven dishes on it, presented in five bowls, one large pan and a large square dish. Everything was well arranged and there was attention to detail.
Hikari inspected everything very closely while Karen seemed a bit lost. Ako was seemingly more impressed with the arrangement than what the arrangement consisted of, which was not ideal for the contestants.
"Do we have a verdict? Is judgment hour upon us? What you say, Judges!"
"So annoying…" Hinako frowned even more now. She's more annoying than Lemonade and Peace put together. The ones on my side even.
"Can I hit her?" Nao looked to Inori.
"Let's not cause an incident and get disqualified." I've half a mind to hit her, too. Who am I even supposed to be? Set? Jump? What does Set even mean!
Hikari went first. "Ten! I can tell what everything is and it looks as close to the real thing as you can possibly do with sand! I'm super impressed! And this is a meal that would actually go well together, too! There was thought put not just into the arrangement itself, or the presentation, but even the concept!"
"Six. I can tell this was very difficult to make, but for a lay person, I can't really tell what any of this is. The lack of color and smell makes it really hard to distinguish between most of these. That's why I think it misses the mark." Karen left her remarks second.
"Five. I agree with Karen. It's impressive but unless you have Hikari's or Akane's culinary training, this is mostly interchangeable shapes. What prevented this from scoring even lower than six is the fact that this wasn't just arranged on the table. It was properly fastened and the utensils were reinforced with some kind of water blocking sand-mud mix. A nice touch but still missing the goal of a sand sculpting contest. It has to be properly recognizable." Ako was, again, quite harsh.
"A score of twenty one! Team "Hot, Set, Jump!" has left "Slice & Dice" in the dust! But can they emerge victorious? The thrilling conclusion, here, in a moment!"
"Kaoru . Shut up." Inori glared daggers with a smile.
"And finally, we have Team "Whim & Circumstance!" and their depiction of… of… Erika, what the hell is that?" Kaoru put the microphone down for the last part, even though it did nothing to begin with.
"The mighty, the great, I, Kurumi Erika, present to you, the pinnacle of sand sculpting, the realm of fusion that surpasses everything! Lady in Sand!"
Tsubomi stood in front of Erika, looking visibly distraught. Her body was covered in sand, formed into a rather short evening dress, sticking to her like armor. From what everyone else could tell, she was definitely not wearing anything under that pretty skimpy dress.
"Well, here we have… it! Lady in Sand! Bit on the nose if you ask me, but nobody will! But lets hear it from our judges! It's judgment time!"
"We are not letting her announce next week." Itsuki looked at Kaoru. "Who even gave her that mic?"
"Why not? She's pretty good at it." Erika looked already certain of victory.
Tsubomi's expression was pure distress and she didn't dare move too much lest everything fall apart quite literally.
"Tsubomi… are you okay?" Hikari was visibly worried. "I'll get you a towel after this…"
Karen was more flabbergasted than anything else. "Where did she even get the idea for… I swear, Hikari and I sit out one week and Erika thinks she can just run with whatever… And what is that team name? With Erika they might as well have gone for pomp."
Ako just stood in one spot and kept sighing while covering half her face with her right hand. She didn't even have any words for what was happening.
"And time is up! Now for the final verdict! Judges! What you say!"
"Zero!" Ako was quick to proclaim it. "Erika, this is a sand sculpture contest. That means the whole thing has to be sand. If you want to make this, you need to make a sand Tsubomi too. Zero points for completely missing the mark!" Ako looked very annoyed.
"Sorry Erika, but Ako is right. No points for you today. Please make something entirely out of sand next time. And don't abuse Tsubomi for this." Hikari walked off and grabbed her own towel, oversized and purple.
"I want to give some points for technical expertise but honestly I'm too weirded out by you thinking this was a good idea. If it was a modest dress I could have given you some points for class, but… I can see Tsubomi's butt under that short skirt, and we can see more of her chest, too. No points."
"Can ! You ! Believe ! It !" Kaoru was excitedly shouting. "Zero! Nothing! Three times zilch! Nienta, nada and null! Team "Whim & Circumstances" goes home empty, in last place, with a historic score of complete zero!"
"Okay, before someone lynches you, give me that." Michiru had noticed that there were a number of people getting very annoyed with her sister and so she took the microphone from her.
"I'm just livening it up a bit."
"Too much. Yayoi's been too embarrassed to even look." Michiru frowned and gently nodded towards the parasol planted in the sand a short distance behind her. "You need to read the room a little more, Kaoru."
"I don't accept that!" Erika pouted, violently so. "Zero?! This was a lot of work!"
"Not to be the one who says I told you so but I told you so, Erika. This was a bad idea. Own it."
"But-"
Tsubomi took Hikari's towel, the dress breaking off into a thousand pieces. "Erika… we're going to have a talk about this after I wash this off." Distress had made way for something else that Erika didn't like the sound of.
"Apologize to your girlfriend, Erika." Itsuki was almost as annoyed at Erika as others were at Kaoru.
"Eh? But-"
"You railroaded her into this with no warning, made her strip when her swimsuit made it clear what a bad idea this was and then you had her pose like that for twenty minutes. I would be pissed at you. I'd throw you into the ocean."
"If you put it like that…"
"Tsubomi puts up with a lot of your wild ideas. I wouldn't with half of the nonsense she just takes in stride."
"Did… I maybe mess up?"
"Go apologize." Itsuki shook her head and walked off, to where Hibiki was, sitting by the sidelines, watching the spectacle. Or disaster, depending on who asked.
"So… we won?" Hinako looked to Nao. "We won!"
"Hell yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh!" Nao was a lot more enthusiastic about winning than Hinako.
Inori did a little happy dance by herself, smiling and clenching fists.
"You deserve that win, Inori." Reika had come over to congratulate her. "I was sure our big Fuji would get us more points. Unlucky draw of judges aside, I think your team just did better than we did."
"Hey!" Makoto had heard that.
"She's right though." Ange looked over the sand course meal. "This must have been hell to make."
"You bet it was!" Nao stretched. "I nearly broke my back carrying all the sand up here from the water."
"Next time we won't lose!" Makoto hadn't managed to win even once and she would not give up.
"I don't think I wanna do this next week though, but good luck against Erika. She'll be back." Nao knew she'd be feeling this in every bone tomorrow.
"If she enacts another stunt like this, we should ban her." Reika paused. "For Tsubomi's sake."
"Erika is smart. She probably already figured out this was too much." Hikari, somewhat, believed in Erika.
"Ange! Planning session!" Makoto was already pumped for next week.
"Eh… we can do that another time. I had enough of this for today." Being Makoto's girlfriend didn't mean she just went along with everything.
"Pretty please?"
"Makoto, I get you want to win but this is bordering on obsessive." Taking her girlfriend's hand, Ange slowly pulled her away. "Let's get something to eat. Something that's not made of sand."
Looking a bit disappointed, Makoto sighed and matched Ange's stride. "What do you want?"
"Yakisoba."
"Again?!"
"It's tasty!"
"And we were just talking about me being obsessed."
"That's not the same!"
"I'll get takoyaki instead."
"I never knew you liked them that much."
"Neither did I. But there's just something really satisfying about them. I like chewy food maybe? Who knew!"
"Maybe I should get Hikari to teach me how to make them."
"Do it." Makoto had a sudden intensity to her. "Takoyaki every day!"
"Dream on, Mako."
"Eh?! But then what's the point!"
"So I can make them for you."
"Oh. Special love takoyaki?"
"I'm not sure they can live up to your expectations but I can try. First I'll have to ask Hikari for help though." Ange was not a bad cook to begin with so she didn't foresee any trouble on that road.
"She's basically a saint, that should be easy."
"A saint… isn't that kind of putting her on a pedestal?"
"Maybe." Makoto looked over her shoulder. "But she does feel that way."
"Somehow more than Mana."
"Mana's more of a hero."
"Don't tell her that. Her helping complex is gonna get even worse." Ange laughed.
"It's been forever since I've seen Mana. I feel bad for Regina and Rikka."
"She'll be back. With Mana's ability there isn't anything that could really hurt her anyway."
"What was the reason she left in the first place?" Makoto tried to remember, causing her to make a funny face.
"Uh… what was it… I know it's for training but the specifics were kind of… convoluted?"
"Something about… what was it… energy flow boundaries applied in real time to… to… help me out here Ange."
"Don't ask me! I couldn't even remember that."
"Wanna ask Ayumi?"
"Ugh… I'm not really in the mood for magic technobabble."
Makoto snorted. "That's mean."
"But it's true! I don't even understand your ability anymore and we share a bed!"
"I'll try to explain over food."
"We're either gonna need a lot more food than I can eat or you need to talk really, really fast."
"I did cover that one song from Miku."
"And you needed what, three separate recordings and a hundred-seventeen takes to do that?"
"It's 240 BPM!"
"I'm just amazed you pulled that off at all."
"Never doing that again!" Makoto laughed.
"Thank the gods." Ange rolled her eyes, smiling, chuckling all at once.
"What? I thought you liked my singing!"
"Your singing! That's not a song made for human voices! It's like you were dying."
"The song is called 'The End of Hatsune Miku' so that worked out great."
"I'll stick with more normal music."
Makoto snorted so hard she felt something almost come out her nose. "Normal?!"
"What?"
"You! Normal music?!"
"I always listened to all of your music!"
"Yeah, I'm the exception!" Makoto had stopped walking and was covering her mouth now. But it was too late. "Ange, Ange! Your music taste is one of the few things you share with Regina! That's not normal music!"
"Hey!"
"It's not bad music!"
"Makoto come on!" Ange started to pout.
"I even like some of it. But it's not mainstream at all!"
"Normal! Not mainstream!"
"Okay, okay… ahahaha. Sorry Ange. I just can't- ahahahaha."
"You're the worst sometimes. Or always when it comes to music." Ange frowned and walked off.
Ah crap. "Ange, wait! Sorry, I know, I know, I can be an ass about music!"
"Every time!" Ange did not stop walking.
"It's just… you're all princess like on the outside and pretty princess like on the inside too! And then you listen to the same stuff as Regina!"
"Now you're making it sound like being Regina is a bad thing."
"No, that's not-" Makoto slapped herself, clawing at her own face for a moment. "Why do I always do this?"
"I get that you're passionate about the music you do, Makoto." Ange finally stopped and turned around, visibly upset. "And I like yours too. So why can't you just stop making fun of the other music I like?"
"Yeah. I should be able to do that." Makoto sighed. "I don't know. Something just goes in my head and my mouth becomes totally decouples from any sense I have."
"That's why I never talk about the music I like."
Makoto quietly hummed and nodded. A long, exasperated sigh followed, one of real guilt. "How many times did I upset you and then go I'll do better only to go right back to being an ass about it?"
"Mako." Ange didn't want to answer that.
"Wow." Makoto slowly exhaled, almost whistling. "I think I need to reflect a bit on this."
Ange felt no longer angry and just bad now. "You don't have to like the same music I like. We don't have music in this place anyway. And it's one thing when you poke fun at me for liking it. But when you start to sound like Regina is… is something undesirable-"
"Oh my god, that is what I sounded like?" Makoto looked visibly distraught. "Wow. Way to go Kazanari Makoto. You made a spectacular ass of yourself and didn't even realize how bad it was."
"You're going overboard now." Ange grabbed Makoto's hand. "I just get really mad at you for it because other than this, you're everything I want in a girlfriend."
"No dramatic breakup because I put an entire shoe locker in my mouth?"
"Gonna have to do a lot worse than say dumb things and immediately regret saying them to make me break up with you."
"Like what?"
"Don't make me think of something like that."
"Fair."
"And I know you really beat yourself up when you mess up. Okay, that is actually another thing I don't like."
"Any other things? Do I snore maybe?"
Ange chuckled. "No. You don't snore. You cling to me really hard sometimes though!"
"Ugh."
"It turns me on."
"Don't say that!" Makoto blushed. "What if someone heard?"
"I get turnhghgg-" Ange had her mouth forcibly covered by Makoto, using both hands.
"Stoooooop!" Makoto was turning scarlet red.
Backing away, escaping the silencing, Ange cracked a big smile. "I don't want us to spend our one day off fighting."
"You're not still mad?"
"I am. A bit. But I know you're really beating yourself up about it. And it makes me feel bad when you feel bad, too."
"How do I deserve such a good girlfriend?"
"Nobody is perfect, Mako."
"You're pretty close!"
"Uh huh. By that you mean other than when I do any of the hundred little things that make your brows go down by a finger length?"
"They do not!" Makoto's brows did exactly that just then.
"Sure." Ange tried really had not to laugh. "Do you still want to get food together?"
"Do you?"
"No dodging the question!"
"Yeah. I don't like eating alone. Or without my girlfriend."
"Two for the price of one then?"
"What a bargain!" Makoto took Ange's hand. "I'm really sorry."
"I know. I don't like to blow up at you either."
"Don't go and say we only have each other or anything like that now!"
"What?" Ange chuckled. "Was not gonna, but what makes you even think that?"
"We were sounding like characters right out of a drama manga!"
"Does that mean we get to kiss in front of the sunset?"
Makoto looked to the ocean. "Maybe if we stand here and talk for six more hours."
"My stomach is gonna cause an earthquake before that."
"Hey, come to think of it, we don't have any Cures with earth powers, right?"
"Wait, really?" Ange glanced upward. "Huh. We got fire, water, wind, light, a lot of weird stuff like chains and whatever the heck Rikka does-"
"Rikka's the queen of weird powers."
"You'd think we would have someone that has rock powers."
"If this was a manga, this would definitely be foreshadowing!" Makoto laughed.
"We're not a manga!" Ange joined her girlfriend in laughter.
"But… what if we are?"
"Who in their right mind would buy this? It's just day after day after day of the same thing!"
"Healing content!"
"I could use some healing content myself!" Ange snorted.
"Oh, same." Makoto squeezed Ange's hand.
"Also food."
"Also food." Makoto repeated after Ange.
While one couple had avoided a fight, another was not quite so lucky.
Tsubomi, having washed off the sand and putting two piece swimsuit back on, cropped top and short skirt over a bikini, was still more than just a little pissed at Erika.
"Are you angry, Tsumi?"
"What do you think?" Her tone was bereft of any forgiveness and she stared Erika down like a snake would eye a frog.
Wow. I've never seen her like this. Maybe I should have asked her if she could be the model first. "I was sure we would win."
The two of them were among the start of the foliage, their large shared beach towel half on sand, half on grass. Tsubomi stood just a few steps out of the sun while Erika was sitting down on the towel.
After hearing Erika's comment, Tsubomi felt her heart beat faster, not for love but anger. Closing the distance and grabbing Erika's hand, pulling her up, Tsubomi got right in her face. "This isn't about losing the stupid contest!"
Uwah… Erika had never Tsubomi shout at her before, not like that. "I should have asked if you wanted to be a model?"
"This isn't about that either." She paused and frowned harder. "Part of it is."
"Part of it?" Erika was really smart but she could also be really dense in a few specific areas.
"You always just do things without considering the trouble for everyone around you! Itsuki was totally against this and so was I and you still pushed for it until we gave in! You always do that!"
"But-"
"No." Tsubomi bit her lip. "No but. Even if it works out for you most of the time, or even almost all the time, you're still totally ignoring everyone around you. I love your chaotic, inspired nature, I love that you can focus on just one thing and go ahead, aiming for it until you get there. I love that you're smart and care about your friends and that you have more passion for your work than almost anyone else. But I'm so, so, so sick of you ignoring it when others, especially me, need you to stop and listen to someone else!"
Erika was terrible at dealing with this sort of thing. Opening her mouth, no words would come out. Her genius instinct, her drive, were not helping her here. She knew, intuitively, that what Tsubomi was saying was right. She had just never considered, not in earnest, that she was causing serious trouble for her. "A-Are we breaking up?"
"Of course not!" Tsubomi groaned. "But I want you to pay attention to me! To what I say, what I feel!" Tsubomi felt her face get redder. "I'm not just your friend anymore, Erika! I l-love you! As my girlfriend!"
And now Erika felt herself grow flushed as well. Nothing about Tsubomi loving her was news. But having it said out loud, like this, so strongly, hit her hard, made Tsubomi's feelings resonate in a different way than before.
Looking down, nodding, Erika recovered at an astounding pace. Looking back up, she smiled. "I'll do better for my beloved."
"You promise?"
"Promise."
"Really?"
"I promise! Designer's honor!"
Tsubomi sighed. "No more steamrolling me with ideas without even asking."
"Okay."
"And also be a little more aware that we share a room. You used up the last of shampoo, razors and everything multiple times!"
"Got it."
"And-"
"There's still more?!"
Stepping forward and taking Erika's other hand, Tsubomi managed to appear taller than she was to Erika, facing down on her just a bit. "And… you have to make it up to me right now."
"Right now?!"
Stepping past Erika and between the bushes, Tsubomi pulled her along. "Having you and Itsuki smear sand over me and look so intensely… you're gonna help me stop thinking about that."
Erika put two and two together and managed to avoid reacting too much to it. But she was definitely feeling it. Hammering in her chest was her heart that just grew three sizes. "I love this new assertive Tsumi."
"You mean love more?" Tsubomi was so glad that the anger had given her energy and courage. Without that she would definitely have lost it trying to say all of this.
"Yeah!" Erika smiled from ear to ear. "Warrior Tsumi!"
"Warrior?"
"Like a knight!"
"I'm not Kurumi."
"You're much cooler than Kurumi now!"
"Hmph." Tsubomi's eyes were open so wide, she looked like a dragonfly. She was sure that Erika could see how hard she was blushing just on her ears turning red. Hastily dragging Erika further into the foliage, she finally stopped, whirled about and pushed Erika against a particularly large palm that had grown more horizontal than vertical. What now?! Just staring down Erika with a surprisingly intense look, Tsubomi was lost on how to proceed. How does an assertive person have sex?
"Wow… Tsumi you're so intense." Erika reached up and put both her hands on her girlfriend's face before kissing her briefly. "You're so hot right now."
"And I'm not normally?"
"Tsumi's the super cute, serious type. But right now… you're super sexy, like… the kind of girl Regina and Urara are."
I got to dial back the pushiness if that is what I act like… "You know… you should get some of your own medicine."
"My own?"
Swallowing the moon sized lump in her throat and averting crisis by keeping her eyes from spinning through sheer willpower, Tsubomi put three fingers through the center piece of Erika's bikini top, between the connecting strings, showing off more than they covered. "Strip."
Erika just stood there and it took a moment before the words arrived in her brain after entering her ears. Slowly her mouth opened. "Eh?"
"You think it was easy to let you sand me up all undressed?" Tsubomi couldn't avoid her face being red now. "Itsuki was there, too!"
Erika's mouth quivered and she reached for her own chest, sliding her fingertips down under the fabric to either side, slowly pulling it up, keeping eye contact with an increasingly profusely sweating Tsubomi. Wow… Tsumi's turning me on crazy hard right now…
Freeing her breasts from her top, Erika still kept her gaze locked to her partner's. An avalanche of goosebumps went down her back when Tsubomi slid her right hand up her thigh, over her sides, slowly under her breasts. Trailing her fingers up first, moving up, Tsubomi felt Erika's nipple lodged between her index and middle finger. Pinching with just her fingers, she got Erika to gasp.
Tsubomi was no longer thinking about what to do and just pushing ahead with a desire to be in control, to lead. Her face fire red, her ears burning, her tongue on fire, she kissed Erika, felt her partner's tongue come to her. And she pushed her back, forced her back, Taking the dance to her girlfriend's mouth, Tsubomi felt her heart hammer like never before.
Grabbing hard, fondling and groping, Erika buckled under the sudden attack. Her legs asked for Tsubomi to relent, her eyes for relentlessness. Sliding Tsubomi's shoulder strings to the side, Erika crudely pulled down her top, making it cling to her stomach. The bikini beneath revealed, she pulled that one up. Reaching for Tsubomi's breasts, her hand was caught by her partner, pulled up. Breaking the kiss there and then, Tsubomi sucked on Erika's fingers, coating them in hot and sticky saliva. "No."
Erika's mouth formed countless chaotic shapes until it settled on a nervous smile. Sticking out her tongue, it was almost like she was pleading for Tsubomi to continue. There was an insane glint in her eyes, madness from lust piling up in an unusual way.
Pulling her away from the tree, Tsubomi made Erika get down, sit and then lie down, here back feathered by grass, sand, and moss. Straddling her, Tsubomi looked over her shoulder, reaching back and caressing over Erika's bottom piece just once. Facing front again, she lowered herself down, only so much that her breasts swung precariously just above Erika's.
Where as Erika was incredibly turned on and relishing every second, Tsubomi was functioning completely on autopilot now. If she stopped to think about what she was doing, how she was acting, she would definitely suffer a meltdown.
Tilting her head a bit, Erika mouthed a please but no actual words came out, only panting. Tsubomi understood all the same, pressing down and feeling just how incredibly turned on Erika was. It was like there were two small stones attached to her breasts. Feeling them almost drill into her own breasts, Tsubomi only doubled down on her decision, letting her full weight support the effort. She could feel both her own and Erika's breasts squish to the side, touch against their arms a little.
Extending one leg backward, Tsubomi pushed down, between Erika's thighs, and moved up again, feeling an increasingly slick and wet spot against her knee. Only enabling her more, she wiggled her knee against Erika's hottest spot, the shorter girl's aroused juices sticking to her like glue. Within seconds she was causing noises to emerge that sounded like nothing she could compare to. Raising back up, her own nipples twitching at the sudden change in temperature, Tsubomi reached back again, sliding Erika's bikini panties down her leg. Sliding back, leaving her own wet trail all across Erika's stomach and hips, Tsubomi pulled aside her own panties.
Right… right to the main course. Erika gasped when she felt Tsubomi connect with her, forcing up her leg and over Tsubomi's shoulder. Feeling every move, watching Tsubomi's breasts jiggle lightly as she moved back and forth, Erika was certain she was not going to get an experience like that again any time soon. Grasping at the grass on the ground, watched Tsubomi with intense dedication. Biting her lip, her eyes rolled back a little when Tsubomi started licking the underside of her thigh and then started sucking on the top shortly after. She's gonna leave a mark… The thought of walking around and having people ask where it came from only made her more horny. Coming moments after, she couldn't even tell if Tsubomi noticed because she just kept going, rubbing stronger and harder, grabbing tightly at her leg.
Throwing back her head, Tsubomi came once and then kept straight on going, seeing that Erika was drooling out of the corners of her mouth with a blissful look on her face. Moving faster and rougher, she felt her own hair down rub against Erika's. Out away from everyone else, with no sounds but their panting and the slickness of their bodies colliding, Tsubomi felt like her entire body was on fire.
But Erika could be submissive only so long. After a second orgasm hit her so hard that she briefly couldn't see, she forced herself up, showing amazing core strength. Forcing her leg free from Tsubomi's grasp, it was covered in saliva and hickeys already, she crossed her legs around her partner, taking Tsubomi's hands in her own, kissing her while joining in her wild movements.
Their breasts bouncing up and down, their hair slick against their scalp from sweat alone, every little bit of their skin was red and wet from one thing or another. They kissed just so with their tongues exposed to the air, unable to settle on either mouth to use.
Coming once more together, neither knew how many times they had cum in total now, Erika fell forward, holding onto Tsubomi to not lie down in the grass all wet and sticky. Tsubomi herself could barely keep herself up the same way, the two of them still panting, looking down, sensing each other more than they could see.
"Tsumi…"
"Hm?"
"I really… will do better."
"Ah… yeah." I'd totally forgotten about that… Tsubomi had trouble sorting through thoughts, or having any at all right there.
"And..."
"And?"
"You were so amazing just now… but I like the more gentle Tsumi too. Intense Tsumi is too much for me every day."
Tsubomi's face was so red that it wouldn't have been odd for steam to come out of her ears any moment now. "H-Huuuuh…"
"Tsumi."
"What?"
"How do we get back?"
"Huh?"
"Can you walk?"
Tsubomi tried to move her legs but they felt worse than when they were completely asleep from sitting seiza too much. "Maybe in a few minutes. You could carry me."
"I was counting on you to carry me."
"Oh." Tsubomi looked up and so did Erika. They both managed to smile at each other before kissing again, much more gentle than before.
A lot of intensity was going around that day. It was their precious day off, and for most of them, a day off was the only time they were out and about, not to mention, not worn down by training sessions. One could hardly blame them for making good on the time and seek out a good time with the one they loved.
"Why are you so grumpy?" Urara sat down a paper container in front of Ako, a small plastic fork already contained. Steam from the still freshly made yakisoba was coming out of it.
Ako hadn't said a word about being hungry or wanting yakisoba. Those were both things that were true at the moment, but she hadn't made a single comment about it. Looking up from her crossword and other puzzles book, lying flat on her stomach, she pushed herself up to sit upright and then picked up the container. "Do I look that grumpy?"
"Pretty grumpy. About seventy percent grump." Urara sat down, cross-legged, next to her girlfriend before opening up her own container, revealing fried fish, cut into bite sized, uneven chunks. "The contest annoy you that much?" Urara was blunt and could really be short on tact, but she also paid a lot of attention to Ako. Much more than anyone else had ever done.
Eating some soba before answering, Ako glanced around to check if the perpetrator of her bad mood was around. "Erika using Tsubomi like that just didn't sit right with me."
"They'll work that out. Tsubomi's got the patience of a bhudda."
"That doesn't make it okay."
"Doesn't, but what's the point you being grumpy over it and ruining your day off?" Putting down her box, Urara got on her knees and made herself as tall as possible to kiss Ako on the cheek. "You have a bad habit of stewing."
"Things must have taken a strange turn for you to tell me not to let things bother me."
"I do have the capacity to learn." Sitting back down, Urara started to eat faster. "I really want some booze with this…"
"You've been abstaining a lot."
"Well, yeah."
"Any specific reason?"
Urara paused to chew and looked to Ako. "I'm not giving your parents easy fuel to tell you that you can't go out with me."
"My parents don't control who I love."
"No. But they can declare me an enemy of the state and I'd rather not beat up your military to take you out for dinner or spend the night."
Ako smiled. "You would do that."
"Hell yeah I would." Urara clenched her fist. "They'll have to bring out a couple ancient sealed evils to stop me."
"Mother might understand when I show her how far I've come with my Hymmnos and everything."
"You think I can challenge your dad to a duel?"
"Don't. He might annoy me a lot sometimes but he's still pa- my father. I do love him."
"I didn't say to the death!"
"No, but I know you. You'd tie him up and start to use him like a ball and chain."
"I might have considered that."
"He'd stand no chance against you anyway, so no, rejected. No duels."
"But yeah." Urara sighed and tilted her neck left and right a few times. "I'm trying to be more… you know. Presentable as crown-princess girlfriend material."
"I don't think you have to worry about that."
"Not worried." Urara tugged on a bikini shoulder strap and moved it a little further out. "I want people to think I'm good enough for you. Prove it to them."
"You and your pride."
"Like you're one to talk."
"Unlike you, I don't let my pride motivate me. I am going out with you."
"Hey." Urara had a hooligan tone to her.
"You were the one who said that you had to prove to everyone you're good enough."
"Tsk. Still good at using my own words against me."
Ako smiled wide. "You are getting much smarter."
"What am I, a cow running into an electric fence?" Urara finished her meal, put the box aside and laid down next to her girlfriend. "I'll put up with anything your family comes up with though."
"Like I said, I think you're worrying too much."
"Your dad isn't gonna have a meltdown when you introduce me?"
"Almost certainly going to." Ako finished her meal as well but kept on sitting. "I'm glad I… well, I told you about what things are like with me."
"If this training camp drags on for much longer that's a moot point anyway. I don't even really think about it ever. You're you. It just so happens I like the you that's not smaller than me and short on curves."
"And here I thought you liked my personality."
"Uptight princess with a flame tongue?" Urara ignored it when Ako hit her thigh with her right foot. "Your looks were definitely what started my interest. I mean, what else was I gonna be attracted to? You stuck to yourself and read all the time. Not exactly miss personality."
"You got constantly drunk, picked fights and were probably this close to getting ostracized like Kanade."
"Yeah. I'm not exactly miss personality either. That's why I'm glad you like me anyway."
"If you asked me now what made me give you a chance, I couldn't even tell you. That brazen, relentless way you chased after me was just unlike anything I ever experienced. I had to know what motivated that."
"And?"
"Acceptable. More or less."
"Me or my motivations?"
"Yes."
"You're really letting me have it today."
"I know you can handle it."
"So that's the real reason you like me, huh?"
"Should I lie and say that you can take my cynicism with no problem didn't factor into my decision?"
"Nah. But Ako."
"What?"
"You've gotten a lot more wordy since we started going out."
"Should I try to be more like my old self then?"
"Oh hell no." Urara made an exasperated loud sigh. "Hell no." Throwing up her arms, Urara used momentum to sit back up. "I like that you actually talk to me instead of just waiting for me to set myself up and then deliver my own ass to me on a platter."
Propping her cheek against a loose fist, arm resting on her knee, Ako smiled at her girlfriend. "Is that so?"
"Don't take that away from me."
"I won't. I'm just thinking that you changed a lot too. You used to be a lot more abrasive and crude."
Urara reached for the water bottles in the shade, half buried, unscrewed the top and gulped a lot of it down. Ako already preemptively rolled her eyes and sighed. And of course, just as Ako knew it would happen, seconds later, Urara burped loudly.
"You could just not do that, Urara."
"But I love your judgmental face."
"Really?"
Getting up, only to walk barely two steps, turn and get back down, putting her arms around Ako's shoulders and remaining half knelt, Urara locked eyes with Ako. "Not exactly. But I do love it when you look at me."
Ako chuckled and shook her head. "If you could just say it with more finesse you would sound like such a romantic."
"You know, it's seriously messed up that you're taller than me."
"This I gotta hear. Why?"
"Princesses are supposed to be short and lovely, right? But you're tall and super sexy."
"So I am not lovely. Well, what a surprise betrayal."
"Meanwhile I'm stuck having to get on my toes and then some to kiss you when we both stand up. What's up with that?"
"You could wear larger heels."
"So, stilts then?"
Ako snorted. "That is quite a picture."
"Platform shoes like they had forty years ago."
"In the eighties? How do you even know about that?"
"You'd be surprised the sort of thing you pick up on in the music business." Sensing that a cramp was imminent, Urara sat back down normally. "Wanna go swim?"
"Now?"
"Don't tell me you believe in that waiting for thirty minutes after you eat crap."
"No, but if you would prefer to go swimming instead of lying down together, that is fine."
"That is so not fair."
"A bit of exercise might be fun."
"Uh huh. I know your bit. The last time you had to carry me out of the water like a pirate making off with plunder."
"A hefty haul." Ako found herself amused by Urara a lot as of late. She was still Urara; blunt, sometimes crude and always out to do their little bit, back and forth. And it wasn't that she just got used to it. When previously it would have been something rude, now it was more playful. Instead of having no tact whatsoever, the lack of tact was accompanied by genuine care. And she loved that someone would just take her sneer in stride and return it whenever they could.
"Oh I am not falling for that one." Urara flapped her lips. "I'm not that stupid."
"Swimming? Or resting?"
"Let's go swim. Seeing you all wet in that swimsuit is always great."
"I cannot imagine the lecherous eyes you would make if that was a bikini."
"This is actually much sexier."
"What. Really?" Ako couldn't hide her surprise.
"It just suits you much better. Its got class. Anyone can wear a bikini. But still looking sexy in a full torso covering one piece? That takes a lot more. And I like that it's your colors and mine."
Ako turned away to hide that she was blushing and got on her feet. She already towered over Urara even when they both sat down, her standing and Urara sitting only made that much more pronounced. More than one would expect just from thinking about it.
"One day I'm gonna need binoculars just to see your eyes." Urara got up as well, stretching. Even with her arms high above her head, she wouldn't be able to touch the top of Ako's head. "People are gonna make jokes about the Queen's miniature partner."
"Anyone does that and I will throw them in jail." Ako didn't sound like she was joking.
"Don't. You'll have a rebellion at hand. And I don't wanna beat up people just for giving me shit about my height."
"No. They will respect their queen. Both of them."
"I do love you, Ako."
There was a short pause and Ako took Urara's hand before she replied. "I know."
"And?" Urara swayed to her right and bumped into Ako, who just smiled and mouthed her reply. I love you too, Urara.
Another group had just gotten back to their towels after playing in the water. Although perhaps playing was the wrong term.
Hibiki fell face first onto her towel and groaned. "I'm beat." She only paused for a moment. "Nobody dare make a Melody pun out of this."
"Nobody was going to." Nao sat down on the towel one over. Hinako was right behind her, falling to her knees at the edge, then crawling onto the towel and lying down. "You okay, Akane?"
"Gaaarrghhhh…" Hinako regretted that she had to emulate Akane's competitive streak.
"But we won!"
"Doesn't feel like I won anything but a murderous body hangover tomorrow." Hinako just stayed down. "I think I need to close my eyes for a minute."
"Still looking kind of Sunny there." Itsuki rubbed a towel over Hibiki's head and was met with various opposing but unintelligible noises. "She's still not figured out how to make that go away?"
"Honestly it's cute, so I don't mind if she just keeps it." Nao stretched out her legs and pulled on the underside of her swim top. A bunch of water splashed out, drenching the towel. "Aw, come on…"
"So you two are totally back together now?" Itsuki could be a tad nosy.
Looking over at Hinako, Nao smiled in the biggest, most happy way. "Yep! It's kind of miraculous. After deciding to give it another try, Akane's just been the nicest, most caring girl. She's totally different! Like a different person!"
"You sure that's not Erika masquerading as Akane?"
Nao giggled. "Erika could never pull that off. And you know what the best part is?" Nao waved Itsuki closer. There was less than a hand's length between their towels so just leaning together let them whisper without Hinako or Hibiki overhearing. "Akane used to be awful… you know. In bed." Nao was blushing. "But since we got back together…" It looked like Nao was just about to go Kyaah, cupping her own face and looking love struck. "I'm so glad I gave her another chance."
"Miraculous turnabout. Well, we did see that before with Kurumi and then Kanade." Itsuki was happy for Nao.
"Kanade took way longer." Hibiki was half-dead but not deaf.
"True." Itsuki turned around and continued to dry off her girlfriend. "Hibiki, you mind if I leave you alone for a bit?"
"You're gonna go swimming? Exercise maniac…"
"Ahaha, no, even I'm not that crazy. I was gonna get us something to eat."
"Fly, little bird, fly."
"My name's not Kotori though." Itsuki smirked. "What do you want?"
"Calories."
"Anything specific?"
"Big calories."
Nao was drying off Hinako as well. "Akane. Akane."
There was an annoyed hum. "What…"
"I'm gonna grab something to eat. Do you want something?"
"Something I can eat cold?" Hinako rolled over, with her eyes almost completely shut. "You're superhuman, Nao, still being able to move around after all that."
"Got it. And you exaggerate! I'm all sore, too. See you in a bit. Don't run off!"
"Har di har." Hinako fake laughed and rolled to her side, away from the sun's all penetrating fierce beams. It scares me how easy this is getting.
"Coming?" Itsuki was a few steps ahead of Nao already, turned about to wait for her.
"Yep." Sort of speed walking a few steps to catch up, Nao joined Itsuki on their walk.
"It's nice to see you happy." Itsuki wasn't much for unnecessary subtlety.
"Thanks. I'm glad Reika seems to be doing okay, too. If she was moping and isolated during all of this…"
"She isn't. I saw her and Makoto fight over the sand sculpting choice. Seeing that Reika actually raise her voice and call someone a nincompoop was fantastic." Itsuki cackled like crazy. "They get along strangely well."
"Damn. I wish I could have seen that. Nincompoop? Seriously? Our Reika?"
"Is there any other Reika?"
"I mean, you know."
"You and Akane fight at all anymore?"
"She's kind of… what's the word… a bit deadpan sometimes? And sometimes I need to call her name three or four times until she reacts. It's like she can't hear me."
"Or she's been replaced by something that just looks like Akane!"
Nao stopped and turned pale. "Like… like a gh-gh-gh-gho-"
"You're afraid of ghosts? Even though you could level a small village?"
"Gh-Gh-Ghosts won't care how hard I kick them!" Nao got goosebumps all over. "I hate scary stuff…"
"What about bugs?"
"I can't handle bugs either…"
"Such a maiden."
"Excuse me for not being super tough like you!"
"I don't like bugs either. I'll definitely call Hibiki to throw them out."
"Eh… you?"
"What?"
"It's just expected." Nao started walking again.
"You mean as unexpected as the nearly one-eighty tall woman with cannons for legs and magical wind powers that can probably shred through steel being afraid of ghosts?"
"Cannons…" Nao looked down.
"It's a compliment."
"Akane really does like my lap pillow. She never cared for that before."
"She really just sounds like a different person." Itsuki chuckled. "Hey, what would you do if it really was someone else?"
"Someone else that looks and sounds exactly like Akane, is super nice to me and loves me?"
"If you put it like that…"
"I wanted things to work out with Akane because… honestly, I was desperate for someone. It's pathetic."
"Hm, I don't think so. Everyone wants someone to love them. So what if you really needed someone to be there? Does it make me pathetic that I jumped head first into romance with Hibiki even though she just sort of ended up in my room one day?"
"She what?"
"You didn't know? She got the wrong room and I didn't mind. When she woke up, we got talking. Turned out we like stuff about each other."
"Wow, that's crazy."
"If you ignore the long time couples like Honoka and Nagisa or Saki and Mai, isn't this place full of that?" Reaching the beach shack, Itsuki looked at the bald and very silent vendor. She knew for a fact, after hearing about it once, that this guy was someone's adversary in the past. But he made really good and even more so affordable food out on the beach. She couldn't have cared less who he used to punch. "One large yakisoba and one…, actually, can you take two extra large yakisoba and just stuff them tight into a container? Of course I'll pay for both."
"Sure thing." His name was actually Ilkubo, although not even Nagisa and Honoka seemed to remember that. He was totally fine with that. His life was cooking now.
"I'll have one extra large yakisoba and do you have anything that's still good cold?"
Ilkubo only briefly looked into the back of the shop to ascertain he did. "Not on the menu, but I could quickly whip up some chilled soba if you'd like."
"Thanks."
"Like I was saying, just look at what Yayoi has going on."
"That is pretty crazy."
"And Ellen. Ako. Kanade."
"Okay, point made. Everyone's bonkers."
"The good kind of bonkers."
"So… what was the question again?"
"Question?"
"Yeah. I think you asked me something?"
"Uh… ah ha ha ha. I'm turning into Hibiki with this scatterbrain."
"I think… yeah, uh, what I was gonna do if Akane was a clone?"
"Not a clone." Itsuki snapped her fingers. "Replaced."
"As long as she likes me I think… I think I would just try and look past it."
"Even though she pretended to be Akane?"
"She looks like her, but she behaves nothing like Akane. I mean, if she was someone else."
"The mysterious case of the suddenly improved ex-girlfriend after re-acquisition?"
"Definitely gonna bomb. Yayoi's gonna rate it zero out of five."
"Ouch."
"I'd read it."
"Really." Itsuki received the first pack of yakisoba. "You mind if I start?"
"Go ahead. Less to carry. Less spillage if you inevitably get those twigs stuck in the sand."
"Hey." Itsuki posed a bit to show off her legs. "Hibiki and Akane might have sticks. I got bamboo at least. At least."
"Bamboo's hollow."
"So's my stomach, works out."
"I don't think that's how that goes."
"If I got replaced… I'd want my doppelganger to be like, super badass."
"Why?" Nao chuckled. "You seem pretty badass already."
"I mean like, full on seinen manga protagonist."
"Like… well, not like you'll know any specific examples."
"I read manga."
"No way."
"Why no way?"
"You! Miss Martial Arts? Who's practically married to the young… uh, something something Hibiki does well."
"Heh heh. I'm just full of surprises. I can't hold a candle to the likes of Yayoi of course. I'm more surprised you read manga."
"Aren't I super the type to read manga?"
"You seem more like the 'just go play outside or do sports' type."
"I can't exactly deny- ah, thank you." Receiving her own order, Nao joined Itsuki in eating, both of them just standing a little off to the side from the counter. "So what's your favorite?"
"Space Battleship Yamato 2199." Itsuki cited without hesitation.
"That's anime! Not manga!"
"Damn, caught red-handed. Let's see… my favorite manga? That's honestly kind of hard to decide on. What's yours? Do not say Captain Tsubasa."
"I'm amazed you even know that. No, I like that one a bit, but nowhere near my favorite. My favorite is just really boring."
"Dragonball?"
"See? Boring."
"It's kind of funny to like Dragonball as a Cure."
"Goku would wipe the floor with me."
"Any of us."
"You read it too?"
"The original, and Z."
"And your favorite?"
Itsuki stuffed her mouth to stall for time. But unfortunately soba went down pretty easy. "I think it's a tie between Fist of the North Star and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure."
"That's some seriously maniac stuff…"
"I'm pretty sure they're both considered pretty main stream."
"I dunno about that…"
"What was I saying?"
"Uh… if you get replaced, you want to be super badass."
"Yeah. Yeah! I wanna see Hibiki fight my doppelganger, all emotional, surpassing her limits with an infinite hit combo to defeat the doppelganger and get me back!"
"Maybe you are already a doppelganger, just Yayoi's."
"Bit tall for that, aren't I?"
"Tall Yayoi would be so wrong."
"That's kind of mean but also really, really true."
"Can you imagine we go back to the real world and there's doppelgangers for all of us?" Nao faked goosebumps. "What if my real world counterpart was a single child and she's a total delinquent that wears a tattered coat, a red scarf and looks really intense?"
"What are you, the Getter Robo pilot?" Itsuki flapped her lips. "Oh no, what if I really am a Yayoi doppelganger?"
"I don't know that one so, dunno. Doppelgangers are kind of fun to think about."
"Really? Ghosts and bugs have you under and on the table, but doppelgangers from another dimension are cool?" Itsuki clenched a fist, then relaxed it and made her coin bag appear. "At least that still works."
"I would not know where to keep a wallet like this."
"Between those huge boobs." Itsuki smirked as she paid.
"Like you are one to talk."
"I'm not that big."
"Big enough to hold a wallet!"
"That's basically everyone here!"
"Yuri and Yami-" Nao was cut off really quickly.
"We're talking about in swimsuits here."
"Damn. I forgot about that." Paying as well, Nao carried the big, white, paper box in both hands.
"Hibiki's doppelganger… a metal band vocalist?" Itsuki did the same, making sure the almost bursting box was secure.
"Doesn't Ellen do something like that?"
"I think so."
"Pretty crazy to think about how much range we got."
"We?"
"Cures."
"I guess. No office workers yet, which is crazy."
"That's much crazier than doppelgangers, too."
"Akane's doppelganger… exactly the same but she does Chinese food!"
"Lazy. Rejected."
"I reject your rejection."
"Darn."
"Thanks."
"Hm? What for?"
"Hanging out with me."
Itsuki smiled and looked straight ahead. "I'm not hanging out with you as charity or anything. I'm not aiming to be everyone's friend, but I like socializing. I didn't get a whole lot of that when I was a teen. Least not until I got hijacked by being a Cure."
"Thanks anyway."
"My pleasure, then."
"So, things between you and Hibiki getting serious?"
"As serious as they can get without knowing what waits for us back in the real world. This place isn't so bad anymore, but it's not home."
"If we spend much longer here, it might start to feel like it."
"What about you and Akane?"
"I… wanna live with her. If Akane stays like this, I want her to always be close."
"How does she feel?"
"I haven't exactly asked her. What about Hibiki?"
"She's more worried about the state of things back in the real world than I am, so I generally avoid the topic."
"How come?"
"It's her mom and dad and just everything. It's easy to forget the entire Suite team still went to school when this started."
"Man, what if we go back and it's like, zoom, ten years have passed?"
"Don't even start with that."
"How would I even explain to my parents where I was for ten years? Or why I haven't gotten older?"
"I certainly feel like I'm aging ten years a week right now."
Nao snorted. "Kind of same."
"It's probably pointless to ask, but-"
"Same as everyone else. Microscopic advances, if any."
"On my end I think I have the theory mostly done, but it's like… you know, I figured out how to start a camp fire but actually keeping it going without burning down the place or going out is another thing entirely."
"I have no idea what you mean but I also sort of totally get it?"
"Lot of that going around."
"Itsukiiiiiiiii!" Hibiki was, miraculously, sitting up, shouting from a good twenty meters out. "Fooooooooood!"
"Gotta feed my gremlin before she multiplies out of control."
"Isn't that backwards? Wait, is it?" Nao kept her pace while Itsuki sped up, leaving the last little bit of the way for Nao to go by herself. Looking at Hinako, passed out cold, Nao smiled. "I'd love you even if you're a fake." Talking quietly to herself, Nao kept on walking.
=== DISSONANCE ===
With the sunset came the campfire. With campfire came booze and scary stories. The turnout was never a hundred percent, but a lot of the Cures showed up for this. The last fleeting rays of sunlight were just hitting the trees, the now cooling winds from the ocean made everyone huddle together a little more.
"This is just a rumor I heard, but supposedly there is another hotel. Yeah, just like the one we live in. It's somewhere out there, hidden in the woods. And you might be thinking, why would there be another? The answer is really simple. When we die, we get turned back. But where does the us go that died? I hear that it doesn't just disappear. Some part, some little bit of it, of us… just remains. And out there, in that hotel, in that run down place that has no power and nobody to look after it. They live there. They're no longer us. They're just fragments, bits and pieces. And they're all the pain and regret that we feel in that one moment we die. Over and over and over and each time. Plop. Another one of them. They got no faces, not even real bodies. They're just like silhouettes you can see against the light. And beware they ever find out we are here. We can't hurt them. They're already dead. They're not even really physical. But I hear… if they do find out, they'll come in force. They'll flood into our light. They'll come after us. They'll drain everything from us that makes us us. You can't run from them. They never stop. No door or barrier is gonna keep them out. And when they are close, so close that you know it'll be bad… you can hear that noise. Tick. Tock. Like an old, old clock… back and forth, counting down the time until we're reduced to what they are. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock."
There was complete silence. The waves were drowned out by it. They all listened for it in the distance. To see if they could hear it. That unassuming little noise. And then there was a loud thud.
"Kiaghhyaaaaaaaaa!"
Several of them screamed, scaring each other further, hastily scrambling away from where the thud had come from.
"Sorry. Nao fainted." Hinako was looking not so great herself, but still in command of her faculties. Nao on the other hand had fainted with her eyes open, twitching on the ground.
"Dammit Nao!" Regina cursed. "You got me scared at my own damn story!"
"I'm gonna have nightmares about this." Yayoi looked like she was just about ready to follow Nao. Feeling Kaoru's hand on her head and Michiru's hand on her own did wonders to keep her from doing just that.
"Ooooookay. I think that's enough scaring the heck out of everyone." Ayumi clapped her hands together. "It's getting late anyway. Remember to look at the hangouts board on your way up, training group compositions have changed. And Regina? A word?"
Dispersing, a lot of those who were easily susceptible to scary stories were holding onto their partner for dear life. A lot of hushed whispers followed, some reassuring, some questioning where Regina had come up with such a story.
"What?" Regina stayed behind while Ange, Makoto and Rikka went up ahead.
"Where did you hear that story?"
"You too?! If anyone here shouldn't be scared it's you. Not like you ever died to anything."
"Regina." Ayumi smiled in that one way only someone with vastly superior power could. "Where – did – you – hear – that – story?"
What is with her? "I made it up. I didn't hear this from anyone, I just took a couple scary things and meshed them together. Why? You are not gonna tell me there's something like that actually out there, right?"
"Of course not. But you saw how scared some of them were. We don't know a lot about this space beyond what we have access to or how the restoration process works. So this is all stuff that really could be true as far as they're concerned."
"Well, yeah, that's what makes it scary."
"Try to keep it at scary and not so scary that Nao faints just hearing about it."
"Okay, okay. Holy shit, suffering from success I guess."
"I just don't want any of the girls to show up tomorrow with the world's biggest bags under their eyes because you scared them out of their wits."
"Well, fair. Experimenting with powers while sleep deprived is another scary story entirely. Oh, what if I use that-"
"Regina."
"Yeah, yeah, scary, not scared shitless."
"That was a really scary story."
"Didn't think you could even feel scared."
"Of course I can! Who do you think I am?"
"Someone who could probably just blow up a continent of tick tock ghosts if it came down to it."
"A continent?"
"Or a country. Whatever. So… am I under arrest or can I go?"
Ayumi rolled eyes. "Go. Be nice to Ange. I think she needs a drink."
"Hoooooooh? Is that so?" Regina looked very evil as she walked off.
"Are we not gonna go back?" Miyuki was the only one who stayed behind, walking up to her girlfriend right as Regina left.
"In a minute, Nozomi." Stepping towards her, kissing her cheek, Ayumi turned around. "I'll drop by the arena first to make sure everything is set up for tomorrow. I do not wanna fiddle with settings at four in the morning."
"Can I come?"
"You could… or you could go back and take a nice hot bath and wait for me in bed?" Ayumi put on her best smile.
"Wao~." Miyuki made a sound that could only be described as rawr. "But don't take too long!"
"I won't."
"Love you!" Miyuki started to walk off.
"Love you too!"
Waiting until Miyuki was out of sight, making sure that nobody else had stayed behind, Ayumi looked out to the ocean. "I need to keep an eye on that bitch. That was far too close to the truth. Where did she even get that information? I erased and adjusted everything slowly enough that there's only minor inconsistencies, and those I can ignore. They'll just blame being tired or having their plate full with other stuff. So where…"
"Trouble?" Another voice that was much like Ayumi's came from up front, from nothing but an invisible fracture in space.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing much. We found Akane on the other side."
"Huh? Oh… her. I had the fake masquerade as her to keep things rolling. It's been more convenient that way."
"So you want her to stay over there?"
"Is she causing problems?"
"Not yet. She's not exactly in walking around condition."
"Don't look at me. I only removed her. I didn't beat her up or anything."
"I know. If we did that there would be nothing left of them. That might have been more efficient."
"Tsk. Don't get any ideas."
"I know. We don't have enough information about what will happen if one of them actually dies for good."
"Might cause a causality paradox."
"Or worse."
"How's the outside?"
"Fine, for the most part. Nozomi and Mana fit in. If they're thinking about getting back here they haven't said anything to the others."
"Some good news, finally."
"And how is it going in here?"
"Far worse than I anticipated. I've been playing teacher for weeks now and it'll be weeks more until we're through. I am so tired of Miyuki and pretending to like her."
"Good thing you know [Ghostly Dreams of Cherry Blossoms]."
"This project would be untenable without it. How is that other thing going?"
"So-so."
"Can you manage alone?"
"As long as I keep an eye on it."
"Good."
"You look stressed."
Ayumi glared at the ocean ahead. "And you're making it worse."
"Then I will take my leave."
Ayumi waited until the presence carrying the voice was gone until she turned around and walked towards the exit. "Just you wait. I won't let everything go according to her plan so easily."
=== END OF EVENT XL ===
