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Story: [Matsu's Ashikabi]
Summary: Her humor was a bit strange, her moral code was probably a bit flawed, and she was kind of weirdly obsessive about electronics. But he wouldn't trade her for the world.
Genre: Adventure?
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Of course she'd gone after the Dursleys.
Regardless of whether her Ashikabi wanted to simply never hear from them again or not, she couldn't really bring herself to allow what they'd done to him to pass without extracting at least some modicum of vengeance.
She wasn't a nice girl like Musubi, or innocent like Kusano, or noble like Tsukiumi. She was the kind of person who'd outright declared war on MBI by stealing one of their most prized treasures out from under their noses, she was the kind of person who'd hacked into the databanks of hundred of countries across the world, she was the kind of person whose strategies had seen the first generation of the Disciplinary Squad through the war for Kamikura Island.
She wasn't necessarily a bad person. She didn't really want to hurt people. But she could easily admit to having a certain ruthless streak.
So, when she'd realized exactly what her Ashikabi had lived through, what he'd survived even before his own blood-relatives had dumped him onto the streets of a foreign country where he didn't even speak the language, she'd seen red. And somewhere in that haze, she'd decided that she was going to destroy the people who were responsible for it.
It wasn't really as if it was difficult, hunting them down. She knew they were British, she knew they were a family of three, she knew their individual given names, and the absolute waste of human resources had actually been stupid enough to not even bother moving.
They still lived on that address, in that house where they'd kept her precious Ashikabi under the stairs!
So, when she faked their son's records to make it seem as if he'd tampered with it, when she set him up to take the fall of cheating despite not actually having done so, when she racked up debts in his name that could all be traced back to his legal guardians, when she made sure that every police station in the area would have a thorough profile of the boy who'd participated in the abuse of her Ashikabi, she didn't feel guilty at all.
When Mr Dursley somehow came into a lucky break in taxes and bought a new shiny car, when he was suddenly perfectly understandably accused for tax-evasion and had that shiny new car of his impounded, when the electricity and water companies kept misplacing the proof that he'd been paying his bills on time, when an investigation began about his connections to fraud, when the union he belonged to completely erased his membership history by accident; when nasty thing after nasty thing happened, she felt more satisfied than disturbed.
And when Mrs Dursley started racking up strange debts to her name that she couldn't actually find a way to dispute, when some records in the police station of her son showed signs of sexual abuse, when every sign pointed to it being her who'd done it, when reports starting leaking into the police stations about children in the neighborhood encountering a strange woman – fitting rather well with Mrs Dursley's description – who they insisted had been talking about giving them candy...
As she destroyed these three people. Ruined their savings, their reputations, their futures, their family relations, their friendships... Well, she honestly didn't feel guilty at all.
In fact, the pleasantly satisfied feeling in her stomach had encouraged her to consider including a certain kennel-owner into her list of targets.
Marge Dursley was arrested a week later, on behalf of a mixture of animal abuse, child endangerment, fraud, and her lack of a proper license in regards to running a kennel. And though she desperately tried to repeal at least the last of those accusations, the fact was that such a license simply couldn't be found in any of the council's databases.
She'd been Winged for almost an entire month, when Dudley was finally placed into foster care, as his parents were locked away, along with his aunt.
She wasn't entirely sure if she should try to make the boy's life even worse than it already was, or if she should simply let him go and allow him to fade away into obscurity. In the end, she'd decided to simply keep an eye on him, and see if he managed to dig himself a deeper grave all on his own.
She could honestly say that she wasn't disappointed, when – not three months later – Dudley Dursley was brought before a youth court due to involvement in drug related crime.
Satisfied that none of the people involved in the abuse of her Ashikabi would be able to recover and live long and fulfilling lives, Matsu leaned back in her seat with a smile.
XXX
When Miya had found the boy on the streets, she hadn't expected the consequences of opening her door and giving the half-starved child something to eat.
Wary and generally mistrustful of almost anything, the boy didn't even speak the language, and seemed to be expecting to be hit more than he expected to be fed, despite her reassurances.
But no, the problems didn't stem from taking him in, as much as they stemmed from the fact that Matsu reacted to him.
Always having been fairly standoffish on matters of the heart, the information-classed Sekirei wasn't someone that Miya would ever have expected to approach her future Ashikabi with such gentle understanding. She'd have expected her to either avoid her reaction entirely by tying herself down in her room, or charge blindly into Winging herself on him with gleeful abandon, because the girl really could be awfully reckless sometimes.
The boy – Harry – was just as wary of his own future Sekirei as he was of Miya, and Matsu somehow managed to not only understand and account for those fears, she actually helped soothe them even as she was so obviously reacting to him.
Over the years, Miya had seen absolutely shy Sekirei deal with their reactions by quite literally launching themselves at their Ashikabi with the full willingness of wrestling them down so that they could kiss them. To see Matsu forcefully overriding that impulse in an effort to not startle her own Ashikabi-... It was actually surprisingly comforting.
Still, it apparently hadn't taken the Sekirei especially long to convince the young boy to Wing her.
And that's when most of the complications started.
The first complication was that Matsu could be shockingly flirtatious with her underage Ashikabi, and Miya was therefore forced to keep a very close eye on their relationship in order to preempt any prohibited behavior in her inn. After all, not only was it prohibited, it was also quite frankly illegal considering Harry's age.
The second complication was that Matsu was... terrifying. There was no other way to describe it, and though Miya had grown somewhat used to just how chillingly effective Matsu and her powers could be after the invasion of Kamikura Island-... Back then, they'd been fighting a war, the people she'd been targeting had been military and governments, but this time Matsu was hunting civilians.
Of course, she didn't tell her Ashikabi what she was doing or whom she was hunting, and perhaps that made it all the more frightening, that the ruthless Sekirei would have access to her Norito without also following the directions of her more innocently inclined Ashikabi.
Then again, Miya couldn't truly fault her for doing what she was doing. After all, whoever Harry's relatives were, they'd left him on the streets, and that was nasty enough that she honestly couldn't bring herself to much care for what happened to them, either way.
The third complication was that... Harry wasn't above using her abilities.
That became glaringly obvious when the Sekirei Plan truly got started and the inn began filling up with people connected to it. And finally, when the rumors started about the Veiled Sekirei who was so ruthlessly hunting down and eliminating the participants.
Miya had expected a great deal of many things from Minato and his kindness, his desire to help, and his friendship with Uzume. She hadn't really considered the awkwardly distant friendship between Uzume and Harry, and the favored owed by how Uzume had once helped Matsu escape from MBI in the first place.
So, when Harry handed Uzume a bunch of papers, and the girl started crying and hugging him, Miya had been just as confused as the rest of them.
Until Matsu had told her that the waterworks really weren't necessary and that it wasn't as if they had removed every threat by undermining the 'blackmailing bastard'.
Matsu had bought the hospital where Uzume's Ashikabi was treated – through means that were only potentially illegal, and most carefully never ever spoken of in Miya's presence. She had removed a metric ton of blackmailing material from the man's databases and made sure to inform each and every individual that he had a hold on about the sudden power-shift. And then she had proceeded to bankrupt the man.
That, of course, meant that the corrupt Ashikabi in question would probably be looking for someone to blame, and it wasn't unlikely that he might decide to go after Uzume's Ashikabi in retaliation, should he even stumble on the slightest of clues of why he'd been brought down. Still Matsu had put up enough blocks that it'd probably take him a few days to realize just who'd caused this hellhole of a mess, so it probably wasn't going to cause them any trouble within the next hour or so. She'd then turned to ask Minato and his flock to help the still-crying Sekirei with protecting her Ashikabi from being physically attacked. And Minato had obviously agreed to do so.
It really was a wonderful moment for all involved, to see the relief in Uzume, and to know that at least this part of the Sekirei Plan had been solved for the better.
However, even though they'd done a lot of good, the way that they'd been virtually unstoppable in achieving the goal of 'rescuing Chiho and Uzume from a bad situation' had been at the very least somewhat unsettling to Miya.
And that of course begged the question of what exactly they were planning on doing in regards to MBI. After all, it wasn't as if Matsu hadn't long since taken a stance against Minaka's schemes, and with an Ashikabi who was willing to set her against an enemy with all of her power, Miya was left wondering just how deeply into MBI's networks that they'd already been digging.
XXX
Minato hadn't ever really been sure what to make of the young Ashikabi living in Izumo Inn.
The boy was clearly a foreigner, and whilst he could make himself understood in Japanese, he certainly wasn't fluent in it. The way that both he and his Sekirei both flirted with each other was also mildly disturbing, mostly due to Minato being of the opinion that underage kids – especially those who could barely speak the language – shouldn't know half of those words, let alone be able to use them in the proper context.
Miya also clearly disapproved of just how daringly the couple were willing to flirt when in public, but at the same time only very rarely seemed to employ her demon-mask-thing on the two of them, when she would use it at the drop of a hat in regards to Minato and his flock.
When asked, she'd simply said that Minato was an adult, who had adult thoughts. And Harry was a child. Which, Minato had to admit, made an awful amount of sense.
Harry loved his Sekirei, and they were often hugging, flirting, and dropping innuendos all over the place – just to mess with people – but there was also clearly some kind of line there.
It wasn't until Homura revealed that Miya had picked Harry up off the streets, that some of those lines started to make sense to Minato.
Harry was awkward with social interactions. He didn't seem very willing to make friends, he had a tendency to flinch around anyone other than Matsu, Matsu never moved fast when it came to approaching her Ashikabi – almost as if trying not to spook a wild animal – and he had a certain jaded outlook on life that made his sarcasm all the more biting.
That the boy was willing to flirt and drop innuendos and cuddle up into Matsu's arms... It made something ease in Minato's chest to see that. To see that even if he'd lived a harsh life, even if he still had scars of all kinds, that Harry had been able to find a place where he could be so relaxed.
But he still wished the boy could unlearn all of those adult-words. Or at the very least stop casually voicing them where his flock could hear them.
He really didn't need his overly amorous Sekirei to get 'inspired'.
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Harry liked Matsu. Harry enjoyed living at the Izumo Inn. Harry got along with most people who stayed in the Inn. Life was good.
He knew that Matsu wasn't... the kindest person, always. She could hold a grudge, and could be quite ruthless in achieving her goals, if she felt that she truly needed to be. But she was kind to him, and he knew that that wouldn't change.
She was his Sekirei, and he was her Ashikabi.
In the end, he wasn't sure if he truly needed to understand their relationship further than that. They might not act like Minato and his flock, and there was never any talk of 'marriage' between them, but then Harry wasn't entirely sure what marriage entailed anyway. His aunt and uncle had been married, and from what everyone were saying, it had a lot to do with having kids, and Harry really didn't want to be a 'dad' any time soon.
Still, that didn't mean that he didn't secretly and very quietly in his own mind admit that he didn't dislike the view his Sekirei sometimes treated him with when he forgot to knock. He knew better than to say it out loud, Miya would use that scary demon-mask-thing against him, and then she'd be watching him like a hawk. Forever.
The mere thought of it sent shivers down Harry's spine.
Then again, he kind of had the feeling that Matsu knew. And that she very much enjoyed the fact that he enjoyed the view. Though, obviously, she made very sure to be quiet about exactly how deliberate she was being in how often and how randomly she undressed.
But the view was the view, and the bantering was the bantering, and the hugs were the hugs. And even if they all helped to sum up his relationship with Matsu, he couldn't really bring himself to call them related.
The view was something-... something that was probably going to happen, someday. It was maybe something like a promise, that when maybe he was old enough to understand why anyone would want to be a 'dad' she would be there to be a 'mom'. Or something like that, anyway. He wasn't entirely sure. And he got the feeling that there was a period of time between his own age and the age when 'dad' became a true possibility, where-... where there was probably going to be something 'prohibited' involved.
The bantering was fun. The faces the people around them made, the 'victory' of allowing Matsu to walk straight into a verbal trap, the 'defeat' of walking into one of Matsu's own traps-... It was a lot of fun, and they could make fun of each other and it was only for fun, and it was nice.
And the hugs-... The hugs were probably his reconditioning. The thing where his Sekirei tried to convince his body to stop flinching involuntarily in people's presence, where she tried to soften the edges of whatever broken and jagged pieces remained of what the Dursleys had left his social skills in.
They were different things, even if they came from the same person, even if they all described their relationship. It was healing of the past, comfort in the present, and a promise for the future.
Then of course there was the Sekirei Plan, and the Jinki, and the vague notion that Matsu was far too smugly satisfied about something about the Dursleys for him to be entirely comfortable with it, and the carefully ignored source of her current income.
It was entirely possible that she'd robbed the Dursleys blind. He wouldn't put it past her at all. Though he doubted that even someone as dumb as uncle Vernon wouldn't notice that he'd been robbed, and he was fairly sure that that would've been possible to trace back to Matsu sooner or later, and his Sekirei wasn't the type of person who'd risk herself so pointlessly. And besides that, he sincerely doubted that the Dursleys could've bought a hospital even with all of their savings.
No, far more likely was probably that she'd robbed them blind and dumped all of their money into some kind of charity. That sounded a bit more like her. Though that meant that he still didn't know where her money was coming from.
He didn't ask though. If she was stealing, he trusted her to not do it from anyone who didn't truly deserve it; and if she obtained it legally, then he didn't need to concern himself about it. It was her money, after all.
Although he could admit that he might've helped inspire the hospital-purchase.
Uzume's hugs weren't as nice as Matsu's, but then the hug had been more for the Sekirei's sake than his own, so that was understandable. And after that, Uzume was a lot happier again, which was good.
Now they just needed to figure out a way to bankrupt MBI until it was forced to completely stop monitoring the Sekirei Plan, and then force them to disband the whole thing.
And they'd have to find a way to make sure that Karasuba and the other more violently inclined Sekirei didn't take advantage of the lack of a proper leash around their necks in order to wreck havoc on innocents.
It wasn't exactly going to be easy. But his Sekirei was amazing, and no matter how enthusiastic Musubi was about the Plan, Minato and his flock would probably come down on their side of that particular conflict. Which was nice.
Harry really liked living at the Izumo Inn.
XXX
Miya stared at the Sekirei. "What."
Matsu fidgeted guiltily. "Well, I needed to give him a legal guardian, and it'd be really awkward to be that and also his Sekirei, so..." She trailed off.
"What." Miya continued to eloquently demand.
Matsu forced a shaky smile onto her face. "Congratulations, it's a boy?"
"What." Miya felt a bit more killing intent slip into her voice.
Matsu finally surrendered to the inevitable, and threw herself to the floor in desperate subjugation on the off-chance that unabashed groveling would do something to stem the landlady's temper. "Have mercy!" She begged from the floor.
"What." Miya continued, staring at the Sekirei.
Harry, deciding that – whilst highly entertaining to watch – he should probably help his Fated One before she managed to dig herself an even deeper grave. "It was either you or Seo."
Miya turned her gaze towards him instead. "What."
Harry did his utmost to shrink pitifully away from her, staring up at her with – completely faked – childish innocence, and some vaguely true smidgen of horror – having the ever-irresponsible Seo as a legal guardian would likely be an awful lot more trouble than it'd be worth. "It's only legally?" He tried, carefully enunciating it to sound just as wobbly as his almost-tearful appearance would've demanded. "You don't have to actually be... a parent, or anything?"
Miya, completely unaffected by his masterful performance, continued to stare at him. "What."
Matsu, playing her role as they'd rehearsed it, sat up from her position on the ground to stare seriously at the landlady. Every inch the concerned Sekirei that she ought to be at the sight of her Ashikabi in such obvious emotional turmoil.
Despite the lack of words exchanged, Miya answered them with a repeating of her strange mantra. "What."
And that was when their entire carefully constructed scenario came crashing down.
Uzume didn't look even remotely apologetic as she collapsed helplessly to the floor, laughing hysterically. And even though Chiho mimed an 'oops', she too was smiling too wide for it to really feel like an apology.
Sighing heavily as he felt his own mask crumble at the interruption, Harry turned to his Sekirei. "Let's never invite Uzume to anything ever again."
"Seconded." Matsu agreed, making a face as she turned to face the woman who was probably going to be mightily displeased with them now that they no longer had a chance to act innocent about it.
Miya smiled at them, the tranquil expression completely at odds with her terrifyingly hollow voice. "What."
"It's Seo's fault!" Harry chose their default backup plan. "He said you'd only agree if we'd already done it!"
Matsu took on the appropriately guilty face of being the only 'adult' and as such being someone who should've known better than to trust anything that – allegedly, but it was their word against his, so they'd never be convicted – came out of Seo's mouth.
Uzume laughed louder. And in a way that made it rather obvious that she was laughing not only about the 'listening to Seo'-part of their excuse, but also at their willingness to shunt the blame at an – allegedly, it was never a good idea to admit guilt, even inside of your own head – innocent man.
Miya continued to smile serenely at the two of them. "What."
Matsu and Harry sighed in chorus as they realized that their backup plan had failed spectacularly. "Definitely never inviting her again." Matsu muttered to herself.
Uzume just continued to laugh helplessly, until the demon-mask appeared, and then she somehow managed to laugh even louder. Probably as a half-hysterical attempt to avoid listening to their screams of terror.
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[Time Passes]
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The Boy-Who-Lived wasn't with the Dursleys.
Mrs Figg had heard that Mr Dursley had gone on a trip with his nephew, and returned without him.
Unfortunately, Albus hadn't been... entirely lawful in how he'd gone about forcing the Dursley family to take the child into their home, so he couldn't exactly follow the legal channels in order to find out what had happened to him. Then again, the man had been very helpfully unhelpful about declaring that he'd dropped off the child somewhere where the 'freaks' wouldn't be able to find him and make him darken their doorstep again.
The conviction he had in him being out of the reach of all 'freaks' meant that he probably hadn't given the boy away to a Death Eater or the like, which was heartening. Not so heartening was the knowledge that in the time-frame he'd spent away on his trip, he could've traveled across half the planet twice over through muggle-means.
It was as such entirely possible that Harry wasn't even in Europe any longer.
In the end however, he couldn't really do much to search for him. Not until the boy officially didn't respond to his Hogwarts letter. Then he could step in as the concerned head of the school, and easily extend his contacts into other countries. Countries that would've been quite peeved with him indeed, had he simply decided to throw caution into the wind and go hunting for a missing boy that he legally really shouldn't be concerned with.
So he'd waited, and when the boy's Hogwarts letter was addressed to Japan of all places, he felt his eyebrows climb high on his brow. Despite the possibility of it, he hadn't really expected for the overweight man – who'd apparently landed himself in some sort of trouble with the law in recent years – to actually travel halfway across the planet in order to get rid of his nephew.
XXX
Contrary to popular belief, she'd believed them from the start.
She'd seen strange things happening around her Ashikabi, and she could tell a lie from a mile away and through a foggy window. There'd been no doubt in her mind from the moment that they'd explained it to be so. Magic was real.
But she didn't trust them.
They were British, and yet they had gone as far as to track down one of their prospective students from halfway across the world, even though there would have to be some kind of local variant of the school-services that they were offering, even though it was most likely quite the hassle to make an appearance. No, their invitation reeked of hidden intentions.
They'd known Harry's parents, who'd apparently been killed during a magical war of some sort. Considering Harry's age at the time, his choice for place to live would've been made for him, and the Dursleys weren't magical, they would've had no way to attempt to claim him, even if they'd wanted him. No, these people had placed her Ashikabi amongst the Dursleys.
For that alone, she would've been willing to ruin their lives. And now they were unknowingly hinting towards plans that they had for him. Plans that most certainly didn't include being her Ashikabi, and quite likely included him surrendering something that he shouldn't have to give away.
Matsu was furious. She'd in fact reached a point where she was so furious that she couldn't actually feel upset anymore. She was just dully polite. Every sentence carefully structured, every action carefully analyzed, and every moment spent plotting the absolute destruction of these people.
Harry sat between her and Miya, who was present on behalf of being his 'adopted mother', and was squeezing his Sekirei's hand tightly enough that she was fairly convinced that he knew exactly how angry she was.
In fact, the only people in the inn who weren't aware of just how furious Matsu was, was the people who'd come to 'pick Harry up'. No, they hadn't even really been sent to 'invite' him, they'd been sent to 'collect' him.
Harry seemed to be the only one of them who was actually capable of handling the situation without resorting to cold politeness, since Miya was also smiling unfeelingly at the people who'd arrived on their doorstep.
Which was why Harry was doing most of the talking.
Matsu silently approved of the way that his politeness and apparent willingness to speak to them, helped with convincing the magical people that the Sekirei sitting next to him wasn't already plastering their faces across the international most wanted lists. 'Child-smuggling rings' being the main crime to their names.
No, Matsu had been more than capable enough with telepathy to get a good read on these people's intentions. They were going to steal Harry, whether by force or trickery or leverage, and they were going to use him until he'd fulfilled his 'purpose'.
Considering that the twinkly-eyed man in front of her classified said purpose as 'dying for the Greater Good', Matsu was perfectly willing to bring out all of the stops.
They would be allowed to leave, politely told to give them time to think, and when they came next, Matsu would use all of her considerable leverage to bring down the entire Sekirei species on their heads. If that meant begging on her knees, then so be it. If that meant busting the more bloodthirsty Sekirei out of their prisons, then so be it.
She would not let them steal away her Ashikabi.
Even if it meant declaring blatant war against this magical community of Britain. Even if it meant that a magical community in Japan would join them.
So, making sure to drop as many hints of 'Hogwarts' being the nicknamed location of the child-smuggling-ring, Matsu continued to splatter every little detail she heard all across the world.
In fact, with some minor editing of voices and imagery through the cameras – for anonymity safety – she was actually streaming the entire conversation in real-time.
And oh boy, she was making sure that it became as absolutely wide-spread as possible.
A secret community? Their secret was going to be blown out of the water within hours. And even if nobody would believe the 'magic' part of the conversation in the beginning, once people started 'forgetting' about trying to arrest these people? People would learn, people would connect the dots, and a whole lot of shit would hit the fan.
Try to steal her Ashikabi away from her?
Matsu wasn't anywhere near merciful enough to allow for something like that.
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