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Story: [The Ashikabi of Love]

Summary: Common sense was important, but trying to teach it to someone from scratch wasn't exactly easy.

Genre: Humor, Drama, Romance

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In hindsight, perhaps the way they'd met had been perfectly setting the mood for their relationship.

She fell on him, hard enough to put a fracture in his arm, nearly got him fried by some people chasing her with lightning bolts, nearly wrenched his other arm out of its socket when she dragged him off in order to help him dodge the attack, babbled incoherently in the local language without ever realizing that he couldn't speak it, completely botched an attempt to bandage his injured arm, said some more random stuff, and then kissed him.

All in all, it was kind of really really sad, that that meeting would so perfectly summarize the absurdity that was their relationship.

Harry was in pain several times over, he'd nearly been killed, the older girl was crazy, and he was pretty sure that this counted as 'being molested' and that he should be screaming for help.

Except she kind of didn't seem to be doing anything other than dazedly giggling to herself about having kissed him, and there'd been those weird wings of light coming out of her back, and quite frankly all of this shit was so bloody far out of his experience that he honestly wasn't sure what he ought to be doing.

At least back with the Dursleys he'd always known what to do. Namely: run away from Dudley before he could give him a concussion with his fists, appease Petunia to keep her from giving him a concussion with a frying-pan, and avoid provoking Vernon to keep him from giving him a concussion by tossing him too hard back into his cupboard.

Easy. In theory anyway. In practice, there'd admittedly been a number of minor complications cropping up to screw with his results.

For example, he had no idea what he could've done that might've stopped his relatives from dumping him in the middle of a foreign city halfway across the planet, in a country where nobody seemed to speak bloody English.

Thankfully however, Harry passed out from a mixture of exhaustion and pain before he could actually decide how to react to the whirlwind of innocent and haphazard chaos.

XXX

Miya had no idea how the girl had managed to find the Inn so quickly, and why she seemed convinced that she'd be able to make her Ashikabi better – something about respecting the wisdom of the elders, if she was correctly deciphering Musubi's panicked babbling.

Either way, she couldn't exactly send off the kid without taking a look at him, and she'd never entirely trusted hospitals. Perhaps because she associated them with Minaka, perhaps because anything that reminded her of MBI tended to remind her of the fact that the world-renowned medical company had failed to save her husband, and she might still be holding onto something like a grudge over that.

So she inspected his fractured arm, frowned a bit at the way he didn't seem to have been eating properly, and tried to reassure the frantic Sekirei that no he wasn't dying, and that no she hadn't killed her Ashikabi by sitting on him.

When she figured out who'd been responsible for teaching the girl that normal people were fragile and that she should be careful with them and had done so by comparing how they 'died' to how glasses would break when a person sat on them, Miya would-... she actually wasn't entirely sure what she would do, but she was sure that Matsu would be able to come up with some very enjoyable alternatives to pick and choose from.

Until then however, she still needed to keep the girl from doing anything reckless. Like trying to solve all the problems by hugging the boy so tightly that he wouldn't be able to actually breathe.

Whoever had been in charge of teaching this girl about common sense, clearly needed to be fired. Preferably out of a cannon.

XXX

It took Harry almost an entire week before he got so used to Musubi's continuous wardrobe malfunctions that he'd just sigh whenever they happened.

Admittedly, it'd been a very steep acclimation process, and from what he'd heard about puberty and hormones, it might get more difficult later on. But as it was, he'd be really grateful if Musubi could figure out a way to keep her clothes on whenever she decided to run around and challenge other Sekirei into fights.

He'd long since given up on actually stopping her from fighting, not wanting a repeat of the girl moping around the Inn, sending him sad glances and looking an awful lot like a kicked puppy.

Harry might not particularly approve of the Sekirei Plan, but it seemed that Musubi cared a lot for it, so he'd decided to cut his losses. Considering the things had been explained to him, there were likely a lot of Sekirei who would happily fight Musubi. In fact, there was even a forum for matching opponents, so with a shrug, that's what Harry did.

Musubi was happy to have Sekirei to fight, Harry was happy that Musubi wasn't gloomy – or running around picking fights with everyone she met – and whoever was getting paid for Musubi's many replacement outfits was probably pretty damn happy about it too.

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Harry wondered if it said something about him how he always carried around female underwear in a backpack whenever he went anywhere.

Sure, there was a perfectly logical explanation for it, but he'd somehow unknowingly managed to reach the point where he wasn't even embarrassed about having someone find out about it.

That didn't mean that he wasn't annoyed by how the woman was glaring at him and ranting on about stealing and perversion and whatnot.

Sighing in exasperated aggravation, Harry rubbed his temple. "It's better than to let her walk around in the nude." He tried to explain for the fifteenth time.

He didn't really expect it to be of any more relevance to the woman's ranting than it'd been previously, but then he heard a very distinct sound. Namely, the sound of Musubi cheerful chirp of 'found you' combined with the immediately following sound of said girl tripping over her own feet in mid-leap between rooftops.

He winced a little as he saw her bounce on the wall before slamming into a bunch of garbage cans, creating an unholy racket of crushed metal.

Shaking his head, he held out a hand towards the woman – whose rant had been temporarily stopped from confusion at the other girl's entrance – silently demanding his bag back. "She's really bad with keeping her clothes whole."

Unknowingly emphasizing his point, Musubi chose that moment to leap out of the mess of crushed garbage cans. "I'm fine!" She reassured them, rubbing the back of her head in vague embarrassment over her own clumsiness. And completely exposing the fact that her bra-strap had been torn from the way it made her chest jiggle.

When it became clear to Harry that the woman was too stunned to actually give the bag back to him, he rolled his eyes and grabbed it by himself, before wandering off towards his Sekirei.

"I'm so glad that I'm not the one footing the clothing bill." He admitted absently to himself, fishing out a replacement-bra and tossing it to the girl who'd only just now sheepishly realized that she'd ruined another set of underwear.

XXX

Minato's arrival was probably where things had taken a turn for the strange.

The older boy had somehow managed to unknowingly stumble into Kusano's forest, dodge all of the other searching parties, and Wing the young Sekirei, all without having a single clue about anything to do with the Sekirei Plan. After that, he'd been forced to leg it away from some people who disapproved of him accidentally stealing away their 'price', and more or less crashed into an overly violent tsundere whom he'd also managed to Wing.

It was kind of hilarious that he'd ended up Winging two Sekirei in a single day, before Minaka had managed to reach him through a phone. But it also meant that the boy was more than merely confused about the whole mess.

Harry didn't mind his arrival at the Inn, even if Musubi and Tsukiumi seemed to enjoy getting into fights over which one could be more affectionate with their respective Ashikabi. Something which was driving Minato into a blushing stuttering mess, and meant that Harry had to glare down Musubi's attempts to feed him more than once.

He could eat perfectly fine on his own, thank you very much.

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Minato sometimes wondered about Harry.

On the one hand, the young foreigner was perfectly polite – albeit sometimes bitingly sarcastic – and seemed to more or less get along fine with everyone in the Inn. On the other hand, there were a variety of things about him that made Minato both curious and hesitant to ask about it.

Despite how much food Musubi cooked – and she didn't appear capable of cooking anything less than industrial sized portions – he rarely ate a lot, often less than even Kusano. He never seemed to react with anything other than exasperation whenever Musubi lost or destroyed her own wardrobe, either not registering how attractive the girl was at all, or somehow disregarding it completely. He was perfectly willing to allow his Sekirei to participate in the Plan, but didn't really look like he cared one way or the other about it.

To Minato, it looked almost as if he was humoring her. As if he didn't really-... As if the bond of love between Ashikabi and Sekirei was a one-way thing.

It was probably quite rude of him to think that, but even when Harry was affectionate with the girl, it gave off the feeling of 'appeasing' her rather than stemming from him actually wanting to be affectionate.

It left him wondering about why Harry was all alone in a foreign country, because that part had never been explained to him. In fact, quite a number of things about Harry had never been explained to him, and sometimes he wondered if even Miya had any clue as to why things were the way they were.

XXX

Considering the amount the boy ate, it was no wonder he was thin as a nail. But more than that, the thing that might've worried Miya was the way that he seemed to honestly have no understanding of physical affection.

As in, he couldn't understand hugs. He was still somewhere halfway between bolting for the hills and fighting like a cornered animal whenever his Sekirei would pounce on him, despite the months that he'd had to get used to it.

The difference was all the more striking once Minato had arrived, flushing scarlet whenever his older Sekirei did anything more than brush past him in a corridor. And it made some old warning bells in Miya's head go off from back when she'd learned about children who'd grown up in unpleasant households.

She wasn't sure if Harry was a runaway, or if he'd been abandoned somehow, but it was clear that it was one or the other. And now Musubi – kindhearted, but thoroughly oblivious Musubi – had been left to try and piece him back together.

Strangely, the more Miya looked at it, the more she got the feeling that Harry had somehow managed to turn their relationship parental. With Musubi as the child.

In a way, it was entertaining to see the contrast of their physical ages, as they interacted with their completely contrary mental ones. In another way, it was disturbing.

Harry was too jaded, Musubi too innocent. Harry was too sensible, Musubi was too oblivious.

At first, she'd marveled at it, but the more she watched, the more she had the unnerving feeling that they weren't being honest. They were just too much, too opposite. As if neither of them wanted to 'steal' the other person's attitude, even if they sometimes overlapped.

Harry was innocent in some ways, Musubi was jaded in others. Harry was oblivious sometimes, and Musubi could make a lot of sense. Except they refused to acknowledge it, pushing it away from themselves in order to keep some kind of invisible balance between each other. And if Musubi's innocence and oblivious enthusiasm sounded forced, and Harry's common sense sounded hollow, then it was carefully ignored by both of them.

Miya wasn't sure why, she wasn't sure if it was unique to them, or if it was some kind of psychological thing that was common amongst humans. All she knew was that it was strange, and sometimes unsettling, the way they'd cut a part of themselves off in an effort to keep the other person close.

XXX

Minato had stopped the Sekirei Plan.

Harry still wasn't entirely sure how the older boy had managed that, but he was very aware of some of the consequences of it.

Namely, Karasuba and Musubi's promised final showdown had fallen through.

Which was why he was currently sitting on the porch of Izumo Inn. Well, indirectly anyway.

It hadn't really surprised Harry when the Black Sekirei had hunted them down, and though Musubi made a lot of disbelieving noise about it, he didn't think she'd really expected anything else.

Karasuba had decided that she wanted to fight Musubi, so she would fight her, Sekirei Plan or no. That was just the way it was. There was too much of a build-up involved in the whole thing for either of them to avoid the climax.

Harry wasn't exactly happy about it, and Musubi was still crying when it'd started, but it wasn't like any of them could really do much of anything to stop it. All Harry had been able to do was provide his Sekirei with a Norito in the hopes that she would be able to come out the winner in the end.

Sometimes he wondered if Minato might not have made a better Ashikabi for the enthusiastic girl. Even if the boy had never agreed with the Sekirei Plan and what it meant, and would've probably fought tooth and nail against Musubi attempting to participate in it, the vital role he'd come to play in the dismantling of it all kind of made Harry feel like something of an interloper.

Musubi promised to fight Karasuba at the end of the Plan, Minato promised to stop the Plan before anyone got hurt. Together they would've probably been the perfect hero and heroine couple in the story.

And maybe a hero could've helped more.

Harry took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

The smell of blood made him want to gag, but he didn't move.

Musubi continued to cry, a kind of desperate wail as Karasuba continued to lie motionlessly in the crater.

It was raining, but so softly that it would take days to wash away all the red that was staining the courtyard.

Harry really wished he could've been a hero too.

XXX

Minerva's first impression of Izumo Inn and its residents was that something must've happened for the landlady herself to be so strict about who was allowed to meet with one of her residents.

It wasn't a matter of immense importance, what with there being quite a number of residents for those things to have happened to, all of whom weren't the Boy-Who-Lived.

It wasn't until after a long and somewhat politely enjoyable conversation with the landlady that Minerva was finally able to ask to see the boy. She hadn't expected the response she received.

"He can't." Miya sipped at her tea, a feeble attempt at hiding the disapproval on her face. "He's changing Musubi-chan's bandages."

Minerva wasn't entirely sure why an eleven year old boy would be in charge of changing a person's bandages, not to mention how feminine the name sounded. A child his age most certainly shouldn't be that casually intimate with a person of the opposite gender. Especially not if those bandages were in a compromising position – which bandages often had a tendency to be.

Answering the unspoken question, Miya put down her cup. "He's a bit... 'protective' of her. Likely because he still blames himself for not being able to stop them from fighting in the first place." She shook her head, her face melting into something between worried and fond. "I think she would enjoy the attention if-..." She trailed off, the worry growing slightly more pronounced.

"Did something happen?" Minerva asked.

Lips pressing together, probably thinking about whether it was her place or not to inform her of the situation, the landlady continued. "Musubi is a very cheerful girl, has a tendency to babble actually." Miya explained. "But she hasn't spoken a single word for nearly three weeks now."

Minerva frowned, wondering to herself just what kind of fight could've landed the girl in bandages and unable to speak for such a long period of time. Most of her theories didn't seem very pleasant.

Nodding her understanding of the woman's reluctance to allow an intruder to involve themselves in what sounded like a very personal situation, Minerva asked her if she could wait for him to finish.

XXX

Kusano didn't really understand why Musubi was sad. The mean woman had attacked them, so defending herself was normal, wasn't it?

Still, Harry was probably weirder.

Usually, he'd be off trying to help Miya with chores, except he hadn't done any chores at all for ages. Kusano understood that he was comforting Musubi, but he wasn't always there next to her. Sometimes he just stared at walls and stuff for hours, looking tired and weird and empty in a way that made Kusano carefully tip-toe around him to avoid his attention.

Then there was the way that he'd get really stiff whenever people were loud, and how he'd sometimes glare at people trying to talk to Musubi. Kusano was exempt from the glaring-list, but she wasn't entirely sure why, except for the fact that sometimes Musubi would give her a teary little smile when she told her of her day.

It would've made Kusano feel special, if it wasn't for the unsettling realization that she didn't smile at Harry anymore. That she didn't smile at her own Ashikabi.

Kusano wasn't sure why she didn't, but it was clear that it hurt him. That he missed her.

The air in Izumo Inn was weird. Always clogged with something heavy and painful, and Kusano still didn't understand why, because the mean lady had started it!

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Harry didn't understand the whole magic-thing.

But he most definitely understood the 'boarding school on the opposite side of the planet'-part of the woman's offer.

So he rejected it.

Musubi was more important to him than some magical ability to turn tables into pigs, and he wouldn't be able to bring her with him, so whatever point the woman was trying to make was moot.

If the school didn't have Musubi, then he didn't want anything to do with it.

It was that simple, no matter what the people around him seemed to think. 'Opportunity of a lifetime'? He didn't want an opportunity. He wanted to make Musubi smile again. Everything else wasn't important.

XXX

Matsu looked up from the computer screen.

She'd decided to be nosy again, because she was fairly sure that people didn't travel halfway across the planet to talk to a child, unless the conversation was going to be important. So she'd been curious, and she'd never been good at that whole idea of 'privacy'. The outcome had been a foregone conclusion from the get-go.

But when she'd seen magic – actual magic – and heard of the woman's offer, she'd grabbed one of her portable screens and hurried towards Musubi's room.

She wasn't entirely sure how this was going to play out, but either way it would definitely affect the depressed Sekirei, and she was actually quite fond of the other Sekirei. Sure, she wasn't nearly as fun to tease as her own fellow flock-members, but she'd always been a cheerful sort, and it'd rarely been a dull moment around when Musubi had been involved.

So she'd dragged that screen in front of the Sekirei, because even if it would shatter her heart to hear that her Ashikabi would be leaving on his lonesome to join a magical school on the other side of the planet, it was a statement that the girl deserved to hear when it was made.

Harry's reaction though-... What-...? It was magic! Why would he-...?

Turning her attention to the other Sekirei in the hopes that she might have a clue what the hell was going through her Ashikabi's head, Matsu froze.

Musubi's eyes were wide, and there were tears running down her cheeks, and that shouldn't really be surprising at all because she'd been crying on-and-off for weeks, but it was.

There was a small hiccup, and then she just smiled.

She looked radiant enough that had Matsu not known that the girl's Ashikabi was on another floor, she might've assumed that she'd done a Norito when she'd had her back turned.

And in that moment Matsu thought that she might understand the couple a little bit.

Harry was about as easy to wrestle physical affection from as a boulder, mostly because he didn't understand what it was. But that didn't mean that he didn't care. And Musubi might be cheerful and enthusiastic and always-loving, but that didn't mean she didn't worry sometimes that the things that were 'going unsaid' were actually never present to speak of.

Except he'd just given up on magic as if it was a foregone conclusion. Simply because it wouldn't include Musubi.

Matsu wondered if she should feel proud or guilty for having managed to capture that on tape.

She decided to settle for pride, and made a mental note to make sure to store the video-file in the highest-privacy folder.

Romantic or not, it was still a bit too invasive for her to show it to others without a very good reason. After all, it wasn't every day that a guy as socially awkward as Harry would willingly admit that they'd give up magic for the sake of spending time with the person they loved.

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A/n: And I'm leaving it there. Because this one actually feels like it managed to finish here.