"Ahhhh, this reminds me of the old days at school," Aluche Anatoria said, stretching her arms over her head as she relaxed on the chaise lounge.

"I still can't believe that you wanted to come hang out by the pool while the Moon Queen is about to plunge the world into Eternal Night!"

Ruenheid stood over her, fists planted on hips and a disapproving scowl on her face.

"That didn't stop you from coming along with us," Liliana said, chiming in from her perch in the beach chair on Aluche's other side. "So it is a lot like our school days, Rue."

"Yeah, Rue always makes disapproving noises, but she comes along to help out anyway," Aluche said, grinning. "Remember the time we snuck down to the kitchens for extra snacks? She crabbed at us all the way down and all the way back up, but who was it that made excuses to the cook when she found us, and then ate an extra chicken sandwich?"

"That's not the same thing at all!"

"Okay, but Dr. Camilla said that you needed to take it easy for a day or two after the way Vallderossa treated you, and it would put too much strain on my half-demon body to do any more until tomorrow night, so relaxing by the pool is just following doctor's orders, anyway."

"…Fine," Ruenheid huffed, and dropped into another chair. Aluche had always figured that it was one of those "pride as a noble" things that kept Rue from just admitting that she wanted to have fun, too. She was like that sometimes.

Okay, a lot of the time.

"It does remind me of the academy, though," Liliana said. Her voice was high-pitched and sweet, but sometimes she could be surprisingly stubborn, much more so than Ruenheid.

"What, you too, Lilia?" Rue said.

"Don't you remember? You helped teach me to swim. Aluche and I had never swum before. Al took to it like a fish, but I needed a lot of help."

"I've always been pretty good at picking up physical stuff," Aluche said. "I'm just glad you two were around when it was time for tests. I'd never have passed without you."

"You still just skated through," Ruenheid pointed out. "I wouldn't be surprised if someone was pulling strings because they wanted to get your fighting ability into the Curia's service."

"Hey, I wasn't that bad! You agree with me, right, Lilia?"

Liliana was too busy giggling to answer her.

"…Man, you two are harsh."

"You can be honest with the people you love," Liliana said, touching Aluche's arm. "Right, Rue?"

"Um, well, that is…" Ruenheid glanced away, blushing. Aluche looked back at Liliana, who had a tiny little smile on her lips and a glint in her violet eyes that made Aluche think she'd missed a joke somewhere.

"They were good times, though," Liliana said wistfully.

"Yeah. Oh, hey, remember when Rue was teaching me how to dive? I could not get it for the longest time."

"I remember! You fell face-first into the water and Rue said that you couldn't have made a bigger splash if you tried."

"And I said that I darn well could and I'd prove it, and what's more I could make a bigger one than her besides!"

"And Rue said she'd never heard of anything so undignified—"

"And I said she was just chicken—"

"And so the three of us had a cannonball contest!"

Liliana and Aluche broke into gales of laughter at the memory. Even Ruenheid was laughing, though her laughter was not without a smirk.

"Just remember in your little stroll down memory lane whom it was who won that contest."

"She is right, Al."

"Dammit. All right, then, it's time for a rematch!"

"Wait, what?"

"You heard me, Rue. It's time to put up or shut up! Either defend your crown or step down as the Cannonball Champion of Espheria Academy!"

"You're not serious, are you?"

"Darned right I am. Unless you're scared to take on a half-demon!"

"Al, this is a hotel pool!"

"Yeah, but there are only the eight of us staying here. We wouldn't be inconveniencing any other guests."

Rue bit her lip.

"That's true enough…"

"I think we deserve a little fun," Liliana put in. "Who knows when the next chance for us to play together will be?"

"All right, then," Ruenheid decided. "You're on. But don't expect me to go easy on you, Al, just because you came to my rescue."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Aluche said, and hopped to her feet.

Unfortunately for Aluche, the first two rounds of the cannonball competition did not go in her favor, and she soon realized why. Ruenheid looked every bit the defending champion she was for the simple reason that she was the curviest of the three girls and more surface area meant a bigger splash. Aluche immediately decided against trying to use that as an excuse. Arnice or Verushka or Camilla would either proudly accept such a thing or just nod and roll their eyes, but Rue…

…Well, Aluche had already died once and she really wasn't inclined to try and repeat the experience.

"You only get one more try before you have to bow down and admit defeat," Rue laughed, climbing out of the pool after her final attempt.

"You think so, eh? Well, just watch this!"

Aluche sprang off the edge of the pool, tucked her legs in and wrapped her arms around her knees—but at the same time she pivoted her body weight backwards, so she didn't plunge in straight but instead increased the surface area of her impact, producing a much larger splash.

It also felt like she'd been slammed across her lower back by Eleanor's hammer.

Sometimes, victory takes a little sacrifice?

"Aluche wins!" Liliana caroled.

"You idiot!" Ruenheid exploded. "You could have really hurt yourself! Are you all right?"

"…Ow."

"Al!"

"I'll be fine," Aluche groaned. "Half-demon, remember?" Proving her point, she hauled herself out of the pool. Standing up after that seemed a little ambitious, so she decided to just lay on the pool's edge for a while.

"Dammit, Al, do we need to get Dr. Camilla?"

"Aluche, are you really okay?"

There was a burning in the back of Aluche's throat as the two girls crouched down next to her. Huh, looks like my vampiric urges are acting up from the shock. I guess that was pretty stupid after fighting fiends and Vallderossa earlier tonight.

Liliana, in particular, was crouched right next to Aluche's head, her legs slightly spread for balance. Aluche could actually hear the rush of blood in Lilia's femoral artery, just beneath the surface of that soft, smooth, creamy skin, droplets of water from the pool still trickling down.

"What's going on here?"

The sharp tone of Muveil Folin Lou's voice immediately wiped Aluche's mind free of either kind of lust. All three girls sprang to their feet, the lingering pain in Aluche's back swiftly driven out, the Blue Blood in her system apparently kicking her healing into overdrive in some kind of demonic fight-or-flight response.

"Captain!" she gasped. "We were just…that is…"

"We were having a contest to see who could make the biggest splash cannonballing into the pool," Liliana said. Her voice was soft and a little meek, but there was also no stammering or hesitation in it.

"I see."

Muveil cupped her clawed and feathered right hand at her chin as if thinking it over.

"And what was it that prompted this somewhat unusual activity?" The single small wing on the right side of Muveil's head flexed almost like an insect's antenna while she talked, as if testing the air for some subtle current ordinary human senses couldn't detect, or just reacting to emotions not shown in her words.

"We were talking about our academy days, how Rue taught Lilia and me how to swim, and how she'd beaten us in a cannonball contest back then," Aluche said. "So I demanded a rematch, and this time the tables were turned!" She pumped a fist in celebration, while Ruenheid just rolled her eyes.

"Please, you had to do a backflop and nearly killed yourself to do it," Rue said. Her sympathy had apparently vanished along with Aluche's injury.

"Ehhehhehheh…" Aluche chuckled, a bit sheepishly. "I guess it was a little foolhardy."

"Nonsense!" Muveil cried. "A true warrior never gives less than her utmost, always pushing on towards victory!"

"Um, we were really just playing in the pool," Liliana murmured, but neither Aluche nor Muveil were listening.

"Exactly!" Aluche cried, her earlier embarrassment swept away, probably because it felt better to let someone else tell her that she'd done the right thing. "I wasn't going to just back down and let Rue beat me just because I was scared of a little pain!"

Liliana and Ruenheid glanced at each other. The phrase "there they go again" might have been on their lips.

"That's the spirit I expect to hear! But now it's time for you to show me your prowess in person."

"Wait, what?" Ruenheid said.

"You're on, Captain! I'll make you proud that you had me as one of your squad!"

Muveil gave her a single, crisp nod and rushed to the changing room.

"N-now wait a minute, Miss Muveil!" squeaked the shikigami that worked as the changing room attendant. "They've already made enough of a mess splashing water everywhere—"

Muveil's enthusiasm was not to be checked, though, and she brushed past the floating paper doll without a word (and probably without noticing that it was talking to her, either). The door slammed shut in its "face," and in a surprisingly short time Muveil burst back out, clad in her swimsuit.

In practical fact, Muveil's swimsuit wasn't any more risqué than the ones Aluche (two strips of cloth in a cross shape held together by a metal ring over her heart), or Liliana (a simple white maillot…that was basically transparent mesh in all but the most strategic places) were wearing. The major thing that always made Aluche do a double-take was that it left her right breast completely bare. That small thing, more than any of the other changes to Muveil's body, brought home to Aluche that her former squad leader was fully a demon now. She didn't need to cover that breast, because her body naturally did that for her with a sheaf of blue-black feathers.

She supposed it was kind of silly to focus on that as opposed to things like the small wing on her head or the large one sprouting from her right…let's call it hip…or the way that her right arm was covered in feathers from just below the shoulder down to a hand whose fingers looked like bird talons, or the many silver-gray patches on her body that looked like fresh feathers were ready to sprout to replace a baby bird's down. Maybe because it wasn't something added to her human appearance, but rather a part of her humanity taken away.

Or maybe it was just that a bikini top that only covered one side was really obvious. After all, it had taken Aluche several days after first seeing Muveil's swimsuit to realize that her normal attire also left the same breast bare.

Liliana giggled, making Aluche think that she'd said that last part out loud, but when Aluche turned her head Liliana nodded past her. Aluche turned back to see that Ruenheid was staring at Muveil. Eyes wide, mouth slightly open staring.

Alcuhe remembered Ruenheid's reaction to accidentally seeing Aluche drink Camilla's blood, to say nothing of her overdone protests when Aluche had sucked Vallderossa's poison from Rue herself, and the light began to dawn. She glanced back at Liliana and the two girls shared a smirk.

Looks like Rue has A Type, and that type is girls with blue blood and fangs!

This was better teasing material than Rue being scared of ghosts!

Muveil being Muveil, she completely missed all of this byplay, and once again striding past the protesting shikigami she walked over to Aluche.

"So what are the rules of this competition?" she asked.

"We just took turns cannonballing into the pool to see who made the biggest splashes. Since there were three of us, each one could judge between the other two."

"We did three attempts each, just in case someone slipped or something like that," Liliana put in.

"I see. So Ruenheid and Liliana can judge between us. Is it more advantageous to go first or second, do you think?"

"Well…second, I guess," Aluche decided. "That way you know what you're up against."

"That sounds logical. In that case, I'll go first, since you just finished another contest and might have less energy." Muveil was always very scrupulous in her sportsmanship. A tainted victory was no victory at all.

"Thanks."

"The biggest splash…" the ex-captain mused, pressing her knuckle to her lips in thought while she strolled to the end of the pool. She then stopped and nodded as if she'd come to some insight about what was to happen. Muveil took two steps back from the edge, then ran to the lip of the pool and jumped. She tucked her knees up and wrapped her arms around them with perfect form, as if she'd been cannonballing into pools all her life.

She also stuck her lower wing out sideways.

Which meant that in addition to her body, there was an additional flat surface between two and three feet wide, reaching almost to the side of the pool, crashing into the water. The resulting fountain crested like a wave over the spectators and even reached high enough to splash the ceiling.

"Wow, that's our Captain Muveil for you!" Aluche enthused. "She's really raised the bar for this contest!"

"Al, if you somehow managed to beat that you'd kill yourself."

"Rue, I don't think we need to work about Al killing herself," Liliana said, and pointed towards the short hall leading into the lobby. Besides the beads of water dripping down them they could hear the distinctive footsteps of Dr. Camilla's boots striding their way.

"Is there time for me to do one last bellyflop?" Aluche asked. "Because I'm thinking I might want to knock myself unconscious now and save the trouble."

~X X X~

"And just what in God's name did you people think that you were doing?"

Dr. Camilla Alucard was not someone who needed to raise her voice to deliver a lecture. The sharp tone of her speech made it very plain she was raking her gaze across the biggest assembly of idiots in the Eurulm region.

"Exactly what part of 'rest and relaxation' was too complicated for you people to understand? Particularly as one of you was just rescued from being kidnapped by demons and another one pushed herself nearly to the breaking point doing the rescuing? And don't even get me started on you, Muveil. You're supposed to be the adult in the room, not the one who actually breaks a limb."

Camilla sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of her nose as if trying to relieve a headache.

"All right, then," she said. "Muveil, come with me to the maintenance room and we'll see if I can do anything to use your accumulated Blue Blood to fix that." She pointed at the broken wing, which drooped to the ground alongside Muveil's leg. "Aluche, go to bed. You'll need every bit of energy for tomorrow night's mission. If you were supposed to have athletic contests in this hotel, I'd have built a training arena in the basement!"

"Yes, Doctor," Aluche said meekly. Meek was good, because she was getting off lightly and she knew it, because they needed her to lead the fight against Malvasia and that was more important than anything else.

"As for you two," Camilla said, rounding on Rue and Lilia, "you won't be accompanying her tomorrow night, because you will be recovering from all the cleaning you're going to do now, seeing as how your little stunt has temporarily incapacitated the poolroom staff."

She gestured towards the changing room door, where Kaede, the Japanese-doll Servan who acted as Camilla's hotel manager had set up a clothesline. The shikigami changing-room attendant was dangling from it, clothespins fastening its head and outstretched arms while water dripped onto the tile. A second shikigami was just fastening the last peg in place.

"I hope I don't get all crinkly when I dry," the attendant whimpered.

Its comrade chirped, "Think of it as a battle scar from facing down our natural enemy!"