Disclaimer: So, thought about the reverse genie a bit more...pretty sure I still don't own Infinite Stratos.

AN: Two today. Still not too sure where I'm going with this.


"I guess we don't have to take you to the infirmary again." Houki carefully examined his now unblemished hand. It was free of the improvised bandage of last night and looked as if he hadn't made the impulsive decision to punch a mirror last night. "It must be a side effect of your IS. Healing factors aren't unheard of but those scars should have taken at least a few days, even with a Personal IS speeding everything up."

"I guess I'm just that special?" He was trying for a joke but it fell through. He was staring at his hand as much as Houki was.

There was an almost wild look to them as he searched in vain for what should be there yet wasn't.

He was looking for scars that should have been there but were nonexistent thanks to Raiden. It had done something.

It just proved he was different. Too different.

"Probably." She shrugged as she released his hand. She didn't step away from him. "This is probably just some one time thing from the initial synchronization for such a strange IS. Don't go and hurt yourself anymore through Ichika. I'm not going to be your nurse or anything again."

"Then who else will patch me up?" Ichika was the one to step away. "Are we still going to train after class?"

"Why would I miss the chance to make you pay for every stupid thing you've done since getting here?" Houki laughed. It sounded like one a comic book villainess would give to her unfortunate soon to be victim right before destroying them. "Besides, I can finally fight you for real with my IS since you have one." She glanced to the silver vambrace on his arm, hidden by his uniform's blazer. "We need to see what you can do later too."

"You have a IS? A Personal IS?" Ichika focused on the most important information to him as the two walked out the room. "Since when?"

"Since forever." Houki rolled her eyes. "I'm the creator's little sister after all. Of course I have a Personal IS. I just don't use it." She held up her wrist, displayed the bracelet there. Ichika's fresh red eyes focused on it before it was gone from sight, hidden away beneath the sleeve of her modified uniform. "The less I'm reminded about how my sister ruined my life, the better."

"So...after class?" It didn't take a genius to know Houki was in a foul mood after mentioning her sister.

"...Let's not go to class." Houki grabbed hold of his arm and tugged him down another hall, towards the training wing of the academy instead of the classrooms. "Learning about how a normal IS is supposed to work won't help you at this point. You definitely need hands on experience to learn anything about yours."

"A-Alright." Ichika didn't protest much.

Both had felt the stares on their backs. He had felt the eyes following him since he left the room, stepped into the hall waiting for him. The more time he spent away from them, the better in his eyes.

The more they stared at him, at his arm, the more he remembered.

He could do without that.

He could live his life without ever remembering what he had done.

"Alright, bring it out." Houki wasn't a girl to waste time. The moment they had gotten changed, she was standing in front of him, impatience clear on her face.

"Are you sure we should be doing this without Chifuyu here too?" Ichika glanced at her with no small amount of concern. He hadn't been in the best of...well best of anything the last time he tried to us his IS. "At least some kind of protection just in case things get...You know, just to be safe?"

'It felt like it was using me...' His hand stayed over the silver vambrace, holding on tight as if it would keep the IS away. It was a pointless hope to even have. '...making me like what it was making me do...'

"Trust me Ichika." Houki held her wrist up once again, revealing the stand by form of her once unknown Personal IS to him. "If It makes you feel any better, I'll go first."

He didn't need to nod for her to know he agreed with that suggestion. He agreed with that suggestion a lot actually. He would be a lot less dangerous now. She could take him down if anything bad happened.

"Stand back." She smiled as she let the IS activate. "You're about to be completely amazed at what you're about to see."

"I know I will." The voice made her jump. She turned and saw a flash of blue hair above them as it dropped down. Houki's eyes narrowed as she looked at the source as it emerged.

"Meet the Student Council President, Tatenashi Sarashiki." The girl gave an over exaggerated bow to the two of them. She seemed perfectly able to ignore the strained smile on Houki's face she had introduced her with.

"It's wonderful to meet you both." She smiled but it was strange.

It looked like it was off.

Both noticed she was dressed to fight, out of her uniform and instead in her, like the rest of the students and instructors, tight fitting training garb.

"What are you doing here Tatenashi?" Houki stepped in front of Ichika, didn't let her eyes leave the form of the smiling girl in front of her.

She didn't know if she did a good job of disguising how nervous she was. It was a well known fact around the Academy that the title of the Student Council President was given to whoever was the most proficient IS user among all the students at the Academy. The fact that Tatenashi was just a 1st Year and still laid claim to the title showed she was far beyond even the level of a prodigy.

She was maybe even in a league all her own.

"Oh you silly. I'm here for Ichika obviously." A lance appeared in her hands without warning. "I figured I could try him out while you observe, take down notes. You know, something more your speed." She smiled and Houki resisted the urge to attack. She didn't like her chances against someone like Tatenashi even with her own IS but she wasn't the kind of girl to take any insult lying down. "That sort of thing."

"L-" Houki was stopped when her hair stood on end.

The lance in Tatenashi's hands was stopped from knocking her to the side by the flat of Raiden's sword. Sparks flew as the lance tried to slide against the blade, overpower it, only to fail as Ichika shifted the blade. The blade couldn't bite into the lance but the lance couldn't maneuver past it. They were in a deadlock for now.

"I think this is a good idea Houki." She didn't know what he was thinking with his face concealed by the IS. She just knew he wasn't going to be able to hold her back for much longer with how much strain was in his voice.

She didn't want to but she didn't have a choice in the end. The door had hardly sealed behind her before Tatenashi broke away and spun her lance in her hand. Ichika let his sword fall to his side as the two put some distance between them. The armor covering his face pulled off to the side, let them see his glaring red eyes.

Red electricity sparked across his body, made him wince for a moment before he steeled himself to the pain.

Ichika's reactions are impressive. He is able to rapidly deploy IS. Possible malfunction causes pain? Red lightning appears.

Houki resigned herself to taking down notes from the fight. She didn't look away for long when Ichika swung his sword out to the side. He drew the rather weak gun from his side and opened fire, unleashing a barrage of shots on Tatenashi.

"Did you really think that was going to work Ichika-kun?" Her lance released a torrent of the strange water that effortlessly stopped the shots. The pistol was put away as quickly as it was drawn while Ichika grabbed at his exposed head with his now free hand.

"My head..." He hunched over, nearly groaned as something happened to him. Houki kept her eyes focused on him, tried to find out what was wrong with him.

Ichika is in pain. Headache? Migraine? Reason unknown.

"Are you ignoring me?" Tatenashi was in front of him, her lance thrusting forward. He avoided the impact, swung down with his blade to split it in half. Tatenashi withdrew her weapon faster. She swung it out to her side, the strange water gathered around the head, and surged forward as she swung forward. Ichika dashed backwards to avoid the wave of water. It continued to pursue him, taking on a more solid shape as a crescent moving through the air. He slashed at it, split it in half. His exposed eyes didn't widen when he had to deal with two crescents of Tatenashi's strange water. It seemed like he expected it.

He turned and ran into a full sprint, the airborne water pursuing him as Tatenashi planted the end of her lance into the ground and leaned on it.

"This is so boring!" The crescents doubled in quantity as she spoke. They were half the size but moved much faster.

Ichika split one in half when it tried to sweep around him. Another was severed when it tried to come in from his side.

He grabbed at his head again and the third managed to strike him in the chest. The fourth struck him in the shoulder from behind. The two simultaneously strikes sent him spinning as he fell to the floor.

Ichika is still experiencing head pain. Reason is still unknown. Is it Raiden?

Ichika rose up surprisingly quick, kicking up to his feet and lashing out with his blade. He managed to cut the third crescent that aimed to give him a strike in the head in half. Tatenashi actually seemed impressed for a moment before water surged around the head of the lance and she sent what amounted to a fist forward with a thrust.

Ichika's body was wreathed in red electricity and his sword suddenly became nothing but a blur. It looked like not even Tatenashi could see the blade as her eyes widened if only slightly. They returned to normal as her smile grew a bit wider, excitement came to her face.

Droplets splashed harmlessly against the armor of the IS on his chest. The fist had been cut to nothing in a blur of movement.

Ichika has a possible high speed/heightened reflexes mode? Test later.

"Ohhh, now that's a rather impressive move Ichika." Tatenashi spun the lance in her hand as Ichika tensed for a moment before dropping to a knee. He bit down the scream that nearly came out. Red electricity traveled across his body, traveled up and down the blade held in a deadly tight grip, and he nearly collapsed outright if his free hand didn't plant itself on the ground.

"That hurts...that really hurts..." He barely got the words out through gritted teeth as Houki immediately decided the training was over for today.

He was in pain.

She needed to get down there.

She raced to the door and ran straight into it. She shook the stars out of her head on the ground and realized a force field was in place over it. The same force field probably covered the entire wall in front of her so she couldn't just break it down to get through.

"SARASHIKI!" It definitely wouldn't stop her from trying to regardless.

'Looks like someone is mad.' Tatenashi could dimly hear Houki's shout. She didn't laugh outright at the sound but made a mental note to watch the recording of her discovering the force field later.

She spun out of the way of a blade trying to cut off her head and it succeeded in taking off a single strand of blue hair.

She watched it drift through the air before a second slash cut the fluttering severed strand into halves. She dodged the blade that time as well.

"Now this may get interesting." Tatenashi grinned as she sent a fresh wave of water forward with her partially deployed IS.

Ichika answered with a pained wince as red electricity raced down the arm of his IS and into the sword in his hand. Tatenashi thrust her lance forward, shaped the water into a number of spear points to skewer Ichika on. He countered them with a single horizontal slash, bisecting each of them seemingly at once. The blue haired and red eyed Representative smiled before she spun the lance at her side, letting water form a wheel in the air as it poured from the tip. Spokes spread from the sides to connect to her weapon as she shifted her lance to the center of the circle. She took hold of the middle and end of her weapon with both hands and flung the shape out from the side, sent it rolling across the ground towards Ichika.

His blade was a flash of silver and red lightning was in the air as he raced forward. It cut the wheel away into nearly nothing so Tatenashi quickly threw another one at him. He countered it the same way as he continued forward.

The armor moved in place to cover his face as he neared her, as red electricity ripped across his entire body. His blade was held at his side, ready to cleave through the smiling Student Council President.

She thrust her lance forward to counter.

"GAH!" Ichika was consumed in a torrent of the strange water that erupted forward, trapped him in place when it suddenly froze around him. He struggled to break free, attack the approaching blue haired girl, but his efforts proved useless when they failed without even cracking the ice.

"That wasn't fun." Tatenashi pouted. She seemed more than a little disappointed at his display. "I thought you were supposed to be some type of killing machine from all the stories. I heard that you nearly killed one of my students if your sister wasn't there to stop you. Other stories said you nearly killed her too. You were supposed to be some dangerous maniac I had to take care of before he massacred my classmates."

She stepped up to him as the water shifted in places, forced him to the ground instead of leaving him suspended in the air. The ice melted away, left him with just his head exposed in a sphere of water.

"You aren't that dangerous." She smiled as she shifted the sphere, angled it so she could reach out and run a hand through his silver hair. She laughed at the feeling. She had made sure it wouldn't be that wet. "Your hair is so soft Ichika. I might keep you around just for it. Do you think you'll make a good secretary? You're definitely cute enough for the job. I've been dying to have one ever since I beat the last president but haven't had the time to do the proper screening. Do you give good massages? Can you handle paperwork? How hard of a worker are you? What kind of incentive do you need from your caring boss to really get you going?"

Ichika wasn't listening to any of Tatenashi's questions. He was hardly able to hear his own thoughts at the pain in his skull, the light burning behind his eyes that had no intentions of dimming in the slightest.

"I-I can't do this!" Raiden was gone as Ichika lost the struggle to keep it maintained. The water immediately collapsed around him and he hit the floor. His now sodden uniform wasn't ruined anymore by the water he landed in as one hand dug into the side of his head. The other pounded uselessly at the ground.

"What's wrong?" Tatenashi knelt in the puddle of water, concern appearing on her face as she spotted crimson electricity discharge from his fist each time it struck the ground. "I didn't hit you too hard, did I?"

She leaned forward, let her lance rest on the wet ground for now.

"Are you alright Ichika-kun?" Blue hair stood on end as electricity clung to Ichika. He struggled to move in the slightest. Each moment sent another bolt of red lightning through him, made him want to tear the vambrace that was the source of the pain off.

"Ichika!" Houki broke down the door in her way, threw herself towards Ichika and glared at the Student Council President. She ignored the electricity that ceased the moment she grabbed hold of him. She pulled Ichika's head into her lap, ran her hands through his hair. He grabbed hold of her arm with his hand, held on to it like an anchor to reality. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing." Tatenashi rose to her feet and stepped back. She had what she needed.

'You're definitely not as dangerous as you were against Cecilia. I can hardly compare what you displayed then to now. No enjoyment of pain, skills with a blade but nowhere on the level you were at with the initial activation of your IS, and you were much stronger then too. Not enough to beat me but you should have been a challenge with just my lance. Restraint? Could that be the reason you became so much worse? Fear? Lack of focus? What made you this weak so fast?' Red eyes settled on Houki as she gently rose Ichika up with her arms under his, helping him to sit up on the floor for now. 'Shinonono?'

"We should move him to the nurse." Tatenashi expanded the fan she kept on her, the ink there reading off 'Sorry', and covered the lower half of her face with it. "I hope you know I was only doing what was required of me as Student Council President. Ichika Orimura almost seriously hurt not only another student but a Representative Candidate on top of that." She snapped her fan close and let Houki see her serious face. "I wouldn't let him out of your sight Shinonono, Alcott may come after him. I can't guarantee he'll be safe from her or any possible accomplices she drags into this little mess you three are trapped in."

The fan was back. 'Let's hurry' was written on it as she took hold of her lance once again. A bed of water appeared underneath Ichika and she lifted him and Houki into the air.

"Please keep all extremities of yourself and your handsome boyfriend on the surface of the water at all times." She laughed when Houki's face turned a rather bright red. "Be gentle with him Shinonono, he's injured after all. You may hurt him if you're not careful."

She walked out the room ahead of the water and guided it down the halls.

'Things are going to get very interesting around here. I can already tell.'

Things actually became interesting before she made it halfway down the hall.

"What's going on? Houki? Where's Tatenashi? Why is everything wet? Is this water?" Ichika woke up and asked too many questions to keep track of.

Houki was doing her best to give him whatever answers she could. Tatenashi was almost impressed at how knowledgeable the girl really was about IS. She couldn't tell Ichika the name of her IS but she could tell the water was filled with high energy nanotechnology. Most people needed an explanation to understand that about her IS but she expected little else from the girl who was related to the creator.

It didn't matter if she hated her, the girl couldn't remain ignorant of the IS when in so close proximity to the genius who created it in the first place. It would be an outstanding level of willful ignorance to not know at least the basics of the IS's many weapon systems and that would simply be shameful.

'Just how much do you know?' Her expression didn't betray her curiosity. 'I'll definitely need to find out later.'

She cleared her throat to get their attention and knew Ichika's eyes turned to her. She lifted her fan into the air. 'Over here Ichi-kun' was spelled out on it. She snapped it close and laughed silently to herself as she kept walking down the hall.

She figured he turned red at the name. Houki may even have let her jealousy show with a different red face.

She was surprised when she heard a thud. She turned around and saw that he had rolled off the water, groaning on the ground as he tried to push himself up. Houki was only staring at him for a moment, Tatenashi with her, as Ichika did manage to win the struggle thought impossible for him.

"W-What is going on?" One look into his eyes told Tatenashi he was confused. He was horribly confused and that could so easily lead to a type of terror the Student Council President did not want to deal with.

"I'm taking you to a nurse silly." Tatenashi smiled at him but kept her distance. She snapped open her fan instead. It read 'Sorry for hurting you! Forgive me?' with its reshaped black ink. "Don't you want to get checked out for any injuries? Your IS is really strange after all. I should have asked if you had a shield or not before I fought you like that Ichi-kun. I'm sorry."

She snapped her fan close, two pairs of red eyes locked for a moment before one broke contact and looked away.

Her smile fell slightly. She stepped forward as the water holding Houki suddenly turned to steam and she dropped to the ground with a yelp. The steam dispersed through the hall, fogging the windows and leaving the events in the hall hidden from the sight of any prying eyes.

"I hope you can forgive me Ichi-kun." Tatenashi held out her hand to him, giving him her most open and honest smile. "I didn't mean to hurt you. I was just worried about what you would do to any of the other girls here if you really were crazy like people said."

He stared at her hand. Tatenashi didn't need to look to know Houki's eyes had settled on her, didn't need to look to know she probably wouldn't be able to read the suddenly guarded expression the girl no doubt wore. She focused on Ichika instead.

"I-I should be the one apologizing Tatenashi." He accepted the hand in the end.

"Don't bother." Tatenashi pulled him to his feet, caught him in her arms when he was surprised by her sudden strength. She leaned close, her lips nearly touching his ear. "You can make it up to me later if you really feel that bad."

She glanced out the corner of her eyes to see Houki's face erupt with no doubt strong jealousy.

She smiled when she kissed Ichika on the cheek.

"I'll tell you the time and the place if I really want you to make it up to me Ichi-kun. Don't worry about what to wear. You just need to bring yourself."

The two were a wonderful contrasting shade of red together.


AN: I can take heart in knowing I've introduced Tatenashi so early at least. Right? I'm marking it as a plus in the "Good Idea" column.