Chapter 16: Tohru and 'Magic'

Meisuke and Riko sat on the couch, each sipping their preferred beverage as they watched the television. Pouring from the speakers, one could hear the sound of a man speaking in a dramatic tone to the applause of some sort of crowd.

"Sorry, Riko," the elder dragoness began as she turned to her charge, "but I can't really say I get the appeal of this sort of thing. I mean... most of it's either really obviously faked or an easily explained exploitation of well-understood physical forces. Plus, we can do real magic. Why are you so fascinated by this sort of legerdemain and parlor trickery?"

Her cheeks puffing up and coloring an impressively bright scarlet, the smaller dragoness furrowed her brow as she pouted, saying, "What do you mean, real magic!? This is totally real! And if even humans can do it, then we can do it too!" She began to scowl, muttering, "Now all I have to do is figure out how they did it..."

With a roll of her eyes, Meisuke replied, "No, it isn't. Like I said, these are just a bunch of sleight of hand or cheap illusions that-"

"HAH!" Riko cut in, puffing her chest with pride as she said, "You admitted that they were illusions! Which are magic!"

A sigh escaped Meisuke's lips as she began to massage the bridge of her nose, saying, "Not in the sense you're thinking of, Riko. See, an illusion is-"

"Are... are they doing magic on TV!?"

"Oh no." Meisuke uttered, turning to the newcomer with the sneaking suspicion that she was about to be dragged into several hours' worth of annoying and unproductive screwing around.

Tohru plopped down onto the couch, her eyes sparkling as she rested her chin in her hands, saying, "I tried to get into this sort of thing when I was a kid, but I wasn't very good at it..." Her face fell for a moment and her form lost all vigor as she added, "We never did find what happened to Mister Bunny..."

Cringing as she shook away the mental image conjured by this statement, Meisuke said, "That sounds like as good a reason as any to not reopen that particular chapter of your life, yeah?"

"No!" Tohru declared, pumping her fists as she continued, "I gave up too easily back when I was a kid! Now that I'm grown up, I can definitely do it!"

Nodding in enthusiastic agreement, Riko said, "Absolutely! We can totally do whatever that is!" She thrust her finger at the TV, saying, "Moving pencils with your mind! That's awesome! We could totally do that!"

An equally enthusiastic nod from Tohru and the pair rushed off into the apartment, likely in search of pencils.

"Good grief," Meisuke muttered to herself, picking up the remote to change the channel. "I wonder if I should tell them...?"

...

Mysterious, supposedly magic-like, and most importantly loud noises came from the apartment kitchen while the dragoness reclined on the couch, another beer in her left hand and a copy of Newtype in her right as she pointedly ignored the commotion. The cacophony carried on for a moment before finally falling silent. And then came the crying.

"Meisukeee," Tohru moaned, rubbing at her eyes as she trudged into the living room with Riko at her heels, "It's not moooviiing!"

Sighing, the dragoness pulled herself into a sitting position, setting her beer on a coaster as she replied, "Of course it isn't. It's just like I told you: magic isn't real. You're just trying to reproduce the results without actually understanding the methods to enact them-methods which, by the way, kids figure out in middle school.

Scoffing at this claim, Riko replied, "You're only saying that because you don't believe! It's not like you could do it, so don't tell us about how this works!"

Meisuke rolled her eyes as she reached into her pocket, pulling out a pencil. she placed it on to the table and began to stare at it. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, though it lay untouched, it began to move, teetering for a moment before rolling across the table. Both Riko and Meisuke let out an astonished gasp as Meisuke sighed again, collecting the pencil.

"It's just like I told you: magic isn't real. This is just a trick anyone with a free afternoon-or maybe about five minutes-could figure out how to do."

The younger pair hung their heads, and for a moment, all was silent. Then, Tohru said, "I get it."

"Good," Meisuke replied with a nod of your head, "now that you do, could you please keep quiet for-"

"WE NEED MORE TRAINING!" Tohru's fist shot up once again as Riko cheered, their dejection seemingly cured in an instant.

"No," Meisuke said as her fingers once again found the bridge of her nose, "That is not what I mea-"

"RIKO!" The young woman ploughed on, seemingly deaf to the dragoness's protests. "On the bookshelf in the next room, I have an old book about psychic powers! I didn't think it worked back then, but now I see that I just didn't train enough! Let's go find it and use its teachings!"

With an assenting cry from Riko, the pair rushed off as Meisuke once again found herself alone. For a moment, she appeared to consider something; however, it soon passed, and she declared, "Nah. Not worth the effort."

She then stretched out on the couch, turning once more to her beer and magazine.

...

Tohru and Riko knelt in a broad, green plain, their hands clutched to their foreheads and their eyes screwed shut in concentration. Meisuke sat on a nearby rock, watching the display with a vague look of disinterest as she asked, "So what exactly are you two trying to do again...?"

A broad, confident smile broke Tohru's concentrated grimace as she replied, "Object reading! It is possible to, with the powers of the third eye, reveal secrets about someone by concentrating an item of theirs! For example, I can tell that the owner of this button I found when we got her has been in a great deal of pain recently!"

Cocking her eyebrow in muted interest, Meisuke replied, "Oh really? Hm..." For a moment the dragoness appeared to be in deep contemplation before pulling her phone. After a moment, she nodded once and said, "Says here whoever they were, they were definitely a Scorpio."

"Wow!" Tohru exclaimed, her eyes glittering in wonder as she asked, "How did you know!?"

Rolling her eyes yet again-the dragoness was beginning to fear it may become a habit-she replied, "I didn't; the Japan Times did. They reported it with the rest of the horoscopes, and it was just as vague and general when they said it. And now Riko is going to say how I'm only saying any of this because I'm a 'nonbeliever'."

"Hey!" Riko protested, "You're only saying that becau-" Her sentence died in her throat, and instead she said, "Wait, how'd you know!? I didn't even know yet!"

With an irritated groan, Meisuke replied, "First of all, because that's what you said when we were talking about it earlier. Second, I didn't. I gave you a leading statement and because it's the sort of thing you would say, you believed you had thought it up. Like I said: cheap illusions and legerdemain."

For a moment, Tohru said nothing, seemingly deep in thought. The moment passed quickly, however, and she smacked her fist into her hand, saying, "Alright! It's time to try a different method; we just weren't very compatible with this kind of training, that's all! We just have to find the kind we are compatible with, and then we'll be set!"

"Oh no," Meisuke said as her palm made contact with her forehead, "another one of these harebrained schemes..."

...

Tohru and Riko sat at a picnic table, taking turns rolling a pair of dice and staring intently at the game pieces. Occasionally, a flash of triumph would cross their faces; another roll of the dice, however, would send them crashing back into the pits of despair with a small moan or whine of complaint.

For a moment Meisuke watched them with an unfathomable expression before she finally asked, "So, what exactly are you trying to do now?"

With a bright smile, Tohru replied, "Well, I realized a critical flaw with our attempts to move the pencil earlier, and we're trying to correct it!"

Suppressing the urge to suggest that the flaw was the impossibility of the attempt, Meisuke instead asked, "And that correction would be...?"

"Well," Tohru began, puffing up her chest with pride, "we're only beginning psychics, so of course we aren't powerful enough to make stuff start moving! Instead, we're trying to change how something that's already moving lands!" Rolling the dice yet again with an intense stare, Tohru smiled with pride as she watched both land... with a single pip facing up on either die.

The young woman's face fell, and she seemed to be on the verge of tears. This was only exacerbated when Meisuke picked the dice up and, after looking curiously at them for a moment, rolled them, producing a pair of sixes.

...

"This is it... the moment of truth..." Tohru muttered, seating herself on the couch and placing a pencil on the coffee table. "If I can do this, then all that training will have been worth it."

For a moment Meisuke said nothing. Then, with a sigh, she began, "Tohru, you only have so much time off, and I don't really think that you've been using it as best you could for the past few days. Maybe we could-"

"NO!" The young woman interjected, throwing her hands up in protest as she continued, "I have to get this right... I have to do it... NOW!"

She stared at the pencil, concentration etched into every line of her face. A moment of nothingness passed. She began to slowly wave her hands over the pencil. Nothing. She mumbled strange words under her breath. Nothing. She pushed her fingers against her temples with all the strength she could muster, and Meisuke shot a worrying look at the young woman as a strange snapping noise seemed to fill the air.

Still nothing.

"UWAAAH!" Tohru cried, slumping back into the couch with tears in her eyes, utterly defeated. "Why must life be so cruel to someone so adorableee?"

Cocking her eyebrow in concern, Meisuke replied, "Why does it matter? You don't need to have some crazy psychic powers, Miss Tohru; you're a good person, with a great personality and a bright outlook. Not possessing some mystical, magically force won't change that."

The young woman glanced away, muttering, "Well, yeah, but..." before falling silent.

Cocking her eyebrow another inch, Meisuke wondered why her friend and master had stopped herself. Finding no progress in silence, the dragoness asked, "What's this really about, Miss Tohru? I know that you mentioned wanting to do this as a kid, and how cool you thought it was, but... I don't really think that's all there is to it. I think this goes... deeper, one way or another.

Another moment passed, and Meisuke was beginning to wonder how long this uncomfortable silence would last when Tohru offered a small murmur. Both eyebrows shooting up in surprise this time, Meisuke urged, "Um, sorry, but I couldn't really hear you...

"I'm..." Tohru began, wavering for a moment before finishing, "not special."

Her other eyebrow jumping to join its fellow, Meisuke said, "What?"

Tohru moaned softly before replying, "I'm not special, like you or Riko or Shouta. I don't have some crazy magical power or ancient knowledge." Sitting up to place her hands in her lap, she said, "I was always okay with not being special... I thought that it didn't really matter if I was or not... until I met you guys." Lifting her gaze to the ceiling with a smile, the young woman continued, "When I saw how awesome you and everyone else is, how powerful and cool, I felt like I could be cool too. But then I remembered that I'm just some human..." She allowed her head to slump once more in defeat, concluding, "I wanted to believe that if I could do something like magic, I would prove I was worthy to stand beside you guys... even if it's just a little bit. But I'm not."

For a moment, Meisuke said nothing. Then, she put her arms around her friend's shoulders.

"Wha-!?" Tohru interjected before the dragoness cupped her hand over the young woman's mouth, saying, "Just calm down and let your shoulders relax for a second, alright?"

Nodding in confusion, she did as she was told. After a moment, Meisuke loosened the hug and said, "Alright, now try to breath with your chest. Sort of... push it out, so you drag the air in."

Again, in spite of her confusion the young woman did as prompted.

Nodding at this, Meisuke said, "Alright, now, spread your lips just a tiny bit without pushing out your cheeks and let your shoulders and chest relax."

Nodding in understanding, Tohru did this and, to her amazement, the pencil began to wiggle and, finally, to move.

"See?" Meisuke said with a shrug. "There's not a whole lot to it. Nothing particularly special about it. Just like us: Shouta, Riko, and me." Shaking her head, she continued, "Tohru, I know it's easy to see us with this veil of mystery and mystique, but at the end of the day we're just a couple of ordinary people, only a little bit... different." Patting her friend on the shoulder she concluded, "You're better than any of us, and more compassionate than any of us. You might be rash, and a bit childish at times, but you're also kind, earnest, and above all, you care. You don't have to try to be special, especially not to prove yourself to us; you already are, and we never were."

For a moment the young woman seemed to waver before replying, "But... I don't do anything special..."

"It's not about what you can do." Meisuke answered with a firm nod. "You are special."

Another moment, nothing seemed to happen. Finally, however, Tohru said, "Yeah, I guess... I guess you're right."

...

"MEISUKE! MEISUKEMEISUKEMEISUKE!"

"What, Tohru!?" The dragoness in question looked up from her newspaper, her brow furrowed in slight annoyance as she turned to its source.

Tohru bounced back and forth from one foot to another, a broad smile on her face and her finger extended towards the television, saying, "THEY'RE MAKING PEOPLE DISAPPEAR AND REAPPEAR ON THE TV! C'MON AND LOOK!"

Laying her head down on the kitchen table she sat at, Meisuke let out a long-wearied sigh.

...

Tohru sat at the kitchen table, an expression of quiet contemplation on her face as she flipped through her phone. Meisuke's been here for a while now... well, a while to me, I guess. Dragons probably have a different idea of 'a while' than humans. But... is she actually happy here? Or she only sticking around because of that whole 'saved my life' thing? I am I just forcing her to stay here and take care of me when she'd rather be in the wider world, doing her own thing?

The clinking of a coffee cup being placed in front of her drew the young woman out of her reverie with a small jump, glancing up from her phone to see the concern begin to build in Meisuke's face.

"Are you alright, Miss Tohru?" She asked, her brows beginning to furrow. "You seemed kind of... worried? Or maybe just... uncertain for a second there. Is something on your mind?"

With a shake of her head and a firm grip on the coffee before her, the young woman answered, "Nah, it's nothing. Just kinda... off today, maybe." Pausing to take a sip from the beverage, she blinked in surprise, saying, "Woah, this is really good, Meisuke! What'd you do? Are you practicing when I'm not around or something?"

The dragoness shrugged, saying, "Eh, it comes with the territory. I've been your butler for... what, half a year now? It's only natural I'd learn your preferences and a bit about adjusting the taste for how you're feeling."

Blushing at the mention of butlers, Tohru said, "Well, I guess, but... I dunno, I think it's not 'cause you've been here for so long, it's because you're you. You've always been good at the little details." Taking another sip, she added, "Ever since you got here, the whole house has been a lot more relaxing, y'know? Like I'd been running myself ragged without any kind of break. Even helping Riko's been like a breath of fresh air. And it's all thanks to you."

"I don't know about that." Meisuke replied with a small smile before glancing a nearby wall clock. After considering it for a moment, she declared, "I think it's about time I go grab some groceries for dinner tonight. Anything you want, Miss Tohru?"

A cheerful smile returning to her face, the young woman happily piped, "Udon!"

Another shrug at this, the dragoness replied, "All right, sounds good. I'll be back in a few; don't do anything to mess up the apartment while I'm gone, alright?"

"Okay!"

Tohru sat patiently for a moment, listening for the shutting of the door and then allowing herself another minute or two to see if Meisuke would return. Once the time had passed, the young woman rose from her chair, a smirk on her face and a pair of swirl-lensed glasses in her hand as she strode into the living room, an inconspicuous wooden basket and its rather embarrassing contents on her mind.

...

Meisuke wandered through the shopping district in the midday sun, allowing herself to lazily drift past the stalls and stores with a plastic bag containing what goods she had already acquired. She exchanged a few greetings with her fellow regular shoppers as well as with those purveyors who knew her best, and she looked on with interest at the humans milling about with children and families.

I've always tried to avoid thinking about it, but this place is pretty transient, huh? The dragoness pondered, allowing her attention to drift with her body as she moved through the crowd. Today it's here like this with these people, but tomorrow the people will be different, and the circumstances will be different, and one day maybe even the place will be different!

So deep was she in her considerations that she failed to notice the gradual slowing of the events around her or the apparent darkening of the sky... until she was forced to.

"Any day, this place could disappear. Any time, it could burn or be plundered. Why even bother?" A deep, grinding, but most importantly familiar voice sounded from behind her. "Why not abandon such a useless, flighty patch of land and the pathetic creatures that live on it?"

"And here we go..." Meisuke muttered to herself, slowly reaching into her shopping bag.

A proud, black serpent rose above her, massive wings covered in red feathers rippling in the afternoon breeze, yellow-brown horns set above flaring fins and dead hazel eyes watched impassively down upon her. In other words, an altogether recognizable form.

"So, what, you're my inner demons or something like that?" The butler asked, a thoroughly unimpressed expression on her face.

With a slow nod, the serpent replied, "Yes. I'm your rage, your discontent-the repressed emotions you hide that you may live in this world. You've hidden from me, ignored me, and for what? A human? Is this transient, shallow joy worth disregarding your basic nature, what you are at your core?" The gargantuan dragoness snorted. "Is it fun playing butler? Do you enjoy it? Even if you did, even if you do, it will end. It must. You are a monster, and ought to live as a monster! Grasping at all you desire, taking that which you want. You will never be able to obtain these things here. You must return to our world, seek power in our home. Why bother with such transient creatures, when with time this 'Miss Tohru' you love so much will surely-" The beast found its speech interrupted by a small hiss, and her eyes narrowing in fury as she asked, "What are you doing!?"

Taking a long, noisy slurp from a can of beer, Meisuke replied, "Oh, sorry, were you not done? Well, unfortunately for you, I'd say you are." Pausing for another sip, she continued, "See, I drink to shut you up. And 'cause I like it. Alright, mostly because I like, but also to kill you and to keep you dead." With a sigh, she added, "You think I didn't know or wasn't thinking about any of that? That I had it in my mind humans were these immortal, unkillable beings that never tired or passed away? That I forgot every time I blink the rest of her life could breeze by and disappear?" She took another pause, this time to chuckle, before concluding, "I know all that. None of this is stuff I didn't know already-then again, you're me, aren't you? Let's just take care of that real quick."

Meisuke closed her eyes, tilted back her head, and took another long, satisfying sip of beer.

When she lowered her head and opened her eyes again, she noted with a smile that time had returned to normal.

Honestly as long as Miss Tohru-or even just her memory-is by my side, I'll be fine, and I'm not worried about Miss Tohru going anywhere. If anything, I'm worried she'll send me away-that she'll think she's 'not worthy' to have a butler like me around. I guess that, for all of her good points, she still has a bit of an inferiority complex, huh. Meisuke paused for a chuckle, adding, Well, it's kind of sick to say it, but that has its own charm, too.

...

"I'm back," Meisuke said as she entered the apartment only to be surprised by a leaping hug from Tohru.

"Welcome back!" The young woman chirped, wrapping her arms around Meisuke's neck as she added, "Another one of your friends showed up, Meisuke! He's got this whole different... feel to him, y'know? Like an old salaryman! He's waiting in the living room! C'mon!"

With this, she grabbed the butler's arm and dragged her into the kitchen whilst Meisuke wracked her brains trying to figure out who of her limited friend group fit the rather lacking description Tohru had provided. All mysteries were revealed, however, when, with a sharp growl in the back of her throat, she found an older gentleman in roughly in his late forties with a business suit, purple hair, and purple eyes. Yet another unfortunately familiar appearance.

After pausing a moment to allow the growl to die down in her throat, Meisuke finally managed to force out, "Hello, Mr. Magatsuchi."

***End of Chapter 16***