Mioda Ibuki doesn't know what she doesn't know. That doesn't usually bother her - she also tends to be perfectly blissful in ignorance - but it feels like there's something ultimately important that lies just beyond the reach of her inked fingertips.
She's only vaguely aware of the infirmary around her. She'd done her 20 square meters of exploring when she first arrived, dancing around the room, kicking over expensive looking machines. The rest of the room, and the rest of the hospital, are boring and leave her with few options but to lie in bed and gaze out the window.
What captures her interest tonight is the sight of the moon, fuller and brighter than any night she can remember. She perches sidesaddle on her hospital bed and gazes longingly at the starry sky. A feeling she can't quite describe abounds in her chest; she can't tell if it's a love for life, a lust for adventure, a longing for relics of the past, or all of the above, but as she grasps desperately for it, it fades away. Everything fades away.
"On your feet, soldier!" Ibuki's eyes snap open as the earth seems to shake around her; she finds herself face to face with the inimitable Nekomaru Nidai. She rubs her eyes and watches the clouds float by behind his massive head and shoulders as broad as the Mariana Trench is deep. He impatiently clenches and unclenches his fists.
"How do you plan to play marathon concerts without STAMINA? Get back on your feet and MOVE!" He grabs her by her tiny hands and practically tosses her to her feet. "Twenty more laps and you have the absolute PRIVILEGE of moving onto planks!"
While she has little choice in the matter, Ibuki completes her laps with Nekomaru cheering her on, and it's actually quite refreshing. He certainly lives up to his reputation as the Ultimate Team Captain; she feels better than ever before. That is, until the planking begins.
Ibuki is on FIRE. Every muscle in her body is screaming like a gaggle of whiny babies, and it takes every fibre of her resolve not to quit in the first ten seconds. What kind of messed up dream is this? She wants to stop, she needs to wake up-
"Are you TOUGH?" Nekomaru squats beside Ibuki as she struggles to hold the plank. She's taken aback by how close he is, but his bellowing scares her straight.
"Ibuki's TOUGH!" She grits her teeth and shouts through the pain, because damn it, she IS tough!
"Do you have GUTS?" Nekomaru pounds the synthetic rubber, and the little tremors in the ground somehow empower Ibuki even further. She feels like he's giving her his boundless energy, and she wants more more more!
"Ibuki's got more guts than Guts, Nidai!" She's vibrating like an old-timey flip phone, but Nekomaru's eardrum-shattering voice pushes her to the edge of berserk mode.
"Are you CHOSEN BY THE GODS?" Huh?
"Hell YES, Ibuki is CHOSEN BY THE GODS!" The words ignite an unquenchable thirst in her soul. She roars, relishing the sensation of sweat trickling down the back of her neck and dripping onto her quivering arms. Her muscles are on fire, but it's nothing in comparison to the fire ignited in her mind. She's got this.
"And THAT'S TIME!" Nidai literally crushes his stopwatch in his meaty hand, and Ibuki collapses to the ground, immediately feeling drained of all but the last sliver of her life. "Fifteen solid minutes of planking, Mioda!" Huh? Fifteen? She'd felt like dying at fifteen seconds, much less fifteen minutes. Nekomaru really is something else.
"Proud of you, Mioda!" His voice retains its strength, but it's softer now. "You've grown so much since we began. I've got high hopes for you yet."
His voice cracks as the landscape begins to change; Ibuki feels herself being lifted from her dream. As the sky begins to fall and the track begins to crumble at her feet, she looks back at Nekomaru Nidai. He beams at her, holding out a beefy fist for his ritualistic bump; she obliges with aplomb and a cheerful shout. Thank you, Nekomaru, she thinks as her vision goes white.
Before she knows it, Mioda Ibuki is coughing her lungs out. She stumbles as a cloud of white powder obscures her vision. Waving her hand in front of her face in a futile attempt to clear the air, she grapples for a handhold before tumbling to the linoleum floor. When the dust - or not dust - finally settles, she looks up at the beaming face of Hanamura Teruteru.
"It's always been a dream of mine to have a flour fight with a pretty girl!" He stands over her triumphantly, hands dirtied by the fistfull of flour he's just thrown. Oh, man, is it on. Ibuki reaches for the first thing she can find - a cage-free egg - and cracks it over Hanamura's head. He shrieks and responds with another fistful of flour, but Ibuki is ready this time and shuffles like a crab out of harm's way.
"You'll never catch Ibuki alive!" She shouts at Teruteru as she crawls frantically around the kitchen's island, tossing everything but the sink in his path to obstruct his pursuit. Flour, baking soda, sugar, salt, olive oil - all making for a slick runway that Teruteru surprisingly nimbly dodges.
"You underestimate my knowledge of this kitchen," he crows. She concurs as he brandishes a new carton of eggs and launches a second assault. In fact, she curses her lack thereof when she makes her second trip around the island and slips in her own mess. Teruteru's eyes grow wide with concern as he turns the corner and attempts to skid to a halt, but his heft and momentum carry him forward and into the concoction. He stumbles, and-
His hands land squarely on Ibuki's modest-but-shapely chest. Because of course they do. Ibuki's first instinct is to screech and throw him off, but she pauses. This is a dream, after all - no sense in turning things sour.
Instead, she looks him squarely in the eye and allows her face to inch slowly towards his. The plump cooking connoisseur's eyes grow as wide as dinner plates, and just as he's about to let them flutter closed… Ibuki lets a dastardly smile spread across her visage. She's grabbed a fistful of the absolute mess, and now she shoves it in his face. He reels backwards, clawing at his eyes, and she wriggles free of his grasp and darts for the table. She grabs a tub of tonkatsu sauce from the counter and spins to face her opponent, who now swings around a durable sausage link like nunchaku. They pause, each sizing up their rival.
"Looks to me like we've got ourselves a standoff, partner." Ibuki tips a pantomime hat at Teruteru, almost dropping her saucepot in the process.
"So it would seem," he hoots back, seeming to entirely miss the cowboy vibe that Ibuki is gunning for. Nevertheless, they esteem each other with mutual respect and understanding.
"Shall we call it a draw, then?" She proposes the resolution, and he nods in affirmation. They've had their fun, and great fun it was. Teruteru looks positively over the moon; Ibuki can't help but toss him a silly grin in return. He places his weapon down, and she steps towards the table to do the same, but by the time she realizes that she's forgotten about the mess on the floor, she's already falling. She braces herself for impact on the unforgiving tiling.
The hard impact never comes; instead, Mioda Ibuki is thrown back onto a bed of the softest down she can possibly imagine.
"Oh my GOSH - it's so soft!" She hears the words come out of her own mouth as she gazes through the transparent canopy at the Victorian mouldings that decorate the mile-high ceilings.
"It's to your liking, yes?" The regal timbre of Sonia Nevermind's voice tickles Ibuki's ears. "I took the liberty of snooping around your room at Hope's Peak, and I was shocked to find three mattress pads upon your bed frame. So I know, how might I say it… I know you like it soft, where I quite like it hard!" Ibuki cackles, to the obvious confusion of the royal princess. "The utmost consideration has been taken to make your stay in Novoselic a magical one. I must say, I am exceedingly happy to have one of my peers visit my home!"
The air feels different in Novoselic. It's thick and rich with a symphony of new scents and sounds, like nothing Ibuki has ever smelled or heard before. It makes her want to sing, to have birds and squirrels and the like come and tweet with her in harmony and play with her hair. Of the suite of smells, one stands out in particular.
"Sonia, her royal highness, might Ibuki ask what delectable smellin' food is on the barbie? It's got her all riled up." It's some sort of meat, to be sure, and it's making Ibuki's mouth water.
"Why, it's Makango - a rare animal native to these parts." Sonia frowns, seeming troubled. "It's considered quite the delicacy, which is why I've had it prepared to herald your arrival… but I feel quite bad. The Makango, while quite delicious, is also dwindling in its population. I'd like someday to be able to protect it." She has a forlorn look on her face; Ibuki doesn't deal well with unhappy people, so she stews on how she might flip the mood on its head. And yes, she's got it:
"Say, miss queeny, care to join Ibuki in this lovely, fluffy bed?" Ibuki suggestively pats the empty space on either side of her - it truly is a massive bed - and relishes the fleeting, appalled look on Sonia's face. It's a nice change of pace from the somber.
"For one, I am still just the princess of this kingdom!" Sonia knows her friend is playing around; the royal's indignant words are belied by a goofy, toothy smile, one that she'd never have sported when they first met. As of late, Sonia has grown a great deal more comfortable around her classmates. She's opened up about her past and her dreams for the future, and now, she's even invited one of her best friends to visit Novoselic on winter break.
"And as much as I would quite like to join Ibuki in bed" - Ibuki chuckles once more at Sonia's innocence, though is she simply imagining a playful glint in the princess' eye? - "we have a king, a queen, and a poor, hapless Makango awaiting us. Shall we make our way to the feast?" Sonia's smile is as radiant as a million suns; it could light up the whole of Novoselic, nay, the entire planet, for twenty days and twenty nights.
"Why yes, we shall!" Sonia politely covers a chuckle as her friend sings her words with a faux royal accent, then blushes a bright crimson when the death metal star whispers that "We'll save the bedroom play for later". The princess offers her hand, and Ibuki reaches out to take it.
"It's settled, then." The hand she grasps is not the soft, slender appendage of Sonia Nevermind. Instead, though slender still, it's rough and calloused, a sign of a lifetime of toil and labor. Ibuki looks up and is met with the stern gaze of Pekoyama Peko. They've struck a deal, Ibuki realizes, and somehow she already knows the details: Ibuki will teach Peko how to sing, for some reason that causes the latter to blush when making her request; and Peko will teach Ibuki how to use a sword, because it's totally badass and she's always wanted to learn how.
"Hell to the yes! So, when do we begin?" Ibuki's eager to get things off the ground, because every lesson means she's one step closer to being the world's greatest rockstar samurai - a rakurai, if you will. In spite of her eagerness to get the ball rolling, however, she's surprised when Peko elects to begin right at that moment. "Right now? But doesn't Ibuki need to, to, to, craft a blade? To pass the thirteen ogre trials of the orient? To smith one from dragonstone ore in the forges of Witch Mountain?" Ibuki realizes after the statement leaves her mouth that Peko is asking for a singing lesson, rather than offering one in swordplay.
It is almost instantly clear that Pekoyama Peko is… not a talented singer. The grace with which she wields her sword is entirely lost when vocalized. Perhaps it's because she doesn't talk all that much, but her vocal cords lack strength and stamina to a startling degree. At one point, she somehow hits two different pitches at the same time, which shouldn't even be physically possible. When she sings, Peko is so incredibly uncool...
No, no, no - this is all wrong! Pekoyama Peko is the dictionary definition of cool, and it's impossible that she could be anything but. None of this frankly disgusting incompetence will be tolerated. Ibuki steels her resolve - today, she's going to change a bitch.
By the end of the day, Peko hasn't become a Maizono Sayaka by any stretch, but they've whittled away some at her tone-deafness, and the seeds of improvement have begun to be sown. Ibuki is exhausted, not that she'll let on. She bounds over to the swordswoman, a question on her tongue: why is Peko so desperate to learn how to sing?
"It's none of your business," the white-haired warrior snaps, softly but firmly. Ibuki isn't surprised - Peko is always like this - and she decides that she's happy to help, regardless of her classmate's motive for the lessons. Her train of thought is swiftly interrupted:
"Mioda?" Peko's quiet voice resurfaces once more, but it lacks the edge it possessed just moments before. Ibuki turns to her classmate, her friend, and is surprised to see her gaze has softened considerably. "Thank you." Ibuki feels her breath catch - shockingly sweet! - and she opens her mouth to tell Peko that, no problem, that's what friends are for.
"Please please PLEASE?" Ibuki is cut off by the pleading cries of her petite classmate, Saionji Hiyoko. "Just one more song, I swear. I mean, how often is it that I get to hear the work of THE Mioda Ibuki?"
That is, verbatim, what she's been saying for the last fourteen songs. Ibuki is all sing-songed out. Hiyoko has been driving her like a cow for the better part of three hours, demanding just about every song from her solo discography. Ibuki was ready to call it quits after the first hour or so - even too much of something you love can turn into relentless boredom - but Hiyoko had started crying, and Ibuki is just terrible at dealing with unhappy people. She mounts one final, futile attempt at a defense.
"You know, Hiyoko," she starts. "It's not like either of us is going to just go away at the end of the year." Ah, ew, this is totally out of character for Ibuki. She can feel the goosebumps popping up on her forearms. She smiles tersely down at the brash girl, whose harsh eyes and sharp tongue are a good deal softer with tears streaming down her face. Damn, are these all crocodile tears? Does she ever run out? "Ibuki has a lifetime of performances left to give you, and you have a lifetime left of being in Ibuki's audience." But oh, hell, Mioda Ibuki is nothing if not a great friend and an absolute pushover. She resolves to put out for just one more song.
"Ibuki, I love you!" Hiyoko tosses the words out without a care, so brazenly that Ibuki can't help but feel her cheeks tinge with red. Of course, the tears are gone, with not so much as a trace of Saionji having cried all day, let alone for the last fifteen songs in a row. But a promise is a promise, and it's not like Ibuki can refuse a fair maiden's declaration of love either. For perhaps the fiftieth or the two hundredth time that day, she picks up her trusty guitar and begins to play.
Ibuki opens her final song with a veritably filthy fingerstyle riff and a glass-shattering scream that would put a banshee to shame. Through the chaos, she can feel Hiyoko's rapt gaze on her. She knows the smaller girl's eyes are shining as she watches her idol. It might be easy for Ibuki to get a big head, but as she continues to scream and chant her way through "I Published a Love Letter to My Crush on Tumblr and Was Sued for Libel by Her Mother" with a doting captive audience, she reckons that she doesn't need one to feel like she made off like a bandit with her ultimate talent. Ibuki whips her hair back and forth, basking in the sound of music and the presence of her friend as they envelop her in full.
"All right! That technique is incredible!" It seems that Ibuki has headbanged herself into an entirely different dimension. She whips her hair out of her face and finds herself holding the determined gaze of Owari Akane. "No joke, I just pictured you center stage at, like, the Super Bowl or something!" Ibuki has no idea what the Super Bowl is, particularly what about the Bowl makes it quite so Super, but she knows a compliment when she hears one, and she flashes a self-assured smile in return.
"Am I doin' it? Do I look badass?" Akane, despite her physical prowess and a floppy head of hair practically built for the task, isn't quite a natural. It's possibly because of the size of her chest, Ibuki realizes, that her center of balance is slightly different from Mioda's own. Akane looks a little less like she's headbanging, and a little more like a fish when you first reel it in and it flops onto the dock like, well, a landed fish. One with very large breasts. "I feel so friggin' free, man! Like I'm straight out of, like, X Japan or somethin'! Oh man, I'm pumpin' myself up - I wanna fight a guy!"
"Yeah, okay, you look like a right rockstar now! Keep it up - put your soul into it!" Ibuki is bending the truth more than a little bit, but what fun is it to tear apart someone's dreams? She looks around the Light Music Club's room, searching for some way to stick a fork in the developing scene before Akane throws up, or before she makes Ibuki throw up. Nothing can stop the gymnast, but maybe she can be contained. "Akane, want to try it with a guitar? You aren't a real rocker till you headbang to unconsciousness with a kickass electric!"
"Oh HELLS yeah, I do! Give it here!" Akane grabs the electric from her classmate and wraps the strap around her head. She strums the strings, cranks up the reverb, and tunes the guitar (incidentally, Ibuki had tuned it properly before handing it over, and Akane's actions actually set each string off by at least a quarter tone). She resumes her headbanging - slower now, with the instrument in the way, perhaps only delaying the inevitable.
In any case, Akane looks like she's having an absolute blast, and Ibuki isn't going to try to take that away from her anytime soon. And it's a dream anyway, Ibuki figures - if she's only delaying the inevitable, might as well lean into it and have some fun instead. She grabs a guitar of her own, slides through the strap, and begins to play along with Akane's nonsensical dissonance, headbanging all the while.
It happens again; she can feel the room shift around her mid-headbang. This time, when she looks up, it's into the baby face of Kuzuryu Fuyuhiko. And this time, she's teaching him to play the guitar. It's a sight to see - the electric is almost as large as the diminutive boy who holds it, and his movements are uncoordinated and clumsy. It would almost be funny… if he wasn't so incredibly pissed.
"Stupid… fucking… piece of plastic ass…" he grumbles angrily. He looks about to throw the precious guitar against the wall, so Ibuki decides to step in. She asks him why he wants to learn; after all, she tells him, without purpose, music is just noise. "Well, you know," he mumbles. "Peko has gotten really into singing lately, and I started to wonder if maybe I should…" he trails off. "Not that it's related at all! I-I just… wanted to learn," he finishes lamely. If he had laser vision, he'd have burned a hole in the ground, straight to America.
"Five yen." Ibuki holds out her hand expectantly. He stares at her outstretched palm, seeming not to even register the situation.
"Excuse me?"
"Five yen from the mob boss for Ibuki's thoughts. They'll help." For a tense minute, Kuzuryu just stares at her hand, and for a second Ibuki worries that he's going to whip out a wakizashi and cut it off. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he pulls out a ten, grumbling about how he doesn't have a five.
"Ibuki is fair; Fuyuhiko gets extra thoughts or a five yen coin back, then. The world is your clam." Fuyuhiko indicates for her to keep the change. "Ibuki thinks that sometimes, subtlety is overrated. She thinks as a gang leader, Fuyuhiko should know this. What ever happened to the heavy-handed scare tactics? Grab the situation, chop off its kneecaps and be done with it. You do it 'cause it works, yeah? Like this movie Ibuki saw one time, where the bad guy tried to be all philosophical after capturing the hero, and he just went on and on, which gave the other good guys the chance to swoop in and save the day. Which reminds Ibuki of this TV show, where two girls are fighting over a guy, and one of them just keeps gunning for him over and over, and the other decides to let subtext do the heavy lifting for her. And guess who gets the guy? Oh, wait, the quiet girl does. Well, Ibuki's point stands."
"Uh…" Fuyuhiko's harsh visage shakes a bit, and he shuffles his feet as he tries to decipher Ibuki's spiel. Finally, he settles on a perceived fallacy: "Well, you don't cut off someone's kneecaps. I don't think that's possible."
Ibuki waves away his concern with the hand not gripping her shiny new ten yen coin. "Peko could do it, probably. Whether Fuyuhiko's clan chops off the kneecaps or not, Ibuki thinks it's stupid to just go to a rival gang member and subtly imply you're gonna chop them off." She looks at him pointedly. "Just do it."
"You know, Mioda, you're not half bad." Before she knows it, his face has transformed entirely; what was once a face seemingly permanently creased in a frown is now an adorable half smile. He brandishes a pair of adorable tiny cups from seemingly nowhere, setting them down on the table. He pulls a bottle from his bag and fills the little glasses to their brims.
"Is that sake?" Ibuki gasps at the sight of the clear liquid. "Vodka, perhaps?"
"On school grounds? Are you insane? It's water." Huh, apparently even yakuza have moral standards. The boy snorts derisively, but his ugly judgmental face quickly disappears, replaced fluidly by the hesitant, genuine smile he'd been wearing before. "Whatever the liquid in question, this is a special tradition for my family." He passes a cup to Ibuki, who picks it up and inspects it closely. "It's not poison. It means I trust you. It means I'm grateful to you. It means… you're someone special to me. Please accept this cup."
Wow, this is alarmingly sweet. Saccharine sweet. Just about the last thing she expected from the chibi gangster. But, she supposes, with an unfamiliar warmth bubbling in her chest, it's a welcome change to be sure. Ibuki and Fuyuhiko tap glasses, and she pounds back the water that symbolizes their bond.
The liquid tastes like gasoline going down her throat; it takes all of her willpower not to spit it back up. She shakes the cobwebs out of her vision and observes the profferrer of the cup - the student nurse, Tsumiki Mikan.
"A-are you feeling better?" Mikan's watery eyes are full of concern. "Y-you took a nasty fall out there." Ibuki looks around and finds herself in the nurse's office at Hope's Peak. She's awfully tired, but she tries to raise her arm to give a thumbs up to the stuttering girl. Only, it doesn't exactly work. Her dominant hand dangles limply at her side. Cold and dead.
Oh, no no NO. She's going to be sick. She peeks back at her hand, hanging, useless, unmoving. She gives the arm it's attached to a little shake, and it barely responds as well, save for a little sway in the breeze like a flimsy mayflower. She can feel the bile rising in her throat, she can feel something like maggots crawling beneath her skin, she can feel the walls closing in, she can feel the rigor mortis setting into her soul. Her breathing catches, it gets shallower and shallower and shallower and-
Mikan presses the hyperventilating bluenette to her chest. "H-hey there, Ibuki. I-it's gonna be alright. Y-you're gonna be okay, b-because I'm right here." Ibuki's breathing is still shallow, but it steadies slightly at the nurse's reassuring presence. "T-that's right, Ibuki. J-just b-breathe. B-breathe in and out with m-me."
Ibuki can barely understand Mikan's directions as they dress her wound and prepare to put it through the fancy scanning thingamajig in the back corner of the office. Stuttered commands go in one catatonic ear and out the other - Mikan has to repeat herself more than a few times, but she remains patient, as a good nurse does. Ah, yes - in the midst of her panic, Ibuki has just enough presence of mind to be grateful for the skill and the reassurance that the Ultimate Nurse provides.
"Y-you're gonna be okay, Ibuki. A-as long as I-I'm here, I will always n-nurse you back to health." In spite of the overwhelming sense of despair that plagues her head and heart, Ibuki believes her words wholeheartedly. Together, they trek over to the imaging machine and lift Ibuki's limp arm into the receptacle. Mikan grips more tightly her classmate's working hand as the machine flashes; the light is bright, almost blindingly so, but the warm hand Ibuki holds tethers her to reality.
Once the light clears out, Ibuki finds herself clad in a bathing suit, subject to the mercy of Koizumi Mahiru. The camera flash goes off once again, and Mahiru sends a playful wolf whistle at her friend. The sea breeze carries the sound of her voice to Ibuki.
"Come onnn, Ibuki!" Mahiru's call is drawn out and suggestive. "Let me get some of the good shots." A wink accompanies a request with… stimulating implications. Koizumi brandishes her SLR camera like a deadly weapon, projecting her playfully lecherous intent across the stretch of sand between them.
"If you want nudie pics of Ibuki, you'll have to come and tear her swimsuit right off of her body," Ibuki calls back, taking off in a sprint down the length of the unoccupied beach. A day at the beach, uninterrupted by the vices of schoolwork, is just what the doctor ordered for this pair of carefree girls.
They've physically settled down within the hour, but Ibuki remains full of spiritual energy. "Sometimes, Ibuki wonders," she starts - always a dangerous opening, Mahiru tends to say - "who put all of the salt in the ocean. Have you ever tasted seawater? Isn't it just, like, a little bit too salty? Doesn't it seem odd that whoever it was would take a huge body of perfectly good water and make it taste so salty?" Mahiru nods in assent, absentmindedly locking Ibuki into her crosshairs and taking a few quick snapshots.
"That reminds me, Ibuki. Did you apply sunscreen before we came?" Mahiru chides her friend like only a mother would.
"Gah, another thing Ibuki doesn't understand! She's been in the sun for most of her life, she's never used sunscreen once, and she never burns. Sunscreen," she declares with authority, "is a hoax. All part of some higher power's plan to turn us into chumps." Click goes the shutter of Mahiru's camera. "Speaking of which, have you ever seen two pretty best friends? Not even once has Ibuki ever seen two pretty best friends. Isn't that suspicious?"
"Well," interrupts Mahiru, "I think we're both pretty attractive." Click goes the shutter of Mahiru's camera. Ibuki looks at her funny, because what an odd statement to make, but perhaps a difficult one to outrightly refute. And why does it make her heart flutter, just a little bit?
"Well, Ibuki still thinks it's weird that the dinosaurs are completely gone. Ibuki's pretty sure she's met a dinosaur or two in her day."
And just like that, she's finished. She has nothing left to say, at least for the time being, and it represents a major paradigm shift from the way things usually are. Mahiru, to her credit, takes the silence in stride. She puts away the camera - enough good shots for one day, she says - and plants herself in the sand beside the already-seated bluenette. A paradigm shift though it may be, sitting in silence feels just as comfortable, just as normal, as anything
Together, Ibuki and Mahiru recline in the sand. Together, they close their eyes, letting the sound of the sea fill their ears and the warm rays of sunlight wash over their skin.
"Mioda?" The deep baritone pierces through her peace of mind, but her eyes simply do not want to open. "In utter awe at my incorruptible prowess, it seems. Go, my Four Dark Devas of Destruction - wake the girl from her stupor." The little creatures chatter, and Ibuki can hear, and before long feel, them swarm her. Her classmate means for his pets to wake her, but they're so incredibly warm and soft that they drag her deeper into her lucid slumber.
"A mistake? Have I cast upon her a sleeping spell?" Tanaka Gundham sounds actively distraught. "Impossible. In ten thousand years, I have made not a singular mistake. The truth is a simple one: this Mioda Ibuki is far more powerful than I could possibly have imagined." He falls silent for a moment. "Return, my Four Dark Devas of Destruction. This enemy is far too powerful for us to face at our current power; we have trained for ten thousand years, and now we must train for ten thousand more." The hamsters vacate their perch on her face and scurry back to their master, and Ibuki hears his footsteps take him to the door. She hears the click as he shuts the door, and she hears the fading of footsteps as he walks down the hallway outside.
She listens to the only noise left to fill the room: the ticking of the clock on the wall. Ten seconds, twenty seconds, thirty seconds she waits, until she's absolutely sure Gundham is gone. She wants to return to the soft bed of sand of her dreams, but for her own conscience, she wants to check that the coast is clear. Slowly but surely, she cracks her eyes open.
"HA! A deception!" Ibuki shrieks as Tanaka Gundham exposes her deceit. "And a brilliantly deft one at that! You impress me, Mioda Ibuki, for your illusions may have fooled anyone else." He strikes a shadowed pose. "But I am Tanaka Gundham, and I am not to be deceived by the likes of a mere mortal."
"G-Gundham!" Ibuki is rarely at a loss for words, but here she stutters. She'd just wanted to return to her heavenly dream… how awkward. The man before her seems to sense her discomfort, and he pauses without continuing his tirade. He coughs uncomfortably, readjusting his scarf to hide a bit more of his face, before resetting himself and speaking once more.
"Now that I have revealed to you my sheer capability," Gundham begins, "I am content." She looks at him quizzically, not quite understanding what he means. He turns away from her, shielding his eyes from her view. "You seemed… at peace in your rest. It is my earnest wish that you return to it."
Ibuki is shocked at the warmth in his voice and of his sentiment. He continues to avoid her gaze, but she's sure she sees him smile to himself. He makes for the door, but before he crosses the threshold, she calls out after him.
"Gundham, one thing?" He grunts and stops without turning back, but he's clearly listening. She rapid-fires. "Ibuki could have sworn she heard you leave. Like, footsteps to the door, door closes, footsteps down the hall, the whole shebang. What gives? How did you do that?" The scarfed enigma pauses. And pauses. And pauses. And after what seems like the ten thousand years he's so fond of mentioning, he breaks out into uproarious evil laughter. He laughs so loudly and for so long that Ibuki eventually feels mildly pressured and joins in. For a minute there, they just cackle together - despite the oddness of the situation, all somehow feels right with the world. Finally, his laughter dies down. He turns, a glint in his eyes, and stares down the Ultimate Musician.
"Magic," he says with a devious smirk. And Mioda Ibuki has no other possible explanation, so she chooses to believe him.
"It's magic," Soda Kazuichi quips sarcastically, tossing aside the toolkit he's just used to fix up Ibuki's sound system. He's not serious when he says as much, but Ibuki is seriously impressed; the magic he works may as well be magic for real. "It's honestly pretty amazing how bad you frigged it up. Not sure how you get that much food inside an amp." Ibuki briefly considers blushing and averting her eyes, but she isn't the bashful type, so she brushes off his words instead with an exaggerated pose and a cackle and chooses the cloud cuckoolander dialogue option.
"Never underestimate the capabilities of one Mioda Ibuki!" She attempts to punctuate each syllable of her sentence with a deliberate blink, but her lashes bat out of control and she ends up simply fluttering her eyelashes. Soda looks veritably uncomfortable. "You look uncomfortable," she points out. "Like a fish out of water, or perhaps a person who can't swim inside the water. After all, there's no reason the fish should always be the one inconvenienced." Not even her most relatable content is getting through to the poor mechanic, who looks about ready to off himself with the screwdriver at his feet. Perhaps she needs to switch up her tactics.
"Hey, tough guy," she tries in a sultry voice. "Want to use that monkey wrench of yours and fix up some more of Ibuki's systems?" He turns a never-before-seen shade of red - achievement unlocked! - and sweat starts to pour down the sides of his face and his neck.
"I-I'm sorry," he finally ekes out. "I-I can't! I've promised myself to Miss Sonia!" He picks up the screwdriver and quite literally swipes it at Ibuki, as if to say, begone! Ibuki feels the despair setting in; nothing she can do seems to get through to the hapless, lime-clad boy… that is, until his phone rings. As the melodious first few notes play, his eyes widen to saucers and he dives for the device, switching it to silent almost immediately. But the damage is done; Mioda Ibuki recognizes the ringtone, because of course she does! She'd recognize the first few notes of The Court Won't Grant Me Custody of the Kids Even Though My Magic 8 Ball Said "It Is Decidedly So" anywhere!
"Kazuichi," she tries. "Is that Ibuki's song?" He's turned a bluish purple now and looks about ready to sink into the earth, but he's able to murmur a noncommittal "maybe". "No, for real, Ibuki is touched. She didn't know you were a fan?"
"I-I wouldn't call myself a diehard or anything… I do like this one, though. It puts me in a good mindset." He fiddles adorably with the tools in his hands.
"Kazuichi," she tries once more. "You know, as a musician, there's nothing that makes Ibuki happier than hearing that her song does something for you, anything at all." Soda perks up just a little bit - at the least, he looks a little less blue. She thinks of how better to cheer him up:
"Just so you know, Ibuki is totally the type to listen to her own songs." Soda chuckles at that one, finally letting his guard down a bit more. Ibuki has to suppress a frown, because she wasn't entirely joking that time, but she's happy with his renewed enthusiasm, so she'll let it slide. "Want to give it a listen together? To get you in that good mindset?"
He pauses, his gaze flitting between Ibuki and the tools in his hands, before he finally releases the tension in his shoulders and gives her a little nod. "I'd like that," he says. So together, they sit on the couch, and they drift off together in a daydream, listening to the lilting melody of The Court Won't Grant Me Custody of the Kids Even Though My Magic 8 Ball Said "It Is Decidedly So".
"Just my luck, right?" The silky voice of Komaeda Nagito shocks Ibuki from her reverie. She shakes her head like a wet dog, clearing her brain and opening her ears to her eccentric classmate. What was that he'd said? "I said, looks like we're paired together for this music theory project. Just my luck that I'd wind up with the Ultimate Musician, right?"
"Amazing! As expected of the Ultimate! Lucky! Student!" She crows it in a shonen announcer-type voice and flashes a winning smile and a wink at him. "Today must be your extra lucky day." Nagito bares his teeth in a shit-eating grin in return, and they break off from the rest of the student body to get to work.
"So, Nagito, where does your luck begin?" Ibuki opens the conversation.
"I'm sorry, Mioda, but I'm not really sure what your question entails."
"Well, like, Ibuki is super interested in your talent. Ultimate Luck is a very lucky talent to have, after all. Are you lucky because of your Ultimate Luck? If you needed to be lucky to get the Ultimate Luck, were you just lucky before? Did you hack the system to give you the best starting talent?" Komaeda takes a moment to digest her tirade. He laughs to stall for time to think, but Ibuki doesn't mind. He has a nice laugh, a bit like a cute little bell from the seventh or perhaps the ninth circles of Hell.
"What do you mean, hack the system?" He finally asks.
"You know, hack the system from the start screen, loading the RNG in your favor so that you can nab the Ultimate Luck. Everything's just a game, after all." Nagito perks up at that - and aggressively so. He practically explodes into the space between her sentences.
"What did you just say, Mioda? Did you say, everything is just a game?" Ibuki tilts her head at the ragamuffin-looking boy, confused at his outburst. Why yes, she said that, and she affirms his apparent test of his hearing. "What makes you say that?"
"Well, the world's just a simulation, of course. Do you buy for a second that the birds or dolphins are actually real? Which reminds me, I'm jealous of your talent because I'm pretty sure the RNG is weighted against me. No matter how many days I've gone to the riverside, I've never managed to catch a trout with my bare hands. I bet if you went down there, you'd catch one with your hands tied behind your back, and just while trying to set up the campfire twenty meters inland."
Komaeda pauses for a bit, as if trying to dissect every word she's said. There's no point, she thinks to herself; not even she really knows. "I'm never quite sure what to think of you, Ibuki." That's okay, few people ever are. "I thought you were onto a little something there," he continues, "but I'm pretty sure I was just imagining things."
"It's funny, that you say these things about not really understanding Ibuki," she says. "Because Ibuki thinks she doesn't understand Nagito very well either. But Ibuki thinks she'll get to understand you a little bit more," she states sagely. "Her extra sense tells her that. Did you know that, by the way? Ibuki's got a seventh sense."
"Does Ibuki have a sixth sense, too? Or did you jump right to number seven?"
"One fifth of the population has a sixth sense, you know. Having a sixth sense hardly makes you special. So Ibuki calls her special sense her seventh sense, not her sixth. Of course, what that sixth sense is varies from person to person. Ibuki's sixth sense is a sense of adventure. Ibuki thinks you might have it too - she thinks that's why our chakras align." She chuckles to herself as Komaeda smiles as well. It almost seems like he's laughing at his own little joke, but it's water under the bridge to Ibuki. She feels like she knows what she needs to know about Komaeda Nagito, and judging by the look of smug satisfaction on his face, he knows everything he needs to know about Mioda Ibuki.
Komaeda Nagito, the lucky bastard, looks on as Ibuki closes her eyes contentedly. Without even looking at the staff - eyes completely closed - she listens to the music theory clip and transcribes the chords with practiced ease.
"Are you okay? You stopped. Don't worry - I've got you if you fall." Ibuki feels her hands grip tightly on the cold metal rungs of the ladder. Touch is the only thing to go by - everything around is pitch black. She feels herself shaking a bit, and when she opens her mouth to speak, she's shocked at how quivery her voice comes out.
"Y-yeah, Ibuki thinks she's okay," she whispers back. She's never known herself to be afraid of heights or the dark, but she sounds positively spooked. "At the very least, Ibuki feels better knowing that you're here." Oh, yuck, how flirty! What a teenage girl thing to say! She squeals a bit, and some of it escapes through the corner of her mouth.
"Ibuki, shh! We'll get caught if they hear us!" Oops, sorry. Be still, her beating heart! She takes a deep breath and continues her pitch black ascent up the fire ladder. Finally, she reaches the top of the ladder - she knows because she bonks her cone-shaped headpieces on the hatch.
"Hey," she hisses to the boy beneath her. "Ibuki's here."
"Amazing," he whispers from a dozen rungs down. "I'll be right there. And remember, don't be afraid - I've got you if you fall." She can hear the faint echo through the chute as his worn sneakers click against the rusty rungs of the latter. She knows he's arrived when she can feel his hair brush up against the back of her bare calves; it tickles, but in a way that makes her stomach flutter more than it makes her want to burst out laughing. "You ready, Ibuki? I promise, it's going to blow your mind." She'll take his word for it, she decides. With one arm staunchly intertwined with the closest rung of the ladder, she grabs the hatch, and with an unladylike grunt, forces it open.
The view is absolutely unlike anything she has ever seen. The stars twinkle like a million little fireflies, stretching as far as her peripheral vision can go and then some. The moon is so big, so full, so close that she can almost reach out and grab it, pluck it out of the sky and take a bit of it like cottage cheese.
"Come on Ibuki, let me up!" He whisper-shouts from below, snapping her back to reality. She hoists herself through the hatch and onto the rooftop, then turns around and lends her hand to the boy, who lifts himself through in turn. He swings his backpack around to the front and withdraws a blanket, passing it to Ibuki. She hasn't even realized how cold it is, and even when she does, a different sort of warmth tides her through the biting winds. They settle on the rooftop, side by side, gazing up at the stars and the moon.
"Hey, Ibuki?" He starts. "What gives you hope?" Ibuki is rarely caught off guard, but his question is sudden. As if reading her mind, he continues. "I ask because I think this view gives me quite a bit of hope. It gives me hope that there are worlds out there left to discover, great things out there left to achieve." He puts a hand over hers. "What gives you hope?"
Anyone else might pause to consider the far-reaching implications of this extremely complex question, but not Ibuki.
"Ibuki doesn't mean it lightly when she says she doesn't know. It isn't like a, oh, Ibuki doesn't know, she's never really thought about it, nothing comes to mind. It's more like, Ibuki doesn't really have a direction. Sometimes, Ibuki leaves her home, and she wanders. She follows the wind, she follows the smell of food, she follows the sound of music. Sometimes she doesn't make it home for hours, and sometimes even for days. But to Ibuki, that isn't concerning or appalling. To Ibuki, that is life."
"So what gives Ibuki hope, then? Well, she thinks what gives her hope is that which adds flavor to that unpredictable, unprecedented journey of life. What gives Ibuki hope are the elements that critically define the highs and the lows, that influence them beyond the boundaries of her control. What gives Ibuki hope are the people that make the journey that much more unpredictable and unprecedented, that love Ibuki in ways she's never been loved, and that exist for Ibuki to love in ways she's never loved before. Without you, without everyone, that journey of life is that much less interesting, that much more boring, without the flavor of hope."
"So with that said, Hajime..."
"Yeah, Ibuki?"
"I'm glad I'm here with you. I wouldn't want to see this without you." He doesn't reply; instead, he turns his gaze away from the stars and into her sparkling pink eyes. His smile is so soft and warm, but it feels so far away and it makes her feel a little bit empty inside. If this were a song title, she decides, it'd be "Memories That Make You Happy and Sad All At Once."
Mioda Ibuki sits in awe of the moon. She feels like she's lived an entire lifetime in the flash of a moment, a moment that she can no longer see or hear or smell or taste or touch. She feels like she's loved enough for a million years, that she's been loved enough for ten million more. And now, she feels empty, but it's the sort of emptiness that one can only know once they've had everything, so everything is alright.
In her state of delirium, she doesn't notice someone sneaking up behind her. And when she feels the noose cinch tight around her neck, she struggles at first, trying to turn around, to get her attacker in front of her. But then, she stops, because she realizes that she doesn't really want to know who it is. Mioda Ibuki doesn't know what she doesn't know, and her final lucid thought is that it doesn't bother her this time around either.