Megu and Suigin Tou's Excellent Adventures
A Rozen Maiden fanfic by Aondehafka
Disclaimer: the characters and concepts of Rozen Maiden are owned by Peach Pit, not me. This story is based on the anime, not the manga.
Last Warning: You really need to have seen the Rozen Maiden OVA Ouverture before reading this for much of it to make sense.
Chapter 2: Turnabout Is Fair Play
The amphitheater was filled to capacity. The muted hum of a hundred quiet conversations ebbed and flowed like the tide. People of all ages were there for the concert—at least, all ages that were old enough to purchase tickets—but what was more surprising was that all those age groups were equally represented. Grey-haired grandmothers stood next to university students. Fathers and mothers were present along with their teenaged children, with each generation anticipating the start of things as much as the other.
Of course, said teenagers were usually seated a few rows away from their parents. Some things bend more easily than they break.
"If there's even one empty seat, I can't see it," Suigin Tou observed from her midair perch next to Megu. The two of them were levitated twenty feet up, hanging well back to avoid accidental illumination from a spotlight. "I suppose the singer must be at least moderately talented, to draw such a crowd."
"I don't think 'moderately talented' is going far enough," Megu replied. "We could have gone to five baseball games, with me buying a disguise for you each time, for the price of a single ticket to this concert."
"I see. You didn't actually buy tickets, though, did you?" the First Doll asked. Megu certainly hadn't handed anything over to the ticket-takers at the entrance.
"Of course not. I don't have that much money."
"Yet here we are anyway. Do you not feel any guilt at all?" Suigin Tou asked, curious rather than trying to prod her medium's conscience.
"No. If I had bought a ticket, or one for each of us, the revenue would be the same and there would be fewer people enjoying the concert. Would that be better?"
"Of course not. I bow before your flawless logic," Suigin Tou said with a smirk.
Megu was quiet for a few moments, then, sounding slightly hesitant, spoke again. "You don't think it's wrong, do you? I can't see why you would, Angel-san, but if you do we'll leave. I wouldn't want to make you feel guilty or anything."
"Don't be silly. Feel guilty? Over such a small thing as this?" Suigin Tou shook her head in honest wonder. "You humans, always thinking so highly of yourselves. I might care about you, Megu, but certainly not this 'Tokiko Mima' songbird. I wouldn't bat an eye if you wanted to sneak out during intermission with her ticket-takings."
"Thank you," her medium said with an odd grimace. "I think."
The two were quiet for a little while. "Hmmm," Suigin Tou said at last, pulling her attention back from scanning the audience. "I didn't expect to see so many children and so many parents here. One or the other, certainly, but not both."
"It is unusual," Megu agreed. "Although... that makes me a little curious."
"About what?"
"Why would you know that? You've told me you never had a medium before, Suigin Tou, and all your life you've been focused on becoming Alice. That meant defeating the other dolls. It makes sense that you know many things about them, their strengths and weaknesses and so forth. But how much do you really know about humans? Why would you even bother to learn?"
Suigin Tou turned to look at her medium. "Why are you asking now, of all times?"
Megu shrugged. "Because we've still got a little while until everything starts. What is there to do, except talk? And..." she hesitated, then continued, "and because I was hoping that this time we're doing something you might enjoy too, not just me."
The First Doll gave a smirk that would have raised the hackles on any of her sisters. "Actually, I'd have to say that the baseball game was a positive experience. I did enjoy myself, there at the end."
"When we managed to lose all the agents except Shigeharu-san, and then you fought and trounced him?"
"Exactly. He should have known better than to take me on by himself, but he had a few interesting tactics nonetheless. I'm quite looking forward to refining them and seeing how well they work on Shinku."
"Wait a moment..." Megu protested, her brow furrowing at Suigin Tou's words. "Didn't you promise not to fight her anymore, after Jun showed me how to use our power?"
"Not exactly," Suigin Tou replied. "My promise was to cease hostilities. I won't give her the punishment she deserves for abandoning Father's will, but that doesn't mean I've given up on defeating her." Her smile faded, though it didn't disappear completely. "But I am waiting until she can do everything in that new body that she could in her true one. I won't have my victory cheapened."
"I see."
"And that actually ties back into the question you asked earlier," the Rozen Maiden continued. "About why I have paid attention to humans throughout my life. It was because there were useful things to learn from them, ideas on how to fight, or on how to use them as tools in my struggle."
Megu frowned. "That last part doesn't seem right, Suigin Tou. Remember, your father was a human too."
Suigin Tou flinched. "Well, you might be right," she admitted, her voice even quieter than the subdued tones they had been using. "Shinku did fling something in my face once, stated that Father had said we Rozen Maidens were not meant to cause pain or harm to humans. I don't remember any such message from him, though."
"I wonder if that was on purpose," Megu said thoughtfully. "Ever since you told me there was some way any or all of you could become Alice, I've been thinking about how it could happen. Maybe you're supposed to find the way by working together. That could explain why he would give different pieces of the puzzle to different Rozen Maidens."
"Well, if that's so, then I hope Shinku has already passed along whatever keys she held," the First Doll snapped.
It was Megu's turn to flinch. "Ah... Angel-san," she said at last. "I think... I think you might be happier if you could let go of all this anger at Shinku."
"Then perhaps you shouldn't keep bringing her up!" Suigin Tou declared.
Megu hung her head. "Sorry," she whispered.
Silence stretched between the two of them for several minutes, an increasingly-awkward interval that was broken at last by Suigin Tou. "...I'm trying to let it go," she said in a near-whisper. "It's hard, though. Especially after that moment when we water-skiid by them, and I saw her in her real form and thought she'd come back to her senses."
"I guess that would have made it harder afterward, when you found out you were wrong."
"She's the one who's wrong," Suigin Tou retorted. "Now, and even before this happened. And in any case, my anger toward her hasn't always been a bad thing."
"Why not?" Megu asked, now so caught up in the conversation that she didn't notice the dimming of the house lights.
"Because of what it meant, from the beginning almost all the way to the end." Suigin Tou's only concession to the imminent beginning of the concert was to strengthen the stealth shield around her and Megu, that their conversation would go unnoticed even as the rest of the crowd fell silent. "All the others simply viewed the Alice Game as a series of one-on-one battles, nothing more. I was the only one to learn and apply real strategy... but even I had a blind spot. I was so determined to break Shinku all on my own, instead of finishing off the weaker ones to take the strength to crush her effortlessly." The First Doll sighed. "It's not easy, but I can be glad I made that mistake. For Father's sake, at least."
Megu blinked, unconsciously adjusting her vision to see normally now that the house lights had reached their lowest level. "But... how would that have made a difference? You did eventually defeat Sousei Seki and take her Rosa Mystica. Why would it have been worse if it happened earlier?"
"Remember that I'm talking about centuries here, Megu," Suigin Tou said tightly, as the curtains at the front swept back to reveal the stage. "If I had done it like that, everything would have been different. Enju would never even have had a chance to play his game."
"I see," Megu replied, paying no heed to the spotlight that lanced down to illuminate a slender, brown-haired girl wearing black pants and a white top. "You would have achieved Alice a long time ago, but none of the others would ever have been able to."
"And you would have lived and died in your bed at the hospital," Suigin Tou pointed out. The girl at the microphone was saying something now, some meaningless words of greeting or whatnot. In an instant the First Doll spread her wings wide then curved them around into a cocoon around her and Megu, blocking out the distraction before it could really get going. This discussion was much more important than some boring concert. "No, my anger at Shinku has stood me in very good stead. I have no intention of letting it all go."
A single note rang through the concert hall, piercing the First Doll's barrier and soul with equal ease.
The wall of feathers shivered and shattered, black pinions melting away like snow on a warm breeze. Suigin Tou didn't even notice, nor did she realize that she and Megu were drifting down to stand in an aisle. All her attention was fixed, was riveted, on the girl at the microphone singing her heart out.
The music rolled forth like a great leisurely wave, slow and inexorable as the tide, and as sorrowful as all the mourning ever done for those lost at sea. Suigin Tou could tell that there were words; in fact, since the girl was the only source of sound in the room, she dimly supposed that the music she heard must be contained entirely within those words. For a moment there at the beginning, she was even able to tell that what she was hearing was indeed Japanese.
That awareness faded quickly as the flood washed over her. She could no longer see the girl on the stage, merely a bright blur through the tears that veiled her eyes. But she wasn't paying attention to physical sights anyway. The First Doll of Rozen Maiden was caught up in what seemed like an endless surge of memories, most of them ones that she normally kept pushed as far away as possible.
She had two hands, but could only feel and move the left. Her body ended just below her equivalent of a breastbone. On the other side of the room there was a gown of violet and white, a gown that she knew had been meant for her... as were the pelvis and legs contained within it.
The gown was not a concern at the moment, though. All her attention was fixed on the man in the center of the room. His features were indistinct, blurred behind the soft, warm light that filled the room like a cloud. All she could see for certain was that he was Caucasian, blond, and a little over average height. If he was aware of her, his posture gave no sign of it; all his attention seemed focused on the crimson-gowned doll he held in his arms.
She was only peripherally aware of that doll, barely even noticed as the man gently stroked long golden hair and murmured something too soft for her to hear. The one arm she could move was outstretched, reaching vainly toward the man, reaching farther and trembling more desperately as he turned further away and faded somehow from her awareness, taking his latest masterwork with him. Long, long moments passed before she tumbled to the ground and began pulling herself along with the one arm that worked, heading instinctively toward her missing pieces as the first step on a long, lonely journey.
As her oldest and longest-suppressed memory rolled past, many others followed in its wake. These came swifter and with less clarity, but each pierced her all the same.
A loop of golden energy curved and tightened, and just that quickly the arm she'd torn away from Shinku was restored. Neither the Rozen Maiden nor her medium even spared a glance for Suigin Tou, just stared into each other's eyes as if each were the only other in the world.
Shinku held her gently upright, speaking words of encouragement and keeping her from falling. It had felt to Suigin Tou like a victory for both of them, as she learned to walk on legs connected only by cloth and her own will.
Her sister gaped at her through the forced dimness of her dreamscape, realizing that it truly was her this time, that Suigin Tou had returned from the destruction wrought upon her in Jun's dream. But where she had looked for defiance overlaying fear, there were instead tears and a whispered, "Thank goodness."
The Gardener's Shears ripped through her, and as the void swallowed her she held out her hand in desperation to Shinku. The Fifth Doll gazed at her in sadness but made no move to reach for her.
She smiled mockingly at Shinku, bound to the tree in her dreamscape and stretched nearly to breaking. Even then her sister glared back at her in utter defiance, refusing to yield the Rosa Mystica given to her by Father.
She stared in trembling, terrible disbelief as the water cascaded down and Shinku's form exploded upward, now perfectly sized for the robe that had been all but swallowing her.
The memories swirled around her, in no particular order but all bound to a common theme. Suigin Tou had known sorrow in the centuries of her existence, but it had never felt like this... or perhaps she'd never let herself feel it like this. There was no room for anger, only the grief she'd hidden beneath it for so long.
Such an abstract realization was only possible, she realized, because the song had ended. Or at least, the girl behind the microphone was no longer singing, merely standing there and gazing solemnly out over the audience. At the same time, though, the First Doll could still feel an echo of the song deep within her, quiet now rather than overpowering, but still real. Whether the other feelings would come back later, she couldn't tell, but for the moment she had no blame or vitriol to fling. All she could do was mourn what had happened between herself and the sister who'd first reached out to her.
The Rozen Maiden heaved a deep, shuddering breath, rose shakily back into the air, and refocused on the world around her. She was completely unsurprised to see her reaction mirrored throughout the room. Everywhere heads were bowed, eyes shimmered with tears, and chests trembled as people gulped for air like swimmers surfacing from deep water. For the first time in her life, Suigin Tou felt a sense of kinship with humans in general, not just her medium.
And speaking of which... she gasped and whirled to face the girl she'd almost forgotten under the pressure of whatever had just happened. If she had been affected so strongly, would Megu have broken outright?
Apparently not. Her medium wore an expression Suigin Tou had never seen on her before, but it was the diametric opposite of someone crushed beyond recovery.
"I could sing better than that," Megu hissed through clenched teeth.
By the time she realized she was moving, she had already taken five steps. Megu didn't pause when the realization hit her, but instead quickened her pace. The faces of the audience were little more than a blur, just barely registering through the red haze clouding her vision. After all, they might not be an immediate concern, but they were still important. It mattered very much that she wasn't the only victim here.
In her current state of mind, she found it difficult to maintain her stealth shield as she strode forward to the stage. It was a relief to finally let it go as she reached the front and took something halfway between a step and a leap. It carried her up and forward, depositing her inches away from the spotlight with a loud bang. The noise resounded through the theater, bringing many heads up to stare in confusion.
At the moment, though, Megu was only paying attention to one confused individual. Apparently Tokiko wasn't used to people appearing out of thin air to confront her; the girl had jumped enough to land in the hazy area at the spotlight's far edge. A nice start as far as it went, one part of Megu's mind calculated, but it hadn't gone far enough yet. Another, rather larger part, was suddenly focusing on the audience. More and more of them were looking up now, peering through tear-filled eyes at her as the sadness still so obvious on everyone was leavened by curiosity.
"What—" The monosyllable and a half-step forward were as far as Tokiko got.
"Quiet!" Megu gave the command as forcefully as she could—which, with the Rose Bond backing her up, was very forceful indeed. She wasn't quite sure how Tokiko had done what she did, but even her imperfect understanding was enough. Megu summoned up all the anger, the indignation, the outrage the other girl's tactic had provoked in her, and projected awareness of it straight into Tokiko's heart.
Her antagonist failed to duplicate Megu's feat of resistance. The brunette gasped and staggered backward, vanishing completely from view of the audience, stumbling blindly until she could brace herself against a wall and barely remain standing. Megu had already turned away, staring now out at the silent, bewildered crowd. The evidence of their earlier grief was still obvious, enough so that she felt a new spike of anger toward the singer who'd used them so cruelly... but then she took a deep breath and forced her perspective to shift.
It was time to stop thinking about what had been done to them, and focus on what she could do to set it right.
Suigin Tou gasped as a new cascade of notes filled the air, soaring like nightingales out of her medium's trembling throat. Megu's eyes were closed and her head was tilted back, and she sang with an abandon that Suigin Tou had never witnessed before. For a moment she even felt a stirring of resentment, that Megu would share with all these strangers what had previously been just between the two of them.
That resentment ended as quickly as it began. Megu's song wasn't as impressive as Tokiko's had been, not nearly as powerful or compelling. But Suigin Tou realized immediately that her medium hadn't even tried to do that. Where the first song had projected an emotion, inescapable and overwhelming, Megu's anthem took a crucially different route. The words and notes swelling throughout the room weren't a tide to drag the listeners under, but rather a window allowing them to see and share what was rising in the singer's own heart.
Suigin Tou sensed that her unique perspective allowed her a much clearer understanding than the general audience enjoyed. Where they merely heard a stirring song of hope and joy, the Rozen Maiden saw again the events she had lived through in the past few months—but she witnessed them now from Megu's perspective. She felt the first real cracking of the melancholic ice that had sheathed Megu for so long, as her medium understood how important she had become to her 'Angel-san'. She knew the exquisite pain when hope stirred, a hope Megu could neither suppress nor bring herself to trust, as Jun proved that the power of the Rose Bond need not only flow one way. She saw how close the girl had come to truly breaking down, how near to the edge of her frail strength she'd been driven as she first attempted to harness this power she less than half believed in. Her soul thrilled to joy such as neither of them had ever known, as her medium finally built her strength to the point where she could discard the physical flaw that had chained her down so long.
As Megu's song ended, Suigin Tou wiped new tears with a shaking hand and made a mental note to thank her... for more things than one. If that had been as intense as Tokiko's lament, she didn't know what shape she would have been left in.
The final note of the song faded tremulously into silence. This lasted a moment, and then the crowd went wild.
Megu opened her eyes and stared out at the audience, blinking rapidly to shed the tears which threatened to obscure her view. With all her heart she had wanted to lead them out of the pain and despair that had been pushed upon them, the burden she herself had barely managed to resist. She'd given it her all, and she had succeeded. It was worth every bit of the strength she'd used and the difficulty she'd experienced, taking one of the slow, wistful songs with which she was familiar and transforming it on the fly.
She wasn't sure how many more of those she had in her, but it didn't look like the crowd was ready to let her go just yet. Megu took a deep breath and smiled, feeling a welcome surge of boldness rise up within her. The American nurse she'd mentioned awhile back to Suigin Tou had tried many things to spark her charge's interest in life, one of which was sharing a song that fit rather well with a wish Megu had harbored even then. 'How did that song go,' she thought, casting her mind back over the years, and incidentally hoping that the Rose Bond could convey a translation effect from English to Japanese. 'A gathering of angels appeared above my head... they sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said—'
"How dare you!"
Megu blinked and half turned away from the crowd. Apparently Tokiko had recovered, at least enough to stand unsupported and glare furiously at her. "Isn't that my line?" she asked coolly. "I wasn't the one dragging them down to the depths of despair."
Oddly enough, this only seemed to further anger the other girl. "Are you saying I was?" she snapped, stalking closer. "If that's what you think, then they had no business sending someone as incompetent as you by herself! I didn't even come close to breaking the rules!"
"Rules? Sending me?" Everyone else in the room had experienced confusion at some point during this concert, and now it was Megu's turn. "Nobody needed to send me up here to stop you from hurting those people!"
"What? Aren't you..." The brown-haired girl trailed off, her attention suddenly shifting away. Megu frowned in puzzlement and followed the direction of Tokiko's gaze, finally noticing that there was one other person in the room who wasn't among the general crowd: a woman standing half-hidden by shadows at the very back, with teal hair and a buxom figure garbed in Chinese clothes, holding a lute in one arm. The woman stared inscrutably back at her, then deliberately looked to Tokiko and shook her head.
"You aren't, are you," Tokiko said as she returned her attention to Megu. It was a statement, not a question, and barely audible over the fast-growing restlessness of the crowd. The brunette glanced away from her again, staring now over the audience in general.
Megu followed suit, her ears picking out various cries from the throng, noting that many of them seemed to know the other girl as 'Key' rather than 'Tokiko'. Her eyes widened as she heard her own name in the calls for more songs. She was feeling the first pangs of real uncertainty now, not so much from the loss of anonymity as from the fact that nobody crying out appeared to harbor any resentment toward the singer she'd tried to supplant.
Tokiko took several deep breaths, and afterward seemed reasonably calm. She even managed a smile, although it was harder and sharper than any truly benevolent expression would have been. "Very well, 'Megu', or whoever you are. They want to hear from both of us now." The smile sharpened further. "Let's give them a concert to remember."
By now it was blindingly obvious to Megu that she had jumped in without grasping the full reality of the situation. 'Let's see...' she mused. 'I could admit that and bow out as gracefully as possible... I could hide myself and run for it... I could yell for help from Suigin Tou...'
Running that series of options through her head had the desired effect. Megu's lips curled into a grin that was softer but no weaker than Key's. 'Or I could hold true to what I promised myself about how I was going to live, now that I really am alive.' Aloud, she said, "Yes. Let's do that."
"Should we really be stopping so soon?" Suigin Tou inquired, in that tone of voice which means 'I don't think we should be stopping so soon.'
"Why not?" Megu asked, sitting down and extending her arms behind her in a long, weary stretch.
"Why not?" the First Doll echoed. She touched lightly down next to Megu on the rooftop, but remained standing with her wings twitching restlessly. "You're nearly out of power, and it's just the opposite for that 'Key' person. I don't know how she was doing it, but she was actually drawing in strength from the energies released by all those concert-goers."
Megu blinked. "Really? I didn't know that. I knew her performance was growing more and more powerful, but I just thought she was finally getting into the rhythm I shocked her out of." She hesitated, then continued, "And recovering all the way from my admonition."
"No," Suigin Tou declared. "She had shaken that off entirely by the time she issued her challenge. I'm not sure exactly what that girl was, but I don't think she's fully human." She stepped away from gravity's call once more, rising into the air and floating around in front of Megu. The First Doll gestured down to the concert hall, only a stone's throw away on the other side of the street and three stories down. The distance was nowhere near enough to hide the energy of the ongoing concert. Suigin Tou grimaced as she felt a particularly vigorous spike, and said, "It was smart of you to cloak yourself and leave when you did; if you'd started up one more song I was going to rush the stage and take care of matters myself. I certainly don't think we ought to sit around here waiting for her to reach the height of her power and come after us."
"She won't. At least, not like that," Megu said, her expression shifting into something wistful. "She won. I gave her a good run for her money; I think I even bested her on those first two songs, when she was still fighting with frustration and resentment at me. But I could feel the very moment when she let all that go. You could have too if you'd been that close, Angel-san."
"I'm not so sure about that," Suigin Tou muttered. "I'm no expert on emotions."
Megu smiled. "You could probably say we're learning together, couldn't you?"
"Probably so." Suigin Tou stared down at the concert hall for a few moments, then shook her head abruptly. "You're likely right, Megu, but we shouldn't put it to the test. Better to leave now if there's even a slim chance you're wrong."
"I don't see why," the girl protested. "I think it might be important to talk to her. I don't really understand what happened tonight, and I want to."
"I know," Suigin Tou replied. "And I can't say I understand either. But I do know what's important—you poured out everything you had to give us so many beautiful songs, and there's no way you could defend yourself now." Suigin Tou deliberately met Megu's gaze. "If she came after you for something more dangerous than a sing-off, I would have to deal with her. And with as much power as that little starlet has sucked down, that would mean striking as hard and viciously as I need to keep you safe. Like I did with Laplace."
Megu drew in a long, slow breath, then let it out with a whoosh. "Then you're right. We should go."
"Good." Suigin Tou turned and soared away. A few seconds later, she banked, returned, and observed, "I can't help but notice you're not moving, Megu." She paused, then said in a gentler tone, "I can carry you, if you're worried about spending the last of your strength to fly after me."
"It's not that," Megu said, staring at her companion with a curious, pondering gaze. "Suigin Tou... there's something you aren't saying. Something... I don't know what, but I can see it in your eyes."
Suigin Tou gritted her teeth, fought with the urge to simply grab Megu and go... then stared intently down at the concert hall. After a few moments' scrutiny assured her that Key wasn't about to leave her adoring public behind, she heaved a long sigh and muttered, "That's probably the guilt."
"Guilt?" Megu echoed quizzically.
"You did hear them calling your name, didn't you?" Suigin Tou snapped. "I imagine it would have been hard to miss! Where do you think they heard that, if not from me?"
"I was wondering," Megu admitted. "But how did it happen?"
"I don't even know myself," the Rozen Maiden answered. "I can vaguely remember whispering it once, toward the end of your first song. Someone must have overheard me, though I can't imagine who would have been listening."
"That would be me."
Hearing the unexpected voice from one rooftop to her left, Megu blinked and turned to look. It was the teal-haired woman she'd noticed before, just before Key issued her challenge.
The newcomer offered Megu an enigmatic smile. "It wasn't easy to turn a deaf ear to that beautiful song. Still, I needed whatever information I could get, so I focused on your companion. And when I overheard her whisper a name, well, I passed it along to the room at large. The way you reacted told me it really was yours."
Suigin Tou's wings were now five times their resting length, quivering and bristling with hard-edged feathers. "Is that right," the First Doll pronounced, in a tone that had previously been reserved for addressing Shinku. "And who are you, to interfere like that?"
"My name is Mon Lon. And it's one of my duties to make sure Key doesn't abuse her abilities," the woman shot back. "Not on purpose, nor by accident which would be more likely. There's always a danger when ordinary people reach out to touch something powerful enough to crush them like bugs. They can't protect themselves, so we who can... we have to."
"Then why didn't you do or say anything during that first song?" Megu asked. "What really happened in there? Why was I the only one who resented it, when she forced so much misery down our throats?"
"Misery?" Suigin Tou interrupted. "That wasn't what I felt. Megu, what happened?"
"You didn't? How can you say that, Suigin Tou?" A look of uncertainty mixed with something darker spread over Megu's face. "Once her song was over and I wasn't putting everything I had into fighting it off, I looked at you. I could see the tears, the sadness, for you just like everyone else in the audience. Did you forget that?" The uncertainty was fading now, and the darkness growing stronger. "Was the last part of her song something to make you forget?"
"Um, no, that's not it at all," Suigin Tou managed. "You said 'misery' at first. That's not the same thing as sorrow, is it?"
"Of course not. And Key starts every concert with a song like that," Mon Lon called, regaining their attention. The woman jumped over to their rooftop and walked closer. "People who buy tickets know this. They are made fully aware of what they're getting into."
"Oh," Megu said. She sighed, then admitted, "I still don't understand."
"It's a tribute to someone very important to her, someone who died. That first song Key sings is the essence of mourning, of grief for what was lost. But honest grief is a critical part of healing, and it's something that people usually don't do as fully as they need to. Especially here in Japan," the minstrel explained. "People can go for years carrying burdens that they don't even see anymore, until Key brings them to their senses and helps them lay those things down." Mon Lon stared curiously at Megu. "It's a little traumatic, but it's also cleansing rather than hurtful. What went wrong for you?" Her expression hardened. "Don't tell me you're one of those overprivileged children who's never actually lost anyTHURKKH!"
"Don't, Suigin Tou!" Megu exclaimed.
The First Doll glared hatefully into Mon Lon's purpling face for a few seconds longer, then let the woman fall out of the mouth of her wing-drake. "Why don't you tell her what kind of life you actually did have, Megu." It had not been so very long ago when her medium lived in a constant state of low-grade mourning, believing that her life was worthless and honestly ready to let go of it. 'At least it sounds like she fought Key's influence off, rather than let that song pull her back to such a state,' Suigin Tou reflected, grasping for the pride that accompanied the thought. It was much better to think of what a good influence she had been on Megu, than consider how a song so good and beneficial for her had been pure poison for her medium.
"I don't think I want to share something like that with someone like her," Megu pronounced. "Anyway, I understand the important things now. I'll send Key a letter telling her I'm sorry, and how she can reach me if she wants a personal apology." She turned and began walking away.
Cough Hack "W-Wait. Please, wait," Mon Lon rasped, struggling back to a standing position. "I'm sorry! I don't like it, that I've been sent far away from my home and forced to serve in a place like this. But I shouldn't have taken that out on you." Considering that she kept a wary eye on Suigin Tou for the whole of her speech, it was anyone's guess just how heartfelt this apology really was.
"It's all right," Megu said. "I was much ruder to Mima-san than you were to me." She paused for a moment, wondering how someone as small as Suigin Tou could produce such a tremendous snort. "But I really do need to go now."
"I understand, but there's still something I need to ask you, and tell you." Mon Lon didn't risk waiting for Megu to agree. "From what you said, it sounded to me like you only gained these powers of yours recently. Is that right? They're not something you've worked and trained for all your life, are they?"
"Trained?" Megu echoed curiously, shaking her head. "How could anyone possibly train to do things like what you've seen me doing?" She heard Suigin Tou mutter something under her breath, but it was too faint to make out.
Mon Lon opted not to answer the question directly. "If you had gotten your power by spending your life working toward it in a slow, steady progression, there are many things you would have known already. Things you don't, that you need to. Tonight was enough to prove that, wasn't it?"
"I suppose so. Are you offering to tell me?" Apologies all around or not, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm in Megu's voice.
"No," Mon Lon replied, once again looking warily at Suigin Tou rather than the girl she was addressing. "I really need to get back to watching over Key, and there are many others in Nerima who would explain things better than I would. Here." The woman produced a business card and sent it sailing through the air toward Megu.
Suigin Tou barely managed to shake off the paralysis that had struck her on hearing a particular word. She caught the card an instant before it would have reached her medium. "Thank you, we will give this all due consideration. But you might want to run along now," she advised, gesturing toward the concert hall. "I can hear several of those humans' heartbeats growing dangerously faint. Almost as if someone were drawing too much of their life away."
Mon Lon bit off an extremely rude word in Mandarin and raced away. "Is that true, Suigin Tou?" Megu asked worriedly.
"Of course not," the First Doll replied. "Now let's go."
"Um... the business card?"
"Oh, right. I was forgetting that." Blue flames danced merrily through Suigin Tou's fingers, and the card was reduced to so much ash.
Megu blinked. "Ah... Angel-san?"
"Megu." Suigin Tou heaved a long, deep sigh, then floated around to stare into her medium's eyes. "Tonight has been very hard for me," she stated. "Anger, sorrow, joy, comfort, confusion, outrage, and then a nice jolt of terror to top it all off. I can't take anything more right now." Her gaze sharpened. "I have never asked you for anything before, Megu, but I am asking now. Please, never bring up Nerima again or ask me anything about it."
"What? But... I don't underst—" Megu cut herself off as she saw the desperation in Suigin Tou's eyes. "All right, Suigin Tou. I promise."
The First Doll heaved a long, shuddering sigh. "Thank you," she said. "Now let's go home."
"Mm." Megu rose into the air and glided away, with Suigin Tou beside her easily matching her pace.
They flew in silence for awhile, each lost in her own thoughts. Eventually Megu decided to share hers. "It's certainly been an eventful night, hasn't it?"
Suigin Tou merely grunted in reply.
"I'll be quiet if you really don't want to talk," Megu continued. "But I was wondering..."
"Wondering what?" Suigin Tou said semi-reluctantly, after it became obvious her medium wouldn't continue without being prompted.
"You said that in the end you decided the baseball game was a good thing. What do you think about tonight?"
The First Doll was quiet for a long stretch of time, so long Megu had almost given up on an answer by the time it came. "It was good. I wish you hadn't been hurt, though."
"And I wish I hadn't hurt Mima-san," Megu said, her voice nearly inaudible over the wind of their flight.
"Bah. She recovered quickly enough," Suigin Tou said dismissively. "What if you hadn't done what you did? All those who heard your songs tonight... it's true they wouldn't have known what they were missing if you weren't there. But that doesn't change how powerfully you touched them all."
"Maybe that does balance it out. It would be nice to think so," Megu said. "Still, I think there's something important I need to learn from this. Even kindness and good intentions can cause problems, if you think your own point of view is the be-all and end-all of truth."
"Perhaps so," Suigin Tou replied quietly, then fell silent again. For the first time since watching Megu stride off toward the stage, she let her thoughts drift back to the memories that had been awakened within her. "And maybe there are other lessons as well."
Author's Notes
The characters and concepts of Key the Metal Idol are owned by Hiroaki Sato and Studio Pierrot, not me. I did my best to write this so that knowledge of that series was unnecessary (although those who are familiar with it may catch one joke that those who aren't won't). And as Mon Lon is from Ranma ½, nor will she be the last such person who makes an appearance, I should also acknowledge that those characters and concepts are owned by Shogakuken, Viz Video, and Rumiko Takahashi.
Next chapter will give you one last sizeable chunk of pure-Rozen Maiden material, but the two chapters after that will be as crossed-over as this one, or even more so. Hopefully no-one minds too much. There's a good reason why I chose to include crossovers as such an integral part of my tale (a decision made way back when I first started writing Atmung), which I hope to make clear by the end of this story in chapter 5.
Omake (for those who don't know the term, it means that the following is not part of the official story):
Shinku gazed down at the small, brightly-wrapped package in her hand. She stared for a moment, then looked up into her sister's face. Back and forth, forth and back... All the while Suigin Tou waited patiently, hovering at eye-level with her Jusenkyo-touched sibling.
"You want to apologize," Shinku eventually managed, regarding Suigin Tou with her most intense scrutiny yet. She couldn't see a hint of the old hostility that had been there in the past, nor any of the emotions that the First Doll had often used to obscure it. All that she could find in Suigin Tou's gaze was a steady, sober determination.
"Yes," Suigin Tou answered. "To all of you." She gestured to Hina Ichigo, standing uncertainly next to a gift-wrapped package several times her size, then to Suisei Seki who was gingerly shaking a rectangular, suspiciously bookish-looking parcel. "To you in particular, Shinku. Please, go ahead and open that."
"All right," Shinku said, trying to keep any doubt out of her tone. With no further ado, she shucked off the paper, revealing a jewelry box a little larger than ring-size. She opened it... and gasped loudly enough to make Hina Ichigo jump.
The box slipped right through Shinku's nerveless fingers, but not for nothing had Jun survived a year at Furinkan High. He was merely a blur as he crossed the slight distance between him and Shinku, catching the object before it could fall six inches. He kept one wary eye on Suigin Tou as he stared into the box. It held a brooch similar to one he'd once tried to give to Shinku. She hadn't taken that gift well at all, but now...
"Is it a copy of the one that she used to have?" he asked Suigin Tou. "The one that you broke?"
"No," the First Doll answered calmly. "It's the very same brooch."
She let the thunderous silence stretch for a few moments, then continued. "Shinku kept most of the pieces, but she could never put them back together because she missed the two smallest fragments, left them behind in my dreamworld. I had to shovel five million cubic feet of snow to recover those, then retrieve the other pieces from where Shinku kept them hidden before I could finally make that repair." She turned back to face Shinku. "So there you have it, little sister. I wanted my apology to be something more than just words."
"I..." Shinku gulped, and blinked tears out of her eyes. "I don't know what to say," she whispered, stamping firmly down on the part of her that wanted to point out that she could hardly wear it as a human.
The sound of tearing paper provided a welcome distraction. Shinku and Jun turned to regard Hina Ichigo, who was no longer bothering to restrain herself. The Sixth Doll finished unwrapping her gift, and drew in a long, surprised breath. "Drums and cymbals?" she asked, staring at the full-fledged percussion set. Even as Jun watched, feeling a new twist of uncertainty in his gut, the surprise and confusion on her face began to shift into happy anticipation.
"Hee hee hee hee hee..." The muted cackling cut through the room like a scalpel through a slasher-flick victim. Hina Ichigo shivered reflexively but didn't look up from her newly-acquired bounty. Jun and Shinku, however, whipped their heads around to stare at Suisei Seki, who was grinning diabolically as she stared down at her unwrapped copy of 1001 Practical Jokes and Dirty Tricks.
They stood frozen for a long, long moment... then turned back to face Suigin Tou. Or rather, where Suigin Tou had been. A few black pinions drifted mockingly through the air, but that was all.
--
It was more than a little disconcerting to watch Suigin Tou browsing the Internet, Megu thought to herself. Especially since the Rozen Maiden avoided the problem of the too-large keyboard by typing with a wing rather than her hands. "Are you finding anything interesting, Angel-san?" she asked.
Suigin Tou chuckled darkly. "More than I could ever use," she said. "If I'd had a research tool like this from the beginning, things would have been very different indeed. So many bright pieces of insight, of inspiration; times when humans don't even know how smart they're being. Take this one for example." She gestured to a banner at the top of her current page, advertising a link to another site.
"I can't read English that well," Megu confessed. "What does it say?"
The First Doll grinned, an expression that put to shame anything Suisei Seki could manage. " 'Because you can do more evil if you do it legally'."