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.
Chapter 6: Winter Rose
'You'd think more than one flight of stairs would be needed to get from sub-rink four to sixteen,' Megu thought.
True though it was, the notion failed to accomplish its intended purpose of distracting her. She remained painfully aware of Suigin Tou, trailing along beside her with an expression of grim foreboding. 'She's really upset,' Megu thought sadly. 'Kanaria, why couldn't you have asked before doing something like that? And why didn't your medium talk some sense into you?'
Such concerns were unimportant now, she reminded herself, noting that Suigin Tou's hand was clenching and unclenching in a fist. That was a bad enough sign, but a moment later Megu spotted a worse one: the faintest hint of blue flames had begun to dance among the First Doll's feathers. 'This is going from bad to worse,' she thought with rising fear. Judging from the chatter of the girls they were following, this match was bound to have plenty of spectators. And given what she'd heard about Shinku's abilities, plus what she'd seen in Uryu's manga, if the Maidens got in a no-holds-barred fight that could all too easily mean plenty of collateral damage. 'I need to calm her down. How can I distract her from this? Come on, think!'
An idea popped into her mind. "Suigin Tou? Were you really there to see World War II?"
This at least brought the Maiden's focus onto her. "What? Where did that come from?"
"It's what I thought I saw when I was flipping through... the manga..." Megu grimaced, realizing that her 'distraction' could have used a little more planning. Forging quickly ahead, she continued, "I realized I've never taken advantage of the perspective you have, from living so long and seeing so many times and places. Can you tell me more?"
"Certainly I can," Suigin Tou replied sharply, as the girls rounded one last bend in the corridor and came within sight of a door marked 'Sub-Rink Sixteen'. "Ask me again when you really want to know, and aren't just trying to distract me."
Megu's shoulders sagged. "I just wanted to help you get a little less angry," she said.
"There's a time and a place for letting go of anger, and a time and place for indulging it to the fullest," the First Doll growled.
"Um. What if the time is right but the place isn't?"
Suigin Tou didn't reply. The girls ahead of them were now passing through the door. The Maiden darted forward hard on their heels, flying a little way into the room before stopping and looking around, presumably searching for her sister. Megu hurried after, wracking her brains for a distraction that would actually work. 'If I could somehow get into trouble, I'm sure she'd come to my rescue... but what kind of trouble could I manage that wouldn't lead to a fight anyway?'
She looked desperately around, scrambling for inspiration. This room was like the last in that it had a central rink surrounded by places to sit, but that was the extent of the similarities. Where their first stop had been flat as a plate, this enclosure was shaped like a shallow terraced bowl. The ice itself was eight feet lower than the area which encompassed it, and Megu could see doors in the eight-foot wall which opened directly onto the rink. The rest of the room was taken up by rows of seats, each of which rose a dozen inches higher than the last.
Despite what the other girls' chatter had led her to expect, there were far more seats than there were spectators present. The topmost four rows were completely empty. Curiously enough, so was the row that lay closest to the rink. Megu noticed that it was separated from the others by a thick purple velvet cord.
So far she wasn't seeing anything that could help her. 'Is there anyone here I know?' she thought, focusing on those people who were already present. A quick scan didn't reveal anyone she recognized. However, she was able to relax a little as she realized Shinku was nowhere to be seen yet... and as she took note of the demographics of the crowd, she finally had the beginnings of an idea.
The group of girls they'd come in with was the single largest cluster of females in the room. There were others scattered around in groups of two or three, but they were far outnumbered by the male contingent. It made sense, though, Megu supposed. Inexperienced though she might be, she certainly knew which gender was more likely than the other to ditch class in order to watch a fight.
A hiss of in-drawn breath from the doll next to her brought Megu back to immediate concerns. She quickly scanned the room again, breathing a sigh of relief when she still found no sign of any blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls. However, she saw that people on the far side of the room were now looking her way, and some, all of them boys Uryu's age or younger, had already left their seats and begun making their way around the room, broad smiles and hopeful looks on their faces. As they did so their passage triggered the notice of others, many of whom left their seats in turn.
The wave quickly spread to include half the people in the room, much to Megu's surprise and discomfort. 'Okay, it's true I was thinking about trying to provoke something like this to distract Suigin Tou,' she thought, doing her best not to panic as the ripple of approaching interest neared her. 'But I never thought they'd react so strongly just to seeing me! It wasn't nearly this bad last time! Although... I suppose 'bad' isn't really the right word...' Though she felt a little insulted by the age demographic of the approaching crowd. Only two or three of the young adults had left their seats; all the rest were people who were skipping high school—or even junior high!—to be present. The interest she'd experienced during her last visit was one thing, but she hadn't had a clue until now that so many Nerima boys had such enthusiasm for older women.
As the ends of the wave met at the seats directly in front of her and the people there turned to look behind them, she summoned up her courage. 'Be kind, be pleasant, don't show fear or let them overwhelm you. Let Suigin Tou see that I could use her help in dealing with this but I don't need her to actually start throwing attacks.' Taking a deep breath, Megu strode forward as confidently as she could to meet the approaching adolescent tide.
When it surged right past her, that confidence was replaced abruptly by disbelief.
"Suigin Tou! I knew you didn't mean it when you said you were never coming back!"
"Don't be an idiot, Toshi, she's not here to waste her time on—"
"Maiden-chan, after this match is over, would you please—"
"—don't want to bother with these weaklings. Let me—"
"—to my place and sign my copies of—"
"—so selfish, you loser! Suigin Tou, if you'll come with me—"
"—remember me from last time... you know I'm not like the—"
"—found a place with the most beautiful black roses you—"
"—get my uncle to make a copper-wire sculpture of you! He—"
"—started learning the Air style; someday I'll be able to fly with—"
"—cousin's girlfriend's aunt is psychic... we might be able to contact—"
"—happy just to create something so beautiful, and I'd be happy to—"
"I'M NOT DEALING WITH THIS TODAY!!"
Just before the crowd could enclose her, Suigin Tou moved. The echoes of her shriek were still resounding as she zipped backward to the doorway. An instant later her wings were spread wider than Megu had ever seen, extending thirty feet in either direction and eight feet broad at their thickest points. The menacing pose was enough to bring the crowd to a jostling halt, though the hopeful yearning looks on their faces and the tension in their postures made Megu suspect the standoff wouldn't last long.
She was correct. A moment later the crowd began falling like scythed wheat, boys collapsing left and right. Megu heaved a sigh of relief, followed immediately afterward by a surprised double-take. Not only were the boys not being knocked out by flying feathers, or indeed by any visible attack, from the expression on Suigin Tou's face whatever was felling them was hidden from her as well.
"Tch! What a show-off."
The disgusted comment came from behind Megu. She turned just in time to catch a glimpse of an older guy, one who unlike the crowd had not hurried in his approach. That changed in an instant as he blurred past her, moving fast enough that her hair whipped about in a momentary breeze. He reached the part of the crowd that hadn't yet been affected by the invisible assault and launched his own attacks, his hands striking quick, precise blows to the back of the neck which knocked their targets instantly unconscious.
Between the unseen force and the visible assailant, the crowd was quickly reduced to a pile of slumbering bodies. The nameless boy walked a little closer to Suigin Tou, but stopped before he'd crossed a third of the distance she'd put between her and the horde. "I hope you didn't want to deal with them yourself," he said, offering a deep bow. "If it had been up to me I'd have waited a little longer before jumping in, to see if you really wanted that."
"You are so full of it, Kenji." The level of disgust in this comment dwarfed the last one Megu had overheard. She quickly looked around, but couldn't find whoever had spoken. For that matter, she couldn't even identify from which direction the voice sounded like it had come.
"I don't recall giving you permission to call me by my first name, Holcroft-san," Kenji snapped, looking fruitlessly around as well.
"I don't recall needing it. And if you crowd any closer to Suigin Tou, I'll put you to sleep as well."
The doll in question took that as her cue to speak up. "Thank you ever so much for the solicitude," she said sarcastically, "but one person 'crowding' me is less disconcerting than a voice out of nowhere."
"I'm sorry." There did seem to be genuine regret in the boy's tone. "I didn't think you would have any trouble sensing me. I'm over here." Megu blinked as the last sentence finally came from a discernable location—a seat clear on the opposite side of the room, from which a young man had just stood up. He waved at them, then his form shimmered and vanished, reappearing an instant later a few steps closer to Suigin Tou than Kenji was.
Megu looked at the newcomer with interest, comparing and contrasting him to the earlier arrival. There was nothing remarkable about Kenji's appearance. The closest he came were his clothes: black pants and brown shirt of mid-to-low quality with no frills whatsoever, loose-fitting to allow complete freedom of movement but with sleeves and pants-cuffs tight against his wrists and ankles. In other words, an outfit that would not mesh well in most of Tokyo but was perfectly acceptable for Nerima. His eyes were brown, his short-cut hair was black, and he was about the same height as Megu. She thought he was a bit more muscular than Uryu had been, but not by much.
However, it was clear at a glance that the mysterious 'Holcroft-san' came from somewhere far from the Home Islands. His eyes were green and his hair a curly ash-blonde, which brushed the air six feet above the ground. His pants and turtleneck sweater were of far higher quality than Kenji's. He was dressed much more warmly than most people in the rink, which piqued Megu's curiosity—after the abilities he'd already displayed, surely warding off a simple chill wasn't any difficulty?
Her curiosity deepened as she looked at his hands. They were as soft as her own... and although she had met many people in her previous visit to Nerima ward, that hadn't been true for anyone who could possibly be considered extraordinary. 'Akane warned me that some people might resent it, how I was given a chance at power which didn't take the kind of effort and sacrifice that's usually needed,' she remembered. 'I wonder if something like that happened to him as well?'
Unaware or uncaring of Megu's scrutiny, the foreigner offered Suigin Tou an awkward bow. "My name is William Holcroft," he said. "And if you tell me to leave, I will. But—"
"Good," Kenji interrupted. "Then leave alr—"
William spared him an irritated glance, at which point sound ceased to escape from Kenji's still-moving lips. He turned back to Suigin Tou and continued, "But I would greatly appreciate the chance to become acquainted with you, Daughter of Rozen."
This, Megu noted, was enough to earn him the first non-hostile response she'd seen her angel offer to any male in Nerima. Suigin Tou drew a sharp breath and abandoned her back-against-the-wall position, shrinking her wings and flying closer to him. " 'Daughter of Rozen'? Do you know something about Father?"
"I'm afraid not," William answered regretfully, shaking his head. "At least, I don't know anything other than what I learned by reading your story... and now by seeing how beautiful his work really is..."
Megu stared in wonder at the sight before her. 'Is she... she is! She's actually blushing!'
Kenji might have been rendered mute, but he clearly had not been deafened as well. His face was a far darker red than the delicate flush coloring Suigin Tou's cheeks. For that matter, even the air around him seemed to be taking on a reddish tinge. Megu recognized it as an expanding battle aura an instant before whatever William had done unraveled, allowing her to once again hear Kenji's tightly-controlled breaths. "Try that again and you'll be sorry," he growled.
"I'm already sorry," William retorted. "Sorry I didn't just teleport you twenty miles away."
"You Americans and your damned arrogance," Kenji spat. "Just because you stumbled onto a different set of disciplines. Esper powers, psionics, whatever! It's all just chi."
"One hundred and thirty years of learning might not stack up very well against three thousand, but we're well beyond 'stumbling' these days," William declared. He deliberately turned his back on Kenji and addressed Suigin Tou once more. "You don't seem amused by this posturing, so I'll stop now. Would you please honor me by sitting with me to watch the upcoming match?"
"Well, Suigin Tou, if you think there's even a chance you might want to, I guess you'd better take it." Kenji's voice was no friendlier, but it had gone from furious to controlled, with an edge he could have shaved with. "Opportunities like that... why, they'll be gone almost before you know it."
The First Doll cocked her head to one side, staring at him in confusion. Megu felt the same way. He couldn't possibly have sunk so far as to threaten Suigin Tou, could he? He wasn't even looking her way; his eyes were still riveted on William's back.
The young man in question stiffened, before slowly turning around again. "What... was... that?"
Kenji smirked nastily. "I thought she ought to know what's down the road, just a couple of steps for someone like her. You'll be lucky to last a measly seventy years longer... mayfly."
It was clear that Kenji had finally managed to get beneath his adversary's skin. William was trembling, his jaw clenched and his hands balled up into fists. "Are you sure you want to throw that in my face?" he snarled. "My powers may be useless for boosting my own health, but they're more than enough to flatten you!"
The red glow sprang back into life around Kenji, much brighter than before. The seething energy extended a good sixteen inches out from his body in all directions. "Not this time," the Japanese boy spat. "Your tricks can't reach through this. Keep it up and I'll smack you down here and now. Suigin Tou can have a nice warm-up demonstration of what kind of power and skill are really worth having."
"I'd be glad to show her that," William retorted, his tone even darker than Kenji's. "And Koryu-san? Here's a demonstration for you, too—if I can touch all the space around your aura at once, then it's as inadequate as the rest of you!"
Before Megu's astonished eyes the entire scene before her shimmered, just like William's form in the moment after she first glimpsed it. And, like that moment, the shimmering figures were replaced by empty air.
The disappearance of the boys was no cause for concern, but that they'd taken Suigin Tou with them...
Just as Megu began sliding from 'astonished' to 'worried', the air in front of her wavered again. The effect was much smaller this time, since the only one being transported was a two-foot-tall, black-winged, usually-elegant doll. Suigin Tou's clothes were as beautiful as ever, but the tight, harried look on her face and the tension in her posture were a far cry from elegant. "How did you come back without a mirror or some other kind of portal?" Megu asked, letting out a relieved breath.
"I simply reversed... whatever it was that he did to carry me from here to there," Suigin Tou said. The First Doll gave a grimace and a shiver, and her voice sank lower and lower as she continued. "It was... I think... I'm almost sure it was an N-field manipulation... but it was like nothing I've ever felt before... I almost wanted to stay and ask him how it was done..."
"Why didn't he follow you back?"
"Why do you think? I knocked both of them unconscious from behind once we arrived in that vacant lot."
"I see. You know, it would have been okay to stay and watch them fight over you," Megu gently teased.
"NO! No, it wouldn't!" Suigin Tou protested. Drawing a few ragged scraps of composure together, she looked around the room. "In any case, where the hell is Shinku?"
"Still not here yet, I suppose. Probably she's waiting with Jun, giving him some pre-fight encouragement." Megu started as she took note of something across the room, missing the way her final words caused Suigin Tou to blanch. A door had just opened, admitting a new group of people—one of them a girl she recognized. "I see someone over there I know," she said. "Let's go ask her if she knows where Jun and Shinku might be."
"Fine with me!" Suigin Tou paused just long enough to determine where Megu was looking, then zipped briskly away. She chose to follow the wall of the room rather than sail across the empty air at its center, preferring not to draw more attention to herself.
The First Doll had passed three doors and covered two thirds of the distance to her target when the final portal ahead of her opened. This time there were two newcomers—a densely-muscled young man in his early twenties, and a boy with a strong family resemblence who stood waist-high to him and clutched at his hand. To Megu's eyes the kid looked ordinary enough, but his older brother's outfit made it clear that he was either a specialist or pretending to be one. He was dressed in clothing even heavier than William's had been, and he bore several bowling-ball-sized canvas-wrapped parcels on his back. He wore a double-crossed bandolier from which hung small cloth pouches, and a belt which held a few larger ones.
All in all, Megu thought it was a safe bet that he was the reason Suigin Tou had skidded to a stop, rather than his little brother.
In what was fast becoming a familiar response, the young man's eyes widened and a smile spread over his face. "Suigin T—"
"YEARRRGH!" the First Doll shrieked, sending a blitzkrieg of feathers his way. Megu quickly threw power forward in an invisible shield over the child, but realized an instant later that she needn't have bothered. Even in her distress, Suigin Tou had made sure that the entirety of her attack was focused on the intended target.
Fortunately for the target in question, Suigin Tou was a good ten feet away. He had plenty of time to dart forward, shielding his little brother with his body, and then to shield that body in turn with a defensive countermeasure. He swept one arm backward as a parcel on his back burst open, releasing glittering strands which gathered around his hand. Whipping them forward, he formed a tall, wide plane of what looked like clear glass, save that it didn't shatter or scar when Suigin Tou's feathers impacted against it. Rather, the projectiles sank into the material to be trapped there like insects in amber, migrating slowly away from the section receiving the attack toward untouched areas.
The young man just stood there and took the assault rather than launching any counterstrikes. Eventually, when the shield had swallowed as many feathers as it could, the remaining ones began to bounce harmlessly off rather than become trapped. Shortly after this Suigin Tou appeared to run out of steam. She relinquished the attack and hung there in midair, panting quietly and giving the young man a wary eye.
"I'm sorry if I startled you, Suigin Tou," he ventured after a few silent moments ticked past. When she didn't lash out his expression grew a little less worried. "Please, let me make it up to you."
The First Doll twitched but didn't launch another offensive... which was all the encouragement he needed. Reaching behind him, he drew more vitreous streamers into one hand. With his other he touched the shield in front of him, which sagged from its former shape into an amorphous puddle. He stared appraisingly at this for a moment, after which it suddenly expelled a number of the feathers trapped inside it. After this the puddle split in three, one glob just big enough to hold seven feathers, a mid-sized ball which retained the rest of them, and another free of any inclusions.
Now he brought the new streamers forward, gathering them on the ground before him into that clear mass. It rippled and rose up from the ground, rapidly gaining shape and definition. The larger feather-filled puddle flowed onto this shape, touching it but not quite joining with it, climbing upwards even as the main shape grew legs, reaching the shoulders just as the arms separated from the torso, splitting in two and flaring outward even as the fine details began to coalesce across the body. In a matter of moments, the statue perfectly mimicked Suigin Tou, save that its wings were formed of more than just feathers. There was actual vitreous 'tissue' there, holding the glass-frosted feathers perfectly in place in a pose more impressive than the real Maiden's resting state.
Save for the darkness of the wings, the statue was perfectly clear. However, the artisan wasn't finished yet. He stared down at the remaining free blob of glass with a look of fierce concentration. As Megu watched, the seven feathers within it blurred, then disintegrated, leaving nothing but spreading inky blackness which rendered the glass as dark as the deepest night.
The young man picked this up with one hand. With the other he gathered powders from the pouches slung along his chest and belt—indigo, lavender, a fistful of white, red, blue, even a hint of yellow and a pinch of green. He dropped them one after another into the statue, keeping the black glass separate for the moment. Under his piercing stare, the colors spread and mixed as if by magic. Once this was done he brought the final piece in to join the rest, and the statue of Suigin Tou was complete.
Megu stared at it in awe. True, none of the other colors were as vibrant as the black where it appeared on the Maiden's gown, shoes, and hairband, and it was also true that the image of Suigin Tou had her eyes closed and her hands folded in a more peaceful, happier expression than Megu had ever seen from her angel. But for all that, the work was beautiful enough to do justice to the one who'd pulled her from the chill grasp of death. "That's amazing," she breathed.
"It's my gift to you, Suigin Tou," the young man said. "I know it's not—"
"Big Brotherrr!" The whining screech cut through his soft tone like a buzzsaw through butter. All present jumped and whipped their eyes around to stare at the forgotten little boy. He was now standing in a pose of righteous indignation, with his nose crinkled, his lower lip sticking out, and his arms crossed over his scrawny chest. "The last time you made a statue that big, it sold for more than my allowance for a whole year! You can't just give it to some spoiled little brat!"
Megu and Suigin Tou alike gaped at this. "Spoiled... little... brat...?" the First Doll echoed. If she was upset at the epithet, she didn't show it.
"Yeah! You're not even as big as I am! You don't need something like this! Hiro, just make her a pacifier or a blankie or somethmmmff!"
At the word 'blankie', Hiro broke free of his paralysis, darted over, and snaked a desperate arm around his sibling's shoulders. What looked like a flexible length of glittering cloth writhed its way out of his sleeve, forming a gag over the mouth of the tot in question. The boy pulled at it for a few moments after Hiro let go, achieving exactly nothing, then gave up and fixed his elder brother with a withering glare.
The expression went unnoticed, as Hiro was too busy giving Suigin Tou an apologetic look. "I'm really sorry about that. Younger siblings can be a pain, can't they?"
"Yes. Yes they can," the First Doll replied, seemingly in spite of herself. Megu even detected a faint, reluctant smile on her lips.
She coughed gently, then stepped forward. "Suigin Tou, would you introduce me?"
Judging by the way Suigin Tou started, Megu almost thought that she'd been forgotten entirely. "What? I, er, yes," the Maiden said. "Megu, this is Hiroto Kuppohari, heir to the school of Martial Arts Glassblowing. Glassblower-san, this is my medium, Megu Kakizaki."
"It's an honor to meet you, Kakizaki-san," Hiro said. Then returning his gaze to Suigin Tou and turning his smile up a few degrees, he continued, "And it's truly an honor to see you remembered my name. Please, you can use it if you like."
Suigin Tou twitched, but didn't otherwise acknowledge the invitation as she continued, "I'm not sure if you've read that infuriating manga which put my story out there for all the world to see," she twitched again when Hiro nodded, "or how much detail it gives. In any case, Megu is not just my medium. She's the best friend I've ever had, my beautiful, kind, gentle friend who spent seventeen years in a hospital and is now eager to learn about what life really can be. She was the one who wanted to come here today, not I. She has told me how kind and noble everyone here has been to her, and proved to me that her mind is made up—Nerima and its people are something she wants in her life. Now... perhaps you'd like to say something more to her than just 'it's an honor to meet you'?"
For the first time that day, a man turned his entire attention to Megu. "Kakizaki-san, it's obvious that Suigin Tou thinks highly of you," Hiro said, regarding her with a smile as bright as any he'd bestowed on Suigin Tou. "Would you consider doing me a great favor?"
"What favor would that be?" Megu asked, noting out of the corner of her eye that Suigin Tou finally seemed to be relaxing.
"Give me your blessing to date with her," Hiro said earnestly.
With a thunk that was nowhere near as loud as it should have been, the First Doll dropped facefirst to the ground below.
Megu allowed herself a smile. 'A swarm of fifty boys is one thing, but if she can't even handle one... well, that's simply not right. Time for a learning experience, Angel-san.' Aloud, she said, "Well, I don't know, Hiro-kun. Are you sure about that? As you've seen for yourself, she can be clumsy, short-tempered, unwilling to reveal what she's really thinking..."
"Strong enough to overcome a horribly painful beginning," he retorted, "courageous enough to set aside centuries of loneliness, kind enough to care again after caring earned her horrible pain... yes, Kakizaki-san, I'm quite certain."
"That's good to hear," Megu replied with a grin, resolutely ignoring the still-gagged child feigning nausea off to one side. "Well, then how could I say n—"
"MEGU, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Sugin Tou shrieked, pulling herself off the floor and into the air.
"I'm just answering the question you told him to ask me," Megu said as innocently as she could.
"But... but... you..." The Maiden released a shriek of frustration. "Can this day get any worse?!" she demanded of the heavens.
"Suigin Tou." Hiro's voice came calm and steady, though a hint of tension was evident behind the words. When the Rozen Maiden turned to glare at him, he gestured to the statue. "Like I already said, this is a gift to you. If you don't want it, just smash it, and I'll leave you in peace."
The room couldn't truly be quiet, since it had many people carrying on their own conversations and paying no attention to the drama occurring off to one side. Nevertheless, it seemed to Megu, and to everyone nearby who was focused on said drama, that his words left a hushed stillness behind them. The First Doll regarded her likeness with a stare as intense as a searchlight, one wing twitching, twisting, alternately growing longer and shrinking back to its resting length...
...Then the impasse was broken as Suigin Tou tossed her head angrily. "Bah! Idiot!" she said, her nose in the air and her eyes closed. "How could I destroy it? It would be like I was breaking myself; you made it look exactly like me!"
"Actually, the wing structure is more like a bird's wing, not just a mass of feathers," Megu said helpfully. "And the face doesn't have those crinkles under the eyes that you have, Suigin Tou. And it's at least three inches taller than y—"
"Megu, you're NOT HELPING!"
"On the contrary," came an amused voice from off to one side. "I think she's being quite helpful indeed."
Suigin Tou jerked, then stiffened so dramatically that she seemed to be trying to outdo her crystalline likeness for rigidity. For her part Megu whirled around, her gaze finding and scrutinizing the newcomer.
The girl was shorter than her by about an inch. She wore a pale pink blouse and blue pants which fairly screamed 'quality', but the curves beneath them were noticeably less pronounced than Megu's. Her bust in particular was nothing like what might be expected from a blonde-haired, blue-eyed gaijin. Her hands were slim, delicate, and well-cared-for, but a glance was enough to reveal to Megu the faint calluses and battle-scars that were the norm for Nerima's power players. She wore her hair in a single golden braid which reached nearly to the floor, a queue broken at intervals by crimson ties which looked like twisted rose petals.
That last detail barely gave Megu enough confidence to hazard a guess. "Are you... Shinku?"
"I am." The girl opened her mouth to say more, but was cut off.
"Of course she is," Suigin Tou rasped. Her fists were clenched and trembling, and she hadn't yet turned to face her sister. Although Megu couldn't see any blue flames hiding in the shadow of her wings, the First Doll nonetheless emanated a sense of rising danger and dread. No longer feeling even the least bit playful, Megu stepped carefully to one side. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Mei Mei zip around the statue, which disappeared to safety along with the nachtgeist.
Suigin Tou, who had been staring directly at this sight, didn't react at all. "How could it not be Shinku?" she continued. "How could she possibly not turn up at just the wrong moment?"
Then she whirled around, her face splitting with an unholy grin. "Except it wasn't the wrong moment at all. Not when I've got this much frustration to work out!" With no more warning than that, the First Doll launched a storm of feathers that dwarfed her earlier attack on Hiroto.
It would be weeks before Megu understood what happened next.
Suigin Tou's offensive was a typhoon of power, an overwhelming force aimed just carefully enough not to hit anyone other than Shinku. Any thought that the First Doll might be paying attention to the paths of individual feathers would have been ridiculous, even ludicrous.
Thus, when Shinku launched a counterstorm of crimson rose petals, an attack fully as powerful as her elder sister's and each petal aimed precisely enough to knock one feather to the ground, the First Doll was shocked into utter immobility.
It was all the opening Shinku needed. She smiled and launched another wave, this time sending petals streaming from both hands. By far the largest concentration of petals came from her right hand, and instead of being red they were now white. Her left sprayed a comparatively tiny portion of the old, familiar crimson petals.
In three heartbeats, it was done. The petals coated Suigin Tou's wings and gown, obscuring their true forms entirely. Her wings now appeared as white and fluffy as an angel's from the sappiest greeting card imaginable, while her dress and legs were shrouded in the guise of a white robe. The reason for the crimson petals was made apparent there... they formed two big hearts on the bodice of the robe, along with the word 'Cupid' written underneath.
Suigin Tou stared in horror at her new outfit, then sank to the floor and collapsed. "Kill... me... now," she whispered.
"Ah... Shinku-san..." this was Megu, speaking through twitching lips. "While I admit I'm having a hard time not screaming for someone to lend me a camera..." She took a deep breath, and managed to force the smile away as she finished, "Don't you think that's a bit much?"
"No, I do not," the Maiden replied. "Surely it's allowed for me to tease my sister a little when I see a man flirting with her."
"Yes, but this teasing wasn't for just one m—"
"Megu, SHUT UP!" Suigin Tou shrieked.
"Not just one man?" Shinku asked with an arched eyebrow. "What do you..." Her voice trailed off as her gaze tracked in the direction Megu indicated, finally traveling far enough to notice the swath of unconscious boys. "Oh dear," she said with a sigh. "Hiroto, please excuse us." With no further ado, she walked over and picked Suigin Tou up by the scruff of the neck. The First Doll hung as limp in her grasp as Suisei Seki had once hung in Jun's, after the Gardener had been demoralized by her oldest sister. There might be some karmic lesson there, Shinku thought to herself, but contemplating it would have to wait.
"Come along, Megu," she said as she strode toward the roped-off row of seats closest to the rink. These were no longer empty; a girl with deep green hair was seated there on the far side of the room, opposite the point toward which Shinku headed. "You are technically Jun's apprentice, and Suigin Tou will be his sister-in-law. That entitles you to rinkside seats along with Lin Su and myself."
"Ah... all right," Megu replied, hurrying to catch up. 'Is she always this abrupt?' She reached the designated row a moment later, paused for a moment to wave to Mousse's wife, then turned back to regard Shinku. The sometime-Maiden was producing a new flood of crimson petals with the hand not holding Suigin Tou. These compacted into a cushion which she put onto the seat between her and Megu, then placed Suigin Tou on top of it. To Megu's growing alarm, her angel just sat apathetically through this.
She sat down next to Suigin Tou and began brushing the white petals off her. "You aren't using these things to control her, are you?" she asked, glancing suspiciously at Shinku.
"Of course not."
"Why would she need to do that?" the First Doll said bitterly. "All she had to do was slap down my attack like an adult with an unruly child." She turned to glare at Shinku. "I'm getting damnably tired of being overpowered by you."
"Well, you will have to learn to live with it," Shinku said evenly. "I've heard that you and Sousei Seki have met a few times to spar, in the hopes of growing stronger. That is a fine start, but it's nothing compared to the life I live. Nerima provides a place where I can fight without hurting anyone—and without the history that we sisters have, which makes it all but impossible to do that among ourselves."
"All but impossible?" Suigin Tou protested. "I haven't hurt Sousei Seki at all!"
Shinku stared evenly back at her. "You mean you haven't caused physical damage to her body."
"Tch! Whatever," Suigin Tou said angrily, looking away. "I suppose it's no surprise, that you also would have me give myself to this place."
"I am merely saying that if you do not, you haven't a hope of catching up to me," Shinku replied. "As you are now, even Jun could defeat you."
Suigin Tou's jaw was still dangling in shock when the doors in the rink opened to admit two figures onto the ice. Megu's attention shifted back and forth between the two. Mousse, the Master of Hidden Weapons, stood tall and proud, his eyes hidden behind incredibly thick glasses and his form covered by a long white robe over black pants. Instead of skates he wore modified snowshoes, fitted with small metal spikes to allow him to walk normally on the ice.
Across from him, wearing traditional skates and eyeing his opponent's footwear unhappily, was Jun Sakurada. He wore glasses as well, though his eyes could be seen behind them. He stood a few inches taller than his Amazon adversary, and wore clothes that rivaled Shinku's for quality. Certainly they were finer than anything Megu had seen anyone wear to a fight.
The room fell silent. The two young men bowed to each other, and the battle was on.
Jun settled into a ready stance, watching Mousse carefully and waiting for him to make the first move. The Master of Hidden Weapons obliged, circling a few steps to one side then quickly lashing out with a yo-yo that was five times regulation size. Jun dodged with an unnecessarily flashy move, his skates kicking up a fine spray of ice crystals. His dodge took him out of the yo-yo's path by a good three feet. As it whistled past on his left he lashed out with his hand, around which Megu could just make out a distortion of summoned power. His hand didn't reach the yo-yo string, but the cord snapped anyway.
Mousse cursed and charged, pulling out a long staff as he came. Jun skated forward to meet him. Wood and flesh collided as Jun intercepted the incoming staff with the edge of his hand, stealing the force of the strike and translating it into a harmless speed increase for him. He spun in a tight curve, kicking up another spray of crystals, and came around behind Mousse faster than the boy could turn on his snowshoes.
Mousse's choice of footwear had one serious advantage, however—the tradeoff in mobility for stability made it easy for him to jump. And jump he did, leaving the ground as soon as he recognized his opponent's tactic. The medium-power strike Jun launched toward Mousse's back impacted instead on his leg, and as Mousse was airborne it did no damage at all. In fact, it was his turn to steal momentum and direction from his adversary's attack, letting the blow spin him down toward Jun. As he approached one hundred eighty degrees of inversion, his staff lashed out for Jun's shoulder.
The younger boy grimaced and simply took the hit, which landed with force enough to catapult Mousse twenty feet into the air. This time the flicker of Jun's power was much more obvious to Megu's eyes, and she assumed—correctly—that he'd used it to keep himself from suffering any damage. 'He's certainly more impressive than the last time I saw him. But if he could shrug off any number of strikes, he wouldn't be fighting like this,' she thought, watching as Jun failed to rush forward toward Mousse's landing site. 'He's bound to have more strength than me, but how much more? Is it even possible to cancel a blow as powerful as that without burning a lot of your own power?'
Those questions were nothing compared to her curiosity about Mousse's actions so far. 'I watched him win two challenge matches,' she thought as Mousse descended from his flight, spreading his arms and somehow using the billowing of his sleeves to slow his progress over the last five feet to a leisurely glide. As he touched down, Jun began skating around the Chinese man in a circle. Mousse returned the staff to who-knew-where and sank down into a tight, focused stance. He didn't try to match his opponent's rotation, but rather kept stable while following Jun's path with his eyes for as much of the arc as he could. Apparently he was content to watch until his opponent changed tactics, which was more than Megu could fathom. 'This is nothing like what he did then! Those boys' fighting styles had nothing in common with each other, but he approached them the same way. Why not now? Why isn't he launching a hundred weights on chains, to try and snare Jun? Is he just going easy on him? He only threw that one yo-yo at the very beginning of the match...'
Then she blinked, as a new question occurred to her. "And where is that yo-yo, anyway?" she wondered aloud.
"Where indeed," Shinku commented, with a hint of smugness.
Megu blinked, then turned to face the shorter girl. "What do you mean?"
A gasp from Suigin Tou pulled her attention back to the rink. On the ice, Jun still zipped around Mousse in the same circular path... but a second copy of him was present as well, skating directly toward Mousse from behind.
Mousse didn't turn around, or even shift his footing. He simply produced his staff once more and jabbed it behind him, at the exact moment when the approaching Jun closed within striking distance. The image rippled and dispersed, revealing a tight-woven distortion of power that had been hidden inside the façade.
An instant later this dispersed as well—but it did so with an explosive bang that lifted Mousse clear off his feet and flung him through the air. He barely managed to control his flight enough to land on his feet rather than his face. That measure of recovery took all his attention, and as such he was completely unprepared when the real Jun smashed into him an instant later, getting in three good hits which knocked Mousse off his feet once more.
This time he didn't try to land on them. He twisted in midair, his hands disappearing briefly inside his robes, then reappearing covered in heavy gloves. Like the snowshoes, these apparently provided more than enough traction against the ice, as Mousse was able to turn his tumble into a controlled handspring. This brought him to his feet and back on the attack just a bit quicker than Jun was prepared for. The Japanese boy barely managed to deflect Mousse's full-strength punch, turning the force into motion as he zipped away on his skates.
Mousse didn't push the attack. "Nicely done," he said. "I figured you were just hoping I wouldn't sense your copy. I never expected it would blow up in my face like that, such a powerful explosion and yet it didn't damage the rink at all. A very nice revision of the Splitting Cat Hairs, Sakurada."
"Thanks," Jun said, gliding slowly back and forth twenty feet away from his opponent. "Shinku and I worked hard on that one." He grinned. "By the way, she'd want me to tell you the move should now be called Splitting Golden Hairs."
Mousse snorted. "And I know a few people who'd tell her she's about a hundred years too early to be renaming Amazon techniques."
"He's right, you know," Suigin Tou pronounced. "By the time you earn a right like that, you'll have worn that body down to a shriveled shadow with only the memory of golden hair."
"Not before I'm tiny, wrinkled, and white-haired, you say?" her sister countered. "Well then, Suigin Tou, perhaps you could do it instead, so I don't have to wait."
Back on the ice, Jun had failed to come up with a retort cleverer than "Mm." He was skating faster now, and his pace was still increasing. With a twist he transformed his path from a simple loop to a figure eight, and then again to a four-leafed clover. An afterimage peeled away from him, following in his wake, then another and another. The Juns then shifted course again, maintaining their formation, but now the cloverleaf was moving slowly around on the ice.
Mousse opted not to wait until his opponent launched an attack. The Chinese man suddenly whipped one hand forward, producing a thick chain out of his sleeve. It coiled and struck as if it were alive, sundering two images of Jun before encountering the real one. Jun grinned and intercepted it with one hand, around which Megu could make out the same kind of distortion that had been there when he dealt with the yo-yo. It was much stronger this time. That wasn't the only difference, either—the yo-yo's string had parted effortlessly, but the chain merely gave off a few sparks at the point of contact, continuing unimpeded to wrap around the shocked Sakurada. With a grin of his own Mousse whipped him into the air.
"WaaAAuuUUUggHH!" Jun's cry dopplered around the room as he swung in dizzying circles, twisting and contorting to try and slip free. His efforts were fruitless. Mousse kept the chain and its passenger spinning for thirty seconds, an interval which felt much longer to the breathless audience and his hapless opponent. At last he graciously released the tension on the chain, allowing Jun to slip free and drop bonelessly to the ice below. The Sakurada boy caught himself at the last moment and managed a shaky landing on his feet. The ring on his finger blazed with momentary brilliance, returning color to his face and steadiness to his posture as Mousse pulled the chain all the way back into his sleeve.
Mousse just smiled and began circling his opponent, each pass bringing him a little closer to Jun. "I thought so. You can't do anything to a weapon if I focus that much chi into it."
Jun took one last deep breath, then returned a smile of his own as he began skating a course to match Mousse's. "I wouldn't say that..."
"Oh, no?"
"No. If I try really hard, I might manage to hide something inside one of the links." With no more warning than that, Jun dug his skates into the ice and blazed toward Mousse.
The Amazon froze for a split second, then raced backward and to the side as his hands disappeared inside his robes.
If he'd been carrying only one chain, he might have been fast enough. But the Master of Hidden Weapons had more than a hundred of them up his sleeves, and while he could bring any or all to hand in an instant, he couldn't pick out one that was no different from the rest except having been most recently used.
Jun's sneak attack detonated bare heartbeats later. A ripple of energy distorted the chi warp that held the Amazon's massive stores of weaponry and other supplies. His robes tore in a thousand places as swords, spears, flails, chains, chairs, changes of clothing, spare pairs of glasses, and countless other items exploded outward, littering the ice with enough items to supply a small pawn shop.
Mousse blurted something in Mandarin that had three of the four rinkside girls jumping in their seats. Megu, who didn't speak that language, just watched in ever-increasing puzzlement as he scrambled desperately to grab items and return them to storage. His speed eclipsed what she'd seen from Kenji, but with the sheer number of dropped items there was no way for him to gather even a quarter of them before Jun was upon him.
And yet, Jun didn't attack. He altered his course at the last minute, buzzing by the outskirts of Mousse's field of detritus, dodging easily by the Amazon's staff strike.
Megu blinked and rubbed her eyes. "Am I imagining things?" she wondered. A swath of items had disappeared from the field, and she was certain Mousse hadn't managed to reclaim them.
"No," Shinku said smugly. "It will not be long now."
Jun made a tight one hundred eighty degree turn and zipped back toward Mousse, aiming to pass on the opposite side of the still-sizeable pile of equipment.
This time, though, Mousse had a better answer than the staff. His hands disappeared inside his sleeves, then reappeared holding a dagger and a large cloth pouch. He threw the latter followed an instant later by the former. The pouch travelled two-thirds of the way to Jun before the blade caught up with it, rupturing it and releasing a flash of light bright enough to blind everyone in the room.
Suigin Tou forced her vision to recover instantly. She derived a bit of spiteful satisfaction on noting that Shinku took a few seconds longer—just as long as Megu, in fact.
It was obvious that Jun wasn't doing so well... hardly a surprise, considering how much closer he'd been to the source. He was still on his feet, but he'd crouched down and was rubbing desperately at his eyes. Her enhanced vision could make out faint, otherwise-invisible ripples that formed a latticework cage around him. Spending the power to create that defensive measure hadn't been a good idea, though; Mousse was ignoring him entirely, in favor of gathering up the rest of his equipment. As if to add insult to injury, he even took the time to sprinkle the ice with salt as he removed some of the larger pieces. "Now that is style," she murmured.
"Pardon?" Shinku asked frostily.
"With his footwear he doesn't have to worry about gouges or pits in the ice. But they would play havoc with your precious medium's skates. So he's melting the damaged zones and letting them re-freeze into unblemished ice. What a kind, magnanimous gesture to a thoroughly outclassed opponent," Suigin Tou said, her tone practically dripping sunshine and rainbows. "It's obvious he isn't the one who's been trained by you, Shinku."
The golden-haired girl gazed stonily back at her. "In challenge matches held here, significantly damaging the rink results in automatic defeat. Since it was Mousse's technique that failed, the fault would lie with him. He's merely recovering from one facet of Jun's attack."
"Well, at least that makes sense," Megu said. "But I don't understand anything else about why he's fought like this."
Shinku smiled. "You will soon enough."
"Flash powder... does that even count as a martial arts technique?" Jun grumbled, his vision and poise finally recovered.
Mousse cocked his head to the side and raised one eyebrow. "Sakurada, do you really want to imply that something which isn't, is not okay to use?"
Despite himself, Jun grinned ruefully. "I guess not." He shook his head... and then went from relaxed stillness to blazing speed, zooming toward Mousse as fast as his skates would take him.
The Amazon stiffened for an instant, deciding between another bounding retreat and meeting his foe head-on. He chose the latter. Taking a few quick steps of his own, he launched a knife-hand strike as Jun closed the last of the distance. Jun absorbed the blow with his left forearm, as his right hand shot forward in a punch. This was blocked in turn, and the two settled into a blazingly-fast exchange of strikes and counterstrikes, all narrowly avoided.
The sound of a golden-haired maiden taking a deep breath went completely unnoticed in the room...
"RIP HIS SPLEEN OUT, JUN!" Shinku howled. "CRUSH HIS SKULL LIKE A DUCK'S EGG! HOG-TIE HIM WITH HIS OWN INTESTINES!!"
"GYAHH!" Suigin Tou fell right off her petal cushion, and it was a few seconds before she managed to pull herself off the floor and back into the air. "Shinku, w-wh-what the hell was that?!" she managed, staring wide-eyed at her younger sister.
"Calling encouragement from the sidelines is allowed, is it not?" Shinku asked, her composure miraculously restored.
"You call that encouragement?!"
Megu rolled her eyes. "Actually, I think she calls it 'legal interference'."
"What?" Suigin Tou asked, turning back to her medium. As she did so, though, she caught sight of what was happening on the ice and all was made clear. What had been a stalemate before had become a desperate defensive action on the part of Mousse. He was trying hard to recover, but his defense was full of holes through which Jun continued to land blows. "Apparently I wasn't the only one surprised by that... outburst." Suigin Tou shook her head and tsk'd in mock sorrow, although the effect was spoiled a little by the fact that she was still pale and twitching. "Hardly ladylike behavior, Shinku."
"On the contrary," Shinku replied. "I am a lady. Therefore how I act, is how a lady acts."
Megu frowned. "Well, your Ladyship, I would appreciate it if you didn't abuse Mousse like that. He has been kind to me."
"I merely showed him an area where his defenses are not as firm as they need to be. That is an act of kindness as well, in its own way."
When Jun landed a solid three-hit combo through his failing guard, Mousse realized his back was against the wall. Pure hand-to-hand combat was one of his weakest areas. His skill was still greater than his opponent's, but not by enough to offset the degree to which Jun could boost his speed, strength, and coordination. Of course he didn't know how much power Jun still had in his reserves, but the teenager wasn't even trying to hit vital spots which said a lot about his confidence.
Against another fighter, Mousse would have just leapt backward as hard as he could, taking whatever hits this cost in exchange for the opportunity to launch a fusillade of flying steel. That tactic was less than worthless here, though... but hand-to-hand certainly wasn't the answer... his mind raced as he tried to remember every trick he had up his tattered sleeves while warding off what blows as he could.
Jun Sakurada was a very powerful young man, and he had gained a lot of fighting experience since enrolling at Furinkan. However, there were still many areas where he didn't even know how much more there was for him to learn. And so, when a massive gap opened up in Mousse's defense, he simply threw a fierce punch directly into it without pausing to reflect that he hadn't had to force this one open. His fist smashed in for Mousse's stomach, directly into one of the largest remaining patches of untorn white cloth.
As it turned out, that patch was covering something other than flesh.
The thick sheet of rubber Mousse had summoned next to his skin helped protect him from the impact, which was powerful enough to knock him back into the air. The can of industrial-strength Silly String between rubber and cloth burst, launching an explosion of colorful near-weightless strands of polymer that blasted out through the weakened cloth. This surprise broke the rhythm of Jun's attack as nicely as anyone could wish. Instead of his planned advance he staggered backwards, wiping at his glasses with one hand and waving the other in the air in front of him. In the stands, Megu watched in wonder as the string melted away into nothingness.
The brief respite was enough for Mousse to regain the momentum. He pulled a pair of nunchaku out of each sleeve and started forward, the flails spinning menacingly around each hand.
Jun glided away, his skates nearly allowing him to match Mousse's speed despite the fact that he was going backward, since the Chinese man was being careful not to gouge the rink too deeply. However, Mousse was slowly but surely closing the gap.
Jun extended one hand, and a burst of Silly String exploded from nowhere. Mousse's flails swept it out of the way long before it could blind him.
Another gesture, and what looked like a patch of metallic cloth appeared on the ice between them. Mousse hopped easily over it, a jump which also cleared the patch of ice next to it which looked perfectly innocent and was anything but.
Jun took a deep breath. "All right, Mousse. You want my trump card, you got it."
He did a quick two hundred and seventy degree spin, skating a few feet away to the side before stopping. The move kicked up a fine spray of ice crystals, but these didn't settle back to the ice or melt in midair. Rather, they billowed up and outward, settling into the outline of a winged, coiled form. A heartbeat later that outline became solid, birthing itself out of matter stolen from a yo-yo, a dagger, a torn pouch, and a host of different objects snatched off the ice. The dragon was a mixture of Oriental and Western themes, with six legs on a long, snake-like body, but also equipped with wings and a face that actually looked reptilian. Its body was as wide as Jun's shoulders, and it was four times as long as he was tall. It hung motionless in the air for a split second, then reared forward, interposing itself between Jun and Mousse and staring ominously down at the Amazon. And although its claws and fangs were smoothly rounded, somehow that nod to safety failed to detract at all from the menace.
"What... how... what..." Suigin Tou could neither find the words she wanted, nor hold back and keep silent.
Megu stared at the creature in awe and disbelief, taking in the gleam of light off the places where its skin was made of metal, noticing how those areas blended seamlessly into other subtances. "How can he do that?" she whispered.
"Jun is a Maestro," Shinku replied. "Born to be a craftsman beyond compare. He is still learning many things, but he has come a long way since we first met. By his power and his will and his skill, he can mold any normal material as easily as your Hiro-kun," she nodded briefly at Suigin Tou, who growled back at her, "can shape glass."
She gestured to the ice, drawing the others' attention back to the battle raging there. Jun stood calmly, resting in the shadow of his work. The dragon kept itself between the two flesh-and-blood fighters, striking at Mousse with its fangs, wings, and tail. "Their first match lasted all of five seconds. Mousse threw a hundred weapons at him, Jun took control of them and sent them right back, and wrapped him up immobile and helpless before he could recover from the surprise."
"Finally, some answers," Megu muttered. "That explains why Mousse has been fighting like this. But... if Jun can do that, then why doesn't he bring his own weapons? Why rely on stealing Mousse's?" Another glance at the dragon supplied a possible answer. "Or did he do that after all? That dragon is much larger than what he's taken from Mousse so far."
"No, it isn't," Suigin Tou said. "It's almost entirely hollow. The skin is barely a sixteenth of an inch thick."
Mousse threw a chain with a massive metal ball on the end, which impacted the dragon directly in its chest. The blow knocked the construct backward, but did no noticeable damage.
"I must say, whatever he did is a nice trick," the First Doll added grudgingly.
"And making it move so realistically is another," Megu said. "He doesn't even look like he's concentrating hard."
"That is because he is not," Shinku replied. "The dragon is protecting him of its own will, not because he tied puppet-strings to it in order to move it about."
Megu's jaw dropped. "But that's... I mean... you can't be saying that thing is alive!"
"And why not? It's not the first time you've seen such a thing, is it?" Shinku asked, ruffling Suigin Tou's hair, and just smiling when a wing knocked her hand away.
The raven-haired girl stared blankly at her for a moment longer, then turned back to the ice. Her face fell as she watched Mousse dodge the dragon's attacks by increasingly-smaller amounts, and launch four very different attacks, none of which had any effect on the thing—even the one with a flamethrower. 'Now I understand what Akane meant,' she thought sadly. 'Jun only lucked into power a few years ago, and Mousse has trained his whole life. It's not fair that he should be so outclassed.'
"ENOUGH!" Mousse roared, leaping clear to the other side of the rink. He panted for a moment, glaring furiously at the dragon. It glided forward to the middle of the rink—keeping itself carefully positioned between Mousse and Jun—and raised one claw in a 'come on' gesture. Mousse snorted, then turned his eyes from the dragon to the one who'd called it. "I never thought I'd have to go so far, Sakurada. I meant to save this for Ranma himself. But I'm not losing to you again! Prepare yourself... FLIGHT OF THE NIGHT HAWK!"
He drew his arms together, crossing them over his chest, and for a moment held utterly still. Then he spread them wide, the torn sleeves fluttering gently, gracefully... and trailing shadows in their wake. The effect rippled out from his body quicker than the weapons he'd thrown, leaving the entire room shrouded in murky dimness before Jun could do more than blink.
Megu pushed away her irritated dizziness at yet another reversal, and peered around. Whatever Mousse had done, it was nothing so simple as filling the room with darkness. There was still some light... but it didn't seem to illuminate things very well. Suigin Tou, mere inches away on her left, was barely recognizable. The boy six seats to her right and one row back, who was gushing about incredible genjutsus, was a blur of orange and yellow. The pale-skinned indigo-haired girl to his right, currently smacking him on the head and berating him not to get manga mixed up with reality, was all but invisible to Megu.
She focused on the rink once more. The dragon wasn't as obscured as everything else, probably due to its extraordinary nature. Mousse's robes were little more than a smear of white, flashing from here to there without clearly covering all the distance in between. She squinted, trying to make out more detail, and glimpsed a glint of metal as a chain snaked out to wrap around the dragon. It thrashed and twisted, and by all rights should have yanked Mousse forward into the air and toward its gaping jaws. However, that white blur stayed right where it was. Strain though she might, Megu couldn't understand why.
"He's anchored himself with a second chain... no, two—three," Suigin Tou murmured beside her. "They're wrapped around blocks of empty seats in our row, and he's connected them with steel bars through the links for extra leverage. Ingenious."
"You can see?" Megu asked.
"Better than most, I suspect. But things are still blurry even for me—" Suigin Tou cut herself off with a gasp.
An instant later Megu echoed her. The chain binding the dragon had snapped, and now, unencumbered, it was diving straight for Mousse.
The jaws snapped shut, closing over the robe of their target.
The murky, sight-distorting shadow ended, as abruptly as the flipping of a light switch.
And Jun Sakurada sank unconscious to the rink, his bare-chested opponent standing triumphant behind him, one hand still outstretched from the strike that ended the match, the other clenched and raised high in a gesture of victory.
Jun's chin barely struck the ice before Shinku was over the rail and dropping to the rink below. As she went over the side Megu caught a glimpse of petals forming into makeshift blades underneath her shoes, which explained the ease and speed with which she crossed the ice to Jun.
She wasn't the only one moving quickly. The dragon spat out Mousse's robe and whirled so fast the air hummed, striking toward the Amazon with vindictive jaws. He yelped and leaped backward, coming to rest against the wall and pulling a halberd out of his rear pants pocket.
Fortunately for everyone, the dragon opted not to attack. It merely hovered protectively over Jun as Shinku reached him, tapped a few pressure points, and began gently slapping his cheeks. He groaned and got up, putting one arm around her for support. They exchanged a few quiet words, then Jun turned to face his opponent and offered a rueful nod. "I've got to admit, that was more than I can handle. Thanks for saying I was worth your best effort, Mousse."
The Chinese man nodded warily back at him. "I'd love to say the same, but it looks like your best effort still wants to bite my head off."
Jun turned and looked sternly at the construct. "Let it go," he said. "It's my fault anyway for not putting up a shield as soon as it got hard to see him."
The dragon gave Mousse one last glare, then turned to face Jun. Its features seemed to slump. Its tail stretched down to the ice and scratched a series of kanji. All right, but I'm still sorry.
"Don't be," Jun said kindly. "You know all I wanted was for you to get him focused on you, then keep him busy while I got in my own sneak attack. I was the one who didn't do good enough."
The dragon's posture seemed to relax, and it nodded.
"Yes, you did wonderfully," Shinku added, her voice even gentler and kinder than Jun's had been. "Are you prepared now?" The dragon clacked its teeth together and shook all its claws at once, causing the safety coatings to fall away and leave them sharply pointed, then gave Shinku a nod. "Very well then. Mousse, we need to leave the ice."
"All right," the Amazon replied. "Sakurada, you fought very well too. Thank you for the match." He bowed, then jumped up to land beside Lin Su, who pulled him into a gentle victory hug. They held the embrace for a moment, then began walking to the nearest exit, joined by several people offering congratulations. Many of the spectators were leaving now, although a sizeable number were still sitting down and watching the dragon with interest.
Jun and Shinku left the ice as well, skating over to Megu's and Suigin Tou's position then leaping up to join them. Jun sat down and began removing his ice skates, while Shinku turned to face her sister. "Suigin Tou, can you do a favor for me?"
"And what favor would that be?" Suigin Tou asked, watching the dragon with a wary eye. It had drifted along behind Jun and Shinku, and was watching their group from a few feet away. Perhaps this explained the relatively civil nature of her response.
"To open a portal to the N-field using the surface of the rink. I could do it, but such manipulations are much harder for me than for you."
"And why do you need this portal?"
"Can't you guess?" Jun asked, standing up with his feet now free of ice skates. He gestured to the dragon. "Look at this guy. A world like this... it's no place for him. He needs to find where he belongs."
"I see." The First Doll's words escaped in a hiss, colder and harder than the rink below them. "You gave him a few pretty words about it not being his fault that you fell in battle, but that was all they were. Just words. You aren't even trying to fix whatever is so inadequate about him, just..." her voice hitched, "... just disposing of the failure."
"No, Suigin Tou!" Shinku cried, shaking her head. "You don't understand at all!"
"Don't I?! How dare you—" She was cut off by a wing of mixed steel, glass, stone, and wood, which stretched out and curled around her in fluid defiance of the materials which composed it. The dragon lifted her gently and turned her to face it, shaking its head even more firmly than had Shinku. Its tail stretched down to the ice and scrawled one more message, far larger and more emphatic than the others had been: LISTEN.
"I'm still learning what it means to be a Maestro," Jun said. "I'll get an idea in the back of my head that never quite goes away no matter how much I think about other stuff. And even if I focus everything on that idea, it doesn't come along any faster than if I'd just let it grow back there in its own time. I've been seeing this guy's design for the last two months, little details slowly coming together. The last missing piece was that his body needed a lot of tungsten, and I only realized it after I snagged some out of Mousse's equipment.
"Up until then, my plan was to fight Mousse the way you thought I was—the same way I beat him last time, by turning stuff from his own weapons against him. But when I felt that last piece fall into place, it changed everything. This guy has been waiting a long time for his chance to be. Holding off any longer, even if it was just until the match was over, felt like it was too long. That's why I called him in right then."
"What difference does that make?" Suigin Tou snapped, twisting out of the wing and flying high enough to look down on Jun. "You're still sending him away now that you have no more use for him! Is this what you think it means, to create something?!"
"Of course not," Jun shot back. "Weren't you listening? I didn't create him at all!"
"What?" The seeming absurdity of the statement was enough to shock Suigin Tou out of her anger, at least for the moment. From the corner of her eye she could see the dragon nodding, which only confused her further. "Then what...?"
"Where do spirits come from, Suigin Tou?" Shinku asked her gently. "Some dolls are more than empty sacks of cloth and stuffing, shells of plastic or wood. When we share power with them they can move about and do other things. But we didn't make the spirits that live within those forms, any more than did the human artisans who stitched or carved or sculpted them."
Suigin Tou grimaced. "All right, I'll admit I don't know where. Do you?"
Shinku shook her head. "No, and by the evidence it is likely that we're not meant to."
Jun grimaced and supplemented her statement with an explanation. "Lots of powerful people are really interested in finding out more about how Rozen did what he did with you guys, and want to know what else might be possible. The Amazons have whole branches of martial arts centered around various types of craftsmanship. They aren't the only ones either, but they've got the longest set of records... and in three thousand years they never encountered anything like this.
"One of the Elders watched me complete my last work, with all her senses focused on different spiritual levels to catch everything that happened. She fainted, was unconscious for a week, woke up with no memory of whatever she saw, and couldn't use those extra senses for a solid month."
"Holie has shared a few things with us," Shinku added. "She said that there are souls waiting to be born, who are meant for other worlds but must begin here." She gestured to the dragon. "As you noticed, this child is hollow. His skin is a conglomeration of many things, but none of them are flesh or scale. When Jun said this world was not his place, that was not to say anything against him. He needs to leave here, and make his way through the N-field until he finds the world where he belongs. In that journey, he will gain blood, bones, and all the other trappings of actual life." She heaved a sigh. "Or so we're given to understand."
"Holie said that?" Suigin Tou asked. "How would she know?"
Shinku shook her head. "She cannot say. Somehow, she is constrained from telling us more than she already has."
"What..." Suigin Tou lost the thread of her remarks as Mei Mei appeared, flying in a circle and chiming loudly. The First Doll frowned as she caught the message of her artificial spirit. "Mei Mei..." she said slowly. "Mei Mei wishes to know how Holie was able to say even that much."
Jun shrugged helplessly. "We don't know anything more than we've already told you. Now... could you please open the portal to the N-field? If Shinku has to do it herself, she'll be so exhausted I'll have to carry her home."
Shinku tossed her head indignantly, causing her long braid to fly up and coil around Jun's mouth in a makeshift gag. "Was that supposed to persuade her, or give her even more reason to refuse?"
Suigin Tou frowned and turned away from the byplay, refusing the duo's attempt to lighten the mood. She stared at Megu for a few seconds, wondering what her medium thought of all this. The girl stayed as quiet as she'd been since the fight ended, just sitting thoughtfully still. The First Doll heaved a sigh and turned to face the dragon-construct, wondering whether she really saw that sense of anticipation and hope in its gaze, or was just imagining it. "Is this what you want?" she asked quietly, to which she received a vehement nod. "You have no desire to stay here?" A shake of the head, not as forceful but just as firm. "To... to be with the one who made you?" Another shake, slightly more emphatic than the last. Suigin Tou gulped, then, through a trembling throat she tried one last time, "The one whose care should matter more than everything else?"
One last shake of the head, accompanied by a sense of frustration. Suigin Tou closed her eyes. "Fine," she whispered, dropping like a stone to the rink below. She caught herself at the last instant, and slapped one palm hard against the surface of the ice. The entire rink shuddered, shimmered, and began to glow. The dragon did a quick, excited loop-the-loop, scrawled Farewell into the wall, then flashed down and away into the fields beyond.
Suigin Tou stared at the empty space for what felt like a very long time, then stretched out her hand once more and returned the rink to normal. She drew a shuddering breath and floated slowly up to Megu, her wings sagging as if they were made of lead.
"Suigin Tou?" ventured Shinku.
The First Doll turned to stare at her, her gaze weary and drained. "Do you think there's anything to be said right now?" she asked.
"Yes, there is," Shinku replied. "Do not forget—Jun is not Father. There is no reason to draw any sort of parallels between the task he's finding to be his, and what was true for us as Rozen Maidens."
"Isn't there?" Suigin Tou growled.
"No, there is not!" Shinku retorted twice as harshly. She stared into her sister's eyes until Suigin Tou broke the contact, turning to glance at Jun. In that moment she was unobserved, Shinku allowed her own guard to fall, and all the strength and certainty drained out of her expression. She turned as well, facing out across the rink into empty space.
When she spoke again, her tone was quiet and without any emotion at all. "Because if Father's role as a Maestro was the same as Jun's, then he betrayed it seven times over, and none of us will ever be what we were truly meant for."
Suigin Tou's eyes widened as she jerked around. Her hands clenched into fists, and blue flames danced among her feathers. "Shinku...!"
"Do not mistake me!" Shinku retorted, spinning to face her elder sister with force enough to silence her. "There is a reason I said not to draw parallels between Jun and Father! The things I said just now, were to show you what lies at the end of the road you yourself were walking on!" She drew a few tense breaths, then said, "Though I chose to forsake the goal of Alice, I do not, will not believe that of Father."
Suigin Tou stared into her eyes for a long, tense moment, then turned away. "Then there's nothing more to be said."
"Not on this subject, at any rate," Shinku agreed.
"Tch. That almost sounds like you think there are others we should discuss."
"There are," Shinku asserted. "But not today, and not tomorrow. Would it be all right if we met to talk things over two days from now?"
"That would work well for me too," Megu said, finally breaking her silence. "There are things I'd like to talk about with you, Jun, and that day's a Sunday so you won't have class. Could we meet here at, say, nine o'clock in the morning?"
"Eh? Okay, sure," Jun said.
"Megu, you and Jun may do whatever you like," Suigin Tou replied. "But I've had enough of this place to last me a very long time. Shinku... if you wish to have that discussion, then you may join me in my N-field."
Whatever reaction she'd expected to this change of plans, it wasn't the soft, gentle smile that spread across her younger sister's face. "I will be glad to come," Shinku said, dipping her head in a quick half-bow. "Thank you for inviting me. I look forward to seeing what new changes are happening in your heart."
Author's Notes
The dual conversations between Shinku and Suigin Tou, Jun and Megu were originally intended to occur right after the battle. But like I warned you before, my chapter 5 outline bit off way more than I could chew for a single chapter, or even for two. And so you get them in their own installment. I believe this works better anyway; it's been a long and stressful day, if not for Megu then for Suigin Tou—better to give her some time to cool down before something as momentous as the upcoming talk with her sister. And having them talk inside her N-field gives me a lot more possibilities to work with than just having them sit in a quiet corner of the Icebox.
Of course that means you have to wait longer to get the justifications for Suigin Tou being the girl all the boys want. I do have some, and they even make sense (or as much sense as anything makes in Nerima). I can step outside the context of the fic itself to give you one right now, though: it's funny. The very idea is so incongruous, I can't help but smile. Hopefully it was amusing to others as well.