"No way. No way!"
Negai sighed and rolled her eyes. Conversation with the girl
had been much the same as this for the past 15 minutes, the only
variety coming from the occasional addition of "I can't believe
it!" The whole thing was becoming rather tedious.
"Believe it, Kino-san," Negai tried again. "Anything you want.
Just name it, and it's yours."
"No way!"
Negai ground her teeth together and quietly swore, then inhaled deeply
before speaking again. "Entertaining as this is, I would really
rather not still be having this discussion a week from Thursday, so
I'll demonstrate briefly. Wish for something. ANYthing. It won't
be permanent, so don't worry about wasting your one shot. This is
highly irregular, but I don't see any other way around it."
"I can't bel-"
"KINO-SAN!"
Mako's head snapped back, but it seemed to be exactly what was
needed to break her from the loop she had fallen into.
"Anything?"
"Anything."
Mako closed her eyes and set to thinking. She needed something
that was impossible to ensure that Negai was telling the truth about
receiving a wish. 'No way!' Mako's mind shouted, but she stifled
the voice down. Something that was unlikely to happen, something
unusual. Something like... Like...
"Make Usagi-chan as smart as Ami-chan."
Negai's eyes widened before looking at Mako appreciatively.
"Know how to go for the jugular, don't you, Kino-san? Very well."
The woman's eyes closed and her hands started moving in an
exotically hypnotic fashion. She began to chant, the syllables
fading from Mako's memory as soon as they were spoken. The air
seemed to vanish from the area as Negai's chanting grew louder and
her gesturing more frantic. Blood was pounding in Mako's ears and
she was certain she was going to faint. And then, abruptly,
everything returned to normal. Mako looked over at Negai, who
looked a little drained, but otherwise fine.
"Sorry about that, I had to use a rather strong spell to pull
THAT one off." Mako nodded understandingly. "Now then, you've
got approximately 15 minutes before Tsukino-san returns to her
normal self. I suggest you find her quickly. I would hate to think
that all my hard work went for nothing."
It was amazingly easy to find where Usagi had holed herself up.
Following their reunion from the 5 minute break-up, Mamoru had used
a time-honoured method to make Usagi happy again - he offered to
buy her food. Knowing Usagi, she was probably still in the Crown
Parlour, stuffing herself while Mamoru kept a mental tally going of
how many odd jobs he would need to pay for it all.
Sure enough, there they were. Mako glanced through the window
as she jogged toward the door. 'Looks like Mamoru-san will be
working all next week, if those plates are any indication.' She
tapped her foot impatiently as the door slid open, squeezing through
it as soon as she could fit.
What she saw made her halt at the entrance, mouth gaping open
in shock.
Usagi was not eating.
Oh, it was quite apparent that she had been earlier, and with
great relish. Mako hadn't gotten a glimpse earlier at even a
significant percentage of the dishes that crowded the table between
the couple. But for now, Usagi sat with a half eaten sundae in
front of her, examining the ice cream on her spoon closely and
giving a lecture on its contents.
"...and the fats, known collectively as butterfats, are
predominately of the regular (meaning triglyceride; I suspect
mostly made up of palmitic and stearic acids, chemically bound to
glycerin, of course) variety."
Mamoru looked positively sick with worry. His hand kept coming
up and resting on Usagi's forehead, removing it when he could detect
no sign that she had suddenly been afflicted with some kind of
terrible, mind-shattering fever.
Mako walked slowly to their table and stood next to Mamoru,
facing her friend who was busy rattling off the calorie content of
all the food she'd just eaten.
"How long as she been like this?" Mako gently asked, her voice
barely above a whisper.
"About 10 minutes." Mamoru's face was grave. "I don't
understand what happened!"
Mako moved forward a few steps and knelt down. "Usagi-chan..."
Usagi's attention moved from the stacks of dishes through which
she was busily sorting to the face next to her. "Mako-chan!" she
exclaimed happily. Then her expression took on a devilish look and
she leaned over conspiringly, hand shielding her mouth from any
onlookers. "Or should I say 'Jupiter-chan'?" With a huge wink,
Usagi laughed loudly as though she had just told the funniest joke
in the world, banging her hand on the table and causing the
mountains of plates to wobble threateningly.
Suddenly, her face became intent again. "Did you know that
Jupiter was named for the King of the Roman Gods and its symbol
comes from one of his lightning bolts?" Mako was about to answer
that yes, she did actually know that, but Usagi continued on with
hardly a pause. "Jupiter accounts for more than two-thirds of all
material in the Solar System outside of the Sun. And it would take
318 Earths to equal its mass! Isn't that interesting? Its year is
equal to 11.86 Earth years, and its day is 9 hours and 55 minutes
long..."
Hardly taking time out to breathe, Usagi continued to list
obscure facts about the planets as Mako stood again. She looked
over at Mamoru, who appeared ready to rush his love to the hospital,
and she placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Words of
reassurance were about to be spoken when Usagi's lecture seemed to
trail off, attracting everyone's attention.
Usagi was blinking hard, as though waking up from a long sleep.
While she initially didn't seem to notice anybody there, her eyes
soon lost their haze and she saw Mako's hand on Mamoru's shoulder.
"Mako-chan," Usagi began, narrowing her eyes and shifting them
to her friend. "Why are you hanging on my Mamo-chan?"
Mako was so surprised at the sudden change of tone in Usagi's
voice that she didn't bother trying to defend herself or point out
that she was hardly 'hanging' on Mamoru. Instead, she removed her
hand and walked over to the blonde's side of the table. "What was
that you were saying, Usagi-chan, about Mars?"
Usagi shrugged as she grabbed for a discarded spoon to eat the
melted sundae in front of her. "She's a brat?"
Mamoru shook his head. "What about the triglycerides? Palmitic
and stearic acids?"
"Tri-sig-la-huh?"
"Never mind, Usako."
Shrugging again, Usagi quickly finished off the sundae and began
motioning to a waitress for another one. With a sympathetic look to
Mamoru, Mako left the couple to continue with their date. The last
thing she heard before the doors closed behind her was Usagi
ordering a pizza to go with her latest sundae.
"Do you believe me now?"
Mako nodded her head, still not completely over the shock of
hearing Usagi talking like an encyclopedia. Upon her return to the
creek, Mako sat down and thought about everything she had just
witnessed. Negai was apologetic of Usagi's seeming instability, but
the sudden influx of knowledge had apparently thrown the girl
somewhat out of kilter. Mako was assured that there was no
permanent damage and Usagi would remember nothing of those 15
minutes. Mamoru would probably attribute the extreme personality
changes to the amount of food that Usagi had inhaled.
"Good, I'm glad. Now we can get down to business. So, name it
kid. What would you like?"
Mako looked over at the woman, her brow furrowed in thought.
"I... I don't know."
Negami sighed. "You're not making this easy for me, you know."
"I know, and I'm sorry, but... Well, there's just so much that
can go WRONG. Your demonstration of Usagi-chan showed me that. If
she had been left in that state, she probably would've gone insane!
What's to stop whatever I wish for from backfiring on me, too?"
At this, the woman stopped rolling her eyes and looked at Mako
strangely. "...that's a very good question. You're more
intelligent than you look, Kino-san." Mako seemed about to take
offense at this statement, but Negai didn't give her the chance as
she continued, seemingly lost in thought. "I usually just grant the
wish and then go home. The repercussions never cross my mind. Huh."
Negai seemed to reach a decision and her eyes refocused. She
smiled warmly at Mako, who might've smiled back if she hadn't
noticed the sharp edges to Negai's teeth, making the woman almost
appear as though she were snarling.
"I like you, Kino-san. I think you're a terrible
conversationalist, but I like you. This has already been one of the
most irregular assignments I've had, so I may as well go all the
way. I am going to grant you the ability to see the consequences of
your actions... Temporarily, of course."
Negai uncurled herself gracefully and then, slowly, her hands
began to move in a pattern similar to before. Syllables uttered
slipped around and through thoughts like grains of sand, refusing to
be held. As Negai's hand motions became faster and more desperate,
the air surrounding her was filled with fine threads and fibers of
rainbow-coloured light. Before long, they gathered together and
began to weave towards their target.
Mako thought, not for the first time, that she was going insane.
The first thing Mako saw when she regained consciousness was the
pinkish-yellow hues of the evening sky...with Negai's head
superseding it. The girl gave a startled cry and had rolled away
into another defensive crouch before she remembered where she was
and came out of it, an embarrassed grin on her face.
Negai, for her part, was annoyed that this was the second time
she had been almost attacked. "You should lighten up, Kino-san, not
everyone is out to get you."
Mako had the decency to look apologetic before her curiosity
took over. Her eyes shining, she asked Negai how her newfound power
worked.
"Oh, very simple, just think of something you would wish for.
You'll appear at some time in that future, if that had been what you
'really' wished. You'll continue to experience that possibility
until you decide if that's what you want or not."
So, it was that easy. Mako wracked her brain, trying to decide
what her first "test" should be. She found her thoughts drifting
back over the past few minutes, including her repeated treatment of
Negai, something she truly felt bad for.
'If only I weren't so tomboyish and impulsi-'
And she wasn't.