Master of the House, part two: Precision Machinery
I do not own the RAILDEX universe
Author's note:
Welcome back, all dear readers!
Taking over from the Sunday events in A Sky of Falling Stars, we return to Master of the House.
It's all just one more step in the unfolding story . . . .
Onward!
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"Where am I . . . ?"
A certain dolphin loving nitrogen esper looked back and forth, struggling to get her bearings in the strange foggy location where she had found herself. She didn't remember getting there and the mists that surrounded her made finding familiar landmarks all but impossible.
As she held her arms out in front of herself, she took a few cautious steps and felt the air clear a bit. She was just able to make out the rough masonry walls surrounding her on all sides. She realized that she had to be in an alley somewhere.
The girl cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted into the misty unknown.
"HELLO?"
Umidori strained to hear a possible response, but gave up after a minute of waiting. After sighing in frustration, she placed her hand against the nearby wall and began to follow it, tracing her fingers over the brickwork as she did so.
The little gothic-lolita esper had only taken a few steps when a strange sound like cracking glass or crunching paper echoed violently through the alley and nearly knocked the poor girl off her feet from the abrupt shock. When the initial reverberation died away, she quickly became aware of the sound of people shouting coming through the deepest patches of mist.
He body seemed to be moving on its own as she flew through the twists and turns of the bleak and foggy alleyways until, all at once, the mists filling the air disappeared and she found herself in another larger alley filled with enormous shards of ice.
Umidori looked to her left and saw a small group of people. Five shabby looking delinquent boys appeared to be surrounding a foreign girl with brown hair.
"HEY!" The nitrogen esper shouted out at the boys and was about run at the group when she found that she was frozen in place, her body ignoring the demands to move. The group at the end of the alley didn't even register that she was there. She felt like a ghost watching as the events began to unfold.
"You Tokiwadai girls think you're pretty awesome, don't you?" The tallest boy in the middle taunted the girl backed up against the corner. "But we found the key to power and we aren't afraid to use it."
The brown haired girl narrowed her blood-red eyes, but otherwise didn't seem bothered by the threat. She started to grin and chuckled with a dark amusement.
"You idiots think those icicles are all I have?" She licked her lips as a slightly predatory light came into those sanguine eyes. "You might want to start running, then . . . "
When those chilling words reached their ears, most of the boys stepped back a bit. The one in the middle held his ground, abet with a slightly higher pitched voice than he had a minute ago . . .
"Y–you don't scare us! We're all level three now!" He started waving at the other shabby looking boys standing next to him. "And there are even five of us! What do you think you are going to do?!"
The brown-haired girl interlaced her fingers and extended her palms out in front of her, slowly and luxuriously cracking each knuckle in turn.
"I'm going to freeze you little turds solid from the inside out." The girl pointed at the ground in front of her feet. "But if you get down and beg me, I might just let you keep most of your limbs . . . "
Despite their trembling, the boys did their best to keep up the brave facade. Might as well go down swinging.
"B-bitch! Why don't you go f–"
"Ahem."
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A young man wearing a sweater vest and blue slacks strolled at a leisurely pace through the hallways of a certain hospital. He spared not a glance left or right as he walked, all focus was ahead.
There was a strange tune that he whistled, no set center pitch, always rising and always falling.
The barest of a grin greeted his arrival at the intended destination, the door sliding open and shut in near silence.
In the ICU, the skillful Sogiita Gunha glanced over the five boys in their beds and smiled.
"Tell me boys . . . "
The seventh of the Seven crossed over to the nearest bed and tapped the boy on the chest. No response.
"How little do you remember?"
He leaned over the bed and gently peeled back the occupant's eyelid, peering into a glassy pupil.
"Do you remember the light from her eyes?"
He turned to the next bed over and picked up the next boy's arm by the wrist, observing the open palm before letting it fall back into place.
"Do you remember the shape she took?"
The level five's eyes followed the ticking wave of the cardiogram as his hand traced over the sharp metal corners of the equipment.
"Your final thoughts . . ."
The boy turned from the monitor and stepped into the center of the room. He stretched his arms out and held them straight from his sides.
"Do you still have them?"
He spun in place once, then let his arms drop back to his sides. He then tilted his head and murmured.
"Do your thoughts still have you?"
The boy in the sweater vest lifted his open hand to chest level and closely observed first the back and then the palm of it. He slowly brushed his thumb past the tips of his fingers.
"Rejoice boys, you don't have much longer to wait."
He smiled one last time as he turned to leave the room. He left his final words as the door slid shut once more.
"Wait for it boys. There will be rain."
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A wheelchair bound young woman with dark hair hid a deep yawn behind her hand as she rolled herself down the hallway, gliding to a smooth and nearly silent stop outside the door to a certain frog-faced doctor's office.
The gothic informed young woman then cracked her neck, first one way then the other, before firmly shaking her head. Seriously, it was too early in the morning for this . . .
Balling up her fist, she rapped hard on the frame of the door, making a terrible racket as she did so. In a moment the door slid open to reveal the utterly calm face of the room's occupant. The frog-faced doctor let out a grunt of acknowledgment and waved her into the room.
"Thank you for arriving so promptly."
Kuroyoru Umidori muttered under her breath as she rolled herself inside. "What's so important that you made me come here at the crack of– What the hell is that thing?!"
The girl had nearly jumped out of her wheelchair when she entered the room and came face to face with a strange oily white mass of something.
The doctor spoke up in response to her outburst with an underlying rumble of annoyance in his voice as he pointed at the thing in the corner from his spot seated at his desk.
"It was here when I arrived this morning." He waved a piece of what looked like paper in the girl's direction. "There was a note on my desk which had your name on it. It appears to be made of the same material as that object there."
Umidori cautiously rolled up to the strange white object to inspect it more closely. A riot of spindly branch-like structures seemed to be growing up out of the floor to a height that was about even with the seated girl's head. It was composed of a familiar oily white substance that made the little gothic girl want to shudder and/or pee herself from the bad memories . . .
"Does the note say what this thing is supposed to be?" Umidori gave it a tentative poke with the joint of her curled finger. "It looks like a dead ficus plant covered in paint that should have been banned by the World Heath Organization . . . "
"Precision machinery, apparently." The girl looked up from her prodding like he had just let out a ribbit to match his appearance. "That's what the note called it anyway."
"This thing won't even budge." She gave it a firm push with the palm of her hand. "What is it even supposed to do?"
Heaven Canceler's face tightened into a grimace as he watched his patient grasp the shrub-like object with both hands and attempted to shake it. He read the note aloud:
For Kuroyoru Umidori
As promised, precision machinery.
You'll know what it does when it happens.
Regards.
The doctor turned the note over in his hands and held it up to the light. "And that's it. Rather ominous, don't you think."
The girl paused from her useless attempts to move the creepy white object and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"I think it fits his personality per– NYAAA!"
CRASH ! ! !
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"Ahem."
The sound of a new voice from the alley behind them had shocked the boys from their bravado. They wheeled around to catch sight of the intruders. Umidori was confused by the severity of their reactions, like they were watching their lives about to come to an end. Their jaws dropped and they started to shake like they were being electrocuted.
The dolphin-loving girl looked back and forth between the new group of people and the delinquent boys who appeared about to wet themselves. She would freely admit that this new group looked a little scary even by her standards, and yet these boys only seemed to be aware of a single person among them.
They ignored the wiry girl with spiky red hair and murderous eyes standing at the front far left, taking point. No, it was like she wasn't even there.
They were oblivious to the vaguely effeminate and borderline psychopathic looking gothic young man standing at the rear far-right. The flames that flickered through his fingers didn't even seem to register with them.
They couldn't have cared less about the giant young man with closely cropped black hair and calm eyes that towered at least a head taller than everyone else in the alley.
The slightly short but impressively menacing boy with piercing black eyes, spiked and bleached blond hair, and totally missing eyebrows went completely unnoticed, like he was nothing but a poorly placed wall clock.
These red-blooded boys didn't even seem to care one bit about the unearthly beauty of the sylph-like girl that peered tentatively over the shoulders of the three boys standing in the center of this new group of six. She wore a concerned look on her face, even if it was partially concealed by the long silvery-white hair that covered one eye, cascading down like a silken waterfall. Heck, even Umidori felt like she was about to get a nosebleed just looking at her!
But no.
These scary people went completely unnoticed as the delinquents focused all of their attention, all of their open and undisguised terror, on the scrawny boy standing in the center of them all.
The boy with tousled and stringy brass blond hair and dead blue-gray eyes.
The boy with sickly pale skin, who looked skinny enough to have spent a life either malnourished or simply starved.
The boy who looked frail enough that a gentle breeze seemed like it would be enough to knock him over.
The boy that seemed unable to even stand without that giant of a boy's hand on his arm.
This was the person that caused those five delinquent boys to fall to the ground and scramble on their knees over to him, hands folded in a comically beseeching manner as they made their way there. They froze in place when the red-haired girl in front stomped her foot and glared at them in a threatening manner.
"M–Mairo-sama!" The lead boy started to plead when he recovered his voice. "It's not what you think, we swear!"
He twisted around to point at the brown-haired girl in the back of the alley. She seemed unconcerned.
"It was all this bitch!" He turned back to face the frail boy. "We were just minding our own business when she attacked us!"
The alley dropped into a dead silence for what seemed like a lifetime until the lips of the frail boy finally parted with some sticky reluctance.
"I see. Now answer me this." The boy's thin whispering voice could scarcely be heard when he spoke. "What were five young men doing with one girl this deep in an alley like this?"
" . . . "
The boys on the ground began to drip with sweat as they struggled to come up with a response. The sickly boy's voice whispered into the alley once more.
"Remove yourselves from my sight." The eyes of the delinquents widened in terror. "Before I decide to think of a way of doing it myself."
Without another word, those shabby looking boys scrambled out of the alley like their tails were on fire. The glares of the other members of the group followed them on their way out, they then turned back to regard the brown-haired girl at the center of it all.
The frail boy shrugged one shoulder, causing the giant of a boy to release his arm. He took an unsteady step forward.
Then another.
"Tell me, young lady." The boy's nearly silent whispered voice seemed to echo in the empty alley.
"Do you believe in miracles?"
. . . .
Umidori woke with a start from the dream. She rubbed her eyes and glared at the digital clock on the table next to her bed.
"Honestly? 3 AM?" She shook her head. "Seriously, what the hell kind of drea–"
The girl broke off in mid-sentence when the memory hit her. She froze on the bed and hugged the stuffed dolphin toy to her chest as hard as she could.
"He was the one who attacked the project!"
She sat shivering in the dark for what seemed like forever.
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"I think it fits his personality per– NYAAA!"
CRASH ! ! !
Heaven Canceler twisted around when the loud sound from behind him briefly drowned out the gothic girl's kitten-like scream. He could only blink in surprise.
The branch-like mass of white was gone.
Its former place on the floor was currently occupied by a certain nitrogen esper who was leaning against a nearby table. Standing up.
Umidori's wheelchair had toppled over on the floor, likely the source of the loud crash a moment ago. The girl herself was wearing what appeared to be a new pair of white pants and a very complex expression on her face . . . .
"Feeling . . . kind of . . . violated . . . ." The girl stammered behind her rosy cheeks. " . . . And . . . strangely aroused . . . ."
The doctor flinched when his patient threw back her head and yelled up towards the ceiling.
"Thank you sir, may I have another!"
The doctor frowned. "I take it you are unharmed, then . . . "
"I can walk again!" The girl started to hobble around on unsteady, but perfectly mobile, legs. "This is meffing awesome!"
Heaven Canceler's hand massaged his temple as he watched her stumble over to the full length mirror, and start to do a variety of squats and leg lifts in front of it.
"Young lady, we don't know if that thing is safe or not yet."
Umidori either didn't hear or didn't care about what the doctor was saying, as she continued to admire her new accessory.
"Kuroyoru Umidori, you are rocking that dark matter!" She swiveled her hips. "The mirror loves you, baby!"
"Miss, I have a lot of work to do . . . "
The dolphin loving esper was currently facing away from the mirror with her neck craned about to look behind.
"Whoa, did my butt always look this good?" She gave herself a firm smack on the behind. "Because, I mean DAMN!"
The doctor's palm found his frog-like face. "Miss, this is a hospital. Please take it outside."
"Good idea!" The girl hobble-dashed out of the room. "I'll go ask Touma-kun!"
Finding himself once again alone in his office, Heaven Canceler sighed and shook his head. As he turned back to his desk to pick up the bizarre note once more, he froze in astonishment.
Before his very eyes, he watched as it melted away into nothingness.
There was no trace.
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The quiet of a late Sunday morning was soothing a certain Academy City misfortune magnet right down to his very core as he rested his eyes in the diffuse light of his hospital room.
Ordinarily, he would have called a day like this boring, but he was a changed man now.
Yesterday was Saturday.
The never ending chaos of the prior day had taken most of his strength away and even this morning he found that he wanted to avoid moving as much as possible.
Frankly, even when he heard the nurses referring to the events of yesterday as the "Olympic Toumathlon" when they served him breakfast, he lacked the motivation to shatter those illusions . . .
Still, the lack of visitors was rather relaxing. The only person to stop by was Umidori, who had been on her way to see the Frog-faced doctor for some reason that she didn't understand. She mentioned that his cousin had wanted to see him, but she was still asleep when she passed by the room a moment ago. Then, with a brief wave of the hand and a barely noticeable flush on her face, Umidori had rolled off, silent as a ghost.
"Ah well . . . if it's my cousin then I guess it's fine." Touma muttered to himself and slid his hands behind his head in a relaxed posture. "I just hope that will be the extent of today's visitors . . . "
The sound of skittering drew the boy's attention to the foot of his bed.
"Is that so, Kamijo-san?" The little beetle tapped its tiny leg against the wall. "And I came all this way, too. I'm insulted!"
"I bet you are . . . " Touma nodded with a slight smirk. "You sound like you're in a better mood today."
"I've been thinking about miniskirts."
" . . . Ah." Touma started to shift about on the bed as he shifted his gaze discreetly away from the beetle. "Well don't let me stop you . . ."
"Oh I wouldn't dream of it." Touma didn't like the playful voice the beetle was taking. "That's why I'm here, Kamijo-san."
"If you're asking to see me in one, you'll have to wait a week."
"Is that a promise, Kamijo-san?"
Touma was fairly certain that little beetle was grinning somehow. He finally sighed and shook his head.
"Stupid luck . . . what happened to my beautiful Sunday?" He muttered under his breath before directly addressing the beetle again."Why are you here, Beetle-san?"
"Uiharu-san is looking for a girl who was wearing a miniskirt on Friday." The beetle tapped on the wall beneath itself. "I figured you would be the one to ask on that topic, so here I am!"
Touma blinked once.
"Beetle-san, come closer." The spiky-haired boy beckoned with a menacing tone evident in his voice. "I need to shatter that illusion."
"I think I'll be staying right here, Kamijo-san." The beetle skittered a little further up the wall. "You are welcome to come over here and get me if you are so inclined . . . "
"Don't tempt me, Beetle-san."
The little white beetle made a strange chattering sound, which Touma took to be some kind of a laugh. He clenched his fist for a moment, but relaxed just as quickly.
"You know, beetle-san . . . this doesn't feel like you just being you" He scratched his chin for a moment. "It's more like you're trying to prepare me for something."
The beetle went silent.
"Blast you, Kamijo-san . . . ."
"Yeah, I figured. It's big isn't it?" Touma crossed his arms over his chest. "My misfortune sense was tingling so bad I was starting to wonder if it was hemorrhoids."
The beetle was still silent, quietly tapping a disjointed rhythm on the wall beneath itself with its tiny legs.
"Out with it, beetle-san." The boy's face took on a grimace. "Is the entire Tokiwadai student body coming to visit or something?"
The tiny white beetle finally broke its oppressive silence.
"They're after your cousin."
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Umidori was practically skipping as she sped through the corridors of the hospital to the room of a certain spiky-haired boy. There was no denying that confirmation on the tush issue was a top priority. Ask anyone!
The loli-goth skidded to a stop in front of the closed sliding door. She had just placed her hand on the handle to throw it aside when the voices from inside the room made her pause. She shivered briefly when the dull growling tones of the city's number Two filtered through the door into her ears.
"They're after your cousin."
The hero's voice responded with open confusion evident in his voice.
"Tokiwadai?"
Umidori cringed when the beetle nearly shouted his retort.
"No, you idiot, the City!"
"Why?!" The girl shifted her head closer to the door as the boy inside gave a frantic response."Just because she was exposed to the Curriculum's foundation adjustments?"
"There's more to it than that." She heard the beetle huffing to itself. "You remember the little blonde at Saten's scan on Friday?"
"Yes, she's hard to forget."
"Well she was here a little bit ago." The beetle's bitter tone surprised the little nitrogen-esper. "She basically confessed to being the source of the problem."
"And."
The beetle gave a grunt before responding, as if he was struggling to not start breaking things in the room.
"Your cousin was the subject of some sort of anomalous research project."
"Why Otohime?!"
Umidori thought that Touma sounded like he was about to be sick. The beetle continued his thought.
"I doubt even that little Kihara knows the answer to that." Umidori heard a faint tapping sound as the beetle continued. "But she was implying that it would paint a rather hefty target on her back."
" . . . What are we going to do about it then?"
"You are going to stay right here, like you're supposed to."
She flinched when the boys in the room started shouting.
"There's no way I'm going to be able to rest now!"
"You have to!"
The nitrogen-esper frowned when she heard Touma groaning in resignation.
"We need to protect her smile, beetle-san."
"We can probably call the other level fives for some favors–"
"No." The boy's voice took on a commanding tone that brought a slight color to the cheeks of the girl eavesdropping in the hallway. "Promise me you won't let her know that she's in danger."
Umidori heard silence overtake the room for a moment.
"Heh." The beetle spoke up at last, something like a grim satisfaction shaping his words. "So in the end, it's down to just you and me. I figured we'd end up there eventually."
"I'm not saying that we shouldn't tell them." The girl outside the door rubbed her chin as Touma muttered inside the room. "But you know how they'll react. We need to hide my cousin, not put a spotlight on her."
There was a barely perceptible tapping sound when the beetle responded.
"Agreed. We'll inform them as things progress so they don't start acting out of the ordinary."
"Just stay out of trouble, Beetle-san."
The number Two's voice returned to its more usual tone as he gave Touma a playful response.
"I feel like I should be saying that to you." Umidori heard Touma grunt. "Take care."
The room went silent when the beetle vanished into thin air. It was a heavy atmosphere.
Umidori couldn't help but clutch at her her heart when she heard Touma's final whispered words. There was no way she could open that door now.
"Please forgive me, Otohime-chan . . . ."
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The back of the spiky-haired boy landed heavily against the rough wall of the alley with a dull thump, his eyes registering shock as the impact knocked the wind out of him.
As he struggled to breathe, a pair of delicate feminine hands grabbed the fabric of his shirt over his shoulders and clenched hard enough that the boy could hear a tearing sound.
A girl with icy-blue hair and a Tokiwadai uniform scowled as she held Touma against the wall, her blood-red eyes cutting into the wide open blue of his own.
The flawless pale shade of her skin contrasted sharply with the brutality of her facial expression when her delicate lips parted to release a terrible growl. Her words hissed out into the alley like a nightmare made flesh.
"I've had enough of this."
" . . . "
"I know how your type works, you bastard!"
As she leaned in closer, Touma tried to pull away, but was stopped by the wall behind him.
"Always playing the hero."
Touma turned his head away from the painful bitterness of her glare. She shoved him harder against the wall.
"Always breaking hearts."
The boy turned his head back, blinking in confusion.
"Sterl–"
"NOT THIS TIME!" The pretty pale girl shrieked like a banshee directly into his face.
"But, I–"
His words were cut off when the fingers of her left hand poked into his cheek.
"I'll always be watching. So remember this: The next time you lay a hand on either of them . . . "
The girl's smile caused the boy to shiver. Her casual tone certainly didn't help.
"I'm going to reach down your throat and freeze every molecule of water in your body, from the inside out."
. . . .
Umidori's eyes burst open.
She looked around, finding that her hospital room was empty. She looked at the smoldering red numbers of the clock next to her bed.
1 AM, Monday morning.
"Twice in one day. This isn't a coincidence." The girl rubbed her face to clear her vision in the dim light. "These aren't even dreams, are they?"
"I know the dark side well enough to know that I'm being sent these visions."
She glanced out the window at the dancing lights of the city.
"I hate the fact that they're trying to play me like this." Umidori glanced over the front and back of each hand for a moment and frowned. "But, even so . . . "
Her hands clenched into a pair of fists and growled into the rooms darkness.
"You little princess, you're nothing but another Tokiwadai witch."
She grinned like a mother bear as she stroked the oily-white material covering her legs.
"I'm going to show you what happens when you threaten one of MY boys!"
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Author's note:
And with that, Sunday has rolled over to Monday.
Umidori is quite the character, isn't she . . .
Kakine, Touma, and Miniskirts. A winning (yet disturbing) combination.
We have a vision of Mairo, shortly before his disappearance and well on the way to level five.
Next up, we will find ourselves in the Third Sequel, at last. Wave hello to Facade on the way there.
Until the next time,
Lets get writing!