Atmung

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.

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Chapter 3: Taking a Stand

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Forty-five minutes after the final bell had rung, Jun stepped out of his last teacher's office. "Man, I knew it was going to take some getting used to," he muttered. "I just wish I could have done all this catching-up before school started again."

"Hello, Sakurada-kun," came a soft voice from behind him.

Once he would have jumped, grimaced, and fought a desire to run away. Now... well, he still jumped, but it was just out of startlement. "Hey, Kashiwaba-san," he said. "You didn't have to wait for me, you know."

"Mm," Tomoe said with her usual effusiveness. The two of them began walking through the empty halls toward the exit. "How was your first day back?"

Jun grimaced. "Annoying."

"Really?"

"Even with all the homework you got for me and helped me with, there's a lot of follow-up," he explained. "And this isn't the best time for it."

Tomoe gave him an inquiring look.

"It's just... there's so much going on right now with Shinku and all the others," he continued. "I really wish I could have put this off awhile longer."

"What's happening with them?" she asked. "Have you found out how to wake up Hina Ichigo yet?"

Jun sighed and shook his head. "I've tried my hardest," he said quietly. "But I can't reach her or Sousei Seki. Whatever's wrong, whatever's missing, I just don't know."

"I guess there was nothing in those books to help, then."

"No. But thanks anyway." Jun was quiet for a moment. "They did tell us the name of the last Rozen Maiden. Kira Kishou. And that's another thing," he said. "She introduced herself to Shinku last week, while she was dreaming. She didn't actually attack, but Shinku said she was even more hostile than Bara Suishou."

"That isn't good," Tomoe said. She paused for a moment of thought. "I suppose it's the real thing this time? Not another doll Enju made to defeat the true sisters?"

"He couldn't possibly have made another this fast. And I'm sure Bara Suishou was the only one he had from before." Jun frowned. "Who knows if he'll come back in a year with another little hunter-killer doll, though."

Tomoe gave him a sympathetic look. "I guess you do have a lot on your mind, Sakurada-kun."

"Yeah. That demon-rabbit Laplace, too. He's still around," he said. "Suisei Seki has glimpsed him a couple of times in the dream world."

"Do you think he's going to cause trouble?"

"I wouldn't bet against it." Jun sighed. "But maybe it won't be too bad. It seemed like he was more tricky than outright evil." He pushed away the memory of Laplace's last words to him, so light and casual yet resonating perfectly with everything Enju had said about how powerless and meaningless he was. 'Sure, I didn't need to hear that then. But I got worse taunts than that every day my first year of middle school.'

"Mm. If there's anything I can do to help, tell me. I miss Hina Ichigo," Tomoe said. "I hate to think of her sleeping shut away in that box all the time."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Although we take her out whenever Detective Kun-Kun is on."

Tomoe smiled. "I'm glad." After a few moments of thoughtful silence, she spoke up again. "But, you know, Sakurada-kun..."

"Huh? What is it?"

"Me being Hina's medium... you know how it ended. It was a challenge, and in the end I couldn't handle it on my own. But even so, I'm very glad I had that time with her. I want to see her smiling face again." The door to the courtyard was only a few feet away now, but Tomoe stopped and looked Jun in the eyes. "With all the trouble and challenges, I still think my life is better because of the Rozen Maidens being part of it."

Jun smiled. "That goes double, or even triple for me," he agreed. "Without Shinku... without all of them, and the things I've learned..." He took a moment to remember what life had been like all those months ago, then grimaced and shook his head. "Yeah, they're a lot of trouble. But, you know... trouble is a part of life. It's like Shinku told me once: 'To live is to fight.' " He paused, thinking back over what had happened since she said that, just before the not-so-final confrontation with Suigin Tou. "Even if that turned out to mean something a little different than she thought back then."

"I think she was right," Tomoe said. She turned away, gesturing toward the front door. "Does that mean you don't want to take a side exit?"

"Huh?" he said, staring blankly at her. When she followed her pointing gesture with a brisk nod, he looked past her and through the glass doors.

Four figures were waiting in the courtyard. Jun groaned as he recognized three of them, boys who had at least four inches and forty pounds on him, and who had gone out of their way in the past to let 'Sewing-chan' know they weren't fond of him. He didn't recognize the fourth at all, though: a girl who looked to be a year younger than himself and Tomoe, with a bamboo practice sword held loosely in one hand. "Maybe they're not waiting for me?" he said hopefully.

"They are," Tomoe said with certainty. "That girl, Aki... she's Soichiro's sister." She pointed to the largest of the boys. "I'm sure they didn't have to beg to get her to challenge me while they focused on you. She's in the kendo club with me, but she doesn't like me very much." Tomoe frowned slightly, which for her was the equivalent of a normal person's snarl. "The feeling is mutual."

Jun clenched his fists tightly enough that his knuckles went bone white. "That's their idea of fun, huh?" he rasped. "To ignore me during the day, let me think the worst of that junk might be over, and catch me now? Beat me up for daring to come back here and be different from them?"

Tomoe shook her head. If they'd been planning to take the harassment that far, surely they wouldn't have been waiting inside the actual school grounds. "No, I don't think..." She trailed off as Jun, unhearing, strode forward through the doors to meet them.

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"That was very impressive, Sakurada-kun," Tomoe said ten minutes later. "But are you sure you're all right?"

"I just need to rest a bit," Jun said from his slumped position on the bench.

"How did you do that, anyway?" she asked. "I've never seen you practice martial arts, or even look interested. You don't move like a fighter. But back there... you were so fast, and so precise... how? And why are you so pale and dizzy now when they couldn't even touch you?"

"I was cheating," Jun admitted, his smirk putting the lie to any remorse his words might have implied. "You know being the medium for a Rozen Maiden means letting her use your life energy for all kinds of stuff. But you can also draw it out and do your own miracles."

"Is that so." Tomoe smiled slightly. "I'm not sure if those four would agree with the word 'miracle', though."

"Hmmph! I went easy on them," he proclaimed. "They would've beaten me black and blue, and I didn't so much as hit them!"

"They probably would have preferred that," she pointed out. "Getting spun around until they were too dizzy to do anything wasn't so bad, but then...?"

Jun chuckled, perhaps the tiniest bit sheepishly. "Shinku'll probably say I've spent too much time around Suisei Seki," he admitted. "But if she doesn't at least smile, I'll dye my uniform red."

Tomoe pulled out her cell phone and fast-forwarded through the video she'd taken, stopping at the last, farcical image. Three boys, one girl; two siblings, two unrelated youths. Jun had moved quickly while disabling them, it was true, but that was nothing to the speed with which his hands had moved afterward as he arranged intimate, clinging embraces between Hiro and Tetsuga, Aki and Soichiro, and sewed the clothes of the 'couples' together with bright red thread.

"Thanks for taking that, by the way," he added. "It'll make great blackmail material if they try to give me any more trouble."

Tomoe blinked, for the first time feeling regret that her nemesis Aki had been involved in the humiliation. "Ah... you mean I shouldn't have already uploaded it to the school webpage?"

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Author's Notes

Tomoe is almost too perfect. She wasn't quite able to handle Hina Ichigo, but other than that she doesn't really have any flaws. I enjoyed making her a bit more human. As for Jun, hopefully this didn't come across as too out-of-character for him. Not that it's something he'd be able to do in the original series, but rather a logical continuation of the growth we've seen him doing (and a reaction to Enju's and Laplace's dismissing him as insignificant and helpless in the final episode of Traumend). Thanks go to the creator of the webcomic Dominic Deegan for inspiring the sewing-together-in-a-really-embarrassing-pose bit.

Regarding the nature of the teasing and abuse that Jun received at school... probably only a minority of it was due to people finding out about his enjoyment of sewing. The evidence of the original series is that most of it was disdain for him having to settle on a lower-quality school when his test scores indicated that he could reach a much higher one, combined with his own attitude problem due to that. But there was at least some bullying based on the sewing thing.