Stage Four: Koakuma
She knew no boundaries but for the one she loved.

"Good morning, Marisa."

"Ohayou, da, ze!" she replied, with her usual energy. Or rather, an imitation of her usual energy. There was a sort of dampened air about the magician as she sat herself in front of the second to last bookshelf in the third column and searched for the book she was reading, The Zero Stone by Andre Norton.

Again.

For the thirteenth time this month.
September was drawing to a chilly close, and Marisa was still not finished with that book.

But could I call her out on it?
Nope, no, of course not, because somewhere inside me I was hoping she'd take years––I wished she'd read that book for all eternity. I wished with all my heart that she'd adore that book as immensely as it adored her, and that it could give her all the loving care that it knew she deserved and would have no greater pleasure than in carrying such a thing out. I wished that she would never, never put it down for a second, and never leave it to feel lonely again for the rest of its long, isolated lifetime.

(Psst, I'm not talking about the book anymore.)

Of course, I realized that I couldn't keep Marisa there; there were things for her to see, things for her to do. She wanted to enjoy life and deserved to, and just because a shut-in like me loved her didn't mean I had the right to lock her up with me.
For today, though…

"Patchouli, where is that book I've been reading?" she inquired, poking her cute head out from behind the bookshelves.

"Where did you leave it yesterday?" I didn't look up from Jane Eyre, but a devious smile crept onto my face.

"Right here! It's the last book on the shelf; it's not hard to miss, and it's not there, ze!"

"Why, I swear, Kirisame-san, don't tell me you're losing my books!"

"No, no I returned it right there yesterday! I remember it distinctly, distinctly I say, ze!"

"Now, don't think rude of me, Kirisame-san, but I can't keep out of my suspicion that you've stolen it and now you're trying to pass it off as lost! What audacity, trying to make a fool out of my excellent accountancy when it comes to my beloved books. What shall be your

punishment, I do wonder…?"

"No, no, I've been framed! It's… it's her!" she pointed at Koakuma and looked back to me. "She took it, didn't she?"

"Who did?" I grinned.

"Wha––!" Marisa started as she saw that Koakuma had disappeared from sight, leaving an only slightly opaque cloud of smoke in her place. "The little red devil! She was just here, I swear I––AH!"
The "little red devil" reappeared behind Marisa, whose pointing finger swerved with the rest of her.

"Hey! Hey, she's holding the book! Right there in her hands! Hand it over, da-ze, or feel the wrath of my Master Spa––"

"Where, Marisa? Who are you talking about?" I stifled my laughter with intense difficulty.

"Why––Wha––!" Her head spun comically to find Koakuma had disappeared again. "She was… Right… AH!"

It didn't take long before Marisa was on her broom playing Whack-the-Koakuma, and losing, much to my exuberant laughter, which became too great for me to suppress.

"You dare laugh at me, wench?" she said, stopping in front of me, but with a playful grin on her face.

I met her glare with one of my own. "Who are you calling a wench? You can't even catch a Stage Four midboss!"

"Well, I'll say!" she stuck her tongue out at me seductively, and took off again. In a terrible British accent, she bowed and said, "In that case, you are the princess, and I am your knight, and I shall get back your book if it's the last thing I do for m'lady," with a wide smile. I hid my face, blushing furiously, behind the pages of my book.

Not a half an hour passed before Marisa was collapsed, exhausted, on the floor. Walking over to her, I tipped the brim of her hat so I could see her face.

I produced a novel entitled The Zero Stone from my robe's sleeve. "Would now be a good time for me to tell you I have the book right here?" I smiled mischievously.

"Why, you…" she started, and for a second I thought she was going to be angry; instead, she burst into laughter. "I never would have thought that my Princess Patchouli would trick me so. I am so very deeply pained, ze!"

Even Koakuma was cackling (albeit inaudibly) as Marisa got on her knees and began spouting Shakespeare with a dramatic flourish. "The grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break," she wailed, clutching the fibers of the carpet in mock-desperation.

"Tis better to bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of," I replied promptly.

Her eyebrows turned up with the corners of her mouth, sensing a challenge. With an exaggerated sigh, she looked off to the distance. "Love to faults is always blind, always is to joy inclined. Lawless, winged, and unconfined, and breaks all chains from every mind."

She seemed satisfied with herself, and her eyes dared for me to top her.*

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech," I recited with some difficulty.

She took a deep breath. "He that is thy friend indeed, he will help thee in thy need; If thou sorrow, he will weep; if thou wake, he cannot sleep: thus of every grief in heart he with thee does bear a part. These are certain signs to know faithful friend from flattering foe."

Imparted with utter precision. Did she have an outstanding memory, or what?

"A friend is one that knows you as you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still, gently allows you to grow."
Marisa seemed to ponder this deeply for a moment, before looking at in the eyes. "Patchouli, 'Who could refrain that had a heart to love and in that heart courage to make love known?'"

"Speak low, if you speak of love." (I meant it, as now would be a terrible time for Sakuya to walk in. A relief to me, Koakuma had disappeared altogether now that she'd had her fun.)

Marisa laughed. "Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving."

With solemnity, and perhaps a bit of fear, creeping into my voice, I said, "'Give thy thoughts no tongue,' Marisa."

"No, 'Say as you think and speak it from your souls.'"

"Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind."

"'Love is too young to know what conscience is,' ze."

"No, I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing."

She tipped my chin up and looked into my eyes saucily. "Teach not they lips such scorn, for it was made for kissing, lady, not for such contempt."

Holding strong, I turned my head away. "Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

"That's the Bible!"
"I can quote whatever I want, Kirisame-san."

"Then so can I!" she crossed her arms. "Who knows how long I've loved you, you know I love you still. Will I wait a lonely lifetime? If you want me to, I will," she sang.

Her words sent shivers up my spine, but I distrusted her still. "Somehow I think the Bible is more acceptable than the Beatles," I teased. (We both had fun reading a biography on them that had an audio CD tucked into one of the pages.)

"Patchouli, right now, I think I'd give half my life for just one kiss."
She knew I'd remember the second half of that quote, didn't she?
"Then kiss me twice."

And kiss me twice she did, rather, more than twice, but for a moment there I experienced something I don't experience often: confusion.

Because I was on the floor of my library, and someone was kissing me, and that someone loved me, that someone told me she loved me in a hodge-podge of quotations, and I loved her too, and I was so scared, except I wasn't scared at all, and I was kissing her, I was running my fingers through her starchy blonde hair and cherishing the feeling of her rough lips moist against mine, and her hat fell off, and someone was teasing my mouth open with her playful tongue, and I was giving in to her as she pulled off my robe as if she couldn't stand a fraction of an inch's distance between us, and my arms were around her neck, and I couldn't put away this feeling that I never, ever wanted to let go of this someone again.

All this I understood, but––that this someone was Marisa, my Marisa Kirisame, and I was Patchouli Knowledge, and I loved her, and she loved me––suddenly every bloody thing in the entire world was so, so very right.

"I have a confession, Patchouli," she said when we pulled away after having remembered that breathing was a necessary life function.
"…What's that?" I asked, frightened.

She rolled over to face me with that sparkling, trademark Marisa smile. Honestly, I don't think I will ever forget the way her flecked green eyes sparkled up at me, the way her arms wrapped around me, her voice in mock apology: "I finished The Zero Stone two weeks ago."

"Then what are you doing her, little thief, if your presence is not only for literary means?" I dared myself, fear still blatantly present in me, to say.

"I'm here for you. I love you, Patchouli," Marisa whispered into my nightgown.
"…I-I…I love you too, Marisa…"

Still embracing each other, we sat in the silence of Voile, the both of us seeming to have trouble breathing, we could hardly take in what had happened. Weeping into her dress, I pulled Marisa against me.

"Whoa, why are you crying, ze? You're making me cry!"

Embarrassed, I stuttered, "I–I'm so happy."

Tears ran down Marisa's face, and I couldn't keep myself from kissing them off her cheek.

"But what are we supposed to do now, ze…?"

"Sorry to interrupt your little pow-wow, but I've got a present," a voice suddenly called brazenly from the open window. Miss Yukari Yakumo, followed by her usual shikigami entourage, here carrying evidently heavy boxes, let herself in.

"What the hell are you doing here? Can't you learn to knock on the fr––" I started, until Marisa jumped up and cried out,
"Oooh, what are these?"

"Atlases. Maps. Boring as heck, but I heard you were out of reading material, little black-white," she said in that cheeky Yukari tone. "Arrange them yourself, I'm going back to sleep."

The boxes were set promptly in front of the second bookshelf in the third column, and the Yakumos left as suddenly as they had came. All except for Chen, who, distracted, began to look through a book called "Black Cat Atlas," until the kitsune Ran hollered with the usual ear-splitting volume, "CHEEEEEEEEEENNNN!"

Marisa and I were silent for a moment after Chen had cartwheeled out the window, before we broke down in giggles.

"Looks like we have a ton of reading to do; I'm afraid you're going to have to start spending your nights here too, Marisa," I teased.

"Only if my princess will let me."

The last thing I remembered before falling asleep that night was Marisa's head on my shoulders, our backs supported by the second bookshelf in the third column, and the capital of New Zealand.

I quite like this chapter.

*That's what she said.