[KnM][RGU][MH] Revolutions
Revolutions – Chapter 3
A Kannazuki no Miko, Revolutionary Girl Utena and Mai Hime X-Over Fanfic
January 13, 2013 – January 20, 2013
Word Count: Approx 6,400
NOTES: The characters from Kannazuki no Miko (KnM), Revolutionary Girl Utena (RGU), and Mai Hime (MH) that appear in this fanfic do not belong to the author and are being used without permission from their owners, who include TNK for KnM, J.C. Staff for RGU, and Bandai for MH.
[MaiHime][KannaMiko][Utena] "Did you hear? Did you hear? Have you heard the news? The revolution has come and gone, and there is a new Prince to amuse!" The Hime and Miko are caught again in the eternal struggles between the Prince, the Eight Headed Demon, and the Obsidian Lord. Bonds of love and friendship are forged and tested between Chikane, Shizuru, Natsuki, Utena and others.
The main story takes place a few weeks after Mai Hime, about 15-16 years after the end of RGU, and about 15-16 years after the end of KnM.
Notes and Omake follow at the end. Comments and Criticisms are greatly appreciated!
The first few days of the new school year were rough on Natsuki.
During the first week of classes, she missed one day. Then, she missed another. "Mou! Aready, Kuga-san?!" Her homeroom teacher chided her, exasperated. "Did you really like remedial classes over spring break so much that you want to take them over summer break as well?"
Of course I don't! Natsuki fumed silently to herself after she eventually managed to escape her teacher's long and winding sermon. Honestly, she wasn't sure how she'd survived those lessons and she had sworn to herself that she would never put herself in a position to have to fill her vacation time with books and homework ever again. Despite this, Natsuki was so perturbed by the woman in her bedroom (from the first night she'd meet her new roommate), and what that woman had said about Duran, she just couldn't not investigate it, and her old contacts didn't have classes or apparently regular day-time jobs. Not that Yamada had been helpful at all; he'd only been able to confirm to her that the First District hadn't been disbanded, but its activities were still indefinitely suspended.
After a week of fruitlessly digging after anything that could implicate the First District, or the Hime Star, or the Festival yielded no results, Natsuki turned her attention onto her roommate. Suspicious that the younger girl was involved in the conspiracy somehow, Natsuki decided she couldn't just openly ask Chikane about it, for a variety of reasons. If Chikane was involved somehow, Natsuki didn't want the other girl to know about her own knowledge. And if Chikane wasn't involved (and chiefly, she hadn't given Natsuki any indication that she'd even seen the woman), well, Natsuki just didn't want to give someone she had to share close living quarters with reason to think her weird.
So, Natsuki resorted to carrying out discrete surveillance activities over her roommate over the course of several days and learned in the process that Himemiya Chikane was one ridiculously high functioning young woman who kept her day filled with activities from dawn until well past nightfall.
Waking at the crack of dawn, Chikane would make her way down to the archery range, where she had joined the archery club, and was always the first to arrive, often having use of the range for almost half an hour before anyone else showed up.
"Natsuki, what are you doing?" Mikoto asked when she suddenly appeared from out of nowhere to crouch beside Natsuki, who was peering out from behind some bushes just beside the archery range.
"Gah!" Natsuki started. Putting her hand on top of Mikoto's head, she ducked the both of them back down behind the bushes before they could be seen. "Mikoto! What are you doing up so early?" Natsuki hissed at the younger girl.
"I'm on my way to kendo practice," Mikoto replied. Getting the wild child to join Tate's club had been Mai's idea, hoping to drain the girl of some of her abundant energy. "What about you?"
"Me?" Natsuki swallowed, "ah, nothing. Nothing. Hey, have you had breakfast?" She fished a pastry from her pocket she had been saving for later and shoved it in the younger girl's face.
Mikoto happily swallowed the treat whole. "Oooh! Thanks, Natsuki! You're awesome!"
Eventually, Natsuki managed to shoo Mikoto away, but by that time, others in the archery club had showed up, and she had to bail to avoid being seen.
The next day, Natsuki tried to act as casually as possible as she went up onto the roof of the school. Jamming the door to the roof closed behind her to prevent any followers, she then moved to the edge of the building where she pulled out a pair of binoculars and stared through them. It took her a moment, but she could see Chikane seated in the computer classroom, using one of the machines for something. Turning up the power on her binoculars, Natsuki tried to make out what the long haired girl was doing.
"Kuga, what are you doing?" Yuuki Nao asked when she suddenly popped up from out of nowhere to stand beside Natsuki on the roof. Nao was wearing the high school uniform now, having graduated from the 3rd year of junior high by some grace of the god she now served.
"Gah!" Natsuki started. Flailing her arms around in surprise, she almost dropped her binoculars. "Nao! How'd you get up here?!" She asked indignantly.
Nao gave her a queer look. "I was here first," she said flatly. "Before you jammed the door shut." She looked over in the direction Natsuki had pointed her binoculars in. "Don't tell me," Nao dead panned. "You're looking in the locker room windows, aren't you?"
"What?! No! Go away, Nao!" Natsuki gave the redhead a dirty look. "And forget you saw anything!"
Nao only raised an eyebrow, rolled her eyes, and walked away.
"And lock that door behind you!" Natsuki shouted after Nao without turning. She brought her binoculars up to her face again. It took her a while to zero in on the right classroom, and by then, Chikane had moved to a computer outside of her range of vision.
"Che." Natsuki swore. She headed back towards the rooftop door and tried to leave. Her eyebrow twitched when she realized Nao had jammed the door shut from the other side. "DAMN YOU, NAO!" Natsuki roared, pounding on the door. She could practically hear the other girl snickering on the other side.
The day after that, Natsuki tailed Chikane to the band room, keeping almost a full hallway's length between them until the girl disappeared into the room. Natsuki hurried after her, using her hand to gently keep the door from closing completely. Leaving the door just a crack open, Natsuki peered inside silently.
It was in the early evening, and the sun was beginning to set. Chikane silently made her way to where the piano was positioned in the room, and pulled out the bench to sit on it. For a long time, she did nothing except sit at the piano, idly tapping a finger against the closed lid of the keys, apparently lost in thought. Natsuki was beginning to fidget from the inaction when Chikane finally opened the closed lid, and started to play. Natsuki's eyes widened as beautifully melancholic strains from a song she'd never heard before reached her ears.
Wow. She's good. The music made Natsuki's heart ache, the strains burdened with so much obvious longing and regret.
"Natsuki, what are you doing?" Mai asked when she suddenly showed up beside Natsuki, apparently drawn by the sound of the music.
"Gah!" Natsuki started. She almost let the door slam closed in her surprise, but (un)luckily managed to shove one finger in through the crack. "Aaowmmmph!" Muffling a cry by biting her lip, Natsuki hastily freed her finger while tears of pain sprung to her eyes without the door slamming. The music continued uninterrupted inside.
Mai was aghast, staring at Natsuki's massively throbbing and weirdly bent finger with wide eyes. "Oh my god are you okamph!" Natsuki clamped her other hand over top of Mai's mouth (keeping the door open with a toe now).
"Shhh!" Natsuki hissed, putting her throbbing finger up to her lips. They quietly stared through the door as Chikane continued to play, evidently so enraptured by the performance that she hadn't noticed their antics. Eventually, the song dwindled down to an end. Chikane continued to sit, poised at the piano, unmoving, the atmosphere in the empty room still seeming to echo the loneliness in her song.
Natsuki shut the door quietly, suddenly feeling like she had seen, and heard, something she wasn't meant to.
"Natsuki, what were you doing?" Mai repeated her question, her voice still a hiss. "And why are we whispering?"
Natsuki wasn't really able to answer Mai.
Later that week, Natsuki got an invite from Shizuru to head over to the diner Mai worked at for a snack after class. Thinking nothing of it, she agreed to go and was surprised to see that Chikane was seated at a table two down from their own, laughing at something a classmate was saying.
It wasn't until Shizuru's gentle, obviously worried voice uttered the same words Mikoto, Nao and Mai had spoken earlier that week, did Natsuki finally realize how far she'd relapsed into unhealthy habits.
"Natsuki, what are you doing?"
"Huh?" Not even realizing she'd been ignoring the other girl until then, Natsuki turned her attention back to Shizuru at the mention of her name, and suddenly found herself lost in red eyes slightly furrowed with hurt. Natsuki could feel her heart twitch with guilt though she swallowed it down and tried to act innocent. "Um, I'm sorry, Shizuru. What were you saying?"
The tips of Shizuru's mouth turned downward ever so slightly for just a fraction of a moment, before she schooled her features again. Her voice was calm and even, but Natsuki could tell that the older girl was far more upset than she was letting on by the coolness in her words. "Natsuki, I can understand that you find Himemiya-san intriguing, as does the rest of Fuuka and even myself to a certain extent. But, I would appreciate it that if agree to come out with me to chat, you would actually use the time to talk to me rather than keeping tabs on other people."
Shizuru might as well have upended a cup of cold water directly over top of Natsuki's head. She sat there, stunned, staring back at Shizuru and feeling like the biggest jackass in the world.
No words passed between them for a few moments, until Natsuki managed to mumble out an awkward, if heart felt, "I'm sorry." By that time, however, the mood was much spoiled. Shortly thereafter, they settled their tab with Mai (the redhead noticing but not commenting on the iciness in the air) and left the diner.
Natsuki spent most of the evening brooding over the afternoon's events in Fuuka's library. If she could be perfectly honest with herself (which she'd always had problems with), she would have admitted that she was running and hiding – still running and hiding as she'd done for weeks since the end of the Festival. Even choosing to live with Mai and Mikoto, while ultimately a good decision, was rooted in the desire to flee from the scariest thing she'd ever dealt with: her feelings.
"What is wrong with me?" Natsuki muttered to herself, slamming her head against a bookshelf with a loud 'thonk!' that echoed throughout the empty library.
How could she have been so boneheaded? She knew that she and Shizuru still had to clear the air between them – something they were both dreading and anticipating so deeply. She should have caught the significance, when Shizuru had asked to talk so suddenly and out of the blue...
But Natsuki wasn't ready. Heck, she realized now that the entire reason she'd become obsessed about her dark skinned visitor was because she'd been desperately trying to distract herself from havine to deal with Shizuruin the first place!
Damn it. Damn it damn it damn it damn it.
And it wasn't like she could just explain to Shizuru the reason behind her actions either, couldn't even let the other girl know about the mysterious woman she was obsessing about. To talk about her would be to talk about Duran and to talk about Duran would be to talk about the Festival, and to talk about the Festival...
She just wasn't ready to talk about the Festival with Shizuru yet.
Or was she?
Sometimes, I wish we had just stayed dead, Natsuki thought darkly to herself. The day she had died, she had set out intending to accomplish just that. The world was about to end and she had felt at peace with herself about it. She had told Shizuru the truth in her heart and had been proud of her words because she knew them to be true. There hadn't been any doubt in her mind. She'd had closure – they both did.
Not like now.
Natsuki groaned and slammed her head against the bookshelf a couple more times.
By the time she left the library and went back to her room, it was so late that even Chikane was in bed with her eyes closed and the covers pulled up to her chin.
Thank god for small favors, Natsuki thought as she changed, brushed her teeth and fell into bed. She really hadn't wanted to talk to her roommate. But, apparently, she had thanked god a little too soon because a few minutes after she'd laid down, Chikane spoke.
"Rough day?" Her younger roommate asked.
Natsuki groaned internally. "You have no idea." Her voice came out almost like a growl. She hoped her roommate would take the hint.
Chikane evidently decided not to. "Try me."
Natsuki thought about it, rubbing her eyes tiredly.
Shoot. What's the worst thing that could happen? I tried to be discrete to not mess things up with Shizuru and I've already gone and done that anyhow. Natsuki closed her eyes and counted to ten. When she opened them, they held resolve. "I have a confession. But, it's kinda weird, so I'm not sure how to say it."
Chikane considered this for a moment. Her next words were cautious. "If it helps you to formulate your thoughts, I can let you know that whatever you have to say, it's unlikely to make me think you any weirder than I already do."
Natsuki quirked an eyebrow and rolled over onto her side to look at her roommate, whom was still lying on her back with her eyes closed. "Wait. You think I'm weird?" She asked, incredulity dripping from her voice.
Chikane finally opened her eyes to look out of the corner of them sardonically at Natsuki. There was a hint of a smile on her lips. "Most people who resort to clandestine activities from around corners and behind bushes are a little weird in some way or another," she said dryly.
Natsuki groaned. "You knew about that already?! Why didn't you say something?" She felt like bashing her head against the wall again, but her forehead still ached a little from the number she'd done on it in the library.
Again, the younger girl didn't answer right away. Natsuki got the distinct impression that Chikane herself was feeling almost as hesitant about the situation as she was. Finally, the other girl sighed. "Perhaps because I am also a little weirder than most," Chikane admitted reluctantly. "I've been keeping tabs on you too."
Now Natsuki bolted upright in her bed. "What?!"
Natsuki's large action prompted Chikane to finally move and the younger girl rolled onto her front, positioning her weight onto her elbows. She looked over at Natsuki with clear, firm eyes. "Honestly, you weren't being particularly ninja-like," she said sardonically, apparently not realizing that Natsuki wasn't the resident ninja on campus. "You were acting so strangely. So, I asked around about you."
Oh great. This just gets better and better. Natsuki cringed. "Who did you talk to about me?"
"Mai-sempai, Mikoto and Yuuki-san," Chikane confessed. She offered Natsuki a bit of a reassuring smile. "You should know they think highly of you."
Natsuki blinked. Nao thinks highly of me? She's gotta be kidding.
"Very highly of you," Chikane continued, smiling a soft, teasing smile, "highly enough to reassure me, repeatedly, that you weren't a 'bad guy' or a pervert, or a stalker. Well, Yuuki-san suggested you might have been one of the three, but, I think her definition of the word is a bit different from mine. In any case, they all let me know that your recent behavior is out of the ordinary for you, which leads me to believe that something must have happened to make you act this way."
Chikane took a deep breath. When she spoke again, her voice was once more hesitant. "You saw her, didn't you? The long haired woman in red?"
Natsuki wanted to explode. Oh gods, why hadn't she just asked Chikane in the first place and saved herself a week of grief?! "Yes! YES!" Natsuki practically shouted. "Why didn't you say anything?!" She asked again. "She was in our room, the first night! You know her? Who is she?" Oh, how she really wanted to bash her head against a hard surface just then.
"Well, what would you have me say?" Chikane frowned. "Sempai, you're the first other person I've met who's been able to see her besides me. And possibly Chu-Chu, though you can appreciate that I can't really confirm that." Chikane's frown deepened for a second longer before she spoke again. "As to your other questions... as far as I can tell, she's a ghost."
Natsuki stared blankly at Chikane. "A ghost." She said flatly. "Are you serious?"
A hint of annoyance appeared in Chikane's eyes at the question. "Well, what would you call an apparition only you can see who appears and disappears at will without seeming to touch anything?"
An Orphan, Natsuki thought darkly, though she didn't say it. She didn't believe in ghosts.
But, between secret organizations and wish granting red stars of destiny and giant half-mechanic, half-spiritual guardian animals, honestly, who was she to say? In some ways, she herself was also undead! Grudgingly, Natsuki decided to entertain the idea. "If she is a ghost, why is she haunting you?"
Chikane took a long time to answer, again. It almost drove Natsuki nuts, but she could appreciate why the other girl was being cautious. Chikane didn't strike her as a particularly open person, and she imagined that the younger girl was sharing things with her she'd never shared with another before. Eventually, Chikane looked away from Natsuki, pensively playing with a lock of hair. Her voice was soft.
"She's visited me since I was an infant," Chikane said softly. "Not very often, but enough times that I've lost count. However, though I'm the one who sees her, I don't think it's me she's trying to haunt..." Her words grew softer still, cryptic to Natsuki's ears, as the younger girl appeared to be pondering something herself. "Or at least, I didn't think it was me. But, since she's shown up here as well, perhaps it is me."
Natsuki got the distinct impression Chikane wasn't giving her the full story but before she could call her out on it, Chikane looked over at her with blue-green eyes boring intensely into Natsuki's own. "Did she speak to you?"
Crap. It was the one question Natsuki most hadn't wanted to answer. She stammered a little bit before resigning to herself that she was just a terrible liar. "Yes," Natsuki finally admitted. "She said something about my..." and suddenly, Natsuki had a stroke of genius, "... my dog. Duran. He died recently."
Chikane studied Natsuki's features with that same silent intensity, and the older girl knew the younger girl had detected that she wasn't telling the whole truth, and was probably trying to decide whether it was worth pressing for it. Finally, Chikane settled for a simple, "I see. I'm sorry to hear. Maybe that's why you could see her too, since you were also recently touched by loss."
Natsuki considered this. "Maybe." Touched by loss? That's one way to put it...
They were silent for a long time after that, both lost in their thoughts. Natsuki couldn't help but feel a weight lifted from her shoulders. She really should have just asked Chikane outright from the get go, though, she wondered, would she have gotten such straight answers from the other girl had she done so? That was difficult to say. In any case, Natsuki realized that she should probably apologize for her earlier jack-assery. There were actually a couple people she had to apologize to. "Hey, Chikane?"
"Yes?"
"Sorry for spying on you."
"It's alright, given the circumstances." Chikane paused. "I am also sorry."
"For bringing a ghost with you to Fuuka?" Natsuki laughed. "That's hardly something you have control over."
"Not that," Chikane replied softly, her voice still serious. "It... wasn't just Mai-sempai, Mikoto and Yuuki-san I talked to," she admitted. The pause in the air was pregnant. "I'm sorry for causing trouble between you and Fujino-sempai."
Natsuki felt like she'd been punched in the gut. "I… I don't know what you're talking about." She said, rolling to face away from the other girl and hoping that by doing so, Chikane couldn't see the grimace on her face.
Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap crap crap. Not this. Not now.
Chikane was silent for a while. Again, when she spoke, her words were overly careful. "Then I'm sorry if I misinterpreted the nature of your relationship."
That was not the right thing to say. At all.
Feeling very, very irritated with the tones in Chikane's voice she found suddenly very, very condescending (gods, she's talking with oven mitts on!), Natsuki clenched her fists. Weeks upon weeks of frayed emotions and dancing around the giant pink elephant in the room finally came to a head and Natsuki could feel something snap inside her, almost tangibly. "Shizuru and I are not together," Natsuki spat, "because I am not gay."
Instantly, Natsuki regretted her words.
Damn it. Natsuki squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists tighter and wished, for the millionth time, that she had a time machine so she could go back and surgically sew her mouth permanently shut to prevent her foot from taking up residency there. Why did she always seem to be able to dive into the tangled jumble of emotions in her brain, and select the worst possible thing to spew out?
And then, somehow, Chikane's mouth did exactly the opposite and she said possibly the best thing she could have said in a field full of landmines.
"I see. Is it going to be a problem if I am?"
What? Natsuki blinked. Slowly, she turned around to look at Chikane once more.
The younger girl's position mirrored her own – on her back, face turned to look at Natsuki. There was no malice or contention or challenge in her blue-green eyes. Just simple truthfulness, and expectation, for an answer.
Wow. Natsuki thought to herself, surprised and a bit admiring of the other girl's candidness. She's... confident.
"Of course not," Natsuki quickly replied, suddenly feeling all the more anxious in the face of such self security and not quite able to admit why. "No, not at all. That's not... that's not what I mean. I don't... look. I... I love Shizuru." Huh. That was easier to say out loud to another human being than she thought possible. "She's like, the empirically proven most importantly person in my life. I'm just... I'm not in love with her. Or at least, I don't think I am. Do you know what I mean?"
Chikane's eyes softened and Natsuki could see the empathy glimmering clearly in her blue-green eyes. "Unfortunately, yes. I do. Very much so." Her smile was soft with understanding and Natsuki got the impression that the other girl's candidness and self acceptance had been begot the hard way. "Though I am not sure how one would go about proving another's importance, empirically."
Natsuki chuckled. Chikane's self assured, teasing manner really reminded her of Shizuru from before the festival, before things had gotten so damn complicated. "Yeah, I really don't want to get into that."
Chikane knew not to press. "Fair enough."
There was silence once again. Funny, there had already been so much silence this evening, brought on by so much revelation. Natsuki would never have guessed, in a million years, that at the end of it all, the silence that ended the conversation would be so amiable. Certainly, it was not in her nature to open up so easily, but, Natsuki thought, that change was probably the result of Mai and Mikoto's recent companionship.
Looking over at Chikane again, she noticed that the other girl had closed her eyes, but wasn't actually asleep.
Natsuki's heart twitched as she wondered if she should just stop with the questions for the night. But in the end, the ache in her heart got the better of her, and she spoke once again.
"Chikane?"
"Hmm?"
Natsuki's voice was very small. "How did you know?"
Luckily, the younger girl understood what Natsuki was referring to right away.
Unluckily, she did not have an answer for her.
The next morning, Natsuki skipped class again. Not the full day of class, but she did decide that talking to Shizuru was more important than first period history. Heading over to the University campus, Natsuki waited outside the building she knew Shizuru had her first class in, and hoped she hadn't missed the other girl.
She hadn't. Shizuru arrived a few minutes later, and her eyebrows lifted when she saw Natsuki. "This is a surprise," she said with a smile. There wasn't a hint that anything was wrong in that smile, and yet, somehow, Natsuki knew that that wasn't true.
"Hey." Natsuki greeted. She swallowed nervously. "Shizuru, listen. About yesterday, I'm sorry. Really. I've been an idiot recently."
The edge of Shizuru's lips twitched amusedly. "Go on."
Natsuki rubbed the back of her head awkwardly. Her heart wavered. Could she talk about the Festival? She swallowed again. "I've just had things on my mind that I wasn't sure I should talk about because... well... I just didn't know if we were ready to talk about it."
Shizuru's eyes widened. Natsuki noticed the older girl's grip on her purse tightened ever so slightly. The sight galvanized Natsuki, as the last thing she wanted to do was to drag this out for the other girl. But she had to choose her words carefully. It seemed to take forever, but finally, finally, Natsuki chose her words.
"Would you do it again?" Natsuki asked, softly. 'If... If somehow, Kiyohime came back to you... would you do everything you did before again?"
Ruby red eyes widened even further and then flooded with sorrow and regret.
Natsuki bit her lip. Was it a fair question? She wasn't sure.
'Everything…' I don't even know what 'everything' encompasses...
Shizuru closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she couldn't look Natsuki straight in the eyes, though Natsuki could obviously see the turmoil in them.
"I would."
The shame in Shizuru's voice resonated deeply in Natsuki's ears, and Natsuki could feel her own heart twist in knots at the answer she had already expected.
They stood in awkward silence while Natsuki's heart thundered in her head, obliterating the thoughts she was desperately trying to put together. She could feel the words escaping her though, and as she continued to look at Shizuru, she knew that she had to say something, that every second her tongue remained tied, the knife of guilt in Shizuru's heart twisted a little deeper, pushing Shizuru a little further away from her.
"Don't." Natsuki blurted.
Shizuru looked up at Natsuki, her ruby eyes knitted with confusion.
Natsuki swallowed. "Don't." She repeated. To punctuate the point, she cautiously reached out and gave one of Shizuru's hands a squeeze. "Promise me, okay? I..." Damn, her throat was so dry. ""I… I love you too much to lose you like that again, okay?" Her grip on the older girl's hand tightened.
Shizuru looked down at their her hand for a moment, as though unbelieving that they were being held in Natsuki's own. Finally, slowly, a small, bittersweet smile came to her face. She nodded.
Natsuki smiled. "Good." She hesitated only for a moment. And then she wrapped her arms tightly around the other girl's neck.
Shizuru returned the embrace like a woman drowning.
There was still so much left to say, to clarify.
But at least they were on their way.
In the middle of the night, deep within the caverns that sprawled under most of Fuuka Island, a single pristine white shoe stepped on a broken computer monitor, snapping it in two with a loud, echoing crack. The End of the World looked across the destroyed underground Obsidian Palace with a bored expression on his beautiful face. For weeks, ever since the end of the Hime Star Festival, the caverns had crawled with insignificant human ants, remnants of the Obsidian Lord's First District. They had inconspicuously collected everything of importance that they could, destroying everything that they couldn't. The prison that had trapped and enslaved the Crystal Princess for the last 300 years, had been completely dismantled. Anything mystical had been emptied when Mashiro had gone, and there was only scrap and junk now which once had been on the most advance edge of human technology.
The End of the World had patiently waited the last several weeks for the human ants to finally leave. While he had already waited 15 years for this (and thousands of years before even that), the last few weeks had been especially trying. They were so close now, after all. There were only a few more chess pieces to put into play.
"Your people certainly were thorough with the tear down," The End of the World intoned, the annoyance in his voice clear. He ground the former computer monitor under his heal a little further, "but their clean up leaves something to be desired."
Sitting atop of the breast pocket on his fine, white, militaristic uniform, a single, perfectly round but slightly cracked amethyst gemstone glowed. "If it's cleanliness you want, hire a maid," the Obsidian Lord replied contemptuously.
The End of the World shrugged. "Well, I suppose Orochi will not mind too much. I imagine his decorative sensibilities have always fallen more on the entropic side. Are you ready?"
The amethyst gemstone glowed once more. "Yes. But remember our deal. I care nothing about the miko or the new Prince. But the Hime are mine."
The former Prince resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The Obsidian Lord had yammered constantly on and on for the last several weeks about revenge; it was a large part of the reason why the former Prince was feeling as annoyed as he was. The Obsidian Lord had always been somewhat delusional about grandeur, but such was the nature of one fueled by greed and ambition, and unfortunately, out of the three of them, he was the only one who still had a fully functioning connection to that which powered him.
"As agreed. Let's begin." Taking his hands out of his pockets, the End of the World clenched his fists in concentration and closed his eyes while the amethyst gemstone on his breast pocket glowed ominously.
For a while, nothing happened, and then, the giant cavern began to groan and rumble. The debris on the ground rattled about as a giant form was summoned into the cavern. Finally, when the debris came to a rest, in the place of where the Crystal Princess had been trapped, a large monstrous beast laid instead, still bound in wards, each of its eight necks chained so tightly to the ground that the massive metal links were sticky with blood from where they cut through spiky armour and into flesh.
The End of the World was silent, breathing deeply. Finally, he put his hands in his pockets again, when he had recovered from some of the strain of using a power not quite his own. "Well?" He asked the Eight Headed Beast with a smirk. "Comfortable?"
Orochi cracked open a single eye. "Like a swaddled newborn." He grumbled dryly. He tried to stretch, an action that caused the cavern to rumble again, and large boulders to become dislodged from the roof. One of those boulders fell just in front of the End of the World, burrowing halfway into the ground. The former Prince put a foot on it.
"I'd advise against that." He said drolly. "We're not quite ready to announce our presence, I'm afraid."
"What is left to do?" The Obsidian Lord demanded.
"Several things. Not much." The End of the World quirked an eyebrow when he felt a breeze on the wind signalling the arrival of a presence he had not been in the company of for many years now.
Smiling, he turned around to address the Witch. "Hello, dear Sister. How kind of you to come greet me."
Her body was mostly covered by her cascading waves of dark purple hair. Certainly, the hair covered her more than her clothing did, the simple red tunic that it consisted of. She stepped forward, her bare feet making no sound. There was no emotion in her ancient green eyes.
"You keep ugly company these days, Brother." She said.
"Do I?" He asked, chuckling. "Granted, they may not be as beautiful as you, but I would not be so rude as to call them ugly." He stepped forward, removed a hand from his pocket, and touched the back of his fingers to the side of her face. "After all, who could even begin to compare with you?"
The Witch did not respond to his touch. She simply continued to look dispassionately at him.
The End of the World sighed. "Do not be that way, Anthy. Come now, isn't my company better than none? You left me for her but she cannot see you. Who have you left but me? And you did not find my touch so unpleasant once."
There was no response. Just that same, dead gaze. After a few moments, the Witch silently turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness of the caverns.
"Ignore her," the Obsidian Lord spat, annoyance plain in his voice. "As you say, the Witch can never hope to be with her Prince. She cannot interfere here."
The End of the World did not respond to the comment right away, feeling irritation himself at his compatriot's short sightedness. It was no wonder he'd lost to a bunch of school children. "You are right, and you are wrong." He simply said.
The Witch could never hope to be with her Prince. And yet, the Witch could only hope to be with her Prince. That was what he was counting on.
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
Hmm... I know in an earlier chapter, I'd decided that Orochi shouldn't have a gender and was called 'it', but the Obsidian Lord is essentially genderless too, and yet, his association with Reito really makes it hard for me to think of him as anything but male, and then it seemed somewhat weird to leave only Orochi as gender free. Hmm. This isn't a plot point, but I may have to go back when the dust is settled and edit this...
Cheers,
jen-chan
jen-chan-shaw. livejournal. com
OMAKE I : How did you know?
[CHIKANE and NATSUKI are lying in their separate beds on their back. NATSUKI looks over at CHIKANE.]
NATSUKI: [Turning to look at CHIKANE] Chikane?
CHIKANE: [Turning to look at NATSUKI] Hmm?
NATSUKI: [Very small voice] How did you know? That you were gay?
CHIKANE: Oh. Here. [Tosses Doropanda Tours Shiznat Doujin onto NATSUKI's lap] Does this do anything for you?
NATSUKI: [Turns beet red while a line of blood trickles from her nose] ...!
CHIKANE: [Smiles knowingly] Congratulations. You are very, very gay.
OMAKE II: Ojou-sama Tipping
[On Fuuka school grounds, close to the church, HARUKOW is once again grazing grass. She is accompanied this time by NANAMOO. What is a NANAMOO? A NANAMOO is a very similar looking cow to HARUKOW, except that she doesn't have bangs, is orange gold in color (similar in shade to Fuuka's school jacket), has black legs and wears a giant cow bell. The markings on her hide resemble a more militaristic uniform than HARUKOW's, right down to the purple tassels on the shoulder blades.]
NANAMOO: Mooooou? [Munch munch munch]
HARUKOW: [Nodding in agreement] Mooooou. [Munch munch munch] [Pause. Snarky.] Moooou.
NANAMOO: [Hides a mean smile behind a hoof] Moou-hohohohoho.
[In the background, MIKOTO and NAO's heads pop out from the bush. CHU-CHU is sitting on top of MIKOTO's head. MIKOTO and NAO grin mischievously at each other and nod. They silently jump out from the bush, run up to NANAMOO and HARUKOW and tip both cows over. NANAMOO and HARUKOW crash into the ground mightily, mooing with much fuss and indignity. MIKOTO and NAO run away laughing uproariously.]
[NANAMI and HARUKA slide onto the scene, both shaking their fists in unison at MIKOTO and NAO's retreating forms furiously]
NANAMI: Damn kids! Get off my property!
HARUKA: That's it! I quit! If I really am only going to be a cow, I'd rather not show up in this fic at all!]