Crimso's Notes

So, the first episode of Fate/Zero came out yesterday… and I watched it about an hour ago. It was really great ;3;. Fate/Stay Night is my second favorite series. Really, it's really good. (Saber is awesome).

Note one: …I'm just going to skip the whole "Keiichi steals the key from Takeru's room again" thing because you don't want to hear about that a third time.

Note two: Some MionXKeiichi in this chapter.

Note Three: I switched this chapter and the next chapter's order around. I don't believe it affects the plot too much, as this is more development chapter, but I just thought you should know.

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Chapter 10: Games

It was a sunny afternoon after school, and Keiichi had decided that it was time to pay Number Twenty-Seven and Number Twenty-Eight another friendly visit. While he hadn't brought anything for them this time, he figured that having a friendly chat with them was more than enough for the time being. He was now descending down the stairs to the room, twirling the golden key in hand. He wondered to himself how they hadn't figured out that the key had gone missing for an hour or so every once in a while, but he was thankful for that. The last thing he wanted was to be caught.

He opened the wooden doors and walked down the rows of cells, staring into them. There were stains of old blood, all dried up, on the walls of some. And in some cells, there were bones. A part of him believed that the bones belonged to the demons, seeing as Oryou had killed them all, but who knew? Perhaps they were bones of humans they had been given to snack on. But then again, he had never spotted any bones in Number Twenty-Seven and Number Twenty-Eight's cage, making him believe that the bones indeed belonged to the demons that used to live in them.

Soon enough, he reached the very back cell, and was greeted by the sight of Number Twenty-Seven and Number Twenty-Eight taking a pleasant nap. The two of them were curled up against each other, their arms wrapped tightly around one another and their bodies close together. It must be nice to have a sister like that in a life like theirs. Really, how would they be if they didn't have each other? He thought to himself as he observed the two demons in front of him. He smiled at the two of them. He really didn't want to disturb their sleep, but he had things to talk about… and what else did they have to do later?

But before he could, one of the demons peaked her eye open, catching sight of the boy in front of the cage. She removed her arms from her sister and stood up, walking to the front of the cage to meet the boy in front. She placed her hands on the cell bars as she gazed into his blue eyes. "…It's really nice to see you again. It's a real nice change from those stupid servants," she spoke.

Keiichi quickly glanced to her collar before saying anything. "Hello, Number Twenty-Seven. Are you going to wake your sister up?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Sis needs to rest. She couldn't sleep last night."

Keiichi raised an eyebrow. "Why?

Number Twenty-Seven shook her head. "Who knows? Have you ever had a time when you were awake and you just couldn't fall asleep, no matter how hard you tried, for seemingly no reason at all?" she asked him.

Well, that made sense. Such had happened to the brown-haired boy a few times before. "So, I guess it's just going to be you and me talking today, huh? Well, I guess I'm fine with that if your sister needs to get some rest."

The green-haired girl nodded her head, grasping the bars on her cell tightly. "I think that's how it's going to be today. Have you brought us meat?"

Keiichi looked down at his shoes. "Sorry. I'll bring some meat for you guys the next time I come, which shouldn't be so long from now," he apologized. He really did feel bad about not bring any meat to the starving demons, but he didn't have time to explain to Takeru that he had to go to the store to pick up some food for his mom and then come over with the food bags still in hand and have it not sound suspicious. "It's a promise."

"I'll believe you," Number Twenty-Seven said, her hold on the cell tightening. "I'll believe in you no matter what."

"You're very trusting of me, aren't you?" he joked, chuckling a little. "But I like that about you. You're a good demon, you know that?"

"Am I really?" she asked him, curiosity in her emerald green eyes.

He gave her a grin. "You really are."

Silence followed for a few moments, as the demon in front of him seemed a little flattered and didn't know what to say in response. Finding the silence a little awkward, Keiichi focused his attention on the still sleeping twin. "Hey, Number Twenty-Seven?" he said. He shuddered a little when he spoke her "name." It wasn't truly her name. He had to feel sorry for the poor girl. "What do you demons do when you're not sleeping? It really doesn't seem like you girls have very much to do down in this basement."

Number Twenty-Seven sighed. "Yasuo comes here every once in a while to… talk, to us about various matters, but it's really not something I enjoy. Yasuo is a really cruel man. You shouldn't ever trust him," she replied. "The head of the Sonozaki family, Sonozaki Oryou, used to come down here and train us in sword fighting and martial arts, but it's really been a while. I've pretty much mastered fighting, so doing anymore training won't help all that much. It used to be a huge hobby of mine, since there wasn't much else to do."

"Have you ever fought in an actual battle?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No, but I hope to one day. Then I could show off just how good I am with the sword!" A mischievous grin grew across her face. "Just one swipe, and this demon here could win! I could beat the crap out of anyone!" she cried out proudly. "They wouldn't even stand half a chance against the great Number Twenty-Seven! I'd show 'em!"

Keiichi laughed. "But I guess you don't really sword fight anymore, now do you? There's no one to fight against, and you say you haven't trained in a while," he commented.

"Unfortunately, that's about right. Yasuo doesn't allow us to use swords anymore. He really just keeps us in here and does nothing with us. It's sad, really, but there's nothing I can do about it. As a demon, I must comply to his orders," she said with a sigh.

"So, what do you do now? Do you have any other hobbies?" he asked her. Really, if that was the only thing she was allowed to do, that meant life for her must be pretty boring. He couldn't imagine spending every single day locked up in a cage, being unable to do anything at all. He certainly wouldn't want to be a demon.

"I sure do!" she cried out. "But it's a secret… so you can't tell anyone about it, all right?"

"Of course not!" he replied. He hadn't even told anyone that he knew about the demons' existence. Why would he ever tell anyone about a demon's hobbies than he wasn't even supposed to know about in the first place? Still, she seemed rather cautious about people finding out about their secret meetings, which was understandable. Who knew what her master would do to her if he found out, and who knew what he would do to him?

She nodded and then scrambled into the other room, causing Keiichi to grow even more curious. Was there something that she was keeping in the bathroom? A few seconds later, the demon returned, holding something in her right hand. She sat down on the ground in front of him, and showed off the small object to him.

"…Is that… a deck of cards?" he asked her, his eyes growing wide as he caught sight of what was in her hand.

The green-haired demon smiled. "It sure is! One of the servants felt bad for me, so he gave it to my sis and I as a gift. We keep it hidden over there, since our master never bothers to go back there, so that he never finds out!" Her smile then twisted into another mischievous smirk. "I'm pretty damn good at card games. My sis couldn't even beat me if she tried!" she cried out.

Keiichi chuckled. "You seem pretty proud of yourself."

"Of course!" she beamed. "I'm only the best card-game player in the whole entire world. I could beat everyone and anyone! Of course, the only person who can really play with me is my sis. That servant who gave it to me taught me all kinds of games on it, and he used to play with me when no one else was down in the basement, but he quit working down here," she sighed, gazing up at the ceiling. "He was really nice, too. My sis and I thought that he would let us go one day, but he never did."

"He just quit one day, out of the blue?" he asked her. That seemed a little strange to him. Had one of the servants perhaps caught him playing with Number Twenty-Seven and Number Twenty-Eight once? Well, if they had, the game deck probably would have been taken away from them, but it was still something for him to consider. Of course, he could have just gotten bored of his job and quit. That was always possible.

Number Twenty-Seven nodded. "Yeah. Too bad, he was the only servant my sis and I actually cared about. The others would just check up on us and be done with it. Sometimes they would through a slab of meat into our cage and walk away. But that guy would sit there and play card games with us. It was really fun, actually. Now I only have my sis to play with, and I always win!" she complained.

"Isn't that a good thing?" commented Keiichi.

"Of course!" Number Twenty-Seven blurted out. "I love winning! It's the best feeling in the whole entire world! …But really, she's not so competitive. I need a good rival, someone who would be able to put up a real fight and show some spirit! Card games are serious business to me. I want to find someone who feels the same way!" she cried out as she stood up, gazing off into the distance with confidence in her eyes. "And of course, I'll beat them too, but who cares! It'll be fun, wouldn't it?" she added on, turning to look at Keiichi with a grin.

"That sounds like a load of fun!" Keiichi agreed, a smile on his face appearing from the thought. When he was little, he'd play some card games by himself every once and a while, though it was rather boring. He didn't have friends to play with him, after all. The idea of having a serious card game with a serious rival was all too thrilling for the boy. He could understand exactly where the girl in front of him was coming from.

Seeing the look of thrill in the boy's eyes, Number Twenty-Seven smirked. "Ah, would you like to try beating me in a battle? I bet you couldn't if you tried!" she asked him.

Keiichi grinned. He wasn't sure if she was really that good or if she was exaggerating her skills, but a game of cards didn't sound like a bad idea to him. In fact, it sounded like a wonderful idea. "Heh, you're on!" he cried out.

She sat down on the ground again, and Keiichi did too. "We can play through the cell bars. The cards are obviously small enough to slip through. We'll keep the deck on my side, though." She then began to shuffle the deck with great speed and skill, causing Keiichi to wonder how many times she had played with cards. It took a lot of skill to shuffle like that. She made two piles of six cards and then pushed one of them over to Keiichi through the bars of her cell, and he quickly snatched them up.

The cards were rather old, and they looked worn. She had surely played when them many times.

"What game are we going to play?" he asked her.

"Well today, we're going to play the most basic of all basic games… we're going to play the card game played by people of all ages, and the card game people of all ages know how to play! …We're going to play Go Fish!" she cried out in a dramatic fashion with clear passion in her voice.

Keiichi smirked. That was an easy game. Surely it would be easy to beat her. "You're on!"

And so, the intense game of Go Fish started. Keiichi stared at his cards, reading them. He had a two, a three, a nine, a seven, a six, and a King. At this time, there wasn't anything else he could do aside from guess what cards Number Twenty-Seven had. "I'll go first," he told her. He then scanned through his cards, deciding which one he would randomly guess. "Number Twenty-Seven, do you have any threes?" he asked her.

"Go fish," she replied, still staring at her cards. Grumbling, Keiichi reached his hand through the bars of the cell and grabbed onto another card, adding it to his hand. She looked up from her deck and stared at Keiichi's cards. "Do you have any sevens?" she asked him.

He sighed as he handed her the seven card.

The demon smirked. "Looks like you're already losing this one, Maebara Keiichi!" she laughed. "It looks like this demon here has this match in the bag!"

"Heh, let's see if that holds true!" cried Keiichi as he looked at his cards, deciding on his next move. The card he had picked up was an eight. "Let's try this one. Do you have any eights?" he asked her.

The demon looked surprised. "Wow, you actually got one! Usually no one can guess what I have," she commented as she scooted her eight card through the cell bars. "Well, I guess this is just the start of things, hm? Maybe this demon here spoke too soon…"

Keiichi grinned. "You sure did!" he cried out as he snatched up the eight card, slapping it down in the pile.

"Not for long! Do you have any twos?" she asked him

Keiichi cursed under his breath as he handed her the two card, which she accepted happily and smiled at. "I don't know, Maebara Keiichi. I already have three cards left! Do you think you can beat this demon?" she asked him, a smirk plastered on her face.

"Sure I can! Do you have any sixes?" he asked.

"Go fish!" she cried out.

He grumbled something as he drew a card from the pile, only to find that he happened to draw a six. "Yeah!" he yelled out as he placed the two six cards down. "And now I have three."

Number Twenty-Seven narrowed her eyes. "That was just luck."

"But it's all a part of playing, isn't it?" he laughed.

"Heh… you're totally right!"

Number Twenty-Seven began to inspect her opponent's cards closely. Keiichi raised an eyebrow as he saw her do this. Was there something interesting about her cards? "Do you have any nines?" she asked, glancing towards the card in the middle.

Keiichi looked down and saw that the card she had been staring at was indeed a nine. He handed it to her with his eyes narrowed his suspicion. "Hey, did you just guess what that card was, or did you read through the card or something? Do demons have the power to read cards?" he asked, curious.

She smirked. "I don't have powers… but ahaha! You're completely right!"

"W-What!" he cried out. He then turned the cards upside-down so that the back was facing him, though the number not facing his opponent. There were a ton of marks and scratches on the back of his cards, and there was a tear in one of them. Looking over at Number Twenty-Seven's cards, he found that some of them also had tears in them and they were smudged and scratched. "Hell no! Don't tell me you can read the cards by the scratches and tears on the back!"

Number Twenty-Seven didn't wipe the smirk off of her face.

"T-That's cheating!" he yelled.

"Nope! Maebara Keiichi, I like to call it strategy!" she laughed. "It's my tactic to win! Who in the world said that looking at the back of your opponent's cards was against the rules? It's totally fair!"

"It's fair when the back of the cards are completely clear! Here, it's just cheating!" he protested.

Number Twenty-Seven waggled her finger. "If you're going to play with this demon here, you're going to need to follow her rules, and nowhere in my rules does it say that I can't look at the back of someone's cards. Now, if I were to look at the front of your cards, that would be a whole different story! Doing that is against the rules!"

Even though Keiichi was annoyed at her tactics, he couldn't help but smile at them. She was really fun to play with, even if she cheated. Her attitude towards the game really made it enjoyable. "Well I'll just have to play with you again sometime, Number Twenty-Seven! And when I do, I'll be sure to memorize each and every card and I'll take you down fairly!"

"You're on then, Maebara Keiichi!" she cried out.

"Ahaha, there's no reason to call me Maebara Keiichi," he said to her, a small smile on his face. "Just call me Keiichi, alright? It sounds better."

She grinned again. "Heh, fine then! But I won't call you Keiichi."

"What?" he replied, his eyes blinking with confusion.

She pointed her finger at him, a smirk on her face. "I'm going to call you Kei-chan instead! Keiichi is just too boring for me! Therefore, from now on, to Number Twenty-Seven, you'll be Kei-chan! Ahaha!"

Keiichi wondered why she had given him such a strange nickname, but it was her way of having fun, he supposed. Besides, it sounded better than Maebara Keiichi. That just seemed way too formal to him. "It's too bad that I can't come up with a nickname for you! How about if I call you the Master of Cards? …Ahaha… that's more of a title, though."

"That can be my title. I can just be Number Twenty-Seven for now," she replied.

Keiichi smiled at her. She really acted differently when it came to something like cards, didn't she? Usually, she would talk to him about the horrible things her master would do to her, like not feeding her or locking her up in her cell and not allowing her to see the outside world even once. When she spoke about such things, her voice sounded rather dark and sorrowful. But now, here, her voice was full of joy. It was a really big change. Not that he disliked it or anything. He really did enjoy this side of her. "Ahaha… you know, you really act differently when it comes to cards! You see, you usually have this strangely dark tone, but now, you sound really happy! In fact, I don't think I've seen you this happy ever! Ahaha!"

Just as soon as he mentioned her being happy, Number Twenty-Seven's face fell. She wore a gravely serious look on her face as she stared at him, almost as if she had forgotten about the joy she felt when she was playing with him. It startled Keiichi quite a bit, and he dropped his happy attitude. He felt a chill run through his body. Had he said something wrong? "Huh, Number Twenty-Seven? What is it?"

She looked down at the ground. "…Happy…" she murmured.

"Huh? Yeah, happy. Is there something funny about that word or something?" he asked her, confusion filling his eyes despite his attempt to make himself sound more cheerful.

"…Is that something that Yasuo calls a 'human emotion?'" she asked him.

He froze. "…Human emotion?"

She nodded. "…I've heard of 'happy' before once or twice from the servants or Yasuo himself, but I don't quite understand what it means to humans." She paused for a moment. "…Such emotions you humans speak of, like happiness, sadness, or this 'love' you speak of so fondly… is something I can't feel."

"W-What are you trying to say?" he spoke, his tone cracking with confusion. His eyes were wide. He just couldn't quite understand what she was trying to tell him. "Ahaha… you were smiling at me before, weren't you? You were laughing with me and having fun. You were happy, weren't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," was the only response Keiichi got.

His face instantly fell. What in the world was she talking about? She had been having fun with him before, laughing with him, playing with him, and here she was claiming that she wasn't happy. She clearly was. The smiles that she shot him were enough for him to know that she was really feeling the emotion called happiness. Then why was she claiming that she didn't understand? Did she really not have emotions?

No. There was no way that could be true with how she was acting before. She clearly did, and yet, here she was, claiming that she didn't. Was this just another thing that they told demons to prevent them from having basic human rights? Happiness was something that everyone could feel. Were they trying to make it so that they couldn't feel it, so that they couldn't enjoy their lives?

But if they can't be sad… they can't feel bad about anyone they murder…

"Haha… Anyways, let's forget I even mentioned anything. I-I don't know if I want to play Go Fish anymore, so let's just say that you won, all right? I'll accept defeat at your hands," he spoke, though his voice was slightly shaky and his expression was still uneasy from their previous conversation.

She grinned, starling Keiichi. It was just more proof that she really did feel happiness. "Heh, that's a good boy! You know when to surrender, don't you?" she said to him. "Victory belongs to me… once again!"

"Hehe, yeah, you won again," he replied, rubbing the back of his head.

"No surprise there, though. I wasn't expecting you to beat me, but hey, you put up a pretty good match there," she said. She began to collect the cards and place them back in the pile, and then into the box. "I would like it if you came down to play a game with me again, Kei-chan."

"I sure will!" he cried out. "And this time, I'm surely going to beat you, Number Twenty-Seven!"

They both laughed.

And as Keiichi watched her, he thought over what she had said. Did demons really not have emotions? He thought back to the execution, where he had seen a few demons. That Kai demon he had seen really didn't seem to have any, when he thought hard about it. His piercing golden eyes didn't contain any emotions. However, the girl in front of him was really a lot different from that demon. She was smiling, laughing, and having fun. She was feeling terrible about the way she was being treated, something that she wouldn't be able to feel if she didn't have emotions. That must have been why Kai didn't object to Kimiyoshi overworking him, like Takeru mentioned before.

This girl… she surely has emotions. He thought hard as he looked at her, causing her to smile once again. …That'll just have to be added to my list of goals, then. I'll teach her to recognize them… to help free her further…

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Crimso's Corner

11:58:56. I JUST managed to finish this chapter today. Awesomeness! So, I'm hoping you understand what I'm saying when Mion claims she can't feel emotions and when Keiichi says that she can, she just doesn't think she does. It's not that I'm doing a lame job of creating an emotionless character. Just think about what Keiichi is saying, hm? …And there's the bump in between Keiichi and Mion's relationship, a very large bump that'll take some effort to climb over to make romance happen. Romance is never easy in ANY of my fanfictions, as you will learn. As much as I love MionXKeiichi… it's never easy for them in any of my fanfictions. …Just look at GED.

Gosh, when I set a goal for myself, like when I tell myself to finish this chapter in one day, it really does work out. …I didn't do my math homework, though. I don't understand it. Yeah, I'm going to fail soon enough. Damn. I need to get a B+ to pass this year, too. Not going to happen, it seems. So I hope you enjoy my chapter, which I sacrificed my math grade to do even further than I already have.

Review! Review! Review! Reviewers can get a deck of cards with scratch marks, so you can be like Mion and trick your opponents! Pointing out typos will get you any kind of food you want. ...Also, look out for when paragraphs are scrunched together.

~Crimso