Koishi had been smart enough to plan ahead and find out the fastest path to Lorelei's beforehand. Now she could take the lead without worrying about Sango tugging her arm off. She talked about trivial matters, and Mokou responded cheerfully enough, but every time she tried to delve into something personal the health nut would either dodge the question or answer jokingly.
Is it too soon?
She was in two minds about it. If she pressed too hard, she might end up upsetting Mokou and scaring her away, and then they'd be totally out of luck; but if she didn't try hard enough, she obviously wouldn't be able to watch Mokou 24/7, and the Black Claw might get rid of her before Koishi had a chance to intervene.
For now, she'd keep quiet. Maybe she'd try again after dinner or something. For now, she would just let Sango go on about all the various delicacies Mokou's 'perfect diet' was making her miss out on.
"I mean, have you ever even seen a puffer fish? Yeah, if you don't prepare it absolutely perfectly it kills you, but it only follows that the biggest risk gets you the best reward, right?"
"Uh...you realise they've figured out a way around that. Nowadays farmers just raise puffer fish without the whole deadly poison shtick."
"Really?! ...Well, I bet it doesn't taste as good."
Sango was understandably behind on human food-preparation, and Mokou was quick to point out her mistakes. Fortunately for Koishi, Mokou didn't wonder how her new conversation partner could be so knowledgable about the creatures of the ocean and yet so unaware of modern cuisine.
"Heh, you sound like you've had a bite out of every fish in the seven seas, Tororetsu-san. Hell, I bet you've even tried dolphin."
"Phwee?"
Sango didn't understand the question, tilting her head as she looked back at Mokou. The health nut blinked, a puzzled look rising to her face as well as she reiterated.
"Y'know, dolphins. Fish that aren't really fish? Everyone's going on about how the hunting's inhumane and all that crap? Personally, I've never touched the stuff, but...hey, are you alright? You're looking a little pale."
Koishi quickly noticed that Sango's knees were shaking. Her head was bowed down, and Koishi could sense she was on the verge of having steam pour out of her ears. She snapped her head back upwards, glaring at Mokou with a look of righteous indignation.
"I-I'd never eat a cute and innocent dolphin! The people who do that are...meanies! Mean meanie-faced meanies! Phweeeee!"
Mokou was taken aback by Sango's sudden outburst, not quite sure how someone how loved fish dishes so much could be so against eating dolphin. She wisely decided not to press the point any further, and simply watched as Sango proceeded to fall onto Koishi's shoulder.
"Koishi-saaaan...I don't wanna be eaten..."
Koishi offered her a pat on the head as they made their way into the city proper. This whole mission had clearly been something of a culture shock on her part, and it took a few minutes worth of calming words to bring her back to a sensible state.
The path Koishi had planned out ran through the main street of Gensouto. There were several branches off into smaller streets, but in general all the biggest stores could be found on one straight path from one side of the city to the other. It would be a while yet before they had to turn off for Lorelei's, so for now the three were immersed in the usual city crowds.
Sango took advantage of her earlier state and held hands with Koishi. From Mokou's point of view, she was still slightly upset and needed company; from Koishi's, it was to stop any wannabe Claw member from abducting her. It was maybe a little clingy, but Koishi appreciated the sentiment.
Mokou's eyes started to dart around the street, looking at the various turnoffs and avenues. She bit her lip.
"Uh, hey, we're turning off the main street soon, right?"
She sounded concerned, almost worried. Koishi had already figured out the route, so she shook her head in response.
"The fastest route goes pretty much all the way along. If we went through the avenues, it'd take a lot longer."
"Then let's go through the avenues."
"Huh? Why?"
"Exercise. Scenic route. Whatever. Just get off the street right now."
It had subtly turned from a request to an order. Mokou didn't go so far as to pull Koishi away, but from the look in her eyes she was definitely considering it. All the anger did, however, was confuse its target.
"Fujiwara-san, you aren't making any sense."
"Look, it's complicated. At this rate, we're gonna walk past-"
The word caught in her throat as she looked to her side. Koishi, still waiting for an explanation, looked in the same direction. Sango joined in wordlessly, leaving all the sensitive matters to her partner.
"...What's wrong? It's just a pharmacy."
It was new, Koishi thought, no more than a couple of months, but from the glossy walls and the shelves stacked with expensive medicines it was clear the store was in no financial difficulties. The sign above it declared it to be 'Eientei - for eternal health and beauty!' without a hint of irony.
Mokou's eyes weren't turned to the sign, though. They were looking head on at one of the signs in the window, advertising one of the pharmacy's hit products. From here Koishi couldn't make out the wording beneath it, but as Mokou stormed up to the window she followed afterward, quietly pulling along Sango.
"The Hourai Elixir - our best-selling product, already nominated for a variety of awards! Try it today, and you won't be disappointed!"
According to the sign it contained a variety of chemicals with names that Koishi couldn't spell, let alone pronounce. She looked over to Mokou for an explanation, but the health nut had already taken a step inside the store.
"Ah, Fujiwara-san?!"
She hadn't gone far - she was currently having a discussion with the attendant at the counter. Koishi was too far to make out words being exchanged between the two, but Mokou's face was livid while the attendant wore a forced smile as she tried to talk her down. The last thing Koishi wanted to do was walk in on a private discussion, so she again chose to hang back.
The first sign that she needed to step in was when Mokou let out her frustration by slamming a hand into a nearby pile of boxes. The on-sale items collapsed to the floor in a colossal spill, but it had done nothing to calm down Mokou - if anything, she looked angrier. Koishi couldn't sit around after something like that, and practically ran up to the counter while Sango hung at the entrance to, as she'd put it in her thoughts, 'guard the escape point'.
"Dammit, I'm just asking her to pay her dues! Why can't I even get a chance to talk to her?!"
By now, every customer in the shop was watching the ongoing argument. The attendant, a serious-looking girl in a jacket and tie, took a moment to adjust her skirt and regain her cool. It was a skill Mokou clearly looked like she needed to learn, and her hand clenched up into a fist again ready to slam into the employee's face.
Koishi grabbed her around the waist before she did anything she would regret, pulling her back towards the doorway.
"Ah, sorry about this! She's, um, had a lot to drink! Not that she's underage or anything...anyway, thanks for your service! I love the lighting here! I'll tell all my friends about this place. Bye!"
The attendant clearly didn't believe a word she was saying, but gave her a nod of thanks as if to say 'Thank God, you got the crazy woman away from me'. Mokou let off a few weak flails, but from the look of surprise on her face she seemed to have suddenly realised what she had been doing and went limp in Koishi's hands.
"Hehe, extraction successful! Excellent work, Koishi-san."
Koishi wasn't sure how serious Sango was being with those words. Frankly, that concerned her. She let go of Mokou, who proceeded to take long, wide steps down the street as she deliberately looked in the opposite direction of the pharmacy. It was like just seeing the store would be enough to make her blood boil, and an explanation like that would certainly explain a lot.
What it left, though, was the important question. Why was a simple pharmacy enough to drive Mokou Fujiwara, the girl who'd stared down an attacker without landing a blow, to violence?
Fujiwara-san...what happened to you?
She let the health nut stomp along by herself for a while before catching up to her, thinking she'd appreciate the time to cool down.
"Um...are you alright?"
Mokou startled as Koishi put a hand on her shoulder, then proceeded to brush it off.
"I'm fine. Let's...let's just go."
She took wider steps again, doing all she could to get away from the pharmacy. This discussion would have to wait until dinner, it seemed.
"Koishi-san. I don't need to tell you that we can't ignore this, do I?"
Sango's face looked grave as she watched Mokou stride along without them once again. Koishi didn't need to put her response into words.
Whatever happened to Fujiwara-san...I need to help her. Not just for her sake...but maybe for the sake of Gensouto.
So yeah, no pressure.
"So, two servings of mackerel, and...sorry, did you say yakitori?"
"Yeah, is that a problem?"
It was the same waiter as last time when the trio finally made it to Lorelei's, though this time Koishi noticed her shirt was the tiniest shade of pink. She blushed a little at the sight of Koishi and Sango, but pulled herself together enough to do her job.
"Ah, it's nothing. Just that the owner never liked working with chicken...I think she was brought up on a farm or something."
Quickly realising that she'd said too much, the waitress coughed lightly before noting down the order. Sango sighed as she dug into her wallet, pulling out another hefty note to pay for the meal.
"Seriously, Koishi-san...two dinners in two days? You're gonna be the death of me."
"Well, it isn't every day you bump into an old friend and have her save you from a pummelling. I think the hero deserves a feast in her name, don't you, Fujiwara-san?"
Mokou didn't offer a response, her attention now devoted to the glass of water she'd been handed by the waiter. She spun her straw around in the water, her face severe and focused on something else. The elbows she had on the table won her glares from other customers.
"Um. Fujiwara-san?"
Koishi's call was enough to snap Mokou out of her meditative state. "Oh, sorry. Just, uh...find it really fun to make little whirlpools in the glass. Yeah."
It was a pathetic explanation, which meant that whatever she was trying to conceal was worth embarrassing herself over. Koishi tread carefully with her next words, knowing full well that they were critical.
"Fujiwara-san...it's no good bottling it up. I'm no expert on physical health, but I do know that keeping your problems to yourself makes your brain overheat and turn into goop."
She did her best to sound friendly, throwing a joke in at the end to win her over. Mokou looked back to her glass, this time with a definite look of conflict on her face.
"Eh. I could probably still go on without my brain. It sure as hell hasn't done me any good over the last few months, that's for sure."
The silence that followed was painful. Mokou poked at the bottom of her glass, trying to stab through it with the straw for no reason other than to distract herself.
"Hey, it's not like we haven't all done stupid crap, right?" Sango said. "I mean, Koishi-san will testify that I'm pretty bad at this whole academic thing-"
"It's not school, dammit! You think I'm so shallow as to worry about missing a few months of education?! I could've been made for life, if I hadn't-"
Mokou put her hands on the table with a thump, silencing Sango's attempt to enter the conversation. What had started as an attempt to avoid frightening Mokou away had become an effort to stop Mokou from punching someone in the face.
It took a second for Mokou to come back to her senses, looking down on herself like she'd just regained awareness.
"...Shit. I'm doing it again, aren't I?"
She grabbed the glass, and downed its contents in a single gulp in an attempt to cool herself down. Her brain was clearly still working overtime, and she held her head in her hands as she did what she could to relax. They were pressing at something she didn't want to talk about, but they were doing it so incessantly that she was either going to talk or she was going to end up doing something she'd regret.
She looked up at Koishi's face, and saw genuine concern in her eyes. This was the girl she'd saved from Cirno earlier - what sort of hypocrite would she be if she lost control and took a shot at her now?
Mokou panted a little, as if letting the hot air rise out of her. She sat up and tried to keep the same straight face she always did.
"Look. If you want to know this crap so much, I'll tell you. But I'm pretty sure by the time I'm done with this story you'll be wishing you hadn't wasted money buying me that yakitori."
A hand slid over the table, placing itself over Mokou's. Now Koishi's expression contained a little more determination.
"Please, Fujiwara-san. You were worried sick about me when I was doing badly, so now it's my turn to worry about you, okay?"
Mokou allowed herself a little smirk.
"Heh. You're sorta cute when you're serious, Komeiji-san."
Koishi did her best not to react to that, but a pink tint rose to her cheeks regardless. This earned her another glare from Sango, but fortunately Mokou was too busy to notice the dolphin's envy.
"...OK. This might take a while to explain, but bear with me."
Mokou took a deep breath, mustering up the courage to confess something that could potentially break her. Koishi pressed down a little on her hand, silently cheering her on. At last, words began to seep out from her lips.
"...That Hourai Elixir thing? The ground-breaking product the pharmacy was going on about? That was me. I made that."
You never made it to the Perfect Diet club, did you? We were hardly the most popular of the clubs, of course. We weren't a sport, or a real hobby, or anything like that. Most people saw us as a bunch of elitist freaks who just wanted to talk about how much healthier we were than everyone else.
That wasn't the point. It was never the point. It had always been our intention to share our secrets one day, to produce one of these miracle cures that pharmacies are always trying to pass off. The difference was that this one would be the real deal - it'd stop wrinkles, keep you looking young, add an extra 5-10 years to your lifespan, blah blah blah.
'Course, that was sort of a pipe dream. We had ideas, maybe, but we never had the finances to pull something like that up. Pharmaceutical companies are crazy-big business these days, and some tiny school-club is gonna have no chance in hell of getting a foot through the door without some help.
And lo and behold, that's exactly what walked through our door a few months ago.
I still remember her face. The piercing brown eyes, the gorgeous black hair that ran down past her waist, the skin untouched by blemishes or spots or anything like that. She was basically the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, though she'd testify that it was all thanks to whatever anti-aging cream was selling well at the time.
Her name was Kaguya Houraisan, and she told me her dad ran a local pharmacy. It was a small place, but they just about got by. I shared some of our tricks with her, and she'd look out for the ingredients I mentioned when it came to new products. We made a pretty good team.
Then one day, she says she wants to go all the way. She tells me that she trusts me, more than she's ever trusted anyone in the business, and that her dad's got a chem lab at the back of the pharmacy. That miracle cure the club had always wanted to make? This was our big chance.
She swore me to secrecy. She didn't even let her old man know what she was doing. It was all going to be a big surprise, she told me, and the two of us would bask in the riches. This would be the big finish for everything I'd worked on, all those years of testing and experimenting.
The name was Kaguya's idea. Apparently, her old man was pretty insistent about her living up to her namesake - the moon princess, the one who all the men fell in love with on sight - so even when she was a kid she had to focus on looking pretty any time she could. He expected a lot outta her, and she thanked me for my help every two minutes. It was touching, if kinda sad.
So, after a few weeks, and god knows how much testing, we pulled it off. We concocted our Hourai Elixir, and it was everything I ever wanted it to be. It worked great, it was cheap to produce, and there were no side-effects. It was basically set to revolutionise the industry, earn us millions. And what happens?
The bitch goes and steals the idea, that's what.
I caught her talking to her old man about it when she'd told me she was using the bathroom. I only caught a few hints of the conversation, phrases like 'my best work' and 'all for you, daddy' and all that shit. My name never showed up anywhere - she took my masterpiece and claimed she'd come up with the whole damn thing. I stormed out into the room then, asking her what the hell was going on.
She started screaming that I was some sort of thief and told me to get out of the store before she called the cops.
...Well, what could I have done after that? Kaguya had played it smart - she filed patents in her name alone, so I couldn't have filed a lawsuit even if I had the money. The Hourai Elixir was, of course, a massive success, winning awards and turning Eientei into the biggest pharmaceutical company in the country. I got nothing - the bitch wouldn't even let me talk to her about it. I tried God knows how many times to get a hold of her, but nothing. Not even an apology.
I shut the club down pretty soon afterward. People had caught wind of the Hourai Elixir, and how it basically knocked our ideas out of the water. I couldn't tell them I'd helped to make it; that'd just sound petty. That was probably why she had me swear to keep it secret the whole time.
After that, I sorta...stopped caring. Skipped class, lost track of people, didn't notice the kid taking her power a little too far. Everything I'd worked for, everything I'd tried to achieve, I'd done. And it was all going off to some bitch who played me for a fool. Honestly, if I could get my hands on Kaguya right now, I'd beat that pretty face of hers so damn hard that even her own dad wouldn't be able to recognise her.
And that's pretty much my story. The story of a fool who spent her life fulfilling a princess's impossible request, and ended up with nothing even after she achieved her goal.
Bet I don't look like some genius to you anymore, do I? All that crap about perfect diets, and it doesn't stop me being an idiot.
Mokou's grip on her glass had tightened the further she made it into her story, until Koishi started to worry she was going to snap. Her eyes had clamped themselves shut, but a few trickles still escaped from beneath them despite her best efforts.
"And here you guys are, wasting money on a girl who's got nothing left to offer to the world. You guys are almost as dumb as I am, you know that...?"
Koishi felt her heart coming to rest somewhere on the bottom of her stomach. It had certainly not been a pretty story, and it explained why Mokou had changed so much from what she was before. Even now, when she was at her most vulnerable, the desire for payback was almost rippling off of Mokou. It was an obsession now, one she'd likely dwell on for the rest of her life at this rate.
"Humans are capable of some pretty mean things, aren't they..."
Sango didn't put her thought into words, but Koishi heard it loud and clear. She thought it over for a moment, still holding her hand over Mokou's.
...No. You're wrong.
She sighed.
"Fujiwara-san...no. Mokou-san, I know I shouldn't judge you, but I think you're making a mistake."
Sango and Mokou both flinched a little at that one. Koishi pressed down on the hand a little harder, this time as if to hold her in place.
"You mentioned that this girl was under a lot of pressure from her father, didn't you? Have you considered that it wasn't for her sake she lied to you, but for his? She wanted to make him happy, and using you like that was the only way. It wasn't pride that fuelled her. It was love. Misguided, confused, desperate love, but love nonetheless."
Mokou's hand squirmed a little beneath hers. She didn't want to hear this. She was happier living in her little world of vengeance where she'd been wronged by a heartless bitch looking out for herself. This was adding shades of grey she didn't want to deal with. All that awkwardness did was make Koishi press on harder.
"I'm not trying to defend what Kaguya-san did to you. But you won't be able to put this behind you until you understand why she did it. And think of this - if she was as cruel and heartless as you're making her out to be, why didn't she press charges against you for being a 'thief'? That along with the incident in the store today would easily be enough for her to arrest you, but she hasn't."
By now Mokou was visibly squirming in her seat. It was easier to be angry, and it was easier still if she painted Kaguya as a villain. Now Koishi was forcing her to make hard choices, and she didn't want that. Meanwhile, Sango's face shifter further and further towards amazement.
"Mokou-san. Maybe I'm in no position to say this. I can't even imagine the magnitude of the money you lost out on thanks to this girl. But if you want to make any progress with this, you need to be the bigger woman in this conversation and accept what she did. The problem won't get any easier if you keep your focus on vengenace. I know I'm asking a lot of you, but...forgive her, if you can."
A heaving silence followed, and for all of them it hurt just to breathe. Mokou's squirming had stopped again, and her eyes were closed as she quietly processed what she'd been told. It was a lot to take in; a little too much, maybe, and she started pulling at the tablecloth to try and vent her frustration.
"I...I need to go. Right now."
She pulled her hand away with a quick snap, standing up and making to leave the table. Her eyes were starting to water, worse than they'd been before.
"Ah, wait! Fujiwara-san!"
Mokou turned back, and reacted just quickly enough to catch something being thrown at her. Looking down, she saw that Sango had passed her a plain ring - no engravings, no jewels, nothing. She looked up at the girl who'd thrown it at her.
"I know it isn't much, but if things get really complicated and it feels like you're going under, put that on, okay?"
Mokou stared at Sango in confusion for about half a second. Then the urge to run took over again, and after a hurried nod she made for the exit again, skipping out on her meal.
Sango and Koishi sat in silence for a moment, just looking at the door after she'd long since departed.
"...What sort of ring is that, anyway?"
She started with a side question to try and relieve the tense atmosphere that had emerged. Sango allowed herself to smile a little with that.
"We just call it a Ring of Breath. Magic involves going into lots of places where you don't get your airy goodness, so it's a simple charm to take care of the problem. Magical duels usually take place in a water-like atmosphere because some people decided that it was more graceful or something, so rings like that are pretty much a given."
"Oh. So you gave it to Mokou-san in case-"
"Yeah. Can't be too safe, can we?"
The discussion came to a halt again. Eventually, Sango let out a small sigh.
"Koishi-san...that was amazing."
Koishi shrugged.
"All I did was give an opinion, that's all."
"But most people would've just written that off as an act of malice. Hell, even Fujiwara-san thought that she was getting screwed over, but you were willing to look at it in a different light. That takes a lot of nerve."
Koishi frowned at that one.
"I'm not a hero, Sango-san. I could spout philosophy all I wanted, but it wouldn't help stop a fist coming at my face."
"Good thing you've got me, then, huh?"
A playful nudge on the shoulder was Koishi's cue to lighten up and let things go. She took a deep breath, allowing her stance to slack a little.
"Yeah, you really helped out a lot when it came to Cirno-san, didn't you?"
"Phwee! I'm telling you, she wasn't playing fair! I'm not used to fighting on dry land, dammit!"
Koishi smiled to herself as Sango made excuses. The waitress from before emerged, holding three dishes.
"Here you go. Two mackerel and...didn't you order yakitori?"
"Ah, yeah. Our guest had to leave suddenly. I think she's got a lot to think about."
"Yeah, it's a real shame. Still, more for me, phwee~!"
She didn't know how the boss had tracked her to Lorelei's, and frankly she didn't care. There was still a good walk between her and the store, but she enjoyed every step of it knowing what was waiting at the end.
Her hand was in her pocket, tightly grasped around the key she'd been handed earlier. A new ring had been placed around her finger, apparently as some sort of precaution.
She didn't bother waiting to think about any of that. Right now there was only one thought on her mind, driving her forward with every step.
Time to find out who the real idiot is, Mokou Fujiwara. I'm coming for you.