Chapter 9: Uncle and Nephew

"Godfather!" "Gakupo!"

He'd barely set foot in the house before he heard two sets of small footsteps charging towards him. The little girl with her pigtails leapt eagerly into his arms and he laughed as he held her up and twirled her around. "Well hello there, Miku! Merry Christmas!"

As he set her down, he wondered if she'd be too tall for that in another year. Her brother already was.

She was bouncing up and down with wild excitement. "Godfather, can I open a present early, please please please?!"

He scoldingly shook his index finger. "If your parents are okay with it."

The older gentleman with the black, bushy mustache smiled as he looked to his wife. "Just one," she said, "So choose wisely."

Once he set his presents out in front of the tree, Miku tore open a small package with a gold bow. "AH! Gakupo, it's a ballerina! A pretty ballerina! And she even has wings!"

She wound the ballerina and watched mesmerized as it began its graceful dance across the floor, its legs and arms taking each of the basic positions with perfect precision. The ballerina wore a glittering white gown, her pink hair pinned into a tight bun with a little silver tiara in her hair.

"Gakupo, thanks for the soldiers!" Mikuo said as he laid out a small string of them, "These are Hussars, right?"

As he watched the children playing, memories of the last time he raised a child played through his mind. Over the years, they'd ceased to be painful memories – they served as strong reminders of why he was still wandering. But only because he had absolute faith in the person who'd set him upon this path in the first place.

"So Gakupo, the last time you were here, you said you had a business venture in the Orient?"

Gakupo turned to the children's mother. "Indeed, I'd heard of some most unusual toys constructed out there. They called them 'karakuri puppets.' Their methods of concealing the mechanical instruments were impressive. Why some people even had them serving tea! I might like to try something like that!"

"My, the next time you make a venture like that, you should bring some of them back for the children," their father said, "They'd do well to have some exposure to the wider world."

He grinned. "Even if it's through more toys!"

The toymaker turned his attention to the children again. His relationship to them had been entirely out of accident – he met their parents when he was trying to start up business ventures in his old world again. A common military background between the three of them led to some much needed investment capital… and soon the toys began to flow. He couldn't make the same kinds of marvels in this world that he could when he had magic… but they still tended to be impressive enough.

And they paid for him to continue his endless search.

Miku practically leapt into the toymaker's lap. "Gakupo, Gakupo, tell me about the ballerina! Tell me ALL about her!"

He hugged Miku close. "Once upon a time, there was a faerie who lived in the stars. In spite of having the entirety of the heavens surrounding her, she always felt alone. She became enchanted by watching the ballerinas in the theaters on earth and studied them close. She began to dance, for the stars alone, practicing every day until she could perform as well as the most perfectly trained dancer. And she fell from the sky again, returning to the earth and joining the dance troupe as one of them. Every night when she took the stage and she heard the sounds of applause as she glided across the stage, she finally felt herself at peace."

"But did the fairy make any friends?!" Miku asked in a panic.

The toymaker tapped her lightly on the nose. "I'll have you know, she had one very dedicated fan who came to every single one of her shows. And yes, they did become friends."

Miku let out a dreamy sigh, leaning up right against his chest. "Tick, tock, tick, tock…" she said, "Tick, tock, tick, tock."

"You know Miku," her father teased, "I'll bet that old pocket watch Gakupo is carrying around is a token from the faerie too."

Her mother started to laugh. "Oh, because she knew Gakupo would lose himself in his workshop if he didn't have the loudest pocket watch in the world to remind him to check the time!"

The toymaker hugged his goddaughter close. "I dare not lose it," he said softly.

His eyes rested on the unnoticed blue haired nutcracker sitting on the chair. And the words of his "Sugar Plum" returned to him.

'You must give him away to the first person that asks for him. After that, you won't be able to help him. Only she can.'

Miku bent up close to his ear and whispered inside. "Mama and Papa won't let me have a cat… will you make me one? Then he can be friends with my ballerina."

He envied this little girl's imagination. "Of course Miku," he said.

Miku never thought she'd come to miss that familiar ticking she heard whenever her godfather was around. Of course, she also never thought his "pocket watch" was actually a magical artifact he was using to sustain his human self.

Right now she, Luka, and Gakupo sat gathered in a makeshift tent out of the elements. The dimming light outside was broken up by a few torches. Right now her head was still swimming with the long explanation from Luka of what had happened to Gakupo… what he was and what he would become.

Now that explanations had been made, Kaito and Meiko had departed – Meiko trying to take stock of the army she suddenly found herself in charge of, Kaito being tended to by skilled craftsman to try and repair the more extreme damage to his wooden body.

By now the toymaker was sitting up under his own power, but his jerky movements worried Miku. "Is that why you don't get any older? Because you're not really human?"

It felt strange to say that about her godfather when he still looked like a human. He looked annoyed at the question, but this time he didn't brush her off either. "Yes. I don't age, the same way… a toy doesn't age."

"But how did that work in our world?!" she exclaimed, "I thought you said magic isn't that strong there!"

"It isn't…" Gakupo had said, trying to smile, "I think that's why it worked. I couldn't very well turn into a clockwork man in my old home, so it didn't have to use as much magic to keep me like my old self."

Unlike Kaito, they had no way of knowing what would reverse Gakupo's condition. The heart was merely a stopgap – a lucky break that helped preserve most of what he was. Getting it back in time was tantamount to trying to stop his slow deterioration.

"So the mice aren't that far… right?" Miku asked hopefully, "We could just sneak in and take it back…"

"Sneaking won't be an option," Gakupo said, "Luka and I took our time trying to scout their castle before we came to the workshop. There's a nearly endless horde there."

He started twitching his fingers, and Miku tried to suppress a shudder as they creaked like rusty joints, barely articulating. "Hmph… I was planning to try and build more of my soldiers to help us out… but…"

He glared at his useless fingers in annoyance. "It looks like that's not going to be happening right now… confound it, if I'd at least turn faster these little joints might have worked…"

"If you turn faster, you won't have the mental state you need to build much of anything!" Luka shouted.

Seeing Luka's supernatural calm shattered so swiftly silenced his grumblings at once. Miku tried to grasp for something else they could try that didn't require Gakupo to be entirely human.

"What about the doll army out there?" Miku said, "Surely Meiko could convince one of them to help us out…"

"It's the same problem," he continued, "The soldiers require a lot of precise work to get them functioning to the level we need. That requires stardust nodes… and much as our friends the dolls are fine for most tasks, it's a rare doll indeed that's built with hands that can forge stardust…"

Miku folded her arms up in consternation. She wasn't going to just accept her godfather turning into a mindless automaton… or worse.

"My hands are pretty good…" she said.

She half expected Gakupo to protest somehow, but for once he didn't. She looked up to him hopefully. "Hmmm… if I can hang on long enough, I could teach you how to forge the stardust properly…"

'AH! He trusts me to make toys!?'

Miku felt just a little giddy at the idea. "Now there's the matter of getting enough metal for them… after what you told me I had on hand, it's not going to be enough if we have to storm their fortress head on…"

"That's going to take time… we don't know how much you have…"

Luka touched Gakupo's cheek with her ungloved fingers. He turned his head slightly to meet her eyes and grasped her hand as well as he could still manage. "I have more than enough, certainly… I have you this time…"

Miku awkwardly turned her head away as they kissed, trying to grant them some intimacy. She thought about leaving – surely Gakupo would prefer the time alone, while he still had it? 'Gakupo… he's going to become like Kaito… he won't have blood or nerves, so he won't feel anything… he won't sleep or eat… even if Luka kisses him, he won't be able to return it…'

She stood to leave. "Excuse me… I'm going to go check up on Kaito's repairs…" she said nervously, "Don't worry godfather, I'll be close by."

She shuffled through the light snow, past the many doll soldiers gathered around her. They laughed and sang in spite of the misery around them, but they clearly possessed what Miku would approximate as a soul. 'It doesn't mean anything to them to not feel each other's touch… if they've never known it, they have no use for it. They seem to find plenty of ways to make each other happy…'

Sweet Ann and Big Al certainly seemed like any other married couple Miku had seen aside from the lack of intimate contact. It seemed almost chaste. But she did recall at least once that Oliver had run up and hugged them.

She felt a start when she realized she was thinking deeply about the intimate relationships of dolls. None of that seemed to have any relevance to her, right?

"W… well… I just wanted to say that… you… you're also… p… pre…."

Miku stopped cold, right in front of the repair tent. She felt someone slam right into her back and stumbled forward from the brief impact.

"OH! Miss, are you okay? Ah, Usano Mimi, you need to apologize to her!"

Miku turned around to see a young wax doll with an elaborate black dress and long silvery blonde hair tipped with rainbow shades. In one hand she clutched a well-cared for stuffed rabbit.

Which she was now holding up to Miku's face. "Golly Miss, I'm sorry I'm so clumsy! Miss Mayu always tells me to watch where I'm going!"

The rabbit spoke not a word – instead, the girl had pitched her voice up high as she held it up by the neck, speaking "for" it and clutching it so tightly it looked like she was trying to strangle it. "Are you here to see one of Miss Mayu's patients?"

'This medic's a few bats short of a belfry…' Miku thought to herself. She held up her hands peacefully. "I'm here to check up on the Nutcracker you brought in."

Mayu lowered the rabbit toy. "Oh, the idiot that tried to take on the Mouse King! He's lucky he walked away with just the walloping he got!"

As she followed the strange "doctor" into the tent, Miku was getting more and more unnerved at how cheerful Mayu was speaking of injuries. Maybe because dolls didn't feel pain or die easily? "Indeed, why I just had to patch up three dolls after the last big battle that he quartered up! Took forever to find all the pieces! Oh, don't worry, I got all their parts together on the second try!"

Kaito was laid out along a long wooden table. Obviously, dolls had no need for stretchers or comfort – just a worktable. His neck had a little line of drying glue stuffed into it to try and cover where Len's sword had sliced into it, his torn scarf at his side. Fragments of fresh wood lay near his body. The Nutcracker looked up to see her, but to Miku's consternation, his smile had yet to return. "How's my uncle holding up?" he asked softly.

Miku tried to think of the most positive spin she could possibly put on things. "Gakupo was thinking of having me try and do some toy work that he can't do right now…"

A large pail of glue clunked down on the table as Mayu pulled out a thick brush and started to paint the inside of the hole in Kaito's chest. "Stay still!" she hissed, "I make less mistakes that way."

Mayu grabbed for a large block of wood sawed into the shape of the hole and gently rested inside. "Meiko was able to convince them to let me get repairs instead of just arresting me…" he said quietly.

So Meiko was still trying to make good on her promise to protect Kaito. "So, when Gakupo moved on to the Marzipan castle, did he take all of his plans with him?" she asked.

Kaito stared ahead the top of the tent as Mayu started to paint the remaining cracks along his chest with wood glue. "He only brought what he thought he'd need right then," he explained, "Uncle was very meticulous about detailing every toy or invention he ever built. If he didn't build at the castle, though, it's probably still there…"

All of a sudden his head rolled over to Miku. "Wait, what are you trying to do?!"

"Kaito, you and I inventoried all the metals in the workshop," she said, "We don't have nearly enough to build enough soldiers to make up for the number of mice. If the mice took his old heart… it's just a toy, so… I want to try and build him a new one."

Kaito started to move around on the table, causing an upset from his attending doctor. "I ALMOST GLUED MY PINKY INTO YOUR CHEST CAVITY!" she shrieked.

"S-sorry!" he apologized, "But Miku, you shouldn't go down there by yourself! Look, I'm sure Mayu will be done soon…"

"The glue is still going to have to dry!" Mayu barked.

"… and I'll keep you safe!"

Miku couldn't believe how intense a pair of painted eyes could look, but Kaito's expressed so much fear and worry. He fell silent for another moment, the only sound the clacking of wood as Mayu ensured the glue was in place. "Does he know?" Kaito said softly.

Miku folded her hands in her lap. "No… Gakupo has suffered enough from false hope. I don't intend to raise that hope again until I know we can find the plans."

By the time Kaito's glue was dry, the sun had already set. Miku clutched a lantern in her hands, Kaito keeping close to her. He'd still yet to smile or show any signs of cheer. 'Once Gakupo is well again, he'll be back to his old self,' Miku thought, 'And besides, won't Gakupo be impressed when I build him a new heart?!"

As they approached the edge of the camp, a small group of soldiers gathered around them, amongst them the officer she'd known as Cul. "Nutcracker! You are not permitted to leave our custody!"

"What?! He helped save all of your lives!" Miku argued.

Cul held firm. "We don't wish to detain Drosselemeyer's nephew…" she repeated, "But we have to respect the King's orders to bring you back!"

"What in blazes are you doing?"

Meiko's angry voice had never sounded so inviting as she tromped over in the snow, trying to keep up her best royal swagger. "Princess, the Nutcracker was about to leave the camp and…"

Miku heard the princess sigh angrily. "Kaito, where are you trying to go?" she said.

"I just… I wanted to help Miku go to the workshop and find a way to save my uncle…"

Meiko glanced at her soldiers. "He just needs to stay within our custody, right?" she said, "Send a few soliders down to prevent him from escaping. Besides, the mice have invaded that workshop before, we need to keep it secured."

'Wow… she's a completely different person when she's actually in charge…' Miku thought.

Cul looked to the other soldiers with her. "I'll see who I can spare. Wait here."

As the soldiers departed, Meiko started to grumble. "They're scared of the King…" she said quietly, "He threatened deserters and rabble rousers with a furnace. And here I am trying to stand up to him."

The princess' face cheered as at least two more familiar soldiers arrived with Cul – Gumi and Lily.

"OH! Miku, Miku, is Drosselmeyer going to be okay?!" Gumi said, hopping over in a very unmilitaristic manner.

"That's what we're trying to ensure," Miku said, glancing back at Kaito as he stared out into the snow.

"We'll be escorting you to the workshop," Lily said calmly.

Meiko looked over to her comrades. "I'll join you down there when I can…" she said with annoyance on her face, "I've suddenly far more matters to attend to than I'd wanted. Please keep him safe."

Rin tossed her new toy heart between her hands. Whatever lovely glow it possessed when she wrenched it out of the toymaker's body had long ago faded. "What makes you sparkle, little toy?" she said, "You're so full of emotions and memories…"

She sat calmly in the sleigh, her thick black and yellow coat protecting her from the cold. "To slumber inside his chest alone… you must have witnessed every moment in his existence…"

She scrunched up her nose and began to fire little bolts of magic into it. "So what sort of things does a toymaker obsess over?"

The pink haired ballerina darted across the stage, the feathers in her tutu and sprouting from her crown delicately bouncing around her head as she encircled the prince, her panicked footsteps and face belying fear.

"Uncle, what's happening now?"

He hushed his nephew. "The swan is trying to warn her beloved that he is being deceived by the Black Swan. He's about to make a pledge to the wrong maiden…"

"Oh, but then the swan will be trapped forever!"

He tried to suppress his laughter at the boy's horrified face. 'Well little swan, I hope tonight's writers are kind to you.' he thought to himself.

"... it's fine. I'm sure her prince loves her so that even if he is deceived, he and the swan will find a way to save themselves."

A white swan and a black swan danced near the prince, the other ballerina possessing short pink hair tied into multiple buns.

"Okay, then I'll believe in them too, uncle!"

With that, his nephew fell silent as he continued to watch the show play out in front of him.

He found himself most grateful that his "swan" would not need to be rescued from such dire and complicated circumstances. No, she would be waiting for him after the show. In spite of the emotions playing upon her face on the stage, in person she still didn't understand his overtures – the concept of courtship was utterly beyond the average faerie. But she'd told him everything she did now was new and unfamiliar, and he dared not shatter what they had now. She was the one that continued to seek him out, and he would be waiting patiently as she started to understand why…

Rin almost dropped the heart right then – it was as if she'd been sitting right there, watching the faerie and feeling all of his love for her. It made her feel dirty and sick to have such an emotion flood her like that.

Yet… her curiosity overtook her again. She clutched the heart close and filled it with magic again.

"Okay, Uncle, I'm sure I've gotten it this time!"

His nephew set down a small, roughly assembled violinist and turned the key in the back.

As soon as the violinist's bow hit his instrument, the most off-key sound the toymaker had ever heard echoed through the shop. "Ahh, no no no, you were playing so well before!" his nephew said, trying to take the bow away lest he continue to mangle the melody.

Even in spite of his obvious failure, he showed little sign of being upset as the toy wound down. "I guess I'll just have to try harder… it was playing Princess Pirlipat's favorite song when I made it before!"

"Princess Pirlipat?"

"She's really quite kind, she wanted me to make her something to prove I was really your nephew! Oh, I know she'll like it… when it works that is."

He still had trouble grasping the standoffish daughter of his rather surly employer being friendly, but all of a sudden he saw his nephew as less of a child and more of an adult now. Where had the time gone? His heart panged with nostalgia for the past…

The Mouse Queen gasped as she tried to let go of the sensation of that man's heart. Now it was trying to make her feel sympathy for that horrible boy that had interfered with them? She had half a mind to blast it to pieces… but she tried to peek into it one more time…

He tried to hold onto her as long as her could, to remember every inch of her body, the smell of her perfume, the silkiness of her hair.

He never wanted to let go of her again. But he had to. His nephew's savior was not of this world.

The soft ticking of the heart inside his chest felt so bizarre – he didn't have a real pulse anymore. He was in many respects human, and in many others something different. He'd have to learn to adapt to it. But as he'd wished for… he now had a body that would live forever, to ensure he survived to see his nephew saved.

He kissed her one last time, trying to focus not on the sorrow of losing her again, but on how that soft ticking would remind him with every second that she was out there and thinking of him…

"No, I won't let them separate us and send you to a workhouse! I won't!"

She clutched her hands to the sides of her head as she shook. Her brother held her tightly as she sobbed in his arms. "Why does nobody want us? Why do they keep passing us over?"

"I still want you…" he said quietly.

He pulled back from her and his shining blue eyes and smart smirk revealed a plan was brewing in the blonde boy's crafty mind. "If nobody else wants us… we'll just have to take care of ourselves."

"You mean run away?!"

As horrifying as it sounded, they could stay together. "We can't trust anyone…" she whispered, "They'll send us back or arrest us or…"

"Ryuto said the forest north of town is full of faeries," he said hopefully, "We could run there."

Did she want to pin all her hopes on faeries being real!?

… she wanted to be apart from him even less. She ran across the room and gathered what meager possessions she had, her favorite white bow, and her thickest coat…

The heart plunged into the snow as the Mouse Queen hurled it with all her might. Her hands trembled from the bizarre emotions choking out her own. The boy in her vision was a human boy… but… that was Len… and Len was a mouse like her…

"Rin, what are you doing?!"

She turned to see the return of her brother, followed by several of their soldiers. "The doll's camp is by the workshop. If we hurl the army we have at them, there's no doubt we'll ferret out the Nutcracker this time…"

She tried to steady her breathing. She still watched the heart in the snow, listening to its ticking. "We don't need to break through a whole army to get him."

She reached out for the heart with her shadowy hands, pulling it close. She tried her spells again, except this time instead of reading etchings of the heart's past, she felt herself reaching out to the one who'd once relied on it.

She began to see the world through his eyes. She saw the pink-haired fairy hovering over him…

"Kaito went to the workshop… do you need anything while he's gone?" she heard her say to him.

The Mouse Queen smirked. "Be a dear and fetch me a blanket?" she said, in his voice.

The fairy left the tent and she willed him to get up and depart into the snow…

Kaito tried to maintain a sense of calm as Miku shuffled through all of his godfather's toy plans. "Well that's about three different toy carriages… you know, he really should have had a system for this!"

Outside his guards patrolled to keep an eye on both himself and the movements of the mice. He tried to walk himself through how his uncle organized everything, but just the thought of imagining him singing to his toys would break his concentration. Besides, he had so much to think about now.

Kaito watched as Meiko shuffled inside the tent to join her companions. "They said we can have some privacy in here. And they need some time to get the supplies together to start repairing dolls anyway."

Kaito took a spot inside as Gakupo laid out on a cot, Luka kneeling on the floor to be close to him. "So… what did the mice do to make you like this?!" Miku fumed.

His disconcerting sigh and stiffening posture didn't reassure his nephew. "They did nothing."

Seeing his uncle struck silent like this was almost as disconcerting as seeing him utterly lifeless in the first place. After a few more uncomfortable moments of silence, the faerie took the initiative the toymaker seemed to no longer possess. "People from the World Beyond, tend to attract magic to them. It knows they don't belong here. Normally that's not a problem… it's utterly harmless."

Gakupo seemed to want to look anywhere but at his companions. "But during certain… emotional… events, it can be far more powerful… it can make terrible wishes come true… it can twist and turn people until they lose all sense of self, and eventually their humanity with it…"

Now Kaito understood why his uncle was so eager to keep his tale to himself. He already felt weak enough that Miku knew of his worst moments, but at least they were in the past.

"In Gakupo's case… he allowed it to destroy his heart… and his body became a hollow clockwork shell…"

So many eyes of sympathy and fear fell on his uncle at once that Kaito saw him scowling again. "The circumstances are unimportant," he said gruffly, "I'm not going to die."

"But is there no way to save you?"

Miku sounded so worried… Gakupo's scowl softened. "Don't worry, we're all clever here. We'll think of something."

'He lost his heart… something terrible happened to make him lose his heart… and he made himself become this creature instead…'

He dared not ask… less out of concern that his uncle wouldn't want to share something so personal in front of everyone, but more out of a fear that he knew what event was to blame…

Ever since Kaito heard the story in the tent of his uncle's condition, a certain memory kept fighting him to surface. Like a coward, he kept trying to suppress it. He knew how much it would hurt him to remember it. And right now he needed to project what little strength he still had.

But the more his mind turned on these thoughts… the more he began to wonder how many more people could be affected in other ways.

"Oh, look at this! It's a toy cat… he was building them here first… ha, that must be the easiest thing he's ever made for me!"

Luka had no idea where the mice had come from. They emerged as suddenly to her as they had to everyone else. The idea of even an immortal fairy not being able to answer such a question made them appear so much more frightening… but…

"What if the Mouse Twins… weren't always mice?"

Miku stopped her search, the papers scattering around her. "Wait, what?"

He could still imagine Len's terrified crying in the snow. "What if Gakupo isn't the only person who changed because something happened to him?"

Miku's long silence began to worry him. "I… I promise I'm not trying to just make excuses for what I did…"

She fumbled through the papers a few more moments, but Kaito noticed Miku seemed to only be glancing at them. "You were really paying attention to the way the King and Queen fought together too…" she finally said, "Right now, out of all of us, you're the one that's dealt with them the most. Even Meiko only met them once."

She didn't distrust him… she wasn't angry… that gave him some relief.

Unfortunately, she asked the one question he didn't want to answer. "If they are… will you still be able to kill them?"

"I wasn't able to kill them now," Kaito said, "How will I do it if I know for certain something terrible happened to them!?"

He knew he was supposed to keep these kinds of feelings to himself, even as his heart ached with trying to contain so much. It hurt the people around him to see him weak. Whenever he smiled for them, they always seemed happier if they didn't have to worry about him. But he'd already lost the strength to keep smiling…

"Miku... everyone I've ever cared about has been hurt because of me… if I'd killed him and Rin right then, I could have ended it all, I could have been human again and you could have gone back to your family! If I hadn't messed up the spell, my uncle never would have gotten hurt or lost his heart! And… and…"

For just a brief moment the memory he was trying to keep buried surfaced and he saw the blood on his uncle's coat and felt the horrifying fear that he was going to lose him and it was all his fault.

So lost in his own emotions was he that he didn't even see Miku approaching him. She looked up at him nervously and he expected her to finally lose her patience with him.

Instead…

… she put her arms around him.

Even though he couldn't feel her, no matter how badly he wanted to, he tried to return her hug as gently as possible. "Kaito… I wish I could do more…" Miku whispered, "Gakupo keeps telling me there's something I need to try that only I can do… I'm supposed to help you… but I couldn't fight either…"

He finally saw it… her tears again, just a few that escaped quietly. He placed his finger on her cheek to catch them.

When he thought he was just a doll, just seeing another person cry felt so strange and abnormal – that such an emotion could compel humans to such a strong physical reaction even more so. But when he was human… he couldn't remember the last time he cried. He couldn't even remember if he could cry when he was human.

All of a sudden Kaito pulled his finger back – he couldn't well reach out and touch people like this! Why had he ever thought it was appropriate!?

Apparently just the act of yanking his hand away caused Miku to let him go. "Sorry! I should have said something first. I just wanted you to feel a little better, that's all… you're family, right?"

She turned away from him and began sorting through the folders of toy plans again. "You know, it'd help more if he alphabetized this…" she muttered under her breath.

Kaito just stared at the back of her head and he started to recall what he'd tried to say to her that last time they were down here. He tried to summon all of his courage to speak… when he saw a small mouse running along the floor.

'How did that get in here?' he thought to himself.

He began to pursue it – after all, he made so much noise wherever he walked that it would be easy for Miku to know he was upstairs. The mouse hopped up the stairs, squeezing under the locked door with incredible ease. The mouse skittered across the floor to the front door, which he found ajar. He quickened his footsteps, his hand on his weapon… he was about to call out to Miku as he heard the sounds of combat outside…

... only to see his uncle engaged in combat with Gumi, Lily and Cul lying helplessly in the snow.

"Sir Drosselmeyer, what's gotten into you!?" Gumi shouted.

Gakupo didn't speak another word as a familiar black lightning sparked along his blade. He swung it just once and a bolt slammed into the hapless doll's body, tossing her roughly into the snow. He saw her twitching and trying to stand, but he already recognized the effects of the magic interfering with her ability to control her body.

Kaito pulled out his weapon, trying to stand between Gakupo and Gumi. "Good, now I needn't fetch you, you ugly little Nutcracker!"

It was Gakupo's voice… but he spoke like a completely different person. Kaito didn't need to have it all spelled out to him. "What have you done to my uncle?!"

He expected more of a reaction, some kind of twisted grimace, but his uncle's face was entirely still. "These are the terms, Nutcracker. You come with him, and you come alone. You surrender on sight. And I don't crush this little toymaker's heart between my paws."

He looked back to the open door of the workshop. Whoever was manipulating Gakupo might not have known Miku was inside.

"My brother is feeling quite generous right now since you spared his life. So we'll spare yours as well if you behave."

And it was far too obvious what choice he was going to make…

'I'm sorry Miku…'

Miku finally rested her hands on the blueprint she'd been seeking. She recognized the delicate heart shape. "Okay… the notes are pretty detailed… but surely Gakupo can walk me through the hard stuff…"

Hopefully he was still just human enough to help her out.

"Kaito, we can go now!" she called out.

When he didn't answer, she started counting in her head how long it had been since she'd heard his clunky wooden footsteps. Miku rolled up the blueprint and ran up the stairs. Why had she let him out of her sight for even a second!? Why had she expected the meager guards could secure the place?

She ran out into the cold, seeing Luka hovering over Lily, holding her white magical orb over her body. "Easy… you're not going to die…" she said to the doll, "I'm mending the damage to your spirit."

"Lord… Drosselmeyer…" the blonde choked, "The Mouse Queen is manipulating him somehow…"

Luka held her tighter. "He came this way?!"

The blonde began to point out into the forest. Miku spotted two sets of footprints. "The Nutcracker is going to surrender to them."

Without even waiting to make sure someone was behind her, Miku darted off into the snow. Even as the light faded, she tried to keep an eye out for his final location. 'Kaito, why do you think you don't matter!? Why do you always give up so easily?!'

But what could she expect when even her godfather was being turned against him?!

'I won't let you take them both from me!' she thought, her lungs burning as she kept up her mad pace.

She just barely saw Kaito in the back of the Mouse Queen's sleigh, Gakupo sitting across from him, a lifeless expression on his face as he stared out into nothing. "KAITO!" she screamed, "Kaito, get out of there!"

The mice didn't even bother to acknowledge her, but Kaito's head turned her way. As his painted eyes met hers, a smile crossed his face.

And then he was gone as the sleigh kicked up a burst of snow.

They were both gone.

She tripped over herself in the snow as her futile pursuit ended. As she collapsed onto the ground, every chance she had of going home seemed to slip away.

"Miku! Miku, where are you?!"

The white glow of Luka's light illuminated the forest around Miku, and she stood up slowly. "Miku, did you see them!?"

Apparently her crest-fallen face was all the answer the faerie needed. "I… I couldn't stop them…" she whimpered.

She stared up into the faerie's worried eyes. "Luka, just summon another sled and horse and we'll be right after them!"

The faerie's face appeared solemn. "I can't create solid matter like that…"

"Well… well… what about flying!? We could fly after them and snatch them off the sleigh and…"

Luka folded her hands in front of her. "I… I can't fly either. Neither of us can."

Miku clenched her fists in the snow. "What about… teleporting! You said you could move people across worlds and…"

"I can manipulate people across the worlds because the barriers are very weak," Luka explained, "Even then, I can only do it when I know both points. I know nothing of where to send us, and if I teleported us into the castle…"

"If you're so powerful, why can't you do anything?!"

The faerie fell utterly silent as Miku collapsed into the snow after her outburst. "Why can't… I… do anything?" she said as she began to sob.

'I can't go home… I'm too fragile and weak against them… I'm stuck here and… and I'll never see them again… Mother… Mikuo…'

She felt like she was suffocating as her body began to stiffen up. Her body felt like it was being crushed by an unseen force. 'I belong here… forever…'

A fine glaze began to cover her skin as it shone like porcelain…

Kaito stared ahead at his uncle. "You can't keep making that face at me forever, you know," he said.

Yet Gakupo didn't even bother to speak to him. "You didn't make him be quiet, did you?!" Kaito demanded of the sleigh's driver.

Rin simply laughed at his request. "He's not leaving the sleigh, but I don't really care if he blathers at you or not!"

Kaito turned back to his silent uncle. "Okay, then… why are you giving me the silent treatment? This is usually the part where you start telling some story and trying to trick me into something wild!"

Finally, Kaito leaned in as close as he could get. "Uncle…" he said in a low voice, "I know it seems so dire, but if you think about it right… we're going to the place we needed to be… I can get your heart back and stop the both of them a lot easier when they drop their guard in their castle than on a battlefield ready to fight…"

He glanced over to Rin and Len, hoping they couldn't hear him at all. "Uncle… I know what's happening to you. It happened to me, didn't it? When I fell asleep?"

The painful memories tried to surface again, his uncle covered in blood, the mice threatening to keep killing everyone around him…

"Why, Kaito?"

The voice coming out of Gakupo sounded unnervingly mechanical, yet to Kaito's eyes his body still appeared to be made of flesh.

"Why did you give up?"

So Gakupo knew. Maybe he'd known the second he found that little wooden doll on his bed instead of his nephew.

"Because… I didn't want anyone else to be hurt. Because I knew what I was didn't matter anymore. If I just faded away, the mice might leave all of you alone and I wouldn't have to feel anything anymore."

The memories started to erupt in his head. The temptation of forgetting, of slumbering endlessly without dreams… no more running, no more enduring, only a peaceful quiet existence of nothingness where nobody would have to worry for him…

"… Uncle, did I do this to you?"

Gakupo remained silent at this question.

"Did I cause you to lose your heart?"

The fact that his uncle refused to look at him seemed to answer far more than what mere words could offer. "It's not so difficult to succumb…" his uncle finally said, "And your burden was heavier than many. Mine was… far heavier than you could have expected."

Finally Kaito leaned back as he noticed out of the corner of his eye that he was being watched by the Mouse King himself.

"Uncle, can I tell you a story? You can tell me later if it's as good as any of yours."

The longer he kept Gakupo's attention, the more he hoped his uncle would stay with him in spirit even as his body kept decaying on him.

"Once upon a time, there was a brave, kind, and clever girl who never lost her faith in anyone. One day she went into a dark forest with her friends, a wizard, a soldier, and a princess. But the woods were enchanted, and they soon lost their way, finding only a boy made of wood…"

"So, a wooden boy and a clever girl? I wonder if I know anyone like that…"

Though Gakupo's tone showed some amusement, his face stayed completely unmoved. Kaito hoped Gakupo might at least smile, then he began to worry that perhaps he'd already lost that ability. 'Still, he's hanging on… I'll do what I can…'

As Kaito kept telling his own little fantastical tale, he looked out into the snow where he'd been forced to leave Miku behind. He'd wanted so badly to shout to her, but all he could do safely was smile for the "clever girl" he still believed in…

"Miss Luka, I came as soon as I could… what in the stars is happening to her?! What's that black aura all over her?!"

She was vaguely aware of someone touching her, but the further she sank into the darkness, the less she felt anything.

"Miku! Please, listen to me! You're becoming unmoored, you're losing yourself! That magic is trying to swallow you up!"

She could barely hear Luka's voice trying to pierce the darkness crowding in around her.

"So this is how it happens, just as with Drosselmeyer… no, I shan't accept that! Miku, whatever you think this is supposed to accomplish, I guarantee you it's not going to help!"

'But I can't help… I can't save them…'

"What's this nonsense you're babbling… by the stars, her hair is glazing over! Miss Luka, is there anything else we can try?! Can you dispel this foul magic?!"

'I can't do anything without him…'

She felt as fragile as glass.

"It's just as with Kaito and Gakupo… I can't lift that magic on my own… I'm not… She must fight it herself. That's all I know."

The person holding her let out an angry growl. "You! You listen to me! Are you seriously going to tell me all those grand promises you made me last night were meaningless?! All that talk about fighting the Mouse King and taking Kaito home with you!?"

'But… but I already lost him, didn't I?'

"Princess… are you sure this shouting is going to help?"

The faerie's voice held more curiosity than anything else. And it seemed to be unceasing to the princess' anger.

"You demanded my loyalty, no matter what! I kept to my vows, now what about you, Miku?!"

She thought of Kaito's lifeless body in the cavern as she swore to stay by his side and never leave him.

"Are you abandoning him next?!"

"If you lose sight of yourself, your identity, your goals, your old home… that same magic can break you until you forget who or what you were."

Her godfather's warning drifted into her ears. Did she really want to become a fragile, cowardly doll, constantly hiding lest the slightest thing break her again?

Would either Kaito or Gakupo want that?

She tried to think of as many things as she could that would anchor her again. She thought of her brother, constantly teasing her and breaking her toys with his recklessness… but always coming to her brave defense if she was harassed by childhood bullies and setting up elaborate stories with his soldiers and her dolls. She remembered her last fight with her mother as her application for finishing school went out the door… and she remembered how the poor woman mourned so harshly after the passing of her father, until Miku sang his favorite song for her and how wonderful it was to see her mother smile again. She thought of how Gakupo was always encouraging her, always believing in her, and always loving her and how Kaito would make her feel courageous and brave just by smiling for her.

Kaito… had smiled for her. When they took him away, he'd smiled… so she wouldn't give up.

She wanted to see his smile again.

All of these thoughts she focused on, trying to project her spirit outwards as the magic tried to crush it…

The glaze along her skin began to crack before loudly shattering and disappearing. As her body returned to normal, Miku became aware that Meiko was holding her and staring right at her with intense brown eyes. "Is that the last of it?" the princess whispered.

Miku realized she now owed her humanity to the stuffy rude princess who'd basically shouted it back into her. Yet now that very person looked so worried for her. She swallowed and smiled weakly. "I think I'm okay now…"

She noticed Luka kneeling in the snow right next to Miku… with tears running down her face as she delicately wiped them away. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you…" she said, "I didn't know what to do… if the princess hadn't arrived…"

"… I'm sorry for yelling at you… none of this is your fault…" Miku said sheepishly.

"You did WHAT?!"

Meiko started shaking her on hearing those words. "You can't go around yelling at faeries like Miss Luka! You owe her a far grander apology than that-"

"That's enough, Princess."

On hearing her idol's voice, Meiko calmed her tirade and finally released Miku as she rubbed her aching arms. "My powers aren't what they should be. We faeries aren't meant to keep dropping out of the sky like this, we have to go back and recover our strength… but… the last time I was up there… I wasn't here when he needed me."

The sadness in her voice meant neither Meiko no Miku needed to be told who "he" was. The faerie's eyes cast skyward. "Perhaps I really am to blame for these awful events… I didn't foresee them. I could have warned everyone had I been divining more faithfully instead of partaking of my fanciful whims…"

Miku actually found herself smiling wryly. "It seems like everyone here blames themselves for the misfortunes of others…" she said, "That can't possibly be helping any of us though. Besides, you've done so much already… I wouldn't have even gotten to know Gakupo if you hadn't saved him with that heart…"

"And Miss Luka… you made many people happy every time you danced," Meiko said softly, "You didn't just dance for yourself. And I doubt Drosselmeyer would have been half the inventor he was if he didn't have you helping him."

For the first time, Miku thought Luka was smiling from genuine happiness, even if the generally somber mood tinted her enthusiasm. Miku finally pulled out the rolled up blueprints in her coat, staring at them sadly. "I'd hoped I could get this to him in time…" Miku said, "I'm sure I could put the mechanics together, but I don't know the first thing about the stardust…"

Luka stopped staring at the sky and looked at the parchment in Miku's hands. "Oh my… you were going to try and build him a new heart?!"

She pulled back, her eyes closed in thought. "Hmmm… well it obviously won't be the same as the one he was using, filled with the emotions and years of two people… not to mention we don't have the time to take it up to the heavens and run around with it… but even so…"

Miku heard voices out in the trees and watched lanterns approaching. "Princess Pirlipat! Are you safe?!"

The three women rose from the snow. "They must have thought I lost my mind…" Meiko said sheepishly, "I came down to the workshop and found Gumi, Lily, and Cul in a mess… they told me everything and I ran off after you once I knew they were safe…"

Sure enough, the first person to appear was Gumi, trying to keep the flames of the lantern as far from her rubber face as possible. "Oh, you're all okay! Lily, Cul, they're back here!"

Gumi looked around expectantly but noticed two people missing. "Oh… oh… poor Sir Drosselmeyer, being twisted by the mice like that! It must have hurt him so…"

Soon enough Gumi's commanding officers emerged from the trees. "Princess Pirlipat, I'm glad the mice left you alone!" Cul said with a smile.

Meiko looked to the three of them and straightened up – Miku wasn't entirely used to how fast she shifted into her "regal" persona. "Can you please gather up the officers? We must pursue the mice at once and rescue the Nutcracker and Lord Drosselmeyer…"

"Princess, we don't exactly have the man power to pursue him…" Lily said, "Not into the mice's domain anyway."

'It's the same problem as with the workshop…' Miku thought to herself, 'There's more mice than there are use, and they're expecting us…'

'… then… we need a similar solution…'

"Um… Gumi? How many of the dolls can operate the machinery in the workshop?"

Gumi saluted, even though Miku wasn't even a military official. "Plenty of us can, miss!" she said as though reading off a report, "All of the Gearbolt Girls got drafted in this unit!"

Meiko looked over to Miku in shock. "What are you planning on doing, throwing toys at the mice?!" she said, her eyes wide.

Miku rolled up the blueprints again and stuffed them back into her coat. "Well, when I was going through Gakupo's old toy plans, I did find one that might be useful to us… we don't have enough metal for an army of soldiers, but… we do have enough metal for one giant toy…"

And she knew exactly what kind of toy she'd need if she wanted to shake up the mice. "I don't need sleep… if the dolls can take shifts with me, we could have it ready by morning if Luka can show me how to forge stardust!"

She looked hopefully to the faerie, who nodded her head. "I was the person who taught him… besides, I can assure you the stardust nodes will be much more powerful when forged by a faerie instead of his machines."

Meiko looked hopefully to her soldiers. "None of us are going to say no to helping the Boss…" Cul said, looking to Lily who nodded in agreement, "Even the ones who don't know how should be okay…"

"Dolls are great at taking orders!" Gumi said, pumping her fist in the air, "We can do this!"

"If I may offer," Luka added, "I can't conjure living creatures out of thin air, but if I concentrate hard enough, I could cast an illusion wide enough to cover the entire army."

"Do you think they'll listen to me?" Meiko said, "These aren't my father's orders…"

Miku smiled for her. "You're their princess! You can take charge of them, just rally their spirits to victory!"

Now it was Meiko's turn to blush. "You make it sound so easy!"

So they finally had something. One desperate idea.

'Kaito… you better not have been exaggerating about the speed of that assembly,' Miku thought, 'Because right now, it's the only thing I have to save you.'

As the sleigh moved through an army of what had to be hundreds of mice, Kaito tried to keep himself calm as a massive, run down castle stood within the snow. The front door creaked open as it began to approach the innards of the imposing fortress. He still had no idea what the royals had planned for him or for Gakupo. They may not wish to kill him, but they still wanted revenge against him, right?

"Kaito…"

Gakupo's voice sounded so hoarse now.

"That story you told me…. About the clever girl and the wooden boy…"

"Oh, did you like it?!" Kaito asked excitedly.

Even as Gakupo's voice still retained hints of the person he truly was, his body had become almost entirely indistinguishable from one of his creations. "It wasn't a bad story… you need some practice… but it wasn't bad at all…"

He turned his face to his nephew, Kaito staring at painted metal and gray eyes. "You seemed rather fond of the girl…"

Kaito tried to ignore the jeering around him. "I believe in her with all my heart!"

All at once the mice swarmed the sleigh. Kaito tried to fight back as Gakupo was pulled away from him, before he was dragged out and slammed into the ground so hard his torso was scuffed up.

"The toymaker can rot in the dungeon until we're ready for him!" the Queen shouted.

Len's sword pressed into the Nutcracker's face. "As for you… we need a night's entertainment to celebrate our victory."

A/N:

I… aaaaaam… Iron Gakuuuuuuuu! Is he alive or dead? Has he thoughts within his head?!

Oh, I'm sorry, that's not a Vocaloid song and it's older than me and all of my readers XD Still, now you're all going to sing it :P

No, none of this is in the book, or a ballet, or anything else. I'm going rogue, people! Well, actually, the title of the chapter is from the book…

Again, in case it wasn't super obvious, the flashback with Luka featured her performing in Swan Lake, with herself as Odette and Chika as Odile (aka the Black Swan). Many productions have both characters played by a single ballerina, as Odile appears in disguise, but others incorporate a second ballerina. I did the latter since it let me sneak in another Vocaloid. The ending of the show is normally a tragedy, but it depends on the production, so let's hope for Kaito's sake he saw a version where the swan lived ;)

Oh Mayu, making a return appearance? Apparently strangling her toy rabbit is how she uses it as a microphone according to Exit Tunes… for once it wasn't just me being crazy.

Actually, there is one more plot thread that's sort of from the novel. The warning to Miku that only she can protect the Nutcracker and that the trial is hers to undertake originates from there. Except… in the novel Marie's horrific sacrifice is giving up her Christmas sweets to the mice night after night so they don't kill the Nutcracker. Well, she is an eight year old in the book, that's probably a much bigger stake at that age ;) What does Miku have to do here? Well the story isn't over yet, but no, don't expect the problem to be solved with sugar dolls and marzipan balls.