It was Saturday, about a week after I'd gotten sick. Since just accepting it, I'd been getting along fairly well with the possibility of Easter controlling me. If it happened, it happened. I'd deal with it once it was actually a problem. (Azami's dragon philosophies about living in the present were really starting to rub off on me) But this week had been dragging on for ages - and not just because of two days of make-up homework. Rather, I actually had something to look forward to this weekend. Well, tonight, to be more precise.
I was going to an Utau concert with Mai.
She'd invited me earlier this week, and since then, I've been hyped. Firstly, I would get to hang out with Mai. I mean, while it was nice to hang out with the Guardians, it meant having to deal with a chara interrupting the conversation every few minutes. Secondly, I was extremely curious about Utau. I mean, someone who has two charas and works for Easter was bound to be interesting. I was also planning on hanging around for a bit and doing some X-egg harvesting as people left the concert, which would be a nice change of pace from my usual haunts. And finally, I just really like Utau's music. Meikyu Butterfly was one of my favorite songs, and it would almost certainly either open or close the concert tonight.
I took a look at the time – 4:37. Mai and I were meeting at a nearby children's playground at six, and then walking to the concert from there. I decided to take the time to go ahead and pick out an outfit. I pulled out a few items of clothing from my closet (and by 'a few', I mean my entire wardrobe) and laid them on my bed. It took me almost an hour to pick out my outfit. I really wanted to look good, mainly because… well, I just wanted to look good. I would say that there are very few people who don't want to look good when going out in public. But also, I wanted to look nice in case I ended up running into Utau. Which I thought was at least a possibility, since both of us had charas.
In the end, after much deliberation, I was satisfied with the outfit I came up with. I picked out a short black skirt with streaks of bright green, which matched my tight fitting, short-sleeved black shirt with a emerald-colored snake crawling over it (Azami wanted me to wear this shirt; one guess as to why). I put on a white half length jacket over that, and white and black striped long socks for a bit of warmth. To wrap it up, I wore a pair of bright green, leather-like sandals.
I was just picking out a large, green and blue flower clip for my hair (not like I had long enough hair that it would be useful – I just thought it looked nice) when my cell phone rang. Yet again, this wasn't the text tone; my guess was that it was one of the Guardians again. I picked up and, sure enough, it was Yaya.
"Hey! Is that you, Miyuki-chi?" Yaya practically yelled. I had to hold the phone away from my face
"Yeah. What's up?" Azami was on top of my head, and she could hear everything Yaya said.
"Yaya got last minute tickets for you and Yaya and the rest of the Guardians to listen to Utau tonight! Do you want to come?"
I was both disappointed and excited at the same time. On one hand, I had wanted this to be a thing for just Mai and me. On the other hand, both Azami and I did enjoy hanging out with the Guardians. "Well, actually, I'm going with another friend of mine. You can give it to someone else. Sorry I won't be the one to use it."
"That's okay!" Yaya said. "You'll be there, so it doesn't matter what ticket you're using! Yaya will find someone to give the ticket to!"
"All right, I guess I'll see you there then." I said.
"Yup! See you then, Miyuki-chi!" and then she hung up. I sighed. Yaya was cute, but her hyperness was tiring sometimes. I took another glance at the time. It was 5:45. Wait – 5:45!?! It took me at least twenty minutes to walk to the park we were meeting at! I was already in my outfit, so I grabbed my regular purse and hurried out of the house, Azami flying close behind. I decided to leave my X-egg purse at home – if the Guardians were going to be there, I didn't want to risk them catching me in the act.
Walking quickly, it took me a bit under twenty minutes to make it to the playground. I didn't have a watch, so there was no way I could tell how late I might be. It was a rather small playground, and I quickly saw her waiting on one of the swings. Looking at her just sitting there, I realized I'd never really noticed how pretty she was. I mean, she had a sort of simplicity about her that just worked perfectly with her shy attitude. She kept her brown, shoulder-length hair free from any clips or hair ties, which only accentuated its natural waviness. She was wearing a long, blue skirt and a loose, long sleeve, blue and white shirt. It seemed sort of old-fashioned, but it looked great on her.
"Sorry I'm late!" I called out as soon as she saw me. "I got a bit too occupied with choosing my outfit."
"It looks nice." Mai said. As always, she talked quietly. However, I'd noticed she was a lot more comfortable around me than the rest of the class. And that's what made her a better friend than the Guardians, in a way. I mean, since we all had charas, it felt like we more or less had to be friends. But with Mai, it was different. Not only were we friends because we wanted to be, but I knew that to her I was her best friend. And I think she realized that I was a friend with her in a way that I could never be with the Guardians.
"So what have you been up? You've been acting strangely lately." I asked as we started walking. It would take a while to actually get to the site of the concert.
Mai blushed a little bit, and looked down. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean." I said, smiling. "Whenever I've come up to you during class this past week or so, you always hurriedly put away whatever you were doing. And you seem to be a lot more distracted while Nikaido is teaching."
"It's nothing." Mai said, still looking a bit embarrassed.
"I think it's definitely something." I replied. "What could you be writing that you have to put away whenever I come by?"
"Well…" Mai started. It occurred to me that she might really not want me to know about whatever it was she was doing.
"You know, if you don't want to tell me, I don't want to pressure you." I said quickly.
"It's not that I don't want you to know." Mai said, acting shyer than usual. "It's just that… I'm not finished yet. As soon as it's done, you'll be the first to see it."
Azami spoke up, though of course Mai couldn't hear her. "I wonder what this 'it' is?" I ignored Azami, though I'll admit that I was dying to know what Mai was talking about.
I went ahead and changed the subject, both for Mai's comfort and to try to distract my curiosity. "Actually, part of the reason I was late was because Yaya called right before I left. She got tickets, so I guess the rest of the Guardians will be at the concert tonight.
"Oh." She said, looking slightly downcast. "I guess you'll probably want to hang out with them."
"Maybe." I said. "Do you not want to? Of course, we could all hang out together."
"No, it's fine." Mai said, though I could tell that it definitely was not fine. I thought about it for a moment, and realized that it would be extremely awkward for everyone involved for me to be with both the Guardians and Mai at the same time. Mai would feel left out since she isn't a Guardian, and the rest of them would have to try and enjoy themselves with someone they hardly knew.
"You know, if we can find them before or after I might say hi, but I see enough of them at school." I said. I felt bad that I hadn't thought of the consequences earlier, before I told Mai that they were coming.
"No, really, it's okay." Mai said. Then, as an after thought, she added, "You're acting like you don't even want to see them."
"Well, think of it this way." I replied. "I talk to them every day. I see enough of them as it is. And one more thing - can you keep secret?"
"Uh… yeah." Mai said, unsure of what she was agreeing to hear.
"Okay, the secret is…" I leaned in closer and lowered my voice, as if afraid of being overheard. "The guardians can really act like a bunch of goofballs half the time."
I don't know if it was something in the way I said it, or if it was just the idea of the perfect Guardians being goofballs, but Mai absolutely burst out laughing. And, of course, that made me crack up as well. It was so odd to see Mai laughing like this – she was always so shy.
As we both tried to catch our breath, Mai commented, "You know, you're a Guardian, too."
"Of course I'm a guardian. Is there something…" I finally got the joke. "Hey! Are you trying to imply that I'm a goofball, too!?!"
"Oh, no, of course not." Mai said sarcastically. Sarcasm was another thing she normally wasn't associated with. Then we both cracked up again.
"You know, she's right. You're the biggest goofball out of all of them!" Azami said. Still laughing, I tried to grab her without Mai noticing anything odd, but Azami just dodged out of the way, laughing at how I couldn't do anything to reply that didn't make me look stupid in front of Mai.
We enjoyed the rest of our walk there. Despite the fact that it took over an hour to get there, we had decided against having her mom drive us. With me being with the Guardians at lunch and after school, we didn't get a ton of time at school to talk. It was really nice. Shugo charas are great, but another thing about them was that you never feel like you can have a truly personal talk when are multiple hyperactive fairy-like creatures hovering right by your face. I didn't mind having just Azami around, and she entertained herself enough by flying around so that she wasn't interrupting our conversation too much.
* * *
Despite the long walk, the concert didn't start until eight o' clock, meaning we would have made it there about an hour early. But that was how we had planned it. We stopped in at a locally owned restaurant, where we both ordered a small dinner – we were trying to save our hunger (and our money) for snacks at the concert. I was glad that Mai's mother didn't mind letting her take care of herself. Most parents of fifth graders weren't nearly as lenient.
The concert was going to be held in the largest park in the city, which had a fairly nice stage as well as an enormous open area to accommodate for crowds. It was used for all sorts of things; everything from magic acts to citywide talent shows was held here. Though I guessed that this would be the largest event it had been used for in a while. A temporary metal fence had been set up around the perimeter so that no one without tickets could get in, and police officers helped to keep everyone in line (both literally and figuratively). It looked like there were already about a hundred people here, and more kept on coming by the minute.
"Come on! Let's hurry and try and get close to the stage!" I said excitedly, grabbing her arm and pulling her to get in line. All of the commotion seemed to energize me, though it kind of overwhelmed Mai.
We gave our tickets to the man who was letting everyone in, then squeezed through the crowd. We managed to get really close to the front, though we were way off to one side of the crowd. Still, the view wasn't too bad. We were close enough that we could clearly see the supporting musicians setting up all their instruments. We did keep our eyes peeled for the Guardians, but neither of us could see them through the mass of bodies. It surprised me that most of the people here weren't that old – it was mostly teens, but there were also a lot of kids that looked like they couldn't be too much older than myself.
Azami flew above the crowd for a while, looking to see if she could find the Guardians. I didn't know whether she had found them or not, though. She came back right as the concert was beginning to start and I couldn't hear what she said, since we were standing right next to one of the speakers.
Fog rolled along the floor of the stage as Utau walked out, and the crowd cheered. Multicolor lights were swaying back and forth, illuminating the stage and creating a cool effect in cooperation with the fog. I couldn't help myself – I yelled just as loudly as everyone else. Mai was still in awe of everything around her, but she managed to clap as loudly as she could.
As I had guessed, the familiar first notes of Meikyu Butterfly were the first to blare out of the speakers. Listening to it live, I gained a new appreciation for it. Though my ears were being completely blasted to bits, the driving beat and lyrics of the song yet again enthralled me. And the intensity that I saw in Utau's eyes was a strength like I had never seen before. It was different than the power that Azami had. Neither Azami nor I got our power from the kind of motivation that I could feel emanating Utau.
And even more amazing than all this was how the music was affecting the X-energy inside me. Before even the first verse was finished, the energy within me seemed to be humming and vibrating, as if just waiting for the opportunity to flood out. And yet, it wasn't making me any more sad or gloomy. It seemed only to heighten my mood, making me increasingly loud and excited. I really wanted to chara-change, for some reason or another.
Then, as Utau reached the climax of the refrain for the final time before the end of the song, something happened. I suddenly noticed that small, black wings had appeared coming from her shoulders, and the song seemed to take on yet another tone. I wondered what was happening for a moment, but suddenly Azami was pulling on my hair with all her might.
"What is it!?" I yelled over the crowd. Mai was too enthralled with the song to pay attention to what I was doing.
Azami yelled something, but I couldn't hear. "What!?!" I asked.
She floated right next to my ear and shouted, as loudly as she could. "X-eggs!" She pointed, and I looked up. There, hovering above the crowd, I could see five X-eggs. Azami started pulling on my jacket to get me moving, but I didn't go anywhere.
"I want to, but I can't just leave Mai!" I shouted, gesturing towards my friend in case Azami didn't hear me. "Go and try to find the Guardians, and keep an eye on what happens! I don't have my bag for X-eggs, anyway!"
I wasn't entirely sure if Azami caught everything I said, but she seemed to get the idea. She flew off, and I watched her for as long as I could before she disappeared into the darkness.
"Miyuki! What are you looking at!?!" Mai shouted, trying to be heard over the noise of the crowd and the music.
"Nothing!" I replied, turning back to the stage. I wanted to go even more now – the X-egg energy inside me was starting to affect my thoughts. I felt like I had to go do something, instead of just standing here shouting. I knew now why I felt like I needed to chara-change – I had the urge to create as many X-eggs as possible. I wanted to change so that I could use my power, and show others what strength I had over them. But I couldn't. I managed to keep control of myself, and all I could do was wait.
It didn't take long for Azami to find the Guardians. For one, she had indeed found them earlier, before the concert started. Not to mention, they were the only ones present trying to get away from the concert. She thought about going down to them and letting them know she was there – at the moment, she was tailing them from about twenty feet up – but she decided against it. This would be more fun to watch, since Miyuki wasn't here to help out. Not to mention, the music was affecting Azami as well – she knew it would influence her if she got too involved, and if there was one thing a dragon didn't like, it was being controlled by anything.
They made their way out of the ticket gate and past the hoards of fans that didn't have tickets and were trying to get a glimpse of their idol. The eggs (Azami counted six of them) had grouped together, and were flying erratically through the park. They would fly one way, then turn and fly another way, then go back the way they had originally been going. Azami flew down a bit closer, and saw that the Guardians had character changed and Amu had already character transformed. As always, she had done her chara nari with Ran. Azami half stuck out her tongue at this. If only she could get five minutes in a locked room with that peppy little cheerleader… we'd see how much she could cheer after that.
Suddenly, the eggs split up into two groups of three. Azami laughed as Amu looked around, trying to decide which way to go. She heard Tadase give the orders – they were all going to split up, and try and drive the eggs back to the small clearing that they were in now for Amu to purify. Kukai, Yaya, and Nadeshiko went after the eggs that went to the left, while Tadase went with Amu after the ones that had kept on going straight.
This could get interesting. But what on earth made Tadase decide to go with Amu? Azami thought with a grin. She flew up higher to try to keep an eye on everyone, but she made sure that she didn't lose sight of Amu and Tadase. Azami's sharp eye caught every movement below her, despite her height and the darkness. Which is why she was surprised when she saw motion coming from some trees where she was sure no one had been a second ago. It moved too fast for her to get a good glimpse of it from this far away, but she could tell that it was moving closer and closer to Amu.
It's not an X-egg, is it? No, it's way too big. But who… ah. As she got closer to both Amu and the unidentified motion, she caught sight of a glint of metal, as well as a couple of ears and a tail. So Ikuto is here too, huh? But why chara-nari?
Ikuto made it to the clearing right as Amu did. Tadase was lagging behind, unable to keep up with the speed of Amulet Heart. The three eggs were confused by the entrance of a new person, and weren't entirely sure what to do. The hovered in the center of the clearing, unsure of where to go in case someone else popped out of the trees. Azami circled down lower, hiding herself in the branches of one of the surrounding trees. This was probably one of the few times in her life that she appreciated being small – it made it a lot easier to hide.
"I wasn't expecting to see you here, Amu." Said Ikuto, smirking. "What could you be doing here?"
Amu sputtered out her response. "Well- I, uh… we were at the concert, and-"
"Holy Crown!" Tadase's attack interrupted Amu as a golden light shot past her, straight towards Ikuto. With his cat-like reflexes, he easily jumped out of the way of the attack.
"Oh? I guess that the kiddy king and Amu are taking a moonlit stroll through the park. I didn't know you two were going steady." Ikuto taunted. Azami would have sworn that Amu actually glowed red from this comment, but perhaps her blush was just exaggerated by the pink in her outfit.
Azami also saw the slightest hint of a blush on Tadase, but he seemed too intent on Ikuto to get to worked up by it. "Holy Crown!" he shouted again, but Ikuto dodged this one even more easily than the first.
"Useless!" The trio of eggs started flying away from the battling people.
"Hinamori-san! You go purify the eggs – I'll hold off this cat!" Tadase said.
Amu nodded, managing to get a hold of herself. She ran after the eggs. Ikuto made as if to chase after the eggs himself, but another Holy Crown from Tadase cut him off.
"Does the kiddy-king want to play?" taunted Ikuto. Azami flew up higher to try and keep an eye Amu, as well as hear the conversation between Ikuto and Tadase.
"Give me back the Dumpty Key, Tsukiyomi Ikuto!" Tadase said, with Kiseki at his shoulder looking just as angry. "You know it belongs to me!"
This was news to Azami – hadn't Tadase said that the Dumpty Key had just been kept by the Guardians? Had he been hiding something?
"Maybe if you ask really nicely and call me 'onii-chan' like you used to, I'll consider it." Ikuto taunted. Whoa – back up again. Since when had Tadase called Ikuto onii-chan? They couldn't possibly be brothers. For Azami, this was simply getting more and more intriguing by the minute.
Tadase fired off another blast of light (which Ikuto dodged – surprise, surprise), and was about to say something back. But a bright flash came from somewhere nearby, and Azami saw that Amu had just managed to purify the three eggs she had been following.
"Well, it looks as if I'm not wanted here." Said Ikuto with a smirk. "See you later, kiddy-king." Ikuto turned and jumped off into the trees.
"I'm not letting you get away!" Tadase said as he rushed forward. He stopped as he reached the edge of the clearing – Ikuto was already long gone.
Amu arrived back in the clearing in another couple of seconds. "Where'd Ikuto go?" she asked.
"He fled, like the thieving cat that he is." Tadase replied.
"Come on, Amu, we need to find the other X-eggs!" Miki said urgently.
The duo and their charas went back the way they came, but Azami could see that the rest of the Guardians had so far been unable to corral the remaining X-eggs back to their designated meeting place. Azami was really annoyed at simply watching by this point (and she had noticed that the X-egg energy had died down in her somewhat), so she decided to help out. Though she thought it was rather stupid that none of their own charas were flying up above the trees themselves. I guess they were confident enough in the abilities of Nadeshiko, Yaya, and Kukai to trust them to make it back to where they were supposed to be.
"Hey, you're going the wrong way!" Azami said as she swooped down to their level.
Amu and Tadase kept on running, but seemed shocked by the dragon chara's appearance. "Azami? What are you doing here?" Amu said. "And where's Miyuki! We could've used her help!"
"Miyuki had to stay with her friend at the concert." Azami explained. "But you guys are going to wrong way! The others haven't been able to get the X-eggs under control yet."
"Which way are they?" Tadase asked.
"Follow me." Azami said, changing her direction more to the right.
* * *
I was starting to get slightly worried when Azami wasn't back by the end of the concert. But even though Azami was gone, I had a great time. Though we really couldn't talk at all over the noise, just being with Mai was great. And it was so fun to see the normally shy girl actually have some good, loud fun for once. The songs were great, though none worked up the X-energy as much as Meikyu Butterfly, nor did any of the other songs draw out more X-eggs.
"That was fun." Said Mai as we left. Most of the crowd had already dispersed, heading home after the exciting night. Mai seemed like she was more or less back to normal, but if I looked really closely I could see her hands shaking slightly – probably from being in relative quiet after standing right next to the speakers for so long. I wasn't entirely sure if I wasn't shaking, myself. This had been my first time at big event like this, and it had been fairly intense.
"Yeah, that was great!" I said as we made our way to the opposite side of the park. That was where Mai's mom was going to pick her up. I'd told Mai that my mom would pick me up, so that they could leave without me. I had been planning on flying back to my house. "But too bad we didn't see the Guardians. I wanted to introduce you to Kukai."
Mai blushed. She and I both knew that she had a bit of a crush on Kukai. "Then it's probably better that we didn't see them."
When we reached her car, we said our good-byes. "I'll see you on Monday, Miyuki."
"Yeah. Just wait until the rest of the class hears that we actually got to go see Utau!" I said. Mai blushed – she definitely didn't want all that attention, but she knew I was just joking. I wasn't going to tell anyone if she didn't want the class to know. As soon as the car drove off, Azami showed up.
"Where have you been?" I asked. "Surely it doesn't take that long for the Guardians to round up a few X-eggs."
"They had a bit of trouble." Azami said. "And I didn't get back until the last song, so I just waited until Mai was gone. Come this way – the Guardians want to say hi, as long as you all are here."
Azami led the way back towards the center of the park. Here, there was a large fountain, and surrounding it at a distance were a few benches. On one of these benches, the Guardians were waiting.
"Miyuki-chi! Why didn't you come help?" Yaya said, rushing over as soon as she saw me.
"Sorry about that." I said apologetically. "But I was with my friend, and I didn't want to leave her by herself. But anyway, what all happened?"
Switching from person to person, what I'd missed was revealed – they had chased after the eggs, and had to split up. Amu and Tadase ran into Ikuto, and it sounded like Yaya ended up having a chara-changed fit while Nadeshiko and Kukai tried to keep their three eggs in line. But they'd still managed to keep the X-eggs together until Azami led Amu there to purify them. And by the time they finished, it hadn't been worth it to come back to the concert.
"Wow. Sounds like you guys had an exciting night! I wish I could've helped out." I said. I did have fun helping the Guardians catch X-eggs, whenever the opportunity arose. Which was somewhat odd, considering I had just as much fun making X-eggs as helping them to get purified. "But the concert was great. Did you see Utau right when the X-eggs came out?"
"Well…" Amu said. "I thought I saw something like wings on her back. But we were farther back in the crowd, so I couldn't be sure."
"That's what I saw – little black bat-like wings." I confirmed.
"So that would mean…" Nadeshiko started.
Tadase nodded, finishing for her. "Utau must be part of Easter's search for the embryo."
"So do you think she was the one who drew out those X-eggs?" asked Kukai.
"Probably." Said Tadase. "But how? And how did those bat-wings appear on her back?"
The answer seemed obvious to me – her character-change must be like my character transformation: we both gain the wings that our charas have, and we're both able to draw out X-eggs. But, of course, the Guardians had probably never seen someone chara-change with wings, and nor did they know that Utau had a guardian character. I decided to go ahead and help them out.
"Well, I was thinking about it throughout the concert." I said. "What if it's like with Ikuto's character-change? Doesn't he get ears and a tail? What if Utau had a chara, and it had wings on it?"
"Do you really think that's possible?" asked Amu. "An idol like Utau with a shugo chara?"
Actually, with two shugo charas. I thought to myself. "Yeah, that's my theory."
We talked for a while longer on the matter, but they had to leave soon enough. Yaya's parents had driven them to the concert, and they were waiting in their car to drive the rest of the Guardians home. I told them that my mom should be here any minute, and that I'd just wait around here until she came. They left, and Azami and I waited a few minutes to make sure they were gone.
Then, we found a deserted corner of the park and did our chara-nari. It felt really good – both of us were still buzzing with energy from the concert, and I hadn't had a good chance to stretch my wings in a while.
We flew through the crisp night air, both of us enjoying ourselves. "Tadase wasn't saying everything." Azami said after we'd been flying for a couple of minutes. As always, it felt slightly weird to have her talking from inside of me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"When he met up with Ikuto, they exchanged a bit of conversation. Tadase said that the Dumpty Key belonged to him. Ikuto said that Tadase used to call him onii-chan."
"Wait a minute." I said. "There is no way those two could possibly be brothers. They look nothing alike, even when taking into account their age difference. And Tadase hates Ikuto - why would he call him onii-chan?"
"That's what I thought. But anyway, I don't know anymore than that. Maybe we can ask Ikuto next time he comes around."
"Yeah." I said. We didn't talk anymore on the way home. It had been a long, fun day. And though Azami would probably get on my case about being too friendly, I could easily say that they best part of it had been hanging out with Mai.
Yay! Happy day! Everyone, my story is now over 96,000 words long, making it the longest Shugo Chara fanfic! At the moment, at least. And I'm sorry, but I'm really excited about this. For one, I yet again feel glad that I am staying motivated. But, mainly, I'm simply intensely competitive about things like this. Of course, the doesn't come close to making my story any better than anyone else's, and I realize that. But it is the longest, and that's something concrete and provable, unlike quality. (Sorry, as I said, I'm intensely competitive). You'll probably hear me gloating at the end of next chapter, too, considering that I'll probably reach 100,000 words then.
This was one of those chapters where I didn't know what would happen, for the most part. Just the main parts, like Me(Miyuki) and Mai going to an Utau concert. Everything else just sort of came from there. However, for the most part, I have the story planned to this upcoming mini-climax. I think I even know exactly how many chapters there are left, supposing that someone doesn't do something in the story that I'm not expecting.
Hope you still enjoy it! That is, despite my horrible tendency to brag about my overly-long story. (96,000 words. Just thought I'd emphasize that)