Very long chapter here, and I was quite tired when I wrote it, so sorry if it's not great. The next chapter should (in theory) be the last part of Episode 2. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Rozen Maiden: Märchen

EPISODE 2

Angel Delight

When Jun had finished brushing his teeth and getting washed, he sauntered into the front room to find that, once again, he was the last person up. In the past he was normally awakened by the dolls antics, however with Hinaichigo gone there seemed to be fewer such troubles to rock him out of bed in the mornings.

"Morning," he mumbled, still feeling vaguely numb and half-asleep.

"Good morning," they all droned back.

"So the great big sleepy head has finally decided to grace us with his presence," said Suiseiseki, "Maybe you'd care to go one further and explain what she is doing here," she added, pointedly glaring across the table at Barasuishou. Jun dropped himself into the vacant chair beside the offending doll in question and shot Suiseiseki and irate look.

"I'm taking care of her, just like your father asked me to," he said with just a hint of snark, "If you have a problem with that, feel free to take it up with him."

"Hmph!" she huffed and bit into her toast, not satisfied. Shinku took a sip of her tea and carefully set the tiny cup down, her expression one of restrained distaste.

"Nori, I am aware that your tea making skills leave much to be desired, but this really is quite dreadful, even for you," she said.

"Oh, I'm sorry Shinku, but these pictures ... they're so cute!" Nori gushed, flipping through a thick bundle of snapshots as her own tea remained untouched. Jun eyed the pictures suspiciously.

"Please tell me those aren't what I think they are," he said, though he strongly suspected they were. Sure enough Nori was holding copies of the pictures Mitsu had taken yesterday, and judging by her expression she was about ready to glomp her little brother.

"Jun-kun, why didn't you tell me you did things like this?" Nori asked, holding one of the pictures up for Jun to see. He tried to ignore it. Seeing himself in a short skirt and thigh-length socks made his head go all funny.

"I don't do things like this," he insisted whilst scraping jam onto his own toast, "I just did it once, as a favour for Mitsu. Can we please stop making a big deal about it?"

Barasuishou took one of the pictures from a second bundle resting on the table and stared at it. Her eyebrows went up a notch. "This is you? You look..."

"Adorable!" Nori finished for her, "Hey Jun, if you ever want to borrow any of my clothes you only have to ask."

Jun dropped his toast and gaped at his sister in astonishment. "What? Why the heck would I want to do something like that?"

Nori gathered up the pictures with a sly grin. "Well you know, there are some boys that feel like they're really a girl on the inside..."

"I am not a girl!" Jun yelled, slapping his hands down on the table for emphasis. Suiseiseki chuckled.

"It sounds to me like the puny human is in denial. He so totally needs to do some soul searching and admit that he has a problem."

Jun had to resist the overwhelming urge to throw his breakfast at the fiendish little doll. He leaned forwards instead and glared at her with as much menace as he could muster. "The only problem around here is you, you rotten evil little-"

"Hey! Less of your sass today, runt!" she snapped back, "Or I'll sneak into your school and pin these pictures up for all to see!"

That stopped him dead in his tracks, and he immediately turned blue with shock. Shinku meanwhile sighed and pushed her tea away. "Nori, please make another pot of tea, and this time endeavour to concentrate."

As Nori collected the cups and set about doing as instructed, Barasuishou watched the exchange between Jun and Suiseiseki. "Is it always like this?" she wondered aloud. Shinku regarded her for a moment.

"Regretably, yes."

Barasuishou turned her attention on the fifth Rozen Maiden, who had up until now been ignoring her entirely. Somehow that was even worse than the outright hostility she was recieving from Suiseiseki. Of all the places she could think to be after being restored by Master Rozen, this was the last - surrounded by the very dolls she had killed. She was actually surprised one of them hadn't tried to exact revenge yet. At least Kanaria had returned to her eccentric Medium, relieved to be away from 'BaraBara'.

"Shinku..."

"Yes?"

Shinku sat quietly with her hands in her lap, watching her expectantly. It was unusual given her complete indifference the past few days. Barasuishou felt a surge of guilt looking into her serenely blue eyes and found herself turning away, unable to keep eye contact. She wished she still had her eyepatch. Without it, more and more of her feelings were rising to the surface, and some of them were distinctly unpleasant.

"Nothing," she said.

Jun and Suiseiseki's squabbling was interrupted by the phone ringing. "I'll get it!" said Nori, still busy preparing the tea. Jun returned to his toast and tore at it with his teeth as if he had a personal grudge against the thing. Could this weekend get any worse?

"What?" said Nori, still talking into the phone. Jun watched her, frowning. Who could it be now? "Oh no! That's terrible! ... yes, I'll let him know. Goodbye." she hung up and stood there, not moving a muscle.

"Nori? What was that?" Jun asked, feeling deeply uneasy in the pit of his stomach. Her tone had been very worrying. Nori returned to the table and sat down, looking vaguely shell shocked. She ran a hand through her hair in an almost distracted way.

"That was Mrs Kashiwaba," she said, her voice quavering slightly, "Tomoe's been taken to hospital."

Jun felt as if he'd just been punched in the gut. His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose and his mouth hung open. "W-what? What happened?"

Megu sat up in her hospital bed, studying the chessboard in front of her intently. She was currently in the middle of a game, though her opponent had temporarily left for reasons known only to her, leaving Megu a fair amount of time to carefully consider her next move. She was playing white, whilst her angel was playing red. She could certainly use the time to think, as she'd already lost a Bishop and a Rook. Her Queen looked to be in danger too.

As she was busy trying to formulate some kind of defence to protect her Queen, there was a bit of a commotion at the door. She looked up from the board and noticed a pair of nurses wheeling a hospital bed into the room. The bed was occupied by a young girl who appeared to be sleeping.

"Well dear, looks like you're going to have some company for a while," said one of the nurses, "We're a little full up at the moment, so this poor girl will have to stay with you."

"That's okay, I don't mind," said Megu earnestly, "What's wrong with her?"

They finished positioning the bed and another nurse appeared with a trolley of monitoring equipment. The nurse that had been speaking to her turned and shrugged helplessly.

"Nobody knows. She just went to sleep and didn't wake up. The doctors are stumped."

Megu regarded her silent new roommate. She was pretty, probably in school judging by her age, and seemed otherwise perfectly normal. There was no sign of any injuries or marks on her, indeed she looked quite peaceful. "What's her name?"

"Tomoe Kashiwaba. Oh, what's this?" The nurse noticed the small folding table on Megu's bed with the chess set. She leaned over and peered at the board. "Who are you playing with?"

Megu smiled and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "The black angel. She's very good, she's already won three games against me, and I'm afraid I might lose this one as well. I'm learning a lot though."

The nurse smiled oddly at her and stood upright. "That's ... that's nice dear. I'll be back later with something to eat. You will try and eat something today?"

Megu nodded and returned her attention back to the chessboard. The nurse left, wondering if she was really starting to lose her sanity. Megu knew they thought she was a little crazy for believing in angels, but she didn't mind. After five minutes careful consideration, she used one of her knights to threaten her opponents Queen, hoping that would allow her to move her own to a better position the following move.

It was afternoon by the time Suigintou returned. She stood at the open window and stared across at the room's new occupant, frowning.

"You don't have to worry about her," said Megu, "I think she's in some kind of coma. She hasn't moved or said a word since they brought her here."

Suigintou perched herself on the side of Megu's bed and glanced over at Tomoe. There was a jar full of vibrant flowers on the table beside her. Megu noticed her looking and regarded them as well. "They're lilies. Her parents brought them in earlier. I think they're very pretty."

Suigintou said nothing, though there was something vaguely familiar about that girl. She felt as if she'd seen her before somewhere, though she couldn't quite recall where. It bothered her, because her memory was normally perfect. Pushing that matter from her mind, she turned her attention instead to the chess game. A hint of a smile appeared on her face. "You're getting better. You remembered what I said about keeping on the offensive."

Megu plucked one of the Knights from the board and held it aloft, turning it this way and that. "These are really useful. I was just thinking how nice it'd be to have a White Knight swoop in and save the day."

Suigintou snorted derisively. "I much prefer Queens. They're by far the most powerful."

Megu held the Knight piece out towards Suigintou. "But the Knight has a trick the Queen doesn't - he can pass over other pieces. No one else can do that, not even the Queen."

Suigintou took the piece from her and regarded it in a dismissive, arrogant fashion. "Yes, yes, but that's his only trick, making this-" she placed the Knight back on the board, "-a one trick pony. Now, I believe it is my move." She released the Knight and took her Queen, moving it across the board to take another of Megu's pieces. "Check," she said, removing one of the white Pawns.

Megu smiled and closed her eyes. "You're very good at chess, Miss Angel."

"Well of course I am," Suigintou boasted unabashedly, "I excel at all my endeavours."

"You!" a voice suddenly cried out. Suigintou started with surprise and jerked her head around to see that someone was standing in the doorway. It was Shinku's insufferable Medium. What was he doing here?

"Umm, hello?" said Megu. Jun ignored her, advancing into the room with his eyes narrowed dangerously at Suigintou. The doll floated up into the air so that she was level with his face, her own expression contorting with anger.

"The Medium. I might have known."

Jun glanced around and saw Tomoe, causing a sick swooping sensation to gnaw at his insides. He turned back to Suigintou, his face red with anger. "Did you do this to her? Whatever you did, undo it right now!"

Suigintou curled her hands into tiny fists as the wings on her back started to expand. "I have no idea what you're blabbering about this time, but if Shinku sent you to find me then you can go right back and tell her to come and face me herself!"

Megu looked from one to the other, not following their conversation at all. She did at least pick up on one detail. "You two know each other, then?"

Jun tore his gaze away from Suigintou and finally noticed Megu. He also noticed the rose ring on her finger as well, which caught him off guard. "You..." he looked back at Suigintou, "You have a Medium?"

Suigintou floated sideways, putting herself protectively between Jun and Megu. There was a dangerous glint in her violet eyes that managed to cut through Jun's anger and warned him to back down. "You have five seconds to explain why you're here," she said coldly. Jun blinked and looked across at the unconscious form of Tomoe. Suigintou noticed and did the same. "Her? You're here for her?"

"I got a call that she'd been taken to hospital, so I came to visit her and find out what happened," Jun explained, his anger starting to drain away a little as he realised that Suigintou might not be involved despite her presence here.

Suigintou's expression softened a little and her eyes clouded with sudden confusion. "I thought..."

Jun moved to Tomoe's side, trying his best to keep a lid on his churning emotions. He felt weak seeing her lying there, seemingly asleep. Both Suigintou and Megu watched him, observing the sadness in his face. Jun looked up at them suddenly.

"You didn't do this then?" he demanded. Suigintou shook her head and floated down onto Megu's bed.

"No. Why would I? I have no idea who she even is."

Jun looked away, his eyes starting to blur with tears. He tried to will them away. "She's ... a friend."

Megu cleared her throat. "I'm Megu Kakizaki, pleased to meet you," she said. Jun removed his glasses and drew his sleeve across his face, wiping his eyes dry before any tears could start to fall. Suigintou decided to introduce him and save him the trouble.

"This is Sakurada," she said with a sigh, "Jun Sakurada. And I must say Jun, I'm surprised to see you out. There was a time when you couldn't even walk to the front door of your house without having a panic attack," she treated him to a sardonic smirk, "I would complement you on your newfound strength of character, had I not just witnessed you on the verge of tears over a sick girl."

"Suigintou, that's not very nice," Megu chided, "I'm sorry Mr Sakurada, she didn't mean it that way."

Jun was fairly certain that she did, but he didn't say as much. This girl obviously didn't know Suigintou all that well. He walked over to her bedside and nervously extended a hand, all the while enjoying Suigintou's acidic gaze.

"Sorry to barge into your room like that," he said. Megu shook his hand weakly and smiled.

"That's okay. To be honest it's nice to finally meet someone else who knows Miss Angel."

Jun's eyebrows shot up and he glanced sideways at Suigintou, who tried to hide a sudden guilty look. "Miss Angel?"

"Yes," said Megu, "She's my angel of death. She's supposed to take my life away, but she keeps refusing to. I guess you could say that she's not a very good angel of death."

Jun struggled to keep a carefully neutral expression on his face. "Oh, you'd be surprised," he said, to which Suigintou snorted and turned away.

"So how do you know her?"

"Who, Suigintou?" Jun hesitated, wondering how much he should say. Suigintou saved him the trouble and answered first.

"This boy is Shinku's Medium," she said shortly, "Though just what my sister saw in him I'll never know."

"Suigintou!" Megu nudged the doll, appalled by her ill manners. Jun reached up and rubbed his head absent-mindedly.

"Don't worry about it, I sometimes wonder the same thing myself," he admitted, drawing a surprised look from Suigintou in the process. Jun searched around for a chair and, finding one, dragged it over to Tomoe's bedside before sitting himself down. The room's other occupants watched him closely.

"You must be very good friends," observed Megu, "to come and visit her."

"I guess."

"Is she your girlfriend?"

Jun felt a sharp pang to hear the question asked. He didn't really have an answer. He'd been mistaken for her boyfriend in the past, yet Tomoe had insisted he was just a friend. Still, they'd grown closer over the last month or so, ever since he'd returned to school. Whether that was because she wanted to help him out, or because she actually cared for him, he couldn't really say. Tomoe wasn't exactly the most expressive of people. And as for his own feelings ... he wouldn't even know where to begin. He opened his mouth to answer, but no words occurred to him, so he said nothing.

"Well I suppose the least I can do is have a look," said Suigintou, startling Jun as she was standing right next to him. He stared at her in bewilderment.

"What?"

Suigintou folded her arms and regarded him with what he thought looked suspiciously like sympathy. "It's simple - I have a chess match to finish with my Medium. I can't very well concentrate with you moping around here all day, so I might as well open a doorway into this girl's dreams and see what's wrong with her."

Jun didn't even know where to start with that. He eventually settled on; "Wait ... are you offering to help?"

"Well don't sound so surprised. I'm not completely heartless, you know."

"I..." Jun looked at Tomoe and wondered if he should accept Suigintou's offer. On the one hand he knew he wouldn't want anyone barging into his dreams without asking - he'd had it happen to himself often enough to know how embarrassing it could be. But if there was any way this could help her, how could he refuse? "Can you do that? I thought you needed the Gardeners artificial spirits."

Suigintou extended a delicate hand and summoned her own artificial spirit, Meimei. It bobbed about, glowing brightly. "Meimei here picked up the trick from Lempicka and Sui Dream. I can manage just fine. Well?"

He couldn't refuse. There was just too much doll-related weirdness in his life for him not to at least try this. If there was even a chance that Tomoe's condition was caused by something supernatural, this would be the easiest way to find out.

"Do it."

Whiteness. Endless, empty whiteness as far as the eye could see. No sky, no ground, no walls, no anything. A complete void. They were inside Tomoe's dream world, and this was all they found.

Nothing.

"Well this looks familiar," said Suigintou. Jun nodded. He had seen this before - inside the mind of Shibasaki, who had fallen into a coma after a tragic car accident that had claimed her son's life. What did it mean for Tomoe though?

"So you came."

Jun and Suigintou looked at each other. Neither of them had spoken, and the voice sounded eerily familiar to Jun. Together they turned and found themselves face to face with Kirakishou. She almost blended in with the empty whiteness of the place.

"Who are you?" Suigintou asked. Kirakishou's one eye widened with delight and she clapped her hands together, apparently thrilled.

"Suigintou! Well this is a surprise. I thought he'd bring that noisy Suiseiseki for sure." She suddenly appeared next to Suigintou and clasped her sister's hands in her own. "We've never met, but I have always held you in the highest regard."

Suigintou pulled her hands free and took a step back. "How nice. I have an admirer. How about giving me your name?"

"Her name is Kirakishou," said Jun, "And she's the real seventh doll. Or so she claims."

"I am the seventh Rozen Maiden doll. Here-" She reached forwards and grabbed Suigintou's arm, pulling it towards her and forcing Suigintou's hand against her chest, "Can you not sense it? My Rosa Mystica. It calls to you."

Suigintou frowned. She could feel it. She yanked her hand away. "It's true. Does this mean then ... does Father wish the Alice game to begin again?" she asked, a little uncertain. Kirakishou sneered.

"I am not here to play the Alice Game. I have no need of it. I can become Alice without playing."

Suigintou's eyes widened in astonishment. "How?"

"Because I'm special. Like you. You are the first, I the last. We are the greatest Rozen Maidens. Different from the others. But enough of that..." she turned to Jun and grinned in a deeply unsettling fashion. "You're here no doubt to find the cause of Miss Kashiwaba's affliction."

Jun clenched his hands, resisting the futile urge to attack her. "I already found it. First you used my sister, now you're trying to use Tomoe against me. Well you're wasting your time; Barasuishou wont give herself up to you, and it's no use trying to convince me."

Suigintou was utterly lost. "Barasuishou? But she's..."

Kirakishou laughed, an unpleasant sound that sent shivers down his spine. "It's not Barasuishou I want. Not today. Convincing her to join me will take time, now that she's awake. For now I'm here to help you, Jun."

"Why do I find that hard to believe?"

Kirakishou floated up through the air towards him. He flinched as she came close, but didn't bother trying to run - there was nowhere to run to. He held his ground as she reached out and pressed her hand against his chest, just as she'd forced Suigintou to do moments before. Jun felt the warmth of her hand through the material of his shirt. She smiled in that odd way of hers.

"I feel it. Your heart. It beats in pain, torn by your love for the girl and your love for Shinku."

"Oh please..." Suigintou rolled her eyes. Jun felt heat rising to his cheeks, despite being confronted by this demented doll. He couldn't voice any denials, because he knew she spoke the truth. He'd been trying not to think about it, but obviously Kirakishou had other plans.

She pulled her hand away from his chest and peered up into his eyes, her own eye the same deep golden-amber as Barasuishou's. He was treated to a look of mock sadness. "Poor Jun-kun. You can't even admit to yourself how deeply you care for Shinku. You wonder sometimes if she feels the same ... but then along comes Tomoe. Normal. Human. Kind. She shows an interest, and suddenly you have a much safer option. What's a boy to do?"

"What business is it of yours?" Jun snapped, taking a step away from her, "And why do you even care?"

"Of course I care. Such a talented boy. Such potential. You're special too, don't you know?"

"I think I've had quite enough of your inane meanderings," said Suigintou. She summoned her sword and pointed the tip at Kirakishou's back, "Why don't you save us all a lot of time and earache by simply undoing whatever you've done to this girl. Do that and I might just let you leave without taking your Rosa Mystica."

Jun saw Kirakishou smile, which was never a good sign. She vanished and reappeared behind Suigintou. Still smiling, she reached forwards and embraced her sister from behind, resting her chin upon Suigintou's shoulder and her hands around her waist.

"It's true then," she whispered into her ear, "Father made you whole when he brought you back. He always brings you back. He can't bear to see his precious Suigintou lying broken. I think he admires your strength. I know I do."

Suigintou unfurled her wings rapidly, creating a cloud of black feathers. As Kirakishou released her hold on her, she whirled around and thrust out with her sword. The seventh doll swayed to the side and caught the blade deftly with her hands. She giggled.

"Strong but impatient. Very well big sis, I'll get to the point," she touched the tip of the sword with her finger just as she said the word 'point'. Suigintou withdrew her weapon and Kirakishou floated into whatever passed for air in this place. She fixed her eye upon Jun. "My terms are simple, Jun-kun; you must choose who you love greater. I have stolen Miss Kashiwaba's soul tree and hidden it away. I will return it ... but only in exchange for Shinku's Rosa Mystica. You have until midnight tonight to decide, after which I will destroy the girl's tree. The choice is yours."

With that ominous statement she glowed brightly and vanished altogether, leaving Jun and Suigintou alone with her ultimatum.