Still Waters 3 Book 2, Chapter 12: Friends
Sunday, June 28th, 2009, Morning
Morning of the festival's third day came all too soon for those who had spent half the night partying, not to mention those too excited about the rapidly approaching final day's events to sleep properly. For Kobayashi Ayumi, however, something entirely different was responsible for keeping her up all night.
Ayumi stared blankly at the window as sunlight creeped in through the cracks in the blinds. It couldn't be morning already...could it? She pulled the blanket back over her head again and flicked her cell phone open. No missed calls. Also, the time on the cell phone confirmed what the sunlight had already told her. She rubbed her bloodshot eyes and looked at her cell phone again, as she had done countless times during the night.
Misa-sama still hadn't called.
Ayumi had run through what must have been thousands of explanations for such a baffling thing, but in the dark hours of the night, those explanations had become more and more vicious, more and more painful. Explanations ranging from the rather pleasant idea that Misa hadn't called to congratulate her because she had simply misplaced her cell phone to the much more disturbing thought that Misa not only didn't like her, but was leading her along. The most hurtful of all, however, had been the horrible thought that Misa-sama...just didn't care.
Ayumi shivered under her blanket and snapped her cell phone shut. A moment later she had it open again, the light reflecting an eerie blue glow on her face in the darkness under the blanket, revealing tear streaks and puffy eyes, bloodshot and focused a little too intently for comfort. Her concentration was abruptly shattered when one of her roommate's alarm clocks went off. She quickly curled up under the blanket and pulled it more tightly around herself, making sure her whole body was covered as she brought the cell phone closer to her face, the light from the screen fully illuminating her face.
She heard Rosemary groan and swat at the alarm clock, which fell to the floor with a solid thump and continued to ring. Miyako's bed creaked and she said something Ayumi couldn't quite make out, and Rosemary responded in an annoyed tone, the words lost in the ringing of the alarm clock, which ended just as quickly as it had begun a few seconds later. Rosemary mumbled something in English that Ayumi couldn't understand, though she sounded annoyed. Miyako's bed creaked again, and Ayumi knew she was getting up for the day. She felt a brief instant of regret for the way she had snapped at the girl when she returned to the dorm room the night before, cutting off whatever Miyako had been about to say to her, but it quickly faded under the sheer aggravation of Miyako and Rosemary wandering around the dorm room, making enough noise for a herd of elephants.
Ayumi focused all her attention on the screen of her cell phone while her roommates got ready for the day in their typical quick manner. Ayumi had just flipped her cell phone open again when she felt a presence draw near.
"Ayumi...? I wanted to tell you something; are you awake?" Miyako asked softly, as if she didn't want to wake her.
Ayumi ignored her, focusing on her cell phone instead, and Miyako soon moved away from the bed. Ayumi listened absently while Miyako and Rosemary started to make small talk as one of them opened the door. Ayumi heard something to the effect of "-zaki-san wanted me to tell her-", and then they stepped through and shut the door behind them, cutting off their quiet conversation mid-sentence. The room was plunged back into silence, and Ayumi looked at her cell phone again.
In another room further down the hall, another girl slowly became aware of a cool presence snug against her side as she rose up out of the depths of slumber.
Kagami lay there in the top bunk for a long, long moment, only vaguely aware of the pair of arms wrapped tightly around her and the body pressed close, staring at the ceiling as she tried to figure out where she was.
'Last night I was in the hospital with Jin-kun and Hiro-nii, and then Taro-kun called, and...oh.' She turned her head to look at whoever she was sharing a bed with, and found not one, but two bedmates. She blinked stupidly at Sachiko, who had her head buried in Kagami's side, and sighed as she recalled how torn up the normally unflappable class rep had been the previous night; she had been such a mess she had refused to come out from under the blanket on Taro's bed, and Taro and Kagami had ultimately climbed up top and gotten under Taro's extra large blanket with her. Kagami could remember talking with Taro most of the night while Sachiko listened quietly, her hands always in contact with one or the other of them. She was still half asleep and couldn't quite remember any details of what they talked about, but she did recall realizing Sachiko was asleep when she cuddled into her side and let out a quiet sound. Kagami had wanted to climb back down, but ultimately decided against it, as doing so would wake up the class rep, who had really been a wreck...they must have fallen asleep at some point.
Sachiko squirmed a little and Kagami laid still until the girl settled back down again. She looked over at Taro, lying on the other side, hogging the blanket, and covered her mouth to stifle the giggles that threatened to erupt at the sight of the girl the rest of the class was terrified of lying on the other side of the class rep with a little drool coming out of the corner of her mouth, sleeping like a baby. She turned her attention back to Sachiko, thinking about what she had learned of the girl the previous night, and the utterly unexpected side she had shown. Kagami had to admit that, although they had trained together for what had to have been months in resort-time, she had barely known Taro, much less Sachiko, who always maintained a certain distance with everyone. Last night, that distance had vanished; Kagami and Taro had comforted her in her darkest hour, they had seen her at her lowest. Contrary to the perfect image she did her best to maintain, Sachiko was a normal girl: she had hopes, she had dreams, she had fears and, just like everybody else, she had a big crush on Negi-sensei...there were no more secrets between them. Kagami had in turn told Sachiko and Taro about her past, her yakuza connections, what had happened to her parents... Taro had responded in kind, and Kagami couldn't help but frown at the behavior of the Urashima branch families, tossing Taro from place to place whenever she got in a fight or caused a little trouble.
Sachiko let out a small sound and stretched, then curled her head deeper into Kagami's side, her arm tightening around Kagami before suddenly jerking to a standstill; she quickly withdrew her arm.
"Good morning, Sachiko," Kagami said absently.
Sachiko offered a hesitant, muffled "Good morning" from somewhere in the region of Kagami's diaphragm. Kagami pushed herself up enough to free Sachiko's other arm, which had been trapped under her, and then settled back down while Sachiko moved to lay on her back in the middle of the bed.
"Ah...Mochizuki-san...about-"
Kagami rolled her eyes and elbowed the class rep in the side. "Come on, call me Kagami. We're friends, right? Especially after last night." She glanced over at Sachiko and caught her looking at her, just catching the tinge of pink in Sachiko's cheeks before she quickly turned her head away.
"...thank you..." Sachiko said quietly, looking so cute and shy that Kagami almost couldn't stand it.
"C'mere you!" Kagami exclaimed as she rolled over on top of Sachiko, grabbed her, and rolled back, taking her friend's protesting form with her as she laughed. Taro woke up, dragged up out of a deep, peaceful sleep by the noise and violent motion, and blinked blearily at Kagami, laughing as she rolled around on the bed, clinging to the feebly protesting Sachiko.
"Um..."
Kagami paused in her molestation of the class rep and turned her bright eyes on Taro, grinning. "Hehe~"
"H-hey! Don't do—wah! Come on Kagami let go!"
Soon, the trio had settled down and lay there on the bed, Kagami squeezing the other two close, halfway under her.
"Thanks, you guys," she said quietly.
"Thanks for what?" Taro asked, feeling awkward at the unexpectedly physical side of Kagami's affections and wondering, yet again, if her suspicions from the first day of the festival about Kagami's sexuality had been correct after all; the redhead seemed to love hugging and getting hugged.
"I've never really had friends my own age before," Kagami said after another moment's snuggling. "Just the guys," she said, referring to the members of her brother's yakuza group. "The girls at school would try to suck up or stay away; nobody really wanted to be my friend because they liked me, they just wanted my money..."
Taro blinked. "Money?"
Kagami nodded, tugging the other two closer. "Yep. I think it's only a couple hundred million yen, but they-"
"A couple hundred million yen?" Taro asked, aghast. Sure, some of the Urashima family could be considered wealthy—not that she had ever seen any of it—but a couple hundred million yen was a couple hundred million yen. "Wow...! I could buy so many games with that..."
"Hey hey! Kichirou-nii! I'm gonna go out and see the festival, okay?" a young cat youkai said, her pointed ears standing high as she smiled at her big brother in his hospital bed in the secret underground area commonly used for treating the victims of less than normal incidents.
Kichirou sighed. "I really wish you wouldn't, Ryoko..." He was still bed-bound, under treatment for the infection he had allowed to spread by refusing to search for treatment until it was almost too late. The only reason he had managed to survive, in fact, was because his little sister had gone out searching for help when he had been weak with fever.
Ryoko turned her big, tear-filled eyes on her brother, her bottom lip quivering. "But it's only once a year!"
He tried to hold out against that pitiful display, he really tried, but ultimately his instinct to give his little sister anything she could ever want overrode his instinct to lock her up for own protection and he sighed. "...fine. But promise me, Ryoko! If anything happens or you get scared, you are to come back here right away! There are going to be other youkai around too, for our festival. I want you to stay away from any fox youkai you see, okay?"
Ryoko cocked her head to the side, clearly having no clue what he was talking about. "'Kay! I'm gonna go now, get some rest Kichirou-nii!" She was out the door an instant later, almost running over the woman who came to check up on him.
"So," Minamoto Shizuna said as she sat down on a chair and began flipping pages in a clipboard. "I have some more questions; but first, I take it your sister is going out to explore?"
Kichirou sighed again and nodded.
"Understood; I will send someone to watch over her."
Onyx Blight, traveling freelance mercenary/bodyguard/jack-of-all-trades, groaned as the sunlight filtered through the window blinds in the shabby motel room he was sharing with six other youkai. He raised his arm just enough to flop it over his eyes to block out the sun, knocking over a half-empty beer bottle in the process. It rolled a few feet before bumping into several others with a series of clinking sounds, and he groaned again.
"Oh my head..."
"That's what you get for drinking too much," his older brother Morrison, also a traveling freelance mercenary/bodyguard/jack-of-all-trades, said as he stepped out of the bathroom, making a discreet smirk. Several of the other youkai, mostly fellow members of the Black Fox tribe, though there was a Red present as well, began to stir, and someone asked what time it was.
Morrison glanced at the alarm clock no one had bothered to set. "A little after eight. Come on Onyx," he said, turning back to his brother. "We've got work to do."
Onyx blinked at him, holding his hand up to block the light from the bathroom, wondering why he found it so difficult to think. "Ugh...my head is killing me..."
"Like I said, that's what you get. Here, it'll take the edge off," Morrison said, tossing a jar of some thick green liquid to Onyx, who opened it, took a sniff, and make a disgusted face. "Oh don't be a baby; drink it and let's go. Here's your gear," Morrison said, holding up Onyx's bag to illustrate his point before tossing it at his younger brother's midsection. "Come on."
Onyx chugged the foul-smelling liquid, the taste nearly making him vomit, but after a moment he felt his head start to clear. It wasn't much, but it was enough to let him think properly, and recall why the two of them had even come to Mahora in the first place. "Oh, right...those two cats."
"Yes, 'those two cats'," Morrison replied as he checked his various backup weapons, a process that took several minutes. If there was one thing Morrison Blight believed in, it was the usefulness of a backup weapon; if there was one thing he had learned through the years, two backup weapons were better than one, and three were better still. Long, bitter experience had taught him that a knife could always be dropped or knocked out of the hand, a gun could always jam, and in the middle of a fight there wasn't always time to pick up a fallen weapon or clear a stovepiped round, and since, like many of the Black Fox tribe, he had never been much good with magic, he tended to go around armed to the teeth, usually to the extent that it took him quite a long while to get ready to go out in the mornings. His brother Onyx didn't quite share his leanings on that particular subject, however, and was content with a single knife as a backup weapon; all due to his confidence in his ability with magic, no doubt.
"Are you sure they're here?" Onyx asked as he tightened his belt.
"I tracked 'em here," Morrison replied absently as he checked his pockets for the various things he always carried around. 'Lighter...fishing line...pencil...garrote...' This went on for a long moment before he paused. "Oh yeah," he said. "Forgot my I.D."
Mahora Girls' Middle School P.E. teacher Max Linell, a.k.a. 'Scary Max-sensei' even among those who had never been among his students, walked along the sidewalk, glaring at everything in general and anything that crossed his path in particular, occasionally muttering something angrily to himself in his low, gravelly voice as he went. This, combined with his pale skin, unruly black hair, and 6'6" frame, ensured most people not only left him alone but steered wide around him, and the rumor soon got out that 'Scary Max-sensei is really mad this morning'.
It was true, of course. Max Linell was extremely annoyed, and the source of his annoyance was walking along ten feet behind him, watching his every move.
Max stopped walking, took a deep breath to calm himself, and turned to face the young fire mage and the girl. "Look, Cyrr, I don't know you, I've never even seen you before. I'm not going to go to Mundus Magicus either, not with you. So why in the friggin hell are you still following me?" he demanded, his voice all but bellowing by the time he finished.
Cyrr tensed as if ready to fight, grinning wildly, but retained enough of his common sense to step in front of Anya, who, after the disastrous meeting with Negi, Misa, and Misa's sister at the world tree on the first day of the festival, had decided to stick around with Cyrr in the hopes of making Negi jealous. Thus far, this had translated to her following Cyrr while he followed Max, who was often in the company of several others, sometimes Akira, sometimes Jennifer, sometimes even Yuuna or Makie or even Negi or Kotarou and the ones who followed them, leading to quite long trains of people wandering around. Much to Anya's frustration, Negi hadn't even seemed to notice, and seemed to think Cyrr was her boyfriend, and though he hadn't exactly spoken the words aloud, the pleased expression on Negi's face when he watched the two of them interacting said it all.
Max found the whole situation oddly infuriating, and had to constantly fight the urge to, well, fight Cyrr. Something about the irritating upstart fire mage really got on Max's nerves, and he couldn't figure out why. From the way he took care of Anya, it was obvious he wasn't a bad guy, but he was just so aggravating...he actually seemed like a decent guy, but his mere presence never failed to drive Max up the wall.
Cyrr met his gaze defiantly and refused to back down. "I told you, I have to figure out if you're likely to go rogue. The Fire Master needs to know."
Max glared.
Cyrr glared back.
Glare.
Glare.
Glare.
Glare.
Glare.
Glare.
"Look, if you two don't mind, I'm really hungry. Can we get some breakfast?" Anya asked irritably. She had come to Mahora to land Negi, not to follow a couple of brute fire mages around for three days, and it was starting to get on her nerves. As a fellow fire mage, she herself had also taken on some aspects of the stereotypical fire mage's personality, mostly the whole thing about being easily irritated by idiots. As the trio stepped inside a nearby cafe and found a table at which Max and Cyrr could glare at each other in air conditioned comfort while she ate her breakfast, Anya wondered idly if it was true that fire mages took on those particular personality aspects, or whether those personality aspects drew them to fire magic in the first place... She was startled out of her thoughts when someone called out to the group.
"Oh! Hello Max-sensei, Anya-chan!" Natsumi said as she hurried over from behind the counter, smiling at the trio. "And who is this?" she asked, grinning brightly at Anya before looking up at Cyrr, who, like Max, towered above her.
"Cyrr," Cyrr said, looking down at the diminutive woman curiously.
"Hi, it's nice to meet you! I'm Murakami Natsumi, I'm the manager here. Did you want a table?" she asked, turning back to Anya.
Anya gaped at her. Since when did that mousy girl Murakami Natsumi become so...so outgoing? And why was she the manager of a cafe? Didn't she used to want to be an actress or something...? She snapped out of it a moment later and nodded. "Yes, please."
Natsumi smiled winningly and led them to a nice secluded corner table. Anya idly examined what looked surprisingly like bullet holes in one of the strangely thick windows before shrugging it off and sliding in to sit next to Cyrr, where she picked up the menu Natsumi had left.
"Ooh, the Western-style Breakfast Plate looks good," she said, then looked up at Cyrr. Who was glaring at Max. Who was glaring back. Anya sighed and waved Natsumi over.
"Are you ready to order?" Natsumi asked brightly, her eyes shining as she looked from Anya to Cyrr and back.
Anya gave her an odd look, but continued. "Yes, please. I would like the Western-style Breakfast Plate." She nudged Cyrr, who looked down at her, then up at Natsumi, then back to Anya.
"...huh?"
Anya turned back to Natsumi. "He wants the same."
Natsumi nodded, smiling wide, and turned to Max.
"Same," he said.
"Gotcha. Three Western-style Breakfast Plates, coming up!" Natsumi said.
An awkward silence descended on the table while Max and Cyrr glared at each other until Anya just couldn't take it anymore and smacked Cyrr upside the head.
"What was that for?" he demanded as he gave her an irritated look, rubbing the back of his head.
Anya narrowed her eyes and cocked an eyebrow as she looked at him. "Are you serious? I mean sure, he's big and suspicious and scary-looking," she said, gesturing at Max, who looked taken aback at her description, "but he's been Negi's friend for years, so I know he's not that bad."
Cyrr was still trying to formulate a suitable retort when Natsumi came back, carrying their orders. "Here you go," she said as she laid them out. "I hope you enjoy it! Let me know what you think, okay?" She smiled brightly and left them to eat their breakfast in silence.
Anya sighed and tucked into her plate.
Kai was walking along on her way to the site of the band stage to watch them setting up, minding her own business and trying to ignore the sensation that youkai were everywhere, when someone let out a wolf whistle behind her and she could feel half a dozen youkai rapidly coming closer. She hunched her shoulders slightly and began walking faster, and they sped up. She was getting ready to take off at a sprint when one darted in front of her and forced her to either stop or run into him as he grinned lecherously at her.
Kai did her best to hide the utter terror coursing through her veins and somehow managed to gather the force of will to look the young youkai in the eye. "Did you need something...?" Several of the others giggled or laughed and one of those behind her flipped her skirt. "Hey!" she shouted, swatting at his hand, only to have her skirt flipped again from the other side by another one when she wasn't looking. She gave him a shove, and then the one who had stepped in front of her shoved her. She bumped into a youkai who was on his hands and knees behind her and let out a squawk as she fell over backward, bumping her head on the concrete. The leader grabbed her by the ankles before she could recover and lifted her up, letting her skirt fall upside down, revealing the bicycle shorts she had wisely put on that morning. She quickly tried to hold her skirt in position...a daunting task in her current position.
"You know, you've got real nice legs for an oni," the leader said.
"L-let go of me!" Kai demanded as she tried to jerk away. Unfortunately, held up as she was she could get no leverage, and the other youkai just laughed.
"'Let go of me~' she says!"
"'Oh~let go~uhu~un'," another said in a girly falsetto tone while several of the others burst into laughter.
"Okay, I'll let you go!" the leader said playfully, dropping her on her head. Kai let out a cry that set the youkai laughing wildly, and then she was jerked to her feet and shoved back and forth a few times before one of the larger ones heaved her up on his shoulders, laughing as he spun her wildly around until she cried out. He abruptly set her down on her feet and she staggered, dizzy and terrified, into the leader, who put his arms around her tight, preventing any stumbling attempt at escape. He was tall, quite a bit taller than her own 5'5", and very strong.
"Hey," he said, grinning. "That's a nice hat. I've always wanted one like that," he said.
"He's right, it's real nice," another one said, yanking off the beret Kai had decided to wear that morning. She let out another cry as the hat, which she had pinned on, was ripped off, revealing her hair, wrapped up in two balls to hide her oni horns. "Ooh, look at that!"
"Hey, I wonder what they look like~"
"Hey hey," one said, nudging his friend. "Do you think it's true that oni girls get turned on when you touch their horns?"
His friend grinned lecherously. "Wanna try it out?"
Kai, still a little stunned from being dropped on her head, felt her blood freeze up in her veins. "N-no! You can't! Get away from me!" she screamed as they crept nearer, kicking at anyone that got close as they took their time, deliberately drawing the situation out.
"'No~get away~'," said one.
"'You can't~Kya~a~'," his friend said, then laughed.
Kai squeezed her eyes shut, trying to work up the nerve to do...something, anything, but she was just too scared, her mind had locked up and she couldn't do anything but scream. "H...Help me! Help!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, startling the leader enough to let her go. However, with a wall behind and a ring of youkai if front of her and to the sides, she had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. She was getting ready to scream again, louder, when someone ran out of a side alley screaming his lungs out.
"No! Get away from her!"
Kai had a brief glimpse of a familiar face, one she had seen only the day before, one that had stolen her first kiss, as he came rocketing in and slammed into one of the youkai. The two of them fell to the ground and the other youkai rushed him, Kai temporarily forgotten. She watched, too stunned with surprise to do anything but gape, as the young youkai who had kissed her tried in vain to fight off six determined attackers.
"Come on, Nevon you gold asshole! Is that the best you got?" the leader cried out as he kicked the youkai in the side.
The youkai on the ground lashed out with a kick to the leg that knocked the leader down. "You guys shouldn't be doing this! Just leave her alone!"
The youkai, apparently named Nevon, was promptly punched in the face while the others laughed and called him things like 'Oni-lover' and 'horn-man'.
One particularly vicious kick to his ribs that made him cry out finally snapped her out of her stupor and she finally realized he had just tried to save her, and was getting the crap kicked out of himself for it.
Almost without even realizing what she was doing, Kai ran at the tight cluster of bullies, swinging wildly; her left fist hit someone in the shoulder hard enough to make him cry out, her right fist slammed down on the side of the leader's head as he kicked the youkai who had tried to save her, and then she was among them, swinging her fists at anything that moved as she stood over the the boy who had tried to save her.
The other youkai quickly retreated to a safe distance, nursing their surprisingly extensive wounds, and ran off with a few threats of 'We'll remember this!' when Kai raised her fists threateningly. Finally left alone, she quickly backed away from the fallen youkai, who was trying to get back to his feet. He had made it halfway up before his dazed eyes fell on Kai and abruptly widened, and he shot back down to the ground, kowtowing.
Kai gaped at the boy. '...is he crazy? Did they kick him in the head?' "Um..."
"I'm sorry!" he said frantically.
Kai blinked. Was he...afraid of her? "Um, look, I'm not going to hit you or anything, so...just...get back up, okay? That's embarrassing..."
The youkai shook his head. "No, I'm sorry! About yesterday! I don't know what came over me, but I really didn't mean to kiss you! I don't know why it happened! You're just so pretty and I'm so, so sorry, and...and I couldn't even help you and even got beaten up, but just...I'm sorry..." he said, finally trailing off in such a pitiable manner that Kai had to look away.
"Look, get up okay? Stand up," she said nervously, her eyes darting around as she watched to make sure the other youkai weren't coming back. When he was again upright she stood there in front of him, her arms crossed nervously, looking off to the side at nothing in particular, her gaze occasionally straying slowly back to his face and swiftly away again.
"I'm sorry," he said again, wiping some blood from a small cut on his forehead.
"It's..." Kai said, trailing off when she realized she wasn't sure what to say. Her first instinct had been to say it was okay, but it wasn't okay, not really; he had not only kissed her without her permission, but he had also stolen her first kiss...what he had done was almost unforgivable.
Almost.
He had taken a big risk to get those bullies away from her, and received a beating for it as well. Still...
The thought that he may have set her up just now to improve his standing with her crossed her mind but was quickly dismissed. He had proven himself capable of catching her the day before; to go to such lengths wouldn't make much sense.
Kai frowned.
"I, ah...I just wanted to apologize for yesterday. I mean, I didn't mean to, to do what I did, and if I could make it up to you I would, but I don't know how or even if I could, so I just...I mean..." Nevon said, trailing off when his babbling became too awkward even for him.
"Just..." Kai started, her arms crossed tightly as she looked at a pebble on the ground off to her right to avoid looking at the cute boy standing across from her. "Y...you can't kiss me without permission," she finished weakly.
Nevon quickly looked away, a heavy blush forming in his cheeks. "Yeah...I'm sorry...I'm really sorry about that," he said, pausing when he spotted the beret she had been wearing, a somewhat oversized black thing, lying on the ground. He trotted over and picked it up, and turned back to Kai as he tried to dust it off. "Look, um...here," he said, holding it out as he approached.
Kai's gaze strayed from the beret up to Nevon's anguished face and she quickly looked away, shaking her head. "N-no, you can keep it. It'll just bring bad memories if I hang onto it."
Nevon blinked at her, looked down at the beret, and turned beat red. "U-um, I'm not sure-"
"It's okay," Kai said, looking anywhere but at Nevon. Why was he so cute? She found herself wandering what his horns would look like if he were an oni instead of a youkai, but quickly shook that traitorous thought away. "J-just wear it. Wear it until you go home as a punishment!" she said, then turned and ran, her long legs carrying her away almost before he even realized she had started running.
Nevon blinked in the general direction in which she had gone, looked down curiously at the hat, and gingerly reached up and put it on his head. He looked at his reflection in a dusty window and repositioned the odd, somewhat out-of-shape beret, and cocked his head to the side. It...wasn't that bad. And...and it was from her. He spent a moment adjusting the hat, looking for the best way to wear it, and stood back from the window to better see his reflection. He couldn't help but make a dopey grin as he considered the hat. She had given it to him, to him! He would definitely wear it until he got home, maybe even after.
Ryoko flitted about from booth to booth, ooh-ing and aah-ing at everything she could see, utterly careless of the fact that her ears and tail were visible. Luckily for her, far stranger things were about during the infamous Mahorafest than a single girl with cat ears and a tail. She would, unfortunately, never be mistaken as highly intelligent, clever, witty, or even 'quick'; in fact, she was quite stupid and rather unperceptive. So much so, in fact, that she had no clue she was being followed.
Morrison and Onyx leaned idly against the wall beside a food stand, appearing for all the world like two extras for the costume parade out killing time, while they watched Ryoko dart from stand to stand in the rather large plaza they had found themselves in.
"So where do you think the other one is?" Onyx asked, then took another bite of meat from the skewer he had bought a moment before. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but it was good; as far as Onyx was concerned, that was all that mattered...unless it was something gross like a chicken gizzard or a cow's tongue or something weird like that.
Morrison took a sip of his drink and glanced around the plaza. "I don't see 'im. Masashi said he had been injured; he might be dead, but he's probably just laid up somewhere. We can probably convince her to tell us where he is after we catch her. There she goes; let's go."
"Yeah," Onyx said, tossing his empty wooden skewer at a nearby trash can. It bounced off the edge and disappeared somewhere into the passing throng of people, so he gave up on retrieving it and followed his brother as Morrison stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled in the general direction the cat girl had gone.
A wooden yakitori skewer rolled to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk in front of a girl from the middle school. She paused, frowning as she looked in the direction the stick had come from and spotted two strange men strolling away. She didn't quite know why, but something in her head simply screamed 'danger' at the sight of them... As far as stupid ideas go, following the two strange, dangerous looking men was probably pretty high up the list, but the thought of leaving them alone only for them to perhaps commit some terrible crime was too horrible to be considered. She picked up the stick and dropped it into the nearby trash receptacle, and set off after them. Far off on a distant rooftop, another girl in a witch hat spotted her and swore, grabbed her broom, and cast a simple illusion spell to make herself all but invisible as she leaped off the rooftop and zipped along high above.
Ryoko wandered into an alleyway, looking around in amazement at the sudden change in scenery from brightly colored street vendors and balloons everywhere to the dark, dingy alley. She went halfway down the alley, looking for an exit in the concrete wall before her, before turning around, only to see two large, dark shapes standing in the entry to the alleyway.
"Um..."
"Yagi Ryoko, correct?" the shorter one asked, stepping forward.
"Yes?" Ryoko answered, nervously backing away as the shape advanced.
"We are bounty hunters; we're here to take you into custody."
The shape motioned to his companion, who also stepped forward. Together, the two of them approached, moving to the sides to cover any attempt at escape. Ryoko backed up, looking fearfully from one to the other, until she bumped into the wall at the end of the dead end alley. "U-um...p-please let me go?"
The two shapes finally came close enough for her eyes to focus on them over the glare of sunlight in the plaza, and her eyes widened and her ears flattened out as she recognized them as fox youkai. 'Kichirou-nii said to run away if I saw any fox youkai, but I can't!' she thought frantically as she looked up at the wall behind her; it was easily fifty feet tall, another building entirely, far higher than she could jump. She turned back to the two fox youkai and shrunk back into a corner at their approach. Terrified, she curled up into a ball in the corner and wrapped her arms around her head. "P-please! Just leave me alone! I didn't do anything bad, I promise!"
Onyx glanced over at Morrison and their eyes met; the expression of distaste on Morrison's face told Onyx exactly what he felt about this job. Nevertheless, it was a job they had accepted, and they had to finish it or risk getting their (almost) spotless reputation ruined. Masashi was the one who had hired them, after all, and he held a great deal of influence among the fox tribes. Still...
Onyx sighed. "It doesn't matter," he said, trying to sound cold and indifferent to the girl's eventual fate. He knew he wasn't fooling anyone, however. Only a total moron would be fooled by such a display...
Ryoko let out a wail and started sobbing and Onyx had to fight the urge to slam his head into the wall.
"Hey! Quit picking on her, she didn't do anything to you!" someone shouted from the mouth of the alley.
For the second time in the last two seconds, Onyx had to fight the urge to headbutt the brickwork. 'What kind of idiot would think it's a good idea to butt in on a situation like this?'
"Stay out of this little girl, it doesn't concern you," Morrison said, putting on a much better show of being a cold, heartless bastard than Onyx had managed. However, the girl at the entrance to the alley didn't seem to realize what she was getting herself into, and took a step forward.
"I'm warning you, let the girl go!"
Onyx sighed and glanced at his brother, who used a quick jerk of his eyes to indicate that Onyx should take care of Ryoko.
Student number 9, Hayashi Fujiko, had followed the two suspicious men until they turned off into an alley. Fujiko, somewhat nervously as her common sense tried to kick in, followed them as far as the mouth of the alley, where she waited a moment and peeked around the corner. What she saw was infuriating: two grown men, picking on a little girl, obviously terrified as she sat curled up in the corner with her arms wrapped around her head as if trying to ward off a blow. Everything she believed about what was right and just was being offended here, and she'd be damned if she let it continue...!
Enraged by their shameful behavior, she stepped into the mouth of the alley, her fists clenched. "Hey! Quit picking on her, she didn't do anything to you!" Fujiko shouted at the two strangers.
She began having second thoughts on her current course of action, however, when the shorter of the two turned a baleful glare on her. "Stay out of this little girl, it doesn't concern you."
His expression, the way he was standing, the way he was looking at her...it all sent warning bells ringing like mad in her head, but a good look at the poor girl the two were menacing was enough to keep her from following her instincts and running. 'I want to be a hero dammit, I've always wanted to be one, and this looks like it could get really bad if I left...' she thought frantically as she tried to will herself to move forward another step while trying to work out a plan. Thus far, it looked something like this: Step 1: Enter alley. Step 2: ? Step 3: escape with girl. ...it was that whole 'I have no clue how to do this' thing that she found a little disquieting, and found herself wishing her homeroom teacher was standing beside her; Negi-sensei was strong and smart, he would know what to do. He was good at martial arts too; she had seen him training from time to time during her early morning jogs. She swallowed the lump in her throat and spoke again.
"I'm warning you, let the girl go!"
She didn't know what she could do to these men to make them stop bothering the girl if they didn't stop on their own, and the realization that she might have bitten off more than she could chew left her shaking in her stylish black boots.
The shorter man took a step toward her, and it was all she could do to keep from bolting.
"I'm warning you, little girl. Turn around and go home, and no one has to get hurt," he said, his expression dark and merciless.
Fujiko looked from the short man to the girl and back, opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and a small rock smacked hard into the shorter man's head, staggering him. Startled into action, Fujiko darted forward, performed a rather sharp judo throw on the taller guy when he came at her, and grabbed the cornered girl's wrist. "Come on!" she said, pulling the girl up and turning around only to see the taller man on his feet again and glaring at her while the shorter one rubbed his head where the stone had left a red mark.
"You shouldn't have done that," the taller man said, holding his arms out wide to block any attempt at escape as he came closer.
Fujiko pulled the girl behind her and prepared to throw the guy again when some movement on the rooftop high above caught her eye, and she spotted a dark figure in a pointy hat. An instant later, a small stone smacked hard into the back of the taller man's head, driving him to his knees as he let out a cry. Fujiko dragged the girl with her as she darted around him, only to find herself facing the smaller man, who was quickly brought down by another rock. With the way clear before her, Fujiko took off running for the entrance to the alley, the girl following along as well as she could, gripping Fujiko's hand hard enough to bruise.
Once out of the alley, a brief, strong gust of wind rustled her clothing and made her cover her eyes, and then something snagged her around the middle and she let out a yelp as she was yanked up into the sky and found herself draped over a very unstable flying broomstick, the girl she had saved looking up at her with wide eyes as she hung out over the plaza, clinging to her wrists with ridiculous strength. Fujiko clenched her teeth to keep from crying out.
"Hang on a minute, I'll land us on a building in a minute. Don't let go of her!" a girl's voice said firmly. Fujiko glanced up at her savior and couldn't help but stare. A girl, dressed all in black, a sleeveless shirt, a skirt far short of her knees, tall boots and stockings that didn't quite reach the skirt, long gloves that went most of the way up her arms, and her face hidden from sight in the shadows of a big pointy witch's hat. Fujiko looked back down at the girl she had saved, then past her to the ground so, so far below.
"Don't look down," the girl in the witch hat said.
"...I-I think it's a little too late from that," Fujiko managed to say after a moment, her eyes glued to the ground, horrified at just how small the people looked, walking around down there.
"Hold on down there, we're going just a little higher," the mystery witch girl said as she urged the badly strained broom into a sort of upward spiral in an attempt to gain altitude.
The girl she had saved let out a yelp and Fujiko tried to reinforce her grip, but her hands were slick with sweat and the girl started to slip. She looked up at Fujiko, her eyes pleading as one of Fujiko's hands slipped free, leaving the girl dangling by one hand.
"Nooo...! I don't wanna die...!" she squealed.
"Hurry!" Fujiko screamed at the witch girl, then looked back down at the girl she had saved, noting, absurdly, how the fake cat ears she was wearing looked disturbingly lifelike, pressed back against her head the way they were. Fujiko had seen real cats do that when they were scared...
"Just a little further...!"
"Help me...!"
"There!" the witch girl declared.
At that very instant, Fujiko's grip slipped, the girl she had saved looked up at her in disbelief as she started to fall, reaching up toward her hopelessly, fingers splayed out, and then hit the rooftop ten feet below flat on her back. The girl flying the broomstick dropped down to the rooftop clumsily, dumping Fujiko on her face with a yelp.
"Ow, that hurt..." the witch girl muttered while Fujiko scrambled over to the girl she had saved, who simply laid there, twitching.
"I...I'm alive..." the cat-eared girl finally managed, blinking up at Fujiko.
"Yes," Fujiko said as she helped the girl sit up. "We made it," she said, smiling. Her eyes strayed to the girl's cat ears, which were twitching—twitching—and then the girl let out a wail and threw her arms around Fujiko, the long cat's tail Fujiko hadn't noticed before flopping around wildly.
"Waaah! Thank you for saving me from those mean foxes, you're my hero! I thought I was gonna die! Waaaah!"
Fujiko was left stunned, not knowing where to put her hands while the cat-eared girl clung to her, a little too tight for comfort.
"I would say you did a good job back there," the witch-girl said as she walked up, "but I'd be lying. You'd probably be dead now if I hadn't been there, Hayashi. You tried, though, so that's good. Plus, we saved her."
Fujiko found herself nodding. "Yes, thank...you..." she trailed off. 'Wait a minute, did she call me "Hayashi"...?' She tried to peer into the darkness under the brim of the girl's witch hat, but the contrast between the bright blue sky behind her and the darkness under the hat was too much, and she couldn't make out any details, no matter how hard she squinted. "Who...?"
The witch girl seemed to look at her for a moment, and Fujiko had the distinct impression that she was confused.
"What do you...oh. Oh!" she said, then whipped off her witch hat, revealing someone rather surprising.
Fujiko stared, blinking. "No way..."
American Transfer Student, Seat Number 5, Rosemary Dean, stood across from her, smirking at her as she made a show of dusting off her witch hat. "Heh, betcha didn't expect me, didja?" she said.
Fujiko shook her head, her mind trying vainly to work out the point in time in which reality had decided to jump off a cliff while the cat girl sobbed into her shoulder.
"Ha! I knew I could do it!" Rosemary said in a tone that suggested she had just won a bet. "Jackie said I couldn't even make it a month without somebody finding out I was a witch! Ha, I showed you, Jackie!" she said, fist pumping.
"Um..." Fujiko finally managed.
"Hmm?" Rosemary asked as she turned back to her classmate, eyes shining.
"Are you really..."
"A witch? Yeah. Flying broomstick and all. How do you like my outfit? I picked it out myself; my grandma nearly had a fit, but the robe she wanted me to wear was just too awkward, y'know?" Rosemary said, unusually energetic as she turned this way and that to show off her choice of witch outfit. "Is it good? I showed it to Jackie before I left, but he just said I looked like a succubus or something so I hit him. It's good, right? Isn't it?"
Fujiko nodded, unsure of how to respond. "It's good..." She had never seen this side of Rosemary before. Normally, the American girl was friendly in a perfunctory sort of way, all but refusing to get close to anyone else; she would always chat or gossip if someone tried to strike up a conversation, but she would never start up a conversation on her own or follow up an attempt at becoming friends by seeking out the other party. Yoshida had told her once about how Rosemary stood up against Taro for Rally's sake during the field trip to Kyoto, but Fujiko hadn't put much thought into it until now.
"Thanks! I thought it looked really good, but, you know, it's always good to have a second opinion," Rosemary said, smiling excitedly.
Fujiko tried to ease out of the cat girl's grip, but the cat girl only sobbed harder so she stopped and sighed and turned her gaze back on Rosemary. "So you're a witch..."
"Yep."
"A witch. A real witch? Like on TV?"
Rosemary nodded, her smile widening.
"You're...you're not...evil, are you?" Fujiko finished up, her mind taking in this new aspect of reality quite well, even if she said so herself. "You won't curse me, right?"
Rosemary looked taken aback for a moment, then burst into laughter so hard she dropped her hat. "No way! Ha ha! There are evil ones out there, but I'm not one of 'em! I saved you and the cat girl, right? Good thing I'm good with a slingshot too," she said, producing said object from inside her hat. Fujiko recalled the small stones that had struck the two scary looking men who had been menacing the cat girl, and it was as if a light bulb had come on in her head; then her gaze strayed to the broomstick.
"So...were we flying? Really flying?" Fujiko asked, looking at the broomstick Rosemary had left lying on the rooftop to cool down. "Did you use wires or something...?" She still recalled how disappointed she had been when she learned that when it looked like people were flying in the Rider shows she loved so much, they were really being held up by wires.
Rosemary shook her head, clearly amused. "Nope. All magic, no wires."
"Magic," Fujiko stated.
"Magic," Rosemary replied, nodding.
"What, like 'Abracadabra, Open Sesame'?" Fujiko asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Rosemary shook her head, looking amused. "Nope. More like potions and cauldrons and calling on spirits and doing spells," she said. "I use a lot of air and shadow-based magic, and I'm pretty good at illusions; enough to fool a normal person, anyway." She leaned close and whispered in a conspiratorial manner. "I've been to class wearing my jeans and sneakers before, heh."
Fujiko blinked at her. Jeans and sneakers? That was against the dress code...! She couldn't quite recall ever having seen Rosemary wearing such a thing in class, but now that she thought about it, she could recall several times where she had somehow felt Rosemary's uniform was just wrong somehow...
"So who's the cat girl?" Rosemary finally asked.
Fujiko looked down at the cat girl, whose sobs were finally winding down, and shrugged, understandably distracted by the massive revelations her mind had just been assaulted with. "I dunno."
Misa stood high a rooftop nearby, carefully observing the situation. The two fox youkai had escaped, though she had gotten a good description out to the office. She was pretty sure she knew who the cat girl was as well, though she couldn't be sure until the girl got her face out of Fujiko's shirt. But this thing with Fujiko and Rosemary could be trouble...
"So you're telling me you knew Rosemary was a witch?" she asked.
'Well...yes. She really made it quite obvious with the way she constantly used illusion magic to hide when she didn't want to work, not to mention all those times she decided to cheat the dress code,' Negi replied via Nodoka's mental network.
"And I suppose you didn't say anything because you didn't want anyone else finding out," she replied.
'Yes.'
Misa sighed. "Any word on those two fox youkai?"
'Yes. Nodoka-san says they signed in several days ago; they came to Mahora as bounty hunters, trying to capture two fugitives. They stated their intentions plainly, and it appears that their papers are in order.'
"So they're legal," Misa said, frowning. How annoying. She didn't like guys that picked on little girls, even youkai girls, but if they were legal, there wasn't really much she could legally do to stop them...
'Yes,' Negi replied.
"So what about these three?" Misa asked. "If it was just Rosemary and Fujiko I'd just leave it at that, but with that cat girl with them..." she said, trailing off as she watched the three of them talking on the rooftop below. Those two fox youkai might go after the cat girl again; if they did that, Misa couldn't legally intervene, unless one of the human girls was in danger...what a pain.
'Please keep watching them, okay?'
Misa frowned, annoyed. No matter what it was, she just couldn't refuse a request from Negi. Dammit. "Okay."
'Let me know if anything happens,' Negi replied.
Misa sighed. "Okay. Any sign of Possum yet?"
There was a pause before he replied. 'We found where she has been staying, but she wasn't there. She is still in the city, so we have security teams stationed all over...please lend a hand if something goes wrong.'
"Yeah yeah, you can count on me," Misa said absently as she watched the three girls on the rooftop below move to the fire escape and start to climb down.
"Hmm..." Nodoka said, frowning a little as she sat in her chair with her eyes shut. Yue looked up from the desk she sat at, curious. Running a mental network was a lot of work, but Yue had a feeling something else had drawn that confused sound out of her best friend.
"Is something wrong?"
Nodoka bunched her eyebrows in worry and confusion. "I...can't find Ako."
Yue blinked. "...is that even possible?" Nodoka's mental network, once she got it set up, could find just about anyone, if she knew them; an old friend should have been even easier.
"If she has moved out of range..." Nodoka replied absently, frowning slightly as she concentrated. She reached out as far as she could and tried to open Ako's book again, but...nothing. "They're supposed to play some songs today... I'm worried..."
"Keep searching, I'll call Misa; she should know where she is," Yue said, pulling out her cell phone.
The news that Ako was missing spread like wildfire among Negi's old students. None of her bandmates could recall having seen her since the day before, but due to the way the four of them lived, spread between Misa's apartment and Madoka's house at random and with Misa and Sakurako often out at parties, none of them had realized anything was wrong. Yuuna hadn't seen her, nor had Akira or Makie or Jennifer or anyone else. Ayaka quickly set up a system of volunteers to search for anyone who might have seen the missing woman.
A tired form stumbled down an alleyway, pausing now and then to all but collapse against a wall before continuing on another twenty or thirty feet.
"Come on...gotta get to the end of the alley..." the shape said aloud, its voice exhausted, hoarse, nearly unrecognizable.
It made its way along, clutching its stomach, followed by several curious stray cats.
"Gotta...keep going..."
"Mail call~" the dorm mother called out as she took up the mail bag and started down the hall, dropping everyone's mail into the slots in their doors. A few of the students opened their doors to receive their mail, but for the most part, everyone was already out at the festival. Ayumi, however, had yet to crawl out from under her blanket, even though it was approaching lunch time. She waited, holding her breath, while the dorm mother paused in front of her door, knocked, and then slid an envelope into the mail slot and moved on. She waited until she could no longer hear the woman and then slipped out from under the blanket and crept over to the door. She picked up the single envelope and nervously flipped it over to look at the address. It was hers, all right...and it was from her stepmother.
Ayumi swallowed the nervous lump in her throat and scrambled back to her bed, her agonized thoughts about Misa-sama possibly hating her temporarily forgotten as she contemplated what new horrors her stepmother might be planning to unleash upon her. Once again safely under the blanket, she opened the envelope and gingerly pulled out the sheet of paper, flipped open her cell phone for light, wrinkled her nose at the coffee stain on the edge of the paper, and started reading.
It was short, but it was most definitely not sweet.
Ayumi,
We got your money last time, but it's not enough. We've paid for you to go to that boarding school all this time, and you haven't done a thing to make it worthwhile, just played around with that band of yours while your grades go down. Grow up. My husband and I have had enough. This semester will be the last we pay for your school. Either grow up and get a job and start paying us back, or we're disowning you.
"...no way..." Ayumi mumbled. "No way..." She lay there under the safety of her blanket for a long time, too stunned to even think properly. She was...she was going to be forced to go back...back there? What about what her uncle had said...? Her eyes widened in horror as she realized what leaving Mahora would mean. Not only would she be leaving a place where she actually found school to be fun, but she would be torn away from all these people she had come to know, Kara and Kai and Miyako, she would never again be able to speak to Misa-sama, her band would be dissolved...
She scrambled off of her bed, ripping the blanket off as rage washed over her. 'How dare she...!' Ayumi thought viciously. 'How dare she!' she wadded the letter up in a ball and threw it with all her might against the wall; it bounced off harmlessly and went behind the big mirror attached to the dresser. She snatched up her discarded blanket, wadded it up as well, and heaved it against the door, then snatched her pillow off the bed and threw it as well. It bounced off the dresser mirror and knocked over her makeup basket, sending little bottles rolling off the edge of the dresser to land on the floor. Ayumi glared at her reflection in the mirror from across the room, then turned around and pounded her fist against the hard wood that made up the frame of the bunk bed until her hand started to hurt, then, in a fit of pique, kicked it. She bit off a harsh cry as she fell to the floor, cradling her foot, and realized she was crying. Her temporary fit of rage burned out, reality began to set in again as her mind began repeating the contents of the letter from her stepmother, and before she could stop herself she started to sob. She grabbed her pillow, lying nearby after it had fallen off the dresser, and clung to it with all she had as she lay curled up on her side on the floor, sobbing into the carpet.
Taro walked along, thinking about the unusual experiences of that morning and the night before. She hadn't ever really had any friends other than her distant cousins Kanako-nee and Keitarou-nii, and then later, Possum. She felt that she could honestly add Kagami and Sachiko to that list now, and the thought made her feel a little giddy inside. She had never been good at making friends; she was too hotheaded and she knew it. And, while Kagami was a little strange with all the hugging and laying on people, it wasn't as if it made Taro particularly uncomfortable. Kanako-nee had been clingy too; even Keitarou-nii had been at times...both of them had constantly hugged her around the neck when she was younger and rubbed their cheek on her face while saying something like "Kawaiiiii~!" or "So moeeee~!" whenever she practiced her martial arts. That had been years ago, though...she blushed slightly. She didn't mind the hugging...Kagami was soft and warm and surprisingly huggable for a girl, and Sachiko was so thin and frail-seeming it made Taro want to protect her.
She felt a quick burst of guilt, wishing Possum could have been there, and glanced over into an alley as she walked past. She froze, mid step, eyes wide as she gaped.
A dirty, tired, disheveled girl seated between a trashcan and a wooden crate, watched by half a dozen cats, looked up at her, exhausted, with those same yellow eyes that Taro knew so well.
"...Possum...?" The girl's name barely made it past her lips. "Possum, is that you?" The girl in the alley wiped her eyes and Taro could see she was starting to cry. "P...Possum...!" she said, moving toward her.
"S-stop...!" Possum said, holding up her hand, her breath ragged.
Taro stopped walking and stood there, watching her long-missing friend with wide eyes. "Possum, what's wrong? Are you okay?"
Possum let out a hoarse laugh and started sobbing, burying her face in her hands as she brought her knees up to her chest.
"Possum..." Taro trailed off, not knowing where to begin. Was Possum a vampire now? Would she die if she stepped out into the sunlight? It was too horrible to think about... "Possum, are you okay? Did you turn into..."
Possum's sobs had died down by this point and she sniffled, wiping the tears from her eyes. "I-I don't know. Sometimes it's really bad, and sometimes it's not," she said miserably. Taro took a step toward her and she held up her hand, covering her face with her other one. "Don't! I don't know what I'll do...I won't, I won't, I won't..."
Taro frowned in worry for her best friend as she trailed off, repeating 'I won't' as if it was some sort of mantra. Whatever had happened to her, one thing was clear: Possum needed help, and she needed it now. Taro stood up straighter. "Possum, I'm going to get Negi-sensei. He'll know what to do! Just wait here, okay? I'll be right back, I think I even know where he is! Hang on, Possum!" she said, already running.
"Yeah..." Possum managed, wiping her eyes.
Seat number 25, Mori Kumiko, looked down over the edge of the roof at the girl seated in the alley below. She seemed to be sobbing more openly, now that Taro had run off. Mori sighed as a frown crept over her face. Poor girl...she was fighting the change so hard, but...such a thing was impossible; four thousand years of secret history said so, after all. Kumiko climbed over the edge of the roof until she was hanging on by her fingertips, then let go and dropped down and grabbed onto the window ledge below her. She pushed off and turned to hang onto another ledge eight feet down on the building opposite, and repeated the maneuver several times until she was finally back at ground level...this was no time to be taking the stairs. The other girl took no notice of her as she approached, instead leaning her forehead on her crossed arms, which were propped up on her knees.
Kumiko drew a long knife inscribed with a runelike script. "Unholy creature, your time has come. In the name of the Burial Agency—"
"I'm not unholy," Possum said, not looking up, her voice firm in spite of her exhaustion.
Kumiko stumbled over her words. "U-unholy creature—"
"I said I'm not unholy...!" Possum said again, staggering to her feet. She leaned heavily on the wall, the alleycats that had been watching her backing up as she fixed Kumiko with an angry stare. "I am still me! I will not turn into one of THEM...!"
Kumiko felt her stomach churning. Was this what it meant to be a member of the Burial Agency? Destroying 'Evil' and fighting for 'Good', that was what she had been taught, but this...what would Ciel-sempai do...?
Possum irritably swiped her hair out of her face, and Kumiko got a good look at her. Sunken eyes, dog-tired from well over a week of fighting against the inevitable with all her strength; tear tracks crisscrossing the dirt and dust on her cheeks, from all the times hope must have died... Possum staggered and fell to the pavement and Mori almost moved to help her back up, but forced herself to stop. This...this thing wasn't her classmate Possum anymore. It was an unholy abomination now, and...and...it was crying.
Possum leaned back against the wall as her tears came again, unbidden. She wiped them away as well as she could, but they just kept coming. "Damn it..." she muttered in English. "I won't be one, I won't!" She dug something out of her pocket, and Kumiko was disturbed to see it was a cross necklace, caked with dirt and mud. "I won't, I won't, I won't, I won't...!" Possum repeated, clutching the cross with both hands, ignoring Kumiko.
'That's impossible,' Kumiko thought. A vampire carrying a holy symbol? It went against everything she knew about vampires... Sure, the more powerful ones could withstand holy symbols and in some circles it was considered a mark of great power to be able to pick one up, but for a brand new one to carry a cross in her pocket and be able to take it out at will...it went against everything she had been taught.
Possum seemed to settle down, then turned her attention back on Kumiko again. "You have to help me," she said suddenly.
"What?" Kumiko said, startled into speech.
"Y-you're not a normal person, right? You can help me, you have to know somebody that can...I mean..."
"I-I-I-I don't know, I'm just a trainee, I don't know about anything like this, I didn't even know something like this could happen!" Kumiko said, all but babbling as she hovered around the other girl. Seriously; the girl should have fully vampirized within hours, maybe a few days at the most. To see the other girl still fighting it off so successfully over a week later was shocking to say the least.
Possum suddenly wrapped her arms around her stomach and moaned, falling over on her side and curling into a fetal position.
Kumiko picked up the cross necklace the girl had dropped. "Possum-san...?" she said tentatively as she leaned closer, trying to get a good look at the other girl's face. "Possum-san?" It looked like her eyes were starting to turn a reddish color...the girl jerked and clapped her hands over her face, cutting off Kumiko's view.
"I won't, I won't, I won't I won't I won't I won't I won't I WON'T I WILL NOT!" Possum roared, ending in a scream that drew some startled comments from people walking by out in the street.
Kumiko quickly drew back, holding her long knife up in order to defend herself if Possum should attack. Possum shook her head and sat up, leaning back against the wall, and Kumiko was startled to see the red color in the other girl's eyes was gone; they were, again, that odd yellowish shade that had drawn Kumiko's attention on the first day of school. "How did you do that?" she asked.
Possum shook her head tiredly. "I haven't killed anything in four days," she said quietly. She shuddered. "The last one was a cat. I...I really like cats, I didn't want to..."
Kumiko watched as Possum started crying again. "Possum-san..."
"Hey you, Burial Agency zealot, get away from her." The voice was on its surface almost childlike, but there was nothing playful about the killing intent that came with it. Kumiko looked up, eyes wide, and saw Taro-san, Negi-sensei, and Evangeline at the end of the alley.
"...What?" Kumiko asked as she tried to process what was going on.
"I said get away from her," Eva ordered, taking a few menacing steps toward her.
Kumiko backed up, wide eyed. She knew all about Eva; everyone related to the Burial Agency did. It was at that moment that she glanced at Possum, then realized what the scene must have looked like. There was Possum, seated with her back against the wall, crying, while she hovered above her, cross necklace dangling from her left hand and long knife in her right.
"I'm warning you Mori, if you don't get away from her..." Taro said, using the single most terrifying glare Kumiko had ever seen from the girl. It was almost on par with the one Eva was giving her.
"It's not like that!" Kumiko said frantically, raising her hands. She realized late that she was still holding the blade, and quickly returned it to its hidden sheath up the back of her shirt. "Really!"
"Mori-san," Negi said seriously. "Please put down your weapons and step away from Possum-san. I know about the Burial Agency, but Possum-san is your classmate. You mustn't do things like this," he said as he approached, their gazes locked.
Kumiko felt tears starting to well up. "It's not like that...!" she wailed.
Possum straightened up again, surprising everyone present. "Give me the cross," she demanded tiredly but firmly. Kumiko held it out to her, and Possum took it and wrapped the chain around her hand, placing the cross in the palm of her hand against the skin and held it there by squeezing her hand into a fist while Negi and Eva watched in surprise. Negi gave Eva a searching look, but she was just as confused as he was.
"Help me up," Possum said, reaching out for Kumiko; she rushed to take Possum's hand and helped pull her to her feet, where she swayed and started to fall. Taro hurried forward and threw Possum's right arm around around her shoulder to support her, and Kumiko did the same with her left.
Taro shot a warning look at Kumiko. "If you do anything..." she said, her voice a low growl.
Kumiko shook her head frantically. "I'm telling you, it's not like that...!"
"Come this way, please," Negi said firmly. "We need to get her under observation..."
Ayumi wasn't sure how long she laid on the floor, clinging to the pillow, before her cell phone rang. She absently reached out to where it was lying on the floor where it had fallen when she ripped the blanket off of her bed, and pulled it closer to see who was calling. She looked at the small screen on the outside of the phone.
Her eyes widened and she shot up to a seated position. Misa-sama was finally calling...! After waiting for so long, Misa-sama was finally calling to congratulate her for winning those awards on the first day...! She fumbled with the phone for a moment before she managed to get it open and press the button to receive the call.
"H-hello?"
'Oh, heya Ayumi! I just called to ask, have you seen Ako anywhere?'
Ayumi's joy faltered. Surely this was a joke, right? "N-no, I haven't seen—"
'Ah, damn. Oh well, I thought it was worth asking. So, on to what I really wanted!' Misa said happily. Ayumi felt her heart leap into her throat.
"Y...Yes?"
'What's your bassist's phone number? What's her name...Kara, right? Yeah, I think I need her to take Ako's place in the band today; we have to be up on stage in a few hours, and we can't play without a bassist...Ayumi-chan? You still there?'
"Yes..." Ayumi said, her voice faltering. Misa-sama wanted...Kara's number? Kara would get a chance to play with Misa-sama up on stage...?
'Ayumi? Are you alright?'
"Yes," Ayumi said, a bit more forcefully than she had intended. She felt dried up, dead inside. She gave Kara's cell phone number to Misa, listened absently as Misa thanked her and said bye, and waited for a moment after the musician, her hero, the only one she had ever really looked up to, had hung up.
She threw her cell phone with all the force she could muster against the door, and it shattered into shards of plastic and metal. Ayumi slammed her fist into the side of the dresser and clenched her teeth, trying not to break down into sobs as she fell over onto her side, curled up tightly in the fetal position, as tears came pouring out.
Misa hung up her cell phone and dropped it into her pocket, smiling. "Okay, got Kara-chan's number; think she'll do it?" she asked. She was just happy she had gotten out of babysitting duty for Fujiko and Rosemary; it was a wonder what a good excuse could do.
Sakurako shrugged. "Dunno; probably. Oh yeah, did you ever congratulate Ayumi-chan on the awards she won the other day?"
Misa blinked at her. "I told Miyako to tell her congratulations..."
Sakurako gave her a nearly blank, almost disappointed look. "...seriously?"
Misa grinned awkwardly. "Eh heh...I guess I should call her back...?"
Sakurako nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. Come on Misa, I thought you knew better than that," she said, grinning to take the sting from her words.
"Yeah yeah, you're right. It'll probably mean a lot to her," Misa said, fishing out her cell phone. She flipped it open and scanned through her contact list. "There," she said, pressing the button. She listened for a moment, frowned, and looked at her cell phone, confused. "Huh...it says her phone's not available right now...weird; I was just talking to her and everything. Oh well, I'll try again later~" Misa said as she put away her cell phone and sat down to her early lunch with Sakurako.
Author's Notes: Ooh, poor Ayumi...that's gotta suck, and she doesn't even realize it. Anyway, don't remember Ryoko? Try 'Chapter 1: Death' of Still Waters 3 Book 2, or the Kyoto arc of Still Waters 3 Book 1. Onyx and Morrison? Try 'Chapter 3: Festival Preparations 1' of Still Waters 3 Book 2.