Title: My Roommate is a What?!

Characters: Mori Kumiko and Kondo Kai

Genre: General

Rated: G

Timeframe: After the Darkness arc, before summer vacation.

Spoilers: Nothing major, just character details you learn by reading the main story.

Student Number 25, Mori Kumiko, sat at a table under the false sky of Eva's resort, fruity drink given to her by a robot maid in hand, watching some of her classmates trying to cast spells with the help of magic wands that looked more like something out of some magical girl anime than anything one might expect to see in real life.

She sighed.

Kumiko had always known about magic, of course; she had been raised by members of the Church's Burial Agency, after all, and while the member list changed constantly due to death and injury during the extremely dangerous missions they often undertook, the core group that made up the Burial Agency rarely changed. They were like distant family to her, if less pleasant than the usual sort. The woman known as Ciel had raised her since she had been picked up by her as a young child after the death of her family, and Kumiko saw her as a sort of big sister more than anything else. Those years of training the members of the Burial Agency put her through had been brutal, but they had made her strong, in her own way. She had been given a well-rounded skill set that would allow her to survive and even thrive under almost any conditions, and her education hadn't been neglected either. She saw the members of the Burial Agency as favored aunts and uncles, and they seemed to see her as a favored niece, or even a daughter. Despite the tough training, constant missions and occasional deaths among her extended 'family'...

...she had been happy.

And then she had been given this, her first mission. Attend school in the city of Mahora, long rumored to be a haven for vampires, demons, and other things, and blend in. Send back coded messages cleverly disguised as letters home. But most of all, watch, and train.

She was beginning to get the suspicion that Ciel had sent her to Mahora not to act as a spy, but to keep her safe.

Kumiko heaved another sigh as one of the girls trying to cast a spell had it blow up in her face. Kumiko's roommate, Kondo Kai—who, incidentally, Kumiko had just hours ago found out had been involved in this whole 'secret training by the ultimate vampire to become super-badass mages yay' thing for quite some time—rushed over to the girl, Kumiko's classmate and Kai's fellow bandmember Watanabe Miyako, and began fussing over her.

Kumiko looked away. Kondo Kai...who would have thought she'd end up being a roommate with an oni? What would the others in the Burial Agency say if they found out she was friendly with a girl who was a member of a race that was a direct offshoot of the demons? Ciel at least would probably end up rubbing her forehead while making that expression she always made whenever Kumiko did something dumb. She didn't think Ciel would tell her to execute Kai or anything, especially not since Ciel herself was friends with a soul-eating monster in the form of a human girl and one of the last True Ancestor vampires still in existence, not to mention a boy who could kill anything by cutting the right spot.

Kai trotted over and sat down opposite Kumiko at the table, looking back at the new trainees. "Hey, Kumiko-chan...why aren't you trying to learn magic? Don't you want to know how?"

Kumiko glanced at the other girl's oni horns, which she sometimes left uncovered when in Eva's resort, and quickly away. "Nah...I was already tested, a long time ago. I've got no magical talent whatsoever."

"Oh..." Kai said. The two of them fell into an awkward silence, and Kumiko found herself looking at Kai's oni horns again. They were stubby little things, just barely big enough to poke up through her hair. They were also strangely, absurdly, cute. Kumiko kind of wanted to touch them. Kai glanced at her and she looked away.

"Hey..." Kumiko said.

"Yeah?" Kai asked.

Kumiko turned back to Kai again, her eyes straying up to focus on Kai's oni horns again before dropping back down to her face. "Well...sorry. About the other day, I mean."

Kai grinned wide, showing her teeth in a pretty smile. "It's okay; don't worry about it. I know you didn't know I was an oni, and it was the middle of the night and all..."

"Yeah..." Kumiko said. She looked down at the drink she still held. Man, 'the incident' had been awkward. She had gone into it blind, without a clue as to Kondo Kai's true identity, and she still didn't know what to make of the girl. Everything she had learned about oni said they were simple and violent and liked to kidnap humans and drag them off to the mountains to do who knew what, but her roommate Kondo Kai was just...a girl. A pretty one sure, and a drummer in a band, but still...just a girl. She was normal. And, judging by what Kumiko had learned of her other classmates since the beginning of the school year, Kai was apparently the norm for otherworldly creatures...or at least otherworldly creatures in Mahora, anyway. Her classmates Miyoshi Youko and Endo Haru were both youkai, the troublemaker Rosemary Dean was a witch, Sophie Rivers was pretty deep into some rare form of shamanism, cute, innocent little Caro Shaw was some kind of demon, Urashima Taro was pretty much immortal, and Possum Cade, one of the friendliest girls in the class, not only practiced hoodoo, but had recently become some kind of freaky religious vampire. Or something.

Kumiko sighed again; she could feel a headache coming on.

"You're still moping about that?" Kai asked. "It was just a misunderstanding! I probably should have told you sooner, but..."

"Yeah, it's okay. Sorry," Kumiko said as she laid her head on the table. "This whole thing has me tired," she said with a groan as she again recalled the events that occurred in their dorm room several nights ago.

Several Nights Ago...

Mori Kumiko sat up in bed, blinking as she looked around the darkened room and moved to let her legs dangle over the edge of her bunk.

"...bathroom..."

She slipped out of the top bunk and landed quietly on the floor, doing her best to not disturb her roommate, Kondo Kai, who slept in the lower bunk. Kumiko glanced at her, eyes bleary with sleep, and walked swiftly across the floor to the bathroom when the other girl didn't stir. As much as she teased Kai about her nightlight, she had to admit it came in handy sometimes.

A moment later, a flush could be heard, and the bathroom door opened to reveal Kumiko, yawning. She moved over to the desk and picked up the water bottle she had left there the night before. The water inside had gone warm, but she drank some anyway before moving back over to the bunk beds.

She paused a moment, peering at a lump of cloth on the floor at the head of Kai's bunk in the faint glow of Kai's nightlight. She reached down and poked it, then picked it up and shook it out to get a better look.

"Oh..."

Kumiko blinked blearily as she held up the cat-eared knit sleeping hat Kai always wore when going to bed. 'Kai sure likes her hats,' she thought as her eyes strayed to the small hat rack perched on the edge of the dresser. Who wore sleeping hats anymore, anyway? Kumiko couldn't think of a single other person she knew who did, though she knew her sleep-addled brain probably wasn't of much help at the moment. Her eyes lingered on the small hat rack. It held at least a dozen hats, and though they merged into a single amorphous shape in the semi-darkness of the nighttime dorm room, she had no trouble picturing the various hats there in her mind. Most of them were berets, though there were also a few of those strange little knit hats that Leon, back in the Burial Agency, had always called 'toboggans'.

She was about to toss the hat at Kai's head when something in the dim light caught her attention. Kumiko leaned closer, looking at the pale thing she saw in Kai's hair. She set the sleeping hat on the bed by Kai's pillow and leaned closer still, peering at the shape. 'Is it some kind of hair decoration...?' she wondered. But that didn't make any sense; why wouldn't Kai have removed it before going to bed? She rubbed her eyes and moved even closer...she had no clue what she was looking at. It was a bizarre little stubby white thing like a cone with the pointy end up. It almost looked like...

"No way..." Kumiko muttered under her breath. She shook her head to clear it. Surely she was dreaming, right? Because there was no way in hell her roommate had devil horns.

She looked at the thing again.

No, she decided upon a second look, it wasn't a devil horn; those were longer and sharper looking; the thing on Kai's head was almost cute. Nevertheless, it was a horn, on her roommate's head. She stared at it for a moment.

Not understanding the impulse, she reached out and poked it.

The response was immediate; Kai pulled her head away and let out a soft whimper in her sleep. Kumiko stared for a moment, her finger still outstretched.

It was a horn, all right.

She reached out and poked it a second time, a little harder, and Kai whimpered again, turning her head away, incidentally causing her hair to fall away from the horn, revealing it further. Kumiko looked at it for a moment, her sleep-addled mind refusing to let go of what it was seeing, and before she even realized what she was doing, she had reached out and touched it again. Kai whimpered again, louder, and opened her eyes; an instant later, they locked on Kumiko's. This was followed by a long pause during which Kai, still half asleep and clearly not thinking, stared blankly at Kumiko, reduced to little more than a dark shape looming over her, like some sort of monster in a nightmare.

Kai's startled scream echoed through the dorm building.

Kumiko screamed in response, reeling back after a wild punch from Kai hit her a glancing blow on the cheekbone with more force than she thought possible, and then Kai screamed again, though this time Kumiko thought it was more from pain than fear. A quick glance showed her why: Kai had shot up out of bed during her first scream, but had evidently forgotten she occupied the lower bunk; her head was currently jammed in the bottom of Kumiko's bunk, her horns holding her in place between the wood slats that kept Kumiko's mattress from falling. The image of Kai half-kneeling on her mattress, her arms flailing while the top of her head disappeared into the bottom of Kai's bunk was so bizarrely hilarious that she couldn't help but laugh.

Present Day...

Kumiko heaved another sigh as she leaned on the table.

"It's not all that bad, is it?" Kai asked, grinning at her.

"It's not just this that's making me tired," Kumiko said, waving her hand to take in Eva's resort and the other girls, still trying and mostly failing to cast the simplest of spells. "It's remembering what happened the other night."

Kai instantly went red in embarrassment. "Yeah...that was pretty rough, wasn't it? I mean, when Yuuna-san came into the room with that baseball bat..."

Kumiko had gone a little red herself, by this point. "Yeah, and your screaming woke up half the dorm, too. I heard some of the first years thought someone was being murdered."

Kai looked away, trying to hide the grin of mixed embarrassment and amusement that she couldn't help but make. When she had regained control of her traitorous face, she turned back to Kumiko. "My screaming? I can't help but remember you doing your fair share, you know~"

"Heh, yeah..." Kumiko said. The two girls each heaved a heavy sigh, then fell into an awkward silence. Kumiko didn't know if Kai was thinking about what Akashi Yuuna, the acting dorm mother after the previous one had stalked out early into her term, had said and done that night, but she knew she was. The dressing down the older woman had given them had been rough, to say the least. Though the way she had resolved the problem of Kai being stuck—pulling her by the ankles until her horns popped out from between the slats supporting Kumiko's mattress—had been absolutely hilarious.

Kumiko sighed. For so long, she had thought that horned beings were all demons or devils or things almost as bad, but Kai...Kai was just a girl. She heaved yet another sigh. "Damn."

Kai looked up at her curiously. "What's wrong?"

Kumiko shook her head. "Nothing much. Just have to readjust my worldview, is all."

Kai blinked at her. "...huh. Okay, I guess that's normal. But...you knew about all of this," she said, waving her hand to take in Eva's resort in the same way Kumiko had earlier, "before, right?"

"Yeah...it's just that you could say I've been given new information I didn't expect. Don't worry about it."

Kai looked at her for a moment, then smiled and turned her attention back to the others. "Okay! But hey, it isn't all bad, right? Now at least, you don't have to worry about hiding the truth around any of us."

Kumiko grinned crookedly and looked at the others as well. "Yeah, there's that, at least. If nothing else, I guess I can at least be honest with you guys." Her grin widened. It had been a long, long time since the last time she felt she could be honest about who she was...to be honest, she was looking forward to it a little. Kai grinned at her, and she grinned back, a little hesitantly before turning her attention to the drink she had been nursing for the past half hour. 'I was all alone for so long, trying so hard to follow the rules of the Burial Agency and keep my past a secret, but now here I am making friends with witches and vampires and even an oni, and I feel better and happier than I have in my whole life... Maybe Ciel knew what she was doing when she sent me here after all,' she thought. She couldn't help but grin.

Author's Notes: In case you didn't know, the Ciel who is Kumiko's big-sister-figure is the one from the visual novel/anime Tsukihime. The Burial Agency is also borrowed from the same work, though details on it are sparse, so I've fleshed it out somewhat.