If Nico had to do something this outrageous, she was at least going to make Mistress Snooty-bitch explain herself to Tsubasa, Erena and Anju, school idol Yazawa Nico told herself. She had already dragged her — physically, feet skidding on the floor, as in — to meet Ageha and Mimi and explain why Nico couldn't help with music or choreography for their duet any more.

Nishikino had pointed out, unhelpfully, that really, Nico had already fulfilled any real obligation to them, and did she honestly think any of this was Nishikino's idea? Did she even realize what contempt she had for any and all school idols? And then she shook her head and apologized for forgetting Nico was an almost entirely brainless whatever-she-was. Her best guess was some sort of mynah bird trained to repeat the word "Nico" over and over again like a living Pokemon.

Her cruelty hurt, but the payoff was that the duet (formerly her trio at Otonokizaka) said they understood, and even sympathized with her. Plus, they gave Nishikino a very nice glare when she went off on school idols. It took a major, wrenching effort to remind herself that Nishikino was actually helping a school idol group at Nico's old school. Perhaps this excessive rant was her sole way of venting her frustration.

For her part, Nishikino Maki had managed to blank out from her mind the trauma of dealing with a hyperactive, helium-voiced piece of delusional, egotistical lolicon-bait. If she thought this would intimidate Maki, she had another thought coming. Which was a problem, since she doubted more than one thought at a time could fit in that pinhead of hers.

At any rate, she stated her case plainly, ticking her points on her fingers as she went.

First, it was only due to Maki's sacrifice that Yazawa was at UTX and in A-RISE to begin with. They would have exactly 0% of her time without that. Second, she'd made it clear at the time that Yazawa owed her big-time. The girl had cheerfully taken her letter of intent to go to Otonokizaka instead of UTX to the supervisor of third-year transfers. Thereby acknowledging the debt. Third, Maki was doing this entirely selflessly. Her friends at Otonokizaka had weird hobbies and even stranger tastes, and for the former they were indulging the latter. For whatever reason, they wanted to have Yazawa as part of their "idol group," and Maki had the means to make that happen. Fourth, Yazawa had gods-damned better not say she was too busy, unless she wanted to trade with Maki's preparation for medical school and perfect grade point average. Finally, the idol group, Mu's, was going to be reasonable and put A-RISE ahead of Mu's if there was ever a schedule conflict. They had also adjusted their practice time just to accommodate her. That should feed her voracious ego for a few seconds, surely?

To the chagrin of both of them, Tsubasa just laughed and agreed. She told Nico to meet up with Mu's, then come back and work out a schedule going forward. She simply asked her to try not to spend more than twice as much time on Mu's as she had on her friends' duet act.

That, anticlimactically, was that. Nico and Maki parted ways without even looking at each other once.

. . .

... Until Nico's first practice with Mu's.


What was the name of their leader, again? Oh, wait, they were like hippies in Holland, pretending they didn't need one. Nico tried to remember who she'd seen as the center. Okay, there she was. Why was she "manju girl?" Oh … hmmm Homura's, right? So her name was something Homura? No, somehow it wasn't. But close. What did they call her that one time at the shop? "Honoka?"

"Yes!" that girl said the way she said everything. It was so shockingly upbeat Nico didn't even want to disillusion her.

"Umm, can you tell me why Nishikino-san is here, please?"

"Silly Nico-chan! Why do you think?"

That was going to take some getting used to. She now remembered something vague about how the hippies also dispensed with respecting their sempais.

"I'm trying hard to think of a reason besides practicing with us. Is she here to go over a composition?"

"Nope!" Honoka said, smiling. "You got it right the first time! Maki-chan is part of our group and she dances with the rest of us!"

If Nico made a scene, there would be no point coming here. Her best strategy, alas, was to address Nishikino directly.

"I thought you were too busy to do more than compose, Nishikino-san?" Hear that "-san," Mistress Snooty-bitch? Try using it!

To her surprise, it was one of the third-years that answered for her. "Sorry, Nicocchi, but that's my fault. The cards told me we needed both of you or we would not flourish." She whipped out a card with a star on it, and showed it to Nico. What that proved was anyone's guess. Nico remembered that girl, unfortunately. In a rare moment of weakness, she had once upon a time gazed at her large breasts enviously, a little too long, and had, in fact combined that with a sigh. After she looked away, she had suddenly found her own breasts being manhandled. She made an inelegant squeak, only to hear a voice whispering "I like them too, little one!" Needless to say, she had avoided this girl the rest of her time at Otonokizaka. This was just getting worse and worse, wasn't it? Also, there was no possibility of winning.

She sighed and said, "I see. May I request you don't pair us for practices, then? We do not have a very good history, and both of us would probably be distracted, unable to give you our best efforts."

For the first time since she'd met the crazy little idiot, Maki found herself nodding in agreement.

"Nico-chan! Maki-chan! That's not nice at all!" Honoka said, startled.

"Ummm," Maki began. "Actually, it is nice. If you do as Yazawa … -san … suggests it would be nicer for her, nicer for me, and nicer for the group. It's actually a niceness-inducing suggestion."

This time Nico was the one nodding.

"Ah, and when I want you two to dance together, you'll instead disrupt the flow of our whole routine, and with angry faces to boot, correct?" the other third-year demanded.

"Just what I was thinking, Eli," a long-haired, cool-looking second-year chimed in.

The upshot was that Nico and Maki would always be paired in practices until they could "learn to get along."

This would be her biggest challenge to date, Nico realized. Even including her painful and eminently forgettable first trio live, where the lights had come up to reveal a completely empty auditorium, and Nico had had to beg on her knees to keep her group together. Nico could make anyone like her, right? And Nishikino Maki was an anyone. She should make sure she wrote about all this in her journal, so she could write about her greatest triumph in high school when she wrote her bestselling autobiography. She even started to make a little fist pump, but broke it off in embarrassment.


It wasn't missed by Maki, nonetheless. The little idiot is, of course, going for it, she thought. She twisted and turned the situation in her mind's eye. If she subtly sabotaged the whole thing, making it look like Yazawa was at fault, then the loli could go back to UTX where she now belonged, Toujou-san would have to give up on her "nine or bust' fixation, and Maki could probably go back to just composing, instead of shaking her ass in a miniskirt surrounded by airheads.

As it played out, she fooled everyone but Toujou-san.

She followed Maki after a practice where Nico had practically thrown a fit. "I like Nicocchi, Maki-chan!" she said behind her.

Reluctantly, Maki turned around and faced her. The senior was still smiling, as she always did, but her eyes weren't merry at all.

"She's a fighter," the girl continued. "She's had to fight against cruel outside forces her whole life. It's such a contrast to Maki-chan. Who can't be honest and has had everything handed to her, so she has to be her own biggest challenge. Am I wrong?"

"What would you know about me, anyway, card-chuunibyou?"

To her surprise, Toujou-san just laughed. "More than you think. But I will tell you this. In addition to being in two school idol groups, Nicocchi still does more housework, cooking and child care than all your weekly hours of tutoring, homework, studying and juku combined. In case you didn't realize that."

"So are you going to tell Honoka?"

"Nope, and not your friends, either, though you're starting to not deserve them again. You stored up some good karma earlier this term, but you're expending it all pretty rapidly." Like usual, she whipped a card out without ever breaking her gaze into Maki's eyes. It was an image of a tower, struck by lightning. "This card-chuunibyou girl doesn't like what she sees." She walked away, leaving Maki not sure exactly how she was feeling.

She realized that her options to sabotage Yazawa going forward would be much more limited. Still, she could do a few subtle things while outwardly appearing to be adapting to the situation. It was the actual performances where it would be crucial to show that Yazawa wasn't working out. Ironically, in order to get away with that, Maki would have to practice a lot, and diligently.

If any misgivings bothered her, she rationalized that bringing Yazawa over from UTX was a clear ploy. They'd wanted Yazawa, for whatever reason, and now they weren't getting all of her. And they were the only real rivals to Mu's. She would never disillusion Rin and Hanayo, but it was pretty clear to her that it wasn't all sweetness and light.

When she found out that their first live as a unit of nine would have an on-stage rehearsal, she realized her moment had arrived.


Nico had to admit Nishikino had suddenly started cooperating in a big way She still had to fake a smile, of course. Still, Nico had been praised from an early age for singing and dancing and trying to coax a smile out of people. Maki, presumably, had pleased her parents by squinting into a textbook or sitting at a piano with a grim and serious expression for hours. She'd give her that. In fact, Maki had been so crisp with her movements, it was sometimes hard to connect with her. It was certainly a relief, given one of Nico's twirls required catching Maki's hand, in fact. They'd gone over it slowly enough times that Nico was fairly confident of synchronizing with her even if there was a little adjustment required.


Maki hated holding hands with her greatest annoyance in life. But she smirked, inwardly. All she had to do now was subtly encourage Kotori, but not Nico, who came after her, to adjust to her connecting a little quicker as she went, and the rest of them to her making the soft turns most of them carried out. With that, she could make a much quicker move and look like she was coordinating perfectly with Kotori, even though she was jumping the gun slightly. Then, she would make a sharp turn that would look very professional on video, and Nico would be obviously out of synch, miss her hand on the twirl, and fall on her ass. With any luck that would draw a tantrum and make the rest of them all question their wisdom in wanting her around. At worst, even if Nico somehow synchronized enough, it would throw the rest of her dancing off, making her look strained and unhappy. Meanwhile, Maki would be genuinely smiling for the first time. It was like when you solved a complicated chemical formula. Everything balanced, and the reaction had nowhere to go but where you wanted it.


Really, everything worked out with military precision. There was just one problem. Missing a connection like that propelled a lighter body like Yazawa's further than it would have one of the larger girls. There was an awful moment when time seemed to freeze and she looked into Yazawa's panicked eyes as she left the stage to crash on the floor below. Worse, she didn't move after that.

Maki didn't have to pretend to be distraught as Nico was carried out unconscious on a stretcher to an ambulance. Because time was short, they unfortunately still had to look at the video capture of their rehearsal. None of them seemed to see anything Maki had done wrong — she had extended her fingers as far as she could, it looked like Nico had simply gotten her timing wrong. Maki had expected to be smiling and triumphant at this point. Much like Nico was certainly feeling, she couldn't figure out where she'd gone wrong.


She realized in the next couple of days, with a sinking feeling, that she had to see Yazawa in the hospital. Anything else would look either guilty or cold. And since she was, frankly, both, that was the opposite of the impression she wanted to make. As it was, she was the last member to pay her a visit. Behind her, it so happened, was Toujou-san, paying a repeat visit. Maki dutifully inquired how Nico was doing and asked if she had people bringing her things from school. They both knew they weren't friends, though Nico seemed to appreciate the visit as a sign of bare respect.

"I hope it hurts."

Maki, and Nico to the degree she could, turned their heads.

"I hope it hurts. It should hurt. You've needed something like this for a long, long time now. If you can't learn from this, there's no hope for you."

Seeing the bewildered, hurt expression on the patient in bandages and casts, she laughed, but not with much humor in it.

"Oh, Nicocchi. You are one of my favorite people! So cute! Did you imagine for one second I was talking to YOU?"
With that Nozomi came over and kissed Nico chastely and tenderly on the cheek. She left the fruit she'd brought where Nico's free arm could reach it, waved goodbye and left.

Nico was not blind to the implications of what Nozomi said. She hadn't spoken in her usual tentative, mysterious way, either. She was confident the truth was on her side. Nico didn't know how Maki had managed it this time, but her history of sabotage during practice could only lead to the conclusion that she'd done it again. Now Nico wouldn't be able to dance in the live, nor the next one with A-RISE, which would have been their debut as a foursome. And that was under good conditions. It could be more than that.

She looked Nishikino in the eye and said, "We need to talk."


Nico decided she had to begin at the beginning. "The truth is, I was never, ever unpleasant to you. But you've treated me like a dog since we first met. I was too embarrassed to ask why, but here in this bed I have nowhere to go and a lot of time on my hands. And not much to do in the way of saving face. So why? Start with that."

Maki kept silent.

"Okay, fine. Maybe I'll come across something that will get your filthy mouth moving. Who knows? Let me rephrase it. You don't know me, but you've hated me for months. You've been so cruel, I even wonder if letting me get into UTX was a ploy. Rin and Hanayo told me that your family wanted you there in Otonokizaka anyway, you know. You can't put that all on me. But when it comes down to it, there is not much in your life you won't take out on me, is there?" she shrugged.

"God, what an idiot I was. I actually admired you. I thought your songs flowed so easily. I envied you your perfect looks. You even twisted that into me having some sort of stalker lesbian crush on you, right? Now you seem really ugly to me. Sooner or later, the person inside will peek out, and the world will see what I see. The more I encounter you, the more I realize why people don't want to have princesses running around giving orders anymore. I can't fight back - I can't take everything from you for no reason, like you've done to me. I'm not rich enough, not trained enough, not ugly enough."

"You know what people like me do? I'm now A-RISE's main songwriter. Does that surprise you? I can't dance, but I can still contribute. Like I said, time on my hands. I'm also writing a song for Mu's. You and I will be rivals, at least this one time. That's what people like me do. We do what we can, and we don't stop just because the people walking above us feel like pissing on our lives."

As she said that, Nico was frightened, because Nishikino suddenly came towards her. Then she was flabbergasted to feel the princess's lips on hers. Maki stayed that way for a while, then broke the kiss and looked into Nico's eyes. Her expression was unreadable, and she went back to kissing Nico again. They kissed that way, off and on, for a very long time. Finally, Nishikino stopped.

Nico looked at her. She was staring down. Her face had her trademark grim, serious expression. "You got it moving," she said.

"What?" Nico didn't get it.

"My filthy mouth."

It was so absurd, Nico had to laugh. If darkly.

"We can't be together, I don't think," Nishikino continued. She shook her head, then nodded. She looked a little wistful. Or wistful for Nishikino.

"But I want to change things. For real. I've seen your songs. They need work. Instead of one song for Mu's, do two with me. Do one for A-RISE, then one with me, then another for them, and so on. We'll be co-writers. I'll bring a keyboard with headphones you can play with one hand. I think you'll see your progress. It's how I was trained."

Finally, she raised her head and met Nico's gaze. "I know how to read a chart. You won't miss more than the next two lives if you don't do anything strenuous when you get home. Nozomi told me you do the housework. But you should skip that and do physical therapy instead. I'll help you. You'll probably have to pretend I'm a friend. When you start practicing again, you can at least suggest we change up partners. But face it, our fight is already over."

Nishikino was still incomprehensible, and it probably showed on Nico's face.

Nishikino smiled. A small smile, not a very happy one. "I …" she swallowed. "I kissed you. A lot. Just now. For … at least - at LEAST an hour. And you … kissed back. The whole time."

"What does —"

"We have something on each other. It's a stand-off."

It was like talking to a space alien, but Nico understood that she meant for them both to keep going forward. Which was all she'd wanted in the first place.

"Ah, okay … umm … Maki … it's a … truce?" Nico said, holding her good hand in front of her with the palm towards Maki.

Maki pressed her palm into Nico's and pushed forward to give her a long kiss. "Truce."

Well, maybe that was just how her species communicated.


Notes:

The title comes from the impromptu, informal, unofficial truces that occurred at Christmas during the first world war.

"After almost six month of war, soldiers fighting for the Entente powers and soldiers fighting for the "Mittelmächte" met in No Man's Land and celebrated Christmas together.
The soldiers exchanged gifts, sometimes addresses, and drank together. Often the truce started with a request to bury the dead comrades lying between the trenches."

- Bruce Bairnsfather: Christmas Burial in No Man's Land