“Yo. Finally awake, princess?”
Azaka woke up with a start, hitting her head immediately to the wooden surface above her. This knee-jerk reaction caused the young man on the opposite end of the chest to laugh obnoxiously, his white teeth gleaming in the darkness. The only source of light they had was the phone that Azaka had in her pocket, and they were not going to waste any precious battery-life to simply see each other.
At least Azaka had seen all she had wanted about the ugly mug of the man opposite of her.
The introductions had been done after the first call with the phone had failed. Azaka had tried to be courteous, but it seemed that this Servant called Avenger had no intention of doing the same. Instead of shaking her hand, he had simply caught her by the chin and muttered: “A little chubby on the cheeks, huh?”
Needless to say, Azaka’s footprint was still visible on the forehead of the tattooed youngster.
How she had fallen asleep, Azaka didn’t know.
However, if she had slept at all, it could only mean one thing: it had been evening by the time she had gotten trapped in the chest, and thus…!
“Oh, no, no, no, no!” Azaka cried out, clutching her head. “We missed the Christmas Party, didn’t we!?”
Avenger, giving a laugh that irritated the girl to her very core, lifted his yellow eyes to meet her blue ones. In the near perfect darkness, those two pairs were the only sources of any constant illumination.
“Whaaaat? Is that what you’re worrying about? Hah!” Avenger snickered. “Don’t worry, it’s not as if your womanizer of a brother will suddenly leap into your arms, even if you’d make it in time.”
“Shaddap!” Azaka bellowed and kicked Avenger straight into the stomach. “My brother is none of your business! He’s ten times the gentleman you are, so you have no right to mock him!”
“You do know that I’m basically a zero? Ten times a zero is still a zero…” Avenger gurgled on the floor.
However, Azaka didn’t even hear that. Instead, her ears had caught a strange bit of wording in the tattooed man’s previous statement.
“Wait? Make it in time? Are you saying that we haven’t missed the party yet?” Azaka felt hope take wings in her heart.
Avenger clicked his tongue, and shrugged in clear annoyance. Well, shrugged as much as the extremely limited space of the chest allowed him.
“Yeah. It’s this special trick of mine. We’re in a prana-rich land, and this chest is basically a container of possibilities, so I figured I’d try something that had happened before. Turns out I could make the ends meet once more, and here we are,” Avenger said and poked Azaka to the forehead with his index finger. “Stuck inside a time-loop, we repeat one evening over and over again, running into Bill Murray here and there.”
“Builu Murau?” Azaka tilted her head.
“Geh. N-no that’s not important,” Avenger answered and grimaced. “The point is, we’ll be able to continue this evening as long as we want… and as long as the battery of that thing doesn’t run out. So knock yourself out, princess.”
“I wish you’d stop calling me that,” Azaka said, frown appearing on her face. Avenger simply cackled like a hyena.
“Why? Because it fits? Oh, did you get angry, princess? Hah!” the Servant chuckled. “Sorry, but it’s just that you’re so self-centered and pampered that I couldn’t help but to call you that—Gah!”
A sharp heel was driven into toes that rested on the wooden surface, making the young man yelp in pain.
“Shaddap! I’ll try to make another call!” Azaka said angrily. “The sooner I get out of here, the better. Let’s see… I’ll try Shiki-kun. He’s good friends with my brother, after all.”
And thus did the phone once again try to connect the two for rescuers, across space, time and dimensions.
Twelve Days of Noel
Day 2
Shield Maiden
“You’ve been exerting yourself.”
It was not a question. It was an angry accusation from Riesbyfe Stridberg. Her grey eyes and disapproving frown was aimed straight at the youngster sitting on the chair in front of him. Without his jacket or shirt, it was easy to see the numerous wounds that now dotted his back. Riesbyfe was, in fact, currently in the process of tidying up and tying the said wounds, using a bit too much force than was necessary.
After all, she felt betrayed.
She was currently in the luxurious, if bare, room in the second floor of the famous Tohno Mansion. Outside, snow was falling gently like feathers of angels. Sun was still up in the sky, but in just a few hours, it would have completely sunk beyond the horizon, wrapping the town in a blue haze of winter-times. However, as idyllic as the scenery outside was, and as comfortable it was inside in the warm room illuminated by candle-light, the atmosphere was anything but. It was mostly thanks to the youth before Riesbyfe, who had once again ignored her warnings and ventured outside, putting his life on the line in process.
“G-gah!” Shiki yelped as the Shield Knight slapped one of the wounds with force. “I said I’m sorry! I didn’t intend to get into a fight, but you’ve seen how the city is like. The remnants of that Dead Apostle are still everywhere, and with Arcueid out of town, I’m the only one who can get rid of them…”
Riesbyfe let out a disapproving grunt and moved on to the next wound.
“Agent Ciel is still here. Let her do that job. It’s the only thing she’s good for right now, anyways,” Riesbyfe said. “There is no need for you to endanger yourself.”
Shiki laughed, embarrassment showing on his face as he meekly scratched his cheek. Then he grimaced as the Shield Knight slapped another bandage to one of his wounds. The stinging pain was a good reminder for him to never go hunting out again… at least if there was a danger of his girlfriend finding out.
The strict glare was bad enough alone, but now that there was actual physical punishment disguised as treatment…
“I know, I know, but I can’t just watch from the sidelines as those creatures walk around, about to devour the local populace,” Shiki tried to defend himself. “It just doesn’t sit right with me.”
Suddenly, Riesbyfe grabbed Shiki by the shoulders, and turned him to face her. She was only wearing her black sleeveless shirt and a white skirt, but before Shiki’s eyes, she could have been just as well been armored up in her full gear. The sharpness of her frown was worse than any strike from Gamaliel could have been, and its full force had been directed at the hapless school boy. It was no wonder that Shiki was slightly shaking under the pressure emanating from the older woman.
“I do not care. I know I have said that one can never be too kind, but it should not come with the expense of one’s own life. If you continue this, you will one day make a mistake that is irreversible,” Riesbyfe warned him. “How do you think that makes me feel? I could not bear knowing that you perished simply because I was unable to attend to my duties. Merely thinking of you going out there, risking your life foolishly… do you not understand how much it hurts me?”
Seeing a glimpse of the worry and anxiety that hid beneath the steely exterior was enough for Shiki to realize just what the source of this whole problem was. Riesbyfe was not one to overly announce how she was feeling, she simply acted on it without ever elaborating on her feelings. While the week that had passed had made Shiki more sensitive to the moods of the grey-haired knight, there was still much that even he could not predict.
And now, for the second time, he was able to see straight through the armor-like exterior, into the heart of Riesbyfe Stridberg.
“Sorry…”
That was the only thing Shiki could say right then.
Hearing that single word, Riesbyfe sighed and shook her head, looking suddenly rather tired. She slapped on the last bandage, but Shiki didn’t even wince at the feeling. He was too focused on how to cheer up the girl in front of him. It was Christmas Eve, but here they were, arguing about something that, in the end, was rather trivial. No, maybe it was not right to call it trivial; worry about someone else was never trivial. However, Shiki felt that the source of this argument was just that. Had he understood Riesbyfe better, had he taken her feelings into account, this situation would have never arisen.
Therefore, he had to do something to fix this, and quick: being gloomy on Christmas Eve just wasn’t right.
“Um, do you think this treatment will prevent me from doing any major physical activities today?” Shiki asked, looking at Riesbyfe who was currently packing away the first-aid kit.
“There should not be any major restrictions, the wounds were mostly shallow. The only thing that might be an obstacle of sorts might be the light itching of the wounds. However, you’d better not scratch them, or I will truly get angry with you,” the knight answered. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, I was thinking that I might go out later today,” Shiki answered truthfully.
That answer made Riesbyfe’s head snap around like a whip, her eyes locked onto Shiki. The glare had intensified hundredfold, and for a moment, the boy thought that he had encountered a completely new type of Mystic Eyes. Fortunately… or unfortunately… it was only the anger inside the Shield Knight reaching the boiling point. Realizing that he should quickly elaborate on what he meant or be ready to be thrown out of the window, Shiki raised his hands in a calming manner.
“N-no, don’t get me wrong! I didn’t mean I’d go out to hunt the Dead again!” he hurriedly explained. “I was thinking of going ice-skating.”
Riesbyfe’s expression was like a deflating balloon.
“Skating?” the girl asked, tilting her head.
“Well, it is a perfect winter day outside,” Shiki said and nodded towards the window. “Might as well make the most out of it.”
“Well, you are free to do whatever you want as long as you don’t endanger yourself,” Riesbyfe finally answered with a sigh, annoyance still gleaming from her tone, along with a hint of disappointment. “As for me, someone has to wash your blood-soaked shirt.”
A smile tugged the edges of Shiki’s mouth, and with two almost dancing steps, he glided over to Riesbyfe, grabbed her hand, and pulled her so close that the knight was unable to hide the slight blush appearing on her face. Even if she was taller of the two, even if she was calmer of the two, such actions had unexpectedly strong effect on her.
“I didn’t mean that I was going alone. You can leave that shirt to Hisui,” Shiki continued explaining. “Since it’ll be a while till your wounds are completely healed and we can patrol the city together, we might as well do something to make the time pass quicker. So, ice-skating. Just the two of us. In the park. I heard they’ve decorated it with Christmas lights, so it should be a nice change of pace, right?”
Riesbyfe, unable to form an immediate answer under this barrage of suggestions, turned her head away from the boy and stared at the wall like it had been the source of all her fluster. Her expression was somewhere between an embarrassed smile and pout, twisting and turning just like the feelings of the young woman.
“… You’re unfair when you get this pushy,” Riesbyfe finally blurted out. “How am I supposed to say no to that?”
“You aren’t,” Shiki answered with a mischievous grin and pulled Riesbyfe’s hand. “Now c’mon. The day is far from over, but if we dally here, we’ll miss all the fun.”
And thus did the two exit the room together, hand in hand, fingers intertwined. In the corridor, much to Shiki’s surprise, he felt the light weight of the knight press against his side. When he looked, he saw that the grey-haired girl was now sticking to him like a shield to an arm, surprisingly tender look on her usually stoic face.
“W-what?” Shiki asked, unsure whether he should smile or be worried.
“You do know that Agent Ciel is going to kill you if he sees us in the park?” Riesbyfe asked, her husky monotone containing a hint of amusement.
“I… I am aware of that fact. “Shiki grimaced. “But it’s a risk I’ll have to take. I’d rather take a death in her hands that see you glare at me all day.”
“A wise choice,” Riesbyfe chuckled and tousled Shiki’s head.
“Ugh, this is useless,” Azaka cried out, shutting down her phone again. “We’ll never get a hold of someone from our universe. Not only that, but hearing all this happiness that others have attained just makes me realize how horrible my own situation is.”
“Oh? Wait, princess, I made it possible that you don’t miss your precious party, and this is my thanks?” Avenger suddenly asked. “Constant complaining and occasional boot to the face?”
Something in those words, in that tone, made Azaka’s hair stand up. A lurch in her stomach, the occasional gut-feeling of a magus-apprentice, told her to tread lightly. She might have been able to physically subdue the man in front of her without any problems, but he was still, by the end of the day, a Servant. Who knew what he could do to her?
Not to mention, he was dangerous. More than anything, he was dreadful. A wild beast trapped in a cage with her, pacing around in frustration.
It was beginning to dawn to Azaka that the phone in her hand might have been the only thing that stopped the tattooed Servant from running wild.
Chill ran over her body, and Azaka found herself edging away from Avenger, burying herself as deep into the corner of the chest as she could. From the other end of the container, a pair of yellow eyes stared at her, like those of a wolf.
“Hey now, this isn’t Jeopardy. I ask a question, you’re supposed to answer. We’re like birds of a feather here in the chest, so we might as well get along, right?” Avenger pressed on as Azaka had failed to answer.
“… I’ll try to stay calm,” Azaka answered, finally. “If you, too, restrain yourself.”
The tattooed young man did not answer. The only sound Azaka heard was a click of a tongue, signed with bitterness and… self-loathing?
It was not the first time she felt it, but at that moment, Azaka truly felt she did not understand what was going on.
Originally Posted by Verg Avesta
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