Clock Tower is preparing for the day Skynet takes over the world.
Clock Tower is preparing for the day Skynet takes over the world.
Spoiler:
Too late. Waver already built a Terminator.
Beast's Lair: Useful Notes
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Updated 01/01/15
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Democracy on Beast's Lair
Not in this world. Skynet can still be stopped!
Spoiler:
Woot, Postnup is here. This will make it much easier to follow once it gets up to date.
Welcome to BL, Zalgo. I think you already got the customary greeting complete with purplehead debate, so I'll just say I love your work, especially the ridiculous amount of references to obscure and archaic treatises and folios. It's so wonderfully sophisticated and pretentious; pure El-Melloi.
Much like reading Eco or Borges, except with superpowered waifus.
Zalgo's updating speed makes me suspect the robots are already here. Get your tinfoil hats ready, Vel.Originally Posted by VelspertheCat
Za Meido: Get in da caar.
Waver: ...I should never have watched those movies.
F/GO SUPPORT
Actually, I think I agree with you on the Uzume/Chiho/Merry thing in chapter 4. The plot would have progressed in basically the same direction either way (Uzume would always be desperate, and Merry would always be arrogant enough to believe that he could cover it up with liberal applications of mindwipes, murder, etc.), but everything was too out in the open. Chiho seemed overly forceful, Uzume overly accommodating, Meriwether not stealthy enough, etc.
I'll probably revise it one of these days, but for now I'm just going to transfer it. Avoid bogging everything down that way.
As I mentioned above to Lycodrake, I think I'll revise this one a bit one of these days. Too bad, since I kinda liked one or two of the more serious Meriwether moments here, where he's not being (as much of) a bastard. Anyway, here's the original:
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Chapter 4
For as long as I'd known them, my parents disliked hospitals. Indeed, in one of her rare bits of mother-to-son advice, Lady El-Melloi had grabbed my shoulders and told me the following:
If you're ever seriously injured near a hospital, don't let them sedate you. Do you hear me, Meriwether? Don't.
Looking back on it now, this might have contributed to my childhood fear of nurses.
At first glance, I had to admit that this particular hospital's entrance area resembled a park more than an opium den. The courtyard was rather quiet. A bird chirped here and there. Clipped hedges bordering the sidewalks provided passageways for the wind to carry the smell of mowed grass.
Even in midday, the trees shaded us. Their branches hung over the white picket fence around the periphery. When taken as a whole, the gardeners had created the illusion of a separate little world. An arboreal reality marble.
In my parents' defense, some other magi with healing abilities share their antipathy to hospitals. And I didn't know at the time about my father's frantic search through Fuyuki's General Hospital for the woman he would later marry.
This particular building also housed a patient whose visitor might prove dangerous.
I felt a tug at my sleeve.
"Anything wrong?" she said.
"Certainly not."
Benitsubasa rolled her eyes and tugged again, more insistently.
"Then why do you look so tense?" she said.
"Why have you become so grabby of late?"
She scowled and turned away, crossing her arms over her chest.
"We are technically mated, y'know," she said.
Ah, yes. That again.
The incident with Yashima and her Ashikabi had impressed upon me just how vulnerable these Sekirei were. If her Ashikabi died, a Sekirei deactivated. If her Ashikabi chose to hit her, MBI's medical "adjustments" reduced a Sekirei's ability to retaliate. Not to mention that a Sekirei's compulsion to protect her Ashikabi rose to the level of a mental disability.
Worse, once somebody "winged" her, a Sekirei could only reproduce with that person. It was a major vulnerability for a species with only 108 members.
...So I suppose I could understand why Sekirei claimed to "love" their Ashikabis. Nonsense, of course: any magus worth his salt could see through the deception in an instant. But if a Sekirei's Ashikabi believed it, he might be inclined to treat his Sekirei better. And perhaps copulate with her frequently enough to perpetuate the species.
In my case, this was unnecessary. Benitsubasa had already proved an invaluable ally in the Sekirei Plan (albeit an uncooperative housemaid). More than that, she would provide useful data for my research once the Plan concluded. If she was that concerned about her species' reproductive future, I would be more than happy to use her DNA for cloning experiments.
For some reason, I'd also developed a certain...tolerance for the creature. Hardly the attitude for a dispassionate researcher, but there it was. I'd long ago abandoned my plans for dissection, for instance.
At first, I had tried to convey to Benitsubasa just how unnecessary her charade was. My explanation only seemed to annoy her - a reaction I attributed to her distrust of me in general. I would have been similarly suspicious in her position.
...Or maybe she was using her professed "love" as an excuse to keep a closer eye on me? After my revelations about magecraft had worn off, Benitsubasa had given me a long lecture about going out without her. Again, though, I didn't blame her. If I died, she deactivated.
And so, whatever the reason, the romantic had nonsense continued.
On the bright side, Benitsubasa had surprised me. I'd worried initially that she would break down once I revealed the existence of magecraft. She had been rather quiet at first. Before long, though, she'd started asking questions. I'd soon learned that I only needed to explain a concept once before she grasped its tactical implications.
"So your familiars tracked her here?"
Like now, for instance.
"That's correct."
"And you're sure that the patient in this hospital is this Sekirei's Ashikabi?" she said. "Most Sekirei are heterosexual."
"If it's not her Ashikabi, then this particular Sekirei needs a long lecture about proper versus improper touching."
Benitsubasa raised an eyebrow.
"...O-kay then. I'll take that as a yes."
We entered the double doors.
A quick bit of hypnosis convinced the nurse on duty to let us visit our targets. Note the plural. I'd chosen my time carefully; the Sekirei visited her Ashikabi on a regular schedule. Both would be there.
We arrived three flights of steps later.
************************************************** **************
I reached for the knob, and blinked when Benitsubasa's hand shot out and grabbed mine. A wave of annoyance washed over me. Her grip softened, though, and she pulled my hand away gently, positioning her body between me and the doorway.
"We've been over this," she said. "I'm going first."
I rolled my eyes, but nodded. She turned the knob.
The room was unremarkable. A turquoise couch with three rubber cushions was lodged against the right wall. A dress lay on it. The design was unusual - it looked a bit like a Swiss alpine dress, but not of the traditional sort. Imagine something worn by a sexually deviant fugitive from Heidi and you might get a good approximation.
The walls themselves were a light purplish gray. When combined with the painting of almost-white-but-still-slightly-pink lilies on the wall, the color scheme gave a bleached impression. Sanitary, but lifeless. A trio of stuffed animals by the bedside - a rabbit, a penguin, and what looked like a mouse - provided the only other slice of character.
The room's occupants were another matter. The Ashikabi was thin to the point of emaciation, with hair like straw and pink pajamas. She was leaning against the bed's backboard (actually little more than a cheap metal frame). Her breaths were quick and shallow. Her eyes, already large, had widened like saucers when she saw us.
The Sekirei's face was slightly harder to make out, since she was wrapped in strips of white cloth. They twined and writhed around her like living creatures. Most of them seemed aimed (to the extent that one can 'aim' fabric) at my head.
Like most of her kind, this Sekirei also seemed unusually well-endowed, which must have been a hindrance in combat. I mention it primarily because Benitsubasa pointed out this defect to me afterwards. Repeatedly. (I admired Benitsubasa's practical outlook on the subject, but she seemed oddly passionate about it.)
"Dreary place," I said.
The Sekirei locked eyes with Benitsubasa.
"What does the Disciplinary Squad want here?" she said.
Benitsubasa grinned.
"Oh, hadn't you heard?" she said. "I'm a free agent now."
The veiled Sekirei looked me up and down, paying particular attention to my robe. I wondered if she could sense the enchantments on it.
"So is this Neo impersonator your Ashikabi?"
Benitsubasa cracked her knuckles.
"Why?" she said. "Are you looking for somebody to go Matrix on your ass? Because I'd be glad to ob-"
"Who's this 'Neo' person?" I said.
Benitsubasa's glare swung toward me.
"Meriwether, you're not helping," she growled.
"Wait, wait wait...Your Ashikabi is a Matrix cosplayer named Meriwether?"
Realizing that the conversation was rapidly spinning out of control, I decided to change tack.
"Uzume," I said.
The Sekirei froze. Her bolts of fabric swiveled toward me again.
"You and I both know that you're not going to attack me with your Ashikabi in the bed next to you," I said. "You also know that I could have killed her at any time I wished. I still could."
"Touch her and you die," the Sekirei - Uzume - hissed.
I smirked and nodded toward the girl on the bed.
"Chiho, isn't it?" I said. "How unfortunate that you have an incurable disease. I wonder who's paying your medical bills, hmm...? Must be expensive."
The girl shuddered. Uzume was shaking, though with rage or fear I wasn't sure. I cleared my throat.
"Lower your weapons, and we'll discuss my proposal like civilized people," I said.
Uzume's eyes narrowed further.
"Your proposal?" she said.
I held out my hand and ahem'ed. Benitsubasa did nothing. I snapped my fingers a few times. She gave me a dirty look, but didn't do anything else.
I ahem'ed a second time.
"Oh for the love of...The suitcase is right in front of you!" Benitsubasa snapped.
I ahem'ed a third time.
Finally, Benitsubasa sighed and opened my suitcase. She presented me with a parchment scroll, though I noted sourly that she did it without much ceremony. I unraveled it with a fwop and tossed it to Uzume. She should have counted herself fortunate: I'd even written it in Japanese for the occasion.
She glanced at it, although her fabric streamers kept twitching in my direction.
"First Party, hereafter 'Uzume' (undersigned), agrees and affirms to provide all services necessary to assist Second Party, hereafter Meriwether Archibald El-Melloi (undersigned), to win the Sekirei Plan for him, and..."
Uzume stopped reading and looked up.
"You're joking," she said.
"Why do people always say that when they hear my name?" I said. "It's not that strange. Look at a Shin Tokyo phone book sometime: Toyota! Kawasaki! Honda! You people name yourselves after automobile companies!"
Both Uzume and Chiho stared at me for several seconds. Benitsubasa mouthed something that looked like, 'You're on your own here.'
Uzume broke the silence.
"Uh...first off, there's so much wrong with that statement that I'm not even getting near it. Second, I was referring to the contract. Why would I give up the chance to win the Sekirei Plan and be with my Ashikabi? How stupid would I have to be to-"
"I can cure her."
Uzume snorted.
"Yeah. Right. And I can double your money if you just invest in some Mouse Road all-natural detergents."
I held out my hand and chanted the appropriate Aria. Fortunately, Uzume probably didn't speak English. William McGonagall's Victorian doggerel lacked a certain gravitas for intimidation purposes:
'Twas all on a sudden the storm did arise
Which took the captain and passengers all by surprise
Because they had just sat down to their tea
When the ship began to roll with the heaving of the sea
Benitsubasa winced. I made a mental note to explain later that it wasn't my poetry.
Water collected from the atmosphere and swirled into a hollow sphere three feet wide. Streamers orbited in midair like a planet's rings.
"Kewdh. Kewdh. Kewdh. Kewdh.
Four times conceal."
The tower of water vanished. I glanced at my audience. Chiho was shaking. Even under her veil, I noted that Uzume's eyes had widened. One of her fabric bolts tentatively prodded the place where the water had been. She yanked it back quickly with a gasp. Water dripped from its tip.
"It's...it's still there," she said. "We just can't see it..."
"Have I made my point?" I said. "You've probably realized by now that the scroll in your hands isn't an ordinary contract. Here's the deal: your services for Chiho's recovery. I reserve the right to block out her memories of this incident, though."
And then, for the first time in this conversation, Chiho showed a backbone. At a very inconvenient time.
"No!" Chiho shouted. "I won't allow this. I don't know who or what you are, but...But you're not getting your hands on Uzume! I won't let you get her killed! There has to be another way. There has to-"
"Do we have a deal...Uzume?"
I smiled and waited. The Sekirei's suicidal compulsion to protect her Ashikabi would do the rest of the work. It didn't take long.
Uzume's shoulders slumped.
"I'll do it," she said.
She took the pen. I heard it scratch the parchment, and felt the burst of prana as the spell took hold.
A pained noise came from Chiho. Bizarre though it sounds, she actually had tears in her eyes. And this despite the fact that I'd just offered to save her in return for a Sekirei that she didn't intend to use in combat anyway. Her hospital bills alone must have been astronomical.
But instead of the expected 'thank you', Chiho came out with the following:
"I won't let you!" she said. "If you don't heal me, you won't get Uzume's help. That's how it works, right? I'll refuse treatment."
For the second time this afternoon, I rolled my eyes.
"Uzume, if you please?"
The Sekirei in question was staring at the floor with a blank expression on her face. I snapped my fingers in front of her nose. She inhaled sharply and glared.
"What?"
"Hold her down," I said. "I don't fancy getting my fingers bitten."
Chiho's eyes had become wet and puffy by this time. It was very undignified.
"I'm sorry, Chiho," Uzume whispered.
Uzume's veils wrapped her Azhikabi's arms, legs, and head gently. Whenever Chiho struggled, the fabric tightened just enough to contain her movements. They softened immediately when the struggling stopped.
I placed my hand on Chiho's forehead and chanted the necessary Aria. I'd prepared some of the spell before I left, but the remaining details still took a few minutes to finish.
Nothing happened for a moment, and then light started to shine from the inside of Chiho's torso. She squealed. Her legs stiffened and bucked as if he was going into a spasm. Her eyes rolled back in her head. A stream of drool dripped down her chin. I kept chanting.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO-?"
Uzume's question ended unfinished. The light dimmed, flickered, and faded. Chiho sagged. Her head lolled to one side. Her gasps slowed down until I could barely hear her breathing. I quickly muttered a memory modification as a chaser.
I removed my gloves and looked around. Uzume sagged back into a chair. The veils sank around her like a shawl.
"She...she's cured, right?" she said. "I mean, that's-"
"Do you have a wastebasket?"
"Wh...what?"
I held the gloves as far away from my suit as I could.
"A waste-bas-ket," I repeated slowly. "I'm not in the habit of keeping articles of clothing that people have slobbered on."
Uzume's voice rose.
"Excuse me, I asked you whether-"
"She's cured," I said. "Ask the ignoramuses who work here if you don't believe me. So... Wastebasket. Now."
"Find it yourself."
I mumbled something under my breath and turned to my Sekirei.
"Benitsubasa, kindly go-"
"Not a chance."
After I found the wastebasket, Benitsubasa and I waited around in another part of the hospital while the staff performed the necessary tests. Fortunately, one of us had thought far enough ahead to bring reading material. Not that I intended to share.
I thumbed through my pocket edition of Abelard's Sic et Non while Benitsubasa whined about a copy of Pygmalion that she would have remembered to bring along if it hadn't mysteriously vanished. The intricacies of Scholastic philosophy distracted me from the hospital's interminable beeps and squeaking cart wheels until Uzume finally reappeared.
"Satisfied?" I said.
She'd changed into tight jeans, sandals, and a pink shirt with a yellow star that obnoxiously highlighted her overgrown chest. She didn't seem to have considered how this lewd display reflected upon her Ashikabi, which struck me as rather inconsiderate.
I was rapidly learning that Benitsubasa's nudity taboos, while they left much to be desired, hovered nearer the 'prudish' end of her species. A fact for which I was thankful.
"She won't remember this?" Uzume said.
"I've blanked it out," I said. "The rest of her memories are intact, of course. She knows nothing about our arrangement."
"...As long as you stick to your end of the bargain," Benitsubasa added with a nasty smile.
I tapped the scroll.
"Oh, she will," I said.
As we stood up to leave, I leaned next to Uzume's ear.
"You're mine now, Sekirei," I whispered.
Uzume tensed as if I'd dropped a black widow down her dress.
"And he means that in a completely non-sexual way," Benitsubasa said. "Believe me."
I thought I detected a note of grumbling in her tone, but decided not to press the issue. Finally, realizing that Benitsubasa didn't intend to hold the door open for me, I sighed and opened it myself.
"Meriwether."
I turned.
"Eh?"
Uzume slapped me across the face. I had no time for reinforcement. In retrospect, I was fortunate that she'd decided not to rip my head off.
The effect on Benitsubasa was immediate. I only realized that she had moved two seconds later, when I found myself lying on the grass. She'd pushed me out of the way. Uzume was smirking at her, though the effect was slightly marred by Benitsubasa holding Uzume a foot off the ground by her throat. Her voice came out as a rasp.
"You sure you want to get into this now?" Uzume said. "I dunno...it might screw with your Ashikabi's plans if you kill me. Or...try to kill me."
Benitsubasa wore an expression I hadn't seen before. Her killing intent, on the other hand, I recognized immediately. Felt immediately. Something similar had hung like a shroud over Kiritsugu Emiya on his rare visits to our estate.
"Benitsubasa," I said.
"WHAT?"
"Let her down."
"But-"
"Am I your Ashikabi?"
"Yeah, which is exactly why I don't intend to let this pass."
An amusing thought struck me.
"Am I your mate?"
"Yeah, but you-Wait, what? Um...yeah...I guess you are..."
"Let her down."
My joke seemed to have its effect. Benitsubasa's fingers loosened. Uzume dropped.
"Do that again and I kill Chiho," Benitsubasa said.
She turned on her heel before Uzume could answer. Perhaps wisely, Uzume did not try to retaliate.
************************************************** ********************
Benitsubasa and I passed through the remainder of the hospital garden in silence. I suppose the prospect of Uzume harming me - and thereby deactivating Benitsubasa - must have rattled Benitsubasa more than I'd expected.
I rubbed my cheek. It would probably bruise.
"You know, it's amusing..." I said.
"What?"
"Uzume gave up her freedom for nothing."
Benitsubasa huffed.
"Idiot."
"Excuse me?"
"She saved her Ashikabi's life."
I shrugged.
"I'm not in the habit of winning tournaments against cripples. Nor do I simply wait around while incompetents in lab coats kill my opponents for me."
Benitsubasa looked at me for an excessive amount of time.
"Wait...you would've helped Chiho anyway?" she said.
"I would have made arrangements for a worthy opponent," I said. "Nothing more."
We walked a while longer. As occasionally happened for no discernible reason, Benitsubasa seemed enthralled by the sight of her own twiddling fingers. She didn't make eye contact.
Finally, though-
"Did...did you mean what you said?"
"About what?" I said.
"About the...you know. The mating...um...thing."
I chuckled. Perhaps she did have a sense of humor after all.
"I thought your little in-joke about mating might snap you out of it," I said.
Benitsubasa delivered her next question through gritted teeth.
"Did you say my...in-joke?"
I cleared my throat.
"Well, yes. You know. 'Love', 'romance', and all that other rot you pretend to feel whenever you want something from me. Unnecessary, of course, as I've already explained to you a thousand times. But you keep talking about it, so I naturally assumed you found it amusing-"
Benitsubasa's handprint on my uninjured cheek didn't improve my appearance much, but I suppose it gave my face a certain symmetry.
Chapter 5
Hayato Mikogami, the fifteen-year-old Ashikabi of the South, was an unusual sort of person. Take, for instance, his penchant for dressing in white-and-gold 18th century knockoffs, complete with silk cravats. Or his equally questionable refusal to order his Sekirei to wear underwear. This lack of concern for a dress code, I noticed, was a common failing among Ashikabis.
Poor taste in interior decorating, though, did not figure among Mikogami's foibles.
My familiar was watching Mikogami's Sekirei as they ate in one of his residence's many lounges. The sofa and chairs were a grayish purple leather that contrasted to the carpet rather nicely. Four lacquered rectangular windows alternated with porcelain panels whose white-and-gold color scheme matched Mikogami's own clothing.
The windows themselves were remarkably clear. They consisted of a large central pane bordered by several smaller squares of glass. Sunlight reflected from mahogany table tops. Overall, it gave an impression of airy refinement. Mikogami had even resisted the temptation to plaster his walls with the sludge-on-canvas that most people call "modern art."
Through my familiar's vision, I could recognize most of the room's occupants. The Sekirei in a kimono and fingerless gloves could only be Himeko. She'd laid her double-edged blade against the wall, and picked at her caviar with chopsticks. (Which seemed rather impractical).
In the other corner, a Sekirei in twin pigtails munched on a burger consisting of blue cheese, mustard, French fries, and - if its packaging could be believed - ground Kobe beef. It was thus both expensive and nutritionally worthless. At least she had the foresight to put a napkin on her lap. Mitsuha, I believe they called her. Or Mitsuki. The two were mirror images, except that one favored a whip while the other carried entangling strings.
...And then the rest. Taki, with her white hair and open-chested coat. Somehow, her breasts avoided spilling out despite her obvious lack of a bra. Mitsuki (or Mitsuha?), with her black and yellow striped miniskirt. Yomi, with her scythe. And so on.
Yet the room's quietest occupant worried me most. Mutsu shared little with his companions. He was male. He dressed simply. His black shirt, black pants, and yellow scarf blended into the background. He ate simply, too, if his daily dinner of rice was any indication. He even carried a sword rather than something more exotic.
But beyond all that, Mutsu - or, if you prefer, Sekirei Zero-Five - was a single number.
As Benitsubasa had explained it to me, most Sekirei numbers meant little. Sekirei #80, whoever she was, did not necessarily have an advantage against Sekirei #30. Or vice-versa. But the single numbers were a different matter. Mutsu, in particular, had seen action before. Benitsubasa wouldn't discuss it much, but she gave me the impression that he'd racked up quite a death toll years ago.
Mutsu leaned against the window. He'd been prodding his rice for the past ten minutes. Finally, he took a bite. Swallowed.
Coughed.
A puzzled look spread across his face. He coughed again, harder.
Taki looked up.
"Mutsu, are you-"
"URRGH!"
Mutsu bent over and heaved. Nothing came out. If the other Sekirei had been listening closely, they would have heard a fizzing sound coming from his throat between coughs.
Mutsu clawed at his collar and chest. His breaths, already quick, became almost rodent-paced. Something cut each of them off in turn, as if the wind had been knocked out of him. It sounded a bit like clucking.
The average Sekirei could probably salt a nightshade salad with arsenic, use diesel fuel as a vinaigrette, and survive with slight indigestion.
Alchemical poisons are another matter. Admittedly, alchemy is technically all about the search for higher truth through interaction with the material world, but it's also rather handy for brewing things that can kill people.
...Or Sekirei, in this case.
Mutsu's face had reddened. His pores squeezed out sweat. Throat, stomach, and lungs danced a three-way jig as they tried to pump the poison out. His eyes bulged. The other Sekirei had already dropped their food, and were making loud but unproductive noises. One of them thumped his back.
I suppose that, in the end, Mutsu's simple palate had been his downfall. I'd noticed weeks earlier that Mikogami ordered catered food every so often as a treat for his Sekirei. Profligate spender that he was, Mikogami had simply included Mutsu's request for rice in every order rather than cooking it at home.
It had taken a while, but I'd used mental interference spells on several employees from Mikogami's favorite restaurants. As it turned out, a disturbingly large percentage of culinary workers do not consider it "against their basic nature" to poison their customers' food. (I blame it on the general decline in loyalty among the laboring classes since the rise of representative democracy. But that's neither here nor there.)
From that point, I merely had to wait until one of my puppets reported an order from Mikogami that included a single, separate bowl of rice. The call had arrived a few hours before. I'd given my authorization.
************************************************** **********************
I shook my head and opened my eyes. A fence blurred in and out of focus, and wind whipped through my hair. I shielded my eyes when a glint of sunlight reflected from Benitsubasa's binoculars.
"Well?" she said.
"Can't you see it from here?"
"Mutsu fell out of my line of sight," she said.
"He's finished," I said. "Probably a Level Four rather than a termination, but he's out of the Plan regardless."
"So he's not dead?" she said.
"I doubt it."
"So that means..."
"Send in the cavalry," I said.
Benitsubasa's smile would have given Caster pause.
"You're going too," I said.
Her smile dimmed slightly. She shook her head.
"I'm staying here. Send the others."
I rolled my eyes.
"I'll be fine," I said. "Our enemies are all inside, remember?"
"But-"
"And besides, I can always run away if it gets too dangerous."
Her shoulders tightened.
"But Meriwether-"
"That's an order," I said.
Benitsubasa pursed her lips for a moment or two, but at last, she met my eyes and nodded. I caught myself smirking: when it came to her combat role, my Sekirei could be remarkably professional.
There it was again: 'my' Sekirei. I'd have to monitor that.
A minute later, the combined weight of Benitsubasa, Uzume, and Sanada's three Sekirei crashed through Mikogami's windows. Lacquered wood and shattered glass flew everywhere.
I reinforced my eyes and watched the battle unfold.
I'd ordered Benitsubasa to stay on the sidelines. Other Sekirei could do the hard work; I needed Benitsubasa intact. This rather clear message must have been garbled in translation, somehow, since I was fairly sure that I saw her dancing around Mitsuho's whip. Which did not seem safe at all. Benitsubasa bounced on the balls of her feet. Her hands hung loose at her sides, which must have given Mitsuho a rather clear view of her grinning face.
Twice, Benitsubasa ducked and tried to rush in on the backswing. Twice, Mitsuho angled away. She'd only dodged by inches, though. The third time, Benitsubasa came in low. The whip clipped her hair, sending a puff of pink fuzz into the air. Benitsubasa repaid the compliment. She grabbed Mitsuho by her pigtails and drove a knee into her face. Mitsuho crumpled. Blood dripped from her mouth and nose. Her unconscious breaths came out wet and slobbery.
Benitsubasa stood over her fallen adversary. Her eyes had opened fully now. The grin that had split her face since the beginning of the battle had broadened, if that was possible. And then, without even bothering to wipe the blood splatters off her face, she threw back her head and giggled.
For the briefest of moments, I reflected that: (1) My Sekirei was a little unstable, and (2) Perhaps I could reconsider the wisdom of complaining about her cooking.
Mitsuho's twin (?), Mitsuki, was faring slightly better. Mitsuki's fists and feet blurred as she fought one of Sanada's Sekirei, whose name escapes me. Her movements, combined with the colors of her miniskirt and dress, gave her the appearance of a bumblebee - an image strengthened by the strings she sent buzzing through the air. Her opponent ducked under, jumped over, and leaned around them. It was so fast, in fact, that I didn't even see the punch that smashed Mitsuki through a wall.
Uzume vaulted over the sofa, her cloth tentacles outstretched. Himeko swung her double-ended blade. At the last moment, Uzume's cloth whipped toward the ceiling and pulled her out of the way. The sudden change of direction sent Himeko's blade into the sofa. She spun, but the blade stuck for an moment too long.
Uzume's cloth wrapped around Himeko's head and bashed it into the wall. She repeated this performance until Himeko's sword-arm went limp. When Uzume's cloth loosened again, Himeko dropped like a length of old rope. Her sword clanged on the ground.
The attackers didn't have it all their own way, though. Mikogami's silver-haired Sekirei - Taki, if memory serves - blanketed the room with mist. While it didn't hurt anybody, it slowed our momentum. From my perch, the apartment had become a gray blur.
A small body tumbled out of the blur. I recognized it as Sanada's youngest Sekirei, Shijime. I squinted. She was still breathing, but her crest was gone.
I confess to a sigh of relief when I noticed that she was still alive. I hadn't been looking forward to terminating something so young-looking. Just as well that my enemies had done it.
...And there it was yet again. Sentiment. Dilettantish, unscientific sentiment. Weakness. My parents would not have been amused.
In my defense, these Sekirei seemed so very human sometimes.
When the fog cleared a few minutes later, the room looked like a demolition crew had worked it over. Concrete dust blanketed the floors. Sheared-off beams jutted from the walls and ceiling. Furniture lay in pieces. Stuffing had spilled out of gashes in the leather. All that tasteful interior furnishing had been reduced to rubble.
There were a number of unconscious Sekirei, too. They included two of Sanada's: Shijime and whatever-her-name-was. Mitsuki and Mitsuha - I couldn't tell which was which - lay side by side. In the next room, someone had put Taki halfway through a refrigerator. Even in unconsciousness, her dress still somehow contained her oversized, bra-less bust.
Mutsu twitched on the carpet. He, too, was still alive, apparently. I noted with some interest that the other Sekirei must have gone out of their way to avoid stepping on him.
Of the five Sekirei I'd sent in, only Benitsubasa, Uzume, and Kujika had survived. The latter was one of Sanada's: the dark-skinned blonde with yellow stars on her bra. She'd delivered the finishing touches to Tanigawa's Sekirei earlier. Now, I could repay the compliment.
Uzume and Benitsubasa circled to opposite sides. Uzume's fabric bolts writhed into position. Benitsubasa shook out her arms and tightened her fists. As Kujika glanced from one to the other, I could almost see the look of recognition spread across her face.
"But...But our Ashikabi said you were working with us!"
Uzume's fabric twitched, and I thought I saw her jaw tighten. Benitsubasa blew a strand of hair out of her eyes.
"No!" Kujika said. "I need to stay with my Ashikabi! We did what you asked us! You can't-"
Fabric bolts flew. Benitsubasa charged in. The rest was a footnote.
************************************************** ********************
I reminded myself to remove my mental tampering from Sanada that evening.
Mind control was no longer necessary. He'd served his purpose. The Ashikabis of the West and South had burned through each other's stocks of Sekirei like Tohsakas through a jewelry store.
I did a quick inventory
Mutsu, Mitsuho, Itsuki, Kujika, Mitsuki...
...Wait.
Two for the twins...Sanada had three...Mutsu finished up for 'M' names...Taki, Himeko, and the others...
Yomi. The scythe wielder. Number Forty-Three. Where on Earth had Yomi gone? I remembered her standing with the rest of them just a moment ago. Had she disappeared in the fog? No; she hadn't fought any of the other Sekirei. Almost as if she'd slipped out earlier...
I felt a sudden coldness in my chest. Had I remembered the invisibility field? Please tell me I'd-
"So you brought friends, huh?" a voice said. "Cute. Too bad they're too busy to help you."
I whirled around. A woman in a black and white striped dress giggled into her gloved hand. The other hand held a scythe connected to a purple pole. The blade's attachment point zigzagged, like one of those retractable boxing gloves that the common people sell in their novelty shops.
Yomi turned on her tiptoes, crossing her arms behind her back and looking at me from the side in a gesture she probably considered sly. My heart pumped at a few gallons a second.
"That was impressive, what you did to Mutsu," she said. "Whatever you used...Well, wow. And the way you took out your own allies. You're a ruthless little bastard, aren't you?"
I started reinforcing my legs. Calling for help would only bring her down on me sooner. If I could just wait a little longer...
Yomi winked.
"Lemme tell you a secret. I'm kinda ruthless too. And I'm thinking the pink-haired one's yours, right? So that's at least one enemy down after...well..."
I had known, intellectually, where the conversation was leading. I hadn't imagined Yomi's speed.
When Benitsubasa had chased me through the mall earlier, she'd assumed that I was a regular human. A regular, fragile human dodging through a crowd of other fragile, regular humans. And for my part, I think I'd realized (subconsciously, at least) that I wasn't in any serious danger from Benitsubasa. Even when we'd first met, I'd doubted that she'd murder me in a crowded mall.
Yomi showed no such compunctions.
Her scythe nearly split me in half. I jumped away. Sparks flew as it scraped along the ground.
"Benitsubasa!" I screamed. "Get over here!"
I doubted that she'd heard me.
"Stand STILL!" Yomi shouted.
Her complaint was premature. I was fast. She was faster. The scythe slashed through the front of my coat. Yomi's hands flew to the scythe's hilt. She jabbed it forward like a spear. Although it didn't have a tip, per se, the blade still cut deeply.
It hurt. I screamed. The cloth felt wet against my skin, and oddly warm. I saw blood on my gloves.
I must have burned a lot of prana with my inefficient, panicked healing that followed. For maybe a second, Yomi's eyes widened when she saw a line of light close up my wounds.
...And then, she moved in to kill me.
I knew I couldn't outrun her. I ran anyway. Adrenaline pounded through my body; everything felt cold and tight and twitchy, as if I'd been given an electric shock in a snowstorm. My father had always talked about the raw panic that could consume a young magus in battle. He'd felt it only once, against a Dead Apostle. Now it was my turn.
Yomi caught my leg with the butt of her scythe. I smashed face-first into the concrete. I slid. Only reinforcement protected my face from being shaved off. I tried to blink blood out of my eyes.
They say that desperation is the best taskmaster.
I can honestly say that I never chanted a five-count Aria faster in my life. My circuits burned. I poured in every ounce of prana that I could spare, and felt my body shriek in protest. I ignored it. In seconds, hundreds of gallons of water blasted toward Yomi. I concentrated it in a narrow stream.
When the mist cleared, Yomi stood there with a hole through her right shoulder. Water and blood dripped from it.
Oddly, my concentration narrowed to the large red bow around her neck. Forever afterward, that scene has encapsulated the Sekirei Plan for me: a perverse mixture of cutesiness and gore.
"Whoa," Yomi said. "Cool trick. Now you're dead."
Pain jolted through my jaw. When I hit the ground again, my teeth no longer aligned. Everything seemed foggy. The pressure inside my head wouldn't go away, and the ringing in my ears needed to STOP.
I reached into my coat. Yomi stepped on my hand with her boot, and then applied pressure. The pain distracted me from the sound of cracking bones.
She finally raised her foot, and I realized that I couldn't move. It wasn't just the damage, either. My body had frozen up. The pain, the cold feeling, the burning circuits, the adrenaline, the exhaustion. I felt outside myself, like I was watching my death through a film projector.
"So long, Mr. Ashikabi."
Last edited by Zalgo Jenkins; June 4th, 2012 at 08:51 PM.
Chapter 6
If this had been one of those novels I'd read under my mother's supervision as part of our mother-son time (five nights per week from 7:00 to 11:00 PM, three points off for each mispronounced word), Benitsubasa would have rescued me in the last moment before the scythe dropped.
This was not fiction. Fortunately (?) for me, though, Yomi was a sadist.
She hit my leg with the butt end of her scythe. I was too far gone at that point to cry out very loudly. Still, she did her best. Her kick to my ribs, for instance, elicited both a cracking noise and a shriek. I couldn't breathe. Whenever I moved my torso, the pain intensified. What little prana I had left was going into the healing spells I'd activated earlier. It wasn't much.
Nor did my body have the decency to pass out.
I don't remember the exact moment when Yomi's time ran out. Only fragments. A painful twilight consciousness.
The scream of rage that cut through the evening air will stay with me for a while. I remember a pink and black blur. Crashing rubble. A crack. A thumping sound that became squishier and meatier as it continued. And then a series of cracks and pops like a tree branch getting ripped apart.
I do recall the feeling of hands cupping my head and pulling me upward toward a hazy face. A voice called my name. Rather insistently.
"Meriwether...are...okay?...to say...please...Speak to...Oh-crap-oh-crap-oh..."
The face made a noise that sounded halfway between a scream and a sob. Something grabbed me by my armpits. My ribs protested. I coughed.
"BLOOD! He's coughing...no...he can't..."
Another voice replied. I wish they'd shut up.
"Benits...calm...just take..."
"CALM?...expect me..."
Something tugged at my chest. The pull slackened in an instant. I felt the coldness of air on my chest. Was somebody...? I tried to complain about unbuttoning my coat without permission, but it came out as a gargle. A painful one. Whatever was playing with my buttons froze at the sound, but then continued.
"No...don't tell me to calm...HOLE in his STOMACH!"
"Just...here...stretcher...hospital."
I felt pressure on my back and legs, as if I'd lain down in a hammock.
A thrill of adrenaline - what little I had left - washed through me when I heard the word 'hospital'. Not that I was thinking terribly clearly. I tried to sit up. My side did not cooperate.
I found myself moving, and every bounce lanced through my body. Fingers brushed my hair. The blurry face I'd seen earlier leaned closer and made shushing noises. They were occasionally interrupted by a gasp, or hitch, or something like that.
"Going...okay...just hang..."
A drop of moisture hit my forehead. Remembering it now, it didn't feel like blood. Not thick or sticky enough. Warm, though.
Even then, I didn't fall completely out of consciousness. Just an agonizing netherworld between sleeping and waking.
************************************************** **
Three men chased each other through a forest. In the lead ran a man in black. Blades materialized between his fingers. He threw one. The lead pursuer dodged. The blade buried itself into a stump up to its hilt. The man in black only grinned and kicked a tree ahead of him. It toppled. The foremost pursuer jumped around it, his trench coat fluttering in the breeze. The second pursuer threw up his hand. A silver dome formed above his head. The branches bounced off.
At the forest's edge, I heard the sounds of clashing steel, and saw light where the night's darkness should have been.
************************************************** ******
I remember waking, so I must have been sedated at some point.
I opened my eyes to grayish walls, a olive green door, and a sink with dry paint chips peeling off of it. A tube protruded from my arm. I felt bandages. The picture of lilies on the wall seemed familiar, somehow. Nor did the cheap metal bed frame escape my notice.
I blinked. Yes, a stuffed penguin was indeed sitting on my bedside table.
I looked to my right. Benitsubasa was sitting bolt-upright, as if she'd just woken up. She'd apparently pulled the couch next to my bed.
"Benitsu-"
Ugh. I ached everywhere.
I opened and closed my jaw a few times, noting with some pleasure that my previous healing spell had mostly fixed it. Arias work better when you don't gargle them out through mismatching palates. (Not that my spell had accomplished much else).
I muttered a few words.
Hailaz. Eils. Hails.
Helenan. Helan.
Kel.
"Where am I?" I said, perhaps unnecessarily.
"Same hospital as Uzume's Ashikabi," Benitsubasa said. "They'd kept Chiho here for observation anyway, so Uzume...um...suggested we put you here as well. That way, we could protect both of you."
"Did they-"
"I've talked to the staff. They'll destroy your medical records," she said.
I raised an eyebrow.
"You're sure?"
Benitsubasa's smile seemed somewhat forced. She fiddled with her fingers.
"I'm very persuasive," she said.
A familiar brunette in a ponytail and inappropriately tight T-shirt poked her head in.
"Benitsubasa told the doctors that if you died, she'd feed the staff their own spinal cords," Uzume said. "She dangled an intern out of the third floor window when he laughed."
Benitsubasa stiffened.
"...And then dropped him," Uzume added.
"OUT!" Benitsubasa shouted.
"Heh."
Uzume ducked and shut the door moments before a flower vase crashed into her previous position. Benitsubasa huffed.
I gestured at the stuffed penguin.
"Did she...?"
"Yes," said Benitsubasa.
"And you-"
"Uzume said it was for luck, or something. I...I figured it was stupid, but why not try it, you know?"
I rolled my eyes and lay back. Damaged body parts knitted themselves together slowly. Everything itched. My prana supply still left something to be desired.
Benitsubasa suddenly seemed very close. I cleared my throat.
"Looking back on it now..." I said. "Well, my calculated risk to send you into battle (while not unreasonable given my knowledge at the time, mind) might not have been the optimal-"
Benitsubasa leaned forward and kissed me. The warm, soft contact on my lips ran through the rest of my body as bits of our prana exchanged.
It was quite unlike her earlier winging. Benitsubasa did not force her tongue down my throat. The kiss seemed almost chaste, all things considered, save for the gentle mewling noise that she made into my mouth. She arched, her lips still locked on mine, and wings of light spread from her back. The experience was not as unappealing as I might have expected.
We parted. Her eyes had a sleepy, satisfied sort of look. I was reminded of a well-fed cat.
"Benits-er...hem... that is to say-Ah..."
And then, she grabbed me by my shoulders and shook me. Relatively hard, too.
"IDIOT! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED! WHERE WAS YOUR INVISIBILITY FIELD, YOU STUPID, STUPID, INSENSITIVE JERK?"
I confess that I wasn't sure what to say for while. Benitsubasa pulled my collar and leaned close to my face, so that our noses touched.
"Well?" she said. "What do you have to say for yourself?"
"Manhandling a patient while he's healing doesn't strike me as a terribly useful-"
She screamed and dumped a second vase of flowers on my head. It contained loose-packed mud instead of water.
"Well, at least it's not my suit this time..."
"Say another word, Meriwether - one more - and I swear I'll force-feed you the hospital Jell-o."
I wasn't entirely sure what Jell-o was, but I gathered from Benitsubasa's tone that it was intimidating. She stomped back to her sofa, crossed her arms, and glared.
"And why didn't you just poison all of them, anyway?" she said. "Just in case - oh, I dunno - you forgot your invisibility field? An omission which, incidentally, would have made you the stupidest person on earth?"
"It was fast-acting," I said. "I didn't want somebody else to drop over first and alert Mutsu."
"You could at least have waited to terminate Kujika," she said. "Yomi never would've gotten to you if I'd come back faster."
I shrugged and wished I hadn't. Benitsubasa's lips tightened into a line when she saw me wince.
"I needed to send a message," I said. "Now that two of Great Ashikabis publicly eliminated each other, the small fry will move into the vacuum. We can sit back and watch them rip each other to bits."
"...And with any luck, Minato and Higa will fight over the scraps," she finished. "They'll probably lose more Sekirei in the process."
"Correct."
I heard something rumble outside the window. A shadow passed across the slits of light between the blinds. Another rumble followed
"What was that?" I said.
"MBI's armored personnel carriers," she said. "That's another thing you missed. The Second Stage started."
"The stage that triggers when ninety percent of the Sekirei are winged?" I said.
She nodded.
"The stage when they seal the city off?" I said.
Again, she nodded.
This could be bad. I'd expected to wrap this 'Plan' up quickly. My vacation from the Clock Tower was not indefinite, and I'd already spent well over a month in Shin Tokyo. If they'd sealed the city...
When we'd spoken over the phone, the game master had warned me of something. Should I try to leave, MBI would hunt me down with all of the resources at its disposal. Judging from its private army, these resources were probably considerable.
I hadn't taken the warning seriously at the time. White capes and Einstein hair tend to detract from one's threats. Now, I reconsidered. If MBI followed me, it might collide with the Clock Tower. I could probably count my lifespan on one hand once Lady Barthomeloi found out what I'd done...assuming that MBI didn't kill me first.
"As soon as you heal, we're gonna start sparring. Hard," said Benitsubasa.
"But-" I began.
"I couldn't help but notice that expensive-looking leather-bound library of yours," Benitsubasa said. "Hypothetically, what might happen if somebody kinda-sorta accidentally dumped it into a trash compactor?"
"You raise a fair point. Sparring it is."
She smiled.
"I thought you might say that."
Thus, I found that my life had become complicated.
My next visitor did not help matters.
************************************************** *********
The door opened.
The creature was a Sekirei; the otherworldly prana signature told me that much. It (or she, if you prefer) wore a black miniskirt, black buttoned coat, and black stockings. A cloak hung around her shoulders. The cloak's closed, tapering sleeves evoked thoughts of a bird's wings.
Like most of her species, the creature looked youngish - her skin had no blemishes, anyway - but her heavy-lidded eyes had already developed crows' feet. One got the impression that she suffered from insomnia. Her hair was the color of cigarette ash. It kept a youthful sheen that truly gray hair lacked.
She also wore a sword in her belt. Even before the creature had crossed the threshold, Benitsubasa had stepped between my visitor and my bed.
"Well...hello, Benitsubasa," the Sekirei said. "It's been a while."
I suspect that Benitsubasa didn't even realize that her fists had tightened to the point of shaking.
"H-hello, Karasuba."
I recognized the name. Sekirei Number Four. MBI's Dog, they called her. The Black Sekirei. Head of the Disciplinary Squad. If Benitsubasa was to be believed (and I wasn't sure that I did), this creature had put more people in their graves than Assassin, Caster, and Kiritsugu Emiya combined.
My visitor leaned over Benitsubasa's shoulder and graced me with a smile-that-wasn't-a-smile. I felt an odd sense of recognition. Magi often wore a similar expression.
When Benitsubasa moved between us again, Karasuba laughed.
"Ah, but you're a brave little bird, aren't you?" she said. "Getting between a huntress and her quarry."
Benitsubasa wrenched her eyes toward Karasuba's own. She had straightened like a ramrod.
"Don't touch him," she said.
"My, my...you're shivering, Benitsubasa. Is it for your sake, I wonder...or that human's?"
Karasuba's fingers danced on the hilt of her sword like a musician playing a piano. Ra-ta-ta-tap. Ra-ta-TA-ta-ta-tap.
"You want to speak to me?" I said.
"Ye-es," she said. "As a matter of fact, I do."
She slid into a chair and crossed her legs. That infernal smile stayed in place.
"Officially, of course, I'm visiting to congratulate a former squad mate on the Plan's first Level 5 termination..."
Karasuba touched Benitsubasa's chin and sighed theatrically.
"...My little girl's all grown up," she said. "They'll be cleaning Yomi off that roof for weeks."
Here Karasuba's smile dropped. Her breaths came faster, and those sleepy eyes widened.
"More importantly, I wanted to get a look at the Ashikabi who can do such interesting things."
My fingers twitched under the sheet.
"What do you mean 'interesting'?" I said.
"I might have expected that kind of display from a water Sekirei like Number Nine," she said. "Not a human."
My adrenal glands gave me a hasty reminder that yes, I had recovered enough to feel fear again. I was sitting upright now.
"What did you see?" I said. "And how?"
"You humans are such an ingenious species when it comes to being nosy," she said. "It was thoughtful of MBI to monitor the battleground with spy satellites, don't you think? Your fight with Yomi was fascinating on a high definition screen...though I would have preferred more fighting and less crawling around like a gimp rat."
I felt a surge of relief, and snorted in a rather undignified manner.
"Nice try, but I'm calling your bluff," I said.
"Come again?"
"You might have convinced me that you had footage if you'd mentioned surveillance cameras. Or at least something within the realm of possibility. 'Spy satellites', though? Recording footage from space? I wasn't born yesterday, you know."
I chuckled at the absurdity of the spectacle: here was an alien of nigh-invincible fighting prowess, and she was trying to intimidate me with nonsense out of a Jules Verne novel. Karasuba quirked an eyebrow.
"High-quality satellite images are fairly common these days, Mr..."
"Meriwether will do. And no, I'm afraid I don't believe you. You'll be telling me next that these 'spy satellites' of yours can send their footage to those odd computer-camera-phone things through radio waves."
By now, Karasuba was looking thoroughly confused, doubtless wondering how I'd seen through her little charade so easily. She was a good actress, though - she spoke with the air of a person who, despite her better judgment, had decided to try to explain something to a slightly mentally handicapped individual.
"Have you ever heard of Google Earth, Meriwether?"
"What's a 'google'?"
Karasuba's brow furrowed. Her voice acquired a dangerous lilt.
"Are you by any chance mocking me, human?"
Her fingers played across the hilt of her sword. Perhaps it was a bit suicidal, but I felt a spark of annoyance at what was clearly becoming poor sportsmanship.
"Look here," I said. "Your bluff failed. And if you want to throw around made-up words to confuse the issue, then you shouldn't get annoyed when people point out that they don't exist."
Karasuba's eye twitched. She wheeled around.
"Benitsubasa, is he-"
"Yep. Stone-cold serious."
"So he doesn't know about-"
Benitsubasa sighed.
"Karasuba, I once explained to him that people navigate the internet by using a web browser and typing words into the search box, right? You know what he said? His exact words were 'While I can identify the meanings of each of those words individually, I'm afraid that you've arranged them into gibberish. Please try again'."
"You're joking."
Benitsubasa shook her head solemnly.
"Then you tell him," Karasuba said.
My Sekirei turned to me and confirmed that yes, Karasuba's preposterous tale of super-cameras on satellites was in fact true. While I reserved judgment on the matter, I felt an unwelcome gnawing of doubt as I considered the implications of my magecraft being caught on film.
A flurry of movement interrupted these musings. Karasuba lunged toward the bed. Benitsubasa jumped into her way. I couldn't even see Karasuba's hand as it shot out and pinned Benitsubasa against the wall. The other hand closed around my throat and tugged me to eye level.
Karasuba's eyelids were fully open now, and she was panting into my face. Her voice came out in a hiss.
"One more thing, Ashikabi," she said. "You killed Mutsu. That was inconsiderate. I'd been looking forward to gutting him myself for years. And now I can't. But I'm going to let you live, Meriwether. And do you know why? Because humans are so much more fun to butcher than Sekirei, but most of them CAN'T FIGHT BACK!"
A fleck of spittle alighted on my nose. I hasten to add that that Karasuba was certainly not frothing at the mouth, but it tends to happen when you're speaking from an inch away.
"I don't know what you are," she said. "Human...hybrid...Sekirei descendant...whatever. But others like you must exist. I hope so. Because I'm going to save you for last, Meriwether. And then I'm going to carve you up on network television (since whoever raised you apparently couldn't access a streamed video to save their lives), and the rest of your kind will come to me. I'll bathe in their blood before the Jinki put an end to this world."
She was gasping now, and not just because she'd gotten through the entire speech in one breath.
"If you ever meet our equivalent of the Disciplinary Squad, I suspect that your attitude will change," I said.
Karasuba threw back her head and laughed. She shoved me back into the bed and released Benitsubasa, who immediately resumed her position between us. Karasuba's boots clopped on the floor four, five, six times as she walked to the door. And then she turned, as if she'd forgotten something.
"Oh, and Ashikabi?"
"What?"
"You need to screw your Sekirei more often. I don't think I've smelled pheromones this strong since Miya had her crush on Takehito."
Benitsubasa's mouth dropped open. The door closed. My heart rate still appeared to be compensating for twenty years without exercise, and took several minutes to return to normal.
"Er, Benitsubasa..."
She seemed to be making an effort to look away. Her face practically glowed red. Not that I blamed her. Inconvenient biological reactions to involuntary drives can often be embarrassing. Perhaps it was mating season, or some such.
Yet Benitsubasa had conducted herself with consummate professionalism in the battle with Mikogami. It seemed almost unfair that she should suffer from this sort of indignity.
"Y-yes, Meriwether?"
"Your...ah...condition sounds...well, inconvenient, I suppose."
The tied bow on the front of Benitsubasa's gi must have been positively riveting for all she was picking at it.
I tried a reassuring smile, and patted her hand paternally.
"...And I think I might be able to do something about that," I said.
Her face's glow became radiant. She peeked at me out of the corner of her eye.
"R-really?"
"Of course," I said. "While I'm hardly an expert in alchemy, I daresay I could whip up something to suppress the effect for you. It would be a simple matter, really-"
Benitsubasa jumped off the bed and yanked her hand away from mine as if she'd been bitten. She pointed a shaking finger at me.
"YOU..." she said.
"A simple 'thank you' will do..."
"...are the most impossible IDIOT..."
"Wait, what?"
"...I've EVER met!"
She stormed out and slammed the door behind her with such force that the lock snapped off. As was becoming distressing commonplace, I found myself in an empty room, wondering what had transpired.
"Oh, and Benitsubasa?" I called. "You will remember to cook cannelloni and bring it here tonight, won't you? I'd normally expect something less Mediterranean, but in light of your recent difficulties..."
No answer.
"Er, Benitsubasa?"
I wondered briefly whether my contract with Uzume obligated her to prepare me food.
Chapter 7
The next week hadn't brought any new revelations about the 'Jinki' that Karasuba had mentioned. If Benitsubasa knew anything about them, she wasn't telling, either.
I didn't have access to a proper magus's library, so research on my own was difficult. Perhaps I could find a local Clock Tower representative to get the books I needed. Did they have offices in Tokyo?
At the moment, though, research was far from my mind.
I lunged off my back foot and thrust a fist out. Benitsubasa leaned back. My blow reached within a fraction of an inch of her face, but didn't connect. She grinned. I was watching her with my chin down, as she'd taught me, and only saw her smile through my brows.
"Stop telegraphing," she said.
This was supposed to be easy. Benitsubasa had assured me that longer reach meant a lot when you traded these 'jab' punches.
Besides, fighting was basically an academic pursuit, wasn't it? It had certain rules of thumb, certain techniques to memorize and piece together like words into sentences. I already had the reinforcement, so it wasn't as if I lacked athleticism, either. Well, technically. Or was I missing something...?
As it was, Benitsubasa danced in and out, giving me light slaps across the face at will. Her occasional instructions - as if I was some empty-headed student - added to the exercise's aggravation.
"What do you mean 'telegraphing'?" I said.
Dodge-in-slap-out.
"You're winding up and lunging at me like you're fencing or something," she said. "Don't let me see what you're up to. More snap...Oh, and I didn't mean 'pop the jab' literally. Stop saying 'pop'."
"And how do you expect me to get power that way - ha!"
I threw a punch. I'd hoped that our conversation might loosen Benitsubasa's defense. No such luck. She lazily slapped my blow away and poked me in the stomach - with her finger, not a punch. It still hurt.
"When you wind up, you can't catch the other guy by surprise," she said. "It's the ones you don't see coming that hurt."
I rolled my eyes. Benitsubasa frowned when she saw it.
"Oh, come now," I said. "That's preposter-"
Bumph.
I blinked. For a moment there, I'd lost track of my vision...
Bumph.
I shook my head. Wait, what...
Bumph.
Ow.
Benitsubasa winked at me.
"At the rate you're going, you'll lose enough IQ points to almost be normal again," she said.
My own jab came out very slowly and stiffly. Benitsubasa didn't even bother blocking. It was more a push than a punch, really. I stumbled closer and sort of bumped into her.
"And stay at range," she said.
She grabbed my shoulders. My stomach lurched as her leg lifted my inner thigh. I felt a sensation akin to riding a very high swing-set on the downswing as I flipped through the air. Fortunately, I had the sense to reinforce my back
As I lay on the lawn, it occurred to me that this 'sparring' time would be better put to use doing something productive. Benitsubasa offered me her hand. I waved it off and stood up.
"You OK?" she said.
"Ducky."
"Um...Meriwether?"
"What?" I said.
"Something arrived for you in the mail today."
I groaned. Ever since I'd decided (and I use the word loosely) to stay in Shin Tokyo, I'd asked my landlord in Fuyuki to forward my mail to the appropriate post office box. Consequently, I'd become inundated with credit card offers, magazine subscriptions, and other assorted garbage.
"As I've already told you, Benitsubasa, you should feel free to burn whatever doesn't look like-"
She held up a parchment envelope.
"...Oh."
Its black wax seal bore the inscription "Veritas", surrounded in laurel leaves. I spoke the appropriate Aria. It opened.
************************************************** ************
To His Son Meriwether, Residing In Shin Tokyo Without His Father's Knowledge Or Permission, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, First Lord El-Melloi, Sends Greetings With Paternal Zeal:
Publius Ovidius Naso opined, 'abeunt studia in mores', and it is with this motto in mind that I turn my attention to certain matters that I cannot overlook any longer.
It has been brought to my attention through my contacts in Fuyuki that you have not even visited that dreary city. Instead, you have wriggled into the decadent concrete pustule that is Shin Tokyo.
It must be noted before proceeding further that your mother and I assented to your trip to Japan only with the gravest reservations. As covered in greater length elsewhere (see my letter of May 5, pages 104 to 155, inclusive, and footnotes 17-38), your academic performance remains a cause for concern. Your second place overall in your peer group does not augur well for your future in academia. Or in life, for that matter. Or as a worthy son.
And yet, despite my warnings and exhortations to remain in the Clock Tower over your vacation and study, you insisted upon this frolic in Japan. Your mother even supported you in your willfulness, arguing, as I recall, that your great uncle was an antiquarian of some repute, and that perhaps your historical endeavors in Fuyuki would unlock some (hitherto absent) aptitude for research. Foolishly, perhaps, I capitulated.
At this unhappy hour, both of us have witnessed the outcome of our folly. Having slipped your harness, you have now - to stretch the metaphor but a little further - trampled the wheat, wrecked the granary, and smashed the hen house to kindling.
Speaking of animalistic behavior, your mother and I have not failed to notice a disturbing report in Sunday's Times about an upsurge in Japanese prostitution. And apparently, females find foreigners attractive over there. Were this but a year ago, I would laugh up my sleeve at the mere suggestion that my son's true purpose in Japan was a lifestyle of debauchery. A common trap for young men, perhaps, but not my son. Now, though, I begin to wonder. Have you truly forsaken your books for lechery, perversity, and vice? Is this the sorry state of affairs that awaits the El-Melloi line after my death? If so, then I implore you to inform me of this forthwith, so that your mother and I can adopt another heir more worthy of the El-Melloi crest.
Return to the Clock Tower at once.
Do not force me to come to Japan myself and collect you...though if necessary, I will.
- Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, First Lord El-Melloi, KG, D.D., Ph.D., L.L.M (Tax), Senior Euryphis Lecturer and Head of the Spiritual Invocation Division, Clock Tower, London; Special Consultant to the Hellsing Organization (ret.); Fellow of the Royal Society; Exasperated Father
************************************************** ********************
I felt my body sag back into its previous position: lying on the grass, face up. Benitsubasa bit her lip.
"What is it?"
I held up the letter. She took it gingerly, as if holding a bomb. She started reading. The parchment slipped from her limp fingers a minute or two later.
"No..." she whispered.
"We need to finish this 'Sekirei Plan' quickly," I said. "Before my father comes here to get me, and finds out what I've been doing."
"Meriwether, he can't really force you to-"
"Have I ever told you about the Volumen Hydragyrum?" I said.
She hesitated, and then shook her head.
"That's what my father calls his pet. It's a 140-kilogram, semi-sentient blob of mercury that can tear things apart with razor whips. Oh, yes, and my father once filled up twenty-four floors of the Fuyuki Hyatt with monsters, spirits, lethal bounded fields, and spatial alterations just to kill, at most, six other people."
"You're kidding."
"No. I am not."
Benitsubasa became uncharacteristically mum. Her expression reminded me of how she'd looked when I'd first explained the existence of magecraft. This one was more tense, though.
"And if my father finds out that I've exposed magecraft on film, he'll probably turn me over to the Enforcers himself," I said. "I know I certainly would in his position."
Benitsubasa stared at me. Those delicate hands of hers tightened at her sides.
"Your father sounds like a callous bastard," she said.
"Pardon?"
Benitsubasa started pacing. Her arms made sharp flailing gestures with each word, as if beseeching the heavens.
"I mean, for starters: the whole 'lechery' thing in his letter?" she said. "Seriously? That's what he thinks you're doing here? And who uses words like that, anyway? More importantly, has he ever met you? And what kind of man would give up his own son to-"
"Benitsubasa."
Something in my tone must have caught her attention, because she stopped pacing.
"Huh?"
"My father is one of the greatest magi of his generation," I snapped. "He made more breakthroughs in spiritual invocation in five years than they'd made for the last twenty. I won't listen to some alien female blacken his name to my face."
Benitsubasa jerked back as if I'd physically struck her. She opened and closed her mouth. For the first time since I'd met her, Benitsubasa had tears in her eyes.
"F-fine," she said. "Fine! You feel that way? Then you can j-just leave your 'alien female' and go back to your horrible, insane family! The same family that would turn you over to whatever nutcase equivalent you people have to Karasuba. No problem there, right? I'm just your tool to win the Plan anyway!"
Benitsubasa wiped her face on her sleeve. The moisture darkened fabric that had grayed with time back to its original black. I heard a sniffle. She walked toward the house.
I realized that my fists had clenched. I forced them open. An odd sensation in my gut wouldn't go away. It wasn't fear. It was hotter, and heavier, and felt uncannily like shame. When I called out to her, and heard my own voice rising.
"Would you prefer getting vivisected?" I said.
Benitsubasa froze.
"What?" she said.
"Because that's what the Clock Tower would do to you if you came back with me," I said. "Over and over again. Do you understand me? They'd heal you each time, and then restart the peeling process from the beginning-"
Benitsubasa clapped her hands over her ears.
"STOP IT!" she shrieked. "Shut up! Shut up! I don't want to hear this!"
And in that moment, I realized that neither did I. It was the first time I could remember that describing a normal experimental procedure had made my skin crawl.
For all that Benitsubasa would have been an interesting test subject, I didn't want to subject this girl to the Clock Tower's research. At all.
Benitsubasa sank to her knees, genuinely sobbing now. As I stood there in the grass, my body felt about three times too large, as if I'd had a growth spurt overnight and hadn't learned how to control it.
"I'm...er-I'm sorry," I said.
I sat down next to her and experimentally put a hand on her back.
I'm told that this is helpful when comforting crying people. The procedure seemed to have worked on her, at any rate. She held my hand and put it around her shoulder. The sobs slowed, and then stopped. She sniffed.
"I just...I'm so tired, you know?" she said. "...No. No, I guess you wouldn't."
Normally, dismissing my comprehension abilities would have elicited a stronger response, but I admit that I was feeling oddly out of sorts just then.
"Try me," I said.
Benitsubasa looked away, though she still watched me out of the corner of her eye.
"Have you ever cared about anyone?" she said.
"Well..." I said. "There are my parents, of course...and, er..."
"I mean -" here she sniffed again "- I mean romantically. L-like a girlfriend, or a wife, or something."
I raised my eyebrow.
"Girlfriend...A mistress, you mean?" I said.
"Whatever."
"I don't see a point to it."
She sighed and let her arms drop to her lap.
"And there's my answer," she said.
I cleared my throat.
"That is to say, my parents are going to marry me off in a few years anyway," I said. "Why chase what I can't keep?"
She looked up again.
"So you're just gonna agree to an arranged marriage?"
I shrugged.
"I'm a magus," I said.
Benitsubasa's head sank, and she nodded. She picked at a dandelion, removing its yellow petals one by one and dropping them in the grass. We sat in silence for a while longer.
"...I-if you had a choice-"
"Eh?"
"If you had a choice..." she said. "I mean, if you could pick any wife you wanted, what would she be like?"
To be honest, I'd never thought about it before. I rubbed my chin and considered.
"Well, she'd be intelligent, for a start," I said.
Benitsubasa gave a rather unfeminine snort.
"Yeah, big surprise there. What else?"
"She wouldn't have any close emotional ties to people outside of our family," I said. "Or former lovers. Or children from previous marriages. In an ideal world, I would want absolute loyalty. My father nearly lost my mother to a...pretty face, shall we say. It could have ended very badly for all of them."
"O-kay...I guess that answer's sorta normal...ish. Although most people would phrase the whole 'trusting and exclusive relationship' thing a little less-"
"She'd be willing to kill people when necessary, of course," I said.
"-Aaaand I spoke too soon."
"Preferably she'd be good at it, too," I said. "Some of the best Enforcers are women, come to think of it. Helps 'em get close to their targets, you see. Not that I'd marry an Enforcer. Hm. Paranoia might also be a useful trait for a wife. Discretion, too. Emotionally resilience as well, naturally."
"So you don't want a wife. You want an accomplice."
I blinked.
"Well, er...I'd always preferred 'partner'," I said. "It seems a bit more reciprocal, if you see what I mean."
Benitsubasa had crossed her legs, tailor-style. She leaned forward, resting her head on her hands. Her next words came out in a mumble so quiet that I barely heard them.
"I...guess I could do that," she said. "Okay, so it's not love. It's...it's something, though, right? And-and if it's what he wants..."
"Eh?"
She looked away.
"I...never mind," she said. "It's nothing. Um, tell me more about this ideal wife of yours."
I ahem'd.
"Well, I suppose she'd be willing to bear me a son, too."
Benitsubasa seemed to perk up a bit.
"Yeah, I was wondering when you'd get to that," she said.
"Just a single son, mind," I said. "Can't split the family Crest. Besides, I wouldn't want to exploit my wife's generosity by insisting on intercourse after that. "
Benitsubasa stared at me.
"That's - wait...exploit her generosit - how do you even...Meriwether, I never thought I'd be the one asking a human this, but were you raised in a lab?"
"I don't know if I'd call my father's estate a 'lab', exactly. Though his workshop might qualify. Why do you ask?"
Benitsubasa sighed and shook her head.
"Never mind."
She dusted herself off and headed back for the house.
************************************************** *****************
We had a lot work to do, after all. After I'd eliminated Mikogami, Higa had moved all of his meal preparation into his compound. He'd also hired food inspectors. I didn't want them uncovering my ingredients, so poison was out. Besides, he would be ready for me now.
Minato Sahashi in the North presented another problem. The high school graduate didn't look like much, but his group of Sekirei included at least two "single numbers": Kazehana and Tsukiumi. Minato's landlady, whoever she was, also carried a disturbing prana signature. She kept killing my familiars with a purple bounded field that felt cold and smelled of corpses.
No matter. In a few days, I'd cripple Minato and weaken Higa in the bargain.
...All I needed to do was negotiate with Higa.
A thought occurred to me.
"Ah, Benitsubasa?"
She turned. The wind blew a strand hair across her eyes.
"Yes?"
"Ehm...purely out of academic curiosity, what would your ideal mate - er, Ashikabi - be like?" I said.
She rolled her eyes and exhaled.
"You already know the answer to that," she said.
"What, you mean that Natsuo fellow, or whatever his name was?"
"No," she said. "Not Natsuo."
All right, if she wanted to be coy about it, I suppose it wasn't any of my business. Still, I reflected, a magus must always be curious. Childish though it might have been.
"Fair enough. Describe your ideal Ashikabi, then," I said.
Benitsubasa's eyes took on a far away look.
"He's-I mean, he'd be...smart," she said. "Dedicated. And a little cold, I guess. Aloof. But he'd have this cute insecure side, you know? Only I could see it, but it'd be there. Like how he'd get all fussy whenever he was flustered..."
Benitsubasa gave me a smile that seemed sad, somehow.
"...and he'd love me," she said.
Seeming satisfied with this answer, Benitsubasa opened the door and slipped into the house. I adjusted my collar. The blasted thing had gotten out of alignment all of the sudden.
I'm usually not one for charity. In this case, though, I could make an exception. After I won the Sekirei Plan and whatever vague prize came with it, I'd figure out how to remove Benitsubasa's connection to me.
She could go off and mate with whatever Ashikabi would make her happy. Whoever the hypothetical Ashikabi she'd described turned out to be, Benitsubasa would be welcome to find him. I wasn't selfish enough to insist on continued service after she'd helped me win the Plan.
And for some reason, I really hoped she would. Find happiness, I mean.
...Though if you asked me, Benitsubasa's 'ideal' Ashikabi sounded like a bit of an ass.
Chapter 8
Negotiating a multiple assassination is surprisingly tricky work.
I'd wiped out Mikogami in full view of Shin Tokyo. I'd left Mutsu - perhaps the Plan's foremost threat with the exception of Karasuba - a drooling mess. And yet, despite all that publicity, it wasn't as if I could put out a newspaper advertisement: Amoral Ashikabi Seeks Employment. Generous Pricing Scheme. Murder Optional.
Of course, if I'd been an Enforcer, I could have just used my network of previously satisfied customers to introduce me to Higa. I was no Enforcer. Nor could I walk into Higa's compound. They'd kidnap me in record time and use me as a bargaining chip to control Benitsubasa. I certainly didn't want Higa contacting me, either. I preferred to keep my base of operations invisible. (Literally).
At this impasse, Benitsubasa showed her worth. She spent hours browsing the copy of the Internet that she kept on her computer. She must have purchased her Internet recently, too, since it seemed to be an updated edition: Benitsubasa discovered that Higa would attend a black-tie charity event in three days. Our friend had presumably agreed to it before he'd become the Ashikabi of the East.
Oh, he'd bring his Sekirei, all right. But he couldn't bring all of them, and Minaka's injunction against open use of Sekirei would keep them from attacking me first.
************************************************** ********
And so, three days later, here we were.
I swirled wine in my glass. The liquid was a rich, dark purple, and reflected the light from the chandeliers dimly. Hardly up to the standards of my father's vineyards, but then, very few wines are.
Men and women spun across the dance floor. For the most part, the men wore tuxedos. None of them wore white gloves, though. The women had taken a more colorful approach - tropical songbirds fluttering through a flock of penguins. Females in excessive makeup wore, as their fancies took them, cobalt, chartreuse, rose, white, burgundy, or scarlet. Some fabrics had a nearly metallic sheen, while others were cut from duller stuff.
As for me, I'd chosen my customary blue suit/robe hybrid, for the very sensible reasons that: (1) it looked better than everybody else's apparel, and (2) it could stop bullets. I'd added a silver gorget for appearances' sake. The other guests seemed to appreciate it, at any rate - I'd been getting stares for the last ten minutes. Envy, no doubt.
Benitsubasa nodded to me from across the room.
I almost hadn't recognized her at first. For some incomprehensible reason, she'd insisted upon making her appearance that night a "surprise", and had barred me from seeing her before she was "finished". I admit that the result was unexpected. In keeping with our low profile, Benitsubasa had dyed her hair black. She had compensated, though, with a rich red dress that left her collarbones bare. I couldn't help but notice the slimness of her neck and shoulders. If she hadn't been a Sekirei, I would have even gone so far as to say that her high cheekbones and small nose - indeed, the nigh-elfin daintiness of her figure as a whole - gave her an air of elegance.
She glided over to me. I do not use the term lightly; for all her tomboyish manner when about the house, Benitsubasa shared her species' inhuman coordination. She could be very graceful when she wanted to be.
She smirked.
"Like what you see, Meriwether?"
I took a sip of my wine and considered.
"You look almost...human," I said.
Benitsubasa raised an eyebrow.
"I guess I'll take that as a compliment," she said.
"As you should."
"You don't look so bad yourself," she said. "Although you could've done without the slicked-back hair."
"If it worked for my father, it'll work for -"
And then, I noticed Higa.
He'd forsaken his usual white suit for a tuxedo, but his face hadn't changed. It was still sharp and unsmiling; rather like a stoat's, in fact, or some similar species of vermin. Higa's hair was fluffed in that artfully unkempt style that younger Japanese men seemed to favor. Even as he maintained some meaningless conversation or other, his eyes roved about the room as if he was expecting someone to jump on him.
Not that an attacker would have had an easy time. A woman walked arm-in-arm with Higa, and two more loitered a few feet away. Each scanned the room like their master. They'd dyed their hair like Benitsubasa had, but their prana signatures and tastelessly large busts gave them away.
"Well?" I said.
Benitsubasa bit her lip.
"The depressed-looking one with the muscular legs is Katsuragi," she said. "Number 86. Fighter type. Good, but I could take her without much trouble."
I pointed to the other one, a tan Sekirei with very short hair.
"And on the left?"
"She's Number 18, Ichiya. Also a fighting type. Figures, since it's not like Higa could bring Sekirei with swords or anything. Nasty teep and roundhouse kicks. Her hands suck, though. She likes fighting even more than I do," she said.
"I seem to recall you giggling when you smashed your knee into an unconscious opponent," I said.
Benitsubasa gave me a level stare.
"Even more than I do," she repeated.
"Consider me apprised of the danger."
Higa's eyes widened ever so slightly when he saw us, which suggested that he'd either recognized Benitsubasa despite her disguise, or that he'd seen me during the fight with Mikogami (which would have been bad). He seemed patient, though. Rather than head over to us, Higa drifted through a group of businessmen at a leisurely pace, exchanging pleasantries all the way.
The Sekirei with the almost-shaved head - Ichiya, Benitsubasa had called her - even stopped to dip a strawberry in the chocolate fountain. She bit deeply into it, letting the juices dribble down her lips before licking them up and smiling at me. As soon as she'd locked eyes with me, she very slowly and deliberately started sucking on the mutilated fruit. She licked the last of the chocolate off and popped it in her mouth.
I found myself staring, unable to look away. Her table manners were appalling.
"Hey," Benitsubasa said. "Snap out of it."
"But did you see that?"
Benitsubasa rolled her eyes. I shook my head and hoped that Ichiya didn't reach for the peaches next.
"Who's the Sekirei on his arm?" I said. "The one with the frameless glasses?"
Benitsubasa squinted, and she licked her lips.
"I think...I think that's whatsername. Kochou. Can't remember her number, sorry. I didn't know her well before the Plan. Brain type. She does electronic stuff and hacking."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Hacking?" I said.
"Yeah."
"She's a combat type?"
"Uh, no, she's a brain type, like I just said," said Benitsubasa.
"Then what does she hack with?"
I was certain that what I'd just said couldn't have been as stupid as the look Benitsubasa gave me seemed to suggest.
"A computer," she said.
"Isn't that a little blunt? Seems unwieldy, too. I could see hacking with a sword or an axe, but-"
"Computer hacking, you idiot!"
"Maybe if you'd called her a bludgeoner...though I suppose 'hacker' does possess a rather visceral quality, and perhaps if you had a very sharp computer screen-"
"SHE STEALS INFORMATION FROM PEOPLE'S COMPUTERS!"
Benitsubasa's semi-shout - complete with arms outstretched over her head - drew a few stares. I also a caught a mutter or two about 'that weird Matrix guy', whoever he was. Benitsubasa seemed to notice the attention, since she blushed and lowered her hands.
"So wait," I said. "Kochou's a burglar?"
Benitsubasa opened her mouth, paused, and closed it again. Finally...
"...You know what? Yeah. We'll go with that. She's a burglar."
Yet for some reason, Benitsubasa made little quotation marks in the air with her fingers.
"...So does she usually carry a crowbar and a lockpick, or-"
"Shut. Up."
Our quarry reached us moments later. He held out a hand (which I graciously deputized Benitsubasa to shake).
"First things first," I said. "I'm-"
"The Ashikabi who took out Sanada and Mikogami," Higa said.
"Correct."
"So what's on your mind?"
I gestured toward the ballroom's doors.
"Perhaps we should take our conversation somewhere a bit more private," I said.
"You know, it's a funny thing," he said. "I tracked down Sanada-Formerly-Of-The-West. He couldn't remember how he'd lost his Sekirei. Or where he'd been for the past couple days, for that matter."
Higa gave me another of those smiles that didn't reach his crafty, weaselly little eyes.
"No, I'm afraid I'll be staying right here," he said. "In public. And my Sekirei will be keeping a very close watch on you, Mister...?"
Oh, this fellow was cautious to a fault, wasn't he just? Although it was only a guess on my part, I also doubted that he'd crack under pressure. On the bright side, caution has its virtues. Loose lips, as they were wont to say during that unpleasantness in the '40s, can sink ships.
Perhaps I'd indulge in a little bluntness of my own.
"I can eliminate Minato's single numbers for you," I said.
Higa nodded.
"I know."
"I'll expect compensation."
"I know."
I reached into my coat, and Higa's Sekirei tensed. I saw Benitsubasa's own bare shoulders tightening. They reminded me of cords. The girl may not have been built like a prizefighter, but she had very little excess body fat. Everybody seemed to relax when I pulled a contract out a second or two later, though.
"My terms are these: I'll eliminate Tsukiumi and Kazehana for you. In return, you will order four of your own Sekirei to terminate each other. That will still leave you with more firepower than any likely opponent."
The tension instantly returned. Ichiya practically snarled at me. Given her slovenly display earlier, I can't say I was surprised.
Yet Higa was still smiling.
"I have a counteroffer," he said. "Kochou?"
She pulled out a tiny gray box that looked like a miniature television, except that it was flat. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. How many more, then, for the clip of film that appeared on the screen. I recognized its characters: a scythe-wielding female and her target. The screen showed my water spell in remarkable clarity.
"If you terminate two of Minato's single numbers, I may decide not to post this online," Higa said.
My fists wanted very badly to clench, preferably around Higa's throat. If he posted this thing, I doubted that I could stop him in time. Whoever published the Internet tended to release updated editions with alarming frequency.
However...
"Have you considered, Mr. Izumi, that-"
He coughed.
"Higa," he said. "My last name's Higa. Izumi's my firs-"
"Blast and confound you people and your mixed-up names! Whoever you are, it must have occurred to you that I have friends with similar talents who might want to keep them secret."
Higa nodded to the alien fighting machines flanking him.
"I'll take my chances."
"But it is a risk," I said. "Far better, I think, to make a different deal."
"Oh? And what's that?"
I pulled out another contract and hastily scratched out the terms:
In return for my help, Higa would destroy all copies of the video in his possession and promise never to reveal what he knew. And there was one other term.
Higa looked up from the contract.
"And what makes you think I can make a 'best efforts' attempt to destroy MBI's video footage, as you put it?" he said.
I caught myself smirking.
"I don't know much about technology, Mr. Higa," I said. "But I know how thoroughly people guard information when they don't want it found. You've somehow extracted some very important footage from a corporation with enough power to take over a city."
Higa looked to his Sekirei, and then back to the contract. He bounced the parchment in his hand. If Higa was as bright as he appeared, then he must have known how binding it would be. I'd have been foolish to give it to him otherwise.
"Best efforts?" he said.
"Best efforts," I said. "But destroying your own footage isn't negotiable. Everything goes, and you can't make any attempts to reveal my identity again."
"And that's only after you eliminate Tsukiumi and Kazehana?"
"My own promise is a condition precedent to your obligation, yes. Though if you release your footage before I try to fulfill the contract, you'll regret it"
"What else?"
"Benitsubasa tells me that you can access MBI's spy-satellite-camera-thingummies. Kindly provide me with intelligence about Minato's movements. I can't track him near Izumo Inn for reasons I'm not going to reveal."
"And you'll report to me-"
"I'll do no such thing," I said. "My methods and timetable are my own. I'll tell you when it's done. That's all."
After an eternity or two, Higa put pen to paper.
A wise man once told me that in a well-negotiated deal, everyone walks away unhappy. Higa would eliminate two powerful opponents, but he'd also sacrificed a prime bit of blackmail material. His attempt to delete MBI's recording might draw the corporation's attention toward him. If he was sufficiently paranoid, he might also have worried that I'd placed a spell on him, either during our meeting or as part of the signing. Well, beyond the contract itself, anyway.
As for me, I'd just agreed to help an opponent weaken his rival without getting any in-game compensation. I'd also discovered that one of my opponents wasn't as incompetent as the rest.
Not that I was particularly worried. Even if I eliminated both Tsukiumi and Kazehana, Higa would still find himself against Minato's remaining Sekirei: the young female with a green thumb, the computer expert, the brown-haired fighter, and that effeminate-looking single number with an aptitude for pyrokinesis. I wasn't entirely sure that this last had formally attached himself to Minato, but if not, he seemed well on his way.
And how did I know all this without Higa's reports?
Uzume lived with them, you see.
Indeed, in one of the Plan's many ironies, I'd only found her in the first place because I'd been monitoring Izumo House. Thus far, she'd been more valuable than my on-again, off-again surveillance. That would probably change.
After our deal had concluded, I was all for leaving. The remaining details didn't take long. We arranged a drop-off point for Higa's intelligence reports on Minato. I gave my regards to our new "partners" (note the quotation marks; they connote sarcasm) and headed for the door.
Benitsubasa, however, had other ideas.
The ink had barely dried on the contract - now tucked firmly back into my coat - when Benitsubasa took my hand and pulled me toward the dance floor. I raised an eyebrow at this, but ultimately concluded there was no harm in it.
Her breath hitched when I put my hand on her lower back and lead her through a waltz.
Whoever had taught her to dance deserved to be shot. She always seemed to move a beat too soon or too late, and my gentle nudges only seemed to elicit gasps or blushes rather than improvement. Embarrassment, perhaps, at her lack of experience. Not that I blamed her for her dancing-master's inadequacies.
Though I suspected the way she kept staring into my eyes may have contributed to her poor foot placement.
"Wh-where did you learn to do that?"
"Fifty minutes a day, three times a week, between ages six and eleven," I said. "My mother was very keen on culture. Especially when it forced me to exercise."
We slid across the floor for a while. It was strangely relaxing. They'd dimmed the chandeliers, and Benitsubasa's eyes seemed to glitter just a bit in the orange light.
************************************************** *************
She didn't meet my eyes during the majority of our cab ride home. Instead, she fiddled with the gold chain around her neck. Her fingers drew the charm back and forth across the thin links. It was hypnotic.
"So...um, are you up for some sparring tonight?" Benitsubasa said.
"Eh? Oh, that..."
After much exasperation for all concerned, Benitsubasa had abandoned her quest to turn me into the second coming of John L. Sullivan. She had not given up entirely, though. While Benitsubasa specialized in fisticuffs, she also knew a bit about knives.
We soon discovered that the interminable fencing lessons I'd taken as a boy (at my mother's insistence; I was never one for unnecessary perspiration) had rubbed off on me. I was only somewhat terrible with a knife rather than abysmal.
"All right," I said.
"...And dinner at a restaurant afterwards?" she said.
Normally I'd decline, but Benitsubasa had an MBI credit card. A meal wouldn't deplete the exchequer.
"If you like," I said.
Benitsubasa grinned from ear to ear. Whatever this restaurant was, she must have really liked the food.
"Thank you," she said.
I shrugged. Dinner wouldn't be so bad, I supposed.
Chapter 9
Our dinner had gone well, if you're wondering.
The next few days had proceeded reasonably smoothly as well. Against all odds, I'd discovered a candle of learning amidst the modern morass of Shin Tokyo.
A very dim candle, to be sure: the man in question was a dribbly little fellow with greasy hair and a tendency to append too many honorifics. The look of bliss on his face when he'd called me Lord El-Melloi (as if my father was already in his grave) had nearly driven me to impoliteness.
First generation magus, by the look of him. If that. His magecraft was crude enough that I'd tracked him down without much difficulty.
And yet, he'd owned a library. Books can absolve many failings.
Modern paper discards much of the craftsmanship that goes into a manuscript. The true connoisseur prefers vellum: translucent calfskin sheets, scraped, cleaned, bleached, and rubbed with pumice. Each page has a different character to it. One side is always smooth, the other rough from the hide's follicles after they've been scoured clean of hair. A competent magus could tell you which animal each page came from. Paper is disposable. Vellum has memories.
The man's books, as you've probably guessed, were written on vellum. Their covers smelled of old leather, of ink, of dust, and of other wonderful things. I say this without sarcasm.
My 'Jinki' research took me down some unusual paths.
One book in particular caught my interest. It told of eight golden ships. Each carried an unusual cargo. One wrecked before reaching its destination, but the remaining seven disgorged beings from some vaguely defined Otherworld; beautiful creatures who'd washed ashore in the world of humans. They took female shapes. The boldest among them enticed the local men with dances that whirled through the glades to the flicker of witchfire. In time, they bore sons.
I was reminded forcefully of the Irish creation myth, with its successive invasions. Like the People of the Hills, these creatures, too, had ultimately faded. Their blood dissipated into the mortals around them. They aged, and died.
And yet, they'd left traces for the intrepid. They'd hidden their treasures where few dared to seek. The greatest of these were jewels, which, if the rumors were true (and they seldom are), held the key to the Third True Magic: Materialization of the Soul.
They were called 'Jinki'.
The book slipped from my hands. It dropped with a dull thud, and dust swirled in the afternoon air. I scoured that library for seven more hours, but further mentions of the 'Jinki' eluded me.
At last, I returned home stymied...but not defeated. Yet.
Besides, I had other work that night.
************************************************** *************
The funny thing about minefields is that you don't notice you've stepped into one until you've gone too far.
I arrived at Izumo Inn half an hour late. Benitsubasa thwacked me lightly on the back of the head. I'd assembled our invisibility field a few days before, and Izumo Inn's landlady hadn't detected it yet. Considering her Sekirei-like prana signature and talent for killing my familiars, our targets presumably couldn't see it, either.
Izumo Inn shared many of the assumptions that seemed to undergird Japanese architecture in general (no pun intended). The roof consisted of clay tiles sloped gently upward at its rim. Load-bearing pillars held the thing up. Wooden slats ran up both floors' exterior walls, joined together like puzzle pieces, although what looked like cinderblocks covered the final few inches between the walls and the ground. The walls themselves seemed a bit more substantial than usual, though. I didn't get the impression that the building would remain standing if one knocked them down.
I questioned the intelligence of whoever had designed the fence, though. It was high, but raised a few inches off the grass, so that a curious passerby could see the inhabitants' feet.
Our target sat on the building's porch, staring at the sky. One of his Sekirei had curled up beside him. She wore a tiny pink skirt, a white gi-looking thing that barely concealed her (predictably) large breasts, and replicas of Benitsubasa's fighting gloves. The fighter-type, then. Musubi, Number 88.
Cicadas whined. Ashikabi and Sekirei stared at the moon together. It was nearly full.
Something occurred to me.
"Er, Benitsubasa?"
"What?"
"This Sekirei mating business...Mr. Sahashi has agreed to 'mate' with at least five different Sekirei, hasn't he?" I said.
"Yup."
"I imagine that jealousy might be an issue," I said.
"Yup."
I smirked. Perhaps it was the imminent danger, but I found myself returning once again to our private joke.
"How fortunate for you that I'm monogamous," I said.
"What, you mean in the sense that I'm stuck with you and there's no other Sekirei stupid enough to let you wing her? If so, then yeah. I'm very lucky you're 'monogamous'."
Benitsubasa's smile could have charmed an angry True Ancestor. I rolled my eyes. This did nothing to dissipate her expression.
"In fairness, Benitsubasa, you've...er, done your job quite well. Exemplary performance, in fact. I wouldn't have added a second Sekirei even if I'd had the opportunity."
This rather routine observation seemed to succeed where my displeased gestures had failed. Benitsubasa looked down, her hands forming a cage in front of her face. Her smile had become a tiny, fragile-looking thing.
However this girl's mind worked, I was clearly not privy to a few of its innermost mechanisms. Perhaps these occasionally incomprehensible episodes owed something to difference between Sekirei and human social norms?
"I...that is, thank you, Meriwether."
I adjusted the buttons on my coat. For a group of inanimate objects, they seemed oddly fidgety at times like these.
"Er...you're welcome, I suppose."
I kissed her - or, if you prefer, applied the Norito. We needed firepower. A Sekirei's efficiency in converting prana is a thing of wonder. Her body crackled with energy.
"And..." I said.
"...we're off," she finished.
The fighter in the pink miniskirt - Number 88, Musubi - barely had time to gasp. Benitsubasa leaped and slashed an elbow over Musubi's guard even as she continued toward Minato. A crack echoed. Musubi dropped. Unlike Benitsubasa's previous victims, though, this one actually staggered to her feet again.
My Sekirei swerved as if momentum didn't exist. In a fraction of a second, she pivoted around and swung her heel into Musubi's temple. Once again, Musubi collapsed. I noted sourly that she still had her "crest", but there was no time for that now.
"So glad to meet you in person, Mr. Sahashi."
Minato Sahashi, as I've noted elsewhere, was not an impressive specimen. He was a bit shorter than I was, with the same fluffed-but-unkempt hair that Higa had worn. Minato's clothing made him an easy target: white, long-sleeved shirts do not night camouflage make.
I grabbed him. Aside from his rather effeminate arm-flapping, he barely struggled. Benitsubasa tied him up and stuck a sock in his mouth.
We even helpfully left his Sekirei a note:
************************************************** ************
To Mr. Minato Sahashi's Sekirei, Residing At Izumo Inn, A Certain Otherwise Anonymous Kidnapper Sends Greetings With As Much Politeness As Is Credible Under The Circumstances:
We have kidnapped Minato, and are preparing to inflict grievous bodily harm unless Kazehana and Tsukiumi (Nos. 03 and 09, respectively) attack Higa's compound tonight and terminate the Sekirei they find there.
Kindest Regards.
************************************************** ************
True, it technically violated the rules of the Sekirei Plan to harm an Ashikabi. That 'technically', though, was the crux of the matter. MBI had tolerated (or overlooked) blackmail, kidnapping, and worse from Higa. My own scheme was a drop in the bucket.
...If Minato's Sekirei involved the Disciplinary Squad in the first place, that is. They wouldn't. I'd seen enough of Karasuba to know that she killed people on both sides. Minato's Sekirei wouldn't expose him to friendly fire if they could help it. And as long as Higa's 'hacker' Sekirei kept MBI's satellites blind, the Disciplinary Squad wouldn't discover my scheme on their own. Higa wouldn't have time to discover his mistake. And again, I doubted that Minato's Sekirei would tell him.
Oh, the plan had flaws, to be sure. I just hoped that the short timetable would prevent my opponents from discovering them. If they attacked Higa tonight as I'd instructed...
I dashed alongside my Sekirei through the city. Minato groaned. Benitsubasa elbowed him in the stomach.
"So explain how exactly this doesn't violate our agreement with Higa?" Benitubasa said.
Despite my burning legs, I smirked.
"I agreed to eliminate Minato's two single numbers. The contract said nothing about collateral damage to Higa. I can't think of a better way to terminate a Sekirei than to force her into the teeth of Higa's prepared defenses without a Norito...can you?"
Benitsubasa's smile matched my own.
"And if Minato's single numbers happen to take out some of Higa's Sekirei along the way..." she said.
I gave a melodramatic sniffle.
"...Regrettable, my dear Benitsubasa. Most regrettable."
She giggled (likely from the excitement, since my humor is questionable at the best of times), and I found myself laughing too. Not cackling, mind, but a staid, dignified chuckle. It was the first time I could recall that we'd shared such a moment.
************************************************** ****
My laughter faded when we entered our home.
Benitsubasa gasped when she saw the computer, and then growled. I dumped Minato on the floor.
"What is it?" I said.
"Look."
Benitsubasa pointed at the computer screen. It delivered the following monstrosity of a message, contained in a blinking box:
[HikkiPerv2]: TROLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL check this out: [meriwethergetsp0wnd-mbivid]
[HikkiPerv2]: LAWL n00b got Yomi'd
"What on Earth-"
"Matsu," Benitsubasa said. "Must be Matsu. Minato has a brain-type Sekirei of his own."
"A computer expert, you mean?"
"Yeah."
The "-mbivid" phrase was underlined and highlighted in blue, which Benitsubasa informed me meant it was a 'link'. She clicked on it.
We were treated to a short film. In crystal clarity, Yomi tore into my side with her scythe. Blood splattered. When Yomi hit me in the jaw, the film's editor had made sure to render my facial distortion in slow motion. For the second time that week, I also saw myself casting what, in retrospect, was a fairly impressive five-count water spell. Though my facial expression looked more idiotic with each viewing.
The editor had synchronized the entire film of my encounter with Yomi to Benny Hill music. My fists clenched before I mastered myself.
"Wait," said Benitsubasa. "You know who Benny Hill is?"
"Of course I know who Benny Hill is!" I snapped. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Um...no reason."
In point of fact, an acquaintance had convinced me (read: kidnapped) to watch a few videocassettes with her when I was a boy. My parents were never informed. This was just as well. They would not have been amused. (Neither was I, at the time. Mr. Hill seemed to find nudity funny).
"How does this computer thing work again?" I said.
"It's like...uh...an instant letter," Benitsubasa said. "You type a message, click 'enter', and it goes to the other person."
"So that thing with brackets represents Matsu's assumed name?"
"Basically, yeah."
"And the other name is yours?"
"Yup."
I gritted my teeth and squished into the seat beside her. She felt very warm all of the sudden. Her face had flushed, at any rate. I didn't have much experience with keyboards, but the two-finger-at-a-time style that my father had taught me on our typewriter served me well enough.
[TeamCrimsonSekirei]: Dear Impertinent Opponent, How did you get that footage? How did you get my name, for that matter? Also, your spelling and taste in British comedy are both execrable. Sincerely, Meriwether.
[HikkiPerv2]: U mad?
[TeamCrimsonSekirei]: Dear Impertinent Opponent, My associate informs me that your use of "U" is actually a sad attempt to say "you" humorously, and not further evidence of illiteracy. In any event, how did you get that footage? Sincerely, Meriwether
Matsu's next response gave me a cold feeling in my stomach.
[HikkiPerv2]: Dear Mr. Wizard (a.k.a. Meriwether Archibald El-Melloi): Matsu knows a lot about your family. A LOT. Your daddy - Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, who for some reason has an LL.M. in American tax law without a law degree - hides his information as if he's living in a 90s time warp. Matsu knows all about your family's stock of stolen IDs, social security numbers, credit cards, and laundered money in the Cayman Islands. She's tracked your money through the US and Caribbean real estate companies your mother set up. She even knows all about the ~mysteeerious~ law firm that only works for Daddy El-Melloi. Matsu also finds it interesting that your family occasionally uses some of its tax write-offs to buy industrial quantities of mercury. Oh, yeah, and the magic thing.
Benitsubasa and I stared for several seconds.
"Well...this could be bad," I said. "Also, she refers to herself in the third person."
[HikkiPerv2]: So here's the deal, Mr. Wizard. U will give us Minato (notice the bad spelling, O NOES!), and we won't publish any of this stuff on teh internetz. De~eal?
I realized that I'd been grinding my teeth in a rather undignified manner. Nor had my headache improved.
Benitsubasa bit her lip.
"Maybe...I mean, I don't like giving up, but if this is going to hurt your family-"
"No," I said. "We're not giving up. I have a contract with Higa."
The consequences of backing out on said agreement were...disturbing. I grabbed the keyboard and started typing.
[TeamCrimsonSekirei]: Matsu, is it? I am finished playing with you. Here is my revised offer. You will attack Higa tonight as we ordered, or we'll kill Minato. If you release any of that information, we'll still kill Minato, but I'll HARVEST THE FRAGMENTS OF HIS SOUL INTO AN ANIMAL FAMILIAR. Do I make myself clear?
A long silence followed. The cursor blinked.
Blinked.
Blinked.
Blinked.
[HikkiPerv2]: This is Kazehana. Number 03. We'll do what you say if you let Minato go. And once this 'Sekirei Plan' is over, I intend to personally splatter you across half of Shin Tokyo.
[TeamCrimsonSekirei]: Pleasure doing business with you.
The string of expletives that followed added nothing to the substance of the conversation, so we turned the computer off.
************************************************** *************
Minato shuddered on the floor, his eyes bulging. I spared him a glance. To his credit, he met my eyes without looking away.
"Oh, stop cowering. I probably wouldn't kill you anyway," I said. "Too much trouble."
I sighed and forced my shoulders to loosen. The sofa seemed a good place to lie down, so I did. I realized that I was shaking again. As I tried to fight down a sensation of nausea, I felt a delicate pair of hands kneading my neck and back.
"Eh? Oh, it's you..."
Benitsubasa leaned next to me. Her breaths felt warm and slightly moist on my earlobe.
"Remember how you wanted to 'research' my Norito?" she said.
I had, in fact, proposed tracking Benitsubasa's prana flows during Noritos several weeks ago. Benitsubasa had refused on the grounds that it would be too "clinical", whatever that had meant.
"...Er...yes..."
"Well, I'm in the mood now, Meriwether."
I rubbed my forehead and looked up. Yes, she seemed serious. I waved my hand toward the bound figure on the chair.
"We just kidnapped another Ashikabi and knocked his Sekirei unconscious. I hardly see-"
Benitsubasa grinned as her breaths became faster.
"That's exactly why I'm in the mood."
I stopped and considered. As per usual, I hadn't the foggiest idea why she'd chosen this particular moment for Norito research, her unhelpful 'explanation' notwithstanding. On the other hand, this might be my only opportunity to study her Norito's finer workings. Whatever Benitsubasa's objections to "clinical" research in the past (and really, what research wasn't clinical?), she seemed to have waived them for the night. I'd be a fool to pass up the opportunity.
Besides, the house was invisible. Even if intruders could see it, my bounded fields would warn me if they entered.
"Well, if you insist," I said. "I'll be in the workshop presently. You know the way in, I trust?"
Benitsubasa's head bounced up and down like one of those bobble-headed dolls. She practically skipped upstairs.
"...And what on earth was that about?" I wondered aloud.
Minato stared at me, his mouth open. Partly because of the sock, but the point stands. It was an expression somewhat akin to an astronomer who had just discovered that the moon was, in fact, made of green cheese. (It's actually made of eldritch malevolence, but that's neither here nor there).
I pulled the sock out of his mouth.
"Well, what is it?" I said.
"Y'know, I live with a bunch of scantily dressed alien women," he said.
"So I've noticed."
"They grope me. They flash me. One of them tried to jump me in the bath. They mud-wrestle each other in bikinis while I watch...And despite all that, I didn't realize that 'Winging' was a mating ritual for at least month. But you know something?"
I rolled my eyes.
"No, Mr. Sahashi. Please enlighten me."
"Somehow, I'm still less oblivious than you."
Naturally, I took umbrage at the insult, but another, weightier matter practically screamed for clarification.
"Wait, so you allow your Sekirei to play in the mud? In public?"
Minato leaned back.
"Um...forget I said anything."
I began to wonder whether I should do a favor for Minato's Sekirei and kill him anyway. From what he'd described, Izumo House sounded like an unhygienic cross between a sideshow attraction and a brothel.
And this with a Sekirei in the house who couldn't have been more than twelve. Corruption of minors was the least of it.
"Does this country even have habitability codes?" I said.
"Could you stick the sock back in my mouth now, please?"
As soon as I concluded my business with Kazehana and Tsukiumi, the local health inspectors were going to be paying a visit to Maison Izumo.
With these pleasant thoughts of urban renewal dancing in my head, I trudged up the steps. More research. At last, something sane after the maelstrom of topsy-turvydom that the Sekirei Plan had unleashed into my life. I opened the door to my workshop.
Benitsubasa grabbed my collar and practically yanked me inside.
Chapter 10
I had been applying Noritos to Benitsubasa for the previous fifteen minutes, and was growing increasingly disturbed by the results.
Benitsubasa lay on a padded table. Fortunately, she'd at least had the foresight to dress in a T-shirt and cotton shorts. I say this because she was covered in sweat, so much so that her hair stuck to her forehead. Her face was a luminescent red. I ran my hand across her legs, tracing the prana flows. The skin had goosebumps.
This called for another note.
Subject Sekirei appears to be experiencing an allergic reaction to prolonged Norito exposure. Skin is flushed. Breathing shallow. Prana flows seem to center around the Sekirei "crest" on the back of Subject's neck.
I kissed her again. The Norito had barely concluded when Benitsubasa grabbed the back of my head and shoved her tongue down my throat. It was slippery, warm, and more than a little unnerving. She moaned. With some difficulty, I managed to pry her off. Her eyes had taken a dazed, glassy appearance.
Subject Sekirei's tongue appears to have lost fine motor control. Pupils dilated. Prana flows continue to center on the crest. Vocalizations suggest discomfort.
I turned her over and lifted her T-shirt, tracing the prana across her back. Benitsubasa was whimpering now.
Vocalizations indicate that Subject's discomfort levels have increased. Will monitor closely. Do not wish harm to come to subject.
"Er, Bentisubasa, are you alrigh-Urk!"
She grabbed me. Once again, I felt her tongue probing my mouth. Breaking away proved difficult. Her hands were gripping my hips, presumably to stabilize herself. She squirmed and writhed. Somehow, I twisted my arm toward the counter and grabbed my notebook. I began scribbling furiously over her shoulder.
In the Subject's zeal for assisting me with my research, I fear that she has taken one Norito too many. Vocalizations have reached a fevered pitch. She has locked lips with me. Body temperature very high. Skin red. Breathing rate - OH NO OH NO OH NO - She's spasming - she may have gone into seizures - why am I still writing - I need to do some-
I peeled myself off Benitsubasa's lips and chanted a quick Aria. Fortunately, the panic in my voice did not significantly affect the spell.
Fifty gallons of water drenched us.
"EEEEEK!"
When I'd dried my eyes, I was greeted by the sight of Benitsubasa glaring at me. Her soaked T-shirt and shorts clung to her body. Water dripped from her hair. Her teeth were chattering. I congratulated myself on my choice of ice water, since it seemed to have brought her back to her senses.
She was all right, then. I released the breath I'd been holding.
"M-m-m-mERIWETHER! Wh-what d-d-did y-you d-DO?"
I detected an undertone of hostility.
"You were clearly suffering from some sort of severe allergic reaction, so I felt that the-"
CRASH!
It took me a moment to realize that Benitsubasa had just lobbed my tea mug at the wall.
"YOU are the stupidest man on EARTH, and I hope you DIE ALONE!"
"Also, your Norito overdose appears to have induced increased levels of aggression-"
Benitsubasa's scream of rage convinced me that perhaps she was best left alone until the effects wore off. I ran for the door and closed it behind me. As I descended the stairs, I tried to ignore the sound of tearing metal and broken glass issuing from my workshop.
I sank into the living room's sofa again. Minato was staring at me with a look I couldn't quite place.
He spat out his gag.
"Um, Meriwether?"
"What?" I said.
"You grew up pretty, um, sheltered, didn't you?"
"I dissected my first cadaver at five."
"That's...not what I meant."
I put the gag back into Minato's mouth.
************************************************** ***************
I'd instructed Minato's Sekirei not to target Higa's hacker, since I still needed her to delete MBI's files after I "fulfilled" my end of the pact with Higa. The rest were fair game.
Benitsubasa had booted up the computer again so that our new allies could send us updates. She'd also changed back into her black shorts and fighting top. Her hair was still wet, though, and she shot me glares from time to time.
One other detail demanded my attention before the festivities began.
I knew relatively little about Japan, and even less about its legacy of obscure encounters with inhuman races. The Magus Killer's daughter knew more. We were even on speaking terms.
************************************************** ************************
Dear Ilyasviel,
My apologies for the informality, but time is short. How much do you know the 'Jinki'? I'm abroad, you see. I searched a first-generation magus's library and found a heavily romanticized account, but couldn't discover anything else.
These things can supposedly manifest the Third Magic, if that helps.
Sincerely,
Meriwether Archibald, El-Melloi Heir Apparent.
************************************************** ************
A white-bellied bird with black feathers on its skull and an orange, narrow beak hopped onto my shoulder. Unlike most of my familiars, I'd brought him specially from the Clock Tower. Oh, I grant you that he wasn't a particularly large specimen compared to the hawks, owls, and ravens that many magi favor, but one cannot find a better messenger than the Common Tern. Few birds can migrate thousands of miles. Fewer still can sleep on the wing. And this without magecraft enhancements, mind.
I rolled the message up and stuffed it into a metal satchel on the bird's neck. My familiar gave its distinctive "tarr" call and preened while I plied it with scraps of uncooked bacon. It had a long trip, after all.
"Take this to the Einzbern castle," I said. "The bounded fields should recognize my prana signature and let you through."
It fluffed its feathers a few times, and then took off.
I closed my eyes and focused on my other familiars. Minato's Sekirei were close to Higa now.
My familiars first noticed Minato's Sekirei as lanky shadows cast by streetlamps. I'm told that Japanese aesthetes favor minor flaws to highlight beauty: withered cherry blossoms alongside fresh ones, or clouds obscuring a starry sky. If so, then that night's very perfection marred itself. The moon floated in a sky free of clouds.
Higa's compound rose from the concrete courtyard. Unobstructed, the moonlight glinted on black glass.
The Sekirei breathed quickly, speaking in whispers. I counted four:
Homura, the suspiciously feminine-looking male, had dressed in a long black coat and a black mask that covered his mouth. This "disguise" did not cover his white hair, however. Flames flickered on his fingertips. He was a single number, Zero-Six if recollection served. How this would translate into combat was another matter, though, since I was unsure whether Minato had winged him. If not, his talents wouldn't manifest fully.
Beside him stood Kazehana. She, too, was a single number. Like the Sekirei I'd poisoned at Mikogami's - and unlike Homura, incidentally - she'd seen real combat. Or so Benitsubasa informed me. Kazehana ran a hand through her long black hair, but omitted the fidgets and jitters that afflicted the others. She wore a purple miniskirt and open-chested dress that must have repelled the cold about as well as a nylon napkin. For all that, though, she didn't shiver. Perhaps the nigh-tumorous mammary growths on her chest provided extra insulation. A bell around her ankle danced, but did not chime. She was a wind user, so I suppose this made sense.
Tsukiumi, Minato's second (or third) single number, had apparently taken Kazehana's depraved taste in clothing as a challenge rather than the assault on public morality that it so clearly was. Her dress vaguely resembled a French maid's uniform, except that it covered less than most swimsuits. Every breeze revealed her underwear. And her bust - yes, you knew I was coming to that, didn't you? - must have avoided spilling out of its inadequate coverings from sheer grim willpower. She also seemed to have a penchant for speaking Shakespearean English, and poorly.
Musubi I've already described elsewhere. Aside from the swollen purple mass on her cheek from Benitsubasa's elbow, her appearance had not changed.
On the bright side, they'd at least shown the decency to leave the youngest plant Sekirei behind. Doubtless they'd stuck her in a mud puddle somewhere with a bikini and a packet of cigarettes.
I am informed, from time to time, that I seem to delight in aggravating people. Whatever the truth of the matter subjectively, that night was no exception.
I spoke to Tsukiumi through my (slightly modified) familiar. They already knew about them, anyway. Well, Matsu and Kazehana did.
"You know, as a water user myself, I'm rather looking forward to seeing you fight," I said.
Tsukiumi started. She pointed at my pigeon with a somewhat unsteady hand, her mouth open. Finally, though, her eyes narrowed.
"Oh, yes," I said. "And I can speak through animals, too."
Tsukiumi tossed her hair back and crossed her arms under her chest. She was blonde, and possessed a combination of volume and waviness that might have been attractive save for her questionable choice in wardrobe. Considering my familiar's size, Tsukiumi found it a simple matter to look down her dainty nose at me.
"Thou art a foul and treacherous Ashikabi, and thy water spell against Yomi was but a child's trifle, monkey."
"'You' and 'your'," I said.
"What didst thou say?"
"'You' and 'your' are the appropriate pronouns when addressing a loathed adversary of superior social rank," I said. " 'Thou' and 'thy' are actually informal. Which, incidentally, is why nobody could stand the early Quakers. In any case, I'll thank you not to butcher Queen Bess's English any further."
Tsukiumi's jaw dropped. Her arms stiffened at her sides and balled into fists.
"Thy insolence is matched only by thy-"
"'Your' insolence."
"But-"
"Informal."
"But they taught me-"
"Incorrectly, clearly."
"How dare you-"
"Perfect."
Alas, a crash of glass interrupted this nascent Elizabethan idyll before it could proceed to Stratfordians versus Marlovians.
************************************************** *********************
Kazehana's whirlwind tore off the sides of Higa's compound. Shards scattered on concrete. Metal beams groaned, and then screamed. Minato's Sekirei flew into the graps, and I knew better than to send my familiars after them.
Thus, I can only recount the battle peripherally, as my observations were necessarily limited. My familiars heard from within that building the clash of metal, the crack of Sai's whips, and the angry whine of Oriha's bladed discs. Each fell silent in turn. Crunches, cracks and crumbling attested to inhumanly strong bodies colliding with architecture.
A column of flame blasted from the seventeenth story. All around it, molten glass ran down the walls. One of the floors flooded. Water poured from the open side, and then , unable to sate itself, broke the remaining glass with a series of explosive plinks.
And finally, the sounds of battle dimmed. I waited.
Kazehana staggered out.
She was biting her lip, and I noted a long line of moisture glistening on her side. Every time she leaned on her right leg, she hesitated. Her inhalations when she placed weight on the foot were both sharp and suppressed.
She looked at my familiar.
"We've done your dirty work. Let my Ashikabi go."
"Where are Minato's other Sekirei?" I said.
Her jaw tightened.
"Where do you think they are?"
I nodded, and unconsciously transmitted the gesture to the bird as well. Wonderful. And yet...
"I've changed the deal," I said. "I'm afraid our bargaining positions haven't changed. I still have your Ashikabi. Now then, Kazehana...I've made a deal with Higa for your termination. Be so good as to eliminate yourself for me, or Minato dies."
A moment passed. I couldn't make out much in the gloom, but she seemed to be shaking. And not, I suspected, with fear. The creature before me no longer resembled the harlot who had wobbled home from the bars with Uzume at three in the morning. Her prana flared.
It isn't often that I find myself at a loss, let alone overwhelmed. Yet that surge of energy so close to my familiar felt like an electric shock. The darkness seemed to thicken around her in an effect that reminded me of nothing so much as a bounded field. Wind screamed through the building's torn framework. The air had become a frigid blast.
My familiar felt a nick on its neck. And another. Frozen air bit its skin, tore its feathers.
GET OUT! GET OUT!
Yet despite the pain, despite the way that familiar contracts were supposed to work, my consciousness felt mired in mud. Impossibly, Kazehana's prana signature continued to expand. My mind stayed riveted within my familiar.
Kazehana's voice carried over the wind's howl.
"I didn't want to take this risk," she said. "I really didn't. But you...you've left me no choice, Lord El-Melloi. We're contacting the Disciplinary Squad. And if you hurt Minato, you'd better be looking forward to weeks of agony from Karasuba. Minato's mother is one of her supervisors."
"...Wait, what?"
Pain lanced through every nerve. Kazehana's winds tore my familiar joint from joint. Its vision went black.
The pain remained.
"AAAAGH!"
I must have been writhing around on the floor for a while before I noticed Benitsubasa's arms around me. The chair had overturned. We were rocking back and forth. Or rather, she was rocking me.
Strange to say, Benitsubasa's embrace reminded me of my mother, somehow. As a boy, I'd broken into my father's workshop. Something unwholesome had noticed me, and I'd awakened hours later in my mother's arms. I still don't remember what exactly happened in that workshop (and my parents never told me), but the aftermath has stayed with me all my life. Cozy, gentle arms.
She was not an entirely cold woman, my mother.
"B-Benitsubasa...?"
"Shhh...it's okay..."
Something blinked out of my mind, like a word on the tip of your tongue that you can't quite remember. I felt it again. And again.
I stretched out my consciousness to my familiars, only to find blank space. And the line of inoperative familiars lead up to...
"Norito," I said. "Quickly."
Benitsubasa must have seen the look on my face, since I felt her tense. We kissed. Light wings flared from her back. I shook my arms, hoping that the remaining stiffness would flush itself out before-
How had they figured it out so quickly? Unless they were killing every bird in their path, I didn't see...
...More importantly, how had they found me?
The far wall exploded. Flames incinerated wood and melted stone. They crawled up the mantelpiece like fingers, caressing it into charcoal and molten goop. Yet they curved away from our prisoner. My robe fluttered as oxygen rushed in to feed the fire.
A spindly silhouette stood at the center of the inferno.
It walked slowly, head tilted up. Poised. Collected. Its hands rested in the pockets of a long coat. The figure's posture seemed almost feminine. Indeed, if not for Kazehana's previous assurance that he'd perished against Higa, I could have sworn that this fire-wielding, black-garbed dandy looked exactly like Homura.
"Benitsubasa, grab Minato. We have trouble."
Kazehana's miniature tornado only served to emphasize this point when it tore off the chimney. But by then, we were already scrambling for my workshop.
Chapter 11
"What's going on?"
I admit that Benitsubasa's high-pitched question had been running through my mind as well. Somehow, Homura had evaded my notice after his battle with Higa. But beyond that...
A gout of flame enveloped the stairs. I reinforced my legs and jumped to the second floor. My body dangled there for a moment before I levered myself up.
First possibility: Matsu had somehow checked her "spy satellites" for archival footage of houses that had vanished overnight. In my defense, I hadn't considered science fiction when planning my (rudimentary) field.
A fire cloud chased me through the hall. Homura followed on its heels. I pointed through the torn-out wall at Kazehana.
"Hold her off!"
Benitsubasa nodded.
She set her jaw and raced at Kazehana, who was waiting for her in the yard. Without hesitation. Without an apparent survival instinct. Without even the slightest doubt that her Ashikabi - the same Ashikabi who had just provoked an attack by Minato's two Single Numbers - might not know what he was doing.
...So very, very unlike unlike magi, these Sekirei.
I veered around the corner and into my lab. Homura followed, an emaciated-looking figure garbed in black. A wraith surrounded by a halo of fire.
Second possibility: Matsu could somehow track people through their connections to the Internet.
Without even chanting an Aria, Homura unleashed a burning cloud that Cornelius Alba would have admired. Glass jars melted and shattered. I covered my face. My cloak's fabric barely withstood the ensuing inferno.
One of the jars exploded. Sizzling yellow globs steamed on Homura's clothing. And then, they began eating through it.
"AAaah!"
He tore off his coat. The Liquor Alkahest had bored a hole roughly the width of a penny into his skin. I could see his muscles move and re-knit. He growled and shot a fourth blast. I ducked behind a table. Another explosion shook the room.
I pointed at the prominent, obvious sign on the door:
WARNING - DANGEROUS CHEMICALS.
"Can't you READ?" I shouted.
The ignoramus paused for only a moment. At least this time, he used a narrow jet instead of a cloud.
"Flame snake!"
"Drink twice, and the river changes."
A watery shield appeared before me. It vanished just as quickly. Steam scalded by face, but it had served its purpose. I'd already rolled away. I poured prana into a healing spell. My face itched from the combination of sweat, soot, and rebuilding skin.
Smoke clogged my throat and stung my eyes.
Fire scorched the floor where I'd been a moment ago. Sparks wriggled across the woodgrains like worms. I ducked behind another table. Homura roasted it. I chanted an Aria. A gust of wind sent the burning table flying at Homura. It caught him in the stomach, and he thudded against the wall.
When he looked up again, I noticed that his mask had come off. This was not an improvement, since it revealed snarling lips.
Hypothesis: Homura was as vulnerable to his own fire as anybody else.
I smirked. The gesture paid off; Homura shot flames at my head. It was fast, but sputtered a bit.
Sailor, Traveler, and Miller
Weather's Messenger, Cloud's Shepherd
My circuits burned. Not the most warlike of Arias, but the wind spell did its work. A gust of air swept through the room. Homura's fire blew back into his face like cigarette smoke on a windy day. And yet there he was, untouched. The fire swerved around him.
Hypothesis: Not confirmed.
FWOOSH!
I reinforced my body and pulled my coat over my face. It still hurt. Excruciatingly. Imagine yourself trapped in a steel cylinder in a desert during midday. I screamed. Charred pieces of my coat dropped off. Some of them peeled scraps of skin off with them.
I crawled for the cabinet. My fingers closed around a bottle. They were almost shaking too hard to unstopper it, but I managed somehow.
I hacked. Soot and blood mixed with saliva.
Golden liquid oozed from the bottle. A stain spread on the floor, and became a puddle. It bubbled. A mouth formed. Its smile revealed fangs.
"Seek," I whispered.
It peeled itself off the floor with a wet slorp and flew at Homura. He froze and stared. Almost long enough.
Almost.
With a hiss, the liquid sizzled and became golden steam. Yet this did not dissipate its momentum. Homura fell back, clutching his eyes. Red sores spread across his face. I staggered to my feet and grabbed another bottle.
"Try putting this out."
I tossed the glass and turned away.
It broke. Light filled the workshop, like burning phosphorous. The vapor flared into white fire. I choked as the blaze sucked the remaining air out of the room, leaving my lungs empty. Wind howled.
The moment passed. I opened my eyes.
Homura stood before me scarred and smoking. But he stood nonetheless. Reflections danced in his eyes.
A blazing orb collected in his hand. The air around it distorted and warped with the haze. Anything that hadn't been burning already now ignited. I found myself pouring my last reserves of prana into a combination of wind, water, and healing spells to resist the second-hand heat. Never mind deflecting the thing.
I dropped my shield. Every nerve in my body felt like I'd thrown myself on a bonfire, but I needed the prana.
"Shatter."
Aside from the phial in my pocket, the remaining containers - at least, those that hadn't become molten - smashed into glittering powder. Some of the fragments must have cut Homura, since the orb flickered for a moment. A happy side effect, but not my main purpose.
"Deconstruct."
Substances solid, liquid and gaseous rushed to comply. Green fluid crawled up the pillars, devouring as it went. Black sludge ignited on the walls. Grayish, dull pellets rolled through a hole in the floor and headed for the foundation. A series of bangs rattled the house.
Homura's eyes widened.
I reinforced my legs and crashed through the window. The house shuddered, and then it collapsed. My home crumbled in a landslide of dust, fire, and rubble.
**************************************************
I stood and watched for perhaps half a minute, but only heard crackling and the shifting of wreckage. I sank to my knees, wheezed, and vomited.
I must have knelt there for another minute at least, retching my guts out as I tried to cough up the smoke (and who knows what other fumes) from my lungs. My body shuddered with each empty expectoration. My circuits were almost depleted. Everything felt hollow, empty, and sandpapered.
I heard sobs coming from somewhere. It took a moment to realize that they were coming from me whenever I exhaled.
Half my skin seemed like it had been cooked. I looked at my hand, and saw burn scars and pus. Even the comparatively untouched patches felt a few orders of magnitude beyond my worst sunburn. (A sunburn so bad, I might add, that I'd not gone to the beach since). My robe smoked. It must have absorbed the brunt of the fire. Soot covered it, and whatever hadn't blackened was burned off.
Homura emerged from the rubble.
He stumbled, but I doubted he'd take long to recover.
I am not particularly proud to note that my first instinct was to lie down and let him kill me, but there it is. I tried to croak "go ahead", and ended up with a gurgle. Had I been a philosopher, I might have laughed at the situation's absurdity. Alas, philosophers do not often find themselves half-dead on battlefields. Nor, I suspect, would many remain philosophical under those circumstances.
That was when I saw Benitsubasa.
Sekirei, it has always seemed to me, share human weaknesses only in small proportions. Whatever Benitsubasa might opine on the matter, they have often reminded me of nothing so much as young adults. 'Teenagers', if you prefer.
I do not refer solely to the hormonal imbalance. The distortion goes deeper: a certain idealism, a lack of proportion; the young person's sense of indestructibility. Above all, absolute conviction. Even in humans, confidence dances a fine minuet between naivete and arrogance. The Sekirei have no need for either word, since their identity as a species subsumes both.
Nor do they need a word for loyalty.
Benitsubasa fought an adversary who hovered twenty feet above her. Every charge met with a whirlwind. Benitsubasa moved in a pink blur. And yet. She leaped, and Kazehana dodged each time. Turf flew from the ground in chunks, as if torn by fast-moving caterpillar treads.
The wind hurled Benitsubasa into a tree. Its trunk cracked. Leaves fluttered to the ground, casting shadows that looked like black butterflies. Benitsubasa wiped the blood from her mouth and launched herself forward again.
Whips of wind sliced furrows in the ground. Half of Benitsubasa's jumps aborted before they began as she had to dance aside. The other half just missed. One of Kazehanasa's wind razors opened Benitsubasa's cheek. My Sekirei kept going. More blood dripped.
I caught the briefest pause. Hesitation. I wondered what it was, and then realized that she'd seen me.
"Run, Meriwether!"
Hold her off, I'd said earlier. And that little fool was going to sacrifice herself for me.
Stupid. Incredibly stupid. It didn't make sense. Just let Kazehana terminate you, and wait until the Sekirei Plan ends. Forget your Ashikabi. They'll revive you afterward.
But no. Instead, Benitsubasa had chosen to annoy a woman who was clearly out for blood, risking a Level 5 termination in the process. And for what? Perhaps - just perhaps - I could understand doing it for love. But this?
A biological imperative to protect one's Ashikabi?
The stupid girl didn't even like me very much.
Childishly, perhaps, I found the unfairness troubling. And for some reason, I noted that I'd developed a more than ordinary hatred for the purple harlot cutting Benitsubasa to ribbons.
I attribute what came next to sheer contrariness stemming from my impending death. There was no bravery in the act. Definitely no foresight.
I forced the last prana through my circuits with one order: Heal. And then, long before the repair process had concluded, I dashed at a certain young man who sat on my lawn clad in jeans, a long white shirt, and socks. And I did it without reinforcement.
I am not a prizefighter by either inclination or training, Benitsubasa's attempts notwithstanding.
Consequently, my collision with Minato scraped my robe across peeling skin, sending me into fresh agony. Minato flopped over, with me uppermost. I grabbed his neck and plunged the other into my coat, fumbling for my dagger.
And then, Minato did the first masculine thing I'd ever observed from him: he punched me in the face.
Admittedly, this statement comes with a few qualifiers. It was more of a slap than a punch. His disturbingly long fingernails did most of the damage. He yelped ouch at almost the same moment that I did. Nor did his rubbing his hand afterward escape my notice.
And yet, for all that, it stung. My ear whistled a bit, and I felt a sense of vertigo. Just enough that he shoved me away.
"Get off of me!" he said.
I grabbed his shirt.
"Oh, I don't think so."
We rolled onto the grass in a tangle. Adrenaline that I didn't know I still possessed pumped through my body for one final task.
Minato bit my finger. I retaliated by seizing a healthy portion of that unkempt, slovenly mop of his and pulling for all I was worth. Minato kneed me in the groin (well, it was more of a nudge, but it hurt a bit). I tweaked his nose. He slapped me again. I poked him in the eye.
This state of affairs continued until I'd managed to retrieve my knife and put it to his throat.
My hand must have been shaking harder than I'd initially believed, since the tip drew a zigzag of blood on his neck. It resembled a particularly vicious shaving cut.
I looked at Homura. He'd almost arrived at my position by now, his hand open and aimed at me. Fire crackled in his palm. I noted with some satisfaction that he was limping.
I wheezed.
"Pull...Kazehana...'way...fr'm...Benits'a...or...k ill...Min-urk!"
I leaned forward and coughed, making sure to keep the knife at Minato's throat. He flinched. As if I cared. Phlegm dripped from my nose onto his shirt.
Homura seemed to have divined the gist of it, though. He called to Kazehana. The winds' howling stopped, and I realized for the first time that Tsukiumi and Musubi must really have been terminated. There was no way that they would have avoided this battle.
"So now what?" Homura said.
"Now? Everybody stops fighting, and MBI gets its bone."
************************************************** ***
We all turned. Or, rather, Kazehana and Homura turned. Benitsubasa just stood there, wavering like a drunk sea captain. I stayed close to Minato.
Regardless, we all saw Karasuba. She wore the same miniskirt and stockings that I'd noticed earlier, but her companions did not share her ensemble. The one on the right I knew. I may not have seen Haihane before that moment, but Benitsubasa's previous description - "a blue-haired Sekirei swaddled in bandages with knives on her fingers "- narrowed the field somewhat. She nodded to Benitsubasa, who did not reciprocate.
The other I couldn't place. She had closed her (yes, you know what's coming, don't you?) dress's overflowing bustline with chains. Had it not been for my transformation into barbecued meat, I might have even commented on the impropriety of it all. As it was, I spewed again on Minato instead.
Karasuba's sleepy eyes may not have widened, but her voice's lilt carried the sentiment just the same. And she was grinning, confound her.
"Well, well, Merry. I'll say this much: You sure know how to host a party..."
Her voice hardened.
"Let Minato up."
Benitsubasa wouldn't have lasted a moment once Minato was released, so I stayed right where I was. I gestured at my Sekirei. Karasuba's sword sheath clicked as she flicked open the latch. Evidently, I'd miscalculated. So...wait to die, then.
She paused, though.
"The Director wishes to remind all parties that there must be no...unpleasantness between Ashikabis. I recommend -" her prana flared, "- that everyone retire for the night."
Mutters of agreement.
I released my hold on Minato and dropped face-first into the grass. He rolled me off of him. I didn't complain.
Karasuba's smile broadened.
"Naturally, MBI's recovery teams intend to be very helpful in...restoring...your accommodations, Mr. El-Melloi."
As if on cue, I heard the thrum of helicopters approaching. Black, awkward things like obese wasps.
At another time, I might have fretted about my workshop - what remained of it, anyway - falling into the hands of a corporation that had already stolen and reversed-engineered Sekirei technology. I might have worried that this corporation just might have the power to defend itself against the Clock Tower, not to mention connections to spare. I might even have reflected that I was probably going to be dead soon. If the Plan didn't kill me, Lady Barthomeloi would.
Indeed, a whole host of thoughts might have occurred to me as I watched the burning wreckage of my former home: my chemicals were gone, save for the phial of poison in my coat. My familiars were gone. My notes were gone. My archive of letters to my father were gone. My books about magecraft...would probably survive the fire, so MBI would get them. I had no base of operations. Once Karasuba's protection evaporated in a day or two, Minato's Sekirei could strike at will through Shin Tokyo. Matsu and Higa could both track me with spy satellites. And so on.
But at that moment, only two thoughts percolated through my consciousness.
Point the first: Benitsubasa was alive and safe for now.
Point the second: I needed a nap.
A few seconds later, I sank into the lawn and tried to take the second observation to heart.
(It didn't work.)
Chapter 12
Benitsubasa and I sat on the side of the road, leaning against each other. We'd stayed in roughly this position for the past several hours. Daylight from the rising sun prickled my eyes. Police sirens whined.
MBI's people had already set up a cordon of yellow plastic around my former home. Smoke still rose from the pile of black-and-gray ash; my chemicals had been quite thorough. Water blasted from hoses in a continuous fwooshing sound that made little impression on the remaining flames.
Minato sat a short distance away, his Sekirei on either side of him. The other denizens of Izumo House seemed to have joined him. The blonde plant girl gave me an angry fuuurgh! when I looked at her (which, considering my intention to notify child services of her Ashikabi's lifestyle choices, did not bother me overmuch). I met Uzume's eyes only briefly, sparing her a fractional nod. She returned it, but scowled all the same.
My stomach growled. I'd been dedicating every bit of spare prana to healing, but conventional sustenance was another matter. Benitsubasa, with the hardihood typical of her species, had recuperated a while ago. She'd insisted, however, on staying by my side rather than picking up breakfast. No matter. We would be leaving soon enough.
"Ugh," said Benitsubasa.
"I concur."
MBI's helicopters had disgorged wave after wave of men in what appeared to be garbage bags. Benitsubasa called them 'hazmat suits'.
I admit that I grinned a bit when a puddle of my leftover Black Substance fried one of them.
Among the bystanders, I noticed a girl in a white shirt. She wore a dark red tie with a design that resembled the Norwegian flag. Like everyone else in this backwater country, she'd apparently eschewed a dress - or even pants - for a miniskirt. Her oversized leather belt didn't improve matters.
A white-haired boy - or girl; I really couldn't tell - toddled alongside her. One could, perhaps, forgive me for my confusion. The boy (?) was wearing short-shorts and what appeared to be a woman's blouse. (You may rest assured that I'm not making this up as I go along. Honestly.) I caught a Sekirei prana signature from him.
...And of course, the girl was stomping over to me.
"YOU KIDNAPPED MY BIG BROTHER MINATO!"
So...apparently, the younger Sahashi sibling had acquired a Sekirei of her own. Somewhere. Perhaps Kazehana hadn't been lying when she'd said that Minato's mother held an important post at MBI. Nepotism, no doubt.
"I also poked him in the eyes, tweaked his nose, and pulled his hair," I said.
"...Wow, you fight like a girl. Anyways..."
The girl posed as if she was going to deliver an oration to the Roman senate. Her head swooped toward her Sekirei, a mad gleam in her eyes.
"Time for battle!"
The Sekirei tugged her sleeve.
"Um, Mistress, I'm not sure-"
"Sic 'em, Shiina!"
The Sekirei - Shiina, I supposed - shrugged, and a void grew around him. It evoked many unpleasant sensations, but I suppose I can describe it most accurately as a bounded field composed of death, decay, and misery.
I really didn't have time for this.
"Soon, you'll learn the errors of your ways!" the girl said. "Shiina's gonna defeat your Sekirei, and then I'll inflict righteous vengeance on you! Nightmares of schoolgirls in combat boots will haunt you for a lifetime afterward..."
I chanted an aria under my breath and prepared my mental manipulation spell. The girl seemed more than ordinarily suggestible, and I had just enough prana.
"...You'll wince in sympathy every time some other guy gets kicked you-know-where! After Shiina punishes your Sekirei, you'll blubber there like a little kid while I stand over you, impervious to your pleas! You'll be like, 'Oh, no, please Miss Gorgeous and Brainy Schoolgirl Ashikabi, please don't kick me in the nuts!' and I'll be like, 'Bwahaha! Too late evil wizard! Prepare to meet your fate!'. And then you'll be like-"
"You believe you're a duck."
The irritating girl squatted down and waddled back to her Sekirei. Quacking followed.
I sighed.
"All right, Benitsubasa," I said. "Time to go."
We headed up the street. It was going to be a long trip.
"But-" said the Sekirei.
I looked over my shoulder.
"Just feed her breadcrumbs and wait a few days."
************************************************** *****
We walked for a while.
Our path took us through a series of blocks with pink and yellow signs draped across the faces of their buildings. Most were written in that collection of scratches and tic-tac-toe boards that the Japanese optimistically call writing. The few Western words only underlined the place's strangeness. "Duty Free Shop" particularly stands out in my memory. And they'd ruined the capitalization on "GiGO" beyond all hope of salvage. Whatever a 'gigo' was. Perhaps they'd meant 'giggle'.
Indeed, the Japanese signs almost seemed like a parody of my own country's. Real objects covered by joke writing, like toys. Surely the cabs painted in bizarre colors and sporting equally bizarre writing could not be real machines. Surely the near-hieroglyphics where "McDonald's" should have been inscribed were merely decorative. And a poor jest, at that.
The shopkeepers had colored the whole place with pastel colors, as if a giant toddler had vandalized it with chalk. The few trees were thick-trunked and narrow, their branches like some sort of aboriginal harpoon barbs. The traffic lights' necks curved over the roads rather than sticking out at right angles from their bases as proper traffic lights are wont to do.
The people jostled, squeezed, and squished. One could feel their body heat. I occasionally smelt their breaths. From a poster, a purple-haired cartoon girl with eyes the size of dinner plates smiled down at me. Complete with pink ribbons in her hair. Her mouth must have been half the circumference of her ear. More products of Japan's Disney impersonation industry peeked out between the buildings from time to time.
"C'mon, Meriwether, it's not that bad."
I looked down at Benitsubasa, who'd insisted on holding my arm. Presumably, this prevented me from getting absorbed by the seething mob. Somebody stepped on my foot.
"Bite your tongue, Benitsubasa."
Korean and Thai flags hung from the next two lamp posts. For some reason.
We took a shortcut through a building. Stands lined along the entrance like booths at a country fair. Neon letters glowed. Lights flashed. It reminded me a bit of the time Ilya had dragged me into an arcade. Steam rose from strange foods in vending booths, and offered equally strange smells. Multicolored cardboard squares that looked like greeting cards sat on clear plastic racks. Bare bulbs and fluorescents buzzed above us.
Occasionally, women accosted me with smiles almost as brainless as the nigh-pornographic cartoon girls plastered everywhere. They wore what one could charitably describe as "maid" uniforms. Most household management professionals would have begged to differ.
Benitsubasa pointed out unimportant things every so often. Here, a fried squid snack. There, a new release of fate-something-something-odd-punctuation. In that stall, a dating simulation. Sitting on the floor, a group of high schoolers playing a band "console" game. And over there-
"Dating simulation?" I said.
Benitsubasa raised an eyebrow
"Yeah..."
"And people pay for this?"
"Uh, yeah..."
"What's next? Cooking? Farming? Does your country, perchance, produce taking-out-the-garbage and watching-bathtubs-fill-up simulations as well?"
Benitsubasa stared at me a moment, and then looked away, a small smile on her face. She crossed her arms behind her head. Her gait acquired a slight swing.
"You know, I used to imagine that my life was a dating sim when I was a kid," she said. "Push the right buttons and you'd get the perfect Ashikabi. Handsome, charming, sophisticated, sports car...heh."
I smirked back at her.
"And where would I fit into all this, I wonder?" I said.
Benitsubasa put a finger to her lips.
"I like to think of you as the product of a sad, bitter dating-game designer's divorce," she said. "Kinda like the joke boss that nobody can beat without cheat codes."
"Your dedication to your Ashikabi overwhelms me."
She met my eyes again, and fiddled with her fingers.
"A-and I really wish you'd give me the, um, cheat codes, Meriwether."
"Benitsubasa, I..."
A loud "tarr" interrupted me before I could say something I would regret. A white-bellied bird alighted on my shoulder. My last familiar.
"You have something for me?"
Its head bobbed. I noted that its nonstop, prana-fuelled flight had not reduced it to an emaciated state. Ilya must have fed it thoroughly. She'd always had a weakness for small animals.
I unsnapped the satchel around its neck and unrolled the message.
************************************************** *********
Dear Meriwether,
In response to your letter, these 'Jinki' were at one time believed to manifest the Third Magic. Relax, though. If the rumors had been true, my family would have used them for the Fuyuki tournament instead of the cursed artifact our fathers dismantled back in the '90s.
Not to mention that the 'Jinki' are only a legend. (A fictional one.)
If you're curious, they're supposed to kill everybody when you bring them together. Something like that, anyway. Spooky. Why do you ask?
I missed you at last year's party. Hope you can bring someone special this year. (You do remember "girls", right? Those things with the long hair who wear dresses? They're kinda like books, but you can have conversations with them).
I get a little sad thinking of you hunkered down in your Clock Tower dormitory studying 24/7. Sigh.
Tata,
Ilya
************************************************** ****************
I rolled my eyes. Informal as always.
"You're smiling," said Benitsubasa.
"She's...an old friend."
"You have friends?"
"Loosely speaking, yes."
A few minutes later, our little expedition finally passed through the cultural desert of Shin Tokyo's modern entertainment district.
We entered narrower streets, and shadowed alleys.
"Here we are," I said.
Benitsuabsa looked at the cracked bricks and the door's peeling paint. She squinted as she peered through the single, smudged window. Even the doorknob had rusted.
"I'm not living here."
"It's a temporary stop," I said. "I need to retrieve a few items."
She reached for the knob. I caught her hand. Her eyes widened, and she took a sharp breath.
"Wait," I said.
As expected, the garret's occupant hadn't constructed his bounded field very well. It still took a few mumbled Arias, hand passes, and prana applications to unlatch the thing.
"Done."
More gingerly this time, Benitsubasa took the handle and twisted. Hinges squeaked. The door swung aside to reveal a man hunkered behind a counter. He clutched something with a slight prana signature that must have been a rather pathetic Mystic Code. It looked like a Swiss army knife.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Satou."
And then, his grimace faded. A smile replaced it.
"L-Lord El-Melloi?"
I rubbed my forehead, though I doubted it would stave off the gathering migraine. The main's voice became a squeal.
"Lord El-Melloi! You're back to grace my humble workshop with your presence! By the ro-"
"Don't finish that sentence."
Everything was as I remembered it. Brown leather bindings fit next to each other on shelves upon shelves of books, most far too advanced for a magus of this man's caliber (though hope springs eternal, I suppose). No wonder he'd reduced himself to living in a less-than-savory district. How he'd accumulated this stock with his questionable talents, I'm sure I'll never know.
Bare pipes on the ceiling thrummed with running water from the other residents. Tobacco smoke wafted from a pipe laid on a shelf. Next to the ashtray sat a bust of Bismarck, of all things - most likely fake porcelain. A grandfather clock clicked. All the place lacked was spider webs to complete the ambiance.
Benitsubasa sniffed and batted at the cloud of dust that our entrance had disturbed. She brushed the edges of the books. Her finger came away gray and powdery.
"Eeew. Whoever you are, you need to brush these cobwebs out."
On second thought, our host's decorator had thought of everything. My Sekirei tensed and opened her mouth. I worried at first that her injuries from the fight with Kazehana hadn't completely healed. Instead, though, she covered her mouth and sneezed with a little "cheef!"
"...And a vacuum wouldn't hurt, either," she added.
Benitsubasa bent over, her index finger floating from one title to another. Familiars. Fire-related magecraft. Alchemy. Cosmology. Her hand bumped a brass sphere. It flicked open. A nightingale made of pearl poked its head out, staring at Benitsubasa through rubies the size of pinpoints. The artifice twittered angrily and snapped its case shut again.
Benitsubasa blinked.
"Whoah. Even your paperweights have a bad attitude. What's wrong with you people?"
Self-justification, I have observed since, can take many forms. Some, like my father and mother, never find a need for it. Certainly not to quasi-familiars, whose insolence would have earned nothing more than a sharp, painful lesson. Others might use argument, or contempt, or silence. Unfortunately, try as I might, I cannot shake the belief that gestures - no matter how ambiguous - might also qualify.
The time has come, the magus said
To speak of learned things
Of astrolabe and paradox
And silent, mistral wings
Water collected in the air, crystallizing into two hexagonal networks of ice an inch in diameter each. They grew from a central point - a thin, hollow tube of ice. Condensing water vapor surrounded the creation like a halo. Six icy threads grew from the tube's sides, and two more from its front end.
And then, the ice butterfly fluttered onto Benitsubasa's shoulder. Her breath caught.
I smiled.
"My first Aria," I said. "I composed it after I'd read Carroll's book."
Benitsubasa brushed a tentative finger across the wing's edge. Moisture melted and refroze into an identical position as her skin passed over it.
"It's...beautiful."
"You know, when I was a boy, my father showed me something that his father had created for him," I said.
Benitsubasa kept brushing the butterfly.
"What was it?"
"I literally can't describe it," I said. "Part of its charm, actually - the memory fades so that it can feel fresh and new when you see it again. It must have taken the old fellow years to finish: freezing spells, ice, gold, and spirits in water crystals. My father said that it has fifty thousand moving parts. And I seem to recall strains of music trapped in the air around it."
I shrugged.
"I suppose I could show it to you sometime, after we win this absurd tournament of yours."
"I'd like that."
While Benitsubasa retreated to the sofa and played with the butterfly, I scanned the shelves. My host, for reasons known only to himself, had eschewed organizing his collection by subject, and had instead alphabetized by title. Q...R...S...
"Meriwether?"
"Eh?"
"About...about the books MBI took from your workshop."
I turned around. Benitsubasa's smile remained, but it seemed strained, somehow. Her eyes glistened. I felt a hole gathering in my stomach.
"What about the books?" I said.
She seemed to be paying very close attention to a yellowed family tree woodcut on the wall. Dust had dulled the frame's glass.
"Maybe you should tell your magic-people about this. The Clock Tower, or whatever you call them," she said.
"Do you want them to dissect you?"
"I...I'd let them," she said. "If it protected you, I'd let them."
"Well, you won't."
Her head shot up in mid-sniffle. I smirked.
"There's no such thing as a question without an answer," I said. "Nor an unwinnable game."
"Yeah? And what if it's an unfair game?"
"Cheat."
My digits tap-danced along the shelves. "T". There it was. Like most of its companions, the book had a purple leather cover that had dulled to a sort of grayish brown. Perhaps a century ago, someone had painted arabesques and ivy in gold leaf. They coiled across the cover like a maze. I caressed it, and felt tiny bits detach onto my hand from the worn cover. It was smooth.
I flipped through the pages. Vellum fwopped, tworped, flitted, and made all of the other lovely sounds that only books can make. I felt the edges of my mouth twitching upward. My lips parted, exposing teeth. Yes. This was it.
"What's up?"
The joy of scientific discovery dimmed somewhat when I realized just what this "experiment" might entail.
"Er...nothing," I said.
Benitsubasa's eyes narrowed.
"What's that book?"
She pushed herself up and leaned forward. I slipped the book behind my back.
"Something to defeat Karasuba. The idea occurred to me when I noticed your species' absurdly efficient prana use-"
Benitsubasa squealed and leaped out of the couch. She spun around my side. I backed toward the bookshelf. She followed, trying to grab the book.
"Lemmesee! You figured out how to beat-"
I threw out my palm.
"Only as a last resort!" I said. "Let's not get carried away! Hopefully we'll never have to use it. Never! Nunquam!"
Benitsubasa froze.
"What, is it like human sacrifice or something?"
"What? No! Not that sort of last resort! Of course it's not-"
Benitsubasa gasped.
"It's child sacrifice, isn't it?" she said.
"Do I seem like the sort of person who would sacrifice children to win a game?"
"You want an honest answer to that?"
"Probably not, no."
Alas, I'd backed up as far as I could. Benitsubasa dodged right. I rotated with her. She veered to the left and snatched the book with a "ha!"
And then, she stared at the title for a good thirty seconds.
"Waaaait a minute," she said. "Tantric...Is this what I think-"
"Augh! It's sex magic, all right? There! You've heard it! Satisfied?"
Benitsubasa paused, tapping her finger on her cheek.
"...Oh yeah."
************************************************** *********************
END OF SEASON 1
Last edited by Zalgo Jenkins; June 4th, 2012 at 10:24 PM.
End-Of-Season (NON-CANON) Omake: What if Meriwether and Benitsubasa had fought the 4th War instead?
(Servants stolen shamelessly from Fate/Zero and Fate/Apocrypha.)
************************************************** *************
10 Years After Benitsubasa's Good End (if such a thing even exists)...
Ever since the New Year's Fiasco of '22, Benitsubasa had advised me that I didn't hold my alcohol very well, and should refrain from imbibing too much at social events.
Similarly, most informed pundits agree that irritating Kischur Zelretch Schweinorg is ill-advised. This conclusion partly stems from Zelretch's penchant for practical jokes. I suspect, however, that it has more to do with the fact that he owns a jeweled sword that opens portals to other dimensions. A talent, incidentally, that he used to fight - and defeat - the moon. I do not speak figuratively.
One also might have thought that I'd developed a better survival instinct since the Sekirei Plan. I was respectable now, after all. More than respectable. The El-Melloi crest had passed to me, and with it came certain additional responsibilities.
Young Master Meriwether Archibald, Heir Apparent to the El-Melloi title and Sekirei Plan combatant, might have occasionally broken a rule or two. Lord El-Melloi II, Euryphis Lecturer and leading expert on non-human prana transfer, did not.
And yet, for some reason, I found myself both drinking too much and annoying Zelretch. In my defense, the first mistake had lead to the second. Perhaps it was the timing of the party. Right up until the year of his death, my father had delivered a lecture on that day. My mother, as she was wont to do at that time of year, had called and reminded me of this fact before Benitsubasa and I had left.
Whatever the reason, matters had proceeded from there.
************************************************** *****************
So here we were: transported back to an alternate Fourth Heaven's Feel in my parents' places. Benitsubasa was not amused.
On the bright side, my research on the Fourth War had paid dividends.
In the War's original iteration, Waver Velvet, a long-haired little delinquent with subversive ideas about first-generation magi accomplishing anything important, had stolen my father's Catalyst. This, in turn, had forced my father to use another Catalyst to summon Diarmuid Ua Duibhne as his Servant instead.
...This was the same Diarmuid whose cursed "love spot" could make any woman fall in love with him, intentionally or otherwise. My father had nearly lost my mother.
One might argue that I had nothing to worry about. Benitsubasa's Sekirei Crest could have easily counteracted the love-spot, after all. True.
But while the Crest might have channeled the love-spot's amorous energy from Diarmuid to me (Sekirei Crests were odd things), it would not have eliminated it. And quite frankly, satisfying Benitsubasa's already rabbit-like libido after it had been augmented by love magic was not a chore I looked forward to.
We'd hired an Enforcer to keep Alexander's artifact under tighter guard.
In retrospect, though, I should have chosen Diarmuid.
When I had summoned Alexander the Great to fight as my Servant, I had been expecting a philosopher-king with the Iliad tucked under one arm and a sword in the other.
Instead, I'd received a seven-foot, red-bearded man who walked around the house in his underwear. At the moment, he sat at the dining room table, munching cornflakes mixed with beer. He wore a white shirt inscribed with some computer game title or other. And nothing else.
"Oi! Magus! I require a DRINKING COMPANION!"
"You require pants."
Our base of operations was not, as you might have guessed, the Fuyuki Hyatt. I had no inclination to repeat my father's mistake of fortifying myself there.
The tactic might have worked against most opponents, but my father had experienced the misfortune of facing Kiritsugu Emiya, the so-called Magus Killer. And the Magus Killer had not played by the rules. Kiritsugu had blown the whole thing to smithereens with conventional explosives. Twenty-four floors of spatial distortions, monsters, spirits, and other assorted traps had gone up in smoke.
Needless to say, I'd set up my father's traps in a rather more defensible location.
Fuyuki's Ryudo Temple rested on a leyline. Mana flowed through and around it like an underground stream; a reservoir of power. And now, that reservoir supported the same spatial distortions, monsters, bounded fields, and spirits that my father would have set up in the hotel.
During my walks along the paving stones leading up to the main entrance, the air around the temple would flicker or warp.
For all that, though, it was a somewhat charming example of traditional Japanese architecture. One could almost describe the main building as a pavilion with a roof. Everything rested on load-bearing pillars. The walls were barely an afterthought. One could probably have removed them without triggering an avalanche of wood and stone.
From the front, the clay roof assumed a trapezoidal shape, except for the upturned points at either end. The walls consisted partly of paper screens crisscrossed with veins of wood. The resulting drafts were predictable. Beyond the main building, a second wall of stone and white stucco fenced the temple complex in. Two pools flanked the path to the front door.
In the evening - and this evening in particular - a haze settled over the temple. Everything seemed dull and bright at the same time; bleary, like unpolished silver. The walls whispered. Even the knobbly tree shuddered without wind.
"HA!"
Benitsubasa's shout served to snap me out of my reverie. She sat by the window, a raven perched on her shoulder. You'll not credit it, but I could swear that she didn't look a day older than when she first bumped into me in the Shin Tokyo shopping district. She had, however, abandoned her elaborate spirals and hair clips in favor of something shorter and unstyled.
"Eh?" I said.
"Found him!" she said. "Y'know, I'm starting to like this familiar trick of yours."
"Who?"
"The final Master. And I know who his Servant is, too."
Alexander pumped his fist in the air and roared something about the art of conquest. We both ignored him.
"Do tell," I said.
"Remember how Waver Velvet really wanted to participate?"
"Don't tell me-"
"He robbed the Victoria and Albert Museum last week."
I thought for a moment. What on earth could he use as a Catalyst from the...
...Oh.
"The First Folio," we both said simultaneously.
"Benitsubasa? I believe my Macedonian friend and I shall be going playwright hunting."
************************************************** *******
We did just that while Benitsubasa followed our movements from Ryudo.
I suppose she'd learned to trust me a bit in the years since our initial partnership. Or perhaps it had something to do with my inheriting my father's Crest and his Volumen Hydragyrum (which, incidentally, doubled nicely as a mobile easy chair) to protect myself.
Alas, the aforementioned Macedonian did not make himself nearly as personable a traveling companion as my pet puddle of mercury. I would have preferred the buzz of streetlamps.
"That pink-haired filly of yours...what is she to you, exactly?"
"Excuse me?" I said.
He shrugged.
"The Sekirei-thingy back at the temple. You're comrades, right?"
I paused, allowing my planned retort to melt back into my mouth.
What was Benitsubasa to me, precisely? Mistress seemed too one-sided, somehow. Most mistresses do not beat their paramours' foes with iron girders. Lover? Again, too narrow. Also tasteless. True, but tasteless. Familiar? No; this raised the opposite problem. Wife? Not to my fellow magi, anyway. But perhaps to me.
Ultimately, I settled on a simpler answer.
"That's none of your business, Servant."
The testosterone-blob emitted a rumbling noise that could have been either a laugh or a growl. Before his face transferred either sentiment into an expression, though, he stroked his beard.
"And have you told her about your...preferences?"
"What 'preferences' are you referring to?"
He chuckled and patted me on the head. It felt a bit like getting swatted by a pile driver.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of, magus! Why, Hephaestion and I rutted a bit ourselves as young men."
"Rutted?"
Alexander spread his arms, baring his hairy, sweaty chest to the world. His voice boomed.
"How well I recall my father, as he walked the field of Chaeronea and surveyed the wreck of the Theban Sacred Band! Three hundred men; lovers all! 'Perish anyone,' he said, 'who denies that these men covered themselves in glory!' Stirring words, eh? So bear yourself with pride, and -"
"All right, fine!" I said. "We're having intercourse! Heterosexual intercourse!"
He squinted at me.
"Mmmh. Not from where I'm sleeping, you're not."
Now that? That...that was it.
I took a very deep breath.
"Perhaps Benitsubasa would be in the mood more often if your confounded games didn't make so much noise through the PAPER THIN WALLS!"
He waved one of his waffle-iron hands.
"Bah! Nonsense! If you want to plow a field, you plow it! You don't sit lollygagging around just because your neighbors are a little noisy! Why, I remember the time when a soldier two tents down brought back a saucy Persian piece-"
"AARGH! Enough with your frat-boy war stories!"
"But..."
"The noise. THE NOISE. It's CONSTANT. Whenever Benitsubasa's feeling even a little amorous, what do we hear? Eh? WELL? We hear that infernal doodley-beeping sound, followed by your game screeching 'Ye moost build mair phalanxes, Sire!'"
I was aware - in a vague, out-of-body-experience sort of way - that I was screaming at the top of my lungs.
"Never mind the mangled pseudo-Glaswegian in an ostensibly Hellenic wargame. It's phalanges! PHALANGES! Didn't you ever even read Homer? Admittedly, I shouldn't have expected much from a Macedonian, but you could've at least pretended to ape the culture of your more civilized southern neighbors-"
He flicked me. I felt a jolt on my forehead. I say "jolt" because his fingers were roughly the thickness of drain pipes.
"How dare you-" I began.
"We're here, magus."
And so we were.
************************************************** ************
Waver had chosen an apartment as his base of operations. It only took a few moments to disassemble his bounded field. The alarm would sound, but no matter.
Nor did the lock trouble me overmuch. I activated Volumen Hydragyrum. The moonlight glinted off its surface with each undulation. One of its mercury whips coiled into the lock and unlatched it.
Waver was waiting for us.
"Good evening, Mr.-"
He shot a rather halfhearted blast of fire. A silvery shield materialized in front of me as Volumen Hydragyrum's automatic defensive mechanism engaged.
After the shield came down again, I saw the Servant.
I confess that I had imagined Shakespeare slightly differently from the cloaked, leather-gloved man with a quill stuck in his buttonhole that I saw before me. His hair was light - indeed, almost red - and unkempt.
He wore a green jacket with wide cuffs and lace shirtsleeves protruding from it (which, I note in passing, resembled something from the eighteenth century rather than Elizabeth's day). The lapels were white and red, striped like candy canes. As if to complete this assembly of anachronism, his triangular collar and ribbon around his neck would have probably suited a German Romantic.
"Ah, yes...the Fraud of Avon," I said. "So pleased to finally meet you."
His mouth hung open for perhaps five seconds, but he recovered nicely.
"Pardon?"
He had a surprisingly soft voice for a former stage actor. Or perhaps he'd modulated it deliberately.
"Oh, come now," I said. "It's painfully obvious that you never wrote those plays. You? The son of a wool smuggler? Ha! You couldn't even give your own name correctly on your marriage record. And that awful poem you left on your tombstone..."
The Servant raised an eyebrow, his sneer quickly turning into a snarl.
"Oh, dear, I'm terribly sorry," he said. "I just must not have been putting my heart into my work while I was busy dying."
"...Not to mention your plays' intimate knowledge of just about everything. A massive vocabulary with a grammar school education? History? Navigation? Italian manners? Military tactics? Philosophy? Law? No, I'm sorry, but there it is."
"And who, pray tell, is supposed to have written my plays instead?" he said.
"The Earl of Oxford, probably. Though the Baconians make a couple interesting points about cryptography. Oh, I'll grant that you made a good living as an actor, theater owner, and, well..." I shrugged "...front man, but I'm afraid that most honest observers-"
"Listen, thou gleeking, sheep-biting pumpion! Thou and thy pet clotpole over there can-"
"'You' and 'your' pet clotpole," I said.
"I would contend, sirrah, that the second person informal is eminently appropriate when insulting a beef-witted bum-bailey such as yourself in the heat of argument."
"But-"
"Especially when the pignut in question hasn't read enough history to realize that his opponent had his own coat of arms during England's golden age, and could thus address an El-Melloi hedge-wizard as a social inferior."
I snorted.
"Oh, pardon me," I said. "I forgot the coat of arms that you bought after your career as an - ahem - tradesman. Not to mention-"
"Also, I'm William Fucking Shakespeare."
A shriek cut through the air. We both turned.
Waver Velvet lay on the ground in a pool of blood. His face had paled. Half-coagulated liquid glistened in the coils of his sweater. His eyes had widened, and every muscle in his face had tensed. Breaths emerged as ragged gasps, or sobs.
He'd live.
It had taken a command seal to force Alexander into something so "dishonorable" (read: intelligent) as attacking a Master for his Command Seals, but the results spoke for themselves. I turned to Waver's Servant.
"Here's my proposal," I said. "I'll keep Waver alive as your prana battery, but I'll be taking his Command Seals. You'll work for me now."
Oddly, the edges of his mouth twitched. I held out a hand.
"Welcome to the team," I said. "And incidentally, Oxford's extant text doesn't look statistically similar to yours, anyway."
The twitching blazed into a full-bore grin. And it was more than a little disturbing, at that.
"And you shall play my Iago, eh?" he said. "Marvelous. So all of that nonsense about Bacon and Oxford was-"
"Distraction, yes. I adored your work in Richard III. Especially the main character."
"That's...not quite the reaction I was aiming for, but I suppose-"
"Though I confess to being rather put out at the end when the hero died."
"You do realize that Richard was a villain protagonist, don't you?"
"...Not to mention that the little princes in the tower definitely had it coming. Snarky little bastards."
My phone's dinging interrupted our nascent literary appreciation session. I held up a finger and flicked it open.
Benitsubasa's voice wavered as she greeted me. At first, I attributed it to the poor cell phone technology of the period (one grows accustomed to modern conveniences with a Sekirei in the house), but she soon disabused me of this notion.
"The Disciplinary Squad's here. One of your familiars spotted them."
My stomach churned, and a cold feeling spread through my body.
"Are you serious? How can they be-"
"I don't know! MBI must've detected me here, somehow. They could sorta track Sekirei prana, even if they never called it that-"
Alexander watched me, his lips thinning.
"Something wrong, magus?"
All right. I needed some time to think. If my familiars had detected the Disciplinary Squad here and now, it must have been the second version. Karasuba would be part of it. I racked my brain for the other one.
"Who's the-"
"Yume," Benitsubasa said.
An image bubbled from my memory of the scythe-wielding sadist who'd splashed my guts across a Shin Tokyo roof.
"Yomi?" I said.
"No, Yume. You never met her. The Sekirei of Fate. Number Zero-Eight."
"Oh. A single number?"
"Yeah. An insanely powerful one. Which is weird, because she was all lovey-dovey whenever she wasn't fighting. Think Mary Poppins crossed with the Terminator."
"Wonderful," I said.
"That's not even the bad part."
The festering coldness in my stomach froze over completely.
"Benitsubasa...You-you're all right, aren't you?" I said. "You're safe? They didn't break through the defenses-"
"I'm fine," she snapped. "Calm down and pay attention. You know how Karasuba was part of the Disciplinary Squad?"
"Yes..."
"And you know how nobody winged her until the Sekirei Plan?"
"Yes..."
I realized that the phone was shaking ever so slightly as I clutched it. Benitsubasa's voice grew fainter with each word.
"Well, somebody um...kinda...sorta...winged her?"
"Who 'kinda sorta winged her'?" I said.
Please don't be the serial killer.
Please don't be the serial killer.
Please don't be the-
"Kotomine Kirei."
"...That's even worse!"
************************************************** **********************
Author Notes: Incidentally, I like to think that Yume (Zero-Eight) would have reacted to Kariya Matou if their paths had ever crossed. Also, if given a choice of Catalysts (and if Benitsubasa hadn't smacked him and told him to get a stronger servant), Meriwether would have definitely summoned William Shakespeare as Caster.
Oh, and for the English dub of Fate/Zero's Alexander the Great, they should recruit Brian Blessed.
Last edited by Zalgo Jenkins; June 4th, 2012 at 10:04 PM.
Chapter 13
Higa had reestablished himself across town. The building itself was a shining glass box crisscrossed with metal supports; its frame betrayed no obvious stone or concrete. The sole exception to this observation hugged the first floor: a girdle of granite, complete with "Higa Corp. Building" in gold letters. Reflections of pedestrians floated across the granite's face like ghosts in a void. Its wall of windows receded several feet back along the first five floors at a sharp, flat angle. The recession gave the illusion that someone had cut a triangular slice out of the building.
Women in frameless glasses and business skirts bustled around the entrance. Their high heels clicked.
Higa's new domicile should not, all things considered, have concerned me overmuch.
Its implications did. Noncombatants do not need a base of operations.
At least three of Higa's Sekirei had avoided termination. Kochou, the computer-type, was an obvious omission, but Ichiya and Toyotama hadn't been in the building when Minato's Sekirei had struck. Like their Ashikabi, they had been attending some function or other. An alibi, perhaps. Or maybe Higa had smelled a rat after all.
As my father is wont to say, though, one can always turn misfortune to one's advantage with sufficient ingenuity.
I opened the glass double doors. Benitsubasa went first, at her own insistence. As I walked across the marble floors, I ran through the words of a five-count Aria in my head just in case.
From the inside, a visitor's eyes were drawn to a web of metal tubes that held the exterior glass upright. The lobby's walls were a nutmeg-colored wood. I pointed to the hireling at the front desk, carefully avoiding eye contact.
"You there."
She did not respond. I snapped my fingers.
"You. Service woman. Or whatever they call the laboring classes over here. I don't suppose you could direct us to Mr. Hi-"
We heard a ping. Two creatures emerged from the elevator. The first I recognized from the party: Ichiya, the short-haired Sekirei in desperate need of finishing school.
The other I knew only through my familiars' eyes. Toyotama wore an abbreviated purple top that bared her midriff. Its only concessions to modesty - if one could call them that - were a high collar and long, black opera gloves that arguably only accentuated the slashed fabric between her breasts. Her hair, unlike many Sekirei, was black and unexceptional. Yet she looked at us through pale, cold blue eyes that remain, to this day, the most stunning I've ever seen.
How unfortunate that Benitsubasa would probably kill her eventually. Not today, though.
Toyotama twirled a staff. It hummed as it cut through the air.
"You've got a lotta nerve coming here," she said.
"Your Ashikabi and I still have an...arrangement," I said. "And I believe that I can sweeten the deal."
Her reply was monosyllabic and rather unladylike.
I turned away, looking for a security camera. I heard the leather constricting in Benitsubasa's fighting gloves.
"Higa?" I shouted. "Come out! I still owe you Kazehana's termination, don't I? We can both negotiate with one another."
Nothing.
"Surely this isn't the ruthless chessmaster I once knew?" I said. "Hiding behind surveillance cameras?"
Still nothing.
"I can even beat Karasuba for you."
I sighed when silence greeted even this revelation. But the El-Melloi line is nothing if not persistent.
"...I understand that your family runs a pharmaceutical company. How would you like to split MBI's technological spoils between us, eh?"
With a clomp and another bell tone, the elevator doors opened.
I entered. Benitsubasa and our escorts followed. The ride itself was a trifle unsociable.
We emerged.
The walls were covered horizontally with tan strips of paper, separated by wooden beams. Miniature bushes with red flowers grew out of stone pots on either side of the door. A fern sat near the window. Like most rooms in this country, the place exuded a sort of airy minimalism. Even the picture frames contained lines of white between their metal rims and inner borders.
I traced the patterns on the rug. They were periwinkle and floral in an abstract sort of way. A gold and lacquer frame divided the room, its folds reminiscent of a giant map or accordion.
...I would have killed for a bit of Baroque art.
Not that I had long to contemplate Higa's miserable taste in furnishing. The man himself sat behind a desk (Tanzanian mpingo wood, I noted with grudging approval), his fingers steepled in front of him.
"You mentioned something about selling MBI's secrets, Mr. El-Melloi," he said. "Please elaborate."
"Well, as I mentioned, I can kill Karasuba, so-"
"How?"
"None of your business," I said.
"No deal."
Benitsubasa rolled her eyes and groaned. I sniffed.
"Very well," I said. "It's a...complicated prana transference ritual based on the same principle as the Norito, except extended over-"
"It's sex magic," Benitsubasa said.
Higa seemed to sit up slightly, peering over his fingers. Naturally, I immediately recaptured the initiative.
"...Er...yes. Hem. That. Um...moving on...I suppose we need to discuss-"
"Sex magic?" he said.
"Ah...yes. That's about the size of - Er - that is to say, you seem to have grasped the- um...yes."
He pointed at us.
"As in, you two have sex," he said. "And that somehow solves all our problems."
For some reason, his tone left me with the uncanny impression that he considered us exhibitionists.
"Ahem. Well...I would more accurately describe it as, er, a contingency plan for emergencies - grave emergencies, I hasten to add - and would, moreover, qualify my answer by-"
"Yes," said Benitsubasa.
"What my Sekirei means to say," I said, "is that we shall only utilize our - ow leggo!"
I glared over my shoulder. Benitsubasa smiled sweetly and patted my throbbing hand. At least she'd given me time to reinforce it.
"I think you've described our plan perfectly, Mr. Higa," she said. "Isn't that right, Meriwether?"
"Er...yes. Exactly."
With the preliminaries thus concluded, Benitsubasa stepped back and waited while Higa and I drew up the terms. Like most non-magi, his experience with business law had not prepared him for the crippling literalism of geis contracts. Unlike most non-magi, however, he'd learned quickly.
We haggled for nine hours. Ichiya spent the majority slumped on the couch and groaning aren't-you-finished-yet at five minute intervals. Toyotama tried to play some sort of hand-held computer game until Higa took it away. An attempt to practice single-arm handstand pushups met with similar discouragement.
To my surprise, Benitsubasa did none of these things. She stood in silence, her hands crossed behind her back. Yet I noticed occasional gestures nonetheless. Thinned lips when a term worried her. A slight smirk when I'd extracted a concession. Furrowed brows when Higa proposed one of his ninety-word sentences, replete with semicolons.
Stranger still, I found myself heeding these gestures during my maneuverings.
The terms themselves, when one subtracted the good-faith qualifiers and exceptions, reduced to the following: (1) Higa and I would cooperate. Benitsubasa and I would stay in his compound and help fortify it. (2) My earlier pledge to terminate Kazehana remained in force. (3) I would help Higa defeat MBI and take their technology. (4) In return, he would destroy all of MBI's records concerning magecraft when we'd seized control.
He gave this last point away surprisingly quickly, along with his pledge to keep silent about magecraft altogether.
I only learned later than his "hacker" Sekirei had seen MBI's research notes from my books. Higa knew about the Enforcers. And no sane man who knew about the Enforcers would expose magecraft to the world.
As soon as negotiations had concluded, I spent the better part of the evening assembling a bounded field around the building. Let it not be said that I don't learn from my mistakes: This time, I eschewed the usual invisibility in favor of something with more bite. Anyone trying to enter with hostile intent would find themselves in no small amount of pain.
************************************************** *********************
I retired to our assigned room in dire need of sleep.
When the light turned on, I rolled my eyes.
Our host must have hired the same decorators that had already defiled his office. The floor was a ghastly sandy color, with brown lines that were probably intended to appear arboreal, but which actually resembled tea stains. The sofa had a cigar-shaped greenish-gold pillow, but its seat-back sloped into nothing on the left side. One could only receive decent support if one leaned.
Someone had even painted the wall behind the bed a sort of reddish-violet-carmine. Not to mention that the furniture was carved in the geometrically-fixated style favored by modern craftsmen. I use both terms loosely: 'craftsmen' and 'style'.
And someone was waiting for me.
Benitsubasa lay on the bed. She'd removed her assorted clips, and her hair spilled out over her shoulders. I was surprised to realize that it had the slightest waviness to it - still mostly straight, but no longer flat. The style accentuated her eyes, especially; they seemed more ovaloid, wider. In the darkness, her pupils had expanded.
"Er...sorry. Careless of me. Didn't mean to barge in before-"
"It's fine," she said. "Really."
I paused. She'd delivered the statement rather firmly - not harshly, mind, but with a certain finality.
Benitsubasa wore only a pair of black panties and sports bra. The orange half-light cast shadows across her stomach and neck. If the goosebumps on her skin were any indication, it must have been rather chilly. She watched me closely.
"You look tired," she said. "Would you-um..."
"What?"
Benitsubasa looked at the ceiling. Those lithe legs twined around each other. She bit her thumbnail.
"Would...you-I mean, I remember your book said that...um, prana rituals can help you recover. And we could use the practice..."
I turned away and cleared my throat. Come to think of it, the sofa in the other room didn't look that uncomfortable when one examined it closely. While it was admittedly abbreviated, and the seat itself might require Procrustean manipulations to fit a snoozing magus, with a little determination...
"That...er, won't be necessary, thank you," I said. "The theory behind sex-er, tantric prana rituals isn't terribly complicated, so I'm sure-"
"...Please?"
Benitsubasa's reply had been so soft, so unlike my Sekirei most of the time. Once more, I found myself clearing my throat.
I have, on occasion, been called oblivious. I am not mentally defective.
"Now see here...ehm..."
And there were the moist eyes again. Curses.
"Benitsubasa, I suggest that you reconsider."
"W-what? But..."
I sighed.
"I realize that your species has an ingrained urge to reproduce. Conceded."
"But-"
"...And I'm not precisely sure what stimuli have triggered your urge to mate, but I can assure you that you'll be doing both yourself and your future Ashikabi a grave disservice if you give in to weakness now-"
She shot out of bed. Her tiny, disturbingly strong fists were clenched at her sides, shaking slightly from the effort.
"You're my Ashikabi!" she said. "You! Not some other guy. I reacted to you, dumbass. And you can say I'm delusional, or lying, or whatever until you're blue in the freaking face, but I love you and you're my Ashikabi. Forever. Period!"
I blinked. As she glared at me, her arms crossed in front of her chest, I found myself sinking back into a chair. A heavy sensation grew in my chest. And realization came with it.
She hasn't been lying.
"If that's so..."
"That's so," she said.
"...then I'm right."
"What?"
"If...if you genuinely love me just because I winged you - and that is what you're telling me, make no mistake about it - then you are incredibly unfortunate, Benitsubasa. Your instincts, I'm afraid, have erred."
"B-but I...No, please don't say these things, I-"
"I am not...um. I'm not a particularly humble person, as I'm sure you've noticed. But I am not so blind to my own faults as to believe that you would be happy with me."
Her eyes widened. The fingers loosened slightly, her arms half-rising as if trying to stop a child from falling. It was a feeble sort of gesture, and died unfinished. She spoke faster now, her voice cracking from time to time.
"Please," she said. "Just...I don't...c-care about that. I'll be whatever you want, okay? Do whatever you want. M-mistress, tantric experiment, familiar, whatever. Okay? I-if you're worried that you won't be good at it or something, it doesn't matter, all right? Sekirei care about feelings, not-"
"Precisely," I said. "You care about feelings. Your species, to its grave misfortune, loves unconditionally. I reiterate my earlier statement: you would not be happy with me."
"Please, Meriwether, I-"
"You have performed remarkably in the Sekirei Plan," I said. "You've saved my life on several occasions. And I find - to my occasional annoyance, I confess - that I respect you more than any non-human I've ever met. And more than any humans aside from my immediate family."
"And that's-"
"...Consequently, I'm not going to exploit what amounts to a mental illness for my own advantage. I'm sorry."
Benitusbasa slumped back to the bed, her arms hugging her upper chest. Her breath caught. Convulsions wracked her torso. I might at one time have concluded that they were hiccups, or something similar. But somewhere along the line, I'd learned to recognize when Benitsubasa was crying.
I sat down in the bed beside her. A curious gesture for an El-Melloi heir toward a biological weapon, I'll allow. But I did it anyway. Benitsubasa flinched when I put an arm on her shoulder.
"Don't touch me now," she said.
"I'm-"
"Just...just go, please."
************************************************** *************
I did as she'd bidden me, and shut the door. It closed with a slight click. As I walked down the hall, I rubbed a hand over my face and willed my muscles to relax. They did not comply.
"Yo, Ashikabi."
"WHAT?"
Ichiya smirked. She sauntered toward me, her steel-shod shoes echoing down the hallway with each step. A letter twitched between her thumb and forefinger. She dangled it in front of my face. I snatched it.
"What's this?" I said.
Ichiya slipped a finger between her teeth and licked her lips. She winked.
"A little bird brought it."
It was parchment.
It had a black seal.
I recognized the swirling penmanship.
************************************************** *******
To His Son Meriwether, Residing In Shin Tokyo, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, First Lord El-Melloi, Dispatches This Letter:
I find that I am too incensed to open with my customary proverb.
Long before Rome ousted Tarquinius Superbus and thereby invited the beginnings of republican rot, that stoic people embraced the principle of 'Patria Potestas': the right of the father to exercise severe discipline upon wayward children. And you, my son, are wayward indeed.
The Clock Tower's classes began three days ago. Imagine my utter mortification, then, when I received word that you had not seen fit to grace your professors with your presence.
Your frolic is no longer a passing folly of youth. It is swallowing the future of my bloodline. And that, my son and heir, is something that I shall not countenance.
I am coming to Japan. You will suffer consequences.
- Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, First Lord El-Melloi, KG, D.D., Ph.D., L.L.M (Tax), Senior Euryphis Lecturer and Head of the Spiritual Invocation Division, Clock Tower, London; Special Consultant to the Hellsing Organization (ret.); Fellow of the Royal Society
**************************************************
"Awww, such a sad face. Bad news, Mr. Ashikabi?"
Ichiya's voice had practically cooed.
"N-nothing," I said.
"Good. Because guess what? We have a visitor waiting outside your bounded field! And she really, really wants to talk to you."
"I'm not in the mood for-"
"Lessee...she has looooong purple hair, and an adorable little white kimono, and this demonic aura around her..."
The landlady.
The Sekirei landlady. Miya whatever-her-name was.
"Get Benitsubasa," I said.
Ichiya clicked her tongue.
"Too scared to go in there yourself, little boy? I heard everything, y'know. I guess I'd be ashamed too if I'd just told my Sekirei that I was too pathetic to-"
"JUST GET HER!"
I slammed the stairway door open and reinforced my legs, taking each flight of steps in one jump. The sound of the wooden door colliding with concrete echoed. Ichiya's laughter followed me all the way down.
I readied my circuits. If that thing wanted to do more than talk, it might take both of Higa's Sekirei, Benitsubasa, and my own magecraft to defeat it.
And I wasn't even sure that would be enough.
Wall...of story...overloaded Al.
Chapter 14
I arrived in the lobby to find Toyotama already standing watch at the glass doors. Our visitor waited in the courtyard beyond them. A katana hung from her side. She poked at the bounded field, her brows furrowing as she rubbed her lip with her other hand. Every time her finger touched the field, green sparks penetrated the night.
Ichiya and Benitsubasa arrived a minute or two later. My Sekirei's face was red and wet; the makeup on her eyes had run slightly. I didn't comment.
I reinforced my body and opened the door.
The creature - Miya - smiled. It was a polite, narrow sort of smile. I remembered Karasuba.
"You wanted to speak to me?" I said.
"Yes," she said. "Alone."
The creature's eyes flicked to my escorts. Her irises were a deep purple; so dark as to appear almost black. In the street lamps' half light, I barely noticed the difference until I'd arrived within a few feet. The fabric of her clothing did not rustle in the wind as ours did.
"You must be joking," I said.
"I could kill you right now, if you prefer."
The creature delivered this with the same soft smile. Benitsubasa stepped forward.
"Touch him and you're-"
I held up a hand. Benitsubasa growled - at me or Miya, I wasn't certain - but stopped talking.
"And how do I know that you'll keep your word?" I said.
Miya's prana flared, and I felt as if I'd taken an electrified marlin spike to my chest. I knew, in theory, that truly powerful creatures existed. The Twenty-Seven Ancestors came to mind. Even the beings that non-magi considered "regular" vampires might have qualified. Until that moment, though, I hadn't encountered one in person. So to speak.
"As I said, Mr. El-Melloi: I could kill you right now. I haven't. And I'm not in the habit of breaking my word...pleasant though it would be in this case."
Ultimately, I prevailed upon Benitsubasa to follow a rather long distance behind us. Higa's Sekirei declined to guard me, which neither surprised nor particularly offended me under the circumstances.
I nodded and swept my hand along a stone path. Higa had chosen his location well. A small garden was nestled between office buildings, surrounded by wooden fences. Shin Tokyo's property values must have made it extremely expensive.
While I generally can't stomach Japanese 'culture' (the term is nominal, not descriptive), I might make an exception for their gardens. Japan's landscapers revel in the illusion of control. A world in miniature.
Even at night, I could appreciate the craftsmanship. Grassy mounds stood as dwarfish counterparts to Japan's crags and mountains. The rocks were light gray, spotless, and moss-less. As for the pebbles scattered across the pond's shoreline, they presented the viewer with a vision of tan, rounded regularity. The water itself did not gush, or flow, or bubble. It loitered, in a stately sort of way, so that one could contemplate the moon's reflection on its surface.
When we walked on the path itself, the stones - also light gray, as if someone had washed them every morning before replacing them just so - crunched underfoot. It was the sort of deep, crackling sound that one might expect to hear when grinding cereal.
Cicadas whined from the trimmed, globular bushes.
"So...how can I help you?"
Miya looked up at me with those purple-on-black eyes. It bordered on the uncanny; she shared her species' delicate bone structure and dainty figure. One doesn't often need to lower one's gaze for something that can can cut battleships in half with a sword. From a distance.
Or so I have been informed since.
"How many other humans are...like you?" Miya said.
"Ah, now that would be telling, wouldn't it?"
The surge of power returned.
"I'm in no mood for humor, Mr. El-Melloi."
"Neither am I. Our secrets are our own. If you want to know something, ask Minato's computer Sekirei to steal it from MBI's files. The same information they stole from me, incidentally."
Her hand tightened on the sword's hilt. For the first time, I noticed that she lacked the Sekirei crest on the back of her neck.
"Your 'information' has gaps."
"What a pity."
I could see it. I could feel it, even: the curiosity eating at the back of her mind. I am hardly an expert judge of demeanor; I claim no special intuition into others' thoughts. But I'd witnessed this particular inner daemon often enough in the Clock Tower to recognize it.
I smirked.
"Your ship wasn't the first," I said. "Was it?"
"I see no reason to answer your questions when you haven't answered mine."
"Eight golden ships," I said. "That's what the legends said, anyway. And only seven arrived. I wonder...how long did you and your sisters wait in suspended animation before MBI defrosted you, eh?"
Her eyes widened a fraction. Her power had become suffocating, approaching the level of a bounded field.
"They must have dug your spacecraft out of the ground," I said. "At least, I can only assume you crash-landed a while ago from the mythical garble. And if the old stories about the other ships' immigrants interbreeding with humans in the meantime are true..."
She did not reply.
"I think that we can make a deal...Miya, is it?" I said. "Your information for mine."
The night wind whispered through the trees. Rather stereotypically, in my opinion. Miya's hand alternately tightened and relaxed around her sword's hilt like a beating heart.
"...How many of you are there?" she said.
"Not many," I said. "For security reasons, I won't go further than that. My turn. What exactly are the Jinki?"
Miya stopped moving. I do not say 'froze' because that might imply some sort of fear. Miya had no reason for fear. Her motionlessness was simple efficiency.
"...How do you know about the Jinki?"
"That's two questions you've asked," I said. "You've answered nothing."
The night grew a little blacker. Coils of a bounded field seethed through the grass and wriggled around trees. Colors changed; the air became the color of bruises. A cadaverous stench filled my nostrils like oily smoke. I whirled around when I heard the clatter of woodblocks, but no one was there.
"You know, Mr. El-Melloi," she said. "Izumo Inn had a rather...interesting visit from child services the other day. One wonders who called them."
A phantom mask appeared in the air behind her.
Words cannot do the thing justice. In form, it was conventional: a horned purple devil's-head with curved fangs that jutted outward. Even its catlike eyes and pointed ears did not stray too far from convention. And yet, a cloak of the unnatural hung about it. It felt like something that should not have existed.
I am hardly a stranger to folk art. Though my father had never concerned himself with anthropological matters aside from occasional architectural curiosity, my maternal grandfather had assembled an attic of masks from across the globe. As a child, I remember laughing at the Austrian mask's blobby nose, the Korean kappa's batrachian face, and the extended, spoon-like tongue of the Mexican jaguar, licking its fuzzy mustache. Yet I also recall a monkey mask. An inoffensive enough piece, one would think - a toothy ivory smile, a wooden top hat, and eyes a little too much like a man's. Until it had bitten me.
Miya's apparition was worse.
My head swam. I felt my stomach contort itself with eerie synchronicity to my heart's hammering. The muscles in my chest constricted. Everything else shook, tingled, or both. Even oxygen became a precious commodity, as if I was breathing helium. Breaths came in, but air did not.
Nothing seemed real. Madness skittered across the edges of my consciousness like a centipede.
Run.
RUN.
And then, the bounded field vanished. A clammy sensation in my coat alerted me that I'd sweated half my water weight.
The landlady in the kimono smiled sweetly.
"Bring violence to Izumo again, and I'll kill you."
"D-duly noted," I said.
I staggered back, rubbing my forehead. My circuits prickled as if I'd lost blood flow to my entire body simultaneously. Pins and needles stabbed everywhere at once.
"I'll ask again, Mr. El-Melloi," Miya said. "Where did you hear about the Jinki?"
"K-Karasuba. It's...a prize, or something of that s-sort. For the Sekirei Plan."
Whatever this thing was, it needed eliminating. And soon. Minato might as well have fortified himself behind the Maginot Line. And I wasn't sure that I could find an Ardennes Forest.
"A prize? Minaka's giving them as a prize?"
"Evidently."
I became aware of footsteps. Tiny, incredibly strong hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me back. I realized that Benitusbasa had pushed herself between us.
And Miya's smile remained in place.
"Oh, and Mr. El-Melloi?" she said.
"What?"
"I won't tell you about the Jinki," she said. "But I'll tell you this: my ancient sisters did not stay...maidens for long after they arrived in Japan. If a Sekirei reacted to you - and my sympathies go out to her - then you must carry Sekirei blood as well."
My skin felt as if ants had infested it. I shuddered.
"So you mean to tell me that lurking somewhere in my bloodline - a venerable line of magi, I might add, that stretches back further than the industrial revolution - I'm actually..."
"Yes."
"...part Japanese?"
Miya stopped in mid-nod, and stared. And so, for some reason, did Benitsubasa.
"I'll...just be going now," Miya said. "It's been enlightening."
She paused, though, and turned back to Benitsubasa. Her head tilted to one side.
"Tell me, fledgeling," she said. "If you hadn't reacted to this young man, would you still choose him as your Ashikabi? Your soulmate?"
"Yes, I-"
"No," I said. "She wouldn't. And I'm going to reverse this Sekirei disease of hers as soon as we terminate your tenants and win the 'Plan'. She can find someone more suitable."
Miya gave me a peculiar sort of look. It didn't last long, though. She nodded again to Benitsubasa, and resumed her journey back to Izumo.
Benitsubasa bit her lip.
"You're a real bastard sometimes, Meriwether."
I nodded.
"Which is precisely my point," I said.
As I watched Miya disappear into the distance, I began running through my options. Explosives were out. She could detect my familiars, and in any case Matsu could track them with the satellites.
Nor did I feel confident enough in my talents as a bombmaker to assemble one that would work. Oh, doubtless if I'd been Cornelius Alba I could have thrown together some fertilizer nitrate and manipulated it into an inferno. But I wasn't. And that line of thought assumed a bomb could kill Miya in the first place. It probably couldn't. The same applied doubly for arson.
Poison was out. I had a bit left, but lacked a delivery system. And as for bare hands...my sense of humor does not stretch that far. Perhaps I could reinforce a bullet, but I doubted that anything short of a reinforced antitank round could kill her.
I turned to Ichiya.
"Get Higa and Kochou," I said. "I need information on Miya."
Ichiya raised an eyebrow. Slowly, a grin spread across her face, and she took off.
************************************************** *****************
We all met a short time later in the "hacker's" room.
I had only met Kochou briefly during Higa's charity ball. Now, I saw her in her natural environment. Higa had given her a room with eggplant-colored walls. The blinds - an equally revolting shade of purple - were drawn. Light peeked in between the crevices, glinting off the line of computer monitors on the far wall.
The Sekirei herself sat in a swiveling chair with plastic arm rests. Either she didn't know or - more likely - didn't care about its ability to recline, since she sat bolt upright. Her posture, at least, was admirable.
Kochou wore the same rust-colored glasses I'd seen earlier, though the frame left the lenses' top rims bare. A wire was clipped to both sides and ran behind her head. Around her neck was a ruffled collar, which matched the broad, frilly-looking purple belt that covered her stomach.
Her dress was, regrettably, lavender, shoulderless and diaphanous. The usual pair of offensively large breasts bulged beneath the fabric. Aside from this, however, her limbs were thin to the point of emaciation; hardly the lean wiriness of my own Sekirei's body. Kochou's skin was pale, and a mole rested in the middle of her forehead.
Overall, she conveyed the impression of a futuristic (and, it must be said, promiscuous) schoolmarm.
"Tell me about Miya," I said.
Kochou nodded. She sat up even straighter, if such a thing were possible, and her head twitched in a series of nods. Her eyes rolled back.
The line of computers on the far wall raced. Blue light flooded the room. Beeps, boops, and skrees chorused. Computer fans hummed. Whatever connection she had with technology, it apparently did not require physical contact.
All of the screens went white. 'MBI Security Clearance' messages appeared on each of them, along with a blinking line (a 'cursor', Benitsubasa had called it). A line of dots appeared in each box.
LOADING...
LOADING...
PASSWORD VALIDATED. ACCESS GRANTED.
Kuchou's voice came out in a monotone. The resulting sentence, like its faithfully transcribed counterpart below, did not contain punctuation. Or breaths.
"Miya Asama number zero-one spouse Takehito deceased Sekirei crest vanished accordingly not technically Sekirei but self-described goddess customary distinguishing attire purple hakama white haori wooden sandals hair purple last saw action as former member and leader of first generation Disciplinary Squad on Kamikura 21 years previously true identity known only to original Disciplinary Squad and number zero-six Homura has rivalry with zero-four Karasuba-"
"Wait," I said. "Stop. She was married?"
Kuchou blinked and shook her head, as if clearing it. When she looked up at me, she nudged the glasses back onto the bridge of her nose with her forefinger.
"His name was Takehito," she said. "She keeps a shrine to him at Izumo Inn. You can see the surveillance footage if you like."
"Hm," I said. "Interesting...tell me, Kuchou, what would happen if a Sekirei's Ashikabi died of natural causes? Assuming, of course, that the loss of her crest somehow didn't kill her?"
Yet it was Benitsubasa who answered. She didn't look at me when she spoke.
"Her life would become empty," she said. "She'd become empty, like a walking corpse. Her house would become a tomb."
"Huh..." I said.
Perhaps there was more than one way to skin a cat. If we wanted to eliminate Miya, though, we might have to do it soon.
"How much time do we have before the Third Stage starts?" I said. "And what can we expect?"
This time, Kochou did not descend into twitching synchronization with her computers.
"To answer the second part of your question," she said, "during the Third Stage, teams of Sekirei and their Ashikabis will compete against each other in minigames."
"What do you mean 'mini-games'? Games in a small area, or short time limit, or-"
Kochou rolled her eyes.
"Sorry. I forgot the whole 'believed the fry cooker was an iPod accessory' incident. 'Minigame' is a term from video gaming when you have a smaller game within the larger game. Think a scavenger hunt or a one-on-one duel."
"In my defense, that fry cooker was clearly-"
"Uh, right. Anyway, to answer your second question, the Third Stage triggers when most of the remaining Sekirei get winged. Which is weird, since I'd expected it to start by now. In fact..."
Kochou licked her lips and twirled a ballpoint pen, clicking it every so often. Her eyes swept back and forth as if she'd entered REM sleep. Images of Sekirei flashed on the monitors: a succession of well-endowed, doe-eyed young women. Their clothing designers had apparently done their bit for the environment by embracing minimalism.
"Lord Higa?" she said.
"What?"
"There's something else. It's very odd."
"Well?"
Kochou looked up. The computer painted her face a neon blue.
"Most of the unwinged Sekirei, Lord Higa," she said. "Over the last few days, they've just been...disappearing."
Well, drat. Sorry about that.
On one hand, I need get the story out so that it's ready for everybody by the time the next (new) chapter comes out. On the other, I'd prefer to prevent reader meltdown (and similar abuses of posters antlered and antler-free alike).
Fortunately, I'm pretty much done posting story chapters for the night. I'll try to finish the rest tomorrow evening. I guess people can feel free to comment on the posted chapters in whatever order they want.
(Could be worse, though. Imagine how much space From Fake Dreams or In Flight would take up...)
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