By dawn, the sky had cleared up considerably. All the cloud, wind and rain from the night before had disappeared completely, as if they had never even been in the first place. The sky just after sunrise was a deep ocean blue, smattered here and there with thick clumps of soft, fluffy white clouds. The sun was already drifting up through the sky before anyone had the time to notice, sliding up off the horizon, the last few tinges of pink across the bottom edges of the clouds slowly fading away. It was a beautiful, pastel-coloured kind of sky that morning, so quiet and peaceful, with only the sounds of a few scattered birds chirping away in the trees around the city. Such a beautiful morning indeed. The kind of morning she would have loved. Arika breathed a regretful sigh. Brand new world to live in, all kinds of strange things to explore, so many new people to meet and places to go, such endless adventure to be had. Despite it all, here she was stuck in a hotel room with Nina, under orders to stay put. She couldn't even get out and enjoy the morning air, or go walk around in that huge park down behind the hotel. It was like being stuck in a gourmet restaurant with plenty of money, but then told that you couldn't order anything. "Well," she huffed to herself, "like Granny says, "if you give something, you'll get something back"...I think." She shook her head. "Besides, I can have fun in here by myself until Miyu gets back." "Arika," came a weak mumble from behind her, back in the room. "Arika...where are you? Are you out there?" There was a pause before that voice continued, much more irritated, "and what did you do with the sheet?" Arika waited, and waited...and waited. Still, the owner of that voice refused to show herself. A minute stretched on for hours, or maybe she just had no patience, until she eventually turned about on one foot and slid the curtain aside to let the morning sunlight into the room. Nina yelped at first, clutching her hands up to try to cover herself lest anyone be looking in from outside. When she looked up again, however, her attention was well and truly diverted. Instead of Arika standing on the balcony naked, or dressed in part of the curtains or some other strange collection of articles as Nina might have expected, there was a very different person standing there. Perhaps yes, she was a little short, but she did indeed look quite the young girl, her facial features were delicately carved, fine orange eyebrows and surprisingly long black lashes that emphasised her deep blue eyes. A mildly amused expression was scrawled across her face, her eyes sparkling within, her narrow lips curled at their edges, smiling softly as she returned the look. Thick orange hair fell to either side of her face and down the back of her neck past her shoulders, instead of the usual "antennae." Without that ridiculously childish hairstyle, she looked entirely more mature and dignified. The outfit helped considerably, of course. Her shoulders were bare, and all the way down her arms too. In an amusing little twist of irony, she had fashioned the same sort of halter-top dress as the one she had worn when she had broken into Garderobe in the first place and invaded the council hall. This time, however, the dress was almost lovingly put together, folded over and over without a single cut to create a garment that looked almost as if it had been made that way, and held together in a very carefully tied knot behind the redhead's neck. The thin, silken purple fabric flowed down over her whole front half in a semi-loose kind of way, only gripping to her form by the time it reached her waist, where a thick band that could only be the pillowcase had been wrapped around like a belt to hold the thing on. From there it expanded outwards again, draped down over her legs until it brushed against the floor. Each side ended in a corner, and in front left a very small triangular gap where two edges intersected, showing only the slightest hint of her bare feet when she moved. Nina couldn't, perhaps thankfully, see what the back looked like. She wasn't really paying attention to that, though. "You really do look like a princess now," she said, a little absent-mindedly. Arika giggled and Nina felt her face slowly turning as red as the other girl's hair. "What a thing to say, Nina-chan...but we both know you're the real princess, remember?" Arika grinned her usual mischievous little grin. "I should make you something, too! Or maybe we could see how this would look on you?" Nina shook her head, trying to clear out the warm and slightly flustered sensation. "I'd prefer real clothes, thank you," she replied, taking on the somewhat snide, dissatisfied expression she had always given Arika before. "Besides, what if someone caught you looking like that? Or me, for that matter. Walking around dressing like royalty, they'd think we were being facetious or something, then we'd be in plenty of trouble...what?" Arika was laughing at her, and managing to look and sound just as juvenile as she had before despite the almost regal dress. "Nina," she laughed between breaths, "who's going to care? As long as we're not walking around in public in our underwear or something, who's going to come arrest us for dressing the way we want?" Nina blinked. She opened her mouth, but a decent argument failed to materialise. "We're in a whole new world, Nina-chan, nobody here knows us. We can be whoever we want to be, do whatever we feel like doing." "And you just happen to feel like flashing people in public?" "Eh?" "Standing out there on that balcony naked, what are you thinking?" Arika waved a dismissive hand, laughing again. "Silly...I wouldn't do something like that. And even if I did, nobody'd see." She turned round and stepped back out onto the balcony, leaving the curtain wide behind her. "Come on, come out here and see! It's such a wonderful view from up here..." "What do you mean?" Nina frowned. "Besides, I can't come out there, I'm still not dressed yet!" Arika looked back over her shoulder with a devious little smirk. "The only one here to see it is me, and I've seen it all before, remember?" She laughed yet again when Nina's face started turning red again. "You're so easy to tease sometimes, Nina-chan, really." The back of that dress was just as nice as the front, Nina noticed idly. There was nothing above the waist, given the shape of the thing, so the redheaded girl's back was completely exposed from just above the base of her spine. Nina noticed several small patches of red and couldn't keep herself from wincing slightly. Thankfully, everything from the waist down was obscured by the makeshift skirt, the belt tied off at the small of her back in a neat bow. Just like the front, the bottom edge of the dress split at the back just slightly to show the slightest glimpse of unclad feet beneath. She shook her head to clear all those strange thoughts and tried taking a nice deep breath instead. Slowly, step by step she walked across the room to the balcony door until she was stood right behind her roommate, hidden from outside view by the edge of the curtain and by the other girl's body. She was just about to take the first step outside, really, when Arika grabbed her wrist and pulled her out with a delighted little giggle. It really was beautiful. Just below, at the base of the hotel, was a narrow garden that looked almost overgrown. Doubtless, it had been practically forgotten, hidden away behind the building where few would ever see it. Beyond that was a sheer drop, a concrete cliff that cut down what must have once been a rather steep hill some thirty metres high. A narrow paved road ran along the bottom of the wall, and beyond it was another of Tokyo's famous parks, this one leading off into the distance right up to the waterside. All around it stretched that huge concrete wall, for what looked like many kilometres, with dips cut into it in several places for roads to travel down through the park. It was indeed beautiful, yes, and at this time of the morning not a sole could be seen. Nina blinked a little lethargically. "What time is it anyway?" "Dunno," shrugged her roommate. "I just got up when the sun rose and it's been about...hmm...couple hours, maybe three?" She grinned playfully as she crossed her arms over the balcony railing and leaned up against it. "It's really pretty though, isn't it?" "Arika..." Arika turned her head again, a puzzled expression on her face. "Hm?" "A-ri-ka!" The redhead yelped. "It was already dark when we got here! After everything we've just been through, you still won't even give me more than a few hours' rest!" "Ah...Nina-chan...wait! Um...I'm sorry?" Nina put a fingertip to one of the welts on the redhead's back and poked very gently against the skin. "Idiot!" The result was a painful cry as Arika's face scrunched up at the sensation stabbing into her nerves, and all the muscles across her back tensed up. She clasped the railing in both hands and squeezed so tight her knuckles started paling; her teeth caught on her bottom lip and bit down sharply. Nina pulled her hand away, startled. "S...sorry." Arika shook her head slowly. "Are you okay?" "I'm alright," replied the redhead after a decently lengthy pause. "I'm almost healed now, really. It just...still kinda stings a bit." She flinched when she felt a slender fingertip brushing against the skin on her lower back, but when the sensation failed to produce the same painful stimulus she slowly relaxed back down against the railing. "That..." Nina swallowed. Quite oblivious to her state of undress by now, she stepped up a little closer to the other girl and tipped her head down to watch her finger tracing very carefully around the largest of those blistered red patches on Arika's back. "That's from the fire, isn't it? When you caught me..." "Actually," answered the redhead in a much subdued tone of voice, "that happened when we landed. The fire wasn't really that bad, actually." She winced again and Nina's finger dashed backward away from where it had just touched. "If we ever do get home, I'm never going through that stupid desert ever again. I don't know if I'll even be able to set foot on another beach in my life." She gave a slow shake of her head, setting all that long orange hair a-sway again, and closed her eyes. Silence swept back in for a long while, interrupted only by the ever-present buzz of cicadas and the occasional chirping of nearby birds. The sun drifted gradually ever higher and the pink edges finally disappeared from the clouds, even as they began to thin out under the baking assault of that bright summer sunlight. It was almost therapeutic, such tranquillity, until Arika noticed a very soft sniffling coming from just behind her. Nina looked like she was crying; her head down, lips moving wordlessly, a trail of water trickling down her cheek as her fists shook against her sides. "Nina-chan?" Arika reached a tentative hand out to the other girl's shoulder and met no resistance. "Nina, are you okay? What's wrong?" "I don't...I don't want to go back," whimpered the dark-haired girl in a slightly uneven voice. She shook her head firmly from side to side, as if trying to reaffirm herself of her own words, and repeated, in a much more forceful tone, "I don't ever want to go back!" Arika was, needless to say, more than a little bit shocked by the sudden outburst, so that her hand darted away from its intended target as if it had been burnt. Her lower lip quivered while words dashed back and forth in her head, trying to form into some coherent sentence. "But..." She tried reaching back out again rather hesitantly and carried on with the first thing that came to mind, "what about...your friends? All the people at the academy...and Sergei-" Nina slapped her hand away. For a few moments, neither of them could find anything more to say. Arika imagined her grandmother sighing disappointedly and shaking her head, and that wouldn't really have surprised her. Stupid. "I'm sorry," mumbled Nina after a considerable pause, and turned her back on her companion again. She only managed half a step towards the door before a hand grasped firmly on her shoulder and stopped her in her tracks. "Nina, wait... Don't apologise." Arika shook her own head, trying for a slightly rueful half-grin. "I should be apologising to you. I shouldn't have said something so..." "...callous?" finished the other girl in a flat tone of voice. "I suppose." Arika couldn't keep from chewing on her bottom lip as she put her other hand on Nina's hip and slid a little closer. "Please...don't be like that. I hate to think that we still can't get along any more, even after everything we've been through and all." Arika waited a painfully long time for a reply, but the dark-haired girl seemed resolutely uninterested in continuing the conversation in any way. She finally gave up and turned to go back inside when a hand clutched tenuously at the side of her improvised dress. "I don't...hate you," muttered Nina uncomfortably. "I never hated you, however annoying you might get sometimes. I just..." She trailed off, her eyes falling down to the floor to watch her feet shuffle back and forth awkwardly. "I just..." She was abruptly cut off when Arika clasped arms about her waist and pulled her close. She felt moisture on her shoulder, and an unpleasant twist in her stomach when she realised the redhead was actually crying. "I don't want us to ever fight like that again," mumbled Arika between sniffs. Her hands screwed into fists and pressed tight against Nina's bare shoulder blades. "Because I love you, Nina." Nina opened her mouth to protest, but Arika repeated, more confidently, "I love you." Nina felt her arms sliding round that narrow body in return, and just held on loosely, trying her own hardest not to cry herself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The pain was unbearable, unimaginable, indescribable. Such agony was beyond all the words in all the languages in the world. It was a deafening, paralysing, mind-numbing kind of pain. It was... Haruka flinched. Again. "Really now, Haruka, I can't do this if you don't keep still!" The mustard-haired woman pouted angrily and buried her face against the pillow beneath which her hands were fortunately hidden, clutching tight into the mattress, long, manicured fingernails punching holes into the fabric. It was painful all right, but she at least had enough pride to hide it well. When the stinging swarmed in all over her shoulder blades again, she just bit her bottom lip as hard as she could without breaking skin and suppressed the tortured squeal that yearned to be let loose. She whimpered, very softly, under her breath. On the one hand, it was unbelievably painful. They were only scratches, cuts, scrapes, a few slight scorch marks at the very worst, but having that damned cloth smeared on them almost felt like someone stabbing her in the back with a red-hot lance. Whoever said paper cuts were the worst kind of pain had clearly never had this done to them. Furthermore, despite having acquired the most ludicrously expensive room in the most unspeakably luxurious hotel in the whole city, the bed was rather lumpy and the sheet was more than a little rough, which ended up naturally rubbing Haruka quite the wrong way. However, all of the pain and discomfort put together was nothing compared to being face-down naked on a strange bed, her similarly nude wife straddled across her waist from behind. It was all just a little too much to take, almost. Almost. The stinging feeling disappeared again after a few moments, and was finally replaced with the soothing sensation of a cool, dry cloth of some sort being dabbed across the wounds. As she worked on up along all those smooth, well-toned back muscles with the one hand, Yukino leant forward and planted her other hand on the prone woman's left shoulder and squeezed her fingertips very gently into the edge of Haruka's collarbone. Very almost. Almost, and getting closer every second. Yukino sighed again, for about the tenth time that morning, while one fingernail traced a delicate pattern around the wounds on her lover's rather badly scored back, including one or two that weren't exactly fresh. Her voice was drifting somewhat wearily from amused to almost anxious when she spoke again, "Haruka, really, you should be more careful. I'm getting used to doing this for you, and that's not a good thing." "You don't enjoy this?" Haruka tried to chuckle deviously and instead yelped in pain at a finger jabbing between her shoulder blades. "That's not what I meant and you know it. You know I don't like seeing you hurt like this," argued the brunette in an even more insistent tone of voice. "One of these days I'm afraid-" "-Don't be," Haruka cut her off, lifting her upper half off the bed with her hands and taking her wife's modest weight in stride. Yukino, for her part, seemed completely unfazed by the manoeuvre herself. "It'd take far more than a few cuts and bruises to stop the Armitage, and there's certainly nothing I've faced yet that could even come close to really hurting me." Yukino opened her mouth, but the mustard-haired woman beat her to it yet again, turning over onto her back with those legs still wrapped about her waist until she could reach up and tap the brunette's nose with one chiding finger. "Besides, it's you that I'm worried about, personally." "I know," sighed Yukino, a little resignedly. "Deep down, you're still just the same impudent young girl I used to know, aren't you? I'm certainly never going to get you to stop being so....so..." "...butch?" "...reckless," she finished. "You're always so impulsive, Haruka-chan, always rushing straight into things all the time. Sometimes, I worry I don't know how to keep up with you." She sighed yet again and laid her head down against Haruka's chest, leaving the cloth in her hand to fall off the edge of the bed as she relaxed into place. "Then tell me off, if that's what you want. Tell me to stop," Haruka was mumbling in her ear, her voice showing the fatigue of staying up all night fighting. "Tell me to quit showing off so much, anything at all. You know I'd do it if you told me to..." Yukino looked up and caught her gaze, a calm, tender kind of glow in her more commonly unreadable grey eyes. "I like you just the way you are," she declared firmly, and then kissed the mustard-haired woman right on her lips. "Really?" teased Haruka with a hint of a smirk. For a moment, the brunette honestly looked thoughtful, and then finally flashed her own grin down at her partner. "No, I don't think that's right, actually." Before Haruka could become too confused, she kissed her again, and then clarified, "I love you." "That's better." Yukino pouted. "Haruka-chan...you're so mean sometimes." Haruka just grinned at her some more and wound her arms tight around the brunette's body. There was a brief and half-hearted bout of wrestling, which only one of them really seemed to put any effort into, and they finally ended up back on the bed again in much the same position, except that now Yukino found herself trapped underneath the far stronger woman, her arms up over her head in a most suggestive pose. Suddenly, and quite unusually, Haruka sighed. She let go of the other woman's wrists and laid her head down on Yukino's much less impressive chest as one finger found its way to her wife's stomach to start idly tracing out odd little patterns across the skin. "I can't enjoy this," she mumbled, pouting. "What do you mean you can't enjoy this?" Haruka looked up, with an expression that was part irritation and part depression. "If we have the most amazing sex ever right now, I'll still be awake all night afterwards stressing over that thing with that stupid Orphan." As much as Yukino might like to congratulate herself at least for rubbing the right habits off on her oft dangerously over-worked partner, the lack of that usual sparkle in Haruka's brilliant lavender eyes was more than a little worrying. She put her arms around the mustard-haired woman's neck and held tight. "What about it," she asked in a soft, soothing tone of voice. "I thought you killed it, didn't you? You got rid of it and that's that." Haruka shook her head. "That's not it, though," she protested sharply. "I didn't kill it, that woman did!" She beat her fist very gently against the smaller woman's chest in a half-serious display of anger. "I have to find out who she is, and what she has to do with these stupid Orphans." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "Well, that depends on who's asking." "You know you can trust me." Midori raised an eyebrow. "Do I? How can I be so sure, I mean, you do work for the enemy, after all." "I've always been sceptical about this project. Having seen what these girls have gone through, twice now if not more, I know I'm against drawing things out any further. I'd much rather we put them all back where they belong and be done with it." "And would you say the same for Arika?" The pink-haired girl hesitated. The spoon in her fingers quivered almost imperceptibly. "What kind of a question is that," she shot back hastily. "Would you rather stick her back on the streets where we found her?" Midori inhaled another chunk of pancake seemingly without stopping to chew, and glared across the table. "You think she'd enjoy begging for food? Or maybe she'd end up selling her body instead. She's certainly got the kind of figure that men go for these days; so young and-" "-I get the point! You really have no shame, you know that?" Mashiro leant back into her seat, attempting to compose herself while the older woman smirked at her across the table. "You certainly know how to push people's buttons, I'll give you that." Midori made a derisive sound. "Speak for yourself. I seem to remember you being on the other team on this one." "Things change," the young princess answered softly, her expression at last back to normal. "People change too, and not all of us can come out of something like this and still be as self-assured as yourself, Sugiura-san." Her face remained almost blank as she continued, "or would you rather I call you "Boss" this time?" "You shouldn't talk about pushing buttons with tack like that, Fumiyoshi-san. I'm sorry," Midori waved one hand apologetically and bowed her head in a show of mock respect, "Queen Mashiro, isn't it?" The younger declined to argue, and instead went back to picking away at her dessert with the narrow plastic spoon in her hand. Midori waited for a moment or two before shrugging and re-asserting her place in the food chain above her pancakes. For a short while, neither of them spoke, and the sounds of everyday life surrounded them, almost as if everything was perfectly normal. Then Mashiro spoke up. "Whatever the MIYU is up to, it doesn't seem to be planning on accommodating either of us at any time soon. If I were to guess," she suggested carefully, "I'd say it's getting more involved with the Gamma unit than I'd anticipated." Midori set her fork down noisily on the table and glared at her. "They have names you know," she half-growled. "If you really want me to believe that you're working for their benefit, the least you could do is show them some respect." "Have you forgotten who I am?" Mashiro gestured to herself with one hand and out to the crowded restaurant with the other, conservatively of course so as not to raise too much unwanted attention. "Being the head of an internationally recognised and highly lucrative company makes me an easy target for many factions, not the least of which the media. You learn to choose your words carefully in a position such as mine." "And you forget," grunted Midori, mouth half full of pancake and syrup and pointing at the young businesswoman with her fork, "that the last thing your big powerful friends want is public exposure, and that's just what I intend to give them." She grinned. "Anyhow, what about the 'droid? Not like I didn't warn you that it'd be up to something you can't see." Mashiro pressed her lips together tightly and squeezed her spoon. "Indeed," she intoned irritably. "It worries me no end, however, knowing that someone I'd call a close friend is under the supervision of that...thing. I have no way of knowing what it's been telling her or even if she's still alive by now." "Oh she's alive alright," chuckled the older woman. "She's about as alive as they come. In fact, the other night, she broke out of the Sixth District hospital with her little girlfriend and practically demolished part of the building on the way out. Gave one of those "containment" bastards a good work-over too," she finished with a grin, and nodded triumphantly. "Nice to know those 'stormtroopers' of yours are getting just what they deserve." "Oh, I'm sure that amused you no end. I hear you met Armitage while you were there, as well." Midori set her fork down again with a clatter. "They really pulled out all the stops with that on, I can tell you that much. She's built like a tank and just about as dangerous. She beat that Orphan to a pulp all by herself, hardly even broke a sweat! And she's about ten times better looking in real life...not that I go for that sort of girl, mind you." Mashiro tried to hide a blush, and then frowned when her liaison started giggling at her like an errant schoolgirl. "You see what I'm trying to say of course, your highness? Arika has no home to go back to if we abandoned her, and neither do most of the others. Hell, the main reason we chose them was for their lack of attachments. So that they "wouldn't be missed," isn't it?" "So, if we let them go, they'd end up homeless and destitute or worse, is that what you're trying to tell me?" "None of them have any valid qualifications, since none of them legally exist." Midori scraped her fork through the remaining puddle of honey on her plate. "Without our help, they're as good as dead. You want to just throw them all away like that, or would you rather do something useful?" "When you put it like that," scowled the youngster, "I suppose you have a decent argument." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "Did you sleep well?" Natsuki blinked wearily. "Hm?" One hand leaned against the corner of the desk and the other rubbed briefly over her eyes while she yawned. "What was that?" "I asked you if you slept soundly, though by the looks of it that would be a no." Shizuru shook her head and sighed exasperatedly. "I never knew you were such a worrier to stay up all night like that." "It's nothing," was the abrupt reply. "I was up all night yesterday too, chasing some stupid..." She shook her head. "No, never mind. You'd just bug me about it anyway." Shizuru pouted at her, or as close to pouting as Shizuru ever came when she was in a really serious mood. The dark-haired woman chuckled at her. "I don't need you fretting and asking questions about this, okay? Just trust me when I say I know what I'm doing." "Not even just a little background? I'd feel much better knowing what it is you get up to at night, after all." There was a strangely uncomfortable pause while Natsuki settled herself into one of the stiff plastic chairs arrayed along the corridor wall, still blinking and yawning erratically. Shizuru felt obliged to join her, and slid as gracefully as always into place, folding one leg over the other in her usual nonchalant manner. The thick binder of documents in her hands was a considerable weight in her lap, so she took out the first loose piece she could grasp and started skimming idly through it while her companion was apparently busy waking up. "I got a phone call last night," Natsuki relented, at last. The only reply was a mildly intrigued 'hm?' She took another deep breath, which somehow twisted into a yawn, and then backtracked. "After you called, remember, about those two girls?" "Ah, yes." Shizuru straightened and lifted her head, gazing off into the distance as she thought to herself. "Our young "escapees," yes, I remember. I called you just after midnight if I recall correctly." "Well just after that, somebody else called me. To be honest, I'm a little worried that he has my number, but I suppose I should have expected it." "What's this," Shizuru teased. "You have a stalker now?" "Stop being silly, this is serious." Natsuki gave the brunette a disgruntled look, which put her firmly back in place for the time being at least. "Anyway, besides my new friend, there's something important I think you'll want to see." She took out a small oblong-shaped device that fit nicely in the palm of her hand and showed it to Shizuru with a rather hesitant expression. "What?" Shizuru frowned. "There's something wrong, isn't there." "Just...check the disk," muttered Natsuki, turning away again briskly to stare off into the distance. Shizuru gave her a curious look, but when it became obvious that the other woman simply would not comment, she sighed and dipped a hand back into her bag. Out came the familiar grey square, about the size of a paperback novel, which flicked open smoothly to show a blanked-out screen and keypad built into a narrow frame. The egg-shaped device slotted neatly into an opening on the side and at once, up came a small video feed. It only took a second or two for Shizuru's face to turn sour. "Oh," she muttered. "I see what you mean..." The video was of incredibly poor quality, almost to the point that its credibility was questionable, but a room could easily be made out. The layout, Shizuru recognised immediately, was that of an operating theatre of some kind, complete with a fully laden bed in the centre. Upon which bed lay a person, female quite clearly and not that old, and seemingly unconscious, her eyes closed and most of her lower face covered by breathing apparatus. Thick, short crimson hair shrouded one eye and fell about her head in a mess on the table. Several masked, white-robed persons, presumably doctors or the like, were gathered around the table performing various duties with assorted surgical instruments, including a decent few that Shizuru couldn't recognise even at a push. Thankfully there was no sound, but Shizuru was still pressed to suppress a grimace when the unconscious girl's left arm was totally removed from the elbow down, revealing, of all things, what looked like a mechanical joint previously concealed by living flesh. Blood poured out as copiously as was typical, promptly sucked away into the table by methods unseen, leaving no doubt as to the girl's biological nature. "Where did you get this," Shizuru queried her rather perturbed looking companion, who was paying close attention to the floor tiles and trying not to look affected by the rather distressing images on the screen. "I won't even bother joking with you; I know you're certainly not that twisted." "It was anonymous," replied Natsuki in a voice much steadier than she felt, though she hid it admirably. "Whoever sent it, they'd obviously rather we not know, for now at least." When the disk was hesitantly offered back she simply turned away from the outstretched hand and leaned over slightly in her seat. "You can keep it. I don't need it anyway." "I'll give it to Motoko. I'm sure she'll know what to do with it." Shizuru paused as she slipped the device, along with her PDA back into her bag, looking concernedly at her partner. "There's something else bothering you, though..." "I think....I recognise her." Shizuru blinked. "You mean the girl on the video, don't you?" A nod was the only reply she got. "Do you know who she is?" "No...just that she's familiar. I feel like I know her...or like I used to know her, I don't know." Natsuki shook her head and rose briskly to her feet. "What bothers me is whoever sent that did it for a reason and I want to know what that reason is." "I promise I'll let you know everything I find. If there's anything suspicious at all, you'll be the first to hear it." "Then I suppose I should get back to my forte, too. I should go check up on a few "friends" of mine." "Oh, and Natsuki?" She flashed a reassuring smile when the dark-haired woman looked back over one shoulder at her. "Please, tell me you won't be doing anything too hasty?" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Shadows are silent. They move in ways that nobody notices, go places that no one ever sees. Shadows blend into their surroundings perfectly, whatever the setting, day or night. A shadow is as natural and inconspicuous as only a shadow can be. They never arouse even the vaguest of suspicions. The shadow moved. In the semi-gloom inside a badly lit room, neither of the two men noticed. They kept their faces to one another instead, speaking in hushed tones and gesturing with their hands. The taller of the two had cunningly positioned himself so the darkness obscured most of his face, and all that could be made out were hard, narrow lips and a faint scar running down the left side of his sharp, angular lower jaw. He spoke in a very soft voice that barely moved his lips, making eavesdropping on the conversation almost impossible. His confidant, shorter by several centimetres at least and rather younger, judging by his build alone, was easily visible in the sharp artificial light; his dark hair and eyes were indiscriminately Japanese, as were his facial features. Again the shadow moved, slipping through the room like water. "...-out..." Inching closer, right to the very edge of the enshrouding blackness, the very slightest impression of a feminine figure could be seen beneath the shadow. "I know you're nervous, sir, and honestly... ...all making this much more complicated... ...told you...break out..." The taller man held up a hand, and the shorter stopped abruptly. He shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other as his apparent superior reached up to run a finger against the edge of his chin. "...warned... ..." Anything else he said was beyond recognition. "They won't like this," replied the Japanese man in an anxious voice. "The system still isn't ready, we need more time to set it up." "..." Whatever the tall man said, his partner looked more than a little shocked, almost frightened by it. He quickly regained his composure with a shake of his head. "I'll see what I can do," he sighed, looking down. "Let Beuman know we might need aerial support, his ship has that new Sukhoi squadron, doesn't it?" "...told you... ...that..." "Mister Fa-" The Japanese man hesitated, clearly unnerved. "Captain, we really need those double-As in position by the end of the day. I can only trust you'll do your best to make it happen." "Yes, Sir," replied the tall man, and turned to leave. With the barest whisper of cloth on the metal floor, the shadow was gone. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As per ordinary routine, the 12th District Tokyo hospital was relatively quiet over the lunch hour, the office section at least. Down in the lobby and around the various wards rushed nurses to and fro, patients shuttling between rooms and departments, doctors with far too little time to spare. The noise was almost unbearable, and it wasn't even a particularly busy day. Sunlight streamed in through the lobby windows and blinded everyone inside, slow-cooking most of the patients waiting in those ugly little blue plastic chairs lined up across the polished floor. Shizuru winced, but hid it well, when the sun hit her face as she stepped out into the lobby. Her secretary, not moments behind her, showed no reaction at all, not that she actually had any. The sun in the blonde woman's eyes had about as much of an adverse effect on her as did an angry patient yelling in her face. For not the first time, Shizuru thought herself lucky to have someone so...unique under her wing, figuratively speaking. "Ma'am," Motoko spoke just as flatly as usual. "Yes?" Shizuru tried to sound cheerful, however difficult it was having seen all that paperwork on her desk waiting for her when she returned. "Your date, ma'am," explained the blonde. "You're going to be late." The tone of her voice suggested she didn't care in the slightest, and that was probably true. In a strange moment of déjà vu, Shizuru reached into her bag to retrieve the keys to her car only to have that familiar buzzing noise catch her attention. She shot her secretary an amused little smile, which was not returned, and fished her PDA out of its nesting place. "If it's not one thing," she sighed exasperatedly. "It's you," Motoko finished for her cynically. "Moko-chan, be a dear and go pout somewhere else. My real girlfriend wants my attention." Shizuru waved the younger woman off with one hand as her other nimbly worked the keypad on the small electrical device in her palm. She spared only the briefest glance after the blonde as she walked away, just for the sake of seeing the way the back of Motoko's miniskirt curved around the contours of her thighs when she moved. A smirk came to her lips at the sight. "Good thing I got such an adorable assistant, isn't it?" Then the PDA demanded her attention again. She checked carefully and, there under "INCOMING" was a single file marked "urgent" from Natsuki's mobile number. She opened it up and, lo and behold, it was just as curious if not more so than she had expected. First of all, there was what appeared to be a list of numbers all roughly twelve digits, there must have been at least a hundred or more, alongside a corresponding column of alphanumeric characters arranged in a way Shizuru didn't quite recognise. Secondly, and more importantly, was what looked like scans taken from an identification document of some sort. Right there on the first page, blaring out at her, was a picture of a very familiar orange-haired, purple-eyed young girl in her late teens, smiling at the camera. Alongside were written a few rather troubling things. Name: Tokiha Mai. Age: 16. Last known residence: unconfirmed. (Yokohama area) Relations: Mother (name unknown) DECEASED. Father (name unknown) DECEASED. Brother (Tokiha Takumi)... Shizuru blinked. DECEASED. "Okay," Shizuru murmured to herself. "That's a little worrying, isn't it then?" She skimmed quickly through the rest of the document: everything from a physical analysis, blood tests, drug results and the like. The details were unnerving, more so in the fact that the document appeared for all intents and purposes, totally authentic. By the end, Shizuru was more than just a little bit worried. And then she checked the line she had skipped right on the very first page... Time of death: 17:06:52. She looked again. Time of death. She shook her head. Impossible. Tokiha Mai was clearly very much alive and well, if unconscious, in a room in that very hospital at that exact moment, probably having some very relaxing dream or other. She was certainly not dead. The blindingly obvious suddenly occurred to Shizuru, and she checked the document header. "National Registry: Department of Records" was printed plain as day at the top of each page. At the bottom of the last page as expected was a signature, presumably from whoever had been on duty at the time. This was most inscrutably a certificate of the deceased, and that meant that Tokiha Mai was legally dead. Tokiha Mai...was legally dead? Shizuru put a hand to her forehead and sighed, as seemed to have become a habit lately. "This is just getting ridiculous," she muttered to no one in particular. "No wonder the management stuck her with Miko...to..." Something clicked. It suddenly made sense. Shizuru suddenly knew that she didn't need to see a similar document to know that Mikoto had been long since declared dead in much the same way, not that that would stop her checking anyway just to be sure. That answered plenty of interesting questions and opened up a whole plethora of new ones. Natsuki would doubtless have a lot of explaining to do later that afternoon. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- It was a cool, quiet afternoon in that secluded little hotel room. The hum from the air conditioning unit built into the ceiling was just barely audible, and over that came the sound of a few over-excited birds, the regular traffic along the road outside, and the ever-present drone of cicadas everywhere they could find to land. The balcony doors were open once again, letting in a gentle sea breeze that filled the air with the faint scent of salt and fish. Fortunately, the sun was on the other side of the building, so no blinding light came in through the open curtains. The lights were off, and the whole room took on a much more relaxed, lethargic sort of atmosphere. The sheet on the bed was soaked by now, but it didn't matter. On reflection, the air conditioning hadn't really done as good of a job as they had expected, and now both the room's occupants were collapsed, naked and sweating quite profusely, on the bed, the covers left in a heap on the floor. "I told you cooking breakfast would be too much for you," mumbled Nina through the back of her hand. "But you just wouldn't listen, would you?" Arika rolled over onto her stomach, wincing at the feeling of sweat-soaked cloth against her belly. "Well I had to do something," she argued weakly, "or I would've gone crazy in here, do nothing all day." She sighed as heavily as she could. "It's just so boring sitting her, waiting for nothing." "Then go outside, you exhibitionist." One of her legs landed across Nina's stomach and was promptly shoved off, to a fairly pathetic attempt at a yelp from its owner. "And stop bothering me so much with how bored you are, hm?" "Ni-ni-chan," moaned the redhead. "You're so mean sometimes. I almost regret saving your life back then..." Nina bashed her lightly on the head with one fist. "Well then who would you have to annoy, Arinko? Besides, nobody else can put up with your whining voice for as long as I can." "Ers-chan said I have a nice voice," protested Arika, sitting upright with a disgruntled pout on her face. "That's because you usually whined at me!" Nina gave her a good whack in the face with a pillow, and that sent her toppling onto her back with a yelp, arms flailing. "I was the one getting all those irritating complaints about absolutely everything. Every ten minutes, you'd start moaning about something else." "That's not true," argued Arika, reaching for a pillow of her own and striking back with a clean uppercut to the jaw. "It just seems that way because you were so mean to me all the time! You never stopped..." She cut off when Nina whacked her square in the face again, with exactly the same result as the first time. "You're so predictable, Arinko. I knew you'd blame it on me. But who was it who filled the pool with sugar?" "That wasn't my fault!" Arika protested loudly when the other girl moved to straddle her thighs, holding her down as the pillow "whapped" down over her face repeatedly. "I...didn't...know the...labels were...switched," she protested between hits. "And it...wasn't...me who...put those things...in the pool...in the...first place." "Oh yeah? Well, ack..." Nina squealed and windmilled her arms as a leg tangled into her thigh and pulled her down onto her back again. "Gotcha!" There was a brief flurry of stuffing as the slightly battered and torn pillows were discarded and Arika dove on her opponent, fingers outstretched. "No," yelped Nina, visibly panicked. "No! Anything, anything but that!" Arika wasn't having any of that. Her fingers knew exactly what they were doing. She held the dark-haired girl pinned to the bed in much the same way as she had been restrained herself and worked her hands rapidly up and down Nina's sides and stomach, fingertips dancing over slick skin. Nina was emitting the most satisfying noise somewhere between squeals of torment and uncontrollable laughter, along with those sexy little squeaks she always made that only encouraged her attacker on even more. A decidedly evil cackle came to Arika's lips without her even thinking of it. For a moment or two, she almost looked menacing, towering over her fallen opponent and torturing mercilessly at the other young girl's weak spot. All of a sudden, Arika collapsed atop her target with a sigh. Nina protested quite loudly for a while, kicking her legs and batting at the redhead's shoulders, but both girls were really too drained to do much more. Eventually, they just lay there like they had before, half-awake and breathing heavily. "It's too hot." Arika sat up again, pigtails bouncing about wildly. "Then we'll go out and do something fun!" "Stupid. It's even hotter out there than it is here." Arika pouted. "You're boring, Nina-chan. Come on, it'll be fun at least." She reached and grabbed the other girl's wrist firmly in hand and pulled her up to her feet. "We can go see what this place is like! We can meet a few of the locals or whatever, get to know people, have something to eat." Nina opened her mouth to protest but her stomach interrupted. "See?" Arika poked her in the ribs, ignoring the blush and the protests that went along with it. "Your stomach agrees with me! We should go and spend a little of that money Miyu gave us." "Some clothes might be nice," argued Nina not too subtly. "How are we going to go walking around in public naked, in the middle of the day?" Arika waved her free hand dismissively, smiling in a way that wasn't at all comforting. "Don't worry, Nina-chan, I'll think of something. Come on, let's go already!" With that, she half-dragged her companion out the door into a fortunately abandoned corridor, pausing only to let Nina lock the door behind them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Mai felt oxygen flooding her lungs, her chest expanding, her blood tingling in her veins. Muscles twitched all over her body, from the ends of her toes to the tips of her fingers, to the back of her neck and even the base of her spine. All ten digits curled up and stretched out at once, and then her hands balled up into loose fists. Her eyelids peeled back ever so slowly and she squinted against the sudden light flooding her optic nerves. "Nuh," she uttered incoherently at first, feeling every tiny flex and twitch of all the muscles in her tongue, the way her vocal chords tightened in her throat. Her hands shifted up beside her and she put all her upper body weight onto her elbows, slowly pushing herself to sit upright. It was almost dizzying for a few moments until she gently shook her head to banish the sensation altogether, which unfortunately made her head spin and her stomach lurch. "Mai!" an excited voice squealed just to her left. Then before she knew it, a familiar lump was leaning in against her side, arms around her middle. She looked down at that vague form and couldn't stop a quietly relieved smile from growing over her face. "Mikoto...I'm okay." She put one hand atop the young girl's head and played her fingers through that short-cropped black hair. "I'm okay, don't worry." Mikoto nodded emphatically, face still buried into the taller woman's chest, and made a soft affirmative sound. Mai chuckled a little self-consciously. "Good morning, Tokiha-san," uttered a most elegant sounding female voice from somewhere off to her left. She looked up again as it continued, searching for its owner. "It's good to see that you're awake finally. Welcome to the Twelfth District hospital... again." "Ah!" Mai felt a grin coming on as the smartly-dressed older woman in the dark brown suit came into focus at last, long chestnut hair shinier than ever with the late evening sunlight streaming in through the window opposite her. "Fujino-san... Thank you. It's nice to be back." She looked around slowly at the bland hospital room in which she suddenly found herself, and confusion bloomed on her features. "But how in the world did I get here in the first place?" Shizuru gestured broadly with one hand towards the bed, smiling a most amused sort of smile. "Kuga-san very kindly brought you here after you apparently collapsed. She was very worried about you, actually." Mai turned her head quickly to look to her right instead and, sure enough, there she was standing in the gap between the bed and the near wall, just to the right of that wide panel window, the sunlight gleaming off one edge of her navy blue hair and obscuring most of her face in deep shadow. "Natsuki..." Mai felt her hand slipping from the small head nuzzled against her chest and instead was reaching tentatively out towards the dark-haired woman standing beside her. "I don't know how you found me...or how you got me here, but I'm glad. I owe you a lot now." Natsuki turned her head slightly to one side and for a moment... "Mikoto was so worried about you, too. I'm afraid neither one of them has gotten much sleep all night." Shizuru smiled a little more politely this time, and then bowed. "As long as you're okay though, I'd best be getting back to work. Please excuse me." With that, she was out the door and gone surprisingly quickly. An awkward silence descended, but nobody seemed to notice it. Mai was too busy returning the impromptu hugging, Mikoto was too busy enjoying just such activity and Natsuki was absorbed in her own little mental goings-on as she stared at the now closed door. It was Mikoto who eventually broke the silence; without any real sort of warning, she slumped down with her head in the redheaded woman's lap and started snoring softly, only her semi-limp legs keeping her from dropping to the floor. Mai giggled after a confused few moments and started stroking affectionately at the young girl's hair again. "She must be exhausted," she said fondly. "Did she stay up all night to be here?" "She wouldn't cooperate when I tried to make her go to sleep. She's almost as stubborn as you." Before she had time to turn her head round again, Mai felt a hand on her shoulder from behind. "What about you? Are you sure you're okay?" There was another long, slightly uncomfortable pause. Mai resisted the urge to turn and look, why she didn't quite know. "Natsuki," she finally asked, very gently indeed. "Hm?" She paused for quite a while before the right words came to mind. "Why are you crying?" Natsuki hesitated just a little too long before answering. "That's silly," she replied dismissively, turning to face across the window so that her face was obscured by the time Mai turned towards her. "Why would I be crying? You're okay, after all, aren't you?" Again, for just the briefest second, Mai thought she saw...something. But it was gone when she blinked. She opened her mouth to apologize, for what exactly, she wasn't really sure, but the other woman cut her off again. "You should go back to sleep, Tokiha. You need rest after collapsing like that." Natsuki took a long, deep yawn and arched her back out in a way that looked almost painful. "Kami knows, I need it, after carrying you down all those..." she trailed off. Mai smiled somewhat playfully. "You carried me all the way down that building. How sweet of you." Then she blinked again. "But...it's not just that, is it?" She looked up and down the figure beside her once more, her first real look since she had blacked out the previous night, and she definitely noticed that odd something. "You weren't riding...were you? You didn't..." "Didn't what?" came the answer in a slightly sharper tone of voice. "You did, didn't you? You carried me all the way here..." "Not like it was that tough or anything. I can bench-press my own bike after all, shit, we both can. Remember?" Mai giggled, which brought much confusion. "For a white knight, you're a little shy." "And you're crazy," replied Natsuki, blushing quite beautifully. Mai knew the dark-haired woman thought she hadn't noticed, what with the lighting and all, and she said nothing, but she was certainly enjoying herself on the inside. "Now just go back to sleep, would you?" "Awww...I love you too," teased the redhead, but she did finally roll back onto her side and let her eyes slip shut, her arms wrapped around Mikoto's upper body just in case the youngster decided to fall down while she slept. "I wish you wouldn't say things like that..."
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