Toaru Majutsu no Index/とある魔術の禁書目録 1. Another Side of Saturday

**Master of the House, part 1: Another Side of Saturday**

**I do not own the RAILDEX universe**

**Author's notes:**

Welcome dear readers, to the first part of the second sequel of my story _He will Surely Save_!

Our story has returned to the Saturday of Touma's many visitations.

There is always more to tell . . .

Enjoy!

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_The air crackled with power around her bangs as she stood facing the boy on the bridge. He stood defiant against the display and locked his blue-gray eyes onto the brown of her own, reading the sense of defeat and despair within them. The spiky-haired boy would not yield, the resolution on that face told the girl all that she needed to know._

_He stood unflinching when she released that power, the lightning crossing the gap between them in an instant. The boy felt his body go rigid and be thrown backwards from the force of the attack. _

_As he hit the pavement with enough force to rattle his bones, the sharp tang of ozone and scorched flesh invaded the boy's nostrils. The creeping darkness at the edges of his vision soon washed over all, and the boy felt nothing further . . . ._

_There was no knowing the amount of time he had spent in that darkness, but he gradually felt a sensation like a gentle rain falling on his face. Slowly the lids of his eyes were forced apart by his determined will to see and the light entered his sight again._

_As the spiky-haired boy's vision cleared, he was greeted by the sight of the same brown-haired girl that had sent him to the ground only a few moments ago. The tears from her eyes ran in unbroken streams down her face before each drop broke reluctantly from it and landed on his own as she held his head in her shivering lap._

_His heart broke to see the pain in her glistening brown eyes, but all he could do was watch as she shook and whimpered. She spoke to him with the halting and whispered voice of someone who had seen her world taken from her._

"_Why . . . ?"_

_With muscles just on the edge of his control, the boy lifted his hand to her cheek and rested his fingers on her face._

"_To dry the tears from these eyes, I would fight the world . . . "_

_His fingers brushed through her hair as they gently curled around the back of her head. He ignored the pain screaming out from his back as he raised his head up from her lap and gently pulled her face closer to his own._

_Just before their lips made contact, he whispered one last time._

"_For the smile on these lips I could forgive anything . . . ."_

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It was a quiet late morning on Saturday when the trio of girls left the lobby of the hospital to delve the depths of a certain familiar set of corridors in search of Academy City's favorite misfortune magnet, Kamijo Touma. A Certain High School's beauty sempai, who went by the name of Kumokawa Seria, ushered a pair of dark-haired girls through the main doors. She grinned like a guide leading a tour as she pointed to a large plaque upon the nearby wall.

"Alright, ladies! All we need to do is follow the signs to Kamijo-san's room."

The school's most anticipated first year student, Fukiyose Seiri, twitched briefly when she read down the arrow-laden list her sempai had pointed out and turned to her companions.

"Does it bother anyone else that this hospital has permanently mounted signs pointing to his room?"

"You know him as well as I do . . . " Seria grinned and shook her head. "So no, not really."

Fukiyose made a gesture with her thumb over her shoulder back in the direction they had entered from, before continuing.

"How about the fact that the gift shop is selling maps to his room?"

The girl twitched once more when her friend, Himegami Aisa, pulled out the very map she had been referring to and, upon slowly unfolding it, made a brief show of perusing it. The girl with princess hair gave it an approving nod.

"These really are beautifully printed . . . "

"Again, not really." For the second time in as many minutes, Seria dismissed her kohai's question with a flippant toss of her head. "Now pick up the pace, we're on a schedule here!"

Fukiyose raised an eyebrow. "You seem rather eager to see Kamijo."

"You're damn right I am!" The beauty sempai pointed of in a random direction before continuing. "There's a certain yellow-headed witch that _I_ need to get ahead of."

Before either of the other two girls were able to voice their confusion, a young man wearing slacks and a sweater vest strolled up to the trio of girls and began to casually ramble in their direction.

"Pardon me, ladies . . . " The boy let out a polite tone of voice as he passed his eyes between the three girls in front of him. "I'm looking for my cat."

His audience stood frozen upon the appearance of this new intruder in their midst and were unable to reply. He blithely continued, randomly glancing around the room as though he was expecting it to come flying at him.

"You may have seen her . . . . Two eyes like the forest and fur like a thunderstorm?"

Himegami was the first to recover her deadpan wit. "Who brings a cat to a hospital?"

The boy turned to her with a twinkle in his eye. "I do, but fear not, she's perfectly healthy!"

Fukiyose put up her hand to get his attention.

"That's not really what– "

The boy's voice broke over hers as he resumed his two-sided monologue.

"I'm bringing her to meet someone." The boy began to gesture with his arms in a vaguely kung fu manner as he raised his voice. "The highest of the high! The point by which all revolves and yet nothing changes! You know what I mean."

Fukiyose tried to respond to the bizarre display. "We really don't . . . "

The boy waved his hand in front of his face without a care.

"Well, no matter." The group flinched when he suddenly pointed at them with a serious face. "Just choose the right side when he stands against you."

The girls were speechless as he brushed past them and continued his languid walk down the hallway.

"I passed the most interesting pair in the hallway on the way here . . . " The boy called back over his shoulder as he made his way away from them. "A blonde and a guy in leather carrying a ton of cookies. Just thought you'd like to know . . ."

The two younger girls shared a look of confusion as they watched their senior turn a ghastly shade of white. This was followed by a pair of dropped jaws when Seria turned without warning and took off like a shot down the hallway.

"Don't just stand there!" She shouted breathlessly over her shoulder as the girls watched her retreating into the distance. With a mutual shrug of the shoulders, they too took off in pursuit as her voice came wailing back to them.

"Reach deep into those jealous girl hearts and pump those stupid legs!"

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_The silken sheets of the bed beneath him caressed his skin as he lay there, eyes closed in repose, the fingers of one hand just barely touching the skin of his right cheek._

_The smooth sensation of bare skin near his feet brought his attention to them as his eyes finally opened and he saw her crouching at the foot of his bed. The silken waves of her golden hair flowed over her body like rays from the sun. They seemed to shimmer as she crawled closer to his face with a luxurious slowness, the touch of her slender fingers caressing the side of his body with each pass._

_The gilded stars of her eyes were locked onto his own as she crept forward, the teasing smile on her lips beckoning for his touch._

_As she came into reach, his fingers ran gently along her arms, tracing a path of shivering joy from her wrists, along her forearms, over the curve of her elbows and finishing just below her shoulders._

_A muted moan escaped her lips as he pulled her closer to himself, his arms folding around her as they succumbed to the sensation of each other's skin._

_She murmured in ecstasy as his fingers teased their way up her spine, before resting on the back of her neck._

"_Touma-chan . . . "_

_She felt herself submitting to the pressure of his hand as it brought their faces ever closer to each other. The warmth of his breath tickled her ear for a moment as he whispered into it._

"_Together we can forget what once was . . . right now is all I need . . . ."_

_With a final moan, her face turned to receive the gentle warmth of his lips. _

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The blonde level five was nearly bouncing in glee as she led a group consisting of herself, a trio of dark-haired girls, and one sullen looking boy wearing leather away from Kamijo Touma's room. As she hummed a joyful but unsettling song to herself, the tide of annoyance continued to build in the group behind her until it was finally broken by a certain sporty girls grumbling.

"I still can't believe you lot." Fukiyose clenched her fist as she addressed the rest of the group. "Thinking about that kind of thing with Kamijo . . ."

Himegami sent her a calm tilt of the head. "All is fair in the game of capture the flag."

Seria nodded with a wicked grin.

"Agreed." She then pointed at the blonde at the front of the group. "And anyway, mental-girl here started it."

The Queen spun in place and planted her hands on her hips as she glared at the group.

"Really now! You witches think I would actually go through with it?" She tossed her head in scorn. "I'm insulted!"

She leaned forward as she continued, a teasing grin pulling at her lips.

"When Touma-chan and I finally become one, it's going to be entirely his idea, not mine!"

Feeling rewarded by the return salvo of dropped jaws, she placed her folded hands beside her cheek and murmured to herself with eyes falling closed.

"In the meantime, a little rubbing and kissing isn't going to kill him~"

Upon hearing this, Seria turned to the rest of group, raising her hand as she began to speak.

"All in favor of dunking her head in the lobby's decorative fountain on the way out?"

Misaki watched through one open eye as the remainder of the group, joined by several nurses and female patients in the hallway nearby, raised their hands in unison. The Queen did her best to look insulted before giving up a sweet giggle.

"Hmph! Jealousy is such an ugly thing~"

Fukiyose looked about ready to start shouting when the loud voice of an unfamiliar boy floated around the corner, startling them all.

"Sogiita-san, where the hell are you?!" The pitch was wavering up and down a bit with each word. "You left me with your blasted cat and then disappeared!"

A weighty pause ensued.

"No, it is NOT a learning experience!" The exasperated voice continued "That cat hates me and you know it! It probably would have eaten me if Konori-san hadn't shown up!"

The girls peeked around the corner to find a nondescript boy yelling into his cellphone. Standing next to him was a busty girl wearing a green Judgment armband and holding on to a small gray cat. Fukiyose pointed at it and silently mouthed the word to Himegami, who nodded. The boy let out a slow breath as the person on the other end made their reply.

"Alright fine, we'll meet you there. Just stay put this time." The boy grumbled as he rubbed his face.

Seria whipered her thoughts to the Queen, who responded in kind.

"_I think we found our Seven counter . . . _"

"_Agreed. Take it._"

Upon hearing the snap of his cellphone being shut, the two girls stepped around the corner. The rest of the group quickly followed them as the elder dark-haired girl called out to the young man they had been eavesdropping upon just moments ago.

"Pardon me, are you Haratani Yabumi?"

The boy and girl were just about walk off, but turned about in surprise when they heard the call. As the small cat let out an angry sounding moan in the direction of the newcomers, the boy responded with a guarded tone.

"I am . . . "

The pair of beautiful manipulators sent him their most dazzling smiles as Seria continued with her questioning.

"Can we have a word with you for a moment?"

Yabumi's eyes slid slowly over the group before he responded.

" . . . Fine." He gave a reluctant nod before turning to the girl next to him. "Konori-san, why don't you go ahead? He's in the cafeteria on the second floor."

The bespectacled Judgment girl looked hesitant, but finally nodded and walked off. The boy turned back to the girl who had addressed him, she clasped her hands in front of herself and continued.

"You are friends with Seven, correct?"

His eyes narrowed. "I might be . . . "

Seria pointed the girl standing next to her. "Do you recognize Blondie here?"

Yabumi looked thoughtful for a moment before his eyes widened in recognition. They then fell back into a suspicious glare.

"It appears to be the girl that Sogiita was about to go ape on a few days ago . . . "

He crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head defiantly at the group that had called him out.

"So what is this, some kind of revenge hit?" Yabumi sent them a little grin. "I should warn you, thanks to him, I'm a lot better at dodging and running than I look."

The two girls in front shook their heads in unison, strangely pleased looks upon their faces as they did so.

"No this is entirely peaceful, I assure you." Seria put her palms up in front of herself to diffuse the tension. "I just have a question to ask you."

"Then ask it."

She tilted her head and traced her fingers over her cheek. "Are you happy with how he is right now?"

The boy stood frozen in place, unable to make a reply.

"What if I told you that I could help you put him back to normal?"

Yabumi responded with a gruff mutter. "What's in it for you?"

"Many things." Seria smiled and placed her hand on the Queen's shoulder. "But I believe that you will find that everyone will be happier in the long run . . . ."

There was a long pause as the group collectively held their breath. Finally, the boy broke the silence with a sigh.

" . . . What do you need me to do?"

Seria and Misaki both stepped forward and placed a hand on the boy's shoulders.

"There's a small lounge back that way." Seria made a grand gesture with her hand down the hallway. "Why don't we all sit down and talk about it?"

". . . Fine."

With a gentle push, they ushered the boy forwards, sharing a brief smirk with each other as they led him back the way they came.

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Saturday evening found a certain wheelchair bound nitrogen esper nodding off from boredom in the dimly lit patient's lounge that had long since become her second home during her stay at the hospital. She was breathing softly as she rested her chin against the stuffed dolphin toy firmly clenched to her chest like a totem of innocence long since lost.

The slender girl twitched and opened a bleary eye when she heard the quiet rasping of a door being slid open. With the main lights turned off for the evening she could only barely make out the form of a small girl with short hair. When the identity of the individual became clear to her, she gave a frantic whisper in the girl's direction.

"_Hey now! You're that boy's cousin, right?_" Umidori pointed at the room the little girl had vacated. "_Aren't you supposed to stay in bed?_"

The terror laden eyes of the girl caught the available light for a moment before she relaxed, realizing the speaker was not a nurse. She reluctantly walked over when the other girl beckoned her.

"I'm worried about Onii-chan . . . " The girl muttered as Umidori placed her dolphin on the nearby table and re-positioned herself in her chair. "The nurses wouldn't let me see him when I woke up an hour ago."

The nitrogen esper turned her head away in embarrassment. "Yeah, stuff happened earlier . . . ."

Seeing the girl's worried look, Umidori waved off her concern.

"You know about the broken leg, right?" The little girl nodded. "Then don't worry. He'll be fixed in a few days."

The little girl's tiny fists clenched as she pouted, an annoyed tone issuing from her quivering lips.

"But I want to see Onii-chan . . . "

Umidori noticed the air around the impudent little girl beginning to shimmer and flinched backwards a bit.

"Hey, easy now!" The dolphin-loving esper flailed her hands about like she was trying to fight off a large bear. "Put it away! He had a busy day and needs some rest, that's all!"

The little girl let out a tiny cry of disappointment, but otherwise relaxed. Umidori sighed in relief when the shimmering faded away and muttered to herself under her breath.

"That brings back some unpleasant memories . . . "

She then flinched in surprise when the little girl grabbed her arm and whispered frantically in her ear.

"_Someone's going into Onii-chan's room!_"

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_The lean and wiry girl with the boyishly short, spiky red hair had been sorting through a pile of papers when she felt it. She stiffened when the pair of strong hands took a hold of her shoulders from behind and then relaxed as they began to firmly massage them. _

_She dropped the papers onto the table in front of her and melted backwards into the other person's grip, the flush of her cheeks matching the same fiery shade as her hair._

_The earthy masculine scent of his body teased her senses as he slid his arms around her and embraced her closely. She felt the lean and hard muscles of his torso pressing into her back, the heat from his skin soaking into her trembling body._

_The proud girl struggled to maintain her dignity by not letting out a moan of pleasure when he gently pressed his hand against the firm tension of her stomach, his other hand tracing the subtle curve of her hip. This proved impossible when the boy traced his lower lip over the sensitive edge of her ear._

_The throaty purr from her lips was uncontrollable . . . _

" _. . . H–hero-sama . . . ."_

_The boy only held her closer as she tilted her head back to gaze into the warm blue shade of his eyes. She nearly drooled when he licked his lips and leaned a little bit forwards to gently nip the skin at the base of her neck. After a moment he withdrew again to whisper soft words into her ear._

"_Please don't change at all . . . I am yours alone . . . "_

_The girl felt her knees buckling in ecstasy as he gently turned her face to receive his kiss._

"_Yours alone . . . ." _

**. . . **

A young woman with pale skin and a halo of icy-blue hair strewn about her pillow opened a pair of blood-red eyes, glaring out into the darkness of the bedroom.

Without ceremony, she pulled her upper body into a sitting position and hissed out to another person who listened with a shivering feeling inside.

"_That was one too far."_

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The two girls in the hospital lounge watched as a person, holding a cat, silently slid open the door to Touma's room and entered, closing the door behind them. The girls shivered when the cat's glowing green eyes met theirs just before the door slid shut. Otohime hugged herself and began to whimper.

"Looking at that person made the back of my eyes hurt . . . "

Umidori nodded silently.

"Something isn't right here . . . " She wheeled herself forward, waving the little girl into line behind her. "Come on."

The pair approached the door with the utmost caution, doing their best to avoid making even the slightest sound as they reached it. Umidori leaned forward, but could only make out the barest fragments of an unfamiliar male voice.

" –Acknowledge th– and I – humbled . . . "

The girls shift as close as they dared, struggling to make out his words.

" – Missy – city at – like ants – unpunished far too long –"

The umber-haired little girl's eyes widened in fear. She reached for the door handle, but was stopped by a firm grip on her arm.

"_I promised that boy that I would keep an eye on you!_" Umidori whispered firmly in her ear. "_At least step back while I rush in._"

"_But – _"

Umidori shook her head. "_If you hear a fight break out, just run in and use that crazy power of yours on him._"

The little girl tilted her head. "_What crazy power?_"

" _. . . You're kidding right!?_"

When the little girl simply continued blinking in confusion, Umidori sighed quietly in frustration.

"_I guess I'm in this alone then . . . _"

The girl's heads snapped towards the door when the unknown young man's voice rang out through it with perfect clarity, as though he was addressing them directly. Umidori frantically waved the other girl back towards her room. In shock, the little girl complied as quietly as she was able.

" . . . I will decide how far is too far."

Umidori had just turned back, readying herself to throw the door open, when the overwhelming presence within the room suddenly vanished without a trace. She looked down at her clenched fist for a moment before finally wheeling herself around to the room where the little girl had concealed herself. Umidor felt a little disgusted with herself.

"Whoever he was, he just vanished."

Otohime peaked around the other girl at her cousin's room. "Is Onii-chan, okay?"

The other girl nodded with a sour expression.

"Considering that I never heard him speak, I'm guessing that he isn't awake." Umidor pointed a thumb over her shoulder. "The alarms would have gone off if there was a problem."

When the little girl continued to twitch and look around her, Umidori stiffly placed her hand on her shoulder and gave it a little squeeze to reassure her.

"I promised Touma-kun that I would look after you until you were released on Monday." She gave the little girl a gentle push into her room. "Right now the both of you need your sleep."

A sour expression crossed Otohime's face.

"Yes, auntie . . . "

"If you stop making that face, I'll bring you to see him first thing tomorrow morning." Umidori grinned and held up her fist. "If anyone says otherwise, I'll shove a nitrogen burst up their keister!"

With a smile finally returning to her face, the little girl let out an adorable giggle and nodded. When the door to the room finally closed, Umidori slumped down in her chair and muttered up at the ceiling.

"I better be well rewarded for this, Touma-kun . . . "

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"_That was one too far."_

Those blood red eyes twitched briefly before continuing.

"We both saw that . . ." The girl shook her head violently as the memory came back, her blue hair flying every which way before finally settling back down. "It just kept getting worse, didn't it?"

She paused for a moment as if listening.

"And _I_ say that that whole 'I just want everyone to be happy' is nothing but loser talk!"

The air seemed to turn sour for a moment.

"Answer me this one thing: were you ever satisfied with _anything_ we just saw?"

The girl paused.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. The question is, what are _WE_ going to do about it?"

" . . . Sterling-san?" A groggy voice groaned out from the bed next to the blue-haired girl's. "It's so late . . . is something wrong?"

The girl flinched for a moment before turning her head in the dark.

"It's nothing, Rutile-san, just a bad dream . . . "

The girl heard a groan from the other bed and felt a dark grin pulling against her lips.

"Since we're both awake, can you tell me something?"

She continued blithely past the other girl's muttered protests.

"_How has the Queen been doing lately?"_

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**Author's Notes:**

And there you have it!

I would like to thank Hikari Storm for lending me the names and likenesses of Sterling and Rutile. Some parts of them will be familiar, and others less so, but I hope to integrate their spirit into my own little corner of the TAMNI universe. There will be divergence in characterization, so be aware . . .

I'll also say that Sterling wasn't the only one having those dreams . . . .

In the third dream, Touma quotes the song 'Pug' by the Smashing Pumpkins. I couldn't help myself.

Sogiita appears in all his cryptic splendor to toy with Seria's group. Note that they did not recognize him.

Poor Yabumi is getting in _way_ over his head . . . .

We also get to confirm the listener outside the door to Touma's room during Sogiita's visit.

Thank you to all who have read, followed, favored, and reviewed!

Reviews:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Sargent Crash: Glad you are enjoying Yabumi! The idea of a normal, serious person hanging out with Sogiita seemed like it would be ripe with humor.

Loopsy: Spin that web!

Agent Nine: Inspiration struck and we now have a second part of _The Heat from Her Skin_. It will be updated sporadically since, unlike the other three sequels, I do not have a defined plot for it. That said you can expect to see it updated a few more times . . .

Dimak: True, I don't think Touma would every really act like that outside of a dream (or drunkenness) . . . . Sterling did see all three dreams, my note above was implying that she wasn't the only one that received them. As for Yabumi, Misaki and Seria understand that Sogiita cannot be taken head on. Sterling will be explored further, her back story will be similar to _A Frozen Flower_, but most of the rest of Hikari Storm's work will be extensively altered to fit or simply ignored. My Sterling will be an AU Sterling after all.

whwsms: The craziness! I can't get it out of my head!

Guest:It is possible they were out of the statues at the time, or perhaps she just planned to buy one on the way out . . . .

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I'll be updating A Sky of Falling Stars next, so stay tuned!

Until then,

Lets get writing!


	2. Precision Machinery

**Master of the House, part two: Precision Machinery**

**I do not own the RAILDEX universe**

**Author's note:**

Welcome back, all dear readers!

Taking over from the Sunday events in_ A Sky of Falling Stars_, we return to _Master of the House_.

It's all just one more step in the unfolding story . . . .

Onward!

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"_Where am I . . . ?"_

_A certain dolphin loving nitrogen esper looked back and forth, struggling to get her bearings in the strange foggy location where she had found herself. She didn't remember getting there and the mists that surrounded her made finding familiar landmarks all but impossible._

_As she held her arms out in front of herself, she took a few cautious steps and felt the air clear a bit. She was just able to make out the rough masonry walls surrounding her on all sides. She realized that she had to be in an alley somewhere._

_The girl cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted into the misty unknown. _

"_**HELLO?**"_

_Umidori strained to hear a possible response, but gave up after a minute of waiting. After sighing in frustration, she placed her hand against the nearby wall and began to follow it, tracing her fingers over the brickwork as she did so._

_The little gothic-lolita esper had only taken a few steps when a strange sound like cracking glass or crunching paper echoed violently through the alley and nearly knocked the poor girl off her feet from the abrupt shock. When the initial reverberation died away, she quickly became aware of the sound of people shouting coming through the deepest patches of mist._

_He body seemed to be moving on its own as she flew through the twists and turns of the bleak and foggy alleyways until, all at once, the mists filling the air disappeared and she found herself in another larger alley filled with enormous shards of ice._

_Umidori looked to her left and saw a small group of people. Five shabby looking delinquent boys appeared to be surrounding a foreign girl with brown hair._

"_HEY!" The nitrogen esper shouted out at the boys and was about run at the group when she found that she was frozen in place, her body ignoring the demands to move. The group at the end of the alley didn't even register that she was there. She felt like a ghost watching as the events began to unfold._

"_You Tokiwadai girls think you're pretty awesome, don't you?" The tallest boy in the middle taunted the girl backed up against the corner. "But we found the key to power and we aren't afraid to use it."_

_The brown haired girl narrowed her blood-red eyes, but otherwise didn't seem bothered by the threat. She started to grin and chuckled with a dark amusement._

"_You idiots think those icicles are all I have?" She licked her lips as a slightly predatory light came into those sanguine eyes. "You might want to start running, then . . . "_

_When those chilling words reached their ears, most of the boys stepped back a bit. The one in the middle held his ground, abet with a slightly higher pitched voice than he had a minute ago . . . _

"_Y–you don't scare us! We're all level three now!" He started waving at the other shabby looking boys standing next to him. "And there are even five of us! What do you think you are going to do?!"_

_The brown-haired girl interlaced her fingers and extended her palms out in front of her, slowly and luxuriously cracking each knuckle in turn._

"_I'm going to freeze you little turds solid from the inside out." The girl pointed at the ground in front of her feet. "But if you get down and beg me, I might just let you keep most of your limbs . . . "_

_Despite their trembling, the boys did their best to keep up the brave facade. Might as well go down swinging._

"_B-bitch! Why don't you go f–"_

"_**Ahem.**"_

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A young man wearing a sweater vest and blue slacks strolled at a leisurely pace through the hallways of a certain hospital. He spared not a glance left or right as he walked, all focus was ahead.

There was a strange tune that he whistled, no set center pitch, always rising and always falling.

The barest of a grin greeted his arrival at the intended destination, the door sliding open and shut in near silence.

In the ICU, the skillful Sogiita Gunha glanced over the five boys in their beds and smiled.

"Tell me boys . . . "

The seventh of the Seven crossed over to the nearest bed and tapped the boy on the chest. No response.

"How little do you remember?"

He leaned over the bed and gently peeled back the occupant's eyelid, peering into a glassy pupil.

"Do you remember the light from her eyes?"

He turned to the next bed over and picked up the next boy's arm by the wrist, observing the open palm before letting it fall back into place.

"Do you remember the shape she took?"

The level five's eyes followed the ticking wave of the cardiogram as his hand traced over the sharp metal corners of the equipment.

"Your final thoughts . . ."

The boy turned from the monitor and stepped into the center of the room. He stretched his arms out and held them straight from his sides.

"Do you still have them?"

He spun in place once, then let his arms drop back to his sides. He then tilted his head and murmured.

"Do your thoughts still have you?"

The boy in the sweater vest lifted his open hand to chest level and closely observed first the back and then the palm of it. He slowly brushed his thumb past the tips of his fingers.

"Rejoice boys, you don't have much longer to wait."

He smiled one last time as he turned to leave the room. He left his final words as the door slid shut once more.

"_Wait for it boys. There will be rain."_

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A wheelchair bound young woman with dark hair hid a deep yawn behind her hand as she rolled herself down the hallway, gliding to a smooth and nearly silent stop outside the door to a certain frog-faced doctor's office.

The gothic informed young woman then cracked her neck, first one way then the other, before firmly shaking her head. Seriously, it was too early in the morning for this . . .

Balling up her fist, she rapped hard on the frame of the door, making a terrible racket as she did so. In a moment the door slid open to reveal the utterly calm face of the room's occupant. The frog-faced doctor let out a grunt of acknowledgment and waved her into the room.

"Thank you for arriving so promptly."

Kuroyoru Umidori muttered under her breath as she rolled herself inside. "_What's so important that you made me come here at the crack of_– **What the hell ****is**** that thing?!**"

The girl had nearly jumped out of her wheelchair when she entered the room and came face to face with a strange oily white mass of _something._

The doctor spoke up in response to her outburst with an underlying rumble of annoyance in his voice as he pointed at the thing in the corner from his spot seated at his desk.

"It was here when I arrived this morning." He waved a piece of what looked like paper in the girl's direction. "There was a note on my desk which had your name on it. It appears to be made of the same material as that object there."

Umidori cautiously rolled up to the strange white object to inspect it more closely. A riot of spindly branch-like structures seemed to be growing up out of the floor to a height that was about even with the seated girl's head. It was composed of a familiar oily white substance that made the little gothic girl want to shudder and/or pee herself from the bad memories . . .

"Does the note say what this thing is supposed to be?" Umidori gave it a tentative poke with the joint of her curled finger. "It looks like a dead ficus plant covered in paint that should have been banned by the World Heath Organization . . . "

"Precision machinery, apparently." The girl looked up from her prodding like he had just let out a ribbit to match his appearance. "That's what the note called it anyway."

"This thing won't even budge." She gave it a firm push with the palm of her hand. "What is it even supposed to do?"

Heaven Canceler's face tightened into a grimace as he watched his patient grasp the shrub-like object with both hands and attempted to shake it. He read the note aloud:

_For Kuroyoru Umidori_

_As promised, precision machinery._

_You'll know what it does when it happens._

_Regards._

The doctor turned the note over in his hands and held it up to the light. "And that's it. Rather ominous, don't you think."

The girl paused from her useless attempts to move the creepy white object and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

"I think it fits his personality per– **NYAAA!**"

**CRASH ! ! !**

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"_**Ahem.**"_

_The sound of a new voice from the alley behind them had shocked the boys from their bravado. They wheeled around to catch sight of the intruders. Umidori was confused by the severity of their reactions, like they were watching their lives about to come to an end. Their jaws dropped and they started to shake like they were being electrocuted._

_The dolphin-loving girl looked back and forth between the new group of people and the delinquent boys who appeared about to wet themselves. She would freely admit that this new group looked a little scary even by her standards, and yet these boys only seemed to be aware of a single person among them._

_They ignored the wiry girl with spiky red hair and murderous eyes standing at the front far left, taking point. No, it was like she wasn't even there._

_They were oblivious to the vaguely effeminate and borderline psychopathic looking gothic young man standing at the rear far-right. The flames that flickered through his fingers didn't even seem to register with them._

_They couldn't have cared less about the giant young man with closely cropped black hair and calm eyes that towered at least a head taller than everyone else in the alley. _

_The slightly short but impressively menacing boy with piercing black eyes, spiked and bleached blond hair, and totally missing eyebrows went completely unnoticed, like he was nothing but a poorly placed wall clock._

_These red-blooded boys didn't even seem to care one bit about the unearthly beauty of the sylph-like girl that peered tentatively over the shoulders of the three boys standing in the center of this new group of six. She wore a concerned look on her face, even if it was partially concealed by the long silvery-white hair that covered one eye, cascading down like a silken waterfall. Heck, even Umidori felt like she was about to get a nosebleed just looking at her!_

_But no. _

_These scary people went completely unnoticed as the delinquents focused all of their attention, all of their open and undisguised terror, on the scrawny boy standing in the center of them all._

_The boy with tousled and stringy brass blond hair and dead blue-gray eyes._

_The boy with sickly pale skin, who looked skinny enough to have spent a life either malnourished or simply starved._

_The boy who looked frail enough that a gentle breeze seemed like it would be enough to knock him over._

_The boy that seemed unable to even stand without that giant of a boy's hand on his arm._

_This was the person that caused those five delinquent boys to fall to the ground and scramble on their knees over to him, hands folded in a comically beseeching manner as they made their way there. They froze in place when the red-haired girl in front stomped her foot and glared at them in a threatening manner._

"_M–Mairo-sama!" The lead boy started to plead when he recovered his voice. "It's not what you think, we swear!"_

_He twisted around to point at the brown-haired girl in the back of the alley. She seemed unconcerned._

"_It was all this bitch!" He turned back to face the frail boy. "We were just minding our own business when she attacked us!"_

_The alley dropped into a dead silence for what seemed like a lifetime until the lips of the frail boy finally parted with some sticky reluctance._

"_I see. Now answer me this." The boy's thin whispering voice could scarcely be heard when he spoke. "What were five young men doing with one girl this deep in an alley like this?"_

" _. . . " _

_The boys on the ground began to drip with sweat as they struggled to come up with a response. The sickly boy's voice whispered into the alley once more._

"_Remove yourselves from my sight." The eyes of the delinquents widened in terror. "Before I decide to think of a way of doing it myself."_

_Without another word, those shabby looking boys scrambled out of the alley like their tails were on fire. The glares of the other members of the group followed them on their way out, they then turned back to regard the brown-haired girl at the center of it all._

_The frail boy shrugged one shoulder, causing the giant of a boy to release his arm. He took an unsteady step forward._

_Then another._

"_Tell me, young lady." The boy's nearly silent whispered voice seemed to echo in the empty alley._

"_**Do you believe in miracles?**"_

**. . . .**

Umidori woke with a start from the dream. She rubbed her eyes and glared at the digital clock on the table next to her bed.

"Honestly? 3 AM?" She shook her head. "Seriously, what the hell kind of drea–"

The girl broke off in mid-sentence when the memory hit her. She froze on the bed and hugged the stuffed dolphin toy to her chest as hard as she could.

"He was the one who attacked the project!"

She sat shivering in the dark for what seemed like forever.

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"_I think it fits his personality per– **NYAAA!**"_

_**CRASH ! ! !**_

Heaven Canceler twisted around when the loud sound from behind him briefly drowned out the gothic girl's kitten-like scream. He could only blink in surprise.

The branch-like mass of white was gone.

Its former place on the floor was currently occupied by a certain nitrogen esper who was leaning against a nearby table. _Standing up._

Umidori's wheelchair had toppled over on the floor, likely the source of the loud crash a moment ago. The girl herself was wearing what appeared to be a new pair of white pants and a very complex expression on her face . . . .

"Feeling . . . kind of . . . violated . . . ." The girl stammered behind her rosy cheeks. " . . . And . . . strangely aroused . . . ."

The doctor flinched when his patient threw back her head and yelled up towards the ceiling.

"**Thank you sir, may I have another!**"

The doctor frowned. "I take it you are unharmed, then . . . "

"I can walk again!" The girl started to hobble around on unsteady, but perfectly mobile, legs. "This is meffing awesome!"

Heaven Canceler's hand massaged his temple as he watched her stumble over to the full length mirror, and start to do a variety of squats and leg lifts in front of it.

"Young lady, we don't know if that thing is safe or not yet."

Umidori either didn't hear or didn't care about what the doctor was saying, as she continued to admire her new accessory.

"Kuroyoru Umidori, you are rocking that dark matter!" She swiveled her hips. "The mirror loves you, baby!"

"Miss, I have a lot of work to do . . . "

The dolphin loving esper was currently facing away from the mirror with her neck craned about to look behind.

"Whoa, did my butt always look this good?" She gave herself a firm smack on the behind. "Because, I mean DAMN!"

The doctor's palm found his frog-like face. "Miss, this is a hospital. Please take it outside."

"Good idea!" The girl hobble-dashed out of the room. "I'll go ask Touma-kun!"

Finding himself once again alone in his office, Heaven Canceler sighed and shook his head. As he turned back to his desk to pick up the bizarre note once more, he froze in astonishment.

Before his very eyes, he watched as it melted away into nothingness.

There was no trace.

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The quiet of a late Sunday morning was soothing a certain Academy City misfortune magnet right down to his very core as he rested his eyes in the diffuse light of his hospital room.

Ordinarily, he would have called a day like this boring, but he was a changed man now.

Yesterday was Saturday.

The never ending chaos of the prior day had taken most of his strength away and even this morning he found that he wanted to avoid moving as much as possible.

Frankly, even when he heard the nurses referring to the events of yesterday as the "Olympic Toumathlon" when they served him breakfast, he lacked the motivation to shatter those illusions . . .

Still, the lack of visitors was rather relaxing. The only person to stop by was Umidori, who had been on her way to see the Frog-faced doctor for some reason that she didn't understand. She mentioned that his cousin had wanted to see him, but she was still asleep when she passed by the room a moment ago. Then, with a brief wave of the hand and a barely noticeable flush on her face, Umidori had rolled off, silent as a ghost.

"Ah well . . . if it's my cousin then I guess it's fine." Touma muttered to himself and slid his hands behind his head in a relaxed posture. "I just hope that will be the extent of today's visitors . . . "

The sound of skittering drew the boy's attention to the foot of his bed.

"Is that so, Kamijo-san?" The little beetle tapped its tiny leg against the wall. "And I came all this way, too. I'm insulted!"

"I bet you are . . . " Touma nodded with a slight smirk. "You sound like you're in a better mood today."

"I've been thinking about miniskirts."

" . . . Ah." Touma started to shift about on the bed as he shifted his gaze discreetly away from the beetle. "Well don't let me stop you . . ."

"Oh I wouldn't dream of it." Touma didn't like the playful voice the beetle was taking. "That's why I'm here, Kamijo-san."

"If you're asking to see _me_ in one, you'll have to wait a week."

"Is that a promise, Kamijo-san?"

Touma was fairly certain that little beetle was grinning somehow. He finally sighed and shook his head.

"_Stupid luck . . . what happened to my beautiful Sunday?_" He muttered under his breath before directly addressing the beetle again."Why are you here, Beetle-san?"

"Uiharu-san is looking for a girl who was wearing a miniskirt on Friday." The beetle tapped on the wall beneath itself. "I figured you would be the one to ask on that topic, so here I am!"

Touma blinked once.

"Beetle-san, come closer." The spiky-haired boy beckoned with a menacing tone evident in his voice. "I need to shatter that illusion."

"I think I'll be staying right here, Kamijo-san." The beetle skittered a little further up the wall. "You are welcome to come over here and get me if you are so inclined . . . "

"Don't tempt me, Beetle-san."

The little white beetle made a strange chattering sound, which Touma took to be some kind of a laugh. He clenched his fist for a moment, but relaxed just as quickly.

"You know, beetle-san . . . this doesn't feel like you just being you" He scratched his chin for a moment. "It's more like you're trying to prepare me for something."

The beetle went silent.

"_Blast you, Kamijo-san . . . ._"

"Yeah, I figured. It's big isn't it?" Touma crossed his arms over his chest. "My misfortune sense was tingling so bad I was starting to wonder if it was hemorrhoids."

The beetle was still silent, quietly tapping a disjointed rhythm on the wall beneath itself with its tiny legs.

"Out with it, beetle-san." The boy's face took on a grimace. "Is the entire Tokiwadai student body coming to visit or something?"

The tiny white beetle finally broke its oppressive silence.

"_They're after your cousin."_

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Umidori was practically skipping as she sped through the corridors of the hospital to the room of a certain spiky-haired boy. There was no denying that confirmation on the tush issue was a top priority. Ask anyone!

The loli-goth skidded to a stop in front of the closed sliding door. She had just placed her hand on the handle to throw it aside when the voices from inside the room made her pause. She shivered briefly when the dull growling tones of the city's number Two filtered through the door into her ears.

"_They're after your cousin."_

The hero's voice responded with open confusion evident in his voice.

"_Tokiwadai?"_

Umidori cringed when the beetle nearly shouted his retort.

"_No, you idiot, the City!"_

"_Why?!" _The girl shifted her head closer to the door as the boy inside gave a frantic response._"Just because she was exposed to the Curriculum's foundation adjustments?"_

"_There's more to it than that." _She heard the beetle huffing to itself._ "You remember the little blonde at Saten's scan on Friday?"_

"_Yes, she's hard to forget."_

"_Well she was here a little bit ago." _The beetle's bitter tone surprised the little nitrogen-esper._ "She basically confessed to being the source of the problem."_

"_And."_

The beetle gave a grunt before responding, as if he was struggling to not start breaking things in the room.

"_Your cousin was the subject of some sort of anomalous research project."_

"_Why Otohime?!"_

Umidori thought that Touma sounded like he was about to be sick. The beetle continued his thought.

"_I doubt even that little Kihara knows the answer to that." _Umidori heard a faint tapping sound as the beetle continued._ "But she was implying that it would paint a rather hefty target on her back."_

" _. . . What are we going to do about it then?"_

"_You are going to stay right here, like you're supposed to."_

She flinched when the boys in the room started shouting.

"_There's no way I'm going to be able to rest now!"_

"_You have to!"_

The nitrogen-esper frowned when she heard Touma groaning in resignation.

"_We need to protect her smile, beetle-san." _

"_We can probably call the other level fives for some favors–"_

"_No." _The boy's voice took on a commanding tone that brought a slight color to the cheeks of the girl eavesdropping in the hallway._ "Promise me you won't let her know that she's in danger."_

Umidori heard silence overtake the room for a moment.

"_Heh." _The beetle spoke up at last, something like a grim satisfaction shaping his words._ "So in the end, it's down to just you and me. I figured we'd end up there eventually."_

"_I'm not saying that we shouldn't tell them." _The girl outside the door rubbed her chin as Touma muttered inside the room._ "But you know how they'll react. We need to hide my cousin, not put a spotlight on her."_

There was a barely perceptible tapping sound when the beetle responded.

"_Agreed. We'll inform them as things progress so they don't start acting out of the ordinary."_

"_Just stay out of trouble, Beetle-san."_

The number Two's voice returned to its more usual tone as he gave Touma a playful response.

"_I feel like I should be saying that to you." _Umidori heard Touma grunt._ "Take care."_

The room went silent when the beetle vanished into thin air. It was a heavy atmosphere.

Umidori couldn't help but clutch at her her heart when she heard Touma's final whispered words. There was no way she could open that door now.

"_Please forgive me, Otohime-chan . . . ."_

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_The back of the spiky-haired boy landed heavily against the rough wall of the alley with a dull thump, his eyes registering shock as the impact knocked the wind out of him._

_As he struggled to breathe, a pair of delicate feminine hands grabbed the fabric of his shirt over his shoulders and clenched hard enough that the boy could hear a tearing sound._

_A girl with icy-blue hair and a Tokiwadai uniform scowled as she held Touma against the wall, her blood-red eyes cutting into the wide open blue of his own._

_The flawless pale shade of her skin contrasted sharply with the brutality of her facial expression when her delicate lips parted to release a terrible growl. Her words hissed out into the alley like a nightmare made flesh._

"_I've had enough of this."_

" _. . . "_

"_I know how your type works, you bastard!"_

_As she leaned in closer, Touma tried to pull away, but was stopped by the wall behind him._

"_Always playing the hero."_

_Touma turned his head away from the painful bitterness of her glare. She shoved him harder against the wall._

"_Always breaking hearts."_

_The boy turned his head back, blinking in confusion._

"_Sterl–"_

"_NOT THIS TIME!" The pretty pale girl shrieked like a banshee directly into his face._

"_But, I–"_

_His words were cut off when the fingers of her left hand poked into his cheek._

"_I'll always be watching. So remember this: The next time you lay a hand on either of them . . . "_

_The girl's smile caused the boy to shiver. Her casual tone certainly didn't help._

"_**I'm going to reach down your throat and freeze every molecule of water in your body, from the inside out."**_

. . . .

Umidori's eyes burst open.

She looked around, finding that her hospital room was empty. She looked at the smoldering red numbers of the clock next to her bed.

1 AM, Monday morning.

"Twice in one day. This isn't a coincidence." The girl rubbed her face to clear her vision in the dim light. "These aren't even dreams, are they?"

"I know the dark side well enough to know that I'm being _sent_ these visions."

She glanced out the window at the dancing lights of the city.

"I hate the fact that they're trying to play me like this." Umidori glanced over the front and back of each hand for a moment and frowned. "But, even so . . . "

Her hands clenched into a pair of fists and growled into the rooms darkness.

"You little princess, you're nothing but another Tokiwadai witch."

She grinned like a mother bear as she stroked the oily-white material covering her legs.

"_I'm going to show you what happens when you threaten one of **MY** boys!"_

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Author's note:

And with that, Sunday has rolled over to Monday.

Umidori is quite the character, isn't she . . .

Kakine, Touma, and Miniskirts. A winning (yet disturbing) combination.

We have a vision of Mairo, shortly before his disappearance and well on the way to level five.

Next up, we will find ourselves in the Third Sequel, at last. Wave hello to Facade on the way there.

Until the next time,

Lets get writing!


	3. Half Sixes

**Master of the House, part 3: Half Sixes**

**I do not own the RAILDEX universe.**

**Author's notes:**

Back again for another round!

For reference, dreams/flashbacks are in italics.

Enjoy!

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_The brief moment of a crackling rumble of crystalline sound had passed into fading echoes, soon replaced by the incessant dripping of ice melting in the summer heat. A pale girl with flowing light brown hair stood motionless in place as she watched the smoke-like tendrils of vapor curling from her finger tips. She raised a pair of poisonous sanguine eyes in time to catch the brief moment of terror in the group of boys before their bravado managed to re-establish itself._

_Their words barely registered as noise when they reached her ears. She smiled._

('Whaaaah!')

_A frantic voice squealed inside her head, leading the girls eyes to twitch for a moment. _

('Isolde, I didn't mean to freeze the whole alley like that! It just happened!')

_The girl noiselessly tapped the signal for silence into her palm with the fingers of her right hand and squeezed her left fist twice. Be ready._

('Please don't hurt them! Just scare them enough to break their line and I'll skate us out of here!')

_The girl called Isolde scowled briefly in disappointment but quickly tapped her fingers in agreement and began yelling her best spiel to the boys, getting exactly the response she was hoping for. _

_They responded with a typically crude defiance until an unexpected factor intruded upon their situation . . ._

"_**Ahem . . .**" _

_A quietly commanding voice had broken everyone's concentration, almost miraculously considering the volume was barely above a whisper. Isolde could only barely make out the features of the new group of people, silhouetted by the light entering the alley behind them._

('Those people look like professionals!')_ The voice in the girl's head began to shout. (_'Are they here to back up the first group of thugs?')

_Isolde frowned and tapped a negative, her conclusion quickly being backed up by the comical overreaction of the original thugs to the arrival of the new group. The urge to laugh was overridden almost immediately when she caught a glimpse of the looks of absolute terror and desperation on the boys' faces. Isolde was certain that they believed their lives were about to end in the most gruesome way possible. The girl began squeezing her left fist over and over. The meaning was clear._

_Get ready to hit them with everything we have and get us out of here!_

('Isolde–')

_The girl squeezed both left and right hands into fists a the same time, giving the sign to wait, when the sickly boy ordered the other thugs out of the alley. They complied without wasting a single second to breathe._

_The girl watched as the sickly boy began to take several unsteady steps towards them and began to speak._

"_Tell me young lady . . . " Part of the brown haired girl cringed at the hollow look in the boy's eyes when he smiled at her. "Do you believe in miracles?"_

_What._

_Her passenger was no less confused. (_'Isolde, what kind of a question is that?!')

_Isolde didn't have the chance to signal for silence when the boy, already unsteady on his feet, tilted onto a slow fall backwards like a tree after meeting the ax. The boy didn't stop smiling even as he went down._

"_**ANI!**"_

_The red-haired girl dashed forward to wrap her arms around his shoulders, breaking his fall at around the 47 degree mark. The brown haired girl was briefly overwhelmed by instinct and raised her arms to catch the sickly boy, despite the distance between them making this impossible. For only a moment, an icy blue color washed over her eyes before returning to the original blood-red when she forced her arms back to her sides. The tomboy kneeling on the ground slowly looked up from the boy she had just caught and stared at Isolde with a look of confusion on her face. The boy's voice intruded upon the alley once more._

"_Well, do you?"_

_The girl was tongue-tied when she heard him speak again like nothing had happened. _

" _. . . "_

"_You don't have to answer." The boy sent her a thin smile from his nearly supine position. "Your silence speaks volumes . . . ."_

"_What's wrong with you?"_

_A look of pure rage crossed the red-haired girl's face when she heard that, but the boy himself only laughed briefly before coughing twice and clearing his throat._

"_My answer to that question would depend entirely on how open minded you are." The boy brushed the angry girl's chin with a finger. "Myuri-chan, please help me to my feet again."_

_Without so much as a grunt of effort, the girl picked the slender boy up after wrapping her arms around his shoulders and set him back on his feet, this time keeping a tight grip on his arm._

"_I'm sorry you had to deal with those boorish louts earlier." He shrugged. "I'm happy to say that they aren't ours, but they have been troublesome lately. It's rather upsetting."_

_The boy glanced back at the short boy with the spiky blond hair. "Perhaps their group is in need of a little correction?"_

"_Sounds like fun to me." The short blond boy with missing eyebrows cracked his knuckles and grinned. "Our boys are gonna get weak if we don't give them something to do."_

"_Very true." The blond delinquent started jogging off, but paused when the slender young man called after him once more. "Yuuji-kun, I would like for those boys to apologize to this young lady in no more than the next week or so. Please leave them with at least that much capability."_

_The grin on the delinquent's face only widened as he nodded in agreement. Then, in as much time as anyone could blink, he dashed out of the alley. Isolde's face took on a disgusted expression, which only deepened when the sickly boy started to look her over, clearly appraising her appearance like a bidder at a cattle auction._

"_How did those boys know you were in Tokiwadai? You are not wearing their uniform."_

_The brown-haired girl crossed her arms over her chest._

"_I told them I was a student there when they all boxed me in earlier." She frowned as she watched the boy start shuffling himself and his companion closer to the shards of ice coating the walls of the alley to her left. "I transferred into the school this morning under a probationary admission while they review my records." _

"_Then you don't need to leave scandalous evidence like this lovely winter wonderland around, now do you? Kajiko-kun?" The statuesque girl with long silvery hair obscuring one eye peeked out from behind the tallest delinquent. "How am I today?"_

_Isolde watched the beautiful girl's single visible eye grow wide. "Well . . . better than usual, but you just– "_

"_Sorry, I stopped listening after 'better'." He grinned and placed his hand on the ice. "Facade, my lovely, open the loop . . . ."_

_The moment the boy's hand touched the wall, Isolde watched as several hundred tons of ice disappeared into thin air. She tasted an effervescent wash of cool vapor when her jaw dropped open. She looked over at the boy in time to see his body go rigid and tremble uncontrollably. The boy's face changed from a tense grimace to a look of confusion for a moment when he finally turned back to look at her. Then, once again, he smiled._

"_**My, isn't this unexpected . . . "**_

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The patient's lounge in a certain hospital was mostly deserted at that time of the morning. Visiting hours were a long way off and many of the patients who were capable of using it were still in their beds sound asleep.

She wished she was still asleep.

In the morning stillness of that nearly abandoned hospital lounge, a gothic-looking girl scratched at the side of her head, slightly mussing the long black tresses and shifted slightly in her wheelchair. Her left hand rested on a stuffed toy dolphin in her lap, a fan of playing cards clenched loosely in her fingers. The other hand raised briefly to conceal a yawn before rubbing at the dark circles beneath her eyes. After a moment's thought, she raised her eyes to the lounge's only other occupant.

"Seven?"

"Go fish." The young man smartly dressed in slacks and a sweater vest gave the briefest of smirks. "Ace?"

Umidori had no sooner retrieved a card from the pile when she saw the single spade on its face. She scowled and threw the card down in front of the boy in disgust. Between the two of them, small piles of cards continued to accumulate. Every one of those cards appeared to have been sliced perfectly in half as though by guillotine.

"You know, I've been thinking of this for a while, but you look really familiar . . . " The girl leaned forward in her wheelchair and began to squint her eyes, tilting her head this way and that. "You don't happen to have a cat, do you?"

The boy in the sweater-vest silently made a show of checking through his cards before responding.

"Mmm . . . go fish." He raised his eyes to hers with a playful smirk twisting his features. "Do you have any half-sixes?"

Umidori simply grunted and let her body fall backwards into her chair. She shook her head and gritted her teeth.

"I could have sworn that I've seen a boy just like you wandering the hallways around here with a cat."

"And I could have sworn . . ." The boy responded with an infuriatingly cavalier tone as he re-organized the cards in his hands. "That I just saw a girl in a wheelchair cross her legs without using her hands."

Umidori surreptitiously used her free hand to slip one of her knees off of the other beneath the quilt covering her legs and sent the boy across from her a far-too-tight smile. "Maybe we're both just imagining things."

The girl shivered when a certain light crept into the boy's eyes behind that infuriating smile of his. As she turned her head away from him, she caught sight of the frog-faced doctor walking through the hallway with a frantic young woman at his side. When Umidori caught a clear sight of her, she froze in place, mouth dropping open. The boy continued, either not noticing or caring about her current state.

"I'm sure we are." He waved his fan of cards out in front of her nose, causing her to blink. "Now, about those half-sixes?"

Umidori snapped her head back to her companion and dropped her hand of cards on the table. Taking a firm grip on the wheels beside her, she rolled silently backwards and stopped.

"Hold that thought." She sent a glare over at the beautiful silver-haired girl slowly approaching their position. "I think dream and reality might be fighting things out in my head . . . "

The boy didn't bother turning his head to look.

"Cafeteria ramen will do that to you."

She turned her head back to him in disgust and nodded at the table.

"Lets pick this up later."

Without further comment, the girl threw first her right and then her left hand forwards. With the grace of a professional, her chair snaked out of the visitor's lounge and glided into the hallway, the nearly silent sound of its wheels lost in the background din. With a broad grin, the boy watched as she disappeared around a corner and placed his cards down on the table. After briefly stretching his arms over his head, he stood up and strolled down the hallway in the opposite direction with a deliberate slowness. The sound of his whistling gradually fading into the noise of the hospital.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"_**My, isn't this unexpected . . . "**_

_Isolde grew increasingly unnerved when she realized that everyone was staring at her like she had just grown another head. That particular feeling was unpleasantly familiar . . . ._

('Isolde, I see something blue– Our hair!')

_The icy girl's hand shot up and grabbed the pale bluish object hovering just at the edge of her vision and brought it in front of her face. The texture beneath her fingers was familiar, but . . . _

"_My hair turned blue?!" The newly colorful girl tilted her head forwards and began to rustle her hands through her hair to bring as much of it as possible into her line of sight. "How in the hell?!"_

_The girl was still panicking when the sickly boy cleared his throat._

"_It could be that the probability of that entire enormous mass of ice sublimating at the same time was about the same as the odds of a girl's hair spontaneously turning blue." The boy received a volley of raised eyebrows. "Hey, at least I'm trying to make sense of things here!"_

_The tall boy with the closely cropped black hair smirked and leaned over to mutter at the silver-haired girl standing just behind him._

"He probably just thought she would look cute that way . . . "

"_I've seen better." The girl with hair obscuring one eye shrugged, leading the now blue-haired girl to ball her fists in rage. "At least she still has her head."_

_The sickly blond boy twisted in the red-haired girl's grip and hollered back at them._

"_Hey, I just used my powers without anyone getting turned inside out! That should count for something!" The boy winced and grabbed at the lower right side of his chest, the eyes of the girl holding him upright growing wide with concern. He continued his grumbling. "I think I deserve a cupcake here."_

"_Ani, we agreed that we were going to limit your sugar intake for the foreseeable future."_

"_Do you always have to be so mordant, Myuri-chan? You're killing me here."_

_The tall boy with ruggedly calm features cleared his throat to drown out the sound of cake related whining and addressed the slender boy being supported by the argumentative red-haired girl. "Mairo-sama, loss of incriminating ice besides, we need to talk about our handling of this girl."_

_Sterling's head snapped up to look while the short-haired boy continued._

"_If those boys try to go to Judgment, she could be expelled." The blue-haired girl's eyes widened. "We can deal with the security cameras, but that blue hair will be a problem."_

"_Isn't our Aylia-chan working at the salon today?" The tall boy nodded. "We'll just establish that Miss ice-age here had an appointment there and was getting a treatment at the time. She would be happy to play alo–"_

_The boy's voice broke up in mid-sentence when his body crumpled without warning and went slack in Myuri's arms, hanging limply by the girl's strong grip._

"_**ANI!**"_

_The panicked voices of the girls with red and silver hair rang out in unison as he sank face down to the ground. The tall silvery young woman abandoned what reasons she had for remaining behind the tallest boy and dashed forwards to touch the boy's non-responsive body. She turned in a panic and confirmed that the remaining boys were summoning help on their cell phones._

"_**His lung is collapsing!"**_

. * . * . * .

"–_**rling-san!**_"

The image of the boy laying crumpled on the ground left her eyes as a familiar voice wrenched the pale girl with icy blue hair from her dream. She blinked in the dim light to clear her blurred vision. A petite young woman was leaning over her bed, the tufts of dark blue hair reminiscent of cat ears and puffy ponytail making her identity all too obvious.

"Rutile . . . "

The now satisfied girl straightened back up with a subtly feline grace and grinned at her groggy friend. Sterling didn't move from her position on the pillow, but instead rubbed at the crust coating the edge of her eyes.

"Sorry for waking you, Lilian, but you were making a lot of noise." The girl with icy-blue hair grunted in response as she stretched her arms over her head. "And they weren't your usual '_for-the-last-time-I-wasn't-dreaming-about-Kamijo!_' noises either . . . "

A girl with blood-red eyes sat bolt upright in her bed and snarled at the implication.

"I never dream about Kamijo!"

After a brief giggle, the other girl patted Sterling on the head. She then jumped backwards in time to avoid the fist when the red-eyed girl took a swing at her.

"Good morning to you too, Isolde~"

"Nuts!"

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From her new position out of sight around the corner, the gothic lolita in the wheelchair listened silently as the pair of voices approached. The unfamiliar voice of the striking silver-haired girl was the first to become audible.

" –ure that we can work past such an unlikely issue!"

Umidori peeked cautiously around the edge of the wall and saw that the girl's back was to her as she stood blocking the frog-faced doctor's path. He appeared to be as annoyed as the wheelchair bound girl had ever seen him.

"Well, Kajiko-san, I will admit that your qualifications are exemplary." He pointed to the clipboard covered in papers that he was holding. "But this stain on your early record is rather hard to ignore."

At this point the girl sounded like she was about to fly into a panic and began to flap her arms at her sides, leading Umidori to poke her head out further into the hallway to get a better look.

"It only happened once!" It was clear that the girl was close to tears at this point. "I'm the only one in the city with this kind of power! Think of what benefits I can offer this institution! "

The girl suddenly reached out with her hand to grab a hold of the doctor. Umidori wasn't sure what to make of his reaction: his eyes widened in either surprise or panic as he quickly swatted her hand away with his clipboard. It seemed like he was treating her as if he thought she was a poisonous animal or something. The statuesque girl let out a brief yelp before putting her knuckles into her mouth to soothe them.

"I am fully aware that a rare ability such as yours would be of great service to this institution." The girl nodded furiously as the frog-faced doctor straightened his white coat to regain his composure. "However, there are also conflicts of interest involved that would put me in a very delicate situat–"

The doctor's let-down-gently speech was interrupted by the unexpected intrusion of a cell phone ringing. Or perhaps playing was the better word. The silver-haired girl's look of horror at the doctor's impending rejection was quickly replaced by one of confusion.

_'Mr. Charming~, did you . . . '_ The doctor looked disgusted as he reached for his phone. _'Mr. Alarming~, in– '_

Wasting no more time, he answered the call and muttered into the phone, scowling at the familiar voice on the other end of the line.

"I have to say that I'm surprised to hear your voice again, considering our last talk."

" _. . . "_

"I take it that you don't approve of my decision?"

" _. . . "_

"Every time I hear you talk about plans for the future, I get the urge to request that a new wing be added on to my hospital."

" _. . . "_

"And I believe that you need to learn the actual definition of 'preventive medication' before you start talking like that."

" _. . . "_

". . . Fine. Just don't expect to receive my usual cake and card at Christmas."

" – "

The frog-faced doctor shook his head and returned his phone to it's holder. After a moment, he glanced back at the silver-haired girl standing next to him and found her bouncing on her toes in anticipation.

"Since I'm apparently going to need all the help I can get in the near future . . ." The girl's face lit up with a brilliant toothy smile, shaking both fists in line with her shoulders. She appeared to be struggling to restrain herself from launching into some form of happy dance, her one visible eye leaking tears of joy. "I am prepared to offer you a probationary position at this hospital."

"Thank you, Doctor!" The girl glanced over at a certain door bearing a very familiar name on its permanently mounted plaque and covered the subtle flush of red on her cheeks with her hands. "It really is a dream come true for me . . . "

The frog-faced doctor followed her gaze and crossed his arms.

"Just so you know, young lady, being added to Kamijo-san's sponge bath rotation schedule requires at least six months of continuous service at this hospital." The frog face doctor then sighed and adverted his eyes slightly. " . . . Or some degree of skill in a fist fight."

A pretty middle-aged nurse paused next to them in the hallway and cracked her knuckles with a wide grin.

"Ah . . . ." The silver-haired girl took a step back and watched as the nurse disappeared into Kamijo's room with a brief giggle. "I was wondering why half the nurses around here were walking around with black eyes."

The doctor grunted and started walking in the opposite direction of the way they had originally been walking.

"I'll get the necessary paperwork started." He gestured loosely in the opposite direction. "In the meantime, you can walk around and start practicing your bedside manner."

"Right, Doctor!"

The silver-haired girl turned and nearly ran into a tiny goth girl who had silently rolled into her path with her wheelchair. Kajiko shivered as the girl stared at her with narrowed eyes and far from friendly grin on her face.

"Hey there, honey-cakes!" Umidori fluttered her fingers. "Lets roll and talk."

Without waiting for a positive reply, the girl spun her wheelchair in place and smoothly backed it up even with the silver-haired girl.

Kajiko blinked and looked away while placing one hand on her opposite elbow. "If you want . . . "

Umidori leaned in closer and began looking the increasingly uncomfortable girl up and down. After a few moments, she finally settled back into her chair and rested her chin on her palm.

"Haven't we met before?" Umidori gestured upwards with a finger. "Someplace where the light from above can't reach, perhaps?"

Kajiko blinked in confusion and began to try to walk around the girl blocking her path. Umidori started a graceful dance as she rolled her wheels to remain in her position of impediment.

" . . . I don't believe so. Where do you think you last saw me?" Kajiko jumped backwards to prevent her foot from being run over by an errant trajectory.

"I had a dream the other day." Umidori threw one wheel forwards to keep pace with the evasive silver-haired young woman. "You and a bunch of thugs were standing around in a frozen alley while a zombie looking boy was chatting up some foreign chick."

Kajiko froze mid-step, a tense smile crossing over her face. Umidori had to grab both wheels to prevent herself from crashing into the now stationary girl.

"That's quite a dream you had." A calculating look soon replaced the look of tension as the young woman crept a bit closer to Umidori. "The mind really is a funny thing . . . ."

The newfound aura of malevolence in her subject inspired the wheelchair bound goth to roll backwards a pace or two. She returned an equally dark smile.

"I was hoping that you might be able to provide a little insight–"

Kajiko shook her head and crossed her arms.

"I really should get started on that paperwork." She titled her head as she regarded her interrogator. "Anyways, I'm not a person who knows a lot about dreams."

Umidori looked far from convinced as she watched the other girl dig out a pen and pad of paper from her pocket. "Do I detect a convenient run-around in the works?"

The girl didn't respond as she scribbled something onto the pad of paper and handed the top sheet to Umidori. The girl in the wheelchair squinted at it with a frown.

"Congratulations." She fanned the paper in front of her face. "You've been here less than an hour and you already have a doctor's handwriting skills."

Kajiko gritted her teeth.

"That's the address of the best doughnut shop in this city."

"I prefer cheesecake."

The young woman scrubbed her hands through her silvery hair and smoothed it before finally responding.

"Just go there sometime during the late afternoon and ask where all the doughnuts went." She then spun on her heels and called over her shoulder. "You'll have all the answers you can handle."

Umidori watched as the young woman sprinted off down the hall and disappeared into the distance. She slowly drew her tongue over her upper teeth and let a sour expression take over her face.

" . . . And the fact that I'm in a wheelchair means nothing to you, then?"

After a few moments of gazing into the distance, she lifted the up the edge of the quilt covering her legs and glanced beneath it with a small grin betraying just a little bit of excitement.

"Well then, it looks like we're going to be field testing this baby ahead of schedule . . . ."

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It was a short time later when the hallowed halls of Tokiwadai welcomed the aggravated stomping of a certain pale girl with blue hair, followed closely by a lithe girl who closely resembled the average otaku's dream come true. The rapid pace set by the leading girl was ostensibly due to the small amount of time remaining before their first class of the day, but the deep scowl on the pale girl's face suggested there was an alternative reasoning behind it. Judging by the wide grin on the face of the girl with the cat-ear hairstyle, this had not gone unnoticed. Without warning, Sterling stopped dead in the middle of the hallway and grumbled.

"For the last time." She turned her head and hollered over her shoulder at her companion. "It wasn't _that_ kind of a dream!"

The girl with the feline hairstyle placed her hands up in mock surrender.

"Fine, fine . . . " Rutile playfully batted away the incoming fist and raised an eyebrow. "Was it some sort of nightmare then?"

The icy girl shook her head.

"Not really." She gestured her friend to follow her as she started off again. "Just a replay of some old memories that I don't particularly cherish."

"What, something about your childhood, then?"

Sterling scowled for a moment.

"No, I still can't remember most of that. It was about a group of jerks I met around the time I transferred into Tokiwadai."

Rutile sped up to even herself with her friend's pace. "Before I showed up?"

"Exactly." The pale girl nodded with a disgusted look on her face. "They called me recently, so that's probably the reason."

"What did they wa–"

Rutile's concentration was unceremoniously broken in mid-sentence by the bubbling voice of an all too familiar level five.

"My, you girls are really cutting things close today~" The girls turned to see an extravagant blonde stroll into view like she hadn't a care in the world. "Did you freeze your alarm clock again?"

The face of the cat-like girl lit up.

"The Queen!"

Sterling responded to the antics of both girls with an impressively flat tone of voice.

"Hello, your highness." She turned away, crossing her arms over her chest. "I see your throne hasn't collapsed under the weight of your ego and crushed you yet. That's a real pity. Come on, Rutile, lets get out of here."

The girl began to stomp off, but paused when she didn't hear a response.

"Rutile?"

The pale girl was appalled to discover that her friend was in the process of having her head scratched by the Queen's silken gloved hands. The dopey look on the girl's face was aimed directly into Sterling's line of sight.

"Hands . . . so . . . warm . . . ."

The sounds of something very much like purring being emitted from her friend induced a rising burn of bile in Sterling's throat as she watched this disturbing scene play itself out. Finally she clenched her fist and stomped her foot, demanding attention.

"Rutile!" The girl's body went rigid under the Queen's caresses. "Dignity!"

"Sorry, Sorry!"

The golden level five pouted a bit when her toy jumped out of her grasp and began to scratch at her head in embarrassment. Sterling narrowed a pair of red eyes at her friend as she stepped forwards to stick a finger in her friend's face.

"Don't give me sorry you little alley cat–"

"_Onee-chan, I'm back!_"

Sterling's concentration was broken when a small grey haired girl skipped up to the group and took hold of the Queen's hand with a brilliant energetic smile lighting up her face.

"The bathrooms around here are amazing! It was like being on a cloud made out of puppies!" The little girl boggled at the pair of girls currently tugging at each others' cheeks next to them in the hallway and let out a low timid voice. "Who are these people?"

Shokuhou grinned and traced the finger of her free hand against her chin, her pose laden with malice.

"These are some of my very dear friends, O-chan~"

The pair of girls froze in place. One looked endlessly pleased. The other, genuinely disgusted.

" . . . Right." Sterling released the iron grip she had on a certain puffy ponytail and fixed a pair of narrowed eyes on the tiny newcomer. "I didn't know you had a sister, Shokuhou-san."

The little girl took a step back to ease the feelings of tension overcoming her body in the face of the older girl's intense glare. The Queen only smiled brilliantly in response.

"I don't." The level five ruffled the head of faun-gray hair in font of her. "As it happens, this adorable pixie has Kamijo's little sister power~"

Upon receiving this new piece of information, a certain cat-like girl's face lit up like she had just been handed the keys to the castle. This glowing face was immediately followed by a pouncing motion that brought the bundle of newfound enthusiasm into the little girl's personal space.

"My name's Rutile!" The open look of horror did little to dissuade her from pawing at the gray-haired girl like a freshly caught rodent. "Does your brother ever talk about me? He might be referring to me as 'darling' or something like that."

The manic look covering this stranger girl's face was finally enough to send the little sister character into a panic. With a barely perceptible shimmer in the air around them, the two girls were launched apart. Rutile slammed into the icy girl standing behind her, the two of them locking together in each others' arms at a roughly fifty degree angle above the floor. The little gray one sailed headfirst into the resident level five's . . . ample generosity.

"Oh my!" Shokuhou wrapped her arms around the little girl's head, trapping her in a honey-scented paradise. Or purgatory. You choose. "You prove time and again that you good taste ability never falters~"

Before the tightly locked girls lost their balance and hit the floor, Sterling managed to shove her friend out of the acute angle that they had found themselves in. While the girls did their best to calm their fire-red faces, Sterling saw the little girl struggle to push her way out of the Queen's bear-like embrace

"I think she just had trouble missing such a large target." Sterling watched with a crooked smirk as the little girl began to tap out. "And I'm pretty sure she can't breathe."

Otohime dropped to the floor and began to gasp for air when the Queen finally relinquished her grip. The mischievous level five lifted the small girl back to her feet and snuggled herself into her back.

"I'm giving my little darling a tour of the facilities on behalf of our school." The blonde girl gestured at the nearby set of heavy wooden doors with her chin. "Now, would you two be a couple of complete dears and use your plebeian ability to open the door for us?"

Sterling rolled her eyes, but finally complied with a sigh when her red-cheeked friend dashed forwards to open the further of the two double doors leading to the school's great auditorium.

"Right, whatever . . . " Sterling strolled over and yanked the door open with her best sarcastic flourish, her opposite hand gracefully pointing the way as she bowed low. "Facade, open the loop . . . ."

"Thank you!" Otohime skipped forwards but stopped when the Queen didn't follow her through the door. "Onee-chan?"

The trio turned to find that Shokuhou was frozen in place and staring at Sterling with gaping mouth and eyes filled with what could easily be described as terror. The icy-blue girl had no response to this unexpected reaction other than confusion. The little girl dashed back and took the Queen's hand, pulling her along into the next room. As she passed, Sterling heard a whisper in her ear.

"_The walls have ears. They may just answer if you aren't careful._"

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_glacier ice shattered into a forest of crystalline habits against the eclipse of the sun at her back with each arm outstretched to her sides no motion in her head either to the left of her or to the right she half stood and half crouched on a single bended knee the other straightened to her side there was only some essence of defiance while she waited for a sign of the beginning but it came slowly_

_to the left side was the source of the ice the girl within it pale as death and each eye not the same to the other one red the other blue on her back were the wings they were colorless to some shade of green fading into a sense of nothingness all made of ice or some similar feeling of a chill as they rose from her shoulders and threatened the one before her_

_to the right side was the boy as thin as famine and still as steadfast himself his wings were of porcelain and bled from the webbing of cracks across the opalescence of the surface the bleeding dripped at random and singed like a sorrow of lava into water his eyes were hollow pits that melted into continuous tears of a black ichor oil running without break down his cheeks and body_

_she herself from her position was unhindered by this threat and felt the writhing at her sides let it grow into a myriad branching of hands behind slithering white arms or tendrils like branches that stretched out to each side and pressed at them but there was no relief from the pressure just a pause and then a burst into the tension on the horizon at the edge of her comprehension she swore she saw him but could not verify his shape and his walk only that his shadow was looming large and banded into many lines_

* . * . * .

The thundering sound of a person's feet awoke Umidori from her late afternoon dream. She blinked to clear the blurring shapes from her eyes in time to see a familiar dark-haired girl with a single flower as an ornament slam into the closed door of Kamijou's room. The girl stood gasping for breath for a moment before she slammed the sliding door to the room open and stepped inside with a great hesitation clearly evident to the girl watching from the wheelchair.

When the frantic girl screamed out Kamijou's name, Umidori dropped the dolphin doll she had been hugging in her sleep onto the table beside her and rolled her chair across the hall, peeking into the boy's room. She found the girl sobbing, arms clenched around Kamijo's neck and a small pool of red liquid on the floor near the side of the bed. An empty plastic cup lay within it.

When she caught Kamijo's eye, she sent him a silent questioning look, but he waved her off. Umidori chose to let discretion hold sway and said nothing. After sliding the door closed once more, she rolled her chair backwards and around in time to see the group of security guards and orderlies running in her direction. She realized that the girl visiting Kamijou's room had probably raised the alarm by storming in the way she did.

This new group was quickly stopped in its tracks when Umidori raised a single palm in their direction, looking down her nose as she raised her chin in defiance. This standoff only lasted a few moments before the group broke up into its constituent parts and the individual members returned to their normal duties. The gothic girl simply waved them off with a few dismissive flicks of her wrist.

When the hallways returned to a nearly vacant state once more, Umidori rolled her wheelchair over to the elevators and entered the first one in upward travel. After pressing the express button, she pushed in a button marked with the letter 'R' with both of her thumbs, placing the index fingers of both hands on either side. After a moment of concentration, an electric spark jumped between her fingers. She smiled in satisfaction when the security lock deactivated and the elevator car rose at top speed to its highest possible destination. The doors slid open and revealed a short passageway with daylight at the end of it.

Umidori had made it to the roof.

A silent flick of both wrists sent the girl rolling outside, where she stopped and locked the wheels on her chair. Umidori grasped the quilt covering her legs and wrenched it upwards. The soft cloth sailed upwards to reveal a pair of slender legs clad in a strange oily-white material.

After draping the quilt on the back of the wheel chair, the girl shoved herself upwards with all her might and stood upright. After a few wobbling steps, Umidori put on a wide grin.

"Alright legs . . . " The loli-goth pumped her fist in the air. "Up, up and away!"

Without warning, the girl's right leg kicked violently upwards to the left. Umidori barely had time to squeak in surprise when her lower body left the ground, twisted in mid-air, and she landed heavily on her back with a grunt.

"_Ow . . . _"

Umidori blinked away the tears forming at the corners of her eyes and struggled to push herself in to a sitting position, her white-clad legs still stretched out in front of her. The little goth gritted her teeth for a moment before finally wailing up at the heavens.

"**Stupid magic pants!**"

The girl poked at her legs with the fingers of her right hand.

"You know how to get out of the way when I need to use the bathroom . . ." The girl's voice went up several decibels and at least an octave. "**But JUMPING is too difficult for you!?**"

After a few moments of sitting and rubbing at her face, Umidori shoved herself to her feet and hobbled back over to her wheelchair. After unlocking the wheels and turning it around, she grasped the handles on the back and began using it as a walker to support herself.

"Very well. Baby steps it is. But tomorrow . . . "

The girl grinned as the gentle breeze drew her long black hair over her face. She looked towards the east and shouted.

"_It's doughnut time!_"

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

_A young woman, newly clad in the summer uniform favored by Tokiwadai middle school, strode out of the front gate of the Garden of Learning and nearly collided with a gaggle of whispering school girls. Confused, Sterling listened in to their panicked banter as best as she was able and managed to pick up "That scary looking girl" and "Call for Judgement before we get mugged!". After a moment, she stretched herself up onto her toes to peer over the crowd. It didn't take her long to pinpoint the source of the disturbance._

_A tall, wiry girl with spiky red hair was leaning against the wall opposite the gate. She wore a close fitting sleeveless red top perfectly matching the color of her hair and bulky black cargo pants tucked into a pair of heavy laced-up leather boots almost reaching her knees. Her large brown eyes were laden with contempt as she glared over the tops of her sunglasses at the group, arms tightly crossed over her small chest and one ankle crossed over the other._

_Her eyes met Sterling's._

_A deep scowl crossed the red-head's face as she gestured roughly with her head at the nearby alley beside her. The rough-looking girl pushed herself off the wall and stomped inside it. While the crowd in front of her began to dissipate, Sterling forced her way through the remnants and cautiously entered the alley herself. She paused to let her ice-blue eyes adjust to the lower light level._

"_Hey Princess." Sterling put herself on guard, making out the shape of the tall girl in the shadows of the alley. "You really look the part of the typical spoiled Tokiwadai brat now."_

_The girl ignored the rage boiling in one part of herself and answered as evenly as she could._

"_What do you want?"_

"_Ani sent me to make sure you weren't having trouble with you admissions." This answer was followed by a grumble, as if the girl couldn't imagine a fate worse than dealing with a student from Tokiwadai. "You don't deserve his attention or his kindness."_

_A violent wash of red colored Sterling's eyes for a moment before they faded back to blue. This was followed by the sound of the other girl changing her position in the alley. Sterling's eyebrow raised briefly before she called out to the girl again._

"_How is that boy?"_

"_Like you care." Even the blue-eyed girl was having trouble restraining her temper at this point. She fumed soundlessly as the other girl shuffled her feet slightly. "He's as healthy as he's been recently."_

"_I'm sorry for whatever happened to him." The girl called Myuri shuffled into the light as Sterling spoke, a look of concentration twisting the red-head's face. "But I didn't need any help back there. Your group's actions were unnecessary."_

"_You aren't half as amazing as you think you are."_

_The tall girl either didn't notice or didn't care when the blue-haired girl started frantically squeezing her fingers into the palm of each hand, making a series of fists. Instead, she started a slow box-step, taking giant steps, pausing briefly at the corners and twisting her body to the left and right before continuing. Sterling could only stare in bemusement as this went on for nearly a minute._

_Finally the girl stopped._

_Then she smiled._

"_I knew it."_

_Sterling blinked._

"_My power is called 'First Priority'" Sterling frowned as the girl continued. "It lets me determine the most likely action about to be taken by anyone within a few dozen meters of my position."_

_The blue-haired girl went rigid. _

"_I noticed something in the alley earlier today." Myuri put on a spiteful grin as she looked over the frozen girl. "There were **two** very different instincts in the **exact same location**."_

_The red-head strolled up closer to Sterling and leaned into her face, whispering through that vitriolic smile._

"_21st Century Schizoid Bitch."_

_A color of sanguine red washed over the blue-haired girl's eyes in time for a hardened feminine fist to smash into a face that had just contorted itself in rage. Sterling's back hit the pavement as the red-haired girl cried out in pain and stumbled backwards._

_Myuri clutched her wrist and glared down at the glaze of ice covering her right hand. She raised her eyes and fixed them on her opponent. She made her decision._

"You."

_Sterling pushed herself up onto her knees, red eyes flashing. As blood leaked from the left corner of her mouth, a razor-sharp icicle grew into existence in her right hand._

"Are."

_As one, the girls screamed._

"**DEAD! ! !**_"_

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**Author's Notes:**

"_**She started it!" . . . **_

For those in the know, 'half sixes' is a _Scandinavia and the World_ reference.

This chapter gives a sense of the liberties that I have taken with Sterling and Rutile. Obviously, my versions skew off from Hikari Sword's canon, but certain things are the same. For example the Sterling's dominant personality can hear the other talk in her head, but she would have to speak aloud to be heard by the non-dominant personality. Hence the tapping and gestures they use to communicate with each other silently.

I have Rutile as a Queen fangirl both for the amusement factor and the fact that the Queen seems like she would be a magnet for cats in general (the opposite of Mikoto).

We also get a closer look at the personality of Sotomawari Mairo, the man who inspires a _Sister Princess_ level of devotion in a wide array of powerful, influential, and/or brutally violent individuals. That said, I will also point out that Mairo is far from healthy when Sterling meets him.

Yuuji is guesting from _Angel Densetsu_ and Aylia from _A Magical Roommate_.

Myuri's '_21st century . . ._' line references the song by King Crimson. She said it solely to enrage Sterling rather than as a commentary on her mental state.

Umidori and (incognito) Sogiita are playing 'Go Fish' with the deck of cards that Kakine chopped in half during Touma's poker game on Saturday.

Yes, Alistair is calling Heaven Canceler. And yes, the ring tone announcing his call is courtesy of a certain Mr. Osbourne.

If there is anything this world needs more of, it's magic pants.


End file.
