This chapter was originally meant as a buffer so that I would have something to post if I ever got writer's block for Three Wishes. It is the last one of this story written so far and I've forgotten about it for the entire summer. Even now, you could say that the only reason it's up is because I decided to check this account on a whim. Updates and promises hereon out will be as reliable as they always have been from me (read: not reliable at all).

As far as writing goes, I'm not out of the GA fandom yet. But as far as being a fan goes, I've been out for many years already. I hope you can understand my position. :) I just don't want to leave behind what I've started.

Official Disclaimer: A huge whooping thank you goes to Mademoiselle Mirage for creating the basis of this story. The genie concept belongs to her. The story, up to chapter three (discerning the prologue), also contains excerpts of her writing. I would just like to thank you endlessly, Pam, for this golden piece of work, and I apologize for not being able to finish it sooner!

Three Wishes

11: Misfortune

The princess, unable to desert her closest friend and mentor,

Koko felt like he was fighting a battle just by standing on that execution platform. Everyone else was an enemy.

Hajime was smirking quite delightfully. Koko fought the urge to rip his face off.

Persona was also smirking quite gleefully, but he was up in a balcony, next to the king and untouchable. Koko still imagined painfully tearing him to shreds.

Then there was Mochu. Mochu's eyes hadn't left him since the bomb was supposed to detonate—exactly one day ago. The stare was hostile. It was the kind of pointed stare one gave to purposely rouse anxiety in another.

He was already panicking enough without having Mochu on his back.

Koko ran his mind over the scene again and again. He replaced the rope, set the timer, coiled the old rope around the bomb to hide it, and left promptly but not too promptly to miss checking if he was followed. And he surely wasn't. So why hadn't the bomb detonated?

Fearfully, he stole several glances at the platform entrance. Nothing. And Hajime was stepping forward. Hajime was reading Sumire's verdict. Hajime had the scythe in his hand.

Koko was about to launch forward and declare his betrayal to the entire genie race.

Exactly one irrational step later, there was a painful digging sensation in his wrist. The spiky haired genie turned around to meet livid gray eyes. Mochu dug his nails into Koko's skin to draw blood.

It dawned on them both at that very moment. Something went wrong. They had failed her. And now they would pay the price. Sumire would die right in front of their eyes.

Something was wrong. There was no doubt about it. Something was wrong.

Because if everything was right, she would have been unstrapped from this uncomfortable position by now.

She knew it would happen. She knew it. But they just had to go and give her such false hopes, such avid anticipations.

With her head on the platform, staring out into a million faces, Sumire suddenly experienced the shivers of fear she had long forgotten. Even that was quickly washed away by shame. Shame that she even dared to hope for such a foolish outcome against infinitesimal odds. Even before the execution, long before the plan, she told herself she was ready for this, that she would face death with a smile if it was the last thing she did.

Where was that smile now?

She felt like crying. At least that would garner a little bit of public pity before she died.

It wasn't fair in the least. What did she do that was abominable enough to land her in this position? Sure she granted an illegal wish, but with good intent. And it wasn't like the wish was entirely illegal in the first place, not by the Genie Constitution. She probably shouldn't have sworn at Persona either, but that she didn't regret the least. He was just going to have to deal with it.

All she ever wanted to do was make Mikan happy, to make herself happy, to just see her soulmate for a little bit longer.

And what did she get for it? Her iron will most shamefully twisted until it broke, a failed escape plan that shouldn't have been formed in the first place and a doomed fate. She could just see Persona smiling sadistically, snug in his chair.

In the sea of faces, she saw pity and dumbfound and fear. Not a single genie possessed a solid resolve. Everyone let her go, even Koko. Especially Koko. When they both realized that the bomb wasn't going to go off, he had been by her side. He could have whispered any number of things to her. He could have at least apologized. He didn't.

"I love you," he said, in a flimsy attempt for comfort. He might as well not have given her any hope in the beginning, then. Leading her on and then jumping ship at the last moment—it was too cruel. What were the words? What meaning did they have? "You are my soulmate"? "I can't live without you"? Bullshit! Bullshit! Koko Yome was a big fat liar.

Of course, of all the times she could have realized it, she had chose the most inopportune.

Life was really too cruel.

"Before commencing, does anyone have any objections to the execution of Sumire Shouda?"

She prayed for him to speak. She put two ocean's worth of faith in him, desperately clinging onto the notion that she was thinking too much, that she was deceiving herself.

"I do!"

The comment took her by a maelstrom of relief and disappointment. Why, of all the people, it came from her old teacher! Like a leech, she clung onto those two words. She could give Koko hell about the defective bomb later. Right now, she just needed to live. Anything to live.

She tried to focus as Narumi explained some age old theory about genies and their masters he probably got from his father, Noda. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her lamp symbol burned again.

The pain was even more torturous than before, as if allowing her just the first little taste of death. Sumire sank her canines into flesh to force her tears back into her eyes. The genies' words were entirely lost on her.

All, except for that one sentence from Persona: "let the execution begin."

She hyperventilated, seeing red everywhere. It wasn't just her genie symbol anymore. Her entire doused in fire. Somewhere, somehow, some spiritual power must have heard her anguish. Someone must have felt sorry for her, because now that the world was crimson, Sumire didn't mind dying nearly as much.

Something sharp crashed down on her neck. She shut her eyes tightly at the impact, but when it was over she found herself slowly blinking them open again.

The pain was gone.

Her audience was dumbfounded.

For a moment, Sumire wondered if Hajime's blade had dulled. Would her neck be hacked thirty times before it finally split? It must have been Persona's doing, that rascal.

The petulant genie tore her head from the block to sit upright. She had a double take upon seeing the scythe… or what was remaining of it. Sumire's eyes travelled from the axe to Hajime, Narumi, Koko, Mochu, Persona and finally, King Yukihira.

The sea of genies held their breath.

Finally, the king rose to his feet. "It seems that you were telling the truth, Narumi," he said with a frown. "In that case, since capital punishment cannot be served, we will surely find another way."

"Surely, we cannot let this off with a weaker verdict," drawled Persona from his seat. "Hajime and I took it upon ourselves to investigate this case. We know for a fact that there are clearly two culprits. Miss Shouda is not the only one at fault. There's also a human child."

His eyes twitched. Sumire followed his gaze to Narumi and... A small cry of defeat escaped her lips as she saw Mikan, crying her eyes out with Narumi's hand on her shouder.

"Don't you dare touch her!" she cried out. "She had nothing to do with this. It was all me."

"She has seen the genie world. She has been here for long enough to understand our ways. She is a threat!" Persona addressed the entire population. "Humans are vile creatures. If word gets out that we exist, they will want our magic. They will enslave us. You all know from firsthand experience the atrocious demands that they have. Is that not why we have an entire section in the lawbook dedicated to the safety of our race?"

The crowd was silent. People looked to one another, afraid to voice their opinion in fear of being singled out.

"And you think that a seven year old human child's has any sort of credibility at all."

Sumire's neck hairs stood on end. She stiffly turned to the genie who finally deigned to speak. He fixed a firm expression on his face, and though her hands remained tied, she clenched her fists tightly.

So now Koko spoke up. Now he was going to oppose, when she was safe and out of danger, when he was safe behind the iron will of Narumi. But when her head was locked on the platform, she didn't see him doing anything about it. She fantasized herself suddenly sprouting fangs sharp enough to tear his skinny little body apart.

After all that she had risked for him, how could he care for her so circumstantially?

"You make a good point as well, Koko," acknowledged the king, "one which begs the question: what would be appropriate punishment for Sumire's betrayal?"

He opened his mouth again, and Sumire was sure some higher deity suddenly decided to favour her, because all was silenced by a deafening sound and the shaking of the platform.

The 'dud' finally detonated.

Chaos reigned as hundreds of genies leaped onto magic carpets to hightail out of this place. The king, Persona, all nobles and Genie Officials took a commanding stance in an attempt to take the situation into their own hands.

But it was too late. Everything went just as planned… except the timing.

Sumire felt a sharp tug, and the ropes that bound her hangs duly came apart.

"Come on," he said, tugging onto her hand and making a run for it.

His feet were the only pair that moved.

"What's wrong?" Koko demanded. "Let's go, Sumire. We can't waste any more time."

"No."

He was stunned. "What do you mean no? We planned this out for centuries!"

"Why should I go with you," she hissed hatefully, "when I could be dead by now? Why should I trust you now when you failed me in the most critical moment? Tell me."

"I-I set the bomb on time. A week, I'm sure of it. I don't know why it took so long to detonate. Please, Sumire!" He tugged on her hand again. "We'll sort this out. I'll make it up to you, even if it's the last thing I do. But right now we have to go."

Liquid rage surged through her veins, and the words spilled as easily as water flowing downstream. "You set it on time, didn't you? You paid careful attention, didn't you? Because last time I checked, that was not on time. Last time I checked, I would have died five weeks ago if Narumi hadn't intercepted. I can't even believe this. You were the one who instigated this dangerous plan. You were the one who asked me to elope with you. How could you singlehandedly fuck everything up? For you to shirk responsibility right to my face, Kokoroyome…"

She could see him sighing in relinquishment, in an attempt to be patient with her. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sumire. I'm sorry a million times."

His hand was still outstretched to her, and for a second she glanced down at it, swatting it away in her mind like a pesky vermin.

At that moment, Koko came to a heart-wrenching realization. This girl. This girl in front of him didn't want to go with him. After such tedious, careful planning, such passionate debates, she resigned to giving herself in. The light was dead in her eyes. The figure standing before him was not his girlfriend, just some empty, soulless shadow of her.

One that he was somehow responsible for.

"You don't want to come," he choked out, close to tears.

Sumire averted his eyes. She had not seen Koko cry in thousands of years, not since he was a small and depressed genie. His face made her heart wrench, and it only made her blood boil even more; why was her heart wrenching for such an untrustworthy, unreliable man?

"Narumi will protect Mikan. Persona can't kill me," she said in a neutral voice, "and Kazu won't hurt me. What's the worst that can happen if I stay? I get perpetually thrown into Level Three? I can deal with that. I've been in there for several hundred years already. If I'm lucky, the next genie king will feel generous enough to let me out.

"And besides, it's not as if I want to be with you for the rest of my life or anything…"

"Whew!" an annoying, dramatic voice pierced her ears, making her feel even woozier than she already was. "I can't believe you made it this far, Sumire! Really, you are one lucky genie."

She wished they would hurry it up. Now that she had her genie powers stripped, being in an atmosphere full of viscous magic was made her lightheaded. It was a wonder how Mikan managed for so many years, but then Mikan was probably too busy having fun to worry about such trivial matters.

"The human world, huh?" Narumi mused on. "Where are they sending you, I wonder?"

"Anywhere," she snarled. "It doesn't matter."

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Suppose one day we encounter each other by accident."

"Not a chance," she snapped. The thought outright disgusted her.

Narumi laughed merrily. "All right, all jokes aside, I do believe you got through the incident fairly unscathed. I can think of a number of people who are fairing worse than you. Koko, for example, is making friends in Level Two right now."

Her heart jolted, although for a moment Sumire was confused as to why it did. "Serves him right," she bit out.

"Aw, don't say that! He fought long and hard to keep your sentence relatively light, you know?"

She said nothing, opting to stare long and hard into the gates to the human world, which would open for her any minute now.

"Did you say goodbye to Mochu yet?"

It was a good thing that she would never see Narumi after this. "Yes. A long time ago, right after he knocked Koko unconscious."

Narumi frowned. "Sumire, it was an accident. I understand that you're mad at him, and he certainly shouldn't have allowed it to happen, but everything turned out well in the end. There's no need to hold such a stringent grudge."

"I don't care."

"Sumire—"

"What's going to happen to Mikan?" She refused to dwell on this subject.

A smile came to Narumi's face. "Mikan's in good hands. My sister and Kazu's brother have adopted her as a child. Most of her memories have fuzzed out, and we'll rely on time to do the rest. She won't be in any danger as long as Kazu remains on the throne. He loves to baby his little brother. Kazu'll be putty in Izumi's hands."

She allowed a smile to come to her face as well. "Well, that's good."

In the distance, two genie officials made their way towards the duo. They were the gatekeepers, and would be leading Sumire to the other side as soon as they arrived.

"Mr. Narumi, I have a favour to ask you."

Golden eyebrows rose.

"You sister can transfer genie powers, can't she? Since she stripped me of mine, can you ask her to give them to Mikan?"

"That's not for me to decide," he told her sadly.

"But you can at least suggest it," she protested. "Can't you at least use Mr. Izumi to get to the Genie King? Mikan has been ostracized for most of her life. When I first met her, she was sad, lonely, abused, and shut-in. I brought her here to escape that lifestyle. It'd be too cruel for her to live life as oppressed here as she did in the human realm."

"Well…"

Sumire knew Narumi had a weak spot for Mikan and she was more than happy to exploit it. "If you don't do this, she will be the only citizen in the two genie worlds who doesn't have any powers. If it's going to be like this then I can't imagine even Tsubasa staying with her for long."

"I'll see what I can do," he finally conceded.

The two gatekeepers had arrived and locked arms with Sumire.

"If you manage this, I might just consider you to be the best teacher I've ever had."

"You can't take that back, Sumire!" she heard him yell just as she was dragged beyond the gates.

All mundane aspects of the human life were in fact very annoying. Sumire could think of at least twenty things she would rather do other than going out to buy toothpaste.

Toothpaste costs money. Money she didn't have.

And sometimes, in desperation, she would sacrifice the little things such as toothpaste and shampoo for money to pay the bills, only to feel absolutely disgusted afterwards. Food wasn't a big problem, because even without powers, a genie did not need much food to survive. Everything else, however, was.

Lodging accommodations were a pain. Getting a job was a pain. It had been easier after the earthquake that fortunately or not so fortunately befell right after she was banished. Everything was a mess then, and she could get support from relief teams.

But then everything returned to order, and once more the truth stood that Sumire was an absolute nobody in this world. She had no social security number, no pension, no health insurance, no work insurance, no insurance of any kind, and no birth certificate. As far as the system was concerned, there was no Sumire Shouda to ever exist.

She didn't even have enough money to spare for a fake I.D. All jobs she had ever taken were under the table, and it wasn't easy to find a place she could live where the landowner didn't demand some kind of legal identification.

Honestly, it was amazing she had even made it past four human years in this state. She was lucky enough to be living and working in a small trinket shop in a poor district of the city.

But something had to change. She needed to establish something permanent in order to thrive in this world. She would never age, so she could never stay anywhere for too long a time. Luck would not always be on her side, and what she had right now guaranteed her homelessness for years and years to come.

She wondered if Kazu foresaw this when he finally declared her punishment.

At least it was a blessing to be away from Persona and Hajime and Koko once and for all.

She closed her eyes, feeling the slight breeze hit her face. Late afternoon was the only time she would ever consider hitting up the grocery store for toiletries. Though Sumire was a genie, she was not gifted in the art of self defense and without magic she was as strong as a normal twenty one year old woman.

She entered Sakurano's Convenience Store, where she got most if not everything she ever needed to live. The owner was quite pleasant. He had a nice smile, and a tendency to give regular customers discounts. By now, he could count on Sumire to come at least once a month.

Sakurano's Convenience Store was a very small store. Except for locals, not a lot of people stopped by, so after Sumire collected all her supplies she was surprised to see that one, it was not Shuuichi at the counter but rather his friend Hayami, and two, there was a very, very young child arguing with him.

"Twenty cents or nothing." Were all kids so stingy these days?

"That's fine. We don't want you children hanging around here."

Their strikingly purple eyes bored into his skull.

"You're not the manager, are you?" the girl said flatly. "Let me see the manager. I want to complain."

"Are you done?" Sumire asked impatiently. Her arms felt rather heavy with the stock of shampoo that would hopefully last four or five months at the very least.

Both of them immediately turned to look at her.

"Ah, Shuuichi's regular," said Hayami as he immediately cancelled out the girl's items and started scanning in her shampoo bottles.

The little girl's stare now pierced into Sumire's skull, and Sumire shuffled her feet slightly, feeling like she recognized her from somewhere.

"It's you," she said in a mechanical voice. "Where's Mikan?"

Immediately, the exiled genie froze, unable to believe her luck. Of all the people she could have encountered, what were the chances that she would meet with Mikan's doll? Mikan's doll that she had brought to life, no less.

"She's safe," was all Sumire could manage as Hayami handed her the large plastic bag.

She numbly gave a few bills to him, and he ducked behind the counter to fetch her change. As soon as the last coin dropped into Sumire's hand, she sped out of the grocery store.

"Are you trying to run away from me?"

She jolted, before remembering that the girl was a doll. Her uncannily long legs allowed her much quicker strides, even if her legs moved very mechanically.

"What do you want?"

Hotaru pulled on her sleeve. "Tell me what happened to Mikan."

With her teeth gritted, Sumire squeezed her eyes for five seconds before reopening them again. Perhaps it was a little selfish of her to take Mikan into the genie world while leaving Hotaru behind. A doll did deserve to know what happened to her owner. Sumire found herself spilling all the details to Hotaru on the way to her shabby home.

When they arrived at the doorstep, Hotaru finally summarized her thoughts with two simple, meaningless words. "I see."

"Yeah. So basically that's it."

"So you need a place to stay, don't you?" Sumire noticed that the girl was eyeing the torn down store very critically.

"Maybe," she finally admitted. "But I'm faring fine right now."

"Right now. What about later?"

"I don't know. I'll manage."

The girl suddenly pulled a piece of paper and pen from her pocket. She quickly scribbled a few words and numbers onto it before handing it to Sumire.

"What is this?"

"You'll need a place to stay," Hotaru stated with finality. "If you're ever in need, come to this address, ask for Hotaru Imai and say that you're applying to be my housemaid."

"Housemaid?"

The girl waved her hand. "False occupation. Just say that you are. I'll provide you a job, an I.D., anything you need to live, as long as you promise me one thing."

"Go on…"

The child's eyes were strikingly sharp. "If you were to ever meet Mikan, you have to tell her the truth, the entire truth and nothing but the truth. You have to let her know that she's still human and bring her back to me."