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.

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"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!"

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"–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!"

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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.