It was difficult, not being able to remember.

She forgot what she had for dinner last week.

She forgot how she got here, or where here was.

But more than that, she had forgotten other important life-defining things; things that many people loved to categorize and scrapbook with frilly little stickers, and then comment years later, with a hazy tinge of nostalgia, about how right they were for storing those precious memories on acid-free paper.

She forgot what strawberries tasted like. She forgot her first awkward kiss. She forgot that she thoroughly enjoyed kicking puppies when she thought no one was looking.

She had forgotten that she had forgotten about those things.

Her mind was fuzzy, and confused, and the story of her life at the moment read a bit like a document censored by a five year old who had been testing his fledgling artistic skills with thick, black, permanent marker—but it wasn't like she had forgotten everything.

Her name was Tomoe.

She was a student.

And on some days, when she wanted to, she could fly.

She laughed. She could fly. That was silly. And then she laughed again, noticing the slight sinister effect that she could produce with her throat, which was kind of neat.

Tomoe didn't worry about the fact that she had been calmly starting at nothing much more than fuzz in the air for the past hour or two. Nor was she concerned at all about the mild headache that was threatening to turn into a full-fledged monster of a migraine.

But then, that's the funny thing about being zapped with a few too many bolts of electricity by a mad duke.

It did some very strange things to the brain.

ch 12

"She seems…" Nao said with a quizzical look on her face. "…a bit off." Nao turned to Yukino. "Are you sure she's alright?"

"No." Yukino stated matter-of-factly, as she pushed her errant glasses back into place.

"Um…." Nao paused. "Isn't this the part where you reassure me that she'll be perfectly fine?" Nao pointed at Tomoe who looked back with a vacant, unsettling, gaze. "Especially since you want me to take that with me?"

"I never said she was fine." Yukino spoke softly. "But an Otome is an Otome. The chances of your success with her on your side increase from no chance in hell to just infinitesimally-slim."

Nao grimaced. "With an inactive, possibly mentally unstable Otome, who at the moment could hardly hope to tie her own shoes?"

"Just think of it as a challenge."

"A challenge?" Nao questioned, glancing at Tomoe, and noticed the pool of drool collecting at the left corner of her mouth.

"Yes, a challenge." Yukino said.

Nao's face twitched. "But there are rules…"

"What? No more girls in the clubhouse?" Yukino asked. "Oh, Miss Juliet you're smarter than that. You need all the help you can get, even if the tools at hand are not as… sharp as you wish." Yukino looked over the rims of her glasses.

"Sharp?" Nao muttered. "She wouldn't be sharp if you—"

"You're doing a deed for your country," Yukino interrupted, "and not just that, for all of Earl."

"Yes, yes, a good deed to end all good deeds." Nao said sarcastically. "And this is the part of the movie where I go off on a training montage with the half-wit for comedic effect, and we sing kumbaya until the enemy's ears bleed out. The exact same point, I might add, where they realize that their foolish and yet attainable goals of worldwide domination, was just a bad idea after all.

"If you could keep your sarcasm in check Miss Juliet, you'll see that I'm deadly serious." Yukino chided. "You can see it can't you? The troop movements. The sudden invasion of your city. The Duke now has control over any new Otome output. With enough time, he can tip the fragile balance that has been held in Earl." Yukino paused. "It's bewildering, really, how no one has even thought of doing this before." Yukino said with a wisp of respect.

"It might have something to do with the fact that most little shits aren't just 5 feet tall."

Yukino smiled. "Perhaps, but the most troubling thing about the five-foot terror are his tactics. Now, if I was in his position I would simply safeguard my territory until all the right pieces fell into place—naturally—if I were inclined to do such a thing in the first place."

"—Naturally." Nao said dryly.

Yukino shook her head. "But he's moving his troops over borders and into disputed territory. He's deliberately provoking a war. Some will inevitably try to join forces with him out of fear of being swallowed, but the rest will resist." Yukino tapped the rim of her frames twice. "The end game in such a situation is messy: a meager chance that he can pull off such a brazen play—so either he has some trick up his sleeve," Yukino paused. "Or the Duke is simply mad."

"Ah, and you couldn't just bet on the idea that the kid is insane." Nao raised her arms in a stretch. "So you want little old me, to step in, with a little oil grease and good old fashioned espionage to stop a little deranged kid from playing soldiers."

"More or less."

Nao smirked. "You know, my life plan used to be very simple: find a rich guy, get hitched, wait for him to die of heart attack and then live happily ever after."

Yukino raised an eyebrow.

"And now you're telling me it won't happen." Nao shrugged her shoulders. "At least not without risking my neck in the process, to make sure that there are still rich suckers left in existence." Nao paused. "You know, it is normally my policy to leave this sort of trouble to the Gakuenchou and the rest of the pillars, but…"

"But?" Yukino echoed.

"Oh, fuck it." Nao sighed.

"Why, Miss Juliet, is that a yes?"

ch 12

Off in the valley folded in a decidedly non-Euclidian way between not here and not there, Natsuki had somehow found herself in yet another awkward social situation.

It would be cliché to say that the thing across from her had a steely gaze, but in all likelihood Miyu was constructed out of a variety of space-age metals far stronger and lighter than steel, and so the saying was still pretty damn apt even if it was a tad lacking.

"Kuga." Miyu, addressed her with her dead, even, voice, "You look unwell."

"Just a bit warm." Natsuki choked back.

Of all duplicates Natsuki had hoped to see—out of curiosity or pure loneliness—she would have never would have wished for that android. Miyu was well, Miyu. That damn thing was unnerving in whatever universe she was in. Why couldn't Searrs have made a friendly robot dog instead? They probably could have sold those like hotcakes and thrown out any stupid ideas about world domination.

Miyu still looked oddly the same though. Natsuki supposed that androids weren't meant to change much. Maybe she should have been a different color in this world, or her arm was really a super-soaker instead of a proper gun, but Natsuki decided that Miyu looked very much the same as the Miyu she had mostly avoided back home.

The android startled her out of her thoughts when she broke the silence again. "I was expecting the others elsewhere. I waited for some time in the desert before I finally left." Miyu tilted her head quizzically. "It seems that the probabilities have changed." Miyu paused a beat, "Events are not unfolding as they should. And you—"

Natsuki swallowed involuntarily.

"—you are an aberration."

"Uh, that's nice." Natsuki replied blandly, "Nice to see you too, Miyu."

Silence settled over the two once more and Miyu continued to stare at her, as if doing so would somehow resolve the mystery. Maybe it was just an emotionless robot thing. It was hard to tell with Miyu.

Still, the android tickled Natsuki's curiosity. She was one part of matched pair. Miyu was the sort of person, or rather machine, that never left the side of a particular girl that was 9 going on 90—a little girl that had a smug, sophisticated, personality that always rubbed Natsuki the wrong way, even though her voice was truly angelic.

"Miyu, where's Alyssa?"

It only took a moment for that dominating, awkward, silence to turn threatening.

Seeing a robot convey emotion, and not just any emotion, but pure unbridled rage, is a truly scary thing— especially when Natsuki knew that that artificial life form had an arm cannon, a Gatling gun, and God knows what else hidden inside.

Natsuki, in all her bluntness had not prepared for the possibility that Alyssa, was not in fact anywhere on this strange mirror world.

Natsuki was in fact sometimes stupid.

As she considered those thoughts between estimating how long her elements would take to summon, and what the likelihood was of getting a free shot off before Miyu jumped her with inhuman speed and ability—

"WHOO!"

A wall of almost painfully hot water smashed into Natsuki's face as Mikoto cannon-balled into the onsen pool.

"Mai said to wait 30 minutes! Mmm!" Mikoto declared proudly, her cheerfully oblivious mood crushing any remaining tension in the air, "Or I would get leg cramps and die!"

Natsuki's wet hair dripped, draping the front of her face like a heavy iron curtain. "Ah…"

Sometimes things worked out like that. Sitting in an onsen with an android that possibly possessed a soul but had the personality of a ballistic missile—it was just another day in the life of Kuga Natsuki.

A/N: Sorry, just a tidbit for now. I also, just finished Madoka Magica and I concur that Homura Akemi is the manliest magical girl ever. Damn.