GLOSSARY:
doujinshi: The manga equivalent of fan fiction.
cosplaying: Shortened form of "Costume Playing". People dress up as characters from anime or manga.
Arisa gave a start when Saki shook free of her and stumbled over to the magical girl.
"Your denpa..." she murmured.
Huh? Magical girls must have pretty interesting denpas to get her to stand on her own while she was still wobbling. She stepped forwards and put a hand on her shoulder as Saki scrutinized the strangely dressed girl.
"Your denpa..." she murmured, making the magical girl nervous.
"Eheheh. I... I have to be going..."
Saki twitched. "Tohru-kun?" she said in a shocked voice.
The magical girl paled, then spun and fled into the woods. Arisa blinked once before running after her. Tohru? The girl had acted just like Tohru would've, and had the same hair and height...
She skidded to a stop when she saw Tohru half-hidden by young trees and bushes... Talking to an orange cat.
"Wh-what should I do, Kyo-kun?" she asked in a pleading voice.
Wha? Why was she calling the cat "Kyo"?
"Calm down!" the cat snapped in Kyo's voice. Arisa blinked, shaking her head. Wha-
"She went his way!" shouted a voice behind her. Damn! She leapt through the screen of bushes, grabbed Tohru's hand, and snapped out "Run!".
"U-U-Uo-chan?!" Tohru struggled to keep up, then nearly yanked Arisa off her feet when she tripped. Cursing, she scooped up Tohru in her arms and ran.
"Ehhhhhh?!?!"
Dodging and weaving around the trees, Arisa huffed and panted; she hadn't realized that Tohru was this heavy.
"Uo-cha-"
"Shhh!"
Ugh, did Tohru need to go on a diet? But she'd be getting plenty of exercise, fighting those gopher things-
Arisa shook her head and focused on the here and now. Hmmm, about halfway around the school campus. She put Tohru back on her feet with a sigh, a feeling relief spreading through her arms; damn, maybe she was the one who needed to get into shape. Pausing for breath, she looked down at the ground and saw the orange cat, staring at her.
"Heya, Kyon-Kyon," she panted.
"Meow."
"Cats don't say meow, moron."
Its snarled "Why you-"
She smirked in triumph as the cat snapped its mouth shut.
"Uo-chan, wha-"
"C'mon," Arisa said as she set off in a jog, "let's get gone." Tohru kept pace, as did orange head -- or, actually, orange body. Heh.
"I..." Tohru said, panic and fear blooming on her face. "My secret identity! It-"
"Don't worry, none of us are going to tell."
"B-but you and Hana-chan and Sohma-kun got hurt, and-" Tears shimmered at corners of her eyes;
"But we're all okay, and you got the... gopher in the end."
They stopped at a corner and Arisa peered around it, finding the side of the school deserted.
"But, but, it's a magical girl's job to protect people, and I needed your help, and-"
Tsk; the girl was always too hard on herself. They rounded the corner at a walk.
"Who says a magical girl can't get any help from civilians? And you did a pretty good job for your first time."
"Yeah," said Kyo, "what she said."
"Shhh! Cats don't talk, and they don't follow people around like dogs. Make yourself scarce." Jeez, she was talking to a human-turned-cat like it was normal, with a magical girl walking by her side; shouldn't she be freaking out? Had hanging around with Saki made her immune to weird stuff?
Kyo glared at her for a moment, then ran off as Tohru sniffled.
"C'mon," she said as she patted her on the head, "you did blast that gopher thing, and got whats-her-face to leave for an emergency hair styling appointment; if it wasn't for you, we... Well, I don't know what would've happened, what with a were-gopher attacking the school, but you definitely saved us."
A weak smile grew on Tohru's lips. "Th-thank you, Uo-chan."
Good; she hated to see her beat herself up after having saved the day. She'd really have to work on that girl's self esteem.
"Now, lets go find Saki and the prince."
Yuki pinched the bridge of his nose as he finally managed to extract himself from the crowd; avoiding contact with all those girls, many of whom were very eager to check on his good health, had added fuel to the headache he'd gotten from getting trounced by that gopher girl. Ugh, was this how the dumb cat felt after one of their fights? The thing had been faster than any human had a right to be, which made sense, since magical girls generally didn't fight with humans.
Magical girl. Honda-san was a magical girl. He started shaking his head, then stopped with a wince as it set his headache lancing through his skull; ugghhh. He'd have to go see the nurse. Careful to not turn his head to quickly, he walked into the school building and down the hallways, pondering the fact that Honda-san was a magical girl. For a moment, he felt a stab of betrayal, that she hadn't told him, but that was unfair: as a Jyuunishi, he had to keep his curse a secret from everyone, and as a magical girl, she had to keep it a secret from everyone. They even kept it a secret from their parents. It was just a fact of life for magical girls...
Wait. A fact of life for magical girls? There wasn't enough magical girls to establish a pattern like that, seeing as how magical girls didn't exist (until now, at least). Everything he knew about them came from fiction, so how reliable could that knowledge be? Yet she'd had the weird costume, magic wand, and absurd attack phrase, just like fiction portrayed magical girls, so...
Thinking about it made his head hurt worse, so he set the matter aside as he stepped into the nurse's office, resolving to think about it later.
"Hello, Sohma-kun!" nurse Sakura Konno said, practically glowing at him. Ugh, even some of the school's faculty acted like members of his 'fan club'. It took a supreme effort of will to concentrate past the pain and perform his normal act of obliviousness towards the worship that too many girls gave him.
"Hello, Konno-san. I have a rather bad headache; could you please give me some sort of pain killer?"
She was instantly on her feet in front of him, looking at him with a level of concern that seemed rather unprofessional.
"Oh dear, what happened? Were you involved in that incident outside?"
"I-incident?" Uh-oh.
"Yes, there were some gang members in strange costumes scaring the students, and then there was a flash of light with a sound of something like a blast... You weren't hurt by the blast, were you?"
No, I simply had my ass handed to me by a minion of evil.
"A... gang member struck me down, and I hit my head against the ground."
"You poor thing! Do you have a concussion? Mmmm, your pupils seem to be dilated properly. Here, sit, let me check for other wounds."
He suffered her taking off his shirt and sat there stoically, his headache growing stronger with each throb as her hands spent too much time roaming his bare torso in search of 'wounds'.
"Well, you seem to be fine," she said, her voice tinged with disappointment rather than relief; she'd probably been looking forward to 'playing nurse' for a bit longer. "Just a few bruises."
"About my headache, do you have anything stronger than aspirin?"
"Oh dear, its that bad? I'm sorry, but I believe that your file says you aren't to be given any medication without consulting your family doctor first. I'll-"
"No," he interrupted as he stood up carefully. "I'll call him." He wanted those damn painkillers now, and he wasn't going to allow for any delays.
"No, no, I-" She turned around as someone else walked into the room. "Oh, another patient." She sounded rather dejected about this development.
He punched Hatori's number into the phone and held the handset away from his ear, the shrill ringing shredding through his brain.
"Hello," said a pleasant female voice, "doctor Sohma's practice. How may I help you?"
"This is Yuki Sohma. May I speak with Hatori, please?"
"Yuki-san!" the receptionist said in a slightly breathy voice. Gods, even his cousin's secretary! Wasn't there anywhere on earth he could go without having women go all googly eyed over him? "Certainly, Yuki-san, I'll transfer you to his office right away."
He waited for several throbbing moments before Hatori's voice said, "Yes, Yuki?"
"Hatori, I have a rather bad headache, and I need for you to tell the nurse that she can give me some pain killers."
"A headache? Caused by what?"
"Well... I-" Yuki hissed as shards of broken glass bounced and careened around inside his skull. He concentrated past the blazing headache and ground out, "H-Honda-san became a magical girl, there was this monster, and-"
"What did you say?" demanded Hatori.
"I said..."
He squinted, thinking past the pain. What had he said?
...
Oh, crap.
Karuishi, Devourer of Souls, Killer of Hope, She Who Ate Children Who Didn't Eat Their Vegetables, finally got the containment spell in place around her hair, so that now it merely shifted from straight to curly to wavy, rather than try to strangle her. Safe from auto-styling asphyxiation, she thought about the revenge she'd get on that meddling magical girl. The bitch! She'd been proud of her long hair. It could blow dramatically in the wind, or she could toss it over her shoulder in annoyance. But now... Now she'd had to cut it into a fashionable bob! She even had to cut her bangs, to keep them from poking her eyes out. She'd only have to dye it from white to black to look like a respectable up-and-coming business woman! Now no one could take her seriously as a source of malice and spite! She'd-
The weight of the Crystals pressing down on her mind. A summons; damn. She teleported to where her 'superiors' awaited her and knelt on bended knee.
"Jeez," said one of them, "what did you do to your hair?"
"Shut up!" another hissed. "So," the voice continued, "it would seem that you failed."
Ugh. Could she get any more cliche?
"Yes," she replied, "it would seem so. It would also seem that you failed to inform me about the Lightning Bitch."
"Wha?"
"The school girl with black-painted finger nails who blasted me with lightning."
They retreated into a huddle of worried whispers, filled with nervous gestures and wary glances thrown her way. So, they didn't trust her; smart of them, since if she could manage to get the Crystals off of them, she'd wring their-
They broke out of their huddle and stood before her again.
"In addition to failing," one of the said, "you attacked at the school."
"And I wasn't supposed to? That's two things you failed to tell me."
"Additionally, you put the grey haired boy in danger. He is needed for our plans."
Damn! She should have killed the boy while she'd still had the chance.
"A third thing you failed to tell me. Are there any other things you'd like to not tell me?"
"Silence! The... Lightning Bitch, you may do with as you wish."
"Thank you so much for telling me how to do my job."
"Silence!! Since you failed, Karuishi, we'll be sending out Tarukamu next."
That little twit? Good, she'd be sure to screw things up. Maybe she could trick her into doing something unpleasant to the Crystal holders.
"That will be all," said the seeming leader of the Crystal holders.
"And the wretched magical girl who opposed me? Do you have any special needs concerning her, like the ones you failed to inform me about the school and the grey haired boy."
"Ummm... Well, I mean, you a Dark General type, and she's a magical girl, so, well, she's your enemy, right? So you just try to defeat her like normal, right?"
Karuishi ground her teeth, making an effort to keep silent. Wring their necks? No, that was to good for them. She'd-
"Say," said another one of them, "I like what her hair's doing. Think she could do the same for my hair?"
"Shut up!!" said the first one.
Yes, far too good for them.
"Sohma-kun!" Tohru cried as he stepped out of the nurse's office. "Are you alright? You were in there for so long."
The prince waved his hand in dismissal.
"Fine, I'm fine. I just had to wait a bit for the pain killers to take affect."
Tohru's hand shot to her mouth as her eyes widened in dismay.
"P-pain? Oh, no, I-"
Arisa put a hand on her shoulder and smiled.
"He's coming away from the nurse on his own two feet, so he's okay."
Tohru smiled weakly, and Arisa gave her shoulders a squeeze as she said, "Well, then, we'll walk you home."
"Home?" said the prince, blinking in puzzlement.
"Yeah, because of the pipe bomb set off by those gang members." She winked at him as she said this.
"B-bomb?" he ask, now completely confused.
"Yeah, a pipe bomb." *Wink* "You remember, those cosplaying gang members?" *Wink* "The one dressed like a gopher kicked your ass, then the one dressed up like Naga the Serpent from 'Slayers' threw a pipe bomb while shouting 'Cutey Syrup Blast'?" *Wink* *Wink* *Wink*
He blinked a few times, then nodded and winced.
"My stuff-"
Saki silently lifted up his book-bag, which he took from her gingerly, as if afraid to touch her; heh, even the prince in shining armor was afraid of her. He gripped the book-bag's handle firmly, adjusted his tie, and then walked down the hallway, the rest of them following him. Pausing only to exchange their school shoes for their normal shoes, they pushed through the front doors, skirted a milling crowd of students and passed through the school gates. Thankfully, all of the Princess Club members in the club had been too agitated by the 'bombing' to notice Tohru walking next to Yuki. Now, nonchalantly, since we aren't sneaking, walk away from the gates, turn a corner, walk a ways, and then some more, no sign of the Princess Club, or of anyone else for that matter, so now would be a good time for a certain orange flea-bag to show up...
"Ah...." said the prince. "Honda-san, I..."
"Yes?" she replied.
Arisa glanced at him long enough to see the guilty look on the face. Was he feeling bad about not being able to protect her from the Gopher Girl? Hmmm. Now where was that damned fur-ball?
"What are you looking for, Arisa-kun?" Saki asked as Arisa scanned the trees, bushes and fences they were walking past.
"Huh? Oh, just for-"
She snapped her head around at the sound of Tohru's gasp to find the object of her search perched on Tohru's shoulders.
"Heya, Kyon-kyon." The cat simply glared at her.
"K-K-K-Kyon-kyon?" stuttered Yuki, eyes wide in horror.
"Yeah, orange head here got turned into Tohru's magical girl animal adviser type thing."
Yuki opened and shut his mouth like a fish, then snapped it shut before yelling, "You stupid cat! You let them find out!"
The cat snarled, "Why, you-"
"Claws!" gasped Tohru, and the cat forced itself to relax, its tail lashing.
"It does not matter," said Saki, who staring steadily at the fur-ball. "The cat's denpa is nearly the same as that of Kyo-kun; they are clearly one and the same." [see notes] Both the prince and the cat gave a start at that, sending Saki wary glances. Hnnnn, strange...
"Anyhow," Arisa said, "now that the adviser is here, we have to figure out how to keep the magical girl stuff secret. We can't let anyone else find out..." She ground to a stop at the increasingly uncomfortable look on Yuki's face.
"Ah..." said the prince. "When I was talking to Hatori on the phone... I kind of, well, told him that Honda-san was a magical girl-"
"What?!" Arisa and Kyo yelled in unison, causing the prince to wince.
"M-my headache was making it hard to concentrate, and-"
"And you were yelling at me about keeping secrets?!" Kyo shouted.
"Kyo-kun! People might hear you!"
"Damn!" said Arisa. "Who is this Hatori person?"
"The Sohma family doctor," replied Yuki.
"Hmmm. Maybe he'll just think your brain was out of whack from getting hit on the head."
"Who would the doctor have told about this?" asked Saki.
"Well, probably-" Yuki stopped as a car pulled to a stop beside them. A bishounen looking man with black hair falling over one eye stepped out of the car and looked at the cat.
"Hatori!" called Kyo, causing the man to stare at him wide-eyed. "Who did you tell about Tohru?"
Arisa whacked Kyo and yelled, "Idiot! He might have believed the whole magical girl thing was a hallucination if you kept your mouth shut!"
The man -- Hatori, apparently -- gave her a puzzled look.
"I never believed that Yuki was hallucinating," he said.
Arisa boggled at the statement.
"What?! A patient of yours who's just taken a blow to the head tells you he saw an honest-to-goodness magical girl, and you believe him?"
The doctor gave her a cool look, his face almost as impassive as Saki's.
"The Sohma family is a very traditional one, steeped in the legends of old, and we fully believe in the existence of magic."
"Huh? What 'legends of old' have magical girls in them?"
"Get in the car," he said, oblivious to her question. "I'll drive you the rest of the way to Shigure's."
Yuki got into the front passenger's seat while the girls piled in back, with Kyo sitting on Tohru's lap.
"How many people have you told about the magical girl stuff?" asked Kyo.
"None," Hatori said.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"However, Akito was in my office with me, and overheard everything."
"Akito?!" Kyo and Yuki yelled in unison.
"After I hung up, he picked up the phone and said 'I think that Shigure and Ayame should be informed of this, don't you agree?'"
"What?!"
"He was smiling when he said it. I think he was amused." From the sound of his voice, Hatori was certainly not amused.
"Did he call anyone else?"
"He didn't need to," Yuki said sourly. "Once those two know..."
"Shigure," Saki mused. "He is the one that you two and Tohru-kun live with, but who is Ayame?"
"My brother," Yuki said, sounding so sour that his mouth must be puckering like he'd licked a lemon.
"You don't sound too happy about him finding out."
"Ayame is... You'll see. You'll see."
"And Akito?"
"Akito is the head of the Sohma family. He... can be difficult."
So, not an hour since Tohru's magical girl debut, and, how many.... Seven, seven people knew about her secret. Great.
"So," Arisa said, "how the hell are we going to keep this secret? Too many people know."
"We Sohmas are good at keeping secrets."
"Huh? What? Think you could be a little more cryptic, please?
Unfortunately, at that moment the car pulled up in front of Shigure's house, so she couldn't lay into him with more questions. Geez, the way everyone was reacting to the whole thing was freaking weird. As Arisa got out of the car, Shigure, Hatsuharu and Momiji came out the front door and goggled at Kyo the Cat, who was being held by Tohru. There! What the hell was up with that? It was like Tohru with a cat was the last thing on Earth they'd ever imagine.
"What are those two doing at this house?" Saki asked.
"I'm tutoring them at math," the prince muttered.
"The cat here is orange-head," Arisa said. "He got turned into Tohru's magical adviser somehow."
The three on the porch blinked, then Shigure shook himself briefly before closing his eyes, putting one hand over his heart and the other aloft in the air, a dramatic, silly pose.
"Ah!" he sighed. "Our delicate flower has come back from her first battle, victorious in her fight against evil!"
Meanwhile, Momiji rushed off the porch to stand in front of Tohru, bouncing up and down in his school girl uniform.
"Yay!" he cried. "Now you're a real princess, Princess-Tohru!"
"Eh?" she said, head titled to the side in puzzlement.
"Now that you're a magical girl, that means you're a princess, right?"
Her eyes widened. "P-pr-princess?!"
"No, she isn't," the cat said flatly.
"Whhyyyy?" whined Momiji.
"Because I'm her adviser, and I say so, that's why!"
"So," said Arisa, "that's what a mascot does? Decide on the royalty of magical girls?"
"I'm not a mascot!!"
"Since you seem to know so much, you must have a lot of experience as an 'adviser'."
"Hey! It's not like I asked for this job! And it's not like you need to be a cat to tell her to not make speeches and to not take that dream seriously."
"Dream?"
"Yeah, she dreamed that she was fighting a gopher monster thing, and she told it 'In the name of my homework, I will punish you'. She thought it was a prophetic dream, but I mean, geez-"
"Gopher monster?" said the prince, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "Like the thing Honda-san fought this afternoon?"
"Homework?" Arisa asked. "Work for school, which is where the attack happened?"
Kyo's eyes widened as his jaw dropped. (She hadn't realized that a cat's jaw could drop) He then snapped his mouth shut and glared at Yuki.
"I'm new at this, okay?! It's not like that stupid ball of light gave me an instruction manual!"
"Ball of light?" asked Saki.
"Yeah! It popped up yesterday, turned me into a cat, gave Tohru the magic wand, then disappeared! Stupid bastard didn't tell us anything!!"
"Still," Yuki said, "that doesn't-"
Everyone spun as a car roared down the lane to the house --
"It's not stopping!" then scattered like pins before a bowling ball. Breaks squealing, it slid sideways to a stop, its front bumper barely caressing the bumper of Hatori's car. Out popped a woman in glasses, wearing a maids outfit, and- And that Dark General chick from before! No, no, wait, they face wasn't quite the same.
"Where!" cried the white haired woman. "Where is the lovely Tohru-kun, queen of magical girls?!"
"A-ya-me," the prince ground out as he glared at the white haired...
"Ayame?" asked Arisa. "That's your brother?!"
"Ah, Tohru-kun!" called the white haired cross-dresser as he rushed over to Tohru and grabbed the shocked girl by her shoulders. "Your magical girl uniform! See it! Yes, I must see it! I must!!"
"Ah- Ah- Ah-" stammered the confused girl.
"Brother..." growled the prince.
"Ayame!" hissed the cat.
"For my store, my designs!" Ayame cried, flourishing one arm dramatically. "A man's romance, that is the raison d'être of my store. Maid, nurse, waitress, cat ears... And magical girls! Now that there is a real live magical girl, even more men will be clamoring for magical girl uniforms!"
"Ayame!" Kyo and Yuki shouted together.
"But to be dressed in the real magical girl uniform! Truly, a man's dream come true. Ah, my heart thunders in excitement!"
"Pervert!" they yelled.
"I- I- I-" Tohru stammered.
"Yeah!" Momiji cried as he jumped up and down gleefully. "Magical girl outfits! Since Tohru is already the princess, Hari," he pointed at Hatori, "can be Sailor Pluto, since he's so cool and mysterious!"
Hatori's left eyebrow began twitching.
"And," Momiji continued, "I can be Chibi-Usa!!"
"No you don't!!" yelled Yuki and Kyo.
"Chibi-Usa is pink," Saki stated, as if that was all that needed to be said on the subject.
"Ah!" Ayame cried, forefinger held up in the air. "Then the boy crazy Gure-san shall be Sailor Venus!"
"Aya-san!" said Shigure in a wounded voice as he put a hand over his heart. "How could you say such a thing, when I have eyes only for you! It is you, Sailor Jupiter, who's boy hunger eyes stray from me!"
"Non, non!" Ayame denied vigorously. "For it is you that I love, my dear Mina-chan!"
"Ah, sapphic love shared between two Sailor Senshi. Is there anything more forbidden, more unexpected?"
"No!" shouted the cat. "It isn't unexpected at all! Do you have any idea of how many perverted Sailor Moon doujinshi there are that have the Sailors screwing each other?!"
"Oh?" Shigure replied, an amused grin on his face. "And how would you know such a thing, Kyo-kun?"
Kyo turned his head away, probably blushing under all the fur, and then snapped his head back to glare at Shigure.
"You!..." he ground out. "I go looking for normal Sailor Moon doujinshi, and find all that perverted stuff mixed in with it!"
"Oh? And why are you looking at doujinshis of teenage girls in short skirts?"
"Why you, I..."
Arisa began tuning it all out. I was gonna be a long day.
In the manga, Saki (Hana-chan) has never been in the presence of a transformed Jyuunishi.
---
In chapter 1, Kyo implied that he didn't know much about magical girls, and now he's enough of a Sailor Moon fan to go shopping for SM doujinshi? Oops; that's what you get for making things up as you go along.
---
Since Sailor Moon uses so many mineral references, especial for the bad guys, so I thought I'd use some of my own:
Karuishi -> Pumice Stone
Tarukamu -> Talcum
Heh. ;-)
I was going to go with something like "Cubic Zirconite", but it turns out that there's already a Zirconia in Sailor Moon.
---
"auto-styling asphyxiation" is a pun off of the phrase "auto-erotic asphyxiation", which means... Well... Basically strangling yourself while you masturbate. Apparently, oxygen deprivation makes orgasms more intense.