iacus- ^__^ Thank you very much. That’s encouraging to know.
I’ll try my best to WRITE more of this story.
And yes, a round of applause for the people who keep me connected to JPH!P. <3
Bingo. Saki never saw Koharu, so even though she gets a bad feeling about the two of them, she doesn’t recognize her. Koharu and Airi did a pretty good job before of keeping their identities secret and destroying anything that might aid in their capture (the police files don’t even have pictures of them). So yes, Maasa and Chinami know who they are, and Maiha would recognize Koharu, at least. Good question. :3
whytphyre- Lol Don’t be hatin’ on Loser-chan. <3
Miyabi is indeed love. :3
SOMEONE has to watch out for Risako. She’s trouble waiting to happen.
Lol I hate my situation too, but there’s not much I can do about it… other than hate it. >>
Estrea- Aww, turning into my cheerleader, dearest?
Yay fluff. :3 And of course there’s something going on underneath it all, it’s me, remember? Momoko’s trust in Koharu will definitely complicate things… you can be sure of that…
-replied to the Koharu thing in iacus’s comment- <3
^__^;; -keeps on fighting?-
Modesta107- :3 Thank you. I appreciate it, even though I’m sometimes not the most devoted
writer.
Mrr..
All in good time… they’re not quite exactly in trouble yet.
The popcorn clip, maybe? I love that. It looks so fake, and yet it being Risako, kind of believable… Though… I can’t see how anyone would fall asleep while they were eating like that…
Yuuyami- -jabs Yuuchan with stick- Bad you~ XDD Just kidding. If it weren’t for your constant prodding, I’d probably get nothing done. <3
Blissfully unaware… like that Aika-face you do. It’s like in one of those horror movies where you’re all like “DON’T GO IN THAT DOOR!” but the actor does it anyway and then shit happens.
<333
rndmnwierd- Thank you… It means quite a lot to me to hear something like that. I’ve been kind of off ever since things happened the way they did to me… but for the most part I’ve learned to adjust and so I think I’m going to be alright. Which means that this story will keep on moving along… albeit at a slower pace, it seems.
^___^;;
lil_hamz- Thank you. :3
Haha~ Well, I should probably try and pick up the pace on my writing then in order to keep you from waiting so long. <3
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Woo~
How long has it been since the last one?
Fimmy-chan doesn’t even remember.
But she apologizes profusely for the long wait.
A combination of laziness and writer’s block pretty much brought me to a screeching halt, and it seemed like every day I’d get up and not want to write.
Thankfully, however, I think I’m getting back into the swing of things, and so I’m going to try hard not to let such a gap come between updates again.
Thank you for all your kind comments and your patience.
Enjoy. <3
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[Chapter Forty-Four -- Moonlit Alliance]She was so cute standing there, leaning against the window frame and peering out at me with the most apologetic look on her face that I had ever seen sent my way. Her friends had finally left the house, and though it had only seemed like minutes to me, I had actually been sitting outside for several hours… I wasn’t upset, though. It was worth the wait to get to be around Yurina.
I was standing just outside of the window (having had a hell of a time getting out of the tree with my arm the way it was, mind you), resting my arms on the frame while allowing her fingertips to trace gentle patterns on my skin. It was so relaxing… No one other than Saki had ever been able to touch me without it feeling like I was being burned or something…
“I’m sorry that you had to sit out here for so long… I couldn’t figure out how to get them to leave… Miyabi talks so much sometimes that it’s hard to get a word in edgewise…”
Wasn’t
that the truth… the evil girl started talking the moment she got into the house and didn’t shut up until she left with the other one… Not that I had been eavesdropping or anything like that.
“It’s alright, really…”
“Still… I feel bad for making you wait…”
“Don’t. For you, I’d wait forever.”
It may have sounded really stupid, but I meant it. I was completely and totally in control of myself at that moment, and when I looked up to meet her eyes… I think she believed me, too. After a second or two I could have sworn she blushed, but it was hard to tell once she looked away.
“Chinami…”
“But… I should probably go home for a little while. I’ve never been away for this long before, and Saki might be worried… I don’t like to cause her so much trouble, after all she’s been through for me.”
“…Will you come back again soon?”
She turned her head back to face me again, and the look in her eyes… coupled with that tone of voice… well… it was enough to make me melt… Even if I wanted to refuse any request she had of me… I probably wouldn’t have been able to.
“Tomorrow morning. I’ll be here.”
That concerned expression—kind of like the one she had given me when she found out I had injured myself—made its’ way onto her face, and she frowned at me a little bit as if she hadn’t meant quite
that soon.
“…But what if you’re not feeling well? I don’t want you to get hurt again if-”
I cut her off, placing my finger gently against her lips in an attempt to stop the flow of words coming from her mouth. She was really blushing now, and though it was hard to make eye contact with her without doing the same, I looked into her eyes to add to the sincerity of what I was about to say.
“I’ll be here, Yurina-chan.”
“…Okay. Goodnight China-”
What I had been thinking at that point, I’m not sure, but something compelled me to lean forward and kiss her. It was sweet and I felt warm all over, but the best part was probably the fact that she didn’t push me away. That might have been because I caught her off guard… but when I pulled back and looked at her again I could see a slight smile mixed with the surprise reflected in her eyes.
“Goodnight, Yurina.”
And with that, I slipped away, reluctantly leaving her behind. As much as I wanted to stay longer, it was getting very late, and I already felt guilty enough for not stopping in at the Loft to let Saki know I was okay. I knew she would probably scold me a bit like she usually did when I went missing, but maybe the fact that I was feeling better than ever would help to make her ease up about letting me do things on my own.
…Maybe. I had the feeling Saki was probably going to be overprotective of me until the day she died. Which was just as well, since I could think of several situations I had gotten myself into that might have killed me without her around.
Manuevering by way of rooftops like I usually did was particularly hard with my arm in the condition it was in, but my mind was sharp and alert for once, and so I was taking extra steps to avoid falling a second time. I had been lucky that the first time it was just my arm… A repeat might have meant my neck… And that wasn’t something you could fix with a few bandages.
I paused to rest on the top of an apartment building, allowing my throbbing arm some time to recover before I dared to push it again. A warmth had begun to spread across it, and the dark stain that colored the fresh bandages that Yurina fixed up for me that morning told me that the cuts had begun to bleed again, thanks to the stupid notion I had that I could be climbing in this condition.
There wasn’t much I could do about my injury at that point, however, and I resolved to just let Saki check it out as soon as I made it home. Something else had caught my attention anyway: voices filtering up from the dark alleyway below. I immediately felt a chill run down my spine, and a certain kind of cold washed over me… the kind that produces goosebumps and chills… and an innate sense that something was probably terribly wrong with the conversation going on down there.
Against my better judgment and the voices screaming in my head, telling me to keep moving and get home as soon as possible… I crouched down on the flat rooftop, leaning slightly over the brick edge to peer down into the darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust so I could try and see who was talking.
“So… run the reason you need
my help by me again…”
The first voice was one that I didn’t quite recognize… it was smooth and strong, and it occurred to me at that point that if a cat could talk, that’s probably the way its voice would sound. It was the kind of tone that was meant to lure somebody into a false sense of security… before the pounce.
“I don’t have the knowledge or the manpower that you do in order to pull off such an operation alone…” THAT voice I was definitely familiar with… Nausea was starting to set in, but somehow the clearness that I had left Yurina’s house with gave me the strength needed to maintain control. I had a feeling that no matter how hard fear was trying to paralyze me right then, I needed to listen, because the things that were being said were important. “Yajima seems to be afraid of the law, and so I couldn’t count on her. Yoshizawa’s being a lazyass as usual, and Ishikawa’s still too preoccupied with that urban legend about Tsugunaga’s secret fortune under the city.”
The woman with the cat-like voice stepped forward a bit, so it was easier to make out what she looked like. Cat-like indeed… she moved with the fluidity of one, and her facial expressions were not that much different. The grin that crawled onto her lips at that point was definitely screaming that she was up to no good.
“Still haven’t learned to give up on Rika-chan, have you… She’s unreliable even when things are all going her way. Her little pets aren’t much different… Still, it seems like you’ve come to me as a last resort… I’m a little hurt by that.”
The other girl… devil that she was… smiled a bit in response, shrugging innocently. Or… she did it as innocently as someone who was most definitely NOT innocent could shrug…
“Well, I wanted to start with the ones I figured would be least interested in giving me aid… I knew coming to you… you would at least be curious about what I have in mind.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere, Koharu-chan. Especially since you’ve already made it clear that you want something beforehand… I have to admit, though, the whole thing sounds like fun. But… what’s in it for me?”
The girl—giving her a name would make her seem more human in my mind, and she was too much of a monster for that—turned to look over her shoulder for a moment, and I saw the faint movement that indicated a third figure standing near the entrance to the alleyway.
I didn’t have to be a genius to guess that the other was the one that followed her around all the time, and the thought put me on high alert. I would have to be careful to remember to continue to be extremely quiet… the last thing I wanted was to have the pawn come after me.
“Think about it. If you help me pull this off, I get what I want, and you get the recognition for it. The other two are going to hold you in a higher regard after this, and that means you can throw your weight around a little bit, because you’ll have more respect from them.”
Catwoman mulled that over a bit in her head, her grin fading into a much more serious expression. Whatever she was thinking about, she was thinking about it hard, and I wondered if perhaps thinking wasn’t something she did too often…
“I’m just curious… why do you care so much about that theatre? There are other places you could take out just as easily, and probably get more from doing so, so why bother with IT?”
Another jolt of panic shot through my body as I finally actually realized what they were talking about. The theatre… that Yurina practiced at everyday. That Saki… and that Momoko girl… and the others all practiced at… that my parents had owned before…
Before…“I cannot stand hope, Mikitty… It’s like this blinding, annoying pinpoint of light that pierces through anything, no matter how dark the situation… So that when someone feels like they’re nearing the end, instead of giving up, they keep pulling through. It’s so… irritating to me.”
Evil. Her voice radiated waves of it. Some dark black hole her heart must have been to think that way… And yet, if that was really the way her mind worked, then all the horrible things she did weren’t quite as unthinkable now… Not that I would ever justify them, but it was at that I realized she was a lot more messed up than most people thought…
“And so… take that illustration and magnify it, so that instead of seeing a pinpoint, you see a huge beacon. The theatre is a lighthouse from which that beacon is being sent. It may not be shining very brightly right now, and truth be told, I could probably leave it alone and it would die out on it’s own…”
The pawn had appeared at her side suddenly somehow, and whispered something into the girl’s ear. Either it wasn’t all that important or the girl wasn’t too terribly worried, because she waved her pet away and continued on with what she had to say.
“…But the key word there is ‘probably’. I want to be sure of things. There’s a new girl in town, and with her help, those girls WILL get the place restored to it’s former glory. THAT is what I’m sure of. And THAT is what I don’t want to see happen.”
She was talking about Momoko now, I assumed… I didn’t know too much about the newcomer other than what Saki told me about her, and I had only ‘met’ her once… when she chased me down after nearly giving me a heart attack. Still, she seemed to be a nice enough person, and probably didn’t deserve whatever these two were planning for her…
Unfortunately, I still had no idea what exactly it
was that they were going to try and do, other than the fact that it wasn’t going to be good. The girl’s long rant about
why didn’t really help to clear up the
what…
“People used to come and watch performances there, and to them, it was a means of escape that didn’t require doing or taking anything illegal. For just a few hours and a small price for a ticket, they could get lost in the music and the dancing…”
For a moment, I saw that glint in the girl’s eyes fade a bit, like a memory was coming back to her that she had repressed for some time. Catwoman seemed to notice this too, and arched an eyebrow skeptically, though she did not speak. The instance passed quickly, however, and the glint returned to her eyes, making them twice as sharp and dangerous as they had been before.
“And if we let this continue… it will happen again. This city will have hope again. And when people have hope, they have strength. When they have strength, they could turn this place into something better than the hellhole it is now. When that happens, people on this side… people like you and me who didn’t really do anything to deserve our lot in life other than be born on the streets… we lose it all.”
The pawn returned a second time to stand on the girl’s right side, her facial expression and body language calm and composed, but her eyes reflecting an urgency of sorts. I dared to sit up a bit to get a better look at the streets from my advantageous position, and noticed that two new figures were wandering this way. Police, perhaps, and they looked as though they were expecting to stumble upon people like this… up to no good.
The girl was still as unconcerned about her partner’s anxiety as she had been before, however, and she regarded the cat-like woman with a lazy sort of look.
“…That is why I’m targeting the theatre. To me… it’s not really about the money… just the control I’ll get out of it.”
Catwoman clapped slowly for a bit, a sarcastic tone edging its way into her voice.
“Inspiring speech, Koha-chan… Though I could have done without all of the sappy descriptions and the comparisons and whatnot… It did manage to confirm to me that your heart still is darker than most, however…”
The girl bowed, flashing her teeth in a dangerous smile.
“Thank you, Mikitty, I try.”
What a fitting nickname… I tried to keep from grinning, since the situation wasn’t exactly anything to laugh about.
“Well… I suppose I can lend a hand. I’m not really doing anything right now, anyway…” Catwoman stretched, and even from where I was sitting far above them I could hear her bones pop. “I’ll tell the others about all of this… Perhaps it’s too early to rule out Yocchan and Rika-chan just yet… At least… I think that I can convince Rika-chan to put forth some effort if I word things the right way… Meet me later at the usual time… we’ll go over the details then.”
“Of course.”
The catwoman brushed past the other two, and I caught sight of her hands wandering down to… well… I’m pretty sure it’s not normal to say goodbye by groping someone’s leg or butt, but… I suppose I didn’t know enough about these people to really say… though I
did catch the pawn flinching a bit, even as her partner’s expression remained neutral.
Soon after she disappeared, the other two fled quietly in the opposite direction, just as a beam of light shone into the alleyway, coming from the flashlight of one of the police figures from before. I took that as my cue to leave, because I figured it would have been a bad idea to stick around… I would have looked much too suspicious… and it wasn’t to my benefit for me to be found while most people still thought me to be dead.
And so I quickly continued on my way to the Loft, the nausea still plaguing my stomach, and this new information weighing down on my mind and my heart.
…It was all I could do to make it to the ladder before I passed out.
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Estrea: Yay Fimmy updates~ Everyone better comment >D