Mahrac said:
Except in HalO, that is a girl. I'm so confused.
YOU SHOULD BE!
(To be honest, I'm not sure if this one is entirely appropriate. I'm confident it is, but I could be completely wrong.)
(Also, can someone find the last three updates so I can stitch them together, and has Arrun swimsuit addition been indexed?)
[<
Kirito groaned softly as he finally managed to make his way to the locker room, discarding the satchel containing his spare clothes and the canvas bag containing <<Split Moon]>. Thus ended another day of trying to hammer some [<Survival Instincts]> into the cashew sized brains of a class room full of Noble sons.
The only one who had really seemed to be listening had been Guiche, the rest had been too busy drooling over their instructor. He'd almost been able to feel their eyes roaming all over him and had half a mind to dispel this fake female body right in front of them [<Morale]> considerations be damned. With any luck, the resultant [<Dissonance]> would give Malicorn a heart attack.
Then again, if the running hadn't managed to do him in just yet, nothing would. Kirito took another breath, how did Asuna deal with all of these perverts? And with that in mind . . .
Looking around cautiously to ensure the coast was clear, Kirito began to quickly undress. There wasn't really anyplace within the hastily constructed barracks that could be called private. He even had to share his temporary quarters with a particularly overweight gunnery officer teaching the specifics of the new cannons to the recruits. Thus, Kirito had waited until after dark to be sure the trainees and all of the other instructors had finished so that he'd have the bath, and more importantly, the locker room, to himself.
Jacket and black shirt fell to the ground, followed by pants until he stood in nothing but socks and his underwear. He shuddered, female underwear. This was of course the tricky part, and he was never sure which way to go about it. Discard the bra and panties first or dispel the illusion?
'Midori' wasn't so much smaller than Kirito that the elastic, or whatever the Halkegenian's used in its place, wouldn't stretch. But he didn't think he'd be able to live down the humiliation if someone ever managed to walk in in the brief seconds between changing back and fully undressing. If that happened . . . He shook his head. On the other hand, the alternative risked seeing this false body completely naked . . . again. He had no desire to relive that strange and pseudo-narcissistic experience.
'Just keep your eyes closed.' Kirito decided, just keep them closed and be grateful that 'Midori' was more athletically proportioned than Asuna or Sugu. The bra straps proved a problem and he had to use the mirror to get at them, but once that was done, he could do the rest without looking. 'There, now just dispel the illusion and . . .'
With his vision completely taken up by darkness, he was able to hear something soft and muted that made his heart shake. [<Splashing]>, the gently induced slapping of water, and beyond that, murmuring. Kirito paled, had someone forgotten to put up the marker to show the bath was occupied?
There were only two baths in the camp, one for the officers and noble recruits, and another, larger facility for the commoner soldiers. The few women on base didn't warrant a third bath, so a set of panels had been placed outside of the bath house to denote if it was occupied and by which gender. Grabbing for his discarded shirt, he gave a silent prayer that whoever had forgotten had meant to put up the blue marker and not the pink one. There were seventeen times as many men as there were women at the training camp. It had to be the blue one. It had to be the blue one!
"Oh, Miss Midori!" A sweetly accented voice wafted across the locker room. He thought it carried a hint of Gallian, probably from the southern regions and was very definitely female. Of course it had been pink . . .
"O-oh!" Kirito turned, eyes still tightly closed he tried to smile, but the heat rushing to his cheeks made it impossible to tell if he really was. He was feeling very light headed at that moment, and rather wished he could just die. "Uhm, I'm sorry, I seem to be . . . intruding . . . Miss . . . ?" He was pretty sure he would know the person if he opened his eyes, but he really didn't want to open his eyes.
"Sergeant Lydia." The owner of the voice introduced herself. "I'm one of the instructors from the musket squadron. Remember? We met last week." The voice turned concerned. "Miss Midori? Is something wrong?"
"Ah." Kirito cracked his eyes open, raising a hand in attempt to blind anything below neck level. He was only partly successful as he was met by a full on view of a sonsie, brown haired young Tristanian woman clad in nothing but a towel. "I'm just surprised there would be anyone in here." He said, struggling to keep his pulse and breathing level. He squirmed, holding his shirt a little closer to his chest. Ten seconds later and this would have just been embarrassing, instead, it verged on disaster. This was bad, very bad, but it was still salvageable if he made his retreat now. "I-I'll just grab my things and go . . ."
A hand closed around his wrist, and it was at that moment that Kirito knew he was doomed. "Nonsense!" The woman, barely more than a girl, laughed. "It's already late and you have the morning PT groups, don't you? You must be getting up earlier than everyone but the Captain. Come on!"
"N-no! I couldn't intrude!" Kirito stuttered. What to do. Wings? He'd give away his cover. He was more than strong enough to simply hold his ground, but this body probably weighed less than sixty kilograms, and the slick tile floor offered almost no place to dig in his heels.
"Come on." Lydia cheered. "I'm sure the rest of the squad won't mind sharing."
'The rest!' But he didn't have time to say anything else as the door was slid open and he was pushed into the warmly lit interior of the baths.
Public bath houses weren't a new invention in Halkegenia. In fact, he had learned, they'd been common even in medieval Europe back on Earth, quite contrary to popular belief. Only falling out of favor after the onset of the [<Black Death]>. So it hadn't been much of a surprise to discover that their Tristanian allies valued the idea of bathing and good personal hygiene enough to construct bathing facilities for the instructors and trainees.
However, the specific style of Japanese bath houses had been a new innovation, and one that the petty nobility and well to do commoners were rapidly adopting as part of a [<Hygiene Craze]> that had begun to develop with the dissemination of pamphlets explaining the rudiments of pathology and germ theory.
The clean, tiled floor, the brass drainage grates, the rows of washing stations, even the large, pseudo European landscape mural over the bath that had been donated by a pair of bored, artistically inclined officers, would have immediately summoned popular images of public bath houses from a bygone era of Japanese life.
Kirito didn't notice any of that. He was too busy trying very hard not to notice anything, especially the dozen, very healthy, very disrobed young women who currently occupied the room. All of them were members of the Royal Firearms Squadron, the elite commoner guards that supplemented Queen Henrietta's Griffin Knights. They had, to the last, been selected from the Families of Loyal Retainers, trained rigorously, and placed at her Majesty's disposal.
Able to follow their Queen anyplace that was necessary under any circumstances. And despite outward appearances, they were all uniformly deadly. He'd just been tossed into a lioness' den with only a disguise to keep him safe. He swallowed, averting his eyes as he was handed a wash pale and small bottle of soap by Lydia and made to sit down and wash off.
"Do you need any help Miss Midori?" Lydia frowned, finally noticing the furious blush that was beginning to sear Kirito's skin. She placed a hand gently against his forehead, and then her own. "You seem a little hot. Are you running a fever? You should probably use cold water."
She adjusted the faucet, humming to herself. "Indoor faucets and preheated water." The Musketeer Sergeant shook her head. "All of these Faerie inventions are really amazing aren't they? It seems like they have ideas to make every part of life easier."
"U-un . . Y-yes." Kirito nodded and then cringed as the first pail full of lukewarm water spilled over his head. Despite the heat on his face, he felt himself starting to shiver as he snatched an offered bar of soap and started to scrub until it hurt.
The Tristanian's certainly seemed to have a more boisterous bathing culture than Kirito was used to. Back in Arrun, the public baths had been a welcome expedient and a place to loosen up and relax after a hard day. Thus, the atmosphere had usually been more restrained. There'd been plenty of times when he and Klein had just soaked and traded anecdotes about the day. But here, the women around him acted almost as loud as the men they were training, laughing, shouting, and cursing at each other as they handed one another bars of soap and some sort of alchemic product that was proving a good stand in for conditioner.
"Oh Lydia, did you see Sam's squad today?" One of the girls sitting beside Kirito looked over, grinning mischievously in a way that showed crooked but white teeth.
"Samantha? No, what happened?" Lydia's voice turned dark. "I'm not going to have to knock some sense into some scrawny necked noble, am I?"
"Oh Founder no!" The girl laughed. "Well, you know how the Captain put her in charge of retraining that lot from Fort Le Belgrad?"
"That lot? Oh, don't tell me . . ."
"No, no, it's nothing like that." The girl raised her hands. "Seems they've gotten a little familiar with the fairer sex, you know the way the Fae have lots of women in their forces?"
"I think I see where this is going." Lydia groaned. "Oh, just a minute." She turned her attention back to Kirito. "Miss Midori, I can get your back if you like."
"N-no . . . th-that's fine!" Kirito stuttered, partially from embarrassment and partially from the tooth chattering cold. "J-just hand me the loofah."
"Let me guess, someone tried to grab her ass and she had to break his hand?" Lydia asked.
"Close, but no." The girl answered. "They got them to the range, and a couple of the musketeers got all prissy they were going to have to relearn their trade from a 'Gel' half their age. So . . ."
"So?" Lydia pressed.
"So Sam offers'm a wager to see who could hit a target further out with the new rifles. So she has this one huge Sergeant, maybe twelve stone, looks like he fought in the Gallian Incursion, he takes the bait and walks right up to take the loaded rifle, spots the two hundred mail target, and puts the round right into its chest. Then, he turns around and tells her he 'knows all'bout rifles from learning to shoot with his Da' up in the mountains'."
"The two hundred mail target . . ." Lydia breathed.
Two hundred mails, Kirito tried to focus on the conversation to distract himself. He'd read all of the notes a dozen times by now during the PT marches, the rifles used a new bullet called a 'minie' ball that was conical like a 'modern' bullet and mashed itself into the rifling of the barrel when fired. With the spin that was imparted, the bullet remained stable to a much great distance.
"He didn't read the manual." Kirito was horrified to realize he'd spoken without thinking about it.
"Probably couldn't." Lydia sighed. "Old Sergeant from the mountains like that, chances are that nobody ever taught him how. So, let me guess, he puffed up his chest about hitting the target and then Sam put him to shame."
"Ah! You already know how the story ends!" The gossiping girl laughed. "So, she takes her own rifle, explains the whole loading procedure, right down to the new percussion caps, and then puts a bullet right between the eyes of the five hundred mail target. They thought she missed at first because they didn't even notice the targets that far out. They . . ." She started laughing harder " . . . They didn't even believe it at first, the look on their faces . . . it was . . . was . . . Bwahahaha!"
"I'll bet!" Lydia shared in her comrade's laughter and then suddenly clamped hands down on Kirito's bare shoulders. The sudden contact caused him to cringe. "What are you doing?!"
"Washing my hair?" Kirito whispered as he held a small pool of shampoo in one slender hand. The faster he finished, the faster this nightmare could be over.
"Oh sweety!" Lydia shook her head. "That's much too rough! We might use that like the men when we're in a hurry, but we've got some luxuries here on base. You have such beautiful hair, you should take better care of it."
"Really . . . It's alright, I just . . ." Kirito tried to say as a second bottle was pushed into his hands.
"And what is this?! It looks like you just chopped it off when you cut it! Look at these split ends!" Lydia clucked disapprovingly. "That'll never do!"
"She's right." The girl opposite Kirito leaned in. "You must be Miss Midori. I'm Corporal Olivia. I've heard a lot of good things about you from the Captain and Miss Caramella. Though, I never thought you'd be such a cutey."
"No, I'm not really." Kirito felt himself flushing again. When would this end?! He felt something cold spreading slowly across his scalp and then the disturbingly pleasant sensation of fingers running through his hair. "See, do it like this. If you don't condition thoroughly, it'll dry out a perfect mess!"
"Is that the stuff you grabbed in the Capital?" Another musketeer asked. "Amir was out last time I was at his shop."
"Ha! I got the last bottle." Lydia preened. "Better luck next time girls! Now, hold still Miss Midori, I'm going to rinse it out now." At least this time the water was warm.
Lydia repeated the process twice more. "Really such beautiful hair." She murmured to herself. "You don't know how lucky you are." Kirito didn't miss the way she brushed her own shortly cropped hair to his a scar along her scalp.
"I wouldn't say that." Olivia chimed in. "It probably gets her all sorts of the wrong type of attention."
"Olivia!" Lydia gave her fellow musketeer a disdainful look. "I'm sure Miss Midori can see to herself. You were there when that Traitor Wardes showed his true colors, weren't you? And I heard you breached the Newcastle Siege all by yourself!"
Kirito smiled weakly. "S-something like that."
"Ah! I didn't mean it like that." Olivia protested looking sympathetic. "I just mean, you look too nice to put them down for good is all."
Kirito was about to answer when he stopped and instead let out a soft hiss. Strictly speaking, it was true. He'd figured out how to do it with girls . . . mostly . . . but something about guys just took subtlety off the table. Or maybe this form just caused their [<INT]> stat to crash.
Strangest of all had been his one [<Partial Success]>. Guiche declaring his undying, [<Brotherly Devotion]>, and taking a pledge to protect 'her' [<Chastity]> on behalf of 'her' 'husband' had been a bewildering moment almost too surreal to believe. "No . . . That sounds about right."
The talking died down a little, Olivia leaned closer. "You know, if it's a problem, you can always ask the Captain for help. She seems to know the trick to keeping'm in line."
"I prefer the old hair bun personally." Lydia draped a towel over Kirito's head and began to dry his hair. When was the last time someone had done this for him? Not since he and Sugu had been little. "I guess it makes those Noble brats think of their Little Old Nannies. That pretty much kills any interest right away. Bonus that they're pretty much conditioned to listen from all those years off getting their heads knocked around for misbehaving." She looked thoughtful. "Except that Malichorn kid. There's something not right with that one . . ."
"He's been staring at my ass for the entire week." Kirito mumbled. He'd run the idiot into the ground, literally, and somehow he'd retained the strength to stare, even while barely conscious. It would be disturbing if it wasn't so pathetic.
"We could always
kick his ass if you like." Olivia suggested. "I think that's Miss Caramella's solution when that comes up, isn't it?"
"Or the Captain's solution." Lydia shivered. "Make him stand watch for forty eight consecutive hours in his underwear with a flintlock musket at the ready."
"That only happened once because of the matchlock incident!" Olivia protested, shivering in sympathy with her friend. "All that gunpowder . . . who could be that stupid issuing matchlocks!"
"Well, it was just a thought." Lydia sighed as she finished drying and pulling Kirito's hair up into a bundle. "And now, it's time for a soak."
Kirito saw his chance and tried to take it. "Like you said, I have to be up early for drills tomorrow, and then sword practice, I think I'll . . ."
"Don't worry so much." The Musketeer teased. "Honestly, you're as uptight as the Captain. Relax a little or you're going to have wrinkles before you're out of your twenties."
Surrounded by the members of the Firearm's squad, Kirito could only pray that his [<Camouflage]> would hold up for a little while longer. He just had to sit quietly for a few minutes, let them start to unwind and he could excuse himself.
But the world was [<unfair]> sometimes and as they reached the bath, he felt the blood draining from his face. Seated in the bath, Agnes, Chevalier de Milan, met his gaze, and Kirito suddenly found himself reassessing his escape options. Using his wings was looking better all the time. At least the bath was too damp for gunpowder to work, she'd have to come at him with a sword . . .
Agnes's face went blank as she processed his presence. Then her lips thinned. A look of anger flashed through the Chevalier's eyes. She began to rise from the bath when a hand grabbed hold of her shoulder and pushed her back down. Seated beside her, a by now very familiar Faerie gave a small shake of the head and whispered something in her ear.
Agnes tilted her head, gave Caramella a suspicious look as if questioning the veracity of what had been said. Caramella nodded once, a grinning spread across her face.
Coming to a decision, Agnes looked back at him. "Miss . . . Midori . . . "
"I didn't mean to intrude!" Kirito said quickly. "It just . . . happened. Someone forgot to put up the marker."
Lydia winced. "Oh, right, that was what I was remembering to do when I ran into you. Excuse me . . ." The Sergeant made for the door as Corporal Olivia nudged him to step down into the gently steaming water.
The heat burned at first, but soon it began to seep its way into his skin and joints. At any other time it would have been easy to relax, now, it just made him anxious rather than on edge as he sat with eyes averted, biding his time until he could leave.
"Fancy seeing you here." Caramella whispered with a devious little smirk. "Don't worry, I'll talk Agnes down about this, and I won't let it get back to Asuna-chan."
"I owe you . . ." Kirito whispered back. Almost as soon as the words left his lips, he wished he hadn't said anything as Caramella's smile widened.
"Don't worry about that either. You're about to pay me back." Then, with the most evil expression Kirito had ever seen on her face, Caramella raised her voice. "Oy, Olivia-chan. You still have that cute black outfit you were going to send back to your kid sister right?"
"The one made with Khali'd Cotton?" Olvia looked surprised. "Yeah, what about it?"
"Oh, I was just thinking. You seem to have good tastes. And I've never seen Midori-chan here wearing anything but those pants and jacket. There's a market day coming up. What'd you say we get her in touch with her feminine side?"
Kirito slowly sank into the water, maybe, maybe he could just drown himself right here. With the way Agnes shook her head, he almost missed her close eyed smile.
