Suzuka
It was strange.
Arisa shuffled her feet around, searching for a better position to launch an attack. Maybe searching for a position that would let her easily dodge. Suzuka didn't know which; she'd never studied fighting, hadn't even paid much attention to Nanoha during her demonstrations. The monster was in perfect focus, now; it was a fractal, electric blue veins of energy splitting over and over until, at its fog-like edge, it was hard to tell where the monster stopped and the air started. Somehow she knew, and she didn't know how, but the energy was flowing inwards rather than outwards. The monster was eating the light.
Suzuka had never thought of herself as a brave person. She had never been able to stand up to Arisa. Not when she was bullying her, although in retrospect Arisa had just wanted to drag her out of her shell - she
sucked at it, that was all - and not now, whenever Arisa had a brainwave about what to do.
In a situation like this, with Nanoha hurt and Arisa shouting at her to get away, shouldn't she do as asked? Run away, take Nanoha, leave the monster to Arisa?
But she wasn't brave enough to trust that Arisa could stop it, and she wasn't brave enough to face the world without Arisa by her side. She couldn't possibly let her stay here on her own. They could run away together - she could grab Arisa, grab Nanoha, and they could do their best to escape - but even if it didn't catch them while they where fleeing, what would happen to the new kid? The boy she didn't know, who was obviously hurt and probably couldn't run? It'd catch
him instead…
The thoughts ran through her head in a fraction of a second, courtesy of many an afternoon spent playing games in the forest behind her house. Usually the monster wasn't real, and it never looked this scary, but -
"Arisa's right," she told Nanoha. "You, run. Get the boy, and get out of here. Call for help."
That was all she gave herself time for. Arisa and the monster were still in a standoff, neither of them really moving, but that could change at any moment.
She turned away from Nanoha, terror still visible on her face, and ran towards the monster while yelling something undecipherable. One fist extended.
————————
Nanoha
"Suzuka, stop. You can't -"
Nanoha choked, as her headache spiked, and her whispered warning failed mid-sentence. She was forced to watch helplessly as Suzuka ran screaming towards the blob of darkness, hand outstretched as part of what Nanoha could only call an
anti-stance.
A monster… why is there a monster? Since when are there monsters?
She could hear the boy that had tumbled out along with Arisa shouting something in a language she didn't recognise. The monster hissed, and the warbling sound seemed to pierce straight through her head, but she gritted her teeth and forced herself to think through the pain, blinking away tears.
She could think of at least ten ways to break Suzuka's charge, and she wasn't a monster. Most of them, she'd been told never to use on someone she didn't want to hurt - a monster wouldn't care -
Suzuka was going to get killed!
The monster turned to face Suzuka, its train-whistle voice increasing in volume and urgency. Arisa shouted something, but she couldn't make it out over the noise from the monster - at least she'd gotten the
noise back under control - she was about to watch as it steamrolled Suzuka -
Nanoha staggered forward, unsure of what to do but completely unwilling to leave them alone.
The boy shouted something else, and a green tracery of light lit the air in front of him.
The monster flung a tentacle made of pure darkness towards Suzuka, bypassing Arisa entirely. Suzuka flinched, and threw herself to one side - no, fell to one side - but the tentacle simply curved, unerringly tracking her trajectory and homing in on her chest. Nanoha screamed, certain she was about to see something terrible.
A horrible
ripping noise filled the air, and an actinic glare forced her to close her eyes and look away, blinking away tears. The monster screamed - she had no other word for it - screaming all around -
Finally the glare lessened. She looked up, afraid of what she'd find - Suzuka had been in the centre of that, whatever it was -
…Thank God.
Suzuka was still alive. She was standing somewhat awkwardly, and surrounded by a dense, luminous blue mist, but she seemed to be all right. The monster was gone. She knew she shouldn't relax yet, not before she was completely sure of what had happened to it - that it wasn't going to come back - but it was a little hard to stay focused. Her head still
hurt, more so now than it had done earlier - too much stress, too much forcing herself to work through the pain - she kept going, though, until she was close enough to confirm that Suzuka really was all right. Not hurt at all, looked like. Not even scuffed. The only sign that something odd had happened was the mist, which was quickly dispersing into the afternoon air.
Arisa, who was standing a few meters away, let out a sound somewhere between a sob and a laugh, before she dropped her improvised stance and ran over towards them - stumbled - jumped the last few decimetres, and pulled all three of them down into a laughing, crying and very slowly relaxing tangle of limbs.
On their left side the boy looked incredulously at the three girls, while the strange green traceries that had been hovering in front of him slowly unmade themselves.
———————
Arisa
"You're okay? You're both okay?" Arisa could hear the fear in her own voice, and even though both Suzuka and Nanoha nodded, she immediately followed up by running her hands over them, patting them down to make completely sure.
They were both fine. Neither of them had been hurt, even after… she'd
seen the monster attack Suzuka, who had practically offered herself up as bait. The only reason she was fine was that half of it had evaporated on contact, after which the rest of it had run away while screaming like a banshee. She didn't think it'd want to come back, but even if it did, it was probably… well, she
hoped this meant it was actually harmless.
Arisa slumped down onto the knotted grass, feeling the reassuring touch of her friends against her sides, and decided to just relax for a little while.
"But…" She heard Nanoha say. "Arisa, are you all right? You're all scraped up." Nanoha shifted around, and Arisa winced as she felt her poke next to a particularly long scratch.
"I'm fine," she said dismissively. "It's just a few scratches from running through the woods - hey, wait a minute. You're the one who asked me to do that, so stop complaining about them!"
..stop complaining that she'd gotten scratched up? Yeah, no, that didn't even sound sensible in her own mind, and she was
sure she could hear Nanoha and Suzuka blinking in confusion.
"Um…"
Suzuka sounded doubtful, and Arisa could feel herself blushing. Trying to save face, she shot back a question of her own.
"What about you, Nanoha? Are you really okay? You weren't fine earlier."
"Un, un!" Suzuka agreed.
"Nyahaha!" Nanoha laughed, her typical response when they asked her something she didn't want to answer. They knew how to deal with that, too, by waiting her out. "Um. Well, it's like this. Sometimes I get these headaches, but they always pass pretty quickly."
They waited.
"Er, and I haven't had a really bad one for over two years, so I wasn't expecting it when it happened. That's why I never told you."
More waiting. Arisa glanced at the boy, who was tying something around his leg - tearing off part of his shirt to do it, too.
"Um, so -" Nanoha poked her fingertips together. "- They're always bad when they happen, but I'll be perfectly fine in another… two hours or so?"
So much for cram school -
Arisa could have kicked herself. Why was she thinking about school
now, after everything that had happened? What they should be doing was, um…
She glanced at her arms, which were covered in scratches - a few showing traces of blood - and then at Nanoha, who even though she sounded normal had barely been able to walk when she'd tried to chase Suzuka. There was also that boy, though he seemed to be doing a good job of fixing his own leg. She assumed.
"Suzuka, do you still have your pad?" She asked.
"Ah. Yes, just let me -" Suzuka trailed off, as she pulled a string of what seemed like silly putty out of her pocket. "Um. That is…"
"Is that your pad?" Arisa hesitantly asked. "What happened to it?"
"I'm not sure." Suzuka experimentally tugged at the putty-like substance, and found that it had a very limited amount of give before turning solid. It definitely wasn't real putty, she couldn't split it, but it wasn't acting the way her pad was supposed to act either. "I think… I
think this is how they get if you completely tap out the battery, but I've never seen it like this before. Um…"
"Which means none of us have a phone. Great. Hey, you!" She shouted. "Boy over there, do you have a phone?"
"Arisa," Suzuka whispered intently.
"Ah, um, no?" He answered, sounding flustered.
"Great, just great. Um, nice to meet you though. I'm Arisa! What's your name?"
Suzuka hissed "Arisa!"
She was starting to sound like a teakettle. Arisa supposed she'd probably flubbed some Japanese greeting custom again, but she couldn't really help it, could she? Besides, it was his own fault for not immediately introducing himself once the monster went away.
"I'm… Call me Yuuno." He seemed terribly confused, but she got that reaction a lot. "Nice to meet you too?"
"Wonderful." Arisa smiled, though it was more of a showing of teeth. "And this is Nanoha and Suzuka. Now, since
none of us have any way of calling for help, I think it's time we get out of here and find our own. Before that monster comes back, too."
She stalked over and, after confirming that only one of his feet were hurt, pushed herself under the corresponding arm to help him walk. A nod to Suzuka had her doing the same for Nanoha, who didn't have a bad leg but could still use the help.
"So, Nanoha said she heard you calling for help, but when I went over to have a look I found a monster. Even before then, I'm pretty sure you were giving her headaches. Do you know anything about that?" She asked conversationally. "There was that lightshow, too."
Yuuno stiffened. "Headaches? No, but the jewel seed… the monster… I was going to make it up to her…"
Curiouser and curiouser. At least it didn't seem like Yuuno had deliberately set the monster on them - not that she'd been worried about that, really. "Oh, don't worry about explaining it right now." For starters, Nanoha didn't seem like she was really paying attention to anything but her feet. "We'll just go visit Nanoha's home, and you can explain it to us and her family at the same time."
Oh, and now the poor kid looked half panicked, no doubt at the thought of the monster coming back - not. Arisa smiled to herself. Yep, that tactic looked like it'd work.
———————
They got a few concerned looks on the way - Nanoha's home was conveniently close, but it was still a few minutes of walking - but the occasional glare from her was all it really took to diffuse them. She knew they probably should have asked the first adult they saw for a ride, though; the reason they hadn't was that this had the scent of
Adventure all over, and nothing actually bad had happened once they got over the fright. Well, other than Nanoha's headache, but she still insisted that was somehow "normal".
Arisa, always in the lead, was also the first one to reach the front door to her house.
"We're home!" She shouted inside. "Well, I'm visiting, but Nanoha's home, and we brought a guest! Is Miyuki here?"
"Just me, and I just got home myself," came an amused voice from inside. "Is Suzuka the guest, now?"
"Nope!" She dragged Yuuno, forcing him to follow until they were face to face with Nanoha's sister. "Er… He followed me home, can I keep him?"
Yuuno's face had looked completely and hilariously panicked when she dragged him inside, but he calmed down considerably now that he was face to face with a girl his own age. Arisa could understand that, she supposed; people didn't get much more nonthreatening than Nanoha's "younger twin".
"I'm… Yuuno Scrya," he said. "Nice to meet you."
"Likewise," the brown-haired girl replied. "Takamachi Hayate, I'm glad to make your acquaintance."
Arisa cut in. "And now that
that's done -"
She put her hands on her hips and glared at Hayate, who would probably have made some attempt to escape if she wasn't stuck in a wheelchair.
"Even if Nanoha wasn't going to, at least
you should have told me about her headaches," she said. "Honestly! You're both terrible at asking for help."
Nanoha walked up behind her, leaning on Suzuka's shoulder and inadvertently making a good case that, yes, either or both of them really should have mentioned it. Suzuka's slight frown also helped.
Hayate paled, and she responded in a hurried, worried manner that took most of the wind out of Arisa's sails.
"Big sis! Are you all right? I didn't hear - you're not still hearing it, are you? Should I call Mom and Dad?"
Nanoha waved her off. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm not sure, but - it wasn't very bad this time. I'm almost back to normal already, see?" She carefully extracted herself from Suzuka, thereby demonstrating that she could stand on her own legs with only a minor bit of trembling.
Hayate let out a heartfelt sigh of relief, and Arisa looked uncertainly between the two of them. This sounded a lot more serious than she'd expected.
Nanoha…
Arisa:
[ ] Interrogate Yuuno-kun
[ ] Interrogate Hayate
[ ] Interrogate Nanoha
[ ] Call one set of parents or another
[ ] Write-in
Realistically these can be combined arbitrarily, but there's a problem: Hayate and Nanoha don't really want you to know anything, and neither does Yuuno. Adding an appropriate strategy is very important. Here's a hint: In Nanoha's case, making a decent case that you already know what she's trying to keep secret will help.
