"Another time," Amu agreed, sidling sideways towards Miki. "See you tomorrow, Watanabe-san."
"See you tomorrow..." Watanabe echoed absently. She watched Amu and Miki walk away, her eyes never leaving Miki's face. A faint blush crept up her cheeks. "That... that was..."
Her chara, Rose, popped out of the bag and floated around her head. "Wow. You've got a crush," the chara observed, a hint of amusement in her tone. "Never thought I'd see that."
Watanabe shook herself. "I do not," she retorted. "I'm just surprised."
"Mhm," the chara hummed sceptically. "Whatever you say. Is that why you're blushing?" She grinned, suddenly. "All jokes aside, you'll see her tomorrow. Think she'd want to be friends?"
Watanabe sighed, running a hand through her hair. Amu and Miki had left, but a good dozen students were still watching where they'd gone. A crush? No, it wasn't that. She'd met Miki before. She'd just never seen her smile. The girl was cute, but what- when- how had she turned into a full-size person?
Friends?
She hoped, but Rose was by far the more outgoing of them and that wasn't saying much. How did you make friends? All the ones she had, had been the ones to reach out to her. Miki… Miki was…
She blazed like a towering bonfire, too daunting to approach. If Hinamori was a raging forest fire, then Miki was something small enough for her to comprehend, and therefore all the more intimidating.
"Let's go home," Watanabe said quietly. "I need to think."
Her chara nodded. "Sure thing. Home it is. You know, Makoto has a crush on-"
"Not another word out of you," Watanabe warned, casting an exasperated look at the little fairy. "And get in the bag, please. Before someone sees you."
"Aw..." the chara grumbled, but complied nonetheless.
⁂
People kept looking at her.
At school. In the yard. On the street. While she was getting in the car. They were looking at her. Staring. Pointing. Gossiping.
It was a little unnerving. She'd never disliked attention before, or else she wouldn't be wearing the clothes that she did, but this wasn't the good kind of attention. Amu was used to being looked at, and she liked it just fine, but this was different. This was... it made her feel like she'd done something bad. It gave her flashbacks to the early years of grade school, before she'd transferred over to Seiyo. She'd never done anything purposefully wrong.
She didn't like it.
"...hullo. Earth to Amu. Come in, Amu-chan, over."
Miki was waving a hand in front of Amu's eyes. Amu blinked, startled out of her reverie. They were at a red traffic light. And she'd drifted off?
She shook her head, fighting to clear the fog that seemed to have settled over her brain. She wasn't precisely tired. Was she? She hadn't had a proper evening in over a week, now, she'd kept pushing herself to deal with one crisis after the other, and it was really wearing her out. Amu solemnly swore, to herself, to not get involved in any more demonic invasions or whatever. She was going to have a quiet, relaxing time for the rest of the month, no matter what happened next. No more monsters, no more tests, no more-
Sitting there, in the back seat, she looked up into Miki's worried eyes. Then she leaned a little bit towards her. Then a little more. Then she buried her face in Miki's chest, trembling slightly. Her arms found their way around her sister, pulling at her as though she was trying to pull Miki right back inside herself. She wasn't. She wasn't. But holding her felt soothing, and the knot she'd barely felt in her stomach tried to unravel, and Miki's shampoo was pine-scented, and…
She felt Miki hesitate, then reach around her.
"Amu?"
"I'm here, I'm here," she murmured, once she was able to release her. The car began moving again. She could see Dad glancing back at them, worry lines deepening on his face. "Sorry. What were you saying?"
"I was saying," Miki replied, a hint of concern creeping into her voice, "that maybe we should see a movie after this? We could invite Ami along." The light changed again, and the car rolled to a stop. "She'll probably ask to see some sort of monster flick."
Amu nodded absentmindedly, her eyes fixed on the traffic ahead. It sounded like a nice idea. A distraction, if nothing else. Maybe they could even convince Mom and Dad to come along? They could use a family outing after... everything.
Dad drummed his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel as he waited for the light to turn green. He didn't say anything, but his nervousness was palpable. He was worried about both of them. Probably for no reason, but...
Miki was fidgety as well, quite apart from her worry about Amu. Not nervous, exactly, but antsy. Like there were too many thoughts in her head to settle on any one thing. It was strange, really. She'd always been so calm and collected, but ever so slowly, something had changed. Now she was...
Variable, maybe?
Like a normal person, really.
Amu tried to project calm. It didn't entirely work, but she achieved don't-worry-about-me-ness. She'd be okay. She would. Their minds meshed easily, in any case, and she could feel both Miki's scepticism and her agreement to let it slide.
"That sounds smart," Dad said, finally, after steering them through a busy intersection. "I'm sure Ami would love it. I can't remember the last time we all saw a movie together." He chuckled lightly under his breath. "What do you think, Amu-chan?"
"Sounds great," Amu said, her tone somewhat distant.
She felt a pang of sympathy for Dad. It was hard to be the parent of someone like Miki—like Amu, for that matter—and harder not to worry about them. And it was hard to be the parent of a child who could read your mind. Not that she would. But she could.
So could Ami, right? Amu wondered if her little sister ever...
No, she wouldn't doubt Ami like that. Though maybe she should talk to her about it? Like mom had asked her to, she realised. When would she get a chance to do that, though?
"Are you okay, Amu-chan?" Dad asked, his voice tinged with concern.
She fingered her hair, twirling it between her fingers. Pink. "I'm just distracted," Amu answered honestly, leaning back in her seat. "And tired. It's been a long week. A movie sounds like a good way to end it."
Dad let out a sigh. "Yes, I suppose it has been." He paused for a moment before adding, "If you need to talk to us about anything, we're always here for you. You know that, right?"
She looked down at her hands. "Thanks, Dad," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'll keep that in mind."
"I saw the way everyone was looking at you," he said. "And... Miki, I know you've been... worried. Just... it's going to be okay, all right? I'll make sure of it. We won't let anything happen to the two of you."
Amu looked at him in the rear-view mirror. Dad's eyes met hers in the reflection. There was determination there, and a fierce protectiveness. A promise.
"Thank you," Amu whispered, feeling a lump in her throat.
"You don't need to thank me," Dad said with a smile.
"I'm doing it anyway," Amu said, her tone firm. Her eyes locked onto Miki's, and she smiled at her sister. Miki, tentatively, smiled back. "Thank you. For not freaking out. For treating Miki like a normal person. For not... I don't know. Getting weird about anything. About all of this. I don't think I could've done it without either of you. So thank you. Really."
Dad's grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing noticeably. He didn't reply.
"...thank you," Miki said, her voice very low. "Both of you."
A moment's vulnerability. Amu felt a flash of that same fierce protectiveness, in herself, but pointed towards Miki. Miki probably felt it as well. She swallowed, her fingers trailing over Amu's hand until Amu grabbed them.
She'd gone very quiet.
Miki leaned forward, her chin resting on her other hand. Amu felt a spike of anxiety, followed closely by a surge of guilt.
But Miki wasn't upset.
Wasn't anything, in fact. Her mind had gone blank for just a moment, and then it was back and as busy as ever, though Amu couldn't tell what was on her sister's mind.
"I'll... try to be better," Amu said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"...don't," Miki whispered. "I like you just the way you are. You... don't need to change, Amu. You don't need to save me. Just... maybe don't run off on your own so often? I don't want to see you get hurt. That's all. I don't want to see either of you get hurt. Either you or Ami."
Amu couldn't help but flinch.
"I woke up with Ami clinging to me like a limpet," Miki explained. "Two of her. I'd been asleep, or... not exactly. I was... somewhere. But Ami wasn't sure you'd be okay, and..."
"Sorry." Amu's cheeks burned with shame. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you."
"I know," Miki said. She turned away from the window, looking straight into Amu's eyes. "Because I'm you. I talked about this with Mom and Dad last night. I remember everything, up until when we were eight. And a lot of what happened after, even if my perspective was..." She waggled a hand. "...different. But even now, I can tell what you're thinking. Sometimes I know you better than I know myself. And... that's okay. That's just who we are."
She leaned back in the seat, her eyes never leaving Amu's.
"But you're not me anymore," Amu said quietly. "And you haven't been for years."
Miki shook her head, her eyes narrowing.
"I'm a could-have-been," she said flatly. "I'm not you, and you're not me. I call myself Miki, because it's easy. Besides, I like my name." She smiled slightly. "I made it up. It's mine. But... when I first woke up, I was still that eight year old girl. Still Amu. And that's okay. I'm not upset, I'm not... resentful. This is who I am, and I like being Miki. I just wonder, sometimes, what it would've been like. If we'd swapped places. I could've been Amu. You could have been Ran. Do you have any idea how much like her you act? When you're happy?"
Amu's stomach churned uneasily. "I don't know," she admitted reluctantly.
"It's not the same," Miki said. "I don't think it would be the same. But it's... close, maybe? I don't know." She smiled warmly at Amu, a smile that reached all the way up to her eyes. "And I don't care. I'm not saying this to hurt you. I'm saying it because... it's true. You are you. I am me. And that's okay."
"And you're both my daughters," Dad interjected firmly. "That's not going to change. Ever."
He took the last turn, steering the car into a parking spot in front of the Diet.
⁂
The building was enormous, monumental and intimidating. Amu had been inside before, but that was the last time she'd visited Saaya and she had still been out of it. She hadn't paid attention. Now, looking at the tall building, the guards and gates and everything, she wondered how she could have ever not noticed how...
How imposing it looked, maybe. That was the word. The whole place felt imposing. Everything from the architecture, to the uniforms the guards wore, to the signs that pointed them towards a side entrance. It wasn't a friendly place. It didn't want to be one.
"Hinamori Tsumugu and party," Dad told a guard who stopped them, flashing a piece of paper. "I'm here for an appointment. Meteorological agency."
Amu and Miki trailed behind him, both of them trying not to stare at the guards, the guns they carried, the way they were looking at them...
The guards let them through, one of them staring at Amu and Miki the whole way. She tried to avoid reading his mind, but it was hard. The impulses she caught anyway spoke of a mixture of curiosity, professional worry, and… attraction. Eww.
Okay, she did look pretty good.
A second glance at his mind gave her the impression he kept it strongly under control, probably wasn't consciously aware, and it was closer to aesthetic appreciation. Amu redoubled her determination not to casually read people's minds.
Miki leaned over. "Relax," she whispered to her. "They're not bad guys."
"Then why're they staring at us?" Amu muttered, her tone hushed, still feeling a little put out. Her eyes flicked back to the guards, and she forced herself to look away. "It feels like we're criminals or something."
Dad chuckled, though he also pulled Amu and Miki closer. Amu gratefully let him.
"It's their job, and you're famous," he said simply. "Try not to let it bother you. We're not going anywhere near the populated area. We're just here to talk to JPs."
"I'm not sure I like it," Amu muttered, her hands clenched into fists. She felt exposed, vulnerable, and more than a little bit nervous. The building loomed over them like some giant monolith. A monument to power. Moreover, she could feel some sort of presence inside, faint but unmistakable, and it made her uncomfortable. It was as though there was a current running through the air, tugging at her mind. She didn't like it one bit.
Dad led them through the hallways, stopping only once to show another security guard the piece of paper. This one was a woman, with dark hair and glasses. She looked at the three of them for a moment, her gaze lingering on Amu before she waved them on.
"Thank you, miss," Dad said politely. "Have a nice day."
The woman nodded curtly, and turned back to her work.
They kept moving, Dad leading the way. Deeper into the building. Down to a basement. Into… Amu could still feel the 'presence', but it stayed below her, and was getting stronger. Right now it felt more like a strong wind. She had to lean against it, mentally, but it was getting less annoying with time.
Dad paused in front of a door labelled 'Conference Room #3'. He knocked once, and a man's voice called out, "Come in!".
They did, Dad keeping a hand on each of their shoulders but following behind. The room was small, but comfortable looking. A large monitor dominated the far wall, right now giving them a view of Tokyo's skyline. There were several chairs arranged around a low table, and sitting in one of those chairs was a man wearing a suit and tie.
"Welcome," he greeted them, rising from his chair and offering his hand to Dad. "Mr. Hinamori, I presume?"
Dad took the proffered hand and shook it. "That's correct," he confirmed. "Thank you for meeting with us, Mr..."
"Himamori Yuuto." The man chuckled slightly. "No relation. My family has served Japan for generations. I'm afraid I've never heard of yours. Not that it matters, of course; I'm telling you because…" His smile grew lopsided. "There's been a lot of confusion around your name, and I'd like to apologise if anyone mispronounces it. Let's just say it's my fault. Please, have a seat." He gestured towards the other chairs.
"Can I get you anything? Tea, coffee, water?" He looked towards Amu and Miki. "Perhaps soda?"
"Tea for me," Dad said, taking a seat across from Himamori. "Girls, what would you like?"
Amu glanced at the table. There was a selection of drinks and snacks laid out. "Water, please," she asked. She looked at her sister.
"Cola?" Miki asked hopefully. "Do you have cola?"
Himamori chuckled. "We do," he said. He poured the requested drinks, passing them around the table, then looked towards her. "You must be Hinamori Amu. And her twin sister, yes?"
"That's right," Dad said.
"Excellent. I'm very pleased to meet you, Miss Hinamori. Your actions were very brave. I'm glad you didn't come to any lasting harm. And I'm happy to meet your sister, of course." He smiled at them both. "You have the gratitude of our organisation, and I hope that we'll be able to work together some time in the future; perhaps in six to ten years? But first things first. We'll need to get your sister a birth certificate and the like. I understand you're also looking for a discreet doctor?"
"That's correct," Dad replied. "We'd like to get a full physical done on Miki. Much as she appears healthy, we're concerned about her health, since... she's only existed for a short period of time."
Amu shifted awkwardly, glancing at her sister, who was staring intently at the floor.
"I understand," Himamori said. "Don't worry, we have a few medical professionals on staff. We'll make sure your daughter's as healthy as she should be. In fact, if I may..." He reached out a hand towards Miki, who looked at him curiously.
"Um, sure?" Miki said, sounding uncertain.
Dad held up a hand. "Can I ask what you are doing, first?"
Himamori nodded. "Of course. When the chief selected me for this meeting, that's partly because I have a licence in field diagnosis. In layman's terms? I'm a wizard specialising in medical scans, among other things."
The look on Dad's face was, in Amu's studied opinion, quite something. Himamori went on as if nothing had happened.
"Which is to say, I can give you a first opinion. Although your daughter should still see an expert. May I?"
Dad gave him a shallow nod, relaxing marginally. He let his hand fall, but proceeded to squeeze Miki's.
Himamori's smile softened. "Don't worry," he reassured her. "This is just for safety."
He placed one hand on her forehead, the other on her hand, and closed his eyes for a moment. Miki shivered. His lips moved, silently counting down from ten, then he removed his hands.
"Remarkable," Himamori said, leaning back in his chair. "She's perfectly normal. No signs of any physical problems whatsoever. Her body is... well, it's exactly as you'd expect a thirteen year old girl to be. There's nothing even slightly abnormal." He blinked at her. "No signs of her origin. If I didn't know better, I'd say I was looking at two actual twins."
"You are," Amu couldn't help but mutter. Miki's lips twitched slightly, but Himamori gave no sign that he'd heard.
"Thank you, sir," Dad said, bowing his head. "I appreciate the reassurance."
"It's my pleasure," the man replied. "Now, as to the matter of her identity. I understand you'd like to register her as an adopted cousin?"
"That's correct," Dad said. "My brother passed away some time ago, and his wife isn't in the picture anymore. We don't need to specify the details." He hummed. "If someone goes digging, they'll find what looks like a case of infidelity. Which won't matter, since she's been taken in."
"I see." Himamori nodded thoughtfully. "And what would you like the name to be?"
Miki made a choking noise. She looked at her father, then at Amu, then back at Himamori. Her hands clenched into fists.
"Neither of us changed our names," Dad said. "So it would still be Hinamori. Hinamori Miki."
Himamori smiled, and nodded approvingly. "Very good," he said. He turned to look at the three of them. "I'll take care of this. I will have your 'cousin's' documents sent to you by tomorrow, and backdate her addition to your family registry. There will be a birth certificate, school records and so on, all fully certified and official. We will also arrange a meeting with a doctor. He'll be discreet, of course."
Amu gripped Miki's hand, squeezing it tightly, but Miki had already relaxed.
"Thank you very much," Dad said. "I can't express how grateful I am for this."
"It's nothing, really." Himamori chuckled. "I had most of the paperwork done yesterday. This is the least we could do, considering your daughter's service to our country. I'm glad that nothing untoward was going on." He fixed Miki with a curious look. "You are, in fact, the real deal. I'm curious, how did you do it?"
"I don't know," Miki said, shrugging.
"The two of you look precisely identical," the man noted, looking between her and Amu. "Apart from hair and eye colour. A word of advice, if you please." He looked at Miki. "Cousins rarely look this similar, but 'rarely' is not 'never'. You could, in fact, be cousins. If someone suggests otherwise, then your best defence is incredulity." He chuckled. "I don't mean to say you should act offended, but... make people feel foolish for suspecting. It will do a lot."
Dad nodded. "That's smart," he said. "Thank you. We'll keep that in mind."
"Of course," the man said, rising to his feet. "If that's all..."
"Can I visit Yamabuki?" Amu blurted out. "I haven't seen her in days, and I'm starting to worry about her. Is she still here? Did she wake up?"
The man blinked in surprise.
"Yamabuki… Miss Saaya?" Himamori asked. "I wasn't aware you knew her."
"She's a friend," Amu said. "Or... I hope she will be."
Himamori looked thoughtful. "I'll ask," he said finally. "But no promises."
⁂
Himamori led them down into the depths of the Diet, towards the underground hospital where Amu herself had spent over a week convalescing after the demon attack. She could feel the presence of JPs personnel all around her, faint and muffled. It was like a dull ache, a constant pressure of glass against her mind where there should have been people, which was another thing she hadn't noticed last time she'd been here.
Not exactly painful, but distracting.
The man stopped at a door, swiping his ID card. It beeped, and swung open. He gestured for the two girls to enter.
Dad had stepped off a little while ago, to talk to a doctor about Miki.
The wind had strengthened again, now pointing straight downwards, and Amu had to brace herself not to be swept away. She'd started noticing patterns to it, even. A subtle vibration, like a pump; she wasn't sure what to make of it, she was pretty sure she would have noticed this if it had already been happening last time.
As she thought that, it slackened to a barely noticeable breeze.
"She's in there?" Amu asked, trying to focus on reality.
"The canteen's in there," Himamori corrected. "Saaya's inside. She's still, hmm…" He scratched his neck. "You may find she's changed a bit, and she's been irritable, partly because her injuries have caused her to act impulsively until quite recently. I would advise against bringing it up. You two can get lunch with her while you are here."
Amu could feel the locket, before she saw Saaya herself. The auburn haired girl- how did she grow that back so fast? -was sitting with an older woman off to the side, the two of them talking. The lady seemed familiar, but no name came to mind.
The overwhelming feeling from the locket was…
Frustration?
Calling that an emotion didn't feel quite right. It was too machine-like, too… static. It also didn't have feelings about her—in the same sense—which didn't stop it from reaching out towards Amu, in much the same way that Ami did while running up for a hug. It seemed eager to have her back, in some way.
It couldn't do what she'd told it to do-
Amu tried to poke at that thought, which hadn't exactly been her own, but then Saaya turned towards her with a quizzical look, the lady with her following Saaya's gaze.
Wait. Gold eyes?
"Hi," Saaya paused, before shrugging to herself and tugging the locket's chain. "Hi Hinamori. Been awhile I guess? Your locket has been… pushy. I've blasted it a bit, but it's very like you, you know that?"
The lady shook her head slightly, looking bemused. "Hello again, Hinamori. I'm Makoto Sako, Operations Commander and Saaya-chan's temporary guardian."
"It's what?" Amu said, Miki raising an eyebrow, before the pair of them stopped, staring at the… chara? No, not a chara. A demon. A chara sized demon, sitting on Saaya's shoulder and pouting at Amu.
"It's trying to stop her being Saaya! It keeps yapping on about 'human functionality' and 'familial bonds' and trying to make Saaya want things she doesn't want, instead of letting her be properly Sidhe!"
Amu blinked, attempting to parse that. "Come again? Hello?"
The tiny Pixie fluttered up a bit, finding a foothold in one of Saaya's ringlets. "I'm Niamh! And Saaya's friend! And a Pixie!" An undertone of water, sea, tides whispered beneath the demon's introduction in a way that wasn't helping with either of the Miki shaped girls' confusion.
Saaya huffed, poking the Fae without looking away from Amu. "Your locket. Thank you for it, genuinely. But its ribbons are trying to turn me into something, someone I don't want to be. Who I was before I realised half the class was whispering in the back of my head."
Amu couldn't see much of Saaya's mind, and what she did see didn't look right. Saaya's mind was sputtering, a lot of it seemingly missing, but even that was hard to tell. There was dense… dust? Fungus? She wasn't sure how to put it… no, not 'fungus', that was all Saaya's mind doing its best to fix itself and growing a spongy sort of…
She jerked back, unwilling to touch the spongy scar tissue even if Saaya didn't seem to be noticing that that was what she'd done, though she'd gotten enough feedback to note that, underneath that, it graduated back into normal, fully healed… mind-stuff.
"Er. Hello, Yamabuki? Sako-san." Amu tried responding.
"Saaya, not Yamabuki. I've convinced the locket to drop that, don't encourage it to try."
Saaya was distracting. Her mind was jumping from half-thought to half-thought while seemingly skipping the steps in-between, but those were still happening, somewhere she couldn't…
Her own, nascent sense for biology caught a thought of Saaya's transition from her mind to somewhere physical, inside her head, and back. Amu blinked. Then blushed. Oh yeah. Brains. Those existed.
Refocusing on Saayas face, she was met with a frown. "I can't feel that, but out. Rude, Hinamori, even if you are being polite enough to be obvious about it."
What?
Sako-san was also frowning at her.
"I was just looking!" Amu defended, though she hadn't even really meant to. Her blush deepened. She pushed her fingers together. "You said the locket was doing something…"
Saaya sighed, face falling into her hand.. "Hinamori, looking into someone's mind is something you should ask permission for. Why do you think I was so paranoid, before…" She shakes her head. "Who's your twin?"
"She's my cousin," Amu said, blush deeping to a fierce red. "Hinamori Miki. My father's brother's daughter. We adopted her recently, because, um, stuff happened."
Saaya gave her a flat look. Then she looked at Miki. Back at Amu. Miki sighed, placing a couple of fingers on her forehead.
"You," Saaya said firmly, "are a terrible liar."
"I'm not lying," Amu protested.
Saaya didn't give that the dignity of a response. "We should work on that. Now who is she really? Your long-lost twin? Clone? Demon mimicking your appearance and you allowing it for some typically you magical girl reason?"
The Pixie giggled in her hair.
"Um. Sort of," Amu said, rubbing her head and ignoring Miki's deepening facepalm. "She used to be... my chara. My... uh, my subconscious, sort of, but, um, she was fairy-sized for three years. I thought most of the class had…"
"Not 'most of the class'," Miki corrected. "Less than half could see me."
Amu winced, and stalled.
"They explained charas, somewhat… the blue one. Arts." Saaya frowned, looking up at Miki's cap and nodding. "Spade, right. Makoto, is it alright if I take Amu and her…?"
Sako-san took this moment to speak up, glancing around at the mostly empty canteen. "Yes. This sounds like a conversation we should have somewhere else. There's a meeting room we can use."
⁂
A few minutes later had the small group seated at a table in a room a corridor away from the canteen, plates of lunch sat in front of them.
Miki took advantage of having had time to snack, rather than doing tests, to ask the question Amu had been wondering under the layers of blushing. Amu, for her part, tried to hide her face in lunch.
"Niamh, what are you?"
Amu blushed harder. She was approaching critical levels of embarrassment, but Miki wasn't one to let that stop her. Maybe if she shovelled this spaghetti carbonara fast enough…
Thankfully, Niamh didn't seem to take offence to Miki's curiosity out-weighing her manners.
"A Pixie! Saaya-chan's Doctor summoned me to heal her, and they were terrible at teaching her not to stab herself when stabbing the world, so I stuck around and now we're best friends."
Miki, implausibly, nodded. "And what is a sidhe?"
"A remarkably poor idea," Sako-san answered, making Niamh glare at her. "A class of summoned demon. Human adjacent, but not even as human as a kitsune. Which is why this pixie is a friend and not a teacher…" She matched the glare with a flat look, Saaya rolling her eyes at the pair of them. "And because Saaya-chan also needs to learn how not to 'stab' things."
"So you say, but why?" Saaya asked, poking a bit at her own lunch. She coughed, then dabbed at her mouth where the sauce had gone astray. "It's effective, right? And these days, if I hit myself I'd scream instead of blinking at the wound. Not that I'm going to," she stressed.
Amu had gone rigid.
"The 'pixie' showed me how to make Erasure part of me, instead of letting it go wild and hit my own body as well. She taught me how not to use it because I'd got annoyed. No one else could teach me that, I was just messing it up until I understood how demons do magic."
A demon taught her?
"Sidhe," Sako-san said, speaking to Miki rather than continuing what sounded like an old argument, "Are human-adjacent, inasmuch as they act like humans in some manner. Unlike most demons, Sidhe do not generally act insane. As a species, they are honour-bound. If they say they will perform an action, then they will—subject to their inherent limitations. Unlike humans, Sidhe do not change. A pixie, such as Niamh, acts like a preteen child… and always will. They do not grow up. They lack that ability."
"Yep! I'm not ever growing up and becoming a boring High Pixie." The chara-like demon blew a raspberry from her perch in Saaya's ringlet. "Saaya needs me as a friend."
"...typically lack the ability," Sako-san corrected, smiling slightly. "As for other Sidhe, each represents some singular… facet, shall we say, of humanity. Excellence in combat, or mastery over the home. There is a wide variety."
The older lady was watching Amu as she explained, giving occasional glances to Miki.
"And Saaya wants to…"
"Become a Sidhe?" Sako-san sighed. This still had the feel of an old argument. "No, she just claims that because she knows it annoys me. But she's having more success with demonic casting than human tutoring, when it comes to controlling her powers. I think, mostly, she wants a friend."
Saaya pouted, but didn't correct her. She did speak up.
"When it comes to casting, and reaching out when I'm not using destruction, demons make more sense. The shields Dr. Akamine is showing me work fine, but blowing stuff up? Erasure's part of me. It's not some… thing I'm using, it's me."
That didn't sound so bad, really. It sounded like her. Or Utau. Amu tried to think of a way to respond, while Saaya continued.
"I'm not trying to do the Sidhe unchanging thing, even if this locket is trying to make me."
Amu blinked. Miki threw her an alarmed look. They spoke on top of each other.
"Sorry, what? That's not-" "How's it trying to change you?"
"It's not trying to change me," Saaya grumbled. "It keeps trying to make me who I was. 'Healing' me back to the girl I was before I could hear you all whispering in class, could actually see you… pressing down on everyone with your emotions until we agreed. I don't want those habits back. I already decided I don't want to be that girl, it lost me all my friends, and it keeps putting them back, and I keep having to burn it, again, it was hard enough sitting there forcing myself not to talk, and-" She paused. "...and it hurts. The impulses keep coming back."
Amu bit her lip, wanting to object, argue that she hadn't done that, it wasn't like that, but interrupting didn't feel right.
Saaya looked at the ceiling, not meeting anyone's eyes. "Before I started burning away the vulnerable parts to stop you all touching my mind, I'd already decided I didn't want to be that girl. I fought not to be that girl, and none of you noticed. I'd rather die than be someone my father would like."
Sako-san leaned over, putting a hand on Saaya's shoulder. Amu's once classroom enemy crossed her arms, but didn't shrug it off, and Amu tried to think of if she'd ever seen Saaya fighting that fight.
Saaya believed it. Saaya was also a horrible liar. But Amu couldn't think of a time.
All she'd seen, all she'd noticed, was Saaya going quiet and retreating from the class.
"If I may, Hinamori-san," Sako-san said, squeezing Saaya's shoulder. "Your 'locket' has performed miracles. Saaya-chan should have been dead. However, it seems to be healing to a pattern." She gave Amu a slightly flat look, though one tinged with worry. "Saaya-chan has an unhurt, functional brain. Whatever it's doing now, it's interfering with her thought processes while attempting to heal her soul. At this stage in the healing process the largest risk is that the soul affects the brain, instead of the other way around. I must ask. Can you tell what it's doing? Can you, safely, remove it?"
Put on the spot, and head swimming with questions, Amu sank deeper into her chair.
"I don't know," she answered.
⁂
A short but intense debate later, Saaya had been convinced to let Amu have a proper look at the locket's workings. And not her mind, Saaya had been insistent on.
Niamh vouching to watch carefully had been the final nudge.
"Let me know if, um, if it's uncomfortable," Amu said. "...or if you can feel it at all. I'll try not to touch anything, but…"
Saaya tilted her head, shaking out the length of string Sako had handed her. "How does that work for you? Reaching in? Psychic hands?"
"Never thought about it," she said. "I can kind of… feel…? Let me try…"
She reached out halfway towards Saaya, then tried looking at herself. She was… reaching out, yes… definitely. With fingers that felt, and sort of looked like — though it was really blurry, she was almost getting a headache just trying to see—like-"
She stopped in place, as though she'd walked into a telephone pole.
'Psychic tentacles,' Amu giddily thought to herself. 'I'm reaching in with psychic tentacles.'
She would not be telling Saaya that.
"Actually, I'm not sure I want to know," the girl in question muttered, with a flat look on her face. "Just get a move on before I change my mind. Possibly literally."
Amu touched her face, which had once again turned hot, and sat down. She buried it in her hands, waiting for the blush to go away. 'Not a magical girl, not a magical girl, not a magical girl,' she chanted to herself—'Not a magical tentacle monster either'—Miki's choice of manga had a lot to answer for.
"I'll check your head now," Amu squeaked out.
⁂
There was a lot of scar tissue, like she'd noticed earlier. Amu glossed over it, trying not to touch, but Saaya had asked her to check what the Humpty Lock was doing and the locket had gone… inside. Physically on her chest, but all Amu could see of that was threads reaching through into her mind.
Through… what? Saaya's idle question had made her start to wonder, and though she could follow the threads easily, the direction they passed through wasn't a normal one. It wasn't towards Saaya's head, or her feet, or either of her hands. Or her front or back. Some other direction, and she was getting another headache trying to make sense of it. Never mind, Amu. Figure that out later.
Inside Saaya the threads split up, most on the surface, reaching for fragments that were not yet fully healed and holding them in place. Some were working on scar tissue. Amu could see it happen, one of them dissolving a small nodule of—not-Saaya-ness—and replacing it with what some part of her thought looked like an eye.
She blinked at it.
There was no eyelid, but it blinked back.
There was nothing behind it. No connections to the rest of Saaya, though she could see one slowly form. Not much else, either. This wasn't an eye, except in the loosest, most abstract sense, but it was right on the surface of Saaya's mind, the parts that were almost all scarring, and Amu desperately did not want to check if her own looked the same, but she rather had to.
She looked.
It did.
There were a lot more eyes.
She could see her own-
"It's mostly healing you," Amu said, shaking off a shiver. "There's… burn scars, almost? It's fixing those."
"That makes sense. Is it fixing the places you usually… touch? The ones you attack when you send emotions and whispers? I set those on fire whenever you or the others touched them."
Amu's head snapped up. She wanted to contradict Saaya, but instead she helplessly shrugged. Those burns looked painful. She'd felt strikes to the surface of her mind once or twice herself, most recently with Kana, and it hurt.
"How are you not screaming?" Amu whispered, then shook her head. "No. No, Saaya. They're eyes. Ears. That sort of thing."
Saaya took that with a certain lack of equanimity.
"What else was I meant to do? You wouldn't stop. None of you would. Whispering, mocking, trying to sneak things into my head, like Lulu but without me being able to tell."
"You could have asked me," Amu said.
Saaya frowned, glancing towards Niamh for… reassurance? Definitely. The surface of Saaya's mind was scarred, still, and hard to see through, but she was too far in to miss her emotions.
…for reassurance that Amu wasn't making her feel the way she did. Niamh shot Saaya a thumbs up, the little faerie focused on her friend..
"I… should have. But… You didn't say anything. Not after what Lulu did. No one said anything. None of the teachers ever said anything. And all of you just… always whispering. Poking. Trying to change me."
Amu looked down. "We weren't friends, and I only figured most of this out in the last couple of months. But Saaya-" She looked back up, her tone desperate. "You were just feeling what we were feeling. Seeing what we were feeling. If you know that's what's happening, then it's not… it's not going to change you. It just means you're not blind."
Sako frowned, gesturing for Miki to move closer to her, while Amu worked. They had a whispered conversation, but Amu was too worried to pay it any mind.
"It didn't feel like that. And by the time I was starting to… properly get to the point of not caring if I looked mad, I'd stopped caring about most other things. Anything that bothered me, by then, I just…" Saaya made a finger gun gesture, strings tugging between her fingers even as the locket ribbons moved with them.
Amu blinked. Was she suggesting-
"No, you didn't," she responded.
Saaya blinked, "I'm… pretty sure I did. I had to use destruction on the locket to stop it bringing those bits back."
Amu shook her head. "No way. The surface of your-" Mind? Saaya-ness? Soul? Soul. "The surface of your soul is scorched. If this is after wearing the locket for a week…" She shuddered, not wanting to even think about what that must have felt like. "But I'm deep enough that I can tell. It's… powerful. Your… destruction effect?"
Saaya nodded.
"If you'd used that on the inside of your mind, and it hadn't splashed off the surface?" She shook her head again. "You'd be dead. You couldn't have survived even once."
"That… No. I definitely did damage to the inside. If I understand what you mean by the inside. Hang on, let me…"
And then Amu had to step 'back' slightly as the various Saaya-pieces shuffled themselves, the locket's threads tensioning and pulling them around like a demented shadow puppet show.
"Spectacles, Bed… Here. I did this, you can see?"
Amu nodded, carefully taking a closer look. Yes, there was an empty-looking area, but…
"And I did that by… I guess I don't need to like toast slightly overdone. Kiwi, Lines of Dogs."
Four mental Saaya-hands twist the threads, a ruby glow saturating a newly 'shown' thought.
Amu nearly tumbled backwards. For a moment there, she'd gotten the feeling of a cannon about to fire. A huge flow of energy to somewhere in Saaya's mind, and then… nothing. Pieces of her soul rearranged themselves, entirely on their own. The flow of energy lapsed as they settled.
"And it's gone. Erasure." Saaya gestured with her string laden fingers.
"Don't do that while I have my hands in there!" Amu protested. "You could have…"
"Er, you couldn't just… do the same thing you did when I…?" Saaya trailed off, a guilty look on her face.
"When you did what?" Amu asked. "Nothing happened, Saaya. Your mind just rearranged itself a little on its own. Like when I'm trying to make myself remember my textbooks better, or talking to Utau in her mind… I could do that." She blushed a little. "Not that I would. And you shouldn't!"
Though 'burned toast' wasn't precisely a central personality element…
As Amu watched, it shifted back. She didn't think Saaya had noticed.
"When I reacted, in the classroom." Saaya paused, setting her shoulders, that same shift of soul rearranging a few other pieces with a flicker of decisiveness. "When I tried to kill you, Amu, for invading my mind for the thousandth time."
Amu had, by this point, diagnosed Saaya with terminal middle-school-disease. This latest claim didn't precisely change her mind, but Amu still thought she should address it. Beyond that, though—no, more importantly than that-
She paused. Saaya wasn't lying. She didn't remember it happening, but so much else had.
How did she respond to this?
"I shouldn't have. I should have at least asked you to stop directly, before resorting to that. I'd make a dozen excuses, that I had burned away anything like impulse control, blame you and the others, and I do for pushing me that far. But I'm sorry. I still should have said something first. You aren't Lulu."
"I still don't think you did. You would have been dead," Amu mumbled. She drew a deep breath. Kana. Hikaru. And Saaya, too. She must have been in pain. "You should have," she said more loudly. "But I'm… I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to hurt you, I just meant to ignore you, but that… no-one was invading… it's going to come back. And Saaya, when you did that- string thing with your fingers-"
"Cat's cradle," Saaya filled in, waiting for her to continue..
"Something happened," Amu said. "Something charged up. It was going to fire. And then it didn't."
"Erasure. Or destruction. That's what she's been calling the ability, Hinamori-san. I've seen it." The pixie nodded to Sako's words. "It's… powerful. Destructive. I've seen the recoil it ladened Saaya with, before she learned to control it. I can see what you mean, she can't have fired that at full power on her core soul and survived."
"I don't think she's done it at all," Amu said. She bit her lip. "Not since back in class, and that's all superficial."
Saaya frowned. "But then how did I-"
"It's more… you're using the idea of it? The weight of the ability, to change your habits…" Amu blinked. "But then… you are still pointing a loaded gun at yourself to make that work… and that's barely psionics at all, even! Anyone can do that!"
Saaya hummed, twisting the threads in a way that made Amu want to slap her 'hands' away from the locket's strings. "So I don't need to build up the power, that's just a… mnemonic? Like the cat's cradle?"
"How else would you do it?" Amu spluttered. "You can't just… erase stuff, Saaya. It doesn't work that way. Thoughts, memories, personality- it's all spread out. You can't just blow it up, you'd hit… you'd hit everything!" And she didn't want Saaya to try. It made her feel sick to her stomach that she would. Why?
She'd walked in here wanting to check on Saaya mostly out of obligation, but this was too much. Saaya was confused, and- and she was going to hurt herself. It was almost a miracle that she hadn't already, in a deeper way than blinding.
She drew a deeper breath.
"Why are you trying to erase parts of yourself?" Amu asked. In the background she could see Sako-san trying to get to her feet, but Miki whispered something, and she sat back down.
"Because there's a lot of who I was, that I already got rid of. And the locket is trying to bring that back. 'Yamabuki' Saaya was an awful person, Amu. Way too much trying to be my father, and not even doing it well. That was obvious once Haruka and Ayaka left."
"Haruka?" Amu said, but it was mostly rhetorical. She could already see. Saaya's mind was full of fondness, and longing- She pulled back, but not before catching a glimpse of a short, blue-haired girl.
Saaya answered anyway. "A friend. Though I didn't figure that out in time. She's off in America now, left half way through the summer." She raised an eyebrow. "Amu, she and Ayaka were in your, our, class for the last three years. Did you not notice they were gone?"
Return of the blush, #2, the blushening. Miki's smirk didn't help.
"Well, I did," Miki said. "But you know Amu-chan. She has more interesting things going on… inside her head."
"She did match you." Saaya gestured at Miki's hair with a wave. "I guess I'm glad one of the Hinamoris is paying attention."
"That's why she needs me, yep."
There was more conversation, but Amu, who was simultaneously feeling lost and failing not to blush, went right back to the job she'd been asked to do and had horribly neglected. What was her locket doing? After Saaya had done the thing she'd done… Saaya's mind had shifted back on its own, but not all the way.
Now the locket's threads were pushing it the rest of the way. Why? That wasn't damage. Saaya had decided to stop enjoying burnt toast—and as confused and uncomfortable as the idea made her—it wasn't harm. People changed. Amu changed. Manually strengthening the associations from her textbooks wasn't the same thing, but it wasn't the complete opposite, and Amu, she had to admit, liked herself. She'd spent three years learning to feel confident about herself.
Saaya…
"Ayaka saw right through me," Saaya was saying. "Always. She was the only one who did. Now that I think about it, she really was far too perceptive." She heaved a sigh. "But I can't hate her."
"Are you sure that wasn't both of you?" Miki responded.
"...maybe."
It was an old sort of self-loathing. Saaya didn't hate herself, she only hated whom she'd been. And the locket was, constantly, trying to… she gingerly reached out for it. The locket had never hurt her? No, but Amu couldn't pretend she understood it.
She couldn't exactly ask it what it was doing… could she?
She tried anyway, but the locket was an inanimate object. It didn't have ears. Feeling both frustrated and worried by the whole affair, Amu nevertheless tried to reach… halfway. She'd done this before, every time she transformed and a fair few times besides, but it was something she did instinctually. No, she had to be honest with herself: The locket did all the work.
This time it wasn't, and the locket didn't, even when she grabbed it with unsettlingly squamous hands and squeezed.
"-Amu-chan?" Miki was saying. "Are you okay?"
Hawah?
"You've been making faces," Saaya explained. "Like you're trying to pick up a frog or something."
Amu sighed, grumbling a little. 'No, Saaya, I am the frog.' And this thing wasn't obeying her commands. Not that she knew what to ask it for. Maybe if she…
"Can I hold it?" she asked.
"Sure? Let me just…" Saaya leaned forward onto the table like she was about to take a nap, fishing it loose for Amu to take. "Last time I tried to take it off, everything started going… colourful. I got the feeling I wouldn't be staying conscious, so I didn't." She paused, looking at the amulet. "This thing is rust proof, right?"
"I don't think it's made of metal," Amu said, squinting at it. It wasn't plastic either. Saaya shrugged and held it out for her to grasp.
The moment of contact was a shock. Things, reality, went—vivid. The mental world got more colorful, and since she was watching at the time, she could tell that the locket had reached into herself with threads as well. Nothing as blatant as for Saaya, but it made a thousand, thousand tiny changes. Slight adjustments, almost all right on the surface. A feeling like a cool wave of relief washed over her, all the little aches and strains she'd accumulated over the last week disappearing all at once.
Amu sagged in the chair, her mouth going slightly open. She was still looking at Saaya, who had raised an eyebrow, but her eyes had gone unfocused. Her mental eyes, in contrast, sharpened slightly.
Then she shook her head.
She felt good. Better than good. Her thoughts felt clearer than they had in ages. Nothing hurt, not even slightly, and she hadn't noticed she was hurting in the first place, but even that vague ache where Miki had been had disappeared. She looked over to Miki, who blinked quizzically at her.
"That feels weird. Are you pulling at it on your side?" Saaya had sat up by now, looping a finger in the locket chain with a curious look.
"Not really?" Amu said. "I was just…" She fought the urge to stretch. Her body was practically bouncing, and that slight restlessness was the literal only thing keeping her from melting into a puddle. "It felt really good."
"If you like having something trying to undo you constantly, sure. Or is it not doing that to you?"
Amu blinked. Right.
She looked at it again, but the threads had gone quiescent. They were still in here, but they weren't doing anything. For sure, Amu had a lot less wrong with her than Saaya…
Experimentally, she took the memory of what Saaya had just said and burned it in. No forgetting that. The threads quivered for a moment, mirroring the movement—but they caught her intention, and then, apart from realigning it to fit a little better, did nothing else.
Which meant…
"It's not," Amu said. "It could, I think. But I've been telling it not to. I think."
And what had she told the locket back then, when Saya was dying?
She couldn't remember, but…
Another poke.
'Put her back the way she was,' the locket echoed back at her, a burst of thought, not words. Her own thoughts, from two weeks earlier.
⁂
"So it's trying to put me back to the last me you saw the mind of? That's…when Lulu messed up my head, I guess? Or a bit after, I didn't start burning the probes right away."
Amu had explained as best she could, though it was half guesswork on her part. Miki didn't have much to add, and Sako-san…
Sako-san looked like she was hiding discomfort, which Amu suspected meant she was barely hiding it at all. She still couldn't see her emotions, though exposure was fast changing that. Even without trying, the glass-pane shield she'd put up around herself was incomplete. She could see paths through it. They were full of sharp, jagged edges, but while touching the locket, Amu thought it'd be easy enough to get through. She could probably do it regardless.
Not that she was going to.
She really needed her face to stop blushing.
"Ah-" She shook off the thought. "Probes? Never mind. Yes. I think so, because you weren't conscious enough to tell it what else to do. It had an image of you from back then, and nothing else to go off. I don't know for sure, but that's… how I think it has to work."
"So can we just tell it not to do that?" Saaya put forward, looking at the locket.
"You can," Amu agreed. "Or, I guess, I could too. That might be safer. Or you could take it off, I think you'll be fine without it, although…"
"I can tell how much it's doing to help, even with the issues. If you don't mind a little longer…?"
"Ever had a really bad bruise, like really bad, across an entire limb?" Amu temporised. "That's your soul right now. It's better than bleeding out, but the locket's stopping you from feeling most of that, and… yeah. I'm not saying 'give it to me'. I'd be a pretty awful person if I did."
Saaya stared at her. Before shaking her head. "My father would have jumped on a statement like that, Amu. But I'm not him. Take it back. I'll figure it out from here with the doctors and Niamh, I don't want to use you feeling bad to keep something of yours."
Amu stared back. How did she respond to that? When had Saaya turned… she wasn't being self-sacrificing. Her mind was full of determined rejection, mostly. And Amu quickly retracted her… tentacles… because she'd done what she came for, and if she kept looking inside Saaya's head she'd…
She wasn't sure. But it didn't feel right.
Sako looked like she was about to step in, a hand half raised. "Saaya…"
Amu shook her head. "No," she said. "I'm not taking it back yet. Not saying I don't want it, but geez." She sighed. "Saaya…" Had she ever, before today, used Yamabuki's first name? Except in her own thoughts sometimes? She didn't think she had. Using it felt intimate, in a way she didn't like to be except with friends.
She had a solution, if that was the problem. But she had another question to ask first.
Amu released the locket and sat down, letting it fall back against Saaya's chest. It felt like nothing. She still felt fine, better than fine. She made a mental note to try to remember what it'd been doing, see if she could do it herself, but she didn't think that was possible.
Regardless…
'Feeling fine' didn't mean she couldn't still feel frazzled.
"You said you fought not to be the old Saaya," Amu said carefully. Saaya's lips compressed into a thin line, but she didn't comment. "In which case, who were you fighting to be?"
Saaya took a moment, looking at Sako, before coming to some kind of internal resolution and relaxing a little.
"I don't know. 'Saaya of Destruction' was what I thought when I finally slotted my mind back together, shush, it's cool, but I don't know who that is, other than that she has destruction in her hand."
She smiled at Amu and Miki, and it was nothing like the Saaya of yesteryear. The Saaya of yesteryear would, for one thing, never have named herself something because of being 'cool'.
…no.
Miki snickered at Saaya, who developed a very light blush of her own. Amu, however, was quickly running through her memories. There was… she had to chase it down, it wasn't a memory she'd have normally been able to remember if she hadn't been able to look inside her own thoughts, but she'd seen this before. A glimpse of Saaya smiling towards the two girls she spent most of her time with. Amu had caught them chatting about PreCure. Her smile, back then, had looked like this.
When had Amu last seen the pair? Not since grade school. They must have been Ayaka and Haruka.
Amu thought to herself that maybe Saaya could have ended up like this anyway. It would have taken longer, life experience, events, tragedy. But this wasn't an alien. A touch of Niamh in the smile, sure, but Nikaidou's smile was somewhat similar when people weren't looking.
"I don't know who I'm trying to be, but I know it won't be someone I can point at. Not making that mistake again after trying to copy my father. The Director has a great view on effort that I copied, Sako-senpai has a look I want to wear and I'm taking tips from Dr Akamine. Niamh is a friend and demons make sense when it comes to my powers. I'm going to try them all out and see what works."
""Hang on-""
Amu stopped. Her voice had come out in stereo. She cast a startled glance at Miki, who looked just as startled—they'd spoken at the exact same time. Miki's lips twitched into a smile, while Amu's face turned pink. Again.
"Hang on," she said, once she'd composed herself. "That stuff Niamh said? That's just how… well, that's how we work. I don't know how else it would work. But Saaya-" Amu drew a deep breath, and Miki smiled reassuringly at her. Her sister would be taking advantage of this. Definitely. She hadn't realised before. Just not right now.
"Saaya," she said finally. "Can we start over? I'm Hinamori Amu, and I'd like to teach you a little. I'd also like to be friends. I like omelettes, music class, dressing up, and hiking when it isn't too hot. I'm also pretty good at this by now, I promise."
Niamh stifled a giggle, looking smug.
Saaya glanced away, her own blush growing a step, before looking back.
"I guess I can admit it since you saved me, there's parts of what you do I want to learn. Not the way you treat other people's minds, obviously." She softened the verbal jab with a smirk. "That's a yes, if it wasn't clear, Amu-chan, Miki-chan. I'd like to be friends. Going to have to do something about your fashion sense, but I need a new wardrobe too."
"My fashion sense is perfectly fine," Amu protested.
Saaya smirked at her. "Sure it is."
⁂
An hour later, as the impromptu lesson on psionics focused mostly on directing the locket came to an end, Amu's phone beeped.
Naoto and Kana were ready.
= = =
I hope you don't mind that I pushed the final conversation to the next chapter, but this one was already becoming tentacular, I mean, enormous.
No vote is required here, as you've already voted on what to say. However, I will still be taking a two day break before starting on 3.4, so you can update your votes if you'd like to.
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