General All-Purpose Crossover Fiction Thread

Standard issue disclaimer: Sunrise created and owns Mai-Hime. I am not them. This is a parody, protected speech.

Disturbing Routines
Chapter Three: Midori

May, 2004

A few weeks had passed since Mai and Mikoto began living together, and the ... unusual events of that first night had not been repeated since then. Mai assumed that this was because she had worn pyjamas from that night forward. It certainly wasn't because Mikoto had stopped creeping into her bed.

In all honesty, she still wasn't sure how she felt about that. The warm presence of someone else in her bed was actually comforting. Admittedly, she'd have preferred it to be Takumi, but things hadn't worked out that way.

At the moment, Mai was lying in her own bed, waiting for sleep to come. It'd been a long day. School, and then a long shift at the Chao Bao Zi. She was starting to think that maybe she'd bit off a bit more than she could chew there. Yes, the proprietor was one of the nicest people she'd ever met, but the restaurant did a lot of business, and Mai was one of only four waitresses taking care of all of it.

Well, technically, it was three waitresses and a waiter. She'd actually gotten a lot of help from Akane, Midori and Kazuya, who'd all worked there before. Akane and Kazuya's flirty relationship was fun (and a little painful) to watch. Midori, on the other hand ... she wasn't sure why an obvious college student like her was working part-time like that, or pretending to be 'just seventeen years old', as Midori's constant refrain would have it. (She didn't think anyone was buying it.)

At least Mai didn't find herself living a triple life. Fortunately, she hadn't run into any dangerous Orphans since that first one. There'd been a few annoying ones, like that thing that had stolen Natsuki's underwear, but nothing too serious. Mai almost found herself wondering why that was.

Natsuki, during that episode, had hinted that there were other agencies around campus that were acting to protect it from the Orphans. Predictably, though, she'd refused to elaborate. Listening to some of Chie's stories had given Mai a few ideas about what was actually going on. Her gossip about magical girls (and magical old men) showing up to help people in danger might just have something to it.

And then there was Tate and Shiho. Not only was she seeing the obnoxious jerk (who, okay, had a few reliable qualities that weren't all that obnoxious) in class every day, but she kept running into the two of them all the time. She'd even gotten roped into helping out with a wedding ceremony at Shiho's dad's temple, enduring Shiho's constant subtle putdowns all the while. It was almost enough to make her believe in karma. But what could she possibly have done to deserve that?

Okay, other than that, which she wasn't getting to do recently anyway!

Mai shifted uncomfortably. When was Mikoto going to sneak into her bed? What was the holdup? Finally, she looked up to see if something was the matter.

Mikoto's bed was empty. And the window was open.

"Oh, great," Mai said, collapsing to her pillow. "She's gone out to look for her brother again, hasn't she?"

For a moment, Mai considered going out to follow her, but then she remembered just how tired she was. So she curled up on herself and decided to sleep alone.

It was harder than she expected, but sleep did eventually come.

---

Where could he be?

Mikoto was a bit horrified to realize that, despite having thought about him more or less constantly since he'd run away, she wasn't really sure what aniue looked like. She could see him in almost every male face that passed by as she sat on a bench and watched the men walking by.

She had to find him. It was ojiisan's last command. And, perhaps not as importantly, it was what she wanted to do. If she found him, everything that had happened would finally make sense.

But she had so few clear memories of him, and they were of a boy. A tall boy, but she was conscious of the changes in herself since then. Who could say what he would have become in that time?

It was very frustrating.

And then she was distracted by something odd happening on the edge of her peripheral vision. Wasn't that — yes, yes it was. What was she doing?

Mikoto got up, carrying Miroku in the bag that she'd acquired with her uniforms. (Apparently, there were a rather large number of students whose clubs or other pastimes required them to carry a sword with them at all times, such that these bags were readily available. Miroku would have rather been out, but Mikoto understood the value of camouflage.) She followed the person who'd attracted her attention, and soon found herself in an alley, watching from a concealed position.

She was somewhat surprised by what happened next.

Sugiura Midori moved gradually and peacefully out of the pleasant dream she'd been having (which, unfortunately, she was never able to remember) to a comfortable lassitude as she woke up. She felt weary but more or less content. The weariness was understandable when she looked at the clock on her nightstand and discovered that it was just after six o'clock in the morning, when she hadn't gotten to sleep until some time around two.

Ah well. A bit of fatigue was a small price to pay for a pretty good roll in the hay. Nodding at this wisdom, she turned to look at said roll in the hay, slumbering beside her, and nudged him a bit forcefully with her elbow. "Oy," she said, sotto voce. "There's a bed check at around seven, so you might want to wake up."

He did so with something of a jolt, eyes sliding open to see her leaning over him. He blinked repeatedly, and then looked to his other side. Seeing that there was no one there, he let out a relieved sigh. "At least that part of the experience isn't repeating itself," Kanzaki Reito muttered.

"Sorry?" Midori asked.

He turned back to her. "Sorry, just reflecting on the last time I had a one-night stand with a college student. Some very disturbing things happened, and, and never mind, I don't want to talk about it."

"Okey-doke," Midori replied agreeably as she sat up from her futon, letting the topsheet fall from her breasts. "You have a lot of one night stands with college students, I take it. Does your girlfriend know about that habit of yours?"

Reito blinked. "Girlfr— ah. You shouldn't believe everything that you hear. The President and I have a strictly professional relationship. I honestly don't know how the rumor about us dating got started. She finds it moderately amusing, but I'm reasonably sure that she's exclusively lesbian."

"Interesting," Midori said, since it was. "Well, you'd better get dressed and head out the window before the dorm manager checks in and finds you. Scandal and all that rot. I mean, personally I don't see what the big deal is, since we're both seventeen and all."

Now he stared.

"What?" she asked, all innocence.

"Well, setting aside the notion of you being seventeen —"

"Are you calling me a liar, you cad, you, after I gave you my innocence, my childhood?" Midori asked in a bland, even tone.

"— and the notion of your innocence, there's one problem with the 'get dressed and head out the window' plan. To wit — we're in a basement room, and there are no windows."

Midori looked around at the walls of her small office/bedroom, and lo, there were indeed a decided paucity of windows. "Y'know, you're right," she said, amazedly. "I can't believe I never noticed that before."

Reito discreetly rubbed his head. Was Tate right? Was it really all women, or just the ones he got to know?

"Well, there is one in the showers up on the ground floor, and I was heading that way anyway. We'll go there, and you can get out that way. Unless you'd want a quicky in the shower first."

He considered his options carefully.

QUICKY IN THE SHOWER OMITTED

Elsewhere, Mai was leading Mikoto out of their dorm room. "What the heck were you doing, that you were out so late?" the older girl asked irritably.

"Stuff," Mikoto said evasively.

Mai blinked. Since when was Mikoto anything other than utterly direct?

Before she could question her further, though, the door across the landing from theirs opened, and Aoi walked out leading a weary looking girl who looked kind of familiar to Mai. "I don't really care if you're tired, Nitta-sensei asked me to make sure you got to class today and — oh, good morning, Mai-san."

"Morning," said Mai, who abruptly realized where she'd seen the girl with the flaming red hair before. This was the girl that Mikoto had knocked down on that first day, and —

"Good morning, Nao," Mikoto said politely.

"Mornin', Mikoto," the other girl said in the same tone.

— and clearly, they'd become acquainted with each other in the interim.

---

"Does this seem a little odd to you?" Aoi asked Mai hesitantly as she walked beside her to school, a few steps behind the junior high duo.

"Well, if they're classmates, then I guess it's not that surprising that they know each other," Mai answered.

"I guess that makes sense, but ... well, it's a little odd that they're getting along. I mean, I don't really know Nao-san very well, but —"

"She's your roommate, though," Mai interjected.

"Yes, but we've only been in the same room since the start of the term," Aoi explained. "And we didn't really talk, much, even before things got a little strange."

"Eh? Strange how?"

Aoi made a face that was a little strange itself. "Well, it's kind of hard to explain. A couple weeks ago — on your first day here, actually — when I got back to our room, I found her and she was acting like, well, like she expected me to attack her at any moment. And it's really strange that she should be like that, because, like I said, we hadn't really talked a lot, and so there's no way that she could know — um. Well. Mai-san, you do know that Chie-chan and I are, uh, 'particular friends', right?"

Mai blinked. Mai coughed. Mai said, after a moment, "Well, I know now."

Aoi facepalmed. "Great. I'm worse at keeping secrets than Chie-chan is." Shaking her head, she continued. "Anyway, a few years ago, when I told one of our other friends about that, she started acting the same way towards us for a while, like she was expecting us to jump her at any time. It was funny but kinda painful, and anyway, she got over it eventually. But the thing is, that's almost exactly the same way that Nao-san was acting ... and there's no way that she could know about me, because, like I said, we don't talk much. At all."

"I see. So it's kind of strange that she's getting along so well with Mikoto," Mai said, mind racing.

"Kind of," Aoi agreed.

Try very, thought Mai. And it's stranger than you know, since Mikoto is, well, Mikoto is the way that she is, too. Mai decided that she was going to have to keep an eye on the two of them.

---

"I think I'm going to need your help again tonight," Nao said, quietly.

"Okay," Mikoto agreed.

"You haven't told anyone about it, have you?"

Mikoto shook her head in silence.

"Good. Don't. It's just between you and me and the two of them."

"And them," Mikoto added.

"And them," Nao agreed, with another cold smile.