From: mew3point14@doramail.com (Daniel Snyder)

"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful bride. She knew love, and she 
knew what it was to be loved. But she was proud, too, and resolved not to 
give herself to anyone.

"On day of her wedding, she was dressed in her most beautiful gown and 
surrounded by everyone she loved. But she frowned, because she was 
proud and she had only half-chosen her husband-to-be. Although she 
knew him by the word of others, she had never seen his face.

"'Smile and love your husband,' they all shouted, 'smile and love your 
husband.' And the longer she did not smile, the louder they shouted, and 
the more impatient everyone became.

"Finally, she swallowed her pride and smiled weakly. In that moment, her 
bridegroom came to her. She saw him for the first time.

"He was beautiful to look upon, and charming in his bearing. Willingly, 
she smiled then. Willingly, she married him.

"What was the name of the bride?"
--
Faced with a challenge that seems insurmountable, humans are forced to 
submit or innovate. Suzuhara Touji found veins of courage inside of 
himself. The right side of his body was still practically useless, but his left 
side was growing stronger. Also, his prostheses functioned as 
counterweights. For longer and longer blocks of time, as he practiced, he 
could hobble about on his left leg. Shinji found him a cane. Soon, driven 
by his yearning for freedom, Touji was walking about on the cane, using 
his right leg as a counterweight.

Two mornings after the fourth Duel, Touji went next door to pay Sohryu 
Asuka Langley a social call. He knocked on her door. There was no 
response, as he expected. "I'm coming in," he said. Shifting his weight 
gently onto both of his feet, Touji turned the handle and pushed the door 
ajar. He swung it wide open with his cane and hobbled inside the room.

It was dark. The only light came through the heavy curtains drawn across 
the outside window. An aura of midday sun silhouetted Asuka's profile. 
She was sitting upright in her bed, supported by her pillows, with her 
right side towards Touji. Her hands were clasped on top of the bedclothes. 
Something was wrong with her face's profile--it was the bandage, sticking 
out into the air, obscene.

"Asuka?" Touji said. "You awake?"

He received no reply. Though apprehensive, Touji switched on the ceiling 
light. Instantly, the room was awash with all different flavors of color and 
the magic of perspective. But faster than he had been able to follow, 
Asuka had turned away from him, curling her legs and drawing up the 
thin blanket on her bed. Her face was to the window. She said something 
incomprehensible into the glass pane.

"What was that?" Touji asked, knowing that whatever she had said was 
directed towards him.

"Go 'way," she said. It was a voice of dried bone.

Undeterred, Touji made his way further inside. "Just wanted to see how 
ya were doing, that's all...fact is, it gets boring around here most times, 
and I needed to give m'self somethin' to do. I'll be around here all day, 
'round and about."

"Go away," she said for the fifth time. It was the first iteration that had any 
volume to it. Asuka's shoulders were hunched. She had pulled her hands 
up to her chest. The girl was curling into herself.

Touji read the language and sighed. He had tried, and he had failed, to get 
her out of her shell. There was nothing more he could do.

"Well, I'll be seein' ya later."

"Go away."

"Let me know if you need anything, OK?"

"Go away."

"Bye."

Touji hobbled back into the hallway and shut the door closed without 
incident. At the window, pulling her body tighter and tighter inward like 
the chemicals of life itself, Sohryu Asuka Langley drew into a womb built 
by her own mind. She was whispering something over and over again, 
babbling softly at the cusp of human hearing. The words she spoke were 
incomprehensible. They only served as instinctive wards against the 
demons inside.
--
"You'll be next."

As soon as she saw her protege that afternoon, Akagi Ritsuko made the 
announcement. Still in her school uniform, standing at the doorway of her 
sempai's room, Ibuki Maya was taken aback at the venom in Akagi's 
voice, spirit and determination that focused on destruction.

Maya knew what Akagi was talking about, and that meant risking her life 
and limb. She counterattacked. "You're smoking again, sempai. You know 
you shouldn't be doing that, don't you?"

"Yes, I know I'm smoking. That's because I'm stressed." Ritsuko looked 
contemplatively at the burning cigarette between her fingers, then set it 
down in an ashtray. Her hair was in disarray. She was wearing only a 
nightshirt, panties and one slipper each from two different pairs. Her eyes 
were bleary. There was a dried smudge of something on her right cheek, 
makeup or food.

Returning her to the subject, Ritsuko said to Maya, "There's no two ways 
about it. Maya, you're the only person I can trust. I can't trust the 
president, I never have, not in all honesty. You'll have to be the next 
Duelist, and you have to win."

"But..."

Maya delicately entered the room and pulled the door closed behind her. 
"But sempai, you know that I'm not good with swords! Not Dueling...and 
I don't have any reason to challenge him."

"Well, make something up, you idiot!" Ritsuko snapped. "I don't care how 
you do it, it's all just a pretext anyway. But Ikari must be stopped, do you 
hear me? We have to stop him before his father can use him to gain 
control of the school!"

"Sempai, listen. You need to get ahold of yourself..."

"Shut the fuck up, Maya!" Ritsuko screamed, throwing the table in front of 
her to the side. Tears were brimming in her eyes, tears of unrestrained 
rage. "That bastard killed my mother! I don't care if they say it was a 
fucking suicide, or even if he has a fucking alibi, God damn it, HE was the 
one who pushed her to do it! You hear me? It's all his fucking fault! He 
made her do it! She was a beautiful, kind, loving mommy who just 
wanted to make the world a better place, and he just used her...her 
mind...body, maybe...oh dear God, I don't want him to be my father, not 
after all of this...you don't think he's my father, do you, Maya?"

Her furor had carried Ritsuko across the room, pinning her kohai up 
against one wall. With the outburst over, Maya found herself holding the 
older girl upright by the shoulders. Seizing the moment, Maya steered 
Ritsuko back across the room to her bed and seated her, feet on the floor.

"Sempai," Maya said delicately, "I'll do my best, all right? But I'm not as 
smart as you are, you know? I'll...I'll plan something! Yes, that's what I'll 
do. I'll plan something, I'll figure out what I can do, and then we'll talk 
about it again tomorrow, or maybe the next day. All right?"

"Fine, fine." Ritsuko dried her eyes on the short sleeves of her nightshirt, 
then reached for her pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit one cigarette 
and took a deep pull from it as Maya made to depart. Before her kohai 
could quite go, Ritsuko said, "Check on the vegetable before you take off, 
will you?"

Maya flinched. "You shouldn't call Misato-san a vegetable, sempai," she 
said  reproachfully. The older girl wasn't listening, and Maya closed the 
door.

Misato's room, a double with a single occupant, was a few doors down 
from Ritsuko's. Maya opened the door, taking care not to sound loud or 
disrespectful, and entered. Every light in the room was on: the ceiling 
lamp, the desk lamps, the lights in the adjoining rooms. Nightlights were 
plugged into every free socket. Katsuragi Misato was in between lucid 
moments. She sat in the center of the room in a chair, hunched slightly 
forward, with a blank expression on her face. Her forehead was hidden 
under the strips of white surgical tape that held her cracked skull in place.

"Hello, Misato?" Ibuki Maya said in a conversational tone. "Can you hear 
me? Can you understand me? How are you feeling today?"

No answer. Misato was unresponsive, breathing slowly, blinking twice a 
minute. Abandoning her hopes, Maya glanced around the room to make 
sure everything was in order. The room was clean enough. There was 
some junk food in bags on her desk. Misato would be fine for the time 
being.

Maya squatted by the invalid's side. "Misato, listen, I don't know if you 
can hear me. But if you can, and if you need anything, just let me, or any 
of the other girls know. We all want to help you, Misato. OK? OK?" She 
patted Misato's hand, then left, closing the door gently.
--
Maya went downstairs to her room, undressed, and put on her bathing 
suit. It was a black one-piece with a high neckline and a scooped bottom. 
Despite its modest cut, Maya hated to be seen with it on. She had no 
illusions that she would be stuck in an awkward 16-year-old body forever, 
but that didn't mean she liked what nature had given her. Making a face 
into the mirror, Maya turned away from it to her chest of drawers. She 
pulled on a muscle shirt and a pair of boy-cut shorts, and walked off 
across campus to the girls' swimming pool.

Feuervogel Academy, in its wisdom and financial solvency, had built 
separate swimming pools for the male and female students. After mid-
May, as the temperature grew warmer, the pools were open for 
recreational swim between the end of classes and dinner. Five of her 
friends were among those already present, and Maya happily joined them 
for a game of three-a-side water volleyball.

As the first set finished, Ayanami Rei arrived. This was of no surprise. 
When there was sunshine in the afternoon, Rei was a regular swimmer. 
Rei was not the kind to play with the other girls: she stayed in one of the 
three right-hand lanes that were reserved for lap swimming. The girls in 
her class knew that Rei was gifted with good technique and neutral 
buoyancy, but several attempts to get her into the swim club had met 
with failure. Why Rei swam so obsessively was anyone's guess. Perhaps 
she simply liked the feeling of the water.

Maya watched the scene unfolding and settled on a course of action. 
Excusing herself from the game, she intercepted Rei as the younger girl 
was preparing to kick off the shallow end's wall. Seeing another body in 
the swim lane, Rei drew up out of the water. "Ibuki-san, you are blocking 
my way," she said.

"I'm sorry, Rei, I just wanted to talk to you for a minute."

The exchange of body language that followed was quite odd. Maya had 
approached Rei in a businesslike manner, and Rei's attitude was her 
normal reserved and polite attitude. But then Maya happened to smile, 
reacting to the slight confusion Rei was going through; and the odd thing 
happened, Rei responded to Maya's smiling. The younger girl didn't smile 
in the strict sense of the word, but she did lift up her chin and relax the 
muscles of her face. Maya was startled by the change she saw.

"Is something the matter, Ibuki-san?"

"No, not at all, Rei. Shall we get out to talk?"

They spent a moment in the halfway pool, then rinsed themselves off in 
the shower. Both girls collected their towels, and Maya led Rei over to a 
warm sunny place a couple of meters from the side of the pool.

Breaking their silence, Maya asked, "How is Akumafune for you, Rei-
chan?"

"How do you mean?"

"Do you like living there? Is it warm at night? Are the utilities working 
well?"

"Yes."

Surprises came upon surprises. Rei had answered the question briefly as 
usual, but the way she was leaning forward and looking at Maya showed 
that she expected another question. Maya thought about what it might be, 
and asked, "What about Shinji?"

"Ikari-san has told me that he likes living there. I believe that he finds it 
warm enough at night. He has had no problems with the utilities that I 
know of."

Once again, Rei seemed to be hanging on the next question. Now lost, 
Maya tried a different approach. "Rei? Is there a question you would like 
to ask me?"

Rei nodded. "You do not mind if I ask you a question? Would you like 
that?"

"Rei-chan, you can ask me anything if it isn't too personal."

"Ikari-san says he likes it when I talk to him. I like to talk to him."

Maya was sincerely excited by the chance to talk to Rei. She felt as if she 
was exploring some new boundary of the girl's personality. Ayanami Rei 
had been as much an enigma to Ibuki Maya as to anyone at Feuervogel. 
Perhaps a time had come to demystify the enigma. A tiny voice in the 
back of her head told her that it would be a chance to get information on 
Ikari Shinji as well.

"What's your question, Rei-chan?"

"Do you like living in Kazarashi Dormitory, Ibuki-san?"

"Yes, I do...why do you ask?"

The eager energy that had been lurking behind Rei's mask was replaced 
by more apparent confusion. "I ask because you ask. Is that not how a 
conversation goes?"

"Um..." Mindful of the newness of Rei's feelings, Maya searched for the 
right words. "Well, it's one way to have a conversation. There's a lot of 
different ways."

Rei nodded again, and lowered her eyes. "It seems to me as though there 
are a lot of different ways to have conversations, Ibuki-san. That is, from 
my conversations with Ikari-san. And I do not know them all yet, and it is 
taking me a long time to learn them all."

Maya saw a golden opportunity placed before her. If Rei needed help with 
her social skills, then it would be a chance to get inside of Akumafune 
Dormitory. Once inside, all she had to do was look around until she saw 
something that wasn't in the rules. Then, she could challenge Ikari to a 
Duel over the housing problem, and...

_First things first._

"If you'd like someone to practice with, Rei-chan, I'd be happy to help," 
Maya said with a smile. "Just let me know when you'd like to talk, all 
right?"

"You would not mind?"

"Of course not!"

Rei thought for a moment, then asked, "Would you come and talk with 
me tomorrow night?"

"Tomorrow night...that's Friday? No, Saturday? That's fine with me. Can I 
come for dinner?"

"Dinner..." Rei said the word in her most excited voice. She stood, but kept 
her eyes fastened on the ground. "Dinner. This will be complicated. There 
will be another person at dinner. We will have to cook more food. There 
will be..."

"Oh, I can help you cook," Maya said cheerfully. "It's no problem. I'll bring 
some food with me."

"Food with you. Yes. Thank you, Ibuki-san. I am a vegetarian and do not 
eat meat, but if you bring something to eat, that will be less complicated."

"Terrific! This is going to be fun!" Maya declared. In her mind, however, 
she was planning her moves. Dinner meant that she would have a chance 
to see the kitchen. An industrial kitchen is governed by laws and 
regulations of incredible intricacy, lest the health of the individual be 
compromised; yet shortcuts and oversights are ever-present. Ibuki Maya 
was certain that some kind of violation could be found in Akumafune.
--
In the western sky, the sun kissed the horizon. The sky went from blue to 
red. Sky, building and shadow competed for the eye's attention across the 
center of Feuervogel's campus. Red, white, black. Inside of the 
greenhouse, the light coming in from outside was bent and distorted by 
the insulating glass panes. The view from inside was as if through an 
insect's eye.

"I wonder, I wonder...do you know what I wonder?"

"O rose, o rose...wherefore art thou, rose?"

"What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

"I like roses. I think that they're my favorite flower."

"Not especially interesting taxonomically, but from a sociological 
perspective, quite an interesting species. The 'War of the Roses', and all of 
that."

"Rokubungi Gendou likes roses, too."

"His wife's responsible, really. She was a botanist. She wrote a number of 
papers with a mycologist."

"Hm, he sounds like a 'fungi'."

"Rokubungi Gendou wrote me a letter about roses a very long time ago. 
But it was peculiar, what he said."

"Did he say that his experiments in energy conservation had worked?"

"Did he say that his wife loved him, and that he had betrayed her?"

"Not at all...what about it was that he wrote 'rose' with the character that 
means 'to break into pieces'."

"I wouldn't read too much into it."

"What's in a name, after all?"

"Well, for some reason I thought about Psalm 2, 'Thou shalt break them 
with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.'"
--
Night came, and the swash of stars went from horizon to horizon across 
the heavens. On top of Nagamara Dormitory were Aoba Shigeru and his 
roommate Tsuwabuki Mitsuru. Shigeru wore a long-sleeved shirt and 
slacks, comfortable in the summer night air. Tsuwabuki had a blanket 
over his shoulders and was blushing hot underneath it.

Shigeru was making some final adjustments to his telescope. "I can't 
remember when it was I started thinking about circles...but ever since I 
was a kid, I can remember thinking about how cool it was that they had a 
beginning and an end, or no beginning and no end...and how it was that 
you, or me, or whoever, could decide where to begin."

Tsuwabuki made a responsive grunt from under his blanket.

"You know what your problem is?" Shigeru replied. "You don't ever really 
stand up for anything. You just take other people's opinions and use them 
as your own. You heard me talking with Hyuuga-sempai earlier, and how 
he disrespected metaphysics. Now you're copying his attitude. 
Tomorrow, when you see him, you'll be going off on how cool 
astronomy is, but you won't be thinking about it."

"Leave me alone," Tsuwabuki shot back. It was a very common thing to 
say to Aoba Shigeru. He pulled his blanket closer. "All right, I'll give you 
an opinion. I'm happy. There. That's it, my opinion. And...ah, how's the 
telescope going?"

"Fine, fine. I'll show you Deneb while it's still pretty high in the sky." 
Shigeru was doing a little dance from the main telescope to its sighting 
partner and back. The telescope was a squat Newtonian type, bright red 
in color, on top of a sturdy wooden tripod. "Then, when we've seen 
that...Vega should...there we go!"

Shigeru stepped back from the telescope to allow Tsuwabuki a view. In 
the center of the field of view was a very bright star, flanked to the east 
by three dimmer stars. All four were obscured by a bright white band 
that scooped across the sky, out of the western horizon into the east. 
"That white stuff's the Milky Way, isn't it?" asked Tsuwabuki.

"Yep. Home sweet home."

Tsuwabuki had nothing more to add. After a few moments more he 
stepped away from the telescope. Shigeru stepped up to it and began the 
process of focusing it on the star Vega.

Then a newcomer joined them on the roof. It was Hyuuga Makoto, the 
Student Council treasurer. He was still dressed in his school uniform, but 
carried his coat over one shoulder. His limbs were twitching, and he was 
sweating visibly. Tsuwabuki looked very nervously at him, but Hyuuga 
paid it no mind.

"Good evening, Aoba-san," Hyuuga said politely.

"Same to you, Makoto-sempai," Shigeru replied. He stepped up from the 
telescope proud and smug. "Come to buy a fix?"

"Er...ah, yes." Hyuuga clearly resented having to be so blunt. The way he 
swallowed his own saliva showed that he very much wanted the drug in 
question.

"That'll be 2500 yen, then," the younger boy stated. He began digging in 
his telescope case. "And do you have the needle from last time?"

"No, sorry, I couldn't find it." Hyuuga was thumbing through a billfold. 
"2500? The price has gone up again?"

"That's without the needle deposit, you remember," Shigeru observed, 
"because you don't have the needle I gave you to clean up. That'll be an 
extra 1000. And..."

Hyuuga glanced up from his bankroll, grimacing. "And...?"

"And..." Shigeru held in his hands a small black case. He stepped away 
from the telescope in front of his roommate. Tsuwabuki kept his eyes 
fastened on the rooftop. "And, I want you to kiss Mitsuru here."

"Mitsuru?"

"Yes."

"All right." Holding bills in his hand, Hyuuga walked across the roof and 
kneeled down at Tsuwabuki's right-hand side. Putting his hand on the left 
side of the boy's face to steady himself, he kissed Tsuwabuki on the cheek. 
It was strong enough to be a genuine kiss, yet there was no sense of 
intimacy behind it. The younger boy's face stayed expressionless, almost 
dazed.

"Thank you," Shigeru said softly. He took Hyuuga's money and put it into 
his pocket, then opened up the case and held it out. Inside was a glass 
hypodermic needle with a fresh tip and a length of rubber tubing. The 
hypodermic held 5 cubic centimeters of an unidentifiable clear liquid.

Hyuuga took out the needle and placed it by his feet. He next took out the 
rubber tubing and tied a slip knot into one end, then cinched it tight 
around his right bicep. Holding the end of the tube in his mouth, he 
picked up the needle in his left hand. He tapped the body of the needle 
twice with his right middle finger, then depressed the plunger, sending a 
small stream of the liquid into the air.

Constricted, the veins in his right arm had begun to bulge, erupting out of 
the skin like blue vipers. Hyuuga aligned the needle's tip with the medial 
vein in his arm. Pausing for the pain, he stuck the needle down below the 
skin into the blood vessel. He drew back the plunger, drawing blood up 
into the body of the needle; it splashed through the clear liquid in a ruby 
wave. And then he jammed the plunger, driving the venom inside of him. 
He let the tube go free, and his heart was once again pushing blood 
around his forearm. The vicious chemical inside of him ran rampant all 
throughout his body.

Shigeru watched the older boy sigh with relief and drop down onto the 
roof. "Feel good to have some poison in ya?" he asked.

Hyuuga nodded. A few moments later, he said, "I needed that. Oh sweet 
heaven...I feel so good now. I feel halfway to invincible. Halfway to God."

"Is that so?" Shigeru smiled gently. "Mitsuru-kun, would you like to look 
in the telescope?" The boy rose and ambled over to study the heavens. 
Shigeru sat down by Hyuuga's side and said quietly, "I bet you anything, 
though, that Ikari Shinji would whip your ass."

"Ikari," Hyuuga snorted. "What does that little fuck know about 
anything?"

"There's no question," Shigeru went on, "that he's a good swordsman. 
Brilliant, even. But he's a threat to school security, and we both know that. 
You should stop him, Makoto-sempai."

"Eh? How?"

Shigeru placed his chin on Hyuuga's shoulder. "Oh, I'm sure you can find 
some irregularity in the school budget and blame it on him. Isn't that your 
job? To find out where all the money goes?"

"..."

"It's you're responsibility to make sure that the school's student budget is 
spent wisely," Makoto whispered. "And everyone's got to look out for the 
people underneath them, don't they?"

"Fine. Fuck it, I'll do it." Hyuuga stood and brushed off his seat. "I'll do 
whatever it takes. Damn, I hate this job sometimes."

"Not staying to go stargazing?" Shigeru said, but Hyuuga was already 
leaving.

Nonplussed, Shigeru returned to the telescope. Tsuwabuki Mitsuru 
moved uneasily away from the telescope. "That was rather...um...sneaky, 
Shigeru-kun," he said. "Are you sure you should be encouraging other 
people like that?"

"It's the price I pay for my business," Shigeru said with a shrug. "The 
President looks the other way, and I do a favor for him now and again. I 
think it works well for us both...don't you?"