I have a message from another time... Eyrie Productions, Unlimited presents UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 3 - Fifth Movement: Sophomore Slump Benjamin D. Hutchins with Pearson Mui Martin Rose (c) 2002 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited The campus of the Deedlit Satori Mandeville Memorial Institute was relatively quiet on this last Thursday of August. Most of the students had arrived in the two days before, so by Thursday afternoon, they were settled in for the most part, their parents and guardians gone back home. They mainly spent the day relaxing, strolling around the campus, and meeting other students - the freshmen taking it all in, the upperclassmen reacquainting themselves with their school and each other. On the fourth floor of the largest, most central of the residences, Hannibal Hamlin Hall, Tom Palmer lay on his bed and leafed through a magazine, killing time. Of the other students on his floor, everyone had arrived over the previous two days except the one single room at the end of the hall. He was just about to get up and look out the window to see if he could spot any activity up at the Duelists' Castle when there was a knock on his door. Since the door was open, the person doing the knocking was able to lean in at the same time. "Hey, Tom, 'dja hear?" asked Carrie Kimball, a junior who had the dubious honor of being the RA for the floor full of sophomores one flight down. "Hear what?" Tom wondered. "Clarissa Broadbank's not comin' back this year," said the half-Andorian girl with a broad grin. "It's all over my floor." Tom sat up, tossing the magazine aside. "No kidding?" he asked. "For real," Carrie replied, nodding vigorously enough to set her antennae bobbing. "You really didn't know?" "Clarissa and I sort of had a falling out last year," Tom reminded her. "She doesn't exactly keep me posted on what's going on in her life." Carrie giggled. "Oh, sha, I forgot - when you decided you liked hangin' with the Duelists better, you dumped 'er." Tom went a little red. "Well, it wasn't -exactly- like that, but... " "So you don't know the -really- good part!" bubbled Carrie. Tom found her way of imparting news a bit irritating, but she took such obvious delight in it that he couldn't really hold it against her. Instead he sighed and played along: "No. What's the really good part?" "She's not comin' back 'cause she got -arrested- last weekend!" Tom blinked. "Arrested?!" he blurted. "What for?" "Arson," said Carrie, beaming with pride at being the first one to convey this critical intelligence. "What?!" said Tom, incredulous. "'S what I heard," Carrie protested. "Jinea in 304, her Uncle Gred lives in New Avalon, right? She says he told her Clarissa burned down a church or sump'n." Tom gave her a cockeyed look. "That's -nuts-," he said. "Yeah, well, I never thought she was the sharpest tool in the shed, you know what I'm sayin'?" Carrie replied with an offhanded shrug. "Anyway, me and some of the girls are gonna go down to Celestial P and celebrate. You wanna come with?" "Nah, thanks," Tom replied. "I just ate... " He got up and looked out his window, then felt his day looking up further. There was activity up at the Castle. Carrie caught the look, laughed, and said, "Sure, 'nother time. Catch you onna flip side, Tombo." Tom shook his head. "'Tombo'?" he muttered to himself with a combination of amusement and irritation. "Oh well... I suppose it's better than 'Tommy'." Not for the first time, he wondered where Carrie learned her Standard. Not that he really had time to worry about that right now. He looked in the mirror on the door of his wardrobe, made sure he was presentable, then locked up his room and headed up the hill. His instincts were good; he arrived at the Duelists' rose garden, in the small glass house next to the Castle, to find its proprietor in residence. Anthy Tenjou was conducting a careful inspection of her roses; though she trusted the man in whose care she'd left them, she nevertheless wanted to see for herself that all was well in her little domain. "Welcome back!" he said from the door; she paused in her inspection of the big bush of white roses in the center of the greenhouse and turned to greet him. "Hello, Tom," she said, smiling. She looked a little different than she had last spring - not in a bad way, never that, but there was something about her that had changed, and it took him a moment to realize what it was. "Oh!" he said. "You got glasses!" Anthy nodded, reaching up to adjust her slim silver frames a little, still smiling. "It turns out I'm a little farsighted," she told him. "Did you have a good summer?" "Oh, decent," Tom replied. "Nothing much happened, I just worked on my dad's farm and all." He grinned. "I kept up with your summer on the Net, though. Sounds like you guys had quite a trip." "It had its moments," Anthy said modestly. She could have guessed what young Mr. Palmer had spent his summer doing, for he had the look about him. He was tanned, his brown hair lightened a few shades by the sun, and his arms had obviously been doing some work in the past few months. He had an air of health and fitness about him that was only come by through hard work in the open air. Utena echoed all those thoughts when she stepped into the doorway behind Tom and said, "OK, I've got everything - well, hey, kid! How's it going? Jeez, look at you! You look... -tough-." Tom turned around, blushing a little, and said, "Oh, I dunno about -that-, Miss Utena." He knew, of course, that it wasn't accurate to call either Tenjou "miss"; he was perfectly well aware of their relationship. He felt awkward calling anyone as young and beautiful as Anthy "Mrs. Tenjou," though; worse, according to the way they identified themselves as husband and wife, convention would have him calling Utena "Mr. Tenjou", and -that- notion would just not make it all the way through his brain. So he called them both "miss" as a compromise. They would have preferred to dispense with titles altogether, but Tom had been brought up too polite for that, and so they humored him, hoping he would eventually wear out of it. "I've just been out in the sun a lot, is all," he went on, smiling self-consciously. "I can see that," said Utena with a grin. "And you're growing like a weed, too," she added. Punching him in the shoulder lightly, she said, "You must be breaking hearts all through Hamlin Hall already." Tom grinned, embarrassed, as he often was by Utena's cheery bluntness. "I, uh, don't think so," he said. "Listen," he went on, trying to change the subject, "I've been hearing some really weird rumors about Clarissa Broadbank. Do you guys know anything?" Utena looked thoughtful. "What'd you hear?" "One of the other RAs down at Hamlin was saying she burned down a church or something in New Avalon." "Ah, the campus rumor mill," said Anthy nostalgically. "I see it works about as well here as back home. No, Tom, she didn't burn down a church - but she did apparently hire someone to start a fire in the Colosseum." Tom turned back to face her, blinking in shock. "Really?" "We were there," Utena told him. "She was trying to wreck the Art of Noise's last concert on the tour. Some of us from the Valiant stopped the guy she hired before he could set off the firebomb." Palmer went to the bench along the far wall and sat down, his face almost blank. "I can't believe it," he murmured. "I mean... I knew she was... mean, and vindictive, and she hated Miss Kaitlyn, but... " He looked up at the two Tenjous, appalled. "I read about the size of that crowd. People... people could have been -killed-!" Utena nodded. "Yup. You ask me, Clarissa's cracked a little. Her daddy put her in above her weight class and she couldn't handle it." "Utena," said Anthy in an admonishing tone. "The poor girl needs help, not scorn." Utena shrugged. "I'm not as forgiving as you, love," she replied matter-of-factly. "It's one of my many flaws. I just can't forgive someone who would take that kind of a chance with total strangers' lives just to make my best friend miserable." Anthy shook her head and tsk'd. "I think it's all very, very sad," she said. "I won't argue that," Utena agreed. "So... so what happened to her?" asked Tom. "The cops busted her for conspiracy to commit arson," Utena told him. "The Avalon County DA could probably tack on reckless endangerment, too. I wonder how much jail time 80,000 counts of reckless endangerment adds up to? Not that it matters - she won't do any. Her daddy's lawyers will see to that. She's not coming back here, though, not with an arrest record." She sighed. "Which means she's Corwin's problem again this year... " "I just hope whoever handles her case is able to get her the help she needs," said Anthy. Utena nodded and let it pass; the disposition of this particular case was something she and her bride were just never going to be able to agree on. Instead of stewing about it, she said apologetically, "Sorry, Tom... didn't mean to put a damper on your day, but there's not really any way to dress that up... " "No, it's OK, Miss Utena. After all, I asked." He got up from the bench. "Anyway, uh... welcome back! This is your last year, isn't it? Oh - Miss Anthy, did you... ?" Anthy smiled. "Not easily, but I managed," she said. "I'll graduate next May with Utena and the others." "Well, congratulations, then!" he said, beaming; then he went on, "The only downside, I guess, is that it means after this year you'll be... gone." "Oh," said Anthy lightly, picking up her watering can, "I think we might manage to come back now and again, to see how our Castle is getting on without us... " "That reminds me," said Utena. "You're an RA this year, right?" Tom nodded. "Hamlin Fourth, the freshman floor," he said. "Why?" "Kate wants to see about getting some new blood into the Duelists' Society," Utena explained, "so that it carries on after we leave. Right now we've only got two members who aren't seniors, B'Elanna Torres and Mimi Shinguuji. We're planning on having an open house Saturday afternoon, after President Tiefeld's welcome speech. You want to spread the word on your floor, see if any of the new kids want to come by and check it out?" "Sure, I'd be glad to," Tom replied. He spied movement through one of the glass panels of the greenhouse and added, "Though I think one of them might be doing that a little ahead of schedule." Utena turned to glance in that direction, then went to get a closer look. Tom and Anthy followed, intrigued. A pair of humans they didn't recognize were coming up the hill toward the Castle's front entrance. One of them was clearly a student - a freshman by his build, small and lean, with curly black hair, dressed in jeans and a blue shirt with a V-collar. The other was a grown man, most likely his father, a stocky, powerfully built fellow with the same black hair cropped close and greying at the temples, and a strong face with a nose that had been broken a time or two. "Hi," said Utena as the two came up onto the Castle's front steps. "Can I help you?" The man smiled. "Well, not me, so much," he said in a deep voice touched with a hint of an accent - British, maybe, or one of the colonies. He put a hand on the boy's shoulder and said, "My son wanted to see if any of the Duelists were at home." "We're just getting back in," Utena replied. "I'm the Society's vice-president, Utena Tenjou." "I know who you are," said the boy, cheery confidence in his still-piping voice. "You were in all the papers." He cocked his head and added, "I figured you'd be taller." Utena laughed. "Than what?" she asked. "C'mon up. There's not much going on right now, everybody's just moving their stuff in, but I can give you the nickel tour of the Castle if you want. Are you a freshman? I don't think I saw you around last year." "Yup," the boy replied. "Just got in today. My name's Boba, by the way. Boba Fett. This's my dad," he added, angling a thumb at the man standing behind him. "Nice to meet you, Boba, Mr. Fett," said Utena, offering her hand to both in turn. "Please, Captain Tenjou - Jango," said the father as he returned her handshake firmly. "Well, OK, but you have to call me Utena," she told him as they all climbed the steps together. "I'm retired from the captain business for the time being. This is my wife Anthy, and our friend Tom Palmer." "You're married?" said Boba, his eyebrows going up. "Cool," he added, shaking Anthy's hand. "Well," said Anthy with a wry little smile, "I'm glad you think so." "Are you a Duelist too, Mr. Palmer?" asked Jango as the five of them went into the Castle's entrance hall. "Me? No, sir," said Tom. "I never picked up any skills that would make a Duelist of me. I just come by to help Miss Anthy with her roses sometimes. I live in Hannibal Hamlin Hall - I'm the Resident Advisor for the fourth floor." "Well, then you and Boba should get to know each other quite well," said Jango with a smile. "He's on your floor." "Oh, -you're- my late arrival!" Tom declared, grinning. "Me 'n Dad got a little tied up out on the Rim last weekend," Boba replied nonchalantly. "One of those pain in the butt jobs. Otherwise we'd have been here Tuesday." "What do you do?" asked Utena. "We're bounty hunters!" said Boba proudly. "Private investigators," his father corrected him gently. "Well, yeah," Boba said, "but the bounty work puts the bread on the table, right Dad?" "That's true," conceded Jango, "but I don't want to give your new friends the wrong idea. A lot of people can't tell the difference between a bounty hunter and an assassin - especially the assassins," he added with a wry grimace. Then he smiled again and added, "You don't want your schoolmates to think your father's one of those faceless killers, do you?" "No way!" Boba replied. "I want 'em to know you're the best hunter ever." "I think your Uncle Fenn might argue that point," said Jango dryly, "and I -know- Gally would. But for the sake of the discussion, I'll stipulate to it," he went on, ruffling the boy's hair. "We should let your new friends talk now. This is their place, after all. We're their guests." "Oh, right. Sorry," said Boba to Utena. "Are you guys having tryouts anytime soon?" "Well, we were just talking about that, actually," Utena replied as she led the way into the main dojo. "We don't really do 'tryouts', as such, but we're having an open house this Saturday... " SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2406, 11:08 AM WORLD WIDE BUILDING THE MILLRACE, NEW AVALON ZETA CYGNI DYSON SPHERE Corwin Ravenhair tossed his overnight bag onto his dining table and strolled into the living area of his studio apartment, flipping through Saturday's mail. He found nothing to interest him there, other than the dubious and abstract pleasure of wondering how it was that junk mailers had already found him when he'd been in the place only a little more than a week. With a sigh, he got up, tossed the junk mail in the trash, and considered his lunch prospects. Grocery shopping was the one moving-in activity he hadn't tackled yet. He considered for a few moments, weighing whether to get down and do that this afternoon, or leave it until later. He knew he ought to do it now; if he didn't, he wouldn't want to do it after school, and he wouldn't be home Friday or Saturday, so it would wait until -next- Sunday... The intercom panel next to the door leading to the elevator buzzed, jarring him out of his calculations. He went and looked through the peephole in the door, expecting to see his father or Kei coming to see if he was home from Jeraddo yet. Instead, he saw the face of Kozue Kaoru, New Avalon's only Cephirean transplant. He reached to his right and thumbed the intercom on. "Hi," he said. "Hi," Kozue replied. Corwin wasn't sure - the light in the elevator vestibule wasn't the best - but it struck him that something was bothering her. "Can I come in?" "Sure," he replied. He unlocked the door and opened it. As Kozue entered, he was surprised to see that she was carrying a large duffel bag in addition to her usual utility pack. To his raised eyebrow, she asked, "Look, uh... can I crash here tonight?" "Uh... sure," Corwin replied. "I thought you were staying with the Roses." "I was," Kozue replied. "I'm not any more." Corwin blinked. "O... K," he said. "Did you have a fight or something?" He found that kind of hard to picture - Martin and Eiko Rose were about the most laid-back people he knew, which was one of the reasons why Kozue had been staying with them. The Rose household was the unofficial Crescent Heights youth hostel-cum-foster home and had been for quite some number of years. "No," Kozue replied; she went to the end of the couch, dropped her duffel, and then came back and said glumly, "That's why I'm here - I left before we could have one." Corwin looked more confused than before. "Well, look, I have to go grocery shopping," he said. "Come give me a hand with it and we'll see if I can't get you to put that in a form I can understand... " Kozue was mostly silent through the shopping trip, and while Corwin cooked lunch she sat on one of the sofas and listlessly surfed through the channels on the TV. Corwin thought this over while he fixed lunch. It was generally unlike her to be so subdued, even in a bad mood. Bad moods tended to just make her grouchy. A couple of times, he considered asking what was wrong, but decided each time to leave it until after lunch. What he'd really have liked to do was call the Rose house and find out from them what the hell was going on, but with Kozue here there was no really discreet way of doing that. So Corwin quashed his natural curiosity and busied himself making lunch, setting the table, playing the host. Kozue presently gave up on the TV, switched it off, and sat on the couch in a brown study until Corwin touched her shoulder. "Huh?" she asked, turning. "I said lunch is ready," he told her, smiling. The blue-haired girl shook off her mood as best she could, came back to reality, and got up, crossing the big, wide-open studio to the corner by the kitchen Corwin had staked out for the dining area. There, she received a bit of a surprise. Having paid no attention at all to Corwin's preparations for lunch, she was unprepared to find the table fully set, but set it was, and already decked out. The main thing on the table was a big pot of pasta - tortelloni, by the look of it - slathered in marinara sauce and steaming. There was also a sliced-up loaf of garlic bread, shakers of various things, and a large bowl of salad. Kozue blinked at the spread, turned to Corwin, and blinked again. Grinning, he shrugged. "Aunt Bell taught me not to skimp when company comes," he said. "What do you want to drink?" "Uh... Pepsi," said Kozue. "Ice?" "Sure." Corwin filled the order and got one for himself, then sat down and started mixing the salad dressing. "Have a seat, dig in," he said. The gesture brought the first smile to Kozue's face Corwin had seen today, and he was glad of it as she got herself a bowl of salad and then dished some of the tortelloni onto her plate. She used a lot of powdered cheese, he noticed, and wondered if that was a Cephirean taste or just a coincidence. "Mm!" said Kozue after her first bite of the tortelloni. "This is delicious, Corwin. What's in it?" "Pepperoni and cheese," Corwin replied. "But I can't take too much credit, all I did was boil it." "Some people can't even get that right," Kozue replied. "Me, for instance." She sighed. "I can't seem to get much of anything right lately. Maybe I should've gone back home." Corwin dashed some more cheese on his own plate, put the shaker down, looked across the table, and said, "I'm not going to be a pain about it, but if you want to talk... " He shrugged. Kozue smiled wanly. "Not much to talk about," she replied, then went back to eating. They didn't talk much during the meal, except for Kozue's pleased expression of surprise when, pasta and bread finished off, Corwin broke out the ice cream. "I'd better not stop by here for meals often," she remarked as they put their dishes in the sink, "or I'll weigh about 400 pounds by the end of the year." "That'll be the day," Corwin replied with a mild smirk. Kozue's light build had become something of a joke between them during her spaceflight training, when they'd had to use her weight, such as it was, for a baseline figure in some emergency hyperspace mass calculations. "I suppose it's not that bad for me," she reflected. "After all, I am still a growing girl... " Her jocular tone died away as she curled up in one of the armchairs in the living-room area, and she grew pensive again. Corwin, shrugging internally, plunked down on the nearer of the two couches and opened up his book. Mr. Fujisawa, literature teacher extraordinaire, had leaked his classes' reading lists ahead of schedule, so Corwin was getting a jump on the coursework. He found it oddly ironic that the first book in the year's syllabus was a twentieth-century novel called "The Name of the Rose". Catching sight of the title at the top of the righthand pages sometimes made it hard to concentrate. He was about ten pages into it and had just formed the preliminary suspicion that he wasn't going to enjoy it much when Kozue said, "It's just that I can't stand being mothered." His cue having arrived, Corwin dogeared the page, put down the book, and tilted his head. "Mm?" he replied. "We haven't talked much about my life before the Grand Tournament," Kozue mused. "Except for the stuff with me and Miki, the Great Piano Disaster and all that." Corwin nodded. "Well... our parents are rich, y'know. Really rich. The Kaoru Group is one of the most powerful banking firms in Nihonia, so from the time Miki and I were born, our parents could give us everything they thought we needed or wanted." She sighed, folded her arms, and continued, "I guess they thought that excused them from having to love us. "Not that I should really take that personally, I guess," she went on, rolling her eyes. "I don't think they love anybody. Certainly not each other. Oh, they praised Miki all the time - he was the genius, the one who shone, the dutiful son. I was a pain in the ass. The only person I ever gave a damn about pleasing was him. So I guess I earned some of it, but... " She paused, then made a dismissive gesture. "Never mind. Anyway, the point is, my own mother never mothered me, so why should anyone else?" Corwin raised an eyebrow and said carefully, "In a lot of people, that kind of thing would cause a need for -everybody- to." Kozue laughed with only a touch of bitterness. "I guess I just gotta be me, then," she said, "like always. I can't stand it. It gets on my nerves. Even more so because I know it's not meant to bother me, it's meant to be helpful. I imagine a lot of people think what you just said, that I'd -want- a mother figure after not having one for so long. "I mean, I'm sure that's what Mrs. Rose thinks. 'Poor girl, alone in a strange world. I'll take care of her as if she were my own.' But that's just exactly what I don't want. I can't take it. It makes me angry, and I don't -want- to be angry at Mrs. Rose. I know she means well about it, and I realized this morning that if I stayed in that house much longer, I'd eventually snap at her and hurt her feelings... so... " She shrugged. "So I'm darkening your doorstep, 'cause I don't know where else to turn." Corwin looked serious. "You don't have to turn anywhere else," he told her. "You're my friend. My door's open to friends, always." He grinned. "I'll try not to mother you too much while you're here." Kozue snickered. "You always know the right thing to say," she noted. "It's just dumb luck," Corwin replied dismissively. "I've never known how to talk to women. Just ask Utena. I think the first thing I said to her was 'Uhhhh... '" "She told me once it was 'No, Cleveland.'" Corwin pondered that for a moment, then snorted with laughter. "Y'know, I think it was. I got -lost- in freaking Cleveland that day." Something Kozue had said, or not said, a few moments before occurred to him then, and he backtracked slightly. "Did you tell the Roses you were leaving?" "Just that I was going out. I figured I should make sure I had a place to stay before I burned the bridge." Kozue looked a bit worried. "Plus I'm not sure how to put it so it won't be just as bad as what I'm trying to prevent. I mean, how stupid does that sound? 'I'm leaving because if I stay you're going to piss me off being so nice to me.' Makes me sound even more mental than I am." "You want me to take care of it?" "I feel funny dumping my problems on other people. On the other hand, you've known 'em a lot longer... " Corwin nodded. "Don't worry about it. Eiko'll understand. She's just used to adopting any kid who crosses her door, that's all." Kozue quirked a small smile. "Including you?" "Hey, when you've got chronically-busy parents who -don't- do the hands-off approach, she makes a terrific aunt, at least." He moved to the other end of the couch, picked up the phone, and dialed from memory. "Roses," came the laconic tones of Martin Rose. "Hi, Marty, it's Corwin." "Oh, hey, speak of the recently-mentioned person. Have you seen Kozue today?" "Yeah, uh... she's here." "Ah. Well, guess I dump that on the 'mysteries solved' pile. If you know when she's coming back I can call it a clean sweep and hit Gordon up for a raise." "Uh... well, she's sort of not." "Oh, right. Pardon me for seeming a bit dense here," said Martin calmly, "but... what the?" "Well, she... mm... look, I'd probably better explain it to Eiko." "Ohhh... kaythen," Rose replied, and Corwin could just picture the look on his face as he said it. "Hang on. Hon! Teleo-phone." There was a murmured conversation (Corwin couldn't make out the words, but guessed it to be a standard "who is it?" exchange), and then Eiko's voice came brightly across the line: "Corwin, hi! How's the last day before school?" "Kind of surreal, thanks," Corwin replied. "So Kozue ended up there with you?" "Yeah. She's waving hi right now," he added, since she was, albeit weakly. "Oh. Well, we missed her at lunch; I thought she was just going down the street or something. Do you know if she's planning to be home for dinner?" "Well, um... she's not." "Oh? What's the matter? Is she - " Eiko's voice took on a tone of slightly chiding suspicion. "CORwin. Are you - " "No!" Corwin blurted, and Kozue had to stifle a snicker at his expression. "No, no, nothing like that. It's just, well... she feels bad, she doesn't want to hurt your feelings, but she thinks if she stays there... she doesn't think her personality would mesh well with yours, living under your roof, in the long run." "It's not her," Kozue insisted, then looked annoyed with herself, got up, and took the phone from Corwin. "Shouldn't have done that by proxy," she said, "it was gutless of me. Look, Mrs. Rose, it's not you, OK, so please don't think it is. It's just that... well, I've been pretty much on my own since I was five, and... I think I'm a little too independent to coexist with you. You're a really nice person and it was good of you to offer to take me in, but... you're very... mothering. And that's not bad, it really isn't, but it's not... not... " She made a helpless gesture, fumbling for a word. "(Compatible?)" Corwin suggested. "(Yes, thank you.) Not -compatible- with... well, with -me-. Am I... am I making any sense?" Eiko, who had remained silent through that whole speech, took a moment to collect her thoughts and then replied slowly, "I think so. Well... " She sighed, then continued at a more normal pace, "I'm sorry it didn't work out, but I do understand what you mean." Kozue sagged a little with relief. "I'm so glad to hear you say that," she said. "I really don't want to hurt your feelings. I do like you... I just... don't think I can live with you. There's really no good way to put that, is there," she added ruefully. Eiko chuckled. "It's all right, dear. Really, I understand. Rei was the same way once she found herself. Only - where will you go now? You won't be staying with Corwin permanently, will you?" "Oh, no," Kozue replied, laughing. "Are you kidding? Cramp his bachelor style?" (Corwin rolled his eyes.) "The Utonium sisters offered me space when I was first talking about coming here this year, and they don't -have- a mother, so... " "Technically, I suppose," said Eiko, "but they do have Hank, and from what the girls tell me, he can be just as bad." "I dunno about that," Kozue replied. "I hear he's a lot like Corwin." "(If Corwin lost half his freakin' marbles, maybe,)" came Martin's muffled voice in the background. Kozue suppressed another laugh, since it was pretty clear she wasn't supposed to have heard that, nor Eiko chiding him for the barb, come to that. "Well, good luck," said Eiko, trying not to sound dubious and not quite succeeding. "I do hope you'll at least visit. You may not live here, but you're always welcome... " "Oh, don't worry, I'll be around," said Kozue, grinning. "What kid in the circle I'll be running in doesn't stop by Chez Rose?" Eiko laughed, relieved. "That's good to know. Um, it may be too early," she went on, "but if you and Corwin would like to come by for dinner tonight, we're having belgad stew from his father's recipe." "Hold on a second - Corwin, you want to go over to the Roses' for dinner? They're having your dad's belgad stew recipe." "Sure beats our current plan," said Corwin. "Should I bring anything?" "Should we bring anything?" "Just your appetites," Eiko replied. "What time?" "Oh, sevenish, I guess. Stew isn't an exact science, so we can start anytime after six-thirty or so." "OK... we just finished lunch, so seven sounds good." "Then it's settled! We'll see you then." "See you then," Kozue confirmed, nodding. "Oh, and Mrs. Rose... thanks." "I thought I told you before," said Eiko with a smile in her voice, "you can call me Eiko, all the kids do." "I didn't feel right about it when I was staying with you," Kozue said, "but now, OK. Thanks, Eiko." "You're welcome, dear. See you at seven. Bye now." "Bye." Kozue hung up the phone, then slumped back into the armchair with a sigh of relief. "Well! That went better than I thought it would." "Told you," said Corwin, grinning. "The Roses are pretty easy-going. Eiko's just the only homemaker on the block, so she's used to raising other people's kids." Then he got up, dusted down his pants, and inquired, "Would it cramp my bachelor style too much for you to help me with the dishes?" Kozue pretended to consider this, fingertip to the corner of her mouth, for a moment, then got to her feet. "I suppose not," she said, "but I'm drying." With nothing much else to do, Corwin and Kozue went up to Mathews Memorial Spaceport and tinkered on her old Headhunter for a few hours, then washed up and headed down to the Rose home on Morgan Lane. There they had a pleasant dinner; if Kozue had been worried about any lingering awkwardness, she needn't have, for there wasn't any. Afterward, the Roses wished them luck, Kozue in her search for new housing and both of them in their first day of school, and they got into Corwin's car and went back downtown. They passed a quiet evening, mostly reading. Corwin had already told Kozue what she could expect from her first day at Koopman Memorial, so there wasn't anything to be covered there; what conversation they did have was mainly about things they planned or hoped to do to the Headhunter over the course of the fall terms. Finally, at around ten, Corwin yawned and said, "I guess I better get ready for bed." He went into the bathroom and emerged in his black silk pajamas, arranged some of his spare pillows and blankets on one of the couches, then went into the curtained-off corner that served as his bedroom and emerged with his alarm clock. Kozue, noting this, got up from her armchair and said, "No, no. You take that right back where it belongs. I'll sleep out here." "Big day tomorrow," Corwin noted. "You - " Kozue rolled her eyes. "It's just school, it's not like tomorrow's my first day as a Federation Senator or something." "Are you sure?" "Yeah, I'm sure. I'm not turning you out of your own bed, Corwin. I'm either sleeping on the couch or with you." Corwin gave her a slightly off-axis look - she hadn't broken stride at all to say that last part - and said with a wry grin, "You sure you trust me that much?" "Damn right," she replied, dead serious. When he gave her a look of great surprise - he'd thought, after all, she was joking - she said, "We spent last spring alone in that big old dorm, didn't we, and you didn't do anything even when I offered to -let- you." "Hmm, well, you have a point there," he said, rubbing the back of his head with an embarrassed little smile on his face. "And anyway," Kozue went on, "I heard about the prep for your Trial. A whole week, alone in the mountains with Utena? I know how you feel about her - " "Wha - " "Am I blind?" she asked sharply. "Don't interrupt. I know how you feel about her, and in all that time you never even -tried- anything. Did you?" "No," Corwin replied quietly. "I could... no." Kozue nodded. "Exactly. So yeah, I trust you that much." Then she grinned to break up the weight of the moment, carried her overnight bag to the bathroom door, and went breezily on over her shoulder, "But I'll sleep on the couch anyway, if you feel scandalized." Corwin watched her close the door behind her and listened for a few moments to her humming to herself as she got ready for bed. Then, shaking his head, he took his clock back to his bedside stand and got into bed. "Good night, Kozue," he called as he turned off the light. "Good night, Corwin," her muffled voice came back. For Corwin, the first day back was a bit strange. For one thing, he hadn't been in the halls of Fritz Koopman Memorial High School since March. So much had happened to him since then that it felt distinctly odd being back here again. Not bad, but odd - as though all that had occurred since he'd last been here was some kind of dream or mirage. Or, given how real his Trial's memories still felt to him, perhaps the other way around. For another, the student body now contained his and Fuu Hououji's fellow Rune Knights, Hikaru Shidou and Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky, Hikaru as a fellow sophomore and Umi as a freshman. They'd transferred from their old schools, Hikaru from Rich Parker Memorial downtown, Umi from upscale Fontainbleu Academy, which unlike New Avalon's public schools covered grades 6 through 12. Several former members of the Crescent Heights Middle School fencing squad remembered Umi from the Fontainbleu Junior Division team and were frankly stunned that anyone would leave such an exclusive school for their own. Koopman High was a good school, but it wasn't in Fontainbleu's class. But then, most of them were surprised that Fuu was still at Koopman, too. She'd skipped a grade, sure, but still, with her mind, -she- should be at Fontainbleu, or one of the galaxy's other great schools, like Deedlit Satori Mandeville on Jeraddo, where Corwin's sister Kate went. Everybody thought so - her fellow students, her teachers, the Guidance Department, everybody. Everybody, apparently, but Fuu, who took their urgings under advisement, thanked them politely, and went on as before. As he trod the familiar tiled floors and listened to the bustle and bang of his fellow students at their lockers, Corwin couldn't help but smile. They might not be his sister's Duelists' Society, but his own crowd could hold their own against pretty much any takers, and he was pleased to be back among them. The only dark spot on the horizon was the return of Clarissa Broadbank, and even that front was quiet so far. Clarissa was positively -subdued- the first week of classes, which those who knew her attributed to the chewing out she must have gotten from her father after the fiasco at the Colosseum. After all, getting on the nerves of Gryphon's kids was one thing, and an admirable thing in Ephrem Broadbank's opinion, but vandalism of a large public building was a bit -much-. It was good to be with his oldest friends again, even if Nall spent more time hanging around with Umi than with Corwin nowadays. He couldn't grudge the dragon that - she was his girlfriend, after all - and anyway, Corwin was spending a good bit of -his- after-school time up at the spaceport working on the Headhunter. Not all of it, though. Kozue saw to that. She was fitting right in with the rest of his crowd, just as they'd hoped, and spent her first week laying the groundwork for an experience at Koopman that was entirely unlike the one she'd had at Ohtori Academy. That meant having fun, and having it at any opportunity. Corwin related all of this to Utena Tenjou in their corner booth at Celestial Pizza in Port Jeradar that Friday evening, having followed his usual custom and bailed from New Avalon the instant the dismissal bell rang. "That's great," Utena remarked. "I'm glad it's working out for her. How about her housing?" Corwin made a slightly pained face. "I'm not sure that's going so well." "Oh. What's the matter?" "She hasn't said anything about it, but she and Blossom have been getting a little... strained... as the week goes on. I'm not sure it's going to work out. Blossom, see... well, they're all the same age, but she's always been the 'oldest'. She means well, and she has a heart of gold, but she's a bit... " He fished for a diplomatic word, then gave up and said, "... bossy." Utena chuckled. "With Professor Utonium for a father, I don't wonder. -Somebody- has to take charge in that house... " Corwin nodded. "Exactly. The thing is, her sisters have always followed her lead - oh, Buttercup bitches about it sometimes, but they all know Blossom's the leader. I don't think Blossom quite understands that Kozue didn't sign up to be the fourth Powerpuff Girl - she just wants to hang out with her friends." "Huh?" said Utena, raising an eyebrow. "Oh," said Corwin with a low laugh. "Sorry. It's a nickname somebody gave them, way back - like, when we were all about six. Achika, I think. Don't say it in front of Buttercup - she's sensitive about those days. There was this one time she decided bathing was pointless because you just get dirty again... " Corwin wrinkled his nose at the memory. "Ah," said Utena, nodding understandingly. "So you think it's going to be trouble?" "Could be," Corwin said. "Probably not tonight - they went shopping, and that always mellows Blossom down some - but maybe this weekend. I think it's just as well Anthy's heading back with me tonight, instead of me staying here through Sunday." Utena smiled. "She's gotten fond of that clearing up in the Heights for staff practice. Something about the trees. And she said when she asked if she could go - she's still asking me for permission to do stuff, can you believe it?" she digressed, shaking her head. "I think she just does it to get your goat," Corwin told her, grinning. "She claims it's force of habit. Anyway, she told me that she liked the idea of going away on the weekends sometimes, since she never left the Academy grounds for... well, who the hell knows -how- long." Corwin nodded. "Reasonable enough." "Mm. That's what I said." Utena stirred at her milkshake with her straw to break up the settled bit at the bottom, took a pull at it, and went on, "She wants me to go next Friday and bring you back Saturday morning. I told her the Swordfish doesn't have two seats and she just smiled at me and said, 'Well, I'm sure you'll work something out, dear.'" Corwin coughed, that being a preferable alternative to snorting cherry Coke out his nose. Once he'd gotten everything sorted and put down the right tubes, he blinked across at Utena and said in a grave deadpan, "I love her for her sense of humor." "Me too," Utena replied with a grin. "I've been thinking about that lately, and realizing that she showed it a lot earlier than I originally realized. Before I knew enough to pay attention and watch for it. It's only becoming clear in hindsight... " She giggled at some remembered incident, lost in private reminiscences for a moment, then came back to the present as the lanky blond form of the restaurant's delivery-driver-cum-waiter appeared at the end of the booth. "How's everything tonight?" asked Zach Stephens with a grin. "Great, as usual," Utena replied. "Did you change suppliers or something? The pepperoni seems spicier today." "Aha, you noticed," said Zach with a wink. "We have indeed. Yours is a discerning tongue. We're trying some local product. There's like one sausage maker on Bajor who gets 'roni right. You like it?" Both affirmed that they did. "Awesome. One more 'yes' vote on the local 'roni. The boss'll be pleased. Get you guys something for dessert?" "Since when did you have desserts?" Corwin inquired. "We don't," Zach replied with a grin, "but for the special customers I'm willing to run out and grab something." "'sOK, Zach," said Utena. "We've got ice cream up at the Castle." "Well, awright. You guys take it slow, huh?" "Slow as I can," Corwin assured him. It had grown dark while they ate, so they walked back around Lake Jeradar under the light of Bajor, sometimes talking, sometimes just enjoying the quiet. Port Jeradar had stabilized at about three times its original size - enough to make it a bustling little city, but all its growth had been toward the mountains, not along the shoreline, so the lake was still as peaceful as ever. The monks at Prylar Otano Lompoc's monastery up in the hills on the other side, on whose land the Institute and most of the lake lay, had insisted on that, and the town fathers had been very accommodating. They didn't want to lose their quiet, wooded lake either. "We talked about me all through dinner," Corwin noted as they rounded the tip of the lake and started up the road toward the gates of the Institute. "How about here? What's going on so far?" "Oh, not a whole lot," Utena replied. "Kate's whipping her orchestra into shape and considering who to ask to take over for her at the end of the year. It'll probably be Heather McClellan, unless one of the freshmen really takes off. We've got a pair of new Duelists - one's a transfer student in our class, but the other's a frosh, and there are a couple of other good prospects who we think we'll offer spots to next quarter, so it looks like the Society will get on just fine when we graduate. Old Mr. Kesselring's back, which is nice, except it put your Aunt Bell out of a job. She's coming over through the library mirror twice a week for Anthy's lessons now." "Mm. Well, Uncle Keiichi will be just as happy," Corwin said with a chuckle. "I think the twins just about drove him nuts when she was working here every day." Utena laughed; then, as they drew closer to campus, she said, "Hmm, lights are on in the dueling room. I wonder who's working out." "Let's go see," Corwin suggested, and so they did. Corwin recognized several of the Duelists present. T'skaia Vorokoshiga'ar Ixtixtaaqitl't'chl'Vraihelt Ishkarat, the Barsaivian t'skrang who had the distinction of being the Society's first non-founding member, was leaning against the wall off to one side of the big bare room the Duelists used as the primary venue for their titular activity. Liza Shustal was sitting on the end of the long table along one wall which held various bits and bobs - towels and the first aid kit, mainly - with Miki Kaoru standing alongside her, timing something with his stopwatch. Kaitlyn Hutchins, the Society president, was standing near the door, watching; her pet neotiger Sergei was napping under the table. The two people fighting, though, Corwin didn't recognize. One of them was a boy a year or so Corwin's junior and rather small for his age, with curly black hair and laughing eyes. He was dressed in a sturdy-looking blue coverall and had a large, utilitarian knife in each hand. His opponent was a tall, lithe and striking girl with long dirty-blonde hair; she wore a white shirt and blue jeans and fought with a staff. Her height and the length of her weapon both gave her significant advantages in reach over the boy, but he was a tricky one, fast and agile, and he was managing to make a fight out of it all the same. As he looked them over, Corwin realized that he -did- recognize one of them: the girl was familiar-looking. He couldn't place her species for a moment - she had pointed ears, not as long as a Hyelian's but too big to be a Vulcan's, but looked otherwise human. Then he noticed the stripes on her face - one on each cheek, slanting up from her ears to points under the inside corners of her blue eyes - and it all fell together. He -did- know her. He just hadn't seen her in a long time, and hadn't expected to see her here. "Hey," he murmured to Utena, not wanting to disturb the duel. "Is that Jessica d'Alkirk?" "You know her?" Utena inquired softly. "Oh sure," Corwin replied. "Her mother and my parents go way back. She helped found the Wedge Defense Force, y'know." "Really? Interesting. Anyway, yeah, that's her." "Wow. I haven't seen her in years. She's all grown up." Utena elbowed him, but not hard; just hard enough to elicit a rueful chuckle. "Who's the kid she's fighting? He's good." "One of our freshman recruits. Name of Boba Fett." "Fett? You know if he's related to Jango Fett?" Utena gave him a look. "Is there anybody you -don't- know?" "I don't really know him," Corwin said, "but Dad knows him from a long way back. Fett's an investigator, works as a bounty hunter sometimes. 120 years or so back, Dad had a huMONgous bounty on his head. I gather that's where it started. And he works with Alita Ironheart a lot in her day job, so... " "Dad knows the most -interesting- people," said Utena wryly. "Anyway, yeah, Boba's his son." "Huh. Didn't know he had any kids. But then, like I say, I don't really know him." The two fell silent and watched the combatants continue their duel, up and down for a few moments. Boba Fett was quick and slick, but his opponent proved too much for him; eventually she caught him in one of his evasions, half-disarmed him, swept him down, and took his rose, to a scattering of applause. Now free to speak, Corwin grinned and said, "Mia must be happy there's another staff fighter in the group. Been a long time, Jess - how've you been?" The blonde girl helped her opponent up, then turned to face the speaker. It was plain from the look on her face that she didn't know who had addressed her for a moment. "Not too bad, but I - " Then she blinked. " - Corwin? Is that you? Wow, you've grown up!" "I was just saying the same thing about you," Corwin replied, earning himself another elbow from Utena. "I bet you were," Jess replied with a wink. "Same old Corwin. Smooth as glass and just as transparent!" "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good," Corwin protested with a mock pout. Kate smiled. "I s-see you r-r-remember each other." Miki crossed the room, smiling welcome. "Hello, Corwin," he said. "Hey, Miki," Corwin replied, nodding. "I see you've already met Princess Jessica." "I thought I told you not to call me that," Jess said, faintly irked, and Kaitlyn laughed. "M-Miki c-can't help it, J-Jess," she told him. "He was b-b-born too p-polite." Miki blushed, just a little, and said, "Sorry. I'll get over it. I hardly ever call Kate 'Miss Kaitlyn' any more. Anyway, I don't think you've met our other new recruit. Boba Fett, this is Corwin Ravenhair, Kate's brother." "We've never met," said Corwin, extending a hand, "but our fathers know each other." "Pleased to meet you," said Boba cheerily, shaking Corwin's hand. "You're the guy who took out the Earthforce Destroid company on Titan?" Corwin admitted it, to which Boba replied, "That was some fight! Me and Dad caught it on Network 23. We were cheering and stuff. It was especially cool how you dropped that Atlas. People think the Atlas is so scary, but with that dinky powerplant inside all that armor it's really just a big target, huh?" "You'll have to excuse Boba," said Jess with a smiling eyeroll. "He doesn't really know how to make conversation without talking hardware." "Dad's not exactly into art," Boba replied, faintly defensively. "So what brings you to the Blue Moon?" Jess asked Corwin. "Trying out for the Society?" Corwin held up his left hand, showing her his rose seal, and said, "I'm already an honorary member." "Oh yeah? Still using a staff?" Corwin nodded. "When I can get away with it." "Cool. So why -are- you here?" "Every Friday," Utena told her, "we go to dinner." Jess raised an eyebrow. "Really," she said. "Yep," said Corwin. "It's traditional." "Interesting," said Jess, in a tone that indicated no other opinion - just that it was interesting. "Now don't start," said Corwin with an exasperated look, but she shrugged, stopping him. "Hey, I'm an Arconian," she said. "We understand these things. How 'bout a little workout, Corwin? We haven't fought in years." "Last time I fought you," Corwin said with mild accusation, "you gave me a bloody nose." "Hey, it's not my fault you didn't block fast enough." Corwin grinned. "OK," he said, "let's dance, Cousin Jess." "'Course, we're not really cousins," Corwin explained an hour later, up on the roof of the Castle's North Tower. "But her mother's one of Dad's oldest friends." Utena peered through the eyepiece of the telescope Kaitlyn had given her for the previous Christmas and made a thoughtful noise. "I haven't had much of a chance to talk to her yet - Kate recruited her. Or I should say Kate met her when she barged in and said she wanted to join," she corrected herself with a laugh. "She's some kind of a princess?" "Mm. Her mother is Queen Asrial of Salusia." Utena turned and stared at him. "Are you serious?! Why isn't this place swarming with Salusian security types?" "Why wasn't WPI swarming with Gamilon security types when Amanda was there?" Corwin asked in reply. Then, laughing, he went on, "Jess is Asrial's wayward daughter - just ask the Salusian press. Princess Jessica, Baroness d'Alkirk of the House of Arconian, et cetera, et cetera. She's got an independent streak a mile wide, just like her mother, and has to do everything her way. If she caught a State Security agent lurking around campus she'd send him home in a box with a note tied to his toe that said, 'BUTT OUT, MOM!'" "She doesn't look Salusian," Utena mused, consulting the telescope's eyepiece again. "Certainly nothing like Hikaru. I thought if they didn't have the little ears on their heads they were all furry." "Jess is only half Salusian. Presumably her father is Jer Feeple, Asrial's prince-consort, who used to be the Ambassador to Salusia from Earth." He chuckled again. "Nowadays he's Salusia's ambassador -to- Earth. Funny how time changes things sometimes." "'Presumably'? You don't know?" "Nobody knows. The identity of Princess Jessica's father is a state secret. Royal family only. Hell, I'm not sure -Jess- knows." "Huh. I wonder why." "Probably just because Asrial likes to annoy the yellow press," Corwin laughed. "I mean, she's obviously half-human, and her mother's married to a human, so it doesn't take a Vulcan to follow the train of logic. But by not acknowledging it openly, Asrial can keep them guessing, and she thinks a lot of their guesses are funny. In the past seventeen years, the Saenar tabloids have claimed her father was everybody from Jim Kirk to Dad." He chuckled once more, nostalgically. "The pack of us were guests at the Palace-Imperial when that one broke. I was... oh... maybe six, so Jess was about eight. Asrial, Mom, Kei and Dad about laughed themselves sick about it at breakfast. I didn't understand what they were laughing about for years." Utena giggled. "I bet. Queen Asrial and Dad?" "Well, they -have- been lovers, off and on, for something like 300 years." "Whaaa?" "Yeah. That's what that barcode thing tattooed on Dad's left arm means. He's Commander of the Order of Knights-Defenders of the Salusian Crown, and a royal consort." "Sheesh. Dad gets around," Utena tutted with mock disapproval. "Not so much, when you consider he's over 400," Corwin replied with a shrug. "Mm, I suppose not," said Utena. "Still, it's a hell of a way to run a railroad, huh?" "Yeah... I guess so." "Hey! I think I found a comet." It was nearly two in the morning when Corwin and Anthy arrived in New Avalon, by which time both were so sleepy that they decided to forego their usual lap of the city and just head for the World Wide Building and bed. In the eleven hours Corwin had been gone, it had commenced to absolutely pour down rain in the City in the Sphere, and the hypnotic flop-flopping of the Griffon's windshield wipers made Corwin have to keep blinking at irregular intervals to keep himself interested. They found Kozue Kaoru sleeping in the vestibule between the elevator cage and the locked doors to Corwin's studio, her head pillowed on her overnight bag. "Aw, man," Corwin muttered. He knelt down and shook her shoulder, found that it, like her hair, was still damp from the rain. "Hey. Kozue. Wake up." "Huh? Wha? Oh... Corwin," said the blue-haired girl in a voice thick with sleep. "What're you doing here?" "I live here," said Corwin wryly as he unlocked the door. "No," said Kozue as she got to her feet and knuckled her eyes. "I mean," she went on as she came closer to actual consciousness, "I didn't think you were coming home 'til Sunday." "Were you planning to sleep in my vestibule all weekend?" wondered Corwin as he turned on a couple of lights. "Hang on while I make up the couches. Anthy, you can head to bed, I'll take care of this." Anthy, who had spent the last few moments looking concerned for Kozue, now gave him a don't-be-silly look and told him, "I'm not going to put you out of your bed, Corwin. It's nice of you to offer, but I found the sofa quite comfortable last time, and I don't expect this time to be any different." Kozue blinked, coming still closer to wakefulness. "Oh... hi, Anthy. I didn't notice you coming in." Anthy smiled. "Hello, Kozue." "Uh... maybe I should find someplace else to crash tonight," said Kozue uncomfortably. "I didn't know you'd be coming back here... don't want to get in the way... " "Nonsense," said Anthy. "Did you bring your pajamas? Go and get out of those wet clothes and I'll make you some hot cocoa." Corwin wondered if Kozue would bristle at being mothered; but apparently it was OK when Anthy did it, at least in small doses in the middle of the night, for she replied, "Um... well, OK, if you're sure," and went off to the bathroom. "Are you sure I can't convince you to take the bed?" Corwin asked as he made up one of the sofas. "It's hard to feel like a gentleman when my guests keep sleeping on the couch." "No, no, it's perfectly all right," Anthy insisted as she rummaged in the kitchen cupboards for a saucepan to heat some milk in. She smiled a coy little smile and added, "I won't sleep in your bed unless I'm sharing it with you." Corwin stopped tucking a sheet under the cushions of the second couch to look across the apartment at her. "Why does everybody tease me so?" he asked plaintively. "How do you know you're being teased?" Anthy replied mildly as she lit up one of the burners on his range. He might have formed a reply, but Kozue came yawning out of the bathroom in her blue flannel pajamas at about that point, and so Corwin, shaking his head, went to change and brush his teeth. For Corwin Ravenhair, life settled into a mostly comfortable cycle. Though an adventurous soul, he liked his life to have a rhythm to it, so he found this pleasing. The next few weeks passed with the smooth, unruffled calm of a duck crossing a pond - except for Kozue's housing problems. While Corwin and the others watched, she went from disaster to disaster, failing again and again to find a living arrangement she could feel comfortable in. First had come the problem of Eiko Rose's maternal instinct; then she'd found Blossom Utonium's bossiness as intolerable in large doses as Corwin had predicted. Her next try, with Achika Shannon and her family, lasted six days before she bailed out on the same grounds as the first time - to prevent a disastrous clash with Achika's mother that she felt would be inevitable if she stayed. After each failure, she spent three or four days at the World Wide Building, crashing on the couch and making arrangements for another try. The Shannon iteration again happened on a Friday, and this time Corwin didn't come home until Sunday afternoon. Fortunately, the vestibule was heated, but it wasn't very comfortable. After this, Corwin (with a carefully concealed internal sigh) gave her a key for such emergencies, though she swore it wouldn't happen again. Indeed, for a time it looked like it wouldn't. On Saturday, the 23rd of September, she moved into a spare room at 103 Morgan Lane, the home of MegaZone and Yuri Daniels (and, occasionally, Sylvie Daniels), and things seemed like they were going just fine. Yuri was hip to the difference between boarding and foster parentage, and Zoner wasn't particularly parental with his -own- kids; he'd never really seemed to know how. Kozue's friends held their breath through the first week, the "danger point" being the following Saturday, and when the arrangement still held up on Sunday, they all exhaled and thanked their stars that it seemed like everything had finally worked out. That lasted until 2:13 in the morning of Saturday, October 14, when Utena Tenjou found herself rousted from Hour Two of a sound sleep by the buzz of the entry intercom. She sat slowly up, blinked into the darkness of the living room area, and tried to figure out where the noise was coming from. It sounded again, drawing her attention to the door leading to the elevator. "The -hell-... " she muttered blearily. She looked toward the curtained bedroom corner, considered calling for Corwin, decided she was a big girl and could answer a door for herself, and got up from the couch. Grumbling, she wrapped her robe around herself and crossed the apartment, then switched on the vestibule light and peered through the peephole, squinting against the light. She made a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl, unlocked the door, and swung it wide. Corwin brought Kozue a mug of cocoa; she accepted it gratefully, took a sip of it, and seemed to relax a bit. Corwin, in his black pajamas and robe, sat down on the opposite couch, leaned his elbows on his knees, rested his chin on steepled fingers, and asked quietly, "What now?" "Well," said Kozue slowly, "you know... MegaZone's not... around the house much." Corwin nodded. As a wandering avatar of Chaos (and, paradoxically, the chief organizer of the Babylon Foundation), Zoner spent most of his time roaming the galaxy on often-inscrutable errands. Utena well knew this too - her rescue, when she'd arrived unconscious and vulnerable in Midgard following the disastrous climax of the Grand Tournament, had come by way of one of Zoner's well-timed random wanderings. "I was just going to sleep," Kozue went on, her voice hushed. "Just starting to drop off... and he came out of the closet. Just... opened up the door and walked on in. I wasn't asleep yet, but I wasn't really awake either. I didn't know who it was - just that this big... -thing-... had suddenly come out of the closet. "I don't think he realized I was even partly awake," she went on, her voice shaking slightly with the memory. "I was paralyzed. I lay as still as I could, trying to wake up enough to figure out what was going on. He just crossed the room without saying anything and went out through the door into the hall. I waited until I couldn't hear him any more, then I got my stuff and got the hell out. Wasn't until I was halfway here on the N that I realized who it was." She shook herself, letting out a forced, rueful chuckle, and said, "Stupid, huh? Mean, tough Kozue - Duelist of the Rose and all - scared out of her wits by one of the defenders of the galaxy." She took a drink of her cocoa. "But I was scared. I still -am- scared. My heart's pounding just remembering it." "I can understand that," said Utena, nodding. At Kozue's look of surprise, she grinned and said, "I'm not fearless, y'know, just good at working around my fears. I've had experiences like that, and I know they can be damn scary. Doesn't even have to be a pasty-faced apparition like Zoner, either - a couple of times when we were first rooming together, Himemiya scared the crap out of me, coming and going in the middle of the night." Kozue snorted with wan amusement. "Well, there -was- something creepy about her back then. Anyway, I... I don't know. Now that I'm here with you guys, I feel pretty stupid about it, but... " The phone rang. Corwin and Utena glanced at each other, shrugged, and Corwin picked up the phone. "Corwin? It's Yuri," said the voice of Yuri Daniels. "Is Kozue with you?" "Hi, Yuri," Corwin replied. "Yeah, she's right here." "Oh, good. I was hoping. Zoner pulled one of his standard no-think maneuvers tonight." "Mm, she just finished telling us about it," said Corwin. "Us? Oh, right, it's Friday," said Yuri absently, and Corwin felt his ears get a little warm. (Has everybody got our timetable marked on their calendars?) "Well, listen... I just bawled him out for it, and we're wondering if she's coming back." Corwin glanced over at Kozue, and saw on her face that she'd guessed the reason for Yuri's call. She shook her head. "I don't think so," Corwin replied. "Not tonight, anyway. He gave her a pretty good scare." "The big dumbass," Yuri grumbled. "Divinely inspired and he still can't think before he takes shortcuts or take less than an hour in the bathroom. Would it help if he apologized?" "I don't think so," Corwin repeated. "It's kind of more... um... -visceral- than that." "Mm," said Yuri. "Well, if it's no bother... " "No bother at all," Corwin replied. (He refrained from adding, "I'm used to it.") "We'll call you in the morning and see what we can sort out." "Well... OK. Good night, Corwin," said Yuri. "Sorry about all this." "'sOK," Corwin replied. "Night, Yuri." He cradled the phone and told Kozue, "If it helps any, Zoner's sorry." He chuckled and added, "Yuri made sure of that." "It doesn't, really," Kozue said regretfully. "I mean, I already know he didn't do it on purpose." She finished off her cocoa, put the mug down on the endtable, and said, "I can't think about it right now. I just want to sleep someplace where I can feel safe." "Well, go to bed, then," he said, gesturing to the curtained corner. "I just changed the sheets tonight, there's only about two hours' worth of cooties on them." That had its desired effect, bringing a decent-strength laugh and getting an eyeroll from her. "I told you I wouldn't do that," she said. "Special occasion," Corwin replied over his shoulder as he went to the linen closet for the second set of sofa bedding. "Go on, I won't die." Kozue got up, then hesitated, glancing at Corwin's back as he rummaged in the closet, then Utena. She looked on the verge of saying something else - - and then went to the curtains instead. She waited until Corwin had turned around, caught his eyes, and gave him a small smile of gratitude. "Thanks," she said quietly. "Any time," he told her. "Good night." Kozue bade them both good night and went to bed. Corwin listened to her getting situated, then made up the other couch and turned off the lights. Shortly after moving in, he'd decided that the blackable windows were nice and all, but he missed the effect created by letting the city's nightglow in through the gaps in and around curtains; so he'd draped the windows and now only used the blacking function if he found himself trying to sleep during the day. Thus, there was just a little bit of light in the living area for him to make out the pale shape of Utena, bundled in a white blanket on the other black couch opposite the coffee table - just enough for her eyes to glint slightly when she looked back at him. "I wonder what she was going to say," Utena murmured softly. "I don't," Corwin replied with more than a hint of a grumble. "G'night, Utena." Kozue was subdued on Saturday morning - still shaken from her half-waking experience and feeling a bit stupid about it on top of that. She didn't say much at breakfast; she didn't say much when she rode up to the hangar at Mathews Memorial with Utena and Corwin afterward, either. "See you on the other end," Utena said to Corwin as she strapped herself into the Swordfish II's seat. "You bet," Corwin replied. "I'll be there presently." With a wave, he went up into the One-Hit Wonder, where he kept his overnight things. "Well, take it easy, Kozue," said Utena as she preflighted the red racer. "You're coming to Jeraddo for fall break, right?" Kozue nodded. "Yup, I'll be there." She grinned, just slightly preoccupied, and said, "I want to show Miki some of the moves I'm learning on the Koopman fencing team." "Maybe you can teach our junior division a thing or two," said Utena with a grin. "OK - catch you week after next, then. Oh, and Kozue?" The blue-haired girl, who had turned toward the workbench where some of her Headhunter's avionics were scattered, paused and turned back. "Hm?" Utena gave her a reassuring smile. "You'll find your place. You just have to keep looking." Kozue chuckled, smiling back, and replied, "Sure. Thanks." Utena closed the Swordfish's cockpit, fired up the engine, and taxied the racer out of the hangar. Kozue stood in the big main doorway and watched as the scarlet fighter moved along the taxiway to Runway 32, paused for a moment, and then rocketed off and away, the sunlight glinting from the golden glazing of the canopy bubble. Then she turned and looked her forlorn, dismantled Headhunter, smiled, and went to the workbench. When Corwin emerged from the One-Hit Wonder, overnight bag over his shoulder, she'd put her coverall on and was tinkering with a circuit tester in the guts of the relative bearing indicator. There was a reference manual splayed on the workbench beside her with a big roll of tape holding it open. "OK, I'm out of here," Corwin told her. He reached into his pocket and tossed her his keys. "If you want to use the car, that's fine, just don't leave any trash in it, all right?" Kozue looked at the the keys, reached through one of her coverall's pocket slits to put them in her pants pocket, and asked him, "You want me to drive it back to the World Wide Building when I'm done here?" "That was the general idea, yes." "I don't have my license, y'know," she informed him. Corwin blinked. "You're kidding." "When would I have had the time to get one?" she asked. "I'm not old enough to have one in Cephiro, you have to be 16, and I spent all summer studying spaceflight." The young god gave her a disbelieving look for a second, then laughed. "You've got a point there. OK, well, I guess you'll have to take the N back." He shook his head. "Hottest pilot in the quadrant, doesn't know how to drive." "I didn't say I didn't know how to drive," Kozue replied with something much more like her accustomed wicked grin. "I said I don't have my license." Corwin laughed again, then rounded the Headhunter's nose to clap her on the shoulder. "Well, don't get pulled over, then," he said, and gave her a joggling sort of one-armed hug. "And try not to make too much of a mess, OK? I'll be back tomorrow noonish." She nodded. "I'll fool around with this 'til I get stuck and then go see about finding someplace else to stay." "You might ask Dad," Corwin suggested. "Guy's got my old room, but there's the spare room, or there are some up on the third floor that we've never used for -anything-. And you won't have to worry about Kei mothering you," he added with a grin. "She doesn't mother her -own- kids." "That's a nice thing to say about your dad's wife," said Kozue mock-grumpily. "Yeah, it doesn't sound very complimentary when you put it that way, does it?" Corwin mused. "I didn't mean it like that, though. You know what I meant." Kozue nodded. "Mm-hmm. But they've got quite a crowd to deal with already, and they're so -busy-... " "I thought you didn't like having the grown-ups hovering around all the time? Anyway, with Kate and me off on our own and Len... well, out of the picture... even with you there, the place wouldn't be as full as it used to be." He tsk'd at himself. "Why didn't I think of this weeks ago?" "I'll think about it," Kozue assured him. "Go on, you don't want to keep Anthy waiting." "You're right. I don't want to keep -me- waiting, either," he added, grinning. "I'm hungry, and it's an hour's drive from Tenjou Academy to Mitsumaru." Then, dropping the jocular tone, he rounded so he could look at her straight and asked seriously, "Are you OK?" "Yeah, I'm fine," she said, gesturing dismissively with the circuit tester. "I feel stupid. Just... got all freaked out." "OK, well... take it easy. Don't feel stupid - it happens." He smiled. "When I come back I'll use the window in the vestibule and knock." Kozue chuckled. "OK. Say hi to Miki for me." "Will do." He stood and looked at her for a moment, with faint dark circles shadowing her eyes, seeming somehow smaller than she normally did; then he put an arm around her shoulders, kissed her forehead, released her, and took his leave with a wave through the window that looked up the tarmac toward the Freight Handling Depot. She raised her fingers and rubbed at the spot on her forehead he'd kissed, inadvertently giving herself a mock godhead of schmutz from inside the antique bearing indicator. "Just what I always wanted," she grumbled, "another brother," but she was standing up a little straighter and humming a happy little tune as she went back to work, all the same. As was often the case with disasters, it started innocently enough. And as was often the case with innocently-started disasters at Koopman High, it started with Theresa Utonium. "I've been thinking," said Bubbles at lunch the following Monday, and her sister Theodora (whom everyone knew had -better- be called Buttercup) groaned and dropped her face into her hand. "Buttercup! She hasn't even said anything yet," their sister Blossom admonished the black-haired girl. "Go on, Bubbles, we're listening," she added, nudging Buttercup viciously with an elbow. With a grudging scowl, Buttercup raised her face from her hand and tried unconvincingly to look interested. "Well," said Bubbles, who as usual failed to notice the byplay between her sisters, "I was just wondering why Kozue never seems to have a date." Kozue, who was sitting next to her, almost choked on her pluberry juice. Buttercup palmed her face again and wouldn't raise it for any provocation Blossom could apply. Tenchi Shannon edged slowly away from the other side of the blonde Utonium sister, just in case Buttercup should decide to silence Bubbles through some... er... physical expedient. "I mean, granted, she doesn't dress very well," Bubbles went on, which caused Buttercup's fingers to convulse slightly where they gripped her face (she had helped Kozue pick out almost all her clothes), "but she's very pretty anyway, don't you think, pretty enough to overcome the fact that she likes to dress like a truck driver," (here the cords started showing a little in Buttercup's slender neck) "and everybody likes her, I mean even some of Clarissa's friends like her and Clarissa's friends hardly ever like anybody Clarissa doesn't tell them to - which is funny, don't you think, I mean I'd think the fact that she wasn't here at all last year would have weakened her influence over them, but no, they're all just gathered around her just like back at Crescent Heights, some of them even seem kind of -proud- of the fact that she's on probation for trying to burn down the Colosseum, I mean I'm honestly puzzled by that, but where was I?" She paused just long enough for Buttercup to release her own face and draw breath to interrupt, but not long enough for her to actually do it, before brightening and plunging onward, "Oh yeah! So I was just wondering, you know, why hasn't anybody asked Kozue out?" She turned to face Kozue, who was just sort of staring at her, and cocked her head inquisitively. "Hm?" Blossom's left hand crept slowly and carefully up over Buttercup's right shoulder. On the black-haired girl's left, Hikaru Shidou did the same with her right hand, being the only other classmate of hers who could even hope to match her strength. Chip Mui glanced over his shoulder at the table behind them, where Clarissa was having lunch with some of her clique, but none of them seemed to have noticed their ringleader's name cropping up in the blonde Utonium's little dissertation. Kozue cleared her throat (mainly to get the pluberry juice out of it), then said, "Well, uh... a couple of guys -have-, but I've turned 'em down." "Turned them DOWN?" squeaked Bubbles. "Why?" "Uh, well... " Kozue's Imp of the Perverse briefly considered trying to explain to Bubbles exactly what "dating" had entailed for her at Ohtori Academy before Utena Tenjou had come along and turned the whole world upside down, but she rejected the notion as soon as it came to her. The poor girl just wasn't ready for that sort of thing. Instead, she shrugged and said, "I dunno. I've had so much other stuff to worry about - trying to find a place to live, working on my Headhunter, you know... " "But you never work on the Headhunter on Fridays 'cause Corwin's never around on Fridays," Bubbles pointed out with her remarkable gift for surprising, inconveniently-timed bursts of reasoning ability. "And Fridays are when most people go on dates." "She's got a point there," Chip Mui mused, then winced as his twin sister kicked him in the shin under the table. "What?" Kozue glanced at the Muis, then down the table at Achika Shannon (who seemed amused by this whole conversation) and Tenchi (who had the look of a young man trying very hard to stay out of something that was clearly none of his business), and sighed inwardly. This whole universe, and she had to end up in a circle of friends that contained not one, not two, but (if you counted the Morgan twins two years behind) THREE sets of brother-sister twins? The irony. "Besides," she said - and this was the truth, if only in a wry and bitter kind of way! - "I don't really know what to -do- on a date." Not a normal one, anyway... "There really isn't much to it," said Nall Silverclaw from his perch atop Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky's head (where he resembled nothing so much as a bizarre sort of pseudo-Egyptian headdress). "You just try to think of something fun, go do it, and be home by ten or die." Umi rolled her eyes. "You exaggerate. Daddy does -not- threaten you. And will you -please- not sit on my head?" "Oh, fine," grumbled the dragon as he climbed down to her shoulder. "It's warm up there. You know, most of a humanoid's body heat loss is through the top of the head. It's just like sitting on an old-fashioned TV set." "I'll give you old-fashioned," muttered Umi darkly. "Anyway, it's not rocket science, is all I'm saying," Nall went on. "He's right," Reiyna Mui chimed in. Now that Kozue seemed to be taking an interest and asking for advice rather than just having the concept foisted on her, she'd decided to help if she could. "It doesn't have to be a big deal, either. Just go out and have some fun. Make a few new friends." "Mm," said Blossom. "You don't have to treat it like you're on a search for your One True Love or anything." "Yeah!" said Tenchi, boldly throwing his hat into the ring. "I mean, who meets the great love of their life at our age anyway?" His grin crumpled as he noticed that all his classmates, especially his sister, Umi and Nall, and Buttercup, were staring at him with "How dumb ARE you?" expressions. "Eh... heheh... I, uh... I guess I'll shut up now," he said, and busied himself with his potatoes au gratin. "Hey, gang," said Corwin as he arrived at the table a moment later, tray in hand. "Sorry I'm late - Mr. Fujisawa and I got to talking about the Knights... " As Kozue budged over to make room for him, he put his tray down, then noticed the weird energy at the table and said, "... What?" "Um, nothing, Corwin," said Blossom Utonium hastily. "We were just talking about, um... stuff." "Bubbles thinks I should go out on a date," Kozue said lightly. "What do you think?" Corwin gave this a moment's consideration as he arranged things to his liking on the table (the trays were never quite big enough to accommodate everything comfortably), then said, "I suppose. Why not? You don't know many people here yet, and they don't know you," he added with a significant glance into her eyes. "Might be a good way to meet some new people, expand your circle a little." "Hmm... well, maybe," Kozue said dubiously. "It'll be fun, you'll see," Bubbles bubbled. "Just be sure to look at it practically," Umi told her. "You don't have to do anything special. Just wait for somebody else to ask you, and if you like the looks of him, take him up on it. If you don't have a good time you don't have to see him again. Simple as that." "You're awfully quiet today, Fuu," Hikaru noted. "Any advice to offer from that genius brain of yours?" Fuu Hououji blinked behind her glasses, looking genuinely puzzled. "Me? What advice could I have to offer? I've never been on a date." "Don't be a dope," said Buttercup. "You'n Corwin have been to the Cobalt Club like a dozen times." "Those weren't dates," Fuu chided her gently. "Not in the sense -you- mean. You'd as well to call it a date when Hikaru and I go out for ice cream. I pay my own way when we go dancing." "That's true," said Corwin, nodding. "She's very particular about that." "Sure, fine," said Buttercup, throwing up her hands. "Next you're gonna say -you're- not dating anybody either, Rocket Boy." Corwin gave her an annoyed look and occupied himself buttering a roll. "OK, OK," said Kozue, defusing the discussion before it could go any closer to any of the potholes. "Fine, you guys win. If I get an offer I like, I'll throw the dice and see what happens. All right? Everybody happy?" "No," Buttercup grumbled. "Dating is -dumb-." "You just say that because nobody will ask you out after you broke Tommy Wan's arm last year," said Bubbles. "I didn't -mean- to!" One table over, Clarissa Broadbank got up, took her tray to the disposal slot, shoved it in, and left the cafeteria. "So," she mused softly as she walked down the corridor toward her locker. "Think my fangs have been pulled because Katie and her pals got me put on probation, do they? Talk about me in the caf, will they? We'll see about -that-, oh yes we will. It's time to remind them that I'm back among them... starting with Ravenhair's little friend. I owe her for barging into my fencing club like she owns the place anyway." "Enjoying your conversation with yourself, Miss Broadbank?" asked Mr. Elliott, the Astropolitics and Civics teacher, from the doorway of his classroom. Cold, sardonic, and merciless, he was one of the few teachers at Koopman High about whom absolutely all the students, even such diametrically opposed circles as Corwin's and Clarissa's, agreed: They all hated him. Not least because he liked to hang out in his classroom door between periods and make acerbic comments like that to passing students. Clarissa was far too much in the zone to be fazed by him today, though. She merely replied, in a sharp mind-your-own-business tone, "Extremely," without breaking stride - leaving Mr. Elliott standing in the doorway with one thin eyebrow raised in a look of miffed disapproval. Smiling a cold little smile, Clarissa opened her locker, got out her afternoon books, and then headed to the gym. Some of the girls from the basketball team would be working out, killing the rest of their lunch period. They wouldn't mind if Clarissa joined them, unlike those stuck-up little bitches on the volleyball team. And in the twenty minutes left before sixth period, she could work up a little sweat... and a little mayhem. The week passed uneventfully as far as anyone in Corwin's circle could tell. The social dynamics at Koopman High seemed to be following the usual rules: Mr. Elliott's classes sucked, Mr. Fujisawa's rocked, the band kids were nice, and the members of the school's two basketball teams were jerks. There were exceptions to the latter two rules, of course, as to almost any rule, but for the most part, they held firm. Redheaded Pat "Irish" Heinzen was, by many accounts, one of the basketball team's exceptions. Not an unattractive young man, he was in good shape (he was a basketball player, after all), and he had a fairly good reputation among the girls. He was, however, just the tiniest bit arrogant, especially when it came to his looks, and tended to be somewhat credulous. In general, though, he was considered one of the more popular students. Compared to a lot of his squadmates, "just the tiniest bit arrogant" didn't really stand out. Kozue Kaoru had caught his attention from the start. This was no surprise, since the only other girl he'd ever heard of with blue hair was Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky, and Kozue seemed to be much more approachable. (And as far as Pat could tell, she wasn't dating a talking cat. What was up with -that-?) Anyway, Kozue had a certain touch of the exotic about her which he found appealing, and judging by the talk in the boys' locker room, he wasn't alone. The general consensus was that waking up to Kozue's face in the morning would not be a terrible thing, especially after some euphemisms for a certain late-night activity. That was all just the usual dumb talk, though. From observation and reliable tips (mostly from his friend, Kevin Pettrone), Pat had noted that Kozue seemed fond of Corwin Ravenhair, and she'd turned down a couple of guys for dates in the past. Word was she even stayed over at Ravenhair's place sometimes. But then again, didn't Corwin have a thing for that pink-haired girl he'd seen once or twice, the one who went to his sister's prep school? (Not that Pat could blame the guy if that was true, 'cause, -damn-.) It was so hard to keep track of who was what and why, particularly in an unconventional family like Corwin's. There were even rumors that the kid was a god of some sort, and that Chip Mui was his first worshipper. (Pat could believe that too, at least the second part. The Mui kid was kind of a squirrel, everybody knew that.) Anyway, Pat had kept an eye on Kozue since she'd arrived at Koopman High, but he hadn't done much more. He knew her to say 'hey' to in the hall, but they weren't in any classes together - he was a junior, after all, and he might be a jock but he wasn't dumb enough to have to take sophomore classes, thank you very much - so he didn't see her around all that often. Hoop wasn't her game; she fenced and played volleyball. Fencing didn't do much for Pat Heinzen - all that padded armor - but he definitely approved of volleyball. This week, though, he'd noticed that he'd started to hear her name more often. Something was up, some new piece of information about the mystery girl from the Outer Rim trickling through the student collective unconscious. Pat was having a busy week, though, so it wasn't until Thursday morning, after second period, that a grinning Kevin Pettrone was finally able to clue a bud in on the big buzz... and, thought Pat as he heard it, it was certainly buzzworthy. Apparently, cute little Kozue Kaoru had carved quite a swath through the guys at her last school, Ohtori Academy, wherever that was. Some were even saying that she'd been kicked out of that school because of her fondness for, er, extracurricular sports - either they'd gotten her into trouble with a little t, or maybe even Trouble with a capital one. Or, to put it as Kevin snickeringly but succinctly did, she was easier than third grade algebra. "I'm telling you," Kevin told him, leaning against the locker next to Pat's as he spoke, "from what I've heard, I'm surprised that she doesn't have one of those 'please take a number' machines like at the deli. Guess she's trying to keep it a secret for the guys she likes, huh?" "What's this to me?" Pat asked as he stuffed the books for his third- and fourth-period classes into his bag. "Buddy... pal... " Kevin wrapped a lanky brown arm around Pat's shoulders. "A -man's- gotta start somewhere." He winked broadly. "I just figured you'd be interested in getting a head start, you know? You can't build a foundation on nothing." "Well, if she's as easy as you say, why bother?" Pat countered, trying to seem nonchalant. "Are you implying that you can't handle her? Maybe you're not, I don't know... -man- enough for her?" Kevin smiled as he saw Pat flinch. Irish was easy enough to get going, once you knew what strings to pull. "OK, I'll ask her out," Pat said, his voice rough. "Good man," Kevin patted him on the back. "Just remember to take precautions, because I heard that paternity suits are nasty." "Don't be a freak, Kev," grumbled Pat as he slammed his locker. "And don't follow me around snickering all day, either. I can't ask her out if you're standing behind me with a big sign says 'IRISH SCORES' or some shit." "I will vanish into the background," Kevin assured him. "You will not know I'm - damn, man, here she comes!" "Well, get lost, then," said Pat. He raised a hand, ran it through his thick red brushcut, and then raised it in greeting as Kozue came even with him in the hall. "Hey, Kozue," he said. "Hey, Pat," she replied. "Hey, uh - you got a minute?" She skidded slightly, not having slackened pace as she greeted him, and said, "Uh, not really. I've got this thing called a 'class' to go to?" Pat laughed to show he could take a mild rebuke with the best of them. "Ten seconds, then. Listen, you want to go out tomorrow night? Maybe see a movie or something?" Kozue blinked. "Uh... sure, OK," she said. Pat grinned. "Great. Seven o'clock OK?" "Sure." "I'll pick you up then. Where do you live?" "105 Morgan. You know where that is?" "Sure, no sweat." "OK. Seven tomorrow. I gotta go. If I'm late for Elliott's class he'll skin me or something." "Wouldn't want that," Pat said. "See you tomorrow!" "See you!" Kozue called back over her shoulder as she trotted off for Elliott's classroom. The long, skinny, nut-brown form of Kevin Pettrone seemed to materialize from behind the nearest bank of lockers. "Aw-haw-haw, my -man-!" he said, slapping his teammate five. "Did I not -tell- you that would be simple? Phase One is complete!" He put his arm over Heinzen's shoulder again and led him off toward their math class, gesturing grandly with his free hand. "And tomorrow night, my son, you shall become a man!" The bell rang. "But tonight we're both doin' detention," Pat grumbled. "It'll be worth it, my boy," assured Kevin with a broad grin. "It'll be worth it." Kozue surveyed herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door and decided she would do. It wasn't the most formal of outfits, but it wasn't bad. The black pants were comfy but still had a nice line, and the double-breasted blue silk shirt was relaxed and yet hearkened to her old Ohtori Academy dress uniform, giving her a very slightly military look. She topped it off with a warm black cloak - a present from Miki, purchased from the Satori Mandeville Memorial uniform shop - and, because she was feeling jaunty tonight, a little round black hat with a brim, like the one Miki's girlfriend Dorothy sometimes wore. "Looking sharp," Sylvie Daniels remarked as Kozue came out of the spare room into the second-floor hallway. She was lounging - back against the doorframe, though even when Sylvie was standing up, she still looked like she was lounging - in the doorway to Guy Morgan's bedroom, hands in her trouser pockets. "Thanks," Kozue told her. "Now you kids be good while I'm gone," she added with an air of mock admonishment, drawing a snigger from Sylvie. "That'll be the day," she said. "Have fun, Kozue." On cue, the doorbell rang. Two points for Heinzen, thought Kozue with a little smile as she went down the stairs. I don't go out with guys who sit in their cars and honk. Corwin Ravenhair felt mildly out of sorts as he unlocked the door to his apartment at a little past midnight. The upcoming Saturday, October 21, was going to be the first Saturday in quite some time on which he and Anthy Tenjou hadn't taken some time apart from the pack and enjoyed themselves. The impending week was the first DSM Finals Week Anthy had had to face, and she'd very regretfully begged off their usual appointment to spend the time getting in some extra studying. He could understand that, and had readily agreed, without hurt feelings. This was the first time in a long, long time that Anthy had possessed any actual reason to apply herself to her studies, and she was out of the habit. Except for the DSM entrance and placement exam, for which she'd prepared for an entire summer, she hadn't sat an examination in which it made the slightest bit of difference how she scored in... well, -ever-, really. It was important for her to be as prepared as possible, and if they had to miss their weekly time once for that to be done, then that was a price Corwin would gladly pay. Still, it was weird to think of a Saturday afternoon and evening without anything to do with himself. He wondered, as he hung his coat on the rack by the door and took off his shoes, if Fuu might like to hit the Cobalt, or if this was the weekend when Chip Mui finally got off his duff and asked her out. Even -Corwin- could see that he wanted to, and Corwin himself acknowledged that he almost -never- noticed things like that. Thinking of which, as he crossed the living room (navigating by the dim glow from the windows around the empty furniture), he wondered how Kozue's date went. He supposed he could call 105 and find out - one of Priss's many bad habits was the fact that she never went to bed before 2 on a Friday or Saturday if she could possibly help it, and she and Sylvie would have been sure to extract a full report from Kozue the instant she got home. He decided against that, though. He was tired and wanted his bed, and it would be just as easy to find out first-hand the next day. Without turning on a light, he went through the curtains into his bedroom area, changed into his pajamas, and climbed into bed. His Valkyrie-trained self-defense skills had served him in good stead on many occasions; but on this one he had cause to thank his training in self-restraint as well. If he'd had the one without the other he'd have bashed the person who was already in his bed a pretty solid one before realizing it must be Kozue. "Oops," he murmured, mostly to himself; he tried to back out again without waking her, but she jerked, sucking in a sharp breath between her teeth and recoiling slightly from his shape in the dark. "Sorry," he whispered. "Didn't know you were there." "Corwin?" she whispered back. "Who else?" he replied. "Didn't I mention I was coming home tonight? Never mind, don't get up - I'll just - " Before he could go on telling her he'd sleep on the couch and they'd sort whateverthehell went wrong this time out in the morning, and before he could slip any further out of bed, she grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him back, burrowing in close and burying her face in his chest. His eyes went wide with surprise (not that there was anything more to see in the darkness), but only for a moment. Then he realized she was crying, which meant it wasn't that sort of thing at all. "Whoa, whoa," he said softly, hugging her a little clumsily. "What... what's the matter? Did you have a fight with Sylv or something?" As he said it, he felt a cold finger of dread draw up his backbone, accompanied by an awful, falling feeling of deja vu. He almost flinched physically from the thought; it manifested itself as a twitch, as he prevented himself from crushing her tighter in his arms. She felt it and let out a little moan; he took it for discomfort and relaxed his embrace, but she did it again and shook her head. He got the message and held her tighter; that seemed to make her reasonably content, for a person crying her eyes out in the dark. If Corwin had been able to see the luminous dial of his bedside alarm clock, he would have known it took her about half an hour to calm down enough to talk. The table was behind him, though, so he could only guess as Kozue put her hands against his chest and levered herself back a little. His eyes were now fully adjusted to the dark, enough so that in the faint yellowish hint of New Avalon's nightglow that filtered through the curtains, he could see the trails of moisture on her cheeks and the glitter of her eyes as she searched his face in the dark. "They know," she whispered, her voice soaked in anguish. Corwin felt puzzlement. "Who knows? Knows what?" "The kids at school. The guys, anyway. They know... about me, about before." She closed her eyes, letting out a bitter sob that came out more like a cough. When she opened her eyes and saw he still didn't understand, she said angrily, "They know I was the fucking Ohtori school whore, OK?" Corwin's face passed from puzzlement through comprehension to sad compassion in about a second. "Aw, Kozue," he murmured, drawing her back into his embrace again. Then, spurred by that same cold feeling of dread and deja vu, he pushed her back to look at her face again and asked softly, "Did... did he... " Now it was Kozue's turn to look puzzled for a second; then she understood, and shook her head hastily. "No no," she said. "He just... after the movie, he drove us up to the Heights and made it pretty clear what he expected. I told him nothing doing, and he got mad. Said he'd heard I didn't know what 'no' -was-, so why the act? I told him he must have somebody else in mind and he could just take me home now, thank you very much, and he said if I was gonna be that way about it, I could walk. So I did. All the way down here. I didn't really mean to do that... I just suddenly realized I was here, and I had the key you gave me after last weekend... I called your dad's house and told Guy I was gonna sleep here tonight, so they wouldn't worry... " She crumpled in against his chest again. "Dammit... I thought I'd gotten -away- from all that. Thought this place was going to be -different-... but it's just the same... how did they know? How -could- they know? The only person -here- who knows is -you-... and you would never... " "No," Corwin replied, stroking her back. "No, I wouldn't." He thought about it for a second, then said, "But I can make a pretty good guess who did." "Who?" "Well, let's see. Who hates me, everybody else who was on the Valiant this summer, and everyone who's associated with the DSM Duelists?" Kozue leaned back and looked up at him, confusion overlaying the pain on her face. "Clarissa? But how the hell would she know?" Corwin chuckled bitterly - it came out as more of a snort - and said, "I bet she -doesn't-. She just made it up, in hopes some yahoo would give you a rough time." He clenched his fists - she felt them bunch against her back - and went on through his teeth, "Never even thinking about how... how -ugly- that could have been... when I see her again I'm gonna... " Feeling her stiffen in his arms in response to his anger, he left what he was gonna unsaid and forced himself to relax. Talking of mayhem wasn't going to help right now. "We can fix this," he said. "Besides, you turned Heinzen down and walked home, right? That should prove to anybody with half a brain that you're not... what they say you are. Right?" "Maybe," Kozue replied softly. "But I turned guys down and walked away for more'n a year at the Academy, and... well... you saw." "Koopman High isn't like Ohtori Academy," Corwin assured her gently. He continued to rub her back, soothing her pain and anger. "Try and get some sleep, huh? We'll figure out what to do for damage control in the morning." "You won't go anywhere, will you?" she asked, sounding small and wounded. She reminded him of several people at several times, not least himself on a cool spring night in Worcester, and he gave her an extra little squeeze in response to the memory. As has been done for you, so you do for others, he thought to himself. "No," he replied, "I won't go anywhere." He ducked his head a little and kissed her on the forehead. "Sleep. It won't seem as bad in the morning." Pat Heinzen was still in a bad mood Monday morning, though not, perhaps, for the reasons a casually informed observer might have thought. When Kevin Pettrone intercepted him in the hall before homeroom, draped an arm over him and generally did the o-see-the- conq'ring-hero-cometh bit, Pat was mostly annoyed by -him-. The whole Friday-night thing had left a bad taste in his mouth, and now Pettrone was going to want chapter and verse. Pat didn't feel like dealing with it right now. "So? So, so, so?" asked Kevin as Pat opened his locker, hung up his coat, and started digging out his books for the first two periods. "A needle pulling thread," Pat grumbled. "Don't be a smartass, Irish," replied Kevin with his picket- fence grin. "You know what I'm after. Dish! How'd Phase Two go, man?" See? Pat shrugged internally. "How do you -think- it went, Kev?" he replied. "I'll give you the details later if you really gotta know. Right now I gotta get to homeroom. I'm not gonna be late again this month." "OK! OK!" Kevin replied, spreading his hands in surrender, his grin getting even wider. Pat had never really noticed before, but that grin was really annoying. He shouldered his locker shut and went off down the hall, shaking his head. It was starting to dawn on him that Kevin Pettrone was a bit of a jerk. Wonder why he's so grumpy this morning? wondered Kevin as he watched his friend slope down the hall. Oh well. The important thing is, success was achieved! Laughing to himself, Kevin hurried off toward his own homeroom to spread the good tidings of the Irish's success. Heinzen didn't usually stop at his locker after third period, but today he'd forgotten his fourth-period notebook in his haste to get away from Kev and his goddamn grin, so he was making an unscheduled stop. As he rummaged in his locker, he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder and sighed internally. "Look, Kev," he began as he yielded to the hand's pressure and turned around, "I don't wannOOOOFFFF!" That's funny, he thought as he staggered back against his locker, dropping his bookbag to the floor. Kev doesn't usually sucker-punch me. Then he realized it wasn't Kev at all - it was the Ravenhair kid, and boy, did he look pissed off about something. Three guesses what, and Pat couldn't quite bring himself to -blame- the guy, but still, nobody sucker-punches the Irish and gets away with it, right? He lunged forward, looping out one of his long roundballer's arms, but Ravenhair ducked under it, wove in and landed another solid body blow, bearing him back against the lockers again. Heinzen snarled and dropped an elbow on him, but he arched himself to take it on the shoulder and hit the taller boy another punishing left. He knew a little something about fighting; he didn't hit for the face, but always the body, slugging away with remarkable power for such a compact guy. He didn't want to mark Pat; he just wanted to make him hurt a lot, and he was getting that job done with admirable efficiency. Pat Heinzen had admitted, at least to himself, that he was well on his way to losing this fight when the teachers dragged them apart and Principal Strickland strode like an outraged centurion into the space between them. "What the HELL is going on here?!" he demanded. "Who started this? WHO?" Pat was determined to keep quiet - he was no rat - but Corwin surprised him by taking the matter out of his hands, saying without hesitation, "I did." Strickland whirled on Corwin, his eyebrows shooting up nearly to his bald scalp. "YOU, Ravenhair? You threw the first punch?" "That's right," Corwin replied, his eyes still hard with rage. "And as soon as Mr. Fujisawa lets go of me," he added, "I'm gonna throw the last one." Corwin couldn't see Fujisawa wince, a pained sort of oh-that- was-dumb-but-I-gotta-admit-it's-ballsy look, but Pat could, and he had to admit he agreed with it. Strickland seemed to take it in stride, though; rather than erupting further, he continued at the same level of peremptory snap. "And why, might I ask, have you chosen this particular moment to remodel Mr. Heinzen?" At the periphery of the crowd of students that had gathered to see the fight and its aftermath, Corwin noticed Kozue. For just an instant they made eye contact, long enough for her to give him a what-the-hell-are-you-doing look, and then he looked back at Strickland and said, "A private matter, sir." It was the wrong thing to say. Strickland marched right up to him, almost nose to nose, and informed him harshly, "Your private matters become -my- private matters when you take them up in my hallways. Now you can tell me here, or you can tell me in my office. Which would you prefer?" Corwin surprised him slightly by meeting his eyes head-on and replying flatly, "Your office, Mr. Strickland." The principal settled on his heels, took a step back, raked his hard eyes over Corwin and Pat, then said, "All right. Come to my outer office. You'll wait there while I call Heinzen's parents - I know, Ravenhair, don't bother telling me, you're on your own - and so help me, if either of you gets an idea to carry on your little discussion in my outer office, you'll both be looking for someplace else to get your diplomas. Am I understood?" Pat nodded readily. "Yessir." "What about you, Ravenhair? Understood?" Corwin glared at Pat for a moment, then transferred his gaze to Strickland without modulating it very much; but he nodded stiffly all the same. "Understood." Strickland left them cooling their heels in his outer office, alone together. This was a standard tactic of his for dealing with fights; it gauged whether the combatants had really calmed down enough to tell him what was going on, or whether they were smart enough to cool it when caught. If either answer was no, more discipline was needed anyway. Pat Heinzen and Corwin Ravenhair didn't start fighting again. They sat at opposite ends of the row of chairs in Strickland's outer office, Pat slumped with his elbows on his knees, Corwin upright and still clearly angry. Finally, after glancing across at him several times, Pat roused himself to ask, "Hey... what the hell'd you do that for, man?" Corwin gave him a look that said all he needed to say. "I never touched her," Pat told him. "I know," Corwin replied darkly. "But you've been telling all your buddies you did anyway, huh? Real big man. We'll see how big you feel when I finish the job I started on you." Heinzen blinked, genuinely confused. "What? I never told anyone that." Corwin snorted. "Don't play dumb. It's all over the - " He caught himself; the principal might be listening. " - freaking school. Big man Pat Heinzen scored with the New Girl up at the Heights Friday night. Look at that, she's as easy as they say. Line starts at Pat! But you and I know different, don't we, Pat?" he snarled. "It hurt her a lot, the way you treated her, and now -this-." The young god boiled up again. The hell with the principal. If he was listening, fine, let him listen to this: "When we get off Strickland's patch, I'm gonna make you wish you were never born." "I don't doubt you could," Pat replied, gingerly palming his abused midsection. "But listen, I'm tellin' you straight, I didn't say that. The only person I've talked to at all about it is my pal Kev, and I blew him off when he asked me. Told him I'd tell him... later... " The young athlete's voice trailed off as his memory provided him with a clip of what, in his irritation, he'd actually said to Kevin. ("How do you -think- it went, Kev?") "... Aw, man," he muttered. "Kev thought I... look, it was an honest misunderstanding," he added as Corwin's scowl deepened. "Really. Kev was buggin' me to dish, right, and I didn't feel like goin' into it first thing in the morning, so I just told him, 'How do you think it went? I'll tell you later.' I didn't think, but of course he took it... " He slumped. "Aw man." "Smooth," Corwin told him, voice oozing vitriol. "Real smooth. Some friends you've got, Heinzen. I bet this 'Kev' is the guy who told you she was easy in the first place." "Uh... yeah." "And did he say where he heard it from?" "I don't think - " "Ravenhair. Get in here," Strickland snapped from the suddenly-open door to his inner office. Corwin took his punishment, if not with the humility normally associated with Strickland's discipline, at least with dignity. A week's detention was really not all that bad, given that he'd jumped another student right in the middle of the hall. Corwin was still boiling as he left the office, though, having missed all of fourth period. His only goal now was to seek out and destroy Kevin Pettrone. If that got him a suspension, or even an expulsion, well, -fine-. He could just fucking go back to Tenjou Academy. The food was better there anyfuckingway. He was mildly surprised to find his path blocked by the slim form of Chip Mui. "I thought your fifth-period class was in the south wing," said he, conversationally. "Not in the mood, Chip," Corwin growled. "Out of my way." Chip didn't move. "Look, Corwin," he said - which got Corwin's attention, because as his self-appointed worshipper, Chip almost never called him by name - "as much as you'd like to pound Kev into the ground, I'd hold off." "And why is that?" asked Corwin acidly. "Do you know what - " "Just the broad strokes, but yeah, I know, and I'm not happy about it either. But, you've gotta believe me on one thing: I've got it covered." "'Covered'?" Corwin wondered, his caustic sarcasm ebbing a bit as his temper cooled. "How have you got it 'covered'?" "O Mighty One... my Dad taught me -other- ways to fight battles. Besides, Clarissa Broadbank isn't the only one who can work the grapevine," added Chip with a grin. "Relax. Go to class. Serve your sentence. I'll take care of Pettrone. Besides, if you get into another fight over her, Kozue's going to get torqued, and you wouldn't want that. She and Buttercup are already muttering about what a -boy- you're being." "I'm surprised Buttercup hasn't already flattened the guy herself!" Corwin protested. "Mr. Ravenhair!" snapped Strickland's voice from the door to the school reception office. "Are you planning to loiter in the halls all day conferring, or were you thinking you might go to class at some point?" Corwin sighed discreetly to Chip, turned, and nodded. "On my way, Mr. Strickland," he said, and matched deed to word. The best way for Corwin to keep himself from dwelling on the matter and boiling up again was to spend as much of his time working as possible. This was a standard tactic of his from times past, and it worked quite well now. Evenings that week, after serving his detention, found him stretched out on one of the couches in his living room area, a big sketch pad sprawled on his lap, scribbling intently, pausing now and then to gaze into the depths of a large, glowing green G-stone. Kozue, having forgiven him for making a scene, came over every evening to make sure he ate. At school, he had that particularly distracted air that all his friends knew was the air of Corwin with a major project. That continued until Thursday, when, in the midst of third-period study hall, Corwin - who had been scribbling more and more furiously on his sketchpad as the period went on - finished up, signed his name in the corner of the page with a great flourish, flipped the pad shut, then sat back in his seat and sighed a fulfilled sigh. Applause broke out spontaneously; he reddened and made a dismissive gesture. Having re-established contact with the outside world, he joined the crowd at lunch (when buried in a project he sat by himself in the corner of the lunchroom). As he did so, he took a look around the room and noticed that Kevin Pettrone, over at Clarissa Broadbank's table, was looking a bit... well, like a truck had run over him. As he sat down, he asked his own group, "OK, who happened to Pettrone? Buttercup?" "Don't look at me," Buttercup replied. "I wanted to, but Mui talked me out of it. Said he had it covered." She glanced sidelong down her side of the table at Chip. "I didn't think you had it in you," she told him. Chip shook his head. "Not guilty," he said. "I'm not a man of violence. I've just been stuffing his locker with pamphlets about the evils of peer pressure and rumormongering all week. I thought -you- probably did the bodywork." "I wouldn't have been that sloppy about it," Buttercup informed him with a touch of workman's pride. "OK, 'fess up, who did it?" She looked all around the table, but nobody spoke. "Wait a minute. You mean it wasn't any of us?" "Looks like it," Corwin said. "I bet I know who it was, though." Kozue was on her way to her last class of the day when Pat Heinzen rounded the corner ahead of her, looked around, spotted her, and looked relieved. "Kozue!" he called. "Wait a second. Please. I have to talk to you." "I don't think we have anything to say to each other," she replied. "I have to get to class." "Please," he repeated. "Just for a second. It's important." She sized him up, noting the earnest, perhaps even slightly stricken look on his face, and relented, halting. "Talk fast," she said, restraining herself from adding, "That's what you're best at." "Uh... OK, look... I just wanted to say... " He looked down at the floor, then forced himself to meet her eyes again and went on, "I'm really sorry about last Friday. I was way outta line." With that off his chest, he became a little more animated, leaning slightly toward her and going on, "And I want you to know I did -not- go around telling people you... uh... " He trailed off, face reddening. Kozue gave him an unsympathetic look and said coolly, "Put out for you?" "Uh... yeah," said Pat, his ears flaming. He saved himself from embarrassment by becoming indignant. "That whole thing got started by an EX-bud of mine, and I fixed him for it, too. I'm a big jerk sometimes, and I don't think before I do stuff as much as I should," he went on in a rush, "but I'm no liar. Anybody asks me, I tell 'em you slammed the door in my face and walked. And that's straight up." His piece said, Pat stood there, his chin pushed out pugnaciously, thumb still pressed to his chest where he'd indicated himself at "I'm no liar." Kozue looked up at him for a moment, her face unreadable, and then softened her expression a little. "Thanks," she said. "I appreciate that." Then she looked past him and repeated, much less peremptorily this time, "I have to get to class." "Oh, uh... right. Well, I said my piece anyway. I'll just... yeah. Oh - and, uh... if you ever need anything... y'know, guys giving you a problem or whatever... just let me know, and I'll take care of it for you, OK?" "I, uh... I'll think about it," Kozue told him. "I really have to go now." Pat nodded. "OK. Well... bye." Kozue smiled, just a little - trying to let him know that there were hard feelings, but not spiteful ones - just the bad-memory kind. "Bye, Pat," she said, and went off down the hall. Pat watched her disappear around the corner, then sighed, hefted his backpack, and went the other way. His rep was taking quite a beating with him not only not denying, but actually confirming, his failure on Friday... but somehow he felt better about himself for doing it than he had in years. And anyway, it wasn't going to take as much of a beating as that rat Pettrone's face already had. Pat Heinzen barely made it to his last class on time, drawing a disapproving stare and a cold "so glad you could join us" from Mr. Elliott, but he was smiling anyway as he took his seat. "Well," Utena Tenjou opined, "there might be hope for that guy after all." "Yeah, that's what I was thinking too," Corwin replied. He lay back on the couch, twiddling the phone cord with his fingers, and added, "He's turned into kind of a dipshit the last couple of years, being Mr. Star Basketball Player and all, but it looks like he's still a stand-up guy at heart. I'm not saying she's forgiven him, but... " "That kind of thing takes longer," Utena agreed. "What are you going to do about Clarissa?" "I dunno yet," Corwin said. "Chip Mui's working the grapevine (his words, not mine) to do a little damage control, but we're not sure it's going to be enough. Heinzen's doing his part, but some people think he's just saying it 'cause I threw a scare into him." "Typical," said Utena, disgust evident in her voice. "Well, I hope it works out. She's earned a break or two. When you see her tomorrow, tell her Miki's thinking of her." Corwin opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment, the door buzzer sounded. "I might get a chance to tell her tonight," he said with a sigh. "What, again?" "I dunno who else'd be ringing my doorbell at 10:30 at night," Corwin replied. "I better go. I'll see you tomorrow, OK?" "You bet. Take it easy, Corwin." "You too. Good luck with everybody's last finals. G'night." "Night." Corwin hung up, heaved himself off the sofa, and went to answer the door; and sure enough, there was Kozue, dripping on the welcome mat from the pouring rain outside. "Hi," said Corwin. "C'mon in, get changed. I'll put the kettle on." Nodding, without a word, Kozue went into the bathroom. A few minutes later she emerged, hair wrapped up in a towel, dressed in one of Corwin's t-shirts over shorts. She curled up in one of the armchairs, wrapped herself in a blanket, and waited for him to bring her a cup of hot cocoa. Then he sat down in the other chair, facing her, and didn't ask any questions. She answered them anyway. "Nothing happened this time," she said. "I just... " She paused, took a deep breath, and said, "OK, look... I'm going to start with a fact and then explain it, OK, so you're going to have to bear with me for a few minutes." Corwin nodded. "OK," he said equably. "Shoot." "Well... " Kozue looked down at her painted toenails, wiggled them at herself for a second, then looked up, met his eyes and said, "The fact is... I love you." Corwin raised an eyebrow. "I don't mean I'm in love with you," she went on. "I told you back at the Academy, I'm not trying to be your girl or anything. I just mean... well, I love you. Like you love Kate. Like I love Miki. Dammit, why do we only have one word for so many different things? Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you? You've been a great friend to me. You've helped me out, you've been there for me, you've watched out for me, but at the same time you've let me be me. Just like Miki used to do... before... well, before." She paused, gathering words, and then went on, "You're not replacing him, exactly. I mean, nobody could replace Miki. God knows I tried. It's more like... like I have -two- brothers now. I've been thinking about this since last weekend, trying to figure out just how I feel, and now I think I have it nailed down. "So I came to ask... can I just... stay here with you? Not until I can find someplace else - there's no real reason I couldn't go back to your father's place - but just because... because this is where I want to be? I know it's rude of me to invite myself... I know you like living on your own... but I had to ask." She trailed off, her confidence failing her, and hung her head. "I'll understand if you say no. I'd probably be in the way a lot anyway." She got up. "I'm sorry, this was stupid of me. I'll just - " She stopped, uttering a soft sound of surprise, as she realized that he'd risen and rounded the coffee table while she'd been looking at her feet and talking herself out of everything. She based this realization on the fact that he was suddenly hugging her. Then, with a curious little smile on his face, he said, "Come here a minute. I've got something to show you." Puzzled, she took his hand, and he led her to the curtains surrounding the 'bedroom' corner of the studio. They passed through, and she stopped short with another surprised little sound. Sometime between when she'd left the World Wide Building on Saturday evening and now, Corwin had modified his bed. Where before it had been a simple affair with a wooden headboard containing a couple of storage compartments and no footboard, it now had a stout post at each corner, and braced against the head-end post on the side facing them was a sharply angled little nautical staircase, halfway between stairs and a ladder. That staircase led up, as nautical staircases do, to another deck. Kozue was frozen to the spot, giving Corwin a look of mingled astonishment and delight; he turned to meet her eyes. "For once in my life, I'm ahead," he said with a grin. "I was thinking about asking if you wanted to move in here this weekend, but I couldn't figure out a way to phrase it that wouldn't sound like... well, something else." "But... what about your bachelor style?" she asked in a small voice. Corwin laughed. "You came up with that, not me," he said. "Anyway, 'bachelor style' is just a euphemism for letting your laundry go too long, and I could never stand to do that anyway." Becoming more serious, he said, "When I decided to go off on my own, I never really considered how lonely it would get sometimes. I -should- have; I was lonely last spring, before you barged into East Hall." He smiled, put an arm around her shoulders, and said, "I realized the last time you stayed here for a while and left again that I missed you." "I... " Kozue trailed off, speechless. Then, regaining something of her old poise, she cracked a wry grin and asked, "What'll the Tenjous think?" Corwin chuckled. "Anthy will think it's nice and want to come make us shaved ice," he predicted, "and Utena will give me one of these," he added, shaping his face into a passable imitation of the pink-haired Duelist's "what the?!" expression. Kozue laughed, then hugged him. "Thank you," she said. "It's OK," Corwin replied. "Welcome home, Kozue." FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2406, 12:31 PM THE CASTLE DEEDLIT SATORI MANDEVILLE MEMORIAL INSTITUTE During lunch break, Utena Tenjou gathered together the three people most likely to be concerned - Anthy, Miki Kaoru, and Kaitlyn - in the Castle library and related to them a rather odd message he'd received that morning from Corwin. When she was finished, there was a somewhat puzzled silence. Then Miki tripped his stopwatch and said, "Well, that's... unconventional... but it will probably be effective. I don't see a problem with it." Kate, though, had an eyebrow raised. "She's p-p-pretending to be his g-girlfriend?" "That's what he told me," Utena said. "He says it doesn't change anything - it's just to keep the wolves off the porch, was the way he phrased it." "It'll also go a long way toward undoing the damage Clarissa did with her rumors," Miki pointed out, "if she's seen to be in a stable relationship over a decent period of time." Utena scowled, fists clenching. "Clarissa. I'd like to wring her scrawny -neck- for dragging that out, even though she didn't know she was... " "Suppose she decides she really wants to go out with somebody else, though?" mused Anthy. "Well, then, I guess they'll 'break up'," Utena said. "It happens a lot. What I want to know is what happens if -he- decides he wants to see somebody else. That'd leave her high and dry, wouldn't it? He wouldn't abandon her like that, I know, but that makes it even more of a burden on him." "I doubt very much," said Anthy with calm diplomacy, "whether that will become an issue before they graduate." Utena gave her a puzzled look. "I don't know how you can say -that-," she said. "I mean, I know what you base it on, but... things change. For his sake, anyway, I -hope- they do." Anthy shrugged gracefully. "Perhaps it will become true in time," she said. "That wouldn't be so bad, would it?" "Noooo," said Utena, drawing it out thoughtfully and pinching her bottom lip with thumb and knuckle. "I suppose not." "Kate, what do you think?" Miki asked. Kaitlyn considered for a moment and then said, "W-well... it c-c-could get m-m-messy ev-ventually, but... " She shrugged. "C-could we s-s-stop them if w-w-we w-wanted?" "Well, Dad might be able to," Utena noted. "I doubt he would, though. He signed off on her moving in with him, after all." She joined her former roommate in shrugging. "Anyway, like he said, it doesn't really change anything. I guess if Miki's OK, I don't have an objection... " "I think it's a good thing," he said. "The purpose it's been conceived for is a noble one... and I wouldn't take it amiss if it became true in time myself," he added, smiling. "One th-thing b-bothers me," said Kate. "W-won't his w-w-weekend t-trips look a b-bit odd?" "Well, all their close friends - the rest of the Wave and so on - are in on it," said Utena. "Nobody else really knows where Corwin goes or what he does. And even if some of the kids do think it's weird, like either of them'll care?" she added with a grin. "For purposes of the plan, it doesn't matter if -Corwin- looks suspicious." "I sup-p-pose not," Kate agreed. She sighed. "Still... it'll take some g-getting used to." SUNDAY, OCTOBER 29, 2406 RYAN MATHEWS MEMORIAL SPACEPORT NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI Kozue Kaoru sat in the cockpit of her antique Z-95, canopy up, settling comfortably into the welcoming embrace of the Easy Chair. She checked that her straps were tight, adjusted her fingerless gloves, and snugged up the chin strap of her flight helmet, then turned her head and smiled at Corwin, who leaned against one of the One-Hit Wonder's landing legs. He grinned, then raised his hand and whirled it above his head - the time-honored gesture for "wind 'er up". Kozue reached down to the panel and worked the controls that brought the fighter's fusion plant online, feeling the almost subsensory vibration in the seat of her flightsuit as the reactor powered up. Displays flickered to life all around her, semi-projective holographic panels drawing her detailed, colorful pictures of her craft's systems and status. When the reactor reached full power, she placed the fingertips of her right hand under a row of four toggle switches and snapped them all up at once - just like in the X-1 simulation she'd run when she first started her spacer training. With four harmonic whines, the four axial fusion turbines mounted two to a side aft of her kicked over and spooled up, their whines blending together into a smooth growl of contained power as the engines idled. She turned to face Corwin again and showed him a thumbs-up. He returned it, then went up the ramp into the Wonder. A few moments later, her earphones clicked and his voice came. "RX1-9803, this is HDK-8212, come in." Kozue took hold of the joystick built into the Easy Chair's right arm and thumbed the push-to-talk. "RX1-9803 reading you, One-Hit Wonder." "Good. How's she feel?" "No problems. How's it look on your end?" "Sensors show all your systems active and normal. Feel like taking her up?" "Do I," Kozue replied with a grin. "Think he's ready?" "What are you, Russian?" Corwin laughed. "Calling your ship a he." "Well, that's the impression that I get," she replied. "I'm the one with the joystick in my hand," she added with a sly grin. That got another snort of amusement from the One-Hit Wonder's cockpit. Then Corwin said, "OK, you've got a point there. All right. Hang on a second while I warn the tower about what we're doing." There was a pause as he conversed with Mathews Control on another frequency; then he returned to Kozue's ears. "OK, we're all set. Tower knows we're doing a drive test. I'll be up after you if there's any problem. But one thing before you go. Listening?" "With bated breath," she assured him. "OK. If you have any problem - any problem at all - then PUNCH OUT. Don't try to get fancy. Just aim it at the lake and boot. We can get another Headhunter someplace. We -can't- get another Kozue. OK? End of speech. Test your wings." The blue-haired girl chuckled - he sounded like Sensei-Mode Kaitlyn when he got like that - and thumbed the PTT. "Ten-four, flight leader. I won't be a hero. Switching to ATC freq for launch clearance." She reached to the comm panel, twirled the dial, then thumbed the button again and said with as much authority as she could muster, "Mathews Control, this is Romeo X-Ray One, niner eight zero three, requesting permission to depart for restoration flight test." "Roger that, X-Ray One," the laconic voice of the tower controller responded. "The field is clear. Wind is six knots out of the northeast, visibility unlimited, ceiling unlimited. Have a happy flight." Kozue smiled as she thanked the controller and signed off the band. Mathews Memorial was not New Avalon's busiest spaceport; that role fell to Avalon County Spaceport, across Lake Daniels in South New Avalon. Mathews had some commercial stuff, but it was mainly a general aviation and astronautics terminal, so flying around on random pleasure flights and arranging the comings and goings of such things as the IPO Chief's personal starship were much simpler matters. No jockeying in a traffic pattern with bulk haulers booming in from other Core Systems - just the occasional passenger express and other regular pilots like Kozue to deal with. She gripped the throttles, eased them open a touch, felt the ship respond. The repulsors whined, lifting the Headhunter off its skids as it moved forward out of the hangar. Kozue felt the smooth balance of the fields as she taxied out onto the apron; no need for a runway with a repulsor-fitted ship. She closed the canopy, checked her radar scope, backed it up with a visual sweep, then opened the throttles up and headed out. This was a simple atmospheric flight. The Headhunter was far from complete. It - he, by Kozue's lights - still wore the faded, insignialess paint job of the Titan Defense Forces, altered only by the addition of his new registry number in black temporary lettering on wings and nose cone. There were no weapons, no targeting systems, and no deflectors online - not even navigational deflectors, which meant the ship wasn't even spaceworthy yet. But he could fly, and that was what Kozue was up here to do. She took the Headhunter out over Lake Daniels, passing Bear Island Light, and played among the few fluffy clouds that dotted the sky over the lake today. She stayed away from the busy skyways around New Avalon itself, having no desire to get tangled up in traffic, and just played over the lake. She buzzed the Cranberry Isles, spotting Hikaru Shidou and her dog at play in the field near the house, and laughed as the little redhead waved furiously, knowing who must be flying the battered old fighter. But he didn't handle like a battered old fighter, no indeed. The new turbines ran flawlessly, the flight control system responded without hesitation or overassertiveness; everything felt perfectly balanced, perfectly responsive. Kozue couldn't wait to get the Headhunter away from the pseudocontinent, out into the Sphere, out -of- the Sphere and into the true vastness of deep space where he belonged. She thought perhaps she felt his eagerness, too, to feel the caress of vacuum on his tritanium alloy hull once again, to race among the stars. Soon. Very soon now. She landed back at the hangar a half-hour later, but her spirit didn't come down with her. It was still playing somewhere over the Cranberries when Corwin came down the One-Hit Wonder's ramp, grinning, to watch her unstrap and scramble out of the cockpit. "How'd it go?" he asked. "As if I couldn't tell by the look on your face." "Wonderfully," she said. "He's marvelous." She paused, then, a new smile spreading across her face as she considered something; then she laughed and said, "You look pretty smug yourself." "That's because Dad stopped by while you were out," he said, "and gave me this to give to you." He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. "What is it?" Kozue wondered as she unfolded it; then she glanced over it and her question was answered for her. The sheet bore the masthead of the Galactic Asteroid Racing Alliance, the sanctioning body for that once-hugely-popular, exciting, dangerous sport. Kozue knew all about asteroid racing, having heard about it from Corwin and his father. The elder had been one of the four principal inventors of the sport, many years before, and his stories about the sport had made Kozue all but itch to try it. And try it she had, in a few impromptu runs through rocky patches during her summer as the Valiant's helmsman and Corwin's pupil in shipmastery, all of them aboard the most dominant asteroid racer of the sport's golden age - the infamous Swordfish II, which was now the personal property of Captain Utena Tenjou of the International Police Space Force Reserve. She'd also run one of the tightest blockades in known space behind that ship's throttles, busting out of the Earth defense grid after the Argentine lockdown. For all that, though, Kozue had never raced in a -real- asteroid race. The only GARA-sanctioned asteroid race in decades had taken place a couple days after the previous Christmas, when Corwin and his father had presented Utena with the Swordfish II and then put her victorious test run on the record books. This paper she held in her hand was an entry blank for a real, live, fully sanctioned, publicly heralded, network televised, open field, Unlimited Class GARA asteroid race, to be held late the following month on the original asteroid racecourse - the WDF Small Craft Hazard Zone just inside the orbit of Zeta Cygni II. "Twenty-two days... " Kozue mused, looking at the date for the first day of qualifying. She looked from the paper to Corwin's face, eager delight dancing in her deep-blue eyes. "Can we be ready?" Corwin took a turbospanner from his toolbelt, flipped it in the air, and caught it in the ready position. "That's up to you," he said, grinning. /* Big Country "Save Me" _Through a Big Country_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited No turning back presented No looking round UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES I wasn't searching FUTURE IMPERFECT See what I found - Symphony of the Sword No. 3 - Inside the spaces Fifth Movement: Sophomore Slump Inside of me If there's a reason The Cast What will it be? (in order of appearance) Tom Palmer Come on and save me Carrie Kimball Come on and save me Anthy Tenjou I want to know if you're the one Utena Tenjou that's gonna change me Boba Fett Go on and change me Jango Fett Hey rearrange me Corwin Ravenhair I need to know if you're the one Kozue Kaoru that's gonna save me Martin Rose Eiko Magami Rose I thought I knew Zach Stephens I had my hope T'skaia Vorokoshiga'ar Swing in the changes Ixtitxtaaqitl't'chl'Vraihelt Ishkarat Ring out the old Elisabeth R'tas Shustal I'm happy chasing Miki Kaoru What I can't reach Kaitlyn Hutchins I'm still embracing Sergei Secrets I meet Jessica d'Alkirk Yuri Daniels Come on and save me Theresa Utonium Come on and save me Theodora Utonium I need to know if you're the one Blossom Utonium that's gonna change me Tenchi Shannon Go on and change me Hikaru Shidou Hey rearrange me C.P. "Chip" Mui I need to know if you're the one Clarissa Broadbank that's gonna save me Reiyna Mui Achika Shannon I wasted time Nall Silverclaw That wasn't mine Uum'y R'yuu-z'ky I hung the jury Fuu Hououji I fled the crime Harland Elliott Shake off tomorrow Patrick Heinzen Break off the past Kevin Pettrone I know that sorrow Sylvie Daniels It never lasts James Strickland Masamichi Fujisawa Come on and save me Come on and save me Sleep Deferment I need to know if you're the one Benjamin D. Hutchins that's gonna change me Go on and change me Pat Heinzen and Kev Pettrone Hey rearrange me created by Pearson Mui I need to know if you're the one that's gonna save me Special Consultant Martin Rose Come on and save me Come on and save me Live Concept Wrangling I need to know if you're the one John Trussell that's gonna change me Anne Cross Go on and change me Hey rearrange me Online Concept Wrangling I need to know if you're the one The Usual Suspects that's gonna save me The Symphony will return E P U (colour) 2002