Celebration Sabotage

*RING*

The school bell rang, signaling the end of the school day, but for Kasumi, it felt more like an alarm telling her to move. She’d formulated her plan. Now all she had to do was act it out. Step one was, in some ways, the easiest… and the hardest. All she had to do was decline any offer from Momo to hang out after school. Even before she’d become a Maiden, they’d hung out more days than not. Kasumi took a deep breath as she approached Momo’s desk.

“Sorry, but I can’t hang out today. I need to prepare your chocolates, and I can’t very well do it with you there, can I?” she repeated in her head, over and over. The words grew familiar in her mind, but her lips still went dry at the thought of speaking them out loud. She’d tried whispering them before and somehow managed to bite her tongue or mispronounce a word like a toddler. By the time she reached Momo’s desk, it felt like trying to breathe and drink at the same time.

“Oh, Ozaki-chan,” Momo said, finally noticing her. Kasumi’s heart pounded like a teacher had just caught her eating snacks during class.

“Here we go,” Kasumi thought, taking one last deep breath to galvanize herself.

“Sorry, but I can’t hang out today,” Momo said. “I have more chocolates to prepare, and I can’t have you with me today.” The words flowed effortlessly, just not from Kasumi. She stared at Momo, blankly, as if her brain had shorted out.

“You’re making more chocolates?” she finally blurted.

“Yeah. I’d originally planned to finish making the class’s chocolates today, but since I finished with your help yesterday, I can focus on more serious chocolates today.” Momo held up her fists like she was charging an attack. The fire in her eyes could’ve melted the snow outside. “Oh, but don’t worry,” Momo added, softening as she caught Kasumi’s expression. “We can hang out tomorrow. The church is doing an Akathist to Saint Valentina tomorrow so that we can go to that.” With that, Momo rose, grabbed her bag, and left. Kasumi stood there, frozen.

“Step one complete?” she whispered, half to herself, as if trying to snap out of a daze. Then she headed to complete step two. She found a secluded stairwell, transfigured, and traversed the veil.

“Why are you doing that here?” her guardian asked, even as he facilitated her transformation.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kasumi snapped, adopting the mantra of Obscuring Mist. “Think of this as training for stealth operations. Hat— er, I mean Rosary Bow isn’t as well suited to it, so it only makes sense that I practice to cover for each other’s weaknesses, right?”

“I suppose that makes sense,” her guardian relented. Thus, Mist began sneaking through the school halls. Though she wasn’t yet able to delve as deeply into the firmament as Rosary, she could hide herself from normal people so long as they weren’t looking right at her. She clung to walls, doing everything possible to avoid people’s eyes and bodies. She’d planned her route the night before, but reality refused to conform to it. With the increased foot traffic, each hallway became a corridor full of hazards. Still, little by little, she made it. Eventually, she slipped into the staff room.

“Finally,” Kasumi sighed, then nearly sabotaged herself by throwing the door open too fast. The door slammed, and Kasumi had to dive to avoid being seen by her homeroom teacher.

“Be careful,” her guardian scolded. “You can’t completely envelop yourself yet, so those who know you can still perceive you if you shift the environment too much.”

Kasumi ground her teeth and forced herself back into discipline. She leaned on every trick her stealth shooters had ever taught her: following behind groups to create moving cover, tossing a pen to draw eyes away, opening drawers so slowly they barely clicked. It cost her time, but she eventually found the file she wanted.

Kasumi flipped through Queen Bee’s file, snapped a picture of the address, then returned the folder like nothing had happened.

“Step two completed,” Kasumi thought. She exited, returned to a secluded stairwell, and de-transfigured.

“So…” her guardian began, voice balanced between polite inquiry and criminal interrogation. “Why did you take a picture of her address?”

“Train how you fight,” Kasumi said. “If I ever had to infiltrate an enemy base for intel gathering, it’d be a problem if I had my flash on or something.”

“…Fair enough,” her guardian said slowly. “So then why are you pulling the address up on your navigator app?”

“Well, I have to confirm the intel,” Kasumi replied, as if that explained everything. And with that, she set out.

It didn’t take long for the route to become painfully familiar. Much to Kasumi’s surprise and annoyance, Queen Bee lived just down the road from her. The building was nicer than Kasumi’s, sure, but the idea of bumping into her randomly in a shop made Kasumi’s skin crawl. She reached Queen Bee’s door. Her family name was printed neatly beside it.

“All right,” her guardian said, “we’ve confirmed the intel. Now I think it’s high time we return home, wouldn’t you say?” Kasumi didn’t answer. She stared at the keypad. Her fist tightened around her bag strap as her heart hammered in her chest.

*Ding*

The elevator chime made Kasumi jump out of her skin. “Gotta hide!” she thought, eyes darting down the empty hall. On instinct, she traversed the firmament and vanished in plain sight.

Not a second later, Queen Bee rounded the corner, school bag over her shoulder, a grocery bag in her other hand, swollen to the point of bursting. On impulse, Kasumi fished her house key from her pocket and slashed the grocery bag.

“Wah—oh, great!” Queen Bee groaned as the contents spilled all over the floor. She looked from the pile of baking supplies to her door, just a meter away.

“Serves you—” Kasumi began, only to have a wave of pressure crash over her.

“Yes, it does serve you right,” her guardian scolded, sounding like a parent with arms crossed.

“I thought retaliation wasn’t part of your shtick?” Kasumi hissed, rubbing her temples.

“It’s not retaliation,” her guardian lectured. “It’s the natural consequence of your actions. My bond with you depends on you remaining in the good graces of the Most High. Sin in any form deteriorates that bond, especially sin committed deliberately while you’re using your powers.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Kasumi muttered. She forced her focus back onto Queen Bee, who’d hurried inside to grab another bag to collect the scattered items.

“So she’s making chocolate,” Kasumi thought, staring at the supplies. Queen Bee returned, re-bagged the items, then punched 3235 on the keypad.

“I wonder…” she thought after Queen Bee shut the door behind her. Hesitantly, she entered the exact numbers. The red light blinked, and the lock snapped open.

“That’s not the smile of someone with good intentions,” her guardian said, his voice like an arm crossed in a scowl.

“Time to prep,” Kasumi thought, stepping away from the door and de-transfiguring as casually as she could manage.

She returned home as if nothing had happened. She played video games, did her homework, and ignored her mother like usual. Only at midnight did she set her plan in motion. She gathered supplies from the kitchen: white vinegar and a cooking syringe. Then she headed back out into the night, her guardian hounding her the entire way.

“Kasumi, for the last time, I don’t know what you’re planning, but it cannot be a good idea. Stop this foolishness and return home at once!”

She didn’t listen. She punched in 3235, traversed the firmament, and slipped inside. No sooner had the door shut than Kasumi heard racing footsteps pounding closer. Her heart lurched. Queen Bee sprinted toward the entryway. For a terrifying moment, her eyes seemed to lock onto Kasumi’s, and Kasumi’s stomach dropped. “Can she see me?” she thought. But Queen Bee’s gaze slid through the space where Kasumi stood without stopping. The life drained from her face.

“Could’ve sworn I heard the door,” Queen Bee murmured as she turned and walked back down the hall.

Kasumi breathed a sigh of relief. Then she gathered her resolve and headed to the kitchen, fighting the crushing pressure all the while. The apartment was large, but nothing like Momo’s. It didn’t take long to find what she needed; on the counter sat a bag of chocolates.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” her guardian insisted as she reached for the bag. “You can stop now, play it off as a prank that went a bit too far, don’t—” But Kasumi was less receptive than a brick wall. She carefully opened the bag, filled the syringe with vinegar, and inserted it into the chocolate with painstaking care. She didn’t burst it. She didn’t leave a strong smell, just enough to ruin the taste. By now, her guardian’s words were little more than static, as if he were speaking through a radio with a diminishing signal.

“Time for her to get a taste of her own karma,” Kasumi thought as she resealed everything and placed the bag exactly as she’d found it. The whole operation took less than a minute. Kasumi turned to leave and heard a ring. She froze, convinced she’d been caught, only to hear Queen Bee’s voice drift in from the next room.

“Hello!” Queen Bee called, voice excited and panicked in equal measure. Kasumi moved closer despite her better judgment. Queen Bee sat on the couch in front of the TV, phone pressed to her ear. “Yeah, Mom, I know you’re late, but what time do you think you’ll be here? I—” Queen Bee paused. Her tone collapsed like a balloon. “Oh… I see… So what about Dad? He called earlier, saying he’d be late, but he’s still—”

Kasumi didn’t wait to hear more. She slipped back out, shut the door as quietly as she could, and hurried home. Despite everything she’d done, tunnel vision had blocked out what she should’ve noticed:

She hadn’t noticed the abysmal state of the kitchen, dirty pots and pans piled like war casualties. She hadn’t seen the dining room table set for three, a hot pot, and a rice cooker still simmering. She hadn’t seen the calendar by the door. She hadn’t seen “Dinner with Mom and Dad” circled in a heart. And she hadn’t noticed the eerie silence as her guardian’s voice was nowhere to be heard.