At Home With Rook

The Magician Arc

To an outsider, the pair would look like a couple of sisters who’d been out playing until one got tired. The smaller girl has a randosel strapped across her back, giving an innocent fresh-out-of-school vibe that doesn’t match with the late night streets. It could be an innocent situation to a passerby…

Until they notice her eyes. Wide and shocked, more like the eyes of someone running from a wild beast than a girl returning home after an exhausting day of play. Looking around, she spots something up high, and a burst of energy causes her to run, following the trail. A girl with long brown hair pulled in a tight ponytail, wearing gym clothes and a school tracksuit jacket, enters into the apartment building ahead.

Kuri tries to call out to the tracksuit girl, and hesitates. She can’t just call out her Magical Girl name. That’s definitely Rook, the face isn’t quite the same but the way she carries herself definitely is, but the situation is already bad enough without revealing her secret identity and adding to it.

♥ Magical Girl Rinrin ♥

The walk up the stairs was hard. But I can hear Rook moving faster and faster as she goes up each flight. She moves fast, and I have to count to figure out where she steps off the staircase. Behind my ear, I can hear Anya’s breathing. It’s faint, but there. I should’ve helped her. That guilt forces me to keep moving up. She’s not heavy, but I’ve moved across half the city desperate to find another Magical Girl.

Fortunately, I had help. After a half hour of panicked searching, I calmed enough to listen to Nyamu’s advice and called up Bishop. In a few clicks, her cheerful voice had answered.
“Bishop’s Teahouse and Rec Room, may I take your order?”
“Bishop!” I’d panted.
“Huh? Rinrin? You sound… younger. Human?”
“Please. I need help. Where are you? Where’s Rook?”
“I’m in the Magical Realm dealing with interminable meetings. You know how lazy Queen is? She leaves all this to me.” Bishop sighs dramatically, and I grit my teeth.
“Urgently.”
“...I know where Rook is. Around the entertainment district right now… but she’ll go to ground somewhere in Ikebukuro. She always loses me there when I tail her.” I’d hung up with a grunted thanks.

And now I was here. Outside what was, hopefully, Rook’s door. I knock. Then I hammer on it as hard as I can in a blind panic. Fumbling, I look for a doorbell and jab my finger into it. The door opens to reveal a shocked-looking athletic girl…

*            *            *

Now I was sitting in the small central room. It wasn’t a big apartment, the central room did triple duty as a bedroom-living room-kitchen, but I wasn’t in a position to judge. Rook and I had changed Anya out of her muddy uniform and into a spare shirt that was more like a nightdress, got some of the dirt off her cheeks with a wet flannel, and were now sitting beside the bed.

I was fidgeting, sitting on my legs and not making eye contact, my hands in my lap. We hadn’t discussed what had happened yet. With everything going on, it seemed more important to check that Anya was okay than discuss my failings. Maybe a part of me was really hoping that we wouldn’t have to discuss them at all, but that part’s hopes were soon dashed.

“How many times did she call her Resonance?” Rook asks, looking at the sleeping Anya taking up a portion of her bed, I bite my lip and shake my head.
“I don’t know… but it was a lot. She was constantly calling and re-calling…” I try to count them in her head, but Rook doesn’t seem to need an exact number.
“It’s magical burnout. Each time you summon your Resonance, it drains your energy. It’s like running for an hour or more.” Rook breathes a sigh of relief after explaining. I had no idea that a Resonance was so exhausting, or dangerous.
“So… she’s fine?” I say, Rook nods.
“She’s fine. She’ll be asleep for a while, though.” Rook looks at our sleeping comrade, and I run my fingers through her hair.
“So. What happened? Why’d you only show up to carry her away?”
“I couldn’t transform…”
“...Why not?”

Rook is staring at me. I have to answer, but my throat is dry.
“I… I was in view of the enemy.” I try to explain, weakly, but Rook’s eyes pierce me.
“You could have moved once the battle began.” She says, and I look down. My hands are in my lap, palms up, and I rub one with the thumb of the other. Nyamu lands next to me, looking at me, and I can’t match his eyes either.
“...I couldn’t. I couldn’t transform. I don’t know why.” I look down.
“Maybe my Compact got damaged.” I try to justify, but Nyamu shakes his head.
“No. Your Compact is fine.” He says slowly.

Rook stares at me for a while, and I curl up my legs under my chin.
“...I… don’t know what happened. It’s been so long since I last transformed that I…” No. That wasn’t it. That was another excuse. Rook stares at me longer, and I cave.
“...I was scared.” I confess.
“Scared? Of the fight?” Rook looks doubtful as she asks.
“Of transforming.” I reply, quietly.
“Whenever I think about it, I remember after the… the roof collapse. Dragging Anya out, passing out, not knowing if we were gonna make it…” I’ve been rubbing my thigh subconsciously, and stop now that I’ve noticed.

Rook’s lips purse. She clearly wants to say something, but I can’t imagine what. She’s not looking at me, so at least it’s not something I’ve done.
“Should’ve never been there.” She mumbles, I look at her confused, and she shakes her head.
“It’s nothing. Go take a bath, you stink like a locker room.”

*            *            *

The soothing hot water from the showerhead does little to take my mind off things, but it does wash away the sweat and dirt. I sit on the small stool beside the bath and reach out for the soaps. The bodywash smells of Rook, oddly floral given her physicality. I wash each of my arms, my legs, trying to let numbness wash over me. Finished, I gently lower myself into the bath and feel the hot water edging the ache and shock from my muscles.

I’d failed. Completely. My teammate had needed me, and I wasn’t able to be there. It wasn’t just that, either. I’d run off the second I saw that suspicious person leaping from the rooftops, and hesitated to transform when the Spectres showed up. I put myself in danger, and that helmet chick had grabbed me and thrown me onto her bike.

I clench my fists thinking about the biker. What was her name? Starplus. That was it. She hadn’t seemed like a bad person when she rescued me, but her attack on Anya was unforgivable. I don’t know why she went off the rails like that.

I continue to soak for a long time, before eventually getting out. I towel off, wrap it around me, and lean out into the main room.

“Clothes are still in the wash.” Rook says, looking up at me.
“It’s a shared machine for the building, so you owe me a hundred yen.” She grabs a shirt and a pair of shorts, throwing them to me.
“And put those on. Last thing I need is to nurse two of you.” She goes back to staring at the TV. It’s just the news. It feels oddly mundane. I pull the oversized shirt and shorts on, fold the towel carefully and put it where instructed on a drying rack, and move into the living room. Nyamu and Rook both seem to be ignoring me, and I sit guiltily in the silence. There’s a long wait, just staring at the TV. My tummy grumbles, and Rook pats me on the back.
“Let’s get dinner. There’s a conbini store down the block.” She gives a reassuring smile. I look guiltily over at the third magical girl, sound asleep in the bed, but Rook flicks my forehead.
“C’mon. Quit sulking. It doesn’t suit you.” She gets up and stretches, and I follow too, putting on my muddy shoes at the door and stepping out into the night.

*            *            *

We’d walked down to the conbini in silence, shopped in silence, and I’d waited outside the door for Rook to pay in silence, too. The silence was broken as she stepped outside, thrusting a bag at me.

“I paid, you’re carrying.” She says, curtly. I nod in response, and we begin walking back. The streets at night are oddly quiet. Lampposts light the way home, and where they aren’t, there’s the blue hue of moonlight.

Rook moves ahead at speed, then turns on the spot.
“It’s not your fault, you know.” She says, suddenly. Still in the road in front, she blocks further movement. I stare at her, blinking.
“It’s not. Well, it’s not yet your fault.” She stretches her arms and rolls her shoulders.
“You were scared, you freaked out under the first pressure since that happened. That had never happened to you before.” She continues.
“But I froze up…”
“You didn’t know how you’d react in that situation, now you do. It only becomes your fault when you know something’s going to happen, and you do nothing about it.”
“You sound like Bishop.”

“That obvious, huh?” Rook gives a small grin, unusual on her normally stoic or frowning face, and we resume walking.
“First time I froze up during a capture mission in the Inspectors, Bishop told me that. Said that no-one knows what they’ll do the first time something happens, so the first time isn’t your fault. What matters is how you choose to move on from that. Whether you hide, or learn how to manage it.” Rook gives a laugh.
“...You and Bishop really are close, aren’t you?” I look at Rook, who nods.
“Yeah. We’ve been through a lot. No-one gets under my skin quite like that idiot does.” She nudges my shoulder.
“We’re close too, now. You, me, and the cat.” She looks up at the building, and I can guess her meaning.
“...Kurin. Kisaragi Kurin. Written as February Chestnut. My friends call me Kuri.” I say, Rook is surprised for a moment, then nods.
“Kumi Kiko. That’s written with the characters for ‘eternal beauty’ and ‘Princess Child’.” She introduces herself properly. I stare, and start to smile.
“Hey! It’s not nice to laugh at someone’s introduction, you know.” She glares, clearly used to this reaction from people.
“Sorry, but, ‘Princess Child’?” I laugh.
“I didn’t pick it!”
“Your parents set up some reeeal expectations that you were just dying to defy.”
“At least my parents weren’t seasonally challenged. Chestnuts are Autumn not February.”

We arrive at the front of her apartment building, and head inside. I’m too polite to ask if we can use the elevator, but from the way Rook disregards it, it’s probably out of order. We start moving up the stairs at a sedate pace.

*            *            *

I woke up as I feel some movement in front of me. I’d fallen asleep in the bed, curled up around Anya. Rook- sorry, Kiko- had forfeited the bed and was gently resting on the floor in front of the television.

After we got back home, we’d eaten the conbini lunches, watched some anime movie that was the only thing here that wasn’t sports related, and I’d done some house cleaning. After… I must’ve fallen asleep while checking on Anya, and Kiko had placed a blanket over me.

I lean up a little to check the face of Anya, she’s frowning a little, and moving. Slowly, she opens one eye to look up at me.
“Hey, it’s alright. We’re at Rook’s place.” I tell her, she nods and curls into me a little more as I try to extract myself. After a moment, I just sigh and pet her head.
“You did a good job.” I add, and feel her nod. As she drifts off to a more natural sleep, I think about what Rook had said on the walk back. We were all depending on each other. Sure, Rook and Bishop weren’t part of the same squad as Anya and I officially, but after what we’d been through, a bond had formed. And there was the prospect of more of us. That excited me. There were four suits in a deck of cards, so we had two more friends to meet, somewhere out there. Maybe they were already active, or maybe they’d wake up soon.

With that thought in mind, I slowly drift off to sleep, too.