stray cat taming

Mitakihara City. It’d been almost six months since I’d been here – hadn’t gotten to sit still for more than a couple of days at most since everything went to hell. Hadn’t gotten a lot of time before Nico…happened, either. …She probably had another girlfriend by now. She probably didn’t really need me anyway. Not with Miss Tomoe there. A billion useless, depressing thoughts raced through my head as I stepped into of the exit terminal at the airport. …But…one thought outweighed all the rest of them.

After months of running and hiding, I was going to see her again. I was going to see Murderface for the first time in forever. …Kinda made the bullshit worth it. We could figure out what to do about the rest. Maybe I could get the Ninth to take Lily and Sab in for now, and Nakajima’d probably come too if we had a plan for bailing Annie’s dumb ass-

“Wendy-san!” I nearly leapt out of my skin at the sound of Miss Tomoe’s voice. …It felt a little like returning home, already, as she crossed the terminal with long, purposeful strides. I offered half a wave before my blood ran cold.

How did she know I was going to be here? We were supposed to be KIA, and I was damn sure the Ninth didn’t have a bead on our location even if they didn’t buy it; if they did, I probably would have had to gut Mickey by now. If Mami saw my face fall, if she saw my fingers clench around a knife that wasn’t there – one I had to force not to appear – she hid it well as she approached me and squeezed my hand.

“I’m sorry about this, but I need to see you before you do anything else.” She tugged hard on my hand, but I didn’t move right away. Our eyes met for a moment, and the warm honey-gold in hers seemed to ice over. This wasn’t a request, she was telling me. So I…let her do it. I let her lead me off, out of the airport. She had a cab waiting and everything.

…She knew exactly when I’d be here, and it set my teeth on edge. Somebody was a stupid asshole that was going to get us all purged, and when I got back – if I got back – I was going to start skinning people until I found out who.

---

“Viola called me in advance.” Well. That narrowed down the skinning step. “She thought it might be best to…make sure we were aware that we’d misunderstood the situation.” So she wanted to make sure nobody shot me in the head while I was here. …I didn’t believe that; V wasn’t that kind or that stupid. Miss Tomoe was sugarcoating it. I just nodded, hands fidgeting in my lap.

We were sitting together in a deluxe suite in some upper-end hotel that I didn’t catch the name of, supposedly some of the stiffer competition for the king shit of Japanese hotels here, The Hotel. Couldn’t exactly argue with that reputation, though – the room was nicer than the Equerry chambers back in Santa Destroy. Might have been nicer than the twins’ room, too. You couldn’t even see the semen stains on the ceiling from whatever freaky bullshit the upper-class in Mitakihara did with the prostitutes here - it was almost like they weren’t even there.

The tea Miss Tomoe had prepared was hot and sweet, with a little milk and honey she’d poured for me herself. It felt strange in my mouth. …Guess I hadn’t had anything but water, whiskey, and the occasional can of Hassy since we’d left the city. Maybe it was just…warmer than I was used to. Or kinder. Or maybe I just missed Miss Tomoe, too.

The two of us sat in silence for a long time – most of a cup of tea, downed with thought and trepidation. She looked like she had a lot she wanted to say, and her half-lidded smile was fixated on her teapot. …It looked a little bitter. This was going to be a long meeting, and not in any kind of good way.

“She doesn’t remember you, Wendy.” When she finally spoke, she dropped it all at once. A huge, ugly bombshell that made me choke on my tea. I managed to gasp out a ‘What?’, and she repeated it, quieter now.

“Murderface doesn’t remember you. She isn’t the same person anymore.” She poured a cup of tea with a nonchalance that sort of disturbed me, and leaned over to refill mine as well. “She’s…better now.”

…Better? I barely managed to creak out a noise. My heart had stopped. My voice didn’t want to cooperate.

“She’s going by a new name now, and she’s…working off some bad habits. Some of the things I tried to teach her that didn’t quite work out before are sticking now. You know, she managed to navigate her way through a very messy situation involving an idol company recently… …It wasn’t perfect, but I’m awfully proud of her.”

She took a sip, apparently musing on what she wanted to say next. Or watching for my response. My eyes stayed locked onto hers, and my hand twitched.

Why was this supposed to be okay? Was I supposed to just…be happy about this?

“I’ve recommended her as the Ninth’s next Warmaster, in fact. It isn’t a position I’m…especially interested in, myself, and I really think Chiaki-san has real potential.” There was an odd emphasis on the new name. She wanted to make sure I remembered it.

…Warmaster? ‘I bet I can kill the pitcher from here’ Murderface as the Warmaster?

“She’s a different person now, Wendy-san. She’s finally getting rid of some of the awful habits she’d picked up from Kharn and…” Miss Tomoe nibbled her lip a little, then sighed softly. “And from you, Wendy.” She stared into her tea, giving the implications a moment to sink in. …Not that they needed to. It hit me almost as hard as the amnesia.

Oh. Oh fuck no. She was trying to tell me I wasn’t good enough for her little girl anymore.

“Wendy, please. That isn’t the only reason. If it were just that…we could have a few words, you could promise me a few things, and maybe if you let me chaperone you two for a while…well, we could come to an agreement. But that isn’t the worst of it.” She breathed deep, her eyes catching mine again and freezing ice-cold.

“…I’m sorry, but to be completely and brutally honest, we have no concrete way of even verifying that you are who you claim to be. Do you understand? Disappearing for nearly half a year and reappearing just in time to take advantage of a fledgling Warmaster – and one compromised by memory loss, as well - the timing is a little odd, wouldn’t you agree?” I felt like my soul was being drilled through as she fixed those piercing eyes on mine. …My knife had come home of its own accord again, and my hand squeezed around the handle in my lap.

No. No, I don’t fucking agree. …My voice cracked. She had no idea. She had no idea all how much shit I’d been through in the past few months, with Nico, and Annie, and whatever the hell Mary’d turned herself into, and…and the fucking church, and the First-

“Shhh. Shhh. …I’d like to do what I can for you, Wendy. But it would be much easier for the both of us if you would just…read between the lines for me.” Her finger traced the edge of her teacup as our staredown broke. “I know subtlety isn’t necessarily something the Rabbits do well, but-“

But fuck off. Run away and never return. And you don’t even have the balls to just say it.

“Wendy, that isn’t what I meant. But showing up out of nowhere isn’t helping-“ I slammed my hands on the table, nearly upending it, and pushed myself to my feet.

I was going to see her. I needed to see her.

“She isn’t even in the country right now, Wendy-san. And I’m rather glad, in the state you’re in.” She saw it. The knife in my hand. Her tone turned to frigid steel, and she quietly set her cup down. I could see it. I could practically hear it. The muscles in her body were tense. She was ready for things to go south any moment now.

It hurt. It really hurt. I didn’t want Miss Tomoe to think of me that way. …But I wanted to put my knife right through her smiling fucking face, too. Still…her body relaxed as she felt my resolve waver.

…It didn’t, not for long. Maybe she thought I was better than this. Maybe she thought she deserved it. Nobody could tell what Mami Tomoe was thinking most of the time. …My arm snapped. I didn’t even mean to do it, exactly, it was like…I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking anymore. I couldn’t see her even if I wanted to. She didn’t remember me. She was better off without me. That’s what Mami was saying. Even if she believed me, it didn’t matter.

Fuck her.

Silver flashed through the air, and everything seemed to move in slow motion. I could swear I saw perfect blonde curls reflect off of the steel of my knife as it flew, and then, nothing. …She was expecting it, naturally. Miss Tomoe was First material, I heard people say. An excellent negotiator. A peerless magical girl. A marksman without equal, and a fighter that could hold her own against the Betrayer if she needed to. A paragon, a shining, golden goddess.

My body reacted before my brain. Instinct, I guess. Maybe I heard the click of rifle’s hammer. She’d pulled one from nothing, as she dove, and more rained from the ceiling, the muzzles digging unnaturally into the carpet. The shot shaved a few brown hairs away from one of my braids as I dove and rolled myself; it would have been dead center if I’d reacted a millisecond later, and the hole in the wall behind me argued that it would have taken most of my upper body with it.

What the flying fuck did she put in those things?

She was up in a flash, and yellow ribbons spread out from her like a spiderweb as she effortlessly drew the next musket and fired. Another near miss, but that was all I was going to get if I didn’t get the hell out of this crowded space. She’d have me pinned in no time with those fucking ribbons. I tore through the hole she’d made into the neighboring room. Soft clicking noises surrounded me as more and more muskets fell out of pentagrams in the air, and a hail of percussion sounded from behind me.

Shot after shot, barely avoided. My scarf was in tatters already from near-misses as it flailed behind me. She wasn’t aiming at my head, or even center-mass now. She was herding me away from the windows, I think. Keeping me from bailing outside, where it’d be harder to follow me.

I risked a glance over my shoulder after the third room we passed through. She was keeping pace like it was nothing- bounding through walls and over debris, scooping up and firing rifles with an effortless grace, ribbons spiraling out in torrents. Looked like she was feeding them out into the hallway, too. …Worse, though, was her expression.

It wasn’t a glare. It wasn’t even a frown. It was…nothing. A serene, empty expression, the kind of face I figured she made while she trimmed bonsai trees or something. Every shot threatened to blow my body into a fine mist, including the reconstructed pile of hate and debris that passed for my soul gem, and she didn’t seem to feel any particular way about it.

Guess that’s why they’re the Murderers. The Ninth is just as bad as us. Maybe worse; least we have the dignity to show we’re monsters. We’re not just…liquid cool office ladies chasing down other magical girls like it’s nothing. Like it’s another appointment, wrecking up some building that’ll probably cost tens of thousands to fix. Not to mention the lawsuits, it wasn’t like the QB Heavy hard carte blanche in Mitakihara. Mami Tomoe did not give a single fuck about any of that.

Just getting to watch her like this made it almost worth it.

I kicked hard to the side once I crossed into the next room. Changing directions like that killed my momentum and I might even feel it in my ankle later, but as yellow ribbon raced past my body where my throat had been moments prior, I knew I’d made the right choice. Two steps, then the wall - I leapt, kicked off, and – perfect! Miss Tomoe’s graceful expression twisted lightly as I tackled her into her own ribbons. I could see just a hint of a shine, tiny strands that crossed the room on top of the few I’d already seen, and I realized she’d been sending razor-thin strips, near-invisible wires along behind me in case her shots didn’t discourage me enough.

Well, didn’t help her any. She was the one that had to deal with them as they cut through her nice suit and into her skin. After just a moment, they all slackened at once, sending us to the ground together.

I did it in one smooth motion, one I’d already started as I rode Mami Tomoe to the ground – an overhand stab with both hands, with all the force I could put into it. It’d be enough to sink the knife into an ordinary human to its handle, to pin them to the ground entirely. I’d almost done the same to Miss Tomoe as I plunged it into her torso, right under her ribs. I pushed off right away, then, and made a break for the window.

It wouldn’t stop her for long. I knew that much as I busted through the window. It might be enough. It’d probably be enough.

My arm groaned a little in protest as I caught my broom about ten feet down, yanking myself up and onto it as I hurtled off into the night. That was close. Way too close. I’d have to stay out of here for a while, probably. …Kinda defeated the purpose of picking a fight in the first place. Shit.

…

The whole thing jerked a second after I got settled and I nearly fell off the back. The rear end of the broom tilted, dragged down by something soft and sweet and a little too persistent. I knew what it was the moment I felt it, and a quick glance confirmed – yellow ribbons wrapped around the base of my broom, with a still-bleeding office lady clinging to the other end. Hell of a reaction time. Good shot, too, not that I was surprised exactly.

She didn’t give me time to think about it, either – she was hurtling up toward me already, reeling her ribbon in like a grappling hook from a video game. I hacked at the stupid ribbon with my knife but it was a no-go – reinforced a couple of times over, seemed like. Guess when you only have two tricks you get really, really good at them. She dodged easily as I hurled the knife down at her (not a surprise there, either, it was half-assed at best; I was busy steering) and I could only hope squeezing a few shots off from my service pistol would slow her down a little more.

It didn’t, but it didn’t really matter. I had an idea. I pulled down hard, toward another feature of the skyline, an office building. She only had fifteen feet of ribbon left. Even less. This’d be close. I kicked the speed up as hard as I could make my little imaginary broom go, then I made a hard turn.

CRASH. Eat shit, Mami Tomoe. I eased off the throttle back to a more controllable speed as I felt the weight leave my broom. …It was over, I wanted to say. But I was sure I’d heard a shot from inside.

…No, there was another. And another. Shit. Shit shit shit.

As the walls gave way to clear, pristine glass, I saw her there, tearing through the rooms, blowing away the walls. We locked eyes for a moment, and I could swear she smiled. My cheeks burned and my heart skipped a beat as she leveled yet another rifle at me. The shot whistled just past my ear, wrecked one of my braids entirely. …Kinda funny what you remember in situations like that.

Her aim was off while she ran like this, as near as I could guess The glass threw her off, or the unsteady movement of my broom, or the effort of having to keep up while shooting more or less perpendicular. That was about the only break I was going to catch, and I was grateful for it.

…I’m a little embarrassed that it didn’t occur to me to just drop down, to just run away. I don’t know. Felt like it would have…ruined it, somehow. Like this was something we needed to do. …Maybe I was just having fun, for the first time in months. Maybe I wanted to die.

She burst through the other side of the building in a shower of stars, a cascade of sparkles that would have made any high-budget bullshit mahou shoujo anime look like a crappy B-movie. With a graceful twist the sky became a ballet of yellow ribbons – a cannon blast of yellow confetti to the roof down below, and a graceful hydra that dove for my broom, and for every part of my body. I dove, then, my common sense finally returning to me. It was a little bit too late.

There was a pressure on my wrist, squeezing it tight. A single ribbon. A single goddamn ribbon out of a massive cloud. It tore me away from my mount as Miss Tomoe landed gracefully on the roof. Moments later, I swung into a building that felt like it was made of steel. No glass for Wendy, fuck me. Pretty sure that building still has a dent shaped like my body somewhere between the thirtieth and fortieth floors.

I had a few seconds to pull myself together as she reeled me up the side of the building. She met me with an impassive stare. …She hadn’t taken the time to set this up as an arena or anything, aside from the ribbon on my wrist, now tied to a huge bundle of them that were anchored to various things on the roof.

…Kind of surprised she didn’t just shoot me after she dragged me up.

Whatever the reason, I didn’t waste any time. I wasn’t going to kill her. I didn’t even want to hurt her. But when I had my footing, I leapt, twisted in the air to catch her throat with my knife as I flew over her.  The ribbon on my arm was obnoxious, made me adjust my angle and my stance too much, to keep it from coiling around me. My knife bit into her, but it was shallow, dug into her shoulder instead. Didn’t matter. I was on the other side. I had a plan.

The moment my feet hit the roof again, I lunged toward her keeping my body low. It wasn’t my best approach, the angle I’d landed at threw me off a little, but I’d adjusted enough, I thought. Enough for my knife to find her stomach and dig in hard.

…She moved off to the side at the last moment, and I moved with her, kicking as the butt of a rifle grazed my shoulder, where my neck had been. I couldn’t twist my knife into her, not quickly enough, but my elbow found her stomach instead, and it sent her stumbling away. …The stab from earlier was mostly healed already. Something I’d expect from Mickey, not Miss Tomoe, but she’d probably had to put effort into it.

She was burning a lot of magic for this. I was flattered.

I tried to follow up as she staggered back, but the ribbon on my wrist was too tight, yanking my arm away as I closed in and throwing me off-balance. I caught a fraction of a second of Miss Tomoe’s windup before her rifle collided with the side of my head in a perfect homerun swing, sending me spiraling across the roof.

“…Is that all the rage of your misbegotten kind is worth, Cooldown?” Her words were jagged spears through my gut. This wasn’t the Mami Tomoe I’d spent evenings with before, the one Murderface adored, the one that’d taught me how to make pancakes that made panties drop. She was…something more. Something different.

She crossed the roof soundlessly as I pulled myself back to my feet, fighting back the urge to vomit courtesy of the brand new concussion. There were no rifles now. …I could have finished this already. I should have been able to. Tomoe had kept me off-balance the entire time, and even now, the only time I should have been able to fight, I was tied down. …I had my footing down now. She wouldn’t avoid it this time. Just a few steps closer…closer…

Two steps. No, a step and a half. Faster than a human could have reacted, faster than a human would have even seen, I was on her. I saw it in my head already glancing blow to her stomach, a distraction, then I could sink my knife into her spine. Easy throat shot from there, just in case. …I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to hurt her like that.

…Yeah I did. I could already taste her blood in the back of my throat. Sorry, Mami. I let you shoot at me for way longer than I should have. Twenty-one feet for a human. Maybe a third of that for a magical girl. Closer than that, and you’re already dead. That’s the misbegotten rage of the Wonderland Corps. It was shit like this that made it worth it.

The wind whistled by my ears as I moved, as my knife slipped past her stomach in a quick, tight movement. A shallow cut, half-dodged, just like I expected. I kicked to a halt in a flash and extended my arm, bringing it back to sink my knife into her spine, and-

CRACK.

She’d grabbed it. Grabbed onto my wrist in that split second, and jammed her palm into my elbow, bending my arm back unnaturally until it snapped. The pain was excruciating as I kicked away – she hadn’t even let go, and it extended my broken elbow on top of everything else. My knife appeared in my other hand, the ribbon hand, and in a fit of desperation, one last shot, I rocketed toward her, to bring it down onto her face instead.

She whispered something as I hurtled toward her, and I felt her fist impact my midsection…hard. Harder than I’d ever been hit before. Harder than Annie’d ever snuck in on me, harder than I’d gotten from Miss Marigold, even. I could hear my ribs crack, feel my organs rupture as a gout of blood spewed from my mouth and onto Miss Tomoe’s face, as my knife fell from my hand and bounced onto her shoulder.

‘Tiro Finale’, that was what she’d said. Sounded a hell of a lot better than ‘Lolita Crusher’. I’d have to pass it on to Annie.

My vision faded in and out, and I felt the building below me hit my knees, then my hands, then one elbow as my right arm gracefully reminded me it was completely fucked. A few seconds passed before my failing eyesight made out something new – pantyhose-clad knees under a short skirt, settling in in front of me as I was helped back onto my heels.

…She’d wiped the gross vomit-blood off of her face with a handkerchief, and gazed down at me with cool, golden eyes as she did the same for me, for the blood lingering around my mouth. The scent was sweet and overwhelming as she pulled me into her arms, and I could feel my eyes burning as I buried my face in her neck.

…I’m sorry, Mami.

“I know.”

I didn’t mean to.

“I know. You’re a good girl, Wendy. You were just upset.”

I nodded a little as…as it started to rain.  Rain that wet the skin of her neck. Made me sniffle as she ran her fingers through my hair, as she urged me to relax. She gingerly removed my tattered scarf and eased my other braid out of its tight tie, and I could feel tight, yellow ribbons wrapping around my body.

Makeshift bandages. Around my broken arm, and around my stomach and my chest, winding in under my dress. My shoulder, the one that had collided with the building, and around my aching neck, with a bow in the back and everything. Heh.

As my body relaxed, as the adrenaline started to fade, I blacked out to a gentle caress and a heavenly scent.

---

She saw me off a few days later. I kept my promise. Didn’t meet up with anyone else, and she let me stay with her in the meantime. …She listened to me cry about Murderface, and about Nico, and about…all that other shit. We drank hot cocoa together, and watched movies. She cleared her schedule out as much as she could afford to and everything, and sent all kinds of candy and cookies and stuff back with me to take to the others.

…It didn’t make it okay. It just made me want to stay more, and I felt a little awful betraying her trust just a few weeks later. …I just couldn’t stick around for too long. Keep it short. Keep it low-profile. Keep Murderface out of it as much as I could.

I could do that much for her.