sugar donut

Still felt strange, hanging around the VIP section of the Officio. Hadn’t been sure what to make of it since the promotions were all finalized back in June. Everything was so quiet. So big. Equerry’s chambers had a lot more space than I needed for anything, and I ended up sleeping on the couch in the Hole most of the time anyway. Warmaster’s room was even bigger, but at least that made sense – Mary and Annie were sharing it. Shit, the place was big enough for all three of us, if we wanted. Figured that’d be weird all around, though. Didn’t need to see either of ‘em lying around half-naked. Not more than usual.

Today was different than it had been for the past couple of months, though. Felt a little more normal, probably because it wasn’t. It was just like old times, sneaking into the Warmaster’s quarters. …Sneaking probably wasn’t the right word; it was Mary’s room, but we didn’t want Annie to find out. We were here to take something she didn’t even let her sister touch under ordinary circumstances.

It was an old sword, a Japanese katana. Made by Murasomething, according to Annie. Got it when she became a magical girl, and she’d taken it on just about every mission of her career. Kept it mounted carefully above her bed when she wasn’t working, wrapped in a scratched black sheath covered in Japanese paper seals. Even tied a lace garter around the hilt, to make sure everyone knew damn well who it belonged to.

It was also a complete piece of shit. Nobody really had the heart to tell her, but when we’d fucked around with it, nobody could cut butter with the thing. It was a flimsy imitation sword, one of the…many…’cursed’ things Annie ended up buying when she got the chance, the crap that lined her side of the twins’ room. …Guess some of them might have been real. She’s the one that could tell, and she seemed to think so. But whether or not the rest was actually cursed, the sword was shit.

“Y’think she’s gonna figger it out?” Mary paused to look back at me as she reached up to lift it from its display. “What if she gets back’n sees it ain’t here?” Wasn’t like she needed to worry. She was the Warmaster now. Totally Awesome something or other. The boss. Annie would probably only kill me. I was still an aide. Barely even miss me.

“That ain’t funny neither, Wendy. If somethin’ comes up she’s gonna shit the bed, ‘n you ain’t the one that’s gotta sleep in it after.” Yeah. That much was true. It wouldn’t be a problem, though – made sure Annie wouldn’t be waking up for a very long time.

“…You fuckin’ with me? You…did you drug my goddamn sister, Cooldown? It woulda been better if ya fucked her to sleep!” Her eyes flashed. Probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. Took a lot of anything to knock out a magical girl. More than enough to do real damage to anyone else. …It was the most of the basic of the basics of Callidus training, though. Someone unconscious can’t detect you. Can’t stop you. After Miss Marigold’s extensive Callidus Training Regimen, I tried to remind her, she was lucky I didn’t kill half the building to make sure there were no witnesses.

“…You really gotta stop tryin’ t’make jokes.” Maybe not, but it eased the tension a little bit. Mary just grabbed the sword off the wall like it was nothing after that, and we made a beeline for our next destination – Doctor Nakajima’s garage.

---

Nakajima’s place was tucked away in a dark, underground corner of the Officio. Part of the arrangement for her joining up with the Eighth, apparently, in exchange for her research and saving her from an early, messy death. Pretty big part of it – where she did her bigger, messier work - ended up being the garage where the Rabbits kept our cars, and she’d expanded it at her own expense. Added a couple of rooms that she used as a lab for, I guess, inventing and crap, and another she called her…clinic. Not that anyone outside of the Rabbits would be caught dead in there. …Well, they might be caught dead. Heh.

When we handed over the sword, the first thing Nakajima did was yank it carelessly out of its sheath, play with it, and bring it down on her arm. After seeing some of the shit Annie had done with it, I half-expected it to come clean off, but the blade bounced off of her skin, almost completely harmless.

“Wow! You guys know this thing is a piece of crap, right?” She didn’t even flinch, dropping the sword to rub at the small cut it had made with part of her shirt. Mary and I glanced at each other, then she nodded. …And as usual, Nakajima started to laugh. “Oh man. You let her FIGHT people with this thing? You let her fight ME with this thing!”

“You seen Annie in a fight, Amber. She cut a goddamn tank in half with that piece’a crap. We was just thinkin’…” …Mary was always a little out of place when the situation didn’t end in shooting somebody. Especially when it came to Annie being Annie.

“You was just thinkiiiin’ it’d be even better if this thing actually had an edge, right? Well, it’s barely even a display sword. I’d just sharpen it, but then it’d just be a wobbly piece of crap instead.” She scooped it back up and started waving it around, like she expected it to wobble right there. Even made a little sound effect for it.

“Aw, c’mon. Can’t ya just…do some’a yer Japan magic? Put on some pajamas’n pray to the Emperor or somethin’? Or is that what’cher doin’?” …Didn’t even have words for that. All I could do was stare at Mary, but…Nakajima’s harder to mess with, I guess.

“Don’t worry, Warmastaa-dono~ Watashi habu supaa ethical Yamato toki desu~ Long time~” Nakajima giggled again and jabbed the Warmaster’s cheek with the tip of the sword. Couldn’t help but laugh a little, myself, although I could barely understand a word of it. Just glad Nakajima could take a joke. At least, glad she could tell when to take Mary seriously.

“Yeah, uh, that’s…that’s great. Tokey days as hell. Can ya get that done in a couple hours?” The giggle turned into an uproar. Could barely make out ‘fuck you, ma’am’ through it.

“Ahahaha…ahhh…I have to replicate this whole sword if we’re gonna do anything with it, boss. I can rush it and take a couple of days, but she’ll feel the difference in the grip if I make something totally new, and she’s got an engraving here. I could try welding a new blade on or, hmm…” Finally, she seemed to sober up. Didn’t stop smiling – Nakajima never stopped smiling – but she began to examine the cheap piece of touristy garbage we brought down for her, and after an awkward minute, she made for her…lab, waving over her shoulder and telling us we could go. Mary called out to her one more time, a reminder to make it ‘extra Japanese’.

…Probably should have told her not to put a motor on it or something. Annie couldn’t get away with using a sword that’d rip her arm off whenever she drew it.

“Aw, it’ll be fine. Amber ain’t gonna screw around if it’s fer Annie, they’re damn near closer’n we are. Now, how the hell’re we gonna keep her from noticin’ ‘til it’s done…?”

…I had an idea, but I didn’t like it. Told the Warmaster to hunt down all the Officio’s spare gardening tools. Special training. She seemed to pick up on it pretty fast, and we got the paperwork done an hour or two later. On the grounds that she wouldn’t ever have to try and kill someone with a watering can again, anyway.

That’d be V’s job this time, anyway.

---

Got a chance to test the sword out before we snuck it back into Annie’s room. Nakajima called it ‘Gooseberry Sugar Donut’, although the old inscription, ‘Luck’, was still on the blade. …It felt good. Really good. Almost made me want to trade up from my old kitchen knife. Seemed like it was balanced better, from what I knew about swords, and without even really trying I cut clean through the stereo Nakajima was using to blast shitty J-pop throughout the garage. Tried to warn her. You could hear that shit from outside the building, and even I could tell that whatever old 50’s song this was didn’t need to be remixed and sung by a ten-year-old with a heavy accent.

Little bit less happy when Nakajima told she snuck some parts for a beam emitter into the hilt. She’d probably bug Annie to let her tool with it later, and who the hell knows what she’d do to this poor sword if she got free reign.

…Annie’s problem, not mine.

She was overjoyed the next time she tried it, though. Made it all worth it. Even the J-pop. Seemed to think that it was transformed by absorbing the souls of a thousand evil men, or something. Not ever sure when Annie’s serious about things like that, but it didn’t matter. She needed a real weapon now. We weren’t Alpha Team anymore. Weren’t Miss Marigold’s bitches. She was the Eighth Equerry. Mary was the Eighth Warmaster. We led a squad of some of the best Eversors in the world. And life was, for once, pretty fucking great.