The Metamorphosis of Chiaki Matsuda Part 3

The Metamorphosis of Chiaki Matsuda, Pt. 3
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No-one dared to remove the apple lodged in Chiaki's back, so it remained there as a visible reminder of her injury. She had suffered it there for more than a month, and her condition seemed serious enough to remind even Kyouko that Chiaki, despite her current sad and revolting form, was a friend who could not be treated as an enemy. On the contrary, as a friend there was a duty to swallow any revulsion for her and to be patient, just to be patient.

Because of her injuries, Chiaki had lost much of her mobility - probably permanently. She had been reduced to the condition of an ancient invalid and it took her long, long minutes to flop across her room - swimming in the tank was out of the question - but this deterioration in her condition was fully (in her opinion) made up for by the door to the living room being left open every evening. She got into the habit of closely watching it for one or two hours before it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of her room where she could not be seen from the living room, she could watch her friends in the light of the dinner table and listen to their conversation - with everyone's permission, in a way, and thus quite differently from before.

They no longer held the lively conversations of earlier times, of course, the ones that Chiaki always thought about with longing when she was tired and getting into the soft bed in her own apartment. All of them were usually very quiet nowadays. Soon after dinner, Kyouko would go to sleep in her chair; Mami and Midori would urge each other to be quiet; Mami, bent deeply under the lamp, would sew fancy underwear for a fashion shop; Midori, who had gotten published, worked on a manuscript for a new series so that she might be able to get more royalties later on. Sometimes Kyouko would wake up and say to Mami "you're doing so much sewing again today!", as if she did not know that she had been dozing - and then she would go back to sleep again while Mami and Midori would exchange a tired grin.

With a kind of stubbornness, Kyouko refused to take her uniform off even at the Ninth Officio; while her nightgown hung unused on its peg Kyouko would slumber where she was, fully dressed, as if always ready to serve and expecting to hear the voice of her Marshal even here. The uniform had not been new to start with, but as a result of this it slowly became even shabbier despite the efforts of Mami and Midori to look after it. Chiaki would often spend the whole evening looking at all the stains on this coat, with its gold buttons always kept polished and shiny, while the flatbro in it would sleep, highly uncomfortable but peaceful.

As soon as it struck ten, Mami would speak gently to Kyouko to wake her and try to persuade her to go to bed, as she couldn't sleep properly where she was and she really had to get her sleep if she was to be up at six to get to work. But since Kyouko had been in work she had become more obstinate and would always insist on staying longer at the table, even though she regularly fell asleep and it was then harder than ever to persuade her to exchange the chair for his bed. Then, however much Mami and Midori would importune her with little reproaches and warnings Kyouko would keep slowly shaking her head for a quarter of an hour with her eyes closed and refusing to get up. Mami would tug at her sleeve, whisper endearments into her ear, Midori would leave her work to help Mami, but nothing would have any effect on her. Kyouko would just sink deeper into her chair. Only when the two girls took her under the arms she would abruptly open her eyes, look at them one after the other and say: "What a life! This is what peace I get in nowadays!" And supported by the two girls she would lift herself up carefully as if she were carrying the greatest load herself, let the girls take her to the door, send them off and carry on by herself while Mami would throw down her needle and Midori her pen so that they could run after Kyouko and continue being of help to her.

Who, in this tired and overworked Officio, would have had time to give more attention to Chiaki than was absolutely necessary? The Officio budget became even smaller; so now Kumatora was dismissed; a busty, bob-cut girl with a cat-like demeanor and a camera that flapped around her chest came every morning and evening to do the heaviest work; everything else was looked after by Mami on top of the large amount of sewing work she did. Chiaki even learned, listening to the evening conversation about what price they had hoped for, that several items of jewellery belonging to them had been sold, even though both Mami and Midori had been very fond of wearing them at functions and celebrations. But the loudest complaint was that although the QB Heavy Industries building was much too big for their present circumstances, they could not move out of it, there was no imaginable way of transferring Chiaki to the new address.

Chiaki could see quite well, though, that there were more reasons than consideration for her that made it difficult for them to move, it would have been quite easy to transport her in any suitable crate with a few air holes in it; the main thing holding the family back from their decision to move was much more to do with their total despair, and the thought that they had been struck with a misfortune unlike anything experienced by anyone else they knew or were related to. They carried out absolutely everything that the world expects from poor magical girls, Kyouko brought Black Templars their breakfast, Mami sacrificed herself by washing clothes for the Tenth, Midori ran back and forth behind her desk at the behest of the Incubator, but they just did not have the strength to do any more. And the injury in Chiaki's back began to hurt as much as when it was new. After they had come back from taking Kyouko to bed, Mami and Midori would now leave their work where it was and sit close together, cheek to cheek; Mami would point to Chiaki's room and say "Close that door, Midori", and then, when he was in the dark again, they would sit in the next room and their tears would mingle, or they would simply sit there staring dry-eyed at the table.

Chiaki hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes she would think of taking over the Officio's affairs, just like before, the next time the door was opened; she had long forgotten about the Incubator and the blueberry, but they would appear again in her thoughts, the Vindicares and the Eversors, that stupid Culexus, two or three friends from other Officios, one of the Vanus from a provincial branch office, a tender memory that appeared and disappeared again, Charles from the bar for whom her attention had been serious but too slow, - all of them appeared to her, mixed together with strangers and others she had forgotten, but instead of helping her and her friends they were all of them inaccessible, and she was glad when they disappeared.

 Other times she was not at all in the mood to look after her friends, she was filled with simple rage about the lack of attention she was shown, and although she could think of nothing she would have wanted, she made plans of how she could get into the pantry where she could take all the things she was entitled to, even if she was not hungry. Midori no longer thought about how she could please Chiaki but would hurriedly push some food or other into her room with her foot before she rushed out to work in the morning and at midday, and in the evening she would sweep it away again with the broom, indifferent as to whether it had been eaten or - more often than not - had been left totally untouched. She still cleared up the room in the evening, but now she could not have been any quicker about it. Smears of mud were left on the walls, here and there were little balls of wetness and filth.

At first, Chiaki went into one of the worst of these places when Midori arrived as a reproach to her, but she could have stayed there for weeks without Midori doing anything about it; Midori could see the dirt as well as she could but she had simply decided to leave her to it. At the same time Midori became touchy in a way that was quite new for her and which everyone in the friends understood - cleaning up Chiaki's room was for her and her alone. Mami did once thoroughly clean her room, and needed to use several bottles of chemicals to do it - although that much cleaning fluid also made Chiaki ill and she lay flat on the couch, bitter and immobile.

But Mami was to be punished still more for what she had done, as hardly had Midori arrived home in the evening than she noticed the change in Chiaki's room and, highly aggrieved, ran back into the living room where, despite her mothers raised and imploring hands, she broke into convulsive tears. Kyouko, of course, was startled out of her chair and the two girls looked on astonished and helpless; then they, too, became agitated; Kyouko, standing to the right of Mami, accused her of not leaving the cleaning of Chiaki's room to Midori; from her left, Chiaki's Midori screamed at her that she was never to clean Chiaki's room again; while Mami tried to draw Kyouko, who was beside herself with anger, into the bedroom; Midori, quaking with tears, thumped on the table with her small fists; and Chiaki hissed in anger that no-one had even thought of closing the door to save her the sight of this and all its noise.

Midori was exhausted from going out to work, and looking after Chiaki as she had done before was even more work for her, but even so Mami ought certainly not to have taken her place. Chiaki, on the other hand, ought not to be neglected. Now, though, NECO was here. This sly girl, with a robust bone structure that made her able to withstand the hardest things in her short life, wasn't really repelled by Chiaki. Just by chance one day, rather than any real curiosity, she opened the door to Chiaki's room and found herself face to face with her.

Chiaki was taken totally by surprise, no-one was chasing her but she began to rush to and fro while NECO just stood there in amazement with her hands crossed in front of her. From then on she never failed to open the door slightly every evening and morning and look briefly in on her. At first she would call to her as she did so with words that she probably considered friendly, such as "come on then, you old Murderface, nya!", or "look at the Murderface there, nya!” Chiaki never responded to being spoken to in that way, but just remained where she was without moving as if the door had never even been opened. If only they had told NECO to clean up her room every day instead of letting her disturb her for no reason whenever she felt like it! One day, early in the morning while a heavy rain struck the windowpanes, perhaps indicating that spring was coming, she began to speak to her in that way once again. Chiaki was so resentful of it that she started to move toward her, but it was like a kind of attack. Instead of being afraid, NECO just lifted up one of the chairs from near the door and stood there with her mouth open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until the chair in her hand had been slammed down into Chiaki's back. "Aren't you coming any closer, then?", she asked when Chiaki turned round again, and she calmly put the chair back in the corner.

Chiaki had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if she happened to find herself next to the food that had been prepared for her she might take some of it into her mouth to play with it, leave it there a few hours and then, more often than not, spit it out again. At first she thought it was distress at the state of her room that stopped her eating, but she had soon got used to the changes made there. They had got into the habit of putting things into this room that they had no room for anywhere else, and there were now many such things as one of the rooms in the flat had been rented out to three 8th Officio girls.

These earnest megucas - all three of them high-ranking, as Chiaki learned peering through the crack in the door one day - were painfully insistent on things being tidy. This meant not only in their own room but, since they had taken a room in this establishment, in the entire flat and especially in the kitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could not tolerate, especially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought most of their own furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason, many things had become superfluous which, although they could not be sold, the Ninth girls did not wish to discard. All these things found their way into Chiaki's room. The dustbins from the kitchen found their way in there too. NECO was always in a hurry, and anything she couldn't use for the time being she would just chuck in there. She, fortunately, would usually see no more than the object and the hand that held it. The reporter most likely meant to fetch the things back out again when she had time and the opportunity, or to throw everything out in one go, but what actually happened was that they were left where they landed when they had first been thrown unless Chiaki made her way through the junk and moved it somewhere else. At first she moved it because, with no other room free where she could crawl about, she was forced to, but later on she came to enjoy it although moving about in that the way left her sad and tired to death and she would remain immobile for hours afterwards.

The 8th girls who rented the room would sometimes take their evening meal at home in the living room that was used by everyone, and so the door to this room was often kept closed in the evening. But Chiaki found it easy to give up having the door open; she had, after all, often failed to make use of it when it was open and, without her friends having noticed it, lain in her room in its darkest corner. One time, though, NECO left the door to the living room slightly open, and it remained open when the 8th girls who rented the room came in in the evening and the light was put on. They sat up at the table where, formerly, Chiaki had taken her meals with Kyouko and Mami, they unfolded the serviettes and picked up their knives and forks. Mami immediately appeared in the doorway with a dish of meat and soon behind her came Midori with a dish piled high with potatoes. The food was steaming, and filled the room with its smell. The 8th Officio girls bent over the dishes set in front of them as if they wanted to test the food before eating it, and the Eversor in the middle, who seemed to count as an authority for the other two, did indeed cut off a piece of meat while it was still in its dish, clearly wishing to establish whether it was sufficiently cooked or whether it should be sent back to the kitchen. It was to her satisfaction, and Mami and Midori, who had been looking on anxiously, began to breathe again and smiled.

Throughout all this time, Chiaki could not remember having seen manga being drawn, but this evening it began to be heard from the kitchen. The three 8th Officio girls had already finished their meal, the one in the middle had produced a newspaper, given a page to each of the others, and now they leant back in their chairs reading them and smoking. When Midori began drawing they became attentive, stood up and went on tip-toe over to the door of the hallway where they stood pressed against each other. Someone must have heard them in the kitchen, as Kyouko called out: "Is the drawing perhaps unpleasant for you? We can stop it straight away." "On the contrary", said the middle girl, "would the young lady not like to come in and draw for us here in the room, where it is, after all, much more cozy and comfortable?" "Oh yes, we'd love to", called back Kyouko as if she had been the manga artist herself. The 8th Officio girls stepped back into the room and waited.

Kyouko soon appeared with the drawing desk, Mami with the drawing supplies and Midori with the manuscript. Midori calmly prepared everything for her to begin drawing; her friends, who had never rented the Officio headquarters out before and therefore showed an exaggerated courtesy towards the three 8th Officio girls, did not even dare to sit on their own chairs; Kyouko leant against the door with her right hand pushed in between two buttons on her uniform coat; Mami, though, was offered a seat by one of the 8th Officio girls and sat - leaving the chair where the girl happened to have placed it - out of the way in a corner.

Midori began to draw; Kyouko and Mami paid close attention, one on each side, to the movements of her hands. Drawn in by the sketching, Chiaki had dared to come forward a little and already had her head in the living room. Before, she had taken great pride in how considerate she was but now it hardly occurred to her that she had become so thoughtless about the others. What's more, there was now all the more reason to keep herself hidden as she was covered in the dust that lay everywhere in her room and flew up at the slightest movement; she carried threads, hairs, and remains of food about on her back and sides; she was much too indifferent to everything now to lay on her back and wipe himself on the carpet like he had used to do several times a day. And despite this condition, she was not too shy to move forward a little onto the immaculate floor of the living room.

No-one noticed her, though. Her friends were totally preoccupied with the drawing; at first, the three 8th Officio girls had put their hands in their pockets and come up far too close behind the drawing to look at all the figures being drawn, and they must have disturbed Midori, but soon, in contrast with Ninth girls, they withdrew back to the window with their heads sunk and talking to each other at half volume, and they stayed by the window while Kyouko observed them anxiously. It really now seemed very obvious that they had expected to see some beautiful or comedic manga drawings but had been disappointed, that they had had enough of Midori's self-insert pornography and it was only now out of politeness that they allowed their peace to be disturbed. It was especially unnerving, the way they all blew the smoke from their cigarettes upwards from their mouth and noses.

Yet Midori was drawing so beautifully. Her face was leant to one side, following the lines with a careful and melancholy expression. Chiaki crawled a little further forward, keeping her head close to the ground so that she could meet her eyes if the chance came. Was she an animal if music could captivate her so? It seemed to her that she was being shown the way to the unknown nourishment she had been yearning for. She was determined to make her way forward to Midori and tug at her skirt to show her she might come into her room with her violin, as no-one appreciated her playing here as much as she would. She never wanted to let her out of her room, not while she lived, anyway; her shocking appearance should, for once, be of some use to her; she wanted to be at every door of her room at once to hiss and spit at the attackers; Midori should not be forced to stay with her, though, but stay of her own free will; Chiaki would sit beside her on the couch with her ear bent down to her while she told her how she had always intended to send her to Comiket, how she would have told everyone about it last Christmas - had Christmas really come and gone already? - if this misfortune hadn't got in the way, and refuse to let anyone dissuade her from it. On hearing all this, Midori would break out in tears of emotion, and Chiaki would climb up to her shoulder and kiss her neck, which, since she had been going out to work, she had kept free without any necklace or collar.

"Ms. Sakura!", shouted the middle 8th Officio girl to Kyouko, pointing, without wasting any more words, with her forefinger at Chiaki as she slowly moved forward. The pencil went silent, the middle of the three gentlemen first smiled at her two friends, shaking her head, and then looked back at Chiaki. Kyuko seemed to think it more important to calm the three 8th Officio girls before driving Chiaki out, even though they were not at all upset and seemed to think Chiaki was more entertaining than the manga drawing had been. She rushed up to them with her arms spread out and attempted to drive them back into their room at the same time as trying to block their view of Chiaki with her body. Now they did become a little annoyed, and it was not clear whether it was Kyouko's behavior that annoyed them or the dawning realization that they had had a neighbor like Chiaki in the next room without knowing it. They asked Kyouko for explanations, raised their arms like she had, tugged excitedly at their weapons and moved back towards their room only very slowly.

Meanwhile Midori had overcome the despair she had fallen into when her drawing was suddenly interrupted. She had let her hands drop and let paper and pencil hang limply for a while but continued to look at the manuscript as if still drawing, but then she suddenly pulled herself together, lay her tools on Mami's lap who still sat laboriously struggling for breath where she was, and ran into the next room which, under pressure from Kyouko, the three 8th Officio girls were more quickly moving toward. Under Midori's experienced hand, the pillows and covers on the beds flew up and were put into order and she had already finished making the beds and slipped out again before the three 8th Officio girls had reached the room. Kyouko seemed so obsessed with what she was doing that she forgot all the respect she owed to her tenants. She urged them and pressed them until, when she was already at the door of the room, the middle of the three girls shouted like thunder and stamped her foot and thereby brought Kyouko to a halt.

"I declare here and now", she said, raising her hand and glancing at Mami and Midori to gain their attention too, "that with regard to the repugnant conditions that prevail in this office and with this Officio" - here she looked briefly but decisively at the floor - "I give immediate notice on my room. For the days that I have been living here I will, of course, pay nothing at all, on the contrary I will consider whether to proceed with some kind of action for damages from you, and believe me it would be very easy to set out the grounds for such an action." She was silent and looked straight ahead as if waiting for something. And indeed, her two friends joined in with the words: "And we also give immediate notice." With that, she took hold of the door handle and slammed the door.

Kyouko staggered back to her seat, feeling her way with her hands, and fell into it; it looked as if she was stretching herself out for her usual evening nap but from the uncontrolled way her head kept nodding it could be seen that she was not sleeping at all. Throughout all this, Chiaki had lain still where the three 8th Officio girls had first seen her. Her disappointment at the failure of her plan, and perhaps also because she was weak from hunger, made it impossible for her to move. She was sure that everyone would turn on her any moment, and she waited. She was not even startled out of this state when the paper and pencil on Mami's lap fell from her trembling fingers and landed loudly on the floor.

"Kyouko-san, Mami-san", said Midori, hitting the table with her hand as introduction, "we can't carry on like this. Maybe you can't see it, but I can. I don't want to call this monster sempai, all I can say is: we have to try and get rid of it. We've done all that's humanly possible to look after it and be patient, I don't think anyone could accuse us of doing anything wrong."
"She's absolutely right", said Kyouko to herself. His mother, who still had not had time to catch her breath, began to cough dully, her hand held out in front of her and a deranged expression in her eyes.

Midori rushed to her mother and put her hand on her forehead. Her words seemed to give Kyouko some more definite ideas. She sat upright, played with her uniform cap between the plates left by the three 8th Officio girls after their meal, and occasionally looked down at Chiaki as she lay there immobile.

"We have to try and get rid of it", said Midori, now speaking only to Kyouko, as Mami was too occupied with coughing to listen, "it'll be the death of both of you, I can see it coming. We can't all work as hard as we have to and then come home to be tortured like this, we can't endure it. I can't endure it any more." And she broke out so heavily in tears that they flowed down the face of Mami, and she wiped them away with mechanical hand movements.

"Midori", said Kyouko with sympathy and obvious understanding, "what are we to do?"
Midori just shrugged her shoulders as a sign of the helplessness and tears that had taken hold of her, displacing her earlier certainty.

"If she could just understand us", said Kyouko almost as a question; Midori shook her hand vigorously through her tears as a sign that of that there was no question.

"If she could just understand us", repeated Kyouko, closing her eyes in acceptance of Midori's certainty that that was quite impossible, "then perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement with her. But as it is ..."

"It's got to go", shouted Midori, "that's the only way, Kyouko-san. You've got to get rid of the idea that that's Sempai. We've only harmed ourselves by believing it for so long. How can that be Sempai? If it were Sempai she would have seen long ago that it's not possible for human beings to live with an animal like that and she would have gone of her own free will. We wouldn't have a Warmaster any more, then, but we could carry on with our lives and remember her with respect. As it is this animal is persecuting us, it's driven out our tenants, it obviously wants to take over the whole flat and force us to sleep on the streets. Kyouko-san, look, just look", she suddenly screamed, "she's starting again!" In her alarm, which was totally beyond Chiaki's comprehension, Midori even abandoned Mami as she pushed herself vigorously out of her chair as if more willing to sacrifice Mami than stay anywhere near Chiaki. She rushed over to behind Kyouko, who had become excited merely because she was and stood up half raising his hands in front of Midori as if to protect her.

But Gregor had had no intention of frightening anyone, least of all Midori. All she had done was begin to turn round so that she could go back into her room, although that was in itself quite startling as her pain-wracked condition meant that turning round required a great deal of effort and she was using her head to help himself do it, repeatedly raising it and striking it against the floor. She stopped and looked round. They seemed to have realized her good intention and had only been alarmed briefly. Now they all looked at her in unhappy silence. Mami lay in her chair with her legs stretched out and pressed against each other, her eyes nearly closed with exhaustion; Midori sat next to Kyouko with her arms around her neck.

"Maybe now they'll let me turn round", thought Chiaki and went back to work. She could not help panting loudly with the effort and had sometimes to stop and take a rest. No-one was making her rush any more, everything was left up to her. As soon as she had finally finished turning round she began to move straight ahead. She was amazed at the great distance that separated her from her room, and could not understand how she had covered that distance in her weak state a little while before and almost without noticing it. She concentrated on crawling as fast as she could and hardly noticed that there was not a word, not any cry, from her friends to distract her. She did not turn her head until she had reached the doorway. She did not turn it all the way round as she felt her neck becoming stiff, but it was nonetheless enough to see that nothing behind her had changed, only Midori had stood up. With her last glance she saw that Mami had now fallen completely asleep.

She was hardly inside her room before the door was hurriedly shut, bolted and locked. The sudden noise behind Chiaki so startled her that her little legs collapsed under her. It was Midori who had been in so much of a rush. She had been standing there waiting and sprung forward lightly, Chiaki had not heard her coming at all, and as she turned the key in the lock she said loudly to Kyouko and Mami, "At last!".

"What now, then?", Chiaki asked herself as she looked round in the darkness. She soon made the discovery that she could no longer move at all. This was no surprise to her, it seemed rather that being able to actually move around on those stubby little legs until then was unnatural. She also felt relatively comfortable. It is true that her entire body was aching, but the pain seemed to be slowly getting weaker and weaker and would finally disappear altogether. She could already hardly feel the decayed apple in her back or the inflamed area around it, which was entirely covered in white dust. She thought back of her friends with emotion and love. If it was possible, she felt that she must go away even more strongly than Midori did. She remained in this state of empty and peaceful rumination until she heard the clock tower strike three in the morning. She watched as it slowly began to get light everywhere outside the window too. Then, without her willing it, her head sank down completely, and with her last effort shattered her Soul Gem.

When NECO came in early in the morning - they'd often asked her not to keep slamming the doors but with her strength and in her hurry she still did, so that everyone in the flat knew when she'd arrived and from then on it was impossible to sleep in peace - she made her usual brief look in on Chiaki and at first found nothing special. She thought she was laying there so still on purpose, playing the martyr; she attributed all possible understanding to him. She happened to be holding the long broom in her hand, so she tried to tickle Chiaki with it from the doorway. When she had no success with that she tried to make a nuisance of herself and poked at her a little, and only when she found she could shove him across the floor with no resistance at all did she start to pay attention. She soon realized what had really happened, opened her eyes wide, whistled to herself, but did not waste time to yank open the bedroom doors and shout loudly into the darkness of the bedrooms: "Come and have a look at this nya, it's dead, just lying there, stone dead!"

Kyouko and Mami sat upright there in their beds and had to make an effort to get over the shock caused by NECO before they could grasp what she was saying. But then, each from their own side, they hurried out of bed. Kyouko threw the blanket over her shoulders, Mami just came out in her nightdress; and that is how they went into Chiaki's room. On the way they opened the door to the living room where Midori had been sleeping since the three 8th Officio girls had moved in; she was fully dressed as if she had never been asleep, and the paleness of her face seemed to confirm this.

"Dead?", asked Mami, looking at NECO enquiringly, even though she could have checked for herself and could have known it even without checking. "That's what I said", replied the reporter, and to prove it she gave Chiaki's body another shove with the broom, sending it sideways across the floor. Mami made a movement as if she wanted to hold back the broom, but did not complete it. "Now then", said Kyouko, "let's give thanks to the Lady for that". She crossed herself, and the three other girls followed her example. Midori, who had not taken her eyes from the corpse, said: "Just look how thin she was. She didn't eat anything for so long. The food came out again just the same as when it went in". Chiaki's body was indeed completely dried up and flat, they had not seen it until then, but now she was not lifted up on her little legs, nor did she do anything to make them look away.

"Midori, come with us in here for a little while", said Mamiwith a pained smile, and Midori followed Kyouko and Mami into the bedroom but not without looking back at the body. Neco shut the door and opened the window wide. Although it was still early in the morning the fresh air had something of warmth mixed in with it. It was already the end of March, after all.

The three 8th Officio girls stepped out of their room and looked round in amazement for their breakfasts; they had been forgotten about. "Where is our breakfast?", the middle girl asked NECO irritably. NECO just put her finger on her lips and made a quick and silent sign to the girls that they might like to come into Chiaki's room. They did so, and stood around Chiaki's corpse with their hands in the pockets of their well-worn costumes. It was now quite light in the room.

Then the door of the office opened and Kyouko appeared in her uniform with Mami on one arm and Midori on the other. All of them had been crying a little; Midori now and then pressed her face against Kyouko's arm.

"Leave our Officio. Now!", said Kyouko, indicating the door and without letting the Ninth girls from him. "What do you mean?", asked the middle of the three 8th Officio girls somewhat disconcerted, and she smiled sweetly. The other two held their hands behind their backs and continually rubbed them together in gleeful anticipation of a loud quarrel which could only end in their favor. "I mean just what I said", answered Kyouko, and, with her two companions, went in a straight line towards the girl. At first, she stood there still, looking at the ground as if the contents of his head were rearranging themselves into new positions. "Alright, we'll go then", she said, and looked up at Kyouko as if she had been suddenly overcome with humility and wanted permission again from Kyouko for her decision. Kyouko merely opened her eye wide and briefly nodded to her several times.

At that, and without delay, the 8th Officio girl actually did take long strides into the front hallway; her two friends had stopped rubbing their hands some time before and had been listening to what was being said. Now they jumped off after their friend as if taken with a sudden fear that Kyouko might go into the hallway in front of them and break the connection with their leader. Once there, all three took their hats from the stand, took their weapons from the holder, bowed without a word and left the premises. Kyouko and the two girls followed them out onto the landing; but they had had no reason to mistrust the 8th Officio girls' intentions and as they leaned over the landing they saw how the three 8th Officio girls made slow but steady progress down the many steps. As they turned the corner on each floor they disappeared and would reappear a few moments later; the further down they went, the more that the friends lost interest in them; when a Ninth rookie, proud of posture with her tray on her head, passed them on her way up and came nearer than they were, Kyouko and the girls came away from the landing and went, as if relieved, back into the Warmaster's office.

They decided the best way to make use of that day was for relaxation and to go for a walk; not only had they earned a break from work but they were in serious need of it. So they sat at the table and wrote three letters of excusal, Kyouko to his employers, Mami to her contractor and Midori to her principal. NECO came in while they were writing to tell them she was going, she'd finished her work for that morning. The three of them at first just nodded without looking up from what they were writing, and it was only when the cleaner still did not seem to want to leave that they looked up in irritation.

"Well?", asked Kyouko. NECO stood in the doorway with a smile on her face as if she had some tremendous good news to report, but would only do it if she was clearly asked to. The two melons on her chest barely covered by her sweater, which had been a source of irritation to Kyouko all the time she had been working for them, swayed gently in all directions. "What is it you want then?", asked Mami, whom NECO had the most respect for.

"Yes", she answered, and broke into a friendly laugh that made her unable to speak straight away, "well then, that thing in there, nyaa, you needn't worry about how you're going to get rid of it. That's all been sorted out, nyaa." Mami and Midori bent down over their letters as if intent on continuing with what they were writing; Kyouko saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing everything in detail but, with outstretched hand, she made it quite clear that she was not to. So, as she was prevented from telling them all about it, she suddenly remembered what a hurry she was in and, clearly peeved, called out "Cheerio then, everyone", turned round sharply and left, slamming the door terribly as she went.

"Tonight she gets sacked", said Kyouko, but he received no reply from either Mami or Midori as NECO seemed to have destroyed the peace they had only just gained. They got up and went over to the window where they remained with their arms around each other. Kyouko twisted round in her chair to look at them and sat there watching for a while. Then she called out: "Come here, then. Let's forget about all that old stuff, shall we. Come and give me a bit of attention". The two girls immediately did as she said, hurrying over to her where they kissed her and hugged her and then they quickly finished their letters.

After that, the three of them left the Officio headquarters together, which was something they had not done for months, and took the tram out to the open country outside the city. They had the bullet train, filled with warm sunshine, all to themselves. Leant back comfortably on their seats, they discussed their prospects and found that on closer examination they were not at all bad - until then they had never asked each other about their work but all three had jobs which were very good and held particularly good promise for the future. The greatest improvement for the time being, of course, would be achieved quite easily by moving headquarters; what they needed now was an office building that was smaller and cheaper than the current one which had been chosen by Chiaki, one that was in a better location and, most of all, more practical.

All the time, Midori was becoming livelier. With all the worry they had been having of late her cheeks had become pale, but, while they were talking, Kyouko and Mami were struck, almost simultaneously, with the thought of how Midori was blossoming into a well built and beautiful young lady. They became quieter. Just from each other's glance and almost without knowing it they agreed that it would soon be time to find a new girlfriend for her. And, as if in confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions, as soon as they reached their destination Midori was the first to get up and stretch out her young body.