(25)

"Miss Kelly," the white-haired history teacher greeted her most complicated charge with a warm smile and cheerful demeanor. "Come in, come in." She was messing with a pot on a single burner in the corner of her desk in the teacher's lounge. "I always put on some tea after a staff meeting, helps me wind down. Have a seat, I'll pour you a cup."

"You know, you could just say you wanted to ask me a bunch of questions," Nariko sarcastically quipped back as she pulled over a chair as instructed. "I don't mind. And we've got the whole trip home to do it."

But Sarasa waved that off. "Oh, let me have my posturing. Besides, you shouldn't be so eager to rush things. Taking the time to go through the motions is important, too."

"Yes, ma'am."

She decided to ignore the indulging saccharine of the girl's response, recognizing it as more sarcasm. "Did you and Miss Tamashini do anything fun while I kept you waiting?"

"She explained Kyudo to me," the girl replied, "and we talked about the nature of our magic."

Miss Sada placed a steaming cup in front of Nariko. "Make any grand discoveries?"

Her student mulled over her words. "Kyudo is a very Reina hobby," she concluded. "It figures Sacred Witch would find something that combines athletic skill with pseudo-religious philosophy."

"There is something to be said for keeping the mind and body in order," Sarasa replied easily as she sat down and crossed one long leg over the other. "Humans are capable of their greatest feats when those two aspects are focused and in sync."

But Nariko shook her head. "I wasn't trying to insult it like that. I just mean that, when I realized what it was, I got a heavy, Of course, sentiment that hit me."

"Mmm, and the magic? Close to any more breakthroughs that'll shake the foundations of our understanding?"

She just grinned back at the flat stare she got for that. At the very least, despite what was happening with her, Miss Kelly remained an open book that was easy to read. That expression very loudly asked, What do you mean, our understanding?

It was fun, she was discovering, to play the role while someone knew she was full of it.

"Nothing quite so earth-shattering, I'm sure," Nariko answered the question anyway. "More confirmation of what I've already been suspecting than anything new. I tried to share my insights with Tamashini, but she acted like how Nat does when I tell her she should be punching stuff."

"Indignant and violent?"

The girl scoffed. "More like she just couldn't process it. Even simple things that are incredibly obvious." She tapped the side of the cup with her index finger thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, Haru does it, too. It's not as obvious because she makes sure to nod along, but then she'll turn around and do something that makes it plain it went in one ear and out the other."

"What of Miss Wakumi?"

At that, Nariko shook her head again. "I haven't had anything of that nature to bring up with her, so I couldn't say. Three out of four, though, makes me pretty sure she'd do the same. It seems something to do with the Witches, themselves. Something's wrong with them."

Sada made an effort to school her expression at that, showing that she took the notion of something being wrong with her girls seriously. "Something that doesn't apply to you?"

"It might have applied to Thunder Witch," Nariko admitted, "but maybe I'm exempt because it's something to do with their minds and not their bodies." But then she shrugged. "Of course, if there's something that I'm being blocked from realizing, there's no real way for me to know, is there? It just wouldn't make any sense to me, and I'd reject it out of hand and move on, just like them."

The teacher tilted her head to one side. "Maybe you're just suggesting things contrary to their nature? While it would admittedly be a very Nariko thing to do, you can't just come in and demand an entire established team do things the way you think would be better."

But again, Nariko shook her head. "No, aside from being blunt in an attempt to get it through to Flame Witch, I haven't tried telling them to do anything. I've just mentioned observations. They're all smart, clever girls, Miss Sada. Even if it wasn't to their tastes, they should at least be able to understand the words coming out of my mouth. Tamashini spends every day of her life in charge of something. There's no way she doesn't understand how much she's responsible for. But point it out to her, and she just locks down like she's under siege."

Sarasa took a sip of her tea, then looked down into it as she rotated her cup in her hand. She learned early on that her girls, like most humans, appreciated occasional silent moments like that for their thoughts to settle. It was a finicky preference, though. Too long, and it felt awkward. Too short, and it felt rushed. She'd found little fidgets like this helped pace for just the right amount of time.

"Well, you can't force knowledge on others, you know," she finally said, still looking down into her cup. "If they aren't ready to hear something, they won't. That's just too often the simple truth."

But then Sada leaned forward over the table between them, a smile playing on her lips as she forced the girl to lock eyes with her. "The more important question is, how much have you learned, hmm?"

Nariko reflexively pulled back away from her at the lunge, but regathered herself with a cough off to the side. Sarasa didn't like that whatever had happened to the girl had left her so easily unnerved by her, but she had to admit it was a little fun.

The girl settled herself back in and actually repeated Sarasa's own actions with her mug as she considered her response. This Nariko was much more careful with her words, she'd noticed. There was an eagerness to show off a list of things she'd puzzled out, somewhat because the mentor was inducing it, but to this version of the girl, it was far more important to get it right.

"... Not a lot, actually, if I'm being honest," the child finally answered. "I've got a lot of suspicions, a lot of conclusions, but not really a lot of solid facts. Still, I feel like I'm building a proper understanding of this world a piece at a time."

Sarasa allowed herself to arch one fine, white eyebrow. "What an odd choice of words for someone trying to be so careful with them, Miss Kelly. Whyever would you speak of the whole world like that?"

The girl dismissed that with her hand, however. "I wasn't saying that this is a different world from my own," she explained, "though it could be. Reina and I had previously discussed the possibility as an explanation for why I match Nariko so well."

"And why you reacted to Miss Tamashini the way you did when you first met her, I'd imagine?"

Nariko nodded in confirmation. "I still lean toward the possibility, if I'm being honest, but it's one of those things without any solid facts. I certainly won't lose any sleep if I turn out to be wrong."

Now this was getting interesting. Sarasa put her elbow on the table and rested her chin on her knuckles as she watched her charge even more closely. "Alright, Miss Kelly, I'll bite. Why aren't we your world?"

The girl raised her eyes to her, a stern gaze that questioned if she'd maneuvered wrong and stepped in a trap. Such suspicion was a pity, truly. She wished all of the girls would understand that no matter what conclusions any of them drew, or what decisions they made, it wouldn't change how she cared for them.

This topic clearly required more intensive reviewing than the last, and rather than sufficing with the mug, Nariko stood and began to pace as she drummed her fingers against the side of the ceramic.

"It's all too fake," Nariko finally declared with force, and Miss Sada's other eyebrow joined the first.

"Fake?"

But the girl shook her head and began pacing the other direction, second-guessing herself. "No. No, not fake. Artificial."

The history teacher watched her go back and forth like a cat watching a string. "I confess even I am having a bit of trouble following that scant level of description, dear."

Nariko finally stopped and turned back toward her fully, motioning with the hand not holding the tea. "Plastic. Have you ever been in a room where everything's covered in plastic sheeting? Or smelled the air out of plastic tubing? That's what it's like. It's like the whole world smells like plastic."

Oh, by the Council, was this another one of those things with human 4D language trying to describe higher dimension concepts? Well, at least she wasn't the one that had to come up with the metaphors this time ...

Instead of saying anything to those thoughts, Sada raised her other hand to tuck it under the other part of her chin so she was fully leaning over the table. "You're smelling plastic now, are you?"

"You know what I mean, Miss Sada," the girl insisted, and it was accusatory, not just a figure of speech. "I know you know what I mean."

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," the woman replied. "I'm just trying to help you get your thoughts in order, dear. What about the whole of the world smells like plastic?"

Nariko forced herself to regather her wits with a deep sigh, then returned to her seat. She made a vague box over the table with her hands. "When you see something that's perfectly molded so it looks just like the real thing, like a log wall, but then you notice every other log looks exactly the same and you can't stop yourself from seeing it every time you look at the wall from then on. Or how, no matter how accurate an air freshener scent is to what it's supposed to be, there's always this constant chemical undertone that keeps you from fooling yourself into thinking you're actually smelling the real thing."

"Soooo," Sarasa ventured, "you're noticing things that are ... off?"

"Not off," the brunette shook her head. "I'm not seeing any cats darting by me twice or nonsense like that."

The teacher grinned. "I could do that for you if it would make you feel better."

Aside from a quick glare, Nariko completely ignored that. "Like ..." She swirled her hand around as she fished for an example. "Our families. Aren't all our families just a little too perfect? No strife in the home, no financial troubles, all of us are from at least middle class households or better, those of us with siblings get along great with them ..."

Sarasa frowned critically. "Most people would be grateful for such fortune, Miss Kelly."

She could see the words start to form on the girl's lips. And I am, she was about to say, but stopped herself.

"And I'm sure Nariko is," the brunette replied instead. "It just seems to beat the odds that all of us are so well off with such stable homes. And just so happen to always have someone in the group with access to whatever resource we need."

The frown was still there, but less intense. "But if this were the only thing, you'd call it a happy coincidence, I'd assume."

"Sure," Nariko answered noncommittally. "But there's tons of other things, too. Like how the demons don't take us seriously, or vice versa. Both sides treat this whole literal shadow war like it's a slightly malicious after school club."

"Dakunaito would give you a paddling for that," Sarasa half-jested.

"No, Dakunaito takes it all more seriously than anyone else except maybe Reina," Kelly countered. "Now, Prince Eirwen on the other hand ..."

The teacher nodded sagely. "That boy does seem to do a great deal of waffling when it comes to you girls. I believe the technical term is smitten."

But Sword Witch was unintentionally winding up a curve ball. "Nevermind that! Miss Sada, how is it that nobody has apparently put two and two together and figured out he's running around our school as Jack?!"

This time, it was completely genuine when both of Sarasa's eyes widened. She even sat up straighter. "The more pertinent question is how did you figure it out?"

The seeming bite of the question caught Nariko so off-guard that she froze up for a moment, trying to figure out if she had been insulted. After a long pause, she decided to answer it directly. "He doesn't exactly go around and hide it. They sound alike, they have the same ... I dunno, presence? I don't know how to describe it, but it's painfully obvious Jack and Wren are the same person. And if you knew, why didn't you tell any of us?"

Sarasa sighed and relaxed her shoulders. "Miss Kelly, he's using a perception filter, just like you girls do. You shouldn't be able to tell. I can because I see in dimensions natives to this realm cannot, but even if I told you directly, none of you would be capable of accepting it."

"So the crown prince of the entire demon empire is just hanging out around us and countless innocents, and you're just ... okay with that?!"

It was the teacher's turn to shake her head. "My people believe strongly, Miss Kelly, that even the darkest souls deserve a chance to turn things around, and Eirwen is still young. He has never made any move to use his persona as Jack for any malicious purpose, and so long as that remains the case, I intend to permit him to do so unmolested." She shrugged. "It wouldn't be a bad thing at all for the next demon emperor to have a more sympathetic understanding of humanity, either."

"But your mind wiping tricks don't work on demons, right?"

At that, Sarasa allowed herself a knowing grin. "If you're asking if he remembers everything I've ever wiped from Jack, I'm afraid he does. But he sticks to the act, so I stick to mine. If he broke it, I'd have to take more extreme measures, but so far, he's been a good boy."

She admired the girl's self-control. She knew Nariko suppressed a shudder at her implication, but it never made it to her face.

"Fine, next thing." Nariko turned to face her with a demanding expression. "Where the hell are we?"

Ah, there went her eyebrows again. "The ... teacher's lounge?" she guessed. "Also, please watch your language. I have enough trouble curbing Miss Homura."

The girl shook her head. "I mean geographically!" Fortunately, she didn't wait long for an answer. "Superficially, anyone would say Japan."

"And let me guess," Sada went with instead, "it doesn't feel right to you."

"Nothing feels right," she reminded the history teacher, "but I don't need feelings for this one. It's the language. Miss Sada, I've seen Japanese."

"You've seen it?"

Nariko apparently interpreted the question of her phrasing to be one of her fluency, as she made a face and gave her hand a wiggle. "Eh, honestly, I feel like my Middle Eastern languages were better as secondary languages go," she admitted, but then firmed up her expression. "But I'm pretty sure I spent enough time in Tokyo to be able to muddle my way through a menu or such."

The girl pulled a sheet of paper out of a printer and grabbed a loose pen, then quickly wrote out several things on it. Cheeseburger. Milkshake. Ramen. Sushi. She slapped the paper back on the table between them and aggressively stabbed it with her index finger.

"This is not Japanese. I don't know what it is, but I've never seen it before I woke up as Nariko, I'm sure of that."

Sarasa gave a bemused sound at that. "Surely you aren't trying to say it's not a real language."

"I'm not," she confirmed. "I'm no polyglot. It could be an older language or some regional dialect, I don't know. I just know it's not modern Japanese."

"You've said you aren't particularly good at it," the teacher offered in alternative. "As Nariko's native language that you've inherited, perhaps it just looks different to her eyes? Perhaps you learned groups of squiggles to represent what you wanted, but she sees them as individual symbols."

Nariko gave a relenting sigh as she lowered her head. "That's a possibility, I'll admit. Again, I don't really have much of anything I can call a solid fact. If you keep looking at them individually, of course you can find excuses to hand wave them."

She rallied herself, though, and took on a determined face again. "But fine! For sake of argument, let's assume this is Japan."

Sarasa smirked at that. "Sure, let's," she replied sarcastically, but was, again, ignored.

"Indiana Jones, I get. It's no shocker a series like that would be known in Japan," Nariko pushed, "but what are the odds that Nariko's sister would have any idea who Carmen Sandiego is?"

The teacher put on an exaggerated thinking expression as she made a show of mulling that one over. "Hrm, nope, you got me there, I've got nothing for that one." She let that sit for a moment, then her face lit up as she slapped the table. "Oh, I've got it! Your dad's an American! We can blame it on him! He probably introduced it to you girls!"

Nariko's gazed reply was as flat as a two-dimensional plane. "Thank you, Miss Sada. I'm so glad you're taking this all so very seriously."

"My dear, sweet child," Sarasa replied with a far more sincere tone, "if I acted like I took it seriously, you might leave here with the impression you were on to something, and how irresponsible of me would that be?"

The girl was in the middle of formulating a reply when the door to the teacher's lounge was slammed open. Reina stood there in her archery uniform, looking as if she'd run across the entire campus without stopping to reach them.

The council president took only two deep breaths before forcing herself to speak. "A premonition," she insisted. "Chiaki's train. Everyone on it is in danger!"