[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Festival, part 2

Genre: Action/Romance

Length: 2656 words

B/D: In which there is an action scene, and something relatively important happens in this weird series timeline thing. Ahhhhhhh

Suguri is different in the way that she thinks of fireworks. For Nath, they are tradition; for Sora, they are a bad memory; for Hime, an amusement. She, however, has always seen them as the fingerprints of humanity upon the sky, which they cannot touch in any other way. From a bird’s eye view, they form a bright and beautiful map of all the places where people have settled on the land.

She’s wearing her winter coat, tonight, with a long scarf that trails behind her like the tail of a comet. It was her Christmas present from Hime, and she’s glad of it; although they’re at the very top of the stratosphere, where the air is warmest, it’s still below freezing. She has been up to the very highest parts of the thermosphere, but that is a dead and lonely place, where there are so few molecules of gas that sound cannot travel. Occasionally she goes there to stargaze, where she feels – because she has the heart and soul of a human – as if she could reach out and touch the constellations, even though they are further apart than she can possibly imagine. Those bright and shining stars have existed since she was a child, and have never deserted her; although they are not her best friends anymore, they are certainly the oldest.

Much closer, and shining even brighter, is Hime. Her wings – beautiful, ethereal, the colours of the aurora – are on full display. Hime has told her that, outside of battle, they are soothing and warm to the touch in winter, and cool and refreshing in summer. She hasn’t worked up the nerve to ask if she can touch them herself yet. Maybe next year. All she knows is that in battle they are blinding, with enough heat to melt through steel.

“You seem excited,” she says. Although they are far apart, she doesn’t raise her voice. Somehow, she always hears when Hime calls for her, and that seems to work well enough in reverse.

“Of course I am,” Hime replies. Her voice is all but a purr. “It’s been a while since I had you all to myself. I do adore having Sora around, but it does mean we have fewer opportunities for things like this.”

Suguri raises an eyebrow. “For fighting?”

“For dancing,” she says, and even from here Suguri can see the gleam in her eyes. “As only you and I can dance.”

“I’m always happy to be your partner. But if you feel like we don’t have enough opportunities, why not just invite Sora along as well? She’s no slouch.”

“You’re certainly correct about that. But what Sora does can’t quite be called dancing, I think. She’s so direct about it. Perhaps in the year to come, I’ll show her the motions and we can all dance together. But,” she says, and her voice is like honey, “Tonight, the only partner I want is you, Suguri.”

“You’re teasing me, aren’t you?” she asks. She’s not blushing, but she does smile. She’s getting a little more used to things being this way.

Hime’s lips curve into a satisfied little grin. “Perhaps. But it is such a romantic night, don’t you agree? The night sky full of stars above us, the fireworks below, and a new year ready to unfold before our eyes. You can hardly blame me. I’m just starting the year as I mean to continue it.”

“Come on,” she says, and makes a show of frowning. “You can’t say things like that and then expect me to go full force.”

“Oh, but I do! I shan’t be holding back at all. I want you on your toes, Suguri, and I expect you to keep step. Are you ready to begin?”

She takes out her beam rifle, checks the output on her energy sword. Nothing fancy today, nothing 

flashy: just reliable, elegant weapons that she’s had years of experience with. Her strategy is easy to figure out: focus on moving in as quickly as she can, and firing shots to cut off Hime’s movement when she can’t. Simple in concept, more difficult in practice. She knows from experience that Hime is fantastic at controlling space, herding you to where she wants you to be and cutting off your advance. She’s less adept at dealing with close range pressure, or getting you away from her if you manage to close in – her chains travel too slowly, too linearly, and she can’t throw out clusters of bullets if they’ll hit herself as well.

“Ready when you are,” she calls, and takes out her blade; with but a touch, the well-worn technology springs to life, illuminating her in soft magenta. A warm and familiar light.

“Then, begin!”

Her muscles tighten, her heartbeat quickens; the colours of the fireworks below seem to dilute as she focuses herself solely on Hime. She blinks, and in the time her eyes are closed, Hime moves. She catches the tail end of the gesture, an expansive sweep of the arm, and realises that the first barrage is already coming. Despite herself, she’s surprised. They have their rituals. By long tradition, the first move is usually Suguri’s.

She surges forward in a sharp arc, like the tip of a knife whistling through the air. Hime’s bullets are the stars above her, just waiting to rain down like grapeshot from a cannon. Her eyes flicker to the barrage and back to Hime’s face. Her gut barks at her, move!, and she banks up and to the left like a jagged bolt of lightning. The chain whips through the space where her face had been a half-second too late before scattering into more bullets. She soars upwards, straight through the barrage, ducking and weaving through the bullets where she can and feeling the others thump against her like hailstones before sliding harmlessly off her shields.

As soon as her dash peaks she begins her descent, soaring toward Hime in a ragged zigzag, drawing stitches in the sky. She needs time to think. This isn’t the way that it goes. She shoots first, not Hime. She’s always so much more reluctant to use her chains, and they’re never quite so fast. Something is different. She pulls out her rifle, hands steady. Squeezes the trigger as if she’s shaking hands with an old friend, lets the kickback slow her down. Hime dodges the shots gracefully, effortlessly, beautifully. With a sweep of the blonde girl’s hand another chain is flying, still too fast, and she has to kick into a long swooping fall to avoid it.

Away from Back at roughly the same height as Hime, she presses closer, peppering shots from her rifle into the night sky. They won’t hit. They can’t hit. Hime is too good for that, too fine a dancer. But they represent a space into which her opponent cannot move. It’s a tactic she’s begun to embrace more and more when she spars with Sora. The ex-soldier is something of a genius, a nightmare with speed and power in equal measure. The way to beat power, she has learned, is with control – of your opponent, and of yourself.

She jinks forward in strange and unpredictable intervals, expecting Hime to fall back. Close combat isn’t where the goddess shines; they often joke about how she prefers to be admired from afar. But instead she rushes forward, scattering bullets as she goes, her mouth closed in a tight smile. I’m coming to meet you, her face says. I shan’t back down, even for you.

The distance closes; the heat of a melee draws in. For all her misgivings, she grits her teeth, dip at the last second and takes the first sweeping slice with her sabre. She aims high at the neck to force Hime downwards, away from the white-hot magenta blur of her blade. As soon as the first strike is done she darts around and to the back, attacking again from on high, and then to the front, faster and faster until it feels like she’s attacking from every angle all at once, a storm of heat and violence.

It isn’t enough, of course. Most of Suguri’s opponents will only ever see her attack like this a single time. There’s no way to prepare themselves for how fast, how unpredictable, how efficient she is at close range. By the time they know what’s going on, the fight is lost. But Hime has seen it, time and time again, and is more than prepared. She turns her body and lets the worst of the strikes roll off her, her shield crackling, dodging what she can. She can’t dodge all of them. Truth be told, she probably can’t even dodge enough of them. But it gives her time, time she uses to calmly look for an opening.

As Suguri comes in close for another pass, she finds her opportunity. She whips out a chain that grazes across Suguri’s temple before scattering into bullets, forcing the silver-haired girl downwards. Smiling, she darts backwards and away, and as she does a storm of bullets hammers down on Suguri’s position. They hit her squarely this time, less like hail and more like withering punches to the gut. For a moment, she’s breathless. Impressed. That moment is enough time for Hime to dart away again, establish a range more comfortable for her.

Suguri bites her lip, shakes her head. She built up too much heat when she was attacking, and her shields couldn’t cool down before the barrage. She’s on the back foot, and she knows it. A protracted fight will be her loss – Hime is too good at corralling her into the path of bullets, and eventually the wear will add up. The only way to win is the riskiest.

As quickly as she can, she bursts forwards, feeling the heat rise in her shielding again. Hime fires off another chain, heading straight for her, no doubt expecting her to take a wide arc to avoid it; instead, she barrel rolls to the left and races alongside its length. The links closest to Hime begin to scatter into bullets as she approaches but she carries on, trusting her shields and her momentum to divert the energy away. She reaches deep, flicks the safety off her sabre, and sweeps her hand in one magnificent slice, the blade ragged with force, a majestic crescent moon bigger than either of them that sweeps directly into Hime’s side.

Even in the fury of her hyper attack, Suguri is stunned. Hime didn’t even try to dodge, just turned her body to let some of the force roll off her. The shield of the goddess crackles ominously, straining to deal with all the energy, all the force. It won’t hold, Suguri thinks. Is she conceding? It can’t be right. Hime enjoys their dances too much, and keeps them going for as long as she can. Something is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The fight has been off from the start, and she doesn’t know why –

As the momentum of the follow-through carries her forward, she feels something snag her wrist like a vice and jerk her back. She has a fraction of a second to see that it’s Hime’s hand, before her arm twists and Hime’s other hand comes down on her wrist like a hammer. Her fingers open of their own accord and her sword tumbles from her grip into the sky below; like that, quietly and efficiently, she’s disarmed. Hime jerks her closer again, for – what? A punch, a slap, a headbutt–

Their lips touch.

At first, she thinks it’s a mistake. Things like that happen in the battlefield. But not usually so gently, or so warmly. In just a moment, Hime will pull back and apologise, and things will be normal. But then she feels a hand at her back, pulling her closer, and all other thoughts vanish from her mind. Hime’s lips, Hime – so soft. So warm. How many thousands of years has it been since her heart beat like this? She finds herself pressing even closer, so their noses bump together and their bodies fit like pieces of a puzzle. Her breathing is ragged, and her cheeks are burning. The bruises of the fight seem very far away, as though she got them decades ago instead of seconds. It feels like something is waking up inside her, some need that has been pushed to the side and forgotten until this moment, and in Hime too –

Their lips part at last, and she hears Hime breathe deeply, almost gasping, as though she’s been suffocating all the way until now and now she’s finally been given air. She’s blushing furiously, but there is a wide smile on her face, half-joy and half-mischief, as if she might come back for another kiss right away.

“Ufufufu,” she laughs, and it is nervous and giggly but somehow so satisfied, the cat that got the cream. “It seems I got carried away and did something outrageous.”

Suguri can’t speak. Half-words form and drop from her mouth, all from different sentences, different feelings. She feels like there is an electric current passing through her. Like she’s waking up.

“Well, that last stunt nearly exhausted my shield reserves, so we can call this my loss,” the goddess purrs, knowing full well that nothing could be further from the truth. “Are you going to take me home right away, or would you prefer to enjoy the moonlight a little more?”

“Y… You planned it.”

“Oh, a kiss at the turn of the year above a romantic fireworks display? I might have engineered it a little,” Hime concedes, dropping one eyelid in wink. “I was rather hoping you might do it, but… well. It’s not so bad for a lady to take the lead once in a while. You're not the only one who picks up tricks from Sora, by the way – that little disarming trick is one of hers.”

Again, words fail Suguri. Her brain is doing too many things at once right now. There are too many words and thoughts and emotions. She’s rerunning memories of the last few minutes, examining them, indulging in them. Oh, sweet Planet Earth. She comes back to herself when she feels Hime’s hand slip into hers, and Hime’s arm curl around her waist.

“Let’s get you home, shall we?” Hime says, her lips at Suguri’s ear. “I’ll make you some nice cocoa, and you can sleep on things. See tonight as… an invitation, so to speak. I shan’t hold it against you if you decline.”

She gives Suguri’s hand a squeeze, and begins to move. Still half-embracing her. Her face is so close. All of a sudden Suguri’s mouth springs to life, scrabbling over the bits and fragments of words she’s trying to assemble.

“H-Hime!” she says, so loudly, so sharply that it feels like the name is being pulled from some place deep down inside her. “C.. C-can we, ah… d… d-do more?”

For a second, Hime makes a show of pausing, puts a finger to her chin. She’s teasing. She has to be, Suguri thinks, she can’t just kiss her once and then it’s done forever, it isn’t fair to wake up all these feelings and these needs and just leave them there –

“More kissing? Well…I did tell you I was starting this year as I meant to go on, did I not?” she says, and her voice is as soft and smooth as silk. “Let’s talk about it when we get home, shall we? Or not talk, as the case may be.”

Her laughter is sparkling, dazzling. Far below them, the people of the town are packing up their firework equipment, laughing and eating, none the wiser as to what has happened above them. The fireworks for this year are over.

But the fireworks in Suguri’s heart won’t die down for a long time yet.

B/D: Ahhhhhhhhhh

ahhhhhh

ahhh

ahhhhhhhh

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