[Fanfic, 100% OJ] Ultimate Weapon Girls, part II

Genre: Slice of Life

Length: 3317 words

B/D: This ended up being a more dialogue and world-building chapter, which I'm fine with. Sometimes it's nice to take the time to do that kind of thing.

Nath sighed. Nath did a lot of sighing. She had a lot of them, all stored up inside her after thousands of years of exasperation, and she was trying to let them out at a rate that wouldn’t crash the world sigh economy. That much was common knowledge. But not many knew that Nath, as a meticulous collector of the strange and trivial, had selected sighs of an incredible variety. She had one for every occasion: a ‘well done’ kind of sigh, a ‘you woke me up at 4am and I’m grumpy’ kind of sigh, and even the rare and valuable ‘now that, right there, is an extremely attractive bottom’ kind of sigh. She had them all.

Today she was sighing because she had been struck down with a most disagreeable malady: bed envy. It wasn’t that she didn’t like her bed, of course. She had assembled it herself after adopting it from the flatpack furniture shelter, and it had served her well over the years, needing only a few minor reinforcements to deal with her weight.

But, well, it was a little small, wasn’t it? It could only really admit one Nath and one cat. Compared to Suguri and Hime’s spacious double bed, it seemed miserable in comparison. And that was before you factored in Sham’s bed, which she had recently installed into her apartment and which was less a bed than a small room with a mattress for the floor. Nath had to remind herself gently that, contrary to popular opinion, size wasn’t everything in the bedroom. (If it was, Sora would have been the uncontested winner, because she would sleep anywhere. Therefore, her bed was the entire world, and the whole world was in fact in bed with her.)

Of course, Nath’s sudden desire for more spacious sleeping accommodations was purely on the grounds of comfort, and not – as a treacherous little voice in the back of her mind might suggest – because it would make it easier to perform, oh, any number of interesting night-time activities, with any number of ten-thousand year old women she might find herself physically and romantically attracted to.

Still, raging bed envy aside, it was a good morning. She had woken up, sipped a coffee, and was currently enjoying the atmosphere. There had been a thunderstorm overnight, which had broken up the muggy summer heat and made the air feel fresh and clean again. As she nibbled a corner of toast and stroked the cat, she felt well-prepared for an eventful and productive day – and her first task was a very important phone call.

“Hello,” Sora’s voice intoned dully after a few rings. “We don’t want any.”

“Oh. That’s a shame. Roger had kittens, but I guess I’ll have to give them away to somebody else.”

“Oh, it’s Nath… Muu. We might want some. Just a few. How cute are their meows?”

“I was joking. I think Roger’s neutered, anyway.” She paused, and cleared her throat. “So… How were you last night?”

“Last night?”

“There was a thunderstorm. I tried calling, but I couldn’t get reception. Were you alright?”

“Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know. I must have slept through it. I was tired.”

“Ah… Still, that’s a good thing.”

“Were you worried?”

“I wouldn’t say I was worried, necessarily – I know you can handle it. But I just wanted to check you were okay.” She took a long sip of her coffee, and scratched the cat’s ears. “So, you slept the whole night… Did you have any interesting dreams?”

“Dreams?”

“Mm.”

“I don’t remember. Did you?”

“I think… maybe I did. I remember us being in a forest.”

“I was in it?”

“Mm.”

“What about Suguri and Hime?”

“No.”

“Or Sham?”

“Just us.”

“…was it a good dream?”

“I woke up in a good mood, so I think it was.” She let it sit in the air for a moment. Was it strange to talk about dreams? Maybe it was. It had come out of nowhere. Normally, she didn’t remember any of her dreams, and she didn’t take notice of the ones she did. But as soon as she’d thought about it, she realised she wanted to share it, and that Sora was the right person to share it with. Maybe that feeling – that desire for openness, for communication – was all that mattered. Or maybe she didn’t need to justify her actions to herself. “Anyway… Our comics should be coming in at the store today. Do you want to come out and grab them with me?”

“Muu… I can’t. I’m doing secret idol training with Sham today.”

“I see… It doesn’t seem very secret if you tell me.”

“It’s not a secret from you. It’s a secret from Suguri. You can’t tell her, on pain of death.”

“You wouldn’t kill me. The cat would never forgive you.”

“That’s true. Okay. On pain of tickling, then.”

“In that case, my lips are sealed.” Nath smiled as she said it. What a strange, laid-back conversation they were having. “How’s it going so far?”

“...nn. It’s troublesome. We’re meant to be performing at the end of the week, but… being an idol is hard. I’m bad at singing. Sham keeps saying I need to sing louder, but… it’s tough to raise your voice. Doesn’t it feel like you’re breaking the rules?”

Nath made vague noises of agreement. In reality, she thought Sora worrying about rules was a strange paradox. Yes, she did seem to prefer law and order when she could get it, but… wasn’t this also the same girl who went down in history as an anarchist hero who spent half her time fighting the military she defected from? She was pretty sure defecting was also against the rules, although in retrospect it had worked out splendidly for almost everybody involved.

“And she keeps saying I need to put more feeling into my dances. I don’t get it. How do I put more feeling in? It’s really vague.”

“You sound like you’re having fun, though.”

“Mm. I am having fun. Sham’s amazing. She’s got so much energy. But I’m worried that Suguri’s show won’t go well, and it’ll be my fault.”

“Well… Sham’s amazing, right? She should be able to teach you in time. Just try your best, and let her worry about the details.”

“Mm… You’re right. Secretly, she’s super reliable.”

‘Secretly’, in Nath’s opinion, was about right. Of course, she was a professional. She had timetables to keep, performances to do, and a fanbase to cultivate. You didn’t do all that without having a certain level of responsibility. But she had a talent for appearing flaky, or scatterbrained. Innocuous, that was the word.

The conversation went on for a few more minutes before Nath heard Sham’s voice somewhere in the background, which was Sora’s cue to go. She seemed at least a little less worried than she was before, although it was hard to tell. Nath, haver of innumerable sighs, deployed one of her special ‘job well done’ sighs, and finished her coffee. She wondered if she should have asked about Sham’s bed, before deciding she didn’t want to know. Knowing would validate her jealousy.

Five minutes later, the phone rang again. She scooped it up with the hand that was not occupied by cat. “Hello?”

“Nath, I forgot something important.”

“What?”

“What are you wearing?”

“Socks,” she answered, and hung up.

A ‘crash course’.

It wasn’t the most flattering thing to call Sham’s tuition, but it was the most fitting. She had to strike while the iron was hot, while the fire in her heart was still burning at full strength; only then could she forge Sora into an idol. That was what she thought, and why she’d set the date of the performance so soon. They were soldiers, in another life; they came alive at the last second, at the moment of crisis. All she had to do was reach into herself, find the very basics – the absolute bare minimums of her ten thousand year career – and compress them down into something Sora could take in within a week. It was that kind of tuition.

There had also, admittedly, been a bit of crashing.

She put her hands on Sora’s waist, where lately they had become more and more comfortable, and quietly walked her though the steps to the lift again. Lifts weren’t exactly a standard part of idol choreography, for good reason; as impressive as they were, they took a level of core strength that not every idol had, and usually required a break from singing. But singing was by far the part Sora was least confident at, and she had athleticism to spare. It played exactly to her strengths, and the more they tailored the performance to what she was already good at, the quicker it would be to polish it.

Of course, there were bound to be a few tumbles along the way. But slowly, diligently, they were pushing through the difficult first steps and into a lift that was, if not elegant, then at least functional. The weak point was turning out to be Sham herself, who hadn’t lifted anything heavier than a guitar for a very long time. Her arms trembled, her forehead beaded with sweat, and she was happy, happy, happy that even after ten thousand years of practice, she still wasn’t perfect – that they could fall down together and laugh about it, after all this time.

“Huwaaaaaaa! Okay, okay! That’s enough for today!” she said, after one last attempt. “Ooh… This is such a workout. I’m going to have huge biceps after this!”

She wondered, sometimes, if Sora had ever seen actually seen a bicep. Suguri and Hime seemed to live a bicep-free existence, and Nath definitely didn’t have any biceps to show off. Skinny arms seemed to be the trend nowadays. Well, Sham, thought, let them have their skinny arms. She, the pure hearted idol, would embrace the world of muscle and demonstrate the beauty of well-toned biceps for her best friend!

“Sham,” Sora said, and poked her in the chubbiest part of her cheek. “You’re thinking about weird things again.”

After taking a moment to rewind the tape in her head, Sham found she couldn’t argue. So instead, she flopped down on the bed and rolled around a bit before changing the topic. (In lieu of crash mats, they had been using the mattress to soften the impacts of lifts gone wrong. The springs were already beginning to suffer a little. “It’s fine, it’s fine! I was thinking about strategy.”

Sham thought a lot about strategy. In addition to her inclusion of lifts, she had also tailored the stage outfits for maximum effect. Step one had been picking long-ish skirts that swooshed and had ruffles – and the more swooshing and the more ruffles, the better. Nowadays, the trend was for shorter, less ornate skirts, but Sham knew her audience, and she thought Suguri’s tastes would be more classical. Besides, the movement of the skirt would attract the eye away from Sora’s footwork, which was still a bit stiff.

Step two was to make sure they had ribbons around their necks – big ones. If Sham knew anything about anything, it was that Sora and everybody she knew was absolutely obsessed with oversized neck ornaments. In fact, she had half a suspicion that if you removed their neck ornaments, they would poof out of existence, like a genie that had granted its last wish.

“Will it really be fine?” Sora asked, flopping down beside her. “I still can’t do the song very well. And I keep getting my feet crossed. I’m… not good at being an idol.”

“It’s fine, okay? You’re making great progress. When I first became an idol, I was way worse than you are right now.”

Sora shifted slightly, to assume a more sluglike position. “Really? But… I got the feeling you were always good at singing and dancing. Even in the war.”

“I was, but…” Sham looked away. “Well… I don’t know. It’s a long story. Kinda heavy, too. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to go into it.”

If she was expecting an understanding response, she didn’t get it. Instead, Sora gave her a gentle push so she rolled over onto her belly, and then use her back as a pillow. This, in their world, was feminine bonding. Sleep was an important part of social interaction, even moreso if you did it on top of other people.

“I’m kinda heavy. But you can lift me,” Sora said, when she had wiggled enough to make herself comfortable. “And I want to hear stories about that kind of thing. Maybe it’ll make me better at idoling.”

“You really aren’t that heavy… but that’s beside the point! I don’t really think it’s a story that will help you be an idol. It’s not really worth listening to.”

“Then it’s a Sham story. Sham stories are always worth listening to.”

Sham sighed. She had begun to learn a lesson that Nath learned long ago: once Sora set her heart on something, it was very difficult to persuade her to let it go. Instead, she spent a few seconds considering – reluctantly – where to start.

“Well… when I first started being an idol, it was a few decades after the War. It took us that long to get back on our feet, you know? Before that, everybody was just trying to survive. There was no food left, and the earth was almost uninhabitable because of the war. People were saying it was the Apocalypse. Both our side and the other side were basically wiped out. There was barely anybody left. It took us a while to figure out that we’d even been saved from something, and that the entire world could have died.”

She tried to make her voice soothing, and calm. It was ancient history. There was no need to be upset about it now, no matter how bad it was at the time. Sora said nothing, but Sham could tell she was listening attentively, even without seeing her face.

“A lot of people… well, they just didn’t have the willpower to survive in a world like that. They either fell into despair and stopped fending for themselves, or…” Despite herself, a nervous giggle bubbled up from her throat. “Well. Anyway, we needed everybody we could get, or we’d never pull through. So I figured that, since I could sing a bit and dance a bit, I might be able to cheer people up. They needed that, I think. A bit of entertainment. A bit of cheer.

“So I started going around to all the different places where people had begun to settle, and I’d help them out with labour during the day, and then sing and dance for them at night. But no matter how well I sang or danced, or how cute I tried to be, I could barely cheer anybody up at all. Sora, do you know why that is?”

The question hung in the air for ten seconds or more. For a moment, Sham thought her friend had genuinely gone to sleep.

“Nn. Why was it?”

“It’s because an idol isn’t just somebody who sings and dances. It’s not even somebody who’s cute. An idol is somebody who uses those talents to try and heal the wounds in other people’s hearts. Whether that’s just letting them escape from daily life for a while, or reaching out with their lyrics, or even just having a ball and dancing up a storm with a big smile, an idol’s mission is to make people happy and ease their pain!”

“Is cuteness a talent, though?”

“Definitely! Super definitely! But… back then, I didn’t really get it. It’s difficult to heal another person’s heart when you’ve still got wounds in your own heart… it’s a bit like telling somebody not to cry when you’re in tears yourself. I wasn’t really doing too hot back then, you know? I didn’t really… have anything. A place in the world, a family, a future… it all got wiped clean, the day the war ended.” She paused. Her throat was getting a little tight. “Oh, but don’t get me wrong. I got all those things back again, in the end. And the things I got were much, much better than the ones I traded away. After everything, it was a good thing. But it was rough for a while.”

Sora rolled over, and then pulled herself forward until she was lying on her belly across Sham’s back – as if they were a human cross. Her weight, Sham thought, was a little comforting. Definitely more comforting than when they were doing the lifts, that was for sure. “So you figured that out, and then you were a great idol?”

“Well, sorta. Actually, there’s another part to being an idol, and I figured that bit out first,” Sham replied. “On top of all that stuff earlier, idols are role models. For better or for worse, people are gonna look up to you, and reflect some of your values in themselves. So, you have to be the kind of person you want other people to be. The kind of person you want to see more of in the world. When I figured that out, it all fell into place.”

“What kind of person did you choose?” Sora asked. “I’d want more people like Suguri. Or Nath. Hime… I think one Hime might be enough.”

“The kind of people I wanted to see most of all were… well, happy people. So I tried to make myself into that kind of person first. I practised my cheerfulness every day, and I smiled until people couldn’t help but smile back, even when things were bad. I laughed every day. And when I cried, I tried to think of it as sadness leaving my body, so I could fit more happiness inside myself. And, after a while, I became a real idol. So, Sora!” she said, her voice suddenly sharp and clear. “Don’t worry if you can’t sing or dance too well. You’re super cute, which is step one! You want to make other people feel better, which is step two! Step three is to go out and have a bunch of fun, so that Suguri and Hime follow in your footsteps and have a bunch of fun too. If you can do that, there’s no way our show will fail!”

“Muuu… I’m not sure that’s how it works,” Sora said, and shifted again until she was lying on top of Sham in the same orientation. She put her chin on the top of Sham’s head, and put her arms around her shoulders in a strange kind of hug. They were like two layers in a supremely cute sponge cake. “But I’ll try. Even if my idol power isn’t as strong as yours.”

“Don’t worry. It’s fine. You’ll get there, Sora. I know that inside you, there’s a great idol just waiting to come out. And until it does, you can rely on me,” Sham said. “Because, I think… right now, my idol power is the strongest it’s ever been.”

Sora said nothing, but she continued to be soft and warm and not that heavy, which was all anybody could demand of her in today’s day and age. As the minutes ticked by, her breathing slowed, and became softer, more feathery; it was a while before Sham even realised that she was asleep, and that her own fate was sealed. Sora slept until she woke up, and nothing – short of a nuclear war – could change that.

Sham yawned. She had done lifts, and she had told a story. Maybe that was enough cause for her to take a nap herself. Just a small one. A sneaky little slumber, for a sore-armed starlet.

They didn’t get much practice done that day.

B/D: Credit where credit is due: I did reference a few friends in this chapter. I believe it was Gloochi on the tweet machine who mentioned the idea of 'Blackberries' being a dream that Nath had, and I liked that enough to run with it. And a friend called Whiskas mentioned a while back that they'd like to see stories about Sham in the immediate post-war period, which is sort've what this delves into. There'll probably be a bit of a break between this part and the next bit of the UWG series, since I think folks are probably looking for some non-Sora/Sham/Nath content by now (and I also need to watch some idol stuff for research...), but hopefully people have enjoyed it so far.