From Sailor Moon Flash!
| Featuring: | Li-Nian, Tsurian, Chikara, Kenrou |
| IC Date: | September 2002 |
| Status: | Completed |
| Summary: | Tsurian's life is very, very hard. Every time she feels a little more comfortable with Boss's crazy life, someone throws her another curve ball that she must handle with grace, aplomb, and breaking things. |
Tsurian carefully steadied the tray in one hand, while opening the screen with the other. Mere juggling of physical objects had never been hard for her, and had become downright unconscious shortly after she had taken up the juggling of money as a profession.
She stopped, and had to juggle contradictory emotions as she beheld: a low table with sheets of washi neatly arranged around the tools of the shodousha's trade, and, seated on one side of the table, a lovely young woman in a pale lilac wool suit.
Notable for his absence was the shodousha himself.
"So," Tsurian said, setting down the tea-tray in front of Li-Nian. "How, exactly, did Boss manage to sneak out of the studio in the three minutes it took me to assemble all of this?"
Li-Nian smiled happily, and began to pour tea with the effortless grace of a geisha. "He vanished, Yoshinaga-sempai."
Again Tsurian tossed around emotions, and finally selected nonplusment. "He vanished."
"Oh yes," Li-Nian said. The arrangement of two cups of tea took the younger woman's concentration for a few seconds, and then Li-Nian looked up again. "Ani-ue said to tell you that he would not be back for an hour, sempai." She gave a well-bred light laugh - amused and girlish, like a well-beloved younger sister given a delightful small secret by an indulgent elder brother. "He is dealing with his Prince and -"
Tsurian had no time to deal with 'Prince' and whatever the hell that meant, because suddenly she had to deal with a Li-Nian who had dropped her cup of tea and had buried her face in her hands, sobbing.
"WHOA hold on, Ying!" She dived for the floor and gingerly put her arms around the crying girl. She gritted her teeth, slightly, and consoled herself with thoughts of hazard pay and bonuses. Boss paid her a lot - or permitted her to write checks with his signature for a lot - but it wasn't enough to deal with crazy Chinese crying girls. She needed to renegotiate her contract.
"He - ani-ue - but what if he hurts poor Lucien-chan?" Ying wailed, which was not only nonsense but also flubbered through gobs of tears. Annoyingly, Li-Nian managed to look radiantly beautiful while crying.
Tsurian patted her on the back, and listed three things that annoyed her at the moment. "Boss vanished, Boss has a Prince, Boss is going to hurt someone called Lucien-chan." She exhaled deeply.
"Okay. Ying, pull yourself together. Do it right now. Stop crying and drink your tea. ... Oh, you've spilled it. Well, drink Boss's tea. - Don't argue with me," Tsurian snapped, although Li-Nian had in fact not said a word and was already beginning to stop sobbing. Wide indigo eyes fixed on Tsurian, and tremblingly Li-Nian began to reach for Boss's teacup.
"I want some explanations," Tsurian said.
Li-Nian began to smile, as sunnily as if she had not been crying fit for heartbreak a mere five heartbeats ago. "Of course, sempai! Anything I can do to help!"
"Right," Tsurian said. "Let's start with 'vanish.'"
Li-Nian began to talk. Tsurian listened. Occasionally Tsurian would excuse herself, stand up, and jump up and down in an effort to vent her emotions. Li-Nian would compliment her happily on her good health and emphatic gestures.
Towards the end, Tsurian took a deep breath. "Okay. This is a lot to take in, Ying."
"Yoshinaga-sempai's patient interaction is so conducive to a full explanation," Li-Nian chirped, beaming with conviction. "I'm so very pleased that sempai could take the time to listen, it will make everything so much easier now that we can coordinate ani-ue's schedule with full knowledge of his wonderful abilities." She smiled as if Tsurian had just hung a Nobel medallion around her slender neck, almost giggling with glee at this new conspiracy of honoring Boss. "And I'm sure that sempai's amazing business skills will be able to present Jade Dragon Enterprises' offerings to ani-ue with much more compelling persuasion than this humble Ying could ever do!"
Tsurian began to say, "Why not just keep repeating that your CEO is a god, that'll do it," and then bit her tongue hard.
"Okay," Tsurian said, instead. She stood up, and tapped her lips with a forefinger. Li-Nian watched her pace with a bright, accomodating smile.
"Ying, I'm going to walk you home," Tsurian decided, finally. She stopped there, rather than add, "And advise that you get some psychiatric help." The simplest explanation was that Ying was completely crackers, except that there were too many pieces of circumstantial evidence that suggested that Ying had a rather better grasp than Tsurian on what had been going down in Tokyo for the past few months.
Tsurian hated being out of the know. She hated it worse than she hated disrespect or stupid business practices.
"Sempai is so kind!" Li-Nian said, gracefully rising to her (runless) stockinged feet.
Tsurian let Li-Nian babble happily all the way across Hibiya-dori. She was thinking very hard. Only half of her ponderings involved mental calculations of how she could contrive to punch Boss in the face without Ishino taking exception to it.
"- and perhaps Daddy would like to have ani-ue permanently on staff, as an in-house consultant on aesthetics," Ying was enthusing, "it's very modern and in keeping with the corporate spirit to pay attention to the soul's well-being as exemplified by Amakusa-sensei's exquisite craftsmanship. I just know that Uncle would love to discuss art with him, they're both so very knowledgeable! And -"
Tsurian tuned her out again, much as she would have liked to smirk at the idea of Boss in any corporate world.
She was staring up at the Jade Dragon Enterprises headquarters, looming up to the heavens in front of her.
Try as hard as she might, she could not stare at that architecturally-brilliant, aesthetically-perfect, brightly-lit and well-displayed tower, and sense any sort of aura that might indicate that some sort of divine being and his loving helpers were housed there.
It was just a zaibatsu building, for all its obvious prosperity.
She turned, and looked at the well-dressed, well-groomed, well-trained Ying Li-Nian.
She was just a woman, for all her polish.
Tsurian shut her eyes very tightly, and considered.
"I think I'll let you go here, Ying," she said slowly. "Thanks for talking with me. I am actually pretty sure that I appreciate it."
Ying glowed with pride and happy cognizance that she'd shared the Word. Tsurian felt another iota of her half-idea that Ying was insane crumble. If this was just a nutty cult, it was a better job than Tsurian had ever seen.
She watched Li-Nian disappear into the building.
She turned, and made her way back down Hibiya-dori across the park back to Boss's building.
On the way, she stopped at a bookstore, and made two armsful's worth of purchases, in the name of research.
Tsurian settled herself onto the couch in Boss's apartment, after having strategically laid out a tea tray with tea, coffee for Ishino, and several huge sticky cinnamon buns that would quite probably take Boss three-quarters of an hour to plow through.
She cracked open the first volume of her research, and began to read. After a few minutes, she got up, grabbed a pen and a notebook, and began to take notes. As she read, a fine line drew itself between her brows.
She gave serious thought to a tantrum.
Before the coffee had gotten cold in its cup, the door opened.
Ishino and Boss strolled in, casually, as if they had no cares in the world. They didn't appear surprised to see her, which Tsurian considered only fair since she had had the foresight to leave a message on the doorboard. ("I AM WAITING INSIDE FOR YOU. - TSURIAN.")
"Okaeri," Tsurian said, somewhat snidely. Boss smiled graciously at her. Ishino smiled a bit less perfunctorily, and then her dark eyes lit up.
"Coffee! Thank you, Yoshinaga-san, I was just thinking that I needed something hot and fortifying."
"Rough day at school?" Tsurian said, and waited for the floods of explanation. She put down the doujin she was reading, turning it so that the cover (featuring several very popular short-skirted urban legends) was conspicuously facing the tea-tray.
Ishino paused. Boss didn't, but poured a cup of tea, which he offered politely to Tsurian - she declined - and then sat down on the mats.
"Actually, no," Ishino said. Her gaze didn't so much as flicker at the stack of doujinshi Tsurian had bought and placed around the table. "There was a student of mine I had to see after school, but classes themselves were fine."
"Oh, that's terrific," Tsurian said. "By the way, I was talking to Ying."
She waited.
Ishino said, a bit dryly, "Oh, that's always nice, isn't it."
"Chikara," Boss said, gently. "Rei-chan cannot help her highly-strung nerves, against her background and upbringing."
"I suppose not," Ishino conceded. It had the sound of an often-repeated exchange.
"Yeah," Tsurian cut in. "Ying was saying a lot of things. She had to, when I asked her where Boss went, practically vanishing into thin air."
She waited, again. She discovered that she was drumming her fingers rapidly against the arm of the couch.
"We are very pleased at Tsurian-kun's kindness to Our guest," Boss said. His smile was unchanged as he sipped his tea.
That did it.
"So," Tsurian said flatly, staring at them.
"Kunzite and Galaxia, eh?"
Boss choked on his tea.
Or, at least, his swallow was somewhat less than graceful; Tsurian wouldn't go so far, even now, as to say that he actually choked, although she wished like hell that he would. It would serve him right.
"Running around in weird costumes, defying the laws of gravity, and flinging lightning bolts, is it?" Tsurian pressed.
Boss put his teacup down. "Tsurian-kun surely exaggerates slightly," he said.
"I don't want to hear about exaggerations," Tsurian said. "You and you are damn urban legends and you just thought you'd never get around to telling me about something that could potentially affect my salary if you go around injuring your money-making hand."
"I thought you knew," Ishino said, looking puzzled.
Tsurian stared at her, nonplused.
"It's not as if we were hiding it," Ishino said, frowning.
"Tsurian-kun appreciates that it is hardly in keeping with decorum to call overt attention to abilities out of the ken of persons in other batsu," Boss said. He picked up his teacup again, and calmly blew away the ribbons of steam rising from his tea.
"Damn it all," Tsurian said. "Yes or no, you have never actually said the words Tsurian I am a superhero and I will occasionally fight against weird people who control the weather or volcanoes or what the hell."
"No, Tsurian-kun," said Boss serenely. "Would Tsurian-kun feel better to have these words said?"
Tsurian looked at Ishino. "I'm not breaking anything," she said. "I think this deserves some points."
"Yoshinaga-san is being commendably calm," Ishino agreed, although there was something in her expression that said that she considered this all rather strange.
"Look, Boss. Ishino. I'm upset because this is an important part of your lives, Kunzite and Galaxia," Tsurian said. "Also, Ying mentioned something about a god of chaos who wants to kill you, or eat your pure souls, or something. This naturally fills me with a quiet concern."
"A god of chaos?" Ishino repeated.
"Rei-chan says such interesting things at times," Boss said indulgently.
"Boss, shut up."
"We haven't seen a god of chaos yet," said Ishino. She was chewing on her lower lip and her eyelids were at half-mast over eyes like deep coals.
"Have you people never played fighting games?" Tsurian demanded. "You beat all the mini-bosses, then it's time for the big boss. I'm guessing this god of chaos is going to wait until you've beat all of the fire-people or whatever it is that dresses up in a suit of neon and throws around mutant horrors -"
"Actually, he just wears a school uniform," said Ishino. "The comic artists do tend to exaggerate, Yoshinaga-san."
"But the mutant horrors?"
"Oh, yes, at least two dozen every fight," Ishino confirmed.
Tsurian threw up her hands. "Well, there we are, then. There will be a god of chaos. And you two have capes and swords and minions - "
She paused, a deep horrible feeling sweeping over her.
"Please please please tell me that Shunran doesn't have anything to do with this."
Ishino said nothing, very emphatically.
Boss said, reflectively, "Shunran-kun's natural exuberance translates well as his earnest desire to do honor to the Prince, although his deportment is not quite what one could wish from a guardian of the Lord of Humanity."
Tsurian said "hell" and broke a teacup.
At least, she was going to; before she could do more than make a crack in it, Boss had leaned over and touched the teacup, smiling gently.
A heartbeat later Tsurian was holding an ice cube shaped like a teacup.
"Tsurian-kun surely appreciates that this is not normally something done in public," Boss said, as Tsurian yelped and dropped the chunk of ice. "As to the name of Kunzite, it is properly only appended to the person who guards the Prince in battle."
"Okay, leaving aside all of the other stuff," Tsurian said, making what she considered to be an enormous concession, "I'm still worried about this battle business. I mean, Ying said god. A god is serious trouble. And you're fighting him with people like Shunran, and -" She paused. "Can Shunran turn things into ice?"
Ishino shook her head slightly. Her expression said that she was not prepared to pass judgement on what Shunran's actual capabilities were.
"Ice is solely the domain of Kunzite," Boss said. "The powers inherent to the guardian Zoisite are found in other spheres."
"Those words made sense, even if I'm not sure what you mean by them," Tsurian said. "I don't think I really need to know what you people do. But if Shunran has weird urban legend powers, then ... so does Giou, doesn't he. That little rat. And Susuki, too? And - " she paused, her pupils dilating slightly.
"Boss. Your Prince is Takawa, isn't it."
His smile conveyed slight approval of her good sense in recognizing the obvious.
Tsurian drew in a deep breath and thought fixedly about not losing her temper again. She was finally getting somewhere.
"Ishino," she said, "I have now solved almost every question that I had about Boss, including the small matter of why he hangs out with jailbait schoolgirls all the time. Now let's talk about you."
Ishino looked slightly startled, then her eyes narrowed a bit. "I'm not quite sure that I can - " am obligated to, her tone implied - "answer your questions about my business as a Senshi."
"No no," Tsurian said. "Whatever you do, that's cool. I expect that you teleport and have shock waves and a big shiny badass sword. That's cool. It kind of fits. My only question is, can you handle all of this? You're less insane than Boss, I will totally accept that this situation is tenable if you tell me it's so."
Boss's smile remained unchanged. There was nothing in his expression to suggest that he'd even heard any imputations on his sanity. Nevertheless, Tsurian shivered slightly.
"I believe that we have a great deal of control over the situation, yes," Ishino said. "Yoshinaga-san, there is nothing to worry about, I assure you. But do you feel better knowing that we have these extra responsibilities?"
Tsurian almost laughed. There was no one like Ishino for reducing things like girls in short skirts and people flinging around magma to 'extra responsbilities'.
"Promise you're never going to bring the work home," Tsurian said, "and I'll be able to deal."
She waited.
There was silence.
She sighed, and capitulated. "I want hazard pay every time I see one of the youma-things within a block of this building."
"Certainly," Boss said.
She decided that this was the best she was going to get, and stood up. "Deal. Now, then. I just want to know one more thing."
Boss looked at her expectantly, Ishino with just an touch of relief. "Yes, Yoshinaga-san?"
She gritted her teeth, then forced it out.
"What about Mokushi?"
"Ah," Boss said. Just that.
Tsurian clamped her teeth down on her scream of outrage, and sighed instead. "Okay. Okay! God damn it. But okay. Kunzite, Galaxia, Mokushi the urban legend. That's all I can take for today. See you at work tomorrow."
"Good night, Tsurian-kun," Boss said, and poured himself another cup of tea.
