Dreamer Awakened

CHAPTER THIRTY

Sakura sauntered down the empty hallway, her hips swaying provocatively within the confines of her mini-skirt with every step of her spiked, three-inch, heels. Languidly she smoothed red-lacquered fingertips through the silky, soft tresses of her sandy blonde hair and then let them continue to glide their way downward, along her neck and across her clingy, peach sweater and equally skin tight skirt, making sure that everything was impeccably arranged. She knew she looked good; better than most girls could ever dream of looking, and a smug smile inched across her face, crinkling the freckles sprinkled across her nose and putting a feline sparkle in her crimson eyes.

And yet, there was still that pang of regret, that little splinter of – a shudder ran up her spine as the word lodged itself into her thoughts and refused to be nudged aside – "humiliation" - from yesterday’s events. Her smile was quickly snuffed out and a look of raw determination took its place. Yesterday was why she had taken such care with her appearance today: to make sure that no one was left to doubt that she was the most delectable, the most perfectly perfect female within a hundred miles.

Stopping in front of the TAC lab door, Sakura let a sultry look slide into place over her features, preparing for her grand entrance. Then, reaching a hand out, she grasped the handle and turned, a look of consternation widening her eyes when nothing happened.

What the!? she thought frustrated, jiggling the handle of the door, her lips losing their pouty expression as they pulled into a toothy grimace.

The door was locked! That meant no one was here yet! Damn!! She thought, a little black cloud beginning to form over her head where some very nasty words where beginning to coalesce into a bad temper. With a stomp of her well-shod foot she let the handle go, expelled a gusty sigh and scrunched her face into a horrific scowl.

Violently stuffing her hand into her purse, she dug around for her keys, her teeth flashing white as her mouth got thinner and tighter, and her ever-volatile temper soured, becoming blacker and more sullen. After several seconds of pawing around, she managed to locate them. She yanked them out to sort through them, muttering thickly under her breath all the while, since she was unsure of which one was the right one.

Normally, knowing which key she needed wasn’t a problem, since the only one she ever used was the one for her apartment. But along with that one useful key, she had fifteen others that she never used – one of which happened to be her office key. And since she wasn’t accustomed to being the first one into the office - ever – she had never used it before, so she wasn’t sure what it looked like. She supposed she wouldn’t have this problem if she had just gotten rid of all the old ones from ex-boyfriends, but she had held onto them for sentimental reasons -– to her, they were the perfect silver, ermine pelt that every hunter sought – the trophy that declared she was desired by many; and the symbol of her many conquests. And besides that, she thought ironically, she had never thought that she would live to see the day that she would be the first one into the office. Things like this just weren’t supposed to happen she noted nonsensically.

After several unsuccessful attempts, Sakura finally found the correct key and it slammed unexpectedly into the lock. Not quite ready for it, her movements were more than careless, and her inattention caused her to break one of her beautifully manicured nails in the process. A screech of dismay shattered the stillness of the corridor, reverberating off of the barren walls as she looked down at the mangled, crimson crescent that hung, dangling awkwardly, from the tip of her finger.

With a feminine growl, she ripped it off and threw it to the ground, yanking the door open and stomping through it, her earlier aura of total control and sexual grace ripped to shreds. With hunched shoulders, she steamed across the empty room, throwing her purse onto the desk and then slinging herself into the high-backed leather chair behind it. She fumed silently for a few minutes and looked impatiently at her watch.

It was a quarter to one, so where the heck was everybody? she thought petulantly. Shifting restlessly, she perched on the edge of the brown leather chair, her elbows resting laxly on the laminated wooden surface of the desk. Steepling her hands together, she impatiently tapped the tips of her two index fingers together.

This sucks! she silently seethed, looking resentfully at the empty doorway before her crimson eyes flickered back to the desk and settled on the empty coffee cup placed neatly to one side. Her mouth suddenly felt dry and she reached out and she snatched it up, looking down at the shiny, ceramic bottom. It was clean, thank god. Pushing the chair away from the desk, she stood and sauntered over to the sink.

At least she could make herself a cup of coffee while she waited for someone to get there, she thought consolingly. Grabbing a spoon from a drawer, she foraged around, trying to locate something that was a closer resemblance to coffee than the bright yellow and aqua green chemical crystals that were stored in the glass jars inside the cupboards above the sink. After checking all of them and coming up empty, she moved on to the stainless steel canisters lined up against the wall next to the sink. They were labeled ‘transfer pads’, ‘capillary tubes’ and ‘cytology brushes’ respectively, but peering into each one, Sakura found tea in the first, sugar in the second and in the last, coffee.

Sakura snorted derisively and grabbed the coffee canister, wondering if Matsu was as odd about where she kept her food at her own house as she was about where she kept it here. Flicking a sandy lock over her shoulder, Sakura turned and looked for the coffee maker. It was nowhere to be found, and after a few minutes of searching, she belatedly recollected that the crazed scientist, Matsu, brewed her coffee using her lab equipment.

Heaving a long-suffering sigh, she grabbed the canister with one hand and cradled it against her breast while she scooped up her coffee cup with the other. Swiveling around, she made her way over to the long stainless steel lab table cluttered with scientific equipment. As she came to a slow stop, Sakura let her eyes travel down its crowded length, noting the various beakers, Bunsen burners, test tube racks and complicated looking electronic testers. She faintly wondered just exactly which one of these devices was used for something like brewing coffee. Setting the canister on the edge of the table, Sakura ran curious fingers along several different devices, and after sniffing the contents of various beakers and flasks, she managed to find what was the oddest coffee pot she had ever seen. It wasn’t really a coffee pot at all, but more of a large beaker with a glass funnel at the top and a hollow glass pipe that ran up the side to allow the heated water to rise through it and percolate through the ground coffee beans before draining back down into the wide of body of the beaker.

Sakura carried it over to the sink, rinsed it out, filled it with water and then carried it back to the table, heading for the ceramic topped hot plate that she had seen Matsu use on several occasions to heat her solutions to high temperatures. There was already a flask of viscous looking solution sitting on it, and her lip curled in distaste as she briefly studied it. It had a layered look to it, the top part dark green in color and the bottom part, which was clearer, glowed a phosphorescent yellow. It was highly unusual looking, but Sakura wasn’t all that impressed and decided to ignore it for the moment, searching instead for the switch that would turn the hotplate on.

With a meditative hmm, she sat the coffee pot next to the hot plate and looked at all the dials and switches. She pressed a few and nothing happened.

"Why can’t they just put a label next to the stupid ‘power’ button?" she muttered tersely to herself, slapping at a few more.

She continued randomly punching buttons and twisting knobs and was about to give up when a little red light on the front came on. Her crimson eyes lit with triumph and her mouth curled into a self-satisfied smile.

"You are so brilliant, Sakura," she softly crooned, her moment of gloating interrupted by the chirp of the phone. She moved to the end of the lab table and grabbed up the sleek black handset, momentarily forgetting about the hot plate.

"Sakura? Is Kome and Yaegashi there yet?" Matsu’s voice asked her.

"No," she replied succinctly.

There was a slight pause and then, "How about Momiji and Kusanagi?"

"No," Sakura replied again, this time more sulkily, "no one is here but me. Come to think of it, why aren’t you here?"

Sakura could hear the sound of a few choice words muttered under breath that ended with what sounded suspiciously like, "Why me?" But before she could voice any objections to such ill treatment, Matsudaira continued. "Sakura, I’m in Tokyo because my son was involved in a school stabbing – he’s just been released from intensive care and should be out of the hospital by the end of the week. But even so, it looks like I won’t be returning to Izumo any time in the near future."

"Oh?" Sakura mouthed, meeting this piece of information with an apathetic sigh, and giving it all the attention she felt it deserved by examining her cuticles. She admired their healthy condition, marveling at their uniform perfection, despite her broken fingernail. "Well, where is everyone else then?" she inquired without any real interest

"Mr. Kunikida, Ryoko and Sugishita are here with me in Tokyo. And Mr. Kunikida wants you to come back here along with Kome and –" Matsu broke off momentarily unable to speak over the loud howling coming from the other end of the line.

Sakura abandoned her ennui of the moment and held the receiver over her head in a triumphant pose, dancing around for a few seconds before she brought it back down and put it against her ear.

" – listening to me!?" Matsu was demanding in an irked voice.

"Yes, yes," Sakura replied in an happy way, "I heard you, you said that I was to return to Tokyo."

There was the sound of an impatient sigh escaping from Matsu’s lips and then, "That’s not all that I said, Sakura. Would you please try to listen more carefully?" and after Sakura’s uncharacteristically mellow but affirmative reply, added, "Mr. Kunikida needs Kome and Yaegashi to return to Tokyo immediately as well, but Momiji and Kusanagi are to stay in Izumo for the time being – for the safety of the baby. There have been a large number of Tengugaki attacks here in Tokyo and bringing Noa here would only increase the danger to him.

"Tell Momiji that the fortified formula that I began making still isn’t ready. I began titrating it before I left. But it’s still in an unstable, extremely volatile state – what remains will most likely have to be thrown out anyway, since Sugishita couldn’t keep his fingers out of it - So she is to just give him regular baby formula in the meantime. It won’t hurt him. It just won’t have the potassium phosphate in it that I was hoping would help to boost his system and make sure that he is able to efficiently convert sunlight into energy like normal Aragami do – he probably doesn’t really need it, but I had wanted to provide it for him anyway, since we know almost nothing about how his circulatory and nervous systems function…

"So tell Momiji…. Are you listening to me, Sakura?" Matsu demanded sharply, the other end of the line having gotten too quiet for her liking.

"- Eh yes, of course," Sakura replied hastily, trying to reign in her thoughts of Vuitton handbags and Louis Féraud haute couture, knowing that she wouldn’t have the money to spend on her wardrobe anytime soon anyway. Still, she refused to let a small thing like being stone broke douse the warm glow she was currently experiencing at the thought of returning to Tokyo, the mecca of civilized living. "You want me to tell Kome and Yaegashi to return to Tokyo and to tell Momiji that she is to stay here with the sprout until further notice."

"And Kusanagi, too, Sakura," Matsu reminded and Sakura snorted.

"Do you really think that Carrot Boy would be leaving without Momiji?" she asked wryly. "I really don’t think that would ever happen; even if the gods themselves commanded it."

"Regardless of what you think," Matsu countered sternly, "I would appreciate it if you would try and remember what I have told you. – and don’t forget about the baby formula!"

"I won’t. Jeez! You think I can’t remember something as simple as that?" Sakura defended waspishly, silently trying to hang onto the quickly disappearing wisps of what it was that Matsu had been babbling about regarding the formula as Sakura had been mulling over her glorious return to Tokyo.

"Well, that’s it then," Matsu said, "I’m sure I will see you soon." And then she hung up.

Sakura’s face split into a huge grin as she set the phone back on its cradle, but it abruptly disappeared again when she heard Kusanagi’s voice coming from the doorway.

"From the smile on your face Cherry Blossom, I would surmise that you just received some good news," he drawled lazily as he and Momiji came through the door.

Sakura shot them a quick, assessing, sideways look. She immediately noted Momiji’s rumpled appearance; her wet slacks and shirt that gaped right in the middle, and Kusanagi’s sodden overcoat and damp jeans. Feeling vastly confident in the superiority of her beauty at that particular moment, she lounged against the lab table, pulling her shoulders back so that her lushly rounded breasts were thrust forward, showing off her cleavage and feminine wiles to perfection. She raised her hand and with a languid motion, flicked several long strands of her sandy blonde hair over her shoulder, sending her most provocative and sultry look in Kusanagi’s direction. "You guys look like you’ve been slogging through a swamp somewhere, Carrot Boy," she told him, a feline smile stretched across her face.

Kusanagi met her gaze with a raised eyebrow, his eyes slowly roving critically over Sakura’s curvaceous form before he murmured slyly, "Are your clothes getting smaller, or are you getting fatter, Cherry Blossom?"

Sakura’s smile vanished and her body immediately whipped into a standing position. She began to quiver with barely suppressed rage.

"What’s it to you, Carrot Boy?" she retorted, her crimson eyes flaming. With a snort, her nose soared into the air before she heard a strange hissing sound coming from the table to her left.

Puzzled she turned her head seeking the source as the sound expanded into a strange whirring. It was coming from the flask sitting on the hotplate. She had forgotten to remove it and replace it with the coffee pot, and now large bubbles were trying to rise through the thin neck of the flask. They were roiling quicker than the narrow space would allow, and the flask was shaking from the pressure rising inside of it. She didn’t know much about chemistry, but it didn’t take a genius to see that something bad was about to happen.

Then, as if on cue, Kusanagi yelled, "Momiji, get down!" His feet pounded across the linoleum as he ground out, "Sakura watch out!"

Sakura felt Kusanagi’s broad shoulder slam into her midsection. He knocked her off her feet and drove all of the wind out of her so that she didn’t even have the breath to let out the screech that was caught in her throat. As her head thwacked hard against the floor, there was a loud explosion and the sound of splintering glass. Kusanagi lay atop her, squashing her breasts flat against his hard chest, his legs entangled with hers and Sakura instinctively pressed closer to him as she heard the remnants of the flask go whizzing past her, hissing and popping.

Kusanagi had raised his arms up alongside Sakura’s head to try and protect her, but despite his best efforts to shield her completely, blobs of hot, noxious smelling goo landed in her hair and spattered across her face. But the brunt of the flask’s remnants landed wetly against the back of Kusanagi’s head, his back and the sleeves of his coat. As pieces of shrapnel flew past them, he let out a grunt as a long piece of glass sliced through the black material of his over coat and imbedded itself into his shoulder. After several long seconds it was over and Kusanagi raised himself up on his elbows, looking down into Sakura’s rounded, crimson eyes.

"What the HELL was that?" he demanded in a tight voice.

"Well," Sakura replied diffidently, "I was going to make some coffee and – "

"Coffee?" Kusanagi interrupted, his stunned look quickly changing to derisive anger, "you can’t even boil water! So what made you think that you could handle something as ambitious as coffee? That’s waaay out of your league, Faith Healer!!"

Sakura’s mouth immediately tensed, her freckles crinkling across her nose as she narrowed her crimson eyes into a scowl. "I don’t have to take that kind of abuse from you!" she spat, "so why don’t you go f –"

"Sakura? Kusanagi?" Momiji querulously broke into the middle of their escalating confrontation. She slowly rose to her feet and crept closer to them, the small shards of glass crunching beneath the soles of her shoes despite her efforts to step around the debris. "Are you both all right?" she wanted to know, picking her way closer to them. Her eyes roamed over their position and she couldn’t help thinking that if she hadn’t been here to witness the explosion, their current position would suggest something more intimate than what it truly was.

They were both still lying on the floor, Kusanagi’s body cradled between Sakura’s shapely thighs, his face just inches from hers as he stared down at her. Momiji tried not to notice how Sakura’s long legs were raised on either side of Kusanagi’s body, but it was just about impossible to ignore. Her peach skirt was bunched up around her waist, exposing lacy, white garters tied to her stockings and her white, silky, underwear, which appeared, to Momiji, to be the height of sexual femininity. Momiji made herself look away then, but couldn’t help wondering as she did so, if this was the kind of thing Kusanagi had been alluding to when he had asked her if she didn’t have something more "adult" to wear other than her flannel nightgowns.

"Would you get off of me?" Sakura demanded in a strained voice breaking into Momiji’s musings.

"You know, a ‘thank you’ would be nice right about now, Cherry Blossom," Kusanagi remarked dryly as he pushed himself up onto his knees. He grimaced and held his breath as he reached around and slid the long shard of glass free from his shoulder.

"Pffft," Sakura snorted, still glaring at him as she sat up. "Thank you for what? Squashing my breasts until they’re flatter than Momiji’s!?"

"Hey!" Momiji inserted affronted, but neither of them seemed to hear her.

Kusanagi’s eyes briefly flitted down to Sakura’s ample breasts and his lips quirked into a wry smile. "I’m sure they’ll manage to bounce back to their usual, blatant position without any lasting damage," he told her dismissively, "so why don’t you just stop whining. I could have let the whole thing explode in your face." He examined the long, thin shard of glass, noting it was covered with green, viscous gel as well as a thick layer of his blood before he tossed it to the glass and goo splattered linoleum next to him.

Sakura’s face clouded into an even darker scowl as she watched Kusanagi discard the jagged fragment, resentment welling up in her at his indifferent censure of her attitude. She opened her mouth to offer a scathing retort, but didn’t get a chance to respond to him.

"Oh, Kusanagi!" Momiji interrupted again, this time, latent concern in her voice, " you’re bleeding!" She scurried forward when she saw him toss the glass aside, but then abruptly halted and covered her nose and mouth with her hand. "Whoa –" she managed to choke out, "- You guys… really… smell… bad!!" After a moment, she managed to pull her hand away from her face despite the desire to keep it there, and she stepped closer to Kusanagi’s back so she could take a better look at his wound. "What was it that exploded anyway?" she asked curiously.

"It was Sakura’s coffee," Kusanagi told her with a sardonic glint, looking over his shoulder into her face as she examined the large rent in the shoulder of his coat.

At his words, Momiji’s green eyes met his, and she felt an answering smile spontaneously curl her lips before she answered him in a more serious vein. "That piece of glass made a really deep puncture wound. It needs to be cleaned or it’s liable to get infected." Kusanagi just grunted at her assessment and Momiji chose to ignore any negative ramifications that might be associated with his reaction. "I think there is a first aid kit over by the sink somewhere. I’ll go check."

"My coffee?! What the?!" Sakura sputtered loudly over Momiji and Kusanagi’s exchange. "That was NOT my coffee!" she defended indignantly "I don’t know what the heck it was! I was going to make some coffee, but that green stuff was already sitting on the hotplate when I got here!"

"Did you never think to remove it from the hotplate, Sakura?" Kusanagi asked in aggravation, turning back around to face her, one eyebrow soaring quizzically. "- Or did you think it might be fun to see what would happen to it when you heated it to – " he stopped and shot a piercing look at the dial on the front of the hotplate before he reached out and flipped the power to it off, "- 800 degrees Fahrenheit?" Sakura’s mouth fell open, unaware that that was how high the setting had been. She didn’t say anything, but humiliated color stained her elegant cheekbones. "Almost anything is bound to explode if you get it that hot Sakura – maybe even coffee. Thank god that whatever was in the flask didn’t get that hot before it exploded, or we would have more than smelly goo to contend with," he castigated her. "I would hate to think of what such extremes would have done to the back of my head," his eyes raked over the streaks of green goo across Sakura’s cheeks, "- not to mention your face."

"You’re over dramatizing the situation," Sakura argued with a feeble sniff. " – How was I supposed to know it would do that?" Her crimson eyes slid away from him to study the floor resentfully. "They didn’t exactly go over the fundamentals of lab equipment at the Kusamikado School, so I don’t know how to operate one of these things – I’m a priestess, Kusanagi, not a scientist, dammit!" she informed him. Despite the imperiousness of her tone, the ineptness she was feeling was revealed not by her words, but by her actions as she awkwardly fidgeted and tried to squeeze some of the goop out of her hair by pinching her fingers together and running them down the length of the strands.

"You know what your problem is, Sakura?" he demanded in asperity after a long moment.

"What?" she snapped, her voice still peevish.

"It’s your personality. It’s as irritating as hell!" came his snide reply.

"You are such a pig, Kusanagi," Sakura hissed, letting her hand fall to her side as she clambered to her feet, mustering all the dignity she could as she tried to smooth the wrinkles out of her ruined outfit. "Thank god I won’t have to put up with your beastly attitude any more!"

"What do you mean?" Momiji inquired, inserting herself back into the conversation as she returned to Kusanagi’s side, first aid kit in hand along with several damp clothes, one of which she handed to Sakura.

"Ms. Matsudaira called from Tokyo just before you got here – "

"Ms. Matsudaira went back to Tokyo?" Momiji asked, startled by this piece of information. "Why?"

"Mr. Kunikida and Ryoko are there as well," Sakura informed her, "but as for Ms. Matsudaira - Hmm, well, I think she’s in Tokyo because her son is in the hospital – " Sakura broke off at Momiji’s gasp.

"What’s wrong with Jun?"

"I dunno really," Sakura said, "I think he was stabbed –"

"Oh my god!" Momiji exclaimed, horrified.

"She said he was going to be okay, but you’ll have to ask her for the details," Sakura told her in an offhand way. "Anyway, the real reason she called was to tell us that Mr. Kunikida wants us back in Tokyo. So that means a reprieve from your obnoxious boyfriend for me," Sakura finished flippantly, rubbing the cloth over her face to remove the smelly goo while she watched as Momiji, looking uncomfortable at the word "boyfriend", helped Kusanagi slowly remove his coat.

Honestly, thought Sakura in exasperation, she is such a little prude. She’s so afraid that he’ll reject her, that she can’t she see how tightly wrapped around her finger he is… Well maybe her little plan to shake things up a bit was a good idea after all. The naïve, little twit needed to see that she had power over Kusanagi, and not be so afraid of scaring him away. He wasn’t going anywhere, and the sooner Momiji realized that, the sooner their relationship would advance. Momiji needed to open her eyes, and see the forest instead of just the one tree that she seemed to have been staring at for far too long, and Sakura was convinced that her ploy would help to bring that about…

Unaware of Sakura’s contrivances, Momiji laboriously worked to free Kusanagi from his black coat without causing him further pain. But despite her best her efforts to keep from jarring his shoulder, Kusanagi bared his teeth in a grimace as she pulled the sleeve down his arm. Once she was done, she paused a moment to give Kusanagi a chance to recover his equanimity. She reached into the first aid kit and removed a pair of short, surgical scissors, her bright eyes catching Sakura’s on the way back as she turned once again to face Kusanagi’s back.

"I don’t understand why the TAC’s return to Tokyo that would give you a reprieve," Momiji stated, picking back up on the conversation and feeling confounded by Sakura’s logic as she began cutting away the jagged hole in the back of Kusanagi’s shirt to reveal the deep puncture slowly oozing green blood.

Momiji wiped away the excess blood and, as gently as she could, began probing the wound with a swab, trying to be certain that any of the chemicals contained in the flask that might have contaminated it, were cleaned away. Kusanagi stiffened making a strangled sound, his face going taut , and she bit her lip with a mumbled apology, while trying to listen to Sakura at the same time.

"Well, if the whole team was going, it wouldn’t be. But the whole team isn’t going – You’re not going, " Sakura replied, pointing a finger at Momiji while still rubbing her face with the cloth. She stopped long enough, however, to let her crimson eyes flit over Kusanagi and she added curtly, "- and neither are you. Just the rest of us are to return.

"It seems that the Tengugaki have targeted Tokyo. There have been a large swath of attacks there." Finally finished cleaning her face, Sakura folded the wet cloth inside out to make a clean surface and started working on the gobs of gunk still clinging in her hair. "The boss man seems to think that keeping you here in Izumo with the little Aragami raisin is the best move at the moment ,since the focus of attack appears to have shifted."

"But -" Momiji mumbled, dwindling to a halt as she speculated on Sakura’s new information. Absently she finished up with Kusanagi’s shoulder, and her thoughts clouded with uncertainty, "- that makes no sense. If their target is Noa, why would they stop coming after him? He is the key to their power."

She pressed a cotton pad against Kusanagi shoulder and taped it in place before handing him the other cloth she had brought with her so he could try and remove some of the chemical debris from his own hair and neck.

Kusanagi gave Momiji a grateful look and took the cloth from her, but then focused his attention on Sakura. "So what does your intuition tell you about such a sudden change, Faith Healer?" He asked seriously.

Sakura gave Kusanagi a considering look and deliberated his question for a long moment before she finally responded, "I don’t know what to make of it actually. Momiji’s right. It doesn’t make sense really, if their target is the Aragami sprout. They should be here instead of in Tokyo, but they’re not. - Perhaps this is just a diversionary tactic – a way of drawing us away from Noa. Since they can travel underground, it would be difficult for us to track their movement if they decided to double back in this direction."

"I wonder that Mr. Kunikida hasn’t thought of that," Momiji commented worriedly.

"He probably has, Momiji," Kusanagi told her, "but if the Tengugaki have concentrated their attacks on Tokyo for the time being, then he has no choice but to follow them. They are strong, and they could decimate the city if their strength were to grow unchecked." Momiji looked even more worried at that and Kusanagi dropped a hand to her shoulder. "Don’t worry, Momiji," he murmured softly, "we won’t let them win. One way or another, we will find a way to destroy them."

Momiji didn’t say anything, but she stared up at him, her eyes full of trust and acceptance as she nodded, grateful now more than ever that he was by her side.

"Hey," Sakura interrupted suddenly, "what happened to your gloves Kusanagi?"

At the other woman’s words, Momiji’s startled eyes flitted to the long fingers resting warmly against her shoulder and she noted, for the first time that day, that he wasn’t wearing any. Disconcerted embarrassment skittered across her features as she recalled how she had unabashedly begged him to remove them the night before, and she wondered if her plea had anything to do with why he wasn’t wearing them now.

Kusanagi quickly pulled away from Momiji’s shoulder and shoved his hands in his jeans’ pockets. "Nothing happened to them," he told her with a sullen shrug, a shuttered expression on his face.

His reaction intrigued Sakura as well as Momiji’s reaction, who was now trying to stare a hole through the far wall, pretending to be uninterested in the topic. It made Sakura want to find out just that much more why Kusanagi wasn’t wearing them. She didn’t think that she had ever seen him without them, so why all of a sudden would he decide to give them up?

"Hmm. How interesting. I wonder if our local virgin had anything to do with their disappearance." Sakura remarked slyly, watching Momiji’s face from beneath her lashes.

"No," Kusanagi replied bitingly.

Momiji tried to keep her face from falling at the resounding note of denial in his voice, but she knew from Sakura’s knowing look that she didn’t do a very good job. Kusanagi shifted uncomfortably, aware of Momiji’s expression, but unwilling to reveal anything to Sakura. Instead he glared at the sandy-haired psychic, warning her with his eyes to drop the subject.

"Why are you still here, Cherry Blossom?" He asked, swiftly changing the course of conversation to avoid any more of the blonde’s mischief making. "I thought you would have peeled out of here as soon as you found out that you could return to Tokyo."

Kusanagi’s glare became even more pronounced when Sakura gave him a crafty smile, her eyes gleaming with the promise of further trouble. "Oh," she responded casually, pushing her clumpy hair off her shoulders so that if flopped heavily against her back, "normally I would have been," she acknowledged, "but I knew that you and Momiji were coming by today to pick up the little Aragami twig, and I wanted to be here for that."

Kusanagi frowned heavily and he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "And why exactly is that?" he growled irascibly, disliking the vibe he was getting from her.

Sakura refrained from replying but gave him a secretive smile. "Just to verify a few observations I’ve made," she assured him. "Perhaps I’ll tell you when he gets here – which reminds me," she paused and tapped a brightly painted fingernail against her chin, "Matsu called here and told me to tell Momiji…"

"Tell me what?" Momiji inquired after Sakura failed to add anything else.

"Hang on," Sakura frowned, "I’m trying to remember what it was…’ her finger slid up to her mouth and she nibbled on the broken tip, thinking hard. "It was about his food," she mumbled "and setting him out in the sun after he eats so he can convert the sunlight into energy..."

"What?" Momiji asked faintly, her chestnut brows soaring, struck by the bizarreness of Sakura’s statements. "Are you sure…?"

"Don’t listen to her, Momiji," Kusanagi muttered in disgust, "she doesn’t know what the heck she’s talking about."

"I do so!" Sakura protested heatedly. "She said that the formula she was making wasn’t ready and that it was extremely unstable – "

"- Geez, Sakura, I wonder if that was what exploded. Do you think?" Kusanagi interrupted dryly, and the priestess shot him a wrathful look.

Sakura’s lips thinned and she replied mutinously, "I’ve already told you – "

"Never mind that," Momiji cut in hastily, trying to avoid further sniping between her and Kusanagi and wanting Sakura to recall what it was that Matsu had said.

Sakura reluctantly turned her attention away from Kusanagi’s smirk, pacifying herself with the knowledge that she was pretty certain she could wipe it from his face in very short order – just as soon as the baby arrived - and she focused on trying to recall exactly what it was that Matsu had said.

After a few more minutes, she threw up her hands and shrugged impatiently. "I can’t remember," she grumbled plaintively, "so maybe you should just call her. "

"That would be my suggestion as well, Momiji," Kusanagi advised lowly, sliding a sideways look at Momiji, "since our resident psychic has a bad habit of mangling her facts." His eyes slid back towards Sakura and, with a feral grin, he said, "Maybe you need to go back to the Kusamikado School and sharpen your intuitive skills somewhat. That way you could fall back on them at times like this when you can’t seem to remember a damn thing, Cherry Blossom – Or maybe -" he raised his finger as if struck by a profound thought, "- you should just give up being a psychic altogether since your skills have yet to span the enormous gap made by your total lack of wits."

"Go to hell, Kusanagi!" Sakura barked.

"Ladies first," he retorted and the air reverberated with the sound of Sakura’s frustrated growl.

"Kusanagi," Momiji sighed, "please…" Her eyes begged him to stop baiting Sakura.

"Please what?" he asked sullenly, and then when she just gave him a pointed look, he shrugged his shoulders and shoved his hands into his jean pockets again. "All right, all right," he grumbled, turning and stalking away.

Momiji rolled her eyes at Sakura and Kusanagi’s ongoing skirmish and walked towards the desk to pick up the phone. She tried to ignore the hostility that hung thickly in the air as she dialed Matsu’s number, concentrating all of her attention into marshalling her thoughts together so that she could receive the scientist’s instructions, and then make a report regarding what she had learned about Kusanagi’s indistinct brush with Orochi and then his brief confrontation with Midori. But before she addressed any of these things, she first questioned Matsu about her son, this being of primary concern to her. Once she learned that everything was okay, Momiji asked about the puzzling instructions regarding Noa’s baby formula.

"I knew I shouldn’t have trusted her to deliver the message," Matsu complained acerbically before the topic ended and she gave Momiji the necessary information.

Feeling enlightened, Momiji then turned the conversation towards what Kusanagi had told her that morning, and Matsu became just as alarmed about the whole situation as Kusanagi and Momiji had been.

"So, Kusanagi thinks Midori is hiding something?" Matsu mused. "And you, Momiji, what do you think?"

"Well, it’s hard to say, really," Momiji replied cautiously, biting her lip. "I trust Kusanagi’s instincts about what he felt last night, and even though I hate to think that Orochi or Murakumo might be out there, I just can’t believe that Kusanagi is wrong about it. - As for Midori -" Momiji paused briefly, thinking about it for a moment. "I know that Kusanagi isn’t as close to Midori as I am, but I think that he’s probably right about her too. – It’s just not like her to be so secretive – and she did admit that she was at the iwatto when the Tengugaki attack occurred, so she must have seen something… Besides that, from what I’ve seen of the Tengugaki, I don’t think she could have escaped alive if something or someone else hadn’t intervened."

Matsu sighed in resignation, troubled by her young intern’s unusual behavior. "You’re most likely, correct. I know that she doesn’t normally report to Mr. Kunikida, but under the circumstances, I think he is going to want to make an exception." Matsu observed, "and require that she meet with him so that he can debrief her about the incident."

Momiji bit her lip at this piece of information. "Please, do you think that that could be avoided for now? If she is hiding something, that will just drive the truth farther from us. Let me try and talk to her first and see what I can find out."

There was a slight pause and then Matsu reluctantly replied, "It’s not for me to decide, Momiji. But I will relay your request to Mr. Kunikida, along with all of the information that you have provided to me. I would let you speak with him now, only he’s not here at the moment. There have been three more attacks in the early morning hours here, and he’s out investigating the sites with Ryoko."

Momiji expressed her shock at the news and then added, "I’ll try calling again – when - I – get – home – and talk – to – him – then…" Momiji’s voice petered out as her attention was suddenly caught by Kusanagi.

He had gotten out the broom and the dustpan and was sweeping up the scattered shards of glass. Momiji’s mouth fell open in amazement as she watched the debris littering the floor rapidly disappear. That he could effectively wield such a domestic object didn’t surprise her, but that he would actually dare to do so seemed beyond bizarre to her.

Hmm, she thought. She ought to see how he was with a vacuum cleaner too, and then she mentally snorted at the absurdity of the idea. She shoved the superfluous notion aside, choosing instead to ponder the mystery of what had brought about Kusanagi’s urge to – of all things – clean the lab.

Then she looked at his handsome face and noted the tight set of his jaw before her eyes dropped to the rigidity of his broad shoulders. It was Sakura, Momiji suddenly realized. He was trying his best to ignore her. Switching her attention to the blonde bombshell sitting parked with her rump stationed on the corner of the desk, her arms folded across her breasts with a bored look on her face; Momiji wondered why he let the psychic get to him.

"Are you still there, Momiji?"

Matsu’s voice brought Momiji out of her reverie and she quickly responded, finishing the conversation with things still up in the air regarding Midori. The best she could hope for was that Kunikida would at least wait until Momiji got a chance to discuss the situation with him before he demanded a report from Midori.

Hanging up the phone, Momiji heard Sakura begin to speak and realized that the sexy priestess was addressing her.

"So, tell me truthfully, Momiji," Sakura murmured dulcetly, throwing a look over her shoulder at Momiji, "how did you get Kusanagi to give up his gloves?"

The gentle swish swish sound of the broom ceased and Momiji flitted a look at Kusanagi. He was still looking down at the floor, but he had stopped sweeping, gripping the wooden handle so tightly that she could almost hear the wood creak from the pressure, a horrible scowl darkening his face.

Momiji felt her face stiffen at Sakura’s curious inquiry, and she shifted self-consciously from foot to foot, her hand coming up to her midriff and automatically pressing against the gaping hole in the middle. "Well, I uh…"

"It was sex wasn’t it?" Sakura commented smugly, watching the red break out across the other girl’s face. She laughed softly when she heard Kusanagi growl, but she kept her attention focused on Momiji. "No?" she said after a moment, feigning shock as she slid her shapely rump from the desk and turned all the way around to face Momiji. "You mean that you haven’t had sex yet, even though you’ve been living together in the same house now for… how long has it been?" she paused briefly pondering it, and then waved a negligent hand, "oh, it doesn’t matter really. I would think the first day would have been a long enough wait for most girls. But then you’re not most girls, are you?" Momiji still wasn’t saying anything, her gaze riveted to the desk that separated her and Sakura. She was mortified beyond words and remained rooted to the spot as Sakura continued speaking, " You know, I was almost certain that you had offered him sex in exchange for the removal of his gloves, but I guess not, eh? I mean, even if you had slept with him, that wouldn’t mean that he would necessarily give them up in public… But that does pose an interesting question, doesn’t it?" Sakura briefly swiveled around and looked at Kusanagi, "So, Carrot Boy, in the past, did you remove them during those, more… intimate moments? Or were they always on, no matter what?" Kusanagi continued to growl, and he shot her a searing look. But Sakura only smiled indulgently and returned her attention to Momiji. "He’s not one to kiss and tell, I see. I guess if we want to know the answer to that, we’ll have to go digging through his past and see if we can find someone that can tell us."

Momiji’s head snapped up at that, her green eyes flashing to Sakura’s crimson ones. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

Sakura gave her a knowing smile, and with a wink leaned forward across the desk and whispered confidentially, "I know that you’re a virgin, Momiji, but surely you don’t think that Kusanagi -" she paused again and glanced back over her shoulder at the handsome, dark man who stood, glowering just behind her, looking like he was ready to pounce on her and throttle her at any moment. "- Surely you don’t think that he’s a virgin too?"

"Stop it!" Kusanagi hissed, grabbing Sakura by the shoulder and yanking her away from the desk, his eyes seething with pent up fury. "What the hell are you trying to do, Sakura!? - Leave Momiji alone!"

"I’m not trying to do anything," Sakura defended herself innocently, glancing back at Momiji to see the impact of her statements, "I was just making a casual observation. That’s all."

"Like hell, you were!" Kusanagi snarled, his eyes flitting from Sakura’s face to Momiji, silently groaning when he saw the look on her face.

When Sakura had first mentioned it, she had looked surprised. But now, she looked more than a little perturbed, and Kusanagi wondered how he was supposed to undo the few careless words that Sakura had uttered.

For her own part, Sakura felt satisfaction course through her as she watched the ideas she had expressed take hold and sink into Momiji’s brain. There, she thought triumphantly, careful to keep her countenance casually indifferent. These two had been dancing around each other long enough, and it was high time for some action. And if the idea of Kusanagi with another woman didn’t light a fire under Little Miss Perfect, then Sakura didn’t know what would. But, just to be on the safe side, she would wait for Noa’s arrival and drive the idea home with her coup de grâce – and give Momiji and Kusanagi something else to talk about – something that even they couldn’t possibly ignore.