On the right was Sakamoto Kyo, a typical example of a teenage Aurian boy, although in Takebe’s opinion Sakamoto was a bit too short, a bit too finely built, and wore his hair a bit too long. Such things were easily put aside, however, for a boy whose father was one of the most influential members of the university.

At the moment, Sakamoto had a bandage wrapped carefully around his head, and two black eyes.

On the left was, as far as Takebe was concerned, another matter entirely. The uniform was impeccably clean, the dark hair was cut short, and the only sign here of the recent fight was a slight, blossoming bruise high on one cheekbone. This would have been perfectly acceptable in Takebe’s eyes, if it weren’t for the fact that the school uniform covered curves that any other person in the school wearing an identical uniform would kill for, but not kill to possess.

Takahashi-Startredder Miyuki.

A teacher had brought her to the office on her very first day of school, and Takebe had been forced to ask her why she felt the need to come to school in her brother’s old uniform. He made it clear that he would certainly not believe that her family was unable to afford a proper girl’s uniform.

Takahashi-Startredder had stood across from him, staring with eyes of sharp ice, and informed him quite coldly that the uniform was her own – her brother’s was hardly going to fit her.

Takebe had said there were rules.

Takahashi-Startredder responded that she would dearly love to see where such rules were written down.

When Takebe had been unable to provide a satisfactory answer, Takahashi-Startredder had left the room without another word.

The subject was never brought up again. It was best to let such things lie when they pertained to a girl who happened to be the daughter of the king.

“Normal students,” Takebe said with a sigh, “try to confine their loves’ quarrels – ”

“We aren’t lovers,” Takahashi-Startredder and Sakamoto said in unison. Neither raised their voice, which somehow contrived to make the point all the more emphatic.

“Confine their quarrels,” he continued firmly, “to, perhaps, raised voices on school grounds, in the morning, before classes start. They do not,” he looked at the papers in front of him, just to make sure he had not misread the teacher’s report, “hang each other from the roof by their feet, beat one another senseless, or . . .” he trailed off and again checked the notes the frantic teacher had shoved in his hands. “Or . . . use magic . . . to . . . to . . .” Takebe stuttered to a stop.

“To turn a chauvinistic transfer student into a sexually liberated, half-naked Maretan boy and have him prostrate himself before the wrestling team?” Takahashi-Startredder finished smoothly.

Sakamoto leaned forward and tapped the notes with a finger, the picture of helpfulness. “That wasn’t me Yuki-kun did that to,” he clarified.

“That’s right. I just gave Kyo-kun a beating.”

“You did hang me upside down from the roof, Yuki-kun,” Sakamoto reminded her.

“Only because you tried to push me off,” Takahashi-Startredder answered severely.

“Right, but that wasn’t until after – ”

Takebe slammed a fist down on his desk. “What,” he snapped, “caused this incident?”

Sakamoto and Takahashi-Startredder both stopped to look at Takebe. “A religious dispute, Takebe-sensei,” they answered together.

“A . . . religious . . . dispute . . .”

“That spell wasn’t supposed to hit Yun-kun, anyway. It was supposed to hit you.”

“What would you have to gain by turning me into a Maretan boy-toy, Yuki-kun?”

“It was supposed to turn you into a teenage girl with assets in such excess that they would overwhelm the sensibilities of every male in the area who happened to be attracted to women. And then they’d mob you, allowing me to get back inside without any trouble.”

“They’d mob me? In this outfit?”

“No. A girl’s uniform.”

“Those don’t show much at all. They aren’t the sort of things to drive guys out of their head, you know.”

“Not the ones here. The special ones the richer girls around the docks have.”

“Not the ones with the skirts that don’t even cover the entire crotch?”

“And the pushup bra underneath.”

“Yun-kun had transparent harem pants on, Yuki-kun.”

“A minor miscalculation.”

“You really need to practice more, Yuki-kun.”

“Yeah. Your place after this?”

“No. Otousan’s home all day.”

“We’ll go to Megu-kun’s place, then.”

“Right. But only if we get sushi first. He never has any food in his place.”

“Would you both be quiet?!” Takebe thundered. Sakamoto and Takahashi-Startredder were instantly silent, both students blinking solemnly at Takebe. He knew there was only one possibly course of action in such circumstances. “Both of you – detention. Wherein you, Sakamoto, will compose an essay about,” he groped for an answer, “about religious tolerance. If you finish that, you can write one about the inappropriateness of trying to solve disputes with violence on school property.”

“Yes, Takebe-sensei.”

“And you, Takahashi-Startredder, will do all that after you write an essay about possibly consequences for students who use magic on school property, particularly against other students, which I will submit to the school board at our next meeting, to aid us in establishing a new policy pertaining to that very thing.”

Takahashi-Startredder had the good grace to wince at this prospect. “Yes, Takebe-sensei.”

Takebe massaged his temples with his fingers. “Both of you are dismissed. Consider yourself lucky that I’m not having you expelled.”

Takahashi-Startredder and Sakamoto both bowed respectfully to Takebe, in perfect unison, and left the office.

“Do you think he would have gone easier on us if we told him we were upholding a great family tradition, Yuki-kun?”

“Eh?”

“Otousan says that Takebe is strongly behind almost anything, as long as you tell him it’s part of some long-standing tradition.”

“Kyo-kun,” Yuki asked calmly, without looking at him, “do you want to go back there and explain to Takebe-sensei that we were fighting in an attempt to uphold a great tradition of hatred between Sakamotos and Takahashis which was started by our fathers?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither. Although ‘tousan will be ecstatic when word gets out that I gave you two black eyes.”

“He does get a sick buzz out of knowing your laundry staff is washing my blood out of your clothes, doesn’t he?”

“Of course. Yours does too, though.”

“He’d probably be happier if I came home showing more than my blood, sometime.”

“Keeps your mother happy, though.”

“She’d be happier if we didn’t fight at all, Yuki-kun.”

“You can’t make everyone happy all at once, Kyo-kun. Besides,” Yuki bent down, picking up a broken piece of grass and dusting it off before slipping one end into her mouth, “Papa doesn’t like it, either.”

“He doesn’t like much of anything, last time I checked.”

Yuki shrugged. “Overprotective parents are the easiest to get around, trust me.”

“If you say so.”

Yuki and Kyo walked in silence for several minutes, hands in pockets, showing little interest in actually arriving at their classroom.

“Yuki-kun?”

“Mm?” Yuki raised an eyebrow, chewing lazily on the piece of grass.

“Should we have told Takebe-sensei that you didn’t have time to turn Yun-kun back before that monitor dragged us inside?”

“It would only upset him, Kyo-kun,” Yuki said. “The life of a teacher is hard enough without students going around telling them things. That goes double for headmasters.”

Kyo nodded slowly. “So we shouldn’t tell him that I saw Yun-kun starting to blow Touya-sempai behind the bushes?”

As she patted Kyo’s shoulder, Yuki nodded. “There are some things, Kyo-kun, that people are happier not knowing about.”

The detention room was deserted when Yuki and Kyo arrived, and remained so for the duration of their sentence. Students who gained admittance to Betsu Hin Gakuen were either disinclined to break rules, or smart enough not to get caught. Since the beginning of the school year, Kyo and Yuki had never had anyone share their detention with them, except for the young and almost perpetually unhappy Hippolytus-sensei, the school’s hapless Maretan teacher.

Hippolytus-sensei was only a few years older than Yuki and Kyo, and had begun teaching at Betsu Hin Gakuen that year. He was the only teacher ever on detention duty, and viewed the affair as more of a punishment than Kyo and Yuki did. He was, despite this, always very polite to Yuki, and to Kyo by association, and made a rule of ignoring the two adolescents, as long as they were quiet enough to let him catch up on his reading.

“Kyo-kun?”

“– important in a culturally diverse country such as Aura is rapidly becoming – what, Yuki-kun?”

“What do you think of ‘Pompous, overbearing, close-minded headmasters being turned into giant shrimp and eaten alive’ as my main consequence?”

Kyo sucked on the end of his pencil as he thought. “It could probably use a bit of work,” he answered after a long silence.

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

“Shouldn’t you be going home?”

“Shouldn’t you?”

“I told my parents I’d be going to Megu-kun’s.”

“You always tell them you’re going to Megu-kun’s, Kyo-kun.”

“Won’t they be surprised if they find out I was telling the truth this time?”

“Maybe. Does Megu-kun know we’re coming?”

“We always hang out after school.”

“We didn’t tell him that we had detention, though.”

Kyo stumbled to a halt before Yuki did, and stared at the small house in front of them, which was further dwarfed by the expanse of gardens around it. “Shit,” he said eloquently.

“It won’t be the first time,” Yuki pointed out sensibly, although she too hung back, eyeing the small house with trepidation.

“He gave us shit last time, though.”

“Yeah . . .”

“And you turned him into a duck to shut him up.”

“After you punched him.”

“Then he bit me.”

“Do ducks have teeth?”

“Dunno.” Kyo frowned and toed the grass. “You’re positive he’s still about as magically inclined as a clump of mud, right, Yuki-kun?”

“Kyo-kun, I swear, you’re more magically inclined than he is.”

“If you’re sure,” Kyo muttered, and stepped inside the yard.

Yuki watched him stand there in silence for several minutes before following him into the gardens. They shared a quiet look, just to assure each other than Megumi was their friend, before walking up to the house, side-by-side.

They shoved at each other briefly, until finally agreeing to knock on the door together.

The knock was quick, uneven, and sharp. Instantly, they both lowered their hands to their sides and stared at the door, waiting nervously.

After a wait that seemed to last for eternity, in which Kyo chewed on his fingernails, Yuki kicked the dirt, Kyo elbowed Yuki in the rib cage, and Yuki kicked Kyo in the kneecap, the door opened.

Sumeragi Megumi peered out from around the door and stared at Kyo and Yuki with disconcertingly black eyes. His expression suggested that he was both very annoyed with them for even daring to exist, and quite glad to see them.

Megumi was considered by most of the adolescents in Kyoto to be ‘weird’, which made him welcome company as far as Kyo and Yuki were concerned. He lived by himself, which was a bonus to be found in the friendship of anyone over the age of twelve.

As clearly as Yuki could explain it, Megumi was the nephew of her uncle, Sumeragi Sueko, who was married to her aunt, and her father’s sister, Akemi, which meant that Megumi was, in a way, Yuki’s cousin. Megumi’s father was, as much as Megumi ever felt like explaining, a trader, and, if questioned further about it when he was in a bad mood, would continue in a rather sharp, snide voice to say that just because you were a Sumeragi didn’t mean you were going to spend your life messing around with things beyond mortal understanding.

Megumi’s father had sent him to Kyoto, to live in a house on the family estate, three years earlier, when he had transferred to Kyoto Joshi Gakuen, where Kyo and Yuki met that. Before that, he had lived in Florile, Moldavia, Marete, and, for the most part, Arden. He spoke Aurian with an odd accent, mostly burred and strangely melodic. He wore foreign clothes outside of school and smoke sharp, sweet-smelling cigarettes, which only added to his weirdness.

Megumi never spoke about his mother, and it was widely assumed that Megumi was the product of a brief tryst between Megumi’s father and a foreign woman who, they would often add in a whisper, was probably not even human.

Kyo had asked Yuki about this, a few months after Megumi’s arrival in Kyoto, and Yuki had shrugged at the question, answering that Megumi’s mother was, if she was anything at all besides perfectly human, probably some kind of fae. When confronted with Kyo’s perplexed expression, she had been too irritated to explain what a fae was, but had assured him that it would account for Megumi’s short stature, fine build, disturbingly black eyes, and odd black-and-blond hair that he kept shaggy and hanging over the top of his ears.

Yuki and Kyo had quickly found out that the easiest way to get along with Megumi was by not asking him any questions about himself at all.

“What,” Megumi asked, leaning on the doorframe and pushing the door open completely, “do you two idiots want?” He crossed his arms over his chest, looking at them both expectantly, wearing dark Arden trousers, similar to the ones that came with the school uniform, and a dark shirt that was partially unbuttoned.

“We came by to hang out, Megu-kun. We always hang out after school.”

“Except for when Yuki-kun has karate club.”

“I was getting ready to get supper. Where have you two been?”

“Detention.”

“Yuki-kun and I had a fight.”

“And there was magic involved.”

“Right, she turned Yun-kun – ”

“I saw.” Megumi sighed and straightened so Yuki and Kyo could get inside without stepping over him. “When classes were over. Very recognizable.”

Kyo frowned. “He was Maretan, though. And, um.” He halted abruptly, going red around the ears.

“Still very recognizable,” Megumi said, shrugging and fixing Kyo with a withering glare. “Even wearing that transparent gauze. Which was more, by the way, than I ever wanted to see of Yun.”

Yuki scowled and chewed viciously on a piece of grass.

“Yeah, well,” Kyo rubbed the back of his head, “that’s kind of what we came by for, even though it’s maybe a bit later than usual.”

“Just a bit,” Megumi said in an attempt at snideness. His accent kept him from sounding properly snide and sarcastic in Aurian, which annoyed him a lot.

“We were hoping you’d let me use your place to practice in, Megu-kun.”

“Yuki, can you honestly expect me to believe there’s nowhere in the palace, or the royal gardens that you’re allowed to practise, can you?”

“There’s always the chance of my parents coming by, though.”

“And her brothers.”

“And sisters,” Yuki said, wincing. “All that really throws off my concentration.”

“You don’t want Yuki-kun’s concentration to break, do you, Megu-kun? She could blow all of Aura to tiny little pieces, just floating in the ocean, all covered in our globby, bloody bits . . .” Yuki elbowed Kyo sharply to shut him up.

“No, I probably don’t,” Megumi agreed, and reached for his coat – a long grey thing that reached the floor.

Yuki frowned for a minute before taking the hint – only a truly insane fifteen-year-old would want to suffer through their own cooking if another alternative presented itself. She sighed and spat out the piece of grass. “Where do you want to go, Megu-kun?”

When the three went out together for any kind of meal, violent arguments frequently occurred.

Kyo liked spices and traditional Aurian food, but viewed all foreign food with intense suspicious.

Yuki could take spices or leave them, and didn’t care if the food was native to Aura or from as far away as Arden, as long as it involved a lot of fish, no crustaceans, and minimum vegetables.

Megumi thought all Aurian food had been created by someone while they were very drunk, and frequently voiced the opinion that Kyo had killed all possibly nerves and tastebuds on his tongue years earlier.

After a lot of yelling, even more walking, and Kyo trying to push Megumi off the bridge, they finally agreed to buy stuffed rolls from a market stall that was about to close.

Yuki bought three bags, one filled with spiced and curried beef buns, one filled with plain salmon rolls, and one half-filled with honeyed chicken rolls and the other with sweet, sugary buns full of fruit paste. She distributed the bags, and they ate as they walked back to Megumi’s house, arguing contentedly.

It started to rain almost as soon as Kyo stepped inside, shutting Megumi’s door behind him. He grimaced. “At least now we’ll have a good excuse to be out this late.”

Yuki was already poking around Megumi’s cupboards, frowning at them with obvious disapproval. “I like it when it rains.”

“That’s just because it amplifies your magic, and you know I don’t like it.”

Yuki shrugged and pulled a clay bowl out of one of Megumi’s lower cupboards.

Megumi removed his coat, shaking it lightly before hanging it up and flopping to the ground. A brief search of his pockets turned up a half-full box of matches and a handful of loose, lonely cigarettes. He stuck one end of the cigarette between his lips and lit a match with his thumb, filling the air with the brief scent of sulphur as he lit his cigarette, before shaking the match out. After a few seconds, Megumi exhaled a cloud of smoke, and the scent of his sweet, cloying cigarettes filled the air. “I like the rain, too,” he said, taking a puff of his cigarette, staring at Kyo. “It reminds me of home,” he added, as though that explained everything, before turning his black gaze to the ceiling.

Whenever Megumi spoke of home, it was always in reference to the town of Tera Eryn. All Kyo and Yuki knew about it was that it was in Arden, near the ocean, and Megumi had spent most of his life there.

“Whatever,” Kyo grumbled, and sat on the floor across from Megumi. Yuki had vanished. Just as Kyo was about to ask where she had gone, Yuki returned, dripping wet, with the clay bowl filled with mud.

“Amplifiers,” Kyo groaned. “Maybe, and these are just the ramblings of someone who’s totally ignorant in such matters, mind you, maybe adding more power to your spells isn’t the answer, Yuki-kun.”

Megumi blew a smoke ring. “Maybe you shouldn’t interrupt her if you don’t want to end up croaking Kyo.”

Kyo sat stiffly, watching with Megumi as Yuki smeared symbols on the floor with the mud, muttering as she worked.

“What are you trying to do?” Megumi asked.

Kyo jumped slightly at the noise and glared at Megumi for going against his own advise.

“Find Yun-kun,” Yuki muttered, spitting on the floor and wiping her muddy fingers on her pants to dry them before swirling the spit into a symbol at the centre of all the muddy symbols.

“And turn him back to normal?” Megumi extinguished his cigarette outside of the uneven circle made by the mud symbols.

“That’s the plan.” Yuki straightened, sitting back on her heels, and wiped her hands on the front of her shirt. “Okay. You two stay where you are,” she commanded. Megumi shrugged agreeably. Kyo, who wouldn’t have moved an inch until he was sure Yuki was done trying to blow Megumi’s house up, suppressed a sudden urge to squirm and fidget.

Yuki wasn’t very loud when she did magic. She tended to mumble under her breath, as though she were embarrassed by what she was doing, or really nervous about being overheard. Sometimes Kyo thought that if Yuki was just a bit clearer about what she was saying, things wouldn’t go wrong quite as frequently.

The symbol Yuki had drawn with her spit began to glow and twist about on Megumi’s floor like a living thing. It seemed to grow and pulsate, like it was about to explode. Yuki grinned unpleasantly at the symbol, lowering her hands and lifting it up, rolling the suddenly solid thing from one palm to the other. “Found him,” she said clearly.

Megumi, looking at Yuki’s back and unable to see the sharp smile on her face, looked bored and lit another cigarette.

Yuki started chanting again, louder but still sounding rather muffled as she kept her head bent. The mud symbols began to glow, no longer looking like anything made from dirt. As Yuki’s voice rose, Kyo instinctively hunched up. The room began to get hot, and Kyo removed his vest and tie, and partially unbuttoned his shirt before putting his hands over his head. He could see the sweat beading on Yuki’s forehead.

Abruptly, Yuki dropped the thing that had once been a few squiggly lines of spit and there was an explosion, blowing outward and sending Kyo flying backward into the wall. On the other side of the room, he could hear Yuki swear, loudly and violently, as only Yuki could swear, and Megumi hiss something in Arden.

When the air cleared, Kyo blinked slowly and painfully, wondering if his eyelids were on fire. “Hells,” he muttered, and rubbed his throat. Yuki’s obviously miscast spell had left his throat feeling dry and parched, and his voice sounding odd. “Yuki-kun? Megu-kun?”

“Over here,” grumbled a voice, which quickly followed the comment with a thoughtful: “Shit. Gods damn idiot ancestor gods.”

“Yuki-kun?”

“Yeah.”

Kyo rubbed his eyes as the dark figure across from him got unsteadily to its feet. It sort of looked like Yuki, complete with wet, mud-splattered uniform, rolled up sleeves, short-and-messy black hair, and pale blue eyes. But it was taller, with broader shoulders, and a torso that narrowed down to a slim waste that didn’t flare out again into round hips that had of late caused Kyo the accessional, uncomfortable dream featuring his best friend.

“If my parents find out about this,” Yuki said, rubbing the back of his head, “I’ll be grounded for the rest of my natural life.”

Kyo snorted. “If my parents see you like that, my father will never allow me near you again. And then he’ll kill me. Grounding would be a blessing.”

“They’ll probably kill you if they see you like that, too,” Yuki snapped sulkily.

“Do your shirt up, for gods’ sake, Kyo,” groaned a voice that Kyo assumed was Megumi’s based entirely on the accent.

Kyo looked down and began to blush hotly. With unsteady fingers, he began doing his blouse back up to hide a pair of very obvious new additions courtesy of Yuki’s stupid spell. “My parents are going to kill us all,” he said.

“It’s not like it’s the worst thing that Yuki’s ever done, Kyo. At least we’re still the same shape. More or less.”

Kyo looked at Megumi – presumably the small girl with the shaggy black-and-blond hair and the foreign dress was Megumi – and scowled deeply. “Easy for you to say, Megu-chan. You don’t have any parents to explain to.”

“I’m sure your parents will have more than enough killing to go around, Kyo-kun,” Yuki said, padding around the room and looking at the area of the floor where the symbols for his spell had been.

Megumi leaned against the wall, searched in her pockets – did skirts have pockets, Kyo wondered – and eventually pulled out a match and cigarette. As she began to smoke, she arched an eyebrow at Kyo. “At least there’s no mess to clean up.”

Kyo groaned and put his head on his knees, then quickly straightened, lowering his knees and tugging his skirt down properly. “I think a messy floor would be the least of our problems, right now.”

“Mm,” said Megumi, blowing a smoke ring. Kyo scowled at his knees. One of the most infuriating things about Sumeragi Megumi was that he – or she – never seemed to be phased by anything Yuki did. He might be angry beforehand, but if he was calm before he’d usually remain calm after. Kyo considered this along with everything else, and glowered at the hem of his skirt. Megumi continued smoking and Yuki had stopped prowling, as he now stood in the centre of the room and glared at the floor as though it had personally offended him.

Something clicked in the back of Kyo’s head. “Why are you still wearing the same clothes, Yuki-kun?”

Yuki looked up, scowled briefly at Kyo, and went back to staring at the floor.

“He’s not,” Megumi announced calmly. “The uniform that was specifically tailored to fit Yuki as a girl would never fit Yuki as a boy. So the spell turned a uniform tailor made for a girl into one tailor made for a boy, and vice versa,” she concluded, nodding at Kyo’s dark skirt and short blouse with puffed sleeves.

Kyo’s glower deepened. “You pay a lot of attention to Yuki-kun’s clothing, Megu-kun,” he snarled, and was surprised when Megumi inhaled sharply, quickly blew out a mouthful of smoke, and turned rather red.

“Your parents aren’t going to kill anyone, Kyo-kun. Your mother is a very understanding soul.”

“My father isn’t.”

Yuki shrugged. “I don’t think he has it in him to kill anyone, even if he’s abruptly gained a daughter.”

Kyo made a horrible face. “What about your parents? It’s not like they need any more people spreading weird rumours about them. Hells, even the rest of your family. Although maybe Seki-san will be happy to have someone sensible he can pass the throne off to if he decides to quit the country.”

Yuki shot Kyo a twisted smile. “I’m upholding an ancient family tradition,” he said stiffly.

Kyo sighed. “Whatever. There’s something to be said for being turned invisible, or into a fly. At least your parents can’t find you to yell at, then.”

“Just think how much better everything Yuki does in the future will compare to this.”

“Assuming any of us have a future when my father finds out.”

“Your father is not an unstoppable force of nature, Kyo.” Megumi stubbed her cigarette out against the wall. “So when will the spell wear off, Yuki?”

Yuki stared at the floor and mumbled.

Kyo’s heart began to sink. “Yuki-kun?”

Yuki scuffed one socked foot on the floor. “Well, it was supposed to be a spell to return someone to normal . . .”

“This is not normal!”

“So it’s not the sort of thing that’s meant to wear off . . .”

Even Megumi’s calm seemed to be shattering slightly at this report. “But that doesn’t mean it won’t wear off,” she suggested, “since the spell was obviously miscast.”

“Mm.”

“Well, reverse it!” Kyo jumped up.

“I can try.” Yuki glared. “Give me time. Do you really want me to rush this?”

Kyo groaned, putting his head in his hands. “We’re so doomed.”

The three stood silently, in varying states of quiet despair, the only noise Kyo’s occasional moans as he rocked back and forth, when there was a knock at the door.

As one being, the three teenagers turned to look at the door.

The knock came again.

No one made a move toward the door.

“Dammit, Kyo. I know you’re in here. It’s late and your mother and I are worried about you.” The voice on the other side of the door sounded less worried and more foaming-at-the-mouth-mad. It rose as the door began to open. “If you’re in there doing something obscene with that Sumeragi kid, or Takahashi’s damn brat, you’ll be in for such a beating.”

Megumi and Yuki turned to look at Kyo, who had lowered his hands and was staring at the door in horror. He did the only thing possibly in the situation, and fell backward, fainting dead away.