Saratoga ch 7

Chapter 7 - Little sister, that awakening mustn’t happen

Among desert-living birds, ones with richly coloured plumage were not rare.

In the dreary desert, birds with low populations, in order to find mates, or rather, in order to be found, had climbed the stairs of evolution and mutated into vivid forms.

However, no matter how colourful their feathers, in this dusk they were all dyed jet black.

At the centre of the Mobile Fortress Saratoga, the castle crowned with a spire. The bird perched on a window there was not an exception to the aforementioned.

It was neither rare, nor special, nor valuable. In the desert, it wasn’t unusual either, this green-feathered parrot species. Now, under the cover of the night’s darkness, with the usual daytime view shrouded, its figure was concealed. In this light, it was inevitable, no matter how vivid it would normally look.

And so, no one noticed the abnormality of this bird.

For the past several days, in order to follow the Mobile Fortress Saratoga, this bird hadn’t descended to the ground even once. It would be different if it were a migratory bird, but for a parrot, it was flying at impossible heights.

The bird crossed through the window frame and slowly flew down into the room. This was a room in the management floor. Within this room, dimly lit by light-emitting spirit stones, a single man sat atop a bed. Covered to his neck under a blanket, leaning on the head board, the man murmured:

“Mahmud?”

There was no response. Naturally. There was nobody but him and one bird in this room. Nevertheless, the man faced the bird and uttered more words.

“A Bug has appeared in Saratoga. He might hinder the plan.”

“Eliminate.”

This was a strange voice, belonging to neither man nor woman. From inside the parrot’s beak, produced by vibrations of its vocal cords, came a word of a human language.1

“Magician-dono says that as though it were easy. That guy keeps close to Miria. She’s not like her blockhead of a sister, she’s sharp. Understanding that, isn’t this putting the cart before the horse?”

The man showed no surprise at the bird uttering words, merely venting his irritation.

“Execution the day after tomorrow. Eliminate before that.”

“Tsk!”

The man clicked his tongue at the bird’s single-minded insistence. The bird took to air, moving to a spot on the bed close to the man.

“Use.”

Together with this one word, the bird’s body expanded, and it vomited a white lump from its beak. It wasn’t a nice sight to behold. Grimacing, the man picked up the white object with his fingertips.

“Oh. This is quite generous.”

The thing that the man had picked up, was a fang.

Selling it, one could build a mansion. It was that rare, and dangerous, of a magic tool. It was a “Dragon Tooth”.

The man was fiddling with the fang in his fingers, when suddenly, he heard voices of people from the direction of the corridor. They couldn’t be called loud, but since the residents of the management floor were few to begin with, it was unusual for there to be traffic in the corridor at this time of the night.

But that was probably nothing to worry about.

It was probably one of Mio’s usual whims, a pointless thing, no doubt instigated by Kirie.

* * * *

“Please don’t push me like that!”

“I have to! If we don’t make haste, onee-chan will get tired of waiting!”

“Tired of waiting...”

On the other side of the door they were just passing by, the bird and the man were conducting their shady business, but of course, there was no reason why they would be aware of it. Nanashi was being forcefully pushed from the back by Miria, towards Kirie’s room.

No matter how much he dragged his feet, their advance was not stopped, and eventually they arrived at the destination.

Despite Miria’s good intentions, for Nanashi, those words had an ominous echo.

Management floor. They arrived before the farthest door, and Miria raised her voice.

“We’re heeere!”

Nanashi took a deep breath to prepare himself mentally, while Miria didn’t waste any time knocking on the door. In a moment, before they had a chance to enter, the door opened. It was almost as though someone had been waiting with a hand on the door knob. Then, from the gap of the slightly opened door, slowly appeared the face of Kirie, her expression stiff.

“Yo- you came, huh...”

“Onee-chan, sorry for the waaait!”

“I wasn’t waiting! Really, I really wasn’t!”

At her older sister’s nervous state, the younger sister suppressed a giggle. Avoiding Miria’s gaze, Kirie cleared her throat in a forced manner.

“By the way, Miria. Before I let him into my room, have you had this guy take a bath yet?”

“Eh? But there’s a bath in each room of the management floor, isn’t there?”

“A- are you planning to have him bathe in my room!? You can’t! You can’t! You can’t!”

Still only sticking her face outside the door, the red-faced Kirie shook her head vigorously. Just how many times had she repeated the words “you can’t” today? Nanashi pondered such a question absently.

“Speaking of bathing, where’s the sand?”

At Nanashi’s words, Kirie and Miria both stopped moving.

“Wa- wait a second. Just now, what did you say?”

“Where’s the sand. I mean...”

Without quite understanding what the problem was, Nanashi replied with a puzzled expression. Of course, he didn’t notice how Kirie and Miria’s faces went a bit pale.

“D- don’t tell me, you… How do you cleanse your body?”

“With sand, of course. Why?”

“Sand?”

“Dry sand is very hygienic, you know. If you rub with sand, dirt falls off cleanly.”

“Always?”

“That’s right.”

“Since birth?”

“Well, yeah.”

Bang! The door slammed open, and Kirie grabbed Nanashi’s shoulder without a word.

“E- er… Kirie-san?”

Ignoring Nanashi’s words, Kirie yelled:

“Miria! We need to throw this guy into a bathtub immediately!”

“Understood! Onee-chan, is the wash tub in the cleaning room fine?”

“I don’t care! Just get the filth sterilised!”

“Noooooo!”

And so, as Nanashi was being forcibly dragged between the Al-Saad sisters, his sorrowful voice echoed in the nightly hallways.

* * * *

An hour later.

“Uh… Th- this is...”

“Hahaha, somehow, the mood turned weird...”

At the end of their line of sight, there was something that made the Al-Saad sisters’ faces flush bright red.

That was, of course, the buck naked Nanashi. Sitting on a bed, while hiding various dangerous places with his hands, he hung his head with his face in tears.

This was after he had been tossed into the washing tub and forcibly washed from head to toe by the surging water currents generated with spirit stones. Just a while ago, even as his eyes were spinning around, he had managed to escape the tub.

“Uu… Mean… So mean...”

His hair still dripping water, Nanashi directed his teary, upturned eyes at the Al-Saad sisters.

“...”

Such destructive power. Kirie and Miria were rendered speechless.

“O- onee-chan… so- somehow I feel like I’m about to awaken...”

“C- calm down, little sister! That awakening mustn’t happen.”

“Onee-chan, drool, you’re drooling.”

“So- sorry.”

While the two were engaged in this exchange, Nanashi was grumbling and making a pitiful face.

“Just return my clothes already, please…”

Later, they were on the way back to Kirie’s room. Having regained their composure, Kirie and Miria walked without meeting their gazes, while the youth from the People of the Desert trudged behind them with a tired expression. According to the maid colleague of Miria’s, whom they happened to meet on the way, this awkward mood between them wasn’t anything particularly unprecedented.

* * * *

“Miria… I’ll let him stay for tonight.”

Despite her arrogant way of speaking, Kirie’s tone was tender.

“Tomorrow is a floor cleaning day, after all, so I have to wake up early. Sorry about this, onee-chan.”

Talking fast, Miria left Nanashi’s side and quickly left the room.

Bang.

The sounds of the door closing felt awfully loud.

“...”

It left behind a silence that seemed to drag on forever. An unusually heavy atmosphere. The two were becoming increasingly conscious of the fact that they, a man and a woman, were alone in a small room. Kirie was clearly unable to calm down, she was wiggling the fingers of her two hands together, and each time she seemed to be saying something, she swallowed her words before they came out, leaving the silence unbroken.

“U- um...”

The moment Nanashi resolved himself and opened his mouth, Kirie’s whole body twitched and jumped.

“Wh- wh- wh- what!?”

“Where will I sleep?”

“A- ah, that! You sleep, er, there.”

Saying that, Kirie pointed at the corner farthest from her bed.

Where she pointed, there was an unnaturally open space. Drawing closer, he could see marks left by furniture on the carpet, making it clear that some furniture had been recently moved to make the space. Looking around, he thought that the way the furniture were arranged in the room right now was a bit unnatural.

Indeed, “I’ll lend you a corner in my room” was what Kirie had said earlier in the day - clearly she hadn’t meant that metaphorically. For Kirie, a corner was literally a corner. Nanashi suppressed a laugh at a mental image of the slender Kirie moving the heavy furniture on her own.

“Here, use this blanket.”

Having said that and handed over the blanket, Kirie went to bed, nesting herself like a squirrel.

Nanashi thanked her briefly and wrapped himself into the blanket in the corner.

Once again, the room was wrapped in silence, and drowsiness was slowly taking over his body. Sleeping like this, being in the same room with a woman wouldn’t be much of an issue.

However…

“He- hey, damn Bug, are you asleep?”

The moment he was about to fall asleep, Kirie’s voice called out.

“No, I’m still awake.”

“Is the floor too hard? Should I give you something to lay upon?”

“Thank you, but I’m fine.”

“I- I see...”

While thinking that Kirie’s concern was unexpected, he once again closed his eyes and entrusted his body to sleepiness. And once again, exactly the moment he was about to fall asleep, Kirie’s voice called out.

“He- hey, damn Bug, are you asleep?”

“...I’m awake.”

That answer was delivered from a place halfway to the dream world.

“Can’t get sleep? This room doesn’t have a very good ventilation, but...”

“I’m fine.”

“I- I see...”

While thinking in a corner of his mind that she was a surprisingly considerate type of a person, he closed his eyes again.

He was already half asleep. The next time she called out, he would probably already be dwelling in the world of dreams. Nanashi had never been the kind of person good at sleeping quickly and getting up suddenly. While he had replied briefly, it didn’t mean he had fully awakened.

However…

“Aren’t you hungry? I have some good pretzels. That’s right, I got them especially for you.”

In no time, she called out again.

In the position of a freeloader, he couldn’t very well turn down kindness from his landlady. Drowsily, Nanashi raised his body and accepted the offered pretzel, almost unconsciously bringing it to his mouth.

“How is it? Tasty?”

“It’s delicious.”

For the moment, he was still a step away from falling asleep, but frankly, he was too sleepy to really appreciate the taste.

“Really? Yes, it is, isn’t it.”

Seeing the satisfied appearance of Kirie, who crossed her arms and nodded her agreement, the still half-asleep Nanashi said the first thing that came to his mind.

“Kirie-san is actually a good person, isn’t she.”

After staring blankly for a moment, Kirie made a small laugh.

“Look here… Hearing that they are ‘a good person’ isn’t really a compliment for a soldier. Good people die in the battlefield. To begin with, for a child to evaluate adults as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is just impertinent.”

Her voice was so soft that it was hard to believe it was the same mouth that had earlier spouted things like “damn Bug”. These words were overflowing with the feeling of a mother admonishing her child. It seemed that motherliness and chest size didn’t always come in equal proportion.

However, Nanashi thought that “I don’t like it”. Specifically, her treating him like a child. Among the People of the Desert, you were considered an adult at the age of 13, so being treated as a child at the age of 15 felt improper. That’s why he voiced a rebuttal. One of the provocative kind, tit for tat.

“Then, let me evaluate a woman as a man. Kirie-san is a good woman.”

It dropped.

The pretzel, from Kirie’s lips, that is. Her eyes frozen round, she turned her neck slowly and mechanically, until she was facing Nanashi.

Kirie was thinking. She was aware of her face turning red. She was aware of her eyes tearing up. She was aware of her face heating up. To be so shaken by just a few words, how come she was so easily moved?

Having said his piece, Nanashi had pulled the blanket over his head as though sulking. From the darkness of that corner, she soon heard the steady breathing of a sleeping person.

“He- hey. Are you still awake...?”

No response.

Kirie softly got off her bed and crouched near the sleeping Nanashi. Looking at his sleeping face, Nanashi looked a lot younger than 15 years old.

“Who’s ‘a good woman’. Precocious brat.”

She touched the youth’s hair with her fingertips. It was still clearly wet, it hadn’t had time to dry yet. Sleeping in this state, his bed hair in the morning would be something to see. That was just fine. She was curious to see the youth’s hair in such dishevelled state. Time permitting, she would cut it tomorrow.

Thinking such things, she found herself smiling.

That moment, she felt a presence behind her, and looking over her shoulder, she saw a stray parrot by the window.

“Stop peeping...”

As Kirie said that slightly basfully, the parrot tilted its head briefly before flying away.

-------------------

1Lol, parrots don’t have vocal cords. Do your damn research, author.

<< Previous ToC Next >>