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dancingkirby · 1 month

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All Subject One Flashback Scenes

16k words of them, arranged in chronological order for your reading convenience! I got the idea to do this because I really liked the found footage stuff in @inkblackorchid's fic and ended up putting it all in a Word document. Since the flashback scenes in my fic were one of my favorite parts to write, I assumed that at least some people would like them the best, so I decided I'd spare y'all a bit of work!

This does include the two scenes from Chapter 10, JSYK.

WARNINGS (Just in case there are people who haven't read the main fic yet): Sexual relationship between an adult and a minor (which the minor considers to be "consensual"), abuse of all kinds but most prominently emotional, teen pregnancy with childbirth scene, food/body shaming, and unreliable narration in parts.

The small boy should have fallen asleep hours ago. Instead, he lay perfectly still in his darkened bedroom, waiting until he knew that everyone else had retired for the night. Then he slipped out of bed and made a beeline for the living room.

Today had been Christmas Eve. Earlier this evening, Mutti and Vati had played pretend that they liked each other and took him to the Graben to see the pretty lights. Even if they had been pretending, he’d thought it was nice to have both of them here at once; that almost never happened. Then they’d gone home and had dinner; he’d gotten to sit at the table like a big boy instead of his dumb old high chair. Then he’d opened his many presents. His favoritest present had been the duel disk that Mutti had given him.. like hers, except smaller! She’d caught him playing with hers before and decided to get him his very own.

“Don’t you think he’s a little young for that, Misako?” Vati had said.

Mutti pressed her lips together, making them into a thin line. “Himu-chan is very advanced for his age. Which you’d know if you ever spent any time with him.”

Vati had been angry, although he hadn’t yelled, which was nice. Instead, he’d just left. That was okay because Mutti went through the cards in the starter deck with him, sounding out the names. His favorite was one called HI-NO-TAMA. Mutti said that meant “fireball” in Japanese, which was the language she had spoken when she was a kid. And the funny part was that in Japan, they didn’t call it HI-NO-TAMA. They called it FAIAA BOORU instead, which meant “fire ball” in English! It was all backwards.

As soon as he’d put Hinotama on the duel disk, he knew it was real fire. Mutti said no, it was something called a “hologram,” but he could feel the warmth. He wanted to look at it all night, but then it was his bedtime.

Normally he was very good at getting his own way. He knew when to throw a tantrum, and when putting on his biggest smile instead would work better. Tonight, though, nothing he did changed Mutti’s mind.

“It’s been a long night and you need your sleep,” she’d insisted. That meant he needed to use the third option for getting his way: to be on his best behavior so they’d think he was a good boy, then sneak out of his room when they weren’t looking.

It wasn’t hard. The disk and cards were right where he’d left them. If Mutti really hadn’t wanted him to play with them more, he reasoned, then she’d have put them away on a high shelf where he couldn’t reach.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to play with fire. Mutti had told him that, along with his nannies. But Hinotama was different. Hinotama was his friend. He didn’t have very many other friends.

He turned the duel disk back on and put the card on it. For a while, he sat there, mesmerized by the orange flame. But it was so, so pretty that he needed More. He made it bigger, and bigger, until suddenly it was too much More and he could no longer control it.

He saw the beautiful fire tip toward him as if in slow motion, held out his hands to shield himself…

His screams of pain and terror awakened the entire house.

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“Seria-chan, that guy has been looking at you all evening. And he’s really cute. Why don’t you go introduce yourself?”

Her first feeling had been one of mild annoyance. She was here at this upscale bar with a couple of girlfriends to celebrate both her twenty-third birthday and her recent passing of the nursing certification test. All she was was looking to do was have a few drinks and maybe do some karaoke…not for any romance.

But then she looked at where her friend Iori was pointing, and saw that it was true that this man was very attractive. In fact, he was good-looking to the point that it nearly defied credulity. He was tall even when seated, square-jawed, broad-shouldered, and sported a luscious head of auburn hair. If she were being honest, this guy was more Mi-chan’s type than hers…but why not? It wasn’t like he’d be able to do anything bad to her; she and her friends had agreed to watch out for each other. And, having broken up with her boyfriend some months prior, she was admittedly itching for some action now that the stress of exams was behind her.

She took her half-finished drink, being careful to keep a close eye on it, and moved down to the other end of the table.

“Did you want to say something to me?” she asked as way of greeting.

He smiled at her. “Yes. I’d like to know if I could have the honor of buying you a drink.”

Oh, he was one of those guys, was he? But he was handsome enough he could get away with it.

“You may buy me a drink,” she emphasized. She’d already had two and she wanted to get a little tipsy, not black out.

He did so, and then introduced himself to her. “Joachim Mueller. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Seria,” she replied. It felt backward, introducing herself with her given name, but this guy was obviously foreign, and she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with him knowing her surname yet.

They participated in some small talk. Seria learned that this Joachim had returned to Japan last month after spending six years in America, and he had some funny little stories about cultural differences and his experiences with obtuse Americans during the pandemic. In comparison, her life sounded very dull. Still, she talked about her family and her almost-completed journey towards becoming a nurse.

Then, rather abruptly, Joachim said, “You’re a Psychic Duelist, aren’t you?”

She blinked. “How did you know?” It wasn’t like she was very good at the dueling aspect; her healing powers were stronger than her ability to manifest physical objects from cards.

“I make it my business to know,” the young man replied, still smiling as pleasantly as ever. “I am one myself. We need to stick together. Tell me…have you ever experienced discrimination from other people due to your powers? Have your loved ones rejected you?”

Looking back years later, Seria would realize that this was the point where she should have made up an excuse and bailed. However, at that time she was too intoxicated, both from the alcohol and this man’s magnetism, to be anything but thrilled that there was someone else out there like her. All her life, she’d thought it was some bizarre quirk exclusive to her.

As for his question…although she’d been fortunate enough to have a supportive family, making friends had always been difficult for her. Sometimes, she’d forgotten herself and gotten carried away during duels, and everyone tended to avoid her after these episodes. In addition, her supervisors were convinced that she was using her powers to cheat on practical exams, even though this was impossible since she wasn’t working on anything living…

“I suppose I have,” she mused.

And that really opened the floodgates. She was Joachim Mueller’s captive audience as he told her of his plans to help others like them. He wanted to take in children who had been neglected and abandoned, teach them how to use their powers safely, and then re-integrate them into society when they were ready. His goal, he said, was to break down the barriers between the general population and Psychic Duelists entirely, so that one day it would be no more of a feared trait than, say, having freckles or Type AB blood. And with a bunch of kids learning about their powers, there were bound to be some injuries here and there. That was why they’d need a medic…someone like Seria.

By midnight, she was sold.

Her friends didn’t find it concerning when she decided to leave the bar with him; Iori even flashed a victory sign. They stumbled out the door, laughing, their arms wrapped around each other. After they’d taken a cab to the nearest love hotel, and almost broken down the door to their room in their eagerness to get inside, Seria experienced by far the best sex she’d had in her entire life.

There was no going back after that.

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It was past midnight when Seria had been jerked out of sleep by the pounding at her door.

“Who’zit?” she mumbled. Her first assumption was that this was a medical emergency. She’d been woken up at odd hours by those before, but it never got any easier for all the practice she’d had.

“Hiroshi,” came the familiar no-nonsense voice from the hallway. Without waiting for a response, he continued, “Divine-sama asked me to wake you up. We are to join him in his office for an important meeting.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll get ready,” she sighed. Could this not have waited until morning?

One of the benefits of being in the Arcadia Movement was that she never had to worry about picking an outfit. She grabbed a shirt, a robe, and a pair of pants out of the closet, knowing without looking that they would match since they were identical to the other pairs. Then she made a quick trip to the bathroom to brush her hair and splash cold water on her face. There; she was a little more alert.

“Did Divine-sama say what this was about? Nothing bad happened, did it?” she inquired as the two of them walked down the hallway as fast as they could without breaking into a run.

Hiroshi assured her, “Nothing that I know of. He was out the entire evening and came back with an unfamiliar girl. Then the two of them spent a couple of hours on the testing floor. Perhaps it has to do with that.”

Now that Seria was thinking about it, Divine had been acting a little strangely over the past few days. He had mentioned to her that there might be a new arrival soon. This was not an uncommon occurrence, what with all the psychic children in the city who had been abandoned by their families. Certainly, he didn’t consult them about every new resident, and when he did, it was never so late in the night. What made this case special?

When they finished the long elevator ride up and knocked at Divine’s office door, they heard his voice say, “Come in.” However, he left it to them to open the door.

They found Divine standing behind his desk, with his hands on the shoulders of a young girl in a school uniform. She looked maybe sixteen years old, if Seria had to guess.

“Seria, Hiroshi, I would like to introduce Aki. She will be living with us from now on,” he said.

Seria smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Aki-san.” Hiroshi remained silent and made a respectful bow instead.

Aki remained silent. She shrank back into Divine until his hands tightened their grip almost imperceptibly. At this point, she looked up at them through messy bangs and greeted them with a soft, “Hello.”

“Good girl,” Divine said. “Now, it’s been a long night. You probably want to get some rest, don’t you? Hiroshi will show you where you’ll sleep. We’ll have you spend tonight in one of the holding rooms, if that’s okay. I’ll make sure that your permanent room is ready by the end of tomorrow.”

He handed Hiroshi a floor plan, in which he’d filled in the room he’d chosen in highlighter. As usual, Seria’s colleague showed no emotions on the matter one way or the other, merely gesturing at the girl to follow him. She did this, although not until a little nudge forward from Divine.

“Poor thing,” he commented to Seria when the two of them were alone in the office. “When she was five, her parents sent her to Duel Academia as a boarder, which is highly unusual for students living in the city. Then last month, she got into some sort of trouble with her powers at school and ran away. She’s good at hiding; it took me weeks to track her down.”

“How old is she?” Seria asked.

“Thirteen. Fourteen in August.”

Seria winced. Even younger than she’d thought. A pretty thirteen-year-old girl alone on the streets…people would have been waiting around every corner to take advantage of her in the most heinous ways.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about her in that regard,” Divine informed her. She’d always suspected that he had some ability to read people’s emotions if not their minds. “She is extremely powerful; nobody would ever have been able to touch her if she didn’t want them to. In fact, she beat me in the testing duel, and no one’s done that since Hiroshi. That’s why I called you two to meet her as soon as she was done. I suspect that she will be one of our best pupils and prove crucial to our success. To show her importance, I would like you and Hiroshi to refer to her as ‘Subject Zero’ when discussing her with other staff. Not to her face, of course.”

There was a glint in his eyes with which Seria wasn’t quite comfortable; very similar to how he had looked at her in that bar three years ago. Surely he couldn’t be…no, what was she thinking? The girl was barely a teenager. All Divine wanted was to create a haven for Psychic Duelists, particularly those who couldn’t fend for themselves. He would never.

“You mentioned setting her bedroom up,” she blurted out a little abruptly, attempting to cancel out her bad thoughts. In the Arcadia Movement, almost everybody shared a room with either one, three, or five other people, depending on the amount of time they’d lived here and/or how powerful they were. Seria had anticipated that Aki would be assigned to one of the six-person dormitory-style rooms since she was new to the Movement.

Divine had other plans, though. “Yes. Tell Maintenance to get one of the two-person rooms ready, please. One with a balcony if that’s possible. The highest floor where you can find an empty one.”

Okay, this was a bit unexpected, but it should work. They had dozens of unoccupied bedrooms, converted from the office space of the previous tenants. Seria thought that there might be enough rooms for every resident to have their own…however, Divine wanted to do it this way and she opted not to question it. “Understood. And who will she be sharing it with?”

“No one. She’ll have it to herself.”

And that was very unexpected. The only people here who had a private bedroom were herself, Divine, and Hiroshi. Inwardly, she wondered what Divine was planning. He did have an unfortunate habit of playing favorites among the child and adolescent students, and it appeared that Aki was going to be one of them.

Outwardly, though, she bowed and told him, “It will be done.”

“Excellent. I would also like you to conduct a thorough physical exam tomorrow morning and check bloodwork. She likely has mild malnutrition from her time on her streets.” Looking exceedingly satisfied, Divine slipped both of his hands into his front pants pockets. “You are dismissed for tonight. I have some business to attend to.”

And she’d thought nothing of it then…

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Misty slammed on the brakes and tapped out a sharp reprimand on her car horn. The nerve! She’d been turning into her preferred parking spot in the school pickup line, had her signal lights on and everything, when some jerk in a big black car with tinted windows had cut in front of her and taken her spot. He (for such a rude driver could only be male) had almost hit her, too. Fuming, she did two loops around the lot before the car behind this one left and cleared up a spot for her to parallel park. Even this was difficult, since the driver of the black car had the front end of the vehicle in one space and the back end in another. It was a testament to the compact build of her kei car that she managed to squeeze in at all.

And she’d found her spot not a moment too soon. She spotted Toby jogging towards the car, his bag hanging off one shoulder and a big grin on his face like usual.

“Oneechan!” he greeted as he opened the door and got into the passenger seat. “How was your day?”

Smiling in return, she replied, “Okay. Nothing too special. How was yours?”

“Well, um, we’re doing a lot of reviewing in class for finals. I think I have a good grasp on everything. And then we’re going to have a pizza party next week when the exams are done... like they do in American schools. It’s gonna be awesome!”

That was her little brother, all right: always appreciative of the simple pleasures in life. Every day, Misty thought about how lucky she was to have him. Her job was often a stressful one, what with posing for photo shoots for hours on end, doing shows, and worrying about follower counts on social media. She had a tendency towards gloom when left to her own devices, and she knew it. But Toby rarely failed to cheer her up. Without his enthusiasm on subjects such as pizza parties, or a cherry blossom tree in full bloom, or an interesting new manga series he’d found, she was certain that she’d lose sight of what was important.

“That’s wonderful. I can’t believe you’re going to be a second-year student soon,” she commented. He’d turned thirteen last month, and as much as Misty wanted him to remain her adorable baby brother forever, she knew that he was growing up fast. Recently, he’d even started mentioning a girl in the grade above him, with powers similar to his, who he thought was cute. Where had the years gone?

She told Toby, “It looks like we might be stuck here for a while, until that asshole in front of us decides to move.” What was he doing here anyway? They’d all heard the stories of adult men that hung around schools for nefarious purposes...

“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” Toby said, sounding oddly eager. “I recognize that car. It’s the one that she rides in.”

Ah.

“So I’ll finally get to see your girlfriend?” she teased.

Toby made a big show of rolling his eyes. “Mistyyyy! She’s not my girlfriend! Not yet, anyway. I think I’m gonna ask her out after the new school year starts.”

“Be careful,” she urged. “I don’t want you to get a broken heart.”

“I’ll be careful,” he promised, albeit a bit absentmindedly. Before Misty could say anything else, his head swiveled over to look out the window. “Look, Oneechan…there she is! Izayoi Aki-san!”

Misty looked where he was pointing and saw a skinny girl, not yet fully grown into her limbs, with red hair. She was pretty, it was true, but she walked with her shoulders hunched and her arms folded across her chest. Her heart-shaped face and delicate features became marred with a dark scowl whenever anyone crossed her path, sending the unfortunate other person fleeing.

“She doesn’t look happy,” Misty observed. In fact, Izayoi Aki looked like a bit of a bully to her. Why her cheerful brother would be attracted to that, she wasn’t sure.

Toby’s ears colored. “Yeah. People are mean to her because she can’t control her powers. But I wouldn’t be like that! I’d always be nice to her…even if she accidentally hurt me.”

This sounded too much like the “I can fix him” trope with the usual gender roles flipped for Misty’s liking. However, she maintained her silence and let him have his fantasies. He was thirteen, this was his first crush that she knew of, and she doubted that he’d listen to reason.

Meanwhile, Izayoi Aki had reached the suspicious-looking car in front of them. She opened the door and appeared pleasantly surprised to see who was inside. Her face lit up with an admittedly gorgeous smile, and she clambered in.

“Finally,” Misty sighed as the parking spot thief pulled out of the two spaces he was occupying and drove off. A minor annoyance, she told herself. Now they could get on with the rest of their day.

It would be another three weeks before she realized the full impact of this event.

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She lay naked on the bed, mind and body open for him. For six months, she’d tried to hide her burgeoning crush, until the wonderful Christmas night when Divine had confessed to reciprocating her feelings. And then she’d had to wait another eight months before he decided that it was time to take their relationship to the next level. Her patience had finally paid off. Tonight, after so many kisses that had left her yearning for more, after all those nights that she’d had to seek relief by her own hand, they were going to consummate their love at last.

Seria had given her that shot a few days prior. So when Divine had invited her to dinner, ostensibly to celebrate her birthday, Aki had known. During the meal, she’d cleaned her plate but hadn’t been able to taste any of it…not when her whole being was focused on him. Then he’d held her on his lap and told her how much she’d grown since arriving here, that she’d blossomed into a beautiful and mature young lady.

This time, she’d been the one to start the kissing.

She’d wanted to jump straight into it, but Divine had told her that, since this was her first time, he needed to prepare her properly. He’d touched every inch of her body, and she had no idea how he could exercise this much restraint when she felt on the verge of spontaneous combustion. Finally, he’d said that she was ready. He undressed, and she was thrilled to see that he was as excited about her as she was about him.

She felt deliciously grown-up. Everything was going to be perfect. The bedside lamp bathed her pale skin in a golden glow, as if giving a higher meaning to their union. They were both already breathing heavily when he crawled on top of her. He’d warned her that it would probably hurt, but when he pushed into her and she screamed, it was entirely from pleasure…

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Aki had just finished a super-good day of training. She’d beaten Okita and Liquid in a 2-on-1 game of Duel Tennis, and couldn’t wait to tell Divine about it. Maybe he’d be so happy that he’d let her eat with him tonight…possibly even sleep with him too. Although they’d only been “doing it” for a month, since her fifteenth birthday, she already felt like she could never get enough.

Once she reached the top floor, she found that the door to his office was ajar. Normally, the rule was to knock only if it was completely closed, but she heard some sort of tinny electronic music coming from inside…like something from a video game. It sounded like he was occupied with whatever this was, so she decided to play it safe and knock anyway.

The music paused. “Yes? Who is it?”

“Aki,” she answered, a little breathlessly since the mere sound of his voice was enough to send her heart racing. Please don’t let him be too busy…

“Oh. Come on in.”

She breathed a quiet sigh of relief and entered the spacious suite of rooms, closing the door behind her just in case. Her ears traced the sounds as coming from the living area, which could double as a bedroom on the frustratingly frequent occasions when Divine had to pull an all-nighter. She found an endearing scene inside…he was lying on the couch, back propped up against the arm, indeed playing on an older handheld gaming device. It must be one of the games from his collection, she thought. Although he’d let her play some of them on occasion, she’d never seen him play any before and didn’t recognize the music as coming from one of the ones she knew.

He turned the volume down to mute and set the device down on a coffee table. “I was thinking you’d show up soon. It’s good to see you.”

He was dressed as casually as she’d ever seen him, in a polo shirt and jeans. However, he still had his gloves on and had added black forearm sleeves. Aki knew that he never took the gloves off except in the bathroom; he even wore them when they “did it.” She always wondered why.

Aki walked over to the end of the couch where his feet were, waiting for his nod of permission before she perched on the edge.

“I wanted to tell you how my training went…” she began, only for Divine to cut her off.

“Yes, Hiroshi already texted me that you did well today.” He gestured at his smartphone, also lying on the table.

“Oh,” she said. Why did she feel this disappointed that she hadn’t gotten to be the one to tell him? Perhaps that was the idea; the second-in-command had never liked her…

“Aki? Let’s not sulk. It’s most unbecoming.”

She made herself smile again, and he returned it. “That’s better.”

He picked the device back up and turned the sound on. Was this his way of telling her that he wanted her to leave? But they hadn’t seen each other since yesterday morning. She tried to think of something else to say.

“I like that music,” she finally ventured. In German, no less. Ich mag diese Musik. At least that’s what she thought it was. Divine always liked when she spoke to him in his native language, although he still had to reply in Japanese because her listening comprehension wasn’t great yet.

Her instincts proved accurate, and Divine rewarded her efforts by looking back up at her. “It is a catchy little tune, isn’t it? Its name is ‘Serious.’ Do you hear the heartbeat?”

“…Heartbeat?” she repeated, stumped. Sometimes when she got confused like this, he’d grow tired of trying to explain it to her and tell her to never mind. Today, thankfully, he seemed to be in a good mood and have more patience.

“Hold on. I’ll make it so you might be able to hear it a little better.” And, in a few seconds, she did.

1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, 2-3…

“I found this game in a secondhand store when I was eleven,” he explained to her. “Not long after I moved to Japan for the first time.”

He hardly ever talked about his past; Aki treasured every scrap of it he flung her way. Seeing him like this, long eyelashes almost brushing his cheekbones as he looked down, the hemline of his shirt riding up just enough to give her a glimpse of abs, warmed her through and through. He looked almost…vulnerable, as if the eleven-year-old who had been so excited about this game was peeping through.

She chewed her lip, trying not to show how much she wanted him. If she waited quietly for a few more minutes until he got to a good stopping point, then maybe…

“You are dismissed, Aki,” he said abruptly, not looking up from the screen. Before she had the chance to protest, he added, “If you’re feeling up to it, you may have dinner with me tonight. Bring your overnight bag.”

Aki’s smile grew. Thus mollified, she turned to leave, asking one final question.

“What’s the game about?” Worum geht es in dem Spiel?

Divine thought for a few seconds before telling her, “It’s about people who are very much like you and I.”

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After two long weeks, Divine had returned from one of his business trips. This one was in Italy, which made Aki happy because he was always in a better mood when he got to go to Europe. And he’d called her to his room that very first night back!

This trip had been a good one, he’d told her. She listened politely as he regaled her with the details. Although she couldn’t understand a lot of the specifics, it seemed that he’d made a lot of money. Doing what, she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t her job to know that.

He’d brought her a special treat…a bottle of something called Vin Santo, which he said was a dessert wine. He’d remembered her sweet tooth, and that she hadn’t cared for the drier wines which he preferred. It almost choked her up, how he was always thoughtful and knew her likes and dislikes as well as she did.

Their glasses clinked together in a toast, full of promise for the future…

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Divine had always preferred European cuisine to Japanese, and wanted to make sure everyone in the building followed suit. It took a little getting used to, being incredibly rich, but Aki soon learned to love it. And when he invited her to dine with him in his room, she got to have the fancy stuff, prepared by his personal French chef and Viennese pastry chef.

Tonight, they were having one of her favorites: salmon Hollandaise. Starving from a full day of training, Aki could scarcely wait for the servers to finish their work. Once the two of them were finally left alone, she cut off a big piece of fish with the side of her fork, only for Divine to clear his throat. He did that whenever she did something he didn’t like. She couldn’t imagine what that might be this time.

Her eyes flicked up to meet his, and he shook his head. “Do you really need to eat all of that, Aki?”

Although his tone was as gentle and pleasant as ever, she flushed with shame. He was right. She had been about to eat like a pig when she needed to be a lady. When she’d scraped most of the sauce off and started taking tiny bites instead, the smile returned to Divine’s face.

“That’s my good girl…”

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The hour was late. Divine had let Aki stay in his office while he finished up his work for the night, and they were slow-dancing (or, by this point, more swaying in place than anything else) to that American song he liked: the one that was named after a flower yet never mentioned flowers in the lyrics. Bummer. It was still a nice song, though. And now that he’d started teaching her English, Aki could understand some of the words for herself.

She was resting her head on his shoulder and could scarcely keep her eyes open. Still, she made a little hum of objection when the song began winding down. “Play it again.”

This was at least the tenth time she’d requested this tonight, but Divine humored her. “All right. Just this once more, Sisi. You’re practically asleep on your feet.”

He side-stepped them over the table where the old-fashioned CD player was and let go of her long enough to press the Replay button in the nick of time. One thing was for sure, Aki thought as the opening lyrics played once again. She would give up forever to touch him…

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She was quite possibly the angriest she’d been in her entire life as she exited the elevator and stormed down the hallway to Divine’s office, a small object held in one fist. When she got to the doors, piano music was coming from inside the room. She instantly recognized the tune as Pollyanna. Why such a hardened cynic would like a song about childhood optimism, she’d never know, although it was sickeningly ironic given the reason for her fury.

The doors were locked. Divine often did this when practicing his music, but today Seria didn’t give a shit. She pounded on them with all her strength, resolving to break them down herself if she had to.

“It’s Seria. Open up now,” she ordered. She was impressed with how low and scary her voice sounded. And Divine must have felt similarly, since he got up from the piano and unlocked the doors without any reprimand about how busy he was.

As soon as the doors closed behind her, Seria showed him the object she was holding…a positive pregnancy test.

“Well, I believe congratulations are in order,” Divine said lightly. “Who’s the father? I wouldn’t think it was Hiroshi, but stranger things have happened, I suppose.”

“You are,” she told him.

Seria knew what he was about to say–something along the lines of, Don’t be ridiculous, we haven’t had sex in years. She didn’t give him the chance.

“You promised me that this wouldn’t happen, Joachim.” Damnit, now she was starting to cry. “It’s the only reason I went along with all this. How could you? She’s…she’s only fifteen.”

His eyes widened; in the nearly five years Seria had known him, this was the first time she’d seen him at a loss for words. He didn’t even bother giving her the stinkeye for addressing him by his real name.

“What…how?! We had her on the shots!”

Yes, they had…except for when Aki had come down with a bad cold in the late winter. They’d decided to delay the administration of the next injection for a week to give her a chance to rest up and recover. Since Divine refused to use condoms (which was weird because he’d used them with her in the past and not had any evident problems), Seria had thought that surely he wasn’t stupid enough to take any risks during that week.

Apparently, he had been.

“Where is she now?” he asked, voice dangerously quiet.

Seria had left her in the infirmary, and said as much, realizing too late that maybe it would have been better to wait until he cooled down a bit.

He shoved her aside and stomped out of the office, as angry as Seria had been when she entered it. She could have gone after him immediately, attempted to calm him enough so he wouldn’t say anything to Aki that he might regret later…but she didn’t. Later, she wasn’t sure why.

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“You’ve put on weight,” Divine had commented, while the two of them had been discussing Aki’s training. It wasn’t like he’d said it in a mean tone of voice, but Aki was still a little offended. What did that have to do with anything?!

Divine held up his hands. “Now don’t give me that look. I’m only trying to help you. You said that you’ve felt off-balance over the last few weeks. Perhaps that’s why.”

As always, he’d been right…both that she shouldn’t have taken it personally and about the weight. That night, when Aki got back to her room, she noticed that a spare kilo or two had indeed accumulated on her abdomen, which was virtually undetectable under her clothing. Although this was disconcerting, it wasn’t too surprising. Aki had always had an enormous sweet tooth and adored the Austrian desserts with hard-to-pronounce names that made regular appearances at the dining hall…things like sachertorte and apfelstrudel and kaiserschmarrn. Lately, she’d been craving sugar so much that she often had seconds. Well, that had an easy fix, albeit an agonizing one. She would abstain from sweets, be careful about what she ate otherwise, and lace her corset tighter... both to shrink her waistline and decrease her appetite. The weight would come off in no time, she was certain.

Except that it didn’t. Two weeks of deprivation later and, if anything, she looked fatter! Although Divine hadn’t said anything further on the subject, she knew he was keeping track. The thought of him being repelled by her appearance was too much for her to bear. Thankfully, she was due for her next birth control shot soon, and resolved to bring it up then.

“Um…so…” she said while Seria prepared her injection in the infirmary. “I have a question. Could the shots be making me fat?”

Seria looked at her oddly, setting the syringe aside. “What are you talking about? You’re not fat.”

“Yes I am!” Aki insisted. With a bit of fumbling, she managed to reach behind her and unlace her corset, letting it fall onto the exam table. She encircled the disgusting lump with her hands to emphasize it. “See?”

Seria’s hand flew up to her mouth, and Aki flushed in shame. She looked so hideous that even the Arcadia Movement’s no-nonsense head medic was grossed out by it! She was expecting a lecture on diet and exercise. What Seria said next seemed like a non-sequitur.

“Aki, when was your last period?”

She tried to remember. “Two, three months ago? I wasn’t keeping track. You said they might get really light or stop altogether on the shot.” And good riddance, too. Her cycle had been almost intolerable before.

“So I did,” Seria replied, although Aki thought that she hadn’t been paying much attention. She then started asking her about some other symptoms, none of which seemed to be a big deal on their own. It was true that she’d had an intermittent upset stomach recently, to the point of throwing up once or twice. However, that had never been uncommon for her, particularly when she’d first joined the Movement. Same with the dizziness and fatigue after training, constipation, anxious bladder, skin outbreaks, crying easily…all of these were things that happened to her fairly often and were usually associated with stress. On second thought, though, it was weird that she was saying “Yes” to so many of them at the same time, when things weren’t especially stressful except for trying to lose weight.

Seria’s frown had deepened with each positive response. Then she’d had Aki pee into a cup, without telling her what it was for. She took the cup and went into a side room for several minutes. Aki wondered if she might be testing it for a UTI. She’d already had one about six months ago, after she’d been too lazy to get up and use the bathroom after sex like she knew she was supposed to. But if that was indeed what Seria was doing, why hadn’t she said so?

By the time she came back out, Aki was getting irritated about being left out of the loop.

“Hey! Stop ignoring me! Don’t you think I have a right to know what’s going on? Am I dying or something?”

Seria didn’t answer her. Instead, she stomped out of the exam room.

All Aki could do was wait. She considered giving up and leaving, but she still hadn’t gotten the shot and she wanted to find out what was happening. When she heard more heavy footsteps outside the room, she assumed that it was Seria coming back. Instead, it was Divine.

She smiled. He would help her get to the bottom of this. That was their whole thing: complete honesty with each other about everything.

“What’s going on?” she asked him. “Seria wouldn’t tell me any…” The rest of what she was going to say died in her throat when she looked more carefully at Divine’s face. It was dark with rage.

“What are you playing at?!” he demanded. Aki wasn’t sure how she should respond. He rarely got mad at her, and when he did, he never raised his voice like this.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tried, keeping her own tone quiet and nonthreatening. If anything, though, this served to provoke him further. He walked across the room so quickly that it looked like he’d leapt forward.

“DON’T YOU LIE TO ME, YOU BITCH!” he shouted. He grabbed her upper arms and squeezed hard, ignoring her cry of fear and pain. “You knew exactly what you were doing! Did you want more attention? Is that it? Was what I was already giving you not enough, hm?! ANSWER ME!”

It felt like Divine was about to snap her arm bones in two. His voice was as loud as a thunderclap right beside her ear, his face was red, and all his teeth were showing. She couldn’t bear to look at him.

This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be happening. She would have been less surprised had a meteorite crashed into the room. Her gentle, soft-spoken lover, who gave her presents and kisses and earth-shattering orgasms, turned into this? Although she knew she should be begging his forgiveness for whatever unknown thing she’d done wrong, her mind was a blank. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. She couldn’t get any sound to come out.

All that she could think was that he was angry about her continued weight gain. That didn’t make sense with the rest of what he was saying, though.

He gave her body a vigorous shake. “I’m giving you one more chance to explain yourself. If you continue to refuse to do so, then I will be leaving right away to find a doctor who will fix this…”

The door opened. Seria. “Divine-sama, what on Earth is going on?”

Aki finally found her voice. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I know you didn’t like how I was fat, but I’ve been watching what I eat and it’s still getting worse…”

And that seemed to break whatever spell Divine had been under. The furious look on his face melted into one of confusion. He let go of her and backed away. “Wait, what?”

Seria facepalmed. “She doesn’t know. I didn’t think she was serious when…I should’ve realized that.” She turned to Aki. “My apologies for the misunderstanding. Aki…how should I put this? You’re going to have a baby.”

Aki heard yet didn’t comprehend. Her? Having a baby? Like a real baby, who cried and pooped and stuff? Seria must be joking. She was pretty sure that only people who were over eighteen and married were allowed to have babies. And anyway, she was on those shots every three months, which Divine had told her made it so she couldn’t get pregnant.

But, she remembered, there had been that one week when she’d had that awful sore throat and cough. The first day that the symptoms had finally started to subside, she’d gotten super-horny after being too sick to take care of it for so long. And she’d known that nothing would be able to satisfy this urge short of having Divine inside her. When he’d dropped by her room to check on her that afternoon, she’d begged and pleaded with him until he’d acquiesced. She’d felt much better after, in more ways than one, and Divine had worn a surgical mask so he wouldn’t get sick, so it hadn’t seemed like a big deal. She’d gotten her delayed shot the very next day.

No wonder he was angry at her; it had all been her fault. He must have also thought she’d decided to have a baby without telling him about it, and gotten pregnant on purpose. But she hadn’t.

“Just so we’re all on the same page…” Seria went on. “Am I correct when I think that your mother never spoke with you about these things, Aki? Not about babies, or periods, or sex, or…anything like that?”

Aki nodded, although she had no idea why that was relevant. She’d learned the important facts in school: babies were made when two people had sex and an egg and a sperm got together. And of course, Divine always answered any questions she had and patiently talked her through how to give pleasure…as well as receive it. Wasn’t that enough?

“…Right,” Divine sighed. He turned to face the wall and took several deep breaths. When he turned back and looked at Aki again, the familiar fond smile was back on his face.

He squeezed in next to her on the table. “Please, forgive me. I was caught by surprise, that’s all. Anyway…how far along is she, Seria?”

“About 14 or 15 weeks out from LMP, I’d guess,” Seria stated. “It’s still early enough that termination is an option.”

“Well, let’s not be hasty. Aki, what do you think? Should we continue the pregnancy or not?”

Aki didn’t want to think; he’d promised her that she’d never have to do that again! She wished that she could go to Daimon Area and forget everything that had happened in the past half hour; that, or go to bed and fall asleep until everything was back to normal.

“I want to have your baby,” she finally murmured. This was what she was thinking, albeit one of many, sometimes contradictory, thoughts that were all clamoring for her attention at the same time. However, she assumed that this would be what he’d like to hear her say, since he wasn’t mad about it anymore.

“And there we have it.” Divine gave her bump a pat and wrapped his other arm around her body, although that hurt Aki because of the bruises forming on her arms where he’d gripped them.

“The Director won’t like this,” Seria commented.

Divine retorted, “The Director doesn’t need to know.” Then, “Could the last shot have hurt the baby?”

Seria assured him, “It shouldn’t.”

Aki noted that neither of them brought up that she drank a glass or two of wine whenever she had dinner in Divine’s room. She knew that that could hurt the baby as well, but if they weren’t going to mention it, she’d keep her mouth shut.

While she was still stuck on the whole “having a baby” thing, Divine was thinking ahead as usual.

“All right. Here’s the plan. Aki, you will need to stay inside until the baby comes. That’s for, what, the next six months or so? We’ll try to have your checkups in here too. You will get plenty of rest and be assigned to light training only. No more worrying. And no more desserts, either. You’re at increased risk for developing diabetes.”

All of this sounded very boring to Aki. She rose from her seat and said, “I’m going out.” Surely she’d still have today to clear her mind. It wasn’t like she’d show under her robes yet.

“No you’re not,” Divine told her. “The plan is effective immediately.”

So she sat back down, this time on his lap. She buried her face in the curve of his neck, breathing in the lingering scent of his aftershave. Although she feared that new side of him she’d seen, she still craved his touch.

“There…” he whispered. “That’s my sweet and clever girl, carrying my child. No, don’t start crying. You don’t need to be nervous, or afraid. Just relax, and I’ll handle things for you. I’ve always done that before, haven’t I?”

Aki paid partial attention as the adults continued to discuss adult things such as trust funds and getting bloodwork done and when to break the news to everyone else in the building. She was fatigued from the excitement, and finally did start to relax from Divine’s soft rubbing of her back.

Maybe he had a point about the resting. She drifted off to sleep, letting them take care of everything just as Divine had told her to.

It wasn’t like she had a choice.

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

“Divine? Can I ask you a question?”

She felt a little puff of air on her neck as he chuckled. “Technically, you already did. But what is it?”

“What’s Sisi?” She’d heard him call her that many times, although she’d never been able to work up the courage to ask him before. Tonight, they’d just had sex and were both relaxed and spooning in bed. Divine had a hand on her belly and had been able to feel their unborn child kicking for the first time. He was obviously in a good mood, so she’d decided to chance it.

“Not a what. A who,” he informed her. “Sisi was a Kaiserin–or empress–of Austria.”

“The same country where you were born,” Aki recalled.

“Exactly. She was the most beautiful woman in Europe, intelligent, a highly skilled horsewoman, always on the cutting edge of fashion…and extremely unhappy.”

Aki had liked where this little story was going until that last part. “Why was she unhappy?”

“Well..”–he paused to think and she took the opportunity to slip down further into his embrace–“There were many reasons. Her upbringing was rather provincial and she never liked life in the Hofburg…that’s the big palace in Vienna. She had an overbearing mother-in-law. Two of her four children predeceased her. What I think is that, most of all, it was because no one understood her.”

She spun around to face him. “And I remind you of her?”

“No, my sweet girl.” He cupped her face in one large hand and tilted it upward, giving her a quick peck on the lips. “She reminds me of you.”

Aki couldn’t quite puzzle out what the difference was, although she contented herself with the knowledge that, unlike this Kaiserin, she had exactly one person who understood her…

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After fifteen minutes of trying to force her aching feet into her favorite chunky red heels, Aki gave up and kicked the shoes across the rug with a snarl. She was sick of…of all of this! The swelling, and her acne-ridden skin, and barely being able to go half an hour without rushing to the bathroom, and the ridiculous waddling and everything. She couldn’t use her typical strategy of going outside to let off some steam; trips to Daimon Area were strictly forbidden in her condition. Or, as Divine would like to say, verboten.

He was no help either, because he spent all his time in his office. Tomorrow, on Halloween no less, he would be leaving on like his ten millionth business trip this year–this one to Thailand. What was more, he hadn’t asked her to spend the night with him in weeks…not even on his birthday two days ago.

She glanced at the full-length mirror on her door, which was a mistake. There was the reason he was ignoring her. Those pictures she’d seen online of radiant expecting mothers cradling their tummy bumps looked nothing like her reality. On her slight frame, the effect was almost comical, like some kid playing at being pregnant by shoving a large balloon under their shirt. And honestly, that wasn’t too far from the truth.

She bent down to try to get one of her shoes to throw against the mirror; of course, she couldn’t reach it. Instead, she punched the glass, satisfied when a network of cracks appeared yet a little disappointed that she hadn’t cut herself.

That was it. Her back was killing her, and everyone had been urging her to rest, so she would do just that. She’d change from these icky maternity clothes back into her pajamas and spend the whole day in bed, having breakfast and lunch brought up, and no one could do anything about it! And when she’d eventually have to venture out for dinner, she’d wear her slippers into the dining hall whether Divine liked it or not.

She’d like to see him try to be pregnant and do any better…even though she knew she shouldn’t be having such nasty thoughts about her savior…

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No no no. This was all wrong! This couldn’t happen now. Divine wouldn’t be due back from his overseas business trip for another two days, and he’d said he was going to be there with her. She wouldn’t be able to do it if he wasn’t!

The contractions had begun about half an hour before lights-out on this rainy night. She’d lain in her bed completely still, legs clamped shut, the howling wind outside her window her sole companion. The hope had been that if she ignored the pain, it’d prove to be a false alarm like the book Divine had gotten her mentioned. However, it hadn’t stopped; it had only gotten worse. And then, while she’d been forced to get up and walk to the bathroom, the pain had become too much for to bear quietly any longer.

Okita, who had been on guard duty, had heard her and knocked on her bedroom door, asking if she was all right. When she hadn’t answered, he’d gotten Hiroshi, who in turn had unlocked the door with his master key, taken one look at her lying on the floor, and gotten Seria. They’d rushed her to the infirmary in a wheelchair. And now here she was in this empty room; the other overnight occupants had been kicked out to give her some semblance of privacy. Everything was too white and too clean, and all the machines scared her.

Aki wasn’t letting them touch her; not after Seria had said she was going to do a “cervix check,” which Aki hadn’t known involved painfully inserting two fingers deep into her. She made sure that no one else could approach her. Not when Hiroshi had told her that the doctor needed to ask some questions. Not even when someone else said that they had something that would help with the pain. When anyone got within a meter or so, she didn’t care who it was…she lashed out without looking.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d stayed in this curled position, shield surrounding her. Things were getting to the point where she knew that she couldn’t maintain it forever. This was going a lot faster than the book had led her to believe, with next to no space between contractions. With growing embarrassment, she realized that she’d been so scared that she’d peed herself. Or had that been her water breaking? There was something moving down lower and lower inside her, and she didn’t want it to…not yet…

Then, hurried footsteps outside. The door being flung open. And a stern voice saying, “Aki. Calm yourself.”

It was him! She instantly let her shield fall. There, standing in the doorway, was the man she loved, the father of her child.

“You’re here,” she breathed.

“Of course I am, Sisi,” he replied. He looked like he’d just jumped into a swimming pool fully-clothed. His face, which had been lined with tension, relaxed into a soft smile. In an instant, he was at the bedside, taking her hand in his. “You didn’t think I was going to make you go through this alone, did you? I dropped everything and rushed home as soon as I heard. Now, if you’ll scoot over a little bit, I can…”

There wasn’t enough space for her to move far, but he managed to get up on the bed and lie balanced on the edge of it anyway. Spooning her, he enfolded her into his arms as she was hit with a strong contraction, planting kisses on the top of her head and whispering to her about how brave she was.

And…the amazing thing was that she began to feel brave. He always knew exactly what to say. Although he had initially felt cold because of the water, his body heat quickly warmed things up. In this all-too-brief lull, she melted into his embrace. Even the strong smell of wet wool from his camelhair coat, which she would normally consider unpleasant, soothed her.

Although she knew the real trial was still to come, everything would be okay now that Divine was with her…

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As soon as Divine switched his phone off airplane mode, he had been bombarded by dozens of texts and missed calls. He ignored them, shoving the phone in his coat pocket so the noise wouldn’t continue to bother him. Surely, he thought, whatever it was could wait.

All he wanted to do was get home and go to sleep. This latest trip had been to Bangkok, and he loathed that city. He looked forward to the day where he’d be high enough up in the global hierarchy that he could set the places where the meetings were held.

At least the next one was going to be in Paris, a much more agreeable destination for him. And at least he’d made a couple of good sales. In fact, business had gone so smoothly that he’d been able to leave a little ahead of schedule. But his jet’s landing had been delayed by the remnants of a late-season typhoon that were currently drenching Neo Domino. Now it was past four in the morning. He was so exhausted during the car ride home, lulled by the pounding of raindrops on the windows, that he caught himself nodding off more than once. (Good thing that he had a driver.)

Alas, his long-awaited rest was not to be. As the car drove past the main entrance on the way to the underground garage, Divine saw that Hiroshi was standing there waiting for him. His lieutenant, the only person whom Divine had informed of his early return, knew that he liked his peace and quiet after getting back from these grueling trips. This was doubly true given the terrible weather and obscenely late/early hour. Therefore, he would not be doing this unless there was a matter that required Divine’s immediate attention.

“Let me off here,” he sighed. Not bothering to open an umbrella, he strode up the steps and grumbled at Hiroshi, “This had better be good.”

“It’s Subject Zero,” Hiroshi told him. “She’s in labor.”

Shit. This was early, wasn’t it? Two weeks, maybe even closer to three. He had kept his schedule clear of further trips until a week after the due date in an attempt to avoid this exact scenario.

The glass doors practically blew themselves open in the howling wind, and they hurried inside.

“Well, first labors take a while, don’t they?” Divine reasoned aloud. If he could go upstairs and get a few of hours of rest in before they really needed him…

His hopes were crushed as Hiroshi shook his head. “Usually they do. But not in this case. She’s in active labor, possibly in transition. We don’t know for sure because she’s not letting anyone near her. You’ll see when we get there. She already hit me once.” He turned to show Divine the torn sleeve and bloody welt on his upper arm. “Got Seria smack in the middle of her face, too. She had to go back to her room and heal.”

Divine knew that Hiroshi was not speaking about Aki striking people with her fists. That girl was going to test every last ounce of his patience this morning, wasn’t she? If Seria had abandoned ship, it must be bad. Part of him entertained the idea of skipping the whole thing and letting the medical staff handle it. Then, after it was over, he’d pretend he’d just gotten back, and Aki would be none the wiser. However, a promise was a promise, especially when made to this girl. Mind thus made up, he set off in the direction of the infirmary at a brisk pace. Hiroshi had to jog a little to keep up with him. Both of them had been drenched in the short amount of time they’d spent in the rain and left a trail of water droplets on the floor behind them.

“Tell me what happened,” he commanded as the two of them got in the elevator.

Hiroshi’s report was as thorough as usual. He had found Aki on the floor of her room a little after midnight, writhing in pain, he’d said. She either could not or would not tell them how long she’d been in labor before then. As she had already been five or six centimeters dilated when they’d found her, though, they could surmise that it had been a while. The uncertainty on the exact dilation was because Aki had, in medical parlance, “tolerated the exam poorly.” That was when Seria had gotten a face full of Rose Tentacles for her troubles.

This was the first baby to be born into the Arcadia Movement, and they were playing everything by ear. Seria had said that she wasn’t comfortable performing a C-section if it was indicated, so they’d had to locate an obstetrician from an outside hospital. Hiroshi, always efficient, had found one within an hour; even a female obstetrician to help Aki feel more comfortable. As had been previously discussed, they had procured the equipment needed for their in-house anesthesia team to do an epidural block, which they hadn’t been certain they’d be able to find since these weren’t often done electively in Japan. And all of that hard work had been for nothing since the patient refused to cooperate.

The hallway leading to the infirmary was crowded with Arcadia members. Hiroshi had said that he’d given everyone over age twelve special permission to leave their rooms after curfew tonight, on the condition that they stayed in this area. Some were praying at a hastily set-up kamidana. Others were reading or whispering amongst themselves. All had an intent ear turned towards the muffled cries of agony coming from behind the door.

“Move,” Divine ordered tersely. With murmurs of “Divine-sama,” they cleared the way. Hiroshi opted to stay behind with the rest of them. Divine noted that this master of composure looked almost as if he wanted to throw up. It was odd that he’d be squeamish about this when he’d witnessed deaths before. Was the mere thought of seeing a vagina that repulsive to him?

When Divine opened the door, though, his musings about Hiroshi’s preferences were wiped from his mind. He gazed upon the large egg-shaped arrangement of thorny vines resting near the head of the bed. They were positioned in such a way that one could easily unfold and be used as a whip…as Hiroshi and Seria had found out the hard way. The thorns were already tearing holes in the sheets.

Divine was surprised to note that, while Aki’s deck was sitting on the night table, it was still tucked away into its holder and there was no sign of her duel disk. Interesting. Before he could think more about the many implications of that, though, he’d have to bring this little standoff to an end.

“Aki. Calm yourself,” he said. That had come out a bit more harshly than he had intended, but it did the trick. The vines receded, revealing the nightgown-clad girl in their midst.

She looked pathetic, Divine thought. Skin pale and covered in a sheen of sweat, hair a frizzy and damp mess, eyes wide as they met his, shaking like that demented Chihuahua his mother had owned …was this truly Izayoi Aki, the Black Rose Witch, Scourge of Daimon Area?

However, he did not let any of his true feelings show. He told her what he knew she wanted to hear, hoping that in her distracted state she would never realize that there was no way he could have been aware that she was in labor before he got on the plane. A few words of encouragement and some physical contact…this was all that was ever needed to bring this affection-starved girl out of one of her episodes.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“M-hm.”

“Good. Now how about letting this doctor…what is your name?”

“Ichikawa,” the middle-aged and bespectacled woman answered. She was already gowned, gloved, and masked up. Although she looked tired and there was fear in her eyes, she kept her head remarkably well for a person who had been kidnapped at knifepoint and forced into a car a few hours prior. It seemed Hiroshi had found someone who was much like himself in personality…which was exactly what they needed when dealing with someone as emotional as Aki.

“Thank you. Let’s allow Dr. Ichikawa to examine you, all right?” Divine made a move to get up from this uncomfortable position and sit in a chair instead. Aki whined in protest.

It appeared that he’d have no choice other than to hold her through the entire ordeal. And, he realized, the only way that was feasible was if he sat at the head of the bed, behind her. After some tricky maneuvering due to the small amount of room and his long legs, he managed to wedge himself in there. He also grabbed a couple of towels from the side table to put on his lap. Having done his research, he was aware that this process would result in a lot of blood at the very least…and possibly other bodily substances as well.

She is really making me work for this, isn’t she?

Dr. Ichikawa had some good news for them.

“You are at least nine centimeters dilated–probably closer to nine and a half–and 100 percent effaced,” she said to Aki. “Progressing quickly for a first-timer, especially considering…well. At any rate, you should be ready to push soon.”

A quick glance at his smartphone informed Divine that it was a quarter to five. If this was over within the next hour, he thought, maybe he could get some decent sleep in and still aim to wake up before noon. Then he and Hiroshi could go over the profit margins after the recent sales at around one, leaving him the whole afternoon to start getting caught up on paperwork and phone calls before dinner. Of course, sometime today he also had to visit two of his young charges and tell them to pack up their things for their journey to a new home tomorrow…

His train of thought was halted by Aki emitting an unearthly sound somewhere between a growl and a screech. At the same time, the lights flickered. Because of the storm, or something else?

“Ssh. It’s okay. We’re all okay,” he told her. Then, to the doctor, “I heard mention of an epidural; can we do that now?”

The doctor shook her head. “There wouldn’t be enough time for it to fully take effect.”

Always making things more difficult for yourself, Aki. Had she allowed this to be performed earlier, she would likely be in little to no pain. Perhaps this had a silver lining…for him, at least. He’d brought her to what he had thought were her limits before. If it turned out that her potential was even greater in an extreme situation such as this, well, it’d be foolish of him to not take advantage of this, wouldn’t it?

Another contraction. More screaming. When Divine laid a hand on Aki’s belly, he could feel the muscles clenching hard as iron. He found this to be strangely exhilarating.

“I need to push now,” Aki gasped out.

“We just checked you a few minutes ago,” Dr. Ichikawa argued. “I don’t think you’re ready yet. If you start too soon, you might injure your cervix.”

Aki’s head snapped towards the older woman; although Divine didn’t have a clear view of her eyes in this position, he could imagine the fire in them.

“I DON’T CARE! I NEED. TO PUSH. NOW!” she bellowed. That was more like the Aki he knew.

“You heard her,” was all he added.

Dr. Ichikawa blinked and took half a step back, due to both the bizarreness of this situation she’d been dropped into and not being accustomed to her patients talking back like that. However, she quickly regained her bearings and checked again, saying something about an “anterior lip” and the possibility of working around it. By this point, Aki was so far-gone that Divine doubted she cared about the invasive exams anymore.

In the end, she got her way and the pushing stage commenced. Throughout the whole process, he held her snugly in the crook of one arm, the way she preferred, making his free hand available for her to grasp when needed. He kissed her and whispered the things he was supposed to, like You’re doing great and Almost there and I’m so proud of you. The majority of his attention, though, was focused on the lights. He was able to determine that the flickering lined up perfectly with her contractions...or, more specifically, whenever she bore down. Initially, these outages lasted mere fractions of a second. As time went on, they were sustained for a full second, then multiple seconds, then close to a minute…

Banging on the door. “Sir! The energy readings are off the chart!”

“Yes. I know,” Divine answered. “But we’re a little busy at the moment.” Aki punctuated his reply with a perfectly-timed primal roar.

However, this person (was he really expected to be able to identify everyone who worked here by voice alone?) remained persistent.

”Divine-sama, if Director Godwin calls, what should we tell him?”

“You think of something,” he ordered, although what he wanted to say was, “Tell him to go fuck himself.” He wasn’t sure whether the guy sensed that line of thought or was simply freaked out, but he didn’t bother them again.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ichikawa kept telling Aki not to scream, that it was counterproductive, to breathe through it instead. However, her admonishments were of no avail. It was getting close now, and whatever relief this process may have offered Aki at the outset was likely wearing off.

“Oh, let her do what she wants,” Divine sighed after several of these reprimands. With this barrage of loud noise close to his ears, there was little danger of him falling asleep. And looking at her progressively reddening face and the cords standing out on her neck, not to mention contemplating the excruciating pain she had to be in, continued to fascinate him.

After a long half hour of this, the doctor announced, “All right. We’re crowning. Little pushes, please; we don’t want tearing.”

Aki began to cry. “It hurts! I can’t do it!”

Divine knew he should be joining the doctor in telling her that of course she could do it, that she was stronger than she thought, et cetera. However, he had to focus his attention on finding the perfect opportunity for his little experiment. At the very next contraction, he got it.

Everything reached a crescendo. As the head was delivered, Aki let out a noise that Divine wouldn’t have previously thought a human capable of making. The lights in the room went off and stayed off. In addition, the light fixtures shattered, sending glass raining down onto the floor. Tables crashed against walls and medical instruments flew everywhere. The room was plunged into darkness, there were confused cries verging on panic from the hallway spectators, and Divine felt a wave of pure psychic power that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It was beautiful.

Working quickly, he put up a shield so none of the three of them would get hit, then whispered a single word into her ear… the first one he could think of that seemed appropriate for the situation. And then, the moment was over. Aki used the last of her strength to bring their son into the world in a rush of fluid.

Silence. Divine could see the child making the motions of breathing, but knew that wouldn’t sustain him for long. The indomitable Dr. Ichikawa, whom he hadn’t bothered shielding, sprang into action. Although she was bleeding profusely from a scalp wound, she took no time to attend to it. Drops of blood mingled with her hair and mask. A few ran all the way down onto the bedding, although she managed to keep any of it from falling on either of her patients. She cleared the baby’s nose and mouth with a suction bulb and rubbed his body with a towel. For the briefest of instants, Divine wondered if he’d gone too far…and then, the baby let out an irritated little wail.

At that moment, he came dangerously close to feeling actual emotion.

It was okay. They could relax. The child was going to be all right, the backup generator had just turned on, and Aki, who had been slumped over in a dead faint in Divine’s arms, started stirring.

“What happened…?” she muttered sleepily.

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

An entire, goop-encrusted, teeny-tiny human lay screaming on Aki’s chest, and she wasn’t certain how it had gotten there. The last thing she could remember was yelling at the doctor and that all-consuming urge. Next thing she knew, there was a huge spattering of blood on the bed (certainly that couldn’t all be hers?) and the whole room was a mess.

“Divine? What happened?” she repeated. She’d lost most of her voice.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing,” he told her. “It’s all over, and you did splendidly.” He tilted her chin up with his finger, and her eyes met shimmering green ones.

“It’s a boy, right?” she went on. She knew that Divine had wanted a son; he’d been so excited when the ultrasound had revealed that she was carrying one.

He gave her that smile that made her heart melt whenever she saw it. “He is indeed.” Leaning down a bit, he kissed her gently on the mouth. “You are such an adorable little thing, do you know that?”

Aki felt like she would have burst out into song if she’d had the energy left for it. Here she lay, safe in her lover’s arms, with the knowledge that she’d done everything right and made him happy. Divine had given her the world, and now she had started to pay it back. Her pregnancy had been unplanned, and had taken its toll on her both physically and emotionally. Despite this, she thought, her suffering had been worth it.

She looked back down at the baby. While he was still small and wrinkly and almost alien-looking, her joy was compounded when he opened his eyes and she saw that they were just like Divine’s. (Wasn’t there a song somewhere that had a line to that effect? Or was she completely delirious and imagining it?)

Dr. Ichikawa, who was pressing a cloth against her forehead with one hand and holding a stethoscope on the baby’s chest with the other, said, “Well done, Aki. He’s breathing beautifully and moving all his limbs. It’s time to cut the cord.”

“…Right,” Divine answered. Aki felt a twinge of disappointment as he set her back down on the pillows and got off the bed. “The people outside will be waiting for news.”

Once the cord had been clamped and cut (Divine did this himself), and the baby weighed, measured, and swaddled, the proud father took the child in his arms and left the room to show him off. Aki heard him announce, “A healthy boy!” as well as the wild cheering that followed.

They’d cared about what would happen to her. They loved her.

She continued to listen. Divine said, evidently in response to a query, “No, there’s no reason for alarm. We had a power surge, that’s all. Maintenance is looking into it already. Everything went quickly and smoothly otherwise.”

However, “everything” wasn’t done happening quite yet for Aki. While everyone else was celebrating out there, she had to deal with the afterbirth coming out (ouch), and using a bedpan. (Double ouch.) The doctor told her that she’d been fortunate to not sustain any tearing that required stitches. Really? Could’ve fooled her with how much it smarted.

She saw Dr. Ichikawa staring at her as she helped her back into bed, and snapped, “What?”

“I’d heard of you. I never thought you’d be so…” She reconsidered. “No, forget I said that. I know it must feel to you like no one in the city is on your side, but…as soon as you can, leave and get help. Please. Go to the hospital, or Security. There are people there who will be happy to assist you.”

“I’m not leaving!” Aki said instantly. She’d wanted to keep her voice calm and cold, as befitted the Black Rose Witch; instead, it came out hoarse and almost hysterical. “Why would I ever want to do that?! This is my home, and I love it, and I love Divine. You’re judging him when you haven’t properly met him. Maybe you shouldn’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong!”

The noise outside dropped briefly–she wondered if they’d heard her–but everyone picked up where they’d left off within seconds.

“Just think about it?” Dr. Ichikawa urged.

“Okay,” Aki mumbled, albeit only to get her to shut up.

Despite her ringing defense of Divine, he was gone for what seemed like a very long time, and the euphoria started to wear off. She was exhausted, bleeding heavily, sore all over her body, and felt irritated that he wasn’t here with her. This creature hadn’t been out of her body for half an hour yet, and she was already starting to resent it.

She was immediately ashamed of herself. That was such a horrible thing to think! Divine was probably making sure that everyone could get a good look. All she’d have to do was be patient, and he’d be back.

And he was, but his attention was still focused on the baby. He had the doctor take pictures of the two of them, and then he handed the bundle back to Aki and pointed his smartphone at her, telling her to smile. She tried her best.

“His name will be Adam,” he told her a short while later, as Aki was attempting a first feeding. “Fitting, wouldn’t you agree?”

She was ashamed to admit that she didn’t entirely know what he was talking about. Some sort of Christian thing, right? However, she smiled and nodded anyway. Adam finally latched on, and even that hurt a bit.

After dismissing Dr. Ichikawa from the room, Divine put one hand on her shoulder and the other on the head of the bed and watched intently. Aki saw his throat working before he spoke. “I’m granting you increased privileges. From now on, you’ll be attending board meetings with me. You’ll have your own smartphone. You may give orders to virtually anyone in the building, and I will ensure that they treat you with the respect that’s due. I’ll also be moving you into my rooms. We will be together every night now…as long as I don’t have to work late or go on a business trip. And I’m inclined to take you along with me on my next one of those as well. Paris, just in time for Christmas...our anniversary. Doesn’t that sound nice?”

It did. She loved listening to his stories about Europe. He’d made it sound almost like a fantasy fairyland, and she’d always thought about what it’d be like to see it for herself. Nevertheless, the thought of them being able to eat dinner together every night instead of her having to endure the crowded dining hall, of Divine being an arm’s reach away whenever she had nightmares, of them cuddling and “doing it” whenever they wanted…that had been her greatest wish of all, now granted. Her heart swelled with love. Double shame on her for ever being mad at him.

“Hold on a minute,” he said. “I’m going to get you something.” He disappeared into the infirmary bathroom and returned in a moment with a tall glass of water.

“I need you to drink all of this, okay? You had a big workout and we don’t want you getting dehydrated.”

She took it from him. When the cool liquid touched her lips, she realized how thirsty she’d been. Her throat was raw from the screaming, too, and the water felt like heaven against it. She easily drained the glass as instructed.

“There,” Divine said, looking pleased as he took the empty glass back. “We’ll have to see about getting you something to eat, too, when you feel up to it. Something with a lot of protein. Chicken soup, perhaps. And maybe some dessert for a job well done, hm?”

Aki nodded again, relieved that the possibility of developing gestational diabetes (of which he had constantly reminded her) was no longer hanging over her head. Wait…why was she tired all of a sudden? She could barely keep her eyes open.

“I have to go to sleep,” she informed Divine.

He nodded. “Of course. It’s to be expected. Get some rest.”

The last thing she was aware of was Divine taking Adam from her and whispering, “Good night, Sisi.”

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

When she woke up, she was in a fresh bed and wearing clean pajamas. Seria was sitting at the bedside.

“Good morning!” she chirped, as if half-scabbed over wounds from Aki’s thorns weren’t littering her face. “Or I think it might be getting on afternoon now.”

Aki groaned. Somehow, she hurt more now than immediately after the birth, and the huge pad she had to wear was itching like crazy. She’d scared Seria, hadn’t she? The older woman hadn’t been in the room for the delivery. Does she think I’m a monster now, too?

Seria was going on about how her soup was waiting for her in the kitchen and she’d send someone to get it. Aki wasn’t paying much attention. As her vision cleared, she saw that there wasn’t anyone other than the two of them in the room. No Dr. Ichikawa. No Divine. And no Adam.

“Where’s my baby?!” she cried, flailing under the covers as she attempted to sit up.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry,” Seria said. “He’s doing great. He’s with his caretakers now; they’re getting him set up in his own room…”

She was trying to sound nonchalant. Aki saw right through it. “I want my baby!”

Yes, she knew she sounded a bit like a child herself, but…she was Adam’s mother! He must be starving by now; she’d have to feed him again soon…

And, just like that, Seria’s thin veneer of pleasantry cracked. She rolled her eyes and punched in a number on her cell phone. “Hiroshi? Yeah, it’s me. We’re having a scene in the infirmary. Could you…?” She paused. “Yes, I know he won’t be happy. Just get him down here.”

This only served to make Aki angrier. Those two always talked about her like she wasn’t in the room. But if Divine was coming back here, maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. He would sort this out, right?

Ten minutes later, he did appear at the door, carrying the covered tray of food himself…and without Adam. His hair, normally perfectly styled, was rumpled, as if he too had just woken up.

“Room service,” he announced with a wry little smile, proffering the tray. When she made no move to take it, though, he started to look annoyed like Seria had.

“Yes? What’s the problem?”

“They took Adam away,” she told him, trying to keep her voice level and mature-sounding this time. “I need to take care of him.”

Divine ordered Seria to leave. Once she was out of the room, he set the tray down on the table and grabbed Aki’s hand.

“There seems to have been a misunderstanding. Oh, Aki, did you honestly think I was going to put that responsibility on your shoulders? Caring for a baby is hard work and a full-time job. If you did that, you’d be changing diapers and breastfeeding around the clock, you’d get barely any sleep, and you wouldn’t be able to go to Daimon Area whenever you wanted. Let me worry about that too, okay? You should concentrate on healing and resuming your normal life…like this never happened.”

It made sense, the same as always. So why did she still feel this sad? A tear rolled down her cheek before she could stop it.

“Now, no more of this,” Divine said as he wiped the tear off with one finger. “It’s only hormones; we’ve discussed this many times before. Everything is fine. There are millions of new mothers in this world who would give anything to be in your position. We’ll set up a visit later, and Seria will show you how to use a pump if you want to help with feeding. But first, you need to eat. And then you have some fanmail to open.”

“…Fanmail?” She was lost.

“Indeed. The children got the day off from school and were provided with supplies to make cards for you if they wished. Most of them chose to do so; they found the report of your courage to be inspiring. Surely, they are hoping that you will look at their efforts as soon as possible.”

Aki got the hint and obediently took the tray. When she lifted the lid, a cloud of steam from the soup hit her face. The tray also contained a small wedge of sachertorte, as promised.

He stayed in the room and watched until she’d eaten most of the bowl of soup. It smelled wonderful and had been prepared the way she liked it–with turmeric and fresh ginger–but she scarcely noticed.

Had hormones truly made this knot in her stomach and hole in her heart?

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

How rude of him to keep their guest waiting like that. His entire day had been filled with getting the baby’s care set up, making repeated trips to the infirmary to deal with Aki’s whining, and trying to cram in the dreaded paperwork edgewise. He’d been so busy that he’d forgotten all about Dr. Ichikawa until it was night again. This needed to be remedied immediately.

Divine reminded himself to smile as he opened the door to the holding chamber, where the doctor was sitting on the bed. He noted with some amusement that someone had cleaned and dressed the doctor’s scalp laceration.

“Hello, Ichikawa-sensei,” he said. “I have some good news for you: you get to go home now. Please follow us down to the garage. A car will be waiting there.”

Dr. Ichikawa smiled back, relieved. “Thank you.”

They took the elevator down as he’d said; little did the doctor know that they were not going to the garage. Instead, their destination was a tiny windowless room, empty except for one chair.

The doctor caught on right away, before the guards grabbed her arms. “Wha…no, please! No! I won’t tell anyone anything! I promise!”

Oh, now she lost her composure? She should have known that her fate had been sealed after her attempts to get Aki to run away, which Divine had half-heard from the hallway. Not that he had ever planned to let her live before that. No matter what she might say to the contrary, he was aware that doctors were required by law to report that sort of thing.

Kidnapping her had been a waste, he thought, since there had been no need for surgery after all.

As entertaining as it was to hear people plead for their lives, though, it did get tiring after the first few seconds. Divine gestured to the guards, who had this down to a science by now. They dragged the sobbing woman into the room, forced her to sit on the chair, and bound her hands. She’d already given up the fight, as if some part of her had known all along that this was how it was going to end.

The door slammed shut behind them with a hiss of pneumatics. One of the guards brought out his gun and pressed it to the doctor’s head. Divine held out a finger.

“One moment, please.”

Squatting down to Dr. Ichikawa’s eye level, he told her, “Thank you for your service.” Then, to the guard with the gun, “You may fire when ready.”

He chose not to rise back to a standing position yet. After all, his was the part he always liked the most: seeing first the hope and then the life drain out of his victim’s eyes.

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

Her newly raised status as the mother of Divine’s child meant that she was expected to attend strategy meetings. This had sounded super-exciting and like a huge treat when he had first mentioned it to her. However, the harsh reality was that they were often tedious to get through. They’d sit at this table–she was always on Divine’s left and Hiroshi was always on his right–and everyone else would talk about boring financial stuff while she put all her effort into staying awake. And it didn’t seem to her like they particularly wanted her to pay attention, either. Sometimes someone would ask her a question, but these were always easy for her to answer…stuff like how her training was going or how many people turned out to watch her in Daimon Area. Otherwise, she was not to speak unless spoken to.

Today’s session, though, had proven more interesting than usual. They were talking about how to attract more children to the Movement as they moved ever closer to going public. Everyone else in the room were grown-ups–aside from her, the youngest was Hiroshi and he’d recently turned twenty-six–so she thought she had a better idea of what kids liked than they did. Nevertheless, no one asked her opinion, to her immense disappointment.

She managed to hold in her words until everyone had said goodbye to everyone else about fifty times and Divine was on his way back to his office. He’d been so busy looking at his phone that he hadn’t noticed Aki was following him until they got on the elevator.

“Yes?” he asked, a little sharply. Maybe he didn’t like these meetings either. Or at least Aki hoped that this was the case and that he wasn’t annoyed at her.

“I thought of some stuff during the meeting,” she said. Her ideas came tumbling out. She launched into a breathless list of concepts, about cartoons and fashion and stuffed animals, continuing to talk all the way up to the top floor and then as she followed him down the hall to his office. It was only when they arrived at the heavy wooden double doors that Divine turned around and signaled for her to stop talking.

“That’s enough. I have a headache and I need quiet,” he snapped. Aki’s spirits took a prompt nosedive.

“I’m sorry,” she replied, trying to keep as quiet as she could and still be audible. “It was a stupid idea.” She now saw what had appeared brilliant in her head as hopelessly juvenile.

Her eyes stung, and the irritated frown on Divine’s face softened a bit.

“Thank you for trying to help,” he said. “But you remember what I said about thinking, right?”

Aki scuffed her foot on the floor as she answered, “To let you do it for me.”

“Exactly.” He rewarded her with a pat on her head. “Now go be a good girl and get some aspirin from Seria. On second thought…make it Ibuprofen.”

And that was going to be the last she saw of him for today, wasn’t it? They shared a bedroom, but Aki still had to pass her nights alone more often than not…

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

Divine liked to joke that Aki could sleep through a tornado. Nevertheless, the combination of red light, high-pitched whining sound, and stinging sensation on her forearm was enough to awaken even her. She was somewhat surprised to see her partner had joined her in bed tonight; he’d still been working when she’d turned the lights out, so he must have slipped in later. As usual, he had fallen asleep mostly dressed.

He stirred and made a sleepy noise of inquiry. She ignored him. As if pulled by a magnet, she got out of bed and headed for their room’s balcony.

Since that weird vision, or acid trip, or whatever that had been two weeks ago, she’d been thinking. If it was to be believed, then she was one of the chosen few who could stop some unspecified cataclysmic event from happening. That mark had never meant anything good to her previously. In fact, at one point when she’d been around twelve, she’d gotten so frustrated with it that she’d tried to cut that patch of skin off her arm. That had caused her to bleed everywhere and had sent her to the ER; it had not, however, gotten rid of it. But what if there was a reason it was that persistent other than torturing her?

Yusei, the subject of many a disconcerting dream for her over the past two weeks, was in danger. She knew this as surely as if she were seeing it with her own eyes, although she wasn’t certain how. And she did see something off in the distance. It was some sort of image, up in the sky over where Satellite would be. Her viewing angle was not optimal, although she thought she saw what looked like a head at one end and a stylized foot at the other. Was that supposed to be a person…?

She heard footsteps, felt warmth behind her and the familiar hands on her shoulders. “Aki. What is it?”

Any other night, she would have leapt at the chance for his undivided attention. Now, though, she had the strange thought that she would rather be left alone.

“There’s a big man in the sky,” she informed him in a deadpan, pointing. She could practically hear one of Divine’s patented eyebrow raises.

“A big man in the…oh. Yes, I see it. Well, that’s nothing that you need concern yourself over.” He lowered his voice, whispering in her ear. “How about we go back to bed?”

At any other time, that would have been exactly what she wanted to hear. She knew that he wasn’t talking about sleeping. Whatever lingering doubts she may have had about his intentions were vanquished when he wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed her body flush against his.

“I’m not concerned,” she retorted automatically. To prove it, she whirled around, gave him her sweetest smile, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

Aki allowed him to take her hand and lead her back into the room. They were going to have sex, and she was sure that it would be pleasurable for them both like always. This was their first time “doing it” since she’d jumped him at the Fortune Cup. She should have been ecstatic about this. However, try as she might, she couldn’t summon strong emotions either way. It wasn’t like it was a bad thing…more like it was simply another job she had to do.

They both attempted to ignore her still-active mark. She gave him a seductive pout and beckoned him closer with a finger. With a little smirk, he did exactly that. One of his hands came to rest on the small of her back, the other hand giving her hip an affectionate squeeze. Despite her inner conflict, she could feel that tickle begin to grow way down in her belly at his touch. Looking into his eyes, she managed to undo the button on his pants from feel alone, was fumbling around for the zipper…

And then his phone rang.

The mood was killed instantly. Divine muttered, “I have to answer that,” and walked over to where the phone was charging on the nightstand.

“Yes?” he said after accepting the call. “No, no, quite all right, I was already awake. Is it…” He paused for several seconds to give the person on the other end of the line a chance to talk. “I see. I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

He hung up the phone, unplugged it, and told Aki, “I need to go to the nursery for a while. He’s having a bad night.”

It was as she’d thought. Usually she got annoyed, even angry, when he interrupted their Quality Time together. Tonight, she absentmindedly waved Divine on.

She knew that he would probably intend to pick up where they’d left off once he got back…and she would not refuse him. All she wanted for the moment, though, was to return to the balcony, and wonder what she was feeling and why Fudo Yusei had had to make her life so confusing…

#yugioh 5d's #yugioh 5ds #fanfic #aki izayoi #akiza izinski #divine #sayer

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