The Clocks

The first thing that Akane noticed when the door opened was the stench. The room reeked of stale vomit. The next thing she noticed was the three girls, who were once again stretched out on the floor. Finally she saw Jason who turned a wan face to her and whispered, "Hi Mother, it's been a busy day."

Akane had lived most of her life abiding by what was "proper" but one thing that her grandparents had taught her, mostly by having her listen to their stories of how and why they'd fled Japan, was that sometimes what was "proper" was far less important than survival. The children weren't going to die from whatever it was. If they were that ill, Blair and Miranda wouldn't have left them here.

She smelled honey. Honey and tea. She glanced around the room and spotted the teapot and the cups on the floor. Good, they had some fluids and calories in them. However the other ladies had sorely neglected what should have been done next. Out of depths she didn't know she had, "Drill Sergeant Fukui" made an appearance.

"Blair-san, how many people can your biggest bathtub hold?"

Obviously puzzled, both by the question and Akane's sudden change in demeanor, she answered hesitantly, "Ah, six or seven easily, 10 to 12 if they're good friends or family."

"Yoroshii. You four children. Stand up. NOW!"

She watched them slowly climb to their feet, the twins still needing to assist Eugenia. It was as she had thought.

"Hibiki and Yoko. You lead the way. Jason, you help Genie. When you get to the bathing facilities, help each other undress then wash that smell away. Jason, the girls are much too weak to do it themselves, so you wash their hair, starting with Genie. She needs to soak more than the others. When you've finished, Yoko can do your hair. Blair says that she always recovers faster than Biki. After that, all of you are to soak for at least half an hour. Just make sure that the water isn't so hot that you pass out."

She turned to Blair. "I trust that you have the means to adjust the temperature?"

Blair nodded dumbly.

"Good. Well, what are you waiting for, get to it!"

Eugenia struggled to raise a hand, then rasped, "Mrs. Fukui? Bathing with a boy who isn't family? That's sorta...."

Akane cut her off, "What it is, is necessary. Besides you don't have anything Jason hasn't seen hundreds of times before. His older sister never wears clothes when she doesn't have to. He's not the type to lust after girls anyway, even ones as pretty as you are.

"As for the twins, we haven't had a formal bethrothal yet, but there isn't anyone here who doesn't know that they'll be married when the time is right, so what does it matter when he first sees them unclothed."

Hibiki levered herself around and gave Yoko an "I told you so" look. Yoko's only response was to shrug her shoulders. She was much too tired to blush, and besides, she didn't think she ever would again when this particular subject arose.

As they were all heading toward the door, Akane added, "Oh, Jason, before you get started washing, pile all your clothes by the door. Blair can send someone to see if the stink can be washed out or if we'll have to dispose of them.

"Blair, if you don't already have them in the dressing area, make sure that someone delivers some heavy robes for them to wear afterwards. And no, I don't want a maid to help them. This is something they need to do together as a team."

She turned to the children. "Well what are you waiting for, GO!"

They got. Slowly and unsteadily, but they did go.

Akane closed the door behind them. "Miranda, seal it. As soon as you're finished I'm going to sit Akane down, then I'll come and explain things to you."

More chin dropping, this time on the part of Miranda and Blair. They hadn't had an inkling.

Immediately after Akane sat, there was a sudden, brief flash of blue light, then Lady Blue was standing in the middle of the room. Surprisingly Akane's expression was one of curiosity rather than surprise or fear.

"That was an interesting experience. From what you told me, you're called Lady Blue. I can see why. Later on we'll need to discuss a few things. If something like this happens again, I'd prefer a bit more warning before you start using my body."

Lady Blue bowed, deeply. "My apologies. But if you think about it, I didn't say a single thing that you didn't want to yourself. You weren't going to though. You thought it was 'improper' to give orders in someone else's home. Now you know that sometimes that's exactly what's needed."

"These dummies here," she pointed at Miranda and Blair, "weren't thinking, at all. They both know that the water from the spring helps heal things like this, but neither one of them thought about it. They were too busy being shocked to turn their minds on. They need to learn that sometimes you have to shut down your emotions long enough to think about options, especially on a battlefield -- and make no mistake, this is a battlefield -- no matter how tired or stressed you are. If they'd been able to do that, you wouldn't have had to."

Akane raised her hand. "Excuse me. You said something about the children needing to do this as a team. What did you mean by that?"

Lady Blue looked carefully at Blair and Miranda. "My god, you both missed that too. Look at you. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, the two of you are ready to quit playing and really get down to work? It's all well and good to be secretive, but you're using other people's lives. You're both good tacticians, but you need a strategist. If you put that pudding between your ears into gear, you just might, maybe, realize that there's someone who can handle that position quite nicely.

"If you need a hint, it's someone you already know. The bigger hint is that she's in the room with you right now, and it isn't me. Is that enough of an explanation?"

Without waiting for a reply she said, "Thought so. See you later. Bye." Then she was gone.

Akane was the first to fully recover from Lady Blue's appearance even though the others had experienced her presence on multiple occasions in the past. "My, that was...interesting. And she was quite deft in avoiding my question. Obviously you've had the somewhat dubious privilege of her presence on at least a few occasions in the past."

She looked at them with just a hint of a challenge. "I also expect that you're going to fill me in on her place in the history of our city."

Seeing their startled expressions she sighed loudly. "Both of you know her and clearly have for some time. Combining that with what she just said, it's quite logical to conclude that something at least moderately long-term is going on. Whether or not today is the time to discuss it, I'll leave to you. What I won't leave to you is your answer to the reason I came here today.

"Seeing that all four of the children were so incredibly drained, it's beyond obvious that the girls are also part of it. Given that, what is Jason's role in whatever it is? While you're at it, you can explain what 'whatever' is and what your plans for dealing with it are."

The others looked helplessly at each other. No matter what they said there were likely to violate some sort of regulation, even though it might be one that was unwritten.

While they were thinking, Akane broke in on their thoughts. "My God this Lady Blue of yours was right. You aren't thinking at all are you? Here you are, and, by the way, it's incredibly obvious you're trying to figure out what you can get away with telling me seeing as I'm not part of whatever it is. The answer is simple. Enroll me, or recruit me or whatever it is you do when you add someone to your organization."

Her smile was decidedly predatory. "Then you can tell me everything."

Blair and Miranda both swallowed, then responded with a rather subdued, "Yes ma'am."

Akane was once again surprised. Lady Blue was right. Saying what you really felt could be extremely liberating. Not only that, it was going to get her the information she needed in what was likely to be the absolute shortest time, just the way she liked it when she was doing research.

She pointed to Blair. "It's your home so you may begin. Start talking."

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At first Eugenia blushed from head to toe. Mrs. Fukui may have been right, but she wasn't the one being undressed by a boy. While he was three years younger than she was, he was still a nearly adult male. It didn't take her long however to realize that he wasn't reacting to her like so many other boys did. Even when they were dressed she could often see their response to her. That Jason wasn't wearing anything at all made his lack of reaction obvious, not to mention that she could feel his unemotional concentration on the task at hand.

He was doing exactly as his mother had instructed. By the time it got to the point where he was washing her hair, she had relaxed completely. Soon she realized that he was doing it better than anyone else ever had and began to enjoy the sensation.

Afterwards he poured a couple of buckets of warm water over her head to rinse her off. Then as she struggled to stand, he bent and picked her up in a "princess carry." On the way to the bath his hand slipped, and he almost dropped her, but he recovered. In recovering though his left hand had ended up on her left breast.

She was preparing to at least make a token attempt to beat him up when she realized that even now he wasn't reacting to her. Moments later he'd put her down in the bath, carefully, then had walked back to the bathing area, where the twins were waiting, and started more hair washing.

A few minutes later they were all sitting in the bath, Hibiki on Jason's right, and Yoko on his left, with Genie across from them. Jason had slid down in the water until his shoulders were covered, then gave a great sigh. "Oh this feels wonderful."

The twins nodded their agreement. Eugenia noticed that, while they were holding his hands, they were sitting a good 20 centimeters away from him. She couldn't control her curiosity and asked, "Why do you lean against him in class, but this time you're avoiding touching him. I'd think that you'd want to be close to him, especially considering what we've just gone through."

She felt the girl's rapid discussion. Even though so many things had happened, it had been less than two hours since they'd done their experiment, and she was still mostly at a loss when it came to mental communication. It was exciting but also a bit frightening. What if she thought something she didn't want anyone else to know?

She heard Yoko answering even though her lips weren't moving, "Not ta worry. Even we don't 'read' each other's minds. It takes energy ta talk this way, though not very much if you're near each other. The only way for what you're worrying about ta happen is if you send to one of us when you don't mean to, like you just did."

Before Eugenia could ask Yoko answered, "Don't worry. It only took Jason a few days to learn how not to do it. You shouldn't have any problems.

"As for your question. It's not that we don't want ta be closer to him, it's rather than we'd better not be, if you get my meaning."

Eugenia's mouth made an "O" as she understood. At the same time she felt somewhat irritated, though she couldn't quite put her finger on the reason.

This time it was Jason who answered her. "I'll try to say it right. Hibiki explained everything to me the other day, so I think I understand. If I don't I'm sure she'll tell me."

He smiled at Hibiki who grinned back then closed her eyes so she could get back to the important business of soaking.

"When I almost dropped you and had to grab your breast to keep from dropping you, I could feel that you were angry, at least for a few seconds. I still don't understand why people get angry if you do something when you have no other choice, but we can talk about that some other time, right Yoko?"

It was her turn to grin at him. Afterwards he turned back to Genie. "After that I could feel that you were relieved that I didn't react the way other guys would have. Just now when you learned that I would react that way if the twins were closer to me, you got irritated because I didn't with you.

"So I think it's like what Yoko taught me about 'body image." Any girl wants to be appreciated. I guess it's like if you're looking at a pretty woman's breasts. It's OK to look, if it's for just a little bit, to show that you appreciate how she looks, but staring at them is a bad thing."

Puzzlement spread across his face. "That's another thing I don't really understand. Mother taught me when I was little that it's not polite to stare at people. Don't other boys' mothers teach them the same thing?"

He looked around a bit wildly when all three girls started giggling. Then he sat up straighter and looked directly at Eugenia. "Mother was right. You are pretty. I hadn't really noticed before."

Then he closed his eyes and slid back down into the water. He didn't see Eugenia's blush, nor the tender smile that followed it, and only Genie heard the soft voice that said, "It's a promise."

After that there was no sound at all other than their breathing and the occasional dripping of water.