Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex Fan Fiction ❯ My Magical Gate Experience Was Ruined, As I Expected ❯ YGS: 5 ( Chapter 5 )

I was waiting for niisan to come home. I made dinner. He usually gets home right after I do and I get some comfort from him being here. He wasn’t here. No texts on my phone. I texted him, again: Where are you? No response. I was getting cross, which is a stage before angry. It’s this young body. Tanya’s body, my old body, was different, much colder. This Komachi body is all genki and normal-girl and energetic and has totally normal emotions for my age, which can be annoying. I don’t have the patience I used to.

I started learning C and Java, partly to help me focus, and mostly so I could make my phone act like a computation jewel, using a similar sensor to detect my magical output, something I’ve setup in a set of hair barrettes and a copy of my Silver Wings medal, which I wore on my uniform out of sight. Mom and Dad will probably freak when they realize that the 3D printer is in MY room, not niisans. It’s a cheap one, but it works for my needs. I mostly need it for creating housings for sensors and the barrettes, are WAY more discreet than the ones Asuka wore in Evangelion. The best part of this setup is I’ve been using the math I learned in my last life to come up with all the calculations and amplifiers which convert my mana into the more efficient spells, and the clips read my thoughts, a trick you learn how to project as magic in mage training, day one. I was an expert on this, and mastered output too.

Niisan was late. I can only distract myself so long, waiting for him to get home and eat dinner with me. Its getting cold.

There was a click from the front door. Niisan was home, finally. The sun wasn’t down, but it was low. There was no limp. He had fully recovered, better that anybody else normally would. I kept how that happened to myself. His doctor was impressed, and took extra xrays of the breaks, not finding them. It was a good mystery for them.

I gave him a frown.

“Where have you been?” I demanded.

“Sigh. I wrote this essay and sensei got mad and made me join the service club or she’ll fail me in Japanese class.” This was like German class, on proper writing. He’s really good at this subject. It’s the only one he actually cares about.

“Service club. Hmph. Well, I made dinner. Let me warm it up in the microwave and we can eat. Is this going to happen every day?”

“Yes, sorry. Are you going to be okay without me for a couple hours in the afternoon?” he asked, a bit frightened. I considered. I will know where he is.

“A club. Who else is in this club?”

“A weird girl named Yukinoshita Yukino. She’s kinda pretty, but makes a big deal about it and it kinda comes off as arrogant. I think her family is rich. She acts like a rich girl and is in the International Studies class.”

I knew about the International Studies Class. I would qualify. I speak eight languages, though niisan only suspects I know three of them. I know her name. Her father is in the Diet. He is a big wheel in politics. A daughter of a national politician probably has to deal with a lot of high-level social pressures, and rather than go to a private school, she’s obligated to go to Soubou, a public high school, for getting votes for Dad and getting a “man of the people” vote. It might not be a good time. I should meet her. This might turn into another Orimoto problem.

“Where does the club meet? I’ll come see you tomorrow after school,” I insisted. Hikigaya tried to dissemble. I glared. I have a good face for glaring because it is so unexpected. Tanya was often glaring. I have more practice being cute and putting people off guard.

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The next day I went through classes and ate lunch with friends and when school let out, I found my way to niisans school. It was a couple miles further on, which was why he could bike me to school, and I got to practice my illusion spell. The passive SEP field worked just well enough, and I would turn it on to only conceal myself, not the bicycle or niisan so it looked like he was biking alone. I also gave his bike a little push so he wouldn’t get exhausted hauling my 85 pounds to school. I’m growing. I’ll be bigger soon. I’m already bigger than Tanya ever got. And I’m growing boobs. The puberty fairy has visited and blessed me. I’ll be starting high school next year, so I’m technically a Freshman now, in 9th grade, but Japan keeps that grade in Junior High. I’ve been cramming to get into Soubou next year. The better to keep an eye on niisan and keep him out of the clutches of a bad woman who might break his heart, again.

Entering the gate in my uniform and one of my finished prototype quad core minicomputer, a reconfigured cellphone with a cord going to one of those battery banks via USB, linked via my own version of Bluetooth to multiple devices for my sensor jewelry. Its been a fun project to get this far. I followed his directions from yesterday and eventually reached the right floor. I heard voices inside. I knocked and entered without waiting and got a startled curse from a pretty girl, in German. I stared.

“Vas is los?” I responded without thinking further.

“Sprechen sie deutsch?” she asked, confused and peering at me. “Ver bist du?”

“Hikigaya Komachi. Ver bist du?” I asked.

“Yukinoshita Yukino. We should probably practice german later. You are related to… that?” she finally said, indicating niisan with dismay. There was also that Pink girl here, looking very confused, head swiveling back and forth like at a tennis match. She recognized me at least. There was something I was supposed to do? I am sure there was something.

“Niisan, this is the girl who had the dog you saved when you got hurt. Did she tell you? She came to the house to apologize, but you were sleeping.”

“What?” he exclaimed. He looked from me to Pinky. “Were you just speaking German? That sounded like German. That was German, right?”

“Focus, niisan. I’ve been learning it. I’ve been reading Von Clausvitz in its original Polish, too. And correcting the mistakes.” I laughed, and so did Yukino, whose eyes were open really wide. The expression kind of reminded me… of Vichy. I grinned evilly, and her expression got wider yet. She blinked, almost in recognition.

“I am in the mood for good black coffee. Come to my house after club, Yukinoshita-san. We should speak more.”

“I… I… I suppose so. Yes. Fine. That will be fine. Right now we’re discussing helping Yuigahama become a better cookie baker. Is that right?” she said, turning her attention back to Yuigahama, Pinky. I looked at her closely. She was cute, bubbly, friendly, and kept eyeing my brother like a hungry wolf. He was clueless. I’m a woman. I notice these things.

“Very well. Rather than use the school kitchen, which might not have ingredients, lets get to the market near my home and we can cook there.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose!” resisted the girl, clearly wanting inside the house and more time with niisan. Its amazing. There really is someone for everyone.

“Very well,” demurred Yukinoshita. I quickly synced my phone contact info with the rich girl who spoke German with the same accent as me. She make a phone call and I saw the slightly long black passenger car. It was right on the verge of being a limousine. There was a driver. Niisan winced, as did Yui. They both stared.

“That’s the car that hit me and broke my leg,” he finally said. He looked at Yukino. He waited. She blushed in shame.

“I was in the back. I wasn’t driving. Suddenly we’re braking hard and I got flung against the safety belt and there’s a thump. Shiro had me stay in the car until Mom got me the rest of the way to school. I didn’t even see you, only found out later it was a student at my school we’d injured. I’m sorry.”

“It was my dog,” said Yui. “She got off her leash.”

“Hmm. Well, I’ll pass on riding in the limo that hit me. Yui, can you go in that car and meet us at Midori Market over in Sasukabe. Here’s the GPS link,” I said and forwarded the site to Yukino via text. She looked at her phone and nodded. I sent it to Yui a moment later. We’ll be along via bicycle. See you in a little while.”

I helped get niisan settle into his routine, rather than think about the traumatic accident and memories of pain. He unchained the bike and backed it out. Once he threw his leg over I climbed onto the rack, as usual, turned on my SEP field illusion, and used magic to push the bike a bit more, thanks to my computation jewel. Barely ticking over it made just a bit of green light on his back. I don’t think he noticed how easy it was to pedal with two of us on the back. We got to the market in a quarter hour, niisan breathing hard. The girls were waiting, Yuki looking at her watch annoyed.

“Good, you found it properly. I have a list. Do you have some money to pay for your cookie training, Yui?” I asked our Pinkette friend. She shook her head no. I huffed.

“Fine. I’ll cover it this time. I owe you for eating your candies for niisan a month ago, anyway.”

“What?!” she exclaimed. Niisan looked perturbed too. I shrugged and led the way into the market. Blessed air conditioning. Chiba is hot and sweaty all summer. This is its normal state.

I grabbed a push basket and started loading it up with shortening and white sugar and prepared sugar cookie dough in tubes.

“Why are you?” asked Yui, looking lost and Yukino was frowning as we stood in the chilled foods aisle.

“I plan to show you how to do this the real way, but to save time, because you have to prep the dough the day before, we’re going to use this prepared dough to bake today.”

I found some more cookie ingredients and colored sugar and nuts and icing. It was expensive, but not terrible. We finished up, went through checkout and headed to our house. I allowed Yukino’s death car to carry the groceries so they wouldn’t be spoiled by the heat on the way home, a couple kilometers further in a quiet neighborhood. There are a million people living in Chiba. It’s crowded.

I set things up in the kitchen and explained how everything worked.

“Yui, find the clock app on your smartphone. That one there. Select the hourglass. That’s the countdown timer. You set that and when it goes off the cookies will be done, probably. I wouldn’t want to try baking sugar cookies in an unfamiliar oven. The temperature might vary and could burn them into charcoal, and if you’re baking cookies for a boy you like, you need to make them look and taste good,” I prodded. Niisan was not getting the hint. Yui saw what I was saying and gesturing to my oblivious brother and she blushed like a persimmon. Good. We went through the process of making dough and put that in the fridge to firm up and then took out the sugar cookie rolls and I showed her how to cut slices, remove the plastic ring, press out, cut with the cutter, or not, and decorate with sugar or leave plain for icing later. I put some almonds on several of the cookies so show a few ways cookies can be made, ways I knew niisan liked.

Yui put the cookie sheet in the oven and started her phone timer. I started my own set a minute early and we talked while we waited, sipping the strong coffee the way I’d learned to enjoy it in the trenches, and later in Berun at that one café. Yukinoshita froze at the first sip and looked at me curiously.

“Something wrong?” I taunted her.

“It’s strong. Like an old memory. I feel like I used to know someone who liked coffee this way.” I deposited a plate of my special truffles in front of her.

“Try it with this.” She bit into one and sipped the coffee and froze again, for longer. She looked at me, and her eyes were huge. Now she really looked like Vichy. I switched to German.

“Fancy meeting you here, Serebryakova.”

My phone timer dinged and I turned to the oven and pulled open the door a few inches.

“Oh, its ready!” I pulled the door the rest of the way open and let Yui grab a mit and extract her sheet of sugar cookies, just brown enough but not burnt. Another minute would have ruined them. I showed her to carefully remove them from the sheet onto a cooling rack and turned back to Yukino, still frozen.

“Tanya?” she whispered in German. I nodded.

“Funny how reincarnation happens. It seems that your taunts from the old life have punished you and rewarded me,” I noted, shrugging my shoulders to make my boobs bounce. She looked down, clearly remembering several instances of her former life being less than empathetic to my malnourishment and lack of physical development. She pouted, adorably. Yui and niisan looked back and forth, not understanding a word we were saying in our guttural German.

A week later and I came to visit niisan and Yukino and found them standing outside the room, staring. Niisan stepped in first, shouting. I powered up my mana and started bolstering my shell protections and endurance, ready for a fistfight. This guy was a high schooler? He was huge. He looked like a Yakuza enforcer, or some of the sergeants I used to boss around. Then niisan charged and the two hugged in a manly fashion and started laughing.

“Komachi, you remember my friend from middle school? This is Zaimokuza Yoshiteru.”

“I prefer to go by Batou now. I’m not a kid anymore,” said the huge deep voice. He wore a bomber jacket and reflective glasses close to his eyes, and his blond-white hair was pulled back into a ponytail. He looked like he could arm wrestle an action hero. I looked him up and down and felt my hormones pulling. Grr. Must focus. This guy was from my brother’s chuuni phase.

“I need your help. Saki is in trouble.”

And thus I met Taishi, and ended up the eventual sister in law to the hulk.