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The door to the infirmary opens, bringing in the sounds of shoes scuffing along the hallway, of books sliding together, and of Machi's voice assuring her companions that, "No, it's absolutely fine, don't worry about me. I can take it from here, so you should get back to class."
The girls standing in the hall simper and fret, but accept Machi's confident reassurance. She steps through the doorframe into Pakunoda's office without them, and as the door swings closed behind her, the bright smile she'd summoned melts from her lips. The mask comes off, but her limp remains. Somehow, Machi makes hobbling from the door to the bench across the room look graceful; her movements are deliberate and spare in spite of the ragged scrape running down the length of her left calf.
"I have a teacher's note," she says, like it's the hook to some private joke. One corner of her mouth turns up only slightly. "I need to have my leg looked at."
Machi stretches her foot out toward Pakunoda's desk, her heel propped primly against the tile and her toes turned up just slightly to the side. She twists her leg precisely enough to show off her injury to maximum effect.
Pakunoda eyes the interior door to her office, the one leading deeper into the administrative suite in the building, for only a second before pushing up from her chair. The trailing ends of her coat sweep behind her as she takes the few brisk steps to stand over Machi, her arms crossing just under her breasts while she looks down at the injury with some distaste.
"You did that on purpose," she says, one hip cocking to the side as she stares down her nose. It's not an accusation, so much as a challenge as to whether Machi will dare to disagree with her assessment.
"Of course I did," Machi agrees. "The dirt in it is very real, though. I'd still like to have it cleaned."
"If you'd really hurt yourself," Pakunoda points out, "you could do a better job of this than I will."
She turns away, moving across the room to collect the necessary first aide supplies. Machi doesn't disagree on that count, either. While it might be true that she is the one with a healing touch, her nen stitches are overkill for a surface laceration that would heal naturally in what couldn't be more than a handful of days. And Pakunoda is the nurse, here – at least, she is to all appearances.
"Have you heard anything?" Machi asks. "I wanted to talk to you."
Pakunoda turns back around, bandages in one hand and antiseptic wipes in the other. She shrugs, then kneels on the floor beside Machi's legs. Her touch is light when she fingers Machi's calf below the laceration, fingertips just pressing the skin. She rips open one of the wipe packets with a much harsher jerk of her hand.
"He's hardly ever in his office," Pakunoda says, nodding toward the interior door. She doesn't look at it, instead keeping her eyes on her work as she cleans the cut in Machi's leg. It's unsurprising that Machi in no way reacts to the sting of the disinfectant solution in the wipes, sitting perfectly still as Pakunoda tends to her. "Even without using my ability, that makes me believe that there's something going on in this school."
"I had a feeling," Machi agrees. "This district isn't poor enough to explain these awful conditions."
"He is diverting funds," Pakunoda points out.
"Is that something you heard?" Machi asks.
Her voice doesn't change from the conversational one she'd been using for business, and her face remains serene, but when Pakunoda looks up from unrolling bandages, there's a brightness in Machi's eyes that wasn't there before. This is new information to Machi, and worth latching onto.
"The principal had a migraine yesterday," she explains. "He came to me for painkillers, and for anything more I might be able to do to help the ache."
The rest goes unsaid. Administering care is a perfect time for Pakunoda to touch her patient without that contact coming under scrutiny; it's the perfect time to smooth back an old man's thinning hair and ask the one innocuous question that would have him calling to mind all the information Pakunoda wants to hear. He's been diverting funds, embezzling money, taking kickbacks besides when robbing from the school isn't enough to support the lifestyle he's come to enjoy.
"We could just kill him," Machi points out. Her fingers flex, a subtle motion like pulling on threads.
Pakunoda doesn't reply right away, her hands continuing the motions of deftly winding soft bandages around Machi's leg. It's overkill, just as Machi's nen would have been. The cut isn't bad enough to merit such thorough doctoring. Pakunoda sees it through anyway, and when she looks up to meet Machi's eyes, they both know they are unwilling to take so brute force an approach to the problem.
"The entire school will go to shit if we kill him," Pakunoda says bluntly.
Machi doesn't argue that they could do it cleanly, discreetly. No one would ever find that old man's body, he would simply cease to exist between one day and the next, as far as anyone besides them happened to know. His disappearance, though, would leave a power vacuum in the administration of a school they wanted to see running well.
"We could blackmail him," Machi suggests instead.
"Keep his secrets?" Pakunoda asks. "In exchange for him admitting students from Meteor City?"
"In exchange for him doing everything he can for those girls," Machi says. "If he performs that task well enough, no one will have to know he robbed them. And we won't have to kill him."
"Are you going to show him why you're worse to fear than any retribution from the people he stole from?" Pakunoda asks, her lips beginning to draw up into an unfriendly curve.
Watching Machi use her threads for healing is one thing to behold, lovely and captivating, but watching her fight – spare motions and deadly precision – is equally beautiful to witness. Pakunoda would hardly stop Machi from giving the school's principal a demonstration he would remember for the rest of his (potentially very short) life.
"I think I will," Machi says, nodding once like she's only just seen the true efficacy of her own plan. She pulls both of her legs back in toward her, fingers running down the length of the bandage as if to check Pakunoda's work. "We've been here too long. I want to get this done with."
"Here is close to home," Pakunoda points out.
Machi's eyes flick instantly to the window, the one at the back of Pakunoda's office that looks out on an unused stretch of the school grounds and further onto the equally empty horizon beyond. It looks empty, but she knows what's out there. She's closer now to the city of her birth than either she or Pakunoda has been in a very long time.
"We'll visit after we finish up the job," Machi decides. She tries to be firm about it, perfunctory, but there's the slightest breath of longing lurking under the words.
Pakunoda knows that feeling, one of inexplicable fondness for a place that still happens to be home.
"We'll have to finish up the job first," she points out. "What if he doesn't agree? He could be that stupid. I have heard some of his thoughts."
"He won't disagree," Machi says. "Trust me."
Pakunoda doesn't ask whether it's Machi's intuition, or just Machi's assurance of the intimidation potential inherent in her abilities. She trusts Machi to get a job done when the other woman promises as much.
"We'll find somewhere for them to stay," Machi adds. "I don't trust him to do that much."
There are youth hostels near the school, and dozens of other remarkably cheap lodgings in the city besides. Few places could be more dangerous to live than Meteor City. This too Pakunoda accepts unflinchingly – they'll arrange good living arrangements for the brightest girls from their home city, because it's something worth spending a portion of the Troupe's vast resources on.
"You should head back to class," is what Pakunoda says aloud, gesturing at Machi's leg to indicate that they are finished.
"And what, you'll see me after it?" Machi asks.
Her eyes are bright again, amused, and the corner of her mouth turns up knowingly.
"I thought that was the plan," Pakunoda agrees. She could be joking in return, but then she adds, "We can finish the job tonight, if you come back and he's here."
Machi nods, straightening her skirt before standing up from the bench. The school's uniform never was to her taste, but Pakunoda was the one who could learn the most situated in the nurse's office. Machi was the one who could pass as young enough to be a student and therefore roam the grounds uncontested.
"It's a date," she says brightly.
The word conjures images of bare-handed fighting, of backs pressed together and of two against an army, before it conjures anything so mundane as moonlit alcoves or tables for two. It's incredibly romantic all the same, or perhaps even more so.
"We could go home tomorrow," Pakunoda says, just to taste the words.
"Tomorrow," Machi agrees.
Machi won't wear the school skirt again, and Pakunoda won't wear the lab coat she's taken to donning as her own sort of nurse's uniform. They won't report again to a dead, uninspiring building, won't keep early mornings and will answer once more only to the boss. Maybe they'll come back once, to show the girls from Meteor City the way. Maybe they'll even come again later, to see whether an education really can set a girl to walking down a different, brighter path. But tomorrow will be another day.
For now, they can only count on today.
Machi's fingers are light on Pakunoda's cheek, reaching up to brush back her hair, to slide her palm against Pakunoda's neck to cradle along the back of it. She draws Pakunoda forward and down, as surely as she might draw someone in with her nen threads. Her lips on Pakunoda's are dry and firm, pressing a kiss to Pakunoda's mouth with no hesitation.
It's not a surprise. Pakunoda kisses her back, for only those few spare moments of contact because Machi does not linger. The kiss could almost be considered a wish for good luck, or a seal of their commitment to the current job. More than that, though, it's familiar and entirely uncontested.
Machi pulls away.
There's nothing else to be said. Machi returns to the hall door, pulling it open and stepping out of the office. Pakunoda can still hear Machi's determination in her head, not so much in thoughts but in the most basic, uncomplicated distillation of the feeling. Machi's thoughts themselves are familiar enough to require no reading.
After the last bell sounds, they'll give the corrupt principal the lesson of his lifetime. After they come home, they'll give the girls who grew up after them something different to live for.
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