Original Post Date: August 08, 2009
Warnings: Crack.
Pairings: Joshua/Neku, Beat/Rhyme (And it's way in the background, but implied Shiki/Eri, if you look.)
Rating: T for magic kink, language, violence, and varying levels of morbid humor.
Notes: Inspired by "The princess is in another castle!" I was gonna go canon with this, make it like a cross between The Hero and Of Princesses and Knights, but then I got sidetracked (as usual) and, being TWEWY, Joshua hi-jacked the whole damned thing. Also, obviously headphones did not exist in this time period. I improvised.
"Hello," the sorcerer said, as he blasted through another palace guard into oblivion. The knight's armor melted to his prone corpse. Overkill, much, Neku thought. "My name is Joshua," the sorcerer said between incantations. Blast. Blast. Was that a bolt of lightning? It definitely felt like wild magic.
"Neku," Neku replied, readying an ice-based spell. He froze the nearest knight, then wiped the next wave with a fireball.
"That's a cute name," Joshua cooed. Magic missile. He lightning charged a guard's sword. Neku shivered as the wild magic coursed through him. That shit was powerful. "Especially for such a powerful wizard." A bigger fireball. This guy was just showing off, Neku realized. "I would get that changed."
Neku threw up a barrier and started running back, toward the forest. He shouted to his unexpected companion, "Yeah, well. Names have power."
Joshua followed, doubling Neku's barrier as he ran. "Oh, so you do know something about those spells you're throwing around. What are you doing here?" He seemed to not need oxygen.
"Running," Neku replied smoothly. He finally spotted some trees within reasonable distance--the beginnings of the Thieves' Wood.
"Obviously," Joshua shot back. Neku wasn't watching him, and barely knew him, having agreed to channel his magic only moments before, but he was willing to bet that Joshua had rolled his eyes. Rude bastard, Neku thought.
"Saving a princess."
"The princess of Hikaru?" Joshua asked. The princess Eri of the Hikaru kingdom's disappearance had been a big deal.
"No," Neku replied. "Her best friend, the Princess of Misaki. We lost Rhyme along the way, as well, I'm hoping that she'll be there."
"Ah," Joshua said, slowing to a walk as they entered the forest. He muttered an incantation and silenced them both from the waist down for good measure. More showing off, Neku noted. "So you are storming castle Shibuya for a reason, then?"
Neku shrugged. "I'm hoping to run into the prince of Bito, while we're there, but."
"Ah, I've heard of him," Joshua agreed. "He joined the Knights of Shibuya recently, did he not?"
Neku nodded and kept walking.
"You're sure that your princesses are in this castle?"
"Which other castle would they be in?" Neku asked. He felt his connection to the barrier snap. They were officially out of range of their own magic. The knights could follow at any moment.
Joshua shrugged. "You know how it is," he said. "You run off to save the princess, climb the tallest tower, fight the biggest dragon you've ever heard of only to find out that the princess is far away in a taller tower, with a bigger dragon, and a moat of lava."
"Are you speaking from personal experiences?" Neku taunted.
Joshua shrugged. "Do you know how hard it is to conjure a moat of lava? And the drawbridge melts every time."
---
Shiki flitted around Rhyme's bedside, looking up at Eri for help periodically. Their dresses were in tatters, ripped at the knee to make their eventual escape easier.
The guard with the orange hair popped in to give them some actual food. He occasionally taunted them, but mostly he seemed to be too much of a slacker to really try. He gave them their space while he pretended to be hard at work guarding them. Shiki and Eri had both heard him snoring heavily in the hallway.
His partner, a pink-haired sorceress, showed up with him sometimes, and then stayed just to argue with Shiki. Shiki and Eri were beginning to get the impression that, no matter how prestigious the Knights of Shibuya were, it was actually a terribly boring job to have.
There were other guards, too, like the big man with the ram on his armor. He kept comparing Shiki to food, and neither she, nor Eri could figure out if he was making passes at her, or threatening her.
Rhyme slept on, unaware of her surroundings.
---
Joshua and Neku met Beat first. Joshua raised his staff to wave Beat aside like so much melted steel and charred flesh, when Neku stopped him.
"We're here for the princesses," Neku told him.
"Tough," Beat shot back. "I'm savin' Rhyme, an' you ain't stoppin' me."
A nearby door burst open.
"Shit," Neku growled. It was the necromancer from before. "Beat, get out of here. We can knock some sense into you later."
"I ain't takin' orders from you!" Beat snapped.
"Beat, he's a necromancer with a math fetish and a garbage fixation. Get out now, and we'll see you in the next room, okay?" Neku raised a barrier for Beat between his current position and the door to the next room. Then, he tossed Beat a little bell on the end of a thin chain. "You dropped it."
Beat glared at him, then nodded and took off. "I'm gonna kick yo' ass when you done here, got it?"
Neku grinned. "Yeah."
---
Several minutes into the battle against Minamimoto, Minamimoto put up a barrier and started reciting numbers. The bones Neku wore to ward off people began to rattle in warning. Strong magic was in the room.
Joshua seemed to understand, as well. As the spell went off, he pushed Neku out of the way and threw up a barrier, angled to let the magic slide right by, redirecting it rather than taking Minamimoto's Level i Flare head-on. No barrier, no matter how strong, could take a spell like that head-on.
White light washed over everything in front of Neku. He felt the second Joshua was gone, and his bones stopped rattling when Minamimoto was, too.
Afterward, Neku had to blink spots out of his eyes.
So much for being the better sorcerer, Neku thought furiously. "Fuck," he screamed, punching the cold, stone floor as hard as he could. His knuckles began bleeding, and he didn't have anyone to channel a light healing spell through. "Fuck," he whispered. Those aren't tears, he told himself. They're not. Not for that bastard. Not another one lost, not again.
---
"Yo, why is it we keep gettin' interrupted?" Beat snapped. Yashiro cackled, sending conjured beasts their way. "What are you waitin' for, Bones? Magic 'em away."
"I can't," Neku said. He looked broken, pissed, a lot of things. He had been through a lot. "I need someone to channel."
"What?" Beat hacked a few of the creatures up, but he could only work so fast. He needed back-up.
"Joshua and I worked so well because we bounced our magic through each other, and now he's gone, and I can't. I need someone to channel. It has to be a willing partner, or the magic doesn't work."
Beat shrugged, cleaving a nearby jumper in two. "So, use me, geez." He felt the instant Neku channeled the magic through him. "I was tired a waitin' for my turn to guard Rhyme, anyway."
---
"Like a bolt from the blue, it's time for the Reaper Review!" The guard was blocking their way to the next floor, dressed in flowing black robes with a hood that obscured his face. He was holding a sickle in one hand.
"Gardening tools?" Neku deadpanned. "They're trying to stop us by throwing guys with gardening tools our way?"
Beat decapitated the man with one quick swing of his broad sword. "Man, screw dat," he growled. They opened the door and ran up another flight of stairs.
---
Minamimoto was waiting on the next floor. He was re-animating himself, Neku could feel it. His bones started rattling again. "Shit," he growled. He suddenly understood every hero's quest for vengeance. Neku wanted Minamimoto dead, and he wanted it to hurt.
Neku swallowed thickly, recalling Joshua's tendency to predict every stupid thing that had happened to them, and, failing that, to pretend like he had totally seen that coming, yeah, totally.
"It figures someone would come back from the dead, at least once," Neku said, mostly to himself. It was the Joshua thing to say.
Beat snorted. "Yeah, can't have nothin' normal here," he agreed.
---
Beat kicked open the door to the last room. It was a hallway, rather than the room the princesses should have been in.
Neku's bones rattled as they entered. It was a magical room, he realized.
"Not anotha' 'shifter," Beat groaned, as the man in the smoked glasses who had taken Shiki (The fucker, Neku thought. Fucker.) transformed into a giant snake.
"At least we know where he's at," Neku pointed out, crackling energy at his fingertips. The crackle didn't do anything useful, and was, in fact, largely a waste of energy, but it looked cool. Neku realized that he may have picked up a thing or two from Joshua. He had no plans of ever admitting to it.
Beat nodded. The illusionist bitch on the floor before had been such a pain in the ass with all of her shadows and shadow-selves.
---
Joshua walked in the second Kitaniji fell.
"I can make them better," Kitaniji said, drawing attention to Joshua. Beat raised an eyebrow. Neku gasped. "I can bring the kingdoms together, I still have time!"
Joshua shrugged.
Kitaniji threw a binding spell over Joshua, then summoned a princess at random--Shiki, Neku realized in horror--then, he bound Beat, as well.
Kitaniji used a barrier Neku had only heard of--it allowed forced channeling. It did not, however, prevent regular channeling.
Kitaniji really didn't stand a chance once Neku realized that he could channel through all three former partners at once.
---
"Too late," Joshua told Kitaniji. "Good game."
"Thank you," Kitaniji replied, and fell, taking his last breath.
---
"This was-- You did this?" Neku demanded. "All of this?" He paused. "You just... you play with our lives, and--"
"How does it go?" Joshua said, staring into the distance for a few seconds. "Long live the king," he continued, holding out his arms in a mock-welcoming gesture. "You have your princesses back, I don't see what the problem is."
"Rhyme won't wake up," Shiki told them.
"Enchanted sleep, no doubt. It's a simple cure, especially if it was Kariya or Uzuki who cursed her," Joshua replied.
Beat punched Joshua in the mouth. Hard. "You sonova-- Fix her! Bring Rhyme back!"
Joshua ignored him, using Neku to channel a healing spell to fix his split lip.
Neku didn't think about how healing spells normally felt, low and warm in his stomach, or how everything Joshua channeled through him seemed to leave a trail. He had never channeled both ways, but every wizard Neku had ever spoken to was right. There was nothing like it.
"If it was Kariya or Uzuki's work, then the cure is simply True Love's First Kiss."
Shiki and Eri looked at each other, sharing a kind of silent communication that they had developed over the years. "They're the only two who have even come into direct contact with Rhyme," Shiki admitted aloud.
Everyone spent several incredibly awkward seconds trying not to think about how they would bring Rhyme back to the world of the living.
"Oh, honestly," Joshua snapped. He marched to Rhyme's side and knelt, leaning forward in a brief, romantic kiss.
Rhyme did not stir, but Eri made a soft "Oh" and blushed. She grabbed Rhyme's hand and remembered to glare at Joshua as he stood.
Joshua backed away from Rhyme, and right into Beat. Beat punched him again.
Joshua swiped the blood off of his lip with a thumb, then licked it off. The healing spell came slower this time, as if to prove to Neku he was doing it just because he could, and not because a split lip actually deserved a healing spell. Neku felt his cock twitch.
"Not fucking fair," he growled. Beat ignored him, but Shiki and Eri looked appropriately puzzled. Joshua smirked. He always seemed to be smirking. "Beat," Neku said, at last. "Mind if I try?"
Beat shook his head. "Naw, go ahead, Bones."
Neku stepped forward, steeling himself. He glanced between Joshua and Rhyme. Slowly, carefully, Neku set aside his staff and put one hand beside the torn bits of fluffy skirt that Shiki and Eri had placed under Rhyme's head in a make-shift pillow for balance, bringing his lips closer to hers.
Neku felt nothing when they connected. Rhyme did nothing when he pulled away. He had expected as much.
Joshua rolled his eyes at the glares everyone was leveling at him. He threw a cure at Rhyme. An antidote spell, a curse-lift, a cure-all. Nothing. "Well," Joshua said, as if planning to continue the sentence, like "Well, this is a fine mess, isn't it?" Or, "Well, Neku and I are out as the obvious candidates for Rhyme's One True Love. This could take a while." Or, even, "Well, time for those girl kisses. Hop to it, princesses!"
Shiki seemed to get it, at least. She kissed Rhyme next, causing Eri to bite her lip in hope, or fear, or both. Eri's lip was bleeding as Shiki sat up, resuming her position as guardian of Rhyme's bedside.
Joshua wasted more energy on a healing spell for Eri. Neku punched him in the arm. "Stop doing that," he hissed. "This is not the time to be screwing around."
Eri was next, and, as expected, nothing happened. They were running out of options.
Shiki looked up at Beat uncertainly. She bit her lip.
Beat punched a nearby wall, then turned and hit Joshua harder than he had before, leaving a smear of blood on Joshua's cheek from his knuckles.
"Beat!" Eri cried out. "Beat, please!"
Joshua had to grab Neku's arm to maintain his balance. Neku rolled his eyes, casting a quick cure before Joshua could. Joshua squeezed his arm, riding out the rush of painless euphoria coupled with the feeling of a two-way channel spell.
In front of them, Beat hovered at Rhyme's side for a moment, before darting down for one quick, nervous kiss.
Rhyme gasped and sat up.
---
"True love's first kiss means romantic love, doesn't it?" Neku asked Joshua as they sat in a local tavern, alone, hours later.
The princesses were in a rented room upstairs with Beat, celebrating. Beat hadn't left Rhyme's side, or looked away unless he had some kind of physical contact with her--a hand on her shoulder, on her head, in her hand.
Joshua nodded solemnly. He refilled his mug without the bartender's help.
"And they'll just have to live with that?" Neku pressed.
"Yeah," Joshua replied. "But, on the brighter side of things, you and your friends stopped a great evil in its tracks, and you got to see the full extent of your powers."
"No, I didn't," Neku argued, looking down at his empty mug.
"No, you didn't," Joshua agreed, "but that was rather the point. Your powers don't have a limit."
"Like yours," Neku said.
"Like mine."
---
A/N: It goes without saying that Uzuki and Kariya totally double-channel.
Pairings: Joshua/Neku, Beat/Rhyme (And it's way in the background, but implied Shiki/Eri, if you look.)
Rating: T for magic kink, language, violence, and varying levels of morbid humor.
Notes: Inspired by "The princess is in another castle!" I was gonna go canon with this, make it like a cross between The Hero and Of Princesses and Knights, but then I got sidetracked (as usual) and, being TWEWY, Joshua hi-jacked the whole damned thing. Also, obviously headphones did not exist in this time period. I improvised.
"Hello," the sorcerer said, as he blasted through another palace guard into oblivion. The knight's armor melted to his prone corpse. Overkill, much, Neku thought. "My name is Joshua," the sorcerer said between incantations. Blast. Blast. Was that a bolt of lightning? It definitely felt like wild magic.
"Neku," Neku replied, readying an ice-based spell. He froze the nearest knight, then wiped the next wave with a fireball.
"That's a cute name," Joshua cooed. Magic missile. He lightning charged a guard's sword. Neku shivered as the wild magic coursed through him. That shit was powerful. "Especially for such a powerful wizard." A bigger fireball. This guy was just showing off, Neku realized. "I would get that changed."
Neku threw up a barrier and started running back, toward the forest. He shouted to his unexpected companion, "Yeah, well. Names have power."
Joshua followed, doubling Neku's barrier as he ran. "Oh, so you do know something about those spells you're throwing around. What are you doing here?" He seemed to not need oxygen.
"Running," Neku replied smoothly. He finally spotted some trees within reasonable distance--the beginnings of the Thieves' Wood.
"Obviously," Joshua shot back. Neku wasn't watching him, and barely knew him, having agreed to channel his magic only moments before, but he was willing to bet that Joshua had rolled his eyes. Rude bastard, Neku thought.
"Saving a princess."
"The princess of Hikaru?" Joshua asked. The princess Eri of the Hikaru kingdom's disappearance had been a big deal.
"No," Neku replied. "Her best friend, the Princess of Misaki. We lost Rhyme along the way, as well, I'm hoping that she'll be there."
"Ah," Joshua said, slowing to a walk as they entered the forest. He muttered an incantation and silenced them both from the waist down for good measure. More showing off, Neku noted. "So you are storming castle Shibuya for a reason, then?"
Neku shrugged. "I'm hoping to run into the prince of Bito, while we're there, but."
"Ah, I've heard of him," Joshua agreed. "He joined the Knights of Shibuya recently, did he not?"
Neku nodded and kept walking.
"You're sure that your princesses are in this castle?"
"Which other castle would they be in?" Neku asked. He felt his connection to the barrier snap. They were officially out of range of their own magic. The knights could follow at any moment.
Joshua shrugged. "You know how it is," he said. "You run off to save the princess, climb the tallest tower, fight the biggest dragon you've ever heard of only to find out that the princess is far away in a taller tower, with a bigger dragon, and a moat of lava."
"Are you speaking from personal experiences?" Neku taunted.
Joshua shrugged. "Do you know how hard it is to conjure a moat of lava? And the drawbridge melts every time."
---
Shiki flitted around Rhyme's bedside, looking up at Eri for help periodically. Their dresses were in tatters, ripped at the knee to make their eventual escape easier.
The guard with the orange hair popped in to give them some actual food. He occasionally taunted them, but mostly he seemed to be too much of a slacker to really try. He gave them their space while he pretended to be hard at work guarding them. Shiki and Eri had both heard him snoring heavily in the hallway.
His partner, a pink-haired sorceress, showed up with him sometimes, and then stayed just to argue with Shiki. Shiki and Eri were beginning to get the impression that, no matter how prestigious the Knights of Shibuya were, it was actually a terribly boring job to have.
There were other guards, too, like the big man with the ram on his armor. He kept comparing Shiki to food, and neither she, nor Eri could figure out if he was making passes at her, or threatening her.
Rhyme slept on, unaware of her surroundings.
---
Joshua and Neku met Beat first. Joshua raised his staff to wave Beat aside like so much melted steel and charred flesh, when Neku stopped him.
"We're here for the princesses," Neku told him.
"Tough," Beat shot back. "I'm savin' Rhyme, an' you ain't stoppin' me."
A nearby door burst open.
"Shit," Neku growled. It was the necromancer from before. "Beat, get out of here. We can knock some sense into you later."
"I ain't takin' orders from you!" Beat snapped.
"Beat, he's a necromancer with a math fetish and a garbage fixation. Get out now, and we'll see you in the next room, okay?" Neku raised a barrier for Beat between his current position and the door to the next room. Then, he tossed Beat a little bell on the end of a thin chain. "You dropped it."
Beat glared at him, then nodded and took off. "I'm gonna kick yo' ass when you done here, got it?"
Neku grinned. "Yeah."
---
Several minutes into the battle against Minamimoto, Minamimoto put up a barrier and started reciting numbers. The bones Neku wore to ward off people began to rattle in warning. Strong magic was in the room.
Joshua seemed to understand, as well. As the spell went off, he pushed Neku out of the way and threw up a barrier, angled to let the magic slide right by, redirecting it rather than taking Minamimoto's Level i Flare head-on. No barrier, no matter how strong, could take a spell like that head-on.
White light washed over everything in front of Neku. He felt the second Joshua was gone, and his bones stopped rattling when Minamimoto was, too.
Afterward, Neku had to blink spots out of his eyes.
So much for being the better sorcerer, Neku thought furiously. "Fuck," he screamed, punching the cold, stone floor as hard as he could. His knuckles began bleeding, and he didn't have anyone to channel a light healing spell through. "Fuck," he whispered. Those aren't tears, he told himself. They're not. Not for that bastard. Not another one lost, not again.
---
"Yo, why is it we keep gettin' interrupted?" Beat snapped. Yashiro cackled, sending conjured beasts their way. "What are you waitin' for, Bones? Magic 'em away."
"I can't," Neku said. He looked broken, pissed, a lot of things. He had been through a lot. "I need someone to channel."
"What?" Beat hacked a few of the creatures up, but he could only work so fast. He needed back-up.
"Joshua and I worked so well because we bounced our magic through each other, and now he's gone, and I can't. I need someone to channel. It has to be a willing partner, or the magic doesn't work."
Beat shrugged, cleaving a nearby jumper in two. "So, use me, geez." He felt the instant Neku channeled the magic through him. "I was tired a waitin' for my turn to guard Rhyme, anyway."
---
"Like a bolt from the blue, it's time for the Reaper Review!" The guard was blocking their way to the next floor, dressed in flowing black robes with a hood that obscured his face. He was holding a sickle in one hand.
"Gardening tools?" Neku deadpanned. "They're trying to stop us by throwing guys with gardening tools our way?"
Beat decapitated the man with one quick swing of his broad sword. "Man, screw dat," he growled. They opened the door and ran up another flight of stairs.
---
Minamimoto was waiting on the next floor. He was re-animating himself, Neku could feel it. His bones started rattling again. "Shit," he growled. He suddenly understood every hero's quest for vengeance. Neku wanted Minamimoto dead, and he wanted it to hurt.
Neku swallowed thickly, recalling Joshua's tendency to predict every stupid thing that had happened to them, and, failing that, to pretend like he had totally seen that coming, yeah, totally.
"It figures someone would come back from the dead, at least once," Neku said, mostly to himself. It was the Joshua thing to say.
Beat snorted. "Yeah, can't have nothin' normal here," he agreed.
---
Beat kicked open the door to the last room. It was a hallway, rather than the room the princesses should have been in.
Neku's bones rattled as they entered. It was a magical room, he realized.
"Not anotha' 'shifter," Beat groaned, as the man in the smoked glasses who had taken Shiki (The fucker, Neku thought. Fucker.) transformed into a giant snake.
"At least we know where he's at," Neku pointed out, crackling energy at his fingertips. The crackle didn't do anything useful, and was, in fact, largely a waste of energy, but it looked cool. Neku realized that he may have picked up a thing or two from Joshua. He had no plans of ever admitting to it.
Beat nodded. The illusionist bitch on the floor before had been such a pain in the ass with all of her shadows and shadow-selves.
---
Joshua walked in the second Kitaniji fell.
"I can make them better," Kitaniji said, drawing attention to Joshua. Beat raised an eyebrow. Neku gasped. "I can bring the kingdoms together, I still have time!"
Joshua shrugged.
Kitaniji threw a binding spell over Joshua, then summoned a princess at random--Shiki, Neku realized in horror--then, he bound Beat, as well.
Kitaniji used a barrier Neku had only heard of--it allowed forced channeling. It did not, however, prevent regular channeling.
Kitaniji really didn't stand a chance once Neku realized that he could channel through all three former partners at once.
---
"Too late," Joshua told Kitaniji. "Good game."
"Thank you," Kitaniji replied, and fell, taking his last breath.
---
"This was-- You did this?" Neku demanded. "All of this?" He paused. "You just... you play with our lives, and--"
"How does it go?" Joshua said, staring into the distance for a few seconds. "Long live the king," he continued, holding out his arms in a mock-welcoming gesture. "You have your princesses back, I don't see what the problem is."
"Rhyme won't wake up," Shiki told them.
"Enchanted sleep, no doubt. It's a simple cure, especially if it was Kariya or Uzuki who cursed her," Joshua replied.
Beat punched Joshua in the mouth. Hard. "You sonova-- Fix her! Bring Rhyme back!"
Joshua ignored him, using Neku to channel a healing spell to fix his split lip.
Neku didn't think about how healing spells normally felt, low and warm in his stomach, or how everything Joshua channeled through him seemed to leave a trail. He had never channeled both ways, but every wizard Neku had ever spoken to was right. There was nothing like it.
"If it was Kariya or Uzuki's work, then the cure is simply True Love's First Kiss."
Shiki and Eri looked at each other, sharing a kind of silent communication that they had developed over the years. "They're the only two who have even come into direct contact with Rhyme," Shiki admitted aloud.
Everyone spent several incredibly awkward seconds trying not to think about how they would bring Rhyme back to the world of the living.
"Oh, honestly," Joshua snapped. He marched to Rhyme's side and knelt, leaning forward in a brief, romantic kiss.
Rhyme did not stir, but Eri made a soft "Oh" and blushed. She grabbed Rhyme's hand and remembered to glare at Joshua as he stood.
Joshua backed away from Rhyme, and right into Beat. Beat punched him again.
Joshua swiped the blood off of his lip with a thumb, then licked it off. The healing spell came slower this time, as if to prove to Neku he was doing it just because he could, and not because a split lip actually deserved a healing spell. Neku felt his cock twitch.
"Not fucking fair," he growled. Beat ignored him, but Shiki and Eri looked appropriately puzzled. Joshua smirked. He always seemed to be smirking. "Beat," Neku said, at last. "Mind if I try?"
Beat shook his head. "Naw, go ahead, Bones."
Neku stepped forward, steeling himself. He glanced between Joshua and Rhyme. Slowly, carefully, Neku set aside his staff and put one hand beside the torn bits of fluffy skirt that Shiki and Eri had placed under Rhyme's head in a make-shift pillow for balance, bringing his lips closer to hers.
Neku felt nothing when they connected. Rhyme did nothing when he pulled away. He had expected as much.
Joshua rolled his eyes at the glares everyone was leveling at him. He threw a cure at Rhyme. An antidote spell, a curse-lift, a cure-all. Nothing. "Well," Joshua said, as if planning to continue the sentence, like "Well, this is a fine mess, isn't it?" Or, "Well, Neku and I are out as the obvious candidates for Rhyme's One True Love. This could take a while." Or, even, "Well, time for those girl kisses. Hop to it, princesses!"
Shiki seemed to get it, at least. She kissed Rhyme next, causing Eri to bite her lip in hope, or fear, or both. Eri's lip was bleeding as Shiki sat up, resuming her position as guardian of Rhyme's bedside.
Joshua wasted more energy on a healing spell for Eri. Neku punched him in the arm. "Stop doing that," he hissed. "This is not the time to be screwing around."
Eri was next, and, as expected, nothing happened. They were running out of options.
Shiki looked up at Beat uncertainly. She bit her lip.
Beat punched a nearby wall, then turned and hit Joshua harder than he had before, leaving a smear of blood on Joshua's cheek from his knuckles.
"Beat!" Eri cried out. "Beat, please!"
Joshua had to grab Neku's arm to maintain his balance. Neku rolled his eyes, casting a quick cure before Joshua could. Joshua squeezed his arm, riding out the rush of painless euphoria coupled with the feeling of a two-way channel spell.
In front of them, Beat hovered at Rhyme's side for a moment, before darting down for one quick, nervous kiss.
Rhyme gasped and sat up.
---
"True love's first kiss means romantic love, doesn't it?" Neku asked Joshua as they sat in a local tavern, alone, hours later.
The princesses were in a rented room upstairs with Beat, celebrating. Beat hadn't left Rhyme's side, or looked away unless he had some kind of physical contact with her--a hand on her shoulder, on her head, in her hand.
Joshua nodded solemnly. He refilled his mug without the bartender's help.
"And they'll just have to live with that?" Neku pressed.
"Yeah," Joshua replied. "But, on the brighter side of things, you and your friends stopped a great evil in its tracks, and you got to see the full extent of your powers."
"No, I didn't," Neku argued, looking down at his empty mug.
"No, you didn't," Joshua agreed, "but that was rather the point. Your powers don't have a limit."
"Like yours," Neku said.
"Like mine."
---
A/N: It goes without saying that Uzuki and Kariya totally double-channel.