Happy Birthday Krissy!
Here is the final installment of your fanfic! I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. :)
CHAPTER FIVE - Off With Her Head!!
Krissy opened her eyes gingerly and peered around. Had she really fainted from all that excitement? She wasn’t sure. What she did know was that she was currently lying in a patch of soft, green grass, in the middle of an English garden maze. Sitting up, she noted that the hedges which boxed her in were fairly tall - she was sure she wouldn’t be able to see over their tops unless she jumped up and down - but they did appear to create pathways that she could attempt to explore.
Carefully she sat up and got back on her feet again. Looking both left and right, she couldn’t find any difference in either path that would take her where she needed to go, so after a few rounds of “eenie-meenie-mynee-mo” she went left.
Unlike the dark woods she’d left behind, the maze was brightly lit from the morning sun above. The sky was a brilliant blue color without a single cloud in the sky. The temperature was just perfect for a walk, which was just as well, since Krissy spent the next 20 minutes looking for an exit from the botanical labyrinth. At long last, she heard a soft “thock” sound - much like two solid objects coming together from a distance. She began to angle her direction towards the sound, ending up bumping into a few dead ends, before she finally stumbled upon what appeared to be the center of the maze.
First of all, there were playing cards everywhere. Some of them were standing at attention along the sideline, acting the part of soldiers at attention, while the rest of them were scattered about the field, arching their backs as they stood on two hands and two feet, providing croquet hoops for the game. There were various colored balls on the ground, only when Krissy looked more closely, they were actually small hedgehogs, their bodies curled up into balls so that the prickly hairs on their backs melded smoothly against their bodies, making them seamless.
Then she actually glanced at those gathered in the clearing and was surprised to note that everyone was there! Ohno-Butterfly was perched on the edge of a chair, fishing pole in hand and fiddling with one of the lures at the end of it. Sho-Mad Hatter and Yu-March Hare were seated next to him. The former was shivering, and appeared to be locked in his shell-shocked state again as he sat with his knees drawn up to his chest. The later was smirking wickedly at Sho-Mad Hatter and sat easily on his chair. At their feet between them, the terra cotta tea pot was tilted over on its side, the tiny Ryo-Dormouse spilled out of the lip, and fast asleep as always. Krissy had to squint slightly to find Jun-Cheshire Cat, but when she found the disembodied grin, the rest of his sinuous body blurred back into view, and blushing, she had to look away once more. As she did so, she was delighted to finally see that Aiba-Rabbit was there too, his coveralls replaced with a tunic upon which hearts were emblazoned like a coat of arms. “Usagi-san!” she called out, waving her hand madly in the hopes of getting his attention. She did, of course. Get his attention.
But she also drew the interest of the other human figure in the clearing. Unlike her counterpart in the Disney DVD, this Queen of Hearts was incredibly lovely. She had a slender body, dressed in, what Krissy was surprised to note, a long, black Chinese dress. The satin was embroidered all over with bright red hearts, the butterfly buttons running from the top right of her mandarin collar, down diagonally across her left chest. Her hair was piled on top of her head, with curling tendrils draping elegantly down a bared back. Despite the fact she was playing croquet, she wore black patent leather heels, flashing a well shaped leg through a side slit in the dress each time she stepped forward. Wearing a crown that sported a huge red heart on the top, she turned to Krissy and growled,
“You weren’t invited! Trying to crash a party like that? Kaeru!” Krissy almost fell over backwards. Here was the missing Nino.
As the Queen of Hearts.
“You. Have. GOT. To. Be. KIDDING. Me!!” As the queen, Nino was seriously gorgeous, his delicate features easily imitating those of a woman. Krissy was chagrined to admit he looked better than she did, especially in her now frumpy and wrinkled frock. But his bratty attitude hadn’t changed in the slightest. At her incredulous comment, Nino-Queen pointed at her and snapped,
“Off with her head!”
“Ne ne! Kouhi-sama!” Aiba-Rabbit intervened, hopping over to Nino-Queen and bowing in placating obsequiousness to him. “She’s only a girl. And she’s kinda nice. And you shouldn’t take off someone’s head before you even know their name, right? Maybe you can play a game of croquet with her?” Nino-Queen sniffed condescendingly and averted her gaze from Krissy as she shifted her croquet mallet in her arms.
“Well... I already know her name is Krissy-chan. And you’re right… it’s not as much fun playing alone. Eh. You can play.” Nino-Queen gestured idly at a long container, which held more mallets inside. Aiba-Rabbit looked over at Krissy and grinned encouragingly to her.
“Ano... you can play now! Go ahead and take a mallet, ne?” Krissy sighed, and then obligingly grabbed the handle of one of the mallets - only the handle began to kick the moment she grasped it. Pulling the entire thing out of its container, she was shocked to note that it was a green flamingo, its body held stiffly in the shape of a mallet. Krissy attempted to hold the bird more firmly in her grip, but it kept wriggling and wanting to be free. She made quite a spectacle as she attempted to keep the bird in one place, eliciting muted laughter from the gathered cards. Nino-Queen rolled his eyes at her and then began to walk to the first position, calling over his shoulder,
“Starto...! Not that you have any chance of winning, of course.”
“Jeeze,” Krissy muttered softly under her breath as she followed him, “I already knew Nino was a brat, but this is pushing it.”
“Urusai! Or I’ll cut off your head!” he shouted at her mutterings. It was likely as not that he hadn’t heard precisely what she’d said, otherwise her head probably would have been cut off. Instead, Krissy smiled at Nino-Queen and played along by curtsying to him, placating his anger relatively easily.
They came to the first tee. Nino-Queen looked over the field with a disgusted expression and then held out his hand towards the clearing. Immediately, the cards that were there leaped into the air and floated into his outstretched palm, stacking themselves neatly all on their own.
With a practiced flick of his hands, Nino-Queen began to shuffle the deck, shifting them around with lightning fast moves that Krissy couldn’t even follow. One-handed, he then fanned all the cards out and giving her a decided smirk, flung them back out onto the field where they came down in a new arrangement, creating a single tunnel made up of all the cards, thus creating an extremely easy way for him to win the first round. Krissy returned his smirk with a glare, but kept a tight lip. There was no need to antagonize “the queen.”
When Nino-Queen placed his mallet on the same colored hedgehog, he gave it a smart “thock” and the rolling mammal went through every single arch the cards made without touching the sides. At the end of the tunnel, there was a wooden pole that had been stuck into the ground. The red hedgehog crashed into it, unfurling its body as tiny stars appeared to swirl around its head.
Krissy was determined to play a good game as well. But when she walked up to the tee line, she was given pause as Nino-Queen lifted his outstretched palm once more and the obedient cards stacked themselves within it. As before, he flung them out again but “magically” instead of the cards making an easy one way tunnel, they plopped themselves down on the grass in every conceivable direction, making the possibility of a single hit through all the hoops pretty much impossible.
Krissy turned to Nino-Queen and was about to give the “woman” a piece of her mind, when she caught sight of Aiba-Rabbit. He was gesturing rather frantically at her, hopping up and down as he shook his head. He definitely did not want her to confront the queen, his eyes pleading with her not to do anything rash. Inwardly Krissy groaned. It really wasn’t fair. But Aiba looked so adorable when he was trying to placate her that she decided she would be “a good girl.”
For now.
With a sigh of resignation, Krissy placed her green hedgehog on the ground at the tee, and then she looked across the field to figure out which loop would be the easiest one to attempt first. It was a convoluted path and she was going to have to take at least a hundred hits to get her hedgehog through them all! Glancing down at the animal a moment, she was surprised to see that it had uncurled its body slightly so that its nose was sticking out. The little snout was twitching quite pointedly in one direction. When Krissy looked over, she saw a short refreshment table, laden with various cakes and cookies, and manned by several cards which were in charge of arranging the pastries.
The lightbulb suddenly went on in Krissy’s head and a wicked grin curled on her lips. It would never have worked in the real world, but heck… this was Ai-Lando right? When she turned to face Nino-Queen, though, her smile had melted into the most innocent expression she could muster. Of course, it would never work on her mom, but luckily she wasn’t trying to convince her mother.
“Your highness,” she murmured sketching a deep curtsy to Nino-Queen, “I apologize, but could I possibly get a small nibble to eat before I begin? It’s obvious I will be taking a little longer, unlike your masterful one-shot turn.” For a moment, she thought she had laid it on a bit too thick, but Nino-Queen suddenly smiled warmly at her, preening at the compliment and acting much more magnanimously towards her.
“But of course, dear,” he insisted. “You may have a bite.”
Score! Krissy thought to herself as she bowed to Nino-Queen, stood her mallet up on its two feet (luckily, it was no longer struggling, and in fact, had tucked its head under its wing and promptly gone to sleep), and then skipped over to the table. Examining the various pastries there, she picked one that wouldn’t be too messy and took the smallest bite out of it. She then skipped her way back to her position, keeping the remainder of the cake palmed in her hand. Gingerly, she grabbed her mallet once more, thankful that even though the bird was sleeping, its body remained stiffly in place. The green hedgehog at her feet seemed to perk up even more as she approached, smelling the sweet in her hand, but before it could uncurl completely, she gave it a soft whack, sending it rolling towards the first curled card hoop.
Dropping her mallet on the ground - ignoring the indignant squawk it made as it was unceremoniously dumped - Krissy made her way to the first hoop and bending down slightly, held the cake in front of it. The hedgehog would have stopped just short of the hoop, since it had not been given a hard enough hit, but upon smelling the treat, began to eagerly roll towards it. Krissy then proceeded to repeat this action at every single misplaced hoop, the green hedgehog never stopping in its roll as it sought to get closer to the cake. When she reached the last card, she dropped the sweet onto the grass and it was immediately pounced upon by the hedgehog. Gleefully she turned to Nino-Queen and announced,
“Looks like we tied this game!” Unfortunately, she was greeted by two distinct sights: one was Aiba-Rabbit, his head in his hands as he shook it in mute despair, and two was Nino-Queen’s face. He was /not/ happy.
“KAERU!” he shouted first, even as the kanji for that word, colored in red and outlined in black, suddenly floated in the air between him and Krissy. But Nino-Queen shook his head, and the floating word disappeared, followed soon thereafter with the proclamation, “Off with her head!”
“You can’t be serious!?” Krissy exclaimed, as she backed away. Nino-Queen didn’t respond verbally, but rather gestured to the cards once more and obediently they leaped to his hand. Holding one hand up high, he curled the deck in his hand and smartly reversed the bend. This caused them to fly through the air in a line of cards, directly into his other hand. “Nino-san! I mean… your highness, you can’t take my head off for doing that!” At this point, Ohno-butterfly, Sho-Mad Hatter, Yu-March Hare, Ryo-Dormouse and Jun-Cheshire Cat were also stalking her, although it was the Arashi members who took the forefront. Krissy found herself backed up against one of the labyrinth walls, unable to move further. “I mean… don’t I even get a trial?” she cajoled, trying to stop their approach. Nino-Queen of Hearts shuffled the deck of cards in his hands, and without looking, pulled a random card out of the deck and held it between the index and middle fingers of his right hand. It was a joker.
“But didn’t you want to meet us?” he asked her.
“You did say you were stalking Aiba,” Sho-Mad Hatter noted as pointed directly at Krissy.
“Although, you lied about it at first,” Jun-Cheshire Cat murmured slyly as he leaned over Sho-Mad Hatter’s shoulder.
“Ne… change is painful, isn’t it?” Ohno-Butterfly added as he came to stand by the others. “Especially when you change your lies to truths.” Krissy felt her legs give way, but before she could crumble to the ground, a pair of strong arms had scooped her up into the air. Krissy found herself being held princess-style in Aiba-Rabbit’s arms. Krissy’s heart went into double-time as she stared up at her favorite Arashi band member. Even dressed as a rabbit, he was still Aiba, and the heated blush that suffused her cheeks from their proximity made her as red as the hearts on his tunic. Looking down at her, Aiba-Rabbit gave her a toothy grin and softly whispered,
“Ne, baka hime. You learned a lot today from your adventures in Ai-Lando. Just remember that we keep our promises, okay?” Then he leaned over her face and placed a soft kiss against her forehead. At the tender touch, the world began to dissolve, and no matter how desperately Krissy tried to keep everything in focus, the shapes and colors dissolved into each other, taking on the appearance of a Technicolor Dali painting. She could still feel Aiba’s arms holding her, but that sensation too began to fade away as the bright colors muted and eventually faded to black.
All at once, she was aware of two things. She was back in her bed at home, and Ai-Lando was completely gone. With a groan of disappointment, she slipped off the bed and threw her curtains open, squinting at the bright sunlight that indicated she’d slept ‘til nearly noon.
“At least it’s a Saturday,” she noted out loud, albeit in a sleepy voice that was punctuated by numerous yawns. “Still, what a weird dream that was…” The soft strains of an Arashi song began to play and Krissy was startled only a moment before she realized that it was her cellphone. Scratching the back of her head, she went to her desk to pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Krissy! Hey, it’s Liz. I know we’re meeting today at 1:00 with everyone for karaoke, but I just couldn’t wait to tell everyone the news, so I’ve been calling like crazy!” Krissy blinked in mild confusion.
“Eh? What news?”
“Fuji-TV loved our clip on Mezamashi so much, that they are flying all of us out to Japan so that we can attend Arashi’s 10th year anniversary concert. Then, get this, we’re gonna meet them back stage after the concert is over!!”
*Thunk*
“Krissy? Krissy are you there? Did you faint? Are you okay? Hey Krissy!”
…
“I promise… your dream… will come true!”
~*fin*~