Time for a new short.
Confrontation:
A multitude of bright orbs flooded over a shifting background of random spoked wheels, striating into colorful explosions of white, red, and blue lines that crisscrossed one another intricately as a figure clad in a witch’s dress weaved through it all, chasing after another in a dress featuring a flaring blue skirt on the holographic screen. Catchy music floated through the air from it as mismatched eyes darted to and fro at the imagery displayed. Vivio Takamachi’s face split into an increasingly manic grin as her score on the game continued to skyrocket as she pushed on dutifully through the old computer game her Japanese mother had played as a child.
It was dawn in the Takamachi household, and the teenager was up at an uncharacteristically early hour during this weekend, dressed in a shirt several sizes too big as she sat in the middle of the living room floor, controller in hand as she made excellent progress through the old game’s hardest difficulty. Granted, some may consider her cheating at the game—her unique trait, one of the many gifts awarded to her by virtue of her ancestor’s DNA almost trivialized the game’s mechanics after enough play. Her eyes very rapidly picked up the patterns that allowed Vivio to proceed through it flawlessly.
Who cared what others thought, however. Today Vivio was exceedingly pleased with herself. After much struggle, through coercion, strong-arming, and flat out begging, the young Sankt Kaiser’s efforts had finally begun to pay off, as the night before her mother had capitulated and left the house in her care as she went out to meet up with her childhood friend, the chief librarian of the Infinite Library and Vivio’s current employer, Yuuno Scrya. For too long Vivio had grown increasingly annoyed as both her mother and her employer continued to not spend time with one another as important and lucrative projects within their spheres of interest fell into their laps whenever the other had no pressing concerns and plenty of free time on their hands.
Vivio’s thought processes ground to a halt as she heard footsteps elsewhere in the house, followed by the uncharacteristic sound of her mother humming a song from her childhood. Unlike her teenaged daughter, Nanoha Takamachi entered the living room of the house fully dressed, and flashed Vivio a bright smile and a quick “Good morning!” before making her way into the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
Vivio blinked at the quick exchange. While her mother was definitely a morning person, she usually wasn’t in
this good a mood when she got up, nor would she typically let go of such a fine opportunity to tease her about being up before her, when she would’ve been whining at her for waking her up in the comfy confines of her bed in a futile attempt to sleep in.
“You’re in a really good mood this morning, mama,” she remarked, quickly pausing the game to spring up onto the couch, looking over its back as her mother expertly prepared this morning’s dishes.
“I suppose I am!” Nanoha responded. Vivio watched as the Ace of Aces practically skipped about the kitchen. The teen’s smile grew wider. More fruits of her labor? A resounding success in her machinations?! She was delighted.
“Ne, ne, tell me! How’d last night go, mama?” she interrogated, using her hands and knees to heighten her stance on the furniture. “What’s got you in such a good mood?”
Nanoha let out a melodic laugh at her daughter’s enthusiasm. “Ah, just a stroke of good fortune, Vivio,” she told the girl, a sizzle sounding through the kitchen as she put food on the stove. With her back turned to Vivio, she didn’t see the girl hurdle herself over the couch. “There’s this new training program at work starting up today! They’re—“
She cut off and turned around at the sound of Vivio’s body crashing to the floor mid-transit from living room to kitchen. “Vivio? Are you okay?” she asked with concern.
The mother yelped as Vivio flew up from the floor, her hands slamming hard against the wood table and making the plates laid out there rattle from the impact. “What’re you talking about!? A training program!?” Vivio snapped, red and green eyes blazing with renewed irritation. “Why are you talking about a training program!?”
A bead of sweat trickled on Nanoha’s forehead and she laughed sheepishly, having momentarily forgot about her daughter’s current peeve in life. “It came up last night, that’s all. Yuuno-kun was telling me about it and…”
Nanoha trailed off as her daughter collapsed across the table in overdramatic fashion, causing her to frown disapprovingly at Vivio’s melodrama. The child groaned in frustration. “Why did he have to talk to you about that… there’s plenty of things you two could talk about and
you chose to talk about that…”
Nanoha sighed, resting a hand on her hip. “Come on, Vivio, Yuuno-kun was my instructor in magic. Of
course we talk about such things, you know that.”
Something seemed to snap in Vivio and she shot up again, slamming her hands on the table once more and rattling it around. “This is ridiculous, mama! Are you trying to force me to take drastic measures!?”
“Wha--?”
“Don’t make me tell Miura to talk to Shamal about forced leave!” she threatened.
Nanoha’s eyes went wide in shock. “You wouldn’t!”
“Try me!”
==========
“… she what?” Einhart spoke over the holographic screen.
“She grounded me,” Vivio growled out from her bed, forcing three balls of iridescent light to zip through the air above her in increasingly aggressive patterns.
The older girl could only sigh through the monitor. “Again?”
“Again.”