Sakura Yugure woke up slowly to the feeling of soft bedding and a silk robe around her. For a moment, she couldn't remember where she was, and started to sit up and look around - but recollection caught up with her as she got halfway upright.

{Oh, right, I'm in Morrigan's penthouse,} she thought. {She brought me here, and calmed me down, and she pampered me most of the night, and I fell asleep in her bed here.} A sudden blush overcame Sakura as she recalled a rather vivid dream she'd had while asleep, concerning what might have happened had Morrigan walked in on her in the shower. She shivered a bit and let herself fall back to the bed.

This brought her arm into contact with another warm body also occupying the mattress, and Sakura jerked her head around, Morrigan's last comment before Sakura had fallen asleep ("Not just men, little sister... women too!") coming to mind in all too hentai a fashion.

Sure enough, Morrigan was there, in the same silk bathrobe she'd been wearing last night. She opened her eyes at the bump of Sakura's arm and smiled sleepily. "Good morning, little sister. Did you sleep well?"

The comment was innocently phrased and the smile was no more than friendly, but it brought the dream to mind again and Sakura's mind froze up, caught halfway between indignant suspicion and utter embarrasment. "I.. you didn't.. me.. *we* didn't.." she managed to stammer.

Morrigan blinked, then smiled. "Relax. All we did in this bed was sleep," she replied, causing Sakura to go limp with relief.

After a moment to recover, she rolled sideways out of bed and looked around. Her travel bag was visible, down by the door on the first floor of the split-level suite, but there was no sign of the fuku she'd been wearing when she met Morrigan last night. She turned to Morrigan wearing the expression of every sibling everywhere when they suspect *their* sibs have played a joke on them. "Morrigan-oneesan... *Where* are my clothes??" she asked, hands on hips and one eyebrow raised.

Morrigan's lips quirked, but she didn't immediately speak... causing a suspicious Sakura to react, again, in much the fashion of overly-kidded siblings everywhere. "Oneesan!!" she growled, and leaped back onto the bed, tackling Morrigan and causing a fine good-natured tussle. Morrigan won by tickling Sakura into submission - "You cheated!" the girl growled afterward - and got off the bed before hostilities could resume.

"Actually, I suspect that *you* know more about where your clothes are than *I* do, little sister," Morrigan commented, "and that brings me around to what I wanted to teach you today."

"Huh?" Sakura replied, understandably.

Morrigan smiled gently. "I checked on you while you were in the shower, you see, and I was just in time to witness something extraordinary." Sakura glared at her, and Morrigan laughed lightly. "Not *that,* my dear - I never set one foot into the shower stall itself. Not that I'd have refused if you invited me," she finished. This brought the dream to Sakura's mind again, and she was reduced to incoherent blushing. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Morrigan went on. "You see, at about the time you started to hum in the shower, your clothes vanished into sparks, which made their way into the shower itself. I had suspected something like this ever since you told me that both you and your original self were fully clothed when you were formed. Didn't it occur to you that the extra suit of clothing had to come from somewhere?"

Sakura was speechless.

Morrigan patted her on the shoulder. "I know, it's all a bit sudden. Literally waking up one morning and being told you created your uniform from nothing can be a shock."

Shaking her head to clear it, Sakura tried to form a coherent comment. "You... you mean I made my clothes just like I did my body?" she managed, then suddenly looked thoughtful. "Hey, that has possibilities.." she mused, only to be startled out of thoughts of fashion my Morrigan's silvery laughter.

"Exactly, little sister," the succubus commented, "But only once you learn to control it. And after we're done with that, if there's anything left of the day.." Sakura groaned at the thought of a full-day non-Shotokan training session - it sounded too much like school - and Morrigan continued. "..then I'll teach you control and repair of your own body the same way. You'll need that, I think - but I'll cover that later."

Sakura blinked. "Okay... that sounded like a loaded comment, but we'd better get onto this creating clothes thing. So what do I do?"

Morrigan smiled at her younger sister. "Well, first I think you should take that robe off, unless you intend for the clothes you create to be permanently entagled with it."

Sakura blinked again, this time dismayed and a bit embarrassed. "You mean... stand here nude?" she asked, her cheeks reddening again. {That's happening far too often this morning... I'd better develop a thicker skin about this or I'll end up permanently red!} she thought.

Morrigan nodded. "Yes, stand nude. Now, focus your *chi* as you would to call forth an attack..." she began as Sakura reluctantly shrugged off the robe and stepped out of it.

Most of an hour and several tries later, a very frustrated young girl called a halt and plopped down in a chair. "Arrgh. I'm sorry, Oneesan. I just can't concentrate the way you say I need to. I never learned that sort of thing, not formally."

Morrigan blinked. "You mean you learned all those tricks you can do, as a human, without learning even a Zen focus first? You're amazing."

Sakura grunted and massaged her temples. "I think I'm getting a headache. Is there any way for me to learn how to recreate my clothes *without* this ultimate concentration on a single thing? I mean, you make it seem *so* easy..." she looked up to find Morrigan dressed in a replica of Chun-Li's fighting outfit, complete with double-bun hairdo. "You see? There you go again!" the girl complained, and dropped her face into her hands.

Morrigan shifted back into her normal outfit and said contritely, "I'm sorry, sister. We succubi are creatures of mischief, and the impulse suddenly struck me. It's hard sometimes, and I can't put down *all* my mischeivous urges about you." Sakura looked up at that line, to see Morrigan staring down at the floor almost guiltily, her lip between her teeth and her face a bit nervous, behaving more like the schoolgirl Sakura used to be than a centuries-old succubus queen.

Sakura, for her part, spent several seconds staring at her sort-of sister before biting her own lip. "I.. just as long as it's only teasing.. or.." she trailed off for a moment, almost unable to believe she was considering the idea she was, then murmured, "..or as long as you get my permission.." before reddening again.

Morrigan looked up at her with wide eyes, blinked (three times), smiled reassuringly, and spoke softly. "Don't worry, I'll take it slowly. You've got rather a lot to adjust to, after all, and I don't want to push you too hard." She stopped long enough to hear Sakura's murmured thanks, then said brightly, "Well, back to our original subject. What you need to do is have a *complete* sensory picture in your head of what you create. If you imagine the feel of the fabric and forget the weight, the fabric won't appear. Likewise, you need to capture in your mind each individual facet of what separates *that* item from all other things in Creation. This is difficult, and it's hard to master without being able to focus on it without distraction."

Sakura sighed. "Like I said, I never got that far. Ryu said I summon *chi* by Will instead of Focus... I guess that has something to do with it."

Morrigan nodded. "Quite. You pull up chi from vast internal reserves by dint of a will that is nothing short of incredible, while he, and most humans, have to substitute concentration for that willpower. In most situations, that comes out in your favour... but unfortunately, not this one. I know of several methods to train you in this, but most of them require you to spend several months learning..."

Sakura groaned. "I can't go several months without clothes! Isn't there any way to do it today?"

Morrigan squatted down in front of Sakura as she sat in the chair. "Yes... but that would involve me guiding you into a meditative trance... essentially hypnotizing you. I understand if you don't want to allow me to do that..."

Sakura blinked, a quiver of worry working its way along her spine. The idea of Morrigan having that much power over her was more than a bit unnerving, especially given what Morrigan had just admitted to regarding her urges. Other notions, though, made it seem a little more compatible. {She did leave me alone in the shower... the dream doesn't count,} Sakura thought. {And I slept the whole night beside her, in her bed, and she didn't do anything... I guess this isn't so different.} Aloud, she replied, "I don't have a problem with that as long as you don't mess with my head."

Morrigan sighed. "'Messing with your head', dear, is exactly the point - I have to in order to enable you to concentrate the way you should. Perhaps you should redefine that permission."

Sakura gave Morrigan a speculative look, trying to decide if she was being fed a line, before replying. "Okay... No changing what I think or feel about things and no implanting post-hypnotic commands, is that clear?"

Morrigan nodded. "Crystal clear." Her pupils began to glow as she stared Sakura in the eye.

The next thing Sakura knew, she was coming awake covered in sweat, as if she'd been standing in a sauna, and she was still without any clothes. "Oneesan... didn't it work?" she complained. "And I feel drained, as if I've used too much *chi* all at once..."

"Well, you did, sister dear, practicing!" Morrigan said matter-of-factly, still looking perfectly composed. "Once you got the hang of the technique, you had to repeat it until your subconscious absorbed the knowledge. Try creating your fuku, though," she suggested.

Sakura blinked, frowned, and closed her eyes briefly, as the full *sense* of her fuku came into her mind - how it felt, moved, its weight and texture, all its colours...

..and suddenly in a rush of sparkles it was there, complete with all the usual other parts of her outfit. She opened her eyes and squealed in glee, doing a quick pirouette. "Yatta!"

"Very nice," Morrigan applauded. "Now since it's late afternoon already, we can have dinner and relax for the evening. Tomorrow we'll get to the next part of the lesson - the control and repair of your own body."