Diamond Tiara groaned as she approached the school. She had gotten barely any sleep last night and honestly didn’t feel like going to school today, but she knew that she had no choice. Her father would never approve of her missing school unless she was ill, and although she was good at playing innocent, she was terrible at feigning illness.
“Good morning, Diamond,” Sweetie Belle said as Diamond Tiara passed her by on the street.
Diamond turned to face her and wave a hoof weakly. “Morning…”
“Oh my,” Sweetie Belle said, “You look awful. Didn’t you sleep well last night?”
“I didn’t sleep at all,” Diamond said groggily. “I was up all night watching PoniMyu and eating hay pocky.”
Sweetie Belle giggled. “Yeah, I’ve been there. You get used to it.”
“You’ve stayed up late watching anime before? Is that why you’re always sleeping in class?”
Sweetie Belle shook her head. “No, that just happens whenever I sit still for too long.”
“Oh.” Diamond let out a loud yawn, and then stopped when the two reached the schoolyard. “Well, I guess you’ll want to meet up with your fellow crusaders,” she said, looking around nervously for a certain pony.
“Yeah, guess so,” Sweetie Belle said, watching Diamond looking around the schoolyard. “Hey, are you okay?”
Diamond nodded but didn’t stop looking around. “I’m fine.” She noticed that Sweetie Belle hadn’t left and turned to see the Unicorn looking at her with concern on her face. “Really, it’s nothing. Go on and join your friends.”
“… Well, okay, if you say so. See ya!” Sweetie Belle ran off into the schoolyard, leaving Diamond Tiara standing at the gate, still looking around for a certain pony.
A hoof tapped Diamond’s shoulder, causing her to shriek and spin around quickly. “W-What?!” she shouted, only to find a startled Silver Spoon looking at her. “O-Oh… H-Hi, Silver Spoon.”
“Are you alright?” Silver Spoon asked. “Whoa, you have bags under your eyes… Rough night?”
Diamond Tiara yawned, and then nodded. “I guess you could say that…”
The school bell rang, signalling the start of the school day and telling all of the foals to get inside for their first lessons.
After the first two lessons, the students were let out for a fifteen minute break. During this time, Diamond Tiara dragged Silver Spoon around to an isolated area behind the school building, telling her that she had something very important that she needed to talk to her about.
After checking to make sure that they were indeed alone, Diamond Tiara took a deep breath and gathered her courage.
“Silver Spoon… I need to tell you something. Something important.”
“You’re not going to confess your love to me, are you?” Silver Spoon asked, surprising Diamond Tiara.
“N-No! Of course I’m not! N-Not that there’s anything to confess in the first place!” Diamond Tiara was now red, and very flustered. “W-Why would you even suggest something like that?!”
Silver Spoon shrugged nonchalantly. “You drag me here where there’s nopony else and tell me that you have something important to tell me. Just seemed like that kind of setup. So what’s up?”
Diamond Tiara calmed herself down and took another deep breath. “I… like anime.”
As soon as she said that, the entire world seemed to stop. Silver Spoon’s expression was unreadable. Was she mad? Upset? Or was she okay with it? Maybe even delighted? Diamond just couldn’t tell.
Everything grew darker, and Diamond looked up to see that the sunlight being obscured by the tall school building.
“Anime…” Silver Spoon said, causing Diamond Tiara to turn her attention back to her. “You… like anime?”
Diamond Tiara nodded nervously, and Silver Spoon let out a disappointed sigh, whilst shaking her head. “I… hate anime.”
Diamond Tiara felt her heart sink and took a step closer to Silver Spoon, only to find herself being pushed back by the other filly. “Silver Spoon… why?”
“Why?” Silver Spoon raised her head slowly, her eyes being obscured by the overcast shadow of her mane. “Because anime…” Silver Spoon’s head raised completely, revealing her eyes. But rather than the purple eyes that Diamond Tiara was expecting, she instead saw two blood-red eyes, with small black pupils, and two tomoe orbiting each pupil. “Killed my parents!”
Silver Spoon’s body was enveloped in a red aura, and Diamond Tiara took a few frightened steps back.
“Diamond!”
Diamond Tiara turned around to see Sweetie Belle standing at a distance. She threw something at Diamond Tiara, which the pink filly grabbed with her mouth. It was some kind of strange, long pink key of some kind.
‘A Keyblade?’ Diamond thought to herself before turning to face Silver Spoon, who was now five times bigger than before and charging up a magical orb of fire in her mouth.
Silver Spoon fired the ball, and Diamond Tiara nimbly dodged it. She wanted to fight back, but she couldn’t yet. She needed to wait. It wasn’t the right time to strike just ye-
DING!
The ‘ding’ that sounded told her that her ATB had charged up, so now, she was free to use whatever attack she wished. She chose to use her Limit Break.
‘Dying Will, T-Burner!’ A bright flash of orange light in the shape of a tiara shot forth from her Keyblade, engulfing Silver Spoon and causing the grey filly to roar in pain.
“Dia-mond… why?”
Diamond Tiara let out a tear as she watched her friend turn to ash before her very eyes. She couldn’t believe what she had just done… but she knew, deep down, that it had to be done…
“Forgive me, Silver Spoon,” Diamond Tiara said as she opened her eyes.
“What for?” asked Silver Spoon, who was sitting right next to Diamond Tiara, in the middle of class.
Diamond Tiara took a moment to process where she was and then quickly bolted up in her seat. Around her, the other foals in the class began to laugh out loud.
“Are you well rested up now, Diamond Tiara?” Cheerilee asked, walking up to Diamond Tiara’s desk. Diamond simply nodded, her entire face red from the realization of what had just happened. “That’s good! Then you’ll have plenty of energy to sit through an extra thirty minutes after school.”
Diamond moaned, but knew that protesting would only make things worse. “Yes, Miss Cheerilee.”
After school was out, and Diamond Tiara had served her thirty minutes detention for sleeping in class, the pink filly made her way out of the school building and met up with Silver Spoon, who had agreed to wait for her outside.
“Hey there,” Silver said as Diamond approached her. “What’d you do? Just sit there, or did she make you write lines?”
“I had to listen to a lecture on the importance of paying attention in class.”
“That doesn’t sound so-”
“And then she tested me on it.” Silver Spoon gave her a sympathetic look, but Diamond Tiara shrugged it off. “Anyway, thanks for waiting for me.”
“NP. But what exactly did you want to talk to me about that’s so important?” Diamond was about to answer, but Silver cut her off. “Is this about what Apple Bloom said about you and Sweetie Belle hanging out together in Manehattan?”
Diamond Tiara bit her lower lip. “So… you heard about that…” Silver Spoon nodded. “… And that’s all?” Another nod, this one slower. “… Are you free right now? I’d like you to come ‘round to my place, so I can explain there.”
“Yeah, I’m free right now,” Silver Spoon said. Diamond Tiara paused for a second, and then began leading the way back to her house.
“First off,” Diamond Tiara said, stopping for a moment in the middle of a street. “Is your family still alive?”
To say Silver Spoon was confused would be an understatement. “Uh… yes?” she said. “You met them a few days ago, remember?”
Diamond Tiara nodded, grinning sheepishly. “Just checking,” she said. ‘Okay, so this is reality this time, right?’
The two rich fillies entered Filthy Rich’s house and were quickly greeted by said house owner, who stopped Diamond Tiara for a moment to give her a package that had come for her earlier.
Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon stopped just outside of Diamond’s room. Silver Spoon was waiting for her friend to open the door and invited her in, but something seemed to have caused Diamond Tiara to hesitate.
“Um… could you close your eyes, please?” Diamond asked, smiling nervously at Silver Spoon.
Silver wasn’t sure what to expect but complied anyway, closing her eyes until Diamond told her to open them. She heard the door open and felt Diamond Tiara leading her forward by her hoof.
Once they were inside, Diamond Tiara closed her bedroom door, placed her package on her bed, and took a deep breath. “Okay, you can open your eyes now.”
Silver Spoon opened her eyes and was taken aback by what she saw. There was no way that this was Diamond Tiara’s room. Not a chance.
On the bed was a stack of books… No, not books. They were manga, Silver Spoon realized. ‘The Legend of Celestia’ was written on all of their spines, with a different subtitle for each one.
She looked over to Diamond Tiara’s desk and saw a whole stack of DVDs. ‘The World Faust Only Knows’, ‘Sombra May Cry’, and ‘Equestria Axis Powers’ were among a few of the titles that Silver Spoon could see.
On Diamond Tiara’s wall, where there used to be pictures of jewellery and cool colt bands, there was now a poster of an anime stallion with a tidy appearance holding an apple and with a black notebook behind him, and another poster of a group of ponies in sailor uniforms.
“So… I guess you’ve probably figured it out by now,” Diamond Tiara said, after Silver Spoon hadn’t said anything for a full minute.
“… This is… certainly different than I last remember.”
‘Oh, good. No signs of anger yet,’ Diamond thought to herself, a slight feeling of hope finding its way into her.
“So… you like this kind of stuff?” Silver Spoon asked, walking over to a shelf that was lined with a variety of plush toys. One was a white… rabbit thing, Silver Spoon assumed. It had a red gem on its forehead. There was a black one with a blue gem sitting next to it. “I had no idea.”
Diamond Tiara shuffled about on the spot nervously. “Um… does it… make you angry?”
Silver Spoon turned to Diamond Tiara and raised an eyebrow. “Angry? Why would I be angry?”
‘She’s not angry!’ Diamond thought to herself excitedly, a smile creeping its way onto her face. “Well, y’know… You’re always going on about how lame anime is, and how it’s ridiculous that Sweetie Belle likes it at her age…”
Silver Spoon scratched the back of her head. “Oh, that…” She shifted about on the spot whilst keeping her attention on Diamond Tiara. “That was… I was only trying to find new ways to tease her.”
“You were?” Diamond asked.
Silver Spoon nodded. “You… hadn’t really teased them in so long. I thought that something was up. That you were depressed or something… I’m not very good at talking to ponies about their problems, so I thought that, if I could find something new to tease them about, you’d feel better.”
Diamond Tiara breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s all it was?”
Silver Spoon nodded. “Well, honestly, I don’t like anime all that much…” Diamond’s expression fell. “But I like you, so if it’s important to you, I think I can look past it.”
Diamond’s face lit up and she jumped forward to tackle-hug, or ‘glomp’, as she’d seen it referred to as online, her friend. Silver Spoon yelped as she fell to the floor, and struggled a bit to get Diamond Tiara off of her.
Once Diamond backed away, and Silver Spoon had been given time to breathe, the grey filly looked over at the package on Diamond Tiara’s bed. “So… what’s that? More anime stuff?” She looked around the room, wondering where in Equestria Diamond would even fit more merchandise. She noticed a figure of a pony in a maid outfit, wearing cat ears, striking some strange pose, and raised her eyebrow at it. ‘… I won’t ask.’
Diamond Tiara picked up the package and shook her head. “I don’t only collect anime stuff, you know?” She opened the package up and pulled out two pony dolls, both with brushable manes and a few accessories to go with them. “They’re the new dolls that are coming out next week! Daddy gets to purchase them early, remember?”
Silver Spoon gasped excitedly at the sight of the two new dolls and leaned forward to examine them more closely. “Awesome! So, you still collect ‘Little Pony Friend’ dolls?”
Diamond Tiara nodded. “Yeah. It’s not like anime is replacing my previous interests… I still like dolls, and tea parties, and everything I liked before.” Diamond Tiara handed one of her new dolls to Silver Spoon to allow her to examine it more closely. “By the way, just out of curiosity, why exactly don’t you like anime? Is it just not your thing?”
“Hm?” Silver Spoon looked up at Diamond Tiara and then back down at the doll. “Uh, not really… I haven’t really tried any. It’s just… I have my reasons. Let’s leave it at that.”
Diamond Tiara frowned. “Well how do you know if you don’t try it first?”
Silver Spoon looked around at all of the anime-related things in Diamond’s room, and then at Diamond Tiara herself. She had to admit to a certain curiosity about her friend’s new interest, and also, she supposed it would be unfair to just dismiss it like that without giving it a proper chance.
“… Well, I guess I could watch an episode or two…”
After a full afternoon of nonstop anime, with Diamond Tiara making sure that Silver Spoon watched at least two episode of each different genre, Silver Spoon finally had to leave and go home.
”So? What do you think?” Diamond Tiara asked enthusiastically, running a brush through one of her new dolls’ mane.
“They were… Alright. Well, some of them were,” Silver Spoon said, running a brush through the other new doll’s mane. “I can’t say it was bad, but I can’t really see what the big appeal is.”
Diamond pouted at Silver Spoon’s reaction. “You obviously have no soul.”
Silver Spoon rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t mind watching it with you now and again, but I just don’t find it as interesting as you do. And, I still have my reasons for not liking anime very much.”
“What are those reasons, anyway?”
“… It’s personal.”
Silver Spoon sighed as she opened the front door to her house. “I’m home,” she said, walking inside and placing her key in the bowl next to the door.
“Gotcha now, demon!” a little brown colt shouted as he suddenly appeared from around a corner, wearing a green cloak and a pair of goggles around his neck. He charged at Silver Spoon, who attempted to run up the stairs to get away, but she was tackled before she could make it all the way up.
“Get off of me!” she shouted.
The colt ignored her and instead stood triumphantly over Silver Spoon’s body. “Success! Another one of the Princess’ memory feathers has been found!”
Silver Spoon sighed and rubbed her temples as the colt began hitting her with an inflatable sword. ‘This is why I hate anime…’