I said there were questions? Well here are maybe some answers. This chapter is maybe in between as long as chapters 6 and 7, so if you think you don't want to read it all at once feel free to stop at the "...". I'm not chopping them up though, so enjoy the full monty when you can.
This chapter was fun. Fun fun fun...
P.S. I didn't get the chance to edit this since I don't have time at the moment yet just really wanted to get it posted. I bet it'll still be fine, but if I'm able to I'll try to edit it later tonight or tomorrow. Cheers~
Chapter 8 – Prophecy Girl“Did you have any luck with Takahashi?” Miyabi asked as she walked into the Skulls lounge within the confines of House Nakazawa.
Reina looked up at her entry, along with the other two girls in the room, who were both still halfway in their sleeping bags. They had a little slumber party the night before, but being unable to find Shimizu easily before they’d turned in for the night, Miyabi was up early to try and catch the girl off-guard. She caught her of course, but…
“I couldn’t say…” Reina said, looking thoughtful. “She had some kind of friend with her that obviously hated my guts. The
good thing was for some reason I had the feeling both of them weren’t crazy about the rest of the Circle either. Takahashi sure doesn’t have the look of the other two, and her friend seemed a bit… overly protective.”
She paused a second to a yawn from Koharu before going on, giving a glance to the newest Skull who still lay in her bed with an almost pained expression on her brow. Miyabi smiled, remembering how that felt at first.
“She also didn’t flat out refuse me, which also shows she has quite a different attitude than we’re used to seeing. Maybe there’s something useful about being raised so late.” She lolled her head as she sat in her sprawled way in her chair, her long T-shirt somehow being enough to cover her completely. Not that Miyabi had never seen anything more before. “How about Shimizu? You finally hunt her down?”
“Yeah,” Miyabi responded blandly. “She hardly even talked to me. It almost looked like she was scared of me the whole time, but honestly it was the look in
her eyes that scared
me.” The girl’s eyes had been hollow and dark, and Miyabi avoided them as much as she could because when she looked into them she could hardly even reconcile that she was talking with a human being.
She’d liked the girl back before she was raised, even though she was a shrimp, but aside from being a Circle member now, she definitely was no longer very sociable. Not that Miyabi would willingly socialize with her anyway under normal circumstances. Circumstances since a week ago definitely had
not been normal.
“I think she might still be sore about that night,” she said in an attempt to sound cool, needing no explanation of what night she meant. A new world had definitely opened up for her since then, although for the most part she was wary of what she could do.
“Yeah,” Reina agreed. “I’m afraid that’s making it hard for Takahashi too. Of course, if I’d been so totally owned like that I’d probably act the same way…” She trailed off, and Miyabi wondered if they were thinking the same thing. She wondered if things had been different, and if it was a little more even playing field with all sides prepared, whether the result might not have been a bit different too.
“Are you really feeling that bad?” Miyabi asked suddenly, addressing the youngest girl still lying in her sleeping bag. A pained moan was her only response.
Walking over to the small tub lying on the floor, which was now full of mostly water with a few small chunks of ice, she dug a bottle out and tossed it at the girl, where it bounced on her stomach and rolled off just past her, eliciting another muffled groan.
“Have s’more sake,” Miyabi advised. “It’ll make you feel better.”
Chisato turned her head to look at her. “Really?”
Miyabi widened her eyes in innocence, glancing over at Reina who rolled her own slightly wonkier eyes, smirking. “Sure, kid,” Miyabi responded, and Chisato rolled her head to frown at the bottle lying at her side.
“It’s so nice having four of us again!” Koharu said, rising from her bright pink and yellow slumber bag. “It makes things like we did last night like real parties!”
“They
are real parties,” Reina said, lazily curling a finger in her hair. “Nothing else like Skull parties. Ne, Miyakko?”
“I’ve got no reason to doubt that…” Chisato said in a slightly slurred voice – well, more slurred than usual at least – as she chugged a couple gulps of the bottle Miyabi threw at her. That of course resulted in her jerking to the side in a coughing fit, which itself caused the other Skulls to break out in laughter.
“She’s right though,” Miyabi said, crouching down to a chess game between her and Reina they’d never finished. “It was quite a fun time, and much better with a bit more varied company.” After peering at the board a moment, she moved a bishop halfway across the board, flicking a knight she captured off the board with a finger. “Checkmate,” she said, and dove for her own blankets where she wrapped herself tightly in them. It had been cold walking all around campus so early this morning!
Out of the corner of her eye she caught Reina’s eyes dart to the board at her claim, and after staring at it a second jumped off her chair, crawling over to inspect it more closely.
“It definitely gave a good distraction from all the crowing you two have been doing all week,” Koharu said. “
’I owned Yajima’ this,
‘Did you see Shimizu’s face?’ that. It all became rather droll.”
Choosing not to make a comment at the girl’s misuse of vocabulary, Miyabi rolled over to get a better look at Reina, who still examined the chessboard closely, and smiled. “Just give it up. You know I don’t lie in chess.”
“But…” Reina said. “This queen…”
“Blocked by my knight,” Miyabi stated through a yawn. That quieted her captain again for the moment.
“Well I think I’ve had enough of this…” Chisato said, scrunching her nose at the bottle in her hand. “I feel well enough to…
ow,” she said as she tried sitting up, and held her head. “I need to go find Osuzu. She’s probably already in the library trying to find out why I should disown you guys.”
“You need a reason?” Miyabi asked, rolling to look up at her. “Okacchan, Okacchan… Have you learned nothing from us yet?”
Chisato stared at her as if Miyabi had sprouted horns. “Um… okay,” she said in a very slow voice.
“If you’re going to meet her,” Reina said, finally rising from the chessboard but with a fixed grimace on her face now. Apparently the girl had finally admitted she lost. “Ask her again about joining up. All it takes is a request…”
“It’d be much easier if you’d let me tell her that, you know!” Chisato said exasperatedly. “There’s no way she’d
just know that since she was involved so much with my audition she wouldn’t have to go through another one herself, and to join all she had to do was ask.” The young girl adopted a sour face as she spoke. Ever since they told her of that rule she’d seemed rather offended that it would be that easy for Airi to join with what she had to go through. What did the girl think her friend went through to end up tied up deep inside that cave? Miyabi smiled at the memory.
“That’s the point,” she said, as Reina just rolled her eyes. Miyabi hated when the girl did that, because when she did her wonky eye appeared to just dance around inside its socket. “Plus, if she’s really studying our history, wouldn’t she find that out for herself?”
“Fine…” Chisato responded in resignation as she buttoned her seifuku and donned her cap. A cap sure looked different on a girl in seifuku, but Chisato somehow had the fashion sense to pull it off. “Well you guys have fun. I’ll come back if she’s still just being boring.” With that, she disappeared out the door.
“I really hope she gets that Suzuki girl to join soon…” Koharu said in a slightly whiny voice. “four’s better than three, but five would be even more fun. Plus then we’d have
two young ones to pick on!”
“For
you to pick on you mean,” Reina said, now examining her fingernails, the chessboard apparently forgotten. Miyabi knew better though.
Koharu stared between the two of them. “What are you talking about?” she asked disbelievingly. “You were the ones pushing all that sake on her!”
Reina tossed her head to look at Miyabi. “Is she
really this dense?”
“Hey!” Koharu demanded, fists pressed against her hips. “I don’t know why I put up with you two…” she grumbled, and quickly headed out just like Chisato had.
“Alone at last…” Miyabi said, grinning at Reina. “People could think we’d get up to something.”
“Right…” Reina huffed, returning quickly to the chess board. “Like much wilder rumors aren’t already all over the school. I just would
die to see what happened if
Yajima-sama’s favorite became a Skull. I might even already have my legacy as Captain set…” Miyabi sighed. Her and her legacies. “Hey,” the other girl said in a more serious voice. “Come over here. I want to play you again.”
“No,” Miyabi responded shortly.
Reina glanced over at her. “What? You’re not gonna let me get even?”
“You know I’d just kick your ass again,” Miyabi stated as if it were fact as plain as day.
The Captain’s eyes narrowed. “Keep talking like that and I will
literally kick your ass.”
“Bring it on,” Miyabi responded, and yawned, rolling away from the girl’s gaze and snuggling under her blanket. “I need a bit more sleep first though. It was tiring dealing with Shimizu. It’s like the girl sucks the life out of a place.
That’s one thing I’ve
gotta learn how to counteract.”
“Do you think you can?” Reina asked, this time in a different voice.
Miyabi turned her head to see that the girl had come closer, and now sat with her legs crossed beside her. The girl wasn’t going to let her get any sleep, was she?
“I suppose so,” she said, forcing another yawn down. Thank kami-sama for the sake last night, or she’d really be feeling bad this morning. “I mean, I stopped her other attacks, didn’t I?”
Reina now was just looking down and picking at her foot, and appeared quite brooding. “I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want everyone to know, but something else happened when I met with Takahashi.” Miyabi perked up. The expression the girl had now told her she was really being serious about something that might be important.
“While I was talking to her, at one point I saw her eyes glow red.” She hesitated. “At first I thought I might be seeing things, but the more I think about it the more I knew it’s what I really saw. And Miya…” she continued, now looking up into Miyabi’s own eyes. “When her eyes went red, I wasn’t looking at Takahashi anymore.”
Her attention now fully captured, Miyabi sat up, keeping the blanket up around her waist. “Is that so now?” she asked vaguely.
“I also wondered…” Reina said tentatively. “Did anything like that happen when you spoke to Shimizu?”
Miyabi shook her head. “No,” she replied. “You know how she is though. Hasn’t been the same ever since joining the Circle. I didn’t know Yajima before she joined, and I doubt anyone else we know did either. It’s too bad we can’t compare all three.”
“Miya…” Reina said, now looking earnestly into her face. “
You’re still…
you… Aren’t you?”
Miyabi stared at her a moment before coughing out a laugh. “What are you talking about? Have you been into the sake this morning too?”
Reina shook her head slowly. “I’ve been thinking. If something happens to the Circle, now that they have those powers, that makes them different, will that happen to us? I mean, we seem to be able to do the same things… Will we start changing too? How will we know? They definitely don’t seem aware of it.”
“No,” Miyabi responded confidently. “The same thing won’t happen to us. Nothing really changed with us, did it? We’ve always just been Skulls, and can you
imagine any group of girls more in contrast with the Circle? Besides, there are three of them.”
“That’s something else that makes me worried,” Reina said softly, clearly not fazed by Miyabi’s answer to her question. Despite all their differences, the two of them really did work well together, including the ability to have productive discussions.
“There
are three of them, and just the two of us,” Reina stated. “It seems like what I can do is similar to Takahashi of course, from what we’ve seen, and you can combat Shimizu. It all is almost an eerie reflection, don’t you think? And if so, who’s Yajima’s opposite?”
“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Miyabi responded dismissively. “They’ve all got something in common; we’ve got something in common. We tested Okai and Kusumi. They can’t do anything special. Have you heard of some other rogue student zapping people and throwing fireballs at them? Who could it be?”
Reina didn’t answer for a moment. “Somebody who has some connection to both of us…” she said as if ticking off a point. Somebody from Yajima’s House…” She looked up at Miyabi before continuing. “It’s obvious it has to be after all, right? Don’t tell me you’ve thought the same about Takahashi and I, and you and Shimizu.” Miyabi furrowed her eyebrows. What was the girl saying? “I don’t think I’ve told you yet Miya. You remember the
shock you had involving a certain girl? I felt the same thing after Okacchan’s audition…”
Miyabi stared at her. Was the girl implying what she thought she was? But there had been no sign of anything. There was nothing special about her. A face appeared in her mind and she couldn’t help but smile. Nothing special, eh?
Her train of thought was abruptly broken though by a distant scream from outside that sounded as if someone was either being tortured or was completely scared out of her wits. Feeling her body seize at the shock of the sound, Miyabi shared Reina’s intense wide-eyed look.
Miyabi became even more excited when they both glanced out the window, and it must have been lost while they were in conversation, but the only light that spilled in was as red as if the whole world were burning. The two girls didn’t wait any longer before jumping to their feet, and after Reina hurriedly pulled on a black skirt to go with her T-shirt which had only a large mikan in the middle, running outside.
…
“Airin…” Risako whined. “How long are we going to spend in here?”
“Until we find something about the Skulls,” Airi responded in a voice that brooked no nonsense. “We know they’ve been around the school a long time, and so surely
somewhere in the school’s records there’s something that talks about why they are just so… so…
crude!”
“I don’t get it, Airin,” Risako said, yawning. “It’s eight in the morning on
Saturday. And we’re spending it in the library! Tell me again why I’m here with you?”
“Because you love me,” Airi said offhandedly, not even looking up from her book. Truthfully, she was just reading the same word over and over at the moment as she grinned on the inside. The Goto girl grunted, and when Airi shifted her eyes slightly to see her looking longingly at the library door, she imagined the truth of her words was being considered very carefully right then.
“Actually I hate you…” Risako said under her breath, and turned back to the large volume splayed open in front of her. This time Airi let the smile appear on her face.
Honestly, she was getting fairly tired of this herself. She’d been in here, at times with and at times without Risako, in most of her free time the past week. She was, to put it mildly, concerned by what she’d seen of the Skulls, and just needed to find
something to convince Chisato that hanging out with them was a bad idea.
Freaked out might be a better phrase to use.
Her close friend had been doing that a lot this past week. Airi would see her every night of course when she returned to their room, but her time out seemed to get later and later every day.
It wasn’t like she ignored Airi – in fact, the girl invited her along many of the times she went out to do something with the Skulls – but each time Airi politely declined. She wanted nothing to do with the almighty
Skulls at the moment.
Particularly Natsuyaki Miyabi. Like usual, she couldn’t stop herself blushing at the thought of that girl. It was things like that which needed to stop!
“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about Natsuyaki-san again!” Risako said, interrupting her from her thoughts. She looked up from her book and stared at the girl, who was giving her a very fed up look. She wasn’t
that obvious.
Surely…“I am thinking of nothing of the sort!” Airi defended. “I was just reading a particularly
adult-oriented story in here that I’m sure weren’t meant for innocent eyes like mine!”
“Oh?” Risako asked, nonplussed. “Show me,” she ordered, and she reached over for Airi’s book. Before she touched it though, Airi snapped it out of her grasp and to her chest.
“I
couldn’t!” Airi exclaimed. “
My eyes have been corrupted enough by reading it. I couldn’t
live with myself if I allowed
your purity to be tarnished too…”
“You’re weird,” Risako said disparagingly, and frowned back down at her own book.
“Yes, but you still love me,” Airi insisted.
“I thought we already cleared that up,” Risako replied, not looking up. “I hate you, remember?”
Before the exchange could continue, Airi heard a low whistle from over her shoulder. She turned with her eyes bugging out at someone actually paying attention to them, but calmed quickly when she saw it was just Chisato. In fact, in contrast her mood became quite dour indeed.
“You guys are something else, you know that?” the other Matsuura second year said, pulling out a chair and spinning it around to straddle it, leaning her chin on arms lying across its back. By the way she held her head, it looked like there was something wrong with it. “I think all this studying is literally driving you crazy.”
“I agree!” Risako proclaimed, and sprang up, arching her stiff back, before walking away toward a washroom without a backward glance.
“You don’t need to pull her into this, you know,” Chisato said in a much more serious voice meant only for Airi’s ears. “I know what you’re really about in here. You’re trying to dig up dirt on—“
“—The Circle!” Airi finished for her. “That’s what I’m doing! They have such a squeaky clean image, you know something’s gotta be hidden behind the curtains of the ivory tower!” The ivory tower was what the Skulls had taken to calling the secure roundish compound that contained the Circle’s private areas. Chisato had taken to using that term too, and Airi tried her best to lampoon as much of the girl’s new vernacular as she could.
“For example,” she continued, overriding her friend’s attempts to break in. “Did you know that in 1284 an alumnus of the Circle married a leader of the resistance against the Shogunate and nearly assassinated the emperor
herself? These are evil people. Evil I tell you!”
“…Uh huh,” Chisato said, giving Airi a glazed look. “You won’t find any disagreement from me there.”
“And look here… look here!” Airi insisted, pointing to a spot in her book. “This even mentions a legend that goes all the way back to the founding and to the first Circle, which consisted of students hand-picked by the founders, and says that they—“
“Founders?” Airi heard Risako say from behind her, and she then felt the girl peering over her shoulder at the passage she was pointing to. “That sounds more
hokey than
adult to me! In fact, I don’t see anything bad in here at all!”
“Fine!” Airi said, rising quickly and slamming her book shut. “I recognize when my friends have deserted me. I’ll just go back to my room and learn the secrets of this school myself!” She began stalking toward the library door. “Nobody else cares anyway…”
Making her way out into the hall, she kept her teeth clenched as she walked quickly down it and out across the grounds to her house. She was being overdramatic of course. Risako still was there after all, although it was obvious the girl found the material not worth studying by a league.
As for Chisato, she wondered if the girl even studied anything at all anymore! And was that
sake she smelled on her breath this morning? What had the girl been doing all night! She hadn’t returned to their room since saying she was going to a party with the Skulls. Natsuyaki’s face suddenly flitted through her mind’s eye, but she quickly shook it away.
Though she neared her house, she wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention to where she was going, and as she stomped along she didn’t notice a girl cross into her path until she slammed into her, causing her book to fall into the dirt and come open to the page she’d just marked, and her to fall back on her rear, her legs splayed and hiking her skirt up well above her knees.
“Hey, watch it—“ came a voice from above her. “Oh, hello there cutie.”
Airi recognized the voice immediately, and with extreme trepidation lifted her eyes to find Maimi beaming down at her. She saw the older girl’s eyes travel down her body, and she grinned wider, causing Airi to look down too and quickly snap her legs together, pulling them underneath herself while she tugged her skirt back over them.
“You should know by now that you need to be watching out for me at all times. I never look where I’m going,” Airi said with almost a pout.
Maimi crouched down to her level, still smiling at her. “Hey…” she began almost tentatively. “I’ve been inspired by a new friend of mine to think differently and more progressively about some things. Would you like to come to one of the side lounges in the Circle building with me sometime? There’s one especially that’s set up with a Playstation 3. We could catch some games or a movie together…”
Airi couldn’t stop staring at the girl, while at the same time feeling her body tingle all over. Was she… was the Head of House Matsuura asking her on… a
date? “I…” she stuttered, any studious train of thought completely gone from her head. “I… um…”
“Wow, I made you speechless huh? I guess I’m more striking than I realize. I’ll have to brag to Saki-chan about it.” For some reason the girl gave a very broad smile while saying that.
“I…” Airi tried again, and finally slapped her brain into shape within herself and was able to put a short sentence together. “I don’t know, Yajima-san. There’s actually…” She snapped her jaw shut in horror.
Was she just about to say Natsuyaki’s name???“Yes…?” Maimi asked, clearly not giving up. Airi shifted her eyes, unable to meet the other girl’s gaze. “Well,” the girl continued after a moment. “Maybe I can give you a taste of what could be in store for you if we get all cozy and cuddly in there…” She then reached her arm out and touched Airi’s shoulder. Airi felt a warm but small rush of pleasure emanate from that spot before her body suddenly seemed to sear with tides of raging heat.
She lost all sense of her environment for a split second, and when she came to found herself bent over, staring at the ground which seemed to glow red and move as if it was a river of lava. She fought somehow and got the torrent within herself under control, but it still felt like her blood was boiling, and could hear it pumping from her heart a hundred times louder than normal.
“Suzuki-san!” she heard Maimi cry out, hugging her arms as if afraid to reach out again toward her. “Are you all right? I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to do anything more than…” The voice hesitated. “I’m
sure I didn’t do anything more than… I just wanted to give you a little taste, and right now I couldn’t do much more even if I wanted…”
Airi began breathing again, although heavily, and her vision began slowly returning to normal. However, soon it reddened again, although it was different this time. This time it was no longer surreal, and the light coming to her eyes really was becoming redder. And also dimmer… In addition, it was no longer just her vision that was being affected. She felt like her body began to expand and reach out toward… something, and the burning invaded her whole being.
Maimi had for once become silent, and Airi looked up slowly through the flaming torrent flowing through her, and even though that was the only way she could describe it, it wasn’t unpleasant. Far from it in fact, and eventually she felt as if she could even obtain control over it.
Upon finding Maimi’s face, she saw that the girl was staring up and away from her with her jaw hanging open. She also began to notice girls stepping warily out from the front door of House Matsuura, and although a couple of them looked over in their direction and pointed at their leader and what seemed a sick second year, most stared up as well.
Now unsure if she wanted to, but with an inescapable urge, Airi looked up too as her world seemed to become awash with a dim reddish glow to find the Sun blocked out in a sudden eclipse, its edges radiating a crimson red around the dark orb blocking its light and bathing the world below in the same hue.
Having identified the cause of the strange event, many of the other girls began whispering and giggling to each other, obviously excited at witnessing what must be something very rare. Airi with her inquisitive personality would have been at least as excited as any of them, if not for the rush that she still felt beneath her own skin, but she still couldn’t tear her gaze from the ball of blinding light that was for the moment blocked from sight. Even though it was blocked, she knew it was still burning as it always did behind the obstruction. She could almost see it in all its splendor within her mind, and far from being the violent giver of life she’d always known it as, it glowed at her as a warm companion.
Looking down at her arms, she was sure the skin would have burned off, but it was there as it always had been. Where was this indescribable sensation coming from then?
“It’s amazing…” Maimi said, still looking up at the rare event.
“Yes, it is…” Airi agreed, at least as much awe in her own voice.
“I’ve never seen anything like it…”
“I’ve never
felt like this before…”
Then as if out of some instinct, Airi reached out and grabbed Maimi’s wrist. The moment she did though, the girl’s attention was diverted totally back down to earth as she let out a blood-curdling scream, causing every face within sight to dart toward them and look on nervously, now even more curious and slightly worried at what was going on between the two.
With the scream the burning suddenly ceased within Airi, and she collapsed to the ground, nearly losing consciousness. As she opened suddenly heavy eyelids she noticed the redness around her give way once more to familiar white light, though the return to normalcy did not cause anyone to go back inside their houses since they’d just seen a member of the Circle cry out as if she was being murdered.
Airi blinked more, trying to get some kind of bearing of her surroundings through her dull senses, but only was able to see Maimi curled up in a tight ball facing away from her, writhing as if in unbearable agony with her arms held in front of her blocked from Airi’s sight. Before long though she heard steps reverberate through the ground beneath as if people were running up to them, but once they stopped she heard nothing but silence at first.
“Maimi…” a girl said, and she saw a small figure kneel and bend over the jerking form in front of her. She thought she recognized who it was by the voice and size together.
Shimizu…? she thought through the fog inside her head.
As if the girl could hear her thought, she looked back at Airi warily, and with the help of another girl who came up on Yajima’s other side, pulled the House Matsuura leader up and began walking her between them and away, Saki occasionally throwing glances back to her that were very cautious indeed. Where were they going? Why were they leaving her? Airi tried to move, but felt like she had no energy.
“Osuzu?” she heard Chisato say as her friend’s shadow fell over her after a length of time she couldn’t specify. “Are you all right?” When Airi didn’t move, the girl’s shadow disappeared and she heard her friend call out, “Oi! Reina! Miyabi! Come here! Something’s wrong with her…”
Soon she felt more forms around her, and pressure on her arm as someone must have gripped it. “Stay calm…” she heard a voice say above her. “I’m not sure what you’ll feel here…”
At first she felt nothing. But after a few seconds, it seemed like a cool tide washed over her body, and her senses returned to her. Before long she was even able to sit up, and blinked blurry eyes at her current companions.
When she sat up Tanaka released her arm, a look of concern as well as caution on her face. Chisato seemed almost distraught, and not far behind even Natsuyaki stood watching her with a cool and unreadable expression. At Airi’s glance, the older Goto girl turned and looked in the direction she remembered Yajima being carried off in.
“They didn’t even stay to see if she was all right…” Natsuyaki growled through her teeth barely loud enough for them all to hear. “Some
leaders of the
school.”
“Their interests only involve the school,” Tanaka said, seemingly satisfied now with Airi’s condition and turning toward the other Skull. “Not necessarily every student in it.” She turned back toward Airi and gave her a careful study. “Especially one involved in whatever made one of them scream like that.”
“Ya gotta admit…” Kusumi said. Airi turned to look at the girl who stood a few paces off to Tanaka’s side. She hadn’t even noticed the final Skull was even around. “It was kind of satisfying to hear…”
“Something like that isn’t satisfying to hear from anyone,” Reina said grimly, still studying Airi.
“What…” Airi began in a choked voice as if her throat had been scalded dry. She coughed before going on. “What happened?”
“We thought
you might be able to tell
us,” Natsuyaki said, turning back to her. Airi looked into the girl’s eyes, a girl she’d been thinking of all too often lately. The look she gave her now though was anything but warm and flirtatious.
“I…” Airi began, at a loss. What was she going to say? That she felt like she caught fire, the sun disappeared, and when she touched Maimi… What
had happened?
She looked aimlessly around her, mostly down at the ground in her embarrassment, while fishing for a response. Something caught her eye though from the book that was still lying open beneath her, and furrowing her brow she forgot about the other girls and bent down to look at it.
The ink for some of its words had become red somehow, and they almost glowed their message up to her. It was a passage she’d read part of before, but this time through, and as she read further, her eyes widened and mouth slowly fell open. It was a message apparently passed down from the Founders themselves to the first Circle. The writer, presumably one of those Circle members, related it verbatim but did not seem to understand it.
On a certain day in the dawn of the Third Age, the sky will run red as if stained by the gods themselves. So shall this prophecy be fulfilled, and our Destiny be set on its road to fruition.Airi noticed that below the red print was a section that she remembered was nothing but a blank page before. It was that which detailed this mysterious plan and piqued her greatest interest.
“I knew you were too serious a student, Osuzu,” came a young and quick voice from above her. “But this is overdoing it. We have to get out of here. With whatever happened to Yajima… The Headmaster might even be here soon to investigate.”
“She’s not wrong, sweetheart,” Tanaka joined in as Airi looked up at girls she just remembered were also present. “We need to get lost.”
Airi looked around her. “We?” she asked, but her attention was drawn back to the book. “But there’s something important here…”
“There’s no time,” Miyabi said, and reached down to grab Airi’s arm and pull her up. “Come on.”
Airi was half-dragged and half-ran unsteadily along with the girls, protesting this course of action and urging them to look in the book too. “Once we’re safe,” Reina said, helping Miyabi in pulling her along, and though Airi struggled rather successfully against Miyabi at first, she couldn’t overwhelm the two of them.
Eventually they reached House Nakazawa, where some girls still stood outside, but carefully avoided looking at the Skulls running up toward the building. It probably appeared to them as if they were kidnapping another of their prey and dragging her off for who knows what, and none of them wanted to get involved in that when only one Skull was involved, much less all four. It hadn’t taken long for word to spread that Chisato had joined them.
As they stumbled into a room Airi had never been in before that had blankets and sleeping bags strewn across the floor as if their occupants had fled on a dime, they finally released her and she straightened herself up, huffing heavily.
“Ex
cuse me!” she said. “I will not have you dragging me off to… Where are we? Nakazawa? Is this supposed to be a
safe place?”
“It’s as safe as you’re getting while we try to sort this all out,” Reina retorted, now seeming to get annoyed. Miyabi still hovered very close to her, and Airi felt heat rising in her body that she knew had nothing to do with what she’d conjured earlier.
“Sort all
what out?” Airi demanded. “I don’t see how this involves any of you.”
“What’s that?” Miyabi asked, having apparently caught a glance at something and peering over into her book. “Kinda weird to have red ink in a book like that.”
Airi pulled the book away from her. “It’s got nothing to do with you!” she stated.
Because of the direction she pulled it though, Chisato was now able to get a look at it. “What are you talking about? Red ink? I don’t see anything.”
Airi looked at her about to burst out with another complaint too, but at the sight of her friend’s face her expression softened, and rational thought finally returned to her. “What?” she asked. “It’s right here,” she said, pointing to the passage.
“I don’t see anything,” Chisato responded. That half of the page is blank.
Airi stared at her, but suddenly she felt arms encircle her waist, and when she froze at the unexpected touch let down her guard, and Tanaka snatched the book away. “Hey!” she said in reflex, but the grip on her tightened, and for some reason felt all too intimate, and she turned her head to find Miyabi’s face right beside hers grinning at her. Of course, now realizing the situation she was in, she couldn’t help but blush.
“’On a day…’” Tanaka read, peering down at it. Apparently
she could see the red text. “’The sky will turn red as if stained by the gods themselves…’” She hesitated, and gave a quick glance up to Airi. “’So shall this prophecy be fulfilled and our destiny set…’”
Now everybody stared at Airi, and though she’d turned quickly away from Miyabi, her blush definitely didn’t go away under the scrutiny. She noticed Tanaka and the girl who held her exchange glances before the leader of the Skulls looked back to her. “I think…” the girl began, “that we need to talk.”