Thank you all again for reading.
It's time to advance the story a bit...
Chapter 20 – Prisoners of DestinyWhen Airi woke, she could feel the Sun blazing brightly just outside the room she was in. Without even opening her eyes she could tell it was already almost halfway up – mid-morning, at the earliest.
Then she noticed that aside from the Sun’s warmth she could feel just beyond the walls boxing in the room of a person she was trying to hate, she was also wrapped in another kind of warmth, and sighed at the beating of Miyabi’s heart and the slow measured breath of sleep she felt against her back. That was right; she had spent the night alone with Miyabi and they’d fallen asleep together. She could feel the filth of her body and the clothes they wore vividly. Apparently sleeping in them hadn’t improved the situation much.
Suddenly thinking of having a bath – and blushing at the thought of doing that with Miyabi too – she finally awakened more to the world outside her immediate sphere of sensation and feeling of the Sun to realize what had brought her out of her sleep to begin with.
She could hear low voices from the hallway outside the room, and tried to listen carefully to what they were saying. Unfortunately Miyabi’s still slumber-induced breathing and heartbeat so close to her was very distracting…
“Are you sure that’s what you saw?” a male voice she didn’t really recognize said.
“For the tenth time, yes, I know what I saw. It’s a good thing I was paying attention while coming in or I wouldn’t have seen them. Four students, all dead, and in the most horrible ways. It was hard to identify them, but I’m sure I even had a couple of them in my classes…” Airi’s breath caught, her own accelerating heartbeat now almost overriding Miyabi’s. She thought she recognized the second voice, which was also male, but for some reason couldn’t think who…
“Did you call the police?”
“Of course I did. Do you think I’m a fool? I can’t even begin to imagine what’s gone on in this place the last few days. The campus is basically deserted. Nobody is outside, and these students I finally found were all still asleep late in the morning in…” He coughed, and there was silence that Airi felt for some reason was due to embarrassment.
“This is bad business, Mita. Bad business…” the first speaker said finally, sounding anxious. The name also finally rang the bell in Airi’s head of who the second voice belonged to. It was Mita-sensei, one of her teachers.
Trying to be as gentle as possible, Airi lifted Miyabi’s arms from around her and slid out from her embrace. Looking back to see the girl roll over onto her back but not wake, she dropped her feet lightly to the floor and walked quietly over to the door.
“When did the police say they would arrive?” the unidentified man, likely another teacher, said.
“Well you know the town’s not right next door,” Mita-sensei responded. “Still, for something like this I’d say they should be here any time.”
Still trying to be quiet so as not to wake Miyabi, Airi opened the door just enough to slide out, and closing it, faced the teachers. Now being able to put a face with the voice, she recognized the second man as Ozaki-sensei, another teacher as she'd thought, though not one she'd had before. When entering the hall she came directly into Mita-sensei's line of sight, and he just stared at her, his mouth dropping slightly open.
"Whatever the case, I think I'm going to wait for them outside. Staying in here so close to those students with what's gone on gives me the creeps. Shall we go, sensei?" After the offer, Ozaki-sensei moved as if to walk past his colleague down the hall toward the door, but when Mita-sensei didn't move, he paused. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." Then he turned and saw Airi too, who broke into a smile.
"Mita-sensei! Ozaki-sensei! I'm so glad to see you!” she said happily and with relief, starting to walk toward them. When they actually took a step back as she approached though, she slowed to a stop. “What’s wrong?”
“A-ah… nothing, Suzuki-san…” Mita-sensei replied, seeming nervous for some reason. Airi didn’t think she’d ever seen him nervous. He was always so calm and eloquent. Noticing both of them trying their best to hide looking her up and down, she looked down at herself as well and remembered her current appearance. She turned up her palm and noticed faint and now-dried blood smeared on the inside of her arm. That was right. Miyabi…
She looked up to the teachers, who were now looking like they wished they were anywhere else but there. “It’s not what it looks like,” she protested before they could say anything. They flinched, and she continued “It wasn’t…” She was about to say more before the events of yesterday flashed through her mind. It wasn’t what? It wasn’t that she’d killed someone in cold blood? “I don’t…” She felt like she was babbling now as her mind drifted farther away, farther into the past…
Somewhere on the outside of her thoughts she heard sirens fade in from beyond the walls. “There they are,” Ozaki-sensei said, but she hardly heard him. “You coming?” There was no response, but both men headed with little reluctance down the hall, leaving Airi by herself as she stared at the blank wall.
It seemed the next thing she knew she was in an unfamiliar place, but somewhere there was a lot of activity. She was being rushed along between two large men, and eventually wound up in a plain room sitting at a table facing another man who looked cautiously at her from the other side.
“Airi… Suzuki, is that right?” Airi just stared, and after a moment the man cleared his throat. “Is that your name?” She gave a slow nod of her head. He looked down at some papers lying on the table, picking one up as if to inspect it more closely, but quickly laid it down as if he didn’t like what it said.
“Could you tell me anything about what happened at Seishin Gakuin the last few days?” he asked. “We found six girls dead, either murdered or… or attacked by some wild animal.” He seemed to become more uncomfortable as he went on. “Most of the other students are missing, except for a few holed up in the building we found you in.” He seemed to be uncomfortable with his thoughts again, and looking down at her arm, changed the subject. “We’ve sent a sample of the blood on your arm to be tested. Do you think we’ll find it matches one of the dead girls?”
Feeling somewhat more aware of her environment, Airi looked up from her interviewer at a solid paneled door that stood next to a window that looked like a mirror covering half the wall. Next to the door stood a police officer keeping a close eye on her, some kind of rifle held at rest in front of him as if ready to fire at a moment’s notice. Another man that appeared unarmed stood at the door’s other side. He was dressed more like her interviewer.
Finally she shook her head. “No?” the interviewer said, and he pulled out a small notepad to start scribbling in. “Is it yours? Or your…” He hesitated. “From the girl we found you with?”
Again she shook her head, and he lay down his pad, staring hard at her. “It’s from someone else we haven’t found yet?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“It’s…” she said hollowly, feeling as if she was in a fog. “Shimizu…”
The man looked quickly up to his plainclothes colleague at the door. “One of the missing girls,” he said. “Make sure the search continues.” The other man nodded, and after hearing a click as if it unlocked from the outside, the door opened and he slipped out.
The interviewer, who Airi thought must be some kind of detective, looked back to her, seeming as if he was trying to relax. “Saki Shimizu was one of the student leaders of the school, or so I’ve heard. Is that right?”
Airi clenched her jaw at first as she felt hate for the named girl blossom inside her head, and she gave a short nod. The detective leaned forward, adopting a dark expression of his own as he seemed to notice Airi’s. “Did you kill her too?”
“Don’t answer that, Airi,” said a woman who walked briskly through the door as it clicked once again. She carried a briefcase, and after walking toward the table near Airi, laid it almost in front of her. Airi looked up in even more of a daze at her family’s attorney, Iida-sensei.
The woman with long black hair was as serious as Airi had ever seen her, although normally she only saw her having a conversation over tea with her parents. She had never been involved with Airi before…
Iida-sensei clicked her briefcase and let it fall open loudly before ignoring whatever might be in it and giving the detective, who was reclining back in his chair, a hard look. “May I ask why you’re interviewing a fourteen-year-old girl alone without her parents or even an attorney present?”
“This girl,” the detective responded in a surprisingly relaxed voice, “along with several others, is at the center of a murder investigation involving at least six other students, with dozens unaccounted for. She also, along with another who is being interviewed separately, was found with blood on her that may put her at the scene.”
“Until this supposed evidence has been processed and validated, you have nothing more to ask my client, and she has nothing to say to you. We are leaving now,” she said firmly, snapping her briefcase shut once again without having taken anything out. “I am taking her to her parents.” Then she took Airi’s arm and gave her a slight nudge to stand. Once Airi did so, even though she was unable to follow what was going on, they began walking to the door but stopped just shy of it. “I presume the other student you are interviewing has either a personal or appointed attorney with her as well?” When she received no response, she continued, “Then I’m sorry Airi, but we have one more stop before taking you to your parents.”
The detective continued staring across the room as if nothing was going on around him while Airi and Iida-sensei left it and headed down a short hall before coming to another door similar to the one she just left behind. An armed policeman stood next to it and gave both of them a look, not appearing willing to relinquish his post.
“I am the attorney for the child being interviewed in there,” Iida-sensei told him. “She has the right to my presence at all times for these proceedings.”
The policeman considered her for a moment. “May I ask this
child’s name?” he asked.
“Miyabi…” Airi breathed suddenly, eyes widening in fear.
Iida-sensei seemed to hesitate a second as if surprised at the name Airi spoke before responding. “Miyabi Natsuyaki,” she said firmly. The policeman frowned at Airi with almost a glare, but stepped aside. “Thank you,” Iida-sensei offered as if he’d done only what was expected, and the door opened for them to step aside.
Inside, Airi saw Miyabi in a similar situation to how she had been, sitting in a chair facing two men across a table. Everyone looked up when they entered. “Airi!” Miyabi cried upon seeing her, and jumped up to almost run over and hug her. Upon seeing her girlfriend once again, Airi finally managed to come to grips with the situation.
“Excuse me…” one of the seated men said, rising as well.
“This child is my client,” Iida-sensei told them. “She won’t be saying anything more to you at this time.” Now absorbing what was being said around her, Airi felt slightly offended at how Iida-sensei kept calling her and Miyabi “child”. She even seemed to emphasize that word.
Both men, likely more detectives, became stone-faced and silent when she spoke. Airi clung to Miyabi’s waist as Iida-sensei began leading them out again. “Thank you for not being more resistant…” she said, in what Airi thought was actually a sly voice!
“No bother for us,” one of the men said, visibly relaxing. “We couldn’t get two words from the girl anyway.” Then he looked at Airi, who tried to hide her face in Miyabi’s jacket. “I wonder if her younger friend was any more forthcoming.”
They said no more though as Iida-sensei escorted the two girls out, through a forest of desks packed tightly together, their occupants looking with great interest at the passing party, and out past bullet-proof glass into a lobby, where…
“Osuzu!” cried one voice, “Miya!” came another at the same time, as Reina and Chisato stood from a couch they were seated on and approached the new arrivals. Airi looked around in amazement. Aside from the two of them, Risako and Koharu were there as well, along with Chisato’s sister and the two Chinese transfers. “The others are outside,” Chisato said quickly, beaming. “They said we couldn’t all fit, although I think they really wanted everyone in here…” She gave the officers standing behind the glass and at the doors suspicious glares.
Then, Airi’s parents walked up, seeming nearly in tears. “Airi…” her mom said, leaning down to hug her tightly. “When we heard… I was so worried…” Her dad looked on also, not crying but not looking any less concerned.
Out of the corner of her eye, Airi could see a man and a woman who must have been Miyabi’s parents drag her a short distance away from the rest, though their reactions were much different from Airi’s.
“What have you done this time?!” her mother scolded, waggling a finger in front of her face. “I expected something, maybe even expulsion, but this? Taken to the police as suspects in a
murder investigation?!”
Airi couldn’t hear anything else though as Iida-sensei pulled her family a bit away from her friends as well, Chisato smiling after encouragingly. “I think I managed to convince them that it wasn’t in their best interest to hold young girls without any evidence against them. However…” she continued, glancing over at Miyabi with a look of concern that worried Airi. “I didn’t expect to find her relating with…”
“What’s going on, baby?” her mother asked, no longer hugging her but now fussily straightening her hair. “What happened to make you fall in with a bad crowd?” They’d heard all about Miyabi Natsuyaki and Reina Tanaka of course. There likely wasn’t a girl in all of Seishin who didn’t talk at least to their closest relations about the infamous delinquents of the school.
“But mom, they’re not…”
She didn’t get to finish her protest though as the detective that had interviewed her strode into the lobby from behind the bullet-proof glass, flanked by two armed and serious-looking officers. “These girls are to go nowhere,” he commanded, looking around at the officers in the area. “Any of them.” Then he turned toward Airi and Iida-sensei, who was visibly preparing another verbal lashing concerning their rights.
“We’ve found the body of the school’s headmaster.” At this pronouncement, Airi wasn’t the only one who gasped.
Headmaster Tsunku was dead…?! “And they also found the murder weapon – a knife that turned up in the room where we found Miss Suzuki and Miss Natsuyaki.” The only thing Airi could hear after that was the sound of her mother breaking down into tears once again.
…
Airi stared at the bleak stone wall across from the crude bench where she sat, hardly able to even feel the Sun through the massive building around them that seemed as impregnable as a fortress. After successfully squashing Iida-sensei’s protests – not an easy thing to do as Iida-sensei was one of the best around – the detective, who Airi found was named Takeda, had the girls brought into custody. They then took what seemed like a long trip, around which she at least managed to bathe and receive a clean change of clothes. It would have been a much cheerier experience if her new clothes weren’t just the navy sweat suit that she found all the inmates wore at Tochigi Maximum Security Women’s
Ryuuchijou (*holding prison for suspects not yet convicted).
After arriving, she was allowed to receive a phone call from her parents as well as Iida-sensei, who exclaimed that it was an outrage that children should be sent to a
ryuuchijou and that she would work hard to get her out of there as soon as possible. By the tone of her voice though, Airi could tell that “soon” was not very likely anything of the like.
As she was taken to her cell, many of the college-aged to middle-aged women in the others stared scandalized at her, a few outspoken ones hissing reprimands to the guards for bringing someone so young here. The guards studiously ignored them, and eventually dropped her off at a cell that she thought must be about four and a half tatami mats. After reaching her cell, things seemed to immediately get better, but she was also conflicted; she was to share it with Chisato.
“They brought you here too, huh?” she asked finally after the two had sat in silence for their first while in their new surroundings.
“Yeah,” Chisato replied. “And Reina and Risako, as well as Miyabi and Koharu I think…”
Airi nodded slowly. “You haven’t heard about the others?”
Her friend shook her head. “I don’t think they’re here though.”
Well, Airi thought.
That had to be a good sign, didn’t it? They could work to get them out too, or at least find out wherever the Circle went...Airi looked up at the ceiling lit by a lone bulb and tried to reach out for the Sun’s warmth within her. “Being in prison really sucks…” she sighed.
Chisato gave her a strange look. “Well gee. It’s
prison! You think
I’m having the time of my life? At least you could, y’know, blast yourself out or something, couldn’t you?”
Airi gasped in shock. “Chisa!!!” she exclaimed. “That would be against the law!”
“It was just a thought…” the other girl mumbled, squirming uncomfortably. “But this really is a crappy room, isn’t it? My butt’s hurting on this bench.”
Airi nodded but didn’t respond, still astounded at her friend’s suggestion.
Break out of prison??? Just the thought terrified her, although she was calmed somehow by the idea that she could probably actually do it. She’d found the Sun’s power within her, and could feel it waiting beyond the walls to break through them and let her free to see it again. And be all that as it may, just the thought that she was actually in
prison was enough to nearly completely unhinge her, even disregarding anything else.
“Osuzu…?” Chisato asked, looking down at her toes which were tracing circles in the cold stone floor. She wore the same navy outfit that Airi did, that everyone she’d seen around here who wasn’t walking around with a gun did. “Can I talk to you about something…?”
“Mmm?” Airi mumbled, unable to say anything more. She just was not feeling very social right now.
“You know that last night at Seishin… whenever it was… before the teachers and cops came?”
Airi nodded. It would be a long time before she forgot those days. Before continuing, Chisato looked up into her face, and Airi could see the scar on her left cheek emphasized in the pallid light of their cell. Suddenly Airi began to
feel the place she was in even more.
“You spent that night with Miyabi… right?” Chisato asked.
Airi blushed in response to the unexpected question, but eventually nodded. What was the girl doing talking about something like that at a time like this!
“Did you guys…” Chisato began before stumbling over her words. “Have you ever…”
Airi stared at her. “What is it?” she asked curiously.
This time it was Chisato’s turn to blush. “Did you… I mean…
do anything?” She finished in almost a whisper.
“Do anything?” Airi asked, mystified. “Well I suppose we did
something… though not a whole lot because I was still in bad shape after… after…” She adopted a faraway look for a moment before coming back to the present. “Well, we…
kissed… a little while… only because Miya was so desperate about it though ‘cause I totally wasn’t feeling up to anything that night!... but then just fell asleep.” She left it at that, since what happened after they woke wasn’t exactly a mystery.
“Oh…” Chisato said, looking down and for some reason still blushing. “I thought you might have… I’m sorry for making you remember what you were like that day!”
“Thought we might have what?” Airi asked curiously again. Her friend was making no sense, and if this is what it was going to be like the whole time they were penned in here, she was going to go even crazier than she already was!
Before Chisato could respond though, two girls suddenly appeared in front of them, one slumping before being just held up by the other, who seemed to expect it. However, the other didn’t appear to have the best footing either.
“Miya…?” Airi asked, eyes widening yet again in bewilderment.
“Hi!” her girlfriend, also in a navy outfit, responded, blinking as if trying to shake off some momentary spell.
“You’ve really gotta get the hang of that more, Miya…” Reina said, coming to though still clinging to Miyabi.
“Hey, at least you turned out a lot better than the last one,” Miyabi responded, causing Reina to give a soft snort.
“Yeah, and you saw where that got us.” She rolled her eyes around as if taking in their surroundings… what there was of them at least.
Airi stood up, still staring at her girlfriend who gave her a crooked smile. “Miya!” she cried again. She took a step forward as if to hug her, but then… “You
idiot! What are you doing here!” She looked around, and out of the bars of their cell, but there was nobody in sight. “If they find you here…”
“Ah screw them,” Reina said, making Airi positively gasp. “They’re just cops.”
For some reason Chisato stood too along with Airi, and was looking somewhat nervously up and down at Reina, who didn’t seem to pay her any mind. Airi hardly noticed it either. “Nice clothes they got us, aren’t they?” Miyabi asked casually, still with that silly grin.
“I don’t know
how you can be
calm at a time like this!” Airi demanded, marching up to her girlfriend almost as if to strangle her. It actually caused Miyabi to take a step back. Reina was finally becoming able to stand on her own two feet.
“Take it easy,” Reina warned. “Your shouting is going to bring the guards.”
Airi took a very deep breath before trying to speak again. “What do you expect to do here? Teleport all of us out? They wouldn’t know how we did it, but we’d still be on the run. We’d be fugitives you know! There wouldn’t be a decent existence left for us! If we stay at least we would get a fair trial where they’d eventually see our side of it.”
“What side of it?” Reina asked, as if becoming frustrated in trying to reason with her. “That we were in a huge fight where we beat up a bunch of girls including the school leaders? Don’t forget you actually did kill someone too.”
“Reina!” Chisato hissed sharply, and lunged forward to grab the Captain’s wrist. Once she had it though, she didn’t seem to know what to do next and so just stared at it, Reina giving her an amused look.
“I thought you were going to show your sympathetic side when it came to that?” Miyabi asked sweetly.
“Sorry,” Reina said, shrugging. “Bad habit. It’s hard work trying to be a nice person.” She shook her wrist out of Chisato’s hands and instead wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to her side, making them look as if they were BFFs or something.
“B-but…” Airi stuttered, thinking back to the girl in the woods now that she was reminded of it. Nice or not, the Captain was right, she
had killed someone. “You’re right…” she said, stepping back to sit down heavily on the bench again. Miyabi gave Reina a sideways and exaggerated worried glance. “I killed someone. I belong here… But you don’t.”
“Nonsense,” Miyabi said, coming up to join her on the bench.
“You don’t!” Airi insisted. “You haven’t done anything bad!”
“Darling,” Miyabi said in a tone Airi was unsure if it was affectionate or condescending. Perhaps the girl just couldn’t come across as affectionate no matter how hard she tried… “We belong here many times more than you do.”
“I spent a couple days in a place like this once,” Reina said, looking around as if at an old friend. “Not exactly overjoyed to be back though,” she qualified, mouth twisting as if at a sudden bad taste. Chisato looked questioningly up at her.
Miyabi frowned at her as if she was interrupting something insightful. Reina just shrugged, as lackadaisical as always. “The
point is though…” she said as if picking up where she left off. “None of us are going to stay here now. We have much bigger fish to fry.”
“Have you heard something about the Circle?” Chisato gasped.
“We don’t even know that they’re up to anything!” Airi exclaimed, trying to get these idiots back on the right path again.
“Oh they’re up to something,” Miyabi said darkly. “With those girls, it’s not in their nature
not to be. Seishin knows what though…”
“But that’s
still not an excuse to
break out of prison!!!” Airi tried once again, though obviously she wasn’t getting through to the two Skulls.
“Just trust us,” Reina said.
“But I—“ Airi began.
“Stop being ridiculous!” Miyabi said, looking her hard in the eyes. Airi stared back, trapped by the other girl’s dark pools. “You do not deserve to be here!”
“So what about it, Miya?” Reina asked, apparently starting to feel a bit skittish. This caused her to hug Chisato closer, who looked very embarrassed. “Do you think you can teleport us all out?”
“No…” the other responded, keeping her focus on Airi’s eyes. “You saw how badly it went just with the two of us. I wouldn’t dare try more at a time, and going back and forth… By the second one of you, if not the first, I’d be on the ground. Besides, Kusumi and Sugaya are still in here.”
“Do you know where they are?” asked Reina, studying the dark ceiling.
“Yeah,” Miyabi responded. “Two halls down, on this end.”
“I’m having trouble getting a focus…” Reina said, seeming troubled. “This deep in the building I don’t have a clue what the weather’s like to try to use it, and there’s no life except the four of us and those other wretched souls in the other cells.”
There was silence for a moment. “I wasn’t counting on that,” Miyabi said finally. Then she looked up to Airi. “The both of us are useless. How do you feel in here?”
“No…” Airi breathed. “I can’t…” Despite her words, she knew the Sun’s power shone brightly and as strong as a star within her, but she just
couldn’t break them out of prison…
“Hey!” came a voice from outside the room. Four faces snapped to see one of the guards staring in at them angrily. “How’d you get in there?” He tugged at something on his belt and raised it to his mouth. “We have an escape attempt in cell block C,” he grated into the phone that apparently doubled as a two-way. “Bring reinforcements at once. It’s the Seishin massacre suspects.”
“Massacre…?” Airi mouthed in horror. Chisato looked just as terrified, though despite that Reina let her go and turned instead toward the guard.
“Yeah that’s right,” she said in a dangerous voice. “We killed them all. Do you even know how many bodies there were?
Hundreds…”
“What’s she doing???” Airi whispered hoarsely to Miyabi, who gestured her to be quiet.
“You hold it right there,” the man said, snapping a gun up from his belt to point it directly at Reina. “Don’t move or I shoot, reinforcements be damned.”
“You’re quite a brave little man,” Reina said, smiling at him. Airi was aghast. She seemed to actually be
flirting with the man! For some reason, seeing this made Chisato shrink back to Airi’s side. “Facing four mass murderers with just a gun… I hope you’re fast with it, because you might get one, even two of us, but then it would be too late.”
“Shut the fuck up!” the guard snarled at her. The veins in his hands were now pulsing in anger, making the gun shake slightly within them. This only seemed to encourage Reina’s smile, but they heard the unmistakable sound of booted footfalls coming closer from a distance down the hall, and there were murmurs coming from the other cells too as curiosity apparently spread about the commotion.
“Now would be a good time to do something if you can…” Miyabi murmured to Airi out of the corner of her mouth.
I can’t… Airi thought, shaking her head.
This isn’t… I can’t… This wasn’t what? Right? It wasn’t right that this was happening when these three girls had done nothing wrong, was it? She felt Chisato nearly shivering at her side, though Airi thought it was as much from intensity and readiness as fear.
It wasn’t right because
she’d done nothing wrong, had she? A girl died, true, but she couldn’t help it. She was trapped into it by… Images of what Miyabi told her happened she experienced in the Ivory Tower flashed through her mind.
“Miki’s dead…” Reina said over and over in there as well.
“No…” she breathed, feeling anger and resentment bubble inside her at what had happened since they found the four dead girls in the woods. “No…” she said, a bit louder, so that the others glanced over at her, the policeman for the first time looking a little thrown at what he saw. She closed her eyes.
“I am the Daughter of the Sun…” came a voice within her head.
“I must protect my children. I must protect my sisters…” A thought of Miyabi flickered through the background, but Airi was becoming lost to something ancient, something grand, something within her… something she
was.
“No,” she said clearly in a loud, regal voice as she opened her eyes. Her environment seemed afire with color despite its actual dullness. The guard, now obviously seeing his attention needed to be elsewhere, began swinging his gun in her direction, but to her it swung in slow motion. She watched it, fascinated at the colors and the motion all around her. It was like she had awoken to a whole new world, a beautiful world where the Sun sat on a throne as its Queen. No, not the Sun…
her…Apparently having had enough of the situation, the guard’s wrists were jolted back as he fired his gun when it became pointed directly at Airi. She thought she heard a scream at the same time, but was not worried. She watched as the bullet advanced through the air toward her, marveling at its spinning movement, and when it came within arm’s reach she raised her hand and clenched her fist around it. When she opened her hand, there was nothing but dust within it. The guard’s eyes opened wide at the impossibility, and he quickly fired several more rounds, but this time they evaporated into the air before they’d hardly even crossed the bars.
“Enough,” Airi said, and waved her hand. The bars melted away until they were completely incinerated.
Having apparently exhausted his complete round and now startled out of his wits, the guard turned and ran off down the hall, screaming, “Get them!” as he approached the reinforcements.
Time suddenly fell back to normal, but the light and power still pulsed within Airi. “Airi…” Miyabi said, not quite concealing an awed tone, as the many bootfalls came closer and closer.
“Come on,” Airi said, and she stepped toward where the bars used to be. “But close your eyes tightly.”
When she crossed the threshold and the officers came in sight, many dropping to their knees to aim at their target, she declared, “You don’t want to do this,” and in every direction she cast her eyes there was a blinding flash. The officers screamed that they were being blinded as they shielded their eyes. The flash lasted only a split second though, and was only for the officers, so by the time the other three had joined her, Airi was walking off among them down the hall.
“Two halls down, you said?” Airi asked without looking back.
“Yes…” Miyabi said. She and Chisato both gawked at the officers, who were all rubbing their eyes intensely as if nothing else could matter, while they walked right past them. Reina only smirked.
Once they reached the second hall, Airi came up to the bars of a cell and smiled in at the two occupants. A siren of some alarm had begun sounding along the way.
“Reina!” Koharu cried. “Miyakko! Did you finally decide to…?” Then she noticed Airi, who actually led them, grab one of the bars of their cell.
“You might want to stand back,” she said, and Koharu and Risako, who just stared at the new arrivals, obeyed quickly and without question, seemingly surprising even themselves. Airi tugged at the bar, reinforcing it with the power that flowed through her, and pulled it completely out of its sockets. Then she let it heat until it was searing – a temperature that felt nothing but pleasing to Airi – and swung it slowly at the bars to either side, slicing cleanly through them as they melted away before it. After just a few seconds, the bars were almost completely molten.
“Come on,” she told the others behind her. Reina and Miyabi raised eyebrows to each other at why they were going
into the others girls’ cell, but they all followed. “Do you want to get out of here?” Airi asked the two girls she’d just rescued.
“It was much better when
I was the one rescuing
you,” Chisato mumbled, making Reina and Miyabi laugh. The comment seemed to be lost on Koharu though as she was just now experiencing whatever was happening to Airi, and it completely flew over Risako’s head.
Airi smiled back to her and raised a hand before shooting a beam of light straight through the ceiling until it came through the other side into real sunlight that was intermittently shadowed by a partly cloudy day. “Reina, would you like to continue?” she asked. “Blasting through walls isn’t exactly my… specialty.”
“My pleasure,” Reina said with a grin, and stepped up to look through the hole.
Airi almost sighed with pleasure of her own. Feeling the Sun once again at last was as wonderful as… Lowering her eyes, she smiled over at Miyabi before a thought came to her, and she frowned at Chisato. When her friend noticed her look she nearly jumped, and stared back before lowering her eyes in embarrassment. Airi swallowed before looking back over at Reina, who seemed quite concentrated on the hole.
After just a moment they heard crumbling from above, and the hole was blocked momentarily before suddenly widening as vines shot through it and clung to the stone, apparently applying great force that cracked and broke the stone wherever they went, and before long the ceiling was open almost completely to a day that had suddenly become rainy, and the girls became drenched in their sweat suits.
They didn’t mind however, and a few of them even laughed as the vines now straightened out at an angle from the ceiling down to the floor, making a path for them to walk to the roof. “And I was impressed with my girlfriend…” Miyabi chuckled, before giving Airi a hug as they walked toward the leafy path together.
“What can I say?” Reina said, seeming proud of herself. “I
am the Captain.”
“Right,” Chisato said, some bitterness creeping into her voice. “You know Osuzu totally kicked your ass.”
“Hey now,” Reina responded without looking back as she began mounting the vines. “You’d better stop that or I’ll have to punish you later.” Chisato was quiet after that, and when Airi looked back she noticed the girl had turned several shades of scarlet.
Upon reaching the roof, they looked around. “Um… about those towers…” Koharu said, getting nervous again as she glanced at the guard towers surrounding the facility.
“Hey,” Reina said, almost seeming offended. “I’m taking care of things, aren’t I?” Then she gave a glance to one of the towers, and beginning there to continue to the rest of the towers as she glanced to them one by one, a lightning bolt flashed down from the clouds and shattered the supports, causing them to collapse in on themselves.
“Reina…” Airi said, concern in her voice.
“I know,” she responded. “But you have your way,” she said as a bolt struck down the last tower. “And I have mine. Don’t worry,” she said as she began walking off toward the grid of streets that formed the outskirts of the city of Utsunomiya. “They’ll walk it off in a few weeks… or months…” Airi sighed.
“You know you’re not going to tame her, right?” Miyabi said, grinning, into her ear. “She’s as wild and free-spirited as the Tempest after all.” Then she blinked as if realizing what she’d just said.
“You know another thing?” she asked, taking Airi’s arm to drag her off after Reina, the other three following with Koharu still looking back from time to time in disbelief. Chisato tried her best to skip through the rubble to catch up to Reina. “I think we’re starting to get the hang of this.” Then she laughed and leaned in to kiss Airi lightly. “Also,” she said in barely above a whisper. “You look kind of sexy all wet in those sweats…”
After the kiss and the comment, Airi just stared forward at the still somewhat limping girl who now led them from a ways ahead. Miyabi was right. Things were finally beginning to make sense. But there was still a long road ahead.
Topic: The Circle of Three [CONCLUSION: 28: Ascension] (Read 99726 times)