Okay, so it's been a long time... I've been working on this chapter for a long time too, and so, well, it's long haha. In fact, it's my longest chapter ever. I know some of you want long chapters after such a long break like this. Well, if you do, here you are.
Over 10,000 words. So, if you read, be prepared for a marathon and maybe to take a break or two along the way. Still, it concludes this segment of the story, and things will be changing... If anyone's still reading, please enjoy.
Chapter 11“I still don’t know why you like being out here so late,” Airi said, hugging Maimi’s arm as they walked along through the trees in the darkness. They were walking not far from the marsh near the edge of the greater campus area; it had become that way from the destruction wrought by the battle and the boundary that had occurred when the Circle had been in power, followed by the great storm. Many girls had died around the area… a fact which creeped Airi out whenever she went there since then.
“It’s so quiet,” Maimi said, peering up into the trees which echoed the chorus of insects that patrolled the night. From a bit lower, frogs uttered their hollow croaks amid the brush to either side of their path. Airi even thought she could see one or two hopping across it in front of them from time to time.
“You have a strange idea of quietness,” Airi replied as she gazed around skeptically herself.
“But it’s nature,” Maimi explained, stopping and turning to face Airi. Airi couldn’t help but smile up into the face of the girl she loved. “It’s not the grating of machines or cars, or the endless chatter of dozens of children at work or play.”
Airi reached up to brush a strand of hair out of Maimi’s face. “I guess I just can’t forget all the girls who died here. It doesn’t seem long ago at all, but things have changed so much. I don’t even know where all those frogs could have come from so quickly…”
Maimi’s face clouded at the mentioned of those lost girls, many of whose deaths she was at least partly responsible for.
“I’m sorry,” Airi apologized hurriedly, and leaned up to lay a light kiss on Maimi’s lips. “I can’t imagine what it must be like to be reminded of something like that.”
Maimi didn’t respond, but instead tightened her grip on Airi’s hand and began walking again slowly down the path, Airi close at her side. They walked in the silence of the living nature around them for a while until she eventually spoke again quietly.
“It’s hard looking into their faces every day, Airi,” she said, and Airi thought the grip on her hand tightened even a bit more. “Sometimes I look into one and have to pause a second because it seems as if the ghost of one of those I killed is staring back at me. They were all so young, so innocent. I can’t believe I could have done such a thing.”
Airi cuddled close to her side. “It wasn’t you that killed them. Something was controlling you… Something that you had no way to resist. You’re just as innocent as they were, at the mercy of indiscriminating evil.”
“Maybe,” Maimi replied doubtfully. After a moment she continued, “But I still let it in. I craved power, and that’s why I joined the Circle. And also…” She glanced over to give Airi a very firm look. “I’m still alive.”
Airi kept hugging her arm closely as she thought over the girl’s words. She hated to see Maimi like this, or anyone like this, but then again, she also remembered Maimi from before, when she was deep into the Circle. Finally, she responded with just a few simple words.
“Being dead wouldn’t solve anything.” She began stroking Maimi’s arm gently. “Now you can work toward helping people who still need it. You can help me. I need you…”
Maimi stopped again to turn to Airi, but this time they held each other closely in their arms. They looked into each other’s eyes as they listened to the perpetual song of nature around them.
“Do you know the other reason I like to come here?” Maimi asked. “Especially with you?”
Airi shook her head.
“The past is past. Sure it haunts me, but that doesn’t mean the world can’t keep turning. Out here in the night, among the trees, the grass, the dampness, the
life that surrounds us… out here together… It’s really quite romantic.”
Airi blushed, though at the thought, when she tried to bury those of what had happened here like Maimi urged her to, she realized the girl was right. “Oh? So you take me here to try to come onto me, Yajima-senpai?” Airi asked in a mock innocent tone, a soft grin blooming across her face.
“I do that when I take you anywhere,” Maimi replied, with a grin of her own. “How hard are you going to make me try?”
“Just hard enough,” Airi replied, and the two girls leaned close for what they intended to be a much longer kiss.
However, they froze upon hearing rustling in the long reeds, and their eyes immediately darted to where it came from. Exchanging a quick glance, Maimi took Airi’s hand again and pulled her closer to where the sound seemed to have come from. As they got closer, they heard more rustling, and what almost sounded like soft, rushed whispers. They exchanged one more glance before taking another step closer, but leapt back when the reeds suddenly shook violently and two girls hastily emerged from them. They seemed to take a moment to orient themselves, but upon seeing Airi and Maimi staring at them, their eyes widened to saucers as they clutched each other tightly.
The two couples stared at each other a moment, the ones just sprung from the bushes still half-distractedly straightening their seifuku, until Airi realized they weren’t going to be closing their gaping mouths anytime soon.
“Well what do we have here?” Maimi said, a smirk evident in the tone of her voice. “You do know most of you are at an all-girls school so you’ll not get up to anything like this while you’re all on your own away from your socialite parents.”
Finally one of the girls snapped her teeth shut. “Y-Yajima-san!” she nearly squeaked. “You can’t tell my parents! You have no idea what they’ll do to me if they find out that I… that I…”
“Like girls?” Maimi asked, grinning at the two who were now clutching each other tightly. Her comment made the two of them glance at each other and blush deeply.
Airi studied their faces as Maimi tried to break the ice with them. She didn’t think she knew them, but thought she might have seen their faces around here like most of the other students of Seishin. They looked to barely be her age or a bit older.
The one who still hadn’t spoken was now whispering something in a low voice into her friend’s – or secret crush’s? – ear. Strangely though, Airi found she could hear everything she was saying quite clearly.
Airi thought again to the strange conversation she had with Miyabi earlier in the day, where the girl had proposed she get a
tattoo of all things. She was a bit troubled by the earnestness she’d heard in her voice, but it was hard to tell what the girl was really thinking sometimes, even before all these visions or whatever she’d been having.
The most astonishing thing about the encounter though had been when she heard Miyabi’s voice in her head even though she obviously wasn’t actually speaking audibly to her. Knowing what she did about Miyabi’s abilities, reading and wandering through other peoples’ minds like she does, the girl being able to do something like that didn’t really surprise her. What did surprise her was that she realized she was able to respond… and she thought Miyabi might have been a bit surprised at that herself.
In discussions with themselves as well as Reina and the remaining former Circle members, they seemed to find some patterns in the powers each of them was able to control. Reina’s seemed to correlate with the weather, and various elements that could be affected by it. Ai’s seemed a bit similar in that the two seemed to do battle together often, but more as opposing forces instead of following the same source.
Miyabi’s seemed less related to external forces and more to those of the mind, as well as bridging dimensions… both spatial and temporal, apparently. Airi, good student that she had tried to be, was interested in the science of something like that, but didn’t think she understood it too well really. What she did see though was what Miyabi was able to do – transport herself from one place to another with seeming ease now, as well as apparently see things from both the past and future. Airi was quite envious of the potential such an ability might entail, but at the same time, after thinking about it, a bit scared. If you could be anywhere or any time, how could you be completely sure of where you actually existed? That was another reason she found it difficult to trust the girl, especially when she goes spouting crazy things like the need to get a tattoo.
As for herself, she hadn’t quite nailed a clear pattern yet, but she knew a lot of what she could do seemed to be linked to the Sun. She wondered if Maimi could be a clue to it – somehow she, Miyabi and Reina seemed to mirror the Circle in some respects, and her girlfriend seemed to be her closest match. Maimi’s power definitely seemed to derive from concrete elements – heat, or cold for example. However, Airi seeming to share in Miyabi’s ability of telepathy made the issue more complex still.
“Airi, I think you’re starting to creep the kids out…” Maimi said, a slightly uncomfortable smile coming to her lips. Airi blinked, realizing she’d been staring at Maimi, and glanced over at the two other girls, who seemed to cling to each other more tightly with her gaze as they stared back worriedly. “Creeping me out a little bit too…” she heard Maimi grumble under her breath, likely thinking no one would hear her. “And here I was trying to be romantic.”
Suddenly a toothy smile burst onto Airi’s face, and she stepped toward the girls, who began trembling at her approach. “Please don’t be so frightened,” she said comfortingly, and reached out to take an arm of each girl lightly in each hand. “You aren’t in any trouble. In fact, Maimi and I here are out here for the same reason you two are – for a quiet, private romantic night.”
“You mean…” one of the girls began.
“You two are…?” the other girl continued.
Airi nodded, her smile widening. She didn’t think the girls’ eyes could stretch any wider.
“We were so worried about being caught,” the first said, and the other nodded. “We know stuff like this is forbidden here, which usually isn’t a problem since there aren’t any boys around, but…”
“Who are we to tell you what’s against the rules?” Airi asked. The girls didn’t realize it, but she was threading warm strands of her power into them through her grip on their arms. With everything happening, she didn’t know how nice a night she could expect anymore, but she wanted to give these girls a pleasant evening at least, and especially allay their fears at being stumbled upon.
“Yeah,” Maimi said, now appraising Airi carefully. Airi thought the girl might have been able to tell what she was doing. “We don’t even go to class.”
The girls giggled at that, as if even the idea of people like Airi and Maimi doing something as novel as going to class was ridiculous, and Airi tried to hold back a sigh. Finally she withdrew her hands. The girls reflexively reached up to rub their arms lightly where she had touched, seeming half-dazed as they caught each other’s eyes again.
“Come on, Maimi,” Airi said, and pulled the girl with her as she began walking back through the woods to leave the two alone once again. Maimi turned back to see the two girls looking only at each other, apparently oblivious to anything else around them, as they drew closer once again.
“That’s a nice little trick you did there,” Maimi told her as she turned back and took Airi’s own arm. “I’d like you to show me something like it… perhaps once we get back to the tower.” The girl said it rather offhandedly, knowing Airi didn’t usually respond well to her innuendo, but this time Airi came to a quick halt, pulling Maimi in beside her to give her a curious sidelong glance.
“I will,” Airi said simply, still looking ahead into the darkness.
“Eh?” Maimi asked, acting confused to play along with her.
Finally Airi looked up into the soft, smiling face before her, seeming to see the pain of the experiences she’d had and the things she’d done hidden behind those dark eyes. She lifted a hand to cup Maimi’s cheek, and at the tender gesture Maimi did blink in surprise. Airi didn’t usually initiate such gentle advances.
“I want you to know once and for all that you’re the only one that matters to me – that you’ll now always be the first person in my heart and mind.”
“Airi…” Maimi said, looking hard into her eyes as if to draw out some truth that Airi was still hiding from her.
In response, Airi leaned forward to kiss her with the aid of some of the warmth she’d imparted to those young girls.
When she finally pulled away, she found Maimi’s eyes to be closed and her face solemn, as if the girl had found her way to another world entirely. Airi’s own head spun from what she imagined must have been a similar sensation – soon after she’d begun supplementing the kiss with the extra warmth, it had felt like a portion of it was reflected back into herself, giving her quite an intoxicated feeling as well. She realized they were each holding the other tightly around the waist, perhaps wanting to be close but also with just the effort of remaining standing.
When Airi regained her senses enough to speak, she felt her lips part with a damp
pop. “I think it’s time we headed back to the tower,” she said, noticing she couldn’t put much strength of breath behind it.
Maimi only nodded and pulled her closer.
…
Upon returning to the tower, the halls were completely barren of activity. Airi might have thought it unusual at this time of night, but at the moment she couldn’t think of much other than the older girl next to her whose hand she clutched tightly as they hurried to Maimi’s room.
Upon entering the dark room, Maimi pulled her toward what she thought was just beside the large, ornamented four-posted bed before warm light suddenly flared subtly around them in the aspect of fat candles spread around the room.
“Showing off?” Airi asked wryly as Maimi turned to face her and take both her hands, dark eyes staring into dark eyes that seemed to dance playfully with the reflections from the flames.
“Well I want to impress my girl,” Maimi said, only returning her a warm smile. Airi didn’t know if she’d seen such relaxed contentedness shine from the other in their tumultuous history together. It especially served in stark contrast to the phantoms that had seemed to haunt her out at the swamp. At a time like this, Airi really felt like she was looking right into her bright Sun.
Feeling a quicksilver spark of inspiration, Airi leaned up to kiss Maimi’s cheek gently and whisper in her ear, “Impress me, ne?” She switched to the other ear, feeling Maimi’s warm breath on her face as she passed her lips. “Would you fly with me?”
She pulled back to glimpse a glimmer of confusion in Maimi’s face. “Fly?” Maimi asked in an unsure voice. “What…” Then she blinked, and her eyes widened slightly.
“Can you do that?” she breathed.
Airi gave her a soft smile in response before singing tenderly, and slower than the lyrics’ origin,
“Mitsu no you ni…” She wrapped her hands around Maimi’s slim waist.
“Hane no you ni…” She pulled the older girl tightly to her.
“Yume no you ni…” She smiled at the dawning recognition in Maimi’s eyes, leaning forward to rub their cheeks lightly, gently against each other.
“Mune no you ni…” She fell back to just in front of Maimi’s face, their lips so close to touching they could feel each others’ heartbeats already in the moment.
“Yawarakaku, Utsukushiku…”“Yes…” Maimi breathed, and their lips touched, leaving the last two words of a song she knew from so long ago pulsing and echoing through their minds.
As their kiss quickly deepened, Airi felt as if she left her body, her mind and soul spiraling into some transcendent world of bliss that she shared with Maimi. She could feel Maimi there with her as they floated through innumerous clouds, basking in the omnipresent warmth of the brilliant Sun, their inseparable intimacy the only thing seeming to keep each of them from drifting away.
“Are we flying…?” she heard a voice reverberate around her in unabashed wonder. In lieu of responding, Airi felt herself awake to sensation once again, even though she was far overwhelmed by it all.
Somehow she realized she was still in an enclosed room, candles flickering their warm light all around, but nothing compared to the heat emanating from the two girls who were somehow now on the bed, tangled in the sheets in their passion, yet as inseparable as in the vision.
“Take my hand,” Airi said, and she donned a smile on a face that wasn’t there toward her companion whose soul drifted beside her. Hands without form grasped each other as they flew through more clouds. Airi realized she was taking them toward the Sun, but it wasn’t getting any closer. She tried going faster. Faster…
“Airi…” she heard Maimi say, worry creeping into her distant-sounding voice.
The two young girls became more aggressive against each other, both so completely absorbed in each other that they knew nothing else. Nothing else other than what they shared… their mutual pleasure… and that they were together. The sounds of their passion echoed around the cavernous room in the tower, where they didn’t realize they were now nearly alone, heightening to a fever pitch.
“Airi…” Maimi tried to claim her attention again, but Airi didn’t pay her heed, pulling her onward as her brow furrowed in concentration, trying to catch the seemingly unreachable Sun. Soon Maimi’s protests ceased, and she felt the girl’s essence become ever closer to her, nearly gasping when it felt like they became one. It seemed like in that moment the Sun finally came to be within her grasp, and they soared toward it until their vision was nothing but the brilliant light, the pulsing heat coursing through them in one rapturous moment.
…
A dull sound penetrating the nothingness around her, Airi tried to claw herself back to reality, back to something tangible. The sound repeated itself with insistency, as if calling her back to life. She didn’t know where she’d gone, but for a time she wondered if she’d even still been part of this world.
The sound came once again, and this time it pulled her enough out of her malaise that it became sharper, and she was finally able to give it identity… a harsh, insistent knocking from somewhere outside.
She opened her eyes, wincing immediately at the morning light coming in through the high curtained window. The knock came again, as if refusing to allow her time to regain her senses.
“I’m coming…” she mumbled inaudibly likely even to someone right beside her, and as she began to sit up she glanced over at the form beside her, which was beginning to stir in its own protest against the intrusive sound.
She finally managed to slip out of the bed, and as she wobbled over to the door the knock came again, never losing its urgency, but this time she caught it before it was finished with its series of raps and pulled open the door slowly to see a wide-eyed face peering in at her.
“Airi…!” the girl standing there said in something resembling surprise. Then she glanced down, but only for a moment before her eyes snapped back up to Airi’s face, flushing a deep crimson.
“What is it?” Airi grumbled, squinting to get a better look at the girl before her. “…Risako?”
“Um…” Risako replied, her eyes fixed firmly onto Airi’s face.
Airi’s face became more questioning, not seeing what the girl’s point was between her few words and Airi’s own early morning confusion.
“Um…” Risako repeated, her face losing none of its color.
Airi was about to ask what the girl’s problem was, and then perhaps flay her alive for disturbing her so early in the day, but she instead glanced down between them to finally realize for the first time… she had absolutely no clothes on.
Nothing registered for a moment, but then a scream bubbled up in her throat, not making it to her lips in anything other than a cry like that of a strangled cat, but she suddenly slammed the door in her friend’s face and ran back to the bed, nearly falling in her unsteadiness along the way.
Where were her clothes?!
Her mind finally began to grasp the situation, and what had just happened the night before. Maimi was just sitting up in the bed herself, rubbing her eyes, and she stared at her for a moment before crying frantically,
“My clothes!”Maimi, finishing her rubbing, stared numbly back at her.
She began looking around the room then, noting pieces of clothing strewn around it. However, they were nothing more than that –
pieces of clothing. Nothing resembled anything like what must have used to be a shirt, or skirt.
Now frantic about what to do about herself, as well as the girl at the door, and trying not even to think about the girl in the bed as the night came crashing back into her memory, she spotted a dresser and dashed over to it, pulling it open to find Maimi’s clothes folded neatly inside. Well… she supposed they would have to do.
A few minutes later found her sitting on a couch in the lounge, patting a distraught Risako on the shoulder. Maimi, in just some light sweats she threw on quickly, paced with her arms folded out in front of the fireplace.
“Are you sure she’s missing?” Airi asked, her voice full of concern for her close friend, but with a hint of skepticism as well.
“She didn’t come back last night,” Risako pouted simply once again, her eyes moist with yet unshed tears.
“Are you sure she didn’t stay somewhere else for the night?” Airi asked, still trying to be comforting. “She could have just stayed with someone else. Or… knowing her… she might have gone off who knows where. You guys did have that big meeting yesterday…”
She hadn’t known about it until Risako told her, since after she met Miyabi in the school building she’d spent the rest of the day with Maimi. Apparently Miyabi made quite the scene in the headmistresses’ office when Risako and Chisato had gone there to ask about Reina. Airi felt that she didn’t at all know anymore what Miyabi was thinking.
The girl had become so hot and cold, proposing strange notions such as that tattoo idea. What good would a tattoo do, anyway?! And there was no way she was going to mar her perfect skin! She actually was surprised the girl hadn’t gotten any of her own yet, since she was about as yankii as Airi thought someone could get. Her and Reina…
It did worry her a little about Reina, but like everyone else who embraced reality, she knew what the girl was like. She shared a gaze with Maimi as she stopped momentarily in her pacing. They also knew Miyabi wasn’t all that different… Herself more than many. That fiery gaze was back in Maimi’s eyes at talk of the girl, but it was different than before, since after last night she knew unequivocally that Airi was hers now.
When she turned back to Risako, she saw the girl giving her a hard look of her own through her tears. The steel in the gaze almost took her breath away.
“She didn’t stay somewhere else,” Risako stated through gritted teeth with finality. When Airi opened her mouth to say something else, Risako cut her off before she could begin. “She promised,” she said tightly.
“Promised?” Airi asked, trying to get more out of her friend now that she seemed to be getting to the point.
“She promised that she’d come back to me last night. She wouldn’t have broken that.”
Airi looked into her face for a long while before realizing that the girl was full of rock solid conviction. Then she realized, perhaps for the first time, how much things had really changed. She was Maimi’s now. Miyabi was no longer connected to her in the same way. Instead, her close friend had taken her place. She’d lived for so long by the idea that she was the one who knew the former Skull best, but she might not be anymore. She realized she had no reason to doubt her friend’s words.
Airi glanced up toward Maimi again, and her new love was no longer pacing, instead watching the two of them very carefully. She could tell by the girl’s face that she’d come to the same conclusion as Airi. It didn’t take Chisato coming into the lounge right at the moment as well with worry etched across her features to make them face what the situation now was.
“So…” Maimi said softly. “We now have two of our most powerful leaders missing.”
…
The mood in the Headmistresses’ office was chaotic, though Airi kept apart from it, her mind far away as she gazed out the huge star-shaped window behind the desk where Ai was doing her best to calm the group of girls before her, even though they weren’t all in such a frenetic state.
Below Airi’s gaze, girls scattered all around the fountain plaza beneath the midday Sun on their way to or from classes, some taking a rest on the benches surrounding the sparklingly spraying water to talk to their friends while they have the rare chance.
More than a few cast wary eyes to the doors of the stark building in front of the fountain, or else up at the star window, even though they couldn’t see those such as Airi just inside. By the unusual amount of activity coming in and out of here today, including most of the top school leaders, they knew something was up. Airi just wished one of them knew more than her, so that she could figure out how to get help for her friends, her… sisters.
At the same time, she had a strong suspicion some of the girls in the crowd down there very well did know what was going on.
Those she would especially like to have a word with.
“Is there
anything you can do?” she heard Chisato ask in a heated, impassioned voice from within the murmur behind her. “Surely you could organize a search, or something, at least.” The last time Airi heard her friend speaking like that was when she was trying to become a Skull. She wasn’t completely sure what drove the intensity that seemed to fill her now, but was worried at some of her guesses.
“I’ve been telling you, Chisa,” Risako countered in a contrastingly darker, almost unemotional tone of her own. “We should get some girls together and go look ourselves. They can’t really do any more than us, after all.” There was a muffled jangling as she spoke, as of chain links falling against each other. Risako worried her too, but for a different reason. This Risako was like the rebirth of the one that had come out in the horrible battles that happened on this very campus. Until now, Airi hadn’t realized exactly how much of a rejuvenating effect Miyabi had been having on her.
“You can count us in too!” she heard Yuuka yell from the crowd as well. She was there with Kanon and Ayaka, who seemed nigh inseparable, although Kanon had seemed a bit distracted about the situation from almost the minute she’d walked in the door. She also seemed to pay an inordinate amount of attention to Chisato.
Airi wondered at noticing such little things, despite no one else really making a comment on them. It was as if her senses had sharpened along with her abilities and strength. Much of the time she still ignored them, but at a time like this, with her blood heated as much as it was already, everything around here seemed to take on more of a raw intensity. She wondered how much of it really mattered.
Glancing away from the window, she saw Maimi not far from her – she didn’t think the girl had strayed more than a meter from her all day – with Momoko and her severe-looking scar just a pace off of her, arms crossed as austere as she always was these days. She thought she remembered the girl being so random and bubbly before, before all this happened… but she was no longer sure if that memory was real or not.
“I can’t help if you all don’t calm down and help think this through,” a stoic Ai said, her voice thin with stretched patience. “Now, when was the last time you saw them?”
“I already told you,” Risako said darkly, more metal jangling along with her voice, “We talked on the way back after leaving here last night. We were going to head back to the Tower, but she said she had something to do first and for me to go on ahead. She never returned.”
“Did she say anything about what she had to do?” Risa asked from her position beside Ai. “Did you see what direction she went?”
“Almost everything is the opposite direction from the Tower. It could have been anywhere. And no, she didn’t say anything either. You… know how she can be.” That last seemed to elicit a bit of a tightened throat from her, perhaps that Miya wouldn’t trust her enough to tell her everything. Airi knew well what that was like, but also that it didn’t mean she didn’t trust the girl. Miyabi just… did not think in ways like that any longer.
“And Reina?” Ai asked. AIri cast a glance back at the two Headmistresses standing beside each other, Risa not seeming to think anything of Ai’s concern. Suddenly, Airi felt a little saddened for them. She supposed in some cases though, ignorance was bliss.
“I saw her… in the hall of the Tower the night before last,” Chisato said, and Airi caught her casting a very short glance over to the three girls standing behind them with Yuuka at the front. “She seemed…” She glanced back at the three again. “…a bit preoccupied. It looked like she was heading back to her room, but I haven’t seen her since.”
Airi heard Risa snort a laugh. “Who knows what she’d have on her mind.” There was a pause, and then she continued, “Wait, I don’t want to know.” Airi sighed as Ai did her best to keep her face expressionless.
“That’s not funny,” Chisato said in a flat voice. “They’re missing, and maybe in trouble, so this is not the time to make jokes at their expense.”
Risa seemed taken aback at the girl’s vehement defense of Reina. “Sorry. It just came out.” Then she glanced over at Ai. “But I’d be surprised if they were in any kind of trouble. I mean, you know them – who would even be able to trouble them?”
Silence hung at the dearth of responses those gathered in the room were able to give to such a comment.
“I’m afraid that somehow, trouble was able to find them,” Airi said, almost her first words since entering the room. Everyone’s attention suddenly turned to her, making her just a little self-conscious, though she’d pretty much become used to it lately.
“I know you’re concerned about your friends, Airin,” Ai said comfortingly, “But there’s no way you could know…”
“I know,” Airi said, her gaze locking onto the woman’s with a razor sharpness that made her blink.
While the others had been discussing everything that may have happened, and what they might want to try and do about it, she’d been thinking. She didn’t realize it until the night before, but like yesterday when she had that conversation with Miyabi in her mind, she somehow knew that the girl was always there with her. She didn’t think it meant she was always watching her thoughts – that would be a stinging violation even for her – but she thought it had something to do with the connection they shared with their powers. At some point last night, even though she didn’t realize it the moment it happened because she was rather… preoccupied… that phantom link had vanished. She didn’t realize it until she thought about it this morning, but what that meant concerned her greatly.
There was also the matter of the warning Miyabi gave her yesterday that she somehow seemed to think would be remedied by the tattoo. She’d been around Miyabi with her newfound insight long enough now to realize the girl knew a great many things, and she seemed to know about something that was going to happen to them soon. Now, with Reina, and then the girl herself, missing, she thought it must be more than mere coincidence.
“Well…” Chisato said, seeming a little uncertain all of a sudden. Airi glanced at the crowd of young girls and realized they were all giving her very odd looks. “Trouble or not, I think we should try to find them. If you… think something bad is going on too… we should all go together. With what you can do, I’m sure you’d be able to do more than any of us could to help.
Airi looked away again to the window, watching the girls below continue drifting every which way as if they were grains of sand caught up in a storm – a storm that centered right where she was standing. Turning back, she found everyone in the room still looking her way, though they cast furtive glances to each other as well, at what she was sure was her odd behavior.
“Two nights ago, Reina disappeared…” she reiterated. Chisato nodded in her vehement confirmation. “Then last night, Miyabi did as well.” This time, Risako nodded. “Don’t you guys see a pattern here?” They all looked at each other. The looks from Maimi and Ai though suddenly became more serious.
Airi looked into the faces of the two girls who were her best friends before all this madness began. “Whatever happened to them, the last two nights, I’m probably next tonight.”
That lit a firestorm.
Maimi took a step toward her, her arms uncrossing to take her hand, a deadly serious look crossing her features. “I swear on my life, I won’t let anything happen to you.”
The eyes of the girls in the room who’d been with them through the battles they all thought were finished widened. “We can’t lose you too!” Yuuka cried desperately. “No,” Chisato said, shaking her head in disbelief at Airi’s words. “Just no!” Aika nodded at Chisato’s words, a pleading look coming on her face too as if for Airi to take back what she said.
Even when she glanced at Momoko, who’d been stoic ever since the battles and had spoken few words, she found the girl giving her an intense gaze in return as if to back up what Maimi said about not letting anything happen to her. She was one of the ones most loyal to Shimizu-san before, and by extension to Ai and Maimi, and with how they’d all joined together since then she seemed to have enveloped Airi and the others in that mix as well.
A loud, shattering sound as if thunder had struck within the room they occupied brought the commotion to an abrupt, shocked halt, but Airi couldn’t take her eyes off the barbed metal ball that had just been slammed onto Ai’s desk, nearly snapping it in two instantly. Instead, with a whining creak, the cracks spread out from the center before it split apart and collapsed to the floor, a few scattered papers falling with it as the two women behind the desk stared in shock at the destruction right in front of them.
Once Airi found herself, her eyes traveled back along the chain connected to the ball to the handle, which Risako held tightly in her hands, her eyes finding Airi’s the moment Airi looked her way.
“Why do you want to leave us?” the girl asked simply, quietly into the silence.
Airi blinked. “I don’t want to leave you…” she said, confused by her friend’s question. She felt Maimi’s hands tighten around her own.
“It sounds like you’ve already given yourself up to this problem, this threat that we don’t even know is real yet. It’s like none of us are even here in the room with you.”
“That’s not true,” Airi protested, and she glanced at Maimi as if to assure her that’s not at all what she thought. Maimi gave her a hard look, but one that was lovingly supportive as well. “But you guys don’t realize…”
“What?” Risako asked, pulling her flail with a harsh grating sound off of the ruined desk and back toward her. “What don’t we realize?”
“It’s…” Airi said, looking down. “It’s complicated…”
“I see,” Risako said. “And you don’t think we’d understand? We don’t have all those fancy magical powers like you do, so we couldn’t possibly understand what’s wrong?”
“I don’t mean it that…”
“Rii-chan,” Chisato said soothingly, laying a hand on Risako’s arm. Risako shot her a sharp look, but didn’t act to pull back. “We’re all trying our best here to figure out what’s going on.”
“Tell that to
her,” Risako said vehemently, pointing directly at Airi. “She’s the one that’s in the middle of all this. She’s the one everyone around here thinks is a
god. None of the others, even Miya and Reina, are near as important.”
Chisato seemed unable to answer her, but a cough came from the other side of the desk as the two women there seemed to have finally regained their composure.
“That’s enough,” Ai said, giving Risako a hard look when the girl turned to her. She must have been upset about her desk, but that didn’t seem to be what was most on her mind at the moment.
“We’ve all done our best to bring this school back to where it was before it was corrupted. Airi and the others have even done their best to try to bring the
country back to where it was. If there’s some new threat, we just need to get to the bottom of it. Maybe we all have our own opinions of how that should be done, but it’ll be best if we work together.”
She shot a look at Airi. “In case what you say is true, the most important thing is for you to have someone with you at all times. It sounds like Reina and Miyabi were probably alone for whatever happened to them, so if you never are, then I’m betting you’ll be safe.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Maimi said firmly, not giving Airi a choice in the matter.
“Me too,” Momoko agreed, the shadows fierce around her scar as she nodded in her direction, even though her eyes still strayed askance at the flail Risako had reclaimed. Airi finally realized why – the weapon had been hers in the beginning, until Risako had taken it from her… as well as given her that scar. Risako had been quiet about things like that which happened during the war, but now this part of it at least fell into place.
Before Airi could say anything in her own defense, Ai nodded and continued. “As for Reina and Miyabi, they both seemed to go missing sometime during the night. That means it might be tough for us to piece together what happened while the sun’s shining since those involved might be engaged in different activities.”
“Do you really think students could have done this?” Chisato asked, seeming to not want to believe it.
“I think we should keep our options open,” Ai replied firmly. “And I’m also not saying we should do nothing until nightfall. I’m going to order that all classes be canceled for the remainder of the day…” The girls in the room shared a look at that, a few seeming surprised but others like Risako nodding in approval. “…and that everyone should return to their dorms and not leave them until further word. I’ll send the faculty home—”
“But some of them could be involved!” Chinami protested, interrupting the Headmistress. “We can’t let anyone leave!” The older girl had originally supported the Circle through most of the battle for Seishin, but since Reina had saved her and converted her to their side, she remained fiercely loyal to the three of them, especially Reina. In a way, similar to…
“She’s right!” Yuuka added. “Wouldn’t it be more likely for some of them to be behind it too? I mean, the others are just students…”
“You forget,” Ai replied wryly. “Since our reopening, the students we have here could be capable of… quite a bit, given the right motivation. And considering the families many of them come from, there could be plenty of motivation as well.”
“But…” Yuuka continued objecting.
“Since these events happen at night, when those teachers who do not live on campus are all gone, it’s not likely that anyone who’d go home would be involved. Plus it’ll give us less confusion to sort through in order to hopefully come up with the reality of what’s been happening.”
She turned her attention to Airi, as well as Chisato and Risako. “Once everyone’s returned where they should be, we’ll split up into a few small groups to do a search. I’ll take one – I think you should come with me, Airi. Okai-san, Sugaya-san, you take the others. Split up however you’d like. I promise you, we’ll get to the bottom of this.” She looked back up into Airi’s face and gave an unsteady smile. “Is everyone all right with that plan?”
Thankful that someone restored some order to the frazzled group, Airi smiled and nodded her gratitude. She wasn’t crazy about having people looking after her as if she was a meek little lamb or something, but she saw the sense in what the woman proposed as well. Glancing into Maimi’s eyes, she definitely knew that she at least was not going to let her get more than a pace away from her. Not that she wanted to, not after the night they’d just had together.
She smiled lovingly, comfortingly to her girlfriend, and saw some of her hard features soften slightly. It seemed like the two of them finally had really found each other, but suddenly she didn’t know how long it would be able to last.
“Let’s just find Miya and Reina,” she said to the room, though she still was gazing deeply into Maimi’s eyes. “Then everything will be all right again.”
…
“You two should go and get some rest,” Ai advised the two girls struggling to keep up with them. “You’re no good to anyone if you can’t even stand up straight.”
“I’m not going anywhere until we find Miya,” Risako stated flatly as she held tightly onto Chisato’s hand.
“Me…” Chisato began, before a yawn interrupted her, “neither…”
They’d been searching campus fruitlessly all day, seemingly from top to bottom. All of the academic buildings… the dining halls… the dorms… Interviewing other students… The Sun had set an hour or so ago, and now a brilliant near-full moon was fighting to shine its vanilla light in through the trees.
Airi, Ai and Maimi strode along the path through the woods, leading the bunch of girls on the late evening search party. The girls in the other groups had gotten too tired of being on their feet all day, and so most of them already returned to their dorms. Risa, having gotten pretty tired too, went back to take care of some end-of-day business.
That left those three, who despite the woes of their companions had hardly seemed to break a sweat, as well as Chisato, Risako, and Momoko, who kept to her promise to join Maimi in not leaving Airi alone. When Risako and Chisato joined up with them though, it caused a little bit of drama.
“How about you?” Chisato asked the peach girl, who did her best to keep up at Maimi’s side. “You must be as tired as us but…” She yawned again. “You hardly seem to show it.”
“I have a lot of energy,” Momoko said plainly.
“I remember that,” Airi said, wanting to learn a bit more about the girl who now seemed adamant at being her bodyguard. “I used to see you with some… friends… and you were so boisterous, entertaining, talkative… like you said, full of energy. It kinda surprised me to see you as quiet as you are now.”
The girl was quiet for a moment as they walked onward, seeming like she was lost in thought. “You don’t have to be so polite with me,” she finally replied. “I lost a lot in the battle here.” She glanced to Risako, who peered guardedly back at her from beneath her eyelashes.
“Last I remember,” Risako said softly, “You were trying to kill me.”
A small smile, made crooked by the scar, widened Momoko’s lips. “I’m sorry. I picked…” She glanced up to Maimi, who nodded expressionlessly. “I picked the wrong side. A lot of us did, unfortunately… I guess I should be glad I got out of it as easily as I did.”
She reached up a hand to trace a finger along her scar. “We were given… so much confidence… We thought we were fighting in a good cause, for the good of the school.”
When Airi laid a hand on her shoulder, the girl blinked up at her in a strange birdlike manner. “I don’t hold it against you. It’s not your fault. So few people really knew what was going on… I’m not sure if even we knew what was going on, at least for a long time there, and we all stuck with our friends. You can’t be more honorable than that.”
Momoko kept smiling to show her thanks, but pulled away from her hand. “Saki-chan was… my best friend… The battle was hard, but losing her was harder. I should have noticed what she’d become, but I was blinded by loyalty. I didn’t realize until then that, really… I had lost her long ago…”
“You did what you had to do,” Chisato told her encouragingly.
Risako, after being silent for a time, spoke up next. “I think we were all blinded by loyalty. For many of us that meant being blinded by something we had absolutely no control over too. It could have just as easily been me if I was a little older, if I was in the same class as you and Shimizu-san. What’s important is that we’re one now. We have to stay together, support each other, like you’re doing for Airin. It seems like there’s something else out there now, something bigger even than what came before. We’ll need to stick together to fight it.”
This time when Momoko glanced over to Risako, there was wetness around one of her eyes, even if not the other since, Airi realized, it had probably lost its tear ducts. Realizing that, it explained why the girl seemed to squint so much with that eye. At least she hadn’t completely lost it…
“Thank you…” Momoko told her quietly, and Risako’s look in return almost seemed sympathetic, at least until she steeled it again.
“No problem,” she replied. “Although… I’m not giving your flail back.”
Momoko almost seemed to laugh at that. “That’s okay.” She raised a hand to her scar again. “This is the only reminder of that I need. Besides… you won it fair and square.”
Risako nodded, smiling softly, and Airi smiled herself, glad to see yet more of the tension from things past fade away into nothing but memory. She felt a soft squeeze on her hand, and looked over to see Maimi smiling over at her, an expression she shared with her secretly. If they could only find Miya and Reina, she felt she actually might be optimistic about the future for the first time in a long while.
Airi had just realized they were nearing the swamp, when they heard a faint call from somewhere distant within the blackness of the forest.
“Airi… Airi…”The girls froze, trying to be completely silent to try and hear more of the eerie sound.
“Airi…” the voice came again, though it almost seemed fainter this time.
“Who do you suppose that is?” Ai whispered to anyone who might have an answer.
“I… I don’t…” Airi whispered back, trying to focus her mind to pick up anything that might help them.
“Airi… Risako… help…!”This time, even though the voice was so faint, its intent was indisputable.
“It’s Miya!” Risako said, whispers forgotten. She straightened up, peering wildly into the trees. “Miya!” she yelled into the blackness, causing the girls to jump in fright when a flock of birds who must have been settling in for the night suddenly rose up and took wing from a large tree beside them. “Where are you?!”
“Shh!” Maimi hissed at the girl. “Do you want to get her in more trouble than she might already have? We don’t know what’s going on out there; why she’s yelling!”
“Risako!” the voice called again, this time more insistent as if it had heard the girl’s own calls. Having gone into action after Risako’s movement, Airi froze again. Somehow she could tell that… something was wrong…
“It’s her!” Risako jabbered excitedly to the others. “I have to go! I have to find her!”
“I’ll go with you!” Chisato added, and Airi noticed she seemed excited as well. “If Miya’s there, Reina might be with her!” She grabbed at her friend’s arm just in time before Risako pulled her off into the trees.
“Wait!” Airi and Ai called, almost at the same time, then darted looks at each other.
“Something’s not right,” Ai told her, as if the thought had just come to her out of the blue.
Airi nodded. “Go after them. Make sure they don’t get into trouble. I trust that you can take care of anything that comes up.”
“Right,” Ai replied, looking anxious and exasperated. “You stay here.” Airi nodded, having planned on that all along, and figuring they’d want to keep her as far away from potential trouble as they could.
“Momo,” Airi said, turning to the other girl. “You go too.”
“But…” the girl replied, glancing between her and Maimi.
“We’ll be fine,” Airi assured her. “I don’t want someone going in there alone, even someone like Ai-chan.” When Maimi gave a nod as well, implying that she’d take care of Airi, Momoko reluctantly seemed to agree and followed after Ai off into the woods. Before long, it was quiet but for the breathing of the two remaining girls.
“Do you think that was really Natsuyaki?” Maimi asked her finally in a low voice.
“I don’t know…” Airi said, shaking her head slowly. “It might be. Someone was calling out there after all. But…”
“But…?” Maimi pressed her.
“But something just doesn’t feel right to me,” Airi finished, and she suddenly felt the need to rub at her arms as if she felt a chill run through her.
The minutes dragged by as they waited on the path, the sounds of the night echoing all around them. So far they’d heard nothing else though of returning girls, or any more strange calls into the night.
“Well…” Maimi said lightly, apparently trying to break the tension. “This definitely feels different than the last time we were out here.”
Airi looked up to see her girlfriend grinning down at her, though the effect was lost since she didn’t seem to be able to get fully into it. Taking her hand from Maimi’s, she slapped at the girl’s shoulder. “Stop it,” she pouted. “This really isn’t the time…”
“Just trying to…” Maimi began to protest, but then another soft cry broke through the chirping and croaking around them.
“Airi… Maimi…” the ethereal voice said.
“Help me…”Unlike before, this seemed to have a specific direction – farther down the path. Also unlike before, this voice was noticeably different. Airi and Maimi shared a look with each other.
“Reina?” Maimi asked.
Airi nodded. “Let’s go,” she said, and she started down the path toward the voice.
“Be careful!” Maimi warned, jumping to catch up with her. “You know something’s not right here.”
“I know,” Airi said. “But we won’t find any answers just standing around there. Plus, with as long as it’s been, do you think the others would even find their way back to that spot in the middle of the night like this? They may even be back on campus already.”
“That’s not what I
meant,” Maimi continued, falling into a brisk trot with her. “I mean for
you to be careful. You yourself said it made sense that something might happen to you tonight – maybe the same thing that happened to the others.”
“I know,” Airi repeated as she rushed along into the night. “But that’s why I have you to take care of me, isn’t it?” She meant it as a soft chide, but when the girl didn’t respond she became worried she’d been too flippant. However, when she slowed down to reassure the other girl, she noticed that there was no one at her side.
“Maimi?” she asked, but when there was no reply she slowed down to a stop and looked around. “Maimi?” she repeated, but this time in a smaller, slightly more fear-filled voice.
She heard the hooting of an owl in a tree nearby… the chirping of the nocturnal insects all around her… the croaking of a frog somewhere near the path in the damp marsh of the swamp that was so near… but she caught no sight of Maimi or anyone else near her.
All too quickly she realized that something must have happened. She knew there was something wrong, and she thought she had just experienced the results of it first-hand. Nearly cursing at herself for her stupidity, she turned up the path to consider what to do now.
She was far from helpless. In fact, she was possibly the most powerful person in the world. Given that, why should she be afraid of being alone in a swamp on a dark night? At a time when all of her companions seemed to have run off… when two of her closest friends had truly disappeared in the two days before. Still, that was no reason. She had no reason to be afraid. She was the Sun.
She looked up into the darkness. Whatever light the moon might have had was now almost completely covered up by the umbrella of the trees above her. There was now just enough of a glow of light for her to see vaguely in her immediate surroundings.
She blinked.
It wasn’t just what was right around her. There was a soft glow of light coming from somewhere in the not too far off distance as well. As her eyes adjusted she realized it was further on down the trail. Looking around and realizing there didn’t seem anything else for her to do, she walked toward the light, and as she did she realized it became brighter as she closed in on it.
Picking up her speed, thinking it was one of her friends that must have brought a flashlight to look for her, she ran lightly down the trail.
“Maimi?” she called out softly, though still a bit uncertainly, toward it. “Ai-chan?” As she came closer, she realized it couldn’t be the light from a flashlight since it seemed to cover too broad an area. She began to slow.
“…Reina?”
Finally reaching her goal, she felt her feet squishing in the bog that must have been very near the actual swamp. As she stopped, she realized that she was in the middle of a halo of candles, all flickering what seemed so brightly around her in the blackness of the night.
Wait… Black night…?
She looked up. She was in a small clearing, which made her realize she must really be at the edge of the swamp. It should have been clear sky above her. Instead, it was completely dark. No stars. No moon. Even though it was the Sun that gave her life… gave her warmth… somehow finding the moon missing was nearly as troubling.
“You know,” she heard a voice say from beyond the circle of small flames, “You really did give us the most trouble.”
“Yes,” another voice said from the other side. Airi strained to see who was talking, but her vision outside of the candles seemed blurred by the night. “The others were easy enough; no real friends… so much time spent alone… You’d almost feel sorry for them.”
“What are you talking about?” Airi asked, trying to suppress her fear as her mind whirred trying to keep up with the situation. That feeling that something wasn’t right was very strong right now – she hadn’t even noticed it in her desire to get to the lights – and she realized whatever was going on, she might have to fight her way out of it.
“Your two friends of course,” the second voice replied. “Such a pity, really.”
“Do you know where Miya and Reina are?” Airi asked, fury now bottling up within her. She decided that the instant she caught sight of one of the people talking to her – they sounded to be girls not too much older than herself, so their suspicions about other students must have been correct, though she couldn’t imagine who it would have been – she would unleash that fury.
Her words were met with laughter.
“You needn’t worry yourself about them,” the first voice said, now in a more serious tone. “They’re… taking a little nap.”
“What did you do to them!” Airi shouted out, hearing her voice fall hollowly in the shell of the swamp around her.
“You’ll see soon enough,” the second one said. “You’ll all see.”
There.
She finally caught a glimpse of a form looming out of the darkness. Without thought, she reached within herself for the power inside, the power of the Sun that she called to do her bidding, to carry out righteous retribution on her would-be captors. She had to resist the urge to burn them to a crisp where they stood – she needed them for information on how to find Miyabi and Reina. Down into the core of her being, she reached.
There was nothing there.
In her stupefied shock she didn’t realize it at first, but the girls around her had begun chanting in some language she didn’t know. They loomed closer, their cloaked and hooded forms now visible just above the candles around her.
She now knew she was in a fight for her life.
Even without her power, she was still strong, and knew she could take them. She could take anyone. Loading her body like a spring, she acted as if to jump out at the one to her right, but found herself stuck fast. Looking down, she realized that she was now knee-deep in the muck. With sinking realization she realized; she was no longer at the edge of the swamp, but in the swamp itself.
Looking closer around her, she noticed that most of the candles floated in little boats, strung together by a line that held them in position. She gave as much effort as she could to lift her feet out of the mire, but they wouldn’t give. Soon she realized that if she was going to do any fighting, it would have to be from where she stood.
As her ears caught the chanting once again, she noticed it sounded a little more strained than it was before. Eventually one of the voices dropped out.
“Chun thought I was overreacting, but I’m glad we decided to take these extra precautions,” a no longer teasing voice said from beside her. “If we’d treated you like the others – hadn’t brought you somewhere your physical strength could be neutralized – we would have failed. And that just would not have been satisfactory at all…”
She picked up the chanting again, and Airi realized that she was beginning to feel drowsy. The effects of the day and being stuck in the bog must be getting to her. What had the girl said? Chun? Where had she heard that name before…?
This time the other girl, this Chun, dropped out of the chant. “The result is the same,” she said plainly as if in response to the other. “Now,” she continued, in a very serious voice that sounded as if it would brook no nonsense. “It is time for you to sleep.”
Airi fought to keep her eyes open, fought to keep herself upright and not collapse into the swamp. “Damn you…” she said in a quickly weakening voice. “You don’t know… what you’ve done…”
“Oh you will find out what we have done soon enough,” Chun intoned. “Unfortunately, we do not think you are going to like it.” Airi could feel herself slipping slowly into unconsciousness now, but realized that her legs, stuck as they were in the mire, were somehow keeping her upright.
“Nope,” the other said, apparently having finished her chanting as well. “Not one bit…”
Falling into blackness, Airi clung to the image of Maimi’s face in her mind, that image feeling like the only thing left to her.
“I’m sorry…” she thought in a final, silent prayer.
Topic: The Sword and the Dove [12: Voyage] (Update 12/30) (Read 43145 times)