After dark, September 1st

She left the inn feeling in no better a jovial mood than when she came in. She still didn?t know that strange boy Katt said she was supposed to know. Toby was his name? She didn?t know it. She?d never known a Toby in all her life, last she checked.

The events of the last few days kept playing out in her head like some kind of broken down cinema reel. Falling out of the tree on top of him, discussing her life with Katt, running off without her hat, apologizing to Katt for everything she'd ever done, meeting at the inn the next night.

Had she really done that before? The more she tried to focus on those thoughts, the less sense they made. She knew she?d been spending time in the city, but what she was doing and for how long?

She couldn?t remember.

She couldn?t remember who she spent her time with, or where she was supposed to be living. She couldn?t remember any of the faces that she?s passed on the street. She couldn?t even begin to describe what somebody was supposed to look like that she once knew. It was like a cookie jar on a shelf, just out of reach and forever taunting her to try harder.

The more she tried, though, the less this particular jigsaw puzzle had an end.

She studied the absolutes of her life as she plopped down in front of a store that was already closed down for the night, steel sliding doors shielding what would have been three separate windows. ?Franklin?s? beamed horrendously bright neon red and green lights over her, an unsolicited spotlight that peeled her apart from the night and forced her to stand out like a radiant angel sent from the Heavens. She pressed her knees to her chest, her skinny arms tight around the breadth of her bare legs, and hugged them close to chase off what little chill persisted in the waning summer heat. She?d discarded her boots beside her, socks haphazardly shoved inside. She studied her feet as her toes curled and wiggled, digging into the grime between cobblestone that acted as her pillow. The tiny web of veins as they climbed to the instep and vanished at the ankle.

Her feet didn't have any better answer than her memory did.

Katt was an absolute. She could remember the first time they spoke. Where? She? She wasn?t sure. Was it on the street? She was wearing armor of some kind? not the shining gloss of a royal knight, but something slightly sinister. Like she was darkness incarnate. The girl that wore it, though. She was anything but a foreboding figure. Kind, with the sort of smile that could slay your fears and give you a sense of purpose in the world. That was how she remembered first seeing Katt, the most influential female figure in her life. The woman she would eventually come to see as a sister and look up towards any time something scared her.

She had trouble showing her emotions. She was never able to do it properly. What was supposed to be a proud smile and a ?thank you? would come out rash and sometimes belittling. In the end, she lost what was important to her. It was all her fault.

How long ago was that? Almost three years ago? Their falling out was last year. She remembered it. All of it. The good times and the bad, the arguments and the happy times spent together. She could even remember that apartment she was given to keep her safe. ?where was that place?

Katherine and Sammy were less of a memory, having just met them in the past few weeks. They were a pair of girls who went to a nearby high school. They were lively and shared a connection that Katt and she had, always silently relying on the other to be there when they needed each other most. Sammy was pulling away from Katherine, however, spending most of her time with a boy. It left Katherine without that solid figure in her life.

Was that something they went through, too? Was there some boy in their life that she didn?t know about? She knew Katt had been with somebody, but? what was his name again??

Minoko Funaki, the girl that helped her fight off a terrible monstrosity. The girl with the power to control metal and weaved it with a beauty only an artist could replicate. She was eloquent as she was charming, gorgeous in her own peculiar way, as though death was the most magnificent thing ever to grace her eyes. She remembered meeting her in the park, talking about?

What were they talking about? They?d known each other, once? Pushing through the hellish husk of memories, she couldn?t piece it together. Minoko was a friend of hers, they had a common interest in Hello Kitty and magical girls that bathed in the moonlight to fight off evil. They were close.

?weren?t they??

She relinquished her thoughts, smothering her chin between her propped knees.

?I know I?ve been here,? she muttered to herself, garnering the look of a pedestrian or two as they came to pass. They didn?t see her, their eyes gliding through her as though she was just another figment of their imagination. She, too, paid it no heed. ?I wouldn?t know Katt all this time if I hadn?t been here before. So?

??why don?t I remember anything? else??

Her frustrations welled tears in her enigmatic eyes, pooling to the corners and spilling when she closed them down. They sullied her cheeks in uneven lines as they fell, bifurcated when they hit the hill of her upper lip, and sizzled away in the fissure of her mouth.

She never moved from in front of Franklin?s, having fallen asleep some time afterwards. She?d been staying on the streets for as long as she could remember. Which, from what she could tell, she couldn?t remember. Where she?d come from, what she?d been doing, what she was after and her goals in life, her passions and her dreams and what brought out the miraculous school girl giggles that always had the ability to cleanse the spirits around her?

?nothing. There was no memory of it. It was as though her own mind fabricated these things for her to give her a sense of life, a sense of purpose. And now?

?now even that felt like an incredibly elaborate lie.

Past Midnight, September 2nd

Sheridan's room was an eruption of pastel colors on clean white walls, like the inside of an Easter egg. Most of the floor was taken up by a circular rug that wove together vibrant yellow, pink, jade green and periwinkle blue. To the left of the door was a small bookshelf, stuffed full of books of all sizes. Atop its surface sat shimmering little figurines, elves and fairies and unicorns. Snowmen and ice skaters stood frozen in little snow globes. Her wardrobe was white, spattered with curly edged photographs. Heart and star shapes were stuck between several photos, giving the collage a little more life.

A floor to ceiling sliding glass door opened up onto a tiny balcony across the room, its door partially open and obscured by a pale yellow curtain. To the right of a door, a thin desk strained beneath the weight of still more schoolbooks and a few old copies of Nexus Weekly. A white overhead lamp stood next to a dark framed picture of a white haired girl and an auburn haired boy whose arm was slung over her shoulder. They were both smiling, both making victory hands at the camera. Sheridan took the rolling chair and drew it up next to the bedside where Mayu had been laid down. She was tucked in rather well, Sher noticed with a small smile.

She set aside the ceramic mug of hot lemon water on the desk's corner and sat back.

A girl like her didn't come with dreams or nightmares that haunt her while she sleeps. There wasn't a semblance of remembrance that helped her piece together the things she'd been mulling over before falling asleep. Slumber was nothing more than a means of advancing time freely, where one conscious moment became another in the blink of an eye. When she came to, she was sprawled out in a heap of sheets that smelled faintly of clean linen, tickling her nose enough to well up the sensation to sneeze. The bristling warm air of summer was absent, replaced with the tranquil atmosphere of room temperatures and the faint clanks and clacks of dishes being washed beneath her. Groggily, she shot up in bed, arms punching away the tangle of cloth.

"W-Where...!?" She was inside, in a bed, with loose, pale yellow pajamas clinging to her body. She was outside Franklin's, alone without a blissful roof over her head just a few minutes ago. According to her clock, anyway... "...where am I...?"

The cushion in on her chair had still been warm. She mused over that thought briefly, then--"Whoa!" Sher's hands flew up like a dog's forepaws when it stood on its hind legs. "Take it easy, there. Thank goodness you're awake. We thought you were going to sleep for years!" She leaned forward, her palms on her knees, a bright smile wide on her mouth and lighting her brown eyes with nearly impossible levels of cheer. "You're in my room, and don't worry, you're safe and sound. My name's Sheridan, what's yours? Toby never told me."

She jumped with enough fright that the disheveled mess of ink atop her head could've stood on end. Another person? She retreated further on the mattress on her hands and knees. Every little sensation of smooth silk streaked waves through the bottoms of her feet, telling her not only was she without her shoes, but that she'd been changed. By this girl...?

"What..." a faint sound of recognition tumbling from Mayu's too plush lips, "...in your room...? Why am I..." She paused, belatedly catching a particular name that made her brow furrow and her eyes squint low. "...Toby...?" The same guy from the inn the other night? The one Katt said knew her? "...I'm..." She shook her head and grunted from frustration.

"Mhm." Sheridan nodded emphatically, her lopsided pigtails swaying out of time with one another. "Toby. He's my brother. Well, like my brother." She turned and grasped the mug by its handle. The balmy steam smelled like lemons and soothed her nose. "He said he found you by the side of the road outside Franklin's store. He tried to wake you up, but he couldn't get you to." She leaned forward, offering the drink to Mayu.

"He was really worried about you, that you would get sick or kidnapped or something. I traded spots with him just before you woke up." She smiled. "It's okay if you don't remember your name. What matters is that you're A-okay!"

Mayu didn't forget her own name. It was one of the few things she had a clear concept of. Everything she thought she had a clear concept of was shrouded in eternal fog, though. Maybe it, too, was something she didn't know.

"Toby..." she repeated, her brow still knitted, fusing to become a whole new entity. Continuing to shrink back from the new girl that introduced herself as Sheridan, she pressed her back into the wall. Nowhere to run, it looked like. "...He brought me here...?" It was rhetorical, spoken only to ensure she heard it from her own mouth.

"...that stupid boy." She muttered a second later, ignoring the offer of a drink. "He should've minded his own business and left me by myself." She wedged her body against the wall and her knees, clapping her palms together at the heel to support her chin. Her fingers made easy work of her cheeks, crawling like webs to their full length. It was her pitiful excuse of a pout.

Crestfallen for a moment, but not letting it deter her, Sheridan wrangled her smile back into place and set the mug back down on the corner of her desk. Mayu's remark made her giggle and she rocked back and forth in her chair, her muffy pink slippers bumping together. "That's what a lot of people say when they first meet him, but he's not like that at all. He couldn't have just left you out there in the cold, it's not who he is. ...How do you feel? Are you any bit hungry, or do you feel sick? I'm afraid that now that Dad knows we're all awake, he's cooking up a storm for us. It should be ready soon."

She didn't intend to, but she followed the direction the mug headed as it was set down on the desk. Her knees bumped together, disrupting the angle her head was taking. It aimed at Sheridan after a moment, her brows pulling apart with some effort. She was having trouble seeing what Sheridan was explaining to her.

"He brings a lot of girls home with him?" It seemed hopeless to her. With a dejected sigh, Mayu straightened out and stared down at the sheets where the lower half of her bodyremained nicely tucked away in. "I feel all right. I'm not hungry or anything like that," she lied. Her stomach, enthused by the idea of food, growled like a guard dog spying trespassers on its property. She couldn't smother it with a hand fast enough.

Perfect flowers of carnation pink bloomed in her cheeks and Sheridan waved her hands quickly through the air like windshield wipers, her head shaking, pigtails a snowstorm of silver. "Th-that's not what I meant at all! I meant that he's very kind. He couldn't walk away from anyone that needs help for long." Then she laughed, secretly thrilled that the embarrassment tables had been turned yet again. Take that, blush. She stood up and wheeled her chair back under the thin desk.

"I think your stomach disagrees with you. The food will be waiting for you downstairs whenever you'd like it. I'll leave this here." Sheridan touched the handle of the mug, then turned toward the door. Before she slipped completely out into the hallway, she turned back and giggled, giving Mayu another cheery smile and wave.

She reached up, from instinct alone, to reply to the cheery wave. Catching herself in the act, she quickly smoothed it over the top of her head. Aww, crap. Where's her hat? She just found the thing after losing it for an entire day. She waited for Sheridan to completely leave the room before she acquiesced and took the mug left behind. "...Toby..." she uttered to herself, knocking back the drink in a single swill.

She met up with her brother in the hallway. Or, she ran into him because she was too busy looking back at her closed bedroom door. He stumbled, she stumbled, and she felt his hand on her arm, keeping her from completely falling over. She stuck her foot back into the slipper she'd lost. "She's awake," she said, answering the question written all over his face. She batted his chest with her open palm and skipped down the stairs into the living/dining/kitchen room that smelled heavenly for this early in the morning.

Moments later, after a longer look down the hall, Toby followed, his hands wrapped around the blue towel around his neck.

The distant yip of a dog barking in a neighbor's backyard shattered the repose night time generally awarded those who were night owls. The hiss of traffic trekking water on the concrete roads was absent except for the occasional car pulling in some driveway, providing the balcony the girl stood on with the bit of ambiance that would otherwise be the pangs of ringing silence.

Her eyes were leveled somewhere between the moons and the dust of glistening stars as though they were holes punched in velvet, studying them through clinging wet bangs that hadn't shriveled dry since her shared bath. She hadn't left the Esters's yet, much to her own chagrin, and wasn't sure what she was going to do. Was it the feeling of obligation since they'd given her warm clothing, a bed to sleep in, a fulfilling meal and a bath to wash the turmoil away? That never stopped her. With a sigh, she slumped against the banister of the balcony, exchanging the sky for the road one story down.

Sheridan's room wasn't the only one that had access to the balcony. Her door opened to the right half, his opened to the left. He would have gone through his sister's room, but he had enough stuff thrown at his head for one night. His nose still ached from where a duck shaped shampoo bottle had smashed into his face. So he used his own sliding glass door, easing it open and closed. His fingers were looped around the necks of two soda bottles, lemon ones, from Sheridan's advice. He held one out to Mayu as he neared her. "Here. Sher said you liked the lemon drink she made. She found the empty mug in her room."

She was lost in her own thoughts, borderline melancholy in mood, and anything but prepared for another to join her. The co-mixture of a voice and the sudden appearance of a bottle being jabbed in front of her face made her eyes bulge and her mouth gape with some pitiful sound born from fright weaseling out of her throat. She skirted away from the banister, fingers clawing at her lower lip to stifle the sound well after it already fled to the air. So much for being the alert warden of balance.

"Whoa, hey." He held up his hands, mouth curved around an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I thought you might be thirsty, though. I always am after a hot bath." Why did he have to bring that up? He didn't know. He could just pretend he didn't, though, keep smiling, keep holding the soda bottle out to her. It was small enough not to be heavy, made of glass and cool on his hand.

She hoisted up the hood of her pale yellow pajama top, turning her clothing into a kind of barrier to ward off prying eyes from snagging a glance at carmine red blossoming at her cheeks. The hood that sloped around her head came with a pair of expertly sewn pointed feral ears, much like a prowling kitten's when latched to the hunt. Crestfallen no longer, she snagged the bottle he'd offered her, more from instinct than her want to drink. She left it loose in the grip of her curled fingers, studying him as she once did the many stars that dotted the sky. "...what... made you want to do all of this for me? The thing with Katt, finding me on the side of the road..." To her, it was nothing less than concerning. A boy that goes out of his way for a girl all the time? That wasn't normal.

Whew, step one, accomplished. He cracked open his own soda, leaned into the balcony's railing. His smile grew wider as he spotted the pair of ears atop her hood. "That's cute on you." He couldn't see her face, otherwise he might have kept his mouth shut. As she turned to him, his eyes went up to the sky. There were barely any lights on to pollute the view of the stars and the two moons hanging like lanterns over the city. "Well, I didn't exactly plan on finding you at all, either time. First time, you fell on me. Second time, I tripped over you." He took a sip of soda, swallowing slowly. "Is it really that important to know why?"

She cradled the bottle with her other hand, staring down at it. It wasn't the catalyst to her courage to ask these questions, but it always felt easier to speak with another when not looking directly at them. Especially not during conversations like this. "Sort of," she answered after a long pause, "I mean... Sheridan said you don't bring people home with you all the time. It's not like I haven't been sleeping outside on my own for a really long time."

Yeah, she ignored the comment of being cute in a kitten hoodie.

Considering what had happened not fifteen minutes before, it was probably better for his health. He wasn't sure how to answer her. It was like her own view of herself was so close to the ground, it *was* the ground. ...Or maybe she just didn't understand. "Have you ever come in contact with something that you knew was just..wrong? Or it didn't feel right to you, or if you if you ignored it, it would eat at you until you did something about it?"

She fumbled back the foot or so necessary to reclaim her perch at the banister, slouching against it with a cross of arms, the bottle nestled between them. "...I don't know. Who cares?" Across the street, she could see a single lamp lit and the silhouette of a man preparing for bed, changing out of a business suit and replacing it with some shadowy blob that passed as a tee shirt from her distance. The act was a blurry haze to her poor eyesight, but she could keep up with what was going on.

He snickered. "Come on, think about it like this. What kind of man would I be if I left a girl out alone at night like this? Being in a tree is one thing, nobody can see you up there, but flat out on the ground?" A beam of light streaked across the sky and he smiled. "Did something happen to you that makes it really hard to believe I don't have any other reason for helping you other than just wanting to?"

She exhaled a single breath, neither committing or disbelieving what he was saying. She took the bottle by the cap and gave it a sharp twist to the right, tightening it in her attempts to pull it apart so she could savor the lemony flavor within. When it failed, she tried again, only with a little more strength. It didn't budge. "Mnh..."

He didn't know how to take it. For a second, he thought the little noise she made was a confirmation, so he sucked in a breath, preparing to launch into speech. Then he looked over. Chuckling, he reached out to hold the bottle with one hand, twisting the cap hard with the other.

She wasn't going to commit to a question like that, even if it killed her. Taking the bottle from her, though, she grunted with much more freedom than her clenched throat was willing to spare before now. "H-Hey! That's mine!" a protest that didn't come with the intention to fight him for it.

"I know," he said, still grinning. He held up the cap for her to see, then set it on the edge of the balcony. "There."

She looked on sheepishly for a second. Then, stomping her bare feet into the wooden planks of the balcony, she reached out with both hands to take the deposited bottle. "Oh... um, right... t-thank you," she managed to offer him quietly, feeling little more than utterly guilty for having spouted at him like she had. The bottle was lifted to her mouth with both hands, sipping from its contents with the same kind of struggle a three year old might have when finally told she can't have her Sippy Kup anymore.

"No problem." He went back into his lean. At least this meeting was working out a little better than the last one had. He kept a hold of his own soda, his thumb following the grooves of the glass. "I'm sorry I don't have a better answer for you, Mayu. I really did just, simply, want to help you. With Katt--" he clicked his teeth together. "--you seemed really sorry. And I had the ability to help you do something you wanted to do. You guys have the opportunity for a second chance now. It's not that I'm going to hold it over your head or anything, but it was something I could do. Something I thought you deserved, you know?"

She stopped drinking before she drowned herself in the lemon flavor, the cold taste bitter as it ran down her throat. Her tongue flapped, bucking and licking air to chase it away. "Bleech!!" Cold lemon soda. The only thing worse than that was grape, by far. She pushed the bottle away to the balcony's edge and sent it over without remorse. The shudder that clutched her spine was more frigid than ice.

Her composure returned, slowly, and a glance was shared with him. "...I don't know if we're going to have a second chance with things. As much as I want to try and rekindle everything we used to have, she seems genuinely set to simply let the past go and move on with our lives. By apologizing, I think... just maybe... it finally helped close a chapter in her life. If nothing else, I'm happy I could at least do that for her." It was out of her hands what happened between Katt and her. She said what needed to be said, she had the privilege to speak with Katt if she chose to, and when it seemed appropriate, she'd follow up on that, no matter how briefly it may be.

"I just don't understand what you're... trying to do with this. Are you thinking that by helping me like this, you'll somehow remember something about me?"

"Ah, hey!" He winced at the crash, glad that it was late enough at night to where no one was walking around below them. That would be perfect. Sighing, he listened to her, squinting at the label on his soda. "That's what I mean. Without talking to her, we would still be where we were together. I always hated that." Then he really did look back at her. "I guess I'm just trying to be your friend. So what if Katt thinks we knew each other? We don't. That doesn't mean we can't anyway. Besides, I keep running into you. This city's huge, and I've seen you three times in just as many days. That's got to mean something."

Her lips pursed, as though she heard exactly what she was looking for and was not thrilled by it. The winning lotto numbers were all announced and she didn't get a single number correct. "...I'm not looking for any friends. I'm looking to find a way to remember everything I lost and tell if these thoughts in my head are real or not. How do I know where I came from and if my name is even Mayu? What if my home isn't somewhere in Japan but another place all together? I just want to know that the memories in my head are real and I'm not being told twenty different things to make me second-guess myself. I just... want them and... go home, away from..."

Her rise of emotion crumbled when she realized what she'd said. It was genuine, a real desire of hers. The first, from everything she's experienced so far. "...whatever the heck kind of city this is."

The thought had occurred to him, but never quite so abruptly, that she was going through the same thing. Someone had told her that a chunk of her life might have been a lie, and that threw everything into a tailspin. He was lucky, he had people like Sheridan and Emerill, and memories that he could call up in the blink of an eye. "Does..does anyone else in this city know who you are? Do you have any other friends, anyone else like Katt?" His voice was low, matching the gentle, quiet breeze of the night.

She could count the number of experiences she's shared with others on one hand. "Outside of Katherine and Sammy... there was a girl I spoke with briefly. Her name was... Minoko," she thinks, doubt thick as honey on those words, "...I know we spoke once, and she helped me... deal with a problem. But I... I don't really remember what we talked about or if we really even knew each other. I only know her name because she introduced herself to me." It didn't seem like a lead to anything worthwhile to her. A new friend, perhaps, but she seemed no different than the boy standing beside her now. She glanced over the railing to the remains of her lemon soda bottle, glass sparkling like the stars. "I don't know anybody in this city. The strange sky and the way things work around here. ...I'm pretty sure I don't belong here."

He nodded along, wheels in his mind churning so fast he could have smelled smoke. The mention of Minoko's name was like throwing a stick into that well oiled machine. It briefly stopped the gears, but seconds later, the thought left him, stick broken, crunched and the splinters were falling away into oblivion. "Well, there you go. Katherine and Sammy have been here longer than me and my family have. Minoko, I--I don't know about her. Something about her name is familiar, but it's kind of like yours." He grimaced as he watched her, wishing that he had a bag of tricks, or at least a bag full of candy or something to help brighten the mood. Where the heck were Sheridan's doughnuts? "What kind of place is your home?"

"It's..." she grew somber as this particular conversation ran its course, easily taking its toll on her mood until she couldn't save face with a well-planned smile or flash of mirth in her eyes. "...It's like a dream. When you're there, you can feel all of your anxiety wash away and leave you feeling like you can accomplish anything in the entire world. There's this... magical aura around it, like the air you breathe is curing your soul and slaying your sorrow and... you just... you feel like you're complete. That you've finally achieved everything you ever wanted." Wistfully, she sighed and lowered her head back to the splay of glass shards. Like them, she felt broken and in a million pieces having thought back to her home.

"Wow." There wasn't much else he could say to it. He was honored she shared it with him, and for a few brief moments, he had to surprise a giddy grin. "...That sounds amazing. Like Heaven or something." This time he did smile, lifted his gaze to the stars above them. Heaven was always spoken about like it was up there. Maybe her home was home was up there too. His own village had definitely been somewhere else. "What was it called? ...Err, is it called..rather. Sorry." He cleared his throat, took a drink of soda.

Wow. That was a much better way to describe it than how she was putting it. She glanced over to him, the slouch of her posture becoming more evident, arms curled loosely until she was hugging herself. The kitten hood and its dark brown ears all flopped forward, the circumference hiding her eyes and the water that welled in them. "...I... Isn't it Japan...?" Earth was anything but exquisite like that. Her brain circled around that name, though, like it was the only one that existed.

"Japan. Yeah, yeah you said that before." He smiled. "Japan sounds like a great place to live. I think what makes this city what it is is the people that are here with you. I don't know where I'd be without Emerill or Sheridan." He drew his lower lip into his mouth, turned his head to look down at her. "I want to help you go back. I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I think everybody deserves a place they can say is theirs, where they're happy. And so what if Katt says we were supposed to know each other. I'd still say the same thing even if no one ever told me that. Two heads have got to be better than just one, right? Do you have anybody else helping you?" He raised his eyebrows. His logic was sound to him.

Mayu shoved her arms into the short sleeves of her coat that curled at the split tail like a monkey's. What time was it? The clock on Sheridan's shelf read 3 in the morning, but it felt much later than that by now. The waxing moons beaming in from the lone window of the girl's bedroom was a ballroom of color, red and white intermingling and spreading a warm pink glow that was more eerie than pleasant on the sense of sight. Sleep deprivation wasn't getting to her, but maybe it was for Sheridan? The girl of ivory hair was sprawled out on her bed, mumbling something about fantastical artistic fantasies and peppers. Strange... was she having a dream about drawing peppers? Maybe she had an eating habit, and couldn't concentrate on her drawings while she was hungry... She dismissed the thought with a click of worn boots at the toe against the floor and quietly tiptoed her way from the bedroom.

The whole house was a silent husk of its former glory, the earlier noise that could put a lively concert to shame now absent in exchange for a cascading slumber. They sure knew how to quiet down and get to business where sleep was involved, didn't they? The lingering aroma of coffee wafted on the air as she descended a set of six stairs, the living room that acted as both a kitchen and dining room just as dark as the upstairs hall was. It looked like her getaway was going to be clean.

The door leading to the street was unbarred, and also unlocked, and she gave it a brief shove to test how much noise it'd make. None. She didn't look back as she pushed it ajar.

I'm sorry, but I can't stay here any longer...

The apology was silent, lost in the turmoil of her own head. It was something, though. Something to quell the feeling she would be harming the people who were so generous to her and willing to take her in without a second thought.

Silence did reign, and Emerill was a master of it when he chose to be. The small kitchenette was off to the left of the miniature staircase, tucked back behind the dining room set well into the shadows. Hand wrapped around the handle of his mug, he listened at the counter, the burnt and bitter scent of freshly poured coffee filling the air around him. As the thin bar of streetlight shot across the floor, he stepped out into the open. "Leaving so soon?" He paused for a sip of the coffee he poured.

Huh? Another silent question, this one followed up on with a startled lift of eyes and turn to discover the source. She was expecting Toby, or maybe even Sheridan since they were sharing a room (poor girl using the floor while insisting she use the bed). It was Sheridan's father that sought to smoke her out. She didn't immediately stop from nudging the door open, moonlight and street lamp alike bleeding through the crack she made. Orange and pink spiraled out of control, chasing what few shadows lingered while casting a fresh one of her own silhouette. The tails from her coat along with the ripe apple strings of her hat made it seem more like a monster than a little girl trying to sneak out after curfew. She didn't say a word, reluctant to admit her capture.

"It wouldn't be the first time one of my kids left home after dark," he said through what sounded like a jovial smile. He stopped near the dining room table, restored to pristine order with a pale vase full of simple wildflowers as the centerpiece. "I won't stop you. I do think it's a real shame, though. Sher was excited about having another girl in the house, she always wanted a little sister."

Maybe it was what he said that eased her titan's grip on the door handle. Maybe it was the tone, bubbly as it was gruff like a samurai masked in cherry blossoms moments before a killing blow. All she truly knew was that he wasn't going to do anything but watch if she chose to simply walk out that door. She turned back around, facing the crack of pink and amber, staring at her eventual freedom with hooded eyes. "...you're not going to tell them I'm leaving?" Maybe there was a grain of concern about how they'd take knowing she left without saying goodbye.

His eyebrows, scarred and unscarred, rose. The question was enough to make his good eye crack open. He swallowed another sip of coffee. "That depends. But they've got eyes and ears, I'm sure they'll figure it out even without my input."

It pained her to think that Sheridan was so thrilled to have somebody else she could relate with there with her. She knew, first hand, what it felt like to think you had something and see it taken away from you before your very eyes. That was her entire life. That was her reason for needing to go, though. She couldn't sit by and adapt to some other life just because the pieces of her present one were in shambles.

She bumped the door open a little further. "...yeah, I'm sure they'll be all right. Thanks for your hospitality, but... ...see, there's... stuff I need to do... so I should..."

He wasn't sure what he was sensing in the air. Tension was absent, but another kind of unease pervaded his small house. Regret maybe, uncertainty. He didn't need to see to pick those up. He crossed his arms, the butt of his warm mug balanced upon the muscular shelf of his forearm. "...Stuff you need to do alone, or want to do alone?"

The door was open enough to grant her an escape and she took it as a silent offer, hand to her head to keep her hat from flying away as she ambled out into the din of night. The air was crisp and cool, an undertow of air blasting her as a reminder that she was returning to a world of sleeping in streets and trees that spat her out the first instant they could. She never regretted that chosen style of life. "A little bit of both, maybe... I don't want people injured on my behalf..." She let the door slide closed on its own once she left through it, the silhouette of her figure drowned in the pink haze of twin moons. Shadows reclaimed the dark abode of the Esters's.

"Hnn, noble girl." He turned, looking back up the small staircase to the rooms above over his coffee mug. "Seems they found themselves quite a friend. I wonder how they'll take it."

September 9th

?An Existence that is everlasting. Mortals engulfed in soundless swells of flame. Nobody can tell when chaotic wavelengths invade, and the flames of the spiritual realm sweep over all.?

Across the world, prime evils await to become living immortals in the corporeal realm. They are outcasts of a once proud species of Youkai. Their number one intention: re-establish their foothold and wrest control of the spiritual plane now that the shackles placed on them by the man simply known as ?The Ruler? has been shattered.

They are cruel and vengeful, angered that one of their own betrayed them and left them to a fate worse than death in the furthest reaches of the spiritual plane.

On the top floor of an undisclosed suite in a hotel that has been shut down for renovations, a man named Albrecht uses the Hougu known as the "Ivory Altar." More detailed than an atlas or a roadmap, he can see each and every citizen like it was his own personal game of simulation. The deceased known as Flares, specifically those consumed by the Servants he?s created, are his particular interest.

He is but one man of many that are known as Dwellers, beings that only see themselves as avengers to their fate. Although many are still finding their way to the real world, this one man in specific has already began to make his move for he and his mannequin love, Anne Marie, and it may already be too late to see his end?

?Oh, Master?? Anne Marie cried in her feathery voice, flying up to her master and hiding away in the threads of lavender that topped his head. The dim glow of the Ivory Altar cast a fluctuating shade of unblemished white all around them, spinning together globules of shadows that aren?t chased away by its indefatigable glow and weave through every inches of the large suite. The room was empty save for one corner that had an unsightly pile of trinkets and treasure stacked as high as the ceiling would allow. What few oddities couldn?t reach the top spilled over on the floor in shambles, giving it the appearance of a junk pile rather than something the man in a pure white suit would call his collection. ?I shouldn?t have let that stupid girl get away from me. I was reckless??

?There, there, Anne Marie,? he answered, a long, thin arm reaching around to capture the small mannequin doll in his grasp and pull her close, affectionately tapping his nose against the plastic shell that gave her a childish, frozen mien. ?There was unexpected assistance we couldn?t have possibly foreseen. Do not fret, dear Anne Marie. I will not be so careless to send you on a fool?s errand a second time.?

The doll wrapped what she could of her stubby arms around one gaunt cheek, holding firm with the flat ends of her arms. She was without hands, stitching implying she once had them but was now absent. Her body was softer than a plush doll, her plastic face her only discomforting feature. Her bright ruby hair, woven together with twine, was in a mess of curls that framed her face like any rag doll?s might, disheveled over the years due to aged wear.

?Oh, Master?? she answered again. ?Had I done what was necessary, you wouldn?t be forced to sit here and wait for the devouring spell to charge like this??

Albrecht reached out to the translucent shape the altar created of the city, pointing at small orange blips that were in the shape of tiny hearth flames. Each moving amber hue that contrasted stark white represented a Flare, a mortal consumed by one of his many servants that were lingering throughout the city. ?It is no issue, Anne Marie. The time to begin the ritual is nigh. Once I have collected the last few mortals necessary to begin, this city will be completely devoured and its people engulfed in my spell. They will be killed, removed forever. Then, I will be able to use every single existence this city holds to bring about your manifestation permanently. We will be together??

Anne Marie couldn?t smile, the stitching that gave her a mouth perpetually locked in a straight line. Her voice bled her happiness, though, and it was as radiant as any child discovering they were getting their most desired want at Christmas. ?Oh, Master? I cannot wait to spend my life with you as though I was alive? It will be the happiest day of my life.?

Albrecht focused his attention on the holographic city that scratched at the night in gleaming, pearly shapes. The city was large, its population insurmountable, able to account for the number of existences necessary to permanently give beings like them a life.

?This unrestricted spell cannot be detected should we keep ourselves quiet until the time is right. Unfortunately, that Little Pebble will no doubt sense it the very moment it is activated.?

?Master?? Anne Marie leaned to the side to look at him with her sewn-on button eyes. ?Will she be able to stop it??

?I would not worry about that, dear Anne Marie. All we will need to do is provide her with an unsightly distraction until I can complete the final step of the spell.? Reaching into a pocket of his coat, a small coin was pulled and shown to the mannequin. In the ivory light of the altar, it gleamed silver and reflected the dim light like a polished mirror. He rolled it between several lengthy fingers, each side possessing a head in the shape of a Cerberus. ?This is known as ?Gambler?s Riposte?. As the coin is flipped, it distorts the existence it carries and can fire an endless volley of existence at its target. To a Divine Maiden like our Little Pebble, it is especially deadly to be touched??

Anne Marie watched the coin as it bobbed between his fingers. ?Why is it deadly just to somebody like her, Master??

Albrecht chuckled, his baritone voice radiating throughout the empty suite. ?She is a vessel to a vast power. That of the Blazing Sun of Shamanista, dear Anne Marie. Were a thing like her to be damaged by something like Gambler?s Riposte, the power of the Blazing Sun of Shamanista would be forced out of her. No Divine Maiden can handle the full power of their contractor. She would be killed on the spot and that poor, silly woman inside her would be returned to Shamanista since she no longer has a vessel to contain her. She will forever be out of our hair.?

?Oh, Master! This will be a grand success!? Anne Marie cooed and happily squeezed her master?s cheek again. ?Allow me the honors of using this special treasure against her! I must owe her for my earlier failure. Please!?

?There, there, Anne Marie. We will contend with the Little Pebble and Rin together. ?shall we be off, then??

It was a command she couldn?t tear herself away from no matter how hard she tried. She felt her legs pull together, her knees clapping together as she righted her spine, and drew the cumbersome ball tight against her chest. Every muscle in her body felt like water, the way it adapted to each motion required to pitch a softball acceptably as though she?d done it a million times before now. Her knuckles turned white as she flexed her fingers and wound them tightly around the lace that acted as her grip.

She lost herself to her momentum. Her arm unraveled from her chest, the ball tight in her left hand, and spun it around in a clockwise stride starting at the shoulder. She threw her weight into her left leg, stomping her foot into the earth as the hand crossed the thigh. It was released at the critical moment the pitch would have been considered ?perfect.?

The ball was out of her grasp faster than she could?ve sneezed and soared at Coach Weyvos? face like a speeding bullet train that had just been derailed. The ball held a perfect spin that disturbed the air all around it, forcing the mass of metal, rubber and polyurethane to shiver under its own trajectory.

Johnny was still barking at Mayu to throw the ball when it smashed him clean in the face. His nose buckled, cartilage exploding apart and bone shattering into fine powder. Thrown from his feet, he followed the trajectory of the ball that was wedged in his face, blown back several yards and straight into the wire mesh fence that protected would-be fans from any balls gone awry. The fence didn?t keep him contained, however.

Through the fence, he went further until he made firm connection with the school?s brick foundation. Small cracks lined the framework of the building, nearly giving way to the powerhouse of strength the small girl exhibited when throwing a mere softball at him.

The other girls, Kial included, looked on in aghast, and perhaps a little awe.

?Holy sh*t. She just f*cking blew Coach Weyvos through the fence!?

?Look out, Mother Bitches. I think we just got a new pitcher.?

Mayu cringed as Johnny went through the fence, but made no sudden attempts to charge after him and see that he was well. Her more immediate focus was the girl that everybody seemed less than inclined to worry about. The small girl with the glasses who wore a bruise on her shoulder like a whore would a tramp tattoo. She quickly brushed through the crowd of girls who were commixing cheers and excitement with tiny pangs of fear to reach her.

She kneeled down beside Kial, her hands and her eyes tending to Kial?s injury without directly touching it. The red mark was already beginning to pool with chaos black. It was ripening quick. ?Kial, right? ?please tell me you can understand me.?

Kial squinted up at the dark haired girl, fumbling for her glasses with her one hand and setting them on her face. They were thick and round like twin dinner plates, increasing her image of being a stereotypical nerd tenfold. She snapped out a giggle, just as pleased as the other girls that surrounded them. ?Yeah. I can understand you. Say, you?re a really good pitcher. I don?t think we?ve had a girl with that kind of power behind her throw in a very long time!?

She?d have to commit to believing that. ?Ah? yeah. Sorry about that. I? I don?t really know what came over me.?

Kial didn?t find it in her to stop giggling. ?I?ll tell you! You had amazing form! It?s a little archaic, but it gets the job done, doesn?t it? How long have you been pitching??

Mayu leaned back in her lean. It was a little off-putting to be complimented after potentially killing somebody with a ball. ?Ah? I don?t really know. I guess I just? have it in me?? An honest statement if there ever was one. She only vaguely remembered a coach screaming at her to throw the ball once before Coach Weyvos.

Kial snorted, an act that finally defeated her fit of giggles. ?Oh. Well, welcome to RhyDin City Municipal High School. If you? don?t mind too much, can we go see the nurse now? My arm feels like its on fire.?

Opening her mouth, Mayu was ready to refute the warm welcome Kial gave her. She couldn?t rightly start disputing something when she was clearly in pain. The other girls weren?t caring enough to tend to her, either. ?Ah? yeah. Can you help guide me? I don?t want to get us lost and then you lose your arm.?

Another snort and Kial started up a new array of giggles. ?If I lose my arm, it might be the best thing to ever happen to me. I?ll show you where he is.?

Before she could even get to her feet, the feeling of impending doom set her insides aflame. Her chest went tight around the ribs and her core that functioned like a heart pulsed in a hard throb that made her vision blur for a mere instant. A sickly red tinge crawled along the grass beneath her, swelling faster than eyes could blink. It distorted the way the orange glow of the evening sky was colored, sucking out its color and leaving it like tar; black and motionless.

Kial was frozen like a statue, both in livelihood and in color. Pallid and without definition to her body, she was a silent figure that was still locked in a perpetual giggle; the charming glow of her brown eyes absorbed by the stony paleness that eroded her humanity.

Without thinking, the girl hiked up to her feet, her arms out at her sides. This is like what happened with Minoko not too long ago with that fat sh*t and the creepy doll thing.

It?s a Fuzetsu.

?Pity. I was hoping to catch you off-guard by tending to a little nothing of a human, Little Pebble,? a soothing voice filled the air all around the school yard. It originated every which direction she could look, but didn?t have a source to go along with it. Collectively, it was as though a thousand unknown voices were all vying to speak to her at once and not one could command supremacy over the others. She turned around once, then twice.

The third time, there was man standing not five feet from her, dressed in a polished white suit that was cleaner than the garments of angels. Her eyes shot wide, her mouth agape. Every feeling of her body being composed of water was utterly vanquished, exchanged for the deranged feeling of being made entirely of rock. ??you?re??

?Albrecht, The Hunter Chaser. At your service, Flowing Claws of Shamanista.? He crossed an arm across his midsection, the unblemished glove of his right hand clutching at his side, and lowered himself in a bow. The sardonic smirk that cut an unnatural emotion on his face heavily invoked a sense of sarcasm. Not politeness. ?I hate to be a stick in the mud about things, but I?m afraid your time spend dealing with the common populace of this pathetic city has reached its limit.?

Flowing Claws of Shamanista? That?s? a name? He addressed me as?

?You?re Albrecht. I? remember that,? she stated with some conviction. She couldn?t say the same about where her thoughts were leading her, though. She quietly pressed a hand to Kial?s good arm, a pointless effort to calm a girl that wouldn?t own any memory of what?s taking place, and moved to step around her. She needed to put distance between the girls on the field and this man in front of her, and fast.

Embers of amber flame licked at inky black threads of hair, sparks igniting all around her until her dark hair came alive with the phosphorescent glow of pure gold. Campfire embers of citrine dotted the atmosphere around the girl, like she was a living flame that was willing to consume the entirety of the red setting that Albrecht constructed to ward off any potential interference in their coming battle. She radiated the golden hue, wearing it like wood drenched in gasoline after a match was taken to it. ?What are you doing back here? It wasn?t enough I chased off your stupid fat minion and your freaky a*s doll thing??

Albrecht?s countenance immediately took on a sharper leer, as though he was just directly insulted. ?Freaky a*s doll thing? ?I should have known better than to consider speaking to a primate entity like a Divine Maiden such as yourself.

?See to it that you die by those words. Permanently.?

Mayu Tsuzuki for the scene! ]

He ran like the hounds of Hell were on his tail and yet the ball field didn't seem to be getting any closer. The corner of the school was the same distance away, he couldn't keep track of how many windows he had run past to track his progress. The cloud of dust spreading up into the bloody sky was beginning to evaporate, floating lazily without a wind to disturb it and the smell of lightning was still in the air, electrifying every hard breath he took. His thundering footfalls sounded like the reports of a machine gun and he felt each jarring impact in his ankles, the muscles of his legs screaming from being stretched too far and worked too hard.

Finally, an eternity later, he skidded around the corner of the school and shifted his sprint toward the ball field, skidding to a halt and catching himself on the aluminum fence behind home plate erected to catch bad pitches. There was a hole there, something had been blown back through it and he followed the trajectory to the cement colored lump of Coach Weyvos, his muscles denoting his identity just fine.

He curled his fingers into the chain link and looked back to the ball field, trying to keep his horrified eyes in their sockets. Pale grey figures in various contortions littered the field, scores in the dirt where the blast must have hit marking it ground zero. Above it all, he saw a trim figure in a blindingly white suit, odd lavender hair topped his head, a sinuous shred of cloth undulating about him like a cobra waiting to strike. And, pulling themselves to their feet with the stubborn determination was the only other moving figure nearby. The curly-cue tails of her coat were ripped and smudged with dirt, he saw tears in her stockings, her thick boots dug into the ground to support muscled legs. He would know that hat anywhere, no matter what magic surrounded her form and made her flicker like a freshly lit torch.

His hands curled into fists around the chain links of the fence and he swallowed down her name, not wanting to attract attention. Both for her concentration's sake and his own personal safety. What was going on here? Was it that floating figure that caused all this? Turned everyone to stone, nearly bombed his sister's school? There was only one way to find out.

"Oh, master!" Anne Marie cheered from atop a broad shoulder of Albrecht's. The rosy red stitching underneath her dark button eyes illuminated in the opaque crimson atmosphere that drowned them in utter silence save for the crumbling of concrete from a nearby wall where the initial blast ricocheted. The many pallor humans that dotted the baseball field were perpetually locked, unfazed by raining destruction that surrounded them faster than fingers could snap. Caught unawares, they were subjected to the torment the very same as the lone girl that was brushing off the filth from previously unsoiled white linens.

"Damn," she uttered under her breath. With Kial and the others all around, there was little hope of being able to abuse the full extent of her powers. They were more a distraction than the lone boy that came careening on the scene like he was full of good sense. She didn't pay him mind, if only because she wasn't aware he was there presently.

"My, you're much more resilient than you appear, Little Pebble," Albrecht taunted, flicking up one hand, his palm facing the sky. A hazy flame of pale white materialized, crackling with the vigor of a famished blaze freshly fed a stack of lumber. "Looking like you haven't eaten in the past thousand years certainly doesn't give you much credit.

The amber aura that bathed the young girl wavered as her mind furthered from Albrecht's presence. She needed to get him away from the field. But, how? Glancing to the side, a strange boy chiseled from the rest by a torrent of color and livelihood was there, staring at them with wild aquamarine eyes. In the ambiance of crimson, they shone with such an eeriness that it racked her spine in chills, like she'd just been pranked with ice down her blouse.

"You're?" she started, realizing who it was. That strange boy from before--the one that always wound up being in the same exact place as her--was moving in the Fuzetsu. Humans couldn't move in the seal. It was, technically speaking, legally impossible. "?you're moving? Why are you moving?!"

His vision wasn't that good, so for a while, at least until Albrecht actually spoke, he thought the man's voice was actually coming out of a strangled chipmunk. "Little Pebble?" he muttered to himself. Is that what he'd just called Mayu? She knew this freak? The very same freak that froze everyone and nearly nuked the school? And Coach Weyvos? "What the hell's going on?" he hollered at the same time she started speaking. Her latest, shrieked, question made him gawk at her anew.

For good measure, just to assault her perception, he flapped one arm. "And what the heck kind of a question is that, why am I moving? Why are *you* moving, why's he moving?" He shoved his hand through the fence and pointed at Albrecht's hovering form. "Mayu, are you--the whole school's frozen. My sister, all these people." His eyes, bulging nearly, lifted again. "Did he do this?" Somehow, the idea that she blew everything up seemed way too absurd.

Precious seconds were being counted away, Albrecht the least likely to allow them time to converse over the happenings with tea and crumpets. She cut the air with a horizontal swipe of an arm at Toby. "There's no time. Get these people away from the field!"? she hollered.

Albrecht chortled, juggling the fiery haze of milk white between his hands. "Dear me, I think the Little Pebble has a particular interest in humans. That's just no good."? He plucked Anne Marie from his shoulder and gave her a loving tap on the back with several fingers. "See to it that she is adequately kept busy, dear Anne Marie. There is a feast fast approaching." He was gone no sooner than those words spoken, intangible and translucent as the wind.

"Damn it," he swore under his breath even as he charged through the hole in the fence. Broken chain link clawed at his clothes and hair and littered his arms with scratches but he fought through, screeching his way across home plate toward the pitcher's mound where the highest concentration of statues were. Various levels of contortion didn't even describe it. The closer he came, the more he realized that they weren't all as stony as he first thought they were.

Great splotches of crimson stained the knot of girls, spreading across frozen bodies like a plague. Arms and legs were bent and petrified in odd angles and all of them still smiled, still laughed. Paralyzed in merriment like they couldn't feel a thing. The ones with the gravest injuries stared off into the distance, their eyes looking like nightfall, a dark, final shadow dropping over there life to snuff it out. Damn it, now wasn't the time to think about this.

"Sorry about this," he said quietly to the first girl, one with springy pigtails and giant glasses. He wrapped his arms around her and began to drag her with short bursts of speed from the ball field, his breath hissing in even pants from effort and the attempt to avoid panic.

Mayu's focus lingered on the mobile Toby much longer than she'd ever willingly admit to, her eyes flicking up and down over his figure once, twice, three times over. How was it that a human boy like him could function in the seal? She'd asked herself that twice already, one of those times to him. He didn't seem to even realize he was capable of doing it.

Focus.

She turned back around to the mannequin doll who was hovering like a fruit fly that insisted on being in your face. She leered. "What are you and your master doing here at the school? You have no business here!"

"Wrong," the doll remarked, somewhat coldly despite her obnoxiously cheerful voice. "You're here. I owe you for last time! I won't allow my master to see me lose to the likes of you!" The little bundle of stuffed cotton and cloth came to life like a tiny comet, pale white flames breaching the still, stale air all around her. Commingling with the crimson world, she appeared as though she was bleeding the fire itself. Adding her small size into the equation, she resembled a mutated firefly. With a face. And stubby arms.


Mayu didn't have time to broach the topic of winning and losing. Before she could open her mouth, the doll of fire streaked straight past her and made a beeline for the other mobile entity within the Fuzetsu, her arms straight out in front of her like she was tiny battering ram ready to strike down an impossibly large fort wall.

He didn't exactly have the luxury of standing there and staring but he couldn't help himself when he turned around and saw, not a full grown assailant, but a freaking gnat, or other similar creature, hovering in midair. He kept his eyes on Anne Marie as she spoke with Mayu, hoping that the fact that he was moving escaped the gnat's perception. He hooked his arms around another fallen girl, the bad angle of her leg making his stomach turn as he heaved her into his grip and dragged her off the field to lay her down next to the first girl.

No blood rubbed off on him. It was like their injuries were just as frozen as they were. He couldn't help but be thankful for that.

He whirled around on his heel and it felt like he'd been slammed into by a wrecking ball when in reality the gnat's stubby arms simply connected with his collarbones. He barked a yell of surprise and pain as he flew backward off the field, far past the two girls he'd dragged away. The ground came up fast and he laid there, waiting for his internal organs to catch up. He was down, but he was definitely not out, he told himself. He'd pull himself together. Kaiser, think like Kaiser. Clenching his fists, he began to roll over in preparation to climb to his feet.

Because of Albrecht's refusal to let her blow up another human that she was dissatisfied by, Anne Marie turned back around to find Mayu and the human unfazed by the seal's powers. The boy was missing, but the girl, still bathed in phosphorescent gold, remained. It made her titter, her unmoving face unable to mimic the glee she was feeling.

"Goodiegoodiegoodie! That'll teach you to mess with me, stupid Divine Maiden. Master! I'm coming!" Without delay, she hovered higher in the air and made for the roof of the school complex.

There was only one phase left to contend with, and that was the completion of the spell. As Anne Marie bounded over the fence that barricaded its occupants from an untimely death, she could make out the many gleaming dots of sapphire and ivory that filled the city's scape. It was as far as the eye could see. Thousands upon thousands of tiny globes, a sea of stars on the surface of the planet; each one the very existence of a living being in the city's limits. Each, with their morals and their ambitions and their desires--all soon to be hers to live off of for eternity. "Master...! It's almost time...! You've done so much for me..."

"Yes, Anne Marie... it is fast approaching. Very shortly, everything will be ours. I only regret not having an opportunity to use this coin to destroy that silly Divine Maiden where she stands. Perhaps it will be our final send off, once this city is fully consumed by you, my love."

Three floors later and his lungs were burning, his knees were water and his heartbeat was so loud in his head he felt like it was a thumping beacon to his position. He leaned into the handle of the door that led to the roof, gulping down air and he tried to calm down enough to think. What could he do? How much of a distraction could he provide? How long would it take for Mayu to wake up and storm the roof?

And there was that suited man, Albrecht. Killing the entire city? What could he possibly need to do that for? He bit down hard on his mouth. The only thing he could do was cause a problem. Buy time. So he threw his arms against the door and burst out onto the roof. "Hey!!" he bellowed with the air that had gathered in his lungs. "Whatever you're thinking of doing is a really bad idea!!"

If a necklace could palm its face, it would've.

Albrecht's concentration was ruptured at the piercing cry from Toby, Anne Marie spinning around to face him, her stubby arms shooting out either side to instinctively protect her master. The thought of saying anything didn't occur to either of them, but Albrecht wasn't so inclined to let the moment pan out. Risks weren't something he was willing to allow, especially when the moment of retribution was right around the corner.

He tilted his head, chin out, and indicted Anne Marie to make her move with the most imperceptible motion known to man. "Go," he commanded, a single word that required no additional question.

Anne Marie leaped into action without thinking, the milky white flame coming to life all around her in the blink of an eye and with more vigor than a thunderstorm. She ebbed the flow of crimson all around them, turning their world into what Heaven must look like moments after arriving in it--bleach white and a torrent of stale air that seized in the nostrils. She didn't make a move, well aware that each and every living being, left alive, made her manifestation in the real world all the more certain. Killing even one (even though she already had) lessened that chance significantly.

Crap. It was written all over his face. In every show he watched, every game he'd played, if you burst in while the bad guy was channeling his spell was sure to shatter his concentration and piss him off so bad that he'd be too distracted with murdering said distraction that he'd forget about the spell altogether. He slid his hands along the metal handle of the door he gripped, ready to backpedal and slam it shut the moment he thought he saw movement in his direction. With any luck, the doll would crash through it and maybe through the walls of the school. He'd seen how fast she could move. He only hoped he'd have enough time.

His palms slick on the door handle, he sucked in another breath. "Who are you people, anyway? What have you done to the school and why the heck do you want to kill the whole city? I'm sure some people here deserve it, but not everyone does."

Albrecht turned his attention to the thousands of stars that dotted the landscape--the existences that would soon become his to distribute as he saw fit. "I have no interest in speaking to a mortal boy such as yourself. I commend your ability to survive while in this seal, no doubt possible because of your connection with the Divine Maiden. However, boy," his voice thick with agitation, "you've crossed the line by coming up here all alone." One hand of his continued to wield a ball of fiery glory, the catalyst to the current spell his was silently conjuring. A mote of blue and white occasionally whirled around the flame before evaporating within it, enhancing its strength and glow.

Without disturbing its flow, he reached into the inside of his tailed jacket and pulled out a pocket sized mirror. He lifted it at Toby, the reflective side facing him. "Mortals like you are a terrible blight on all things. A plague. You'd do better to serve people like us, as nourishment, if not the grease to our cogs. See that you die like the rest of your pitiful civilization."

Everything caught in the mirror's reflective surface was within its limitless grip. It contorted the world the moment it saw it, corporeal entities stripped bare and torn to shreds as though it never existed in the first place. The door Toby had a vice grip on bent inward, deconstructing and vaporizing into thin air. The walls around the stairwell he was using as shelter, too, fell apart and faded into certain nothingness. The floor warped and twisted, concrete liquidating into slush, becoming thicker than quick sand and just as irredeemable. Even Toby, with his image caught in the glass, became a victim to its hellish grip. The mirror wasn't interested in his flesh and his bone, though. Its only interest is what lie past the cask of flesh and muscle and blood. The very thing that powered his life: Existence. "You'll hand yours over like all the rest. No need to be wasteful, now."

"Mortals like us?" So this guy was just one of those, run of the mill, I'm superhuman and you're not, types. He shouldn't be likening reality to fiction, but if he didn't, he knew his mind would crumble like wet paper and he'd be even more useless than he was now. He staggered backward when the door was siphoned straight out of his hands. He leaped backward in time for only one leg to be caught and sink down within the quicksand ground, the weight of his body dragging him further into the trap. He cast around for something, anything he could find to deflect whatever this was, but suddenly, he felt out of breath. Tired with a raw throat, like he'd just run around the world twice. The pain didn't come from his body, but his soul, and the knowledge it held that his very being was being shredded up and sucked away. He grit his teeth and yelled in frustration, dragging with all his strength on the leg that was trapped in the floor. It was a small hope that this would be enough of an interruption for Albrecht's plans and that Mayu would wake up soon.

He didn't put much stock in telepathy, but he felt it was the only thing he had left. He thought as hard as he could too, back down to the girl that was slumped over by the softball coach, trying to will her to get up with a power he didn't possess.

For that one moment, it looked like she would win. Her wind-up had been vicious, all that power tucked neatly away in her small body was ready to be unleashed, or it would have broken free on its own if she tried to restrain it any longer. The next moment, all he knew was that he was yelling. Something unintelligible, something that included her name, and something that was drowned out in the awesome assault Albrecht unleashed.

He threw himself to the ground, the jarring impact of cement on all his bruises an afterthought as he tucked his knees up against his chest, his hands and arms thrown over his head. He hadn't even completely curled up by the time all of those lights were shooting over him. Without his knowledge, one, two beams rocketed straight for him and, with millimeters to spare, were diverted in obtuse directions. Flung wildly, the beams gouged holes in whatever they could find. The sounds of destruction were enough to make his gut churn. He was sure he didn't want to open his eyes, but he couldn't help it.

Between his lashes and the sooty remnants of Albrecht's attack he saw a plummeting figure swathed in white cloth with too many red stains all over it make short work of the distance from the roof to the ground. He pressed his hands into his skull until they ached, unable to pry his mouth open to shout her name one last time.

Beyond the mist of blood that continued to drizzle down from the projected Divine Maiden, Albrecht stood twirling a lone silver dollar sized coin in several of his fingers. It was gleaming in the blood of the fallen, still radiating from its activation like a nuclear fuel rod. He deftly weaved it between several fingers, his eyes sullied with angst and tears and, distantly, hysteria.

Pinching it between two fingers, he shoved it away into the pocket it came from, and scoffed bitterly. ?Do you SEE what happens when you f*ck with me? DO YOU?? He shouted, aiming his spite on Toby. ?Anne Marie and I were together for centuries. CENTURIES. She was meant to be alive and functioning, born anew in the real world in a real body with real ambitions. Then? you? all of you??

Albrecht twisted his wrist and reignited the flame from before. The moment he did, the cyclone of sapphire motes began anew; swirling above the rooftop in hasty rotations. It lit the crimson world, enhancing the bloody bubble they were sworn under, highlighting the thick ebony weaves of magical energy that kept the dome intact.

?I will devour each and every one of you until there is nothing left? I will make sure that each and every one of your stupid existences are plucked apart, piece by piece, and that you feel every ounce of pain as you?re unraveled before your own very eyes. NOBODY f*cks with me and gets away with it.?

He didn't even see where she landed, enough dust in the air to blot out the sun for a full day. He couldn't get the image of her fall off of the back of his eyelids. Repeatedly, she plunged to the ground, her body riddled with holes. Her mouth had been open, as if in surprise or pain, and he hoped it was the former.

Albrecht's shouts were enough to force him to lift his head. He wasn't quick about it, a sinking feeling beginning to overtake him too. He was not going to make it off of this roof alive. This had not been his fight and he was going to die for it. Sheridan down there, frozen in perpetual laughter, might never be free. The entire city was on a path to destruction.

Had this been what their friend Minoko had been trying to warn him about? It seemed the kind of life threatening danger that begged caution. But even if that was true, if this were to happen all on its own, he would have died along with the whole city anyway.

Wrong place, wrong time. It was nearly ironic. And really sad.

The school building itself had sustained irreparable damage. The foundation was beginning to come apart from the earth, the roof had mostly collapsed, turning the third floor of the building into a walking death trap, which already caused the second floor to suffer a similar fate. The quakes and tremors weren't much of a surprise. All things, once they partake in utter chaos, begin to unravel at the very seams and crumble into dust. The way it shook and took a sharp 45-degree angle, though, was slightly out of the ordinary. The terrible dread that overcame the entirety of the school was also an unfathomable addition to the overall atmosphere. It was able to be tasted on the tongue: brimstone and ash, able to eat away the sensational feeling of taste and leave nothing behind but a dryness that no amount of water could douse.

Arcs of violent ruby red burned through what little concrete kept the rooftop of the school intact, blasting through slabs of stone and rendering it to something less than dust--straight down to the atom. Where one bolt lunged, another soon followed, eventually filling the rooftop with enough crackles of molten lightning that it had become a basin of fire.

The baseball field which the rooftop overlooked was bifurcated straight down the middle, the earth peeling away and grass shards evaporating underneath the intense heat. It boiled the dirt until the entire field blistered and ruptured under its own mutation; channeled by the seismic activity that spawned from seemingly nowhere.

Incredible energy blossomed from beneath the school, the very focal point of the radical change to the landscape itself. It raged into existence as an overflowing geyser of molten lava, filled with phosphorescent gold trim that topped the fountain of pure, unbridled energy. As it began to show signs of congealing and framing, it began to take on the aspect of a female mien--a glorious image of a woman with blonde hair and raging blue eyes that ached with a torment that could only be seen in order to be felt.

Crying out, the natural response during such catastrophes, was suddenly the hardest thing to do. Harder than flinging his arms around the metal pole fence still bolted strong to the crumbling roof. He hugged it to his cheek, his arms aching and burning with effort, fists shaking. The wad of fabric and silver item he had ripped from the doll glittered in the onslaught of luminous magma from seemingly nowhere.

He grit his teeth, did his very best to make himself as small as possible, to minimize all the burns he was surely going to get before he was reduced to ash just like everything else.

But as each liquid fire bolt looped around him and over him, buckled the stone of the school and began to work its way down to the very foundation, all he could feel was the very primal fear of falling from a great height. How was he surviving this? he wondered frantically, his eyes nearly squinted shut to keep them free of debris as he watched the formation of the woman before him. Her glow stabbed his eyes, making them water. Moisture pooled and fell, but he stared on over his forearm and through his hair.

The voice, when it spoke, boomed louder than a cranked loud speaker in a closed-off space. It shook the very fabric the city, if not the entire universe.

?Albrecht! What kind of game is this?!? she questioned; commanded of the Dweller. Molten fire surged and splashed all around her, casting a catastrophe of flame to burn away even the very building Albrecht and Toby were settled on. ?Using Gambler?s Riposte on her? Did you honestly believe she would succumb to a filthy, dirty trick such as that?!?

Albrecht?s hollowed eyes, filled to the brim with anguish over the loss of Anne Marie, turned into a state of dread. He felt his tongue rip apart at the hot flames of the massive figure?s appearance; feeling his body ebb away. He was burning. To death.

?R-?Rin?? he managed to rasp as he fell to his knees. ??I? you should? have returned to??

?Fool,? Rin chastised. ?I?m quite aware that particular Hougu is supposed to return the Divine Goddess to the Land of Spirits when it strikes the vessel. You were short-sighted to believe that every single vessel is incapable of housing the massive power of the Divine Goddess, though.

?This girl? This girl is very much capable of keeping me contained; able to keep me contained even if she is hit with a silly treasure such as that.?

A flood of fire raked through the school yard and spread openly into the city?s streets. From the docks to the graveyard, the entire city was consumed in righteous fire. Nothing would remain standing.

??R-Rin?? Albrecht struggled to speak. There was nothing left for him to say. His skin bubbled and popped; breaking apart as though he was a fragile vase in a kiln set to blazing temperatures. Viscous blue substance leaked from his opened wounds; his existence pouring from him until his entire body evaporated under Rin?s incredible heat.

Falling.

It was no longer a pipe dream.

Bits of rock crumbled beneath him and fell away and no matter how tightly he held onto the railing in his arms, no matter how much they burned and melted against his skin, it would not save him.

To combat all the brilliance of sunfire before, behind him, encasing him in its destructive cocoon, the darkest black crept across his vision. His gut felt like it hiked up to rest in his mouth, the scene before his eyes swimming around like food coloring in water.

"Rin??" was the last thing to escape his mouth as, finally, the building surrendered to the awesome forces tearing at it and darkness overtook him.

Liiiar, liiiar.

Mouth on fire.

Belly's stuffed like a funeral pyyyre!

I moaned, my throat as dry as a beach. All the air I breathed was racing to get out of me again. When I tried to move, I felt a heavy, scratchy weight on me.

Liiiar, liiiar.

That horrible, stupid song was stuck on repeat in my mind. It had been years since I'd heard it chanted at me, louder and louder until I thought I would go deaf.

Not only had they come, but afterward, they torched everything.

Fire raged and roared and ate everything in sight. And they hadn't believed me when I said I had nothing to do with it. Too young to know anything, but apparently old enough to kill.

Lava gurgled up from under my feet and fell from the sky. The ground bucked underneath and the roof caved in overhead. And through it all, I saw a face. A beautiful face, serene and terrible, two seconds later wreathed in flame, spitting rage and destruction in every direction.

My eyes flew open and I immediately wished they hadn't. White light stabbed right through them into my brain. I'd seen drawn curtains before I had turned my face into a crispy pillow that smelled like paper and rubbing alcohol.

"Toby," came a voice at my right. "You are awake, thank goodness!" Two small, warm hands gripped my arm and I stiffened, getting ready for the pain. Thankfully it didn't come.

I moaned again. A rather unmanly sound to even make once and I was already up to two. "What happened to me?" And why did my chest feel like it was packed in ashes?

"You mean you don't remember anything?" The voice, that my sluggish brain finally recognized as Sheridan's, sounded disappointed. I shook my head against the pillow, listening to my hair scratch against the paper case. "You're in Mr. Orba's office, the school nurse. We brought you here after we found you."

"School nurse?" I asked groggily. "That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"The smell."

Sheridan huffed. "Oh, forget about the smell! Toby, you really truly don't remember anything about what happened? Anything at all?"

I mentally charged through my fatigue. "...I remember--fire. Lots of fire. And there was--this man, and a doll. They were trying to--" I jerked upright and whirled to face Sheridan. She'd jumped back, holding her hands up near her mouth now, her giant brown eyes watery and wide, brimming with concern as well as tears.

"That sounds like..some dream."

I threw myself against her, wrapping my arms tightly around her small body, probably crushing her wrists in the process but I couldn't bring myself to let go.

She was real. She was real, she was solid and she was here. Whatever that man and his fetish doll had been up to hadn't succeeded. No matter how horrible it looked for a moment there. Sure, I'd have nightmares about buildings collapsing beneath me and all around me, and others about drowning in a sea of lava, but those were just dreams. And I wanted to, needed to, hold onto the present, and the right now. Because it all had come so close to being taken away from me, all over again.

"Sher," I breathed. "You're alright."

"Wh-what? Of course I'm alright, but now I'm even more worried about you!" She squirmed in my grip and I had to pull back or risk getting punched in the throat. By accident, she'd say. "You must have hit your head when you fell on top of Mayu when she was half naked."

She said it so deadpan that I couldn't catch my jaw in time. My mouth hung wide open, big enough to catch flies, and did well enough to make my sister smile sadly.

"Excuse me?"

"We found you on top of her and half her clothes were missing!"

"...You found me?" That shouldn't have been my biggest question. I hadn't even known she was looking for me.

"Mhm! It was the weirdest thing." I sat back for the story, my hands curving around her shoulders. I wasn't ready to release her just yet. If she was there and solidly under my palms, I could better tell myself that I hadn't come so close to losing her. "One minute you were standing next to me holding my bag and the next you were gone! I looked all over the place for you and I finally found you in some bushes sprawled all over Mayu." She leaned in, whispering all too loudly. "You know, you might like it rough, but I'm not sure how many girls do."

I choked, rattling her around. "SHER!!"

She hushed me with a finger to her lips. "Shh! Geez, you'll wake her up!! Mayu's in the bed next door."

Slowly, my spine creaking, I turned to look at the curtains surrounding us like I could see through them. "Oh, crap. How much do you think she heard?"

"Probably all of it considering you might have woke the dead with how loud you yelled." She shoved out of her seat and brushed my hands firmly away. I still hadn't looked back at her.

"...How is she?"

Her voice sounded like she'd shrugged. "A lot worse than you. You seemed to escape the most of what happened to the both of you. And the weird thing was that you were on top of her. She was pretty banged up and it looked like she lost a lot of blood."

Ice water was making its way through my veins.

If I had survived this whole catastrophe with barely any scratches--If this whole damn building had survived being torn down and ripped to shreds, then why couldn't Mayu survive without injuries too? What happened to her?

What happened to all of us?

"I'm going to go find some water for you to cool your hot head off with. Don't go getting any weird ideas now that I'm gone!" She winked at me and then flounced out of my curtained enclosure, leaving me in total silence.

She couldn't really believe that I--That we--That Mayu and I--

"Arrrgh!!" I screwed up my hair, nearly pulling it all out in clumps.

Mayu wasn't going to get off that easy. Heck, she probably told Sheridan some messed up story just so she'd give me a hard time. Getting me back for--for something.

I heaved myself up to my feet and stumble-stormed my way through Mayu's curtains.

?Hm. You were functioning inside of the Fuzetsu the same as she was? that was an unexpected turn of events, even for you,? a remark that was drained of her hostile sense of humor. Ember flakes dimmed, the storm of fire snuffed out by a shift in attitude and contemplation. ?Everyone very much could die at any time--something that girl and I are here to prevent when it is required of us.?

Mayu stirred, murmuring something about chocolate frosting and pink sprinkles with a side of ranch dressing.

??except for her inability to focus on what she?s supposed to be doing. I suppose her loss of memory plays a role in that.?

He eyed the pendant. "Did you learn that from all our 'accidents?'" He chewed at a piece of dry skin on the inside of his lower lip. They were chapped, he realized, drier than they should be. He would kill for a gallon of water. His eyes jerked up from Rin to Mayu and he stared at her, his attention rapt. Then abruptly burst into snorting chuckles that would have been normal sounding laughs if he wasn't so worried about waking her up. "Geez, and here I was worried about her for nothing."

He wiped his eyes, the seriousness of Rin's implication sinking in. "Were you with her before she lost them? Was this her job back then too?"

It can be assumed she eyed him right back, the embers a swirl of motion until they formed the focal of one full iris. ?I?ve learned plenty, Tobias Aradam. What knowledge I possess isn?t any concern of yours. What should be your concern is this fabled life in which you live and whether you choose to continue on as you have been.?

The hive of amber and citrine disassembled and showered the midnight gem in a radiant explosion in starburst patterns. They cycled the pit in slow rotations, following a gravitational pull at some unseen core. ?I?ve been with her longer than this world has cared to exist. I will continue to well after it decides its existence is no longer relevant.?

He flinched through the incredible urge to shove the pendant from his hands and turn his back on the whole room. With a claim like that, he figured any questions relating to everything she knew about him, which couldn't be very much he told himself, were going to be answered with the same, silent swirl of luminescent dots in the pendant's center. And her answer made sense too. That's what guardians did. Sighing, he freed one hand to scrub his face clean of fatigue and the remnants of a dirty look.

"Continue on as I have been? Well, I didn't die, so I guess I have no choice. How *is* that possible, by the way? How is this school here, how is my sister alive, how's *Mayu* alive? I saw it all get wrecked, that can have just been my imagination."

?That,? she emphasized, ?is not what I was referring to.? What he decided she was talking about was only up to him.

What he believed, how he reacted when others told him things his own mind couldn?t fathom--she?s seen all of it. There would be nothing had in stating it again.

?Your being alive now is because of the bracelet you snatched from the doll. It is a Hougu--treasure--that very clearly diminishes the power that I and? Mayu, as you affectionately call her, possess. Its power shielded you from the impact surrounding my release.

?As for how the rest of the world survived?? There was no clean way to put it. She didn?t favor the flowery disposition of explanation in the first place. ?They didn?t. This city was completely eradicated the moment my power was forced from her body. Your friends, your family, and everything you?ve seen here was gone.

?The Hougu Albrecht used would have killed a Divine Maiden like that girl under normal circumstances. ?she?s extraordinarily special. Because of it, I was able to restore this city and the people who were killed using the power that I released once it happened. In other words? they?re all fine.?

The thing that he had found shoved onto his wrist without any memory of it? All he knew was that he hadn't been willing to let it go. One palm still had the indentations where the silver links had pressed into his skin. That small thing was all that had stood between him and complete oblivion. He would have been the school. He would have been all of the people in the softball field, his sister, Emerill. Everyone he knew at the church, all the friends he had made and people he had never met before. He steadied himself with a hand against the side of Mayu's bed, his fingers curling into the mattress like they were proving to his brain that the world, as he knew it, still existed. He had embraced his sister not twenty minutes ago. Everyone was fine.

With all the boneless grace of a sack of potatoes, he turned and slumped forward onto the edge of Mayu's bed. His folded arms became a cradle for his head, Rin held in the coil of is left hand, coincidentally next to the Hougu she just told him about. "Thank you," he said after a time, his voice rough. He felt cold all of a sudden, and hollowed out.

There hadn?t been intention to fill him with grief and fear with her spoken words. Complicated matters were meant to stay with the complicated. Had he not shown the way he could move in their seals, he would have already been forgotten to her, and likely, to the Divine Maiden as well. Rin?s silence wasn?t out of callous disregard for the way he felt.

For once, it was to give him time to process everything.

?That woman. Minoko Funaki. She, too, was briefly exposed to this world. I believe she's chosen to stay away due to the dangers involved. She told you to be careful around this girl as well, didn?t she? Do you intend to stay away after learning the truth about her and what is possible??

To anyone else, he assumed this would look like a pretty good TV show. A boy slumped over the hand of a cute girl laying in a hospital bed. Like one of those soaps Sheridan loved. He would have a cool name like Raul. The thought coaxed a smile and it help ease the load of reality. It was time to quit being unmanly. Stirring, he had to remember not to use the Rin holding hand, he wiped his face again and shoved his fingers through his tangled hair.

"She told me that, yeah. But I think she said it for another reason." Because, apparently, according to her, Mayu had been the reason he'd died in the first place. The muscles in his jaw briefly stood out when he clenched his teeth. He looked down at the pleats covering Mayu's hip and the paleness of her hand against its teal color. "From what you've told me, it wouldn't matter if I chose to stay away from her or not. The whole city just died. If this kind of thing happens again, the whole city could be in trouble regardless if I run away. But--no." He shook his head, his eyes moving up the sleeping body to the face, with its round cheeks and dark hair. "I want to know what's going on when it's happening. And to do that, I've got to stay."

She couldn?t have been astonished by Toby?s response even if she was paid to be. It was exactly what she was hoping to hear from his lips. Her voice bled with the kind of smile cats wore when canaries were wedged in their maws. ?Good. Very good? Whether you like to believe it or not, you?re very much included in this ordeal. You wouldn?t be doing yourself any favors to walk away from it now.?

He told her he'd help her. True, that had been back before all this happened and the only thing he had to be concerned about was whether or not Mayu was going to fall on his head again. He wasn't even sure if he could help her now, or if he was just dorky sidekick that got progressively more jealous of the hero until they themselves became the villain to the very person they admired. Think Kaiser.

Rin sounded as pleased as a necklace could, like all her ducks had lined up perfectly in a row. "I'm included because it's weird that I could move when no one else could, right?" Anything else didn't seem relevant.

He answered his own question. It didn?t require her verbal affirmation. Pendants couldn?t nod, though, so she breached delayed silence succinctly. ?Correct.?

"Do we know why that is yet? I didn't have any special bracelet keeping me away from--Albrecht's powers." That had been the guy's name, right? It seemed almost sad that he'd already forgotten the name of the man that started to kill everyone in his city. "Mayu didn't know, she freaked out."

Facts were the only thing available to her. ?Mortals cannot function naturally inside the Fuzetsu once it?s erected. It?s specifically designed in order to keep them still and without knowledge of the events that take place within them. The one that was sustained around this entire city stopped any and every single person from being aware what happened here on these school grounds. Everyone except? you.

?Minoko Funaki functioned because the Divine Maiden placed a spell around her that?ll allow her to exist freely any time a seal arises, but she was the only one. Which means??

He drank all that in like the water he'd been holding out for. Wasn't that what he told Sheridan to go get? Why the hell did he send her away? That had been before he knew she'd actually died. He shook his hands open from their clench, concerned not about hurting Rin, but about what she'd say about being squished. He let her rest on the bed next to Mayu's thigh. Rin's omission made his mouth twist in a pained smile. "Which means what, that I'm not mortal?" He was kidding, but a new icy fear had replaced the old one.

?Precisely,? she chimed so happily it was almost eerie. ?Fuzetsus aren?t without their flaws. They are an incomplete model of something more refined hundreds of thousands years before your time. But in a place like this, it gets the job done and perfectly so. You?ve proven to be the exception. ?Which isn?t a surprise,? she added, a stray thought absently uttered. ?I would be careful what you believe and what you understand, Tobias Aradam. You?ll only confuse yourself further.?

He was going to throw up. That creepy, crawling disgusting feeling of all his innards packing up and moving around of their own accord was going to start making him shiver soon. Figuring out what the heck a Divine Maiden was didn't quite seem so important now. He held a hand in front of his mouth just in case. But if he wasn't mortal--"...then what am I supposed to be?" he asked around the effort to keep his lunches down.

?I believe that will be a question worth asking a thousand times more before it receives an answer you?ll be satisfied by, Tobias Aradam.?

After dark, September 13th

The air was saturated with nightfall, the waxing moons looming high overhead dusted by cloud cover. The ball field of RhyDin City Municipal High School was stained white, the green grass and brown dirt bleached by the overhead spotlights most commonly used when a game was running into extra innings. Were she not familiar with blinding light beams, Mayu would have wandered onto the field with a hand canopying her vision.

Kial, her bland and too natural hair still in their sporty braids, was standing where Coach Weyvos was launched through the batting fence, tossing the last set of bats into the mesh bin that resembled a toiletry waste compartment. Her glasses were fogged, also bleached by the spotlights, making her already freckled, pale face whiter than freshly poured milk. She was oblivious to her newly acquired teammate?s approach.

?Kial?? Mayu called, her voice faint.

?Huh?? Her turn was brisk, her glasses torn from her face and the sleeve of her uniform pressed to her eyes. ?Oh. I didn?t hear you. I thought maybe you went home for the night.?

The way her head tilted, it seemed ready to unlatch from her neck. ?Go home? I wouldn?t do that after you asked me out here,? Mayu answered, glancing either direction before taking the final initiative to approach her.

A snort was stifled by a resounding giggle that chased away the ambience of early fall crickets. ?I guess there?s some logic in that statement. You?re not exactly the first I?ve asked to talk to privately like this. Normally, I?m left here alone after being told I?d see them.?

?Really?? The brown loafers that accentuated her school uniform crunched dirt as she circled Kial, staring at her intently as she would a scientific experiment. There was only the thin stretch of a neck to stare at, and she used it instead of a pair of eyes as her focus. ?Why would people tell you they?d meet you and not show up??

It wasn?t unheard of to her. Being stood up or blown off was basically a staple to being alive in the first place. She wasn?t foreign to that concept; almost a prime example of being cast aside at every ample opportunity.

?It?s hard to explain,? Kial answered, her focus remaining on the strewn aluminum bats in the bin. They were infinitely easier to stare at than the girl hovering over her right shoulder. ?I never really had any friends growing up. My parents are always making me come home right after school if I?m not in some kind of academic activity. They don?t really let me out all that much. That?s why?? she trailed off, breaking her concentration on the bats to look back at Mayu, glazed in tears. ??I?m sorry. I shouldn?t be saying these kind of things to you.?

?You shouldn?t?? Perplexed, she lifted her eyes and formed that often rare but required level of eye contact when serious conversations about important matters were broached. ?Why not?? She was no more sincere about that question as she was when somebody asks the meaning of life.

?I just met you.? It was too matter-of-factly. It almost hurt. ?Sharing these kind of things out of the clear blue is? it?s not natural. But,? Kial?s voice grew soft, as though she was spilling the most terrible secret the world could never catch wind of, ?that?s why I asked you out here.?

When the flare from the spotlights faded, the puffiness of her eyes were apparent. Crusted and irritated, the redness cast a sickening hue around the long threads of her lashes. She appeared ill more than upset. ?I?m just a joke to everyone I?m around. Most of the kids in school are open about picking on me. I thought it was because of how I look. At first, anyway.?

?You don?t look anything out of the ordinary to me,? Mayu admitted in hopes it?d cheer Kial up. It didn?t even crack the frown she was wearing.

?That?s part of the reason why I thought it. Everybody here has something special. Even you. Your eyes have this really strange thing about them.?

Absently, the faux Asian girl touched the outside edge of one eye. She?d forgotten the way her pupil wasn?t round like everyone else she?d met until now. Kial and Toby and Sheridan and Emerill and even Albrecht had round eyes, round pupils. It was natural; standard.

She glanced away, cupping her vision in the palm of her hand and shielding herself from Kial?s stare.

Kial backed down, shuffling her feet in the dirt and kicking up tiny storms of dust. ?Sorry. I didn?t mean it like that.?

Mayu shrugged, goading herself to divorce the thought she was being put on the spot more than the warm rays the spotlights were. ?It?s okay.?

?I?m plain. That?s what I mean to say. People have always taken a liking to picking on things that are different from others.? She giggled, but the merriment that often accompanied such a heartfelt sound was absent. It was hollow, a freshly dug grave. ?That wasn't the problem, though. My parents have shared their displeasure with me trying to adapt to living a life of social glamor or excitement. They believe my time spent in school should solely be for the benefit of furthering my education and brightening my future until it ?shines like the glory of a thousand suns.??

Squinting, Mayu peered through splaying fingers at the ball player. ??Glory of a thousand suns??? It sounded too ridiculous. She couldn?t mask her derisive tone.

?Stupid, I know,? Kial concurred, much more content this time around. It wasn?t intentional, but the girl in the clay body took her victories as she found them. ?My parents see the student body as an obstacle for me to overcome and nothing else. If they even so much as see me trying to interact with them on a friendly basis??

She dragged her finger across her throat. It was remarkable (and perhaps slightly gratifying), given the pressure, she didn?t sever her own head.

Feeling less than adequate, Mayu rounded Kial and pulled the bin of bats away. The plastic wheels fastened to the bottom were just a commodity that she used to seem just as average as the girl she was conversing with. ?Your parents dislike you making friends??

?They despise it,? Kial rectified, her tone more toxic than the poison in a rattlesnake?s venom sac.

?So,? Mayu continued, coming to the question of the hour in her mind as she started to tow the bin to the storage shed, ?why are you trying to be friends with me? I mean, if your parents knew you were talking to me and spending time in the nurse?s office with me rather than getting your hours of pitching in, they?d? cut off your head?? She was still grasping understanding of that earlier sign. It seemed a rather grotesque way of handling hearing the news your child was making friends.

Kial wasn?t very far behind her, tethered by some invisible string only she could hold tight. ?My parents have a considerable grip on the school?s functions. They?ve invested a large sum of money in its well-being. It may be a self-governing system that relies heavily on the students? input, but it still requires a large amount of funding to keep standing.?

?Your parents own a portion of the school? So, that means??

Kial nodded before Mayu could even finish her thought. ?They have a stake in how the school is run, even after the students install their structure. The type of education we receive, the type of programs we're allowed to participate in, even the social regulations of how students treat one another? It's because of them that??

The creaking wheels, with all their slapping and twisting as they struck rough terrain, came to an abrupt stop as Mayu did, her grip on the mesh wiring tightening. The flimsy metal skeleton of the container fractured under her strength, snapping with the same consistency as wood. ?Your parents? are controlling the way the students treat you?? Her disbelief made her snort. ?What, they made a rule??

?Actually,? Kial started, but Mayu silenced her with a sharp shake of her head.

?That?s absurd. They can?t do that kind of thing. Even if they paid a crazy amount of money to the school. It?s completely--?

?Mayu, I know,? Kial reached with her voice to calm the dark haired girl down. ?I?m not telling you this so you do something about it. I?m telling you this so, for once, I can??

?Get it off your chest?? the girl glanced back, pulling her firm grip from the container of baseball bats.

?No,? Kial answered subtly, forming her first smile of the night that doused the tears in her eyes. ?I?m telling you so that I can finally defy my parents and make a friend all on my own who isn?t going to be subjected to their rules.?

Kial brushed through the front doors with the stained glass windows of her home, their size impressive and always requiring just an ounce more weight to push them aside than it first seemed. She wiggled herself from the strap of her school bag and dropped it clean on the tiled marble floor at her feet, slowly working through the mundane task of pulling her mangled socks from her feet. Balled into little, disgustingly muddy rocks, they were flung away into the refuse bin placed there at the door.

The place Kial called home wasn't what she'd call a mansion, but so many others couldn't help but use that over-prized description. It was certainly large, and had more rooms than any one person knew what to do with. Her father already owned three studies, and had the audacity to claim one was a "guest study,' while her mother spent what little free time she was allotted to have a second kitchen installed just so she could tend to cooking away from her hired staff.

"The great Sewick home is always such a welcoming place to come home to," Kial sarcastically chimed to herself, noting the barren foyer and the absence of her parents bearing down on her for coming in at this particular hour. Hip-checking the door, she let it close of her own accord and tottered just a few steps further. The marble floor was cold on her still soaking feet, favoring the royal red carpeting the moment she reached it.

"Miss Sewick!" somebody cried happily. A storm of black and white and that belonged to a woman came from around one open archway that lead to the oversized dining room with the table that would have even made God seem like a tiny deity, her arms wide, her pink hair exploding in a puffy ball behind her scurrying steps. Her bright ruby eyes were wet with tears; her body shivering. She'd been crying, the streaks of tears still apparent on her cheeks.

She collided with Kial and latched tight. "I was afraid they wouldn't let you in tonight! I was prepared to air mail you a ladder and two pounds of snacks just in case!!"

"Sasami," Kial warmly answered her personal maid, casually stepping from the hug that she was in desperate need of. "I don't think mailing me a ladder would be necessary. I'd just be outside. Thank you for the kind thoughts. Is my room available for me to enter?"

Sasami sniffled and glanced away to the nearby set of stairs that spiraled high like a destructive twister to the second floor. She whispered, "Yes, it is. Please, try to go there right away. If your parents see you--"

The clicks and clacks of high heels interrupted Sasami's advice. From down the hall, flanked by a half dozen or so various men all dressed in clean and pressed dark suits, a woman with short black hair was busy flipping through a binder chalk full of pages, all with some illegible ink. She was dressed in a tan one piece that came low to the knee, making her stand out against the abyss of darkly clad men that surrounded her.

She didn't bother glancing up from the binder. "I believe the intention was to see my daughter after she broke the rules, Sasami. Would you like to continue to give my daughter ill-advised advice, or would you like to get back to work before I see that your father's debt to my company requires more than just your sweat and tears working for me?"

The maid quickly turned from Kial, bowed, and ducked away without another word. She was as brisk as the wind, and just as quiet.

Closing the binder, Mrs. Sewick lifted it over a shoulder for one of the many men to take from her, a faux smile in place of what originally was a scowl. "Kial. So wonderful for you to join us this late. I was beginning to think you had an impression your life was more important than your own family."

Kial lowered her head in a bow similar to Sasami's. "No, Mama. Coach Weyvos was in an accident, as were several other students at the school. I wanted to see that they were okay before I left."

A sheet of paper was trawled from her pocket and handed out to her mother to take. "This letter is--"

Mrs. Sewick pinched it between her index and middle fingers, promptly crumbling it. "That silly bastard doesn't know what he's doing. If you are finished wasting everyone's time, you may retire to your room for the evening. I will have your punishment finalized with your father by morning."

Kial didn't move until her mother signaled her away with a dismissing wave of her hand. Had there been a persistant gnat in her face, it would have recieved the same treatment. Kial rushed away without another word, the stairs being taken two at a time.

Mrs. Sewick followed after Kial's retreat with heavy annoyance. Reaching into a pocket, Mrs. Sewick pulls a phone with the label, "Sewick Mobile Co." and presses a lone button, bringing the device to life with a cheery tune that brought the stale, aggressive air to an almost comical, but ultimately embarrassing, level.

"Orzo, call him and see that he follows my daughter. I have a tiresome feeling something is amiss at that god forsaken place she calls a school."

"Ma'am," Orzo answered, taking the phone before stepping away from the sea of black and hurrying back down the hall they came.

Mrs. Sewick took a final, dark look up the stairs where her daughter fled before continuing through the archway that lead toward the dining room.