Author's Note:
Thanks so much for taking the time to enjoy this presentation of A Nightmare on Heart Street, fanfiction based upon the anime series 'To Heart 2'! I have a background in writing, but this is my first attempt at a project like this, so I'm really hoping people enjoy it. I already have a sequel mapped out, but I'd prefer to see what sort of reaction this one gets, first. It should go without saying, of course, that since this is 'fanfiction', which is an homage to an existing story by nature, that I (the author of this story) claim no ownership of nor rights to the characters, storyline, or other intellectual/physical property concerning 'To Heart', or 'To Heart 2'. Copyrights are the property of their respective owners, and no form of profit has been assigned to me in return for this work. I've only intended to create something fun and enjoyable for fans of the show, and I hope you all take it that way and enjoy it!
Part one of this series takes place immediately following the events of the third OVA episode of To Heart 2, and I mean immediately, as in, the same night. Because of this, I strongly suggest you've seen this episode before you read this story, as I didn't take the time to go into a lot of background detail (I'm assuming you know the setting already from watching the show). Here's how I would break down my watching suggestions with regards to this story:
OPTION 1: If you're a fan of the To Heart series (why else would you be reading a 'fan'fic of it, ne?), there's nothing more to say. I just hope you enjoy this, and I hope I've made the characters as true to form as you've come to expect from all you've seen of them.
OPTION 2: If you want to understand all of the character interactions and nuances of this story, and be able to appreciate it on the level it was intended, you can get away without watching the original To Heart, or To Heart: Remember My Memories, but be sure to have watched the To Heart 2 TV series first, then the OVAs.
OPTION 3: If you want to get an idea where these characters are coming from, at least watch the OVAs.
OPTION 4: If you're just that desperate to dig right in, AT LEAST watch the third OVA episode. I warn you, however, that a lot of the nuances are probably going to be lost on you if this is all you do, and the story probably won't seem as good (assuming you would have otherwise found it good, which I can only hope).
This story is based upon the anime vein of To Heart 2 only, and not the game. Reason being, I've never played the game, heh.
Annnnnyway, enough blabber. I planned to include some basic Japanese cultural notes with this intro, but honestly, I didn't want to clutter things up too much. I figure if you're reading this, you've probably watched enough anime or read enough manga by now to understand things like '-san', '-chan', '-kun', '-sama', 'Aneki', and et cetera. I'm really not trying to be rude when I say that, so please don't take it the wrong way, I just don't want to write a monstrous set of notes in the beginning for the reader to have to muddle through before digging into the meat of this story.
That said, welcome to A Nightmare on Heart Street! :)
A Nightmare on Heart Street, Part I: "How True Beats Thy Heart?"
--By Hazumu, Chapter 1: Aftermath in Festivus -
"Ahhh…there now, hasty fortifications ala Yuji!"
Yuji Kosaka stood up to his full height, and, taking out a handkerchief from his uniform pocket, liberally wiped his brow. As his breathing began to return to normal, he stepped back, hammer in hand, admiring his own handiwork. Several two-by-fours were sloppily attached to the entrance of the student council room, and the floor was littered with a few bent and otherwise ruined carpentry nails. Placing his hands on his hips, Yuji grinned, beaming with pride as he gazed upon the fruits of his labor.
Class President Sasara Kusugawa brushed past Yuji in his moment of glory, walking boldly up to the boards that effectively trapped the occupants of the room within. Lightly placing her hand upon a diagonally placed one, she tested it with a gentle tug. With a sharp popping noise, the twisted nails that held it ripped free from the wall, and the board clattered uselessly to the tiled floor below.
"W-what do you think you're doing!?" Poor Yuji gaped at the short, busty blonde, with a look akin to a child whose sandcastle had just been kicked into oblivion. "Those are my battlements you're destroying! Just whose side are you on, anyway!?"
"If I can do that with a touch, Kosaka-san, then your 'battlements' aren't exactly fit to protect the Emperor, ne?" Passing her flabbergasted kouhai without so much as a glance, Sasara sighed, wandering back into the room proper. She wasn't in the mood to argue, and whatever complaint Yuji had just made in response to her sarcasm, it fell on deaf ears. Folding her arms, she glanced around the room.
Other than Yuji, the only other students she felt safe around were gathered here, and their number was painfully small. Konomi Yuzuhara, the Freshman, sat in the same council chair she'd been in for the past two hours, and was just as catatonic as before. Her magenta eyes were gazing in abject terror at the constant wringing action her shaky hands were inflicting upon her uniform skirt. The only other occupant was Takaaki Kono, a Junior like Yuji, who at present was sitting with one leg propped on the room's only windowsill. His hammer was still loosely in his grasp, and he had taken to gazing out over the eerily silent track field as he took a needed breather.
Sasara felt a lump in her throat, and she swallowed hard a few times in a vain attempt to cut through the phlegm. It had been an otherwise beautiful evening, and she recalled dancing without a care in that same courtyard only a few hours hence, with Takaaki no less. At the time, they had both been trying to forget the hectic afternoon, which consisted of ensuring this years' student festival went off without a hitch. The entire student body had been out there with them, laughing and chatting, dancing about the bonfire in anticipation of tomorrow's festivities.
"Kusugawa-sempai," Takaaki suddenly spoke up, his voice ominously hovering above a whisper as he continued to stare out the window, "…you don't suppose Marianne-sempai planned all of this, do you?"
Sasara wandered over to the window in a daze, knowing full well that question had been on Takaaki's mind just as much as it had been on her own since they both awoke from a lazy nap in this same room a short time ago. She didn't respond. She couldn't respond. Despite the evidence, she couldn't allow herself to believe that her best and only true friend, Marianne, could have engineered the horrors they were now looking upon from several floors above.
Still standing where it had been since the early afternoon was the huge statue Marianne had constructed for the bonfire that was meant to be held on the last day of the festival, not the night before. It was an unrecognizable tree-shaped thing with a huge heart placed atop it, and dozens of strands of colored Christmas lights adorning it. The students had jokingly dubbed the apex of the curious sculpture 'love idol', and it nearly came level with the third story window Sasara was now observing it from. So many were the lights, that she could hear the low, hypnotic electrical buzzing even from where she stood. It didn't help of course, that those lights seemed to be enjoying the only live electrical feed in the entire school at the moment.
"She did insist on locking the gates." Yuji walked over to the pair and joined them in their vigil over the weird thing outside. "She just…insisted that the way the festival was planned, it was too boring. She said there should be more 'libido'…that's how she put it, anyway. And so, she constructed that thing and moved the bonfire to before the festival, in hopes it would, heh…loosen everybody up, I guess." He shrugged, stopping a few paces behind Sasara and not daring to come closer. It was Yuji that had carted Marianne around the school grounds in the afternoon, and had indeed done his best to assist her in her plans, given he himself was often a slave to his own libido. He'd already been chastised more than once for thinking with the wrong proverbial 'head', and he wasn't particularly interested in hearing it all again.
"We can't just stay here hoping it will all blow over, you know." Takaaki stared down at the hammer in his hand. Initially, he had gone along with the plan to barricade themselves in the council room and hopefully wait it out until the inevitable arrival of the authorities, but he had just blurted out the second of two realizations nobody in the room wanted to cope with. "The last time they went by was a close call, and with all that sound you just made, Yuji, I'm sure we're not gonna fall under the radar this time."
"Wha--? Me!? B-but, but Sasara-sempai, she was the one who…!!"
"Knock it off! Both of you!" Sasara's cold gaze went back and forth between the younger boys like a knife, and the two fell silent almost instantly. It wasn't so much that Sasara was outspoken, quite the opposite actually. It's just that neither of them could believe the usually demure girl was even capable of producing such a bellow. "It's not going to do any good to argue about it now, and there'll be no more talk about getting caught by those…those things out there. We tried, but it's obvious we don't have enough scrap materials from the class festival projects to stay safe in here." Sasara narrowed her eyes and put on a false mask of commanding officer's contempt. Inside however, she could feel herself quaking with fear, and she wondered if Takaaki and Yuji were really as calm and relaxed as they seemed. She wanted to run screaming at random down the halls and make for the main gates, but she forced herself to match their demeanor. She was a Senior, and the Class President as well. It wouldn't do for her to not take charge of the situation. Her kouhai were counting on her, and fleeing into the night would be tantamount to abandoning them to their fate.
"We…we need to get out of here." Sasara gazed out over the courtyard one last time. She thought back, recalling when it sparkled with innocent pleasures, images of the dancing students against the backdrop created by tranquil flames. She even remembered Yuji, a member of the council like herself and Takaaki, disturbing her sleep for a moment when he wandered in to join the two of them at rest. Konomi had been with him, and though she wasn't a member of the council, she had been running around all day tending to her class' café project, and appeared equally in need of a quiet place to catch some rest. Sasara knew her to be a good friend of both Takaaki and Yuji's, so there certainly wasn't a problem with it.
They all had slipped back to sleep then, and when they awoke, the idol had gone from an amusement to a bastion of horrors. Not a soul was in sight, and neither had anyone stirred out there for hours now. There was enough blood splattered all over the place, however, so as to make each of them wonder if somebody was trying to put the bonfire out with the gruesome substance. Whatever was wandering through the halls and periodically passing by their room, it walked on two legs, but it sniffed the air and grunted to its fellows in a bestial manner. Sasara did her best to stuff the memories into the back of her mind as she turned her head towards Konomi.
"Yuzuhara-san…?" As expected, nothing but gentle rocking and staring at her lap in response. Konomi was usually so bubbly and animated, but she'd been like that ever since she laid eyes on the scene outside. Takaaki had been stern, trying to spare her the sight, but she was young and curious. It couldn't be helped.
"Konomi…" Takaaki was at her side now, taking the seat next to her. He placed his hand on her shoulder in an overly friendly way. Sasara felt ashamed whenever she admitted to herself how jealous that familiarity had been making her. She was told the two had an older brother/younger sister relationship since they were small children, but that didn't make her feel any less disturbed by their friendliness. Takaaki had a way about him. A pleasant, sensitive demeanor that seemed to make girls fly to him like moths to the flame, and Sasara knew deep down inside that she had been caught up in it too, almost from the day she met him.
"Is she any better?" Sasara once again forced herself out of her reverie for the sake of her classmates. She was the first to directly bring up the Freshman's condition for some time.
"Konomi? It's me, Takaaki. Listen, nobody's going to hurt you, okay? I promise, as long as I'm around, everything's going to be fine." Takaaki's voice was like the cooing of a dove, and it sent shivers down Sasara's spine. She knew he couldn't possibly know enough about the situation to make or keep a promise like that, but she wanted to believe him regardless. Konomi suddenly drew her eyes up to his, the first movement she'd made in what seemed like forever. Judging by that, she must be believing him, too.
"That's a good girl." Takaaki ruffled Konomi's dark pigtails in a brotherly fashion, and Konomi offered him a weak smile of acknowledgement. "We have to go now, okay? Will you come with me?"
"But…" Konomi's voice was barely audible, "…aren't the gates locked? We'd never make it past them."
"Bah! You just leave that to me!" Yuji's bold declaration sent brash ripples of testosterone coursing through the room, interfering with both Konomi and Sasara's emotional moments. "They don't call me Yuji 'The Spider-Man' Kosaka for nothing! I'll get us out of here, no sweat!" Yuji picked up a board and swung it through the air a few times like a baseball bat, grinning broadly, "And if anything weird happens, I'm a Ghostbuster, too!" Both Takaaki and Sasara wanted to beat down his enthusiasm with another sarcastic comment, but neither dared, for fear that it might damage poor Konomi's courage even further.
"I-if Yuji-san can do it," the light finally seemed to return to Konomi's eyes, "th-then so can I! I'm in!" She fixed Sasara with a suddenly invigorated stare, even as Yuji was again left gaping, this time due to his precious masculinity being compared to that of a capricious, underclassman girl. "What's the plan, Class President-san?"
"Well…" Sasara took up a board of a somewhat smaller stature than the one Yuji had armed himself with, and swung it in a weak arc with one hand through the air around her. "This will have to do, I guess. We have flashlights, some tools, and these boards. I don't think any of us have heard any sounds out there for quite some time now, so with any luck, whatever was there is gone now. Let's just stick close together and tread lightly. We should be fine, right?" She punctuated her words with a weak, yet poignant smile, "everybody gather up anything we can use in the carpentry toolbelts laying around, and let's get ready to go."
With that, Sasara's elite cadre of would-be survivalists set about carrying out her orders. She glanced around, silently beating back her fear like flames licking at her heart. There was no choice but to wonder how many of them, if any, would even make it to the main gates, much less over or through them.