Episode 1: A Heart-throbbing First Day! Wait, Isn't This Strange?!
With weak and shaky legs, I stood up. My body felt weak, and yet I still moved. A glance down could only tell me of how beat-up I was; my clothes were in tatters, ripped and dirty. My eyes snapped up at the disturbingly close sound of a monstrous roar, the owner being an eight-headed shadow of a serpentine beast.
"—!" My mouth opened and yelled, but even I couldn't hear what I had said into the skies above.
I began running, and I kept running, running, running, until the pain in my legs numbed and I leaped at the shadow, in position to hit it, only to be forcefully smacked out of the air by a head. The air left my lungs, and I flew through the air from the force.
I hit my back on something.
"Ghak!"
A girl rolled off her bed, making contact with the hardwood floor underneath her, causing her to let out a pained sound. Her eyes fluttered open, revealing her still drowsy orange-red eyes. She adjusted her now awakening senses to her surroundings, catching onto the sound of her alarm having a ball on her nightstand. The girl groaned, before slowly standing up to shut off the jittering clock. She squinted at the clock, attempting to make out the time while brushing away some of her dirty blonde hair from her eyes to see better.
"AMARIIIIIII!"
Her door burst open, slamming against the wall, causing the aptly named Amari to jump in place and accidentally throw the clock in hand into the air. After her initial startle, she caught the clock on its way down and turned around to face the nuisance that stood at her door.
The golden haired girl tossed the clock onto her bed before cracking her knuckles and glaring at the doorway, "Oh, Keiichirou?"
"Yes, my dear sister?" Standing at the doorway was Amari's younger brother, Keiichirou. He glared back at the girl, with an additional mischievous smirk plastered on his lips.
And then Amari attacked.
"Kyaa! Mom, the demon's awake!"
"Me, the demon?! You're the demon for slamming open my door like that and yelling!"
Still in her pajamas, Amari chased Keiichirou out of her room and down the stairs to the kitchen, where their mother stood, cleaning dishes.
Keiichirou hid behind their mother, practically clinging to her legs while Amari creeped closer to him, maybe even growling a little.
A soft laugh escaped their mother's lips, laying a hand on her son's head, "Now, now, you two," She turned around to face Amari, who quickly stood up normally in the eyes of her mother. "Amari, you should hurry up and go change. It's your first day of being in senior high, after all. You shouldn't be late on your first day."
Amari blinked, slowly processing what she had just been told, "First… day?" She stood in silence, before exploding in embarrassment. "No way?! Is it that time already?!" She left in a golden blur, running back up the stairs to her room to change.
Her mother let out another giggle, looking down at Keiichirou who was sticking out his tongue, supposedly directed to his sister who had made a mad dash back upstairs. She ruffled his hair a bit, "Haah.. I can't believe you two are growing up so fast." She took her hand off of his head and turned back to finish washing the dishes.
Amari came back down in a hurry, pulling on a yellow cardigan around her shoulders, with her hair accessories dangling from her mouth as she tied her hair into two pigtails, almost tripping on her way down.
"Amari, you missed a button on the bottom." Keiichirou pointed out at the messily done button-up job Amari did at the bottom of her shirt, causing her to let out a strangled sound of anxiety. In response, her brother just let out a laugh at her suffering.
Her mother turned off the faucet to the sink, wiping her hands on the towel underneath after putting the last of the dishes on the rack to dry. "I put your bento next to your breakfast on the table," She walked over to the table where Amari quickly sat down to scarf down the meal. In the meantime, she had taken Amari's hair ornaments and tied them to Amari's blonde hair as she ate.
The 15-year-old girl almost choked on her breakfast, hitting her chest a bit as she coughed. Amari grabbed her bento off the table and swiftly made her way to the front door, slipping on her shoes with ease. She turned back to notice Keiichirou walking over to put on his own shoes for school. Their mother stood in the hallway.
"We're heading out!" The two of them had said, almost at the same time.
"Be safe, you two!" Their mother responded, waving to her children as they left through the front door. She let out a sigh when the door shut, making her way back into the kitchen, "Feels like only yesterday when they were so small and dependent on me."
Mikoto Academy. Somehow Amari had managed to make it to the last influx of students coming into the school's campus, which was not as late as she expected to be. She thankfully let out a sigh, before waving to her brother as they parted ways.
"Ah.. which classroom was it again…?" Amari mumbled to herself after switching her outside shoes for the school's indoor shoes at the entrance, glancing about the hallways, trying to remember. She wandered off down a hallway, but was quickly stopped short of her frantic search.
"Ammy! Where do you think you're going? Our classroom's down the other hallway!"
Amari turned around to find the source of whoever had called her 'Ammy', her eyes drifting amidst the students that were filtering into their classes and up the staircases to find a boy waving her down from the other hallway.
After figuring out the origin of the call, Amari walked over and made her way to the opposite hallway, "..Oh! Maa-kun!"
"Just call me Makoto, Maa-kun still sounds so embarrassing…" As Amari came closer, the boy came into better view, and she could see him messing with his already messy brown hair in embarrassment at the nickname she had given to him.
Amari pouted, "That's not fair, you already call me Ammy! So I should be able to call you Maa-kun, Maa-kun." She began teasingly hitting the taller boy in front of her.
"Man, if I didn't know any better, you two sound and look like a lovey-dovey couple." A girl with light strawberry hair in two messily done pigtail-buns walked up to the two of them with crossed arms, her face showing joking disapproval. "How nice…! To have a beautiful first love in your first year as high schoolers…" She dramatically posed with a hand to her face, showing her 'despair.' "Wish that were me."
The golden haired girl quickly sidestepped away from Makoto, before soon targeting the girl who appeared in front of the two, wrapping her arms around the acting girl, "Chiacchi..! Don't say something like that, I'm not ready to commit my high school life to a first love!"
Chiacchi, or rather Chiaki, embraced Amari in return, changing her despaired face to a happy one. "It's good to see you again, Amari-chan."
"Hey, I get that you're trying to embarrass me here, Chiaki-san, but you don't have to hit me right where it hurts." Makoto, left forgotten on the side of the hallway, butted in and quickly adjusted the glasses on his face, pushing them up and softly glaring at the girl who had held Amari closely. He turned around in one swift motion and began to walk towards the open door of their classroom. "Come on, you two. Class is going to start soon."
Both Amari and Chiaki looked at the boy who was clearly fleeing from further embarrassment from Chiaki, cheerfully calling to his back in unison, "Coming, Maa-kun~!" They could catch a glance of Makoto's ears flushing red as he turned into the room, causing Chiaki to let out a small giggle.
"Let's have a good school year this year too, Amari-chan."
"Yeah.. Let's!"
The two girls made their way into the classroom and truly began the first day of being a new high school student in Mikoto Academy.
"—..!"
My eyes slowly opened, vision blurred and eventually focusing on my surroundings. Someone's in my line of vision, but I can't tell who it is anymore; their mouth moves and yet I still can't hear them.
"—! —?"
Soundless, but I can tell it's the loud roars of the eight-headed beast mocking us.
I stood up, even though with each movement my body had ached in pain from the onslaught of attacks. Two others are at my side, and I can hear their concerns, at the very least.
"—, are you okay..?"
"That last one was a bad one, are you sure you can keep going, —?"
A roar of laughter echoes from the heavens. Mocking, taunting, ridiculing laughter, all in a chorus from each head.
I open my mouth, "I guess this'll be the last time we see each other." My vision blurs, but not from the physical pain.
"—? —?! You can't be saying.. you… you aren't going to… do that, are you?!"
"I'm sorry." I closed my eyes and felt the droplets that welled fall from my cheeks. "I'm sorry I'm not able to keep our promise, you two."
I dashed on ahead before either of them could stop me from leaving their sides.
"W-waaait!"
"Hm? Yes, Tendou-san?"
Amari blinked, confused at her surroundings. She had been pulled from her dreams and thrown forcefully back into reality, realizing she had stood up from her desk. After processing what had just happened, her face flushed from the fact that her classmates gazed at her curious outburst, sliding back down into her chair.
"Aah… nothing, Sensei. Sorry about that.." Amari apologized, flustered.
Her teacher sighed, "That's alright, Tendou-san, however I'd expect for you not to doze off in class in the future and have an outburst like that again, alright?" Amari nodded in response, her face glowing brighter as a hushed laughter swept through the class to be interrupted by the teacher continuing her lesson.
'Ahhhh, how embarrassing..' Amari quietly thought to herself, shoving her face into her notebook and furiously scribbling the lesson's notes. 'I wish lunch time would come sooner..!'
In the distance, the soft rumble of thunder echoed over the town of Amanoniwa, catching Amari's attention from her notebook.
"Thunder? Huh.. I don't remember hearing about a thunderstorm in the weather forecast today…" The girl looked up and out of the window nearby, staring into the sky which was clearly still blue and practically cloudless. Amari huffed softly, before continuing to write down notes, "Maybe I'm just imagining things.."
Amari stretched in her seat, letting out a sound of relief. "Lunch! Finally.." She hummed happily, taking out the bento box she had gotten from her mother, ready to see what her mom made for her to chow down on.
"Ammy, did you forget that we always go outside to eat?" Of course, the only one who would call her that is Makoto, so Amari looked up to meet eyes with the brunette that stood in front of her desk.
"Eh… but didn't you hear any thunder? It might rain sometime soon, so what if we get wet? Then we'd be stuck having to wear gym clothes until our uniforms dry and that's super, super weird!" Amari gave a rebuttal, still thinking about the thunder she had heard earlier. She looked behind Makoto to flag down Chiaki who was already walking over to Amari's desk, "Chiacchi! You wouldn't want to be stuck in your gym uniform either, right?!"
The pink haired girl made her way over and laughed a bit, confused by Amari's strange question. "What are you going on about this time, Amari-chan?" Chiaki put a hand to her chin in a thinking pose, "Though, if I had to answer your question, I'd say being in our gym uniform when you don't have to be in it is definitely weird." It was definitely cute on Amari though!
Makoto put a hand to his face, "Don't enable her, Chiaki-san.."
"Right?! So I don't want to get caught in the rain!" Amari exclaimed, beaming. In some sense, her friend had agreed with her, that was good enough reason for Amari.
"Ammy, it's not going to rain. Look," The glasses-wearing male put a hand on Amari's shoulder and led her attention to the view outside the window, "the sky's still blue and there's no clouds to be seen! The sun's shining and there hasn't been any thunder today, so I'm not sure what you could have heard, Ammy."
Amari's face scrunched into a pout at the sight, "But I could've sworn I heard thunder..."
Chiaki pushed Makoto out of the way, replacing his hand on Amari's shoulder with her own. "Don't worry, Amari-chan! I didn't hear any thunder, but I bet it was probably your stomach. This means you should eat lunch, so come on. If it starts raining we can use Maa-kun as an umbrella."
"How would you even do that?!" Makoto had exclaimed, obviously not fancying the idea of somehow being used as an umbrella.
"Hm.. okay! Sounds good, I'm hungry."
"Ammy?!"
Amari stood up from her desk, not hearing Makoto whatsoever from behind Chiaki, "I'll go on ahead then, so we'll go to our usual spot, right?" Amari walked out of the classroom ahead of her two friends with her bento in hand, leaving an exasperated Makoto and a fairly smug Chiaki in her wake.
"Tough luck, Maa-kun!" Chiaki happily chirped, turning around to face the defeated brunette. She patted him on the shoulder, relishing in her victory this time around. "Maybe if it does rain, you can save the day by shielding us from the rain; I'm sure Amari-chan would be grateful to you for that."
"Geez, you're such a nuisance!" Makoto rolled his eyes and nudged Chiaki playfully, before walking ahead out of the class to go to their spot in the courtyard, but within the next moment the messy head of brown hair flew forward and crashed into the classroom door, creating a loud thud.
The culprit? Chiaki, of course. "Oops, guess I pushed too hard."
"Ugh! You're absolutely terrible!"
Amari sat alone under a blossoming tree in the school's courtyard, staring up at the clear blue sky above. No use in mulling over it since it didn't seem like it would rain, right? She sighed to herself, before looking down to open her bento, too hungry to wait any longer.
"Sorry for the delay, Amari-chan! Hope we didn't keep you waiting for long." Chiaki walked up to where Amari sat, dragging Makoto behind her, who had been defeated by the pinkette's onslaught of insults and 'joking' abuse on the way to the courtyard.
Amari perked up at the voice, looking up to see Chiaki, "No, it's okay! What took you so lo-" She had stopped mid-sentence as her eyes drifted down to notice the sullen boy, "-Maa-kun?!" She shouted out of concern and shock, setting down her bento and scrambling over to the brown haired boy next to Chiaki.
Chiaki quickly let go of Makoto and sidestepped away for him to get swept up by Amari, putting a hand to her mouth in a sly manner, watching the blonde haired girl holding Makoto closely to try and figure out how to make him recover. "Do you think I overdid it?"
Amari hugged Makoto, snapping her head to look at Chiaki, "I think that's an understatement!" She's pouting. Chiaki simply giggled at the sight.
"Ah… don't worry, I'm okay, Ammy." A soft muffled voice came from under Amari's arms, obviously coming from the boy being held victim by the girl's suffocating hug. "You can let go now." Makoto patted Amari's arm, wanting her to release him from her death hug before he died of asphyxiation.
"Oops, sorry." Amari dropped her arms from around the relieved boy.
"Anyways.. let's just have lunch, okay? It's not raining and it's still clear, right?" Makoto shifted over to under the tree, Chiaki following soon after.
Amari looked back at the sky to double check, and as Makoto had said, it wasn't raining and it sure was definitely clearer than a freshly polished piece of glass. She looked back over to her to friends and moved back under the tree, picking up her bento box again, "Yeah, I guess it'll be okay!"
Growl…
A moment of awkward silence, followed by realization and a chorus of laughter from all three of them.
"Guess we're all that hungry, huh?"
"Let's eat!"
In sync, the three of them opened their bentos, "Thanks for the food!"
Unbeknownst to anyone, a shadow watched from a distance, spying on the trio under the tree from the school's rooftop edge. The figure on the roof held up both hands, making a window shape to peer through and look at the trio. It moved its hands further and closer, before focusing on one of the three. The shadow stood for a while, before smiling to itself and disappearing in a flash, "What a nice heart, so full of fear and insecurities," The rest of its words were lost to the wind. "Surely.. this will…"
"So what's been up with you today, Amari-chan? You all messed up over it being the first day?"
It was the end of the school day and Chiaki approached from behind Amari, who had been putting away the rest of her classwork material into her school bag.
Amari looked up at the twin bunned girl, before greeting her with a smile, "Hm.. it might of been that..." She stood up from her desk with her book bag in hand, ready to head out. "I dunno Chiacchi, I had this weird dream this morning, and then I had a continuation of the dream during English class."
Chiaki took a moment to recall, then put her hands together in realization, "Oooh. So that's why you yelled in the middle of class!"
"Don't bring it up! That was embarrassing at that point and it's still embarrassing even now!" Amari squealed, covering her face as it flushed.
Chiaki wrapped an arm around the blushing girl, smiling, "Don't worry about it Amari-chan, people will forget about that eventually! Anyways, what were your dreams about? Sounds interesting enough if it made you yell when you woke up."
Amari let out a breath of relief to calm down her flushed face, before responding, "Mmm…? Hmm… I don't quite remember, but I remember something about an eight-headed dragon?" She could remember bits and pieces, but her memories of the dream where still rather scattered. "I think I got beat up by the dragon, and there was some other people who seemed pretty concerned?"
"Sounds pretty wild, Amari-chan." Chiaki was already intrigued by the strange dream, "Can you remember anything else? It sounds super exciting; a battle with an eight-headed dragon!" She moved a hand across the air, as if presenting a whole new world in front of them to Amari. Putting her hand back to her side, Chiaki smiled, "I wonder what it looked like to you?"
The girl under Chiaki's arm made a shuddering motion, "It was pretty bad, not gonna sugarcoat it, Chiacchi." The both of them walked out of the classroom and made their way through the school. "This morning, I woke up after falling off my bed and my back seriously hurt after that! I think I got smacked in the dream, ughhh.." Amari held her arms to her stomach; just thinking about the fragments of the dream she could remember made her feel the phantom pain.
"Hmm.. if it hurts you too much, then I won't force you to think about it." Chiaki moved away from Amari and patted her softly on the back.
Amari looked back up at Chiaki, "No way! I gotta tell you about this, it's way too strange!"
Chiaki giggled with a hand to her mouth, "Sure, sure, if you're set on telling me, go on! Tell me more, Amari-chan."
Amari nodded, "Okay, give me a bit, I'll try to remember as much as I can.."
The two girls walked in the school hallways, unknowing of a scene that was occurring just outside of the school, featuring two figures.
"Hey, you there, boy."
Makoto looked up from his cellphone, curious as to who had spoken, and if he was being spoken to. In front of him was, to say the least, a strange person? Definitely a stranger, but an even stranger stranger. He could say a lot about the strange out-of-time hooded attire they were wearing, but he was more weary at the fact that they seemed to be speaking to him as no one else had been around the school gates. The messy brown head of hair looked around, double checking.
"Hey, I'm talking to you here; what are you looking at?" The strange person (actually the more Makoto looked at them, he was starting to doubt that they were actually a person and he was just dissociating super hard) huffed, walking closer to the boy to make their presence known to him.
On instinct, Makoto backed away, narrowing his eyes, "Am I legally obligated to answer?"
"No, but I'm forcing you anyways!" The stranger came up closer to the boy who stumbled backwards, but was grabbed by his shirt before he could fall over.
A passing breeze brushed against both of them, pulling off the hood on the strange individual and unveiling a head of turquoise hair, also revealing the face of a boy speckled with black scales under his eyes and cheeks, and red snake-like eyes that Makoto felt were staring right into his own, as if they violated his soul.
"Your heart is dark and full of insecurities," The weird boy told him, "and for that reason, I'm targeting you, boy."
Dark gray clouds suddenly rolled in, covering the previously bright blue sky and replacing it with a dreary gray. A gentle lull of thunder echoed in the vicinity.
Makoto attempted to grab at the hands that held him, trying his best to detach the claws that trapped him in place, but to no avail. As much as he struggled, his captor simply laughed at the attempt. Like any sane person, he called for help when he wasn't able to get the scaled boy to let go of him, "Help..! Anyone, help me!"
"Crying out for help? Seems befitting for a coward like you." The cloaked boy threw Makoto to the ground, the boy letting out a yelp of pain as his back hit the stone walkway. "Oh well, not like it matters." The stranger raised a hand to the swirling dark clouds above, "Yōkai of Yomi, devour this cowardice heart and use it to lure out the purifying powers of Amaterasu's beads!"
Before Makoto was able to make a move, a flash of light struck him as the clouds moved to shroud him in the moment.
A little ways away, Amari and Chiaki exited the school building, but the two of them both let out a yelp of surprise when a flash of lightning happened to strike right in front of them, causing them to run back into the school's entrance.
"See?! What'd I tell you?! There wasn't any forecast saying afternoon thunderstorms! Today is way, way too weird!" Amari yelled, grabbing the pink haired girl by her shoulders, slightly shaking her, before Chiaki patted her shoulder in an attempt to calm the frantic girl.
"Calm down..! The weather forecast always has a chance of being wrong..!"
Outside a soft drizzle of rain could be heard as Amari quieted down. The mist was thick, but it had slightly dispersed to reveal three figures in the rain. Both girls looked out of the school's doors and noticed their presence, squinting to look through the mist.
"Isn't that where the lightning just struck?"
"Chiacchi, there's someone on the ground!" Before Chiaki really knew what had happened, she realized Amari had left her side and had dashed out into the rain to get a closer look and assess the situation.
"Wait, Amari-chan, that's dangerous!" Chiaki called out to the girl who ran out, standing inside alone. After a quick moment of checking her morals, she ran out as well, "..Ugh! Amari-chan!" If she was going to die by lightning, might as well go out with a bang, huh? Snrk.
The golden haired girl made her way to the three figures, closing in on the person who was collapsed on the ground, "Excuse me! Are you okay?!" Amari called out to make sure, but once she had gotten close enough, she realized that she had recognized the one who was laying on the stone walkway, shouting in shock when she noticed. "M-Maa-kun?!"
"Oh? What's this?" The scaly boy spoke up when Amari ran towards them, "Someone else was still around here?" He shrugged her presence off, and turned to his left to face the appearance of a new figure. "Ah, whatever, that doesn't matter now that his heart's been seized by his own fears."
The new figure had the same build as Makato, as well as sharing his messy brown hair, but wore a red demon mask that almost felt like it was angry and sorrowful simultaneously, which had hid its face away while also wearing a white kimono, as if it had come right off the stage of a Japanese theatre performance. Around its waist was a sheathed katana, a hand resting on the handle of the Japanese sword.
"Maa-kun?! Hey, Maa-kun, wake up!" Amari had been preoccupied, trying to figure out how to awaken her friend who seemed unconscious and hopefully not dead. "Maa-kun, you're still breathing, so you have to be able to wake up, come on!"
Behind her was Chiaki, looming over the two on the ground, checking on them, but turned her attention to the other two figures once she decided Amari would have to deal with Maa-kun herself. More importantly, these two strangers were nearby him and hadn't done anything since the lightning strike. Just who the hell were they? "Do you have any common sense?! Someone just got zapped by lightning and you're just watching?!"
The cloaked stranger shrugged, "That's not my issue, now is it?" The turquoise haired boy looked at the masked Yōkai, noticing that it had tensed up and held the handle of its katana tighter once the pinkette had directed her attention towards the both of them. Taking a glance at the girl, and recalling the earlier scene he had witnessed beforehand, it was almost as if he understood the situation completely. "Oh, I see! Well, go on then. Cause some chaos, that'll attract the bead faster; after all, the heart wants what the heart wants." He shooed away the masked figure to do what it had wanted.
"Haah?" Chiaki responded, clearly confused and offended that she had just been brushed off like that.
The masked Yōkai unsheathed its katana, readying it as it pointed its blade towards the girl. Chiaki was given no time to process what was currently happening, as within the next moment, the Yōkai lunged towards her, only allowing her to let out a scream and an attempt to shield herself.
"Crescent Whip!"
With a thwack, a row of deep blue magatama beads swung past Chiaki and threw the katana out of the Yōkai's hands before it was able to move any closer to the pink haired girl, causing Chiaki to frantically look around for the source, also garnering Amari's attention after Chiaki had screamed a moment before.
"Tch! This isn't the bead I wanted to lure out right now.." The cloaked boy clicked his tongue at the appearance of a new presence in the vicinity.
Chiaki moved back closer to Amari, obviously shaken by what had almost occurred. She could've been stabbed just now! That's a revelation she does not want to be having right now.
"Chiacchi, are you okay?!"
"I'm... fine. I think." She attempted reassuring her friend who held Makoto in her arms, before looking around to find the source of her savior, soon noticing the distant shadow of a figure on the school rooftop.
Said figure jumped off the roof with a front flip, before landing right in front of the trio of friends with a clack of geta sandals against stone and a soft splash of the rainwater that covered the ground. Long, flowing dark blue hair fell to their sides after landing. The Yōkai jumped back to distance itself from the new person in the mix, and to pick up its katana that had been knocked from its hands.
"A bright crescent moon shining its light into troubled hearts in the night," The figure placed their hands to their chest, before holding one hand up as a fist and moving their other arm to their side, "Emissary of the Great God Tsukuyomi; Cure Moon!"
Chiaki and Amari looked at the person who stood in front of them, speaking in disbelief, almost entirely in sync, "Cure… Moon..?"
Amari : Huh?! It's the end of the episode already?! And on such a cliffhanger!
Amari : Just who on Earth is this Cure Moon?!
Amari : Will Maa-kun be okay?!
Amari : Aughgh! The anticipation is unbearable!
Chiaki : Amari-chan, be quiet, you're yelling too much.
Amari : Oops, sorry. Anyways, we'll see you next time!
Next Episode
As Mysterious As The Dark Side… Cure Moon?!