A first day of school, to me, was always a day prone to anticipation and worry. It was the day when I would have the least amount of information going in, and when I could make the most mistakes. There were so many faux passes that could be committed in such a short time span. So many little ways to crew up if I wasn't careful. Idle reminders trickled through my head as I got up and sprayed some cold water on my face. Be punctual. Triple check the classroom information so you don't get lost. Smile when the teacher introduces you. Don't say anything leading about where you came from or what brought you to Shujin. Don't speak out of turn.
They were typical pointers, to be sure, but I had forgotten at least two of them the last time I showed up to a new school.
"There have been several reports that local subway routes may be delayed near the Shibuya region..."
I grimaced while putting the school's uniform on as the TV downstairs continued to bleat out news reports. The thing was an over designed mess of buttons and badges in the front, stiff and uncomfortable in the back, and featured both undersized pockets and a tendency to collect sweat. Already, the collar region was starting to itch away at my neck. The simple black and white of the top part of the outfit might have been somewhat passable enough out in public, but the striped black and red pants looked like they were taken from a colorblind marching band. On the whole, the thing was a mess, but it would have to do.
"Everything's going to be fine," I muttered to myself, before gathering my things and heading down the stairs.
The early morning light hadn't fully transitioned from gray to blue as it shone through the windows of Cafe Leblanc. Mr Sakura had been busying himself with a series of coffee machines laid out on the bar, only to stop when I came down.
"Good to see you're taking this seriously, then," Sakura grunted. "They say the trains are going to be running late for where you're headed. That's why it's always better to be up a few minutes earlier."
"Yes, sir." I sheepishly glanced around the room, before looking right at Sakura. "You, uh... wouldn't happen to have something I could eat for breakfast first, would you?"
"There's some curry that's brewing in a pot by the kitchen. Don't take too much, though."
For me, curry for breakfast was a definite first. I always preferred early morning meals to be expedient instead of filling, considering how time in the mornings was always of the essence. But ff Sakura was the one who would be making it, then I saw no reason to complain.
Nevertheless, I was still struck with a note of trepidation when I hurriedly grabbed a spare plate and spooned some of the orange contents of the pot onto it. I had heard a few horror stories of the kind of curry you might find in shoddy restaurants in my time, with most of them being focused on what said curry would do to the stomach of whoever ate it hours afterwards. That fear vanished the instant the food reached my tongue, however, as it became immediately clear that Sakura knew his stuff. I hastily ate away at the rest of my plate before rushing away to clean it.
"So, you like it, huh?" Sakura asked, giving me an inquisitive look as I finished putting the plate away.
"Yeah," I mumbled. "It's quite good. Sir."
"Good to know that you can at least appreciate some of the finer things in life, then. Well, could you flip the sign on the door around as you leave?"
I turned towards the exit of the cafe, but felt something holding me back from just walking so suddenly out the door. Even though I barely knew Mr Sakura at all, it didn't sit well with me to just leave without me saying something. I put my hands in my pockets while trying to think of something meaningful that I could say about my predicament.
"What is it?" Sakura intoned, glancing away from his coffee once again.
"Well, Mr Sakura, I just wanted to say, that what you've done for me... it really means a lot, sir." The collar of my uniform had begun to itch again, and it took all the willpower in my body not to scratch at it. "Taking me in here after what happened, and giving me a second chance. I promise... I won't let you down here, okay? I'll put this opportunity to good use."
"Mhmm. Well, stay out of trouble, then."
Feeling a little better about my situation, I sprung out of the cafe, making sure to flip the sign as I left. The back alleys outside were already beginning to fill up with people passing each other by in the early morning rush. I walked by them all without so much as waving or saying a word, doing my best to appear inconspicuous. Inconspicuous was good. It wouldn't do to be giving off any unnerving vibes to my new neighbors, after all.
The subway station at Yongen-Jaya was heavily packed by the time I got there. A friend had once described the average Tokyo commute as being like a sardine's journey through a cannery, which I found to be quite a potent description once I saw one of the trains coming in. All the seats had been taken, and the space left over was already occupied by a small sea of indistinct faces and bodies, trying desperately as they could not to brush against each other. I scraped into one of the corners and huddled against a wall, feeling several blunt bits of metal poking me in the back. The train roared away soon afterward, blowing heavy gusts of warm underground air through the car. Even knowing I was going somewhere, it was difficult to relax, as my mind immediately began fretting over if I had memorized the next station I had to transfer at. The whole way through, I found myself repeatedly glancing up at a listing of the stations posted on the ceiling. Nervously counting up each stop, going over the names again and again...
Four transfers later, and I finally ended up in Aoyama-Itchome. I had arrived with time to spare, but I still couldn't help but feel a little tired. For a moment, I questioned if this was something I could adapt to, before shaking my head and pressing forward. I would have to get used to it. It would get better as the route became routine.
I discovered that the weather had spuriously chosen to worsen up on me as I climbed out of the subway station into an open section of roads and stores. The sun had halfway disappeared behind several thick smudges of gray in the sky, which were responsible for a light drizzle that was just enough to get one's clothes wet, but not heavy enough to have convinced the weather forecasters to recommend bringing any umbrellas. Seeing as I still had a good twenty minutes before school started, I decided to try waiting under the awning of a clothing store to see if the rain might pass. A few minutes passed as I saw a couple of people wearing what looked like Shujin uniforms ran by. It was mildly gratifying to see that none of them had brought umbrellas.
"Morning," a gruff male voice called out in my direction. "You wouldn't happen to be a Shujin student, would you? I could give you a ride there."
I blinked and noticed that a car had stopped by me on the road. The man who had spoke to me had just finished rolling down the window, revealing a preposterously square chin connected to a weak smile, a small crop of receding hair, and a blue tracksuit. Behind him I could also make out the details of a girl with bleached hair, who was looking the other way.
Not knowing what to make of the situation, I started running a hand through my hair. "Um, well-"
The man glanced down the street and immediately stopped paying attention to me. A look of weary resignation crossed his face as he sped down the road, splashing water up the sidewalk as he went. A possible reason for his early departure showed up right afterwards, in the form of an angry young man running down the street after the car.
"The hell does he think he's playing at?" the guy muttered, stopping a few feet past me.
"What?" I asked.
He turned around and sized me up, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a Shujin uniform as well, although he hadn't bothered buttoning the top up to hide a garish yellow shirt that laid below it. He walked with a slouch and a scowl that both made him seem like bad news. I really hoped that he wasn't going to hit me for somehow speaking out of turn.
"Hey, man," he said. "Don't tell me you're gonna talk to Kamoshida about this, are you?"
"Who?" I tried to make myself look busy with polishing my glasses, even though they were perfectly clear.
"Dude, everyone knows who Kamoshida is!"
"I, uh, I just transferred here."
Thankfully, that was enough to convince him to stand down. He scratched his chin and stood up, now looking more thoughtful. "I see. Well, you'll get to know him. Everyone here does, soon enough."
"You make him sound like an interesting character."
"You don't know the half of it, man. Anyways, what's your name?"
I tried to relax as well, letting my bag rest lower on my shoulders. "Akira Kurusu."
"I'm Ryuji Sakamoto. Second year here at Shujin."
So it was possible that we might be sharing some classes together. I wasn't exactly thrilled by the scenario. "So what was the deal with Kamoshida, again?"
Ryuji crossed his arms together and scowled. "He's a teacher here at Shujin. A real scumbag one. Likes to perv on girls in his care, y'know? That's why I thought he stopped around here."
"Really?" And if he was actually doing that, you thought you could stop him so easily? "Why would he offer me a ride, then?"
"Eh, who the hell knows. Some days he's real predictable about what he wants. Other times he's like the crazy king of some castle. Or something."
"Uh, right."
The rain had slowed significantly at that point, prompting me to move away from the awning. "We should get going. Don't want to be late, after all."
Ryuji sighed and slumped down again. "Think Kamoshida's already ruined my day, man. What a waste."
I kept quiet as I trudged down the wet street, taking care to avoid the puddles I saw. Kept my eyes to the floor while turning through a couple of alleys to the little street where the school should have been. Should have been.
"What...?"
If I had been carrying my phone at that moment, I almost certainly would've dropped it. Where I would have expected to see the concrete block of Shujin academy rising upwards was instead a red stone wall that extended a ways in both directions, topped with a trim of shiny golden bricks. The wall was bisected by a heavy metal gate that had been retracted upwards. Beyond the wall I could see a larger stone building looming behind mist that appeared almost purplish, as if the sun was somehow setting at that moment. The rain had stopped completely, and the air immediately felt like it had become ten degrees warmer.
"Uh."
I looked to the side and saw that Ryuji had arrived, and was just as confused as I was. "This is where Shujin is supposed to be, right?"
"Of course!" Ryuji said, although he didn't look very sure. "Something else must be going on here."
"Something else?"
"Maybe some... spontaneous redecoration? Testing out a holographic projector?"
I gingerly stepped forward and tapped the stone wall with my hand. It felt as real as rock could be.
"Okay, this is a little bit crazy."
"Just a little bit," I said. I racked my brains to try and recall if I had consumed any strange substances before arriving there. Nothing came to mind.
"Maybe we should go inside? Maybe there are other confused students there, too."
"I really hope so."
Past the gate was an ornate hall, lit with many small candles hung up against a number of columns that supported a cavernous roof. Additional light filtered onto little spots on the smooth tiled floor from small windows that were located far and up the walls. A large chandelier swayed slowly back and forth overhead. The place was utterly quiet aside from the faint gurgling of water in the distance. No one aside from me or Ryuji was in sight.
"What the hell is this?" Ryuji said, scuffing a rug on the floor with his shoe. "Some kinda ghost house thing?"
"I don't see any ghosts."
"Okay, this definitely isn't the right place." Ryuji pulled out a phone and tapped at the screen a couple of times, before scowling and putting it away. "And there's no service, too. Figures."
"Maybe we should leave and tell the cops about this?"
"That is starting to sound like a good idea."
The clanking was what I heard first; rusty bits of metal creaking and straining as they ground against each other. The sound was quite loud and had me immediately turning to my left. As my eyes swept in that direction, the edges of my peripheral vision revealed a human figure approaching us. It was covered from head to toe in armor, like some kind of knight, and it wielded a sword and heavy shield with ease. Its helmet contained a flat blue mask with a face painted on it, whose large eyes and lips appeared pensive, or perhaps even sad, in a feminine sort of way.
"Where the hell did that thing come from?" Ryuji whispered.
It was a good question. The amount of noise the thing made while walking meant that it couldn't have appeared in the hall without alerting us to it much earlier... yet there it was, and we were looking at it, surprised.
"We really should be leaving now," I whispered back, with as much confidence as I could muster.
We turned back to the gate, and found four more masked knights looking right at us.
"Uh-"
We didn't stand a chance. The guys in armor had us cornered instantly and threw us to the ground, before putting sacks over our heads and dragging us away by the arms. When they finally set us down, we were in a musty cell that was part of a larger prison system which we couldn't see the full extent of. The armored thugs who had taken us there locked the door and stomped away.
"Ugh.."
I tried and failed to brush some of the soreness from my limbs while standing up. The cell was much darker than the hall had been, being lit only by a solitary torch outside in the hall. The sound of running water had become much louder.
"What the hell is going on? Where are we?" Ryuji wheezed, walking over to the door and fruitlessly pulling at it. "This is insane. Is this a dream? No, I would've woken up by now if this was a dream."
"I don't think that's going to open."
"I have to try, don't I?!"
"You might make them angry again."
"Would you cut that crap for a minute? I don't want to die here, alright?" Ryuji kicked the door in frustration and started screaming. "HELLO?! IS ANYONE OUT THERE? HELLO?"
No one answered him. The sounds of water rushing away and the torch in the hall crackling were all we heard.
"Maybe we should look for things here that could help us," I suggested.
The endeavour turned out to be a waste of time. There was nothing of value in the cell - just some burlap sacks, a bed made of rotting wood, and a few chunks of broken bricks. Nothing to help us escape or defend ourselves with. Our captors hadn't even had the courtesy to leave us a bucket. I wasn't particularly surprised at that point, of course.
"Looks like we're out of options, then," I said, sitting down on the bed.
Ryuji glared at me. "So you're saying we're just going to die here?"
I didn't want to confirm it, but the deep knot in my gut suggested that the possibility was pretty likely. "All we can do now is wait and hope that some kind of help arrives."
"So you're giving up."
Sometimes, that's all you can do. I decided on a whim to check my phone, despite Ryuji's earlier assurances that there was no service, and found that the strange app from when I had arrived in Tokyo had opened itself and was showing the swirling red eye again. I felt a brief surge of hope and began hammering the screen, desperately thinking that I could cause something useful to happen, but the app proved to be completely unresponsive. I sighed and put my phone away again.
"What was that?" Ryuji asked.
"Nothing important."
We sat in silence in that cell for a while longer. I kept track of the time that passed for twenty minutes before I gave up trying to make sense of the madness and decided to try tracing patterns in the dusty floor instead. Occasionally, we would hear the buzzing of flies moving past us in the distance, or faint thumping that suggested something heavy was moving around above us. The darkness outside of the cell remained impenetrable as could be.
It gave me time to reflect on how the situation wasn't so different from how I ended up in Tokyo to begin with. It had taken just one mistake, one little lapse of judgment, and everything had gone sour very quickly. The mistake hadn't looked like a mistake at the time, either, even though it appeared obvious now. Don't get involved with strangers making a scene at night. Don't walk into strange, glowing castles. I could only hope that I would get some kind of explanation for the absurdity of it all at some point before the worst came.
There was a part of me that still wanted to complain about the unfairness of it all. The more rational side of me was already working on accepting the obvious. That I had screwed up again. And on the very first day of school, too. My parents would be so proud of me.
Then, the sounds of metal creaking came again. This time, they grew audibly from a distance instead of appearing suddenly from what seemed like nowhere. The masked knights had returned, and this time they appeared to be escorting a man with them.
"What the hell," Ryuji muttered, squinting at the figures as they got closer. "Is that Kamoshida?"
The man was quite similar to the one I had seen in the car that morning, but a couple of things were off. The first issue was his eyes, which had become bright yellow. The second was his choice of attire, which looked ridiculous. He wore a golden crown, a regal looking cape with a fur collar that was patterned with hearts, nothing but a bright pink speedo underneath that, and equally pink slippers. It was like some bizarre fusion between a drunk bachelor at home and a monarch. Under different circumstances, I would have laughed at the sight of him.
"A-hem," Kamoshida coughed as he reached our cell. "So these were the intruders you were talking about? A pity. I was hoping not to interrupt my schedule for today, but I suppose surprises are the best way to liven one's self up."
"Look, Kamoshida," Ryuji said. "I don't know what you're playing at, but-"
"So why not start my Monday off with two executions? The penalty for trespassing in my castle is death, after all!"
It took a second for Kamoshida's words to sink in. "Y-you freak-"
"Actually, make that four executions, since the penalty for insulting the king is also death! I'm sure I'll think of something..."
Kamoshida waved his arm, and the masked knights opened the cell door and walked in, weapons drawn.
"You-you can't-" I sputtered.
"You know, why don't we start with this one?" Kamoshida said, pointing right at my chest. "This no good brat was giving me so much trouble earlier. All these troublesome extra forms and things to sign, just because of one assault charge! Wasting the king's time is a penalty punishable by death! Six executions!"
Two knights stepped forward, ever so slowly, while the others blocked off Ryuji. Their swords creeping towards my neck.
"Not that you need encouragement, right?" Kamoshida continued. "I can see it in your eyes. The desire to submit. Don't fight it. Give in. Give in to my power. To my authority. Submit!"
"He isn't wrong, you know," another voice seemed to say, while time crawled forward. "Your entire journey here has been one of passivity. You've already accepted your fate and decided that you're going to lie down and take it. There really isn't any helping you, is there?"
What do you mean? I wanted to reply. There wasn't anything I could have done! I did the absolute best I could with my circumstances!
"Opportune words spoken by weak men. Even though you faced injustice, you accepted it as truth, and the sins committed by others as your own. Even if the path to rebellion were to be opened to you right now, you have already corralled yourself off from it. You truly are pathetic."
I am not pathetic!
"Not pathetic! Yet here you are, cowering like a rat in a cage. The truly indomitable would at least be making an effort of resistance, even when at their lowest point."
What difference would that make?
"What difference marks the brave from the cowardly, the insightful from the insipid, the rebel from the slave? It is as I feared. You are wasting my time."
Shut up! You don't understand-
"What don't I understand?! I am you, and you are me. And I understand that you have given up. You have chosen to let these corrupt authorities rule absolutely over you. So why shouldn't they be free to do with you as they please? Perhaps it's you who deserves to die."
That's not-
"IT'S NOT WHAT, BOY?!"
It's not fair.
"That's better."
Time sped up again as one of the knights slashed at me with its sword. Backed up against a wall, I had nowhere to go, and it would have surely killed me, were it not miraculously thrown backwards at the last second by a burst of blue flames. My relief at surviving was short lived, as my face was suddenly overcome by an immense pain.
"Aaargh-"
It was as if a nest of termites, ants, and wasps had all suddenly appeared right under my skin. My arms moved up in a frenzy, as I was overcome with the insatiable urge to scratch and claw at my own flesh. My hands were blocked from my face by something hard, which made me panic. I had to get the things out of my skin. I found edges of the thing on my face and pulled as hard as I could, which only made the pain worse. The thing felt like it had been glued there, and wasn't budging. In desperation I could only pull harder, only focus on how it appeared to move a little, with perhaps a bit more effort...
Then, it came off, and the effect was like finally pulling off a bandage. The pain was gone, and the world was clear. Huge torrents of fire swept away from me, incinerating two of the nearest knights. From thin air appeared a strange, red devil-like creature with feathery wings and an oversized knife, who hovered over me, leering at all who looked upon his face.
"I am Arsene, the pillager of twilight," the creature said. "The rebel's soul residing within you. You have shown a moment of defiance in the face of injustice. In return, I will consider lending you my power to create your own justice. What are your intentions?"
"I want to get out of here," I said.
"Hmph. I suppose that is a goal I can abide by. I shall aid you for now."
Kamoshida, who had been watching the whole scene on the floor in shock, finally stood up. "Guards - seize him!"
The two remaining knights moved to face me, but began twisting and contorting as they drew closer to Arsene, before violently convulsing and deforming into floating jack-o-lanterns.
"Do not be frightened by these enemies you see!" Arsene said. "They cower before those who act with conviction. Strike them!"
A word floated to the top of my consciousness. Pointing to one of the jack-o-lanterns, I shouted, "Eiha!"
A clump of darkness shot up from the floor, engulfing the creature in an instant and leaving nothing behind. In response, I couldn't help but smile. For the first time in quite a while, it really felt as if things were going my way.
The other jack-o-lantern became enraged and swung forward at me, spitting fire out of its mouth. Blessed with a surge of speed and adrenaline I didn't know I was capable of, I rolled out of the way, leaving a burnt spot on the wall I had been standing by.
"Take this!" Arsene said, throwing me his knife.
I caught it by the handle and turned on the remaining jack-o-lantern. Sidestepping another charge it made, I managed to lunge forward and drive the knife deep inside it. It screamed in response, dropping to the floor as a lifeless husk.
I paused to look at where Kamoshida had been standing, only to catch a glimpse of him running away. I also noticed Ryuji, who was staring at me in awe.
"Woah," Ryuji said.
"Yeah," I replied.
We looked at each other for a moment longer before I turned back to Arsene.
"You have done well thus far," Arsene said. "But this is only the first of many challenges that will await you. Are you ready to face them?"
"I don't know," I said. Or if I even want to. This is all so confusing.
Arsene did not reply, but instead vanished in another flash of blue flame. With him gone, the elation and courage that had been holding me together for the past minute seemed to vanish as well. The world began to spin, and I leaned against the wall heavily in order to keep upright.
"You alright, man?" Ryuji asked.
"Let's... not do that again," I said.
