"Is this just a game to you?"

An empty room. Golden eyes. The faintest of smiles amidst a pillared structure.

"Games can be won. I suppose you could consider this my prize."

Dawn stretched its golden fingers through the blinds, the only glimmer of light amidst the reddening sky; the first exposure of sunrise. Thirty minutes past five am, sharp and Mio Tsukimura climbs out of bed.

She yawns as she passes underneath the doorway into a desolate hall. Bereft of life save for a few cardboard boxes in place of a small table and a mirror still wrapped in plastic hanging on the wall. She pauses, tilts her head and examines the reflection beneath the packaging.

Grey eyes study her back, underneath a few stray strands of golden hair. (She really needs a haircut; her bangs nearly cover her eyes even as she brushes them to the side behind her ears). Mio tracks down her hair clips from where they've fallen to the side of her futon and clips the grey baubles into a small pair of buns on each side of her head.

The kitchen is in a similarly unkempt state. Mio glances over at the bench top. She sniffs- the room still smells of pizza from last night, and with a slight grimace of annoyance, she realises that Papa didn't quite get around to putting the leftovers in the fridge. They sit on a paper plate under some paper towels.

Some black flies circle the air above it. Tossing it into the bin (some plastic bags hanging on the door to an empty cupboard), she pokes her head into the fridge to grab the apple juice.

A sheet of paper with black text hastily written on it, followed by a small drawing of a smiley face.

hope you have a good day at school! I have work tonight, there's money for take out on the dining table.

love you!

Folding the paper up, the wrinkled sheet follows the pizza to the trash.

"Left…" she murmured under her breath, "up the stairs, then take a left-"

Another empty hallway greeted her. Mio frowned. Glancing down at her phone- and immediately winced, taking note of the fact that she's a solid twelve and a half minutes late. There's a door to her left, and leaning into the glass, square window reveals some shapes moving inside. She swings it open.

The classroom (3-A, from the sign next to the door) was surprisingly loud in spite of being the first day- high schoolers, dressed in their grey shirts and blue pants and most of all, dressed in a fine layer of sweat from the heat. Cluttered around desks, leaning over one another, chattering in their hushed whispers.

Noting an empty seat in the middle of the room, Mio pushed past a particularly gaudy young lady, dumping her bag on the floor next to the wooden table.

No one goes out of their way to address her- not that she expected them to- but the feeling of being a ghost in a room full of the living was… sad. She'd had a lot of friends back in Shibuya. Here, well-

She has Papa, right?

(not really, he works an office job now-)

"Sorry, sorry, teach!" A cheery voice cuts through the quiet, when did it go quiet? Looking up, she catches sight of the fact that her peers have moved into standing behind their seats- looking dead into the eyes of an elderly woman at the front of the room. Mio hurriedly stands.

Though, it seems her delay wasn't noticed at all. The teacher is preoccupied by someone else. A student, though the uniform is creased, mismatched, with the grey shirt hidden behind a black hoodie. Mio, caught off-guard by her loud, cheery voice, took the time to notice the girls hair was coloured, ombre shaded purple.

"But, to be fair, I arrived just before the bell went off. So- technically, I'm not late, right?" The teacher boredly stares her down, before sighing.

"It's the first day back, Kisaki-san." A wrinkled hand, kneading into her brow. "Can't you take this a bit more seriously?"

Finger guns. She laughs confidently. "C'mon, with a face and bod' like this, do I really need class at all?"

"...Take your seat."

Which coincidentally happens to be the one to Mio's left. Mio kicks her bag to under the table, gives a weak smile and a, "heya."

"Hm…? Oh- hey! Haven't seen you around here before." She reaches out a hand. Her palms are calloused, creased with… hard work? She doesn't look weak -Kisaki- her muscles are lean through the folds of her shirt, and as they shake hands, Mio feels as if her arm is about to be pulled out of her socket. "What's 'ya name, anyway?"

"Mio," she replies, and for a split-second, something feels off. Or familiar. "Mio Tsukimura. Nice to meet you, Kisaki-chan!"

"Hah! Leapin' straight to informalities, eh? I like you already. Names Haruhi though- just call me that, yeah?"

She nods, gives a small smile. "Right."

Haruhi points past her, first to the long-haired boy who's sitting just in front of Mio- then to Mio's right, where another boy fiddles with some black earrings. Person One (Sleepy, she dubs him based on the lidded eyes and lazy demeanour), lifts a hand and a lucid smile, tilting his head back with a simple, "yo."

Mio shakes his hand as well.

An average build, an average face, with a bright, if not half-asleep gaze, Sleepy pushes a few strands of brown hair out of his eyes.

"Rinjiro Mikagura. Nice to meet'cha." His green eyes swivel, turning to the Person Two. "Eita, don't be rude. Introduce yourself."

"What?" A sharp voice, like gravel falling to the ground. Eita, is- out of all the people in this classroom, she can count on one hand the people who are in uniform (and it includes both herself and Rinjiro). "Why?"

The grumpy boy looks like some kind of mix between a punk and a gardener; mohawk braid, dark, dark eyes… and overalls. She double takes. Plaid, green and matched with cute little gold buckles.

She holds out a hand. He wrinkles his nose, then acknowledges it and follows through on the action. "Yeah, whatever."

Ah- so this is what they call an 'edgy bastard'. Mio nods approvingly.

A pause.

"Um."

"You got a problem?" He grits his teeth, only to be smacked upside the back of the head. "Tch- Fine! It's Eita. Eita Bunya."

Haruhi laughs, while Slee- Rinjiro, gives off a seemingly uncharacteristic frown. Near-silent communication, like some kind of Freudian trio of telepaths. For a moment, it feels as if she's some kind of outsider in a holy inner circle. Mio considers the possibility that she's a possessed demon (which would explain the discomfort, if nothing else), then brushes it off.

"It's nice to meet you all." Mio chirps.

She's brought out of the daze from meeting new people by three 'bangs', a wrinkled hand slamming thrice into the blackboard. Mio jumps and nearly falls back into the person behind her, a blonde guy, pushes her chair forward. She thanks him under her breath, then turns her attention forward, glancing at the open door.

3-A… is this the class she-

Wait a moment.

"Listen everyone-"

Something isn't right with that.

"I hope you all had a great break?" Mixed agreements and general levels of vagueness. The teacher chuckles. "I'm glad to have you all back, anyway. This will be your homeroom for the following year…"

She's not a third year.

Mio feels the colour drain from her face and she bolts from her seat, nearly tumbling over Rinjiro in the process. Several tables are knocked over, she steps on someone's foot by accident. Staggering her way out the door, the last grain of salt in the metaphorical wound is the moment where she somehow manages to smack her face into the sign.

And so, that is the story of how Mio Tsukimura found her way to her classroom (which was, go figure, in the other building), a solid forty minutes late, with a bloody nose and several pens missing from her bag, having dropped them in the rush.

"Tsukimura, I assume." The homeroom teacher raises an eyebrow. Vague bemusement lines his face. She grins, tries to channel the confidence of the girl- (Haruhi), into what comes out as more of a grimace.

"Uh… hi?" Mio glances around, taking note of the slight confusion, a room full of confused faces, unfamiliar people and… three chairs, more empty spaces than in the other room. "Sorry I'm late!"

He motions her to a different seat, where a mauve-haired girl looks over her sympathetically. "...Rough morning?"

"You could say that again." She murmurs back.

"If you two lovely ladies in the centre could quiet down a bit?" Mio promptly shuts up again, and the teacher turns back to where the chalk was starting to settle on the blackboard.

Lunch couldn't come sooner.

The halls are cluttered- Mio struggles to meet their eyes; not out of any shyness, but rather, the tinge of humiliation from her earlier mishap. They take note of the few drops of blood on the collar of her shirt, and their distrust is palpable. Or, at least, she thinks it is.

Initially intending on making her way to cafeteria, she pauses at the line near the door. A flicker of white- fur- the shape she saw yesterday, skittering down the stairs.

Caught off-guard by something interesting, Mio bolts after it.

"Come back!" It has the opposite effect. The (rabbit, based on the ears?), creature twists their head at being called, before disappearing down the hallway.

Mio leaps the last three steps, nearly crashing into a dark haired guy- ("Watch it!"-), shoving past him to where the rabbit swivelled a corner, passing through the crack in an open doorway. She flings the door open all the way and hears it slam behind her.

It appears to be a broom closet- or, at the least, it was a broom closet at one stage. Dark, dingy, stretching into depths; briefly, she wonders how far it reaches. When she extends her hand out, she doesn't find anything where the back of the closet should be. "It's dangerous down there!" He doesn't respond.

Naturally, she pushes onwards. Stumbling over a bucket, she straightens up, using the wall as her guide.

It ought to concern her, that the broken mops, spilled cleaning agents and rags slowly give way to… liquid. Red, black, clinging to her fingers even as she wipes it on the front of her shorts. "What the hell…?"

There it is again. That familiarity. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, common sense is screaming at her. But! She has never been one to give up in the face of fear, and so, she marches onwards-

-and reacts just in time to avoid tripping over a small body on the floor.

"Nngh.." never mind, he's alive.

She pokes his shoulder. The rabbit groans, tilts his head, and looks up with a rather nasty reddening eye. Mio winces. "Uh… hey? You go tumbling down a rabbit hole or something?"

Propping him up, she dusts him off as much as she is able to and confirms that- yes, it is in fact, a bipedal white rabbit, walking on it- his back legs. With a red checkered bow tie no less. Mio takes a moment to wonder what the heck is going on.

"Ah… my skull- guess someone shoulda given me a 'heads up', right?" He laughs. She laughs back. She doesn't get it at all. "Anyway. Who're you? What're you doing here?"

"Mio Tsukimura- And I was following you, of course." She nods and holds out her hand for a hand...paw shake. "You are?"

"Usagi." He reciprocates, looking over her with black, beady eyes. "Usa-kun also works."

"That's generic." She mused. Taking a glance around, some more red and black liquid splatters on the ground near her shoes. "Uh. I didn't see this place on any map in Jikangai. Academy or otherwise."

"It's part of the Metaverse." He pauses, looks her over for a moment and tilts his head. "You might want to get going now. Shadows are coming." At her blank stare, "they're monsters. Nasty things."

"Monsters." He nods. "In Jikangai?" He nods again. "As in, here, Jikangai?"

"I don't know any other Jikangai's, do you?"

Mio considers this. "...Nope? Wait- so why are they here? What do they do? Do we, like, do we have a neighbourhood exorcist?"

The rabbit stared her down. Slowly, he shook his head. "You're weird. Anyway, go! Shoo! You'll get eaten up if you stay for too long in this place. It ain't nice to outsiders. Sinks into your mind. It's not nice to you."

Naturally, she doesn't listen. When the creature begins to hop away, she shrugs and follows after him.

Shadows… her mind drifts, her eyes stray to the walls. Upon re-pressing a hand to the one closest to her left, she feels it pulse momentarily, almost like a heartbeat before pulling away- repulsed. The goop clings, but the actual wall…

She shakes her head and tries to focus.

Usa-kun has disappeared out of her sight, but small red pawprints line the blackened floor. Regaining her attention, she takes note of the fact that the ceiling is higher here- no, actually, the roof has given way to foliage. Turning her head to the wall, she realises that the brick wall has twisted into bark.

A forest. In the middle of a school. Breaking into a jog, she catches up to where the rabbit now sits idly, looking forward. On a particularly large tree, a golden sigil, sitting behind curled chain and a lock. The rabbit eyes it warily.

When she steps too close, he holds up a paw to press against her leg. "Don't. She'll get into your head."

"She? ...The person who did this?" Even as Usa-kun nods, Mio can see the beginnings of a face in the carved wood. Something that looks like long-ish hair, atop a gaunt face. Familiarity, though much more recent. "What's happened to him?"

He turns to her, red eyes flickering. "...You're really not going to give up, are you?"

"Of course I'm not!"

"Hm. Maybe I was wrong-" before she can ask him what he means, "this place, and all others like it here, it's products of her. The corruption of choices, refusal to accept, refusal to deny… and the refusal to deviate. That's how they lure you in- the shadows, I mean. You get stuck in the aftermath of choice or lack thereof, and boom. A fake world is formed."

The rabbit inclines his head to the poor figure. "I assume he must've gotten stuck here at some point. Anyway! If we wanna help him, we have to break the core of this world. I call 'em Pillars. We gotta track this one down, break it up nice and small, and then we can get this guy out before he becomes a shadow."

"And what happens if we don't break it in time?"

A long stare.

"You don't want to know."

He turns around, and leads her to where, presumably, the heart of the problem lies. Down a branching path, to the left of the chained tree. Mio tries to imagine what she'll find at the end.

A monster? A person? A decision made convoluted?