["dialogue."] - Dialogue in this format means the character is speaking in their native language (Japanese).

/

["Continuation should never be trusted, no matter what."]

The noble commander of St, Gloriana, Darjeeling, always had disdain towards the pseudo-Finnish school. Petty theft, espionage, and bomb scares... Surprisingly, they aren't in jail for being a nuisance.

And these "crimes" were all orchestrated by the mysterious goddess of the wind, the elegant yet unrefined, and just as much of a spouter of bullshit.

That son of a bitch commander of Continuation.

"So, you came running to me after all the stupidity you and your posse caused. You know my feelings towards you, right?" Darjeeling firmly placed her cup down and looked over at the other members of the elusive Continuation Posse: the silver-blonde loader Aki, the white-clad "White Witch" Jouko, and the loud and unmannered red-haired Mikko.

All the blonde commander thought about was the deplorable behaviour of Mikko, who had her feet up on the table.

Darjeeling looked back at the accused. "You have no respect for anyone or anything, don't you?

Just like before, she stayed silent. The ignorant commander became a source of irritation to St. Glo's noblest sister.

"I'm going to ask you again, why did you and your group do it?"

"..."

Darjeeling's blood began to furiously boil. "If you ran away to me, then why aren't you answering me?"

She didn't get a response.

Aki, seeing her friend being bombarded by Darjeeling, decided to take action. She got up from the couch and began walking to the table the commanders were seated at and vehemently requested for Darjeeling to shut up.

Darjeeling only laughed and told Aki in her native language of Japanese, "Aki, if you knew any better, then you wouldn't be working with a blatant liar." The commander rolled her eyes and gestured to one of her subordinates to forcefully escort Aki away.

["W-wait, hold on a moment!"] She yelled as she resisted.

["Be quiet, kid!"] The subordinate, who had brown hair tied in a braid, blasted back.

As she tugged and pulled her away from the table, the aggravation within Aki piled on like brick upon brick upon brick before, all of a sudden...

CRASH!

It was so sudden when it happened. Darjeeling stood up and walked over to inspect the mess Aki had created.

The victim: a glass wardrobe filled with teacups that the loader rammed the subordinate into.

Aki gestured to Mikko and Jouko to head out with her. Directing her stare towards the defeated subordinate, Aki scoffed to Darjeeling in perfect English, "I'll escort myself, thank you very much!"

As the three friends walked out, Darjeeling sat back down and grabbed her cup, looking down at the tea that reminded her of the summer dusk sky of the Pacific. "As I was saying, 'Mika-san'," she took a sip from her tea and glared at her, "you seem to keep running around the place. From here to there, from Nagasaki to the forests of Fuji, it always beckons me to wonder why you are constantly on the run."

Suddenly, the eyes of 'Mika-san' widened. Seeing her reaction, Darjeeling asked, "As I was saying, you're constantly on the run from something. What is it exactly?"

"..."

St. Gloriana's commander took her gaze back toward her subject. But, this gaze felt much more sinister than usual.

"Actually," she spoke up with malice, "you don't need to answer that, Fumika-san."

Every word that came out of Darjeeling up to that point irked her. But this... All she wanted was nothing more than that blonde bitch's mouth to be sewn shut.

Fumika just wanted everything to stop.

Her head still hung with sorrow as she told Darjeeling, ["...Can you at least speak to me in Japanese."]

"Of course, Fumika-san."

["What did I just say-"]

"A low-life like you shouldn't get respect from someone like me, Fumika," the blonde interrupted, still speaking English.

Fumika's proverbial dam slowly began to crack open as rage slowly seeped out into her blood. Her fingers slowly wiggled into a clenched fist. However, just as she was about to tell Darjeeling to piss off, her gaze noticed something weird towards her pompous interrogator. but her eyes didn't even twitch.

It was almost as if her interrogator... was frozen in time. Not even the dust particles that were visible from the sunlight stood a chance against this harrowing phenomenon.

Fumika was the only one who could even move around during these weird events.

She chose not to move and stayed seated, continuing to glare into those cold blue eyes that still radiated a sinful reservoir of pride and undeniable malice that had taunted the Continuation commander for the last hour.

Every second of glaring into Darjeeling's eyes unlocked an old memory of her childhood.

A childhood lost, a childhood wasted, a childhood that didn't even happen.

Fumika quickly stood right up and tried to run, but every step felt like a slow-motion replay, like walking through knee-deep snow. She attempted to quickly trudge through, as the memories quickly flooded in like a tsunami of toxic waste.

By the time she put her hand on the doorknob, the memories had seeped into every crevice of her brain.

Every thought she recalled, every notable moment, bombarded her fragile mind and made her motor functions crumble like falling sand. She tried to let go of the thought, but thinking of her friends or something that made her happy didn't work.

The influx of memories of suffering, hardships, and lost expectations ransacked her childhood... All these memories finally coalesced in a soft voice that she knew all too well, a voice she didn't want to hear again, a voice that knocked her down...

["It's okay, big sis... I'll be fine with Mother..."]

Hearing her voice again was the last straw.

She was brought down to her knees from the seeping vulnerability she felt. Her entire body trembled, and trembled, and trembled and she wrapped her arms around herself. Her mouth quivered and her nose tingled, the feeling rushing up to her eyes. Everything around her slowly disappeared into the darkness- Darjeeling, the ornate walls, the light outside, all fading to black.

The only thing in the light of the dark was a defeated Fumika and the ever-growing rain, the rain that she conjured herself.

Aki wasn't there to help her.

Mikko wasn't there to help her.

Jouko wasn't there to help her.

There was no one Fumika could turn to.

There was nobody but Fumika.

And eventually, the darkness took over everything...