This story is a work of fiction. Any similarities to events or persons living or dead in your world is purely coincidental.

Hold onto me, as we go

As we roll down this unfamiliar road

And although this wave is stringing us along

Just know that you're not alone

'Cause I'm gonna make this place your Home

4/12 Friday

Morning

Mirambela was not speaking to her. Not in first period, not in any period. Not in lunch. At no point in the entire school day did she acknowledge Aiko's presence, turning whenever she tried to lock eyes. Aiko would have pressed further, but wished to avoid causing a scene.

"There's some new information you don't know", she told Shukiji at lunch, trying to sound singsong teasing instead of dour. Shukiji's usual custom seemed to be eating alone. Despite being native, it seemed he was about as popular as her. "Information I could trade you."

"Sorano-san is having a fight with you about something", Shukiji said without batting an eye.

Aghast, she stared into her food for a moment to hide her disappointment. She felt like she might cry. "Yeah! Don't you wanna know what the 'something' is? Because I sure do! What did I do? Why isn't Mira-senpai speaking to me today?"

Though he hardly seemed sympathetic to her distress, Shukiji turned to face her. He was far from intimidating due to his being shorter than her, but his face was firm. "That information will reveal itself in due time, without my searching for it. You'll see. I bet that before the end of the day, you'll know as well. That's free, by the way. A reward for earlier."

She stared back as if she could hardly believe that this was how Shukiji had lived for a year. Possibly more years in middle school. "What happened to you, Niyoga-kun? What made you into this? Why do you do this? It's not how normal kids behave!"

The small boy blinked, but it was obvious that he had heard such pleas many times before. He steeped his hands on the table, casting his lunch tray aside now that it was empty. "Oh, what a frightening prospect it must be", he mused idly. "To be 'normal'. God save me from so-called 'normalcy' As to your earlier question, that information will be very expensive even at your discount."

"Don't bother then", she conceded in defeat. There was nothing she could think of, nothing she knew that Shukiji wouldn't already have tucked away in that perfect memory of his. "I thought you were my friend."

She wasn't looking back any more, but she did sense a pause. "I am your friend, Tsuruga-san. You've been given the friend discount, which I don't offer to very many people. Would you expect a shopkeeper in the city to give you things for free, just because you were their friend?"

Hastily finishing her lunch, she glared fire back. "This isn't the same. And if you can't understand the difference... then I pity you."

There was no pause this time. She only noticed how small he really seemed from across the lunch table as she departed.

4/12 Friday

Afternoon

"As you can see", Ms. Daisouji explained with the aid of the diagram on the board, propping her square-framed glasses back up as she did, "the combination of the three electron emitters for blue, red and green can be used in a cathode tube to create any number of colours you like. Derivatives of that technology can be found in every television or computer you see. It's amazing to see just how far it's come from primitive, monochrome beginnings a mere 70 years ago."

Aiko wrote carefully, trying to focus on the lecture and drown out everything else in the world. Especially the way Mira was defiantly refusing to glance her way.

It was misery. As Shukiji might have said, it was a mysterious misery. But Shukiji was right about one thing: it wouldn't last. Mira couldn't escape her forever, even if she wanted to. If this was the storm of trouble on the horizon that person that she couldn't quite remember spoke of, then she could power on through it and look forward to a better day after.

For a moment, Aiko wondered if the meaning had been literal and checked the classroom windows. Clear skies, and very calm waters out there. The white-feathered bird from her first day flew past once, but nothing disturbed the sea.

The storm was not a physical one and it was not her misery. It was someone else's misery, which she only became aware of at the end of the period when loud shouting reached her ears, drawing her and many others towards the nurse's office like an enchanted flute. Attracted by misery, Aiko noted to herself sadly. Other people's misery.

Then she saw it through a window, and all other thoughts, poetic or otherwise, were left behind in the dust. A heavyset nurse was already working to keep students out of the office, but she could clearly make out the sight of Noel Vitienne.

And there, among a score of faculty who must have been just as shocked as her, was the motionless, waterlogged body of a short girl with the same haircut and face from his sketchbook.

"Call the hospital", one of the nurses ordered immediately. "Tell them to hurry."

Noel was much less coherent. Only the other nurses stopped him from grabbing the body and squeezing it to bursting as he wept. "Furusato... Ayano, please... God, please...!"

Then Ms. Daisoji was there, helping to shoo the crowd away before they could see any more details. Aiko found herself being swept back out into the hall by the press of curious bodies until Noel could no longer be seen.

For a time she did nothing, unable to fully process what had just happened. Ayano-san, who disappeared. What happened to her? Did Noel-kun find her?

Wait... she was completely soaked. Dripping all over the carpet, which means...?

She fumbled for her phone.

AT: They found Ayano. She's not breathing.

Reiha must have been busy, because the response didn't come for several minutes. She didn't expect any answer from Mira.

RH: You mean that girl who was missing? Noel's girl?

AT: She was completely soaked.

AT: I think Noel found her on the south coast and brought her in. He was looking for her there yesterday too.

And no uniform, the thought occurred to Aiko just then. Normal clothes, some kind of dark blouse over a T-shirt. Whatever Ayano had planned for her last moments on earth, it wasn't going to school.

RH: I always thought that was dangerous.

AT: Do you think she jumped into the sea from the cliff?

RH: No. There's a bunch of nets set up down there to stop people from jumping. Principal Yumika had them put in years ago. I saw the posters in the city. She's been missing since before school started.

AT: Going to check the coast.

4/12 Friday

After School

The south coastline greeted Aiko with a tranquillity at odds with everything else boiling in her brain. Nothing had changed. The tide still lapped in and out like clockwork, and the score of fishing boats was still nestled in the various coves that the rocks created. A faint breeze stirred up the local seagulls, but aside from that everything looked perfectly peaceful.

Something deep within Aiko disagreed with that assessment, and she squinted. Something's here. Something that I can't see with my eyes or hear with my ears. Something in the water?

After half an hour of wet searching, she could find nothing. "Come out", she whispered to the tide, so angry that it felt like she was shouting it. "Show yourself! Tell me what you did to Furusato-san! TELL ME!"

"That girl... was she your friend?"

Aiko turned, realizing that one of the larger fishing boats wasn't as empty as she'd thought. This one was beached further than most of them, to the point that the bow couldn't be seen in the sand. It wasn't in the best of shape either, dark paint chipping off the hull in multiple places and the sails showing signs of wear and tear.

More important was the man who had called out to her, standing on the deck of what she presumed was his boat. He was certainly dressed the part, wearing a thick white jacket and undershirt. More telling was his red-white naval style cap and the prominent handlebar mustache stretching out almost to the extremes of the man's face, ashen gray like the rest of his head hair and a brief stripe of beard going down to his collar.

"No", she admitted finally. "We never met. But she was Noel-kun's friend. Now she's not breathing." She could even hear the approaching ambulance sirens if she listened closely.

The bearded man nodded sadly, olive mottled skin and dusty gray beard swaying with him. "I see. He was the one who came earlier then, and spotted the body. I'm sorry. If I'd been watching the shore, she might have gotten help earlier."

"It's not your fault", Aiko told him confidently. Noel had likely gone down to the shore during lunchtime, and spotted Ayano face down in the surf there. She wouldn't be at all surprise to find Noel taking another absence tomorrow. Logic dictated that his presence at Tosashimizu general hospital wouldn't increase the likelihood of Ayano's survival, but the heart wasn't logical. "She was missing for days before this."

"It broke my heart to see it", he said. "Lucky that boy came along when he did. Love is truly a precious and unique thing among youngsters."

Under other circumstances, she might have harped on him for saying something so trite, but tragedy had numbed her sense of sarcasm. She could only imagine what Noel was going through in his own mind.

"Wait.. may I see your pin, miss?"

"Hm?"

He made an inviting gesture towards his boat. "Your hairpin. It looks... familiar. Come aboard, miss. I won't bite."

The fisher's last words brought to Aiko's mind the danger she was in if this man wasn't sincere. She wasn't sure of the likelihood of the local fishermen or mariners suddenly turning into criminals, but this man's sheer physicality in spite of his age reminded her that if he was so inclined, he could probably knock her out with one good punch and toss her overboard into the same fate as Ayano.

Instinct, the thing that had brought her here to start with, said that he was fine. Weighed down by age perhaps, and more used to dealing with seas than people. Not unlike me, really. I'll give him a chance.

Her re-shoed feet made a hollow noise as they touched down on the boat's wooden deck, and the fisher offered her his large hand daintily, as if he was welcoming her to a grand gala aboard a yacht instead of just the two of them. "Welcome aboard the Fiddler's Green, madame", he announced half-jokingly. "I'm Captain Tongwa Byzael. I'd offer you something to drink if you weren't underage."

"I'm not thirsty", she said, taking in more of the ship's decor as she spoke. "I did just get out of the water."

"You swam well for one your age", the captain agreed, a strange note of pride in his voice. "May I see your hairpin, miss?"

Again she hesitated, and again instinct prevailed. She reached back into her hair to pluck the pin, finding it healthy as ever after her dip in the surf. "I'm Aiko Tsuruga. And please be careful with it. It's my most treasured possession."

Byzael did indeed treat the ruby pin with the utmost caution, bringing it to a covered table near the rear deck before beginning to turn it over in his weathered hands. Aiko watched with a strange anticipation, wondering if this man would be able to glean from it the message that, to her reckoning, only she understood.

There was no lettering on the metal around the ruby. No painted runes or characters like the ones she now spotted running along the port side identifying Byzael's ship as the 'Fiddler's Green'. The message only came when she was holding the pin herself, hands clasped around the ruby. It was nothing but a simple instruction. Keep your way.

"So", the captain remarked softly just when Aiko began to fear he had fallen asleep. "You're... this is quite a nice treasure you have here, miss Tsuruga. Worth a lot of yen, I'd wager. Your parents give this to you?"

"My father", she said, knowing the details didn't matter. "But he's gone now."

Byzael stood gravely, returning the hairpin before travelling back to the side rail. "It must've been difficult for you, growing up like that. Your father is supposed to teach you the things you need to know to survive where you're headed. Mine taught me how to sail, and how to fish. Even after everything else fell apart, I still had that."

"You're pretty far in", Aiko remarked, joining him at the rail where the Green's stern hit the tide. "How often do you go out on the water?"

"Not as much as I'd like to any more", the captain admitted gently. "But this is a tough old beauty. She'll more than likely outlive me. I've sailed the world, you know. I've seen things on distant shores that no one in this land could conceive of. Now, it seems all anyone wants to do is make their world smaller instead of larger."

"Not everyone in this country thinks like the JCAP", Aiko piped up quickly. "In fact, I'd say they're the minority."

"They're a very loud minority", the captain put a hand to his ear in mockery. "Putting extra tariffs on people shipping food to other countries in need of it... bah! I'll do what I want with my fish, thank you very much."

Aiko chuckled at that. She couldn't help it. There was something so anachronistic and disarming about this man that trust came naturally. It might have had something to do with his occupation. "You're living my dream, captain", she told him quietly. "I always wanted to have a ship like this, and just go wherever the wind takes me."

"Is that so?" The captain turned, taking a sweep of the rest of the deck before returning to her. "It's not too late, you know."

Aiko paused, looking back at the interesting markings on the captain's jacket. "Huh?"

Now Byzael led her out to the very tip of the ship, the part that was the most buried in the sand. Because of that, it was also the highest up, and by turning around they could see past the main mast to the entire coastline.

"I told you before", he began carefully. "This ship will outlive me. Without me, she'll end up a derelict, slowly rotting away on the shore until she's just a skeleton of rotten timber. No one else in the country wants her. They'll go spend hundreds of millions of yen on the fancy metal tubs without any personality to 'em. But you..."

Aiko stared across the bow, hardly believing what she was hearing. "But... I'm a high school student, Mr. Byzael. I don't have any money to give you. Not very much anyway."

But the captain simply withdrew an unusually thin cigar from a pocket on the inside of his jacket, lighting it with a tool in the other pocket.

"Keep your money, miss Tsuruga. I'm talking about proving yourself a worthy heir to the ship that I called my home for decades. Come to me on this beach after you're done school, whenever you can. I'll show you how to sail her properly, and when you've shown me that you can do it... then the Fiddler's Green will belong to you. I promise you."

It sounded too good to be true. She didn't care. She was suddenly examining every rusty bolt and board of the boat with renewed interest, a lifelong dream long discarded, suddenly lying on the threshold of realisation. Quite suddenly, she realised she was blushing just as much as she had in the school lobby during room assignments. "You.. you're not teasing me, are you? Everyone says that girls are bad sailors."

Byzael let out a loud guffaw and extinguished his pipe. "Superstition, missy, nothing more. If you can do everything I ask of you, then you'll be just as fine a captain as I, if not better. The choice is yours."

Consideration only took a moment more. Even if this was a scam, even if legal ownership of the Fiddler's Green was merely a carrot on a stick that he was dangling before her, the chance to learn real lessons in sailing instead of swimming would be a valuable stepping stone towards her dreams.

"I agree", she reached out to take his hand, shaking it with all her might. "Show me how to sail, and I'll take good care of it when..."

But he took no notice of her voice trailing off into sorrow at the prospect of his death. "Wonderful. Now we have a binding contract, you and I. But that can wait. The hour's late, and you've got more to do first. I'll be waiting here when you're ready."

He wasn't wrong, Aiko realized with a start. The sun was already falling into the horizon, casting bright orange light along the Fiddler's sails. Stepping back into the sand with a short leap, she turned back and smiled. "I will. And... thank you, Captain Byzael."

4/12 Friday

Evening

Encountering Byzael had been an interesting experience, but it had only distracted Aiko from the day's other events for so long. Nothing further could be done about Ayano and Noel yet, but she steeled her jaw before charging into dorm room 22.

Mira was in there, writing something in a school notebook until she heard the door crack open, at which point she withdrew from the center of the room to her bed. Not even trying to hide it. No... it just isn't her nature to hide her feelings.

"Mira-senpai. I don't know what I did to make you so angry, but I'm sorry."

Mira said something back to her, but it was so quiet that Aiko had to nearly get onto her bed before she could hear it. "Sorry?", she heard at last, though despite a lack of volume the word carried a bitterness she had never heard her roommate deliver before now. "You... you say you're sorry for something that you don't even know about? An apology from you must really be worth a lot then. Just like everyone else who says sorry to me like it's a damn greeting."

Aiko flinched back at the venom in her words, still not comprehending. "Then... please, tell me."

Mirambela didn't tell her at first. She showed her, raising a seemingly innocuous sheet of paper that Aiko quickly recognized as Shukiji's printout of Mira's first-year grades.

"You thought this would be a laugh, didn't you? So you could go over all my failures, and see just how stupid I am? Isn't just hilarious?!"

The truth felt like it was crushing Aiko into the floor, into the room below theirs, and she could think of nothing to say before Mira ripped the paper in two and cast it down on the floor.

"Enjoy your laugh. Laugh at the stupid backwards gaijin who believed the new girl was trying to help her get better. There's one lesson I won't forget."

Sh couldn't even look at Mira any more. The anger in her eyes was too forward, too accusatory, and to behold it brought more tears to her eyes. "M-Mira senpai, please... I wasn't going to laugh at you. I just wanted to-"

"To show everyone this?", Mira asked mock-sweetly, lowering her eyes behind the notebook so that Aiko could actually look up. "Well done. I'm sure Kujou really appreciates being able to remind me, along with everyone else, of every single assignment and test I did poorly on last year."

No... I had Shu-kun print a copy... but if someone else paid him for the same information and spread it around...! "Ah... Mira-senpai, I'm... I'm so, so sorry! I didn't mean for that to happen!"

Spinning around, her roommate faced the opposite wall, eyes trying to bury themselves anew in a textbook. "Get off my bed. You're unbalancing me."

Aiko did as she was told, but it still smelled like the storm of Mira's anger was raging invisibly through the dorm room, threatening to consume her. Her own guilt was doing a fine job of that already.

"I'm sorry! I just wanted to help..."

For one blissful moment, the storm seemed to fade. Mira twisted around, her eyes locking into Aiko's. But she found no warmth there. Not anymore. Instead, it sounded as though Mira was the one crying now.

"That's what everyone says to me, thinking two words will fix everything. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, SORRY. That's your problem, Tsuruga-san. You think you can just be so polite and cheerful and nice to everyone, and everyone will smile and be your friend. Maybe that was the case at your middle school, but didn't I already warn you about this place? About me?"

Aiko stood before her in mental agony. She couldn't speak, or even make any noise.

Nodding, Mira snapped her book shut, casually tossing a few of them into a bag that she slung over her shoulder. "Your fault for not listening."

Without another word or gesture, Mira was gone out the door. Aiko found herself standing on top of one of the torn bits of paper, one shoe heavily stamping down on it as though everything that had just happened was its fault.

It wasn't. It was my fault. All my fault, for not being careful with this paper.

Useless.

Useless. Just like always.

Then she was falling, slowly as if in a dream. Hitting her mattress didn't cure the horrible sensations in her gut and head however. If anything, they got worse.

She couldn't concentrate on reading or eating. She could only think to sleep. Even that proved impossible, and she merely ended up sobbing into her pillow, all focus on goals of any level abandoned to sorrow.

Who am I? Not the daughter of the sea. That's just some stupid fairy tale I dreamed up in place of a father. Not a student at this academy, not really. Not my mother's daughter. A real daughter would have had the guts to call her back by now.

Not Mira's friend. Not anymore.

So then... who am I? Who?

Why was I born?

The night held no answers, and it took hours before the mercy of the unconscious void reached her.

4/13 Saturday

Morning

With everything else that had been going on, it seemed ridiculous to Aiko that she still had to worry about homework assignments being submitted today. Of course, the faculty didn't know half of what had transpired. Maybe they didn't care. Maybe this was just how hectic high school was supposed to be.

They certainly knew about the week's biggest incident. Principal Yumika was quick to offer a reward over the PA to anyone willing to come forward with information regarding the disappearance- and now near-death- of Ayano Furusato. The shore where Noel indicated she had washed up had become a crime scene blockaded by yellow tape stretched between the natural rock arches.

Of Noel, there was no sign.

Mirambela continued her stone wall treatment throughout the opening periods, putting an end to Aiko's hopes that knowing the reason why might make it better between them.

If anything it was worse, knowing it was her own fault. There was the temptation to confront Shukiji about it and blame him, but she just didn't have the energy for it. There were other things, normal school things that she'd expected to have to deal with, that could occupy her time.

Even a text message was a welcome respite from the tumult of her own thoughts at this point.

RH: You heard? Vitienne went to the hospital with Furusato.

AT: I thought he would. He looked terrible. Boys look awful when they cry IMO

RH: How about you? I know Noel-kun was your friend.

AT: ...Not really. We just met.

RH: He's easy to get along with. I like him, just wish he'd stand up for himself more.

AT: Hey... do know a Jiachi?

RH: Rosea, right? Second-year? Yeah, I know him. He's pretty visible.

AT: What classroom is he in?

RH: ...2-A, I think. You sure? He's not really your type.

Aiko didn't really care about that. She just wanted someone familiar to talk with, and Kotone was busy chatting with some students she didn't know. Luckily, Reiha's guess was spot on when she checked during lunch, spotting his extremely short skullcap of brown hair through a window.

He didn't look quite as fired up as he'd been on the soccer field, and it was easy to see that some of the students there were giving him the same unwritten shunning as they did to Mirambela. A blank notebook was open on the desk in front of him, and he was twirling his pencil instead of writing with it.

Aiko stopped and stared, recognizing as she drew closer a level of dexterity in that twirling not often seen outside of a performers' troupe. He was somehow able to keep it spinning on two fingers without any sign of falling, then taking it into three fingers and spinning it around to his other hand without losing any momentum, only stopping and smiling when he saw her.

"Hey there, the girl from the tryouts, right? Come to ask my autograph?"

Aiko smiled back and nodded. "I'm surprised you recognized me. Sorry I couldn't catch the rest. How did it go?"

Jiachi dropped his pencil onto the desk, making it look like a deliberate motion. "Eh... could be better. I'm not a shoe-in just yet, amazingly. Tryouts? More like cry outs. Hey... you're not interested, are ya? I'd like having you on the team."

She shrugged. "Not really my thing. I'd be signing up for the swim team except... you know."

Jiachi rolled his eyes. "I know. This school can't even finish things it puts on the brochure. Yumika might look cool, but he's all bark. Just a pretty face."

"Um... I'm Aiko Tsuruga. Nice to meet you, Jiachi-senpai."

She was surprised to see his face slacken at her words, recovering after a moment and extending a well-muscled arm. "Hey, nice to meet you too, Tsuruga-san. But... If we're gonna be good buddies, then you need to call me Julian. People just call me Jiachi to annoy me. Or y'know, just use my last name if you want. That's how you do it here, right? It's Rosea."

"Rosea-kun", Aiko corrected herself as she shook his hand, wanting to avoid confusion. Everyone else in the class called him Jiachi or Rosea, never Julian.

"Anyways, you might want to think about it. There aren't many other teams around this dump for you. There's soccer and volleyball, and the shogi and drama clubs... and that's about it really. Pretty weak."

Remembering another poster she'd seen on the bulletin board, Aiko blinked. "What about the fencing club?"

Overhearing her, another student laughed and Julian nodded. "More false advertising. Nobody ever signs up for the fencing club. Technically, Umaeda-sensei runs it, but no one's joined it for years. He's probably given up by now. Poor old dude." Realizing that his featured had unconsciously slid into an expression of sympathy for a teacher, Julian quickly corrected himself, reverting to typical nonchalance. "I-I mean, whatever."

"But someone could still sign up", Aiko argued back, feeling disheartened after hearing another hard lucky story from Koashimizu.

He shrugged. "Someone could. They'd be all alone though, and clubs can't run if they don't have at least four students showing interest. Otherwise, they don't consider it worth the teacher's time."

"You might want to think about it", Aiko echoed his earlier words. "I saw you before. That's quite a trick, Rosea-kun."

Breaking the veil, he smirked back. "I know. Just the tip of my iceberg of awesomosity, but fencing isn't really my thing. Besides, I'm already a shoe-in for the soccer team. No coach in his right mind would turn me down."

Those words drew a soft chuckle from another student, an older-looking boy. "Just like last year, eh Jiachi-san?"

It seemed like an offhanded remark, but Aiko actually took a step back when he saw the change that had suddenly come over Julian. His face had slid into an expression of suffused rage, his lips stretched wide, and he seemed to be vibrating before he got it under control, his hands moving back to the pencil on his desk and spinning it on a single upraised finger.

"I know other pencil tricks, Mayakura-san. Would you like to see one?"

But the one who had taunted him ignored him, returning his attention to his notebook. The others in the room seemed to be following suit, and Aiko could feel the shift of momentum in the room moving away from idle chat and back to schoolwork even if the teacher hadn't arrived yet. Julian- or was it Jiachi after all?- waved one last time to her and she took the hint, returning to her own room for the time being.

4/13 Saturday

After School

Aiko stared helplessly at the door to Mr. Umaeda's room on the 3rd floor and cursed herself. Just walk in. Just knock on the door. He's in there. You saw him go in. Just...

She turned around and began walking the other way.

It wasn't because she found Mr. Umaeda scary. He was likely the oldest teacher in the school, wearing a healthy beard of white and extremely weathered skin with an ominously large liver spot, but he wasn't grumpy like Noriyama or Mattora. He did exactly what was expected from his job without adding any personal comments to the material. The only thing scary about him was just how sore and weak his voice sounded sometimes, which at first made her fear that he was about to keel over in front of them.

It wasn't him. It was her. Mira's words from last night kept flashing into her mind, and every time they did she found herself a bit further away from the door to the club she'd wanted to join.

You think you can just be so polite and cheerful and nice to everyone, and everyone will smile and be your friend?

But what can I offer them, really? A smiling face and someone to be sympathetic?

Anyone could do that. Really, I'm about as helpful as a cat poster.

The hushed static chatter of passerby mingled with these thoughts now, only adding to her dismay.

"-does she think she is, talking back to-"

"-that bastard Noriyama gave me extra-"

"-prolly gonna go shopping tonight to get some-"

"-dad said I better study up or he'd take away my Playstation-"

"-doesn't belong in this place, does she?"

Koashimizu academy felt like an entirely different place than was she was used to. Kujou hadn't been wrong about that, at least. It was like she could feel the weight of the place and its people pressing down on her from everywhere at once as she walked the corridor back to her locker, like the academy was itself a living creature forcing out a foreign object that it couldn't digest, erasing whatever minimal gains she had made.

That's all I can do. Just smile and apologize and look pretty. I can't fight this place. It's too big. I'm... useless.

Her locker was halfway open when she heard a shout reminding her of one person here who had it worse, breaking away the chains of self-pity in an instant. Almost without realizing it, she was running, searching out the sound and finding it in the school library.

It was Mira. About half the students there had already departed, but the ones who had lingered were sticking around to see her outburst directed at a teacher, the drawn black hair of Mr. Takao poking over the crowd. Aiko also saw, to her dismay, that Ms. Mattora was also standing near him.

Seeing that many tears on anyone's face made her uncomfortable. And this face was her roommate, and the person she'd promised to help.

"I"m so sorry, miss Sorano", Mr. Takao was saying. "But the numbers don't lie. That was why I called you in here. Didn't you say to me on the first day that you wanted to do better after last year? I promised I would help you with that goal."

"Maybe he heard it wrong with her accent", Aiko heard one girl remark from too far away for the teachers to hear. "Maybe she told him she wanted to get worse."

"Or maybe she thinks that lower numbers are better", another seconded. Aiko had no time to glare at them. It wouldn't help anyway.

"That's why I wanted to talk with you about this first week's assignments", Mr. Takao continued, oblivious to the byplay. "You've managed to do well on the pop quizzes, but we have no records of your submitted assignments for this week. Any of them. I noticed that all the teachers were grading them 0 for you, and I asked them why."

"That's impossible", Mira said brokenly. "I sent them all last night! You should have gotten them!"

Ms. Mattora shook her elegant head. "I'm afraid we have not received them, Ms. Sorano. Takao-sensei made sure to speak with all of you teachers about this. Our addresses are printed on the backs of the assignment outlines. Are you certain that you used the correct addresses?"

Mira spun around to lean on a chair, unable to face Mattora directly any more just as Aiko had been with her last night. "Maybe... Then I can submit them again, right? I'll make absolutely sure this time."

"You can", Mr. Takao said even though Mattora looked like she wanted to protest. "In fact, let's do that right now to make sure. I'll help you."

He moved aside, gesturing to one of the computers in the library used for schoolwork. As expected, they had some fairly severe blocking programs on them which prevented their use for much beyond that. Aiko had used them herself several times to create and submit assignments already, but never with a captive audience.

Whether it was because of that audience or anxiousness over the situation, Mira took several tries to log on correctly, and with every mistake Aiko felt the air growing thicker and her friend's tension building.

Finally, there was the gray-blue panel of the program used to save assignments to the school servers. Aiko knew it, as did every student there, yet several of them gasped at what they saw.

It was completely blank.

Noise erupted from everywhere, too chaotic and disparate to pin down as primarily coming from Mira until Mr. Takao moved beside her to look closer, taking the mouse from her and checking the junk bin and records as well.

"Perhaps there's been a mistake", he announced after a moment, aware as anyone what an awful spectacle this had turned into. "Maybe you logged into the wrong account?"

Senpai... no...

Ms. Mattora stepped towards him... and shook her head dismissively. "Takao-sensei, I'm impressed that you would go so far to make excuses for this one. You can see her name clearly at the top of the screen. This is the only account that Ms. Sorano is capable of accessing. You remember her from last year, don't you?"

Mr. Takao stood, and the crowd's chatter only intensified. A confrontation between students was one thing, but it sounded like they were hoping for something to happen between the homeroom teacher and history teacher.

If so, they would be disappointed. Mr. Takao merely shook his head. "I do remember. She came to me at the start of this year, asking for my help, to make sure she wasn't held back again... but..."

"How noble", she replied drily, glancing at Mira's distraught face. "Though it's not exactly proper for the homeroom teacher to focus attention on a single student for tutoring. Sadly, there is only so much that even you can do. Some students... are simply beyond help."

What happened next was difficult to follow. Aiko was being blocked by a tall student's backpack when she heard something that reminded her of the noise she'd heard when a cat had been run over near her house, followed by a crash. It was only seeing the way she was standing up in front of the two teachers that Aiko realized Mira had made the sound.

Tears had been gathering for the entire spectacle and now streaked her face, but her next words were more angry than sad.

"Damn you. Damn this place."

Then she was running, students who were themselves frightened now parting, allowing her escape the library before Mr. Takao could say anything to stop her. Aiko only realized then that he was standing next to a monitor that had been grabbed, ripped out and thrown violently into the wall. It had not shattered, but several wires were dangling from it.

For a moment, Mr. Takao looked like he was about to rise and go after Mira, but then he knelt back down and stared hard into the carpet. Now that the 'show' was over, the crowd began to disperse back into twos and threes, all gossiping madly about what they had just seen.

"I don't understand", her homeroom teacher said to no one. "She said she would try her best, and I helped her. I believed her."

His fellow teacher sighed in something like pity, putting a long-nailed hand to his shoulder. "You did your best, Takao-sensei. That's all that anyone can do for these foolish children."

Aiko stared at them, feeling the aggression she had initially felt seeing the way Mattora was behaving start to bleed away as quickly as it had come. Something about Mira's violence had killed her appetite for more of it, and it would help no one.

Maybe following after her friend wouldn't help anyone either. There was only one way to find out.

She ran.

4/13 Saturday

After School

The sights from outside Koashimizu's main building flashed past Aiko as she sprinted. The peach tree, the milling students, the girl's dorms... they were all minor distractions from the main objective now. Mira had a good lead on her and for a moment she was lost, but then the saker falcon from before glided over her head and she decided to gamble, following after it.

I'm so totally out of shape, she reprimanded herself as the strain began to take hold of her legs before she even reached the coast down the hill from the peach tree. Mirambela was more athletic and had longer legs. If I'm ever going to really run the Fiddler's Green as Byzael promised, then I'll need to get way stronger.

The boat in question wasn't there today, only a few smaller fishing boats she didn't recognize. She figured that they had been scared off by the police signs warning them that Ayano Furusato's body had been found on these very shores. That would have been enough to stop most people from wandering further along the coastline.

Aiko saw one pair of footprints in the sand, travelling beneath the sign. Only one, before her own pair was laid alongside it.

She found both Mira and the falcon at a round inlet about half a kilometre's run from the hill. It cupped the calm ocean waters in a scoop that seemed shallow, but just a few meters in you would lose the sight of the sand beneath the water, indicating a sudden drop. The bird was perched atop a rock embedded in the beach, while Mira was merely standing in the surf with her back to Aiko, facing towards the sun.

The sun... Aiko cursed under her breath- she hadn't realized it was so late. The sun had already become a blazing orange and began to settle down towards the infinite horizon of water. That water did not stir, and that was what truly set her on edge, made her realize that this was not normal.

Because the wind that was billowing around them and ruffling their student uniforms now couldn't possibly fail to produce waves, and yet here it had.

Then Mirambela took a step forward, and another. She was already halfway in.

"MIRA!", Aiko shouted over the wind that seemed oddly determined to block out her words. "Mira! Senpai, please! Come back with me! It'll be alright!"

For a moment's relief, Mira did turn. Her gaunt, cheekboned face was still mostly the same as it had been in the library, save for the contrastingly serene smile on it now. "I know, Tsuruga-san. It'll be alright. I'm going to a better place now. Don't be sad. You don't have to worry about me now. No one has to worry."

She worried. No one in their right mind wouldn't worry about the way her friend was so sanguine about walking into an evening tide without a care, not concerned in the slightest about the way the wind was picking up or how her skirt would drag her down.

Still, Aiko held on to hope, and braced herself to lunge out into the water as well. She was an expert swimmer, and she could easily picture herself being able to haul two people out of the water if needed. She didn't want to believe that she was seeing her friend do such a terrible thing, but at the same time, it was entirely possible to save her if needed.

Then the last orange glow of the sun hit the water, and everything changed.

The wind grew from a brisk pressure into a howl screaming with the anguish that Mirambela couldn't with her human lungs. As Aiko ran to catch up, she sensed the way that it was centered around a specific point out on the water, the same point that her roommate was wading towards.

As she studied the waters, she could see the orange sunlight gathering as well, a single shaft of light sloped in ways that should not be possible extending from the sun's glow across the sea to reach Mira.

The light did not engulf her. It stopped just short, the water that reflected it swirling about with the newly intensified wind until the orange radiance itself had been stirred up with it. The water subsided, eventually succumbing to physics, but the light did not. It remained there suspended in the air, slowly forming into a square above Mira's head before extending downwards into a shining vertical rectangle.

The rectangle hurt to look at. It wasn't as harshly orange as the afternoon light which had created it, but instead seemed to overload the colour spectrum. Every time Aiko was forced to move her eyes away from the radiance and regain her sight, a slightly different colour was left behind within her short-term memory, though the dominant one was an azure, unnatural green.

Mirambela didn't seem to have that problem. The green(?) rectangle shone into her eager eyes but did nothing to blind her. She smiled like a newborn child in the arms of a loving mother, and began to march the final steps up to it across the bay floor.

"Mira, stop! MIRAAAA!"

Aiko was five paces away before Mira's tall shape disappeared into the green. It was only then that she realized that the 'door' was doing more than simply appearing from the dying sun's light to accept any who wished to enter it.

It was creating pressure. A strong current in the water that drew all in the bay towards it, a passable impression of a black hole. Frantically turning around, Aiko began to paddle backwards, but it was too late and the current too strong to resist with her tired arms and legs.

As a last effort, instead of screaming she took a deep breath and plunged beneath the surface to avoid it, but the door extended down there as well, continuing to draw water inwards like a pump. Then the light was upon her as well, and she could only close her eyes to avoid being blinded. The sensation of being pulled along by a current continued to grow stronger, the rush of the water pounding at her ears until it vanished.

Only for everything, even her own thoughts, to be pushed away into insignificance by a clear, strangely melodious voice that eclipsed all five senses, the very sensation of it vibrating through her skin as if speaking directly into her innermost soul. As though it used her own thoughts to speak.

Welcome, humans. Welcome to where time stands still. Welcome to your future, where ye shall Become As Gods.

Welcome... to my HOME.

o