A DREAM OF SUMMER
A Highschool DxD crossover
IV
-Just a moment of sleep is needed-
At the persistent sound of an alarm clock located besides a simple bed, its current occupant is broken from her dreams, her eyes begrudgingly opening to make sense of the bedroom partly illuminated by the sunlight.
Her mind remains sluggish for about thirty seconds, even as her right arm comes to shield her face in a last stubborn effort to block the sun and remove one of the things responsible for interrupting her sleep.
With the end of those thirty seconds, she concedes the battle and instead focuses her attention to the first source of her problems.
And as her eyes focus on the screen of her alarm clock, laziness and annoyance make way for panic.
"It's almost time for school?! I overslept again!" –she screams uncaring of the possibility of anyone else listening to her outburst, her body already on motion to reach the door and her left hand on its handle only two seconds after removing her bed sheets from herself.
Her hand stops from turning the handle, however, when she remembers which day of the week is today.
"Oh wait, it's Sunday"
She lets go a breath of relief, at the same time releasing her hold on the door.
There is no point in panicking on a Sunday since there are no classes on Sunday.
She feels silly for panicking like that and readying her body to make a quick dash for the sole bathroom located on her floor.
Her mood now calm, she's ready to return to her bed and get maybe thirty more minutes of sleep, maybe even a whole hour before she calls her friends. She can also make something for herself in the kitchen, she felt a bit hungry after getting up from bed because of that stupid alar-
"Wait, why do I have an alarm ready for a Sunday?
Her eyes search into her small bedroom for answers, ignoring the posters from her favorite music and idol groups, as well as the sole desk covered by a tower of books and some solitary sheets with notes in her own writing.
The calendar glued to one of her walls catches her attention, the current day highlighted by a simple circle with an arrow pointing out another handful of words in orange pen marker.
…
…
"AHHHHHHHHHH!"
She shouts again as she finishes reading, her brain finally at fully functionality and her memories in place-for the most part.
"THE EXTRA CLASSES ARE TODAY!"
And like that her sense of panic is back, her systems become fully operational and on alert, her body ready to make a run for the bathroom.
Fortunately, she now has enough clarity of mind to remember bringing her own soap, shampoo and a towel.
With those in one hand and the handle of her door in the other, she opens the way to the bathroom, hoping she is fast enough to take over before someone else occupies it.
Or at the very least, that none of the other girls living in the apartment complex are using it in that precise moment.
Having just finished dying her hair, she stands in front of the mirror in the bathroom.
She looks at herself for the third time since getting up from bed, her nakedness allowing to make a more trough appreciation of her 16 years old body.
She is not a tall girl, even considering Japanese standards of height, but she is certainly not small enough to be called 'petite'. While she is smaller than some girl in the same year of high-school, she does stand out amongst most girls younger than her.
While her breasts are also on the smaller part of the scale, her bubble butt has enough mass to call the attention of more than one male student in those occasions she has worn her gym clothes, or when bent to pick up some belonging and the short skirt on her school uniform had given them a peek.
There had been embarrassment, but also some sense of pride that she was considered attractive.
Her stomach is flat and lacks excess fat and her legs are toned as a result of her preference for doing some light exercise every morning, as well as walking (sometimes running) from home to her school.
To complete her looks, she possesses a pair of sapphire eyes and blond hair reaching just under her shoulders, but usually tied from her ears to into pigtails. When combined with her clearly not Japanese name, it feeds into the image that at least one of her parents must have been a foreigner, probably an American.
Not like she could confirm or deny that.
In any case, her looks give her a physical appeal that goes beyond 'cute', and her friends have confirmed this in multiple occasions.
Unfortunately, she sucks at catching the attention of anyone not being a clear pervert, and most decent boys (or those girls catching her interest) until now were either taken or did not really get captivated enough to press for at least a date.
No matter. She is still growing up, her time for greatness would soon come!
…wait no, first she needs to get ready for the extra day of classes and the final exam. She can think about her other prospects later.
Finished with her inner motivational moment, she proceeds to dress up.
While she did not spend as much time as her friends would on making herself pretty, she made sure to avoid looking like she arrived just on time. Since she needs to run despite living quite close to her school, perhaps that scenario is unavoidable.
It also means she would need to go for a quick snack instead of the more plentiful breakfast she prefers to make and enjoy on every Sunday, usually in the company of the landlady.
Speaking of…
"Good morning Jessica-chan, early hour to rise on a Sunday before summer, isn't it?"
Standing in front of the table is the person of the hour, Kurosaki Izumi, the landlady herself. In contrast with Jessica's, the older woman has longer hair tied into a ponytail, a natural black just like her eyes that were much more common amongst Japanese. Her body is more voluptuous than Jessica's, but that was a given considering the age gap between them.
While Jessica is not the best in getting up on time, the older owman is always up before even the earliest riser amidst her tenants. Hardworking but patient with others unaccustomed to her lifestyle, stern yet patient, busy but always making time to greet and make small talk with her tenants beyond asking for the rent. Kurosaki Izumi is indeed a popular character in the apartment complex, and Jessica is not the exception to this.
She smiles but does not reply to Izumi immediately, making sure there is no food in her mouth before speaking. She knows the landlady would chastise her about proper manners, as she has done in the past with most of her tenants.
"Good morning, Izumi-san! I have to go to school for extra classes, so I needed to get up early" –she then remembers her current situation –"but I ended up studying until late and overslept… teehee!" –she finishes by scratching the back of her neck with her left hand, an instinctual move when she is embarrassed.
The landlady is not amused if the deadpan expression on her face is to be trusted.
"Jessica-chan, what have I told you about that bad habit of yours? I know you are not a bad student, so why would you risk your grades to pull an all-nighter of all things? Your performance in High School is a huge deal for choosing the path to your future, but do have more trust in your skills!"
As always, Kurosaki Izumi combines scolding with words of encouragement, reminding those living in the apartment complex that mistakes are made, but they can also be amended and repetition avoided. As someone once said, where there's will there's a way.
"I'm cannot always spend my time hovering over you, Jessica-chan. I have to care for the needs of the other girls, especially with the upcoming Summer Break. But enough talk, go now before you miss you first class of the day for real"
That put Jessica back on alert.
"Right, I am in a hurry. Let me…" –the girl was about to pick her dishes to wash them, but the older woman stops her.
"Just for today, I can do that for you. Now go wash your face and hands, and then make a run for it! Make us all proud!"
Jessica bows to Izumi in thanks before doing just that.
While most would expect a situation like in many popular anime and manga, where the main character would be running like the Devil was behind her and somehow managing to go all the way to school before collapsing into a comical mess, Jessica's body doesn't work on that logic.
Even if she doesn't miss a step or gets into some kind of accident stopping her momentum, her human body will soon tire and protest the strain she is forcing it into. She is not one blessed with natural body designed for prolonged feats based on endurance, and neither has she trained her body for that purpose.
As someone who has missed the right time for getting up from bed and leaving for school on more than one occasion, she has experienced that weariness and strain.
And so, she eventually stopped running to take a breath, her anxiety temporarily replaced for the need to recover and making sure she in unhurt on her way to school. In the small window of time as she recovers her breath, she looks at her current location.
Usually, there would be a good number of cars and some motorcycles mixing both old and new design, with many more people making their way to their working places, at least those who did not already lived there. Being a Sunday, most people would be inside their homes, even if the street is not completely desolated at this hour.
At her left is the main street, which runs a long way until it partitioned in two paths which continued further into different areas of the island. For many visitors, the town would be an interesting mix of old and new, with most houses and businesses dating back to the 60s and 70s but also including the most recent additions from the late 90s and early 2000s. The differences become more pronounced as the road splits. One path continues into the more modern areas until it reaches the beaches, in which are located the harbor as well as the solitary but very popular resort.
The other path was the continuation of the original road built in the 60s, going from the districts focused on housing like her apartment complex to the districts with more mixed purpose, like the one where her school is located, and eventually leading more rural areas outside of town. From that point, it becomes a road not fit for heavy transit despite leading to other popular locations for visitors like the forests in which resided the oldest tree on the island, the old iron mine which provided some revenue for the island's economy, the smaller village located at the feet of the mountains, and the abandoned Cathedral on top of those mountains.
Turning to her right, she is met with a coffee shop, one of those betting on early risers on weekend of all times, and doing surprisingly well despite the date and time.
'Huh'
Having recovered a proper breathing and looking at the time on her watch, Jessica confirms her observations.
She didn't make it as far as she wanted, but she still did better than in the past weeks.
Regardless, she will walk the rest of the road to her desired destination.
The words of Izumi-san carried a bigger weight than most would expect from a relationship between landlord and tenant, no matter how amicable they showed to be between each other. Thinking about the small town she lived in, the island and its people, and even her upcoming exam, only reinforced the particular feeling that sprung from within her hear in her times of solitude.
Her future prospects, the expectations of others close to her, and wherever those would lead her once she finished her school years. There was no college in the island, so either she tries her best to pass the entrance exams for those existing on the mainland or she makes a more simple life inside the only place she has really known for most of her life. A part of her yearns for adventure and experiencing the greater world with her own senses, but another rooted on reality and familiarity is biased towards staying.
It all goes back to her inability to confirm whether or not a part of her family is made of foreigners, and why she has lived for so long without any adult supervision except her landlady.
Jessica has no family she could live with.
Whether her parents had gone missing, dead, or simply chosen to abandon her, she did not know. In fact, she could not even remember them.
In fact, everything before ten years ago was a blank for the 16 year old girl, with the exception of two things.
Her current name.
And single eye that looked straight at her, feeling her with great fear in her early days when she dreamt about it.
There was nothing which could serve as a clue for her past. No apparent records in the island, or even in the mainland. No distant relatives claiming responsibility for her, nor people able to recognize something in her looks.
As far was the World was concerned, Jessica was a ghost of an orphan who was brought to the island under unknown circumstances, left on the streets until the Kurosaki Izumi found her wandering catatonic and confused and called for the local authorities.
She became a ward of the state, and the Izumi-san offered her place for residence and went as far as to help her in her first two years of recovering from whatever trauma she had gone through. Through her support and that of the native inhabitants of the island, Jessica made a successful entrance into a normal life as a student, and from then on experienced the ups and downs of such lifestyle.
She made some friends, she had her crushes on boys (and even some girls), and developed an actual identity that most were familiar with.
She was never been adopted by Kurosaki Izumi, but carried her family name as a way to complete her identity as well as a token of appreciation for her constant support. The older woman had insisted she could not and would not replace her parents, whoever they were, and that Jessica needed to accept this in order to make it easier for them.
"But you are family, landlady" –she countered with simple logic (at least to her), on the time the issue was brought on the table.
To that, the older woman had blinked for a moment before huffing and looking away, but Jessica could see a small smile escaping her.
The kind Izumi-san knew of her situation and had been there with her, in the process of turning Jessica the ghost of an orphan into Kurosaki Jessica, 16 years old high school student on this island which had become her home and her World.
As she finally reaches the school's gates, barely on time, Kurosaki Jessica makes a temporary compromise with herself.
Perhaps there will be a reason to pursue any adventure of her choosing outside, a dream big enough to arm her with the courage needed to face the challenges waiting when running along that branch of her current path.
But for now, she will continue using the more traditional road, where her roots lay.
Why did Kurosaki Jessica rise so early, on a Sunday of all days?
Right, she has to attend to extra classes and before Sumer Break.
….
Why is Kurosaki Jessica attending extra classes on a Sunday of all days, before Summer Break?
Did she do so poorly on her grades she needed to take extra classes in order to pass? Of course not, Izumi-san herself knows she does well in her studies, as she reminded Jessica that very morning.
Did her episodes of arriving late impact her records to the point of needing these extras as a way to compensate? Actually not, most times she arrived just on time and the few occasions she was late she paid her punishment by standing on the halls and making up for missed classwork. Her issue with proper timing has not become a genuine issue for the school, luckily.
The reason is an agreement made between the school and the students, in light of the most recent event happening on the island the beginning of Summer Break.
One of the companies in control of the island's resort wanted to promote its main source of revenue by using a small Idol Group, which would be giving a concert the night of Sunday before beginning Summer Break. In order to promote a bigger attendance to the event, the company offered free tickets for students on High School level, but instead of distributing them directly it gave them to the school board.
The board of directives, as well as the teaching staff, made themselves a deal with the students. If they accepted coming to school on the last Sunday before Summer Break to take extra classes to fully complete the schedules programed for the semester, the students present by the closing hours and with proof of their work would be gifted these tickets as a reward of sorts.
While there were those who didn't care for idols or were more interests in starting their summer on that weekend, there were plenty who liked the idea simply because of the novelty and the chance of seeing their first Idol Group in person. Her friends were amongst the latter party, just as she was.
Surprisingly, nobody found odd why the company cared about using the school as a middleman with the students instead of using other means for delivering the tickets directly, maybe by some competition. She never bothered to ask, it was strange but some of her friends gave some possible explanations, not that it mattered.
All she has to do is survive the hours of tedious school work and the pop quizzes to see if they had come prepared.
She knows she was, she almost misses her chance because she overslept preparing to this moment.
She was not ready.
She had soldiered trough the returning hunger, the pop quizzes and the hours of working or listening to their teachers drone and drone about the last lessons before Summer Break.
She felt so tired, probably the excess of information overworking her brain, probably the feeling of satisfaction after having a proper meal in the break between classes.
They still had about 20 minutes before the break is over and classes restart, so she told her friends she was going ahead to take a nap on the classroom.
Giggling at her honesty, they promised to wake her up gently before the teacher in charge spots her and begins making a fuss.
As she made her way to the classroom she passed that creep Yamada talking to a couple of teens she has not seen before in the school. The girl in particular stood out because of her pink hair and ruby eyes, as well as being smaller than Jessica but fuller on the chest department.
She also thought she saw her face somewhere else, but her mind demanding sleep only focused on getting to the comfortable bed that would be her desk.
And so she did. Hoping her friends would not play some stupid prank on her when the teacher arrived on the classroom, 16 years old Kurosaki Jessica went into the dreamlands.
…
(-Kagetsu Tohya OST- Verge of Death)
And with the sounds of screaming, she wakes up into a nightmare.
A/N: And with this all actors have entered the stage. The plot will officially begin its horror stage on the next update, but it will take about a week for it to be written, perhaps a bit more. Do not fear, all the important points and the flow are already set so is more about writing and not a problem of having a writer's block.
I have presented in this chapter the elements of one of the games I originally picked and the end gives you a small spoiler of my last addition to the sources for this crossover with DxD. Hope you are enjoying this story so far, see you next week with he next chapter (problably... Teehee! =P)