With what's going on with Dakota and Akira, things are getting pretty intense. I think we need to take a break, and focus on something a little more lighthearted. Let's see what the others are doing now that everything is starting to slowly get back to normal.

Also, thank you to everyone who read my story "The Heir to the Dragon". I would appreciate if you continue to read and support it in the future! You can get there through my profile! The story is finally completed! Thank you for reading!

The Pokemon Academy Best Girl 2 Finals are up and running! Who do you think is deserving of the title of Best Girl in the second year of the contest? Cast your votes! We've only gotten a few votes so far, and I know that a lot of people are reading, so come on guys! The poll's in the profile, who do you think deserves to take the crown?

Finalists: Sylvia, Marion, Sango

Toya Lette: That's definitely a lot of work going!

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Well, we'll have to find out! This should be fun, for sure. Maybe we'll get there!

KedharS: Yep, unfortunately that's the case.

JoshGamerV: Yeah, hopefully I'll get there eventually.

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 701

It had been a week since Dakota's attack, and the campus was still struggling to get back to normal. Police officers were still occasionally going around and asking questions, but it was becoming more and more apparent that their actions were just going through the motions and that they probably wouldn't uncover anything new.

In the meantime, the student body was still reeling from what had happened. The library was still closed, and while classes had resumed, most school events and club activities had been suspended for the foreseeable future. A curfew had been established, and students were not allowed to leave their dormitories unaccompanied. This functional buddy system ensured that no one was walking around campus alone, as the culprit still hadn't been caught.

Serefina didn't see much value in this policy (she knew that the attack wasn't some random act of violence but a calculated assault from a killer with a specific target in mind) but she was at least willing to follow it, having stuck close to Eli all week.

She was irritated. Mirar still hadn't contacted her about the password, and she hadn't heard anything from Akira, either. Hell, even Sylvia wasn't coming around to say anything, and Serefina was just about desperate enough to even accept a visit from that witch.

She just wanted something to happen, damn it!

In the meantime, the students who didn't know as much about what was going on, who weren't part of the investigation (being most of them) were more than a little worried. After all, there was a killer on the loose.

Cynthia's worry was aimed in a slightly different direction, though.

"Hey, is Blake doing okay?" She asked, glancing at her friend. They had come together, but he was sitting at a partner table in the Snorlax Commons, staring out the window with a pensive look on his face.

"Seriously? This is what you're worried about?" Sango asked, raising her eyebrow in disbelief. "You realize that there's a killer walking among us, right? Someone attacked Dakota, and she…" She didn't even want to say it. Sango had been in life or death situations a few times now (far more than any high schooler should be) but she still felt a shiver when she thought about the fact that any one of them could be attacked.

"What? Dakota's still alive, isn't she?" Cynthia sniffed, turning back to Sango with a disdainful look on her face. Sango didn't mind. She knew her friend well enough at this point. Cynthia wasn't upset with her, she was looking down on the idea of more attacks because if she didn't have such a haughty view of things then she would be terrified, jumping at every shadow.

Sango sighed instead. "Yes, Cynthia, Dakota's still alive," she admitted. That was all they knew, at this point. The headmaster had released a statement on the campus website letting everyone know that Dakota had survived the attack, and encouraged the students to try and get back to business as normal as soon as possible.

Yeah, right.

The fact that he hadn't said anything else made Sango weary. Student volunteer activities in campus safety had been suspended, which made her even more worried. Certainly, it was a normal response to the idea that someone could be going around killing people, but there was still a feeling that there was something they weren't being told.

For one, there was nothing in the announcement about Dakota's condition, or when she would be returning to campus. Which seemed rather odd for an announcement stating everything was going okay.

Right now, Sango felt the same as the rest of the faculty. She wanted things to go back to normal, too. But first she wanted to make sure that the school was in a condition where it COULD go back to normal, and she didn't see that happening without uncovering the truth.

Sango wasn't used to having so much free time on her hands. A workaholic by nature with a love of working out and exercising in her spare time (something that was no longer viable due to the curfew rules) she found herself without a lot to do.

"Do you think Dakota is really doing okay?" Sango mused. She was worried about the girl. It wasn't like Dakota Evans was anything close to being her friend, but still, the fact that someone she knew had been attacked…

"I hope so," Cynthia said. "She's alive, at least."

"Who do you think it was that attacked her?" Sango asked.

"You don't want to know what I think," Cynthia said. "Well, it's not what I think, but it's what the rumor going around is, anyway."

Sango raised her eyebrow. "Rumors? What rumors?" She didn't like the sound of that.

"You're not going to like it," Cynthia warned her. That didn't make her feel better.

"What? What am I not going to like?" Sango asked.

"Right now the popular theory around campus is that Marion Rivers is the one who attacked Dakota," Cynthia said.

Sango's jaw hit the floor.

"What?!" She exclaimed in disbelief. "Why on earth do you think that?! Marion? She wouldn't kill anybody!"

"I know, I know," Cynthia said. "But think about it. She leaves in the dead of night, the same night that Dakota gets attacked? You don't have to be an idiot to be able to put those pieces together. And while we know that she's not the kind of person to do something like that, think about it from the perspective of the other students."

"What are you talking about?!" Sango demanded, unable to understand what Cynthia was saying. "The other students? They love Marion, everyone can see what a great person she is! You're crazy, no one thinks that she's a killer!"

"Sure, the students in the Ranger Course and the Caretaker Course believe that," Cynthia agreed. "But that barely makes up for a fourth of the student body. And to everyone else, she seems like a slightly crazy hermit obsessed with fishing. She's a weirdo, Sango, even you have to admit that."

Sango opened her mouth to reject that, but she realized that Cynthia was probably right. Even she had seen Marion as a strange girl. If not for the friendship she had built with her over the course of their probationary exam, she might not have ever seen past Marion's bizarre fishing obsession.

Hell, if Sango was being honest with herself, she hadn't learned to really appreciate Marion until the girl had left in the winter, and Sango had taken up the fishing pole in her absence and gotten a true taste of fishing herself.

"…Okay, yeah, I get it," Sango admitted. "But still, it's not fair! Marion… Marion didn't do anything, it was just a coincidence!" She didn't like the idea of everyone thinking of Marion as a killer, it made her feel sick to her stomach.

"Sango, if you ask me, I think that you're over-thinking this," Cynthia confessed. "I mean, come on, sure, people are suspicious of Marion, but not, like, really suspicious. It's not like they're clamoring for her to be arrested or anything. It's just rumors and speculation. So don't get yourself too worked up over it, okay?"

Sango nodded glumly. She didn't agree, though. Unlike Cynthia's surprisingly objective view of things, it made her feel bad to think that Marion's legacy was being tainted by aspersions and scurrilous rumors like this.

Marion should have been remembered for being a fishing enthusiast who loved helping other people, not for being a murder suspect!

"See, right there!" Cynthia said, pointing at Sango. Sango blinked, startled. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"That face, that face you're wearing right there," Cynthia said. "That's the reason I think this whole mess about worrying over the killer is ridiculous."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Sango asked.

"You're getting yourself all worked up about something you can't do anything about," Cynthia reminded her. "Look at Julia. She's kept herself cooped up in her room ever since this whole mess started, curled up in bed and terrified to go outside, all because she's worried about what could happen to her, or to one of us."

Sango thought about their other roommate, who had not reacted well to the incident, and was now acting surprisingly scared.

"Right now, your worries about Marion are making your face get all 'blechy'," Cynthia explained. "You need to be more like me, focus on the stuff that isn't as important. If you get all worked up over stuff like this, then when's it gonna stop, huh?"

Sango was once again caught at-odds to Cynthia's explanations. She shook her head and sighed, understanding what she was getting at. "Yeah, you're right," she admitted. "Maybe I'm too worried about Marion. But come on, it's not like this is some huge problem. Can't I feel a little bad that my friend is being suspected of attempted murder?"

"Yeah, definitely, you can feel bad," Cynthia shrugged. "But don't let that get in the way of having fun. You've been a real bummer recently, you know that?"

"Huh?" Sango scowled.

"Look, first there was those two weeks that Blake was gone, and yeah, I gotta say I was there with you," Cynthia admitted. "That's not something anyone can blame you for. And then Blake came back, and we were happy! …For, like, two minutes. Then Dakota got attacked, and here we were, right back in this mess with everyone being down in the dumps."

Cynthia sighed.

"Sango, you used to be so full of energy and happiness," she said. "Is it so wrong to want my friend back?"

Sango could understand what Cynthia was getting at. She had been a little bit of a downer for basically a month at this point, but…

She didn't really feel that was her fault! Wouldn't anyone be-

Her thought-process stopped when she saw the look on Cynthia's face, and how tense she was. That's when Sango realized what the problem was. It wasn't about this being her fault, Cynthia just wanted things to be positive.

Sango pushed a smile onto her face. That's what Marion would do right now, right? She would smile a big, dopey smile and nod her head, and suggest something fun (in Marion's case, fishing) and so Sango would do the same.

"You know, I think you're right!" Sango agreed. "Look at Blake! What's he got to be so weirded out about? I'm pretty sure it's not that he's worried or upset about the attack, right? It's gotta be something else going on!"

Cynthia brightened, pleased that Sango was offering her a proverbial olive branch. With a grin, she began hypothesizing herself.

Both girls knew that there was probably something a little more specific in Blake's pensive mood, considering that he'd been a little off since Valentine's Day, and they both were well aware of what had happened that night, and the fact that Blake had stayed out all night.

Neither wanted to think about that, though. Their individual feelings for Blake were way too warped on that topic.

Meanwhile, the boy in question was ignorant to the discussion about him going on from the neighboring table. He looked out at the snow, wondering when he'd get to see Aya again. Things had been… awkward, since that morning.

It was kind of hard to have pleasant memories about one's first time when it came within a very close proximity to the attack and near-murder of an acquaintance. But he couldn't help but still feel that sense of joy and excitement when he thought back to that night, it was just…

A sigh escaped his lips, and he checked his phone. Aya couldn't leave her dorm unaccompanied, and because she didn't have a roommate that was a bit tricky. He had to count on Olivia to serve as their escort, which made things very, very awkward.

Namely because ever since Olivia had learned that they had, in fact, "done the deed" that night she had become pretty insufferable, moreso than usual.

"So, how was it?" She would ask him constantly, much to his embarrassment and Aya's humiliation. He knew that she was that sort of person, but come on, couldn't he and his girlfriend have SOME level of privacy?

It was honestly kind of ridiculous.

"How are you feeling?" He asked her.

"Fine," she replied. "A little tired, though," she quickly added.

Blake could understand that, he felt a little exhausted himself. This last week had been stressful.

"Want to go on a date sometime soon?" He asked. That might have been in poor taste, going on a date in light of what had happened, but it had already been a week. What was he supposed to do, never have happiness again because someone he knew had been attacked?

"I'd like that," Aya admitted. "But I feel like the mood isn't quite right, you know? I think it would be a little awkward, going around having fun in public. People would look at us and seem kind of…"

Three small dots appeared under that.

"Well, you know, right?" She finished, following up with a blushing embarrassed emoji.

Oof, every time Aya used emojis it was just the cutest thing in the world. Blake felt himself being stabbed by the cuteness.

…Okay, poor analogy.

"Well, if we don't want to be seen by anybody, we could always have a date inside," Blake suggested. The minute he hit send he realized what it sounded like he was suggesting, and he immediately wished he'd phrased it better.

"DIRTY BOY!" Ayame typed back. A blushing emoji appeared, followed by a red-faced angry emoji. Then an emoji that was blushing, but with wide-eyed curiosity.

Blake wondered if he should steer into the misunderstanding, before finally deciding to just clarify with the truth.

"No, nothing like that," he clarified. "I didn't mean to suggest… well, you know. I was just thinking that we could…"

He stared at the unfinished message. What should he add to make it clear that he wasn't suggesting anything like that!

"I was just thinking we could hang out in the room and watch movies or something!" He said. "I wasn't planning on doing anything else!"

"Oh, that's disappointing!" Blake nearly jumped out of his seat in shock. He turned to see Olivia standing behind him. She was holding Aya's phone in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. Aya was standing behind her, her face bright red. The tray of food in her hands was the only thing keeping her from burying her face in them.

"What are you doing?!" Blake asked, confused. "Is that Aya's phone?"

"Your conversation was getting a little too sappy for my tastes, so I confiscated it," Olivia shrugged. "I don't get what the big deal is. After all, the two of you have already-"

"Don't say it in front of everyone, boss!" Ayame exclaimed, nearly flinging her breakfast into Olivia's face out of surprise. Olivia rolled her eyes.

"Oh, come on, what's the big deal?" She asked, letting out an irritated sigh. "It's not like people would think any less of you, or that you're hiding anything, right?"

"I-I know, but… we still want our privacy!" Blake cried, looking around. People were starting to stare, including Sango and Cynthia, who were both suppressing their laughter. His face turned scarlet and he couldn't stand the pressure.

Ayame was right there with him. She didn't want her dirty laundry being aired out in front of everyone! She was still waking up flustered in the mornings, with memories of that night making her get embarrassed. She had no idea how Olivia could be so casual about all this! She didn't know if she would ever be able to think about sex in such a nondescript way!

Olivia let out a sigh. "Fine, fine, I won't bug you two anymore," she shrugged, stepping aside and letting Ayame walk past her and sit opposite Blake, setting her tray down.

Olivia pushed up a seat and sat between the two of them like it was no big deal, taking a sip from her coffee.

"What do you think you're doing here?" Blake asked, not exactly enthused about having a third party tagging along on his breakfast date with his girlfriend.

"What?" Olivia asked, raising her eyebrow. "It's not like I can return back to my dormitory. You know the new rules, you aren't allowed to go anywhere without being accompanied by another student. So I'm staying here as Aya's chaperone."

She nodded her head over her shoulder at Sango and Cynthia. "You came along with those two, didn't you?"

Blake glanced at Cynthia and Sango. "That's totally different," he said, shaking his head. "After all, they have the sense to stay at another table and not interfere with our date."

Ayame nodded her head in agreement, even though she didn't have the will to object to the boss directly. She was just happy to see Blake again, these chaperone and escort rules were messing up her dating life, she couldn't see her boyfriend nearly as often as she wanted, and only with a chaperone? It just wasn't fair.

"Blake's right," Ayame agreed. "They're over there, boss."

"Their loss," Olivia smirked. "This is far more amusing."

Ayame gave her a sour look. Blake was much less generous.

"Olivia, can't you just let us have some time in peace together?" He asked.

Olivia opened her mouth to shut him down, but then Ayame cut in with an idea of her own.

"If… ahem. Boss, if you really want to stay, then that's just fine," she agreed. Blake stared at her in disbelief, but she held her hand up to silence him, flashing a conspiratorial smile. "Of course… then you'll have to put up with all that lovey-dovey stuff you can't stand, isn't that right, snookums?"

Blake smiled, starting to pick up on what she was saying. "Yeah, that's a pretty good point, oogie-woogie bear!"

Olivia made a face like she was about to throw up. She didn't know how much longer Aya could keep up the gushy stuff without spontaneously combusting, but it was probably going to be a lot longer than her. With a groan, she admitted defeat and stood up.

"Okay, fine, I get the message," Olivia sighed dramatically, leaving the two of them to their own devices. She decided to go bug the other girls instead.

"…Okay, no more snookums," Ayame said, her face hot with embarrassment. "I feel like I'm going to throw up with embarrassment."

"If you say so, oogie-woogie bear!" Blake teased.

"Fuck off!" Ayame exclaimed, digging into her food to take her attention off of Blake's laughter.

It was nice to spend the time together like this.

Aww, nice to see a little bit of heartwarming after an incident like that. Hopefully, school will go back to normal.