One hour of studying, she told herself, blocking out the time on her fingers. She could maybe squeeze in another hour for having dinner at Orihime's place. Give fifteen or twenty minutes for transit, and she could get home before curfew.
Tatsuki ran the last of the ragged towel through her hair, still slightly sweaty from practice at the dojo. The late afternoon sun, the spring that was almost melting into summer, the quiet murmur of barking dogs and cars in the distance—the air around her was silky, and she settled into it as she started out on the street that would take her home.
The scream was what she heard first: a loud, glassy whine—something that seemed to form words but maybe not—Tatsuki froze in place for what must have been a whole second before her instincts kicked in. Cold sweat broke out on her palms. She'd heard that sound before. Before she could even see the whole mask, she dropped her things and ran. Tentacles of something—something cold and hideous—licked at her bare calves as she ran, and the sea of roots and bushes before her seemed to want to swallow her up.
… and there he was, crashing into her. Tatsuki flipped herself over and forced her limbs into a fighting stance. The mask stared down at her, a ghoulish mass of white. Tatsuki wanted to squeeze her eyes shut. Instead, she kept them open. Her lungs strained at the air.
The arrows were piercingly blue. Something clicked at the back of her mind—she'd seen a monster like this before, that night at Orihime's place. The air around her quivered as shining bolts rained down on the monster, but it just struggled and lunged toward them. Tatsuki could feel its footsteps echo in the back of her mind. She took a leap back.
Fade to black. The air around her felt musty and warm, and all the sounds converged into a sort of soporific hum in her mind—the whining of the monster, the whoosh and boom of Ishida's arrows, the crunching of the foliage, and behind it all, the sound of soft music, a tune that wasn't quite constant or straight, playing on repeat.