The morning patrol had, so far, been remarkably routine, almost predictable. But, as years of experience had taught Police Sergeant Okawa, this was a dangerous illusion.

This paranoia did not come from a fear of the area's reputation for criminal activity (very low) or even from the worry of an escaped convict lurking about (none reported). Rather, it came from the fact that his partner, Tomo Takino, had been remarkably quiet today. Okawa hadn't known Tomo for more than a few weeks, but he did know her enough to understand that her silence meant one of two things; another stern notice had come from headquarters, or the onset of boredom.

No, it couldn't be another warning from Kasumigaseki, the Tokyo district home of the Metropolitan Police Department's headquarters. Tomo's response to the last such message - a citation for '…gross misapplication of police authority' during a routine home visit of a married couple - had been one of triumph and vindication. When Tomo wasn't dismissing the notice as meaningless, she was verbally assaulting anyone who dared disagree with her.

This was an unusual fact about Officer Tomo Takino. Though she could seldom remember the details of her numerous breeches of police protocol and procedure, much less her numerous disciplinary reassignments, the young woman had an almost perverse pride for every single incident.

This meant however was that Tomo was bored, which Okawa rightly concluded was the far more dangerous option. Boredom, he mused, was more than likely at the root of every one of Tomo's infractions. It was only a matter of time before she would do something destructive.

He didn't have to wait long, as Tomo removed her baton from its belt-mounted holster. She slipped its sturdy nylon strap around her wrist and began to twirl the aluminum club with a quick motion of her arm.

"I wouldn't do that Takino," Okawa cautioned. The baton was still in its collapsed mode, needing only a quick flick of the wrist to release a holding spring keeping the club from extending.

No wonder, Okawa remarked to himself, her firearm privileges had been revoked.

"Relax, relax," Tomo assured. She had barely spoken the words when the spinning baton suddenly sprung open, extending to its full length and hitting her in the face as it spun around her wrist.

"That could happen for instance," Okawa began to lecture, "But you really should be paying more attention and getting more familiar with the area."

Tomo had only recently been reassigned to this area and Okawa was still trying to acclimate his partner to the routines of the patrol. Her arrival had been the most recent in a long, involved series of assignments, dismissals, and reassignments. The exact reason behind Tomo's sudden relocation to kōban duty was still a mystery, the truth buried beneath a mammoth pile of paperwork and probationary notices. Any other officer might have broken under the pressure or simply retired from the shame, but not Tomo. If nothing else, Okawa had to admire the young woman's determination, at least when she put her mind to it.

Tomo tried to shrug off the baton incident as she fumbled with the uncooperative tool. "Why do we have to patrol on foot so much anyway?" she came close to whining.

Okawa spoke with a calm, stern voice, much the same way a parent might speak when being firm with a child.

"We do foot patrols, Takino, to give the public a visible presence; to let them know that we're on the job and not just sitting around in the kōbans."

"But isn't that why we have cars?" Tomo demanded.

"Our patrol area isn't big enough for us to be assigned a patrol car. Besides, the units in the metro areas need them a lot more than we do out here."

"Not big enough?! What a bunch of crap!" Tomo fumed at this injustice, "If those idiots at HQ knew anything about my unique talents, they'd put me behind the wheel!"

"They apparently know enough to keep you out of a car," Okawa responded. Tomo shot him a scathing glare, unconvinced. To further his point, Okawa cited the details of one of Tomo's more recent reprimands from HQ: "Excessive damage to vehicle, unacceptable behavior, numerous breeches of traffic law…"

Tomo's response was as subtle as an explosion: "They weren't there! I had to commandeer that car! In the name of the law!" she declared triumphantly.

"Is that what you told your division chief when you totaled that refurbished Skyline?" Okawa inquired somewhat jokingly.

Tomo's expression suddenly became very serious, as if Okawa had insulted a dearly held, recently deceased relative. The abrupt change caught him off guard and made the senior officer uncomfortable. He briefly wondered if he'd said something inappropriate.

"It died for the law, Taro-san," Tomo said with an almost palpable sense of sadness.

"Hey, hey, I'm sorry…" Okawa mumbled awkwardly.

"But man!" said Tomo, demonstrating her patented emotional one-eighty, "That thing was messed up! You should've seen it! There were pieces stuck in the power lines! A friend of mine told me I knocked out power to that entire district!

"Totally worth it…" she concluded with a reminiscing look in her eyes.

"I've seen the pictures", Okawa replied dryly, trying to retain his composure. Recalling the images in his head was enough to cause his body to shudder slightly.

Tomo suddenly whirled around to put herself in Okawa's face, stopping him in his tracks. Her sharpened brown eyes starred right into him as he stepped back on instinct.

"W-what?"

"You have pictures?" she demanded, her expression suddenly dead serious again.

"No, but I've seen them, like I said." He forced an awkward laugh, "Why? Trying to destroy the evidence?"

"No, I just wanted some copies," Tomo pouted, "You know, to prove I did it," she concluded very matter-of-factly.

Okawa was dumbstruck. "You're hopeless Takino," he said as the pair resumed walking.

"Bah", Tomo retorted, "That's what my high school teachers all said… And my professors, and my instructors at the Academy… and the division chief. Ha! Even HQ!" she boasted, "And yet, here I am, still on the beat!" Tomo concluded with a thumbs-up aimed at an impassive Okawa.

The senior officer refused to give ground. "You know, most officers at your age and rank are out in the prefectural police by now," he added, "They come back to the metro police a full two ranks higher…"

Tomo suddenly bent over with derisive laughter. "Ha! You trying to lecture me, you're the one who's hopeless here Taro-san!"

Okawa felt the twinge of a migraine setting in. Tomo's face was a toothy grin, apparently pleased by the disgusted expression on her partner's face.

"…what have I told you about names while on duty Takino?!" he stammered, unsure what else to say.

"Boy, you're really whole hog on this if you think you have to explain my own career to me. Is that why I'm your patrol partner?" Tomo teased with a mixture of mirth and malevolence. "Do you lecture all of the other officers at the kōban like this? You probably remind them of their fathers, eh Taro-otosan?"

Okawa gave off a long, frustrated sigh.

"Look Takino," he finally said, "I'm just trying to get you to realize how lucky you are to still have a job, much less they let you be on patrol again."

Tomo responded with a boisterous "Ha!" She eyed her partner with a self-satisfied smirk before throwing an arm over his shoulder.

"Don't you know it, Taro-san?" she continued assuredly, "I'm the hero of the entire Metropolitan Police Force!" she jabbed a finger at him, "Those suits up in Kasumigaseki don't have the balls to keep me in a kōban!"

For what must have been the third or fourth time this week, Okawa was reminded by Tomo of some great, but mysterious deed she had done while on duty. Tomo had plenty of stories to tell – some exaggerated, most others almost completely fictitious – but this single, almost legendary act was different.

Of this supposedly monumental event, Okawa knew very little, other than it was unique for the fact that, in spite of everything of Tomo had done, it had single-handedly saved her career. He knew better than to ask her for the details though, suspecting that doing so would only serve to feed Tomo's already tremendous ego. Already, he could see Tomo leaning closer; her eyes fixed like the eyes of a hawk locked on to its prey, talons perched and ready to strike.

He dodged the bait. "What you really mean is that HQ doesn't trust you with a patrol car, a scooter, or even your firearm, am I right?"

"Hmph, whatever," Tomo released Taro's shoulder, unwilling to acknowledge defeat.

As the two officers rounded a corner, a distantly familiar building came into sight. It was the high school, now buzzing with the comings and goings of new students. The memories of this place all those years ago were enough for even wildcat Tomo take pause.

It looked more or less how Tomo remembered it, the morning sun shining off the centrally mounted clock, looking down on the groups of students assembling in the courtyard. How many times, she wondered, had they passed the school without her noticing? This realization bothered her in a way she couldn't explain.

"Hmm," said Okawa, "I think we took a wrong turn somewhere. We should've passed the school by now." He was about to berate Tomo for distracting him and getting them lost when he noticed she was no longer following him. "Something wrong Takino?"

"Huh?" Tomo had almost forgotten Okawa was still there. "Oh, nothing," she said, "It's just that this is where I went to high school."

"Is it now?" Okawa remarked his partner warily - this suddenly calm and reflective Tomo was not the woman he'd been arguing with only moments ago.

Tomo felt like she should say something deep and meaningful, something her mind was not exactly adept to. As she raked her brain for the right words, any words, a low rumbling entered her ears. It mixed into a wonderful, all-to familiar blend of shrieking tires, a revving engine, and scattered sounds of pedestrian terror.

Like some great beast of legend, the battered but proud Yukari-mobile thundered over a hill and into view, heading straight towards the two officers. Tomo's eyes lit up and her excitement reached a fever pitch as the vehicle abruptly turned, jumped the curb, and roared into the parking lot behind the school.

"Go Yukari!" Tomo shouted, "Fight the power!"

"Yukari?" Okawa's eyebrow was skewed, "You know that driver?"

"Oh yeah! That's the Yukari-mobile for sure! It's really something to see her drive. Like this one time…"

Okawa's face was an uncomfortable combination of confusion, shock, and horror as he followed every detail of Tomo's tales of Ms. Yukari's vehicular misadventures. When she'd finally finished, he reached for a notepad on his belt and started across the street.

"Ooh! That's right, we have to arrest her now don't we?" Tomo said with inappropriate enthusiasm.

"What..? No! I am going to give her a ticket however."

"Ha! Even better! I can't wait to see the look on her face!" Tomo adjusted her bowler cap and began to recite what she would say to Yukari. "'Sensei… do you know why I pulled you over?'" she said in an unnaturally rigid voice.

"No, you are staying right here," Okawa's voice was all business.

"What?! You can't do that!" Tomo protested.

"As your immediate senior, I most certainly can. I'm not about to let a simple traffic violation become a shouting match, not with you here."

"B-but…"

"No!" Okawa was already on his way.

Tomo was distraught. "I thought we were partners!" Okawa said nothing, nor did he even look her way as he took off in a jog towards the school.

Now she was furious. No, that wasn't even close to what she felt. There had to be a way to get back at Okawa for this! Missing the chance to book Yukari was almost unfathomable and to Tomo seemed worse than any other disciplinary actions she had faced as an officer. For the first time, Officer Tomo Takino actually felt punished.

But then again, as she slowly began to realize, Okawa's decision to take Yukari on by himself meant she was now alone and unsupervised. Looking towards the buzzing high school, Tomo quickly put two-and-two together and hatched a plan. If she couldn't pester Yukari in person, she could just as easily do it indirectly. A prank of some kind would do just the trick.

Gradually at first to avoid attention, then quickly, she made her way across the street. She wasn't yet sure what her plan was, but Tomo was sure she would come up with something before she got there. At the very least, it would give her a chance to agitate Okawa and snoop around the old school while she was at it.

She casually walked through the front doors, the students scattering as she approached, obviously unsure of what to make of a police officer walking the halls on the first day of classes. Tomo fought to repress a growing smile as she scanned the faces of the students; she was here on serious business after all. As she remembered, the teacher's common room was on the second floor. Tomo honed in on the stairwell like a guided missile, pushing the students that didn't get out of her way.

The door to a classroom on the right was open and the room was almost full of students. Something willed Tomo to glance at the chalkboard at the head of the class. It was there that she saw something truly shocking.

The kanji was loose, but readable and the chalkboard behind it was dusty and smudged, indicating the writer had erased the characters several times before being satisfied. Vague at first, Tomo nevertheless recognized it soon enough.

It couldn't be… no, it was impossible! It had to be! That… that name!

'Kasuga Ayumu –Homeroom'.

She was a teacher? Sure, she'd talked about in college on the rare occasions she wasn't blanked out, musing on obscure kanji or discussing different species of sea slugs, but still… a teacher?

Tomo's head turned between the students and the chalkboard again and again, her brain trying to come to terms with the inconceivable reality of it all. "Impossible!" she finally yelled.

"Hey!" she shouted, marching into the classroom, "You're all here for Ms. Kasuga's homeroom, right?" The name came out awkwardly – using anything but her old friend's nickname was almost as odd as reading it on a high school chalkboard.

The students nodded, silent.

Tomo's eyes flashed as a new idea suddenly came to her. Her new plan easily trumped anything she might be able to do Yukari. For a few moments she stood there, blurry eyed and silent, leaving the students unsure of her intentions.

"This is perfect!" Tomo finally said to herself. She quickly looked around the classroom and singled out a female student sitting in the front row.

"You!" The student looked uncertain. "Yes, you! You'll be perfect! Come up here for a sec!"

A few murmurs rose above the silence. Gingerly, the student stood up.

"Y-yes ma'am?" she managed.

"I need you to do something very important for me!" Tomo winked to the girl. She then turned to the class. "Listen up everybody! I'm gonna tell you all something really important about Ms. Kasuga!"

***

Ayumu was feeling mighty proud of herself – the first day of classes and she hadn't walked into the wrong classroom yet! Granted, she had entered the counselors' office and a janitors closet on her way here, but those weren't classrooms, so they didn't count.

Successfully finding the classroom again, she entered and slowly closed the door behind her, the familiar bell warning any late students to get to class tolling as she did.

"Good mornin' class!" Ayumu said in her slow drawl, "I'm Miss Kasuga and I'll be your homeroom teacher this year!"

There was something odd about this class, Ayumu noted. This class was rigid and silent; something even she found a bit unusual. Perhaps they'd changed the chairs since she'd last been here and the students were all very uncomfortable…

She might have followed this thought for several minutes if the second bell signaling the start of classes hadn't gone off.

"Oh! That's right!" she said, "I suppose if everyone's here, we can start takin' role." She referred to a list on her desk and began to call out the names of her students, already arranged by their seats.

"Ms. Tamagawa?" she began. A girl in the corner at the front row slowly stood up. "Yes…" she started to say. Though Ayumu didn't notice it at first, the eyes of the entire class were upon the young woman. Also escaping Ayumu's immediate attention was the face of Officer Tomo Takino glaring through the window looking into the courtyard.

"M-Ms. Osaka…"

The classroom was painfully quiet - the light spring wind sounded like thunder in the silence.

Ayumu hadn't heard that name in years. Hearing it again now, from a student she'd only just met, she was unsure how to react to it.

Another unseen gesture by Tomo and the female student hesitantly pointed behind Ayumu, who was slow to turn her head to see the chalkboard at the head of the classroom. There, written in a shaky, hurried handwriting was the kanji for Osaka, crudely sandwiched between her family and given name.

She checked her list again. "Mr. Nakano?"

Another glare from Tomo. "I'm here, Ms. Osaka…"

"Mr. Ogata?"

"Here, Ms. Osaka."

How did they know her nickname? And for that matter, who had written it on the chalkboard? Ah! Maybe her students were all telepaths; they had all read her mind! Wait, she thought, could they hear her right now? Did they know that she knew that they were all psychics? She would have to be careful about what she thought about from now on!

Either way, as she continued down the roster, she began to realize there was nothing for it, no point in trying to correct them. Finally finished, she turned her head to face the class, treating her first homeroom to a slack-jawed, glassy-eyed smile. Some of the students almost instinctively scotched back or sank deeper into their seats, unnerved by her distant expression.

Osaka just smiled. Who knew, she might actually like being called by that again.

Meanwhile outside, Tomo gave the class a triumphant thumbs-up as she was dragged away by an exasperated Okawa. Her expression, only glimpsed by the class and Osaka herself, said it all.

Totally worth it.