Chapter Three—Careless

I understood that I couldn't get close to Sakura; Kaze was right: she wouldn't respond well when I would have to disappear later.

That didn't mean I wanted to ignore her, though.

In art the next day, the sensei instructed that we would be doing portraits of our classmates that day.

"Any medium you choose," she said, "so long as it appears realistic on your canvas."

Then she started pairing us up, alphabetically. I knew who my partner was going to be long before she said it.

"Hirokoshi Jinsei and Hiwatari Sakura."

I sighed, and resigned myself to being yelled at later by Kaze.

That doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself now, though.

"Hi!" said Sakura, pulling her easel a little closer to mine. "Can I call you Jinsei?"

Startled by the abruptness of her question, I could only respond with a, "What?"

"Sorry…I know we just met. I just think 'Jinsei' suits you better than 'Hirokoshi-kun'. And I am a firm believer that names should be an accurate representation of what is being named."

"Yes…yes, I agree. Actually, I feel exactly the same way." As a member of a wordspell team, I had to. "Yes, you can call me Jinsei."

"Great. And you can call me Sakura. In fact, I insist. I hate my last name." She made a face. "It's too cute-sy."

Sakura. I moved my tongue to form the syllables – the gentle hissing of the s, the soft click of the k on the roof of my mouth, and flicking of the tip of my tongue off the backs of my teeth for the r.

"Okay – Sa-ku-ra." I smiled…it felt good to say.

"Do you want to go first?"

"First for what?"

"Do you want to draw me first, or should I draw you?"

"Oh…it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter to me, either."

"Okay…well, I guess I'll go first, then."

"What medium will you use?"

"Uh…" Since we'd enrolled late, Kaze and I had been stuck with whatever classes were left, so we weren't exactly equipped with all the necessary supplies. All I had were a few pencils, and that was not going to cut it. Sakura had on a magenta shirtdress, iridescent silver legging tucked into brown suede boots, a long silver necklace with a leaf-shaped pendant, beaded chandelier earrings, half a dozen painted wooden bracelets on each arm, and a big pink flower in her hair. How could I capture something like that in shades of grey?

"Well – ah – ideally, I would probably say…acrylics. I don't have any, though."

"No worries, you can borrow mine," said Sakura, pushing a boxful over. "So, do you want me sitting? Standing? Lying down? Jumping in circles?"

"I don't know – whatever feels natural, I guess. Just – please – no jumping."

"Darn." Sakura smiled. "Okay, then, how about this?" She leaned across the table, resting one hand under her chin, tilting her face up a little, her long black tail curled playfully.

I studied her. "Turn your face a little more towards me – okay." Reaching into the box, I pulled out a medium-width brush, and a few tubes of paint. All at once, I became overwhelmed. "This is going to be hard. I'm not much of an artist."

"Everyone is an artist," said Sakura matter-of-factly. "In some way, shape, form, or degree, that includes you. Just let your eyes guide your hand; paint what you see. Relax. Deep inside you, you already know what you are doing. Trust yourself."

"Okay." I took a deep breath and one final look at Sakura, then began.

The colours flowed from my brush in liquid streams. I surprised myself with how fluid and deft my movements were.

At one point, Sakura unconsciously reached up and pushed her hair behind her ears.

"Hey, don't," I said. "I like it framing your face like that. I mean – it's easier to paint."

"As you wish – Master," she laughed.

I laughed, too.

She gave her head a slight shake, and her hair tumbled free once more.

Before an hour had passed, I had conveyed a reasonably good of Sakura onto the canvas.

"Okay, come look," I said. "But don't laugh."

"I would never!" cried Sakura, and she seemed genuinely shocked that I would even consider the possibility. She stood up straight and walked around to my easel scrutinizing my efforts.

"It looks a lot like me…you got the eyes right; you can see a lot of character there." She sounded pleased. "That's what's most important about a face; the eyes are the window to the soul."

She continued, "The textures and folds of the clothes could use a little more definition, but that's not really important for right now. What you really need –" she picked up a super-fine brush and dipped it in the white "—is more differentiation between your lights and your darks." She lifted the brush a traced a thin, steady line across the angular jawline of her painted self. The white blended immediately with the still-wet flesh tone, and added a whole new dimension to the painting, with that one simple line. Another similar tracing down the nose, and the face seemed lit up from within.

"And the hair looks a little flat –" she was already mixing a very pale blue and painting it over the black. A few strokes of her brush, and it was blended. The painted hair seemed to shimmer, and the whole piece seemed to come alive.

"That's amazing." I said. "How do you do that?"

"I've always been good at visualizing things – I just have to create what I see in my mind." She smiled. "Besides, this was almost all you. I only had to add a couple of things."

"But the difference they made was incredible."

"Of course," she replied, seeming surprised again. "Every detail is critical. Okay – the clothes, we can fix next class. Now," she grinned, "it's my turn."

I glanced at the clock. "There's hardly any time left."

"That's okay. I can still get a good start. Stand up."

I complied. "What do you want me to do?"

"Just stand there."

"What about my expression?"

"Neutral. Trust me." She regarded me for a minute or so, tapping her foot slowly. "I think…yes, charcoal. Definitely charcoal."

She pulled out a tray and selected a long, fresh piece. Then she started to draw. I could not see her hands, but I could hear the light, brittle scraping as the charcoal was guided along the canvas. Every so often, she peered around the side of the easel to look at me again.

The bell rang. "Did you finish?" I asked.

"No, but I'll work on it later." She started gathering her things.

"Do you need help?"

"Nope." She pulled a black satchel embroidered with white flowers out from under the table, grinning. "I'm learning," she said as she started putting her things into it.

"I guess I'll see you last period, then."

"Sounds good to me," Sakura replied, smiling again.

She smiled a lot, it seemed to me. But, every time she did, she shone brighter than any painted colours could capture.

-----

I walked up to Kaze, who was sitting under the tree again. "Hi."

She glanced up. "Hi." Both of us thought it best not to acknowledge the awkward exchange of the night before.

"I need to get out of here soon, or I'm going to lose it," said Kaze.

"It's only our second day," I reminded her. "Give it time."

"You make it sound like you plan on being here for a while."

"Of course not. I just think that, as long as we have to be here, we might as well keep an open mi—"

I broke off as I detected the energy burst.

"Did you feel that?" I asked Kaze in a whisper.

"Yes," she replied, barely audible. "It was really, really near to us. I think – she's in the school."

"Close," a voice laughed.

Kaze and I turned our heads to see Shadowless sitting on the grass not six feet from us. We leapt to our feet, but she remained motionless. It was easy to know why. With all the students and teachers around, we could to nothing.

"What are you doing here?" hissed Kaze. "What do you want? Come to gloat?"

Rising leisurely, Shadowless replied, "Of course not. I just wanted you to know that the 'hiding in plain sight' strategy isn't working. Just so you don't waste your time. Since you hate it here so much, I mean."

No one looked at us twice throughout this entire exchange. Shadowless had traded her theatrical gauze tunic and high-heeled boots for shredded jeans and a black leather jacket. Most of her hair was tied back in a ponytail, but the shorter layers in the front trailed along the edge of her jawline, and they glowed with cobalt blue highlights where the sun hit them. To everyone around us, she was normal. Not something to worry about. Not a fear. Not a danger. Not a threat.

"Go back to Seven Voices," she said. She spoke in a low voice so her words wouldn't carry, but they rang loudly and clearly with meaning. "Leave me alone. You don't realize what you're doing."

"I know what I'm about to do," Kaze snapped. She reached over and grabbed my hand – the way she only did when we were about to instigate a wordspell battle.

"No, Kaze –" I started.

She ignored me.

In any other team, the Fighter Unit would have immediately obeyed an order from his or her Sacrifice. But Kaze would not.

Shadowless remained unruffled. "Do you really want to do that?" she asked pleasantly. "That would be fine by me. I have nothing to lose in revealing myself as a Fighter. But if you uncovered your secret, in front of all these people—" she swept an arm out around her, pointing out all the students and staff who were waling by, oblivious-- for now "—you will be betraying not only yourselves, but your entire Academy. Are you really willing to destroy everything just to capture me?" Her words made it sound like a question, but, when I looked in her eyes, I could tell she already knew the answer. As did we.

Kaze's eyes were spitting with fiery rage. Practically throwing my hand back at me, she ordered, her voice trembling with fury, "Get out of here."

"So you can track me down as soon as the senseis' backs are turned?" inquired Shadowless, smirking slightly. "Not a chance. I'll stay…right here." And she sat back down again, her unbreakable gaze challenging, almost taunting.

The bell rang. Students surged passed us, and a teacher came by and said, "All right, off to class, you three."

'I have a spare class," said Shadowless sweetly.

"Okay, then. You and you, let's get going," he said to me and Kaze.

We had no choice but to go – we would be sure to be caught of we lied. We walked away with the sensei.

"Don't be late," called Shadowless in a sing-song way.

Kaze clenched her fists with frustration, and I felt an unpleasant simmering heat deep within my stomach.

-------

"Are you okay?" asked Sakura in history class. "You seem kind of tense."

"Oh, I've got a huge math test tomorrow and I'm not ready," I lied.

"Already? That's harsh," said Sakura.

"Yes, well, it's all review from the spring semester," I elaborated, so as to be more convincing. "But I have no idea if it's going to match what I learned at my old school."

Sakura grimaced in sympathy. "Yuck. I'm sure you'll do fine, though. Where did you go to school before?"

"I went to private school in Osaka." The bitter taste of guilt remained on my tongue as the lies passed through my lips. "But my parents died in the summer."

My parents probably were dead. I had never known them. I vaguely remembered a couple of different foster homes before being handed over to Seven Voices. When I got there, I had met my match – Kaze. Even before our name had appeared, they'd told us that she belonged to me.

"That's terrible," said Sakura softly. "I'm so sorry to hear that."

I felt bad for upsetting her, so I tried to shrug things off. "It's no big deal, really. We were never close. I live with my friend Kaze now, and we go to school here."

Kaze had told me her story not long after we'd met. Her mother had walked out months before, leaving Kaze alone with her alcoholic father. Though she was only six, she'd run away from home. She didn't make it very far before she was picked up off the streets by one of the Seven Voices senpais.

"Still," said Sakura, "it must have been such a shock."

"Yeah, it was," I said, cringing inwardly. "But I'm—"

"Hirokoshi-kun!" called the sensei. "In the First World War, what three countries formed the Triple Entente?"

"Um—I, uh—"

"Russia, France, and Britain," whispered Sakura.

"Hiwatari-kun, I wasn't asking you," reprimanded the sensei. "Now, both of you, pay attention!"

-----

"The nerve of her!" yelled Kaze, after we'd walked into our apartment. She'd been tight-lipped and white-knuckled all throughout chemistry class, and I knew she'd been dying to yell those words for hours.

"Who does she think she is?! Just because she beat us once, she thinks she can come back and rub our faces in it?!"

While my feelings were more or less the same as hers, I couldn't forget how she's completely ignored my command. When a Fighter doesn't listen to the Sacrifice and acts on impulse; when there is no synchronization of thoughts and intent, the team is weakened.

As if she'd heard my thoughts, Kaze started in on me, too. "We should have fought! Jinsei, we could have had her! But you were willing to just let her go!"

"Kaze, she was right," I said. "We would have completely exposed Seven Voices if we had tried to capture her then."

She was silent.

"And there was no guaranteeing a victory."

"You don't think we can win?" snapped Kaze. "She just took us by surprise last time! That's all!" She paused, then continued, in a softer voice. "Don't you believe that we can do this? Don't you believe in us?...In me?"

After a pause, I replied, "Of course. We're a team, Kaze. We work together. We stay together. And we will succeed…together."

But I was worried.

Kaze had changed since we'd first encountered Shadowless. She'd become less rational and more impulsive. Less patient, and more emotional. Shadowless had changed her.

Shadowless was tearing us further apart.