Still Waters 3, Book 2, Chapter 15: Gone
Language Warning
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
"She's...she's really gone? You're...you can't be serious! I mean, I saw her, just the other day..." Madoka said, trailing off as the truth of the matter finally began to sink in.
The others lurked around the edges of the room, no one willing to meet anyone else's eyes, while Misa sat curled up in a chair, hiding her face and looking absolutely miserable.
"I meant what I said: Izumi Ako is no longer in Japan. She didn't leave the country through any of the normal routes either. I don't know where she went, but she's not here anymore," the tracking officer from the central mage agency said. "She's just...gone." He cast a look around the room at the others, Kakizaki Misa, the favorite apprentice of none other than Evangeline A.K. McDowell herself, staring off into the distance as she sat in her chair, Shiina Sakurako, one of the most powerful support mages in Japan if not all of East Asia, sitting up on the windowsill, looking as youthful as ever as she looked outside, Miyazaki Nodoka, brilliant mage and one of Negi Springfield's closest friends, frantically trying to set up her telepathic network in a last-ditch effort to find more information about where Ako had been seen before her disappearance, Kagurazaka Asuna, founding member of Ala Alba and the one who had famously earned the rank of Executioner of the Shinmeiryu in two short years, staring down at the floor in disbelief as she tried to process what was going on, Yukihiro Ayaka, heiress of the Yukihiro Group and long time member of Ala Alba, gaping at him from where she stood after coming up out of her chair, before finally settling back on Kugimiya Madoka, only half-jokingly called the Human Typhoon for her ability to destroy anything put before her, pacing and clearly terrified for the safety of her friend. All were famous names among the local mages and even back at central, and for good reason: every girl in this room had proven her worth several times over. Back at the office, the names of these girls were bandied about the same way normal people talked about comic book superheroes. Could Kugimiya beat Kagurazaka in a straight up fist fight? Who was the more effective mage, Kakizaki with her overwhelming power, or Miyazaki with her superior technique? Who was the better supporter, Shiina or Yukihiro? It was incredibly odd to see the faces behind so many of these famous names looking so helpless.
"What about something like a pocket dimension?" Asuna asked suddenly. "She might have gone into a pocket dimension, right? Right?"
The tracking officer took in the desperately hopeful look in Asuna's eyes and sighed, shaking his head. "No; our arrays allow us to detect any and all dimensional anomalies created by such a thing. The only dimensional anomaly she is associated with is the one in the small cabin in the forest to the east, and our scans show she hasn't been there in at least a month."
Asuna seemed to deflate at that, and the tracking officer sighed again. "Look," he said, "we're doing everything we can. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but there is evidence of a temporary portal being set up in the woods over in Yachiyo, in Ibaraki. We don't know where it was pointed, but there is evidence of a campsite built for a fair sized group of people, several dozen at least, too many to get their signatures untangled so quickly, and we have recovered six abandoned vehicles from a small lake near the site. We don't know who these people are, but they are good; their energy signatures are scrambled, and they managed to successfully hide a medium-scale portal from us. Believe me, we are doing everything we can. Izumi-san has some friends in high places; her case is getting much more attention than most in her position."
"Thank you for your help," Ayaka said suddenly, standing up from her chair and moving across the room to show the tracking officer to the door. "We appreciate it; please continue doing whatever you can."
When the tracking officer was gone and the door shut behind him, Ayaka turned to face the others. "We can work with this." Sakurako, Misa, and Asuna looked up at that, while Madoka paced back and forth, muttering to herself. Ayaka turned to Nodoka. "Anything new?"
Nodoka continued listening to someone in her network for a moment, her eyes closed, before shutting the network down and shaking her head helplessly. "No...no one seems to know anything. She was seen on the morning of the second day of the festival with the young man you told me about," she said, looking at Misa and Madoka, "but that's all I've been able to find out."
"If we get a description of those cars they found," Sakurako said, looking back out the window, "we can have Kazumi-chan and Chachamaru check the security cameras around town. Again." Very few businesses in Mahora had exterior security cameras, due to both cost and the way they tended to pick up mysterious bursts of static or break almost constantly. Nevertheless, there were still quite a few external security cameras in place, and if one of them filmed one of the suspect cars... "Maybe we can..." she trailed off, looking thoughtful.
"I can't believe I let my guard down like that, I don't know what I was thinking! I have to save her, it's the only thing I can do..." Madoka muttered to herself as she continued pacing.
"I know the guy in charge of Yachiyo," Asuna said. "I can call in a favor and get some more information on that camp site and those cars, though they probably won't let us go there to see for ourselves. We can maybe send Kazumi up there to spy on the campsite from above, and maybe have Reiko or Sayo-chan ask the ghosts if they saw anything unusual."
Ayaka nodded. "Sounds like a plan," she said thoughtfully as she looked over the others in the room until her eyes rested on Misa, still curled up in her chair and hiding her face. Ayaka moved to close the gap between them and stood for a moment looking down at her old friend before gently resting her hand on Misa's shoulder. Misa looked up at her, her eyes puffy from crying and her makeup running, and Ayaka gave her a confident smile. "Don't worry, Misa; we'll find out who took her, and we're going to take her back."
"We'll make them pay, too," Madoka said quietly, clenching her fists as she stopped pacing to look over at Misa.
"That's right," Asuna said, nodding. Nodoka nodded as well.
"Ako-chan's our important friend," Sakurako said. "We'll find her," she said, her tone unusually serious as she stood up from the windowsill. "I have something I have to take care of; see ya later," she said.
Asuna watched her go and turned back to the others when the door had again closed. "Yeah, she's right. I have to call up that guy I know in Yachiyo, and I know Nodoka's got a lot of work ahead of her," she said, glancing over at Nodoka, who nodded.
Ayaka smiled at the others. "That's true; we all have a lot of work ahead of us. For now, we should assume the kidnappers have fled to Mundus Magicus; as soon as we get some descriptions, I'll send them over and see what I can discover, and someone has to tell Negi-sensei. Come on Asuna, Nodoka-san; we have work to do."
A moment later, Madoka and Misa were left alone in the room.
"Do you think..." Misa said, trailing off before she could speak what was on her mind.
"Hmm?" Madoka asked, standing nearby.
Misa looked up at her hesitantly, and quickly turned toward the window to hide her face. "Do you think I—we could have saved her if we realized she was gone sooner?"
Madoka looked away, unwilling to let her closest friend see her face. "I-I don't know. I mean, that first night, I wondered where she was, b-but...but I d-didn't even..."
Madoka trailed off halfway through, and Misa didn't respond. The room fell silent.
Thursday, July 2nd, 2009
He looked at the well worn class roster, the first one he had used, now six years old and covered in handwritten notes and doodles. From Takahata's well-wishes to the devil horns he had drawn on Asuna's picture after first meeting her and later scribbled out, he knew every pen mark on it, every scuff was like an old friend. He didn't know why he had packed it that morning instead of his current one, but when he had opened his briefcase upon arriving at school, there it had been, and it had brought with it memories of people and events he hadn't thought of in years. It seemed like only yesterday that Konoka and Asuna had graduated middle school and he had been forced to move into his own apartment...
"Sensei."
Why, he was quite sure that he could recall most of the times he had 'accidentally' summoned Asuna into his bedroom because he couldn't sleep; looking back on it now, he knew it was really pretty sketchy behavior on his part, but beyond some teasing, Asuna hadn't ever seemed to mind, and now that he was older and could see things a little more clearly, he supposed she had missed his almost nightly forays into her bed. And now, she was sleeping in his bed again...granted, they were both older now and he was sleeping on the couch—EVERY night, thank you very much—but the arrangement seemed to bring forth a certain sense of nostalgia that he treasured so, so much, far more than he could express in mere words. Things had become somehow...unpleasant in the past few years. Ever since that trip to America with his friend and fellow teacher Max Linell, that sensation of unease had grown, and he had stopped finding enjoyment in any of the activities that had formerly brought him hours of entertainment. He had lost interest in antiques, learning about Japanese history, even tea—tea!—had ceased being something he enjoyed and instead became merely something to drink when he was thirsty. Now that he thought about it, he couldn't pinpoint any one moment in time when this sensation of disquiet had first made itself known, but from what he could tell-
"Sensei."
-it had only grown with time. It had grown with time, sharpened by events. Events such as the incident on the dig site in Tibet when his old friend Ayase Yue had been temporarily entombed in some ruins during an earthquake, events such as the spontaneous shattering of four of the statues in the secret storage building in his home town—petrified villagers, every one—events such as the kidnapping of one of his own students, Possum Cade, through his own inadequacy as both a mage and a teacher, and now, the kidnapping of one of his old friends, a student from his first class, Izumi Ako. Ako-san, the hopelessly cute young woman who had developed such a crush on his adult form six years before, Ako-san, the kind and gentle soul who cried over the injured even as she did her best to save them, Ako-san, whom he had failed so completely by-
The slap was so startling it left him blinking, his cheek burning, his mouth hanging open as he stared at the utterly blank expression on the face of the student standing on the other side of his desk. Student number thirteen, Ono Ran, stood there, staring back at him.
"Negi-sensei...!" student number fourteen, Yoshida Ume said in horror as she half-rose from her seat, a move mirrored by several other students.
"Ono-san...she slapped Negi-kun...!" Sasaski Rina said, horrified at what she had just witnessed.
"Ono-san...!" Hayashi Fujiko bellowed as she shot up from her chair with such force that it fell over backward.
Ono Ran shot such a blank glance at Fujiko that it made her face go pale, then swiftly looked over the rest before focusing the weight of her stare back on Negi.
"O-Ono-san, go back to your desk-"
"You are weak," she said, her voice not quite low enough to keep the other students from hearing what she had said. She paused upon hearing several of the other girls gasp, and turned back to look over at them, shutting them up immediately. She stood there a moment, just looking at the other students, and abruptly headed back to her seat and gathered up her things before turning back to Negi.
"I feel sick; I'm going to the nurse's office." She walked to the door without waiting for a reply and exited the room.
Several seconds passed after the door had shut before Rina let out a ragged breath. "Th-that was scary...!" she said, clinging to her friend Inoue Ai, who sat in front of her and shared a table with Ono Ran.
"W-what was her problem? I mean, you don't just go around h-hitting teachers! That's against the rules...!" Fujiko said, pale and shaking like a leaf as she sat in her chair. Something about her classmate's blank stare had been incredibly disturbing on some deep, secretive level; she didn't understand it at all, but she felt as if she had somehow been exposed, as if she had gotten on the train naked, and she found the mystifying event all the more upsetting because of it.
Negi looked around the classroom, dazed from the sudden unexpected violence from what was normally a polite, even shy student, until his gaze fell on Evangeline, who watched him with a measuring gaze. What she wanted to say was plain on her face: What are you going to do about this, boy?
Negi swallowed the sudden lump in his throat and looked back down at the old class roster as it sat open on his desk beside the English textbook he was supposed to be using to teach today's lesson. He looked out over the class again, did his best to convince himself he wasn't shaken by the frighteningly incomprehensible incident with Ono-san, and flipped the roster shut. He stood up, taking his textbook and lesson notes with him, and strolled over to the podium, doing his best to ignore the stinging in his cheek. He very carefully placed the items he carried on the podium, placed his hands on the well worn edges of the top of the podium in the stance every good teacher has perfected, and made a gentle smile as he looked out over his students again. "Well, while I can think of several much better ways to do it, I must thank Ono-san later for waking me up; I have been quite tired since waking up this morning," he said, his smile changing into a charming grin as he spoke. "Please open your textbooks to lesson twenty three. Today we will be studying-"
"What the hell was that?" Sato Gin demanded during the lunch break. "I mean she just went up to him and hit him!"
Her best friend, Mako Sylvester, shrank back a little at Gin's vehemence, but shook her head. "I don't know...I've never been able to read Ono-san; she has a wall inside." All Mako normally needed to do to 'read' someone, as she called it, was to come into physical contact with them. Usually, simply brushing against another person was enough to trigger her ability; sometimes all it took was picking up something another person had dropped. But with her classmate Ono Ran...it was as if she had some sort of wall built around her, blocking any sort of anomalous cognition. Any attempt Mako made was repelled with equal force, something she had learned through her own experimentation early in the school year. At the time, she had accidentally bumped into Ono Ran in the hallway, an incident that would normally have ensured a psychic episode, but...nothing had happened. Curious, Mako had performed several experiments, all of which had led to the same result; she had wanted to ask the other girl how she did what she did, but she could never work up the courage to actually initiate a conversation with her. She had thought, after beginning the extensive training that she was undergoing with Gin and the others in Eva's resort, that she might be strong enough to force her way in, but her first attempt had dropped her to the floor with an excruciating headache, and Ono had given her a blank look and told her to stop. Mako, naturally, had been quite disturbed.
Gin took a big bite of the sandwich Mako had made her for lunch and chewed for a moment. "Something's up with that delinquent, and I want to know what it is," she muttered darkly as she used the back of her hand to wipe the crumbs from her mouth.
"I don't think she's someone you can take lightly," Yamamoto Kimi, fellow training partner to the others, said from where she sat nearby with her best friend Abe Aiko. "I think she's really dangerous..."
Gin cocked an eyebrow at her and gave her a condescending look. "Oh? And how would you know that? Your 'warrior instincts'?" she said, making air quotes as she spoke the last two words.
Kimi stiffened, annoyed, but nodded.
"Look, it's not like she's done anything bad before," Aiko said, raising her hands in an attempt to defuse the situation before it could get out of hand. Gin and Kimi clashed all the time; Gin's rebelliousness and Kimi's sense of responsibility went together about as well as oil and water, and the two of them couldn't get into a conversation without it turning into an argument. Nevertheless, they were both part of the group. "She probably just had a bad day..."
"Um...actually..." Kai, also a fellow training partner, said, having overheard part of the conversation as she was walking through. She walked over to the others and knelt down next to the table. "Ono-san knocked out a guy that was bothering me at the festival."
"What?!" Gin replied.
"No way...!" Aiko said, leaning forward, eager for gossip.
"I haven't heard this before," Kimi said, also leaning forward.
Mako followed the example set by the others and scooted closer.
"Okay, so I was walking around in the morning, right?" Kai said. "Well, next thing I know, some jerk sticks his foot out and trips me! So I get up to yell at him, but he starts chasing me," she said, carefully omitting the part where she took off running as soon as she realized the boy was a youkai while everyone leaned in closer. "So he chases me for a while and this cat gets in the way and he catches me. Threw me into a wall too! Can you believe it?"
"The nerve of him," Gin said, utterly deadpan.
Aiko's hand had moved to cover her mouth as if she was horrified at this development, but her eyes glittered in barely-contained curiosity.
"So then he...er...so I push him away and he just sorta keels over, like somebody knocked him out," Kai said quickly, leaving out the part about her first kiss being taken and how she had actually thought the youkai boy was cute enough that she almost wanted to kiss him back. "So I look over and Ono's just standing there at the end of the alley, looking all spooky! I wanted to hit him, but she did something that really hurt my head, like, from the inside or something. It was really weird!"
"How do you know it was her?" Kimi asked, watching her face closely.
Kai shivered and shook her head. "Believe me, if you had been there, you wouldn't wonder at all."
The five fell silent for a long, contemplative moment.
"So...what, she can shoot mind bullets at people?" Gin asked, her disbelief fading.
"I dunno," Kai said. "Whatever it was, it was strong enough to knock him out from thirty feet away. When she hit me with it, it just...really hurt my head, I can't really describe it any other way. There wasn't anything I could see either, not like magic."
The group fell into another silence.
"So...like a TV psychic or something, huh...?" Aiko said idly as she looked down at the table top. Her gaze drifted over to Mako, who shrank back. "Can you...?" she said, trailing off.
Mako shook her head shyly, as she did any time she was questioned about her ability. "Not at all..."
"Different type of psychic," Gin said defensively, jumping in with a glare to defend her best friend.
"Right, right," Aiko said, backing off. "Just wondering. But we should probably tell somebody, right? I mean...if Ono-san's that dangerous, people should know so they can be prepared to defend against it."
"Survival Rule Number One: Always Plan Ahead," the other four recited together, rolling their eyes. It was the first of a series of rules their P.E. teacher/Magic teacher Max Linell had forced them to memorize as part of their training. He claimed it was the most important rule of all; Aiko was inclined to agree, but then again she had been brought up to consider all the possible outcomes of a situation and be prepared for them; it was why her bookbag was three times heavier than those belonging to most of her classmates; ink and specially prepared paper and ritual tools weighed a lot, after all.
"Yeah...anyway, I've gotta get back to Miyako and Kara," Kai said, standing up.
"Oh! Is Ayumi-san still sick?" Aiko asked. Gin looked at her, then up at Kai, curious.
Kai shrugged. "That's what Miyako says. I think she just doesn't want to come to school; it wouldn't be the first time," she said, rolling her eyes.
"Yeah yeah, get going," Gin said, not unfondly as she turned back to the remains of her sandwich. She got along with Kai pretty well, considering. She supposed it was something to do with their shared distrust of just about everybody. They tended to see eye to eye right away, even faster than Gin did with Mako. "Ayumi, huh?" she said absently when Kai was gone.
"Kobayashi...I just can't get along with that girl," Kimi said, poking at the wrapper from the melon bread she had eaten earlier.
"Tch. aggravating bi—" Gin cut herself off and glanced at Mako as the quiet girl finished tidying up her lunchbox. "Aggravating brat," she amended.
"Well she certainly isn't the easiest girl to get along with," Aiko said dryly. Aiko spoke from experience. As the only student in the whole class in the Photography Club, Aiko often found herself having to retake a perfect shot over and over again because Ayumi insisted on doing a 'better pose'. If she denied Ayumi's request, Ayumi would inevitably blow her top. Aiko didn't like people to be angry with her, especially someone with Ayumi's reputation; everyone knew how Ayumi mistreated Caro all the time, and how vicious she could be to the other girl.
"Ayumi, huh..." Aiko said after a long moment. "I wonder what's keeping her out of class, anyway?"
The bundle of blankets on Ayumi's bed shifted slightly. A moment later the sound of a growling stomach filled the otherwise silent room.
"Ugh..."
The bundle shifted again and a hand poked out and reached for the small table beside the bed, where it patted around for a moment as if searching for something. A moment later, it came upon the shattered remains of a cell phone and paused. The bundle of blankets let out a sigh, and the hand was withdrawn.
"Stupid cell phone..."
Ayumi abruptly sat up, throwing the blankets off, and took a moment to blink away the tiny black spots that filled her vision before she glanced around the room. As expected, her roommates Miyako and Rosemary were both gone, probably in class. Ayumi rubbed her eyes and looked over at Rosemary's alarm clock. "One thirty," Ayumi muttered. She sat there on her bed for a moment, stupid with sleep and trying to ignore the headache she had. She looked idly down at her book bag, still lying where she had left it by the door days ago, and scratched her stomach. Her stomach growled again and she frowned. "...hungry..." She couldn't quite recall the last time she had eaten, but it had definitely been a while. 'Maybe yesterday morning...?' she thought idly. She yawned, and swung her legs out over the edge of the bed.
"Urgh..."
She pulled herself upright, swayed for a moment in dizziness, and shuffled over to the mirror. She glanced at her reflection, and quickly recoiled. While she was by no means an unattractive girl and could actually be considered borderline beautiful, Ayumi went through a lot of trouble to keep herself looking her best. Hair dye, scented soaps, expensive shampoos and conditioners, three baskets full of different kinds of makeup and another for all the other little things a young woman thinks she needs to be beautiful...these and more were the things Ayumi valued most; she had neglected all of them since the third day of the festival.
She looked at the stringy, sweaty hair on her reflection in the mirror, curled oddly here and there and with her roots starting to show, and shuddered, rubbing her forehead; her head was really starting to pound. She shook her head to clear it and stumbled over to the dresser. "Need a shower..." She gathered what she needed and threw it all in a basket, wrinkling her nose as she caught a whiff of her own unwashed body. Three days without washing in the middle of a Japanese summer while hiding under several layers of blankets was not without its consequences, unfortunately. She paused at the door for a moment, considering whether or not to go out in her sweaty pajamas, but shook her head and opened the door. She paused in the doorway, looking up and down the hall, and stepped out when it proved to be empty, pulling the door shut behind her. She set off down the hall.
The baths were empty, just as Ayumi had expected. She washed off in a rather haphazard manner in the showers, and then made her way out to the baths themselves. She wandered off to the back of the enormous room and gently lowered herself into one of the smaller baths, mostly obscured from the rest by decorative greenery. Safely hidden in her favorite spot, she sat back and made herself comfortable, trying to forget about the nightmare her life had so recently become. Misa-sama didn't care about her, her stepmother was a monster and the guy the woman had married after Ayumi's father died made her nervous, her grades were going down, it felt like her band members were drifting away...Ayumi scowled.
"Stupid Kara...!" she said to the empty bathhouse. Kara had gotten to play music with Ayumi's favorite band, Dekopin Rocket. Not only that, but it was up on stage, on the biggest day of the festival...! How was that fair? Kara hadn't even been able to play at all until Ayumi had started teaching her after drafting her into the band, and had she ever said 'thank you'? No! 'I don't think so, anyway,' Ayumi thought, trying to recall if the totally stacked American girl had ever done so. One thought drifted to another and, lulled half to sleep by the warmth of the water and the exhaustion she felt after the last few days, her thoughts mellowed as she thought of her bandmate.
'Kara's so pretty...' she thought idly, lifting her arm out of the water so she could look at her skin. 'Her skin's prettier than mine, her eyes are bigger, her boobs are bigger...'
Ayumi lowered herself further into the water until her chin touched the surface, and stopped. "Stupid Kara," she muttered without venom, hugging herself. She lowered herself still further and began blowing bubbles. "Stupid pretty Kara," she said aloud. "She's all pretty and...and...fun to...to hug...and I want to..." she trailed off, her mind a confusing jumble that made it hard to think.
The sharp bang as the door bounced open and hit the wall startled Ayumi so much she shot up out of the water so fast she found her vision filling with little black dots again. She was dimly aware of hearing a couple of voices at the other end of the room as she swayed, wobbling back and forth.
"My head feels weird," she muttered as her vision started to blur. The headache she had had since waking up had really started pounding.
"Ha! You'd better be careful, you're stronger than you used to be," someone said in a loud, tomboyish voice from what Ayumi thought had to be a million miles away. Someone else muttered what had to be an apology, though she couldn't make out the words.
Ayumi, confused and unable to think clearly, her head feeling like it weighed a hundred pounds, tried to step out of the bath, but she felt slow and stupid and weak and couldn't quite get her foot up high enough; it hit the side as she tried to climb out of the bath and she started to fall forward. Her eyes widened as the tile floor rushed up to greet her face, and everything went black.
The first thing Ayumi noticed was that she felt incredibly relaxed, as if she had just had some of the best sleep of her life. She let out a contented sigh and shifted her body, trying to find a more comfortable position. It was only an instant later that she realized she wasn't lying in her bed; the cold, wet tiles under her back were enough to startle her back to wakefulness as she shot upright, her vision going almost immediately black.
"Hey! Calm down, Ayumi! You should lay back down-"
Ayumi's gaze darted back and forth frantically as she tried to figure out where she was, but someone's hands were pressing on her shoulders and forcing her back down. She let out a high, breathless scream and walloped the other person in the face with her fist.
"Ow...! Don't do that!"
Ayumi struggled futilely against whoever was there, flat on her back and barely able to think, until her vision finally began to clear and she saw another girl's face looking back down at her.
"Hey, are you okay?" the girl asked.
Ayumi's heart was pounding from the sheer confusion of the last few seconds, but after a moment the blanks in her memory began filling themselves in. 'I...was going to take a bath, right? This is the baths, I recognize the ceiling,' she thought, calming significantly. She couldn't quite recall actually getting to the baths, but...
"You just need to take it easy, alright? Yuuna, uh...sensei's getting some towels so we can dry you off and take you to the nurse's office, okay?"
Ayumi blinked up at the girl for a moment. "Possum...?" She didn't really know the other girl; the only interaction between them had been during class or whenever Ayumi went to the dorm room Possum shared with Kara. "Weren't you sick?" she asked, scrunching her eyebrows as she tried to recall some of the speculation among her classmates about why the other girl had been missing classes since before the festival.
"Eh heh...I-I guess so; something like that," Possum said, nervously looking away. Ayumi figured she must have seen something good, because she immediately perked up and looked back down at her. "Here she comes. Can you sit up?"
Ayumi reluctantly took the other girl's hand and allowed herself to be pulled up to a seated position, realizing for the first time that Possum was wrapped in a towel, and a little surprised at how easily the other girl pulled her up and steadied her. She groaned as her head started to swim, but Possum held her upright and the sensation passed. Her stomach growled, and she looked away, embarrassed.
Possum ignored it and helped keep her steady until a strange, smiling woman with a sideways ponytail appeared in her field of vision.
"Heya," the stranger said, a small basket containing some clothes and towels held under her arm. "How do you feel?" she said, putting the basket down beside her as she knelt down to get closer to Ayumi's eye level.
Ayumi blinked at her as she tried to recall where she had seen the woman. "...I'm alright, I guess," she said idly, her gaze drifting down the woman's face and neck to her chest, pausing where the large bathtowel she wore cut off the view. She blinked again, her mind still addled, unable to keep from staring.
"Well, as much as I appreciate the attention," the woman said, grinning wickedly at her, "I'm afraid there are other things you should be focusing on than these."
Ayumi quickly looked away, blushing as she realized her nakedness for the first time and quickly brought her knees up and crossed her arms protectively over her chest.
"Now that's more like it," the woman said. "Oh, my name's Yuuna, by the way. Akashi Yuuna! Professor Akashi's my dad," she said proudly; her arrogant expression faded a little when Ayumi just looked at her blankly, however. "Anyway, we need to get you dried off, so here," she said, pulling a towel out of the basket beside her. "Can you sit up on your own?"
"I...I think so," Ayumi said. She glanced at Possum, who reluctantly let go of her, and sat there a moment, feeling weak, but at least capable of staying upright on her own. She stood up with Possum's help and took the towel Yuuna offered; she quickly wrapped it around her body, then accepted another, smaller one for her hair. She looked for her hair clips for a moment before recalling that she hadn't even bothered to put them on before leaving her room.
Yuuna shook out Ayumi's pajama pants and wrinkled her nose at the smell. "Man, these really stink...don't you have anything else to wear?"
Ayumi shook her head, a bit miffed, and Yuuna rolled her eyes and heaved an exaggerated sigh.
"Man...this is pretty rough," she said, holding the pajamas out at arm's length. "Well, I don't have any extra clothes and I'm pretty sure Possum-chan here's almost as bad off as you, so...what? Think you guys can get back to your rooms in just a towel?" she said, a wide grin on her face.
Ayumi clenched her teeth, snatched her sweaty pajamas from Yuuna's hands, and stalked toward the exit. She threw the door open, walked through, and slammed it shut behind her, the sound echoing through the otherwise silent building.
'Stupid Akashi!'
She stalked down the hall to the stairs.
'Stupid Possum!'
She was clenching her teeth so hard her jaw was starting to hurt, but she ignored it.
"Making fun of me!" she said aloud, all but spitting the words. She tried to ignore the way her heart was pounding or the way her hands were shaking. She continued down the stairwell, banging her fist against the safety rail with every other step until her foot landed on the edge of a step and slipped off. Before she could react, Ayumi found herself falling back. The back of her head hit the edge of a step and bounced, she saw stars, another stair hit her in the ribs, and then she was rolling down the stairwell and hit the stair landing in a heap, ultimately rolling straight into the wall, her towel miraculously still wrapped around her.
Ayumi laid there a moment, curled up at the base of the wall, a whimpering bundle of bruises.
'Why? Why is everything going wrong?!' she thought bitterly, her body aching. A moment later, the reality of what had just happened to her began to sink in.
Ayumi's eyes widened. 'I fell down the stairs...' she thought, horrified. People died from that kind of thing...! She put her hands under her and pushed herself up, and let out a breathless little cry as her bruised ribs protested.
'Why, dammit? Why? Why why why why why?!'
She pushed herself up to a seated position and leaned against the wall, her heart pounding in terror at what she felt was a narrow escape from death, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath while holding back her sobs. She tried to stand up, using the windowsill behind her, and let out another scream as she staggered to her feet, clutching at her side, where the edge of a step had caught her in the ribs. She almost collapsed back into the wall, terrified at her own helplessness.
"Ayumi...!"
Ayumi staggered away from the wall, heading for the stairs down to the next level, barely registering the presence of Possum and Yuuna, both standing at the top of the stairwell she had fallen down.
'No! I can't let anyone see me like this...!' Ayumi thought frantically through the pain in her side, which had rapidly outstripped all the rest. With her head spinning from hunger and pain, she stumbled closer to the stairs.
"Ayumi, no! Don't!" Possum yelled, her odd accent, developing from her natural American accent combined with the way she had learned Japanese, identified her immediately, even through the confusing fog in Ayumi's head.
The next thing Ayumi knew, someone had grabbed her upper arm hard enough to bruise and yanked her back, away from the stairs. 'No! I can't let anyone see...! I'm too weak-' Ayumi jerked away from Possum and stumbled back to the very edge of the top stair, where she teetered on her heel for one long, horrifying instant, her eyes widening in rapidly growing alarm as she started to fall backward until Possum darted forward and snagged her arm again, yanking her away from the stairs. Ayumi let out a bloodcurdling scream as the bones in her wrist ground together, and then she hit the wall hard, driving the air from her lungs and would have hit the floor again had Possum not caught her.
"Ayumi! Ayumi, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to-" Possum said, her frantic tone doing nothing to calm Ayumi's racing mind.
'No no no no NO!' "Get away from me...!" Ayumi screamed as she gave Possum a monstrous shove that sent her stumbling back, her arms pinwheeling as she tried to regain her balance. The next three seconds seemed to stretch to hours for Ayumi as she watched her classmate Possum Cade stumble back toward the stairs, the American girl's eyes widening in fear as she stepped backward over the edge of the top step into nothingness and began to fall. Ayumi's gaze locked with Possum's as the girl fell; from the first impact of Possum's back against the edges of the stairs to the way the top of her head slammed back and caught against an anti-skid strip, forcing her head back at an impossible angle and making her body flip over from the momentum of her fall, arms and legs flung out, to the sickening impact as she hit the steps again and rolled clumsily to the bottom, where she lay still in a broken heap, the girl's bath towel still miraculously in place.
Ayumi brought her hands up to cover the lower half of her face, unable to avert her gaze from Possum's unmoving form at the foot of the stairs. 'Oh my God oh my God oh my God oh my God...' "I-I...I didn't-" Two hands with a grip like iron grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her against the wall, making the back of her head smack against it so hard she saw stars again. The hands shook her violently, and suddenly the strange woman from before, '...was her name Yuuna...?' Ayumi wondered, barely able to think, was right up in her face, the woman's otherwise pretty face marred by rage.
"Listen up you little bitch," Yuuna said, giving her another shake, "I just got Possum back, and you are not going to take her away from me again...!" she snarled. "You could've killed her! I don't care what you've been through, I don't care how sick you are! You are never going to behave like such a halfwit bonehead ever again! Understand?" She gave Ayumi another vicious shake, harder than the last and slammed her into the wall again. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?" she ground out from between clenched teeth, her withering glare doing far more than her words in getting her point across.
Ayumi, tears building, nodded frantically and Yuuna shoved her away and rushed down the stairs to where Possum was starting to stir, leaving Ayumi sliding down the wall in the corner, her towel finally coming undone. Ayumi didn't even notice its absence as it fell. 'I can't let anyone know I'm so weak, I can't I can't I can't!' Yuuna helped Possum up, the younger girl shaking her head to clear it and favoring one leg, and sent one final glare up at Ayumi.
Watch out.
Ayumi flinched back, thoroughly cowed and terrified more of the fact that someone else knew just how weak she actually was in spite of the facade she kept than anything the woman could physically do to her. For years and years, she had built up walls to protect herself. The emotional abuse she had received from her stepmother every waking moment since her father's death had forced her to do what she could to stay sane...but that woman had ripped through her defenses with ease, making her feel stupid and weak and helpless, and as much as she didn't want to admit it, the fact that someone other than her stepmother could lay her bare so easily was horrifying... Ayumi did the only thing she could do: she waited until the scary woman took Possum and left, and hurried back to her room as fast as she could, where she could hide under the covers in her bunk and cry.
By the time Ayumi made it back to the room, Miyako was already there, changing out of her school uniform. Ayumi blushed furiously, trying to hide the ugly bruise on her wrist where Possum had grabbed her earlier, not to mention the others she had received in her fall, but she realized she must have let something slip because Miyako was right beside her an instant later, putting an arm around her back and directing her into the room.
Ayumi tried to pull away, but Miyako wasn't having any of it and led her straight to her bed.
"Here you go Ayumi, just sit down right here and I'll get some clothes for you," Miyako said as she bustled around.
Ayumi clenched her teeth, her lips a thin line as she snatched at the shirt and pair of shorts Miyako offered. "I need underwear," she muttered.
"Hm?" Miyako said, turning back to look at her.
For some reason, Ayumi found her roommate's big eyes, cute face, and that clueless expression she always wore to be immensely irritating. "I said I need some underwear!" she said, all but snarling as she spoke. She immediately felt bad for yelling at Miyako, but somehow that startled, slightly fearful expression the other girl had let show on her face was gratifying; she felt bad about feeling that way, but it was too late to do anything about it so she accepted the articles of underwear Miyako held out to her. She sat there on the bed in her bath towel a moment, looking at the underwear with her clothes lying on the bed next to her while Miyako kept shooting concerned looks at her. "Go away," she said under her breath.
"Ayumi-chan? What did you—eep!"
"I said go away dammit!" Ayumi screamed, getting up off the bed and shoving Miyako into the room's small bathroom. She slammed the door shut, her head spinning from her sudden violent motion, and Ayumi would have fallen to the floor had she not stumbled into the wall.
Ayumi leaned against the wall for a long moment, trying to catch her breath, before Miyako spoke again from the other side of the door.
"...Ayumi...? Are you... Did something happen?"
"No!" Ayumi growled, shoving herself up and off the wall. "Stay in there until I tell you to come out!"
"Ayumi...if something's wrong, you would tell me, wouldn't you? I mean, you're my-"
"No! Nothing's wrong!" Ayumi all but screamed, cutting her off. 'Shut up Miyako!' she thought viciously, trying desperately to ignore how terrible she felt for treating the other girl so badly.
"...Ayumi?"
"Shut up I said!"
Ayumi stood there beside her bed, her fists shaking as tears began to fall again. 'Why am I even crying?' she thought. "Stupid...stupid Possum, m-making me push her like that...she'd better not tell Kara, or I'll...I'll..." Ayumi trailed off at that horrible thought. Her bandmate Kara was Possum's roommate; if Possum told Kara that Ayumi had...had been forced to push her toward those stairs, then... A flood of appalling thoughts rushed through Ayumi's mind. Kara might look down on her, Kara might quit the band, Kara might hate her... Ayumi's heartbeat sped up further at that last, cruel thought. Sure, Kai was her oldest friend in Mahora, but in all the class, Ayumi talked to Kara the most; the thought of losing that was far more distressing than she had thought possible, and she didn't even know why.
Ayumi sat down on her bed for a moment, staring off into space, idly holding some underwear as she tried to make sense of the tangle of emotions that appeared whenever she thought of Kara. Irritation, anger, jealousy...her face started to go red again as she realized just how jealous she felt of her bandmate. Envy of Kara's good looks, curiosity about what Kara thought of her, which brought about a sense of fear based around what Kara would think if she knew Ayumi wanted to know... The list went on and on into territory that was downright questionable: Ayumi wanted to...she blushed heavily.
"I want to...I want her to..." She paused. 'What am I thinking? This is really weird...' Nevertheless, she continued on. "I want to stay here and be friends with Kara forever," she said aloud, scared of the words even as she said them. She didn't know why she had felt the urge to say them out loud. It was embarrassing, that's what it was; she shook her head to clear it and stood up to take off her bath towel.
"...Ayumi?" Miyako said, opening the bathroom door.
Ayumi froze in place, her eyes widening in panic. Miyako...she had heard...! She whirled on the other girl, lips stretched thin, teeth showing in a snarl as she darted forward into the bathroom. Miyako offered little resistance as Ayumi grabbed her and pushed her into a wall.
"Ayumi, stop it! You're hurting me...!"
"Shut up!" Ayumi hissed at her, her whole body shaking as she held Miyako up against the wall, her expression contorted into a grimace as she scrambled to figure out what to do.
"Ayumi-chan—ah!"
"Shut up I said!" Ayumi said desperately, pulling Miyako back from the wall and slamming her back into it. A small framed picture print fell off its hook and hit the floor; the glass shattered. Ayumi didn't even notice; she couldn't tear her eyes away from Miyako's face and the simple acceptance and understanding she found there. "No, no! Shut up!" she said again, her fingers digging into Miyako's upper arms.
"Ayumi-chan, it will be all-"
"SHUT UP...!" Ayumi screamed, giving Miyako another shake. "Shut up shut up shut up SHUT UP!" she wailed, then heaved the other girl aside. Miyako let out a squeak as she toppled over the clothes hamper and hit the floor, right in the middle of the pile of broken glass. Miyako gasped and jerked away, revealing a splash of red. Ayumi's gaze focused on the thin streak of blood on the floor, shot to Miyako's unblemished face as she looked down at her hands, wide eyed, and finally down to Miyako's hands and the three inch gash across her left palm. Ayumi's eyes went wide and she took a step back. "N...no..."
Miyako sat there on the floor, clutching her injured hand, and Ayumi took another step back, shaking her head. Her own hand had been hurt like that, a long, long time ago. Her eyes kept going back to that absurdly out of place smear of blood on the floor, to Miyako's injured hand, and back again. She took another step back, her eyes straying back to the small streak of blood on the floor. Miyako looked up at her, her eyes full of forgiveness, and Ayumi took another step back, bumping into the doorframe; that was all it took to make her turn and bolt for the safety of her bed. Three seconds later, she was safely hidden under her blankets, her eyes squeezed shut and her hands clamped over her ears to keep the rest of the world out.
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
"Ayumi's not here again today, huh?" Kai said idly as she stepped into the club room. The only other person present was her fellow bandmate Kara.
Kara shook her head. "I haven't seen her in days; I wonder what happened..." she said, plucking the strings of her bass guitar in a random tune as she spoke.
Kai listened, winced. "Your E string's off," she offered as she walked over to the small refrigerator the four of them kept stocked with drinks. Normally the American girl would have realized that right away and fixed it; she supposed it was a measure of just how worried Kara was, even though she would never admit anything beyond a general sense of concern for a classmate...Kai snorted. Kara was such a tsundere.
"Oh, thanks," Kara said as she made the proper adjustment to get her bass back in tune. "I didn't notice."
"Yeah..." Kai said as she poked around in the fridge. Nothing looked good. "Miyako would've told us if anything was really wrong with her."
"Yeah..."
Kai sighed in resignation and took out two bottles of water. She tossed one at Kara, secretly impressed by the way the other girl caught it with ease without even really looking at it, and strolled over to her drum set with the other. She sat down on the wobbly little stool she had appropriated to use as a drummer's throne, and opened her bottle of water. She took a sip and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "I'm sure she's fine. I doubt she'll apologize for making you worry so much though," she said, grinning.
Kara jerked guiltily and looked away. "It's not like that! I'm not worried, I'm just kind of...I'm mad at her for always skipping out on practice," she finished lamely.
Kai couldn't help but grin. Yeah, Kara was definitely worried about Ayumi...it was almost cute. Her grin widened. 'This looks like fun; I want to tease her some more~' she thought. "Hey Kara, why don't you-"
"Where is Miyako, anyway?" Kara said suddenly in what Kai could tell was just an attempt to draw attention away from her.
Almost as if on cue, the door of the club room opened and Miyako came in, trying to hide her bandaged hand, as she had all day. "Hello," she said awkwardly.
"Hey," Kai said. She would have to save her teasing for another time.
"How is Ayumi?" Kara asked. "I mean, hi."
Miyako's expression relaxed considerably. "She...I think we should probably all go and visit her. She isn't feeling very well, but I think you two can cheer her up. Wanna go?"
"Maybe tomorrow..." Kara said reluctantly. She perked up suddenly. "Hey, you guys know Possum's back, right?"
Kai and Miyako looked up in surprise. Possum Cade, Kara's roommate, had been missing since well before the festival; the teachers had said it was something to do with a medical condition, but nobody seemed to know just which medical condition it might be. Ayumi, ever one to love juicy gossip, had, of course, suggested pregnancy.
"How is she?" Miyako asked. "She wasn't in class today..."
Kara shrugged. "I don't know. The dorm mother came up and took some of her things on Tuesday; she said Possum needed a change of clothes."
Kai nodded. She knew the two American girls seemed to find a sense of comfort or familiarity in being in the same room, even though they had, by Kara's own embarrassed admission, absolutely nothing in common. Possum was from the south, Kara was from the midwest; Possum was friendly with everyone, Kara was a socially clueless girl who most people thought of as cold until they got to know her; Possum could fit in anywhere, Kara stuck out like a sore thumb. Still...whenever Kai found the need to go to Kara's room, the two of them were often there, a comfortable silence between them. She knew Possum's initial disappearance had been quite a shock to Kara; Kara obviously hadn't realized how important having someone else from the same culture had been to her until Possum was gone. Kai grinned; with Kara's bumbling social skills, she'd probably end up going overboard and lavish attention on Possum until the other girl couldn't take it anymore. 'Well...either that or be way overprotective of her,' she thought. In any case, Kara could start to relax again; she didn't play bass very well when she was uptight...knowing the other girl like she did, Kai was surprised she had been able to play as well as she had with Dekopin Rocket up on stage at the festival the previous weekend. Kai's train of thought screeched to a halt. 'Wait a minute, Ayumi's been skipping school since the festival, when her idols took Kara up on stage with them...oh, oh wow.'
"Hey, Kara?" Kai said, coming back to the present.
"Hm?" Kara replied, holding a pick between her lips as she knelt down to plug her bass guitar into an amp.
"...nevermind," Kai said. Kara turned her attention back to the dials on her amp. 'I...don't know how to handle this,' Kai thought. She frowned. How did one deal with a girl with serious jealousy issues in a situation like this...? The only thing Kai knew was that she didn't have a clue; she had known Ayumi a long time, but she was terrible at dealing with her when Ayumi was moping around or feeling bitchy. To liken the girl to a minefield wasn't out of the question.
"Come on Kai; let's practice a little," Kara said as she stood up. "I want to practice playing with this," she said, holding out the guitar pick.
Kai looked up at Kara again, then over to Miyako, who had picked up the battered and stained, yet somehow still useable acoustic guitar Kara had spotted poking out of a dumpster some time before. Without Ayumi, their guitarist, someone had to fill in, no matter how bad they were; even though she screwed up almost every chord she tried to play, Miyako could at least keep proper time. Miyako slipped the guitar strap up over her head and smiled, and Kai couldn't help but grin crookedly at the other girl's enthusiasm. Say what she might about lack of guitar skills, the girl was trying hard to learn."Should you even be playing with your hand like that?" Kai asked, glancing down at the bandage wrapped around the palm of Miyako's left hand.
"It's okay if I don't move my wrist," Miyako said shyly.
"Okay then..." Kai sighed, picked up her drumsticks, and started the count. "One, two, one two three four..."
A lone girl stood on the roof of the middle school, her eyes shut and her head held back at an angle.
"I know this feeling," she murmured.
'It's not as bad as all that; not yet. I should know, after all.'
The girl replied with a frown and turned in a slow circle, trying to ignore the mass of darkness in the building under her. That teacher...
"It could easily..." she said, drifting off as she felt something finally break over toward the distant dorm building that housed most of the middle school students, hidden from sight by trees and other buildings. "It's begun."
'Oh hell,' the other one said. 'Not again...'
"In this case, yes," the girl said as she finally opened her eyes and looked around, finally focusing on a third source of darkness that had been growing in the distance off to the Northeast. "There is that, too; it's been getting closer. Things will become very unpleasant here, I think."
'Don't let yourself get dragged into it,' the other one said. 'You should just go somewhere else.'
"I won't," the girl replied. The other one wasn't sure if the girl was referring to the first suggestion or the second.
Images from the last time the girl had felt such a thing surfaced from her memory. Broken bodies lying on the ground at the base of the wall, the wet and meaty SPLAT as another one landed... People she had known for years, their darkness overwhelming them... She walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down at the ground far below, at the trees and bushes planted by the landscapers, the wide paved walkway leading up to the front of the school, the narrower sidewalks that ran around the school building and led off toward the gymnasium, the club building, and other places... she could almost see how it would be. Her classmates...
Student Number Thirteen, Ono Ran, made an odd little smile. "I must prepare."
'Be careful,'the shadowy being Ran knew only as Kuroi Yuina said in her head.
Author's Notes: Sorry this one took so long; I had problems dealing with Ayumi's breakdown and some pacing issues. Anyway, what's up with Ran? That was pretty violent of her, to hit Negi like that. But then again, what's up with Negi? And Ayumi! Oh wow, Ayumi. Yeah...not going to get into that at the moment. Seems like Yuuna's got some sort of issue with losing people too; didn't expect her to blow her top like that...maybe it's related to the time she spent traveling around the world after graduation...? Anyway, coming up next: A fight over who gets to train vampire-ish Possum?! Yuuna vs. Eva, next!