Still Waters 3, Book 2, Chapter 22: The New Batch
Tuesday, July 14th, Midday
"Haah," Student Number 5, Rosemary Dean, heaved a sigh as she waited for class to end. 'Nitta-sensei is so boring,' she thought as she stared blankly down at the notes she had been trying to take. She couldn't get much sense out of them; an effect, she had no doubt, of Nitta-sensei's droning voice. She could barely understand him...! She frowned. Perhaps it was time to refresh the heavy-duty instant translation spell she had used since arriving in Japan...? She hadn't had the time or inclination to learn Japanese properly, so she had been relying on the spell her friend Jackie back in the States had taught her, but... She took a chance to glance around at some of her classmates, but everyone else seemed to be able to keep up just fine. The girl in front of her, Abe Aiko, was diligently taking notes just like always, and even Urashima Taro, over in the back corner by the windows, was taking notes properly. A glance at the other side of the room showed that she wasn't totally alone in her boredom, however: her classmate Takahashi Shizuko was staring blankly across the room at the windows, her pencil held upright a few inches above her notebook while she daydreamed.
'Or whatever it is she does when she's looking out the window,' Rosemary thought to herself. Shizuko had a bad habit of drifting off into her own little world from time to time, and a lot of the other girls thought she was a total ditz because of it. Rosemary thought Shizuko was pretty cool though, she stood up for others and wasn't afraid of anything. She was also very pretty; even other girls thought so. While some of the other girls had their own followings among other students, only Shizuko had an actual fan club...Rosemary had just about laughed her head off when she first saw those younger girls trailing after Shizuko while trying—and failing miserably—to hide. Shizuko seemed to prefer to pretend they weren't there.
Rosemary's attention drifted over to some of the students who sat closer to her until her gaze locked on to her classmate Mochizuki Kagami. Rosemary thought Kagami was really pretty too, if a different sort of pretty from Shizuko. Where Shizuko could almost be called 'elegant' when she took the time to actually pay attention to what she was doing, Kagami was more along the lines of 'she's gonna be really hot when she grows up' though, to tell the truth, Rosemary thought Kagami was pretty good looking already. 'Plus she's got that whole tsun-tsun thing going on that's so popular right now,' she thought. Kagami glanced up at her with a sort of bored glare and cocked an eyebrow as if to say 'What do YOU want?' Rosemary gave her a thumbs up and turned her attention back to the clock above the chalkboard.
'Alright, almost there, just three more minutes. You can make it! Next is P.E., and that's way better than sitting at a desk!'
Not only was P.E. way better than sitting at a desk, it was also a good chance for her to loosen up. Rosemary had always been an active girl; all this sitting around and taking notes was starting to drive her crazy, especially with summer vacation so close. "Come on Rosemary, just another week or two..." she muttered to herself. The last thirty seconds of class seemed to stretch on interminably for Rosemary, but it came to an end soon enough and she was out the door almost as soon as the class rep finished the usual end-of-class ritual.
"Okay, today you'll run laps for ten minutes and, since you all complained so much about playing soccer last week, you'll break up into two teams and play baseball instead," Max Linell, the six-foot-six American with a face that made children cry and who had served as a P.E. teacher for the girls' middle school for the past six years, said, glaring at the chorus of groans that arose in response to his announcement.
"You'd better listen up!" his assistant coach, Sasaki Makie, said as she propped Max's infamous wooden sword up on her shoulder. "We're doing this out of the kindness of our hearts! You girls wouldn't like it if he said you were playing rugby, would you?" she asked, looking around, visibly struggling to keep a serious expression on her face.
"Oh, and one more thing," Max said, quieting the group of complaining girls with a glare. "Those of you whose names Sasaki-sensei is about to call, come to my office after school." He paused to sweep a steely glare over the class. "Don't even think about skipping out."
Rosemary smirked at the way the assistant coach's face lit up at Max's use of 'Sasaki-sensei'. From what Rosemary could see, the woman seemed to really love her job... 'Good for her,' Rosemary thought idly as she glanced over at the baseball field. It had been quite a while since she last played baseball...what, three, four years? She frowned as she tried to recall how old she had been when she was put into her grandmother's care.
"Okay! Pay attention in case I call your name!" Sasaki-sensei said, her cute voice standing out in stark contrast to the gargle-with-gravel-and-broken-glass harshness of the other teacher's. "Rosemary Dean!"
Rosemary jerked back to reality upon hearing her name called and looked around frantically. "Ah...what? What's going on?" she whispered to the girl standing next to her, a girl from a different class whose name she didn't know.
The girl gave her a condescending look. "You're to report to Rehnehru-sensei's office after school today," she said, looking at Rosemary as if she was an idiot for asking.
Rosemary cocked an eyebrow at the other girl's rudeness. "Oh, thanks. And just for reference, it's pronounced 'Linell'. That's not so hard, is it?" she asked, voice dripping with sweetness. She smirked at the rude girl for a brief moment before turning her attention back to the two teachers.
"Suzuki Keiko!"
Rosemary's eyes widened. Keiko was in trouble? Rosemary was used to being in trouble; she could think of half a dozen things that might get her called to the teacher's office just within the past week, but Suzuki Keiko, probably the most well behaved student in the class...? No way...!
"Hayashi Fujiko! Sophie Rivers!" Sasaki-sensei continued on. Rosemary could hardly believe her ears, and judging by the startled looks on the faces of some of the others, neither could they. "Kara Stride! Endo Haru!"
'Oh wow...I wonder what happened? Does it have something to do with the way they shut the dorm down for a few hours the other day...?' Rosemary wondered. None of the 'usual suspects' but her had been called...maybe they were looking for witnesses? But in that case, why call everybody out in such a public way? She realized Sasaki-sensei wasn't finished yet.
"Miyoshi Youko!" Sasaki Makie said, grinning at the girl. "And Mori Kumiko! All of you please hurry to Max-kun—I mean Linell-sensei's office after school! That is all!"
Rosemary was left by herself as the other girls broke up into small groups, talking nervously among themselves until Hayashi Fujiko, the girl she had befriended at the festival when the two of them saved Yagi Ryoko, a cat youkai girl, from a couple of fox youkai, drifted over.
"What do you think is happening?" Fujiko asked nervously. Her gaze darted toward the two P.E. teachers and then back to the track as they started running their laps.
"I don't know," Rosemary answered. They trotted along in silence for a moment. "Do you think it's...that?" she asked.
Fujiko was quiet for a moment. "You mean...at the festival? With Ryoko-chan?"
"Yeah," Rosemary said. They trotted along quietly for a moment.
"Surely not," Fujiko said, a hint of panic in her voice. "How would they know?"
"I dunno," Rosemary replied. "Maybe somebody saw us."
"H-how do you know it's that? Maybe you're wrong...!" Fujiko said.
Rosemary let the obvious doubt in the other girl's voice speak for itself as they rounded the far end of the track from where they had started. A moment later, she spoke again. "Well, I can think of quite a few things I could get in trouble for, but you? You're squeaky clean, 'Fu-chan'," she said, using Ryoko's nickname for Fujiko. She grinned at her friend to show she didn't mean any offense.
"But..." Fujiko paused, trying to gather her thoughts. "But what about the others? Keiko-san and Kumiko-san? They never get in trouble."
"I dunno," Rosemary said. "Keiko's been hanging around with Youko lately, and so has Haru." She left it at that; the mention of Miyoshi Youko's name in connection to someone getting in trouble spoke volumes. "She probably pulled some massive prank. Remember how the dorms were shut down for a while the other day?"
Fujiko frowned and shook her head. "Huh...not really. I...huh. That's weird."
"What is?" Rosemary asked as they finished their first lap and started on their second.
"I can't remember much of anything from the other day," Fujiko said, clearly disturbed at the revelation. "I mean...I remember walking out of the school building, but...it seems like I can't remember what happened between then and waking up the next morning..."
Rosemary gave the other girl a confused look. 'So...what, amnesia? Ha! Not likely. More like some kind of memory erasing magic. But why?' "You really don't remember anything?" she asked.
"No!" Fujiko replied fearfully. "I-it's all...it's all empty! What do I do? What do I do?" she asked, looking at Rosemary desperately.
Rosemary, for her part, was taken aback at the fear and confusion coming through in Fujiko's voice. The girl sounded terrified.
While Fujiko started to panic, another girl trotted along nearby, lost in thought.
'Rosemary-san, Youko-san, maybe Sophie-san...I don't think the others would do anything wrong,' she thought to herself, frowning. Even the thought of Sophie Rivers doing something worth getting called to the teachers' office was a stretch; sure, she had made some mistakes when she first arrived, but she had quickly adapted to Japanese society and hadn't had any problems since. So that left...what? Nothing she could see.
Watanabe Miyako continued along, rounding the far end of the track. 'I wonder why they want to see Kara?' she thought. She wasn't aware of anything Kara had done wrong either, but sometimes other people did bad things because they were interested in Kara. There had been the incident with the hidden camera in the dressing room, for instance, and that time just a few days after the festival when that guy was creeping around the dorm at night...
Miyako shivered and quickly changed her train of thought to one a little more palatable. 'Is it something to do with what happened at the dorm the other day?' She hadn't seen what happened of course, she had gone out into the city to pick up a few things. When she had gotten near the dorm, however, the main path had been blocked off and one of the teachers, Seruhiko-sensei, had been standing there by the wood barrier, speaking into his cell phone. Miyako had taken a side path not many people knew about and come around through the woods to the dorm from behind just in time to hear someone playing some beautiful music very loudly, quickly followed by an explosion, and then...nothing. That was fairly normal for Mahora, so she had just slipped into the building through an open window and gone on up to her room. She hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary, but...she shrugged. Whatever that mysterious music and explosion had been, it had certainly been disruptive. Still, she doubted most of those who had been called would be involved in something like that. The only other recent notable incident she was aware of would be what had happened between Ayumi, Kara, Caro, and Shizuko, and as far as she could tell, none of the teachers seemed to be aware of it, and none of the participants seemed willing to talk about it, not to mention the fact that three of the participants hadn't even been called. Ayumi hadn't mentioned a word about it since she returned to school, either...Miyako supposed it wasn't a very pleasant memory for the other girl, and she still hadn't come back to band practice since Kara kicked her out of the band for her actions.
Miyako sighed.
Why did everyone have to be so...so...stubborn? Even though Ayumi seemed to be feeling much better lately and had even started going back to class again, she still refused to apologize and ask Kara to let her back into the band...! Miyako liked Ayumi and Kara and Kai, they all fit together! Band practice without Ayumi just wasn't fun anymore...sure, Ayumi was sarcastic all the time and could be hard to get along with, but-
"Hey, Miyako."
Miyako looked back behind and quickly spotted Kara jogging to catch up with her. She smiled at the other girl and slowed her pace until Kara caught up. The two of them jogged along side by side in silence for a long moment.
"Hey, Miyako," Kara said again hesitantly.
Miyako glanced over at her, curious as to what Kara wanted to say. She focused on the running track again when Kara didn't finish her question. A thought flitted through her head, and Miyako grinned.
"Ayumi's doing better," she said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if to comment on the weather. She saw Kara seem to relax a little by the corner of her eye. Kara was strange, in Miyako's opinion; even though she sat right in front of Ayumi in class, she didn't seem to have the nerve to turn around and ask her how her day was or anything! "She's even trying to do some of the work she missed when she...wasn't feeling well." Miyako continued along as the two of them fell quiet again. She glanced over at her friend after a moment and smiled. "Want me to come along with you when you go to Max-sensei's office after school?"
Kara looked over at her, clearly embarrassed but happy that Miyako seemed to understand. "Will you?"
"Sure!" Miyako said, smiling back at her.
Thoughts of Kara and the other girls' mysterious meeting to come with the P.E. teacher after school quickly fled Miyako's mind as everyone went back to the classroom and the History teacher came in. Miyako loved history; it was her favorite subject next to math. She loved to watch the constant evolution of inter-country communication as it changed over time; it was just awesome. In particular she was fascinated by the complex interaction between countries during times of war, when boundaries shifted constantly and alliances formed and changed and dissolved in a matter of days, the chain of events often set off by the smallest of coincidences or even something as minor as a perceived slight on the part of one leader by another. Everything about it, from the top down, was fascinating to her in a way she just couldn't get anyone else to understand, especially other girls her age. It had taken her a while to figure out that other people had trouble looking at it the way she did; for whatever reason, they tended to focus on the details of what had happened rather than why and how, not to mention how each event affected things around it. Some of the teachers seemed to understand her love of history a little, but Miyako hadn't found anyone she could really talk to about it. She didn't worry about it much, however; some of her friends were into things she didn't understand either.
Miyako sighed when the history teacher left and the last teacher of the day entered the room. While she was good at it, she had always found Home Economics to be incredibly dull...
With the school day finally over, Miyako heaved a sigh of relief as she stood up from her desk. 'Now, we can finally get to the bottom of this!' she thought to herself as Kara hesitantly walked up to her.
"Hello, Miyako."
"Hello, Kara-san," Miyako said, smiling at the other girl. "Are you ready?"
Kara reluctantly nodded and, much to Miyako's surprise, turned to the girl who sat beside Miyako, Sophie Rivers, who had also been told to come to the P.E. teacher's office after school. "Hey...do you know what this is about?" she asked.
Sophie gave her a long, measuring look as if trying to figure out what Kara's angle was, but shook her head after a moment. "I don't know," she said softly as she looked back down at where her bookbag still sat on top of the desk. "The only thing I can think of is-" Sophie cut herself off and shook her head.
"What is it?" Miyako asked, eager for the chance to speak with Sophie. Miyako was a friendly (if shy) girl; nevertheless, she had never managed to get Sophie to say more than a few words...this was one of the longest conversations she had ever seen the girl have.
"You shouldn't be late."
Miyako and Kara turned to see who had spoken, and found the class rep, Nakamura Sachiko, standing behind them, with the class bully, Urashima Taro, standing beside her.
Kara nodded hesitantly, and Miyako glanced back at Sophie to see the other girl looking away, as if she felt uncomfortable with the situation.
"Don't worry about it too much, it's not like it's anything bad," Urashima Taro said, much to Miyako's surprise. She turned her attention back to Taro, but the girl just met her gaze evenly for a moment before tapping the class rep's shoulder. "C'mon Sachiko, let's get going."
Miyako watched the two of them head for the door, quickly joined by Possum Cade and Mochizuki Kagami. Another group quickly followed them, this one consisting of Abe Aiko, Yamamoto Kimi, Sato Gin, Mako Sylvester and, strangely enough, Miyako's bandmate Kondo Kai, who turned to grin at Kara before exiting the room.
With so much of the class gone, the remainder of the students seemed to take that as a signal to finish up the usual after school gossip session a little early, and soon only Miyako and those who had been called to the P.E. teacher's office remained, looking at each other nervously.
"S-so..." Hayashi Fujiko said, clearly nervous. Miyako rather liked Fujiko; the girl had a strong sense of justice, and always tried to do what was right. She didn't have anywhere near the ability with mathematics that Miyako had, but then again, few people her age did.
"So..." Rosemary said thoughtfully as she stood next to Fujiko. They looked at each other and Fujiko made a weak grin. Miyako was a little wary of her roommate Rosemary Dean. The transfer student from America was a notorious prankster, and had even pulled a couple minor pranks on Miyako herself, though it didn't seem to have been done in a mean-spirited manner.
"So what is this about? Does anyone know?" Endo Haru said. Mori Kumiko, who stood nearby, looked around nervously. Miyako and Haru got along pretty well; they weren't close, but Miyako felt like she could trust the other girl. Miyako rarely spoke with Mori Kumiko, but she had always had the impression that Kumiko was a quiet, hardworking girl, and while Kumiko seemed a little standoffish at first, once Miyako had gotten to know her, she understood how nice Kumiko really was.
"I've got a pretty good idea, but it would spoil the surprise if I told you," Miyoshi Youko said. If Miyako didn't feel comfortable around Rosemary, she didn't trust Miyoshi Youko at all. Youko had a strangely foxlike personality, and Miyako couldn't shake the feeling that the white haired girl was sizing her up any time they were in the same room. Something about the way Youko looked at her was disturbing, as if she was looking at a potential victim. It was quite disturbing. Suzuki Keiko, however, was someone Miyako got along with very well. The two of them had a lot in common, such as a mutual love for mathematics, and, though Miyako tended more toward the arts and Keiko leaned more toward the sciences, the two of them had quite the rapport when working on the same task.
What followed was a long moment in which most of those who had been called upon in P.E. looked at each other, trying to discover whatever it was that linked them together. Miyako, for her part, didn't have a clue. Most of those who were called upon had little in common...she just couldn't figure it out.
"We should go." Miyako nearly jumped when Ono Ran suddenly spoke up from behind her. Miyako didn't know what to think about the girl. She had never had much interaction with the dark haired girl but, unlike most of the rest of the class, had never thought of her as 'spooky'. She had sort of liked her, in fact...up until the day she slapped Negi-sensei in the face. After that, Miyako hadn't had a clue what to think. Was Ono Ran merely a delinquent? Did she have some sort of medical thing that made her do strange things? Miyako just didn't know.
"Eh, you're probably right," Youko said as she stretched her arms up above her head to work the kinks out of her back; she let out a yawn seconds later. Miyako frowned at her; she had seen Youko sleeping with her head on her desk shortly before class ended.
Miyako turned her attention back to her friend Kara while the others spoke their agreement with Youko. Kara...Kara was beautiful and awkward and fun to be around. Miyako liked being around the girl; while some of the others were jealous of Kara's more adult looks, especially now that she had started wearing those glasses, Miyako had never had a problem with her. Kara was nice once she got to know someone. It was funny, Miyako thought; she had seen through Kara's standoffish facade the first time she met her, and they had gotten along wonderfully ever since.
"Do you still want me to come with you?" Miyako asked quietly while the others shuffled out into the hallway. She knew that, awkward as Kara was, she sometimes talked to Rosemary and Youko, but none of them had never been close and most of the others in question rarely had any reason to speak to Kara at all. Kara would probably be all alone in the group if Miyako wasn't there.
Kara stood at the table for a long moment, biting her lip as she looked down at her bookbag. "...yeah," she finally said, not looking up.
Miyako noted that Kara's cheeks had gone a little red in embarrassment at her admission. 'Ah, how cute,' she thought. "Okay. We should go now though, so we don't get left behind," she said, looking up at the door. Miyako's pleasant smile wilted a little when she saw Ono Ran standing in the doorway looking back at the two of them, but the spooky girl turned away a second or two later and joined the others in the hallway, leaving Miyako and Kara alone in the classroom.
"Yeah, let's go," Kara said.
Miyako smiled at her. "Okay!"
The trip to the P.E. coach's office in the New Gym wasn't very far, but Miyako found it interesting to watch the growing fear on the faces of most of the other girls as the group drew closer. While she technically wasn't involved, she couldn't help but get caught up in the slowly building sensation of dread that quickly took over the group. While none of them could figure out what they might have done wrong to get in trouble for, they were all nervous nonetheless.
From the door they took to enter the New Gym, it was only a short walk to the P.E. teacher's office, where Sasaki-sensei was waiting outside. She waved excitedly when she spotted the girls entering the gym and trotted over. She took a moment to look them over; Miyako supposed that was to make sure nobody tried to skip the meeting.
Sasaki-sensei's expression turned regretful when the group approached, however. "I'm sorry Miyako-chan, but you can't come in this time," she said, as if being called to the P.E. teacher's office was supposed to be a treat.
Miyako cocked her head to the side, a move mirrored by Sasaki-sensei. "Okay...I understand; I was just trying to support my friends," she said.
At that moment, the door opened and the P.E. teacher, Scary Max-sensei, stepped half out of his office and sent a withering glare at the offending group of girls before his gaze locked on to Miyako; she couldn't help but take half a step back as the weight of his attention fell on her. He looked over at his pink-haired assistant coach, and she held up her hands in a placating manner.
"It's taken care of," she said.
"Okay," the P.E. teacher said, then turned his attention back to everyone else. "The rest of you, get in here. Now." He went back into his office, leaving the door open.
Everyone looked at each other nervously. Miyako couldn't help but notice just how nervous Kara really was. "Is...is something wrong?" she whispered to her friend as she took her hand.
Kara looked around furtively. "I-I don't know. I...I mean, something happened the other day, but...but I don't think..."
"You didn't do anything bad, right?" Miyako asked gently, taking Kara's other hand. "You're not a bad person, you're my friend," she said simply, giving Kara's hands a squeeze. "I'll be waiting for you back at the dorm, okay? Come back as soon as you can!"
Kara nodded, looking embarrassed.
"C'mon, why don't you two get a room already?"
Kara jerked her hands away and turned to face away from the other girls, several of whom were snickering at the remark.
Miyako glared at Rosemary Dean, the American transfer student who was grinning at her. "That was mean-"
"Oh come off it, Miyako-chan," Rosemary said. She walked over to Kara and slung an arm around her neck. "What's wrong with a little humor while waiting for the firing squad, huh?" Kara tried to squirm away, but her heart wasn't in it and she let Rosemary steer her toward the open doorway the other girls were already moving through.
"Kara-san..." Miyako said, troubled. Kara wasn't strong, not like she was. Kara might always pretend to be cold and distant, but Miyako knew that was just a front; Kara was more sensitive than any of them...she was just trying to protect herself from getting hurt.
"...It's alright," Kara mumbled as she shook Rosemary off and went through the door.
"Don't worry about a thing, Miyako-chan," Sasaki-sensei said when the other girls were all inside. "Just go back to the dorm and finish your homework, and everybody will be back before you know it!" She went through the doorway and pulled the door shut behind her. A few seconds later, the door opened again and the assistant P.E. teacher poked her head back out in the hallway. "And no peeking!" She waited until Miyako nodded, then smiled pleasantly at her and went back into the office.
Miyako heaved a sigh. The situation was quite troubling... She really didn't want to go back to her dorm room now. It was a nice day outside though, if a little hot...perhaps she could spend some time on one of the benches outside...?
"Hey, is it true? Is he really going to let them come too?" someone said.
Miyako jerked awake and looked around. She was sitting on one of the stone benches by the pathway that led to the New Gym. 'I must have dozed off after I left the gym,' she thought as she stretched and let out a yawn. The air was nice and warm while the shade of the tree she was under kept the sun off. She had been under a lot of stress lately, worrying about her friends...she hadn't had a good night's sleep in weeks. It was no wonder she had fallen asleep. A quick glance at her cell phone told her a little more than an hour had passed since she had accompanied Kara to the New Gym. 'I wonder if they're still in there...?' she thought as she looked at the building. She quickly shook her head; if they had been released, Kara would have found her on the bench and woke her up. But what was taking them so long...?
"I know...I'm kind of nervous about it," someone said nearby.
Miyako looked around, curious as to who was speaking. It sounded like her class's Abe Aiko, but...
"I wonder...I know about Miyoshi-san and Endo-san, but..." The sound of the girl's voice was drowned out by the sound of the wind rustling the bushes and trees between them.
And, if Miyako wasn't mistaken, that sounded like her class's Yamamoto Kimi, Aiko's best friend. From what Miyako could tell, it sounded like they were on the path on the other side of the trees behind her. She was about to call out to them when she heard something that shut her up quickly.
"...I know. And what about Kara-san? Isn't it dangerous to let her join in? You heard about what happened the other day..."
Miyako tried to listen to what was being said, but the other two girls seemed to be walking away, their voices merging into the background noise of the campus. 'What were they talking about? Kara is dangerous?' Miyako didn't know what to make of that...Kara was her friend, one of her best friends. Kara was a good girl; she wouldn't do anything wrong.
What was going on today?! Ever since P.E., certain girls in her class had been acting strange, looking at the girls who had been called and giggling or grinning or making cryptic remarks. Even Urashima Taro, who normally ignored everyone else, kept grinning at them. It bothered Miyako...she felt like she was being left out of something, and couldn't figure out what it was. It was...it was weird, and Miyako knew weird. She had lived in Mahora all her life after all. People dressing up like comic book villains and running through the streets? She knew Akiyama-san's family disapproved of his hobbies. Impromptu martial arts tournament under the world tree? She had watched Ku Fei practice there every morning for years before the chinese girl graduated high school. World War I era biplanes having a dogfight in the skies above the shopping district? Seen it a million times. If there was one thing about Mahora that set it apart from anywhere else she had visited, it was how open the city and its residents were about their weirdness, which is why her classmates' behavior set Miyako's 'weirdness censor' off. Why speak in whispers about something Kara had supposedly done? Miyako had gotten the distinct impression that Aiko and Kimi had been trying to avoid being overheard...why?
Miyako stood up from the bench, taking her bookbag with her. This was weird.
She looked back toward the gym, where Kara and the others were having their strangely long meeting with the P.E. teacher, then over at the two girls she was about to lose sight of. Miyako bit her lip as she considered what to do.
She decided to follow them.
The path Aiko and Kimi took was long and circuitous, as if they were afraid someone might try to follow them. Luckily, Miyako knew the city and the campus like the back of her hand, and was able to stay out of sight without losing track of the two. A few times the other two seemed to get nervous, but she Miyako quickly ducked out of sight before they could turn around and spot her. Every now and then she could even catch snatches of conversation, all of which only fueled her curiosity further, a condition that only deepened when the duo paused for a moment, looking up and down the path, before suddenly turning off through a break in the bushes and onto an unpaved dirt track that led into the woods. Miyako frowned; she had never even noticed that path was there before. It didn't make any sense...she had been by this place dozens of times, so why hadn't she ever noticed that path...?
She waited a moment for the other two girls to move a fair distance down the path before moving closer to get a better look. The break in the bushes was rather unremarkable... 'I'll have to pay careful attention to find it again,' she thought as she eased between the bushes, wincing as a thorn scratched her leg and left a thin red line across her thigh. A few small drops of blood bubbled up, but she quickly wiped them away, frowning. "I'll need to clean that up later..." she muttered as she eyed the bloody scratch. In any case, it wasn't a big deal at the moment, so she decided to let it go and focus on figuring out where Aiko and Kimi had gone. A quick glance showed they were already out of sight in the forest.
Miyako stood up straight and took a good long look around, frowning. Visibility in the forest wasn't as bad as it could have been, but there was enough undergrowth among the trees to limit it to a dozen yards or so in most places. She followed the path until it faded out among the trees, and paused for a moment. Aiko and Kimi had disappeared.
"Hm..."
'How did that work?' she thought to herself. 'In that cowboy book I read, when that man was tracking that criminal, he looked for broken twigs and things, right? Things that weren't natural.' Miyako looked around and, sure enough, spotted a place in the underbrush that had been disturbed. From there, she looked around until she spotted a place where someone had stepped on a small plant, smashing it down to the ground. It was only a moment before she stumbled upon another path, this one much more worn than the previous one and, right there in the middle of it, sat a pencil case. Miyako looked around for a moment to see if anyone was watching, but she didn't see anything else that looked out of place. She picked up the pencil case, which she recognized as belonging to Abe Aiko, and put it into her bookbag. 'She will want that back later...' She paused for a moment, looking back the way she had come, but shrugged; Kara would have to be on her own for a while. She used a napkin to wipe the fresh blood that had seeped out from the scratch on her leg and continued on.
Miyako hid well back in the bushes, puzzled. 'Why is there a house all the way out here?' she wondered as she poked her head out for another look. It was a fair-sized house sitting all by itself out in the woods, and judging by the light she could see inside one of the rooms on the second floor, it had electricity even though she couldn't see any power lines or hear the hum of a generator. Every once in a while, she saw figures moving inside the house, and if she she listened closely, she could hear bits of conversation, none of which made any sense to her. No doubt, she thought, due to the total lack of context behind it.
Several figures moved into one of the rooms she could see into, but she was still too far away and couldn't make out who they were with her obstructed view, despite the fact that several of the voices she heard seemed familiar.
'I need to get closer...'
Miyako took a moment to again wipe the blood from the scratch on her leg, then eased through the bushes in front of her, keeping as low as she could. She moved to the edge of the bushes and paused to get a better look at the yard. The wooden, cottage-style house sat in a small clearing in the woods, and boasted a sizable yard; Miyako thought it was quite nice. From the movement she could see through the windows, it appeared that quite a few people were inside...
'I probably shouldn't be doing this...'
She watched for a moment until startled laughter broke out somewhere in the house. Miyako bit her lip; what was going on in there...?
'I've already come so far, though...it'd be a shame not to get a closer look before I go back,' she thought to herself. She looked back and forth to make sure the yard was still empty, then stood up and darted through the bushes, running at a crouch until she came to the side of the house. She moved along the wall, being careful not to raise her head high enough to be seen through the windows, and made it to the corner of the house without being spotted. She peeked around the edge of the house and realized she was looking at the front porch, but there was nobody there so she moved along the wall until she came to a large, open window.
"Heh...it's so cute," someone said, the girl's voice startlingly loud after spending so long in the strangely quiet woods. Miyako barely bit back a yelp of surprise and crouched lower; whoever had spoken must have been mere inches away on the other side of the window. If whoever it was turned around-
"Master has nine hundred and seventy six plush toys and one thousand eight hundred and two dolls."
Miyako blinked. She knew that voice...! That was her classmate Rally Wheeler!
"'Master', huh? I dunno, this is still a bit hard to swallow, you know?"
Miyako blinked again. That had sounded like Rosemary...!
"Don't think about it too much, you'll just get a headache."
And that had sounded like Possum! Miyako frowned, troubled. What was going on in there...?
"Uh...hey, do you guys smell something?" Possum said. Miyako guessed the others must have shaken their heads, because Possum continued a second or two later. "It smells...really good..."
"Uh...hey Possum, are you alright? Because I'm pretty sure I just saw your eyes go all red and crazy looking." And that had been Rosemary.
"What you smell is blood. A particularly fine example, I might add. And Rally, don't talk about your master behind her back." The new voice was Evangeline! Miyako looked up nervously at the window and backed away. This was rapidly becoming strange and confusing.
"Understood."
"But...what?" Rosemary again.
"There is an intruder," Rally said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Master...?"
Evangeline let out a sigh Miyako clearly heard. "Go ahead Rally, see if you can catch our little mouse. Oh, be sure to use the front door."
"Understood."
Miyako looked at the front door as she backed away toward the corner of the house. She suddenly realized she really didn't want to get caught sneaking around outside the house. The whole clearing had a weird feeling to it, as if dangerous things happened in it. She backed away to the corner and turned to run.
"Gotcha~!"
Miyako bit off a startled scream as the grinning woman that had been standing behind her grabbed her. She let her Vale Tudo training take over and elbowed the woman in the head, not doing any real damage but startling her enough to loosen her grip. With a little more wriggle room, Miyako slid out of the woman's grasp and tried to run, but the woman quickly hooked her leg and tripped her. Miyako hit the ground rolling, but the woman pounced on her before she could escape and expertly pinned her to the ground.
Miyako struggled to squirm away, but the woman was too strong, too skilled at that sort of thing, a fact which Miyako, who had undergone training to be a professional wrestler, realized with a shock. "L-let me go...!"
The woman with the catlike grin shook her head. "Nope~I caught you little mousey, and now you're all mine~ Now come on, we need to get you inside..."
Miyako let out a yelp as the woman swiftly dragged her to her feet and grabbed her in a sort of sideways headlock that kept her too off balance to even attempt escape before dragging her up the front porch steps to the door, where Rally waited.
Miyako nervously bit her lip as the woman dragged her through the doorway and into a rather large room.
"Miyako...! Hey, let her go! Please!"
Miyako's eyes went wide. She couldn't see from her position, but that had definitely been Kara! When had she...?
"Hu hu hu~ if my dear Kara-chan asks me so nicely, I don't have a choice, do I?" the woman said, and suddenly Miyako realized where she had seen her before.
"Shiina-san...!" The drummer from Ayumi's favorite band, Dekopin Rocket! The woman giggled in a amusement as she released Miyako and stood back. Miyako quickly backed away until she hit a wall, looking at all the faces staring at her. "W...what is...?" she asked, looking at her bandmate. "What's going on here?"
Kara looked down at the floor, seemingly unable to explain.
"Watanabe Miyako...I should have known," someone said in a musing tone. Miyako quickly turned her attention to where Evangeline A. K. McDowell sat on a couch, surrounded by plush toys and dolls. "You might want to do something about that scratch on your leg; Possum's about to go berserk over there," she said, jerking her thumb toward a doorway.
"W-what...?" Miyako said as she glanced down to the scratch on her leg. It had mostly stopped bleeding, though a few small bubbles of blood had welled up since the last time she had wiped it clean. "What do you mean? Is Possum-san alright?"
"Just hold still, this will only take a moment," someone said in a perky voice. Miyako turned to look at the one who had spoken, and was startled to see a youthful woman with long dark hair, the same one she had seen around town, the same one who had been hugging Negi-sensei in Kyoto that time. The woman knelt down next to Miyako and held her hand out, muttering something under her breath. Miyako blinked in surprise as the woman's hand started glowing. The scratch on her leg started itching, and when she looked down, it was gone.
"What did you...?"
"Watanabe Miyako," someone said in a terrifying, gravelly voice. Miyako stiffened up and turned to see the P.E. teacher, Max Linell, standing there with his arms crossed as he gave her a terrifying glare.
"D-don't...you...you have to let me go," Miyako said.
The P.E. teacher only raised an eyebrow and continued glaring.
"I-I-I'm going to tell the...the headmaster!" Miyako said, gathering up all her courage as she stood up straight and forced herself to meet the P.E. teacher's eyes. He was almost a foot and a half taller than her and easily made two of her, but she took every last drop of courage she possessed—admittedly a rather small stockpile—and tried her best to glare back at him.
"Hmm...impressive," Evangeline said from her spot on the couch. "For a normal girl like you to have the strength of will to stand up to that," she said, gesturing lazily at Max's back, "is quite impressive. Stand down, Linell."
Miyako blinked at Evangeline. Issuing orders to Scary Max-sensei? Had her classmate gone mad? Her surprised expression only grew when the P.E. teacher actually took her classmate's order and moved back to lean against the wall.
"You have no idea what you've just gotten yourself into, Watanabe," he warned, his growling tone sending a terrified shiver down her spine. "She's taken an interest in you."
Miyako looked from the P.E. teacher to Eva and back, confused. "What are you..." She trailed off as she spotted movement on the stairs, and froze.
A doll.
It was a doll.
Standing up on its own at the top of the stairs. And it was looking at her.
A doll, standing under its own power, was standing at the top of the stairs, looking at her.
Miyako's eyes widened and she pointed her finger at the doll. "I-i-it's moving! By itself!"
The doll grinned creepily at her and, before Miyako had any chance to react, it drew a butcher knife that had been hidden somewhere in its dress. "You're not one of the new ones!" It said, and threw the knife.
The next second seemed to stretch out for Miyako. Her eyes focused on the knife, flying through the air toward her, and her mind kicked into overdrive. It's moving too fast, can't run. Wall behind me, knife too close to throw myself on the floor. Kissy woman to my right, potted plant to my left, can't dodge. Have to hit.
She didn't even really notice the others in the room as she watched the knife, though she saw Scary Max-sensei's hand dart out, trying to stop the knife; he was an instant too slow and missed it by about six inches. Kara tried to throw a small knife of her own at it, but it missed as well. The knife was still coming; she noted with clinical clarity that, with the knife's spin and weight, it would easily imbed half it's blade into her stomach if it managed to hit.
Her left hand was moving before she even realized she what she was doing, and she slapped the knife out of the air an instant before it would have plunged into her stomach.
Time seemed to return to normal.
The kissy woman tackled her from the side, covering her body with her own, and then the P.E. teacher threw himself over the both of them. Miyako couldn't see what happened next, but there was a sense of furious motion as the dozen people who had crowded into the room burst into motion. There were the sounds of a brief scuffle, and then relative silence but for a lot of heavy breathing.
"Hey! Let me go! She's an outsider, right? You said I could take care of anybody that wasn't invited!" the doll said.
"That was an order from ten years ago," Evangeline said, sounding rather annoyed. "Consider it rescinded."
"Can you let me up now?" Miyako asked quietly, starting to shake as her adrenaline wore off.
The P.E. teacher quickly moved off of them and stood back while the kissy woman helped put Miyako upright on the floor.
"There there, don't try to stand up yet. You're still shaking too badly," she said, holding Miyako in strange sort of half hug.
Miyako looked out over the room, eyes wide. She looked from the P.E. teacher, trying to hide the concern in his eyes, to Kara, who looked horrified, to Evangeline, who was glaring at the doll, to the doll itself, held up in the air by the hands by her classmate Rally so it couldn't do anything but kick its tiny feet uselessly, and then down to the knife, which lay on the floor, spinning slowly.
I hit that.
Her eyes went back to the doll, which looked at her and grinned. "And it was such a good throw, too," it said, shaking its head in disappointment. Her eyes went back to the knife as it stopped spinning, and she stiffened up.
The doll tried to kill me. It really tried to kill me. I almost died, for real. A knife in my stomach!
She started shaking harder.
"So, what do you think?" Max Linell asked as he leaned against the safety railing set up around the balcony he was standing on. "Watanabe is smart, and her reaction time is amazing for someone her age. I think training her here is a good idea; besides, she's accepting it pretty well," he said, gesturing down at the courtyard below, where Watanabe Miyako was undergoing a quick history lesson alongside most of the other newly-invited girls.
"I wish everyone would be content with doing their schoolwork," Negi said tiredly.
Makie snickered nearby.
Negi sighed. "Yes, I know how absurd that dream is in this city."
Makie snickered again.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
Max's good natured feeling faded as he heard that irritating fire mage who had followed him since the festival speak up behind him. He turned to shoot a glare at the man, but Cyrr just looked back at him and Max heaved a sigh and turned away. He didn't feel like dealing with it.
"It's better than letting everyone train by themselves and not understand how to fight together," Akira said from nearby, a little more sharply than she would have when speaking to almost anyone else. Cyrr glared at her, but she ignored it. The other water elemental, Ava Grace, sent a pouting glare at Cyrr in return. Both turned their noses up and looked away from each other.
Max and Akira both heaved weary sighs.
"How does Natsumi deal with hers?" Max asked, rolling his eyes. In addition to Max's 'pet' fire elemental Cyrr and Akira's water elemental Ava Grace, Natsumi had also acquired one, the light elemental/swordswoman Linda Cale, possessor of various overblown titles. From what he gathered, Linda and Kotarou often didn't get along.
"Whips and doggie treats, from what I understand," Makie said from nearby.
Akira went red while Max rolled his eyes at the joke, which he had first heard from Asakura. Natsumi's two-way pactio with Kotarou had resulted in her receiving a second pactio artifact in the form of two whips, while dog jokes about Kotarou were so common as to have lost most of their entertainment value...not that such a thing ever stopped Makie when she was in a joking mood, however.
"That's not what I mean," Cyrr said irritably after a moment.
"Then what?"
"All of your group is in this...this 'resort', correct?" he asked Makie, who nodded at him. "And the students you and the others have been training are also here, correct?" he asked, looking at Max.
"Yes, they're all here. There isn't much time left before we go to Mundus Magicus; we must take every chance we get to train them to protect Mahora while we're gone," he said. Akira and Makie nodded in agreement, while Ava just looked at him as if she had a hard time believing Cyrr might have had a point to his line of questioning.
"I know where you're going with this," Max stated.
"He's got a point," Negi stated tiredly as he slumped into the chair that had been brought to the balcony for his sake; he was still weak from the various ordeals he had been through since the festival. A lot of people were, in fact...the only reason Sakai Reiko was even up an walking around was that she had spent several real-world days recovering in Eva's resort.
Cyrr shook his head. "It needs to be said. If everyone is in this place, who is left out in the city to defend it? I take it you're concerned about the state of the city, but if so, why have you removed so much of its first line of defense?"
Max grinned; it was ugly.
Makie grinned as well; it was quite cute on her. "Because we aren't the only defenders Mahora has, we're just the first line of defense; the second line of defense is nothing to laugh at, you know. You worry too much! Come on, Sear; why don't you go find Anya-chan? I think she's over at the target range, showing the new kids how it's done~"
Cyrr muttered something under his breath about impertinent girls and mispronounced names and gave her a reproachful look, but nonetheless managed to slip away by the time Makie looked back at where she had last seen him several minutes before. Max, Makie, and Akira shared a quiet laugh about the other fire elemental's obvious crush on Negi's childhood friend while Negi looked on, completely clueless.
"Huh...?" Negi asked. "What are you all laughing about?" He looked around at the others. "What's so funny?"
Author's Notes: Yeah, I really need to get a good buffer of chapters written so I can avoid all this time between updates...sorry about that. Also, I have almost half a dozen more side stories to post for Book 2, but most of them aren't in a condition to be posted, so they will continue being horrifically late compared to the chapters they're related to. Again...sorry about that. Anyway...
Dictionary time!
Tsun-tsun – Ever hear of 'tsundere'? Basically it means harsh/sweet and though the meaning has changed over time, it is usually used nowadays to refer to the sort of girls in anime who go between irritable and sweet, usually with one side being seen more often than the other; they often say things like "It's not like I'm helping you because I like you!" When Rosemary describes Kagami as 'tsun-tsun' in the first part of this chapter, she's referring to the way Kagami's default mode seems to be something like 'snap at others even though she just wants friends'.