Kyoto 2135


"I'll be Empress one day," Hoshi murmured into the dark, once she'd finally got herself comfortably arranged in her cot, with her throbbing fingers protected by her pillow on one side and a rolled up spare blanket on the other.

"What?" Hinata slurred sleepily from the next cot, and then, "Go to sleep!"

"I said, I'll be Empress one day," Hoshi repeated loudly. "And when I am, I'll make it a Royal degree that Masayo is to be randomly sent to the back of any queue she is in at least four times a day."

"She was probably just more badly hurt than you Hoshi," Hinata replied. "Triage is a thing. Look it up."

"She was NOT. She was just standing there, perfectly fine, and I had broken bones! She thinks because she is beautiful and popular, she can have whatever she wants."

Hinata growled. "YOU are beautiful and popular. In another eight years you will BE Masayo!"

"Yes! and in another eight years after that I'll be Masayo's Empress and to the back of every queue she goes."

"Yeah. That will show her for visiting a nurse," Hinata replied, her voice muffled by her pillow.

"And I'll show my parents, too. They thought they could banish me to this place?"

"It's not a gulag, Hoshi, it's a school. The best finishing school east of the Himalayas, remember? They just want what's best for you. They want more for you than farming yams and they are spending most of their money to buy you that future. They want you to have choices, prospects. "

"I don't need help from this school. I don't need help from anyone. "

"...Except school nurses, apparently."

Hoshi's eyes narrowed in the dark. "Maybe when I'm Empress, I'll have your lips sewn shut for talking to me like that."

"Okay Hoshi, fine. When you are Empress you can sew my lips shut. Just leave me a gap for a straw. Otherwise, knock yourself out. For now though, you aren't Empress and if you don't shut up so I can get some sleep, I will hold this pillow on your face until you do."

Hinata was quite a bit stronger than Hoshi, and so Hoshi did shut up. She was too upset, however, to fall asleep quickly. This was a problem, because once Hinata's machinery-like snoring started up, she had no chance at all.

So instead of sleep, Hoshi lay in the dark. She imagined herself Empress. She imagined herself banishing her parents somewhere horrible, so they would know what it felt like. That irratiated swamp-land in Florida, maybe.

And she'd finally get some respect from Hinata. Sewing her mouth up would be fun, but she'd have to make her bow too. Maybe she could chain her like that? In a bow? There was a rumour that there was a module in the Advanced Class on tying people up, which seemed weird to Hoshi, but she'd heard it from more than one source so it was probably true. Maybe she could sneak a look at a textbook. Get some ideas?

And as for Mr Hara, who was he to so casually break her fingers, over some stupid sonata? She'd show him. She'd break HIS fingers. She'd break all his bones. All 206 of them. One at a time. One a day maybe.

When she was Empress.

Her parents had named her after a star. And she was going to be one.

Shine like one.

Burn like one.