Now that the plot has revealed itself, we've seen how the years have passed for Claudine. Now it's time to see what has been going on in Maya's secretive life since then...
Disclaimer: I do not own Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight.
Chapter 6. Dead And Buried
Maya hadn't gotten a choice in just about any of this.
The whole situation was like something out of an old cliche drama series, where normally the person watching would be shocked and excited about such a development in the story. And of course, some way, somehow, one of the protagonist's friends would be in the right place at the right time in order to find clues and realize they were still alive, and eventually try to come and discover the truth. It all would've made for a great film or television show.
And for a brief moment, as it had all been starting, when Maya's parents and the select group of authorities and government officials had been helping the Tendos escape on the same day she'd been informed of the situation, Maya had held out the faintest sliver of hope.
Hope that maybe, she would be able to leave a trace of a hint behind for someone.
Hope that at least one of her friends might be able to catch wind of the truth, even if it was only in suggestive rumors.
Hope that perhaps, one day, she might be able to see them all again…
But those hopes had been quickly and entirely eradicated in only a matter of minutes.
Maya had seen how secretively and seriously the officials worked, heard how terrifyingly serious they'd spoken to her family and to one another. It was made very clear to Maya right from the start that there would be nothing left of them. It would not be permitted. It wasn't an option. That is, not if she wanted herself and her parents to live.
The Yakuza group they were indebted to were not the kind to wait around patiently - that much was for certain. Hence the necessity of their immediate departure and cover-up story. Any childish thoughts Maya might've considered of trying to leave behind clues for the people in her life to find her were crushed, as it was made very clear to her that any sort of thing like that could lead to her own execution.
The Yakuza were a highly-trained and ravenous group, with all sorts of illegal weapons and widespread connections. It was even a risk to be trusting the amount of authorities on their side, because the likelihood that any of them were involved with the deviants was quite high.
But the only ounce of luck Maya and her parents were given in this terrible situation was that that wasn't the case. All of the people working with them were genuinely on the side of justice and the law, but that meant that the Tendos had to take everything with dire seriousness, or risk assassination...
Maya can still recall the stress and surrealism of that day as if it hadn't been years ago.
She and her parents had only been allowed to wear the clothes and disguises provided to them by the authorities in order to conceal their identities, as they'd been escorted quickly and discreetly out of their home, and into unmarked vehicles. They had gone in three separate cars; on the off-chance that their pursuers were somehow onto the plan and came after them, it would be more difficult for them to pursue all three cars at once. The reasoning was that if any of the cars were compromised, perhaps the other two members of the Tendo family would survive to escape.
Maya's heart hadn't stopped pounding for hours on end as she'd been taken to a high-security police station, where the details of her future were laid out to her.
She and her family would be moved to a safe house in Europe for the foreseeable future, at least until their cover story had hit the media and been accepted, and their enemies had been satisfied that they were dead and gone. The authorities provided all the legalities and documentations for this transfer, and worked with their overseas companions to ensure everything went smoothly.
Maya was provided with a new ID, social security number, and things of that nature to corroborate her new identity.
The police mandated that she change her last name at the very least. The Tendos decided that they would from that day forward be the Tomita family. They would be a humble immigrant family who had fallen on hard times in Japan and moved to Europe for a change of scenery. While they would still maintain their wealth in secrecy, they would not be able to live as lavishly as they had here in Japan.
The government would care for them and protect them for as long as was deemed necessary from the threat looming over their shoulders, which very well could've been the rest of their lives.
Once the arduous hours of explanation of their future had ended, the Tomita family were placed on a private plane and flown off to Europe.
Maya had cried the entire flight. All within the course of a few hours, she'd lost everything. Everything.
Her school. Her home. Her friends. Even her own name. She'd lost it all.
Rather, she had been forced to give it all up due to circumstances that had nothing to do with her, or even her parents.
It was all simply because of a bad business venture in the generation of her great-grandparents - one not even her parents had held any knowledge of until a few months prior.
At least her parents had had the chance to be prepared for this outcome.
But not Maya. She'd simply come home from spring break, expecting to stay for a few days before returning to her friends at school. Never in a million years or in her worst nightmares would she ever had expected the reality that had been waiting for her.
The police's cover-up story of the Tendo family's tragic demise had hit the news back in Japan just as their flight landed in Europe.
Maya had been beside herself with grief and guilt as security had led her family through the airport and driven them to a guarded warehouse. This was where they would be expected to come and visit once a week to collect their belongings that would be shipped or flown over to them from Japan. The Japanese authorities would clean out their old home of all of their belongings within the following days, and keep it all stored and labeled in their warehouses. Their home would then be demolished, and plaques raised in honor of the Tendos' memories.
Their belongings would then be processed and shipped over to them in a matter of weeks, and on a designated day each week, they would come collect their things at the European warehouse. They would then be able to bring their things back to their new house, and begin living their new lives.
All throughout that first day and night of arriving overseas, Maya had been entirely beside herself. To think that all of her friends back home were just then beginning to catch wind of the news that Maya was dead…
It had sickened her to the point of vomiting. The moment they'd arrived in their new home, she'd raced to the bathroom, and collapsed, retching, on the floor. At the time, she'd known all of her friends were probably doing the very same thing.
All but one.
The only choice Maya had been given in all of this despicable situation, had been the option of where to live. The second she'd heard the three options, she hadn't even needed to consider her answer. Her dearest rival and most beloved friend Saijou Claudine was here, somewhere. On that same continent…
For a brief amount of time, Maya took a sliver of solace from the fact that she and Claudine were walking the same soil. But Claudine could never know about it. In just a few days' time, she would fly back to Japan and hear the news that Maya was dead.
Maya's phone had already been seized and destroyed, so there was no chance of her telling anyone anything - for her family's own safety.
Here, in their new home, they were untraceable, and under constant surveillance from local authorities. Even if anyone did somehow find out that she was still alive and tracked down where she was located, no one from her past would ever be able to step foot onto the property or make contact with Maya in any way.
It was for her own protection.
She tried for days, weeks, and months to come to terms with that.
But still, she found herself wishing and wanting to see them again. To tell her friends it was all a ruse - that she was alive. Even if they couldn't know where she was, or ever contact or speak to her again, she wished at the very least that she could convey to them that she was alive, somewhere in the world.
But with the lingering threat as serious as it was, that was a dream she would have to let go of.
Over the next several months, Maya and her parents established their new lives in a humble suburb of France. They used their new names, even with one another, in the beginnings of completely erasing the existence of the Tendos from the planet.
Her parents started jobs as office workers, while Maya was made to apply to local colleges.
But of course, she couldn't even hope to apply at Theatre du Flamme. After all, she was no longer Tendo Maya. She was no longer a performer or actress of any sort. She was Tomita Maya, a foreigner who had moved to France, and who had interest in humanities and communications.
Eventually, she is accepted into a local university, where she begins taking classes under the watchful eye of an ever-present guard who shadows Maya at school. She becomes Tomita Maya, who always ties her hair back and hides it under some sort of hat or scarf, and dresses entirely differently than she used to.
Meanwhile, her parents leave behind their previous careers as well, sacrificing their fame and relationships for a common wage.
Once a week, they are escorted to the warehouse to collect their shipment of items being sent over from Japan. Every time she goes, Maya breaks down into tears to be reminded of the life she once had. With every shipment of her things that comes in, she scours through them in hopes of finding something - anything. A note, a familiar handkerchief, something from any of her friends…
But nothing of the sort ever happens. The farce is air-tight and perfect. By then, Tendo Maya was dead and gone. No one was looking for her - not even the people she hoped would.
She'd already seen an online article that there had been a memorial service at her old school. And just to see the pictures was sickening enough. A plaque with her name on it, in memoriam of her life… With her beloved school in the background…
To think she would never be able to step foot there again, even to visit as an alumni…
The only way she would ever see Seishou again would have to be in photos.
And she'd even been warned about searching the Internet about places of her past, just in case her movements were somehow being monitored. She only interacted with the link about her own death because it had made front-page news, and anyone and everyone on the planet was clicking it that week.
Other than that, Maya would have to avoid searching for anything or anyone she ever used to know. She'd be unable to look up her old school, her old instructors, or her old friends. Even her devices that used to have all of her photos and videos had been wiped and destroyed.
All she had left were several physical photos she had printed out and kept in her dorm room, which had luckily made it safely over to her in one of the shipments. There was one photo of herself with her closest friends in the 99th cohort, one of her sitting in the lounge enjoying dinner with Kaoruko, Futaba, and Karen, one of her during lessons dancing with Hikari, with photographer Nana's reflection in the background mirror next to Junna…
And one single photo of herself as Claire, and Claudine as Flora.
Four photos were all she had left. Some of her friends only appeared in one of them. And even with these, she needed to keep them hidden away in a drawer. She wasn't allowed to blatantly display anything that gave a nod toward her previous life. Even though she was still alive, she had to hide everything.
And somehow, as the semester at her new university passed, and she became more and more lost in her new life, some part of her couldn't help but wonder when it would be over.
When could she be done with all of this? When could she reveal the truth - if only to those closest to her - and return to Japan? When would it be over…?
She found herself wondering this day after day, week after week, month after month...
And with each day that passed, she found herself deep inside yet another night where the truth was undeniable.
It wouldn't come to an end.
It would never be over.
This was her life now. It had to be.
The reality of it all was that - even though she was alive and breathing - Tendo Maya really was dead.
. . .
And so, her first year of being Tomita Maya came and went.
News of the Tendos' deaths eventually made international headlines. But Maya had to pretend she knew nothing of the theater and performing arts world. She had to pretend like she'd never heard the name "Tendo" before, even though she was a student transferred in from Japan. She played dumb, and continued taking her lectures about humanity.
She no longer took dance classes or singing lessons or acting classes. She no longer studied theatre and the arts; at least not outwardly. The only small solace she is provided is the fact that her parents and the police agree to allow her to live an independent life in her own apartment, for the sake of convenience of her traveling to her classes.
And in the privacy of her own new home, her own space, she did her best to hone and practice the skills she'd once learned. She simply couldn't leave it all behind entirely.
In the safety of her own personal living space, she would practice all she could. She knows that if she'd been living with her parents at home that they would have dissuaded her from such things. That apartment was the only mercy Maya was given. Though she had to check in weekly with certain authorities, and call her parents often to keep them updated, she was at the very least allowed to live her own life, to a certain degree.
But she never allowed herself to think about her old friends too often or for too long. It brought her such immense pain and guilt that she couldn't bear it.
For a time, she couldn't even find the urge to open that drawer and look at their photos.
But as the years went on, and as she left her old life behind her, she found herself unable to completely bury her friends as they had been forced to bury her.
Maya still thought of each and every one of them. Where they would be now, what they would be studying, what they might look like.
And of course, she thought of Claudine most of all. Saijou Claudine, who was undoubtedly still studying at the Theatre du Flamme on the very same continent as Maya.
Had it been safe to do so, Maya could have easily visited the school to look for her. But her restrictions were harsh, and her family's lives were still on the line, even nearly three years later.
Evidently, the Yakuza who had been after them initially were still suspicious of their convenient deaths. And even though it was likely they could think that some other group had gotten to the Tendos and killed them first, the authorities believed they weren't off the hook just yet. And perhaps they never would be.
So, as badly as Maya wanted the excuse to search for Claudine, she knew she couldn't. If she was ever discovered, not only would her own life be in danger, but quite possibly Claudine's as well. Maya would never dream of doing such a terrible thing.
And so she stayed put, never acting out on her wishes. She kept them all to herself, to the wandering shower thoughts in the evening, and the dreams of "what if?" every night.
For three years, Maya never gets a proper night's sleep again. It's either the nightmares of being discovered and killed by her enemies, or dreams that could never be; of finding her friends again. Either way, she always ended up in tears.
Yet never once had anything bad or suspicious happened since they'd moved. It was torturous to know she was as safe as she could possibly be, while everyone else she loved would have to live the rest of their lives believing she was dead. She was living a lie, and at this point it would've done more harm than good to ever reconnect with her past anyway.
And so eventually, somewhere along the way, Maya had given up her childish hopes of someday finding her friends again. Of being able to tell them the truth.
This nightmare was never going to end. And even if it did, she would probably never feel truly safe again regardless.
And so, after years and years of wondering if perhaps she might be able to revisit life as "Tendo Maya" one day, she finally gives up.
Whole-heartedly, and completely, Maya lets her old life die, and is fully prepared to never look back.
That had been the plan, anyway.
After three years in hiding, she'd been entirely resolved to her new life, her new identity, and her new name. She'd crushed and beaten down that desire to go back long ago.
Her old friends and her old life were nothing but memories now; wounds that would never truly heal, but had been stitched back together as effectively as possible.
She had moved on. She was Tomita Maya, and she was majoring in humanities and would soon get a job at a local office inputting data and finances-
And then it happened.
An offer from her university, inviting students to a local museum for extra-curricular opportunities to earn additional credit. After checking with her parents and the police, Maya is permitted to attend.
That afternoon, she is among her fellow classmates at the museum, admiring the architecture of the building's exterior before they are let inside.
What she hadn't known was that there was a small theater attached to the museum, and that the students would be provided with some welcoming entertainment. Riddled with nervous excitement, Maya had shuffled her way into a vacant seat of a theater for the first time in over three long years.
A voice had welcomed them in, and then introduced the troupe that would be performing for them today. Each actor had made their way onto the stage for a welcoming bow.
And after three years of ardently, honestly, whole-heartedly trying to leave it all behind her, Maya's efforts all go to waste in that split second.
The wound she'd so desperately stitched up and buried comes splitting open in fresh, poignant waves of bleeding agony.
That beautiful smile.
That radiant figure.
That angelic golden hair.
That resplendent, ethereal presence.
How could she ever forget…?
A/N: And of course... as all of you predicted... they cross paths again... But what will Maya do...?
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