APRIL 8 - MONDAY - NIGHT
“Eleven o’clock?”
June cringed, but it was pretty much what she expected. Mariko, stood by the door to Valjean, wrapped in a grey overcoat. Her eyes held dark clouds beneath them, and sharpened with a look designed to kill; June almost felt the need to kneel and apologise right there.
She stopped in her tracks, stuttering for a moment. Head spinning, exhausted and tired- not prepared to try and decieve a police chief about where she had spent the last seven hours. She was decidedly less prepared to explain where she had actually been, and so took a quick moment to spin up a half-assed story to respond to her caretaker’s glare.
“I-I’m sorry. I was out… I made friends at school. I… lost track of time.” June unconvincingly muttered.
“I sent you,” Mariko checked her phone, “eleven texts. I called you four times.”
“My phone ran out.”
“You’re holding it in your hand.”
June mentally kicked herself, looking down to her hand- sure enough, her phone was in her hand, the screen still shining bright. Full charge.
Surely you could've done a bit better than that.
“I-I…” She murmured, but her voice quickly died out. She was really not ready for this impromptu interrogation.
Mariko gave her another look up and down, kicking off of the door behind her and crossing her arms. “Look, Juniper. The terms of this agreement are such that I have to ensure your safety. I gave you one instruction: let me know if you’ll be at mine in the evenings.”
June hung her head, knowing where this was going.
“I am the chief of police of this town, Juniper. With all that’s going on, the murders, the medical scares… I can’t remember ever having been this busy in my life. Unfortunately, the terms of this agreement were decided a long time ago… And they do not state that I have to keep you under my care if you prove to continue to be a nuisance to me.”
Mariko’s voice was still soft against the rustling leaves and evening traffic, but had gained a harsh undertone. A cat meowed in a far away street. “If things continue to go this way, I’ll kick you out without a second’s notice. Understand?”
June nodded, defeated. The two women made to swap places, June trudging to the door, when Mariko caught her arm on the way past, June jumping as the older woman spoke in a softer tone.
“I want to make this work, Juniper.”
With a closer look, June couldn’t help see anything in Mariko’s face except… fatigue. She looked immensely tired, the sort of exhaustion that only builds up over months and years. And whether it was that, or June’s own sleepiness, or the fact that she just wanted to get inside and go to bed, June found herself responding;
“Okay. Me too. I’m really sorry.”
Mariko scanned the teenager’s face a final time, before releasing her arm, pulling her coat back around her and hurrying away back down the street to Central, presumably going home. June couldn’t help but feel bad- despite her disappearance not being her fault, it’s not like she had remembered Mariko’s request, either. She still couldn’t parse it- why would a woman like her agree to be a legal guardian with a job like that; she was frustratingly vague, just like her family at home when she had tried to find out who she’d be living with.
Ring ring!
Fumbling in her pocket for her keys, she softly swung the door open, the bell clattering twice as the door opened, then shut behind her. The pit of guilt in her stomach deepened when she saw- and moments later smelt- what was waiting for her on the counter: a paper bag, tied loosely at the top.
Hunger hit her like a freight train. She dashed to the bag, ripping it open- chicken udon in a plastic bowl sat in wait for her. She hurriedly took a seat, wolfing it down in minutes. Luckily, it still tasted alright when cold.
Five minutes later she had thrown herself into bed, decompressing into the stiff mattress. She fiddled with her hair as she realised sleep wasn’t going to come easy- her mind was racing back and forth, intensely recalling the day’s events time and time again, despite consistent attempts to try and forget it ever happened. Answerless questions besieged her about almost every aspect of… there.
As time passed, however, those questions soon became worries about what Mariko thought of her… then, her English homework, then wondering what her friends back home were up to… and eventually her eyes drifted shut, sleeping heavily.
APRIL 9 - TUESDAY - EARLY MORNING
The next morning, June shuffled into homeroom, taking her back corner seat and tucking her bag beneath the desk. She held up her phone, checking her shattered reflection in the cracked screen… no, it was still there.
She raised two fingers to her ear, softly massaging the back of it. It was subtle, hard to notice, but it was discoloured- scarred, from a bullet ripping through it. Her fingertips ran over the rough bumps, light marks that looked like they were from an injury years ago, but an injury nonetheless. It was real. Last night… had actually happened.
She couldn’t ignore her pocket anymore, either. She could feel them, sitting in her breast pocket, digging slightly into her skin; a pair of sharp-lensed glasses. Quickly scanning the room to make sure nobody was paying her any attention, June slipped the glasses into her hand, peering through the lenses to see the harsh, arctic landscape superimposed over the grassy hills of the horizon.
As Yamakawi coughed and started to take attendance, the empty seat next to her began to drum up some anxiety.
“Akisada…” He croaked, met with only silence. “Aoi Akisada…?”
After a few moments he sighed, continuing on with the register, leaving June to tap her knuckles worriedly against the table. Surely… Aoi could just be late, right? Something in her gut told her that her hope was unfounded. Her eyes drifted to the window, watching a hundred-odd students pool out into the fields… she could spot their badges from two storeys up, all downtrodden first years, muttering to each other and complaining about the heat.
----------------------------------------
Five hours later, the seed of worry had grown into a pit of anxiety. The lunchtime bell rang, and June thoughtlessly swiped her stuff into her bag as her mind raced. She had suffered through four lessons, hardly able to focus, her eyes inevitably dragged back to the classroom door, hoping to see Aoi hurry in and apologize for her lateness. But it never happened.
She had one more thing to check. She shouldered her bag, pushing between two students having a conversation in the doorway, and sure enough, there she was. Down at the other end of the hallway, a flash of blonde in the crowd dispersed from the opposite classroom; Jitsuko’s face eventually reached the front.
The taller girl eventually caught June’s eye, and gave her a sneer in response. It was the sort of look you give somebody who pushed you over yesterday, June decided- not the type of look you give somebody who you tried to murder with a spiked baseball bat.
Something flashed in her head. The words that the princess had murmured to her yesterday… June had repressed the memory, but now one sentence stood out to her, uttered just before she had tried to lodge a bat in her skull;
“My other self…”
A bad taste formed in her mouth as she replayed the event. Then, what that other mysterious voice had said- the one that had offered her escape.
“The cognition that forms this world.”
A picture was starting to form in her head that she didn’t like.
Jitsuko eventually got close enough to speak to June, pausing for a moment at the top of the stairs. “Where’s your little friend, new girl? I do hope she’s alright.” She tilted her head, smiling sweetly.
June’s fingers curled up in her pocket, clutching her glasses tight. She was going to rescue Aoi.
APRIL 9 - TUESDAY - LUNCH
She stood on the roof, staring out through the fence. Aihaba lay sprawled out in the distance, capped off by the grey sea under a monotone sky. A few other groups of students had gathered on the opposite side, eating food and chatting; hopefully they wouldn’t notice June disappear into thin air.
If that’s how it worked. How did this work?
She unfolded the glasses’ temples, slipping them over her ears and letting them rest on her nose. She could see the other world- the weather was clear today, no snowfall; just grey skies over the white landscape. In the corner of her vision she could still see the group of students, laughing over a joke.
With shaking hands, she pushed them up until the lenses covered her vision. It was seamless. The giggling faded and she stepped back; snow crunched beneath her feet. She looked down, holding out her hands. Same as before, black gloves covered them, a long white trench coat over her shoulders- back in that costume. She was in the other world. Her eyes swept the roof quickly; those students were gone. The roof door sat wide open, warm air floating up from the school.
She couldn’t help but laugh again, wondering what it looked like to anybody watching her- she’d have to set up her phone and record it sometime. Speaking of her phone, she fished in her pockets for a moment- her new coat was littered with dozens of pockets, her possessions from her bag all shuffled around in them. She dug through a few only to find various pens and chocolate wrappers, before pulling out her phone on her fifth try. Sure enough, completely blank, wouldn’t even attempt to turn on.
She turned her attention up to the town. Peering through the fence, one particular building caught her attention.
“Subtle.” Visible from the vantage point now that the fog had cleared was a fortress. That was the only way she could think to describe it. Built in blue and white stone, it jutted out jarringly from the rest of the town, impossible to miss, the main building a hundred and fifty metres tall, easily. It looked almost comical next to the tiny wooden townhouses, like somebody had accidentally dropped it onto the edge of Aihaba and politely asked everything else to move. It pushed the buildings next to it aside, clumped up awkwardly to make space for the towering, multi-tiered structure.
Hang on. She quickly referred to her mental map of Aihaba, running her finger through the snow blanketed town. That was about where she lived, that was the crossroads, that was Mariko’s house… and that was Central. Which would make the fortress…
“Mercury?” She didn’t dare slide her glasses off again to check- she imagined she’d be pushing her luck, appearing from thin air a second time- but she was almost certain the fortress had replaced the gigantic department store. Sure, Mercury was big, but…
She let her eyes wander up the structure. It had two tiers- the big lower building, and then some sort of huge plateau… She couldn’t see what was on it, of course, but it looked like it was huge, stadium-sized, easily. From this highest tier jutted out a tower, an old-fashioned spire that reached for the sky, piercing the clouds, the very top obscured. The grey clouds that filled the sky seemed to almost spiral around it. Eugh. Creepy. She quickly turned her eyes away.
June didn’t have a question in her mind that this fortress was where she had been strung up yesterday- and undoubtedly it was where Aoi was now, too. She found herself hating this ‘other’ version of Jitsuko more and more by the second.
She tapped her thighs twice- sure enough, her daggers were where she had left them yesterday, strapped securely to her legs. She pulled them into her hands before hurrying to the roof door, pulling it open. Get in, save Aoi, and be back at school by the end of lunchtime. Easy.
----------------------------------------
Okay. Slightly more intimidating from the front.
She had double checked, retracing the path she had used multiple times to get to Mercury before; the same result each time. Instead of a food court in front of her, with a glass-faced superstore behind it, there stood courtyard walls with a towering blue fortress. Snow-dotted tarmac crudely melted into stone steps, upon which stood wooden doors, easily twelve feet high.
She had a vague memory from yesterday’s whirlwind of jumping these doors; but reattempting the feat only led to her embarrassing herself for a few minutes of very normal jumping. Whatever she had done yesterday she couldn’t do anymore. She sighed, defeatedly walking up the doors to bang on them instead.
Her gloved hand paused when inches away from the wooden surface, the door started to creak open. She almost tripped over herself in her rush to hide away, dashing to the side and pressing her body flush against the stone bricks. Four guards marched out, identical to those from yesterday, and in the centre hurried a purple-eyed Jitsuko, her dress much the same as before, although repaired to as good as new.
As much as June would’ve liked to throttle her then and there… She highly doubted she could take four guards at once, and she had a goal in mind today. She had to make use of this opportunity. She watched for a bit longer as the troupe marched down Central, turning off at a left, before slipping through the shutting doors unseen.
The courtyard stood out in front of her. On her left, about a hundred empty ropes dangled from the ceiling. Yesterday’s first years (or… copies of them, she supposed, as she had seen the real ones throughout the day) were gone, as was Aoi. She grunted annoyedly, hurrying through the open space to an identical door- the one to the fortress. This was sat unlocked, and with a few shoulder barges to open it up, she tumbled inside.
Warmth flooded over her as she raised her eyes. She was in some sort of huge foyer… huge stairs sat on either side, roaring fires taller than her being kindled in fireplaces everywhere she looked. The walls, covered in royal red fabric, were decorated with paintings… of mainly one person she recognised very well, and took up most of the space on the wall- Princess Jitsuko. There were paintings of her carrying puppies, petting kittens… those poor animals. There were also many depicting her holding her tiara, all in that icy dress… did she ever take that thing off? The art was all sickeningly vain, and fit her perfectly, June thought.
But one person she didn’t recognise. The biggest painting was twenty feet tall and stood directly in front of her, hung over the biggest fireplace. It depicted a man, thin and frail, sitting on a white throne. He wore an open-collared blue suit, with grey hair slicked back. His face, despite his frailty, was strong, and he was good-looking; purple irises narrowed in an expression of disdain. Or… disappointment. She couldn’t tell. At his feet sat Jitsuko, the only painting she wasn’t smiling in, her dress fanned out around her legs.
June would place the man in his mid-fifties, perhaps, but it was difficult to tell… as his skin was sky blue. He looked like somebody had injected liquid nitrogen into his veins; frost covered his face and hands, fanning out like blood vessels. And… atop his short grey hair sat a crown. Coloured icy white, similar in design to the one the princess wore. That made him the king. Which made him…
“Jitsuko’s dad.” She mused.
After a few more minutes observing the painting- it really was beautifully drawn- she suddenly became aware of herself again. She was standing in the middle of a huge room, obviously an intruder; she blinked twice, shaking her head and making her way to a pillar, sliding down against it and taking a moment to observe.
Several doors opened around her and groups of people piled out. Most were carrying trays and plates of food. They all wore one black and green uniform, purple eyes heavy… She recognised that girl- she sat in front of her in class. And that boy sat in the front row. What on earth…?
She decided if she was going to find Aoi, it would be wherever these weird students were coming from. She pushed her way through the doors, making her way through a large, open-plan kitchen. Several more students worked at the ovens, but none paid her any mind, lazy eyes glancing over her before returning to their work.
She sighed as she pushed out into another corridor that split into three. This was going to take forever.
----------------------------------------
Aoi’s eyes opened with a quiet flutter. She could feel it, still- the ropes binding her wrists to the wall were chafing, burning her skin; much the same to her feet. She had lost track of how many times she’d passed in and out of consciousness, dangling forward from the wall like this. If it was a position that was meant to make her feel this way, it was certainly working. She weakly pulled at the bindings- no give, like usual. She let her body sag down once more, arms pulled up above her head.
It had been almost a day, now, she reckoned. It had started last night- she had awoken, thrown on the carpeted floor, a boot to her back keeping her pressed to the red fabric. She could only see through one eye; she caught blue slippers parading around her, a voice above her she thought she recognised, although she couldn’t make heads or tails of what it was saying. Before she could process the thought, a kick to the head sent her out again.
When she next awoke, she was where she was now- strung up by her wrists, ankles tied to the wall, immobile. Morning sunshine shone in through the stained glass windows. She was in the same room as before, which she could now see was some throne room… a small, light purple throne sat on a plateau, steps leading up to it. The room was two storeys tall, and a balcony ran around the outside of the room, a dozen feet up- a viewing gallery, she supposed. And then, standing in front of her, was Jitsuko Tezuka. Her school bully. Dressed as a princess. With lavender eyes. She had a strong feeling her day was about to get worse.
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Jitsuko had simply spent some time observing the silent Aoi, eyes full of intrigued disgust; the look a child would give a spider they caught in a glass. Aoi gave up on trying to pull herself out pretty fast- the most comfortable position was to relax herself, let herself be observed by Jitsuko. She supposed this was some sort of personal hell- maybe she had died, and this is what came after.
Since then, she had been brought food twice by those weird guards, who had unbound her hands temporarily to let her eat the awful concoction, watching her, before securing them back up again. She didn’t have the energy to bother to resist her hands being put up the second time. Throughout the day, she watched Jitsuko leave and enter the room, surrounded by guards, as she faded in and out of consciousness.
Which led her to now. In a huge, empty throne room, the early spring sun setting through the glass windows. Oh, and there was that.
Across the room from her, strung up in a similar position, was her. At first, she had thought some mirror was placed in front of her, but no. On the other side of the room, black and red hair hanging from her head, was Aoi Akisada, in a third-year Shizuka school uniform. Exactly the same as her. This… copy of her was even hanging in the same way, letting her midsection dangle. They had spent some time looking at each other in silence, although Aoi couldn’t bring herself to actually focus on its face for very long. She did notice that instead of her own deep brown eyes, the copy sported bright lavender irises. Other than that, identical.
Aoi was shocked out of her train of thought as she heard a door bursting open above her.
----------------------------------------
June kicked open a final set of doors, certain this was her destination. She entered a balcony bordering a huge semicircular room, stained glass windows at the end, a purple throne in the centre. And there, bound against a wall of the room, black hair covering her face…
“Aoi!” June hopped the balcony almost unthinkingly, falling into a roll, hurrying to the girl on the wall. She was bound by rope- June quickly unsheathed a dagger, shaking the unconscious prisoner. “Hey, wake up. Aoi. I’m here.”
Aoi stirred, her limbs starting to move again, eyelids fluttering. June was about to get to work on the leg bindings, before she got a good look at Aoi’s face from below. Dead eyes, with luminescent irises, stared back at her. “F-Fuck!”
She jumped back in shock. Aoi looked like one of them, the students…
“June…?”
A voice croaked out behind her, and she spun on her heel. There against the wall was… Aoi. Brown-eyed Aoi, her face scrunched in confusion. June quickly gave the blank-faced clone another glance, shaking her head before hurrying over to her friend.
Aoi- real Aoi- was giving her a clear look of confusion- the girl’s wide eyes traced up and down her midsection, ending on her coattails. June just shook her head, beginning to work on sawing away the thick rope around the small girl’s ankles.
“I can’t explain,” she said as she worked, “we have to get out of here first. Then I’ll tell you everything I know, I promise.” Her dagger cut through the rope holding her legs, then quickly sliced the binds on her wrists. She fell forwards, awkwardly caught by June, who hoisted her back up to her feet softly.
“Can you walk?” She inquired, to which Aoi responded with a little nod. The smaller girl rubbed her head quietly, before June noticed her bag laying a couple feet away from where she had been bound, picking it up and handing it to her. The disoriented girl pulled it over her shoulder, looking at June for direction.
The two girls walked as one, June supporting Aoi’s waist as they snuck out through the fortress’ insane amount of corridors. It turned out that leaving was easier than infiltrating, and before long the two had found their way to the main foyer, standing beneath the huge painting of Jitsuko and… whoever that other guy was.
“Huh. Didn’t notice that earlier.” Above the doors to the courtyard sat a piece of artwork, sculpted in stained glass. It was breathtaking, in both size and beauty- it depicted the man from the painting facing to the side, and unlike anything else in the fortress, there was no Jitsuko in sight. Sunlight painted the ground in a kaleidoscope of colours, refracted through the multicoloured glass window. “Pretty sure I couldn’t see that from the outside, though…” She murmured quietly. “Whatever. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The pair shuffled outside, and had made it halfway through the snow-filled courtyard, before the doors behind them burst open once more. She turned to see Jitsuko, flanked by three guards- always with the perfect timing!- who barrelled into the courtyard, racing towards them.
June yelled out- she released her grip on Aoi to go for her daggers, but it was too late. Armoured hands grabbed her arms, pulling her body backwards. One guard restrained her, holding her by the waist, securing her hands behind her back; her yelling was quickly muffled by a hand wrapped around her mouth. Aoi was left freely standing quietly in the centre of the courtyard, facing Jitsuko- as if she were not even recognised as a threat to be suppressed.
Jitsuko’s eyes flicked to June, checking she was properly restrained, before hissing at Aoi.
“I’m sick of this! Whatever is going on here is too confusing! I’m too busy for it!” She motioned to the floor in front of her. The two guards that remained behind her moved out, revealing they had the insipid fake Aoi grasped in their hands, which they quickly dumped on the floor.
June’s vision flickered between Aoi and the dead eyed copy of her shivering in the snow. The two’s faces were starting to look startlingly similar. She could see Aoi averting her gaze, trying not to look at it.
“You,” Jitsuko pushed a finger into Aoi’s chest, “have been nothing but a scourge on my other self’s life since you dared try and report me. But you just. Don’t. Learn.” Each word was punctuated with a jab, Jitsuko's face getting closer to Aoi’s, almost spitting. “I have no idea how you got in here from reality, but...” The princess’ eyes drifted over to the copy, kicking it in the head. The real Aoi recoiled at the impact, rubbing her head. The copy didn’t react. “It’s not like she was a particularly useful slave anyway… kill them both!”
----------------------------------------
It was a fair enough assessment, Aoi thought. She had paid almost every single day of her life for what she had done to Jitsuko. She could hear June behind her, desperately struggling against her captors, but… for whatever reason, standing before the princess in the cold, any fight she’d had left had abandoned her body. She didn’t make an attempt to run, even though nothing held her… and Jitsuko looked on, arms crossed, if that’s exactly what she expected.
The two armoured guards behind Jitsuko unstrapped assault rifles; one aimed at her, one at the copy beneath Aoi’s feet. A scuffle broke out behind her with a muffled shout- she heard rubber impacting heavy iron and a shout of pain. She turned to see the guard who had been holding June’s mouth stumble slightly, and her shouting was unmuffled.
“Aoi! You see that, over there?” Her head motioned to the lifeless body in the snow, the one Aoi couldn’t bear to look at. “That’s… it's how she sees you- how you see you!” June’s voice was strained with desperation, but Aoi could tell it wasn’t because she was about to die- it was more like she was finally able to say something she’d been wanting to say since the moment the two girls had met. “Are you seriously just gonna let her keep ruining your life, or are you going to fucking do something?!”
She digested June’s words quietly as the hand swung back around to silence the taller girl, acutely aware of the gun trained on her back from behind. Her eyes ever so slowly followed the direction of June’s head. For the first time since arriving, she gave a proper glance to the dead eyed clone of herself, blue-skinned and shivering in the snow, limp, uncaring of the gun pressed to its neck or the boot on its back. It raised its head, and Aoi locked eyes with it.
Something clicked. And then every neuron in her brain exploded at once.
She let out a bloodcurdling scream, her hands flying to her head, clutching her temples. She had never felt this much pain before. It was like her brain was trying to escape her own skull, pushing and pulsing. It was all she could do to keep standing, body writhing and arms held tight, cradling her head. Her eyes somehow remained open, locked with her copy’s; she could see June’s horrified look out of the corner of her eye.
“Well? Did you hear what she said?” A voice- no, her own voice, monotone and vapid- was speaking in her mind, clear as day despite the agony. The words cut through like knives. “Go on. Lay down and die. Do as you’re told.” The copy raised an eyebrow, and at that moment she understood. It was talking to her.
“N-No…” She gasped out through distraught panting, desperately shouting against the wind of the blizzard. “I-I… I’m not you… I-I don’t want to be you anymore!”
She heard the distinct sound of something catching alight. Through tear-filled eyes she broke eye contact, looking down to see smoke coming from her bag. She tore a hand away from her head, reaching into the bag. She knew what it was. She didn’t have to look. She pulled out a piece of paper- torn, ripped at the edges, and blazing a beautiful red, set alight but not burning, flame not even flickering in the blizzard. This letter… Why…? Why was it here, now?
Her eyes scanned the page before she looked back to herself, laying in the snow. Tears streamed down her face and sizzled on the floor. Despite the torture, the pain, something was happening. She felt alive. She felt warm. She felt wet grass beneath her feet.
“A-Aoi, your hair-!” She heard June exclaim from behind. But she already knew. Her hair was on fire. She softly placed the note back within her bag, looking at Jitsuko. The unbearable pain took a backseat to the sound of rushing blood.
“Go on. End the charade.”
She held out her hand, fingers splayed, pointing at the copy. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, a small line of flickering fire started to creep up from her shoulder, engulfing her arm in red hot flames, and like a dam bursting, a supernova of fire exploded out from her palm, incinterating the copy in the snow. She yelled angrily as it melted away, leaving no trace it had ever existed.
The pain was gone. She removed her other hand from her head. She was vaguely aware of something different- the restricting school uniform she’d been in moments ago was different, somehow- but she didn’t dare take her eyes off of the princess and her two guards, who worriedly looked between each other, waiting for the order to fire.
“Now…” Aoi hissed, “get the fuck away from me!” She swung her flamethrowing arm up to the three, and a wave of fire was sent out, Jitsuko tumbling a dozen feet back, thudding against the stone walls of the fortress. The guards grunted, their rifles cluttering to the ground as the metal surfaces became too hot to hold. Aoi took the opportunity to spin, facing June, whose eyes were lit up in ecstatic shock.
She decided to test her new power. She pointed a finger at the guard holding her still and clicked, a little fireball whizzing to his face and knocking against his skull- it wasn’t much, but it was enough for June to get two more kicks in to free her arms, before unholstering those daggers, stabbing her captor and disintegrating it. She looked up. “Behind you!”
Aoi hopped to the side just in time to avoid the whizzing of a spiked bat next to her ear, her landing held nicely by the ground, as if somebody was softly guiding her movements from below. Not a moment after, two daggers sailed past her from the side, sunk directly into the guard’s chest and face- and it burst, fizzling into thin air.
Aoi faced the final remaining guard, who was struggling to remove his weapon from its holster. Wow, these things were pathetic. It looked up at her, panicking, and decided for a full-body tackle instead. She paused for a moment before pirouetting, a flame-filled hand slamming into its back as it tripped past her, turning it to dust before it even hit the ground.
Aoi breathed heavily as the sounds of fighting dissipated, leaving only a soft silence and heavy wind. She took a few moments, finally staring down at her hands, the adrenaline of the battle leaving her. “W-What...? What am I wearing, w-what… the fire... I…” She looked down, observing herself, stood in a ring of green grass against the stark white courtyard. She was now wearing a white cropped bomber jacket, with a black shirt underneath. A white dance skirt, black leggings, and bright red ballet shoes, the straps wrapping up to her knees. She looked like she had just gotten out of dance class, ready to walk to the car- a comfortingly familiar getup. But that all took a backseat when she finally saw her hair. It burned bright orange at the bottom, where it was usually dyed red; she passed her hand through the flames several times, a warm sensation in her fingers.
She jumped as she felt June’s gloved hand on her shoulder. The taller girl bent over, picking up her daggers. Aoi stammered for a moment. “Y-You…”
June shook her head, pointing to the still unconscious Jitsuko. “We gotta get out. I promise I’ll explain everything I know, okay?”
Aoi nodded, and the two girls made for the exit.
APRIL 9 - TUESDAY - EVENING
June and Aoi were huddled closely on the roof of a house in the residential area. The snow wasn’t such a bother- June watched as Aoi cleared out a small radius for them to sit on simply by being there, and the two dangled their legs off the side, silently observing the fortress in the distance. The sun was starting to creep its way past the horizon. ‘Back by the end of lunch’. She laughed to herself quietly as she observed Aoi's hair- it was quietly crackling like a real wood fire.
June spoke first. “I’m sorry I shouted at you back there. I… I dunno what came over me.”
Aoi smiled, her hands softly fidgeting with the ballet straps on her leg. “Don’t be dumb. I-I… I can’t really describe it. When I was watching you in there… I realised that you’d risked your life just to come and get me. And then the things you said… They were like a slap in the face, really. I woke up from a trance.” Aoi laughed bitterly. “I wish somebody had said that to me a year ago. Second best time is now, I guess.”
June smiled warmly in response. “Hey, don’t give me any credit. You saved my ass with what you did- I just gave you the push.” Aoi shrugged but didn’t deny it, shuffling closer to the taller girl.
“This place is weird.” June motioned around her. “It’s… I don’t know. The purple-eyed people, the copies… I think they’re… cognitive. Like… they’re how you see yourself. Or your deepest true self, o-or something… That was my best guess when I was panicking in the moment, trying to make you do something.” She paused, before grinning. “I didn’t expect you to murder your one.”
Aoi blushed a low crimson. “R-Right… And the real versions don’t have any clue what’s going on here…? I wonder why Jitsuko has a castle, then, and everybody else from school is a slave?” She pulled her hair back around again, letting the blazing fire pool in her lap. “What… What did you see? When I… got these powers.”
“I was really worried at first. You looked like you were in so much pain, I thought one of them had shot you or something.” June watched Aoi shiver as she brought it up. “But… you just kept staring down that fake version of you. You looked like you were trying to laser it to death. Then, you pulled something from your bag… you muttered something, the screaming got angry, and then you burnt it alive.” June raised a concerned eyebrow. “For what it’s worth, what you did was way cooler than lasering. But… why did you do that?”
Aoi shrugged. “It just felt right. Like… I knew you were right, the moment you said it. That was me through my own eyes, as much as I hated to admit it. And then I thought… well… If I remove that version of myself… Well, now nothing’s stopping me from changing.” She laughed as if what she said sounded stupid, but for the first time since they’d met, June sensed a serious sincerity behind that smile. “I guess the fire powers and the cool clothes are a nice bonus. Is that not what happened to you?”
June frowned, recalling her weird experience. “N-Nah… mine was… a little different. I…”
Sow the seeds of self doubt in your companions.
Was that what she had done for Aoi…? Maybe it was best if she just… “It was something like yours. It involved Jitsuko falling on her ass as well, you’ll be glad to hear.”
Aoi seemed placated by the response, and June quickly shifted the subject. “Speaking of cool clothes…” She indicated to Aoi’s new outfit, grinning. “What’s with the getup? You pulled some pretty lovely moves." She made a little twirl with her finger.
Aoi scoffed. “Speak for yourself! I didn’t choose these clothes! But… I used to be a ballet dancer… I stopped last year. I guess because I thought people would think it was dumb.” She paused. “I miss it. This is a reminder of that, I suppose.”
June murmured in agreement. “Well, I used to do gymnastics.” She smiled. “I can jump around pretty nicely in this world, but I only have these,” she held up her daggers, “so I’m slightly jealous.”
Aoi laughed loudly, bending over and coughing into her fist. Half at the joke, and half at all that had just happened, June guessed. She couldn’t help but laugh too, until something tugged her mind.
“Oh yeah… that thing you pulled out of your bag, that paper… what was it?”
Aoi’s smile quickly dissipated, and June worried she had stepped on thin ice, but after a moment of deliberation the girl reached into her bag and dragged it out.
“It’s a letter from my aunt. She was my best friend, and… I think it was slowly tearing her apart, seeing the way I was going after all that stuff started at school. Y-You know. The way I acted around Jitsuko. You saw. She wrote me this to remind me to never forget who I was. I used to read it every day before school, and then one day, I just… stopped. I forgot about it, put it in my bag, and never read it again. It’s been there since.”
Aoi pointed to the last line on the page, difficult to read through the tearing, and laughed quietly. “Always burn bright. I love you.” She tapped the page, her voice choking up. “She died three weeks ago.”
“Aoi… I…”
“She was one of the murders. The one before last. Killed by somebody. Just for fun, the police reckon.” Her hands gripped the paper tightly.
June didn’t have anything to say. She shuffled slightly closer to her friend, wrapping a hand around her waist.
“Sorry for bringing the mood down.” A smile returned to Aoi’s face. “No point dwelling on it, right? I have no idea why this thing caught on fire, but… I couldn’t be happier that it did. I’m gonna start listening to her.” She pointed to the page. “Better late than never, huh?”
June smiled, nodded in response. The two girls took a few more moments in silence, watching the sun make its way down over the ocean, the sky blackening before June slid off the rooftop, offering her hand up to Aoi to do the same. “C’mon. Let’s go home."
Aoi landed next to June softly, the snow already melted into grass by the time she landed. “Uh.. how do we actually go home?”
“What, did you not notice the cool shades?”
Aoi looked at her, befuddled, prompting June to hold out a dagger for Aoi to use as a mirror. The girl had a pair of aviators resting on her face. Aoi blushed once more.
“Don’t worry, they look cool,” June gave her a playful pat on the head. “But… Take them off.”
Aoi raised her other hand to the lenses, making to pull them off; she instantly disappeared in a quick flash of blue flame, the dagger she had been holding clattering to the floor.
“Huh. So that’s what it looks like.” She picked up her dagger, wiping some ice off the blade before following suit. They stood in some alley- June hadn’t really paid attention to where they’d run- but she chuckled in amusement at Aoi raising her glasses up and down over her eyes. She imagined she looked just as stupid when she had done it yesterday.
A few moments after they’d arrived, Aoi’s phone started exploding with noise- a day’s worth of notifications instantly flooded her phone, and she fished it out of her bag to scroll through them. “Nope… nothing from my mom… I’m in the clear.” She sounded relieved, but also a hint of disappointment permeated her voice. June stayed quiet.
Something was pressing at the back of her mind, something she was forgetting, but…
“I’m gonna go home… oh! Before I head off…” Aoi held out her phone, her chat app open on the screen. “Let’s exchange chat IDs.”
June nodded, pulling her own phone from her pocket and opening the app- they bumped the two phones together, and both made a little ding! of confirmation. As Aoi waved goodbye, turning to leave, June scrolled through the girl’s profile quietly. Chat messages… messages… Shit! Mariko! She almost dropped the phone in her haste to open her texts, clicking on Mariko’s name, fingers racing across her keyboard...
> Mariko is typing. . .
> June: coming to yours for diner tonight
> June: dinner*
> June: :)
> Mariko stopped typing.
She deflated with a loud sigh of relief, and began the journey across town to her guardian’s house.
APRIL 9 - TUESDAY - NIGHT
June stood in Mariko’s kitchen, eating quietly while the older woman sat, doing paperwork at the table. The house was… surprisingly cozy, now she had actually spent some proper time inside it. The air between the two was still awkward, without a doubt, but Mariko seemed somewhat placated by June’s timely appearance today, sliding her a hastily made bowl of noodles before going back to her work.
June was still a little jumpy, evidenced by her phone buzzing on the counter almost making her spit her mouthful out. She slid the bowl onto the side, checking her phone, and smiled upon seeing who the messages were from.
> Aoi Akisada: i realised i never thanked you for saving me
> Aoi Akisada: thanks
> Aoi Akisada: for saving me that is
> June: Haha don’t be a dumbass. Least I could do.
> Aoi: the more i let myself think on it, the more it makes some sort of sense… that world is cognitive, right? so… think about it
> Aoi: jitsuko basically runs the school, all the students are scared of her, she won’t get punished by teachers, she does what she wants and everybody has to obey
> Aoi: see what i mean?
> June: It’s pretty on the nose, yeah. I can see what you mean. I guess the deep recesses of peoples’ minds aren't bothered about subtlety.
> Aoi: lol
> Aoi: i just wonder why that… castle is the department store. i mean, her dad owns it, but...doesnt it seem a bit odd? why not the school?
> Aoi: also… this is probably stupid, but
> June: Go on
> Aoi: ok… you know the hypothermia cases? i mean, you know… they’re cold, it’s cold in that world… don’t you think it’s something we could check out?
> Aoi: we might be able to help those people
> Aoi: we can go check tomorrow
> June: Yeah... good point. I hadn’t even thought about it, but… what if you can affect the real versions of people by doing things to those cognitive versions? That… could be dangerous.
> June: Unless, of course, you kill them yourself.
> June: :p
> Aoi: ok we can look tomorrow
> Aoi: im almost too tired to keep my eyes open
> Aoi: one more thing though
> Aoi: shouldnt we come up with a name for that place? its pretty confusing to just keep calling it ‘that world’
> June: Good point. Have one in mind?
> Aoi: yeah… what about the Metaverse?