Keiko Nakamura awoke, with a startled gasp, at the sound of a ringing school bell. Followed, shortly after, by the grating of a dozen metal chair legs across a hard wooden floor.
'Huh?' Her eyes were wide, in confusion. 'Was I...only dreaming just now?'
She remained at her desk while all the other students piled out; until it was only her, listening to the rhythmic blaring of the summertime cicadas, touching the oozing warm sweat on the side of her face turned to the sunlight beaming in through the windows.
"But, this isn't...Shiroichi," she said to herself, in disbelief, then abruptly jolted out of her chair. "This is—"
Sounds of laughter and busy chatter filled her ears as she dawdled through the grandiose front entrance of the elegant old Victorian-styled Maximilian Academy for Girls.
'This was...the school I went to before I died and came to Nirvana.'
