His eyes opened wide to the first echo of alarms blaring in the distance. The dorm was quiet, but soon following the sound, rustling of sheets and a couple of pillows falling onto the floor alerted him that his colleagues were springing into action. It was a tiresome night, but now was not the time to hesitate. He stood up from his bed just in time for the lights to turn on and their commanding officer to rush in.
'This is not a drill, people!' he screamed. 'We are under attack.'
'The Hundred Days' was a novel that followed the true story of a soldier in North Hitoka during what was famously known as the hundred-day raid, the final defensive standing of Northern Hitoka against the attacks from the south before it was restored as one country once again. For the majority of the world the war was won in favor of what was right and just, but only a few knew how that history had been rewritten by the victor.
Sakura never liked stories that dealt with politics. She never enjoyed work that reflected the ugly nature of the world she had already grown tired of. Instead, what she mostly preferred were the worlds she would gladly escape into. Lands of magic so blissful, lands of technology so freeing or simply a land just like hers but where everything was unrealistically cheery, without a hint of darkness around the corner or where even the darkness is just a precedent for more joy. Characters living in dreadful worlds who are stupidly optimistic about making it a better place and simply does so by their mere existence were the ones she fell in love with, for when she took her eyes off the worlds hidden among the pages, she is brought back to a world where all of that is too good to be true.
'The hundred days', therefore, was a new experience for Sakura. Going through the chapters one by one, she felt embracing a darkness she tried avoiding. She was too young to remember in detail what happened back there six years ago, but the book seemed to have a way of getting her to the frontlines to experience it for herself and it felt a lot different from what she remembered.
Not allowed to stroll too far away from her home, having only a couple of days without constant supervision, she would walk around the city, just exploring whenever she could. Over the years she had found a couple of spots around the city where she enjoyed hanging around, sometimes with a book or sometimes simply just taking it all in. Though that day she hadn't strolled too far away. A couple of blocks away from her home was a playground, but it was too well maintained to be named a playground. It mostly had see-saws, swings and slides spaced really far apart with routes connecting them and practically a whole botanical garden filling the rest of the space. In the evening it was mostly empty except for a couple of parents with their kids and about a couple of dozen teenagers hanging around the one volleyball court at the edge of the ground.
Sakura, with her long hair tied up in a bun, in a yellow dress that was out of fashion even before she was born, was sitting down on a bench among the trees, out of sight of everyone, about fifty days into 'the hundred days' with no intentions of looking away. The only things that kept her company were the automated tools around her that trimmed and maintained the plants in the playground and a group of boys about fifty meters away playing volleyball.
A ball rolled over to her and bouncing on the tip of her slippers it hit her lower leg. It managed to drive her attention away from her book as she drew her eyes to the ball and then to the boys now waiting for her to throw the ball at them. She rested the book on the bench on its pages, keeping it open, picked up the ball, which was slightly heavier than she expected and threw it at the boys.
Her aim was way off, and on top of that the wind did no help sending the ball even farther away. Moving off to the side of the court it kept rolling fast towards an old trimming equipment attending to some lower branches of a boxwood hedge.
With a loud pop the ball was punctured, and it flopped onto the ground, shrunken. Sakura was shaken by the sudden unexpected sound. Not sure how to proceed, as if to offer her condolences she stood looking at the boys. The pop drew the attention of a worker of the playground who was stationed near the gate to the playground in a small post that housed the robotic gardening equipment and some sporting goods for the kids to play. He hastened over to the boys with an angry face that spoke levels before he actually started talking. What he was saying to the boys was not audible to Sakura, but she thought to herself that it can't possibly be good with his expression and arms flying all over the place. Even from that distance Sakura could tell that civil laws in place were the only thing that held that man from beating the kids to a pulp.
Sakura wasn't quite sure what she should do, so she sat down and picked the book back up onto her lap. She stood looking at the boys getting yelled at feeling a little guilty herself. After about five minutes of yelling, the man left the court continuing to do some more yelling as he walked away. The boys slowly huddled up in a discussion, but one of them, the tallest in the group, instead of getting involved in the discussion stood staring at Sakura until he made his choice to walk over to her, accompanied by the rest of the group. The closer they got, the straighter Sakura sat and the more scared she became.
'What's your problem?' The tall kid inquired Sakura.
'Sorry,' Sakura replied sincerely.
'That was the ground's ball and now they want us to pay,' a different kid in the group added.
'I said I'm sorry,' that time with many more words than the last time, her accent was noticeable, and the kids quickly picked up on it.
'Holy! We got a Bixie over here,' a different kid added, and the rest laughed. Sakura felt offended by that remark. It has been a while since she had heard that word and it was the first time she had ever been addressed with it. She suddenly felt a level of danger she wasn't feeling before and her mind started evaluating the possibility of these kids ganging up on her and actually murdering her in the playground.
'Pay for the ball,' the tall kid exclaimed after the laughter faded away. Sakura was even more scared now. Tones of their voice and temper in their expressions had doubled since they noticed her accent that accompanied a slight lisp.
'Look, I don't have any money,' Sakura managed to blurt out, looking up at them scared to look away. 'Please leave me alone.'
'Leave you alone?' the tall kid was getting more agitated and it had become more and more visible in his eyes. 'You popped that ball, and now the park is making us pay for it, how is that ok? Pay for the damn ball you half-breed.'
That word struck a chord with Sakura. She wasn't sure how to react to being called a Bixie earlier since she had no prior experience, but half-breed was a word she had been called many times. It was a word she despised from the sheer number of times she's been called it ever since she started her new life in the south. The fear had started to shift towards a deep seated fury and her attitude was beginning to switch to that of a kamikaze pilot, 'I don't care if I go down, but I sure as hell am going to bring you down with me.'
'I told you, I don't have any money,' Sakura's voice was now relatively more monotonic.
'Hey, twinkle-toes,' A relatively tall girl wearing a dress similar to Sakura approached the gang of kids from the side, taking their attention. She had long straight hair, a pretty face and an elegant and slim figure which her dress did not hide. 'Why don't you pick one your own size? Or is it your thing now picking on little girls now after you got beaten by the cheerleading squad last game?'
'This's none of your business, dollface,' the tall kid replied. 'Why don't you go… read some poetry with your mom or something? Oh wait…'
'Then maybe I could go read some with your's, but from last night I noticed she preferred it more to have the poetry shoved up-' the girl managed to compose herself before she slipped something inappropriate in front of Sakura. 'Ask your mom for the rest, she'll elaborate in detail.'
'Wow, never thought I'd see the day Natsumi crawl out of Ryota's ass and go on full on bitch mode,' the tall kid snapped back. 'What? Is he hiding in a tree or something?'
'If he was, you'd have lost a couple of teeth by now,' Natsumi replied. 'Just leave Sakura alone.'
'I guess we'll make Ryota pay for the ball then.'
Natsumi laughed, reaching out for Sakura's wrist. 'Give me a heads-up, I wanna buy popcorn for the show.'
'Come on, Sakura,' Natsumi dragged Sakura away from the bench and Sakura decided to tag along, away from the boys.
'Shouldn't be too hard for a Bixie to pay for the ball though,' the tall kid in the group could simply not hold himself back. Natsumi was shaken when she heard the word, but she continued dragging Sakura away hoping whatever followed would not be worse. 'Doesn't your mom, like... play with balls for a living.'
Natsumi jerked into a stop as Sakura planted her feet on the ground. The kids standing behind them were laughing at the remark. Natsumi was a little shocked, not by the insult, she had heard much worse and had replied much worse, but it was the setting and implications that had her in shock. Sakura was not moving.
In the next couple of seconds Sakura was not entirely responsible for what befell the tall kid's face. The fist that reached for the nasal septum at a terminal velocity flesh and bones permitted came from a little girl that waited for three years staring out a window waiting for her mother to come home.
It was very early when hastening footsteps and rolling wheels outside the ten-year-old Sakura's room woke her up from her sleep. It was a chilly morning six years ago that Sakura, on top of being well tucked into bed also had chosen to fall asleep hugging her long-tailed one-eyed tiger, Ochiki, so tight its remaining eye almost popped out. She could see light moving under the door, shadows hastening here and there and then all the noise moving down the stairs and taking residence one floor below.
Throwing her sheets away, climbing onto her slippers, rubbing her eyes, having grabbed Ochiki by his tail, Sakura made her way out her room and started stepping down the stairs.
'Can't you cancel or something?' Sakura heard her dad's voice. 'The situation doesn't sound too good dear.'
With a concluding smile on her face Sakura's mother replied, 'That's why I have to go. It's my job, but you have nothing to worry about.'
'Nothing to worry? You packed a Charon locket for god's sake!'
'I'm required to carry this, hun,' Sakura's mother explained. She was in her uniform. Posy green clothing from her head to toe, starting from a peaked military hat ending from a pair of boots with laces going far up tightening it around her legs. 'It's because of my rank, it means nothing.'
There was a silence in the conversation as their egg-shaped robot butler hovered over to the mother carrying a bag.
'Thanks Hames,' she picked her bag up herself and rested it on the rest of the luggage.
'Mommy?' Sakura paced towards her parents, dragging Ochiki by his tail along her side.
'Oh,' Sakura's mother approached her with a warm smile reaching for her cheeks. 'Did we wake you? I was going to come up the stairs to say goodbye and give my little baby a kiss.'
She planted a kiss on Sakura's forehead. 'There.'
'Mommy, where are you going?'
'Mommy's boss called mommy and told mommy to come to work,' she explained herself. 'I will be away for a week, so you are going to have to watch after daddy for me, could you do that?'
Sakura, still a little sleepy, nodded. She wasn't happy about the aspect of her mother leaving in the middle of the night, but she was used to not having her mother around for months at a time.
'Good girl,' Sakura's mother placed one more kiss on her daughter's forehead. 'Now go back to sleep dear... you have school in the morning.'
Sakura took the opportunity to give her mother a lazy hug. 'Take care mommy.'
The hug caught her mother off guard and it took her a while to get her own arms to embrace her daughter back. Not a second into it her breath became heavier and her lips moved apart to let her breathe. Her eyes drowned in tears as she embraced her daughter tighter. For the last time, the heart sitting beneath that posy green uniform perfectly synced to the beat of her daughter's and finally when it was time for her to let go of the embrace, she secretly wiped away the drop of tear that escaped her eyes before standing up.
'The commander in chief', now towering over Sakura, looking down at her, smiled. 'Good-bye, my cherry blossom.'
Sakura walked back up the stairs to her room with poor Ochiki dragged along for the ride. She walked over to her bed and climbed onto it and just lied there.
Soon after, a light shined through her window accompanied by a noise of sand and chipped stones crushing under the weight of a heavy tire from the lawn. Sakura immediately sat on the bed, leaned on the table next to her bed and peeked out the window.
For many minutes she watched as her mother carried all the baggage into the car, unloaded some but kept rest on her back, went back to give daddy a hug and a parting kiss, got back into the car and drove through the trees, along the path that ran far, out of sight into the darkness of the night.
Six years later, Sakura would once again find herself staring out the window from her room.
'What were you thinking?' the nurse was yelling at Sakura from the door. Sakura had taken seat at her table, staring out the window, sitting still waiting for the screaming to be over. A cute little egg-shaped robot, much shorter than Sakura, about the height of the table she was sitting at, stood conflicted as to how to proceed, looking at the nurse and then Sakura helplessly. In the room, leaning against a bookshelf that was mostly empty was Natsumi, who had her back turned to the nurse, looking at Sakura. Accompanying her was another egg-shaped robot floating slightly over the floor, with its eyes locked on Sakura. 'Of all the ways you could have settled it, you chose to break his nose! You feel proud of yourself now Sakura? The parents called me, they want a bypass transaction. We are already running low on donations and the city's been cutting our budgets.'
'How evil do they have to be to sue an orphanage?' Natsumi let out one of her usual snide comments.
'Natsumi!' the nurse called her out.
The room grew quiet after that.
'You are grown women now, for god's sake,' the nurse's tone sounded more helpless than irritated now. 'I have actual kids I have to look after, and you are supposed to be helping me! At the very least not causing more trouble for me. I love you girls, you know that, but don't do anything rash that you'd get to regret, and that goes to you too Natsumi!'
'What? What did I do?'
'I know about that boy you keep going around with,' the nurse added.
'What are you implying?' Natsumi turned towards the nurse with an irritated expression, bobbing her head with every syllable.
'Oh, don't play dumb with me!'
'Oh my god!'
'Oh my god, indeed.'
'Sakura, you are grounded for a month,' the nurse exclaimed. 'I'm sorry but you forced my hand. Now, you two wash up and get back to studying or something.'
The nurse left the room after a small pause.
Natsumi slowly approached Sakura after the nurse left. 'Are you ok?'
Sakura nodded slightly.
'If you ask me, he had that coming,' Natsumi pulled a chair and sat down next to Sakura resting her palm on Sakura's shoulder. 'If it's not you, it'd have been me and I don't punch like a girl, so.'
Natsumi smirked and Sakura followed suit. Lying next to Sakura was 'The hundred days' that Natsumi took in her hand.
'You are not thinking about what that jerk said?' Natsumi asked. 'Are you?'
'Maybe.'
'Why? Guy's a spineless nutjob,' Natsumi commented. 'He had to come back with mommy to even talk to us.'
'Well at least he had one.'
A silence once again overcame the room.
'Nat... do you think I'll ever be able to get over, you know,' Sakura still stood staring at the window. 'Being who I am?'
'What do you mean 'get over'? You are great Sakura! You are smart, pretty, intelligent, hard working and not to mention a bookworm. You can do anything you set your mind to, you know, just like your mother.'
Sakura lifted her head up to notice Natsumi now holding up 'The hundred days'.
'Even the soldiers who lost everything in the war still hold her up in such high regards,' Natsumi commented. 'Their autobiographies have footnotes dedicated to their commander in chief. THIS is who you are Sakura, blood of fighters run in you; never thrown a single punch in your life but you broke that dude's nose, that's who you are. Never get over that.'
'Thanks,' Sakura thanked as she recovered a hint of smile back to her face. 'It means a lot, Nat.'
Natsumi rested the book on Sakura's table and offered her a warm smile, then she simply decided to ruin the moment.
'But I have to say, the blood is great, but 'Kikuchi'?' Natsumi added and got off from her chair. 'If you ever get married, please take your husband's surname. Hana Kikuchi is a little ok, but Sakura Kikuchi is just stupid.'
'You just couldn't leave it at the blood thing, could you?' Sakura inquired.
'Can't have you too happy,' Natsumi grinned as she headed out the room.
'She's such a good friend, isn't she?' the cute egg-robot asked with a smile looking up at Sakura catching her attention.
'Yeah,' Sakura commented. 'And Ochiki, aren't you the one who's supposed to cheer me up?'
The poor little robot looked conflicted once again. 'Sorry, I didn't know what to say. I guess I'm a good listener, but not that good of a speaker. Is Sakura mad at me?'
'No,' Sakura smirked at the robot. 'I was just kidding around.'
She got off her chair with the novel in her hand. She had no mood to continue on with the rest, hence she decided to pack it back in the bookshelf. It was getting dark out and Sakura didn't feel like waiting for the light to turn on automatically, so Sakura's next stop was the light switch to her room which she touched to light up the room. She had a lot of schoolwork she had to get done, but she needed a fresh start to it, hence a shower. She picked up the towel from the rack, rested it on the bed, took out a folded dress from the cupboard, and laid it next to the towel. Sitting down on the bed next to the two she had to get her head straight or she knew she wouldn't be able to get anything done even after the shower.
There's a light at the end of every dark tunnel, and a silver lining to every dark cloud. Every protagonist in every novel she has ever read had a painful start. They had to overcome so much in such a small number of pages to reach the success they eventually did in the end. Why shouldn't her story be any different?
After moments lost in thought, from hidden under the collar of her dress she fished out a necklace. Its pendant was shaped like a coin with carvings on it. The carvings were in the shape of a symbol that below it even had a motto written in old Hitoku. Its top that attached it to the chain seemed as if it could be unscrewed and separated from the pendant. Sakura's memories ran back to the time she saw her mother reporting to duty wearing the same necklace.
Real life had never been too fancy with happy endings though, has it? It's only the chain of causality that dictated destiny and from Sakura's perspective it's that very same chain of causality that cost her a perfect family. If her mother didn't get a happy ending even after all the sacrifices she made in the name of that which was right, what chance would poor Sakura have, battling her own fate?
'Sakura, Miss Akari wants to see you,' Ochiki broke the room's silence.
'What? Did she say why?'
'She said a stranger is here to meet you.'
Her surprised expression could not encapsulate the level of surprise she was. A stranger? To meet her? She always kept a low profile, even in school she never spoke too much to give away her accent. Is something big starting to unravel in her life from that one punch? Now she was hesitant even to find out. But without too many further questions Sakura found herself making her way down the stairs, curious as to what lay below.
When she walked into the reception Miss Akari, the nurse, was waiting for her by a door on the other end of the hall. She nodded at Sakura to follow her and disappeared into the room. Sakura made her way all across the hall indecisively, slowing down at the door and knocking on it.
'Come in Sakura,' Miss Akari invited.
Sakura carefully, with her eyes now locked onto the stranger in the room, walked in. The stranger's skin was white, but it was not the white she was used to. In a suit, with whatever remained of his hair well combed, he had comfortably taken a seat in the room in one of the Sofas. On the table She stopped after closing the door and stood still with her hands gathered in front.
'Mr. Cooper, this is Sakura,' Sakura was introduced by Miss Akari in Tyrese, which Sakura wasn't aware Miss Akari could even speak.
The stranger took a sip of his coffee and greeted Sakura with a smile.
'Hello Miss Sakura,' the stranger spoke in Tyrese as well. Tyrese was not a tongue Sakura was too fluent at. Of course, she could read Tyrese, since it had become the go-to second language in almost all the countries after the 'Cold Conquer', being one of the easiest languages to learn and one most frequently used. By then she had about six or seven Tyrese novels in her catalog, but that's where her expertise ended.
'Hello,' she strung her first word together with her lisp-y accent.
'Please, take a seat,' the stranger invited, pointing to the sofa on the other side of the table. Sakura obliged politely. 'We have a lot to discuss.'
Stranger took an earpiece from one of the pouches that laid open on the table and leaned forward handing it over to Sakura. Sakura refused to accept it, 'I understand well.'
'Oh, ok then,' the stranger pulled out a couple of envelopes from his bag, along with a rather long cuboid shaped box, and rested them all on the table finally pulling out a torn envelope and a file from within. Opening the file, he pulled out what seemed to be a letter. Then looking back up at Sakura he started his explanation.
'Miss Sakura, I'm Damien Cooper, I'm your late grandmother's attorney,' he continued. 'First allow me to express my condolences for your loss. Now, I -'
'My grandmother?' Sakura up until then had no idea she had one. The subject of their parent's parents never rose into conversation back when her mother and father were still around, so Sakura always operated under the assumption they had died before she was born.
'Yes, your grandmother,' the lawyer continued as if he was in a hurry. 'And I'm here with her last will and testament.'
'Her will?'
'Yes, Miss Sakura. She left most of her belongings to your late mother, Hana Kikuchi, and her unchanged will for the past ten years, now leave them in your possession as you'd be the next of kin.'
'What did she leave her?' Sakura inquired.
'Since your mother was her only child, and since your grandmother's husband has passed away, everything mentioned in this will and all the rest of her belongings she had left unto you.'
Sakura was conflicted whether to be excited or concerned; she couldn't fathom the implications of what was just said. Everything seemed to be good indicators, but there's hardly ever an offering without a catch.
'And as her final wish, she wanted me to read this letter to your mother, hand over these files,' the lawyer pointed to the envelopes. 'And then, burn this letter.'
'O- Ok?' Sakura was even more scared and conflicted now. With her approval the lawyer wanted to start. He pulled out a device from his pocket and rested it on the table, then adjusted it and turned it on. Suddenly the surrounding noise became dampened, and a silent whistling noise filled Sakura's ears.
'Can you hear me clearly?' the lawyer asked and his voice reverberated. Sakura, having heard it, nodded. Then he turned towards the nurse who was still standing within the room and raised the same question, 'Can you hear me?'
'What?' miss Akari's dampened voice echoed in Sakura's ears. The lawyer then smiled and turned the device off.
'You may leave now, miss Akari,' he continued with a smile. The nurse left the room and closed the door behind her.
'Now,' the lawyer turned on the device once again and pulled a surgical mask from his pocket that he then put on covering his mouth. He put on a pair of glasses he pulled out from his coat and holding what seemed to be a blank page he commented, 'Let's get started, shall we?'
Sakura nodded.
'Dear Daughter,' he started. 'I know we haven't spoken much since our little mishap, but if you are hearing this, it probably means I wouldn't get a chance to reconcile with you either. I just wanted to tell you that I'm proud of you and you have nothing to regret not having told me. As I'm writing this letter, I actually have no ill-image of you and, I guess, I'm actually proud of you for making the choice you did. Sorry if I hurt your feelings in any way when we parted.
Anyway, the reason I'm writing this letter is not entirely to reconcile our banters. I also wish you could do something for me, keep something safe for me, if you will. From our limited conversations about my research, I think you know the research that I did in regard to hyperdimensional parameters and the 'many worlds' theories. For the past seven years, my project had been one of the highest funded research projects in Tyria and to show for it my RDIs made a lot of advancements. Even though I released some of my work to the public and some to my investors, I kept most of it unpublished because I believed that they could create dangerous weapons so powerful that they would be able to wipe out an entire universe in an instance. I didn't publish the majority of them and chose not to do so until I have solutions to each of the problems they'd create. But I didn't destroy them either. I believed it would be as if we are handicapping ourselves in times of a global apocalypse that my research would be able to easily solve. So, I decided to leave the decision of releasing them to the public in your hands. I hope you understand the risk and I'm sorry to leave all this burden on your shoulders, but there's no one I'd trust more. If you are ever unsure whether to publish them or not, please don't. The unknown is much more capable than the known, always keep that in mind.
Everything you need to know is encrypted in this blade; you might recognize it from back when your father got it from grandfather. It's a replica of that heirloom blade. If you want to stay away from all this, destroy this blade, but if you ever want to sneak a peek, a drop of blood will do. I hope you'll do the right thing.'
The lawyer kept the letter away and opened the elongated cuboid shaped box revealing a gorgeous knife with a beautifully carved handle. It was about a foot long in total and almost half of it was the handle that extended along the flat sides of the blade for a short distance. The handle was wooden with paintings extending along it drawn in a dark blue that went well with the natural brown of the wood.
The lawyer, soon after, rolled the letter into a slim roll with his right hand and held it against the inside of his wrist, against the strap of his watch, and gestured with his left fist. The page caught fire and started to slowly burn. It burned in a green flame and no residue of it remained as the flame kept eating though it. It burned all the way on the lawyer's palm, but apparently it didn't burn hot, since the flames ended up at his palm and he barely even noticed it. He then turned the device that laid on the table off, packed it back in his bag, followed by the surgical mask and eyeglasses.
'So, miss Sakura,' he leaned in forward, towards Sakura. 'Any questions before we proceed?'
Few minutes later, in a room that shone bright like the daylight once the time threshold was passed, on the bed lay an array of open envelopes. Letters and sheets of paper astray and at the center was a foot long blade. There were newspaper clippings, portions from research articles, both published and unpublished, redacted documents and staring at them trying to put the pieces together was Sakura, who was kneeling before her bed.
'Yes,' was what Sakura wanted to say to the lawyer, but what her politeness instead allowed was a simple head shake, but now she was regretting her choice, since she had no clue what she was looking at.
She browsed through the headlines trying to bring meaning to the chaos and checked the posted images for anything of help. The headlines were incomprehensible. Her lack of fluency in Tyrese was certainly a contributing factor, but even if she understood it well, no average bookworm would have been able to decode what she was seeing.
'Derivation of field equations for stable hyper-parametric Triagon from Alcubierre drive,' was one of the titles for a paper. There were many that followed that pattern; the pattern of which made absolutely no sense to Sakura.
'Vacuum fission' the science of 'something from nothing'
Stable Triagon observed at lightspeed challenges laws of knethonics and the theory of everything
S-domain N-matrices for broader understanding of the many worlds
The images that moved behind these confusing texts did not help elaborating either.
'Why did she leave me random newspaper articles?' Sakura's mind ran wild processing all the possibilities she could possibly think of. The burnt letter, the secrecy, the unpublished research and now all of them in Sakura's possession. The more she thought about it the more terrified she started becoming. These were meant for her mother who used to be in a high rank in a formidable armed force. A risk she was meant to handle, how would Sakura be able to?
The steel blade with brown and blue wooden handle stood menacingly at the center of all the confusion. It was just an old blade, how come it need so much protection? And for what? Was it a key? Or was it the vault? In an age where anything could be anything these answers would take more than the time Sakura did have.
Sakura, puzzled by all, now turned to her trusty old robot pal, who was now standing at the corner of the room, sleeping, as per Sakura's request. Maybe she could have used Ochiki's help but she didn't want to risk someone else finding out until she finds out what all this means. Maybe it was all an old crank just starting to lose her mind in her old age, but on the off chance it wasn't Sakura needed a head start.
All the articles surrounding her were mostly scientific, except for one. Sakura, starting to notice it now, was surprised why she didn't notice it earlier. It was a page from one of Sakura's favorite verse novels. The poems in it told the story of a little girl growing up to be a woman, but hating the changes and responsibilities it followed, craving the need to go back to her carefree days. The page in question had a series of poems telling the story of how she, after being chosen for a well reputed college to which she had applied under the pressure of her parents refused to go and instead storms into her room to sit down in a corner and escape into her magical world of imagination for one last time to tell everyone goodbye.
Behind the texts that assembled the poem was a white background with a moving pencil stick-figure drawing of a king, with his crown too big for his head, and a little girl in a frock playing catch with him. Going through these poems, from top to bottom, Sakura instantly noticed an anomaly.
'Tucked into the corner, to herself was she thinking
Seeking to meet her friends, the baron and the king
Maybe the time was it for a wonder to fade
Farewell to a dismal reality, she cheerfully bade'
was the poem Sakura remembered from the book but instead of the last line, what she read in this page was 'Greetings to a blissful reality, she swung her blade.'
The ringing off a doorbell drove one of the egg-shaped bots to open the door and answer.
'Hello?' the bot greeted cheerfully. 'How may I be of service?'
Standing before it was a man of metal, or more precisely an android. It didn't have a face, only a black display shaped like an X across its light gray head. Wearing a top hat, a cream-colored trench coat and black shoes it resembled an eloquent businessman.
'Greetings,' the android spoke. 'May I speak with Miss Sakura Kikuchi?'
'Hello,' Miss Akari peeked through the door from behind the small robot.
Up in Sakura's room, holding the blade cautiously, standing beside her bed she swung it across the air. Nothing happened. 'Was it not a hint? Or am I missing something?'
'Hello, Miss Akari Nituma,' the android addressed. 'May I speak with Miss Sakura Kikuchi?'
'Uh,' looking back at the stairs behind her and turning back towards the android. 'May I ask what this is about?'
'Miss Sakura is currently in possession of a stolen artifact from my masters,' the android explained. 'I must retrieve it immediately.'
Seeking to meet her friends.
This time Sakura was focused on where she wanted to go. And as she was then swinging the blade across the air, she felt as if her head was starting to be overwritten. In her head, as she swung the blade across air, she started seeing other worlds and beautiful places she never even imagined existed. The more the options went past, the more the upcoming options started to feel like home to her. Now before her eyes was a mansion in darkness, crumbling down and overrun with wild vines and overgrown fauna. She immediately recognized it, and the window she was staring out of six years ago.
'Sakura's not here,' Miss Akira replied. 'Maybe you could leave Bob here with your contact information?' said Miss Akira as she rested her palm on top of the egg-shaped robot.
'I must insist ma'am,' the android was persistent. 'It is of utmost importance that I meet her now.'
She opened her eyes with the picture of her old house and swung the blade across air, faster than before in an upwards slash motion. Suddenly there the air seemed to rip apart leaving what seemed like an opening in a slashed fabric. It was struggling to close but didn't dare to close all the way. A heavy burst of wind blew all the letters and articles on Sakura's bed astray. 'The hundred days' flipped through all its pages.
'Rift detected in the vicinity,' the X on the robot's face suddenly turned red. Its limbs suddenly extended, and movement became erratic. At the sight of its horror, both Bob and Miss Akira backed down and nearly fell onto the floor. The well-dressed android was now crawling through the ground, like a spider, fast up the stairs.
Beyond the slash, Sakura could see her old home, drowned in darkness. It was just as beautiful as ever, even with all the broken windows and overgrown fauna. She stepped closer and closer to it.
'WHAT WAS THAT???' by the time miss Akari walked up the stairs Natsumi was down on the first landing huddled into a ball. 'WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?'
Miss Akari quickly picked Natsumi up to her feet. 'IT WENT FOR SAKURA.'
They both hastened across the hallway that was now drowning with kids screaming and running frantically. Their hearts were pounding. It was the first time Natsumi had ever seen one in real life, but for Miss Akari it wasn't a first interaction, although her prior experiences did not help her fight the terror that struck her heart.
Sakura's door was opened but the scratch mark across it expressed that there wouldn't have been a difference even if it was closed. They both turned the corner, running into the room.
Natsumi was too scared to look, the way the creature made its way up the stairs, in her head, she pictured Sakura's bedroom now covered in blood, but to both of their surprise, the room was simply empty. There was scattered paper all over, but no sign of Sakura or the creature. In absolute silence within the room, the only thing that made a noise was the open window in the room and the curtain blowing in the wind, gently striking against the frame of the window.