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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 8 2014, 04:25 PM (596 Views) | |
| The One True Nobody | Apr 8 2014, 04:25 PM Post #1 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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It was December 26th, 2013, on a Thursday! That meant it was one day after Christmas and that Taiyoutono High School was firmly closed. There might or might not have been staff on site, but the important thing was the place was mostly empty. That made it easy for a young, short-haired "boy" in a hoodie and jeans to loop around back, climb the wall around the side (which... well, to be honest! would have been impossible if she didn't know how to infuse her fingers with Skewer and literally claw her way up the wall), and sneak her way onto the grounds. Disappointingly, the back doors were locked. Also disappointingly, the fire exits couldn't open from the outside. Double disappointingly, the front doors were also locked. But! There was an open window in the third-year building! On the first floor, even! Sweet! Okay okay, so she just had to sneak up to the window... climb through... and... success~! Etsuko Sadako, looking altogether incognito and rather genderless, landed like a cat inside classroom 3-2, pulling her hood low over her face and looking around discreetly. There was something about this school and she aimed to find out what it was! There had to be. Like, why else would there be so many magic people at this one school? Also... ...Well, Etsuko had just never seen a high school up close before, and this place sure was pretty. Standing up and looking out the window to make sure no one had seen her enter, she slid the window almost closed, and then made her way to the classroom door. Reached up... tried to turn the handle... Click. Locked. Rats! Pulling her hand back, the face under the hood registering a pout, Etsuko crossed her arms over her chest and scowled around at the rest of the classroom. Cursed locked doors! Why was it easier to get into a monster-infested underground labyrinth than it was to sneak into a high school? That was backwards, Etsuko thought. Backwards! Well-- If you're quite done breaking and entering, we should probably leave before someone catches us! Apsaras whispered nervously in Etsuko's mind. You're already in hot water if they find out you're the one who for all intents and purposes punched little holes in the outside of that beautiful stone wall, you know! "Oh, cram it," Etsuko muttered, turning around and stuffing her hands in her pockets, walking aimlessly up and down the classroom aisles. At one point she stopped, and ran a finger along the top edge of one desk. Taiyoutono... was this the school Nishi went to, she wondered? If so, which room was hers? Which desk? Would Etsuko have come here if she hadn't run away from her family? Pausing by a desk at the front, Etsuko stopped and glanced over her shoulder, as if checking to make sure no one was there to see her stick a hand in the cookie jar. Silly impulse; no one was in the whole damn building, right? In her head, Cordelia giggled. Go on, give it a go! the Persona urged excitedly. Etsuko pulled back the chair... and slid into it, shifting into a comfortable, straight-backed position and folding her hands on the table. She looked up at the board. Imagined a teacher (in her mind, a gentle-faced, middle-aged woman with spectacles) standing at the podium and lecturing about some history thing. Maybe a war! Maybe something about samurai. Yeah. A lesson about samurai times. Samurai were cool. So she would sit right here listening with rapt attention as something samurai-ish was being talked about, and... she would take notes? Right. So folded hands wouldn't work. The girl in the hoodie unfolded her hands and looked down at the desk, trying to imagine where the notebook would be, where the textbook would be. It didn't seem to be a very wide desk... was the really even room for both a notebook and a textbook? Etsuko had seen a few students with textbooks, and they were usually... kind of big and thick and stuff. ...All of this was immaterial because Etsuko could neither read or write, but imagining for a few moments that she could. There would be a textbook on the left side, and a notebook... folded so that one half was underneath the other. Yes, that would solve it. And she would have on hand with a pen positioned over the notebook like so (she mimed the action), and then she would be using the other to turn the textbook pages (she mimed that action, too), and... And maybe there would be a laughing girl next to her who didn't take the lesson seriously at all. She would be doodling in her notebook, drawing pictures of magical girls or something, and then the teacher would snap at her to answer a question to prove she was paying attention! And Etsuko, who was totally BFFs with this laughing girl, would whisper the answer. Laughing Girl would say the answer, the teacher would be impressed. There would be mutters around them from people near enough to know it was Etsuko about how smart she was... admiring whispers... Etsuko was so lost in this daydream that she completely forgot to be on the lookout for anyone who might have found it suspicious that a short, hooded figure was sneaking around Taiyoutono High School during winter break, when no students were supposed to be there. Her mind just spiraled off into how that day would end, a shared lunch on the roof, maybe. Then they would go to club. Then after club, a stop at the mall for food. Burgers! Etsuko loved burgers. Burgers were awesome, so they'd get burgers and fries, and... |
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| Prince Arjuna | Apr 14 2014, 10:21 AM Post #2 |
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-insert something witty here-
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A few minutes after a certain short, hooded figure entered the school ground, Kakeru Kagami arrived right in front of the school gate. Despite his immunity against coldness, he decided to wear thicker clothing, because people might get suspicious if he wore his normal clothes instead of his winter outfit. He sighed. Now that Isoroku went to LA with a few others, Kakeru was left to do his stuff. He mostly did his daily chores at the dojo and training the students. But now he recalled that he might have left something in his class, classroom 3-2. A book which contained his important maps, to be exact. Without them, it would be hard for this boy to navigate around the area. Sneaking into the school ground was easy for the former child assassin like him. And he definitely didn't lose his edge yet, despite no longer staining his hands with the blood of people. In less than fifteen minutes, he was already in the building after entering through the window. Unlike Etsuko, however, he went into a different room, which was a clubroom. Fortunately for him, the door wasn't locked, so he managed to get out of the room and went to the corridor. After going out of the room, he walked down the corridor, going to class 3-2. As he arrived, the found out that the door was locked. But he already anticipated it as he took out a key from his pocket. Being a student of 3-2 who was notorious for his poor sense of direction, his homeroom teacher seemed to give him an exception by giving him the key in case any accident that might occur due to his lack of sense of direction happened. Before he unlocked the door, he heard something from inside the classroom. Someone was there. Impossible. Click. He unlocked the door before he opened it, and he saw a hooded figure sitting at a desk, seemingly doing something that Kakeru couldn't fathom. The door was locked, so it would be impossible for someone to enter the classroom. But then, Kakeru noticed the opened window, and Kakeru finally got it. "Hey..." Kakeru spoke in soft tone, trying to not alarm this person. "What are you doing here?" he asked. Incidentally, Etsuko was sitting at Kakeru's desk. |
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| The One True Nobody | Apr 14 2014, 01:46 PM Post #3 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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"...EEP!" It was a girlish and rather loud squeak that answered Kakeru. Etsuko froze like a statue, but not before twitching rather badly--badly enough to probably send her imaginary textbook and notebook tumbling to the floor, not that Kakeru could see either of those things, but that was what happened in her head. The girl, whose face and gender were both still impossible to identify, ducked her head and thought fast. This was no different than being caught in an abandoned building by some dealer or delinquent or whoever else wanted to use it and believed they had priority over a pair of random teenage runaways, right? ...Except actually there was a good chance she was being faced with an actually good person this time, someone who might call the police and start a bit of a ruckus over this. So the obvious response (which was RUN AWAY!) might not be a good idea here... "...U-um," she said quietly, in the same soft, genderless-sounding voice she used when passing herself off as the boy named Daiki. "I'm just... um... not really doing anything important. Sitting, see? I'm sitting. That's all." She wanted to turn and look at whoever this was, but she also wanted to hide her face--was it school staff? It was probably school staff. Maybe she could pass herself off as having been accidentally locked in? ...No, the window was still a little too obviously open for that... |
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| Prince Arjuna | Apr 14 2014, 08:16 PM Post #4 |
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-insert something witty here-
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Kakeru's face went deadpan after hearing the person's response. "Yes, I can see that..." he answered in deadpan tone, responding to the person's answer about sitting at the desk. "I just can't see why you're sitting here while it's winter break where there is no one should be around here..." he said before he walked closer to the person. Based on the person's appearance and voice, it was hard to decide whether the person was male or female, but from the shrieking earlier, the voice sounded definitely girlish. Then, he smiled. "Oh well, you don't have to worry. You're not in trouble. I'm a student here," he said as he sat on one seat which was in front of the desk where the person was sitting at. He was facing the person as he sat on the seat. "So, please calm down, okay? I'm just here to take my stuff, you see?" he said. "Why don't you show your face first? I have a feeling that you're not a student here..." he tapped his fingers on the table. "No rush, though..." he added. |
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| The One True Nobody | Apr 14 2014, 08:33 PM Post #5 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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"...A student?" The question came in a much less timid, demanding tone. Etsuko looked up, frowning at Kakeru's face. He was indeed quite young-looking. "What're you doin' here, then?" she asked incredulously, edging the seat she was sitting in back a little. "I came 'cause I thought there wouldn't be any students left. But I didn't 'spect the inside doors t'be locked... thought I could explore a bit." Her face might have looked a bit familiar to Kakeru, possibly; it was strikingly similar to that of her sister, Nishiyo Sadako, whom Kakeru had met once before. But it wasn't quite the same, and as Etsuko slowly pulled her hood down, Kakeru would see that her hair was quite a lot shorter, and quite a lot more untidy. The absence of make-up was quite conspicuous, as well. "But, you're right," she said, still in the gender-less voice. "I ain't a student. Ain't ever been t' high school, see? So I was just curious about the desks is all." She gave a little bouncing jump on the seat. "D'you really hafta sit like this for hours without a break?" she asked, looking down at the desk. "Seems a bit uncomfortable." |
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| Prince Arjuna | Apr 14 2014, 09:24 PM Post #6 |
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-insert something witty here-
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Kakeru frowned when he saw Etsuko's face. Her face definitely looked familiar, but he couldn't exactly remember when and where he had seen such face before. "I see..." he mused. "Well, I'm here to take some of my stuff. This is my desk, by the way," he said as he patted his desk, the one that Etsuko was sitting at. But he could take his stuff later. Now he had decided to focus on this girl(?) first. "Yep, it could be uncomfortable sometimes, especially when the teachers didn't know what they're doing," Kakeru answered to Etsuko's question. "But you'd get used to it eventually. It could be fun, in a way..." he said. "Why don't you tell your name? My name is Kakeru Kagami..." the former child assassin asked Etsuko for her name before he introduced himself. |
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| The One True Nobody | Apr 14 2014, 10:29 PM Post #7 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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Tell him my name?! Of course, but if he had her name, he could report her later, and she'd get in trouble for this. Etsuko's eyes narrowed in immediate distrust, and she simply said, "Y'can call me Daiki." The girl looked down at the desk, and then stood up, stepping aside--evidently so Kakeru could take his things if he wanted. "Never went t' school in the first place, so I wouldn't know," Etsuko said, looking down at the desk with a wistful look in her eyes. "Is it really fun? Learnin' all this new stuff and makin' friends and hangin' out and goin' t' clubs? Bein' normal?" Almost immediately, Etsuko wished she could take the last two words back, and winced. Well, as if the never went to school comment weren't bad enough, but if it weren't for that last comment she still could have passed herself off as home-schooled or something. She didn't exactly want to go around announcing to everyone she met that she was a runaway daughter of a ruthless Yakuza underboss, or anything. That would be silly. And people would probably still hate her if they knew anyway, regardless of the whole running-away-when-she-was-five thing. |
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| Prince Arjuna | Apr 15 2014, 03:01 AM Post #8 |
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-insert something witty here-
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Kakeru didn't know why, but he somehow felt that it wasn't her real name. "Daiki-san, then..." he said as he went to take his notebook which contained his maps from his desk. A problem solved. But now there's this 'Daiki' person needed to be dealt with. So she never went to school before, huh? Well, Kakeru also didn't go to school before Nagashima, because he was busy slicing older people's neck to really care about formal education and stuff like that. "Well, to tell you the truth, I never went to school either when I was young," Kakeru stated as he walked towards the teacher's table and placed his notebook on the table. "I was busy doing... jobs to really attend school. I only started going to school this year," he admitted. "It's pretty hard for me to adjust, but it was a pleasant experience..." he told Etsuko. Then, Kakeru got an idea. "If you don't mind, why don't you start experiencing it now?" he asked Etsuko before he took out a chalk from the drawer of the table. "I'm going to be a teacher and you a student..." he said as he adjusted his jacket while looking at Etsuko. "The class is going to start now, so pay attention," he said before he started to write something on the board. "Hmm..." he stopped before he began writing on the board. "Before we begin, can I ask you something? Can you read?" he asked as he glanced at Etsuko. |
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| The One True Nobody | Apr 15 2014, 07:33 AM Post #9 |
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"...does this clockwork hand follow you... or guide you?"
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This guy had never been to school as a kid either? Was he dicking with her? Was he seriously dicking with her? Etsuko felt an irrational flare of anger, but it also occurred to her to actually think about her own mental wording in this case, and she knew enough about the word "dick" to know what it meant now, so... ...Why does all this stuff people say always have something to do with sex? A puzzling question for another day's contemplation. For now, Etsuko's eyes continued to narrow suspiciously. But somehow, Kakeru's offer was tempting. She found herself sliding back into the seat, feeling a curious mix of trepidation and anticipation. Of course the first thing Kakeru asked was the dreaded question. Etsuko felt her cheeks and ears turning red, and ducked her head a bit. "U-um... no." Her answer was almost too quiet to be considered audible. |
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| Prince Arjuna | Apr 15 2014, 08:39 AM Post #10 |
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-insert something witty here-
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"I see..." Kakeru mused. Well, if she couldn't read, then he might need to try something else instead. "Okay, I think this will work, then..." he was glad that he asked earlier. Without writing anything on the board, he placed both his hands on the table, as if acting like a teacher. "Okay, if I have ten apples, then I find out that three of those apples are rotten, and I have to throw out the rotten apples, how many apples do I have left?" he asked that question as if the classroom was full with students. "Anyone want to answer the question can raise a hand," Kakeru added as he looked at 'Daiki'. |
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