Leiko wandered the halls of this new school aimlessly. Nobody cared that she hadn’t shown up for her first class of the day, and besides, no one would catch her in the act of playing hooky—she was having way too much fun to allow herself to be seen by anyone of importance. Besides, wouldn’t they all come screaming when number 666 blew anyway? She could join the fray, and the schoolteachers would be none the wiser. And then she could very well just melt into the shadows once more as soon as the FD showed up to put out the fire that would be gone by the time they arrived.
A grim smile appeared on the black-haired girl’s face as the resounding, drum-like boom reached her ears from several hallways away. That was the sound of her success—she had very neatly just blown up a locker in a controlled experiment. Before she could flee down the hallway with a “terrified new girl” ruse, a boy appeared in the hallway behind her and called, “Way to make an impression, newbie!”
She whirled to face him and noted his lavender hair and amused crimson eyes while shooting him a grin. “Yeah, I thought so! Figured they needed a little excitement. Too bad I couldn’t see it,” she added with a sigh. “I finally perfected the formula to make it blow up only one locker at a time. It only took six schools and fifteen lockers to do it!”
“I’ll bet. You’d better get going, new girl. Wouldn’t want to seem suspicious, would you?”
“Nobody ever notices me, occhi scarlatti*, so I wouldn’t worry about it much,” Leiko told him in amusement, the flawless, apparently unintentional Italian bit flowing from her naturally, as if she had known the language since she was able to speak. “Good bye to you!” she called abruptly over her shoulder as she raced away.
**********
“Leiko Tanaka,” the voice said. She sighed. It was so cliché to her, being visited in a dream, but she didn’t say it aloud. Instead, she glanced around. The setting of this particular strange dream was a small cave with a thin, jagged crack for an exit rather than a yawning cave mouth. Interesting, she thought, still puzzled. Then the voice said again, “Leiko Tanaka.”
She ignored it again to continue observing this strange place. It smelled like weathered stone and cold, a seeping, suck-the-warmth-from-you cold. She could hear no sound in the place—just a faint ringing in her ears. For a cave with barely an opening, she was surprised to find it fairly well-lit.
“Leiko Tanaka,” the voice repeated, more firmly this time. It was a harsh, raspy voice with a faint hint of amusement hidden under the surface.
“Yes, o voce misteriosa**?” the girl finally answered, somewhat annoyed that he had interrupted her inspection. “Show yourself, and maybe I’ll be more receptive to your calls.”
There was a pause. After a while, it answered, “Very well.”
A large black bird hopped through the wall opening on thin, twiggy legs, stretching coal-black wings when he got inside. On its long wing feathers Leiko noticed streaks of a dark, metallic violet that was hardly lighter than the rest of the bird, but just reflective enough to gleam in the light.
When she saw the bird, she sighed. “And the truth comes out. I’ve gone mad, to be talking to ravens. Have I really gone mad, corvino***?”
It cackled its amusement at that. “No more than I have.”
“Oh yes, that’s reassuring.”
Shooting her a glare, he told her curtly, “Find the ones with the red eyes; one has a red hoodie, one has lavender hair, and the last is very quiet and reserved. They will not accept you right away—your eyes will not be as they expect. Find them tomorrow, or face my anger.”
Then her world went black, and a sound like a gong reached her ears. Brief agony, brief silence, then a keening wail… and then her eyes snapped open, and she sat bolt-upright. Fighting the knot of blankets that surrounded her, she finally wrenched herself free and got out of bed; she raced immediately to her bathroom. Flicking on the light, she wailed her dismay when she saw the image in the mirror. Instead of the odd, bright yellow eyes that she had been so proud of, her eyes now peered out at her from behind her raven-black hair in the shade of purple that she had seen on the raven’s flight feathers.
“I’m going to pluck all those pretty feathers out for this,” she muttered darkly, hoping the raven heard her. In answer, she heard a faint cackle from the depths of her mind.
I s'pose that technically this should take place after Kenta, Chihiro, and Rika meet up and stuff... so until that happens, y'know... well, yeah.
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