Dein Weg ist Mein Weg

Chapter 23: The Lost and Found

"Damnit..." Azusa swore under her breath, and put down her bag on the floor. Obviously she wouldn't be able to both hold it and unlock the door to her dorm room with the same hand. Which was of course her only option, seeing as her left arm was near imobile in its sling. She sighed, fished around in the bag with her free hand, and got the door unlocked. The next few weeks are going to suck, she thought as she tugged the tank jacket she had hanging over her shoulders back in place.

With more annoyance than difficulty she opened the door and got both herself and her bag inside, with the door thankfully springing back closed behind her. After the day she had had, rising early in the morning to disembark, fighting in the match against Saunders, getting her shoulder dislocated and then put back into place, and finally fighting with Maho, she really just wanted to take a shower and go to sleep. But the universe, it seemed, had different ideas.

"What?" she asked with an annoyed sigh into her phone as she answered. "Oh, hi. No, it's fine. I've just had a rough day is all." It was her mom, who if she was honest, she really didn't want to talk to right now, but she gritted her teeth and mustered the energy to keep life in the conversation. It was what Irisa would have done.

"Azusa? You sound tired. Is something the matter?"

"It's nothing. We just had a match today, and it was pretty exhausting."

"What? A match?" her mother asked. "Since when have you been interested in sports?"

"Since the start of the semester," Azusa answered. "I'm on the Sensha-Do team. I'm actually commanding our biggest tank..."

"Sensha-Do?" her mother asked with concern. "Azusa, are you sure that's the right thing for you? I would have thought the debate team or perhaps orchestra much more suited to your talents. Just like Irisa did." There it was. Just the sort of reaction she had expected, and the reason she hadn't actually told her parents that she had joined the team.

"It's fine, Mom. I get to share a tank with my friends, and we're having fun. We just met one of the biggest schools in the country, and their commander was perfectly civil and friendly. Everything went great, even though we lost. I really only have myself to blame for the shoulde-'' Crap.

The tone on the other end of the line instantly grew far sharper and concerned. "What do you mean you have yourself to blame?! What's happened to your shoulder, Azusa?!"

"Don't worry about it. It got dislocated after we took a hit, but it's fine now. I'll have to wear a sling for a while, but-"

"Azusa, you can't go around hurting yourself like that! Irisa would never have gotten involved in such violence. Especially if it got in the way of her studies. You're not letting your grades slip just because of all this tanking around, are you?"

"No, Mom, my grades are fine. I still have a 95-point average-"

"Good. You're going to need good grades to get into a good college and get yourself a good job. So if your grades start to slip, or you hurt yourself like this again, I want you to quit the team and refocus on studying. That's what Irisa would have-"

"Sure," Azusa said coldly. "I'll think about it. Bye."

"Azusa-" Her mom didn't get any further, as Azusa slammed the two halves of her flip-phone together and threw it onto her bed. She was getting angry again. Of course they would tell her that. Of course they would tell her what Irisa would have done. She knew Irisa would never do something as stupid and unproductive as Sensha-Do. She glanced over to the mirror in the hallway, glaring at the image of Irisa staring back at her.

Except Irisa wasn't staring back at her. She wasn't there. Instead there was just a girl. A girl with dirty and greasy short brown hair, wearing a sweaty olive tank top, a dirty white skirt with muddy boots on, her arm in a sling and a stained jacket draped like a cape over her shoulders. Irisa was nowhere to be found, and instead Azusa stood alone in the mirror, looking back at her torn and tattered self.