Ink Stained

☯ Season 1 | 01 ー begin: the end*

Raised tall glass door

With my armoured fist

If you saw this, you'd know

What you're missing

--Falling Infinite, Black Math

☯

始まる：終わり

Pai blinked when a hand suddenly appeared in front of her face, a finger flicking her right between her eyebrows. She made an aborted gasp of surprise that felt more like a botched inhale, and lifted a hand to rub the offended spot on her forehead, looking over at the girl walking beside her.

The girl's hair was short, cut choppily to her shoulders and a vibrant shade of brown-red that could catch the eye of an astronaut floating all the way in space. She was grinning widely at Pai in triumph.

Pai glared. "Idiot."

"Still caught you off-guard."

"Still an idiot."

"The only idiot here is the one about to walk into a pole if she doesn't start paying attention to where she's walking," Shiori answered in a heartbeat, smile not dimming in the least bit. "You know, if you really don't want to come back to school, you don't actually have to. You could homeschool or something. Or take online classes, that's a thing too."

Pai had to fight off another sigh escaping her at that, and looked to the side. "Yes, I do need to come." She replied simply.

"No, you don't," Shiori insisted. "Just because Kouta said it would be a good idea, doesn't automatically translate to 'you have to accompany Shiori to school every day, this is the law now, you cannot disobey my rule'."

Pai rolled her eyes at Shiori's appalling imitation of Kouta. "It is not a bother," she argued. "I can handle it. You do not need to worry about me."

"That's what you say, but –"

Pai stepped forward without warning and reached toward Shiori. It was a quick job to unclasp the hook of the necklace hanging around her neck, especially as Shiori didn't move and let her do so, watching her warily. Pai let the chain with the single, long feather on it pool in the palm of her hand like liquid silver, briefly relishing in the rush of warmth she felt spilling into her hand at the touch of the feather on her bare skin. She leaned back from Shiori and gestured with a jerk of her chin to the group of girls walking behind them, as subtly as she could.

The girls coming up behind them chattered loudly, cheerful and totally oblivious to the large, pale blue blob of goo floating in the air above them. The blob had a single black pool where Pai guessed its eye to be, and a big, gaping mouth in the shape of a crescent moon, sprouting with tooth-pick like teeth. She didn't know if the thing had a name to it. She didn't care to find out.

Dancing along the wires connecting the telephone poles together was what looked like a bright pink walking stick. She knew that if she were closer, she would see that the stick had translucent wings on its back, sharp claws on the tips of its eight spindle-like fingers, vampiric teeth that were small but looked uncomfortably jagged, and no eyes. She had seen enough of these things over the years to know what it looked like up close, and she would rather avoid any chance of being that close to those teeth.

Scattered around the sun-lit street were the pale spectres of Goryo, vengeful spirits of the dead. They looked exactly as what they were – ghosts, clad in the ethereal clothes they died in, with all the same wounds and pallor to their incorporeal forms. Some floated above the heads of unsuspecting humans walking around. She couldn't hear them all that well thanks to her ring, but she could see their mouths opening wide and shrieking, bodies trembling from their futile efforts to try to get the attention of the oblivious humans they trailed after.