Chapter Text
Tsushima Yoshiko was an Umbrae.
She hated every minute of it.
Okay, maybe hated was the wrong word to use, but most of the time she regretted it. She certainly hated it after what happened back in kindergarten.
But now was not the time nor place to dwell on old memories. Now was the time to go to school. On the first day of school, she half-assed her introduction and kept her mouth shut for the rest of the day. She wasn’t very good with people. Social skills were not her fortè. Plus, if Yoshiko talked, there was always a chance for... that part of her to slip out.
Inside of Yoshiko held a persona, of some kind. Nobody understood it fully, but she would often call herself Yohane. Yohane was, according to herself, a fallen angel with huge black wings. She was a fallen angel because she was struck down from the heavens for having devilishly good-looks. Yoshiko would even go so far as crossing out her own name and writing Yohane under it. Yoshiko knew that such a person never existed. But there was a part of her that had this persistent belief that she had really existed.
Yoshiko always blamed this random behavior as a side effect of being an Umbrae. Umbrae was the attribute for darkness. Quite literally, she knew black magic.
She sat on the bus, staring off into the distance while listening to a girl talk her head off about a group of elementalists.
“... I heard that all nine of them had different attributes, isn’t that cool?!”
Blech.
The ocean-side town of Numazu was... exactly that. A small town on the shore of Shizuoka. Not many people lived here. Word around here would travel faster than wildfire. And since the town was small, so was her school.
Yoshiko was a first-year student at Uranohoshi Girl’s High School. It was not a big place. About seventy students were attending this year and Yoshiko made plans not to talk to any of them.
Or so she had hoped.
“Kunikida Hanamaru?”
Yoshiko jumped in her chair when she heard that name.
“Present, zura.”
The zura at the end could not be mistaken for anyone else. Yoshiko turned her head towards the voice.
God dammit.
Sure enough, it was her. Hanamaru. Seeing her ten years later was surprising to say the least. The two of them had an... interesting relationship. They met in kindergarten and had become almost inseparable.
Yoshiko was so in shock she almost missed her name when she was called.
Hopefully Hanamaru was dense enough to not hear that. Hanamaru was pretty dense in kindergarten. But that was ten years ago, Yoshiko was pretty sure people could change in ten years.
And sure enough, she wasn’t that dense. The short girl walked right up to Yoshiko with a friend during lunch. She was holding a large book in one arm and her friend carried a silver staff.
“I thought it was you, Yoshiko-chan!”
Yoshiko whipped around, screaming. The students around them turned their heads.
“The hell are you doing here?!” Yoshiko whispered furiously.
“I go to school here!” she giggled.
Yoshiko scowled.
“Look, Zuramaru-“ that was her nickname for Hanamaru. She was known for saying zura at the end of her sentences, “first, it’s Yohane, and second, could you do me a favor and stay away from me please?”
Hanamaru tilted her head in confusion. “Why?”
The navy blue-haired girl slumped. “I don’t want reminders of what happened that day. You know what I’m talking about.”
“No, I d- Ohhhhh.”
Her friend had the most confused look on her face. “Do you know her, Maru-chan?”
“Oh, I forgot to introduce you.”
Your airheaded-ness is still there I see.
“This is Kurosawa Ruby, my best friend! I met her in middle school, zura.”
Ruby waved shyly. “Hello...”
Her voice was soft. It was hard to see that she was a high schooler.
“She’s also a Pyrros!” Hanamaru added.
Pyrros was the fire attribute. Staring at the glowing red gem at the top of her magic staff kind of gave it away.
“You made friends with a mage?” Yoshiko asked. “Nice staff, by the way.”
“Th-thanks.”
Hanamaru nodded. “Do you remember my attribute, Yoshiko-chan?”
“It’s Yohane. And yes, it was Mentis.”
Mentis, the attribute of the mind. Known to be devastating in the right hands.
“I don’t remember you getting a tome, though, when was this?” Yoshiko asked.
“I got this sometime in middle school. Don’t remember exactly when I did, I just remember seeing it on my bed when I woke up, zura.”
“Lucky you two have Relics. I’m still stuck here with magic. Can I see those, by the way? I just want to study them.”
Ruby was reluctant, but Hanamaru handed over her tome with no resistance. “Still have that obsession with Relics, Yoshiko-chan?”
“It’s not an obsession! It’s just a hobby of mine to study them!”
Relics were the official name for weapons that people wielded. Many people had them, Yoshiko was one of them who didn’t. As a child, she was mesmerized by many of them, specifically the magical ones. Something about magic heavily pleased her, it was probably because she was a mage herself. Yet, she never begged and pleaded, much less asked, for a Relic to own. She just stuck with her black magic. Yet, she had heard bits and bobs of her mother’s gossip, and she very clearly heard her mother say something them being “too powerful” for her.
The tome that Hanamaru owned was very normal for a tome. It was a Mentis tome, which were their intended use. Tomes stemmed from the Mentis attribute, which then branched out to other elements. Hanamaru’s had a leather cover and the pages inside were written in characters most people couldn’t read. Only tome-users could read what was written. Casts were inscribed in ancient text, walking first-timers through spells and hexes. The book itself looked like it was made fairly recently which meant that the spells in the tome were most likely copied from other sources and printed into this one. Yet, here and there were tiny writings in pen, annotating tips, tricks, and even personal made-up spells, all written in Japanese.
Spells were simple to understand, yet hard to control. It could take a person days to fully cast a single spell. Once used enough, a user could cast spells through thoughts, giving Mentes an early advantage.
“Here,” Yohane said, returning the book. “Could I see your staff, Ruby?”
“If Maru-chan trusts you, I should too...” she mumbled.
This kid’s cute. Maybe I’ll grow to like her.
Maybe.
The staff Ruby had was unique. It was almost her height, which wasn’t rare for staves, but this one was made out of silver, and at the top of it was a sort of bowl-shape. In the bowl was a glowing red gem; a ruby. It emanated heat.
Oh. Clever.
Specific stones and minerals had tie-ins with elements. The ruby almost looked like it glittered under the sunlight.
“Hey, Ruby? Why does your staff’s core sparkle?” Yoshiko asked.
Ruby took a small pouch out of her skirt pocket. “When my sister made this staff for me, she infused the ruby with these.”
She opened the pouch and poured out tiny diamonds onto her hand. They weren’t so much tiny as they were grain-sized.
Yoshiko frowned. “Where the hell did your sister get her hands on Diamond Dust?”
“My sister’s a Gaia. She makes this stuff normally.”
“Oh, I see. So that’s how it is.”
Gaia was the attribute of the earth. Though most people could control dirt, stone, sand, that sort of thing, there were people who could manipulate precious minerals and ores. People like that were commonly well-off when it came to finance.
Ruby put the dust back into the pouch and back into her pocket. “I keep this pouch around as a good luck charm. My sis gave it to me for my sixth birthday.”
“Good. Nice to see that she cares about you,” Yoshiko mused.
Returning her focus back to the staff, the ruby itself was encircled by two thin pieces of silver that swirled around and connected at the top.
Staves were very powerful in combat, especially when handed to a skilled fighter. Speaking of which, it didn’t look like this was used very often. Had this staff been in use for many years, the ruby would’ve looked a little more distorted than it did now.
“How long have you had this staff?”
“Uh, eheh, that’s funny how you mention it.”
“What’s funny?”
Ruby twiddled her fingers. “I just got that... a couple weeks ago.”
All the excitement in Yoshiko’s body crumbled away like a wet cookie.
“So what you’re saying is you have no idea how to use this thing.”
“I know how to use it! Just not very well.”
Yoshiko handed the staff back to Ruby. “Well, I hope your sister or someone teaches you how to use it, ‘cause I sure ain’t going to.”
“What? Why not?”
Yoshiko shrugged. “I just know about Relics, don’t know how to use them.”
She looked right at Hanamaru, and grabbed her head close to her own so nobody would hear what she would say.
“You haven’t told anyone about what happened back in kindergarten, have you?” she whispered.
Hanamaru shook her head. “I haven’t. I don’t know what to say about the other kids in our class, though, zura.”
Yoshiko dropped her head in disappointment, sighing. “Glad you at least kept our promise.”
Hanamaru hugged her. “Of course, zura!”
I guess she’s still as soft as ever.
The bell rang, signifying the next class. Students started to trickle back into the classroom and Hanamaru and Ruby walked back to their seats.
Yoshiko didn’t really pay attention to class for the rest of the day. There really wasn’t anything to pay attention to. Mostly just teachers talking about getting ready for the year ahead of them.
Yoshiko stared at her palm. The marking of a star laid there. The star had been there for as long as she could remember. It lit up dimly whenever she used her magic. She made a fist, and a black fire engulfed her hand. This was the nature of her attribute. She flicked her finger upwards and a small ball of black energy hit the ceiling, which then shattered into black sparkles.
Yoshiko sat on her bed with nothing to do. Her laptop stood on her desk, beeping with notifications that she didn’t feel like answering.
There was a knock on her door. Yoshiko’s mother popped her head inside.
“Yoshiko? Do you want to meet our new neighbors?”
Yoshiko sat up. “New neighbors? When was this? And it’s Yohane!”
Her mother ignored the ending comment and responded, “They moved in last week. I heard that they have a daughter that’s your age.”
She had literally nothing else to do, so Yoshiko got up from her bed and put on some sweatpants, because she sure as hell wasn’t going to meet strangers in panties. Though she did admit to herself at times that she had a nice body and that black looked really nice on her.
She didn’t even bother to wear shoes; she just walked to the next apartment in her socks and knocked.
A girl opened the door. Her hair was a dark-red color and her eyes were golden yellow. A few strands of hair were clipped to the side of her face. She was wearing average day clothes.
“Hello... Can I help you?” she asked.
Yoshiko almost collapsed.
Holy fuck she’s cute.
It took her a couple seconds to recompose herself. Almost instinctively, she responded in a deep voice.
“Hello, mortal. People call me many names, but I am Yohane. I am here to deliver a message to you as a sign of greeting. I reside in the apartment next to yours, and I hope that we become acquaintances someday.”
The girl stared at her for a full five seconds before she started closing the door. Yoshiko stuck her foot in the door to prevent it from closing(which hurt a lot more than what she expected).
“Wait!” she cried in her normal voice. “I just wanted to say hi, that’s all! I-I heard you just moved in, so I just... thought...”
The girl started to giggle. The door reopened and there was a brilliant smile on her face. “Then what was the big show for, silly?”
“I, er... That’s just a part of me.”
Yoshiko allowed herself in.
“So what’s your name?” she asked.
“I’m Sakurauchi Riko. You?”
“My name is Yohane-“
“I meant your actual name.”
Yoshiko averted her eyes to the side. “Tsushima Y-Y-Yoshiko.”
She had a lot of trouble trying to say her own name. She wanted to slap herself right there.
“So yeah, we live next door,” Yoshiko said, voice cracking.
“Cool, cool. You go to the school around here?”
“Uranohoshi? Yeah, I’m a first-year there.”
“That’s good, because I’m going there as of tomorrow.”
“That’s gre- I mean, that’s cool, I guess.”
Yoshiko had to stop herself from dropping hints that were way too obvious. Riko looked slightly older than she did, though.
She stretched, black particles coming out of the space in between her fingers. “What year are you?”
Riko noticed the black spots leaking out of Yoshiko’s hands. “Second year, but... What element are you?”
She stopped stretching, causing the energy to stop leaking. “I’m an Umbrae, what’s the issue?”
Riko backed away. “I’m... scared of Umbrae.”
This just got complicated and a half.
“Lemme guess, you’re a Lux?” Yoshiko asked, waiting for disaster.
Riko’s left hand shined brightly. “Yes.. I am.”
Lux: the element of light. One was standing right in front of her.
“Welp, I hope I don’t scare you.”
Riko laughed nervously. “Please keep away from me and I might keep talking to you.”
Yoshiko rolled her eyes. Umbrae were not dangerous. It was just a stereotype that a lot of them were unstable. She understood where Riko was coming from, though. The typical light versus dark cliche.
But something felt off about Riko’s light. It didn’t feel whole like it should.
“Are you... inexperienced in magic?” Yoshiko pondered.
Riko looked away. “Y-yes.”
This was going to be fun.