Chapter Text
The chill rose up Sara’s spine, causing her to zip up her jacket in the slightest bit. She wasn’t used to being on the outside of the glass in the rink, much less in the scorer box.
Her left leg aches in its cast, causing her to shift uncomfortably in the tall chair she sat in, directly in front of the scoreboard control. The scoreboard controller was an ancient old thing, Sara would soon come to realize. The color of the buttons had slight indents from usage of the scorers pressing buttons, making the bright grass green and firetruck red that the buttons should have been more of a mint green and rose red.
Sitting in the glass box, she felt intoxicating envy flood her senses as she watched the players skate back and forth in front of her, in chase of the night black puck. The horn sounded, causing her to realize that the next game was starting.
Gathering her notes, she picked up the note taker from the box in front of her, writing down the name of the teams, coaches, and referees that were about to vs off in the Inazuma University’s Rink.
Sighing, she watched the next game’s players flood the ice, and set the timer for their warmups. She sighed, staring at the crowded stands blankly. Sara didn’t know why she decided to torture herself like this, watching everyone but her play the sport she used to love.
“She most likely should stay off the ice, unless she wants to cause permanent damage to her leg.”
Sara sighed gloomily, tying her short, sable hair back into a ponytail, before exhaling into her cold, numb hands. The ice rink felt far colder without her equipment on.
“She’s lucky she’ll be able to walk again at all, for archon’s sake! She’s your daughter, yet you care more about her going pro than her physical condition!”
No matter how fondly she looked back at her memories, gliding across the ice as if she was on top of the world, whenever she reminisced on it, she couldn’t help remembering the incident that got her off the ice for good.
“This should not have gone untreated for so long, Mr. Kujou! Her bone was broken at such an odd angle for so long, I doubt she’ll be able to walk without a limp for the rest of her life!”
Sara blinked away her developing tears in her sun-gold eyes as the whistle blew, the slam of the puck slamming against the ice echoing through the rink. Pressing the green button, she let the clock run as she watched them fly and glide across the ice, leaving canyons of ice in the wake of their skates.
Sighing, she watches the girls scramble for the puck, as if it were a dog, them having let go of its leash, causing it to run off. She thought about how absurd it may look to an outsider, but oh how she longed to be in their skates, chasing around a puck at extremely high speeds.
The whistle blew, causing Sara to stop the clock and look up, only to focus on something she seemed to have zoned out on.
Two girls, in the best terms, were beating the utter shit out of each other, with another girl desperately trying to pry her teammate off the girl who was taking most of the beating. One of the girls, the one that was on top of the other, throwing punches, had cotton candy pink hair, which Sara had assumed was dyed recently due to the lack of roots showing from her lack of helmet, which had skidded across the ice a couple feet away.
The other girl attempting to pry the pink haired girl off of her victim, was also missing her helmet, revealing her dark hair, tied into a long braid that centered itself around half ways down her back. Ei Raiden. She knew she was good- extremely good at hockey, but Sara had barely interacted with the player besides sitting near her in one of her lectures. Sara could only seem to make out blond hair from the girl having taken the beating, causing her to blink slightly to try and see her face, but failing.
Oh well, all she knew was the pink haired girl, was now angrily barreling towards the door to the penalty box, wiping the blood from her nose. Sara looked over at the girl, who was now sitting on the bench. Sara tilted her head slightly, getting a glance at the number on her jersey in order to put it up on the scoreboard.
Miko, #19.
Sighing, as the whistle blew once again once the tall, blond girl had made her way off the ice, she resumed the clock.
“I don’t understand why the goddamn ref’ didn’t give her a penalty…” the girl airily, yet angrily mumbled from behind her.
“That’s just how the game works, ma’am…” Sara stiffly responded, not taking her eyes off the game.
“Don’t call me ma’am… it makes me feel old. Not to mention, I’m not much older than you, by the looks of it,” the girl chuckled, before adding, “How old are you, anyways?”
“19…” Sara said despondently, causing the other girl to gawk at Sara’s disinterest slightly.
“Well, because you asked so nicely, I’m 21. I think I know you from somewhere, though. Are you in my political science course?” the girl asked, causing Sara to blink in surprise.
“Oh. That’s where I know you from…” she mumbled, rubbing her hands together due to the cold.
“Sara… right? That’s what the professor calls you at least because you have your hand up for every question he asks…” Miko jokes, giggling slightly as Sara deflates the slightest bit into her seat.
“You… notice that..?” she asks, causing Miko to laugh.
“You think I didn’t? You practically know every answer, why the fuck do you even go to college if you know everything?” Miko asks, causing Sara to shrink into her seat yet again.
“Oh. I was under the impression that was what most normal people my age did,” she murmurs, causing Miko to recoil a bit, looking back, seeing as the pink haired girl must have realized she struck a nerve.
“Well- you were correct. No need to get self conscious about it, cutie!” Miko added, causing Sara’s face to now feel quite warm, despite the cold.
“A-alright,” Sara mumbles stiffly, blushing madly before resting her chin in her hand, flexing her arm at an odd angle enough to show quite a bit of muscle through her athletic wear.
Miko peaked at it over her shoulder curiously.
“Y’know, usually it is weak dorks like Thoma who score. Why the hell are you jacked? You should be out there playing hockey!” Miko tells her, wagging a petite, manicured finger in Sara’s face.
Sara frowned at the comment, biting her lip sadly, the cold chill up her spine returning like the winter season every year. Sighing, she turned slightly, gesturing to her casted leg. “Doctor said I am unable to play again, if I want to walk again at least,” she sighed, glancing at Miko nervously.
Her cast was fairly strong, and fairly stiff due to the angle of the break inhibiting her from walking properly, the cast trying to mold it back into place. Of course, that was a big ‘if’, seeing as she would have to walk with a limp for the rest of her life.
“Oh. So do- I mean did you play before that? ” Miko asks, causing Sara to sigh sadly.
“Yeah, but the doctor stated I couldn’t play again,” Sara laments.
“Kinda sucks for you,” Miko chuckled, wincing slightly at her own venomous tone.
“Sorry,” Miko quickly adds.
“No need for apologies. You are correct about how it ‘sucks for me,’ hence the fact I’m most likely going to walk for a limp most of my life, due to the fact my injury was left untreated for a few weeks,” Sara mumbled, her eyes downcast.
Looking up, she realized the time for Miko was just about up. “You’d better get back out on the ice, your team hasn’t scored once since you’ve been out,” Sara told her, watching Miko nod slightly, hobbling across the floor awkwardly in her skates, before soaring off across the ice to continue the game.
Sara sighed, watching the girl skate across the ice. She watched as her pink hair, now pulled into a ponytail soared behind her as she captured the puck with her hockey stick, gliding it into the other team's goal, before ramming the blonde girl from before directly into the glass, starting another fight on the ice.
Sara sighed, limping into her political science lecture quite early, per usual. She didn’t have a reason to be much else really. She had trouble making friends, to be honest. She didn’t know exactly why, but she predicted it had to do with her being fairly socially stunted, due to her never really being able to have friends, and would always either be studying or playing hockey instead of enjoying her youth.
This, of course, made her less than sociable. She would often trip up in conversations, and would always make it awkward due to her not being able to respond to simple questions like “ How are you?” “What are you doing?” “Why do you look like you are about to sob uncontrollably?”
Sara sighed, putting her books down and deciding to study a bit before class. That was before a chair pulled up next to her, creating a loud screeching noise from the chair throughout the lecture hall. Looking up, she saw a recognizable face, one she couldn’t miss.
The blonde girl?
The girl looked like she had seen better days to say the least. The black eye sat on her face like it owned it, Sara’s eyes flying to it the first time she registered her face. Yet, despite the marks that Miko had left on the girl’s face, the blonde wore a confident smile, her eyebrows quirked down slightly into a slightly venomous smirk.
“Sara Kujou, right? You kept score last game, right?” the blonde asked, causing Sara to nod.
“That is correct… erm… I don’t quite know your name though, my apologies. I thought I should get that out of the way before I made this situation more awkward…” Sara lamented, before blushing wildly as the blonde chuckled.
“Signora, La Signora. The Right Winger of the Schneznaya Harbingers? You must have seen it on the scoresheet, my dear,” the girl laughed, the nickname causing a blush to rise up Sara’s face.
“Y-yes… I just… I can’t see you having a reason for coming up to me days after. Did I score something wrong? If so, my deepest apologies. I did not mean-” she was cut off by a long, hearty laugh from the girl.
“You must stop with the apologies, cutie,” Signora laughed, sliding her hand onto Sara’s, causing the girl's face to turn blood red.
“Okay- but you still didn’t answer my question. Why are you talking to me now? Also, why are you at my college?” Sara asked, trying her very hardest to keep herself from apologizing and stuttering once more, further embarrassing herself.
“Why, I just happened to have transferred to Inazuma from Snezhnaya, yet I still play for them due to them not wanting to part with me. I just saw you in the scorer box, and thought you looked familiar to me,” Signora told her, glancing absentmindedly at her cuticles while speaking.
“Oh… how so, if I may ask?” Sara questioned, her face still red as a rose.
Sara felt herself melting. Signora was, objectively, extremely pretty. Now here Sara was, talking to her in a conversation that Signora had started, not even mentioning the fact the charming girl was holding her hand. It was a lot, almost too much for Sara to handle. However, she felt as though she was being watched, not just by the charmer standing in front of her.
“Funny you should have asked. I looked into it, and it figures you used to play hockey with me in high school,” Signora told her, causing Sara to shift uncomfortably in her seat, remembering her former career, if she could even call it that.
“I don’t play anymore,” Sara replied flatly, feeling her leg start to ache at someone possibly remembering her playing.
“You seem to want to, seeing as whenever you scorekeep, you watch the players like a kicked puppy. You’re practically begging to be the one out on the ice. If my memory serves me correctly, you were quite good, hell, the best on the team even,” Signora told her, her bruised, swollen eye somehow glowing with a determined fire.
Sighing, Sara pushed her chair back slightly, revealing her casted up leg brace. “I quite literally can’t. My doctor doesn’t think I’ll be able to walk without a limp for the rest of my life. I can barely do non cardiovascular sports like archery on my own anymore,” she told her, watching the determination and competitiveness in Signora’s eyes fade like a flame submerged in water.
“Oh. How did you do that to yourself, if you don’t mind me asking?” Signora asked.
“How it happened to me doesn’t matter. If I want to have a successful career in anything now, it will have to be in academics, so my apologies if you wanted me to play hockey with you, if that was your goal in talking to me.” Sara sighed, trying desperately to block tears from forming in her eyes from embarrassment.
Then, she heard a laugh. A scarily venomous one coming from the girl across from her.
“Oh Sara darling, you’re too funny!” Signora cackled, ignoring the hurt and confusion on Sara’s face.
“I wanted to ask you on a date, silly!” Signora told her, wiping stray tears from her laughter from her icy eyes.
Sara froze slightly, deciding to tread carefully about this. In middle school, one of her brother’s had one of their friends ask her out as a joke. Even though Sara hadn’t been attracted to the friend in any way, she allowed him to go on one date out of courtesy, yet only to find out it had been a joke days later.
Sighing at the memory, she turned her golden gaze to Signora.
“Are you sure? Like- is this not a joke?” Sara asked, fiddling with her hands, seeing as Signora moved the hand that was on top of hers when she had laughed.
“No, my dear. I am serious. Would you like to go on a date with me?” Signora had asked, much more, almost too sincerely this time.
“Yes. That would be nice, La Signora.”
Sara felt her face heat up to the temperature of a couple thousands suns as Signora grabbed her hand, dragging her into the extremely expensive restaurant. While Sara did not come from little money, she was oftentimes excluded and not invited to the expensive family dinners her brothers were allowed to go to. She understood why this happened. She wasn’t their real daughter and sister. She understood at a very young age her adoption was very good for publicity, and was nothing more than a business deal that she never benefited from other than a roof over her head, yet it still hurt.
Her father, a very rich man, hadn’t even paid for her college and schooling like he had for her brothers. Lucky for Sara, she was extremely smart and got in on a scholarship, yet it still felt as though Sara was just an outsider to her own family, not allowed the benefits of it, and only allowed a roof over her head. A roof over her head most of the time, at least.
Sara had been told to dress up. Sara had worn one of the suits she had tailored a couple years back, much to her father’s chagrin. Sara saw her father’s point about her needing to be feminine and how her being seen a suit would be bad for his image, yet now that she was in college, the public had seemed to forget about the Kujou’s “gracious adoption” of her, that just so happened to be the same year he won a seat in the senate. How coincidental.
Since nobody really associated her with the Kujou’s anymore, she felt a little less guilty about wearing her burgundy tailor suit. La Signora however, was wearing a much more revealing dress, to say the least. There was nothing wrong with the tube dress, except Sara couldn’t help but notice that the dress was a little bit… tight to say the least.
Signora had a very lean, tall figure, with noticeable yet subtle muscles from what Sara assumed to be hockey. Much taller than Sara to say the least. She was, in other words, very out of Sara’s league. Sara felt very warm, sitting at the circular table for two, which had a silk, milk white tablecloth.
“You don’t have to pay for all this you know. I am perfectly capable-” she was soon cut off by the ice eyed girl.
“Oh hush, my darling. Please, it’s my pleasure, no need to attempt to get the moral high ground on me!” the blonde chuckled, causing Sara to deflate.
“Oh? I would never do that! Honest, I just wanted to- nevermind…” Sara sighed, feeling like crap.
Did she really give off the impression that she wanted to be morally above her? What had she done wrong to make Signora feel that way? Signora must feel like she’s buying dinner with a terrible person.
“It’s okay, though! I would never put you in a situation where you had to have moral high ground in the first place. Do you really think that low of me? No matter that, let us eat. We aren’t coming to this restaurant just to sit around!” she chuckled, seemingly completely missing Sara’s crestfallen expression, biting her lip in frustration with herself.
Soon enough, the waiter walked over and began to take their orders. Sara decides to order onigiri, the same food she has every morning. She decides to order small, sort of as a way to punish herself, ignoring how Signora orders a very large steak, which she imagines is expensive.
“So, besides all that shit ton of studying you do, what do you do in your spare time?” Signora asks Sara, rousing her from her self hating spiral she was going into.
“I am on the archery team, but that’s pretty much all, seeing as I can’t do cardiovascular sports anymore,” she sighs, “how about you?”
“Hockey, as you know, but I also do enjoy a bit of boxing,” Signora chuckled, voraciously munching at her steak.
Sara chuckled slightly, biting bits and pieces off her onigiri as well. She felt herself turn to the consistency of pudding as Signora slid her hand over Sara’s, looking into the dark haired girl’s eyes, a grin gracing her lips. A sly, akin to a fox grin.
“You know why I brought you on this date right?” Signora asked, causing Sara to shake her head in confusion.
Signora grinned slightly, grasping Sara’s hand hard, pressing her long red nails into Sara’s calloused skin.
“To be upfront, I like you. A lot, and I want to date you, if you couldn’t pick up on that. In other words, would you like to be my girlfriend?” Signora asked, reveling in Sara’s shock and pleasant surprise.
“Yes!” Sara shouted bluntly, turning a deep shade of red as eyes turned to her, before turning into a stuttering, blushing mess, avoiding Signora’s eyes.
“Yes. I would like to be your girlfriend. I think you’re very nice and pretty, despite me not knowing you very well,” Sara admitted, finally looking up at Signora.
She watches as Signora flips her blonde hair over her shoulder, akin to a goddess. Her grin flows with amusement at Sara’s eagerness, even relenting a giggle from her red lips, much to Sara’s embarrassment.
“Very well, Sara. I guess I will be seeing you in class. We can go on a date afterwards, if that is to your liking of course,” Signora says, jotting down onto the bill, before standing up elegantly from her seat, Sara mimicking, although more bumbling in her effort, the chair making an satisfying squeaking noise against the floor in her wake as it is pushed aside.
“Yes ma’am- I mean Signora. I did not mean to say that- it was out of habit!” Sara stumbled out all at once, her face going red for an uncountable number of times just that evening.
“That is quite fine, Sara. Nothing to worry about,” the taller girl chuckles, before leaning in towards Sara, and whispering in her ear.
“I really don’t think that is a habit you should break, my dear.”
Sitting in the lecture hall, Sara feels a seat screech slightly as someone moves it to sit next to her. She looks over, expecting to see her friend, now girlfriend, Signora, but finds herself staring at two girls instead.
Yae Miko and Ei Raiden?
“Sign- oh! Miko, and- Raiden, was it? How are you?” she asks, quickly before being yanked out of her seat, and dragged away by the wrist by Miko, Raiden following in toe.
“E-excuse me!? Miko- are you-” she was cut off by the pink haired hockey player pinning her against the wall, Ei standing next to her.
“M-Miko!? I’m flattered, but I-” she is cut off by Miko, shushing her tightly.
“It isn’t like that, idiot!” Miko hisses, looking around the hallway before turning to glance at Ei.
“I’m warning you because seeing you hurt would kind of suck, seeing as you are the only scorekeeper who actually talks to me when I get a penalty, but I need you to listen and not interrupt, got it?” she hisses, eliciting an anxious nod from the golden eyed girl.
“Break up with La Signora.”
“Huh? But I-”
“I’m being serious. That girl is one of the worst people we've met. Do not date her!”
Miko stepped away, standing at the same ground as Ei Raiden, who looked at Sara sympathetically, as opposed to the warning glance Miko gave.
“Look Sara, I don’t know you very well. From what I've heard from Miko, you are a very nice and sweet girl, albeit naive. What she is trying to say is we have known La Signora for a long while, much to our own disliking. She does not treat her partners very well,” Ei laments, looking at Sara in a soft, gentle way.
Sara stammered, shifting all her weight that was against the wall onto her uninjured leg. Her uncrippled leg. Her unuseless leg, her hands contracting into fists. What the hell are they talking about? Signora would never treat her badly. For as long as Sara had known her, albeit only being a month, she seemed sweet and romantic.
Suddenly, she heard the familiar heeled footsteps flood the hall.
“Sara? What are you doing with these two imbeciles? ” Signora asks, a scorn in her tone.
The bruise on the girl’s face had healed, yet her malice towards the opposing team hadn’t. Sara straightened, watching the way Miko and Raiden jolted in alarm.
“Oh! Nothing, we were just talking! Right Sara?” Yae asked, before watching as Signora answered the question instead of Sara.
The blond put her arms around Sara’s shoulders possessively, her nails digging into her skin hard enough for the ex hockey player to wince in pain.
“Bullshit. But, I won’t press on whatever lies you may have told my dear Sara, seeing is I doubt she is stupid enough to believe them, right, my dear?” Signora asks, looking down at Sara.
“Right… I would never…” Sara stammers out, looking down at her feet, focusing primarily on the one in a cast.
“Perfect. Now, if my Sara is as smart as she says she is, we have a class to sit though, although, I believe you two are joining us, correct?” Signora asks, malice intertwined in her tone like fingers in a firm handshake.
“Yes we are,” Ei answers for Yae, although despite the calm tone the braided girl had, she looked as disgruntled as Yae did, glowering slightly.