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The Courtyard was a beautiful place. There was more greenery here than there was even beyond the wall of Undying Flames. Kako knew that because she had gently badgered Ima into taking her out there earlier in the week. She had been curious and Takumi had assured them that there would be no attacks until yesterday. Maybe there was more greenery further beyond the ruined cityscape she and Ima had explored, but around here, the Courtyard was by far the nicest garden they had.
The water under the black iron bridge was clear and whispered through the center of the walkways. The air smelled like earth and flowers.
Two large cages hung from the ceiling of the garden. In the left one, pale blue eyes tracked her every move from behind round glasses. Hungry. Curious. Different, far different than the soft-spoken but determined boy that she and Ima had been introduced to on Day One. A predator trapped behind bars in a beautiful, peaceful place.
His clothing was all white and slightly too big on him. She remembered thinking that he looked a little like a sheep on that first day. She figured out very quickly that he wasn’t. He never bowed his head like one.
Takumi swore he had fangs hidden behind his smile. His words were easier to believe now that she was face to face with Eito. There were claws flickering behind his calculating gaze.
He smiled, and every inch of his fangs and claws vanished. “Kako, right? Kako Tsukumo? I’m sorry if I’m confusing you with someone else, it’s been a few days since I’ve seen anyone other than Takumi."
“Yes, I’m Kako Tsukumo,” she replied. She walked closer to the cage with granola bars, jerky, and a water pouch held in her hands. “Takumi is going to be away for a few days. I’ve seen him bringing you food and water.”
Eito glanced towards the shadows of the courtyard. “There are an awful lot of places to hide around here,” he mused. “A lot of places where people could eavesdrop on conversations. I thought I had found all of them already.”
“O-oh, I haven’t been listening in,” she assured him. “I mostly watch from the entrance. The most I’ve ever gotten of your conversations—” if she could even call them conversations, Takumi never really stuck around to talk—“is that you enthusiastically greet Takumi, and he gets a very consternated look on his face.”
Eito laughed. “He does, doesn’t he? It’s such a twisted look. Consternated is a good word for it. Are you an avid reader, Kako?”
“I’d like to be more of one. My brother and I rarely spent time in libraries. He got…rather restless in them.”
“Ah, yes. You two are usually together. Where is Ima?”
“Bothering Gaku. He doesn’t know I’m here,” Kako admitted. “From what little Takumi told us of your…condition…it sounds like his overbearing nature would bother you.”
“Oh, you all bother me,” Eito scoffed, and she saw the hungry, dangerous darkness writhe behind his eyes again. “But yes, hearing me say that you are just as ugly as every other human out there would probably set him off in ways that would give me a headache. He’s very insistent that you’re the most sublime creature to crawl up from the gutters of the Tokyo Residential Complex, and I don’t think I could stomach another monologue like that.”
Kako winced. That…stung more than she thought it would. It was probably the part about the gutters. Eito shouldn’t know her and Ima well enough to be guessing correctly about where they’d spent their childhood. “Do you, um…want your food?”
He smiled at her again. The expression was all gentle sunshine and sincerity. When he closed his eyes, every hint of the malice he’d just shown vanished in an instant.
Terrifying. It made Ima’s insistence that no one in the TRC could be trusted ring truer than she had ever wanted to believe. Ima was still critical of Takumi for not being able to find Eito out in the future, but while Takumi was very cool and brave, he did not strike Kako as the detective type. That was Future Kako’s job, and she had been…occupied. Even if she hadn’t been occupied, she wasn’t sure Future Kako would have found out Eito. He seemed like the sort of person who could suggest a suicide pact and everyone would still think he had good intentions.
“I would, yes," he replied. "Thank you. I hope everything you brought is thin enough to slip through the bars.”
“I hope so too.” It should be. She had paid close attention to the commands Takumi had put into the Ration-O-Matic last night. He had been very specific about the dimensions of everything he needed.
She slid each packaged part of the meal through the bars. Granola, jerky, dried fruit, and two thin packages of water. Her fingers never entered the cage. His fingers never left it. They were close enough that she could see his nose wrinkling and smell hints of body odor, but the bars seemed like a chasm.
“No plastic bag for trash,” he noted.
“Oh, sorry, I must have missed that part of what he gives you,” she replied, watching as he reached into his pocket. He took out a thin plastic bag with all the wrappers of what must have been his previous meal sealed inside. Now that she was up close next to the cage, she could see that it was meticulously cleaned. There were no wrappers in sight.
“It’s not something that’s immediately obvious to most people.” He shrugged, but his eyes were narrowed. “It should have struck me as odd that Takumi knew to bring that to me when he began bringing me meals. I hate messes. I could handle wrappers on the floor for a few hours, perhaps, but it would bother me after that and throwing them outside the cage would bother me more. It feels like littering.”
Kako nodded. “This place is very pretty. It’s the nicest place in the Academy or outside of it by a long shot.”
Eito arched both eyebrows and gave the Courtyard a slow, appraising look. “…I can see that being the case. From what little I have seen beyond the Wall of Fire, it doesn’t look too pretty. Too many broken buildings.”
“It’s like that within a five-mile radius,” Kako admitted.
“You’ve been outside.” Eito focused on her again. “I did see you fighting on the monitor yesterday. All of you. Takumi won all of you over quickly, didn’t he?”
Kako nodded and looked up towards the monitor. “…That seems difficult to see anything on from this angle.”
“I’m flexible.” Eito waved a dismissive hand. Kako tried not to imagine this incredibly tall man with bulky clothing twisting himself into knots to try and see the monitor. “The biggest bother is the bars. I can see past them well enough to get the gist of what’s going on, but they’re very annoying.”
“I can imagine.” She turned back to him. “Do you want me to go get you a bag? Takumi probably gets them from the Gift-O-Matic, so it shouldn’t take too long.”
His expression grew entirely blank. “The what?”
“Oh right. Um…” Kako lifted a finger. “It’s like the Ration-O-Matic, but for items you can’t eat—well, that’s not an entirely accurate description, but it creates items with materials you bring to it. There’s a manual filled with possible things you can create.”
“Fascinating.” Eito looked down at his tightly sealed bag. “Well, I think I can make do with this one for tonight if you don’t manage to come back. Trying to fit all of the wrappers in here could make for a fun challenge. There’s not a lot to do in here.” He looked back up at her. "I will definitely need another tomorrow, though. You said that Takumi would be gone for a few days?”
“Yes. He wanted to get to where he was going before Day 10, and he left really early this morning, so...”
“That does sound like a long trip.” Eito fiddled with the opening of the bag before he tucked it back into his pocket. “I don’t suppose I could ask you for more water and a little more variety in the food while he’s gone? I don’t mind routine, but it has been a week of this and—”
They both jumped when sirens suddenly wailed throughout the Courtyard. Eito’s jump was bad enough that he fell back onto his bed.
Intruder Alert. Intruder Alert. Unauthorized personnel detected on school grounds.
Takumi said they had ten days before the next attack!
“The last attack was yesterday!” Eito was pressed up against the bars now with his fingers curled around them. His eyes were glued to the monitor. “What persistent creatures!”
“I have to go.” Ima would tear the school apart looking for her if she didn’t show up in the War Room immediately.
"Oh, yes, of course. Good luck." He huffed, his gaze still on the monitor that showed the Schoolyard. "I would hate to be sitting here defenseless if they got in."
Kako turned on her heel and sprinted out of the courtyard. Even if Takumi's sense of the future was already starting to shift away from what he had once known, she had a duty to protect this school alongside Ima and everyone else.