Chapter Text
Monday Morning (week 3)
(“I… Everyone… I love you all. I… I don’t wanna die! I had so much left to do and I thought there'd be enough time. I wanted to stay with my classmates… I wanted to play again with Hinata… Please, just one more game, one more round... We could have played games again…”)
Her forehead smacking loudly against a firm, unyielding surface snaps Chiaki Nanami out of her usual morning power nap. Her sleepy snot bubble pops amid the chittering giggles of her classmates. She blinks as her vision slowly acclimatizes to her environment… to reveal the chalkboard four inches away from her nose.
“If you don’t know the answer, Nanami, that’s alright,” says their math teacher gently. “Please return to your seat.”
Oh. That’s right. She’d been called up to write her answer to yesterday’s geometry proofs. Instead of actually doing her homework, however, she’d spent the night prior restarting this one particular perma-death Fire Emblem map over and over again until everybody survived; so, with perfect poise, she’d brought the chalk to rest against the blackboard before freezing in place for thirty seconds and promptly entering standby mode.
Standing upright in front of the entire class.
She quietly turns around, catches sight of the barely concealed giggle the Ultimate Traditional Dancer hides behind a silk fan, and glues her eyes to the floor on the way back to her desk. Right. Embarrassment, her only friend. Maybe she should have given up on her game last night and gone to bed before 3 AM. She’ll think about it… but first, she has ten rounds of Gala Omega to beat before next period.
The guy in the desk before hers, with hair dyed hot pink and teeth sharpened to points, twists around as Chiaki seats herself. “Here,” he whispers, stretching an arm across Chiaki’s desk.
Chiaki stares at the white cloth pinched between the boy’s fingers for a long moment. It looks to be of very fine quality, with a shimmer too glossy for such a small square of fabric. Given the Ultimate Mechanic’s three-day streak of attending class in the same grease-stained blue coveralls, Chiaki figures this handkerchief is not his. Whose then? And why is he offering it to her? She struggles to string words together, but at the look of impatience developing on his countenance, she simply blurts, “What is this?”
Whoops. That came out louder than she intended. Half the class turns to look at her, including the Ultimate Princess sitting in front of the Ultimate Mechanic. The handkerchief must be hers. And the blonde is tapping her forehead with a smile because… Chiaki’s hand flies upward and confirms that yes indeed, she does have chalk dust in her bangs. That’s what she gets her headbutting the blackboard. Wow. Embarrassing. She quickly accepts the fabric (is it just her, or does the Ultimate Mechanic seems loathe to let go of the cloth?) and pats at her head until she’s sure her hair is chalk-free.
S-O-N-I-A is knitted in the corner of the fabric square. Chiaki silently sounds the letters together. It’s not too difficult to pronounce, and easily recognizable due to its foreign phonetics. She’ll return the handkerchief during lunch with her personal thanks. Somehow she gets the feeling that if she gives it to Ultimate Mechanic, it might not make it back to the Ultimate Princess.
“Is this what you want?”
Chiaki blinks. The classroom stretches before her, completely devoid of people, however, there are signs of recent use at some of the desks. A rusted wrench sits on the desk before hers. A eyepatch rests two seats to her right. One of the desks in the front row has a splintered hole punched right through its wood. A white handkerchief splattered with dried crimson lies in her hands. She drops the threadbare cloth with surprised disgust and it disintegrates into chalk dust as it falls.
She swivels in the direction of the voice--and there he is, sitting in the usually unoccupied desk to her left. It’s right next to the windows, perfect for staring out into stormy red skies. Black hair stretches far past his ankles yet never touches the floor. His voice lacks any sort of emotional depth, yet when he turns piercing ruby eyes on her, she feels as if she’s been punched in the gut.
“Today marks the third week of this trimester. What have you accomplished? Is this what you really want?”
Lunch
A resounding crash snaps Chiaki out of her dreams. Thankfully, this accident is none of her doing. She is, however, greatly affected by its aftermath: said crash was more akin to a small explosion, and in her drowsy stupor she is too late to dodge a folding fan to the face.
“Pig bitch, what the hell?”
“Eep! I, I’m… erk... so sorry!”
Chiaki blinks down at the silk instrument lying on her desk. Like Sonia’s handkerchief, the fabric lining the fan’s wooden ribs are of a high thread count. Each silk thread has its place in the sakura-petal painted tapestry. It’s very pretty and it matches the kimono of the tiny girl currently screeching at a pair of legs sticking out of a jumbled pile of school supplies and spread as wide as humanly possible.
As far as Chiaki can tell, there doesn’t appear to be panties between those legs. Thankfully there is a single sheet of notebook paper placed in the appropriate spot, though it wobbles dangerously at the frantic fanning of a short guy in a chef’s outfit. Seconds later, a rocker chick with multicolored hair dropkicks the Ultimate Cook into the blackboard. The Ultimate Traditional Dancer snatches back her silk fan as the Ultimate Cook rockets past, then uses the instrument to gesture at one of the bandaged legs. “You’re impossible, hog puke. How do you trip and land like that ?”
Curiously, Chiaki rises from her desk and approaches the disaster scene. She hesitates some as she draws near; the desk of the Ultimate Yakuza is directly adjacent to the position of the catastrophe, and the small blonde kid sitting there is currently emitting an incredibly strong killing intent. Their gazes meet. Something in his eyes hardens the longer she stares down at him. Scowling something fierce, he practically rockets to his feet before roughly shouldering his way past Chiaki on his way out of the classroom.
Chiaki notices when the grey-haired girl seated behind the Ultimate Yakuza rises silently and follows, but she’s more focused on the current catastrophe that is the Ultimate Nurse. The position the bandaged girl has managed to land herself into looks like a scene straight out of an eroge visual novel, or maybe an ecchi anime centered around a culinary high school, if the cute little octopus sausages and onigiri with cat faces scattered across the blushing maiden’s heaving bosoms from a spilled bento box are anything to go by. Though the whole having-trouble-breathing thing just might be because the rubber bands binding her arms above her head are also tightening around her neck.
There’s a metal-edged ruler sticking out from underneath the Ultimate Nurse, but it’s not nearly sharp enough. No scissors are within reaching distance either. With nothing but her own body available, Chiaki drops to her knees and presses her lips against the girl’s neck.
“What the--”
“Holy fuck.”
“Oh my!”
Chiaki snakes her tongue underneath the band just enough to bring it to her teeth. Then she nibbles away until it snaps and the girl takes a moaning gasp.
Chiaki helps the Ultimate Nurse sit up and only then notices the crowd of classmates gathered all around. Why are they all looking at her with those strange expressions? “What?”
“So… hot…” murmurs the Ultimate Cook, staring intently at a redhead’s DSLR camera until the Ultimate Musician punts him back into the blackboard.
“Did you really have to…” The Ultimate Mechanic struggles for words until a tall girl with half her shirt unbuttoned makes obscene smooching noises. “...do that!”
There weren’t any cutting utensils nearby, the girl was choking, and Chiaki didn’t want to tighten the literal rubber noose even more by pulling on the rubber band with her hands. So she used what was available--her tongue and her teeth--to solve the life-threatening situation. That’s the explanation… but saying that all out loud requires a lot of talking. She’d have to put all those words together to form coherent sentences, then string all those sentences together to create a believable argument. The task exceeds her maximum RAM. By the time she reaches this conclusion however, she realizes she’s been staring at the Ultimate Mechanic this entire time. Said pink-haired boy blushes and promptly backs down before Chiaki can even so much as shrug wordlessly.
The Ultimate Traditional Dancer hides the lower half of her face with a silk fan. “Freaks, the both of you.”
“Nooooo!” the Ultimate Nurse whines, still panting heavily. “It’s… it’s my f-fault for knocking over your d-desk, Saionji! And, um, also for dr-dr-dropping my lunch a-a-all over myself. And your sc-sc-school supplies! I’m s-s-s-such a h-horrible person! Forgive me, Saionji…”
Saionji’s face contorts nastily for a second before she smooths it into a tight-lipped grin. “Nasty pig slut, more like. Look at that grease all over the front of your shirt. Anybody can see right through it.”
“N-Nooo! Don’t look!”
The state of the Ultimate Nurse’s shirt really isn’t as bad as Saionji is making it out to be. Sure, some of the stirfried veggies may have left transparent oil stains on the girl’s white shirt, but it’s not something a little soap and hot air won’t fix. Chiaki has a spare shirt in her locker as part of her undead apocalypse preparation plan (among other essentials)… though honestly, with the size of the girl’s rack, Chiaki feels like the Ultimate Nurse should be used to dropping food on herself all the time. Maybe she’ll have her own spare shirt? Because Chiaki’s own pair are at least three times smaller than the purple-haired girl’s…
She pulls the Ultimate Nurse to her feet. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she murmurs.
“Oi! Pig shit! What about my desk?”
Chiaki drags the Ultimate Nurse out of the classroom before she can reply. First things first: make this girl presentable to the public. Cleanup can come later. In lieu of shouting this back to her classmates--she’s not sure she could even find the words to communicate her intent in time--she steadies her companion when the girl trips over her own feet. “Are you okay?”
The girl sounds like she might be crying. “I’m th-th-the worst. The absolute w-worst.”
“No, you’re not. That title would go to Kefka Palazzo.”
The Ultimate Nurse sniffles. “K… Kef-who?”
“Kefka, the ultimate destroyer of the World of Balance. He enslaved one of the main characters, poisoned the water supply to kill hundreds of people, and gathered all the magicite from all the dead espers to ascend to godhood and bring about the end of the universe as we know it. Plus he looks like an evil clown. Clowns are just bad news.”
“O... Okay…”
“Then there’s GLaDOS.” She hums thoughtfully as they arrive at the girls’ locker room. “But she was never human, so maybe she probably doesn’t apply to this situation. The situation being that you aren’t horrible or villainous or the worst. You’re just…” She pauses at her locker. “...um... you. I think.”
Her classmates had all introduced themselves during the first week of school, but honestly Chiaki had been too busy solving all the puzzles in her game’s zero escape room under a time limit. The titles and talents of her classmates were all she figured she really needed to know since she wasn’t really planning on talking with any of them. And yet here she is now...
“Oh! I’m Tsumiki. Mikan Tsumiki. Ultimate Nurse.”
“Chiaki Nanami.” She dials her locker open and retrieves the extra shirt from underneath the instant ramen packages and crowbar. (The kabane invasion will not take her by surprise.)
“Nanami! So that’s your last name. You fell asleep right after saying your first name during first week introductions, so some of us didn’t know what to call you.” Tsumiki glances up at her through fluttering eyelashes as she unfastens her shirt buttons sensually. “Nanami… You’re the first person to do something so kind for me. I don’t know what I can do in return.”
The way Tsumiki flings her shirt to the floor and takes Chiaki’s hands to pull her close says otherwise. Fascinated, Chiaki imagines the locker room scene behind the Ultimate Nurse fading into a pastel background accented by sparkling bubbles and pure white lilies in full blossom. Something smells nice. Tsumiki smells nice. She’s so close. Her lips glisten with saliva and her breath is sweet.
“Nanami? Tsumiki?” Sonia strolls into the locker room seconds later, pausing as she takes in the scene before her. “I apologize… Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” Chiaki says bluntly. She pulls away when Tsumiki nuzzles a spot under her jaw, if only because she’s trying to dig around in the pocket of her jacket and whatever Tsumiki’s doing is distracting. Tsumiki whines but doesn’t approach any closer as Chiaki presents the neatly folded handkerchief to Sonia. “Thank you.”
“You are very welcome.” Sonia’s gracious smile slips into a puzzled frown. “Tsumiki, where is your shirt?”
While Tsumiki stammers her explanation, Chiaki pulls her spare shirt from her locker and pushes it into Tsumiki’s arms. Two packets of instant noodle topple from her locker as well and she moves to replace them.
“Nanami,” Sonia says disapprovingly. “Do not tell me you plan to use these empty calories as a mealtime substitute.”
They’re part of her zombie apocalypse food reserve, she wants to say. But then she’ll have to explain what zombies actually are and why she has a hunting knife and wrecking bar in her locker when weapons aren’t allowed on school property (never mind how she managed to sneak them in), plus her reasoning for why an undead future is a very real possibility. That’s a lot of words and Sonia is already speaking anyways.
“No, this will not do. Our lunchtime is almost over and I cannot leave two of my good classmates without a proper midday meal.” Sonia procures a large three-tier bento box from nowhere and sets it on the bench between them. She separates the layers and carefully places them next to each other with such tender care, Chiaki immediately concludes Sonia had a hand in making these dishes. Simple onigiri triangles speckled with black sesame seeds and fish flakes fill the entirety of the lowermost bento. The next layer is packed with lumpy panko-fried tempura vegetables and shrimp. The topmost bento contains mostly steamed vegetables. Sonia finishes by presenting each with their own pair of chopsticks.
Tsumiki’s eyes well with tears. “N-N-No, I couldn’t--”
“Eat,” Sonia commands. In that moment, her voice carries a power and authority that instantly bends Chiaki to Sonia’s will. She brings a rice triangle to her mouth and takes a bite. It’s very plain, not filled with anything at all. The rice mixture is very simple, with just the right balance of dried fish and soy sauce.
“Yum,” she says quietly. “It’s good.”
“Thank you.” Sonia takes the soiled shirt from Tsumiki’s hands and replaces it with a small paper cup of peeled edamame. “As the Ultimate Princess, it is my duty to ensure my people are well-fed and cared for.”
+1 Hope Fragment: Priestess!
+1 Hope Fragment: Empress!
Afternoon
Chiaki’s heart sinks as the day wears on. She’s just noticed the schedule for classroom cleaning duty posted to a corner of the blackboard: this week is her team’s turn to sweep and mop the floors, wipe down the windows and blackboard, and scrub and polish the desks, among many other things.
Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu, next heir to the largest yakuza syndicate in the country, is on her cleaning team.
She isn’t scared of him. She isn’t. But he didn’t have to physically ram his shoulder into hers earlier. There’d been plenty of space for him to pass by without running into her at all. Kuzuryu had very deliberately shown aggression, all because, what, she stared at him?
When the last school bell rings, Chiaki slumps in her seat and watches as her classmates slowly empty the room. Within a few minutes, the only teenagers remaining are herself and a frail, skinny boy with deep shadows under his eyes.
Their homeroom teacher breezes into the classroom seconds later. “It’s my favorite time of day!” Sensei trills, shedding her suit jacket and donning a frilly white apron in a single motion. “Housekeeping with my wonderful students! Mitarai and Nanami, are you ready to…” She trails off before quickly consulting her teacher’s tablet. “Hold on, where’s young Kuzuryu?”
The classroom door slams open at that moment, admitting a grey-haired girl with a bamboo shinai strapped to her back. “I have switched positions with the young--with Mr. Kuzuryu. I will take on his cleaning responsibilities for this week.”
Sensei smiles. “If you two have agreed upon a fair exchange, Pekoyama, then I have no objections. Now are we ready to clean house or what?”
Sensei’s cheerful demeanor adds a bit of light to the following half-hour, which passes into relative silence. As the Ultimate Swordswoman, Pekoyama handles the bamboo broom with the same skill as her shinai; her movements are quick, precise, and graceful, achieving its maximum effect with minimal effort. Because Mitarai’s pencil-thin arms aren’t fit to lift anything heavier than a cleaning rag, he’s set to wiping down windows. Chiaki takes on the task of scrubbing the desks free of inky doodles scribbled by bored classmates. Sensei flits from task to task while assisting where she’s needed, supplying a ready stream of helpful tips, and humming a jaunty tune. Everybody carries out their duties quietly without feeling the need to fill up the space between them with empty conversation. It’s actually quite relaxing.
...Until Chiaki senses somebody staring holes into her back.
She glances over her shoulder to find Mitarai glaring at her openly. The way he looks at her… he looks like he’s deeply conflicted. Chiaki stares right back--she’s totally the master of blank, vacant stares--until he glances away in guilt.
Evening
“Just the woman I’m looking for. Chiaki Nanami, please come with me.”
The command is issued without authority or power, simply truth. Chiaki complies immediately, banking a sharp right upon exiting the school entrance even as she keeps her attention focused on her Nantendo GameGirl speed run. Only when she’s beat the dragon gym leader with her monotype Nuzlocke survivors does she hit pause and glance upward to meet the lavender eyes of the girl concealed within the school’s late afternoon shadows.
“...Who are you?” Chiaki asks.
While the girl dresses rather smartly, it’s not the Hope’s Peak Academy uniform. And though it’s true that half of the 77th class doesn’t bother wearing said uniform, their class sizes are so small that everybody pretty much recognizes everybody else by sight. She doesn’t--
Hold on.
Nope, never seen her before.
“I’m the Ultimate Detective.”
Titles tell her more about how people will act than their actual names, so Chiaki is ay-okay with the girl withholding her identity. “How did you find my name out?”
“77th Class enrollment website. Chiaki Nanami, the Ultimate Gamer.”
Oh. She forgot about that. Her acceptance letter had even provided the website’s URL to her on the assumption that she’d want to research her classmates’ talents thoroughly. All she’d wanted at the time was to catch all the beetles and buy all the turnips and resell them at ridiculously higher prices to become the world’s fastest bellionaire.
The lavender-haired girl glances down at Chiaki’s GameGirl. “HeartGold or SoulSilver?”
Chiaki relaxes instantly. “Our Lord Helix can only be resurrected in HeartGold.”
A fleeting smile flits onto the detective’s face before she unfolds her arms. “Walk with me.”
They exit through the gate of the main building and saunter into the Academy’s central courtyard at an amiable pace. They’re well into the month of May and every sakura tree is in full blossom. Chiaki still knows next to nothing about her companion, but she doesn’t seem like a dangerous person. She’s very pretty and this walk feels slightly romantic, in a platonic sort of way. That’s just the vibe Chiaki’s getting from the stoic detective.
After a moment of thought, she finally pieces together a suitable question. “Which class are you in?”
“The 78th.”
It’s the third week of Chiaki’s first trimester at Hope’s Peak as a student of the 77th Class. As far as she knows, she is the underclassman. Bottom of the social ladder. Nobody beneath her.
She struggles to articulate this, but thankfully the lavender-haired girl seems to perceive her blank expression easily enough. “Early acceptance, special conditions,” she explains. “As I am currently on a personal investigation, I would appreciate but cannot force your cooperation.”
“Okay.”
“What do you know of Hope’s Peak reserve course?”
“What?”
The girl nods towards the west side of campus. Chiaki blinks slowly as a massive building materializes through the cherry blossom trees. She’s never had a reason to explore this part of campus, but… wow. The building before her practically scrapes the sky. When did another tower pop up on school grounds? There aren’t nearly enough ultimate talents to fill that many floors.
“That building houses Hope’s Peak’s reserve course students,” says the Ultimate Detective. “Talents aren’t required for this program. Students obtain enrollment through a simple entrance exam and exorbitant tuition.”
“Hmm.”
A ringtone disrupts the silence between the two girls. “One moment,” says the detective, walking away as she puts the cellphone to her ear. Chiaki takes the opportunity to switch games and clear as many waves as she can before her companion returns.
“Um, excuse me?”
Chiaki glances upward. A short, plain-looking boy with a sizeable ahoge is talking to her. She takes a moment to switch from gaming to speaking mode, noticing in that time that he’s accompanied by a girl she might have seen before on TV. One of those transient pop idol sensations with addicting tunes about the powers of friendship, even though all their technicolor music videos have overt yuri implications.
“Have you seen a girl with purple hair around here? Purple jacket, wearing purple gloves, goes by Kyoko Kirigiri?”
The boy’s friend has a plastic smile affixed to her face. After spending time with the expressionless but truthful detective, Chiaki is instantly unnerved by the singer’s forced expression.
“I know a girl with purple hair,” she answers truthfully, thinking of Tsumiki covered in rice, “but her name isn’t Kirigiri.”
“Oh, alright then. Thanks!” The boy and his friend jog off in another direction.
Welp, now is as good a time as any to return to the dorms. She tries to orient herself only to find she has absolutely no idea where she is. She’s walked the path between the dorms in the south and her classes in the east so many times she can do it with her eyes closed (or focused on her handheld gamer), but Detective Kirigiri dropped her off in a completely foreign area of campus. The west side, it seems, with all the reserve course students she never knew about.
Fine then. All she needs to do is walk east until she hits the central fountain, then swing a right and head south until she smells the cafeteria dinner. Her GameGirl has a compass function built into its homescreen, so all she has to do is… Huh. Not two minutes ago, sleepy kittens had adorned her homescreen. Now, however, the background depicts a serenely smiling man hanging upside down from a tree. Every five seconds, the background swivels a full 360 degrees to briefly reveal another image: a bear mask split evenly in two with a white left side and black right side.
Frowning uneasily, she peers at the upper right corner. At least her widgets remain the same: battery bar, WiFi signal, compass direction, and time and date: 100:7:30 - 20 August. Yeah… no. Time and date are definitely wrong. She enters her GameGirl’s settings to fix it, but the moment she returns to her home screen it reverts to 100:7:29 - 20 August.
...Did the clock just go back in time?
She waits a full minute to confirm it. Yes, GameGirl’s internal clock is officially broken; it’s going back in time and the date is stuck four months ahead. Good thing Gala Omega runs on an in-game clock. Following the compass, she orients herself east and begins walking.
She gets all of ten footsteps before she runs into a wall.
The wall is warm. Kind of padded too, but with a solid firmness underneath. Not very breathable though. She arcs her neck back, takes a deep gulp of oxygen, and finds herself four inches from somebody’s face.
Huh.
Um.
“Hello.”
“...Are you okay?”
Chiaki considers this. “I’m lost.”
The boy’s eyes flick up and down her body. “Are you an Ultimate Talent?”
If he’s checking her out, she figures she has the right to reciprocate. He isn’t that much taller than she, though he’s lean and slightly built. Other than that… her eyes would normally sweep right over him if they hadn’t literally run into each other. Though now that she really takes a look, his uniform is the same as hers, only colored differently. Part of the reserve course?
“I’m lost,” she repeats. "I think."
The boy grins bitterly. “I guess you wouldn’t have much reason to explore this half of school.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” she counters. “The sakura trees of the western half of campus are just as pretty as those of the eastern half. The students of each half are equally attractive. This concludes my personal investigation.”
She blurts these words because they're the first thing that came to mind, but she finds it's quite true. The dancing cherry petals falling all around them add a very lovely and sentimental subtext to their chance meeting. Under these circumstances, if she had to categorize him according to the boyfriend stereotypes of the dating sims she plays every once in a while, she'd put him squarely in the boy-next-door trope: fairly average but easily relatable. Easy to talk to, easy to get close to. The nice guy.
The reserve course student chuckles, this time genuinely. “Fair enough." He jumps a little, startled, as her game finally chooses to boot up at that moment and play its opening sequence. "Hey… is that the theme to Gala Omega?”
His words are simple enough. Why does her chest feel like it’s going to implode? It’s unbearingly hot all of a sudden and her breath speeds up and her heart hammers frantically from underneath a crushing two-ton weight and something deep within her yearns desperately--
(“We could have played games again.”)
“So you’ve played it before?” she gasps.
“Um… yes? I new-game-plus’d it once five times on lunatic mode…”
"I'm on my tenth lunatic new-game-plus right now, but you, you're like the first person I've met who's even played it before!" She bounces right back up to him eagerly, words colliding together in a chaotic jumble in her mind and spilling out her mouth without a second thought. "It's a classic, don't you agree? A trendsetter that set the bar for all future games of its genre! You have to show me your high score!"
When he doesn't immediately pull out his handheld and show her, she falters. Her conversation train crashes and burns and suddenly she's not sure what to say next. She's only aware of how close they are: one hand on his chest, the other brandishing her GameGirl enthusiastically, their noses so close she can feel his quickened breath on her face.
"The reserve course prohibits us from bring gaming systems to class," the boy says slowly, "but I could just leave it in my bag and not bring it out until after school..."
"...And then," she concludes excitedly, her conversation train roaring back to life, "we can play video games together! Tomorrow, okay?"
"If I can find my copy..."
"In case you can't, I'll bring a backup game or three," she enthuses. "I have second copies of all my favorite oldies but goodies in a fireproof safe, in case one spontaneously explodes and burns my house down. I'll loan you those ones if you want! Only if you sign over your soul though, some of these cartridges cost an arm and two legs. Meet me tomorrow at the central fountain, alright? Don't hurry at all though, I have cleanup duty this week."
"Y-Yeah. Sure." The boy looks a little dizzy and cross-eyed from her rapidfire words. "Me too. I mean, I have cleanup duty too."
Fancy that. So them both meeting here was really lucky then. Maybe even fate or something. She barely stops herself from asking for a talent; if he's a reserve course student, then he has none... In which case she'll actually have to learn his name, then learn what he's actually like without a guideline talent to help her along. "What should I call you?"
He blinks until his gaze refocuses on her. "Uh. Hinata. My name's Hajime Hinata."
What an unremarkable name. Hmph. She supposes tomorrow's date will give her plenty of time to figure out what kind of person he is. "Chiaki Nanami. Now show me you know how to get to our meeting spot. Go ahead." She restarts her tenth new-game-plus of Gala Omega, filling the air around them with beeps and pew-pews and booms. "I'll be right behind you."
"...Don't tell me this was all just a ploy to get me to show you how to get back to the central fountain."
+1 Hope Fragment: Fool!
Night
He's waiting for her when she drifts off to sleep, her fireproof safe unlocked for the first time in years and a variety of backup games tucked away safely in her backpack. She blinks curiously at the boy sitting at the foot of her bed, red eyes glowing from behind a curtain of midnight-black hair, and wonders why he suddenly looks so familiar.
When he opens his hands, three rotating cards jump out to hover in the space between them. Each card is backed by a grinning bear mask split right down the middle into white and black halves. Each card face displays a different image: a dancing jester, a queen wearing a crown of stars, and an elderly woman holding an open book.
"Is this what you want?"
"I don't know," she answers honestly. "Should I?"
"That's for you to find out."
"Who are you?"
"You already know," he answers cryptically. He plucks one of the cards out of midair and flashes it at her. "The Fool Arcana: representing a blank slate with infinite creative possibility. Why, I wonder..."
Chiaki waits for him to finish his question. When he only stares at the Fool card for a full two minutes in silence, she rolls over and snuggles into her pillow. "Good night," she murmurs. "I have... a date tomorrow..."
He vanishes slowly as she sinks into REM sleep. "Why aren't you the Fool Arcana, Chiaki Nanami?"
Chiaki Nanami’s Social Qualities
Empathy: basic (level 1)
Expression: silent (level 0)
Knowledge: clueless (level 0)
Courage: wallflower (level 0)
Chiaki Nanami's Major Arcana
0. Fool.................★☆☆☆☆..... Hajime Hinata
I. Magician...........☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
II. Priestess..........★☆☆☆☆..... Mikan Tsumiki
III. Empress.........★☆☆☆☆..... Sonia Nevermind
IV. Emperor..........☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
V. Hierophant.......☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
VI. Lovers............☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
VII. Chariot..........☆☆☆☆☆..... Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu
VIII. Justice..........☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
IX. Hermit............☆☆☆☆☆..... Peko Pekoyama
X. Fortune............☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
XI. Strength.........☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
XII. Hanged Man...☆☆☆☆☆..... Kyoko Kirigiri
XIII. Death...........☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
XIV. Temperance...☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
XV. Devil..............☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
XVI. Tower............☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
XVII. Star.............☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
XVIII. Moon..........☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????
XIX. Sun...............☆☆☆☆☆..... Yukizome-Sensei
XX. Judgement......☆☆☆☆☆..... Izuru Kamukura
XXI. World............☆☆☆☆☆..... ?????