Snippet #2449263

Haruka’s death had shaken the campus to a certain extent. The demise of a classmate was usually an unexpected thing, and this one was no exception. Still, even with a year and a half separating then from now, nobody had forgotten the explosions back then, nor the lives that had been lost. It was, in a sense, taken much more quietly than it would have been, before. Some of the students in the Day Class put together a memorial service three days after the fact, and though he had not openly attended, Sora had been there, and watched from the boughs of a tree.

Kaede had openly wept. The girl was accustomed to death—too accustomed for a child of her age, but all the same, she had not lost her sensitivity to it. The friendship that had been blossoming there was still tentative, but it had bee blossoming all the same. The young human had thought that it was a shame that Miss Haruka should die without ever learning how to live—those had been her words, and her eyes had borne right into him when she said it, as though she saw straight through every doubt that Sora had ever had about himself, about what he did with his life. It was uncanny, what that girl knew.

Sachiko had gone as well, and watched the proceedings with sad eyes and a heavy heart, but unlike the rest of them, she had always known this was a possibility. She’d also known that Haruka would die, though not when or how, only that it would be before her human lifetime was naturally due to expire. In the moments before her death, she’d had a new barrage of visions, new faces appearing alongside those she’d already seen, as though the stilling of one human heart was in fact altering the very fabric of fate; especially the fates of those she held dear. Destiny moved in a new direction now, but she was as yet uncertain what to make of it.

Sora had made a point of being there for Asuka, though he wasn’t honestly sure if his presence made any difference or not. He liked to think it might—whatever they were to each other, they were not insignificant in one another’s lives, and was it not best to keep close the ones you cared about in such times? He could tell that she was mourning, and he did his best to provide comfort where he might, but he was not accustomed to playing such a role in anyone’s life. He could seek revenge and he could perpetuate death. Neither of these things lent itself to dealing with what happened in the wake of it. All of this was too much like the moments after the explosions, when he’d just kept digging, even after he’d recovered everyone that could have possibly survived. Only Fujiwara’s strange behavior had dragged him out of that stupor, but this was not nearly so… urgent as that. She was simply gone.

Now, a week in total after the girl’s demise, he found himself on morning rounds, making sure that all the Day Class students were going where they belonged, and that the Night Class made it inside before the sun rose and the others suddenly had cause to wonder why the whole lot of them were allergic to the sun. The week since had been largely uneventful, actually, which was perhaps something of a relief—he would not have wanted her to have to deal with more worries atop the grief she endured now. She’d lost so much… and too many of his thoughts seemed always to revolve around her. It was in one sense annoying, but he didn't exactly mind it even so. He’d always preferred having other people to think about. It had taken him a long time to realize it, yet it was just as true for all that.