Snippet #836279

She pivoted on one foot, breathless, then exhaled a sigh of relief as Saito came into view. The remnants of the fabled twilight dissipated into the normal time, and with it relieved the tension in her grip. The crimson ocean had ruptured once, stirred by the spires of Elysium, before giving way to order. That lone coffin on the docks, too, had succumbed to the light, its elderly figure now slumped upon the wood, limp and still, instilling a sense of urgency that prompted her to rush forth and attend to it. But she shook her head. The old man wouldn’t have much longer now.

“Hey,” she called, abrupt, to her fellow senpai. With a dash, her feet jostling up sand along the way, she was by his side in no time. Aika guised her night weariness behind a cheeky grin, her stride alternating between a jog and a half-skip. “Caught you handlin’ another group alone, deserves an award or two. Although…” She trailed off and gave him a curious look. His infamously secluded methods riled her as much as they fascinated her with his persistence; the quality was evident in nearly everything about him, and though he was smart about it, this failed to ease her anxiety about the ordeal. Whatever. Saito was a big boy. “Never mind—you’ll figure it out eventually.”

Anxious or not, she needed an excuse to run: “Meet ya at the dorms. I gotta burn off the last of this adrenaline somehow.”

And run she did. Who needed proper farewells? It was her nonchalant, uncool way of saying au revoir, but a departure was a departure, no less. She needed to move, at least until true fatigue settled in, yet not till she rushed past the deadened the streets of the town center, where the railway trolleys idled on their tracks like battered mistresses, and produce gradually rotted at the local fruit stands, and scraps of trash wafted across sidewalks, tumbleweeds in a desert, and palm leaves fluttered in distant, tailwind breezes; and heads rested within the sanctuary of the dorms, in which she entered promptly, her movements careful to avoid waking the others who had already arrived. Feigned peace, oh, feigned peace. What a sight. Aika refrained from beckoning her familiars down. Here, a mandatory roll call would follow suit, gathering them all into the lounge; however, glancing at the couches strewn about the room, she quickly found sleep to be the more desirable option, albeit the less responsible one. Sighing, she placed the naginata in the storage room adjacent to the staircase, removing her armband and the pistol from her holster. As tempting as retirement seemed, there were more important matters at hand, and said matters smelled, calmingly enough, of nicotine.

An empty packet wouldn’t do. Worse still, a brief meeting without a smoke beforehand would be torture. She bolted upstairs, blues on the mind, to inspect more than simply her companions. You loser.