Time Gate: Reaper

Chapter 2: Strangers

“I'm sorry, Uzuki.”

“But you're going to die.”

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“Hey, she's waking up . . . it's about time . . .”

“Zu-Zu!”

My eyes flutter open at the sound of the familiar voices – one belonging to my sister, the other to my brother, and the both of them are hanging over me, where I seem to be laying in my bed.

“Hey there, sleepyhead!” Chiyo exclaims with a smile, cleary relieved to see me for some reason.

“Zuuuu!” my little brother, Shyoto, cheers in his usual gibberish language.

I sit up, resting my head against my pillow, which is pounding with a headache for some reason.

“What happened?” I ask as I rub my head, trying to rub out the pounding pain in my head.

Chiyo shrugs her shoulders. “We thought you'd be able to answer that for us. A friend of yours carried you in last night, totally unconscious.” She snickers. “You party a little too hard last night or what? Mom's really worried about you.”

Only one word sticks out of her bare-bones explanation.

“Friend . . . ?”

Suddenly, all at once, it comes back to me.

Walking home.

Being trapped.

The Angel.

Mitsuhiro.

. . . And the Angel having her head ripped from her own body.

I quickly sit up straight in my bed, the recalling of last night's events being enough to wake me up and kick out my headache.

“I have to go!” I exclaim.

Chiyo gives me a look of concern. “What? Where to?”

“Zu!” Shyoto cries out, probably asking the same thing.

I jump out of bed – still in my clothes from the night before – and start downstairs, running out the door and leaving for town.

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I only have to knock on her door five times before Yashiro answers. The moment she opens the door, I grab her shoulders, interrogating her right off the bat.

“Yashiro! Where does Mitsuhiro live?!” I yell. I need to find him if I have any chance of finding out what happened, and most importantly, why.

Yashiro's face is that of pure confusion and surprise. “Whoa, whoa, hold up! What's happening here? Why do you need Mitsuhiro all of a sudden? And why weren't you in school today?”

Oh yeah. I guess I missed school. I didn't even bother to check the time before I left the house.

But school isn't the problem right now. I couldn't care less what I missed; it's what I ended up right in the middle of that's the problem.

“That doesn't matter right now – I need him!” I press.

Yashiro holds her hands up defensively. “I'm sorry, I don't know where he lives. I don't think anyone does.. Why the rush though? Are you okay?”

“He knows something that I don't and I need to find him right now,” I reply.

Yashiro sighs. “Well, I don't know about Mitsuhiro, but today Saichi told me he wanted to see you. He said he couldn't talk to you today though because you didn't show up all day. Uzuki . . . what's going on?”