Marionette

Oceans, Chapter Twelve - Kaisō [回想]

A soft tune echoed throughout the darkness, that of which drew soft reminiscence and nostalgia to overcome the unconscious girl. It softly tugged and prodded at the black, bringing her to edge closer to waking up, the longer it played.

In the waking world, Amaya knew the song very well.

In fact, it was a song she adored almost as much as the three people she let into her own world.

She'd heard it when she started attending Kunugigaoka, and before her MP3 player had died, the song itself had over 10,000 plays. She listened to it every day, because it reminded her of something she didn't want to forget.

If she didn't listen to it, she'd forget, because it connected her to a memory that was older than the friendship between herself and Karma.

Perhaps it was her earliest memory, one she kept alive stubbornly in both heart and mind.

Blue skies, soft white sand, and cerulean-coloured oceans stretched out as far as the eye can see. Soft, white curls of hair swept up in a gentle breeze, and far-away eyes of deep red danced just in the edge of her mind's eye, a vivid contrast to the snow-white form they belonged to.

A musical, soft chiming of laughter mingled with the song that continued to drag her towards the waking world, a voice she hadn't truly heard in many years.

She couldn't see what her face looked like, even though she knew who this was.

Because Amaya had long since forgotten what her face looked like, even though she held onto the keepsake photograph buried in the most secure pocket of her purse. She remembered the colour of her eyes, and the colour of her features, because of the photograph, but she could never remember her face.

It was a sad understanding that Amaya had become used to over time.

The lively, dancing form in her memories turned, and a sad smile was all that Amaya could detect. Almost as if in response to something, she spoke, her lips moving to form words that Amaya couldn't depict, nor could she hear. Mute words that no matter how hard Amaya tried to grasp, she couldn't.

And then the song dancing in the world stopped, coming to a gentle end.

It brought Amaya to open her eyes.

Amaya found herself in a somewhat similar situation to the last time she'd passed out.

She was in a different place to when she was last conscious, this time lying on what she could tell without looking was a bed. She was staring up at a time-worn ceiling, and there was what she could immediately tell to be cubicle curtains pulled part-way shut.

Amaya could tell without even thinking about it that she had ended up in the Class E infirmary, though it didn't smell like a normal infirmary.

She could also tell from just the colour of the light that it was mid-day.

Maybe just before lunch break?

Oddly enough, there was not single whiff of disinfectant chemical, or any of the other smells that was standard for a medical room. Instead, she could smell the tiniest hints of vinegar, thyme and rosemary.

Wait ... natural remedies?

She guessed it was because the Class E campus had access to the whole mountain, and there was bound to be medicinal herbs galore up here. Why not utilize a natural resource instead of using the chemical compounds that everyone had to pay for?

'Oh good - You're awake now, Katsuragi-san.' Echoed a voice all of a sudden from Amaya's right.

Fright overcame her as she recognized the jovial, peculiar toned voice from the last time she was conscious.