Starry Days & Sunlit Nights: Volume 3 - Warm Winter

Chapter 1.1 - The Night Witch, Shion Sasegawa

Her clear, icy blue eyes opened up slowly. A soft, voiceless groan escaped her mute lips.

Darkness. That was all she saw, but it wasn't pitch black. Faint city light radiated on a single window just out of the corner of her vision.

It wasn't too long until she noticed that her body lay on something soft and fluffy. A cottony cloud supported her head. A heavy sheet covered her from the neck down. A bed. Whose?

She hardly recalled her escape from the wrath of a powerful Day Witch. Yumi, she recalled her name was

Gradually, memories of their battle returned to her. An empowered witch hunter, a Lotus Inquisitor, fought alongside Yumi. Between engaging the both of them, the blue eyed girl had ended up draining far more power than she had hoped to.

She had even resorted to using a little bit of the Day powers she had stolen, which caused her immense physical and mental trauma. Then she wound up losing anyway, when that Yumi decided to tear their arena down upon their heads.

Everything after that was a blur. The blue eyed girl vaguely recalled the sky falling, the sound of rolling thunder, the scent of metal, and the cold splash of water.

Then what? She couldn't imagine herself being saved by anyone. She never had any friends, especially not in the past five years.

Just when she thought that, the sound of not-so-subtle snoring made her aware of another presence in the room. She turned her head slowly. A young man, she guessed from his silhouette. His head lay on the edge of her bed, face turned her way, although she couldn't make out his features.

The only reason anyone would go through the trouble of saving her was because they intended to use her as a tool. She had to get out of here, before that could happen.

She had already pushed her body beyond its limits in the earlier fight against Yumi, but a simpler application of her ice powers should be enough to neutralize a slumbering threat.

She slipped her left arm out of the blanket and lifted it slightly. The effort strained her, and she realized just how exhausted she must be. She still tried either way.

The girl tapped the boy's head with her index finger and attempted to freeze him solid.

Nothing happened. The temperature around them stayed the same, while boy didn't so much as shiver.

Had the earlier battle really taken that great a toll on the blue-eyed girl, that she could not access even the weakest and most basic of her powers?

She couldn't accept that. She refused to be powerless and at the mercy of anyone. She was fearful of being so vulnerable.

She tapped the boy's head, trying to freeze him again. Still nothing. She tried again, and again, and again, and again. Her brows dipped down slightly in a very subtle frown. Her unexpressed anxiety aside, this was also frustrating.

She poked the boy one more time at the same time that his eyes fluttered open. He raised his head from the bed and stretched himself.

The girl's instant response was to try to get up and run, but found that she didn't have any energy to lift herself up from the bed.

While she struggled, the boy got up and flipped a switch on the wall. The sudden illumination caused both himself and the girl to blink repeatedly and squint for a moment.

The room was fairly small in size, with white walls and elegant furnishing, although there wasn't much apart from the double bed the girl lay on, a closet, a desk, and a reclining arm chair, as well as a carpet.