Marionette

Skies, Chapter Thirty Three - Saigo no Chansu [最後のチャンス]

One step forward and two steps back.

Or was it the other way around?

Sometimes it was impossibly hard to tell the difference.

Though what was easy to tell was that when Amaya woke up, it felt like today was already going to be so different from the last few weeks.

Not much had happened after Koro-sensei's frantic, almost desperate retreat in the early hours of the morning from a rather livid-looking Karma. Reiko had emerged before long, and Karma had decided he was going back to bed for a last couple hours sleep, so he'd left shortly after. And since that felt like a good idea, Amaya did the same, with Reiko promising to come wake her up before leaving for school.

She felt completely and utterly worn out, and the three or so hours of sleep she'd managed to get seemed to make her feel even worse.

Even though there was a part of her that wanted to go to school just so she could find out how the situation with Toadsworth turned out, Amaya felt like she'd done enough to warrant just skipping out today altogether.

She felt like the many hours spent dressed up like a fish-person was enough justification for a day off.

The six hours spent through the night was practically a whole school day, after all.

And besides, there were some things she wanted to do, and she couldn't do them up there on Class E Mountain.

She couldn't do those things with the prying stares of a certain yellow octopus and anyone else curious enough to pay her attention, after all.

Not when just yesterday, Koro-sensei, Nagisa and Kayano had been stalking Kataoka to source out the Toadsworth issue.

It was convenient in a way to skip today - Koro-sensei would probably assume she was skipping just because she was tired, or even just trying to avoid water.

So he wouldn't think too much about it.

Throughout the morning, Amaya set about doing cleaning that she hadn't had an opportunity to do with Koro-sensei dragging her back to Kunugigaoka for the evening - Washing clothes, mopping, vacuuming, and even long-needed dusting and polishing of windows that she could get to, though she would do the clothes washing last of all - She liked to make sure clothes were still fresh for her siblings, so sometimes she would take everything in the apartment and run them through the wash, including the clothes stuffed in the back of their drawers.

She usually did all of this in the evenings after dinner, but she hadn't had any time to do it.

However, it was as Amaya was in the Apartment Building washing room that Amaya had been disturbed out of her morning peace.

Her phone in her pocket suddenly vibrated, and a voice that was becoming familiar over time suddenly rung out.

'Amaya-san! Good morning!' Came Ritsu's voice all of a sudden, causing Amaya to sigh as she tossed the last few articles of Yuta's clothes in the industrial-size washing machine she was standing in front of.

Amaya lifted her phone and looked down at the screen.

Ritsu was displayed in her usual manner over the whole screen of her phone, however she was in fact dressed in a Private Investigators outfit, presumably to suit a theme in place, like how she had donned a fish-themed swimsuit last night to go with the Toadsworth situation.

'Good morning ...' Amaya responded, her brow furrowing slightly as Ritsu giggled cutely. 'What brings you to my phone?'

'Koro-sensei wanted me to check in on you, and inform you that he expects you to come into class, today.' Ritsu announced brightly.