Marionette

Cosmos, Chapter Sixty One - Chīsana Seiiki no Owari [小さな聖域の終わり]

The chain of unfortunate circumstances continued beyond the morning arrival at 3-E's satellite campus, with no possible end as far as Amaya could tell. The tension about the class was palpable, suffocating even, and there was nothing that could be said or done to alleviate the situation at all.

Science during first period was a nightmare for Amaya. An already boring and tedious subject was made so much worse by the encroaching tension in the room that Amaya found herself wanting nothing more than to bury her head in her arms and try to sleep instead. Math for second period was no better for the ten minutes that she was even in the classroom at all, and by the time third period had arrived Amaya was about ready to snatch her bag up and get as far away from this place as she could manage.

Coexistence didn't matter when everyone was silently feeling sorry for the situation they were in, and it was obvious that everyone had been doing nothing but considering the situation all over winter break. It was of course more evident since the proposed assassination plan Isogai and Kataoka told her about had effectively been canned without so much as a word.

Nobody said a word to one another unless it was necessary, only Koro-sensei's explanations on the subject matter at hand rung through the air.

It was as if he were talking to an expansive brick wall.

Eventually however, third period chimed in some form of relief for Amaya and her patience.

The subject was PE, and for what felt like the first time in months, it was solo-training. The perfect excuse to get as far away from everyone else as she could manage without being particularly rude about it.

It was the first lesson with guns since Amaya had gotten contacts and glasses, so it was of course, the perfect time to see exactly how much easier it was for her to hit the targets. Unfortunately however, all Amaya had were her glasses tucked away in her pocket. She tended to forget to wear her contacts now that she was walking her siblings to and from school every day.

Amaya stood silently at the edge of the class, listening to Karasuma's instructions as she traced her gaze over their surroundings in the clearing. She ignored the chill in the air as she tried in vain to blink away at the blurring in her vision. The dull treetops were a curtain of brown against the muted blue skies above, and even at close to the middle of the day, there was no warmth or brightness to the sun. There were no birds in the skies, no clouds nor wisps of crumbling leaves caught in the breeze. However, there was the faint hint of a glimmer somewhere in the distance, some kind of white glow that flickered slightly with the shift of the breeze through the trees.

It was prominent enough that Amaya had paused to try and get a better look at it.

She couldn't quite tell what it was, though she at least knew enough to say with little doubt that it wasn't just a frost-coated leaf reflecting sunlight at the right angle for her to see. Perhaps she could see it better if she just wore her glasses, but she wasn't concerned enough about it to go to the bother.

'Katsuragi-san.' Karasuma called out all of a sudden, bringing the girl to promptly snap her attention away from the glimmer of light in the distance. 'Pay attention.'

'O-oh. Sorry.' The startled girl responded.

As Karasuma began to assign tasks to each student, Amaya cast a brief glance back towards that glimmer of reflected light.

But it wasn't there anymore.

When Amaya's attention returned to class, she'd noted that everyone was already splitting up on their assigned tasks. She promptly wandered off to the further-most target set up for handgun practice, ignored glances from nearby classmates and settled in for what she hoped was an uneventful and enjoyable class. She pulled the hood of her PE jacket over her head to hopefully block any prying eyes from notice and quickly pulled on her glasses.