Welcome to Demon School, Sona!

Chapter 1: Meet Sona!

*POV: Sona*

I knew this would happen eventually: things like this always happen, and for good reason, too. Thing is...I really don't get why it's happening to me; I wasn't the one who did it! So, rather than sticking around the bunks, waiting for the guys to tell me what to do, I'm stuck running from them, AND the police. I've forced my legs to keep running; if I stop and get caught, it's game over for one of the only things I got left in this life: my freedom. And, very arguably, my dignity.

Through the rural countryside, just outside of the grass-laden Japanese outskirts of town, I continue to run on the dirt road like a guy who's just been shown a positive pregnancy test, if not even faster than that. My legs feel wooden, despite having what feels like each leg having it's own heartbeat: they need rest. But yet, still, I resume with my putting gold medalists to shame with my fear of being put in a foster home or something. Where did my life go so wrong that I ended up like this? I could just as easily explain the whole thing, but that'd take forever to tell, and nobody but me is here to listen. So I'll shorten it, and tell it like that in just a moment.

It feels like I've taken my final steps, as I can tell: my legs, riddled with scrapes and bruises with the rare bandage, are past tired. They just straight-up don't wanna move anymore, and I don't blame the poor hunks of useless flesh one bit. If I were a pair of legs, I'd prefer that my owner not use me like I'm some machine that exists to last years of work at a time. But, no, I never stop moving if I don't feel safe. It's just me being me. I've learned the hard way that, no matter what other kinda theories on life some wise guy's got when going off about his hot takes nobody asked for, the best solution's basically to do what your pride forbids, and rely on others having a shred of decency at your time of need. Milk all you can out of it, if you need to. I've done that more than a few times.

Regret it.

My name's Sona. I've lived in a few separate places here and there, all around Japan, generally a short way from whatever town or city happens to be nearby. I couldn't give you just one location, though, because that would imply I stayed. I didn't. Wherever that gang went, I followed. Even if I wasn't technically a member. Yeah...you heard that right, unfortunately. I was running with guys I wasn't even fully affiliated with. Honestly, just hearing this, you'd think:

"You're a kid. WHY are you around a gang?"

News flash: I didn't have a choice. The shelters were limited as they were without a 14-year-old smart aleck mouthing off the attendants, and outside that, I have nobody. When I was turning 11, my mother tried to sell me off to yakuza in order to settle a debt. I mean, I know she wasn't mentally well, but that was crossing the line. I had to get out. I supported myself as it was; Mother was hardly even there. No way in hell do I consider her my "mom". At least, not in a figurative sense. She held my birth certificate, but that's about it. She could have at least helped earn us both money so that I can get her what we both needed, but no. She made nothing, and tried to make nothing.

This being said, I snuck out the night I did a little eavesdropping, when I heard key words I knew weren't good. I really didn't want to believe such a harmless woman could and/or would arrange something like that. I knew things weren't good for either of us, based on the fact alone she owed yakuza, so I was understandably on-edge, but having to escape one's own mother and run away at this age is something I wouldn't wish on my nonexistent arch-nemesis. Luckily, I was already pretty dang good at escaping undetected (sometimes I needed to get out and clear my head), so doing it one last time was no big deal. But, I don't have enough words to tell you how much I wished I would have been exaggerating, talking about it now. But there was just no going back from that point.