The trio entered the third classroom from the stairway. Thankfully they were one of the first students in class, so they managed to claim the window seats at the back of the room.

“Nice, nice!” Nikko gleamed as she dropped her bag onto the desk in the back corner.

“Nice, nice!” Arii mimicked, taking the seat in front of her.

Daisuke sat on Nikko’s right side without saying anything.

The three sat in silence for a moment, before Nikko said “So… let’s uh… have a great first year of high school.”

“Y-Yes, I do hope so!” Arii stuttered.

Daisuke remained silent.

“Uh…” taking note of the lack of response from Daisuke, Nikko mumbled “We’re gonna have a blast, right?”

“There will be other things you’d have to worry about,” he replied.

Other things? What could he have meant? Nikko was about to ask but the homeroom teacher stepped into the class.

“Good morning class,” the teacher said. She was a petite young woman with light brown hair tied into a bun. “I am Ms Oshima, I will be your homeroom teacher this year.” Ms Oshima briefed the class on what they would learn and what would be expected of them this year.

Nikko found it all boring. Why did she have to go to school? She didn’t need to learn about Japanese history and what happened to Date Masa-whatever-his-name-was during the Edo period. Can I go home now? Nikko pondered, despite only being in class for 10 minutes. She glanced forwards at Arii. Although she was facing away, Nikko could tell that Arii was paying full attention. Nikko then looked at Daisuke, who was actually staring at her direction.

Is he checking me out? Nikko blushed and faced the front again. Who is this guy? Why do I feel that he’ll be an important person in my future? Why do I also feel he was an important person in my past?

Her past? The image of her nightmare returned yet again. She started to feel a minor headache in the back of her head. The image soon turned into a vision, and Nikko opened her eyes not to class 1-C, but a dark, damp alleyway. She was running. What was she running from? She wanted to turn around, but she could not control her own actions. She could only run forwards.

Nikko took the first turn to her left down the alleyway, only to come to a halt as it was a dead end. She realised she was sobbing. She glanced down at her feet. Her feet were tiny. She then looked at her hands. Her hands were tiny. This is…

She spun around to the presence of a devilish being. She observed the dark, giant figure from the bottom up. It was at least 7 feet tall and spanned 5 feet wide. It hovered slightly off the ground, having no legs and instead had what seemed to be a ghostly tail. It had a wide frame from the torso up, mostly clouded by a dusky aura, and had two thin arms with razor sharp claws that were reaching towards her. She finally glimpsed at the creature’s head, which was attached on the top of the body without a neck. It was covered by a pure white mask that resembled those of a plague doctor’s mask, in contrast to its black body.

The monster slowly approached Nikko, as she inched her way back to press her body against the wall. “P-Please, somebody!” a child-like voice creaked from Nikko’s lips. The monster raised one of its branchy arms, in position to strike down on her. Nikko braced herself and let out a shrivelled shriek.

A second passed. Then two seconds. Three. Four. Five. She did not feel the impact of the strike. Nikko lowered her arms and peeked up to see the silhouette of a young man with a blade between her and the monster. Time seemed to remain still for a moment before the mass of the creature collapsed to the ground before disintegrating into a cloud of darkness. The man slotted his blade back into its sheath and turned to face Nikko. Nikko could barely make out his face because of the darkness, but noticed the glimmering reflection of the moon light in his silver hair. He approached Nikko, and gently offered her his hand. “Are you ok?”

“M-Mhm,” was the only sound Nikko could manage.

“You sure about that?”

Why did that sound familiar? Nikko suddenly regained control of her body and looked straight at the stranger’s face, and into his piercing silver eyes. Those are...

Nikko instantly shot straight back into reality and faced Daisuke, who was still looking at her. “You’re…!“ she exclaimed. The whole class turned to face her. In this situation, Nikko would have felt very very very embarrassed, but thankfully for her, she didn’t have to deal with the next few moments of awkwardness as she lost consciousness and passed out.

“N-Nikko-chan!” Arii jumped out of her seat to lift Nikko off the floor.

“Oh dear,” Ms Oshima sighed as she shuffled her way through the students to Nikko’s side. “Was she that overwhelmed by the thought of starting high school?”

“I’ll take her to the nurse’s office, Ms Oshima,” Daisuke said as he picked her up off Arii and proceeded to exit the room.

“Why, how kind of you… um, I haven’t gotten your name yet.”

She did not get a response as Daisuke had already walkout out the door.

“U-Uh, Ms Oshima?” Arii said. “Should I accompany them to the nurse as well?”

“There’s no need for that, everyone back to your seats. Your lectures will start soon.”

Meanwhile at the nurse’s office, Daisuke rested Nikko on one of the beds. The nurse followed in, “Do you know what happened to her?”

“She’s just fainted due to exhaustion,” Daisuke replied.

“Alright, she should come to soon. You should return to class, you’re a first year, right? You wouldn’t want to miss out on too much on the first day. I’ve got a small meeting to attend to, so I’ll come back to check up on her in around half an hour.”

As the nurse left the office, Daisuke placed his left hand on Nikko’s forehead. First year, huh? That doesn’t concern me. It’s only gonna get a lot tougher for her though. Daisuke thought to himself.

Daisuke slid his hand off Nikko’s forehead and combed a tuft of her hear behind her left ear. “Sugimura Nikko, you’ll be turning 16 tomorrow, isn’t that right? I’ll explain everything to you when it all happens.”