<continued>

For the fraction of a heartbeat, weightlessness took hold of her, and then she felt gravity dragging her downward. Ayako couldn’t help the scream that built in her throat and released at an ear-piercing pitch. Her body tensed, bracing for impact, but the sensation she felt instead was an upward pull followed by a soft landing on something that felt more akin to a pillow than the hard floor she knew was below. And then that pillow began to vibrate and gasp.

Ayako slowly opened her eyes. At first, her vision was filled with nothing but white. Did I lose my vision? The panic had just begun to build again when she shifted her eyes to the left and saw the wooden floor. It’s okay. I can see just fine. She took a slow breath to calm her racing heart.

“Are you alright?” Kaito’s voice broke at the end of the sentence as he took another shuddering breath.

Again Ayako’s attention shifted and she finally realized exactly how she had landed. He still held her around the back, forcing her down against his chest. Ayako immediately scrambled sideways, thrashing around until she broke his grip.

“I’ll take that as an, ‘I’m fine. Thank you so much for saving my sorry ass,’” Kaito said, looking at the heap of the girl now on the floor.

“Humph.”

“Kaito!” “Ayako!” Mika’s and Kana’s voices rang out simultaneously from above, though the thick dust muffled their shouts.

“We’re fine,” Kaito was the one who answered back, but after the deep inhale, he broke off in a cough as dust flowed into his lungs.

“We need to get out!”

“I know!” Kaito answered Kana’s call with impatience as he stood.

Ayako followed suit, gingerly standing and dusting herself off. “So what are we going to -” Ayako broke off as Kaito grabbed her wrist and began moving toward the window. “What are you doing? HEY!!”

Kaito flinched as the piercing scream slashed through his ears. “Like Kana said earlier, the dust that we stirred up could cause a spontaneous combustion if we aren’t careful,” he answered with impatience coloring his tone. “We need to get out of here as quickly as possible. Stand back.” Kaito stood at the window and thrust his elbow against the already cracked glass. It busted easily, releasing another plume of dust into the air.

“But Kana and Mika are still up there! What’ll happen to them if the building explodes?! We can’t just leave!”

“I’ll get them to the ground safely. I promise. Can you fit through here?”

Ayako eyed the hole in the window. It was fairly large, but the jagged pieces of glass that still hung above weren’t comforting. “I can fit,” she decided after a long pause.

“Good. Get out and get some distance. I’ll follow behind you with the other two.” With that, Kaito turned around and began undoing the buttons of his shirt.

“What are you doing now?! Stop stripping!” She had moved closer to grab his arm, when a slight feeling of weightlessness overcame her again. Her next demand died in her throat as she saw a soft blue light surrounding him. When Kaito slipped the white cotton shirt off, instead of his back, Ayako saw a mass of black. The black objects twitched and then began to move, but it wasn’t until they were more than halfway spread that she realized a pair of leathery, black wings were attached to his shoulder blades.

Kaito stuffed his shirt through his belt before bunching his muscles and shooting upward through the cloud of dust. From that point, Ayako was left with no other choice but to wiggle her way carefully out of the window and wait for the others.

Meanwhile, Kaito came to a light landing at the threshold of the classroom they’d fallen through. “Mika? Kana?” he called into the dark hallway.

“We’re over here!” Mika’s voice answered him from the adjacent classroom. “Kana’s trying to - what... what happened to you?” There was only a small bit of light flowing through the windows and into the classroom, but silhouetted in the threshold, she could make out the vague outline of the wings now at his back. Her mouth fell open as she stared at Kaito in wonder. It wasn’t just the newly acquired wings either. Once again, she found her eyes wandering to his finely sculpted torso. She shifted her gaze, trying to avoid staring, but out of her peripheral vision, she still watched him.

“I’ll explain it later,” Kaito said as he moved over to them. “Right now -”

“We need to get out, and quickly,” Kana answered. “Mika and I were going to run back down the stairs, but when we tried them again, we broke the first one. I’m not sure it’s safe to stand on them.”

“Stand back, I’ll bust the window.” Again, Kaito rammed the point of his elbow into the glass and with a defining crack, it shattered.

“Do we have to jump..?” Mika questioned as she glanced over the ledge.

“Of course not,” Kaito scoffed with a good-tempered roll of his eyes. “You did see them and you’re still asking a question like that?” Kaito spread his wings as he offered a hand to each of the two girls.

He grabbed them up easily, one arm wrapping around their waists, and before either of them were ready, Kaito leapt out of the window. Mika screamed as gravity overcame them. The fall lasted only for a split second before the momentum shifted and they shot forward toward the treeline.

As if it were waiting for its occupants to vacate, the building exploded in a deafening boom behind them.