Akane observed her classmates frolic around like small children climbing ladders and grabbing ropes. In the school gymnasium, it had been temporarily transformed into an indoor park fitted with monkey bars, slides, swings and other elaborate playground equipment. The class spent the period playing as a fun way to stay active.

"And...of course I'm the only one who didn't sign up for it," Akane realised, as she sat alone on the bench near the entrance of the gym, hunched over, chin in hand. "But who'd wanna waste money on this?"

"Here Aoki-san, you can still get your parents to sign up for next time.”

"Thank you very much."

Akane glanced to her side as the teacher gave a sheet of paper to the new transfer student seated on the other end of the bench. Before the teacher  swiveled around to look at her, Akane pretended not to notice anything until called upon.

"Why don't the two of you get some books from the classroom? You can read them in the meantime. Hirano-san, you know where to go, could you help her?"

Akane accepted the task while the teacher who had the classroom keys on a lanyard took it off their neck and dropped it into her open hand.

After the two students left the gymnasium, the smaller one spoke first.

"Hi, it's nice to meet you. You're the one who sits next to me in class, right? What's your name?"

"Er...Akane. Hirano. N-nice to meet you."

That was terrible.

Umi giggled slightly as Akane died inside.

"I hope we get along then, Hirano-san. You can call me Umi."

The girl smiled sweetly as she stepped forward, but slowly turned around again with a slight embarrassed smile on her face.

"So, where are we supposed to go?"

Akane guided the small girl through a doorway to the stairs with Umi taking the lead. Following closely behind, Akane remembered seeing a similar view shortly earlier.

Due to Akane's previous blunder, her commute was slightly longer than usual as she arrived at the front of the school instead of the back where students usually enter from. Walking through the school gates, Akane noticed a little girl stroll towards the front doors. It was not abnormal to see visitors head through the front doors, so Akane paid no attention to the child herself. However, what Akane really noticed was a certain beaver-like plush charm attached to the end of the girl's bright pink backpack. Although it seemed fairly normal for a child to have a keychain like that, Akane knew it wasn't just any cute mascot character.

That was definitely Bivikun from Magical Valki Fighters! I have Bavichan but I've never even seen Bivikun...I can't believe this girl has Bivikun. Could she be...a fan?

In astonishment, Akane's thoughts raced while the two began to ascend the staircase.

No, no, don't get your hopes up! It's most likely she saw it and thought it was cute. Or maybe she even got it as a gift...Maybe, maybe one day I can ask her about it...or maybe we could even talk about the series. Ah, but there's no way we could do that.

"Because there's no way we could be friends."

**

The two girls finally arrived at the back door of the classroom, closest to their desks. Akane inserted the key and turned it. The door didn't open. Akane turned the key while turning the doorknob and pushed. The door didn't open. 

"........."

Umi walked up to the key still in the lock as Akane backed away. In a single click and turn, the door opened. The two looked at each other in silence.

"...Anyway," said Akane, actively trying to forget that ever happened as she pushed the door open.

Akane noticed it was quite dark in the classroom and flicked the lights on before heading inside until suddenly she felt a hard shove from her lower back as the air from her lungs was pushed out. At the same time, Akane felt an air current pass by the back of her head from the other coordinate axis of where she was now falling to the ground. With a loud slam, the smaller girl had fallen onto the vinyl flooring alongside Akane as the tomboy swung around alarmingly to see what had happened.

"Hey! What the hell was that-!" Akane shouted, until she noticed a man standing where they had just been a second ago.

The man had lunged towards the wall with his arm still extended and one could see an abnormally large crater at the end of it.

"Ji...g...saw...Give it...t..o...me…" uttered the ghastly voice of the man.

"What?" Akane asked.

"Shoot...they're here already?" the smaller girl questioned, as she sat up carefully, looking at the man in front of her.

"What?" Akane asked again, swinging her neck to look at the other girl.

In the midst of confusion, all Akane could think of was that the two of them were in danger somehow and that they should quickly leave the room. But there was another feeling Akane had inside that she did not have time to figure out. The man slowly relaxed his arm and turned around to face them. Upon closer inspection, the man's attire was ragged and filthy. His face seemed disfigured and malnourished, but his eyes were hidden by a dirty fishing cap. Moreover, there was no blood on his fist, as if that previous impact had done nothing to his body.

"Ji...g..sa…"

The adult who could not make coherent sentences began to clumsily charge at the two girls. As if by instinct, Akane, still on the ground, grabbed the leg of a nearby chair on her left side and threw it. The man stopped to deflect it, breaking the chair, its pieces clattering to the ground. However, Akane continued the barrage by using her feet to hook the leg of the desk and guide it forward. As the desk swung in front of her, its contents spilling out, she hastily kicked hard against the bottom of the desk, launching it towards the man who tripped and fell over it.

Before Akane could celebrate her small victory, Umi hurriedly grabbed her arm and helped her up.

"C'mon, this is our chance to run!"

With Umi holding Akane's hand, the two rushed towards the other doorway of the classroom. Just as they reached the exit, a rumbling noise could be heard from the opposite end of the room, immediately inching closer and getting louder. In a sudden motion, Umi's arm was pulled back, and a certain warmth escaped her grasp as a shadow blocked her view. Desks were thrown noisily aside and a loud -BAM- followed suit as two figures collided into each other.

"HIRANO-SAN!" the small girl screamed as she collapsed to the ground.

Although the man had failed once, he had redeemed himself as the young tomboy lay immobilized, her head crushed between the gruesome hand and the concrete wall that used to be the chalkboard. Moving on, the man turned to the frightened blue-haired girl once again slurring the words "jigsaw". Unlike before, the man seemed to have lost his hat, finally revealing his eyes, or lack thereof. Creepy, soulless darkness was the only thing left in the man's eye sockets. As the little girl cowered in fear, an unexpected sound of cracking bones was heard. A pair of legs jammed into the side of the man, seemingly crushing his right elbow as the adult hurled into the mess of desks and chairs.

"Bastard," an irritated voice growled.  "That friggin' hurt."

The disheveled tomboy had used what was left of the chalkboard edge to leverage herself in order to kick the man away, and was now picking herself off the wall. She brushed off the dust from her clothes and rubbed her head, which surprisingly did not have a trace of blood.

"That's it. No more thinking, no more distractions. Now I'm just pissed off."

A dreadfully serious expression appeared on the tomboy's face as Akane decided to stop running and to do what she knew best⁠—fighting. Meanwhile, the man was getting up again, unfazed and unfeeling, as if to say a broken arm was just a scratch.

"I'm gonna beat the shit out of you."

Using a similar tactic, Akane charged forward and picked up a chair before throwing it at the man. The man once again destroyed the chair in a single punch, but not before noticing Akane lunge her fists towards him. The man stumbled back after being hit in the face but recovered and proceeded to throw a fist back at the tomboy.

This guy's strong, but if he can't touch me… 

With speedy reflexes and minimal movement, Akane skillfully redirected the punch away from her face as it landed just beside her. Akane then took the opportunity and bent down in a stance that readied her legs and built strength into her right arm.

I CAN WIN.

Akane yelled as her crimson eyes gleamed and a flash of flames suddenly engulfed her fist the moment the punch pierced the man's stomach with full force. The power of the impact was so strong that it felt like a beam of light and energy had been concentrated into a singular point until it was exhausted. And then, the man began to fade. In an aura of black miasma, the man looked as if it was being burned like paper, leaving absolutely nothing behind, not even his fallen hat. Silence fell.

...What the hell was that?! That's scary! Where'd he go? How did I even do that?

"That's..gonna give me nightmares…" Akane shuddered at the grotesque figure of the man and the burning sensation that was now sedimented into her mind. 

Along with that, the sudden realisation and dread in which Akane may be responsible for this incident hit her all at once. She slowly dropped to the ground, reanalyzing the current situation.

I didn't kill him, right? There's no blood. There's no body. There's no proof I did him in. That girl is my witness. This was self-defense, right, right? Wait, what about the room?! Oh man, the room is a total mess. What if I get blamed for that. I can't go through all that trouble again!

To break the girl out of her overdramatic thoughts, Akane noticed a black shard hovering in front of her where the man had been previously.

What is that?

Without thinking, she reached forward, arm stretched and tried to grab the floating shard seconds before it shattered into dust and disappeared just like the man. Akane then looked at her hand, feeling a mysterious warmth remaining from it but nothing to be seen.

"Y-you really destroyed it…" Umi muttered as she regained her composure and walked over to Akane. 

Akane got up again, but didn't wish to turn around and face the smaller girl.

Damn, did I...creep her out too?

"You're amazing!"

"Huh?" Akane twisted around to see the little blue-haired girl was looking up at her in genuine amazement and interest.

"Do you realise what you did? You just defeated a Fragment using CHAOS! Without even fully awakening! And with a single punch as the final blow. That's so cool, I can't believe you did it so easily—"

The puzzled expression on Akane's face was telling to Umi as she realised how little sense she was making right now. But then she saw the clock behind Akane's head. 

"Ah. Sorry, there's no time to explain right now. But I will explain it later. For now, we should head back, there's only 5 minutes until class ends."

The little girl then led Akane outside the room while turning off the lights. As they exited, Akane suddenly felt like everything that happened in that room was a dream. Standing in their empty school hallway, it felt that the world had reset back to what Akane had always known.

"If anything," Umi began, facing Akane and smiling innocently. "I want to tell you that I'm glad we were together. Without you there could have been a huge disaster. I'm very grateful, Hirano-san."

"...Wait."

Akane stopped walking as the little girl spun around expectantly. Though suddenly feeling pressured, Akane broke her composure.

"I mean, y'know. You can call me Akane if you want…formalities are annoying anyway."

Umi laughed. "Shall we get going then, Akane?"

Akane simply had no idea what she was getting involved with. She did not understand the unbelievable incident that just occured in their classroom, nor the mysterious little girl that seemed unnaturally calm for the situation. But at that moment, Akane thought to herself, "I'm just happy that someone could feel grateful to me." 

And that was the end of that.

**

"No, really. What about the classroom? We can't just leave it like that!" exclaimed Akane.

Umi replied confidently, "Don't worry, I've got a way to deal with it."

As the two ran off, getting farther away from the mess they had left behind, a shadow flickered by the curtains of the room.