[AQ] The Truth [Sayuri/Yasuko]

[Sayuri]

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}
Fear Of Heart

+ Description: You're scared beyond all reason. Enemies and danger are lurking around every corner. In all honesty you're not sure what to do. You don't even know how to become your ‘would be self’. So what do you do with these woes and emotions?

+ Talk to a friend, they might be able to help: +2 Guardians, +1 Faberge, -2 Roost

+ Don't think about it, keep on going anyways: -2 Guardians, +1 Faberge, +2 Roost

+ Talk to your Guardian Character about it: +2 Guardians, -1 Faberge, +1 Roost

+ Stress over it even more by doing nothing: -1 Guardians, -3 Faberge, +1 Roost

+ Requirements: None

+ Submitted by Teale

Sayuri was not one to be stopped by the possibility of losing her dreams.  She had accomplished much in the short sixteen years she'd been on earth, following her passions and arriving in Seiyo Academy as one of its newest students.  Even the pain and utter devastation she felt during her physical therapy had done little to deter her.  She'd spent hours crying over her own condition, months wishing her life was different, years thinking it would be better to perhaps stop trying.  Nevertheless, she had magically made it through all those setbacks with a lighter heart and a clearer mind, entering through the gates of her favorite school with the hopes of every other Academy student.

She wished she still felt that way.

It was weird to think that one of the first things she was told upon arriving at this school was to leave.  She was told she didn't belong, that she didn't understand.  She endured the countless words of so many classmates and sought to find the happier side of things.  She just wanted to enjoy whatever remained of her second year at Seiyo, wanted to finally understand what it was like to be a normal student.  Instead, she was thrown obstacle after obstacle to overcome, going so far as to simply let go of it all and take it as it came.  Everything she did seemed to be wrong, nothing she did seemed to fix things.

She sat in the empty courtyard on a particularly chilly day, wrapped up in a blanket as she messaged the first year girl that had first introduced her to all of this.  She was wheelchair bound this particular day, only arriving at school to pick up her notes and leave.  Though she was fairly warm with what she was wearing, her hands still shook as she texted Yasuko the words that may seal her fate at this school.

I know the truth about Sensei.

Yasuko Kobayashi

[Yasuko Kobayashi]

Yasuko had been so busy preparing for the Culture Festival that she barely paid attention to anything Egg-related. Or rather, she specifically avoided anything related to the Eggs ever since it started. She had been rather tense since preparations for the festival started, for it was one of the few occasions in the whole of the school year that outsiders from wherever could come by and visit. And that meant any kind of person could waltz into school in possession of an X-egg or an X-Character...or even worse, an actual Egg Hunter. The fact that West Oto themselves had their own Culture Festival only made her more anxious.

She gave a sigh as she flipped the screenplay shut; she had signed up to write the play's script and though it went through many many revisions (and a fair amount of disagreement between her and committee), it was finally ready for the actors and actresses to practice to. Though she wished she could change some of them (or even the play's topic itself...Romeo and Juliet wasn't really her cup of tea at all, and she honestly felt it was far too overdone a theme in schools), it was much better than having to do the other supportive work backstage. Like lifting or moving stuff. She would fail at that for sure.

She was about to pack up when her phone pinged - and she took it out, staring at it in a puzzling matter. The first thing she became confused over was the sender; Sayuri? she asked in her head, wondering why the second-year would be messaging her of all people. But the single line on her screen made her completely stop in her motions, her eyes widening as she read and re-read what she was seeing. A million questions popped into her mind, yet the same ones kept coming up; Did she mean Kirishigi-sensei? Why is she sending me a message? What happened? Where is she?

It took a full minute before she finally unlocked the screen, her fingers hovering over the digital keyboard to try and write a reply. Yet, it took her even longer to write a message back - and finally all she ended up sending were two measly words:

What truth?

It didn't convey the dread she felt.

[Sayuri]

The anxiety of waiting for Yasuko's next text nearly drove Sayuri to leave school and return to bed. She still didn't understand the implications of a broken egg yet the sheer fear that Ai and that other girl had expressed was more than enough to hint at the severity of it. She twisted the sleeves of her shawl in her hands, tapping the ends of her feet together as she tried to figure out what she would say.

What could she say? Was it even her place to talk about it? Kirishigi had revealed something about himself that no one else seemed to know. Whether or not the other two had confessed to others was unknown, but with Yasuko as her 'egg senpai,' the girl had the right to know. After all, Sayuri had nearly joined Guardians without knowing anything about the older man. He said he wasn't a member of the Egg Hunters, but what else was he hiding? Were there other eggs he couldn't save? He'd mentioned during their conversation that he couldn't protect his friends. Who were his friends, and more importantly, did they still have their dreams intact?

These troubling thoughts swirled around in Sayuri's head, nearly distracting her from feeling the buzz of a text on her phone. With a heavy heart she checked her screen. 'What truth?' So, the other didn't know. Perhaps she was the only one willing to tell sensei's secret. Perhaps it truly wasn't her place to tell others the truth about him.

She held her breath.

The truth about his egg.

Her hands shook. She couldn't convey this over a simple text, she had to see the other.

Gripping the arms of her wheelchair for support, she sent another message.

I'm out by the courtyard.  It would be better to talk about this in person.

If the other wouldn't meet with her then that would be that. She wouldn't tell anyone else and would turn away from all this egg business. She'd try her best to ignore all the truths of this school and live her Seiyo life the way she planned.

[Yasuko Kobayashi]

Though she had planned to pack her bags and leave immediately for the dorms, Sayuri's text had completely stop her in her tracks. Her heart was pounding in her ears, as she stared at the phone screen with furrowed eyebrows - yet her eyes were unfocused, and the text messages weren't registering in her head. There was something about the second-year's words...something about it that didn't sit well with her. They were almost ominous, contrasting heavily with the girl's cheerful and innocent demeanor. She hadn't realised it, but her hand was gripping her phone tight, a feeling of anxiousness and nervousness washing all over her as she waited for the other's reply.

What did Sayuri wanted to tell her?

Though whatever it was, it felt like the other was taking forever to write a message back. Yasuko gave a sigh, and was about to shut off her phone, when the loading icon suddenly popped up. A loading icon. Someone was typing. Sayuri was typing.

For the first time since entering Seiyo, Yasuko was staring intensely at her phone screen, apprehensive, as she waited. Waited for the loading icon to disappear and be replaced by a text. A text to show what Sayuri meant. Her free hand twitched over the screenplay on the table where her bag lay, drawing lines on it with her finger in a nervous manner. Why was this making her so anxious? It was just a text. Yet perhaps it was the odd wording of the second-year's message that made her feel so tense. Confused. Dread.

Finally there was a ping - and her free hand completely stopped drawing lines as she read the message. A full second went by before she finally reacted, her eyebrows furrowing deep, her eyes widening. Her thumb hovered over the screen again, her mind ticking through all kinds of responses - but she soon received another text.

It took her yet another minute before she finally replied.

Alright. I'll be there.

Stuffing her copy of the screenplay and her pencil box, she swung her bang over her shoulder, exiting the makeshift stage soon after. As she stepped outside, she hastily threw on her shawl over her neck, wounding it loosely around it as she walked in the direction of the courtyard. She knitted her eyebrows together, thoughts swirling through her mind. What did Sayuri wanted to tell her? What happened to Kirishigi-sensei's egg? Did...she talk to him? But the sound of the fountain's waters brought her out of her reverie, and she looked up, to see the tell-tale long hair of Sayuri's and her figure in a...wheelchair? She stared, confused. "Sayuri...?" she asked in a tentative manner.

[Sayuri]

Yasuko's response came quicker than she would have imagined. She expected the other to take her time replying, maybe weigh the options of leaving her current work or asking the other to explain via text. The fact that Yasuko was so willing to speak to her brought some comfort to her mind. A cold breeze blew through the area as the second year sighed. She still had to tell the other exactly what it was that happened.

It didn't take long after the reply for Yasuko to appear. With the majority of the fields empty the sounds of approaching footsteps carried through the air. With some effort, the young girl managed to turn her wheelchair around to face the other. Her parents had been reasonable with her returning to school that day. She could stick to one of the simpler models as long as she didn't go too far in the school. They could be impossibly overbearing at times but the chance to go outside was more than enough to have Sayuri agreeing to their demands. With her fever gone it would be only a matter of days before she was back in class and she didn't want to be stalled by any more of her parent's worries.

"Kobayashi-san," she said, offering the other a small smile that the two were able to meet, "It's good to see you again. I'm really, truly sorry I called you out here like this. I wasn't even supposed to come in today but I couldn't bear to miss another day of notes, and...." She stopped, took a deep breath, then continued. "Well, let me start from the beginning."

"I saw Kirishigi-sensei the other day at the planetarium. I had gone hoping to apologize for the whole Tanabata Festival incident," Oh, right. That was the last time she'd seen this girl, wasn't it? The last time they'd spoke she'd mentioned breaking her egg. How ironic that they met again in these same circumstances. "Um..... a-anyway, it got a bit out of hand. Well, Hoshiko got a bit out of hand. To make a long conversation very short, Sensei.... he..... well he said he couldn't protect anyway. He couldn't even....."

She had to stop again. Her words were a jumbled mess of run-ons and fragmented thoughts. She had to be clear when she said this next part.

"He said he couldn't even protect his own egg. It seems he was being hunted by Egg Hunters for that very reason."

[Yasuko Kobayashi]

Yasuko only stared at the other, a hand still on the straps of her bag, her eyebrows furrowed as her eyes betrayed the confusion she felt. This was definitely Sayuri right? Why was she in a wheelchair? Did something happen to her? An accident or something? "W-wait," she began, her free hand raised as if to try to signal the other to pause. The second-year was rambling and Yasuko couldn't grasp each of her words to form a coherent thought in her head. But before she could even get a word in, the other had already leapt onto the next topic.

Her eyebrows furrowed even further the longer the girl talked, her raised hand now slowly being lowered subconsciously as she listened to the other. Thoughts ran through her mind each time Sayuri said a sentence, her head swirling fast from all of the information being given to her all at once. She met Kirishigi-sensei? Hoshiko? Got out of hand? Couldn't protect? What? She could only stare as the other suddenly paused mid-sentence, and for that moment she wondered what in the world should she do. Was the other okay? The text message sounded urgent yet ominous, and now that she had seen Sayuri in person, it only reinforced that even more. What was going on?

But her next words made her heart stop.

For a moment, her face was blank, her mind not at all registering the other's words. Slowly, gradually, as it began to sink in, an expression began to form on her features - her eyebrows furrowed even further, her eyes widened, and she gave a horrified gasp. Her mouth stayed open and she kept trying to form words, but nothing came out; so all she did was stare at Sayuri in a shocked silence. She didn't know what to think, and though she wasn't close to Kirishigi-sensei, the idea - the very idea that his own egg was destroyed - felt like the worst nightmare that anyone could give her. All she could think about was that Kirishigi-sensei wasn't safe. If his egg was destroyed, what was he doing here? Why was he here, the founder of the Guardians? Sasaki-san said the factions were made to give a safe place for egg-bearers a safe place to develop their abilities, but how could anyone whose egg was broken help others with Guardian Characters? What if...what if-

What if he was in cahoots with the Egg Hunters?

There was a moment's pause, before she finally croaked out. "W...What?" It did nothing to convey the mess of thoughts in her head.

[Sayuri]

Sayuri's rambling ended in a troubled sigh from the poor girl as she stared at the other, realizing only a second too late that she'd just unloaded her entire week on the poor first year. Gasping, she covered her mouth before bowing down. "Oh, my, I'm really sorry. This must all be coming as a surprise to you. I know you were with all this egg business before me, but it seems like new information for everyone involved. Let me... let me summarize the most important aspects and then you can ask me questions to fill in the blanks, okay?"

Pulling at a strand of her hair, the young student took a moment to gather her thoughts. If all of this was new information then what would be the best way to get through all of it? Even she wasn't sure what to make of half of it, and most of the terms they'd used were still unknown. She had a basic understanding of what Egg Hunters were, but this all idea of hunting and breaking seemed almost absurd! What was the point of having something so fragile if breaking it meant so much? She had mentioned breaking her own before, but at the time she hadn't known any better....

This was all getting to be too much. She hadn't signed up for this.

"Well, okay. To start with, Kirishigi-sensei isn't what he seems to be. I'm probably not the best person to talk to about all of this, but that Guardian girl and Ai were there as well, so maybe they'll be able to shed some more light on this whole situation...."

Taking a deep breath, Sayuri continued. "From what I understand, Kirishigi-sensei has been visited by the egg hunters for the past few years. He mentioned back at the Tanabata Festival that someone was coming after him, and only recently did he confirm it was the Egg Hunters."

That was simple enough, right? Now for the hard part.

"And... well, it seems the reason they're after him is because.... I'm sorry, I don't know any other way to phrase it other than Sensei's egg has been broken. I-I don't know by who, or when it happened but that's the reason the egg hunters are after him." There, that was it. It was all out on the table for Yasuko to make sense of. Pulling at her hair harder, Sayuri ditched it in favor of tugging at the sleeves of her cardigan, fidgeting in her wheelchair as she waited for the other to respond. She was sure there was more to what she had heard, but from what she understood that was the basics. She didn't have a chance to talk to Kirishigi after that, scared away by one of his students as she fled the scene. Perhaps it would have been better to stay and gather just a bit more information for the other to hear. At least then the both of them wouldn't be in the dark about this whole mess.

[Yasuko Kobayashi]

Yasuko only nodded at the other in a slow manner, though it was only for acknowledgement rather than anything else. She was still much too shocked by her words to fully register it. She stood there, unmoving, the scarf lightly waving in the breeze, as the other began to explain. All she did was stare as the other spoke, her hand pulling onto her bag strap, though judging from the fixed look she gave the other, she was unaware of her actions. A slow nod accompanied every sentence Sayuri spoke, yet again it appeared more for acknowledgement, as if she had been struck dumb by the revelation.

Finally, after minutes of silence, did she open her mouth.

"So..." she began, her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to make sense of it all - before she paused yet again and looked away, biting her lip as she tried to come up with what to say. What was she supposed to say in this situation? "So his egg got broken..." she said, though she wasn't sure if she was saying it for clarification, or to convince herself of the fact. It was hard to take in. "...and now the Egg Hunters are after him?" she finished with a question mark, looking back at Sayuri. Yet, she knew saying that wouldn't make a difference.

She stayed silent once again, raising her hand this time to rub the back of her head. Now that Sayuri had repeated it twice, she didn't know what questions to ask. There were so many - Can we trust him? Can he protect them if he didn't have an egg? What if he was working with the Egg Hunters? What if they had been in danger since day one? - yet she couldn't bring herself to say one of them. She bit her lip, her grip on her bag straps growing tighter as she tried to figure out what to say. "How..." she began. "How did you know this? Did he tell you?" And why - but that was left unspoken, as she stared expectantly at Sayuri for an answer.

But she realised that she hadn't yet asked another important question.

"Wait, why are you in a wheelchair?" she asked, eyebrows furrowed in concern.

[Sayuri]

Yasuko didn't speak for several moments sending Sayuri into a spiral of regret. Should she have kept this information from the other? Would it have been better not to say anything at all? Of everyone at this school she trusted Yasuko to have a hold on what was really happening, yet not once did she ever consider how this news would affect the girl. She almost wanted to reverse time, until the first year finally spoke.

"Y-yes..." Sayuri replied, allowing for her answer to sink in slowly before continuing, "Ai might have a better idea of what happened, or maybe that Guardian girl but.... well..... it seemed like that was the case." She sighed, trying her best to think back on the memory of that day. His words at the Tanabata Festival had been strange enough, but now they started to make more sense. These Egg Hunters didn't have eggs of their own, after all, whether by their own accord or by someone else. If he had a broken heart then wouldn't it make sense for them to be after him?

Still, she couldn't imagine trying to persuade him for so long. If he was an adult now, how long were they following after him? Was this a recent development, or something that he was hiding from? Was he the reason they closed off the West Otonoki train?

Was there something else to Sensei they weren't seeing?

"I just-- what?" The second year stopped short as she realized the other was no longer talking about the older man but about herself. Looking down at the contraption, she paused for a moment before smiling and shaking her head, "Oh! I guess I haven't really been wheeling around at school much lately. I'm having a bit of a flare up. You know, arthritis and all that - nothing super serious. My parents refused to let me out of the house unless I was in this thing, they're so overbearing sometimes."

She laughed as though it was nothing, pulling the blanket over her legs with a bit of a nervous tug. it was[/u] weird to suddenly show up at school with a wheelchair, but she didn't think it was too out of the ordinary. She was fine, the pain was minimal. She couldn't possibly look too out of place, could she?

[Yasuko Kobayashi]

Yasuko only nodded slowly at the other's answer. She didn't quite fully understood what had happened that day, but it sounded as if Sayuri wasn't the only one who had been talking to Kirishigi-sensei at the same time. Ai and the...Guardian girl...? "Guardian girl?" Yasuko repeated, her eyebrows contorted in a bit of puzzlement. But then again, why was Ai talking to Kirishigi-sensei? As far as she knew, Ai wasn't in the Guardians.

She gave a sigh once again, raising her hand to rub at her temples. This was a lot to take in. And yet it would now explain why the Egg Hunters had been looking for him that day. She pursed her lips a little, her mind mulling over the new information that she had been given. Honestly she didn't know what to make of it. Her eyebrows knitted together again and she stared back at Sayuri in a bit of confusion. "But...why are they doing this? I know his egg is broken but..." She gave a sigh. "What exactly do the Egg Hunters want from him? To get his knowledge? To tell him something? To recruit him or something? And - you said they've been doing it for years right? But why?" God there were so many things that they didn't know with this whole thing. "Or...had he been working with them the whole time.....?"

Or perhaps...would they only know more if they talked to Kirishigi-sensei directly...?

She shook her head again and sighed deeply.

Hearing her words again, the first-year looked back at Sayuri again. But the more the second-year spoke, the more surprised she became; and her eyes widened a little and her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She didn't say anything for a while, only looking at her with a look of disbelief. "Flare-up...? Arthri--Ar-what?" What did Sayuri say the first time? Was it just her, or did it sound like one of those joint diseases that affected the elderly? She had never heard of it afflicting a young person like Sayuri before. Her voice suddenly became a little panicky, a touch of concern in them. "What do you mean? Do you mean you can't walk now or something?"