Katawa Shoujo Forums

Worlds Apart

As One
A young girl with long brown hair, messy but clean, plodded up to the sink and turned it on. Her eyes were half-closed, and she didn’t bother looking at herself in the mirror. She wanted to wash her hands with as little brain power as possible, since as soon as she was done she’d be going back to bed, and dreaming about the upcoming holiday vacation.

The water coming from the tap was frigid, since it was now properly winter, but trying to find a balance between the hot and cold taps was far too much effort for this time of night. Besides, before long, she had finished with the soap and water, and reached for a towel. She closed her eyes completely as she dried her hands, since the bright bathroom light was irritating. Indeed, it only seemed to get brighter and brighter, until-

A loud noise accompanied the brightest moment, seemingly attacking her from all directions, but soon fell to a low hum and glow, and a few seconds later both the light and noise were gone. She opened her eyes again, not quite sure what to expect, but the bathroom looked unchanged. She wondered briefly what had happened, but quickly decided not to waste any more thought on it, since it would only keep her from sleep longer.

She pushed through the bathroom door, then ambled down the hallway, opened the door to her room, and stepped inside. She didn’t notice anything different for the first few steps towards her bed, but as she looked a bit closer to make sure she could fall directly into it, she noticed something strange: a human figure lying where she had been mere minutes ago.

Her brain, only just becoming aware that it might not be able to go to sleep yet, began to think. Why was there someone in her bed? Well, maybe it wasn’t actually her bed. Maybe she had accidentally gone into the wrong room? Her only hallmate was on the other side of the hall, but how certain was she that she had turned left instead of right? It was the middle of the night, after all.

The figure suddenly groaned. “Ugh... Hello?”

Her hallmate definitely didn’t sound like that. That was a rough male voice - and there shouldn’t’ve been any boys in the building at this hour, let alone in her room. Something was very wrong. She backed away, almost stumbling as she reached the lightswitch, but managed to catch herself against the wall and turn on the lights. When she turned back around, blinking to try and adjust to the sudden increase in light, she saw exactly what she had feared: a teenage boy, dressed in only boxer shorts, rubbing his eyes as he sat up.

She shrieked. “Who- What are you doing here?”

The boy, his brown hair matted and ruffled - almost as if he had been sleeping there all night, despite the fact that he couldn’t’ve been there for any more than a few minutes - groaned. “This is my room. What are you doing here?”

“Wha- No! This is my room, and this is an all-girls school, so you shouldn’t be anywhere near here! Especially not in just your underwear!” She looked down and realized that she wasn’t exactly well-dressed herself, but that was besides the point.

“An all-girls... Wait, wait, no, this is my room, and we’re at Yamaku Academy.”

“Yes, Yamaku Academy, the all-girls school!”

The boy seemed to wake up a bit more upon hearing that, but his expression wasn’t comforting. “That’s not good.” He turned to look at the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry, my name is Hisao Nakai. What’s your name?”

Before she could formulate the beginnings of a tirade about how this was not the time to get to know each other, something struck her as unusual. “... I’m Nakai. Hisayo Nakai.”

The boy - Hisao - groaned again, then turned to look out the window. “Oh boy.”

“What?”

“Well, whatever’s happening, the barrier got activated.”

“The- The what?”

“Here, look.” He got up and moved to one side, beckoning for Hisayo to look out of the window.

Not entirely sure that it was a good idea, she stepped forward anyways, and was surprised to see a dim blue glow coming from all around. It was the dead of night, and the pathways were only lit by the lamps dotted around the campus, but every line of sight beyond the school’s buildings seemed to pass through some sort of transparent blue membrane; presumably, this was the ‘barrier’.

Something else was off. “The snow...” There was snow all over the ground, but none in the air - until Hisayo looked up, and saw snow falling from above. Or, rather, there was snow above her, but it wasn’t falling. It was suspended in midair, completely motionless, as far as the eye could see.

Her stomach turned over. “What the...” She backed away from the window, and her breathing became heavier, then faster. “This is- This isn’t real.” Hisao reached out to reassure her, but she recoiled away. “Don’t come near me, you- whoever, whatever, you-” She backed away, gasping for air, but tripped over herself, and fell to the floor. Pain shot through her chest, and her vision grew red, but she could still see the boy rush over to her, his hands outstretched, causing her even further panic.

He rolled her onto her back, and as her heartbeat pounded in her ears, she was certain that he was about to kill her. He put his hands onto her chest, and she became convinced that he was about to do something even worse. He closed his eyes, and she closed hers, terrified of whatever might come next, and then...

Silence.

She was still panicked, but it didn’t quite feel like it. Her heartbeat was still fast, but no longer deafening, and less erratic. Her breathing was heavy, but it no longer felt like she was gasping for air. She felt Hisao’s hands leave her chest, and opened her eyes; he was smiling, though he still looked like he had just woken up, which he had. “Deep breaths. Don’t try to get up too fast.”

It took a moment for Hisayo to realize what had happened - or rather, to realize that she had no idea what had happened. Her throat refused to cooperate, but she mouthed “What?”

“Your heart was acting up.” That much had been obvious. “I know because mine’s the same.” He grabbed a glass of water, and helped her sit up to drink from it.

As the water touched her lips, she realized just how thirsty she felt, and she downed the whole glass before stopping to take a breath. Her voice was still scratchy, but she was able to ask proper questions again. “But what did you do?”

“Oh, I just stabilized your atrial rhythm and breathing. Like I said, I have a lot of experience with this.”

“Okay, but... how?”

Hisao looked like he wasn’t quite sure how to answer that. “I, uh... I mean, I just worked with your energy tags. You must’ve interacted with those before - actually, didn’t they teach you how to do all of this when you got your heart condition?”

Hisayo’s face somehow contorted to express even further bewilderment. “What the fuck do you mean?”

Hisao’s eyes went wide. “Uh oh. Do you guys not have that?” Not entirely sure what he was asking, she shook her head anyways. “Do you at least have, like, a leyline?” Still no understanding graced her face. “Okay, this is going to be one hell of a shock, then. We need to talk to the staff.”

As he stood up to think about the best way to do that, a pleasant voice seemed to radiate from all around. “Apologies for waking you, but all students, please report to the auditorium. I repeat, all students, please report to the auditorium as soon as you are safely able. We will explain more once you’re all gathered.”

“Well, I guess that covers that. C’mon, we should get going before it gets packed.” He held out a hand, and Hisayo grabbed it, slowly getting up and making sure she could stand. “I guess we should get dressed, too.”

“Oh, right, right.” Blushing, she walked over to the closet and opened it up, only to see something unusual: the clothes there were a mixture of hers - green skirts, white blouses, a few bits of casual clothing - and dress pants and shirts, which she knew were technically part of the uniform but almost none of the girls wore. Plus, there were some strange sleeveless sweaters over to one side.

“Well that’s convenient. I wasn’t looking forward to wearing a skirt.” Hisao grabbed some of the strange clothes and began putting them on; the pants and button-down shirts fit him perfectly, and he even dug out a warm coat, which reminded Hisayo to do the same. Even if it wasn’t snowing out there for... whatever reason, it was probably still going to be just as cold.

As they got dressed, not having much time to feel very embarrassed about doing so in front of each other, another pleasant announcement occurred. “To any students who didn’t get the content of my first message, please report to the auditorium as soon as you are safely able. We will explain everything once you are gathered.”

As Hisayo put her arms through her blouse and began to button it up, she wondered aloud “Where is that coming from?”

“Oh, that’s just Nurse - I’m actually glad she’s still on shift, I thought she'd’ve gone home by now.” A moment later he realized that that wasn’t what was being asked. “Oh, right, uh, she’s just sort of... broadcasting her voice to us? But it’s actually just in our heads, doing it by sound would be problematic.”

“Into our heads?”

“Yeah.” Another pause. “That probably sounds weird to you.” Hisayo nodded. “Okay, well, I, uh... I promise it makes sense to me. You’ll have to take my word for that until we get to the auditorium, I guess. Nurse can probably do a better job of explaining it.”

Figuring that any further questions would probably end up with similar answers, Hisayo focused on getting dressed, her last hopes of being able to return to sleep vanishing into the past.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Alright, alright, can I have everyone’s attention please!” The voice from earlier was just as pleasant in person, though Hisayo wasn’t sure it was entirely natural. The woman it came from - thin, with a purple bob cut and a white lab coat - was addressing the entire auditorium without a microphone. Was her voice still going directly to the students’ heads? It didn’t seem quite as ethereal as before, at least.

The students themselves were just as interesting: here and there some larger groups had formed, such as the bulk of the student council Hisayo knew, as well as what she could only assume was the equivalent student council among the boys, but in general individual girls and boys were sticking with their... counterparts?

It was hard to describe, but she did feel some sort of deep connection with Hisao. They had so much in common that it was easy to trust him: his thoughts couldn’t be that far from her own. Or at least, that’s what she hoped; given the strange nature of everything that had happened, maybe she should’ve been less trusting, but it was still the middle of the night, and everyone was rather tired - including the purple-haired woman up on the stage, and the purple-haired man standing next to her, whom Hisayo knew as Nurse, and who began addressing the crowd with a megaphone.

“I know most of you are confused about what exactly is going on. I, too, have many questions about what’s happening and why. But after talking with this woman - you can all refer to us both as Nurse - I can assure you that we have a plan to return things to normal as soon as possible.” He motioned to the woman next to him. “So, Nurse, if you would?”

She grinned. “Certainly, Nurse. To the students who know me, some of this will be review, but I trust you understand the need for explaining everything to your new comrades.” Her face immediately became serious again. “Less than an hour ago, something caused a collapse in the universal manifold - the potential energy gap between a pair of universes disappeared, causing them to fuse. Put simply, two whole universes merged together.”

The other Nurse nodded. “One of those, of course, was the one which included me and the students I treat, who attend the Yamaku Academy for Disabled Girls.”

“And the other, of course, included the Yamaku Academy for Magically-Talented Boys.”

A wave of murmurs swept through the crowd, and Hisayo gasped. “Magically-talented?” She turned to Hisao, who met her gaze, and nodded. He was... magical? That would explain the insane happenings of the past hour, but also raised plenty more questions.

Once the rumblings from the students had died down, the woman continued. “Now, I know that will raise many questions from the girls. I can’t cover everything - and, in the end, it’s not that important to understand it all - but I’ll do my best to give you a broad overview.”

“The world we come from features a number of magical wellsprings, called leylines. Some people in our world can tap into their power - we call these people magicians, and they can perform otherwise impossible feats using this magic. These abilities are most potent at birth, but lose power as the magician ages. As such, academies of magic are vital, both to harness the power of these students before it fades, as well as to prevent them from getting hurt.”

Her tone turned somber. “You will have noticed that, while our Yamaku is not for ‘disabled’ students, most of our students do indeed have some form of disability. These are, in general, the result of magical accidents during their early years; especially since it’s currently impossible to gauge magical potency prior to its usage. The first sign of their potential is almost always some sort of self-inflicted wound, which tends to be permanent.”

The other Nurse held up his megaphone again. “This touches on another important point that many of you may have wondered about: magic cannot heal these permanent wounds.” He paused to let that sink in, but there was little response from the crowd; Hisayo had figured that would be the case, and it seems most of the other girls had had similar thoughts. “However, this magic can temporarily mitigate symptoms, which for many people is more than enough. This will be an important part of our plan going forward, as Nurse will explain.”

“Yes - but that will require a little more background.” She cleared her throat. “Although I said before that two universes collided, they haven’t actually collided yet - at least, for the most part. When a merge like this happens, it releases an incredible amount of energy - so much that it would likely destroy both universes in the process.” There were a number of gasps from the crowd.

“Fortunately, the school’s automated defenses identified the potential danger, and enacted a temporal barrier, stopping time in the outside world. For now, the merge has only occurred within this bubble, and that relatively small energy release was properly dissipated, resulting in the combined student body we have here.” She sighed. “However, this also clearly poses some problems.”

“First and foremost, it falls to us, within this school, to reverse the merge - otherwise, the outside world will be in great danger. And of course, we will have to manage this without any help from outside: no supplies, no sunlight or weather, and no extra personnel... including your teachers and administrators, who had gone home for the night. The nursing staff will do our best to fill their roles, but please understand that we will be spread rather thin.”

The other Nurse jumped in: “For those of you worried about the supplies, I have been assured that the students with magic will be able to procure all of the basics needed to keep us alive. They may not be able to conjure the more complex medications we generally rely on, but they’ll be performing direct treatment instead; I’ll be the one overseeing the logistics of that, so if you have any problems, or if you’re free to help, please come to the administration or nursing buildings, where we’ll be handling all of that.” With that, he lowered his megaphone and bowed.

“I, on the other hand, will be overseeing the other important task: undoing the merge, or as we call it, ‘forking’. It will take an incredible amount of energy to un-fuse these universes, but it’s not impossible. We have some of the most potent magicians on the planet here, and although their instantaneous power output is far too low, by storing that energy in a device - called a 'capacitor' - and then releasing it correctly all at once, we should be able to fork these universes and return to the way things were.” She bowed too, but then spoke again. “Questions?”

A number of hands went up across the auditorium, but a short girl near the front seemed to be the most anxious. “Yes, you in the front?”

“When will this be over?”

Nurse smiled. “Straight to the point, but a good question. There’s some uncertainty in the schedule, but we expect to fully charge the capacitor in about a week, at which point we can fork. Next?” Hands went up again, including Hisao’s - and Nurse noticed. “Yes, Nakai?” Hisayo jumped before realizing she wasn’t the Nakai in question.

“What will happen after we fork?”

Nurse chuckled. “Well, I’m sure you know, but thank you for the reminder. Due to the nature of universes as bundled worldlines on high-dimensional manifolds - and here I was hoping this wouldn’t get too complicated - merges happen forwards in time, and forks happen backwards; at least, according to the prevailing theory. So once we perform the fork, the merge itself will never have happened, meaning this time bubble will never have happened either. None of you will have any recollection of this week - it will be as if none of this ever happened.”

A tan-skinned girl in the back shouted the next question before anyone else got a chance. “You mean nothing we do here matters?”

“Not quite. It’s very important that we make absolutely no worldline changes, since any changes large enough to affect your worldline would travel backwards in time with the fork. Of course, that’s assuming we manage to fork at all; even the smallest worldline changes would unbalance our universes and dramatically increase the amount of energy needed to fork. Now, to change a worldline like that would require a catastrophic event, such as death, so it’s unlikely, but still, be careful with yourself and others. Speaking of which, Nurse?”

“Ah, of course, how could I forget. Since we've been merged into the same campus, we’re going to have to house twice as many students as usual in these dorms. For simplicity’s sake, to avoid moving hundreds of students around, we ask that you use the same room you normally do, which will mean having your counterpart as your roommate.”

His face hardened. “I’m sure you’re all aware that this will mean sharing a room with someone of the opposite sex. If that’s unacceptable to you, we have a few extra rooms, but they’re in short supply, so we’re asking that you do your best to accommodate each other. You should be similar enough to get along, but if there are any concerns at all, please raise them to either of us. It should go without saying that any failures to respect each other will be met with extremely harsh repercussions.”

That seemed to cow the student body, and before long the Nurses wrapped up, releasing everyone back to their rooms, where for the moment they tried desperately to catch up on the sleep they had missed.

Here Today
Hisayo was woken up by the sound of her phone vibrating, and slowly sat up to read the message. It was still dark; who could be texting her so early?

It was from Shizune: <Urgent student council meeting today. Come as soon as you can.> What, now? In the middle of the night? Bewildered, she checked the time on her phone: 9 o’clock.

Wait. 9? In the morning?

Her eyes darted up to check her alarm clock: it was off. The power must’ve been out, hence why it hadn’t gone off at the usual time. But how was it still so dark at this hour? She turned to look out of the window, and saw a dim blue glow surrounding the school, with falling snow frozen in place beyond it. “No way...”

Had that not been a dream? And if so, then-

“Ugh. Morning.” Sure enough, a raspy voice croaked from the floor of her room.

“Hisao?”

“Yup, that’s me.”

“Sorry, I just... I wondered for a moment whether that was a dream.”

He chuckled. “I can’t blame you. Our worlds seem pretty different.”

Hisayo offered a hand to the boy below her, who used it to pull himself up from his futon. She looked him over as she got out of bed, still not entirely used to the idea of having a doppelganger who was also a boy. And who also had magical powers. “So they really call you guys ‘magicians’?”

“Well... yeah.” He picked up on her tone. “Does it sound weird to you?”

“Sort of. I guess it just means something different in our world.”

“Really? It doesn’t mean someone who does magic?”

“No, I mean, it does, but since our world doesn’t have actual magic, it refers to somebody who pretends to do magic.”

Hisao was confused by the idea. “But if you don’t have magic, why would they pretend? If you know it can’t actually be magic, then what’s the point?”

Hisayo had never really thought about it in such depth. “It’s an entertainment thing, I guess. They try to do something in such a way that their audience can’t tell how they actually did it. And if the audience can’t explain it, then it seems like magic, even if they know it’s not.”

“Huh.” Hisao chewed on that for a moment. “You know, I think I’m beginning to understand just how strange this feels to you.”

Hisayo laughed. “Welcome to the club.” She remembered the text she had just gotten. “Speaking of clubs, does your Yamaku have a student council?”

“Yup. I’m actually the rep for class 3-3.”

“I should’ve known - that makes two of us. Shizune says we’re having a meeting. Presumably we're going to discuss our role in all of this merging universe stuff."

“Shizune, huh? Don’t tell me - president of the student council, and rep for class 3-1.”

“Exactly. Do you know her counterpart?”

“Oh yeah, you’ll meet him, he’s... Well, you’ll meet him.” He grinned.

“Only if we actually show up - come on, let’s get ready.”

For a pair of students from different universes who had only met a few hours ago, Hisayo thought, they sure seemed to get along well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hisayo wasn’t quite sure what to expect when she walked into the student council room, but at first glance, everything seemed pretty normal: Lilly, the class rep for 3-2, was talking to Misha, Shizune's translator. Every now and then the direction of the conversation would swap, sometimes in a rather heated manner, but that was par for the course with those three.

It took a moment longer for Hisayo to realize that a similar scene was playing out on the other side of the room, between three boys. A tall boy with smooth golden hair, which covered his eyes, was talking to a broad-shouldered boy, whose pink hair rose stiffly on one side of his parting, but fell into a number of small braids on the other. The pink-haired boy’s hands moved as he listened, and a relatively short boy with a blue buzz cut and a thin pair of glasses watched intently.

It wasn’t hard to tell who was rooming with who, but more detailed introductions were definitely in order. Then again, it probably wasn’t worth starting until-

The door swung open halfway, then paused, then was pushed all the way open, and a frail-looking girl in a wheelchair rolled into the classroom. Her long black hair - naturally brown, but dyed since sometime last year, if Hisayo remembered correctly - framed her pale face, which seemed to shrink away once she noticed how packed the room was.

“Yuika!” Hisayo made a point of trying to make her feel welcome. Of course, as class 3-4’s rep, she was obviously welcome, but sometimes her shyness got the better of her, so it was worth giving her a warm smile when the opportunity presented itself.

She smiled back, but then hurried to vacate the doorway and let another student follow her: a skinny boy with black hair, who seemed even more shy than the girl who had preceded him as he rolled his own wheelchair in.

Rather than smiling at him, however, Hisao seemed surprised by this boy’s appearance. “Yuichi, you made it in person?”

Both the blonde boy and the pink-haired boy perked up upon hearing this, evidently just as surprised as Hisao had been. Still, they waited for the new arrival to talk.

“Ah, yeah, Yuika was showing me her wheelchair, and it seemed kinda cool, so I thought I’d try one out. It’s been nice, getting to go around campus like this... even if my arms are pretty sore now.”

“GYAHAHAHA~!” The rest of the room flinched at the roar of the pink-haired boy’s laughter. “Yuichi, you know we don’t mind if you join meetings from your room - don’t push yourself just to come see us in person!”

“No, really, I just wanted to see what it was like... At least they already cleared all the snow. Yuika said it’s really tough trying to use one of these otherwise.” Hisayo knew from experience that Yuika would sometimes be late when it was snowy out; still, she insisted on coming every time. Maybe that attitude had rubbed off on her counterpart.

“Well, then,” Lilly gestured to the students around her, “since all the representatives are here, shall we start?”

Shizune and her counterpart nodded, and began signing to their respective translators, only realizing after a few seconds that they had been ‘talking over’ each other. After a brief exchange, Shizune seemed to cede to the other boy, who instructed the pink-haired boy to begin.

“Alright, so! Welcome to this special session of the student council - it’s pretty obvious that we have a lot to discuss, but before that, we should probably perform some introductions. Would the ladies like to go first?”

Shizune nodded, and began signing, which Misha quickly translated. “Hello everyone, I’m Shizune Hakamichi, student council president and representative for class 3-1. It’s a pleasure to meet you all.” Shizune finished signing, but Misha kept going. “By which I mean, she is! I’m Misha, her translator, also from class 3-1! I hope we all get along!”

“Hey, wait a min-” the pink-haired boy began to interject, a broad smile on his face, but he was cut off by the blonde boy, who shushed him as Lilly prepared to speak.

“I’m Lilly Satou, the representative for class 3-2. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” She bowed, and Hisayo went next.

“Hello everyone, I’m Hisayo Nakai, representing class 3-3. Nice to meet you all.” She turned and nodded to Yuika.

“I’m, uh, Yuika Yamamoto. I’m class 3-4’s rep. Hey.”

A brief silence hung in the air afterwards, but the blue- and pink-haired boys were quick to fill it, as they began signing and translating respectively. “Good morning to you all, I’m Shinsuke Hakamichi, student council president and representative for class 3-1, specializing in cognition magic. I’m looking forward to working with you all.”

‘Cognition magic’? Hisayo wasn’t quite sure what to make of that - none of her classmates were ‘specialized’. She decided not to worry about it too much, and turned her attention back to the pink-haired boy, whose calm expression gave way to a grin. “Of course, he’s actually Shinsuke, and I’m his translator, Misha!” He shrugged at the pink-haired girl across from him. ”Sorry, Misha.”

Misha laughed with her characteristic “Wahaha~!”, but didn’t say anything else, letting the tall blonde boy go next.

“Well, I’m sure that won’t get confusing at all. Regardless, I’m Louis Satou, the representative for class 3-2 and a specialist in magical communication. I’m excited to work with you all.” He finished with a bow, then turned to Hisao.

“Hello, I’m Hisao Nakai, representative for 3-3. I specialize in the magic of stability. Nice to meet you.” He motioned to the black-haired boy in a wheelchair.

“I’m Yuichi Yamamoto, rep for 3-4. I don’t really have a specialization, but I try to help out anyways.”

After a brief pause, Shizune made some signs to Shinsuke, who began signing to Misha, who began to speak. “With that out of the way, let’s get down to business. To start, I’d like to go over some of the responsibilities us boys will be dealing with: Nurse left me a list, but if you think of anything that should be added, speak up.”

Shinsuke pulled out a sheet of paper, and placed it on the table before reading it off. “Food and water are the obvious ones. Oxygen generation and carbon dioxide scrubbing should be handled by the protections built into the barrier, but we’ll need to monitor them carefully, given their importance. Waste management is also crucial - we have some students inspecting the systems to make sure they’re functional after the merge, but they’ll need attention regardless. The girls use a lot of electrical power in lieu of magical power, so we’re working with some of them on the best way to provide that. And finally, of course, any leftover time you have should be spent charging the capacitor. The sooner we fork, the less work we need to do. Shizune?”

Shizune nodded, and started signing her own half of the proceedings. “While the boys are focused on running those systems, we’ll be tasked with the logistics. For one, most of those requirements exist 24 hours per day, which means we either need students working on round-the-clock shifts, or some way for them to store their work and release it over time. We need ways to measure how well these requirements are being met, and ideally, some sort of warning system if they’re not. When in doubt, try to improve the work your counterparts are doing, but be ready to switch your focus if something comes up, or another student asks for your help.”

“Speaking of which,” Lilly added, “we need to keep an eye on student morale as well. This is a rather difficult situation, and my guess is that most students will have some trouble coping. We need to make sure that they’re staying positive, and that they have someone to talk to otherwise.”

Shizune nodded. “I trust you’ll be willing to spearhead that effort?”

“Certainly. I’ll start gathering some more students to help with that once we’re done here.”

Something crossed Hisayo’s mind: “Speaking of morale, boys, is there some way you could make, like, an artificial sun? The path lighting is fine for walking around, but constant nighttime is a little depressing.”

“Plus it means low vitamin D levels”, added Yuika.

Yuichi quickly volunteered. “It should be pretty easy to get something like that set up - just a bright light with the right spectrum, floating above for 12 hours a day. Could even add some redness in the morning and evening to make it more realistic.”

They carried on assigning duties, making sure that each issue had someone assigned to it, before adjourning for the day. It would be a lot of work, but at least they had a plan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hisao exhaled deeply, clearly winded from his first stint charging the capacitor. It was a massive construction: a multifaceted brick-red crystal, 3 meters in diameter and 10 meters tall, surrounded by black scaffolding and bright white chains, with large hoses extending from the bottom, all placed right in the center of the courtyard. It had been a group effort to put it together, but he had done a lot of the work to make it stable, since that was his specialty.

Multiple students stood around its base, channeling their energy into the hoses to charge it. Even more boys hung around nearby, either recovering from a session, waiting to have a turn, or both. Hisao, however, had had enough for the day, by the look of it.

He walked over to Hisayo, who had been waiting for him to finish - they had accomplished the rest of their duties, and she had wanted to know what this magical capacitor looked like in action. It was impressive, certainly, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to spend any longer watching boys stand around straining themselves.

Still, without anything else lined up for the rest of the day, all that was left was to relax. “Say, Hisao, want to go for a walk?” She noticed his breathing was still a bit heavy. “If you’re not too tired, that is.”

He chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry - being tired from magic is different. Like how something can make your body tired without making your brain tired, or vice versa.”

“I guess that makes sense. So you’re okay walking and staying awake, but you don’t want to do any more magic today.”

“Exactly.” They turned onto a nearby path and fell into step beside each other. “It also means that I don’t have to be very careful about magic messing with my heart, which is nice.”

Hisayo sighed. “Sounds like a dream come true, to be honest. I wish I could do more stuff without worrying about my heart.”

“It’s not that different, honestly - I still can’t run any more than you can.”

“But you can use magic instead, right? Just teleport yourself to where you need to be.”

Hisao’s eyes went wide. “Woah! No no no, that is not how that works. Teleportation is super dangerous, and can cause huge problems. Not only do you have to specialize in it during high school, you have to go to university for it, and then you have to get a license, which needs to be renewed every year. Definitely not just something I can do instead of running.”

Hisayo rolled her eyes. “Fine, no teleporting, but what about flying? Or even just using magic to move your legs instead of using the muscles?”

“Eh... Flying’s doable, but takes a lot of magic, so it’s not great for anything other than short bursts. And moving your legs would work, but is kind of a pain relative to just... walking.” He scratched his chin. “Then again, Yuichi has done that kind of stuff sometimes when he needed to.”

“Ah, right.” That reminded her of something. “Did I hear him right, that he had never used a wheelchair before?”

“Yup. We don’t really have those, as far as I know.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“... What do you mean, what do I mean?”

“It’s literally just a chair with wheels, surely someone in your universe has invented it!”

“Oh, yeah, probably. But it’s not really that useful to us. We can use magic if needed, and most of the time we don’t even need to - Yuichi attends most of his classes and stuff remotely, just listening in through magic, so he doesn’t have to spend as much effort.”

“Huh.” One of those words caught Hisayo’s attention. “When you say ‘us’, you mean magicians?”

“Yeah.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Well, at birth, about 1 in every 100 children have some sort of magical ability.” He sighed. “Of course, over time, that power fades, so by age 40 most of those don’t have much left, and by age 60 it’s almost entirely gone from everyone.”

“So they use their power up?”

“Hah! If only. No, that power fades whether we use it or not. Which means we had better use it as much as possible while we still can.”

“And you can’t give that power away to others?”

Hisao grimaced. “Oh no. Trust me, people have tried, and tried very hard... there’s some pretty dark history involved.”

Dark history? “I didn’t expect you guys to have much of that.”

"You didn't?"

"Well, I thought magic would make all that stuff pretty moot. You know, since you can conjure all the resources you need, and treat injuries, and stop time... You can literally un-merge universes, why would you ever need to fight a war?"

Hisao sighed. "I know that magic must seem like a cure-all to you, but it really just causes as many problems as it fixes. It has plenty of limits, like with teleportation, or with how long it'll take to fix this merge. Plus, magicians are still people, and they have the same desires and vices, so it's commonplace to find magic being used to break the law, not just uphold it. And then, of course, there's age."

"Age? What's the problem with age?"

"Like I said, magic is strongest in young people, and fades as you grow older."

"I got that, but... so what?"

Hisao sighed. "Magic is so powerful that society has been shaped around it. But that has also led to huge societal issues - like with age - that don't have easy solutions. Assuming people want to solve them at all."

Hisayo could tell that Hisao was saddened by what he was saying, but she was simply too intrigued to let it go. "If you don't mind, could you... explain those issues?"

Hisao was quiet for a few seconds, his expression remaining dark, but eventually he acquiesced. "Well, basically, society runs on magic, but magic needs talented young people. So there's a huge push to train kids as fast as possible. We have to specialize early, so that we can start working as soon as possible, regardless of how we feel or how ready we are, even in important roles like healthcare - which is a mess in and of itself. Louis could tell you more about that: he considered it early on, but left in a hurry once he got a taste."

"Worse, it's not just training kids, it's having them, too. There's a lot of societal pressure on women to have kids, so that those kids can power the ever-more-demanding world. In more-developed countries, there are huge universal subsidies for having and raising children; in less-developed countries, many women just have as many kids as they can manage, hoping to hit the lottery with a magician who can support them."

He pursed his lips. "But you can see where this is going. Have more kids to support yourself. Those kids grow up and lose their magic. Then they need to have more kids to support themselves. Every generation keeps going further and further into magical debt. If it stays that way for long enough, one day it's just going to collapse. But old people assume that it won't happen in their lifetime, and young people don't have much of a choice."

Hisayo was stunned. "I... I'm sorry. I didn't-"

"It's okay." Hisao smiled wryly. "I do think there's hope - I just don't think the odds are in our favor. We'll make it through, but it probably won't be pretty." He sighed.

There was another uncomfortable silence. "Well, if it's any consolation, I think that if anyone can do it, you can. Looking at how everyone's handling this whole ordeal, it seems like you guys could do anything, if you set your minds to it."

Hisao exhaled sharply through his nose, and smiled a bit more. "I'm not sure I agree with you, but thanks nonetheless."

The weight of that conversation still pressing down on them, neither one of them said anything for a while, instead taking in the beauty of the campus under its new artificial light. However, as they walked towards the edge of campus and into view of the barrier, something bright caught Hisayo's eye.

At first, she was merely curious, but as she looked more closely, a sickening realization came over her. “Oh... Oh no. Oh shit.”

“What?”

She pointed towards a speck of bright pink just beyond the barrier, which was attached to the figure of a broad-shouldered boy, frozen in midair.

“Holy shit... it’s Misha.”

Once the initial astonishment wore off, Hisayo broke into a sprint toward the motionless boy.

“Hisayo, wait! Stop!” She didn’t even hear Hisao’s words, too focused on racing to provide help-

Until she felt something catch her hands, and then her feet, and then her torso.

She looked down and saw that she was wrapped in glowing white chains, anchored into the ground - Hisao’s magic.

She shot him a fiery glare. “What are you doing? Let me go!”

“No, Hisayo, you can't-”

“Let me go, damnit!”

“Hisayo, listen to me! If you accidentally cross the barrier, you’re going to end up just like Misha, frozen in time! You have to stay here, okay?”

It took a second for the gears to turn in Hisayo’s head, but she finally nodded. “Sorry, you’re right, I... I just wanted to-”

“It's okay.” The magical chains melted away, and Hisao put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to contact Nurse, and she should get here any second.”

Hisayo looked up at Misha again, and noticed something even more disturbing: his expression, now in clear view, was one of abject terror. His eyes were wide open, as was his mouth, like he was screaming. Something was very wrong.

Seconds later, with some strange sounds, Nurse suddenly appeared, breathing heavily. “I’m here, what’s the emer-” She looked up and saw Misha’s still body. “Oh boy.”

Hisao began to explain: “We were on a walk, and just noticed him frozen there - I have no idea what happened.”

“Whatever it was, he looks terrified.” Hisayo added. “Is he going to be okay?”

After a few deep breaths, Nurse nodded. “Yes, he should be okay. The barrier has protections in place to prevent any damage when something - or someone - crosses it. That said, there’s no way to get him back now. He’s going to be out there until either we fork, or the bubble collapses.” She turned to Hisayo. “There’s nothing else to be done.”

While Hisayo was glad Misha wasn’t hurt, it was still chilling to think that he was... gone. In both of the cases Nurse described, she would never see him again - and, indeed, might never have seen him in the first place.

“I never got to say goodbye.”

Flies
Hisayo watched, feeling rather helpless, as the girls in front of her hugged. Misha was clearly sad, but it was more of a quiet sorrow - she had had almost a week to come to terms with things. Ibarazaki, on the other hand, had only just experienced it, and was sobbing into her friend’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, Emi. He’ll be okay.”

“I know, I know.” She spoke through sobs. “But I’m going to miss him. Eiji understood me, he understood... everything.”

“Yeah. Misha was-” she sniffed, on the brink of tears herself- “he meant a lot to me, even if I only knew him for a day. I wish I could talk to him again.”

On the other side of the room, Tezuka was impossible to read. Yuika was trying to talk to her, but she seemed distant. That was often a problematic sign, but for this particular red-headed girl, it was hard to tell.

Both Tezuka and Ibarazaki had just lost their counterparts - both boys were found frozen outside the barrier, the latest in a string of such incidents over the past week. This one was worse, though; there had never been two at once before.

By now the pattern had long been understood: whoever - or whatever - was behind all this had been targeting some of the most powerful magicians on campus. None of the girls had been targeted, but the boys were falling like dominos. After Misha, Shinsuke had been furious, vowing to find the culprit. They had found him frozen the very next day.

Louis had followed fairly shortly after; he had managed to get a brief message out before leaving the barrier, but unfortunately it only said “She”. The only two possibilities anyone could think of were that the culprit was a girl - which wouldn’t make sense, since they had almost certainly used magic - or that he was talking about Shinsuke, who was already frozen by that point.

Since then, Hisao and Yuichi had been on high alert, knowing full well that they were obvious targets, as the only remaining boys on the student council. For a day or two, everything had been quiet, and they had wondered whether it was over, despite rumors swirling among the students. But now it was clear that that had simply been wishful thinking.

As part of their precautions, Hisao and Yuichi had been sticking with their counterparts - and since Hisayo and Yuika were both focusing on helping the affected girls, the two boys sat off to one side. Since Hisayo didn’t actually have much to do at the moment, she walked over to join them, just as Hisao started to talk about a new topic.

“Say, Yuichi, have you noticed your magic being... different around your counterpart?”

“Oh yeah, definitely. I feel stronger when Yuika’s around.” He shrugged. “Then again, I don’t know whether that’s an actual magical difference, or just because I’m usually in a better mood when she’s around. Could be either.”

Hisao shook his head. “Nah, it’s real. I haven’t been able to quantify the difference yet, but Hisayo definitely increases my power output. I’m wondering whether that’s why the capacitor is charging faster than expected, despite us losing some of our top students.”

“Hmm. Maybe. You think it’s related to the proximity of our worldlines or something?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I haven’t really had much time to think about it. I’d mention it to Nurse, but, well...”

“Yeah. She’s got bigger things to deal with.”

Hisao sighed. “Yeah.”

Hisayo decided to chime in: “Well, if nothing else, I guess that means it’s even more important that we stick together. If I can help you avoid getting thrown out of the barrier, I definitely want to.”

The boys nodded, and Yuichi agreed. “Yeah, I’m staying as close to Yuika as I can. Even so, I’m not sure I have much of a chance against... whatever’s attacking us.”

“All we can do is hope, I guess.”

The conversation paused, but only for a moment. “This is going to sound weird, Hisao, but... does any of this make you want to stay?”

“Stay? What do you mean?”

“Well, all these students keep being thrown out of the barrier, but we still don’t know why. And the moment we fork, everything we know gets lost. Whatever happened, it’s going to have to happen all over again in order for us to notice - and then we won’t even have the extra power from our counterparts to help us investigate!”

Hisao rubbed his chin. “Ehhh, I see what you mean, but I’d rather have the whole outside world helping than just a bit of extra power.”

“But that also means they have the whole world to hide in! Whatever’s happening here, at least it’s happening here.”

“True, but what would we even do if we figured it out? Like you said, we can’t just take that knowledge with us.”

Yuichi sighed. “Yeah. I guess I just feel like it’s better to take our time, so that we don’t miss anything. I know everyone wants to go home as soon as possible, but... what’s to stop us staying? The barrier’s stable, and we have all our resources taken care of - so what’s the difference between forking in a week and forking in a month?”

“It’s a gamble. The longer we wait, the greater the chance something damages a worldline, which might make it impossible to fork. And if we can’t fork, then eventually - even if it takes millenia - the barrier will fail, and our universes will tear themselves apart during the merge.” He smiled. “Hisayo is the best friend I could ever ask for, and I’m sad that I won’t remember her, but that’s a small price to pay for the safety of everyone and everything we’ve ever known.”

Yuichi hung his head. “You’re right. We’re always going to want more time, but... in the end, we can’t take that risk.” He wiped a tear from one eye. “I wish it wasn’t like this.”

Hisao put one hand on his shoulder.

“Me too, man. Me too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As Hisayo shuffled through the crowded auditorium, trying to find a pair of seats for herself and Hisao, flashes of red here and there caught her eye: upon closer inspection, some students were wearing strange scarlet masks. At first she thought that it might’ve been something the boys did for large gatherings like this, but then she realized that some girls were doing it too - indeed, it seemed like they were only worn by pairs of counterparts. Still, the search for a seat kept her distracted, and by the time she sat down, Nurse and Nurse were beginning to address the students.

The Nurse with long hair spoke first: “Alright, if I could have everyone’s attention, please.” She surveyed the crowd, which seemed to take a bit longer than usual, but once the students had quieted down she continued. “First and foremost, I’d like to thank you all for your efforts. Thanks to you all, we’ve had a fairly smooth week, and the capacitor was charged right on schedule. As soon as we’re done here, we’ll begin the process of forking - however, I wanted to give you the chance to ask any lingering questions prior to that.”

Many students raised their hands, but Nurse pointed to a girl near the front. “Do we know how those boys got thrown out of the barrier?”

“Unfortunately, no. We’ve investigated as much as we can, but forking takes priority. Besides, once the fork is complete, our investigation will be moot anyways.”

The next student to be called on was a boy near the middle. “How do we know this merge won’t happen again?”

Nurse chuckled. “Well, the truth is, we don’t. Since each fork makes it so that the respective merge never happened, we have no way of knowing how many merges have been forked. That said, our best guess is that merge events are rare, based on our limited understanding of the universal manifolds involved.”

Before Nurse could pick another student to call on, she was interrupted by a boy in a scarlet mask, who yelled his question at her: “What if we don’t want to fork?”

She was taken aback. “I’m... not sure why you wouldn’t want to, but-”

This time it was a girl in a red mask who interrupted. “Maybe we don’t want to go back to our world!”

Nurse sighed. “Well, the rest of us do, and we can’t exactly leave you behind.”

“Then let us choose which world we go back to!”

She rubbed her temples. “Unfortunately, that’s not how that works. We need to make sure that both universes are balanced, so that we have enough energy to-”

“Then let us swap with our counterparts!” At this suggestion, all of the students in the red masks cheered, though Nurse only grew more frustrated.

“You can’t just leave your lives behind like that, you-”

“But we won’t even remember them!”

“So you don’t even know what you’re going to get! You have no way of knowing, and besides, we don’t have-” Nurse was finally drowned out by a cacophony of voices.

“It’s worth the risk!”

“Who gives a shit about this world?”

“We have as much time as we need, why are you rushing us?”

“You could never understand what it’s like for us!”

“Go fork yourself!”

The masked students began to chant that line, over and over, until-

“ENOUGH!”

The entire auditorium covered their ears, hurt by a shout that had been amplified by a megaphone.

“I may not know much about magic, but I know plenty about unruly students. You will be returning to your own worlds, and that’s final.” Nurse lowered his megaphone and exited the stage, with his counterpart quickly following.

Hisao and Hisayo knew that that was their cue, and they quickly made their way for the exit to the courtyard - they were met by Yuichi and Yuika once they arrived there, all four of them slightly out of breath.

“Man, Hisao, I wish you could tell those guys what you told me.”

“It doesn’t matter now, come on.”

They quickly walked over to the capacitor, which had turned bright yellow over the past week, where they were joined by both Nurses. “Alright, just like we practiced, everyone. Let’s get this over with.”

As they took their positions around it, however - each magician acting as one point of a triangle, and their counterparts standing next to them - a crowd of masked students erupted from the auditorium, and began marching towards the capacitor.

“Shit.” Nurse moved from her position. “Hisao and Yuichi, you focus on getting it going. I’ll try to keep them from interfering.” The boys nodded, their eyes remaining closed in concentration, as she walked over to meet the throng of chanting students.

Luckily, she noticed that unmasked students were also now coming to see what was up. “So, those of you who want to swap - are you prepared to fight your fellow students who want to go home?”

The chanting stopped, and they murmured among themselves, until a girl near the front grabbed the hand of the boy next to her and raised it into the air in defiance. One by one, the pairs of students followed, holding hands and raising them into the air, where they began to glow red.

“Is that a yes?”

“I think it’s a no.” said a deep, warbling voice from behind her. “I think they want to resolve this without violence. What a shame.”

She spun around to see who it was - but wasn’t prepared for what she saw. A dense cloud of black smoke, upon which floated a large red mask, loomed between Nurse and the capacitor.

“And just what are you supposed to be?”

“I am the will of the people.”

“Uh huh. But let me guess: only the ones wearing those stupid masks?”

“The masks merely let them speak without being repressed. Those without them still hold this desire in their hearts.”

“Repressed? I literally just got done letting everyone speak.”

“And yet you did not listen. Perhaps now, that will change.”

The cloud of smoke shifted, warped, grew, and in a split second reached out and grabbed Hisayo, lifting her into the air. She screamed, and was about to yell for Hisao’s help, before realizing that he needed to stay focused on the capacitor. The only thing that mattered now was forking - once that was done, this would all be fixed. She closed her eyes, and prayed that she was still close enough to be helping him.

By this point Nurse was out of patience. She focused on the cloud of smoke, and beams of light erupted from her hands, racing toward it - and then passing right through it. She pouted, focused harder, and the smoke seemed to undulate in response... but remained in place.

“It is strange that you choose not to negotiate, given that you also lack the power to meaningfully fight.”

“Trust me, the second my backup arrives, you’re toast.”

“If you mean the fork, then unfortunately, I don’t have that much time. But, if it will help, I can discharge that capacitor much faster than your lackeys.”

Before anyone could react, a tendril of smoke wrapped around one of the capacitor’s hoses, hoisted it off of the ground, and thrust it into contact with Hisayo’s back.

“NO!”

Pain shot through Hisayo, but she was distracted from it by visions of incredible things - of what was, what had been, what could be, in every universe, all at once. It became impossible to distinguish the burning sensation in her body from the glorious, powerful feeling of having magic at her fingertips. It poured into her, its weight tugging at her soul, stretching her consciousness thin. She could see all of her worldlines, streaming off into infinity, most in directions she had never been able to point before.

One by one, they snapped - and, finally, so did she.

As quickly as it had arrived, the cloud of smoke disappeared, revealing a capacitor which was now a dull brick red again, and dropping Hisayo to the ground.

Yuika was the first to reach her, wheeling over as fast as possible, then throwing herself from her wheelchair onto the ground next to the lifeless girl. “Hisayo, Hisayo, please!” Tears welled up in her eyes as she received no response from her friend. “Not like this, Hisayo, please...”

Hisao and Yuichi, the energy of the capacitor having been torn out from under them, lay on the ground in a daze, which made the Nurses the next ones to reach Hisayo. Unfortunately, they quickly realized that there was nothing to be done. “I’m sorry.”

As Yuika began to bawl, the Nurses’ attention turned to the crowd of students nearby - many of which were now fidgeting under their scarlet masks.

Confession
“You have to believe me, I never wanted to hurt anyone!”

“Bullshit, Kenji.” Hisao’s face remained cold, thinly veiling his rage. “You got together with a bunch of other students who wanted to stop the fork, you all started casting magic, and then a construct just so happened to appear, wearing the same mask as you, and severed all of a student’s worldlines, unbalancing our universes and preventing the fork, just like you wanted.”

“I know it looks bad, and it’s not a coincidence, but I promise - I swear - we had no idea that was going to happen! We were just putting on a light show, not casting any sort of combat magic! And we just wanted to swap, not prevent the fork entirely!”

“What do you mean, ‘not a coincidence’?”

Kenji fidgeted behind his thick glasses. “The scarlet masks had a leader, an organizer. We never met him, but he appeared to us with a construct just like that - a cloud of smoke, wearing the mask.”

“And you never thought this mysterious leader was a problem? Even as students were being thrown out of the barrier?”

“No! Of course he wanted to stay anonymous - we all did! And even if he was behind that stuff, we didn’t mind, because nobody got hurt!” He shook his head. “This is completely different.”

Much as Hisao didn’t want to believe that story, it really did seem to be the truth. Multiple students, boys and girls, had corroborated it. There was little doubt that the masked students hadn’t committed the murder - or rather, that only one of them had.

“Fine. Go back to the cafeteria. We’ll come get you if we have any more questions.”

Kenji stood up to leave, but paused. “Hisao, man, I just want to say, I’m really sorry about-”

“GO.”

Everything had gone completely wrong. Hisayo’s death, as well as being mentally devastating for Hisao, had unbalanced the universes, so it would take hundreds of times as much energy to fork now - if it was even possible. The sheer amount of energy involved had also severed all of her worldlines, meaning that there was no way to balance things out. Most of the people who would normally have helped with this ordeal were frozen outside of the barrier. And despite digging as deep as possible into the only leads he had, he was really no closer to knowing who was behind it all.

He tried to go through it again in his head: what did he know?

The killer was probably also the one who had frozen the other students. But why freeze them at all? It was easier than killing them, sure, but harder than doing nothing at all. It did mean that they weren’t around to help with the fork or protect Hisayo - but could the killer really have seen that far in advance? The first freeze was almost a week ago! And none of this information had anything to do with Louis’s final message, either!

The killer was also almost certainly a boy - they had to have been on campus in the middle of the night when the merge happened, and they had to be a magician. Then again, how certain was he about that? How certain was he about anything?

Worst of all, how certain was he that any of this mattered anymore?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It just doesn't make sense."

"Yeah. I'm stumped too." Yuichi's face was puzzled, in contrast to Hisao and Yuika beside him, who just looked empty. "Do you think we have much of a chance to figure it out any more? Or is it too late now?"

"I don't know." Hisao sighed. "I just don't know."

"But, I mean... you're going to keep trying, right? Not just for Hisayo, but for yourself - some of the students think that the only way to rebalance the universes would be to kill you!"

Indeed, Hisao had heard many rumors about students willing to kill him and restore the balance. It was the easiest solution, after all - even worse, he wasn't sure that there was a better one. "They might be right."

"But... You wouldn't let them do that, would you?"

"I don't know. I want to believe that there's a way to avoid it, but... if that's the only way, then that's what I'll do." He had heard some promising things from the scarlet mask members he had interrogated - they were close to being able to swap worldlines - but who knows whether they'd ever be able to patch up Hisayo's absence properly.

"Really? You're not... afraid to die?"

Hisao chuckled grimly. "I don't know anymore. But if I can help somebody else in the process, then maybe that's all I can hope for."

"Wow." Yuichi took a moment to think of what to say. "You're a braver man than I, Hisao. I couldn't be that selfless. Especially now that Yuika is here."

Hisao considered talking about how he used to have Hisayo, but decided not to bother. He just kept silent, and the conversation died down for a bit as they approached the edge of campus, where Hisayo had first seen Misha frozen outside, what felt like forever ago.

Yuichi tried to start things up again - he was the only one of the three, it seemed, who felt like talking. "Speaking of students, have those scarlet mask guys given you any more trouble?"

"Nah, they've been pretty quiet since we interrogated them, though I think they're still trying to figure out how to swap worldlines. Why?"

"Well, I mean, you're kind of caught up in this forking debate they're having, so-"

"Debate? It's a debate now?"

Yuichi laughed. "Come on, you interrogated some of them, you must've seen how desperate they were to swap their worlds - that kind of desperation could lead them to do some pretty crazy stuff."

"I guess. But it seemed like they wanted to delay the fork - and like you said, me being alive is currently the single biggest thing holding it back."

"So maybe they're trying to keep you alive!"

Hisao laughed - his first proper, hearty laugh of the day. "What, you think the scarlet masks have a plot to get me to eat right?"

Yuichi smiled too. "Or to throw you out of the barrier."

Before he could fully process those words, Hisao felt an invisible force slam into him, knocking him up into the air, tumbling end over end. The dim blue glow of the barrier seemed to get brighter each time he saw it, and he instinctively reached out with both hands for stability.

Glowing white chains flew from his fingertips, and the one from his left hand made contact with the ground, anchoring itself in the soil. He focused on wrenching it taut, and it did manage to stop him - but in the process, he felt a sickening pop from his left shoulder, followed by intense pain, which caused him to scream.

That scream was cut short as he hit the ground, knocking the wind out of him and causing even more pain. He felt another powerful push, and tried his best to pull the chain in, clawing at the ground with his uninjured hand. He could feel his feet begin to go numb as the time differential ate at them, and desperately pulled himself forward; they regained feeling, and he opened his eyes to see his friend floating in front of him. "Yu... Yuichi?"

Something was terribly wrong. Hisao closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the pain, focusing on sending a message to Nurse - but he didn't get a response.

"Sorry, Hisao - not gonna work. Don't you think that's the first thing Shinsuke tried?"

Shinsuke - all of the others - Hisayo-

Another wave rammed into him, causing him to scream again as the pain got worse, but this time he was securely chained down to the ground, and didn't move an inch.

"I don't want to hurt you, Hisao. Just let go, and the pain can stop."

Hisao opened his eyes, breathing heavily, and looked up. "Eat shit, Yuichi."

As expected, another wave of magic coursed towards Hisao - this time a bright yellow flame instead of a blast of pressure - but he was ready for it. A smooth transparent shield surrounded him, glowing white as the fire washed over it. Still, it was incredibly difficult; Yuichi seemed stronger than usual. Part of that was probably because this wasn't a training skirmish, but part of it must have been-

Another burst of flames, eating away at Hisao's shield enough that he instinctively began to pump heat into the ground beneath him for thermal balance.

"I can do this all day, Hisao. And I know for a fact that you can't."

Knowing that he didn't need to put as much power into his shield while Yuichi was monologuing, Hisao took a potshot, throwing a few bright white arrows at his opponent from various directions - all were quickly blocked, but they gave him a bit more time to rebuild his shield.

Not as much as he had wanted, though - the next wave of flame still had him on the ropes. He needed a better stall to stabilize with, or else he'd never get off the back foot; Yuichi was simply too strong while he still had...

Yuika. Of course.

Hisao didn't have time to consider the ethics of throwing missiles at a non-magician - the moment he got a second to breathe, he fired another salvo, except with two of the arrows aimed at Yuika.

It had the intended effect: Yuichi easily blocked anything aimed at him, but had to split his focus to defend Yuika as well.

Unfortunately, Hisao's victory was a small one: the next attack was no longer a yellow flame, but instead a blue-hot jet. "Don't you dare put even a single scratch on her, Hisao."

Of course - she wasn't just augmenting his power, she was the reason he was doing all of this. And that made her an even juicier target. Hisao fired his entire next salvo at her, knowing it was the best shot he had.

Yuichi blocked everything, but before he could express his anger, Hisao rocketed towards him, hitting him square in the chest and knocking him backwards, the two of them tumbling to the ground.

As expected, Yuichi quickly positioned himself between Hisao and Yuika. Luckily, that also meant that he was between Hisao and the barrier - meaning Hisao didn't have to be as worried about keeping himself chained down. He used the energy that freed up to strengthen his shield, and stood up, ready to see what was next. Fortunately, Yuichi was giving him time to do so.

"You know, I don't need to keep you alive, Hisao. I can always kill another student to unbalance the universes again. Maybe one of the girls whose counterparts are already outside the barrier?"

Hisao tried not to think about that, and focused on handling the upcoming stream of fire. Not too bad - he was able to handle it with plenty of energy left for a spray of arrows. None of them connected, of course, but that was to be expected. Still, now that he had some stability, he needed to think about the long game.

Yuichi was right - with Yuika on his side, he could definitely outlast Hisao, and the shoulder injury was only making that worse. Hisao needed a way to end the fight before he ran out of time. Fortunately, there was an obvious way: Yuika. Unfortunately, that's exactly what Yuichi was expecting. Hisao needed a surprise.

After the next cycle of flame, he sent his arrows in every direction, each of them curving around to target Yuika. Yuichi easily shot them all out of the air, but it gave Hisao the opening he needed. He waited a split second longer than before, then launched himself toward Yuichi again.

Yuichi quickly swung to one side, and Hisao went flying past him, having to use his chains to keep himself from sailing right out past the barrier, though this time he was prepared, and had much finer control. Yuichi turned around, initially pleased to have dodged his opponent and get him closer to the barrier - but his smile quickly faded.

Hisao had landed right next to Yuika, pulled her out of her wheelchair, and chained her to him, using her as a human shield. "You know, Yuichi, maybe I will leave the barrier. You don't mind if I take Yuika with me, do you?"

"D-Don't, don't, you... Let's talk about this." Yuichi slowly descended to the ground, trying to look disarming, though he was clearly concentrating on finding an opening.

"That doesn't sound like the 'will of the people' I know - surely the time for words is over!"

"Hisao, please, you don't understand, I- Look, just call Nurse, and we'll put an end to this."

"Smart choice." Making sure not to loosen his grip on Yuika, Hisao concentrated on sending a message to Nurse. He didn't include much detail, simply asking for her to come help immediately.

Almost as soon as he had sent that message, Nurse rounded the corner in a flash, coming to a stop nearby. Moments later, tens of boys appeared, all dashing into position by her, looking ready for a fight. They must have been summoned to help apprehend Yuichi - but how had they gotten there on such short notice?

No matter. "Yuichi is the killer, and the one who threw those students out of the barrier."

"He's lying!" Yuichi's words caught Hisao by surprise. "Hisao is the killer, and was trying to throw me out of the barrier so that I couldn't tell anyone! That's why I called you as soon as I could!"

Hisao was dumbfounded. "What? No, I called for Nurse!"

Nurse eyed Hisao warily. "Yuichi called me first." So that's how she had gotten there so quickly.

"Only because he kept blocking my messages - I tried to contact you minutes ago!"

"Those are big words coming from the one holding a girl hostage."

Hisao couldn't believe this. "Of course I'm holding her hostage! If I let her go, he'll try to push me out of the barrier!"

"He's trying to use her as leverage - he killed Hisayo, and now he's going to kill Yuika! Please you have to-"

"SHUT UP!" Hisao couldn't abide that accusation. Fed up with Yuichi's games, he summoned another chain, and wrapped it around Yuika's frail neck. "You know damn well I'm no killer, Yuichi. But maybe losing Hisayo changed that. Want to find out?" He tightened the chain, and Yuika's breathing became labored.

"No, please!" He was almost in tears. "Somebody do something!"

"How about you do something, Yuichi? How about you tell the truth, and I'll let her go?"

"I am telling the truth! Hisao's behind all of this!"

Hisao tightened the chains further, and Yuika began to reflexively claw at them, tears falling from her eyes.

"Hisao, stop!" Nurse commanded, but Hisao kept the chains taut, slowly squeezing the life out of the girl in front of him, wondering just how far this standoff would have to go.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Yuichi broke, falling to the ground. "Alright! Alright, alright, I did it! I did it, so please, just don't hurt her!"

Hisao finally dissolved the chain around Yuika's neck, and she coughed violently before finally taking deep, gasping breaths. Still, Hisao kept the two of them chained together. "Tell us how you did it."

"I-I wanted to stop the fork. I tried to postpone it by tossing the most powerful magicians out of the barrier, then by gathering like-minded students, but it didn't work. So instead, while Hisao was trying to use the capacitor to fork, I discharged the capacitor into Hisayo, severing her worldlines and preventing the fork."

"Now do you believe me?" Hisao prayed that that had been enough.

Nurse took a few moments to think, then motioned to some of the students behind her. "Fine. Subdue Yuichi." They approached the boy lying on the ground and encased his hands in magical shackles.

Hisao breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you. Finally." He dissolved the remaining chains around Yuika, who fell to the ground in front of him.

"Now subdue Hisao as well."

It took a moment for Hisao to comprehend what Nurse had said. "What? You just got a full confession out of Yuichi!" He let another pair of boys cast their magic on him, but remained indignant.

"A forced confession. For all we know, he was lying to save Yuika."

Before Hisao could express his disagreement with that theory, a quiet, raspy voice jumped in. "No."

All eyes immediately fell on Yuika, who was weakly holding herself up with her arms.

"He's telling the truth.” She struggled to speak between coughs. “Yuichi and I... we killed Hisayo."

Nurse’s poker face finally fell apart. “You... what? Both of you? How? Why?”

“You don’t understand! Nobody understands!” yelled Yuichi. “From the moment we met, Yuika and I, we... We’re everything to each other! She’s not like anyone I’ve ever met, and I... I love her!”

Nobody dared to interrupt. “Ever since, everyone has been trying to pull us apart, to send us back to different worlds. But I refuse to return alone!” The magical shackles on his hands glowed dimly. “I will do anything to stay with her!”

“I... see.” Nurse thought that for a bit. “And Yuika, you feel the same?”

“Absolutely. He’s everything I ever wanted.” She sighed. “That’s why I performed the merge in the first place.”

Nurse’s eyes went wide. “You caused the merge?”

“I didn’t expect it to work. But what did I have to lose? I just wanted someone who understood me.” She smiled. “And it worked out. I wish it hadn’t caused all... this. But that’s the price we had to pay.”

Yuichi butted in. “See? We’re not villains! We never wanted to hurt anyone, but you kept trying to separate us! We tried everything we could to buy time, to find a way to swap... but in the end, we couldn’t do it. There was no way for us to return to the same world, and now there’s no way for anyone to return to their world.”

“You’re wrong.” Everyone turned to Hisao, surprised. “There is a way back, and one that lets you return together. If what the old scarlet mask members are saying is true, then I can swap worldlines with Yuika. That should be relatively balanced, and both of you would end up in the same universe.”

It took Yuichi a second to think about that, but eventually, he dismissed it. “Look, even if you were willing to do that, which I doubt you-”

“I am.”

“Oh. Well, uh, anyways, there’s still a huge deficit. It would take years for us to charge the capacitor enough - longer, since many of the most powerful magicians are frozen now.”

Nurse chimed in: “I might have a solution to that.” She pointed to Yuichi. “I had been thinking about how to punish the killer, since it would have to be done before the fork. Without being cruel or unusual, the only real option is some sort of prison - but the longer we keep them imprisoned, the longer everyone else has to wait for the fork; it’d be kind of like imprisoning everyone.”

“Luckily, we should be able to make a smaller version of the time bubble surrounding the school. It would only slow time outside, not stop it, but it would be more than enough to serve as a jail - and whoever was inside could also spend all of that spare time charging the capacitor.”

Yuichi’s eyes went wide. “B-But, if you did that, would you...”

“Given that Yuika was an accessory to the murder, I think it’s only fair that she serves that sentence too.”

“And her presence would help speed up the charging process”, added Hisao.

Yuichi turned to his counterpart. “Yuika, would you...?”

She smiled. “Of course.”

“We accept! The sooner we can get started, the better.”

Nurse chuckled. “Now, do keep in mind, you’ll need to be very careful in there - we can’t come save you, and if either of you have your worldlines damaged, this whole plan will fall apart. You’ll basically need to create a self-sustaining house of your own - on top of charging the capacitor.”

“Yes ma’am - we’d be glad to.”

The purple-haired woman sighed. “You could at least try to be a little remorseful about your punishment.”

Yuichi laughed, but Yuika’s face darkened. “I know. Hisayo was a close friend. I won’t forget why we’re in there.”

Yuichi’s smile disappeared. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“We’re sorry.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You’re sure we can’t go a few more times?” The middle-aged man in a wheelchair smiled, as did the middle-aged woman in a wheelchair next to him.

“Sorry, Yuichi. The capacitor was already mostly done when you came out at 40, so I’ve already given you a bonus decade. Any more, and you might run into problems with your declining magic.

He sighed. “Fair enough. Ready to call it quits, dear?”

Yuika reached out and held his hand. “Of course.”

“In that case, let’s see what we can do about that fork.”

It had only been two days since the plan had been hatched, but it had worked perfectly. Students had worked to create a time bubble that lasted an hour on the outside, but a year on the inside. Within it were Yuichi, Yuika, a tent for them to live in, and the capacitor. After each year, one of the Nurses made sure they were healthy, checked that the capacitor was in good shape, and then gave the go-ahead for the cycle to repeat.

But finally, after 32 years, time was up.

Students from all over campus gathered to swap worldlines with each other as needed, making sure that they were going to the right universe. And, like before, Nurse, Hisao, and Yuichi approached the now bright white capacitor, their counterparts close behind them.

Hisao turned to Yuichi. “You know there’s a decent chance you two end up as brother and sister once you go back, right?”

“Yeah. That’s okay.”

Yuika nodded. “As long as we’re together, that’s all that matters.”

“Fair enough.” Hisao turned to the Nurses. “How are these schools going to handle having the worldlines of both boys and girls, anyways?”

The Nurse from Hisao’s universe shrugged. “Ah, that’s easy. They’ll probably just retroactively become co-ed.”

Her counterpart nodded. “Honestly, they probably should’ve been anyways. I, for one, will not miss an all-girls Yamaku.”

Nurse chuckled. “Amen to that.”

They said their last goodbyes, addressed the students one final time, and then took their places. Unlike the previous attempt, the capacitor quickly came to life, and after only a minute, its energy was released, breaking the barrier and flowing out into every corner of the universe, gradually levering the two distinct worlds apart again.

Finally, suddenly, long before any of this had never happened, Yuichi and Yuika smiled at each other in the school courtyard, hand in hand.

And not too far away, in a direction nobody could point, Hisao trudged through the snow, wondering who had managed to slip a note into his math textbook.

Oh no what a glorious read. You should be Crazyatom, not Craftyatom!

Wow, from my prompt I did not expect... this...
By the way, since you didn't include the prompt let me just tell other readers, just for clarification:

Due to unfortunate circumstances (renovations, water damage etc.) Yamaku students are temporarily forced to room together in the time leading up to Christmas. (Any pair - or several - except the obvious ones (Hanako/Lilly, Emi/Rin, Misha/Shizune, Hisao/Kenji); OCs permitted/encouraged)

First of all by "unfortunate circumstances" I did not expect to see collapsing multiverses
I'll be posting my thoughts as I read the story, so some comments may become obsolete as the story progresses.

merges happen forwards in time, and forks happen backwards; .... So once we perform the fork, the merge itself will never have happened

Not quite sure how this is supposed to work...

It should go without saying that any failures to respect each other will be met with extremely harsh repercussions.

A bit of a weak threat considering everything will be reset in a week, and you're dealing with teenagers

To start, I’d like to go over some of the responsibilities us boys will be dealing with:...

You really put a lot of thought into this!

But you can see where this is going. Have more kids to support yourself. Those kids grow up and lose their magic. Then they need to have more kids to support themselves. Every generation keeps going further and further into magical debt.

Not really. If the chance of being a mage is a fixed 1 in 100 then doubling the number of children will also double the number of mages, not changing the ratio.

“I had been thinking about how to punish the killer

Which would be kinda pointless in the first place

Okay, and final thoughts:
Instead of the normal Christmas short story you wrote an full fledged thriller with several unusual plot twists, including killing off and subsequently switching the protagonist.
One thing I don't understand is how Yuika originally caused the merge without being a mage in the first place...
Also, was the magic subplot because the prompt came from me, or was that a coincidence?

brythain wrote: ↑Sat Dec 31, 2022 7:29 am Oh no what a glorious read. You should be Crazyatom, not Craftyatom!

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:41 am Wow, from my prompt I did not expect... this...
By the way, since you didn't include the prompt let me just tell other readers, [...]

I aim to please - but only in the most unexpected ways possible! By now I think derailing secret santa prompts is kind of my thing. Prompt-writers beware! (I did include your prompt in my little foreward, but that got lost on the previous page, since I prefer to link directly to the story itself. I should probably change that link.)

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:41 am

It should go without saying that any failures to respect each other will be met with extremely harsh repercussions.

A bit of a weak threat considering everything will be reset in a week, and you're dealing with teenagers

Oh yeah, definitely, there was way more going on with the student body than ever gets shown here - it's just sort of hinted at with the bit of student unrest that occurs. The Nurses know there's not much they can do besides be there to listen, especially since it should all be over soon enough. And there's enough of a 'mirror reflex' that nobody would really consider harming their counterpart, hopefully.

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:41 am

“I had been thinking about how to punish the killer

Which would be kinda pointless in the first place

I'm sure there's some deep philosophy about the difference between punishment which is fleeting due to the universe it occurs in ceasing to exist and punishment which is fleeting due to the mortal nature of those involved. The nihilists are laughing about it, no doubt.

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:41 am

But you can see where this is going. Have more kids to support yourself. Those kids grow up and lose their magic. Then they need to have more kids to support themselves. Every generation keeps going further and further into magical debt.

Not really. If the chance of being a mage is a fixed 1 in 100 then doubling the number of children will also double the number of mages, not changing the ratio.

Sort of - it's about specific usage vs. replacement rate. If the average person uses 1% of the output of an average magician, and on average every 2 adults have 2 kids, then yes, everything works fine. But if you start "overdrawing" from that resource pool, you end up on the path of exponential growth: 2% usage means 4 kids per 2 adults, 8 grandkids per 2 adults, etc. This works fine for a while, so it's easy to build your society around such a pattern, but at some point you hit a wall and have to very quickly pivot to sub-1% usage per person, because you're now in the other half of the logistic curve. (Crap, I told myself I wouldn't turn this into a parable.) But anyways, this is all to say...

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:41 am You really put a lot of thought into this!

... yes, multiple days' worth. It often feels to me like a solid plot and story arc are the most important parts - dialogue and narration seem much easier to make "natural", whereas a plot (ironically) has to be contrived specifically to seem "natural". And even then I missed some stuff; for example, I got to where Hisao has Yuika hostage and suddenly thought "oh yeah, duh, obviously the best move here is for Yuichi to self-report and pretend Hisao was the villain all along", and I had to spend a few hours figuring out how to work around/with that. It just would've been less immersive to ignore any internal logic, you know?

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:41 am One thing I don't understand is how Yuika originally caused the merge without being a mage in the first place...

Okay, yeah, there's no internal logic to that one. It's the one big "it's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit" I gave myself with this story. She was really just that lonely.

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:41 am [...] several unusual plot twists, including killing off and subsequently switching the protagonist.

It was too good an opportunity to pass up. Not my usual fare, but you should've heard me laughing evilly to myself once I realized I could do it.

Mirage_GSM wrote: ↑Tue Jan 03, 2023 11:41 am Also, was the magic subplot because the prompt came from me, or was that a coincidence?

Little bit of both. This definnitely wasn't the first idea I had for this prompt, but once I thought of it and started putting all the pieces together, I did think "Well isn't that a funny coincidence..."

Regardless, thank you for your kind words! It's not always easy to get these done, but I do relish the opportunity when it comes around every December - and I'm glad I'm not the only one!

but that got lost on the previous page, since I prefer to link directly to the story itself.

Ah yes, I got here via the link, so I missed that post...

This works fine for a while, so it's easy to build your society around such a pattern, but at some point you hit a wall and have to very quickly pivot to sub-1% usage per person, because you're now in the other half of the logistic curve.

It is sustainable, but it leads to explosive population growth... Let's hope there is magic that will allow for colonization of other planets

She was really just that lonely.

Might have caused less confusion if it had been him - at least he's a mage.

but once I thought of it and started putting all the pieces together, I did think "Well isn't that a funny coincidence..."

Tbh, I only noticed the similarities halfway through myself ^^°

Wow - totally not what I was expecting! Very nicely done, and an excellent exercise in world-building in a very short space (both verbally and geometrically!)

Feels like it has the potential for a lot of room to grow (ha ha ) No - really, I want to know more about both worlds.

Also excellently said, albeit not in so many words, that the only people who truly understand our trauma are ourselves.

--

Well, here we are again! It’s Christmas - or, well, within a week of Christmas - and so it’s time for my entry in the annual writers’ secret santa! I used to try and post on the 25th every year, but I mentioned last year that I was busy, and it has only gotten more true this year: I landed a job late last year, and I’ve spent all this year without much time to do creative things. I’m going to try to be better about this in the coming year - my New Year’s resolution is to “use more vacation time” - but we’ll have to see how that goes.

Anyways, enough about me, what about the story? My prompt this year was Christmas Eve. Shizune is sitting in Student Council room alone. Why? for HDKV - who I haven’t had the chance to learn much about (my time for reading has suffered even more than my time for writing), but seems like a nice fellow!

Last year, I had a prompt that was very similar to one I had gotten before, but wrote a completely separate story. This year, in a reversal, I got a completely brand-new prompt, but ended up writing a story that had some similarities with a few older one-shots of mine. But I did it all in the name of subverting expectations - and you know how much I love doing that to my secret santa victims! Of course, I also love writing absurdly long one-shots, but time sadly didn't allow for that this year, so this one is a much saner length.

But anyways, with the exposition out of the way, please enjoy Happy With Yourself!

"Are you happy with yourself?"

The meaning of those words changed a lot, depending on how Misha said them in her head. Often, they conveyed disappointment, like her parents chastising her for something - the implication was that she should not be happy. But they could also represent a sick reversal of that sentiment: when someone else was upset by her actions, but Misha herself felt perfectly happy about it.

Or at least, that's how she wanted to feel.

In the heat of the moment, when she was finally able to feel something, a sick, malicious grin would rise up through her throat and onto her face. And in those moments, she would ask whether she was happy with herself, and, without fail, answer "yes".

But with all of that now in the past, little more than memories floating in a familiar sense of emptiness...

Was she happy with herself?

Sitting alone in the student council room, with her time at Yamaku all but complete, the answer was beginning to worry her.

Admittedly, this was roughly where she had wanted to be, back at the start. She was going to school for education: she would get invaluable experience with sign language, and passable grades in whatever other subjects would get her into a half-decent university, and that would be that.

But that had all changed years ago, when she had first entered this very room. The only person there had been a single girl, with short hair dyed a medium shade of blue, staring intently through a pair of glasses at the paperwork spread out in front of her.

She had looked up and locked eyes with Misha, with a stare that was powerful and yet also welcoming. And as she had described, in sign language more fluid than Misha had ever experienced before, that she was part of the student council and already knew who Misha was and why she was here, something within Misha melted into a small puddle, never to regain its original shape.

And that had been the status quo for quite some time. Sitting near that fire of a girl to stay warm, but never coming close enough to get burned. But the longer it went on, the harder it was to live with.

And then, on Christmas Eve, a miracle had happened.

~~~~~

Misha felt unnerved, standing alone in a small changing room - she hadn't been to any hot springs since childhood, and this one was completely new to her. Apparently Shizune's dad knew the guy who owned it, though she had gathered that the less she knew about that arrangement, the better.

Still, it meant that there was space for the two of them on Christmas day - though Misha hadn’t really understood why they would need to reserve “space”. Regardless, without any other plans for the holidays, Misha had taken Shizune up on her last-minute offer, they had packed their things on the night of Christmas Eve, and now, on Christmas day, wrapped in only a towel, Misha stepped out of the changing room and onto a stone-paved patio.

Whatever surface-level nervousness she had felt before, it suddenly morphed into a deep and gut-wrenching anxiety.

In front of her was not a large pool for many groups of people to soak in, but rather, a small pond of steaming water, only big enough for four or five people at once, with tall wooden walls surrounding it on all sides.

This was one of a set of private hot springs.

The only people who would be using this specific bath tonight were Misha and - already in the water, her eyes closed - Shizune.

Misha's mind began to run wild as she made her way across the smooth stone floor. Shizune had invited her, just her, nobody else, to a private hot spring, on Christmas day. Was there any other way to interpret it? Surely this was... romantic?

Trying not to let her nerves shake her too much, she lowered herself into the water - it was nice, but it didn't help calm her racing thoughts. At first she expected Shizune to do something, to make a move now that they were together. But nothing of the sort happened.

Maybe it would take time. But as the seconds passed, Misha found herself unable to bear the wait. She would have to do something.

But what? And how?

She needed to say something. After swallowing nervously, she turned to her right and tapped Shizune on the shoulder.

The girl next to her had to quickly wipe off her fogged-up glasses, but then waited for Misha to speak - something which took longer than usual.

[I... Thank you for taking me here.]

[Of course.] Shizune knew there was more than that, and didn’t look away.

[So... Why did you bring me here, anyways?]

[Because we both deserved it. The student council puts in a lot of work - we could use some downtime.] Focused on work, even when she was relaxing.

Unfortunately, that didn’t really answer the question Misha had been asking. [Did you invite Lilly?]

[I think she had some sort of family thing for Christmas.] That made sense, she was quite close with her sister. And Misha knew better than to bring up Shizune’s family - plus, she wasn’t exactly eager to discuss her own.

She decided to try something out, and play it off as a joke if necessary. [I mean, with just the two of us here, it’s almost like a date!]

She watched closely as Shizune smirked for a second, but didn’t say anything.

... what did that mean? Was it a mild chuckle, or a knowing smile? Shizune’s laughs were generally rather timid, but that face had also been kind of like the face she made when she was in the middle of a game. Was she calculating a strategy, somewhere in her head? Or was she not thinking of much at all? Misha wasn’t ready to give up... but she also didn’t know where to go.

Completely lost, she tried to think about all the romance books she had read that were like this. What was it that those characters always did in these situations? When they were nervous and awkward, how did they manage to push through to the cute stuff?

She locked eyes with the girl next to her. [Shizune, I... I really, really care about you. A lot.]

Shizune smiled - this time a calm, relaxed smile. [You mean a lot to me too.]

That had to be it. No more waiting, no more wondering, no more stalling. Misha was finally going to turn the page and step into the flames. As her heart pounded in her ears, she leaned forward, watching as Shizune’s face drew nearer. Slowly, she closed her eyes and puckered her lips, reaching out, hoping desperately to feel Shizune’s touch.

Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive the way she wanted - the next sensation Misha felt was the sharp slap of Shizune’s palm against her left cheek, causing her to recoil.

Misha quickly pulled up one hand to cradle the stinging skin, and opened her eyes. Before her, Shizune was looking at her own hand, an expression of disbelief on her face. She looked up, and briefly locked eyes with Misha again.

[Misha-]

It was too late. Misha quickly turned around and left, tears welling up in her eyes.

And yet, at least on the surface, life had continued... pretty much as normal. Neither of them had ever spoken about that night again.

But inside, Misha had felt like a hole had been torn in her. She had expected it to be painful, but it hadn’t been an acute pain - it had been more like hunger, with her stomach slowly collapsing in on itself out of sheer emptiness.

She had tried so hard to satiate it. With food, with friends, with the student council. With books and music about love, about sadness, about anger. But finally, she had simply given up. She would be empty forever.

Or so she had thought.

~~~~~

Translation was a difficult job, and this was never lost on Misha. Yet, despite her emptiness, she remained dedicated to it; in some ways, it made her feel better. She was still empty, but it didn’t matter: she could do something useful anyways. And, for all of the strange feelings she felt about Shizune, she never wanted to deprive the girl of her surrogate ears and mouth - that much would simply have been unfair.

But her translation duties kept her, in some ways, chained to Shizune. Every day of school was a day of understanding and repeating whatever Shizune said. Long ago, Misha had relished the chance to gain insight into her friend; now, she generally felt more like a rubber hose, with words being stuffed in one end and simply falling out of the other.

But one late night, as she sat in the student council room with Shizune and Lilly doing paperwork, the latter sighed and got up from her seat. She organized her papers, filed them away on a nearby shelf, and headed for the door.

Shizune tapped Misha on the shoulder. [Where are you going?]

Lilly stopped, a tired expression on her face. “Home. To get some rest.”

[But we’re not done.]

She let out another defeated sigh. “I don’t have the energy. I need to sleep.”

[We need these done by tomorrow morning.]

Lilly pursed her lips. “That’s a shame, then.” She turned around, trying to leave again.

[You’re just leaving work for me to do. I’m going to have to stay even later.]

“No, you don’t! You can go home too!” Lilly pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is a deadline that we can afford to miss.”

[It’s a deadline that we would already have met if you had spent more time on it the past few days!]

“I didn’t have more time to spend on it!”

Shizune narrowed her eyes. [Funny, I remember plenty of times when you weren’t here helping.]

“Yes, because I had other things to do!” She paused briefly to regain her composure. “The deadline you set was too tight. Just let them know that, and they’ll cut us some slack.”

[My deadline was fine. You chose not to stick to it.]

“I chose? Yes, I suppose I did choose to have a life outside of this awful room! And I’m sorry that you chose not to!” With that, Lilly turned around, fumbled momentarily with the door handle, and left.

Misha half expected Shizune to simply put her head down and get back to work, but instead she stared blankly at the door for a while, lost in thought.

Misha felt uniquely aware of the silence in the room, and eventually tapped Shizune on the shoulder to try and break it - though she wasn’t really sure what to say herself. [Are you okay?]

[Of course. She was just angry, she didn’t mean anything by it.] Another long pause. [I wish it wasn’t like this, though.]

[Like what?]

[Lilly means a lot to me. She’s one of the few people I can talk to as a friend. I just wish we weren’t so at odds with each other. Arguing with her doesn’t make me feel bad, just... empty.]

Misha’s brain lit up at the word, and was about to reply with “I know what you mean” when she stopped herself.

She knew that feeling because of Shizune. And Shizune wasn’t stupid; she would probably figure out what Misha meant. And that would break their unspoken promise, to forget that night.

But in the time it took her to realize that, another part of her realized something else: that she didn’t actually feel very empty. Something about this moment made her feel... better.

And finally, it clicked: Shizune’s face, clearly conflicted, betraying how empty she felt. Misha’s chest filled with some sort of emotion, though she couldn’t really describe it. And she didn’t need to.

All she needed was to get more of it.

[It’s not your fault.]

That was her strategy, her master plan for the weeks that followed. She took care to seek the pair out at every turn, to get every conversation going. If they were both there, she translated dutifully for them, and whatever happened happened. But if she could get either of them alone, she made sure to reassure them that it wasn’t their fault.

And finally, after all that work-

“I’m DONE! I’m done with your demands, I’m done with your rules, and I’m DONE with this stupid club!”

Misha did her best to soak in the look on Shizune’s face as the door slammed shut, but the true prize was one she wasn’t even expecting.

Later that same night, she was woken up by a knock on her door - which was odd, because when she checked her alarm clock, it was midnight. Wearily, she got out of bed.

On the other side of the door was Shizune, in her pajamas, looking... uncertain. [Can I talk to you for a bit?]

It took a moment for Misha’s eyes to adjust to the hallway lighting, but once she did, she finally noticed an extra little shine in the corner of Shizune’s eyes - just as the feeling began to grow inside of her again.

Long ago, she would’ve jumped at the chance to offer that helping hand, to be the confidant. But now, with her newfound emotion?

[Sorry, I’m really tired after all that paperwork earlier... Can it wait until tomorrow?]

Shizune’s face grew even more cloudy, but eventually she nodded, trying desperately to keep her lips still, and went back to her own room.

Misha closed her own door, and was barely able to contain herself any longer - the feeling took over. Images of Shizune flashed through her mind, forming a collage of a girl - a girl wearing an expression that made it look like she had nothing left.

Misha, meanwhile - without even noticing - had begun to laugh.

Misha had been completely reinvigorated by her newfound hobby. Watching and talking with Shizune became interesting again - Lilly never quite scratched the same itch, but that didn’t matter.

All that mattered was that Misha felt alive.

She got more work done, she spoke more confidently, she felt better - in fact, she felt like she could do anything. She styled and dyed her hair; Shizune hated it, but Misha felt like it suited who she had become.

And when Shizune had finally gotten close with a new boy in class, Misha kept up every step of the way. She had acted as a perfect accessory to the relationship - until, finally, her chance had arrived.

The feeling had been incomparable. Not for any of the usual reasons; rather, because when she closed her eyes, she could imagine Shizune’s reaction, and it had made Misha feel unstoppable.

And then... nothing.

The school year had drawn to a close. Shizune’s slow fall away from her last attempt at having someone special in her life had been fun, but now it was over. They would likely never see each other again.

And Misha realized that the emptiness within her had never left - only been momentarily satiated.

Worse, she knew that other people couldn’t fill that void. Lilly and Hisao never did. Only Shizune ever filled that gap, and now... she was finally gone, off to exist somewhere else.

And so Misha sat alone in the student council room, wondering where she herself would exist, if at all. Wondering whether she was happy with herself.

Or at least, she felt like she was wondering - but she hadn’t really thought much of anything since she came here early in the morning, and it was now afternoon. She was empty; kept company only by the ticking of the wall clock.

And then, that too disappeared.

For a moment, she wondered whether time had stopped. Or if she had died.

But a quick glance up - though something felt off - showed that the clock was still moving... just not ticking.

She stared at it for a bit before realizing why it looked odd: something was near her eyes. She could feel it on her nose.

She reached up and removed a pair of glasses that she swore she recognized; the world went blurry without them, and they made no sound, even as the tips of the frame fell inward and contacted the lenses.

Slowly beginning to piece everything together, she put her hand up to her hair, ruffling some of her bangs into her field of vision, and saw a mid-tone blue.

She was lost for words - though she also quickly realized that she couldn’t really say anything anyways. Whatever had happened, she was unmistakably Shizune.

And so she put the glasses back on, and began to think.

There was no point trying to figure out what had happened; this kind of thing didn’t happen. It made just as little sense to try and ask why it had happened, but part of her felt like maybe she knew the answer to that one.

Maybe she deserved it.

And, as if in response, the door opened, not making a sound. Misha - or rather, the girl who had once been Misha - looked up to see who was there.

It was a girl with long brown hair, looking somewhat lost.

It was Misha - or rather, Shiina, soon to become Misha - walking into the student council room for the very first time.

Once-Misha instinctively knew what part to play here. She locked eyes with the girl, who froze. [Shiina Mikado?]

[You... know my name?]

[I’m in the student council; I’ve read through your file a bit.]

[Oh. Um...]

[You’re here because you want to be a sign language translator, correct?]

[Oh, uh, yes!]

Finally, it was clear to Once-Misha what was happening here. She was about to watch herself grow, over the course of her years in the student council, from a passionate young girl into a woman who wanted nothing more than to hurt her closest friend.

And she would finally feel, once and for all, exactly how it felt to be on the other end of that relationship.

And despite the horrifying prospect of being trapped there for years, in another body, just to let herself be abused, she felt... nothing.

Empty.

And maybe that was why.

[If you want more experience with translating - more than you’d ever normally get - then I have a proposition for you.]

Because this was what she deserved.

But... was it?

They hadn’t yet gotten to the point where Now-Misha would begin hurting her, but it was drawing close. And yet, Once-Misha still felt... nothing. No fear, no anger, no sadness. If this was happening because she deserved to be punished, then why didn’t she feel bad? Surely it was supposed to hurt?

Alone in the student council room, she knew that she had to go and tell New-Misha about the hot springs trip she had reserved for tomorrow. That much was set in stone.

And then, of course... well, she knew how it would go. She knew that better than anything else.

But did it have to?

She had done so much wrong, all because of that one moment. Did it really have to happen the same way again? After all, she hadn’t yet been compelled to follow things the way they had originally happened to her; was it possible that her own agency could prevent everything from happening over again?

Maybe. But did she want to? After all, to make that encounter end differently, she would have to... accept her own proposition. And that wasn’t something she wanted.

But none of this was what she had wanted. All she had ever wanted was Shizune, whether as a lover or a toy. And she couldn’t ever get that back, but maybe she could give it to Now-Misha.

Maybe her punishment didn’t have to be about making her feel sad. Maybe it was enough to make someone else happy.

The moment that thought crossed her mind, she got up and hurriedly headed for the dorms.

~~~~~

The warm water lapped silently against Once-Misha’s skin as she sat and waited, her eyes closed.

The last time she had been here, the slightest wait had been a source of anxiety - but now, she was more than willing to take the time to relax. Or at least, forestall the inevitable.

Nevertheless, eventually she felt someone else get into the hot water next to her. And, after not long at all, Now-Misha tapped her on the shoulder. Once-Misha wiped off her glasses, turned to her left, and prepared herself for what was to come.

Now-Misha took a while to formulate her words. [I... Thank you for taking me here.]

[Of course.]

[So... Why did you bring me here, anyways?]

[Because we both deserved it. The student council puts in a lot of work - we could use some downtime.] It was too easy to stick to the words she had played over and over in her head.

[Did you invite Lilly?]

[I think she had some sort of family thing for Christmas.] The moment drew nearer and nearer.

[I mean, with just the two of us here, it’s almost like a date!]

Once-Misha could help herself from smiling wryly at that. She wanted to laugh and sigh at the same time. But she kept quiet. And finally, the end approached.

[Shizune, I... I really, really care about you. A lot.]

Once-Misha smiled. [You mean a lot to me too.]

Finally, as if in slow motion, Now-Misha leaned forward, closed her eyes, and puckered her lips.

And, at long last, Once-Misha broke character and returned the favor.

Their lips touched softly at first, but after being frozen in shock for a few seconds, Now-Misha seemed to explode with pent-up emotion, putting her hands on Once-Misha’s cheeks and leaning deeply into the kiss, trying desperately to get all of it, as if it would evaporate at any moment.

Once-Misha, for her part, tried to put in some effort, to make it feel real. She didn’t feel much herself, but there was a momentary spark of comfort - she was helping someone, and it felt right.

Finally, they pulled apart, and slowly opened their eyes again. However, much to Misha’s surprise, the girl in front of her wasn’t the girl she had once been - instead, it was a girl with short blue hair and a pair of glasses.

Now it was her turn to freeze for a moment in disbelief. She put one hand to her face, pulling some hair into her field of vision: it was long and brown.

She was back.

Her next thought was worrying, and she looked at Shizune - or at least, the girl she once knew as Shizune. [Are you... me?]

Shizune raised an eyebrow. [What?]

Hope began to bubble up through Misha’s chest. [Was that kiss... real?]

Shizune smiled, rolled her eyes, and leaned forward to kiss Misha again.

And as she began to understand that she had somehow found her way to where she had always wanted to be, and tears began to well up in her eyes, Misha wrapped her arms around Shizune, feeling more whole than she ever had before.

My, my, thank you, Craftyatom, you delivered me a wonderful gift for New Year's Eve!

I really liked your take on Misha becoming Shizune, this was interesting to read. Also, a happy ending story, yeeeeeee! After reading other charming, but bittersweet stories that were posted on the forums lately I'm glad that two girls literally found themselves in the end.

Hope you liked thinking around my prompt and thank you again