Meanwhile, thousands of miles away...

Aya stared at her reflection in the window. She looked terrible. It has been a mistake to sleep aboard the plane, and her decision to come on the thing dressed in her school uniform had only made things worse. She'd spent the night tossing and turning in unfamiliar clothes, and boy did it show on her face. Her hair, usually curly and flowing, had managed to entangle itself into a black Gordian knot of criss crossing locks, and her eyes had the sunken look of a Verdun veteran. At least she'd managed to sleep through the landing. Everywhere around her, people were shuffling, pulling bags out of compartments and out from under seats, grabbing everything they could remember and shuffling out towards the exit. She waited until last, taking a few minutes to properly wake herself up, before rummaging around through some of the stuff people had left behind. Somebody had left a card stuck between an in flight magazine as an impromptu bookmark. Score!

Customs and immigration was easy, baggage claim was a pain, but before too long, Aya had left the air-conditioned space of the airport and stepped, blinking and unsure of herself into the bright and sunny day that surrounded Haneda airport like a big pillowy mattress. She was thankful to step inside the air-conditioned space of Saotome's school bus instead, even the few seconds she'd spent outside in this heat had made her start sweating like a pig. As if her looks couldn't have gotten any worse today; between the heat and the humidity outside, she wasn't so much wearing her uniform as much as she was stuck to the inside of it, like food in a clingfilm wrapper that was slowly shrinking and tightening around her.

She took a seat near the front. Always a safe choice, being close to where the adults nearly always sat, and since everybody else usually took a seat near the back, it was also likely not to fill up until the last few people got onboard. She sat down, conscienciously facing her body toward the aisle down the middle. You never got a second chance to make a first impression, and she could size up a few of her studants before they'd been officially introduced, try and pick out a few of the nicer kids and try to establish a quick friendship never failed to pay off.