Sora Ayanami couldn't remember how long he had been lying down, his back on the surface of the sea that stretched out all the way towards the horizon beyond - everywhere around him was so quiet, so bizarre that there was no doubt he's in a dream. The orange-red sky above clashed with the blueness of the water beneath him; his consciousness felt fully awake in here, and the dead silence was beginning to unnerve him, filling his ears with a low hum that he had to remind himself it was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. He closed his eyes.

"How long are you going to stay like this?"

Startled by a voice - a sharp, feminine one - he bolted upright, sending ripples across the once-stagnant liquid. He looked around fervently, trying to pinpoint to source. He then got up to his feet, vaguely noticing the water turning into a murky green from the disturbance. Where are you? he frowned, squinting his eyes and staring hard into the infinity. Who are you? As if she had heard his thoughts, he picked up the same voice again, this time she was singing to a melodic tune:

God forsook us but Death would not come
In the depths of the dark I searched for a light
Across the stars I yearned for the one
And now the final chapter has begun

As the last note reverberated across the dreamscape, he suddenly felt a deep sadness welling up somewhere inside of him, his whole body shuddering uncontrollably at the glimpses of horrifying scenes that were spinning faster and faster in his mind. He dropped to his knees, clutching his head and screamed, "Stop it, whatever the hell you are! Leave me alone! And get out of my head!"

"My vision has shown me the way. You are the answer to what I have been seeking for eons."

He raised his head to see a figure looming closer - a petite girl with strange pinkish hair and blood-red eyes - before the pain was too much for him to bear, and his eyes rolled up to the roof of their sockets, the trance world disappeared into nothingness.

“He’s sleeping again— are all denizens of Earth this lazy? I thought this place was supposed to hold some of the greatest minds in the eastern hemisphere? And our target is hiding here? I find that hard to believe. Tch.”

Sotoko Yanagi frowned as she sat at her desk with her arms crossed, her russet colored pupils idly and unimpressively looked at the form of her classmate who had seemingly zoned out of the entire lesson that their instructor had been so earnestly been giving. Sotoko didn’t really care that he was ignoring the lesson, as she thought it was all pointless material that she had heard years ago when she was a student at Invitus Station.

That little fact was something that made Sotoko particularly unique to this classroom, she was not really from around here... or even from this planet. Sotoko Yanagi, or as her comrades knew her, Xauia xa Centauri, was one of a handful of ‘aliens’ sent to Earth to track down a dangerous element and bring it down. This of course led to the whole idea that they had to ‘blend’ into the society until their objective revealed themselves. For someone as impatient and no nonsense as Xau this was pretty much the definition of misery.

“Why did we have to be assigned to such an ignorant backwater dump of a planet? There was nothing worth salvaging here. Why would my superiors care if this worthless planet got destroyed? Augh.”

The Terran female scowled as she looked to their instructor— some halfwit moron who couldn’t even catch her own feet.

“Earthlings.” She thought bitterly as she continued to look at Sora, something that was a bit hard to avoid considering the fool’s seating arrangement led him to be right in front of her. She did not want to be placed behind such an inept tool if she had to be at this outdated pointless academy. The instructors who taught her would not let any of this complacency and ignorance be tolerated.

He kept mumbling in his dazed daydream.

She had enough of this.

Her foot slammed forward under her desk to one of the legs of the chair Sora had decided to sit in.

That was... better.

Sora had a fleeting sensation of falling down - some sort of dark pit? He thought - before his body slammed down on something hard and flat, the shock from the impact spread across his muscles to the bones in an instant. His eyes snapped open at the agony. "Wha---?" he coughed, his sight slowly coming to a focus - at the whitewashed ceiling. It was then he realized he had fallen off his own seat.

He let out a tired sigh - it had been a week since Cera (he couldn't remember her full name; it was too long and complicated) invaded his dream, and now this elfish alien girl from nowhere (a Levi-something planet, he mused) had taken the liberty to reside within him (his mind or soul, he had no idea). She had assured him that she didn't have the power to take over his body - which was a great relief to the boy - but he wished that his brain would stop replaying the same dream he had when he first met her every time he was going to sleep. He yawned.

"Sora-san!" The frantic voice of his homeroom teacher, Maki Hoshino, became sharper to his ears with each syllable; he coughed - for the second time - when something soft and huge was shoved right before his face. "Are you alright?"

A muffled sound came out from the chest cushion. "Uh, sensei? I...I can't breathe."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" As the shadow of Maki's voluptuous figure left his line of view, he sat up, wobbling to his feet; he was immediately greeted by the irritated stares from his classmates. He grinned sheepishly, but let the smile drop when it dawned upon him that the reason for their silent hostility appeared to be more than just him disrupting the lesson.

"Are you sure you're okay? Do you need to go to the infirmary to rest for a while?"

He returned his attention to the teacher. "I'm fine." He rubbed the back of his head gingerly. "But I guess I'll do that, visit the infirmary." As he passed by the table of Sotoko Yanagi, one of the two transfer students in his class, the familiar voice spoke suddenly, "By the way, the nasty twerp who kicked you off the chair is that evil-eyed lady who sits behind you."

That made him stopped in his tracks. "What, she did?" he said aloud, looking at Sotoko with disbelief. "Why would she do that?"

"Why don't you ask her instead? And it seems like she hates you. A lot."

"I don't understand." He raised his eyebrows at the scowling face of the titian-haired girl. "Do you hate me that much?"

Her brows remained low as he inquired of her discontent regarding him, did she hurt his feelings? Feh, as if she even cared about such sensitivity. Her arms crossed as it seemed the class went silent upon the interaction— an attention that only made her even more anxious. Her lips remained in a frown of annoyance as she remained sitting.

“Tch. Why would I hate someone so insignificant?”

Her hand rose to her hair as she moved a stray strand of hair from her face in a quick swipe. “Hate is for people who actually matter, so if I were to hate you you would have to actually matter to me. Which you don't.”

Sora was getting more and more confused - not just at Sotoko's haughty response, but also the somewhat creepy giggling from Cera in his head. "Seems like you're wrong this time," he muttered, directing it at the alien. He then shrugged at a few curious looks around him, probably catching him talking to himself. "Is there any other way for me to talk to you without moving my mouth so much?"

"If you truly wish for that, then allow me to possess you completely---"

"No thanks," he shot down her glee nonchalantly and returned his attention back to his sour-faced classmate, his tone filled with a hint of amusement. "That hurts, but I guess I must have actually mattered to you to wake me up from my nightmare. Thank you!" He gave Sotoko a slight bow before he headed for the door.

Once he stepped out of the classroom and walked down the hallway towards the infirmary, a sharp pain thumped in his skull - the parasitic lolita was throwing a tantrum within his mind. "Why would you want to thank someone who kicked you off the chair?" Cera exclaimed, still unhappy that he cut her off in mid-sentence.

"I don't know myself either. I guess it's just a habit?"

"Earthlings sure do have some weird and senseless habits."

... ...

Sora was so engrossed with his conversation - or rather, a one-sided bickering - with the alien inside him that he no longer pay attention to what's before him. His senses were brought back to reality only after he bumped head-first into someone. "S-Sorry!" He looked down to see the face of another transfer student, this time a Caucasian-looking girl who was so short that he was pretty much towering over her (and he wasn't even that tall to begin with, his height being an average among most Japanese males).

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, making a mental note to visit the pharmacy after school and get some pills to help him sleep better tonight.

Kikuchi Yukia half-yelped as she was practically “shoved” to the floor, her butt landing on the floor with a slight thud. Her eyes winced as her hands placed themselves on the floor as she tried to regain herself and her previous thoughts together. How could she be so distracted that she went headfirst into someone? She frowned at the volume of pain, however minute it was she still clonked her head and rear to the point of annoyance. She was surprised by her low pain tolerance, considering the explosions and electrical surges she had put her body through. She wasn’t particularly “accident prone” but when they did rear their head they always knocked her off her feet. Always.

“Ow.” She muttered as she opened her eyes, looking up at however decided to also not pay attention.

"Sorry, sorry," Sora apologized again. He felt a little panicky at the girl's reaction to the collision, which made him wonder if he had knocked into her too hard. Did he hurt her head too? Or anywhere else?

Cera wasn't helping much to ease his nervous mind. "You are indeed a weird human."

"What?" he muttered from the corner of his mouth.

"I have noticed that all the people whom you have been interacting with so far are all females. Excluding myself, that is."

"..."

"Just now it's Evil Eye," Cera began to recite, her voice going colder with each syllable.

"Ah, you mean Sotoko Yanagi-san."

"Before that it's Booty Teacher---"

"---Maki Hoshino-sensei."

"Before you came to school it's Carrot Lady who tried to seduce you with free vegetables. And at the train station..."

Sora was oblivious to the hint of jealousy in Cera's tone. "Right," he replied, somewhat distracted as he returned his attention back to the fallen student. "Um, you okay...?" He shrugged a little, not knowing how to address her. Then he frowned at her. "Have I seen you somewhere else before?"

“I believe so.” She said calmly as she rubbed her forehead, hoping the sudden jolt of feeling would pass soon.

Another inconvenience, but conversation was not an absurd inconvenience especially after being winded. She felt a bit bothered that it had happened at all considering she had been sent by her instructor for an errand outside of the classroom. An errand that resulted only in her being thrown on her rear and with a headache teething.

“We have classes together when you aren’t sending me to the floor.”

It was matter-of-fact and her tone wasn’t particularly antagonistic like his previous interaction with Satoko had been, but the wording seemed a bit irritated even if the tone suggested otherwise.

“You could help me up, though.”

She paused.

“Unless your intent was to immobilize me If so, I think it did not achieve success.”