[b]Kojiki Arcology, Evening.[/b]

The ritual had begun more than two days ago.  In a carefully-prepared and well hidden ritual space, neither the sorcerers nor the other participants knew much of the time involved.  It was now a sheer effort of will to continue on, with no rest, food, or water.  Arcane energies had gathered and pierced the veil, calling out to beyond the stars.  

The sounds of violence hardly reached the ears of the ritual's participants, before a number of creatures burst into the room.  The surprise attack was brutal and efficient, and soon everyone in the room lay dead or dying.  The last of the Society sorcerers' power flowed out with their lifeblood, the rite they were enacting broken.  And yet, the otherworldly creatures they had called forth did not simply fade away.  Already drawn down to the Earth, but now without living candidates to even consider, they had little recourse but to scatter in search of worthy vessels for their power.  
[hr]
[b]Koizumi residence[/b]

Saya had finished her chores and taken a bath, and was now cloistered in her room, working on homework.  A first she passed off the occasional strange thing at the edges of her vision as just fatigue, or maybe daydreaming.  She kept working on her math until the inhuman eyes popping in and out of view made it look too much like her assignment was staring at her.  Saya yawned and rubbed her eyes.  "I'm just tired, that's all," she said to herself and turned around.  "Eh?"  

Her room didn't really look like her room.  Just for an instant, she saw something else.  A strange, alien world she could barely comprehend superimposed itself over the room, twisting the familiar shapes into strange and frightening things.  And even after that wave of vertigo had passed, there was a palpable presence remaining in the room.  Something unseen was there, watching her.  Rather than react in pure horror, Saya was more confused and curious than anything.  Whatever was invisibly there in the room was clearly examining the girl, and she could feel the gaze of many eyes upon her, as if they could see right through her.  This thing was carefully checking...something bout her, but she didn't have a clue what it was looking [i]for[/i] or even what it was.  

Saya stood up from her desk and took a few hesitant steps before that [i]something[/i] reached out and seized her.  The unseen visitor held her transfixed, and the moment stretched into an eternity as Saya's world was filled with excruciating pain.  She could clearly see the thing now, and her mind balked at bulk of eyes and flesh that had seized her. And yet, she held on through the pain, as a flood of power suffused every cell and threatened to tear her fragile body apart.  Even her mind was almost overwhelmed.  Yet there was a core of steel within her, and she held on.  And then, time began to move again.  The pain faded almost instantly, and a cool numbness remained as the only reminder.