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[hr][i]Kana,

Have to work late tonight, won’t be back ‘til morning. Money on the counter for dinner. I know you’re gonna buy junk food so if you save me something chocolate I won’t tell dad.  

Game night tomorrow, no cheating this time~

Loves.
-Mom[/i]
[hr]
Kana didn’t realize her hands were shaking until the letter had nearly trembled out of them. She folded the paper by its years-old creases, with all the delicacy with which one might handle glass, or a baby, or a baby made of glass, and stuck it into her pocket. She’d done some Olympic-grade mental gymnastics to avoid calling it a lucky charm, but she still carried it with her anyway. Not for luck, she said, just motivation. 

The world passed by through the train window, a world that was only tangentially familiar to her. She had been to Hokkaido before, when she was very young, but despite that the vibrant countryside had stuck with her, she felt like a stranger. That feeling, ironically, was more than just tangentially familiar. In Kagoshima, even in passing through Aomori, that sense of misplacement seemed to linger around her like a bad odor, repulsing the passersby at the station that glanced her way. The eyes she met were strangers’ eyes, detached and indifferent, but she could not help seeing reminders in them. 

[i]This is wrong.[/i] 

[i]Don’t do this.[/i]

In a stop between Aomori and Hokkaido, she’d spotted her mother’s face on a wanted poster. She was different, but not unrecognizable, and Kana suspected they’d touched the images up a bit to make them darker, rougher, more imposing. Every few months or so there’d be another story, another name—or a cluster of names. A call to action. They’d get letters at their home in Kagoshima from people looking for answers, demanding justice, or just coping with their grief. She’d see snippets from news articles, or blog posts from witnesses, and occasionally there’d be a picture of her mother there just like the one in the station. 

It was easy to see the similarities between them, even in the faint reflection of the window. She could cut and dye her hair, she could dress however she wanted, but it was always her mother’s eyes looking back at her. Often—just like now—those eyes would blur, and the world would melt into a haze. 

[color=crimson][i]Dammit.[/i][/color]

Kana rubbed her face, sniffling. Her cheeks were wet, her throat was tight. 

[color=crimson][i]Your eyes are gonna be red all day now,[/i][/color] she thought angrily, as if she could will the tears away. [color=crimson][i]God you’re such a stupid crybaby. You can’t just do this every time you…ugh. Get yourself together. It’s gross, and embarrassing. Stop.[/i][/color]

Traversing Sapporo was easy enough. She’d spent the last few years navigating the maze-like slums of Kagoshima’s harbor, and before that she’d had to learn how to find her way around small, no-name towns in the dark. The cold snaked through her sleeves, prickled her skin with the precursor to numbness. It was pleasant, the cold. The winters in Goshogawara were a fond, if distant memory, and it seemed Hokkaido would be similar. 

[color=crimson][i]You knew it would be similar. You wanted it to be similar.[/i][/color]

She wished she could have appreciated Ishin Academy more when she finally came to it. It was so grand in the brochures and the pictures online, so refined. That all held true, of course, but she couldn’t bring herself to admire any of it through the utter mass of a crowd funneling into the courtyard. Clusters of students and faculty were scattered, some standing idly, chatting, while others motioned those who were more mobile towards the auditorium. So many people, so many strangers. So many eyes. 

Kana clutched her duffel bag tight, and kept her head low as she fell in with the students making their way inside. Again the would-be wonders of Ishin’s halls escaped her. Even with her eyes glued to the floor, she couldn’t so much as appreciate the tiling through her own panic. 

[color=crimson][i]Get a grip, seriously. Just don’t make a scene, and everything will be fine. They’re all nervous, just like you.[/i][/color]

But they didn’t look all nervous. Sure, some of them seemed antsy, but perhaps that was just eagerness. For the most part, wherever she looked she saw confidence. She saw strength. She saw burgeoning heroes ready to embrace their destinies. And yet she felt none of that. [i]Why[/i]? She’d taken the same tests, passed the same evaluations. She was here, wearing the same uniform they were, and yet she still felt like an imposter, like at any moment someone might notice her and say, [i]“Hold on, you shouldn’t be here.”[/i] [i]“This is wrong.”[/i] [i]“Don’t do this.”[/i]

[color=crimson]“I’m sorry,”[/color] Kana muttered, bowing her head as she turned away from the frontmost rows of seats, nearly bumping into a few of the students behind her. She made her way to the back, where only a smattering of people had decided to lay claim to the furthest seats, and placed herself at the end of the row. 

There. Now she could bolt and it wouldn’t be an inconvenience to anyone. At any moment she could just get up and walk out. She could get right back on that train, and it’d be like she never left Kagoshima at all. It would be easy. No one would even notice. 

[color=crimson][i]You would.[/i][/color]

Kana set the bag in her lap, and pretended it was an anchor. She couldn’t leave now. She wouldn’t. She’d come to Ishin to become a hero, and even if that was idiotic, even if it wasn’t her destiny, something compelled her to try. 

She only hoped that would matter.