Prelude: leyline on death's bread.

[88,14,808,099,710]

To you 576 years from the past: 

The gymnasium of Shizuoka Prefectural No. 3 high school was filled beyond its usual capacity. Folding chairs lined the entire basketball court. The floor had been polished for weeks for this ceremony. Every light from the celling reflected a faint blue hazy blur. At the centre of the stage the high school emblem was platted hard into two adjacent curtains. It was a wooden phoenix backdropped against a pair of blue spider lilies. 

The school principal, Takasawa Kiotome stood at the podium reading a list of names from a tablet with two assistants operating the digital display mounted above the stage, synchronizing each name with a short-pre-recorded clip submitted by the students.

“Graduation class of 2034.”  The principal announced to his students. The first student names appeared on the screen to little amusement. In about a minute or so a clear pattern had been established. They called out a name, displayed a quick photo and then the hall erupted in a  monotonous applause just to taken away by another student. 

Midway through the ceremony, the display flickered. A name appeared, but the image was not of a student present in the ceremony grounds. The screen shifted to a hospital room, polished white walls, a bed with motorized frame and tubes running under a girl’s nose into a ventilator.

Then her name appeared on the corner of the screen:  
Aiko Hayashi.

She sat upright supported by a cushioned support. Her skin was pale almost ghostly. Her maroon crimson eyes looked past the camera for a moment, then fixed on it. She raised her hand slightly and with enough luck her lips moved her lips, “Good morning.” she edged on to be properly heard, “I am sorry I couldn’t attend the graduation ceremony.”

Some students glanced up at the screen, while others whispered amongst themselves. Aiko’s eyes flicked briefly to the monitors besides her, then returned to the camera. “Congratulations, everyone.”  She squeaked while timing her swallow breaths.

When the ceremony ended, students fled out of the gymnasium. A few classmates waited in the hallway near a smaller wall monitor displaying Aiko’s feed.

“I saw,”  Aiko replied nodding her hand lightly on the blanked across her lap.

“You look better than last time,”  Rin erupted out of nowhere.

“Then, the new filters are helping, at least, I think.”

Satsuki stood besides Rin, and erupted in less concern  “Wait, they still haven’t fixed your lungs? ”

“Satsu!”  Rin jolted passing a stingy pinch towards Satsuki.

“They are trying new filters and experimenting on new substitutes.” Aiko replied with none sort of the concern that Rin and Satsuki expected.

“Then, when you can you come back?”

Aiko hesitated and forced on a smile. She adjusted the blanked and placed her fingers against the sensors implanted in her collarbone, “Soon, if the new substitutes work. But even that depends on my oxygen levels.”

This even caused Rin to force on a mutual smile. “Don’t push yourself, Okay?”

“I won’t.” Aiko said as a nurse in white clotting moved behind her, “I’ll be there next time.”
The nurse stepped closer and whispered something to her. Aiko nodded once and soon the screen went black, replaced by the school emblem.

The hallway emptied, students and parents moved on, even the ceremony moved on. Almost without her. Her friends whispered, almost overjoyed that they skipped on hours long of pity discussion. 

The hospital door quickly slid open with a quiet hiss. A man in a crisp white coat stepped through the angled doorway, immediately followed by someone in a dark grey formal wear. “Aiko-sama” the suited figure started. Aiko barely lifted her eyes from the faint glow of her virtual screen.

He held a small tablet forward as if to present it to her, “Shigeru-dono wants to speak to with you.”

“I don’t want to!" Aiko frowned.

Her personal doctor stepped closer, trying his best to sound clam, “Miss Aiko. It’s just a conversation. You don’t have to—”

“I said no,”  She interrupted sharply. Her hand flicked toward the edge of the bed, promptly brushing the blanket over her chest. Her ventilator’s filters kicked in as her shallow breath struggled to match her demands. Small alert lights blinked on the monitors. The tubing under her nose softly forced air into her system. Her chest rose and fell faster than normal.

“Aiko-sama,”  the suited man said as he lowered the tablet slightly as if to plead.

“I said no!!” Aiko demanded in refusal accompanied with the constant beep of her filters running overtime.

“Aiko! Stop!! Both of you!”  her doctor cut through the frustration and the dismissal of her alarms.

But she ignored him. “When was the last time he came for a personal visit?! Can you call someone you meet on a screen a 'father.' Today is my graduation day, the most important day of my menial life. Parents spend hours preparing for this day and the only think he could accomplish was a flumping visual reality marble call? Don't say me that he doesn't even have enough time to at least bless me with a personal visit." 

“It’s not that!”

“Then what is it”

The doctor’s hand flew over the control panel beside her bed in deep frustration, “You’re overloading her system.” He shouted blaming the whole incident onto Aiko’s associates. “Do you hear me?”

“Aiko-sama, Shigeru-dono just wants to ....”

“Then say him that ‘I’m fine enough.’ ” She labelled with her eyes pasted on her marble floor.

“Aiko, you’re not fine,” her doctor plummeted with less caution that what she expected, “You’re pushing yourself too hard. You know what this does to you. Another corrorra burst and your lungs restart their detrition. For your own sake, please make a small concession. You don't  even know when your last time or last breath will be heard, so please for just this time once.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line and forced her hand to twitch slightly towards the edge where she could grab the tablet with a resisting idea. 

[Personal say: Personally I would say to skip this chapter.]

[I am also running a indie animation studio that would serve as a boot to united all writers of different genres. ]