PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

Just shut up.

Miria Morinaga really hated class.

She let her pen drag across the page, leaving in its wake a cold hard line of black. It tapered off into a smear. Not that she cared. Showing any kind of skill here was needless in her eyes. She only wanted the snail paced clock to hurry up so she could go home and escape the world for a while.

“...our goal being, to combine our efforts with humanity and both enhance and progress modern technology at a far more rapid rate. It is widely recognized that our species...”

Once again, the teacher's voice droned off into white noise. It was the usual lecture, an excuse to justify this new alien government and everything it had enforced. A chance to brainwash the youth, quite literally in some respects.

Ignoring all the words that graced her ears, Miria instead chose to turn her attentions outside. Given that her seat was on the right side of the classroom, she had the privilege of a window to keep her company. Outside, the courtyard of Matsugaya Highschool stretched around in a curve, artificially evergreen trees lining each side of the gated entrance.

All desks were singular in that room, so even if you kept your voice low enough you'd be unable to start a conversation with any fellow student. Not that there was much point trying to be sneaky in this sort of world...

“...and upon seeing this, we combined our efforts with various renowned professors and worked towards creating a better version...”

Propaganda. That's all it really was. Have a listen as we talk about this totally amazing thing we did. Aren't you glad we're here?

They could go on and on about it, but she was never going to agree with them.

“At this point it became quite clear that many did not understand the importance of such an alliance, and as such, rallies and protests became commonplace. Naturally, efforts were made on our part to encourage such behavior to cease, but few were willing to listen-”

Few were willing to listen because your tactics were so brutal. Did you really believe you'd win fans by beating people openly in the streets?

And here came the voice again. The same voice that had already made her mess up her paper before, pressing the pen in hard enough to almost tear it. Her contentious self peeking through. As usual, she tried to simmer it down with neutrality.

No it's...they had their reasons. Those people were usually getting violent in the first place.

Speaking of 'reason', she always tried to 'reason' with the voice too. It rarely worked.

Had their reasons!? Sounds like you're defending them.

“Alright, now that we've had a chance to go over the material one more time, let's take a quick test and see what you can recall. Remember, the higher your mark, the higher your rank. I'm sure you all want to impress the rest of the classes in this year.”

Only a handful actually cared that much about marks, but still, nobody protested. There was no collective groan in response to her announcement. The pupils simply put pen to paper the moment they had their question sheets, and not a word was spoken.

Miria too, was silent. She quickly slipped a new piece of lined paper atop the damaged one, knowing it would only cause her a headache if she handed in anything less than satisfactory. Though it was a wonder why they still used such archaic means. Where was her fancy hologram tablet?

At least, her mouth was sealed. Yet her head buzzed incessantly, as it always did. Though she tried to ignore it or silence it, things never worked out that simply. She doubted they ever would.

I'm bored...isn't this boring? Isn't anyone else bored here? I'm bored. I'm completely bored.

I'm also redundant. Completely redundant.

Heh. Now you're mocking me, eh?

“...Shut up...please just shut up...” Miria begged in a hiss through her teeth, but her cautiously spoken words weren't enough to drown them out.

This whole system is a joke! We both know this isn't going to get us anywhere. Why would it? Hell, you should just start anarchy. Rip up the test paper, right now.

What? And reward myself with a stern lecture or worse? I don't have time for that.

You're no fun.

She tried, but ultimately failed, to control that other voice. It was sometimes strong enough to drown out her own whispers. Miria was very skilled at this point in time with just keeping her mouth clamped shut and her body language non-provocative. Unfortunately, her thoughts weren't something she could keep to herself...

Nobody could.

A stern pair of impossibly pale eyes, pale as her hair, zeroed in on her from across the room, and soon enough she heard the footsteps.

Click clack, click clack.

Clickety clackety, here she comes-

Shut the hell up already!

“Miss Morinaga.”

The classroom assistant came to a stop right beside her desk, super slender fingers positioned taut on her waist. Her cat-like eyes glared down at the girl sitting there, observing every fine detail, every slight mannerism she displayed. Her plain lips were pressed into a tight line, almost as tight as the scraped up bun she wore her colorless hair in.

With a tap of her fingertip beneath her ear, a little patch of her silvery skin glowed in a ring of blue. Other students stared in a tense silence, as she listened.

“...So now we're using profanities, are we?”

Miria looked up sheepishly, feeling the eyes of every single classmate and the teacher focusing on her too, like vultures eyeing up a dead rat. Surely they were used to it now though? They got a show like this practically every day.

“I'm sorry, I can't-”

“After school. Again.”

That was as elaborate as the conversation became. Miria swallowed thickly, watching the woman turn and saunter to some other pages she could scope, leaving her embarrassed.

She'd been waiting with anticipation for the lesson to end.

Now, she didn't want it to be over.