Chéria

Prologue : Chéria

7AM Wednesday. Ayato's phone alarm is ringing but he's already awake an hour before that, he just lack the ability to get up on his bed. "Another day huh..." he says to himself. He turn off his alarm and get up on his bed, "another day" he says to himself again after getting up. He fix his bed and get out of his room, he then knocks on the room next to him waking up his two little sisters, "Aurora, Kazumi! Time to get up, you're going to be late" he says trying to wake them up. He then proceeded downstairs to make breakfast, he starts cooking some omurice for the three of them with a sandwich for the side, he's about to fall asleep while he's cooking but the sound of the toaster wake him up, he then picked up the bread and finishes their omurice. After cooking he then plate everything into the table and wait for his sisters, and right on queue, they both came downstairs after they smell the food. Once Kazumi sees the food her eyes widened and her mood lights up, she immediately run towards the table drooling and ready to eat her breakfast, "thank you for the food!" She says, meanwhile Aurora approaches the table sluggishly and smacked Kazumi in the head before she takes a bite, "Wash your mouth first" she says with a calming voice, "Onii?" Aurora suddenly looked at Ayato, "Y-yeah?" He says back, "Can I open the TV?" She asks, "yeah go ahead" he says with a nod. Kazumi then goes to the sink and wash his mouth, Aurora then follows after opening the TV, it then started on a news cast and a male newscaster shows to tell the recent news, "Good Morning everyone, this is your favorite newscaster Akihito, and today here are the recent news..." the TV becomes a white noice for a while.

Kazumi peeks on the corner to look at his brother spacing out and slowly falling asleep, "He's been going home late at night lately, is something wrong?" She thinks to herself with a worried look on her face, "wait, what if Nii-chan has a girlfriend and they've been dating for a while?" She says to himself with a shock on her face, "what if.. what if?!" She continues to think about different scenarios including his brother having a relationship with a girl, she then grinned after thinking about something... interesting.

Aurora sees this and immediately knows what's she thinking, she approaches her and says, "Onii is been working hard lately", Kazumi is surprised after hearing her voice, "I'm not thinking about anything!" She replies nervously, she looks at her sister who walked pass her and stop to peek at the same corner she's in before, "he's working at least 3 different part-time job right now, thats why hes going home late" Aurora said while looking at his sleepy brother, "and on top of that, he also needs to focus in his studies" she adds, Kazumi's expression changed into a more serious one after hearing that, "I see..." Kazumi says, Aurora then continues to speak "and on another top of that, he needs to take care of his sisters", Kazumi nods, Aurora looks at her and said "so the only thing we can help him is to take care of him too" Aurora said with a smile, "I AGREE!" Kazumi then shouts and waked up their brother. He looks around and find the source of the sound and found Kazumi and Aurora at the corner of the hall, "What are you two doing there?" He asks, "Nothing!" They both said at the same time, "Come here and eat then" he says, "Yes!" They both replied, they then sit back on their chairs and eat their breakfast, "Thanks for the food!" They all said after praying then proceeds to eat their food.

7:15 AM at Nagatsuki's Residence

While eating Ayato heard something about the news on the TV, "...The case of missing people are still on investigation and are still active, a lot of people are missing day by day, so we recommend the people to stay aware of everything happening and stay away from strange people and dangerous places..." the Newscaster says, "Meanwhile the alien thing that's been found-" the channel suddenly changed, "...gotron its time for battle!" Kazumi changed the channel to her favorite anime show Algotron, "there much better" Kazumi says. Ayato looks at the TV and sighs, he then proceeded to finish his food.

8:00 AM at Nagatsuki's Residence

The three of them finished their food and quickly get ready for another day at school, Ayato is waiting outside on their minivan, "Aurora, Kazumi!" He calls out to them, "Wait a second! Ahh!" Kazumi says before a loud thud can be heard, Ayato looks at upstairs with a worry but after about ten seconds, both of them came out of the door. "Nii chan wait for us!" Kazumi says, "Kazumi your hair pin! Its falling off!" Aurora says, "eh?" Kazumi the touch her hairpin and fixed it, "is it good now?" Kazumi asks, Aurora affirm with a nod. The three of them looked back inside the house where their Family portrait is and says goodbye, "We're Leaving!" Kazumi and Aurora says before Aurora closed the door and lock it. Ayato opens the door of the car to let her sisters in, the two of them get in and so Ayato started the car, and after that they leave the house.

8:10 on the Road

"My name is Nagatsuki Ayato 19 years old and finishing my collage degree, I have two little sisters, their name is Kazumi and Aurora Nagatsuki, they're both 10 years old, they're a twin after all, Aurora is the one with a white hair and a blank expression and Kazumi is the one with the black hair and a lively expression." He says to himself trying to talk to someone even tho there's no one there but the three of them. "I'm also working 3 part-time jobs with a very kind boss, Im also very popular at school having a lot of friends..." he says to himself sarcastically, his expression then saddens at the same time as the street light become red, "who am I kidding" he says to himself, "a lot of wasted opportunities because of my stupid pride, I could've done better at my job if I started earlier, and I could've given my sisters a lot of attention if not for my laziness" he thought to himself followed by sigh, Aurora sitting at the back notices his brother being gloomy but is too shy to say anything about it, "Nii chan, is there a problem?" Kazumi then asks, "uh?!" Ayato is surprised, he looked at Kazumi through the mirror and said "it's nothing, I just remember something" Ayato recovered from his gloomy stage and remember why he was doing all of this. Aurora looked at Kazumi surprised, but then a sign of relief flows through her and she smiles, "what?" Kazumi looks back at her sister confused, "nothing" Aurora replies. The lights turned green and their ride continues.

8:20 AM Iken Elementary School

Kazumi and Aurora are picking up their bags and get ready to face the day ahead of them, "Take care out there" Ayato says, "Yes!" Both of them said at the same time as they open the car door.

Outside the car they're met with their friends waiting for them, "Nagatsuki!" Says one of the three girls waiting for them, they wave back and the three girls joined them as they walked to their class.

Ayato looked at them from the car and then proceeded to continue driving.

8:30 AM Kai Yu College University

Ayato is parking his car into the parking lot of the school, he got out of the car and notices that the one of their teachers car isn't there, "maybe they're absent today?" He thought to himself, "anyways" he says and proceeds to go to his class.

8:35 AM Kai Yu College University

Ayato enter his class and sees some of them aren't there yet "maybe they're late?" He thought to himself, he sit on his chair and put his bag on the side, he waits till the class started. While he's waiting he pulled out his phone and earphones to listen to a podcast, right now the podcast hasn't started yet so he instead listen to music.

After a while their homeroom teacher comes in and start the class immediately, he turns off his phone and put it on his pocket, throughout the whole class he felt an uneasiness in the air, there's like a new aura roaming around their class. After the first class ended, some of their classmates talks about the weird atmosphere around the class and they decided to got out of the room. Ayato did the same because of how uncomfortable he is at the moment, he goes to his usual spot where he spends most of his extra time at the school garden on the bench under a big tree. He sat there thinking about all the weird things happening today, even though its very unnatural no one complains about it so why would he? they're not gonna listen to him anyway. 30 minutes has passed and it's time for the next class, he got up and goes through the day normally but the uneasiness never ceased.

3:15 PM Kai Yu College University

Its time for their Laboratory class but their teacher isn't there yet, everyone is waiting. Ayato suddenly remembered that their teacher's car isn't at the parking lot so he assumes that they're absent, but if they do the Laboratory class should've been canceled, as he thought to himself , a teacher suddenly comes in, "Excuse me, but your class will end early today sorry for the inconvenience" after the students heard this they cheered and quickly grab their bags to go home early. Suddenly while packing up all his things, he recieved a call, "what?" He picked up his phone and see who's calling him, "Kazumi?" He says as he sees the name of the caller, he answers the call and put the phone on his ears, "Hello?" He asks, "Nii chan!" Kazumi shouts through the phone trying to surprise her brother, Ayato flinches and was surprised, "Kazumi? Aren't you supposed to be at class right now?" He asks, "Yeah, but our class ended early, which means I can play early too!" Kazumi says, "No, we're going to study" Aurora's voice can be heard through the phone, "But why..." Kazumi says whining, Ayato still on the phone sighs and said "My class got suspended too", "really?!" Kazumi asks, "yup really, I'm going to pick you up there so wait for me, ok?" He adds, "Yes!" Kazumi replied, "okay then, bye Nii chan take care!" Kazumi says before hanging up, "that surprised me really" Ayato says to himself. He continues to pack his things and get to his minivan to pick up her sisters.

3:30 PM Iken Elementary School

Kazumi notices his brother's car arriving so he called out for him and wave "Nii chan!, Right here! Right here!", Ayato smiles and honk his car two times as a reply to her call. They open the car doors and enter at the back, "How's school?" Ayato asks as he proceeded to drive, "Great!" They both said, "We found this cool stone on the pool earlier on swimming class!" Kazumi says enthusiastically, she then shows a green crystal to him, its clear and has a diamond shape, "That's cool" he said, "How about you Aurora?" He asks, "not good..." Aurora says, "Can I ask why?" He asks, "I hit my knee on the side of the pool" Aurora answers, "Are you alright then? I can treat it back at home if you like?" Ayato adds, "Nah, I'm good, Nurse Aki take care of my knees" Aurora said, Ayato smiles "Okay then, just tell me if you need help, yeah?" He says, Aurora nods. Ayato continues to drive.

3:40 PM Nagatsuki's Residence

After they arrive at home Aurora and Kazumi quickly goes to their room to change clothes, Ayato goes to his room to do the same, but he didn't change to a regular cloths, instead he change to his work uniform and got ready to work early for his part-time job. Kazumi and Aurora came out of their room and go downstairs to the livingroom and study. After changing, Ayato came down to the livingroom to say goodbye but a text suddenly came to his phone, he looked at it and see a video attachment, "what?" The message comes from an unknown number so he's sceptical to open it, but the video suddenly played, "huh?!" He doesn't know what's happening but in the video he sees a guy watching a TV right beside him is a box of pizza a phone on top of it and a familiar stone beside it, he looked around for a bit and realize that the stone in the video is the same stone his sisters picked up from the pool, he then sees the man's phone rings and he tries to pick it up and accidentally knocked off the stone causing it to fall and break into the ground, after the stone falls it suddenly glows bright and and the man on the video screams, suddenly after the blinding lights disappear the man also dissapeared, he then remembered that green glow from one of the houses he sees, it flashes so quick he only had a second of seeing it. He then hears her sisters talking, "Kazumi, could you give me the pencil?" Aurora asks, "Yup!" Kazumi answers, Ayato then remeber the recent disappearance and connected all the dots. He feels a chill run down his spine as he looked into his sisters, Kazumi accidentally knocked off the stone from the table, Ayato run to them as fast as possible "WATCH OUT!!" The time feels slow and his body so heavy, all he could think about is his sisters, he streatch his arm trying to reach out to them but they're out of reach, he didn't even know if he's going to make it but he did it anyway. Suddenly the stone fell to ground and cracks, it starts glowing and suddenly... everything went silent.

He wakes up... "I woke up?" He thought to himself, he can't feel his arms nor his legs, he cant even hear his heartbeat or his breath, he's in the dark, but he feels like he is floating, all he can do is think and remembers. "I guess this is my life now" he chuckles as he says it to himself, he stared into the endless void and see nothing but darkness, "this place could use some light you know" he says to himself again, he floats into the darkness for a very long time. As he float into the endless void he thinks to himself "did I ever done something?" That's what he's thinking, he remembers the moment before he got here, his breakfast, his class, his daily chat with his sisters, did he even do something right? All the choices that he'd chose so far are repetitive choices like choosing what to eat or what to do for the next day, he feels regret for not doing everything right, no, he feels regret for not doing anything right, his fight with his mom, to contact his dad in his last moment, to say "I like you" to his crush, to finish his assignments, to say "thank you" to his boss even though he's a jerk, to not be able to protect his sisters from something he could've been. Regret started to fill his mind and even though there's nothing left of him anymore he felt like he was crying. A flood of emotions suddenly came through him and they're not positive ones, he cant really feel it but he was crying, he's trying to recover from it but it was too much, tears suddenly drop down from his cheeks, and then follow by another one. "Wait..." he stop, he felt something, he thought to himself, but before he can process whats happening the tears suddenly came pouring down like a rain and he can feel his arms and legs again, "what's happening?" He's asking himself, "nii chan..." its a very faint voice but he knows its a voice, "nii..." he hears it again, he tries to go to the source of the voice until it slowly becomes louder and louder, "Nii chan!" He hears it again, he stop for a moment recognizing who's that voice is coming from, "Kazumi!" He called out then continued to run, "Nii!" He hears another call, the call sounded like they're worried and in the verge of crying, this only push him further to run faster, suddenly he sees a light a very faint one, but he is determined. He run through the light and see what's behind it, and when he got close enough the light engulfed him. The next thing he knows is him waking up.

"Onii-chan!" A loud crying call is the first thing he hears before slowly wake up. He opened his eyes and see Kazumi's eyes filled with tears and crying out for him, he then look to the left and see Aurora crying there too, "Nii..." its all Aurora could say. Kazumi seeing his brother opened his eyes cried more loudly then hugging him with a tight embrace as Aurora do the same. Ayato feels like he can move again albeit slower than he thinks, "Kazumi? Aurora?" He calls out to them, the two of them is still crying, he realizes what happened and tried to calm them down, "Its alright now" he says while patting their backs, "I-I thought you were dead" Kazumi said while crying, "But i'm not yeah? You two should stop crying now" he replies, "but..." Kazumi said while sniffing and crying, "I thought you're a big girl? Didn't you said that yourself? " Ayato says, Kazumi nods and try to calm her self, "you too Aurora" he says to Aurora, "Don't make it sound like it's not a big deal you moron..." she says with a very faint voice while still crying. He reached out to her head and pat her "there, there" as he was patting her he realizes that he's still lying down and now that he feels it, it feels like his head is rested on Kazumi's legs, thinking about her sister he gets up quickly thinking that her legs might be numb, "ahh! Sorry Kazumi, are your legs okay?" He asks, Kazumi nods "I'm fine" Kazumi wiped the last bit of her tears, he gives a sigh of relief before noticing the weird horns on their heads "wait, what's up with the horns?" He said then pointed it out, "ah, this?" Kazumi said while rubbing her horns "I don't know it's just there", Ayato then looked at Aurora and notice the same "Looks like you also have one Aurora" He said, Aurora nods. Ayato tried to sit properly but he suddenly noticed that the ground is wet when his hand touched the grass below him. He looks from the right and noticed that it's raining and they're inside a forest under a big tree. "Looks like it's raining huh..." is all he could say, he looked around and find a cave in the distance, he pointed at it and said "Hurry let's go there", he tried to stand up but his brain suddenly jolt with pain that causes him to groan, "You okay Onii chan?" Kazumi asks, "Yeah I'm fine" Ayato said while trying to regain his balance. His sisters looked at him with worry, "hey, don't look at me with those puppy eyes, I'm fine okay?" He said trying not to worry her sisters, "S-sorry Onii, just trying to make sure" Kazumi said, "It's fine, let's hurry before the rain becomes heavy" he says trying to move on, Kazumi and Aurora nods, they proceeded to run towards the cave and take shelter there, their clothes got wet as a result.

Afternoon? At a Random Cave in the middle of a forest

The three of them reaches the cave, clothes dripping with water from the rain, "ugh, my clothes are wet now" Kazumi complains, "better than staying outside and facing cold wind, yeah?" Aurora argues, Kazumi look at her eyes squinting "it's not that bad", as she says that a roaring thunder suddenly appears, it make the both of them jump except for their brother, "I'm just kidding!" Kazumi suddenly blurted out of shock, she down sit down in a fetus like position while covering her ears, "sorry, sorry, sorry..." Kazumi whispers, Aurora looked at her with a pathetic look, "It's just a thunder Kazumi it's not that bad" as she says that the rain suddenly got heavier and wind blows much faster. She looked outside baffled and can't comprehend what just happened, "Y-you gotta be kidding me...". They looked at each other for a while realizing that they both feel scared at the moment, but a cold wind suddenly comes at the entrance of the cave and hit them, they both feel shivers and both of them quickly scower into the corner where the wind can't get them, "W-what a bad timing" Aurora said, "it's cold..." Kazumi whispers, meanwhile Ayato is looking at them from the other side of the cave chuckling, "what're you lookin at?" Kazumi said, abit grumpy, Ayato stops chuckling and said "You two should remove your clothes or you're gonna catch cold" he says while removing his own, the two sisters blushed on the idea and hesitate to do so, but knows that their brother is right as both of them suddenly sneezed, "F-fine" Kazumi said, slowly removing her clothes except for her underwear as Aurora does the same. "N-no looking at this direction or we're going to call the police!" Kazumi says, "yeah, yeah, give me your clothes so I can hang them up and let them dry" He says as he's turning around, Kazumi throws the wet clothes into the back of his brother's head "Pervert!", it hit him and the head causing him to fall forward. "Ow..." he says, trying to get up while scratching his head "that hurts you know!" He says looking back at them but as he did so another pair of wet clothes hit his face "Hentai!" Both of them shouts as he fell into the ground. He removed the wet clothes from his face and apologized to them, "ow, sorry it was an accident". He picked up the clothes and hang them in the side of the cave, meanwhile. Kazumi and Aurora notice another section of the cave that the wind cant reach them, "Onii chan, we're going a bit further into the cave, its just too cold here" Kazumi said, "Just take care, okay?" Ayato said facing the wall, "we're going to sleep there, don't you dare peek!" Kazumi said, "yeah, yeah", after that, Aurora and Kazumi enter another section of the cave and sleep there, while Ayato removes his clothes to dry them up, "man... what a long day we had" He thought to himself, he look at the way where Kazumi and Aurora went into, "guess I can't do anything here but sleep here huh?" He thought to himself again, he sits in the part of the cave entrance where Kazumi and Aurora were before. "It's a very different place all of a sudden" he says to himself recalling what happened, he remembers everything that happened for today and tries to think what to do tomorrow, before he close his eyes he wishes that everything that happened was just a dream, "Onii chan?" Before he falls asleep he heard a voice from his right, he looked at it and see Kazumi peeking out of the corner, "K-Kazumi?" He asks, "the place is big, and its warm" Kazumi said shyly and looking at different directions, Ayato looks at her with confusion, "we're thinking that you must be tired after everything that happened, so..." Kazumi stops, "so?" Ayato asks, Kazumi blushes and said "I guess you could you know... join us?", Hearing that Ayato perks up a little bit and smiled, When Kazumi sees it she blushes even more "I-its not like I want you to or anything, we're just thinking about you the same you think about us, there's nothing more to it!" She said, sounding like a tsundere, Ayato smiles and pat her head "Thank you, Kazumi", Kazumi calms down "Just don't touch us okay?" Kazumi said, "Why would I do that? You two are my sisters, I'm not going to do things that you'll hate" Ayato said. Kazumi looked at him once more and go back inside the cave "I'm going to sleep Nii chan", Ayato enters the room and sit there, "sleep tight". The three of them sleeps and wait for the rain to stop.

End of Prologue ~