"Flew Too Close."

I woke up in some kind of hospital, it could've been the school's onsight care facility though. The windows were open, the breeze blowing the drapes across the room. I sat up and noticed I had been hooked up to a machine.

I unhooked myself from the machine and tore the covers off of me. I grabbed my head and thought a bit. What the hell was that? He was really better than me? No, couldn't have been, I just wasn't at full strength.

Someone came into the room, a nurse maybe, she was wearing all white with a name tag, "Auri Eiko." She seemed a bit aggressive as she checked me over, writing notes all along her clipboard before leaving. A doctor soon came in, sighing before looking over the notes the nurse had shoved into his arms.

"Fubuki, do you feel alright?" He asked, his cuffs blowed in the wind distracting me. He noticed the distraction and closed the window, "Sorry about that, can you tell me how you feel?"

"Yeah, I'm fine to go back to Etchtome, so let me go." I was still staring out the window.

"Alright, but you never left etchtome, this is the on site emergency care facility." The doctor wrote down a note.

"Hmm." I was uninterested and the doctor left the room.

I don't think I've been out for too long, maybe a few days max. I hope I see Asaki soon, I want to ask him how I could beat Rias. I don't know how long I was waiting before the doctor came back in.

"Here are your things and discharge papers, have them signed by a guardian and turned in to your counselor to excuse your absence." The doctor signed his name on the paper before turning the clipboard to me.

"So this shows why I was here and how long and stuff?" I looked up at him.

"Yeah, you were here for 3 days, mostly treated for blunt force trauma and blood loss." He explained.

"Alright, thanks then," I paused trying to think of his name.

"Doctor Ken Kalen." He responded.

"Alright, thank you doctor," He left the room and I changed my clothes and checked my Kommun device.

I found a few messages, and one from an unsaved contact. It read, "This is Kasago, when you get well come see me." Since there were no classes today I headed over to the East building to find him. The campus was eerily empty, like everyone was hiding in their dorms or something, no one to be seen.

I never really noticed it before, but now there was no one, not even one person. I pushed those thoughts to the back of my head and went up the stairs. The light that shined through the stairwells windows was so clear, and the stairs and handrails themselves were so much cleaner than before. I wonder what happened here.

I got to my dorm room where I found Henry and Kasago sitting there. Kasago was reading some book and Henry had fallen asleep.

"What's up with you guys?" I asked Kasago, confused.

"Oh good you're back, today's some cleaning thing so they want us to keep out of the halls for a few hours." He flipped a page.

"Makes sense I guess, what did you want to talk to me about?" I sat down.

"Yeah, I wanted to talk to you, but we should go somewhere else, I know a tea shop." He closed his book and set it down.

"A tea shop? Alright I guess, but why do we need to talk there?" I asked.

"We don't, I just want tea." Kasago put his shoes on and then stood up.

"Alright I guess," I tossed my bag aside and waited as Kasago finished getting ready.

We left the room quietly, leaving Henry to sleep alone. The stairs that were located right next to our dorm room had a gap about 5 feet in width and went all the way down. As we walked down I couldn't help but stare at this gap.

"You okay? You keep staring off." Kasago stopped walking.

"Yeah, I was just thinking about doing something." I kept staring at the gap.

"What was it?" He climbed back up a few steps to meet me.

"Couldn't I just use my frost to slide down the gap instead of going down the stairs?" I walked over to the guard rail that separated the platform from the gap.

"Don't try," Kasago said in an aggravated tone before turning around.

"Hmm." I slid my hand across the guard rails, jumping over them and looking down the gap, to the stairwells entrance, "I'll be fine!" I yelled before jumping and touching the wall with my hand.

I created ice along the wall as I went down to control my speed, but my concentration wasn't enough and I slipped and fell right as I was about to touch the ground. Kasago soon reached the bottom and saw me laying down after what I'd done.

"I told you, not a good idea." He didn't even look at me as he walked past and held open the door while reaching out his hand to help me up.

"Thanks," I grabbed his hand and got up, "It would've worked if I had some more practice with it." I left the stairwell, the door closing behind me.

"Maybe, but it really didn't help you that much though." He looked me in the eyes with irritation, as if he wanted to say so much more than he had.

We walked towards the tea shop silently after that, not a word spoken. We crossed over into Kaliston and down a street I hadn't been on before. It was right before dusk but the street lights had been on. The windy cold streets were in contrast to the bright colorful shops all around us; tea, music, clothing, even weaponry.

I walked along gazing at all the lights and stores that we passed by until we reached one particular tea store. It was made from some kind of green pipe-ish thing with a sign on the front, "Garavi Tea House." Kasago pulled me inside where it was cozy, warm, and had a relaxing smell in the air. There weren't many customers in the shop, in fact in total there were maybe 8 people including the waitress and the person making the tea.

We sat down on the left hand side of the door by the window and waited. I stared out the window and watched it slowly start raining.

I was a bit shocked as the waitress started talking to me, "Hi, here are your menu's, let me know when you're ready to order okay?" She said very happily before being called over to assist with another table.

I've never liked tea too much, especially green tea, it always tastes a bit too grassy, not for me. I looked over the menu a bit before noticing Kasago hadn't even opened his.

"You're not gonna order?" I asked, while looking from the menu.

"Put the menu down, I'll get you something you'll like." He raised his hand while looking over his shoulder to call the waitress.

"Nah I can find something better." I furiously looked over the menu before picking one at random, "This." I pointed my finger at a menu item.

The waitress looked confused before writing it down, "And for you?" She shifted her attention to Kasago.

"Milk tea no sugar." He said softly.

She left with our orders and as I was about to ask Kasago what he wanted to talk to me about he left for the restroom. I sat alone and looked around, but there wasn't much in here, and no one was speaking, it feels like I'm so out of place here.

Kasago returned and took his seat across from me, it was now fully raining and dark outside but the shop was still warm and light.

"Sorry for taking so long." Kasago apologized softly.

"It's fine, anyway what did you want to talk to me about?" Everyone stared at me, I quickly realized my tone and began speaking more softly, "Sorry, what did you want to talk about?" I asked more appropriately.

"It's about what happened with Rias, but more than that." My entire body tensed up just hearing his name, I was silently panicking and all I could focus on was the sound of the rain clashing against the window.

Rias, my first ever loss, I was humiliated, by some guy. In front of tons of people, and the worst part is that I don't feel anything, my pride has been so shattered I can't even feel its broken remnants. What could Kasago want to talk about that guy for?

I was brought out of my thoughts as the waitress sat down our tea, "Milk tea no sugar, and dragon spine tea, good luck." She hurried off.

"Why did she say good luck?" I looked at Kasago confused.

"Take a sip." He was watching, just waiting for me to drink so he could get the smug satisfaction of being right.

"Fine, then." I slammed the entire drink down.

It was so bitter, I held my face for as long as I could but I eventually just coughed a bit. Kasago, now thoroughly satisfied, took a sip and began talking again.

"Have you heard of the tale of Isaac?" Kasago questioned as he continued sipping.

"Isaac? No I don't think so, why?" I was intrigued.

"Well, Isaac was a crafter back in the day, creating new machines that could build homes faster and transport large amounts of cargo across distances."

"Okay, I'm not seeing your point though." I slumped back.

"Just hold on for a second, so Isaac has an issue, he wants people to use machines for transport, but since spirit users are able to run basically anywhere machine transport wasn't super common."

"Yeah?" I raised an eyebrow.

"He realized that the only way for people to want to use machines for transport on a large scale was if it was an experience that most people didn't get, flight."

"So he wants to build a machine that can fly?" I asked.

"Yeah, and so, he begins working on prototypes, first he needed to make ones that could fly him, using wooden plates bound by steel and glue he was actually able to fly himself. But he got too reckless, and ended up flying too close to the sun, the glue melted and he fell 1000 feet and died." Kasago finished.

"I'm sorry, but what the hell does that have to do with anything that I do?" I raised my voice and started getting concerned looks from all over.

"Fubuki, Rias was your sun, you didn't take your time to prepare, and you went into a battle that you couldn't win, and you fell." Kasago finished his tea.

I was speechless, was it really that obvious that I was going to fail? No, I beat Freddy and he was a capital prick too, there's just something different about that Rias that I can't pin down just yet. Kasago's point is that I haven't worked hard enough, I think I get that now.

The waitress came over and sat 2 new cups of tea down, "No we didn't order these." I motioned for her to stop.

"I did, when I was out in the bathroom I ordered these, trust me you'll like it better."

"What is it?" I picked up the cup of tea.

"Black tea with mint 2 sugars." Kasago started drinking.

I cautiously took a sip, "Fuck, that's good." I said defeatedly.

"I know." Kasago finished his drink and placed some money on the table, "You ready to leave yet?" He questioned.

"Gimme a second," I drank the tea at once, "Alright I'm good," I stood up, "So your point is that I need to prepare more?" I asked as we left.

"No Fubuki, my point is that you don't prepare at all, remember the stairwell? You rushed into it even though I told you it was stupid, my point is that you rush into things and then you get hurt." He raised his tone just a bit.

"So I need to prepare more, is what you're saying." I flipped my hood up to not get caught in the rain pouring down heavier than before.

"Don't be a smartass." He grabbed the back of my sweater and pushed me a bit.

We laughed a bit while walking back to Etchtome, which was a really short walk if you're ignoring all the cool shops around.

We got back in to the dorm room late, the rain had fogged up the massive window in the center of the room and Henry looked impatient and angry waiting for us.

"So you guys left and just didn't tell me? Didn't ask if it was okay?" The tension in the air was palpable.

"Sorry, didn't think we needed to," I sat on my bed and removed my sweater.

"Well we had to talk to the headmaster, and you two weren't there!" He yelled.

"Headmaster for what?" I peered out of my burrough.

"Kasago you didn't tell him? We're getting a new person in the dorm." He said.

"Oh, and that's special enough to talk with the headmaster about? Honestly I couldn't care less about the next guy that comes in here." I popped off my shoes.

"He's coming here from Kahura City for some reasons so go easy on him alright?" Henry cautioned us.

"Whatever you want, I'm going to bed, I'm still recovering a bit." I put out the candle.

"Alright get well," Henry said, still a bit pissed.