Chapter 012! I Wonder How, I Wonder Why...

A large starless void lay in front of Yamano Ai, she was standing in a park. She actually wasn't really, it was just something that "The Door" created to suite her needs.

It was an abandoned playground up at the side of a mountain, graffiti, litter and dry leaves everywhere. There was a broken swing on the very corner of the playground, a climbling frame a few feet from a bench and broken vending machine beside the entrance. Finally in the middle of the playground, there stood one lone, graffiti plagued slide. Everything about it screamed 'abandoned!'. The playground was surrounded by a thick forest on all sides, except for the north of the swing where a railing and another half-rotting bench sat. Yamano was leaning against the railing. Anyone who looked at her from afar might think she was admiring the void and lost in thought.

Well, she is lost in thought, but not admiring the void.

The bench suddenly burst into splinters. Yamano had kicked it. 'I...fucking..hate...you...'

She continuously kicked the splinters, until they turned into splinters, and kicked those splinters.

By the time she put down her foot she already turned the bench into a half-rotting pile of sawdust.

Yamano's usually cute face was now consorted with anger, and her fists were clenched so much that her palms started to bleed.

'Why the sad face?'

The voice of the person Yamano dreaded with every cell of her body's voice echoed around her. 'Isn't this what you wanted?'

*

'No no no! Yamano, stay with me.' Yugo dragged Yamano's unconscious body towards Wadashi's golf cart, Wadashi ran out to help him. 'What the hell happened Yugo?'

Suzuki was already hopping into the front and starting the engine. 'That door can really fuck with your mind if you didn't prepare for it beforehand, shit, why did I even let her in.'

Yugo and Wadashi lay Yamano down on the back seat of the cart and strapped her in. 'By the time Yugo jumped on Suzuki was already hitting twenty five. 'What do you mean by "fuck with your head?"'

Suzuki adjusted her arm rest so she can drive comfortably with one hand. 'Why were you at your dad's, when you were only going into junior high?'

'Hell, if I'd know...'

Suzuki flicked Yugo's head with her index finger. 'Because the sole existence of that door is to make people feel bad. That Altria bitch is fucked up.'

Yugo rubbed the spot where Suzuki flicked him. 'Then what do you mean by-'

'Preparing your mind?' Suzuki guessed. 'Think Yushita, think! What are you afraid of?'

'A lot of things, glassware, teapots, Oaklie-'

'No you genius. Use your brain.'

Yugo scratched his head for a moment. 'Aha. Practically nothing. I admit I have a bit of an inferiority complex. I think I'm worse than someone, up until I beat them.'

'Right. And since you cannot know more about me as a person, as embarrassing as it is, I'll let you in on one more secret.' Suzuki paused for a beat. 'I'm basically fearless and worriless by now. I've abandoned all of my emotions years ago. Unlike you, who didn't have emotions to begin with, I was a normal girl. And for the entire hallucination, simulation, whatever that door was, I regained a little bit of my humanity. I felt scared, embarrassed, I still do right now, happy, flustered. Y'know, feelings that I haven't experienced in so long.'

Yugo nodded. 'So then we're technically "mentally prepared", you with your emotions and me with my house back in Sendai, but Yamano went through all of this without knowing what's on the other side, and if it's enough to make someone who rejected their humanity years go get bad feelings, Yamano's emotions must've been magnified.'

'You're finally thinking now. Good job.'

All this time Wadashi was sitting silently beside Yamano's unconscious body making sure she doesn't fall off. After listening to the two soon-to-be first years talk about "the door" he can't resist cutting in. 'What's all this about, a "door" and "that Altria person". What's going on?'

Suzuki looked at Yugo. 'Wanna explain?'

Yugo shrugged. 'I don't see why not.'

'Well, you see...' Yugo started explaining.

*

Wadashi thought while slowly chewing on his nail, some story he's dismissed as a myth was just proven to be real to him. An eerie smile crept up on his face. 'A badly put together myth...'

The cherry blossom covered area three was coming into view, Wadashi's smile got larger, the atmosphere darkened. 'Sacred arts hmmm? Like this?' Wadashi raised his fist and an orange glow surrounded it. 'I won't personally call them sacred arts, more like, how you put it? Family Heirlooms. There's nothing sacred about them, they're passed down by generations of refining, and in the odd case, merging by two families with them. Some "sacred arts" as the so called "goddess" calls them are weaker than others, sorry in advance but take Suzuki's eyes and senses for example, they are weaker than take Jasper's Reality Bomb in an actual fight, but if you put Suzuki's "sacred arts" up against Jasper, the chances of Suzuki losing is probably close to zero. Why? Because "Reality Bomb" bends reality, but Suzuki's eyes see through reality, one might call it "enlightenment"...'

Suzuki tapped the ribbon she has covering her eyes. 'Mind if I steal that name?'

'Sure, anyways, back to what I was saying, my "sacred arts" is called "cloak". I'm able to cloak my body in a large amount of power for a short amount of time.'

Yugo nodded his head slowly. That explain the beam of pure light he shot from his finger. 'God's...judgement...'

'Sorry?'

Yugo grinned. 'Nothing, it just sounds like one of my Fantasy D and D worlds, with sorcery, magic and all that crap.'

Suzuki looked surprised. 'I thought the one person who won't accept this would be you...'

Yugo laughed a cold laugh that slithered down Suzuki's spine. 'My Dad used to tell me "keep an open mind" and accept what you see. Of course I'm not gonna go by exactly what he says, but I kind of agree. Seeing is believing, and besides, every heard of "Genius lives one floor above Madness"? To be as smart as me...' Suzuki rolled her eyes. 'You've got to have something that normal people don't, or be completely, utterly off your rocker. I'm by no means a Genius, I'm just a Teenage Prodigy, I'm, probably, not going to be as smart as Einstein in terms of Physics and whatnot, definitely not going to be as smart as Sun Tzu in terms of strategies, war and battles, never going to be as much of a genius on the Piano as Mozart. Hell, I probably would lose at anything related to games to Sora and Shiro, but I'll be better than Einstein in music, better than Sun Tzu in physics and relativity and better than Mozart in War Strategies. And if you place Sora and Shiro in public without each other they'll have a nervous breakdown. That's what defines a "prodigy" from a "genius". I might not be best at anything, but I am certainly better at everything. Geniuses are the top of the food chain in one thing, but lacks in another, prodigies are higher up in the food chain in everything.'

Suzuki slammed on the handbrakes and skidded to a stop in front of their "base".

'Oi, watch it!' Yugo wailed as he launched himself over a flying Yamano. 'You wanna kill her?'

Suzuki looked down sheepishly. 'I always wanted to do that, it was hard to resist. Sorry.'

Suzuki and Yugo carefully put Yamano on Yugo's back. 'Let's go in and face Oaklie's wrath...' Yugo sighed as he secured Yamano's arms around his neck. 'This is gonna be great fun...'