Chapter One: Alone

A soft breeze blew through a row of cherry trees, tugging at the pink blossoms clinging to its branches and scattering the petals. Carried by the wind, they floated and settled on the road, where they were crushed by a horde of feet clad in identical shoes.

Manami eyed the pale petals on the ground as she walked along. Her identical shoes took nervous step after nervous step, taking her in the same direction as all the other shoes. She gulped; the cluster of walking feet had thickened, which meant that she was nearing her destination.

She lifted her head as the feet made a turn, and found herself facing a wide white building. An open gate greeted her, drawing in the crowd. A tall sign read "Kitagawa High School Entrance Ceremony" in vertical black letters, looming with ominous formality as if to inform Manami's stomach that it hadn't flipped over enough.

She shuffled through the gate rather unceremoniously, caught in the flow of people. Despite the crowd milling about, she felt oddly alone. Looking around, she realized it was because almost everyone else had a companion. Returning students had their friends to greet enthusiastically, and new students had their parents with them. Manami's parents had been unable to attend, her father away on a business trip and her mother engaged in an important meeting.

Gradually, she made her way to the auditorium, where she was seated with her classmates-to-be in an orderly fashion. To her right sat a girl with dyed brown hair set in carefully styled curls and makeup applied to perfection. To her left sat a plainer girl by comparison, who was nevertheless sporting prettily manicured nails. Manami furrowed her brows—was nail polish even allowed at this school?

She didn't interact with them at all, and instead let her mind drift into her memories. She felt a twinge in her heart—she missed everyone from class E. It was odd to be alone at a school without them, after all the adventures they'd had together. After middle school, everyone had split and scattered to different high schools. She didn't know where everyone was going, since she hadn't bothered to check. She was fairly sure that Nagisa and Kaede were attending the same school and that a few others had also stayed connected, but she'd somehow drifted off alone. Alone, and very lonely. Manami tugged herself out of her painful thoughts, bringing her attention to the man standing at the podium on the stage.

The entrance ceremony began with a rather stiff welcoming speech from the principal. He looked strict, but that was hardly frightening compared to Asano. Manami let her eyes slide over the row of teachers sitting to the side and began to observe each of them. They appeared to be less severe than the teachers she had seen at Kunugigaoka, though that might have been because they weren't all glaring down their noses at her.

She chuckled softly at the thought, remembering the tough times she and class E had gone through together. And there, the memories were back.

The girls beside her glanced at her, perturbed by her low laughs. She stopped immediately, ducking her head in silent apology, and smiled warmly, albeit awkwardly. A new place meant new friends, and she would have to start from scratch.

The three turned their attention back to the podium, where the principal was finishing his speech. He ended with an attempted poetic metaphor (something to do with cherry blossoms, a very typical topic for the season) then called up a student representative from the senior class.

The senior began his own piece with another cherry blossom metaphor, then launched into a passionate (and very long) welcoming speech.

At this point, Manami mused, the speaker would have been straining every nerve to humiliate class E. The entire school would have been snickering openly, throwing disdainful looks upon them in heaps. Once it would have bothered them, and they would have shrunk in shame. Now, Manami was almost missing the tension in the air as class E clashed with everyone else, and the excitement. The anxiety in her gut had faded to be replaced with a restless stir; the air here was really too calm.

So engrossed was she in her thoughts that she didn't notice the senior representative conclude his speech and step down from the podium. She didn't see the principal take the mic and call out for the individual with the highest test scores among the incoming students. She only caught a vague "A—ne —rma" as the representative was called up, and didn't notice the familiar flicker of red as the student walked up the rightmost aisle toward the stage.

She only snapped out of her reverie when the girls sitting on either side of her squealed excitedly—along with every other female in the auditorium—as the boy stepped up behind the podium. She looked up, bemused and disorientated by the sudden chatter of noise, only to see a very familiar figure and fall into further confusion. A hush fell over everyone as the handsome boy adjusted the mic stand and leaned forward, lazily but gracefully, to speak into it.

He spoke a few brief sentences and ended his speech with no mention of cherry blossoms. Manami could only stare open-mouthed, his voice sliding into her ears through the speakers. Her mind swirled with bewilderment, every thought and memory thrown into disarray by the shock.

She met his gaze and felt the amusement in his eyes wash over her. Her own eyes were, no doubt, expressing every bit of the surprise that was coursing through her in shaky waves.

Akabane Karma stared down at her, the grin on his face calling out to her.

Hey there.

This story is set in high school after everything with Korosensei ends. I'll figure out how it ended later, though I'm not sure how much it'll matter to this story.

Please let me know if you find any errors. Reviews are greatly appreciated!

Be warned: I update very slowly.

Thank you for reading!