It was a sad, gloomy period, the Christmas holiday. There were no lessons, a lot of people went home to see their parents and friends, and there was hardly anyone around she could talk to. It made her feel lonely, if she had to be honest. Although many students only knew that dark, aggressive side of hers, also because she could not communicate any of her other needs to them, Akiko was a rather affectionate girl, wanting to belong to the group, wanting to be praised and seen as a good girl. She could get that praise and affection at the swordfighting lessons, and maybe sometimes from Rei. But during the holiday, only Rei was around to tell her she did good.

Akiko also didn't quite understand the whole feast that everyone seemed to be looking forward to. There was a big tree in the hall, nicely decorated, true, but... she failed to understand the purpose. People walked around wearing funny hats, giving each other gifts... of course, no one thought about giving her something. And she didn't think about giving something to any of them.

Pairs, threes, little groups... everyone had someone. Except for her. It made her feel lonely. And it was that loneliness that made her go to Rei's room. Rei was still about the only person she trusted. She felt safe there, she liked being in the older girl's presence. But for some reason, she knocked on the door and called out hesitantly to the priestess, there was no response.

Akiko tried again, and again, and again. It was odd that there was no reply. The ninja hesitated, torn between the desire to go inside and see if everything was alright and her compulsive need to never cross the line of someone else's room without their permission. But opening the door wouldn't hurt. Without even realizing that picking a lock to open the door was a crime, Akiko went ahead and opened the door. No one was inside.

Curiosity now won and she stepped cautiously inside. Nothing happened. "Rei-sama?" No raven-haired priestess showing up from any of the corners. The bed seemed to have been empty and unslept for several nights now. Some of her things were gone, others were left behind. Akiko trailed along the room, careful not to touch anything. Maybe if she waited long enough, Rei would come back?

She waited, standing in the middle of the room, eyes hopeful on the door. Hours passed and it turned dark outside. From under the door, Akiko could see that the lights had been turned on in the hall. It was dark in Rei's room as well. The door still didn't open to reveal the owner of the room.

"Rei-sama..." There was sadness and a hint of longing in the girl's voice. She felt almost hurt that Rei had just left and she didn't tell her where to. She felt like a child, left behind by her mother on a cold, dark corner of the street without knowing why. She turned towards the bed and curled up on the floor right next to it. She'd wait. No matter how long it would take, she'd wait for Rei to return. Because Rei had to return. She was certain of that.

OOC: ...Akiko got an aquarium at Gaia. That brought up this idea. So let's all pretend there has been an aquarium in the common room for quite a while now. Few weeks at least.

Open to everyone. And remember that a thread can have more than two chars in it! (That's a very not subtle hint for those who have been terribly absent: this might be a good opportunity to get back into action.)


An aquarium had been placed in the common room several weeks ago to make things a little more cozy for the girls. Bright, tropical fish were swimming around in it, not doing very much beside that, but still nice enough for some to be fascinated by them. Akiko was one of those people. She could sit for hours in front of the aquarium, not moving at all and observing the fish swimming from one side of the square glass prison to the other side. Their slow movements calmed her down, and it was rare for Akiko to feel calm and relaxed.

But then suddenly one morning, all the fish were no longer swimming inside the aquarium. They lay spread through the common room, all neatly flayed and taken apart in tiny pieces. The flayed skins lay on the tables and the chairs, as if someone had the intention to let them dry and then use them for something else. The organs, the meat and the bones were scattered over the floor, making it look like a real mess. And there it remained, waiting for someone to notice this horrible act.

With the weather turning bad, there was little for Akiko to do outside. It was still warm and good weather in Japan, she knew that. But here, it was cold and wet, and a storm was approaching. So the young ninja had found her way to the common room, where an open fire was crackling happily in the hearth. She lay in front of it, along with several pieces of paper and the necklace she had found.

She'd been busy drawing a bit at first, but Akiko had grown bored with it. Then her attention was drawn towards that 'magical' necklace she had found. She now held it up against the light of the fire and admired the reflections. Rays of light, bubbles of light... Akiko could swear there were even drops of light floating through the air. It was calming, relaxing. It made her feel happy, even good, and not as restless as usual. In fact, it made her unaware of things that happened around her.



OOC: Open to everyone. ^^

OOC: Back-dated to Monday 25 August. Open to everyone who wants to try and talk to crazy ninja girl =D.


An odd couple was walking up towards the school gate, and entered it. One was tall - especially for someone from Japan - and carried a heavy bag. The other was significantly shorter, and had one arm in a sling. Neither of them said a word, though the silence between them wasn't exactly comfortable either.

The tall man delivered the girl up to the front of the dorms. He dropped the bag there and without even saying a word or looking at the girl, he turned around to walk away.

"Yoshihara-san?"

The ninja stopped and looked over his shoulder at Akiko. "Nan da?" His voice was flat, even cold. Akiko flinched a bit at the curt, cold words, but still opened her mouth, for a moment appearing to want to ask something.

But she closed it then, and shook her head a bit. "Nandemo nai... Sumimasen," she mumbled, bowing deeply for her superior. Yoshihara turned his head back and continued to walk again. Akiko did not look up, and did not even come out of her deep bow until she was absolutely certain the older ninja had left.

She was restless that night. She was always restless on the nights when it was full moon. And even though it was not officially full moon yet, it was close enough for her mind to go nuts. Akiko tossed in her bed, trying to ignore all the voices and illusions that interrupted her sleep.

"Blood... I need blood... Give me some blood..."

Akiko groaned as she tossed to her other side. She wanted to see some blood. She wanted to draw some blood.

"Kill. Kill. Kill. Turn the world red in blood."

"No... Sh-shut up. Shouldn't... Should not..."

But the voices didn't stop. They kept whispering to her, filling her head with a desire for blood. She had to kill. She had to do it. "Kill." Akiko muttered and tossed her head restlessly. She shouldn't do it. They would not allow it.

"Kill!"

Unable to resist it any longer, Akiko sat up and swung her legs out of bed. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she equipped herself with some of her knives, and held one in her hand. She then moved outside, her movements fluent and stealthy like a ninja, even though her face was blank as she searched for her first victim.


OOC: First come will be the first victim. ^^ But anyone is free to join. (Even if someone has already responded to the thread!)

OOC: I don't know how long a cask needs to stay around the arm after it has been broken... but yeah, this takes place when Akiko still has a broken arm. And unless more people want to snuggle with Rei, it's Rei only.


Akiko couldn't sleep. It wasn't even 4am, and she still couldn't sleep. Though truth be told, she had hardly slept the past few days. The pain in her arm made it impossible for her to sleep. And it wasn't exactly comfortable either, trying to lie with the cask around her arm. It kept getting in the way.

She finally sat up and rubbed her sleepy eyes. She wanted sleep, she wanted sleep so badly... Akiko almost cried in frustration. First she couldn't fly and now she couldn't sleep. Life was so unfair.

But maybe with Rei she could sleep. Rei was nice, after all, and always very friendly. Akiko felt safe when she was around Rei. It didn't take much to make up her mind, and armed with a knife as usual in case bad guys were lurking in the darkness, she slipped over to Rei's room.

Akiko stood alone at a small, forgotten part of the witches' field for flying lessons. She had passed this field during the Christmas holiday and spotted a few of her witchy classmates flying through the air on a broomstick. Akiko, of course, became fascinated with this idea and she had spent her whole afternoon just watching at the other students flying and wishing she could do it as well.

Now the field was empty, because it was weekend, and Akiko had finally gotten hold on a broomstick. She knew what a broomstick was. She used it a lot in the village when she was forced to sweep the streets. She had never thought it was possible to fly on them.

The ninja stepped over the stick, so that the broomstick was between her legs, like she had seen. She gripped it tightly and kicked off. Nothing happened. Akiko gave it another few tries, but they all ended the same. That got her thinking. Maybe she wasn't doing it right. Maybe she started too low. She needed higher ground and Akiko just knew where to find that.

Fifteen minutes later, she stood on the rooftop of the building, the highest point she could find on the campus. There was an excited grin on her face, because Akiko knew it would work this time. She took a short run towards the edge - which was extremely awkward with a broomstick between the legs - and jumped off into the air. She was flying!

It took her a few moments to realize she wasn't flying at all. She was falling. Panic washed over her excitement and although Akiko could usually make a perfect landing from such a height, the broomstick made this impossible and the girl landed painfully on the ground.


OOC: Open to anyone. ^^

It was several days after the big fight when Akiko was released from the infirmary. Unfortunately, she had no memory of what had taken place and just assumed she'd cut herself up too badly and that people found her unconscious, like Rei had told her.

The weirdest thing she noticed, however, was as she was walking through the halls, everyone stepped aside to be as far away as possible from her. She could hear them whispering behind her back. Everyone also gave her those suspicious looks, as if she was some dangerous creature.

Starting to feel rather edgy with the behaviour of everyone, Akiko quickly ran towards her room. Though before she entered her room, she suddenly felt scared. What if someone - or something - was waiting for her inside her room?

Akiko backed off from her door and glanced at a door a bit away; Rei's door. Maybe she should go there? Rei hadn't been acting strange... Making up her mind, she moved over to the other door and knocked on it.

She sat in the study hall with several books spread out in front of her. They were her books for learning English, all written in Japanese with lists of English words and examples of sentences. Akiko stared at the books, shifted a bit in her chair, and stared a bit more at the books.

She had no idea what they wanted from her. She could read some of the things written in Japanese, though with some difficulty, but as soon as she stumbled upon a kanji, she had no idea what was written in it. And that's where the third book came in. A thick dictionary meant to look up kanji. It was a slow and boring process and all Akiko wanted at the moment was to go outside and run around.

She glanced at the paper in front of her. She'd been drawing on it, usually of people dying. Cut off heads, stabbed in the heart, completely dismembered, eyes stabbed out... Akiko sighed and took a new piece of paper. She had to finish her homework and show it to the teacher before she was allowed to leave. But how could she do her homework when she had no idea what the books said?

She wrote her name a couple of times on the paper. It was one of the few words she could read and write. And now they expected her to learn this whole new language everyone here spoke. She couldn't do it. She just couldn't do it. It was so difficult and still so necessary if she wanted to belong here. And Akiko did want to belong here, because she felt lonely, even more lonely than when she'd travelled on her own through Japan or when she was with in the ninja village. All because she couldn't speak the language...


OOC: Open to everyone.

Akiko woke up, as usual, at four in the morning. Sweat stood on her forehead and she was trembling all over. To make it worse, there were these voices that never stopped talking to her, never stopped laughing at her.

And there was someone in her room. She could feel their eyes on her back, almost paralyzing her. She could hear them breathing. Her hand moved under her pillow to find her knife and with whatever courage she could gather, she jumped up, ready for attack.

They had gone into hiding, but Akiko was certain they'd come out again as soon as she lay down. She had to get away from her own room. She had to find someone who could banish all nightmares and bad people. And she knew just exactly who that was.

Akiko crept quietly out of her room, her knife still ready in her hand. Rei's room was only a few doors away, but once she was there, Akiko didn't know what to do. Should she knock? Should she enter? Should she... It was back. They were behind her.

That, of course, made the decision for her. Before she knew it, Akiko stood in Rei's room with the door closed, panting and listening for the other guy. Still afraid that he might come in, she began to walk backwards to Rei, as quiet as possible to avoid waking the girl up.

OOC: Backdated to 18 October. I could have written it back then. I was just lazy. Sorry. XD;


Akiko normally didn't pay much attention to the post that arrived at St. Catherine's. There was no one who would write to her anyway. But today was different. Because today was her birthday and Sento-sensei had promised he'd send her a nice gift. Sento was the only one who sometimes thought about her birthday. Aya-nee did it as well, though Aya-nee never had the time or the money to buy her gifts.

And so she stood waiting for the post to arrive, like a young child waiting in a candy store.

Five more days and it's my birthday. I'll be fifteen. Though no one knows. No one will celebrate. Maybe Aya-nee will remember it. Or Sento-sensei. Maybe I will get another knife. I like knives.


( The real Japanese version )

OOC: Backdated to last Wednesday, 'cause that's when it was full moon. If anyone wants to respond, that's okay. But mostly it's just letting people know how bad full moon can be for her. Besides, I suspect most characters will be out doing rituals with Soulfire. =P


Akiko had been more fidgety and not at ease than normal the whole day already. She had been more distracted than usual, often up to a point where she could miss what someone said to her or not even see where she was walking. At some moments she was extremely jumpy. And during dinner, hardly the tiniest bit of food could be devoured.

Now she was all alone in her room. The sky was turning dark and soon the worst thing in her life would decorate the black sky. A full moon. Normal people might wonder what was so bad about a full moon. People around here might understand there was something mysterious about a full moon, but even they would not be able to understand why it scared the hell out of the young Slayer. Even though the answer was simple. The hallucinations she had to look at on a normal day were already bad enough; but with a full moon the hallucinations increased. The room was filled with corpses and other scary things. And all Akiko could do was curl up in a corner and hope the night wouldn't last long.

So... this is a 'computer'? Never really used one before... What do you use computers for? Writing things seem to be... useless. Though it is easier than writing on paper.

I see many other things here written, but I don't know what it says. It doesn't matter. I'm going to train.


( The 'real' journal entry )


OOC: For as far as my Japanese allows it, her journal entries will be written like the one above; first the 'translation' in English and then how it would really look like. For those who know nothing about the Japanese language, everything here has been written in kana. A Japanese character (Rei at least, and Haruka... I don't know if we have any others...) will be able to see the lack of kanji. (And to give you an estimation, there should be about twenty kanji in this little piece of text. =P)

She'd been here two weeks now. Most classes went okay, except those where the teacher stood in front of the class and went on and on in English about things that were probably important, but sounded boring. Akiko also still didn't understand much English and often floundered in the classes, though a few girls from Japan appeared to be kind enough to give her an abbreviated version of what was told. She was wary of those girls, though, absolutely positive that sooner or later they'd start to demand things from her. The only girl she seemed to trust a little was Rei.

And at the moment she was in the library. The first-years had been given some sort of research project - nothing big and more to let them get used to the magical library - and Akiko had no idea where to start. All the books she'd encountered so far were written in English and even if she found the Japanese book collection, she doubted she could read it. She'd never really bothered herself with learning how to read. Despite her illiteracy in both languages, though, people could find her lying on the floor with a heavy book in front of her. Of course, people had to be looking really hard if they wanted to find her, since she'd chosen a spot far away from all the students, but she was there. With a book.

It was a book dealing about countries and it contained a lot of pictures. Akiko, maybe because of her illiteracy, had always been fond of pictures and was quite content lying there and admire all the photos of different countries. There appeared even a smile on her face when she came across familiar photos of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. When her eyes travelled up to the top of the page, they saw the word 'Japan' written. Japan... she knew that was the English word for 'Nihon', her country.

She watched at the temples and shrines, mount Fuji, beautiful geisha in exquisite and expensive kimonos - which reminded her of her own kimono and the sudden urge to try and put it on again - and other landscapes. Then suddenly she froze. Akiko gazed down at a large picture of a forest with some stones and hills and she knew that place. She knew it! She'd been there countless times before. She had run though that forest, jumped from tree to tree...

"Home," she said softly to the picture. She could almost see the ninja from her clan running there, stealthily doing their training. A hand passed over the page as if trying to crawl into the picture. "Home," the girl said again to herself.

Several moments later, people could hear the sound of torn paper and the patter of running feet. The book was left open behind, now with one page missing.


OOC: Open to whoever feels like responding.

OOC: You can come to her room if you want, but don't really expect to be allowed to enter... ^^;; More a sort belated intro-post.


She'd been here now for a little more than a week and Akiko finally began to find her way around at school. That did not mean she began to enjoy it here, for she did not. Everything was still strange and unfamiliar, and even if she didn't have to work hard here, the girl still missed the quiet life and strict training at the ninja village. She still had her moments of homesickness as well, though after that one disastrous incident during Health & Sex Ed, Akiko had learned to keep it all inside until she was alone.

Like alone in her own room. For some reason, the elders at the village had requested that she should get her own room. She'd always had her own room, though it was hardly more than a closet. She stood at the bottom of the social ladder at the village; she was not only an orphan, but also an outsider and she hadn't earned any respect from the other children or the leader yet. A small cot with a bed was seen as enough in the village.

And now she had a real room, with a soft bed, a desk and a computer. Akiko had heard and even seen a computer a few times. But her illiteracy and little understanding of English made it impossible for her to use it. She didn't miss it either. She'd never had one.

What Akiko loved most about her room was how big it was. There was a gardrobe in it almost as large as her room back at the village, and then there was even much more space! She could train here when it was cold outside, no longer being forced to run around in snow on bare feet. Instead, she could enjoy the soft and warm touch of carpet during the winter. And everything was hers and hers alone. As long as there were no people talking to her in funny languages and no lessons where she didn't understand anything from, Akiko was almost happy, like right now where she lay on her stomach on the floor with some pencils next to her and some paper on which she drew surroundings and people she knew to bring herself closer back to home.