The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to Mahora.

Chapter 4: Emergency

It's over. Finally the pain stopped. “This isn’t funny” But I can’t see, I can’t open my eyes? Why? I don’t know why. Eyes? Why do I need to open them? What for? Why do I need to open my eyes? “Oh my god” That’s right, because I need to find out who I am. Who am I? Erin, I remember, some girl in some school. “Stay here, I’ll get sensei!” Am I really Erin? Girl? School? Am I really a girl? Am I really in a school? Why am I here? It’s so dark. Nothing is happening. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.” Why was I trying to find out who I am? I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s dark, but it’s peaceful. But… what happened? Oh, right, my head started to hurt. I was looking at that computer when that happened. It started to hurt, then I heard voices. “I’m sorry about all this.” Then I was on the ground, and it hurt a lot more and then, it stopped. Why am I here though? It’s all so unclear. I wish everything would get back to normal. I just need to wake up… wake up… wake up… “I’ll do my best to get you out of this as soon as possible,” wake up… come on… wake up…

WAKE UP DAMN IT!

44444

The red-haired girl sat beside Erin as the last of her body warmth faded away. “T-this isn’t, no, seriously, that can’t… Chisame!” The girl with the thick glasses looked towards Asakura. “You have to know something! Does she have any medical problems? Allergies? High blood pressure? Low blood pressure? Diabetes? Hell, AIDS?! She IS your roommate right?”

Chisame looked at the girl, surprised. “I really don’t know who she is. I can’t help you at all!” Asakura looked back down at Erin.

“Oh my god,” She sat still besides the girl. “Not her roommate?! Seriously? She had to have a roommate at least! Different year maybe? No, forget it, I gotta get help!” She stood up,and ran for the door. “Stay here, I’ll get Sensei!” Chisame merely stared at Asakura as she left.

“W-wait!” She stood there, alone, with what seemed to be a dead body in her very room. “T-this is a joke right?! Candid camera? I-it’s Asakura after all… this can’t possibly be real! No way could someone just die on the spot! ...Right?” She walked towards the body and placed her fingers just on the side of her neck.

44444

The halls seemed endless as Asakura ran to her teacher’s room. “This is unreal! No way can anyone just drop dead like that!” She turned a corner to nearly crash into a girl. The journalist glanced over her, noticing that she had two pigtails and was balancing a wooden cylinder, which was divided into four sections. She didn't have the time to figure out who it could be, she just needed to get help. “Sorry!”

44444

Chisame crouched near the body, unmoving. She continued to stare at Erin as she lay on the ground. She wouldn’t move at all, she wouldn’t even breathe. She kept on trying to reason to herself. “It’s probably just some medication to feign death, yeah, haha… that’s all…” She stared at it some more. Her hands felt cold. Was it because of her situation or... “I... didn't just touch a corpse... right?” The unnerving, wanting-to-know, pull from the body and her own reasoning to stay-away-from-it fought within her mind. She couldn’t fool herself. “That’s just movie stuff though isn’t it?!” She slowly stood up and walked over to the couch. “This can’t be happening. It can’t, it just... not... why me?” She laid herself on the couch and covered her face with her hands. “Why me?”

44444

Out of breath and outside the door she reached out her hand to knock on it. “Coming.” She kept trying to catch her breath as the door opened. “Yeah?” The bells on her head jingled as Asuna opened the door.

“Asuna! I need to talk to Negi, is he there?”

“Negi? What do you want with that kid?”

“It doesn’t matter! What I want with that kid is… that kid…” She caught her breath as she realized what she just said. “What am I trying to do?! Trying to get a kid to see a dead body!?” She looked at Asuna. “Come with me Asuna, you need to help me.”

Asuna looked at her with tired eyes. “Why?”

“Please Asuna, it’s about Erin… something bad has happened...” Asakura finally caught her breath and was looking at Asuna with a morbid look on her face. Asuna looked at Asakura and she started to become concerned.

“What are you talking about Asakura?” Asakura started to move down the hall.

“Just follow me, come on! We need to hurry!”

44444

“Yo.” A familiar voice came from the doorway. A voice she didn’t hear often, but she definitely knew. It belonged to the genius of Mahora, a freak that probably turned down full scholarships from Tokyo U, or other super genius schools to go to this place. Just so she could make her life even more of a gathering of freaks. Chisame watched the girl, Chao Lingshen, carrying wooden containers holding steaming meat buns in her arms. She placed them on the table and walked over to Erin’s body.

“Looks like you’ve got a problem here.” She leaned over the body of Erin, lying on the ground.

“What do you want?” Chisame lay in her couch and covered her eyes with her forearm. “This is probably some dream or something. And I’m gonna wake up any second now. Why of all people did you show up anyway?” She looked at Chao with disdain. Chao smiled in response.

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.” Chisame lay on the couch and listened to Chao as she did something with the body. She thought she heard more than one set of footsteps, but the sound did not feel very, human, in her own opinion, it seemed that there would be a slight creak before she would hear each step. Her curiosity got the best of her as she tried to take a look to see just what Chao was doing. Once she opened her eyes however, Chao and Erin were gone. Only the stack of meat buns stood in the center of her table.

44444

A page was turned gently by a hand in a silent room. The owner turned to a girl who was sipping on a juice box. The books they had in front of them were lit from the light from a window. One of the few natural light sources in the large structure known as Library Island. In silence, they continued to read their books, the smaller girl taking a sip from her drink once in a while. Down a hall of bookcases, a girl with glasses and long dark hair swiftly walked towards the two girls.

“Nodoka! Yue! We’ve got trouble!” Her lips spoke the word trouble but the girl herself seemed more excited than worried.

“What is it Haruna?” Yue, the smallest girl, with a drink in hand asked the gossip monger. She knew she didn’t have to ask, but she did anyway. Nodoka sat attentively and looked at her friend. Her short hair swayed over her eyes as she turned. She placed a bookmark in her book and closed it slowly. When Haruna got fired up, it could take until sundown for her to finish detailing her adventures in the school.

“Negi did it with one of his students in his room! It seems like it wasn’t their first time either! Only this time, Asuna caught them in the act!” She started to blush but continued. “It was pretty intense too!” She took out some paper and a pencil and began to draw furiously onto the paper. “They were in the middle of it all before Asuna stopped them.” She said between sketches, a small amount of drool escaped from her lips. “Apparently, it took even Asuna a while to get them to their senses! They were all over each other!” She displayed the paper with a vivid drawing on the event she had been describing. “Take a look! Negi was ferociously thr-” She was interrupted when Yue slammed her book shut after placing a bookmark in it. The sound was accompanied by another slamming of something. Yue had not looked at the drawing, but after what she had heard, she wisely decided to not take a look at it.

“I’m sure we get it now Haruna." She looked towards Nodoka. "Just try not to make Nodoka faint while gossiping, all right?” Yue pointed to Nodoka, whose face was covered with her book, but it was clear that she had fainted, as her chair had tipped over and she was lying on the ground, her hands holding the book in front of her face.

44444

The redheaded pair dashed into the room where the problem had begun.

“So what’s going on?” Asuna looked around the room and noticed Chisame on her couch, laying there in silence. Asakura saw that Erin was nowhere to be seen and started to look around franticly.

“Chisame! What happened to Erin?” Asakura turned to the girl on the couch, who got up from her couch and looked at her.

“After you left, that genius girl came.” Chisame pointed to the stack of meat buns on her table. “She took her away, I don’t know where she went though.”

“She just took her?”

“Yeah.” Chisame laid back down on the couch.

“She didn’t say anything else?”

“Nothing else, all she said was that she’d take care of this.”

Asakura stood there, taking in all that happened, extremely confused at the situation at hand.

A loud slam was heard on the table where the meat buns stood. Both Asakura and Chisame turned to Asuna, who had both her hands on the table. “Will you two tell me what’s going on?!” Asuna was extremely worried now. “What happened?!”

44444

A voluptuous girl walked down the halls holding a plastic bag, a few spring onions hung out from it. She brought her other hand up to her face to cover her mouth as an act of concern as she spotted two people walking down the hall with a stretcher carrying someone.

“Oh my, what happened here?” She looked at the patient: a brown-skinned girl lying peacefully on the stretcher. The person leading the stretcher turned towards the girl.

“She’ll be okay Naba-san.” Chao assured her. “It’s just a little aneurysm. That’s all.”

“Oh, well, that’s not very good. Are you sure this poor girl will be okay, Chao-san?” Chizuru looked slightly more concerned.

“Don’t worry about it Naba-san. People like me don’t lie after all.” Chao winked at her. “It’ll just be a simple operation. She’ll be completely healthy once I’m through with her.” Chao put her hand on her bicep and flexed to exaggerate her conversation with Chizuru. “But I better get going soon” She started walked down the hall and the girl behind Chao bowed her head to Chizuru, some of her neon green hair sliding down the side of her head.

44444

“Last set, down by two, it's do or die.”

Yuna's breathing slowed down. Her eyes were fixed onto her target. She glanced over her hands. “Hand position, good.” She adjusted her feet, and bent it just slightly to maintain correct form. All other sounds in the world around her faded until it was completely silent, it was just her and her target. Her arms began to tense up, this was it, she had to take the opportunity now. Her hands moved swiftly, her body fully remembering all the times she had practiced this. She felt them leave her hands each time, pushing themselves towards the target. A bell suddenly began to rang. Hearing the bell, she stood still for a second before exhaling slowly and relaxed her arms.

The bell rang again to signal the final set and she looked at the time. A few numbers showing her statistics showed up on a red screen above her. She smiled at the numbers as she saw a plus sign indicating an improvement from the previous score. “Getting even better!” She jumped up, thrusting her hand into the air in a cheer. A screen dropped down covering where she had been aiming before, down on the bottom left, a small insignia of the Mahora military club engraved the border. The monitor displayed the spots where she had hit the target. “Ah, just a bit off from where I aimed.” She visibly sighed.

The bell in the booth next to hers rang to signal another person playing on the simulator. She peeked over to see long black hair of a girl aiming at the dummy. She had to squint her eyes to try and see the dummy from so far away. The girl she watched suddenly started to fire. The pony tailed girl couldn't believe the speed of the bells she heard. Each one was supposed to mean that a clip was emptied. Is she seriously firing THAT fast?! Each time a bell rang, the other girl's hands moved. Fast, too fast, WAY TOO FAST! “Wow... a... amazing!” She managed to work those words out as she watched the girl continue her onslaught. Her neck felt strained as she kept on changing her focus between the girl reloading and the target dummy. The bells continued to ring at a fast pace until the two bells rang out, indicating the end of the simulation.

Yuna's overactive imagination saw this girl's gun smoking from the shots. She also thought she was hearing a whistling to the tune of a famous western movie that she liked as the girl turned around after finishing her simulation run.

“Oh, hello Yuna.” The girl passively acknowledged her.

Yuna snapped back to reality and looked at the girl's face, her sharp eyes seemed to pierce whatever it looked at, which happened to be Yuna. Yuna gulped at the hawk eyed stare. She then realized why this girl knew her.

Tatsumiya Mana: one of her classmates in the class of 3-A.

“Ah! Hey Tatsumiya-san! So you went to this place after hearing about it from me in class?” Yuna smiled. It wasn't often that she would witness the effects of her advertisements on new, cool things in class, at least, cool to her, some of her classmates and friends wouldn't agree sometimes. Too guy-ish they'd sometimes say. Hah! They just don't know what a great rush these things can be. Asuna, Akira and Sakurako would sometimes listen, but she hadn't seen them joining in on any of the things she talked about in class. “Anyway! That was awesome Tatsumiya-san! It's as if you were all the shooters in a firefight of a western movie! How'd you shoot so fast?!” Mana blinked at the passion that seemed to pour out of Yuna as she talked to her.

“Well.” She started to walk into the preparation room and Yuna followed. “It helps to memorize the amount of shots you have left in each clip.”

“Ohhh... Okay” Yuna followed Mana till they sat and on a couch in the lobby of the military club.

“So...” Yuna didn't talk to Mana much. “I knew you were in a biathlon outside of school, but I didn't know you were part of the military club too!”

“I'm not.” Mana replied. “I just drop by once in a while.” It wasn't much of a concern for her, they wanted someone who could test their simulations for other club members for accuracy in the weapon's simulations. The club sponsor recommended Mana and offered to pay her for her services in quality testing each time a new simulation was developed. No one knew why at first, some people also questioned why they should let a junior high school girl test the simulations, but they eventually shut up when they witnessed her shooting skill.

“Ah, is that so.” It felt weird around Mana, she seemed so calm, so cool. Like some sort of mercenary or something! Yuna's overactive imagination imagined Mana riding on horseback and stopping by a nearby tavern, pulling the bounty paper off the wall to stake her claim on a criminal: Negi Springfield. Oh! Speaking of Negi... “Hey, have you heard about Negi? I heard he got someone pregnant!” Yuna stood up and wanted to hear Mana's reaction to this crazy piece of news.

Mana stayed on the couch and looked away, watching people pay for the simulation at the register. “I'm not very interested in gossip.”

Yuna stood for a while, slowly getting disappointed, sighed and sat down. “Oh well.” It was kind of getting boring, she didn't want to pay for another ticket for the gun simulation again. She should probably think about that trip to Kyoto anyway. Well, there's her, Akira, Ako, and Makie, and they DID need one more person. “Say, are you in a group for the Kyoto trip yet? If you want, you can join up with us.”

Mana glanced at Yuna. “I'll think about it.” She stood up, and glanced at her watch. “I'll be going now. Good bye Yuna.”

“Ah!... Okay. Bye Mana. See ya in class tomorrow then.” Yuna waved at Mana till she was out of sight. She stood at the windows and watched people playing the simulation. They weren't as good as Mana so she got bored quickly. She sat back down on a couch and pulled out her phone. “Wonder who still doesn't know about Negi's situation...?” She flipped through her list of numbers.

44444

In a much larger and luxurious dorm area than the others, a timid looking girl with freckles on her cheeks paced around the room glancing at a paper as she talked to herself. From one room, sounds of a shower came to a stop. A door slowly opened as Chizuru walked in with her groceries. The freckled girl, Natsumi Murakami, turned to her. “Ah, Chizu-ne, welcome back.”

“Hello Natsumi-chan, are the preparations for the play going well?” Chizuru walked over to the kitchen area in the room and set the grocery bag on the table.

“Not really, it's just... really hard to get the feeling for the lines!” Chizuru had opened the refrigerator and was in the middle of filling it up.

“Well, that's no good, how is it so difficult?” Natsumi tilted her head to the side and pondered for a bit on how to respond. Not getting any answers off the top of her head, she glared at her script.

“There are just... so many references to other things you've probably gotta major in Greek history to know this stuff! I mean, it's not a bad story, it's just so hard to understand what I'm saying without needing a mythology book.” She sighs. “I wish I was doing Shakespeare.” A door squeaked open as a girl with long, blond hair walked out. She wore a long sleeved, black blouse and jeans. She was combing her hair as she spoke out to the two others. Ayaka Yukihiro watched Natsumi as she stared intensely at the script as she worded out some lines to herself.

“Natsumi-san, are you doing a Shakespearean play?” She asked. Natsumi broke away from her focus and looked up at Ayaka.

“Ah, no, I’m not, it’s a Greek play, Antigone.” Ayaka slowed from combing her hair until she stopped and thought to herself for a few seconds.

“Oh? I’m afraid I’m not too familiar with that play, though I have heard of it. It's related to the story of Oedipus, correct?”

“Uh, is it? Um, hold on.” Natsumi glanced at her paper, which seemed to have been taken off from a larger stack of papers from the rip on the top left of the sheet. “I have it somewhere...” A sudden melody began to play on a small table besides the phone. A cell phone attached to a charger, was ringing. “Oh, what now.” Natsumi went over to the phone and turned it on. “Hello? Oh, hey Yuna. Just hold on a sec.” She pressed a button on the phone and went over to a bag by a couch. “All right, what is it?” She spoke out loud.

“Natsumi-san, did you hear what happened?!” The person on the other side of the conversation was on the verge of yelling. A slight ruffling of papers was heard from the bag as Natsumi searched for the rest of her script. Ayaka had walked over to take a look at the page that Natsumi was looking at. Chizuru was busy cutting up some food for their breakfast.

“What happened?” Natsumi pulled out various pages from her bag as she searched for the missing back story page.

Yuna was yelling into the phone now. “Negi had a kid with one of his students!” After she had finished, the room went silent, aside from the sounds of food being cut.

Chop.

Chop.

Chop.

“Wha?! Uh...” Natsumi looked over to where Ayaka was.

“Please be back once breakfast is ready.” Chizuru called out from the kitchen. Her request was suddenly followed by a loud slam from the doorway. There was a slight trickle of blood which led from the door to Ayaka's previous location.

“You know what this means right Natsumi?!” Yuna was yelling at the phone still.

Natsumi sighed again and put a hand to her face. “Yeah... It means I should stop using speaker phone.”

44444

In a pure white room, with various medical paraphernalia scattered about, an operation table waited eagerly for an occupant. By the table, Satomi stood in a nurse's outfit glancing at the time, waiting for her cue. She glanced at the clock and back to the door, again and again. Her thoughts, uneasy. “If that information was one hundred percent accurate, then... can we really do this?” The door creaked open as two people came in with a stretcher carrying a certain girl.