Yukimura Akari stared at herself in the mirror. Some things were starting to happen around her old class, 3E in the news. It wasn't surprising. It looked like Principle Asano even got found out. It was her past though.
She was trying to focus on her own future now. There was a strange breeze behind her. A breeze that felt almost familiar. In fact, it just felt so much like it, she couldn't help it. "Korosensei?"
She knew it couldn't be, but her mouth couldn't be stopped. She turned around and saw a woman holding some kind of basket.
"Hello. You are Akari Yukimura, correct?"
"How did you get into my private room?" She got up and looked toward her window. It was open. She was several floors up though, she couldn't just scale the building.
"I have to bring you some one special. I've calmed it down a lot. The constant craziness when it was an egg really triggered it." She put down the basket. "It's your niece."
"Niece?"
"You met Lady Aguri Yukimura covertly, correct?" she asked. "Lady Aguri has had to leave us for seven years or so. She'll be back with the God of Death, but it'll be years." She nudged the basket. "I'm afraid it wasn't a normal sort of . . ."
Akari went over toward the basket and looked in. "Oh!" She covered her mouth. Oh no. Oh no.
"It's okay, the new goddess is learning to change around. Yes, tentacles do make it a little tough. Push her to the right and it's a sign to change back to human." The woman nudged the little squid-like thing. It changed into a humanoid body. "It didn't make it any bigger. Sorry. It isn't much better."
"No." Akari understood. "This is why Aguri wouldn't even contact me. That stupid fiance of her." He had experimented on her when she was apparently pregnant. Akari wiped her tears away and picked up the humanoid tiny baby. "It's so small."
"Yes, it's a she. She is the goddess of Lady Aguri and God of Death."
Um? Well, he's dead. Maybe they worked with him? No, that wouldn't have frightened my sister away. It has to be that fiance of hers.
"I think she'll eventually get bigger." The woman gestured to herself. "I am Lola, the Messenger of God. I have no concept of what to do with kids, but you are good with acting."
Then again, was it? She's clearly off her rocker. Messenger of God?
"It's just like a regular baby, except it's super small. It will pick things up fast though. Usually they start speaking very fast," Lola explained. "I'll give you a number to reach me if you have any questions."
"Where is Aguri now?" The baby was still cute. Octopus like, but cute. Her finger stroked the top of it's head. Was she Aguri's?
"Lady Aguri is . . . hiding, sort of, to protect things. She can't have her little goddess with her," Lola said. "She'll be back in seven years."
"Seven?" Akari looked at her niece. It was reminiscent in it's body form. "But I . . ."
"I'll help. I will have a job, I just got one." She shook her body briefly. "It's good, I'll have plenty to help you. You just have to watch the tike."
"I have my auditions and castings that I hopefully land." Akari didn't know what to do. "I can't just hire a babysitter."
"Shoot. I guess I'll have to be that babysitter." Lola came over toward the baby and spread something over it's head. "This helps to calm it down. It really likes high speeds, so putting this on it's head every two hours will help. Just, make sure your job stuff doesn't pass into the nighttime. My job is at night."
"Sometimes it moves into the night, I have no control of that. Plus, when I land a spot, I could be gone for weeks to another place." Akari placed her niece back into the basket. It feels like family. I should follow my instinct. She knew the lore of Korosensei wasn't true, and it's probably why Lola called her little niece 'goddess'. But, she came from somewhere, and Aguri had clearly needed help. "Can we get any more help?"
"No, no, no!" Lola seemed very keen to not tell anyone. "No, your niece will be in deep trouble. She is already not going to have an easy life if she doesn't start to grow in size soon. I was very lucky she had hatched with me at some point."
Hatched. Yanagisawa, that bastard. Was Aguri dutifully with him, and then he started doing experiments on her when she got pregnant? Or did he just lock her up to replace Korosensei? She touched the tiny tentacle of her niece. "I understand."
"Secrecy. From everyone. Even your dearest friends," Lola insisted. "Don't let anyone visit. I will bring plenty of everything you need in a huge box every week. You'll never have to leave for formula or baby things."
"I have to watch her then." Aguri had to leave her behind. "She's family." She looked toward Lola. "Can . . . you tell me what happened to my sister? Why she's running so hard? I know about her fiance. I know he did something to her." Her fingers tightened up. "Korosensei did nothing, it was him. And, he did more, didn't he? This baby? Did he hurt her when she was his fiance, and then? No!" She covered her face. "Nevermind. I don't want to know."
"It is God of Deaths," Lola said again. "He had risen from the grave for his fairest Lady Aguri, and he shall rise again."
"Korosensei is dead." Akari would put up with what she had to to help her niece, but talking about Korosensei was beyond what she would put up with. "I was there. I watched him."
"He came back from the dead."
"He is dead! Stop the lies, you don't know how much they hurt."
"Fine. Think what you will," Lola said. "As she gets older, her needs will change. I cannot say much more to a non-believer. Lady Aguri would have very much wanted me to get her to you though."
Akari kept wiping her eyes so much. "Thank you. Don't go too far."
"I won't. I'm never too far," Lola assured her.
"What's her name?" Akari asked.
"I don't know. Lady Aguri never had a name for her," Lola said. "She hatched I believe some time in my presence. It's got some . . . interesting tricks that makes it hard to determine when it hatched."
"Then, her birthday will be today, because this is where she met her family for the first time." Akari stared at her sweet tiny niece. "Maybe . . . Emiko. I always thought that was a pretty name. I might even name my daughter that in the future." She smiled. "No, I'll name her that. Emiko."
Emiko.
"Remember, not a word," Lola made her promise once she came back with more supplies, even tiny clothes for both forms. "Even if you don't believe, you should not risk your niece. Plenty of formula and calming liquid. Just a tiny amount on her head in either form. Try and keep her leaning in different directions, so she learns to control her form."
Either form was so cute. As a baby human, she could swear she saw something familiar in her. Definitely family. When it turned into the other form, it reminded her of Korosensei. But it's not. I saw him die. I helped kill him. The tentacles. Testing. Innocent babies. Yanagisawa could rot in hell for all time, and whoever else was threatening her sister.
Emiko would be safe. The safest! No one would ever know about her little niece. Ever.
Even, her dearest friends. Sorry, Nagisa. I made a promise, and this doesn't concern any of you. This is about my sister, not Korosensei. No matter what Lola said, she was there with all the others. Korosensei was dead, and nothing would ever convince her otherwise.
Almost seven years later . . .
Lola's Apartment
Emiko stared in the mirror. She moved to the right. "Hot." She moved to the left. "Monster." Right. "Hot." Left. "Monster. Aunt Akari's right, I could play both parts."
"Don't call yourself that," her Aunt Lola said to her. "You aren't changing back and forth in the mirror again, are you, Emiko?"
"Yes." Emiko skipped outward as she turned right, and then slithered as she turned left. "I need more clothes that let me be me between, Aunt C." Her Aunt Lola was coming out of the bottom side of a closet in the apartment. She had been going in there more often.
Her Aunt Lola was crazy, hence her nickname of C. for her. Emiko lied and told her it was short for cool, but it was definitely for crazy. Her Aunt Akari even said so, but she was the sort of safe kind of crazy. At least, her Aunt Akari said there wasn't much choice but to trust in her. Even though?
Her Aunt C. believed she was the 'Voice of God' and that her father was this guy called God of Death who killed thousands of people. He was going to destroy the Earth unless his class killed him. As silly as that sounded, her Aunt Akari did confirm that. She was even part of that class.
The rest though, Aunt Akari didn't believe. Like, this God of Death actually came back from the dead to lead others like her to another planet. Aunt C. swore it, and that he'd rise again with her mother, Lady Aguri.
It was much easier to believe her Aunt Akari. It wasn't as exciting, but it sounded more like the truth. She said her real father was a very mean man called Yanagisawa Kotori who was into terrible experiments, but that her mother Aguri was sweet enough that Emiko could turn out sweet too.
So she was Emiko to her Aunt Akari, and 'Goddess Emiko, Daughter to God of Death' to her Aunt C. Normally, just 'Goddess Emiko' or 'Young Goddess' unless she was being naughty, then she heard the full namesake.
Emiko went toward the table and climbed up. She stood up and grabbed a piece of fruit. She took a bite out of it. Ew. "Too ripe." She tossed it away.
"Goddess Emiko, you better not be throwing food down again!"
"I did." Emiko heard her Aunt C. rant again as she tried the orange. She undid it with her tentacle and took a bite. "This sucks too."
"Do not throw that banana down."
Emiko threw the banana down. "Don't buy rotten food." She slithered to the right and looked toward the now closed closet door. "What's back there?" Her Aunt Lola picked up the food with her tentacles, and put it back into hers. "Ew. That's dirty."
"Throw it away," her Aunt C. commanded. "Be clean, Goddess Emiko."
"I can't be clean, you put something dirty all over my tentacles. Thouest should be ashamed," she teased her.
"They wouldn't be dirty, if you didn't throw them."
"I wouldn't throw it, if it was fresh fruit." Emiko liked fruit, but not ripe fruit or rotten fruit. Geez. She dropped it over by the plants.
"Don't put it in the plants, put it in the trash."
"It's fertilizer because it's rotten," Emiko decided.
"Put them in the trash, Young Goddess!"
Ugh. Emiko grabbed the entire plant and heaved it to the trash can-
"Don't even try that with my favorite fern."
-and heaved it back. She took the fruit and tossed them in the trash can, then went over by the closet. Why was Aunt C. constantly going over by it lately?
"No, no," her Aunt C. warned her. "What have I said about the prophetic closet?"
"That it's prophetic."
"Stay away," her Aunt C. warned her. "Your Aunt Akari will be coming soon to pick you up. Be nice to her."
"Always nice." Emiko watched her Aunt C. head to her room. She went over to the closet and opened it to look in.
"Emiko!" Her Aunt C. was right there again. "What did I say before?"
"That the closet is prophetic," Emiko repeated.
"Stay away from the closet," her Aunt Lola instructed again. "You are banned from that closet, Goddess Emiko. Get ready, your Aunt Akari will be coming."
Emiko headed to her room until her Aunt C. went to hers. Then she slithered back over there again. Grabbing it with her tentacle, she reached inside to look in.
It was super dark. It was a big closet. Not knowing if it was made for slithering, she took a humanoid shape and stepped in. It was too dark and the ground seemed fine enough, so she turned to her octopus form again, and then bobbed her head to brighten the way.
There were some dryboards with words on it about travel and Sanctuary and other crazy stuff her Aunt talked about. Then there was some stuff hidden away under table cloths.
Ooh. Secrets. Names? Oh, she knew that name from her Aunt Akari.
"Goddess Emiko, Daughter to God of Death!"
Darn, she used the whole title. Too mad to push. Emiko headed back and out of the closet. "Hi, Aunt C."
"Goddess Emiko, what do you think you are doing?"
"Checking out the prophetic closet that I am banned from." Emiko walked past her and saw her Aunt Akari. "Hello, Aunt Akari."
"Emiko." Aunt Akari came over and picked her up. "I heard that. You need to stay out of places where you are banned."
Her Aunt C. kept going over there all the time now though. Her Aunt Akari was feeling through her pockets, finding her lighter she stole some time ago.
"Is this how you saw in there?" Her Aunt Akari accused her.
"No, I lit up my head. The lighter's for fun things."
"The lighter was mine, and you can't play with it." Yeah, her Aunt Akari wasn't pleased. "Be good tonight. I mean it. I really need some sleep tonight, but I'll lock you in the same room with me again the whole time if you're bad."
"I'm never bad." Emiko heard her Aunt C. just scoff. "She's just mad because her fruit is rotten."
"Let's go, Emiko. Say bye bye to Aunt Lola."
Aunt C. sighed. "Be good, Goddess Emiko."
Eh.
Akari's Apartment
"That looks great." Akari dressed Emiko up in a new, pretty dress. When she was with her, she tried to keep her in a human form. Sometimes, she was able to take Emiko out as long as she stayed in a human form. From 6:00 pm 'til 6:00 am she would have her niece.
Her niece had grown more to a normal size, but she was still a huge handful. She wasn't sweet and dutiful like Aguri. She was rambunctious, much more than the average six year old, and her genius she had didn't help.
Emiko didn't always get out a whole lot though, so they would usually have a nice dinner privately reserved after she got her dressed and ready.
The public had gained a whiff of Emiko a couple of times, but Akari just waved it off as training for a new role coming up in her morning show. It seemed to work, but she couldn't use it often.
"Do you have fresh fruit?" Emiko asked as she spun in her dress. "Pretty for human. Gonna be too tight for dat old octupussy look."
"Don't talk like that," Akari warned her. "Not everything fits both sides."
"It's annoying. I'm both." She jumped down from the small stool she stood on. "Hollywood, eat your heart out." She looked back toward Akari. "I could play multiple roles in movies."
"You could be a cute little girl. The world doesn't need you in any other roles." Akari knew Emiko would always kid about auditioning for octopus roles and being the first octopus star.
"I'd get hired. Best costume of all time they would all say." Emiko was a good girl though and didn't change her shape. It would have been too tight in the dress. She felt her hair. "The red glittery flower barette is overdoing it."
"The flower looks beautiful on you." Emiko was really cute. She had soft pink natural hair and big, thick, blue eyes. Her skin had dampened from when she was an egg from that neon orange to a beautiful tan color. She always looked like she lived right off the beach. The barette in her hair really tied it together.
Emiko's other form didn't have hair, but it was also darling. She was that same color of tan with a pink shibori pattern around her head and around the bottom of her tentacles. That form though, it needed to stay out of the public eye.
They left and enjoyed a nice dinner. It always was nice to eat outside with family. She remembered when she met Aguri to eat before everything went so wrong. It was so nice to get away from it all and just be with family.
"Who's Nagisa?"
Akari looked back toward Emiko. "A friend I meet sometimes."
"What is he to Aunt C.?"
"Aunt Lola," Akari corrected her. "Nothing, she doesn't know him."
"Oh." Emiko stabbed her food with a fork. "Who's Korosensei?"
Akari didn't understand why she was asking those questions. "He was an old teacher that passed away."
"Tell me about him?"
"That's not a nice request," Akari warned her. "I don't want to talk about the past."
"When is my mom Aguri coming back?"
Agh! Lola must have been speaking about her fortune telling crazy stuff again. "What did your Aunt Lola say?"
"When are they coming back?"
"Now it's they? Who is they?"
"Lady Aguri and God of Death."
What?! "We've had enough to eat." This was getting hard to hear, and she needed to talk to Lola for sure. Okay, that crazy woman shouldn't be telling Emiko anything without running it by me first! We had talked about this. "Come on, we are going home."
"What's Sanctuary?" Emiko asked as she left the table and grabbed her Aunt's hand. "Who's Yanagisawa? He's not God of Death, right? That's Korosensei?"
"I don't want you talking about him!" Akari yelled a little too hard toward her. "Sorry, Emiko, but he was a mean, mean person! He was your dad, but he's not part of your life, your Aunt Akari keeps you safe from him. And no, he isn't God of Death. Don't ever get that confused. God of Death was Korosensei and he was the best teacher I ever had! Just about everything Lola says is crazy. I can't believe Lola told you that."
"What's the Prophecy of Seven Years?"
"Stop asking questions." Akari was tired of it, and she didn't want to talk anymore. "I'm not answering any more questions. We are going home, and you aren't going to ask me anything else."
"When does my mom come back, Aunt Akari? Is it soon? Just tell me, am I going to see her soon?" Emiko insisted.
"One day, maybe, but I don't know when. I'm sorry. I have to talk to your Aunt Lola. If you don't quit asking questions, you are sleeping in my room instead of yours tonight."
Emiko quit talking. She was good and went straight to her room to watch some TV.
Meanwhile, Akari was furious! She told Emiko very little about Yanagisawa, and almost nothing about Korosensei. She didn't want her to get confused, and Lola was doing just that to her. Lola was telling Emiko about terrible things, mentioning terrible people, and telling her things that even Akari didn't know. Seven Year prophecy, of what? It wasn't right.
She kept trying to call to get a hold of her. Lola didn't exactly have reliable hours. She never told Akari truly what she did at night, but she made enough to help take care of Emiko.
Akari tried not to get upset. Lola was strange, almost by nature. She always made sure Akari never got caught shopping for baby or kid stuff. When she ordered dresses for Emiko, they were sent to Lola's, and she always had it in her apartment shortly after it arrived. Lola took care of her during the days, and Akari took her for supper and nights.
So as much as she wanted to go off on Lola about what she told her niece, she'd have to keep it together too. She still needed Lola's help.
Still not getting through, Akari hung up the phone. "Ten minute call for bathtime," she insisted to Emiko as she went to the bathroom and started to get everything ready. Akari was really lucky Emiko hadn't been like Korosensei. He had trouble with water. Emiko had no trouble in her human form. Stop it.
Hearing his name today from Emiko just startled her, that's all. That's why she was thinking about her former teacher. In fact? Emiko was extra quiet.
Emiko was never that quiet unless she was super invested in the TV she was allowed to watch. "What are you watching, Emiko?"
No answer. Akari headed toward her room. The TV was on, but Emiko's window was open. Akari headed toward the window, seeing Emiko's new little outfit on the floor. She looked all around the outside. "Emiko! Emiko, answer me!"
Oh, oh no! Now she really needed to get a hold of Lola! She held her cell and kept dialing as she reached the bottom and headed outside.
Emiko was nowhere to be found.
Nagisa's Apartment
Nagisa dropped his stuff off by the side of his door. No one ever said being a teacher-in-training was easy. I will get this class in order. He had his eyes set on his target. Nothing would distract him.
No, actually, that was going to distract him. There was a little girl just sitting in his table chair. She was way too small to sit in it well. He had never seen her before, was she in the wrong room? How did she even get there?
Her hair was a soft pink and she had big blue eyes. Her dress looked sort of baggy on her, like it was way too big. She was just kicking her feet carelessly back and forth. Definitely a young child. Kindergarten maybe?
"You are Nagisa." She said it like it wasn't even a question. "Aunt Lola needs your help. You are the only address she had on a bunch of names in her prophetic closet of what I'm banned from."
She talked great for her age. "I don't know anyone named Lola."
"You know my Aunt. Yukimura Akari."
Akari? Kayano? "Your Aunt?" Oh. "I didn't know she had a niece. Didn't she just have one sister?"
"My mom is Yukimura Aguri."
Huh? "I've known your aunt for years, and she never told me her sister had a kid."
"Not everyone shares everything."
"Okay, you're right." He needed to call Kayano, there's no way she would just send a random niece over to him.
"I want you to tell me about Korosensei, Aguri, Yanagisawa, and all the other random stuff that my Aunt Akari won't tell me about. My Aunt Lola might be running out of time to save something, and she isn't telling anyone anything about a place called Sanctuary."
"Sure, after just one quick call." Nagisa tried to reach for his phone, but found his hand was entrapped in a tentacle. A colorful, weird pink tentacle. It had the elasticity and feel of Korosensei's.
Nagisa stopped struggling for the phone and looked toward the little girl. In that new form? Those are Korosensei's eyes. And. His smile.
"Do you have a dry erase board?" the little girl-now-turned-cephalopod asked him. "I have a snapshot memory, I can write down what I saw, and I think I'm running out of time."
Nagisa did have a dry erase board, he was in training after all. Trusting the little girl's instincts, he gave her a dry erase marker into one of her tentacles.
With a speed he had only ever seen from Korosensei, she had a bunch of things on the dry board. "There." She gave him back his marker.
Nagisa stared at what she drew. There were names of several class 3E students but only a couple of addresses. One of them being his, and the other Kayano's. There were names he didn't know with no addresses.
He studied the randomshot of information. Seven years. Prophecy. Lady Aguri. Lord Reaper? The more he tied the connections together, the more his current target was falling to the background for an even bigger target. "Korosensei!" How?
But, how?
But how?! I killed him. I landed the final strike. He disappeared into particles, we all saw it. Maybe? Maybe. Nagisa looked toward the little girl. "How old are you?"
"Six."
"Going on seven soon?"
"My birthday is debated. Aunt Akari made it the day I came to her."
"Why is it debatable?"
"I was an egg that Aunt Lola took."
"Ms. Yukimura laid an egg?" He hoped his look wasn't too comical. Okay. Well? We know from Korosensei's story he was in a lab. Maybe, Ms. Yukimura. No, that would be too long. Unless that terrible fiance of hers actually kept her stuff. Maybe he did, maybe he collected stuff on Korosensei too. Was it really possible?
It had to be, because Ms. Yukimura died before Korosensei started teaching, and Korosensei died right before graduation. The only way? That guy used their DNA to create some human cephalopod morphing offspring. In other words.
He was looking at the daughter of Korosensei, and Ms. Yukimura. "Your aunt never told me about this."
"Aunt Lola told her it was top secret," she said.
Top secret or not, she could have told me! But, then his mind would have been somewhere else besides on becoming a teacher. Kayano knew how important that was to him. He watched her move and he could almost see the morph between when she changed from cephalopod to little girl again. "What's your name?"
"Emiko." She sat back nicely on the chair like before. "Can you help?"
"I'll try." There was a lot he didn't understand on the dryboard. Shells. Chamber. A date. Words like 'intervene, Am I Part of Prophecy, or They Will Rescue Themselves'. That's probably why Emiko thought she was running out of time for something.
The only date on that dryboard was a week from then. It was circled several times, like it was very important. "Your Aunt Akari doesn't know anymore about this?"
"Aunt Akari yelled at me for even asking things about it," Emiko answered him. "I flew here."
Flew. Definitely Korosensei's daughter. What a neat feeling he felt inside. Something of him still existed, and continued. Kayano should have told me about this. Why is she hiding so much? He'd call her to tell her Emiko was okay, but first, he wanted to look into this Aunt Lola. If she drew the board, then she knew the information from it. "Let's go for a ride, in a car, to your Aunt Lola's."