Tuesday, 07^th April 2015

The three students still stood on the roof and tried to find out what was burning in the distance.

“Dammit! I need to know what’s happening there!” yelled Rin panicked and ran inside the building before anybody could react. Her goal was to go after the fire, if it even was one.

With difficulty, she groped her way through the dark school and looked for the exit, which she found quite quickly. Because of her previous wandering around with the boys, she still had some of the building outlay in mind. Usually she would have gotten lost immediately.

She dashed quickly from the school campus in the directions from where the lights came. That she could see anything at all to find her way was a miracle in this darkness. Not only where the streetlamps off, no, there was also no light source in the houses she passed. But maybe that was simply because it was the middle of the night and people were sleeping.

After what felt like an eternity, the girl finally arrived. Completely out of breath, she put her hands on her knees breathing heavily and looked at the building, which was actually on fire.

“Shit,” she wiped her sweat from her forehead, “It’s really Amis house.”

Quickly she took her phone out to call 911. For whatever reason the building was burning again and it needed to be extinguished. The only strange thing was that it had not started to fall apart, like she has seen it before.

“What’s going on here? My phone doesn’t have any connection,” she tapped the buttons wildly and then held up the phone to get a better connection. However, it didn’t help and she still couldn’t get any signal.

Before Rin could even think about some new ideas, a fireball landed directly in front of her. Did the house just spat at her?

She hurriedly looked around and found that she was suddenly surrounded. To the right and left of her stood black indefinable shadow-like creatures without a fixed shape. They were completely covered in fire and shot with fireballs at the girl.

“Oh god! What are those creepy things?!” she cried out and tried to avoid the fireballs.

She hardly had time to be afraid because the fireballs kept flying from left and right and she had to dodge in acrobatic ways. Her luck that she was athletic. It even reminded her a little bit of dodgeball. There the balls were shot at you from all sides. The only difference was that the balls were not on fire and were not fatal. She would have preferred the ball game at this point.

While Rin’s thoughts drifted to ball sports, she had an idea, “I got it! I just let them score an own goal!”

Whatever she meant with that… Quickly she moved to the middle of the creatures so that they were in a line and it happened what the girl hoped. The burning creatures hit each other and partially knocked each other out. The storm of fireballs subsided and the blue-haired girl performed a little dance of joy. Which ended abruptly when she felt pain on her right upper arm. She reflexively reached for it and noticed that she was bleeding.

“Ouch… How did that happen?” she whined.

One of the balls had grazed her arm. It didn’t look too bad, but she was bleeding pretty badly. Her jacket was also torn. Her brother would kill her or that, for sure.

The creatures slowly understood that they were only fighting each other and directed their attacks back to their actual target.

Rin continued to try and dodge the attacks, which she did quite well. She had good reflexes and could roughly estimate the balls. Because some of the beings knocked themselves out a small gap formed on the side she came from. In a flash she broke through the gap so that she finally was no longer surrounded and ran as fast as she could. Of course, the monsters reacted to that, albeit slowly, and followed the girl.

“They are really slow,” she looked over her shoulder while running and could finally take a breath, “I have to go back to the school and warn the boys that there are weird creatures around here.”

Rin was about to turn the first corner when a giant misshapen shadow faced her and blocked the way. It was easily the size of the apartment buildings in this area, if not bigger. But unlike the other monsters, it wasn’t on fire.

Suddenly the creature changed its shape and opened two big, round red eyes. The shapeless shadow became a kind of oversized black bunny.

“What the hell…” stared Rin and examined the rabbit, “A big fat rabbit? Without the blood-red eyes it would almost be cute.”

But since she already got to know the other malevolent monsters, she did not expect this thing to be on her good side and went into position. Although she didn’t really know what to do now. The fireshadows came closer and closer and the path in front of her was blocked by the rabbit.

“So, I’m only almost cute?” there suddenly was a slightly distorted voice, which resembled the voice of the blue-haired girl.

Rin flinched in shock and tensed her whole body. Where did that voice come from? It couldn’t be the black rabbit?

"W-who are you? Why does that sound like my own voice?" the girl trembled. "I am you and you are me" the creature suddenly grinned and briefly flashed his mouth with white, sharp teeth. It was unusual for a bunny to have teeth like this.

"What are you talking about? I'm not you!” the girl snapped at the monster. Again, it had to grin evilly, "Oh yes, I was born from the depths of your darkest feelings. I'm a shadow driven by your hatred. You hate Amika because she is keeping secrets from you."

"NO!" the creature was interrupted with a loud scream from the girl, "I don't hate anyone!"

Again, the Shadow laughed out loud and started to attack. His black fur elongated and deformed into water, which took on a life of its own and tried to hit Rin.

"You hate Ryuichi because he doesn't care about you!" The rabbit continued to talk to the girl. Again, he received a loud, "No!" from Rin.

She only just managed to avoid the water whip by jumping to the side. After the whip hit the floor, it spread over the whole floor and Rin got partially wet.

She stood up with shaky legs. "Water ..." she muttered to herself and had probably the most fearful look of her life on her face.

"You hate Akira because he forgot about you," came from the Shadow again. The student again loudly disagreed.

He then went on to attack again. Now several thin threads of water formed from his fur. Avoiding them turned out to be extremely difficult, as they skillfully snaked around the blue-haired girl. She quickly tried to run away from it when she realized that the fire-like figures were behind her. Now so close that Rin was really in a bind.

Suddenly she was grabbed by the wrists and pulled upwards. The threads of water tied her up and hoisted her right in front of the Shadow's red eyes.

He grinned again, "You hate your mother because she is no longer here." Like crazy she wriggled her legs and tried to free herself from the grip, "No! Let go of me!" It was hopeless and the rabbit just kept talking, amused, "You hate Saito because he keeps teasing you."

This time again the girl protested loudly. She didn't want to hear it anymore. Why should she hate all the people she cared about?

But her opposite was not deterred and continued, "You hate Kuro because he always bullies you."

Suddenly the student stopped fidgeting, stared at the rabbit somewhat confused and there was silence.

Shortly after, however, it was broken again by Rin, who just said dryly, “Yes, okay. I really don't like him.” "What ?!" uttered the Shadow in astonishment and his threads of water fell powerless to the ground.

The splash reached some of the flaming figures, who wiped back a few steps. Rin finally tumbled to the ground, because nothing was holding her up anymore. She landed harshly on her bottom, which she rubbed in pain as she tried to get back on her feet quickly. A little confused about the shadow's sudden weakness, she eyed it.

Then she had an idea, “You are right! I hate them all!” “What?! No!“ the Shadow shrank a little.

At the same moment two fireballs landed in the immediate vicinity of the girl and she jerked around.

"Oh crap! Not these again” Rin swore and acrobatically tried to avoid the bullets. Meanwhile, she kept trying to persuade the Shadow, "I hate you for all the things they did to me! That’s true!"

With protests, the Shadow continued to shrink until it turned into a little black bunny.

Just at the moment when one of the fire missiles flew towards the rabbit, Rin ran over to him and was able to save him from being hit. As a result, however, she scraped her left knee and another fatal ball flew straight towards her head. She was just able to pull it to the side so that only a few strands of her hair got burned off.

While holding on tightly to the bunny, she stood facing the monsters, “But you know, little one, just because I hate them for it doesn't mean that I can't love them at the same time. Nobody is perfect and everyone makes mistakes. It's the most normal thing in the world to be angry. But at the same time, I learned to forgive. And a little deed doesn't weigh so heavily that I can't forgive my friends. They are far too important to me for that.” “But why?” murmured the weaker and weaker getting animal “Why are you protecting me?” “Isn’t it obvious?” she grinned cheekily, “You said that you were a part of me. And I don't want any part of me to die here. Especially not a cute one."

The animals red eyes widened with astonishment and before it could mention anything else, it suddenly shone in a brilliant, glaring light, which went in a ray into the blue gemstone on Rin's chain. Somewhat astonished, she looked at her stone.

Then suddenly everything happened by itself and she tore the stone from the chain, and fired it like a crackpot on the ground, so that it broke.

"Per-so-na! Come on Kyusagi!" she exclaimed very loud and before she could wonder about her own words, some kind of whirlpool rose from the broken stone.

It sprayed with a jolt in all directions and a human-like, feminine-looking being appeared, which was floating above the ground. That had to be said Kyusagi.

She had radiant white skin, dark blue short tousled hair and was completely dressed in shades of blue. A balloon-like blue hat adorned the figure's head. She had a long shield that stuck into her face and covered her eyes. Two rabbit-ear-like tips protruded from the hat itself, protruding from a fluffy pompom. She wore a belly and shoulder-free top, to which net straps were sewn. White fluffy pompoms were attached to the upper arms, to which the long sleeves were sewn. These ended in paw-like ends. It generally looked a bit like she'd been put into a rabbit cosplay. She wore a floor-length pleated skirt, which was very short on her left side and got longer and longer to the right. Some of the white fluffy material was attached to the hem of said garment. In addition, she wore fishnet tights and blue heel shoes, which were also provided with the white pompoms on the ankles. You could also see the gemstone, that the high school student broke, in the middle below Kyusagi's collarbones.

"Come on, attack!" Rin called out, pointed with her left index finger at the fire figures and was just stupidly looked at by her persona. Irritated, the girl looked back and didn't understand why she didn't get started. This rabbit could throw water around as he wanted, right? That was the perfect chance to finish the monsters.

“Come on now” the girl stammered, hopping from one leg to the other, “Take one of your water attacks and kill those things. You know? Like that water whip?"

Kyusagi was visibly irritated by the order and cocked her head while she seemed to be thinking.

Rin continued to fidget and tried to explain with hands and feet what she meant, “Don't you remember? You shape a little bit of water into a long stream and then, bam, you beat these things with it and blow them out."

As the girl jumped around so hyperactive, of course, new fire bullets came flying towards her, which she tried to avoid. After further pointless explanations, it became too much for Rin and she simply ran back to school. After all, these things were so slow that they wouldn't catch up with them.

As she turned to flee, her gem transformed back on her chain and the persona disappeared again. But the blue-haired girl had better things to do than worry about it at the moment.

After she had taken two wrong turns, she finally reached the school grounds and stood frozen at the entrance. The whole space between the building entrance and the school gate was littered with the fire monsters.

There was also a huge black monkey with blood-red eyes there, throwing rocks around. Every now and then you could see a grin emanating from him, through which his pointy white teeth stood out. It looked exactly like the big rabbit from before.

All the monsters in the forecourt aimed their shots at the entrance area of the school building. They probably hadn't even noticed Rin.

"The boys must be over there," she muttered and stormed off, "This is my chance to slip through."

With a skillful slalom run she meandered between the figures and actually reached the two exhausted students.

“Aikawa-chan! There you are!" Akira said, who could only stand on his feet with difficulty, "We were really worried." "I wasn’t" Kuro replied scratchy.

The redhead was bleeding from his thigh and swaying a lot. Apparently one of the fireballs had brushed against him. His cloak was also shortened and burned at the bottom. The black-haired, however, had hardly any scratches. His robe was only slightly dirty.

"What happened to your arm?" the young man examined the open area on Rin's upper arm. She briefly explained, “Probably the same as your leg, but that doesn't matter now. We have to get out of here!"

The whole time Kuro was fixated on the big monkey monster and barely noticed the two.

"What kind of monkey is that?" the blue-haired girl eyed the figure. “He's always saying strange things about Kuro and shooting at us with stones,” the injured man explained shortly. Then the girl turned to Kuro, “I think this is your Shadow. If I got it right, then he is a part of you that was formed from your darkest feelings." "Oho," came a distorted male voice, which was really similar to the black-haired boy, "I see the little one knows her stuff. But that won't help you!"

Again, he fired a few projectiles at the small group, which they could only dodge.

"And where is yours?" she asked while supporting Akira. "Mine?" He replied. She nodded, "Yes, your Shadow. Have you already defeated him?” “What do you mean?” he looked at her completely confused. Then she tapped him on his chain, to which a yellow square gemstone was attached, “Well, your shadow, which then goes into the stone at the end and becomes your persona. Which is a little bit dense I might say." The redhead tilted his head and looked at the girl, confused, "Are you okay? Did you hit your head?” “No, I didn't,” she was getting irritated.

Finally, she turned back to Kuro and shouted, “You have to accept your Shadow! Then he becomes your persona!” “Are you sure you haven't hit your head?” he also thought Rin was stupid, “Besides, what am I supposed to accept?”

With one finger he pointed to the big, grinning monkey and angrily yelled at Rin, “You're annoying! Do you actually know that?! There's nothing I could accept from what that dumb monkey said! He listed a few facts! Why should I refuse them?!"

Wordless and slightly shocked at his outburst, she stared at him. Somehow it seemed to be different than with her shadow before.

“The thing is absolutely right!” he snarled without taking his eyes off the girl. “Everyone always expects the best from me, they put a shitty school and a shitty corporation in my care and then they leave me alone with the crap! And to top it all, I'm surrounded by stupid morons who are too stupid to do their job right! I always have to clean up after them! They all do what they want and nobody does it right! And then I should stay nice and polite?! Forget it! At some point my patience will tear and then these idiots will be fired and replaced! I don't give a shit about other people's feelings if they don't function!"

Completely taken by surprise by Kuro's violent announcement, Rin pulled her head back a little and just stared at him, startled. She didn't know what to say to that. She didn't even know what the young man was talking about.

"It's getting smaller!" the redhead suddenly called out and everyone looked over at Kuro's Shadow. "It turned out kinda cute," the girl looked at the little black monkey with the red eyes, which came hopping towards the black-haired boy.

He stopped in front of him and looked up at him, while the boy looked down at the little animal. They stared for a few seconds before the little monkey jumped up, clung to the young man's forearm with both hands and nibbled at his arm with a sullen look.

"Hey! Stop that you bastard!" he shook his arm to get rid of the monkey.

He, however, clenched his sharp teeth and fought against the black-haired boy. Shortly afterwards, it turned into a bright ball of light, which went into the green gemstone on Kuro's pants.

Before the young man could say anything to the strange situation, Akira jerked Rin suddenly aside, "Watch out!"

One of the fireballs from the other creatures came flying straight at them and he barely managed to keep them from it. However, he fell unlucky on one of the rocks and hit his head, which caused him to pass out.

"Yoshida-kun!" shouted the blue-haired girl and shook him hard.

However, he did not wake up and the creatures became more active again and closed in on the students. A few fire bullets struck around them and they struggled to avoid them while looking after their unconscious friend.

“Damn it!” Kuro cursed, “It’s no use! We urgently need to go back to the student council room!"

It had been Rin's plan since she first met these things, but her Shadow stopped her.

The black-haired boy hoisted Akira on his back and quickly ran into the building. At the same time, he tried to provide light with his cell phone, which was not that easy.

Finally, they arrived in the hall of the student council and walked a few meters before they finally saw the open sliding door. They were really relieved, because they had managed to escape the monsters.

As soon as they stood in the student council room, their cloaks dissolved into thin air and they immediately took a deep breath. Their school uniforms remained tattered, however, and the injuries, of course, did not simply heal.

At the same moment the door behind them slammed shut with an extremely loud bang and both of them winced violently. They immediately turned back to see how the door closed so easily by itself.

"Quick! Lock the portal at least!" clapped a little boy with the flat of his hand against the sliding door and Rin did as ordered and turned the key once in the lock. There was a short click and the little man breathed a sigh of relief.

The blue-haired girl then pushed open the door a tiny crack to catch a glimpse of the hallway.

"It's daytime again!" she happily turned to Kuro.

He was busy dropping Akira off and didn't seem to care about the girl's words.

"Tell me, what’s wrong with you guys?" the little boy folded his arms over his chest.

Rin knew the little one. Though she had to think twice, she remembered it again. When she was in the ruins a few days ago and came back, this child was lying across her lap with all sorts of injuries and tattered clothes. He was now wearing clean clothes and his wounds appeared to have roughly healed. With his black and blue hair he wore a white jacket with black stripes and a fluffy black fur collar. The jacket was generally way too big for him, but that didn't seem to bother the child. Underneath he had put on a yellow T-shirt and a pair of light blue three-quarter trousers with small pockets on the sides. On his feet he wore little black boots, which protruded just above his ankles.

With a rather angry look he looked into the questioning faces of the two students, “You can't just leave the portal open! What if the Shadows had invaded this world? Then she would have plunged into complete chaos! "

You could clearly read on Kuro and Rin’s faces that they clearly didn't understand a single word, but the little one didn't even notice and continued to scold, “But apart from that, you are not allowed to go through the portal at all! Give the key back to the rightful owner immediately you thieves!"

The students looked over at the boy, puzzled about being called thieves. Of course, Kuro couldn't help defying him straight away, “That's enough, you little shit! I'm not going to let myself be called a thief!” “Exactly!” Rin agreed, “And who is supposed to be the rightful owner anyway. I didn't steal this thing. Suddenly it was in my pocket." The boy put his hands on his hips, "That can't be! The rightful owner is Rin Aikawa! And I don't see them anywhere!"

The blue-haired girl was so confused by the statement that she had doubts that she heard right, while the young man answered the child's questions again, “Are you stupid? She’s right in front of you!"

He pointed to Rin, which made the blue-black-haired boy walk closer to her. He eyed her critically and then turned back to Kuro, “You already realize that this is a boy, right? Even if he wears a skirt that doesn't automatically make him feminine. I'm looking for a girl with that name."

A silence fell over the room for a few seconds, then Rin winced and felt her chest in panic, "Not again!"

She had changed into a boy again.

Now the young man stepped closer to the girl and looked her up and down, “That's right. You are right, little one. Are you a tranny?"

He cocked his head and had a hand on his chin as he eyed her slightly disgusted.

She immediately turned bright red and protested loudly, “No! I'm a girl! For some reason I'm turning into a boy sometimes! Look! My hair is suddenly short and darker and my eyes are sure to be pungent yellow again!” “You definitely had a wig on and you can put colored contact lenses in,” The black-haired man argued. With small tears in her eyes, she continued to try to convince the boys that she really was a girl, "But why is my hair darker then?"  "Dirt?" Came from Kuro, who grinned with confidence. However, the stupid conversation between the two of them was interrupted by the boy, "I believe you, Rin."

The girl paused briefly at the familiar form of address by first name before she breathed a sigh of relief.

Then the little one got a little more serious, “Listen, Rin, Kuro. Strange things are happening in your city right now, inexplicable phenoms are occurring and there will be human sacrifices. You both have the strength to prevent all of this, but for that you have to fight and look for your allies.” “What does that mean?” Asked the black-haired man seriously, “Who are you anyway?” “I'm Skye and I've made it my job to watch over the portal,” he stepped towards the window with a serious expression.

He opened it with a jerk and jumped with ease onto the window ledge, “Don't get careless and please let me know if you want to go through the portal again, then I'll accompany you. Take care."

Suddenly he just jumped out the third floor window. The two students who stayed behind got the shock of their life and immediately ran towards the window to see if he was okay. However, they could see nothing more than a blue-black bird with 4 wings fluttering away and Rin could have sworn that she saw another blue butterfly. She saw it whirring around the bird along with some blue lights. She rubbed her eyes briefly, thinking that she was hallucinating again. At the same moment she heard a familiar voice, “I Am Thou. Thou Art I. "

When she quickly opened her eyes again, the bird had already flown away and she saw nowhere a person who could belong to the voice. After all, she was alone in the room with the boys.

"Don't tell me he transformed into a bird," the black-haired man was amazed and ignored the wandering gaze of the blue-haired girl.

 Rin wasn’t surprised about anything anymore and stepped away from the window. She didn't understand what had happened or what Skye was telling them. Actually, she couldn't care less, because at the moment she just wanted to find her best friend and hide away with her male form. Thank goodness it was hardly noticeable that she had become a boy, because the uniform made it easy to assume that she was a girl.

Suddenly she saw a little blue light from the corner of her eye and a little butterfly dancing around the young man. She stared at the student with an open mouth. So she wasn’t hallucinating after all?

And again, the voice rang out, “I Am Thou. Thou Art I. "

In just seconds the butterfly and the glow disappeared again.

“Close your mouth or you will catch flies,” the black-haired man said dryly, “And don't stare like that, I know I look good.” “No way!”, She countered him, “Didn't you see the butterfly?" "Butterfly?" He asked. "And the voice?" Came the next question. Confused, he looked at her, "I think you have hallucinations."

Offended, she puffed her cheeks and crossed her arms. This time she was very sure that she hadn't just dreamed it. The blue butterflies buzzed around in the points of light twice and both times she heard the strange voice.

A brief pained noise reached the ears of the two arguing. Akira seemed to slowly wake up.

“Don’t tell anyone what happened to me. That has to stay a secret” she looked at Kuro with a warning look. "And what if I did?" He grinned at her maliciously. Rin growled, "You don't want to find out."

With one leap, the girl stepped through the sliding door into the hallway and closed said object aggressively, so that it banged briefly.

Angry at the black-haired man, she trudged off and started walking home. Under no circumstances did she want Akira to discover that she was now the wrong gender. It was enough that her archenemy knew about it.

Continue to chapter 5