Darkness.

All she could see was an inky blackness, a void that seemed to stretch into eternity. There was no light, no sound, no anything. Then, a drop of warm, crimson fluid fell onto her eye.

Blood.

What started as a slow trickle gave way to a shower, to a stream, to a flood. A torrent of blood washed over the girl, smothering her in it, and yet she did not gag or drown.

"Where is all this coming from?" she thought as she floated through the ocean of gore. "And why does it taste so good?"

The girl suddenly felt rush of cool liquid across her face, causing her to sit straight up in surprise and begin coughing rapidly.

"You slept in again, Azami" said her older brother, Yuu, who was standing over her with an empty bucket in his hands.

"Ah, fuck, why did you do that? Do you want me to deck you again or something?" she asked, glaring at him with her dark brown eyes. Her short black hair was now a complete mess, and her orange pajamas with adorable white bunny faces printed all over them.

Yuu, on the other hand, was already fully dressed and prepared for the day. His hair was exactly like Azami's, but was confined to an ordered ponytail instead of being allowed to fly around wildly like his sisters. His bluish-grey school uniform was cleanly pressed, and without any wrinkles. It was hard to tell if Yuu's blue eyes were looking at his sister with pity or contempt.

"Even someone with a brain as small as yours can't have forgotten what day it is" he said with much more scorn in his voice than a twelve-year-old should have. Azami sat in her bed with a confused look on her face for a few moments before the metaphorical light bulb finally lit up.

"It's the first day of school today!" she practically screamed.

Before Yuu could even gloat some more, Azami was already out of her bed and rushing to put on her uniform. Once she had her blue skirt, white shirt, and blue scarf on, she dashed to the bathroom. Azami poured shampoo onto her toothbrush with her left hand and grabbed her hair brush with her right. She started bushing her hair and her teeth at the same time as she ran back towards her room to get her backpack.

Once her pack was on her shoulders, Azami was running towards her front door so fast she seemed like she was planning on ramming it down. The only thing that stopped Azami from following through on her crazed plan was the hand of her mom grabbing the back of the neck of shirt and nearly chocking the poor girl to death.

"And just where do you think you're going?" asked Mako Matoi, a stern look on her face. Her long brown hair and white apron were both recently stained with yellow grease, but her green t-shirt and pink skirt were both untouched.

"To school?" Azami coughed out, struggling in vain against her mom's iron grip.

"Not without a good breakfast you're not!" she yelled, throwing her daughter down towards their dining table. Even though Mako was no longer the slum girl she used to be, and could afford all the furniture she wanted, she still chose to use the tiny wooden table from her childhood to eat; she felt it kept the family closer together.

"Now how are you supposed to get anything done on an empty stomach? Let alone learn!" Mako said as she stuffed her daughter's face full of croquettes. "You are not going anywhere until you've properly eaten".

"You better listen to her dear" said Ryuko Matoi, Azami's other mother, across the table in her red business suit that matched the red highlights in her short black hair. "You know that she's not going to let you go you've gained at least two kilos".

Yuu was also already sitting at the table, but was too busy efficiently eating his meal to say anything.

Eventually Azami's cheeks were full to bursting, but instead swallowing any of it, she spat it all out at once like some kind of ground meat sprinkler.

"Gross! Your cooking tastes like shit mom" she said, wiping her mouth on her arm.

"Oh, did that get mixed in again?" asked Mako. "I'm sorry, but you never know what you'll get with my famous mystery croquettes".

"That's not what I meant; all your cooking fucking sucks mom" said Azami. "Can't you just hire a cook, or eat out?"

"No, because they don't have my special ingredient; love" Mako said, poking her twelve-year-old daughter on the nose like she was four.

"Just look at Ryuko here" Mako said before walking over behind her wife and grasping Ryuko's breasts firmly in her hands. "Your mama's boobs wouldn't be nearly as big if she didn't eat my mom's love infused croquettes. Is that what you want? To remain flat chested all your life?"

Azami and Ryuko both blushed as red as beats, and even Yuu nearly gagged to death on a croquette in embarrassment.

"Mako, knock it off" Ryuko said, pushing Mako away. "Not in front of the kids".

"Yeah…I'll take my chances" Azami said before getting up and heading out their front door.

"Hmph. Well, it's a good thing then I packed her a big boxed lunch in case she changes her mind" Mako said as she took out two lunch boxes seemingly from nowhere. She handed them both over to Yuu, who had just managed to finish his breakfast.

"You make sure she gets hers, okay?" Mako asked Yuu earnestly.

"I promise mom" he replied, but before Yuu could make it to the door, he was stopped by Ryuko.

"And please don't tease her, Yuu. She has it hard enough as it is" Ryuok said in a very serious tone of voice.

"I'll…try not to, mama" said Yuu. And with that, he left their house, and their first day of the new school year had officially begun.

Shimura Junior High wasn't anything all that special; it was just another kid's school in Tokyo, but to Azami, it was much more than that. She had her parents change her and her brother's school district, so absolutely no one there would know who they were. Yuu always a bit of a loner without many friends, so the change did really upset him, and Azami was ecstatic for the possibilities this new school presented. She could learn from better teachers, meet new people, maybe even make some friends for once.

Azami put what she didn't need in her locker and went to her home room, parting ways with her brother Yuu. Even though the two of them were twins, Yuu was already a grade ahead of her because of his high test scores.

She entered the classroom with an air of enthusiasm that was rarely seen on her, but was even rarer on the other students by the way things looked. Almost half of them were all on their phones, laptops, or both, and didn't even look up when Azami entered the room. The rest of them were even worse though; they all just had blank, expressionless stares, as if they were staring at something light-years away.

Azami walked up to one of the zombie-like people, a girl with long brown hair in the first row, and tried snapping to get her out of the trance. When the student didn't respond, Azami poked her right on her cheek.

"Ahh!" screamed the student.

"Ahh!" Azami yelled back, jumping backwards a bit in surprise. No one in the class seemed to notice this mutual freak-out, and if they did, they obviously didn't care.

"Yeah, what do you want?" asked the girl, clearly very annoyed.

"Uh, are you alright? Azami asked, very confused.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" asked the student.

"Well, your face…" Azami paused for a moment to try and think of a way to put it as eloquently as she possibly could "…what the hell was wrong with your face?"

The girl became very angry for a moment before she realized what Azami was talking about. "Oh, you mean this?" she asked, pulling back her hair to reveal a white earpiece with a line down the center of it that was currently glowing red. "Everyone looks out of it when their VR devices are running".

"VR devices?" asked Azami.

"Yeah, they're the latest product by TONY. It lets you play Galactic Defense Force, or GDF, and it's a really fun game" said the schoolgirl.

"Hmm, I think I might check that out" Azami said curiously.

"I hope so, we could always use new clan members, after all" the girl said excitedly. "Look me up when you login, okay? My username is 'ChizukoRules121'".

"Okay, I'll…" Azami began to say, but she was quickly interrupted by the main classroom door slamming open. In stepped a tall, intimidating man with sunglasses, a buzz cut, and a large stack of papers in his hands. He clearly wasn't Japanese, but when he opened his mouth he spoke without an accent. Once he got to his desk he dropped the papers onto it and hit a large red button labeled 'Wi-Fi'. All the students who were in a trance suddenly snapped out of it and started paying attention.

"Alright students, listen up! My name is Mr. Smith, and if you try hard and work hard, then we are going to get along just fine" he yelled at his students. "But I do not have time or the patience to slow down for lazy students! I'm going to pass out the rubric for the class now, and if you have any questions, keep them to yourself".

Azami was starting to panic; she knew immediately that if she stayed in this man's class, she was going to fail. Her face lit up when she remembered her backup plan in case something like this happened; a gift to soften the teacher's stone heart.

"Uh, Mr. Smith? I have something for you" Azami said, taking a lemon out of her backpack and presenting it to her new teacher.

"…a lemon?" he asked in disbelief.

"They were out of apples at the grocery store, but a lemon's just as good, right?" Azami said, chuckling awkwardly in an attempt to break the tension.

"No it's not!" Mr. Smith yelled at her. "What am I supposed to do with a lemon? Just eat it raw? Who does that?"

Azami felt the urge to yell back, to not let herself get humiliated in front of her whole class, but she had had enough experience to know that only makes things worse. She clenched the lemon in her fist so hard that juice started to seep out between her fingers, but she didn't say what she wanted to say.

"I'm sorry sir" she finally said before taking her seat near the center of the classroom. She tried her best to see the notes Mr. Smith was writing on the whiteboard through the tears in her eyes.

A few hours later and Azami was not feeling much better. One of the first subjects they went over that day was math, which she was not very good at. She didn't understand a thing her teacher was saying, and she dreaded the moment her homework was finally assigned. Writing class was just as bad, but she got some relief in history before she was finally allowed to break for lunch.

Once again, Azami found herself alone at a table in the lunch room, sulking in her own misery. She hadn't bothered to get in line for food; school food usually tasted even worse than her mom's.

"Speak of the devil" Azami said as she saw her brother approach with her boxed lunch in hand.

"You have to eat some time, you know" Yuu said, sitting down beside her.

"Yeah, but why does it have to be mom's shitty food?" asked Azami.

"I don't like her cooking any more than you do, but she put a lot work into making these. She doesn't show it, but it really upsets her when you make fun of her food". Yuu untied the napkin over his lunch, picked up his chopsticks, and grabbed his first croquette. "So show some appreciation and…dig in".

Even with his stoic face, it was clear Yuu was forcing himself to eat his lunch, and was simply forcing it down his throat instead of properly chewing it. Reluctantly, Azami started eating her lunch as well. When they finally finished eating, Azami asked Yuu how his day was going.

"Very boring; I thought eight grade was supposed to be harder than sixth grade, but I suppose I was wrong for once in my life" said Yuu. "How about you? You're not in the principal's office yet, so your day must be going better than last year".

"Not really; my homeroom teacher's a total dick, and the others aren't much better" she said dejectedly. "But there is some good news. Some girl recommended that I play some virtual reality game called 'Galactic Defense Force' and join her clan!"

"Is this game like the last big VR game that came out a year or two ago?" asked Yuu, suspicious. "The one that killed you in real life if you died in the game?"

"I wish, I loved that game, but no, it's completely safe" Azami explained. "I looked it up, and apparently you don't even fight other players. You apparently work together fighting all these alien races, and the game's all about cooperation and shit like that. I'm going to ask mama to buy GDF for me when I get home, it sounds really fun. It's even got perfect tens on all the game review websites".

"You know how rigged those reviews are, right?" asked Yuu.

"Ah, you're just being cynical again" Azami said dismissively while waving her hand. "Besides, what's the worst that can happen if I buy the game?"