[Author's Note: Angevon here! Hello, and welcome to Nanako Explains It All! Do you have the Nickelodeon theme song stuck in your head yet? Na na na na na...

The gist of this story is that Nanako Dojima and the Main Character (Souji Seta/Yu Narukami) have switched places. This means that Nanako is the transfer student who discovers the TV World and investigates the murders and earns a Persona, etc. Souji, then, is her lonely little cousin who's missing one of his parents...

It was inspired by a request on the Persona 4 Kink Meme (but not written for it). I couldn't stop thinking of Nanako as the main character, and before I knew it, I was rewriting the entirety of Persona 4 to accommodate her.

As a result, Nanako and the little cousin's 'swap' aren't the only changes. Several social links will be different (the little cousin, for example, is no longer of the Justice arcana), and her initial Persona will be different, and important events will carry on differently due to Nanako's background and personality (and, of course, my own whims). If it was the same old story, it wouldn't be worth reading, right? I'd rather not give away all the changes here in the author's notes!

Obviously, there will be spoilers for the entire game/anime/manga. It shouldn't matter which version of the Persona 4 story you're most familiar with, although game mechanics will be mentioned and poked fun at, especially those concerning social links and the Velvet Room's services. As a sidenote, the game itself will be the canon I'm using. If you'd like to see a playthrough of the game for reference, I recommend Really Pants' playthrough of Persona 4: Golden on the Let's Play Archive. I've been using it as a reference myself, actually!

Other warnings: the humor will be juvenile at times (you'll know what I mean by the end of chapter 4, so if you don't like Nanako's sense of humor by then, it's probably not a story meant for you, haha), there'll be swearing here and there, and there's going to be some violence, although nothing too graphic—mainly when fighting Shadows. There won't be sexual content, but there will be innuendo, nudity, and discussions of sexuality. The story should hopefully stay within a T-rating, but it might straddle the line at times. She's mostly reminiscent of the Female Protagonist from Persona 3 Portable, but Nanako sometimes gets out of my control even as I write her...!

To those hoping for a Burn My Regret sequel: this is what you get instead... and I'm not sorry.

Oh, and my coauthor is herrDoktorat. Check out his Persona x Detective Naoto rewrite-it's great!

Updates will be on the first Thursday of every month!

A Yu Narukami version is available at Dreamwidth at the following address:
angevon dot dreamwidth dot org/22576 dot html
Every 'dot' should be a '.'

Please enjoy!]

[4/11: Monday]

Nanako Dojima didn't watch the gravure Risette advertisement playing on the TVs at the train station. Instead, she watched the people watching the ad. Watching people. That was something her father, a police detective, had taught her.

That guy, she thought, looking at a middle-aged salaryman with glasses, is going to remember this ad tonight.

She sighed to herself. Quelorie Magic tasted like chalk, why would anyone bother? But she could do with a Mad Bull right now... No, no caffeine. She planned to sleep on the train. She'd stayed up all night marathoning Magical Detective Loveline for that express purpose. Sure, it was a kid's show, but tons of adults watched Featherman with nostalgia as their excuse, so she didn't allow herself to feel immature for enjoying it. Besides, the show was good, if campy at times, and every episode had a moral or made some sort of statement.

The ad changed to a couple of news anchors discussing a political scandal that Nanako couldn't care less about. The two people who had been watching the Risette ad must have felt the same, because one shuffled off and the other turned away. This left Nanako with only a kid playing a game on his cell phone to look at. He was pretty into it, whatever game it was, gaze fixed on the screen even when some lady with oversized luggage bumped into him. Nanako had a bunch of games on her own phone that she could while away the time with, but she didn't really feel like taking it out right now. Didn't want to feel too reliant on it, since it was her only means of communication with her family at the moment. She was dead set on the road to independence!

Thankfully, the train pulled up before she grew too bored of her surroundings. She boarded and took a seat in an empty row and put her duffel bag on the seat next to her, thereby preventing anyone else from sitting there. This was Tokyo, after all. The last thing she wanted was some pervert sitting next to her when she was trying to get some shut eye...

Maybe that shouldn't have been her last thought as she drifted off because she had a very vivid dream of a guy with an impossibly long nose. He told her about—something, she wasn't quite listening because she couldn't stop staring at that nose. He had long, pointy ears, too, bulging eyes, and spindly fingers covered by elegant white gloves.

While he spoke, she became vaguely aware of her surroundings. She seemed to be in a limousine furnished in blue velvet, and fog streamed by outside the windows. The full liquor shelf caught her eye, a detail she never thought her waking imagination would create. She hadn't seen anything like that on Loveline last night—rather, this morning—had she?

The long-nosed man, who introduced himself as Igor, tapped the short table in front of him to focus her attention. He showed her some tarot cards, but Nanako didn't believe in fortune telling, so she just politely nodded when he gave her the reading. Her future sounded portentous anyway. Both catastrophe and misfortune awaited her? Huh, maybe she wasn't as happy about moving away from her family for the year as she'd pretended.

Or maybe the catastrophe was directed towards other people. Nanako was going to shake up peoples' worlds. Yeah! That she could get behind. Now she was getting excited!

"Tell me more," she requested, and the grin on Igor's face, which hadn't dropped even when he was telling her the bad news, seemed to widen.

Nanako blinked herself awake, then looked muzzily out the window, barely registering the terrain going by. There was no fog out here.

After that dream, she wasn't sure she wanted to get back to sleep. It had just been so weird. She was pretty sure she didn't know anything about fortune telling at all. The only tarot cards she could name were Death and Lovers because, well, those were the ones everyone knew from movies, and those hadn't been the cards she'd been shown, so it was pretty weird to have a dream like that.

Maybe staying up all night had been a bad idea.

Some hours later, the train stopped at Yasoinaba Station. Nanako was the only person to get off the train. Yep, this was Nowheresville all right. She'd been warned about it, but it hadn't quite sunk in yet. The train station, so bustling back home, was a ghost town. There wasn't even an attendant sweeping the place or anything like that. She was literally alone. She almost expected a tumbleweed to roll by. Or some stray whistling to begin out of nowhere.

She walked around the pitifully small station for a bit simply to stretch her legs. The nearest vending machines were sold out of drinks and looked like they hadn't been restocked in weeks. The buttons were all scratched up and cobwebs covered the slot the drinks came out of. There was an abandoned bicycle at the bike rack next to the vending machines. It was missing a wheel and rusting on its chain. Weeds grew unchecked in the cracks in the sidewalk. The shadowy shape of some creature darted into an alley when she walked by it.

Luckily, the train had been right on time. Now she just had to hope her family would also be on time, or else... uh, she'd be alone for even longer? It was kind of chilling to think about being abandoned here in the middle of nowhere. Hey, what if that's what that Igor guy meant about catastrophe? Nanako Dojima, the only survivor in a post-apocalyptic world, must band together with the local wildlife—

"Ah, over here!"

Nanako turned to see a dark-haired, middle-aged woman in a business suit and stylish heels walking briskly towards her. She wore a little too much makeup and the strong scent of perfume preceded her.

"Nanako-chan," the lady said with a very red-lipsticky smile. Nanako made an involuntary face at the honorific. This lady didn't know her well enough to call her that, but...

"Aunt Seta," Nanako replied with a polite curtsey.

She was family, so...

"This is my son," Aunt Seta said.

Son? Being a detective's daughter, Nanako prided herself on her powers of observation, but she hadn't even noticed the little boy hiding in his mother's shadow. Was there even a child there? Nanako squinted in the waning sunlight but couldn't see much of anything.

"Souji, don't be shy. This is your cousin, and she's going to live with us for the next year. We've talked about this!" The woman grabbed the boy by the wrist and yanked him forward.

Now Nanako could get a good view. He was a very young boy, she judged, maybe in kindergarten, with strange gray hair in a bowl cut and matching gray eyes that were very, very wide.

Aunt Seta pushed the boy forward in order to goad him into approaching, but the boy ended up stumbling into the asphalt.

The fall looked like it had hurt. Nanako hissed sympathetically.

On the ground, the boy took a deep breath, the obvious precursor to crying. Then his mother clicked her tongue at him. The boy stared at the ground for a very long moment, and then sighed and pulled himself up to his feet.

"Anyway," Aunt Seta said, as if that entire incident hadn't just happened. "We need to stop and get gas, so—what are you...?"

Nanako couldn't take it. She rushed up to the boy, bent down, and wrapped her arms around him. The boy made a confused sound and tried to pull away. "Hey, cousin? Let's be friends," she whispered in his ear.

The boy stiffened. "F-friends...?" he whispered back.

She opened her mouth to say something further, but Aunt Seta cleared her throat. "The gas station closes soon," she said crisply, "so I would appreciate it if we could get moving."

Nanako frowned but kept her mouth shut. She did, however, help the little boy into the back seat of the car, and she made sure he was buckled in. By the way the boy pouted and played with the belt, she suspected his mother neglected to buckle him up. Nanako wanted to sigh in exasperation, but settled with patting the boy's hand and then strapping herself in, too. Lead by example!

"You can sit in the front, Nanako-chan," Aunt Seta commented. "There's no need to stay in the back."

"I'm already back here, so..." Nanako replied. "But thank you anyway, Aunt Seta."

Her aunt shrugged and then they were off.

A ghost town with only the three of them in it... To Nanako's vast relief, she saw plenty of other people from the car. Inaba wasn't quite as unpopulated as she'd originally thought. Well, there had to be enough people around to warrant a school at least. Damn, tomorrow was the first day of school already. She hadn't even had a chance to familiarize herself with the town. Oh well, that's just how it had turned out. At least most of her most important belongings should already be at the house. She'd mailed several boxes worth of stuff ahead of time to the Seta residence. She didn't relish unpacking them all, however.

Her little cousin was staring at her and gripping the seatbelt really tightly. She wondered if she should say anything to him, but then Aunt Seta's phone rang and the woman cursed with language she really shouldn't use in front of her son (or niece, for that matter). It killed any desire Nanako had for conversation stone dead.

Fortunately they soon stopped at the gas station. Nanako was surprised to hear Souji suddenly speak up to ask to use the bathroom. "You know where it is," Aunt Seta told him while they were still in the car. She turned her head towards Nanako and added, "Sorry, I have to make a call."

Souji watched his mother walk away from the car with a mournful expression. "M-Mama...?" he mumbled. "I can't get out..."

Nanako undid her own seatbelt and then leaned towards him. "Here," she said, holding the buckle part of the boy's seatbelt. She demonstrated how to unbuckle it. He didn't respond—he just sort of stared at her hands. "Uh, come on," she said. "Let's go to the bathroom together, okay?"

Now he was staring at her face. His gray eyes were so expressionless! After a long moment, he nodded.

He exited the car and she went through the same door, since she'd scooted over to his side of the car anyway. She followed the boy through the sliding glass doors and into the convenience store. He did indeed seem to know where the bathrooms were. She had to stop him before he went into the boy's room, though. "Come on, this way," she said, taking his hand and leading him towards the girl's room.

"I-I'm not a girl," he murmured.

"If your mom was here, would she take you into the boy's room or the girl's room?"

He seemed troubled by the question, but no longer resisted her pull.

After he was done with his business, Nanako picked him up so that he could reach the sink to wash his hands. Then she pulled down some paper towels for him to dry them on, but he'd already dried them on his shirt. She wondered how he washed his hands without someone to help him and realized with distaste that he probably didn't. Oh, well, he was just a kid, after all.

On the way out of the store, Nanako thought about buying a soda—now she could use some caffeine—but she'd left her purse in the duffel bag in the car. She sighed and tried to ignore the huge display for Dr. Salt Neo at the front of the store. It seemed to be mocking her.

They exited the store and nothing outside had changed. Ghost town, she thought to herself, and followed it up by humming the theme song to a mystery show she liked. There were no new vehicles waiting for gas or anything. That moving truck in the far bay was still there. She wondered if her aunt had even gotten any gas. The woman was still on the phone, pacing around the flags along the sidewalk that advertised deals in the convenience store.

"Th-there you are!" a man in a red and orange gas station uniform suddenly said. The man held his hand out in front of him and then stopped before them.

Souji immediately hugged Nanako's leg and hid his face against her skirt. Clearly the boy had a fear of strangers.

"Yes?" Nanako asked, wondering why the gas station attendant was even addressing them.

The gas station attendant worked his jaw like he was wondering the same thing. Then his strange red eyes brightened. "Ah! I haven't seen your face before. Are you new to town?"

Ah, well, Inaba was a ghost town—small town, she mentally corrected. Nanako supposed everyone probably knew each other. "Yep. I'm from Tokyo. Just visiting." She began to walk towards the car, gently pulling Souji along by the hand.

"Hey—" the attendant said as she passed him.

"Sorry," Nanako said briskly, "I gotta teach my little cousin about seatbelt safety while Auntie is preoccupied."

"Most people don't drive very much around here," the attendant commented. "Inaba is a small town, as I'm sure you've noticed. By the way, are you in high school—"

"That's no reason to be negligent. Did you know almost half of all children's deaths are from car accidents? And almost half of those could have been prevented if the child was in a safety seat?" Well, Nanako might have been exaggerating and she didn't have numbers to back up her words, but she felt strongly on this issue.

While she was caught up in her crusade, she hadn't realized the gas station attendant had closed the distance between them until he was barely a foot and a half away from her. Souji was now tugging her skirt in his anxiety, and Nanako worried for a second that he might pull it down which would make this situation even creepier.

"We are looking for part-time help," the man breathed. He held out his hand towards her. "We hire students... Won't you consider it?"

"Maybe?" she answered. "I mean, I just got here not even an hour ago, sheesh." I'm not touching you. You're the type to think it's a date or something!

While she was trying to cross her arms, the man grabbed her hand with inhuman speed. Acting on well-honed instincts from her aikido lessons, she lowered her center of mass and then lifted up with her caught hand against the pressure point in his wrist until he hissed in pain. Then she let the arm drop, which unbalanced him and enabled her to throw him into a tumble away from her.

Nanako clutched her hand, feeling dizzy all of a sudden. "In the car now, cousin!" she shouted. She glanced around for witnesses, but the problem with small towns is that there was no one around. Maybe her aunt had noticed and would call the cops! No such luck; Aunt Seta was facing away from them, still on the phone.

She jumped into a defensive stance and watched the man for his next move.

But the attendant remained on the ground and was now holding up both of his hands in a gesture of peace. "Hey, hey! I didn't mean anything by that." His red eyes were flashing, but he didn't seem angry. "I just wanted a friendly handshake. Do they not have those in Tokyo?" He picked up his hat, which had fallen off during the tumble, and secured it back onto his head.

"Maybe I overreacted," Nanako admitted, lowering her fists, "but man, it's called personal space, and you're only allowed in it if you're invited, okay? Especially if you're a guy!"

"I'm n—hmph. Yes, I see. In tha—"

"Is she filled up?"

Both Nanako and the attendant blinked rapidly at the interruption. It was Aunt Seta, finally done with her call.

Nanako exhaled in relief and then scurried into the car while her aunt paid for the gas.

Later that night, Nanako went up to the room that would be hers for the next year. She didn't take the time to appreciate her new home at all, though she did observe that her boxes from home were present.

She felt like shit.

There was no nice way to put it; 'shit' described it perfectly. Damn, she really shouldn't have stayed up all night. What little sleep she'd managed to get on the train was obviously not enough. But somehow this feeling wasn't related to that. It was like a headache, but not exactly achy, just... it left her kind of lightheaded, like she wanted to throw up.

Maybe it was from the awkward dinner. Because of how sick she'd felt after what she was now calling the 'Gas Station Incident,' she hardly had an appetite for the takeout that her aunt had picked up—despite not having eaten all day. And in the middle of inquiring what her responsibilities around the house would be, Aunt Seta had taken a phone call and excused herself from the table to talk in another room.

Which left her with that awkward little boy, Souji. But as soon as they'd finished eating, he'd put the takeout boxes in the trash, and then he'd escaped without a word to his own room. He'd closed the door behind him, too. So she'd waited for her aunt to return.

It had taken her over an hour to finish the call.

"I'm sorry, Nanako-chan," Aunt Seta had said. "I took the afternoon off to pick you up, but it seems I can't escape my responsibilities at the office." She'd then sighed.

She'd also completely failed to notice that her son wasn't around.

After having watched an uninteresting news segment with her aunt, Nanako had dismissed herself to her new room, where she set her alarm and then fell onto the futon without even getting changed.

[4/12: Tuesday]

Nanako felt better in the morning, though her mind felt… foggy...

She changed into her school uniform. Yasogami, huh? The symbol looked kind of like a peace sign or a biplane propeller. She supposed it was meant to resemble the letter Y. The scarf was yellow, and the jacket and skirt a very dark gray, almost black. Rather standard, really. She wondered how strict the teachers would be out here, what she could do to personalize the uniform and not get in trouble.

Well, she'd find out today and then figure out what to do tomorrow. Best not to rock the boat already.

Pfft. Yeah, right. She gave herself ten minutes before she spoke out of turn to a teacher or something. She knew herself. She took off the scarf and tied it around her left wrist. That would do for now.

She went downstairs and found her six-year-old cousin standing on a step stool in front of the stove and frying eggs.

Nanako stared at the bizarre sight for several long moments. Frying eggs. A six-year-old. "Ah, no!" she exclaimed when he picked up a spatula to flip them.

Souji heard her outburst and turned, blinking those gray eyes. "You don't… like eggs?"

"Uh, umm, where's your mom?" she asked.

"She's at work…"

Aunt Seta had already left for the day? There was no way this boy had enough autonomy to cook.

Or maybe he did, because he totally turned back to the stove and skillfully flipped the eggs and watched them sizzle in the pan. Then there was a 'pop' and the boy put the spatula down, got off the stool, moved it over two feet, and climbed it again to get to the toaster, which had just ejected two slices of toast.

He really was six, right? Aunt Seta didn't, like, forget his age or something?

More importantly, was this legal?

"H-here," she said, stepping in front of the stove before he could scoot the stool back. "I'll finish the eggs while you get ready for school, okay?"

"I'm already ready," he mumbled.

"Why don't you get the butter out for the toast, then?" she continued briskly.

He pointed to the counter, where the butter container already stood.

"Drinks?"

He nodded, opened the fridge, and pulled out a carton of milk. Then he took his step stool to a different area of the kitchen to pull down two glasses from a cabinet and poured milk into each.

They ate breakfast together, and Nanako decided it would be best to compliment the chef, right? "This is great, Souji-kun! Thank you!" she said with her mouth full of bread. By the way, who the hell taught you to cook?

Souji looked down at his plate and mumbled something. She hoped it was, 'You're welcome.'

"Hey, umm... Did you see your mom this morning?" she asked. Does she know you cook? Did she tell you to cook for me...?

"She leaves before I get up..." the boy said quietly.

"You walk to school by yourself?"

"...I'm a big boy..." he murmured. He blinked a few times, still staring at his eggs.

"Let's walk together," Nanako said. It wasn't a suggestion.

It was raining, so Nanako had to spend a few minutes rummaging through the boxes of stuff still packed in her room to find her umbrella. It was a very bright pink umbrella. Beautiful and vibrant, like herself, or so she liked to think. It was also themed after Loveline. The handle had the wing-and-heart shape that was part of the magical detective's logo.

Souji had a smaller umbrella, a gray one, presumably to match his hair. Or maybe to match his attitude. He seemed rather... gloomy? That wasn't the word she meant to use, but it was what came to mind when she saw him with that umbrella. Solemn? Grave?

They exited the house and Souji locked the door behind them. Oh, damn, he was only six and a latchkey kid as well? Nanako had been given a key too, but he had beaten her to it.

Nanako stepped out into the very light rain and onto the road. She did a complete twirl, feeling energetic for some reason. A new day. Her first real day here—yesterday didn't count. It would be fun, right? She took in a deep breath of the fresh, rural air. Yeah, it smelled like damp earth. She liked it. It was much better than inner-city car exhaust, at least!

"Uh, which way?" she asked when the boy joined her. So tired last night, she hadn't even bothered to get directions to school. Wait, would the boy even know where the high school was? She might be in trouble. Oh, well, worst case scenario, she had her phone.

Fortunately, he did. "You go that way," he said when they reached a particular intersection.

"Well, I don't mind walking you the rest of the way to your school," she began, but he was looking down at his feet.

"It's okay..." he said softly. He started trudging down the road, splashing through a puddle, his gaze still firmly on the ground.

Nanako stared after him, barely suppressing the urge to skip school and take the boy out to an ice cream parlor or something. There was something radically wrong with this family... She'd have to figure it out. Find something to cheer the boy up.

She continued on down the road. A sign labeled the area as the Samegawa Flood Plain. Flood plain, huh. If it rained a lot, then this area could get under water. In fact, she passed by a big warning sign explaining just that. Well, the current rain was just a drizzle. Even a month straight of this wouldn't cause flooding, she was sure.

While she walked down the road, she spied other students with the same uniforms walking far ahead of her in the same direction. Good, she could just follow them in. No worries about getting lost. She had a sudden thought: what if she got lost and ended up at the gas station? No matter where she went, she'd end up back there… No escape…

A boy on a yellow bicycle breezed by her. She watched as he struggled to steer and hold his umbrella at the same time. "Ah, watch out!" she called, but it was too late. He crashed headlong into a utility pole.

She considered running to check if he was all right, but he was able to get to his feet, though he was kind of doubled over in pain. Something told her not to get to get too concerned, and she trusted her instincts, so she just walked on past him.

The school was just a high school, which was unusual to her. Back in the city, the school she'd attended combined all three levels—elementary, middle, and high—on the same campus, though they were all in separate buildings. And Yasogami High seemed to be a rather small school, too, with only two main buildings and a gym. There turned out to be only three classes per level, a far cry from the six her old school contained.

She headed to the faculty office. Her homeroom teacher was Mr. Morooka, who, uh, well, he had a massive overbite. His teeth reminded her of Igor's nose, but Igor was way more fun than this man. Morooka was ranting to one of the other teachers about—something, she didn't catch what—and turned a baleful eye on her. He wore a blue pinstripe suit and a yellow checkered tie.

"What do you want, young lady? I swear, if you waste one minute of my precious before-class time, I'll—Hneh? You're that transfer student aren't you? Well, well." Morooka put his hands in his pockets and eyed her. "Let me give you some ground rules—"

A school employee suddenly poked his head into the faculty office. "Morooka-san, class starts soon, so, uh, I was going to lock the door now."

"Yeah, yeah," Morooka grumbled. "Come along, girl."

Nanako followed Morooka out, watching him warily, but withholding judgment for now. Observation, her dad once said, is one of your most important skills. Don't jump to conclusions.

His destination was the aptly-named Classroom 2-2 on the second floor. Morooka took his place at the podium and launched into a rant about 'kids these days' being love-struck monkeys. Nanako stood off to the side and wondered if she was dreaming again or something. His dialogue seemed very stream-of-consciousness...

"Now then! We have some trash thrown out here from the big city." Was that… Nanako's cue? Yes, he was looking at her now. "You boys better not be thinking anything like 'she's easy' or wondering where she's been. I'd better not hear you hitting on her, you hear me? Tell 'em your name, girl, and don't waste any more of my time!"

After the gas station attendant yesterday, Nanako wondered if everyone in this town was creepy...

She ignored the content of his words and stepped forward with a brighter smile than she felt. "Hi. I'm Nanako Dojima. I'm from Tokyo. I'm—"

"Tokyo, huh?" Morooka interrupted. "So you've come all the way here to ogle our last few innocent boys and ruin them with your perverted big city ways?"

"I won't ogle any boys who ogle me first," she promised, flashing teeth. "Which pretty much eliminates everyone in this class."

The class reacted to that with some surprised curses and muffled laughter.

"'Pure as the driven snow,'" Morooka growled, quoting from his previous rant. "If you're going to act like a damned tease—"

Nanako decided it was high time she started screwing with people. Her day couldn't get any worse. "By the way," she spoke over the teacher, "I'm all the way out here because my family is being targeted by the yakuza!"

She paused dramatically, absorbing the gasps and whispers before declaring, "Nice to meet you!" with a wide smile and a wave.

Morooka spluttered in surprise at her insubordination, and then a short-haired girl wearing a green jacket raised her hand and asked if Nanako could take the seat next to her. Derailed, Morooka ordered her to 'siddown' and then went on about the lack of respect in youth today.

As she sat, the girl next to her whispered, "Welcome to Inaba, huh?" and winked at her. "We're stuck with him for a year. We'll just have to hang in there!"

"What you said about the yakuza... was that true?" Her new friend, Chie Satonaka, asked her while they were both in the restroom during the lunch break. They'd escaped there because Nanako was tired of answering questions about Tokyo.

"Nah," Nanako admitted easily. "It just sounded cool, right?"

"I'll say! You've got half the class thinking you're dangerous!"

"Who says I'm not dangerous?" Nanako said, placing a hand on her hip. "I want their names and addresses so I can show them the light."

Chie laughed. "I think this is going to be an interesting year. Even if we have to suffer King Moron."

"What is that guy's problem, anyway? Please tell me he's not always like that."

"Haha, well…"

A raven-haired girl with a red sweater and matching hairband entered the bathroom. "Ch-Chie..." she said. "Do you mind coming with me? People keep asking me about that announcer…"

Nanako whimpered. "Your hair…"

The newcomer ran her fingers over her long black hair. "Yes?"

"It's so beautiful!" Nanako stepped forward, then released her own hair from its clip and brushed it out for display. "I hate my own. So brown and boring… Yours is so sleek!"

The girl seemed embarrassed. "Well, thank you. You look familiar… Are you…?"

"Yukiko, this is the transfer student!" Chie said. "Her name's Nanako. She sits next to me, did you even notice?"

Yukiko looked downcast. "Ah, no, I didn't."

"It's all right," Nanako said. "It's actually kind of refreshing to have someone not so interested…"

"Nanako is from Tokyo," Chie went on.

Yukiko looked up with curious eyes. "Is that so…?" she murmured. Nanako almost backed away from the wistful expression on her face. So much for her not being interested…!

"Haha, well, Tokyo is…" Nanako sighed. "Well, if we're gonna talk about that, we might as well return to class so everyone else can hear, too. Besides, it's lunchtime and I'm hungry!"

Because it was the first day, they didn't have normal classes. Before lunch there had been a welcoming ceremony in the auditorium, which proved to Nanako once and for all that this wasn't a ghost town due to the number of students present, but after that, it was just an entire day of enduring King Moron's ranting. Right when school was about to let out, however, an announcement blared over the speakers, telling everyone not to leave the school.

"Don't go anywhere," Morooka growled before leaving the classroom. All teachers had been called to the faculty office.

Nanako tensed in her seat. Trapped in the school on the very first day? She had just stopped thinking of survival horror scenarios, too! And dammit, she had been set to ask Chie to show her around town…

No one else seemed to be bothered by the situation, though. Mostly the students around her complained about ruined plans or speculated about what was going on. Then they heard the blare of sirens and people scrambled to the windows to get a good look.

Shortly after, another announcement declared that there had been an incident within the school zone.

Now some students were beginning to panic. "Wh-what's going on?" "Incident!?" "What's with the fog…?" "A-are we safe?"

Nanako stood up suddenly. "It's the yakuza!" she declared dramatically. "They found me already! Don't let them get me!"

"Y-yakuza!?" someone yelped. As if on cue, another set of sirens went by the school.

Several apprehensive sets of eyes looked upon her now, and then she laughed and explained that it was a joke.

"You almost had me going there, Nanako!" Chie said, shaking her head. "Sheesh!"

"You shouldn't joke about that…" Yukiko murmured.

Another announcement rang out and exhorted the students to leave the school and head straight home.

"Well, I guess the incident is contained, whatever it was," Nanako said. She sighed. No zombies today... And straight home, huh? So much for exploring the town. Oh well, she had a whole year, anyway. Better save something to do for tomorrow.

While most of her classmates were filtering out of the room, Nanako checked her phone for messages. Nothing. She got up, stretched, and started walking towards the back door where she witnessed the event that would soon define her life.

"My Trial of the Dragon!" Chie screamed and let out a flying kick that hit a brown-haired boy right where it mattered. The victim emitted a dying squeal and crumpled to the ground.

"Chie!" Nanako gasped.

Chie looked embarrassed. "Oh, uh, I guess I shouldn't have done that in front of everyone, huh...?"

Nanako stalked forward and grabbed her by the wrist. "Who taught you that!? That was awesome!"