Alright wow talk about trying to revive a dead horse…

Rikka had an odd sense of guilt, and happiness. She sat in class staring at a blank canvas, even though it was blank with paint, he mind was painting an image she just couldn't forget.

She was looking at the painting with both eyes now… her eyepatch gone, her hair let down and only partially clipped, and her wrist wrap gone as well, she was scared and proud, anxious, and happy, all at the same time.

Rikka didn't know what to paint, but at the same time she knew what she needed to paint. For her, painting wasn't an 'escape', or a hobby for her life, it was more of an attachment. She found herself painting more and more as her life changed more drastically.

At first, her teacher was concerned by her recent happenings, but realized what was going on. She knew she couldn't put her foot in the situation, but at the same time understood what was going on and could offer help.

Eventually when she was walking around the classroom she came over to Rikka. "Your mind escaping you again?" she laughed a bit looking at the blank canvas.

Rikka looked up a bit startled, she had completely blanked out and didn't notice her teacher come up behind her.

"Huh? Oh… well I guess. I mean, a lot… some really big things changed for me, and generally I paint and draw to express those changes… well" she sighed a bit, she knew she had to say it, but had no clue how to.

"But you don't know how to express those changes? Do you feel like they just won't translate because everything you've done so far have been connected. It's all been one giant epic, something you were writing for years, and years, and eventually you knew the ending was coming…. But you didn't know how to end it." she smiled to herself, reminiscing of her own past.

Rikka shot up in surprise. "Yes! That's exactly it!" She got some odd looks from her classmates and shrunk in a little bit before coming back to conversation level. "Yes, I mean if it were a novel, I've had the whole thing planned out except the end! I mean at first I was thinking the novel would never end, and I was happy… but when I realized the end was closer I didn't know how to end it." she looked a bit sad, and again like earlier, happy at the same time.

The teacher laughed and stood up. "See, that's where you're wrong." she placed a hand on Rikka's head and smiled. "It's not the end of the novel, it's the end of the story. A novel can have so many stories within it, like a chapter. A chapter can obtain one story, but the novel as a whole contains the idea of all the stories." she walked a bit away, and turned around once more. "So don't think of it as the end… think of it as a… transition point, to the rest of the story."

Rikka had a puzzled look on her face. She was in deep thought, processing through all of that and trying to figure out how to use that. And it got to her, to paint your story isn't to give an ending, it is to give a conclusion.

An ending means that she has nothing in the future, nothing more will happen, and there is no reason for anything to happen. Yet, here is a conclusion, a transition, a door to the next world!

She started to mix colors, pull out some of the odder tools they have, put together stuff she had never done before. The whole point is to conclude the section, not the piece, and now it all clicked.

The painting wasn't her masterpiece, it wasn't her final work of life, it was simply just one of her most important. It shows her life till this point, her love, her pain, her joy, and her suffering all in one piece.

She spent the rest of class mixing and shaping and painting in utter concentration, everyone had left when she was still working.

The teacher just sat at her desk, sat there watching in amazement of what some people can do. She sat there almost three hours more before Rikka stood back and watched, her eyes lit up, died down, explored, and returned home before realizing that… this would do. She was fi… no she wasn't finished, she was only done for now.

Her teacher smiled, and slowly stood up. Grabbing her keys she left the room and left Rikka to be alone. Rikka slowly got up out her seat herself and put her painting on the drying rack. She was in a state of bliss, and hope for the future.

She walked back to her apartment with such a pace that most of the other people walking thought she was acting pretty weirdly. Once she got home, she opened the door hearing the clacking of keys in Yuuta's 'office'.

She slowly took her shoes off and put her bag down in the living room. Slowly opening his door she saw he had his headphones on and smiled. She went to the kitchen and prepared tea for both of them.

Coming back to his office she put the tea cup next to his computer and he turned his head to look at her. He smiled and leaned up to give her a kiss on the cheek.

She blushed pretty badly but still smiled. "By the way… I like you eye." He smiled and turned back to his computer. She blushed even more after that comment.

Going back to the other room and sat down at the living room table with her tea. She slowly sipped the tea while thinking of what she would do for her next painting. She listened to the background noise of Yuuta's key clacking and thought about it.

Yuuta was staring at his monitor debugging his latest project. For the most part his code was working, but for some reason his text output was being offset for three characters, and thus made no sense. He was expecting to find an issue with the class files and converting from String to hex, or something like that but couldn't find anything.

He sat there drinking his tea and started to drift off thinking about RIkka. He was proud of her, and loved her so much. She was someone who before wouldn't step out of their house, but now would make drastic changes in her life because she knew it would be alright in the end.

He thought about her eyes, arm, and hair as she changed what was most of her defining features because she felt the need to become a different person… no that's not it, she felt the need to… evolve herself, and make changes she wanted to do.

She wanted to let go, and make a new path in her life, not like before when she was someone who would try to stay in the past forever, and escape life by running away.

He eventually stood up, and closed his laptop. He had been working most of his night off and knew he needed to get some opened his door, and sitting at the living room table under the single hanging lamp was Rikka.

She actually fell asleep sitting at the table after finishing her tea, Yuuta laughed a bit, grabbed her tea cup and watched her as he washed them out.

He came over and slowly put his arms under her to pick her up. Slowly carrying her into the bedroom he set her down on the futon, and turned off the lights. Changing her from her clothes into a really big shirt of his, and got changed as well and climbed into bed.

The moonlight spilled into the room, and laid a perfect beam between them, illuminating their faces. He watched her as she slept, and small facial movements as she dreamt, and fell into deeper sleep.

He loved watching her so peaceful, and gentle looking. Without her eyepatch she seemed worlds different now, but at the same time so much closer to him than before. He didn't know it was possible for her to look cute, but then again he keeps getting surprised by the little Chun-

He smiled to himself… he can't really call her Chuuni anymore can he? It was an odd feeling, one he was going to miss but as far as he was concerned it, she isn't like that anymore.

On occasion, she may have a few odd spills of jargon, or act out of place, and obviously use her umbrella as a weapon, but she isn't really a girl stuck with Chuuni… she's a woman who is maturing so much in such a little time he's amazed, and falling deeper into love.

He smiled as he closed his own eyes and fell asleep.

Rikka woke up… she slowly rose and rubbed her eyes. When she opened her eyes she looked around and could only see blackness. Nothing but inky blackness, until in the distance she was a small light… but it wasn't (at least in her perspective) distance across but… down

She realized she was falling, falling towards this light, something she had no clue what it was, but was getting rapidly closer. As it came into view, she was it wasn't a light… but a painting.

She recognized the painting, she had just finished that exact painting before coming home. But something was slightly off about it. Once she was about 100 ft away from it she saw it… there was a giant slash from corner to corner of the canvas in the painting. As she came closer she could tell she was in perfect trajectory to pass right through the slash in the canvas and braced to hit it… but she never did.

Instead of hitting the canvas she just saw blackness. Nothing but inky black for the rest of the night, until she woke up in the morning.

Cool done, look for Chapter 34 in the future!