Never could it be said that Amaya never tried when it mattered the most.

Even now, it couldn't be argued. At least by those who actually looked at her, in any case.

Amaya sat through the class meeting in silence, scarcely looking up at the faces of the others as they went over the script Hazama had put together overnight. She hardly even followed what was being discussed beyond the brief summary that the play was going to be based rather loosely around the story of Momotaro, the boy and the peach, as it were. It was a story Amaya could scarcely comprehend beyond the basics even outside of the current discussion. She had simply heard it mentioned, but neither had the care nor interest to know beyond that.

Expected, but not without the smallest edge of disdain, Koro-sensei was to play the "peach" in a play that was written more so as a grim story about the greed and manipulation of a husband who wanted to use the so called "child" in the peach to his own gain.

While Amaya could see vague, uncanny parallels between this story and her own messed up joke of a life, she knew without a doubt that it was nothing more than unintentional coincidences on Hazama's part. Of course, that didn't mean she missed the way Karma actually seemed to cast her a cautious glance when he undoubtedly noticed the similarities.

Though beyond that he didn't show any response.

That being said, Koro-sensei was eerily silent the whole time since Hazama had explained the script and handed out copies to everyone, gazing silently beyond his initial pleased chuckle that he was indeed granted a lead role for this play.

When the eventual end of the meeting came by and Amaya was asked if there were any issues with her role in the Drama festival, she uttered the only response that seemed appropriate to grace the room.

'It's fine.' She muttered. 'I don't care.'

A lie, but she didn't care about painting it up with any effort to veil it.

And nobody argued either.

They left her be, paying her little heed when she disappeared the very moment the actors were to go over their scripts.

The remainder of Amaya's Saturday was spent with a certain pineapple conure screeching and singing away atop her head while she carefully disassembled the rock walling for the garden beds and turned them into the foundations of an aviary base around the side of the house.

If she had materials, she could do something.

It was no different to how she learned how to spruce up the interior of the apartment with Nishimura's guidance at the time. She learned a lot simply by keeping one thing in mind; Anything could be used if you knew how.

She kept herself busy and well away from others, even going so far as to leave for the gym in the afternoon when emails started turning up on her phone from classmates wishing for her to come help out with the play. She later learned it was the best idea she'd had that day when Yuta emailed to let her know about Isogai and Kataoka turning up to track her down.

In the end she scarcely set foot outside the house on Sunday, and come Monday she was tempted to just stay locked away at home.

But she didn't.

Karma, who'd been strangely absent ever since the meeting for the play, had turned up and was waiting for her by the gate. Patiently, stranger still.

'Here, Koko. Stay out here for now.' Amaya murmured as she carefully set her bird in the outdoor aviary she had managed to put together, with a little help from a neighbor three houses down who also happened to have built an outdoor aviary for her own, much larger birds. 'I'll be back with some silverbeet for you later, okay?'

Immediately, the brain-damaged bird swooped straight for a hanging basket of millet grass she had hung up inside the aviary, after a hefty hour around 9pm scouring the bottom of 3-E mountain for anything bird-friendly to put inside.

It appeared her clingy ball of feathers was appeased. At least for now.

And so she locked up, albeit the difficulty she had with getting her hands to work properly, and left with Karma for the classroom.

It was a mostly silent trip up the mountainside, peppered with naught but the small glances she could feel graze across the side of her face every now and then. It was odd that her silence was left undisturbed, but at the same time, she was thankful.

However, as she crossed the threshold of the classroom foyer, she felt the swift, telltale sensation of a hand roughly ruffling her hair as Karma walked past her to head to his own shoe shelf. She pouted of course, lifting a hand to gingerly brush her messed hair back in place as she stomped along after him.

She wasn't quick enough to swat him in response, and it was possibly for the best given how poorly she had been taking care of her hands of late.

Amaya learned upon stepping into the classroom that the keyboard hadn't moved an inch since Saturday, and the ongoing discussions between the louder students were of course on that stupid drama festival.

It was just like the many other events once class was in session. Lessons were used for preparations for the drama festival instead of their actual purpose, and even during PE most of the class spent their time between exercises discussing all the finer details of the event preparations. Amaya's silence during what she felt were wasted lessons was noted, and while her eager participation was desired, beyond the first few futile attempts to rouse her to give input, she was left alone.

Thankfully, it appeared that Amaya wasn't the only one losing patience with the situation, however.

Even Karasuma, who was pulling students aside in pairs to evaluate their progress with their training, was visibly more exasperated than usual whenever he had to repeat himself a number of times.

'Kurahashi-san.' The ever-serious man called out as a sheepish Yada and Kanzaki made their way back to the rest of the class loitering in the schoolyard. 'And Katsuragi-san.'

Amaya couldn't help but cast a glance towards the frizzy-haired girl as she dropped herself down form the branches she had retreated to at the start of class.

The growing silence that had briefly overtaken the others nearby was sign enough that some of them had noticed the sparring pairing, though whether they were curious enough to break away from their conversations for long was far from Amaya's concerns. And to add to it, Kurahashi looked particularly terrified at that moment.

As if she were condemned to death, or the most unpleasant of punishments possible by being assigned to pair up with her for this exercise.

But Amaya didn't care.

At least, that's what she told herself.

Maybe if she said it enough times, she'd begin to believe it, too?

The aim of the exercise was to score three solid hits against the opponent, using the forest as the course and their anti-tentacle knives as their weapon. While Amaya was usually paired up with one of the boys in class due to her strengths and weaknesses, she was paired up against someone she had never worked with.

And as Karasuma sounded for the exercise to start and Amaya had barely even shifted her weight onto her back foot, she found herself stunned as Kurahashi swiftly turned on her heel and took off in a mad sprint away from her.

She was startled, surprise by the immediate decision to escape before anything had happened.

In any other exercise, nobody backed away or fled from her, and it was never the first thing anyone had done.

The action was more of a slap to the face than Amaya had even expected, and she had already assumed the girl would be hesitant to attempt to score a point right away.

Amaya cast a hesitant glance back at Karasuma for a second, but his expression was as uniform as usual, unreadable in the most strictest manner.

So she did the only thing she could; She took off after Kurahashi to continue the exercise.

She followed through the trees, kicking off of the base of their trunks to veer herself around obstacles in her way and propelled herself forward a little faster with each move. Each step brought her catching up to the fleeing girl quickly, and within a handful of seconds, she had thrown herself over the edge of a drop in the forested ground and landed with a hop and a turn in front of her opponent.

But once again, Amaya received a reaction that surprised her in response to her actions.

What sounded much like a choked scream escaped the frizzy, strawberry-blonde girl as she frantically staggered back to put distance between them once again.

Amaya's grip of the rubber-like knife tightened as she swallowed the lump that had begun to rise uncomfortably in her throat.

Was this an act to get her to lower her guard?

Honestly Amaya didn't know.

To her, it looked ... much too familiar.

Far too real to be an act.

But as she spotted Karasuma standing nearby with his clipboard in hand, she continued to act as the exercise required.

She lifted her knife-arm and prepared to clip the girl's hand to score a point, even if it were a half-baked attempt. Her doubts and thoughts brought her to hesitate briefly as she saw Kurahashi stumble backwards over an uncovered tree-root.

However, the second Amaya had swiftly stepped forward, closed the distance and swung her rubberized knife down towards the back of Kurahashi's hand, a deafening shriek of a scream tore through the forest and startled the albino enough to send her reeling back.

It took her a second to realize that it had been her opponent who had let loose such a terrified scream.

The petite girl had dropped her knife and collapsed to the forest floor with her arms lifted defensively over her head, trembling and cowering away from Amaya's mortified, frozen form.

Was she really that terrifying?

Did she really look like someone who was going to maim and torture somebody for the hell of it? To lash out unprovoked and harm someone, even if they weren't at fault for something?

What had she ever done to this girl to deserve such a reaction over a mere training exercise?

In spite of her poor sense of self-worth, even Amaya felt that was horribly unfair.

It felt like the strawberry-blonde girl had just spat in her face and thrust a rusty knife into her ribcage all at once, and all Amaya could do was let the knife drop from her trembling hands.

'What have I ever done to you?' She murmured beneath her breath. 'I'd never...'

The terrified girl actually seemed to recoil at the sound of Amaya's voice, as if she had just screamed and hurled abuse like a loose canon.

And that, was more than Amaya could stomach at that moment.

The sounds of running footsteps through the forest brought the albino to back away, to look back at Karasuma in hope for an answer to this mess.

She received her answer in the strangely soft edge she caught in his tone when he told her, 'You're free to go, Katsuragi-san.'

And immediately, she did just that.

She didn't bother to retrieve her fallen anti-tentacle knife, didn't pause to cast another glance back at Kurahashi.

Amaya left at a run before any of her classmates had arrived, dashing down the mountainside to escape.

She didn't return to the classroom, at all, and the nosy octopus who had spectated the whole lesson didn't lift a tentacle to stop her, either.

She hid away in her attic, curled up in her egg-chair with her headphones rendering her deaf to her surroundings, and her gaze remained listlessly upon the blankets she had wrapped tightly around herself to try and keep in some warmth from the chilling air.

Eventually, there was a faint knocking at the window of her attic somewhere in the late afternoon, loud enough for Amaya to have heard through the soft shift between tracks in her music. Repetitive, rhythmic, and definitely not the breeze swaying the branches of the tree into the roof.

And there was only truly one person who was fully aware of this room hidden away in the house.

Amaya didn't really understand why she picked herself up out of her comfortable chair, or even why, covered head-to-toe with blankets, she willingly unlocked that window and let him in when all she wanted was to be left well alone for a while. She hadn't even looked up to actually see what was outside her window.

However, the window was promptly slid open, allowing both the chilly autumn breeze and a few loose leaves to sweep into her retreat.

'What's with the hermit-look, Amay?' The evil incarnate promptly asked.

Did he mean the blankets?

'It's actually cold in here?' Amaya huffed.

'Really?' He asked her in disbelief.

It really had been cold.

She'd been shivering nearly the whole day.

'It's still pretty warm out, Amay.' Karma decided to announce, though his brow furrowed considerably as he watched Amaya carefully tuck the blanket a little tighter around her frame. 'You're sure you're not just imagining it?'

Well, for once he wasn't outrightly dismissing her comment.

However Amaya simply rolled her eyes as she held her right hand out from her blankets.

She received a skeptical look at first, at least until Karma had actually looked at her hand to note the cold-bitten red to her fingertips in contrast to the rest of her hand, and seconds later Amaya was holding in a sudden urge to rip her hand free when the evil incarnate had actually grabbed it. The immediate temperature shock actually stung, and before long she earned a rather prominent huff of exasperation when her hand was finally released a good moment later.

'You're not coming down with something, are you?' The evil incarnate asked, earning a dismissive shrug in response.

'How would I know? I don't get sick.'

'You have stressed yourself sick, before.' Karma offered in response, along with a swift flick of a finger against her forehead.

'Well I haven't!' Amaya snapped with a frown. 'I just get tired a lot. That's a different thing!'

'There's no need to get so defensive, Amay.'

'I'm not getting defensive!'

'Right, and I'm definitely convinced that you aren't the least bit accident-prone, either.' Came Karma's sarcastic quip as he forcefully turned her back towards the egg chair by her shoulders. 'Go sleep or something.'

'I was already trying to do that before you came knocking at the damn window!' Amaya scoffed as she slapped his hands away and fixed him with a suspicious stare. 'What did you come up here for, anyway?'

'To check that you hadn't died from mysterious causes, of course.' Was the immediate response she earned. 'A cat's life expectancy is around fifteen years, after all. I've started expecting you to drop dead at any moment.'

It was that moment that Amaya tried to push Karma straight back out the window in retaliation.

Taunts and remarks aside, she kept herself bundled up in her blankets and tried to while the time away.

She didn't attend class the next day, and the day afterwards she was absent as well.

However, it wasn't simply because she wanted to stay as far away from her classmates as she could.

It was quite simply that, for the first time in her life she really had seemed to come down ill.

Cold shivers, the inability to maintain any form of warmth in her body, a damned fever and worse, one of the worst headaches she had ever suffered that wasn't caused by a solid hit to the head. She had never been sick with an actual illness such as a cold, or even the flu before, and Amaya was certainly not too mature to hurl abuse at Karma for jinxing her, even if what she'd come down with wasn't technically a run of the mill cold.

Not that he really cared, if his barely-concealed grin was anything to go by.

'That's what you get for insisting that you don't get sick. You go one better and stress yourself sick.' Karma snickered as he watched the foul-tempered girl bury herself in a ball of bedding and pillows in the corner of the couch.

'You speak like you damn well expected it.' Amaya seethed from within her cocoon of fluff.

'I didn't expect it to happen so soon, but I don't object to having to say "I told you so".'

Of course not. It was painfully obvious that he loved it.

But perhaps that was about as far as his amusement went.

Oftentimes when Amaya would wake between pockets of exhausted slumber in her room, she would find that a fresh, damp cloth had been set over her forehead, and while there wouldn't necessarily be anyone else in the house most of the time, she would always find medicine left on the corner of her bedside table and a thermal mug of soup. Her headphones would always be set aside, and her phone was more often than not put on charge and left out of her arms reach.

Beyond that, nothing was said, and she was left to sleep off what she could. Which she did so most of the time while her handful of wakeful hours were regretfully spent on fulfilling her part of her "class duties" for the drama festival in the most basic sense.

Unfortunately, while she didn't like being unwell, she had fully recovered in time for the Drama Festival two days later.

And she was expected to attend.

She received all manner of looks upon her arrival at the classroom bundled up in one of her warmest jackets over her uniform, some wary, some relieved, but many conflicted. Whether it was because of her absence following Kurahashi's reaction towards her in PE, or because of her lack of contribution to the grim play they were to be performing in a handful of hours, she didn't know. Maehara and Isogai greeted her brightly, like they usually would, Kataoka cast her a well-meaning wave and Terasaka's posse acknowledged her with nods and brief smiles, but beyond that, everyone else was silent in regards to her return.

She didn't particularly care, anyway.

'Good morning, Amaya-san!' Piped up a rather relieved Okuda, who appeared more than pleased to see the bitter albino return to class after her three day absence. 'Are you feeling better?'

Amaya couldn't help but cast the bespectacled girl a small smile.

'More or less, yeah.' She agreed with a small shrug. 'I still feel like I want to go back to bed, though.'

'I understand.' Okuda agreed with a small smile. 'I think I want to go back to bed, too. At least, instead of having to go to the main campus, today.'

Definitely.

Amaya could agree to that with no ounce of hesitation.

'On that topic, Amaya-san.' Isogai began as he and Kataoka approached from the front of the classroom, where Mimura and Hazama had been speaking with them just moments before. 'I'm sorry to have to ask when you've just come back to class, have you managed to do anything for the music for the play?'

The albino let out a heavy breath when she noticed most of the class was watching silently.

She didn't answer, though she pulled out the wad of papers she had tucked away in her bag and simply passed them to Isogai without so much as a word.

'I'm afraid I can't read sheet music, Amaya-san.' Isogai admitted with a sheepish smile as he carefully began to flick through the sixty-odd pages written back-to-back with hand-written music scores. 'But will this stretch for a longer time if the play gets held up?'

'Just get the Fixed Artillery to convert it.' Amaya offered dismissively as she sunk back into her seat. 'It's fine.'

'Did you really write all that, Amaya-san?' A nearby Sugaya asked in surprise. 'For real?'

However, Amaya refused to acknowledge his response.

'Will Ritsu be able to read it?' Kataoka couldn't help but ask.

'I don't see why not. Sheet Music is practically it's own language, I think. ' Isogai commented, though he did turn to the Fixed Artillery's terminal. 'Are you able to do that, Ritsu-san?'

'Of course!' The energetic digi-girl piped up with a beaming smile. 'I've already had the pleasure of reading Amaya-san's music scores a number of times, now!'

Needless to say, a scowl spread right across Amaya's face at such a booming declaration. It only grew stronger still as she heard her classmates begin to mutter between themselves over it.

She cursed the octopus teacher and his infamous need to interfere with anything and everything he deemed fit.

Minutes passed once Isogai had carefully held up every sheet of paper for the Fixed Artillery to scan and convert into digital music scores. The class was eerily silent as they awaited the finished product, painfully so to Amaya, who wanted nothing more than to curl up under a rock away from all these people.

'The conversion progress is complete, Isogai-kun!' The Fixed Artillery announced with a hum as her face appeared back over the front of her terminal screen. 'As per Amaya-san's specifications, we have between twelve minutes and forty three seconds and one hour and thirteen minutes exactly for the play this afternoon, with assigned time-stamps to each part to change as we need it.'

'That's perfect.' Mimura chimed in with a grin.

'Can you play it for us, Ritsu?' Hazama was the next to pipe up, though she hadn't left her spot at the front of the classroom. 'I'm interested to hear what Amaya-san has come up with.'

'Of course!'

What was played was a near-enough equivalent of what Amaya had been going for.

Starting off aloof yet eerie, she had written a simple piece comprising of cello, double-bass violins a few sections of percussion and an underlying tone of ambiance of brass for the general feel of the piece. Going for a more ambient, eerie piece she had taken inspiration from a composer she had found through the throws of her confinement at home.

There was no possible way she could replicate this on a keyboard.

And she had written it that way on purpose.

As the class agreed immediately that the piece she had written was perfect and Koro-sensei relented that she really couldn't perform this herself for the play, revisions were made, practice was completed, and they were on their way down the mountainside an hour earlier than expected.

'The music you wrote for the play is a-amazing, Amaya-san!' Okuda squeaked out as she walked with Amaya down the mountainside. 'It really works well with Hazama-san's script!'

Beyond the declaration that their play was now ready for the festival, the bespectacled girl at Amaya's side was probably the only one outside of Hazama, the class reps and Maehara who was outrightly complimenting the albino's work. Karma, oddly enough, was rather silent about the matter and didn't even open his mouth to tease the girl about her strangely delicate skill. Morseo, he was up the front of the class taunting Terasaka, instead.

Even though the topic was not the most pleasant for Amaya, at least it felt nice enough that the work she contributed was being acknowledged.

She didn't verbally respond, though Amaya did lift a hand from the massive sack of glistening beads she was carrying over one shoulder and gently gave Okuda a quick pat on the head.

That of which didn't go unappreciated by the tiny girl.

'But I was wondering, Amaya-san, why is it that you don't like participating in music when you're very good at it?' Okuda continued as she readjusted her grip on the stack of costumes she was carrying.

Amaya was silent, at least for a brief moment as she debated how she was going to answer.

'It's... a family thing, I guess.' The albino eventually answered. 'I just can't bring myself to do it.'

She was terrified of having anything more in common with Yukariko, even if it were cowardly on her part. And the older she got, the more determined she was to ensure she never stepped any closer than she already was.

Beyond a terrible jumble of apologies from Okuda, nothing more was said on the topic.

It was probably for the best.

The sea of students in the school gymnasium was rather intimidating to Amaya, even though she wasn't one of the performers for the play.

And even as the calm between performances was up and Class 3-E took the stage, Amaya couldn't help the sinking feeling that began to take hold of her.

Her classmates performed, their play greatly emphasized by the piece she had put together for them, and the sea of students making up the audience were frozen, eyes glued to the grim take of the story of Momotaro. Those who weren't performing were up on the scaffolding coordinating lighting and effects.

And Amaya stood to the side, watching, simply awaiting the conclusion of this unfortunate mess.

The intention of putting on a performance so grim it would make the audience lose their appetites and worse wound up to be a success.

As the curtain closed and all of Amaya's classmates fled flying debris thrown by their audience, with peals of laughter echoing in their wake, Amaya couldn't help but bury her face in her hands and sigh.

She should be fleeing with her class, but she was much too tired.

Far too tired to react to the shouts of outrage bellowing from the main campus students, she stood her ground and gathered fallen pieces of belongings that her class had dropped in their departure.

And seconds later, the curtains swung open as tens of ferocious, angered students came barreling after the remnants of Class E, Amaya found herself coming to a strange observation.

The group of main campus students seemed to actually pause at the sight of her meek and silent form back stage, before they continued on. They left to pursue the departing 3-E students currently hiking up the mountain trail.

Without a word, without more than the curious glance she received when they realized she was even there.

They... let her go?

Was it because she looked about as ill as they felt after watching that play? Because she didn't have a broad grin and laughed mid-retreat from angry crowds?

Or was it simply because she looked miserable?

Out of place, wishing she could be anywhere else but here? Anywhere with less stress, less trouble?

Anywhere with less everything?

An irritated Asano Gakushu appeared at the opening of the curtain in the gymnasium, glancing at her for just a second before he seemed to huff and continue towards the side door of the building.

'You look as tired of this as I am.' She faintly heard the Student Council President comment as he passed her by. 'I guess it can't be all fun and games for everyone, can it?'

No, it wasn't.

It was as Daniel had told her once, surmised during a bout of her angry venting as she rounded upon hefty punching bags.

She was too different, too world-ready to simply let things go. Teachers didn't understand how to include her, and students didn't seem to understand just how different her thoughts were. She was too grown-up, seen many things in the open world that her peers couldn't fully understand.

She couldn't help but wonder...

Why was it that she had decided not to leave Koro-sensei's classroom again?

--=[Author Notes]=---

Okay everyone, I'm really sorry for like... the five month wait on this chapter? I've no excuses, but well, life, I guess? Hope you enjoyed, anyways.

Just a heads up to you all, I've got a bit of a survey I've posted in my Dropbox book (The link is in my profile, you can't miss it). Its about a handle-change I'm thinking about, and I'd appreciate it if those who haven't already gone through and commented on it did give me a bit of feedback about it. Now that the wattys awards (that joke of a thing) is over, I'll be going through with my decision by Halloween. So expect to see things changed between the 15th and the 31st.

Additionally, and on a different note, if you were at all interested in what piece Amaya took inspiration from for the music for the play, I've attached a video in the header of this chapter.

Anyways, this is probably going to be the last update I post for Marionette as "Loki-Roki".

All the best~!

<3 Loki-Roki