Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume10 Prologue

Prologue

"Gokigenyou."

"Gokigenyou."

The clear morning greeting travels through the serene, blue sky.

Today, once again, the maidens that gather in the Virgin Mary's garden smile purely to one another as they pass under the tall gateway.

Wrapping their innocent bodies and souls in a deep-colored school uniform.

Walking slowly so as to not disturb the pleats in their skirts, so as to not toss their white sailor scarves into disarray... such is the standard of modesty here. Running here because one is in danger of missing class, for instance, is too undignified a sight for students to wish upon themselves.

Lillian Private Academy for Women.

Founded in Meiji 34, this academy was originally intended for the young women of nobility, and is now a Catholic academy of prestigious tradition. Placed in downtown Tokyo, where you can still see traces of Musashi Field's greenery, it is protected by God, a garden where maidens can receive tutelage from pre-school to university.

Time passes, and even now, in Heisei, three era-names past Meiji, it is a valuable academy, where nurtured ladies raised in greenhouses are shipped out in carefully packaged boxes after 18 years of schooling - an arrangement that continues to survive.

The season is early summer.

Despite the change into lighter clothing, the mood had not lightened alongside it.

The reason for the sighs wasn't something as obvious as mid-term test results. A faint outline was visible, but nothing that could be definitively pointed to as the cause.

The closest expression would be, "There's just something not quite right."

So it was all the more troubling.

Like sighing when looking up into a cloudy sky with a prediction of rain, that kind of feeling.

Was it going to rain or not? If it does rain, how long will it last?

Would it be better if it just started pouring down immediately? Those kinds of thoughts.

But, just by waiting quietly, perhaps the rain clouds would dissipate soon enough.

Hah.

Three silhouettes sighed simultaneously.

It was obvious that only someone deeply important could be the cause of that kind of feeling.

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