Fuyuu Gakuen no Alice and Shirley:Volume1 Prologue
Crumbling Classroom Stage[edit]
The ceiling collapsed and fell to the floor. It was 8:13 a.m. As the golden sunlight passed through the classroom window.
The haze of dust weighed heavily on Kusunoki Masaki's mouth. He opened his eyes ever so slightly. The debris of the collapsed ceiling were scattered about on the floor as well as the top of the desks and chairs.
And in the midst of it all this, were strange, dancing shadows.
Card soldiers with long, thin limbs blew trumpets. The sound of the trumpets brought geese to life and from their open yellow beaks they spat out letters of the alphabet. Animals bigger than cats: Mice wearing hats, ducks, parrots, and crabs, they all laughed and sang.
They were all beings that couldn't be be part of reality. It was as if they had fallen out of a fairy-tale.
It seemed like they had appeared when the classroom ceiling collapsed.
Masaki was the only person in the room, thus no one else was there to be injured. But the lined up desks and chairs were being stepped and trodden on by the otherworldly beings. The room was overflowing and everything was being crushed to the point that they were no longer recognizable.
In the midst of the card soldiers, the hat wearing mice and other animals - those irrational, absurd and uncanny beings - was an enormous cat. It was about 6 meters long. The top of it's tofty-haired covered head reached all the way to where the collapsed ceiling joists were supposed to have been.
The large cat closed its almond shaped eyes, gave a complacent smile and lowered its head in what seemed to be a bow.
Between its two triangular ears––was the shape of a human.
The other person stood out in a different sense from the strange dancing beings in the middle of the rubble.
Masaki held his breath.
He forgot about what was going on around him as he was completely mesmerized; "she's beautiful", he thought.
It was a girl that looked like a western doll.
Her eyes were a clear bright blue like sapphires, hair like a bundle of gold thread and skin as white as a porcelain doll.
She clung to the tufts of hair on the ears of the big cat as it moved slowly.
Although the girl was shorter that Masaki, he had to look up at her since she was at a much higher height than himself.
She took a look over her surroundings––then her eyes met with Masaki's.
She tilted her head to one side in what seemed to be curiosity.
"...Who are you?"
Her voice sounded like clear and transparent water.
"Well, I'm Kusunoki Masaki...I moved to this school today."
"Okay. Were you a little surprised?"
"I was really surprised. I thought that it had become a little ridiculous you know - who the hell are you?"
"...I feel sorry for you."
She didn't answer my question; instead she spoke words of pity.
Masaki was puzzled so asked again.
"Me? Why?"
"You over there, you're going to die."
"What?!"
Masaki heard the faint sound of slicing wind and turned around.
On the other side of the window––
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