“…Liar?” Daiki repeated. “Then you must be the one you wrote that note! Why do you keep calling me a liar?”

Ayaka seemed to have ignored Daiki, but it was so dark that it was hard to see her face anyway.

“You…” Ayaka began, “what element do you really have?”

Daiki gulped. “Why do you ask this? Haven’t I told everyo-”

Ayaka crouched down to the pool side and touched the surface of the water with her right hand. From the tip of her finger, the water immediately froze on the surface. Daiki stared at the water.

“Don’t tell me…” Daiki hesitated. “You’re the real elemental user of ice…”

Once the surface was completely frozen, Ayaka stood back up again.

“What element do you really have?” Ayaka repeated as she raised her hand. “Let me fight you.”

“I wouldn’t be able to show you even if I wanted to!” Daiki was pressed to the wall.

Ayaka lifted her hand and the ice spiked upwards from the pool.

“It’s water! It’s water!” Daiki admitted. “Okay, I told you now…I-“

The spikes detached themselves from the pool and were hovering in midair.

“Wait, Ayaka…!” Daiki pleaded. “I really can’t fight you right now!”

Daiki noticed something different with Ayaka. She would usually stay silent and display no emotions whatsoever. Why would she be releasing her anger at him all of a sudden? As Ayaka was walking closer to him, Daiki saw that Ayaka was not really conscious. Was she sleepwalking? Daiki wondered.

Ayaka swung her arm towards Daiki and the ice spikes rushed towards him. Daiki made a run for it and slid towards the other side of the pool.

“Snap out of it Ayaka!” Daiki shouted. Ayaka was clearly out of it, as she did not respond to that statement. She turned towards Daiki and repeated the same movements, causing the spikes to move again.

“If only I could take these gloves off.” Daiki muttered as he ran again.

“You aren’t scared, are you?” Ayaka taunted.

How can I save myself from this? Daiki thought hard. The door is locked and Ayaka has gone berserk. If I get close to her, she wouldn’t try to attack, right? He knew that if he was to push Ayaka, they would fall into the water, but that may be the only thing that could make Ayaka gain her conscience.

Daiki turned sharply at the sides of the pool while Ayaka continued to attack. Once he was on the same side of the pool as Ayaka, he charged towards her, which caught her off guard and as he guessed, they both fell into the pool.

Ayaka was shocked by the push. What was I doing? How did I get in the water? she thought to herself. She pulled herself up to the surface of the water. Once at the surface, she took a mouthful of air and wiped some of the water off her face. She opened her eyes and could see that Daiki was trying endlessly to keep his head on the surface of the water.

This is it… Daiki thought hopelessly. He swallowed too much water and he began to get dizzy. Moments later, he out and was sinking in the water.

=====

An hour later, Daiki woke himself up with his own coughing. He was lying on top of a soft mat and was covered with towels. He sat up and he noticed that he was still beside the pool. Time did not pass that much since he fell into the water. He looked around and saw Ayaka on the bench across the pool. She was back to her quiet self, scribbling away in her notebook. Her hair was dripping wet, but it was still up in the high ponytail.

Daiki could not remember anything after he fell into the water. He wanted to ask Ayaka, but he did not know how to begin to ask her. He also wanted to ask why she went berserk, but would she even say anything again? He coughed a little more, which caught Ayaka’s attention. Although she did not stand up, her eyes signalled that she was making sure that Daiki is well.

“Why didn’t you say anything about your element?” Daiki began. “You could have been over on the gifted side.”

Ayaka looked to the side and stopped writing. She closed the notebook and hesitated to rise. She could not trust Daiki, but right now, he was powerless (and not to mention weak). Grasping her notebook firmly, she started to walk towards Daiki, who was not certain what she was up to.

She stopped at the side of the mat and held out her worn-out notebook. Daiki was confused. “You want me to see this?” He asked, but Ayaka did not answer. All she did was hold her notebook at Daiki. He humbly took the notebook and started to flip slowly between the pages. There was a lot of writing in the book. Each page was dated nicely and her handwriting was neat as well. Daiki read through some entries in his mind:

”Today, I blanked out at 5:00PM near the front door. When I woke up, it was 3AM and I was on the ground near the cafeteria windows”

”At around 8:00PM, I blanked out again and woke up at 2:00AM near the staff building.”

These small phrases continued a bit, until the more recent days:

”The girls dumped a bucket of water on me. I tried to control my temper, but I couldn’t help it. I left the classroom and the next thing I remembered, I was at the pool doors.”

Daiki stopped reading the notebook.

“You mean to say that you can’t control your elemental self?” Daiki concluded. Ayaka had a blank face but Daiki was beginning to be able to understand Ayaka even without her emotions showing.

This problem only occurs to one elemental user per hundred thousand users. It was so uncommon that to elemental users, this was only considered as a myth. Daiki heard of this problem from the gifted side: the elemental power develops its own personality which is somewhat the opposite of how the person would usually act. However, either the person or the elemental power will be dominant at one time – and that would depend on who is stronger. In this case, Daiki believes that the elemental power is stronger than Ayaka.

“Don’t expect me to help you.” Daiki threw back the notebook to Ayaka. “I don’t know anything about how to cure your blank outs.”

Ayaka paused. She opened up her notebook and began scribbling in it again. Daiki slid back down onto the mat and the two of them did not talk for the rest of the night.

=====

In the early morning, Daiki woke up only to find that Ayaka was gone from the room. The poolside was completely clean and tidied up from last night’s events. He checked the doors, which were unlocked, and left to go back to his temporary room to get a fresh set of clothes.

At the classroom, Ayaka’s desk was gone again. This time, the girls placed a few small bookshelves where Ayaka’s desk was, so that she wouldn’t be able to remove them and steals Daiki’s desk again. However, Ayaka never came to class the whole day, making Yuto and Chinen worried.

“Where did she go this time?” Yuto wondered as he turned to Chinen. “Uh, Chi…you have…paperclips stuck to your cheek.

Chinen placed his fingers on his cheek and picked the paperclips with great force. “I don’t know how they got there. Remember this morning? I had my watch stuck to my forehead.”

“You’ve got some weird sleeping habits, Chi.” Yuto laughed.

Chinen frowned. “My watch was on my desk, which was in the opposite end of the room! How can my watch fly across the room and stick to my head?”

“Maybe it wants to tell you that you’re going to be late for school if you sleep anymore!” Yuto laughed even more.

“Still not funny!” Chinen smiled a little.

A girl suddenly popped into the class. “You guys won’t believe it! Ayaka’s going to make a jump for it!”

Everyone else hurried out to see while Yuto was processing the girl’s words. “What does ‘make a jump for it’ mean?” He asked Chinen.

“I hope I’m not right, but when they say that, doesn’t it mean to ‘jump off’ something? As in…a building?” Chinen and Yuto chased after the crowd.

The two of them joined the crowed. Daiki was also there on the side as the girls tugged his shirt.

“Oh my gosh!”

“Ahaha! Is she really going to fall?”

“I can’t look, but I’m so excited!”

Ayaka was indeed standing up above on the ledge of the school building.