The last class at St. Hebereke's school for girls is letting out. 
Students flow from the gates in a steady trickle, nothing like the
sudden Furinkan rush.  Many never leave; St. Hebereke is a boarding
school, and they eat, sleep, and study behind these cloistered walls.  I
am surprised at how few I recognize.  This is not a large school--has
the student body changed so much since I went away?  Or perhaps the
Black Rose took no notice of such lesser mortals, and so they are all
strangers to me now.

A few cast glances at me, this girl loitering under a cherry tree
outside their schoolyard, but I see no recognition in their eyes.  Most
of them are engrossed in each other, bound in tight conversational knots
of three or five.  Finally, the one girl I wish to speak with emerges,
flanked by a few friends, my former teammates.  They stand and chat
animatedly for a minute or so, their light, cheerful voices drifting
over to me, then separate.  I step forward.

She takes no notice of me, and I fall into step behind her.  I give a
polite little cough, but she keeps walking, humming a snatch of song
over and over again, getting it wrong each time.  I feel like a stalker.

"Eriko," I say.

She shrieks and spins around, arms flailing wildly.  Trembling, she
backs away from me, holding her bookbag between us like a shield.  I
make placating gestures.

"It's okay," I say.  "I'm not mad."

"You're not?"  She continues to back away, watching me as if I might
suddenly grow fangs and lunge at her throat.

"Of course not."  I give her a reassuring smile, but she doesn't
respond.  I realize I am walking slowly forward as she moves away.  I
stop and seat myself crosslegged on the ground.  "See?" 

She takes a few more steps, then stops.  "You said you'd come back and
hurt me.  You said you'd pour some--" she swallows  "--thing nasty on my
. . . parts. . . ."  She trails off, looking pale.

Did I really?  I may have; I was hysterically angry.  They came for me
during one of our practices.  I was instructing a girl in how to fulfill
her obligations to her teammates--by which I meant helping me
cheat--when three policeman entered the room along with a man I now know
as Dr. Nakajima.  As they approached, one of the men said "Miss Kuno?" 
I didn't respond, though they were looking at me and obviously knew who
I was.  That officer then looked over at Eriko.  "Is this her?"

Eriko responded with a titter and a frightened little smile.  I was
instantly filled with rage and flew at her, claws outstretched.  The
policemen stopped me.  They were largely untrained, but burly, and I was
little more than an animal at that moment.  They seized my arms so that
I could not reach her, save with my words.

"Please," she said, as I screamed at her.  "It's for your own good. 
They'll help you, they'll make you . . ."  Her voice choked up into a
whimper as a glob of my spittle struck her above the eyebrow, then fell
down onto her cheek  She stood there, crying forlornly, as they hauled
me off, still spewing malice.

What can I say to her?  I could tell her how I spent my first night
alternately pounding on the walls screaming and crying in a corner.  I
could tell her about the hypervigilance, the constant nagging fear that
made my actions so easy to justify.  I could tell her how lonely I was
under my arrogant facade.  How lonely I still am.

Instead, I spread my hands helplessly.  "I'm sorry," I say.

She looks at me for a long time.  "Why did you come back?" she says at
last.  "If you don't what to punish me, than what do you want?"

I spend a moment organizing my thoughts.  "My brother is ill," I say. 
"Unstable.  Delusional.  I wanted . . . I had thought that you turned me
in because you wanted to help me.  I thought you might . . . be my
friend?"  I smile hopefully.

No answering smile, no look of forgiveness comes.  She stands there with
an air of discomfort, looking down at the ground.  "You were mean," she
says awkwardly.  "I know you were sick, but you were so mean.  You
didn't have to be mean."

Now it is my turn to look down.  "I couldn't help it," I say, but the
words taste of  cowardice, of sniveling, as I speak them.  Poor me. 
Don't blame me.  It wasn't my fault.  I've never accepted excuses from
others; how can I offer them myself?  I didn't have to be mean.

She turns to leave.  "Wait," I call.  She stops, but does not look
back.  "I'm sorry I hurt you.  I wish I could take it back.  I wish I
could take it all back.  But I can't.  I'm sorry I can't.  I'm sorry."

"It's okay," she says.  "I understand."  But it's not okay, or she would
look back at me.  She wouldn't continue to walk away, shoulders hunched,
looking sick and hurt and miserable.

It should be raining.  It should be pouring cold, wet, cleansing rain
over me, dripping off my head and running down the back of my collar. 
It would be cold and unpleasant, but somehow more bearable.  Instead, a
cool, slight breeze blows as I sit in the slanting afternoon sun, and my
ears pick up the cheery sound of birds threatening each other.

Eriko is gone.  I stand and walk towards the hospital.  They will be
treating my brother's arm there; perhaps I can speak to him before they
release him.  I must arrange for his institutionalization soon, much as
I would rather not.  I know he will see it as a betrayal, as I did, but
I can see no other choice before me.  I will commit my brother to the
madhouse, and then I will be alone.