Cutscene: Tracing A Path
Note: Gametime is 03/08/2010.
By all evidence, her past had been erased.
--No, that wasn't quite right.
Still, the sentiment came close to the heart of the matter. All week, Minako had gone out to Lunarvale after exams and stubbornly tracked down old friends, teachers, classmates; she'd even spoken with the principal herself on Friday. Not a single one of them remembered who she was. Oh, the principal remembered her from when she'd transferred to Gekkoukan, but before that? No. She'd been there, though. Her school records had definitely been proof of that. But then, what /had/ happened? In between exams, at odd hours, she'd dwelled upon it, trying to find an answer and coming up empty-handed.
Then she'd had a thought just earlier today, a sudden, chilling one that had sent her digging through her old phone numbers. She finally found the right one, and punched it into her phone--
And in the aftermath of that call, or more accurately, the ones that she'd doggedly pursued after the first, she sat at her desk, laptop shoved aside as she stared down a touch blankly at her phone. It was... no, it'd been a shock to hear the news, no question about it. After all, it was gone. The matron had passed away just last year, and then they'd knocked down the orphanage after... No one had told her.
She almost felt as if she'd stepped onto some dark forest path, and only had half the map. Would she continue to go in circles like this?
"Okay..." Minako murmured at last, an audible punctuation mark on her own thoughts. She looked up at last, away and out through the rain-spattered window. "I think I know what I need to do now..."
She pushed herself away from the desk then, the chair skidding sharply against the floor at the sudden movement, and stood. She stretched widely, glanced around the room, where her eyes finally fell on her raincoat. The choice to snatch up her MP3 player and slip the red headphones over her ears was almost unconscious.
First, she'd take a walk in the rain. And then, there were other people she needed to call. Only this time, it wouldn't be to ask for information. She had the map, after all, even if it was a poor, tattered thing.
The MP3 player was flicked on, and she began to hum along with the music as she prepared to head out.
