"I miss this," Pierre confessed as the trio sat under a tree in the grassy fields that surrounded their red-bricked school. One of the only good things about having lunch on the school grounds was the tranquillity of the outdoors. At least, as long as they ignored the ever-looming hill that throned the golden palace above them.

"Pretending everything's okay when we the three of us can't even sit together in class?" Steve raised an eyebrow at Pierre. Ayame would groan if she hadn't just stuffed the last of her sandwich in her mouth. Why couldn't they ever get along anymore? Two years ago the three of them would have been inseparable.

Pierre responded to Steve's quip with a weary sigh, "Getting through one day without bickering all the time," he said instead.

There was a long pause, where Steve frowned and looked a little apologetic, but said nothing. He flopped back on the grass instead, "Do you see yourself spending the rest of your life here?" He outstretched his right arm as if trying to reach the invisible stars. The horrifying, eight-legged omnipresent stars that nearly killed her last night.

"No," Ayame admitted, and her gaze inadvertently went up to the sky. If she could, she would take her friends and family and run far away today.

"Never," Pierre said from beside her, "first chance I get, I'm out."

Steve snorted, "Hypocrites."

"Why?" Pierre snapped, "Because I'm not an idiot like you?"

No no no, this is exactly what she didn't want!

"I don't obey the laws out of some stupid patriotic notion." Pierre's voice rose a notch but he didn't look directly at Steve as he spoke, "I do it so I won't get killed."

"But what if we didn't have to?" Steve insisted, sitting upright again, "What if we never had to leave because this place was actually Utopia?"

Ayame felt a knot weigh down in her stomach as she noticed the enthusiasm in his voice. They were going to fight again, she was sure.

"Unless you're next in line to be the king, Steve, it's never going to happen," Pierre stated flatly, the authority in his voice declaring the end of their conversation.

Steve looked like he was going to continue arguing, but then he stopped and tossed his bag at the pair without warning.

Ayame instinctively shielded her face, especially because she couldn't get hurt. A cut appearing and then disappearing the next second would ruin years of secret-keeping. She didn't really need to though, Pierre had just as quickly deflected it away from her. Ayame almost smiled, it was just as involuntary for him as it was for her to protect her secret, and that always made her smile a little.

She turned back to their juvenile excuse of a friend and for a second, she thought she saw a shadow of something pass over Steve's face. She wasn't sure if she had imagined it though, because her vision was interrupted by a flying bag just as suddenly.

"Nice try, butthead," Pierre called as he tossed the bag back at him. She caught Steve's eyes widen in genuine panic before the flying sack of textbooks snagged him square in the chest, "doesn't feel so great, does it?" Pierre cocked both eyebrows as their friend clutched his chest and curled in apparent agony.

"You broke my ribs!"

Pierre got to his feet with a light chuckle and made his way to Steve with an extended arm, "Come on princess," he said with a grin, "I'll carry you to class."

"Shut up!" Steve slapped his hand away with a huff but his eyes darted back to the arm as he seemed to reconsider the help offered.

Ayame jumped to her feet, beaming just as wide. Watching them get along again was more than she could ever have asked for. She extended her own arm to the collapsed Steve.

"Up you big baby!" She offered her arm too. "Come on," she nagged as Steve stared at the pair of them with a considerable amount of distaste.

"Fine." Steve didn't wipe the sullen look off his face as he clasped both arms, "But don't think this means you get any special favours at the Edge."

"The what?" Her smile faded just as quickly as it had appeared. Hadn't she gotten through to him? Hadn't they just wasted so much time telling him the consequences of his stupid protest?

"You're still going?" Pierre had stiffened beside her, his voice returning to the chilly indifferent tone he seemed to love using.

"Of course," Steve responded with a disconcerted shrug. He looked at the pair of them for a moment before deciding to give a second shrug, as if they were the idiots in his resolve to fight the government.

"Did nothing I say get through to you?" Ayame heard her voice rising, but she could also hear little thumps in her head, like heartbeats. "Don't you understand you're going to hurt everyone you care about unless you stop?" She wasn't sure where this anger had suddenly come from, but it was intense and made her head pound.

"Mei, calm down." Pierre may have had more control over his volume than she did, but there was the ever-familiar silent warning in his voice that only annoyed her more.

"No!" she snapped, "You've had a go at him all day! What makes my anger any different?" She was beginning to get really tired of his innate need to protect her. He wasn't her parent, he was a friend—her best friend perhaps, but that was it.

"Ayame Yang, calm the hell down." He raised his voice ever so slightly, but Pierre wasn't glaring at her. No, both his eyebrows were up in an expression that was clearly more pointed, as if there was something completely obvious that she had missed.

"What?!" She felt more exasperated at his stupid hints than she did at Steve now.

Pierre wordlessly seized her hand into his own, now scowling a little. She nearly snatched it back until she noticed the colour.

Oh no!

Oh shit!

She looked back up at Pierre, her breaths short and ragged. His urgency made more sense now, as did her irrational anger.

"It's okay." Pierre placed a second hand over her trembling, blackened one, "Deep breaths."

He wasn't going to gloat? She had fully expected an 'I told you so.' He had told her so after all. It hadn't even been a full day since he'd asked her to have the food in the orange Tupperware, but she had overestimated her body like an idiot.

A loud shrill bell rang from the red building not too far from them, and her heart sank. What if her hand didn't return to the way it was until she had her food? How was she supposed to hide the ugly, black monster her hand had turned into?

"Ignore the bell." Pierre squeezed her hand a little tighter, "Look at me, do I look worried?"

"No," she admitted with a frown, "why aren't you worried?"

He gave a small chuckle, "Because," he confessed as quietly as he could, giving her hand another gentle squeeze, "this isn't the first time you've lost control. You always freak out but it always goes back."

He was right, it did always go back. She had no idea why her hand and eyes changed the way they did. All she knew was that a combination of emotions, and loss of blood and food caused it. Her hand would harden and shrivel until they looked like claws and the black of her eyes turned red, or so she was told.

Ayame let out a long, slow breath, Pierre was right, he was always right.

"See?" he moved his hand away to reveal her very pale and bloodless, yet 'normal' hand again. "Back to your mannequin self again."

Ayame turned to Steve, or at least where he had been standing a moment ago. The pair of them were the only ones left in the grassy patch outside their giant school.

"Do you think he freaked out because my eyes changed?" she asked Pierre, folding her arms across her chest. They may have been normal for now, but she was far too frightened to leave them out in the open.

"Yeah ..." Pierre let out a small scoff, "I doubt he was looking at your eyes."

Ayame watched him lift both their bags and make his way back to the red-bricked school. What else was there to look at? Her monstrous hand? Her heart sank again, "You think he saw my hand?" She raced to catch up to him.

"I'm pretty sure he saw our hands," Pierre said with the most carefree shrug he could give.

"What?" Ayame stopped dead in her track. Our hands, what did Steve think was happening? She felt her face grow very warm as she realised what it might have looked like to anyone not privy to her abnormality. Ayame stormed back to Pierre, "We have to fix this!"

"Sure," Pierre continued in a derisively calm tone, "you want to tell him your hand turned into a claw, or should I?"

Ayame caught a sneer as they walked down the nearly empty hall, "This isn't funny!" She could still feel her face heating up. Why did Pierre always have to be so complicated?

"It is a little." He was grinning now, the smug idiot.

"Wait wait!" She turned around to get a good look at the hallway, hadn't they just passed their classroom?

"We're not going to class," Pierre stated and then in an extremely unenthused voice added, "today's the thirteenth."

"Oh," All of a sudden, rushing to get on time didn't seem as important anymore. The fifth period of the thirteenth day of the fifth month. The day their ruler shoved hope down their throat and thought everyone would be stupid enough to fall for it.

She let her arms down as she followed Pierre. Her hands were happy enough to stay their pallid colour so she didn't need to look like a moody, unruly teenager as they made their way to the unnecessarily large theatre.

The first thing she caught sight of, as they stepped inside the regal auditorium, was Steve. He was sitting quite far in the back, with his chin buried in his hands and his eyes unfocused. He caught her gaze almost immediately though, and managed a weak smile which she returned.

It wasn't fair, he should have been sitting with them. She was lucky enough to have always had Pierre in her life, but Steve had no one like that. His anger and rebellion made sense, illegal as it was.

Ayame made her way through the folded, red seats until she stopped by one labelled with the number seventeen. She watched her neighbour sit beside her just as submissively. What if Steve had been her neighbour instead, would he still have been the same as he was now? Did Pierre really only grow too fast because he became his mother's parent?

The only reason that was happening was because of Ayame's mother ... her missing mother. She wasn't really sure how the woman had managed to put Pierre under her care when his mother got sick. Under normal circumstances, Mrs Meyer would have been killed and he would have ended up a miner. Yet somehow Ayame's mother was his legal guardian and they were still neighbours.

Ayame rest her head against Pierre's arm, she was very grateful for him. Her one constant in this absurd sphere.

Pierre leaned over to her, "Sit up straight," he whispered, "you're not allowed to do that."

He was right.

Ayame sat back up with a quiet sigh. In the auditorium, they may as well have been soldiers. They had to remain seated silently as the screen in front would play the same ridiculous movie every year on the same day. They would show footage from the war several generations ago. They would show explosions and death until every child in every sector had been completely desensitised to violence.

They would then talk about how the ill-fated, yet insanely wealthy royal family had suffered. How their ancestor, Larissa, had fought for their rights and the only solution was for her to move underwater—and take over all the Prīsnâ depots. They never seemed to mention that the people working in those Prīsnâ mines today started at the age of ten and never went to school. They also seemed to forget how the miners weren't even given real homes like every other sector was. It wouldn't be Utopia if everyone focused on the bad.

The video would eventually switch to the topic at hand. The main reason everyone was forced to watch the stupid thing in the first place, the Martial Eclipse—Larissa's ingenious way of keeping the surface savages entertained. Every year the entire world would send their strongest four to flock into a special sphere exactly in the centre of their underwater kingdom. Every year they would fight each other until one was left standing, until one was crowned the winner. And the winner would be granted a single wish by their benevolent king.

It was a farce, Ayame had never even seen the king. Mere citizens like her didn't have the right to look at him. All this did was prompt the rich idiots on the surface to spend money and watch people hit each other. She—like every other citizen in Tehosnaga—didn't really need to spend any money. For all of them, the viewing was mandatory. Their television would play it whether they wanted to see it or not.

It wasn't all bad though, it was the one day they had no school and no curfew. The three of them always ended up at her house, in the living room with popcorn and sleeping bags, ready to make fun of the rich idiots from the surface.

Ayame turned back to her bored, blond friend. He was staring at the screen like all the others, although with a vacant expression. It seemed unlikely that the three of them would spend this year in her living room watching the stupid, rich people fight.

Growing up sucked.

She turned back to the screen to watch the last of the video. She used to laugh at the final promise they always ended the video with the same line.

'You too can make your dreams come true'

What a joke! It didn't matter what they said, no one signed up to represent their city in the Martial Eclipse. No student was stupid enough to go against the savages from the surface. They could end up with anything from a broken limb to permanent disfigurement. It wasn't worth it.

As the theatre lit up once again, Ayame watched the teachers line up with stacks of paper on the stage. She snorted, how many participants did they think they would have?

"Everyone who wants to sign up, please form a queue on the right. Everyone else please exit the auditorium."

The teacher that spoke was a willowy brunette. Ayame had only ever seen her at career counselling. She recognised some of the teachers around her though, her Modern Studies and Surface Studies teacher were both there, as was her Judo instructor and the school's boxing coach.

Ayame stood up to exit the premises and return to class. She had never taken up boxing, it was more Steve's thing. She and Pierre were quite content with their Judo lessons, and that too at the insistence of her mother.

She instinctively waited outside for Steve, it didn't matter that they never sat together in class. The little time they spent together was important to her, even if he was an idiot that was going to get all three of them killed one day.

Ayame's heart sank a little as she heard raised voices coming her way, she didn't even need to hear his stupid surface accent to know Steve was in the centre of it. Pierre gave a very loud sigh beside her, demonstrating all her feelings without a word.

"It's just a question, princess," Steve could be heard saying, "what kind of idiot stays with their mother when their father lives in the palace?"

"The kind that has a choice Sector 5." Desma's haughty voice was just as audible, "Which is more than I can say for you." There was a pause, "From what I hear, your parents never really gave you a choice before they offed themselves, did they?"

"Shit!" Pierre hissed from beside her, but she didn't really care. Ayame was already marching back down the hall, she saw red. How dare she!

She seized Desma by the collar and let her right fist land on her jaw with an audible crunch. "You self-righteous—"

"No!"

Ayame was yanked back. There had definitely been more than one 'no' and a collection of gasps as she was dragged back out, away from the tool that thought she was a gift sent from the gold and green heaven above.

"Are you crazy?!" Pierre finally berated once they were well away from the theatre. He wasn't very loud though, in fact, it was almost a harsh whisper. "There were teachers there Mei!"

She didn't respond, most of her anger had dissipated when her fist met Desma's face, oh it felt good. It didn't matter what Pierre said, no one talked to her friends like that, ever.

"That was a good right hook though," Steve said instead, "even if you do get expelled."

Ayame gave him a small smile, it was just like him to try and diffuse the situation with a joke, but who was he kidding? Pierre was not going to stop yelling at either of them anytime soon.

"Shut up!" Pierre turned to Steve next, his nostrils so wide they could probably fit tennis balls, "Why the hell do you keep goading her?"

"She's just—"

"I don't care, Steve!" It was amazing how despite his anger, Pierre's voice had never risen above a whisper, "If Mei gets expelled, I swear you'll know exactly what that right hook felt like!"

Steve didn't smile, he was probably deciding how serious Pierre was.

Ayame's gaze shifted elsewhere. From one of the darker rooms in the hall where scores of gossiping students emerged, came the menace with a very swollen jaw.

Pierre followed her gaze to Desma and the pair stared at each other quietly.

"Get off your high horse," Pierre said finally, his voice still as deathly quiet as it always was, "you're just as much slum shit as the rest of us."

Desma made no comment as she turned on her heel with her head held high.

"Would you look at that?" Steve nudged Pierre in the ribs with a wide grin.

"Oh crap!" Ayame hissed instead. Another figure was emerging from the auditorium. The tall, brown-haired teacher was marching straight toward them, and she did not look pleased.

"I would ask that you come to my office, but what I'm going to say is incredibly short," she said briskly. The woman was angry, but not the kind of angry her mother usually was. The was the kind of anger that made Ayame was to reverse time and undo the punch, as good as it had felt.

"Despite Ms Carter's insistence that she fell, I am not blind." She straightened herself importantly before she continued, "All three of you can leave the premises this instant. Your guardians will be contacted, and further decisions will be made later this week."

And she too turned on bee heels and marched away.

Suspended?

She couldn't even begin to describe how terrible this was.  What was next? Expulsion? The mines? Slavery? Her heart was thudding uncomfortably again as the trio stood in the horror of what was to come. None of them had said a word though, there was no point. If the teacher had made a decision, nothing they said would undo it. In fact, protesting would probably make it worse.

"Oh crap," Steve mumbled under his breath once she was out of earshot.

"I hate you both so much right now," Pierre spat, and he tossed his bag over his shoulder with an angry 'thump' as he trodded to the exit.

"Oh please!" Ayame found it hard not to roll her eyes at her dramatic friend, he was probably the only one not in danger of explosion. "You're not getting expelled, you have witnesses in your favour."

"Witnesses that aren't us," Steve added brightly to which Ayame shook her head. The less Steve talked, the better.

"Whoopee," Pierre said dryly, "I get to stay in school while the two of you are sent to the mines."

"No one's going to the mines, you big baby!" Steve patted his back gently as they exited the school and trudged along the cobblestone path.

"No," Ayame agreed, turning away from her home and the stupid palace on the hill, an entirely different determination was on her mind now. "We're going to the Edge."

Pierre stopped in his tracks to give her a long, hard glare, "So expulsion wasn't enough?" he demanded, "You want to go to prison too?"

"Oh, shut up!" Ayame walked ahead of him, she was starting to get really tired of his nagging, and it wasn't like staying at home and moping would undo the past. She needed to make sure they had a better future. "It's not against the law to go to other sectors, Pierre." She eyed Steve's smile with a justifiable amount of suspicion, "Just take Steve's bag from him though, before he defaces the Edge and we actually end up in prison."

Pierre obediently snatched Steve's backpack and they continued in silence for a bit. It wasn't a long walk to the end of the forest, despite having to go through the entire Sector 5 first.

Each sector had a "gift" from its benevolent king. Sectors 2 and 3 had the Prīsnâ mines, Sectors 4 and 5 had a stupid forest and Sectors 6 and 7 had a ridiculous little sea for the rich to flaunt their yachts on. She had heard that Sector 8 had its own servant quarters, but she'd never been to the rich sectors, so who could say for sure.

The trio plodded through the wet soil, leaving muddy footprints in their wake as they made their way through the forest. They only stopped when the world in front of them shimmered, when the forest stopped and continued at the same time, and when they could see their reflections—as plain and clear as if in a pond—walking towards them.

The Edge.

Which, if you weren't careful enough, you could walk straight into and break your nose. But that wasn't why she was here. Today had been a long, intense day. Even if it wasn't her last day with the two idiots, it had made her realise their importance to her.

Ayame placed a hand on the glassy wall, "Let's make a promise," she said, "no matter where we end up, the three of us always look out for each other."

Steve replicated her gesture with a stupid grin, "And we never piss Mei," he added, much to her annoyance.

"You're both idiots." Pierre placed one hand on each of their heads and gently knocked them against the Edge. "I'm not doing any of this stupid mushy stuff, we're not children!"

Ayame yanked Pierre's hand and placed it on the shiny wall.

"Fine." He could pretend to be as 'mature' as he liked, there was definitely a smile on his face, and it wasn't smug, "I'm obviously never going to let anything happen to either one of you."

Ayame returned the smile. Getting suspended didn't really seem like the worst thing to happen to her anymore.

"Well, I'm glad the three of you have something to smile about after the stunt you just pulled."

It was as if a weight had dropped in the pit of her stomach. She knew the voice, and despite her fear, she recognised the stern woman in the black bun behind them.

"Mama?" Ayame couldn't even fake a smile, her heart was thudding so loud, she could hear it. How in the world did she know they were here? Where had she been all night, and why now of all times did she end up showing up out of nowhere?

"I leave you for one night," Ayame's mother began harshly, eyes shooting daggers into her soul, "one night! And all three of you get suspended?"

"To be fair Mrs Yang ..." Steve began, but was silenced with a single look from her mother. He took a very slow step back as his smile faded.

All the good feeling was gone now. Ayame wanted to shrink behind Pierre as her mother continued glowering at the trio. Suspension was nothing compared to what was in store for her now.