Osaka was having the Chiyo dream again.

She hadn't had it in some time. In high school, of course, she had them nearly 
every day. When Chiyo left for America they tailed off, however, and the news 
that Chiyo had been killed in a hit-and-run accident stopped them entirely. 
After that Osaka didn't dream much anymore.

Osaka wasn't very good at mourning. At the funeral Sakaki and Yomi had been 
crying their eyes out, but she just stared blankly at Chiyo's photograph. She 
wanted Chiyo to pop out from it, showing them all she was alive. Or for her 
pigtails to start flapping, carrying the picture up into the sky. After the 
funeral everyone had tried to talk to each other, find out how they were 
doing. Osaka just kept staring. They said she was in shock. To Osaka, shock 
didn't really feel much different from how she normally went through life.

But now she was having the Chiyo dream again. She had been looking in a 
bookstore when suddenly she felt very lightheaded... just like she used to in 
class. And then she was in a field of white, and there was Chiyo in front of 
her, only Chiyo was older, at least 18. She was dressed in an odd uniform, 
with green and brown speckles, and more disturbingly looked to be wearing a 
gun on her hip.

But the pigtails were still there. Osaka smiled, for the first time in she 
didn't know how long, and reached out to touch them. Chiyo danced backwards, 
smiling broadly. Osaka followed her, trying to grab hold of Chiyo's hair, and 
then Chiyo reached out and grabbed Osaka's arms, pulling her close.

"Why just touch the hair, when you could have all of me?" she whispered in 
Osaka's ear.

Osaka gasped, and bolted upright from where she had been lying. Another dream, 
but it had never quite had *that* ending before.

After a moment she looked around, realizing she wasn't in the bookstore. She 
was in a hospital of some sort, only the walls were all grey. There was 
nothing on the walls to tell Osaka anything about where exactly she might be, 
and no clock.

Suddenly the door opened with a click, and Osaka realized she was still 
dreaming, because there was Chiyo. Still in that odd uniform, still with the 
gun. But no pigtails. Her hair was cut short. And she wasn't smiling.

"Hello, Osaka. I... I'm sorry."

Osaka blinked, still trying to process everything. "Chiyo-chan? Am I dead?"

Chiyo blushed and looked away. "No. And neither am I." She looked up, and her 
eyes got big. That was when Osaka realized that it really was Chiyo-chan, 
alive and in front of her again.

"Osaka, we have to talk." She looked nervous.

"Chiyo-chan!"  Osaka reached out and took her in a big hug.  "It's so good to 
see you!"

Chiyo momentarily softened, and returned the hug with vigor.  "I'm so glad 
you're alright.  That we were able to find you."

Osaka pulled away, blinking.  "Why wouldn't I be alright?"

Chiyo held on to Osaka's hand.  "Osaka, I need to tell you something.  A lot 
of things.  And I want you to pay close attention, because it's really 
important, okay?"

"Right."  Osaka focused in on Chiyo.  *Pay close attention,* she thought.  
*Listen to Chiyo.  Don't let your mind wander.  Pay close attention...*

"Osaka!"

"Huh?"

Chiyo was waving her hand in front of Osaka's face.  "When I said that, I 
meant I need to to actually listen, not try hard to listen and shut everything 
else out."  She fell back, and sighed a little.  "This is going to be harder 
than I thought."

Osaka blinked.  Chiyo seemed very upset, though Osaka wasn't able to figure 
out why.  She tried again.  "I'm listening, Chiyo-chan."

Chiyo nodded.  "You know I went to America six years ago..."

"Of course."

"Well, America has been having some problems.  And there are people out there 
who hate Americans, and who also hate forerigners who come to America to 
study, like I had."

"Really?"  Osaka seemed baffled.  "I wonder why..."

Chiyo didn't respond to that, but went on.  "A few months after I started 
school, there was an explosion.  Someone had put a pipe bomb in one of the 
classrooms, a big one."  She stopped, and swallowed hard.  "I was the only 
survivor in the class."

Osaka stared.  "But Chiyo-chan, we were told you died in a car accident..."

Chiyo closed her eyes briefly.  "That was a lie, Osaka.  No one wanted you to 
know that I had disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

"When I woke up after the explosion, I was on a ship like the one we're on 
now.  The woman in charge said that... said that I was the reason they bombed 
the classroom."

This finally seemed to get a reaction from Osaka.  "That's terrible!  Why 
would anyone do that?"

Chiyo swallowed.  "I was being tracked by the ITS.  That's the group I'm with 
now.  They had seen my grades and were impressed, and were seeing if after I 
graduated I had the skills to be recruited."

"What's the ITS?"  Osaka was trying to understand, but Chiyo was moving a 
little too fast for her.  She considered smiling and nodding a lot, which 
usually helped her get by in real life, but it never had worked with Chiyo 
before, and probably wouldn't work now.

"The ITS stands for the International Terrorist Situationists.  We try to stop 
people from destroying the world, basically.  We don't work for any 
government... we just go in and try to contain things."

"What a great job for you, Chiyo-chan!"  Osaka was delighted that Chiyo had 
gone so far.

Despite everything, Chiyo smiled.  "I do whatever I can.  I'm very good at not 
killing people.  That makes me proud."  She took another breath.  

"But back then, a terrorist faction found a list of all the people being 
scouted, and started to take care of them.  They were good.  I almost died.  
They had to do surgery on me."  She rubbed her head self-consciously.  "They 
cut my hair.  No more pigtails."

Osaka gasped and bit her lip.  "I'm so sorry, Chiyo."  She could only imagine 
the pain that Chiyo must have gone through.

Chiyo sighed again.  She seemed to be doing that even more often than Osaka 
had remembered.  "After that, I couldn't go back to college.  The organization 
arranged for me to be 'killed' in a car accident, and for the next three years 
I got my education with them."  She reached down and pulled out the gun.  
"They even made this one specially for me.  It's designed to have as little 
recoil as possible so that I can shoot it without falling over."

Osaka smiled.  "Are you still clumsy, Chiyo-chan?"

"I'm a little better now," Chiyo admitted, blushing.

"Anyway," she continued, "Things have been going fairly well.  We'd broken up 
four terrorist cells in the past four months."  She paused.  "Then a prominent 
Japanese businessman was killed.  Did you see it on the news, Osaka?"

Osaka thought.  "I don't think so.  But I don't really watch television too 
much.  I tend to get a little lost in thought when I do.  That's why I was 
fired from my last job."

"Ah.  Well..."  Chiyo looked very sad.  "Kaorin was the one who killed him."

Osaka blinked.  "Kaorin from school?  Short hair, twitchy, in love with 
Sakaki?"

"Was it that obvious?" Chiyo asked, puzzled.  "I only found out after she had 
been interrogated..."

"Well, when we were going to your beach house, she did ask Sasaki to accept 
her as her bride.  At least that's how it sounded to me..."

Chiyo frowned.  "I was young, I guess."  Her forehead creased, and Osaka 
relaxed a bit.  Chiyo still hated being shown up in anything.  It was 
endearing.

"She doesn't seem like someone who would do that, though... did the 
businessman have pictures of Sakaki he wouldn't give her?"