[Khayin - you sort of implied you were okay with me setting up the next scene, so I hope you don't mind if I fast-forward a touch.]<br/><br/>Thirty minutes after the end of class, Matt is leaning against the wall behind the gymnasium.  The trees that dot the campus green cast long shadows, and he stands in one to keep the glare of sunlight out of his eyes.  He scans the yard for Masato's arrival.  He wonders at his choice of accomplice, perhaps even friend.  He doesn't doubt the bigger boy's ability to apply violence effectively, but rather whether it can be directed.  Matt's a little scared of him, but if the only sword that comes to hand is a two-edged one, that's the one you have to use.  He reaches inside his coat and brushes a hand over the cold steel of the collapsed baton concealed inside.  He nearly died doing this last time.  At least if Masato went berserk, he'd die at the hands of something human.  Cold comfort.  He'd spent the day ignoring his classes as best he could, rumor-mongering, doing internet research, spending lunch in the school library.  The thin packet of crisply folded notes in his pocket was perilously spartan.  Maybe the wizards of ancient days had commanded breathtaking powers and known all there was to know about the shadow world...but he wasn't them.  His pathetic conjurations were no match for a force that could snatch people bodily out of school in a moment, and he knew it.<br/><br/>But maybe, just maybe, if Masato wasn't scared of the monsters, if the two of them could work together, if they were brave and strong and lucky, they could accomplish something.  Save a pretty girl, who would doubtless turn to the muscular hero rather than the bookish nerd.  Stop a disaster, and get blamed for causing trouble instead of averting a harm no one else believed in.  Get kicked out of school for trying to help when no one else would.  Yeah, that sounded about right.  He snorts and looks to review his notes once more, before Masato arrived.  Arcane scribblings and Latin sprawled across the page, theories about alternate dimensions and inhuman monsters.  It was unfair to bring Masato into this without telling him what they would likely encounter, but Matt couldn't help it.  He just couldn't open his mouth and sound like a crazy person.  He'd just have to have faith his ally could handle it when it all went down.