Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume11 Prologue

Prologue

"Gokigenyou."

"Gokigenyou."

The clear morning greeting travels through the serene, blue sky.

Today, once again, the maidens that gather in the Virgin Mary's garden smile purely to one another as they pass under the tall gateway.

Wrapping their innocent bodies and souls is a deep-colored school uniform.

Walking slowly so as to not disturb the pleats in their skirts, so as to not toss their white sailor scarves into disarray... such is the standard of modesty here. Running here because one is in danger of missing class, for instance, is too undignified a sight for students to wish upon themselves.

Lillian Private Academy for Women.

Founded in Meiji 34, this academy was originally intended for the young women of nobility, and is now a Catholic academy of prestigious tradition. Placed in downtown Tokyo, where you can still see traces of Musashi Field's greenery, it is protected by God, a garden where maidens can receive tutelage from pre-school to university.

Time passes, and even now, in Heisei, three era-names past Meiji, it is a valuable academy, where nurtured ladies raised in greenhouses are shipped out in carefully packaged boxes after 18 years of schooling - an arrangement that continues to survive.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Even though she knew, on the day she accepted the rosary, that they weren't evenly matched soeurs.

Even though she had thought, on occasion, that maybe someday her onee-sama would grow tired of her, or be scandalized, and decide that they could no longer be soeurs.

But still.

For it to be like this, with her onee-sama closing her mouth, turning her back and distancing herself.

She hadn't thought she'd be so simply handed off to someone else, with a "Sorry for troubling you with her."

"That's enough already," had, most certainly, been running away. The complete opposite of the feeling of wanting to chase.

More than anything, she wanted to be shown that she was the most important.

If it was going to come to this, she should have just put it into words.

Onee-sama, I love you. I want to be with you forever and ever.

But now, her voice wouldn't carry.

With her wet body housing her cooled heart, all she could do was cry in the rain like an abandoned kitten.

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