Four years ago, Ai and her friends had woken to a starless sky. Wet mud pressed against their cheeks as they struggled in their situation, cold in their damp kimonos. 

Although they did not know at first, they were up by the banks of a river near the border breaching Makigawa, a country town south of Hikizu village. It was dark, likely midnight, and the girls were shivering, afraid. The last thing they remembered was a fire before the Hakusei started mumbling incoherent words. However, not even the smell of smoke remained.

The girls all lost consciousness as the sun broke the surface of the earth and they only came-to when darkness descended upon them once more. This time, some of them were swimming in the cold waters. Choking on freshwater, Ri waded out of the ice-cold and into Ai’s shivering embrace. The seven girls huddled together in silence, waiting for light to come so that they could quickly find their way back home. 

When the girls woke up in much the same condition: the sky dark and the air damp and cold with each girl in a position they were not in before, fear fueled them to travel in the dark. They did not know that exactly two days had passed since the night of the fire, but based on their new displacement across the plain, they knew time had moved on. In the dark, Kaori suggested they find their way home. As much as the girls feared running into night crawlers and bandits, they agreed it was better than spending one more night next to the banks of muddy water.

Halfway through their journey towards where they hoped was the village, the sun rose. When the girls opened their eyes, they were back at the river bank. Kaori voiced that they might be cursed, damned by the gods for asking the Hakusei for help. Ri demanded Ai asking why the Hakusei was in the Torizora mansion. Mako elbowed her, but now all the girls were looking at Ai with questioning expressions. Some were accusatory. 

“I- she-” Ai stumbled across a few words before growing silent. Hanging her head low, she cowered on the perch of a rock, far from her friends. 

On the other side where her six friends continued darting their eyes at Ai, Momo, who had been silent this entire time, finally spoke up and said, “I’m hungry.” The other girls, Ai included, realized how empty their stomach had become.

The girls were now sure that a significant amount of time had passed because their stomachs ached as if they had skipped many meals. So they went out to scavenge for food and quickly learned to survive in the wild. Wood was collected at the border of the forest, By’lyl, to build a fire. 

Giving up on migration, Mako began tallying each time they woke up by scraping a line in the dirt with a short stick. Instead of calling each tally a day, the girls learned to tell time by each night for that was when they woke. 

Although most of the girls were sure that they were just asleep during the day, some knew it didn’t explain why they were always somewhere different when they woke up. The girls lost consciousness at daybreak and woke when night fell. This was a spell, Ai was sure, but then what happened to them during the day?

More clues of their daily events began to appear after several nights by the river. One day they woke up on muddy land, indicating that it rained during the day. Fish carcasses littered the ground and left a rotting stench. 

“Your breath…” Sakura waved a hand in front of her scrunched up nose as she leaned away from Nana. “It smells like fish!” 

Nana found she wasn’t very hungry that day. So did more than half of the other girls. One look at the fish bones and they were retching the contents of their stomachs behind each other’s backs. 

“We’re monsters.” Momo whispered on the thirteenth night.

“I want my moooooom!” sobbed Ri into Mako’s shoulder. 

Ai clenched her eyes shut and prayed to all the gods she could come up with by name. 

After a month's worth of nights, some of the girls began waking up in even odder positions. Most of the time, the girls always woke up curled on the dirt floor or floating in the river. The latter always brought them fright, although luckily all seven of them could swim. Now Nana looked off in the distance blankly while Ri and Kaori clutched each other after having entered consciousness standing upright. 

Ai bit her lip, watching the scenery of troubled, disheveled, girls. “I think this calls for a meeting.” she finally said. Mako and Kaori perked up. Momo slowly glanced over with unfocussed, gray eyes. “And an explanation.” Ai added, twiddling her thumbs. 

All the girls circled the campfire after it had been rebuilt, and sat huddled close. The girls on either side of Ai kept their distance. Ai curled inwards, hugging her bare legs to her chest. She looked into the dancing flames as she spoke.

“The Hakusei is my sister,” said Ai. “The eldest Torizora, to be exact.” Ai took in a breath. “My family kept it a secret because my sister has a special… condition.”

“Like…?” Mako prompted.

Ai sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe something like Kaori said. Maybe she’s cursed.” She shrugged and kept talking, her eyes on the flickering of fire lights as her mouth moved. “The priests and shrine maidens all said my sister is possessed. Maybe that’s that, but she’s had this ability that’s unexplainable.”

“But it explains why we’re even alive after that fire…” Nana wondered.

“And it explains why we’re still here.” added Sakura.

Ai nodded, her chin bumping against her knees as she bounced her head in a single nod. “I’m sorry.” she whispered.

The girls blinked at each other. Mako rubbed her temples. Momo clapped her hands together and began to pray. “What now?” asked Ri.

“You guys won’t tell anyone?” Ai whispered.

“Who’s there to tell?” huffed Sakura. “It’s only us now.” At Ai’s frightened expression, Sakura forced a chuckle. “Don’t worry, we’re not mad.”

“Well maybe a little,” said Ri.

“Or a lot,” continued Nana.

Mako embraced Ai in a hug. “But we still love you cause you are our friend.” 

Quiet Momo put a hand on Ai’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault.” 

“It’s completely her fault.” Sakura rolled her eyes, flipping her curls over her shoulder. “She should’ve told us everything from the beginning. We’re her best friends.”

Nana nodded her head. “Yeah, birds of a feather flock together.” 

Everyone grew silent. 

“Have you guys seen more feathers around us lately?” asked Kaori. 

After gathering a couple stray feathers, they’d been able to piece together clues to form an idea of what occurred during daylight. Their conclusion: they transformed into birds. It took them much longer to figure out what bird. 

One night, Ri prompted the idea that they form a small team to go steal a book from the Hikizu town library for the encyclopedia on birds. It took them a week’s worth of nights of experimenting to correctly judge the time and distance to cover the operation. After claiming the book, they compared the feathers they’d gathered with descriptions in the book as well as their current ecosystem and estimated daytime diet. It didn’t take them too long to come up with the idea that they were all some sort of crane. 

“We need to find the Hakusei,” said Kaori. “If she cast a spell on us, then she can undo it.” 

The girls were already over the shock of living the night-life for a month. They were ready to put their all in getting things back in order. 

“But where could she be?” asks Nana. “When we went to get that book,” she tapped the cover of the bird encyclopedia with her fingertips, “the Torizora mansion was no more.” 

“My question is, why hasn’t the town led a search party?” Ri grumped. 

“They probably think we’re dead.” Mako sighed. 

“True…” Sakura rested her chin on her knuckles. “Like who could survive such a fire? It spread so fast. Like remember how the flames jumped on the Hakusei?”

Mako elbowed the girl. “Oh. My. Goodness! Sakura, watch your mouth!” 

Sakura blinked. “What-?” 

“You just implied that the Hakusei might have died.” Nana mumbled. 

The group froze and stared at each other, wide-eyed. 

“My god!” Sakura fell backwards. “You don’t think-” she covered her mouth with both hands.

Ai was the one who said it. 

“If my sister is dead, we’ll be stuck like this forever.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some time after, rain began to pour heavily and the girls took shelter beneath the canopy of trees for the rest of the night. Ai was thankful for the rain. It hid the streaks of tears that fell in mourning. The rain was cold and fresh against her shoulders which drooped in self pity. Her heart thrummed with guilt that she hurt for herself instead of her dead sister. 

It rained for three consecutive nights, and on the fourth night when the girls woke, they found themselves far from the river that they’d accepted as their home. Now they were by a small pond in which housed poking debris that had become home to a family of rodents. Ai recognized her home, surveying the path leading down from the village, and where the path ends was the pond where remnants of the Torizora estate housed wildlife.

“Why are we here?” Sakura complained, but there was a hint of lilting positivity in her voice despite the confusion written on her face. 

“The river must have flooded,” said Mako.

“So this is our new home?” demanded Nana.

The girls entered a moment of silence.

The Torizora mansion was slightly isolated from the other houses in the village since it belonged to the village chief. It was why the destruction of this mansion hadn't affected the rest of the village. Ai studied the current structure of the body of water which had gathered over the sinking ditch that was once her home. 

“Okay,” Ai nodded her head. “I suppose we’ll make it our home.” 

Ai and the girls got to work, clearing all toxic debris and making room for natural habitants to visit the land. Soon, more rain water expanded the pond. A year later, it was a small lake. 

The girls learned to live freely during their time in the night. So when they woke two years later to see a new work of architecture besides their perfectly curated lake, it was an unexpected event that spread fear of discovery amongst the whole group.

“I think people have moved in.” Mako whispered to the others. She was whispering because they didn’t want to attract attention from their new neighbors in the red-bricked house. Their white and black feathers were strewn across their end of the plot as they sat on wet grass. No campfires were made now that civilization sat next door. 

“Do we have to move?” Ri asked.

Momo sneezed. 

“How is that fair to us?” Sakura whispered angrily. “We were here first!” 

Nana pointed at the nest the beavers made in the middle of the lake. “Close, but actually, no.” 

Sakura arched an eyebrow at Nana. “This was Ai’s home…?” 

“Ai? What do you think?” demanded Mako. 

Ai was still looking in the direction of the trees behind the lake where she’d heard a unique and brand-new bird cry from between beech trees. She thought she saw a familiar pair of yellow eyes… 

“Ai?”

“Oh!” Ai startled, looking back at her friend. “Well…” 

“Well? Are we fighting back?” Sakura huffed.

“What if they were foreigners?” tittered Momo between sniffles.

Ai narrowed her eyes at the tall house that now cast a shadow onto their lake. Red stone, like blood. She eyed the velvet curtains of the windows which shifted like living shadows. 

“We fight back, of course.” Ai replied with a nod of her head.