la pluma y karuma

She has had so many experiences here, after all, has learned so much about her family and herself. The course of her life—what she had once thought her life would be—had been inexorably altered by the events of her last journey to this place. 

Her life will be inexorably altered again, she feels sure, as she returns today with her dear friend. 

She reaches out without thinking and catches Rei’s free hand. “Are you ready?” 

“Of course, Susato,” Rei says, beaming at her. “Ready for anything.” 

She looks more well-rested than someone who’s spent months on a steamship has any right to, eager and energetic. She is dressed in her Yumei University uniform and carries her traveling case. The sight reminds Susato of Kazuma as he had looked when they’d stood together on the docks before their first trip to England—when Susato had thought an entirely different adventure lay before her than the one she and Ryuunosuke had been on. When she’d had no idea what the future held for her.