Aria Vol. 08

At the start of summer, Akari learns her training gondola is too worn-out and must be sold as a freight hauler. Akari takes it on a tour of places where she has special memories it was involved in, and that night thanks it and says farewell. During a fight with Alice, Athena trips and is knocked out, and when she wakes cannot remember anyone. With Akari and Alicia's help, Athena's memories slowly return—except her memory of Alice. When Alice starts crying, Alicia makes Athena reveal she'd been faking amnesia to find out what Alice feels about her. In a bonus chapter, during the president cats' annual physical, Alice learns that Maa is female. Aika tells Akari a Manhome ghost story about the spirit of an executed Venetian woman who trapped gondoliers. That night, a lady in black asks Akari for a ride to Isola di San Michele, and on arrival drags Akari into the cemetery, saying she'll keep her forever. Cait Sith appears behind her and she vanishes, and then Akari wakes up outside Aria Company holding a flower petal from the cemetery. The next day, Alice explains the ghost story was invented on Aqua—which makes it even more scary. One afternoon Akatsuki sees Akari on a balcony of St Mark's Basilica and finds the inconspicuous staircase up to her secret place, where she visits a bust looking out over the Piazza at the sea. After Akatsuki promises to keep the place just their secret, Aika and Alice interrupt them, having found the staircase door he left open. At an end-of-summer ceremony where worn-out boats are burnt in the Piazza, after the bonfire goes out, Alice tells Akari she misses summer, and Woody reminds her there's things to do in the autumn as well.