Kimiko Yama's Story

At times like these, you're supposed to begin with some sort of boring monologue about who you are, what your past is, and how you ended up where you are at. But I'm not one of the cliched, idiotic people who decide to narrate their own life, nor am I the weak little girl who feels the need to gossip about everything that happens to me.

Ahem ... I suppose that maybe just this once I will, because you're probably wondering who I am and how I got here ... But I'm not elaborating on my life. It isn't that I'm embarrassed about it - it merely isn't any of your business.

I suppose I'll be as positively cliche as possible.

Hello! My name is Tresora Knighsing! My grades are phenomenal and I'm probably the best technical engineer you'll ever meet - and not to toot my own horn or anything, but I'm also a pretty good artist. For some reason - I doubt I'll ever understand why - my social worker decided to send me to this school, where I'll be staying both day and night for the next school year, and the only chances I'll have to get away are on holidays and breaks. Not that I really have anywhere to go. And God knows what kind of people attend school at an Academy so far out in no-where's-ville, so I'm pretty much screwed.

I'm currently on some slightly-battered-down old bus with a creepy old driver, and something really stinks. I think it's the guy in front of me.

Alright, that's enough of that. I'm done with this cheesiness ... So I bid you adieu!

---

Her hand wrung together in her lap. What exactly was she supposed to be doing right now? Her cell phone had lost service when they entered a long, dark tunnel that sent an eerie feeling through her body, and she had therefore lost her ability to access most of the games on it. Sora glared out the smudgy window of the transport bus, her teeth grinding together with annoyance. Every two seconds they would hit a bump, which would send her nearly a foot above her seat each time. When she'd land, it would jar her entire body and bruise her bottom.

When the clunker of a bus finally came to a stop outside of the surprisingly long tunnel, directly beside a cliff that met a red sea, her eyes fell on a scarecrow that was undeniably one of the creepiest things that she had ever seen in her entire life.

"Eh, you sure this is where you were headed, girly?"

Sora paused halfway down the steps and tossed a look back at the bus driver, who was seeming less of a creep every few minutes.

She turned her eyes to the sign beside the scarecrow, which clearly read 'Yokai Academy' on it, and was shaped into an arrow. It was pointing in the direction they had been driving in, and suggested that her route would take her through a dense forest and quite some time to reach the school. After a moment, she turned her gaze back to the driver.

"Yokai Academy?" she asked, slipping her hand into her duffle bag and removing a pamphlet that her worker had given her. In large letters across the top, it spelled 'YOKAI ACADEMY; SCHOOL FOR THE ESTRANGED'.

She glanced back up at him. "Well, it appears that that's where I'm headed. Why do you ask?"

He chuckled a bit, a slight glint in his eye, and the darkness of the laugh caused goosebumps to rise on her flesh. "Ah, no reason, girly. Hope you have fun. I'll be back next month ... In case you change your mind." With a slight shove, she went stumbling out of the bus, and rounded back to face it and give him the ass-chewing of his life - but the bus was already gone. Her hand lowered and her brows drew together, before she scowled and turned in the direction of the school.

"Strange driver ..." she mumbled, her brown shoes squishing slightly with each step. Her bag bounced against her thigh as she walked, and the path between the sign and the Academy was nearly as off as the bus driver.

Jeez, if this is what the path to the school is like, I can only imagine what the Academy itself is like ...

As she walked, her hand slipped into her bag. Her suitcases with her belongings, clothes, and necessities had already been delivered to the school and taken to her room ahead of time, due to her transfer being a month after school had begun. It would have been a waste of time for her to bring her suitcases with her. At least since they were delivered ahead of time, she only had to worry about putting away her clothes and other belongings. Her decorations had already been organized - her bed had been made with her blankets and pillows, her computers and technical equipment had been set up in a corner of her room (apparently the staff had been too afraid to fiddle with it, for fear of breaking something - at least, according to the secretary of the Headmaster, they were). Other random things had already been put up, also - such as her hanging beads that she had made for her closet to replace the door there, or her lamps that she had decorated.

Or so she had been told. With the way that things were looking, who was to say that she even had a decent room?

Sora huffed a sigh as she removed a small, portable computer from her bag. It was the size of an iPhone in the human world, but obviously was not of the same design. Flipping a button on the side, a hologram screen shot up above it, while a keypad glowed brightly on the actual screen of the computer. Despite her advanced technology, her computer refused to connect to any type of internet out at this 'school'.

It was like she had entered another universe.

Sighing, she moved her fingers quickly above the keypad, not actually coming into contact with it, but the letters entering despite so. The hologram suddenly snapped to six screens, and using her free hand, she began to quickly move the screens around, sliding her finger across each one and sending it flying to a new spot before her.

The next thing she knew she was hurling towards the ground.

Landing hard, Sora grimaced. Her new school uniform didn't really allow for her to attempt to catch herself - the skirt was far too short for her to do much else other than worry about her underwear flashing - and her one free hand clutched at it. She landed hard on the dirt, jarring her entire body and undoubtedly bruising her tailbone, and she hissed in pain. Her eyes immediately caught the culprit of her falling - an over-grown tree root that jutted up from the ground, directly in the middle of the path.

"Stupid tree," she muttered, flipping the small computer's switch and tucking it into her bag once more. Turning onto her side, she began to push herself up, before she collapsed gain, pain shooting through her ankle. Glancing down at it, she could see through the sock that it was already swelling, and she scowled once more.

"Just what I needed to top everything else off - a twisted ankle," she muttered dryly. She once again pushed herself to her feet - more slowly this time - and gingerly tested her weight on it. Pain immediately shot through her leg, and with a grimace, she began at a slow limp towards the school - which she had tripped directly in front of. The large gates were open and welcoming - which was odd. In fact, the entire school was odd. Several things contrasted with each other - the beautiful foliage inside of the gates battled with the Gothic design of the school's outside, while the bright sunlight warred against the darkness it emanated.

An overly-perky girl was the first person that she found herself across.

"Hi! Welcome to Yokai! My name is Oslin, and I'm a part of the Welcoming Committee!" she squealed, her hands grabbing Sora's and shaking them quickly up and down. Her entire arms were moving and her head nearly bobbed from the movement.

"I have to say, when I found out that we were getting a new student at this time of the year I was more than just surprised. But I was also excited!" she exclaimed.

Sora tore her hands back, taking a couple of steps away from the girl, grinding her teeth together due to the pain of her ankle.

"Two words: Don't. Touch." Her eyes were hard, her hand up in order to separate them. "I'll be perfectly fine on my own, thank you. I don't need an overly-perky, annoying little girl bothering me on my first day," she snapped. Adjusting her bag, she pushed around the girl, stalking - or as well as she could with her ankle - around a corner.

And directly into another body.

The force of the impact sent her stumbling backwards, and before she could catch herself on anything, she had landed on her bottom - again.

"Dammit ... Now the bruise is going to be even worse," she grimaced, rubbing at her bottom. She turned a glare up to the person who she had bumped into. "Hey! Watch where you're going, bub!" she seethed.

---

---

The boy sighed, raising a hand to adjust his hood as the sun shone down harshly from above, searing his face with its unwelcome light. Granted, he wasn't the type of monster who was actually weak against sunlight - unless you could call a partial hikkikomori a type of monster - but at the same time, he just didn't like it. Fortunately, the hood of his trademark duster served its secondary purpose admirably, which at least meant he could see fine, his enchanting emerald eyes tracing and retracing the path before him as, with a whirr, the motor of his beaten up vespa started again, carrying him down the dusty, unused road towards Yokai Academy. He smirked, glancing down at the small shopping bag hanging from his wrist. The nearest convenience store was miles away, but seriously, did they expect him to live without a least a little good, old-fashioned human junk food? Nonsense.

"With these rations, I can fight for another ten years," The Incubus murmured to himself with a smirk, his voice drowned out by the breeze kicked up by his own passage. Pulling up in the side-yard of the school, he parked his motorscooter - a slightly used birthday present from his adoptive family which he'd taken with him on his little exodus - around the back corner of the main building, locking it to a rather large pipe coming out of an air conditioning unit before strolling back around the other side. Nobody but the groundskeeper ever really came back there, and as it turned out, that old ghoul was actually a major otaku, which meant that the insomniac Incubus and he had hit it off fairly quickly. He never minded Akatsuya's little parking spot.

Slinging his snack bag over his shoulder, he was just coming around the corner of the main building when he thought he heard something. Was that... a girl crying? He stopped in his tracks, and listened more closely. It certainly sounded like it. Granted, it was none of his business, and if he stayed out in the sun much longer, the chocolate bar in his snack bag would probably melt down to a gooey, unappetizing paste, but... oh, damnit. He just had to see what was the matter, didn't he? So, taking an unanticipated turn to his right, he strolled through the partially open door, glancing around to see what the trouble was. Oslin, the rather upbeat member of the welcoming committee, was looking on with a sort of detached resignation at a most unusual scenario. One girl was sitting rather awkwardly on the floor, glaring up at another, who was bawling her eyes out and apologizing profusely. Judging by the dropped baggage and the general situation, Akatsuya supposed that this was one of those scenarios that you saw all the time in fiction, but very rarely in real life. A new student, out of place, hadn't been looking where she was going and had crashed right into somebody.

Normally, he'd probably try to help the girl on the floor up, considering that if she was still sitting there, she was probably hurt somehow. He had a really good line for it, too. Something like, "You know, the whole crashing into someone on your first day thing only really works if you do it to a guy. You could try again on me, if you'd like." Her reaction would probably be priceless. But, sadly, the girl on the floor was probably ashamed enough already by her accident. Rubbing salt in that wound just wasn't really his style, least of all when somebody was crying right next to him.

Turning to the pink haired girl, he strolled up as casually as he could. It would probably be easy enough to calm her down just by making eye contact. A slight charm and she'd become temporarily caught up in impressing him, making her want to relax. But that, too, just wasn't his style. No, he'd do this himself, or he wouldn't do it at all. Still, that was going to be a little difficult...

"Oi, oi," He said somewhat uneasily, scratching his cheek slightly underneath his hood. Crying women always made him nervous. "I'm sure this isn't that big a deal. Everybody has accidents sometimes." Giving his best smile, he turned to the girl on the floor. "Isn't that right?" He asked, grinning as he extended a hand in turn to help her up. Turning back the crying girl, he glanced around uneasily, fishing around in one of his coat's many pockets before withdrawing a featureless white handkerchief. "Here." He grinned sheepishly, offering it to her. "Use this." It was a good thing he carried around so many seemingly useless objects on the off chance that he might encounter a scenario where he'd need them to win over the heart of a girl, or he'd have been woefully unprepared for this situation. A gentleman always had to be ready to be suave, no matter what the time, place, or occasion!

...Granted, that still probably didn't justify the package of dango he always bought at the convenience store every time he went there just so he'd have the chance to make a "Hana yori dango*" quip if the opportunity ever presented itself - it hadn't - despite the fact that he rather disliked the sweet in question, but hey, at least he was prepared.

(*Hana yori dango is an expression meaning "Dango over flowers," equating roughly the English expression "The belly is not filled with fair words.")

“哦，多麼美麗的花朵舞後，突然天空最亮的恆星是永遠太遙遠，然而，像個傻瓜，我跳，我到達，到達，直到我的手開始增長乏力。我就跑，直到我能'看不到的橋樑，我自己的家。有我失去了我的路，終於？經過這麼長時間？“

Mei-Lien looked up from the book she read and smiled slightly as she saw her school before her. Yokai Academy. What a wonderful place to be. It was her second year here and the two months seemed to have been going well for her. She had made herself a bit of a trouble reputation among some, but to others, she was royalty. She couldn't ask for more really.

She recalled when she had left to come to the school not too long ago. Her father had wished her luck and nothing more. As expected. Who cared about him anyway? A little 'I love you Mei-Lien' or 'Do well in your studies Mei-Lien' couldn't have hurt him, could it? He never was the type of guy to show emotions anyway. Neither was Mei-Lien. So it was understandable that she and him clashed slightly with no conflict. They were almost too identical.

Mei-Lien recalled the many suitcases she had brought when school stared. Why did she bring it, who knew. It seems that everywhere she went, she needed a whole closet with her. After all, half the bags was clothes, another two bags was hair products. And the others? Well her sword collection of course. However, she had taken the swords for a bit to get cleaned. Thankfully she had brought the bag with her today.

"WELCOME PRINCESS!"

She turned to see a group of four boys coming to greet her. It seems like everyday she was remembered and treated as she wanted. How beautiful!

"Well, good day to all of you. Hm. Would you all be a dear and help me with my collection? I just had them cleaned and it's a bit heavy. Not a problem for you strong boys hm?"

She could tell that the males were quite flattered by her words, which they should be. She had a way of words, appearance and even touch. She was sly but in a good way of course. She watched as the boys began to struggle to pick up the bag.

"Ahh! This things like a hundred pounds! Whats in this?"

She gasped as he dropped it making it up up. Inside, instead of clothes or shoes, was a small bundle of swords. Mei-Lien quickly went to the bag and placed them back inside.

"What are you doing!? Be careful with those! Their very important to me."

The boy pouted slightly while hearing her.

"I-Im so sorry princess. Ill do my best to be careful."

She sighed slightly. She was happy that none of them were injured. She was even more glad that they weren't dirty. She stood and dusted her uniform off before flipping her hair slightly.

"Lets just get these to my room, shall we?"

After using the males for labor of her benefit, she paused slightly while seeing a face she hadn't seen before. She had heard that a new face would be around school. Of course, Mei-Lien didn't worry about her steal any sort of spotlight. She couldn't help but giggle a bit while seeing her bump into someone. She was indeed a newbie. Mei-Lien could help but get a bit curious about her but she wasn't one to act on curiosity. She was more collected then that.

She found a nice bench to sit on and happily hummed while people watching. She would giggle hearing the usual greetings of the usual people and happy 'you look beautiful' phases. It was a normal for her and she loved it more then anything. There hadn't been a day in her life that she wasn't admired by someone. Even as a child, her mother felt special.

She slowly gripped at the watch around her neck. She had always wore her mother keepsake no matter where she went. It was something very important to her. Yet, she couldn't talk about her mother. Talking about how she existed not too long ago and soon died made her feel... well, feelings. She can't explain it but she hates having feelings. Feelings only get you hurt in the future. She sighed as she read her book quietly on the bench.

Oh for Christ's sake - the girl was balling her eyes out! Was she seriously reacting so intensely to only a couple of words? The girl definitely didn't have very thick skin. At all.

Rolling her eyes, she shoved her pride down and swallowed her anger. Why waste it on a baby like this girl?

"Shut the Hell up, Oslin," she drawled out rudely. "You need to mind your own damn business and stay out of other's. You never know what you might find - and what you might find may scar you for life," she snapped. "So scram, Barbie," she added.

Oslin paled, tears appearing in her own eyes, before she turned and fled from the scene. Tresora bothered not to follow her with her eyes - she knew she wouldn't return.

Turning her eyes back to the balling, pink-haired girl before her, she let out a slightly-irritated breath. "Calm down. I'm really not that scary," she muttered with an eye roll. She adjusted her weight a bit, reaching forward to rub at her injured ankle. "You don't need to cry over it. I'm not going to yell, so stop being a baby. Besides, you don't even know me, so it really shouldn't matter so much to you. You need to grow thicker skin, caro," she nodded, pointing a finger in the girl's direction.

Her eyes fell on the boy who was approaching, and her reaction to his voice and his hand nearing her was immediate and intense - and completely uncontrollable.

Her muscles tensed and burned. A sheer sheen of sweat appeared on her skin, a nervous tingling began in her stomach, and her heart hammered in her chest. Her fingers clenched and curled inwards, her lips pressing together tightly in the same moment. Before she could stop herself, her hand had snapped out and slapped the boy's away, and she had scuttled backwards. For anyone who didn't realize that she did this in fear, they would undoubtedly laugh and find the movement to be hilarious and a joke.

Turning her face away as quickly as possible, she stumbled up to a standing position, most of her weight on the one side of her body so as to avoid collapsing to her knees.

"Thanks for the offer of help, but I'll pass. You can go ahead and comfort cotton-candy-rainstorm here," she waved her hand at the pink fluffball of a girl before her, "And I'm going to finish looking for my dorm and the head office so I can get my paperwork." With that, she hurried away, flipping out her holocomputer in an attempt to look busy and not nearly as frazzled as she felt.

She wasn't really paying attention to the computer, at least not as much so as she looked to be, and her fingers flew across the hologram screen as she limped.

It wasn't until she smelled food that she realized how hungry she was. After spending the past two and a half days hopping from plane to plane, bus to bus, and car to car, she hadn't eaten well nor much at all. Her stomach growled as the delicious smell of cinnamon rolls reach her nostrils, and she paused in her step, her head tilting back a bit to get better access at the yummy smell of cinnamon.

"I might as well grab some food before I finish looking for the office," she muttered, tucking the tiny computer into a small pocket on her bag.

Sora pushed through the doors to the cafeteria and strode inside. It didn't take long for several of the conversations to lull at the sight of a new student at this time of the year - especially one who held herself with the confidence of someone who cared naught for any type of judgement from her peers.

Acting as though she didn't notice the change of atmosphere at her entrance, she strode to the food area of the cafeteria, plucking up a small plate with a cinnamon roll, an apple, a bagel, and a bottle of orange juice, she quickly paid for the food. Immediately she made her way over to the nearest window and, tossing her bag onto the sill, she easily joined it, leaning back against the wall and removing a similar device to her holocomputer, but instead it projected from a far smaller electronic - it was her Black Hole Computer, and the projection above it was only one, yet far more visible and clear than the other projections. Taking a bite out of her cinnamon roll, she lounged backwards, slipping into a slightly relaxed mood, her free hand absently rubbing at her scarred neck, the frequent ache and burn that appeared in it slowly beginning to arise.

---

---

Akatsuya extended his hand, waiting to see how the girl would react. Maybe she'd be mad, or embarrassed, or flustered, or perhaps even grateful. The young incubus had experienced all these emotions before. But never in his life had such a simple gesture prompted the feeling that abruptly flooded his mind through the momentary contact he made with the fallen girl's hand.

Hate. Overwhelming, instinctual fear and loathing that struck his psyche like a thunderclap as his hand was batted aside. Muttering something under her breath, the girl quickly limped away, taking one last shot at both him and the crying girl as she did so. Izayoi took a moment, staring after her in confusion as he tried to calm the echoes of the feeling that had so suddenly assaulted him. What exactly had prompted that?

"T-thank you..." Murmured a quiet voice from behind him. The girl's cadence matched her appearance and attitude, her words gentle, soft, and shrill. Although her voice cracked slightly from the lingering tears she'd shed, Akatsuya could tell that she was mostly over her earlier breakdown. He smiled slightly under his hood, and turned to face her once again, donning his best smile and trying his best to forget the rather strange response of the last girl he'd reached out to help. Fortunately, given the calming feelings of relaxation she was experiencing, this was a bit easier than it otherwise might have been. Her presence seemed fragile to him, as though perpetually teetering on the brink of tears, yet at the same time, it was earnest and gentle. That explained her earlier overreaction to what had been a rather simple mistake. In any case, he was just glad she'd stopped crying.

"'No problem,'" Akatsuya said with a slight, reassuring smile, his bright green eyes peeking around the edge of his hood, just out of direct view. "-Is what I'd say if I'd actually done something worth mentioning." He added cheerily, trying to put the pink-haired girl at ease and drive away the lingering guilt she seemed to feel in regards to her earlier awkward encounter.

As she glanced down, he followed her gaze, his eyes at last falling upon the source of her regrets. It seemed that in her panic, she'd snapped the strap on her bag. It wasn't unheard of for monsters in distress to unintentionally use much more of their strength than intended, which explained why one of the metal fastenings she'd been holding onto had bent and snapped open, rather than the cloth strap itself simply tearing off like one might expect.

Cute as a button and strong enough to break metal between her thumb and forefinger, huh? Well, now I've seen everything, He thought, chuckling slightly to himself as he reached out a hand, smiling gently as he took a closer look to see what damage had been done.

"You know, the strap itself isn't damaged - just one of the clasps that holds the two parts together. I'm pretty sure you can take those off," He observed, looking at it. "Plus, these school bags are all pretty much the same, so a part from mine should work fine on yours, right?" Reaching down, he carefully removed the undamaged fastening from his own bag, then took hold of the strap of hers and casually popped out the broken piece, weaving the cloth through the appropriate slots in the part from his own bag. "See? Good as new," He said with a grin.

It was at that moment that he realized that he was currently crouching just a few inches from her, and his face was actually remarkably close to hers. If he had leaned in any further, she might have caught a glimpse of his eyes. Whew, close one, He thought, adjusting his hood slightly as he drew back, standing up and extending a hand to help her back to her feet. Let's try this again, He joked to himself as he waited to see her reaction. Surely she won't slap me too. Well, I hope she doesn't, anyway. With strength like hers, she'd probably break my wrist.

Hai Nyce

As Hai carefully took the jacket from his classmate, Mei-Lien, with a giant smile Hai says "Is it even possible to take attention away from you for more then a few seconds? I mean they look over here to see the half naked guy, then get enraptured by your beauty after noticing, o it's just Hai." With a small laugh Hai puts on the jacket, making sure not to let go of his towel as he slides one arm at a time through the sleeves. Finally Hai grabbed the top corners two corners of the towel, and tied them together in a small knot.

"Well to thank you how about a poem?." Hai asks rhetorically.

A Orchid bright as no other
A light shining forever
A song of beauty and life
Without a thought of any strife.

"That's only the start I'm still working on the rest" Hai says with a happy and excited gleam in his eyes.

"Now where do you think the best place to get me some clothes would be?." Hai ask's never once letting his smile slip off his face. As he looked around Hai spotted Izayoi with Kimiko. Nodding his head in there direction Hai says "Maybe Izayoi has an extra uniform I can borrow." With his smile wide across his face Hai thinks to himself, "so far this day has been awsome."