The moon was nearly full tonight, its beams of light shining through clouds to the bustling city below. The members of said city, Iwatodai, were going about their usual practices of nightlife. Be it students visiting the mall for something to do before their curfew, delinquents in alleyways trying to get a buzz (be it from either a can or a collision of fist on skin) or the elderly paying their respects at a shrine, Things were going along at their normal rate for the members of the city.

A handful of people (businessmen, late workers, what have you), on the other hand, were not aware of the hustle and bustle of the city. This was due to them being on the subway, on their way towards the city of interest.

One young man, however, seemed slightly out of place. This was mainly due to his young appearance, as he looked around 16 to 17.

Another feature that set him apart from the rest of the subway's crowd was what he was doing to occupy himself.

Situated on the top of his head was a pair of dark blue headphones the chrome accents. On the external side of each sound emitting disk, there lay printed on the picture of a skull. The young man was currently bobbing his head along to the music being played from the combined effort of his MP3 player and headphones, mouthing the lyrics as they went along. The music was being played so loudly that anyone within a seat's distance of the young man could hear what music was being played:

"I backed my car into a cop car the other day.

Well he just drove off, sometimes life's okay.

I ran my mouth off a bit too much, oh what did I say?

Well you just laughed it off, it was all okay."

Though he was able to kill his time on the auditory side with the works of Modest Mouse at the moment, his visual receptors begged for stimulation. Craning his neck slightly to his right, he gazed deeply into his own reflection.

'I hope this doesn't make me look narcissistic.' The young man thought jokingly.

What the young man saw staring back at him was a pale, angular face with deep azure eyes and messy black hair. This face was perched atop a lanky body not containing much in the form of either muscle mass or fat. This body was decorated with a dark grey hooded and zippered sweatshirt, opened to reveal a black T-Shirt with a triangle in the middle, a white line leading into it and a rainbow leading out of it (The young man couldn't help but smile at the insignia for his favorite album). The lower half of his figure boasted simple black slacks and dress shoes, nothing too fancy there.

The young man was about to go on and see what else he could view from the reflective window he was peering at, but he began to hear something being uttered from the loudspeakers of the train. Taking his headphones off quickly, the young man suddenly felt the subway come to a stop as the speakers uttered:

"We have now arrived at Iwatodai."

'Finally.' The young man thought with relief. The several delays from a few subway connections back had rather gotten to him, so he just wanted to get to his destination as fast as possible.

Standing up from his seat, asking for pardon as he stepped over the business man he was seated next to, the young man slipped back on his headphones and began to exit the train, going back to listening to more of his music…

"A fake Jamaican took every last dime with a scam.

It was worth it just to learn some slight of ha-"

… Or at least he would have done so, if not for his MP3 player inexplicably dying out.

Un-pocketing the device from its confines, the young man fiddle with several of the buttons before finally giving up and accepting he would just have to charge it later.

'Strange, though… I could have sworn I charged it enough for a full day's worth of use. Eh maybe, the battery is just getting worse, who knows?'

With that thought, the young man continued towards the subway's exit.

Finally exiting the station and getting onto ground level, the young man basked in the moonlight that was currently being emitted to the area around him. He couldn't help but notice, however, something peculiar about the moonlight.

'Huh… why exactly is the moon's light green? Is it some sort of weather effect?'

Shrugging it off as that, his grogginess overtaking his thought process, the young man continued on his journey towards the dorm he was searching for.

Surely enough, after around 10 or 15 minutes of walking through the eerily quiet city, he found it.

Stepping into the foyer of the building, the young man passed through a pair of double doors into what appeared to the building's lounge. It appeared comfortable enough, with soft looking chairs and couches, a TV placed in the corner of the main section, however the young man couldn't shake off an underlying sense of dread. This was mainly due to all the furniture being painted a sickly green color from the moon outside.

The young man couldn't leave too much time to dwell on that feeling, however, as his thoughts were interrupted by someone speaking.

"Oh, you're here. I was beginning to worry you wouldn't show up."

Spinning towards where the voice was emanating, the young man saw (behind the desk of the lounge) a young boy with curly dark hair in what appeared to be black and white stripped pajamas, an unsettling smile painting his lips. What the young man couldn't help but take notice of about the boy, though were his gaping, piercing blue eyes.

"Who are you?" The young man inquired.

"That isn't important right now. What is, however, is that you sign this."

Then, suddenly, the boy somehow produced a pen and a slip of paper.

Taken aback by this display, the young man slowly stepped towards the boy and the paper whilst questioning:

"What might this be?

"Oh, it's a contract. All it states is that you take full responsibility for your actions. The usual stuff." The boy said, his creepy smile not leaving his face.

Blaming his combination of grogginess and impatience for wanting to get into a bed, the young man just decided to roll with this strange situation and sign the supposed contract.

Taking a glace over the paper, pen in hand, the young man found a line at the bottom of the page meant for his signature. As such, he signed his name:

Atticus Slater.

Placing the pen down next to the contract, Atticus looked to the boy and said simply:

"There."

The boy's smile grew wider yet as he said back:

"Thank you."

"Who's there?"

Looking towards the nearby stairwell, Atticus looked up to see a girl around his age clad in a black skirt, a pink cardigan and matching heart-shaped choker, her brown hair complimenting her identically colored eyes. Something about her eyes seemed off, though. They seemed… wary.

"Oh, hi there." Atticus tried to start into friendly conversation. "I'm Atticu-"

"Don't move!"

Atticus flinched, surprised at the girl's tone. They had only just met, did he do something wrong? That, however, wasn't his main concern.

That lie with what appeared to be the gun strapped to the girl's hip.

"U-um…" Atticus dumbly stuttered out, his eyes widening at the sight of the firearm. "Hey, listen-"

Suddenly, the girl grabbed the gun and quickly removed it from its confines. In response, Atticus was about to dive over the desk he was near for cover. He as well as the girl were stopped, though, when a feminine voice rang out:

"Wait!"

Looking towards the top of the stairs, Atticus could see a figure in the shadows. She became completely visible, however, when suddenly the lights came on in the lounge.

'Oh, so there must have been a power outage.' Atticus reasoned with himself.

Looking back towards the stairwell, he took a better look at the woman who was walking down it.

She had long crimson hair and matching eyes to go with it. Her gaze was a chilling mix of intelligent and authoritarian. Her white blouse greatly complimented her fair skin, as well as looked great with her black skirt and boots.

Finally making her way down the stairs, the young woman gave a quick glance of Atticus up and down before saying:

"I didn't think you would be arriving so late."

"Yeah, sorry about that, my last few subway connections were delayed." Atticus replied.

"Well, I'm just happy you arrived here safely." The girl with red hair continued.

"Who's he?" The girl in the pink cardigan asked, looking at Atticus skeptically.

"His name is Atticus Slater. He's an exchange student and will be staying with us for the time being." The redhead answered, afterwards turning back to Atticus. "Anyways, I'm Mitsuru Kirijo and this" Mitsuru gestured towards the other girl. "Is Yukari Takeba. She's a junior, just like you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you both." Atticus said while sticking out his hand for a shake. Mitsuru obliged the handshake while Yukari said:

"Um, yeah… nice to meet you too." She finished with a small smile.

"You must be rather tired after your long trip. Follow me, I'll show you to your room." Mitsuru said whilst gesturing towards the stairs.

Atticus decided to do as Mitsuru said, partly because he was tired and wanted to finally get to sleep and partly because Mitsuru's air made him want to do it. Just before bounding up after the redhead, Yukari turned to Atticus and said:

"Well, um… goodnight."

"Goodnight." Atticus said simply, a small smile painting his face.

Following Mitsuru up the stairs, He could see the young woman in question standing next to the door at the end of the hall. Following her over to said location, Atticus gave the door a quick glance before directing his attention back towards Mitsuru.

"So, this is my room?" He asked.

"Indeed it is." Mitsuru answered. "All your belongings should be in there, but maybe try unpacking them at a later time. Tomorrow is the first day of school, so you'll be needing plenty of rest for that."

"Duly noted. Well, I think I should probably get some rest. Goodnight."

Just before Atticus was about to walk in his room, however, he was stopped by Mitsuru placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm sure you have many questions," She began. "And I promise that I'll answer them both as soon as possible and to the best of my ability."

Atticus wasn't necessarily certain what Mitsuru was implying, but he was too tired to care what exactly it did imply.

"It's alright. Just take your time, there's no need for you to rush anything." Atticus said politely.

Mitsuru gave a small, appreciative smile back to Atticus.

"Thank you for your understanding. Have a good night."

With that, Mitsuru headed back down the hall and down the stairs.

Stepping into his room, Atticus turned on the light to get a better view of his surroundings. It appeared to be a decently sized room, it was just that most of space was occupied by some form of box. Just the thought of having to unpack all of this sent tremors through Atticus' head. He should probably take some Aspirin before he hit the sack.

'On the subject of medicine, that reminds me: where exactly are my meds?'

Rummaging around the numerous boxes, Atticus finally found a small box around the size of a book labeled 'Meds'.

Opening it (which took some force as it was taped shut), Atticus revealed three pill bottles and a blue pill cutter. Laying out the bottles and the cutter on the nearby desk, he then opened each container to retrieve the prescribed amount of each medicine.

'Lexapro, Lithium, Abilify… I pray for a day where I can stop using you. Until then, down the hatch."

With his medication ingested, Atticus shed his shoes and jacket and plopped down onto his bed and finally let the comfort of sleep take over him…

"So… I take it he's one of… us?"

Mitsuru looked down to Yukari as she came down the stairs. She responded with:

"I think he might be, though we're still not sure. The chairman would like to run some tests on him in the following days."

"I see." Yukari began. "Hopefully the tests aren't anything drastic."

"They shouldn't be. Just some basic scans while he's sleeping."

"What're we talking about?"

Mitsuru and Yukari turned to see the double doors opening and closing, revealing a young man with silver hair wearing a red vest.

"Oh, Akihiko. You're back." Mitsuru said simply. "What we're talking about is the new exchange student and the tests we'll be running on him."

"So he's here finally?" Akihiko asked. "Took him long enough."

"Apparently he had some delays with the subway, that's why he's late." Yukari chimed.

"I see." After saying this, Akihiko gave utterance to a large yawn. "Well, I'd like to welcome him to the dorm, but it'll have to wait. I'm beat to hell. Night."

And so, Akihiko began his climb up the stairs towards his room.

With the elder student out of range of the conversation, Yukari continued on with:

"So, what makes you think he has the potential?"

"There was a… incident regarding him and his family around ten years ago when they were here on vacation. My father believes it has something to with the shadows." Mitsuru explained.

"Incident? What kind of incident?" Yukari questioned.

"His parents were killed in an accident involving a taxi they were in at the time."

Yukari flinched, shocked to hear Mitsuru talk about something like that so casually.

"Wait, really?"

In response to this, Mitsuru just slowly shook her head 'yes'.

"Wow… That must've been really hard to go through." Yukari said sadly, finding somewhat of a kindred spirit in her new dorm mate.

"Regardless, we have to make sure that he has the potential." Mitsuru began, back to business as usual. "We're needing all the assistance we can at the moment." Saying this, Mitsuru turned around and headed up the stairs.

"I guess you have a point." Said Yukari. "However, how can you and your father be so certain that he has the potential?" She called after.

Mitsuru slowly came to a stop, donning a playful smile that Yukari couldn't see.

"… I guess we'll have to wait and see, now won't we?"

Good morrow, People of Fanfiction! This was just a little idea I've had in my head for quite a while now, and I just wanted to see where it goes. With that said, please review and tell me what you think/what I can improve!