May 1, 2003
"Hey, Ichigo," a voice called out in a Japanese middle school classroom in Tokyo during a break between classes. "Earth to Ichigo."
A redheaded girl then looked up from a set of cards she was holding in her right hand at a boy the same age as her with light brown hair. "Huh?"
"Are you in there? It's your turn, you know." The boy also held a set of cards in his hand and had some cards laid out in front of him.
"Oh yeah, sorry." The girl, named Momomiya Ichigo, then selected a card in her hand and said, "I play Whiptail Crow with 1650 attack."
Another boy standing near Ichigo said, "Seems powerful enough, though this game still has me lost." He appeared to be around the same age as well, and had black hair and tan skin.
"Don't worry," Ichigo replied to the boy. "Masaya, this game used to puzzle me, too. Once you play a few games, though, you get the hang of it real fast." She then turned to her opponent. "Okay, Ryouta, it's your turn."
"Alright, my turn..." He then selected a card. "I'll play this monster!" He then set down The Bistro Butcher, with 1800 attack. "Then, I'll equip it with this card, Black Pendant." Black Pendant boosted The Bistro Butcher's attack to 2300. "Now, my Butcher will attack, and I think that's game."
"Yep, that is," Ichigo said, somewhat disappointed. "That's the 2nd time in a row. Say, where do you get your cards?"
"My older brother," Ryouta replied. "His name is Shiro, and he helps me build great decks." He then collected his cards into his deck and showed it to Ichigo and Masaya. "This deck in particular is pretty good. Its most powerful monsters are the Horus the Black Flame Dragon cards." He then looked through his deck and picked several cards out of it to show Ichigo and Masaya. "Horus LV4 has 1600 attack, Horus LV6 has 2300 attack, and Horus LV8 has 3000 attack. Horus LV4 and Horus LV6 are focused mostly on getting Horus LV8 out, since it cannot be Normal Summoned or Set. Horus LV8 can pretty much negate all Magic Card activations, which is good."
"Yeah, I know," Ichigo replied, recalling a previous duel. "Considering you shut me down completely that one time when you had Horus LV8 on the field."
"Oh, don't worry. You'll get the hang of the game sooner or later. I mean, you just started playing like 2 weeks ago." Ryouta then sighed. "I was once inexperienced like you, after all. Hell, I still kinda am."
Meanwhile, another student who was reading a book on the other side of the room noticed their conversation. He seemed intrigued as he thought to himself, "How did that guy get Horus? I've met people in their last year of elementary school who could kick both of their asses, and we're all in our second year of junior high. I need to investigate this further."
Later, at Café Mew Mew, the gang discussed a growing problem that had been occurring since the Cyniclons had left and Deep Blue had been defeated in the laboratory underneath the café. "Everyone," began Shirogane Ryou, the genesis of the Mew Project. "While we are making progress against the left-behind Chimera Animas, we have discovered something odd going on at an all-girl's academy in the city." He then pulled up a picture of the academy in question.
Fujiwara Zakuro, the oldest in the team, recognized the academy and said, "I know that place. Isn't that Kimohama Girls' Academy?"
"Indeed," Akasaka Keiichiro, Ryou's right-hand man, replied. "It seems as if many incidents of stranded Chimera Animas have been within the academy's neighborhood. This seems awfully suspicious."
"It sure does," Aizawa Minto replied. The bluenette looked at the screen and said, "1000 yen says that somebody is manipulating them, hence why they're popping up near that school."
"I hope not," Midorikawa Retasu replied. "And I especially hope it isn't some rogue alien that still may follow Deep Blue's way or something."
"Huh," Ryou replied. "I never considered that, actually. Now that you mention it, Retasu, it seems possible." He then sighed and said, "Anyways, I would like to see if a couple of you could find a way onto the academy grounds and spec it out. Preferably, I would like to see it done legally, but I know that somebody here is gonna try the less-than legal route, so just make sure you don't get hurt or arrested, okay?"
Ichigo, annoyed, replied, "Really?"
"I mean, to be fair," Minto began. "You and I did technically break into Retasu's school that one time-"
"Hey, hang on," Ichigo replied to Minto, attempting to correct her. "That was NOT breaking and entering, alright? We didn't smash anything to get in. Hell, we didn't even leave a trace!"
"We can argue about the semantics of breaking and entering later," Zakuro replied, trying to stay on topic. "We need to focus."
Fong Purin, the youngest of the team and often the most energetic, agreed, saying, "Yeah, guys, c'mon! We got work to do, na no da!"
May 2, 2003
After school, as Ryota walked with Masaya and Ichigo, the latter two of whom were holding hands, the same student from yesterday approached Ryota and asked him, "You're Ryouta, from class, right?"
"I am," Ryota replied. "Aren't you Yamamoto Jurou?"
"Indeed," Jurou replied as he showed Ryota his deck of Duel Monsters cards. "I play, too."
"Oh yeah," Ryouta replied, recognizing him. "You were in the Nationals, right?"
"Indeed I was," Jurou replied as he began walking with them. "I won the Tokyo Prefectural Championship and came in 6th nationally, becoming the youngest player to do both." He then smiled. "I see you have Horus."
"I do," Ryouta replied.
Ichigo asked Jurou, "Wow, you went to the nationals? Cool!" She was surprised to see someone her age being considered good enough to face off against competitors who were most likely at least a few years older than them and, in many cases, winning. "I just started playing."
"I could tell from that duel you had," Jurou smugly replied.
Ichigo, slightly annoyed, replied, "What does that mean?"
"Oh, nothing," Jurou replied. He then turned away from the gang and said, "Well, I gotta run home. I'll see you all at school tomorrow."
Ryouta waved bye and said, "Bye, Jurou!"
Ichigo said to Masaya, "He seemed cocky."
"You're telling me," Masaya replied, noticing the same thing. "I hope he didn't let his success get to him."
At Café Mew Mew later that day, Ichigo walked up to Ryou on her break and asked him, "Ryou, I got a question about my pendant."
Ryou turned to her in the break room and replied, "What's up with it?"
Ichigo then took her pendant out and said to Ryou, "It's been acting funny for a couple days. Yesterday, it felt really hot in my pocket and in my hands. Now, it feels ice cold."
Ryou took it and noticed the same thing, saying, "Wow, you're right. It is ice cold. That's weird as hell." Ryou then took out a pen and stuck it on the edge of the pendant to try to open it. "You can open this thing with a pen or a small screwdriver by popping open the bottom." After he opened it, he looked inside and said, "Nothing seems out of the ordinary."
Ichigo replied, "What should I do?"
"Keep reporting any changes in the pendant to me," Ryou replied. "There's not much else either of us can do, unfortunately."
"Oh well," Ichigo replied as she took the pendant back. "That sucks."
Later that night, Ichigo and Zakuro decided to sneak into the Kimohama Girls' Academy grounds. After they hopped over a fence with each other's help, they calmly walked alongside the school's main building. As she looked around with a flashlight, Zakuro said, "I don't notice anything odd about this place."
"Me neither," Ichigo replied before she yawned. Then, she seemed to have caught something running down the hallway on the 2nd floor on her flashlight. "Huh? What was that?"
Zakuro apparently noticed the same thing, because she replied, "I saw some shadow up on the 2nd floor. That's odd. There's supposed to be no one here."
Suddenly, something attacked the two of them. Zakuro was smacked on the back of her head with a metal bar, immediately knocking her unconscious. As she fell to the ground, Ichigo turned around and saw a man about the age of 25 with brown hair holding a crowbar. She immediately dodged a hit from him before kicking him full force in the stomach, sending him to his knees. As he coughed, Ichigo yelled, "Who the hell are you?!"
Then, another voice behind her, this time belonging to a younger man, said, "Who are you, and why do you trespass upon our meeting?"
Ichigo turned around and saw a younger man of about 16 with long hair holding a knife. "Oh, great, a knife-wielding maniac, too." She then grabbed her pendant out of her pocket and quickly kissed it, triggering it to activate. "Mew Mew Strawberry, Metamorphosis!" The brightness of her transformation threw back both men as they were nearly blinded by it.
The older man said, "What is this girl?"
Ichigo, transformed into her Mew Mew form, said to the two men as she formed her Strawberry Bell, "I'm Mew Ichigo. Now, stop sitting there, and fight me."
The younger man charged at her with his knife first, but Ichigo jumped into the air out of his way and proceeded to land on his head with one of her feet, knocking him out cold. She then looked at him before looking back up at the older man. "Why don't you drop that crowbar and use your fists?"
"Fine," replied the older man before dropping his crowbar on the ground. "You'll regret that, little girl." He then tried to punch Ichigo across the face, only for her to dodge it and grab his fist with one of her hands. She then used her Strawberry Bell to whip him across the face, causing him to stumble back away from her, blood running from his mouth. "What? You're not gonna use any of your magic against me, Mew Ichigo?"
"I don't need to," Ichigo replied. She then charged at the man and landed a punch square on his forehead, knocking him out cold as well. As he fell, she said to him, "You messed with the wrong girl." She then turned to Zakuro, who was beginning to wake up. "Zakuro, let's go. We need to tell Ryou about this."
May 5, 2003
In class, Ryouta and Jurou were talking to each other. "Say," Jurou said to Ryouta as they looked through their decks. "Mind if I see your Horus cards? Just the dragons, of course."
"No problem," Jurou replied as he picked out his three Horus dragons and handed them to Jurou. He then said, "Look all you want." He then turned around to talk to Masaya.
"Excellent," Jurou thought to himself. "Now that his back is turned, I'll switch these cards out with fake cards I made that are almost exactly identical and realistic." He then grabbed three color copies he made from his pocket and left the real Horus dragon cards in his pocket before turning back around. "Ryouta, here you go."
Ryouta turned around and said, "No problem, man." He then slipped the cards into his deck, not knowing they were fakeries.
Jurou then thought to himself, "Now all I gotta do is add the real Horus cards to my deck, and I'll be sure to go further than 6th place this year."