Sierra: Wow, new story. How appropriate. ;)

Okay! I've been on this whole new story string, publishing left and right to see which idea I like the most. But I do very much enjoy this idea, and I really wanted to do it with the Shugo Chara characters because it felt so right with Ikuto and Amu this way. I do want to inform you that they are not their usual ages in the show, and not teenagers either. Hopefully in the next chapter you will learn how old they are, but I will give you a hint: Ikuto is still as much older than Amu in this story as in the show.

I don't own anything besides my plot~

Do enjoy~

The Solar System

CHAPTER 1

By AmourApricot

"Now, on to our next lovely piece of craftsmanship-"

Instantly, her body startled awake.

Her heart pounded frantically against the cavity of her expanding chest, and she knew she was confused and scared because it hurt to feel it contract again into its normal state. The first thing: She couldn't see. The atmosphere of her vision was eerily black, though she suddenly concocted a gut feeling it wasn't due to the lighting. There was something wrapped around her eyes - a blindfold, she presumed. Its layers across her eyes pulled harshly to the back of her head, though quickly she attempted a dismissal at the pain, for a more demanding prospect prodded her ears.

"Her name is to be unknown until he who claims her, names her."

There was a booming voice ahead, she knew, because there was nothing but the whisper of silence behind her. It sounded distant - as if she were locked and tucked away somewhere, out of sight and mind from the ongoing commotion that seemed invisible to her eyes, but not her ears.

Where am I?

She went to move, to grope for a familiar surrounding, or to familiarize herself with it, but she couldn't. Something restrained her. She tugged lightly at her wrists, but something bound them awkwardly together. A silky ribbon, it felt. It enclosed the movement of her hands and arms altogether.

What?

She tugged harder this time. Nothing moved, except her arms, which started, very quickly, to flail as panic filled her insides like a cold glass of water.

No - No, no, no. Where am I? What is this?

She yanked against the silky material so harshly it felt as if she'd dislocated something around her shoulder. The pain flourished in her upper back, but something told her not to stop, that she just couldn't stop.

God, please, where am I? Let me out, let me see. I can't see!

The realization that not only were her hands bound, but the small rounds of her ankles as well, sunk like a rock in a mud puddle into a growing cavity in her heart. She tried to separate her legs, part her ankles at their seam, but it felt like the same material that had been cast about her hands. Un-moving, indestructible. This time, her heart picked up its frantic little pace.

What is this, why am I tied up? Who did this? Why am I here?

There were heavy footsteps clacking loudly against what sounded like hard wood floor up in the distance. Two feet, then three, and suddenly it was as if many people were walking about the floor, or what she presumed was the floor. As they ascended, there was a sudden uproar of voices. So many voices. Not loud, but there was a certain vehemency in the whispers and gasps of what sounded to be like an entire school of people. She didn't hear what any of them said, no. She was obviously far too secluded to decipher each word. But they were there, and they were all talking about something. And then the footsteps stopped, and a gentle clunking sound reverberated through the sound filled air.

"Ah, yes, what a wonderful specimen." It was always the same voice to speak. He seemed closer than the murmurs and gossip flung about ahead, so the girl assumed he was closer to her.

Which terrified her.

"Now, as we see here," he began, talking loudly, projecting his voice as if to an audience, "she does seem to have a bit longer hair than most. But, gentleman, do not fret. All the more to grab while in bed with her." There was a smirk in his voice. She sensed it rather than saw it, by the way he accented each word as if he were the man to get in bed with whoever it was he announced about.

What is he talking about? Who is she?

"Pitch as black can get, and no artificial dyes. Her lips are relatively thin, as is her face and the skin around her wrists and ankles. She has one small scar in the center of her breasts, but not too noticeable without deep inspection. Her eyes are deep brown, though eyelashes seemed to have skipped her. They are there," he added dryly, sighing slightly through his speech, "though very short, unfortunately."

What is he talking about? He was describing a woman, she could gather that much. But who, and why? Could nobody see her?

Throughout his description, she still tried the effort of freeing herself from her bonds. Though everything she attempted was futile. She was too restrained, too locked up tight within herself. The more the man ahead spoke, the tighter the ball of nauseating sickness compacted in her stomach.

I can't get out.

"This woman is skinny, but not, let's see... Fit? Little muscle weighs down her bones, and no part of her body reflects the image of toned. But, some of you will like her that way, some of you will not." The voices in the background never stopped their incessant whisper. They minimized, but the speaker talked over them. At his recent declaration, they seemed to raise in volume again.

She scooted about on the slick surface she inhabited, and because she could not see anything she did not know what it was she sat upon. But it was cold, sleek, and slippery. It felt as if oil had been spread about the surface, making it easy to slide around on, though hard to move her body the way she so wished. The surface, however, helped her feel that she, embarrassingly enough, sported something so minimal in coverage it made her consider if she were wearing anything at all. Something thin covered her torso, down to the middle of her hip. Its straps were thin and silky, and occasionally she could feel the fuzzy hem brush against the upper part of her thigh. It felt like...

Oh god.

She swallowed, hard.

Lingerie.

Why, why was she wearing this? What was this? What was happening!?

She started another round of panic all over again.

"For your convenience, we have ridden her of any unnecessary hair and bathed her to an almost perfect state of clean. Depending on how you treat her, she will either stay this way or turn again. So-"

Why is he talking about a woman like that! What is going ON!?

"Now that we have gotten through the basics, we will start the bidding at a mere ten-thousand five-hundred dollars."

Everything stilled.

Ahead, the assumed crowd burst into calling.

But her world stopped. Her heart stopped. Her breathing caught. Her body stilled.

Bidding.

That...

She gulped, and her body started its wracking of nerves, its petrified tremble. The description... he was... Readying... For a bid? An auction? He's...

He was selling a woman! What the hell was this? It couldn't be... Everything she'd heard about it...

Trafficking.

Oh, fuck. That's what this was. This was some sort of auction house, a black market of the sorts, congregated to sell for human traffickers. It could only be that. These people - whoever they are, were illicitly selling people, or moreover, women, to others that had attended.

Oh God. No, no. Why? How did I get here? HOW?!

She flailed. Not just her arms, or legs, but her moving being. She thrashed about, feeling for any release to the bonds, any opening to an exit. And soon, something broke her movement. Her legs hit bars, and she fell back due to the slippery surface, and her shoulder collided with the same bars, as did the side of her blindfolded head. Instantly pain lanced through her feet, shoulder and head. It felt like a needle penetrating her skull, so sharp and quick she gasped and winced at the same time. An immediate throbbing pounced through her shoulder, and stayed as long as the bar pushed harshly against it.

Ow, FUCK! Her face scrunched in pain as she tried to cope with it silently. Ow, ow, shit. That hurt. That really hurt. Her belly clenched due to her compromising position, and it didn't take her long. Not long at all, to realize what it was.

A cage.

A cage? I'm in a cage?! Why the fuck am I in a cage!?

She felt so sick, so utterly sick, as if the boiling contents of her rumbling stomach were going to ride to her throat and spill from her mouth at any moment she decided she was more afraid than she could comprehend.

No, this can't be happening. This can't be happening. This can't be happening.

To me.

"Fifteen-thousand dollars!" It was a man yelling out the number, the price he was willing to pay for that explanation of a woman.

She gasped, wiggled, writhed under the invisible pressure burying her into defeat. Her exposed body slid easily along the sleek and glistening oiled floor of the - God, she couldn't even think about it. The cage.

I'm in a cage. Jesus, I'm in a cage. Somebody, get me out of here!

"Twenty-thousand dollars!"

"Twenty-five-thousand dollars!"

"Thirty-thousand!"

Instantaneously it was a rapid burst of hollering over one another, each person pursuing to override the other in some sort of hasty desire to be the one. The forcefulness in each call's magnitude caused her to shrink faster against the polished and greased bars of the cage. Just the simple theory that there was another woman, clothed in some man's perception of provocative and beautiful, bound together with expensive silk ribbons and confined within the limited and suffocating space of a cage, out there, pushed a squeamish and weak feeling into her nervous body.

Or perhaps it was the thought that she was soon to be next in the line of women to be presented and exposed to an arena of people waiting to unclothe her with their eyes. The thought made her queasy, and all of the muscles in her stomach twisted disagreeably.

No, no, no. I'm not supposed to be here. How, how, HOW did I get here? Who brought me here?! Why me?! WHY!

"Seventy-five-thousand dollars!"

The mob hushed considerably at the execrable offer shouted before her. It's oh-so-loud tone carried throughout what she could only surmise was a massive room, based on the rippling echos of their bellows.

Holy shit.

Seventy-five thousand dollars? She wanted to gasp at the outrageously immoral price ringing in her ears. Who would be willing to pay that much money for a woman? A woman. Not the product of someone's business. Not an item. A woman was a human being, first and foremost, not meant to be sold off to any particualy buyer. This auction...

It was repulsive.

She planted her feet against the greasy and spherical surface of the bars uphosltering the cage. She pushed, forcing all of the muscles in her legs to strain and work, and it wasn't long before the familiar burn of lactic acid swirled and exploded like lava from a volcano. It was painful, and her breath picked up dramatically, but slowly she slid her fallen body up, and for once she was glad the cage was oiled so excessively, for it made the process gracefully easier. It was rather difficult to move with all of her limbs tied up.

"Seventy-five thousand? Going once?" announced the man, and she heard his sphinx-like steps pace back and fourth in a diabolical line. She could only imagine him up there, walking back and fourth, back and fourth in front of that woman. She wondered if she could see him, see them, see her behind her or if she was completely covered and isolated from the crime she was hearing unfold.

"Going twice?" Finally she situated herself into an outstretched, complacent arrangement in which her now buttery legs bent naturally at the knees and her tailbone rested against the sturdy shafts behind it. She inhaled and exhaled deeply to assuage the flourishing pain in her shoulder and head.

"Sold!"

She rolled her lips as if they were paper and sealed her eyes behind the canopy of their lids. The price is outrageous. Sickening. The ball of nausea seems to expand and pulse in her roiling stomach so that she could feel it in every single nerve up to her throat, which constricted every time she attempted to swallow.

The familiar sound of collective footsteps reappeared, and for the first time, she heard the woman's voice.

She didn't say anything. No, in fact, she was bravely quiet. But a gasp escaped her, laced with a hint of panic as it seemed to expel from her in a rush. As the footsteps descended, they got quieter and quieter until she heard them no more, and the crowd ahead fell into a lengthy whispering chatter.

Poor girl.

Even though the bound girl know the other had just as much of a clue as to what was going on as she, empathy seems to carve the words "I'm sorry," into her heart.

"Our next display is one that's going to be remarkably unique, and for many of you, memorable."

For some reason she furrowed her brows at the man's announcement.

What does he mean? She was curious if to what he was saying applied to her, though she was thoroughly aware she didn't want it to be. She didn't want him to depict an image in some person's head that may or may not describe her. But it was strikingly odd, she considered. She didn't know... She gulped, audibly. She didn't think she even knew what she looked like. It seemed impossible, utterly ridiculous. She was her. Yet the plateau of her face, the lines in her features, the arch and curves of her body - they all seemed unknown to her. She didn't even know what color her hair was, how her eyes were shaped, if she was decently attractive or horrifically ugly. The image of herself was fragmentary in her tangled thoughts, perhaps a bit of a picture there, a small image of her body here. But otherwise, it scared her to realize how foreign she was to herself. She didn't even know her name. And it terrified her that she may not be so foreign to those ahead of her soon. How were others to know her when even she did not?

Close, deathly close, she heard footsteps rounding a corner, as if they were motioned from some part of cue. They seemed to be marching at an eerily matched pace, the clunk clunk clunk of their heavy footsteps threatening in the background. Her heart leaped, drastically pounding against her chest, which wished to heave in relief, though she could not find relief in the darkness of her fears.

And soon, they are all about her, confusing in the inconsistency of their steps, of their now unsteady rhythm. Some stopped, some circled the frame of her cage, she gathered, making a ring with their unwanted noise.

No.

"She is quite our little diamond in the rough. A beautiful work of art, hung in a peeling, rotting museum," the man said. His voice was beginning to become annoyingly alarming, promising of extraordinary wonder to others, but a mysterious, chilling future for her.

Please, no.

But the bodies around her shuffled, their clothes crumpling in a bustle of movement, the floors squeaking beneath their weight. Something vibrated through the bars, shocking the metallic object as a whole, and within a gasp and a thump in her heart, something unsteady happened. She was lifted, along with her cage, from the ground, and startled to realize they were moving away from her cemented spot on the floor. The men, whoever they were, picked her up and made their way to showcase her character to anyone at all, for she did not know.

"She is such a petite woman, such a lovely item."

Her body slid minimally across the cage, her feet protesting with their brace against the shafts in front of her. It didn't get brighter as she was carried out, but stayed the same agonizing shade of black. Finally, after what seemed like a mile of being carried, her cage was set against the strong of the floor, and she stopped breathing. She wished she could will her heart to stop, so she wouldn't know the events that followed, but that was wistfully impossible. She could not run from that which held her so close. From that which knew more about her than she did herself.

Her hair brushed her open back, a chilling sense in the way she felt so openly raw.

Then there was a meddling at the back of her head, and a relentless pressure released its influence against her head, a silken streamer running the length of her eyes, unveiling her vision.

She could see. The bars in front of her were a dark gold, presumably because a vast dark sheet covered the entirety of the extensively large cage. She knew now why it took so many feet to carry her across the floor. She still could see nothing in front of her, no one being able to see her, though, either. She was relieved in the category of being hidden.

But it lasted but seconds more.

With a swift tug, faster than she wanted, the black sheet melted from the cage, disappearing off to the side, exposing the catastrophically massive arena strewn in row upon row before her, with one balcony above, covering the one below in shadows, and four smaller ones on each side of the walls around her. Every person wore a mask, as if they were attending a masquerade ball instead of a crime hall. The building was so impossibly large, so far stretched.

And every hidden eye was on the girl, herself.

"Ladies and gentleman, behold."

(O)+(O)+(O)

He saw her before she saw him.

Not miraculously, for the world stretched out before her and pooled in a sea around him. Every fiber of his being felt cheap and atrocious, the mere act of attending this illegal ballad sending shockwaves of disgust through his burning veins. Waves of sympathy for each woman rode his heart with the tide; though this was how Japan was. Women had no rights, no free will to choose a future. And it didn't help, no, didn't help at all that the Solar System administered these events every god damn month. He wished he weren't a part of the controlling organization, the companies that ran the entire world with their greed and power. It was also conspicuously unfortunate that the man that ran the most influential company in the world happened to hold the infamous title of his father.

Ikuto Tsukiyomi glowered at the stage, and not so much at the girl lying helplessly in the cage but at the man who stood not far, selling these women as if they were antiques or paintings. As if it were normal. He detested the chubby blob of fat, despite never meeting or knowing him; he didn't have to. If he could heartlessly earn a living doing this, then there was nothing to like. His "father" perched next to him, the capacity of his morale radiating off of him as if he were the sun himself, keeping the world functioning. Just as Ikuto loathed the man up stage, he despised the one next to him, too wrapped up in his power to release a weakness, to admit he was anything but the exact image of perfection: Kazoumi Hoshina.

Though the conceited man practically raised him, Ikuto hated him all the more. It was a battle every day just restraining his fists from making contact with his scowling face. Despite his undying revulsion, Ikuto had to hold everything inside of him, for he was to carry on after Kazoumi died; if the cranky bat ever did. Ikuto's interest for running the Solar System wasn't even close to being microscopically noticeable; he'd watch hell freeze over before he willingly took charge. But that was the thing; no will, no worries. He was to govern the system no matter any situation influenced, because Kazoumi said so. Because just as these women had no choice, he didn't either.

Which sickened Ikuto.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, crossing one leg over the other. He felt the itchy surface of his mask grind against his cheekbones, sliding up and down his nose, praying so bad he could rip the article from his face and leave the arena. Which also wasn't an option, though if the auction didn't end soon he'd surely have to amputate his compressed balls - only after strangling the man next to him, before drowning him in a lake. Then drowning himself. Then coming back to life to drown Kazoumi again.

As his eyes gazed up at the woman on stage, he had to admit: She was outstandingly beautiful, even if her frame looked delicate as glass, her poor honey eyes wide with the fear of what she didn't know was happening to her. She must have had the brightest hair in all of Japan - blush pink that shone adoringly in the heavy lights of the stage. Because his father so thoughtfully awarded them front row seats, Ikuto could clearly see every visible and invisible part of her body. She appeared as if she worked out a lot, the toned muscles in her legs drawing lines in her thighs and calves. They weren't too muscly it was gross, they were simply perfect, as was the rest of every feature she had to offer.

Ikuto had checked out girls before; it was just a normal male instinct. They were always thoroughly aware of the female species around them, whether they honestly liked it or not. But as he looked up at the trapped girl who resembled more of a caged bird than a human being, he felt something snap painfully in his heart. The reason she was there was because she was so beautiful, and that wasn't anything she could control.

She also couldn't control that she was the most dazzling woman Ikuto had ever laid eyes on, which was oddly putting it lightly.

Kazoumi noticed his movement, and turned to look at Ikuto through his black masked eyes, the same downward tilt to his thin, impassive lips.

"Well?" he asked, his tone low and dark. It must have been the fortieth time, and Ikuto was very much annoyed from being inquired by his 'father' whether he would take the pleasure in buying 'this one' or not. The next time, he swore, he would explode from annoyance.

"Well what?" Ikuto challenged, feigning lack of knowledge. He knew it was only a procrastination for a time, but couldn't hold it back. Any way to postpone the answer was a fair way.

"What about her?" Kazoumi said, though the stripping of patience was evident in the way his tone came off clipped and snappy. His eyes never veered from his son's.

And Ikuto felt them, hard, sharp, like daggers cutting the truth out of him. But Ikuto Tsukiyomi had no such weakness as to the threat of his father. "We don't need her," he responded, removing his eyes from their intense gaze. He looked back up at the girl on stage. Perhaps if they didn't buy her, no one would, and she would be set free. Of course, he'd had that thought throughout the entirety of the auction, and no such thing had happened. Every girl was very willingly purchased.

And this girl was sure to be trapped by someone, no matter the price, because he didn't think any other business man in their right mind would just let her sit there and not do a thing about it. Especially Sun Models. They would take haste to snatch her up, just like they did with the previous beauty one year ago, Utau. He had seen her prior to the beginning of the auction, clothed in a very flaunty red Victorian dress, with a scarlet mask to match, hiding her lavender deep eyes. She had probably attempted capturing his attention, but all he could focus on was the sickness boiling in the pit of his stomach.

"That's what you've said about every other woman," Kazoumi said, obviously trying very hard to keep his patience at a stand still in order to not lose the rest of his rational mind.

Ikuto's eyes grew slimmer as he inwardly addressed the old man with them. "And that's what I'm saying about her," he dead-panned. Through his long, dark lashes, he could still see the racing eyes of the poor girl, her body surprisingly still, unlike all the other shaking figures they'd seen previously.

"Even a beauty before born," announced the auctioneer, his voice projective and probing. "She is the crowned jewel of tonight's auction."

Ikuto couldn't help but discreetly clutch the arms of his chair with a brutal might, feeling the blood reel from his knuckles until they turned ghost white. His entire body must have tensed, because Kazoumi, as always, had to say something.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, only turning his eyes. He was so maddeningly professional and uncaring like that, never letting up his dominant demeanor.

"Nothing," Ikuto snapped, too quickly. In that moment he knew his father caught on, but didn't pay much heed. His mind tangled with the thirty different outcomes to every situation in the acclaimed auction house. Which was, in reality, a run down opera house, old and Victorian in its build.

Kazoumi straightened his posture even more. "Then why are you so tense, Ikuto? Let go of the arms of your chair," he commanded, and that's when Ikuto happened to realize how harsh he'd been holding on.

He did. "I'm just restless, is all," was his reply.

"Really?" Kazoumi said, a slight, slight octave raise in his voice. "Why so restless?" His eyes were alight with the interest he thought Ikuto had, and Ikuto himself knew that. "Do you want her?" he repeated, finally showing a hint of human emotion; delight. He thought Ikuto wanted to buy Amu, thought he viewed her as something they just had to have, even after his earlier declaration.

Ikuto clenched his jaw, though it was barely noticeable in the drab lighting of the crowd. "It's occurred to me that you've taken greater interest in her than I have," he said through his teeth. Any moment his temper would snap like a twig. "Perhaps you should buy her," he ground out, straining with the effort to play along in Kazoumi's sick game.

"As always, her name is unknown until he who claims her, names her." It rang around the arena in vast ripples.

"Me? What use could I have for her?" Kazoumi began, a smirk tugging the corner of his lips, which Ikuto found painfully grotesque. "You would have a far better value for her. Wouldn't you like some entertainment until you find a wife and birth a child?"

Ikuto's stomach roared. "I don't want to buy her," he stated, as if it was the only declaration he'd been making the entire auction. He didn't want to buy anyone. Why could Kazoumi not tell how positively wrong this was?

"If you don't, someone else will."

As if, miraculously, he hadn't already guess that.

The auctioneer began his usual spiel with the description, as if he himself had crafted each woman and pinned her for greatness.

Ikuto was restless, far more than he let on. These auction's made his entire body twitch with fitful unease, made his breath seep shallowly, made his heart clap nervously against his chest. He felt so wholly useless, with the way he watched this play out, how he couldn't, didn't do a single damn thing about it. If he tried, the Lord up in heaven wouldn't even know what would follow those actions.

His father was the most influential man in the world, of everything beyond that; how could Ikuto take a stand to break that castle down?

No, he thought. Not his father. His perpetual demise. His actual father...

"And for her, we shall start the bidding..." the man paused, a grin stringing along his lips, which Ikuto wished to seal endlessly. "At one hundred and fifty thousand dollars," he finished, his superiority flaming his ego. He must have felt so remarkable, such a King to his expendable throne.

There was only seconds of gasps, wisps of shocked air expelling from a thousand lungs. Ikuto himself had to gulp down the ever growing lump in the pit of his throat.

A symphony of prices rang out, each person's melodic chime like music to the auctioneer's ears. Too many voices splashed against the walls, crashing into each other as they rode a sea of dollar signs to the foot of the stage. It was impossibly incomprehensible, a loud thundering clap of screams echoing through the cavernous building, so full to bursting with the unstoppable mantra beating against the ceiling, the walls, and every single insignificant space in between. Ikuto bit his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw contracting together, his fingers wrapping back around the side of the chair. It was always this loud, this awfully active when they went to bid. He felt his eardrums vibrate against the present cacophony.

Beside him, Kazoumi smirked, his demeanor washing over Ikuto, a penetrating strike to his thoughts.

"What will you do, Ikuto?" he said, his tone darkly delightful. He hadn't even presented much of a choice for the younger man beside him. Ikuto mulled the many ways he could begin his death over in his head. But nothing... None of those ways could save that girl on stage from her fate.

Unless...

"Seven hundred eighty thousand dollars!"

"Eight hundred thousand dollars!"

"Eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars!"

The man upon the stage waited, drinking in the prices ravenously. He patiently awaited the highest one.

"What will you do," Kazoumi repeated, more to himself than for Ikuto to catch. But he did. And Ikuto, who would hate himself more in the next seconds than he would ever be able to hate anything in the rest of his life, for as long as his heart beat, inhaled a brisk, shaky breath, feeling his lungs rattle nervously, his voice coming but halting in his throat.

If he could save one girl, then perhaps he wouldn't feel so useless to himself. If he could just...

His lips parted, a small seam. His mouth opened. His eyes washed over the girl in the cage, the way her character shrank to its nonexistent corners. His voice arose. His thoughts cleared, for a mere second. Long enough for him to make a choice. A choice for both of them, despite he would probably never know what it was she so desired.

With a confident step, Ikuto stood from his position in the chair, lifting himself up by its arms. His eyes were slit, black beneath his midnight blue mask. Stray strands straddled from his cobalt locks, dancing in his vision. He raised his chin mightily.

For Tsukiyomi Ikuto, it was his choice. He chose it himself. The only time he would ever be able to do so.

"One million dollars," he said, and his deep voice, which could challenge the depths of the ocean, washed over everything else. Everyone stopped their hollers, their shrieks. The noise resounded deafeningly quiet around him. He didn't have to bellow it, didn't have to let it tear from his throat. It didn't matter, because everyone could hear it. Everyone could hear that the usually silent Ikuto Tsukiyomi threw out his bid to the man on stage, for the first, and hopefully, only time.

Behind him, he could hear Kazoumi's breathy chuckle, evil lacing the rare sound. Ikuto's eyes slit further as he glared up at Mr. Hotori, the infamous father of Tadase Hotori, who was and probably always would be the one to betray so many helpless woman up on that stage.

Mr. Hotori's eyes danced alight, his lips pulling back into a slow, mischievous smile. The lights that rained down cast haunting shadows across his features.

"One million dollars?" he repeated, as if he needed to check what his ears had heard was indeed correct. For as long as he could, Ikuto didn't dare look at the still girl in the cage. He knew what she would be looking at him with; that expression of fear and disgust and hatred in every woman's eyes. He never thought he'd have to be looked at like that.

Mr. Hotori began his sphinx-like walk across the stage, that same grin playing at his lips. "Hmm..." he hummed, seemingly thinking something intricate over in his head. Finally, he stopped walking, and turned to face the audience, which had hushed to a deathly quiet, save for everybody's shocked murmurs.

"Going once?" he said, holding up his chubby index finger. The voices rose, but nobody dared speak up. "Going twice?" His middle finger raised to stand aside the other. Again, Ikuto was alone, standing in an ocean of whispers and decisions. He stood strong and tall, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He didn't dare look away. Couldn't bring himself to.

Mr. Hotori's smile was diabolical. "Sold."

Every single person in the massive arena burst into a rapid response, their chatter noticeably audible. He knew what they were talking about.

At the last moment, when he couldn't stand glaring into the eyes of Mr. Hotori anymore, he finally let them drift to the woman, tied and bound into an exposed ball in the cage. And to his surprise, she happened to be looking, too. Directly.

At.

Him.

Her eyes were wide, but they were not afraid. The expected fear had washed away when she found his darkened eyes and gazed into them, her body very still, her breath shallow underneath her pearl white outfit. Her lips were plump and pink, a small part in the middle where she allowed the inhale of air. She looked at him with a hesitant curiosity, an expression that showed she knew less than what she could be afraid of. Perhaps she had been expecting someone different. Someone older, or someone wider, or someone that just wasn't him. He couldn't tell what was happening in that locked head of hers, but he couldn't tell what was even happening in his own.

He felt so claustrophobic all of a sudden.

He couldn't stand being so overwhelmed, breathing in the same air as every single person in the same room. He needed to leave.

So, on a burst of confidence and lack of patience for this whole spiel, Ikuto stole in the direction of the nearest exit, and burst through.

The only sound behind him was the insistent chatter of thousands of gossiping voices.

Woot! First chapter out of the way! Please tell me what you think c:

I know not a lot was explained in this chapter as to what exactly the Solar System is, but it will all be delved into later. It will be progressive. If you have any questions, PM me or leave it in your review and I will answer it in the next chapter, if you do so wish for me to continue.

And yes, for those of you who were wondering; In the first part before Ikuto's point of view, that IS Amu. She doesn't exactly know who she is, and you will learn why.

Review until next time~