I found myself walking down a dark, grim hallway. I heard murmured voices and felt ice-cold stares as I proceeded onward further down the hallway to my unknown destination. Then, suddenly, as if on cue, the crowds of kids whom where on either side of me all felt to down to the hard tile floor with a loud "thump!" I tried to call for help but my voice failed me. I attempted to move from my spot and run to get a teacher or some other authority figure that could help out the other students but the second I started to run the ground shook violently and I ended up hitting the floor, face first. I could feel the tears build up in my eyes before they spilled over from the pain of my new injury. I genteelly ran my right hand over my nose before pulling away but instead of the blood I was expecting to see smeared on my hand, there was this eerily, purple dust or energy in it's place. I stared at the strange substance on my hand for a moment, feeling both confused and curious at the same time.
"What…is this?" I asked myself timidly, surprised that my voice had returned but even so, my voice was shaking with every word.
I did a quick scan of my surroundings and was shocked to find that all the comatose bodies that had lying, strewn out across the hall way had vanished. In fact, I wasn't even in the creepy hallway anymore. This place was very bright and had a strange, warm inviting light emanating from it. There where many beautiful, fragrant, flowers in this room. It was like a greenhouse except it was much, much more elaborate from the ones I've been in before. There was a huge fountain near the entrance where I stood and as I walked around it to further explore the enchanting, castle of a green house I noticed that I was not alone. Just up ahead of me, where three small steps that led upwards towards a small, white, tea table and at the table there where six people. I couldn't make out any of their facial features because their entire figures where very blurry and distorted. I absent-mindedly waved to the group and then, one of the girls who was seated at the table, rose up from her seat and turned to face me. I could see a big, friendly smile even though the rest of her face came out as a tan colored blob. The girl had her hair styled in two small pigtails and had two big red bows tied around each pigtail to keep her hair in place.
"Come on Mayu-chi! Hurry! Hurry!"
Mayu…chi? How does this girl know my name? Where is this place?
XxXxX
"Mayu!"
I slowly opened my bright green eyes and took a quick glance to my right then to my left.
"Mom..?" I said groggily, my mind still in a haze from the strange dream that I had just been awoken from. I noticed I was in the car and then I felt my entire body tense in fear and panic.
"It's about time you woke up! Yukio has been trying to wake you for over fifteen minutes! Both of you better hurry or you're going to be late for your first day!"
I looked over to the passengers seat of the car and sure enough there was my brother, he looked like he was in one of his "I'm gonna try to piss off my little sister" moods. My annoying twin brother Yukio shot me an evil smirk before unbuckling his seat belt, flinging the car door open and practically sprinting out of the car.
"Oh! And don't forget! Your father and I will both me working late so-!"
I didn't hear the rest of what mom had to say and I couldn't really care less at this point. I had sprinted out of the car after my brother, and the two of us made a mad dash for our first class. You see, today was the day that my brother and I were going to start our first day at a new school, a fancy, famous, academy school. The last thing I wanted was to be late to class and get a bad rap on the very first day.
XxXxX
Ten minutes had passed since Yukio and I had entered the school building and the second bell had already chimed, I was starting to lose my cool while Yukio remained completely calm and composed.
I glance around nervously and tugged on my total oblivious brother's sleeve, stretching out his uniform a tiny bit.
He looked down at me, annoyance etched into every pore of his face. Poor Yukio, the dude definitely wasn't a morning person.
He heaved a big sigh and tried to glare at me. "What is it now?"
"What class are we in…?"I asked timidly, afraid he would snap at me and cause a scene.
Usually, I was the one who acted like the older, more responsible sibling but ever since I started having these strange dreams I've gotten absolutely no sleep or, if I did manage to fall asleep, I would either have nightmares or wake up at odd hours of the night. Whenever I did have the nightmares, I would wake up in a cold sweat with tears streaming down my face and a very sore throat. My best guess was that I would yell and scream in my sleep because Yukio and Mom would always have these huge bags under there eyes when morning came around.
"One sec" Yukio said as he moved his brown messenger bag from his shoulder and un- clipped the locks, opening the bag. He stuck his free hand inside and pulled out an official looking document with our parents signatures scribbled on the bottom, it was his transfer form.
"Well, it says that we're in the sixth grade star class. It's somewhere in the east wing."
I pouted and crossed my arms. "Okay, so where are we now?"
He grinned sheepishly which gave me the idea that he had been walking around in circles for the last ten minutes with no intention to even go to class.
Without warning, I decided to haul off and kick him in the shin. I smirked evilly as I saw his pained expression.That's what he gets for getting the both of us into this mess. Stupid jerk.
"OWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!" he screamed in pain and hopped around holding his shin while managing to murmur a few choice curse words under his breath.
"Mayu! What the hell was that for!?"
"For being an idiot. I'm gonna try to find the class on my own." I answered bluntly as I turned away and walked down the hall, leaving my stupid brother to wallow in all his stupid-ness.
XxXxX
Another fifteen minutes had past before I had finally found out where the east wing of the academy was. I wasn't too sure if leaving Yukio was one of my brightest ideas because now I was going to have to stand up in front of the entire class and introduce myself, all alone. I always get really nervous and self-conscious around new people so I was sure that I would find some way to screw up my first impression, if being late wasn't already enough to make the teacher and students think I was some kind of "rebel girl"
I kept inspecting each sign very carefully in hopes of finding the sixth grade star class when something very unusual caught my attention.
A door to one of the classrooms a little further down from where I was standing flung open and a girl with bright pink hair and amber colored eyes sprinted past me and down the hall almost running into me in the process. I was about to tell her to watch where she was going but then I noticed that the girl had three small, strange, human like creatures floating around her head.
I rubbed my eyes in disbelief. "There was just no way was there? Could this girl have some sort of magical abilities?" I thought to myself excitedly. I had been a strong believer in magic ever since I was little and was thrilled to be able for the chance the see it first hand!
I eagerly ran after the pink haired girl and her magical fairy like companions but made sure to be as sneaky and ninja like as I could to avoid being caught by any hall monitors, teachers, or, of course, the pink-headed girl. I had managed to follow her out into some sort of courtyard before I decided to take cover in a near by bush.
Did I mention it was a rose bush? Yeah, that was probably my worst idea ever, but hey, if it avoided me getting caught then I guess a few minor cuts were no biggie.
I watched anxiously from my spot in the rose bush as the girl and her fairies came to an abrupt stop and looked around the area cautiously.
She turned her head to talk to one of the fairies after making sure the coast was clear. This fairy had dark pink hair that was styled up into a side ponytail and bright pink eyes. She wore a visor and had a heart shaped accessory that held her ponytail in place. Her outfit was like that of an American style cheerleader it was a pale pinkish color with a red line running across the bottom of her dress. A red scarf and red sneakers completed her preppy look.
"Ran, you said you sensed a presence around here didn't you?" The girl questioned while franticly turning her head in random directions, searching for something.
The pink fairy, Ran, nodded hesitantly, she wore a worried expression and it seemed like she was afraid to be scolded by the girl. The other two fairies, one resembling that of a painter or artist and the other resembling a maid both turned their attention upward, surprised.
"Useless…"
I turned my attention upward to see a charcoal black egg with a large white X on it floating high above the four of them creepily. I felt a strange rush of adrenaline surge through my body. This egg was identical to the ones I would see in my nightmares and now that I thought about it, the girl was very familiar as well; she frequently appeared in the nightmares except instead of causing chaos she would always end up purifying the strange, evil, eggs.
I was brought back into reality from my freaky deja vu spell when I heard the girl shout:
"My own heart! Unlock!"
I watched in awe as both the girl and the pink fairy, Ran, became enveloped in a strange pink light. The light was so dazzlingly bright however, that I had to close my eyes and when the light had faded and I opened my eyes the pink fairy had disappeared and only the artist and the maid remained. The pink haired girl was also nowhere to be seen.
"Where'd they go? I only had my eyes closed for one second! Did they use a teleportation technique? Or maybe it was super human speed?"
I slowly kept out of the rose bush and dusted off the dirt and dead leaves from my school uniform and looked down at my legs. I winced when I noticed that they had some pretty nasty scratches from the thorns.
"I'm a mess.." I muttered under my breath before taking a long, exaggerated sigh.
I glanced upwards and saw the girl again this time she was clad in a similar outfit as Ran. She along with the two remaining fairies where flying high in the air as they chased after the evil looking egg who was quickly darting around just meters from their grasp.
"Heart Speeders!" The girl yelled and seconds after her red running sneakers where replaced with winged roller blades. She dashed through the air with impressive speed and then used another magic attack.
"Heart Rod!" This time a pink baton with a red heart on each end of it appeared out of thin air. She spun the baton in a circular motion above her head and yelled out yet another attack.
"Spiral Heart Special!" she threw the baton towards the egg and it circled around it, parlaying it with some sort of pink magical energy.
"Amu! Now!" The blue painter and the green maid yelled in unison.
She nodded and formed her hands into a heart shape extending her arms away from her body.
"Negative Heart! Lock on!"
Once again the sky was filled with a bright, blinding pink light and I had to force myself to look away.
"Open Heart!"
A harsh wind picked up and whipped my dark wavy hair in random directions causing my hair clip and hair scrunches to fly off and ruin my side ponytail. I let out a scream, afraid that I would end up losing my footing and injure myself. When the wind had subsided I opened my eyes slightly and saw that the girl had returned back to her original form and Ran had also re-appeared. She must have heard my scream because she and her fairies were running towards me, worried. I stared at them in disbelief, blinking my eyes rapidly.
"What was that just now?" I asked her excitedly a big smile tugging at my lips.
The girl suddenly seemed drained of all energy. Her amber eyes grew wide and her face paled.
"Y-You saw that..?" she asked, stuttering and slurring her words.
"Yeah! You where really cool!" I complemented happily. I wasn't usually this chipper unless I knew someone really well. It surprised me but I brushed it aside and waited eagerly for her to explain to me what had just happened.
She looked terrified. "D-did you see all of it?" she managed to choke out.
I nodded my head.
She just stood there, trying to process what I had just told her. Letting out a long sigh, she started to pace back and forth in front of me and tug on strands of her bright pink hair.
She looked to her fairy companions, hoping they could give her advice before quickly glancing over her shoulder to look at me again.
Ran floated up next to her and smiled.
"Just tell her the truth Amu-Chan! Everything will be fine if you're honest with her!"
"I agree~ desu!" the green maid like fairy added in happily as she floated over beside Ran.
"I'm pretty sure that Tadase and the other Guardians wouldn't mind too much Amu. Besides, there's no way we can cover it up with the whole " It's cosplay!" excuse this time. Just tell her the truth." The blue painter like fairy said bluntly as she floated over to the others.
"I- I don't know about this you guys… are you sure it's a good idea to tell ordinary people about Guardian Characters?"
She quickly slapped both of her hands over her mouth causing her Guardian Characters to giggle.
I cautiously walked over to where Amu was and tapped her gently on the shoulder to get her attention.
"Um excuse me, Amu?" I said in a voice no louder than a whisper." What are Guardian Characters? Are they these fairy- like people with you?" I asked her, overwhelming curiosity lacing my voice.
Amu turned back around to face me and both she and her guardian characters looked stunned.
"You can see them?" Amu asked me, bewildered. She pointed her towards Ran and her other two characters.
"Yeah. Is that a bad thing?" I questioned nervously. I was afraid she would get mad at me or something because she seemed to be so spastic and un-predictable. This girl sure knew how to make one heck of an impression that I knew for sure.
"Well..no." She started off hesitantly, a look of sympathy mixed with worry on her face." It's just that..normal people shouldn't be able to see guardians."
"Normal people can't see guardian characters? I'm not normal? Is something wrong with me?" I thought to myself puzzled. I was just about to open my mouth to ask Amu another barrage of questions when she cut me off.
"You should come by the Royal Garden after school today- um.." She trailed off suddenly and then looked at me, her cheeks were a very light tint of pink.
I smiled and let out a small laugh at her embarrassment "My names Sakurai Mayu and yours is Amu I'm guessing..?" I gestured towards her characters. "When you where talking to them before I heard one of your characters call you Amu-Chan so I just kinda assumed that was your name. Was I right?"
Amu nodded "Yeah my names Hinamori Amu." She glanced over at her characters and smiled. "And these three are my characters Ran, Miki and Suu" She pointed to each character accordingly.
Miki, the painter like chara of the group made a note pad and pencil appear in front of her using her magical abilities. She scribbled furiously on the small sheet of paper and then handed it to Amu making a quick hand gesture to hand it over to me, which she did.
"Here, these are the directions to the Royal Garden. Miki added a sketch so you wouldn't get lost." Amu paused for a second as she thought something over "Hey, Are you new here Sakurai-san? I don't think I've seen you here before now that I think 'bout it."
"Yeah, I'm new. My family and I moved here the other day because of my Dad's job. He got transferred to another sector or something."
"What grade are you in? Maybe I can gather the rest of my friends and we can show you around during the lunch break." She offered with a smile. "I know how tough it can be on your first day 'cause I was the new kid too at one point."
"I'm in the sixth grade star class apparently. Do you know where that is, Hinamori-san?" I reached into my brown messenger bag that came with the schools uniform and pulled out my transfer papers, showing them to my new pink haired friend.
"Oh! Your in my class-" Amu cut off and then a look of undesirable dread crept up onto her now frantic face. I looked over to her characters and saw the same expression mirrored on each of their small faces. Then I finally was able to realize it. I slowly turned my head back in the direction of Amu and then glanced down at my legs and arms, wincing again when I saw the cuts on my limbs.
"What are we going to do, Hinamori-san? I can't let the other kids see me like this on my first day! I'm a mess! And your teachers are probably wondering why you're taking such a long time in the washroom! What are we gonna do? It's way to embarrassing!" I shouted at her as I started to panic along side her characters.
"Wait! Miki, Suu!" Miki and Suu upon hearing their names stopped and floated over to Amu. They seemed very chipper all of the sudden.
Amu whispered orders to the two of them and then Miki floated over beside me.
Miki made a sketch book and pencil appear again using her magic and then started to scribble down what I assumed was a sketch of me because she would glance up from her drawing often to take a look at me before turning back to her work.
Suu on the other hand had 'fused' herself with Amu like Ran had done a few minutes before. The two of them had decided to do a character 'fusion' in the schools abandoned observatory thinking that no one would find them there and I followed them without asking any questions.
Once the transformation between the two of them had ended Amu was dressed in a green, poofy, maid outfit. Her hair was tied in two pigtails with white bows holding them in place. While I was looking at the new outfit I noticed that the pendant that Amu had been wearing was now radiating a bright green light and then I thought back to a little earlier that morning when she had transformed with Ran. Back then, during the transformation, the light had been pink and afterwards the pendant had been radiating a pink light instead of a green one. I came to the conclusion that in order for her to transform with her characters she needed to use her pendant. Then I wondered if anybody else had characters like Amu did. Surely, she and her friends must have some, that made sense didn't it? Why else would she want to introduce me to her friends and tell all of them that I could see characters?
"Sakurai-san, this isn't going to hurt alright? Suu and I are just going to get rid of all those gashes you have." I nodded nervously. Usually doctors tell there patients that whatever procedure they are about to perform on your body won't hurt a bit, but at least half of the time it always does. Amu gave me a small sympathetic smile. "Trust me; it'll just take a second. Make sure you stand really still okay?" I nodded again, this time, a little more relaxed.
Amu distanced her self from me and raised her arm upwards towards the ceiling, there was a small poof of magic and then a whisk fell into Amu's hand. She flew up high above me and then shouted in a rather happy tone of voice: "Remake Honey!"
A shinning burst of some sort of magical honey was released from the whisk that she held in her hands and it rushed towards me, engulfing me within it. I quickly shut my eyes, afraid that the magical honey may sting if it got into my eyes.
Instead of a stinging sensation, a strange, invigorating tingle spread throughout my entire body when the magical substance practically consumed my being. I could feel my wounds healing themselves with the help of Amu and Suu's power. The strange honey that covered me from head to toe was not sticky or thick. It was translucent and tasteless and surprisingly I was able to breath perfectly well while it was bathing me in its magical powers. When the tingling sensation had stopped I slowly opened my eyes to find a quite surprising sight.
Amu and the characters had gathered around me looking as if a miracle had occurred. Amu's face had paled for the second time that day and her mouth was hanging wide open. Ran, Suu and Miki had mimicked her expression and Miki had even dropped her sketch book in shock.
I opened my mouth to question them but Amu silenced me with her right hand and then pointed towards my stomach with the other. I slowly moved my head downwards to see just was so fascinating about my belly but when I finally saw what Amu and the characters had been so shocked about I completely understood.
My arms where extended and in my hands there was an egg. The egg was very intriguing; on its shell it had a very girly design. The egg was a soft pastel shade of pink and on each of its ends it had a chubby yellow star. On the middle of the egg it had a bright red heart with cute white wings coming out of each side of it and in the center of the heart there was a small white eighth note.
I was so thrilled about this new egg. I couldn't stop my self from letting out a shrill, spastic scream of joy. I brought the egg close to my face and caressed it lovingly and then let out a small gasp in surprise. I slowly looked away from my egg and over towards Amu, Ran, Miki and Suu.
Amu looked at me in excitement along with her three little guardians upon taking notice of what had just occurred.
I let out another scream, this time jumping up and down while holding my egg carefully in my hands.
"It just moved! My egg just moved!" I cheered happily as I smiled down at my little egg.
In all the excitement however, Amu and I had forgotten one very crucial thing.
Class
I quickly slipped my egg into one of the pockets of my school uniform shirt and grabbed Amu's wrist before I practically dragged her along with me back to class, her characters following close behind.
End of Chapter 1
I hope everybody enjoyed the first chapter! This is only the second story that I've ever written so hopefully it isn't too bad. Please, don't write negative comments in the review section. If you dislike my writing style than just don't comment, thank you!
I need to think of a title. Any ideas you guys? XD;;
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