DOATEC High: Chapter 1
:Beginnings:
"Let's see now... Straight down this street, left here and left again at the crossroad."
A gentle summer breeze blew through the mostly unoccupied streets of Kawasaka, the occasional pedestrian wandering around viewing the scenery or chatting away with friends while they cheerily spend their morning walking to wherever they needed to go. The sides of the roads lined with equally spaced cherry blossoms that delicately swayed in the wind, dropping a mass of pink petals that almost made the area look like a soft, pink, summer blizzard.
With a gentle movement to brush her short black and red hair from her face, the lone girl looked down at the small scrap of paper in her other hand with basic directions scrawled on it. She furrowed her brow in concentration as she studied them carefully, checking to make sure she hadn't made any mistakes on her walk. With a heavy and exasperated sigh the girl looked around for some kind of indication that she was going the right way, an older looking man brushing the cherry blossom petals from his house's pathway seemed like the best bet and with a slight skip in her step she headed over to ask.
"Hey, old geezer! Can you help me out?"
The man looked up from his sweeping with a confused frown and adjusted his glasses as he saw the girl making her way to his garden fence, holding out her paper towards him she waved her arm around towards him.
"I'm looking for this place but I don't know the area, could you tell me which way it is?"
With a slight grumble and another adjusting of his glasses, the man looked carefully at the paper once the girl had stopped moving it.
"Hmm... so you're looking for the new academy? You're not too far off, pretty damn close actually."
The girl gave him a skeptical look but nodded.
"So you can tell me the way?"
She said with a slight smile and a spring in her posture, the man's eyes pulled themselves away from the bounce in her chest and he nodded with a smirk on his face. He turned and pointed towards the road behind his house.
"Follow that road all the way up the hill, the academy will be right in front of you."
With that he turned back to the girl and nodded again, she was already looking up at the hill with determination in her eyes.
"Alright then, I'll get up there in two minutes or my name isn't Mila."
Six and a half minutes later Mila reached the top of the hill panting, stopping by a nearby wall to catch her breath she looked back at the long trek while she wiped the sweat from her forehead.
"Wow... that was a lot bigger than it looked from down there."
Mila turned away from the hill and lifted her gaze to the structure at the top, looking at it now she wondered how she had missed it from anywhere in the town. It was a huge building built around a large, pagoda type tower standing tall in the middle with the biggest cherry blossoms in the town surrounding it. The complex around the tower, while still in the traditional Japanese style, were a little more modern looking and stretched a good thirty to forty five feet in every direction around the tower with the exception of a large courtyard behind the front gates. Mila took a few minutes while recovering from the practical mountain climb, to look over as much as she could see from behind the outer walls.
Once she was ready, Mila stretched her arms up above her head and made her way towards the gate, raising her arm and knocking loudly as she approached. The sound of giggling behind her caught the girl's attention and she span around, spotting the small group of girls walking towards the gate with snide smiles on their faces. The group neared the far side of the gate she stood near and turned to face her, the three girls looking her over like a predator would look at its prey.
"Hi there, what's up girls?"
Mila gave a nervous chuckle as she spoke. The group were clearly from the academy as shown by the uniforms they were wearing, Mila was wearing the same uniform though hers was in somewhat less order than theirs. The trio was wearing much longer skirts than her, making her feel slightly exposed as she looked down at the green, plaid material that stopped a good six inches above her knees. They seemed to be all wearing different blazers, one was black like her own, another was a light brown and the last was a dark blue.
Mila had actually taken her blazer off and stuffed it into her bag about half way up the hill, the white button-up shirt she wore underneath had been opened down to the third button and her necktie hung loosely from her slender neck. She was definitely regretting wearing her black bra today as the sweat from the trek showed it off quite clearly underneath. She figured that it was her sloppy appearance that these girls were giggling about, after all this was a very high strung school.
"Look at this girls." The tallest of the trio spoke up, her blonde hair tied into a high ponytail didn't really match the ugly sneer she had on her face. "A stray dog has made its way to the school grounds."
The other two girls snickered along with the first which made their target frown fiercly.
"Ooh, watch out girls, we're making the bitch angry."
The group snickered amongst themselves again while Mila clenched her fist tightly, trying her best to restrain herself. She didn't want to get herself expelled from a school she hadn't even entered yet. Turning away from the girls she looked around the gate for some kind of bell or intercom, it wasn't long before she turned back as the tall girl's taunting had only gotten worse.
"Go on you scruffy mutt, go find some alleyway to sleep in."
That was as much as Mila could take. Holding the same fist, she span around with it raised high and watched the girls' expressions drop as she threw herself forward with a punch aimed straight at the blonde's face. Staring at the ground rather than her target, Mila watched the droplets of sweat drip from her hot face. It was a few seconds before she realized that she couldn't move her fist, not forward nor back.
She raised her head and stared for a moment at the blonde girl, the other two had moved to cower behind her and her face was pale with surprise and fear. Then Mila noticed the hand holding tight to her wrist. The grip on her arm was strong, her eyes followed the arm holding hers and looked up at the girl who had stopped her just in time. Her bright blue eyes glared at the trio that had been teasing Mila, she was clearly angry but her gaze showed a gentle nature behind it.
"Don't you think you've gone too far Jessica?"
The new girl spoke up as the blonde started to return to her senses, Jessica gave the girl a glare of her own.
"Mind your own business Hitomi, nobody asked you to butt in."
Hitomi simply gave her a smirk as she released Mila's arm.
"If I hadn't, the new girl would have broken you across the sidewalk."
Jessica went silent and gave her attacker a look of disgust, Mila's brow was still low with a heavy frown as the trio began to move away towards the side of the gate. As it turned out the intercom Mila had been looking for was on that side and with a press of a button and her name, a smaller door opened for Jessica and her pair of lackeys. With another sneer at the new girl, Jessica disappeared inside the gate.
"Whew, you sure have a temper on you. You gotta learn to let all that petty stuff go."
Mila looked up at Hitomi curiously, the heavy glare had totally vanished and her entire face was bright and happy as she spoke. Her chestnut hair reached down to her ample chest and mid-back and framed her face nicely. She was wearing the same light brown blazer as Jessica with a skirt that hung just above her knees, the pink hairband she wore didn't seem to be doing much other than just looking pretty.
She practically bounced up closer with eyes sparkling with curiosity, causing Mila to lean back slighly in surprise.
"What.. are you doing?"
she asked as she tried to figure this strange girl out.
"Well, I guess you know my name now, what's yours?"
Hitomi seemed to only become more bouncy as she spoke, simply continuing to stare at the new girl with apparent endless excitement.
"Um... Mila. You can call me Mila."
That response was the only thing the brunette needed as she grabbed Mila's hand and raised it high, turning towards the gates with a big smile on her face.
"Well then Mila, let me be the first to welcome you to DOATEC High school!"
Mila couldn't tell why Hitomi was yelling this for anyone to hear, but she couldn't help but give a little smile at such a warm welcome.
"Th-thanks."