Satoshi slammed open the door to his apartment and nearly cracked the wall in his anger. He held a pale hand up to his temple and cursed his police team, his life, everything…ran to the bathroom, threw up----the stomach virus was coming around----and toppled on the bed.

Incompetent police team. Those idiots couldn't catch Dark, couldn't catch him even if he was bound, gagged, and blindfolded with a broken leg. Satoshi hated to admit it, but he was never going to succeed with the team he had now.

He needed help. And not from the police chief, either. His "experts" always got knocked out by the Phantom Thief, ignored Satoshi when he called for help, and ran away gibbering about security alarms that went off ten minutes too late when it was their fault the arrest hadn't happened. They never considered listening to commands.

They couldn't even obey simple instructions. In his bed, Satoshi sighed. Only one choice existed now, if Satoshi ever wanted to capture Dark. Even though what he was about to do was beyond thinking, he reached for the cell phone.

He was going to ask his father for a favor.

6:30 PM. Airport terminal in London.

"Ughh…" an Asian girl with a low ponytail and a voice hoarse from habit groaned. She looked down at the other Chinese girl kneeling nearby. "Brittney, are we about to go?"

Brittney looked up irritably. She was having a Bad Day. She'd woken up with a headache, the icy wind was freezing her to death, and her hair was flying everywhere.

"Asians Rock", her shirt said, but at the moment, neither Brittney nor her classmate Jennifer-of-the-Low-Ponytail felt very Asian. They felt dead.

"Where's Ashley?" Brittney asked, squinting upward.

Just then, a joyful, exuberant, voluptuous blond girl in a furry jacket bounded up to them, her purse swinging hard enough to accidentally knock out a nearby photographer.

"We lost the nerds," she said happily. A military-type man with a thick moustache and a shaved head marched up behind her. "But Mr. Hunt says we don't have enough time to go looking for them."

Brittney looked around. "By that, do you mean we lost everyone but us?"

Ashley nodded gleefully, her glasses sliding up and down her nose. Behind her, the army general glowered. "Awesome," said Brittney, and turned to the beefy military man. "So our entire class, excluding the four of us, has gotten lost somewhere in downtown?"

The ex-sergeant (he was a social studies teacher now) gave her a beady glare and started barking out orders that sent everyone scrambling. "What, you expect me to go looking for them? We got an assignment from Central and we're not stopping for a bunch of lost kids. We can come back for them later, unfortunately----GET YOUR BUTT OUT OF THE SNOW, YOUNG LADY, AND DROP AND GIVE ME TWENTY FOR THAT DESRESPECTABLE GESTURE YOU JUST MADE!"

"Sheesh…" Brittney muttered.

"YOU CALL THOSE PUSH-UPS? MY GRANDMA CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT! And YOU! Tuck in your shirt! Get moving, you lot, we're due in Azumano at 1300 hours! THAT WASN'T TWENTY-----! Oh, look, the bus is here."

"This is what our life has become," Brittney moaned.

Jennifer gaped at their Social Studies teacher as he ran to confer with the bus driver. "Did he say Azumano?"

"Where's that?" Ashley asked, getting Brittney's luggage for her.

"Ohmigod," Jennifer said, really fast.

Brittney moaned again. "When he first told us that we were going on a field trip traveling around the world I thought it would be exciting. Not waiting in airports for forever. Not going to some unknown rural town in Latin America."

The sergeant had motioned for Jennifer to start getting her luggage on the bus. "Latin America? We're not going to Latin America," she said before she was out of earshot.

"Where are we going, then?" Ashley asked, helping Brittney trudge toward their teacher's choice of transportation.

Suddenly, Mr. Hunt turned and growled at them. "Get on the bus. Hurry. Don't give me that look, we're on police time now."

Jennifer and Ashley immediately loaded up and got in.

Brittney had to be shoved in the back, but not before she noticed something. "This bus has no license plate!"

The sergeant's smile in the dark was creepy. "You three are the only ones to help me, huh?"

Jennifer and Ashley edged away from him as the bus revved up and began moving.

"Help you with what?" Ashley asked, watching the tire prints out back being erased by newly falling snow.

"To capture a criminal who's been stealing precious works of art from various museums."

Jennifer promised herself she would not scream.

"Sounds boring," Brittney said, and fell asleep.

--------------------------THE NEXT DAY--------------------------------------

Daisuke wished his mother hadn't cooked such a big breakfast. He was stuffed.

Walking along to school, he tripped over two cracks in the sidewalk and didn't catch himself the last time. His alter ego Dark laughed at him a lot and called him a loser.

Which was quite normal.

He got to school, couldn't wave back to the girl he loved because he had an unfortunate DNA problem, and fainted when he remembered the homework he didn't do because he'd been out stealing precious works of art from various museums. (As his alter ego, of course.)

Which could happen now and then.

But then he stepped inside his classroom and saw 3 new students at the front of the room and knew something was wrong. Whether it was the Chinese girl glaring daggers at him----Krad's signature look---, or the blond one chewing on her ID, he didn't know. All three of them gave him the creeps.

As if they were bad luck.

"This is Daisuke Niwa," the teacher was saying to the new people.

The girl with the low black ponytail looked like she was going to burst with happiness. Next to her, the Krad-in-an-Asian-form girl acknowledged his existence by sniggering.

"Hello," Daisuke said, and nearly fell as he ran for the safety of his seat.

/ Clumsy as ever/ Dark taunted within him.

Shut up, Daisuke said back.

In the front, Brittney whispered to Ashley. "Who's that hag? The teacher?"

Ashley let out a high-pitched giggle.

Brittney then turned to Jennifer. "Klutzy, isn't he?"

"Who?"

"Flame-head. That guy we were just introduced to."

Jennifer didn't say anything, just stared dreamily at him with her mouth open.

"You're drooling, Jen," Brittney teased.

"Now that the whole class is here, we can assign you seats. We do apologize. We only have 2 seats open. One of you will have to stand in the back," the teacher said to the new kids as soon as everyone had filed in.

"Huh?" Ashley asked. "What did she say?"

"More like, what language is she speaking?" Brittney demanded.

"So, who will volunteer to stand?" the teacher asked, trying to be funny.

Jennifer and Ashley simultaneously raised their eyebrows. "And I'm supposed to understand this Taiwanese…?" Ashley asked.

"Hey, wait a minute…" Brittney turned in Daisuke's direction. "I just recognized him or something. He's so familiar all of a sudden…"

She stepped forward to see him better.

"Thank you for volunteering," the teacher said, and steered a bewildered Brittney to the back of the room.

"Ha ha," Jennifer said in mock victory as she and Ashley sat down a few minutes later. At a desk.

----------GUESS WHO'S IN THE BACK------------------------

Satoshi looked up from his laptop and was genuinely surprised by the girl stalking toward him. Her hair was long, black, and her eyes were dark brown, but other than that, she could've been Krad's sister, the way she glowered at him. Beneath her coat, her fists were clenched.

She stopped right by him, and turned to lean against the wall. Satoshi's first reaction was that she was quite rude, just standing there, looking at him. Then he realized she was the only one standing and knew something had gone on that he'd missed.

"Awesome laptop. They let you have those in here? This school could be nice. Anything else here? Dress code? Hall passes? Lame stuff like that?"

Satoshi had no idea what the girl was blabbering about---or what language she spoke. All he knew was that she was eyeing his laptop.

Foreign exchange student, he deduced.

"So, who are you? You look so familiar."

Satoshi decided he was a stupid git for not knowing how to respond to an alien advance.

"Where are we, exactly? Mr. Hunt didn't say much, just about some criminal we had to go get."

Krad snickered somewhere in the back of Satoshi's head. Shut up, Satoshi said back to him, completely missing Brittney's question.

Rude, much, Brittney thought. You could at least answer my questions. "How's life in general, for you?"

Rude, Satoshi thought. What foreign exchange student has enough nerve to just talk to people and expect them to know instant English? Stupid.

Both of them huffed and twisted away so they wouldn't have to face the other inconsiderate person

Bet he's a geek, Brittney thought viciously. Glasses, laptop, IGNORING PEOPLE…

Spoiled brat, she must be used to being the center of attention. No wonder she thinks everyone would INSTANLY be happy with her hovering over their shoulder, Satoshi reflected.

I want to get out of the range of his UTTER disrespect…

…un-intelligent fluff brain…American UN-know-it-all…dumb girl…

This went on for some time until the teacher wrote something on the board they both could understand.

#21-50

#56-89

"This is out of the textbook, page 189. You can share with Satoshi," the teacher said to Brittney.

"Huh?" Brittney answered, but the teacher had already turned away.

Satoshi dug out the textbook.

Oh boy, I guess I have to look on creepy geeky guy's book…

She better not assume that I'm easy to boss around and just look off my homework…

I hate this! Mr. Offensive Nerd over here…

What? She's looking off of MY book?

Oh great, what am I supposed to do, work the problems out WITH HIM? I don't have any paper…

She better not expect any free answers…

The thoughts were very evident on their expressions now. Satoshi was scowling, and Brittney was seething mad. He gave her a scathing look and opened the textbook at an angle where she couldn't see it.

In doing so, his sleeve fell back, and the inner wrist of his left hand was revealed.

Brittney's gasp was audible. She reached across and grabbed his arm.

For a moment, she gaped at the thin, fine scars that still lingered on the surface of his skin. Red lines, indicating that he'd been cut many times up and down his inner arm. Some cuts had just begun healing, while others had crusted scabs.

And Brittney knew the lines were too random to be anything but self-abuse. He was cutting himself.

Because Brittney had not forgotten how that felt.

She'd once had those scars.

She'd once cut for the sadistic desire to hurt herself.

She'd thought she was all alone.

How ironic it was that the first person she would ever meet going through what she had went through was in some obscure place like Azumano.

Brittney looked up and was surprised when she realized Satoshi was looking across the room at Daisuke (aka Flamehead). She thought she heard a sigh.

For just a minute, his eyes seemed to glow yellow.

And everything fell together, just felt so perfectly simple, like the pieces of a puzzle. The whole world turned a sticky green as Brittney prepared to puke. She had no absolute desire to embarrass herself, but there was no way she could hold it.

Satoshi went with the second instinct and groaned.