A/N Note: Thank you, Mrs. Flamer, for pointing out all these mistakes. Ths is just a rewrite of the chapter. It's nothing if you've already read it ^_^ This is my first Shugo Chara! fanfic, so I'd really appreciate it if you dropped by and gave me some really meaningful review with pointers (because I know that this isn't perfect).

Chapter 1

Shine with the other stars!

My eyes lazily drifted through the words. In other words, Seiyo Academy's motto.

I sighed. How long were they going to make me wait in here? I fiddled with Seiyo's uniform, which, surprisingly, consisted of a black robe with gold symbols and calligraphy which I felt I could make out if I tried to (which I haven't yet), and a matching gold kimono with a pair of black slippers, like the kind I saw on the feet of the Chinese when it was festival day. It was a very queer uniform, to put it at that, and I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Usually, uniforms in Japan consisted of a sailor fuku top and a skirt, not an old-fashioned robe and kimono!

I fidgeted. Why did my parents send me into a boarding school again? They preferred for me to "interact" with everyone, so they usually sent me into a public school.

I remembered that my otou-san said that it was purely invitational. The letter had come into the mail the day after I moved here. I could still see the creamy parchment in my mind, the fancy script calligraphy and a bold red and blue checkered crest with the famed Humpty Lock and Dumpty Key on it. I fingered the lock right now. Was that why they had invited me in the first place?

I closed my eyes, remembering the letter. It never mentioned anything of the sort, though. In fact, it was surprisingly short for a letter from a prestigious boarding school.

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Dear Hinamori Amu,

You have been admitted to Seiyo Academy. If you choose to accept, you will be put into classes acting upon your level of understanding and knowledge in different subjects.

Thank you,

Nakamura Ayame, Headmistress

Okaa-san had squealed with delight as soon as she spotted the distinct crest, "Did you know that Seiyo Academy is one of the best schools in Japan?" As a magazine writer, okaa-san usually knew all about these types of things.

"R-really? Why would they accept me, then?" I had asked in disbelief. Was this a dream? I pinched myself to make sure, digging my fingernails into the tender flesh of my wrist, "Ow!" It stung, like a knife, and I quickly let go. So it wasn't a dream. At all.

"Amu! You're admitted, desu~" Suu squealed as she fluttered towards me.

"You better not appear cool and spicy again." Miki deadpanned, "Or else when we chara change with you it's gonna be terrible." She shuddered, no doubt remembering nearly being killed by me.

I groan, not believing that I haven't seen this one coming, "Oh...world...why do I have to go through this every single time I moved?" Every single time, I had come off as a "cool 'n' spicy" girl who shouldn't be messed with. And every single time I was amazed at how poorly I was at expressing my true character. I was such a poor talker that everyone had labeled me cool. Okaa-san didn't help much, either, always buying me goth/punk clothes that did nothing more than to reinforce that image.

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Maybe this time it'll be different. I think to myself as the door to the main office-or, as the plate says, The Chara HeadQuarters. Maybe I'll actually come across as what I really am-a regular girl with insecurities just like the other girls have, and a person who wants nothing more than to make a few friends.

"Hinamori Amu?" A voice booms all the way from across the room, frightening me out of my thoughts. I jump, them hurriedly get out of my chair when I see Nakamura-senpai standing in front of me. How'd she get here so fast?

"H-hai, N-nakamura-senpai?" I stutter. It was freaky-really, how did she walk over here from across the room in a blink of an eye? The HQ was huge. So huge, in fact, that I took about two minutes at my top running speed from one end to another.

"May I see your wand?" She asked. I star blankly at her. Wand? As in a magical wand? Was she kidding me or something?

"A wand?" Miki echoed incredulously.

"Like the batons in Ran's Becoming Chara?" Ran asked.

"Desu~?" Suu was at a loss for words.

"N-nani?" I reply, the stutter still evident. Oh, Kami! When I said that I wanted to stop being "cool 'n' spicy", I didn't mean that I wanted to be this! I want to be myself! Well, this was technically a part of myself, so...

"Your wand." Nakamura-senpai repeated. She gazed into my amber eyes, which were probably in question marks or something. Wand?

She seemed to take note of my curious stance, and explained, "So your real otou-san hasn't told you yet?"

"Real otou-san?" I echoed. Was it just a slip of wording?

"Oh!" Nakamura-senpai's face was tinged in a shade of pale pink, "I mean, anyone? Have they told you yet that the appearance of Becoming Chara means that you have natural magic? That you'll have a wand?"

"Ne." I replied. Then again, no one I had encountered along my travels had really known a lot about Shugo Chara. The group that knew about them the most were probably the Guardians of the Kanto-area schools, and even they didn't know that much.

"Well," Nakamura-senpai started, "Your wand is a marker of your level of power. Basically, it doesn't take much to call it. Just think of it, and it'll come to you. We have to evaluate your wand so we know what class you'll be in."

"H-hai...okay..." I honestly couldn't make heads or tails of this. From what Nakamura-senpai had juat said, Seiyo Academy was a place for everyone with shugo charas, and suddenly, there were magical fairy pixie wands mixed in? This was complicated.

"C'mon. Try to summon your wand." Nakamura-senpai encouraged, her face shining with an unknown emotion-anticipation? No, it seemed to be different than that...I banished that thought from my mind as I thought hard about about a wand. A wand...I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate.

Out of impulse, I decided to wave a hand over the Humpty Lock. A bit of good luck never harmed anyone. I heard Naramura-senpai's gasp of aurprise. I quickly opened my eyes and see that the Humpty Lock has seemed to changed into a wand. It was very simple, a stick of white crystal that reflected all different kinds of light with the four-leaf clover center of the lock sitting on top of it. However, Nakamura-senpai looked at it like it was the world. Her eyes were glazed over as she seemed to be teleported into another world.

"Excuse me?" I waved a hand in front of her face, trying to get her to concentrate on me.

"O-oh!" Nakamura-senpai exclaimed as she jumped backwards, "Um, yes, let's see what level of power the wand holds." Her eyes were shining with eagerness, eagerness for what, I couldn't tell. I handed the wand over to her, and she took it into her own hands and started to examine it.

Thing was, the wand seemed to recoil at her touch. Nakamura-senpai tried to grasp it again, but it slipped from her hands. Her jaw seemed to lock as her fists clenched, and she threw...something, I guess, at the wand. It didn't seem to affect it, because it settled on my neck to form a chain again.

"N-nani! This, I must-" She gasped, then realized that I was still looking at her, and cut off her sentence, "Anyways, Hinamori, you are assigned to Class 1, the top class."

"Already? But-" It was my turn to gasp. But I didn't know a lot about magics. Or academics, for that matter. Why put me in the top class? I was always, at best, slightly above average in the other schools I attended, so why was I on the top in this school?

"No buts," Nakamura-senpai cut me off, "You're in Class 1 and that's that. Now, I'll have Nikaidou-sensei come up and escort you to her class." Nikaidou-sensei? That sounded vaguely familiar...

Suddenly, I was face-to-face with a person I knew very well, "Nikaidou-sensei!" I exclaimed, "What are you doing here?" The last time I had saw him was with the Guardians. Why was he here at Seiyo now?

"Well..." He started to say as he fidgeted with the sleeve of his robe. Nakamura-sensei stood behind him, "Hinamori, this is your new sensei, Nikaidou." She gave no hint of overhearing what I had just said, and with that, she was off. I could still hear the click, clank of her heels echoing down the hallways.

"Anyways, Himamori, I'm going to be showing you to my class." Nikaidou-sensei said.

"It's Hinamori, Nikaidou-sensei!" I protested.

"Hinamori..." I nodded as I followed him. He opened a door and peered in. I saw a huge array of student laughing, and seeming to be pulling off pranks. There was a guy with hot pink hair that most of the boys were taunting, while there was a girl with long blonde hair being served like a queen.

"Class, class!" Nikaidou-sensei shouted. As the class slowly quieted, he announced, "This is the new transfer student, Himamori Amu. Please welcome her." The class was silent, no doubt trying to see how I had gotten in at such a high class so fast. They were drawing their first impressions. Was I a jock? Nerd? Goth? Popular? The only sign I gave them was my bored stance and red X clip in my pink hair.

Then I looked closer, and realized that they weren't trying to draw conclusions to first impressions. They were gaping at me, with recognition in their eyes. They knew me? Highly unlikely, as I have never seen these people before. I banished that to the back of head, and narrowed my eyes. How did Nikaidou-sensei always manage to say my name wrong?

"Sensei," I replied, "It's Hinamori Amu." I faced the class, and said in a dry voice, "Nice to meet you all."

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As the day went by, I found out that this was pretty much the same as any other ordinary school. What was weird was that it had no cliques in it. everyone seemed to treat everyone else equally.

What unnerved me, though, was that everyone seemed flawless, too much so. The blonde queen-Mashiro Rima, I was later told-seemed to be an ordinary popular girl with no athletic or academic skills. Guess what happened? She-along with the whole class, except me-got straight 100s in all the academics.

The only person that wasn't perfect was...me. And maybe some one else. I couldn't be sure, since I was with the thick of the group in P.E (thanks to Ran's chara change), so I couldn't catch a glimpse of that person.

Anyways, it freaked me out to no end. In every subject that day, no matter what it was, the majority of the class got gold stars, 100, A pluses, you name the best score, they got it. And they got them in record-breaking times, too! They made it seem so easy...but then why did I struggle so? Those problems that Nikaidou-sensei gave us were hard...terribly so.

I was sitting down, ready to eat my lunch, I caught a glimpse of very familiar purple hair. I smiled. It reminded me of Fujisaki Nadeshiko, a friend of mine in the Guardians...we had meet when we were both in fifth grade, three years back.

"Amu-chan? Is that you?" A voice asked-it seemed vaguely familiar, somehow, yet still managed to freak me out.

"GAH!" I turned my head around, ready to kill the person who scared me out of my wits.

"You haven't changed, Amu-chan. And that's still a cute reaction ^_~" Nadeshiko?