Chapter 2: The new girl who was apparently a ninja

'Dear Book,

I feel as though calling you 'diary', or 'journal' is bound to get on your nerves eventually. Really, if people started calling me 'skinny', 'pale', and 'girl', I'd probably be in jail for mass genocide. So let's now call you Lawrence. Lawrence Bookworth. It's a lovely name, isn't it? Anyway, I should probably get on with what happened today – get ready, it's a doozy…'

Erika stared at the door intently, absentmindedly twirling the apparent 'magical key' in her hands. According to Mephisto, if you were to put it in a key hole and twist, it'd magically take you to the 'cram school' location. When he had told her this, she immediately tried to think of ways to break the system, like: 'How would you get the key out of the other side?' or 'What if you used it on a normal padlock on a fence?' To this, she was immediately thrown out of the room and yelled at for "Thinking about it too much."

She was a little bit nervous, to say the least. All she knew was that all of her classes would be held in room '1106', which did nothing to comfort her at all. If anything, the number just proved how tiny and insignificant she was in the whole grand scheme of things. Which, again, was not positive thinking.

Really, the only good thing that came out of that meeting in the morning, was that she got her own room. Yes, of course the whole Exorcist thing was pretty cool, but that would require extra work that she just did not have – currently, that is – whilst on the other hand, having a room all to herself meant the ability to throw crazy parties without bothering some studious roommate. Of course, there was always the downside that she didn't have any friends to throw said 'wild party' with, but Erika reminded herself that she was thinking about the pros, damnit.

Erika carefully slid the key down into a small, cotton pouch that she miraculously had on hand (Always best to be prepared, after all.) and placed it inside of her satchel. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a large, bristled hairbrush. Unceremoniously, she began to pull the knots out of her hair with the brush. Ten minutes later, her hair was raked into a long black veil down her back, while she sat on the chair, red-faced and sweating. She quickly took out a thick hair-tie and pulled her hair back into a semi-neat ponytail, resting on the back of her head. She stretched like a lazy cat and changed into the pink abomination that would be her new uniform. Oh, how she detested the colour pink – it appalled her to think that she would have to wear it for the next few years.

However, Erika had a plan.

She refused to give up her vendetta against pink; the putrid colour of all things girly and bright. So, instead of admitting defeat, she had put her master plan into action – her bright blue and white striped knee socks.

Upon an intense session of reading into the uniform regulations that the school had, she had developed her master plan. Under section 10.B) 27 of True Cross Academy's uniform code, it specifically stated that all female students must wear full school uniform, with reasonable allowances for seasons, for example, in winter and on cold days, the girls could wear long sleeved, cream cardigans. The uniform code for females was a white dress shirt with the official T.C tie, pink – urk – skirt, (preferably) black shoes, and white socks. Now, under this specific rule it said only 'white or black socks'. Nowhere in the text had it said 'full white or black socks' therefore being Erika to the conclusion that she could beat the system by wearing the most awkwardly clashing coloured socks that she could afford. Now, she wasn't saying that blue and pink didn't go well together – most of the time, they do. But with her specifically fluorescent blue socks, the pink looked awful! And thus, another battle had been won.

Of course, this would only last until Mephisto figured out what she was doing (which probably wouldn't be too long.) and fixed the rule to say 'fully white or black socks' but hey! Small victories.

Erika managed to finish getting changed fairly quickly. She fetched her bag and pulled the key out of its pouch. Once again she was faced with the issue of attending school.

Really, it wasn't that bad. It was highly likely that, if they were anything like Erika herself, they wouldn't give a damn. But it was still undeniably nerve-wracking – as was high school. Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, but you have to pull through anyway, Erika supposed. So, she took out the key and slid it into the keyhole of her door.

She swore that she saw a quick burst of light behind the door, but she honestly wasn't too sure. It was far too quick. So she casually brushed it off as 'spiritual gu-gu'. She warily opened the door, peering through timidly, and was greeted by a large hallway, filled with deep warm tones. Walking inside, she quickly removed the key from her side of the door and snatched her arm back, still not trusting "Johann Faust's sage words of wisdom". Erika closed the entrance as fast as she could, awkwardly leaning against it like an idiot to look non-conspicuous (She always did have a minor fear of automatic doors…).

After her private little show of stupidity, she quickly hurried down the hallway, searching for Room 1106. She really, really didn't want to be late – she wasn't even enrolled a day ago! She might as well try to make a good first impression before they realised how awful she really was. In the back of her mind, she wondered what sort of people might be in the class; Mephisto had mentioned that they could all see demons, but apparently some of them only got a… Temptaint yesterday. Which implies that other members of the class could already see demons, which opened another question – how? Was it just a natural, genetic thing for them to see demons, or had they contracted this so-called 'Temptaint' earlier in their life? A brief thought flittered past Erika's mind – what if this was an intervention? She really hoped not, she had had enough of those during her six-month therapy trip.

Finally, she spotted the room she was looking for. Before she could even congratulate herself on not getting lost (Yes, in a straight line), she was immediately confronted with the nervous feeling she had earlier. She quickly gave herself a light slap to the face to basically tell all this nerve endings on her face to report the word 'Shut up' to their master.

She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, trying to spy inside through the cracks of the door. What was the proper classroom etiquette? Knock first? Wait for sensei? She was sorely tempted to simply linger outside until another student appeared, so she could just follow them inside, but she didn't want to look like an idiot – oh wait, she already did…

From the inside, she heard some laughter. Was someone mocking her? Surely not…? But wait! That meant that there were people inside! She quickly dropped to the floor and she saw feet! Erika jumped back up again, dusting herself off. Listening in, she could tell that they were students. They were having a really stupid conversation (she didn't know the subject, but it just sounded stupid.) and by the sound of one particular 'pre-pube' voice, definitely teenaged boys. She took a deep breath in, gathering up her fake confidence. Steeling herself, she flung the door open, face deadpan.

There were five people. A creep up the back playing with a puppet, and another who seemed to just be playing a video game (she could relate to that.). Then there were the three boys she heard talking. One of them was short, bald, and wore think rimmed, red glasses. His ears seemed to stick out, which made Erika contemplate if he was 'cute' or 'dorky'. The second she saw had pink hair, and lazy-looking eyes. Finally, there was a tall, well-built student with multiple piercing on his ears, and a messy blonde streak through his hair. Internally, Erika swooned, but on the outside she managed to keep a bored expression.

"Who are you?" the boy with the piercings asked, seemingly unfazed by her 'dramatic' entrance.

"Hai – I'm Erika Miyamoto." She replied, raising two fingers to her forehead as a sort of lazy salute. "Sorry that I couldn't be here yesterday – I was at a funeral."

The pink-haired one widened his eyes, "Oh, really? I'm sorry – were they close?"

Erika shrugged, walking in and flinging her bag down on the nearest chair. "I guess."

"Uh, who exactly was this?"

Erika shrugged once more, and sat down on the desk, "Oh, no one special. My fake flowers died because I didn't pretend to water them."

The whole room went silent for a brief second, before the boy with the glasses spoke up, "Is that a quote from somewhere?"
"Shhh…"

It was at that moment that another person burst into the room – Another boy with a large… thing, slung across his back. He was holding the door open with one arm, and clutching his chest with the other. He was breathing like he had just run a mile, and looked extremely shocked. Behind him, two girls stood; a brunette who looked pretty surprised by the boy's 'enthusiasm', and a girl with purple hair that really didn't give a damn.

"Ohayo gozaimasu." Erika greeted.

"It's the afternoon –"

"Oh, quiet you!" she glared, shooting mental flames across the room at the now not-so-cute baldy.

The purple-haired girl simply pushed past the boy, giving him a flippant look, and seating herself at the desk behind Erika. The brunette swiftly followed. It was around now that the boy whipped his head around, and realised that he was not alone. He let out a frustrated cry, tugging at his hair and scrunching up his face like he was having a two-year old temper tantrum.

"Damnit! Four-eyes told me class started ten minutes ago!" he fumed, stomping over to the front-row-centre desk with embarrassment.

"I would like to comfort you and say that I know that feeling – but I don't." Erika responded, with pity in her voice, "Um… There-there. Be comforted."

He looked at her in shock, his mouth gaping wide open, "Eh? Who are you? You weren't here yesterday!"

Erika snorted, and leaned back on her chair, "Yes, I was. You just didn't notice me because of my super-fly ninja skills."

"Then why are you revealing yourself now?"

"Because my stamina skill-set dictates that I can only use my 'vanish' ability for up to three hours with a thirty-two hour cool down to replenish."

"But cram school goes for five hours…" he said slowly.

"Yeah," she shrugged, "I got bored and left after two."

"Oh, that makes perfect sense." He nodded in understanding, "… Wait, no it doesn't!"

"Shut up Okumura." 'Piercings' called out.

"So yeah, I'm Erika. Nice to formally re-meet you." Erika introduced, completing ignoring the other guy.

"Rin Okumura." He greeted, also ignoring 'Piercings'.

Erika yawned, eyes drooping, "I feel as though I've forgotten something…"

An official looking person walked into the room – presumably a teacher. He had a forgettable face – bland features, short black hair, and a faint stubble forming at the chin. As he took his position up the front, taking out papers from his brief case and shuffling them neatly on the desk. It was at this exact moment that Erika remembered what she had forgotten:

"Right… I hate school."

Three excruciating lessons later and a lunch break, Erika was exhausted. However, she had learnt some totally interesting things about exorcists.

They were really boring teachers. Except for that one guy, who was supposed to be a P.E teacher, but instead ran out because his girlfriend gave him a 'booty call'.

1. Aria's had too much free time. The guy that Erika had initially deemed 'cool' started reciting a whole friggin' verse from the bible – and while she was still appreciating his 'easy-on-the-eyes' type features, it made her extremely sad to discover that the guy had more free time then she did.

2. Glasses dude's name was Miwa Konekomaru. She also found out the rest of their names as well, but she took note of this because she decided that the most seemingly harmless one of them all would be her new arch-nemesis.

3. She was really impolite. Apparently it was considered rude to address classmates by their first name when you had only just met them. Whoops.

4. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.

Okay, the last one was a joke.

She had a huge pile of homework, which sucked, seeing as not only did she have to finish it by tomorrow, but the whole actual school thing began tomorrow as well. If this was going to be a consistent thing, there was no way she would be able to finish it all! That gave her two options – stay up until 1am finishing it all, or cheat.

It wasn't really that hard; the work, that is. It was just that it had been given so suddenly by the eerily strict Demon Pharmaceuticals teacher. Now that she thought of it, didn't he have the same name as Rin…?

"Must be a coincidence…" Erika mumbled to herself, absently wandering in whatever direction she guessed would get her out of the seemingly endless cram school.

Of course, by this logic, she only got back to her room in three hours' time, when some guy had asked her if she needed help.

Erika felt exhausted. She had stayed up all night doing work – she was terrible at studying and constantly got distracted by nothing. Such as how the light from outside reflected on her phone depending on the distance she looked at it from. That particular discovery was followed by five minutes of awkwardly repositioning her head to look at it from different angles.

She almost cried when she looked up and saw '3am' on the clock. That meant she would probably only get three to four hours sleep. She quickly sorted the mass of papers into a neat pile and put them in her binder. She really didn't understand why it was so difficult to concentrate. When she actually did focus on the work in front of her, she found it pretty easy to understand. At least, the Demonology section. Okumura-sensei's Demon Pharmaceuticals was complete B.S to her.

Oh well. She could deal with it later. Probably just copy off Konekomaru – he looked smart.

A/N: I came back to this like, 2 months after wrote this, added like, one paragraph and realised that if I hadn't procrastinated this probably could have been up way sooner. Meh, I'm like Erika in that sense. OH WELL I'LL GET TO WORK ON THE NEXT CHAPTER. EXPECT MORE AWKWARDNESS!