Read at your own risk: I plan on making this fic canon compliant so the young ages are an unfortunate necessity. How young the characters are was definitely something I didn't like about Gakuen Alice as well, but hopefully it'll be easy enough to look over. Thanks for giving your input just the same; it really means a lot.

Disclaimer: I only own OCs and my plot. Nothing you recognize.

[o]

Chapter 2

After enduring the rest of the classes (something I hadn't done in a long time) we were finally released for the day. As the hordes stormed out of the room, and I was followed out by the three, I felt my eye twitch. I should've just ditched him. I should've ignored the baka-sensei like I always do. Because these classes are much too long for my taste, which I usually expressed by leaving about half-way through them.

"Hurry up," I grumbled. I intended to show Hyuuga where the special star rooms were and then abandon him for my own. Why was Tobita following me, anyway?

"Tobita, why aren't you showing your own partner around?" He immediately snapped to attention.

"Well, uh, I thought Hyuuga-kun and Ruka-kun would like to stay together because they're…" he trailed off at my look.

"Ruka-kun," I mocked in a drawl, earning a glare from said boy. "I already told you that clingy partners don't work in relationships. You've got to let him live his own life." Anger colored his face, but the red there wasn't nearly as captivating as the red of Hyuuga's eyes, so I turned away.

"We're not a couple!" Came the indignant cry from behind me, which I easily ignored.

"Well then. Tobita, Nogi, catch you later." And I walked away, Hyuuga trailing nonchalantly behind me.

The long walk was completely silent on both of our parts, and I was immensely grateful. If he had ended up being a talkative person, I would've murdered him in his sleep and blamed it on Tobita. Unfortunately, the blessed silence was too quick to be broken.

"Where are we going?" Oh, didn't I tell him?

"I'm showing you your dorm." I considered leaving it there, but sighed in a moment of mercy.

"You've already been deemed a special star – top rank – no doubt because of something you did before entering the academy," because there's no way he had been tested already.

"What star are you?" He asked. Interesting question. Almost like he was scoping me out. Like I'm the enemy. My eyebrow raised a fraction of an inch. Smart kid.

"I'm also a special star. We're currently the only ones in the Elementary branch."

"What does it mean?" Whoa, he's being talkative, and it doesn't suit him at all.

"Look, I'm just dropping you off. Once you're off my back, feel free to ask anyone else your questions." Much too much talking for my taste.

The special stars had a special wing of the Elementary dorm building. Of course we did take up a whole wing, since the rooms were pretty much apartments, but I wasn't about to complain. Sure, only two of the many rooms were filled, but it meant being alone. Alone is something I like.

I let him to the first floor of the wing.

"Here we are. You get whichever one you want. Except this one. It's mine." And with that I entered a door further down the hall with my name on it and shut the door behind me.

Ah, blessed solitude. I was beginning to wonder if life would ever grant me that small favor again.

…

Natsume's POV

"Oi," I said to the kid with glasses. He looked up from his lunch at me with a large annoying smile.

"Yes Natsume-kun?" My eyes narrowed at him, causing his smile to become nervous.

"What's up with my partner?"

"Kutan-chan?" No, my other partner, I thought sarcastically but nodded. He adopted a thinking face, finally getting rid of the ridiculous one he'd worn before.

"No one knows very much about her, really. She got here before most of us." I watched as Ruka began to listen from beside me as well, and I knew Tobita had both of our interest.

"A few of us have asked Narumi-sensei, and he said she's been here for two years already. That means she got here when she was six."

"But that's not uncommon, is it?" Asked Ruka from beside me. Tobita shook his head in response.

"No, we have a lot of children staying in the Elementary dorms. But I heard she was a special star from the start." That didn't have any significance to me, seeing as I'd been handed a special star earlier by one of the teachers, and this was only my first day. He sweat dropped, realizing his mistake.

"Usually young students are undetermined stars for a year or two, before their sensei's decide what star they are. And even then they usually only progress to single stars and the occasional double star. So Kutan-chan being a special star right from the start is very unusual."

Speaking of whom, my partner had just entered the cafeteria. Just like the day before she came in near the end, only this time she grabbed just a glass of water and no food. And there was a large bruise on her face. My eyes narrowed at seeing it, but I kept my mouth shut as she took the seat across from me again. Tobita, not so much.

"Kutan-chan, what happened to your face?" She took a long drink from her water, blatantly ignoring him and his concern.

"Oi," I said to her. "Where were you this morning?" She hadn't ever come out of her room this morning and I had to find my way back to the Academy on my own, arriving late to the first class with the substitute teacher, who acted as if he was left to substitute more often than not. All in all, I didn't really mind being late.

"I had business," she answered vaguely. Ruka hadn't handled her absence nearly as well as I did, though.

"What sort of business would you have before class?" he snapped.

"We have mixed classes today," she said. "You'll find out soon enough," and though she was answering Ruka's question she was talking to me. Before anyone could ask for an elaboration on her cryptic words the bell signaled the end of lunch.

She quickly drained her glass and stood up, getting out before any of us had even dropped off our trays.

Yeah, there's definitely something weird about that one.

...

Saito stayed through the rest of the classes, surprisingly, but was asleep through them all. I couldn't help but consider the option she presented – since none of the teachers bothered her about it – but decided against it because I was busy elsewhere.

Through the classes I was thinking; thinking about Aoi and father, and about Saito and the mixed classes she had brought up. I also thought about how she didn't come out of her room this morning, and then reappeared at lunch with a bruise on her face. What was she hiding? What was she doing, or where did she go, that she got hurt? And what did she mean that I'd know soon enough?

She finally woke up when the last bell rang, and there was a dark look in her eyes as she stood up.

"Follow me," she said, and though I didn't like being ordered around I did as I was told, because the dark look in her eyes was almost alarming.

She took me outside and we walked along a trail. After a minute I began to wonder where we were going, and I made it known.

"If you think you can kidnap me, you're wrong." Her gaze slid over to me but she didn't shoot down my comment like I expected. Instead she ignored it like she tends to ignore everything irrelevant to her.

"We have some time before mixed classes, so I thought I'd explain them to you before then." She went back to being quiet.

"You're not doing a very good job at it." This time her eyes narrowed at me, but it had the affect I wanted.

"There are three different kinds of alices, and based on those alices there's a weekly class between all of the grades where a teacher helps the student to learn to control their specific types of alices." The dark look returned to her face as she stopped talking for a moment.

"Then there's another mixed class, the Dangerous Ability class, that takes any alices deemed dangerous and we're trained to hone our abilities. To completely master them, so we can use them to do anything we need. Any alice types are taken into the Dangerous Class. And you're one of them."

I let her words process, trying to get in all of the implications of her words.

"The other types are taught to control their alices," I clarified. She didn't deny it, so I took it as an affirmative. "But we're taught to master them." Again, nothing. "Why?"

"Do you know where I was last night?" Of course I didn't. "I'm in the Dangerous Ability class, too, and I was on a mission." Her eyes slid over to me again and we stopped walking. "The academy uses us to do their dirty work.

"The Dangerous class isn't a well-known thing. The academy keeps us a secret so we don't exist. I don't exist, you don't exist. None of exist, so we're ghosts, and who better for the Academy to get rid of problems? No one can touch ghosts. We're the ultimate weapons."

My eyes widened in surprise. So that's why the wanted me; they wanted a new weapon. I looked down at my hand where fire could materialize at my command and I could feel her eyes on me.

After a moment I clenched my hand into a fist. I hate being used. Saito read my expression when I looked up again.

"Get used to it, kid." Then she began walking again. "Come on, Hyuuga. It's time to meet your new class."

…

I didn't realize until after I'd started writing the next chapter how short this one is. Super sorry, but I'll hopefully have the next chapter up in a few days. Bear with me until then.