A/N: 2 months prior...

The alarm clock was counting up, 57, 58, 59…

BAM. Like a ninja did she slam her hand on the buzzer, the poor timepiece never even given a chance to fulfill its duty. But alas, when your owner was a hot-headed, acid-tongued spitfire (who may or may not have been slightly insane) who wasn't beyond randomly tossing things out the window just because they pissed her off, you considered yourself lucky to still be in one piece.

One working piece.

"Heh heh heh…today's the start of the new semester, isn't it, Sio-chan~?" Crawling up the bunk bed's ladder with practiced ease, she made sure to position herself correctly (falling would be bad—she knew from previous attempts) first and then—

'D'aww, she's so adorable…I almost feel bad about doing this…almost…' Directly below, her sister was still sleeping like a log, covers pulled up to her nose and her beloved Bunny-tan snuggled tightly in her grip, its fur nearly gone from years of being hugged. Still, promises were promises, and she had sworn to wake her up and make sure they got to school on time, no matter what…

"OHMYGOD SIO WAKE UP WE'RE ALREADY LATE WAKEUPWAKEUP—!"

She didn't even finish her sentence before the sleeping one shot up like a rocket, the other girl narrowly avoiding an unintentional skull bash (lesson #14: immediately move out of the way) as she rolled onto her back, gripping her stomach in pure laughter.

"WHAAA—Nobu, I thought I told you to wake me! Why didn't you—" Seeing her sister's burst of hysterics, she glanced at the clock that was mounted to the side of the wall.

7:01AM.

School started promptly at 8:30AM.

Slowly, she turned towards her twin, who had calmed down considerably, though she still hiccuped occasionally.

"Nobunagun…"

"What! You told me to make sure you woke up, so I did!" Snorting slightly, she gave a nonchalant shrug. "I kept my word like I said."

"I-I—yeah, I meant, you could at least wait until the alarm went off FIRST, and THEN see if I was up or not! You know I hate being scared like that!" Her cheek puffier than a squirrel's, she unceremoniously smacked her sister in the face with Bunny-tan.

"Ow—aww come on Sio-chan, don't be so grumpy; it's the first day of the new semester after all!" No response from the other, who proceeded to climb down the ladder as if she hadn't heard her sister at all. "Hey…are you really mad about that? Sio-chan?"

Whoops. Perhaps scaring the crap out of her twin sister on the first day of '12th Grade: Act II' wasn't the brightest idea in the world. Eh, too late for that; as guilty as she felt, she couldn't deny the results had been hilarious. Setting Bunny-tan back onto the covers, she proceeded into the shared bathroom where her sister was already washing up.

"Nobunaga, what did you do to your sister this time?" They hadn't even gotten halfway down the stairs before their mother appeared at the bottom, hands on her hips as she eyed the older one wearily.

"What! I didn't do anything—"

"There was screaming, again, this morning—"

"—I was just waking her up!" A skeptical look as the younger one casually walked around, helping herself to breakfast while the older one was being interrogated.

"Nobunaga, frightening your sister out of her wits does is not a suitable method. You're both about to graduate high school—you should know better by now."

"…I'm sorry." Okay scratch that, it had been a really bad idea. But she couldn't help it—Sio-chan was just too cute not to tease. "…Can I eat now?"

Sighing, their mother let her go, although everybody knew that it would just go in one ear and out the next. Still, there was no denying that the twins had a special bond—regardless of how much she teased her, they were always together, sharing everything—clothes, room, and secrets galore.

"Oy Sio, hurry up would ya? We gotta head out now or we'll really be late." Despite having been delayed, Nobunagun almost always managed to finish eating first, while Sio was often the last one at the table.

"Maah, Nobu-nee-sama, wait!" Struggling to get her shoe on, the twins waved a quick bye to their parents before heading into the warm sunshine.

"And there they go…it's hard to believe they'll be heading off to university so soon…" As soon as the twins disappeared from view, their mother closed the door as the father got ready for work.

"Well, they can't stay little girls forever…though, sometimes it does seem like it all passed by so quickly…"

"Asao-san! Ohayo!" Halfway down the path to school, the twins usually met up with one of their (or maybe only) best friend, Kaoru Asao. Well, technically Nobunagun always felt a little weird towards the more-reserved girl; she had approached Sio first, and then the two had struck up an unusual (most popular girl in school hanging out with the class outcast whose twin was the most-feared student in the entire 12th grade) but close, friendship. Not that Asao-san was a bad person, rather she was grateful for her in getting Sio to open up around others more, but she had a feeling that she would never be as close or understand the girl as much as her sister did.

"Yo, Asa-o," she greeted casually, before letting the two walk side-by-side as she fell into step just behind them. This was fine, the way it had been for a long time it seemed; the two would talk about all the trivial, fluffy things that she deemed 'girl talk', while Nobunagun contemplated on her own. Not that she was jealous or anything, of course not.

…Well, maybe just a little. Sometimes. Like whenever the two of them got excited like they were right now, and seemingly forgot that hey, she was walking right behind them and yeah, going to see the latest Godzilla movie sounded like fun too—

"—What about Mami-chan? Should we invite her too?"

"—Mmm! I'm sure she's free this weekend…"

'Uh, hello? I'm free this weekend too…' Grumbling to herself, by the time they reached campus, her mood had turned sour, and all the students avoided her more than they already usually did. Even their new homeroom teacher didn't dare say anything as she took the seat right next to her sister, despite it having been assigned to some random dude (who quickly packed up his books and switched without a word).

'Tch, guess I won't be going anywhere this Saturday…' Her moody thoughts about Sio's plans were interrupted by the sudden arrival of two very new, very interesting—whoa were those green eyes? And silver hair?—

"Settle down everyone, please, I have a quick announcement to make; for the remainder of the school year, we've been lucky enough to participate in an exchange program with one of London's top high schools. As part of the program, we will now have two student-teachers to help with your English lessons—Adam Muirhead-san and his brother, Jack Muirhead-san. The rest of the time, they will be regular students, just like you, so please do your best to make them feel welcome here."

The room immediately started buzzing with activity, rumors flying abound about the two gaijin brothers who were very clearly twins. Handsome twins at that. Nobunagun felt her cheeks flushing, unconsciously licking her lips. She'd gone out with a few guys last year, nothing special—mostly they'd either bored her to tears or ended up being terrified of her—but this, them… Vaguely she wondered who would be better in bed.

"Ah, so there's two seats in the middle of the row—you can decide where you'd like to sit," the sensei pointed at the vacancies, both of which just happened to be right between her and Sio.

The one on the right—Jack, was it?—pulled what appeared to be a quick smirk, though it was so subtle that she doubted anybody caught it, but as he sidled up to the spot next to her, she could've sworn he gave her a wink.

Hmm. Well, this would certainly be an interesting semester…

"Oh my god, did you see those two? They're soo hot—"

"—very tall! But I guess all Europeans are like that…"

"—those dreamy eyes…such a piercing color!"

"I wonder why they have white hair though?"

Lunchtime was in full swing, and to her surprise, Sio had opted to eat together with her, just the two of them, instead of grouping together with Asao-san's little clique. Inwardly she felt a little better, that she was probably just overreacting again about Sio outgrowing her.

'I don't care where our futures end up; I'll always be by her side, no matter what…'

"Ano, Nobu-nee-sama, so, what did Muirhead-san want?"

She nearly spit her juice out all over the latest issue of Tanks Monthly that the two were pouring over. "Wh-what?! What are you talking about, he just happens to sit next to me! And which one are we talking about here, can't you just use their first names?"

Sio just giggled and popped another tomato into her mouth. "Oh, Jack-san I guess, but I thought it looked like he was going to talk to you at the beginning of class…?"

"Nuh uh. All I did was say hi and tell him my name." Shrugging, she flipped to the next page, until a shadow was suddenly cast over the text.

"Well, you are Miss Nobunaga, correct? And your sister, Miss Sio." Speak of the devil. "I gotta say, I never expected a girl to have a name like that…"

The entire class seemed to have fallen into a sort of hush, all eyes on one of the new arrivals who was very clearly engaged with the school's most infamous set of twins. Slowly, she closed the magazine, before standing up.

"First off, it's Nobunagun, and secondly, how's that any of your damned business?" Next to her, she could see her sister blushing and shaking her head half in apology, half in embarrassment at her brash behavior. "Oh hush Sio, it's fine."

To her surprise, he didn't seem offended at all, only gave out a low chuckle that was strangely pleasing to her ear. "Okay then, Miss Nobunagun, if that's how yeh wanna be called, 's fine by me. What, you some sort of gun-nut?"

"What's it to you?" She replied just as cooly, the whole school knew by now that the Ogura twins were hardcore military-otaku, but this newcomer, this gaijin—

"—Nothin'. I just appreciate people who aren't like others, that's all." He gave a quick glance over at Sio, who looked like she just wanted to crawl under a rock. "Are you th' one who does all th' talkin' between you two or somethin'?"

In an instant did she get right up in his face, his pupils contracting slightly as she grabbed him by the collar, though he did not back down. "Listen Muirhead—"

"—Jack please, nobody calls me by my last name—"

"—all right, Jack-san then. You're new around here, so I'll let you off just this one time. But you see, there's a little rule that everyone else follows, and that is, you don't fuck with my sister. Else I'll cut off your balls and sell them to a Krogan."

The classroom turned so quiet you could hear a pin drop, although unfortunately for Sio, this kind of blackmail-followed-by-awkwared-silence had sort of become normal. Every year, there was some student, either new or just entirely oblivious, who would attempt to either hit on her or interact with in some way that displeased Nobunagun (read: everything) and they would go through this entire spiel. It had gotten to the point where the teachers didn't even bother reporting her anymore, and she never actually hurt anybody.

Well, none that were on the record, anyway.

He kept staring at her for a few more seconds, which was strangely unnerving—and nothing unnerved her—but just his face, those startlingly beautiful eyes—

"…Heh. You've got quite a temper, don't you Miss Nobunagun…but that's okay, I can understand your sentiments…'fter all, takes one t'know one, right?" Just as she released him from her death grip, the other one came back, two bottles of tea in hand and looking very confused at this scenario before him. "Oh hey Adam, good timing—"

"—Jack, what did you—"

"—Nothing. Just sayin' hi to our, ah, neighboring twins…"

As if time had started up again, now that she was no longer issuing death-threats, everybody resumed their conversations, like nothing ever happened. Adam looked like he wasn't buying it, but clearly he was too polite to say anything more, at least in public. Hmm, if she had to take a guess, she'd put him to be the older one…although, then again, she was the elder and there were times that Sio was more mature than she was. Details, details…

They were just about to start afternoon classes when he casually leaned over, making it look like he was just reaching for something in his bag but she heard his whisper—

"—for the record, I think your balls would be worth more to a Krogan than mine."