Hikaru spent the next few weeks after Tanabata continuing to familiarize himself with Namimori when he wasn't working in the shop with Asuka-obaa-san and Hinata-san and learning about Ikebana and other local things, on top of whatever worksheets his Papa sent for him over the laptop that he had received for his birthday.

(Mafia technology, much like magical innovations, were decades ahead of their nonmagical counterparts, though the Mafia ones were technology based, and so were simply 'ahead of the game' by a few decades.)

So, really, things were going things far too smoothly for him to not have another life altering event occur.

This particular life-altering event happened when he and Asuka-obaa-san went to enroll him at Namimori West Elementary, (Namimori had four public elementary schools), and they were sent to the office of one Roujirou Kaidou.

"Aa, good afternoon, Namishi-san, Hikaru-kun, please have a seat." The dark-haired, dark eyed young man gestured to the chairs positioned in front of his desk.

Hikaru was a bundle of nerves on the inside, terrified that something had gone wrong and something terrible was about to happen, even though Asuka was perfectly calm, "Is there something wrong, sir?"

Roujirou smiled kindly at the boy, "Not at all, Hikaru-kun. Tell me, are you aware of the existence of the force commonly referred to as 'magic' by people of the West?"

Hikaru blinked slowly, relieved and even more confused at the same time, "Yes?" he said hesitantly.

Asuka laughed lightly and patted his hand in a gesture of fond affection, "You'll have to excuse my nephew, he has heard about the existence of 'magic' from an associate of mine, but he hasn't really had our view of things explained to him, I thought it best to wait until we went to enroll him."

Roujirou nodded agreeably as he settled himself back against his chair, and made a hand gesture for his visitors to get more comfortably settled as well as he glanced down at the file on his desk, "From what your file says, you came from England originally, and while you are currently staying with Namishi-san, it says that your parents wanted you to attend their alma mater Hogwarts, which is the best European school for the 'magical' arts. That being said, things are done much differently here in the East, first and foremost we do not refer to our gift as 'magic' but as 'reiki'. There is actually now a nonmagical movement of alternate healing that goes by the same name, but we have called our internal energy this for as long as our recorded history stretches."

Hikaru gaped, "Wow, that's so cool!"

The teacher smiled indulgently at the boy, "I'm glad you think so, you'll learn about it in your history classes. In the West children start the magical education at the age of eleven and only those who are able to bond with a conduit are trained to use their talents. Here in the East, as long as a person has enough reiki to activate the identifying strip at the entrance to every school in Japan's educational authority- as you did when you walked through the door when you entered- the child begins their training in the second year of elementary school, so you are about a term behind, but it won't be terribly difficult for you to catch up.

What Westerners refer to the 'magical core' we refer to as the 'reiki mainspring'. The distinction between the two terms is that Westerners bind their 'magic' to a conduit, meaning that if their 'magic' level isn't high enough to bind to a conduit; they are discarded by the magical community.

However, here in the East, we do not bind our supernatural talents to conduits in the same manner at least, definitely not so young, and so our community is much more diverse and therefore widespread. Our system works in conjunction with our 'nonmagical' education system, the supernatural classes taking place on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday afternoons, and one Sunday a month. Namishi-san, as a traditional practitioner of Ikebana will be able to help you catch up in your classes, as our children are taught to channel their reiki into their disciplines before they learn to use their reiki to shape the world around them."

Hikaru's brow wrinkled a little in consternation and Roujirou paused and nodded encouragingly, "Why are things done so differently?"

"It is covered in your History classes, but it basically comes down to how we perceive our gifts. I cannot personally speak for Westerners, but from what I have observed of their practices they tend to neglect their physical aspect and rely heavily on their conduits and established spells that are spoken in ancient languages, as the modern ones cannot carry the power of our supernatural gifts." The teacher explained patiently, "Easterners, well, our philosophy was best summed up by one of our own nearly a thousand years ago when he said, 'The power to overcome reasoning is born from reasoning. Reiki is not a spontaneous miracle. When the 'spirit' flow within us and the 'spirit' flow of nature connects, they will form an embodiment for the first time. You will need a strong mentality and intense concentration to achieve victory as it is the pouring of all of your soul into whatever it is that you do that allows the use of reiki.'"

"I'm kind of following you, I think."

The man gave out a warm laugh, "Call me Kaidou-sensei, Hikaru-kun, as I will be one of your teachers this coming term. In the most basic sense, we believe that it is important for our children to be deeply connected to the spiritual gifts, as we believe that reiki to be a mix of spiritual and physical energies and inherent to our wellbeing as opposed to our Westerns counterparts, but that is a rather philosophic tangent that we won't get into right now. The first few months of your classes will be rather chaotic until you find an activity that you truly enjoy."

Hikaru gave him a rather puzzled look.

"While we would ideally have you little gakis doing hours of meditation to connect with your inner mainsprings that is just not a feasible option at your ages; so to circumvent that issue we require that you pick two activities that you enjoy and pour your efforts into them wholeheartedly. You see, as I already mentioned, Namishi-san, as a traditional Ikebana practitioner, will be a great help to you in your spiritual studies as even if you personally don't feel a great passion for Ikebana, your immersion in the environment will give you a much greater appreciation for the art, and help you find inner balance while performing it."

"What I have personally observed, having lived abroad for several years," Asuka cut in serenely, "is that children who grow up under the Eastern method tend to be far less flashy in their way of doing things with their spiritual energies, and they also tend to use them less frivolously. I, we, are not trying to speak ill of your parents' kin, but most of the serious breaches of the Statute of Secrecy come from their area of Central Europe, because those 'magicals' rely so heavily on their 'magic' that they are absolutely helpless without it for every trifling thing. Most European magicals view their nonmagical counterparts like you would a monkey in a zoo."

Hikaru gave her an absolutely disgusted look, "What?"

Kaidou-sensei nodded somberly, "It is true, and I admit that I am probably not being nearly as impartial as I am attempting to be in this matter. Here in the East we have our own issues, but we have always lived relatively harmoniously with our, er, nonmagical counterparts." Kaidou-sensei looked like the words physically pained him, but there really wasn't a better way to put things at the moment, "However, despite being the cause of them, Central Europe suffered the most from tragedies such as the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the Witch Hunts, and the list goes on and on, and the reason that Italy follows the Eastern method for educating their children with spiritual gifts rather speaks for itself, no?"

"So you're saying that their approach to their educational system was founded during times of crisis and has since stagnated?" Hikaru delved into all the lessons that he had learned since his Papa and Dr. Shamal had popped into his life as he thought over everything Asuka and Kaidou-sensei had told him thus far.

Kaidou-sensei smiled and Asuka-obaa-san laughed brightly, as sensei leaned forward and said in a conspiratorial voice, "I think that I'm going to enjoy your homework assignments, Hikaru-kun."

From there the discussion descended into technicalities, and Hikaru found that he rather liked the way things would unfold, and Kaidou-sensei gave him an over-sized rubber band thing to wear that the man explained let the reiki strips on the school doorways know that he had been accounted for so he didn't set them off again, he got to pick the color as they were a rather common fashion item and so he picked a bright yellow one.

He also found out that a lot of his classes for his non-spiritual education were going to be covering the written language, as katakana and kanji were notoriously difficult and so took up a lot of time for younger children.

Apparently remembering that he was from an English speaking country at the last moment, Kaidou-sensei gave him an English test, and when Hikaru showed that he had an incredible grasp on the language in both spoken and written form, sensei stepped out for a moment and came back with a young woman who he introduced as Yukio-sensei, the English teacher, and after having a conversation with her, Hikaru somehow was volunteered to be her assistant while Asuka just watched it all happen.

Traitor.

So, his finalized schedule was pretty packed, as most second year elementary students, (which he was, apparently, because of when his birthday fell), only had a single class in the afternoon, instead Hikaru was going to be busy at school from eight thirty in the morning to four thirty in the afternoon on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and eight thirty in the morning to three thirty in the afternoon on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, not to mention helping Asuka-obaa-san, whatever his crazy Papa wanted done, and his homework.

Hikaru was going to be incredibly busy.

Thankfully, his English assistant-thing doubled as most of his cleaning duties.

Hikaru thought that the yellow hat that he had to wear as an elementary student was a bit ridiculous, but other than that his new school was pretty cool. Nearly half of the kids in his regular classes were in his reiki ones, so he didn't feel like a freak or a weirdo, and the terms that they used in the extra classes were general enough to be bandied about in the hallway during breaks.

The Japanese school year ran from early April to July 20th, then there was break, then mid-September to December 25th, and then mid-January to mid-March. Since Hikaru's birthday fell after the end of the first term, he wasn't actually behind all that much, as the classes were numbered by the term that you started. He had the weird experience of being hated for being a foreigner and being adored for being that 'cool foreign guy' at the same time.

Not that he had any time to contemplate any of that.

September had flown by in a haze and November wasn't going any slower, but honestly Hikaru loved his life.

He woke up every morning to prerecorded messages from his Papá. How the man had managed to rig his laptop to open and be creepy at exactly six every morning, Hikaru would never know.

He'd then go downstairs and help Asuka-obaa-san tend the flowers and get ready for the day, before scampering back upstairs to shower. While Asuka didn't have to feed him, and was technically only there to make sure he didn't accidentally off himself, he found that she apparently genuinely liked him and insisted that he have breakfast with her, she even made him a bento for school, which was a huge deal here in Japan.

Seriously, there were some mothers who got up at, like, three in the morning, just to make their kids' lunches, and the order that you ate it in was important. It was so strange to Hikaru.

Then it was school and trying to decipher katakana and kanji, (at this point Hikaru was going to learn Ancient Egyptian just to prove that the pictures would be easier to decipher), and those just made his head hurt, then helping Yukio-sensei, which was fun, and then his other before lunch classes.

Lunch was his favorite, though.

Because lunch meant that he could walk around and put his Aikido and Jujutsu practice to use. Jujutsu was actually what Dr. Shamal had been teaching him the basics of, because it focused on 'fighting smarter not harder, you're not a tank, brat'. Hikaru had taken up learning Aikido because it was a prerequisite for any of the blade wielding clubs at the middle school level, and, well, he was in Japan and swords were awesome.

(His Papá had laughed at him the last time they had talked over his laptop, but Hikaru had stuck his tongue out at the man and pointed out that he was nine.)

Granted, he wasn't all that great at it yet, but his Aikido was his secondary reiki discipline, (Ikebana was his first, it was surprisingly soothing, even if learning to make the needlepoint pieces was driving him insane), so he kind of had a cheat, but still lunchtime meant finding the idioti who thought that they could pick on smaller, meeker kids in his schoolyard.

Hikaru refused to allow the travesty that had been Harry Potter's early elementary school existence to continue when he could do something about it.

So, when he came across a group of morons bullying a tiny little nursery brat on his first day here, he had sent them on their way with a healthy dose of fear imparted into them, took the tiny boy back to the nurse to clean up, and then escorted him back to his class, (Namimori West and the Namimori West Nursery, which was basically the kindergarten, used the same building), and on that day bullies had begun to fear the distinctive drawl of Nakamura Hikaru.

Over in Italy, Reborn puffed up like a proud mamma bird as he watched his son prowl around the school like he owned the place, although he began to suspect that his son might have a secondary Flame, what with the patrolling that he was doing.

So, truly, was it any surprise that on that sunny, somewhat chilly November day as he made his way out to the grounds that were shielded from the teacher's prying eyes, his path was halted by a tiny Hibari Kyouya?

"Fight me, Carnivore!" The six-year-old demanded as threw himself forward at the elder boy.

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