Disclaimer: I do not own, nor claim to own, any characters or related indicia of Maria-Sama Ga Miteru, it all belongs to the creators. As the page turns....

Chapter Ten: Distancing

Sakura let her last two words sink into the minds of her friends as five of them stared at her in shock, one smirked liked there was no tomorrow and two held mixed expressions of shock, terror and sympathy.

"That's not possible…" Yoshino began to say, but was silenced by an elbow from Rei.

"Actually it is quite possible." Sakura stated. "You think it is not because Sachiko and I look nothing alike, even more so now, but I'll get to that later. I look nothing like her because I dyed my hair from black like Sachiko's to the blonde you've been seeing. I also got violet coloured contacts to make myself look more like Mizuki's sister rather than Sachiko's as my natural eye colour is the same as hers."

"Why did you not tell us then?" Shimako asked, perplexed.

"Because you didn't need to know." Sakura explained, "I had cut all ties with my biological family after I was disowned when I was six. I will not go into details because the less you know the better."

"What do you mean by that?" Eriko asked.

"Well, when I was a child, a friend of mine and myself were test subjects for my uncle's genetics engineering lab. They wanted to create a race of super-humans and, well, they thought the tests failed, but they really succeeded. All of this was kept secret from my grandfather by my father so nobody except me, Lance who was my friend, my uncle and my father knew. I was disowned soon after that and I thought life would be okay, but then, somehow, my grandfather found out about me and Lance. He had Lance attacked and Lance was badly hurt. That's why I haven't been at school for a while, because I was taking care of Lance. That's also why I look like this, I don't know much about it; just that it happens when we expend a great amount of energy into healing one of our own. It supposedly makes us more powerful."

"What does that have to do with us not needing to know anything about you?" Sei asked.

"It has everything to do with it!" Sakura exclaimed. "Don't you see? If Lance was attacked then my grandfather is obviously going to try to attack me next! I can't let him know that I have friends and people that I care about so that he can use them against me to make me do what he wants!"

"So he has begun to move then?" Sachiko asked.

"Yes," Sakura answered turning to her sister. "And it also means that you can no longer be around me. It means that I have to distance myself as far as possible from all of you; to keep you safe and to keep anything from happening to any of you!"

"So does this mean that you won't be at school anymore?" Yumi asked.

"Yes, in fact, Lance and I are going to move, I won't tell you where because, again, the less you guys know the better. Lance and I will lie low for a while until my grandfather gives up his search for us, then maybe I can come back." With that, Sakura turned on her heel and headed towards the door.

"Where are you going?" Yoshino asked, just as Sakura opened the door.

"I told you, I'm leaving with Lance to keep you guys out of the mess that is my life. I'll see you around…hopefully." With that, Sakura left the Rose Mansion, and her friends, and went to meet Lance outside the gates to the school.

"What happened?" Lance asked, seeing Sakura's less than happy expression.

"I don't want to talk about it," Sakura said, "let's just leave already alright? Before I change my mind."

"Okay, but where are we going to go?" Lance asked as they started walking to the train station, handing Sakura her bag which she had telepathically asked him to go get while she was with her friends, as they walked.

"Onee-sama has a second apartment a couple towns over, we can go there." Sakura answered, taking her bag from Lance that, for some reason, felt a little heavier than when she gave it to him.

"Okay, I guess that's the best we can do for now." Lance agreed as they got on the train and completed the long ride in silence.

When they got to the apartment, Sakura fished a key out of her pocket and opened the door to the spacious, two-bedroom, two-bathroom, apartment. She quickly claimed the bedroom on the right and dumped the contents of her bag onto the bed. That was when she noticed the package. It was small, about the size of a paperback book, and had her name written on it in black ink. She studied the cursive and, upon recognizing it, paled.

"Lance!" She managed to call out, loud enough for him to hear her. "Can you come in here for a minute?"

"What's up?" Lance asked, appearing in the doorway looking calm and nonchalant.

"Do you know how this got into my bag?" Sakura asked, holding up the package so that Lance could see the easily recognizable cursive written on it.

"Yea, actually I do," Lance said, taking the package from her and opening it to withdraw a letter written in the same black ink and cursive as the address on the package. "Your cousin, Suguru I think he called himself, gave it to me while you were dealing with your friends and said that his dad wanted you to have it, that there was something very important about it."

"Well let's see what is so important that he had to give it to me through Suguru then," Sakura said, taking the letter from Lance and walking out towards the living room where she promptly sat on the couch, Lance taking a seat beside her to read over her shoulder. Hating the fact that Lance was trying to read over her shoulder, Sakura decided to read the letter from her uncle out loud.

Dear Sakura,

I hope this letter finds you and Lance well and in some sort of control of your powers. You both know already how much I am sorry for what has happened to you both, so I will not re-iterate it for you. However, I will explain what the contents of the box enclosed with this letter is supposed to do for you. As you will see, the box contains a small flask of a silver-blue liquid, we do not have a name for it yet as it has only just been newly developed, but it is supposed to help you, or rather, one of you as there is not enough in that bottle for the both of you. What it does is, in our minds, quite simple: it will take away some of your powers that you received when you became Draconians and make you almost human. I say almost because it does not take away the superior strength, speed and senses that becoming a Draconian gave you. In other words, if one of you drinks it, you will be free of the responsibilities that have descended upon you against your will, you will become human again. Make your decision for who shall drink it carefully and wisely for the effects cannot be reversed.

Be safe,

Your Uncle

"Well that was almost no help at all," Lance said after a few minutes of silence after Sakura finished. "How are we supposed to decide who gets to become human again?"

"I don't know," Sakura answered truthfully, withdrawing the bottle from the package and examining it.

"I think you should," Lance said, making Sakura almost drop the vial from surprise.

"What?!" She asked, whipping around to face Lance. "You think I should drink it?!"

"No, what I mean is that I think you should be the one to decide which of us gets to become human again," Lance said, calming Sakura down instantly.

"Oh," Sakura said, looking at the bottle again. "If you really think I should, then I will, but I'm not going to make this decision right here, right now. I'm going to take uncle's advice and consider every possible angle to make a careful and wise decision."

"Good idea," Lance agreed. "In the meantime, you need to get some sleep, I know telling your friends, and your sister, that they might never see you again was something you were not looking forward to in the slightest."

"Okay," Sakura agreed and, still holding the bottle of whatever it was that would turn one of them mostly human, got up, went to her room, closed the door, flopped onto her bed and fell asleep.

Sakura woke up to the sound of voices. Quietly, she got up out of bed and tiptoed towards the door of her bedroom which was slightly ajar. She peered through the crack to see Lance just sitting on the couch and apparently talking to himself, the blue glow from his laptop screen lighting his silouette.

"I really don't know what to do." Lance was saying. "Why on earth did you only make enough serum for one person?"

"Because it is still experimental, besides, there has to at least be one of you around to stop my father after the other drinks the serum."

It took Sakura a moment to realize that Lance was not talking to himself, he was talking to her uncle via the laptop computer sitting on the table in front of him.

"My question to you is why you told Sakura to be the one to decide who stays Draconian and who becomes human again." Sakura's uncle continued.

"Because it seemed only fair!" Lance exclaimed. "She has lost so much more than me because of your stupid experiments. She lost everything! Her home, her family, her friends, and most important to her, she lost her sister. I never had any of that in the first place. My home was that god-awful orphanage, my family was dead, my friends consisted of ripped and torn plush toys and I never had any siblings."

"So you thought it would be fair to her to decide herself because she would have something to go back to if she became human again, is that it?"

"Yes." Lance replied.

"And yet, you wish to become human again more than anything, correct?"

"Yes."

"So why don't you just tell her? Why don't you just forget all this drama and pretend that the two of you are exactly the same? Drop your stupid pride and chivalry and go and tell her 'Hey, I know I told you to make this decision, but, if it is at all possible, could you see it in your heart to choose me over yourself? Because I know you have much more to gain by becoming human again than I do, but all I ever wanted was to be a normal, human, boy. Nothing more, nothing less.' Why the hell don't you do that?"

"I told you, it's because I want to be fair and actually give her a chance to have her old life back!" Lance exclaimed in exasperation.

"Kid, nothing, not even becoming human again, can give my niece her old life back. My brother was a downright fool, and a cruel one at that, to disown his daughter the way he did. He didn't even think of the repercussions his actions could have, like my niece hating her own sister and despising the rest of her family even more. The fact of the matter is that, even if she became human again, she could never, actually she probably would never, go back to her old family and her old life ever again, even if my brother invited her back."

"This is all just too confusing for me." Lance said, putting his head in his hands.

"Which is exactly why you made the right choice in dumping the responsibility of deciding who gets to be human again on Sakura. She is much more level-headed when it comes to tough decisions like this than you are. You may want to become human more than she probably ever will, but she has had something for a very long time, something that you have only just gained recently."

"What's that?" Lance asked.

"Someone to look out for and to watch their back as well as someone who will look out for her and watch her back, when she needs it that is."

"I don't understand." Lance said, sounding more confused by the minute.

"Maybe not now, but someday soon, everything I have just told you, along with other things, will become clear as crystal and as plain as the nose on your face. You just have to have a little faith. That's all it takes."

Sakura watched as the blue glow on the computer screen went black as the conversation ended. She watched as Lance, obviously still confused, stretched his arms and headed towards his room to get some much-needed rest of his own. Sakura watched the light in Lance's room go out and then quietly closed her door and crept back to bed where she was left, sleepless, to ponder all that she had learned about the feelings, and past, of one of her best friends.

A/N: Hey everybody! okay first off i would like to say how incredibly sorry i am for not updating for as long as i did. Things have been pretty busy and for that last few months ive been having a severe case of writer's block with this story, but im back now and hopefully will be updating more frequently. There are only three chapters left to go on this and i love everybody who has stuck with me thus far. ummm yea thats it, oh and just so you know, the next few chapters (most likely the next two) are going to be super intense so fasten your seat belts and hold on cuz this is gonna be a bumpy ride.......in other words, the Ogasawara's butts are about to be kicked to the next millennium!