Hamuko stood there and saw the words disappear and the sparkles of blue light fell over her like usual. However there was a problem. Everyone was still frozen in time.
"Something…something's not right…" she said aloud to herself.
"You would be correct," echoed a familiar voice behind her.
She turned around to see the velvet room door opened at the entrance to the dorm, revealing Igor sitting in his usual grand chair while Theodore stood on his left side. However, there was something off about the room. It still had the blue glow to it but it felt…odd…ominous even. Glancing up she saw the clock in the back ground rapidly turning counter clock wise.
"Please come in Ms. Hamuko. We have much to discuss."
Hamuko walked in, the door closed behind her and she sat down in the chair, the small wooden table in the middle of the room. She kept finding herself glancing around and it was the sound of Theodore's voice that caught her attention.
"You feel it too don't you?" he asked simply, "The feeling that something is amiss, the feeling that something is…wrong."
Hamuko could only nod.
"Well that would be because something happened that wasn't supposed to," Igor sighed as he rubbed his chin, "The bigger problem is that I can't exactly place where the occurrence is. So for the moment I have no choice but to randomly put you where the anomaly seemed to have occurred." As he spoke a small black butterfly fluttered in and started to continuously fly around her.
"Randomly?" she asked trying to ignore the butterfly, "What if you're wrong and I'm not in the right place?"
"If the problems still occurs we will have to go back in time until we get it right."
She looked at her long nosed friend with confusion, "I didn't know you had the power to do that."
"He doesn't," said a female voice coming from the butterfly, "This is where I come in."
"Y-your going to help us?"
"Well I don't have a choice. Oops!" the female voice gave a chuckle. "I know this must seem terribly confusing… one moment." The butter fly landed on the ground and in a flash of bright light transformed into a beautiful woman. She was wearing a long red dress with black lace design at the hem. Even though some of her ebony hair was pinned up into a bun, there were still a few strands of hair that flowed all the way to the ground. She glanced at Hamuko with yellow eyes and a very serious gaze.
"I am not supposed to be in this world but because of the unbalance I have no choice but to make sure that it all goes well. I am going to loan Igor some of my power to help."
"So it's not a coincidence?"
"There is no such thing as a coincidence or luck. Only destiny."
With a loud hiss, the clock came to a halt and slowly started to move clock wise, and the door behind her opened.
"Ah," Igor gave a grin, "This would be your stop Miss Hamuko." He held up his palm and looked at her with a serious glare, "Remember your contract, 'I accept full responsibility for all of my actions..' So make sure that you don't tell you friends what will happen, nor will you give them even the slightest hint that you know. The consequences could be fatal. Is that understood?"
She could only nod as she made her way to the door, "But…what if I mess something up and how will I know when it's over?"
"Yuuko will come when I cannot." He said simply.
"Yuuko?"
"That would be me child," Said the woman standing by Igor, "Don't worry. I will be with you, just be yourself and do your best."
Hamuko walked through the door and on the other side she was back at the dorm, where everyone was seated.
"What's going on?" she asked, but no one glanced up and no one looked her way. There were all merely frozen in time.
"We went back very far in time," answered Yuuko and she put a hand on Hamuko's shoulder, "This is the meeting to find out if the host club members have the potential."
Before Hamuko could ask any more question Yuuko slowly disappeared and time resumed back to normal.
Finally!" shouted Junpei, "It takes you chicks hours to get ready."
Just as Hamuko remembered he was impatient and then she remembered Akihiko was the next to speak. She let out a sigh, she knew already this was going to get hard.
"Junpei. Weren't you almost second to last person here?" said Akihiko, matter of factly.
"Oh…yeah…" he looked away and pulled his cap over his eyes, "Let's just get this over with."
Ikukuski waited until Hamuko took a seat on the other side of the table before he started talking.
"Well now that we have everyone here we can begin," I took a quick minute to clean his lenses, "I know you have class today so I will be quick. He picked up the clipboard and paper on the table and flipped through the pages. "Well, after extensive and…" he covered his mouth as he yawn, "Late night research, I happy to inform you that we have new persona users."
"Why!" Junpei nearly cried and leaned forward with his hands in his face, "Why have you forsaken me!"
Hamuko gasped in disbelief. She wasn't expecting that. Her thoughts were interrupted when she glanced back to see Shinjiro letting out a shaky sigh.
"I'm sorry," Ikukuski said, confused, "I thought you would be happy to have other persona users. You will have to stay here a bit longer, but if you train them well enough you won't have to worry about coming back."
"Oh," said Junpei, "I never thought of it like that, but it's going to take forever. They aren't exactly smart."
"On the contrary Junpei," Interrupted Mitsuru, "These students are exceptionally bright, even for aristocracy."
"How do you know that?" he said with a challenge, "Have you been to that host club?"
"Well only for a few moments. However," she put a hand on her hip, "Character and intelligence are two totally different categories. The chairman showed me their grades, most of which were advance courses and they have all A's. They are practically close to if not, completely at, college level. Especially the one named Kyoya Ootari. He could run his own business if he so wished."
The group went silent for a moment and Ikukuski fidgeted a bit in his chair as the others were lost in thought, "Well!" he said cheerfully breaking the silence. "Now is no time to feel dreaded. You all go to class and Mitsuru and I will come with a way to divide you guys up for the dark hour."
When they arrived to the school, Junpei walked slouched as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and Shinjiro look particularly surlier than usual.
Yukari tilted her head and blinked, "To be honest I'm afraid to know what's going on in their heads. Especially Junpei's."
Fuuka followed up from behind and tapped a finger lightly on her chin, "Well if memory served they weren't exactly having the best time at the host club, but who can blame them. The target for that club is girls after all."
Hamuko bit her bottom lip to hold in her giggling. She whispered softly to herself, "Masculinity…such a fragile thing."
"What did you say?" asked Yukari.
"Nothing!" jumped Hamuko, "Just thinking to myself…why?"
"I don't know," Yukari looked at her for a moment, "I can't put my finger on it but you seem different."
A small black butterfly flutter over to Hamuko and landed on her shoulder and Yuuko's voice whispered into her ear, "Don't worry no one can see or hear me but you. And she does have a point you are much too tough. You didn't punch that girl in the eye so you need to stay your sweet self."
"How did you know?" she whispered.
"The imbalanced allowed me to see a lot of what you did," she let out a soft laugh, "You have one heck of a right hook."
She could only sigh as she saw the black butterfly swiftly fly away. As much as I hate to admit she does have a point, but how do I reset myself. Hamuko closed her eyes and took a deep breath, when she opened them she saw Fuuka, Yukari, and even Junpei glancing over at her.
"I'm fine," she gave them all her sweetest smile, "Let's go in and do our best."
"There's the spirit," Mitsuru smiled back, "Now you all go to your classes."
Hamuko and the others nodded and they all ran to their classes. However, none of them could seem to pay attention to the teacher. Too many thoughts were swarming around their head. However, one of the biggest question was….what would the host clubs persona look like.
To her delight the day went by rather quickly, but she still hated having to deal with them calling her a commoner again. With her head in the clouds she strolled down the hallway to music room #3, but she bumped into a girl and nearly fell.
"Hey are you ok?" a girl in a bright yellow banana dress.
"Yeah…I'm fine… what's going on?"
"It's horrible," The girl turned around and fat tears streamed down her face, "the host club is closed today."
"Why are they closed?"
"Something about preparations."
"Maybe for Mid terms?"
"No way," a girl interrupted, "Mid terms aren't for several weeks."
"I think I already know," a girl closed her eyes and intertwined her fingers together, "One of the host club members must be getting bad grades and they are banding together to help him."
A tornado of hearts swam down the hallway with the sound of sighs and 'awws'.
"I feel inspired to do the same myself," Yelled one girl, her eyes literally on fire making Hamuko slowly back away.
"Yeah," sang another girl dancing in circles, "I'm going to go home right now and study!"
"MOE!" they screamed in harmony and ran off in different directions. Leaving the hallway completely silent with several hundred pink hearts floating around.
"Dude," yell Junpei pushing past a throbbing pink hearts, "The hell is going on?"
"The host club isn't here," Hamuko responded. She walked toward the door and read the note aloud, " 'Our sincerest apologies to our member but the Host Club will be cancelled for today for preparations. Please forgive the inconvenience.'"
"So basically they already know." Stated Junpei.
"Yep," she shrugged, "so I guess it's best for us to go and tell the others and we'll just meet them here on the dark hour."
"Oh yeah….the dark hour… that's gonna be fun." He gave a sarcastic tone and rolled his eyes. "Dibs on NOT getting the twins."
"Junpei…I'm sure it's not going be that bad."
"So I have to shoot myself in the head…with a gun," said Karou.
"Evoker!" yelled Shinjiro.
He gave Shinjiro an disbelieving glare, "If it looks like a gun, acts lick a gun, and makes sounds like a gun…it's a gun."
"and we use the gun to pull out my personality?" continued Hikaru.
Akihiko rubbed an aggravated hand through his white hair and groaned, "Persona!"
"Yeah.." they said in unison, "You are not tricking us into doing this."
"It's not a trick!" groaned Shinjiro, "If I wanted you dead I would have killed you myself a long time ago."
"Then why don't you do it?" the twins accused.
"Because we were given orders earlier not to use our Persona's."
Akihiko sighed and closed his eyes remember how they got into this mess.
It was three minutes before the dark hour and the SEES group was already at the gates of the Ouran Academy. Everyone decided to dress in their school uniforms from Gekkukon, except for Shinjiro who stuck to his trench coat and cotton cap.
"Where the hell are they?" grunted Akihiko, "Mitsuru what time did you tell them to meet us?"
"I asked them to meet us here 5 minutes ago…the sooner the better."
"oh wait," Fuuka pointed to the distance, "There is something coming."
Rolling up the curb of the school was 4 Mercedes Benz, not only was the car black, but the windows were tainted black too.
"What…no limousines?" Junpei crossed his arms, "I was expecting more."
Hamuko nodded in agreement. From how the host club throws their money around she was expecting longer, bigger…more expensive.
When the doors to the cars opened its as if a bucket of shimmering sparkles filled up the night and angel sang.
"Ah," said Yukari, defiantly not surprised. " they finally made it."
"The hell…" Junpei glared at the cars and squinted his eyes until the sparkles eventually went away, "And we are sure…they're not shadows…"
Yukari glared and him and mumbled, "I swear stupei every word that comes from your mouth amazes me."
"Greetings!" Tamaki announced and gave a bow, "We are here as you requested..ah ..why are you wearing all black."
"Oh," Fuuka smiled, "This is the uniform of our high school at home."
"Yes…but its all black…and mostly one color."
"Well statistically speaking," Kyoya opened his black book and flipped through the pages, "Most commoner schools have only 1 to 2 colors. Usually subtle tones… the brightest, so far, being red."
Honey merely yawned, "Well I like it." Small pink flower swarm around his head, while his eye grew big with admiration, "I think its SUPER CUTE!"
Fuuka and Yukari gave a slight blush.
"Well…anyway… It's really is late….." yawned Hikaru.
Karou blink sleepily, "Can we do this …like in the morning?"
Mitsuru growled which made all of the host club members jump, "You don't seem to understand the situation!" she gave an icy gaze to each member. "You are now dealing with the same burden we have at home. The dark hour and the shadows that reside with it. Now let's proceed."
"Ok but how can we be sure that last night happened," Honey stood there rubbing his eyes sleepily as he held tight to usa chan, "Last night seems..almost like a dream."
"You'll find out in..." Hamuko looked down at her watch, "3…2…1."
With the click of the clock it hit midnight and the dark hour commenced.