"Hibari-san?" Kusakabe asked in worry as Hibari, who had recently come back from who-knows-where to settle back in school right away, opened his eyes wide as he sat straight in his director's chair in the reception room of Nami-chu.

Hibari put a hand to his head, frowning. A little tremor of a small earthquake shivered through the room, very small indeed, but Hibari wasn't paying attention. Images were going through his brain, from a point of view that was his, but not his all the same but somehow… why the nostalgia?

He stood up abruptly, and all the Nami-chu disciplinary committee stood up with their president. But Hibari paid them no heed and stared out the window in confusion as images of the people he knew, but somehow older flashed through his mind image after perfect image (and one girl seemed to pop out more than others)

What... were these memories?


Nami-chu was the same as ever. Walk in the school, fanboys? Check. Random Sakura trees? Check. Hibari and his goons glaring at everyone daring any one of them to become late (or break the rules, or piss Hibari off, or… yeah) with pompadours making everyone shudder away? Check.

Random boy looking at the Disciplinary Committee in awe? Check as well. I see a future pompadour developing…

I walked through, seeing the beautiful school absolutely clean (no littering allowed, obviously), and well, it wasn't really beautiful. Maybe I was biased.

Peace. After a few months of tension tension tension and impending war war WAR! And Tsuna being emo, Yamamoto brooding over his dad dying, Gokudera trying to… yeah, all that stress.

I carefully skirted Hibari, and wondered at why his eyes followed me. I didn't wear my sunglasses today, so what's the big deal?

Shrugging it off my mind, I looked at the school again, as I approached closer. Normality.

Well, to say the truth, it didn't seem real.

Clearing out my locker and carefully storing the presents, changing shoes, going into class, sitting in my seat… I sighed, whether in happiness or boredom I didn't really know.

"Alice!" Kyoko's bright voice called, walking arm in arm into the classroom with Hana. "Today's a lovely day!"

I smiled back.

"Yes it is."


It was school – from the reports from Nezu, the Shimon students had already started dispersing to other schools – after all, Enma wasn't the only one who was wary of the Shimon area after the earthquake. Apparently, it was quite a great one – and when I came back, there was another aftershock that was nearly just as bad.

Some were going to Midori, which reminded me of Setsuna and Miwa… but then, since we haven't talked for so long, maybe they didn't want to be friends with me anymore?

I would feel awkward. I was always kind of an awkward person anyway, but after so long I felt like I had no right to barge into their perfect, pure world. I had kind of stopped going to Miwa's house too, after claiming it to be tradition and everything.

So basically I felt guilty. And friends just drift apart anyway, so why was I getting bothered over it?

I got out my phone, screen blinking on, resting my head on my arm, looking at the classroom horizontally… my phone's screen flickered to my contacts list. I gave a slight smile inside. There were so many names now.

Dino, Tsuna, Gokudera, Yamamoto, Setsuna, Miwa, Kyoko, Hana, Haru, Grey, Ryohei, Liza, Yoshikuni, Bianchi… I even had Hibari's.

Maybe I never would have two-hundred names on my contacts list but I was happy with this number. They were my friends, you know?

I flicked it shut, before sliding it into my pants pocket again. Then I switched sides, instead of crushing my left ear to my arm, I crushed my right and peered out the window. It was a good day. Sunny, warm…

I gave a slight bitter smile as I let the sun warm me up.

Friends drift apart, huh?


"Alice, its lunch!" Tsuna's voice fuzzily punctured my dark dreamscape, where there were leaves blowing, and a voice asking me why, why?

I blinked my eyes sleepily; looking straight into Tsuna's face, and gave a small smile at his smile. "What, Tsuna?" I asked, not bothering to move my arm from underneath my head, for somehow my head had switched from looking at the window to facing the classroom. Somehow.

Tsuna blushed a little, before abruptly pulling back.

"I just wanted to know if you wanted to eat lunch with us," he fidgeted a little, moving a little back towards his seat. I blinked at him, and stared at his small school standard desk, already crowded with Gokudera sitting at the right hand side of Tsuna's seat, and Yamamoto dragging a random person's seat to sit directly across Tsuna. Tsuna took a few steps more, sliding into his seat and looking backwards at me. Their knees were all bumping each other's under the table, it was that cramped.

And for some reason, no matter how crowded that table was, that fourth side of the table seemed bare without me.

So I shrugged, brushing my hair from my face as I stood up. And with my blank face plastered firmly on, I rifled through my bag and took out my lunch box. Walking towards the empty side of the desk (the desk had four sides after all), I dragged a random chair and sat on it.

Gokudera 'tch'ed me, scowling and muttering out a 'took you long enough'. Yamamoto gave his eye-crinkly smile that had been missing for so long lately and with that little grin asked me if I needed chopstick lessons again. Fans all around the classroom squealed at the return of the classroom's idols, as we all sat around Tsuna yet again. The centre of the world.

With my back warmed by the sun, my silhouette stretched across the small piece of wood called 'Tsuna's desk', seeing the warm light giving everything else dimension and colour… Gokudera fussing over Tsuna, Yamamoto watching content and munching sushi, I grumbling about how hard it was to use chopsticks, and Tsuna just watching us all with those warm brown eyes that screamed louder than anything he could have voiced

I'm so happy we're back again

With the companionship that could be born by sharing hardships together, from overcoming them, from sticking together, and the knowledge that we all cared for each other, we ate lunch at school. Tsuna laughing at my little sarcastic comments, Gokudera glaring at the world except for Tsuna, Yamamoto smiling that silly little grin that didn't seem to leave his face…

"How could you replace me, sister?"

I was happy.

"You didn't recognise me…"

I blanked at Yamamoto trying to teach my how to use chopsticks yet again, nodding at how he was doing these weird 'whoosh whoosh!' sounds. Gokudera just snapped at him, before slapping a three dimensional graph of how the muscles in the hand should work in order to use chopsticks on the table, only to upset Tsuna's lunch… leading to a huge apology session, and Tsuna getting flustered.

Cue amused eyebrow quirk.

"You have a duty now, don't you, Alice?" Gold eyes gleamed, her hands snaking forward…

Flicking a little rice on Tsuna's nose, Gokudera turned to me in irate anger instead.

I fought hard to suppress my smirk at how angry Gokudera looked.

Tsuna grinned at me before trying to get up and tripping over his shoelaces. Then he fell backwards, with Gokudera trying to dive under him, kicking the table in the process and upsetting Yamamoto's sushi into his face, and I sat back trying hard not to cackle and creep my peers out even further.

It was a nice day.

The teacher came in after lunch, and he smiled at us.

"You all know about the earthquake, right? Well, there were some students afraid of earthquakes hitting their area again, and got admitted into our school." Murmurs erupted everywhere in the classroom. The teacher just smiled at us – he was an nice teacher. "Yup, and one of the transfer students is going to come into our class."

"I wonder if it's going to be a hot girl!" One of the idiots said somewhere in front of me.

Hormonal teenagers. I scowled, and looked at sensei.

At least I get the satisfaction of knowing that it was Enma instead of Adelheid coming into our class. Imagine Enma as a hot girl…

Heh.

"They'll be coming within a few days, so welcome them and show the Namimori school pride, okay?"

"Yes, teacher!" The whole class chorused together like primary schoolers. The teacher grinned, before turning around and writing on the board.

"Now let's get back to class. Who can answer this question?"

I glanced at it, before dropping my head very enthusiastically into my arms.

Advanced algebra. Fun.


"Who are you?" I yelled into the dark grey fog of the place, my voice reaching in deeper and deeper and never returning an echo. There was nothing to bounce off. I was alone.

Marching forward and determined to get out of the starkness of the place, the emptiness of the light grey…

They did say solitary confinement was one of the worst torture methods for mankind… A rustle from the ground alerted me to something other than me, and I suddenly wished I was alone again. Anything, anything other than this.

"Alice…" A whisper from the ground made me stare straight forward. "Alice, Alice…" it turned into a whimper, and I couldn't take it anymore and glanced down to see Jack and Tsuna, an arrow through Tsuna's heart and a dagger in the stomach for Jack.

Jack was the one moaning. My eyes widened as he dragged himself towards me. Then I stared at Tsuna, and I was relieved to see that he was still breathing. Barely, but breathing.

"You can only save one of us, Alice," Jack's voice dropped into a whisper. His breathing became ragged. I stared at them both, nearly going into… then I snapped my head up, and kept on marching forward and leaving the bodies behind.

"You're not real."

"But we're real, Alice…" came the reply, and there was a wet, clogged cough before a last shuddering breath sounded, and all became still.

"Because you didn't choose, they died, Alice."

That matter-of-face voice… I whirled around, and saw two corpses and no-one there. I screamed.

"COME OUT NOW, BASTARD!"

No-one answered.

I mentally apologised for saying a bad word to Grey, and kept on marching away from the bodies. It wasn't much later until the next voice called out to me.

"Alice, save me…"

I wanted to scream again.


"Alice, are you okay?" Tsuna's concerned face dropped into my vision once again. Only yesterday did Kyoko did something similar. I 'umphed' out a reply and turned my head towards the desk.

"I haven't been sleeping well. These few nights I have had some nightmares. Don't worry about it," I said, picking up my head that seemed so heavy these days. And here I was, thinking that maybe when I came back to the past I would be able to get some decent sleep.

When I get that bastard who was showing me these dreams, I would force them into a whole month of all-nighters, just to get revenge. Guh, I needed my sleep! It was a hobby!

"Oh," Tsuna looked a little crestfallen.

At that, I raised my head and quirked an eyebrow. "What is it, Tsuna?"

"It's nothing. It's just that I've been a bit puzzled over a note that I accidentally brought over from the future… that's all." He gave me an uncertain smile. "I thought you might understand it."

I frowned. "Why me? Why not Gokudera?"

Tsuna's face broke out of that permanent unsure-face, and gave a thoughtful look at me.

"It was signed to me, talking about you, but now that I think about it…" Tsuna smiled again, that unsure crease between his eyebrows and the goofy grin back solidly in place. "I want to keep it for myself."

I shook my head, scowling.

"You woke me up from lovely dreamless sleep for that?"

Tsuna chuckled sheepishly, still walking backwards until he tripped over a chair leg, falling backwards, and clipping his head on a table – not fully bashing his head on it because I had stood up and got a hold on his arm. I adjusted my balance a bit, before hauling him back from a forty-degree angle from the floor to the correct ninety degrees and stabilised him until he was the blushing, embarrassed, humble (but still strong in a variety of ways) Tsuna that I knew so well.

"Haha," he was saying, scratching the back of his head sheepishly, "I always trip over stuff, I'm sorry…"

And ignoring fanboy glares I gave his hair a ruffle.

"No problem."

I sat back down again, and the hubbub of lunch in the classroom started again.

"The transfers are coming tomorrow right? I think there're seven of them!"

"No, it was eight, wasn't it?"

"Really? I hope so! The more the better right?"

"Yeah, transfers make life more interesting."

A dreamy eyed girl glanced at Gokudera, who just entered the room from successfully snatching melon bread from the cafeteria (which was quite a feat. It was warfare down there).

Seeing Tsuna standing stock still in the middle of the classroom, he grinned happily and waved at Tsuna.

"Juudaime!"

Then he proceeded to switch faces, glaring at anyone who was in the way between him and his beloved Juudaime. He quickly crossed the classroom. "I got a bread for you as well!"

Tsuna broke out of whatever he was doing and smiled gratefully at Gokudera.

"Thank you, Gokudera!"

Gokudera preened.

Then he turned to me, with a little blush on his face, and asked me if I could accompany him to the Disciplinary room because some random people were too scared to give him the sheets he needed before the end of school.

Both Gokudera and I accompanied him this time – Yamamoto was playing baseball with the happiest smile on his face that I've ever seen for months.

We reached the door, and Kusakabe opened them and looked down at us with a smile.

I blinked.

It was so strange to see him without grass between his teeth. My face blanked.

When did he start the habit anyway?

An image of a five year old pompadoured, grass-chewing Kusakabe appeared… I tried very hard not to laugh, just in case I offend some delicate Japanese etiquette that Kusakabe obviously respected.

"Are those for Hibari-san?" Kusakabe asked kindly, looking at the stacks of paper in our hands. Gokudera had the biggest stack (I have to prove my worth as a right hand man, Juudaime!), I had the smallest (its only gentlemanly of them, and hey, gotta take advantage of girl rights) and Tsuna gave a shaky smile.

"Yeah. Please let us in?"

"Of course." He got out of the doorway, and Hibari looked up to see Gokudera move in, and his eyes narrowed until he saw the stack of paper.

"Over there." He said, clipped and distaste evidently showing through at us in his Reception room. Gokudera growled.

"I don't take orders from anyone but Juudaime!"

Hibari's eyes narrowed, but Tsuna intervened.

"Gokudera, put them over there, okay? I'm sure Hibari-san has a lot of things to do…"

As he moved from in front of me, I trailed bored eyes all over the room, the last landing on Hibari, who was staring at me with confusion, before putting a hand to his head, staring at me.

Okay.

Hibari was totally not staring at me.

I ignored him with my best poker face until he realised he must have had a 'weak' expression on, and his iron mask came over his face. "Get out," he growled at me, and I raised an eyebrow with my most innocent 'who me?' face.

He was still staring at me.

"Get out now."

I stared at him strangely now, as he looked down at me with cold eyes.

Was I the only one who thought we were getting along a bit better? But at least, I thought as I sighed in relief and handing over the papers to Kusakabe to handle as I happily walked out of the room, this Hibari didn't seem to like me in that way.

What a happy bonus to my life.


In the boisterous classroom of 2-A, Gokudera was cackling evilly after helping Tsuna do his class chores before class. He cracked his knuckles in anticipation. "Leave it to me, Juudaime! If anyone dares show disrespect to Juudaime, me, the RIGHT HAND MAN will show them who's boss!"

Tsuna's eyes grew in horror – Gokudera hadn't entered violent-yankee mode in a long time.

Gokudera's face then turned absolutely evil. "I can't wait," He said with a type of dark laugh/smirk.

"Don't do that, Gokudera!" Tsuna shrieked.

Yamamoto appeared behind Gokudera, customary sword slung behind his shoulder, and Tsuna looked at him in a type of apprehension (as, of course, this was his family, and they were all crazy – in a way. A good way of course. Cough. He doubted, sometimes…). Yamamoto grinned happily.

"I'm actually kind of looking forward to meeting the transfer students!"

Gokudera turned around with his scowl fixed in place (how dare the baseball freak steal his Juudaime's attention!")

"I mean," Yamamoto continued through Tsuna's 'good morning!', "there might be one who likes baseball and wants to join the baseball club, right?"

Gokudera gave a tch, and glanced at him in irritation. "Don't you ever think about anything other than baseball, baseball freak?" Yamamoto glanced down at him and laughed at him in that pure Yamamoto way that didn't induce any annoyance… except in Gokudera.

Gokudera was about to yell at him before another voice cut in.

"I'm looking forward to it too!" Kyoko said, smiling happily at Kyoko and sending out sparkle messages. Tsuna's face was like a volcano – that type of blood rush just couldn't be good for the body.

"Kyo-Kyoko-chan!" He stuttered out, leaning backwards to try and get out of range of her face, smiling idiotically (even I had to admit that).

I was silent, as I nodded at Tsuna and made my way towards my desk. "I'm looking forward to it too," I said truthfully. Tsuna glanced at me, still with that small tinge of blush on his face and gave me a grin too.

"Good morning!" He said brightly. I gave a small smile back.

"You sure have a smug smile stuck to your face," Hana said, strolling in and looking superior. Kyoko looked up at her happily. "I hope that they would be mature and not childish." She then eyed Tsuna, implying he was childish and therefore undeserving of Kyoko.

Tsuna took a page from Gokudera and turned his head away while muttering a 'tch'.

The teacher slid open the door, and the tired man smiled at us. "As you know, eight—"

My eyes narrowed, and I ignored everything else he said. Eight… so the rumour was right. There were eight students when there was supposed to be seven. If the plot changed, that could only mean it was Brighteye intervention, from the past or the present.

No doubt it was the kid who had the white eyes. The strange, strange eyes that stopped anything else from being remembered. I gave a slight frown to myself.

I was looking forward to meeting this… person.

"…And three of those students will come to this class. Be courteous, alright?"

I perked up, and drew my tired eyes up, suddenly not so tired anymore.

Three?

"Kozato-kun, Graney-san, and Shit—shito-kun…?" The teacher trailed off in confusion at the hand in front of his face. Then the most bizarre woman I have ever seen walked into my life.

Yes. She was even stranger than the Varia.

I think Lussuria and Shitt. P would get along really well.

"My name is Shitt. P!" She said confidently, her hands on her hips and two weird see through floaties around her shoulders in a body-suit with… stars on it. And gloves. She obviously didn't read through the school regulations for school uniform. Or hair colour. Or the ban of gloves. And lipstick. And sunglasses.

I cackled evilly in my brain, even as I, as elegantly as I could, steepled my fingers together and looked neutral.

Hibari had another target to pick on for sunglasses now!

I grinned (in a totally innocent way, of course).

"My talent is," she continued, "HAKKO!"

Yamada in the class mumbled in confusion, "Hakko!" (which meant eight).

"Hakko!" Some science otakus in the class mumbled (which meant radiation).

Gokudera said, "Hakko?!" (meaning fermentation. I was such a mind reader.)

"My favourite food is PI-PU, PU, PU, PIIII, PIIPU, PUU…" and her message ended with a strange 'click' sound that shook the class to the bones. People were all just staring at her, and one boy dared to ask a question vaguely directed to the teacher…

"It could be French…?"

Gokudera widened his eyes. "A signal…? She's… NOT HUMAN!" And at that, Gokudera put on his glasses and stared at the girl, inciting jealousy from the many girls that were seated around him. "Holy cow," he muttered, staring at her and obviously thinking that she was an Unidentified Mysterious Animal.

I wanted to chuckle at his thoughts, as he was starting to scribble in his notebook furiously.

Enma was standing next to her, quiet and very much in the shadow. No-one really noticed him (Shitt P just kind of… stood out a bit too much. Kind of like the ugly rich people in parties, you know? They just stuck out to you in the face until the erased all the normal people…)

"Shitt-kun…" The teacher tried to retain his smile, "very well… Er, next up is you…"

There was an expectant pause as everyone looked at the small redhead, who looked beaten up, bullied, and very much like…

I felt a pang of nostalgia and sudden care towards Enma.

He looked just like Tsuna only a year ago.

"…I'm Kozato… Enma…" he said barely over a whisper.

The teacher was a bit of a jerk. He made fun of people when he lost the attention of the class to a student, picking on the weaker ones (like Tsuna) when he got staged up, most often by me or Gokudera. I personally didn't like him at all. I liked him even less as he started picking on Enma from the 'lack of respect' from Shitt. P.

"Mm?" The teacher said, holding a hand to his ear. "Couldn't hear you there."

Another pause, and the class was a bit sympathetic to Enma, I think.

"Kozato… Enma," Enma tried again, looking down at his feet. There wasn't much of a different in volume.

"Speak up!" The teacher raised his voice. "Once more!"

But Enma only stood there, his whole countenance just exuding gloom and some boys and girls in the class broke into smirks. "So gloomy," they muttered to each other. Most of the class stayed silent, while Hana stared at him and (I think) recognised the former Tsuna in Enma as well.

"He's the type to get bullied a lot," Hana said quietly.

The third transfer student spoke up then, his voice pleasant and gentlemanly.

My eyes focused on him, surprised.

For some reason, even though I had been so focused on trying to pinpoint this third student… Graney, was it? This Graney, but I didn't realise he was here at all.

Or more exactly…

I glared at this boy, clean cut, pale eyes, perfect school uniform and the hair slicked back. He had blonde hair, white eyes (or pale. For he could obviously still see…) and pale skin like mine. But my skin was unnaturally pale (it was near impossible to get skin as white as mine, but there was a Brighteye theory behind it, so it was understandable for me. But for him…)

I noted them down. Blonde hair, name Graney.

"My name is Graney Wend, but just call me Wend!" He smiled. "But you'll all forget about me anyway, so it's okay. Let me sit behind the pretty yellow-eyed girl, please teacher?"

Fanboys glared, and I scribbled his exact words down onto my notebook. Everything counts.

"But there aren't any seats behind Bright," he said, the teacher looking slightly befuddled, before nodding. "Alright, there isn't any harm."

The three students seated themselves accordingly, and I kept my eyes on Wend.

He smiled at me, before dragging a chair and a desk from the corridor and sitting behind me. I felt uncomfortable, but I went through the lesson relatively calmly.

At the end of the lesson, it was only when chairs starting scraping on the floor that I realised I had actually forgotten that he had sit behind me.

…What was that?

I raced home, knowing (for some unknown reason that Tsuna and Enma would be safe. I had to trust my gut instinct this time. I had stuff to search up.)

"Miss, want some hot chocolate?"

"Yes please," I said to Grey, giving him a nod and shoving off my bag and slinging it onto the couch. I went straight to the computer room, gave a sneeze at the dust (it wasn't my fault it wasn't clean. Grey wasn't allowed to clean this area anyway, so it was always a bit dustier than everywhere else…)

I booted up the computer, put the four security passwords in, logged onto the server, answered the secret questions, accessed the network and searched up.

[Wend Graney]

four articles found.

The mechanical tinny voice of the little mascot on the corner of my screen waved a chubby hand at the four articles before poofing away, and I looked at each one, and their summaries, before clicking the first one.

What I found made my mouth drop.

What.

The.

Heck?


Now peoples! Hey! Yeah, three weeks!

Don't worry. I will never drop this story, or any of my stories. But hey, any of you remember who Wend is? If there is no-one, I won't be giving any clues. If there is someone, submit a review and try remember! You re-readers will sure get it.

MUAHAHAHA, I've been foreshadowing this for SUCH A LONG TIME!

See you in a few weeks time! (hopefully!) XD