Errr….I have an excuse! My mum almost had to have the rest of her leg amputated, so I wasn't able to write or get online. Sorry!! But I'll upload three chapters to make it up to you. Okay?
Disclaimer: I don't own them.
Quote: "Peace is the still of the morn on a midsummer's night." –The Guiding, a novel in the works.
***
Chapter 14: Tomoeda Elementary
Apparently, I slept all day and all night, because I was shaken awake on Monday morning. I felt fresh and well rested, something that I loved to have in the morning. I stared around the room and saw that we had been given our school uniforms for Tomoeda Elementary. There were four outfits, a sweater, a jacket, a hat, and two pairs of shoes.
I pulled an under shirt on, which sported a turtleneck, and a sailor-like long-sleeved shirt. On the right shoulder was a winged symbol, which read Tomoeda Elementary. A short, short skirt was also pulled on, followed by a pair of dress socks and shoes.
At last, I brushed my hair into a ponytail and picked up my new school bag, a black shoulder bag with paper and pens and pencils. It was good to have to use pencils again.
"Eriol's got breakfast in the boy's room ready, Angel," said Hermione. "He's got to give us some last-minute instructions. You can really sleep when you want to, Angel, I've tried to wake you up, conscious and unconscious, for several hours."
"Sorry," I said, smiling. "Jus' a bit tired."
"A bit? You've slept over twenty-four hours, Angel!"
"Yeah, I know," I blushed. "Let's get over to the boy's."
"Good morning, sleepy heads," Eriol said, sporting a very handsome suit and tie. "Now, everyone go ahead and eat. I will perform the masking spells, so that Syaoran and Sakura won't recognize you and Angel. You'll still have the same color eyes and hair and things, it's just that your faces will look a bit different to Sakura and Syaoran. And to them only, I might add."
"How ya going to do that?" I asked, shoveling some more pancakes into my mouth. I was starving!
"Very simple. I've two strands of their hair here, courtesy of my brother," he said. "I will use their DNA to tell their eyes to see you as I make you appear to them."
I nodded. "Cool."
I felt a light tingling go through my face. Then it was over and I was normal. I looked at Hermione, who looked no different to me. It had apparently worked, though, because Eriol stood a few moments later and told us to follow him to the school.
"Now, everyone take their Japanese tea," said Eriol. As one, we all said the spell (Todos Languas. Nihon), and I think we were all speaking Japanese. I don't know, but I couldn't tell, either. Eriol said we had succeeded.
***
I had a better look at Tomoeda. To tell the truth, it was an enormous place with many open windows. It looked four stories tall.
"How are we ever going to find our way around that place?" I muttered. "Hogwarts was bad enough."
"Oh, you'll find it quite easy," said Eriol. "You'll be staying in one classroom for the majority of the day, with the exception of lunchtime, gym class, art class, and music class."
"Music class?" I said, trembling. "You said…music class?"
"Yes, is something wrong?" Eriol blinked down at me.
"I'm terrible in music," I said, blushing. "I can't play music to get myself out of a paper bag. I can sing, but only just."
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll do fine," Eriol laughed. "And it's only for two weeks."
"Yeah…" I nodded. "Two weeks."
"Now, you must go to the office and show them your transcripts, here," Eriol handed us each a transcript from the fifth grade, showing grades in each of our classes at this time in the school year when we were all still in the fifth grade. I winced, looking at them all. Straight "A's", until you get to the music section. A in chorus and B in violin, the instrumental section that we had been required to play at my elementary school.
We reached the office and were ushered apart by two people. A few moments of chaos and explanation later, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and I were headed for class 5A. We stood outside the classroom and waited for our "cue". A very young man, no older than Eriol, walked up to us and smiled.
"You're the new exchange students, I take it? I'm Mr. Terada, the homeroom teacher," he smiled.
"Yeah, we are," Hermione said.
"What are your names, so I can add them to the roster. I know you'll only be here two weeks, but I still need them," he said.
"Hermione Granger."
"Angel Indigo."
"Harry Potter."
"Ron Weasley."
"Well, I'll go inside and introduce you one at a time," said Mr. Terada.
"Hey, Angel," Hermione said suddenly. "What good will it do to protect our identities, if we use our real names?"
"I never told Syaoran or Sakura my last name," I said, shrugging. "Did you?"
"No. But still…won't the be suspicious?"
"Syaoran might be," I said. "He's a bit keen on this sort of thing. Should we lie to them?"
"I think it best," Hermione nodded regretfully. "Though I think we should have changed our names, all the more."
"That would be lying to the rest of the class," I said, shrugging. "Better just two of them than all of them."
"Yeah, the two that we happen to know and have befriended," Hermione muttered.
"Eriol said—"
"I know," Hermione sighed. "I'd just rather…oh, forget it, it's not important now."
"Please take your seats," said Mr. Terada. He left the door open so we could hear. "Today, we have four new students joining our class. They'll be here for two weeks to learn more about the Japanese school system first-hand. Come on in."
Hermione in the lead, we walked into the class. And I froze. There were so many kids…all of them staring at me.
"Please, introduce yourselves," said Mr. Terada.
"I'm Hermione Granger," she said. She gave a little wave.
"Ron Weasley."
"Harry Potter."
"A-A-Angel. A-Angel I-Indigo," I stammered. I played around with the tie of my sailor-type suit, blinking rapidly. I felt like I was going to cry.
"As strange as it sounds, they've all come from England with our new temporary math teacher, Aki Sakamoto."
Huh? Aki Sakamoto? I thought Eriol was the new math teacher. What did he mean, we came with him?
"Now, to seat you," he said. "I've set up four new desks in the back. Let's see here…Indigo, you take the seat behind Li there. Granger, behind Hiiragizawa, I'm sure you'll get along, he's also from England. Weasley and Potter, take the last two desks there, whichever one."
Great. Peaches and cream and all the dressings, I had to sit right behind him. He was bound to notice that it was me, he was bound to! I walked nervously back to the seat I'd been assigned, carrying my shoes in my hand. The slipper-shoes were already on my feet, as was custom when entering a room.
As I was walking, I stared straight ahead. Or at least, I tried to. Syaoran was seated right in my line of sight. He was staring at me, staring and trying to catch my eye. I knew it. I knew he would know something was up. He could sense that it was me. He could! I knew he could, why did I ever think I could mask myself from him!?
"Here's your seat right here, Ms. Indigo," smiled the raven-haired girl on my left. She was pointing to the seat behind Syaoran, which seemed very clean and new. Actually, as I escaped Syaoran's gaze, the room was extremely clean, almost surgically so.
"Thank you," I smiled back at the raven-haired girl. I knew her name, I knew her face, but if I let it up that I knew her, that would cement Syaoran's belief in who I was. I sat down. "What's your name?"
"Daidouji Tomoyo," she answered. "Talk to me after class, okay?" I nodded and turned straight forward as Mr. Terada began to teach his lesson.
***
As soon as the lesson was over, Syaoran turned around and glared at me.
"Who are you?"
"I-Indigo," I stuttered. Boy, could he be scary when he wanted to be. "W-Why do you ask?"
"Syaoran, stop that," Sakura said. "She just got here, she doesn't know what you're talking about." Just as I had expected, Sakura did not catch on to who I was. Or at least, she didn't feel it yet.
Syaoran turned away and slumped in his seat, waiting patiently for the next class. Boy, he was a lot different in his classroom environment.
"Don't worry, Indigo," whispered Daidouji. "He's just protective of Sakura." I smiled and nodded. Hermione looked over and shrugged.
Then Eriol walked in. Only, it wasn't Eriol. Not the Eriol I knew, anyway. He looked stern and wore thinner, more menacing glasses. His suit was tailored to him, and made him look older and stronger.
"Good morning, class," he said. "I am Aki Sakamoto, Mr. Sakamoto to you. I will be covering for your teacher until she returns."
The entire class was silent. I didn't know Eriol could act so different! It was like he was an entirely different person. He taught the lesson, and ushered us out to gym class. He stopped me and seemed to return to himself again. He smiled.
"Don't feel too intimidated, Angel, you know this is just my disguise," he said.
"I'm sorry," I said, blushing. "You're really…powerful looking when you're doing that."
"I know. Well, what do you expect your first prank to be?"
"I don't know," I said, shrugging. "I was never good with pranks."
"Well, start with something you know will work on some people," he said, smiling again. "You have permission to use magic, Angel, because this place is not in the magical jurisdiction. You've got your wand, right?"
"Of course!" I said. "I wouldn't go anywhere without it."
"They're dissecting frogs during science. Hurry and get outside."
I ran outside, wondering what he meant by that.
The others were standing outside, listening to another teacher. I snuck into the group and found that I hadn't missed much. We were playing volleyball. Ron and Harry turned to me, and Hermione turned an ear.
"Aki Sakamoto is Eriol," I said, whispering. "He said that there is no magical jurisdiction here. We can use magic to do our pranks, as long as we aren't seen."
"Wicked," Ron said.
"He also said that we're dissecting frogs during science, then he told me to get outside," I said, still puzzled.
"Cool," Harry said. "We'll make the frogs levitate all over the room. That's get people real scared."
"Maybe one of them will show magical potential," Hermione agreed. "We could try the same with these volleyballs. We're on the sidelines for now."
"But how will we do it without being seen?" Ron hissed as we walked off to the side. Sakura, Syaoran, Tomoyo, and another kid named Yamazaki. Yamazaki was chattering and didn't stop for a long time.
"Hermione will do it," I said, forming a plan in my head. "Ron and Harry and I will block the other's view of the wand. We've got to looked bored, though, like we're just doing this because we want to play."
Ron and Harry nodded and we formed a little horseshoe around Hermione's hand. She whispered the words "Wingardium Leviosa" and the volleyball floated out of one of the girls' hands. Hermione continued to make it float, even as Harry, Ron, and I looked up at it in surprise.
"What's going on?" I said.
"I don't know," Ron said.
"Do they do this sort of thing all the time?" Harry asked frantically.
"I don't know," Ron repeated.
The other kids were all murmuring among themselves. Eriol was watching the ball curiously. Syaoran was glancing around for suspicious movements. He had as of yet to look at us.
As soon as the ball was out of sight, Hermione released it and quickly pocketed her wand. The girl who had had the ball before was staring at her hands as the ball came back down to Earth.
"Look out!" Mr. Terada was shouting. He was passing by with a stack of papers when he saw what was going on. "Rika!" The girls looked up and then stood rooted to the spot. She screamed out loud and a wave of blue fire shot out of the ground and struck the ball, incinerating it in seconds.
"I think we just found our first candidate," I said, smirking. I quickly looked clueless as Syaoran glanced back at us again.
***
Lunch came around, and already we'd discovered one magical person: Rika. The flying frogs had wielded a little less of a reaction. She had only repelled the away from her.
Syaoran looked ready to kill when he approached me a few seconds after the bell rang. Sakura and Tomoyo were behind him, both looking extremely confused.
"Follow me. We'd like to have a word with you," he said, frowning.
"Wha-What?" I said, blinking. "But I—"
"Now."
Sulking, I followed him. Things were looking grim. Had he discovered who I was? Did he suspect? He had to suspect me, why would he take me out alone like this? Why didn't he tell Hermione to come, though?
"Why are you here…Ms. Mizuki?" asked Sakura.
Mizuki? Who's Mizuki?
"We know you're masked under there," said Syaoran. "Just show yourself."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, shaking my head. "I don't even know anyone named Mizuki."
"Show yourself!" Syaoran shouted, and a talismon was in his hand before I could say anything else.
"I'm not Mizuki!" I shouted.
"If you're not Mizuki, then who are you?" Syaoran whispered, his voice deadly serious.
"Angel Indigo is my name, that is the truth," I said slowly and carefully. "I should have changed my name to throw you off, but I guess it is all for the better."
"Then Mizuki was your fake name, was it?" Syaoran lit the talismon with a spell.
"NO!" I roared in frustration. "I was never this person! I am only Angel! Only Angel!"
"She is telling the truth," Tomoyo said suddenly. "She doesn't know what you're talking about, Li."
"How do you know?" Syaoran snapped.
"It her eyes," Tomoyo answered. "She's telling the truth. Not the whole truth, but I can tell. She's doing it for our own good. Leave her be, Li."
"She's right, Syaoran," Sakura said. "Tomoyo knows these things. I'm sorry, Indigo, that we were so rude."
"That's okay," I said. "No harm done. You might want to put your talismon out, though, Syaoran."
"Wha—ah!" He shook his hand roughly, which made the fire worse.
I sighed. "Eriol's gonna kill me, but…Extinguisora!" I put the fire out. "Reparo!" And fixed his shirt, good as new.
"Who are you?" Syaoran pressed.
"You won't recognize me for a while, Syaoran," I shook my head again. "But know this—I am close to you. I am your ally, despite what you may think."
***
O_O I know that's not what you were expecting. Syaoran thought I was Mizuki!! ^__^