DISCLAIMER: Apparently I am now cereal. You honestly think cereal can own any of this?

AUTHOR'S NOTES: -_-() Sorry, but in my opinion (and a few others), this chapter definitely isn't the best thing I've ever written. The first part of this fic (chapters 1 to 6 or 7) were written before I settled into the style(s) I'm comfortable with, so the quality on them isn't that great. I know you won't hold it against me though ~_~

I might be going back and making some changes to the first few chapters - like I said, this is the first fanfic I ever wrote, and while I hope it helps me avoid the cliches, it's not that great on style, but I'll work on it. Now that I look back on it, this is also in the days before my nine-page chapters and I think I was trying to cram too much into a small space. I'll try and fix it, I promise.

Ahh well, until I do, happy reading! ~_~

Oh yeah, one last thing! I'm a big believer in how your environment helps shape your character and personality, so if a reincarnation seems a bit different than the person they're supposed to be, just put it down to a new life in a new time in a new place with new people (mostly) ~_~

Warnings: weird writing, bad language... ummmmmm...... cheesiness? I dun know, homework, gag. @_@



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"Nani? Sensei, daijobu?" Reijirou was getting more than a little nervous, and his back was starting to hurt.

Sensei blinked once, twice, then settled back in his chair, sighing and rubbing his forehead. "Hai... You just reminded me of someone... Anyway." He hooked the glasses back on his ears and sat up straighter in the chair. "Since you missed it, I am Sukunami Taka. Formality makes me kind of nervous, so you don't have to call me Sukunami-sensei if you don't want to." He grinned. "You can even call me Taka, as long as you don't disrespect me. And I'll definitely let you know if you do."

Reijirou grinned back and saluted, "clicking" his heels. "Hai, Taka!"

Taka groaned and gave him look. "As much as I want to laugh now, I DO have a job to do, so get a seat and start taking these notes. Fortunately for you I haven't gotten very far." Taka stood up and went back to the projector, picked up his pen, and began writing again, verbally explaining the course outline he was sketching on the overhead.

Reijirou shrugged and started hiking up the steps going up the middle of the tiers to a seat in the back. About halfway up he felt a tug on his right sleeve. "What was all that?"

Reijirou blinked in the dim light and recognized Risako, a girl he knew slightly from high school. He shrugged his ignorance at her question. "Don't know, but it was definitely weird." He kept going up the stairs, flopping down in the first available aisle seat he found, letting his legs stick out into the aisle as he started to copy the outline and prepared to be bored out of his mind.



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~




"All right guys, you're free, see you at one on Wednesday!" Taka shouted two hours later.

Reijirou blinked and slowly came back to the present as his classmates gathered their things and left chattering lively. "Nani? It's over already?" It had hardly seemed like two hours. After Taka got through the course schedule, which even he admitted was boring as hell, he had lead them through a discussion/debate on whether the Aztecs and Incas would have survived the conquistadors if they'd been left alone for another century or two. Although the topic hadn't seemed that interesting at first, Taka proved to be a skillful debater who could draw out an opinion from just about anyone and keep the subject interesting. Even Reijirou, whose weakest subject was usually History, debated hotly, surprising himself.

Maybe I won't drop this class...he thought as he gathered his stuff. It seemed a lot more interesting than math.

"Enomoto, would you come here?" Taka called.

"Hai!" Reijirou left his bag unzipped and charged down the steps, jumping off the fifth to last one and landing with a thud in front of the desk, earning him a round of applause from the few students still in the room. "What do you want Taka?"

Taka laughed as he landed. No doubt about it, he lucked out in the teachers department, any one of the people he'd had the year before would've cussed him out big time for that little stunt. "You missed the book list I handed out at the beginning of class. You'll need to read these books by the assigned dates if you're gonna have any idea of what's going on in here." Taka handed him a piece of Xeroxed paper - with a twenty-book list on it.

"NANI?! You've GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" Reijirou fell over, crashing on his stuff. "TWENTY BOOKS?!"

Taka leaned over the desk to see his prostrate student's look of absolute horror, wearing a very amused look of his own. "Don't worry Enomoto, most of 'em are short - only two or three on there that'll take you more than three hours to read."

Reijirou shot him a wary look from his somewhat uncomfortable position on top of his books. "Are they dull pieces of s- trash?"

Taka smirked at the change of language. "We're not a history person, are we?"

"Iie, WE are not." Reijirou rolled off the books and to his feet, brushing off his clothes, while Taka settled back in his chair. "Then why did you sign up for this class?"

Reijirou knelt next to his bag and started pushing stuff back inside in great handfuls. "I didn't, I'm one of the late decision people. I didn't make up my mind to go here soon enough, so I didn't get all the classes I wanted. I got pushed in here. I'm not a history person at all." He grunted as he tried to shove in a library hardback among all the papers.

"Hmm... I see. Maybe, Enomoto Reijirou, you should think about becoming a history person."

Taka's voice had a strange, serious inflection to it, so different from his bantering tone just moments before that Reijirou looked up at him with a wary glance. Taka had folded his hands together in front of his face, resting his elbows on the edge of the desk, looking at him with as serious an expression on his face as he had when Reijirou had walked in late. "What do you mean, sensei?" he warily responded, using the formal title instead of his name for the first time. He slowly stood up, leaving his stuff scattered around his feet.

Taka stared back at him, just as serious. "I mean that you are someone I... can picture going far with history." He rested his arms on the blotter and leaned forward slightly again. This time Reijirou simply matched him look for look. "Just think about it." Taka blinked and stood up, walking out to put the overhead away. "Any more questions?"

There definitely needed to be less tension in the room. "Hai. Where d'you get your clothes?"

"Nani?!" That definitely surprised him, but he grinned widely. "Several places. I can give you some of the names Wednesday."

"Arigato, I need new stuff!" Reijirou zipped his bag shut and sprinted to the door. "See you Wednesday Taka!" The door slammed as he ran out.

Taka smiled at the door. "Yeah, Wednesday." The smile slowly faded into a mixture of sadness and wistfulness, and he sighed. "Is that really him...?"



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"Reijirou-kun!"

He skidded to a stop just before he slammed into the opposite wall, dropping his bag and nearly falling over again. "Risako-san? That you?"

"Hai, baka." She grinned. "Y'know, I don't remember you being this class clown-ish in high school... What're you on?"

"FREEDOM! Only a few years left to put up with the family." He grinned at her and picked up his bag, then started walking down the hall to the elevator. "Why'd you wait?"

She shrugged and followed after him. "You're the only one I know in there, so why not? Gotta have someone to talk to."

"Makes enough sense to me. Wanna grab something to eat? Whoa, hold on......" Reijirou started fishing through his pockets for his car keys, pausing in the middle of the hallway and setting his bag on the floor.

Risako looked at him curiously. "What're you doing?"

"Just a sec... All right, wallet: here, house key: got it, random junk-" several pieces of crumpled paper, bus tickets, a pencil nib, a small foam ball, and a tiny tape measure appeared from his pockets at that point "-hai, so where the hell are the CAR KEYS?" He knelt next to his bag and started going through that as well. Risako wasn't even bothering to hide her laughter. "Nani, is this THAT funny?"

"Hai!" She grinned and laughed at the same time. "Don't worry about it. There's a deli down here that's cheap, and the food's pretty good too. And," she grinned mischievously, "we can walk there."

"Sold! Let's go! I'm starving!" Reijirou quickly packed up again and grinned at Risako. "Race you." He grabbed his bag and ran towards the elevator.

"HEY! CHEATER!" Risako sped off too.

"Oh, BAKA!" Reijirou suddenly skidded to a stop and groaned loudly. "CHIAKI has the car keys! She's got it for the day!"

"Reijirou-kun no baka." Risako smacked him upside the head as she ran past, grinning. "And you lose!" She stopped in front of the elevator doors and smugly punched the call button.

"NE! NO FAIR!"



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"I STILL say you cheated," Reijirou grumped when they were about a block away from the university, headed to the deli. He glared at the cement, bag slung over his shoulder, scuffing his shoes along the sidewalk.

Risako still looked smug. "If I cheated, you cheated too, so that makes us even. No complaining, or I'll smack you again."

"But-" Smack. "All right all right, I get the point!"

"Glad you do. Now, I got some questions for you."

"Shoot." Reijirou stopped glaring at the sidewalk in favor of paying attention to what was in front of him when he nearly tripped over a dog's leash.

"D'you have any siblings?" Risako looked at him curiously, waiting for an answer.

"Why do you want to know?"

Risako shrugged. "No special reason. Just saw someone the other day who looked a lot like you, but with longer hair."

"Ahh, that was probably Chiaki, the one I share the car with. Let's see... She's a junior in our university, and she's studying something in science, ask her if you want all the details. And there's Hajime, my younger brother. He's 14, he'll be taking the entrance exams this year. People usually don't think we're brothers, we look really different."

"Hai? So who do you look like, your mother or father?" Risako tilted her head inquisitively.

He grinned. "My mother, definitely. Chiaki and I both look a lot like her. And each other. In fact, I remember someone when I was seven mistaking me for Chiaki's little sister."

Risako burst out laughing again. "Oh God, I can see that!"

"Ne, not that again! I don't look like a girl!"

"You do more than most males our age," Risako teased. "Admit it. You know it's true."

"Don't hold your breath."

"All right, all right." Risako reached out a hand and poked his hair. "So your sister has hair like this too?"

Reijirou grinned ruefully, remembering Chiaki's comment from that morning. "Yeah, pretty much exactly the same. Purple hair runs in the family it seems." He ran his free hand through his shaggy cut. "Although I got a hair cut yesterday."

"It suits you. C'mon, just three more blocks to go, and then-" Risako broke off her sentence as a scream filled the air, coming from one of the side streets that was crossing the road they were on.

"COME ON!" Reijirou took off quickly in the direction of the scream, Risako hot on his heels. As he got closer he could tell the screams were not in fear, but rather in anger. He rounded the corner, noting a block with a few stores and a small park surrounded by a low brick wall. He took in the woman with thick brown hair doing the screaming and yelling, the rather tall teenager with a black baseball cap pulled tightly over his head, hiding his hair and most of his face, and the purse they were fighting for in the blink of an eye, then had to stop because of the gathering crowd. Risako appeared behind him not a second later. "What's going on?"

"Looks like this kid tried to mug somebody, but she's fighting back!" Reijirou started pushing through the crowd, trying to get a better view, Risako eagerly following in his wake. They were close to the front when the mugger swung at the woman and connected with her temple, knocking her back into the crowd. Risako immediately ran to her, helping to ease her down to the ground, shouting for someone to call an ambulance while the mugger jumped over the park wall, running for his life.

Reijirou bowled over the rest of the people in his way, not caring who he knocked over, with a speed that could have almost been inhuman and gave chase to the mugger. Over the wall he went, landing as well as he did on the hurdles, crashing through trees, trying to run quickly and quietly at the same time in order to trace the mugger with his ears and his eyes. It wasn't that hard; the thief was very fast, but not very skilled. And Reijirou was slowly gaining on him.

Reijirou was only ten feet behind him when the thief looked back. "Awww, SHIT!"

"GET BACK HERE, DAMN YOU!" Reijirou yelled at him, gaining another foot. "YOU HURT HER!"

"LIKE HELL I WILL!" The mugger tried to put on an extra burst of speed, but he was already going his fastest. Reijirou was the one to put on the speed, and to get a foot closer... another foot... two feet... and JUMP!

Reijirou got a solid push off an old tree stump and tackled the mugger square in the back, bringing them both down and rolling them into a tree trunk. The mugger fought for a minute, but Reijirou had him effectively pinned between himself and the trunk. Reijirou twisted the thief's arm up behind him - painfully. He screamed.

"Lemme go lemme go ya piece AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"Not happening. Now SHUT THE HELL UP." Reijirou wrenched him into a lying position on the ground, with his arm still twisted behind him, kneeling on the small of his back.

"THEN STOP FUCKIN' HURTIN' ME, DAMNIT!"

Reijirou bashed him in the back of the head with his free hand, slamming the mugger's face into the ground and making him take in a mouthful of dirt. He may have been smaller than his captive, but he was better off in the strength department at least. "I hope that bleeds. You KNOCKED HER UNCONSCIOUS YOU SHIT!" Down came his fist again, slamming the thief's face even further into the dirt, making the already dazed mugger see stars and whimper in pain.

Reijirou knew the guy couldn't get away now. He stood up, dusted himself off, and kicked the mugger in the ribs. The thief oomphed softly in pain and curled up around the kicked spot. Reijirou looked around and found the purse in a bush, where it had been thrown in the scuffle, and looped it over his shoulder with a grimace. There was no other way to take it back, but he did NOT like wearing a purse, even for something like this. He then turned back to the much-subdued thief and sighed in disgust. "C'mon, we're going back."

He dragged the thief to his feet, keeping one hand around his wrists at all time, but there was no real reason for precautions because he was still too stunned to try much. Reijirou bent down and, blessing his strength, hauled the thief over his shoulders like a sack of flour, so that his booted feet dangled on his left side and his baseball-capped head drooped on his right, with his torso lying over Reijirou's upper back and shoulders. There's no way I'm gonna run like this, he thought, and began trudging back the half mile to the scene of the mugging, the woman's purse slapping at his side.



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KAZE-CHAN'S DEFINITION OF "OVERDONE PLOT": A storyline that has been written several times by several different authors, with a few changes here and there.

SOME OVERDONE PLOTS (only applies to FY): "a new girl gets pulled in to be miko in place of Miaka", "a girl from the real world gets pulled in to be strong mystical help for the Suzaku", "reincarnation (mostly featuring Nuriko)", "yaoi (mostly TasukixChichiri)", "Episode 33". ~snooty librarian voice~ Most or all of the above require many chapters and/or a complete rewrite of the story.

Kaze-chan would officially like to apologize for venturing, even unintentionally, into Overdone Plots Land, and hopes you'll be able to forgive her someday.

.........

OK, TOO MUCH CALCULUS FOR KAZE-CHAN!