Chapter 2- A New Identity

"Are...we there yet?" Mint asked, her words very breathy now. They had been flying for a long time, and she was almost worn out. They even stopped to rest in the park of some random town along the way. But as Mint asked Kumotaka if they were there, they were in the air, and her wing muscles were very, very sore.

"No. I suspect another hour or so will get us there." Mint groaned. The sun was already up, and had been up for awhile. When they arrived at the Shiroyama Bird Laboratories, she really needed a long, hot bath or something. She suspected her flying muscles would be sore for quite a few days to come.

"Argh!"

Finally, they were there. Mint pretty much collapsed on the ground, panting.

"Maybe you should fly more often, and build up the muscles." Suggested Kumotaka.

Mint glared at him. "No...more...flying...need...bath..."

"Well, Miss Aizawa, you might have to wait for that."

With a little bit of difficulty, due to an abnormal amount of exhaustion from the bird-girl, she turned her head to see a man.

This man was not an extraordinary man, just a normal man in a lab coat. From this, Mint concluded he must be a scientist, probably one working at the lab in the town she landed in or near. He had curly grayish-black hair that fizzled out of his head in a large spherical shape, and his bushy eyebrows mirrored his hairstyle. His eyes were big and brown, and hidden underneath enormous, black, thick-rimmed glasses. He looked in his fifties, and he wasn't really too tall, but taller than Mint was. His hands were big and rough, and they grasped a clipboard stuffed with many papers and a pen. The lab coat he wore was a slightly dulled white, and the many pockets were stuffed with odds and ends found in any laboratory or research center. The slightly oversized two feet he had were concealed under thick black boots caked with mud in some places, and the rims of the boots covered up a little bit of his green-brown pants. Mint couldn't see his shirt, as the lab coat covered whatever he wore underneath it all the way down to just before the boots, but she could assume it was in a similar, drab/unkempt manner.

"Hello, um, who are you?" Mint asked, slowly getting up. Her wings, shoulders, and even every single other muscle in her body was sore from the long flight, and she hoped she would never have to fly a distance like that ever again.

The man smiled and bowed a little, but it wasn't very low, and the girl thought it was probably because of the multitude of objects crammed into his bulging pockets. "I am Doctor Takao Shiroyama, and I am the head of the Shiroyama Bird Laboratories in the town of Moriyama, which you are just outside of right now. The bird Kumotaka told me you would be landing here."

Mint smiled back a little. "Um, you probably know my name already, but I'm Mint Aizawa. And...yeah, that's about it." She didn't want to tell him much about her past, especially of her immediate past.

Doctor Shiroyama nodded. "Do not worry, I know all about the accusation involving you and a certain supermodel. Do not fret, I do not believe them." Mint smiled gratefully, and in part because he had a slightly odd way of talking. "I have come to welcome you to Moriyama. We would be in a great state of honor to invite you to stay in Moriyama, and you would be under an alias."

Kumotaka hopped over to Mint. "An alias other than 'Mew Mint', of course. Is there some name you always liked?"

Mint thought for a moment. If this had been earlier in her lifetime, she would have chosen a name either of or relating to that of one of her idols, but if it was earlier, she wouldn't even have to think of one. "I don't know...I never really thought about it much..." She sort of half-lied. Having the last name "Aizawa" pretty much gave her instant mini-fame, since she was so rich, so she never considered making up a fake name.

Kumotaka tipped his feathered head, his curved beak clucking a little. "What about something foreign? I guess you could always do something stupid sounding, like...I don't know...'Corina Bucksworth'? Nah, that's too ugly..."

Mint raised an eyebrow. "Bucksworth? Are you crazy?"

Doctor Shiroyama chuckled. "I do not think Kumotaka was going to suggest that you take up the name seriously. He was most likely giving an out-of-the-fashion name, possibly to make the mood from dark to lighter?"

Kumotaka rolled his eyes, and ruffled his feathers. "Maybe something a little more usual. 'Aiko' is always pretty..." Mint's eyes twitched. "Or not. You want to avoid 'love' in your name, right?" She nodded, making fists with her hands. "How about..."

"Akiko Kobayashi?" The doctor suggested. Both the hybrids looked at him. "Akiko Kobayashi was the name of a friend that I had in past times. Akiko was a nice friend, an honest friend. Akiko moved to an Okinawa island long time in the past. Nobody would think another Akiko Kobayashi to be unusual. People liked Akiko, so they would like fake Akiko too?"

Mint smiled. "I like that name, it's pretty!" She put her hands on her Mew-clothed hips. "From now on, I will Echo you if you call me Mint Aizawa, 'cause Akiko Kobayashi is my name!" She transformed back into her normal self, then grimaced in the state her dress was in.

The man nodded, even though she hadn't voiced her disgust with her current garb. "I know, fake Akiko who needs to act like real Akiko needs clothes for Akiko to wear. Do not worry-I live next to store that carries uniforms. School uniforms are in the back-I bought a school uniform. If uniform had the unpleasant state of not fitting our Akiko, I would be able to promptly switch it for one that would fit the girl. Yes, is that not a good plan?"

Mint nodded slowly, as it required a little more brainpower to follow what Doctor Shiroyama said sometimes.

"Okay."

Later, Mint was inside the lab. It was a large, sprawling building bathed in the artificial glow of indoor lighting, and the light enhanced the white color of the walls. She really only saw the hallways of the three-story building, and saw nothing of the second floor, but she noticed that there were many bulletin boards with many papers.

She was lead to a room on the third floor that looked more like a bedroom than a research room. It was still all white, but there was a futon laid out, a small table, a clock on top of that small table, a closet, and a private bathroom for the room. Other than that, it was pretty empty, except for the window. It was a large window, a size somebody could jump out of, and was covered with soft blue curtains. Mint supposed she could fly out of it if needed.

On top of the futon was a neatly folded middle school uniform. Mint, after Doctor Shiroyama pointed it out, unfolded it to take a better look. It wasn't that special or anything, but it would do.

She grabbed it, and went into the bathroom, closing and locking the door. It, like the room, was small and plain, but pretty high-tech. There was a small shower as well, in a half-separate room, and she saw a bath in another part of the third floor of the building, since half of that story was for residents of the labs. Mint pulled off her dress and slipped on the uniform and shoes that went with it, then walked out, the dirty ensemble she had on before in her arms.

There was a mirror, and she walked over to it to see what she looked like. The girl in front of her had a sailor-type uniform that was mainly white, with a w-shaped collar that came down about five-to-six inches in the front, and had a standard box shape in the back that came down a little longer. The collar, like most of the uniform, was white, but there was a light blue stripe running parallel to the edge of the collar. There were similar stripes of the same color running parallel to the edges of the long sleeves and the bottom of the skirt and shirt. The skirt was white as well, and black tights covered the girl's legs. A pretty, yellow, thin, small bow hung a little limp at the top of the upside-down v-shape of the collar. She didn't have the shoes to go with it, but she assumed they would be a standard kind, with her class, grade, and name. Well, Akiko's name, actually. But technically, she was Akiko...

"I think that new Akiko looks very nicely in the new uniform. I think that many people will become friends with new Akiko. Except, I think that new Akiko should not have old Mint's hairstyle." The doctor held out a brush.

Mint nodded, and proceeded to yank out her hair ties, brush her hair, and then re-evaluate herself in front of the mirror. She did look a little different, instead of two buns on her head she had wavy shoulder-length hair.

Kumotaka flapped his grey-blue wings and landed on Mint's left shoulder. "Now 'Akiko', you're ready for school!"

Mint sighed. She now had to go to a public school...in an isolated village...and she had to act like a complete and total commoner.

But hey, Akiko Kobayashi's life in Moriyama was probably going to be a whole lot nicer than Mint Aizawa's life in Tokyo.

"So, are you excited about school tomorrow?" Kumotaka later asked Mint as she sat on her futon. Her room was still pretty bare, and not much had changed since she had first walked inside of it. The only real difference was that the uniform that was on the futon was now lain out on the ground next to the futon, she had received her shoes and they were sitting on top of a new uniform backpack, inside of that backpack was her gym uniform and her school swimsuit, and her dress she wore previously was stuffed inside a trash can inside the bathroom.

At that current point in time, Mint currently was wearing a blue tank top and matching shorts, and her hair was brushed very nicely. When Doctor Shiroyama went out to get the rest of her school things and register her in the middle school, he also got her something to wear at night. She would go shopping for other sets of clothes later.

Another thing that was added was a perch for Kumotaka. It had been unofficially decided that Kumotaka would hang around Mint like a guardian type figure, so Mint suggested he would share her room. As soon as Doctor Shiroyama heard that, he rushed out of the room and almost instantly returned with a sort of double T-shaped ornament that came to Mint's elbows for the two high rungs, and to her knees with the two lower ones. It was made out of twisted wood, and sort of resembled some kind of ancient, withered tree. So there he sat, staring at Mint on her own (much flatter) "perch".

"Sort of." The girl sighed, flopping back to lie on her futon. It was white, a little taller than she was, had two blankets: a thin white one on bottom, and a fluffy light blue one on top, and a relatively thick pillow with a pillowcase that one side was made of the same fluffy material her blue blanket was made out of, and the other side had one more similar to the other blanket. Mint assumed this was so she could flip it to accommodate the weather any night. The pillowcase was the same light blue as the thicker blanket.

The eagle hopped a little closer to Mint than he already was, peering down at her head from the lower rung, his head moving in short, jerky, and very bird-like movements and his eyes blinking from time to time.

"Why sort of?"

Mint closed her eyes. "Because I'm nervous. The fact that I'm going to a public school for the first time aside, I don't know if my new classmates will recognize me or not. If they do-well, I don't know what they would do, but I do know it would mean that no matter where I would go, somebody would recognize me. I wouldn't be able to just...fade away."

"'Fade away?' What do you mean by 'fade away?'" Kumotaka ventured to ask.

"I want to just start over...and...be a new...person..." The bird clicked his tongue to himself. The girl was tired-she had a long day, what with arriving and getting ready. She was falling asleep before his yellow eyes.

"Good night, Akiko."

"Good night, Kumotaka." And then she was asleep.

The bird bowed his head, before glancing out the window to the night sky. Was Mint going to be safe? He didn't know. But what he did know what sooner or later, they would actually have to deal with the problem instead of hiding or running away from it.

Poor girl.

And then he tucked his head beneath his wing, stopped thinking about it, and soon enough, he joined his new friend in sleep.