Yukino

Upon entering the room a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It had been so long since I had last stepped over the threshold of the student council room. But instead of the old familiar feeling of purpose I used to have when I followed Haruka through this door, all I felt lonely and uneasy now.

The handle was cold under my fingers, not comforting at all, and the faces inside the room, though all familiar to me in a way, did not belong to any of the council members I had worked with back in high school.

My old place here had simply been next to Haruka, now, on my own, I let my gaze wander, wondering where to sit for this meeting that was about to take place.

Naturally, there was Midori, for she had summoned us, dressed as ever in jeans and a rather skimpy t-shirt, not looking like the respectable teacher she was supposed to be. Sitting next to her, talking, was Mai, and in the far corner stood a young woman with short brown hair whose face I could not place, but she looked as if she were appalled at the mere idea of being here. Last of all, with her back turned to the room and looking out of the window into the school grounds was undoubtedly the long black mane of Kuga Natsuki.

Although Natsuki had not been a member of the student council in her school days, she had been in here quite a few times; always at the side of the president. My eyes rested on her rigid back, her lone form surrounded by the bright sunlight falling through the glass and I wondered if she felt just as alone right now as I did. I briefly contemplated going over to her and ask, but Natsuki still possessed the unapproachable aura she already cultivated as a student, so I silently took a seat next to Midori.
Thinking it was better not to ask; Fujino not being here didn't necessarily mean she did was not with Natsuki any more. For what did I know? I had not spoken to either of them in years and we certainly had never been friends.

Mai and Midori greeted me friendly before resuming their conversation, or rather Mai talking about her little son. It must have been especially hard for her to leave her family, it made me feel sorry for her. Gazing around the room again, I wondered whether I had been the last one or not. Including me we were only five people gathered here, which made fighting whatever Midori suspected to be going on seem a lot harder all of a sudden and the uneasy feeling did not leave me; I did not want to be here.
Much less so when the door opened once again to reveal Fujino Shizuru. Four pairs of eyes were immediately upon her. The years had been good to her, I noticed, for she was almost looking the same as when she had graduated, save a few tiny lines around her eyes and her mouth.

"Good day, everybody." she said, in that practised voice of hers which sounded like honey to the ears of the listeners. Fujino had used it whenever she was dealing with authorities or trying to get her way.
A rustle from the window made me tear my gaze from Fujino and, turning around, I saw that Natsuki, alarmed by the too familiar voice, had stopped feigning ignorance to her surroundings and was staring at Fujino with a expression I could only call utter bewilderment. I guess it was an answer to my unspoken question.

Natsuki looked like she was about to blurt out something for a moment and then, her face became impassive again, she turned her back to the room once more. Fujino didn't look at anyone, she simply made her way to her old place to sit down. She fitted in just as well as the interior and for all that it looked natural and familiar to have Fujino sit there at the head of the room, it gave me a queasy feeling. Praying the meeting would soon commence I averted my eyes from the sight of Fujino, fixing my eyes on the door.

I wished for Miu to be by my side for I would not feel as alone, were she here, but then I sternly reminded myself that I didn't want to drag her into whatever mess was about to come up here especially after Midori had reminded me to come alone.

The door slid open once again, letting in Yuuki Nao, older but still no more civil, who dropped unceremoniously in an empty chair closest to the door.

Apparently this was the signal we had been waiting for. "Very good!" Midori exclaimed cheerfully as she rose from her seat. "Now that we're all gathered here I'd like to welcome you back to Fuuka. Although the circumstances of this reunion are not as happy as we could have hoped"

"Yeah, like we wanted to come in the first place," Nao drawled. Although she was a grown woman in her twenties now, she still acted like a highschooler.

Midori continued unperturbed. "I am nevertheless happy to see you again. It is time for the HiME-sentai to be revived now that new perils have arisen to threaten your beloved old school."
Nao clicked her tongue in a sound of disgust at Midori's speech and I could swear I saw a flicker of a smile ghost over Fujino's face. Personally, the word HiME made me shudder involuntarily for it brought back the memories of my darkest and weakest hours, moments I was so ashamed of I had blackened them out in my history. And I had certainly never told my girlfriend about them, she didn't need to know what a coward I had been.
What would await us now? I strongly doubted I would be able to fight those perils Midori spoke any better this time, seeing as I never had been a good fighter.

"So we will join our forces and strive to emerge victorious from all of this!" Midori was still going on and again Nao snorted at her choice of words, breaking my train of thoughts and I caught Mai throwing an unnerved look her way. Yuuki-san may look older now, but still behaved just like teenager; or she made it a point to act like one. I could not be sure, as I had not seen anything of her since I left Fuuka.

In fact, I had not seen a lot of the people I went to school with for years, but if this was a HiME meeting there should be more gathered in this room.

Shyly I spoke up. "Excuse me Sugiura-sensei, but shouldn't there be twelve persons here? Where is the rest?"

Midori dropped her cheerful expression and exchanged a look with Mai, who nodded and started to speak. "Unfortunately there are only the seven of us left."

As I gasped, Mai gently touched my arm, to assure me. "No, that was probably phrased badly. But Midori-sensei has contacted all former HiME and the others do not have their powers restored as it seems. They cannot fight without their elements so it's going to be our fight alone. We can't drag defenceless people into it. This, whatever it is, concerns only Midori-sensei, Kaichou-san, Natsuki, Yuuki-san, Shiho-chan and you and me."

Surprised I glanced at the sulking woman in the corner, to whom Mai must have referred as Shiho-chan. She sure had changed a lot. While I myself and the others more or less looked the same, only older, there was no trace of the girl with the pink pigtails left in that woman.
"It's Munakata-san for you!" the woman in question hissed. "Sorry, Munakata-san, you and me." Mai amended but otherwise ignoring Shiho.

"I see." I said slowly. "Please continue."

Midori nodded and picked up again.

"Two or three weeks ago, 'incidents' started to happen on the campus like overthrown dust bins, trampled flower beds, minor damages on school buildings, you get the picture. At first these act's were chalked up as vandalism, bottled up aggressions of some overbearing students. I actually had a couple of suspects, but I interrogated them and observed them and they were definitely not guilty." She paused for a moment to let us take in the information. "However, when repeated sightings of a wild beast on the grounds were reported, it sounded suspiciously close to nine years ago. The headmistress and I investigated and sadly found our suspicions to be true, that there were Orphans loose around the school grounds. So far they didn't attack any students, yet the one I cornered with the headmistress put up a fight."

"How powerful was it?" a voice asked from the window. It was the first time Natsuki had raised her voice. She was ignoring everybody in the room except Midori on whom she fixed her eyes.

"It was rather weak, but if I had not tried to summon my element on instinct and succeeded it still would have gotten nasty. " Natsuki nodded and leaned back against the window again, however she remained facing us rather than turning her back again.
"This event" now Midori's words were directed at the whole group again. "also gave us the first clue that not every HiME has been reactivated. Himeno-sama has not been able to summon up her weapon, neither then nor anytime afterwards up until now."

"Oh, so this is why you asked me to try conjuring up me element on the phone." I said softly, for I had been puzzled by this particular request when she had phoned me, but the success of my attempt had already filled me with apprehension.

Midori nodded. "Yes, I posed the same questions more or less to everybody from our former sentai and here you see what is so to speak left of us."

"So what's gonna happen now?" Nao drawled, as if all this did not concern her. "You want us to start another carnival until only one is left standing again? Because then I suggest we just get this over with, I have better things to do than be here."

Midori hit her fist on the table so hard I almost jumped out of my seat, Nao however merely raised an eyebrow when Midori lost her cheery demeanour yelling, "We will most certainly not fight each other at any point!"

"So what is your plan, Midori-sensei?" Mai asked, attempting to keep the situation calm. Midori gratefully took her up on it.
"We need more information on what is happening, any clue on why the Orphans are back and why it's only us left. Me and Himeno-sama will try to find out what we can. For the time being the rest of you is supposed to guard the students, which means patrol the campus and be ready to fight Orphans if the come out until we know more. I have arranged rooms for you in the dorms so that you will be on site all the time."

It didn't sound like a brilliant plan, but I had to agree, it was the best we could do for the moment, considering our circumstances. Students' safety were the top priority at the moment and I found myself thinking it was the same thing Haruka would have said. This at least, I knew how to do and surveillance had always been my strong suit. I still felt more than uneasy about it all but for now at least there was a task I could do confidently.

"Alright HiME-sentai, patrol duty tonight goes to Mai-chan and Nao-chan and we will meet tomorrow for breakfast for an update. Until nightfall you're free to rediscover your old campus." And with that Midori pushed her chair back and left the room.

She was gone before I could make up my mind whether to ask her any more questions about the situation, leaving me sitting there just as in the beginning on who to turn to. Maybe the reason was, that we were in the student council room but I found myself missing Haruka terribly, so bad it almost hurt physically. Beautiful, strong Haruka, who would take charge more so than Midori, who would lead the scouting troupes on patrol personally. Haruka, who would barge in head-first into the danger even when she didn't even know what kinds of power she was up against. Although I knew, now better than last time, that Haruka would not be able to do anything, not being a HiME, I wished for her to be here.
Instead of trying to get into a conversation with anybody else, I took up Midori's example and let the room quickly before any of them could see how close I was to tears, almost running to the room where I had dropped my bag before the meeting. I chided myself for wishing for Haruka. It had been eight, almost nine ears. If anybody, I should wish for my girlfriend, for Miu, to be by my side I should be more than over Haruka and all that we could never be, but it was impossible. Every place here, every room and corner held memories of our school days, of the times I was at her side every day and she was trusting in me with this absolute belief only Haruka could muster up for everything.
I had to stop this, I was my own person now, a grown, mature woman who should drag nobody into whatever this was going to be, neither Haruka nor Miu. Being back at my old high school did not give me permission to regress to my timid self from back then. I resolved to get on with the surveillance straight away. The sooner we found out the source of our powers returning the sooner we could hopefully rid ourselves of them and return to our normal lives.