Ichihashi Hokuto was weird. Not in the way people with strange superpowers were weird, no. That type of "weird" was normal in Gakuen Alice. In fact, in the school, weird wasn't even called "weird." Weird was called "special."

But Ichihashi Hokuto... he was weird, in a very different category and level.

He had been the talk of the whole school before he even enrolled. And when he finally arrived, gossiping students wondered what his ability was, and why he was placed in the Dangerous Ability bunch. When the pale, silver-haired boy was introduced to the class, students of all sorts had tried to get a sense of his powers using their own abilities — or alices, as they called them — on him, but so far none of them had been able to so much as touch him, much less glean the type of power behind the enigma that was Ichihashi Hokuto. Students assumed that he had a "nullifying" alice of some kind, since one of them, a mind-reader named Kokoroyomi, noted aloud that he hadn't been able to read Ichihasi Hokuto's thoughts, but that didn't explain why Ichihashi was placed as a Dangerous Ability type. Nullifying powers were hardly dangerous. The contradictory nature of their assumption with the facts led to more speculation, and cast a darker shadow to the already murky waters that was his identity. He didn't have any parents or living relatives, the teachers had once told the students before Ichihashi's arrival in Gakuen Alice, in hopes that none of the students will ask the newcomer inappropriate questions. Fortunately, the students understood the warning for what it was, and avoided asking the boy questions about his past. Not that they would have gotten any information at all if they asked. After all, the boy hardly ever spoke. Besides his brief introduction of "I'm Ichihashi Hokuto," he hadn't said a single word to anyone, student or teacher. He wordlessly approached the only vacant seat in the classroom, sat down, brought out and flipped open a notebook, and stared ahead, his back ramrod straight and his left hand holding a pen which was poised over paper. He went about the first minutes of class silently, his face a frozen mask of stoic aloofness that bothered even Imai Hotaru, the dubbed "Unfeeling Ice Queen" of Gakuen Alice.

Hotaru studied the boy next to her with wariness. Ichihashi Hokuto was... wrong. Wrong in a way that he had an air of a living, breathing anomaly. Hotaru prided herself in her objectivity and thus didn't want to label anyone as something so negatively biased as an "abomination," but Ichihashi Hokuto felt just like one. An abomination.

As if sensing her eyes on him, the boy slowly turned and met her stare, the darkness in his faded-grey eyes just about terrifying the ever-loving crap out of her.

Never before had she felt such terror.

The first thing Sakura Mikan noticed about the new student, Ichihashi Hokuto, was the absurd amount of piercings and jewelry that the boy had. He had seven (seven!) earrings on each of his ears (each one!), two rings around each (each!) of his ten fingers, a thick metal choker around his neck, and a large cuff-like bracelet wrapped around each of his wrists. Mikan thought he was a bit strange. Didn't it hurt to have your ears pierced? She hadn't had hers pierced yet (her grandfather said she was too young to wear earrings anyway), but she heard from her best friend, Hotaru, that ear-piercing was a painful experience. And to have it done fourteen times... well, Mikan supposed there were a lot of things she will never understand, and why anyone would willingly go through ear-piercing fourteen times was one of them. And Mikan thought that perhaps Hotaru didn't understand that too, because Hotaru had been giving Ichihashi strange looks throughout the whole period.

Later at lunch time Mikan was pulled into a corner in the hallway by Hotaru, and Mikan noted the grim expression on her friend's normally blank face.

"Stay away from Ichihashi," was all that Hotaru said.

Mikan, of course, being who she was, misinterpreted her friend's warning. "I... Of course I will! I would never even think of stealing the boy that my best friend likes!"

Hotaru froze at that. She should've expected as much from Mikan. "No," she said with a shake of her head. "That's not what I meant. I don't like him at all. I'm telling you to stay away from him because he's... bad. Really bad."

Mikan frowned. "That's a very mean thing to say. You never even talked to him. I'm sure he's a nice person once you get to know him."

"Trust me on this," Hotaru said vehemently. "Trust me. There's something wrong about him."

"If this is about his jewelry—"

"About that," Hotaru cut her off, "You noticed the all that jewelry he's wearing, right? Seven on each ear, a choker, cuffs and twenty rings. Do you know what that means, Mikan?"

"That he has a weird fashion sense?"

"No," Hotaru looked around to see if anyone would hear. Seeing nobody around, she turned back to Mikan. "You just enrolled here two days ago so you wouldn't know. His jewelry... they're alice-restraining devices, Mikan. All of them. It means that his alice — whatever it is — is very, very, very powerful. So powerful that the school had to put thirty-seven alice-restraining devices on him. And he's a Dangerous Ability type. That means he's very, very, very dangerous."

"Maybe they're not alice-restraining devices, Hota-chan," Mikan said in an incredulous tone. "Maybe his jewelry's just... I don't know, jewelry. Maybe some people are into that."

"They're alice-restraining devices, Mikan. I know what all kinds of alice-restraining devices look like."

"... Oh. Okay."

Hotaru almost sighed in relief, but she was never into expressing her emotions. Instead she nodded. "Good. You get it, then. So you'll steer clear of him, right?"

"No, I won't. I get that his alice is dangerous and strong," Mikan muttered, "But he's not a bad person. He can't be, if the teachers let him be with us."

Before Hotaru could say another word, Mikan ran off.