a fallen angel's tears: HEY, I have an update! I returned back home to England for a week and wasn't able to post for the next few days and this will be the latest chapter for the week, sorry :) however I must travel to Phoenix so I am adding 2 chapters today x.X (practically dead)

At dinner later that night, a group of elementary students speculated about their new classmate. Each person wondered something different, but Kokoroyomi read out their thoughts. What kind of alice does she have? What does she look like? How come Iinchou never mentioned her, and what is her dark secret?

Before going to bed, Mikan knocked on the door to Hotaru's laboratory. Inside she found a busily working Hotaru wielding a welding torch as she worked on her next prototype of a robot. Many textbooks outlining nanotechnology and boxes of spare mechanisms were strewn across the wooden expanse of the floor. Mikan walked toward the windows with their blinds drawn closed and nearly tripped over a discarded robotic arm. Crying out from shock, she startled Hotaru out of her trance-like state.

"Stupid, what are you doing here?" Hotaru said quietly. "Go to sleep."

"Um...Hotaru, I'm worried about the new girl--" Mikan started. "--I don't want her to be lonely like I was on my first day. Can you get the others to be nice to her, I mean she's Iinchou's cousin and all!"

"We shouldn't interfere," Hotaru retorted. "Plus this girl, is Iinchou's adopted cousin. We don't know what happened before she came here. Good night."

"Night Hotaru!" Mikan exclaimed before dashing off to her own room.

--Next Day--

"Good morning class," Narumi-senpai happily stated. "This is Fuyuzimako Kaori, Iinchou's cousin, please make her feel welcome in class."

In class the next morning, the pheromone aliced Narumi stood in the front of the class with a small white-haired girl. Her cold expression seemed only matchable by Natsume. Sumire automatically assumed her president of the Natsume and Luka fan club position and immediately confronted the new girl, Kaori. Ignoring her bothersome comments, Kaori speedily made her way to a seat in the back of the class, closest to the window next to some random kid. Staring blankly out of the window, the fall sun sparkled in her golden eyes flecked with silver specks. Leaning on one hand against her porcelain like face, she glanced around the classroom with all the students' eyes on her.

"So, Kaori was it," Sumire ranted. "If you come anywhere near my Natsume-kun I will kill you!"

"What she really wants to know is--" Kokoroyomi mentioned absentmindedly while smiling. "What's your alice?"

"Um..." Kaori began but Mikan soon interrupted.

"Wait, everyone!" Mikan shouted over the loud questions. "Maybe we shouldn't ask too many questions."

"Get away from me, you freaks" Kaori retorted trying to concentrate her alice. "I don't care about being here 'cause soon I'll be moving to a different school anyway."

"Kaori, calm down" Iinchou whispered to her. "Please don't use your alice, no one except me could possibly begin to understand how it pains you. Don't shorten your life over a trivial matter, please just go back to your room."

"Fine, but if anyone asks another question about me--" Kaori said as she walked out of the room.

"She has serious problems" Sumire snickered. "What's so bad with her alice...maybe we should send her to the North Forest just like we did with Mikan."

"You don't understand at all!" Iinchou nervously yelled. "Kaori's lost everything; her alice seemed to be the only way out, it gives her unlimited power at a high price."

"How high?" Sumire wondered.

"Don't ask stupid questions." the ever so silent Natsume said roughly. "You would never understand."