I didn't bother asking my parents to drive me the next day. Though I felt light-headed as I got out of bed, the feeling soon passed and I figured I would be fine on my own. Azami woke up too, as lively as ever. Of course, she hadn't been the one doing battle with Ikuto. That had been me. Hence the fact that I was the one with an arm almost entirely wrapped in cloth. I decided to leave the bandaging as-is - it would hopefully keep the wound from opening, and also hide the long scratches from the eyes of curious classmates.

I was a bit late to school - I had underestimated my exhaustion and my general weakness, and had had to walk much slower than normal. Amu smiled cheerfully at me as I walked into the classroom, interrupting whatever it had been that Nikaido had been saying. Amu still didn't know what had happened last night. But between Nadeshiko and Tadase, I'm sure she - and the other two guardians - would hear about it soon enough. I kinda wished now that no one had found out about it. I mean, perhaps I had a pretty good excuse thanks to Azami, but it still seemed suspicious. Maybe I was just being overly paranoid, but I really didn't like the thought of the guardians finding out my true allegiances. It felt great having this power. And it also felt great to have friends. I didn't want to lose either.

"Glad to see you could make it, Mizuki-san. If I may ask, what did you do to your arm?" Nikaido said. I had a feeling he was intentionally putting me on the spot. I was almost sure that he at least had some inkling as to what had happened. And even if not, he always could have asked me somewhere other than in front of the class.

"Uhhh... it's nothing, really. Just a scratch." I replied. Everyone of the class started whispering to each other. Though I could only hear brief parts of the conversations, I definitely heard the words 'lion' and 'tiger' used. I suppose they weren't too far off this time. I mean, how far different was a lynx from a lion or a tiger?

"Oh, I see, I see. Well, you can take your seat now." Said Nikaido, smiling. I walked back to my seat, while Amu gave me a questioning look. I mouthed that I would tell her later. Once everyone quieted down, Nikaido continued with what he teaching.

"Okay, class, we're going to start a poetry project. Over the weekend, I want everyone to memorize the first stanza of the poem I'll give you in a moment." A low groan came from the class. No one really wanted to memorize poems over the weekend. Almost everyone - including me - thought poetry was dumb. Just a bunch of words, put together in a way that doesn't even make sense half the time. Nikaido went among the desks, handing each of us a sheet of paper with a poem on it. I waited patiently for mine - I mean, what else did I have to do?

He handed me my poem, which I took curiously. He had already gone on to giving the student by the time I managed to flip the sheet over and read the title. Fire and Ice was it's name. I looked it over quickly.

Fire and Ice

BY ROBERT FROST

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Wow. He had given me a really apocalyptic poem. Nine lines, focusing only on how the world was going to end. I looked around, trying to see what those around me had been given. Apple Picking, Eagle Poem, Sheet Music - some silly, some serious, but none seemed to be as depressing as mine. What in the heck was Nikaido up to? Did he purposefully give me such a poem? I looked over Amu's shoulder, and saw the title The Owl and the Pussy-cat. I mean, really! He gives me something like Fire and Ice, while he gives Amu some light-hearted poem probably about talking animals! It wasn't so much the poem that made me mad, but just the fact that he was obviously trying to mess with me somehow bugged me.

Azami took a quick look over the poem. "Of course the world will end in fire. What else?" she said, as if it were the single most obvious thing in the world. I suppose I should've expected that Azami would say something like that - I mean, she is a dragon after all. And dragons breathe fire.

* * *

I managed to avoid telling the story of my injury at lunch. I said that this was too important to risk anyone else hearing, and Tadase and Nadeshiko agreed. No matter how much Yaya complained, we had decided to recount the tale after school in the royal garden. In truth, I was just putting it off. I knew I'd have to tell them eventually, but I didn't want to. I mean, the story was pretty suspicious in and of itself. I didn't doubt that they would believe me - as I said, they were the noble sort, and therefore easily trusting. But they might decide to take action and investigate Ikuto, which could lead them finding out about me. I wasn't entirely sure if I trusted Ikuto not to let slip something that would give me away if he ever met up with the guardians. And there was that little part of me that felt guilty for not telling the guardians the truth... but I tried to let that feeling slide. It was very un-dragonish, and I had to keep trying to get rid of stupid feelings like guilt. A dragon cares only for herself, in which case guilt has no place within a dragon.

As soon as the bell rang, Amu and I headed for the door, Amu anxious to learn what had happened and me at this point just wanting to get it over with.

"Mizuki-san, could you please wait a moment?" called out Nikaido just as we reached the door. We stopped, and Amu looked at me questioningly.

"Why does Nikaidou-sensei need you, desu~?" asked Su.

I shrugged. "I dunno." I said. I was getting better at lying. In actuality, of course I knew - he probably wanted me to give him my haul of X-eggs for the week. But I couldn't let Amu know that.

"What about the guardian's meeting?" asked Ran. "I wanna know what happened!"

"Don't worry - I'll come straight down once Nikaido lets me leave." I said. "Amu-san, you can go ahead if you want. Maybe you can squeeze the story out of Tadase and Nadeshiko."

Amu looked hesitant, but there wasn't really much else she could do. "All right." she turned to leave, but then stopped and turned back to me. "And you can just call me Amu, if you like. Amu-san just seems so... formal." Amu blushed a bit, as if embarrassed.

I blinked. Normally only close friends didn't use honorifics. I was simply stunned for a moment. Then, I smiled. Amu was a great friend, and I felt glad that she thought we were close enough to suggest something like this. "Okay, Amu. But only if you stop calling me 'Miyuki-san' and just call me 'Miyuki.' Deal?"

Amu smiled, her face practically sparkling with happiness. She quickly masked it, though, realizing that there were still other people in the room and that such an expression really didn't fit her 'cool and spicy' image. "All right. Hurry down to the garden, Miyuki!' she said, still smiling a bit. She walked out of the classroom, her charas following her. I went back to my desk until the remaining students had packed up and left. Once the last student was gone, Nikaido got up and closed the door, leaving us completely closed off from anyone else.

"So, Mizuki-san, you certainly seem to be getting along well with guardians. You must be quite good at deception. Even I can hardly tell that you're planning on betraying them one day." Nikaido said. It was so strange to hear such a cheery voice talk about such a depressing fact. "You aren't, perhaps, getting too attached, are you?"

I met his eyes for a few seconds, but was forced to look down. It sounded like he had listened in to my conversation with Amu. He was directing my mind to exactly where it didn't want to go. The fact is, I was getting too attached. If it kept going like this, I would never be able to betray them, which would be blocking me from what I really wanted. Eventually, I would have to choose between my power and them. And I would never be able to live with myself if ended up making such a horribly noble choice.

Nikaido continued. "You know, I would think that caring for someone would be very un-dragonlike of you. What do you think, Azami?"

I looked up to Azami, who was hovering about eye-level off to my right. "A dragon can do what she wants. If she wants to care for someone, then she can care for someone." I thanked Azami in my mind. Perhaps it didn't quite fix my problem, but it made me feel better that a dragon could care, too.

"Ah, but what if that dragon had to choose between what she wanted and hurting someone else, even if it was someone she cared about?" asked Nikaido. He was really starting to get on my nerves.

Azami's eyes hardened into a determined look. "If anyone gets in our way, we dragons do whatever it takes to get what we want."

Thanks, Azami. Just go ahead and prove his point. I thought sarcastically to myself. But I knew, deep down, that that was how it had to be. Still, I didn't like Nikaido pointing it out. As Azami was always saying, I should do what I want now, and care about the consequences later. I decided to change the subject.

"So just why did you give me a poem like 'Fire and Ice'?" I asked.

Nikaido tilted his head slightly, as if perplexed. "What do you mean, Mizuki-san? Do you not like your poem?"

I hated his little fake nice-guy act. "What I mean is, everyone else got happy or good poems or something. Then you go and give me 'Fire and Ice.'"

Nikaido frowned a bit. "I'm afraid I still don't get what you're saying. 'Fire and Ice' is a very famous poem, and I thought you might like it."

I tried to protest, but Nikaido silenced me. "We really must be getting to business, Mizuki-san. That is, unless you want to make the guardians wait?" He had definitely been listening in on my conversation with Amu. I glared at him a bit, but he took no notice. He rummaged around in his desk a bit before coming out with a sack much like the one the scientist had when I'd caught my first X-eggs in Easter.

"If you would be so kind, could you give me what X-eggs you have and put them in this bag?" He smiled as he handed me the sack. The smile, as always, sent shivers down my spine. I took the bag without protest and pulled my purse out from my book bag. I hadn't wanted to leave the purse out, since the guardians might wonder where I had gotten it and what I put in it. I dumped the dozen or so eggs into the bag, then handed it back to Nikaido.

"Oh, I see you got quite a few, Mizuki-san!" said Nikaido with mock enthusiasm.

"Uh, yeah. Can I go now?" I asked.

He shook his head, as if I were some child that would just never understand how to be patient. "My, so anxious to go and lie to your friends! I'm sure that Easter is glad to have such a willing employee! However, you'll need to wait just a minute longer..." he began to rummage in his desk again before coming out with something circular and hard: a bracelet. It was solid and designed to just slide on over the wrist, like a bengal. A dull, black metal made up most of it, though studded all around it were small, translucent crystals. Each of them looked very much like the crystal Azami had had to touch when acquiring our power.

"As long as this is around your body somewhere - your wrist, your ankle, or even if it was just hanging from one of your fingers - it will absorb any loose power." Said Nikaido. "Or, at least, so Easter told me." He handed me the bracelet, which I gladly took. I squeezed it over my left hand and onto my uninjured wrist. As soon as it was on, the crystals seemed to darken a bit. It jangled loosely around my wrist, but stayed on fairly well. I really liked it - the dullness of the metal fit my style, and the crystals really looked quite nice, even if they were a bit darker. Almost like diamonds.

Nikaido coughed, drawing my attention back to him. "They warned me that it should be able to conceal you in your regular state and when you chara-change, but that they don't know if it will mask the energy of a transformation. Of course, I'm certain there would be no need for you to ever chara-nari around here, would there?" I guessed from his tone of voice that he knew what had happened between me and Ikuto the night before. Could I keep nothing secret from this creep?

"Uh... yeah. Of course not. Can I go now?" I wasn't excited about lying to the guardians, but anything was preferable to being stuck in a room with this guy.

"Yes, yes, you may go now, Mizuki-san. I'll be expecting you to give me a batch of X-eggs every Friday, so make sure you don't slack off." Said Nikaido. I was halfway out the door before he finished the sentence. I really hated that guy.

Once I arrived at the royal garden, I reluctantly opened the door to the greenhouse and strode up to the guardian's table.

"All right, now you guys have to tell Yaya what happened!" Yaya said to tadase and Nadeshiko as soon as I had come through the door.

"I'm with Yaya on this one." said Kukai. "What in the world are you guys not telling us about?"

"Hey, why did Nikaido want to see you?" asked Amu.

Dang. I had meant to ask Nikaido for a good excuse. What was I going to say?

As always, it was Azami that came to the rescue. "She's doing advanced math. Nikaido thought that she could advance farther ahead. She just didn't want to tell anyone 'cause she thought it would be showing off."

"Wow, advanced math?" said Nadeshiko. "That's great, Miyuki-san."

"Come on! Yaya wants to hear what happened!" Yaya whined again.

"All right, all right." I said, sitting down at my spot. Everyone listened closely, including Tadase and Nadeshiko. They already knew the story, but perhaps they wanted to see if I remembered anything that Azami didn't. Of course, the only story I knew was the one that she had told.

"I had been at home when Azami felt another chara. We went outside and followed her feeling for a while, wondering who it could be. I know we'd been gone a while and had walked quite a ways, but then... well, I don't know what happened. I don't know if I passed out or what, but neither Azami nor I can recall anything. When we woke up, we were in a parking lot, my arm was scratched pretty badly, and Azami saw someone she guessed was Ikuto running off. Tadase and Nadeshiko found me a couple minutes later."

The reactions were mixed. Tadase was looking angry again, as were Kukai and Nadeshiko to a lesser extent. Yaya looked amazed, as well as slightly upset that she hadn't been there for the action. Amu was having a very strange reaction - she was blushing. Was I missing something here? Was something about my story embarrassing to her or what?

"Have you had the nurse take a look at it yet, Yamada-san?" asked Tadase-kun, his princely face full of concern.

I shook my head. "Do you know how hard that would be to explain? I just decided to let it heal on its own and hope for the best."

"You know, that doesn't really sound like Ikuto." said Kukai thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?" asked Tadase, his face immediately going from concern to anger at the mention of Ikuto. "He has caused us nothing but trouble. Who's to say he wouldn't do something like this?"

My heart was thudding away in my chest. Was Kukai on to my lie? "Well, I mean, think about it." Kukai explained. "What reason would Ikuto have for hurting Miyuki-san if she was already unconscious? And she had to be unconscious if she doesn't remember anything. Even Ikuto doesn't hurt just for the sake of it. Does he?"

Tadase thought hard, torn between blaming Ikuto and listening to reason. But reason won out. "You're right. Something else must have happened. Yamada-san, are you sure you don't remember anything else?" Tadase looked at me intensely, as if willing me to remember something. My heart was thudding away as fast a as rabbit's by this point - I felt sure they were going to see through my ruse. Everyone else was staring at me,waiting for me to answer.

"Oh, um... I don't know. I, uh, I don't think I can remember anything else. I don't even remember where or when I stopped remembering anything...." My argument sounded so weak to me. However, the guardians were trusting. I was relieved and just a tiny bit guilty when I saw that they totally and one hundred percent believed me.

"I'm sorry..." I added as an afterthought. They thought I was apologizing for not remembering anything. And, of course, that's what I wanted them to think. But really, I saw this as my one chance to apologize for everything I might end up doing to them. I caught a quick glare from Azami. She knew what I meant. And she would probably say something like a dragon is never sorry for anything, but I didn't care this time.

"No, no, it's fine, Miyuki-san." said Kukai.

"So what are we going to do about Ikuto, Tadase-kun?" asked Nadeshiko.

"We won't be able to find him if he doesn't want to be found." replied Tadase. "We'll all just have to stay alert. You especially." He said the last part as he looked straight at me, his eyes intense. I blushed and looked down. I knew I didn't really like him, but he was really cute...

"Y-yeah. I'll be fine." I answered.

Thanks for reading yet again! And for reviewing! Thanks a lot to my newest reviewer/favoriter Bookits! It's great that you like it!

Also, I'm probably either going to shorten these little post-chapter author comment things starting soon, or perhaps get rid of them completely. Or, more likely, I'll stop doing them all together. I feel like they take away from the story itself. However, let me know what you think - if you guys want me to keep doing these little things, then I probably will.

Another thing, just so you know, I edited some of the other chapters after realizing that Tadase always calls people by their last name, and thus would call Miyuki 'Yamada-san,' not 'Miyuki-san.' But that's the only thing that was changed.

This chapter (and it's little post-chapter author commentary) is pretty short anyway... Well, I hope you keep on reading!