A/N: I am ridiculously excited to start this! So excited that I decided to begin before I have even received enough characters. Thank you to everyone who sent me characters, and special thanks to Death's General, who sent me my first two characters, Ayumi Sato and Marcus Blackwell. Because I already have all of my transfers; this scene is starts before the prologue just as the transfers begin to wake up... long before all the other students arrive. Oh, and just to clear up some confusion: No one team will per say 'win' but whoever the sole survivor is will win for their team. There will still be only one survivor of the Battle. Also, the character of Ayumi Sato had originally won her own Battle before the start of this, but I've tweaked that a little. She and Daichi are both from an eleventh grade class, both chosen for… specific reasons regarding their relationships to other characters. Sorry, I know that's more than slightly vague, but you'll find out pretty soon who Ayumi is attached to. As far as Daichi…

Well I guess HIS information is for me to know, and you to find out ;)

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Chapter One: Ayumi Sato

Ayumi was scared. More scared than she could remember being in a long time. More scared than she had ever been, honestly. She struggled as the strange man began to tie a makeshift gag around her face, the taste of his dirt and sweat filling her mouth when as he did. 'Stupid, stupid, girl!' she thought to herself above the jeers and laughter of his friends. She could have avoided the situation completely. She had KNOWN that it was dangerous to walk around Tokyo at night; she had been warned about Yakuza gangs since she was a child. But still, she had wanted to rebel. She had defied her father, defied her family; and for what? A simple night out with her boyfriend, Ahiro?

'Yes, Ayumi, and where exactly is Ahiro now?' she thought bitterly.

The man pushed her onto the ground roughly, and she screamed as he leered over her, running his dirty hands over her cheek and through her shiny black hair. 'This is really going to happen, oh my, this is really going to happen'

And that's when everything went blurry.

The man was violently thrust away from her, and she gasped in shock and relief, as she reached up to rip the gag from her mouth, shaking uncontrollably as she scrambled to get away. Supporting herself against the wall of the alleyway, she began to evaluate the scene.

One of the gangsters was lying on the ground, a thin stream of blood trickling from his mouth. The other two were ganged up on a tall African American boy, with the most piercingly blue eyes she had ever seen. He had a knife, but the two men had guns, both of which were pointed at the boy. Ayumi's breath caught in her throat. She knew what the smart thing to do would be. She knew she should run. But there was a deep sort of fear in the boy's eyes, and suddenly she knew that she would not let her savior die. She quickly glanced around the scene, searching for anything she could use to knock the one of the men out. Her eyes landed on the first man's still form, and crept over; searching him as quietly as she could. She felt her finger brush against something sharp and gasped. 'Got it!' she thought, sliding the small knife out of the man's trousers and began to raise it. She could feel herself shaking as she aimed, closed her eyes,

And threw.

It landed with a sickening squelching noise in the back of his leg, and fat mob man dropped to the ground with a cry of pain. Both the boy and the third man looked up at her in shock, they man taking one look at his comrade before charging Ayumi head on. She screamed, throwing her hands up in front of her face. She cringed, prepared for impact.

It never came.

Slowly, Ayumi looked up, to see the boy who had saved her life standing above the limp form of the mobster, his breathing heavy.

The two teens never took their eyes off each other as the man with the knife in his leg, scurried off, cursing them both in Japanese along the way.

"Are you okay?" The boy asked, running over to her.

Ayumi blinked. She hadn't realized the boy was an American. So she racked her brains for the few words of English she had been taught in school, eventually coming out with:

"I… no Enlgish" and then, assuming he must have asked for her name she pointed to herself, saying "Ayumi."

He grinned at her, and her heart stopped briefly.

"Marcus."

"Daidaiiro."

"Da-dee-row"

Ayumi shook her head, giggling. Marcus was NOT good at learning foreign languages.

"Iie, Marcus, Dai-daiir-o!"

Marcus looked at her in exasperation, propping his head up on his hands. The two had been going over the correct pronunciation of the Japanese word for 'Orange' for the last few minutes, and Ayumi was beginning to see his frustration.

"I will NEVER get this, Ayumi; I can't even say fucking orange in Nihongo."

"Well," Ayumi said, carefully forming the strange American vowels, "Why you not teach me your 'English' in place of me teach you Nihongo?"

Marcus smirked at the small Japanese girl's broken speech, finding it sort of… adorable.

"Okay then… Let's start with that sentence. You would have said 'instead', not 'in place'"

Ayumi nodded slowly, smiling,

"In-stead?"

Marcus grinned, and Ayumi's heartbeat involuntarily sped up again, just the same as when she had first met him. She looked away from him quickly, blushing profusely. 'How could his smile have control over my heart like that?' she wondered to herself.

"Yes, just like that. Now let's work on emotion words… what's the word for…" Marcus paused, getting out the Japanese to English dictionary that Ayumi's father had given to him "Kanashii! Our word for kanashii is 'sad'."

"Sad?" Ayumi asked, trying the word out on her tongue.

"Yes, sad. Now the word for…"

The two teens spent hours like this, giggling and laughing when the other butchered a word from their partner's native language. Ayumi had never had so much fun studying… or doing just about anything else actually. She really was falling for Marcus…

She squealed shrilly as she felt her chair tipping backwards, throwing her hands out in preparation for impact.

But yet again, it never came.

Ayumi had no idea how Marcus could have reacted so quickly, but there he was, standing behind her with his hands on the back of her chair; preventing it from tipping further back. He gently set it back on the ground, not moving from his position above her. She looked up at him, her almond eyes wide.

"Marcus?" she half whispered

"Yeah?"

"What your word for 'ai'?"

Marcus paused, getting out his dictionary, flipping through his dictionary, sitting back down in his chair,

"Okay… Ai means…" Marcus paused, his eyes going soft as he looked up at her. "Love," He said softly, "Our word for ai is love."

"Love? Di- did say that right?" Ayumi said, hoping her heart didn't burst out of her chest as she looked at her strange new friend.

"Perfect." Marcus whispered, leaning forward to kiss the slightly younger girl, "You said it perfect."

And it was. It was the most 'perfect' kiss Ayumi Sato had ever had.

"Do you REALLY have to go Marcus?" Ayumi whispered, tears in her eyes as she looked up at her boyfriend of three months. He smiled down at her sadly, running a hand through her soft black hair,

"My student visa is up; it would be illegal for me to say."

Ayumi looked down and away from him, not wanting him to see the tears that filled her eyes.

"Watashi wa anata nashide wa ikitemasu ka wakaranai" She whispered, feeling the tears roll down her cheeks.

"What was that, aijin? Marcus asked, using the pet name she had taught him.

"Nothing Marcus. It's just that I will miss you."

"Hey," He said, cupping her cheek and kissing her chastely, "I'll be back before you can say 'daidaiiro'!"

"You learned how to say it!" She said, her face brightening slightly.

"I did, didn't I? Now who's so bad at foreign language?"

Ayumi giggled softly, about to speak when she was cut off by the loudspeaker.

"ALL PASSENGERS TRAVELING TO YUBA COUNTY AIRPORT, NOW BOARDING"

"That's me, Ayumichan," He said, giving her a melancholy half smile "I'm going to miss you."

"Me too, Marcus, me too."

"See you soon, Ayumi."

Ayumi blinked back her tears as she watched him walk off into the distance. It was the last time she would see him.

*Two years later*

Ayumi blinked blearily, sitting up and trying to get a bearing on her surroundings. 'Where am I?' she thought, looking around the room. There were three other students lying next to her, one of whom she recognized by his shock white hair. Daisuki. She shook her petite class mate, yelling his name as loud as she dared. As she was attempting to wake Daisuki, (Who wasn't moving at all) she glanced over to the other two students. The one laid out next to Daisuki was a girl. Although she could be more easily described as a woman; and a beautiful one at that. With thick blonde hair and a body like those of the women Ayumi had seen in American movies, the frivolous word seemed unworthy of her. And next to her was…

It couldn't be.

She scrambled over to him, her thoughts running a mile a minute, straddling his torso as she desperately tried to wake him, calling his name. She let out a sigh of relief as he hazily blinked, looking up at her sleepily.

"Ayumi? Is that you?"

"Of course it is me, aijin." She said, feeling her eyes filling with tears of joy. "I thought I would never see you again" She couldn't remember ever feeling happier than she did now, in this strange run down school building. Something in the back of her head was telling her that something was up, but at the moment she couldn't focus on anything but the fact that he was HERE, in her arms. He pushed her back slightly, looking around, and Ayumi watched as what looked like a lightning bolt hit him, and he pushed her off of him, backing away from her quickly.

"You can't be here, Ayumi, you have to run! Ayumi, go! Get- get out of here, now! Go!"

Ayumi looked up at him in confusion, hurt in her eyes.

"Marcus… what is wrong? What-" She was cut off by a low, sensual voice, and she turned around, to see that the pretty blonde was awake.

"Save it Marcus. You of all people should know she can't leave. Look at the collar around her neck." Ayumi's hand flew to her throat, looking between the two in confusion.

"What is- Wha- what is going on?" The blonde smirked.

"You've been chosen for the Battle Royale, sweetie." She said, with a sickeningly sweet smile, "Or do you not know what that is, either."

She gasped. Ayumi knew what the Battle Royale was. She looked up at Marcus, hoping he would deny what the girl was saying. But he didn't; he just looked at her with his impossibly sad blue eyes. She turned back to the blonde, standing up and putting her hands on her hips.

"That is not true! I am too old for Battle Royale, and so are Ahiro and Marcus! Anyway, if this is really Battle Royale, then is what Marcus doing here!? He is Amerikajin!" She protested, beginning to slip back into her native language because of the stress, "Battle Royale wa no Nikkei!"

"Um, English please, squint."

"Don't call her that."

"Or… what, Mr. Tall, Dark and Brooding? You'll hit me? Good luck with that; we can't so much as lay a pinky on each other until there are only ten of us left. Not unless you want this," She tugged lightly on her collar, "to go boom. But you should know that… Shouldn't you? I recognize you from TV. You played the year before me."

Ayumi blanched, "What do you mean, 'He played'?"

She rolled her eyes, looking over at Marcus, "Is chink here always this dumb? Because that shit is going to get old fast."

"Shut. Up." Marcus growled at her. The blonde just laughed, turning back to Ayumi.

"Oh, and if you want to know what I meant by that, why not just ask your 'baby daddy' over there?" The blonde said, simpering. All three students turned around at the noise of some coughing. Ayumi ran over to her good friend Daichi, who had finally woken up.

"Daichi, Daichichan, wa, ōruraitodesu?!"

Ayumi hugged her friend fiercely as he sat up; nodding to let her know that he was fine.

The two conversed for a moment, the sounds slipping off their tongues indiscernible to either of the American students. The blonde turned to Marcus, crossing her arms under her chest to show off her ample chest. She made her way over to him, getting up on to her tip toes to whisper in his ear,

"We could be real good friends Marcus. I like you. But that could change if you don't ditch ching-chong-japanimae and join the American's when we move out. If you leave with that slut, I swear to God I will 'get' you, my pretty…"

She moved away from him slowly, looking him in the eyes cupping his cheek gently,

"And your little dog, too."

Dun dun duhhhhh… I had so much fun with that last part. Is it just me, or does Riley remind anyone of a blonder, eviler, somewhat bitchier version of Cordelia Chase? Oh well, anyways…

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