July 15, 2003

3 years, 4 months, 8 days prior to Incident

Sakura could sense two sources of chakra in her apartment, one more than there should be. The weaker of the two was clearly Miku; the other was more foreign, though not unfamiliar. Slightly alarmed, Sakura juggled the groceries around as she reached for her keys.

She needn't have bothered: the door opened by itself.

"Hi Pinky," she heard, as someone reached over and grabbed most of her packages.

Oh.

Sakura peered over a paper bag and stared up at Mello, whose arms were now laden with vegetables and other edibles.

"Hi." She slid past him and pushed the door shut with her foot. "Where are the other two?"

The pair made their way to the kitchen. "I changed my flight last minute so I didn't have to be trapped in a metal box 12000 meters in the air with a psycho."

Mello deposited her purchases on the countertop and leaned against it with his arms crossed, quietly watching her put away the groceries.

"Fair enough. Is Near-san coming?"

He twitched. "No fucking way."

"Hmm." She tiptoed on a chair and slid a box of strawberry jam on top of the fridge. "Why are you so hostile to him?"

"Because... even though I work so much harder, even though I want it so much more, I'm always second to that big headed twit. I fucking hate it. I hate him."

"Second place? What for?"

"Well... I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell you. At our school, we take a series of tests every month, to gauge our intelligence and abilities. The student who is most consistently first place has the greatest chance of being chosen for the honour of a certain position, to be able to don a name that is exalted in our school on a certain date that is considered as, I guess, graduation, for the entire school."

"I see." Sakura stored away the last apple and stood up, grabbing the carton of chocolate milk. She poured a cup for both of them and made her way to the living room. "So if Near-san is first place, and you're second, then what rank are Matt and Beatus?"

Mello sprawled himself across the sofa, only bothering to shift to the side when Sakura nudged his leg. "Matt is third. Backup is unranked."

"Backup?"

"That's what the school calls him. If the top two students are incapable of maintaining the position, then that position will be given to him, the backup."

Privately, Sakura thought that was an awful thing to call someone, no matter how creepy they were.

"So why not third place?"

Mello sighed. "You ask too many questions."

She kicked his dangling foot. "You can't just stop there!"

"Yes I can. Anyway, I've already said too much."

Again with the secrecy.

"Answer all of my remaining questions, and I'll promise... I promise to do a favour for you."

"What kind of favour would I need from you?"

"I dunno. Anything."

"Anything?"

"Anything. You can give me one order that I will absolutely obey, if it's humanly possible and won't hurt me or my siblings."

The blond smirked at her. "Deal."

"So why won't it be Matt?"

"Because Backup is smarter than Matt. Hell, don't tell anyone, but he might even be smarter than me."

"Then why is he not in the top three?"

"Because every time he takes an evaluation, he gets an impossibly low mark."

"But I thought you said - "

"When I said impossible, I meant it. If the lowest possible mark is zero, he'll get a negative twenty. If the lowest possible mark is negative twenty, he'll get negative fifty. No one knows how he does it, since you can't even get those scores by actively trying."

"Then how do you know he's smarter than Matt?"

"Back before Matt or Near or I entered the school, the only notable students were two children with the initials A and B. They were geniuses among geniuses, always scoring astronomically high on the tests, but A, unable to handle the pressure, ended up committing suicide. Around the day of A's death, B also began to act strangely, and as he became more and more resentful of the 'prize' of graduation, his exam results began to slip lower and lower."

"And I'm guessing B is Beatus?"

"You got it. Any other student as intractable as Backup would be expelled, but the school is all too aware of how brilliant he is capable of being. No matter what he does, they refuse to let him go. Despite how psychopathic he is, even I have to respect someone like that - and if you tell anyone I said such a thing, I'll kill you."

"I wouldn't dare," Sakura deadpanned.

This... gave her a whole new perspective of Beatus.

"Any more questions?"

"Huh? No."

"Then I'll be collecting my payment at a later date," Mello told her, his lips spread into a satisfied grin.

Fuyuno Sakura - age 13, 3rd year junior high

Mello - age 13, education unknown

AN

For Americans: 12000 meters is roughly 40000 feet.

Mello's voice in the dub was awful. And they tried to make him sound Russian, forgetting that he was raised in a British orphanage. [/lukewarm gaze]

I watched the subs instead. I usually hate dubs, and DN was not an exception.

Thanks for all your suggestions! Most of which were along the lines of beach or festival, so I'll choose one of those.