Love Hurts 5 Ways (OUTDATED STORY) Chapter 10: Twin Headache, a Fushigi Yuugi + Ouran High School Host Club Crossover fanfic

ATTENTION READERS: This is the Beta version of LH5W, if you want to read the official, updated version of the story, you'll have to go over to DeviantArt. com and head on over to my page. My username is Aloubell. You can also get there by going to my fanfiction. net profile which provides a link over there.
In any case, this Beta version is basically the rough draft of LH5W, my first attempt at it. Much of the plot points from this version will be the same in the official version, but there are significant and consistent characterization changes, a few (but very important) plot differences, expansion of past ideas, and overall better quality in storytelling.

All of this will be done over on DeviantArt. I no longer will write the story in traditional prose nor submit/update it here to fanfiction. net. The Beta version will remain here, just know that it isn't the 100% official story.
The official version will be written in a lazy prose mixed with play-writing elements (you'll get what I mean when you see it).
This is the new format for the story from now on.
So please head on over there if you're interested in updates to the story! Thank you for stopping by =D

-Aloe

PLEASE NOTE: The official version is being written somewhat out of order. The official version will start on chapter 46, the place where the Beta version left off. The official version will go on to complete the last chapters of Season 2. Once those are done, I will redo the story over again from Chapter 1 which will be the official version.

Having said that, if you choose to continue on reading, I hope you enjoy the Beta version and look forward to the official!

I seriously wanted to cry. This just couldn't be happening a second time—things should have been different. But as luck would have it, they weren't. Seeing those two like that, in a scenario where I never affected anything, where Kyo and I never had a moment to bond, made me want to do something drastic. Unfortunately, my mind was two clouded with rage and sadness to think of exactly what.

"Taiitsukun!" I shouted.

"You knew I was here, child?" She said calmly. I, on the other hand, was failing miserably in keeping my composure.

"Of course I knew you were there! As I suspect, you'll always be there to step on my heart even more than it has been throughout my already depressing life!" I had every reason to go up to her and choke every last bit of life out of her. Would anyone miss her? There was a good chance that it wasn't likely.

"You're out of line, girl!" She roared back.

"No, you're out of line! What the hell gives you the right to keep interfering like that? I can see where this is going, old lady, and I don't want to go from world to world, liking a guy, then getting torn apart from him! On a related note, I don't want to be some inter-dimensional slut who keeps working her way through guys! I can't take the damn teases, and it's only making things worse! Not only that, but I definitely can't bring myself to stay because of that stupid girl that I'm—no was—taking the place of—"

"Wait, are you telling me that you saw visions of the other woman again?" The anger that was obviously in her voice died down when she heard my words.

Totally confused by the sudden change, I decided to comply with an answer. "Y-yeah. Tohru made him happy. Not only that, her life was hard—really hard...hrd as mine? Argumentable...but the way she connected with Kyo…I just can't take that kind of happiness from him. He deserves to be happy." Starting to calm down myself, I began to process the words I was saying. It was starting to become clear that I wasn't trying to convince Taiitsukun, but myself. "And if it means leaving and letting them all forget me in order to lift the curse and live in peace, who am I to stop what the universe intended?"

"Visions, huh?" She pondered. Making a not-so-pleasant face at her, I bent my arm up and clenched my fist. You weren't listening to a damn thing I said! "The others were never able to do anything like that. This is definitely making things more complicated.

…Others? "Others? What…others?" I walked up to her when she didn't answer. "Taiitsukun. What…others?"

Her face flushed a little—unbelievably—as she turned her head away from mine. "Honestly, you didn't believe that you were the only girl to make a wish like that? Of course there were others."

My mind couldn't believe what she was saying. I wasn't the only one to go through this crap? Not only was I not the first to go on this journey, but I was apparently unoriginal.

Retaining the urge to raise my voice again, I attempted to stay calm. "So, let me get this straight. I was just next on your twisted little list of girls' lives to confuse and potentially ruin? And to add insult to injury, I'm not the only one to have powers, am I?"

She shook her head. "You weren't the first one to have a specialty for Wind either."

"Oh, and my element wasn't originally mine! Is there anything about my situation that's different, or is this just another day at the office?" Without letting her respond, I continued. "So tell me, when you aren't with me, are you with the other girls? I suspect that they would be doing their thing in different worlds too, right?" After that was said, I felt a sharp pain strike the back of my head. Taiitsukun had just hit me with a stiff, giant toy hammer.

Crouching down and holding the back of my head, I restrained myself from going with the strangling her scenario.

"Akimoto, I understand that you are upset, but I've taken as much lip from you as I'm going to take. You are lacking in respect considerably." Still rubbing the bump that she caused, I had no choice but to keep listening. "No, you were not the first to go on a journey like this. Everyone before you also specialized in one of the four universal elements—each one of them going to different worlds—not necessarily the ones you went or are going to—in order to fulfill their wish. No, I am not harboring others at the same time that I'm handling you." I looked up at her. "In response to that other question, you are different."

"Oh yeah? Like how?"

She gave me a stern look. "Out of all the girls, you are the only one who was ever able to have visions regarding the world you were in. The others went on blind instinct and feelings to make their decisions."

Slowly standing back up, I thought about the new information. If that's true, then how did everything work for them? How did they know if they wanted to leave or not? Or whether it was right to leave or not? "Since I'm here, what happened to all of them? How many others were there?"

Her tone became dark as she told me the truth, her face falling to mirror her words. "There were thousands of them. Thousands of possibilities…"

"Thousands? How can that be possible? In my world when someone goes missing, everyone knows about it. I can imagine other worlds would be similar." Every day on the news, we always heard of people being kidnapped or disappearing. Parents made sure that the world knew that someone in their families was gone, and that they wanted someone to do something about it. If what Taiitsukun said was true, then a bunch of worlds would be in an uproar with the sudden drop of the teenage girl population.

"I never did tell you how time works while you're in here did I?" She asked.

"N-no." Why the hell would she ask a random question like that?

"While on this journey, their world completely freezes in the moment that a person leaves to fulfill their wish." Trying to connect the two concepts, I realized what she was trying to say before she even said it. "So, throughout your life, there were girls going through different worlds, leaving their families for months on end, and no one even knew about it. By time they came back, if they came back, nothing had changed. Well, except for the girls who do age during their journey instead of the worlds they came from." She's right. My hair has gotten like an inch longer—it's beginning to curl upwards again like it did back when I had long hair. So time must be moving forward with me.

"If they got their wish, why did they return to their worlds?"

"None of them were able to make their wish come true. A lot of them went through the worlds and just couldn't take leaving behind friends. They may not have had the visions you had, but their own insecurities led them to disbelieve the fact that they were happy. Others formed relationships, and decided to stay in those worlds, but eventually felt unsatisfied and took back the wish." That probably ticks her off a bit. Especially after she went through the trouble to help those girls out. The fact that she's still doing this either means she's completely snapped, or she has better patience then I initially thought.

"And the reason as to why these girls aren't saying anything?"

She went silent for a few moments, probably thinking of the right words to say to me. "The ones that came back, as a result of failing in fulfilling their wish, had their memories erased, and their powers other than their specialty were stripped away forever. As for their primary element, it was sealed inside of them. I couldn't completely strip them of that since it was so strong. Even if their memories were to somehow return, they still wouldn't be able to use their powers unless I were to unseal them." I heard everything she said, but one part of that explanation leaped out at me, a couple times actually, and deserved some recognition.

"What did you mean by 'the ones that came back'? Didn't you say that all of the ones before me failed? So why wouldn't all of them return to their homes?" This really wasn't making any sense to me, nothing was adding up.

She sighed heavily before giving me an answer. "Only three before you have returned to their worlds and resumed their lives." Three? Out of the thousands of girls…how was that possible? Were they lost somehow? The whole idea of my journey was really becoming sketchy to a point that almost scared me. What if I disappeared too?

I tried to make my voice sound more serious than shocked. "Wha-what happened to the others?"

For the longest time, she didn't respond. The only thing she did was look at me with a peculiar look of apprehension and anger. It was driving me crazy not knowing what could potentially happen to me. Her silence alone convinced me that the fates of those missing girls was horrible. I just had to know.

"Taiitsukun!"

Her face snapped to face mine. "Tell me, has anything peculiar happened to you in the worlds so far? Have you encountered anything…ominous?"

"Don't change the subject!"

"Answer the question!" She yelled back. Seeing the look in her cold eyes told me that she wasn't joking around in asking me this odd question.

Anything ominous? Searching for an answer, I reached through my memory—recalling everything that happened to me so was when a chilling memory appeared in my mind. The fact that I didn't realize it sooner, made me feel like a fool.

"There were these things that kind of interfered with my life lately. They were these shadow-like creatures with incredible destructive powers and strength. The feeling they gave me was so…cold and unsettling." Taiitsukun seemed to have a guilty look on her face, making it obvious that she knew what was going on. "What are those things? And why are they so fixated on me?" The old woman still gave me nothing to work with. God, I was so sick of this woman making things difficult with my life! First I had to de-friend Kyo, Inuyasha, and the others, the last thing I needed was for her to keep something from me that could potentially end up killing me.

"Taiitsukun!" With that outburst, three bright red rings appeared around my body. I looked at Taiitsukun who was completely calm, letting me believe that she was doing this. Before I could escape or protest, the rings shrunk, binding my legs and arms together, and covering my mouth to make it so that I couldn't talk. Or argue. That bitch.

The rings levitated me off from the ground and floated me over towards Taiitsukun. You have no idea how much I wanted to curse her out at that moment, but my mouth was out of commission. She was avoiding providing the information I needed. I had never seen her so hesitant and anxious before. Whatever was bothering her was probably going to end up bothering me whether she decided to tell me about it or not. And considering how horrible my luck seemed to be lately, it probably would.

Clearing her throat, she finally decided to say something. "It's time for you to enter a new world. Because I am so generous, I will allow you to keep going with your journey, even though you were so rude to me. I will not ask you whether you would want to or not mostly because I already know your answer. You aren't ready to give up. Not yet." At that moment, the whole scene between Tohru and Kyo started to fade into pitch blackness, finalizing the erasing of me completely from the Sohma's lives. Something told me to just walk away right then. I was not only hurt physically and emotionally, but I was scared that there was a force out there that I didn't know about that was trying to destroy me.

Just then, a strong, calming voice of an unrecognizable male voice rang through my head.

Don't give up.

Looking around the best I could in my current state, I tried to spot the man who had spoken to me. But there was no one there. In fact, I was certain that I was the only one who heard him. Perhaps that was just some weird thing in the back of my mind that I manifested to make me keep on going with this thing. After all, other than my life, what was there left to lose?

It's obvious that I'm not going to get the information I would like from her. That means that I'm going to have to figure this stuff out on my own—or at least live long enough to get to Taiitsukun again and get her to talk. If those shadow things waste me, I am totally going to kill her.

"Now that you are an Element Tamer, you can—" Noticing the puzzled look on my face, she sighed. "When you first start out with your powers, you 're a Witchling—with almost no knowledge of magic whatsoever. Now that you have complete control over the elements, you've graduated to Element Tamer." As if sensing what I was going to ask next, she gave me information that was useful, but at the same time, not as helpful as the information regarding the shadow things that could save my life. But I suppose we can't all get what we like. "There are five stages in all when it comes to universal magic mastery: Witchling, Element Tamer, Mage, Master…and the last one doesn't matter since it has never been reached. Without a handle on the final elements, there just isn't any way." Final elements? You mean there are more? What the hell? I groaned. What does knowing that matter anyway? This woman won't even bother to tell me.

The rings turned me around to face the darkness away from Taiitsukun, to reveal a circular portal facing me showing a large marble fountain surrounded by one of the most beautiful gardens I had even seen. Is that where I'm going next? Who am I kidding…of course it is.

"Whenever those creatures show up, try not to think anything bad. Focus on other things and give them everything you've got." When they show up? Yup, she definitely knows something if she already can tell that I'm going to be bothered by those things. The only real problem with that whole statement was that, one, the last time I tried hitting them with a spell, it didn't really seem to faze them. So, I wasn't completely sure that I won against them, or if they decided to flee because they knew I was no contest. And two, I had no idea why thinking positively would help me defeat them. Maybe it's one of those psychological "if I believe in it, I can do it" sort of things.

Pushing me through the portal—which this time felt more like a door portal considering there was no long dramatic fall like usual—I floated over the ground of the new world. The surroundings were super bright and peppy, as if it were peaceful all of the time. With a calming blue sky with few clouds, the wonderful aroma of the assortment of flowers, and the trickling of the water from the fountain, I had a momentary sense of peace. That was before Taiitsukun spoke again

"Just start to focus on learning non-elemental spells so that you can move onto the next stage and become a Mage." The portal to where she was talking from was starting to close. Even though I couldn't see it, I could tell because her voice was becoming fainter and fainter. The moment it disappeared, the rings vanished, dropping me to the ground below.

Growling, I tried to wipe some of the pavement off of my bare knees. Damn gravity.

A small poof above me dropped into my lap as small, leather bound book. As my confusion persisted, Taiitsukun's voice echoed, "Use this spell book to educate yourself. And one more thing, flying would be useful at this stage of your journey. Learn."

Huh? She just leaves me with a book—wait, did she say flying? I can fly? Turning to look at my back the best I could, I frowned. She didn't staple wings to my back when I wasn't looking did she? Wouldn't be the first time she did something without my approval.

Usually when I get to a new world, I would like to take some time out and look around. You know, get a feel of the place I'm at. Makes sense, right? But since it's me, I get a welcome party. By welcome party, I mean the shadow things that apparently just became my new best friends. As with every time before, the chill consumed my body, alerting me that I was in danger. How did they find me so quickly? Now that I knew for sure how to detect them, I had to learn to find out where they appeared. Looking around, there was no sign of them. I summoned my wand to me before things got violent. The last thing I needed was to be unprepared when the fighting happened. But where are they?

Hearing peculiar sounds from the "peaceful" fountain, I decided to cautiously check it out. Weird gurgling noises muted out the serene flows— making me believe completely that I was being an idiot for getting any closer. But I figured that if I didn't bait these things out, they would get the upper hand. Taking one more step forward, the water rushed up into the sky as a wide stream, hidden inside of it, those shadow creatures, aimed right at me. Not enjoying the thought of being ambushed, I jumped back and summoned my power.

"Shine Aqua Illusion!" A thin stream of extremely chilled water surrounded the enemies' attack, seeming to freeze them it in an arch shape along with the water that coated them. Catching a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye, I was able to dodge a punch from a shadowy fist. The energetic force from the blow caused the ground to completely split. Gulping, I was thankful that I wasn't the one affected by that. Quickly leaping from the line of fire, I noticed about five of the shadow creatures standing in their spots, swaying from side to side like they always did. Well, at least there are less of them this time.

Just when I was getting confident about my odds, they all disappeared into the ground below them. It wasn't all that fair that they had such an advantage over me, but I learned a looooong time ago that live wasn't freakin' fair. Part of me really wanted to believe that they were gone—that they had just fled like last time. But my body was still slightly chilled, signaling that this battle wasn't over.

"Come out you stupid things." I taunted. "I am not in a good mood and I don't really feel like waiting this out." Hearing a faint crack, I looked up at the ice arch. Water suddenly broke free, sending a hydro pump of shadow creatures heading straight for me once again. Knowing that freezing it would probably delay the inevitable, I decided on a different route. "Deep Submerge!" A beam of bright blue light shot out of my wand and through the water—completely de-possessed it, causing the water to grab the creatures, slamming them straight to the ground. Well, more like past the ground since they had a tendency to be intangible.

Feeling a bit better from my bad mood, I didn't expect my legs not to work. "What the heck?" That was when the shadows raised from the ground below me, slowly covering me with their being. Two of the creatures stood at my sides holding my arms away from my body. Their touch was so cold, I felt like my blood was going to freeze over. The more I struggled, the tighter their grips became. A bigger shadow appeared in front of me, with the same glowing yellow eyes that I was quickly beginning to despise. Its "hand" stretched out to me, eventually meeting at my chest, only to completely go through. My eyes widened at the feel of that thing inside of me. I breathed heavily as painful memories began to flash before my eyes. Each of those horrible feelings consumed me, all at once, making me want to scream. Any warmth I was feeling suddenly escaped my whole body, as if death was already beginning to visit me. Everything was becoming numb and the only thing that lingered was emotional agony. I didn't care what it took, I just wanted it all to be over. Dark energy spurted from my chest, along with any hope I had of getting out of this.

You have to calm down, Akimoto. Center yourself. Think about the things that make your heart sing!

There was that man's voice again. The thing was that Taiitsukun has said something similar to that before dumping me. It was…just so hard to think of anything happy. What made me happy? For some reason, my mind was clouded and I couldn't think of a single thing—I couldn't remember. But I had to.

Happy. Happy. Happy. Happiness...mine…when was I happy?

A flash of someone's smile played in my head. A protective hand. Some witty banter. Laughing.

Inuyasha…Kyo...

A flash of bright golden light emitted through my body for only a second—long enough to push out the creature and send the ones that were binding me flying. Seeing what seemed like a glare from the creature, it suddenly vanished without a trace. The chilling feeling was gone, but the weight of the dark thought on my mind came rushing back, but with a little less force than before. As my vision started to black out, my body collapsed onto the ground, wand dropping beside me. Before I was completely out, I hazily saw two pairs of feet walking towards me.

"Is…wa…up…et?"

"Loo…ike….t…"

Whose voice is that? I don't recognize them. I tried to open my eyes, but my head was still in so much pain. The voice kept mumbling around me, so I knew there were two other people around me somewhere—even though I couldn't quite understand them. In an attempt to move myself, I could feel that I was laying on something soft—a bed, most likely.

"…ello?"

"Hello? Are…wake yet?"

Why is that person talking to themselves? Is there someone else there? When I was finally able to put more effort into it, my eyes slowly opened to find that everything was dark, all I could make out were a couple of shadows staring at me from where I was laying.

"I can't…see, " I managed to weakly say. Something did catch my eye, however. A very evident black electrical barrier surrounded me. That was the only thing I could see clearly. I knew that the aura was still there. The last time that I was able to see it this well was years ago after the great tragedy in my family happened. I had gone temporarily blind, only able to see shadows—the only thing keeping me company was the odd dark entity surrounding me on a daily basis. Though I never figured out why it happened, I just decided that it must have been a "gift" from the universe, only making me more miserable.

"Is she blind?" The voice asked.

This time, the loss of sight was short, allowing my vision to become clear. One of the shadows moved closer to me—right in my face to be more exact. The moment the shadows began to manifest, a pair of golden-yellow eyes were staring me down. They almost looked familiar…

"Inu..yasha?" I reluctantly asked.

"Inuyasha? What kind of name is that?" The guy who was in front of me moved back to reveal another guy…who looked exactly like him. What the hell is wrong with my vision? I'm seeing double.

"She may be delusional, Hikaru," Said the second one. "After all, she didn't look very well after all of that stuff that happened."

Everything was becoming clear to me finally. They were twins—identical twins it looked like. Both of them had pale-ish skin and styled, spikey pinkish, strawberry blonde hair, with long bangs off to the side. One of them had their hair parted to the left—the other had his on the right. The thing that really struck me about them was their eyes. They weren't exactly the same color as Inuyasha's—their eyes were a bit duller in color, but more playful and mischievous than fierce.

Remembering what happened to me, I shot up my upper body from the bed. Dizziness consumed me as the blood rushed to my head. Putting my hand up to my forehead, I looked around. I was sitting in a large impressive canopy bed in a room that looked so big and fancy, that it had the five-star hotel feel to it. Scratch that, it was more like ten-star—if that were even possible.

"I wouldn't be trying to get up if I were you," Mentioned the one with the right part in his hair.

"You've been unconscious for almost two days," Finished the other.

I looked at them. "Where am I anyway? And who are you guys?"

They both smiled slyly. "You're in a guest room in our mansion."

"And we're the ones who let you stay here." Out of nowhere, the twins sat on both sides of me on my the bed, snuggling up closer. Uhh…Personal space much?

Starting to get uncomfortable, I tried to find a way out. "Well, I appreciate that you did this, but I have to leave now."

They linked their arms with mine. What the hell? "Sorry we can't let you do that."

"After all, it's not every day that we get to meet a witch." My eyes went wide. A…witch?

Instead of laughing nervously and making myself look completely obvious, I played it cool. "A witch? Yeah, right. Those don't exist."

The one on my right laughed a little. "Yeah, we used to believe that too—"

"—until we saw you do this." Twin number two put a phone out in front of me and pressed a button. Then a recording of me fighting the shadow creatures—powers and all—was being played. These two punks saw everything!

Giving a nervous scoff, I continued my act. "Nice effects you guys added there. It's almost like a movie. Is that a new app for your phone?"

Twin number one put his arm around my shoulders making me stiffen up. Not only did I have the urge to sock them both, but I wanted to crush that phone. I was in a bad enough mood to do both, and then some.

"We're not stupid you know."

"We saw everything. How do you think we recorded this?" He pushed a button to reply the video, making me grit my teeth.

"You know, this has become our favorite movie."

"Yeah, we loved it so much, that we made about a hundred copies!" They smiled in such a sneaky way that the likeliness of me beating them to a pulp increased tenfold. A hundred copies? Are you freakin' kidding me?

"What are you planning to do with all of those?" I asked with an annoyed tone.

Twin number two shrugged. "Dunno. We were planning on uploading it to every video showing website on the net."

"How many views do you think it'll get? After all, it's not every day that a real witch comes to town."

Throwing their arms off, I exploded. "I am not a witch! I'm a sorceress! And you better not upload anything!" No use playing it off anymore. They obviously know. If this whole world ends up seeing that video, Taiitsukun will be soooooo pissed. My journey would probably end then and there.

"So we finally get the truth out of her!"

"What's it like being a witch?"

"I. Am. A. Sorceress." Okay, let's look at my options here. I could get up and give these guys the beating of a lifetime. If I did that, they would just wake up eventually and show my powers to the world. Then they would call the police or worse, the government. Since I don't think I want to kill them, both of those scenarios are out. Damn.

I sighed. "What do you guys want? A magic show?"

One stroked his chin. "Hmm…sorta."

"What we really want is some entertainment. Next to Haruhi, you're the next interesting thing to happen to us."

"Haru…hi?" Who's that?

"You'll find out eventually."

"So, would you like to come to school with us?"

Not particularly. The last school I went to didn't do anything good for me. It didn't look so well once I was done with it either. Looking away, I tried my best not to sound irritated. "Why should I?"

They both got up from beside me and stood at the foot of the bed, holding each others' waists. "If you do, we won't tell anyone your secret."

"There's that and the fact that we're letting you stay with us."

One of them flashed his eyes at me playfully. "If you don't like this room, you're welcome to sleep with us every night. We'd enjoy the company."

"As if!" I said through a flushed face. "I'm not even sure that I want to stay here. But I suppose it's better than nothing." That last part I added through gritted teeth, with the thought of staying with Tweedledee and Tweedledum here. However... Better than nothing my ass! This is the fanciest room I've ever been in! I feel like a princess in here! But these two are weird. They could be perverts for all I know! Especially after asking if I wanted to sleep with them! A thought then occurred to me. "If I'm not still a virgin, I promise to kill you two."

They rolled their eyes simultaneously. "Uh-huh."

"Whatever you say."

Their sarcasm was really making me angry. I had no desire to play around with these guys—especially after all that stuff I just went through. It's like the atmosphere completely changed—making the adjustment for me rather difficult. These two had no idea what I was feeling, which was why they were acting like total buffoons. When I thought about it, seeing that video reminded me of how awful those shadow things made me feel. I thought I had my emotions and past memories under control and locked up. But somehow, they brought it all back—all in one painful wave. It wasn't until I recalled the brief joy of being around Kyo, Inuyasha, and the others that I was finally able to get out.

Bringing my knees up to my chest, I lost my anger towards the twins and tried to put myself back in the place I was before Tohru came along.

Unfortunately, the two didn't give me the luxury of being left to myself. "So, is it a deal?"

"Yeah, whatever."

Suddenly, they both crawled onto the bed and stared at me—just inches from my face. Not feeling right looking into their faces like that, I tried to look somewhere else.

"We already got all of the paperwork filled out—"

"—so you can start tomorrow!"

"Don't you think it's a little soon? How can that even be possible? You two don't even know my name!" I told them in disbelief.

They laughed again. "It doesn't really matter."

"We can get a lot of things done since we're rich. Because of our status, questions regarding where you came from and stuff were completely overlooked." No one could possibly be that rich.

"We can fill in the blanks later. Besides, there's nothing like the present, right?

The one with the left part in his hair backed off and pointed to himself. "I'm Hikaru Hitachiin."

His twin with the right part followed suit. "And I'm Kaoru."

"Be warned, this may be the last time that we're actually honest about which one is which!" Yay, I can't wait. Not only are they weirdoes, they're chumps.

Continuing to look away, I replied, "Akimoto Tsubaki. I prefer to be called Aki."

"Aki, huh? That's quite a name. Born in autumn huh?"

No answer.

"Now we've got our own personal witch!" Hikaru taunted.

"I'm a sorceress darn it! If you're going to flaunt my powers around—and you better not—at least get the title right! And I'm not your personal anything!"

"You are now." They grinned.

Kaoru came beside me and took hold of my arm. "Time for us to get going!"

Great. So these two were not only chumps and weirdoes, they were also pushy. "Going where? I thought you said I was going to school tomorrow?"

"We're not going to school now," Started Kaoru.

"We're going to get you a haircut. You know, to get you to look more presentable."

Opening my mouth in disbelief, I felt deeply offended. "What's wrong with my hair and how I look?" The last thing I needed was to be getting fashion advice from a couple of dumbbells. Gosh, it was even difficult to think straight with these two around!

"Nothing."

"Unless you like looking like a commoner."

On an impulse, I summoned my wand and aimed it at the terrible two. But instead of getting scared—especially after what they saw me do—they totally surprised me by flashing smiles. They're supposed to be afraid. Why are they smiling?

Both of them started to clap. Okay, now their weird-o-meter has gone up significantly. "Very impressive!" Praised Kaoru.

"But let's save the rest of the tricks for the Host Club."

Lowering my wand, a look of confusion ran over my face. "What's a…Host Club?"

At the same time, they replied, "You'll see!" More secrets. That's just what I needed. First, I get emotionally teased by liking a guy then having him pulled from me, then Taiitsukun won't tell me a goddam thing about saving my life, and now Wonder Twins here are playing games. Man, I wish I could just scream to the universe! My life is so damn messed up!

Deciding to not go completely insane—if it didn't happen already—I summoned my wand away. Sitting back into the bed, I started to rub my temples. "You know what? I'll come quietly, and completely ignore the fact that you called me a commoner. But first will you two leave the room so that I can collect myself?"

The both of them turned around, backs facing towards me, pretending to be sneaky. "Kaoru, I think we broke her."

"You may be right, Hikaru."

"I can hear everything you're saying you dolts!" I yelled while throwing a pillow at them. "Now leave!"

"I thought she said that she would come quietly," Kaoru told his brother as they started towards the door.

Shrugging, Hikaru turned to face me before he was completely out. "Here," he tossed me the small leather book that Taiitsukun gave me. "You dropped this."

Stunned by his selflessness—that I just realized he had a small fraction of—I gave a skeptical look. "What, you're not going to hold it for ransom just in case I decide to turn on ya?"

He smiled rather charmingly, causing me to blush a little. "Nah. Not this time. I think blackmail should be enough." Then the door was shut.

Exhaling deeply, I glanced at the spell book before picking it up. What is wrong with those two? Part of me wanted to look inside of the book to see its secrets, but I suddenly didn't have the urge for magic at the moment. Slowly getting out of the bed, I walked toward the sunlit window. I just couldn't get over how big the room was—and so professionally decorated. Those two weren't kidding when they said how rich they were. This place was definitely making me feel like a commoner—although I would never admit that to them.

Looking out of the window, I saw the cheery blue sky and cheery birds singing and flying carelessly—as if there weren't any problems in the world. All of this was just some sick sort of mocking game that the universe was pulling on me. This wasn't right. Everything shouldn't be so optimistic, especially after what had just happened. When I looked down, I noticed that I was somewhat high up, perhaps on the third story of a building. "You're in the guest room of our mansion." Okay…so mansion then. This made it official: I was staying with spoiled rich kids—spoiled, annoying rich kids. With whom I'm being blackmailed by and forced to live and go to school with. When had I sunken so low?

Earlier, I had wondered how Kaoru and Hikaru even got the footage for the video. But now that I saw the garden I was admiring before the fight, it was obvious that they may have just recorded it from their room. How the hell did I not notice a mansion? Damn, I must have really been out of it! Screw the fight, I was at the same time on an emotional roller coaster. Leaning on the windowsill, I sighed. The moment that thing put its hand inside of me, those damn things made me remember everything I wanted to forget. For only a minute that seemed like hours, I had felt absolutely miserable. I seriously wanted to die.

Luckily and indirectly, Kyo and Inuyasha's essence saved me—using a light so warm that it made me forget all of my troubles. That light was what had kept me alive, even though I had no idea what it was or why it happened in the first place. Even if it did only last a few seconds, it was like every one of my worries was gone. It was unfortunate that all of the bad feelings came rushing back once the light dimmed out.

In times like this, it made me feel better to sing or at least hum a tune. Singing had been a sort of outlet I discovered years ago—helping me to slightly unwind. However considering my luck and those nosy twin weasels, no doubt their ears were up to the door listening to my every move.

That actually sounds kind of creepy now that I think about it. Do I REALLY want to stay here? I mulled it over in my head.

...

No, I really didn't but what choice did I have? The little twerps were blackmailing me. Apparently the rich had no class. And if the world was fair and I wasn't so nice and morals were a completely foreign concept to me, I would blast them both to kingdom come. But we all know I wouldn't do a thing like that~ The inevitable daydream of my wand sending out a bolt of lightning and charring them into twin kabobs invaded my mind. They'd be alive of course, I'm not so cruel as to have it otherwise. They'd just be extra crispy. But ya know, it was only a daydream and mainly for my own amusement in such a time of dread.

But then reality set back in only a short few seconds later.

Whatever.

It wasn't like I could completely be alone and on my own anyway...

And so I found myself only humming a sweet tune. I didn't exactly know what I was humming or if I made it up or not, but it popped into my head and needed an outlet. If only all of my troubles bottled up inside of me could somehow escape and be free as well. But alas, I would only be so lucky. Instead, I must be tormented with them as they like me so much to never leave. But I used to that...and disappointment. And boy was this whole new situation a whole lot of that.

Gazing outside the large window where the bright sun shone through, I realized how ironic the situation was. It was clearly a nice day outside-the kind of day that if it were personified, would be a very happy person. It was on days like this where people frolicked and lived their lives and made dreams come true.

Supposedly anyway.

My tune continued, even growing louder as I gained more confidence in my being truly alone.

I thought about Kyo with Tohru and Inuyasha with Kagome. I seriously wished for their happiness, but why did it always come down to my happiness versus someone else's? And why did happiness always seem to favor others but me? Mine has always been brief and in low amounts. But from the beginning, I hoped deep down inside that the status quo would change for me during this journey. I've already been let down twice in scenarios where I though that something might truly be going well for me. And things were going well. For the most part anyway.

I don't know. Maybe it was too early to tell. Maybe I was just being impatient. Can you blame me though? As with any story, I guess it was necessary for me to go through crap before I can get to the good stuff. The universe was dangling my potential happiness in front of my face and then yanking it away and cackling like the bitch I knew it was.

I'll catch it one day and THEN we'll see who'll be laughing and whom.

Feeling mildly more relieved, I forced a smile to get my mind thinking that maybe this world will be different. Third times the charm, right? This could be the world where my wish will be granted! The universe wants me to be depressed, lose hope, and go back to my world wishing that I had never made that wish. But I wasn't willing to give up that easily. If I had to go through another school (and hopefully not destroy it this time) so be it. If this new journey meant a haircut—what the hell? I was starting to think that my hair was getting too long anyway. And since I'm a girl, new clothes are always accepted.

Yeah that's right Akimoto. There's this thing called a silver-lining. Look at it every so often, I tried to tell myself. Easier said than done, I then responded back.

Just as I was feeling optimistic, the usually invisible dark barrier around me flashed, flooding in negative emotions again.

Please. I just want this to work out.

-Aloe

Having said that, if you choose to continue on reading, I hope you enjoy the Beta version and look forward to the official!