AC 197

Relena Dorlain hurried to finish the last of her rice before grabbing her
school briefcase.
"Hilde, hurry up! We're going to be late and everyone's ahead of us!"
Suddenly Midii Une skidded into the room in her socks, trying to pull her
hair up.
"I'm not!" Midii finished tying her hair and ran to the foyer, grabbing her
school briefcase and hooking it to her back with straps. She then grabbed her
shoes, slid them on and ran out the door.
"HILDE!"
"I'm coming, Relena!"
After that dilemma was settled, the two girls ran to the bus stop where
Heero, Duo, Quatre, Trowa and Wufei were. Dorothy and Midii were also there.
"Hey, you guys sure took long enough!" Dorothy said to them, raising a
(back-to-normal) eyebrow.
"Sorry, getting-ready dilemma." Relena set down her breifcase and tried to
braid her hair with shaky hands. The braids weren't pulled higher on her hair
anymore, she let them slope lower down her back before tying them together
and letting the hair come loose in it's braids after the hair tie.
"Hn. Typical onna." Wufei mumbled.
"Okay, that's it, you sexist!" Midii cried. "I wanna tell you two things!
First off, you try dealing with being constantly hit on by some ugly guy on
the street, the high probability of being raped and someone looking down on
you constantly and the second is that I have PMS and my gun!!!" She took a
deep breath and smiled sweetly. "Now, what were you saying?"
Wufei made a face similar to this: O.O  >.<  O.O and backed away.
"Nice pick for a girl, Trowa! She can defend herself!" Duo Maxwell laughed at
Wufei's current predicament. Hilde pulled his braid.
"Oh, and I can't?"
"I never said that!"
"You implied it!"
Trowa just remained impassive as ever, but one could see a small glint of
pride and impressment in his eyes as he looked over at Midii before his eyes
became as cold as stone again. Quatre was laughing, and then went over to
Hilde and Duo to try to break up a possible fight.  Heero was leaning against
a tree, his eyes still remaining as cold as ice but softened when he saw
Relena trying to braid her hair with shaking hands. He gently took the hair
tie from her and slowly turned her around, braiding her hair with gentle,
swift motions and tying it. Relena turned around to face him, blushing. She
clasped her hands in front of her and slightly bowed her head.
"T-thank you, Heero." She whispered. A ghost of a smile tugged at the corners
of his mouth as he gently tilted her chin up to face him.
"It's nothing." He whispered, just as faintly.
"KISS HER, HEERO!" Duo cheered. As Heero stormed by her, she caught something
that sounded like, "excuse me for a moment while I kill him." Relena gently
took his arm, stopping him in his tracks.
"Ignore him."
He sighed and stayed by her side until the gray and white school bus came.
She sat with Hilde while he took the seat behind her. As she looked out the
window at the falling leaves, she remembered how different this was from last
year. This year, her brother had almost insisted that she go back to school
and everyone else had followed. A boarder in a town in Japan that was a bit
rural had agreed to let them stay there and go to school. It was different,
drinking green tea and eating rice for breakfast besides the usual pancakes
and coffee. She looked down at her school uniform, the navy blue skirt
reaching to her knees and the sailor-fuku type top with a white bandana-tie
instead of a bow. (Think Achika from Tenchi Muyo in love except navy blue.)
She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and yawned.
"Our school starts so early, I don't know how some of the kids stay awake in
class!"
"I know what you mean. And the walk from school back to the Mizurei house is
forever!"
"Yeah, I know."
"Hey, we're almost off this thing and to the school."
"Good!"
After getting to her classroom, Relena slid the door open and peeked inside.
Mostly everyone was here. She walked into the room, followed by Midii, Hilde,
Heero and Quatre. The other's homerooms were in the class next to them.
Relena tugged at her collar sleeves.
I like these uniforms so much better than the European ones.
"Everyone, please settle down, I would like to talk to you for one moment."
Relena sat down and looked up at her teacher.
What's going on? Harumi-sensei never starts class this early.
"Class, I have a little announcement. As you probably already know, our
school has agreed to enroll four orphans from the St. Joseph Church house
without charges. I advise that you watch your choice of words until they get
settled here. Two will be in this class. They're very happy to have finally
found a permanent shelter." She smiled, and then turned to the door.
"Alright, you may come in now."
The door slid open and two girls walked in, both were wearing the school
uniform. One girl was very thin and a bit muscular. She had straight and
short, bob-cut chocolate brown hair with bangs that fell in front of her
prussian blue eyes. The second girl was of Chinese descent, and her thick
black hair tumbled down to her mid-back. She was also thin with wisps of
bangs falling in front of her sky blue eyes. They both stopped at the front
of the classroom by the teacher.
"Class, this is Miaki, and this is Mulan. Please give them all a warm
welcome. Miaki, you can take the seat behind. . .Relena." The brown-haired
girl tossed a worried look to the Chinese girl before sitting at the desk
behind Relena.
"And Mulan. . .hm. . .There's an empty seat behind Quatre, you can sit there
if you like."
Mulan's eyes widened a bit and Relena heard a slight cough behind her. As
Mulan sat down Miaki whispered something in very quick Chinese to her and
Mulan nodded.
They have the same watches, Relena thought noticing the identical bands that
were around the two girl's left wrists.
"Alright, settle down. Miaki and Mulan, you two have come at a very good
time, today is the day we are reviewing for our unit test. . ."

The lunch bell chimed for the second time at the school and Relena looked
over at Hilde.
"Our room?"
"Yup. They should be over soon." Hilde said, moving her desk over so that she
was facing the others at the "table" they had all made with their desks.
"Mulan." A sharp, clear voice cut across the classroom. Everyone turned to
see a Chinese boy standing in the doorway. Relena nearly choked on her rice,
he looked almost exactly like Wufei with the exception that his hair was
different. There were even similarities in their voice tones. Mulan and Miaki
had made a table by pulling their two desks together and now Mulan got up,
walking over to the door. As Mulan passed her Heero gripped Relena's wrist
with his hand.
"Stay away from them."
"Oh Heero, you're being paran-" His grip tightened on her wrist.
"I don't want you getting hurt. Stay away from them." He was whispering now,
and there was caution and tenseness in his voice. Relena was about to ask
what he meant when another boy joined him. He had hair that was a shade
lighter than Trowa's and it was a bit messy, a bit of a boyish cut that
reminded Relena of Li Shaolan (spelling?) from Cardcaptors. He also had the
clearest sky blue eyes. Miaki saw the boy and got up, walking over to him.
Midii looked over at where Miaki was going and choked on her ham sandwich.
"Trowa. . .?"
Relena followed her line of vision and shook her head.
"No, Trowa's eyes are green, his are blue, they look like yours."
All four went out into the halls and Relena looked over at Heero.
"What's wrong?"
He focused his vision on her. "I don't-"
"Hey, Heero!" Heero and the other four at his desk/table in the classroom
looked up at Duo. Next to him were Trowa, Dorothy, and Wufei.
"Did you guys see the Wu-man lookalike??"
"Maxwell, DON'T CALL ME-"
Heero cut him off. "Yeah, and the girl too, the one who looks a little like
Sally. They're acting really strange, I don't trust them."
"Huh? Oh, your talkin' about Leun's twin sister, aren't ya??"
"Twin sister?"
"Yeah, Mulan, right?"
"Right, but-"
"And what about Matty? Do you trust him? He's really nice and funny." Dorothy
asked in a soft voice.
"Matty?"
"The other one, who was with Leun."
"Well, my guess is-"
"What do you know about him?" A female voice asked.
Everyone at the table looked to see Miaki standing by their table glaring at
Heero, the person who had said something about Matty.
"Woah, she could beat Heero in the 'Yuy glare o' death' match'." Duo said, a
bit stunned.
"What's it to you?" Heero growled in a low voice.
Instead of answering, Miaki turned to leave.
"It's nothing." She told Heero. "Definitely no concern of yours."
Heero was about to say something when their teacher walked back in.
"Okay, students, please put your lunch bags away, and we will begin our world
history lesson. . ."
Heero glared in Miaki's direction before helping to fix the desks and pulling
his homework out of his briefcase.
I'll find out what you're up to, Miaki.

Relena groaned and tried to pull her shirt down over the navy blue (skimpy)
half of her gym uniform, blushing furiously.
"This outfit is so embarassing!"
"I know, I don't like this at all!" Dorothy was trying to do the same with
her white gym shirt, trying to pull it down over the lower half her uniform.
Midii was busy tying up her hair again and Hilde rolled her eyes.
"Didn't you guys have gym back in those European schools?"
"NO, we DIDN'T!" Was the unison reply from both girls.
"Sorry."
"Okay, second-year girls! Line up for volleyball teams!" Their teacher
called. Everyone in Relena's gym class lined up on the white drawn line on
the edge of the volleyball court. Her gym teacher looked down at her chart
and then back up at her class.
"Okay, we've already reviewed the rules. Hey, you two transfers! Do you know
how to play volleyball?" She yelled, looking over at Miaki and Mulan.
Miaki blinked, and then looked over at Mulan, who giggled slightly.
"Yeah, I think we know the basics!" She called back.
"Okay then, on the court, you two!"
Miaki and Mulan took their places on the opposite sides of the net and the
gym teacher tossed the ball to Mulan. Mulan shrugged and held the ball in
front of her.
"Ready? Zero serving zero!"
Mulan hit the ball over the net and Miaki set the ball into the air and then
spiked it. Mulan got under the ball and managed to hit it, just barely and
then playing the ball over the net. Miaki hit the ball back over, and Mulan
set it then double-handed it over the net. They volleyed on like this for
about five minutes before Mulan slipped in the dirt and the ball bounced off
her hands. It would have gone over but Miaki jumped up and played it over the
net, landing a point.
"Hah! Should've gotten up!" Miaki chidded.
"I'll score next serve!" Was Mulan's reply.
The teacher blinked.
"Uh. . .that's enough, girls. The teams will. . .uh. . .be decided now that
I've seen your skills."
Miaki shrugged and both girls took their places in the line, Mulan still
brushing dirt off of her gym uniform.
"Okay, the four captains of the teams will be. . .Mulan, Hilde, Miaki and
Midii. Choose your five teammates by tomorrow and we can start the
tournaments. Okay, now that that's settled, we can start some games before. .
."

Heero nearly got hit with the basketball and he heard Duo screaming at him as
it whipped by his left ear.
"HEERO STOP STARING AT THE NEW GIRLS AND PAY ATTENTION DAMN IT!"
"You should talk." The new boy, Matty, said with a smirk. "You were the one
staring at Miaki all through lunch hour."
"Because she looks like Heero!" Duo yelled. "And she's got Relena's figure
too. . ." He muttered under his breath.
CLUNK.
"OW THAT HURT!" Duo screamed at his best friend, rubbing his nose. The
basketball rolled back to Heero and he picked it up, raising an eyebrow.
"Look Heero, I understand you wanting to protect your girl, but-PUT THAT
BASKETBALL DOWN, HEERO! GAH!!!!!!!"

Hilde raised an eyebrow, looking over at where Heero was giving Duo the
beating of his life, obviously for making him mad.
"Hilde!" Relena called, pointing to the volleyball that was up in the air.
Hilde tried to hit it, but she was too late and the ball rolled back into the
shrubbery and trees that were behind the court. Hilde sighed as she ran over
to find the ball. As she was looking behind a bush she heard a crunch and a
girl stepped out of the shrubbery, holding the volleyball. She was wearing
blue jeans with tennis shoes and a black shirt under a white and blue v-neck
sweatshirt. A black cap was pulled over her dark purple hair, which hung to
her midback and was pulled into two braids. A small golden cross on a thin
gold chain hung around her neck. She blinked her voilet eyes, looking up at
Hilde.
Oh my God. . .It's like I'm staring at a smaller version of myself. . .
The girl giggled and tossed the ball to Hilde.
"Here ya go!"
Hilde smiled in response. "Thank you." She eyed the girl again. She couldn't
be any older than seven.
"You look like your maybe a bit too young to be walking around by yourself.
What are you doing here?"
"Waiting for my big sister."
"Oh, so that's it."
"Hey Hilde! Did you find the ball all right?" Relena called.
Hilde turned around to look at her friend. "Yeah, I'm coming!" She called
back.
"I'll see you around, then?"
"Sure!"
"Okay, thanks again!"
"Your welcome! Bye!"
As Hilde ran back, she thought about something.
"That little girl had Duo's eyes. . ."
She turned around again, but the girl had vanished completely.
"Strange. . ." Hilde whispered.
As she hit the ball back to Relena, she heard the two new girls talking with
each other over the net.
THWACK. Miaki hit the ball over to Mulan.
"It's too bad we're on opposite teams!"
THWACK.
"Yeah, but still, this way the competition will be more fun!"
THWACK.
"True. We can play some more when we get back."
THWACK.
"Yeah, but I wish we didn't have to commute such long distances from home!"
THWACK.
"Hey, it doesn't matter. I think our stamina can handle it, huh?"
CLUNCH.
Mulan had her hands clasped together and outstretched, ready to hit the ball,
but she made no move to hit it. Instead, she was staring at her watch.
"Nani, Mulan?"
Mulan quickly made the transition to Chinese and yelled something over the
net to Miaki. And then she turned around.
"Leun!"

Leun quickly passed the ball to one of his teammates before dodging another
hand making a swipe at him. He was about to go around to see if he could
steal the ball from the opponent when he heard his sister.
"Leun!"
He turned around to see Mulan standing there. She raised a hand and tapped at
her watch.
"Ichi-juu-shi-ji!"
Leun nodded and turned back around, just in time to see the ball coming his
way. He caught it and quickly swished it into the net.
"Okay, second-year boys! Gym class is over, see you tomorrow!"
Leun hung back just enough to hear the girl's teacher yell that class was
over, and then started walking back to the lockers with Mulan.