A touch of Baranthia 01

Chapter  01 Finding your Team

Oh that was great, Hikaru thought as she just rounded around a corner into another hallway she didn't recognize.

One of the new hall monitors was heading her way. It was too late to turn back. She had obviously seen her and in her demeanor she was clearly quite determined.

It wasn't the first this hall monitor was going to give her a scolding for being out into the hallways while classes had already started.  The older girl was apparently quite determined to get everyone in class. Whoopie for her.  

"You aren't in class." The hall monitor spoke as she reached Hikaru. Yay for spotting the obvious. Her blue eyes were narrowed as she looked at the red haired girl. "Again." She added in.

"I got lost." Hikaru offered. "Again." She putted the emphasizes on the word again.

It made the hall monitor frown. "Perhaps a map would suffice?"

"Yeah you got a spare one then?" Hikaru asked curiously. "You know with you stalking around here and using short-cuts, you have to have one."  She didn't even mean anything by it but the older girl was not pleased with her reply.

But before the hall monitor could reply there came foot steps behind her. They both looked towards the third person.

It brightened Hikaru up to see her twin sister. "Konane."

The light green haired girl rolled her eyes. "There you are."  Hikaru could tell that Konane was slightly annoyed with her. But then again that wasn't anything new.  She grabbed Hikaru by the wrist, not even giving any notice of having seen the hall monitor. "We have self defense arts. Come on."  She was tugging at her wrist. Clearly trying to get her away from the hall monitor before they would get a ticket.

"Hold on you two." Ooops that failed. The hall monitor turned towards Konane. "Show her the routes to class until she knows it. And I am writing you both down."

"Well that figures." Hikaru muttered under her breath as Konane just quickly pulled her away. "Stupid girl with a stick-up her ass…."  

Konane rolled her eyes. "Could you keep your mouth shut for once?" She bit back before letting go off her sisters wrist.

"What? It's true isn't it." Hikaru complained, rubbing her wrist. Sometimes her twin didn't know her own strength.  But she dropped the subject as she followed Konane towards self-defense arts.

Within five minutes they were there, having walked in silence towards the gym. Both of them frowned though when they saw a happy go lucky teacher waiting at the door.  He was waving at them too. Freak.

"There you are." He beamed.

That made for a bigger frown on Hikaru's face. She hadn't been here very long but she was pretty sure he was a teacher. Of what? She had no clue. He wasn't one of her teachers and as a default she automatically forgot who he was and what he taught.  

"Were you looking for us?" Hikaru asked.

"Of course I was." The black haired teacher said.

"I don't find that is a certainty as I don't even know who you are." Konane commented.
Hikaru rolled her eyes. And here her twin was telling her earlier that she had to keep her big trap shut.

"That wounds me." The black haired man said with a pout. "I am Madako Akita. I teach astronomy."

"We don't take astronomy." Konane told him coldly. "So why were you looking for us?"

The black haired man smiled again. "A mission."  

That had their attention immediately.  

It meant money.

~ * ~

"Oh this one is pretty." Teagan said as she held up the purple gemstone. It was blinking in the light.

"You can have it if you want." Azure said with a soft voice, as she looked sideways to her brown haired friend. Teagan squealed at that.

"You shouldn't keep giving her everything." Alassiel commented as she dropped down next to the two. They were sitting outside, in front of Norwood Garden which was the dorm of Teagan and Alassiel. She sipped from her can of soda.  

Azure shrugged. "I don't mind." She commented. She really didn't. They were friends. And friends exchanged things. Where Teagan gave her fashion advice and sometimes even clothes, which was shown in her current outfit of a loosely fitting skirt and a sleeveless shirt, Azure shared her gemstones. She wouldn't have worn this if given the choice beforehand. But Teagan had a way of persuading her.  And looking at it now, she did have to admit this did look good on her.

"Tamayo was sneaking around the girls dorm again." Alassiel said, changing the subject.

That got Teagan's attention. "What?"

"Not near your room, don't worry." Alassiel said in reply at Teagan's worried face. The weirdo boy of a Tamayo had once hidden in her dorm room while she was changing. Ever since then Teagan stayed far away from the pervert. "I think he was heading towards the showers."   

Teagan shivered.  "I'm glad I am not in there."

There was a girly scream from inside Norwood Garden. The three girls looked back towards the building.  None of them made an attempt to go into the dorm.  A few seconds later they heard more noise and screams.

The front door of Norwood Garden opened and Tamayo was hurled out. The teacher representative of Norwood Garden appeared in the door opening.

CC was looking like she was going to step him flat.  "Don't you ever do that again or I'll throw you all the way out of Baranthia. You hear me boy?"

Tamayo swallowed as he got up but shouted back nonetheless. That was his second mistake of the day. ""Like you could ever kick me out, you old bat."

"What?" CC shrieked.  She ran at him with full speed.

Tamayo's eyes grew wide. Then he started running. And yelling. It wasn't very manly.
The three girls weren't very amazed by the situation. It happened a few times a week. But they did found it funny to see Tamayo scream and run. Though Teagan and Alassiel mainly found this very funny.  

Alassiel suspected that Azure might have a small crush on Tamayo. He had been nice to her once. It had been one of his better days. The bastard. She seemed to fall in love easily. Or rather crush easily. Alassiel didn't think love had anything to do with it.

Some elfish girls did fall in love easily. Alassiel had often seen it all around her when she was still back at home. She was an elf after all. And Azure was part elf. It was also part of the reason why she started to become friends with the blue haired girl. Alassiel felt all elves should stick together.

In the distance they could see CC coming back.  Tamayo was nowhere to be seen. One of the other teachers had probably stopped CC from decking him.

Instead of heading back in, CC stopped in front of the three girls.

"Afternoon Miss Cecil." Azure greeted the mythology teacher.

CC gave her a short look before she looked at the other two. "No greeting from you two?"  
Alassiel shrugged. "Do you need one then?"  

"Don't give me that mouth, Allegra." CC said, referring to Alassiel with her human birth name. Then she turned back to Azure.  "You need to go to Grell's chambers."

"What?" Azure spluttered. "Me?" What had she done?

"Don't look so worried. It's for a mission." CC said.

"Me?"

"Yes you." CC rolled her eyes. "Now go."

~ * ~

She was softly pressing the keys of the piano. It had been awhile since she had last played. Properly that is. She had played little things in music class. But nothing at all like Beethoven. Or one of the other greats. She was playing tentative at the start. But slowly the piece started to grow in strength, like the piece she was playing, was meant to be.

Alina had chosen the piano that was directed at the wall of the hall side. That way she could see people coming. Even though there was no window in that wall. Only in the door. But she could still see it with her x-ray vision. Her power.
  
She disliked having other people listening to her playing the piano. She didn't mind the small things or guiding a singer with the piano.  But these big pieces did mean a lot to her. Each one she played had its own memories from the past. And that was to personal to share with anyone else.

There came noise from the hallway. Slowly she directed her eyes away from the piano keys and on to the wall. She focused and her x-ray vision came into play.  

A petite, somewhat shy woman was coming through the hallway. It was her music teacher. Yoshino Akizuki.  

Alina stopped playing just as the teacher opened the door.

Yoshino peaked around the corner. "Alina?"  

"Yes miss Akizuki?" She was already up and away from the piano. She grabbed her backpack.

"You are wanted in Grell's chambers."  Her teacher told her, with a small frown displayed on her face which was a little uncommon for the music teacher. "Uhm now I think."

"Any particular reason?" Alina asked.  

"Not sure." Yoshino answered with a shrug, the frown having disappeared off her face and replaced by a small smile. Which was a bit more normal for the woman.

Alina frowned now as she walked past her music teacher. What was up?

~ * ~

He brushed a few strands of his black hair out of his blue eyes. A frown played on his face. He had to wait and Alexander Scullion did not like to wait. At all.  And it was boring. Grell's chambers wasn't exactly high up on his list of places where he would like to hang out at. It was boring. He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

A snort left his lips which made Grell look up from the papers he was scanning.

The thirteen year old boy standing in front of his desk was clearly not pleased by any of this. "Why don't you sit down, Alexander." God knows it would take a while with the astronomy teacher collecting the other students.  He rolled his eyes at that. Madako Akita was a fine man and teacher but a child at that. He had even questioned sending the man on missions with the students. But then he checked himself as this was still a member of crooked tail.  And a senior member at that. And that meant a lot of experience and knowledge that he had that could be taught to the students.  He had never seen the man fight before but something told him that he could turn quite scary.

"When will this start?" Alexander asked impatiently.

As if on queue, the door opened and in bounced Madako with two students behind him. Who were both glaring at the astronomy teacher. Which didn't surprise Grell at all. From what he had seen from the twins they were goal orientated and did not like to get side tracked by a bouncing teacher. Especially the twin with the power of the moon seemed to not exactly enjoy herself at Baranthia, where as other twin sister seemed to make the most of what was coming her way. Grell wasn't sure about them though.. It was a feeling that he could not exactly shake.

"I brought them" Madako told Grell.

"I can see that." He commented. "Two out of four." It was a good thing he had already let messages be sent to the other students.   Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Alexander rolled his eyes at the black haired teacher. Oh this was going to be quite the combination.

A somewhat shy face peaked around the corner of the open doorway.

"Azure." Grell said. "Please come in."  

Soft and delicately she stepped inside the room. She moved towards the side of Madako who was beaming at her. She gave him a smile back. Though she did not take astronomy, she had met the teacher before and found him very nice. It dawned on her now why she had been asked for a mission. That was his doing.

"Now only Alina is left."  Grell mentioned. "Then we can start this mission debriefing."  

"Who isn't on time should be left behind." Alexander grunted out displeased. He didn't only mean Alina, but the other three students and teacher as well.

"We wait." Madako said, looking Alexander right in the eye. All of his playfulness seemed to have washed away in this one moment. "We will need Alina's skills."

"For what?" Came a girls voice from behind them. In stepped the purple haired girl. She didn't pay any attention to Alexander who was glaring at her and Madako (and everyone else in the room).  

"A mission." Madako beamed.

"What kind of mission?" Alina questioned him.

"That is what I will explain."  Grell cut in.

All eyes were now directed on him. "The principal has different contacts throughout the world so also in Europe. The mission I will tell you about is in the Netherlands."

"The Netherlands?" Alexander questioned.

"The land of the clogs, tulips and speed-skating champions." Konane summarized for him. They had been there before for a job. Alexander glared at her for that.

"Correct." Grell told her.  "In any case, at a high school in a small town, strange things have been happening. The death of a teacher who was ripped apart and the disappearance of some of the students. Most of the town seems to think that these students are runaways. But there are those that feel they were kidnapped as there is no trace of them."

"Strange yes." Alina said. "But why is this a mission for us. It doesn't automatically add up to supernatural events."

"I agree." Konane said.

"That is why it is your mission to figure out if what is happening at the high school, is supernatural and if the death of the teacher and the disappearance of the students are connected."

"But I still don't see why such a big group has to go." Alina said. "As this will be undercover right."

Konane seemed ready to chip in again as well so Grell spoke quickly. "Yes. You will go undercover at the high school. With multiple students undercover at the high school in different social groups, it will be easier to discover things.  Madako will be uncover as a teacher so he can infiltrate in that social group."  

"We choose you five because we feel that you can keep up the cover and you can head into five different social groups at the high school." Madako chipped in.

"Now it is time to leave as you have a long journey ahead of you still."

"Any additional information and question will be giving and answered by CC tonight." Madako added as she saw Konane and Alina opening their mouths again to be critical. But then that was why he had chosen them. They were good at what they do.  "When we arrive at our destination."  

They all headed out of Grell's chambers and heading towards the portal that would transport them somewhere in the Netherlands. With two students suspecting that Grell and Madako knew something more about this mission. Something they weren't telling them…yet.