“I’m not doing it,” Saaru stated calmly as he looked on at Sempai.

Sempai sighed. “You and your brother have to do this.”

Taro stood behind Saaru, watching him bicker with Sempai. Personally, Taro had no problem with the mission, and he couldn’t understand why his brother did.

Saaru yawned. “There’s no point to your plan. It won’t do any good.”

Sempai glared and her normally calm voice became sharper. “Are you telling your superior what to do?”

Idiotically enough, Saaru gave her a nod.

“Then you leave me no choice.”

As Sempai reached into the folds of her cape, Saaru’s face turned pale. What he thought was an attack of hers turned out to be a far worse weapon...blackmail. Photo after photo after photo of sad events in which Saaru made a fool out of himself.

“Who...gave you those...?” Saaru managed to squeak out.

Sempai smiled lightly. “Your beloved sister Kaneko. And...I have plenty of copies.”

Saaru twitched a bit. He should have guessed it was Kaneko. His little sister always made sure that Saaru did his job. With muttered curses, Saaru quietly agreed to Sempai’s commands and went off to work.

“Sakura... Sakura-chan... Saku...? Moron...?”

Sakura paid no attention to the pestering voice. She was too busy frantically typing and searching for any information about Magic Game on the Internet. She had used up the whole study hall period doing this, and had found nothing. Frustrated, Sakura smashed her head down on the keyboard.

The whole class turned to look at her. As laughter resounded through the room, Sakura finally popped back into reality.

“Are you finally conscious?” asked the voice from before.

Sakura didn’t lift her head from the keyboard. She was just too tired. However, as she felt a sudden pierce in her leg, she flew up.

“What the hell was that for, Ami?!” Sakura hissed at the girl sitting beside her.

“You weren’t answering me. I had to kick you.” Ami giggled.

Ami was strikingly different from Sakura. She was clearly taller, and had dark violet hair falling over her shoulders in waves. Her eyes were blue, contrasting with the pink of Sakura’s. Despite her different personality, she was one of Sakura’s best friends.

“Soo, are you done with your computer paper?”

Sakura directed a cold gaze at Ami. “You...want my computer paper?”

“Of course. Open it up so I can copy off it.” Ami grinned casually.

Sakura twitched as she began to click through files to reach her assignment.

“Hm... Another good paper,” Ami said, looking over the work. “Ya know, you’re pretty smart, even though you’re a blonde...”

Sakura grimaced, then closed out of the file to punish Ami. As the bell rang, she stood without a comment and gathered her things.

Ami sighed. “Ok then, Saku-chan, I’ll just get the answers later.” Ami trailed out of the room, Sakura following.

It was another average day at work for Kuro. However, it was a little past the shop hours for today. All the workers had left already. Kuro stayed to make up random work around the place. After all, he had made the mistake of losing one of the shop’s most valuable customers by stealing her car and getting it totaled.

Kuro’s boss swiped his heavy metal cane across Kuro’s head for the millionth time. “You lazy bum! I have to shtay here with you jusht becaushe of your shtupid mishtakes!!”

Kuro continued to arrange the pieces he was cleaning calmly. The best he could do to release his anger was clench his teeth and mutter under his breath.

His boss was too busy ranting to hear him. “You know what, I’m going to the shtore to get shome food for myshelf! I’ll be back in an hour, and if I come back and don’t shee you working, you’re fired!”

With that, the boss stepped out. Kuro sighed and continued working.

“What are you doing?” came a childish voice.

Kuro blinked and looked around. A young boy stood behind him. He could only be described as cute, with round eyes peeking out behind long bangs and a childish sailor costume.

“Why are you here, kid? This is a dangerous place. Just go find your mommy and go home, alright?”

“No fair, I asked you first. You should answer my questions first.” The kid pouted.

Kuro raised an eyebrow, but went along with it. “Ok, I’m doing my job. I work here, can’t you see? So why are you here?”

“Oh, my name’s Taro, and I’m here cause Sempai assigned me to train you.”

Kuro answered by patting Taro on the head and commanding him to lay off the sugar.

Taro frowned. Kuro ignored him and began to rummage into a shelf, looking for oil. Within moments, he was interrupted with a crash and a slight explosion.

“What the FUCK!?” Kuro yelled as he spun around.

He was greeted with the sharp steel of a katana--held onto by a man decked out in samurai gear. And Taro stood behind him, with a smug smirk and crossed arms.

Akira sat inside her house in a comfortable, fluffy chair at a coffee table. Normally, she would be relaxing here with an espresso and a magazine, but at the moment, she was trying to survive a boring business meeting.

Unfortunately, Akira was an only child, and she was a woman at that. Her father left an auto management business that Akira was meant to take over. Every week, groups of her distant relatives, all rich businessmen, would meet with her to coach her. It all sounded easy enough--but Akira was younger than her cousins, and women were looked down upon in her family, so she was never taken seriously.

As her so-called teacher displayed stacks of charts to the group of men sitting at the table, Akira leaned back, trying her best not to fall asleep. And miraculously, several minutes passed, leading to 3:00. As all the men dispersed to their own homes, Akira excused herself to go take a nap.

Yawning, Akira trudged through the dim hallway toward her room. She was ready to collapse on the bed at any moment, but suddenly, she froze and spun around. Soft footsteps resounded at the edge of the stairs.

“Did one of you guys forget something?” Akira asked with an annoyed sigh.

As a figure stepped out of the shadows, a cold shiver ran down Akira’s spine. It was definitely not one of her cousins.

An unusual-looking man stood before her. From his slicked hair to the heavy black boots he wore, he was saturated in darkness.

The man reached into his open cape and pulled out a dusty hour glass. With a smirk, he flipped it over and set it on the floor between himself and Akira.

“My name’s Saaru. I presume you are Akira,” he said casually. “You have until this hour glass runs out to give me a decent fight. If you don’t I’ll kill you. Begin.”

Akira’s face turned white Saaru jumped back, his devilish smile still on his face. As dark spikes erupted from the ground, Akira realized that he was being very serious.

The school day was finally over for Sakura. She dragged her backpack on the sidewalk as she weakly trudged home. The throbbing headaches that reoccurred each day because of Evenchik were bad enough, but now, Sakura was going to get back pains trying to carry home all the homework that the bitch had assigned.

As Sakura blankly dragged her feet along the sidewalk, she neared the old power plant that she passed on the way home each day. Staring down at the ground, Sakura continued to move monotonously.

Light footsteps reached her ears and a shadow slinked over Sakura’s head. She paused. Someone wearing childish black boots stood there, blocking her way.

Sakura’s eyes drifted upwards, passing black markings on the person’s stomach and a black cape flying madly in the cold wind. A girl, about Sakura’s age, stood there with a mindless expression on her face.

“You know something that you shouldn’t know,” she said, her black eyes examining Sakura coldly.

Sakura raised an eyebrow. “Huh? Who are you...?”

“Kaneko,” the girl said simply. “Now that you know my name, please die.” She lifted her hand up, and with it rose the metal fences surrounding the power plant. The jumble of steel slowly formed into metallic spikes...that were aimed straight at Sakura. Gasping, Sakura could do nothing but duck behind her backpack.

Kaneko smirked as the spikes picked up speed.

The samurai swung his sword at Kuro’s neck. Kuro’s eyes widened and he dove to the floor. With a frown, the samurai opted to try out slicing techniques, driving his sword into wherever Kuro was.

Kuro rolled out of the way and scrambled up, running from the stabs. Taro yawned, seeing that Kuro wasn’t hit yet. He stepped back to concentrate. A large, ancient-looking sword dropped from the ceiling, hitting the ground with a clank.

“Here you go, mister. It’s too boring to just watch you run, so put up a fight!” Taro lifted the sword and tossed it to Kuro.

Kuro caught it and examined it, then glared at Taro with pleasant thoughts of stabbing the annoying kid instead. Of course, those thoughts were interrupted as the samurai came charging forth. Kuro shielded himself with the handy sword.

However, the heavy strike of the samurai’s sword caused Kuro’s blade to shatter into chunks of metal.

“Guess that sword was a little too ancient...” Taro sighed.

The samurai grinned and ran at Kuro, swinging his weapon. Kuro frantically jumped out of the way as the samurai drove the sword into the wall. Taking advantage of his surprise, Kuro sharply elbowed the samurai in the neck. The samurai fell to the ground, bruised.

Kuro pulled the sword out of the wall and aimed it at the samurai’s neck. Taro smiled, satisfied that Kuro was able to defeat his opponent. He recalled the samurai, who disappeared into thin air.

“Way to go!” Taro said, jumping up excitedly. “I knew you would beat him! So, as I was saying, I’m here to train you so--OW!”

He was interrupted by Kuro kicking at his face. “Teaches you to mess with your elders,” Kuro muttered angrily.

Akira, meanwhile, was having her own problems. Dark spikes flew out of everywhere and she could barely escape them. As she tried to dodge one, a dark shadow emerged from the ground and grabbed her legs, preventing her from moving. Akira could only scream and struggle as the spike pierced her stomach.

She fell forth, coughing up bouts of blood. The shadows slowly slinked away, as they had done their job of harming her.

Saaru rolled his eyes at her. “If you don’t put up a better fight, I’ll kill you.”

Akira glared at him and shakily stood up. She thrust her fist forth, attempting to hit him, but he quicky punched her in the face, sending her sprawling backwards.

“Well, at least you’re trying,” he said with a sigh.

Saaru glanced over at the hour glass. Nearly all of the sand had slipped to the other end--Akira had only a couple of minutes left to fight.

“You might as well admit defeat, since... Where the hell are you?!” Saaru hissed. Akira had slinked out of the hall, leaving a bloody trail behind.

Akira had made her way into the kitchen and was bandaging up her stomach with shredded up towels. She attempted to stand up, using a chair as support. Luckily, the binding on her stomach was easing the pain, and she could balance a lot easier.

Glancing across the room, she realized that Saaru would be arriving any moment, demanding more fighting. She grabbed a sharp knife from the drawers and limped toward the kitchen entrance, hiding herself behind the door.

Saaru popped into the room, calling her name angrily. Akira took the momentary chance to surprise him with a stab in the shoulder.

Without a word, Saaru stared at her if she was stupid. He pulled the knife out of his shoulder and Akira gaped in amazement as his wound healed up and the blood drifted away.

‘So this guy is all-powerful. What the hell am I going to do now?’ Akira thought bitterly.

Saaru laughed at her thoughtful look. “Relax, I’m not going to kill you. You put up a fight and managed to injure me. Congratulations.”

Akira raised her eyebrow. That was the last thing she was expecting to hear from him. Saaru rummaged around in his clothes and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with a dark liquid.

“Drink it,” he commanded.

“How do I know this isn’t poison?” she asked with suspicion.

“It’s just a healing potion. You should trust me, I already said I wouldn’t kill you.”

Akira cautiously pulled the bottle open and drank down the liquid.

Sakura was able to defend herself against the spikes flying at her using her backpack. Kaneko, however, wanted to end this quickly. Several spikes formed behind Sakura, unbeknownst to her.

In an attempt to distract Sakura, Kaneko charged forth at her. Sakura quickly pushed her backpack away and jumped up to fight. She focused on trying to kick Kaneko away, not knowing about the spikes ready to pierce her back. They flew into her, clustered all over her spine.

Sakura grimaced in pain as she fell over. Her vision blurred, and all she could see was Kaneko grinning, standing over her. Wanting to wipe the stupid smile off her face, Sakura shakily pulled several spikes out of her back. She threw them up at Kaneko in an attempt to at least cause some damage.

Kaneko rolled her eyes. Since she controlled metal, it was obviously harmless against her. She sent the spikes back at Sakura.

Seeing that her opponent had all the weapons and she was helpless, Sakura closed her eyes and prayed that the spikes wouldn’t kill her.

She waited a moment for the stabbing pain. Instead, a warm feeling suddenly graced Sakura’s back. Her energy was flowing back into her. She opened her eyes and gaped up at her savior.

A woman clad in a dark cape knelt beside Sakura, holding her hands to Sakura’s back. As she stood, her face was revealed.

“You’re Sakura, correct?” she asked calmly. “You may call me Sempai. You’ve just survived a supernatural accident. Welcome to Magic Game.”

Sakura’s eyes widened. “Magic Game...”

“I believe you’ve already overheard the rules when I went over them with your brother.”

Sakura nodded slowly. Kaneko glared down at her.

“Are you allowing this stupid brat to join Magic Game?” Kaneko said, anger rising in her voice. “I thought I was supposed to kill her.”

“You would have been allowed to kill Sakura if she failed to defeat you,” Sempai said, turning to Kaneko.

“But she did fail! If you haven’t arrived, Sempai, then she would have died.”

“Sakura had no weapons. She tried to use your own weapon against you, and even if she didn’t succeed, she did fight back.” Sempai gave Kaneko a menacing look. “You have no choice. You have to train her.”

Kaneko gritted her teeth in anger. Sakura stared up at both of them in confusion.

Sempai smiled to herself. “Magic Game is now in play.”