Stupid sun, Sakuri Manayashi thought as her alarm clock blared her favorite station. The warm rays of morning washed her face as she opened her eyes and sat up. Her first day of school at Tokyo Central High School would be rough. She had just moved from Hiroshima that summer and had to make new friends. Her mother had already laid out her uniform for her before she left for work. Sakuri scowled at the white silk polo and plaid skirt. At her old school, they were allowed to wear whatever they wanted as long as it was decent.

Sakuri walked briskly down to the courtyard of her apartment after she had gotten ready to meet up with her older brother, Kyruma. “You ready?” he asked. Sakuri instantly felt sick to her stomach, but nodded and followed him to his car.

When they arrived and stopped in the school’s parking lot, Sakuri hugged her brother and went to find her locker. She recieved a giggle or two from a gaggle of girls at the corner, but the boy that had the locker under her’s waved them away and helped her with her bag. “Are you new here?” he asked, as he watched her put her combination into the lock.

“Uh huh. I moved here with my parents and my brother this summer from Hiroshima,” Sakuri replied. She closed her locker and thanked the boy, who had introduced himself as Riikan, for helping her out.

“Hey, would you like to sit with my friends and I at lunch?” Riikan asked, and Sakuri smiled, nodding. The two walked out the courtyard to wait for the bell to ring where Riikan met up with his friends. They were all sitting around the steep stairs that apparently led to the all greeted her cheerfully and were instant friends.

“Kinshi is new here too!” chirpped Yoko, gesturing to the silver haired boy standing beside her. Kinshi looked to Sakuri and they shook hands, but didn’t say a word.

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Hiyoko Lamatsu stood with his newfound friends in the corner of the Tokyo Central High’s courtyard. They hadn’t stopped questioning him about what Hiroshima was like since he had introduced himself. From the sharktooth necklace hanging carelessly from his neck to the skateboard he was carrying, he fit in perfectly with them. “So, what were the schools like?” one asked him anxiously.

Hiyoko smirked and sighed. “No uniforms!” he laughed. They all rolled their eyes, having never seen people wear normal clothing in school.

“In a city like Hiroshima? You have to be kidding!” one of the girls exclaimed, scowling,

“I’ve read about it, and they must have uniforms!” she explained.

“You can’t believe everything you read!” the boy on her right joked, and they all laughed.

Hiyoko grimmaced and scanned the courtyard. Most of the students seemed a lot like the ones in his home city. He stopped as he saw a girl standing with Riikan, the captain of all the sports teams. She didn’t seem to fit in, but they were all laughing and having a good time. “I know her,” he whispered, but did he? He shook his head. He had never been anywhere out of Hiroshima while he was growing up.

“Hiyoko! Wake up! The bell!” one of his friends snapped. He nodded, took a last glance at the girl and left for his first hour.

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Mo’ke Taihu sighed as his alarm rang and he heard his grandmother trying to wake him. “It’s almost time for your lessons!” she said gently. Mo’ke sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Life in the Japanese Royal Embassy was very different from when his parents were still alive. He furled his brow in anger as he remembered that day twelve years ago. His parents had been killed in their sleep and the murderer was never found.

He stood and quickly got dressed. Before he went downstairs to meet his tutor, he gazed out the window. He watched all the students at Hiroshima High rush to their classes in jealousy. He wished he could live a normal life, but now he was left to only dream

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As Sakuri walked to her first hour with Riikan and Asginru, Riikan stopped her and gestured over to where jewelry-laden students were standing at their lockers. “Watch this,” he said, smirking. He and Asginru went over to them and started to speak to one of them. Sakuri had a feeling what was going to happen next...and she was right. Riikan shoved one against the lockers and Asginru did the same.

“Stop it!” Sakuri yelled, pushing Riikan away from the boy he was threatening and had apparently already hurt. Riikan gaped at her but smirked.

“He deserved it...” he muttered.

“For what? What did he do to you?” Sakuri snapped, shoving her books into Asginru’s arms. She took a hold of Riikan’s shirt and stared him in the eye. “Leave them alone!” she hissed.

Riikan stifled a laugh and left with Asginru after he had given Sakuri her books back. Sakuri shook her head and grabbed a stray paper that had fluttered to the floor.

“Are you ok?” Sakuri asked Riikan’s ‘victim’, handing him the book that had been taken from him.

“Yeah...why’d you do that?” he asked, slamming his locker shut and speaking with his back to her.

“Just because I hang out with them doesn’t mean I’m going to let them treat others badly!” Sakuri said, smiling. The boy turned and held out his hand.

“I’m Hiyoko,” he said, as she took his hand.

“Sakuri,” she said, “See you later!” she finished, smiling and running off to her class. Something seemed oddly familier about Hiyoko to her, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She checked her schedule once again and sighed.

“It’s going to be a long day,” she whispered, taking her assigned seat in the creatively decorated history room.

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During third hour, Asginru and Nalemri dismissed themselves from their prison in geography and Kinshi from his writing class and met up behind the school. “Have you gotten any info from any of the others?” Nalemri asked in a low voice. Suddenly, his eyes faded to a dark green and the tan in his skin quickly faded.

“Yes, Kyomlyn, I have,” responded a dark figure who had used to be Kinshi, actually known as Kenshiro, the leader of an order called The Dream Hunters.

These ‘hunters’ were an ancient races of creatures that fed off of the dreams of human beings. They had long been searching for three certain young people who had been titled the ‘dream sages’, ones who dream the most, at their birth to try and get them on their side. This was because the three’s was to ward off these Dream Hunters at a certain age, so humans could continue dreaming past their childhood years. This had occured when a person’s dreams had been consumed by the hunters for too long, it eventually prevented them from ever dreaming again.

Asginru, actually named Asugiri, finished taking his natural form and grinned. “Ah! It’s good to be back!” he sighed, stretching. His brother, Kyomlyn, punched him in the arm to get him to shut up.

“You want us to be found out?” he hissed. Asugiri stuck his tongue out at Kyomlyn.

“Ah, no one can hear us but our own kin and the sages when we’re in our natural form! You keep forgetting, my poor brother,” he teased.

Kyomlyn scowled and turned to Kenshiro. “So, are we going to do this thing or what?” he asked impatiatly.

Kenshiro smiled with his eyes closed. “Not yet...I’d like to get to know all three of the sages before we take them down,” he muttered. The trio changed back to their disguises and headed back to their classes.

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Before Sakuri knew it, fourth hour had finally come and she was sitting in her algebra class...bored to tears. She sighed as her teacher rambled on about algebra this, algebra that. She thought the hour would never end! Suddenly, the room became a blur and she drifted into a peaceful daydream.

The city of Tokyo, buzzing all around her as she stood on a street corner. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a seldom figure standing beside her. “Where am I?” the small Buddhist girl asked innocently.

“Hmm...are you lost?” Sakuri asked. When she turned to the girl, time froze and the girl disappeared, reappearing behind Sakuri.

“Are you?” she inquired, a hint of a smile on her lips. Sakuri’s hands shook as anxiety rose in her throat. While the girl continued to apparate around her, she fell to her knees, mind spinning.

“Sakuri! Sakuri!” a voice demanded.

Sakuri opened her eyes to find her math teacher standing over her. “Sakuri, are you paying attention?” he asked, speaking in a terrible Japanese accent. He had just moved to Tokyo to finish his teaching career.

“Oh...uh, yeah!” Sakuri gasped, jerking her head up. Her classmates laughed because her paper was sticking to the side of her face. She blushed furiously and rubbed her eyes. Her teacher sighed and passed out the homework on the history of algebra.

While Sakuri stuffed her books into her locker, she exchanged her cellphone number with Riikan and Yoko then slung her bag over her shoulder. When she slammed the metal door shut, she gasped when saw Hiyoko standing there. “You scared me to death!” she gasped. Hiyoko laughed and pulled a notebook from his bag. Quickly scribbling down a number, he bit his lip.

“If you ever need anything, just call me,” he said, handing her the scrap of paper. “Thanks for today,” he said, putting his notebook away.

Before Sakuri could say anything, she looked up and he had already left.

Walking home from school, Sakuri pondered her daydream...well, one of the many she usually had. “Who was that girl? Why did she seem so happy to see me?” She wondered. While she walked past the candy store on the way home, she caught a glimpse of one of the children by the window with greedy expressions on their faces. It’s her! Sakuri thought. Even the small girl’s eyes followed her as she walked past.

That night, while Sakuri finished up her homework, she pulled out her journal and wrote about the daydream. While she wrote, her favorite song came over the radio, but just as she began humming, the song was interrupted by the news. “What?! No! That...was...my...favorite...song!” she yelled. She hurled her pillow at the ancient cd player in attempt to shut it off.

Oddly enough, the pillow shot back at her when she turned around, knocking her out. “Stupid...pillow,” she groaned.

While the news went on about killer sloths escaping from the zoo, Sakuri closed her journal and stared out the window. Come to think of it, she had been having many weird daydreams lately. The all seemed connected to the one little girl.

Sakuri snapped out of her thoughts, turned off her lamp and a lay against the pillows. “And now back to your original programing, ‘Life With Fishboy’!” the news blared.

“Shut up!!” Sakuri growled, turning off her cd player. Just as she tried to sleep, the sound of voices came through her open window. Her eyelids slid shut and two silhousettes appeared in her window.

“Are you sure this is...”

“Yes! Hurry!” the second hissed. His partner hurried into the room and stumbled over to the sleeping Sakuri. He pulled a bottle of a sparkling black dust and sprinkled it over her.

“Sweet dreams!” he whispered with a laugh.

The two left, joining another of their kind in the middle of the fog-drenched streets.

“Kenshiro, we’ve prepared the girl for...”

“Shh! You idiot! We don’t want to be overheard!” Kenshiro barked, who had two others on both sides of him. “Asugiri! Kyomlyn! Go with my guards back to the realm! You’ve completed your part in our mission!” he ordered, and the two stood up straight. When Asugiri saluted, Kyomlyn rolled his eyes. The two left with Kenshiro’s guards whiled he stayed...and waited.

Just as planned, Sakuri walked from her home with a glazed look in her eyes. She stopped in front of Kenshiro and fell to her knees, not saying a single, solitary word. “Heh,” Kenshiro laughed. He swiftly removed a dagger from his long dark red cloak and shoved it at Sakuri.

“Take this...use it well,” he commanded, and turned to face the moon.

“Now for the others,” he whispered. Sakuri’s eyes remained emotionless and staring ahead as the silver and onyx blade lay in her hands.

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