Celestial Senshi

Volume 1 -
The Reawakening of the Legends

Chapter VII

“Oh, by the way, what’s your name?” he asked as he caught up to her.
          “Sakura Fubuki, pleased to meet you, Kamizaki-san,” she said with no expression on her face, whatsoever.
          “C’mon, don’t be so distant; call me Shinji,” he smiled, “and I’ll do the same with you, Sakura,” he said, and bent over her, “would you like to go out with me?” he said softly in her ears.
          She stopped dead in her tracks, turned around and stared at him as he looked into her eyes, their gaze met, and Sakura stuck her tongue out at him before starting to walk off again. As if I’ll go out with you, you weirdo!!! Seemed to be what her eyes were telling him.
          Shinji looked on as she walked, and wondered why he said what he said to her. He felt strange – a never before feeling of wanting to be close to someone, yet for some reason, he couldn’t act like his usual – keeping his cool – and acted recklessly, the results were obviously the opposite of what he wanted to achieve.
When they arrived at school, they separated and went to their own classes. As Sakura walked, she felt that everyone’s looking at her and gossiping about her. Just outside her classroom, she bumped into two older girls who insisted on talking to her, alone, and so they went to one side.
          “Hi, I’m Candy, Candy Marcia,” said a girl who looked to be a second-grader. (Actually, the two are first-graders who looked more mature than normal first-graders, besides, since Sakura was supposed to be in third-grade middle school if she hadn’t skipped a grade back in elementary school, so most people seemed mature to her.)
          “And I’m her twin sister Mandy,” said the other girl.
          “You do not have to be nervous about us,” Candy said.
          “We just wanted to know you better than what the gossips have been going around,” said Mandy.
          “You are Sakura-san?” Candy said softly. They seemed nice, and their voice, one was soothing, and the other cute.
          “That’s right, how do you do,” Sakura answered.
          Candy and Mandy are also identical twins, just like Gem and Crystal. Sakura had the same strange feeling of being acquainted to them before – the same feeling she had with Angela and the others. Candy and Mandy are also very pretty; they had two long baby pink braids down the front; large lilac eyes; watery red lips; and pale skin. It is impossible for Sakura, at this stage, to tell the difference between the two, for they looked like exact copies – not one thing looked slightly out of proportion.
          “Wow, you really are as pretty as everyone says you are,” Candy smiled.
          “You are not too shabby yourself,” replied Sakura.
          The bell went, everyone went back to their classes, and the lessons commenced. Half way through the lesson, which happened to be Mathematics, for it was a Thursday morning, the deputy principal – Mrs Clara appeared.
She knocked on the door and said, “May I see Sakura Fubuki, Angela Belle, Gem Silk, Crystal Silk, Lily Sword, Jasmine Sword, Violet Sword and Daisy Sword for a minute please.”
          The girls looked at each other in confusion and then followed quietly.
          “Now, girls,” started Mrs Clara, “many teachers had came to me and told me about your grades and levels, and of course, Sakura’s entrance exam,” she said as she turned toward her, looking concerned, “I’ve heard that you fell asleep during most of the exams and didn’t finish, yet you still managed to enter this school,” she scowled at her.
          Mrs Clara paused a while, then turned her attention back to the others, “It is clear that the class you’re in are going a little slow for your standards, so I’ll be moving the eight of you up to top level classes. Because it won’t fit all of you in one class, you’ll be separated into three groups, alright?” Mrs Clara smiled, “You will begin with your new classes starting from tomorrow. These are your schedules,” she said as she handed it out, “Sakura and Angela will be together in division A, Gem and Crystal will be in class division C, and Lily, Jasmine, Violet and Daisy will be in class division D, so that you won’t be totally new,” she smiled. “But you do need to visit those teachers today; they are very concerned to see you in person as soon as possible,” she said, and then later walked off as the girls thanked her for her troubles.
          The girls were very busy that day, as they went in and out of the staff rooms during the short breaks to see all those teachers. Sakura felt tired, she’s barely keeping up with the others due to the high temperatures she got the previous day.

After the school ended, Sakura found that even more people were staring at her, she was sure that it had nothing to do with changing the classes since they were not interested at Angela and the others – only at her. Though she did wonder if Celeste had been passing around weird rumors about her.
          It was in the locker room that she turned to her friends and asked, “Do you know why so many people are staring at me for? They’ve been staring since this morning, what’s wrong with them? Don’t they have anything better to stare at?”
          “Oh yeah, I heard someone saying something about you slept with Shinji Kamizaki in our grade, some admired you for being able to get that close to him in such a short amount of time, and others are just plain jealous,” answered Angela.
          “Why did they think that?”
          “Well, I can’t blame them, although I don’t know all the details, but I’ve heard that he was seen carrying you to his place late last night,” said Gem.
          “Yeah, yeah, that’s right, I’ve heard that you seemed to be comfortably asleep in his arms,” Crystal teased.
          “And then you two were seen again this morning walking to school together,” continued Gem.
          “You two looked so totally intimate,” said Crystal mockingly as she and Gem laughed. Sakura frowned at their remarks, but ignored it as she sensed someone approaching them.
          “Rumors spread quickly, don’t they?” Angela commented.
          “Yeah, I guess…” Sakura sighed, shaking her head helplessly.
          Just then, someone jumped up on her from behind and covered her eyes. Sakura recognized the strong arms straight away.
          “Kamizaki!” she called, pushing him away and stepped forward, “What are you doing here?” she stared at him with a tinge of surprise and a tinge of frightened look in her eyes.
          “Hey, don’t say that, this level of the locker room is for the first grade classes, I’m a first grader, too, you know…”
          “What do you want,” Sakura said coldly.
          He stared back at her, their gaze met, his eyes felt gentle and warm, “That’s cold,” he whined, “besides, I told you to call me Shinji, don’t you remember?” he paused, and then smiled, “Let’s walk home together.”
          Sakura’s eyes suddenly turned impatient, which Shinji preferred it better, “Haven’t you heard about the rumors?”
          “What rumor?” Shinji asked stupidly, with question marks all around him. He hasn’t got a clue what she’s talking about, or does he? (Obviously, he was just playing dumb.)
          “The one that said we… last night…”
          “Oh… that rumor…” said Shinji, in a thinking pose.
          “What do you mean, ‘oh that rumor’?!” Sakura screamed, as Angela and the rest laughed, while Shinji looked at her confused. “What’s so funny?” Sakura yelled grumpily at the others.
          “You two look like an old couple,” Violet couldn’t stop laughing.
          Shinji chuckled at the remark, Sakura wanted to oppose, but was silenced fearing that she might sound even more like a grumpy old housewife, so instead, she just said, “You people can say whatever you want, I’m leaving. Later~”
The group said their goodbyes and separated, as Shinji went to catch up with Sakura.
          “Hey, wait up,” he called.
          “Why are you still following me? I so do not want to be seen with you again in public.”
          “We live opposite of each other, I need to get home too, you know…”
          Sakura just ignored him and kept on going while Shinji followed, trying to please her, but had absolutely no luck whatsoever; in fact, he was just upsetting her even more now.

End of Chapter Seven
To be continued...