3rd August

It's 7 o'clock on a Tuesday morning. Yuki had been waiting for Naomi outside her house for more than 30 minutes, he had no idea if she was even there, as soon as he thought about going back he heard a window open up, seemingly of her bedroom, Yuki looked up to see Naomi who was in her nightgown, half-asleep.

Yuki was frustrated to see her like that, "OI, WHERE WERE YOU, I HAVE BEEN WAITING HERE SINCE 30 MINUTES." Naomi, half-asleep, looked at Yuki for a few seconds, her eyes grew wide and developed a flushed expression as she immediately shut the windows…

(? Why was she so surprised?)

After a few minutes she came out of the house, simply dressed up in a white t-shirt and green shorts, her hair was still messy, apparently she got ready as fast as she could so as not to keep Yuki waiting, but even after that he looked damn frustrated.

"Do you even know how long I have been waiting?" Yuki complained.

"How long?"

"30 minutes! I woke up at freaking 6 AM!" Yuki tried not to sound angry but barely managed to do so.

Naomi had an obvious confused look on her face, "But why? Like I didn't say we have to leave this early in the morning."

"What?"

"What?"

"………"

Both Naomi and Yuki were really confused. After a short moment of awkward silence, realisation came to Yuki and he yelled in despair, "WHAT? I WASN'T SUPPOSED TO WAKE UP EARLY?" The sudden scream scared Naomi, she decided it would be better to calm him down instead of messing with him.

"Uhh… well it's just b-better that you woke up early now i-isn't it… early bird gets the worm they say… n-now we can get your registration done quickly and then… you will have time to e-explore the place maybe."

Yuki was still trying to suppress his anger but his face clearly said otherwise, "Hmph, Fine, now just take me there…", (Wait… now that I think of it, it's a good chance I shall not miss, she always keeps messing with me, it's time I give some of it back to her.) Yuki grinned. "...and, as a punishment for not letting me know earlier, you will have to carry my luggage." He said intensely.

"Uhh… fine", she looked around to see a bag tossed in the middle of the street, it looked like it didn't have anything in it, "Where's your luggage tho?" She questioned.

"Huh? Can't you see, it's right here!" Yuki exclaimed while pointing at his bag.

"So that's your luggage… what exactly is in that bag?" She asked in confusion.

"My clothes and some books." Yuki stated.

"Oh, that's all your luggage you decide to carry to a new world huh?" Naomi returned to her original tone. "Isn't that too much to take with you? We should carry a moving company."

"Shut up. If you don't want to carry it just say it." Yuki groaned, maybe it was just impossible to mess with her.

"It's too much to carry for a small girl like me you knooow." Naomi teased.

Yuki made a grumpy reaction and started walking, "Wait, where are you going?" Naomi questioned.

"What do you mean where? To the gateway of course!" Yuki said with a puzzled expression.

"You don't expect me to come like this do you? You boys can go anywhere with any clothing but I can't do that! I'm gonna go get changed." Naomi stated and went back in with a grumpy expression. Yuki didn't even try to stop her. He knew he couldn't. He just stood there, clueless and baffled.

What did she mean by you boys? I thought that's how everyone was! Yuki started thinking about his own clothings. They were pretty simple as you would expect, his simple blue t-shirt with leaf pattern and brown cargo pants. He wore anything he found comfortable and didn't even think of color combinations. He was wearing black and red sneakers with blue and white socks. As for accessories he simply had nothing. Maybe I'm just a simple minimalist man… no I'm not, I just don't care. He thought while remembering his wardrobe, a lot of t-shirts, different kinds of pants and some belts that came with the pants…

While he was thinking deeply he didn't realise how much time had passed, Naomi had already gotten ready and came down. Her brown top cinched to her waist with whites running down all over. A mustard yellow skirt hung down to her knees and her bellies complemented her skin, the cherry on the top top were the small star studded in her ears. And her clothes were perfectly complimenting her brown hair. Well, she does have a defined sense of fashion.

✳✳✳

The duo reached the storeroom, or rather, the gateway. They stood right in front of the door of the storeroom, Yuki; mentally preparing himself, Naomi; waiting for Yuki to mentally prepare himself. Yuki took a deep breath and entered the storeroom with Naomi, with every magical travel, his headache lessened.

When they reached, there was a woman already waiting for them. She was Asian and looked like she was in her early 30s. She was a few fingers taller than Yuki. Her presence was defining and her body was splendid. As for her clothing, she was wearing a Hanfu, it consisted of red Ruqun (襦裙) with white collars, secured by a black cincture, the red skirt (裙; Qun, part of the Ruqun, is a long skirt) had line art of white roses on it. Covering it all was a black Shan (衫) with design similar to the skirt but instead of white there were red roses. Her hair was tied up in a bun held together by a Ji (筓; hairpin) made of gold and the upper part was decorated with carvings. She was holding a folding fan (折扇; zheshan) with the same design as her Hanfu. The cincture was also holding a black sheath with a Dao in it. The only word that could describe her appearance would be aesthetic.

"G-Good morning Miss Yuan." Naomi greeted the lady.

"Good morning Miss Sasaki." She greeted Naomi back in a sharp tone, then looked at Yuki and asked, "You must be the new pupil Miss Sasaki told about, Mr. Tachibana right?"

"Yes, I'm Tachibana Yuki, pleased to meet you Miss Yuan." Yuki responded.

"Good, both of you follow me." She commanded.

Yuki and Naomi did as she said. Yuki wanted to ask Naomi many questions like 'How is she allowed to carry a sword in here?' 'Why does this lady look so strict?' 'She won't kill me right' et cetera, but the presence of the lady was so strong that Yuki was scared to do so. He was surprised that even Naomi, who wouldn't miss a chance to tease Yuki, stayed shut. They were traveling to the mainland of Avalon through the long bridge connecting the mainland and the gateway, Yuki didn't noticed it before but while he was walking on it he realised that it he was walking on a rainbow, it didn't surprise Yuki after the events that happened with him in the past few days. Miss Yuan told them that the small landmass with the Dome(or gateway as Naomi referred to it) and the long rainbow bridge connecting it to the main landmass of Avalon were called Bifröst.

Yuki didn't realise that he was already on the other side of the Bifröst, the bridge looked like it was a few hundred metres long but they crossed it in a matter of seconds.

Miss Yuan then took them to a small building near the castle, where Yuki was asked to answer a few questions based on which Miss Yuan would fill a form necessary for the registration. Yuki asked why he himself can't fill the form to which Miss Yuan responded "We aren't allowed to let the pupil fill the form as they will make mistakes because this is not something they are used to." (That was a rather cold response.) Yuki thought.

"Now then I shall begin with the questions." She said, "What is your first name?"

"Yuki."

"Last name?"

"Tachibana."

"Where did you come from?"

"Kanto, Japan."

"Final question. Your birthday?"

"Wait, that's it?"

"Answer the question child."

"Er… sorry, it's August 6th 2004."

"Your form filling is done, you shall check your form once and then we can proceed to do further formalities." She said while handing over the form to Yuki.

Yuki looked at the form and was confused, the lady asked him only four questions at most and yet she filled out the rest of the form all by herself, he didn't understand the system here.

There were many things in the form that Yuki didn't completely understand, there was a section which asked the aura of the person where she wrote 'Acrux' and in the section which asked the affinity was left blank. Apart from the parts Yuki couldn't grasp everything else was correct, she even filled the height and weight correctly without actually measuring it.

"Yes this is completely fine." Yuki stated.

"I see, then according to your details your ID number shall be: 1608, we shall generate your ID card now." She said, "Place your hand on this device." She removed a small device from the table drawers which looked like a crystal ball, with a small contraption under it, the device was slightly bigger than a pocket dictionary in length and breadth but double the height. Yuki placed his hand on the crystal ball and it glowed in a bluish shade of purple color. Then she inserted a card in its lower part, it came out from the other side with Yuki's details and image printed on it.

"This is your ID card." She said while handing it over to him in formal Japanese way, "From now you are a student of the Avalon academy and also a citizen of Avalon as your existence from Earth was erased, I'll be handing you a few guide books later so be sure to read them, they are about the basics of this place, Miss Sasaki will be there to help you out with your problems, as of now you can take a tour around with Miss Sasaki, see you later." With this Miss Yuan left the place. Yuki thought the ID card was weird because the details in the form were filled in Japanese but the ID card was in English, with his name written in western way, i.e, first name first, last name last.

"Phew, I didn't know Miss Yuan would be here to welcome you." Naomi sighed, "It's good that you were smart enough or else she would have killed you only with her glare."

"Her presence was so scary that my body followed her commands out of instinct." Yuki commented.

"Well, that's Miss Yuan for ya." Naomi chuckled.

"Just who is Miss Yuan?" Yuki asked.

"Akari Yuan (朱莉媛) is a subordinate of one of the senior teachers here, who also happens to be her older sister, and also more scarier than her."

"How can someone be scarier than her, and wait… Akari? That's a Japanese name while Yuan is Chinese. How?"

"No idea. Rumours go that her father was a Chinese soldier who was in an affair with a Japanese assassin, but those are just rumours, I don't think you should believe them."

"I see, that's interesting, so that means we have people from all over the world here?"

"Yes, indeed."

"If we were to follow the rumours then it would explain her defining presence but rumours are rumours afterall."

"Right. Well then, let's go around, what are we waiting for?"

"Sure, be my tour guide."