Sakura awoke to screams. The most eerie, bloodcurdling screams that she had ever heard in her entire life. She sat up in her bed with a start, her mind spinning, her heart racing, her hands groping around, looking for some type of weapon, anything--and finding nothing, she balled her hands into fists, fully intending to use them instead.

What could be causing this? Had an assailant attacked their home? Was somebody outside in danger? Was--

"-and that was Arina Fujikawa's newest single, 'I Love You Almost As Much As I Can Raise My Voice', which just hit stores today! Be sure to get your copy! And now a word from our sponsor..."

Oh.

It was just the J-Pop again.

Sakura Kasugano sighed, and pulled back her covers, sitting at he edge of her bed. Nearly every other day, she would have to deal with yet another teen idol killing their voice boxes as well as the eardrums of several million listeners, just to gain a little bit of fame and about five percent of royalty money. Gee, maybe she should start taking something for this. Like cotton in her ears.

Sakura turned off her alarm clock-radio in frustration. She rubbed at her eyes, finding them especially crusty, which grossed her out a bit. Only after a full minute of picking at them did she remember just why they might be this way.

She had been crying for most of the previous night, and must have not known it when she finally got too tired to do so, and just drifted off to sleep.

Two nights ago... everything had changed.

"Sakura, honey?" hey mother's voice called from downstairs. "Could you come down here, please?"

"Okay, Mom!" Sakura pressed "STOP" on the VCR--she had been practicing one of Ryu's kicks by looping the tape--and rushed down the stairs of their split-level house to the living room, where both of her parents sat on the sofa.

Uh oh. When both of them were there, just *sitting* like that, it usually meant trouble.

"Sakura, we'd like to talk to you," her father said with nothing but sincerity lacing his voice.

"Oh? What about?" Sakura, now curious, sat on the far end of the couch.

"This is your progress report from school," her mother replied, holding out a piece of paper. "Sakura... as usual, your math grades aren't very good... but lately, you've been falling behind in other subjects too. Have you been looking at these as much as we have?"

Sakura took the report and glanced it over. Math was bad--but then again, math was always bad. Sakura hated math. What was weird though, was that... everything else was going down too. Like home ec. How was that? She *liked* to cook... but they always gave such boring recipes, and Sakura would often try to spruce them up, with disastrous results. Science always sounded neato, but each and every single lesson left her confused. And she had no time for confusing things.

"Sakura, how can you be failing *Japanese*?" her father asked confusedly. "It's your native language. How can you fail what you already speak?"

"And I thought you loved to cook," her mother said. "It also says you've been... cutting classes to get into fights?"

"It seems that the only subject that you seem to ever be doing well in is--"

Oh, no. Don't say it. The discussion always turns to this, just this once, don't say it--

"--Phys. Ed."

Damn.

"'She can do the work.' That's what we see on these reports every single time. If you had some type of learning disorder, then maybe we wouldn't be so worried, but you're a bright girl, Sakura. I've seen you pick up on things that I would *never* be able to figure out. You can do the work, but you won't, because you're applying all your energy elsewhere. Now you know we've hinted at this before," her father said, but given this latest report, I think we're going to have to finally make some changes."

"I'm sure your classmates work much harder than this," her mother continued. "Like your friend Kei. She's always hitting the books. Yet every day you come home, what do you do? That martial arts... stuff."

Argh. Why was everyone *always* comparing her to Kei? "I *like* martial arts," Sakura mumbled.

"We know you do," her father said. "But there are things outside of it that deserve much more attention than you're giving them right now."

"You don't understand. My art requires devotion and practice. It's not easy, but I love it. This stuff is my life."

"Keep these kinds of grades up, and you won't *have* much of a life, Sakura," her father said sternly. "I, for one, think we've funded your little fighting hobby for too long as it is. It's time to wake up. It's time to come back to the real world. It's time to stop playing around."

"These 'tournaments' of yours will not help you get an education. They will not help to land you any job, and they certainly won't pay any bills, because, if I understand correctly, you only get money if you win them, and there are so many out there that are, well, better than you. Not to mention... they certainly won't help you to land a husband," her mother finished, uttering that last one almost at whisper-level. Sakura almost gasped, not believing what she was hearing. "Well, thanks for the *support*, Mother!"

The father sighed. "Sakura, your mother and I have discussed this. You're almost grown now, so we hate to do something like this, but... we have no choice."

The next few words hit Sakura like a knife to the heart.

"We forbid you to use, or even so much as practice, martial arts until further notice. They are a liability on your life, and left unchecked, this habit will lead to nothing but trouble."

"You sound like an insurance agent, Mother. And come on, stop kidding around!" Sakura laughed nervously, shifting about on the sofa a bit.

"Starting this week, you are to come straight home after school on weekdays so that you can do your homework. After that you will study each subject for an hour a night."

"B-but I always hang out with Hinata at the snack shop after school--"

"Not anymore. Sakura, don't you want to get into college? The way you're going, you'll have no chance! Entrance examinations are not all that far away."

"I-I *suppose* so, but, I mean--"

"'Suppose'?" Her father sighed. "Well, if you're not going to see the big picture, then we're going to have to do it for you. Failure to follow any of these new rules will result in the loss of your free time on weekends."

"And if you *do* get stuck around the house, we can think of lots of things for you to do," her mother added with a smile.

Wait a minute. This didn't seem like a joke, the way they were talking about it... "You... you guys are really serious."

"Of course we are. Sakura, are you even *listening*?"

"Yes, I'm listening," Sakura said exasperatedly, "I just can't believe what I'm hearing! Did any of you stop just once to think about what *I* want?"

"Sakura, we've been thinking about 'what you want' for the last three years. It's time for us now to start thinking about what you need-"

"Maybe what I *need* is for the two of you to lay off!" Sakura got up off of the couch and backed away. "And if you think that I'm going to listen to this nonsense for one minute--"

--they were right.

The next day, her parents surprised her by beating her to the Oishii Snack Shop after school. Immediately, she was carted home, and completely humilated in front of her best friend to boot. Doing her homework was something she never minded, but they didn't let her stop there. She'd tried training, and they'd stopped her in five seconds flat. And if that weren't enough, they'd carted her tournament tapes out of her room and forced her to study. Even more.

By the time she hit the sack, Sakura felt... strange. She'd never gone a day without working on *some* type of fighting routine. And her parents... well, they were different now in her eyes. She'd always thought they'd understood. But in the space of one night...

She hated school. It'd turned her family against her.

But these were things that Sakura didn't want to think about right now. In fact, she was sure that this was all just some paranoid phase. Her mother had probably been talking to those other women at the hairdressers' again and they had offered some "helpful" child rearing advice. Yeah. That had to be it. Stupid gossipy people getting their hair done. This would pass over in a week or so. She was sure of it. Heck, by the weekend she'd be doing katas like nobody's business. The tapes were a minor casualty. She'd just have to learn to make what she had more her own. It'd be good for her.

After getting up, and performing her daily routine--20 one-handed push-ups with each hand, it was a habit she'd developed during her times in tournament circuits--then showering and getting dressed, she went out of her room, almost bumping smack into her brother, Tsukushi. Tsukushi... now *there* was Sakura's polar opposite if she ever had one. He was a complete and utter nerd--he'd almost be considered an otaku if it weren't for that fact that the arcade was his home away from home. From what she'd heard, he was a legend in the virtual arenas just as much as she was in the real ones. He even *looked* like a slightly younger version of Sakura, actually... wild black hair, rarely combed, and about a half foot shorter than her. Sakura had put her headband on him once, and she could have sworn it was like going back in time as she looked at the result.

Today he was wearing a basic pair of jeans and a Spider-Man t- shirt, of all things. Sakura was reminded briefly of a dream she'd once had, almost a year ago, of a "special" fighting tournament that she'd apparently once taken part in for the fate of the world... somewhere in Africa. In that dream, Spider-Man, as well as many other superheroes that she used to only read about, were *alive* (how crazy was that?), and even her own powers had been augmented. She never really remembered how the dream ended though. They'd gotten to fight some ultimate evil, and almost lost, but had gotten saved somehow...

"Yo, Sakura," Tsukushi said in a relaxed voice. "I saw some of what happened last night. You all right?"

"Yeah," Sakura said with a soft smile and a sigh. "Thanks for asking, though."

"Well, maybe now you'll get some more time to practice against me. Then you won't have to whine every time I kick your butt in Virtua Fighter. Sound like fun?" He gave off a knowing smile--Sakura did like videogames, but not playing against her brother. He completely outclassed her in terms of skills, because she was a casual player at best. Boy would come out with one-hundred-percent damage combos out of NOWHERE, he would. She couldn't keep up, and didn't really care to. Let him have his niche, she had hers.

Yeah. *Had* hers...

"Yeah, maybe," Sakura responded. Though "yeah, right" was more like it. Somehow, the idea of being an arcade junkie, avoiding passes from geeky guys who saw nothing wrong with taking 5-day breaks in between showers, playing nothing but fighting *games* whenever she could, and then getting home and surfing around the Internet for combos and arguing about "top tiers" and "game balance" on tatsumakisenpuukyaku.com didn't quite appeal to her. She was a girl of action, damn it. "Anyway, I'm off to school. See you later."

"Later," Tsukushi said as he walked past to get ready for school himself. After grabbing her books, Sakura went downstairs, where her mother was fxiing breakfast.

"Good morning, Sakura," her mother said in a cheerful voice.

Sakura ignored her and simply went out the door and off to school.

"What the... Sakura?"

Kei Chitose was clearly in shock as she looked out of her second- story window to see her fighting schoolgirl friend at the door.

"Yeah!" Sakura called up. "Come on, Kei, we're walking together, right?"

Silence. Lots of blinking.

"Hey! Come on! What's *with* you?" Sakura huffed, her hands on her hips.

"You're... you're on *time*. I... I don't believe it. Usually I'm already outside and have been waiting for you for fifteen minutes. And *then* you call saying you're running late..."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Oh, just get down here, Kei."

"Hai!" Kei's head disappeared from the window, but she could sill hear her friend call out:

"Mother, Sakura's here, I'm off to school! ...yes, *Sakura*. ...yes, I *know* she's never--oh, forget it. Bye!"

Sakura sighed.

Kei.

Probably *the* reason she got into fighting in the first place. In their freshman year of high school, after coming home from a movie, a trio of drunken college guys had tried to... advance on them.

Okay, okay, they were almost raped. Sakura just didn't like to think about it much... Kei's screams had gone unanswered as her shirt had been ripped off in that dark alley, and her jeans roughly pulled down. And then one of the guys had moved towards Sakura, thrown her to the wall, advanced on her, and... and...

...and she'd snapped. Completely kicked all three of their butts. And other places. Soundly.

She hadn't really known *how* she'd managed to hit exactly which spots for maximum pain dealt, but she'd done it, and with tremendous accuracy. And as if it hadn't been enough that two of those baka guys were going to be crawling home that night, Sakura had charged the last one who was backing away, and gathering as much of her anger as she possibly could, lit into him like a match light. As she did so, her arms... glowed. And darned if it didn't look like they'd hurt him a lot more than she'd expected. The last guy fell in a bloody heap, and she and Kei had fled home, never telling anyone of the incident, not even their parents. Luckily, Sakura had had enough money on her to get a cheap jacket to hide Kei's lack of a top...

Sakura had vowed that something like that would never, EVER happen again to those that she cared about. She began to train, night and day, not just for fun as she had been previously doing, but now to know that she had the power to repel such situations should they again arise. Sakura Kasugano was not the type to be pushed around by life, circumstance, or stupid drunken horny perverts. No way.

Kei, however, hadn't shared Sakura's view, instead, crawling into her own little metaphorical shell, and secretly, this disappointed Sakura greatly. You would think that Kei would be a little more enthusiastic of the activity that helped save her on that fateful night, but she seemed to always be more concerned with whether Sakura was hurting herself or jumping into a battle too quickly.

Jumping in too quickly? There was no such thing as far as Sakura was concerned. If the opponent had it coming, they just had it coming. Getting their butts kicked was... their destiny. Yeah, that was it. Destiny. The "I was put on this earth for the sole purpose of kicking your face in, so hold still because you should be THANKING ME for this privilege!" kind of destiny. Sakura smirked at the thought.

"What's so funny, Sakura?" Kei asked her friend as they turned the corner of a neighborhood block.

"Oh... nothing."

"Sakuraaaaaa!"

That voice... "Hina-chan?" Indeed it was Hinata Wakaba, yet *another* person Sakura admired like crazy, crossing a street to met them. The two shared a hug when they finally met. "Hinata! How are you? Walking to Taiyo?"

"Yup!" the perky schoolgirl answered. "Hi, Kei," she addressed the other girl, who waved in response. "So... are your parents still mad at you about the whole fighting thing?" Hinata asked.

"Yeah," Sakura sighed. "Last night... well, I'll call you with the details when I come home from school. *Straight* home from school," she added with an edge in her voice.

"Well, if you want, I can come over and bring you some cake," Hinata offered. "Would you like that?"

"Yeah, I'd love that," Sakura answered happily.

Why couldn't Kei be like that? Heck, why couldn't Sakura attend *Taiyo*? There were people who *understood* her there, Hinata most of all. She always knew how to brighten Sakura's day somehow, ever since they had been kids. And their friendship had only increased ever since the Justice High kidnappings that had taken place not too long ago. She and Hinata had fought side-by-side to curb Justice's actions, and had even contributed to defeating their efforts completely. But now that all of that was over, things were more... more *blah* than ever. She almost wished Justice would return, or that those drug people she'd been hearing about on the news lately would try and stick their noses around her school, or something. The level of Beatdowns In The Name Of Justice And Righteousness in her blood was getting extremely low these days.

"Well, I'll see you late this afternoon," Hinata said, breaking into a jog towards her own school. "Later, Sakura!"

"Take care!" Sakura replied witha smile, as she and Kei waved her off.

Long before Sakura would have really liked to arrive, there they were. Tamagawa Minami High School... the most normal and boring place on earth. The other schools in Tokyo had mottos or themes or scandals or SOMETHING attached to them. But not Tamagawa, noooo.

Acutally, they *did* have a motto: "We're *normal*, not like those other schools! So we're safe! Come attend us, because we're firlmy rooted in realityyyyyy!" Ugh. Boring gray or brown brick buildings, a concrete front yard, a nice large meadowish back lot, sure, but that was as good as it got. Otherwise, it was just... *school*. No adventures ever happened at places like Tamagawa, which in turn nutured students like Kei, and while she liked Kei, that girl was too timid to do ANYTHING. She was a typical example of Sakura's schoolmates, who often thought Sakura was "strange".

Right.

And if that wasn't bad enough, as of about a week ago, it had become the enemy. Only with this enemy, she couldn't just give it a hard Flower Kick to the head and expect it to go away. Damn it.

So she resolved to do the only thing she could do for now. Infiltrate it from the inside. Gather as much intelligence on it--as well as *inside* it--as possible. Figure out what strange hold it was having on her life, and then reassert control of the latter.

"Come on, Kei," Sakura said with forced cheer in her voice. "We're going to be late for class!"

The schoolgirl ran ahead, determined to tough things out. This was strange, but it would all pass. Sakura was sure of it.

But she was also sure that she didn't know *what* she would do if she was wrong...