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The Windermere Institute Code of Student Conduct

1.Regulation school uniforms shall be worn at all times.

Reiko Mishima had come back to the room later than Akira the night before, which inspired something akin to relieved surprise in the former.  It hadn't been long, mind you - one or two in the morning slowly oozing into a digitally indicated three during the near sleepless night.  Things like insomnia tend to happen when one's stomach is tied in knots, and the bed in which one tosses and turns in is a too-narrow reminder of the world.

And so when Akira Kazama woke the next morning, bleary-eyed and too close to the breakfast bell for comfort, she knew that she should ask about it.  Knew that it was the sort of thing you were supposed to ask people about.  Please, tell me about yourself.  I was worried.  Oh yes, that was it?  How interesting.  I'm impressed. Let's chat further, shall we?

Yeah.  Okay. Conversational skills were not, it should be said, at the pinnacle of her repertoire of talents.

The student didn't have the courage or the inclination to do the expected.  Instead, she just got up. Changing only took a few seconds, considering that Akira didn't much care whether or not her skirt was pressed or blouse wrinkle-free.  And being perpetually make-up free always helped. Still, a perfunctory tooth-brushing was about all she managed to get in before what tenuous morning peace was on the wing came to a halt...

And the student witnessed the end of a sleek, healthy, fully-grown adult silence.

"Hey, would you hurry up?"

Reiko yelling and banging at the edge of the door really did shoot it down quite neatly. The bags under her eyes were hardly matched in the flesh tones buried within the large satchel of cosmetics she carried. Five minutes left, there was less than time to spare.

"J-just a minute.."

2. Respect and obedience will be shown to faculty members and elected hall prefects.

Akira arrived to her very first full breakfast on her very first full day at Windermere Institute somewhat winded.  There was a run somewhere in her stockings, she hadn't had a shower, and the Reiko just behind her was in a very agitated, eyeshadow-free state.

The mechanic, naturally, wanted to bolt.  This was not unusual and suppressed without grave difficulty.  Allowing herself to be hauled by her roommate over to a deserted table in the back of the room would have to do.

It really was very nice.  Daigo would accept nothing but the best, as certified by such authorities as pamphlets and brochures and guides.  The tables were round and set up with white cloth and doilies.  The china laid out was just a touch too poor to be called extravagant or expensive, and the floor was scuffed but clean enough to eat off of itself.  Large bay windows granted light entrance to the hall, with prussian blue curtains slithering down from iron rods to grant with color a bit of gentility.

Indeed, all in all here were about a hundred young women in the room - most of them babbling like mad in the absence of any appreciable authority figure.

This was soon to end with the entrance of a well-groomed woman who looked to be on the younger side of fifty.  A bit of a relief, actually.  Silence was less comfortable when scary bitchy roommates were huffy and annoyed with you and really very intimidating.

"Welcome, all of you," the tallish lady began, suited and making herself comfortable at the rectangular pine expanse of a podium. "Most of you know me as Professor Sazaba, organizer of the Windermere Institute Special Projects curriculum and headmistress of this residence.  Those of you joining us from primary schools or other secondary institutions who do not may be assured that I will be making an effort to meet with all of you within the coming weeks."

Her voice was smooth, and alto-tinted by the glare of rose lipstick that just avoided breaking the boundaries of good taste.  A calm sort of voice.  The quiet authority that would whisper and then stab you in the back.  Like the tone of that coke supplier from Hong Kong with the twitchy nose who had tried to literally knife Daigo in the back.

But no matter.

Rather lost and genuinely concerned that her schooling involve as few professor-student contacts as possible, Akira was inclined to listen.  Reiko just looked like she was about to pass out.

"You'll notice that we've placed all of you here in Kanzaki for the fall-winter session in an effort to further encourage the excellence which characterizes this program.  Though your interests may differ, you all share the same capacity for higher learning.  It is the administration's hope that relocation will create a more comfortable work environment for our elite students."

Akira wasn't sure what worried her more.  That Daigo had unwittingly enrolled her as a supposedly 'elite' student when all she did was fix motorbikes, or the notion that living with Reiko was a ploy to lower her stress level.

In either case, now seemed like a good time to start twisting the cloth of her napkin around her fingers and fall into a silent panic.

"I hope to have a productive, enjoyable year with all of you.  The Code of Student Conduct is available online as well as in all classrooms, and it will be obeyed while under this roof.  Ignorance," an eyebrow was raised, and papers would have been shuffled has the woman held any, "is no excuse.  Failure to meet the standards of Special Projects shall result in disciplinary action, parental notification, and expulsion into the regular curriculum and another residence.  This is self-guided learning, ladies - not an excuse to only take four regular classes and spend an extra hour and a half each day reading about boy bands.  Have I made myself clear?"

Isolated in her corner of the chamber by the occasional questioning looks - though it was hard to tell if those were aimed at her or the slumbering Reiko, Akira always assumed the worst - it was easy to observe them all.   Catch a few snippets of whispered conversation bubbling up here and there from the blue and grey crowd.  This is boring.  A waste of time.  I've already heard this.  Not study - never!  Study - no way! Hey - is that Mishima?  What's she doing back?  I wish Sazaba would shut up, I have to sneak out to see Motoki later and...

Wasn't like she meant to hear.  She never did.  The mechanic did not care for conversations.  But people tend to forget that if one is not talking, one must be listening to something.

The collective nod that followed Professor Sazaba's speech was just as involuntary, it seemed.

"I welcome you all again to Windermere and Kanzaki Hall.  The rest of the day shall be free, to allow you to orient yourselves to the campus.  All classes and project session modules start tomorrow morning. As students who excel, I expect all of you to participate in next week's auditions for the annual school production.  Enjoy your meals."

With that exit, and a silent groan from Akira, the room burst back into sound again.

Production.

Audition.

Very, very bad.

3. Students will show pride in their school, and refrain from insulting or defacing Institute property.

"Hey!"

Whoever was calling must not be talking to Akira.  The mechanic was much too thoroughly absorbed in a bowl of somewhat soggy cereal.

"Hey, bike-girl!"

Nope, nooot talking to her.  not at all.  The milk was getting kind of beige from swirling cornflakes around with her spoon.  Yum.

"My name's Saori Isami!  Good to meet ya!"

A hand was now floating over the vitamin-fortified domain.

Crap.

"Umm... hello.  I'm Akira Kazama," the student supposed she should shake it, though only one of their grips was remotely firm.

"Cool!" the other girl half-shrugged, helping herself the what foodstuffs had been brought ot their table by the service staff.   "Aaaaugh - I missed the speech.  Why did I miss the speech?  I knew this would happen... "

One Akira's spine had strength enough to life, she found two very large eyes roaming about the room, and proportionate limbs flailing about expressively.  Saori was a big girl - in frame and expression.

"She.. we have the day off, she said."

"Sweet!  Gawd, I sooo want to see the campus.  I'm new here, hey?  You probably are too. No roommate for me, though!"  not so much exuberant as genuinely good at drawing people out, the larger student glanced over at a half-comatose Reiko. "She's yours, eh?  That's weird.  I heard during that dodgeball thing - cool gymnastics thing, by the by - that she was all friends with those millionaire chicks in Yadate Hall.  Wasn't even in Special Projects 'till this year.  But then we're new too, eh?"

Akira had absolutely no idea how Isami had managed to inhale three pieces of toast without garbling a word.

"Y-yes."

Please, please go away...

"What are you taking?" Akira mumbled into her spoon.

Sometimes it really, really blew to be a polite person. But Akira had the feeling that if she didn't start talking, Saori would never shut up and leave her be. Oh, god.  The girl was probably looking at her and judging her right now and Akira couldn't' possibly...

Tossing close-cropped hair as much as any such tresses could be tossed, Saori started with the hand waving again. "Particle physics!  It's so interesting.  Like the new research with Buckminster Fullerenes - sorry, that's Carbon-60 - and the influence of ...:"

"Oh, that's nice,"  even Akira had the sense to interject there.

"Hey, are you okay?" Saori looked concerned while chugging the glass of orange juice she'd just poured.

"F-fine," the mechanic managed to blush back, "thank you."

Reiko, in the meantime, appeared to have regained full motor function under the influence of brewed wakefulness. "Jesus, would you shut up?  Can't you see we don't feel like talking.  I am so tired..."

Until her head slid back into bony hands, that his.

"Awww.. you're just grouchy 'cause the school year just started.  I still can't believe I missed that speech!"  Saori pulled herself up from a seat which barely fit her ample frame.  "Oh well.  We're all the late types, hey?  I never could sleep the morning before exciting stuff either."

Quickly gulping back the last of a half grapefruit, the smiling girl pulled out a crisply folded bit of computer-printed paper.

"Oh, hey.  This is for you.  I hope we'll be really good friends!"

I know who you are - Kazama.  I know what your family sells.  Let's do buisness!

Hope you have a great day,
                                            Saori ^_^

....

Bloody hell.

"Pass the coffee?"

"Yeah, sure.."

4. Students are to evidence a decorum proper to educated young women.  There will be no cursing, fighting, or other unladylike behaviors.
5. Students are responsible for keeping up with their own studies.  Unsatisfactory work is not an acceptable regular standard.

A scant one hundred minutes later, the helmet was looking more appealing in Akira's mind's eye than any skull had a right to.

The mechanic had spent the past hour whiling away time with the punching bag stashed away in a in a small training room.  It' had taken only a small amount of effort to find - the signage at Windermere was surprisingly succinct - and it wasn't occupied what with the free day.  Most of the girls were off in the forest or lounging about in their residences.  Time to giggle interests manufactured or real, and make friends of a like social class.  Time to say hi to the old crew.  Time to network with those of one's social class.

Ixnay on both of those.

This was kinda like home, though.  They'd had equipment like this first in Mr.Fujishima's garage, and then in the makeshift gym which had grown progressively more comfortable along with Daigo's profit margins.  Even when they hadn't had anything there was always an old mattress or discarded board or something that they could hit.  Keep up the family.. whatever they did.  Simple, but effective.  Maybe it wouldn't build some magical psychic chi attack strait out of those urban legends about Ryu Hoshi, but a girl the mechanic's size had to keep her strength up.

She knew she wasn't striking aggressively enough.  Never did.  The callouses on her hands were too developed for the type of lightweight hits Akira gave. The hardwood floor of the gym did far too little to the soles of her feet.

Especially considering that most of her heavy workouts were done in far more advanced states of dress. Steel-toed boots.  Leather chaps.  The jacket and helmet she'd got for her sixteenth birthday...

Well, they were pretty intense.  But still.

Akira wanted to ride.  Craved it. Couldn't stop thinking about it to ponder the intricacies of angles of attack and physics of motion.  Didn't know why.  Ever since breakfast with that scary Saori girl...

It just was one of those days.

She couldn't hurt that Saori girl, couldn't get caught with some powder or other, didn't know what to do, didn't....

She had to call Daigo.

6. Students may not leave the campus without permission at any time.
7. Students shall not posses the following banned substances:  pets, narcotics and other illegal drugs, unperscribed painkillers, pornography, or tobacco.

The nearest payphone was in a relatively small town about two miles away from the Institute.  Kazama knew this not through the wisdom of any map or atlas, but simply due to the indexing of the odometer.

She'd just planned on riding until she saw something that didn't look like tree.  It had seemed like a strategy at the time.

"Daigo.  Come on, Daigo.. pick up," any other voice would have leaked a hint of desperation.

That was why, instead of partaking in a fairly decent soup with the rest of the Windermere institute, Akira Kazama was stuck outside a wreck of a gas-station on an ill-paved backroad.  The biker hadn't really planned on exploring new paradigms in offroad travel.

The bike's tires would never forgive her.  All-season radials would be better, maybe, next time she replaced them.

"Hello?"  a baritone made its way over scratchy cell receiving.

"Daigo," deadpan, and uncharacteristic. Or was it?  The younger Kazama loved him.  He knew that.  He had been like a father to her, when Mom and Dad had died. But there was business to think of now.

"Akira!" he seemed pleased, and what might have been Edge slicing something... mushy could be heard in the background. "How's it going!"

"We have a problem."

"Well?" Daigo prodded in response to the half-bark that had emerged from a mirrored helmet.

"A girl here," Kazama allowed herself to be questioned, if only in this one special case, "She asked me for product.  or blackmail cash.  I'm not sure which."

"Oh shit," a sigh.  Gan bellowing something....

"Alright... just sell her the stuff or pay her off and.."

"No."

Daigo didn't have to protect her.  It was teh other way around.  She had to make sire that her dear older brother would be alright.

The concrete was cracked, and dead leaves cling to boots accursed with a slight moisture.  Stupid mist.

"What do you mean, no?  Akira, we can't have her telling the authorities.."

"I'll beat silence into her.  If I have to."

It was a credible threat.  Daigo would see sense.  Nothing could happen to him this way.

"That's not such a good idea.  Akira.. you have that helmet on, don't you?" a splinter of panic wormed it's way into his accent, though Kazama didn't really pick up on it.  Kazama was a doer - not a listener. "I sent you out there to get away from all that, you have to take the helmet off, and.. "

He was put off, alas, by the vocal equivalent of a roadblock. "Don't worry, big brother.  I'll take care of it.  Whatever it takes."

"The Akira I know..." Daigo trailed off, reception fading into accursed white noise.

"Is talking to you."

The biker mentally shrugged.  Daigo was so nice to her.

"Akira, I don't think.. no.. AKIRA!"

"Goodbye, big brother.  I do what I have to do.  Don't worry."

Hanging up the phone with a firm nod, Kazama gassed up the bike before attempting a few revs.  And as the biker drove away, the shopkeeper having fled outside screaming but seconds before, it didn't occur to her that there were better ways to pay than leaving a random wad of cash on the pump.

8. Residences must remain pristine, and conducive to proper study.

"Hello.  H-hello? "

When Akira returned to her room with the matted affliction known as helmet-hair and a distinct lack of nylons, it was freezing.  Meat-locker style freezing.  This was probably because of the approaching evening, and the wide-open window which gave it access.

Great.

Not bothering to take her jacket off - this time a black leather duster she'd decided to keep for school wear - the mechanic carefully tread through a paper minefield to the opening. A breeze looked to have decimated the stack that had mysteriously formed on Reiko's desktop last night.  Intricate little drawings were spread here, there and everywhere.

She'd noticed this because she spent alot of time looking at the floor.  Modus operandi, if you will.  Although they were very pretty when one got to looking at the black and white creations.

In any case, she probably should shut the portal.  A chilled steel clasp was murder on bare fingers, but...

"Hey!"

Someone was... outside?

The pane, which had made its way down with a touch of rebellion, likewise grated its way back up.

"...Reiko?"  Akira called ..or at least said with a bit of conviction.

"No kidding!"

Yup, definitely Reiko.  A Reiko who, upon inspection and a quick duck of the head outside, looked to be sitting just back of the eaves-trough.

"Ummm...."  shouldn't she get down from there?  What the heck was she doing? Those shingles were steep, and...

"What does it look like?" the sable-haired artist proffered a still-burning cigarette, the fumes of which entwined with the steam of her own breath.

Well, that explained why Mishima sounded so raspy.

"I...I see," Akira nodded

"Just don't close the window!" a yell through the wall proceeded another puff.

"Sure."

At least she'd brought Mom's quilt.

9. Plagiarism, cheating, and computer-assisted fraud are serious offenses, and will be punished with immediate expulsion.

Roses.

There were roses.

Roses and a mainframe.

Roses and a fax machine.

The roses did not touch her cellular phone, nor the much more silent stars.

"Karen."

"Helena!  How nice to talk to you."

Roses.  Twining their way around power conduits and hydroponic apparatuses and a triad of monitors.

And rosemary, too.  That's for remembrance.

"How are they coming?  Is there any sign of..."

"Patience, Helena.  Patience.  It's only the second day."

Some hung from the rafters.  Drying and pale in the darkness.

And the sky above was glass.

"With everything that's been cropping up... we can't afford to wait any longer. We can't let.. "

"It's not.  Not here.  That's been taken care of."

Orchids as well.  And lavender. They lived on the outskirts.

"The Project..."

Farther back their comrades waited.  Poppy, orleader, hydrangea, holly, heather, anenome, bluebell, flax, violets...

"Don't worry yourself, Helena.  You have enough to take care of."

"... Tchaikovsky, Karen?"

Anything the florists could charge for, and many things they couldn't. They were there, all of them.

And the perfume was overwhelming to the uninitiated.

And there were dead leaves on the desktop.

"But of course.. whatever else would I listen to at this time of year? Oh, that reminds me ... did you get the Zinnia I had sent?  Fed-Ex can be so unreliable, but you know I wouldn't forget your birthday."

"I did, thanks.  Flowers again, Karen?  Last year it was... alestem?  Alest.."

"Alestroemia.  You're impossible to buy anything else for.  And I am the gardener here, now aren't I?"

In some places, the wires were indistinguishable from worthless, vibrant vines.

"Typical...  Same time next monday?  I have a meeting now."

"Certainly.  I'll be starting the trials up then."

10.  Have fun :)
 
 
 
 

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