Apparition (Blue Exorcist)

Chapter 2

"Class, this is Natalie Karashima, your new classmate." Miss Yamato said, gesturing to the little blonde girl beside her. "Say hi Natalie-chan."

Natalie bowed and did the usual introduction. Miss Yamato directed her to a seat at the far end of the classroom. Frowning, she went and sat down.

Class went by quickly and before she knew it, it was lunch. She sighed and took out her bento box.

"Today you're going to have onigiri, Natty. Is that okay?" Her mother had told her that morning. Being the good child she was, she said it was fine, though she was a bit disappointed to have such a common dish for her first day at school. However, she couldn't really complain.

She took a small bite and savoured the taste of the riceball.

'Hmm... umeboshi', she thought. 'Yum.'

She continued eating. There wasn't much to do in her new school since no one really bothered to come and make friends with the new student. Truth to be told, Natalie felt extremely bored. She really missed her old school in Kyoto, even though she only stayed there for a few months. She scanned the room for any possible interaction. There were several groups of students around the room. Most of which, she didn't even notice before. By the looks of it, there were more boys than girls, which surprised Natalie a little since she always thought that the females were always the dominant gender.

Her eyes widened when she spotted a familiar black-haired boy. He was sitting in one of the front desks all by himself. He didn't seem to care if he was all alone. He looked just as bored as she did.

'An opportunity!' she thought. 'But how do I get close to him?'

Scanning her surroundings, she spotted an electrical sharpener on top of the teacher's desk. She quickly opened her bag and dug out a couple of unsharpened pencils. Steeling her nerves, she got up and walked slowly toward the desk. As she got nearer, she started regretting her decision.

Natalie never had any guy friends before, excluding her older brother of course, so she had absolutely no idea what to say to the boy. She passed his desk without bothering to look at him and arrived at the teacher's table.

'Great!' she thought bitterly. 'Excellent way in making friends Natalie, why don't you just ignore him and stay friendless forever?'

Sighing, she decided to do what she initially thought of, to sharpen her pencils. While concentrating on the hum of the electric sharpener, she was completely oblivious to the fact that a fight had erupted right behind her.

+++++

Rin Okumura frowned as he gazed down at the carefully wrapped bento he had made that morning. In truth, he didn't actually have any appetite since he didn't actually have anyone to share his lunch with. He folded his arms on top of his desk and rested his head.

'Must be nice to have friends...' he thought. 'Oh well, at least I still have Yukio.'

From the corner of his eye, he noticed that the new student had gotten up and started walking towards him. In her hand she held a bunch of pencils. Rin didn't have to think twice about what she was about to do. As she neared him, she seemed to quicken her pace and avoid eye contact with him. Sadly, he somehow knew that she was just like everyone else. It seemed that people had that inner instinct that would make them steer clear of his path

That turned Rin's mood a bit sour. He liked the new student. She was pretty and her name was like a foreigner's. He hoped that they would be friends at least, since being friends with a cute girl scored you points in the popular clique, not that he wanted to be popular.....maybe.

He was well aware that one of his classmates, a boy whose name he never really bothered to remember, had come up to him and started spouting nonsense after nonsense. Rin ignored them all. He wasn't in the mood to fight back. That was, of course, before Yukio's name popped up. One insult about his twin brother was all it took for Rin's hand to fly.

++++

The world turned into a hazy mixture of screams and pain. Nathalie had barely enough time to register anything before a heavy force slammed into her, ramming her against the table and nearly breaking the girl's spine. She toppled to the ground, the body of an injured classmate followed. Groaning, she pushed the weight off of her and looked up. In front of her, the boy with the blue eyes stood, his gaze fixed on the boy beside her. Nathalie shuddered visibly when she looked at his eyes. They were not the same ones she had seen before. No.... his eyes were different now. More.....terrifying. The boy beside her stirred. Slowly, Nathalie watched as he opened his eyes, fear shining once he noticed what was going on.

"H-hey Okumura! W-wait a sec- I'm sorry! So sorry alright!? Just don- don't hurt me." The boy whimpered. Nathalie felt sorry for him. She turned to look at the blue-eyed boy, Okumura, and nearly gasped. There was nothing but absolute hatred plastered on his face, his hands were clenched.

'This is bad.' She thought. 'This is very, very bad.'

Okumura raised his hand and readied himself to strike. The other boy gave out a cry for help and then it all slowed down from there. Natalie's body reacted even before she could shout a protest. She thrust herself in front of the boy, using her hands to shield her face. In an instant, his fist collided with her palms. The pain from the impact collected in her hands and rendered them useless. An agonizing ache started as Natalie gazed up wearily. To her surprise, Okumura stared at her in shock. His blue eyes kept darting from her to their classmate.

"Wha- you weren't supposed to....." In a daze, he staggered backward, falling on his butt. "I didn't...."

He was clearly in shock by the fact that he had just hit a girl. Typical.

Nathalie managed to stand up, ignoring her weak and sore arms. She walked up to Okumura, grabbed his shirt collar then boxed him as hard as she could. Okumura looked dazed for a moment, his fingers brushing his cheek as she let go of him. He looked at Nathalie, his eyes suddenly focusing on her.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!!??" He yelled, his face filled with absolute anger.

Nathalie knew she should've been scared, horrified even but....those feelings never came. Instead, she felt white hot anger boiling inside her. He punched first! She was just getting even!

"That," she hissed. "Was for the guy you just hit and for trying to kill me."

"WHAT?!?! I wasn't trying to-"

Their schism was cut short when the traumatized boy suddenly got up.

"DEMON!!" He wailed. "Okumura-kun is a demon!!"

Nathalie's eyes suddenly widened. The other kids were running out of the room while silently bawling. The boy gave her one last look of warning then ran after the others crying.

She turned around to see Okumura practically death-glaring at the ground, the same demonic look on his face. Nathalie gulped.

Out of pure rage, Okumura threw a tantrum right there. He started slamming, punching and breaking things all the while shouting such insulting profanities that Nathalie nearly considered grabbing a bottle of water and washing his mouth with it.

She groaned inwardly. She needed something, anything to stop him from causing mayhem.

Their teacher appeared in the doorway but she was too afraid to move. Nathalie sighed. How useless.

She turned her attention to the boy and took a deep breath.

"Okumura-kun!!" she yelled. Okumura paused and glared at her.

"WHAT!?" He trudged up to her, faces inches apart.

"Uh, you need to calm down." She said gently. The tension on his face was drained and Okumura's shoulder's sagged.

"I...."

"OKUMURA-KUN!" The teacher scolded. Nathalie and Rin looked at her nervously. They were in trouble.