Gakuen Alice |〃I Will Protect You!〃

57 - Hanazonokai

During the time of celebration, something strange happened amidst the new year atmosphere.

Hotaru's friends are helping her to sort out her greeting cards and while in the process of it, she stumbled upon a pretty red envelope.

"Wow--! Hotaru, that's a very pretty envelope!" Nonoko exclaims and they questioned whether it is an invitation from those entrepreneurs.

"Possibly, threw it away" Koko stated bluntly.

While Hotaru was holding on to it, the envelope suddenly burst open, confetti flying out from it. "Hanazonokai..?" she mutters slowly, taken aback by the invitation in her hands.

After the hugging session between Tsubasa, Misaki and Sakura twins. Misaki told them that they went to pay a visit to Sono, Bear's master at the end of the year.

"We told him, during Christmas, Bear-san made friends with someone other than Mikan and Mia. He was so happy to hear that" Misaki interprets. Mikan's eyes gleamed at the mention of those words, she, herself is also happy to know that Bear befriend Youichi who adores him. She went off to play with both of them afterwards.

A smile crept up onto Mia's lips, she was glad that her Kaname senpai is doing well and is also enjoying himself. She reminds herself to pay him a visit later with Mikan.

Koko and Kitsuneme tugged on the hem of Tsubasa's kimono. "Hey-- what does 'new year's prayers' mean?" they asked. Mia tilts her head to the side, are there temples in the academy?

"Ah, that's right! I wanted to ask about that too!" Mikan exclaims, appearing out of nowhere from Tsubasa's side.

Iinchou explains that Gakuen Alice's version of the 'year's first prayers' is not going to a temple to pray. It's a tradition on new year's day for the junior school classes to meet with someone with the divination alice, who dresses up as a witch to help everyone do a divination.

"Witch?!" Mikan exclaims.

"Heh..so that's why Otonashi-san is not here" Mia mutters, noticing the girl is not around for the dishes.

"...that means, Otonashi will be dressed as a witch and dance to THAT?" she asks, sweatdropping. "Mikan..that is somewhere no one would dare to go" Iinchou says since it looks like she got the wrong idea of it.

The robot lady comes in time and announced to the students that it's time to make new year's mochi.

Tsubasa glances at Natsume who is sitting down while holding a manga and decided to approach him. "Yo☆, make your own mochi if you want to eat it" He says, grinning widely afterwards.

Natsume sticks out his tongue and gives Tsubasa a thumbs down as a response before placing the manga on his face, slowly drifting off to sleep, ignoring the ticked off Tsubasa.

They started to make mochi together, not forgetting to enjoy themselves to the fullest while doing so. The warm atmosphere had Mia smiling to herself, she loves how everyone works together in something.

"Sawa, what did you put in your mochi?" Mia asks while making her own red bean mochi. "Blueberry, doesn't know whether it will taste good or not" she replies and Mia scoffs at her. "I hope it is edible" she mutters quietly but Sawa's precise hearing got her on spot.

"What did you say?!" she exclaims and throws some rice flour to Mia's face as she did the same.

Meanwhile, Tsubasa decided to play a trick on the children by putting something into the mochi.