Kon'nichiwa dare mo (Hello there everyone) ~! The wolf-ette is back from hibernation and ready to rumble (after a century of being MIA...but better late then never I guess)! So let's get the story rolling, as usual...Anyhow, here is the sixth chapter of this hopefully awesome story!

BTW I shall be posting maybe once in a while (there will be no certain time frames of postage), due to me being in my final year, thus Wolfie needs to survive by getting good grade -_-". Anyways, enjoy!

P.S. Review!

DISCLAIMER : I DO NOT own any of the Special A characters (If I did, I certainly would not be on this fabulous site), unless I say otherwise.

~CHAPTER 6~

Kyuketsuki Academy

Last time of chapter 5: Hikari then sighed, nervously turned around to face the pair of furnished wooden doors, and she then grabbed the golden handles, and turned it.

And so we continue…

"Whoa."

The one student name Hikari muttered, as her hands automatically opened the two polished wooden doors that unveiled the academy's main entrance hall.

The room was large. Very large. Hikari couldn't even think up a word that could possibly describe how large and even how statuesque it was. The sensation she felt when she took her first step in the prestigious academy was like entering a palace of a great history of nobility. If she thought the outside looked magnificent and majestic, the scene in front of her was nothing like it, and only an infinity times better.

The grand foyer had two large sets of marble staircases that have both foot start at opposite ends of the room, and encircles around the outer circle and against of the area, and reunite on the upper level of the building. In the middle of the circular downstairs level, there was a large circular, polished wooden agar table, where there was also a large china marble vase sitting exactly in the middle of the table, and containing a large bouquet of baby pink Juliet Roses.

On the vase, a vampire with keen eyesight could easily see what was delineated on the priceless object. It could be conveyed that there were perfectly hand-drawn pictures on the vase, which portrayed a sequence of pictures of two characters; a charming man and a beautiful woman, and it seemed to be a kind of story between what seemed like two lovers.

Hikari didn't notice she was mindlessly walking towards the ravishing vase, as she then found herself only inches away from the Chinese urn. She backed away quickly; embarrassed to have done such weird gesture the moment an individual enters a room. She swiftly looked around to see if any of her soon-to-be fellow classmates were looking.

Luckily, nobody that was present in the room at that moment saw what she just did, as they were busy talking to other students, and making new friends. Her eyes fell on a tall dark green-haired guy talking to two shorter students, who both have the same coloured light brown hair…

"Hikari!"

Hikari spun around to see who that voice originated from, though it was obvious, through the years of friendship, that it was Akira, who was quickly making her way towards her from deeper inside the building.

"Akira!" Hikari beamed, as she also stepped closer to Akira.

"This place is amazing and beautiful! Isn't it?"

Hikari scanned the insides of the academy once more, and agreed.

"It's the most gorgeous place I have seen…"

"Oh, wait until you go further inside! It's unbelievable! I presumed you just arrived, right?"

Before Hikari could agree, Akira dragged the poor vampire deeper into the majestic building. As Hikari travelled further in, she noticed she was in a long hallway, with beautiful wooden walls, with intricate French carvings along the whole hallway, Once in a while, there was a large framed photo, and with Hikari's keen eyes, she was able to observe one, which was a slim lady, with brown shoulder-length hair, and with a face which deemed fit for intimidation and bring very strict, and Hikari instantly knew that was the headmistress of this school, Karino Sumire.

After a few seconds of running in the hallway, the two teenage vampires came into an opening, where the walls were similar to the dark wooden walls of the hallway they went through, with similar carvings, but they were now in a large, square room, with three single doors on either side of the room, and a bigger double door set facing them. Nobody was in the room with them.

"Um…Akira, I don't think we're meant to be here."

"Nonsense. I came here just now, and nothing happened. Just follow me."

Before Hikari could object, she was then quickly pulled again towards the set of double doors in front of them, and Hikari had a bad feeling that they were going to be caught, and tried to resist by pulling back. Alas, Hikari was no match for Akira's shocking surge of strength at that time, and before she knew it, Akira opened the right door, and pulled Hikari inside.

The moment Hikari entered, and laid eyes upon the room she was in, she automatically loosened her grip from Akira, and letting go all together, as she was once again in complete amazement.

Hikari was in the Academy's grand ballroom, and it was a humongous room (much bigger than the entrance hall). There was light coming from the outside, and it terrified Hikari for a second, as she did not want to get burned, but when she cautiously stepped into one of the rays, she did not feel any intense burning or power drainage, and instead felt the soft, warm sensation of heat that was normally felt when making contact on one's skin. She was puzzled, as she read that the Academy was deep inside a mountain, thus sunlight should not be able to get through the many layers of the Earth, but she decided to leave it, and continued gazing at the room. The floor of the ballroom was linen-colourer marble, with beautiful circular patterns designed into the marble. It seemed very slippery to walk on, but when Hikari walked on the white surface, she was able to feel much friction between her school shoes and the ground. The room's high ceiling had six big and grand diamond chandeliers, and had a Sistine Chapel feeling to it, as it has many angles and other creatures painted against a deep blue sky, with clouds scattered everywhere. Hikari could have sworn the clouds move ever so slightly as she stared at the tall ceiling intently, but she then left it, as she continued her inspection of the building.

One side of the room had four large glass windows that extended from the ceiling, and reached to the floor, with golden curtains tied to the side. Hikari saw that the windows led to a small balcony. In between those windows were tall, broad circular pillars that too lead from the top of the ceiling, until the bottom of the ground, with amazing gold designs on both ends of the pillars. At far corner of the room was a large ebony grand piano, and a ray of sunshine from one of the windows was upon the grand instrument, as if it was signalling Hikari to play it. Hikari never played the piano before; in fact, she never played an instrument. She doubted she would make a good first impression if she tried playing the string instrument. Before she could come up with a decision on whether to fall for its silent request to play or not, her ears perked up at the loud sound of the bell that shattered the silence, which came from the corridor they entered from.

Hikari looked at Akira, who also had a slightly shocked expression on her face, as she quickly gestured to her friend that they should leave. Hikari immediately heeded Akira's suggestion, as a small part of her assumed that they had been caught in a restricted area. They both quickly sprinted out of the room, carefully closing the door behind them, and making sure there was no physical evidence that they were there, in case they were accused. As they hurried through the same long corridor that they went through, Hikari slightly panicked, as she did not want to be expelled on the first day she arrived. What would her parents and brother think?

As they came into the entrance hall they arrived through, they noticed that the bell sound echoed louder at this part of the building, and they noticed a significantly larger population of students in the area than before, and they all too had the same alert expression on their face, wondering what was going on, and Hikari and Akira silently agreed to swiftly and cautiously slid into the crowd of teenage vampires, so that they were harder to be caught from the authorities. They quickly made their way into the middle of the group, looked at each other with similar terrified expressions, but before they could do anything, the sound of the bell stop (however the echoes could still be heard in their brains), and the sound of high heels could be instead heard on the upper level of the hall, where the two staircases led up to.

There stood the same lady Hikari saw in the picture when they ran through the hallway in a black business suit, with the same strict and intimidating face, as her dark brown eyes scanned the silent crowd before her, and as her eyes laid upon Hikari for a moment too long for her comfort (which was probably two seconds), she felt her heart drop to her stomach. But Karino continued to look at other students, and when she felt she was done, she gave a small, warm smile, and that made Hikari was a little better.

Sumire opened her mouth as she began to speak, "Konbanwa, my young, gifted vampires, and welcome to the prestigious Kyuketsuki Academy. My name is Sumire Karino, and I am the headmistress of this school. All of you should know why they are here, thus have worked every hard to earn their place here, thus if I see any form of disobedience, I shall not hesitate to expel you."

At these words, Hikari's heart further dropped into her stomach, and felt a sweat droplet running down the side of the cheek, as she swallowed her saliva and fear.

"All of you are going to have the honourable opportunity to be educated by five brilliant senseis of the top of their area of teaching, and heed these words, they expect the best from all of you, and they will not take any laziness from any of you. All of you, as I have expected, should have read the subject information booklet I sent out, thus everyone should have a general idea on what they are being taught. I shall introduce the senseis to you later, but first, you all will need to be placed into your intended houses. There are four houses, and these houses represent where you sleep, what blood type you are, and your sporting house. The members of the same house as you will be your room mates, and sporting peers, as well as "blood type buddies", as previous students have put it."

A small wave of chuckling aroused, but soon everyone fell silent again.

"However, this is where the similarities with the book Harry Potter come to a halt."

Another wave of chuckling echoed, and fell silent once more quickly.

"You and your house members will not all have the same classes together, unless you are lucky. You can eat wherever you shall desire in the cafeteria during breaks, and there is no points system. We believe that if a student does good, karma shall reward them, and if they do bad, karma too shall reward them with getting expelled."

"Do you really have to keep bringing that word up? I get the point that I am already screwed." Hikari thought to herself.

"Without further ado, please step outside and follow me to the selection chamber."

Once those words left her mouth, everyone turned around to exit out of the building. As Hikari exited the building with Akira, they both looked at each other warily, as if they said something to each other, they would jinx the luck they had on not getting expelled immediately.

Hikari thought to herself, "What is Karino sensei playing at? Why hasn't she-"

"Hey guys!"

A voice from behind her rang in Hikari ears before she could continue with her thought, as she turned around to greet person, and saw the two people she saw earlier; a boy and girl with the same brown-coloured hair, who were also approximately the same height with each other, but shorter than she was.

"Oh…hi!" Hikari replied back.

The twin's smile widened when she greeted them back, and the boy, who had short brown hair with bangs that went to his eye level, said, "I'm Jun Yamamoto, and this is my twin sister, Megumi Yamamoto." As he gestured to Megumi who was standing next to him, who smiled and waved, without saying anything. She had long, wavy light brown hair with delicate bangs and two shorter pieces in the front.

"Oh, my name is Hikari Hanazono, and this is my best friend Akira Todo." Hikari said, as she point to Akira, who greeted them back and smiled.

"Ohhh that's so cool! I wish I had a best friend like that! Well, Ryuu is technically our best friend, but I see him more as our oniisan. He has with us since we were young!"

"Wow, that's amazing! Akira and I only have been-"

"Jun! Megumi! There you are!"

Before Hikari could continue, a tall guy with sea green hair busted through the crowd towards the twins, and placed a hand on each of their shoulders, kneeled down to their eye level, and said sternly, "Don't ever run away like that."

Both twins had a look of guilt on their face, and Jun said sheepishly, "Gomenasai, Ryuu, we just badly wanted to meet Hikari."

"Hikari?"

Ryuu turned around, and saw Hikari, who gave a small smile. Ryuu smiled warmly back, and stood up, and said, "Forgive me, I'm Ryuu Tsuji. I just got a bit shock when I lost Jun and Megumi."

"Hikari Hanazono, and this is Akira Todo. And it's alright, we heard that you and Jun and Megumi and very close. I feel the same with Akira sometimes."

Ryuu smiled at both of them, and soon after, the doors to the academy opened, and Karino exited the building with seven other adults, whom Hikari assumed to be the other senseis. The student fell behind the eight senseis, and followed them to the side of academy, where a small dense forest grew in a small corner. When they were at the entrance/opening of the forest, Karino turned around and faced the students, and said, "Everyone is to stick together. The forest can be a dangerous maze if one gets lost."

"Then why have this selection process in such a hazardous place, then?" Jun said under his breath, which made Akira quietly chuckle.

Karino continued to trek inside the maze, and the student followed, with the other seven teachers letting the student past them, then following the students closely behind.

After a good lengthy amount of time manoeuvring through thorny branchy and roots that stuck out of the ground (Akira tripped over those twice, but her vampiric senses was able to catch her before she fell) had past, they came upon a large and dark cave at the heart of the forest, with a large opening, but at the end of the cave, it could been seen that there was a large rock blocking their path inwards. Karino stepped forward, chanted something under her breathe, and red, glowing hieroglyphical marks appeared on the cave walls. The large rock blocking their path glowed the same colour of red as the glowing red mark on the wall, and as the red glow disappeared, so did the rock, thus allowing them to see deeper into the cave, which was some stairs leading downwards, further into the ground.

Karino continued and went down the cave stairs, and soon everyone reluctantly went forward to follow their headmistress. The stairs was a circular spiral that went down a lengthy way, and the bottom was a large cave room, where it was bare except for a giant red ruby rock, that stuck out of the ground, sat in the middle of the chamber, and it slowly pulsed a glow, like it were to be an actual heart and alive.

When everyone was down in the room, even the teachers, Karino stood next to the rock, though at a distance, and said, "We are in the selection chamber, and this," Karino pointed to the glowing ruby, "is the Stone of Blood. When I call your name, I want you to promptly step forward, and place your right hand on the rock. It will not hurt, but you will feel something. The rock will then change to the colour of the house you will be in, and also indicating what blood type you are. The four houses are: Aggross, Braigxen, Aboznen, and Ogentee. You will be in Aggross, if the stone glows an even brighter red; Braigxen, if the stone glows blue; Aboznen, if the stone turns yellow; and Ogentee, if the stone changes to green. Once you are selected, please enter through the correct opening over there." As Karino said that, she pointed to a bare cave wall, where suddenly, four openings holes appeared, and at the top of each opening, glowing red letters of either "A", "B", "AB", and "O" appeared.

When Karino turned back to face her students, she continued, "Further instructions will be given once you are inside. Is everything clear?"

All the students silently nodded, and Karino took out a piece of paper from her blazer pocket, and opened it up, and started reading out the names.

"Akiyama Haru."

A tall guy came through the crowd of student vampires, and Hikari saw he had messy rust-coloured hair, with yellow highlights, as he cautiously walked up to the Stone of Blood, and placed his shaking right hand on the stone. The air thickened rapidly with anticipation, as every held their breath, and after a few seconds, the stone turned into a rich emerald colour. Everyone let their breath out, and most students clapped. Karino nodded her head at Haru, and said, "Please enter the Ogentee door."

Haru, feeling more confident, smiled, and walked into the cave opening that had the red glowing letter "O" above, and into a hallway that led down into an unknown destination.

"Miku Fujioka."

A girl around Hikari's height, with chocolate brown hair and blonde highlights tied up in a pony tail with a fringe, stepped towards the stone and too cautiously placed her right hand on the stone, and with another round of anticipation, the stone finally turned a much brighter ruby red, and it glowed brighter.

"Aggross." Karino said promptly, as Miku entered through the cave door with an "A" glowing above.

The procedure kept repeating the same way with the other student's names.

Fujino…

Fukui…

Gushiken…

Hamadate…

Hamzaki…

"Hanazono Hikari."

Hikari's heart skipped a beat when she heard her name being announced. It felt like she was back in the arena with Isamu again. She slowly stepped forward, feeling all eyes watching her every move, and as she stepped out of the crowd and towards the stone and Karino, Hikari noted that Karino had an expressionless face plastered on her. When she made her way towards the glowing gem, she slowly placed her right on the stone, and braced herself.

The stone felt very warm and smooth, and almost immediately, she felt a tingling sensation running through her veins. It wasn't a shocking sensation, so she did not flinch. After a few seconds of the tingling sensation, she saw the colour of the rock change into glowing green beneath her hand. She smiled, and was about to let go, when she heard a female voice echo in her head, "You are in grave danger… danger."

Hikari froze in surprise and stared at the stone. What? What does it mean? How am I-?

"Miss Hanazono?"

The voice snapped Hikari back into reality, as the voice came from Karino, who was looking at her anxiously.

Hikari did not want to raise any problems, so she quickly said, "It's…it's alright…just, a bit shocked from the change of colour."

Karino looked at her intently, and after what felt like a millennia, she said to Hikari, "…Alright then. Ogentee."

It took a second for Hikari to grasp what Karino said, but finally she did, and hurriedly walked through the "O" cave opening, not daring to look at anyone.

When she went through the long cave corridor, she came to an opening into a small cave room with protruding rocks to sit on, and where her fellow house members sat. She saw Haru, Shun Fujino and Naomi Gushiken. Shun and Naomi were both talking about girly topics, while Shun was plaiting Naomi's hair into a complicated yet beautiful French braid, while Haru was sitting in the corner, looking at his fingers. Feeling sorry for Haru, Hikari decided to approach at, and sat down next to him.

Haru looked up to see who was sitting next to him, and saw Hikari, smiled, and said, "Don't you want to join the girl group over there?"

Hikari chuckled and said, "Nah, you seem in need for more company than them. And besides, I'm not much of a girly girl myself."

Haru smirked, and the two started talking, and got to know each other better, as they waited for the other new house members to enter. Haru was from the other side of Fumei Island, and he lived with his parents and his younger sister. It was also revealed to Hikari that Haru's abilities were weather manipulation.

As they were talking about a human band that they liked, a scream could be heard coming from the entrance of the cave room, and Hikari snapped her head around to see who or what was the cause of such a noise. She saw Akira at the entrance, looking at her with pure joy in her eyes. It took Hikari a second to realise that Akira was going to be in the same house as her, and when it finally struck her, Hikari replied with the same type of scream, as she ran up to Akira and hugged her.

"Holy spirits! We are in the same house!" Akira screamed with delight.

"Yes! I can't believe this!" Hikari screamed back.

"Girls… how typical." Hikari heard Haru muttered under his breath, but ignored him.

They both stopped, as they were given weird stares, and so that the cave walls won't collapse on them from the noise.

"Wow, dracula, this is the best night of my life." Hikari finally said as her adrenaline decreased.

Akira agreed, and it finally struck Hikari that she should introduce Akira to her new friend, Haru, which she did. The three spent many minutes happily sharing about what they liked, and what hobbies they do in their spare time (Haru thought Akira's duplication hobby when she was alone was very sad and weird, which resulted a hit in the head by Akira).

When all the new members have arrived into the new room (Hikari did not recognise anyone else), Hikari counted on how many students were in her house, and there were 25, thus combining the four houses together, there were to be 100 students in total, assuming the other houses has 25 students each as well. One of the teachers that Hikari saw with Karino came into the cave, and Hikari saw that she was a tall, slender figure, with light brown hair styled into teased bob. She also had a side swept bangs and her eyes are brown and large. She also wore a red-orange sleeveless crop top with a black hem, and the rest of her attire followed the same colour scheme. She had a red choker, fingerless gloves with computerized print, a frilled skirt with a white belt, and another belt that hangs on her left side. She also wore light brown boots with white a fur trim.

She smiled a warm, happy smile at everyone in the cave, and said cheerfully, "Konichiwa everyone. I'm one of the senseis at Kyuketsuki Academy, and you can just address me as Meiko sensei. I am the Arts teacher at this school, and I was also given the honour to be the Ogentee head of house this year. Alright, enough of the dilly-dally, and let's get the nitty-gritty selection process out of the way, and then your school life has officially started!"

"The selection process isn't done?!" Hikari thought to herself, as she shared a glance at Akira and Haru, who replied with the same confused expression.

"Ok, your next step is to determine our soul instrument. This is an instrument which you are destined to play, even if you've never played one before. Vampires were known from the beginning to be the "Creatures of the Arts", even until now. Many of the famous musicians were vampires, such as the Mozart bloodline. Thus, Kyuketsuki Academy believes that every student shall learn an instrument to unlock their cultural aspect, and we also discovered that each vampire has a soul instrument, which makes it even easier for everyone to choose an instrument to play."

Meiko waved her hand to her right, at a bare cave wall, when another hole appeared where her hand was pointed to.

"They should seriously stop with the surprise doorways." Haru said quietly to Hikari, who smiled.

Meiko continued, "Now listen carefully please, this is very important. When you enter in there, it will be very dark, so watch your step. You will also be in there all by yourself, and there are many complicated steps to follow for the procedure to be done right. If you do not the follow the steps correctly or in order, you may not leave the room alive. Now, when you go in, there will be a large rune design on the floor. I want you to step in the middle of the circle, and when the runes glow red, you will need to cut your hand and let the blood fall on the middle of the circle. Don't worry; the magic from the runes will heal your hand almost immediately. The runes will then glow differently colours, and when they do, several balls of light will appear floating around you after each color change. Do not touch any of them yet. Then, after a few more colour changes, the balls of light will circle you at quite a fast pace. Finally, this step is very important, so listen up, when the rune stops glowing, you will be in complete darkness, except for the only light source is being emitted in the room is from the balls of light. You will need to immediately reach out and grab one of those wisps. They aren't that far from your grasp, so grab one which your conscience directs you to as soon as the runes stop glowing. When you have successfully grabbed onto one, your soul instrument will appear in your hand. Then, the magic of the cave will instantly teleport you to the academy's cafeteria, where you will reunite with your other school mates and teachers. All clear?"

Everyone quietly nodded, anxious on going into the cave. Meiko smiled, and said, "Alright then. We shall do this in alphabetical order again."

"Dracula kill me now." Haru said under his breath, as she could feel Haru's fear radiating from him like a furnace radiating heat.

Meiko looked at Haru, smiled broadly, and said, "Mr. Akiyama, if you please." And gestured her hand to the entrance.

"Good luck." Hikari and Akira said at the same time, as Haru solemnly got up from his seat and slowly walked through the cave door, which closed immediately behind him, and that made Hikari's heart skip another beat.

Instead of the usual happy chatter which occurred when the students were waiting for the Stone of Blood selection process to occur inside the room, the room was now filled with thick anxious silence.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the cave door finally opened, which made some of the student jump. Meiko peeped in, and nodded, and said, "Ok, next person…"

The process kept going on with Shun and Naomi, who both surprisingly went in with their heads held high, and entered with a confident stride (yet their facial expression told another story), and before Hikari knew it, her name was being projected by Meiko's lips.

"Miss Hanazono, you're next."

Hikari gulped down the vomit that felt like was at her throat, as she felt Akira's warm hand on her shoulder, and heard her whisper, "Best of luck. You'll be fine." As Hikari glanced at Akira, who had a reassuring smile on her face, but pure nervousness could be read in her eyes. Hikari nodded, and went forward, with yet another powerful, uncomfortable feeling of all eyes in the room staring at her as she walked towards the cave door.

She sighed, said a silent prayer, and entered the rune cave, which closed immediately behind her as her hind foot left the cave room she was in previously.

The room itself was very dark, but Hikari had no trouble, as her vampiric senses made her adjust to the darkness very quickly and effectively. It was then she noticed the floor, the room was empty besides her, and the floor was the thing that made the room special. In the centre of the room fanning nearly the entire floor was a circle; the inside had many intricate drawings and symbols deeply etched into the floor, and it was dimly glowing white.

At the very centre was another smaller circle that was blank with just enough room to stand in. Hikari positioned herself there, and remembered the procedure. She waited for the designs to glow red, which it did after a few second of her being in that small circle, and braced herself as she bite on her hand hard, letting her warn, salty blood drip onto the circle she was standing on. She licked the remaining blood from her teeth, and thought, "I'll stick with sheep's blood, thanks."

Sure enough a moment later, the cut healed nicely, leaving no mark, and leaving no soreness. Just then, the symbols started glowing a different colour after a few seconds, and changed colour in that same amount of time, from orange, to yellow, to green, and so on. True enough to Meiko's word, after every change of colour, a ball of light appeared somewhere around to her, in an arm's length, thus it was reachable, and each ball approximately as big as a volleyball. When there were enough wisps of light to surround her, they all started to move around her in a circular pattern. Hikari tried keeping an eye on one, but they were too fast for her eyes, and she did not dare move or turnaround from where she stood. She was too focused on seeing when the rune symbols stop glowing.

Finally, after much anticipation, the rune finally stopped glowing, and Hikari swiftly shot out her right hand and managed to grab a light wisps that was directly positioned in front of her, much to her delight. When her hand made contact with the wisp, that specific ball of light suddenly glowed much brightly, until Hikari had to close her eyes for a moment, and when she opened her eyes, she felt something solid in her closed hands, and she saw in her hand a real wooden violin with the bow. Her eyes widened, as she saw the wooden beauty in her hand, and was about to bring it closer to her for inspection, when it glowed white, and disappeared.

Hikari was confused, but then her whole surroundings glowed the same white glow was well, and she felt herself get lifted off her feet, and she had to close her eyes from the blinding white light, and when she saw through her eye lids the glow was gone, she also felt her feet touch solid again, she opened her eyes, and realised she was in the Academy's cafeteria.

To be continued…

So, did you amazing readers like it? If you did or didn't, please still leave a review as I would REALLY appreciate it~! I am a HUMONGOUS procrastinator, and I have studies to priorities ATM, so I am not sure when you will expect the next chapter, BUT STAY TUNED PLEASE. You never know! You could have the next chapter next week!

I own no characters apart from Haru, Shun, Miku, and Naomi.

Oh, yeah, and here is theJapanese to English translationsif you awesome people did not know what some of the terms mean (If you did know most or all of them, then congratulations, you win an awesome, imaginary trophy!):

Konbawa : Goodnight

Oniisan : Older Brother

Sensei: Teacher

Konichiwa: Hello

Ja matane (See you later) ~! :D

-Wolfie signing out.