Yuka Sato rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands, yawning loudly as she propped her feet up upon her desk, knocking the opened mouthed frog pen holder and giant fluffy penguin perilously close to the edge.

She flicked through the music list on her laptop, sighing as she scrolled through the mammoth collection. She leant back in her chair with a squeak, pulling her long hair into a bun on the top of her head.

"Alright, Yuka. You can do this. Two suitcase school limit..."

She stood up, pulling her tank down over her hips as she stared at the monster pile of clothes settling into her bed. She felt her stomach sink a little at the collection of shoes she would be leaving behind. The soon-to-be-neglected skirts. The jeans that wouldn't be worn until Christmas - at the earliest.

She hitched a cry down her throat. It was tragic.

She shook her head roughly.

"No, no. Damnit, Yuka! Pull yourself together! Two suitcases! No exceptions!"

Her hands planted themselves on her hips as she glared down the mountain of denim, cotton and linen.

Oh, man, and the leather. Good lord, not the leather.

Her bottom lip quivered, her strength wavering.

"I don't think I'm ready for this."

Another head shake.

It's a school. Just a school. Don't be such a cry baby.

They have a scholarship. Music and horses. Come on, it's going to look so good on paper.

She paused, before making a frustrated grunt, throwing herself at the mercy of four years worth of allowance in clothing form.

"Good on paper...? What am I, socially defective?"

She pulled one of her many pillows from her bed, burying her face.

'Good on Paper'...

That's it, it's over. She's going to turn into a stiff. There is officially no hope.

She huffed dark hair from her face.

Even the words sounded old.

Boarding School...

..

..

Music blasted her ears as the car sped down the deserted highway. Miss Hazuno was silently driving, occasionally pushing her wire glasses back up her nose.

Yuka was sure she occasionally tried speaking to her, but the music was making everything - bar the thoughts in her own head - silent. And she liked it that way.

Miss Hazuno was one of seven Minders of Dena Hall - a home for 'troubled youths'.

Yuka had called the large manor house Home for over a decade, her earliest memories being of playing the the other children on the climbing frames in the garden.

Sure, it had padded rooms and beds with straps, but that was for the devastatingly bad cases. Everyone saw it as an initiation into the group - spending a night in one of those rooms. Like having some mental disorder was a badge of honour.

She glanced out the window, at the rolling hills folding into distant mountains.

No one at her school knew where she had lived all her known life, and she had worked hard for that. She didn't want anyone to know. Her fingers gripped her music player, enough for her knuckles to dust white.

She didn't want people to know the nightmares that plagued every waking moment until she was ten. Until they gave her the medication to make her stop seeing the 'Ghouls' - as she called them.

The doctors who frequently visited had told her it was normal, that she must have experienced trauma as a young child and that was her way of dealing with it.

Hell, her mum had apparently dropped her at the doorstep of an orphanage before Dena Hall, and they sent her packing as soon as she started screaming about voices and tearing bedsheets apart in her sleep.

Still, Dena Hall was the only home she'd ever known, and she had worked tooth and nail dragging her way up the social ladder in her school.

It was bad enough she was leaving, let alone leaving the day of her senior dance.

She released another melancholy sigh.

All those friends she'll never see. That boyfriend she was now never going to meet. The amazing ballgown she would never wear.

The incoming boarding school from the Dark Ages that has never heard of a WiFi connection.

Life was pretty grim

The concrete jungles were beginning to turn into trees and fields. There was the rare stream or lake, and once the road even turned to dirt.

Literally, dirt.

Yuka had thought that dirt roads were something they honestly made up to make poor people in films look even more desperate.

..

Turns out she was hideously wrong.

In fact, she had yet to pass another concrete road for at least four hours.

Yuka eventually caved, pulling the headphones from her ears in one swift motion.

"We've been driving for ages, are we there yet?"

Miss Hazuno cast her a hard glance.

"The Academy is far away from our city life, Miss Sato." Hazuno turned back to the road, her shrill voice softening slightly. "Far from the polluted air of our world."

Yuka snorted, incredulous.

"Yeah, right. Because it's So Far from everything it could possibly be considered a 'Different World'."

Yuka had meant it as sarcasm, a bite to Hazuna's constant lectures on exaggerating the truth - another anecdote to her brief psycho childhood. Ghouls, and all that.

But the more the silence drained on, the more Yuka felt her stomach Knot.

"Miss Hazuno...?"

She shifted in her gnarled car seat, the seat belt digging into her collar bone. She felt her knotted stomach fall through the bottom of the car, a horrifying truth settling into her core.

"No...No! You said it was in a city!"

Miss Hazuno scowled.

"I said it was near a town, Miss Sato."

"That means somewhere with a Mall, a cinema! Cute guys walking around in sweaters, stabkes, a freaking Country Club!" Yuka pressed her nose against the passenger side window, staring out at the darkening fields - a thick mist beginning to form before a dimly rising moon. "Not the field trip to Silent Hill!"

"Silent what?"

Yuka rolled her eyes, groaning.

"Miss Hazuno, really...? Are you really that old...?"

Hazuno stiffened at the comment, her jaw setting but ignoring it all the same. Professional.

"The town around the school is really rather quaint. There is a market every saturday, and numerous shops. The horse fields run for a mile or so in either direction. There is a hall for musical performances. Really, Yuka, you are not some dribbling teenager anymore. You are a young Lady. Please, begin acting like one."

Yuka mumbled 'begin acting like one' under her breath, high pitched and baby like.

"Just because your life is nearly over."

Hazuno gasped lightly in insult.

"I am thirty-two, Yuka!"

She rarely spoke Yuka's first name, and Yuka honestly found it unnerving.

She sulked, leaning her canvas clad feet against the glove compartment as her back slid further down the seat. She could tell Hazuno was frosty about the action - but if she complained, Yuka didn't hear. She had jammed her headphones back into her ears.

She didn't want to go to some decrepit country boarding school.

She didn't want to be surrounded by girls who had no idea what moisturizer was.

She wanted her high school.

She wanted her friends back.

She saw Hazuno's mouth move, but the music drowned her out.

The music drowned everything.

And soon, following the suit of the world around her, Yuka slipped into the Darkness of sleep.

..

..

The chamber was dimly lit, a small fire burning in the stately hearth which the room was angled around.

Candles flickered against the walls and spare surfaces, casting nearly the entire of the crimson attire into a bloody red.

The chamber had electronic lights, of course, but artificial light never held the same atmosphere. It buzzed against sensitive ears and the smell of burning dust on glass was nearly unbearable after a few hours.

Books lined the wall the opposite end of the room, a tiny library of books read over a hundred times - classics and philosophical dribble sharing shelf as the spines wore from use.

Kaname Kuran turned the white queen over in his fingertips.

A pawn had made it to the end of the board.

A new piece will now join the ranks.

He leant his chin upon the back of his hand, hair falling Into his eyes.

It would not be long now. He could almost taste it.

He mused silently on how the situation came to be what it was, but then he had always known it would have been inevitable.

He closed his eyes, tilting his chin upward as he breathed the silent scent of Dusk.

The others were sat in lectures or lounging around the Dorm.

Yuki would be on her patrol, guarding the Day Class from their tedious fascination with beings they could not even begin to understand.

This would upset everything, of course.

It had potential to shatter everything. To pull the wings off the Butterfly before it even left the cocoon, as it were.

But yet even he, Pureblooded though he was, had little control over the fates.

A rattle of iron. Far, in the distance. Mechanized grinding of wires and gears as the Academy gates shuddered open.

He pulled his fist around the Queen, holding her tightly.

Yuki...

..

..

"Miss Sato,"

Yuka woke with a start, headphones fallen from her ears. She rubbed her eyes, the grogginess clearing from her mind after a few moments. She blinked wearily, lifting herself up in her chair again, wincing at her frozen muscles.

"We're approaching the main gates now. Please tidy yourself up before we reach the Chairman."

Yuka mumbled, running hands down her face. She flattened her hair with her palms, trying to readjust her baggy jumper to some form of resemblance of "not-homeless".

She had just finished hitching her skirt down to an acceptable length as the top floors of the supposed Academy came into view.

Yuka's mouth fell open, her breath hitching in her throat.

It was like a castle.

She could only just see a courtyard behind some rough iron gates, the stone pathways flooded with light from tall gas burners that curled around out of sight, trees standing silhouetted against the imposing stature of the school.

A few of the many tall Windows were illuminated with light, massive archways and balconies shone with an internal glow, Bay Windows open and lace curtains flowing in the breeze.

The moon rose over the peaks of the Academy, throwing long shadows over all peaks and designs into the brick.

The car pulled in over gravel, sliding into the curved walkways of the school. It was late, and Yuka found herself yawning despite the magical pull of the building.

"Cross Academy." Hazuno cooed.

Yuka rolled down the window, leaning her entire body out as they drove silently through the groubds. Her dark hair whipped about her face with the quiet wind, ignoring the calls of Hazuno to sit back properly.

"Cross Academy..." She echoed, gazing upwards at the passing classrooms shrouded by a veil of blackened glass.

They drove quietly for another minute or so, passing another estate gate placed within a whitewashed wall. The building beyond was bathed in internal light, all Windows illuminated with both flickering and electrical hues.

Yuka leant out a little further, the intricate bent metal of a crescent moon adorning the centre of the gateway.

They drove further, heading in the opposite direction.

A wooded area expanded on either side, shrouded in night as the moonlight lit up the main Academy building.

The car slowed, and Yuka jumped as the Grand oaken doors were pulled open, blinding her in light.

"Welcome, to Cross Academy!"

..

Hello everyone!

This is the ReVamped (get it, get it?) Edition of an old story called 'just to spice it up'

- Please tell me what you all think! Good and Bad, just keep it coming.

Let me know what you feel about the concept, characters and writing!

And remember...;

"I'll also show you a sweet dream, next night."