Hypothermia

After Takako was saved from darkness and after Himeno woke after saving her, Takako and Sasame moved to their own house and the other knights moved in with Himino and her family. Life seemed normal...for a while.

Mannen's Room---

There was a loud knock on the door followed by a shout that obviously belonged to Go. "Mannen! Get your ass out of bed!" The half-asleep Mannen lifted his head off the pillow. He had been sleeping on his stomach like usual. He looked around and noticed that he must have slept later then usual and also remembered that he had fallen asleep without changing his clothes, but he did take off his shoes. Mannen lazily rolled off his bed onto the floor with a loud thonk "Mannen get up!" Once again Go yelled.

"Ok! Ok! I'm up!" he yelled back. 'Jeez' he thought. He sat up and gathered both his shoes, which he had just kicked randomly off his feet somewhere in his room. After he put them on he went down to the breakfast table.

He sat down in a spot between Shin and Go, Hajime was on the other side of Shin. And everyone else was already almost done eating. He had started going to school like every kid his age. For him it was very VERY boring. (AN/ I hate school.) He wasn't doing well either. Shin and Hajime went to a different school then him because, of course, he was older then them. He had a few friends but didn't really like most of the kids. Snapping out of his thoughts, he looked down at the food in front of him, it didn't look too appetizing today for some reason. He picked at it a little but that was it. Go looked over at his plate.

"Mannen why aren't you eating?" Go said now trying to stuff some bread in Mannen's mouth by force.

"Cut it out!" Mannen said after he pushed the bread out of his face. "I'm just not hungry." And with that he left the room with Shin and Hajime fallowing. They grabbed their backpacks as they left to go to school.

"Mannen," Shin began as they walked, "are you sick?"

"Why is everyone suspicious of me this morning!?"

"Sorry." Shin focused his eyes on the ground.

"But you usually eat a lot." Hajime said. Mannen just seemed to try and ignore him now. Mannen walked his two brother-ish friends to their school.

"I'll see you guys later." Mannen said a little cheerier then before.

"See ya Mannen!" Hajime said then ran toward the school holding Shin's small hand.

"Bye-Bye Mannen!" Shin waved to Mannen while running next to Hajime. Mannen waved back at him before starting to walk to his middle school.

'I must be later then I thought.' he thought to himself. 'I don't see any of my friends around.' He started to take a shortcut through the park. 'Why am I so damn tired!?" he decided to take a rest on a bench in the park. 'I don't care if I'm late...so tired...' he laid on his side on the bench and soon fell asleep without noticing.

()()()()()()()()A little while later()()()()()()

Awayuki Mansion--

Hayate looked out the window. He was one of the few people in the mansion because everyone else went to school or work. He worked at the mansion. It was raining. The phone began to ring and caught him by surprise; he jumped a little.

"Hayate, can you get that?" Natsue called down to him. He picked up one of their many phones.

"Hello?"

"Hello, is this the Awayuki residence?" the person on the other line asked.

"Yes, who is this?"

"This is Awayuki Town Middle School. Mannen, isn't in school today but no one called in for him."

"That's strange, because he left for school this morning."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"I see. And--" the line cut off. Probably because of the rain, someone must have had a car accident and hit a phone line.

'Damn it. Where the hell is Mannen if he's not at school?!' he thought to himself. 'I'll have to call the others and tell them. Wait! How the hell can I do that if the phone lines are dead!? Maybe cell phones still work.' he tried it, and to his relief; it worked. He had called Kei first since Go would probably get paranoid. Go thought of the younger knights as little brothers, as the younger knights thought of him as a big brother. And of course, siblings fight. Kei answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi Kei, it's Hayate."

"Hm? Why are you calling me?"

"It's Mannen. He's not at school. Is he there by any chance?" Hayate doubted this very highly.

"No, he isn't. I'll call the others and call you back."

"Ok." Kei hung up. Hayate looked out the window once more, waiting for Kei to call back. It was still raining. Many minutes went by before Kei called back.

"None of us have seen him. I even called Himino and she's going home now. The others are going to look around. You stay there incase he comes home."

"Right." Kei hung up again.

()()()()()Himeno's school()()()()

Himeno ran out of her school. She used the excuse that her little brother was missing, which of course was true. She was getting wet from the rain but she didn't care, she kept turning her head everyway to see if she saw Mannen. He was afraid of loosing one of her family again. 'Mom' she thought but shook her head. This wasn't the time for that. She needed to find Mannen! She ran through the park and noticed up ahead something was unusual. When she was closer it looked like snow. But it was raining so how could that be? She was thinking. When she finally reached it she found it really was snow, and under the thin layer was Mannen! He looked like he was sleeping.

"Mannen." she said but he didn't respond. She said it louder. "Mannen!" but the boy still wouldn't wake. She shook him slightly and noticed he felt cold even though he was the ice knight and shouldn't be effected by his own snow. "Mannen! Mannen!" She started to panic then Go ran up. He had heard her screaming while he was close by.

"Himeno what's--" he cut himself off when he looked at what she was kneeling by.

"I can't wake him up, he's cold." She was now in tears.

"Himeno its ok." he tried to comfort her. Mannen was course alive, but she must have started to panic before noticing that. He knew what happened with her real mother, it had affected her greatly. Go put his hand on Mannen's cheek and used his power over heat to warm the young boy's body. Mannen stirred a little then cracked opened his eyes.

"Huh? What's going on?" he said weakly and dazedly. Go picked him up and he and a very relived Himeno walked toward home.