Momo tugged at the sleeves of her uncomfortable wizard robe. If there was one thing she disliked about Kobayashi, it was the uniforms. Students were forced to wear what looked like distasteful unisex choir gowns. As an avid shopper and former student of fashion design –back in the good ol’ days of normal high school– Momo felt quite restricted in her wardrobe options. Still, she did what she could to touch it up. Her raven hair was pinned up halfway with two Dutch braids, and the hair that was left free tumbled over her shoulders in loose waves like an ebony waterfall.

Along with the rest of the student body, Momo was headed to the Cafétorium. The room was a cross between a dining hall (aka: cafeteria) and a meeting center (aka: auditorium), hence the clever name. Today, the population of Kobayashi was gathering to celebrate the start of the new school year and welcome the timid little people known as freshmeat –er… freshmen. The new students would be divvied up based on their different traits and placed into the House (aka: dormitory) that suits each of them the best.

That was all good and fun, but the best part was the announcement of the House of the Year. The dormitories all competed in annual competitions to win that title because the victors get special privileges all year long. Last year’s winner would be declared at tonight’s gathering. Momo couldn’t wait. Dragonhart had won for the past two years in a row, but she felt good about Rowanstone’s chances this time. They had put up a strong fight against Dragonhart, and she was fairly certain they won more challenges too. Plus, Rowanstone always had the best academic achievements, as they were the smartest bunch of students at the school.

Momo shuffled through the French doors that lead into the Cafétorium with the other students, trying to avoid getting pushed about in the crowd. She managed to escape from the throng and slip into a seat at her House’s table. The dormitories were all separated into four long tables in the gathering place, each with the House crests hanging above to identify which was which. Starting at the far left, there was Wintercrow, Dragonhart, Rowanstone, and Adderhook.

At the head of the Cafétorium, there was an elevated platform like a stage. In the middle of said stage was a solitary chair. That was where the freshmeat would be put on display for all to see as they took the test to decide which Houses they would be assigned to. Momo hoped Rowanstone would get some competitive kids this year, and not just a group of quiet little bookworms who were just there for the schooling.

She was just piling food onto her plate for dinner, when she heard Tanaka sensei call everyone’s attention. Like the rest of the student body, Momo stood and faced the teachers’ platform. It was positioned just to the left of the stage. On top were six individual podiums, behind which the teachers all stood (except for Mori sensei, who was organizing the freshmeat backstage), looming over the crowd like a panel of judges. The room fell silent as everyone waited in anticipation.

“Students,” Tanaka began. His voice was unnaturally loud, and Momo suspected he was using an enchantment for enhanced vocal projection. “Welcome back. As always, I would like to congratulate you all on a wonderful three trimesters last year–” he was interrupted by an eruption of cheering from the young wizards seated below. “Yes, yes. You all did very well. But, I also wish to stress that you need to try even harder this year. It is always our goal here at Kobayashi to make each year better than the last…”

Momo tuned out the rest of his long-winded speech about how he expected everyone to get perfect scores on their exams and put on spectacular performances in the House competitions. You know; the usual beginning of the year spiel to get everyone pumped up for the coming trimesters. She listened in again when he switched to the topic of incoming freshmen.

“Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” Tanaka said, turning to Yoshida sensei. “If you’d please.” Yoshida nodded silently and crossed from the teachers’ platform to the stage. He muttered a few phrases of a spell and held out one hand toward the chair. A pure white snake materialized, coiling around the chair’s legs and back. The snake was basically a scaly mind reader. It wormed its way into the freshmens’ innermost thoughts and decided which House each one would be placed in. Then it changed colors like a chameleon to reflect the House emblem of the new freshman, so everyone would know. Creepy, right?

“As according to tradition,” Yoshida began. “I will call the freshmen onto the stage in alphabetical order by their surnames. Mori-san will send them each to the chair in turn, where they will be judged and divided into their new Houses.” There was another short burst of whooping from the crowd while Yoshida summoned up a long scroll containing the names of the freshmeat.

The students all took their seats as the initiation process began. Momo sat on the edge of her chair in anticipation. She watched as the unlucky first kid sat down in the chair. She looked like she was about to faint when the snake rested its head on top of hers. After a moment, the snake’s scales rippled from white to royal blue and silver: the colors of Wintercrow. The table on the far left of the room broke out in cheers and sent one of their members up to retrieve the terrified girl.

Momo joined in with the rest of the Houses in a polite applause, and then returned her attention to the stage as the procession of freshmeat continued.

Eri walked gracefully to the dinning hall to watch the sorting of the first years. She seemed to have this unusual habit of walking on her tip toes, almost like a cat. Her face and body language gave no indication, but she was excited.

As a proud member of Adderhook House, she was curious to see who will be the new addition to the family. Apparently Adderhook had a reputation of being shady and cold, but she didn't understand it. Well, she did, but not everyone was manipulative... she hoped at least. The more she thought about the reputation, the more walls she ran into in her mind trying to bring some justice to it. In her head, they always over-exaggerate the house qualities anyway. But she had to admit they weren't necessarily wrong either. Dismissing the debate within her thoughts, she took her seat at her table, next to her house members, just like always.

The names were called, the scared little first-years took their beloved seats to their new houses, and repeated. She was interested at first, but the fire started dying. Soon her boredom sunk in a little. She propped her head up with one hand, and began twirling her fingers on the table. 'Interesting. Always interesting without a bit of melancholy.' they say. she sighed at her thought, but continued to stare, and when a Adderhook was chosen, she casually clapped and then went back to her bored expression.

Hikari Suzumaki stood among a few dozen people about her age, all nervously glancing around and trying to peek outside towards the selection chair. Hiraki, for her part, was simply trying to remain on her feet; she was excited about finally starting here at Kobayashi, but she hadn't known she'd have to sit in front of the whole school. She was so nervous she could barely move, and as the line slowly started moving forward, it sometimes took a small push from Mori-sensei to get her to keep up. The teacher didn't seem to mind, though. In fact, she almost looked like she'd been expecting it. I guess she's used to freshmen being nervous, Hikari thought to herself. As the process continued, she tried to calm down by thinking back her original excitement and how she first learned of Kobayashi's School for the Gifted.

Hikari had lived most of her younger years in a private academy, though certainly not one built for magic. Her father was the CEO of a major electric company, so her family had always been quite wealthy. Even so, she never really enjoyed the extravagant lifestyle her parents tried to lead, and often found herself retreating out into the nearby woods for some privacy. She enjoyed the simple life she felt out in the woods, and always dreamed of having a small house in a field one day. School life wasn't enjoyable, either. Hikari was always a shy and sensitive person, and was often the butt of many jokes because of it. She was easy to pick on, so she was picked on often. She told her parents about it, but they always simply told her how lucky she was to be able to attend such a prestigious school, what it would do for her in the future, and so on. She grew up very lonely.

At the age of 12, she first encountered her magic abilities. She was being picked on again by a group of mean students, who were surrounding her. They were laughing at her and pulling her hair, and she closed her eyes and wished she could just disappear. Suddenly, she did just that: when she opened her eyes again, she was suddenly back in the woods she always visited. She stayed there until school would have been over, and then went home. The very next day, her letter from Kobayashi was in the mailbox. Her parents told her to throw the letter away, and that she would be forced to continue her education at her old academy, but for the first time in her life, Hikari refused. She was completely enamored by the idea: a school for magic! And they wanted her! She could do magic! It all seemed so exciting to her. But still her parents refused, demanding that she throw away the letter and forget the idea at all. Finally, after their continued demanding and threats of punishment, Hikari did the only thing she could.

She ran.

Clutching her letter as tight as she could, she ran as fast and as far as her legs would carry her. When she finally stopped, her parents were nowhere to be found. It broke her heart to run away from them like this, but for the first time in her life, she had something that made her feel special. She would never give it up, no matter what her parents thought of it. Fortunately, she still had a lot of allowance money saved up, so after spending the night at a friend's house (she did have some friends, thankfully), she went shopping for all the items her school letter listed for her: her wand (it was smaller than most, but she thought it looked cute), a few school supplies, and a few new outfits. She really enjoyed shopping for clothes: normally, she could only wear what her parents bought for her, so choosing her own outfits was a whole new experience. Finally, the first day of school was upon her, and she was so excited to start!

...Well, she had been, but now she was as nervous as she could be. Still, thinking about the possibilities and the fun she might have helped to calm her nerves, if only somewhat. At long last, it was her turn to make her way up to the selection chair. She saw the snake slithering around it, and it looked at her as she sat down. She wasn't afraid of snakes; she'd met a lot of them during her trips to the woods, and eventually, they had just stopped being scary for her. The snake rested its head on top of hers, and she felt a very strange presence filling her head. The snake sat there for a moment longer, then turned from silver to red and grey, the colors for Dragonhart. The Dragonhart table erupted into applause, and a young man stood up and came to get her.

"I'm Akira Takashita," he said. "Welcome to Dragonhart." Hikari smiled and took her place at the table, receiving several greetings and congratulations. She smiled timidly; even on day one, she felt like this was going to be a good school indeed.

Zaseki Motomeshorai leaned against the wall, waiting along with the other newcomers to this school. He was fairly bored, and unlike the other students, wasn't nervous in the slightest. He just wanted to get up there and find out what his House would be. He wasn't looking forward to the actual schooling, either, because he knew he wasn't the smartest, but he also knew it would be extremely boring, but he'd have to deal with it. It would be worth it to greaten his powers.

He remembered the night he got his powers. It was a few days before this day, he had been hanging out with what he called his 'friends', when there was a bit of an argument between two of them. They started yelling, then shoving, and they got mad, then they punched, punched eachother hard. Because of how their 'friendships' worked, this happened regularly. Weird thing is, this already happened. He didn't know how, but earlier in the day, he saw this happen. He didn't pay much attention to that memory, not yet atleast, and so he tried to break up the fight, and ended up getting punched in the face. He winced, but then got up. He was angry, now, and ran forward, punching the guy back. He fell back onto the ground, and spat a little blood. It was on now, they were about to fight. Then, he remebered, just as the other guy took a swing. He blocked it and counter-attacked, and did so for every single move, leaving the guy sitting on the floor in pain.

When he got home, he checked the mailbox, and saw the letter. He read over it with intrest, and realized what had happened. He had seen what happened, and was excited by this. Now this was good news! Magic, something he'd never excpect him to have. Very suprising, infact, but good. He told his mother, she didn't care, he packed his stuff and left, heading towards the School.

Flash back to now, he was next. He chuckled and walked on up to the chair, then sat down. He read about what would happen now, and waited. The snake slithered up to him, then rested onto his head. He sneered at it, and it read into his memories. He waited, and after a moment, the snake shifted colors black and acid green, Adderhook. the Adderhook table cheered as the leader, a young man, got up and retrived him.

"Dai Arakaki, welcome to Adderhook." the man said as he walked over to the rest of the House, recieving greetings, congratulations, and welcomes. He sat in a chair and leaned back on it, waiting for the ceremony to end so that they could get on with the year. He crossed his arms as he sat, and thought to himself. "This'll be interesting." and chuckled.

With a carefree expression on his face, Takezo whistled and walked with a slight skip in his step to the cafetorium. He had heard that that was where he was supposed to go today, seemed like it was time for a new group of freshmen to join the school. Good times. Takezo thought to himself as he walked. It felt like only yesterday that he was chosen for Rowanstone, probably because time flies when one is having fun. Before he had received his letter, he lived a life of dreary repetitiveness, going through the same routine daily with lots of responsibilities and boring tasks. After reading the letter, Takezo's interest was piqued and he tossed his stuff in a duffel, and bought a cheap wand. It appears to be a dark willow tree branch duct taped around the handle, affectionately named "Crap Twig" by Takezo in appreciation for its shoddy charm.

When he arrived for the first time, he found a place where he could relax, and have fun when he wanted to. A place with much less expectations and duties than his original life. The classes were easy and there was never a boring day to be had, truly his kind of place. He especially enjoyed making weird concoctions and potions in class, magical properties changed the very definition of science and made chemistry one of the most fun subjects.

As he approached the cafetorium, the oncoming crowd swept him up, without struggle, Takezo allowed them to take him wherever it was headed, and as it turned out, he ended up at the wrong table. "Hello Adderhook!" He exclaimed towards the people who were definitely not members of Rowanstone, as he sat down. He paused for a moment with a confused look on his face, "Oops sorry, just remembered what house I'm in...." He said with a grin as he stood up and walked over to the Rowanstone table. "Hello Rowanstone!" He exclaimed as he sat down. He paused for a moment and looked around, "Yeah this looks right..." He muttered under his breath with relief.

'Alright...okay...calm yourself...you can do this.' Emily was standing among the other new students like herself, waiting to be called up stage and find out what house she would be put in. Honestly, she didn't think she would belong to any of the houses here. She was nothing special, and at times she would cause problem for anyone around her. Of course, the girl was always like this whenever she enters a brand new school. But eventually, all the shyness and doubting would soon pass away once she is comfortable with the school.

Emily didn't bother to recount on how her magical abilities were discovered, as the main thing she remembered all too clearly was that it happened when her personalities switched. She ended up hurting someone and because of that, her family moved to another location to be away from prying eyes. Though somehow, this letter showed up out of nowhere and knew of the girl's talent. She was quickly enrolled to Kobayashi, since after this discovery going to this school would be the reasonable choice.

Once it was her turn, Emily stepped over towards the chair and sat down while the white snake placed its head atop of her own. At first, the scales of the snake turned only midnight black as it tried to figure out which house to put the girl in. 'Maybe it's having a difficult time choosing because of my problem?' She was almost put into Adderhook, since her harsh personality and thoughts would fit in perfectly with them. But the colors then shifted over to silver and royal blue: Wintercrow. The members of the house clapped and cheered, happy to have yet another member of House Wintercrow.

"Hello, I am Shiro Hanabusa and I humbly welcome you to Wintercrow", said a young man that stepped up to retrieve Emily. "O-Oh thank you", she smiled, getting up once the snake removed itself. She was taken towards her now new friends, each of them taking their time to introduce themselves and give their congrats.