Rika meets Yuuzen Akito, one of her longer-running victims.
Current IC time is: Sun May 26 11:01:14 2002 - Day
…well, actually, a little later.
Rika
This girl fits the textbook definition of ‘cute redhead’, and while she’s unmistakably asian, her relatively pale skin and dark green eyes, coupled with flaming red hair cut in a pageboy style make it easy to forget about it, especially since there’s no sign of hair dye. She does seem to wear some makeup, but it’s very hard to trace just what did she do with it - there isn’t much. Overally, she resembles a fox - lithe and slim, and generally small, since she’s rather short.
Her somewhat pointy-nosed lacquered low-heel shoes hide under the deep dark red trousers. A perfectly white silk blouse, with collar embroidered with red floral design, and a red ribbon tie do not appear to be too hidden under the jacket of the same deep red color, which reaches halfway down her thighs, and is quite tight around the waist, with two rows of shiny gold buttons. Her head is covered with a neat red fedora hat, all in all making her look some ten years older and a lot more serious.
Yuuzen Akito
There aren’t really any features about about this teenager which really stand out.. Black hair, dark-brown eyes, not too tall. It’s not that he isn’t healthy looking, in fact he does have a fairly well-toned body, but a big-time muscleman he is not. Any action he makes is done with practiced smoothness and control and he seems to be very, -aware- of his surroundings. Looking closely at him however, his hands do seem somewhat rough.
He is sporting a black t-shirt covered with a large silver dragon design flowing from the back, around the shoulder to the front where it’s maw is bared open and claws are raised to the attack. The well-worn black jeans he also wears are faded almost making them look flecked with silver.
Kazuma
A wild-eyed angel, Kazuma looks how he fights. Though it’s short, his coal-black hair isn’t tamed and flies out in every direction. He wears with pride a jacket and cut-off gloves made out of aged black leather. These, combined with a pair of faded jeans and well-worn shoes make him look like he’s just walked in from a long trek down a dusty road.
Sunday afternoon at the Piffle Princess, as he often is at times like these Akito is at a layer with Kazuma. No one sits across from him right now, apparently he’s decided to forego any matches for now to focus on some solo practice. On the layer, Kazuma is once again running through the martial arts basics of simple punches, strikes and blocks; he and his Deus still working on their technique, maximizing effect while minimizing extra movement.
Rika quietly walks into the area - then again, it’s sunday, so ‘quiet’ is very relative, the place’s quite populated - carrying a heavy bookbag on her shoulder. This bookbag definitely doesn’t match her exquisite and tasteful clothing, but apparently, she doesn’t care. Momentarily stopping, she reaches into the inner pocket of her jacket and produces a small silvery digital camera, which she immediately uses - SNAP goes the flash. It so happens that she was looking at Akito and his layer at the moment, so they are definitely caught on film now.
SNAP Akito’s vision is for a moment washed out in a cloud of white. As this happens, Kazuma collapses on the layer.. the connection between Deus and Angel lost for a moment. The clash between full and constant concentration and sudden disorientation swirls around in the pit of Akito’s stomach and he feels a bit queasy for a second. His immediate instinctive reaction is anger; where in the hell did that flash come from!? He stands and his eyes swivel around the room for the culprit till he locks on to Rika, still taking more pictures, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the flash could distract a Deus enough to lose control. He quickly gets up, retrieves Kazuma and rushes towards her with the intent to stop her before she accidentally turns the tide of an actual battle.. something which could be hazardous to her health if the participants were large and/or obsessed.
Rika develops a large sweatdrop on her head, “Uh… Sorry?!” she only has the time to say before Akito runs up, and having little time to do anything else about the potentially threatening guy rushing towards her, she goes SNAP again, right into Akito’s face.
Though he certainly has no intentions of hurting the girl, apparently she doesn’t know that. SNAP The white clouds his eyes again, painfully since he’s much closer this time and already sensitive. This stops him in his tracks for a moment, as he squints and brings one hand up to rub his eyes clear, “Agh! ‘Nee-chan, what are.. look, just stop doing that!”
Rika tiptoes out Akito’s path just in case, before responding, “Sorry, you startled me a bit there.” rather uneasily. “Besides, that’s one moment I’d rather like to remember.” she adds after a pause.
After shaking his head to clear the last of the white starbursts from his vision, Akito looks at Rika with equal measure curiosity, frustration and confusion, “Ano.. a moment you’d like to remember?” After pausing for a moment at the somewhat odd comment he remembers why he came over to her in the first place, “anyhow you should really turn the flash off that thing, you’re gonna get some people really mad if you mess up a battle. What on earth are you taking pictures of in here for anyway?”
Rika nods vigorously, putting her little camera back out of harm’s way before anyone else decides to take offense. “I always prefer to remember moments when people rush at me for whatever reason. And if I turn the flash off, the motions will be blurred!” she pouts. “These dolls move so freaking fast!”
Akito lightly bonks Rika on the head, “capturing a picture of an angel without motion blur won’t do you much good if a weird otaku Deus gets pissed off at you and throws the camera across the room.” He then quirks his head to the side, “ano.. do people rush at you that often??”
Rika grins smartly, “Just in case they do, I have another one!” she says, opening her bookbag and reaching in to retrieve another, a much more expensive-looking professional digital device, oddly devoid of any brand markings. “People don’t rush at me often, which makes it a much more important occasion to remember, ne?” she adds, snapping a frame of Akito - this time without the flash, since this powerful device is capable of much higher shutter speeds. Impenetrable logic, no?
Akito chuckles, although there seems to be something odd about her reasoning he can’t quite put his finger on it. He’s still curious about the reasons behind her taking photo’s of Angels and their Deus’.. “So why’re you interested in taking pictures of angels, researching on your possible opponents perhaps?”
Rika puts on a faintly wry smile, “And why were you so startled by the flash? What is it that really goes on between you and your doll that gets disrupted so easily and with such profound effects?” Is she hinting at something? Possibly.
Akito blinks, he’d wondered about the connection between Angel and Deus before.. most Deus’ do after a while. Still what was she getting at? Figuring he might as well see where she’s taking this he answers her question. “The link between Deus and Angel can be disrupted momentarily if the Deus becomes distracted, either by something physical like a flash or a surprising touch, or if they get overwhelmed by emotion.”
Rika looks away from Akito to hide her big camera back into the bag. “What if there’s something more to it, something else? So far, I’ve seen people talking with their angels and angels doing things people specifically wanted them not to do. Isn’t that in the very least bit intriguing?”
Akito nods, having experienced something like what she’s talking about recently. “I have thought about that, so far from what I can tell when the angel lacks a command from the Deus’ conscious mind that they seem to run using the direction of the unconscious mind. Sometimes emotional imperatives take precendence as well if they’re strong enough.”
Rika smiles, “But what if there’s still more to it? What else is in that box,” she motions a hand at the layer table, “other than those fancy holographic projectors and computers? Everybody thought it was just a new high-tech toy, but then they go out and state that they used it to make prosthetic limbs. What else remains hidden?”
Akito’s eyes narrow somewhat as his mind races to keep up with Rika’s veiled hints, “Is there something you know that I don’t about layer technology? I’ve been a Deus for a fair while now, are you saying it’s trying to control our thoughts or something?”
Rika shrugs, “I’m just saying that I don’t know. But there’s a lot of things I don’t know, and some of them are in there, no doubt. And unless someone thinks about it, nobody will ever find out.”
Akito nods to Rika, though he doesn’t think she’s telling everything she knows. Locking his eyes onto hers he peers at her, “Makes sense, hrm, how ’bout a deal? We both keep our eyes and ears open, then tell each other anything we find out.” Then he grins widely, “First off, how ’bout names? This boy here’s Yuuzen Akito-desu.”
Rika smiles. If there is anything else she knows, it’s on the bottom of these dark, deep green eyes of hers. “Deal. Maeki Rika desu.” she says.
Akito winks and says, “Yoroshiku onegai-shimasu! Now, for the moment I’m gonna get back to practicing with Kazuma, heh, no way I’m gonna give up angelic layer just like that, so I need to keep it up if I want to compete.” He then bows to her, “Jya ne?”
Rika bows in response, “Ja… But I never said you should give it up. If you do, you’ll never know.” Knowing is very important in her book.
Akito grins, “True, true! If nothing else I have found Angelic Layer to be a good teacher.” He then (luckily) finds a free layer. After making his way towards it he places the layer’s visor over his eyes, flicks the wings up and tosses Kazuma into the layer. After he lands, Kazuma begins with the karate basics anew.
Rika uses the opportunity to quickly retrieve her small camera again and shoot several pictures of Akito’s face in the moment he’s putting the visor on, without flash this time. After a brief pause of studying them on the postage stamp sized screen of the camera she walks off, quiet and unobtrusive despite the fact that she stands out like the Big Red Spot on the surface of Jupiter.
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