Investigations continue.
Current IC time is: Mon Jun 18, evening.
School yard — Eriol Gakuen
The school yard is half-empty, unless you count the tennis club, the track club, the random chatting students, gee, looks like at least half the school is still here! Through the trees, the white walls of the main school building are visible, and the tips of the crowns - the symbol of Eriol Gakuen - shine brightly in the rays of the sun.
Asphalt paths run around the school in all directions, branching from the main road from the school gate to the big entrance doors of the main building, running around the soccer fields, tennis courts and towards other buildings of the complex.
Well, what do you know, it looked like the rain wasn’t anywhere close, but here it is, dripping down the sky. The clouds are rather light and whitish, but it’s still dripping slightly. Better than the heat anyway…
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 on her face, still posessed of soft, childlike features, but it’s 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.
She is dressed in the Eriol Gakuen girl’s uniform - white jacket with blue sailor flap and cuffs, not to mention the tacky crown-shaped medal, white and blue short skirt and the long blue stockings with regulation white shoes. She looks unsurprisingly feminine and attractive in this attire, which was probably the initial idea. She’s dragging around a thick cloth bookbag, and a tiny Minolta Dimage Xi digital camera is hanging on her neck on a chain.
Hatoko
Easily lost in a crowd, her figure is that of a child, slight and slender. Long luxuriant locks of black hair are cut neat and straight at the waist, bangs cut equally straight, just brushing the tips of slender eyebrows. Her face still maintains the angelic features of youth, large, innocent seeming dark eyes, and lips that can curve into a radiant smile, when they choose to.
Her school uniform proclaims her to be a student in the presector of Eriol Gakuen. Her uniform jacket, white with red trim at the collars and sleeves, has a golden crown clasp at the neck, the symbol of Eriol, and a white and red beret style hat rests atop her head. The skirt is pleated, also white and red in color to match, and she wears a simple pair of shoes and black socks to match. She is too young to be wearing jewelry, but is rarely seen without her satchel slung over her shoulder, a few errant papers seen sticking out.
Rika is sitting on a bench under the sakura tree, beside her, on the same bench, a coffin-like angel-sized case stands open. She’s fiddling with her angel, flexing the joints of the right arm and fingers, a busy expression on her face.
Hatoko couldn’t look more out of place between her red uniform and the fact that she barely reaches most of the other students chest levels, but she is milling about the courtyard all the same, glancing idly about and fiddling with the strap to her school satchel. Her slightly bored glance just happens over Rika though, that distinctive red hair is hard to miss, and her eyes always seem almost magically drawn to wherever an angel is. Lips curve into a little smile, and she drifts in that direction, offering a bow when she is a polite distance away. “Konnichiwa, Maekisan.” she greets quietly, with a little smile, although her eyes are inexorably drawn back towards the angel, once again.. even while she waits for a response.
Rika looks up from her angel and nods politely to the kindergartener, “Konnichiwa, Kobayashi-chan.” she says. “Running on pointless errands again?” she asks curiously, reflexively reaching for her camera and snapping off a picture.
“Eee..” the raven haired kindergartener answers almost distractedly, purple eyes looking back up from the angel, purple eyes blinking right after the shutter snaps. She gets her picture taken all the time, just not.. in the middle of the school courtyard. Hatoko looks like she is going to ask about that, but those purple eyes are drawn back to the angel, scrutinizing it. “He is an accuracy type, ne?” It doesn’t seem like a random guess, either. Then again, she is known for these things.
Rika scratches the back of her head. “Well, yes, that’s what I started with. Although, I had so much scripts written for him that I prefer to think of him as unique.” she says. It’s not surprising the current champion’s Second would know… Rika rubs her tumb on the back of Keiya’s right palm and a black pentagram tatoo glistens in the light… it wasn’t there before, though, Hatoko probably doesn’t know. A lone raindrop penetrates the sakura leaves canopy above the two and falls on Rika’s face. “Oi”, she says, wiping it off with her sleeve.
Hatoko nods slowly, scrutinizing the angel through slightly narrowed purple eyes a few moments longer. “More like Wizard, then..” she decides, and if she saw the pentagram, she doesn’t comment on it. The new layer system has made all sorts of things possible, after all. The raindrop and muttered comment that goes with it brings her eyes back up, and she looks over towards the school again. Just in case..
Rika nods, “I don’t think I can duplicate Magic Guard with him yet, but I have a similar area-effect defense technique.” she says, as she fishes in the angel case for small fingerless black gloves and starts to carefully slide them on Keiya’s right hand. “…let’s just hope this works…” she mumbles as she struggles with the small piece of leather.
Hatoko actually giggles a little to that, “I think Miharasan will be coming up with something new, since Misakichan found it’s weakness.” Speaking of Misaki, purple eyes look back towards the school door again. Still nobody that catches her eyes, so she makes a little ‘mou’ and then turns back to Rika, and her rugged looking angel. “Onaeme wa?” she asks, and since she knows Rika’s name, we’ll just have to assume she means the angel.
Rika responds, still struggling with the glove. It’s pretty hard to put a glove on an unmoving hand, expecially when it’s so small and not yours. Finally, finishing this arduous process she turns the hand to the light and glances at it. Funny, you can’t see the pentagram. “Keiya.” she says. “Keiya of the Tenpouin clan.” Funny, Rika isn’t a great fan of Angelic Layer, but there’s a definite hint of pride in that.
Hatoko nods slowly, as if making a note of it. She hasn’t ever heard of the Tenpouin clan, at least not with reference to Angelic Layer. Purple eyes watch the glove while Rika scrutinizes it, and when she seems satisfied, she offers, with a little grin. “Maybe we can practice together sometime, Maekisan.”
Rika smiles to Hatoko a little sadly before starting to work on the other glove. “That’s… a bit too risky for me right now.” she says. “I’ve just replaced the arm Himekawa Haru broke.” she adds, pressing her teeth together hard at the end of this phrase as if to conceal something…
A little black eyebrow quirks, and Hatoko leans forward, interested, glances towards the high school door forgotten. Either Misaki will come, or she won’t. “You fought Fou-lu? That is where this damage came from?” She leans forward to scrutinize the angel once again, even though the damage has been repaired. “Was he as precise as everyone says?”
Rika continues struggling with the other glove, “I don’t have much to compare with. That was my second proper duel.” she says. “Though I did manage to get him down to eight hit points. But mostly because I had a sharp edge of the broken armor panel to work with.” she adds.
Hatoko is quiet a moment, and although it is hard to tell if she is impressed or not, she does say after a moment. “That is very good, Maekisan. Especially if it was your second match.” She reaches down towards the angel, but then pauses, and looks back up, asking. “May I?”
Rika looks at the kindergartener, sizing her up in one glance… not hard to do, since she’s so short. After a quick pause she hands Keiya with the glove to Hatoko. “It might be good… but it has to be better. We have to be good enough to destroy the bastard once and for all.” she says seriously.
Hatoko takes the angel, and gingerly inspects the hand, turning it this way and that as she listens to Rika speak. She is silent, not looking up for a long moment, and when does, it is with purple eyes way too inquisitive to be attached to a five year olds features. “Is that why you play Angelic Layer, Maekisan?”
Rika raises an eyebrow, “No… not really. But that’s on my list of things to do.” she just says firmly. Is she just that vindictive? Or is there something else? Knowing Rika, could be both.
Hatoko doesn’t look entirely satisfied with that answer, still frowning, tilting her head every so slightly. “Then… why?” she asks, looking down towards Keiya again and running a finger ever so lightly over the damaged hand.
Rika shrugs and looks up into the rain through the tree canopy. “I’m… not sure. I just feel I want to.” she says, pausing, “Tell me, Kobayashi-chan…” she asks, “What changed for you with the new control system?” That wasn’t a question out of the blue. It sounds like she wanted to ask this one for quite a while.
If Hatoko is okay with that answer or not, she doesn’t really give indication, but she does extend Keiya back to Rika, frowning thoughtfully as the tables are turned back in her direction. It sounded like a serious question, and she seems to give it serious consideration, before finally looking up with an almost mysterious grin, and replying. “Suzuka is Suzuka, Maekisan. No matter how I control her.”
Rika takes her angel and studies him for a moment before depositing him into his coffin. “…and yet I hear that angels cry and scream now. That they yell in pain and do things their owners didn’t want to do. Something surely is different now.” Closing the coffin lid and snapping it shut, she adds, calmly, “It’s as if when before, the whole game existed to make artifical legs, it now works to make an artifical soul. I cannot find any definite proof, but the more I study it, the further I suspect that things aren’t what they seem to be.”
For a five year old, Hatoko has an amazing poker face. She listens to all of that with nary a twitch in her expression, and when Rika stops.. and is clearly expecting a comment, she only turns her lips upwards in a smile that Misaki must have taught her. “I wouldn’t know, Maekisan. You would have to talk to Miharasan about that..” Looks like the Layer isn’t the only place she is good at dodging in.
But that only convinces Rika that Hatoko knows something. “And yet I think you do… Tell me or not, I will find out anyway.” she says, hiding the angel case into her enormous bookbag. “Sooner or later, the truth will come to light.” she says, like people say ‘the earth is round’. Closing the bag, she glances back at the girl, “But I’m just worried it might be too late for some people.”
The raven haired youth sticks with her Misaki coached smile, until that last part. Eyes blink, then narrow a little bit. “What do you mean by that?” she asks, and her voice has much less of an innocent tone and much more of an analytical one, with that question. Oof. Hatoko sure can be a scary five year old sometimes. She should go out and skip rope, or something, instead of talking with conspiracy theorists.
Rika sets her gear bag on her knees, and lowers her head to rest on top, glancing at Hatoko curiously, “If something of the sort does go on, what if the process isn’t as harmless to the players as we think it is?” she asks. That’s a trick question.
“Can you prove that, Maekisan?” Hatoko asks after a long moment of deliberation, frowning very lightly, crossing her arms almost stubbornly in front of her, even looking a little upset. And why shouldn’t she be? There are very few people who play Angelic Layer more than she does, if there are any at all..
Rika smiles faintly, “No, right now I’m just asking questions.” she says. “I don’t know enough, and all I have is suspicions and small observations which don’t really count. Which is why I’m not accusing anyone.”, she adds and grins. “But I won’t stop looking for it.”
Hatoko’s lips quirk up in a faint smile in reply, almost a smirk, but purple eyes still look a little angry, or concerned, at least. “Ganbatte, Maekisan. Let me know if you find anything, ne?” There seems little more to say than that, and the conversation is interrupted by a third voice anyways, a rather familiar contralto calling out from the school. “Hatokochaaan!” It’s everybodies favorite heroine! The raven haired kindergartener’s face lights up, and she looks over in that direction, waving and calling out. “Misakiii!” She turns back towards Rika then, bowing. “Mata ne, Maekisan.” And then she dashes off towards her friend, and heads right out of the schoolgrounds. Whee!
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