One of the girls of the group was beginning to draw up all the attention she could grasp from the others. Riku found it odd how giddy and excited she seemed, despite the situation. He almost wanted to turn around at that point and leave the group alone completely. But it was no use; the girl locked eyes with him, too, and addressed him directly. He sort of wished he'd gone unnoticed.
But there she was, calling
"Hey! You should join us!" and probably expecting him to do just that.
If he hadn't been so full to the brink with plain simple not-caring, he would have ignored her. But the situation seemed to call for cooperation, and making enemies wasn't going to do Riku any good. So he simply gave up and approached the rest of the way. He'd get this girl later if she ended up giving him a headache, which he estimated would happen sooner or later.
He stayed quiet, coming up to the group and staying on the edge of things, getting as best a look as he could in the lack of lighting to see the others in the room. There was the peppy blonde-haired girl, along with two others, and then two other boys. One sported vibrant hair, which caught Riku's eye pretty quickly, while the only thing to really catch his attention on the other boy was the fact that he was obviously taller than both Riku and the purple-haired kid. But it did spark a little curiosity about height in Riku. He gave a glance around at the other girls. He was about the same height as most of them, maybe slightly shorter or slightly taller, depending on the girl. And.... he was beginning to hope that perhaps these girls were just really tall... But that seemed unlikely.
Damn, he thought, biting down on his lip. Even if his lip wasn't raw and bleeding at this point, it would be soon. Habit would assure him of that.
This means i'm short, doesn't it? He gritted his teeth, glaring at the taller boy in the room. He had to loom over Riku by a good half-a-foot, give or take, and it was beginning to draw out a little light envy.
Why couldn't they just make my body like the one in the fake world?! He thought jealously, straightening his back and stretching his neck as far as it could go, but just coming out disappointed further. He even lifted the heels of his feet of the ground slightly and tried to balance on the balls of his feet, but dropped down shortly after and looked away. Being bothered about not being a big tough guy wasn't going to do much. After all, Riku didn't need to be big and tough to fight in the first place. His style was built around the least amount of force with the maximum amount of damage. A light body would be good for evasion as well. But he still found himself looking at the other boy for comparative height as well. This one seemed about the same height. Any difference in stature would have to be measured by a third party. At least there was still the minute chance of being, like, a centimeter taller. But there was also the chance of being slightly shorter and his disappointment simply growing. He agreed with himself to leave the topic alone.
Riku suddenly drew himself back into reality, doe eyes trailing to a light source and listening with a touch of anxiety to a conversation on the other side of what must be the way in or out of the room.
A way out... He repeated to himself.
at least that isn't half bad...But he still found himself frozen, listening intently and hugging his long hair in front of him a little tighter.
"Hey! What are you doing?! This room is to not be disturbed until the next secret tour! Go home before you get killed!" Someone called at the event that was taking place just beyond the exit, and the other person scattered. The light source disappeared.
Riku's body relaxed. At least the threat - if it could really be called a threat - was nullified.
But the talking started up again... Something about school, coming from Miki. He was only half paying attention in the first place to the comment, but found himself commenting back, regardless.
"What kind of person
wants to go to school?" He scoffed, and made a mental note to himself that all the so-called 'perfect' in the world couldn't get rid of the way he fumbled on the pronunciation of certain words. It got unnoticed by some people, but some words just got him, and people would wonder what kind of accent he had, or if it was even just a speech impediment. Most of his word fumbles were subtle, just little mispronunciations or incorrect vowel sounds. A person not really paying attention probably wouldn't notice. But even with having lighter, more delicate sounding voice than he used to, he was glad to still have the same basic speech patterns. It was like losing everything you owned in a fire, and finding that there was just one little keepsake in the ashes that was preserved. It kind of made him feel good.
Another girl in the group seemed to clash with Miki's statement pretty instantly, and started going on about some kind of nonsense about there might not even be a school. The word 'sifi' came into the speech and Riku finally got the gist of what on earth she was going on about.
Oh, great, he thought sarcastically.
Just what we need, a conspiracy-theorist si-fi buff.... Riku opened his mouth to retort to her about what an idiotic theory that was, but suddenly shut his trap. He had no reasons to deny what she was thinking, actually, and the whole deal about waking up in a big laboratory inside a big tube did seem to qualify as a possible government conspiracy.... So he simply decided to ignore the comment and disprove it later. Even he knew when to shut up. Even if he could be a bit of a hot-head.
"I'm Hitori Ayumu. Let's all just introduce ourselves, and then figure out some sort of way to get out of here quiet-like." She said suddenly.
Well, Riku supposed the task seemed rational enough. Better than calling out, 'hey dude, yeah, you!' to everyone. And trying to identify people by features probably wasn't going to fly well. Riku wasn't even positive of what he looked like now, aside from apparently being shorter and having blonde hair... He was about to answer to that, too, but the conversation went on without him. Oh well, someone would bother trying to learn his name eventually, wouldn't they?
He watched Miki suddenly start going for the shinkenkan again, something about lights, and asking the violet-haired boy, Crow, for some assistance. But then came a request for the others to try and get the lights out of their own Shinkenkans. Riku scowled, hugging his hair a bit tighter and giving a glance back at the sloshy liquid in his own. No way. Not a chance in f*cking hell. He was
not going back in that thing! It had been freaking hard enough to get
out. Sure, it wasn't really water, and he was already positive there was going to be no drowning and asphyxiation inside - after all, he'd spent 16 years of his life in that thing, hadn't he? - but there was something about being submersed that still bothered him. It was still far to much like drowning. He wanted nothing to do with it.
Miki crawled back out and suddenly started dumping the contents of a box she'd found onto a pile on the ground. Well, this, he felt, couldn't be as bad as investigating that Shinkenkan. Riku took a few steps over and came up behind her, peering at the contents that she'd scattered on the floor. Seemed like a shit-load of weapons.... And good ones at that. But that was another confusing point. Why put weapons in here with their little experiments? It hardly seemed like a rational decision in the least, unless they were trying to get everyone in this room to fight their way out through people who probably had much more advanced weapons. In a fight like that, everyone in the room would probably end up down for the count, and then where would the scientists be after that?
The scent of blood tinged the humid air, and Riku looked at Miki again. Oh, great, she was a clutz, too. Brilliant... And how many times was she going to get her leg sliced before she realized that she was letting her skin get a little too close to sharp objects? As she got up, though, He noticed that her wounds had closed. That was quite a surprise, but he figured it had something to do with that odd fluid.
Well, as long as she wasn't dripping blood all over the place with an open wound, he figured he didn't have much of a reason to pay too much attention, and headed over to the pile to inspect what there was. Though another girl, the one who seemed to clash so easily with Miki, was inspecting the weapons too. Riku recalled that this girl was the conspiracy-theorist, Ayumu. Her attitude seemed much-to-be-desired, too, and he figured a conversation with her would probably not end well, so he gave her little more than a couple glances, and tried to focus on the pile. He noticed Ayumu pick some sort of sword up from the pile out of the corner of his eye, sort of like what Miki had done with that odd looking chain, and tried to see if any weapons appealed to him. Normally, he fought hand-to-hand. A weapon in one hand was a dead give-away where an attack would come from, and Riku knew that from experience. Fighting a person with a weapon was occasionally easy, and he could determine what kind of defenses and moves to put down in order to disarm the person, and then they were useless against him. But he found himself picking up a weapon anyway.
It seemed like a staff, almost, at first - black, and metallic, with chrome patterns that reminded him of something futuristic and star-wars-y. Though, he wasn't quite sure why star wars came to mind exactly. He'd only watched those once as a kid, with German subtitles. He just had liked to watch the fight scenes. But he almost expected a big read beam to come shooting out one end. He inspected the odd weapon a little while, unsure of why he'd picked it up in the first place. Honestly, what was it even used for--
He stopped turning the thing in his hands and noticed a slight seam in between what seemed like two halves of the object. After a moment of considering, and biting his lip, he pulled the two halves apart, revealing the blades that each half concealed. Each side was both a blade, and a sheath for the one on the other side. Now this he could work with. Weapons that simply extended his blows, but an attack or block could still come from either side. Twin swords. The
weapon seemed good enough for him. Nice.
He re-sheathed the blades back into each other, bringing them back into one staff-like weapon, and held it down at his side in one hand. It was nice, but the size was hardly convenient. He'd need some sort of holster or something for it. Well, after he got clothes of course. That was more of a priority than convenient carrying of a weapon.
But that Miki girl seemed to be a it again. What was she doing now? He watched her suddenly suck up a good portion of the liquid in her tank with some sort of vial, and his doe-eyes only widened. What the f*ck?! How the hell did that make any sense?!?! Suddenly the girl hopped back out of the Shinkenkan and grabbed another vial-thingy, this one being a firey, opaque red color, and suddenly, the liquid inside the Shinkenkan that Riku had come out of had a sort of.... reaction with it being opened. The Girl dropped the vial suddenly, but it didn't break. Which was... odd.... to say the least...
Riku walked over to her, bending down and picking up the small vial. He closed it and watched the reaction of the fluids from the Shinkenkan die down. His attention turned to the vial a moment, looking at it and inspecting the design. It was appealing to him, at the very least. He'd always loved the color red. But it was difficult to study in such abnormal and little lighting. Who could say if perhaps it were more intricate a design that he could completely tell?
Riku averted his gaze and looked at Miki. "Soo, what? This one is mine then?"
