I'm sleepy.
Chapter Nineteen: The “Training” RoomIt was really beyond her how the blind girl had managed to wedge herself into the little cabinet space that there was, but Eri was there, all curled up and sleeping happily like that. It was cute, Mari thought to herself. In a weird sort of way, at least.
Many of the others had fallen asleep in the kitchen as well: Saki was sitting up against the wall, a very content Momoko dozing off in her lap. Maasa the makeshift pack mule was so tired that she had fallen asleep at the table, still in the middle of eating her meal. Ai was curled up beneath that table in a cat-like fashion, and it was hard to resist the urge to pet her when she looked like that. Risa was sitting beside Miyabi and Yurina, and all three of them were watching Reina as she picked on Sayumi by lighting flames in front of the other girl’s face, causing her to make quite a bit of noise. This seemed to amuse the firebrand, perhaps maybe too much. But nobody was stopping her.
Aya had asked about a bath or something, and left to follow Makoto somewhere. Mari had watched Miki as the metal-armed woman slipped off after them. She found it somewhat odd, as Aya had been the one following Miki before… Perhaps the tables had turned.
Eating had only made the twins a bit more hyper, and they were currently engaged in a game of sorts that only they understood, which was probably just as well. Hitomi was just brooding over in the corner, staring off into space with those big eyes of hers. The boyish female snapped out of it when Koharu entered the room, and soon after she came into view, Asami walked in as well.
“Everybody feeling a little bit better?”
She got a few appreciative grunts as a response, and that seemed to satisfy the genius well enough.
“I was wondering if some of you wouldn’t be opposed to… well… there’s not really any good way to ask this, so I might as well be blunt. Anybody want to be my guinea pig for a few minutes?”
The genius had her hands clasped together in front of her, and was smiling very brightly, and it was almost kind of scary just how adorable she looked. Who could say no to a face like that…
“Guinea pigs…?” Hitomi had an eyebrow raised skeptically. “For what?”
“Oh, well… It’s just that… I’ve never been around beings with powers like yours before and I just…” She was fidgeting, like a kid that was standing just outside the candy store, anxious to get in. “I’m just curious… it’s a scientist thing.”
The clones blinked at her for a moment, not really sure what to make of that. It sounded
dangerous. But Asami looked so cute and innocent… surely not…
“Some of us don’t know what our powers are yet…” Risa replied, but she would soon come to regret it, because as soon as she finished, Asami had this wild sort of grin on her face.
“Oh, I can fix that. Follow me…”
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“Long time no see, Risha-chan.”The three of them had been standing there in silence for a while after that. Maiha’s eyes never left Risako, who was staring at the other with an utterly confused look on her face. And Aika was looking back and forth between them, a strange sort of feeling growing up inside of her. She was annoyed, and she didn’t know why, really. Something about it just ticked her off…
“She doesn’t know who you are, you know… we’re just-”
“Clones, I know. I heard Ogawa-san and Konno-san talking about it earlier… Still… it’s amazing… I always wondered what the others would look like if they had been given the chance to grow up… I didn’t know you’d get to be so beautiful, Risha-chan…”
Risako seemed to be flustered by that, and Aika felt her annoyance grow. Who was this kid, anyway? Well… okay, so maybe she wasn’ t really a kid… Maiha was a little bit taller than both of them, and she wore this constantly sincere and worn-out expression that showed that looks were deceiving and that she had been through much more than they could imagine.
Still… she needed to back off.
“The rest of the group is upstairs, you know…” Aika stated bluntly, trying to get the girl to go away.
“Yeah… I know. I heard you guys come in. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to see everyone at once, though… it’d have been too overwhelming…” Maiha finally turned to look at Aika, as if noticing her presence there for the first time. “You know, I don’t think I even know you. I think I left H!P before the person you were cloned from got there… what’s your name again?”
She tried really hard not to grind her teeth.
“Mitsui… Aika.”
“Ah. Oh, I guess I should introduce myself, too. I’m Ishimura Maiha. Oh, and I know who you are…” She cut in, as Risako was about to follow suit, “…Or who you used to be, anyway. By the way, I heard you guys trashed my robot.”
“
It was annoying, too.”
“…What?”
“Nothing- ow!” Aika was getting all-too-familiar with Risako’s elbow digging into her side.
Maybe I should go back to just observing things instead of opening my mouth.Risako decided to enter the conversation at that point, before her companion could say anything else that could possibly be stupid. “Saki was actually the one who took it down… she kind of fried it…”
“Captain…? So…
everyone’s back, then… Wow.”
“Captain?”
“We always called Saki that. Back when I was in Berryz Koubou.”
“Berryz Koubou?”
Maiha blinked. “Didn’t Konno-san explain anything to you? That’s the group you- well… you know. The one the original Risako was in… Along with the original Saki, Momoko, Miyabi, Maasa, Chinami, and Yurina.”
“If you were in Hello! Project, why didn’t you end up like us…?” Aika questioned, crossing her arms. “How did you survive?”
She got a sigh in reply.
“…It’s a really long story.”
“We aren’t going anywhere.”
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They stood there, watching as the metal door slid up into the ceiling to reveal the room within. It was dark at first, but Asami entered a sequence into the keypad on the wall, and the room was instantly flooded with light.
“…Whoa.”