@Everyone who thought Aika was gonna be Eri: haha, sorry to disappoint. Though Eri will be making an appearance in this chapter, if that's any consolation. I picked Aika for the main character because we don't know all that much about her yet with her being so new and all, which makes it easier for me, because that I can pretty much do whatever I want with her character. Yay~!
@Sukoshi & JFC: +5 points to both of you for guessing correctly about Miki. lol I suppose I made that too obvious. haha.
@rmdmnweird: You shall have to wait and see, yessss?
@Amarghetta: Aww, 100th post! Yay!
@wordsworth: I really like stories that pull a person in and make you feel like you're the one actually experiencing what's going on. That's kind of what I'm emulate here too, I guess.
As for who's been revealed... you know at least from the beginning of the story due to the vials that were read that Eri, Momoko, and Aya are three of the clones. Obviously Aika is one of them now, too, and four more are revealed in this chapter. So that leaves... thirteen more to go? lol
And here's the third installment of my story. After finishing it, I realized that I lied. Other than learning who a few more of the characters are, you don't really find out a whole lot in this. It was getting kind of long so I decided to break it into two chapters instead of one enormous one. So um, enjoy! I'm going to try to write a chapter a day if I can, and I also plan on drawing several things for this story (like a cover and the characters and such) when I get the chance.
So um... enjoy!
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Chapter Three: Meeting“Hey!”
Poke poke.
“Wake up now, the others are leaving us behind!”
Poke poke.
“Come onnnnnnnnn!”
Hard jab to the side. THAT woke her up. Aika stared up drowsily into the face of one of the other girls, who had been kneeling beside her sleeping form for the past few minutes, trying unsuccessfully to bring her back to consciousness.
The other female was smaller than she was, and had short blonde hair that only made it past her chin in length. Her face seemed to light up as she realized that Aika was awake, and she stood up, bouncing a little bit on her feet.
“Good, you’re awake! Everyone else is already in the caves with that man that brought us here. I saw that you were asleep, so I didn’t want to leave you behind.” The girl held out her hand as if to help Aika to her feet. “I’m Mari.”
Aika blinked at her for a moment, brain trying to register the spew of words that had come from this energetic being’s mouth. She took the other girl’s hand and rose to her feet, confused. For the first time in the short while that she had been ‘awake’, Aika spoke.
“How do you know?”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“…How do you know that you are Mari?”
The shorter girl seemed to be puzzled at first, as if she wondered why Aika was asking such a silly question, but then she grinned. “Well, I just assume that that’s who I am because of this.” She pulled the dog tag necklace out from beneath her suit, showing it to the other girl.
“Yaguchi Mari”“I figured since it was on me that it had to be my name… even if it’s not, I’m going to call myself that. It’s easier to have a name that’s not yours than to be nobody, don’t you think?” Mari continued, rocking back on her heels as she spoke. She couldn’t seem to stand still for more than a second or so… “Anyway, what does yours say? Who are you?”
Aika hadn’t considered that, and wondered if she even had a necklace like Mari’s to tell her such a thing. But as soon as she reached up to touch her neck, she felt a tiny chain of metal resting there, and she pulled the tag out to read it. Sure enough,
“Mitsui Aika” was inscribed there, and for some reason she could not place, she was completely and utterly positive that the name belonged to her.
“I guess that I’m Aika.”
“Well, it’s nice to meet you then. We really should catch up with everyone else, though. I think that the man was going to explain to us what’s going on here.” And with that, Mari grabbed her arm and began to drag the other female off of the van behind her. Being jerked around from place to place was becoming the norm, and it was starting to give Aika a little bit of a headache.
Apparently the van had finally come to rest in the middle of a rather dense forest, which made her wonder how the stranger had managed to maneuver such a large thing through all these trees. As she allowed Mari to tug her along by the arm, she noticed that they were coming upon a rather large rock face, at the foot of which was the dark opening to the cave that the smaller girl had mentioned before.
There was another female stumbling around in front of the cave in a strange sort of manner, as if she hadn’t yet figured out how to walk or something. Mari looked back at Aika, puzzled, and as they neared the girl, she tripped over her own foot and sprawled out onto the ground with a thud.
Mari was the first to react, and she ran over to the girl almost immediately.
“Are you alright? That was kind of a nasty fall you just took.”
The girl on the ground merely whimpered in response, staring wide-eyed up at Mari. It was when Aika caught up with the two of them that she noticed there was something very strange about those eyes. For one thing, the irises were almost pure white in color, and the pupils were tinted gray as if they were filled with smoke. Mari didn’t seem to realize it, but…
“I don’t think she can see you, Mari.” Aika stated quietly, nudging the smaller female’s shoulder. “It looks like she’s blind.”
Mari seemed to take this in, and experimented by waving her hand in front of the fallen female’s eyes.
No response.
“I guess you’re right.” The blonde reached for the girl’s nametag, squinting to read the words as she brought it up to her face. “
Kamei Eri. So I guess this is Eri, then… We should probably get her inside… it doesn’t look like she can get there on her own. Come on, help me lift her up.”
The two of them each took one of the blind girl’s arms and lifted her onto their shoulders, which turned out to be slightly awkward due to the difference in height between Mari and Aika. However, with careful steps they managed to carry her to the entrance, and together the three of them entered the cave.
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It was dark at first, and Aika was starting to regret every step they took away from the welcoming light they left behind at the entrance. She began to hear voices, though, quiet whisperings of other females whom she could only assume to belong to the group she had traveled here with.
There was a warm blue glow coming from up ahead, and as they neared it, she realized that from this point the tunnel was illuminated by natural light from rocks that were embedded into the walls of the cave. Looking at them was somewhat calming, and it helped to dull her apprehension.
For the moment, anyway.
They made it into what appeared to be a central room that had been carved out inside of the cave, where the rest of the group was sitting up against the walls of the room. Most were by themselves, curled up in blankets that had probably been supplied by the stranger, whom Aika noted did not seem to be around. She and Mari set Eri down up against one of the walls and plopped down on either side of the blind girl in order to try and keep her warm, as the poor thing had begun to shiver once they had made it deeper into the cave.
The girl with the wings wasn’t sitting too far off from Aika, and when she noticed their predicament, she tossed a blanket over at them.
“Here. The guy left a few extras in case anyone needed them.”
Aika nodded her thanks, while Mari took the blanket from her and wrapped it around their shivering friend. The room was silent for a little while longer, before Aika wondered if the stranger had told the group anything else about what was going on, and decided to ask the winged female about it.
“Any idea about why we’re here?”
“Nope. He said he was going to go get us some food and that when he got back he’d give us some answers. Then he disappeared through one of those back tunnels over there.” The girl pointed lazily at several more entrances in the opposite side of the room, each leading off into other chambers in the cave.
“Food…?”
“Yeah, I don’t know how he’s going to get it, either, but I’m not exactly complaining. By the way, you can call me Koharu.” She smiled, and Aika couldn’t help but smile back.
“I’m Aika. This,” She started, motioning to the blonde, “is Mari, and the other one is Eri. Do you know anything about the others?”
“I heard a few names… but some of these people are kind of scary.” Koharu replied, smile fading into a frown. “The girl with the gun for a hand… her name is Miki. I don’t think you want to mess with her, because she seems kind of hotheaded and mean from what I can tell. And you see that one over there?” She pointed, and Aika’s gaze moved to rest on the girl she had noticed before with the glowing eyes.
The female was sitting cross-legged up against the wall, and she had her hand held out in front of her. She was holding a small ball of fire in her hand, and with the other she was caressing the flames that licked off of it with her fingertips. At first, Aika was perplexed, but as she looked closer, she realized that none of the blaze was actually coming into contact with the girl’s skin. The girl’s eyes were slightly off… kind of wonky… and it would have been somewhat amusing, if not for the dangerous look she was giving the element in her hand.
Aika had a feeling she didn’t want that look to be sent in her direction.
“Yeah… I see her.”
“That’s Tanaka Reina. Once she figured out that she could do that, she just sat down over there and has been like that for a while now… Kiiiiiiiinda creepy. As for everyone else, I don’t know. Nobody’s really been talking and we’ve all been keeping our distance…”
Before Aika could formulate a response, one of the girls on the other side of the room rose to her feet, glaring in the direction of the one called Miki. She was tall and muscular, and looked like a force to be reckoned with.
“What the hell is your problem?” She fired off, directing the question at Miki, who was wearing a very satisfied smirk on her face from her position on the ground.
“Whatever do you mean?” Came the reply, which was dripping with false sweetness.
“You’ve been staring over here for the past five minutes and it’s startin’ to get on my nerves.”
“Sorry. Can’t help it. You’re kind of hard to miss over there…”
“What did you say?”
Miki stood up, rolling her shoulders back and listening to the cracking noises her vertebrae made as they shifted against each other. The tension in the room was starting to rise, and all eyes were on the confrontation.
“I said you’re freakin’ huge. It’s kind of hard to look at all the pretty scenery when you’re in the way like that. I was thinking about asking you to move, but-”
Almost immediately, the other girl had charged up to her with full intent to put a dent in Miki’s face, but she was too quick and caught the muscular girl’s fist with her mechanical hand, holding it off with ease. The female was struggling in Miki’s grasp and it caused her smirk to grow wider.
“Now, now, let’s not be hasty… But since you seem to be so excited, let me show you how you REALLY start a fight.”
Miki let go of the other girl’s fist and brought her mechanical arm back, letting it fly hard into the female’s stomach…
…where it… bounced… off?
Both the muscular girl and Miki just sort of stood there for a moment, processing what had happened.
“Did I miss?”
“No, you hit me… I just didn’t feel it.”
“What the hell?”
“Maybe you should try again?”
Miki obliged, getting the same results. This was rather frustrating, and she began to repeatedly sack the other girl in the stomach, bouncing off again and again until finally she lost it and tried to hit her with her normal arm.
Bad idea.
It was as if someone had thrown a brick wall at her hand, and because it wasn’t made of metal like the other arm, she rebounded painfully this time. She began to curse very loudly and started hopping around a bit, waving her now very bruised hand about. The muscular girl simply stood there, confused, scratching lightly at the spot that Miki had used for her target.
Miki was not pleased, and once her hand stopped throbbing and she regained her composure, she continued on to make sure that everyone was aware of this.
“What the HELL is wrong with you? Are you like made of freakin’ STEEL or something?”
Of course, the other female could not answer this question, and she merely shrugged in response, at a loss for words after surviving Miki’s fist barrage. It was at this point in time that the stranger returned, interrupting the altercation by wheeling in a wooden cart that held several plates of steaming hot food. He eyed the two standing in the center of the room with a frown, before disregarding them and opening his mouth to speak.
“Any of you hungry?”
Topic: ::Voices of Angels:: [Chapter Twenty: The "Training" Room, Part II] (Read 45226 times)