When In SOLDIER
Dear Diary ~ 12th November xxxx
They always told you that SOLDIER was an 'equal opportunity for both men and women' but boy-o-boy, were they talking complete and utter bull. The name's Marona Hakashi, but most of the Recruits know me as Maro, I won't let them call me anything else. I'm a Recruit in SOLDIER, along with good old Zackary Fair (Good thing he's never going to read this, cause if I called him to his face, he'd probably rip me apart, then slice me into tiny little bits with that bloody buster sword of his...). I met Zack on my very first day of training... Almost seems like it was just last week... Lets phrase it this way, ol' sour puss (Lieutenant McGivern... *shudders*) told us all to stand up and introduce ourselves and where we came from. When it came to my turn... well... the number of people shouting at me to get out of SOLDIER was unbelievable. It went on for five minutes, and ol' sour puss did nothingto stop them. That's when Zack stood up and told them all (very impolitely, might I add) to shut the fuck up. Zack was my first friend, and, throughout most of our harsh training, my only friend. This is where you join me today, two days before our Final Exam, and the day where all of that training should pay off... please note... I said SHOULD...
End of Entry
Maro sat up, Gackt playing quietly in the background, drowning out all of her worries about the upcoming Final Exam. Her dark red hair slid back over her shoulders, revealing mako eyes, the typical mako glow replaced by a dim red glow instead. She had been the very first Recruit to have the new 'Red Mako' tested on her, and she had survived. However, the were not willing to test it on anyone else yet, or so they said. She closed the little black bound diary in front of her and slid it into an open drawer on her desk, closing it quietly. She pushed back with her feet, rolling the desk chair backwards to the CD player behind her, the clock on top read 05:43am. She shook her head and pressed the skip button so that the song switched from Longing to Redemption, then hit repeat. Her eyes flicked to the door beside the CD unit. That was the door separating her from Zack, since he was right next door to her.
Chances of Zack waking up by himself today, fairly high, but still... she thought, standing up and tapping on the door as her chair rolled away, He was up til' about 4 revising... then again, I just didn't bother going to sleep... at least we only have to do Role-Call today, then we have the entire day to ourselves.She pushed down on the handle and pushed the door open. It slid silently on it's well oiled hinges, opening just enough for her to get into Zack's room without being herd, and closing it silently behind her. Her eyes darted around the room once, before settling on the lump on the bed in the far corner. However, to get over to the bed, she needed to find her way through the clothes and book scattered all over his floor.
"Relax, I'm... awake," said a sleepy voice from the bed as an arm snaked out from under the covers and turned on the table lamp, "What time is it?" Maro's eyes flicked to the clock as Zack forced himself to sit up, blankets falling off of his shoulders, revealing his well toned chest, something that Marohad learned to ignore fairly quickly, since he had a really bad habit of walking between their two rooms with no shirt on.
"Ten to six..." she replied, stepping gracefully over to the bed and sitting on it, "We only have Role-Call today, and that's it, so, up you get, then we can force a can of energy drink or something like that down your throat to keep you awake." Zack just groaned and fell backwards again, trying to pull the covers back over his head at the same time. He just managed to cover himself up again,when Maro grabbed the bottom of them and pulled them out of his grasp. Zack growled and sat up, making a grab for the blankets as Maro stood up to get out of range of his arms. He leaned as far forward as he could, then toppled off the side of the bed, landing in a heap on the floor. Maro snickered as Zack glared at her from the floor.
"Evil, pure evil..." he mumbled, forcing himself onto his feet, "Well, I'm up now, so I might as well repay you for all the food you brought with you last week, so I'll buy lunch today, how does that sound?" Marojust nodded, throwing the blankets back onto the bed. She opened the door to go back into her room, just as her alarm went off, blaring out of her black flip phone as high as the volume would go. That meant it was 6am, time to get ready for Role-Call, which was at 7:00am. "Hey, I just remembered, it's a full weapon inspection with Role-Call today!" Maro's jaw dropped.
"Oh bugger..." she said, closing her mouth and bolting across her room to the bed, "I really should have done this last night, I totally forgot about this... Oh, Genesis is going to massacre me!" Maro reached under her bed, hand fumbling around in the darkness for her sword, which was a shorter and lighter copy of the one that Genesis used, but rather than being red, this one was such a dark purple, that it was almost black. The main reason that she was panicking was because Genesis was the one that had taught her how to fight with a sword, his sword in fact. She had learned so quickly, that she was the first to receive her own weapon, a full 2 weeks before anyone else, bar Zack, who had been given one a week after her. That's the reason she has a copy of it, lighter for speed, and shortened to correspond to her height, since she was a good 3 1/2 inches shorter than Genesis. As prepared as she was, the one thing that she would panic about is the full weapon inspection. She put the weapon in her left hand and went back under the bed. "Where the hell is that polish... I know it's under here..."
"No it's not," stated Zack, who was sitting in the doorway polishing his Buster sword.
"I put it under here..." replied Maro, lying on her side to try and find the elusive polish tin, "I remember putting it under here..."
"No, you didn't," said Zack, shaking his head, and looking at the CD player, on top of it, beside the alarm clock, was the polish tin, "I found it, it's on the CD player." Maro turned over to look, and, sure enough, there was that stupid polish tin. Maro groaned in irritation.
"Stupi, useless polish," she grumbled, rolling over competely to face Zack, "Why in the name of hell is it on my CD player anyway!?"
"You put it there 2 days ago..." replied Zack, concentrating on polishing his sword, "Just after Genesis gave it to you... It's that new 'colour protection' polish that he was going on about..." Maro growled and got up off the floor, her sword in her left hand, it's razor sharp tip behind her.
"You know more about my polish than I do," she said, walking over to the CD player and lifting the tin of polish, "Hey, have you got a spare cloth? I put mine in the wash last night..." Zack's hair shifted slightly as he shifted to reach his back pocket. He yanked out a grey cloth and threw it at her, not once looking away from his buster sword. She caught it and sat down in front of him, such was their ritual when polishing their swords.
"That's yours anyway," he said, eyes still not leaving the broad, gleaming blade that was across his knees, "I borrowed it last week when mine ripped..." Maro just shrugged and set the polish on the floor beside her leg. Her eyes flicked to the CD player, suddenly aware of the lack of music in the room. She reached up and pressed the play button. Gackt started playing quietly once more, as she took the lid off of the polish and set about making her sword shine like the stars in the night sky. She was, however, unaware of Zack, who had stopped polishing his buster sword to watch her.
