AN: Well I have not written in ages and can't believe how much time has passed since I last updated this story, thank you to those readers still sticking around and welcome to anyone who has just found this story. My exams are nearly over so hopefully I will have time to write more and be motivated to do so. This chapter will probably contain grammatical and spelling errors and I will try and deal with most of them at a later date but I really wanted to get a chapter up as soon as possible, hopefully the next one won't be too far off. Anyway enjoy the chapter. :)
Attempting to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, Eliza groaned as she stared into the blackness of her coffee. Gripping the mug between both her hands, in hope of not dropping the hot liquid in her drowsy state, the red head picked it up and headed to her sofa. She had been up for about an hour now, having washed and dressed in jeans and top, hardly concerned about what she was putting on at 6am. The teenager had been unable to have a peaceful night sleep, reasons for which somehow had nothing to do with the two oppressing weights that felt the need to almost lay atop their ashikabi. Eliza hadn't bothered arguing about the size of her bed, which was meant for two, as she couldn't exactly let one sekirei share her bed but not the other. That and neither seemed to have any inclination to use the spare room.
What little sleep she had managed was filled with abstract dreams that both scared and confused her, dreams she suspected were caused by the worry she was feeling about how her latest decision would affect her future or the guilt about ordering the death of a girl, though she couldn't be sure. The memory of the dream was already fading and Eliza wasn't particularly interested in retrieving the unsettling dream.
Sitting down on her sofa, Eliza looked towards her turned off old TV set but was unable to find the energy to look for the remote to turn it on. It would probably just wake up her new roommates anyway and the teenager didn't think she was ready yet to face the day. Taking a sip of her strong coffee while ignoring the burning of her taste buds, the red head took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she leant back.
Ring. Ring.
"You've got to be kidding me." Eliza groaned as she reached into her pocket for her mobile, which she luckily remembered to pick up when she sneaked out of her bedroom. She didn't want either her sekirei to answer it. Cracking her eyes open to see the unknown number she was getting used to seeing though she wondered if it was her contact or MBI again. "I'm not sure which one I'm dreading more right now." She muttered to herself before she downed the burning hot coffee and answered the call. "Hello."
"Have you recovered the data?" The distorted voice got straight to the point and at the sound the teenager was both relieved about the caller and tense about the conversation to come.
"Well," Takes a deep breath, "I have begun decrypting the data but I could only start after dealing with the virus booby trap that came with the file. It will take time, the file you wanted is huge."
Silence answered, only interrupted by crackling that irritated the red heads ear drums and she waited with baited breath for the reply. The beginnings of Eliza's plans depended on the male's response and could be ruined by a single sentence. She hoped luck was on her side otherwise she had nothing to move forward with and would just be another player in this game with no way to effect it.
"Fine." The crisp response was given. "You have 72 hours then be ready for delivery." The line went dead as she was hung up on.
Bringing the phone away from her ear to return the annoying device to her pocket, the teen really hoped she had made the right choice though it was a bit late to back out now.
"Ashikabi?" Looking up to see her grey haired sekirei having just exited the bedroom. She was wearing one of her night shirts because despite her clothes having been delivered, Kochou insisted she needed to sleep in something that belonged to her ashikabi.
"Morning Kochou." Eliza greeted as she slid her mobile into her pocket. Ignoring her sekirei's questioning glance, the red head continued speaking in the hopes of distracting the other woman. "Is Akitsu up?"
Pausing briefly before answering the older woman smiled, "Yes, she's just getting up now." Walking over to where her ashikabi sat, Kochou lent in close to whisper in her ear. "I'm heading to the shower, care to join me?"
Eliza gulped in response to the request as her face began to heat up, thinking it was much too early for coping with her sekirei's suggestive comments and the images that came along with it but managed to get out a, "no thank you." Before continuing in a slightly clearer voice, "I've already had one plus we should probably all start getting ready. We have to get a train to the place I want to take you two."
Shrugging lightly as she pulled herself back to her full height, the older woman sent a mischievous smile towards the sitting teen before turning on her heels and heading in the direction of the bathroom but not before she threw a "the offer's always open" over her shoulder.
Soon both her sekirei had washed and dressed, Kochou in her usual purple outfit, something she seemed to have dozens of since those MBI goons dropped off her stuff, and Akitsu in her kimono type outfit she had taken a liking to and seemed to be held together by chains. Once they had all eaten a quick breakfast and it was nearly 10 o'clock, the trio decided to walk to the nearest train station which luckily was not too far away.
Both her sekirei flanking the young ashikabi as they strolled at a leisurely pace towards their destination only helped dissipate some of the tension in Eliza's body. For as soon as they had left the apartment her muscles coiled, ready to attempt to spring out of the way of any incoming dangers. Despite knowing how capable Akitsu was in combat, the extent of which the red head was attempting not to think too hard on due to the dark thoughts it would lead to, the threat of how close that arrow had come to killing her was still fresh in her mind. It was terrifying how close she had been to death and how easily her life could have ended if not for her sekirei's abilities. Eliza couldn't seem to shake the vulnerability she felt at being out in the open now, knowing at any moment a sekirei may choose to attack them. So if an effort to distract herself from potential immanent death, decided to break the relatively comfortable silence the group had fallen into.
"Sorry I woke you girls up so early, this place is pretty far away but the food is worth it and with MBI paying the bill we can pick whatever we want and have loads of it." Eliza informed her sekirei, smiling at the prospect of eating to her heart's content without worrying about financial issues.
"No need to apologise ashikabi, spending time with you is worth getting up early." Akitsu responding smiling ever so slightly at the younger woman while still managing to keep a mostly neutral expression.
"I agree, a date with our ashikabi is better than sleep." Kochou added her input.
Blushing slightly at the compliment, the red head coughed slightly before quickly continuing the conversation and not focusing too much on how sincere the women were about spending time with the teenager. "That's, er, certainly good to hear. Once we get to the station, the train journey takes about over an hour but the restaurant is pretty close after that."
"How did you find this restaurant when it seems so far out of your way?" The grey haired woman asked, ever the information sekirei, interested in gathering ever piece of data about her ashikabi.
"Ah well I didn't actually find it. A old work colleague of mine used to love going there, think he had a boyfriend who worked as a chef there at one point or something but even after he stopped working at the restaurant, my co-worker still liked the food there." The teenager explained, not wanting to lie and take credit for discovering the gem of a restaurant, especially since she didn't want them to ask her to show them around the area. She hadn't explored that much of Tokyo while she had been there, she had been far to busy for that. "I had just moved to Tokyo when I started my job and didn't know of any good places to eat or really do anything. My co-worker showed me around, made the place seem a lot less terrifying than it was to me at the beginning." She finished, reminiscing slightly about her friend who had really helped her get settled in when she had first arrived.
Noticing the fond way Eliza talked about this person, the two older women shared a look seeming to converse the same feelings towards each other through just eye contact. They were happy that their ashikabi had such a nice friend and was glad someone had been there for her before they could be, to ease her fears, a job they would now do themselves so their destined one could be happy and unafraid with her sekirei by her side.
"He sounds like a nice person, ashikabi." Akitsu stated in that quiet voice of hers, internally thinking that it was obvious he would be nice if he was friends with the kind teenager who had taken in a broken sekirei. She only didn't voice the last bit, knowing how her ashikabi got when she mentioned her inability to be winged.
"A worthy friend for you." Kochou added, seeming on a similar train of thought. "Do you still keep in contact now that, I gather, you no longer work together." She asked pushing her glasses further up her nose, causing them to flash in the reflecting light of the sun.
Eliza's face saddened as she thought back to her old friend, wishing she hadn't brought it up, since it just brought up bad memories but quickly shook it off. "No unfortunately due to cut backs he ended up losing his job and having to move back with his family." She paused briefly slightly adding to herself that that was the fate of many of her co-workers. "I lost touch with him after that, things got a little hectic with work you see. It was a shame really." The red head added as an afterthought.
Reaching out to comfort her ashikabi, Kochou pulled Eliza's arm between her breasts, pulling her again her body in order to lean her chin on the younger woman's shoulder. Effectively stopping her ashikabi with Akitsu halting herself mere feet away from the pair.
"I'm sorry to hear that ashikabi." The information sekirei murmured into the human's ear, pulling her closer. "It is a terrible thing to lose a friend but we will do our best to fill the hole he has left."
Eliza couldn't help but smile at Kochou's sincere words, replying in an equally quiet voice, "Thank you but I think you already have." Breaking eye contact with hazel eyes to meet the gaze of her other sekirei, she continued, " Both of you." Smiling she pulled her arm free in order to embrace Kochou and Akitsu, needed to convey her thanks with physical affection. It was hard for Eliza to believe how quickly these women had worked their way into her heart when she had only know them for a couple of days but then again they were also aliens so it wasn't the most far fetched thing she has had to believe in this week.
Pulling away from the embrace, her smiling now reaching her eyes, the young ashikabi intertwined her fingers with each of her sekirei and continued on there journey, the day already looking brighter than the last, despite everything.
The rest of the walk to the train station was relatively peaceful, with the younger of the three women questioning her sekirei on trivia topics such as favourite foods, finding their culinary range quite poor due to being locked in MBI most of their lives, but also finding out that Akitsu's powers seemed to affect her taste. Disliking hot beverages especially yet apparently also never trying ice cream, a fact when revealed had Eliza already planning another tip to an ice cream parlour in order to rectify that. Kochou on the other hand knew of many different foods and cooking styles but had never experienced most of what she knew, something else the teenager planned to fix.
Eliza learnt a fair bit about her sekirei's interests, or at least Kochou's, Akitsu seeming not to have much knowledge of the outside world, but seemed content to listen to her sister sekirei's knowledge, occasionally adding her thoughts, mostly when prompted, however overall claimed her ashikabi was all she needed, causing said ashikabi to blush bright red at being referred to as all someone needed to be happy. No one had ever needed her like that before.
Reaching the train station, they luckily only had to wait 5 minutes for the train to arrive. They managed to find three seats together, with Eliza feeling slightly out of place sitting between two gorgeous women. They got a few odd looks, most likely due to Akitsu's strange attire or just the sekirei's stunning beauty but thankfully no one approached them. The train ride itself was spent in a comfortable silence, all three women not willing to reveal information about themselves in the chance of letting something slip about the Sekirei plan on pubic transport but were content to just sit with each other.
While staring out the window during one of the train's stops, Eliza heard a group of what looked to be college students board the train, talking loudly to each other. They all seemed to be discussing the entrance exam for what she assumed was Tokyo university that they had just sat, swapping answers and mutual feelings of unease of the upcoming result which would apparently be posted incredibly quickly, at some point the next day.
"I guess I overestimated how long the library would have been crammed full of students revising for that exam." The teenager thought to herself before shrugging and ignoring the group of students, it didn't really effect her that much anyway, she doubted she would have much time to read with everything going on in her life. Sighing at how complex her life had become, Eliza tried to relax into the chair she was seated in and just enjoy her day out with her sekirei.
Eliza's prediction of the train journey had been correct, taking them just over an hour to reach their stop. Glancing down at her watch, the red head read the time at 11:37am meaning they were making good time and would reach the restaurant around lunch time. Heading off again, the two sekirei followed their ashikabi as she lead the way.
However they had only been walking for about 10 minutes before the sounds of fighting reached their ears, sound of which were heading in their directions. Looking around the pretty empty street, three pairs of eyes were drawn upwards by the sound of cracking concrete. On top of the building in front of the trio, they could see what appeared to be two figures diving from the roof as concrete was flying at them from behind, seeming as if something had exploded on the rood and debris was flying everywhere.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me." Eliza said in disbelief at the sight before her. Could she go no where without finding a fight? Never leaving the apartment was starting to feel like a good game plan at this rate.
Glancing to the side, the young woman wondered if they could leave before the other sekirei saw them and tried to attack them. However before they could act on any plans of running, the two sekirei had landed ahead of them, cracking the pavement as they hit the ground. Pink hair caught the ashikabi's eyes and dread started to fill her. The angry girl from MBI was here along with the bandaged girl, who looked far more intimidating now wearing a dark kimono, a studded collar and metal gauntlets compared to when she was in a hospital gown making fun of the red eyed girl.
Luckily for the group though, the two sekirei hadn't seemed to have noticed them, far more concerned with what Eliza now saw was three other sekirei following them who were currently about to jump of the roof after them. The red head couldn't be sure of the conversation between the two sekirei in front of her, but from the looks of the pink haired one it seemed heated, the pair seemed to have come to the conclusion to fight their attackers, perhaps fed up of running.
"What is going on?" Eliza asked, confused as to why there seemed to be no ashikabis around during this particular fight, along with the fact that didn't the rules state all sekirei battles were 1v1.
As expected Kochou answered for her. "It seems that those three sekirei are attempting to outnumber and therefore terminated those two sekirei in front of us. Though the fact that the two members of the disciplinary squad are on the retreat is surprising. From what I gathered about their power level due to adjustments and intention of serving as the game's 'referees' and in order to enforce the Game Master's rules, they should be quite capable in holding their own in a fight." The information sekirei informed, seeming curious about knowledge she did not possess and completely unconcerned about the battle waging on in front of them.
"But they are outnumber." The red head rationalised.
"Correct but only by one sekirei. It just seemed usual and unlikely given all available data. Running also does not fit their profiles." Kochou explained, her professional aura at full force.
Instead of questioning that new information, Eliza turned back to what looked to be an intense fight and knew that despite who those two sekirei were and who they worked for, the teenager couldn't in good conscience let them be terminated in an unfair fight, especially when they seemed to be unwilling to fight the other sekirei in the first place.
Turning to her sekirei the youngest of the three asked, "Are you two with me? 'Cause I have an idea and I'm about to do something stupid and dangerous but hopefully it will resolve this situation. You in?" She repeated the question, needed to know her sekireis' answer before going forward.
Both nodded with Akitsu giving a soft "Always," to accompany her gesture of agreement.
"Good. Let's see if we can help those two out, hopefully before they tear the street apart." Turning towards the issuing chaos of a sekirei battle, the three women ran towards the fight to try and intervene and see if whatever their ashikabi planned to do would work.