As much as I bet you'd love for me to own Power Rangers Time Force, I don't. I do own Haruyama Akira and her friends/foes...saving the Rangers, of course. ^-^;;
"You'd be GREAT at it! I can't believe that I didn't think up swimming as your gift sport, Akira! Hellooo! Your element IS water in that weirdo Zodiac thing...I should of SO known! And it's perfect for you too! You're so graceful and stuff, it's amazing that I DIDN'T think it up before!" she said, fully embarrassing me even though no one was there when she had said it...well, except her and me, anyway.
Now I was standing here, listening to her blab about how proud she was of me and crap. I thought I was going to cry from the torture. Not that Nadia isn't my best friend or anything, it's just the fact that she's making such a fuss that's embarrassing.
"You look WONDERFUL, Akira!" Nadia squealed. "Now you show 'em who's boss!"
"Yea..." I muttered, walking over to the springboard and putting my hands on the handrails of the steps. "Boss..."
"Did we make it in time?" I asked Nadia as we all filed in and watched the tryouts. Despite the fact that Akira had practically begged us NOT to come, we defied her anyway and came. Trip looked particularly excited, but it wasn't like I wasn't either. After all, she is my kid sister, even if it's only by one parent.
"Yea, she's goin' up the stairs right now," Nadia said proudly, pointing up at the springboard. Sure enough, there was Akira in a navy blue one piece with black panels around the neck and on the sides of the swimsuit. Her hair was tied up in a simple ponytail and her face was stony and unnoticing of anyone there. Then again, if I was diving off of a thing that was twelve feet up, I'd ignore everybody, too.
She stood rigidly on the end of the board, her arms out so she looked a bit like a "T". Then dropping her arms and giving herself a springboard, she jumped forwards and somersaulted neatly in the air, diving cleanly into the water...just like an Olympic swimmer.
Everyone gasped.
"She didn't splash," Trip said. "Is that a good thing?"
"It's a really good thing," Nadia said grinning. "The more clean-cut your dive is, the more points you get."
She dove again and again, doing a backwards somersault, twists where her body was rigid and she twirled in the air in an indescribable way before she cut into the water, dives where she somersaulted while having her legs like a "V", pikes, and numerous other dives, all showing how good she was. Not once did any of the water rise from the surface more than an inch and all this time, Akira kept a conpetitve face.
Yet her grand finale was truly a grand finale.
Standing on the end of the board, her back was to the crowd. Her feet were placed at each side of the board, firmly planted there. Usually, her feet were anchored close together in the middle, so this was odd.
Suddenly, she put her hands down in the middle and rose herself up on the end of the board so she was doing a handstand on the end of the board!
Nadia's eyes grew wide. "She wasn't lying when she said she just got a few awards...she was understating. I've only seen Olympic divers do that dive!"
"THAT'S A REAL DIVE?!" Trip half-exclaimed, half-shouted. Nadia solemnly nodded and put her hands in her lap.
Suddenly, she pushed off with her hands and did a somersault, diving clean into the water yet again, the water barely budging for her melting through it.
As she swiftly cut through the water and lifted herself from it one more time, the judges met her at the edge.
"Miss Haruyama, consider yourself the newest diver at San Miguel High. It's a pleasure to have you on the team."
"WOOOOHOOOO~!" I whooped, grabbing Kira's wrist and thrusting it upwards as I held up a big mug of my favorite drink, Orange Cloud - a mixture of orange pop and vanilla ice cream mixed up together into a delicious shake - in the other hand, holding it in position for a toast.
"Let's toast to Akira's success!" I shouted, thrusting my Orange Cloud into the middle of the table. Everyone else's glasses clinked - except Akira's.
She tried to slide under the table. "How 'bout let's not?"
"Too bad!" I cheered, hugging her shoulder to my side. "We're celebrating your successes!"
She just sighed and sunk deeper into the cushy pleather-covered resturaunt bench-like seat that we were all sitting on. It was rounded because we were all sitting around a round table in the corner of the pizza parlor we were at.
Soon the pizza came - one pepperoni, mushroom, and tomato for half of us and just plain cheese for the other - and we all started to scarf it down excitedly, talking among us.
Akira, on the other hand, just sat quietly in the middle, eating one piece off of each pizza that was ordered and sipping her own Orange Cloud in her mild manner.
Occassionally, we'd all try to strike up some conversation, but she just stayed quiet. I suppose she just wasn't used to talking about her "wonderous talents". She'd just smile or nod but not really say anything. Maybe se was sick...? Who knows.
Anyway, we finally paid the bill and went out of the pizza parlor. Akira seemed semi-relieved and finally made a comment.
"Food's not too bad there...maybe we should go back sometime, ne?"
She still looked faint. Little did I know that soon, I'd learn about why she was so nervous.
No offense to my best friend, but I wish she'd shut up about my talents.
Anyway, I was looking out nervously for what was ahead. I was worried that someone was going to attack us now...and I had this gut feeling that it was going to happen soon.
And as if to surface my fears, a black figure floated down from above.
"Ah...Akira. Remember me?" a silky voice murmured from the darkness.
"C...Cancer...? Cancer!" I gasped, backing into my friends. "Wh - why aren't you being Ransik's little bicycle?" I hissed sarcastically, trying to cover up my fear of my friends being hurt.
"What? What in the hell does that mean?" Cancer hissed back, confused.
"Y'know...why aren'tcha lettin' Ransik ride you right now? Or is he just too exhausted with him doing it for weeks on straight?"
"You little bitch," Cancer hissed, now the venom coming out and practically dripping down, burning the pavement. "Too bad you can't kill me, I bet you're thinking," she clipped, her eyes turning into slits.
"Why should I, when I have two bastards to fry?" I retorted. "Eventually, all of us'll come together and then you'll all die...eventually, you'll be dead depending on whether your opposite kills you or not." I smirked. "Either way, our world'll be one less a bicycle to ride."
She lunged at me, furious.
"RUN!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, hurring them to get out of there.
Being them being...well, Power Rangers...it was like talking to a wall. And Nadia looked like she was going to piss her pants the way she was looking at both me and Cancer. I sighed and turned to them.
Trip was giving Cancer the Glare of Death; Wes, Katie, and Jen were frowning like hell; and Lucas was putting himself between Cancer and Nadia. Nadia, in the meanwhile, didn't look to entirely upset about this.
I got out my guns and twirled them around a bit before approaching Cancer. "I don't appreciate you ambushing me with my friends. To show you my distaste, I'll show you THIS!" And with that, I started shooting like there was no tomorrow.
Cancer shot back with a "general" venom attack, about coating everyone if I hadn't thrown out a water shield. Good thing too; the stuff burned through most of the brick fronts of the buildings that we were fighting between. They wouldn't of survived, that's for sure.
"Everybody...GET OUTTA HERE!" I screeched back. "Or at least Lucas...Lucas, get Nadia outta here!"
"But--" Lucas protested, trying to walk towards me.
"GET HER OUT!" I screamed at him, giving him a death glare. "I want all of you OUT OF HERE NOW!"
Most of them started to back away right about then, but Trip was stubborn.
"I'm not going," he protested. "Unless if you're comin', that is."
"Get OUT of here!" I hissed, half to scare him away, half because I was so pissed at him. "NOW!"
And then, Cancer broke the shield.
And she jumped Trip.
I groaned, slowly coming to. I had no idea where I was for a moment, but then I focused on my surroundings.
I was in the Clocktower, with everyone smiling down on me. Everyone...
Except Akira.
In fact, that was the first thing I asked everyone:
"Uh...where's Akira?"
"Hm...come to think of it, I haven't seen Akira in awhile...I thought she said that she was gonna take a little walk, but a little walk doesn't take two hours of your time."
Lucas frowned, combing his hand through his hair. "I thought I saw a note on the bulletin board that I hadn't seen before. I didn't really pay any mind to it until now."
I instantly got up and went down a flight of stairs, limping a bit, still sore from the attack.
Once down there, I saw a small slip of paper with Akira's familiar eccentric scrawl on it. Grabbing it, I sat down in a chair. The back was cold; they took off my shirt because Cancer had done quite a blow to my right side, so now I was sitting there with a cold chair on my back. It actually felt good because of all the cuts on my back...
But I digress.
I picked up the small piece of paper - well, not entirely minature, but it wasn't a regular-sized piece of paper - and began to read:
Minna-san,
Upon tonight's sudden attack upon us all and with me only being able to fight off Cancer, I decided that I should relocated back to Japan for residence. I shouldn't of said that, but it's hard to find people in Japan as is because of overcrowdment. So there. Nyah. As much fun as I had with all of you, I'm afraid for your injury because of the fact that only I can fight off the Zodiac Patrol. Please don't look for me. I'm doing this to protect you.
I'll miss all of you...please don't forget me. Maybe I'll be able to visit you once this all quiets down.
Sayounara,
Haruyama Akira
"Well, that's a lotta bullshit," Lucas snorted.
It was quiet for awhile. Then I spoke.
"We have to look for her."
"Hey, maybe this IS for the best!" Jen prostested. "She did this because she thought it'd be best for all of us. Usually Akira's really rational--"
"USUALLY!" I shouted, pounding my fist on the table. "But not now! She wasn't doing well today...she was too quiet. There's something wrong. And we need to help her!"
"Buuu--"
"I'll get the money for the tickets," Wes said. "We'll leave in the morning."
Sorry for the long wait, minna. I was just sorta running out of ideas, capiche? >.@;; That wasn't good, was it? That and there's my other fic, Geisha Seishi, that people want me to write in. (BTW - Go read, onegai? ^_^ I want tons of comments from minna-san! ^-^) I also just got out of school, so I've been busy with last-week activities. ^o^;; Hopefully Part IX'll be faster for me to produce. Dewa mata ne! ^_^ - Yoshiko
