Disclaimer: Nope, don't own them… but I bet Kohji at least would be really helpful with my lab right about now!
Obedience
Part 2
"Oh look, they cleaned in here today. Whopee." Gawl's agitated tone bounced off the clean white tile of they boys' bathroom as the three students stood facing each other in the center of the large room.
"Cut the crap, Gawl. You know why we're here," Kohji said; Ryo pinned him with a concerned gaze. Sure, their tall leader was usually curt and didn't put up with Gawl's rants nearly as much as Ryo did, but today his voice was even sharper than usual.
The growing uneasiness in his stomach only churned harder.
"Fine," Gawl growled, fixing his bright green gaze on Kohji, expressing his anger in his intense stare. "Then tell me what's up with *her* - that new student that showed up today."
"We don't know," Kohji said, a twinge of exasperation on the edge of his tone.
Gawl's green irises swung over to Ryo. "You don't?"
Ryo shook his head worriedly. "No. But… she gives me a bad feeling."
"You can say that again," Gawl muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and spinning on his heel, pacing back and forth in the small area containing the row of sinks beside the door. Ryo watched the black-haired reflection in the mirror: first one direction, then the other, then the first again…
"Well we need to look into this," Kohji said, his sharp brown eyes following Gawl's pacing form as well, back and forth across the tile.
"Yes, I would say we do!" Gawl snapped, stopping and turning to stare at Kohji again,.
Ryo didn't like the tension building in the air. He held up his hands, turning to face both Kohji and Gawl.
"Hey, look you guys, stop getting so wound up. Snapping at each other isn't going to solve anything," he mediated, his voice calm but firm. "I think you need to calm down, and then we can formulate a plan, decide what we're going to do."
Gawl sighed, his hands dropping to his sides once more. "Yeah, sorry Ryo, but she just makes my skin *crawl*."
Ryo nodded. "I know, but we have to be logical about this. It could be nothing at all."
Kohji's gaze swiveled over to his shorter blonde companion. "Ryo, you should know by now that nothing here is coincidental."
Ryo sighed. "Yes. I guess I do."
But there was always that vague, fleeting hope…
"And hey, speaking of coincidence, I'm *sure* you two Einsteins noticed how much she looks like our fearless leader here," Gawl's voice was the first to point out aloud the worry that had been steeping in Ryo's stomach since English that morning.
Kohji's eyes narrowed. "Yes, Gawl, we had noticed."
"Well?"
"Well what?" Ryo asked. "It's
bothering us too, but like Kohji said, we don't know anything about her!"
"That needs to change," Kohji stated. Ryo nodded.
Gawl sighed
and crossed his arms, averting his eyes to look at the plain white wall. "And
whaddaya wanna bet I'm the first one that gets to talk to her up close and
personal-like… in battle…"
Something flashed through
Kohji's eyes. "You sensed something?"
Gawl looked up, pinning their
leader again with his annoyed green gaze. "Well, yeah!"
Ryo's stomach began to feel even more uneasy than it had before. He had sensed something, all right, but it hadn't been the usual prickly feeling he got when –
"She's a Generator?"
Gawl's eyes focused on Ryo once more. "Yeah," he said, voice heavy with concern, tinged with fatigue. "She is. You didn't notice?"
"No," Ryo admitted, his mind suddenly full of images of Gawl, fighting the Generators that Ryuko mercilessly sent after him, one after the other, a steady stream of opponents to break them – to break Gawl – down.
He knew what all these Generators were doing his friend. He knew *Gawl* knew what all these Generators were doing to him. That was the worst part, he thought. Knowing you were being depleted, fight by fight, bit by bit, by an enemy that you couldn't directly attack –
Could they?
"This complicates things," Kohji muttered; Ryo could see that he was already thinking furiously behind those dark brown eyes of his.
"I would say it does!" Gawl snapped, the tension back in the air, making Ryo even more uneasy. He hadn't thought that possible.
"Guys, stop," he pleaded once more. "Please. I know it's getting down to the wire – "
"Then do something!" Gawl said, taking a step towards the door. "Do something about it, dammit, and don't just sit there trying to keep us calm. I'm sick of being calm. I want someone to hold accountable for this!"
And he was gone, the door sliding shut behind him. Outside, Ryo could hear Masami's voice, immediately assaulting him as she demanded once again to know what they had been discussing in the bathroom, of all things.
Ryo blinked. This was all falling apart. He hadn't meant to…
He suddenly didn't want to stand anymore. He let himself collapse to the ground, sitting down hard on the cold white tiles of the floor.
"Ryo," Kohji said, voice still matter-of-fact although it was bordered by something else. Stress, and the same fatigue that Ryo had heard in Gawl's voice.
"Just leave me alone," Ryo whispered, begged of the white floor tiles, hoping his words would bounce up and that Kohji would understand.
He did, and the last thing Ryo heard was Kohji's footsteps clicking away on the tile, and the *swoosh* of the bathroom door opening and closing.
He had never meant for any of this to happen…
* * *
Natsume was too slow. Too slow and too weak – and too emotionally attached to their targets. That was all there was to it. And a new tactic had had to be employed.
Ryuko had given them a glimpse of the cards she held in her hand. Even Kanae was unsure as to how the boys would react, but the feeling in the pit of his stomach told him that caution would likely prevail. And a good thing, too. Those boys would do well to be more cautious.
He wondered if they had noticed that their new "classmate" was also a Generator. The Gawl boy most likely had; he wasn't sure if the other two were advanced enough to pick up on her core. Ryuko had been doing some amazing work in that field. Camouflage, she had called it. Stealth Generators, not detectable by all but the most advanced equipment. Or the sharpest of senses.
He punched a few buttons on the panel before him, knowing the code by heart to the point that he didn't even need to watch his own fingers dance across the keypad; the door opened with a mechanical whir and he stepped into the lab.
Ryuko was sitting at her desk, hands folded delicately beneath her pale chin, eyes flashing purposefully over a pile of schematics. Her back was to him, and she did not move or acknowledge his entrance in any way.
"You're late, Kanae," her matter-of-fact voice cut through the air as deftly as a knife. She *did* have that way about her.
"I'm sorry," he apologized curtly. "I had something to take care of with the administration. We do need to keep our grants up to date."
She "hm"ed; a soft, exasperated sound that indicated that she thought the cover of grant money to fund her "biological research" was a bother. All the same, it was necessary, and Kanae knew she knew that as well as he did. A professor conducting groundbreaking research seemingly without funding was just too conspicuous.
Especially when the actual funding for the research came from the next century or two in the future.
Although she had been getting sloppy. Well, sloppy was not the right word, Kanae mused, but it was something of the sort. Sloppy for Ryuko Saito, at any rate. Perhaps careless would be a better word. Rushed. Annoyed. She was running out of time, and with it out of patience. Things were going well, but Ryuko was too sharp to assume that they would stay that way.
Especially with those boys still running around.
Kanae felt it too – the anxious feeling that came with the knowledge that the days until the deadline were running out. He couldn't help it; the natural anxiousness and restlessness seemed to build with each day that passed.
He was sure those boys felt it too. And Natsume, as well.
Indeed, he would not have been surprised if the world itself was straining under the stress of the premonition that within just a few short weeks, things would never – could never – be the same.
The only one who didn't seem to feel it – or at least didn't show it in any way he could pick up on – was Kumiko. And the fact that she didn't unnerved Kanae to no end.
Especially when he knew where she had come from.
