Ack!! I haven't updated forever!! I'm sorry you guys!! @__@
Thanks for all the nice reviews. *hugs* You guys are the best!! Also, most
of the character's names are Japanese. In Japanese, 'Marion' actually is a
man's name, even though it's a girl's name here. Being an otaku, I couldn't
resist giving them all Japanese names, so... er, anyway. Just thought I'd
mention that.
Disclaimer: How about you go read the disclaimers in all the other chapters, ya lazy bum?! u_u;;
~~~
Niro wo Motomete
Chapter 5: The Gang
Niro felt his blindfold being taken off, but before he could survey his surroundings he was suddenly shoved forward. He stumbled down a narrow flight of stairs, and fell to the floor. He heard a door lock behind him. Terrified, the little boy scrambled to his feet and looked around. "Daddy?" he asked.
He was in a white room with a dark blue carpet. There were numerous shelves lined with random oddities and books. A small couch rested against the wall, surrounded on both sides by boxes and end tables. The couch itself had several pillows and brightly colored blankets. Despite the bright colors and homey accents, the room felt foreign and threatening.
Terrified, Niro took a few steps backward, and stumbled into something. He turned and found three ominous African masks looming over him. He yelled, and ran.
Too scared to look where he was going, the little boy smacked right into the wall at the other end of the room. He turned and ran off in a different direction. Again, he was stopped abruptly. He ran again, and again he was stopped. And again. And again.
He was trapped.
Through a large window, Niro could see numerous building complexes and chambers. Some of them were divided by tall fences and barbed wire. Beyond the buildings and fences was a railroad track. And past that, was miles of blank flat land, with just a small glimmer of the city off in the distance. Niro had seen places like this in movies. He was in the barracks of a military base camp.
Suddenly, a man appeared in front of the window. It was the same man who'd kidnapped Niro. Niro yelled, and ducked behind a bookshelf. The man at the window said something in a language he couldn't understand, but he sounded very cheerful. Niro peeked out from behind the bookshelf, and saw the man disappear inside the building next door.
Nervously, Niro backed further away from the window, but in the process of doing so, he bumped into something else. He turned to look. He'd bumped into the corner of a small table, with a plastic treasure chest about the size of a shoebox on top of it. The treasure chest made a clicking sound, and a stream of bubbles burst from a small hole in the front of it.
Suddenly, a frantic blonde-haired boy burst into the room shouting, "Bubbles!"
Niro scrambled out of the way as the frantic boy dove at the treasure chest yelling, "BubblesbubblesbubblesIwannacatchthebubbles!" After a moment, the bubbles abruptly stopped. The blonde-haired boy clutched the toy treasure chest protectively. He looked at Niro suspiciously and told him, "My bubbles."
Thoroughly shaken and equally weirded out, Niro backed away from the crazed boy. Again he bumped into something. He turned around. A pink-haired woman in a wheelchair looked up at him from her book, and explained, "He likes bubbles."
Niro yelled and dove into a closet. He peered out through the slats near the bottom of the door, and saw several dark figures whispering to each other, coming nearer. Frightened, Niro backed away and huddled in the corner.
"Bonjour," said a voice next to him.
Niro screamed and ran out of the closet. A tall chubby boy with bleach- blonde spiky hair stopped him before he could get very far. "Whoa, slow down little fella'," he said, smiling, "There's nothing to worry about."
Niro trembled.
A shy-looking girl with midnight-blue hair streaked with white looked at Niro sympathetically. "Aww," she said, "He's scared to death."
"I wanna go home." Niro looked around at the faces that surrounded him and asked shakily, "Do you know where my dad is?"
"Honey," said Peace, the woman in the wheelchair, "Your dad is probably back at your old camp."
"Camp?" Niro asked.
"Yeah," said the Blake, the boy with the spiky hair, "You know, like, uh... I got transferred from Camp Hareta, in Japan."
"Camp Kyuden," said Gagaru, a small boy with longish two-tone hair that faded from purple to yellow.
"Fort Shabondama!" announced Bobby, the hyperactive blonde-haired boy.
"Kage Orphanage," added Debbie, the blue-haired girl.
"E. Bay," said Peace, looking up from her book.
Gagaru put his hand on Niro's shoulder and smiled at him. "So," he said, "Which one is it?"
"I'm from... the city?" Niro said hesitantly.
Gagaru smiled. "Ah, the city." There was a beat of silence, and then Gagaru's eyes flew wide open. "The city! Aah!" he shrieked, clutching his hand as if it were on fire. "He hasn't been decontaminated yet!" Gagaru turned to the closet in which Niro had hid a few moments earlier, and yelled, "Jack!"
A small French man with shiny red hair, a curled mustache, and a black beret popped out of the closet. "Oui?" he asked.
"Clean him!" Gagaru yelled frantically.
"Oui." Jack scuttled over to Niro and looked him up and down.
"City!" Gagaru said.
"Ooh, la ville!" Jack exclaimed. He produced a bottle of Lysol out of his back pocket and sprayed Niro head to foot. Then he took a small towel that he'd had draped over his shoulder, and dried Niro's hair. "Voila! He is clean!" Jack retreated back to his closet, blew a kiss to his audience, and closed the door.
Bobby kneeled down in front of Niro. "So..." he said, "What's it like to see the big blue sky?"
"Um..." said Niro, "Big... and... blue?"
Bobby's eyes narrowed, and he looked around. "I knew it."
Debbie smiled at Niro and said, "Kid if there's ever anything you need, just ask your Auntie Deb! That's me!" She laughed cheerfully. "Or, if I'm not around, you can just talk to my sister, Florence." Debbie smiled and waved at her reflection in a nearby mirror. "Hi, how are ya?" She turned back to Niro and whispered, "Don't listen to anything my sister says! She's nuts!"
Peace said something, but it was muffled because her face was plastered to the window.
"Can't hear ya', Peace," said Blake unenthusiastically, as though he were used to it.
Peace turned to him. "I said we got a live one!"
Peace's response was a number of excited shouts and cries of "Yes!" and "Oh boy!" as the gang all gathered around her and pressed their faces against the glass.
They were looking out into the room that Niro's captor had disappeared into. Niro recognized that room as a dentist's office. Judging by the dentist's office next door, Peace being handicapped, Gagaru being a germophobe, and just about everyone else being at least a little crazy, Niro guessed that he was trapped in some kind of military base health facility.
Considering how horrendously boring it must have been to be in the same room day-in and day-out, Niro could see why the gang was acting like dental work was a spectator sport.
"What do we got?" Debbie asked.
"Root canal," Peace answered, "And by the look of those x-rays, it's not gonna be pretty."
The gang watched as the patient in the next room screamed in agony.
"Rubber dam and clamp installed?" Blake asked.
"Yep," replied Peace.
"What did he use to open?" Gagaru asked.
"Gator-Glidden drill," Peace said, "He seems to be favoring that one lately."
Debbie moved her head from side to side anxiously, muttering at her reflection angrily, "I can't see, Florence!"
The patient screamed again.
"Now he's using the Schilder technique," Peace observed.
"Ooh, he's using a hedstrom file!" Blake said.
Gagaru scoffed. "That's not a hedstrom file. That's a k-flex."
"It's got a teardrop cross-section," Blake replied, "Clearly a hedstrom!"
"No, no..." Gagaru persisted, "K-flex."
"Hedstrom!"
"K-flex!"
"Hedstro--!" Blake stopped mid-sentence, and clutched his head. "Ow! Migraine! I gotta' lie down!"
Debbie sighed. "I'll get the Aspirin."
The patient rinsed his mouth and spat in the sink. Gagaru cringed. "Ugh, the human mouth is a disgusting place!"
Suddenly, a small biplane appeared outside the window. The pilot tried to land, but instead he crashed rather unceremoniously into the ground. The plane made a half-turn before skidding to a halt.
"Hey, Neil," Peace said without batting an eye.
The pilot, Neil, hopped out of the plane and rushed over to the window. "What did I miss, am I late?" he asked. He had thick light brown hair. He was wearing red flight goggles, a brown jacket, and blue jeans.
"Root canal, and it's a doozy," Peace replied.
"Root canal, huh?" Neil repeated, leaning in close to the window. "What did he use to open?"
"Gator-Glidden drill."
Neil nodded. "He's been favoring that one... hope he doesn't get surplus sealer at the portal terminus..." He glanced at the gang casually as he said this, and noticed Niro in the backgroud. "Hello!" Niro gasped and backed up. "Who's this?" Neil asked.
"New guy!" Debbie laughed cheerfully.
"He got taken from the city," Gagaru explained.
Neil grinned. "An outie! From my neck of the woods, eh? Sorry if I ever took a shot at ya'. Soldier's gotta' do his job!"
The dentist looked up and noticed Neil. He ran ouside, shouting at him. Neil quickly hopped in his helicopter and took off hastily. The tail caught on the side of the dentist's building, and shattered the window.
As Neil flew off, the dentist walked over to inspect the window. He was muttering angrily, half to himself, half to his patient. Niro caught the name 'Darla' in the jumble of words.
"Eh, Darla's not gonna be happy about this," the dentist said, returning inside. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small stack of paperwork. "She's my neice. She's in charge of the mental health facility." He gestured toward the building in which Niro and the gang were residing. "This week she's scheduled to come over and make her annual inspection." He turned and looked directly at Niro, smiling. "Hey little fella, say hello to your new mommy!" He held up the first sheet of paper. Along with text that Niro couldn't read, it had two photographs printed on it. The first was of a rather hideous woman, and the second was of an adolecent boy. "She's gonna be here on Friday to pick you up," the dentist continued. He put the paper down, said something else to the patient, and walked into the restroom.
"Oh... Darla..." Blake said gravely, opening a drawer and pulling out another copy of the paper. Niro took it and examined it up close. Darla, the woman in the first picture, was even more hideous in detail. She had a big, crooked grin and thick stringy bright red hair, and her chubby face was infested with freckles.
"What...... what's wrong with her?" Niro asked.
"She couldn't get him to listen to her," Gagaru said bitterly.
He was talking about the adolescent boy in the second picture. The boy had messy light orange hair. He was lying on his back, on the ground. His face had no expression. His eyes looked eerily vacant, staring blankly at nothing. Niro shuddered.
"Poor Chuckie," Bobby said sadly.
On the verge of tears, Debbie his her face in her hands. "He was here last year," she sobbed.
"Got taken here for trespassing," Blake said, "She said he'd seen too much. Had to get rid of him."
"She's a killer," Peace finished.
Terrified, Niro turned away from the hideous picture and took off running again. "I can't go with her!" he yelled, "I have to get back home to my dad- - whoa!" The boy tripped and fell feet-first into an air vent on the floor. He got stuck at the waist.
"He's stuck!" Debbie yelled. The gang immediately rushed to Niro's aid. They kneeled down, intent on freeing him from the vent.
Suddenly, a sharp command froze them all in their places. "Nobody touch him!!" Their heads all snapped in the direction of the voice. A man emerged from a dark corner of the room. He was dressed in black pants and a black button-down shirt, with a white t-shirt underneath. His hair was pitch- black, his skin was pale and he had squinted brown eyes. Quietly, but still powerfully, he repeated, "Nobody touch him."
He began to walk closer, and the gang responded by backing away respectively. As he approached Niro, his expression was firm and determined. Niro looked up at him helplessly. "Can you help me?" he begged.
"No," he replied in a calm but sharp tone. "You got yourself in there, and you can get yourself out."
Debbie stepped forward. "Girou..." she reasoned.
"I just want to see him do it, okay?" Girou snapped. He turned back to Niro. "Now. Alternate pushing with your arms, and kicking your feet..."
"I can't," Niro whimpered, "I have a bad arm!"
For the first time in his life, that excuse made no difference. All his life, Niro had been given special treatment because of his handicap. In school, at home, anywhere he went... he was treated with special care and compassion. But now, the excuse wielded no sympathy. His cold expression remaining unchanged, Girou forever humbled the boy with one sentence. "Never stopped me."
Girou turned slightly to the side. His right sleeve was rolled up, proudly displaying an array of long, deep scars adorning his arm. The right side of his face was also badly slashed. He had a long scar over his eye, and across his cheek, and a shorter one across his mouth. Niro's eyes widened. Girou wasn't simply being cold. He was giving Niro a message.
He was right. Niro couldn't keep using his handicap as an excuse... he could do anything a normal boy could do. Girou had made him see that. Determination renewed, Niro did as Girou had commanded. Using every bit of strength he had in his small body, Niro pushed against the floor, straining to free himself from the air vent.
Finally, Niro pulled himself out. He crawled a little ways on all fours before standing up and turning to look back at the air vent in which he'd been trapped only a few moments earlier. The air vent from which he'd freed himself... on his own. He looked back to the gang, a proud grin spreading across his face.
Though his face remained grim, Girou was beaming on the inside. "Perfect," he said to himself. He had hope again.
"Wow, from the outside," Peace mused. She glanced up at her Gothic companion. "Just like you, Girou."
Girou nodded. "Yeah..."
Peace grinned. "Heh. I've seen that look before." Indeed she had. Whenever he was cooking up an escape plan, the spark in Girou's eyes was unmistakeable. "What're you thinking about?"
Still not taking his eyes off Niro, Girou replied, "I'm thinkin'... tonight we give the kid a proper reception."
Niro was the center of attention. Blake, Gagaru, Debbie, Bobby, and Jack were all busy praising him and patting him on the back affectionately.
"So kid, you got a name or what?" Blake asked, grinning.
Niro smiled. "Niro," he said, "I'm Niro."
Disclaimer: How about you go read the disclaimers in all the other chapters, ya lazy bum?! u_u;;
~~~
Niro wo Motomete
Chapter 5: The Gang
Niro felt his blindfold being taken off, but before he could survey his surroundings he was suddenly shoved forward. He stumbled down a narrow flight of stairs, and fell to the floor. He heard a door lock behind him. Terrified, the little boy scrambled to his feet and looked around. "Daddy?" he asked.
He was in a white room with a dark blue carpet. There were numerous shelves lined with random oddities and books. A small couch rested against the wall, surrounded on both sides by boxes and end tables. The couch itself had several pillows and brightly colored blankets. Despite the bright colors and homey accents, the room felt foreign and threatening.
Terrified, Niro took a few steps backward, and stumbled into something. He turned and found three ominous African masks looming over him. He yelled, and ran.
Too scared to look where he was going, the little boy smacked right into the wall at the other end of the room. He turned and ran off in a different direction. Again, he was stopped abruptly. He ran again, and again he was stopped. And again. And again.
He was trapped.
Through a large window, Niro could see numerous building complexes and chambers. Some of them were divided by tall fences and barbed wire. Beyond the buildings and fences was a railroad track. And past that, was miles of blank flat land, with just a small glimmer of the city off in the distance. Niro had seen places like this in movies. He was in the barracks of a military base camp.
Suddenly, a man appeared in front of the window. It was the same man who'd kidnapped Niro. Niro yelled, and ducked behind a bookshelf. The man at the window said something in a language he couldn't understand, but he sounded very cheerful. Niro peeked out from behind the bookshelf, and saw the man disappear inside the building next door.
Nervously, Niro backed further away from the window, but in the process of doing so, he bumped into something else. He turned to look. He'd bumped into the corner of a small table, with a plastic treasure chest about the size of a shoebox on top of it. The treasure chest made a clicking sound, and a stream of bubbles burst from a small hole in the front of it.
Suddenly, a frantic blonde-haired boy burst into the room shouting, "Bubbles!"
Niro scrambled out of the way as the frantic boy dove at the treasure chest yelling, "BubblesbubblesbubblesIwannacatchthebubbles!" After a moment, the bubbles abruptly stopped. The blonde-haired boy clutched the toy treasure chest protectively. He looked at Niro suspiciously and told him, "My bubbles."
Thoroughly shaken and equally weirded out, Niro backed away from the crazed boy. Again he bumped into something. He turned around. A pink-haired woman in a wheelchair looked up at him from her book, and explained, "He likes bubbles."
Niro yelled and dove into a closet. He peered out through the slats near the bottom of the door, and saw several dark figures whispering to each other, coming nearer. Frightened, Niro backed away and huddled in the corner.
"Bonjour," said a voice next to him.
Niro screamed and ran out of the closet. A tall chubby boy with bleach- blonde spiky hair stopped him before he could get very far. "Whoa, slow down little fella'," he said, smiling, "There's nothing to worry about."
Niro trembled.
A shy-looking girl with midnight-blue hair streaked with white looked at Niro sympathetically. "Aww," she said, "He's scared to death."
"I wanna go home." Niro looked around at the faces that surrounded him and asked shakily, "Do you know where my dad is?"
"Honey," said Peace, the woman in the wheelchair, "Your dad is probably back at your old camp."
"Camp?" Niro asked.
"Yeah," said the Blake, the boy with the spiky hair, "You know, like, uh... I got transferred from Camp Hareta, in Japan."
"Camp Kyuden," said Gagaru, a small boy with longish two-tone hair that faded from purple to yellow.
"Fort Shabondama!" announced Bobby, the hyperactive blonde-haired boy.
"Kage Orphanage," added Debbie, the blue-haired girl.
"E. Bay," said Peace, looking up from her book.
Gagaru put his hand on Niro's shoulder and smiled at him. "So," he said, "Which one is it?"
"I'm from... the city?" Niro said hesitantly.
Gagaru smiled. "Ah, the city." There was a beat of silence, and then Gagaru's eyes flew wide open. "The city! Aah!" he shrieked, clutching his hand as if it were on fire. "He hasn't been decontaminated yet!" Gagaru turned to the closet in which Niro had hid a few moments earlier, and yelled, "Jack!"
A small French man with shiny red hair, a curled mustache, and a black beret popped out of the closet. "Oui?" he asked.
"Clean him!" Gagaru yelled frantically.
"Oui." Jack scuttled over to Niro and looked him up and down.
"City!" Gagaru said.
"Ooh, la ville!" Jack exclaimed. He produced a bottle of Lysol out of his back pocket and sprayed Niro head to foot. Then he took a small towel that he'd had draped over his shoulder, and dried Niro's hair. "Voila! He is clean!" Jack retreated back to his closet, blew a kiss to his audience, and closed the door.
Bobby kneeled down in front of Niro. "So..." he said, "What's it like to see the big blue sky?"
"Um..." said Niro, "Big... and... blue?"
Bobby's eyes narrowed, and he looked around. "I knew it."
Debbie smiled at Niro and said, "Kid if there's ever anything you need, just ask your Auntie Deb! That's me!" She laughed cheerfully. "Or, if I'm not around, you can just talk to my sister, Florence." Debbie smiled and waved at her reflection in a nearby mirror. "Hi, how are ya?" She turned back to Niro and whispered, "Don't listen to anything my sister says! She's nuts!"
Peace said something, but it was muffled because her face was plastered to the window.
"Can't hear ya', Peace," said Blake unenthusiastically, as though he were used to it.
Peace turned to him. "I said we got a live one!"
Peace's response was a number of excited shouts and cries of "Yes!" and "Oh boy!" as the gang all gathered around her and pressed their faces against the glass.
They were looking out into the room that Niro's captor had disappeared into. Niro recognized that room as a dentist's office. Judging by the dentist's office next door, Peace being handicapped, Gagaru being a germophobe, and just about everyone else being at least a little crazy, Niro guessed that he was trapped in some kind of military base health facility.
Considering how horrendously boring it must have been to be in the same room day-in and day-out, Niro could see why the gang was acting like dental work was a spectator sport.
"What do we got?" Debbie asked.
"Root canal," Peace answered, "And by the look of those x-rays, it's not gonna be pretty."
The gang watched as the patient in the next room screamed in agony.
"Rubber dam and clamp installed?" Blake asked.
"Yep," replied Peace.
"What did he use to open?" Gagaru asked.
"Gator-Glidden drill," Peace said, "He seems to be favoring that one lately."
Debbie moved her head from side to side anxiously, muttering at her reflection angrily, "I can't see, Florence!"
The patient screamed again.
"Now he's using the Schilder technique," Peace observed.
"Ooh, he's using a hedstrom file!" Blake said.
Gagaru scoffed. "That's not a hedstrom file. That's a k-flex."
"It's got a teardrop cross-section," Blake replied, "Clearly a hedstrom!"
"No, no..." Gagaru persisted, "K-flex."
"Hedstrom!"
"K-flex!"
"Hedstro--!" Blake stopped mid-sentence, and clutched his head. "Ow! Migraine! I gotta' lie down!"
Debbie sighed. "I'll get the Aspirin."
The patient rinsed his mouth and spat in the sink. Gagaru cringed. "Ugh, the human mouth is a disgusting place!"
Suddenly, a small biplane appeared outside the window. The pilot tried to land, but instead he crashed rather unceremoniously into the ground. The plane made a half-turn before skidding to a halt.
"Hey, Neil," Peace said without batting an eye.
The pilot, Neil, hopped out of the plane and rushed over to the window. "What did I miss, am I late?" he asked. He had thick light brown hair. He was wearing red flight goggles, a brown jacket, and blue jeans.
"Root canal, and it's a doozy," Peace replied.
"Root canal, huh?" Neil repeated, leaning in close to the window. "What did he use to open?"
"Gator-Glidden drill."
Neil nodded. "He's been favoring that one... hope he doesn't get surplus sealer at the portal terminus..." He glanced at the gang casually as he said this, and noticed Niro in the backgroud. "Hello!" Niro gasped and backed up. "Who's this?" Neil asked.
"New guy!" Debbie laughed cheerfully.
"He got taken from the city," Gagaru explained.
Neil grinned. "An outie! From my neck of the woods, eh? Sorry if I ever took a shot at ya'. Soldier's gotta' do his job!"
The dentist looked up and noticed Neil. He ran ouside, shouting at him. Neil quickly hopped in his helicopter and took off hastily. The tail caught on the side of the dentist's building, and shattered the window.
As Neil flew off, the dentist walked over to inspect the window. He was muttering angrily, half to himself, half to his patient. Niro caught the name 'Darla' in the jumble of words.
"Eh, Darla's not gonna be happy about this," the dentist said, returning inside. He opened a drawer and pulled out a small stack of paperwork. "She's my neice. She's in charge of the mental health facility." He gestured toward the building in which Niro and the gang were residing. "This week she's scheduled to come over and make her annual inspection." He turned and looked directly at Niro, smiling. "Hey little fella, say hello to your new mommy!" He held up the first sheet of paper. Along with text that Niro couldn't read, it had two photographs printed on it. The first was of a rather hideous woman, and the second was of an adolecent boy. "She's gonna be here on Friday to pick you up," the dentist continued. He put the paper down, said something else to the patient, and walked into the restroom.
"Oh... Darla..." Blake said gravely, opening a drawer and pulling out another copy of the paper. Niro took it and examined it up close. Darla, the woman in the first picture, was even more hideous in detail. She had a big, crooked grin and thick stringy bright red hair, and her chubby face was infested with freckles.
"What...... what's wrong with her?" Niro asked.
"She couldn't get him to listen to her," Gagaru said bitterly.
He was talking about the adolescent boy in the second picture. The boy had messy light orange hair. He was lying on his back, on the ground. His face had no expression. His eyes looked eerily vacant, staring blankly at nothing. Niro shuddered.
"Poor Chuckie," Bobby said sadly.
On the verge of tears, Debbie his her face in her hands. "He was here last year," she sobbed.
"Got taken here for trespassing," Blake said, "She said he'd seen too much. Had to get rid of him."
"She's a killer," Peace finished.
Terrified, Niro turned away from the hideous picture and took off running again. "I can't go with her!" he yelled, "I have to get back home to my dad- - whoa!" The boy tripped and fell feet-first into an air vent on the floor. He got stuck at the waist.
"He's stuck!" Debbie yelled. The gang immediately rushed to Niro's aid. They kneeled down, intent on freeing him from the vent.
Suddenly, a sharp command froze them all in their places. "Nobody touch him!!" Their heads all snapped in the direction of the voice. A man emerged from a dark corner of the room. He was dressed in black pants and a black button-down shirt, with a white t-shirt underneath. His hair was pitch- black, his skin was pale and he had squinted brown eyes. Quietly, but still powerfully, he repeated, "Nobody touch him."
He began to walk closer, and the gang responded by backing away respectively. As he approached Niro, his expression was firm and determined. Niro looked up at him helplessly. "Can you help me?" he begged.
"No," he replied in a calm but sharp tone. "You got yourself in there, and you can get yourself out."
Debbie stepped forward. "Girou..." she reasoned.
"I just want to see him do it, okay?" Girou snapped. He turned back to Niro. "Now. Alternate pushing with your arms, and kicking your feet..."
"I can't," Niro whimpered, "I have a bad arm!"
For the first time in his life, that excuse made no difference. All his life, Niro had been given special treatment because of his handicap. In school, at home, anywhere he went... he was treated with special care and compassion. But now, the excuse wielded no sympathy. His cold expression remaining unchanged, Girou forever humbled the boy with one sentence. "Never stopped me."
Girou turned slightly to the side. His right sleeve was rolled up, proudly displaying an array of long, deep scars adorning his arm. The right side of his face was also badly slashed. He had a long scar over his eye, and across his cheek, and a shorter one across his mouth. Niro's eyes widened. Girou wasn't simply being cold. He was giving Niro a message.
He was right. Niro couldn't keep using his handicap as an excuse... he could do anything a normal boy could do. Girou had made him see that. Determination renewed, Niro did as Girou had commanded. Using every bit of strength he had in his small body, Niro pushed against the floor, straining to free himself from the air vent.
Finally, Niro pulled himself out. He crawled a little ways on all fours before standing up and turning to look back at the air vent in which he'd been trapped only a few moments earlier. The air vent from which he'd freed himself... on his own. He looked back to the gang, a proud grin spreading across his face.
Though his face remained grim, Girou was beaming on the inside. "Perfect," he said to himself. He had hope again.
"Wow, from the outside," Peace mused. She glanced up at her Gothic companion. "Just like you, Girou."
Girou nodded. "Yeah..."
Peace grinned. "Heh. I've seen that look before." Indeed she had. Whenever he was cooking up an escape plan, the spark in Girou's eyes was unmistakeable. "What're you thinking about?"
Still not taking his eyes off Niro, Girou replied, "I'm thinkin'... tonight we give the kid a proper reception."
Niro was the center of attention. Blake, Gagaru, Debbie, Bobby, and Jack were all busy praising him and patting him on the back affectionately.
"So kid, you got a name or what?" Blake asked, grinning.
Niro smiled. "Niro," he said, "I'm Niro."