Chapter 4: Practice
Disclaimer: I do not own this except Ichiro and Akiru. Please R&R! Thanx.
After their last class, Geography, the class gathered up their things and left the room. Akiru, not used to this, was swept up
by the multitude of noisy people and was ushered down the hall, protesting. When he finally escaped, he went and found
Kotaro. With him was the little girl (She was a full head and ½ shorter than him) and Tamayo. Akiru caught up with them.
"Look! It's Akiru!" said Tamayo, trying to put him in a headlock (again) but failing. "Darn it. Anyway, Piffle Princess this
way!" She pointed and ran off at 90 miles an hour, dragging Misaki and Kotaro behind her. Akiru, caught by surprise, arrived
at Piffle Princess a full block behind her, wheezing.
Tamayo walked up to the desk at Piffle Princess. "Excuse me, could we rent a practice layer? I have money here, 200 yen."
"Well," The man at the desk answered, "It's actually 400 yen. Sorry."
Tamayo turned red. "Does anyone have two hundred yen I could borrow?" She asked. Akiru nodded."I have it." He said. He
rummaged in his pockets for a bit, then came out with the money. He gave it to Tamayo, and their hands touched briefly. She
smiled at him. "Thanks." She turned around and tapped the desk again.
"Um, mister? I have the money." The man turned around and smiled. He handed her a room number; she handed him the
money. She gave him a big smile and ran to room #34. She stuck the key for that room in the lock, and it opened. Akiru
walked in and turned on the lights, followed by Misakichi and Kotaro. He was startled. A big white shiny table was in the
middle of the room. 2 egg-like chairs were on opposite sides of the table. Two headsets were lying on the shiny table, with
pink visors and bluish wings.
"So… this is Angelic Layer? But the shiny white table I saw on the movie was only white in some areas! It looked like an
arctic plain otherwise."
"Well," Tamayo explained, "See the special arenas are only in big official Tournaments. This is only a little outlet of AL. It
would be too expensive to have that kind of projector in every little Piffle Princess, don't you think?"
"Well, yeah, I guess." Akiru sat down, and took out Ichiro. "Ok, so where do I start?" Tamayo sat down at the other end of
the table. She took out an angel, from deep down in her bag. So she had one too!
"Ok. First put on the headset, like so." She put on the headset that was lying in front of her. "Then click the little triangular
button on the side, here. That button opens the wings and you can check on your angel's damage and stuff from here." Akiru
tapped the button, and all of a sudden he saw on the inside of the shield a picture of an angel, standing in the Da Vinci pose.
"Got it? Ok, next take your angel." Tamayo held her angel. It looked strong, like her, Akiru thought. "Got your angel?" Akiru
quickly took hold of Ichiro. "Then, say your opening phrase. It has to have the angel's name, but doesn't have to have
anything else. Like mine is just, Take to the air! Sky, do your best!" With that, she threw her angel. Akiru gasped, sure that
the angel would clatter to the surface of the table and break. But Tamayo concentrated, and instead Sky did a graceful 1 ½
twist, and a flip, landing on her hand, which she slapped down and twisted on, springing off it backwards and landing
gracefully on her feet. "You know," Tamayo said, "I only just recently perfected that. It can take a long time to master your
entrance."
Akiru threw Ichiro into the air, saying, "Kougeki! Shin shutsu ki botsu, Ichiro!" (Attack! Appear and disappear like a
phantom, Ichiro) He thought that her probably had to do something to make Ichiro move, so he thought, do a backflip and
land on your hands, then spring forwards and stand up. However, Ichiro only fell. Quickly, Akiru thought harder. He thought
harder and harder, but nothing worked. Ichiro was about to land on his head- and then Akiru visualized a flip, a spring and a
straightening up. Ichiro did a flip, landed on his hands, did a spring, landed on his feet, and straightened up.
"I did it! Did you see that? I did it!" Ichiro did a little dance. Misaki then walked over to a radio and put a tape in. Music
started. "Tamayo? Why is the music on?" Akiru asked. Tamayo, however, was concentrating on her angel. Akiru looked at
Sky and saw that she was dancing, first putting her left hand under her right elbow, then vice versa. Then Sky spun in a circle,
then brought up her knees… "Um, Tamayo?" Akiru asked. Misaki paused the music. "Tamayo, how does dancing help?"
"It's for the timing." Tamayo answered, her angel stopping. "Left, left, right, left, turn around, clap. Ich, ni, san, chi, go,
rocho, sichi, hachi, spin… left, left, right left, turn around, clap, spin… Finish! It's really simple." Akiru tried to make Ichiro
walk over but he fell over in the process. He thought of how he straightened up and visualized Ichiro doing the same. Slowly,
Ichiro obeyed. Then he walked over, jerkily. The music started again. For a good half an hour they danced to the music, over,
over, and over again. Then Tamayo said, "Oops! Our time's up! You can go to an exhibition game now!"
Akiru's eyes widened. "A-a-a real g-game? But I've only been playing for half an hour!"
"That may be so", Misaki said, "but you have your entrace and you can move."
"She's right!" Tamayo said. "A game can cure all rookieness!" She dragged him out of the room.Her hand was tightly holding
onto his arm, as if she'd never let go.