Magical Land: The Return – Chapter 2
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN AZUMANGA DAIOH
After a brief embarrassing moment for Yomi and the whole 'forgetting her wallet' scenario, the circle of friends had bought their wristbands and hurried into the place where dreams came true… oh wait, wrong franchise , my bad.
Yomi, despite her protests, had been dragged to a bench near the entrance of the park and forced to treat the outing like a military operation but none other than Tomo.
"Okay," Tomo said in unusually serious voice, "First things first, we go to all the rides that will have longer queues later in the day, once they all start getting longer we'll go on some other rides to pass the time. At 1200 hours we'll go to the parks café and get something to eat; Yomi, no raiding the buffet. After that we'll check up on the rides that had the longer queues at the start to see if they have died down a bit during lunch time. We'll leave as late as we can. Any questions?" During her speech, Tomo had pulled out at red marker and was circling things she was referring to so now the map they had picked up at the beginning of their venture was now almost unreadable due to mass scribbling. As well as that, Tomo had managed to shock the others into a state of silence with her tactical manoeuvres. Despite this, however, Osaka had still raised her hand slowly to show that she did indeed have a question for the resident wildcat.
"Osaka!" Tomo shouted pointing at her indicating she wanted to know what the question was.
"Tomo? Don't ya think it'd be easier if we just did what we wanted?" Osaka informed, receiving more confused stares for her actually ability to say something that made sense. Tomo tapped her chin in an almost comedic fashion before holding a thumbs-up and grinning wildly.
"That's A-Okay!" She yelled, tossing the red marker over her shoulder and consequently hitting someone in the face.
Yomi sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, a red vein throbbing on her forehead.
Once they had gotten a clear map, the girls made there merry way to the closest place in the theme park: the arcade.
When they had went last time, minus Yomi, the group had barely glanced at the neon, pulsating sign that welcomed stray visitors with open arms, too busy gazing in awe at the attractions that most of the crowd were flocking to like sheep. How they had missed the sign, we may never know, but now that most of them were more aware of their surroundings, minus Yomi, the oddball group of friends took their time to actually spare a glance at the money stealing building.
"Wow…" Chiyo muttered, gazing at the giant sign that read 'ARCADE' in green, blue and red all at the same time.
"How the hell did we miss THIS!" Tomo carried on, throwing her arms wide as if the emphasize the point of said sign being larger than average. The energetic wildcat began shaking in anticipation, her eye darting from one game to the next with curious intentions. Finally, after a inner moments debate, Tomo set off running towards a car racing game and was cut off from view from the group when a crowd of people crossed their line of sight.
"Hey! Sakaki! I challenge you to a game on that!" An energetic voice disrupted Sakaki's wandering eyes from a claw machine filled with different Neko-Koneko dolls, some of which she had never seen before. She raised her eyes to find an eager looking Kagura pointed towards a shooting game called 'House of the Dead 2'. The raven haired girl paled and stuttered out some sort of dismissing comment that was heard to deaf ears as she was dragged over by the star athlete to the terrifying looking game.
Meanwhile, in reality, Yomi, Chiyo and Osaka stood at the door to the arcade and just took in the constantly changing lights from inside the building. Yomi had already began making a mental list of all the things she was going to do at the park and had started to wander off somewhere inside while Chiyo and Osaka stood there, eyes switching from one game to another.
One particular stand had caught the eye of young Chiyo: the ticket booth, the place where you exchange tickets you win at certain games for toys that the place has. The child prodigy had her little mind set on one thing, and that was the bunny backpack, hanging dismissively on a hook behind the counter.
"So, Chiyo-chan… What do ya wanna go on first, huh?" Osaka had just began falling back to real life when she took a glance to her left and saw that Chiyo had now left her side, this caused a mini-panic attack from the poor Osakan.
"Oh my GAWD! Chiyo-chan! Where are you, Chiyo-chan!" Stumbling around in the slightly crowded area, the space cadet found herself being swept away in a large group of people that had all come in at the same time causing her to yelp and swim her way back to the entrance through the sea of people. Osaka began breathing heavily and began muttering to herself.
"Oh no…. Chiyo-chan must've been trampled by all those people! What with her bein' small an' all. Oh no! What ahm I gonna tell the others!"
"Miss Osaka! I'm over here!" Osaka's head snapped up and she looked around for the source of the voice.
"Waugh! Chiyo-chan must be tryin' to contact me from beyond the grave!" She yelled in despair, causing a couple of heads to turn in concern at the strange girl's outburst.
"Um, no, Miss Osaka. I'm over here, by the ticket counter!" Chiyo's ghost said once again causing the spaced out girl to look to where the voice was referring to and sighed in relief when she spotted the small figure of Chiyo-chan, pigtails an' all.
"Phew! Don't scare me like that, Chiyo-chan. I thought ya'll had been killed by them there tourists." Osaka yelled, clenching her fists. The action caused the small genius to sweat-drop. Quickly shaking her head to dismiss herself, Chiyo pointed at the dangling bunny backpack in determination and reminded herself as to what she had called Osaka over for in the first place.
"Miss Osaka!" She said determinedly, "I want you to help me get that backpack."
"Wah? But that backpack is," Osaka looked over at where Chiyo was pointing and nearly fainted at the amount of tickets needed to win said backpack, "2,000 tickets! Do ya'll know how long that'll take to get?" Osaka flailed her arms weakly and looked around the room at the different games at which you could win numerous amounts of tickets. Sure there were a lot, but still!
Ignoring the Osakan's plea, Chiyo riffled around in her pockets before pulling out three 1,000 yen notes and handing them to the acne ridden teen that was manning the ticket counter.
"Can I have this much worth of tokens, please?" With a winning smile, Chiyo stared at the dazed looking teen who gave her a weird look before putting the money in the register and muttering a weak 'Yes, miss…'. Osaka, who had watched the whole ordeal with weary eyes, sighed and closed her eyes before shaking her head.
"This will not end well…"
"BLAM! Ahahaha! Take that, zombie scum!" Kagura cheered as another computer generated zombie head was blasted off by herself. "Isn't this fun, Sakaki …? Yo! Sakaki!" she yelled, taking a moment to take a glance at the supposed 'lone wolf' of the group. Said 'lone wolf' was now trembling, paler than a sheet and gripping the plastic gun in her hands like a life support. She slowly turned her head to look at the swimmer and shook her head with a sorrowful look in her eyes.
"No. This is not fun…" She muttered, mostly to herself but loud enough so her friend could hear her. With a puzzled look, Kagura foolishly turned away from the screen on the game and cocked her head to the side.
"Huh? I thought you would like this kind of stuff…" her head snapped back towards the screen when the sound of her character screaming and the words 'GAME OVER' flashed on the multi-coloured background.
"Aw man! I was on a killing streak, too!" Kagura pouted in frustration and put the fake, powder blue gun back to where it was supposed to be held. Sakaki did the same and her eyes once again drifted towards the claw machines where the Neko-Koneko dolls beckoned her with taunting voices.
Come, Sakaki!
Play the game! Win us!
Sakaki…!
"Hey, Sakaki!" The taller girl shook her head to rid the ridiculous thoughts from her head and looked once more that the girl beside her who was giving her a curious look. "If you don't wanna play on this," Kagura jerked a thumb towards the video game, "Then what do you want to play?" Before the final words left her mouth, Sakaki had sped walked over to the claw game and was already placing a 100 yen coin in the slot.
"Woah! That was fast…" Kagura whispered in awe, silently jealous of Sakaki's fast skills.
"A claw game, huh?" Sakaki nodded once and gritted her teeth as the doll she had just picked up fell from the metal grasp.
"Didn't think you were the type to do these games, Sakaki! Always thought you were into shooters and driving games…" This time, Sakaki shook her head and lightly thumped her fist against the plastic shield of the game when, once again, the toy fell from the claws grip. Sakaki pulled out her final 100 yen coin and kissed it for good luck before sliding it into the slot.
There we go. Steady now…
Almost got it…
Sakaki adjusted the controls until she was sure the claw was hovering over the doll she wanted.
Gotcha'…
"Oh, WOW!" Kagura pointed at something in the crowed and elbowed Sakaki in the arm causing her to nudge the joy stick away from the Neko-Koneko and push the 'Drop' button at the same time. Sakaki watched in despair as the claw slowly sunk into nothingness, away from where it's original landing place was supposed to be while Kagura sighed and turned back around just in time to see her friend begin to continually thump her head against the glass surrounding the claw game.
"Oh man. You should have seen it, Sakaki! There was this guy and he looked like he was about to try and eat two jumbo hotdogs in one! He just… h-hey, what's wrong?"
"…"
"Are… are you okay, Sakaki…?"
"…"
"…Sakaki?"
So… How is it? ^^ What do you guys think?
Reviews are greatly appreciated! Constructive criticism is recommended but I'll take all the praise I can get ^^;
There's more wacky antics to spare so don't think I've run out of no… I've got so many more ideas whizzing around my head … heh heh heh…
*cough* So, yeah… I hope you guys like it! Please be patient for more!
vampirepiggy13