Battle high: not your average high school

After Battle thirty-two

Artemis's mistake

Cloud glared over at Prism. "Yeah. So shut up."

Prism looked down at the floor. "I don't even remember that day..," she whispered.

"Count yourself fucking lucky," Cloud mumbled, cutting off the fuzz of the towel with his knife and letting it flutter to the floor. "Even if you may not remember it, you were still a part of that so you still hold half the blame for what happened. You each played a part, and you two are half the reason to why Sora would rather protect then take a life," Artemis told them.

Artemis was about to explain more when Sora's door opened again and she walked down the hall to the bathroom with clothes in hand. She still had that look in her eyes and made no notice of them downstairs talking. Cloud and Prism looked at each other again, silently wondering if she had been listening to their conversation before. That probably would've made her even more pissed.

"I'm surprised she hasn't let Kirai out yet," Cloud said quietly. He expected that to be the first thing she'd have done. "Would you want him to see her in that condition?," Artemis asked him with curiosity.

He could hear the water start running in the bathtub and the door get locked from the inside, "I just hope she won't dwell on this too much," said Artemis. "Not really, but she'd probably calm down upon seeing him in distress over her," Cloud said with a shrug.

"She probably will.. unless something equally frustrating happens and she forgets about it.. which it seems like something always does," Prism sighed.

"I guess...Cloud you go get Kirai and let him out for now..as for Sora..well let's just let Kirai deal with it," said Artemis. He heard the water stop for now and sighed.

"Let's hope it's the second option, if she dwells on this for too long she may not focus tomorrow when we go to register you guys," said Artemis.

"I don't wanna let him out," Cloud grumbled, standing up anyway and trudging upstairs. "He's easier to deal with in a confined space."

After a few minutes, Cloud came back downstairs with Kirai glaring behind him.

"Looks like Kirai just came out of the closet," Prism joked.

Kirai shot her a glare. "Hilarious."

"Both of you shut up. Now who wants to go tell Sora she's needs to come and eat?," asked Artemis.

Lilly shook her head and instead of staying as a person she turned into her wolf and hopped off the couch and onto the floor to go and lay down on the rug.

Alex shook his head too, "No way nuh huh."

"I volunteer Kirai!" Cloud and Prism announced in unison.

Kirai looked at the other two. "No," he said firmly. "I have been locked in a closet for an hour. YOU can go tell her to eat," he grumbled.

Cloud looked at him blankly. "Alright then. I volunteer Artemis!"

"Yeah, you're her brother. You do it," Kirai said with another glare.

"She won't listen to me this time, I've tried many times but when she's like after someone, decided lets tease for that death accident. She will ignore me more entirely," said Artemis. He gave Kirai a look, "No food for you then."

Kirai shrugged. "I'm not hungry anyway."

"If I do it she'll throw something at me, and probably injure me in some way, that's inevitable." Cloud looked at Prism.

His twin shook her head. "No."

"You're the only one left."

"Nuh uh, Lilly."

"She's a wolf!"

"So?"

"So how is she going to communicate?"

"That's not my problem is it?"

Artemis couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Two former-ish muderous twins. One kid who has hidden power. One who was an experiment agent. One made into a killer assassin like Sora. And one fresh from their training. Yet you're all scared? What exactly happened to you all? Just months ago you were all ready to kill each other, you were all at each other's throat practically holding a knife and now Sora is upset and you all get scared? You do remember she's more upset and not angry right?," asked Artemis. He looked at all of them with a skeptical look, "She has never listened to me so why would she start now?"

Each of the others looked at one another, surprised and silenced by Artemis's words. Cloud was the first to break the silence.

"What about you? You're like the smartest person in the fucking universe and your skills pretty much match Sora's. Yet your sister doesn't take your advice seriously and you're doing nothing about it. None of us are scared of her, per say, more like we just don't want to face her. Personally I don't want to because every time I go talk to Sora I end up crying like a fucking two year old who just had their cookie stolen."

Prism twirled her hair. "I wouldn't be able to convince her to do anything after annoying the shit out of her like that."

"And I just get the feeling that she's a bit pissed off at me for some reason," Kirai said quietly.

Cloud shrugged. "I'll go do it if nobody else is."

"Oh please even if I did kick her ass what would that do exactly? Just because our skills are matched doesn't mean she won't fight back harder and it will end up as a Shooter fight in the end and her either on the ground bleeding again, or in the infirmary at school again. And since she never listens I can't tell her not to do something since I'm not exactly a good role model myself," said Artemis.

Artemis gave it another sigh, he couldn't believe they were wimping out because Cloud was afraid to even look at Sora now, and Prism just felt bad. Kirai always thought she was mad at him.

"Kirai, she's not mad at you for any reason at all," said Artemis. "HAH. Not a good role model my ass," Cloud mumbled to himself.

Prism looked at Kirai. "Yeah. You need to stop being so insecure about people not liking you. Cloud had only just met you and he went out of his way just so he could watch you sit there in pain. I've lived with Cloud for a lot of years and he has never done that."

Kirai fidgeted with his sleeve. "Well it's just kinda hard not to worry about if she's mad when it seems like every two seconds she's switching sides and doesn't remember me. And also wants to kill me."

"Well you can blame her for that. But you have to remember since now she's got every ounce of memory back except for attacking you as Red Rock Shooter your fine. Besides, those memories are still coming back slowly and she's still sorting them and you can blame me for the blocking those part, since it is mostly my fault. But other than that she loves you all the same she just...has more emotional moments that send her out of control," said Artemis.

He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small chain, and tossed it to Kirai, it was the chain that had been found as the first clue from the first day they met.

"She had intended to give you that..well since she added a charm at the bottom anyways when she got bored," said Artemis. Kirai caught it and stared at the chain. "Whoa.." That had been so long ago. When he had been scared to even talk to her, yet he had followed her around school anyway. Why had Sora kept that?

Prism looked slightly irritated. "Everyone has a memory bracelet from Sora now," she said.

Cloud looked at her and smirked. "Jealous?"

"No."

"Besides it's just me and Cloud."

"Hmmm.. maybe Primrose was right when she said you two were alike..," Prism thought aloud, looking at the two boys.

Kirai and Cloud looked at each other and shook their heads.

"No."

"Not even."

"Well..Sora had been working on some things back at the base awhile back..but I have no idea what they were she kept them in some pouch that she should still have with her," said Alex.

Artemis was about to say something else when the bathroom door opened again and Sora walked out carrying her clothes while she was in another set of clothes and was drying her hair off with her free hand. She went to her room and put the clothes away and then came back out. She was still drying her hair when she jumped over the railing of the top of the stairs and landed a few inches from them and walked to the other room downstairs.

"There you go Prism, maybe that's your-"

Cloud stopped talking when he heard Sora land on the floor. That was an impressive jump.

He decided to speak up since no one else was. "Sora?"

Sora stopped walking and turned around and looked at him calmly but with slightly lost eyes, "Yeah?"

"I'll be right back guys..I need to go work on something," said Artemis as he left to his secret room with his chemicals. Cloud thought something seemed off about her. What was he supposed to ask again? In all their arguing he'd forgotten the actual point of talking to her. "You okay?"

That seemed like a nice place to start. Sora looked at him for moment. She stayed silent and said nothing to him for awhile.

"..sure..," was her response to him as she rubbed her hair again with the towel. Cloud tilted his head at her. Prism spoke before he could. "You should stay out here and try to feel better."

"And also Artemis wants you to eat something," Kirai told her, remembering the original topic. Cloud looked around. "Where exactly did he go anyway? I don't think there's even a room in the direction he went in..," he wondered. Sora looked at Prism and just gave a nod. Sora walked over to Kirai and just sat down next to him silent and stared at the floor.

"He's probably in a hidden room if he's got one," said Alex. Kirai looked at Sora, feeling sad for her. It couldn't have been fun, what happened tonight. He wished she'd have listened to him when he told her not to go after anyone. "Hey.. don't think about that okay? It's over with," he said quietly.

Cloud nodded, thinking. "Ah. Of course he would have a secret room.."

Sora looked at him before she leaned on him letting her head rest on his shoulder and getting his shirt wet from her hair. Alex wax about to say something when a door opened up from an explosion.

"FUCK!"

Prism nearly jumped a foot into the air, having been lost in her thoughts when the noise resonated throughout the house. "What in the shit was that?!"

Kirai blinked. "Well. Whatever he went to work on apparently didn't go down well."

Sora rushed to her feet and quickly kicked down the door where the smoke was coming from and waited a moment. She rushed around to open windows and as she was doing that someone came from the smoke coughing.