There was a giant splash as the problem children and their chaperone saw several figures fall towards the lake.
"Oh, so is this a thing that Kurousagi likes to do to every guest?"
Asuka turned her head to Kurousagi, who was shaking nervously. The "ojou-sama" with a red dress sighed.
"Kasukabe, do you smell anything from that area?"
Yo started to sniff the air intently, using her refined senses to measure how far away their new guests were, as well as determine if there was any chance of immediate danger.
"Yeah, they're separated into two groups. One about a few miles away, and another a few miles from the first… none of them seem dangerous….but…"
"But?"
"There's something….familiar…about one of them…."
"Familiar? You mean we've met them before?"
"I'm not sure….it doesn't seem like it's bad though…"
"Well, no matter who they are, we'd better go see them and beat them up!" Izayoi punched his hand as he spoke, making Kurousagi panic wildly.
"NO! We shouldn't just go punching them as soon as we meet them! Don't you think that defeats the purpose of trying to recruit them in the first place?!"
Asuka brushed her hand through her hair. "Kurousagi is correct; we shouldn't go resorting to such crude methods when meeting them."
"Asuka-san!"
"I'll just use my [Gift] to force them all into submitting to us in an embarrassing way. We can blackmail them into working under us for a while, but I'm not sure how we can get them to stay after that…"
"Asuka-san…"
"Actually, that might not be a bad idea. If we use her gift, we might be able to get them to do a lot of interesting things for us…"
"Izayoi-san!"
"Then I guess it's settled…"
The problem children started walking over with their long-eared friend following behind them dejectedly.
There was a loud "SPLASH" as one group of children fell into the water. Three of the children had resurfaced with an annoyed look on their faces while a fourth was dusting off her clothing without any signs of even touching the water.
A boy dressed in black tossed his coat and gloves to a nearby branch before checking himself for any damages.
The caramel-colored boy with long hair had swung his hair a bit while trying to dry himself off by shaking his clothing.
The blond-haired girl was trying to squeeze her uniform dry while silently sobbing to herself about how wet her clothes were.
And finally, the young girl wearing elegant clothing (and the only one who was actually dry at the moment) had her hand resting on her hip while looking around.
"How troublesome…"
"What is this amazing place?!"
"My clothes…."
The four of them looked at each other with accusing eyes, but none of them spoke until the blond-haired girl started to yell.
"What's the big deal?!" She screamed while pointing at them. "I thought this was supposed to be some kind of invitation! Not some freefall drop from the sky!"
"Wait," the caramel boy asked. "You got one of those weird letters too?"
The boy in black (actually a grey long sleeve shirt and jeans at the moment) was fiddling with the pendant around his neck. "Then it wasn't a coincidence…"
"Tch!" The elegant girl just clicked her tongue while looking away.
"What was that for?!"
"I want to know what's going on here!"
"Everything looks a lot like home, but it's a lot cleaner here…."
"Who the hell cares about that?! I want to know why we just fell like a million feet from the sky!"
"Calm down, it wasn't that bad…"
"WHAT?!"
"Yeah, I've experienced a lot worse than this…"
"What on earth is wrong with you two?"
After some more screaming, arguing, and other senseless talk, the group managed to calm down to a simple glare towards each other. The caramel boy stepped up and crossed his arms.
"Well, I guess we should start with names…" he decided. "Guess I'll start then…"
He stood tall while trying to give a condencending look towards the other three. "I'm Ryo Natsobe, nice to meet you all."
"Cecilia Silvaria Snowbell. Remember that…" the elegant girl replied angrily.
"Kyle Shirokage" the boy in grey calmly replied as he started to get his coat and gloves back.
The blond-haired girl shivered while talking. "I-I'm H-H-Hikari….A..A…Achoo!"
Ryo turned his head with a look of slight interest. "Hikari-Achoo? That's a pretty unusual name…"
"Shut up! My clothes are soaked and everything else in my bag is wet. How the hell am I supposed to just act like everything is fine?!"
"Well, people have survived in worse situations. If you think about how better off than someone who was naked…"
"Not helping…"
Hikari was pinching her forehead when Kyle suddenly walked up to her. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and seemed to be thinking of something before the moisture from her uniform seemed to disappear, or more accurately, the water that was soaked in had just "slid" to the ground.
"Eh?"
Hikari blinked. Her clothes weren't wet anymore; it was as dry as it was before they fell into the lake. She wanted to say something, but he just placed his hand into her bag and closed his eyes.
Shortly after, he grabbed her bag and tipped it over like a water pot, causing a stream of water to pour out of her bag. Afterwards, he tossed the bag back to her and went over to Ryo to do the same thing.
Hikari checked the inside of her bag, but nothing was soaked. Some of the ink from her books and papers had ran a bit, but not a drop of water remained in anything.
"Is that some kind of ability you have?" Ryo asked as Kyle started to put on his jacket and gloves. There wasn't an answer, so Ryo just shrugged and decided to try and get closer to the girl named Cecilia.
"Excuse me…"
However, Cecilia kept quiet too, so he frowned a bit before scratching his head. If they were going to try and survive this place together, then this wasn't off to a very good start. He wanted to study the area to get an idea of what kind of place this was like, but he didn't enjoy the idea of trying to disappear from people who might attack him or the little girl Hikari at any time. He was at a loss about what to do when something had suddenly sprung in his mind.
"Mind if I ask the three of you something?"
They all looked up at Ryo. "Did the letter you guys got say 'To whomever this may concern'?"
The three of them nodded their heads simultaneously.
"Then I guess it was all by chance that we got them. Otherwise, they might have used our names specifically to ask us to come here…" As he thought, Ryo's eyes started to gleam. "Maybe there was some kind of magic involved in the letter. If so, then that means that there may have been some kind technique to store magic inside. Yeah, but how did these letters come into our possession? Could they have been sent here by some kind of probability magic? But then….."
He was practically muttering to himself now, so the other three started to ignore him and went back to staring at each other. Kyle suddenly glanced at Cecilia's pendant with a look of interest on his face.
"That pendant…"
He glanced at her face, then at the pendant, as if trying to study something before he crossed his arms.
"You're not human…are you…."
She looked at him with a smirk and stretched her hand out.
"That's not a very nice thing to say. Are you saying I'm really that evil?"
"No, I mean you're something else that's not entirely human, right?"
Cecilia froze while glaring at him. She kept her mouth closed, but she was clenching her teeth while thinking about whether he was a "friend" or an "enemy".
"Well it's not like it really matters to me…" he sighed before turning his head to Hikari. "What did you say your name was again?"
"Um…it was…"
"Hikari?"
Hikari's eyes widened as she turned around to see the source of the voice.
The other two looked over to see another group of four appear suddenly from the forest. One appeared to be a calm-looking girl wearing a sleeveless jacket and shorts while holding a cat, the one next to her was a black-haired girl wearing bows and a red dress that gave a sort of "ojou-sama" feel, another was a blond-haired boy in a gakuen uniform who gave a "delinquent" aura, and the last was some weird-looking girl who looked like she was wearing some kind of hostess club uniform with rabbit ears.
"Hikari, what are you doing here?"The blond-haired delinquent asked casually.
"Nii-san…"
Hikari seemed to be struggling in place before…
"NII-SAN!"
She ran over to the blond-haired delinquent and wrapped her arms around him while burying her head in his midsection. From the look on his face, he didn't seem to have expected to see her here. The three girls near him seemed even more surprise, so it was possible that they had no idea what was going on.
"Izayoi-san? Are you saying that you know this girl?"
"Yeah, this is Hikari Sakamaki. She's from my world."
"Ah, I see…..wait, Sakamaki? But isnt' that…"
"Yeah, because she's my sister…"
"….EEHHHH?!"
The cries from the three girls echoed into the sky.
Well here's the third chapter. Story may be getting better or worse (writing-wise) in the future, but I guess that's for us to never know until it happens, though I try to make it better, if not equally good. (Please feel free to ignore my pessamistic comments. It's a personal belief that thinking negative will always help me improve)
Anyways back to the story. No, I haven't recieved any "cancelling orders" or "refunds", so I assume you guys all want to keep your OC (Original Character) in the story. That's fine, I can live with that.
Two or three of you might be worried I forgot about your OCs, but no,I haven't. I made a list to keep track of each character, so don't worry. I've got plans for everybody, so don't start running around like crazy thinking about whether your character will never show up. Like I said in the last chapter, we're sharing the spotlight, so there will be times where some guys get the good stuff, and other times, they'll be comical support. But I promise that everyone will have an important role in one point or another.
As for the reviews so far, thanks a lot for the positive feedback. I guess there's nothing wrong YET, so that's good to know. But remember, if there's something off or something you don't like, feel free to let me know, and I'll try to see what I can do.
So I guess that's it. Look forward to the next chapter.