*Hikari hops into the room, tied up in a power cord with the projector balanced on her head*
"Hey everyone, Hikari here to bring you chapter 19. I apologize about not being here last week, but as you can see, I was... tied up."
*The lights of the projector flickered for a bit*
"I hope you enjoy the story while I go and untangle myself, ~nyah"
*There was a brief, visible charge of electricity that channeled along the wire.*
"WAhhh!"
Chapter 19
Sora and Riku made their way through the arcade, until they saw the area where the shooter games where. They looked around at the different ones until they spotted the one that Yata and Saru were at. The two were too engrossed into the game to notice that Riku and Sora were coming towards them. In the game, they were at a boss level, with a lot of different things that they had to shoot at. Both of the boys remained quiet as they concentrated hard at the task on hand.
Upon seeing this, not only were Riku and Sora surprised at the amount of quietness from the two, but also that they seemed to be cooperating. Sora and Riku decided to stay back and watch so they wouldn't distract the two from their game. They both knew that if they did end up doing that to either one of them, it would only end badly.
Yata angled his gun at a different section of the screen and took a few more shots, knocking out several more of the characters on screen. All that was left now was the final boss character.
Saru and Yata had to alternate between the two of them who was shooting at the boss and who was in cover and protected by a barrier. They could only get off a shot or two, three if they were lucky, before they had to duck back into cover with the foot pedal.
It wasn't long before they had used enough shots to disable the barrier, leaving the final boss wide in the open. They wouldn't have long to attack before the boss would reset the barrier. Yata and Saru took to holding up their guns higher at the screen, aiming right where the boss sat. Just within a few seconds the boss started to scrambled to genterotr which would be used to reset the barrier.
They pulled the trigger on the guns and the shots fired out, directly at the boss. He took a few hits before he was able to reset the barrier. It now would be the same process over again, as it was expected in games like that.
But within a few minutes, it was done.
The credits of the game started to scroll up the screen as the scores were being totalled at the top.
A pair of identical keyboards appeared on their screens, with four blanks at the top for them to type in a nickname to save in the system. The two had shot the letters to spell out 'Yata' and 'Saru' respectively before the game continued on to show the co-op high score list.
The numbers continued to grow larger until they reached a stopping point. It had scrolled to the top, with the second place score flashing with their 'names' beside it.
"Whoa we actually made it to 2nd place!" Yata exclaimed. "Awesome! But… we still couldn't beat the highest scores."
Yata then gestured to the top team in the 1st place spot, with their score nearly double of what Yata and Saru had. The names were 'Zack' and 'Wolf'.
"Who ever those two are, they gotta be some extreme pros or something. I've seen their names in the 1st place spots on probably most of the shooter games here ," Yata said, finishing off his thoughts.
"I'm not surprised. All Zack and Cloud do are shooter games and each other."
Just as Sora and Yata had surprised and confused looks on their faces, Saru suddenly winced, feeling a pain emanate from his wrist. Riku was right beside him, and had a firm grip on his wrist. He gave a sharp glare before opening his mouth. "Saru! You know you shouldn't just go saying something like that."
"And you know that I don't have a filter, so suck it up princess, cause I know you can't silence me.
"But then you know as well that if Zack and Cloud heard you speaking about their relationship behind their backs, they would make sure you don't live to see tomorrow," Riku replied quietly.
"Zack would just laugh it off with a blush across his face while holding Cloud back from maiming me."
"He would laugh until he would decide to-" Riku started before someone clearing their throat distracted him.
Riku looked to the side to see both Yata nd Sora staring at him and Saru. Both of them still having rather perplexed looks on their faces. "Umm…" Sora started, trying to find a way to interrupt. "What are you guys even talking about?"
"Some very N.S.F.W stuff that a child like you doesn't need to understand."
"It's nothing," Riku replied bluntly before twisting Saru's wrist a little more. "Just Saru being immature and talking about our eldest brother's relationship behind his back, and making jokes about it."
"Ghr." Saruhiko grunted out before turning to threaten his elder brother. "Stop twisting my wrist. If you break it again, I WILL turn you into a pincushion the next time we spar."
Riku sighed as he released Saruhiko's wrist. "Let's just move on to something else."
"Wait a minute," Yata now interrupted. "You guys spar? I mean it makes sense the more I think about it…" Yata started to trail off with his thoughts. He found that he actually had no way to go with what he had said, and only spoke the first words off of his head.
"That sounds really cool though!" Sora added energetically before looking at Yata. "It actually sounds like what you do when you train with Mikoto.
"That's different," Yata replied as he crossed his arms. "I'm sure whatever it is you two do is something far more crazy. After all I've seen the monkey in action."
"You haven't seen squat Misaki. There are less restrictions when sparring with glitter bits here." Saru gestures towards Riku with that last bit.
Riku only rolled his eyes, the slightest annoyance started to fill them. "Are you just making up new nicknames for me on the spot now?"
Saru just shrugs.
Sora couldn't help but snicker. He had tried to keep it quiet, but it was obviously enough to draw the attention of the other three. "Sorry," Sora said as he tried to stop his little bits of laughter. "You two just remind me of how I am with my brother some of the time."
Yata scoffed. "I don't think your brother is as annoying or rude as monkey boy here."
"I'll agree with that, and I only met your brother once so far," Riku added in.
"Can we go back for a moment," Yata said, holding up a hand. "I think I figured out what I wanted to ask. You guys said you spar together… where on earth do you do that? Especially if you use magic like you did the other night."
"Uh…" Riku started off. He first was thinking of a way to pass it off, but the more he thought about it, there was no real harm in letting the two of them know. "We actually have a mini training room in the basement of our house. It's made with magic, so everything that happens there stays there. That way we don't actually cause any damage or break anything."
"Doesn't stop me from stabbing you though."
Riku rolled his eyes. "Is that really necessary to bring up?"
"Was it necessary for you to mention that we have a training room?" Saru retorted back.
"Just trying to make some conversation," Riku replied before looking to Sora and Yata. "It's not like you guys don't know about magic. If you didn't know about that stuff, I probably wouldn't have brought it up."
Sora nodded in response. "You have a point. It still sounds super cool though. Do you think we could ever see it?"
Saruhiko just shrugged, turning to Riku as if redirecting the question to him. Riku at that notion rolled his eyes at his brother, seeing that Saru never could make up his mind. He either would seem upset that Riku told Yata and Sora something, but then when asked another question would turn to him to give the answer.
"I don't know," Riku answered. "It's just something our eldest brother got for us to help us train. How about we go do something else though, we still have a lot of things to do."
"If you say so," Yata replied before taking a step closer to Saruhiko. He looked like was glancing away for a moment, but eventually he turned his gaze to him. "Before I forget, we made it to 2nd place working together. So that's pretty cool, good work." He held up his hand to Saruhiko for a high-five.
Saru looked at Yata with an expression that read 'is this really necessary' before giving Yata a very lackluster high-five.
"So what are we going to do now?" Yata asked.
"Let's try to do something fun we can all play together!" Sora exclaimed.
"But what else could we do?" Yata asked, turning to dacd him.
Sora placed a hand to his chin. "Hmm. Oh I know! How about the DDR game! It only is for two people but we can compete against one another!"
"Pass." Saruhiko mutters before turning and starting to walk off from the group.
Yata rolled his eyes. "Really? You're going to ditch us again?"
"Don't bother," Riku said. "He isn't going to listen."
Yata didn't seem to hear him though as he kept talking to Saruhiko. "Why did you even bother to come if you are just going to not hangout with all of us?"
"Apparently it hasn't occurred to your pea sized brain that I don't care for prolonged social interactions."
"Saru," Riku started before grabbing the collar of his brother's jacket. "You willingly came along, so now you are going to stick with us. Whether you want to or not. I'm not letting you run off to play on your own now."
"Well, excuse me Nana, but I've filled my social need for the month," Saruhiko sassed at Riku before muttering out the next bit, "and you never let me do anything on my own."
"Remember Zack left me in charge," Riku said, letting out a huff of air. "So sorry, but you just gotta stick around more. And maybe if you learn to be a bit better socially, Zack won't make me babysit you so much."
"Just how old are you guys? You're older brother has you babysit him?" Yata asked Riku.
Riku opened his mouth, though he paused for a moment. Discussing their ages was not something he thought was needed. Instead he ended up shrugging before letting go of Saru's collar. "Pretty much."
"He sounds kind of overprotective, more than how Vani is with me," Sora added.
Riku thought before giving another shrug. "I guess he can be sometimes. But most of the time he really isn't super overprotective, but he is rather caring."
"And hyped up like a child on a sugar rush." Saruhiko cut in his two cents.
"Also very true," Riku agreed, adding a small chuckle at the end. He then cleared his throat. "But enough about our brother. Let's go play DDR now." He then turned his head to glance at Saru. He gave him a deep and serious stare. "And you will be joining us."
Saru glared at Riku. "I've never played it and have no interest in playing it."
"Too bad. You heard your brother, you're coming with whether you want to or not," Yata replied, a slight taunting tone in his voice.
"Please do not provoke him," Riku quickly replied. He knew that Saru wanted to probably say something back, but he was trying his best to prevent any trouble. Yata and Saru had just gotten along during their game, and he was hoping it could stay that way for the time being.
"Why would I want to just stand there and watch you three play some dancing game?" Saruhiko huffed in annoyance.
"Because it's fun!" Sora said, pumping his fist into the air. All of them could see how excited he was to soon be playing the game. "You gotta play too Saruhiko! We are going to make another fun competition out of this."
Before Saruhiko, or anyone else could reply to Sora's enthusiasm, Sora reached forward and grabbed his wrist. "Now come on, let's go!"
Sora started to walk off, pulling as hard as he could to drag Saruhiko behind him.
"I do not consent to this." Saru grumbled out while letting Sora drag him off.
"Seriously, what is with him?" Yata asked Riku before they started walking after the other two.
"Honestly I have no idea half the time," Riku replied simply.
*Hikari sat there on the floor, hair sticking out in all directions with faint sparks flying between strands. The power cable had been shredded to pieces, which were scattered everywhere.*
"Hopefully your time was more enjoyable than mine."
"Please follow, favorite, and or review. Riku and I do enjoy feedback from you."
*Electricity arked between the scraps of wire between Hikari and the projector that lay on the floor some distance from her. Hikari just flinched*
"Now if only this projector would leave me alone... Well, if Riku and I can finish Chapter 20 in time, we'll, well, at least I'll see you guys next week."