He remembers the first time he laid eyes on her.
It was before a patrol, slightly preceding the Dark Hour, as he was readjusting his gloves. The cameras were spying on the twins, while Mitsuru and Takeba were glued to the greenish display, lips pursed and thinking. The archer was twitching in her seat, visibly frazzled at the intrusion into other people's personal lives.
While he was no voyeur, this was strictly business: evaluating the potential in the two new dorm members and then either move them out or bring them into the fold, hopefully. More people meant increased efficiency, potentially more action just like the old days with... Akihiko crackled his knuckles, forcing the leather of his gloves into place comfortably. His knee twitched, he couldn't wait to go outside and just… move.
While he had been briefed about the coming of the twins by Mitsuru at school in-between classes, it was the first time he laid eyes on the duo of teenagers, and it took him by surprise. First off, they were both in the male twin's room, huddled together instead of sleeping separately. Second, they were wide awake and whispering together and the camera mics couldn't catch anything.
The churning weirdness of the Dark Hour lurched through the building, shutting down the current, dimming the hum of appliances and buzzing lightbulbs, carpeting the dorm in silence. The clacking of keyboard keys broke the haze as the senior girl focused the camera on the underclassmen duo.
They were not coffins.
While a slight ripple of stress had tensed their shoulders during the lighting change, they were not panicking, barely phased by the Dark Hour's weirdness.
Both had stopped whispering, looked around and then flickered their eyes in tandem towards the spying camera. Their eyes almost glowed, two red one and one blue respectively, eerily giving the impression they were glaring at their observers in accusation. Did they know they were being looked at, right now, or was this a coincidence?
The looking back caused Takeba to shiver, she brought her arms around herself, rubbing the tingle of goosebumps. The single blue flicker was looking right through her it seemed, and she had to turn away. Mitsuru huffed discreetly, probably feeling the same unease but barely expressing it, keeping her cool.
There was indeed something unsettling about the spectacle once they were not directly poking a hole toward the security camera: the blue-eyed twin stared emptily ahead from the only eye not covered by his long hair, while his sister darted her red ones around the room, fidgeting then eventually settling down to hold her brother's hands in hers. There was a feisty energy in her that her twin lacked, he seemed contemplative, indrawn. They both seemed content to just wait and murmur, their lips barely moving, hers more than his. A contrasting set of brother and sister to be sure.
"I feel kinda bad, though, spying on them like this…"
Hearing Takeba speak brought him out of his contemplation at the same time as the spied girl flashed her red orbs towards the camera, jolting him. Did they hear her speak? No, no chance of that. He absently rubbed the ribbing between thumb and index to settle the leather further, tapped his foot and shook his head.
Mitsuru turned her chair around to face her.
"It's necessary, just a few more days as the chairman said, and we shall know for sure if they have the potential."
Takeba didn't seem convinced or more comfortable, hands picking at her sweater absently.
"In any case, I'm going out for a bit." Akihiko inserted, hitching to just get out of here and escape the current somber mood of the room. Despite them not facing the camera anymore, that glowing set of red irises was imprinted in his mind, and he felt uneasy as if he had seen something he shouldn't. He wasn't sure how to gracefully exit and tapped his foot nervously, this felt awkward.
His fellow senior acknowledged his message with a slight nod, then turned back toward the screen, business-like.
If the archer looked his way when he crossed the threshold of the door, he didn't notice, focusing all his attention to stealth while he made his way toward the entrance of the dorm. It wouldn't do to disturb their guests while they were under surveillance and bring him into the mix just yet. Anyways, he had a job to do.
The murky outside, barely lit under a sickly green, was empty of movement. Finally free from pretense and decorum, he broke into a light jog to patrol around, hitching to run into trouble.
This is where he felt alive: moving, fighting, no limits, no rules. There were no bells to call the fight, no restraint, just pure adrenaline keeping him alive, breathing, enjoying the results of all his training to go beyond his limits. When your body is focused on the fight, there is no time to think, nothing to ponder or dissect, no feelings to digest, no inner weirdness to secondguess. Just action, just the now, and that is how he liked to keep it.
As he turned a corner, the syrupy sounds of a supernatural presence reverberated in the silence. A few black blobs were making their way out of an alley. His lips curled into a smirk, heart already pumped and jolts of electricity coursing through his veins. There was action to be had and he jumped into the fray with no forethought, erasing the glowing eyes from his consciousness with a well-placed direct hit on a shadow. He's been waiting for this, all day.