the weeb-ening [open]

It was her second day at the Academy.

She kept her hands stiffly at her side as she turned the corner into yet another clubroom. Her palms were sweaty and she had to force herself to take a deep calming breath before she stepped inside, only to find that yet again, there was nobody there. The young woman clicked her tongue, wiping her palms on the side of her skirt and whipping her head around, looking for any remote sign that there was anyone around. In the classrooms, she could hear a few students and teachers chatting among themselves, but beyond that - it seemed no one was keen to stick around once their lessons were done for the day.

It made absolutely no sense to her. The school was located in a rural town in the middle of one of the most rural states in all of America. What did all these students do with their free time? Where did they go?

"Mendokusai..." The girl furrowed her brow and bit away at the tip of her thumb. How was she supposed to meet anyone like this? Just turn around and have a friend magically appear?

With a resigned sigh, she spun on her heel - and immediately crashed into a passing stranger.

The young woman let out a brief gasp, catching a blurring glimpse of the other girl as she lost her balance. She took a step back, desperate to catch herself, wincing in anticipation. Her hand reached out behind her, palm out and breaking through the delicate wall. Crumbles of plastered sprinkled to the floor and she bit away at her lip, forcing herself to hold several curses back as her eyes flickered sharply back up towards the stranger. "Sorry," she muttered under her breath, leaning forward and pulling her hand free.

Her sharp words earned a sharp look back from the initiate. Her eyes flickered up and down, quickly assessing the girl. She looked like a mess, ready to rampage at any moment. "Someone like you shouldn't have been hard to miss." Ishiko muttered in a dull tone and patted away at her hand, brushing off what debris she could.

The sound of video games seemed to grow over the hallway, echoing off the archaic wooden beams of the hallway ceiling. Lucy's handheld console mirrored itself on her face in a spectacle of flashing lights, the reflection beaming itself in the twinkle of her eyes. But despite the wide wonder the upper half of her face conveyed, her lips gripped each other tightly. Her frown was taut, indented by her tongue as it pushed against the corner of her cheek. All she could think about was the boss battle. She walked, sacrificing the entirety of her attention to the screen. The girl had gotten the boss to its final phase earlier than she'd ever done before. Just one more revival capsule, just a few more lucky shots. A, B, A, B, critical hit, it was bound to be a decisive victory--

The console imprinted itself into Arianne's back as she bumped into the girl, just as she was pressing a foot to a helpless victim's shoulder. The handheld closed itself as Lucy ran into her. It was silent as the forest surrounding the school, as space itself. With concentration broken, she looked up, almost dazedly, at the two figures.

"Sorry, my fault," she said with a nervous laugh. "Gee gee Lucy, I guess..."

The initiate let out a low grunt as the other girl dug her sharp heel into her shoulder. For a time, she bit away at her lip, defiantly holding the girl's stare. It wouldn't be hard at all to fight back. With a mere pinch of her fingers this stranger's ankle would crumble. Wouldn't that have been a sight to behold? To give this lovely woman a taste of her own medicine?

But that wasn't why Ishiko was here. If she ever thought to fight, there was no guarantee of how well she could hold herself back. "I..." Her own voice wavered. There were no words to get out out of this, were there?

No words, but there was someone to help her it seemed, if only unintentionally. Once the girl with the console stepped back, Ishiko pushed up on the bottom of the red head's heel with her thumb, just enough to throw her off of her.