A/N: The long awaited chapter 3 has finally arrived! I'm so, so, so, so, so, so, so sorry that it took so long. I'm not going to bore you with the details, but I can tell you where I picked inspiration up from. You see, it's winter break and I'm a sick little senior, which completely sucks, and for comfort, I delved back into the world of Xiaolin Showdown (LOVE THAT SHOW) and after rewatching the entire series on Youtube, went on a hunt for yummy fanfiction. Then I found one of the best fanfics I've read in a REALLY long time. :3 I felt so bad about not updating… here I am, finally buckling down and getting this chapter finished!
AND OMG! I FINALLY FOUND THE STORY THAT FIRST INSPIRED ME! Look up 'Selfish Sacrifice by Mitsuko Soma and press her to write more. Her story was much more entertaining than mine!
The last line in the story was pure gold.
"Gonna be a witch?"
"Your witch, if you let me."
NOW! With Queen and Daft Punk and May'n and all other musical geniuses guiding my quest, I WILL GET THIS DONE FOR YOU! I WILL WRITE UNTIL IT'S PERFECT! This one's for you, Clozzie (who threatened me with death if I didn't update at some point). And my portuguese reviewer. 3 And all my reviewers as a whole. 3
Yayoi watched as Kururu pointed out certain AT parts, their functions, how they affect the rider's performance, how to fix and alter them, and such. She asked, "So then this part goes with this one?" Yayoi pointed out the parts she was speaking of.
"Yup!" Kururu nodded. "I'll teach you how to really come in sync with the regalia. You won't need help with tuning," the pink-haired girl said with a soft smile.
"Won't need help with the tuning?" Yayoi gave her the crazy look. "I've never picked up a wrench in my entire life! How am I supposed to know how to use it?"
Kururu turned her body towards Yayoi, her soft smile still there but with a hint of sobriety in her expression as she placed her hands on Yayoi's chest. "You already know how to use your tools, Nakayama-chan." She closed her eyes and smiled a bit wider. "I can't teach you how to use tools for tuning because your teacher is your heart. Follow it and you'll know. The real battle is falling in sync with your rider."
Yayoi looked stunned. This girl was delusional with all this heart-teaching crap! 'Note to self: Stay away from whatever weed Kururu's smoking! I really hope that the mentality isn't contagious.' Still, she had questions and Kururu was the only one she knew could answer her. She cringed as she realized the one question she really had involved all that sappy 'listen to your heart' nonsense Kururu'd been spitting out just a few moments ago. Yayoi asked after a heavy and awkward pause, "Something didn't feel right about that regalia. It seemed… I don't know… fake."
When the other girl gave her a questioning look, she only shrugged and smiled at her sheepishly, pointing one finger at her ears and the other at her heart. "I heard it in here."
Kururu beamed happily, glad that Yayoi seemed to be getting the point. However, the smile faded rather quickly. "Well…" she started, rubbing the back of her neck and avoiding all the clips in her hair, "all of the regalia out there today aren't the real ones." She was speaking seriously, rubbing her chin with her free hand. Talking about the regalia was a heavy subject and she usually sobered up and got serious when they were mentioned. "These are good imitations, but they can't live up to the original standards."
The girl fell silent and traced the outline of Agito's AT with her finger, almost hearing the mechanics of it. "I don't think I could tune these yet. The first time was definitely a fluke."
Kururu smiled. "Don't worry! If you did it once, you can do it again!" she told her enthusiastically, the sobriety leaving her for the moment. "You'll be able to do it perfectly soon, you and Agito-san just need to really fall in sync."
'Sync, sync, sync. It's all about the syncing. Jeeze, woman. Are we playing Yu-Gi-Oh?' "Is that how it's usually done?"
She nodded. "Usually, riders are known by their tuners better than anyone else. There can't be secrecy when it comes to AT tuning. It's a very intimate process," the more experienced tuner emphasized, suddenly gripping Yayoi's hands tightly as the newbie felt a blush creeping up her cheeks at the intensity of Kururu's words. "Nothing can ever be left out. Everything needs to be out in the open and you two need to fall into-"
Yayoi cut her off and gave her a nervous guess at what she was going to say. "Perfect sync?"
"That's it!" she said with a wide-eyed happiness, letting go of her hands.
Yayoi gave a sigh of relief and wiped her forehead with a napkin. That girl really made her nervous sometimes. Her blush crept back up her face. The way she'd been talking about "falling into sync with your rider", it really sounded like…
As if someone were reading her mind, she stiffened as she was suddenly groped from behind. "Yayoi-chan is having dirty thoughts," Emily said slyly, her hands rubbing on her best friend's breasts. "Without me? You naughty girl."
"EMILY!" she yelled, her blush growing stronger. "Get off of me!"
Kururu looked at the scene blankly, more than a little confused in her innocence, tilting her head to the side slightly. "Emily-san… Why are you holding Yayoi-san like that?"
Emily gave Kururu a 'are you serious' look. She whispered to Yayoi while the other girl pried her friend's hands off of her, "Air head major?"
"You have no idea," she muttered before she stood up. "Thanks for the lessons, Kururu." After seeing her smile and nod, Yayoi started to turn around and… ran smack-dab into someone who'd knocked her back down on her ass. "Oh come on!" she complained, rubbing her behind. "I just got up!"
"FUCK!"
Nice. Agito, she thought to herself grumpily as she spotted the blue-haired wonder. He held his mouth, looking pained as he nursed whatever injury he had. She instantly softened up and knelt in front of him. "Agito, are you okay?"
He shot her a dangerous glare. "Obviously fucking not!" he snapped, wincing a little. "Your stupid chin busted my lip!"
"I'm sorry!" she yelled back defensively, cringing away from him. Agito mentally face-palmed.
'Stupid weak girls,' he thought to himself crankily. "Look, I didn't mean to-"
She held up her hand to shut him up. "Don't apologize. It's not like you." Yayoi looked up at Emily, who'd stood up somewhere in the course of the exchange. "Can you get me a first-aid kit?" Emily nodded and headed off to find one, dragging Kururu with her to give the two a little privacy.
Yayoi looked down at her hands as Agito looked up at the sky, awkward silence filling the space around them.
"I'm really sorry," Yayoi finally said after a minute of the silence.
"For what?"
"You know… your lip?"
He sighed behind his hand that was covering his lip. "I should've watched where I was going." He grew annoyed when he saw her giving him a crazy look. "What're you fucking looking at!" he snapped, annoyed and wincing when he agitated his wound again.
She felt at his forehead and checked his eyes. "Nope. Not sick." He glowered in annoyance and snapped his teeth at her hands, which she pulled back quickly. "That's more like Agito," Yayoi said dryly. He turned his nose upwards, intent on ignoring her ass now. She huffed irritably. "What did I say now?" He refused to answer her. "You're so immature," she grumbled as Emily and Kururu came back with the kit. Yayoi took it and opened it up before roughly yanking Agito's hand away from his face.
"The fuck—HEY!" Agito protested, stunned by the sudden movement.
"Hold still!" Yayoi commanded, her hand holding his jaw.
"Why the FUCK would I do that? STOP FUCKING GRABBING ME, BITCH!" he yelled out, wincing afterwards.
She gave him an exasperated look. "That's why!"
He grumbled and switched his eye-patch. "I'm fucking tired of you," he muttered as he did so. "Akito can deal with your difficult ass." She looked up to the sky and thanked the heavens for the reprieve… rather loudly, one might add.
Akito looked at Yayoi and tugged at her sleeve. "Yayoi-chan?"
"Sorry," she grumbled and got to disinfecting Akito's wound, giving him many sweet words when he would wince and cry out at the sting, tears actually falling down his cheeks and making her heart quench in guilt. "Just… Hang on for a second," she told him as she finally started to clean up the blood on his face after the cut had stopped bleeding so strangely. 'He's a shark alright,' she thought to herself, more than a little annoyed by the whole thing and the fact that Emily and Kururu had abandoned her during her argument with Agito. 'What kind of fangs does he have that he did that to his own lip? Dumb shark.'
"Ano…"
"Hmm?" she looked down at Akito, who'd balled up a little in his shyness.
"Sorry about Agito… He's been in a bad mood lately," Akito apologized, looking down at the ground.
"It's not your fault," Yayoi sighed.
"You're not mad at us anymore?" he asked.
"No."
He sighed in relief and smiled happily. "Good. I thought you would be mad forever."
Yayoi stood up and held her hand out to him as she helped him stand up. "Let's go home." She looked around for Ikki quickly and decided to leave him behind.
"B-But Ikki…"
"Itsuki can get back to my house on his own," she told him. "I'm hungry and I don't feel like waiting for him." Akito nodded shyly and simply followed her, intimidated by the exchange she and his other half had had. Yayoi swung a cap onto her head and shoved her hands into the pockets of her favorite pair of overalls. She'd thought that she and Kururu would do some actual work today and had worn them as a precaution. She looked down, mindful of Akito behind her, and noticed a hole worn into the old denim at her knee. Strangely, the hole only made her love them even more. They went well with her favorite, beat-up pair of converse (which she'd gone through a lot of trouble customizing). She looked over her shoulder at Akito. 'Why's he sulking? It's not like I had an argument with him.' She hit her forehead with her palm. 'But I had one with Agito. Leave it to Akito to get all depressed over something that happened with his other… half…? Self…? Personality…? Brother…? AUGH. I'm done thinking about that!' she thought with finality, feeling herself get aggravated again.
"Akito!"
He snapped his head up to look at her, breaking out of his daze. "Hmm?"
"How do you feel about some sweets?" she asked, smiling a bit and feeling a sense of satisfaction when his whole demeanor lightened up. "I'll take that as a yes." Akito ran up to catch up with her and they went off into town to go find a sweets shop.
Lind looked out at the world through Akito's eyes (erm… eye). He ran a hand back through his already blown-back hair that looked as if it were in constant tussle with the wind. He frowned when he saw that he was with her. He puckered his face a little and moved around, growling when his chains restricted even that. He didn't deserve this. He was locked up all the time: a prisoner in his own mind. Lind groaned and lay back. He was going crazy in his share of the head.
The imprisoned boy stood and walked to the bars of the cage, wrapping his fingers around the cool, scarred metal. In his prison, he was naked: exposed to his 'brothers'. They could see all of him. He felt no shame as they shared his form, but he knew they regarded him as no better than an animal at a zoo. Like a dangerous predator that they could control by depriving him his freedom, he kept his rare moments of freedom fresh in his head and that damn girl plagued his first and last taste of it.
He hated her for it, but she was his ticket to freedom. She'd shown him that she had a good heart when she'd given him her last breath. Her kindness could only dissolve his bars like the acid it was to Agito and Akito. He knew they were weak to her. Akito saw her as his sister-figure and Agito… Lind almost laughed out loud. Agito liked their plain-Jane. If she continued on the path she was on, she'd be able to wrap the youngest shark around her little finger and that would be his ticket. He needed his freedom. He couldn't stay here forever.
Lind kneeled over and wrapped his arms around himself in close-to-desperation. "I refuse to be an animal any longer," he said softly, his body calming down from the sudden tense-up. He looked down at the chains on his wrists and clutched the collar around his neck, closing his eyes in mock-meditation. 'I need her. I need her to let me out of this cage and I will get her,' Lind resolved, not making any movements to alert Agito, who was always within earshot and ready to torture him if he made any threatening movements.
A/N: *Depression* I also just realized that my edited chapter 2 was never put up. Sorry… But I think I lost it and I want to get this done so badly that I really don't think I'll be editing it again any time soon. All I can tell you guys is to PLEASE forgive the really abrupt style of that chapter and I'll try to remedy some of its plot holes in future chapters. (Plot? Lol! What plot?)
So I've decided to continue on my path for a primarily Agito/Yayoi fluff story, but give it some implied darkfic elements where Lind is concerned. Am I the only one that feels bad for the guy? He's locked in a cage all the time for goodness' sake. Also. I won't overcomplicate everything and force Simca and Ringo into everything. If they show up, they show up. So I'm sorry about breaking that promise. :x
Once again, I apologize! I'm so sorry for keeping you guys waiting so long. TT_TT More than one year is unacceptable.