<Sandwitches> --------------------------------------------------


<AdventFalls> With the school closed for... well, the rest of the day thanks to what sounded like a gas weapon going off - Hinoki didn't pretend to understand what really happened - she decided to let off some steam.


<AdventFalls> She was inside of an arcade, playing a fighting game: 'World Buster 5'.


<AdventFalls> .....She sighed as she saw the game over screen. She never COULD beat the purple-haired chick miniboss.


<Sandwitches_> Her doorbell rings.

<AdventFalls> "...." Hinoki looked around. That wasn't right, she wasn't.....

<AdventFalls> ....Home..... She turned from the machine.

<AdventFalls> But she was home, wasn't she? The door looked bigger than she remember as she approached, creaking it open.

<Sandwitches_> She finds herself standing eye level...  with a silver haired girl, just about her own size.

<Sandwitches_> "H-hello?"  The girls hands and squeezing her own dress very tightly, and she looks...  quite scared.

<AdventFalls> "Hi." Hinoki blinked. "C-Can I help you?"

<AdventFalls> It didn't phase Hinoki at all that this girl was young, she was her age after all.

<Sandwitches_> "C-can y-you tell m-me where I-i-i am?"

<AdventFalls> "....Tessa?" Hinoki blinked.

<AdventFalls> "You're at my parent's house."

<Sandwitches_> "I-i can't f-f-find my m-mommy or d-daddy..."

<AdventFalls> "That's weird.... do you wanna come in?"

<Sandwitches_> Tears start to form at the corener of her eyes, and nods.

<AdventFalls> She let Tessa in, securing the door behind her. Mommy had always told her to lock the doors.

<AdventFalls> "Do you want a bwonie? I think there's still one left over."

<Sandwitches_> Tessa follows Hinoki inside and nods.  "O-okay..."

<AdventFalls> Hinoki went to the kitchen, bringing out a plate with a brownie and a cold glass of skim milk. "Daddy says a bit of sugar helps make things better."

<Sandwitches_> "... I w-want my d-d-daddy..."

<Sandwitches_> She sniffs.

<AdventFalls> Hinoki handed Tessa the brownie. "...I miss my daddy too. He's always away on stuff...."

<Sandwitches_> "M-mines not...  but...  I think he's g-g-gone now..."

<AdventFalls> Hinoki blinked. How could a daddy just disappear?

<Sandwitches_> "There was a loud bang...  Mommy hid me..."

<Sandwitches_> "and then Mommy w-went a-away too..."

<AdventFalls> Hinoki's face paled. "....Oh no.... Was it a firework?"

<Sandwitches_> "No...  it w-was... louder...

<AdventFalls> Hinoki looked at the door. T-The lock was secure, right? Then back to Tessa. "W-Well.... it's safe here...."

<Sandwitches_> "I-i'm scared..."

<AdventFalls> Hinoki scooted closet to her, trying to smile. "It's safe here. Nothin's gonna happen while I'm here."

<Sandwitches_> The scene shifts...  Dozens of times in a heartbeat, showing the two girls with each other in three locations...  The girls homes, which are... always strangely devoid of people...  and then in what looks like a large Laboratory...

<Sandwitches_> The images change...  slowly showing the pair growing, and occasionally interacting with others in the Laboratory...

<AdventFalls> Hinoki looked bewildered as the scenes kept shifting, she was home and not home, in the lab and not, young but old....

<Sandwitches_> Finaly... she finds herself in the Laboratory again...  sitting beside A now teenage Tessa, dressed in a kahki uniform...

<AdventFalls> Her head was spinning as reality reasserted itself. She shook it, trying to regain her bearings.

<AdventFalls> This... this was normal. This was one of her best friends, her lab partner. One of the smartest people she knew.

<AdventFalls> She smiled as she tried to start reapplying herself.

<Sandwitches_> "... Hinoki."  Tessa says after a long couple of moments.

<AdventFalls> Hinoki looked at her. "Yeah?"

<Sandwitches_> "Why don't we talk about the outside anymore?"

<AdventFalls> "...Out...side?" Hinoki blinked.

<Sandwitches_> ""You know...  outside of the Laboratory."

<AdventFalls> "...." Hinoki furrowed her brow, thinking.

<AdventFalls> "..I... Don't know," she admitted. "We got older and it just never came up."

<Sandwitches_> "...  Yeah..."  She shakes her head.

<Sandwitches_> "I think I'm going to need your help more than ever now Hinoki..."

<AdventFalls> Hinoki blinked. She needed her help? "How's that?"

<Sandwitches_> "It's all coming apart...  But I'm not going to lose."

<AdventFalls> "I don't understand...."

<AdventFalls> "...." She was bewildered. What was going on?

<AdventFalls> "Masato, what's going on?"

<Rick_Lord_of_Banjo> "I can't exactly abandon my friends."

<AdventFalls> She rubbed her brow. Friends? What in the world?

<Rick_Lord_of_Banjo> "After all the help you've both given me, I can't exactly do that." Says the man who walks out of the murky shadows of the room, a labcoat billowing in a non existant wind.

<AdventFalls> Hinoki's head tilted ever so slightly. How could she not remember this, if she'd helped these two for so lo-

<AdventFalls> It was slowly dawning on her, but she couldn't put her finger on it just yet.

<Sandwitches> "Thank you Senpai...  I'll need all the help I can get."  Tessa looks somewhat, but not totally relieved, and looks back to Hinoki.

<Rick_Lord_of_Banjo> "There is more than you realize helping you, supporting you, Miss Sai."

<AdventFalls> Hinoki looked at the ground, demurring. "I don't.... I'm not smart enough. How can I be here, and.... I've made nothing, I.... wasn't smart enough to save..." She shook her head, clutching it with her hands. "I'm not smart enough for this, Masato!"

<Sandwitches> Tessa jumps back in surprise a bit.  "Hinoki?"

<AdventFalls> "I..." She looked at Tessa. "It's starting to make sense. I... I didn't talk about the outside because I couldn't handle it. I lived two lives and...." She started to bawl in her hands. "I was too stupid to notice!"

<AdventFalls> "He was right, Tessa! He was always right!"

<Rick_Lord_of_Banjo> "Then you've simply lost your way for a time. We're connected, us three. You simply have to know that we're together with you. Even if you haven't been making things...you've been doing right."

<Sandwitches> Tessa rises from her seat, and her gaze meets Hinokis.  "Hinoki..."

<Sandwitches> "Masatos right.  You've lost your way.  We all have at some point...  But you know what?  We don't just lie down and give up."

<Sandwitches> "We get up.  And we keep fighting forward...  We get up and atone for our mistakes.  Yes, we'll make more along the way, but thats part of being human..."

<Sandwitches> "But...  you'll learn form them.  Learn to not make them again."

<Sandwitches> "And all throughout the journey, we'll be right here with you."

<AdventFalls> Hinoki bawled into Tessa's shoulder, sniffling. "P-Promise?"

<Sandwitches> "I promise Hinoki...  I promise..."  She hugs her friend tightly.

<AdventFalls> Hinoki was visibly shaking, unable or unwilling to let Tessa go.

<Rick_Lord_of_Banjo> "And you won't be alone." Masato still seems to prefer to be aloof.

<AdventFalls> "If you're there," Hinoki gasped. "It.... it's gonna be okay...."

<AdventFalls> She closed her eyes, starting to smile....

<AdventFalls> Only for her hands to curve back into themselves. She stumbled into something hard, only to realize it was a Galaga machine.

<AdventFalls> She was in the arcade, where she had and hadn't been all along.

<AdventFalls> "That..." Hinoki looked around. "I..... was that real?" It felt real, but....

<AdventFalls> If she was that smart, why would she have blocked any of it out?

<AdventFalls> She lightly pinched herself. No, that was real. She could still smell Tessa, it had to be real.

<AdventFalls> But how could she be in two places at once? She was a normal girl, she... didn't have....

<AdventFalls> "Am I sure I'm not coming down with Algernon," she pondered to herself. "It was real, and yet....." She looked at the arcade. "I'm still here."

<Rick_Lord_of_Banjo> "Oh...a shame...it looks like you got distracted and lost....Miss Sai." Says a voice beside her at the second stick.

<AdventFalls> Hinoki swerved to look at the second player.