Chapter 6 Recovery

Through the deep slumber that Haru is slowly drifting in, she felt herself drowning in the seas of memories, many of them built towards making Haru into the kind of person today.

One of them stands out vividly among the rest, the event that causes her to choose the path she walks today

It was a nice breezy afternoon, the weather wasn't too hot or cold, it's just the right warmth, the wind of the mountain blowing, the flow of the river water, tree leaves rustling against the current. A calm scenery for sure if it weren’t for the sound of people panicking, metal cracking as it scratches one and another, and more importantly the sound of a little girl. The sound screamed the feeling of fear and confusion all while it was expressed through the crying. It’s something that a lot of people wouldn’t want to continue and in the case of Haru, it’s no different.

“Grab on my back and hold tight to me!” The loud word came out of the more mature girl with the tone of confidence reassuring the younger girl that everything will be fine.

“I’ll get you out of here no matter what, I’m pretty strong so don’t worry alright?” Even in times like this a bit of light-hearted words doesn’t hurt especially when she tries to hide the serious tone that might scare the one needing help.

What Haru felt through that entire ordeal is not only exhaustion with every part of her body being tested but also a heavy sense of purpose, the thing that she has been searching through this whole time. Through the life that is filled with the feeling of being an outcast, being different from everyone, questioning why she can’t just be like everyone else, it was all answered in just a few short moments of each push up the vertical train cart using the seats as a grip.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to see that past through to the end as it was abruptly ended by the numerous unsolved questions she had before falling asleep, bringing her back to the real world.

The first thing she saw was a flash of light from the room she is currently laying in, the surrounding seems to suggest that she is in a small medical room with cabinets full of medicine neatly arranged, the white walls are full of a poster showing the different system of the human body and just right across her view is a recognizable figure.

It’s not difficult to distinguish her from the short light pink hair and petite body as she is busy scribbling down something on her paper at the desk across Haru’s view.

As Haru feels herself coming back more and more she slowly gets up on her back using her left arm to support and the right hand to wipe her face.

“Where am I? Wait… The girl! And Lin senpai too!” the suddenly strong voice slipped out of Haru mouth

“Ah?! U-um please don’t hurt me I promise I will explain everything!” it causes Riku to panic after hearing the urgent voice coming right at Haru.

“Ok ok! Calm down I won’t hurt you Riku I just need an explanation” Haru replied with a concerned tone now after scaring her little pink friend.

“Oh… Um about that girl, She is safe for now and about the rest. I think Aiko san would explain it better” Riku starts to calm down.

Haru breathes a sigh of relief knowing that the person she was trying to save is alright but so many questions still boggle her mind.

“Can you show me your right arm first?” the pink hair girl takes a seat right next to Haru.

“Oh?” Haru checked her arm and she saw a couple of small open wounds which presumably came from the humanoid monster when it grabbed her arm.

“Nah, it’s alright I’ll be fine” Haru tries to play it off because a small wound like this wouldn’t phase her a single bit.

“Definitely no! Alternium wounds can be very dangerous and the body will not heal itself if it is left like that!” Riku argues with a courageous reply.

“A-Alright Alright... here you go” seeing Riku being this serious gives Haru no choice but to listen and lends her arm out.

“Mochi, let's go” Riku calls out then a small fox with distinctly two tails which form from pale green energy appears right in her palms and it hops on Haru's arm, it proceeds to poke at the wounds with its mouth causing a healing effect and closing up Haru’s wound.

“Whoa… This your power? It’s pretty cool hehe” Haru commented

“It’s nothing much, just the best I can do,” Riku said while Mochi finished with the last wound.

The mini fox then jumps back onto Riku’s shoulder, resting itself comfortably right there.

“Alright, please follow me” Riku leads to the door opening.

Haru hops off the bed and follows Riku to a short-lighted hallway that is lit up with lines of blue energy alongside the walls and floor. If someone were to imagine a secret futuristic base of an evil organization it would certainly be like this, it made Haru have some concern about what she just got herself into but she must see this to the end first.

The two girls ended up outside a room with the sign on top saying “Control Room”

“Aiko-san? Haru has recovered. I'm sure you wanted to talk to her” Riku politely knocked on the door while calling out.

However, there wasn’t any response causing silence to fill up the hallway in a rather uncomfortable way.

“Is she out right now…?” the pink girl muttered worryingly knowing that she is just making her friend who got dragged into this whole situation even more confused than before.

Haru wasn’t too bothered by it but suddenly in just a few seconds, she caught a glimpse of light through the little window of the door which caused her to respond.

“Watch out!!” Haru braces Riku in herself and hops out of the large beam of laser energy that burst through the door that they were standing in front of.

The laser decimated the door into dust while leaving a big hole in the wall at the end of it. Through the giant mess that it causes, the sound of two adults can be heard inside the room presumably arguing over what just happened.

“It… It works!! I knew it by opening up the core and releasing the energy at full power, it's enough to produce an effect similar to a railgun!” one of the adults expressed uncontainable excitement over the result.

“Yea… but we didn’t need to test it right here?! Are you mad?!” The other adults expressed concern over what just happened.

“C’mon Ryoko I’ve been working on this theory for 3 straight days! You know how much money we wasted for coffee just so I can finish this thing?!”

“First of all Aiko, *You* are the only ones who are wasting our money on coffee to stay up all night when it isn't necessarily to finish in three days because there is no deadline here. Second, I am the one who built it in the first place. Third, what if it could harm someone testing this thing right here, I mean the door is already gone!” She rambles on to her presumably friends and co-workers.

“I mean you could fix the door in no time right? Besides who could it hurt anyway lo-”

The woman is cut by the sight of Riku and Haru lying down on the floor covered in the dust of the once intact door.

“Oh… Crap” was the only word that came out of her mouth.

After sorting out the mess that just happened all of them settled on a table that's right in the middle of the room. The room isn’t too big as the name “Control Room” suggests to be, a small lounging area with sofa and television, mini kitchen, two desks in the corner with a personal computer on each one of them, and a workshop area.

Haru and Riku are seated right across the woman in a lab coat over a casual blue shirt while wearing a round glass with a long curly brown hair that is tied up into a ponytail, next to her is a person in a similar lab uniform with a light purple medium hair and her very distinctive round engineer goggles that is strapped over her forehead.

“Alright now that the mess is sorted out, time to introduce each other” the curly hair woman sparks the conversation.