Naomi turned at the sound of the door creaking open once again, aware of Hakai's muscles tensing out of the corner of her eye. What's up with her? She pondered, marveling at how serious the inkling had gotten in just a matter of seconds, and what could of possible made her this way. Naomi shrugged, it doesn't matter, perhaps she is just nervous we will get a bad teammate. She may really want to win this thing, as does everyone else. She focused her attention back on their third teammate coming into the door, who was obviously having trouble, for the door was only wedged halfway open, and the person was hidden behind it, except for their foot, which was being used to prop it open.
Maybe I should try to help them. An early apology for later, perhaps. As she approached the door, however, the mystery teammate finally pushed through, panting in exhaustion from hauling two bags of luggage that they had been dragging behind them. She was an octoling, interesting, with light blue hair a very similar color to Hakai's thrown up in a small ponytail. She was wearing some Studio Headphones, a White Striped LS, and Pearl Punk Crowns. As she stopped to crouch in the open doorway to catch her breath, and Naomi stepped forward to help her, she looked back for a split second and noticed something very off about Hakai.
She seemed frozen in place on the couch, unable to move. Her eyes were fixed like unmoving stone on the octoling, yet her mind was obviously elsewhere, and too many emotions mixed together in her eyes, it was hard to tell what exactly she was thinking. Strange. I'll have to investigate this further later. We can't have any secrets among the team. As she thought this, a wave of guilt washed over her, but she swatted it away as she stopped in front of their third teammate. "Need some help with that?" The octoling looked up. She still looked very tired from carrying both of those bags, and Naomi couldn't help but notice that she wasn't quite built very well physically, but she still smiled and nodded.
"Yeah, thanks!" As Naomi helped her up, and lifted one of the bags onto her shoulder, the octoling turned to face both of them, her smile growing even bigger. "Sorry about that! I told my mom I didn't need two bags, but she insisted on it!" She scratched the back of her head, obviously slightly embarrassed. "Anyway, you guys must be my new teammates! I'm Nozomu! Nice to meet you!" Naomi nodded as she placed the bag onto one of the armchairs.
"I'm Naomi." Hakai, still rigid on her place on the couch, dropped her gaze as Nozomu turned to her, staring at her shoes.
"Uhh...Hello..." The octoling smiled even bigger, as if her happiness was powered by 'hellos'.
"Hi!" Hakai jumped at the excitement in Nozomu's voice, gasping as her eye darted across the room, landing everywhere except for the overwhelming octoling, and Naomi narrowed her eyes at the suddenly on edge inkling. Something is definitely up. There is no way that this serious, hardly-any-emotion showing girl is startled that easily by an excited octoling.
"Come on, toughen up!" Is all she decides to say for now, not wanting to making any assumptions about Hakai's strange behavior and cause any trouble. Nozomu looks from the two inklings, a mixture of confusion and concern on her face.
"I'm sorry-um, did I do something wrong, maybe?" Naomi shot Hakai a warning glace before turning back to the octoling and shaking her head.
"No, no, you're fine. No need to apologize." The worry seemed to immediately dissolve from Nozomu's face at this confirmation as she finally decided to pick the second bag up from off the floor and close the door, which had been left open for quite some time.
"You must be our teammate," Hakai said, obviously wanting to shake off Naomi's suspicion and keep things casual with the octoling. Nozomu nodded as she placed the bag on the second armchair, pleasure and excitement clear in her green eyes as she turned back to the stiff inkling.
"Yep! And I'm so excited! What about you guys?" Naomi shrugged, still distracted with Hakai.
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Same..." Hakai muttered, obviously not caring too much about excitement, "Anyway, we have squiffer, dualies, and...?" She looked at Nozomu expectantly, who smiled yet again.
"Kensa Sloshing Machine!" Hmm, interesting, Naomi thought, then said,
"I've never really been good with those, heh." Nozomu looked at her admirably, still smiling.
"It's okay, I bet you're awesome with your weapon!" That's nice...As Naomi began to smile, Hakai said,
"That's right." Her smile disappeared, if only for a second, as she began to ponder whether Hakai was doing this to be legitimately nice and supportive, or if she wanted to shake Naomi's trail that she had obviously begun to follow to discover what Hakai was hiding. Once again, she let it go and the smile reappeared again as she nodded.
"Thank you." I'll figure it out later. All I can hope is that they don't find out about my secret first. After this, Nozomu took her first real glance around the room since she had first arrived, then averted her eyes back to Naomi and Hakai.
"This room looks nice...I'll take whatever bed, you guys can choose." Hakai, without saying anything, gathered her stuff together in a fumble off of the table and quietly shuffled over to the bed in the right corner, where she sat down and began to organize it again. Time to see what this octoling problem of hers is all about-
"Um, yeah, I'll take the bed closest to the window, then," Naomi said as she lifted her own luggage and carried it over to where the large window stood, allowing them to overlook the vast expanse that was the rest of the hotel. Right now, as the sun's rays were making their way across the buildings for the last time that day, and the light was fading, the huge stage used for practice battles was abandoned, but Naomi knew that tomorrow morning it would be packed with teams trying to cram in some extra practice before the tournament. She glanced back over at Hakai-despite the fact that the inkling was stuck beside the octoling that she seemed so jittery around, she was taking it surprisingly well.
"Guess that leaves the middle for me!" Nozomu exclaimed as she flung her luggage onto the bed and kicked off her shoes, plopping onto the soft white comforter. Hakai resisted flinching at the pure loudness coming out of the excited octoling's mouth, and Naomi wondered if they would ever be able to fall asleep that night.
"Ooo, guys, guys," Nozomu cheered, clapping her hands together rapidly, "we should get to know each other!" Sudden, certain doubt poured out of Naomi as soon as these words were spoken, and she quickly turned over on her side, her eyes facing the window.
"Uhhh...no thanks," she stuttered, suddenly very embarrassed, but, luckily, Hakai came to the rescue by distracting the octoling,
"The thing we must focus on first is training. The roof of the hotel will be free first thing tomorrow," through the glass, Naomi could see Hakai's reflection pointing out the window and at the practice battle stage, "so how about we meet there tomorrow to show our skills?" Thankfully, Nozomu seemed to have the shortest attention span and memory of anyone Naomi had ever met, so she completely forgot about the whole introduction thing.
"Fine with me!" She said, and Naomi finally got the courage to turn back over, hoping that the little octoling forget about introducing themselves. She suddenly linked eyes with Hakai, she probably didn't, though. She's smart enough to know something's up. That I'm hiding something. She drew her eyes away from the quiet inkling and back onto Nozomu.
"Sure," she mumbled. After this, Nozomu flopped backwards onto the bed, obviously bored with the conversation, and began to stare at the ceiling. A few minutes passed, leaving Naomi some time to process what had happened during the busy day and even ponder what is up with Hakai. So...she only started acting like this whenever Nozomu, who is an octoling, entered the room. It couldn't just be that she's shy, she greeted me so quickly and warmly, yet I'm an inkling. Why does she hate octolings? She narrowed her eyes at the inkling. I'm going to get to the bottom of this.
YOU ARE READING
Tournaments, The Day That Changed Our Lives
Fanfic(Cover made by LKkrata)The fate decided to meet three different girls from their different worlds, in the hotel room number 863. But maybe their past and present is not that different?
