The Named [7/?]
It did not take long for Ryoma to fall asleep after waking. Pushing the orange button had effectively thrown him out of his dream but, Ryoma being Ryoma, was able to fall back into a peaceful sleep easily.
It was nighttime in this dream. The street that he stood on was abnormally dark; there were no streetlights to allow him to figure out where he was. Not that he'd be able to place himself anyway. He was in a completely unfamiliar environment.
Or so he thought. He honestly couldn't say for sure.
He did know that buildings loomed around him. He stood in the middle of an empty street, looking up at a dark sky. He figured that it was probably a new moon. The starlight alone wasn't enough to help him figure out where he was. Not with the buildings stretching and reaching to hide the sky from him.
He sighed, annoyed. He was lost in an unfamiliar city.
"Great."
He walked over and leaned against a building. It would probably be better if he didn't wander around this place aimlessly. God only knew what kind of people he could run into in a place like this. Still, he couldn't just stay here until morning--or whenever he woke.
There was no sense of urgency to move to a specific place like the last few times he'd gotten thrown into this place. He had no idea what to do to kill time until he woke. He couldn't consciously throw himself out of his own dream, now could he?
"Echizen!"
His name being stage-whispered from down the street a ways distracted him from his worries.
"Echizen, is that you? Hey, shorty! Is that you?"
Ryoma sighed. That was Momoshiro's voice. No doubt about it.
He wondered what the older teen was doing in his dream for all of five seconds before remembering that other people on their team had been having shared dreams. With how close Momo-senpai forced them to be, it was reasonable that they'd have one at some point, wasn't it?
He pushed himself away from the cold stone with a groan. That didn't mean that he enjoyed the idea of being stuck with that idiot until he woke, though.
"Yeah, it's me," he whispered loudly. He couldn't say for sure why he was whispering, but being caught in the middle of an empty street at night seemed like a very, very bad idea.
"What are you doing in my dream, Echizen?" Momo's voice grated on Ryoma's nerves.
"I could ask you the same question." The brunet shook his head. "Oishi-senpai and Eiji-senpai had the same thing happen to them, remember?"
Momo looked like this hadn't occurred to him. "Ah. You're right, you're right."
Ryoma sighed again and started walking. He didn't know where he was going, but standing around discussing the strangeness of their shared dream wasn't going to help them any.
They passed by an uncountable number of buildings. Navigating this city was like walking through a maze. No matter how many times they turned, they never made it anywhere recognizable. There were no real landmarks to help orient them. It was just building after building after building. All of them looked exactly the same to the duo.
"Doesn't it seem like we're walking in circles, Echizen?"
"Yeah," he agreed.
Momo was right. Ryoma couldn't be sure, but it definitely looked like they were visiting the places over and over. It was hard to be sure of any location. There weren't even any street signs that he could see. He wondered how the city's residents navigated the place.
A light shone ahead of them and both teens cursed. Ryoma so did not want to get caught out here. His eyes searched frantically for some sort of cover. The only things around them were buildings, buildings, and more buildings. They would offer no shelter unless one of them happened to be unlocked, but Ryoma was not willing to take the chance. It would look even more suspicious if they were caught trying to open a building at night.
He grabbed Momo's hand and motioned behind them. They turned to run, but another light in this direction stopped them in their tracks. Getting caught was inevitable if they hadn't been already.
A third light distracted Ryoma's eyes. It wasn't like the others. This one flickered off and on. Instinctively, he kept count. Three fast, three slow, then another three fast. Then a pause. Then the pattern was repeated. A vague memory surfaced in Ryoma's mind from his time spent in America. Wasn't that the international signal for distress?
Curious, he pulled Momo in that direction. The worst that could happen at this point was that they'd be caught even faster.
He realized as they walked why the third light hadn't been spotted by the other two light-holders: it was down at the end of an alley. How Ryoma hadn't spotted the alley until now was amazing in itself. He cursed the city and its tricky layout.
The alley was narrow and Momo had to follow behind him. He was careful not to lose grip on the other teen's hand. He wasn't sure that idiot Momo would be able to make it through the alley on his own if their hands were separated.
The light stopped, but Ryoma could see the outline of the light holder.
"Yo," he greeted. "Thanks for that."
"No time to talk. Come with me."
What choice did they have? They could either follow this guy, or get caught by what Ryoma was pretty sure were security guards. When weighing the options, the answer was obvious. He really didn't feel like being in jail tonight.
The figure led them to a building. After knocking on the door lightly and whispering a set of numbers way too fast for Ryoma to even recognize at first, the door opened. They were ushered inside faster than they could think about it. His shoes sounded loud on the floor to him, and his eyes refused to adjust. The room just behind the doors was even darker than the streets. In the middle of the room sat a girl on a chair. A light floated behind her.
He could hear noises in the room that made him think there must be people in there, but he couldn't see anyone.
His eyes gave up trying to search out the unseen bodies and instead focused on the girl. He was sure that he'd seen her somewhere before.
He ignored the warning from behind him and approached her. He still couldn't place her face, but he was sure that he'd seen her around before.
"Ah!" she said, surprised. His eyes shot to hers. Had they met before?
"You're the boy from before." Her eyes were wide.
"Hm?"
"The one that I ran into...."
Ryoma racked his brain. He was sure he knew her from somewhere, but he really couldn't place the face.
"You were outside of my house. I talked to you, but you...." She trailed off. She seemed really nervous from the looks of it. For the first time Ryoma wondered why she was sitting in the building in a spotlight. The scene reminded him of an old detective movie he'd seen a long time ago. He wondered if she was being interrogated. If so, what the hell were he and Momo doing there?
An image surfaced. He was outside of a house and a girl with long braided pigtails was there. He'd gone back there later and tried to ask her a few questions, but she wouldn't open the door. He'd left a note.
"Get my letter, pigtails?"
Her eyes widened. So it was her. A smirk stretched across his lips with the realization. "So?"
She nodded, barely. "I have it."
"This here is Momo-senpai."
Said idiot--also grinning--butted in. "So this is your girlfriend, huh?" Never mind how Ryoma tried to protest that she wasn't. The tall brunet bowled forward. "She's cute. Momoshiro Takeshi. You can call me Momo-chan."
"Don't call him that." His eyes narrowed at the grinning idiot. "Momo is fine for him."
Momo turned to the shorter boy. "Why do you have to be like that, Echizen?"
"Be like what?" Ryoma was still glaring. Momo could be genuinely impossible at times.
"Be like that," he repeated as if this explained everything. It didn't.
"U-uhm!" Both eyes turned toward the girl and she visibly shrunk. It both irritated and amused him to see this. "Ryoma?" She said the name slowly, as if testing it. She looked unsure.
"Yeah?" His response was just as slow. She wasn't sure why she was so confused. His name wasn't that unusual. The girl acted like she'd never heard if before in her life. "My name's not that weird, is it?"
"'Scuse this brat," Momo interrupted with a hand on Ryoma's black hair. "He's a little special."
"N-name?!" She visibly paled and turned to look behind her. Ryoma wondered what her eyes were searching out in the darkness. "Ryoma," she whispered, the strange response not answering any of his questions. It was a weird reaction. Had she never heard a name before? He almost laughed with the absurdity of it. How could somebody be her age and not heard of a name?
Footsteps distracted him from his ponderings. "Ryoma?"
The voice was deep and sounded a little too standoffish for his tastes. He looked up when the owner of that voicce stepped into the light. A blond taller than himself looked down at him. "Your name, boy?"
"What of it?" He turned his chin up at the question. This was getting ridiculous.
The other teen made a low thinking noise and turned to motion somebody else over. He whispered something in the brown-haired boy's ear and nodded at an unheard response. The short-haired teen jogged off into the darkness and another boy--this time with silver hair--came over. It made Ryoma wonder just how many people there were in this room.
A sound filled his ears. He wasn't sure what it was, nor where it was coming from, but suddenly, the room was filled with light. It surprised him and he had to bring a hand up to hide his eyes. The abrupt assault was almost blinding. As soon as he was able, he looked around the room. The floor looked unfinished; nothing more than slates on the ground at this point. The room was large. Larger than what he'd thought originally. It looked like the lobby of a hotel or something with the desk at the far end. From where he stood, he could count two doors on the far right; the desk sat on the far left. They were currently in the center at the opposite end. There were a few benches to the left where a few people sat. All in all, he could count 10 people other than Momo and himself.
The brief thought that they'd entered some sort of gang territory rose.
"I am number 88. You're in the presence of the first rebel group. Are you awed?"
Ryoma just barely choked down the urge to laugh. His arrogance was astounding, and he was absolutely serious about it. It was a little frightening.
He managed to compose himself well enough to ask, "Rebel group?"
"Ah? You haven't been watching the reporters, boy?"
Two people entered the room carrying chairs for the three of them. Ryoma nodded his thanks and took a seat, Momo quickly following suit. The one in front of them, number 88, took a moment to position his chair and dust it off before sitting. Ryoma raised an eyebrow at the action.
"I don't watch the news."
Somehow, this seemed to satisfy the other teen. "You should know what is going on in your city, but I won't blame you for not knowing." He leaned forward as if indulging them in some sort of secret. "We are the group that will bring down Number One."
This greatly confused Ryoma, but he thought it smart to play along; he'd likely get more information that way. He just hoped that Momo was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. "Oh? You really think you can?"
Number 88 smirked. "No." He sat back up, his back straight and proud. "I know we're going to."
He crossed a leg over the other before continuing, "And I know that you're going to help us."
Momo jumped up at this. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't want nothing to do with this. Nothing at all! Right, Echizen?"
Ryoma glanced over at Momo, glad that he hadn't blown their cover. There were a number of things he could have said instead. Either he'd caught on, or it was pure luck that he hadn't chosen something stupid. Either way, Ryoma was glad.
"I think we should hear him out. Could be interesting. What are you rebelling against?"