Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rivera found herself in the hospital again... the white, dreaded place they took people who were hurt to be treated. She hated it with a passion... it was so crisp and clean it reminded her of the insane asylum those... people... confined her in within her first few memories. The pain and fear of those moments would haunt her whenever she entered anything called a 'hospital'. She looked for the front desk... no healer seemed able to treat her wounds from the previous startest because her chaotic self repelled anything thrown at it. The doctors resorted to surgery because of her conditions... She already had one last week. She was to have another today so they could fully repair her heart and get it working to maximum capacity again... not that maximum capacity was much to start with. Usagihana was already at the front desk, taking care of her paper work. She felt the ultimate fear for the first time in her memory, gripping her in a visce grasp... Automatically, she squeezed Kira's hand lightly for comfort. He would always be there when she needed him.

She barely heard Kira's voice, and she couldn't answer. Fear constricted her throat tightly. Both of her eyes were in the most reflective silver shade they every displayed... expressing a pure terror of what is to come. Usagihana jumped off the desk and walked to them.

"I've checked you in. You will need to change into a hospital gown in room 108. They will have a wheel chair to take you to operation."

Rivera only nodded. Normally she would've protested the chair in her calm and decicive serenity... but she couldn't find a voice to protest it now. All she could do was follow the android towards her given room.

Rivera found herself again. Turning to Kira, she managed a small smile, the special one that she reserved for him and him alone. "Thank you... I love you..." Usagihana opened the room by jumping on the knob and swinging the door in with her weight. Clambering off, she pushed the door apart further.

"Ki-kun, do you mind waiting outside for a while?" Without waiting for an answer, Usagihana slammed the door shut again, leaving Kira outside alone. Rivera picked up the gown folded on the hospital bed.. it smelled too clean and was much too organized. There was almost no chaotic energy on it... disturbing, yet compelling. She took off her clothes... first her jacket and t-shirt, then her jeans and platforms. Almost half of her body was covered in bandages, here and there. What wasn't still bore the old scars. There were strange lashes and gouges down her back, old markings peeking through the dressing around her chest. She slid into the gown and tied it securely. Usagihana pushed a wheel chair out from the closet and motioned for Rivera to sit.

Rivera obeyed, but not without annoyance... a spark of defiance under her fear. "Renerva... jontyure." She spoke the command that allowed the driving mechanisms built into the arm of her chair to release wires, snapping into her arm so she could control the chair on her own.



At the same time. Loud footsteps could be heard charging up the steps and into the hall. A ridiculously tall, silver-white haired young man of sixteen or seventeen skidded to a stop in front of room 108. Leaning against the wall, he caught his breath. Kai had ran all over campus that day, doing errands... before Usagihana texted his phone and he dropped everything to run across the enormous campus to the hospital... from the other side of the lake off campus. Straightening, he saw that Kira was there.

"Hey, nice to see you... did... did they take her into operation yet?" He breathed heavily still, his two blue dragon eyes filled with worry for his charge. Rivera had been like his little sister. He was the one that felt responsible for taking care of her... but sometimes, he felt that she was the taking care of him.

The door opened and Rivera stopped the wheelchair right outside the door. She looked up, surprised. "Hello, Kai... did Usagi...?"

"Yeah." He sighed. "Ran all the way from Crystal Moon Lake..." Before he could finish speaking, a few doctors and nurses came by, gabbled like geese in words so fast and complex no one really quite understood them, and took full charge of Rivera's chair.

Usagihana walked a few steps, then turned her head. "Well... what are you waiting for? Aren't you going to follow her? Kya... Oh yeah... new rules state no visitors in operation... kyu...!"

Kai sighed and sat down on a waiting room bench. For someone his height, the bench seemed a little too small. His long legs didn't quite fit much between the rows of benches that looked much like church pews. Usagihana jumped into his lap and he stroked her ears, making her purr like a cat. He didn't think it could come down to this operation. The doctors here weren't completely adept in advanced heart surgery, since only about one out of several thousand people couldn't be healed by simple sorcery. Despite the technology level of the facility, Rivera was different. There was something that was forbidden to Rivera's own knowledge which he knew fully... that even if he told her, she would refuse to believe it and shut herself away from the truth, because she was truely afraid of losing what she already had. Change to her meant loss. He didn't want her to feel that way.

"You know, there really isn't need for you to worry so much. Rivera and Usagi-san here, they both have their percentages and their chances, but there's something Rivera doesn't know about..." he began to speak to Kira. His voice didn't have the same whispering quality as Rivera's. Kai was strong enough to speak above water. He wasn't the one frozen in time in a stone coffin filled with water. "Rivera and I... we've been best friends since we were little children, a long time ago..." His sapphire blue eyes shone softly with its own sort of life, a little like Rivera's own dragon eye, which had a different aural presence than the rest of her. They showed that he was reminiscing and somewhat regretting an event in the past.

"She bailed me out a few times, even though I was older. Like a little sister..." He smiled a little at the memory. It had been a long time ago on the streets of the marketplace. Although he trained to be a palace guard, he had still been a timid child who tried not to fight. Rivera didn't make a difference between war and peace. For her, violence was usually the answer.

"Did you know that 'Rivencaira' isn't Rivera's real name?" He asked, "I gave her that name because she asked for a new beginning and a new meaning for her spells... She doesn't understand that it has a double meaning. Usagi-san, don't tell Rivera about this. I don't want her to get any more reckless than she already is. Clover and Androtech Inc. is complaining about her medical bills."

"Usagihana won't say a thing!" The android said in her most sincere voice. Her tail swung back and forth, every swing whizzing mechanically. "Everything said here will be kept under Kai's voice recognition access!"

Kai smiled. "Originally, Rivencaira was the name of my younger sister. She died in an epidemic a year before I met Rivera. Rivencaira means 'Fortress over waters'. Aeryazure means 'blue air', an Atlantean term meaning the atmosphere before and after a storm. Capella'acqu wasn't part of the name I gave her. That's her status as high priestess, inherited from her late elder sister." He took a breath thinking over how he should deliver this message. "The book that Rivera found in the library called the Aquarian Ages was written by an Oracle, a person who can read the future with ease. This oracle was the Atlantean scribe who foresaw the doom of Atlantis and recorded the events twelve years before the sinking of the city." Kai leant back against the chair, trying to remember the exact words of the exerted text.

"Each chapter was named uniquely and strangely by single words from mathematical functions and astronomical terms. There was a particular chapter that said this:

The firmer the stones, the stronger the current. The stronger the current, the firmer the stones. The circle never ends, but as one weakens, one strengthens. The inevitable is truly duo destruction, yet the inevitable is a proven impossibility in itself. So these stones and waters would be frozen to stand and crumble for all eternity, undecided to their own survival but driven to success by ambition in the coming storm. This storm is their rivalry, yet it is a rivalry against oneself. The opposing confliction strengthens their bond and both walls and graveled banks stand strong. In this never ending cycle, there is weakening, yet no dying. In this never ending cycle, death is born and birth is dead. "

He stopped, "Deep, isn't it? I must be boring you by now... Getting to the point. Since the time Rivera received her new name, she had bound the meaning of her name and all its history to her spells habitually, to strengthen every incantation. That's good that she doesn't know the double meaning, or else none of her spells would have any effect anymore and we'd have to give her a new name with a secret double meaning."

Usagihana tapped his knee impatiently, "You've been rambling for almost four minutes straight. Will you please just get to the point you bookworm?"

Kai nodded, "Fine. The text was from a chapter called 'infinity'. Although I'm not the one binding this name, I gave her the name knowing fully what it could mean for her. Ultimately, it gave me the power to ensure for her something that was ensured to me by the Oracle who named me... If you're still confused, it just means that I froze her life, or her death, in whatever way you see it in the last part of that exert.

I made her nearly immortal. She won't die in the operation unless if all her bodily functions stop at the same time. But the time it'll take her to recover could range from a few days to a few years depending on the situation."

Kai sighed. "Androtech and Clover are robotics industries. Don't tell Rivera about this either. They brought Rivera back to life as a cyborg... except her mechanical organs are so much like real ones, one one's been able to tell them apart. They sponsor her to get her out of the way of the government. She isn't supposed to believe that she's a cyborg. The second part, well... you can't tell her belief in the meaning of her name will change. It would render every single one of her spells useless. It'll shatter her mental suspension and she'll lock herself up and ultimately lose grips of her soul and pine away." It was so simple to let it roll of his tongue, but so hard to actually think about it.

((Ki-kun... that's considered a one liner... please lengthen it one more line... sweatdrop I don't wanna put a warning on you if you make a wrong step a second time...))

Kai nodded and let Kira take his time. After several moments, he decided to speak again. "She isn't a shadow of the past... we were both frozen in time... her in her tomb, I to guard her tomb... think of it as cutting off our lives on the timeline and taping the rest of it to now. Just picking up where it left off. I'm still about 17 and she's still about 14 or 15... who knows how old we really are..."

He waited for another few seconds before picking back up, "You know... you're pretty lucky to have her fall in love with you in such a short time. You two were probably meant for each other... back when we were children, she used to hate almost everyone and everything they did."

"Well... Rivera's like my little sister. I wouldn't try anything on her." Kai said simply. He noticed that Kira was acting very stranglely. "Usagihana, can you please check Kira's life support?" There was a bleeping from the android. Usagihana's ears stood up as she picked up the waves.

"Everything's fine... mental support is fluctuating though, and blood pressure is unusually high." Usagi looked up into Kira's face, "Keep your emotions down a little. I would rather you not raid the bloodbanks here."

Usagihana sighed. "I knew it... Kai, go and get the blood. If I leave you alone, he'll probably drink yours and get even sicker... Atlanteans..." Kai didn't show any signs of protest or feeling insult. He just stood up and went to get the blood. His long legs carried him at a speed nearly as fast as Rivera's combat motives. They were built alike, though he had more strength and she had more speed. It was easy for him to find the room with the blood. It was marked with a red raindrop sign on the door. Picking the lock was the work of a moment for him. It was a specialty he seldom used anymore, but still often practiced. Dashing back towards the waiting room, he hoped Kira hadn't found a victim yet.