Welcome to Gaia! ::

After hearing the rest of the group leave Zolx sat up. His back was fine now, thought the same could not be said for his clothes. He tore of the torso part of his robe and as it was a mess and soaked blood, it had no back from where the thorns and exited. He looked behind him and saw Mikka still lying on the ground.
Zolx stood up walked over to her. After making sure she wasn't falling out of anything he gingerly picked her up. He paused, she was lighter than he remembered. He looked up to the garden, he could hear Akiko chattering away about fruit of some sort. He wondered if anyone would mention what had happened during the last battle. Despite his complete and total lack of effectiveness against the demon, he had show a side of him that he'd hoped to keep to himself. He debated on whether to he should go into the garden or not.
He strolled into the garden without really deciding and leaned Mikka against the tree. He gave her a little shake, hoping to wake her up. Sugar crashes did keep her out for a while, but he didn't feel like trying to interact with anyone else just yet.

Akiko looked over at Zolx and Mika. She felt as if she should say something to help out instead of blithely choosing to ignore their situation. Actually, she was ignoring the whole group's troubles insensitively and instead blathering on cheerfully about nothing.

Well, that was what she did best, Akiko guessed. Finally giving into her weariness, she collapsed onto the grass and laid there, looking at the bright, nondescript sky. As an afterthought she grabbed a fruit nearby that had fallen and started to eat that one, as well. It really was delicious.

Suddenly she sat bolt upright, clutching her stomach and grimacing. Ugh...that's what she got for impulsivity. Of course, it was just an upset stomach, she'd be okay.

Sighing, Akiko threw the half-eaten fruit far away from her and thudded back down, scowling at its betrayal.

Closing her eyes against the sunlight, she heard a voice, clear and defined, in her head.

"So you're here. Well, then, time to go."

She sat up yet again, looking around curiously, not scared in the least, but merely wondering. "Hello?" she called out tentatively.

Mika's eyes shot open, if she hadn't been truly awake before, she certainly was now. And worse still, HE was touching her. The audacity of that lout!

"Release me at once."

Zolx Smirked, there was the Mikka he knew and loathed. He let go and stood back up, then looked over at Riku as he ranted at Akiko. He looked up at the tree and the fruit. It there wasn't much to say about it other than the fact that it was very old and very... tree like. The fruit itself seemed to be the exact image you got in your head when you though of the word. it was large, round, and a pale creamy yellow. He then looked around for other trees and spotted on a bit more eye catching. It was willowy, had dark thick bark, and the ground beneath it was the only place where no flowers were incorporated into the grass. The leafs were a deep purple and the fruit looked something similar to a pomegranate. Neither of these had apples obviously, so Zolx decided to go for walk. He tossed a crunch bar Mikka's way and motioned for her to follow.

Akiko went wide-eyed and sat up yet again at Riku’s outburst. His outburst at her. Immediately she went into defense mode while inside her emotions exploded.

“I’m sorry…I didn’t know…I didn’t think…”

That was right. She never thought. But…

Akiko lowered her voice to a low murmur but still spoke angrily. “What could happen? It’s not like we’re disobeying any rules or anything, and the worst that could happen is that…I dunno, I live forever or something. I already know the difference between good and evil, thank you very much, so I don’t really see a problem there. And Mika’s right, wasn’t it an apple on those trees? So…I think I’m going to be fine.”

She silently thanked Mika for sticking up for her, but the exhaustion, stomachache, and hurt over being reprimanded when she hadn’t meant to do anything wrong overwhelmed her.

And there was the voice again…good-naturedly impatient now.

“Well, what are you waiting for? There’s no time to waste! Let’s go, now, quickly! What, are you going alone? I thought you were going to bring your friends with you.”

Akiko scowled, bringing her knees up to her chest, and muttered, “Shut up…” She wasn’t in the mood to deal with more things she couldn’t understand.

“Well, you’re all certainly in a mood, aren’t you? Sadly, you’re just going to have to get over it. You’re not done yet! Now quickly, we don’t have all day, we don’t even have an hour, now let’s go, quickly now! Step right on through, it’s right there in front of your face, since you’re being so difficult. Come on, come on now!”

Akiko looked up and was surprised to see a very familiar-looking portal right in the middle of the group. Apparently it wasn’t just limited to Organization XIII members’ use.

She looked around at the group and sighed. This doesn’t really look like a good time to be moving on… she thought hesitantly.

“It can’t be helped. Now hurry!”

She shook her head. They probably wouldn’t want to listen to her now, but…

“Guys,” she murmured, “I think we need to go…”

Kairi nodded and slowly got to her feet, her headache subsiding.

there was a time when Mika really liked Riku, in fact, she still thought him to be rather attractive. But he was really pissing her off. Had he always been such a depressingly negative jerk?

Granted that freaky talking rat had died, and he'd been abit important, but jeez!

"How is jumping into liquid darkness safe?" she asked no one in particular, leaning forward and tempted to poke the swirling angry mass.

"I didn't say I wouldn't mind living forever..." Akiko muttered to herself. Her anger flared up briefly again, but died just as quickly, so she merely looked from the remaining people back to the portal, not wanting to go alone.

Well, everyone seemed ready, though Kairi still looked a little worn out. However, it was Kiante that Akiko worried most about bothering.

She walked cautiously over, and ventured, "We're...apparently not finished yet with whatever we were supposed to do. We're supposed to go through this portal..." She pointed, and then remembered who she was talking to. "Um, that is, if you're ready to go, I think it's kind of urgent..."

All the time she thought, He's not ready. But what am I supposed to do? Hopefully I'm not being a jerk...