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Rydel wasn’t sure if Seven was upset about being called crazy at the graveyard. If she was, she wasn’t showing it, but she was certainly retaliating somehow if she was leading him right to the Back Alleys! She was just asking for trouble now! And yet she walked, unflinching as they left normal civilization behind and entered into the shady part of the city. Rydel could only attempt to stop her every now and then, and go completely ignored.

“You know I’m not usually the questioning kind, Seven, but…are you sure this is a good idea?” He asked.
“It’s nice and empty.” She answered, not even looking back.
“With convicts hiding in every corner, just waiting to jump out and ravage us both…”
“That’s why it’s perfect.”
“I-I’m not sure I follow your logic.”

They reached a particularly deserted area—not that this place wasn’t already deserted—and she stopped. She turned around, fluffing her mass of pink hair as she did so, and smiled at him.

“Transform for me, okay?” She requested innocently.
“W-What? Why on earth do you want me to-“
“I wanna spin you a little.”
“B-But I don’t want to spin…not here, anyhow!”
“Oh come on, a little spinning never hurt anybody.”
“Easy for you to say!”
“Aw, but I’ll be gentle this time! You’ll like it.”
“….”
“Just a little fun. Then we can go home.”
“…Fine. But don’t bash me against anything.”
“Yaaaaay!”

Seven put her hands on Rydel’s shoulders to keep the blade from falling over once he’d transformed. It a moment, he’d gone from a skinny British teenager to a metal ring with multiple jagged edges along the sides for cutting. And Seven wasted no time tossing him into the air, catching the blade on her wrist as it came down, and moving her wrist in a circular pattern to start it spinning. It got faster and faster, making a ‘whirr’ sound reminiscent of a chainsaw revving up once it got to a certain speed. She stuck her hand in the air, allowing the ring to fall from her wrist to her hips, where she attempted to use it like an actual hula hoop.

This used to be impossible. She remembered when she’d first met Rydel, and he’d first shown her his weapon form. She’d actually chosen him as her weapon long before she had any idea what he was, but it didn’t change the fact that she’d had absolutely no idea how to operate a ringblade. She’d never seen one before in her life. Granted, she was about ten at the time, but still. What the heck do you do with a bladed hula hoop….? And they were so out of synch before too. She couldn’t even lift him, let alone attack! She’d resorted to just flapping him around in various directions like a big, sharp flyswatter. And needless to say, he hadn’t liked that much. The way he told it, it felt like being smack square in the face with a leather belt. It had taken months and months to even fix the weight problem. The acrobatics came later. She’d always been something of a showoff, and she’d always been rather bendy as well, and so once it became easy to hold her partner, the weapon’s shape had made it easy to incorporate her flips and spins into their combat style. Before long, it had developed into this stylized method of swinging the blade around various parts of her body and spinning it like a disk. After that, cutting enemies was a breeze. The trick was to just keep moving, and keep him spinning no matter what. Thank goodness Rydel didn’t get sick easily.

It had taken six whole years to get to this level. They worked together like a well-oiled machine as far as she was concerned. He was light as a feather. The trouble was that they still weren’t perfect! To the untrained eye, this was a flawless display of control. It looked effortless if you didn’t know how much Seven’s arms hurt right now after having accidentally cut herself moving the weapon from one wrist to the other, or how disoriented and dizzy Rydel was going to be after she was finished. Oh, perfection just kept eluding them! There were still so many problems to face, so many things that needed to be done! It made Seven so incredibly angry to think about it. Six years together, why were they not perfect? The students here had only just met each other, and they’d been friends forever…

“A little slower, will you? That’s making me nauseous.” Said a voice from seemingly nowhere that she could easily recognize as he parter’s.

“Alright.” She said, and she slowed down as promised.
“I was hoping someone would attack us, actually. We need the practice if we’re going to go to school tomorrow. And we need souls if we’re ever going to move up a rank.”

We need education too. We’re strong, yes, but we don’t actually know a lot about what we’re doing.

“That’s why you’re British. You’re supposed to sound smart even when you don’t have any idea what anyone’s taking about.”

She thought she heard him laugh a little at that, but maybe not. It was hard to tell when you’re attempting to have a conversation and put on an acrobatics demonstration at the same time. She just kept on practicing, switching the blade from her now-bleeding wrist, to an ankle, to her other wrist, to her hips again, to both wrists…

And on, and on.

Seven stopped in mid twirl. She froze in place, allowing the ringblade to stop spinning and settle on her shoulder. Which was harder than it looked, by the way, given its size. She held it in place with her hand, staring blankly out into the distance while still frozen in that last battle pose as if she’d heard some horrible danger approaching…

Why are we stopping?

With frightening seriousness, she responded;
“Something lucky this way comes.”

A bright green glow came off the ringblade, and it transformed back into Rydel. And he looked surprisingly content for someone who had a moment ago been flying around in circles at warp speed. His hair was a bit messed up, though. He frowned and corrected it by pushing it out of his eyes.
“Funny. I thought I heard opera references.”

Seven was at this point looking around feverishly like some hungry animal, peeking into every nook and cranny of every building in her search for whatever had triggered that ‘lucky’ sense of hers.
“I can smell it. I can smell the luck. It smells like coconut and potato-cakes. And…lavender shampoo.”

She searched for another moment, then grabbed Rydel by the upper arm and yanked him farther into the street. There were two people coming. A girl and a boy, just taking to each other. Seven grinned like a Cheshire Cat.
“Lookit, lookit! I was right. Duo coming up on the left. Big tall guy, munchkin girl. Lets intro.”
“Intro…?”
“Yes, yes, intro! As in the intro thing! That thing I wanted to do!”
“Seven, I don’t know any intro th-“
“Follow my lead.”

A second passed before Seven jumped out from behind the building so that she would be only a few feet from the two pedestrians. She did this in a way reminiscent to that of a showgirl, with both arms up in some flashy pose and an enormous—and somewhat intimidating—smile painted on her features.
“Helloooooo, citizens of Death City!” She cried. A second passed. Another second.
“Rydel!” She hissed through her teeth.

“I’m not doing it.” Said the voice of her partner, who had wisely chosen to remain hidden behind that building. She responded by reaching over, grabbing his arm again, and pulling him into her much like a rag doll, keeping that smile intact the entire time.