"Yeah, it is," the taller of the two responded, adjusting the last picture and dropping down onto her bed. Clothing could wait until tonight; it wasn't like she was going to be getting changed any time soon, "Think we'll end up getting a place together? We need to stay closer than normal..."

One of the downsides of the intricacy of their partnership was how reliant Yuri found herself on it. Not as much of a problem when they shared a room and went to the same classes but when the time came to move into the wider world... well, that was a bridge to cross when they got nearer to the end of the year. For now, she was just going to lie back and not head until that check-in until the last possible moment.

---

"Mmm," the odd girl said, saving her breath and not really giving much of an answer; it wasn't like she was unaware of how long she could stretch out a simple 'okay'. Better to save her breath and arrange her companions the same way as at home, a task requiring a rather bizarre amount of focus: rather than memorise the pattern, she just kept the rules. Though the end result looked random, it was simply a quirk of sorting them by theme--based on the literary genre each would correspond to, then arranged by size. The result, with the homemade outfits, was rather confusing when you got police bunched next to a madman and a strangely bat-festooned outfit.

Retcon powers activate!



Sean took one look at the list, and immediately took the path of least resistance.
"Rozmonda Arensdorf" he shouted, sticking his arm into the air. "Calling Rozmonda Arensdorf! Sean McAster to Rozmonda Arensdorf!" He began walking through the crowd, searching for his partner.

---

"Oh no. Oh no, it's happening..." Mari sighed, shaking her head as the list of names flashed brightly overhead, lording over the students (as it should); the cacophony that was every pair trying to find one another than soon followed made her instinctively shrink back. That was only temporary, though, as her ears got used to the blaring noise reminiscent to that of a concert (or so she assumed; she'd never been to one, but she'd seen enough online to assume). The listing seemed to be organized by the names of the Tuners, which meant that it would end up being more of a hassle to hunt for her partner that it would him... Or her... Well, whatever worked.

With that in mind, Mari quietly moved to the back of the room and... Well, waited. It'd be much easier to find her partner (and vice versa) if the rowdy ones did their jobs first. Granted, it'd take a bit longer this way, but if it meant not having to shove her way through this sea of people...

Determined to be more dignified that running around and shouting, Kagura searched for her partner more quietly. At last she spotted a girl with short, dark hair whose face actually matched the picture of her partner. She had withdrawn from the main riot to the back of the room, and so Kagura push through the crowd, mummurring apologies as she went.
"Hello? Kougami Mari? My name is Akeya Kagura, I believe we are partners. Pleased to meet you." Kagura said with a small bow when she finally reached the girl.

>world line shift!



The girl who presented herself in front Mari seemed to be dignified enough to her; that clean-cut traditional atmosphere that she seemed to emanate seemed to scream 'yamato nadeshiko' to her. It was... Admittedly rare for this day and age, and so Mari took a moment to figure out the best way to respond in turn. Glancing at the monitors above her head for a moment to confirm Kagura's statement (which just so happened to be correct, thankfully enough), Mari cleared her throat and bowed in turn.

"Akeya Kagura? It's a pleasure to meet you." Mari responded in turn before standing upright again, tossing a few glances around the room to note how most of the crowd had dissipated by this point in time. "I'm in your care."

With this statement, Mari took a moment to note all the little things here and there that might give away any semblance of a facade from her. Was there anything to show that it was an act? Tone of speech? Subtle movements? Hopefully, she was simply overthinking things, but... It never hurt to be sure.

Kagura was internally relieved at Ms. Kougami's pleasant response. Maybe she had been worried over nothing?
"Please, call me Kagura, Ms. Kougami. Would you mind if we headed to our room now? Its rather loud in here."

Having found nothing out-of-place by her partner's demeanor, Mari let herself relax and nodded in turn. It would do no good for her to be so worked up, and even worse if she picked up on her earlier wariness.

"If that's really okay with you..." Mari trailed off, nodding at her newfound partner's openness to her. She had expected a more condescending person, to be quite honest, but this was perfectly fine with her.

"Then Kagura it is. And yes, I think that returning to our rooms would probably save us some headache. I have to say, though, that I don't particularly know the way, so unless you do, we might accidentally... Get lost if we're not paying attention."

Well, bluntness worked. Though it was more a test of competence than anything, Mari hoped that Kagura would provide some spark of intrigue to her in the near future. This was just the first step, yes, but it was certainly better than nothing.

"Of course, I don't mind at all." Kagura assured her partner. "And, um," she said, starting to fiddle with her fingers, "if you don't mind either, may I call you Mari, Ms. Kougami?" Kagura bit her lip, hoping she wasn't being too forward. "And yes, I have a map, so I know the way. Now where did I put it?" Kagura started digging through her bag as she awaited Ms. Kougami's response.

"...Ah?"

Though he should have seen it coming, Kagura's question caught Mari off-guard. 'Of course she would ask that!' Mari scolded herself internally before nodding in agreement towards her partner.

"Though I feel it's a bit sudden for the usual formalities to be tossed away so quickly, that suggestion is fine. In truth, I still feel a bit apprehensive about referring to you by a first-name basis, but..." she trailed off before shaking her head.

"No, it's fine. And if you have a map, then the problem may as well not exist."

Kagura's preparedness was, at least to some degree, relaxing to Mari. She had seen many a student without any items on their person, which, in all honesty, could quite easily backfire. Though her partner's reaction was relatively normal, Mari made sure to not judge any further than from what had been 'given' to her, so to speak. Life was always full of surprises, after all...

Kagura went rigid.

Shit. Shitshitshitshitshit! SHIT!

She'd screwed it up. She'd screwed up big time. She'd been way too forward, and now Ms. Kougami was uncomfortable with her.

"No, no, its not fine; I'm so terribly sorry." Kagura said, bowing deeply. "Please, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, by all means refer to me however you please, and I will refer to you in whatever way you feel the most comfortable with! I'm so very sorry, please forgive my rudeness." Kagura pleaded while continuing to dig for the map.

Kagura's immediate... Well, groveling... Was... Quite... Sudden, if anything. Certainly not the reaction Mari had expected. No, certainly not. Of all the ways to react, freaking out and bending her back to her own will...?
Was there something that happened in this girl's childhood that could've messed with her that badly to cause this? A byproduct of her personality? Something entirely different?

Well, either way, she had to diffuse the situation fast, before her partner had a complete nervous breakdown.

"N-nonono. it's fine, it's fine. You don't have to go out of your way to accommodate me, after all. It wouldn't sit well with me." Mari said quickly shaking her head in disapproval. "But, honestly, there's no need to act the way you are right now. I just suggested that we let the relationship develop naturally than force i-"

...
Oh.
Well.
That statement might have been a mistake.

Kagura blushed traffic light red. S-so it was like that. Well, Ms. Kougami was kind of cute, even if she wasn't exactly her type...No! She needed to respond, before this became unbearably awkward!

"Um, uh, well, that's fine. I-I wasn't really...I was looking forward to having a good relationship with my partner, but...I didn't think...I don't mind, girls are fine too...and having a relationship develop naturally regardless of its intimacy is good...its just...um...I look forward to getting to know you, Mari!" Kagura blurted out, finally managing coherency. "A-ah! Here's the map!" she said, pulling the sought-after piece of paper out of her bag. "We should head to our room now!"

There was a brief pause.

"To unpack! To unpack our things!" Kagura clarified.

Getting a place together... wow, that was something Chie had never thought about before, she had to be honest. But it was true. Yuri relied on her abilities a lot more then the average Tuner did. She did know that the school tended to strongly push for graduates to live near one another. After all, the bond forged in the Academy was intended to be something lifelong. It was built to give them someone they trusted and knew well to be an outlet for their abilities, in a Receiver's case, or who allows them to use their abilities, in a Tuner's case. But this time... well, Chie was the reason Yuri had arms.

"... I guess I never thought about that before," she said, mostly to herself. After a few minutes of idle silence, Chie realized that there was another matter at hand. Leaning forward, one finger prodded Yuri's cheek.

"Don't go falling asleep on me. We still have things to do today."

Not long after Nobuhiko led James on this wild-romp through the campus, guided by the handy signs posted all around, the two finally arrived in front of their designated dormitory room. He'd proved himself to be useful and not at all useless to his partner. Mission accomplished, sort of. There was still that language barrier, but he was in the convenient position of being the one with the language the other needed to learn. I guess he could add 'tutored foreigner in Japanese' to his university resu- Wait no, he'd have to attend university courses here too, right? Whatever the case, at least something to work on.

"Settle in first? Sure," Nobuhiko replied, grabbing his luggage (Which was placed conveniently right in front of their dorm. He'd have to thank the staff for that later), letting go of passenger, and popping open the door to the dorm, "Not really a fan of formalities anyway."

He stepped into the dorm and took a quick look around the place. Two bathrooms, two beds, a kitchen, and desks and drawers. Nobuhiko didn't quite know what he expected, but the furniture and such was still way more modern-looking than his bedroom back in Nagoya. He rolled his luggage over to the side of one bed and began unpacking. He'd mostly packed necessities like clothes, toiletries, shounen manga (which he discretely kept inside the baggage; wouldn't want his partner to think he was a little kid or something) and stuff like that, as well as a laptop and a pencilcase full of standard school supplies.

At any rate, he only finished 'settling in' once he'd organized all his stuff in his drawers, desk, and space-underneath-the-bed. It didn't take too long, given his considerable housekeeping skills. "S...o...," Nobuhiko began rather awkwardly, kicking his feet along the edge of the bed, "Formalities. We should... do that."

Michi reeled back, wincing at the abrupt pain. Did... did she just get hit? "What was that for!?" She shouted in protest, ready to give this uppity brat a peace of her mind. However, before she got the chance, Rika continued talking to her in an annoyed tone.

Okay, so maybe assuming her partner was a kid from her size alone was a bit presumptious. But this girl's attitude was grating on her nerves. This definitely was going to be a long school year. How did they expect her and this uptight shorty to ever be compatible as partners?

"Kh..." Michi grounded her teeth together, biting back any rude words that wanted to come out, "Fine, whatever you say."

The taller girl shoved her hands into her pockets and let Rika lead the way to their dorm. She'd comply with these ridiculous commands for now, if only to keep from causing a big scene. She really hoped Naoki was having better luck with his partner.

---

Once again Naoki was struck by how interesting his partner turned out to be. It wasn't often you saw someone cry actual tears of happiness. He could tell. They were going to be great friends!

"Alright!" He pumped a fist into the air, "Lets start operation be the best partners ever to eachother! First off, find our dorm!"

To say the least, Naoki was just as stange as his partner and shared just as much of her enthusiasm. Cheerfully, he began to lead the two of them out the room. Of course, he didn't exactly remember where the dorms were. But oh well, they'd stumble upon them eventually! Especially if they didn't give up!

It wasn't long until they arrived at their dorm, Rika in quite the huff the entire time as she went. Seriously, mistaking her for a little girl like that...! The dorm, upon their arrival, was at least rather nice. Two beds, two bathrooms, an assortment of furniture, even a small kitchen and a fridge... these were far better than Rika had been expecting. She strutted towards the beds, inspecting them closely as she did, before glancing back at her partner.

"It doesn't matter what bed you take, they're the same," she said, simply. Of course, the implication was that if there was a different, Rika would take the better bed. Didn't that make sense, after all? She would be the one fighting. Naturally, this meant she'd need the more restful, comfortable bed if there was any difference.

Along with the built-in fixtures, both girl's luggage had also arrived. Rika's was separated into multiple, multi-colored suitcases. Among them was a long, wooden box, which was the one that Rika was first to open.

"Hmph, they better not have done anything stupid," she said to herself, drawing what was unmistakably a sheathed katana from the box. It slide smoothly out, the blade gleaming. "... Good. I'll need somewhere to put this."

The release from Akiya's grip led James to inadvertently glance at the mark left upon his hand. His partner certainly had... Some arm strength, to say the least. It was a tad disconcerting, being dragged along like a rag doll... But, in the end, no harm, no foul, right?

The presence of his luggage in front of the door was a great boon; he'd have had half a mind to punch something or someone if he'd have to walk all the way back to his former hotel room to pick up all his crap. A quick check was all he needed to ascertain that everything was in place; clothing, cell charger, some emergency snacks, a laptop...

And the violin. Right. He forgot he had brought that along, and the reason for doing so along with it. It was a timekiller, yes, but would he have time to kill in between bootleg Japanese lessons, combat training, regular classes, and all the other crap that there was here?

Closing up all the cases and bags, James rapidly brought all of his goods inside the dorm room, which proved to be much easier said than done. Finding a way to arrange everything to take up the least amount of space would be miserably annoying, to say the least.

Akiya's next comment pulled James' attention away from that dilemma, however, and led him to nod in return before taking his own bed, which was... Well, more comfortable than he had expected.

"Right. Well, as you know, I'm James Zhen. Age 16, came all the way from the US. Hobbies are... Well, actually, I don't have many hobbies. Kinda got forced into the usual rigorous lifestyle that you get tossed into when you're the child of Asian parents... You know?" he stated in turn as he began to move his things around and start to unpack. "Forced into violin-playing aside, I guess I hung out at internet cafes a lot and played games there. Usually under the pretense of staying at school for extra work, but hey, what works, works, right?"

---

Aaand there it was. Geez, she really should've seen that coming a mile away. Sighing, Mari brought her right hand up to her forehead and, sighing, shook her head in disapproval. Having those words not be misconstrued was just asking for trouble. Her fault, everyone's loss.

"There are... So many ways I could retort right now, but I think it'd just be best if we headed back for now. You're misinterpreting my statement; I'll say that much, at least," Mari responded, glancing at the map in Kagura's hands.

Mari's formerly-polite facade was slowly being replaced by exasperation, little by little. So, what did she know about her new partner so far...?

• Tries extraordinarily hard to make nice, up to a fault.
• Is probably the type to be prepared for possible problems.
• Might be awkward to sleep in the same room for the first few nights or so because of this exchange.

...
Oh yeah. Definitely going to be interesting... And not in the way she'd have preferred.

"In any case, let's go before we start gathering any strange looks from people. If you would."

Kagura took a breath to apologize-

Do.
Not.
Panic.
Panicing is what lead to this situation.

-kept inhaling-

Don't.
Freak.
Out.
Be calm.

-hit lung capacity-

Panic bad.
Calm good.

-and slowly exhaled.

"I see." she said awkwardly, wringing her hands and looking at the ground. "I'm...terribly sorry. I'm just high strung today, I assure you I'm not usually...like that." She shuffled her feet. "But yes, it would be best if we headed to our room now. Um, this way." Kagura said, unfolding the map.

"No... Yes... Kinda," Nobuhiko uneasily spoke out, answering James' rhetorical question about Asian parents in a vague, hardly-useful manner, "My parents are nice, but I don't have many average hobbies." He left the rest of it unsaid to let James continue on with his introduction. After all, Nobuhiko could easily wait a bit more time for his turn before explaining about what he meant by that. At any rate, he could cross that bridge when it came to it; right now, he was attentively listening to his partner's exposition."That's neat though. It might be hard but at least you learned something," he chirped, "I don't know any instruments but it looks like hard work." That remark said, he kept quiet and let James finish up his intro. While he couldn't really endorse lying to your parents, he supposed he could understand the reason behind it. Having time to chill out and relax was essential for a healthy lifestyle, so he heard. "What works, works," he agreed with a nod.

Now, he figured, it was his turn to speak. "Akiya Nobuhiko, also 16, but from Japan," he began. So far so good; he hadn't said anything really weird or awkwardly personal or anything. "Specifically Nagoya, but that's not really important," he continued, "Before, I said something about less-than-average hobbies right? What I meant by that was that I usually just go around the neighborhood helping people out and volunteering and stuff. That's, ah, my 'hobby'." It took a brief moment to realize that might make him seem like a square, which he was, but he didn't want to be seen as some humorless square. "Context is... basically I wanted to give back to the community and use my time to pick up skills... and pad out my university resume, but that was before I learned all about this." He gestured around the room. "I also like reading manga. Or comic books, as you Westerners might say," he added after a few brief moments.

James nodded his head, vaguely catching words here and there that made some semblance of sense to him. So long as the understanding was somewhat mutual, he didn't see any problems with what was being said. And hey, Akiya seemed to be a pretty compassionate guy, if what he was hearing was right. Cool.

"Well, ain't that how it hits us all?" James laughed at Akiya's remark about colleges. "I mean, it's the same reason I got forced into violin. But the same old classical stuff gets boring, so it got real tedious real fast. 'Course, a bunch of friends kept bugging me to play songs once they heard me once, but it's a change of pace from the usual stuff."

Unlocking his suitcase, James pulled out a punch of clothes, which he began to rapidly file into the drawers closest to his own bed. At the very bottom sat a small present, neatly-wrapped. A present from... His friends, maybe?

"Huh. Okay, gimme a moment...' he trailed off as Akiya mentioned having manga among his hobbies. Slowly unwrapping the present, James found himself holding a small box set of... Wait, was this...?
Anime? Seriously?

On top of the present sat a small note:
'Yo, James!
Heard you were headed to Japan or something from your parents. Sucks that we couldn't see you off, but all the guys pitched in to buy this for you! Get us some stuff while you're there too, alright? We're expecting some returns, man!'

...

James stared silently at the note, then back to the anime, then at the note before letting out a laugh and putting the stuff to the side.

"God damn, that timing! Alright, I see your game, you assholes! You're on!"

With a cocky grin, James gave a thumbs-up to his partner before motioning towards the discs with his head.

"Well, two of my friends are really into Japanese stuff, so I should've seen this coming a mile away. Mind helping me out in the future? From what I hear, this stuff costs, like, at least a hundred bucks, so I've gotta go pay them all back now. You said you were a fan of manga, right? Don't worry, we differentiate between regular American comic books and manga, anyhow, so there's no need to explain the word."

---

Mari let out a light cough before nodding her head in response. Well, high-strung would explain her partner's current disposition; that was for sure. Hopefully, she could use the walk back as some means of letter her cool her head.
...
Hopefully.
Glancing over the map, Mari closed her eyes momentarily to try and sketch a mental model inside her head before nodding.

"Okay, let's head out, then. I need to start memorizing the building's layout as soon as possible, anyhow."

"Of course. Would you like to lead the way, then, so you can memorize as we go?" Kagura asked, holding out the map.