LET ME KNOW IF THERE'S ANY ISSUES WITH THIS.

Current placement: Hospital arc. Last date to appear in the bar was 4/27.

Base timelines will be edited as necessary to fit in new OOMs and bar entrances.

Hospital Arc (tricks 108 - 129)
Wind versus Thorn (tricks 130 - 141)
Fugue (tricks 142 - 145)
The Heart of the Forest, The Fall of the Flame (tricks 145 - 165)
One Week To Fall, One Spark to Carry (tricks 166 - 168)
Super Enhanced Training Program, White Wolf's Fangs (tricks 169 - 184)
Agito's Dissonance, Three Inside?! Brain Charger! (tricks 185 - ?)

Posting order:
3/3/08: 4/26
3/4/08: 4/27
3/5/08: 4/28
3/6/08: 5/1
3/7/08: 5/

Ikki's pissed. He's pissed and he's running, skating the city, his road and nobody else's. He might look like he's racing her, he might look like he's fighting her, but he's not even listening to her goddamn words.

This is shit, and she's gonna have to stop him somehow to set him onto her path.

"Goddamn," Ikki exhales, as he and Kilik arrive home. He doesn't even bother to go past the entrance hallway yet, just leaning against the wall, as if he needs to gather some strength to go farther.

"That was fucked up, okay? Really. Fucked. Up."

He's got a migraine from that Axis being brought out, he's worried about basically anyone and everyone that was involved, and basically the entire thing sucked. "The hell's going to happen after this?"

Hmm, hmm, hmm. Usually, when Ikki goes off to physical rehabilitation or for an adjustment tuning, he comes back in a very poor mood. The type where he tries to avoid anyone and everyone, including himself, until he either sleeps off the mood or someone smacks it out of him.

Today, he's just fine, playing some hand-held video game on the couch as he waits for Kilik to get home. No bad mood whatsoever.

Wonder why the change, eh?

Sometimes Ikki works late. Sometimes a shark or two stays up for him when he does. Sometimes they fall asleep waiting and that's cute, if not guilt-wracking.

On those nights (currently 4:15 am to be precise) he tries to work on Akito's A-T, but he's been at a block for awhile. Days, at least. Knowing what he wants to put in that'll lead it from halfway to the end, but not having it. Knowing but not knowing, yaknow? Just tryin' for the feel of it.

Nah, even he didn't know. He wasn't a tuner, he can't do this crap. But he was determined to anyway.

But he failed today so he's just sitting in that room they use for storage of A-T parts, tuner shit, manuals, all that crap. Because if it was an apartment for -them-, there'd be a room just for workin' on it. He ain't stupid and he figured out eventually that Kanon got the place, but he hasn't figured out a way to pay 'im back. Someday, eh?

In the meantime, he's just got his forehead on the table, hitting his head lightly against the surface, over and over. His head might be hard, but even he'll be damaged by that eventually. Someone save him, eh?

The good thing about living in an apartment rather than on the streets is that sometimes you get to rot your brain on tv. The great thing about living with the two greatest sharks ever is you can rot your brain with them, sometimes - if you can convince them to take the time to do it.

They're not home yet. He is. He has a collection of junk food and caffeine. He may have had too much sugar already.

Fear, sharks, fear.

Ikki is sitting on top of his favourite tower at the school. It's near night-time, but he stays late here sometimes, just because. It's the only reason he likes school. You can see a lot of things from up here.

Remember a lot of things.

It's nice.

Right now he's sort of close to dozing off, but he's not going to. He'd just sleep 'till the next morning, then, and get reamed out by sharkies tomorrow.

Ffff

TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE. TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE. TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE. TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE, TEXT MESSAGE -- !

How many times does it take to spam your message box, Ringo? Ten, fifteen, twenty, a hundred? Well, Ikki's going to find out. It's varieties of various messages, some the same as others, some actually attempting to be different!

"SO WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK TO SCHOOL
I HAVE TO GET AKITO TO DO MY HOMEWORK NOW"

"COME BACK TO SCHOOL, SERIOUSLY
KANON TOOK YOUR CHAIR AND IT'S KINDA CREEPY"

"RI-RI, RI-RI, RI-RI
YOU HAVE TO COME TO LUNCH WITH ME
STOP IGNORING ME OR YOU WON'T GET FREE FOOD"

"DONTCHA WANNA RACE WITHOUT STUPIDITY
COME ON, NOW
YOU KNOW I'D BEAT YOU IN A FAIR RACE"

"DON'T MAKE ME QUOTE BAD POETRY AT YOU.
I WILL DO IT.
I CAN MANGLE SHAKESPEARE ANYDAY
FOR MY FAVOURITE SISTER."

...yeah, it just keeps going on and on, yo.

"Ooookay," Ikki exhales as he walks into the house, facepalming. "I ain't going near that place with a 20-foot pole right now, but we better check on the dorms tomorrow, because they're all up to no good."

After this, Ikki hadn't really been in the mood to stay in the bar. So out he'd went through the door, ready to skate the town and mark his frustrations on the dirt and walls. He's been at this for twenty minutes nonstop, before he finally has to breath, before he finally notices his phone has been ringing all this time.

-- he doesn't even want to count all the missed calls on here. Uh.

"Shit, shit, shit," he fumbles with the phone, which he still doesn't really know how to use. Button press, button press! "Hello? Hi? Is this working? Auugh."

Ikki is at Kilik's house, in the kitchen, eating some leftovers that Kilik had left in the fridge. The guy tended to leave as much as possible ever since the kitchen incident, and Crow can't say that he blames him.

Besides, he's not going to complain, it's good food!

He's kinda bored, though. He could use some distraction or attention.

A bored Crow is not a good thing.

There is a ringing phone in Kilik's office.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Ikki had gotten up real early this morning. Earlier than Kilik, even! He wanted to try to make breakfast for the guy as a surprise, except that task is kind of - failing. He knows how to make one thing and that's it, and it's not exactly breakfast food.

But he figures that if you follow a recipe, you're cool, right?

...that is, if you know how to read recipes.

Needless to say, it's a disaster. Either it's all burnt up or when it looks like food, it doesn't look at all edible.

Ikki goes: D: D: D:.

And hopes he has time to ditch it all before being discovered.

Another day, and more practice to show for it. Ikki's done with practice for the day, and right now he's resting, guzzling water like he's just emerged from seven days in the desert.

He's tired, but he feels pretty awesome too, and that's a good combination, right?

Right!

Ikki is in the park they're squatting in for now, sitting in one of the areas with an overhead roof. It's raining, and he doesn't mind that much (it makes for a great shower!); but he's had a cold coming on for awhile, and it's better to go with messy hair tomorrow than make that worse, right?

He's bored stuck under here, especially stuck under here alone, but he's trying to head it off by servicing his skates. But there's only so many times you can pretend to clean a wheel and try not to sneeze on it before you want to throw it all across the path. He'd just gotten ahead of that point about fifteen minutes ago.

But he is, after all, persistent.

It's about 9 pm, and Itsuki hasn't gone home yet. He's still hanging around school, and has been since the first bell rang to leave.

No, he's in the secret Kogarasumaru hide-out, and he's pushed two of the seats together. He's laying across them and staring up at the stars, thinking about everything and nothing at all.

He's been like this for awhile. Nobody would expect it of him, for all the energy that bubbles up in him every single fucking day, but sometimes a Crow can just settle for hours. Kuu has made up a nest beside him, and is sleeping soundly in it, his beak buried underneath Ikki's arm.

It's pretty comfortable, but it's missing something, and damn if he knows what.

Ikki is staying at Kazu's house for the night. He's staying there alone, while the sharks are over at Emiri's - looks like the significant others are shacking up for some photographic fun. Ikki personally doesn't care (it means he gets to see some great photos tomorrow), but one's gotta wonder what Kazu thinks about it, man.

Or rather, one would like to avoid talking about it so that they don't have to deal with any freak-outs from Kazu, dammit. "Hey," Ikki announces. "Feed me, dude. I'm hungry. Feed me."

He tugs on Kazu's sleeve a lot and leans his entire weight on him as they stand in the doorway to the apartment, trying to make sure he can't possibly get away.

Walking through one door and finding another place entirely is not exactly high on the normal scale, and Minami Ikki has learned a lot about what's normal the past couple years. Go into a coma, go out of a coma, lose most of your friends, have to help your best friend destroy the bad guy from behind the scenes when it should be you up there - yeah. Normal.

Let alone any of the rest of the events of the past five years, let alone losing the sharks to a mysterious disappearance - completely wiped off the face of the earth.

That'd been fucked up. It'd all been fucked up. This is fucked up, too. He'd been in Fiji, thank you, and this was...

Not.

Exactly.

Fiji.

The streets looked familiar in a way, but he knew he'd never been there before. Similar culture, maybe? Who knew. He'd never been an expert on that.

All he can really do is stand there and stare blankly at the streets around him, trying to process this. Maybe he's being slow as hell, but - wouldn't you?

[future!plot, not yet canon]

One Ikki, upstairs, lounging around on the bed and avoiding homework by reading a comic book. Spelling homework is dumb, superheroes are not - he's been getting a lot more responsible lately, especially with having to take care of himself and the sharks. So he figures that he's allowed to be dumb sometimes!

Besides, it's not as if Tonchan really grades all that well. If he slaps on a words like 'kitten', she'll be impressed enough to give him a C. Even if it's the same thing he's turned in before and has nothing at all to do with the assignment!

So. Lounge, lounge, lounge. Go, Captain Rocket, go!