vivarium | The Kendo Club forms! OPEN

Heiji popped his head inside. "Hey, it's open! Hershel, c'mon in here!"

Of course they couldn't practice inside if there were people playing video games, but seeing how there was only Sasuke...

"Let's try to be more careful this time, I think Snake will force feed us one of those magazines if we rip another." Hershel sounded amused as he followed, pausing when he noticed Sasuke.

He gave a small wave, shinai in one hand. "Ah, hello Sasuke. Do you mind if we use this room for practice? We wouldn't want to bother you."

Ah... that's right, Heiji did mention something about this before.

"Mm, it's fine. So this is where you practice kendo?"

"Yeah, though if this place is full we go somewhere else," Heiji said, grinning. "Say, since you're new here, you wanna try it out with us? It don't matter if you haven't done it before."

"Yes, join us Sasuke." Hershel chimed in, holding the shinai out for Sasuke to take if he wanted. "Heiji's been teaching me the basics, so it's nothing too advanced yet."

And what else could they do around here besides mope and play bad games.

...Oh. Um. He's clearly surprised by the offer, and that may be why his first instinct is to backpedal, hands raised slightly.

"I don't want to interrupt anything. If you wanted to practice here, I can just stick to the edges. I was just thinking of reading for a while."

"What're you sayin'?" Heiji said cheerily, tossing his shinai to Sasuke (hopefully he was a good catch gj Heiji).

"We're all up in each other's faces all day, so don't be shy!"

"Heiji don't throw things, you're acting like Jake." Hershel sighed, rude people am I right Sasuke? before offering Sasuke an apologetic smile.

"Really, you wouldn't be interrupting anything. The more the merrier, we certainly have enough shinai to go around." Sorry dude, first rule of Kendo Club is there's no escape from Kendo Club. Submit and despair.

Yes, let's just chuck bamboo sticks at the newbie, this is a great idea. Fortunately, Sasuke's reflexes are quick - quicker than even he seemed to expect, because he manages to snap up an arm to catch it before his mind even really processed the whole thing.

...Huh. Maybe it's muscle memory.

Still, he's got a shinai in hand now, along with the distinct feeling he isn't going to be getting out of this no matter what he tries. With another one of those small nods, he shifts his hands to the hilt, testing out his grip and immediately going into the basic posture.

"...It's something like this, isn't it?"

"Hey, no need to result to insults," said Heiji, mildly horrified at least until Sasuke caught the shinai.

"Hey, look at that! Ya got it right off the bat! Maybe you done this before, huh?"

"It's not an insult if the evidence is right there." It's a testament to how comfortable he is with you Heiji, that he says shit like this. Friendship sure is great.

Hershel looked a little surprised before he smiled. "It looks like someone else might have experience with kendo, or at least something like it. And here I thought I'd have someone at my learning level." Yeah, he was forever going to be low tier it seemed, but hey maybe this meant Heiji and Sasuke could spar properly and he could learn better from that.

"It's possible," he admits, but aside from that he has no other answers to give. With no memories yet returned, the best he can do is make note of how comfortably the shinai rests in his hands.

...It's an incredibly strange feeling.

"I don't know for sure yet, so... it might actually be better if we started off sparring first. If that's okay with you, Hershel."

Heiji gave Hershel a laugh that was somewhere between exasperation and defeat. "Check out the mouth on this guy..."

But he sat down on the couch anyway. "Hear that, Hershel? It's your first challenge as a kendoka. Don't let me down!"

Have a sheepish but still somewhat amused smile. He wins.

Hershel glanced at Heiji as he sat down. "I'm not sure I'm the best choice, but I'll try." What could it hurt, right. He looked to Sasuke with a wry sort of glance. "Forgive me, I'm a fencer, not a kendo practitioner."

Still, he goes into position, and it looks good. He's been learning, at least.

"It doesn't have to be very serious. Hattori can referee and decide which strikes count." ...Though without any protective gear, he makes a mental note to avoid going for the head. Even if the blade is designed to absorb all of the impact, it's not going to be comfortable getting whacked with one.

For now, he settles into the pre-match crouch, waiting for Heiji's signal to start.

With a grin, Heiji signaled the start of the match. "Hajime!"

Enjolras was what one could be considered a god awful mess. He was soaked to the bone, there were still shards of glass that he hadn't managed to pull out on his own in his hands and knuckles. He was bloody and exhausted, his clothes torn and his eyes bloodshot. The hallucinogenic drugs seemed to have finally worn off, but that wasn't saying much.

Dripping wet he squealched his way through the warehouse, looking fiercely annoyed, and not half so sullen or cowed as he probably should have been. Calhoun's little stunt had really only served to make him angrier, and he'd held out until the very last moment he possibly could have in the elevator.

In a way, it was sort of a free bath- that ended with him looking even worse for the wear than before...

Ah... It looks like he ended up leaving after all. Though if his appearance is anything to go by, it wasn't by his own volition.

...Well, at least he knows what Calhoun will do if they decide to stick around in the AB rooms longer than they're supposed to. The wounds, however... Those must be from the puzzle itself.

Or at least, he hopes as much.

"...Are you alright?"

He hadn't really expected anyone to talk to him, dejected looking as he is. Most don't choose to approach him at the best of times. This boy's face, though... he isn't someone that Enjolras was familiar with.

"You are the new arrival," he states, rather obviously, before nodding his head slightly in greeting, "I've been better," he says it rather dismissively, as though they were simply speaking about the weather, or something far more pleasant than being nearly drowned, and messed up on hallucinogens, and punching glass doors with your bare hands because of it, and...

He gives a small nod. "That's right. Sasuke Sagami." His voice is quiet as he speaks. This is not someone used to making his presence known through speech, that's for sure.

"Hershel looked worried when you didn't come out."

"Enjolras. Just Enjolras, I cannot seem to remember my first name. Calhoun's doing, no doubt," oddly he doesn't sound bitter about the part where he can't remember his name- but Calhoun's name he practically spits. Not his favourite mouse, that one.

"Hershel is a good friend, however he needn't have worried," which Enjolras finished his sentence by punctuating it with a wracking cough, water still in his lungs and all. Deeply uncomfortable. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, though I do wish it were it better circumstances,"

"You can't?" That's... odd. The only other person he's met here who has only a single name is Snake, and that could at least be explained as an alias. Enjorlas was... well, not a name he feels at all familiar with, but certainly name-sounding.

He seems about to move closer to support when Enjorlas begins coughing, although he stops himself before actually taking so much as a step. It's probably better to give the man some space.

"It can't really be helped." After all, Sasuke himself had arrived just in time for everyone to inform him that they had just lost a fellow test subject to murder. He doubts there's ever really a good time to meet in here of all places.

"--You're sure you're alright, though? I think I saw Snake going to the lounge too, but there should be enough seats to rest in at least." He... definitely looks like he could use a break, that's for sure.

"I cannot," he agreed, "I know that I had a first name, but what it was..." he gave a vague shrug, "I do not believe that I used it very often, whatever it was, or perhaps it might feel more familiar to me,"

He coughed again, though this time it was less wracking, into his carefully positioned hand. He didn't want to bend either one too much, drive any of the glass shards that he needed to find a way to pry out any deeper. Perhaps someone around this place still had a knife-

It wouldn't be pretty, but it would at least have done the trick.

"I am," he promised lowly, "As it is I do not think I am quite prepared to deal with more people than I have to, let alone the world's most uncomfortable couch," there's a slight pang of grief at these words, an emotion he had not really let himself feel. His eyes dropped, and a slow, shaky exhale left him, before he shook his head a little to clear it.

"How was your first puzzle room?" anything to deflect.

"Snake didn't look like he was doing well, from what I saw of him." Putting it mildly. "He's probably resting too."

But it's not like he can force Enjorlas to go, so he'll relent and follow the conversation... unless Enjorlas' condition looks like it's worsening, anyway.

"It could have gone worse." Especially after getting a look at Enjorlas' state. Hershel mentioned triggering a trap, but he had also explicitly said it wasn't violent. How in the world did Enjorlas end up like this...? "We almost started off on the wrong track, but we figured out the right way to go through it in the end."

"What a group we make," Enjolras sounded resigned about this, his gaze still focused upon the floor. What good had any of his antics really done? What had he accomplished, in the long run? He'd only made the puzzle room far more difficult for Hershel and Ema to solve (and, it had to be Hershel and Ema, because Enjolras had been off his face drugged for pretty much the whole damn thing) and then nearly drowned himself.

He maybe irritated Calhoun a little, but that was it.

Next time, he was going to have to do something more substantial.

"Regardless, I am glad to see you were successful, and you do not seem to have triggered anything too terrible," he doesn't smile, and there's a bit of a terseness to his tone. He doesn't really like remembering the trap he triggered, and what he'd caused them all to go through because of it. It stings.

The Kendo Club forms! OPEN

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