"Zakura?....Zakura?....Hello! Earth to Zakura!" Sasha snapped her fingers in front of her friends face. The red-head gasped and nearly dropped the object in her hands. Sasha moved quick to grab it from falling and chuckled at her friend's absentmindedness.<br/>"Whoa, when was the last time you got a solid eight hours of sleep?" Sasha teased. "You're more...space-Cadette than usual today."<br/>For the tenth time, Sasha saw her friends eyes dart over to the other kids still lingering about, talking. She couldn't get over the kid with the contraption on his arm.<br/>"Have you ever considered Engineering?" Sasha asked.<br/>The randomness of the question, in Zakura's eyes, snapped her back to the present. "What?"<br/>"You know, building things."<br/>"No...I haven't." Zakura admitted. "Why? Should I?"<br/>"They way you keep eyeing that kids invention, I would say yes." Sasha teased. "Come on, everything's perfect for now. Let's get to the dorms. I wanna see the news about that new tech they're dishing out."<br/><br/>"You know my dorm's a mess." Zakura murmured as she gathered up her bags.<br/>"Which is why we're going to mine." Sasha said.<br/>"You're not gonna cook ahead are you?" Zakura asked, and Sasha gasped as if offended.<br/>"I thought you loved my mac and cheese." Sasha said.<br/>"You burnt the cheese." Zakura added. "And nearly set fire to the macorni."<br/>"Alright fine, we'll order something." Sasha sighed as she waved Zakura away from the booth. Even Sasha had to glance over her shoulder across the other booths. Everything was pretty much ready, and Sash found herself a bit excited. She loved competitions, and she had a feeling this festival was going to be great.<br/><br/>They managed to get to Sasha's room and flip to the news station to get the last bits of the announcement.<br/><span style="font-style: italic"> "It has already been tested over the past year and has been deemed safe for public use. Teams are to be in groups of five and will compete against each other in the standard elimination format." There was a slight pause, "The preliminaries will be round robin, where the top sixteen schools will be selected. Teams are strongly advised to visit the Arena ESP facility located in district six for practice and calibration prior to the actual competition. The facility is open to the public from tomorrow onwards."</span><br/><br/>"Darn, we missed the first few minutes." Sasha murmured.<br/>"There's an arena?" Zakura asked.<br/>"Apparently." Sasha said, chuckling. "Wanna sign up?" Sasha asked, bright eyes dancing.<br/>"Seriously?" Zakura asked, raising a single eye-brow at the girl she considered her only and best friend.<br/>"Oh...right...fighting's not you're thing. You'd rather just zap them into the fetal position." Sasha said, grinning although Zakura smacked her with a throw pillow from the couch.<br/>"You can go sign up." Zakura said. "I'll watch."<br/>"Not from that library they're opening." Sasha warned. "You need to actually be there if I get in."<br/>"They're opening a library?" Zakura asked, blinking curiously.<br/>"Sheesh, what rock have you been under the past few days?" Sasha asked.<br/>"School work."<br/>"Ew."