"W-whoa." Takamiya stuttered, quite afraid at the anger and power that Rika held. He had never seen his friend quite as irate as she was now. When Rika tumbled backwards onto his form, he hurriedly caught her, his arms under her armpits, and gently lowered her to the floor. He looked at the cuts. "Are you alright? Those cuts have got to hurt..." he looked around the room for a bandage or something of the sort, but he saw nothing. [i]Of course not,[/i] he reflected, [i]this guy wasn't going to leave something so vital here. In fact, he probably set this whole room up so we would escape with Rika weakened.[/i]

"C'mon," he said. He got Rika into a position where she could easily jump onto his back. "Piggyback." He looked back and smiled. "Now that you're not as fat as you were before I can probably give you one." He made sure that she knew it was just a joke. "We're gonna get out of here. We can either complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses." He promised, quoting Abraham Lincoln as the final sentence.