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Why Blade was travelling through the peaks of the mountaintops was anyone's guess. Normally he would try to avoid the colder areas of the land if he could. And right about now, he definitely wished he was somewhere a little warmer.

Oh that's right, he thought to himself bitterly, I agreed to do that..

Well, at the current pace he traveled at, it wasn't likely he'd be reaching his destination too soon. Of course, he could ride Bahamut to speed things up. But considering how cold it was, it wasn't a very good idea to keep the Charizard working for long periods of time. So the thief may as well keep walking for the time being at least; either way he'd still be freezing. At least it wasn't storming or anything along those lines. No, instead it was flurrying rather lightly.

Over in the distance, he did catch sight of something that should be promising. Soft gray tendrils rose up from behind some snow-covered bushes a ways ahead. Steam, it appeared to be. And where there was steam, there had to be some source of heat.

Quickly, he made his way there, finding a natural pool of water in the mountainside. Eyes widening at his discovery, he didn't waste much time to toss his belongings and clothes onto the ground nearby to step in.

Now that he was warming up quite nicely in the water, Blade looked over towards his belongings, wondering if he should let any of his pokemon out to enjoy the springs. After a few moments, he decided against it. Most of them wouldn't exactly appreciate the hot water so much. The only one that might would be Blood Vain, but quite frankly, Blade didn't want to risk being blasted with an ice beam or hydro pump out here.

So for now, he remained in the pool on his own.

"Is that a pokemon?"

Though...while he was in there by himself, it seemed he wasn't quite as alone as he thought. Freezing as he heard the words behind him, he tried to think quickly on what he should do. Running into another person was the last thing he really expected all the way out here, and there was no way in hell he was going to jump out of the spring naked. So... he took in a deep breath and dove down below the surface.

.. Crap! What if they come in? he soon realized while submerged.

Sure enough, whoever it was, they dove right into the hot springs. With a sploosh, Blade soon saw a female figure drop down a few feet ahead of him. Between being startled and the fact he wasn't really able to hold his breath for much longer, he was forced to resurface. Eyes wide, he practically burst through the surface of the spring, gasping for air.

Off to the side, he saw a familiar Skitty, in the arms of a very familiar person.

"R-Riyo!?" he exclaimed before quickly turning around. Suddenly seeing someone naked was normally an awkward and embarrassing moment. Suddenly seeing someone he knew, naked, while being nude at the same time, was even more so. Between it all, he really wasn't too sure what he should do to avoid making everything worse... aside to keep from staring at the woman.

Though Riyo couldn't see it, Blade's face was burning red from the embarrassment. And her observation of the situation really didn't help all that much either. For a few moments, he had nothing to say. Or rather he really didn't know what to say.

"Y-yeah! Ah.. um.."

The thief couldn't really think of another time recently where he was at this much of a loss for words. But anything he could think of right away would only make things even more awkward than they already were most likely.

"D-didn't expect seeing you here!"

As mentioned... anything was likely to make things more awkward.

As if to make things worse, Riyo had to ask him how much he ended up seeing. Technically speaking, he did see just about everything, but between all the water and steam and moving around, it was all more or less a blur at this point.

"N-not that much! The water was moving around a lot!"

Looking over towards the edge of the hot spring, he saw all of his stuff. But it was too far away from the edge for him to reach any of it without needing to leave the water. Meanwhile, he tried to keep the area from falling into a dead silence.

"... What about y-you?"

She didn't see anything? Well that was a little relieving in the least, not by much though for the most part. Gritting his teeth together, Blade nodded as Riyo mentioned she was going to get out. After a short while, he made his way towards the edge where his own belongings were.

".. I'm going to as well," he said before quickly crawling onto the land, "Ah damn it's cold!"

Shivering, he quickly rummaged through his bag for his towel to wrap himself up as well. Now that he was covered up, he wasn't sure what to do next. With his hair wet, it really wasn't a good idea to stay out in the frigid weather, but at the same time he didn't know what to do about the whole hot springs business.

"... Is it safe to turn around now?"

That's right, Riyo was easily the oldest person he had ever met, despite her appearances. But quite frankly, he wasn't exactly proud to have made this day the most awkward she had ever experienced.

"I could say the same..." he muttered while rubbing his arms to try and warm himself. Glancing over at his jacket, he figured that'd be the one piece of clothing he could put on without having a whole lot of issues with it sticking to his body. Before reaching to grab it, he hesitated to look back over towards Riyo. He noticed she had her own long coat around so she should be fine in that department as well.

So he went on and threw on his jacket; he still felt pretty cold but it wasn't as bad at least.

"I don't suppose you spotted something like a cabin or cave somewhere around. If not I'm going to go ahead and bring out some of my pokemon for warmth," he said while trying to ignore the awkwardness of the whole ordeal to the best of his ability. Over all, he wasn't doing a very good job of it.