1293. 1294. 1295. Plasma steam echoed from out the barrel. His ears flickered at distant sounds. He continued. 1296.

His body twisted in natural pretence, his trigger finger firing on the targets that sprouted up across the simulation field. But that wasn’t enough. His hand shook slightly again, but he steeled himself through it.

1297. 1298. 1299. Kazuki wore a blindfold. And as he was about to hit 1300, the beep of the door and the target rung into his mind. He faltered for a moment, before firing at the target. Miss: 1.

He sighed, unsealing his blindfold off as the simulation field depreciated away, leaving a bare empty white training room, along with several tables of spent munitions, cartridges and magazines in front of him. He unloaded the pistol, slamming it down onto the central table.

His hand was still shaking. He popped a pill of Halolazil to steady his hand.

“What?” Kazuki snapped, twisting over towards the entryway into the simulation field. He knew it must be important, but still felt sour at missing the 1300 mark.

“Arbiter… someone wants to see you,” said Cyrus, standing by the door. He had both hands on his greatsword.

“We don’t have visitation hours. Tell them to get lost,” Kazuki spat venom, before slowly turning back towards the steel desk in front of him.

“Well, there’s a problem,” said Cyrus. Kazuki paused for a moment, before nodding whilst looking away. “Your driver, Karl, he vouches for them.”

“Dammit… Name?”

“Uh, no, Karl said something about a—”

“—Surprise!” A high pitched squeal of excitement filled Kazuki’s ears. Before even laying eyes on who it was, he felt his eyes and face drop in exhaustion. He turned his head, seeing someone try to push past Cyrus. It wasn’t working.

Cyrus looked down at a blonde haired girl. ‘Stars’ were embedded into her azure eyes, brightly shining and glittering towards him. She was short, just as Kazuki remembered. “Want me to remove the brat from the premises?” asked Cyrus.

“HEY! I’M NO BRAT!” she shouted, looking up at Cyrus before trying to squeeze past him. Again, it didn’t work.

“Just… let her through. She’ll cause you more headaches if you don’t,” said Kazuki. Cyrus shifted to the side, letting her pop through a small gap. “Alright, where’s Karl?”

“Waiting in the shuttle-bay-what’s-it-called,” said the girl, even shorter than Kazuki, with brightly coloured rainbow aug-glasses.

Her brightly coloured earrings had uplink sliders on them, a cross between accessory and tool. Her glasses mainly showed random tidbits and celebrity media news. He took his own aug glasses out from his pockets, activating its extended protrusions. He shifted it up his nose.

“Sooo, you’ve been ignoring my texts! Didn’t think I’d show up, huh?!”

Cyrus facepalmed at her annoying nature. Kazuki glanced up towards him. “Leave us. Go get some sleep,” he said, sparing his chief bodyguard from having to deal with her. Cyrus followed suit, leaving the simulation room. Kazuki waited a moment before answering, “What do you want, Yuki?”

“SOME DAMN RECOGNITION!” she shouted, pointing at Kazuki. She looked like she’s came directly from their parent’s penthouse on Island-Level 10. Her phoenicia-leviathan brooch shone with a bright cyan gem, before mixing back into the family’s blood red colour scheme.

“For what?”

“Holding down the Lowguard guild whilst you were away, you know how many people wanted to do wars with us now that they learnt that you, our top-dog, was gone?!” Yuki complained. Kazuki let out a silent sigh. Fuck. He did not want to be here, he was exhausted. But she continued anyways, pressing a hand against her chest in a pompous fashion, “It was I that had to hold things together, you know? Maybe you should give me ownership of the faction?”

“Absolutely not,” said Kazuki. “Who cares about guild wars? We can easily regain any lost footing.” It was true, Kazuki thought, he could easily hop on for a day and challenge the top dog guilds again, and most likely beat their meta-builds with outdated ones.

“Yeah, yeah, and all we have to do is grind you all the good gear!” Yuki shouted.

Kazuki thought about it for a moment. He always gave out treasury funds to those that did it, so he had no idea why she was complaining. “Yeah? It’s logical and a good allocation of time management.”

“But… but you’re not even getting on anymore! Just give me the guild!”

“Uh huh. Uh huh,” Kazuki snarled.

Yuki grumbled openly, her eyes tearing up at his non chalant response. He continued to give her a dead-pan face as his only answer. She muttered something under her breath, before storming out of the room. Kazuki was about to turn back towards his simulation, before realising that HIS SISTER WAS ON ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL WARSHIPS IN THE SYSTEM. He ripped his armoured rig off, throwing it onto the desk.

“Come back here.” He immediately chased after her, fast-walking through the hallway of the vessel after his sister. “You’ll get lost.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Yuki pretended to not hear him, continuing to march away in random directions. He had already remembered the entire layout of the vessel, so knew that she wasn’t going anywhere dangerous… If she had been walking to the reactor, he’d been more harsh.

Thank fuck she wasn’t tall enough to read the signs, Kazuki thought, following her step by step. She wasn’t all that quick, despite her best efforts. “Stop it, you can’t just walk around like you own this ship.”

“But you do! So therefore I also own it!” Yuki shouted back at him, attracting the attention of both passing drones and personnel. Most were confused, watching their boss: the Contract-Breaker, chase after a girl barely a head shorter than him.

“No. That’s not how it works,” Kazuki snapped at her. A few passing members of Heimfall, adorned with red-trimmed armbands, snickered at the sight. Kazuki ignored them. “Get back here now.”

“Why? Why should I?”

They continued twisting around corners, across the various hallways. She was nearing the observatory elevator of the war vessel.

“Because you’re going to hurt yourself, this isn’t a playground, this is a warship.” Kazuki sped after her, increasing his pace. “Its sole purpose for the last two decades have been to kill. And it has seen a lot of killing.”

“Blah, blah, whatever! I’ll tell mother that you were being rude to me again,” she blabbered on. Kazuki facepalmed, groaning audibly behind a muffled cry.

“Fucking… no, don’t do that. No,” Kazuki trailed, slowing his pace as she came up towards the observatory door.

Two guards were stationed beside the elevator door, and they simply watched as Yuki barged into the elevator, her twin-tails trailing behind her.

“Uh… Arbiter? Kazuki, who was that?” asked Alexander, one of the guards, as Kazuki rushed past them.

Yuki was slamming down on the elevator close button. It started to close, as Kazuki’s hand reached the gap. The doors stopped closing, health and safety standards for the win, he thought.

“My sister…” Kazuki turned towards one of the guards, who had their helm-mask off. They gave him an understanding nod.

Alexander then chuckled, his armour striped with light blue compared to Heimfall’s red and Deltastring’s white. “Good luck, Arbiter.”

The other one, Erien, joined in, “You’ll be needing it!” He chuckled.

“I know.” Kazuki nodded towards them as he pushed the doors open, entering with Yuki. It closed behind him. She was facing away from him, staring at a 3D holoprint of the vessel’s map on the surface of the elevator’s rear wall. “What are you doing?”

“Hmph…”

“I’m playing nice. I could have ordered a hunt for you.”

“But you didn’t!” she arrogantly asserted, twisting around as the elevator started to move upwards. Kazuki facepalmed, grumbling.

“No… I didn’t. Because you’re my sister. I know you’re not here to sabotage my operations…” It had completely passed Kazuki’s peripherals, but he just appreciated the fact that he was a contractor… And here his sister was. He felt disgusted at himself, a noble turned merc… and his bright-star eyed sister.

She looked up at him. Her eyes were a duller shade of blue, and the stars were harder to see. “Dude… relax much? I just wanted you to chill out, come on!”

“No. I have work.”

“Ugh!” Yuki rolled her eyes. “Mother, father, everyone has work to do! Even Nate!”

“Who?”

“NO ONE YOU KNOW!” She snapped. Kazuki paused… He was very much aware of who she might be referring to, but refused to believe it. It must be just a coincidence, he thought.

All Kazuki wants now is some peace and quiet. His sister always fought against that notion… and she was always so annoying… Always the favourite, he thought. “Well, whatever… I have work, I am busy. Leave me alone.”

He made sure to not let a single drop of hidden malice drop into his voice, maintaining a monotone, deaf-tone voice. She answered back, “And you’re here, chasing after me!”

“Yeah. And I caught you—”

“—Nuh uh,” Yuki cut him off.

“I—”

“—Nuh uh,” she cut him off again.

He sighed. “Alright, you little—”

This time, it was a loud noise from the elevator that had cut him off. It was a release mechanism, and his body hurled into action. He was ready for anything… Yuki giggled, as Kazuki turned towards her.

“Look at you, why so jumpy over some little noises?!” she laughed… He hated it. He could accept it from anyone else, but her? Why so jumpy? He clenched a fist. She has not a single clue, he thought. But before he could say anything else, the floor they stood on stared to rise.

The roof of the elevator slid open, with only a holographic control panel following them up. And all became dark. “What?” Kazuki was confused for a moment, before the mechanical gears of a slider released.

Kazuki looked up as light engulfed his eyes. It was… expansive. Untamed. Brutal and harsh. It was the galaxy, for all of him to see. Bright colours all around, nameless thousand starts and dots in the sky… comets, nebulas, other galaxies… He paused for a moment, mesmerised.

“What? Surprised?” Yuki chuckled, “Karl told me the route to this place! And uh… well, he told me that you rarely leave your office, so I guess it’s just a nice thing to see once in a while?”

Kazuki didn’t respond. His head moved left to right: looking and taking in the galaxy for all its worth. How… long has it been? It’s been so long since he’s done this, he thought. It felt somewhat refreshing. That itself was true.

“Freedom, exploration! Marvellous, right? Right?!” Yuki asked him, as she joined him in the sight-seeing. He’s never been to the Phoenix’s Fury’s observatory. He never needed to, all the information he could ever need was in the command room or his office. This felt new to him, and he felt like smiling. But the motion died before it even touched his lips.

“Yeah… it’s nice,” said Kazuki. He let a few seconds pass in silence. “But you’re still coming with me. Just because you’ve shown me the galaxy doesn’t mean you were very much trespassing.”

“Ah… ha…” Yuki trailed off, scratching behind her ear as her uplink earrings jiggled.