I lie on the mat Drew had spread out and let out a deep breath. I have changed out of my previous clothes as Lathia had spared no effort in making me as wet as possible while I chased after her. I gave up once I realized I was making no progress. All in all, my first experience flying was quite fun.

She takes a seat near me. “Have fun?” she asks grinning.

“Yeah. It would have been even better if you hadn’t tried to kill me at the beginning.”

“Relax. I’m not a murderer. I wouldn’t have let you die even if you wanted to.”

As she talks, I gather my Uua into a small orb above my hand before dispersing it. After that, I begin to make small grabbing with my hand. Unfortunately, nothing happens. I create another orb.

“Why do you keep doing that?” Lathia asks suddenly.

“I’m trying to learn something.”

“What?”

“It’s a secret.”

She rolls her eyes. I turn my head and spot the twins and Emma walking toward us. While we had been flying, they had gone on a walk. Daniel says something and Emma laughs. This is my first time seeing her laugh and I must admit, she looks really good when she laughs.

“She’s taken Ian, find someone else.” Lathia teases.

I look away, not bothering to reply. At this point, I have learned to ignore her constant teasing. It is beginning to get dark. Drew is off to one side, cooking dinner as usual. As I lie, feeling the cool breeze brush across my skin, I suddenly get this nostalgic feeling. When was the last time I had done something like this? My memories of the past few years all seem to include my phone or a device of some sort. I almost can’t remember what it is like to just enjoy the beauty of nature. Still, some part of me misses my phone. Maybe I should have brought it.

“What are you thinking about?” Lathia asks.

“Nothing much. The world just seems particularly beautiful today.” I say.

She gives me a look and for a moment, it seems as if she wants to say something. In the end, she just looks away.

“What?” I ask, looking at her from the corner of my eye.

“Nothing,” she says. A second she flops down on the mat, her hands behind her head as she stares at the sky. “Well. Maybe you’re right. You know, today’s the first time I’m really seeing the night sky in a long time.”

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“I thought you guys always come here?”

“We’ve only come twice. Besides, most of the time we’re here we mostly just train. And have fun. But it's mostly training.”

I turn to look at her. “What is so important that you’re training for?”

“What makes you think we’re training for anything important?”

“The fact that you come here every year to train. I mean, I doubt I would have agreed to this if I weren’t trying to get stronger. And my reason for wanting to get stronger is a bit silly even. I doubt that is the case for you guys though.”

She is quiet for a moment. “Well, it's probably because of the war. Experiencing something like that, who wouldn’t want to get stronger? I know I seem happy and all, but sometimes, when I remember the war, I start feeling… I don’t know. Fear? And when I feel that fear, I want nothing more than to get stronger. The rest feel that too, I think. That’s probably why Drew started all this.”

As I listen to her, I hear a sort of sadness in her voice. “Did anyone you know die?” I find myself asking.

She nods. “More than one. One was even a member of our team.”

“Oh,” I say before keeping quiet. “Sorry.”

She just nods. We lie down there in silence, staring at the starry sky above us. At some point I turn to look at her, expecting my questions to have drug up sad memories. Contrary to my expectations, she doesn’t look the slightest bit sad. She looked…peaceful. I turn back to look at the sky.

* * * * * *

I watch Lathia as she does some stretches. “How long are you going to keep doing that?” I ask, getting a bit exasperated. My entire body is tense as I watch her, sweat trickling slowly down my face. Drew had begun the third part of my training yesterday. Dueling. We fought…, sorry, he thrashed me, gave me some time to recover, then thrashed me again, over and over and over. After each trashing session, he would then point out my mistakes and offer some pointers.

Today, in order to give me some ‘variety’, he tasked me with fighting the rest of his team. I started with Emma and promptly realized that Drew had been taking it easy on me. She took me out in less than five seconds. I look at her from the corner of my eyes, with fear, and respect in my heart. Even now, as I think about the fight, I can’t help but acknowledge her genius. She might very well be the scariest person here.

“Relax,” Lathia says, continuing her stretching, “this won’t take two seconds.”

“We’ll see about that,” I reply. While my fight with Emma had been brief, along with some pain, I had learned a thing or two. I know I won’t win against Lathia, but my goal is to last at least six seconds.

“Alright then,” Lathia says, flashing me a smile.

The next second, she dashes towards me. Emma had started like that too and surprised me. During my fights with Drew yesterday he had always given me the initiative, so I was a bit surprised when she dashed toward me. That surprise and inability to think of a counter for something so simple was my first mistake. In my fight with Keldin, there was a bit of distance between us, so the problem wasn’t too obvious since I still had considerable time to do something, unfortunately, I didn’t have the same luxury when fighting her Thankfully, I identified the problem before getting into a real fight.

I run towards Lathia, immediately activating what I call the D-three or defensive three, the strengthening and enhancement noer, while at the same time, focusing my Uua around my body. Compared to before, when I Focus my Uua, it is more concentrated, though I’m still far from reaching my limits. Compared to circulating my Uua while using the enhancement noer, d-three provides a far stronger boost to my body, causing me to scrap the former and turn the latter to my new starter move.

As I get closer to Lathia, I throw a punch, releasing a Roe as I do so. In such close range, it will be almost impossible to dodge. Strangely, she doesn’t seem to care about the Roe heading towards her head. I realize why a moment later when she passes through the Roe. Before I have the chance to even react, she reaches and then passes through me. For a moment I am overwhelmed by strange sensations. My body feels weakened, almost as if it wants to fall apart. More strongly, I get the feeling of something intangible but somehow slimy passing through each and every cell in my body.

By the time she completely passes through me, I am unmoving, my body shuddering heavily as a heavy sense of disgust fills me. I fall to my knees as different sensations pass through me, each one increasingly worse than the previous. After a few seconds, it all passes by and I slowly recover. Shivering, I get to my feet. “T-that was just w-wrong.”

She shrugs, almost uncaring.

“Never d-do that again!” I say, more strongly this time. If she ever tried that again…I don’t know what I’ll do, but I doubt it will be anything nice.

She opens and then closes her mouth. “Sorry,” she says finally, “I shouldn’t have done that without warning you.”

I nod and sit on the ground as my shuddering slowly eases. I never want to feel that again.

“You can take a break for some time,” Drew says as he looks at me.

I nod, not really caring about the break. The sooner I can get rid of the memory of her passing through me, the better. I shudder once again at the memory of it.