Lilis scowled as she looked around the Time Garden. The more she watched Arima’s past, the darker the air was becoming. It was quite deranging. She shook off the bad feeling she had and waved her hand above the pond again. This time, she was going to watch everything that remained in one go.

During his first day of school, Arima inevitably fell asleep during the second period and was grounded right away. After that incident, Scatha seriously started teaching him about respect toward teachers. In just a few days, he had turned extremely respectful each time he was facing a one.

Arima could only comply as Scatha threatened him that he would have to attend school until he was eighteen if he didn't follow that rule. After some time, he realized that Scatha had already totally 'tamed' him. He wondered when and how she managed to do that but he wasn’t capable of disobeying her anymore.

In his school time, Arima was quite successful with teachers since he always had perfect grades and attitude. He even was surprisingly appreciated by his classmates. The guys would find it was fun to tag along with him and the girls enjoyed his company. Of course, all of them spent their school days without knowing that they were learning together with a super-soldier.

Nothing really impactful occurred during Arima's schooling. He had a pretty normal life while sometimes departing for missions. His absences were always unswervingly covered by the principal himself.

Something noteworthy happened half a month after he entered school though. He was walking home when he passed by a park and witnessed a group of children beating a small dog for fun whilst ignoring the weak whimpers of the poor creature.

Arima's expression twitched and he restrained himself from drawing the gun he always kept in his jacket and blast off their heads. He walked toward the group and slowly lifted the dog, letting his presence sink in. He glanced at the boys who were staring at him.

"Scram," he said coldly but the twelve-year-old kids mocked him and laughed.

Of course, that would be the normal reaction. Only people who once experienced an actual battlefield could detect the very nasty killing intent exuding from Arima's eyes. That detail was something the children couldn’t comprehend, but an old man who was sitting on a bench not far reacted differently. He pushed his glasses up to observe Arima with his murky eyes.

Arima clicked his tongue and kicked the first kid without letting the pup go. He obviously held back but the one he kicked still zoomed through the air before falling unconscious on the ground. The others finally reacted as they should have and paled. They couldn't understand threats but they were brainy enough to fear pain.

That thought disgusted Arima even more as he thought of the small animal they were just thrashing around.

"Last warning; scram," he reiterated and they finally ran away. He then inspected the dog's state and sighed in relief when he saw that he had nothing broken. He faintly smiled when the puppy started licking his hand.

"Use this," a hoarse voice resounded and Arima suddenly turned around to grab an object flying at him. He looked at it and frowned. He then spotted an old man walking in his direction with the help of a cane. The object he had thrown at him was a small disinfectant spray.

Arima nodded. "Thanks," he replied and began to treat the dog.

The old man grinned. "You're an interesting one. Why were you so angry? They're just kids."

"They got on my nerves, that's all. Even if they're too immature to understand that what they're doing is immoral, a small amount of fear and pain will wake them up. In fact, " Arima paused and snorted. "They’re lucky I didn’t do anything else," he snickered and pointed at the dog in his arms. "This fellow is ten times worth their lives in my opinion."

"I see… quite interesting indeed," the old man chuckled when Arima left and walked out of the park as well.

The same day, Arima brought back the dog to his home and decided to adopt him after he checked that there wasn't any collar or electronic chip. He was a small white Labrador and Arima called him Rocky.

"He's cute," Scatha commented as she rubbed the dog's ears. She smiled and looked at Arima. "You have to take care of him though."

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Arima nodded. "Sure, don't worry."

From that day onward, nothing changed in his life. He continued to go to school, spend time with his friends, play with Rocky, and learn blacksmithing with Scatha. Although he had to perform missions with his squad a least once every two months, it had already become so common for him that it could be qualified as a non-consequential thing.

At least it was, until three years later, when Arima turned sixteen. He was suddenly called by Moria who told him that they had a new job.

"This time, we're targeting something a lot bigger than we ever did," Moria declared. "Of course, we won't be alone for this. As you all know, no army is always united in every kind of way. Our special division was basically hired by another. And we don't have the right to refuse since the higher-ups had already accepted even before I learned about it," he said and sighed.

"So, what are the details?" Erin asked.

"We will be going against a true military facility this time. With tough defenses and trained soldiers," Moria said and used a small device to project a map on the wall of the room. The image displayed was an island located in the middle of the ocean.

Jin raised an eyebrow. "What is this? It's not even inside a known border. Are we attacking some kind of secret organization or independent force?" He couldn't help but inquire and he wasn't the only one looking for an explanation.

Moria lit up a cigarette with a blank look. "Listen; honestly, we don't know. These days, the biggest powers are Russia, the US, and China. That island is obviously not ours, so, we can suppose that it's either Russia or China's propriety. Anyway, our mission is to check things out. Find out what the facility is, and then destroy it if it's necessary."

"This island was detected by our radars only a few days ago and to be honest with you all, I think it's a bit fishy. You can call it a trap, but at the same time, a trap like this feels weird. In the end, we can only go inspect ourselves. We will be assisted by multiple other squads like ours and we will improvise there," Moria finished and waved his hand dismissively before leaving the room. "We leave in two days, gather at the vault by the morning."

Erin fell into deep thought and also sighed. "Rest well. Don’t forget; our main goal is and always will be to stay alive no matter what,” he said and exited the room.

The rest of the squad engraved those words into their minds and followed their captain. Arima stayed alone in the meeting room and projected the image from before again. He grabbed a chair and sat down. He stared at the outline of the island and what the satellites had managed to map.

He had nothing else to do, so he thought that he could perhaps spend some time memorizing this and see if he could extract some useful information.

Later, Tieria came back and peeked inside. She returned after she had noticed that Arima hadn’t followed everyone. When she saw him staring at the map so fixedly, she was a bit surprised. She blinked and left before coming back five minutes later. She wordlessly sat down next to him and handed him a small box full of his favorite sweets.

Arima looked wide-eyed at her and then smiled wryly as he put a lollipop in his mouth. She also took one and they both silently analyzed the projection.

***

"Take this," two days later, when Arima was supposed to leave with his squad, Scatha handed him a folded clothing. When he grabbed it, he was startled by its weight. He unfolded it and admired the long black coat with throwing-knives sticking out from the interior pockets.

"What is this?" He asked whilst touching the material.

"It's a custom coat I commanded," Scatha smiled. "It's bulletproof, heat and cold resistant, with exactly twenty hidden pockets, and made with Eion-refined plaited silk."

Arima listened and gaped at the coat for a moment. He wore it after a minute of contemplation.

"For now, it's still a bit too large, but you'll grow up," Scatha added.

"Hmm…" Arima tried to move a bit to get used to the unfamiliar material and weight. He then pulled one of the knives. He played with it a little and noticed a small button on it. "And this?"

Scatha smirked. "A pin," she answered and Arima shuddered. He slowly put back the knife in his pocket and sighed.

"You could have warned me before I started messing around with it," he glared at her mother and complained.

Scatha giggled. "I just wanted to see your reaction. Don't worry. That's something I made. To explode, the tip of the blade needs to hit something or else, you'll need to press the button after thirty seconds passed," she explained. "They are Eion charged. They're quite expensive, use it wisely. I'll teach you how to make them one day."

Arima wryly smiled and nodded. He bid goodbye to Scatha and caressed Rocky before leaving. He had been given a motorbike for his sixteenth birthday. It was a futuristic-looking bike with a clean and polished frame, propelled with Eion. Considering his identity, it was normal for him to have Eion energy in his daily life but the government was still debating how it should be spread to the general public.

Arima put on a pair of shaded glasses and drove until the orphanage located out of the town. When he arrived, he rejoined with some members of the squad and went to the armory with them.

He picked his rifle as always then went with a semi-auto magnum for his secondary weapon. The squad didn't need night vision equipment anymore since the latest nanomachines had already taken care of that problem. Arima grabbed the last piece of his equipment, a knife, and went back to the entrance whilst playing with it.

"What is that coat?" Tiria inquired when she saw him.

"It looks like custom cloth for combat. Can I take a look?" Tieria joined the conversation and asked.

"Sure," Arima smiled and took off his coat. Tieria admired the work along with the squad members.

"It must be cool to have a mother who has connections in several top-secret R&D facilities of the country," Jin commented.

"Indeed…" Gano whispered.

"You even have Eion explosive knives. Those are expensive as hell and hard to make," Jin added as he looked through the pockets of the coat.

"Yeah, yeah," Arima snatched his coat back and put in on again. "It's enough 'looking' for today," he declared and the squad lightly laughed.

Later on, when Erin and Moria both verified that everyone was ready, the squad left the orphanage and didn't go to an airport this time, but directly went by helicopter to the nearest harbor.

It was a harbor just in name as it was a military base. Moria led everyone to one of the hangars after conversing with the local commander.

When the members of the squad finally saw what was inside the hangar, their expectations were actually crushed by something bigger. They thought that they were going to go by boat, but the vehicle they were presented with was an Ohio-class ballistic submarine.

“A nuclear-powered submarine? Why?” Even Arima was stunned but apparently not for the same reason as his comrades.

Moria shrugged. “We can’t use Eion-class. They’re easier to uncover and we need to get close.”

"…I never boarded a submarine," Jin complained with a worried tone.

"Most of us, Jin," Farro retorted when he heard him.

"I can't swim, and I have a fear of deep water…" Jin complemented and everyone made a silent prayer for him.

"Let's go," Moria ignored Jin's pleads and opened the hatch. The squad followed him inside and Jin entered last with a somber expression.