Morning of the day before classes started, it had been 3 days since Ikki, Stella, Amanda, and Itsuki had all met. In that time, the four had gotten to know each other but more importantly, they began to train with one another.

Drinking from a bottle, Ikki let out a sigh of relief, allowing the refreshing taste of the sports drink permeate his senses. He had just finished his round of running 20 miles every morning. It kept him in good shape and his stamina at its peak.

Nearby, Stella and Amanda were wheezing heavily as they crossed the finish line out on the track they were running. A nearby speaker pinged, enunciating their competition of the training menu Ikki and Itsuki had loaded. It kept track of how far they ran, how fast they ran, and the time it took for them to finish.

The first time they tried, Stella and Amanda had passed out during the middle of the run. On the second, they retired after the run, and yesterday, they passed out during the after run sparring match. This time, they still had energy to spare.

“Nice work you two.” Ikki said.

“Yeah, you’re doing pretty well adapting to our usual warmups.” Itsuki said, throwing over a bottle of water to Amanda as he sipped his own.

“I feel like you’re insulting me with how you said that.” Amanda frowned at Itsuki but nonetheless took a sip from the bottle she caught. He could have given it to her easier but she already expected him to be this way.

“I meant it as a compliment.”

“Did you now? I can’t really tell with how monotone you are and how your eyes keep digging into me.”

“Not my problem.”

Amanda put her palm to her face in irritation at his blunt words. “Jeez, what a pain in the ass.” To which Stella nodded and frowned as well.

“Don’t mind him, Miss Stella.” Ikki said, addressing the somewhat sour faced Stella was making. “Itsuki doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s sometimes hard to understand, but trust me, he thinks you’re improving just fine.”

Still skeptical, Stella nodded but frowned at how Ikki addressed her. “It’s just Stella, we’ve been roommates for a while now, so let’s hurry up and move past the formalities.”

“Oh, my bad. Well, here you go.” Ikki handed her his bottle, but Stella paused since she became a bit self-conscious. His lips had been just on it, her eyes dashed between the tip of the bottle and Ikki’s lips.

“But that’s…it be……like a……indirect…hmmm. Ahhh.” Stella fidgeted with her hands behind her back, trying to figure out what to do. Ikki realized his blunder and offered the other free bottle they had.

“My bad, here, I meant to give you this one.”

“N-no, it's fine.”

“Are you sure? We have another bottle, I can just—”

“I said it's fine!” Stella shouted, snatching Ikki’s bottle from his hand and putting her lips to the tip. Her cheeks flushed, but Stella upheld a noble appearance as she drank.

At the side, Amanda and Itsuki stared blankly at the ongoing love comedy. They had both made themselves scarce and used a few tricks to hide their presence to allow the young couple some time together.

“Hey.” Amanda nudged Itsuki in the side a bit hard, he didn’t complain. “You think they realize it yet?”

“Probably, but I’m guessing they’re waiting for the other to confess, or maybe I’m wrong. I’m not good at romance, but I have watched enough romance anime to see the tropes.”

“I agree, but I’m surprised that an unempathetic dolt like you can understand romance.”

Itsuki shrugged and just continued watching the romance play out in front of him.

“So umm, Ikki? You seem a bit happier today, did something good happen?” Asked Stella.

“Yeah, I heard that my older sister will be coming to the academy this year. I haven’t seen her in a while so I’m glad we’ll have a chance to reconnect.”

“When you mean older sister, you don’t happen to mean stepsister, right? You don’t have any feelings for her right? Because I see you sometimes blushing when you talk about her.”

“Hmmm? No, I don’t have anything like that. I just have some good memories with my older sister, she was one of the reasons I was able to move to the Western Bloc. I feel indebted to her, plus, we are blood relatives. We don’t have that kind of relationship.” Ikki explained, too much of Stella’s relief.

“Then I’ll allow it.” She said.

“Allow what? Exactly?”

“Hmph! It’s nothing, now what’s next?”

“Well, me and Itsuki usually spar for another hour, but we can change it up today. Hey! Itsuki, what should we.. huh? Why are you both looking at me like that?”

Both Itsuki and Amanda glared at Ikki, their eyes conveying their abject feelings of a missed chance. ‘Dense’ was the word that crossed their eyes and they both let out a heavy sigh.

“I don’t think he sees it.” Amanda mumbled.

“I agree, maybe we should give them more alone time.” Itsuki whispered, getting a nod from Amanda. For once, they actually agreed on something and had a somewhat cooperative exchange.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“It’s nothing Ikki.” Itsuki said. “Since the girls got through the running, let’s do an actual spar with our core energies like yesterday. I’ll set the field to simulation mode but let’s do a one-on-one fight. Come with me Amanda, we’ll go over here.”

“Sure sure, but hold back on the grenades this time. Will you?” Amanda admonished, which Itsuki gave a curt “nope”, too much to her dismay. Manipulating his wrist device, Itsuki set the training ground to stimulation mode so that no one would get hurt, or well, as long as no one blew themselves up like he did to win.

“You know you’re still insane for trying to win with a ludicrous plan like that, right?” Getting herself ready, Amanda manifested her sword, its golden cross hilt appearing first in her palm.

“Judge me about my tactics when you really become an explorer. For now, focus. You told me you wanted to find something in the star depths, to do that you’ll need to at least be able to go toe to toe with me.”

Itsuki brandished a pair of P90 model machine guns, materializing fully loaded into his hands. He still had his storage rings since he only needed permission to use the number of explosives he brought to their last fight.

While the issue of expending his weapons was not a concern since simulation mode never actually used the items, it did replicate the damage done, so the literal smoking crater he made in the arena was still real.

His little self-destruct, could have sent a literal concussive and possibly deadly shockwave at the unexpecting spectators, which was why he had got Joel’s permission first.

Amanda was relieved that she wouldn’t be blown up like the last time, but she knew not to put her guard down around Itsuki.

“Ugh, this sucks so much.”

As Amanda and Itsuki got their spar going, Stella and Ikki had already begun to cross blades. Their set up was easier since all they needed to do was manifest their weapons and get to swinging.

“Hyah!” Stella found her switch axe meeting Ikki’s short tachi’s blade. As small and unassuming as it was, the tachi was of a durable make and could withstand Stella’s tremendous strength.

Her weapon was still in axe form which had more controlled momentum behind her attacks due to its center gravity being different and less finicky to control when it was in blade form.

Ikki staggered, the shockwave traveling through his left arm.

“Nice attack, but how about this!” Ikki used the traveling momentum to spin around and swung his black katana at Stella. She ducked but was sent flying as Ikki pushed the height advantage he had over Stella now.

His weapons descending on her, Stella wanted to dash away but shook that idea off. She would face the attack and thought quickly on a counter. Slamming her fist into the ground, a sputter of flame seeped out of the now cracked earth.

His footing rocked, Ikki’s slash flattered and missed. He backed away, trying to get out the sudden obstructing field Stella had made. His guard left open, Stella hastily gathered her core energy to enhance her speed to catch Ikki. Her legs took a step forward and her blade switched to blade form in a second.

Raising it, she hoped to end the match with this.

“I have you now, taste my---” But the tip of Stella’s shoe caught the jagged and upended tip of the cracked and slightly cratered ground she had made.

Working against her, Stella fumbled forward and onto Ikki, who was attempting to catch her but found her momentum and weight too much to fight against.

“Stella!” Ikki cried, holding Stella as they fell to the ground. Ikki grunted in pain as the rocked-up rocks pressed into his back. He’d be fine, but Stella could see he was in pain.

His ability to gain power from inflicting pain on himself was useful at times, but served to only prolong his suffering since his sensitivity to pain was enhanced, an unfortunate side effect of his abilities.

“Oh my goodness, are you alright?”

“I-I’m fine, but umm, Stella? You’re kind of… sitting…on me.” Ikki blushed and tried to look away but his eyes kept flitting back to the somewhat compromising position they were in.

“Oh my! What a nice couple.” A passing grandmother said.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Stella wanted to scream but that scream just now was not from her. Looking around, Stella and Ikki saw a familiar sight.

“Ummm? Ikki? Is this normal for Itsuki? Does he always do that in your sparring sessions?”

“No, not really, he doesn’t get this worked up?” What they were looking at was Itsuki firing the heavy machine gun he had used in the duel they had days before. It was a huge piece of equipment and the rounds they fired were no joke.

With enough punch to blow up literal tanks in seconds, it was odd to see it be used on a human. While Amanda was a mystic type explorer, who was supposedly stronger than any grunt like Itsuki, the fright on her face was enough to tell that this was traumatizing.

“Hmmmm? I thought they were getting along since I saw them playing video games late into the night yesterday.”

Stella recalled how they were raging at their screens in the recreation lodging area of the dorm. They seemed really into the game, so much so that Itsuki had actually raised his voice, rather than keep his calm and uninterested composure.

“I did hear from Itsuki that Amanda broke three of his computers. Maybe he’s still a bit ticked off?”

“How did Amanda break that many of them, it’s been only three days since she became Itsuki’s helper?”

“Beats me, maybe she broke one every day, but in any case, ummm, Stella?”

“Hmmm? Yeah, what is it?”

“Y-You’re….breasts….There pushing….into me…”

Looking down at herself, Stella realized she had yet to move from the compromising position she was in. It also didn’t help that they were getting attention from some of the staff members of the training grounds.

“F-forget what you saw!”

“Alright! But please move already I can’t—”

“Forget it right now!” Stella demanded, punching Ikki in the face and knocking him out by accident.

“Huh? Oh no.” Realizing what she did, Stella tried to shake Ikki awake but he seemed to have really passed out. As if she were a murderer, she quickly dragged Ikki to the side to hide from the prying eyes that were gathering on her. It was now about the time that people would be up and about, so they’d have to finish up soon.

“Don’t worry Amanda. Just 10 more minutes! I know you can handle this!” Itsuki shouted his blank toned encouragement over the explosions using a built-in speaker on his wrist device.

“NO I CAN NOT! STOP THROWING THE DAMN GRENADES ALREADY! HEY! WAIT! IS THIS ABOUT THE COMPUTERS AGAIN!”

“…..No comment.” Itsuki said as he then brought out the flamethrower to smother out the rest of these last 10 minutes of Amanda’s screaming.

The screeching cries of a young girl echoed in the training grounds, and while many of the staff looked on with horror, when they saw it was just Itsuki, they backed away, not wanting to get involved with that can of worms.

“At least she’s keeping up.” A staff member said jokingly, getting dry responses out of his colleagues.

At the same time, Itsuki evaluated Amanda’s abilities more closely. She was quite adept and seemed brighter than her years would seem.

“Hmmmmm, I wonder if she’s like her.”

[DE-AT Grenade Launcher]

Description: Drum feed launcher with 30 round capacity. Used by the CDU force of Andromeda for saturation attacks, or in Itsuki’s case, blowing enemies up until they give up……

Note: Inform the Authorities before using. (Excerpt from Cyno Basa Yuno and Joel M Fox)

DE-Drum Extension

AT-Area Termination

image [https://i.postimg.cc/hvDK3yPY/1696228661911.jpg]