Location: Terra Colony Andromeda
North Sector - Training Field Septa
Date: January 31, 2050
Evening - Sunset
It's cracking, I can hear it all around me. My mind? Myself? Or is it.. This place? Through the threads of bleeding light, like thin silk strands hung from one place to another, Itsuki jumped across from one hunk of ice to the next. Everything was crumbling around him, every wall, every facet, every side in this hollow prison of ice in the sky of immense size. It defied gravity, pieces of it floating in the air like hulking boulders. The inklings of his purpose flickered in his eyes. He scanned the glimmering facets around him. The mission.. The fight.. The battle.
There you are.
His temple ticked at the sight of his target, Sinder. The sensation of her heat, the eminence of her power, and the familiar allure of her attire were recognized instantly. His brain cells heated as every unconscious thought reared itself into action. Lunging, he was a streak of silver amongst the blue particles of snowflakes and streaks of light. By the shaded hue of the light's color from the cracking facets, it was sunset by now.
Faster. He thought, the infesting white cracks of energy across his body burning and pulsing, worsening as he tightened his fist and knocked it across Sinder’s face. She recoiled, thrown from her foothold of ice, then blurred as she kicked off the crumbling wreckage to come like a beast piercing at a prey’s flank.
Itsuki had barely the time to think before his body moved on its own, he twisted to the side, then leaned back to weave under 5 slicing claws. Sinder flipped forward with incredible flexibility, delivering a downward heel kick into his solar plexus. Ice broke on his back as he flew several meters down. He gripped for a ledge, catching, then pulling, uncaring of the pain in his muscles, his face placid and dead. Jumping and jumping he closed in like a man possessed.
Kill! The voices all screamed in his ears, all of them like his own, yet different in so many unique ways. Anguish, determination, hope, pity, sorrow. It all mixed, it all boiled, and it all was put into the next punch. Then the next, and the next. Every step, every twitch of his body sent ripples of agony that he continued to ignore. Sinder matched his ferocity, her claws and flames blazing the cold air as she danced like a frolicking wolf in the midst of a hunt.
They struck at each other, bruises piling up as they caused waves of destruction that pushed the integrity of their icy surroundings to their limit. Itsuki continued to draw closer no matter how many times Sinder threw him back. She was trying to escape, but there was no way out. She was cornered. Itsuki’s eyes locked on a moment, on one vital moment as his opponent attempted to recover. Sinder was unaccustomed to her footing, the claws of her metal boots not catching on the slick ice surfaces. Drawing his strength for a leap, Itsuki bounded like a pinball, coming to be above Sinder and kicking against the icy ceiling to strike from above.
He went for the throat. The next thing he knew, his vision tunneled. It cracked, and his eyes became wrought with white veins of corrupting thoughts. His inner consciousness became simpler.. Lost.. at ease.. In tune.. A jumbling mix of no rhyme or reason.
Her eyes.. They’re like the sun.. Brillant, Bright, Warm, and.. So very fiery Red. Itsuki took it all in, his inner voice awash amongst a number of flowing thoughts. Too many to count, too many to process. The inner voice went on. So warm.. So kind.. So.. Young.. So.. The tone shifted down, bogged down with.. gray.. Dirty noise, like the squelch of muddy blood and the squeal of an animal dying. So Loud, You must die!
Sinder screamed as he crashed them through levels of ice and debris. There was a thunderous thud and the world began to spin. Itsuki blinked, his vision coming into focus and his senses telling him that he had drawn a knife. The firm grip in his right palm was true, he had taken out the silver blade kept deep within his storage ring.
So what am I killing? He asked himself, lost in the rivers of consciousness crisscrossing on and on. What’s happening?
In front of him, he recognized a pair of scared fiery red eyes, a girl’s eyes, and her pair of dropping wolf ears. She stared into his silver slits irises, the sclera crackling with silvery bloodshot intent. Then it came to Itsuki, it flooded all back into one pond, one source, realigning like a jigsaw’s pieces coming together. The training exercise, Sinder, Amanda, Richard, 00, and.. He needed a moment, and remembered the voices in the dark recesses of his mind that bellowed like caged animals thirsting for blood.
Kill her.. Kill it.. Kill them.. Do it.. Do it Now! You Must Complete the Mission! Monster! Kill! Murderer! Butcher! Slave! Victim! Now! Do it! END THE SUFFERING! END HER SUFFERING! SAVE HER FROM THE PAIN! THE FUTURE IS INEVITABLE! KILL! KILL! KILL! DO WHAT YOU KNOW BEST!
In slow motion, Itsuki watched as he pressed the knife to Sinder’s neck. He let it happen, but with his finger now firmly on the trigger. He wouldn't let the voices take him. They had come close before, except not anymore. Years and years of practice had honed his skill to control his emotions, and his powers. He was dead inside, he knew it, though, did that matter as long as breathed?
Who knows.. But I prefer to not be buried just yet.
Itsuki blinked a second time, only half a second had passed. He had yet to slice into Sinder and not a speck of blood had stained her. But bruises marred her arms, her abdomen, and legs. She had been careless, not remembering to circulate her core energy to flush out the foreign elements of his core energy during their fight. It was basic knowledge, though it seemed the young girl needed some reinforcing lessons after this.
But.. She did well. I admit that. Itsuki heaped praise where it was due. He had resorted to pulling out one of his own techniques to overcome the gap in raw power. Without his gadgets, trinkets, and tools, he was helpless.. Or so Sinder now knew. At least this will be another good lesson for her. But I swear, I need to have a talk with her parents about her cockiness.
Itsuki chuckled at that inside himself. It wouldn’t show it, and he preferred no one knew he was thinking these soft thoughts. This wasn’t like him.. He wasn’t kind.. He wasn’t nurturing.. He wasn’t going to admit any of it.. No matter how many people told him so, or smiled at him, or thanked him, or.. Well.. there just wasn’t a need.
Itsuki sighed, relaxing his muscles and blinking the silver glowing slits from his blank black irises. He felt the pulsing cracks across his chest die out, receding to the depths inside him. Sinder, probably seeing the change happen, heaved a breath and her gaze went down to the knife still pressed to her neck.
“Well done.” Itsuki said softly. Her red eyes glimmered with proud flickers of flame. “But..” He went on with a sour tone, as if disappointed and reprimanding. “I’m going to need to have a serious talk with you after this.”
That got a new reaction out of Sinder. As quick as a snap, she deflated and shivered.. Then passed out, either traumatized or.. exhausted. Itsuki hoped that it was because of the latter. He was, however, left dumbfounded by how weak willed she was. Just what the heck made her so tense? Am I that scary?
Itsuki recounted the times he had a serious chat with people he knew. Tallying the number of altercations and awkward or tense moments, he found that he was quite honestly bad at making conversation. It was a fact he had hoped would be different by now after all these years. To his credit, he was more talkative compared to his younger years. He’d only grunt or grumble back then, and getting a full sentence out of his younger self was like trying to shovel a solid concrete sidewalk with a plastic spoon.
Pulling the knife away, he sheathed it and put it back into his storage ring. Sensing a presence behind him, he stood and turned to see Amanda, her sword raised and pointed at him. She glared with deep cold blue eyes, the crown of blue flames hovering around her temple, and her manifested armor glistening with a frosty aura from its gold plating.
Itsuki narrowed his gaze, appraising her. Exhausted.. Scared.. Hungry.. Enraged.. Irritated.. Moody.. Stressed.. And It’s probably that time of the month for her. The list went on, all of it bad and all signs of heightened aggression. What a handful.
“You can put the sword down.” He said plainly. “It’s over.. Or do you want me to hit you?”
Amanda’s face, once full of terrified determination to cut him down, flushed with surprise. “Y-you can talk?”
“Of course I can.. Didn’t 00 explain why I couldn’t earlier?”
“He did.” Amanda said sheepishly, her sword kept up defensively. “But.. you were about to.. To.. well.. You almost killed her. Are you sure you’re in control of yourself?”
“Of course I am.” Itsuki said, then raised a pointed finger. “And yes, I almost killed her.. But I didn’t.”
Amanda made a face that told him she wasn’t pleased with that response. “Just because you didn’t, doesn’t mean it was okay to thrash her. You really could’ve killed each other just now.”
She had a point. Itsuki was within inches of losing his life. If needed, the technique he used would’ve sent him to the grave and burned every last gram of energy out of him to bring Sinder down.
“Then I guess I’ll have to be more careful in the future.” He said, then asked. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah.. why do you..” Amanda’s knees suddenly gave out from under her. “Huh?” She stumbled, her sword and crown of fire dissipating into energy as she tried to catch herself.
Itsuki stepped in to grab her up by one of her shoulders. “I got you.. Just breathe.” He glanced over her shoulder, spotting Richard making his way over the rubble of heaped and shattered ice. “Hey! Richard!” He called. “Give me a hand.”
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With Richard’s help, they slowly had Amanda sit comfortably on her knees. She was panting, her face dripping with sweat and her skin a weak complexion of pale white.
“What’s.. Happening.. To me..” She rasped. “Why.. does my chest.. Hurt?”
Itsuki touched two fingers to her neck to take her pulse. “How long have you had your manifested armor on?”
“Since the.. Beginning.. Why?”
“Because you should’ve kept it in reserve.”
“What do you mean?” Amanda exhaled, getting a little of her breath back. “It doesn’t cause me much issue to keep it up. It doesn’t even take much energy to maintain it.”
“Yes, but you’ve never had to keep it active for hours at a time. Didn’t the basic classes teach you about how to manage your core energy? The first lessons were about the pros and cons of manifested armor. This should’ve been covered, and you should’ve known not to overexert yourself.”
Amanda’s lips pursed in nervous embarrassment. She looked away, trying to not make eye contact. Itsuki was unamused and drilled his eyes into her as if he was striking for oil. He struck something alright. Amanda’s face went from a sickly white to an indignant red.
Itsuki, already having his answer, handed her to Richard, then moved to kneel next to Sinder. “For now, just stay still. Richard, hold her as I finish up over here.”
“Finish up what?” Amanda asked.
With some help from Richard, she came up beside him, just in time as Sinder’s manifested clothing vanished. The girl was out cold so it was a given that it would recede. Usually, a set of regular clothes would be under the manifested vestments. But.. In Sinder’s case, with how revealing her’s was and how her flames could burn things quite well, she was left stark naked.
Amanda and Richard covered their eyes, cheeks flushing pink at the sheer volume and bounce of Sinder’s breasts. Even as a fellow girl, to Amanda, it felt downright inappropriate to look.
“Jesus christ..” She muttered. “Are those even real?”
“Yes, they are.” Itsuki said flatly. “I’m not a doctor, but she’s never had plastic surgery.. Not that I remember, or could tell.”
“Hey?” Amanda asked, trying not to peek through her fingers. “You have your eyes closed, right?”
“No, I need them to assess her injuries.”
“You what? You can’t use that as an excuse to ogle her, hurry up and shut them you pervert!” Amanda was tempted to pull her hands away from her eyes to wrestle Itsuki, but the thought of seeing Sinder’s naked body was too much.. too.. stimulating. “You better not be doing anything weird to her.”
Itsuki scoffed. “I’m an adult. I know my boundaries. Plus, her father would incinerate me if he ever found out I did anything to her.”
A couple seconds later, Amanda heard the rustling of cloth and then Itsuki said, “Okay, finished. You can open your eyes now.”
She hesitated, but eventually got to it. To her relief, Sinder was at the least covered in a long white cloth from neck to toe, perhaps courtesy of Itsuki's storage ring. He really does store anything in there.
“So what now?” Richard asked. “Did we win?”
Itsuki let the question hang in the air. Things haven’t gone the way they were supposed to. He glanced out at the charred landscape. Hearing the booms of battle die out on the wind, a new quiet held everyone’s ear. Like the calm after a storm.. Or a war.
“Yes.” He finally said. “I think so.” Checking his HUD, he discovered a new marker on the map. “Seems like the fighting part of this exercise is over, though we still need to get to our rendezvous. Give me a minute, I’ll assess things with S1 to see what his situation is like before we move.” Opening up the comm line, he connected a moment later. [Itsuki to S1.. respond. Give me a sitrep.]
[This is S1, good to hear you Itsuki.] The sound of motor vehicles and chatter in the background disturbed the sound’s clarity, though the voice was clear enough. [The enemy constructs have pulled back. I think whoever’s been controlling them must’ve figured it was time to go home.]
Itsuki grunted at that. [Or maybe they finally got bored. In any case, we need a pickup. Can you send over a vehicle?]
[No can do, I’ve got my hands full organizing everyone over here. And we got a lot of people to move as is.] S1 paused to address someone, then said. [If you need a ride, check your storage ring. The one I gave back to you should have some stuff left in it, and I was sure to not touch that one thing in particular.]
Itsuki brought up the manifest on his HUD and found exactly what S1 was talking about. [You could’ve used it. It wouldn’t have been a problem.]
[Yeah, but I’d prefer not to break all your stuff.] S1 laughed, then before he closed the comm he said, [See you at the base, let’s get drinks after this. We can celebrate with some of the new newbies who’ve finally popped their war cherries, and you're paying.]
There was a click as the line went dead. Itsuki didn’t even have a second to reply. He shrugged. Guess the tabs on me. Turning to Richard, Itsuki tapped at the storage ring on his wrist.
“Alright, let’s get moving.” He said. “Seems we have some ground to cover.”
Amanda heaved a sigh. “You gotta be kidding me, haven’t we done enough already.” She sat down on a chunk of ice, slumping her shoulders as if the sky had fallen. “Just when the heck will this day end!”
“Stop complaining.” Itsuki snapped. “We at least have a ride.” With one last tap on his storage ring, a vehicle materialized between them all.
“Uh?” Amanda stared at it. “Can this thing even fit all of us?”
“It’ll be tight, but we’ll manage.” Itsuki said, He jerked his chin to Richard. “Richard, I’ll need you to hold onto Sinder. Amanda will be riding shotgun with me, I can’t have her touching anything so I need to watch her. She might break something.”
“Hey!” Amanda huffed. “What the heck are you on about? I'm not going to break it.”
“Tell it to my computers.” Itsuki pointed a judging finger at her. “And I mean it, don’t touch anything, I just had this thing upgraded and I don’t want your bad luck with computers to rub off on this one.”
Richard watched as Amanda made a rebuttal which was followed with a curt and blunt counter by Itsuki. The pair’s back and forth went on, all while he took it all in, both exasperated and amused by the banter. As he listened, he kneeled beside Sinder and picked her up in a princess carry, making sure that the white sheet covered her nicely. She was lighter than she looked and.. Huh.. she’s kinda cute, I wonder if she’s..
Boing Boing.
The sudden feeling of a soft jiggling against his chest made his thoughts quickly go down a path he immediately stamped down, or tried to. Even hidden and covered by the obscuring white sheet across her body, her chest’s.. volume.. was still immensely pronounced and so was their.. texture. Richard heard the briefest shifting of cloth, and did his best to not let it form into a mental image.
Just don’t.. Look down.. If I don’t see them, they don’t exist. Don’t be tempted.. Come on.. I’m better than this. Be a gentleman. Come on.
In the end, his eyes failed him and in a brief moment of weakness, he peeked. A feeling of relief, shame, and a bit of fluttering in his chest welled into a tear in his eyes. Please, for the love of God.. Forgive me. With as pure a heart as possible, he covered Sinder up and got the slightest of touch with what was possibly heaven at his fingertips.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
He hoped no one could hear the screaming in his head.
***
Location: Terra Colony Andromeda
North Sector - Headmaster’s Office
Date: January 31, 2050
Evening - Sunset
“So, are you satisfied?” Professor Cyno righted himself in his seat as he glanced over to Joel, who was stretching up from his little nap on the couch. He hadn’t been sleeping, more like lazily keeping an eye on all the monitors at once. “You do know that you’ve messed up the exercise.”
“Oh, I know. “Joel said, taking a biscuit from the low table and munching on it. His deeply shaded red eyes glimmered with a touch of awareness. “But these exercises sometimes need to get messy to have some results. And you must agree that we have a good crop of students this year, and few are unlocking more of their powers.”
“Yes, but at what cost.” The professor wasn’t inclined to set the students and trainees into danger. Using live rounds was trouble enough already. Even though most munitions had little effect on people who knew how to use core energy, it was the mental effects of throwing them into high stress situations that he was worried about. “We can’t just go pushing people’s limits as if it’s normal.” He argued. “The repercussions just aren’t worth it.”
“I understand that.” Joel said, setting his jaw as he chewed. “I’ve read your early studies and your highlights about the.. Previous.. Attempts to cultivate an explorer’s powers during the war. Ugly stuff, very ugly.”
“So why? Why butt in?” Professor Cyno rounded on him, turning in his seat to face him. “We’re training a number of successful classes as is in the recent decade, so why this drastic change? Why now?”
Joel rolled his eyes as he dusted himself off. Giving his regal clothes a pat, he stood up and dismissed the monitors to make way for a sight of the horizon. With the sun departing and night bleeding into the sky, he changed his tone, becoming surly and formal.
“The world is changing Cyno.. The war has been over for 20 years, but we’re still recovering. Humans are fighting amongst each other, trying to gain ground and resources, trying to claim what they believe is their irrefutable right.” He chuckled. “There is a sick irony to this. The starfall war united humanity, now that it is over, they go back to killing each other. The population hasn’t even caught back up to how it once was.”
Cyno pressed his temples. Joel was irritably right. The current number of humans in the world was still drastically low. From the original 7 billion in the year 2000, less than a billion walked the Earth. And human nature hadn’t changed. With how most governments were obliterated by the end of the war, the world was a free for all and split into those who did what they wanted.
The populace of the Terra Colonies around the world were only one faction of the many that settled and put down roots in the present day. There had been clashes the past 20 years, growing pains would be the soft way to describe it, but in truth, it was senseless violence and anarchy, and it was escalating as other factions began to become more organized.
“Then we need to have a meeting about this, before we do anything drastic next time.” Cyno said. “And I don’t mean the usual kind of meeting.”
“Oh?” Joel seemed surprised. “You don’t want to talk with the elected leaders of the Terra Colony?”
“Don’t call them that, and we don’t have leaders. We have communities, and yes.. It’s not going to be that kind of meeting we can put out to the public.”
Joel went over to his desk and sat on a corner, tapping its brown oaken surface. “So a meeting of the big shots. Just you, me, and well.. Him, of course.”
Cyno stood up to leave, displeased. “Yes.. him.” He said pointedly. “He’ll have some words for you, and don’t call us bigshots. We’re just..” Cyno didn’t know how to say it. He had no counter. He didn’t want to admit that they were that important, that they had so much power. He just wanted things to be normal. But they aren’t. And I already know that.
“Nevermind.. I’ll send the details.” He continued on his way to the door. “Just be sure to not interfere with the rest of the practical training class today. What’s in store next for them is going to be as tough as it is, probably tougher now since you’ve altered the plans.”
“I got it, I got it.” Joel waved a farewell, relaxing as he leaned back, a hand flat to the desk and a smirk on his lips. “But I’ll be sure to keep an eye on them. It’s my job after all as headmaster. These new first years have some talent, and a few of the older ones are shaping up. I can’t wait to see what they’ll do next.”
Cyno interpreted that as trouble. “You are incorrigible.” With that said, the door shut on its own on his way out.