As I finally took the right directions towards the living quarters shown on the holographic map of my metallic bracelet, I realized that I’d now spent more days asleep in this world than I had awake. It didn’t help that, given this was the first time I had visited the medical ward, I didn’t start heading in the proper direction until a good fifteen minutes had passed since I left what was probably a recovery room.

Navigating the elaborate building, what struck me as particularly odd was seeing a handful of small robots cleaning the hallways, making final repairs to a damaged wall, replacing various light fixtures, and all sorts of small, day-to-day tasks. Controlling and directing them were two people in uniforms I didn’t recognize, huddling together to read a holographic report. I suppose even other worlds need to replace light fixtures when they get damaged but…such a thing was so normal.

Having a crew to maintain the base, run its operations, even something like cleaning was so logically sound that I never even considered it. Had I already gotten so used to this world without sense that I forgot all about logic, or did it simply conflict with my fantastical ideas of another world? I gave them a small greeting as I passed them by, which they returned without much enthusiasm.

I could hardly blame them; it must’ve been late in the night, or ridiculously, insultingly early in the morning.

“Finally.” I whispered, reaching a hallway with doors extending on either side. I couldn't recall much of what Hanna told me about the way the living quarters were organized, seeing as how she did it after returning from our first mission rescuing Lia. But what was plain as day was that in front of me were more doors than Resonators in the Redoubt. I took a look at one of the entrances with no name plate attached— “B3”.

“Haaahh,” I sighed, pushing my hair back and opening the holographic display on my bracelet again. “This is going to take too long. Isn’t there a directory or something that……oh.”

There is.

An unpleasant frown crossed my face at the fact a directory listing Resonator living quarters’ was available, but not something as simple and helpful as a clock to tell the time.

So much for the logic of another world.

“B3……it’s Ildefons’ room,” I whispered, moving away in fear of disturbing him. He, Juan, and Fiametta should’ve long since gotten back from their mission, but the President and Commander didn’t mention anything about it. “…but they did mention the Endbringer.” Meaning whatever they found must’ve been related to its coming.

I closed my eyes, pushing down the anxiety building in my stomach. Considering my last two fights…

“Over two dozen Resonators from two Redoubts went out to fight it.”

I took a deep breath; it wouldn’t do me any good to think about that right now. Distancing myself from the room, I looked again at the directory and noticed Hanna’s room was much, much further into the hall. When I finally reached the unassuming door, I noticed it was surrounded by other, empty rooms— her closest neighbor being Chelsea’s some four doors further down. It was so isolated that, had a small nameplate reading “Hanna” hadn’t been attached to the upper frame of the door, I would’ve easily thought I was in the wrong place.

I closed my eyes, gathering myself before lightly knocking on the door.

To my genuine surprise, muffled sounds of movement and chairs reached my ears before the door creaked open, and a familiar redhead greeted me with soft spoken surprise.

“Anon,” she said, opening the door just a bit wider. “You should be resting in the medical bay, what are you doing here?”

“Sorry,” I said, just now recognizing how bad this probably looked. “I was just looking for Hanna, but if this is a bad time…”

The door was wide open now; Hanna was visible in the background, smoothing out the creases of her bed sheets at a suspiciously slow pace.

“A-Anon…” the redhead said, exaggeratingly covering her mouth with curled fingers and looking to the side. “When the Commander asked if you had taken on a lover, I don’t think that was an order……”

I could feel the heat radiating from my face.

“Lia, please don’t tease the newest member of the Redoubt.” I said, only managing a smile that probably looked like a desperate cry for help. “I’m really impressed with how quickly you can put someone on the spot.”

“Not only that, but also how quickly she can admit to having a death wish.” said her friend behind her with a dangerously thin smile. Lia, however, simply laughed.

“Forgive me,” she said, trying to control the volume of her amusement. “Just a bit of teasing to lighten the mood. Please, come in.”

“Is there a reason you’re inviting someone else into my room?”

“Were you going to kick him out?”

“That implies letting him inside in the first place!” she said, stomping back to her bed.

As Hanna fell onto the sheets with inelegance, Lia turned her attention back to me, motioning me inside as she stood by the door.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Not at all! You actually caught me just as I was about to leave, so your timing is wonderful.”

“Again, into my room.” complained the girl with brunette hair. Lia offered a smile as she turned back to me.

“It is late though, so please remember to get some rest after talking.”

“Not like I need it too.” continued mumbling the girl on the bed. Lia tilted her head, addressing her.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow then?”

A few moments of silence passed before Hanna responded.

“Yeah,” she said, the slight traces of a smile forming on her face. “I’ll see you tomorrow Lia.”

“Then likewise for you as well, Anon. Sleep well.”

“Thanks; goodnight Lia.”

The redhead slipped through the door, closing it with a soft *click* behind her and leaving me alone with my former Orientation guide.

A few long seconds passed between us; long enough for me to regret my choice of coming here. Lia is her best friend— what was I thinking by coming here? I knew, of course, that my thought process had been to visit and see if she was okay, but wasn’t it obvious that she would talk with Lia before anyone else? Especially if she was upset?

Maybe Hanna had a point about me having brain damage.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“…I actually don’t.”

She sat up, a look of disbelief on her face. “What?”

Her tone wasn’t making me feel any better about my intellect.

“I can’t…find the clock, function, on my bracelet.” I said, holding up the contraption on my wrist. She gave a deep sigh, holding out her hand.

I began walking towards her, unfastening the strap, but before I could she yanked me by the collar so I could sit beside her.

“These were designed by the ESDF’s Engineering department a long time ago, back when those things first started attacking apparently.” she began, fiddling with the device on my wrist. “Problem was, there’s too much information to take in regarding Resonators, Slayers, the Redoubt, battle data— all of it piles up quick making everything a mess to navigate.”

As she sorted through and demonstrated the bracelet’s functions, she tapped on a particular icon that displayed various other settings that had the option to be either displayed or hidden.

“Their solution in the end was to leave it up to the Resonator. It’s not a problem because specialized departments, like Engineering, have override functions that let them find exactly what they need should an emergency come up and they need access to our bracelets. Aside from that, we get to choose what we see and what we don’t.”

She finished her explanation at the same time she let go of my wrist; a small number appeared in faint purple light inside the metallic triangle reading, “2:03am”.

“Thanks,” I said, amazed at the fact the time wasn’t already a default option. “I really appreciate it.”

“You didn’t come here just to ask about the time.” she said, propping her legs up onto the bed. “What do you want?”

Though her tone didn’t sound annoyed, her blunt manner of speaking would definitely take some more time to get used to. I leaned forward, laying my arms on my knees and putting my hands together.

One the one hand, I was genuinely glad to see her feeling better. If what she mentioned back when she first talked about her empathetic friend was true, and she came in at the same time Lia did—

“…kept herself going in the face of danger that would make anyone want to shit their pants for a year just by reminding herself how much reality needed her.”

—Hanna’s only had two years to recover from the death of her friend. Moreover, having to not just serve under, but actually BE in the same room as the people responsible for killing her……it’s no wonder she’d been in such a state.

Do I really want to bring that back up?

I turned to look at her. Her face was as statuesque as ever and it didn’t look like she’d been crying, but…was she really okay?

And if she wasn’t…was there really anything I could do about it?

I thought about these things before a sharp jolt in my arm hauled me back to the present.

“Agh!” I spat, rubbing my shoulder. “What was that for?”

“You keep staring at me!” she retaliated, holding her fist an inch from my arm.

“I just got out of the medical bay you know.”

“And? Are you going to tell me why you’re here or not?”

I sighed. If, for the moment, she’s okay, then it’d be best not to tell her I was worried and would’ve used the training as an excuse to help her feel better. Consequently that left me with one option left to say…

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“I just wanted to thank you for visiting me and bringing the soup and supplements.” I said, closing my eyes to control my voice from shaking in embarrassment. “I didn’t get the chance to—hMPH!”

I yanked away the pillow that hit me so hard I could almost see my imprint in the memory foam.

“Are you trying to send me back to the medical bay?!”

“I told you you just dreamt that!” she said, red tinting the entirety of her face. “What the hell, kid? You’re in a coma for three days and all of a sudden have delusions about me!? In your dreams!”

“Apparently it was,” I sighed, standing up in frustration. “But fine, I’ll get out of your way. I’ll see—”

“Wait!”

I stopped in place, looking at the Resonator whose eyes were glued to the floor. The tint of red was still obvious, but less so with her hair obscuring her face.

“Well…it’s actually a good thing you dropped by since…I had something to say too.”

Her tone made it obvious it was neither an insult nor command. With another sigh, I turned around completely as she scratched one of her cheeks, looking around the room.

“Back in the medical bay…Lia let me know that I might’ve been a little…harsh. I guess. Seeing as you got dealt a bad hand she might’ve had a point so……”

“So?”

“So about calling you a liar and a cunt I……that was really my bad.”

I managed a faint smile as she waited for my response. I was about to tell her not to worry about it when an idea sprang to mind, causing me to reevaluate my words.

“That makes us even then, but if you’re looking to make it up to me I also won’t say no.”

“Don’t get in over your head either, kid.”

“So I take it you’re not going to help teach me a thing or three?”

She seemed taken aback for a moment, the silence giving me a queue to continue.

“Under the ESDF’s orders I need to finish seventy-two hours of training. I’m apparently banned from deployment until I do so, so I want to get it out of the way.” I stood there for a moment before adding. “I still need to learn how to fly, too. If you could teach me I’d…really appreciate it.”

Hanna’s eyes narrowed in disbelief after absorbing all the information.

“Is that the reason you came here?”

“Just partly.”

“Meaning you wanted to train now?”

“Well the training room might be empty so…”

“Do you have any idea how late it is?”

I looked down at my bracelet.

“Ten past two in the morning.”

Hanna sat in silence for a few moments, her emotions a mixed bag I couldn't read— partially because of how faint they were. But more so because I still couldn't understand the girl in front of me. There was no doubt she went through a lot, but Hanna wasn’t a malicious person.

Maybe it was because of that fact I felt comfortable asking her, regardless of the fact I still couldn't completely understand.

“Let me make it clear that the only reason I’m doing this is cause I can’t sleep— one of those nights.” she said, grabbing a bag and slinging it over her shoulder. She turned to face me with a confident pose. “But I guess it won’t hurt to help out the guy who’s also going to cover my back out there.”

“If you could start off easy on me—”

“Not a chance, kid.”

As she walked past me and out of the door, to my further surprise, I saw the faintest hints of a smile growing on her face. I couldn't help one of my own as I followed her through the door and beyond the living quarters.

* * * * *

With Hanna’s guidance, we navigated the labyrinth of the Redoubt without any trouble. As we shifted through various rooms, I couldn’t help but notice how different the base felt with most everyone asleep. Of course, it wasn’t completely empty as the occasional MP or maintenance worker would pass us by, but it was enough to be noticeable. Surprisingly, or perhaps not, noises from the hangar never ceased— continuously echoing with the sounds of welding, cutting, and other machinery.

How Annika managed to drown out all of the noise when she focused was a task beyond me.

“Shouldn’t more people be awake?” I asked as we entered the large room with a transparent, semi-circle dome as its centerpiece. Its bright white tiles brought back the unpleasant memories of my first assessment.

“Humans are naturally diurnal,” Hanna explained over the now faint sounds of machinery. I felt her tone become stiff, and walked closer to see her crouching over training equipment hastily strewn across a single spot. Among them was a sturdy, single-edged silver blade; not unlike the ones used by Slayers. Her brows furrowed as she resumed. “We can be nocturnal,” she murmured, looking around the room, “but doing so would diminish our ability in combat…”

“Someone probably forgot to pick it up after finishing training.”

She gave no response as she finished her examination of the room with a sharp gaze. Suddenly dropping the sword, its metal rang against the silent room, making the noise seem much louder than it actually was. Hanna, however, paid it no mind as she walked to one side of the semi-circular dome, laying down her bag and approaching a small door I never noticed before.

“Put this on.” she commanded, unhooking various pieces of equipment and throwing a weighty vest at me. I barely managed to catch it— it must’ve been fifty pounds at the very least.

“What is this?” I asked as Hanna finished putting hers on.

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“Tends to happen when you get sent to a new world.” I sighed.

Whether she didn’t hear or simply chose to ignore me, Hanna approached the door and put her eye in front of a tiny, circular piece of glass to the side of the entrance. A flash of purple later, sounds of metal locks groaned as it opened into a hexagonal hallway; it wasn’t very long, maybe thirty feet, but upon reaching its end Hanna rotated the lock on a thick, metal door, pulling it inward to reveal the world behind it.

Wind.

The first breath of this new world to assault my bodily senses was the wind.

Miniscule particles of sand nipped away at my cheeks, but I was too busy taking in the vast moonlit desert before me to flinch at their prick. Clouds still obscured the sky, but the moon of this world was much more radiant than on earth— it colored the sand silver, illuminating a once charcoal sky into beautiful caricatures of ebony and ivory.

“Green-light,” sounded a voice from some distance away, “hurry it up; we haven’t got all night!”

I looked down to see Hanna had already made her way across the field of sand stretching out before us. I found it difficult to catch up to her given the newfound weight on my chest, but fortunately she didn’t walk as fast as when I first arrived at the Redoubt. We walked for about a half mile in silence; I wanted to ask her what it was we were doing, why we were outside where we were exposed to all manner of danger, exposed to the Outsiders— but a part of me felt she wouldn’t answer. And honestly, a part of me didn’t want to.

It would’ve broken the serene beauty of the argent tinted night.

“Above this hill.” she said after we arrived at a particularly steep mound of sand. We climbed, the vests making our steps sink into the sand, but upon finally reaching the peak I had to shield my eyes from the sheer luminosity of the light.

And after uncovering them, I was at a loss for words.

“This is…”

An enormous, unending expanse of silver light— with color painted by the moon shining through the broken stratus clouds. Ripples and waves undulated across the surface, momentarily replacing the silver with liquid black before returning again.

The soothing sound of waves gently lapping against a silver shore met my ears, lulling me for a tenth of a second into forgetting where I was. Of course, something like this would exist as well.

“The ocean.” said Hanna, sliding down the sand, some three hundred feet away from the shore. I followed— recognizing now that we were probably further out than that.

“So…what are we doing here?”

Hanna unsheathed a sword in response, tossing it to me. I yanked it out of midair, a weary grimace on my face at the realization.

“No unexpected visitors, no audience.” she said, drawing her own blade. The glow of the moon made her look especially ethereal in the soft wind. “And…I want to be witness to the resolve that was able to move even Chelsea.”

The grimace on my face stretched into a frown as I examined the sword bathed in moonlight.

“Listen, I get where you’re coming from, but like I told Chelsea why don’t we start with the fights I already haa-gh—!”

I only just managed to raise my sword in defense as Hanna’s figure leapt into the air, diving towards me as her blade collided against mine in an explosion of embers. The resulting sparks were especially colorful against the backdrop of the muted world.

Still in the air, she caught me off-guard as her body twisted downwards, letting gravity do the work as she focused her strength to her leg, kicking me in the chest to knock me into the sand.

“That’s where you’re wrong, I already know about your fight against the Crysfiends and Behemoth.” she said, casually turning the sword in her fingers as I struggled to stand. She really didn’t pull her punches. “And by extension, you’re fight using a part of the Outsider itself.”

My surprise momentarily drowned out the pain, helping me stand as I readied my blade once more. She knows about the Behemoth, meaning……

“Oh? Fine; if you won’t come to me, I’ll go to you!”

She charged towards me, her steel blade mingling with the color of the sand and water, making it difficult to keep track of— it was only by looking at her arms that I stood even a sliver of a chance in blocking her strikes. But blocking didn’t result to be much better.

Embers would turn into small bouts of flame from the sheer strength behind each of her strikes. My arms gradually became more and more numb as every swing heated her blade, illuminating her ethereal figure in small tints of orange. Suddenly, her hands shifted position to put the blade behind her; my instincts screamed whatever she was doing would be ridiculously powerful.

I responded in kind, barely managed to keep up as I propped my blade overhead, bringing it down as hard as I could to meet her sword in a brief flash of fire.

“What’s wrong…” she said, gritting her teeth as our weapons pushed against each other. “Not going…to hit back…?!”

“How do you know…tch, about the Behemoth…?”

“How else…!” she said, suddenly drawing back. She was exceptionally light on her feet, turning on her heel and causing me to stumble as my strength met nothing but air.

I lost balance, staggering forward as I managed to turn while falling; in an instant, pale blue-silver energy was born from the air as Hanna’s sword crashed against it, burying me further into the sand, but stopping her blade completely.

I hadn’t noticed how heavy my breathing had become until silence overtook us once more. She offered me a hand as the energy disappeared. I took it, being wary of another attack.

“I know because I was the one that asked.” she said, approaching the shore. Her sword was quickly losing its heated tinge, melding once more against the backdrop of a silver world. I approached the shore, looking at water that appeared more like mercury floating atop ink than an ocean.

“What do you mean?”

“Those three days you were unconscious…well, you probably don’t need me to tell you you were in pretty bad shape. When I asked Chelsea what happened, she told me all about it. Your suicidal charge to stop the Behemoth, the style you fought with, and…”

She turned to look at me. Maybe it was the tint of the night, but I wasn’t able to see her face clearly. She looked like a spirit, the glow of the moon enveloping her body in a faint, glimmering aura.

“The fact you bonded with an Outsider.”

“Is that…bad?”

“According to the brass, it should be the least of your worries. ESDF doesn't seem to think it’s of much use, maybe just more proof of what they’re looking for.”

“And…what do you think?”

She walked away from the shore, sand molding around her boots with every step.

“I think Chelsea and I are in agreement,” she said, stopping in front of me. “You don’t have the Blademaster ability after all, this bout has proven as much. But each Resonator has their own way of fighting.”

“Their own way?”

“Chelsea is one of the best swordsmen in the entirety of the ESDF, for example. Lia is second to none in ranged combat and Yukiko excels in crowd control and immobilization tactics.”

I recalled the words Lia told me the day Hanna and I went to rescue her.

“Hanna is one of the rare Resonators who specialize in ranged combat as much as in melee.”

“In regards to your Slayer, you have the Flight ability and Ghost Step. I’m going to train you in the final piece you’re missing.”

“You mean the area I specialize in?”

“That’s right.” she said, her blade carving a deep line within the earth, causing the phosphorus iron sand to sink into the pit. “And it just so happens it’s a method I’m familiar with.”