The air in the Future Veins guildhall was tense. Four humans and a cat sat at the dining table, all of them radiating different energy. Hitsu was calm, his eyes carefully shifting from everyone else in the room. Nox was nervous and anxious, her attention wasn't on Hitsu but on the two other humans. Sel sat annoyed, his eyes stayed on the cat in his lap despite the strong stares he was receiving. The watchful girl sat across from them on the other side of the table, she radiated hatred and anger as she stared a hole through Sel. Juno was obvious to the situation as a whole, she was only focused on enjoying the heat that came off of Sel's body.
"So," Hitsu said breaking the silence, "you want to join the Future Veins?"
The girl's eyes left Sel and any sign of dislike left her. She sat up straight and responded in a respectful tone.
"That is correct," she responded with a smile, "I respect what you do very greatly. It would mean the world to me if I could do the same."
"Well then, I guess the best way to do this would be for the three of us to decide if you should join," Hitsu said as he leaned back in his chair.
"It's a no from me," Sel said without hesitation.
"Not off to a good start," Hitsu said with a nod, "but we are going off of majority vote here."
"Are you really going to let him answer that quickly?" Nox asked. "Besides Sel, you haven't even become an official member yet."
The girl let out a laugh that she quickly muffled. Her hand covered her mouth as she tried her best to hold back her chuckles.
"Nox!" Sel said in a hurt tone, "I thought we were friends."
"We are," Nox assured, "but you joined yesterday. At least let us hear her out before you cast your vote."
"It's not like you've been here forever," Sel mumbled as he slumped in his chair.
"She's an official member," Hitsu said with a grin.
Defeated, Sel didn't try to argue back. He did however confront the still giggling girl across the table.
"What are you laughing at?" he said angrily.
"Oh, nothing," she responded, "I just love when criminals get treated like trash."
"Stop calling me that or I'll kick your ass!" Sel threatened.
"Will you two knock it off?" Hitsu said.
"Yes," they both responded, Sel with a sigh while the girl responded respectfully.
After confirming the conflict was over Hitsu turned his attention back to the girl. It was now that he was able to get a good look at her. She was young, around their age. She had long purple hair tied into a ponytail that flowed down the length of her back. Her bright blue eyes showed no sign of anger unlike before. She wore casual clothes, a cyan hoodie and black sweat pants, and carried a purple bag that sat on the floor next to her feet. Her gray shoes didn't look either old or new and overall she looked well compared to how Sel looked when they found him.
"First things first," Hitsu began, "What's your name?"
"Enai," she answered, "Enai Furuya."
"Where are you from Enai?" Nox asked.
"I was born and lived in Aceton until recently," Enai responded, "I arrived in New Faith today."
"Is your power completely useless?" Sel asked sneeringly.
"No," Enai responded as though Sel wasn't asking just to be rude, "in fact it's very amazing if I say so myself."
"Would you care to show us?" Hitsu requested.
Without a word, Enai thrust her arm forward. In a flash, the skin around her arm was pierced by a sharp white line that flew towards Sel's head. The long blade-like line stopped just before Sel's neck. Sel gulped in fear as he stared down at the weapon. Upon closer examination, he realized just what the line was.
"Is this... A bone?" Sel asked quietly.
"Yes, it is," Enai responded with a smile.
"Can you take it away from Sel's neck please?" Hitsu asked with a sigh.
"Of course," Enai responded. After her reply, the elongated bone quickly retracted into her arm.
"How does your power work exactly," Nox asked curiously.
"It's simple," Enai replied, "I can duplicate and manipulate my own bones. When they are inside my body I can't do anything, but once they are outside I can shape, change, and transform them in any way I want."
"That's amazing," Nox praised.
"Well, it does have its flaws," Enai admitted. "I can only duplicate a single bone so many times before I need to retract it. After six or seven duplicates I start to lose control over them and if I go too far I risk using the real bone instead of the duplicate. As you can probably guess having my real bones outside of my body isn't very good."
"I see," Nox said, "It takes a lot of control to use productively.
"That would be correct," Enai responded.
"I have one more question," Hitsu said, "why do you want to be a hero? The other shadow slayers would kill to get someone like you in their groups, so why would you want to be a hero and risk being looked down on by others?"
"Because heroes are the only group that fight crime," Enai answered.
"What?" Hitsu said surprised, "What do you mean?"
It was then the three realized Enai's respectful smile had faded. Her face had returned to its once anger-filled state as unknown thoughts flew through her head.
"All of the other groups, they only care about the shadows. They leave all the crime to the police. Heroes do it all, they fight shadows, they help people who request it, and they help the police fight crime. They do all that and for some reason, they are belittled for it." Enai spoke quickly and angrily, her fist clenched until her knuckles began to turn white. "Criminals are scum. They are stains on the Earth. Without them, the world would be better off, everyone would be happy. But they won't stop, they won't listen, they just infect like a plague and make life worse for everyone. I decided long ago that I would make things better, I would stop all crime by myself if I had to. That's why I want to become a hero. To stop crime... And to stop him."
With those final four words, Enai pointed her finger directly at Sel. All of her rage and anger was being shot from hee eyes directly into Sel's. After a moment of stunned silence, Sel responded. With an annoyed growl, Sel slapped Enai's hand away from his face.
"Don't you dare call me a criminal," Sel said in a serious tone, "I did what I had to do to survive. That was the old me, so don't you dare insult me when I'm doing what it takes to change myself."
"A criminal changing?" Enai scoffed, "I'll believe it when I see it."
Hitsu slammed his hands down on the table causing a loud bang. "Enough!" he shouted, "Both of you!"
The two went silent and ceased their argument. Hitsu sighed as he sat back in his chair.
"Alright," he said as he rubbed his forehead, "What do you two think?"
After a moment of silence, Nox spoke. "I think she should join," Nox admitted, "It's like you said Hitsu, 'Another hero is never a bad thing,'"
"I agree," Sel said suddenly.
"Huh?" Hitsu and Nox said in unison, both surprised at Sel's answer.
"I agree only so I can prove her wrong," Sel continued, his eyes not leaving Enai.
"Well, I was gonna say yes too," Hitsu said, "so welcome to the Future Veins Enai."
Enai smiled brightly as she shook Hitsu's hand. "Thank you," she said, "you won't regret this."
"Of course you and Sel will have to pass Master's test once he gets back," Hitsu said, "but from what I've seen from the two of you I have no doubt he'll let you join."
"We should give Enai a tour," Nox said excitedly.
"Have fun with that," Sel said as he stood from his seat, "I'm going to take a nap."
"Not so fast," Enai said suddenly, stopping Sel in his tracks. "I refuse to accept you as a guildmate unless you do one thing first."
"Oh yeah?" Sel said as he rolled his eyes, "What's that Princess?"
"...Fight me."
...
End of Episode 33