It was a lunch break and all the cadets had free time to do whatever they pleased. Natsumi and Akito walked together after the Swordsman training class. They were exhausted from the training.
"I would've never thought that there were so many techniques and stances you could use with a sword! The thermoblade can cut any type of surface too! It's really cool that even though guns are the standard, using swords and force field harnesses, we can compete with them."
Akito said with excitement.
"It seems like you really enjoy this, Akito! Still, this was just our first training session."
Natsumi responded.
After Natsuki talked, she started looking around the cafeteria they were walking past. She seemed to be looking for someone in particular.
"Hey, you look worried. Are you looking for something?"
Akito asked.
Natsumi turned to Akito looking startled.
"No, it's nothing! I was just wondering where Hiro was. He should be out of training by now, right?"
Natsumi responded nervously.
"He's probably hanging out with someone right now. Though, I haven't seen him in the barracks either..."
Akito said.
Natsumi had a worried look on her face. Her best friend, Hiro, was hated by many other cadets. He would disappear from training or not be found anywhere at certain times. She started feeling suspicious about what Hiro was doing.
As she thought to herself, she looked forward and saw two familiar faces walking through a hall next to the cafeteria.
"Hey, is that Hiro? Wait, I think that's Emi walking with him!"
Akito said as he noticed them as well.
Natsumi saw how Emi laughed and joked around with Hiro. Like if they had known each other for a long time. Even Hiro reacted to Emi by smiling. They both seemed closer than before.
Natsumi had a grim look on her face. As one of her best friends, Hiro was special to her. But she didn't understand the circumstances between the two. She felt Emi just wanted to take him away from her. Was this envy?
"Hey, Natsumi…"
Before Akito could finish, Natsumi stopped him.
"It's ok. He feels more at peace with her than with me. He probably likes her more than me anyway. There's no point to keep trying…"
Natsumi said as she looked to the ground.
"Natsumi, it's not that serious…"
Akito tried to calm her down, but she had already accepted her fate.
"You don't get it… he and I… we were supposed to be…"
Natsumi clenched her fist in anger and walked away, leaving Akito behind.
Akito, confused, couldn't see why she would react that way. "Was she… in love?" he asked himself. But it was more profound than that. Long before Hiro was part of the Young Killer's gang or was a quiet high school student, Natsumi was the only one who looked after him and cared about him. He was everything to her. She never had a friend who connected as much as he did. Maybe she still felt the duty of being his best friend and supporting him, or perhaps she felt jealousy over something stronger than that…
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"You and me? War-Knight partners? That Commissioner guy said we were the most promising of all the cadets! Can you believe that?"
Emi could only talk about us training together and becoming partners.
"Yeah it's cool. But you realize that they're going to have us train faster and harder than everyone else? They want to rush us so hard that they even took us away from our original training classes to make us start immediately."
I responded.
We had started training profusely for a few days, and we had learned the basics on using firearms and Thermoblades. Emi and I were normally excluded from going to the cafeteria with the others, since we had different schedules. Nonetheless, we started staying over at different barracks from the others. One day we would take Shooter training and the other we would take Swordsman training.
"Yeah, but who cares? If you and me are together, I feel like we can do anything! Today, we didn't even break a sweat!"
Emi responded with confidence.
She didn't realize it would only get harder and harder. But this was our destiny. And even though I didn't complain, I was still feeling annoyed from all this special "training" we had to do. At least I had Emi to train together with, and she was always positive and confident. I just wonder what Natsumi and the others were doing. It had been a while since I had seen them, but I'm sure they were fine without me...