Kirin Edo reappeared with a smug smirk plastered across his face.
He looked at both of us and then shrugged after a moment.
I caught Anna's eye and we exchanged a look of shared irritation. It was a look that spoke volumes without uttering a single word. A look of a promise and silent agreement to give the Sword God Emperor the absolute coldest shoulder we could muster. Jessa, ever perceptive, caught on quickly, her amethyst eyes began mirroring our own deadpan expressions.
We all turned to him with the same dead-eyed deadpan expression at the same time.
Kirin paused and his smirk twitched in what was clearly discomfort.
We continued swinging our swords while looking at him with empty eyes and irritation while trying to be as creepily disapproving as possible.
His smile seemed to cramp on his face.
"Goddamn! you're being creepy as all hell! Stop that!" He demanded.
The silence stretched, thick and heavy, punctuated only by the rhythmic swish of my wooden blade.
Kirin Edo continued to stare at our dead eyed deadpan.
Then he walked away while pretending to be oblivious and simply choosing to ignore our collective disapproval.
A few minutes later he returned to observe our training with an air of detached amusement.
It was infuriating.
He had assumed the worst of Anna and I.
He had jumped to conclusions and now acted as if nothing had happened. As if our shared pain, our sacrifices, were something to joke about while pretending like the pair of us kissing meant we would get up to anything else.
I scowled until my mind started to wander.
The memory of the prank we pulled on one of the orphanages matrons, the hostile one, swirled through my mind.
I crept down the creaking stairs in the dead of night with Jessa and Anna close behind me.
"You bring the dastardly device, Jessa?" I whispered as my voice barely reached above the rhythmic chirping of crickets outside.
"You bet!" Jessa hissed back quietly with a mischievous glint in her amethyst eyes. "Let's dye the town pink! Or, by that I mean, let's spread this dye-glitter bomb box all around Shugu's office! That bitch has it coming!"
Anna frowned, her violet hair shimmering faintly in the windswept moonlight filtering through the grimy window. "You know, I like my hair, and just knowing Darren thinks it's pretty is enough. Do we have to?"
I scowled and playfully poked her cheek. "No one insults my Divine General of Purpose, Anna! So, if a matron does it, we should be just as ruthless. No one can badmouth your hair or anything else about you."
Anna pouted, but a small blush lit up her face. When I turned, I noted that a small smile played at the corners of her lips. "Fine, but if this goes badly, you better save me! Your anti-damsel heroine is still a delicate lady!"
"Of course," I called quietly behind myself just loud enough that Anna could hear. "I could never not save my Divine General!"
A few steps and passed rooms later, we approached the matron's offices.
I examined a row of identical doors lining the dimly lit hallway. We stopped at the third door, the one with a small, tarnished brass nameplate that read "Shugu."
It was polished, but the metal was ruined.
"I'll be the distraction and breach," I whispered with a smirk as my hand rested on the doorknob. "Jessa, you gotta plant the big badabooms of glitter and dye. Anna, I'm trusting you to press the button!" I handed her a small, crudely fashioned button connected to a tangle of wires. I knew that shop class before I dropped out and the electrical engineering class in the community center was worth it, even if I dropped out of that one, too.
"Why does it say 'Nut' on it?"
"I might tell you later!"
I took a deep breath and then slammed my shoulder against the door, sending the cheap wood crashing inward. Matron Shugu startled awake and let out a shriek that could curdle milk and kill the cows that produced it and turn them into cottage cheese and then make it rot. She scrambled out of bed with her face visibly contorted in rage.
I was hiding in the corner of the door while Jessa planted the power of glitter and pink pain all over the office.
"If I find out which one of you that was, you'll regret ever being born!" she screeched as her voice echoed through the hallway.
I was in her peripheral vision, I realized almost too late as she swung her grasping hand at me.
I ducked under her swing, making sure to continue hiding my face.
I bolted, Matron Shugu hot on my heels, her curses echoing behind me. I could hear Jessa and Anna scrambling behind me, their muffled giggles a welcome counterpoint to the matron's furious shouts. I led her on a merry chase through the darkened hallways, dodging furniture and narrowly avoiding collisions with startled orphans who had been awakened by the commotion.
I was almost cornered, trapped between a suit of armor and a grandfather clock, when Jessa, ever resourceful, tossed a small firecracker down the hallway.
The loud voice of a modulated version of my voice calling out the largest call of "NUT BUTTON!" this world had ever heard. The recording and tools made of a spare magic crystal that I found in the trash.
I had recorded it straight from memory.
The sound of the infamous prank toy echoed for a few moments after the firecracker popping sounded finished within the office.
The loud bang and sudden flash of light startled Matron Shugu, giving me the precious seconds I needed to escape.
Say yes to flash pellets!
Hours later, we would discover that Matron Shugu's office was covered in a thick layer of pink dye and glitter. We were never found out and our successful prank had become legend. But more importantly, it was fun and my divine generals of Wrath and Purpose both laughed happily. "to our unwavering bond!" I called out, as they repeated and we drank some fruit juice we stole from the pantry like returning warriors.
Our shared laughter and mischievous spirit would bind us together through the trials and tribulations to come.
But it always got complicated.
---
Huh... De ja Vu?
Kirin Edo's fingers snapped, sharp and sudden, right in front of my face. The sound, amplified in the strange acoustics of the dreamscape, jolted me back to the present. "Ey, Mr. Flashback," his voice, laced with a sardonic amusement, grated on my nerves. "Five thousand swings is excessive, even for you. Breaking your body is counterproductive."
I glanced down at my arms, steaming with heat and swollen with damage in the ethereal light of the training ground.
They were swollen, throbbing with a numb and dull ache, and that resonated even within my form. Jessa and Anna exchanged a worried glance, their concern a tangible weight in the air. I grimaced, shame and frustration churning within me. "Sorry," I muttered, the word barely a breath against the backdrop of the echoing chamber.
Kirin Edo simply nodded, his expression unreadable. "It's time for weapon selection. Then it's off to loop number five for you. You died too many times in succession, so you'll be waking up outside the walls."
"That loop number doesn't sound right! REMEMBER DARREN!"
"Your softness will get everyone killed!"
"If infinity is unlimited, I'll just make the numbers smaller!"
"THAT'S NOT HOW INFINITY WORKS, KIRIN!"
---
He led me over to a display of katana that had their blades gleaming with an otherworldly luminescence.
A set of Daisho, the traditional pairing of a longer Daito and a shorter Shoto, rested on a velvet cushion, their hilts beckoning.
Beside the Daito, a single Shoto which was slightly shorter than the wakizashi that Jessa carried pulsed with an inner light that flowed outwards from the exposed blade.