Chapter 8

            While he recovered from his wounds, Hiro’s trips into the forest stopped. Lisanna continued paying him visits before and after school. His diet of hospital food was broken up with her homemade lunches she dropped by in the mornings. The early visits were nothing more then a quick check-in. The afternoon ones on the other hand, were spent in long conversations.

 

            However, Hiro never explained that night, and Lisanna never brought it up. There was an unspoken understanding that it was not to be discussed. So they spent their time talking of what was going on in school, new aspects to some of the students abilities, and general nothingness.

 

            Hiro had first arrived in the medical ward in critical condition, and was expected to remain in the hospital for a few months. Two weeks later, he had woken in an already functioning state. Then he went and got himself horrific wounds all over his body. Yet again, he defied logic and was up and running in another two weeks. The doctors found nothing in his blood tests to show why he healed so quickly. With no reason to keep a healthy patient, they discharged him after a total of just one month.

 

            Upon his release, his after school meetings with Lisanna were replaced with his trips into the woods. Lisanna no longer tried to follow him there.

 

            The blonde once had no problem filling after school hours, but after those weeks with Hiro, she no longer knew what to do with the time he would spend in the woods. Whatever he was doing, it had to be some kind of training. When he would return at dark each day, his cloths were always filthy and bloody, though nothing like that one time. Nonetheless, she would tend to him each night.

 

            The night sky was alive in starlight. Not even the harmony of crickets broke the tranquility of the night. Hiro sat leaning against a tree outside his dorm. Fresh bandages billowed softly in a gentle wind. Lisanna reached out and grabbed the tail of the bandage, and continued wrapping Hiro’s arm. She had done this for him a dozen times, but tonight, something was different. As she treated him, she realized the definition his body was gaining. Lisanna could tell he was getting stronger. Much stronger.

 

            She could not help but feel that she needed to do the same. I can’t let Hiro get stronger than me. If there is any pride I have left, it’s that I am not the weakest in the class! Even as she thought that, she knew it may have already been untrue.

 

            When they said their goodbyes, Lisanna walked back to her dorm alone. She knew she had to start her own special training.

 

            While Hiro would go into the woods, Lisanna took up extra lessons from a blade master of their school. She started training with a pair of short katana known as wakazashi. Lisanna knew that she was not that strong on her own. However, if she were to master these weapons, her strikes could become more powerful, precise, and if need be, deadly.

 

            After her lessons, she would still meet Hiro, but the times he would return grew later and later. His progress was obvious, and Lisanna began doing even more training on her own to keep up.

 

            Their determinations pushed both of them to work harder and harder. Soon, they no longer had time to see each other at night. Hiro continued to slack off in school, but his efforts at night more than made up for it. Before long, even in school, they were both too into their own worlds to notice each other.

 

            In this manner, hours transformed into days, days turned into weeks, and weeks became months. The time of the seniors return had already come.

 

            The whole school was gathered in front of the main building waiting for them as the sun reached its highest point in the sky.

 

            When Hiro and Lisanna saw each other, they realized just how little they had been together over the last several months. Hiro’s hair had grown down to his shoulders, and his body was toned. Lisanna had taken on a more elegant posture from her wakazashi training, and her breasts had grown a little. If possible, she was even more beautiful now.

 

As they looked at one another, they thought in unison. How have things changed this much? Where have I been these last six months?

 

They hadn’t meant to lose contact with each other, but they had lost themselves in their training.

 

Hiro looked at the girl before him as if for the first time. “Meh…”

 

She punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Idiot.”

 

“Sorry…” He directed his eyes at her again. “You look nice.”

 

Lisanna shifted a little uncomfortably, and a light blush adorned her face. “W-what are you saying all of a sudden?”

 

As if it were no different than talking about the weather, Hiro clarified himself. “Your b***s got bigger.”

 

She wrapped her chest with one arm, and drew a wakazashi with the other. “P-Pervert! “

 

Hiro waved his hands in front of him. “That was not my intention at all! It was just a compliment based on an observation!”

 

“Observe something else then!”

 

As instructed, the brown haired boy looked around at her before settling his eyes on her backside.

 

“Gahhhh!! Men are trash!”

 

Their frivolous dispute may have continued if not for the sudden commotion from the others around them. The seniors were back. Todo and his two female partners led the way for the group. Lisanna found herself staring at his figure as it drew closer, and she gushed silently herself.

 

However, Lisanna looked at his face and noticed something was wrong. His normally stoic face was absent. He looks exhausted, and... shocked?

 

He passed the girl whose very existence was unknown to him.

 

Lisanna was troubled. What happened to him? But she quickly realized that it was not just Todo, everyone returning bore the same expression.  One group after another passed with disturbed expressions. Then an odd group, whose members’ names she did not know, came by. She remembered their faces, and the number in their group though. Six people… there should be six in the group… but why do I only see five?

 

Another team passed. They were missing three, and still another had lost two. The seniors’ head teacher, Hono, came last with a wagon in tow. Something is very wrong here! There should be one more team of four!

 

The team of four had never awakened their powers, and where considered the weakest of their class. They were all good tacticians, and excellent in various fighting styles, so they had pushed on to take the coming exam together despite their handicap. However, they didn’t come back from the field training. It went without saying that something had happened.

 

Lisanna went over the missing people in her head. Ten. Ten of them didn’t return…

 

The seniors started to disappear. Some returned to their dorms, others to the school, and still others to be alone somewhere. When they were all gone, Samakina approached Hono. He reached for the cover on the wagon, and pulled it back.

 

No one needed to see what was inside. The new expression on the stone face of their battle-hardened teacher told them what was inside. With the mood gone, most of the remaining students began to disperse.

 

Lisanna’s voice was shaken. “Hiro?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“What happened to them?”

 

He sighed, and a similar expression of fatigue as the seniors overtook him. “Meh” His words were bitter in his mouth. “…They… died.”

 

“I don’t get it! How did so many die? Some teams lost multiple members! There was even a whole team that didn’t return, the ones who hadn’t awakened.

 

“None of them had.”

 

“That’s what I just said.”

 

“No, I don’t just mean just that team. None of the dead had powers.

 

“What?!”

 

Samakina came up from behind the two. He had lingered too. His usual aggressive tone was absent from his voice. “Hono told me they were attacked the day before last. The assailant killed them in their sleep. When the others came to, all that was left were piles of gore. Even being raised in this school couldn’t prepare them to see something like that.”

 

Lisanna’s face was pale, but she had a question to ask. “Why did he only kill the ones without powers?”

 

“I don’t know why he chose to kill ten, but it had to be random. They were just unlucky.” He took a deep breath. “The timing for this couldn’t be worse. I need to make preparations for Kamishi’s arrival.” Samakina lightly palmed his face as he retreated to the school building.

 

Samakina had reveled two shocking pieces of information. Lisanna tugged on Hiro’s sleeve. “Hey… That couldn’t have been coincidence right? Ten people, from four different teams, and all of whom had not awakened. That’s not chance!”

 

Her words had fallen on deaf ears. The second revelation consumed Hiro. “… ‘He’ is coming…”

 

Lisanna was confused. “Kamishi? I heard that since he came to power five years ago, he has always shown a special interest in battle schools. When exams come around, he always drops by a school to observe its seniors and accompany them to the exam. Is it so weird for us to be chosen this year?”

 

The conversation was one sided. Hiro was still in his own world. Why now? I’ve only seen him once since ‘then’. Memories better left forgotten, ones from their first encounter, flashed through his mind. “Why?! ‘He’ shouldn’t be here! ‘He’ has no reason to come!”

 

It dawned on her that Hiro was not referring the Kamishi she knew, but rather the ‘He’ that Hiro and Kazuto had talked about on that day in the forest. Kamishi… if that man is the ‘He’ then that means… What does our leader have to do with Hiro?

 

As if snapping out of a trance, the brown haired boy suddenly started walking away quickly. He gave a short backwards glance as he continued on. There was heaviness in his voice as he spoke. “I’m sorry. I have to be alone.”

 

Lisanna reached in his direction as his figure grew smaller and smaller. What was that just now? She had seen it. When he looked back, his eyes were almost in tears. Pain, so much pain shown through them. Did Kamishi do something to him? She knew that welling on it would not get her answers, and with no reason to remain, she departed to her drom.

 

Hiro found himself back at the mountain. He moved the small boulder and climbed down the ladder. His feet touched the bottom, and he was now in a tunnel. The walls were lit by glowing purple gemstones, and they produced a soft humming. It was a long walk through the tunnel. Millions of tons of rock sat just above him. The soft light guided him to a similar place as the entrance. Hiro climbed a new rope ladder. This time, there was no boulder covering the hole at the top.

 

            He emerged on the other side of the mountain. His body appeared a spec of sand in the vast plain before him. The expanse of land stretched beyond the edges of the mountain, and as far as the eye could see. The land was decorated in large rock structures, which had likely broken of the mountain, and rolled down. Aside from those irregularities, the landscape was barren. Except one other thing. The land did not look like a place of peace. Rather, it looked like it had seen war. Mounds of rock broken in unnatural manners, canyons opened all over the earth, and some areas had craters of all sizes blown in them.

 

            Hiro cleared his mind and began stretching.

 

            The sun was already peaking its way back up over the horizon when Hiro sunk down to his bed. The blood began to soak into the sheets and pillow. He had been too tired to clean himself up. His body relaxed despite the pain. However, his memories would not let his exhausted body sleep just yet.

 

            Blood. Blood. His whole body was covered in blood. He was crying out. The pain in his heart outweighed that of body.

 

            The images did not last long. Exhaustion claimed his consciousness.

Author's Note

The reviews on the bus go round and round... Please... I love you long time.

Reviews

[nostalgicelle]

Awwww I hope Hiro sleeps well after all of that.