"Do you get what I mean? None of them is my type, you know?"
Around her were rising tiers of classroom seats. The lights, typically dimmed during lectures, were now bright enough to illuminate even the deepest corners of the vast hall.
"You must have noticed it too. Every boy in this academy turns out to be a hall monitor type or some hard-headed moron."
They illuminated the girl standing behind her seat, gently brushing her hair while she rambled on. "That goes double for both of our team members."
"Your chattering wouldn't be as annoying if we weren't sitting right here."
It illuminated the boy to her right, toying with a strange, metallic puzzle. "And don't rope our team leader into your weird takes just because you're too obnoxious to date. That's by any man's standards."
"What?! That's so rude! Is that true, Dyl?"
"Please… don't talk to me about that."
It illuminated the young man writing steadily, unfazed by the absence of a lecturer.
"Waaahhh! Rita, they're bullying me!"
"Hey! You don't just get to cling to the team leader whenever you want."
"Bleh…"
It illuminated the loud argument that dissolved into laughter.
Then it all faded to black, before two narrow slits opened to reveal a room of silver.
Rita had awakened.
She could faintly hear voices as her mind clawed back to the surface.
"Come on, it's about time you stopped crying. I've said sorry, like, a hundred times already."
"No, you both made me hurt someone. I hate you!"
"Ouch. That's harsh. Imagine how much worse your big bro will feel."
"Stop calling him that! He's not even my brother." Argenta sniffled, dragging her sleeve across her face. "I thought only he could do something that mean. But even you, Oliver?"
"I dunno..." Oliver shrugged lazily. "After all, I am a 'bad scientist,' right?"
"You… you heard that?"
"I've got ears everywhere, baby girl. Even in the white forest."
"Nooo..." Argenta groaned, pouting as her face flushed with embarrassment.
Then Rita suddenly sat up in a sharp motion. The air snapped back into focus.
Both of them were startled.
Argenta took several quick steps back from the table where Rita had been lying. Her face twisted into something caught between concern and fear.
Yet, Rita did not face them; instead, she dismounted from the table and began her arduous ascent up the stairs.
"Wait, if you're hurt, I can…"
The words trailed off as she refused to gaze toward them, deliberately shutting them out. She didn't want to meet their eyes or hear their voices, she needed to do so to shun her aching thoughts.
Plowing onward, she reached the top of the staircase and pushed open the door with a trembling hand.
It was only as she stepped into the dimly lit hallway that she realized just how much pain her body was in, more than she had initially dared to acknowledge. With a sudden wave of dizziness, she stumbled, teetering on the brink of collapse before she could fully register the presence of those in the parlor.
But before gravity could claim her, a figure dashed forward, arms outstretched, and caught her with surprising gentleness.
"Are you alright?" Blue asked, worry pulling at the corners of her voice.
"I'm fine."
"You're clearly not."
She stepped forward, offering a shoulder, but Rita recoiled, refusing it.
"You don't have to. It's nothing fatal."
"But that doesn't mean you're okay..."
Clarisse was suddenly in front of her.
She gently took her hand.
Rita instinctively recoiled, a surge of urgency coursing through her veins, but she found herself ensnared, unable to break free from the grasp that held her.
Clarisse closed her eyes.
"~Spiritual Gift-Sign of Grace~"
And with that, it happened.
A sensation.
Something unseen pressed into their minds. An emotion not felt, but imposed.
It was Love.
But twisted in magnitude, overwhelming, total, scarring in a way that terrified.
A Love that refused to coexist.
A Love that would swallow them whole.
A Love that threatened to replace everything they thought mattered.
It felt wrong.
And it made them sick.
"Oh, my—bleugh!"
"What is this…?"
"I think I'm gonna hurl…"
They gagged, repelled by it.
"I'm inclined to believe you're all dramatizing the effects of Grace," Clarisse protested as soon as she opened her eyes. "One does not gag at blessings."
Rita, however, began to feel changes deep within her body.
Bruises faded, her dislocated and fractured bones knitting back into place. Even her long, silky twin tails mended, regaining their natural twirl. Her clothes, however, remained just as soiled and grimy.
"If that's a healing authority, then your hair's all natural, right?" Blue remarked once her nausea passed. "I can't believe it, so beautiful, and so much of it."
For Blue, it was an offhand note of admiration. But the expression that came in return left her stunned.
For the first time that day, Rita's face lit with unguarded joy.
"Th-thank you." She turned away, pressing her hands to her head, eyes glowing faintly, cheeks touched with pink. The flustered gesture made her seem as though she were trying to vanish behind her embarrassment.
Blue managed to keep her surprise contained, filing the moment away in her mind.
"It still scrambles people's minds? You really ought to get that fixed, Clarisse."
All heads turned toward a closing door where a house's proper exit should have stood.
"I would appreciate it if you exercised more understanding," Clarisse replied coolly. "Grace is flawless as it is. Nausea speaks far more of the recipient than the apostle."
Cosmo wandered in and flopped onto an unclaimed couch.
"I've been wondering, why don't you have to invert like the rest of us? And what's behind this door you insist on using?" Red asked, rattling the handle to no effect.
"Oh, that? Just a roundabout entry. I can't stand how inverting feels."
Clarisse's shadow suddenly fell over Cosmo.
"About that message you sent to bring me here…" She beamed. "Where is my master?"
"That?" He met her gaze, smiling pleasantly. After a long pause, "I have no idea."
"..."
"..."
The couch broke into splintered pieces beneath a strange staff that had appeared out of nowhere.
"That temper of yours… unbecoming, but understandable," Cosmo remarked, now dangling from the pendant light after narrowly avoiding the blow. "I'd appreciate it if you heard me out first."
"Do not fret. Rage has not consumed me." Her grip on the staff tightened until her knuckles whitened. "I am merely fulfilling my responsibility as an adult, to guide the lost youth."
"I meant what I said in the message." He dropped from the light, gravity pulling him clear of the staff flying towards him.
It hissed past his hair and drove into the wall, embedding deep.
"Join my branch. I can find your master," Clarisse quoted. "Those were your exact and abrupt words."
"I wasn't lying." Gently landing before her, Cosmo clasped his hands together. "We have a clue where in the conmundia he was heading, but as individuals, we've got no cause to be granted cross-border travel."
"That isn't an issue. As a worshipper, the crusades offer a reasonable cause to use the portals—"
"Stop it. Nobody could muster the effort to stop the sheer number of users who'd threaten to leave by force if it came to that."
Clarisse stretched her arm, and her staff slid free from the wall into her hand before vanishing.
"I know you only stayed behind in case he returned. But such a long time is nothing but a fleeting moment for him. You never know when that'll be."
She settled into a sofa, crossing her legs and contemplating.
"I still can't help the feeling that I'm being used."
"Well, kill it." Cosmo turned away. "So… you all passed. Congratulations."
"My foot," Yon muttered. "I've got a bone to pick with you. How many times in one day is it possible to brush shoulders with death?"
"It couldn't have gone too badly. Your safeguards are still intact."
"What does that even mean?" Yon crossed his arms. "You'd be a lot more believable if you didn't talk in circles."
"I'll remember that." Cosmo scratched at his cheek, eyes narrowing on Yon. "Mind if I check that blade of yours?"
"Hm? Yeah, sure, it's—hey!" As he reached for the wrapped sheath on his back, Yon discovered it already in Cosmo's hands—open, examined, and admired.
"Impressive… Shaped like a slender messer, yet with a katana's guard, and an ergonomic hilt. Whoever crafted this designed it with the wielder's authority in mind."
"How can you tell that without unsheathing it?"
"Trade secret." Cosmo flipped it back into Yon's grasp. "In the future, don't be so quick to hand over, or even reveal, your lifeline. For an officer, every card is a key to survival."
"...Right." Yon didn't need to be told twice. By nature, he was overly cautious, guarding every move, weighing every risk. Yet there was no explaining why he'd so easily surrendered his blade for another's inspection. 'Why exactly did I trust him that much?'
The one who had no reason to extend such trust was quick to voice it.
"I'm still skeptical." Tyson stepped forward, his gaze cutting sharply. "Yon's right about you. You talk like you're hiding the ending of a story you're telling, never the full picture. How's anyone supposed to take you at your word if every word comes out so cryptic? For all we know, you're just telling us what you think we wanna hear."
Cosmo held his stare for a long moment before exhaling. "Maybe because I might be in a similar situation as you?"
Without another word, he crouched and began gathering the shattered pieces of the couch. Oddly, he didn't just stack them, he fitted each one back into place with careful precision, like reassembling an intricate puzzle.
"All it takes is one mistake on the first assignment," he said quietly, "and everything's gone."
Tyson tried to keep his glare steady, but the illusion cracked when a bead of sweat traced down his cheek. Beside him, Yon's brow was furrowed, his eyes wide with something caught between concern and suspicion.
"They're waiting for me to slip up," Cosmo continued, fitting the final piece into the frame. "Waiting for their chance to say they were right and snatch it all away. In this organization, you don't get a second shot, your first chance is your only chance."
With a soft, unnatural sound, the couch's fabric knit itself back together over the repaired frame. Cosmo rose from his haunches, his voice edged now with frustration. "That's why they toss away so many bright gems without hesitation."
He moved toward Blue and Red, hand reaching out. They caught his meaning instantly and surrendered the black orbs they held.
"That's it, the last piece for our first mission." He turned to them with a wide, confident smile. "And with this, whatever happens, I can guarantee you won't die… even if you had the mind to."
The words he'd said wouldn't leave Tyson alone. They now ricocheted inside his head as he fought through the strangling, endless jungle.
Vines bound his steps, creepers clawed at him. Every step drove another nail of agony through his body.
His quadriceps tendons, shredded. His right clavicle, broken.
His right oblique, torn away so far that the bare arcs of his ribs peeked through. He might have been screaming, should have been, but the vines and thorns rooted inside his lungs denied him the breath to do it.
The pain had passed into something else entirely, dull, oppressive, paired with the strange press of scales against his skin.
The black scales, crafted into his attire, busied themselves with repairs, knitting muscle and tendon, closing skin. The sensation was surgical, invasive, and inescapably conscious.
He was alone, uncertain of the others' fate. The only lead was the blinking light on his watch, quickening as he pressed northwest.
Eventually, after climbing over a massive fallen branch, he found a pit. At its bottom was a figure curled tight, black hair streaked with yellow, a blade thrown aside with a hilt stained green.
The figure trembled, whimpering like a lost child, muttering into the earth, until his eyes met Tyson's.
"Yon…"
"I didn't do it…"
Tyson's thoughts splintered, searching for meaning in the fragments of context he had.
"It wasn't my fault…" Yon's voice rose, desperate. Tears carved trails down his dirt-streaked face. "I didn't kill her. It's not my fault."