Dashing with someone on her back shouldn't have been difficult. Even if that someone was more a liability than support.
She could overlook the early grievances. The awkwardness.
The responsibility of maintaining the child's hygiene every so often, having to take far too many breaks in between.
The light tantrums would have been easy to ignore; the spoiled demands, easy to fulfill.
Rita could have forgotten all these inconveniences, if she could only have more than a full minute of silence.
"...and then—and then he said, 'You don't have a social life, dork.' Can you believe that?"
It was difficult not to believe after hearing the story a dozen times. At this point, running headfirst into a wall until she passed out seemed preferable.
"How 'bout you, miss? Do you have people who annoy you too? Don't you just wish they'd go away for a long while? Not forever, just long enough to learn their lesson."
"Uhhhh…"
"Me too. I know I talk about them a lot, but I'm not allowed to talk to other people, or leave the White forest, so I can only deal with both of them. Actually, they won't admit it, but they can't do without me."
Long sighs like that had been Rita's only response to the girl's endless chatter for the past seventeen days. Argenta had apparently decided to interpret them as affirmations somewhere along the way.
After being briefed on the complications of their first encounter, Cosmo decided, according to his own words, to deepen their relationship beyond that incident.
As a result, for the final training session, Rita was paired with the unofficial member of the Nebula Branch for what he called a pre-adolescent internship experience.
In essence, it meant she'd been assigned alone again, just like during her initiation mission.
Still, she had no reason to complain. Being partnerless was the best outcome she could have hoped for.
"Hey, look at the flowers flying when we bump into them! They look like stars!"
Argenta pointed upward as Rita moved through a field of tall violet flowers, each rising from a smooth, unbranched stem.
In truth, what took flight whenever they brushed against them were pods of seeds, carried by soft, petal-like sheaths that dissolved in the wind soon after release, allowing the seeds to take root far from their origin.
Rita had chosen this route intentionally. The airborne seeds would either erase their tracks or at least throw off whoever was pursuing them.
"Achew!"
She glanced over her shoulder at the sudden sneeze.
"Ah, don't worry. I'm not allergic or anything. It's just—"
CHU!
"—a lot."
Rita wasn't too concerned; the sneezes didn't seem to suggest any real reaction.
The real issue was the metal ring around Argenta's forehead pressing repeatedly into her back, especially after sudden movements like that one.
"They look like petals, but they feel like cotton candy!"
In Argenta's hands were handfuls of the drifting petals she'd managed to catch. They broke apart between her fingers, tinting her palms a soft shade of violet, but she hardly cared.
"Yay!"
With a sudden burst of joy, she tossed them all into the air at once, an action that slightly threw off Rita's footing.
The petals danced upward and dissolved midair, releasing the small seeds that nested between them. But in that moment of fleeting beauty, Rita noticed a shadow descending fast.
Argenta's fingers tightened around her jacket.
"Miss! Miss! That web-head is here, we need to stop!"
Rita glanced over her shoulder and upward, catching sight of him, arms spread, knees bent, descending with measured intent.
"Please trust me! I know him really well, you need to stop moving!"
Rita hesitated.
It wasn't her instinct to take tactical advice from a child, but Argenta's familiarity with their pursuer lent the warning some weight. She halted her advance just as the ground ahead of her erupted, an unseen force amplifying the shock of his landing.
"Figures you'd read my next move," Cosmo stepped out from the small crater he'd made. "I modeled this whole game after our 'Limitless Tag' matches. Tell me, did you ever actually make it out of the White Forest for the win?"
"No, only because you kept cheating, messing with my head before we even started."
"If a few pre-game jokes were enough to rattle your focus, then maybe the game was never yours to win in the first place—hey! Don't whisper to each other while I'm right here."
"Now!"
At Argenta's shout, a sudden burst detonated beside his face. It could easily have been mistaken for an attempt to blow his head clean off.
He ducked sharply, bending backward just in time. The force of the blast rippled past him, grazing the air.
"Yeesh… who raised such heartless kids? No concern at all for their poor Captain."
By the time he straightened, Rita was already sprinting ahead. With a long, theatrical sigh, Cosmo lunged after them.
"That won't be enough to stop him," Argenta said, clutching tighter as Rita ran. "But I know tons of other ways! He can control stuff, but he's really bad at moving plants. And he can't control anything that's alive. So he'll have to catch us by himself."
As Rita considered her words, the pattern began to click.
That would explain why he wasn't manipulating the flowers or trees the same way he'd once used the forest spores against them. The more something could be scientifically classified as an organism, the less control he seemed to exert over it.
Spores, being dormant reproductive units, likely made ideal ammunition for his Authority. He could almost manipulate them freely, unlike living flora. And though he could usually move the ground itself, he rarely did so when lowering his Authority level to match theirs, suggesting molecular density might play a role as well.
Sure enough, when he overtook her, Rita caught sight of the strange way he moved across the field of towering flowers, by freezing the petals midair and stepping off them as if they were solid ground.
ZTOOM!
She didn't hesitate; a burst erupted in the space between them. But he had predicted it. Rather than closing in beside her, he veered forward, flashing ahead before stopping abruptly.
She came to a halt, shifting to change her course, until she saw what he held.
By her collar, thrashing and clawing in vain, Argenta dangled in his grasp like a prize he'd earned.
Rita's gaze darted behind her. The weight she still felt on her back dissolved into a construct of stems and petals shaped in the girl's likeness. It wilted apart, scattering into the grass below.
Before the earlier blast had even gone off, he'd already replaced her with a substitute.
"Your body has far more senses than you realize," Cosmo said, his tone even. "The base ones, sight, touch, sound, and such, are so easily deceived. If you want to stop making the same mistakes, you'll have to expand your consciousness in your own way."
Rita was still catching her breath. She hadn't yet recovered from the long chase, and the burst had just drained her remaining reserves. Every sequence of events had unfolded against her favor.
"Tell me," he continued, "what exactly is your dream?"
Her head lifted slightly. The question left her at a loss, too out of breath, and too confused, to form an answer.
Dream? What did he mean by that?
Her goal? Her wishes? The reason she woke up each day? The thing that brought her to Veil in the first place?
"Sorry," he added, his voice softening. "It's a strange question for now. Maybe 'ambition' is a better word."
Argenta was biting his arm in protest, and he was casually tossing her between his hands as if humoring her attempts.
"The thing is," he went on, "when I look at you, I see no aspiration in those eyes. Yet your will to live is staggering, and your Authority level remains remarkably high for your age. I won't claim to be an expert counselor, but I'd like to know what it is you're chasing. Of course, you don't have to answer."
What did he want to know, exactly? And could she even give him a clear answer?
Why did she want to? Was it because she didn't know herself?
Did Rita live because someone else had died? Did she keep hoping simply because she'd been told to?
He said he saw no aspiration in her, did she need that to live? Were dreams and the act of fighting for them proportional?
'Of course they are. Right?'
You can't chase emptiness. So what fueled her Authority? On what conviction was her strength built?
"I…"
Cosmo's gaze stayed locked on her. Patient. Expectant.
"I really hate you."
"..."
"..."
"Ow…"
FOOOM!
She blasted herself forward, using bursts from behind, a move she'd never dared attempt while Argenta was still clinging to her back.
Then came a straightforward palm strike, one he countered by pulling Argenta's body aside and parrying with his other hand. But when he made contact, his arms recoiled from the miniature bursts that flared from her palms.
"Contact-based executions?" Cosmo grinned in shock. "Amazing. I could barely sense the intent until the very last moment."
She followed with another strike aimed at his torso, but he slid a petal between them, triggering the bursts prematurely. Then, catching her off balance, he pulled her now-empty arm and drove an elbow into her shoulder.
"Sadly, you still need to consciously place them."
Her left arm wound for an uppercut, which he avoided by leaning back. But she followed instantly with a high kick, and simultaneously ignited an outburst behind him.
It was meant to trap him, force him to release Argenta in order to evade, as Rita's entire body had been set to detonate upon contact. Yet instead, he hurled Argenta upward and caught Rita's leg.
The burst still erupted, but her leg was wrapped in a hardened layer of petals that shattered, absorbing much of the impact.
"Whooaaa!!!"
He caught Argenta midair again and retreated several paces, the girl now perched on his hip.
Rita dashed after them, bursts flaring in her wake, and the same fling-and-evade exchange repeated several times before he finally gained height, ascending on petals frozen midair, until Rita could no longer reach him.
"You okay, little gremlin?"
He jostled Argenta lightly against his side as she wobbled in a daze.
"I'm so dizzy… I think I'm gonna puke."
"Take it as punishment for spilling my Authority's secrets." His voice carried mock severity, though his tone was light. "I think that's enough for your little field trip. Time to lie down, mm-kay?"
"O–okay… I did have a lot of fun, though."
"That's good."
He intertwined several stems, shaping a bed of petals, and gently laid her on it. With a gesture, it folded into the shape of a budding flower, hardening into a protective cocoon. He then moved it several meters away for safety.
Looking down, he saw Rita below, palms raised and aimed straight at him, as if charging something fierce.
"Genny's gonna turn in for the day! Count her out of the game, alright?!" he called from above.
But then he noticed something, amid the petals swirling around him, the violet hue had shifted. Some had darkened into a deep, dangerous crimson.
"Such breathtaking color…" he murmured. "So beautiful… so red… so sharp… so… deadly."
In an instant, a storm of razor-edged crimson petals erupted. They whipped through the air, slicing and spinning, hidden among the flowers that surrounded him.
Then streams of flame lanced into the vortex, the heat magnified by the charged atmosphere and the collision of metal fragments. A flurry of bursts followed, all detonating toward the storm's core.
When it cleared, the air shimmered with smoke and heat distortion. The flowers that once danced like stars now drifted like embers, but no trace of Cosmo remained above.
He landed hard on the ground below, jacket singed and shoulders smoking, and the scales already repairing the damage done to his uniform.
"You know…" he said, dusting himself off, "I'm starting to take these ruthless attacks personally."
Ahead of him, Rita stood ready, panting faintly from her exertion. From both sides behind him, Blue and Tyson charged, wasting no time for formalities.
"Relinquishing your unguaranteed win to support another pair? Full marks for each of you!" he laughed, stretching his arms skyward. The ground beneath them began to rise and twist like something alive. "Losing your squadmates might win the battle, but total victory belongs to those untouched by tragedy! This is your final training session, don't disappoint me!"
And with that, the remaining survivors dove into a full-on battle against their Captain.