Stellar System: Kheris
Primary Star: G-type (orange-yellow)
Secondary Star: M-type (red)
Number of Planets: 10 (4 within habitable zone)
Galaxy: Viridion Galaxy (Milky Way)
Distance to Starfall City: 0.0009 light-years
Inside one of the Starlight's large training rooms, Elara stood off to the side with a small holoprojection floating in front of her. The room itself was wide and empty, with reinforced grey walls, a polished black floor, and several weapon racks lined along the far side. The ceiling stretched high above them, leaving more than enough space for large-scale combat without tearing through half of the ship.
Elara's red eyes weren't on the room though. They were on the small holo-projection message window hovering in front of her.
Elara: Talon. I'm sorry if what I said bothered you.
She paused for a moment, her fingers hovering just above the glowing keys. Then she typed again.
Elara: I didn't mean it the way it sounded. I would like for us to talk it over before you arrive on your homeworld.
She sent the message.
For a second, it stayed marked as delivered. Then it changed to seen.
Her eyes brightened slightly. Talon had seen it. She was there, without a doubt. Elara stared at the message window waiting for a response.
One second passed. Then another. Then another. But nothing ever came. No indicator of typing. Nothing.
The small bit of hope she had dimmed slightly, but she still continued to watch the empty space beneath her message as if words might appear if she stared long enough.
She lifted her hand to the keyboard projection to send another message, but before she could type, the sound of a sword cutting through the air echoed behind her.
SHING!
Then another.
SHING!
Then one final swing.
SHING!
Her blade stopped in front of her as her entire body trembled. Her arms shook so badly that the tip of the sword dipped toward the floor. Steam rose from her body like smoke from a heated meal.
She dropped like a sack of rocks, her knees slamming into the metal floor. Her jagged sword clattered beside her. She gasped for air, sweat dripping from her chin.
"I'm… done…" She breathed out between heavy gasps.
Elara closed the message window and looked toward her.
Nara's short red, orange, and yellow hair stuck to the sides of her face while her soaked tank top clung to her skin. She forced herself to lift her head.
"Ten thousand swings… captain."
Elara glanced toward the counter floating near the wall.
10,000 / 10,000
"That was fast." She mumbled.
A small smirk pulled at the corner of her mouth.
"Good job. Take a minute to catch your breath…"
Nara let out a faint sigh of relief.
"Then do another ten thousand. This time, only two-handed overhead swings."
Nara's entire face dropped.
"Aghhhhhh…" She groaned, falling onto her back.
"Captain… I'm tired of doing sword swings over and over and over again." She complained, staring at the ceiling.
"Since I joined the crew, we've only sparred once. The only other training I've been doing is swings."
She raised one shaking hand into the air.
"I've done just under a million at this point."
"And?" Elara replied bluntly.
Nara turned her head toward her.
"And my arms are going to fall off at this rate before I can learn your fighting style."
"They won't."
"You don't know that!"
"I do."
Nara groaned again and covered her face with one arm.
Elara walked over to her.
"We will spar again. But what you are doing right now is crucial to your development as a swordsman."
Nara slowly lowered her arm and looked up at her.
Elara stopped a few steps away.
"You are essentially starting from scratch in terms of swordsmanship. Your instincts are sharp. Your body is strong and you have an absurd amount of latent talent."
Nara blinked slightly at the last word.
"But talent means very little without foundation. Most swordsmen spend stellar cycles building the basics into their bodies until thought is no longer needed."
She looked down at the sword lying beside Nara.
"What we are doing is condensing those stellar cycles of training into a much shorter window of time so you can get to the level you need to be at so you can handle the true training I have planned for you."
Nara's eyes lifted toward her.
"My true training? You mean your fighting style, right captain?"
"Yes, but that is not all."
Nara stared at her confused.
"You mentioned that you wanted to perform a resonance transformation one day."
Nara's body stiffened slightly.
"I…"
She looked away for a second.
"Yeah. I did, but you told me that's something not everyone can do easily. Even after countless stellar cycles of training."
"That statement remains true." Elara replied.
Nara's expression tightened.
"However… I do not believe you are one of the people that statement applies to."
Nara's eyes widened ever so slightly.
"Most people would not be able to do what I'm instructing you to do. Their bodies would break at some point. Their minds would quit even sooner."
Elara's gaze softened.
"But you are different."
She watched Nara for a short moment before a warm smile spread across her face.
"That is one of the reasons I took you under my wing when bringing you onto my crew."
Nara's fingers curled slightly over her knees.
"When we first met on your homeworld and you told me your dream… that you wanted to travel to different worlds and fight their strongest warriors…"
Elara paused.
"I saw the fire in your eyes when you said it. That fire lit something inside my chest that had been extinguished long ago."
Her eyes lowered toward her hands. A warm smile remained on her face, but there was something distant in it now.
"When I was younger, I shared that same dream."
"You did…?" Nara asked surprisedly.
Elara nodded slowly.
"As a kid, all I ever wanted to do was fight. My elder brother always said I was probably dropped on the head as a baby at some point. I wanted to travel the universe and challenge every strong warrior I could find. I wanted to stand across from people who forced me to sharpen my blade, my body, and my spirit."
Her fingers closed slightly.
"It was a dream I forgot after a while. For many reasons…"
The room went quiet for a moment.
"But seeing that dream in you reminded me of it." She said softly.
"And it felt… Good in a weird way."
She smiled even harder.
"I am saying all of this because—"
SHING!
The sound of a blade slicing through the air cut her off.
Elara stopped and looked up.
Nara was standing again.
Her legs trembled. Her shoulders shook. Her face was pale from exhaustion, but she gripped both hands onto her sword tightly over her head.
SHING!
She swung down.
Then raised it again.
SHING!
Elara watched in astonishment for a moment.
"Nara…"
SHING!
"You can hold off on the swings for a while. You need to rest."
Nara lifted the blade overhead again, her teeth clenched.
"What do you mean, captain?"
SHING!
"I'm just getting started."
Elara's brows lifted slightly. Nara inhaled shakily, then raised the sword again.
"Ten thousand more swings and I'll be close to a million."
SHING!
"Once I hit a million…"
SHING!
"I'm going to start over and do another million."
SHING!
"And then another."
SHING!
"And another."
Elara stared at her for a long while before she smiled.
"You can do that but after you watch something important."
Nara stopped with the blade lowered in front of her, sweat dripping down the side of her face.
"Watch something?"
She slowly lowered the sword.
"Like a movie?"
Before Elara could respond, the training room door hissed open and Sylas stepped inside.
His golden hair was neatly fixed again, and he no longer looked like the drunken fool shouting about the clean side of a yarkle's ass. Though the faint embarrassment on his face said he remembered enough of it. He looked toward Elara and bowed his head slightly.
"Captain Elara. You called for me?"
"Yes." Elara replied.
Her eyes moved over him for a moment.
"Have you sobered up a decent amount?"
Sylas's face flushed red slightly.
"Yes." He replied quickly.
"I have. And I apologize if I stepped out of line in any way earlier."
Elara waved one hand.
"It's okay. You did nothing wrong."
Sylas lowered his shoulders slightly.
"Besides… Elves tend to have a higher tolerance for psychoactive agents than most races in the known universe. Our bodies also process them much faster. So it shouldn't affect what I have planned for you either way."
Sylas's brows raised slightly.
"What exactly do you have planned?"
Elara turned fully toward him.
"I would like to spar with you and Atlas."
Sylas's eyes widened a little.
She gestured toward Nara.
"And I would like for Nara to observe our battle."
Nara's ears perked up.
"You want me to watch?"
"Yes. There are things you can learn from watching two different sword styles clash that you cannot understand through basic swings alone."
Sylas looked toward Nara, then back to Elara.
"Does that sound acceptable to you?" Elara asked.
Sylas's surprised expression quickly turned into a small smile.
"It would be an honor to do battle with an equal of my elder brother."
He reached back and rested a hand on Atlas's hilt.
"What do you think, Atlas? Would you like to battle an old friend?"
"I would love nothing more. It has been far too long since I danced against that fire-feathered pretender." Atlas's voice echoed from the golden sword.
Elara blinked nervously. The air beside her warmed slightly as flames sparked near her shoulder. Ignis's voice came out low enough that only she could hear.
"I am going to kill that thing…"
She let out a small chuckle.
"Good."
She stepped toward the center of the training room as her red eyes sharpened.
"Let's prepare."
On the other side of the Starlight, inside a different training room, Kaeline, Finn, and Aqua stood near a long metal table by the entrance with the artifacts that had been brought back from the cosmic well by Jinx, Rorik, and Sylas.
A short sword with an icy blue blade. A set of dark-blue upper body armor. And a few strange rings, and broken bracelets.
Finn leaned over the table, his eyes practically glowing as he stared at the short sword.
"So… this is really a cosmic artifact? It doesn't look that crazy. It looks just like a normal sword but with a blue blade." He asked.
Kaeline stood beside him with her arms folded.
"That is because you do not know what you are looking at."
Finn blinked.
"That sounded a bit mean, don't you think sensei?"
Aqua stood quietly on the other side of the table, staring at the artifacts without touching them. The fins on the side of her head twitched every now and then, but her face remained still.
Then the training room door hissed open.
Kaito walked in.
"Sorry I'm late." He said, waving a hand.
"Did I miss anything?"
"Not much." Finn replied.
"Sensei was about to tell me I'm stupid in a nicer way."
"I did no such thing." Kaeline said.
Kaito let out a small laugh, but his eyes shifted around the room. Then his smile faded slightly.
"Where's Elysia?"
Finn's expression changed. Aqua looked away a little. Kaeline remained silent for a moment before Finn spoke.
"She hasn't left the medical bay after what happened with the captain and her guardian."
Kaito's brows scrunched together.
"She still hasn't left?"
Finn shook his head.
Kaito's hand tightened slightly at his side.
"I should go check on her."
He turned toward the door.
"Wait." Kaeline said.
He stopped.
His hand hovered near the door control before he slowly looked back.
"I am not going to stop you from checking on her. But this is something I warned her might happen if she continued to push the line with someone like Elara."
Kaito's jaw tightened slightly but she continued.
"There's no need to worry. She is alive and safe."
Kaito glanced toward the floor. His shoulders lowered a bit, but the worry on his face didn't disappear.
Kaeline unfolded her arms.
"Before you go, there is something else I want to discuss with you."
Kaito looked back at her.
"What is it?"
She stared at him for a short moment.
"Tell me as much as you know about your human fighting style. The one called karate."
Kaito's expression shifted in confusion.
"You want to talk about karate right now?"
"Yes."
He stared at her for another second, then scratched the back of his head.
"I mean… sure. What do you want to know?"
"Everything you can explain."
He looked slightly caught off guard by the seriousness in her voice.
"Well… karate is a martial art from Earth. More specifically, it developed in a place called Okinawa before becoming really popular in Japan and then spreading across the world. It was one of the most popular martial arts back there. A lot of people trained in it. Kids, adults, fighters, soldiers, random people just trying to learn self-defense. "It focuses on striking. Punches, kicks, knees, elbows, blocks, footwork, timing, breathing, body conditioning. Things like that."
"Can you explain its fundamentals?" Kaeline asked.
Kaito's brows lifted slightly.
"I mean… it kind of depends on the style."
"Style?"
"Yeah. There are different styles of karate. The main ones people know are Shotokan, Kyokushin, and Goju-Ryu. There's more than that, but those are some big ones."
"What's yours?" She asked
"The one I practice is Kiyokushin." Kaito replied.
He paused for a moment.
"Kyokushin is a hard style, mainly full contact. A lot of body conditioning and alot lot of pressure."
He raised a hand and began counting with his fingers.
"It came down to three main parts."
He lifted one finger.
"Kihon. That's basics. Stances, punches, kicks, blocks, movement. Doing the same technique over and over until your body understands it without thinking."
He lifted a second finger.
"Kata which goes over forms. It's like a set pattern of movements. You practice it alone, but each movement has a reason behind it. Strikes, blocks, footwork, counters, throws depending on how you interpret it."
Then he lifted a third finger.
"And Kumite. Sparring. Fighting someone else so you can actually learn how to use what you trained."
Kaeline's eyes were wider now. Not by much. But enough to where Kaito noticed.
Her lips parted slightly as she stared at him.
"It is…" She muttered.
Kaeline's fingers tightened against her arm.
"It is exactly the same."
Finn suddenly pointed at her.
"See! I told you so, sensei! I told you it was the same!"
Kaito looked between them.
"Wait. What's going on?"
Kaeline blinked, snapping herself out of a thought, then looked directly at him.
"On my homeworld, there is a fighting style called karata."
Kaito's brows pulled together.
"Karata?"
"Yes. It has existed since the rise of civilization on Urova. Countless stellar cycles before I was born."
Kaito stared at her somewhat confused. Kaeline continued, her voice steady but her eyes sharper than before.
"The principles you just explained are the same. The fundamentals are the same. Even the division of training into basics, forms, and sparring is the same."
Kaito's face slowly changed.
Kaeline's hand curled into a fist at her side.
"From what Finn described, even some of the techniques appear identical."
Finn nodded quickly.
"I saw sensei throw a straight punch and front kick during training and I was like, wait a second. That looks like Kaito's karate. Then she did that low stance thing and I was like, oh yeah, that's definitely it."
Kaito stared at them in shock.
"That doesn't make any sense."
"No. It does not." Kaeline replied, equally perplexed
Kaito looked down slightly, his mind racing.
"How would that even be possible? We're not just from different worlds. We're from different galaxies entirely."
Kaeline's gaze didn't move from him.
"I do not know." She said.
Her voice was calm, but there was something underneath it now. Something that wasn't usually there every time they spoke before that very moment.
"But it is something I would like to know as well."
Kaito slowly looked back up.
"Our worlds may be connected in some way." She said.
Kaito went quiet for a moment. The thought sat in his head, unable to get it out.
Earth. Urova.
Two completely different worlds.
Two completely different galaxies.
And yet…
The exact same fighting style.
"Yeah… That could be true." Kaito muttered.
His eyes lowered slightly from her gaze.
"But how would that truly be the case?"
No one answered. Because no one knew.
After a short moment, Kaeline looked toward the artifacts on the table, then back to him.
"I still want you to continue training with Elysia before your fight with the captain. Your adrenaline boosts are dangerous, but with Elysia's help you should be able to control it to a certain degree. They are also the only way you will be able to close the gap in such a short amount of time. Finn and I will continue our training as well."
Kaito's expression turned serious.
"But before you leave… I would like to spar with you."
The room went quiet again.
Kaito blinked.
"With me?"
"Yes. I want to see your karate firsthand. Not from description. From you."
Kaito stared at her. For a moment, he didn't answer.
Kaeline's face remained unreadable like always.
Calm. Still. Almost cold.
But her eyes told a different tale.
There was a small glimmer inside them. A faint light of joy and fascination that didn't match her expression at all.
It was the look someone gave when they realized another person shared something with them. A favorite food. A story. A comic. A movie. A song no one else cared about until another person suddenly knew every word.
For Kaeline, it was this.
A fighting style she believed only existed on her world that somehow existed on his.
Kaito could feel the excitement radiating from her like a lone fire burning on the surface of an icy planet.
Her fist was at her side trembled ever so slightly.
She could hardly contain herself.
"So… Would you?" Kaeline asked again, her voice somehow still calm but slightly shakier.
Kaito's eyes lifted to meet hers. Then a smile crept onto his face.
It was one of pure excitement and determination.
His purple essence began to flare around his body with large white streaks flowing inside it.
The training room began to vibrate. The artifacts on the table rattled from the pressure.
Finn's eyes widened.
"His essence… It's different from before."
His CPI scanner flickered rapidly, numbers flashing across his vision until they finally stopped.
Kaito: 500,000 CPI
Finn's voice cracked slightly.
"His CPI… It's up to five hundred thousand!"
Aqua's fins twitched violently.
Her eyes remained locked onto him as if she couldn't look away.
"Five hundred thousand. He's gotten this strong this fast after our fight?"
Her webbed fingers curled slightly.
"How… How is that even possible? Just what exactly is this guy?"
"I'll spar with you. But only under one condition." Kaito stated.
"What's the condition?" Kaeline asked.
Kaito's smile faded slightly.
"Don't treat this like a normal spar. Treat it like a real fight. I want to know where I truly stand right now. And I'm going to come at you with almost everything I have."
His eyes hardened.
"So you better be ready."
For a moment, Kaeline didn't move.
Then her stoic expression finally broke.
A smile spread across her face. The calm mask she always wore collapsed completely as black essence began to flow around her body.
Her golden yellow eyes glowed with excitement.
"Then let us not waste any more time…"
Her black essence thickened around her.
"Shall we?"