A seemingly peaceful night s end. It only needed a few short hours before it could rest. However, rest would not e. Restlessness stirred into a and then the crimson veil fell. Splitting the horizon in two, a green pilr rose from the camp. All within the sight turned iioning amazement. It became a bea. A call to arms stood before each man and woman.

  Yumi’s dispy brought in even more soldiers toward her. Reag without orders, it turned into utter chaos. The strictly trolled camp became a ruined battlefield. Soldiers endlessly seemed to offer up themselves for Yumi. Yet none reached her.

  Outside the camp, Fumiko and Seiji witnessed Yumi’s attabsp; They khe pn, but they had no specifibsp; Fumiko turned a little worried at the sight. “I think that’s a little more than just a signal.”

  Seiji pounded his fists together with excitement. Even though he fought in the m, he already felt eager araio have to wait so long. “I think it’s damn perfebsp; It’s the damn perfect too set!”

  “Only you would think that way,” she ented, looking out of the er of her eye. “I wonder if you’ve bee a ive influen everyoh your reckless behavior.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with being reckless! You sure as shit should have pride in it!”

  She could only present a disbelieving expression to him, rather the excited one he wished to see. “Pride in recklessness? Sounds like only something you could achieve. Holy…”

  “Careful, you’re starting to sound like the brat!” He charged off for the camp’s entrance, as was their pn.

  “I guess that would be a bit of a problem having two Chiharus, huh?” Fumiko worked up a bit of a grin, feeling a little better. She ran after Seiji to catch up to him. Ahead of her, the destructive sounds of Seiji told her that he already began. “Time to start!”

  Chapter 142 – Night’s Struggle

  Deep in thought, Simonides didn’t hear the noise from outside of his tent. He had matters that weighed heavier on him. The new mission he ordered he knew would buy him the time he needed, however he feared that even with the time he might not gain the ahat he sought. He still had too many questions about their intruders. They held too many unknowns.

  ‘I saw it! Their world…it’s not like us!’

  The words from Atheill haunted him in his thoughts. He didn’t uand the meaning of her words. At the moment that she came out, he saw that she learned something. He sidered forcefully waking her up for the answers such was his desperation. However, he waited. All he could do was wait. The waiting ate at him as much as the questions. He stood so close to answers. The mysteries that surrouheir foes might be unveiled finally.

  ‘H-he-he…knows…every…thing… …no… …long…er… …hu…’

  Simoightened his fist against the table. “What does it all mean? What does he know? And what is he?” His prisourned into something more fearsome thahought. The oed was supposed to be a non-MP user. Since he remained in their custody, he didn’t have any reason to think otherwise. He knew if the boy had abilities, he could have easily escaped. However, something he couldn’t pn for happened. “What is the answer here? Do I even know the right question anymore?”

  “Captain! Captain Simonides!” shouted a familiar voice, through the tent. Barely waiting on an ahe man barged through the tent. He turoward the seated Captain. “Captain Simonides!”

  The yelling finally snapped Simonides from his thoughts. He reset his expression immediately, forced to bee abruptly aware of the situation. Shouting from outside still hadn’t made it to his notibsp; Abeiron distracted him. Through narrowed eyes, he gnced from his chair at the ander. “What is it?”

  “Captain Simonides! We’re utack!” As though to emphasize his report, debris ripped through the Captain’s tent dividing the two men. The carelessly tossed block of wood cast out the ntern killing the light. However, through the colpsi cloth the warm moonlight bled through renewing the glow on Abeiron’s face.

  He spun his head around through the hole in his quarters. The chaos finally preseself to him and caught his eyes widening in surprise. Simoood up, his full attention gained. “How have you let them get this far inside?!”

  “Sir, everyohat’s gone has been taken out! They appeared in the middle of camp! Our defenses didn’t at for them to fly around the entrance.”

  Simoepped out of his tent through the tear. His men ran about in fear and fusion. None of them knew what was happening. ‘Pns seem pointless with them. But the timing is strange…’ The sight of his camp so deeply peed bothered him. ‘They aren’t used to being on the defensive…’ He didn’t think they would allow someone in so far.

  “Captain!”

  “Since when were you so useless, Abeiron?” Simoilted his head back over his shoulder to the man. “We already know that it is them. Order the MPs to ehem. They’re here to rescue their rade.” A n of fire bsted up in the distaer he finished speaking. The searing light darkehe shadows on his head to harden his features. It gave him a severe expression of steel resolve. “As I thought they would…”

  he edge of the camp, a path of ruin id out starting from the entranbsp; The men, unfortuo have been standing guard, id on the ground, unscious from Seiji’s first punbsp; Following the signs of destru, two more men came out hearing the noise only to be dealt with equally brutishly. Afterward, it became more difficult for Seiji to hahem individually with care. He made use of a makeshift feo wipe out a row of men before casting his on aside. It destroyed the nearby tent and signaled even more men to e after him.

  Seiji eagerly took the fight to them and charged onward. The current path carved by him left more than thirty men uo fight. None of them uood how outcssed they were. They charged for him in defense of their home and fallen rades. Their only hope was that one of them could bring him down.

  Catg up, Fumiko finished dealing with the soldiers that spotted her. Her fire was enough to make them turn away. It gave her a little relief to know that they didn’t press for a fight. ‘…it’s still under trol…’ She tightened her hand arouaff to stop the shaking. In front of her, she found Seiji deg a few more soldiers. It made her sigh a little to withe eager idiot fighting. “You really are true to yourself…”

  He tossed a soldier off his bato a neighb tent. His grinning face looked back at Fumiko. “All part of the pn!”

  Distrag him, Fumiko was the only ohat saw someone in a white uniform quickly approag him with dark i. “Seiji—”

  Before Fumiko finished her words, Seiji’s fist ran through the man’s fabsp; He flew several meters through the path before uionally caught by a group of soldiers, the hard way. “’t she hell up on me!”

  Fumiko touched her hand to her forehead feeling a little distressed. “That was one of those like Yuki, be more careful!”

  Seiji looked at her fused and the the unsan. He finally noticed the white uniform that stood out in the night, especially against all of the bck from the standard military. “Dammit!” He smmed his fists into the ground pounding out a heavy tohrough the earth as he depressed the dirt.

  “Seiji?” Fumiko uneasily reached out her hand towards Seiji, though still several meters away from them.

  “I ’t believe it!” he shouted to the moon. “Punched him out before I had a ce to fight him with his powers!”

  A drop of sweat fell down on Fumiko’s face upon hearing why he was angry. “You fighting idiot! Do you even remember why we’re here?!”

  Taking a silent moment to recover, Seiji stood back up. Only the battle cries of a new wave of soldiers came to him in his silenbsp; He spun his arm around driving it through them and sending them away. “Of course, I remember,” he replied, appearing oddly serious. “All the more reason I o fight as many of them as possible. So she has less trouble…”

  Mirr an oddly familiar se, deep ihe camp an array of at least twenty soldiers id strewn about the grounds. Furious winds kept a stant stream of torrents bleeding off the tatters of fabric remaining from ruients. Further within the maelstrom of wind, rotating and shifting blocks of the green barrier protected Yumi to keep any foe from reag her. Those that the invisible forces didn’t deal with faced crag her defenses. It slowed them down until she personally dealt with them.

  However, she hadn’t moved for more than two minutes. Her defeaalled her from her primary task. ‘I’m wasting time… I o look for Yori and Chiharu…’ She sed the area taking in the destru. It took her a little bit of time, but she finally realized all of the fighting she started meant she put them in danger as well. Though it fused her a little that she hadn’t seen Chiharu appear. ‘I guess this really does prove that she’s been captured, but how? I ’t imagihat she made a mistake…’

  Yumi found a break in the fighting, with no soldiers ing after, to start moving. Her powers didn’t require her to be in a good position. So she felt fortable in leaving her spot. ‘There’s so much destroyed already…I think I would have sensed him if he was amongst this…’ Yumi walked out of the radius of her destru into an untouched part of the camp. The force of her winds still mao loosen parts of the tents.

  She found a random soldier in the area ing from a tent or running about, but it was strangely empty in her searbsp; Yumi even used her powers to rip up tents, siealth ointless. It started to bother her. “Where is everyone? Shouldn’t I be meeting more resistance?” A crag rang out to the side of Yumi. Even in spite of the softness of the alerted her. She saw one of her barrier pieces crumbling away. “What’s going on? My barrier!”

  Suddenly, Yumi’s internal sensor went off and she spun around. Down across the dirt path stood a teenager in a white Atntean uniform. Yumi immediately took a step baderstanding that she finally ran into one of them. “You’re…” Another piece of her barrier shattered suddenly for no reason followed by another. She darted her eyes around trying to uand it.

  “So you’re the much talked about rebel,” ehe boy, “I won’t allow you to attayone else!”

  “And that’s ten!” Seiji decred, as he hefted a three-meter loh of broken off piece of wood to his shoulder. He looked over his shoulder to see how Fumiko fared.

  She threw out a couple of minor fmes to keep the soldiers off her. Once freed up, she spun around to look at Seiji. “So you ’t t either? You’ve dealt with more than fifty so far!”

  Seiji shrugged to her with the block of wood still on his shoulder, ag like it weighed nothing to him. “I didn’t start ting until ten ago.”

  “Then why bother! I ’t—“ Fumiko came to a stop when he raised his hand up to her to interrupt her.

  He turned his head back to the new arrivals. “Looks like we have more damn fun!”

  “Fun?!” Fumiko ched her fist to shake it at him. She wao punch him for thinking what just approached them to be fun. “How you say that?! Those three are like Yuki!”

  “Huh? They are?” Still not notig, he looked bad forth at Fumiko and the three white dressed Atnteans. “How you tell? They all look the same.”

  “Damn, short-term memory…there must be a limit to stupidity!”

  “Oh! Are you talking about them wearing white? I just didn’t want to assume, you know! It’d be rude to be prejudiced based on their appearanbsp; That’s just good manners!”

  “Ergh…” Fumiko forced out a frustrated sigh. She started tret that she agreed to work with him. ‘I’m starting to uand Chiharu’s side of things…’ After requiring a few moments to recover, Fumikhtened back up, though still not taking the situation as serious as she should have. She bmed Seiji’s stupidity for it. Fumiko rested her hand ba her forehead while talking to him. “Well normally, you’d be correbsp; And knowing that you actually have good manners is actually pretty surprising. You really do pick the strahings to be good about…however…”

  She hoped that talking it out would calm her anger, but it only seemed to be bottling it up. Everythi up inside grew in pressure. If she didn’t release her emotion she might colpse (probably exaggerating, Seiji has that effe people). Fumiko lowered her hand and started walking over to him. Once she stood o him, she reached over and grabbed his ear pulling him up to her height. “Ayumi already expio us that all of those like Yuki are required to wear white uniforms! It’s the standard! So of course they are! And there’s three of them and only two of us! So get serious!”

  “Damn it!” yelped Seiji, jumping away from Fumiko. “You don’t have to yell in my damn ear!”

  “Yes, I do when you act this stupid! We’ve got three of them to deal with! It won’t be easy!”

  Seiji pulled further away from Fumiko, as her image scared him more. He rubbed his bruised ear and looked over at the three white cd soldiers. “Well if that’s what you’re worried about…” Seiji lifted up the wood and chucked it quickly at the three soldiers. It raweewo women in the group and disappeared from their sight, giving them a shock.

  Crumbling into a broken heap of fabrid wood, the third figure was barely visible behind the hunk of wood that hit him. He didn’t have a ce to pass out. The impact did it to him before the fall. It left the two women for them, evening the odds. Oood surprisingly taller thaher and a fair petition for Fumiko and her unusual height.

  “There, now there’s two!”

  Fumiko spped her hand to her fabsp; “If you did that to one of them, you could have dohat to all three of them.”

  Seiji crossed his arms suddenly looking very proud. “What are you talking about, the other two are women. I’m not going to hurt them!”

  She sighed again. Fumiko felt like she might die from sighing her life away. Her eyes gnced over at him. “You realize that you have to fight one of them, right?”

  “Huh?” Seiji looked over at their two oppos and thehird further away, not in any dition to fight. He pressed his hands to his head. “Crap! I ’t fight a woman! I should to have knocked out one of them out instead so I could fight the guy! But if I did that I would have hit a woman…”

  “You really are something else…” ented Fumiko, through a ft expression. She didn’t have much more of a ce as a fme erupted at her side. Fumiko jumped away to put some distaween her and it. The fme immediately disappeared, but another jumped out at her. “…fire from nothing…” She gnced along the path at their oppos. Fmes grew up to surround the shorter of the two women, pletely engulfing her.

  Fumiko’s eyes widened in shock to see the woman ed in fmes. However, it suddenly divided and calmed. It covered her body, but left her head and some of her shoulders exposed. The fmes did nothing to the woman. In fact, it looked as though it became clothing to her. Another sed ter, the woman charged past Seiji and straight for Fumiko trailing embers behind her. The woman collided with Fumiko, throwing her backwards through an already colpsed tent. Not letting up for a moment, the woman’s hand rose toward the spot where Fumiko colpsed. A tall n of fire burst up from the ground wiping Fumiko from sight pletely.