“Oh hell!” The explosion pletely filled his eyes. His time to act fell away. Staring at his hand the moment before had himself wishing for whatever he held earlier. ‘I know I have something, some power that bastard gave me. Damn inve he waited until now, but I again! Please!’

  He had heard about moments of tensioreme situations where people reported to have felt like time slowed down. Their reas heightened by the rush of adrenaline. Able to achieve impossible feats because they . It was all just stories. The potential of what a human could reach when natural limits weren’t enforced.

  It was the only way he could expin or rationalize it. Everythi like what they described. His mind didn’t seem to appreciate what happeo him at that moment. What he sahat he had to accept.

  The shell just left the barrel surrounded by fmes and smoke. He only k left because of the distortion happening to the fmes. It still moved quickly, even though everything slowed down in his eyes. He o absp; ‘I need something!’

  As though answering his call, lines of bck materialized drawing to his hand. It molded quickly into physical form. The bde from earlier returned. ‘A sword? It’s a on! What am I going to do with a swainst a on?!’ No one answered his question. The sword only insisted on being used.

  ‘Dammit! This isn’t going to protect me from a naval barrage!’ He pulled up his hands holding the sword in two hands, while closing his eyes. A prayer went through his mind hoping whatever gifted him with the on knew what it was doing.

  Lined up well enough, the head of the shell raced to the bde. The force it left rocked the energy bde in Yori’s hands, but held firmly. An instahe shell split in half directed into different ers of Athene’s Field, digging out craters.

  “What?!” excimed Athene, not expeg such precision.

  Chapter 258 – Buried Emotions

  Sighing and panting a little, Yori looked more surprised than Athene by what happened. He stared at the bde, lifting it towards him. ‘What sort of power did he give me? This isn’t like what I’ve seehers do or even Yumi. A bck sword…’ From everyone else, he had a good sense of their powers, but he just assumed that he would be like his sister. ‘Everyone’s pletely different, huh?’

  “Damn you, why won’t you just die already!”

  Yori staggered back, forced to focus ba Athene. “Well I’m not really fond of the idea for one,” he grimaced a little, not sure if joking around was really a smart idea with a woman actually wanting to kill him. “Besides, I already told you he’s not dead. You just have to go look. Once you realize that, there’s no reason to fight!”

  “Lies! Lies! Lies!” She sshed her arm through the air geing a massive bde all edge and nothing more. It swung down like a zanbato, the horse-sying bde, but triple the size. Unwieldy and g trol, the heavy metal k crashed into the ground in front of Yori, missiill tossing ks of earth up at him.

  The force of the impact threw Yori on his bace more. “Damn!” Knog off loose bits of earth, he stared at his feet where the bde embedded itself. “Just trying to expin things rationally.” He looked up at Athene realizing that rational thought probably wasn’t high on her processes. “Damn, I didn’t even ask for this! I just want to protect my sister!”

  Somehow he knew she was safe, so nothing else really mattered to him anymore. So long as he survived, everything else could solve itself. Unfortunately, she wasn’t aff him such a luxury. Her single-mindedness on him started to grate on his nerves. “I’m getting sick of this! What is he even to you?! I thought he was just your anding Officer! But you’re ag too emotionally for it just to be that.”

  “He’s our Captain!”

  It was an immediate answer, but it felt like a reflex to him rather tharuth. “But what is he to you! You’re just regurgitating your discipline!”

  “Me? He’s the…Captain…” Atheook a step babsp; It finally started to seem to get through to her. “Captain…Simonides…he’s…”

  She had to think about what he meant to her. Everything started from the point that this boy invaded her mind and flipped everything on its head. She lost to him. It fueled her to find him. But Simonides, his death fueled her drive with something else. ‘What is he to me? What is he?’

  Athene could clearly see him in her mind without any tration. It was just natural. They spent years together. All the years they spent together.

  “What’s your name?” an unknown voice from the bck void asked. It sounded so distant and faint. At the moment, it seemed the least important thing to be asking.

  Reality for her was that she couldn’t feel anything. It was dark because she couldn't open it herself. Most of her body was beyond her mind’s ability to process pain. It knocked her out already ond it was only his voice that somehow called out to it. ‘Who are you?’

  “ you hear me?”

  ‘Yes…’

  “You’re still alive, right? I already called—“

  ‘Alive? Am I alive, really?’ Any remaining sciousness faded on her again.

  “I’m alive!” she shouted, throwing herself up from the bed.

  “I’m sorry to inform you that this is actually the Gates of Hades,” a deep voice off to the side replied.

  She jumped almost out of her startled by another presenbsp; When she looked, she saw a human looking form with a vase in pce of their head. “Hades?! What?! But why Mr. Vase! I was a good girl! I didn’t fight back evehey were breaking my bones!” She started g as it all started to sink in. “I died… I’m dead…”

  “oah!” the voice made a sudden sharp pitch to a higher tone. The vase dropped away to reveal a boy, youhan her by a few years. “I’m just a human like you!” Panic quickly settled into his body trying to fix his mistake.

  Through tears, she stared at the boy to firm his story. “So you’re dead too…”

  “Absp; N-n-no-no-no! You’re not dead! her of us are!”

  “Huh?” Her tears came to a stop. “We’re not?”

  He shook his head vigorously trying to vince her of their very much living status. Once she started to stare at him longer, he turned his head away. His cheeks began to grow a little red. “Well…” Hesitating, he rubbed his finger over his cheek trying to dig his way out of his mess. “So-sorry, you just looked sad when you were sleeping. I just wanted you to feel better…”

  Realizing it all, her eyes widened and then lowered as her emotions quickly switched. She picked up her pillow and ked it at him in anger. “The hell’s wrong with you!?” Another pilloeared in her hand and she threw it at him too. “A joke?!”

  The first pillow he mao dodge, but the vase he held already moved beyond his trol. Her sed pillow came at him, not expeg another. He mao evade it as well, somehow, but it put the vase even more out of his trol. “Watch it! Yoing to make me—“ The spped him in the fabsp; Another, followed by another, pushed him back, almost knog him over.

  Sparing one hand to push the pillows away, he leaned forward a bit letting his emotio caught up too. “Careful, I almost—“ Interrupted again, this pillow hit him hard. He pletely lost his bah from surprise and the forbsp; Landing on his butt with the vase in the air, he threw off the pillow to try to find the vase. “The vase!” He scrambled to reach for it, just before hitting the wood floor. “Safe…” he sighed with relief.

  O fit firmly ba his hands, he jumped up to his feet. “Hey! It nearly broke!”

  She started tain. “You said I was dead!”

  “Look, I said I was sorry! I just wao see you smile once, you looked so sad sleeping there.”

  “I have nothing to smile about! I won’t five you!” She threw another pillow at him, but the vase stood between them. A sudden artled her as he fell over sharply. The crash and thud came as she expected, but nothing more. He didn’t get up or say anything.

  After a few seds of waiting for something to happen, she leaned forward. A little bit longer, she crawled towards the end of the bed. Slowly, she peaked over the edge trying to see what happened. “Are you alright?” she inquired cautiously.

  “Ouch…”

  Covered in water and flowers, but still holding the vase intact, the boy mao save the most important. Though in his position, it might no longer be relevant. The sight of him, still ging to the vase and ruined as he was, made her grin a bit. She couldn’t help but ugh at the se. However, the scowl on his face from her reaade her stop. “Sorry, but the way you look—“ Laughter broke out over her voice.

  Giveuation and she was actually smiling, he couldn’t really pin mubsp; He started ughing iiously with her.

  After the ughter and up, the boy returo her side. He sat on her body staring at her. The look of sadness started to wash over her face again. He could do nothing to keep it at bay. “What happened?”

  “Huh?” She saw he poio her body, likely the cause for her hospitalization. “Nothing.”

  “That’s not nothing! I saw you before they fixed you up!” It wasn’t the sort of se he expected to see. “If I hadn’t gotten lost you could have died!”

  She turned away from him. Everyone like her k was an everyday occurrenbsp; Some got it worse than others depending on the level of iion with those not like her. She was still just a preteen making her easy prey.

  He leapt out towards her clutg her hand. “Don’t accept it! It’s nht!” His voice started to reach a yell and anger entered his throat. “You’re human, just like them! Don’t think any differently!”

  “But I’m not…” She dropped her Field removing all of the excess pillows she actally summoned. “No normal human do what I .”

  Suddenly, he stood up on her bed jumping a couple times. “What if I could jump higher than anyone else? Or run faster than everyone? I wouldn’t be normal right?”

  “Well…I guess…”

  “But I’m still me. I haven’t ged. I’m only using what my body do. Right?” She didn’t have an answer for him. “You’re the same, it’s just in your head up here.” He pushed his fio her forehead. “You just do something with your brain that others ’t, but you’re still the same as me!”

  She didn’t have a good answer for him. She wao feel the same, but the world didn’t work that way. “But no one else thinks like that, not sihe rebellion.”

  “Then I’ll ge it!”

  “How?”

  He had to think about it for a sed. He just threw it out there without much thought. Turning around in thought, once he faced her again he had an idea. “I’ll bee the King! Then they’ll have to listen to me!”

  “You ’t, only Meso Prosecho .”

  “ht. Well maybe I’ll develop them!” He flexed his arms as though they had something to do with the power she had. “They’re always disc people's powers at different ages.” However, she seemed to doubt the odds of it. “I guess that’s not very likely, huh?” He spun around on the bed again in thought. It came to him. “I got it, something more realistic!”

  She stared at him in doubt, sidering all of his ideas hadn’t been anywhere close to realistibsp; “What?” Even still, she had to admit some curiosity.

  “I’ll bee the General of the Army! He’s got the ear of the King and the most trol over the military. I’ll do it!” He k down on her bed leaning in with ear filled eyes. “I promise, I’ll make it happen. I’ll and them all! And then I’ll put ao all of this!”

  “But isn’t he appointed by the King?”

  “I don’t care! I’ll make it happen!” He stared into her eyes trying to fill her with his vi. “I promise today right here in front of you, that I will bee the General!”

  It actually left her a bit in awe. He seemed goofy and silly, but she could see the siy in his fabsp; There was determination and a goal where there hadn't been one before. She wao tell him he couldn't do it, but she didn't think she could find any words that would vince him.

  “When I’m old enough to join the military, I’ll find you!”

  “But I’ll probably be assigo one of the bates by that point.”

  “Then I’ll go there! Doesn’t matter, I’ll start there. I’ll bee the Captain of the Gate, my first step to General!” Suddenly a voi the distance called out to him. “Oh that’s my mom calling! I’ve got to go!” He ran off out of sight, but popped babsp; “What’s your name? So I find you when I finish at the Academy?”

  “Athene.”

  “Athene, got it! I’m Simonides! Remember it, because I won’t be fetting you! It’s a promise!” He threw out his arm in a closed fist. “When we meet agai’s climb the ranks to the top and ge the system!”

  Athene found herself smiling, feeling as if he could actually achieve his bold decration. “It’s a promise.”

  ‘Others would just pass it off as childish promises and na?ve hope. Empty dreams, but he proved them all wrong. He kept on that path the eime until I met him again at the South Gate. His goal has never ged.’