AKARI

I propel myself off of the nearest wall before I swing my scythe over my head and twirl around in the air to slice the projectile flying towards me before I pull the trigger on my gun and shoot the rest of them down before I land on one knee, my long blonde ponytail swaying around.

"Akari!" Clea calls out from behind me and I pause my training simulation to look back at her as she jogs over to me.

"Hey," I take a moment to catch my breath. "What's up?"

After the dining hall announcement, I decided to catch up on my classes before going to the training area where I practiced my skills in order to take my mind off of things and get some more training in. After all, you can never have enough practice.

"I wanted to see if I could train with you," Clea starts, "but also, did you hear? There's another mission bulletin listed for us already."

"Already?" I raise my eyebrows. "When?"

"We leave tomorrow," Clea frowns. "According to Reverence, it's the um...the place he..."

"The jungle?" I ask, my breath hitching.

"Yeah," Clea swallows thickly. "He's coming along, apparently."

"What?" I frown. "Why? He should be resting."

"He insisted on coming," Clea sighs. "Carmin begrudgingly accepted, but only because he's coming too."

"Wait, Carmin is coming?" I raise my eyebrows.

"Yeah," Clea nods. "Darius, Evory, Sora, Reverence, Carmin, Raciel, Isabella, Kaito, you, and me."

"Why so many of us?" I ask.

"Reverence is supposed to be our guide. He claims he knows where the next runestone is," Clea explains. "After he guides us there, we're supposed to split into two teams to search the area. So far, it looks like the line up for the teams is Carmin, Raciel, Isabella, Sora, and you, and then Darius, Evory, Reverence, Kaito, and me."

"This seems..." I trail off, thinking of Gambit's words.

"Yeah," Clea says quietly. "I know. I don't like it either."

"Well, we can't do much about it I suppose," I sigh. "For now, let's focus on training."

"Yeah!" Clea grins excitedly and smacks her fists together. "Let's do this!"

"Do you know how to use a bow?" I ask as I grab one of the training bows to give to Clea since we're focusing on projectiles for the moment.

"Not particularly, but I had another idea in mind," Clea grins and holds up a fan of daggers, making me smile in return.

"Alright," I nod, getting ready to resume the training simulation, my blue eyes meeting Clea's grey ones. "Let's do this then."

"It's on!" Clea shouts excitedly as the simulation resumes and we both take our stances, Clea releasing several daggers at a time while I kneel down and shoot the projectiles on my side down out of the air.

***

"That was so cool how you shot three in a row with one bullet!" Clea gushes excitedly as the two of us leave the training grounds together.

"Don't count yourself out," I giggle. "The way you move around like lightning is extremely admirable."

"Seems like you two had fun," Kit muses as she stands before us, a white towel around her neck and her long magenta hair dripping slight water droplets onto her sky blue tank top and black shorts, Sander standing next to her in black athletic joggers, his usual bracelet still on his wrist.

"Oh, hey Kit," Clea smiles. "Yeah, we just finished a training exercise."

"So did we," Sander wiggles his eyebrows and Kit smacks him in the gut, lightly winding him. "Okay, in all seriousness, I meant it. We trained with Shae and Isabella. Isabella's partially free from her infirmary duties now that Evory is back, but she returns back to full time tomorrow once Evory leaves again, so she wanted to get some combat training in. Besides, you know Miss Perfectionist over here. She couldn't pass up an opportunity to--"

Sander trails off with a wary smile whenever Kit throws him a death glare and he chuckles as he rubs the back of his neck, his other hand raised in surrender.

"In any case, after you guys get cleaned up, do you want to come over to my dorm with Sander, Isabella, and Shae? We were planning on having a movie or a game night. You know, just to get some sense of normality. I think we could all use it," Kit says.

"Yeah, sure," I shrug after exchanging a glance with Clea. "That'd be fun."

"Alright," Kit smiles. "Cool. We'll see you guys around then."

"Cya," Sander waves with a grin before he throws an arm around Kit's shoulders and the two of them walk off towards her dorm.

"Let's go get cleaned up so we can hurry and join them," I say and Clea nods in agreement.

Clea and I both head back to our dorms to get cleaned up and I throw on a pair of black and pink checkered pajama pants with a black tank top and I let my hair down before I slip on a pair of fuzzy black slippers and head over to Kit's dorm.

I gently push open the door to Kit's dorm to find her sitting on her bed with Isabella, the two of them online shopping on Kit's tablet, while Sander sits on the floor by the foot of the bed in front of Kit, his eyes glued to the TV that he brought over from his dorm as he shovels popcorn in his mouth from a plastic dark purple bowl, and Shae is next to him with his one knee propped up and his arm hanging over his leg as he also watches TV. Meanwhile, Clea is standing in the corner of the room in a pale yellow tank top with pale yellow pajama bottoms that have white sheep on them, her long blonde hair up in a messy bun that rests on top of her head, and she's messing with a gaming controller, her tongue pressing slightly beyond her lips in concentration.

"Stupid thing won't work," Clea sighs.

"Hey, Akari," Isabella smiles and looks up upon hearing the door enter and I smile back at her.

"Have you tried turning it on?" Sander asks as he shovels more popcorn in his mouth, eyes still glued to the screen.

"Well, duh," Clea retorts.

"It's probably because the TV isn't switched over," Shae muses.

"I know that, but the light isn't coming on," Clea sighs. "It should at least be on."

"That thing hasn't worked in forever," Kit says as she glances at Clea out of the corner of her eye. "There's three more in the closet though."

"Oh!" Clea exclaims excitedly and races towards the closet to dig for the other two controllers.

"Hey Kit, wanna play me in a race?" Sander asks as he grins and leans his head back to look up at his girlfriend while he holds up a controller.

"You had a working controller this entire time?" Kit raises a brow.

"Yup," Sander's grin broadens.

"Alright, fine," Kit hums and swipes the controller from his hand before she leans forwards and switches over the TV to the gaming console, "but you're gonna lose."

"Aw, man," Shae sighs dejectedly before he slumps back against the bed and decides to watch his brother get crushed.

"You're on," Sander beams and runs over to the closet to find a third working controller, Clea having found the second.

I decide to walk over and sit next to Isabella while the others have their fun, Clea, Kit, and Sander gaming while Shae watches.

"Do you think Gambit and Sekai will be okay?" Isabella asks softly, her hazel eyes sad as she looks at me.

"Of course," I offer her a reassuring smile. "The most powerful thing in the world is not strength, intelligence, or beauty. Love is the most powerful thing in the world, and that's what Gambit fights with and fights for. I'm sure they'll be fine."

"Yeah," Isabella smiles softly in return, her eyes gazing around the room and making her smile broaden even further. "I'm sure you're right."

For everyone's sake, I hope so too.