65: Talk

"That was... quick..." - Said a girl as she watched as Houki, Ichika, and finally Cloud, were gathered at a table, sitting with some dishes in front of them.

Classes had ended a few minutes ago, and now the girls were getting ready to go to their rooms, or at least they would be if it wasn't for the fact that they were curious about the new guy, the handsome new guy.

"I'm a little jealous of Shinonono-san" - muttered another girl, which the other girls nodded.

"W-Well, they haven't seen each other in six years..." - said another girl as the other women in the room gave her a surprised look - "What?"

"That was mature coming from you" - said one of her classmates.

* * *

"I don't think this is a good place to chat" - Cloud said as he closed his eyes as he noticed how they were in the canteen, surrounded by dozens of girls, who were huddled together as if they were about to listen to a story in front of a campfire.

"This is the only place we have to do it" - sighed Houki as she folded her arms - "Do you have any way we can solve our current situation?"

"Hmm, well, I can reduce the sound we produce to zero" - Cloud replied as he thought carefully - "Although that wouldn't stop people who can read our lips from hearing what I'm about to say."

"I don't think that will happen" - said Ichika as he folded his arms.

"You'd be surprised what a soldier trained from a young age can do, Ichika" - Cloud replied as he shook his head - "That aside, it's not like what I'm about to tell you is too important, though..."

* * * * *

"Orimura sensei, the signal was cut off, it seems Cloud-kun knew about our little attempt to listen to their conversation" - Maya said as she looked at her colleague - "Although I don't understand why you want to listen to this conversation, after all, you can ask your younger brother."

"It was for the senior leaders of the academy" - replied Chifuyu as she shook her head - "Anyway, let's go eat."

"Are you buying?" - asked Maya with a small smile.

"Sure" - replied Chifuyu while shrugging her shoulders.

* * * * *

"What was that?" - Houki asked as she raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, [Raiden] caught an anomaly in my outfit" - Cloud replied as he shrugged - "I've been keeping it in, but I find that it's rude to try to record other people's conversation."

Ichika and Houki simply looked at each other.

"Can your AI contact you directly even when you're not in combat or wearing your suit?" - Ichika asked curiously.

"Exactly, as I mentioned before, the suit is powered by my unique energy, which flows with every inch of my body" - Cloud answered while trying to formulate his words a bit better - "You can think of my energy as the inner part of my body, while [Raiden] is the outer muscles and skin"

"Ok, you can ask your questions" - Cloud said calmly as he started to eat.

"What was it that happened to you all these years?" - Ichika asked as he got straight to the point - "You are very different from how we remember."

"It's obvious, time changes people, as do the experiences they've had over the years" - Cloud answered simply - "As for what happened to me, I don't want to go into too much detail, so I'll give you the short version, I was locked up in a government lab..."

Houki frowned slightly because she didn't like what she was hearing - "What is [Project R]?"

"Oh, that's an interesting question" - Cloud said as he put the plate down on the table and looked the girl straight in the eyes, which made her lose her composure and start blushing - "It's the shortened version of the name [Project Raiden], which is just as I said, to design equipment good enough to stop and balance the gender balance produced by the increase in women's military power thanks to the [IS]"

"Did you suffer inside that facility?" - Houki asked with concern.

Cloud was silent for a few seconds before shaking his head - "Next question."

"Cloud!" - Houki exclaimed as he stood up abruptly.

"You don't need to know that information, the only thing that matters is that I'm finally out and almost everyone responsible for my troubles got what they deserved" - Cloud replied as he closed his eyes - "Listen, I'm not the person you played with, my hands are stained with the blood of the scientists who locked me up, so I recommend you not to treat me like when we were kids"

"Impossible, you're our friend, there's no way we'll change the way we treat you, besides, we are pilots of [IS], sooner or later we'll have to..." - Ichika replied, although the more he thought about it, the slower he spoke - ". . ."

Houki also seemed especially worried about this.

"You guys are too nice to fight" - sighed Cloud while shaking his head - "Listen, I've been involved in this for longer than you, so I can assure you that things will only get worse, piloting an [IS] is not a sport, these are war machines, weapons designed to kill the country's enemies, that's why all the countries in the world keep researching how to improve their [IS] with the only goal of being eventually rise to technological supremacy."

"Those words are cold, but true" - said a female voice.

Ichika and Houki were surprised to hear this new voice while Cloud simply frowned - "I'm honestly not surprised that you showed up, Tatenashi Sarashiki"

"From what I could [hear], you were discussing something interesting, so I decided to join" - replied Tatenashi, the student council president while looking at Cloud with interest, which brought a relief to Ichika because this girl seemed troublesome to deal with.

Houki for her part frowned because she could tell the intent in the girl's gaze, and she was not happy about this.

"Don't you have to be worried about your job as a school functionary?" - Cloud asked disdainfully.

"Oh, I should, but let's just say I'm taking a little break" - Tatenashi replied with a small smile - "Leaving that aside, what Cloud-kun said is true, we are being trained to constantly fight enemies under our same conditions, there will be times when it won't be necessary to go too far, but it will be quite common that we will have to end the lives of our enemies..."

Ichika was silent as she let out a sigh - "I guess this was to be expected..."

"Honestly, I'm surprised that you guys didn't understand this truth, or rather, that you completely ignored it" - Tatenashi said while looking at Houki and Ichika for the first time - "One of you is the younger sister of the creator of the [IS], while the other is the younger brother of the strongest woman, as well as the female with the highest price on her head."

Ichika's expression changed when he heard this because it was not what he expected.

"Is it that big of a surprise?" - Cloud asked while raising an eyebrow - "Honestly, if it wasn't for Tabane Shinonono being so sneaky, she would be the person with the highest price on her head, but since that's not the case, it's Chifuyu-san for all the trouble she's caused in the world by defending Japan."

"Well, Germany is now off this list for the service she did in the past" - Tatenashi added while shrugging her shoulders - "Anyway, it was nice talking to you guys, thanks to this I can more or less understand your lines of thoughts, at least from everyone but Cloud Strife-kun"

Cloud simply went back to eating his lunch while ignoring the fact that the blue-haired girl had disappeared again.

"She's... strong..." - Houki said with a frown.

"She is, that's why she's the president of the student council" - Cloud replied calmly as he looked up - "If you really want to continue in this line of work, I recommend that you train and at least to defeat her, maybe then you'll manage to survive to raise a family."

Houki's expression flushed before he frowned after calming down - "That's a bit of a pessimistic train of thought, Cloud."

"No, I'm speaking from a realistic point of view" - Cloud replied while shaking his head - "Everything I've said so far is completely true, if you want to verify it, you can talk it over directly with Chifuyu-san. Anyway, I think it's time for us to change the subject and now you guys be the ones to tell me about your lives."

"After you were kidnapped, Onee-chan transferred my family to a place that I can't talk about" - Houki replied while letting out a sigh - "There I went to a school under a fake identity."

"Oh, that sounds bad..." - Cloud said while shaking his head.

"Yeah, but it doesn't compare to what you went through" - Houki muttered regretfully - "I'm really sorry, if it hadn't been for you helping me, you and your parents..."

"Say no more, it was our decisions that caused this" - Cloud replied as he shook his head - "My parents were the ones who decided to sacrifice themselves to buy us time, and I was the one who decided to serve as a distraction."

Houki simply nodded weakly, though that didn't reduce the guilt she felt.