10 Chapter 17: Lost in Thought

The sky, once again, turns to a kind orange-y hue. The front door opens and Honoka walks in holding a stack of books, reports and what-nots. "I'm home." There's no response. Seeing Yua's well-loved boots in the entrance-way, she walks over to the second door to the left and knocks before entering. In the fetal position, she is sleeping cozily in bed.

"Out all night and sleeping in the day. How old do you think you are?!" Honoka pulls off her wool blanket and yanks her feet off of the bed. "Wake up!" Yua unconsciously flings her arms up and hold on to her bed-frame. "Argh!" Honoka exclaims.

After ten minutes of tug-of-war, Yua wakes up feeling refreshed. Seeing Honoka disheveled on the floor, she yawns, "You're finally home."

Her pretty face contorts in a rage. "Who are you to say that to me?! Do you know how long I waited for you to come back last night? I left the house at 7 and you still weren't home. You just got back from who knows where. Other than that time when you brought Taitsuke here, I haven't seen you for practically 6 years! And why is that only Nii-san knew how to contact you? I've known you the same amount of time as him. You and I practically grew up together. I consider you my sister too!"

Yua sits on the floor beside her and gives her a reassuring hug. "I'm sorry for everything, Honoka. I promise I'll tell you everything when the time comes. I just can't risk it. Trust me, there are so many things I want to tell you, but right now is not the time..."

Honoka holds her tears and hugs her back. "Fine.. but the second you can, you better tell me everything.. You and Nii-san always make me feel like the odd one out. You two don't share last names either, so why is it that you consider him family and me a friend?"

"Honoka... I'm sorry, but you're way to old to call him that."

Honoka punches her at full force straight in the gut. "Shut up."

Coughing, Yua hacks, "Wow. You're really nothing like you used to be you know? But I have to be honest with you. How else are you going to break that sisterly bond with him? If you don't fix it now, you'll just end up being an old-maid. Taiyou is already will you really let him die alone?"

Honoka stands up and drops the blanket over her head. "I don't want to hear that when you and I are the same age." She picks up her stack of books and heads toward the kitchen. "I'm going to make some dinner. Do you want some?"

Yua looks out at the sky and the orange-y hue is is starting to fade away. "Oh crap! No, I have to go. I'll be back later though... Scratch that, I might be back later. She opens the window in her room and disappears. With a hand to her forehead, Honoka shakes her head. "3..2..1." There's a knock on the door. Honoka goes over to open it, holding Yua's shoes. "Here."

Yua quickly takes the pair of shoes. "Thanks. See you later."

A bit of ways away from what used to be her 'secret' training grounds, Yua can here an agitated shout. "GRRRAH!"

She lets out a mocking laugh. "Hehe, I guess she's at her wits end."

Between the boulders, the girl vexingly kicks down her two person barrier and flattens it back into the ground. "Why is this so hard for me?!" Stealthily, Yua sneaks her way behind Mai and pokes her sides.

Startled by the sudden ambush, she squeals and stomps her foot downward. From the ground, a three person barrier rises from the ground, between them. For a moment, the two stare blankly at the structure, then let out two boisterous laughs. Holding her stomach, Yua huffs, "My goodness! I feel like I pulled a rib from laughing so hard."

Mai falls to the ground, looking at her achievement with tears in her eyes. "Jeez, it only took all day!"

Yua goes around the sizeable creation. "Nice work. I hope you know I wasn't kidding when I said to make a thousand of these though."

With her olive-colored eyes about to pop out of there sockets, she's speechless.

"Now, let's see how my other pupil is doing." With a mischievous smile, she turns around and sees the boy passed out underneath the budding tree.

Mimicking his sprawled out position, Mai informs, "He fell over a few minutes ago. I was kinda scared, so I just let him be.."

Yua looks at her with a displeased expression. "You were scared?" Her scarlet eyes bore shame into the girl.

She jolts back up. "No, I-"

"Mai, I want to tell you something. You are very young still. Much of your beliefs are based on the people around you whether you know it or not. I can tell from today that you are a nice girl, but you you shouldn't judge someone before you get to know them. The people of Awajima, no, the people in all three of the nations have labeled Dragon Vessels as the Dragons themselves. But, what I see when I look at Taitsuke is human, just the same as when I look at you. 'Baa-chan really raised you well. If you can, I'd like for you to get to know Taitsuke. He's actually a nice kid."

Mai looks over to the crimson haired boy laying peacefully under the tree. "I know.. I got to talk with him earlier. The truth is my friend always tells me nice things about him that no one else notices. After a while, I started noticing them too, but I guess I..." She shakes her head. "I'm not scared of him anymore... I'm sorry.. I'll do my best."

Yua ruffles the girl's hair and grins softly. "Thank you." She walks over to the sleeping boy then pokes his cheeks. "Taitsuke, wake up. We got work to do."

Mai furrows her brows. "Yua-sensei, he already passed out from exhaustion. Shouldn't he rest a bit more? Also, I actually have to head back soon. I have to go feed- I mean I have school tomorrow."

Ignoring her obvious lie, Yua sighs, "It doesn't matter if he's exhausted or not. Until the Trial, it's got to be like this. Oh, and if you don't mind, we're going to be here everyday between 5 am-ish and 10 pm-ish. Maybe later."

"He's been training since 5 am? No wonder he passed out, he only took one break and to eat that weird stuff you left us.. And what is with those hours? Aren't they way too long?" She pauses to replay Yua's last sentence in her head. "What do you mean 'if you don't mind'?"

Yua starts shaking Taitsuke awake. "Isn't this your training spot? Why else would you come straight here in the morning? Don't tell it was to pick flowers," she chuckles.

Raising her brows, Mai responds, "Yua-sensei.. You don't look like it, but you're really keen."

She stops for a moment. "Not really."

Waking up from what felt like the shortest nap of his life, Taitsuke opens his eyes exhaustedly to see Yua staring back at him with an evil grin on her face. "Good afternoon, kid."

He jolts up then falls back down. A deep soreness runs through his entire body. "Urgh.. Sorry. I'll get back to-"

"Nope. Eat first." She hands him another disgusting pastry and bottle.

He grimaces. "Yua-san.. Can you please tell me what it is that I'm eating?"

"Just eat it and you'll see for yourself."

He scarfs it down while holding his breath. Nothing seems to happen. "Are you messing with me?"

She chortles, "Pfft. Nope. Let's just get back to work."

The moon is shining overhead, but Taitsuke feels energized again. Over the past few hours, the soreness left his body. It was so subtle that when he noticed the change, any sign of the sun had already been long gone. 'I guess this is what she meant.'

For the entire day, all he has done was circulate his Chi. 'Maybe tomorrow will be the day when I finally get to learn some moves..' Yua finally clasps her hands, signaling him to stop.

"Okay. That's good enough for today."

With his head jut-out, he opposes, "No! I still have energy. I-"

Chopping his head lightly, she stops him. "Nope, it's good enough for today. You're energy is only a side-effect. Once you wake up tomorrow morning you will be so sore that anything you felt earlier could be considered a walk in the park."

Fear reflects in his eyes. 'Crap.'

It's really late at night when I get back to my apartment. I walk through the door and have a strange feeling. 'It feels like someone else was here...' I try to shake off the feeling and try to relax. Within me, I feel the strong presence wake up for the first time for today. I try to suppress him from coming out, well-knowing that I haven't gotten the meat that I promised him yet, but he overpowers me.

[Ha... it seems we're finally...] He pauses and goes back to his slumber. I feel puzzled as to why he only came out briefly, but don't think much of it. 'Whatever, more time to myself.'

I head to the bathroom where my broken mirror looks at me with a hundred different pieces. Not having the time or money to fix it, I decided to leave it as is. 'I'm going to have to figure out something once I have time to make money...' I take off my goggles and quickly get ready for bed. 'Tomorrow is going to be horrible when I wake up.. I better rest as much as possible.'

~~~

[4 Days until Initiation Trials; Monday, 19 Nov *676; 4:32 AM]

*Tap tap tap*

"Rrrgh.." I groan . My body hurts so badly that I'm convinced that I was probably squashed by one of the boulders from the training area in my sleep. *Tap tap* I flip myself off the bed and inch my body over to the window. "I can't... stand up."

It's muffled, but I can hear her say, "Just open the window."

Crying both internally and externally, I stagger my way up and open it enough for Yua to do the rest. "I feel like I'm dying.."

She hops over my dead body and heads to the kitchen. "Don't worry, it won't last for long." She takes out a few bitter smelling items and hands them to me. "Just eat these. They'll help with the pain." Desperate for the pain to go away, I eat them all, despite wanting to gag. "Your body isn't used to using so much Chi, so I made something to help you continuously practice. If you didn't consume those things yesterday, you wouldn't have been able to do even half the work, time, or effort that you put in yesterday. Which would mean that you wouldn't have made as much progress. Don't worry, they aren't harmful to you. They are actually pretty valuable medicines."

A moment passes and my pain is subsiding quicker than yesterday. "So basically, I'm going to wake up like this for the next few days?"

I hear the rustling of her stuffing what I assume to be my lunch and dinner in her bag, she replies with, "Yup."

I stand up to head over to my bathroom and quickly get myself ready. "Oh.. Yua-san. Ishichi-san told me that I was the potential to be a healer yesterday. Is that true?"

"Uh-huh."

I put my wash my face quickly and put my goggles over my eyes. "Does that mean I'll be like Honoka-san, a medic?"

I hear the chair at my 'dining desk' pull out to sit down. "Mmm.. I don't know... Do you want to be a medic?"

I think for a minute as I brush my teeth. 'I'm not too sure. Do I even have a choice of what I will become if and when I become a Chibushi? The word Chibushi isn't actually a profession, but it's more like a title. If you become a Chibushi, it's like going around with a golden star at the end of your name. You can basically be anything once you've served your 2 years.. A Chibushi guard, a Chibushi adventurer, a Chibushi medic, a Chibushi government official. You can even continue being a regular *Chibushi soldier.. If I they gave me the choice in what type of Chibushi I would want to be.. What would I choose?' I forget to respond to her question and get lost in thought.

"Hurry up we have a lot to do today."

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Chibushi: is the combination of Chi/Ki- energy and bushi-warrior (can mean warrior possessing Chi)

-In modern day, Chibushi don't necessarily mean that one is is a warrior. It just means that one possesses Chi.

-Chibushi soldier specifies that the person is a person who serves as a combatant for the C.O.D.E.