“Idiot,” Row grumbled as the four of them walked back to the base. “Why would you let her goad you into saying something like that?” he continued, clearly gearing up for a much longer lecture. “Who cares what she says about you? She doesn’t even know you. And even if she did, it shouldn’t matter anyway! Is proving whatever to her worth risking your life for? Did you forget what we just saw there? That was a real drake, Lily! They called it a house class, did you hear that? That’s only the fourth biggest class!” He threw his hands in the air in despair, and Hyrin was pretty sure all of this was much more about him working through his own feelings than actually scolding Lily.

She glanced at Lily from the corner of her eye. To her surprise, Lily kept her mouth shut and her gaze lowered. Unlike with vice captain Leyleina, she didn’t let herself get provoked so easily by someone she actually liked. The look on her face made it very clear, though, that she wasn’t sorry. 

Hyrin had to admit that Lily wasn’t the one she had expected to decide to enlist first, but that look made it clear to her that it wasn’t a decision that had only been brought on by the vice captain. Lily sincerely wanted to enlist. Part of Hyrin wanted to cut off Row’s tirade to ask her why, but she managed to keep her mouth shut. If there was still even the slightest part of Lily that hesitated, Hyrin felt that she should give Row a fair chance to appeal to it. It would be too late after she had put her signature on the enlistment documents.

She glanced at Seren, who jolted and quickly turned his head away from her. Had he been watching her the entire time? He had pulled his shoulders and she could see how he had clenched his fists even though he hid them in the pouch of his hoodie. She could pretty much tell what he was thinking, just like he could probably tell what she was thinking.

“One of those guys who was hit by the drake’s tail got injured so badly that the medics weren’t sure he would make it,” she suddenly interrupted Row. “And the other guy and the woman that got buried underneath that part of the building that broke off both died.” She lowered her gaze to the ground, watching her feet fit perfectly within each square tile of the sidewalk they were walking on. “I wonder if the captain could have prevented that if he had been there just a moment earlier.”

She noticed Seren and Row exchange a look even without watching them.

“I mean,” Row said softly, “he probably could have. You saw what he was capable of.”

Hyrin nodded.

“There was another drake, not far from here,” Seren told her and she snapped her head up at him.

“I asked,” he explained. “The captain sent the others ahead to the one we were facing while he stayed behind by himself just a moment longer to finish off the first one.”

“So that alarm was for two of them?” Row realized softly and Hyrin could almost see his heart sink into his sneakers. The idea of that one monster they faced running around the city was bad enough, knowing that there had been another one so close by at the same time clearly made him want to dig a hole in the ground and hide. But then he suddenly scraped his throat and straightened his back.

“Well, it makes sense,” he said in a slightly higher pitch than normal. “Even though he’s that strong, he can’t be everywhere at once, right?”

Hyrin nodded again. “You’ll only see someone as strong as that once or twice every generation of reincarnations, huh?” She repeated vice captain Leyleina’s words. She raised her head. “Are we a new generation of reincarnations?”

“That doesn’t mean it has to be one of us,” Seren immediately told her, as if he had been waiting for her to finally say it out loud.

“But it doesn’t mean it won’t be one of us, either, right?” Hyrin argued and she could see Lily fervently nod next to her.

“If there had been just one more person capable of what captain Harumi is capable of, they could have fought both drakes at the same time and those two people wouldn’t have died.”

She clenched her fists, her heart beating in the back of her throat. “I’m enlisting,” she told them, although she pierced her eyes right into Seren’s as she said it.

“Then I’m enlist-”

“You don’t have to,” she cut him off, already knowing he would say it. “I don’t care how you feel about me, Seren, you can’t make a decision like this based on some crush.” She softened her expression. “You don’t want to, right? It’s okay.”

His face flushed, but against her expectation, he didn’t avert his gaze.

“That’s not… I don’t…” He closed his mouth, tightly pressing his lips into a thin line as he seemed to sort out his words in his head. Eventually, he sighed and his cheeks returned to their original, pale color. “It’s not because of… how I feel about you,” he admitted softly. “It’s just that… you’re the kind of person who will sacrifice herself for people she doesn’t even know, who will stare down a monster like that just to give us a chance to escape.” His voice softened. “But I think you were telling the truth when you told the captain you were just lucky when you managed to kill that drake in the training field.” He swallowed, as if he expected her to give him a good slap for saying that, but he still continued.

“But what about the next time? Will you still be so lucky?” The tension in his body was palpable, but somehow, his voice had gotten calmer. “I want to be someone who can protect you when you stop thinking and run headfirst into danger for the sake of others.” For the first time since they had met, he gave her a smile so warm that it unconsciously made her want to move back.

“I think you’re someone worth protecting,” he declared in a clear voice.

For some reason, she felt her lips trembling and she quickly pressed them together so he wouldn’t notice. What was wrong with this guy? Who said something like that out loud? Without even batting an eye? And why did watching it feel so unbearable?

“Anyway,” he covered his embarrassment with a slight cough so he could hide most of his face behind his hand, “the only way to get stronger is to enlist. So, if you’re going to fight, I’m going to fight. And if you’re going to enlist, I’m going to enlist.”

“D…” she turned away from him. “Do whatever you want then.”

He lowered his hand with a grin. “I was going to even without you saying that.”

Lily, who had pressed her hand against her mouth for most of the duration of that conversation, finally couldn’t stop herself anymore and burst out laughing, causing Seren’s cheeks to turn a very bright pink again.

“So,” Lilystopped herself from embarrassing Seren any longer and aimed her gaze at Row instead, “I’m enlisting. And Hyrin is enlisting. And apparently that means Seren is enlisting. So…” She narrowed her eyes and Row tried his best to turn his face as far away from her as he possibly could.

“So…” She repeated with an evil grin and when Row still didn’t respond, she turned to Hyrin, nodding her head towards Row so fervently that Hyrin was pretty sure it had to hurt her neck.

“So…” Hyrin gave in right away. Had their opponent been anyone but Row, she may not have joined, but she had gotten to know him well enough by now to know he would say no if he really didn’t want to.

“So…” Seren repeated dryly after Lily hit him in the arm with her fist.

“Seriously?” Row asked his friend over his shoulder, but Seren just shrugged with a slightly guilty grin.

“Ro-”

“Fine!” Row cut Lily off. “Fine, I’ll enlist, so please stop this super horrible way of trying to recruit me.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder and Hyrin was pretty sure she saw a shimmer of regret in his eyes, although it disappeared again before she could be sure.

“I would have done it anyway,” he let Lily know and she gave him an apologetic smile.

“I know,” she said warmly.

“Signing time~!”

Hyrin froze, her soup-filled spoon still in her hand. After they had gotten back from the city, she had found an opening to sneak into the nearly empty mess hall and get her hands on some leftover food from lunch. It hadn’t been much, but she hadn’t been very hungry anyway. She really just wanted a moment for herself to process everything that had happened, something that wasn’t easy to do in the cramped room she shared with Lily.

Captain Harumi slammed a stack of papers on the table in front of her, causing some of her soup to spill out of the bowl and nearly hit those documents.

“Whoops.” He quickly pulled them away and gestured to her to scoot over to him so she could sit in front of those papers instead of her food.

“I heard Seren and the other two you hang out with just signed their enlistment forms, so I came to give you yours,” he explained with the brightest smile.

She narrowed her eyes at him, not moving over or even putting her spoon down. “Your unusual interest in me is noted, but not appreciated,” she let him know coldly.

He burst out laughing and slapped her against her back. “Very good, very professional and businesslike. Now, time to sign.”

He pulled a pen out of his pocket and held it out to her, his eyes suddenly oddly serious. “You are going to sign, right?”

She stared at that pen in his hand for a moment, but then put down her spoon and took it. She moved over, holding her left hand out to him to make sure he would move too and stay at about an arm’s length distance. She flipped through the stack, only picking up a word here and there.

“Do I have to read all of it?” She asked.

“At some point, probably,” he answered with a shrug. “But either way, signing it ‘as is’ is the only way to enlist.”

She sighed. “I figured.” She clicked out the pen and pressed the point against the dotted line on that last page, signing her new name.

“Yes!” He grabbed them out from under her hand the moment she finished and jumped up. “Welcome to the Drake Annihilation Force.” He waved the stack of papers in his hand. “Well, officially after I get these processed, of course, but you know.”

“Yeah, thanks,” she answered, moving back over the bench to her soup.

“Tsk, why are you acting so boring?” He asked, leaning closer to her. “I told you to pick whatever personality you want and just go with it, right? Look at your friend, Lily, she took my advice and ran with it. Now she’s so happy and adorable all the time.”

Hyrin scoffed. He clearly hadn’t seen Lily face off against his vice captain.

“What did it take?” She asked him instead, ignoring his comments on her personality.

“For me to become this charming?” He asked. “A lot of practice in front of the mirro-”

“For you to become that strong,” she interrupted him.

He sighed again and plopped on the bench next to her, leaning his elbows on the table behind him.

“Trust me, Rin,” he told her in a shockingly serious tone, “whatever it took, you won’t make it if you don’t learn to be a little more positive.”

She flinched, but then snapped her head up, turning towards him with the brightest smile she could muster up without her lips cracking.

“Whatever are you talking about, captain?” She imitated the horrifyingly sweet tone Lily had used against vice captain Leyleina earlier that day. “I’m always as bright and positive as a sunny summer day.”

“Yikes.” Captain Harumi leaned back. “Maybe I was wrong.”

She chuckled despite herself. “I’m not actually all that negative,” she admitted reluctantly. “I’m just… cautious.” She looked him straight in the eye. “You’re strong enough to actually save others. What’s wrong with me wanting to reach your level?”

His eyes widened slightly, but then the corners of his lips suddenly curled up. “What’s wrong with that?” He repeated. “Absolutely nothing. Here’s the thing, though,” he jumped up from the bench, “if you want to reach my level, you will have to figure out what that will take.”

He flicked his finger against her forehead before she could even react and laughed loudly as he walked away from her, waving her enlistment papers in the air.

She rubbed her painfully burning forehead with an annoyed motion, but then lowered her hand and stared at the bright red surface in her bowl. Figure it out for yourself, she thought. It’s not like she had expected the answer to be easy, but somehow, those words made her shudder.

She pushed her bowl away and got up. It didn’t matter, she decided determinately. Whatever it was, she would figure it out and overcome it. 

Starting with their first training.