NOTES: Here we go again! To those new to this particular line of stories I'm writing this so that you don't necessarily have to read all of CoS to understand what's going on, there are bits of summary and other information to fill in gaps. To those returning, welcome back! I'll be working diligently to post a chapter each week (and I've got a couple backlogged right now so if I fall behind it doesn't mean you have to!). Please read, review, and enjoy. Remember, I take constructive criticism quite seriously, and any suggestions, questions, or comments you have are more than welcome.

Chapter 1:

It was not as though Nasté was not expecting the knock at her front door but it startled her all same when it finally came. Having spent her day cooped up in her office working diligently to input a hundred pages of information into her anthropological database she had lost all concept of time and rushed through her house toward the foyer. She shot a glance at the clock hanging beside her office door as she passed; it was exactly six o'clock.

Two more knocks rang against the door as she made her way downstairs and as she swung the door wide she could see that a third had been forthcoming. Toma stood in the doorway with his fist poised to knock again and wore an expression of complete bafflement.

"It was locked," Toma said brightly, lowered his hand, and shifted the bag that he carried on his shoulder to accommodate locking Nasté in a warm embrace. "We were beginning to worry that you weren't home."

We? Nasté thought. But when Toma let her go she understood his meaning exactly. Behind him stood Ryo, dressed in red and black sweats and looking mildly put off. Nasté did not have to ask why he was upset. She knew exactly what had happened the moment she registered that two troopers were at her door instead of one.

"He double booked you again," she said with disappointment as she motioned for the two men to enter.

"Six o'clock on Thursday April fourth," Toma said automatically. "He said he had exams next week and need some help, I cleared my whole weekend."

Ryo nodded and followed Toma inside, stopping just inside the door to plant a firm kiss on Nasté's cheek before continuing toward the living room. "And I don't need to tell you that Thursdays—"

"Are training days," Nasté said with a blush. "I know."

She followed her guests into the sitting room where Toma had already let his bag fall to the floor where it landed with a loud thud, exposing a dozen dictionary sized textbooks that must have weighed fifty pounds. He dropped into one of the well-worn armchairs, kicked off his shoes, and reclined immediately, watching with some amusement as Ryo and Nasté situated themselves on the sofa opposite.

He was not net used to the idea that Ryo and Nasté were tentatively together, a recent development that had no doubt come as a result of a good deal of mockery and taunting. After all, Ryo spent at least three hours a week alone with Jun, the much younger and less modest of the samurai troopers, who presently acted as Nasté's housemate and was not afraid to call things as he saw them.

"So where is our delinquent tonight?" Toma said with a smirk. "Running late again?"

Nasté looked meekly at the floor. "I'm afraid to say he won't be home until at least two in the morning."

Ryo and Toma exchanged dark looks and Nasté understood at once what they were thinking.

"No, no," she said. "He's keeping to my rules flawlessly as usual. Someone called in sick to work this evening so he offered to work a double shift. Eight to four then four to midnight, the poor kid is going to be an exhausted mess tomorrow."

Toma and Ryo visibly relaxed. It had been just over a year since Jun had moved into Nasté's home and they were sill surprised that he managed to live with the rules that Nasté had set forth as a condition of his living there. He had a strict curfew of ten o'clock at night unless he had explicit permission from Nasté to be out later, and if he was ever caught in a place where he did not belong he would be put out on the spot.

But Jun's continued good behavior was not wholly unexpected. The incentive to stay in Nasté's good favor was incredibly high; she had arranged a full tuition scholarship and a steady job at Keio University Teaching Hospital, and she provided him with free room and board on top of it all. Furthermore, Jun had come a long way since beginning his special work study program and seemed more responsible and ambitious now than he had ever seemed before. He scheduled Ryo at least once a week for personal training with his armor, figuring that the dual wielding wildfire would be the best coach for his own twin war glaives, and he often invited Toma for hours long sessions of mind numbingly intense study. Combined with the frequent recreational outings he made with the other troopers and his twelve or fourteen hour days at school and work it was not surprising that Jun had no free time to find trouble.

"I don't know how he does it," Toma mused. "I can barely bring myself to focus for an hour at a time. I can't fathom a sixteen hour shift."

Nasté smiled. "Well you don't get to see him as often as I do and I'll guarantee you that his schedule is as exhausting for him as you think it is, maybe even more. I don't think a single day has gone by in the last three weeks where I haven't caught him asleep on his textbooks or at his dinner. He lays his head down for two seconds and he's out like a light."

"It sounds like he needs a new schedule," Ryo said.

"Haru and I are working on relaxing it a bit, but I doubt it would make any difference to Jun," Nasté said. She referred to Hatsuharu Atsuko, the dean of medicine at Keio University who also acted as Jun's advisor. He was the man who had personally arranged Jun's work study. "He turned twenty last year and wouldn't so much as take a phone call. Haru gave him the night off and he spent the whole time reviewing his diagnostics textbook."

"We know," Toma said dejectedly. "The five of us had planned to take him out."

Nasté grinned as she recalled that evening. She had answered almost two dozen phone calls from classmates and coworkers before the troopers had phoned and Jun would not so much as think of abandoning his textbook. That night was the first time that she realized how much of an impact Jun was making on the lives of everyone he knew and how much effort he was putting in to his studies.

But she couldn't help but think that he might be overworking himself.

"Well, I suppose we'll have to make do without him for the evening," Ryo said.

Nasté and Toma nodded their agreement and it seemed that none of the three of them were disappointed by the prospect of a quiet night in. They spent their evening talking quietly and catching up on recent events. By eight o'clock they had eaten dinner and by eleven they had all retired to sleep.

At twelve thirty the phone rang.

Ryo woke first, bleary eyed and confused by the sudden noise, and he stumbled into Nasté's study to answer the call. He could not be sure if he had even uttered some sleepy variation of 'hello' before Jun began talking, his voice quick and breathless.

"Nasté, something came up and I won't be home—"

"You skipped out on PT," Ryo said as his sense fully returned, and Jun's voice died on the other end. "And you dragged Toma all the way up here for nothing."

Jun sounded flustered and upset as he began stammering a reply. "Look, I'm sorry but I forgot that it was Thursday. I really need to talk to Nasté, I'm busy and I don't have a lot of time."

When Ryo looked to the door Nasté and Toma stood in the way looking confused. Nasté tightened her dressing gown around her waist, approached Ryo thoughtfully, and extended her hand to take the receiver while Toma leaned with a loud yawn against the jamb.

Ryo handed Nasté the phone with little resistance and joined Toma near the door. The troopers watched with interest as Nasté sat down at her desk as if she was taking a business call.

"Jun," she said, "is everything all right?"

She could practically hear him shaking his head. "No," he replied. "There was a freak accident at Tokyo Station and they're admitting people by the busload. I won't be home," he paused and Nasté could hear an irate woman scolding Jun in the background noise. "I was due to assist Atsuko-sensei in surgery five minutes ago, I have to go. Turn on the news."

Nasté did not seem surprised when Jun hung up on her and ignored the expectant looks that Toma and Ryo shot her way. Instead she spun in her chair, flipped on her office television, and beckoned the two troopers over. They crowded around the screen and gaped at the image that it showed.

A camera shot footage from a helicopter which flew above a mess of fiery rubble in downtown Tokyo. They could see a hundred sets of flashing lights darting in and out of the frame as emergency vehicles came and left, could see first responders in their bright plastic coats milling about the destruction like a colony of ants, and they could see the crumpled remains of at least one Shinkansen train, its cars folded and twisted on top of each other in a massive mangled wreck.

"Oh my," Nasté gasped and she turned on the volume.

"An explosion rocked Tokyo Station this evening around eleven thirty, collapsing most of the infrastructure in a kilometer radius. At least one hundred are confirmed dead and hundreds more are seriously injured. Numbers of the dead and wounded are expected to rise. Patients are presently spread between Jikei University Hospital and Keio University Hospital. Authorities request that concerned persons stay clear of these areas until further notice due to the high volume of patients."

Nasté, Toma, and Ryo exchanged worried glances.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Ryo said quietly and Toma signaled his agreement with a curt nod.

Ϫ

The operating room was cool and quiet and Jun felt more at ease now than he had since six the previous morning. Presently he leaned over a middle aged man whose body had been left badly mangled but repairable in one of the Shinkansen crashes, and watched with morbid interest as a bloody mass of muscles twisted and pulsed under the pressure of his forceps.

He felt proud to be in that room even if he was merely there for basic assistance. He had been one of six students hand-picked by Hatsuharu Atsuko to help in his procedures and after five hours of intense focus and six patients lost on the table he was the only one remaining. The rest had given up, had buckled under the pressure, and most fled the room in tears or rage the moment a patient flat lined.

But Jun held fast, his hands steady and his focus sharp, absorbing as much practical knowledge as he could. This zone of composed consideration was exactly where he wanted to be, where the only noise to be heard was the classical piano drifting out of wall-mounted silver speakers and the only people he had to answer to were right in front of him.

He shot a glance at Atsuko and felt a shock of admiration. There was something inspiring about this man that Jun had never been able to articulate. His brow was endlessly wrinkled with concentration and his steely gray eyes never deviated from his work. He was as professional a surgeon as Jun had ever met and any time he thought of his own position as Atsuko's star pupil he swelled with pride. This man had saved Jun's life and now, almost seven years later, had taken Jun under his wing with outstanding results.

"Extracting shard six from left biceps," Atsuko said firmly as he pointed at a dark jagged spot on the radiograph mounted and lit above the patient's head. With his other hand he retrieved a pair of thumb forceps from his tray and shot a quick glance at Jun. "Spread."

"Yes, sir," Jun replied automatically and moved his right hand to the tray at his side, his fingers gripping a cold pair of retractors as by instinct.

There were five others in the room but it felt to Jun that he and Atsuko were working alone. He applied the retractors and Atsuko pried a sharp metal shard from the unconscious man's arm. And as he moved the debris over the discard bin he looked at Jun again before letting the metal fall with a clink.

"How are you holding up?" he asked as he regarded the radiograph again.

"I'm fine, sir," Jun replied humbly, though as he spoke he worked hard to stifle a yawn behind his pleated mask.

"No more double shifts this week, do you understand me?" said Atsuko and Jun nodded. Then after another deep breath he continued as if the aside had never occurred. "Extracting shard seven from left brachialis."

This was why Jun loved his work so sincerely. Atsuko treated him as both a colleague and a pupil, and once in a great while made comments that sounded in some way fatherly. But he did so in a way that remained always respectful; with enough firmness to make his point clear but a friendliness that allowed the conversation to move immediately back to business. It was in these moments that Jun was reminded how much Atsuko had invested in him both personally and professionally.

So it went for another hour before the middle aged man on the steel table was wheeled away, the team dressed in new sterile gowns and scrubbed for the seventh time, and the patient changed to an elderly woman whose left leg clung to her body by a thread. Hours later the process repeated and the old woman was replaced by a man no older than Jun who Atsuko said had no business even being there.

That boy bled out within fifteen minutes and the next patient died in a similar fashion.

At four in the morning the room remained empty for a long and uncomfortable stretch. Having had only enough time between procedures to sterilize and scrub made the fifteen minute wait for the next patient feel like an eternity. But at last the door opened and a distraught young nurse pushing a gurney strode quickly into the room.

"I apologize for the delay, sir. She was a last minute admission and had to be moved to the front of the line."

Atsuko gave a kind of grunt in reply. "Get her on the table," he said to no one in particular and then looked directly at the nurse. "How long?"

"She was admitted an hour ago," the nurse said, and Atsuko turned away in disgust.

The minute Atsuko's back was to her the nurse hurried from the room. He admired the small figure lying prone on the table and called out in what could have been an angry voice. "Jun!"

Jun jumped. He had been seated in a corner of the room in the only moment he had been off his feet all day, but when he heard his name he stood and rushed to the table where Atsuko looked at him so gravely that he felt a chill.

"Do you need a break?"

Jun was startled by the question. It seemed strange to be asked such a question after taking the time and effort to redress for the procedure. "Excuse me?"

"I'm asking if you are absolutely sure that you want to be in this room."

"Of course I am," Jun replied. He was working hard not to sound indignant.

Atsuko nodded and retrieved a chart from the end of the steel table. He nodded to a woman standing near the head of the unconscious patient and she obediently began unwrapping the head from its cover of bulky bandages. Then he read monotonously from the chart.

"Akiko Nagano," he stated flatly. "Age eight, admitted with severe trauma to the head. Suspected hemorrhaging of the brain and additional internal abdominal bleeds."

Jun gaped at the girl whose face—or what was left of it—had now been completely exposed and his whole body went numb. Her shaved head was split from ear to ear and her mouth hung open looking as though she had suffered a severe stroke. Her face and chest were burned and blistered and for the first time since beginning his program months ago Jun felt nauseous and dizzy at the sight.

As the procedure began he could hear only vaguely Atsuko's heated complaint that this girl should have been in the room hours ago. He barely registered the sharp commands that he was issued and hardly saw the operation as it progressed. His body worked automatically while his mind raced with thoughts about the complete stranger hovering near death before him.

She looked peaceful under the plastic mask that was pressed firmly to her nose and mouth, even in her disfigurement. He imagined that she had been pretty and smart and popular at school, as full of spirit and blind ambition as he had been at that age. He imagined that her eyes would open and sparkle with the excitement of life reclaimed. His chest swelled with hope at the same time as a hard lump of fear caught in his throat.

He stared at her open abdomen for what felt like hours though in his fatigue he could not be certain how long had actually passed. He worked as he always did, his face set in stone while his unwavering hands responded expertly to orders from above, but inside his mind and heart were raging. He could not believe how unfair life was being to this poor young girl. He could not fathom what her parents must have been thinking. He felt angry and terrified and somehow confused. He felt as though he should not be in the room at all.

He saw sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and knew that the remaining members of the staff were rushing frantically about the room. Then he felt a hand grasp his shoulder to wrench him roughly away from the table and the sudden movement snapped his mind back to reality.

A flat tone sounded loud above the piano and a number of machines began to beep tones of warning. Jun shot a glance at the monitor beside the table and read its output without recognizing what he was doing, and then he turned and watched from afar as the body jumped violently about in slow and even intervals. He looked at the strange woman who held his shoulders and felt his eyes widen in shock and disbelief.

"That's it," said Atsuko hotly from across the room. "No more for now. Everyone take a break, I'm calling a meeting with my heads of staff to figure out what part of 'emergency triage' they don't comprehend."

With Atsuko's words ringing of finality and suppressed rage the team filed silently into the preparation room where they disrobed and went their separate ways without so much as exchanging looks. It was seven thirty in the morning and after spending the night in a cramped and tense space none of them expected to talk. None of them wanted to talk.

Jun watched them depart into the chaos outside of the operating room and understood that their work was far from ending. Patients stood in queue outside and he could hear their frantic yells as they carried through the open door. So he hung back in the room, focused on watching Atsuko's back as he filled out basic post-procedure paperwork, and tried not to stare at the dead girl lying on the table.

"I meant you as well, Jun," said Atsuko firmly and without turning.

But Jun could not bring himself to move. His stomach tingled and his skin crawled and no matter how hard he tried he could not force out the words that he wanted to say. Rather, a quiet and uncertain squeak escaped his mouth and he flushed as Atsuko turned on him.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong," he said at once, sounding somewhat angry. "She was dead before she got in here."

"I know," Jun stammered quietly.

Atsuko regarded Jun with some concern then and the two stood in awkward quiet for a while. Then he looked away, tired of staring at Jun's bloody gown and gloves as his fingers fidgeted, and poked at his paperwork.

"That was bad for all of us," Atsuko said. "But I do understand what you're thinking about. That's why I asked if you really wanted to stay."

"Sir?" Jun said dumbly. He was not certain that he had heard Atsuko correctly.

"That little girl was just like you were; almost identical injuries and everything. But she died and you didn't."

Jun did not know how to respond. He was not sure if that was why he felt so strange but it seemed a good enough reason as any. It was true that he had been giving no small amount of thought to how unfair life was for that girl and how if he had been only slightly less lucky he might be gone just as she was.

"How long have you been up?" said Atsuko and he sounded concerned as he watched Jun begin counting the hours on his fingers. "You know what," he continued, "don't bother. Go get something to eat and get some sleep."

"But—"

"You've done enough today. You can't save everyone by yourself, much less if you're exhausted. You're not a super hero, you know."

Jun smirked unconsciously and moved toward the exit obediently. Atsuko did not know the irony of his idiom because Jun had never mentioned that he was the bearer of a mystical armor and had played a substantial role in saving humanity only a year prior.

"Maybe not," Jun quipped as he bumped the door's automatic opening mechanism with his elbow, "but I'm pretty damned close."