Covenant Red
Chapter 4: Visualization
Disclaimer: I do not own Evangelion.
/\/\/\/\
Final period ended with Kensuke face down on his desk. The past two weeks of daily tests demanded by WILLE, combined with the heavy workload of a prestigious new school caught up with him by the first weekend, and he was running on empty since. He wanted to say his grades suffered for his work, but his academics weren't stellar to begin with and he had no objective way to tell if his job was improving.
Asuka and Toji were present for most of the new tests Ritsuko conducted, activating their blood skill over and over as Kensuke reported the timing and effect. At first, it wasn't so bad. Toji was casually talkative between tests, taking time to fill in blanks regarding the city and school. But genial small talk could only last so long. Ritsuko possessed refined time management sensitivity, meaning she did not get bored doing the same thing for hours on end.
"Orders are orders," Toji had said with a shrug. Kensuke pondered clawing out his own eyes to give the doctor unfettered access.
Although being ordered to stare into Asuka's startlingly elegant eyes helped lessen the desire for mutinous self-mutilation. Even when she was glowering at him. Which was all the time. His efforts to engage her in conversation were met with silence after the first try, which earned him a sour "Shut up, kid."
Dr. Akagi was inscrutable behind a classified wall. Ms. Ibuki was in perpetual motion for her, fulfilling requests or locked behind a terminal. He hadn't seen Commander Katsuragi since his introduction. Kensuke wondered if all women were as gracefully dismissive of him or if it was a WILLE thing.
He was still bent over his desk. He forced his head to stare at Toji, packing up his supplies and preparing to depart. His movements were quick and direct, showing no sign of fatigue.
"I don't know how you do it."
"I've been at this longer than you. You'll get used to it, too."
"Get used to it?" Kensuke repeated. "Oh, God. You're implying it'll be this bad forever?"
"Nah. It could get worse. You might one day look back at how you feel now and long for it."
"You are no friend of mine, sir."
Toji grinned. He was sitting atop his desk, relacing his sneakers. "I know it's been crazy lately, but it's our job. It'll suck sometimes. Definition of a job. What you got to do is work through it to something you look forward to." He jumped off of his desk and began preliminary warm-ups.
"Basketball practice today, huh?" Kensuke asked. A realization struck him. "You've missed a bunch of practices because of me, haven't you?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, but I know where my priorities have to be. WILLE comes first. It always will. 'Til the day I die."
"Doesn't that bug you?"
"Only if I think about it."
Aha, he thought. Perhaps that was the real key. Just don't think. His frazzled brain accepted and shut down all higher functions not needed to breathe and watch Asuka leave the classroom with a quiet, blistering hot grace.
Toji was jogging in place. He nodded in farewell. "See you."
"Have a good one," Kensuke blindly waved after him as he left.
He collected his supplies and was working on mustering the courageous strength to stand up when Hikari approached his desk from the front of the room. Kensuke shot from his seat but was too late to escape. The class representative closed him down with an earnest smile.
"Mr. Aida," she began.
"Ms. Horaki."
"On your way out? I just wanted to check in with you. How is school going? No offense, but you look exhausted. I know our teachers tend to assign a lot of homework but it's only to reinforce the day's lessons and prepare us for higher education. Do you need any extra help getting adjusted to it?"
"Nope," he lied. "I'm fine. Everything's okay."
"Oh. Good."
"Yeah."
Hikari fidgeted.
"Was there something else?" Kensuke asked, suddenly afraid she'd inquire how the Club hunt was going.
"Um, well…" She cleared her throat. "No, I mean, I just noticed you've been hanging around Suzuhara lately."
"Yeah…" He hesitated. WILLE issued rather clear orders not to talk to non-WILLE members about WILLE activities. Even among WILLE staff, discussion didn't seem to be encouraged.
Hikari preempted any further comments. "Just since, you know, you're the newest transfer and we haven't gotten any transfers for a while and it's nice to see a new transfer getting along so well and…" She shut her mouth to stop rambling.
"Yeah," he said again. "Toji's been a huge help getting acclimated. I guess he took pity on me?"
"Oh, that makes sense," she told him before realizing how rude it sounded. "Uh, no, I mean that he wanted to help you out. He might not seem like it but he can be nice."
"Yeah…" Kensuke stared at her, wondering why she wasn't leaving.
Hikari edged closer to him. "Has Suzuhara, um, mentioned anything to you? About anyone? Like, anyone in this class?"
"… Are you looking to make me a NARC?"
It took a moment for her to comprehend. "Oh!" she exclaimed, adequately startled into embarrassment. "No! No, that wasn't what I was talking about at all."
"I mean, sure, Toji might look like a thug but I've never seen him shake kids down for lunch money."
"Of course he wouldn't do that!"
"Or beat up wimps for fun."
"He's not like that!"
He shrugged. "So then what is this about?" He watched her waver. "I can't help you if I don't know what you want."
Kensuke was not averse to females in roles of authority. Following a clear set of orders beat fumbling in the dark for an impossible answer. Better to know what to do. But when a girl with status refused to exercise that influence it upset the natural balance. Who was he, humble and unassuming as he was, to pick up the pieces?
Hikari realized etiquette demanded she finish what she started. "Well," she began, "since you two are hanging out, I thought he might have confided in you. I sort of thought maybe… Um, do you think Suzuhara likes Asuka?"
"What?"
"Not that I'm really checking, but they're absent a lot on the same days. And I don't know about Suzuhara but Asuka's been really busy after school, lately. So, I thought, like, maybe they were going out."
It sounded physically painful for her to say. She was twisting her hands together and scrunching her face.
Even exhausted as he was, Kensuke's first impulse was to laugh in Hikari's face. Soryu existed behind ten million state-of-the-art layers of the highest-grade armor. Cupid's pitiful arrows had no chance of reaching her. Although he saw Hikari's point. Soryu was hot; what boy wouldn't want to go out with her? But that was part of the appeal.
Kensuke suffered under no delusions. With a girl as fine as Soryu, you had to earn attention. She wouldn't be subject to the frail superficial whimsies of a teenage crush. Certainly not with Toji, of all people. But therein laid Kensuke's hope: Through a man's effort he could work his way into her heart. He could prove he was worthy of existence in her eyes. To him, it was simply a matter of waiting for the proper opportunities to present themselves. Time together was a given as they were both Children, although Dr. Akagi's endless tests were not the ideal situations to change Soryu's mind.
But Toji and Asuka? Work associates, certainly, but that was information the public was not privy to. Hikari's leap of judgment was Olympian.
Hoping to defuse the situation and escape, Kensuke opted for a half-lie. "Toji's never really talked about Soryu. I'm sure he would have mentioned dating the most popular girl in school."
"O-Oh, yeah," Hikari replied. She smiled without humor. "She really is popular, huh?"
"Absolutely," he answered, missing the mood. "She's got style and flare, she stands out without trying. She's got this great air of coolness and sophistication alien to her peers."
"You sure nailed it."
From what he observed in class, Hikari was, at the least, involved in a tentative familiarity with Soryu. When the class representative approached and spoke, Asuka did not immediately dismiss or demean her efforts. It must be a girl thing.
He prepared to further articulate his appreciation for Soryu when his cell phone vibrated from his school bag. He ignored it. He ignored the second time, too. It rang, which was odd since he set it to vibrate, so he reluctantly pulled it out.
"Hold on," he told Hikari. He tapped his phone on.
"Answer the first time, Aida," Aoba nearly yelled at him. "We have transport waiting for you. Get going."
Kensuke was unmoved. "Sorry. I'll head in for another round of tests, right away."
"Not today. A Nephilim has been detected heading towards the city."
A piercing signal whined to life throughout the school. Hikari was immediately refocused.
"That's the evacuation siren," she explained to Kensuke, who was looking at her in dumb shock. She waited for it to sink in. "Come on! We need to get to a shelter, now."
He made no move to follow her, so she grabbed his wrist and yanked him out the classroom. They were the last to leave.
The hallway was a mass of organized chaos. Students and teachers quickly filed out of the school with practiced precision. No one ran in blind panic, no one screamed. Everyone operated under ingrained orders, following unspoken rules. Kensuke let Hikari drag him along, having pointedly ignored all previous evacuation training in school.
"Head to drop point 3B," Aoba told him.
"Uh, where?"
He sighed over the phone. "Get to the minimart near the school's south end. We have a car waiting for you."
Easier said than done. Hikari's death grip on his wrist inspired obedience to her authority. He tried to gently extricate himself. He failed.
"Aida—" Aoba began again.
"I'll be right there," he told him, and thumbed the phone off. "Horaki, wait a sec."
"We really shouldn't." She didn't bother looking back to him as she spoke. "There were no plans to have a drill today. It must be a real attack."
She led them outside the school, moving fast to worm their way into the crowd. He was surrounded on all sides. The underground shelter entrance loomed at the end of a wide walkway.
"Almost there," Hikari murmured. Her voice was tense but controlled. She tugged him onward.
Kensuke could only imagine the amount of hell he would catch from WILLE if he ignored orders and became trapped in a shelter. The dark, deadly serious, beautiful eyes of Commander Katsuragi haunted every step Horaki pulled him. Given the unbending wills of two powerful females, Kensuke naturally obeyed the hotter one.
He put on the brakes, only keeping on his feet thanks to the tight crowd funneling into the shelter. "I have to go to the bathroom," he announced.
Hikari turned on him. "You'll hold it," she ordered. "We need to get inside."
"I can't." Inspiration struck. "I'm going to barf." She reflexively loosened her hold in disgust and Kensuke snatched his hand back. He began moving against the crowd, away from the shelter. "Yeah, uh, today's lunch isn't sitting right. I'm definitely going to hurl chunks everywhere."
The surrounding crowd members did their absolute best to give him access to freedom.
"Aida!" Hikari cried.
The naked look of concern over his safety kept him from simply bolting. He wished he hadn't looked.
"I'll catch up to you," he promised as she was swept along. "I swear."
He lost sight of her struggling against the mob. He turned and ran to the pickup point.
/\/\/\/\
The city was eerily quiet. The evacuation siren cleared the streets with impressive command. Lines of empty cars sat silent, the trains were frozen on their tracks. Empty buildings stood over empty sidewalks. Kensuke looked over the cityscape with a surrealist disconnect. Without the usual droves of humanity clogging the metropolis' arteries the capitol looked artificial and lonely, like an abandoned movie set.
He was aboard a VTOL in a holding pattern with a clear view of the city's west side. WILLE gave him a pair of high-powered binoculars and strict orders to observe the battle. A thin headset connected him to the other Children and headquarters. The comm. line chattered in his ear, alerting him to Toji and Asuka's positions; he was street-level, she was perched atop a sloped bank cradling a sleek rifle.
The gravity of the situation failed to sink in. Soryu looked cool with the gun, Toji was confidently relaxed, and he was riding in a real live VTOL. He tried not to bounce in his seat.
The copilot glanced back as Kensuke continued investigating the vehicle's interior, nothing but a cramped bench bolted to the wall, with childlike wonderment. He used the binoculars to examine the passenger hold.
"This is so cool," he muttered.
The copilot, a beefy man with a dark beard shot him a thumbs up. "Hell yeah, kid."
Kensuke was startled into self-awareness. "Uh, wh-what?"
"It's not every day we get to transport someone with your level of enthusiasm. Hell, any enthusiasm. WILLE ain't known for promoting an appreciation for the mechanically wonderful."
"Oh."
"Eyes on the sky," the pilot ordered. "We got a job to do." Wavy pink hair peeked out from her helmet. "… But yeah, WILLE's repressed technophilia is stunning. Enjoy the ride, Third."
Kensuke turned out the window and focused his binoculars. He discounted the likelihood of WILLE installing any sort of monitoring device in them as he thoroughly acquainted himself with Asuka's form fitting body armor. He wished he could take a picture.
"Pattern solidified," Hyuga reported from headquarters. "We have position confirmation."
The VTOL pivoted and Kensuke watched the Nephilim glide into view along a wide street. Like the last one he saw, it was vaguely humanoid in appearance. Thin legs skated the surface of the road, elongated fingers skimming the asphalt beside them. Its body was watery orange flesh. A single unblinking red eye peered into the sky from a lump of a head.
"So," Toji said over the comm. to Asuka, "do we go with the Fastball Special?" He was behind an empty car, readying his fists, cracking each knuckle individually.
"Do you have to call it that?" she complained.
"Sure, I haven't played baseball since I was a kid, but the name fits. See, me punching the car into the Nephilim is like a pitcher's fastball and—"
"I get the allusion, you clod. I resent you dumbing down the operational parameters with such a simplistic name."
"Yeah, well, when you manage to punch a ton of steel and rubber twenty yards then we'll discuss your personal preferences. Until then," Toji said, drawing his fist back, "the windup. The pitch."
He slugged the car which folded like cardboard as it hurtled along the street to the Nephilim. The rattling impact barely stunned the creature. Asuka opened fire, setting the car ablaze with incendiary rounds before igniting it into a fiery maelstrom.
"So," Hyuga said in Kensuke's ear, "what does our eye in the sky see?"
The smoke and fire dwindled, then parted to reveal the unscathed Nephilim. A shimmering screen unfolded before it, harsh electric orange hexagons vibrating out in waves of energy. He remembered Soryu's reaction to his ability to see blood skill activation. He decided not to take any chances.
"Um," Kensuke began, "everyone else can see the Nephilim's weird force field thing, right?"
There was a pause from Hyuga. "Come again?"
Toji and Asuka attempted another car attack. The explosion died and the Nephilim emerged behind the pulsing geometric screen. Kensuke relayed what he saw until Dr. Akagi came on the line sounding less blithely neutral than usual. Almost interested.
"You can see AT fields," Ritsuko breathed. She collected herself. "An AT field is a Nephilim's ultimate defense, a projected barrier that can withstand damage. Visual confirmation has never been achieved."
Kensuke imagined she was already lining up a new battery of tests, sure to shame her previous efforts on his time and sanity. He regretted opening his mouth.
"This isn't working," Toji reported from the street as he scrambled away.
"You think?" Asuka asked. "Fall back. Keep out of range and I'll switch out to piercing rounds."
The Nephilim's AT field collapsed in an instant. Its eye flashed. It raised an arm and a portion of its index finger separated from its hand, shooting through the air towards Toji. He leapt behind a van as the fingertip struck a nearby building corner and detonated with deafening force. Debris and smoke billowed through the street.
Toji hacked and coughed over the comm. channel. "What was that?"
"A blood skill," Kensuke said.
Asuka opened fire to give Toji an escape. Piercing rounds pinged off the AT field. The Nephilim turned its attention on her, and the field collapsed as its eye flashed. It raised a hand.
"Move, Soryu!" Kensuke yelled.
Another finger separated from the Nephilim's hand and sped at Asuka. She slid down the roof with her gun, narrowly avoiding the impact. Pulverized shingles rained over her as she ducked behind a bulge in the roof.
Kensuke breathed again. Ritsuko was in his ear, demanding explanation. Most of the exchange was lost on him under a heavy veil of unfamiliar terms and technicalities. His observations allowed the doctor to theorize the Nephilim could not use its AT field and blood skill together. Its defense was absolute, but was dropped to attack.
"Hold on," Aoba told Kensuke. "I'll connect you to the other Children."
"You mean they couldn't hear me before?"
"We didn't want you to distract them."
WILLE lifted his mute and all sides shared information. Asuka's voice eased into a position of authority as they watched the Nephilim progress through the city unimpeded.
"This seems like an obvious decoy strategy." She spoke to Toji: "Second, your ability for occupying space has finally become useful. Get out there and draw its attention. When it attacks I'll blast its lumpy head off."
Kensuke expected him to object or at least complain with the proposed plan. Toji laughed over the comm.
"Years of practice being a seat filler at school won't disappoint you. Just don't screw up the shot."
"As if I'm capable of anything but a bull's-eye."
The Commander offered a perfunctory objection. "Can you keep yourself alive, Suzuhara?"
"I'm offended, ma'am. Haven't you seen my speed on the court?"
"No." Misato addressed Kensuke: "Aida, this plan relies on your eyes to report the switch between the Nephilim's AT field and blood skill. If Soryu and Suzuhara are willing to trust you, I see no reason not to try."
The other Children remained silent. Kensuke frowned. He would have preferred an open avowal of confidence to the tacit understanding.
"Don't let us down."
Toji abandoned his cover and ran alongside the Nephilim. It ignored him until he punched a street lamp onto its head. The AT field snapped shut and its eye flashed as it raised a hand.
"Now!" Kensuke yelled.
Asuka fired. A quick volley of piercing rounds holed the Nephilim skull from behind. The eye burst open and sprayed the street with blood and pulpy brain. It shuddered and collapsed like a bag of wet leaves. The street was silent.
"No energy detected from target," Aoba reported. "Pattern erased. Mission complete."
/\/\/\/\
The VTOL alit and Kensuke hopped out onto a makeshift landing pad surrounded by a temporary WILLE command post. He turned and waved to the pilot and copilot when he cleared the tarmac, before the VTOL roared off into the deepening night sky.
He wandered around the bustling post, looking for a familiar face to offer him orders. From a pair of small tents Toji and Asuka emerged, free of their body armor. Kensuke hurried over to them before she could find an escape route.
"All right!" Kensuke said. He raised a hand for a congratulatory high-five. "Go team!"
Soryu left him hanging, though he did not expect any less. Toji offered an unenthusiastic hand.
"That was awesome," Kensuke went on, paying no heed to the deterrents. "I never dreamed I'd get so close to a VTOL, let alone ride in one. They're crazy loud. And that rifle was sweet. High power with interchangeable magazines, yet portable. And how everyone worked together to beat the Nephilim and being a part of it to help you out…" He stared at the other Children with barely restrained glee. "That was so awesome."
"I guess…"
"So, that's it?" Asuka asked. "That's your blood skill? Seeing stuff?"
"What do you want me to do? Shoot lasers out of my eyes?"
"That would be something. Yours is lame."
"Now, now," Toji cut in, preempting Kensuke's self-righteous, adrenaline-fueled suicide run. "We got a clear victory because of him 'seeing stuff.' No casualties, limited collateral damage…"
Asuka tossed her hair. "Seeing a weak point takes all the talent out of it."
A WILLE van pulled into camp, ready to transport the Children to the trams for debriefing at HQ. Asuka stepped in first, putting her feet up on the middle seat to deny Kensuke a spot next to her. He and Toji piled into the back. The van rumbled away.
They travelled up a hill with a panoramic view of the day's battlefield, the light damage all but unrecognizable except for the UN cleanup crew scrambled to wipe all evidence from the scene. Kensuke watched a team in hazmat suits collect the Nephilim's dead weight and load the corpse into an odd metal capsule.
"So the UN handles cleanup duty," he remarked. "That's nice of them."
"Screw the UN," Asuka spat at the window.
That wasn't the idle frustration Kensuke was familiar with. Her tone was sharp, filled with venomous spite. He looked to Toji beside him. He wore a sour face tilted away.
Kensuke shrank beneath an unpleasant silence. The van continued onward to WILLE.
/\/\/\/\
Kensuke locked his apartment's front door on his way out and yawned. Despite the battle and the lengthy debriefing the Children were still expected to keep up appearances and attend school the following day. He supposed it was the lesser of two evils. If Dr. Akagi had her way, he'd be locked in her laboratory until doomsday. The mandate to be present for classes at least offered the opportunity for a stealthy nap.
Why are we in school, anyway? Kensuke thought. If WILLE was really serious, why weren't they all confined to base for nonstop training or at least protection? Surely the organization could afford some tutors for educational purposes. But the way Toji talked, WILLE employment meant a guaranteed place in the workforce, even if the majority of the populace was unaware to their existence. Kensuke imagined as long as he had Nephilim blood, he was set.
It was an enormous weight off his shoulders. School exams no longer mattered beyond avoiding faculty concern. Settling into a C was much easier than chasing after an A. He didn't have anyone to answer to, anyway.
Kensuke reached the ground floor and spotted Toji waiting by a vending machine. They exchanged a wave as he neared.
"Yo," he said, rubbing his eyes.
They started towards school. They reached an unspoken agreement weeks ago to travel together in the mornings. Afternoons were discretionary, dependent on Toji's practice schedule, Kensuke's shopping habits, and WILLE responsibilities. They passed the time with idle talk, discovering shared affinities and a mutual disregard for academic excellence.
Two blocks deep into strategizing their alternating nap schedule for school they met Asuka exiting a convenience store. She frowned as she saw them approach, taking a healthy swig of a densely caffeinated energy drink. It did not appear to work as advertised.
Kensuke perked up. "Good morning," he greeted. Asuka turned towards school without a word.
"Why the long face?" Toji asked her, easily keeping pace with her long stride. "Usually you're so chipper after a successful sortie. Well, more chipper than that."
"My mood is none of your business. And that was hardly a sortie. Carnival games are riskier."
"Yeah, too bad no one was maimed or killed to show off how dangerous the Nephilim was."
"Don't twist my words, you louse. Yesterday was a scrimmage. It barely put up a fight."
"I recall both of us nearly biting the dust…"
Kensuke observed the two other Children and Hikari's suspicions bubbled to the forefront of his mind. Was it so crazy, after all? Granted, tag teaming an inhuman monster in a fight to the death wasn't dinner and a movie, but there was a peculiar peace between the two. Asuka and Toji possessed a comfortable understanding on the battlefield, anticipating each other's actions and working in concert towards a shared goal. Did that compatibility carry over to when guns and blood weren't involved?
From what school gossip he did listen to Toji seemed to be regarded as the jock stereotype, brawn and no brains, and his test scores reinforced it. Not that he was failing; while academics might disparage him they weren't instructed to aid, either. He was coasting through in a comfortable bubble of mediocrity. Physically, he was tall and fit, and Kensuke's teenage heterosexuality allowed him to think Toji was not a human abomination. As far as Kensuke knew, he had no admirers.
Asuka was the ostensible opposite. Her grades were top-tier, she was either admired or the target of viciously bitter jealousy from female classmates. Boys' eyes and conversations followed her every movement, and it was easy to see why.
They say opposites attract, right? he thought.
"Don't compare me to your clumsy flirting with death," Asuka was saying. "A Nephilim like that would never catch me off-guard."
"That's fine to say after the fact," Toji said, "but I distinctly saw you booking it across that rooftop."
"You just can't leave it alone. No wonder you're single."
They reached the wide staircase on the hill before the school. Kensuke cleared his throat to remind them he existed and they turned to acknowledge him.
"So…" He pointed between the two of them. "You guys aren't going out, then?"
Asuka and Toji turned to each other. Toji laughed.
"Oh my God!" he managed to get out. "Are you kidding me? One of us would be dead within a week!"
"More like an hour," Asuka said.
"Why would you ever think something like that!?"
Kensuke swallowed his embarrassment. "Well, you two get along so well and all—"
Toji was laughing again.
"What you call 'getting along' is professional tolerance," Asuka said. "In case you forgot, we routinely put our lives in each other's hands. A channel of communication with this oaf is necessary. And distasteful. Now get lost. You've ruined enough of my morning."
She made to depart alone, but was stopped when a cry sounded above them at the top of the stairs.
"Aida!"
The trio looked up and saw Hikari Horaki closing them down three steps at a time. She reached them and doubled over, catching her breath.
Kensuke glanced at his companions who offered no help. Asuka observed him with bored bemusement, Toji was absorbed in trying to remember his class representative's name.
"Um, what's up, Horaki?"
"Thank… goodness," she got out, then straightened. Her face was stricken under watery eyes. "Thank goodness you're okay!"
Did Horaki somehow tail him and make his identity? He was prepared to fall on a sword to keep WILLE from disappearing her. Although a slave to the public education machine, she seemed nice enough.
"W-What are you talking about?" he tried casually.
"After we got separated I couldn't find you in the shelter, or in any of the surrounding shelters after the evacuation ended. No one answered your cell..."
Oh, yeah, he thought. It all came back to him. The pantomime retching, ditching her in the evacuation line, and her concern for his life. The post-victory high he was riding dipped to the side to deposit him back on earth. He suddenly felt like a cad.
"Hey, hey," Kensuke tried to soothe. Hikari was fighting back tears. "I'm fine, see? I, uh, I got into a different shelter. I mean, I'm here, right?"
"But none of the monitors had any record of you. Nobody else saw you. I checked. I thought… something might have—"
"You irresponsible brat!" Asuka shot at him. "How could you make Hikari worry like that?"
That seemed to dry her tears, as concern was shunted in favor of anger. It was now not only okay to display irritation for Kensuke's selfish actions, it was required. Asuka made it so simply by speaking.
"Not cool," Toji agreed sagely.
"Apologize!" Asuka demanded.
Beaten and alone in the world, he begged forgiveness from an almost equally bewildered Hikari. She accepted and the two girls abruptly left, at Asuka's insistence. Kensuke watched them go.
He turned on Toji. "What the hell? I need backup and you turn traitor?"
"If it was enough to spur concern from Soryu it was enough to sacrifice you for the greater good. I'm sorry, but I know when to retreat in the face of an unbeatable enemy." He shrugged at Kensuke's scowl. "And it certainly stopped the class rep from asking more questions."
He paused. WILLE's apparent oversight in data manipulation regarding his whereabouts during the battle might indeed topple the whole house of cards. One girl starts asking questions she shouldn't and suddenly the public knows about Nephilim, WILLE and its squad of child soldiers. Kensuke again felt the Commander's disapproving eyes plotting his demise.
Soryu saw that danger and snuffed it out. The calculation necessary, not just about the potential risks, but how to counter them with that particular person in a way to silence any dissention, all within the realm of public decorum the class rep was subservient to, was staggering. And Soryu did it in an instant, without hesitation or doubt. Or asking for thanks.
Kensuke began walking towards school again. He shook his head.
Damn, he thought. She is so cool.
/\/\/\/\
End of chapter 4
Author notes: Sahaquiel squandered all its potential for the sake of my abysmal action writing skill. Thanks, Sahaquiel.
Next chapter: My deviant shipping nature takes an even darker turn.