"He turned it down?"

Ninomiya sighed when he heard the bright voice question him, resting a finger on his left temple as his elbow rested on the arm of a chair. "I suppose it should have been expected, don't act so surprised. But the Commander still believed there was some worth in making an attempt."

The other person, also male, laughed as he brushed a strand of hair from his forehead, only for it to fall back moments later. "Tamakoma never changes! I might start feeling bad if they're beaten too badly."

"Don't be arrogant, Inukai," a third person advised out of the corner of Ninomiya's eye, this one's voice more level as he spoke. "They have not only Jin on their side now, but the Trion boy as well. Even if there isan advantage on our side, don't take them too lightly."

"There's no guarantee that the kid'll even fight for them," Inukai countered, raising his index finger with a smile.

"Yes, but counting on something unpredictable like that is dangerous."

"Tsuji's right," a female voice from the other side of the room contributed. "And out of the three of you, he's definitely, by far, the least arrogant."

Ninomiya began to say something, but he already knew that the young woman, Aki Hiyami, was not one many were filling to face in an argument. It wasn't as if she was wrong, either, though it would take a lot for him to ever admit it.

"I'd just rather be cautious," Tsuji affirmed, though he nodded to Hiyami in silent thanks. "If we plan around the possibility of facing a stronger force than usual, if that comes to be the case we'd have already prepared for it, and if doesn't, no harm comes from overestimating them if they're weaker than predicted."

"A challenge would be fun once in awhile," Inukai said to himself blankly, staring up at the ceiling, "but what you're saying makes sense."

"Are we taking the mission?" Hiyami asked the squad captain, Ninomiya, as she looked up from her monitor with raised eyebrows. "I haven't heard anything from the higher-ups."

"They're yet to brief me any further as well, though I'd keep it in mind. A covert mission would be the best option to avoid any further conflict with Neighbors in the midst of this, but I doubt we'll be the first ones assigned."

"Laaaame." Inukai's voice was thick with unspoken complaints underneath his words. "They made you speak to Jin, and Hiyami actually contact him under radar, and we can't even go?"

"I see our squad being sent if a second attempt is necessary, or as reinforcements," Tsuji told him, though he had his own doubts. "Kazama Squad specializes in this type of thing, after all, so they would be a more reasonable first choice. The couple of squads above them, too."

"But we specialize in this type of thing," Inukai said rested his cheek in his hand.

"Only for a certain type of situation."

"Don't get the wrong idea, Kazama Squad isgood, but I wish they'd send us out more."

"Using you guys too often would lead to the Neighbors discovering us," Hiyami told them both, this time keeping her eyes locked on the computer screen as she carried on with a report. "And there's no telling what kind of disaster that could lead to."

"Revealing our existence to the Neighbors, and our identities to the remainder of Tamakoma, would be fatal," Ninomiya concurred, though he spoke coldly. "Recent missions have already ended in close calls, so it's especially reasonable for the Commander to not place us in the field for the time being."

"But it's booooooring," Inukai complained again, but if Ninomiya had to make assumptions it sounded like he wasn't willing to argue any further. "I'm almost hoping the first try will end up failing, but nothing I can do. Wait with optimism, maybe."

Tsuji gave him a strange look and asked in a low volume, "How is hoping for the mission's failure considered optimism?" His captain missed the line entirely, and if Hiyami did hear it she didn't say anything.

"I'd expect they need to act quickly," Ninomiya grumbled, "if the information we have on the child is accurate."

Hiyami only glanced up from her screen. "There's still plenty of time, I'm sure?"

Ninomiya clasped his hands together, resting his chin on them with a low sigh. She was right, wasn't she? She had to be right.

"There is, but it's running out."

"...I'm sorry." The words were spoken in a tone of forced friendliness, accompanied by a weak smile. The people around Chika froze, two of their mouths ajar, and even the talkative Yotaro had no reply.

Osamu instinctively reached a hand out in concern, though the crook of his elbow still pressed against his rib cage. "Y-"

"I know you probably resent me." Chika, stopping Osamu from replying, couldn't meet his eye. "I left without telling anyone. At... at the least, I should have said goodbye. I should've been able to trust my friends and family enough, where I could tell them I'd be alright without having to explain what I decided to do, because I think they would have trusted me. If... if you're totally furious with me for abandoning everyone, I'll understand."

Osamu stood, shocked, and with almost all his words snatched away with no warning, all he could do was scramble for the few that remained. "Wh-? Wait, you really think that? That I'd be furious?"

"Well, I-I disappeared, didn't I? And never even had it in me to tell people I was alive! I only caused trouble for everyone back then, I can assume that much without having to have seen the aftermath."

"Of coursepeople were worried," Osamu told her, though was quick to follow up before she could react badly. "But if you left knowingthat, there had to have been an important reason. I'm not mad, God no, I'm just glad you're alright, like, beyond words glad. And anyone else in Mikado would be, too, if they were here instead of me." He was being honest - not once had anger invaded the chaotically scribbled line his emotions had been in the past day, and under the initial shock, seeing Chika could have been classified as nothing short of a miracle.

"Yeah, the heck are you thinking?" Izuho ruffled the top of Chika's head playfully, her voice sounding like a kind mother scolding her child. "If Four-Eyes has a head on his shoulders, he'd only be happy! And look at him- what was it? Beyond words glad."

"I understand where you're coming from, Chika," Osamu continued, "but it's far from the truth. Telling people you were alive could've put them in danger, for all I know, and it takes a strong person to keep a secret like that for the good of others."

Osamu had never seen Chika as a, so to say, 'strong person', but he couldn't imagine what actually living and working in a place like this was like (especially at the young age in which she left Mikado City), and from the look in her eyes Osamu already knew something in her had changed. The thought of Chika fighting Neighbors like Jin and Konami made his head spin - though she she may have had a position away from combat, as Yotaro had hinted at the availability of earlier.

Chika began to mutter an apology, clearly still forcing a smile, but before she finished even a word Izuho shushed her with another fluff of her hair. "Hey, not another apology, right?"

Osamu brushed away the annoying voice trying to convince him to ask Chika how she had managed to escape, and instead spoke a hopefully lighter question following Izuho's one of reassurance. "What's it like here, though? Does everyone live here?"

She looked surprised at Osamu's sudden veering off the path their conversation had previously been going down, but the expression was overtaken by her trying to subdue a giggle. "Where else would we live?"

"Well, a- I don't know, another building? Facility? Base? Maybe?"

Izuho laughed at him, too, though it was a good-hearted laugh. "Right, we gotta travel to another base every night to sleep. Convenient!" Yotaro seemed to find it quite funny as well, but Yuzuru only sighed loudly.

"W-Well how was I to know?" Osamu defended himself, trying to hide the fact that he, too, was ready to laugh at his own words. "Compared to other things, I can't say it would even be that surprising, anyways."

"Yes, everyone lives here," Chika answered his question, and the smile lingering on her face brought one to Osamu's. "You should expect a roommate, though - maybe the other person that Jin brought? Hopefully he's nice!"

Osamu had never shared a room with anyone, and he could admit that the thought was mildly intimidating - he wanted to say Kuga wasn't a factor in that intimidation, but despite the boy's reciprocated acceptance of Osamu's presence, there was still the whole, 'I watched you die' thing, and Kuga was as much of a mystery as he had been before.

"Hopefully he will be," Osamu agreed, and in his head added an unspoken, and hopefully he won't be a zombie or something.

"As for what it's like?" Chika backtracked to what Osamu had asked first. "Everyone knows each other, maybe because we're smaller than the other group,"

Other group?

"and it's surprisingly casual most of the time. I remember being scared at first, but it went away really quickly. It's only when there's something going on do things get... hectic, but I try not to worry too much."

Osamu was only half-listening. What othergroup?

And then he remembered Jin's words.

'Like I said, there are people after Kuga, and those people won't hesitate to torture anyone they believe may know something.'

No way. No way was that what Chika referred to.

"Things have been quiet recently," Yotaro added, bringing Osamu back to the conversation. "Apart from smaller missions every now and then, of course, but I think we'll be alright overall for a while. You showed up at a good time."

Osamu knew he wouldn't even want to know what kind of events caused the base to turn 'hectic', but if all went smoothly, perhaps he would never have to experience them firsthand. Wishful thinking, really, the odds of that were hilariously nonexistent. "The people here seem nice," was all he said. He immediately reconsidered the words upon catching a glance of Yuzuru's expression from the corner of his eye - not hostile by any means, but definitely straying from friendly. Or, maybe, Osamu was overthinking and it could've simply been his resting face.

"Things may be quiet, but you should see Chikako when she fights," Izuho said enthusiastically, waving a hand in front of her friend with a pride enough to make Osamu laugh before realizing what she actually said. "She's like- boom! Ace level, Four-Eyes, ace level! She could, like, totally mentor you if you end up being a sniper."

Thenit hit him.

"Wait, did you-? Fights? Sniper?"

"I-I'm not that good," Chika, the bright red of her face making cherries pale in comparison, denied at the same time with a nervous smile, embarrassed at being bragged about in the way Izuho had. "You're inflating everything, Izuho!"

"Hold on a second, y-you're not saying Chika's a sn-"

"You're minimizing yourself," Izuho argued, ignoring Osamu. "Seriously, Four-Eyes, you could ask anyone else and they'd tell you the same thing."

Chika yelped, shaking her head. "Don't ask other people!"

"Why are you so surprised, Mikumo?" Yuzuru silenced Izuho before she could say something aggressively positive, him referring to Osamu's questions that had been overlooked by the blonde girl and possibly not even heard by Chika. "About Amatori, that is."

Osamu hadn't expected to be spoken to in the next couple of minutes at the least, and no less by Yuzuru, so he tripped around in his head trying to come up with a reply. "O-Oh, I guess it was... unexpected? No, that's the wrong word, er- okay, maybe it wasn't, nevermind. Yeah, kind of unexpected?"

A person probably didn't even have to know Chika to have a difficult time picturing her as a soldier - her physical appearance alone looked as if she could be knocked over by a breeze. Osamu thought that with no offence intended, of course, but the Chika he knew was fragile - body and mind alike. Had she really changed that much?

"Of course it would be," Chika responded, sounding strangely unaffected, "it's been... awhile, after all. And I'm not a fighter type, anyways."

"Wroooong."

"Izuho!"

"So she really..." Osamu muttered under his breath, under the ears of a bickering Chika and Izuho, as well as Yotaro who was trying to join in himself.

"She has a great amount of potential," Yuzuru said suddenly, and Osamu was surprised he heard him. "And while Natsume is exaggerating a bit, there's no denying Amatori has strength. But," he added as Osamu started to speak again, "there's also no denying her weakness."

"Weakness?"

Yuzuru never replied, (if he did, it was drowned out by Izuho) and with that Osamu looked at Chika with a newfound unease. Weakness? He couldn't see Chika as an ace-level sniper to begin with, but if what Izuho had been saying held any meaning, she was far from weak overall. Then a single weakness, perhaps, but what?

"I'm going to a match," the younger boy said suddenly, interrupting what was probably Izuho's idea of a motivational speech. Osamu wouldn't dare ask him to elaborate on 'weakness' now that he'd changed the subject.

"Are people still training at this time?" Izuho turned her head towards him and raised an eyebrow, Yotaro looking similar while Chika's face remained neutral. "It's got to be after or almost sunset by now, so most people are gonna be eating something."

After hearing that, Osamu did come to notice that the crowd previously shuffling around the room had thinned, sometime between then and when he'd first approached Chika and her friends. Come to think of it, he was hungry, and his train of thought abruptly shifted course to the possible locations of food.

"I'm sure there's a few stragglers," Yuzuru predicted, staring at a tuft of hair that had fallen further in front of his eye. "No harm in getting extra practice in. Besides, I'd rather go now than when the training hall gets crowded at night."

"But isn't it better when there's more people?"

Yuzuru shrugged and replied, "For you, maybe."

"I'm eating, then, you can catch up," Izuho announced, dramatically putting a hand on her forehead as she poorly imitated fatigue. "Chikako, you coming? Oh, and Yotaro and Four-Eyes, too, if you guys are hungry."

Osamu nodded, his stomach threatening to punch itself at any given moment, while Yotaro seemed several times more enthusiastic. Izuho high-fived him before Yuzuru advised the both of them to 'quiet down', and then the white-clad girl offered to show Osamu to the base's dining hall, as she had called it. Where would a place like this even getfood? They didn't seriously make it all themselves, did they? And even if they did, where would the ingredients come from? Osamu pondered over the possibility of stealing provisions from the Neighbors' cities, but there was no doubt that the feat would be incredibly difficult, especially if there was a large amount of people residing in the base.

"Osamu," Yotaro whispered, standing on his toes, "say something."

"Am I?"

"What?"

"Wh-What...?"

"You two, hurry up!" Izuho shouted from a couple of meters away, Chika ducking from the attention her friend seemed to attract wherever she went.

Yuzuru had started on his way without a sound, lazily waving from over his shoulder. Izuho was complaining about something (no, someone) to Chika, and it sounded like it was about Osamu lagging behind by a precious five seconds, so with a sigh he followed Yotaro towards the two girls who were already walking.

It was weirdly relaxed in the unfamiliar place, weirdly relaxed and surprisingly friendly, and there were few ways that it could have possibly been any more different from what Osamu was expecting. Granted, there were vast oceans of information he was yet to sail, but on the surface the base certainly wasn't screaming 'military organization' once a person walked out of the hangar. He could only count on the residents actually being able to defend themselves when faced with a threat, but if Jin's capability said anything, that wouldn't be a major issue.

Osamu was still left with only hope for the future, equally near and far.

There would come a point in everyone's life in which they were convinced they could never be lower. A point where they could never look like as much of a fool as they did then. Yuma had been convinced he reached that point earlier.

And, as Fate would have it, he quickly realized he had not.

What was more degrading than being controlled by a near-stranger in exchange for information about your own life? Perhaps being pushed around in a chair by that same stranger because you'd tripped upon trying to walk.

The wheelchair squeaked against cold floors as Yuma's finger tapped against its arm, the only other sound being Jin quietly humming something to himself. (Something that Yuma found somewhat catchy.) A wheelchair made Yuma's physical state seem muchworse than it actually was, and while, yes, he did stumble trying to walk after stepping out of his cot, Yuma was still confident he would be just fine walking if he'd had time to stretch his legs. Jin, however, said he would rather not take the risk of making Yuma weaker by having him walk more than a few feet.

Yuma assumed Osamu would completely lose it if he saw him then, a thought that made him smile to himself despite internally begging for it not to happen. Amusing? Definitely, but not worth trying to explain to a panicked teenager that he wasn't on Death's door. Not worth making said teenager panic in the first place, really. Thankfully, after several questions Jin had assured him that hardly anyone walked through the part of the base they were going through, and it would be especially unlikely for Osamu to. Yuma wondered if the route was intentional.

Yuma asked Jin where they were going, and why it was so urgent that he had to push Osamu out of the situation, but the answers were vague - a meeting, he'd said. Briefing of some sort, he'd clarified after. It had obviously been organized within the last few hours, since, according to the last time they spoke, Jin had not intended to move Yuma anywhere for the remainder of the day. He was still reluctant to take him, but the fact that Yuma hadto go told the boy that whatever they were going to discuss had to have something to do with him.

Jin was right about not many people venturing along their path, and in fact, the closest another person came to them was in the form of the sound of far-off footsteps that barely caught Yuma's ears. Part of him was glad they didn't run into anyone, and the other part found it creepy.

They used an elevator to ascend to the base's second above-ground level, the sliding door wide enough to accommodate the bulky wheelchair Jin insisted was necessary. There were more windows on the second floor, stretching taller and wider and probably taking up more space than the walls themselves. The landscape they showcased was pitiful to the eye, but had a certain peacefulness that had settled over the array of crumbling buildings and other miscellaneous structures being eroded and overgrown by plant life. The sun was no longer visible over the distant horizon, and without the light of a city below them, the stars appearing one by one each seemed to be brighter. Since he had woken up, Yuma was always able to find shelter relatively close to one of the Neighbors' districts and the light they produced, and looking at the untouched sky for the first time was breathtaking.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Jin asked, having noticed Yuma facing the glass for the past few minutes. "The view's better from the roof, though, you should see it sometime."

"...I'll try to."

Yuma's response was stiff and awkward, but Jin didn't mind it. He seemed to have a skill in continuing one-sided conversations. "It's been getting warmer lately, but I bet it'll still be another month or so until the nights are comfortable. Unless you don't mind the cold, of course."

"I don't, not really."

His only places of shelter up until then had been abandoned buildings, and entering Mikado City was the first time Yuma had actually managed to sneak into a city, and it was a task that took far too much careful forethought and planning to do it nightly. Because of that, though, after being forced to sleep in outdoor temperatures the cold stopped bothering him as much after the first week. If there was one reason to be happy about being in the rebel base, it was a warm room and bed. And food, of course - finding it outside was tedious and exhausting, and there were always the possible consequences from eating it.

Jin stopped pushing Yuma's chair in front of a pair of gray sliding double-doors, walking forward to put in a passcode as Yuma watched his fingers carefully in attempt to remember which numbers he entered. He couldn't see the screen, but he tried to take note of where Jin was tapping in case he would need the code in the future.

"A few of these people are the squad from earlier," Jin spoke to him casually again, and again Yuma was suspicious of his friendly attitude. Yuma didn't know who he was referring to by 'the squad from earlier', but as he began to ask, the double doors slid open and he was met with what his answer would probably be.

"You were unconscious," Jin laughed, "so you wouldn't have seen them anyways, but the people on the left are the people that were with me in Mikado City."

Nine people were seated around a long table, and on the left side a small strawberry blonde girl stood out the most, mainly due to her lighter hair and brighter uniform in comparison to the others. Next to her was another girl probably around her age, with black hair and cheerful eyes that glittered under red-rimmed classes. A tall, muscular man sat beside her, and beside him was a conventionally attractive younger one, both with more serious appearances than their female companions. Five adults occupied five chairs on the other side of the table, three men and two women, with three of them wearing similar, professional-looking attire and the remaining two in clothes on the border between casual and formal. One of the men put out a dying cigarette as Jin and Yuma opened the doors, while both women smiled at them.

"Meet Tamakoma's Special Operations Unit, our executives, and Yuri and Cronin." Jin introduced them, though only using two individual names, and he nodded down to Yuma as the doors closed behind them. "They're glad to have you, Yuma."

With the light from the hallway gone, the room was a lot, lot darker.