A/N: So, hey! Sorry these chapters are so long? This one is like 6,000 words which is at the higher end of my average word count. Although of the twenty-eight chapters I have currently ready and written, this one isn't even the longest o_o I reckon this story is gonna end up at like…300,000 words or something. Gives me life, honestly. I've been so stressed recently I have no idea where I'd be without a brain dump and project like this to lose myself in! Seriously, thank you so much if you're still with me on this and giving it a chance! It gets SO GRISLY LATER ON I can't even. So excited.

20th Mar '19

Chapter 4: Confinement in Isolation

Four thirty in the morning came with a sharp blow to the gut. Literally. Aster woke up spluttering into a clammy palm, unable to scream—or breathe.

"This is your wake-up call. You have thirty minutes."

Tseng withdrew the baton from her abdomen and his hand from her face. Fear put on hold, she grabbed a fresh set of kit from her locker and strode through the room between beds of men in various states of consciousness to the showers, ignoring the pain from her stomach and the unwanted presence of her mentor.

It was a curse that came with its blessings. Yes, she was required to begin her training at least an hour—though usually two or three—before First Call for the rest of the cadets, but it meant she avoided the compulsory communal showers at around zero six hundred hours. An alarm clock in the shape of a bludgeon at the end of Tseng's arm was worth it. Nothing could beat this.

The head sprayed above her, dousing her with an icy stream that snatched her breath and tensed her every muscle until her body was tempered steel. She fiddled for the temperature tap, gasping for air that didn't seem to fill her lungs, only to find no such thing.

People take cold showers to build their will-power, but since there was no option, she could only presume she was being taught to endure rather than oppose.

The tiles surrounding her toes turned to mud and wine as the last remnants of stubborn monster blood let go of its hold on clumps of greasy hair. The dirt beneath her fingernails finally gave. Cheap soap slid and lathered over her skin, a sudden luxury; a reminder of a time she must have lived like a princess, where shower gels and bath bombs lined the tub.

She whimpered when she bit her lip too hard, having chewed and fussed over the tender skin until it became raw. She couldn't allow herself to think of home. Pain seared so she shut it off, refusing to aid Tseng by breaking herself down without even so much as a nudge.

The shower expired and locked after exactly five minutes, refusing to acknowledge Aster's persistent pushing of the button with her palm. Defeated, she wrung out her hair, shivering, and tore a towel from the rack to offer warmth and remove the suds she hadn't had the time to rinse away. No time for anything, anymore. She yanked on her uniform and twisted her wet hair tight until it met her scalp and tucked in on itself, where she pinned it into place as shown by a female officer late the night before. Over this, she pulled on her helmet to cover her face. Anonymity was always the best masquerade.

Assuming she was being watched, she slipped out of the barracks ignoring the sensation of eyes against her back. She saluted the officer on guard for no reason other than it felt like she was probably supposed to, and stated her business. Tseng was right. The Drill Staff did seem to understand she was more than—or less than, depending on who was asked—a standard cadet. It felt off, uneasy, but she ignored the niggling feeling in her gut and brushed it off as something to think about at a less pressing time. Down the corridor, Rude escorted her directly into Tseng's care for zero five hundred hours precisely.

Leaning against his desk with his eye on a clock, Aster wondered if the man ever slept. He never seemed tired, only constant. His suit was crisp and pristine. Not a hair out of place in the same white hair tie as usual. She half expected his neck to twitch and the whirr of an engine or battery to sound from within him but, by all accounts, he appeared human.

"Doe." He nodded to her by way of greeting. "You must have questions."

She hesitated. If she spoke, would her words rip out her throat? And if they didn't, would the man before her?

He recognised her apprehension. "There is no deceit. You are free to ask."

Void. She came up empty. Nothing came to mind as easily as she had thought it would. The questions that had fought and tumbled over one another while denied the chance to speak crumbled away beneath her feet.

There were questions she assumed would reap no response, and questions of little impact that would waste an opportunity. Tseng watched her battle over her own thoughts.

Eventually, she sought clarification. "…You want me as part of your team because you think I could potentially become someone you need."

"Correct."

"What do you need me for?" she asked, with the narrowing of her eyes.

"Difficult to say. Mostly because the answer is strictly classified," he said, pushing himself off the desk. "We need a specifically trained individual to combat an issue that cannot be disclosed unto you until much further down the line."

"That wasn't even an answer!"

He shot her a warning look and she folded her arms tight against her chest. "Fine. How long will this take?"

"You will complete basic training with the infantry cadets. After pass out in ten weeks, there is an eight-week transition period of additional training that readies those that wish to attempt the next round of SOLDIER examinations. During that time, you will adopt the training programme you wish, alongside that which the Turks require of you. The end of that period will see you undergo your own examination. A test to decide whether you make it into the Turks."

She scowled at him. "Then why lock me up for two weeks when I could have been training?"

"It was training," he snapped. "Mental fortitude is equally as important as physical strength—especially in the Turks."

She nodded curtly as her body prickled with relief. It was the song she wanted to hear, confirmation of what she thought she knew. But Tseng appeared to disagree—vehemently—with the notion that she truly understood.

"The reasoning will be beyond you," he said. "Trust me and trust what I put you through is with good reason."

"Trust you?" she spat as though the words burnt her tongue. "Trust you?"

He simply nodded. "And when the time comes, I must trust you, too."

She blanched, but Tseng's still expression did not alter.

"Time is up," he said. "You asked better questions than some of the Selectives I've seen over the years."

"W-wait," she croaked, then swallowed hard to attempt to moisten her throat. "Do my parents know?"

He paused before he spoke. "Yes. They had been informed. You will not be permitted to contact them."

She nodded faintly before it gained traction and fervour. "Right..." She wiped her palms against her thighs. "Right."

Tseng allowed the silence to envelop them for a moment as he shuffled a few files and papers and placed them on his desk beside him. "Now. Show me how observant you are. Tell me the model of the helicopter we collected you in."

Aster stammered while she recalled the information. "It was a B1-Beta."

"Good but too easy." He slammed his hand down over the pile of files with a thud. "There was a code on this document. What was it?"

"What?" she snapped, expression severe and strained. Angry at a useless, arbitrary test, but as she cooled her head and became honest with herself instead, she realised was only angry because she knew she had thoroughly lost a game she could have won. A missed chance to make him look like the idiot for a change.

"Come on, Doe. It was only nine characters," he taunted. "Are you telling me you give up?"

"Sir…" she conceded.

He whipped the note across her face, slashing her cheek with the familiar sting of a paper cut. "Your employee ID, you fool. You could have at least deduced that from the letterhead or subtitling. These are things you have to learn and fast. You haven't much time."

The letter fell face up on the floor.

Aster Doe: 005-03-TD.

Days passed, apparently—the clocks said so and goddamn did she keep an eye on them—but everything was rolling into one for Aster, as it probably was for the other cadets, too. Every morning, predictably, to the minute, she was woken to the hard belt of a baton to the gut, and the black and blue bruising was making training difficult. It was a weak spot that she feared to expose to the world, so she suppressed her winces and kept it her secret.

She only saw her 'comrades' in training. At lunch and dinner she had been there physically, but ignored, and in both drill sergeant time and personal time in the evenings, she was always elsewhere. It bred distaste.

"Line up in lap time order!" was the first thing the drill sergeant in charge of Skill at Arms said following the cease of a one and a half mile run.

Eleven minutes and nine seconds.

Not great, but respectable for an amateur runner. Terrible considering that she was not applying for the infantry, whose requirement was twelve forty-five, but the Turks, who demanded ten minutes flat—a lower time even than that required of prospective SOLDIER members.

Of twenty-four she came in sixteenth, thanks only to the athletic nature of her life in Icicle Inn and the stubborn streak that wouldn't allow her legs to stop long after her lungs began burning.

"You'll be known today as your numbers; I will not learn your names until you prove to me you're worthy of having one!" He bellowed, spittle flying from the corners of his mouth.

He stalked into the face of the leaf-like rattling boy last in line. "And with a name like Twenty-Four, you're off to a bad start. Did you even fall inside the twelve forty-five, boy?"

"N-no, sir."

Aster couldn't keep her eyes forward as demanded. She dared a side-eyed glance but wasn't quite daring enough to turn her head. He was young, in demeanour as well as appearance; guessing sixteen may have been generous. If all the instructors numbered their cadets based on ability and went by the elusive overall leaderboard of aptitude that the DIs liked to refer to sometimes but didn't often show, this would not have been the only DI to label him Twenty-Four.

"What was that?"

"No, sir!"

"Then what was it?"

"Thirteen twenty-one, sir…!"

"Thirteen—! You better get your sorry ass back out there and rerun it, do you understand, Twenty-Four?!"

"Sir!" he cried, sounding more like he was trying to psych himself up than convince the DI he could pull a sub-twelve forty-five out of nowhere, and hit the track.

Aster snapped her eyes forward again. Kid didn't look like he'd survive another round, let alone beat his time. As the almost-forgotten paper cut on her cheek tingled at the thought, she found herself glad that for once it wasn't her being singled out.

The instructor grumbled to himself and straightened his famed red infantry captain hat.

"Partner with your closest number—"

A grunt erupted suspiciously close to Aster's right.

"Problem, Fifteen?"

"No, sir."

The DI stalked up to the boy. Now, so close to Aster, she noticed just how enormous the man was, bearing the captain's garb proudly. Then again, at less than five an a half feet tall most of the men she encountered in Shinra dwarfed her to some degree, but she barely even reached the height of this man's chest, and to be fair, Fifteen only reached his shoulders.

Guilt struck her. She only knew these boys by numbers, too.

"You're right. There is no problem. Anymore." His voice raised steadily until he was simply shouting. "I was about to demand Twenty-Three's time and send him off to track with Twenty-Four so I wouldn't be left with odd numbers, but you've solved my issue with your big mouth! You're gonna stay here and beat your damn face while Sixteen pairs with Seventeen and so on. After fifty, I'll let you know if I want another hundred, a hundred and fifty, or two-goddamned-thousand, do you hear me?"

"Yes, sir…"

"I said: do you hear me!"

"SIR!" he screamed, passing Aster a not-so-subtle glare as he lowered himself to the ground and began his sentenced press ups.

Seventeen, on the other hand, seemed placid enough. Maybe not thrilled to be paired with the only girl, but not enough to actually say so. That could possibly have been due to the indiscriminate display of tyranny the drill sergeant was demonstrating in strength this morning. Maybe Seventeen just lacked the gall to test the waters.

Skill at Arms proved to be useful as far as supplying twenty-two of twenty-four cadets with fake weapons possibly could be. They could not and would not be trusting a bundle of youths, some fresh out of schooling, with loaded firearms before they could prove themselves efficient and safe when handling. Aster carried this false rifle with her all day, by the end of it feeling like she was taking care of one of those battery-operated baby simulations that cry when you put them down.

It was weighted, though not excessively, but still her muscles began to sting over the constant strain it put on them. When she rested it against the ground at the start of Hand-to-Hand, she quickly wished she hadn't.

"Congratulations, idiot. You just put seven holes in your instructor. Think she can teach you full of holes? THINK AGAIN!" He loomed over Aster, shouting until both parties were equally red in the face.

She lost 'points', although she had no idea what points, how many she had left, or where they'd put her on the scoreboard that he yelled about at the end of the week. Humiliation was a common tactic amongst these sergeants of Shinra. At least everyone was being screamed at. Mostly equally. Maybe Twenty-Four got it a little harder than most.

A collective sigh of relief blew through the room when the sergeant left not long after lunch, but Tifa wasn't exactly a pushover either. In many ways she was less so and was quick to punish those who quipped out of line, demanding equal respect as what was offered to her peers, although unfairly having to work harder for it.

"Working in pairs today—"

Joyful, Aster thought with a scowl beneath her helmet visor.

"—But don't get too excited, I'm splitting you all myself. Rohrbach and Newberry. Sparrow and Barnhill…"

"Doe and Surrexit," she called eventually.

Turned out that Surrexit was the was the boy on the first day who helped her reclaim the beads to the bracelet she still hadn't fixed. Her wrist felt oddly vulnerable without it there.

She eyed him cautiously as he wandered over, but when he winked at her with a grin after pulling off his helmet and revealing some of the world's worst helmet hair, she was so surprised by his candour disposition that she laughed.

"Oh, like your hair is perfect," he scoffed and ate his words when she peeled away her own helmet and took a bow, hair still neatly pinned in place, if squashed. He ran his hand through his dirty-blonde mop, shaking his hair out dramatically. "Okay, maybe it is. But take a second look at mine."

"Absolutely beautiful," she joked.

But he was pretty good-looking, albeit in a conventional, forgettable, and almost boring kind of way. Typical short back and sides hairstyle, shapely jaw and tanned skin. He was probably around six foot tall and appeared strong yet lacked definition, something that Aster suspected would change over the coming months of training. When he smiled, as he seemed to often, she could see the top line of his teeth were straight and the bottom crooked. His accent was broad, relaxed and scattered with somewhat playful intonations. Wherever he was from, it definitely wasn't Icicle Inn, and it wasn't Midgar, either.

She took a risk, with this boy, a personal risk, and offered her hand. Hoping that perhaps he'd be the first to take it.

"My name is Aster."

He accepted it gladly. "Surrexit."

Okay, maybe not first name basis, then.

Tifa dispensed boxing pads amongst the group. "It's all well and good learning technique against a stationary punching bag, but accommodating for your target's movement is an important aspect of combat training. Partner A practices his strikes while partner B observes his movement—learn to find those telltale signs of an incoming strike, and absorb their blow with your mitts, got it? Go."

Despite the disparity in height, she compensated with flexibility. It took a while, with blows coming slow, but eventually, Surrexit found a position for his hands somewhere she could reliably reach. Aster was just pleased he wasn't treating her with the same wide-berth she had been met with so far from many of the others.

But he must have grown bored, because he suddenly snickered to himself manically, holding the mitt above her head.

With a dark grin, she stretched her leg into a split with naught more effort than the readjustment of her hips. It was less of a kick and more of a gentle high five with her foot, but it got the message across nonetheless.

She took a bow before his incredulous expression. "Figure—former figure skater."

"Okay," he mused, with the quirk of his mouth. "So you're like a combat coryphée."

Identically bemused as he before her, she laughed. "Maybe if I picked up ballet."

He chucked the boxing mitts at her chest, and she caught them just a beat after they knocked a breath from her lips. "Nice knowing what I sleep next to."

"Yeah, well," she said, yanking the sweaty gloves over her hands and tightening the straps. "In-the-bed-next-to. Not with."

"But I still get to watch you get dressed."

She dropped her pad below his incoming fist with a look of disgust, but he caught himself before punching into the now empty space and readjusted his blow, laughing.

"Relax, I'm kidding! I respect your privacy. 'Sides, you're never even there in the mornings!"

"Oh, yeah," she laughed weakly, feeling her cheeks reddening but the heat subsiding.

"I use my imagination instead—"

"Oh, ew—goddamn you!" She thrust away his connecting strike and shoved him in the side, smirking all the while.

There was something about this that he found hilarious, especially in the returning reddening of the girl's cheeks.

"Alright, alright, I'm sorry. Truce, okay?" He lifted his hands with a mock-apologetic look on his face. "Truce?"

She pointed at him with, well, basically her entire arm since her fingers were indiscernible beneath the boxing pad and roared, "I reject your truce! Surrender!"

"Never!" He boomed like a dork, ignoring the stares and judgement earned from surrounding cadets, and spun a roundhouse to her proffered glove.

Amidst the profuse sweating and heavy breathing, and above all the inappropriate connotations that may spring to mind, Aster had easily the most entertaining training session she had had so far. It had felt almost like she had believed it should, back in the days that she used to dream of being in this very position.

Aster kicked Surrexit's gloved hand only to find that he dropped it limply to his side, resulting in a miss. She recovered, but before she could ask him what the matter was, she felt a presence in the air and turned to the door. Tseng. Still observing her, analysing her, as she knew he had ever since she set foot on his helicopter.

No. Much before then.

Everything she did meant something, and everything she didn't do seemed to mean even more.

She glanced back to Surrexit with wide eyes. Always quick to confide her weaknesses, Tseng would say. The boy met her with warmth, but equally a gaping stare.

Tifa punched the palm of her hand, oblivious to her guest. "Cadets! I want us to try a set move pattern—"

"Miss Lockhart, if I may interrupt." It was not a question, it was a statement. Tseng begged no permissions. He stepped from beyond her, black eyes boring straight into his Turk cadet, making her wish once again she could shrink under her skin, heart racing faster and faster, anything to get away from him. His expression looked bleak. Or perhaps it would have done if it weren't his default face.

"Uh," Tifa stammered. "Go ahead."

He hardly waited for Tifa's last word to pass over her lips before striding towards his trainee. "Over a week into training, Doe. With men completing their third."

He swept a glance over the room, chilling the air and raising hearts to throats. Aster realised she was the only one not standing to attention. She didn't correct herself, either.

"Men don't progress equally," he said, the heel of his boots clunking into the floorboards and rattling their bones. "Step forward."

She did as she was told silently. Tentatively.

"Stand before the boy you deem weakest."

Aster shot him a look with wide, horrified eyes. They already didn't like her.

"It is necessary that someone recognises the weak link, and I'm sure you've picked up your observational skills in the last few days after one particular encounter."

She suppressed the overwhelming urge to roll her eyes with a clamp to her lip tight enough to draw blood.

"So tell me. Tell us all."

"There is no…there can be no weakest link…" she murmured, tripping over the words that rebounded off the hardwood floor and walls and avoiding eye contact with anything other than her helmet laid near her feet that she yearned to have on her head to mask her shame. "A squad can only be a strong as its…"

"Cut the bullshit," Tseng said, angular face severer than usual. "There's a weak link, and you know it, and I want you to point him out. Stand before the weakest!"

Tseng pushed her towards her peers. They eyed her, a jury onlooking the guilty defendant, until she took steps and settled in front of Sparrow. A boy with clothes that wore him and a nervous air and disposition. Kicking him while he was down, this was the boy known as Twenty-Four by a DI who couldn't even be bothered to honour him with a name.

The atmosphere outside the bubble of nervousness encasing Doe and Sparrow shifted to one of contempt.

"Why him?"

"He…he's slight and weak—"

"As are you."

She gritted her teeth. "He's always last."

"And? Keep going."

The atmosphere turned black as twenty-three recruits waited for the next attack to spill from her mouth, and Tseng folded his arms with narrow eyes, daring her to stop, to give him an excuse to smack her across the face again. She threw her head back and raked her fingers through her hair, pulling it in frustration. "Because—because he's crap, okay? He can't keep up with the rest of us. He's getting left behind."

She couldn't look at him. She stood before him and belittled him, humiliated him just as Tseng had done to her, and she couldn't even give him the decency of eye-contact. Not brave enough. She couldn't face the tears that welled in the young boy's eyes as he tried his best not to let them fall.

She absolutely could have done that more gently. Why didn't she have the foresight to do so? Why let Tseng grab her tongue? Can't retract the words now. Too late.

Tseng frowned and shrugged, much to Aster's enragement. "Apologies, Lockhart. I encourage you to continue your session."

Tifa shook her head and began to speak, "I think tensions are—"

"Continue. Sparring practice, yes? Doe, up front and centre, versus…" he deliberated for a moment, scanning from face to angry face. "Rohrbach."

"Tseng," Tifa urged, starting forward with an edge to her voice and a venomous sarcastic bite. "With all due respect to your no doubt unmatched expertise, Rohrbach and Doe are not at the same levels of competency—"

"It will be a learning experience."

"It'll be murder," she seethed.

"Perhaps you ought to exercise a greater degree of control over your unit so it doesn't degrade into a bloodbath."

Just as Aster couldn't meet Sparrow's eyes, she could hardly meet Rohrbach's, either. Though young, his long face was deeply set, highlighted with a prominent nose and an even more prominent scowl. He towered over her, cool yet grounded, exercising a considerable degree of control over his every muscle. Either tensing or holding himself back.

"Begin."

She threw up her arms to cover her face from what could have been a devastating blow and buckled under it. On the back foot from the onset. A hook to the ribs knocked her off balance, but he overcompensated for her shorter stature, leaving his side open to her clumsy roundhouse.

He hit the ground and rolled out, recovering far, far sooner than she anticipated, and slammed a foot behind her knee. She crashed to her kneecaps with a gasp as pain pierced like hot pokers shoved through her knees and up her thighs, and suddenly he was in front of her again, and he struck her jaw with a backhanded fist that sent her sprawling.

Surrexit winced and covered his face with a hand while Tifa hid hers behind a curtain of dark hair.

Her legs shook as she picked herself up off the floor. Two of the strongest attacking joints of her body out for the count, legs as good as rope, fists not to make a dent in this beast. It looked bleak. On a good day, she may have been able to skirt around him with speed and grace, but her knees screamed with every step.

She stumbled over her failing joint while dodging a jab and spun to crack her elbow into his nose with a sick thud. He recoiled, groaning, and kneed her high in the gut to distance her, connecting with the now searing pain of her bruised ribs and stomach, lifting her toes from the ground once firmly beneath her. She was out by now, or should have been. It would have been kinder if she was unconscious, anyway. He slammed his palms into her chest, looming over her as her back cracked into the floorboards, followed shortly by the crack of her skull.

She murmured incomprehensibly, slowly rolling to her side, cradling her head in her arms.

Tseng tutted, watching her body tremble in shock. It was better for her to get it out of her system now than in a critical situation. This was his justification, anyway. Grow the body accustomed to handling shock.

What felt like a bowling ball caving in her skull was in actuality just the helmet he kicked into her.

"That is why you don't take it off."

Aster squinted up at him, unable to make out the shape of his body above her from the light surrounding him, but vaguely aware of the sudden movement of six or seven cadets yanking their helmets on to avoid a grilling. Surrexit was not one of those cadets. Tseng eyed him, and he didn't falter.

Apparently, he was less than interested in the young man's subtle defiance as he looked to Tifa instead. "I believe your class is dismissible for dinner."

Tifa set him a stony look which he met coolly. Aster didn't see the exchange but felt the air turn cold. For two who spent so long holding a stare, they certainly didn't see eye-to-eye, and for everything Tseng put Aster through, including the quivering heap she found herself in now, he had never turned the wind to ice as he had just now for Miss Lockhart. He broke the stare first and left.

Tifa swept an avoidant glance over her dismembered, crumbling cadet-force. "Dismissed. Report to the mess hall. Don't want to see any of you hanging around here."

The room surged with the blood in her head as Aster sat up. She captured, amongst the blur, a foxy-brown gaze from an empty-looking soul. Sparrow. Her mouth fell open to speak, but when a hand of solidarity clasped over his shoulder—the kind guidance of a brother-in-arms—she clamped her mouth shut again and looked away. Justice had been duly served.

Her ears were ringing, but she was pretty sure she could make out their words.

"Ignore it, man, alright?"

"It's all part of the mind games."

"We know who the real weak link is."

Aster agreed with them.

"Cadets!" Tifa bellowed louder than herself. Commanding their attention, she lowered her voice solemnly. "We all failed today."

Muttering followed the recruits out of the room.

But Surrexit hung around. Aster got the impression he wasn't exactly a stickler for the rules.

Tifa shrugged with a sigh. "Just wait outside."

"Ma'am," he said, and finally headed out with a salute at the temple.

Tifa crouched beside Aster, alone in an echoing room, too quiet to hear in, too loud to think in. The atmosphere rang with reverberations of bygone combat, connections, grumbling, cheering, groaning. All in silence.

"You okay? You see okay?" Tifa asked, gently waving a hand in her face, checking Aster's eyes for refocusing. "I feel like I'm always asking you if you're okay."

Aster gingerly touched the back of her head, expecting some kind of bowling-ball shaped dent. "What…was that…?"

Tifa dropped her hands on her knees and shook her head. "It's a dysfunctional tactic employed frequently in the training of special forces. Not, can I just say, infantry cadets in their first stage," she seethed, and Aster noticed just how red the girl's eyes were, like sunlight shining through wine. "He's singling you out—"

"—Everything is a test, Tifa…"

The instructor stopped abruptly, perhaps some of the wind sucked from her sails. An overstretched balloon given the reprieve of deflation, an overwound tape given the respite of slack.

"I've just got to keep passing," she murmured, patting her scalp for blood. Nonesuch came. "Tifa…how was that Rohrbach guy recovering so quickly? How was he…so good?"

"Well, first of all, he's built like a brick outhouse, you know? He is a strong candidate, gunning for SOLDIER and gunning hard, it's gotta be said. He is objectively the strongest candidate in this would-be squad." She shrugged, which almost compromised her precarious balance. "He learns exceptionally quickly and takes training as second-nature. Junon born and raised—likely of military background."

Aster nodded slowly. "So, it's built in him, then…"

"Not necessarily. He's had more training than you." Tifa shook her head. "I should apologise. Tseng told you I would offer you additional training and I haven't done so yet. I've no class on Saturdays. Come and meet me in my bar in the slums tomorrow afternoon when you finish for the day. We'll go over the basics you missed."

Dinner was between seventeen hundred and seventeen-thirty hours only for cadets in basic training. Three months would see their meal consumed then or not at all. And yet, fifteen minutes after class kick out, Surrexit still stood waiting for her.

"Thought you were gonna be in there forever, mate. The DI's gonna tear me a new one for hanging around unaccompanied. Help me sneak into mess, yeah?" He said casually, throwing his arms behind his head as if his backside wasn't at stake.

"I didn't ask you to wait," she grumbled, walking, or rather, limping onward.

He shrugged. "I'd rather not travel with a pack of wolves."

"Wimp."

"I prefer noble."

She snorted half-heartedly and pushed through the double doors. He offered his arm when she struggled through on weak knees, but she waved him off.

"Sit down before you get screamed at. I'll get your food."

The dinner hall was huge. The tables that stretched alongside one another in uniform lines were large enough to hold twenty to thirty people, depending, with blue stools attached to them. A mixture of primarily strait-laced, green and nervous cadets, with a helping of more relaxed, established infantrymen and even peppered with a few SOLDIER Thirds distinguished by their pale blue uniforms and throaty laughs, who apparently couldn't be bothered to cook for themselves with the kitchens in their company-owned apartments. Only the cadets were being watched over by hawks and swirling vultures in red garb, picking their carcasses at every wrong turn or wrong word spoken.

The vultures that watched Aster, though, were dressed in white shirts and blue combat pants, same as she.

With two pairs of eyes on her at any given time, she dropped Surrexit's platter in front of him with a rattle and slumped into the seat across from him. The cadet to her right physically turned his back to her. Didn't know his name. Didn't look like he'd be introducing himself, either.

In fact, no one made direct eye contact with her for the rest of dinner, except Surrexit, and it was only upon the return to the barracks that eyes were laid upon her again. Twenty-three pairs of eyes.

The door slid open to the blaring alarm of the sergeant's voice. Failed barracks inspection. Standards had not been met. Standards needed to be met to prevent material carnage.

Which was exactly what the barracks had been exposed to. Twenty-four beds had been stripped of bedding and sheets and mattresses, all of which lay strewn across the room, thrown haphazardly amongst clothing and boots and personal possessions of photographs and significant jewellery like a hurricane had torn the furnishing to shreds. Bedside tables lay tipped and cabinets hung open. Anything not fixed was moved. The room looked like an old, abandoned village, pillaged and plundered, with only rot and empty vessels left for the poor residents.

"Guilt lies with you," the drill sergeant barked at the foot of Aster's bed.

"Yes, sir," she called meekly, stood to attention.

"Do you know why, cadet?"

She shuffled uncomfortably as he drew closer. "No, sir."

"Failure to upkeep barracks! Just got damn Barnhill over there to learn to clean his boots, and now we've got you who can't make a goddamn bed!"

"And you!" He yelled, sweeping an arm across the room. "You're gonna spend your goddamned free time sorting out this shit out as a result!"

There were never fewer than ten pairs of eyes running daggers through her chest at any one time.

Yet she couldn't care. Selfish, perhaps, but the only thing she could think about was the parcel of sodden clothing that had been hidden in her cabinet. She practically dove into the heap of effects nearest to her bed, desperately rummaging for her things. Relief doused her in its beautifully cooling embrace as she found the bundle, still together as far as she could tell. She squeezed it, checking for the switchblade buried within, glad to find it safe. She shoved it straight back in her cabinet and wiped her face free of tension before returning to the squad and the enormous piles of clothing and bedding.

She watched a boy with small eyes and a square jaw lunge into the pile almost as desperately as she had, quickly stashing away the items he'd grabbed. Photographs? Flyers? When his eyes ran through hers she avoided them and stared back into the pile before her, sorting through uniforms by size.

Then a tall, bald man in a suit barged in, ordering salutes from sergeant and cadet alike. When he requested Aster Doe's presence on behalf of Tseng of the Turks, effectively excusing her from the punishment she had rightly deserved and dumping it on the squad instead, she fully commanded twenty-three pairs of glaring eyes.

She had spent two weeks in confinement, yet the real isolation began upon release.