A/N: im trying to drag it out

i seem to be unable to drag it out

uh

That was it. That was enough. Are you fucking kidding me? His ankles were starting to bleed! Practice, practice, practice. Every single fucking day. But not just practice, no, he was having fucking torture sessions. Day in day out, pushing his body to its limits.

The crow laughed.

Limits.

What had that idiot said? "It's because if I were to admit that i'm in excruciating pain, that would become my limit". Certainly fucking sounded like him.

But there were limits, you had to admit. And Kazu had passed his long ago. Not that limits were impossible to overcome, oh no. No, you could very well overcome your own limits, setting new ones to mercilessly crush; but that took time, a gradual increase in strength, intelligence, what have you. You can't defeat the game's boss at level 3: it's suicide.

"Tch, dumb blonde."

Scratching the back of his head, Ikki made his way over to his fucking retard of a friend who couldn't take a break. Or a hint, for that matter.

"We're done for today. We were done an hour ago. What are you still doing here?"

A chuckle from the other. Did he think this was funny? He was going to end up dead if he didn't stop, and he was laughing! Of course Kazu knew what he was doing to himself, he wasn't dumb. Of course he fucking kne-

"Practice makes perfect, right? We're nowhere near the top, and we haven't reached the limits yet, so we've gotta' keep pushing!"

A smile.

God damn it.

"Kazu you reached your body's current limits a while ago. If you don't take a break, well, the break's gonna take you."

An expression of helplessness, maybe shock, passed over the blonde's face, but it was gone in a second.

"I'm fine man, are you worrying about me? Pshh, the Storm King, worrying! Are you sure you haven't reached your limits? Your brain must be fried!"

A forced chuckle escaped thin, chapped lips. Lips that would bleed if the smile painted itself any further.

The crow sighed. "Okay, whatever, you're fine. Just make sure you don't hurt yourself any more. Those ankles are going to become a problem if you keep your practice at this level."

"An-?" Kazu looked down. He hadn't noticed. There was a bit of red visible on the sides of his pants. A bit, almost none, but it was there. He got down on one knee and pulled up his pant leg to reveal a multitude of small scratches around his ankles. No, they were more like... burns? Something between a scratch and a burn, courtesy of the Flame Road. His brows furrowed. How had he missed that? It hurt like hell, now that he thought about it.

"Gh-!" A cold bottle of water on the side of his face had interrupted his thoughts. "I get that it's hot and all but could you not do that?" he spat.

"Complain all you want, you look pretty happy to have ice on your face, ungrateful shit."

"Tch, egotistical prick."

He accepted the bottle, though.

He was at his desk, messing with his ATs, as usual. Ikki? Spending free time doing something that wasn't somehow relevant to Air Trek? Shock! Gasp! The Earth would collapse, leaving in its wake dirt that would never qualify as remnants of the human race! Some time ago, maybe a week, maybe a month, his team had won a parts war against some techie rookies. He said "techie" because, well, that was the only word that could describe them, no? Their whole vibe screamed tech and the members of Kogarasumaru had had their pick of several quite new electronics. You had to admit, parts wars were always useful when you needed a laptop but had no extra cash.

The crow had some bulletin open on his newly acquired computer, or was it a chat? He glanced quickly at it; the words were moving fairly quickly on the screen, being replaced by replies from this or that numbered anonymous user's reply. Chat.

Being one of the rising teams' captains, Ikki had to keep up-to-date with the AT world; one rumor could be a lead to their most exiting fight yet. Anyways, it had become a habit now, glance up every now and then while working on his ATs, store the words somewhere in to the side of his mind, where it didn't interfere with his more pressing matters, but where the information remained perfectly available.

He was back to working on his air treks when a certain pattern caught his attention.

anon264: again? no way! anon968: that's really too bad... sad...

Lately, there'd been a lot of this "again" and "sad" stuff, he hadn't really paid it much attention, probably just some jerk everyone knew who couldn't keep a relationship going or something, he'd thought. But it had been a while now, and things like that died pretty quickly, interests shifted and the poor dude's love life would be forgotten until he hooked someone big or someone weird. Things like that didn't last long, as far as news went. He tightened whatever was loose, making sure everything was in it's perfect place, before placing his ATs on the floor, between his bed and his desk, and placing the tools back in their places; he could improve them later. He quickly scrolled back up to check out the important bits he somehow kept missing.

"Fuck are you kidding me... Shit." he muttered, resting his head on a fist.

People had been getting hurt recently. They were accidents you'd expect in the AT world; accidents that ruined your future. The crow didn't really care at first; if they got hurt that easily, they probably wouldn't have made it to Kogarasumaru's level anyways. But after checking a few people out, he noticed it was strange. They were mostly rookies, but judging from their info and some clips from battles, they had promise, lots of it. And somehow, the stronger the rider, the worse the injury.

And there had been deaths too. Not many, just one or two, people who weren't known at all outside a strict circle and a handful of battles. Accidents.

He paled.

"Shit- what if-"

Ikki covered his mouth. No, shit, it couldn't be. From the looks of it, a group was working behind the scenes to keep anyone with the strength to one day become a King from getting anywhere near the prestigious title.

And if that was really the case, then, chances were... Kazu's plane crash was no accident.

A/N: *whispers* cliffhangers are fun hope you liked the chapter

also around 1100 words! woohoo!