Chapter 5

Nasté spent the next weeks hoping that Jun would get better and that things might return to normal. For the most part she got her wish as Jun passed all of his final exams with top marks and started working his typically insane schedule once again. But still he remained uncharacteristically quiet and spent all of his time at home in his bedroom. It was a compromise that Nasté could handle.

As May rolled in and the weather warmed it seemed that Jun had completely overcome the stress of last month entirely. Ryo began to show up twice a week for training, all of which Jun bore with renewed energy and focus despite occasional frustration with himself. Shin and Shu showed up three times since Nasté made her distressed phone call to Shin, and they agreed that all was well.

Near the end of the month Nasté invited all of the troopers for a relaxing weekend at her house, an offer that everyone gladly accepted, and on May 25 the place was as full and lively as it had been since Christmas. That evening was spent engaged in polite conversation. There was much catching up to do as the warriors did not see each other as often as they saw Jun and Nasté, and each of them had stories to tell and rumors to put down.

It seemed to bother no one that Jun did not speak unless he was directly addressed. A thick book lay open between his dinner bowl and the edge of the table and he seemed positively engrossed; it was not unusual for him.

"So, what are you reading now?" Toma asked him after the rest of the conversation died down. "I thought you were done with classes for the summer."

Jun glanced at Toma, and then shot a contemplative look to each of the troopers before regarding the book again. He had not given the thing much thought when he borrowed it from the library; it seemed a perfectly natural thing to read at the time. But now that the others were taking interest he felt oddly embarrassed.

"It's a healthy living book," he said flatly.

When Jun looked again at Toma the warrior of strata seemed confused. His nose wrinkled and his brow furrowed as if Jun had said something so preposterous that Toma could not make any sense of it.

"A healthy living book?" Shin said. "What do you need that for; you study that sort of thing all year."

"Unless he was being intentionally vague," Seiji said smartly.

Jun shifted uncomfortably in his chair, unable to deny Seiji's astute observation. "It's a book on emotional temperance."

If possible, Toma's face screwed up even more and he looked to Nasté as if he expected her to explain. But Nasté looked just as perplexed as everyone else and offered only a slight shrug in response.

"What does that even mean?" Shu said quietly, and though he was looking at Shin for his response it was Ryo who spoke next.

"It means moderation and control," said Ryo, trying to look as philosophical and smart as he could. "Control over impulse, isn't that right?" He looked at Jun, who nodded curtly.

"It sounds like a book for the two of you," Nasté said slyly as she looked between Ryo and Shu.

As laughter broke out again Jun wondered if the awkwardness he had felt was self-imposed and unnecessary. He smiled weakly and looked around at the people who were as good as family to him. They had been for years, yet he still felt the stinging sensation that he did not quite fit in.

He had always remained somehow separate from the other troopers, who considered themselves to be representatives of the utmost good, were pure in their virtues, and acted ever in the name of what was right. They existed in a black and white world where everything fell on one end of the dichotomy of good and evil, but Jun lived in shades of gray. For him, good and evil were blurred on a fine line that shifted in scope and density based on a person's beliefs. And he, who made a habit of lying, cheating, and spent a number of years involved in illegal trade deals, was still somehow considered to be good.

It was because Jun was so different than the others that they had difficulty understanding when he was genuinely distressed. Because Jun was so adept at hiding behind a mask of stoicism and passing his troubles off as minor hiccups the troopers could not tell when his lies were covering something dangerous, they did not know how Jun honestly felt about most anything, and were helpless to understand his motivations.

The others began wildly speculating on why Jun, who was the most rational and relaxed of the bunch, would be reading such a strange book while Jun remained completely quiet. He did not want them to know that he had spent the last weeks working tirelessly to hide his continuing problems from Nasté, an effort at which he had been quite successful. He had managed to temper his reactions to recurring nightmares, to suppress the outward signs of sudden mind-numbing headaches, and to completely obscure his worry over impulses that he did not ordinarily have.

As of late, Jun had noticed himself becoming quick to anger. He spent more time over the last weeks frustrated at mundane tasks and petty errors than he ever remembered before, and he alarmed himself quite seriously when, during his final practical exam in anatomy, he lost his temper over a technicality and felt a strong urge to slash his instructor's neck with his scalpel.

He kept it all in, though, withheld behind a front of casualness that had become such his focus that he found trouble expressing anything at all. But he worried that such apparent indifference to everything he was faced with would tip Nasté off again, and so he had read every book on anger management and patience that he could find.

When the conversation died down again Jun let out what he hoped was a natural looking yawn, snapped his book shut with conviction, and stood.

"I'm going to bed," he said firmly, and made for the door. "I'll see you all tomorrow."

"Jun!" Ryo cried and Jun turned around. His face looked as if he'd forgotten to mention something quite important. "We're all going to have a little spar tomorrow after lunch, are you in?"

Jun looked dumbly between the troopers but remained quiet. As of late he had been growing frustrated with his performance in training sessions with Ryo, at silly things like missed parries or sloppy strikes. Add in the stress of an armored fight against five opponents and the potential for a serious slip up, physical or emotional, increased profoundly. He did not honestly want to take part in any kind of prolonged group activity with them because they had an uncanny ability to sense when something was amiss.

"You know," he said thoughtfully, "I think I'll pass. I've got some work I need to take care of."

Ryo quirked an eyebrow and looked to Nasté, who shrugged again.

"It's not like you to pass up an opportunity to show us up," Seiji said.

Jun knew at once that declining the invitation had been a mistake, especially with observant Seiji around. Seiji, above all the other troopers, knew how to read people, how to tell when they were lying, and he knew Jun well enough to call out anything that did not fit with his character.

"Sounds like an excuse to me," Shu said with a coy smirk. "Are you out of shape or something? Are you afraid to come out and play with the big boys?"

"No, it's not that at all," Jun protested.

"Then it's settled," Shin interrupted with the same smug look that Shu now wore. "Tomorrow after lunch."

Jun left the room, retired to bed, and slept dreamlessly through the night.

It was particularly due to his heavy sleep and much to his dismay that Jun woke late the next morning. He had hoped to be up before any of the others, perhaps to sneak out of the house and spend the day in Tokyo under the pretense that he had been called into work at the last minute. But the second he looked at the alarm clock on his bedside table, which read a quarter to noon, he knew that such an escape was all but impossible.

Judging by the racket down the hall the others were wide awake and full of energy to burn in their afternoon spar. Shu and Toma could be heard in some heated debate, though their words were obscured by the clanging of pans and dishes as Nasté and likely Shin worked in the kitchen to prepare lunch. The din was periodically accented by Ryo's loud laughter, probably at the expense of Shu and Toma, and a few times he spoke and sounded slightly put off.

It took a long time for Jun to drag himself out of his bed, knowing what waited for him downstairs. First would come jibes from Toma, Shu, and Ryo about why he had overslept so severely. Then Nasté would ask for the hundredth time that week if he was feeling all right and Shin, if he was nearby, would offer a comforting grin or a pat on the shoulder that Jun understood meant "I'm here to talk." Finally, if Seiji was around, he would offer a biting yet flawlessly true comment on some aspect of Jun's person or behavior which led Jun to wonder quite often whether or not Seiji like him at all.

Bogged down by no small degree of dread, Jun dressed, made his bed, and proceeded to run through every activity he could think of to put off going downstairs, but eventually he exited his room with a heavy sigh and slumped toward the noise. When he reached the landing that overlooked the foyer and the sitting room he paused and leaned against the bannister, looking with interest at the scene below. As he had guessed, Toma and Shu were involved in a serious discussion while Ryo watched amusedly, but on the table between them all was a chess board on which pieces were strewn about and lying on their sides.

"Ah," Ryo called when he noticed Jun standing above, "good morning. Or is it afternoon now?" He looked at his watchless wrist with mock contemplation.

Shu and Toma ceased their argument at once and turned to face Jun as well. Toma offered a casual wave before he turned and began gathering up the destroyed chess set.

"We were starting to worry that you weren't going to get up. Seiji thought you might have been trying to ditch us again," Shu said through a wide grin. "You know, he's usually right when it comes to predicting you."

Jun did not acknowledge Shu's joke. "I didn't know you played chess," he said. "Though it looked like it wasn't so much playing as it was demolishing."

When Jun walked down the stairs and shot a glance at Shu the trooper's face looked cut from the stone of his armor, his bright expression replaced by a look that fell somewhere between anger and embarrassment.

"I don't play chess," Shu said quietly, and Jun could not help but notice that Ryo and Toma were both grinning widely and stifling laughter that proved beyond a doubt that they had made quite a good time at Shu's ineptitude at the game.

The three troopers fell into step behind Jun as he walked toward the dining room, where the sound of dishes clattering on the wooden table signaled that lunchtime was near. Nasté arranged seven place settings while Shin made several trips to and from the kitchen, teach time returning with his arms laden with food in serving dishes. The two of them moved expertly, as if they had done this ritual a thousand times before, and they seemed almost oblivious to the four men as they hustled around.

Jun was the first to find a seat and was almost surprised to see Seiji already at the table, a crisp newspaper in his hand. When Seiji shot him a purposeful look Jun felt slightly perturbed.

"I was just reading a follow up on the recent accident in Tokyo," Seiji said and regarded his paper again. "The whole thing had almost slipped my mind since the local news stopped its coverage."

Nasté and Shin joined the others at the table and began to pass serving bowls around. The process was such second nature now that the conversation did not stop while lunch was being served, and the awkward silence after Seiji's comment lasted only long enough for Shin to settle in his seat.

"That's right," Shin said brightly, "I had some questions I wanted to ask you, Jun, since you were a first responder and all."

"I wasn't a first responder," Jun replied without looking up from his plate, "I was in surgery that whole night. It was sheltered in there so I don't really know any details." He paused and looked up at Seiji. "What did the article say?"

Seiji shook his head slowly. "Some of the missing persons were found in the wreck. The site has otherwise been cleared and rebuilding is set to begin next week."

"That was fast," Nasté said.

"We all had a chat about it shortly after we heard the news," Shin continued his prior thought as if there had been no interruption. "We wanted to know if you noticed anything strange."

Jun nearly choked on his rice. He thought that Ryo and Toma would have kept news of his hallucination quiet, especially considering that it had been triggered by perfectly natural causes.

"No, nothing," Jun said quietly.

"No strange wounds or odd behavior from anyone?" Shin asked. "Any signs that—"

"It wasn't youja," Jun said hotly. "Everything I saw that evening was consistent with, well," he paused and waved his hands as though indicating that the answer was all around them, "mortal causes. It looked like they had been at the site of a serious explosion, that's all I saw."

Except for the hallucination, Jun thought, but they did not necessarily have to know about that. He had not considered telling its very youja centric theme to anyone since he'd sat awkwardly in Nasté's office weeks prior, and he had been trying since that day to push the worry over it from his mind. He had long since decided that the whole thing had been a product of fatigue, as Atsuko had suggested, and perhaps some unspoken uncertainty over his chosen career path. So Jun worked hard to maintain his present course and set in his mind that what he was doing, in every aspect of his life, was right.

But now, as he sat facing the other troopers, Jun couldn't help but wonder if he should tell. It seemed obvious to him that the others knew something was wrong but had yet to figure it out, and their questions and observations were coming closer to the mark every day.

"So how do we want to work our little scrimmage?" Ryo said happily, and Jun was glad for the sudden change in subject. "Will we have teams? Free for all?"

"No white armor," Jun said at once and the others laughed: an indication that the tenseness of earlier conversation was gone. "It's imbalanced and unfair for me to take it on by myself."

"Teams it is, then," Toma said. "What do you say to the three of us," he motioned to Ryo on his right and Seiji on his left, "against the three of you?"

"Seems fair enough," Shin agreed, "though it gives your team the advantage of range."

"Which would go with me no matter who I was with," Toma replied smartly.

The banter went on until well after the table was cleared and the six troopers stood in a group at the back of the house. It took another ten minutes of debate to decide on which team Toma would play, and in the end it worked out just as the trooper of tenku had originally proposed: Ryo, Seiji, and Toma against Shu, Shin, and Jun.

The six called their armors, drew their weapons, and situated themselves against each other some twenty yards away from the back door, in the center of a large clearing that separated the house from its forested property.

"Rules are as follows," Ryo said officially, "Flats of blades when possible, no head shots, no ballistic moves. If you're hit then you're out, body shots only. No limbs."

"And no destroying my house!" Nasté shouted from the balcony above where she presently stood in the midst of hanging laundry.

"And no destroying Nasté's house," Ryo added with a smirk. "Questions?"

"Do I have to do this?"

Shu elbowed Jun roughly in the arm and the boy fell quiet again. Something felt distinctly wrong with this situation, Jun thought. He felt the same uncomfortable numbness in his stomach that he had been feeling for weeks, but now that he was wielding his armor it was overwhelming. He could not place what caused the anxiety but he knew that it was there beyond doubt, and he wondered how much of it was caused by the armor and how much was caused by his own overactive imagination. He recalled how he had felt when he had hallucinated; it was the same sensation that he had when he summoned the shadow of his armor to fight, yet it had been somehow out of control.

With a sigh he pushed the thought from his mind, decided that there was no way out of the fight, and figured he may as well take it as an opportunity to learn and test himself against the others. It had been a long time since he had had a chance to fight with them, even in play, and he wondered how he might fare considering he was being pitted against two of the most skilled swordsmen he knew.

Jun cleared his throat and Shu and Shin leaned close to him. "You two distract Ryo and Seiji and I'll dash up the middle for Toma. The earlier we get him out the better we'll do in the end, I guess."

Shu and Shin exchanged looks and nodded their approval of the simple plan. Quite often in these group encounters Jun would call an early strategy, though most times they involved some matter of stealth or trickery. Shin and Shu found it a bit strange that Jun would suggest such a straightforward tactic, but when they realized that the others would not expect it either they knew that the plan would work.

Ryo was the first to move for action, and at once Shin and Shu rushed forward. With a loud ring Shu's bo connected with Ryo's dual blades, locking the two in a grapple, and Shin grasped Seiji's nodachi with the flexible end of his trident to push the blade aside while Jun rushed through the gap between.

Seiji rolled to his left, wrenching the sword out of Shin's hold, and as he jumped to his feet he swung a long horizontal arc with the flat of his blade toward Jun's exposed back. Shin cried out warning and Jun dodged deftly to the side, leaving Seiji's nodachi far out of reach.

By now Toma was well aware of the blitz and cried for extra cover. He fired a line of arrows Jun's way, three of which fell harmlessly short of the target and one of which Jun deflected, whether by accident or skill Toma was completely unsure, off of the wide arc of his left glaive. Seiji rushed frantically to his ally's aid but was caught short when Shin's trident grasped him at the ankle, and the trooper of halo was sent sprawling clumsily to the dirt where he lay watching his prey dart away.

It took a very quick step to out maneuver Toma's accurate shots. Jun ducked and jumped and threw his glaives up for cover so that every arrow shot his direction either missed entirely or ricocheted off of his massive blades. After a minute or two of full sprint Jun lunged, closing the distance between he and Toma in two steps, pivoted on his left foot to avoid a down slice by Toma's bow, and planted the flat of his blade squarely in the small of Toma's back.

"You're out," he said quietly in Toma's ear and though he felt quite pleased with himself he spoke with a certain air of confidence that made it seem that the elimination had cost him little effort.

Toma released his armor and slumped toward the porch where he practically crumbled onto a chair. From there he sat, head resting pathetically on his hand, and watched with a distinct pout as the others continued their fight.

The moment that Jun reentered the fray he saw Ryo's katana slap Shu on the breast, and in the moment that Shu shuffled away Jun launched himself toward Ryo with abandon. Jun could hear Seiji's cry of warning somewhere to his left but his focus remained firm even as Ryo whirled about and threw his blades up to defend. Sparks flew as the four blades locked in a wicked grapple and, seconds after the connection, Ryo's katanas began the inevitable slide down the length of Jun's arced glaives.

With a surge of power Ryo shoved Jun away with enough force that the boy staggered briefly, but before Ryo could think to make use of his moment of advantage Jun was on him again and demonstrating a prowess with his weapons that Ryo had watched develop over the last months with astonishment and pride. The left blade worked defensively, using its massive length to parry and deflect most any strike Ryo could think to throw, while the right worked offensively, slipping through cracks in Ryo's defense with speed.

Ryo sliced downward with his right blade and brought the left in from a wide angle, thinking to strike horizontally and vertically at once in a move that Jun could surely not parry one-handed. But Jun simply tilted the left side of his blade up, angled its sharp edge toward the sky, and let the momentum of Ryo's blades work for him. Clumsily, Ryo's swords slid toward each other along the glaive's edge until they crashed in the middle with a loud ring and a shower of sparks. Ryo had barely enough time to dive backward as Jun's right glaive swung round, the flat of its edge passing dangerously close to Ryo's chest.

"He nearly had you, Ryo!" called Shu from aside, and when Jun glanced toward the house he could see that Shin had recently joined the others.

"You could have told me that I was on my own," Jun cried as he searched the yard frantically for Seiji who seemed nowhere in sight.

But then Jun heard a sound behind, a footfall it must have been, and he dropped to his knees with such force that it hurt. Seiji's nodachi passed overhead so close that Jun could feel wind against his neck. He heard Nasté cry in terror at the close call and wondered just how near he had come to a long, steel-induced nap.

At once, Jun kicked out and swung his leg about, forcing Seiji to retreat so as not to be knocked off his feet and allowing Jun to regain his ground. With a warrior on either side Jun was surrounded and outnumbered and his two opponents were closing in slowly. He watched as the two communicated through subtle motions and movements of their eyes, and when he saw Ryo nod almost imperceptibly he lunged forward and away, turning mid-step to watch the two nearly collide as they charged forward in what they must have thought would be an easy finish.

It was without thought or worry that Jun brought forth the shade in his armor. It was near second nature to him now that any time he was outnumbered he should use the power of his armor to his own advantage, and even in a simple good natured skirmish he could not suppress the automatic reaction.

The shadow settled at Jun's side, its glaives drawn and its posture as defensive as its master's, and Jun felt keenly the weakness that came with utilizing this power. His mind blanked for a fraction of a second before realigning itself between the two beings and he heard only vaguely as Ryo shouted "Don't let him do it!" to Seiji. But the two were too late, and as they charged forward with blades swinging Jun and his shadow burst into action in time.

Jun could hear as Toma, Shin, Shu, and Nasté clapped amusedly from the porch, as though they were watching a fight in a gladiatorial arena, and a surge of hot rage welled in his stomach.

He engaged Ryo with a whirling left slice, which the wildfire parried easily, and followed it up with a low sweeping kick to the knees. Meanwhile his shadow distracted Seiji with a flurry of simultaneous wide strikes and short jabs that the halo could not hope to avoid with his cumbersome weapon. In such a way, Jun kept Seiji on the defensive while focusing the majority of his attention on Ryo.

As the fight went on Jun began to lose himself in the vision. He watched as Ryo launched strike after strike beneath an overlay of Seiji's frantic parries, as if the images his mind received were being projected from two sources onto the same white screen. In this state it did not matter whether the fight was in fun, it only mattered that he was fighting, and any desire to hold back was trumped by the instinct to win. The shadow had been summoned and it believed that its existence was in jeopardy. It had to survive.

Ryo fell back from a particularly forceful thrust and watched in genuine horror as Jun bore down on him. Jun had always been competitive, had always tried every trick in the book to win these exhibitions, but had never done so with such recklessness. Jun never let his desire to win cloud the need for safety, but now it seemed that any such ideas had gone out the window.

"Seiji! Knock that thing out!" Ryo cried from the ground, and he crossed his blades in front of his face to catch Jun's glaives in a grapple. "Something isn't right!"

Seiji wanted to say that he was trying but he could not force the words out of his mouth. He knew of the shadow but had seen it only once in passing and had never thought that he might experience its wrath himself. The thing fought with the ferocity and strength of a human warrior with no limitation, and had it not been for the shadow's slight degree of transparency Seiji would have believed that he was fighting Jun proper.

The warrior of light felt momentary horror when he chanced to look in Ryo's direction. The wildfire could not regain his footing, not with the reckless blows that Jun threw at him, and he looked as desperate and terrified as Seiji felt.

This has to end, Seiji thought, and he sliced a horizontal arc to keep the shadow at bay. He could not fathom how to maneuver around such precise blows, not when they came at him so fast and not without a distraction of his own. He did not want to destroy the shadow, he did not know what effect it might have on Jun, so he continued parrying and dodging what blows he could not outrun.

"Just hit it!" Ryo yelled. "You're not going to hurt anything you just have to knock it out!"

Then several things happened at once.

First, Seiji stepped backward again as a glaive flew in front of his face. And when another slice came at him at eye level he dropped low, sidestepped around the shadow in the same direction that the blade traveled, and wound his nodachi as a baseball player gearing to smash a home run. At the same time that Seiji made this daring move Jun stopped mid-swing over Ryo and the wildfire stared dumbfounded from his place on the ground as the boy whirled around as though he knew something was behind him, putting up a quick defense with his glaives. And when Seiji's blade slashed cleanly through the shadow's back the thing did not react at all, it simply stared blankly ahead before disappearing into nothingness.

Seiji had not yet followed through the blow when he heard a cry from the side. He looked to see Jun stumble forward as though he had taken Seiji's powerful hit directly, the glaives fell from his hands and before they ever hit the ground they disappeared along with his armor. Jun was on his hands and knees for a brief second, panting and wincing as though he were in indescribable pain, before his right arm gave way and he half-fell, half-slumped forward with his forehead against the dirt.

Ryo and Seiji exchanged dark looks and rushed to Jun's side. And at nearly the same moment, Shin, Shu, Toma, and Nasté ran down from the porch looking terrified and bewildered.

"What happened?" Nasté cried, but none of the troopers paid her any mind.

"Jun?" Ryo said. "Are you okay?"

Jun did not respond. He did not move and he remained utterly silent, though when the troopers caught glimpses of his face they knew that he was stifling any expression of pain. In that moment Jun was reeling. His head was spinning and his back and neck felt like they were on fire. He could practically feel blood dripping against his skin and his body trembled with exertion and adrenaline. Every thought that might have entered his head was clouded by the striking realization that he had lost control completely. In the seconds before Seiji's blow landed he suddenly and inexplicably stopped seeing from the perspective of his shadow, he thought that the nodachi was coming for him. He could not differentiate between himself and the shade.

When at last Jun looked up he did not gaze at Ryo and did not acknowledge the others gathered around him. Rather, he stared through them, at a small girl some twenty feet on the opposite side. It was her again, he thought, Akiko Nagano, standing at the forest edge in the same tattered and bloody hospital gown that she wore the night she died. She was staring at him with empty eyes, with sad eyes that beckoned him toward her.

Jun blinked, shook his head, and blinked again. The girl was still there. He felt Ryo grip his shoulder tightly and heard stern sounding voices but they sounded monotonous and unbroken so he could not understand. Akiko wanted him to follow her. It was all happening again. Jun knew that this was his moment to revisit the old message, to make certain that what he had heard before was true, to clarify the cloudy warning and clear his mind of worry.

When Jun's fist connected with the crest on Ryo's helmet the wildfire fell back, his ears ringing, and by the time he or anyone else understood what had happened they were watching Jun disappear amongst the trees.

Ryo released his armor immediately and clutched his head with both hands. "Go after him!" he ordered. "We'll never catch him if he gets a head start!"

At once Toma, Seiji, Shu, and Shin rushed into the woods while Nasté stayed behind to tend Ryo's now throbbing head.

Jun did not realize that he was being followed and even if he knew he would not have stopped. He was close on Akiko's heels as she weaved between the dense trees and though his chest heaved and a stitch stabbed at his side he did not slow. They ran on for what felt like an hour until finally Akiko disappeared amongst the thicket. Jun swore loudly and bore on, and mere moments later stumbled out and into the blinding light as it reflected off of Nasté's backyard lake.

In the middle of the lake and seeming to hover over the surface of the water, Akiko stood next to the woman Jun knew was Mai, tall and slender and always bearing her long thin sword, and though Akiko wore the same blank expression as before Mai looked angry. She stared at Jun with furrowed brow and her lips were drawn into a thin frown.

"What do you want?" Jun cried.

"You have failed!" Mai replied. "You have failed!"

Jun fell to his knees. "Failed at what? What do I have to do? What are you here for? Why were you trying to warn me?"

"He is coming!" Mai screamed. "Alter your path and there may still be time! You must act now!"

"What do I have to do? I don't understand! Why will they die?"

Mai looked over her shoulder, startled by something that Jun could not see. And when she turned her gaze back toward him she seemed almost pitiful but she did not speak and did not move. Then, as she placed her hand delicately on Akiko's shoulder, the two of them disappeared.

In the next moment Toma and Shin came bounding out of the woods and Jun felt hands pressing against his back and shoulders, holding him on the ground where he knelt. The two held him so tightly that it hurt and he heard Shin yell "We found him!" three times.

"Jun," Toma said and he sounded both angry and afraid, "did it happen again? You have to tell us or we can't help you. I'm sorry but you don't have a choice. Jun?"

Toma's voice began to fade and Jun felt himself growing weak. His eyes were hot and his cheeks were wet, the stitch in his side throbbed and his back still burned. Shin and Toma's words were lost behind his heart now beating in his ears, and eventually all he knew was that their hands still pressed firmly against his aching body, grounding him in reality.

He felt strangely safe then, with their hands on him, so he let his mind go blank and slumped weak and semi-conscious against Toma's firm grasp.