Onto a new chapter of experimentation!

You know, if someone told me that a bunch of teenagers pretty much made up one of the strongest teams in Border, I would have laughed at them. I mean, sure Yuma is young, but he's really strong. And he's been learning from his father, so I figured he would be strong. I didn't figure that the other young people at Border would be that strong. Oh how wrong I was.

Shinoda took me away from Border headquarters by car to a… house? Meeden structures look strange sometimes. I guess it was a house. I couldn't figure out what else it might be. Maybe some sort of shop? But you would think that a shop would have a sign on it saying that it was a shop. Either way, on the way there, Shinoda and I had a bit of a conversation.

"So why did you come to Earth for protection?" Shinoda asked.

"Earth?" I asked. Is that the name of this city? Why name it after dirt?

"This world."

"Oh. That's what you guys call it? We call it Meeden." I said.

"Really? I thought that was a just a slang used by some of the Neighbors."

I raised my eyebrow. "Really? Why's that?"

"One of the humanoid neighbors we fought recently kept calling us Meeden monkeys."

I shook my head. "Nah. That's our official name for you guys. And to answer your earlier question about why I came here, it was mainly because I heard that Yuma was here."

"Are you friends with him?" He asked.

I nodded. "Back when he and his father were travelling around the Neighborhood, they stayed at my home for a bit."

"Kuga said you lived in Liberi, the marine nation. Is that correct?"

"Yep. Liberi, where there's water for as far as the eye can see. Back when the Kuga family was staying at my home with me and my sister, they would spend the better part of an hour just enjoying the view. After they left, I lived in Liberi for a few more years before I ran away."

"About why you ran away… you said that the Liberi military tried to take your trigger away from you. Did you ever consider that there might be a chance that they would return it to you?"

I shook my head. "If my black trigger was like other black triggers, maybe. But it's not. When my sister poured all of her essence into this trigger, she made me promise her one thing: That I would take her with me wherever I go."

"I see. You really care for your sister, don't you?" Shinoda's face softened a little bit.

"That and I couldn't take her off even if I wanted to. It's bonded to me. Permanently." I said.

His face held shock for a brief moment before shifting into understanding. "I see. So that's how she's making sure you keep your promise."

"Well," I said with a bit of a shy smile, "it's not like I would ever say no to her."

"I can understand that." He said. "We're here."

Shinoda knocked on the door before waiting for someone to open it. A few moments later, a guy with his hair pushed back opened the door.

"Oh, General Manager Shinoda. I didn't expect you to be here. Do you need something?" The guy said.

"I'm actually here to drop off this guy." Shinoda said. "Starting today, this guy has joined Shinoda faction, so I decided that it would be best if he came here to meet the rest of the people in the group."

The guy looked nice enough. "Any special circumstances that I should be concerned about?"

"Just one." Shinoda said. "He's a Neighbor. But you can wait for proper introductions."

POV Change: 1st Person, Jun Arashiyama

Well, this is interesting. I would have never guessed that the guy that Shinoda brought here was a Neighbor. He kind of reminds me of Karasuma, although that has more to do with his hair than anything else. But that makes two Neighbors at Border now. Yuma, and this guy.

"Well, I'll be leaving you two to get acquainted then." Shinoda said with a wave. "See you later!"

I wave goodbye to him as well before motioning to the guy to come inside. "Come in, make yourself at home."

The guy walked in, looking somewhat confused. "Make myself at home?" He asked.

Oh right. This guy's a Neighbor. They're probably not that familiar with expressions over here. "Sorry. It's just an expression."

"Oh. I see."

"I'm Jun Arashiyama, leader of Arahiyama squad. I guess I'll be showing you the ropes at Border." I said, extending my hand.

The guy took my hand. "I'm Lucca. It's nice to meet you."

"Well, I should probably introduce you to the rest of the squad. Seeing as you're unofficially a member of our group, you can live with me or one of the other guys in our squad."

The guy looked relieved at that. "Thanks. I wasn't sure what I was going to do about living. I didn't exactly think that through when I came here. Although technically, I have to start out as a new member in… C-class? Is that what it's called?"

Huh. Didn't Yuma Kuga of Tamakoma have to do that as well? "In that case, we'll just have to teach you some things about Border triggers before you go to the next training session. Which incidentally enough, is what we help manage."

"Thanks. I have no idea how Border triggers work. It's not like I actively studied them back when I was in Liberi."

"Liberi?" I was confused.

"The world I came from." Lucca replied. "There's a lot of water there."

"Speaking of which, why did you come here?" I asked.

"I'll explain that later when you introduce me to the rest of the squad… it's a bit of a heavy story if you don't mind." Lucca said.

So is there a dark secret behind his running away? "Alright, that's fine. Come on, let's go meet the rest of your new friends."

POV Change: 3rd Person

Currently, Arashiyama squad was having lunch at their meeting house. While they met there, they didn't actually live there. It was simply for the sake of meeting together. It did have simulation rooms as well, which was nice when they wanted to practice maneuvers against specific types of enemies. But that was really all there was to it.

Anyhow, they were sitting eating lunch. Their sniper, Ken Satori, was trying to make some jokes while they were eating, but no one was really paying attention to him. Squad leader Arashiyama had been eating with as well when they heard the doorbell ring. He got up to go get it. He was taking a while to get back though. It was a shame that the dining hall wasn't closer to the door. They could have listened in then.

They didn't need to though. A few minutes later, Arashiyama came back with a guy in tow.

"Hey guys," he said, "this is Lucca. As of today, he's been taken under General Manager Shinoda's care. He'll be staying with us until further notice."

All Lucca said was "Hi."

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca

"And Lucca, this is the rest of the squad. This is Mitsuru Tokieda, an all-rounder." A guy with a rather solemn-looking face. He looks like one of those guys who doesn't talk that much unless he has a reason to.

"Ken Satori, sniper." Judging by his face, he likes chatting a lot.

"Ai Kitora, our ace." Girl with hair down to just above her neck. Seems to be analyzing me for certain qualities. Which qualities they are, I can't be sure.

"And Haruka Ayatsuji, our operator." Another girl. Seems nice enough. I can't read anything about her. Weird.

Satori was the first one to get up. "Nice to meet you! Have you eaten yet?"

I frowned. "Now that you mention it, I haven't eaten anything since yesterday."

"Yesterday? What were you doing?"

I shrugged. "Mostly escaping from the Neighborhood to here."

That caught their attention really quickly. "You're a Neighbor?" Kitora asked.

I nodded. "On the run from my home. It's a long story."

"Well, we still have an hour before we need to go out for patrol. We have time."

"I guess I can give a shorten version of the story." I said.

"So what's the short version?"

"I have a black trigger. Liberi, the planet-nation that I'm from, wanted to take it away. I ran away and eventually ended up here."

That drew stares from everyone around the room.

"There's more to this than just the fact that you have a black trigger, isn't there?" Tokieda said.

I nodded. "The black trigger in question was my sister, Aria. A trion powerhouse with a very sick body. I made a promise to my sister before she became a black trigger: That I would take her with me wherever I go. I refused to say no to her."

"So where is your trigger now?" Arashiyama asked.

I lifted my left hand for everyone to see, with my fingerless glove/trigger on it. "This is my trigger, Sword Saint. It's permanently bonded to me, so I can't even take it off."

"I see… anything else that we need to know?"

"Just one thing. I'm officially enlisting in Border as a recruit, so I'm going to have to learn how to use a Border trigger."

"Oh, in that case, one of us can help you with that. Like… Kitora? Would you be willing?" Arashiyama said.

She looked slightly offended at this (what did I do?), but relented. "Sure, I can teach them. But we need to go visit the hospital later."

"Right. We need to check up on Osamu."

"Osamu?" I asked.

Arashiyama explained. "He's one of our friends. He got injured during the Neighbor invasion recently and hasn't woken up yet."

"Oh. I see."

"Jin said that he would be fine though. No worries. Either way, how about we show you how Border triggers work now?"

"Food first. I'm still hungry."

After I finished eating, Ai Kitora took me to a simulation room (Cool. Wish we had stuff like this in Liberi. Would have been great for trigger practice), where she showed me the different triggers.

"So first off, you have to understand that there are three main specializations. Attacker, Shooter/Gunner, and Sniper. Attackers focus mainly on close range fighting, usually with blades. Shooters and gunners focus on medium distance battles, while the main purpose of a sniper is to pick off targets from a long distance away."

"So what are the triggers that go with each one?"

"I'm getting to that. Attackers mainly use one of two types of triggers: Kogetsu and Scorpion. The kogetsu is a long blade that you have to draw out of a sheath, while the scorpion is a shorter blade that you can manipulate at will."

"Manipulate how?" I asked.

Kitora activated her trigger before explaining. "Normally, you could hold the scorpion trigger like another blade. However, there are other methods of using it as well."

She then willed the scorpion to disappear, before making a blade protrude from her arm. "Scorpions are useful in the fact that you can use them to have blades come from nearly any part of your body."

"I'm guessing that the tradeoff comes in the fact that it's not as durable?" I asked.

Kitora nodded. "You're right. Let's go on to shooters and gunners. Gunners use a weapon to shoot their trion at people, while shooters don't. Instead, shooters create their own bullets with trion to shoot at people. As a gunner, you use premade bullets that are more accurate, but as a shooter, you can control the quality of your shots."

"I'm guessing that doesn't actually cover the trigger aspect of them?" I asked.

Kitora shook her head. "There are four main types of triggers for shooters and gunners. First, there's the asteroid, which is a straight bullet. The next one is the hound, which pursues the targeted enemy. Then there's the viper trigger. The trajectory of the viper's bullets can be controlled. Finally, there's meteora, a trigger that causes explosions. You can also combine triggers to make other kinds of bullets, but that's a lesson for another time. I'm not a specialist in shooting."

"So who is?" I asked.

Kitora thought for a moment. "I would say Arashiyama-senpai and Izumi from Tachikawa Squad. Arashiyama-senpai is an all-rounder, but his main trigger of choice is a gunner trigger, while Izumi-sensei is the top shooter at Border."

"Senpai?"

"Oh, right. You're not used to Japanese customs. We attach a lot of different honorifics to different kinds of people depending on how they're related to us. Senpai is used for people who are either older than us or on a higher level in regards to a topic."

"So would it be accurate to call you Kitora-senpai?" I asked.

Kitora hesitated for a moment before replying. "I guess. But it's not completely accurate. We'll help you learn more about Japanese customs at some other time."

"Fair enough. By the way, can you do more than just one specialization?" I asked.

Kitora nodded. "We call those kinds of people all-rounders. Arashiyama, Tokieda, and I are all all-rounders."

"In that case, I think I'll work on being an attacker and a shooter."

"No interest in sniper?" Kitora asked.

"Not my kind of fighting style." I replied. "Besides, attacker and shooter sound the closest to what I'm familiar with. Especially with my black trigger."

"Speaking of your black trigger, what exactly can it do?" Kitora asked.

"Is the simulation room operating right now?" I asked.

A few seconds later, the room was activated and we were teleported— maybe that's the wrong word, to a city.

"Whoa. This is realistic." I said.

"It's a way for us to practice maneuvers. So are you going to show your trigger?"

I nodded. "Trigger on."

POV Change: 3rd Person

To say that everyone who was watching the live feed of the training simulation was amazed would be somewhat understating what was going on. As they watched, Lucca's clothes turned black, signaling the trigger change. While that wasn't unusual for triggers, what was unusual was what appeared. Twelve curved blades appeared on Lucca's back, simply floating there, almost like wings.

"Those blades… is it possible that his black trigger is essentially a shooter trigger that uses blades instead of the regular trion bullets?"

"Looks like it."

Meanwhile, in the simulation room, Ai just stared at Lucca.

"So, are you going to test it out?" Lucca asked.

Kitora shook her head. "I'm not going to fight a black trigger. But we can set up some dummies for you to demonstrate."

"Sounds fair."

As the dummies started appearing, Lucca showed them no mercy, with blades spinning around him and following his every single command. It was almost like he was dancing. When he made a slashing motion with his hand, blades followed in the direction he slashed, while pointing at a target sent the blades flying at it. The blades followed his every movement,

"Trigger off."

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca

As I deactivated Sword Saint, I turned to Kitora. "So are we continuing with the training? Because while I might be an expert at using my trigger, I'm still a novice when it comes to Border triggers."

That snapped her out of her stupor. I can't blame her though. Most people had that kind of expression when they saw Sword Saint in action for the first time. Aria did always want to learn how to dance. When that was taken away by her sick body, I offered to take lessons for her. Even though it wasn't the same as her taking lessons, I would explain to her everything I learned from the lessons so she could try them out when she recovered.

Kitora recovered faster than most though. "You're right. I can still train you in that. After all, there are still some other triggers that you need to learn about. They're not necessary, but they're important to know for when you go up against other Border members."

"Fighting against other Border members?"

"In an official training room or during ranked wars. That's how you rank up to higher level classes as a member of Border."

"Well, we have a couple of days to learn this stuff then."

"Right. I'll beat as much information as I can into you before the next training session at Border."

"Thanks… I guess."

These are going to be a long few days.

"So that's Osamu."

Currently we were at the hospital, watching one of the patients sleep. Alright that sounded somewhat creepy. In truth, we just spent a few minutes there to drop off some gifts for him. And… get well cards? Is that what they're called? Customs here are strange.

Anyway, I saw Osamu for the first time. According to the Arashiyama guys, he's part of the Tamakoma branch and trying to get ranked up high enough to go on expeditions to find one of his friends that was kidnapped by Neighbors.

Sounds familiar. Liberi had its own hostages from time to time. I don't recall any of them ever being from Meeden, but that may be because I was never part of any of the Meeden related projects.

But yeah, Osamu. He's an interesting guy. Apparently, he was really helpful in fighting against the invasion. Not fighting-wise, but he managed to keep a lot of the members that Aftokrator was targeting safe. Apparently he got severely injured while he was trying to save this one last person.

"Yeah, he's a nice guy. He saved my little brother and sister this one time when a Rad trion soldier snuck through to this side and opened a portal." Arashiyama said.

Wow. That's noble of him.

"How'd he get injured?" I asked.

"I'm not completely sure, but I think he deactivated his trigger just as the people who were chasing him were about to cubify him."

I frowned. "Aftokrator sent out Hairein, didn't they?"

"Hairein?"

"Black trigger user. His trigger turns people into cubes using animals that he makes from his triggers. He's often assisted by another black trigger user who uses portals to go from place to place."

Arashiyama frowned. "I don't know who it was exactly, but I think your description matches the reports that some of our members made."

I shrugged. "It's not important right now. Speaking of which, where am I staying?"

"Oh yeah, that's right! Normally I'd say you could stay at our meeting house, but there's no one who actually lives there. And I think HQ still wants to keep an eye on you before they let you go around by yourself."

"Hmm. I guess that's fair. I mean, I'm still kind of an unknown factor to them."

"Tell you what, you can stay at my place for now." Arashiyama said. "My house has a couple of guest rooms, so you can stay there while we finalize things."

"Sounds good, I guess."

"Great! It's settled then."

I'll be honest, I didn't expect the Arashiyama family to be so… lively. Personally, I think Jun is a little too attached to his siblings. But I'm not really one to talk, seeing how I almost always stuck with Aria.

That was beside the point though. Right now, I was lying on the bed, trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Aria was with me, at least in some aspect. I guess that I'm going to protect the people, but honestly, I don't know what I'm going to do besides that. I can't imagine being on the run for the rest of my life. What am I going to do with my life then?

Eh, thoughts for another time. I can always figure things out later.

All in all, not a bad start for my very first day on Meeden.

Whew. Chapter 3 finally complete. I'll be honest, I'm kind of disappointed in myself in how I demonstrated the abilities of Lucca's black trigger. It's rather vague, and doesn't really deliver in terms of interaction. My apologies for that.

And before anyone wonders if black triggers can/can't be used in a training room, look back at the large-scale invasion when Enedra got trapped in a training room.

Anyway, same drill, R&R please.

Thanks!

XWX