I hit a small block for Reaching Out, so I decided to get started on the next chapter

POV: 1st Person, Lucca

Dinner was eaten in silence for the most part. I did a good job with the curry, so that wasn't a worry. Still though, the silence is somewhat disconcerting. I know I had a moment of mental relapse when Rei asked about my parents, but that doesn't mean it's her fault that it happened.

Rei seemed to have a different opinion regarding that. After Kumagai excused herself, she spoke up. "I'm sorry."

"What?" I was confused.

"I shouldn't have asked about your parents. It was wrong of me to pry." She said.

I shook my head. "It's my past, not yours. It's not like you're to blame for what happened in my past. You were just asking an honest question when I had a bad flashback."

"But I was the one who caused it, so it's my fault." Rei argued.

"Hey, it's not the end of the world if you ask a couple of questions."

"Still, I'm sorry."

I sighed. "Apology accepted."

Hopefully that gets her off of trying to apologize to me again. It really isn't her fault, after all.

"It started out as a project."

I started. "Sorry, what?"

Rei explained. "The reason I'm in Border despite my condition. It was an experiment to see whether or not people with weak bodies would be in healthy condition in their trion bodies."

"Ohh. That would explain why you're so comfortable in you trion body. So anything else you like doing?" I asked.

"Wait, that's it? You spend what feels like forever on figuring out why I'm so comfortable in my trion body and once you figure it out that's it?" Rei was incredulous.

I had a hard time holding back my laughter. Somehow, I did it. "It was the only thing that was really bothering me about you. And it answers a lot of questions."

"Oh, alright…" She still looked miffed. "I do like watching movies also."

Huh? "Movies? What are those?"

She stared at me. "You're kidding. You've been here for weeks now and you still don't know what a movie is?"

I shook my head. "Give me a break. It's only been a couple weeks or so. It's not like that's enough time to learn everything."

"Next time you visit, I'm going to have to set up a movie just so you can learn what it is."

Well, guess that's another thing that's going to be included in my cultural enlightenment.

I could tell that Rei was still feeling a bit uncomfortable, though. And honestly, I couldn't blame her. Even I could feel the tension when I was cooking, even if I was the source of it. Aside from feeling uncomfortable though, curiosity was still emanating from her.

I sighed. I should probably explain things to her. But I think I'll save that for another time. It's too soon to be talking about everything that was ever related to me. It's weird though. I barely know her yet I'm willing to explain so much to her. It is a bit concerning, but I should be alright.

POV Change: 1st Person, Rei Nasu

"You still want to know why I reacted the way I did, don't you?" Lucca asked.

I nodded slowly. "It's just… for someone to react like that when their parents are mentioned is strange."

"Let's just say we didn't get along… at all."

"At all?" I was incredulous.

"Nope. I hated them, and still do to this day."

"Why? What did they do to deserve so much of your hate?"

I've never seen anyone declare such undying hatred for their parents before. It doesn't make sense.

Lucca sighed. "That's… a story for another time. It's getting late. I'll tell you about it later if it still bothers you, but for now, I need to get going."

Oh. "Promise you'll tell me about it?" I asked.

Lucca nodded. "Promise."

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca

As I walked back to the Arashiyama home, I suddenly heard a very familiar voice.

I can't believe you're still holding that much hate for mother and father, Lucca.

That voice… "Aria?"

Who else, dear brother?

I turned around frantically. There was no way she could be here. "Where are you?"

Aria seemed to laugh. On your hand, silly.

"On my… what?" I looked down at Sword Saint. "So you're telling me that you're a trigger and you're talking to me?"

Yep!

"How did this happen?" I asked.

Aria seemed to shake her head as she spoke (granted, I could only hear her voice, but it felt like she was shaking her head). No idea. All I know is that my consciousness is somehow stuck in the trigger. I've been trying to talk to you for a while, you know.

I frowned. "That's strange. So you're dead, but in a sense, you're alive also as a mental embodiment of Sword Saint?"

Something like that. By the way, the name of the trigger isn't Sword Saint.

I blinked. "What? That's what everyone knows it as, isn't it?"

Yeah, but that technically isn't the true name of the trigger. And you haven't been using it to its full potential.

"Its full potential? You mean there's more to- wait, why aren't you telling me the true name? It feels weird calling it 'Sword Saint' now."

It's actually called 'Armatus.' Let me explain the whole 'full potential' thing to you.

POV Change: 3rd Person, Arashiyama Squad

Lucca seemed to be deep in thought the next day when Arashiyama squad was on patrol. So deep in thought that he didn't notice a trion soldier until it was almost upon him.

"These guys are pretty easy for you. What's going with you today, Lucca?" Arashiyama asked as he finished off a bamster.

"Sorry, I just have a lot on my mind." Lucca replied.

"Oh? Care to share it with us?" Tokieda asked.

Lucca seemed thoughtful for a moment. "Sure, I can tell you about it after patrol."

Patrol went by pretty quickly afterward. Once the squad got back to the meeting room, they all sat down as Lucca explained what happened the day before.

"I discovered something about my black trigger yesterday. I haven't been using it to its full potential." Lucca said.

Everyone was confused. "Full potential?"

"Ayatsuji, do you think you could link communication to my black trigger?"

She nodded. "I can. Just hold on for a moment."

After Lucca activated Armatus, Ayatsuji went to work linking the black trigger to the rest of the squad's comlinks. A moment later, everyone started when they heard a voice on their communication link.

Testing, testing, can everyone hear me?

"What the hell? Who was that?" Everyone was shocked to hear the voice.

Lucca sighed. "That would be my sister Aria."

Everything went silent for a moment as the squad registered what he said.

"You said Aria died… right? And this is her voice that we're hearing?" Kitora asked.

Aria took the initiative to explain. Well, in a sense I'm an AI that's created from Aria's consciousness. But I also have all of Aria's memories, so I'm essentially Aria. It's nice to finally be able to talk to you guys. Thanks for taking care of my brother.

"I feel like it's more of him taking care of us, seeing as he does most of the cooking and cleaning when we meet up at the house." Satori admitted.

"To be fair, the dishes I cook are a lot better than a lot of the dishes that you guys cook." Lucca commented.

Everyone could hear Aria sigh through the communication channel. And for some reason, you still have that arrogant streak going on with you. I thought we were finished with the whole arrogance thing a while back. Guess I was wrong.

"Ow. Scolded by your younger sister. Harsh." Satori laughed.

"Twin."

"Huh?"

"We're twins." Lucca said.

"All that aside, what is this about the full potential of Sword Saint?" Kitora asked.

Well, for starters, the trigger's name is actually 'Armatus'. And there's three modes of Armatus. You're all familiar with the one where Lucca has the blades that he can control at will. There's a second form where he uses one single blade that can cut through anything. The last one is pretty much just using both at the same time, except more advanced. It uses a lot more trion though, so it's a pretty big risk to take.

That piqued everyone's interest. "Sounds like fun. Want to run it by the training room to see how it works?" Arashiyama asked.

Lucca shook his head. "I was actually going to visit Tamakoma today. I haven't seen Yuma in a while. Probably tomorrow though."

"Oh, alright."

Lucca stopped for a second. "Wait, where's Tamakoma at?"

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca

After getting pointed out where Tamakoma was located on the map, I started walking there. While on the way there, Aria and I had a small chat.

I have to say, it's weird how I can hear and see things despite being stuck in the trigger.

"Speaking of seeing things, how exactly are you seeing things? Through the trigger?"

Through your eyes, actually. I have to say, that was really nice of you, taking care of that Nasu girl. I've never actually looked at things from your perspective, you know.

I ignored her comment about Rei and focused on what she said about sensory input. "Wait, from my eyes?"

And I hear things using your ears. It's actually really weird, given that I'm seeing everything from your perspective, including when you use your side effect. I can't hear your thoughts though, so we're stuck to talking like this for now.

I sighed. "So pretty much when we're talking, I'm going to sound like some nut job because you're stuck in Armatus. Speaking of which, do you even sleep?"

Well, I can 'deactivate' for a while. Which is kind of like sleep. Except I have to input a duration for which I deactivate before I automatically activate again. Speaking of which, do you have any idea how weird it is for me to activate and find that you're in the middle of a fight? Or that you're still asleep? Or better yet, waking up as you collide into someone. How in the world do you keep on running into people?

Leave it to Aria to do things in the most random manner. Oh, is that Tamakoma?

I'll leave you to your own thing right now. Talk to you in a bit.

With that, Aria went silent. I assume she either deactivated or isn't going to talk.

I knocked on the door of the run-down building that was perched over the water. A moment later, a huge guy with reddish-brown hair opened the door.

"Can I help you?" He asked.

"Yeah. I came here to visit my friend who's here."

The guy didn't budge. "Who's your friend? I can go grab him right now if you want. It shouldn't take too long."

"There's no need for that, Kizaki-senpai. Lucca's looking for me." A familiar voice popped up from behind the guy.

Yuma appeared behind Kizaki, who decided everything was alright and went back into the house.

"Quite the building you guys here have." I commented.

"It serves its purpose as a base. Come on in, I'll show you around." He said, before motioning for me to go in.

As I walked in, I noted that the inside was well-maintained compared to the outside.

"Any reason for you visiting?" Yuma asked.

"Not really." I said. "Just felt like visiting. Haven't talked to you in a while."

"Ah, I see. So, I hear you made record time for hitting A-rank." Yuma said.

"Give me a break. Getting into A-rank may have been doable, but those guys are monsters."

"Huh. Who did you go up against?" He asked.

"Kitora and this other guy named Midorikawa. Knocked me down a couple of notches without breaking a sweat."

"Ah, Midorikawa. He's good."

"Agreed. I need to get better with using Border's triggers if I want to be able to hold my ground in A-rank."

"Worry about that later. Let me introduce you to everyone here."

We arrived at what I assume is a lounge or living room, seeing as there were a bunch of couches.

"Hey, this is my friend Lucca from the country Liberi. He's an A-rank agent."

I raised my hand in greeting. "Hi. I'm a Neighbor. And part of Arashiyama Squad."

It was rather silent for a moment before a girl with long hair spoke. "Oh. So you're that Neighbor that Jun was telling me about."

I blinked, surprised that she mentioned my squad leader. "Are you two friends?"

"Cousins. I'm Kirie Konami. Nice to meet you."

"Reiji Kizaki." The big burly guy I ran into earlier.

"Kyosuke Karasuma." A guy with thick, curly hair.

"And that's Osamu and Chika." Yuma said, pointing out the other two people there who hadn't said anything yet.

I recognized Osamu from the television, but Chika was a new one. Is she an operator? She seems kind of small for a fighter. Although I guess Yuma is pretty small in that regard also.

"Liberi is the marine nation, right?" Osamu asked.

I blinked in surprise. "You know about that?"

Osamu nodded. "It was on the star map that Replica gave us regarding the nations that were getting close to our world."

"Speaking of Replica, I haven't seen him since I got here. Where did he go?" I asked, remembering the autonomous trion soldier that the Kuga family always had with them.

The silence that followed right after the question was almost palpable, which pretty much confirmed my suspicions.

"Either he got destroyed or was captured during the invasion. Am I right?"

"The latter." I was a bit surprised to see Osamu speak up. "He stopped Aftokrator's invasion by hacking into their terminal and forcing them to warp away. I was there when it happened."

I nodded. "I see. I'm guessing that's how you ended up in the hospital also?"

Before he could continue, another voice appeared.

"Hi guys, I'm back. Oh, Lucca. There you are." Jin said.

"Hi Jin. Were you looking for me?" I asked.

"Yeah, I was. Could Chief Rindo borrow you for a moment?" He asked.

I blinked. "Rindo?"

"The guy with the glasses at that meeting you were at. We're holding a prisoner here and we figured you could be of some help figuring him out." Jin explained.

"Oh, that guy. Yeah, sure. He can do that."

I remembered pegging the guy with the glasses as one of the nicest guys at that board meeting for Border. I figured that it couldn't be that bad if he was asking me for some help. With that in mind, I followed Jin down a couple floors to a different room where two other guys were. One of the guys was Rindo, which was fine. The other guy though, made me really wish that I had declined the request. Especially because I recognized him as someone who I fought against before. Back when I was in Liberi. It's hard to forget about an Aftokrator trigger user when he gave me every single reason to hate him.

Clearly, he remembered me as well. "YOU!" He seemed to back up into the wall.

I grit my teeth. It was everything I could do to not kill him. "Pleasure to see you too… Hyuse."

Both Jin and Rindo picked up on the animosity between us right away. "Umm, maybe this isn't such a good idea. Jin, could you escort Lucca out of here?"

POV Change: 3rd Person, Jin Yuichi

The moment Jin pulled Lucca out, he burst out in anger. "What is HE doing here?"

Jin was somewhat confused. "Do you know him?"

Lucca took a deep breath before continuing. "Yes, I do know him. Aftokrator has tried to invade Liberi three times since I became its tactical defense coordinator. The second time was just before I ran away from there, while the third time was after I left. The first time though, HE hurt my sister while trying to kidnap her. No one hurts my sister and gets away with it."

POV Change: 3rd Person, Takumi Rindo

"What is HE doing here?" Hyuse seemed scared for his life.

"Oh? Do you know him?" Rindo asked.

Hyuse gulped. Rindo had never seen him so scared before. Hyuse always seemed to be calm and in control of his emotions, so seeing him like this was a new experience.

"Know him? DO I know him? He almost killed me the first time we invaded Liberi!"

"Oh? What happened?"

He looked away. "Three years ago, we heard about the rise of a tactical genius in Liberi that was responsible for repelling every single invasion that was ever sent there. One of our spies told us about how he had a sister that he really cared for. The general consensus was that if we capture the sister, we would be bound to find cracks in his defense as his sister's welfare would compromise him. I was the one assigned to kidnapping his sister. I managed to sneak in and find the sister, but the moment I tried to take her away, he appeared and nearly killed me. And I don't mean my trigger body. He destroyed that and started breaking my bones out of spite. He was about to start chopping off limbs when a rescue squad arrived to get me away. I was lucky to even survive that."

Rindo blinked in surprise. Lucca had seemed so polite to everyone when he first introduced himself. To see this side to him only made Rindo realize that they really didn't know much about him. And it also made him wary. He needed to inform Kido about this in case Lucca blew off his cap.

POV Change: 1st Person, Lucca

"General Manager, can I ask you for a favor?" I asked.

About half a week after I visited Tamakoma, I figured out a way to improve my abilities. My capabilities as a shooter were pretty much top notch, but I needed to work on my close combat capabilities, which is somewhat strange to me still, due to the fact that I never used a medium/long range trigger before I got Armatus. And Armatus barely counts as the kind of trigger now, seeing as I just discovered

Shinoda answered me carefully. "Certainly. Though what I can do for you is probably limited."

"I need someone to mentor me on using Kogetsu." I said.

It took a couple days of deliberation, but I decided that using Scorpion simply wasn't going to work for me. I needed to stick to one close combat trigger. While the options for attacking with scorpion were much more varied, I figured something like Kogetsu would work better for me, seeing as it was closer to what I was comfortable with. I checked with Arashiyama regarding people who knew how to use Kogetsu, and he referred me to Shinoda. Apparently, he's also the strongest person who uses a normal trigger in Border, which is impressive when you think about how many skilled people there are.

I received a frown upon uttering my request. "While I wouldn't have a problem with teaching you how to use Kogetsu, I currently have too many duties as General Manager to do so. I can refer you to one of my former students, though. I'll contact him to make sure he's alright with this, though he shouldn't have a problem teaching you."

I saluted in respect. "Thank you very much, sir."

"Lucca, you don't need to salute to me, or anyone else in Border. We're not that much of a military organization." Shinoda said with a chuckle.

I blinked, realizing what I had done. Damn my old habits from working in the Liberi military. "Sorry sir, old habits creeping up on me. So which agent should I go to?"

"Kei Tachikawa. Leader of top ranked Tachikawa squad and current number 1 attacker in Border."

Couldn't decide whether or not I wanted to end the chapter here, but in the end I decided to. In terms of plot, I think the things I want to work on in particular are as follows:

1) Lucca's Past

2) Friendship with Nasu

3) Training

Hyuse is going to be another thing I'll put more work into later on in the story, as there's plenty of potential there.

I also used this chapter to pretty much retcon Lucca's trigger. I didn't like the previous one. Also, points to anyone who can guess the inspiration for this trigger.

First thing we'll cover next chapter is meeting Tachikawa and learning from him.

Also, in terms of what this story will be following (anime/manga), it's going to be a mix of both. I have a few ideas regarding the later episodes of the anime.