Chapter 10

"Five, six, seven, eight!"

Melyssa finished the routine, getting better with each practice she had with the club and currently dabbed sweat off her chest. She had on a black sports bra and cotton shorts, the normal wear for dance. It was a lot easier to move around in than the uniforms or regular clothes, according to her teacher. A throat clearing from the doorway made her turn her head, a slow brow raising at the sight of Ash, of all people.

"What are you doing here, Ash?" She asked, draping the towel around her neck and walked up to him, folding her arms in front of her chest. "Wait, let me guess, you came to give me the time and place for our one on one bout, right?"

"Well, right now would be a great time, you look all warmed up and ready for me, beautiful." Ash teased in a lusty drawl, though he also winked down at her in a purely friendly manner. With as much as he flirted with her and came onto her, he knew it was never going anywhere and that was just fine with him. There were plenty of other fish in the sea who wanted a piece or two of his luscious backside. "Actually, I came to give you this." He held out a piece of paper. "Altina and Juna have been handing them out to Class VII, it's for the field study we're taking." To work on trust and bonding and Combat Linking. "What you need to bring, blah-blah-blah." He used his free hand to wipe away a bit of sweat rolling down her neck, catching it on a finger. "Mmmm."

Melyssa made a face, wondering what was wrong with a guy who actually liked tasting sweat off someone else. "Gross, Ash…" She groaned, smacking his hand away when he tried doing it a second time and read over the paper. They were leaving next Friday and would be gone the entire weekend. And they were going to… "No…" Rean Schwarzer had LOST HIS MIND! Jurai…they were going to Jurai for their field study! I'm in trouble. I am in serious trouble right now, she thought, needing to learn how to breathe and could see the questions swirling through Ash's pink eyes. "Thank you for bringing this to me. I need to shower and get dressed now." Everybody else had already left and she had stayed behind to do a cooldown session of stretches. If she didn't come clean to Crow before the field study…Melyssa really hated the Ashen Chevalier at that particular moment.

She had said no and he had seen the panic flashing across Melyssa's beautiful yet now pale face, so naturally, Ash was beyond curious. "No, what, beautiful?" He asked curiously, not sidestepping out of her way when she moved to pass him by, instead stepping into her, which forced her to step back into the room. "You got this look on your face, don't you want to go home to Jurai? You're not homesick yet?" Crow was from Jurai as well.

There was a mystery here, he could practically feel it in his bones.

"No, not really. I've only been here a month and a half." Melyssa was shocked at how calm she sounded, even though her face was FULL of panic and uncertainty. Ash was a lot bigger than she realized too, he towered over her and it didn't take much to keep her in the dance room. "I haven't been away long enough to get homesick." Tossing her bag aside, Melyssa scrubbed her hands down her face and whipped the towel from her neck, dropping it on top of her bag. "It's fine, just…a little unexpected, that's all." This was NOT a coincidence. Rean had either already put the puzzle pieces together or this was his way of getting answers, by sending them on a field study to the place where it all began for her and Crow. What am I going to do, she thought, trying to find some way out of this, out of going to Jurai.

"You said no, that's beyond unexpected." Ash pointed out, wondering who she thought she was fooling. Her tone was calm and collected, but she couldn't as easily disguise the panic written all over her face. "Rean thought since that's where you both are from, if you two are in familiar territory, you may be able to bond easier there." With all of the rest of them present, so no pressure.

Ash was kind of looking forward to seeing how this played out; things had been quiet since the war ended. He was highly intelligent for a man who acted the way he did. She had caught him a few times reading a book on their free days and they all had to do with something related to the academy.

"Of course, he did." Why would Rean tell Ash something like that in the first place? "I take it there was a meeting without me and Crow invited?"

Now Ash was the one who looked sheepish and she shut her eyes, clenching her fists. Their Instructor was very sneaky to do something like this, considering it had only happened yesterday. Rean worked fast and now Melyssa had to find a way to break everything to Crow, to forcefully jog his memory.

"Wonder how Crow is going to react to this."

"No clue, probably with a lot less fuss than you, or maybe he already knows, he and Rean are best friends. I'm only giving you a head's up because Rean is under the impression that everyone is going to pester you and Crow since you two together are the only ones who had issues." Rean wasn't wrong. Ash was about the only one who wasn't going to bother them simply because he knew he would get to see it played out. "If people haven't started bugging you already."

Which, they had. Melyssa had been asked questions by nosy girls yesterday while Rean had gone straight to Crow to ask what was up.

"You're wrong, Ash. WE haven't linked up together yet. We didn't get a chance to because of what happened between me and Crow." Melyssa pointed out, unable to deny she hadn't been questioned about what happened by others. Juna and Altina were just worried about her and she understood that. She had no idea what kind of agenda Ash had, however. "I think we should find that out right now. Do you have time to come to the outskirts of town with me?" It wasn't that dangerous and they could handle a couple monsters by themselves. "It's your free day, so you can turn me down if you want. I just have to shower first."

"Rean will have our asses." Ash warned, not that he overly cared.

He wasn't a pushover and he didn't see an issue between them linking up. He doubted there would be one, she seemed to trust him well enough and he didn't have any trust issues when it came to her. She was a spitfire sure, but what was a little girl like her going to do to him? He had seen her ability without a Combat Link, so there was no lack of trust there on the battlefield either.

"I'm game, meet you out by the gate in 30?"

"Rean will get over it. And from what I've heard from Juna and Altina, this won't be the first time you've gone against the Instructor's wishes. AND it is a free day, so if we're allowed to go to Heimdallr by train for it, we shouldn't have a problem being able to go just outside of Leeves for a little extra training." Melyssa picked her bag up and shouldered it, hell-bent on doing this exercise with him to see if they had trust issues as well. "See you out there."

Then, she hauled her cookies to the shower room to wash up from her dance practice, not believing the sudden turn of events. Jurai. They were going to Jurai and she had to find a way to either avoid seeing her family altogether, because they would recognize Crow right away, or tell Crow about their past he'd forgotten.

On her way out of the building, 25 minutes later, Melyssa was stopped by none other than the Instructor himself, with Ash nowhere to be found. "Instructor." What was he doing here? Had Ash purposely set this up? She was going to maim the bad boy if that was the case. "Is everything all right?" Thankfully, her anger had diminished for the time being after a relatively cold shower.

"I wasn't sure if you had gotten one of these yet," Rean flashed her a piece of paper, watching her teal eyes flicker to it and seen both recognition and resignation on her face. "You have." Frowning, he let go of her arm and stepped back, surveying her. She looked like she was going off-campus. "I thought it would be easier for you and Crow, being in familiar territory. Maybe you two can find things to connect with there, you know, familiar locations, history, things like that." Yet… he now felt like maybe he was making a mistake.

"Ash told me already. I figured you were the one who sent him here, but then again, it could've been Juna." Sometimes that girl took her responsibility as class president of Class VII a little TOO seriously. "May I ask you a question, Instructor?" Rean nodded, gesturing for her to continue. "Are we going to Jurai because of this issue between me and Crow? Is that the only reason?"

Rean cleared his throat, not sure how to answer. "Well, it's a field study and…"

"That's not what I asked you." Her voice had turned somewhat cold. "I'm asking you if you chose this location because of Crow and I."

There was no denying it. "Yes, but as I told you…"

"Then I hope you're prepared for the outcome of this excursion, Rean." Now her eyes were narrowed, the anger slowly filling them. "You know something, don't you? You either figured it out or you're doing this to find the truth as to why there's trust issues between us. I get Crow is your best friend and you want to help him, but meddling ISN'T always the best solution." That felt great to say to him, actually. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going out on the outskirts with Ash for some training practice. Do you have a problem with that, sir?"

"Well, I…no…" Rean was dumbfounded, taken aback by the amount of anger and animosity directed at him.

"Good." Melyssa started walking away and then stopped, turning back to face her Instructor. "I haven't been forthcoming with you or anyone in Class VII when it comes to Crow. And there's a VERY good reason for that." Now tears filled her eyes as her teeth gnashed together. "He doesn't remember and I wanted him to remember on his own and now, thanks to you, I'm going to have to force him to remember everything. So thanks for that, Ashen Chevalier." She stormed away before he could get another word out, shredding the paper he gave her because she already had one stuffed in her bag.

What the hell was THAT about? Goddess… Rean could only watch as she huffed away, wondering just what on earth she was talking about. He was assuming they were just having standard trust issues, but now…now Melyssa had opened her own can of worms and spilled some beans she apparently hadn't wanted spilled. Now he had an issue, did he go talk to Crow about something he didn't obviously 'remember' or did he go explain the situation to Melyssa who… no, scratch that last one. Ashen Chevalier, and he had noticed how awe and reverence had become scathing and sarcastic, or not, he wasn't dealing with a pissed woman tonight.

Eventually, the truth would come out and Melyssa's temper had flared at the wrong time. She jogged all the way from campus to Leeves, holding her hand up in a one minute gesture to Ash, who was waiting for her by the fountain. Dropping her bag off in the dorm room, she grabbed her Cutlass and jogged back downstairs to finally join Ash, breathing a little heavy.

"Sorry I'm late. The Instructor showed up to give me that paper you already did. You ready to do this?"

"Born ready, beautiful." Together, they headed out for their training session. Trust and having a bond was what made a Combat Link powerful and work, so this was the perfect opportunity for both of them to kill two birds with one stone.

Neither saw crimson eyes watching them walk away to the outskirts of Leeves or the way they narrowed to slits.

"So, is that all Rean wanted?" Ash asked once they were on their merry monster hunting way, finally out of sight of the campus and town.

He was totally oblivious to the fact that them taking off together had garnered Crow's attention, or that Melyssa had in fact been on Crow's mind a lot lately, more so than any other woman had before. Since she already knew there had been a meeting that she and Crow hadn't been invited too, Ash saw no reason to try being secretive or any such nonsense. It was just insulting to Melyssa's intelligence, especially since she was the one who had discovered the bit about the meeting.

"Yeah, and to tell me the reason why we're going to Jurai. Basically, the same words you told me came out of his mouth."

If the Ashen Chevalier wanted to tell her anything else, she didn't give him the chance since she told him exactly how she felt about this whole upcoming field study. They walked for a bit and finally found a group of monsters that didn't look too tough, but they still had to be on guard. Unsheathing her weapon, Ash did the same thing as they approached the group to gain their attention, which didn't take much. Their ARCUS II glowed simultaneously as Ash and Melyssa began forming the Combat Link with each other, the blue circles forming beneath their feet. The link was strong and powerful, not at all weak like it'd been with Crow and Ash merely smirked at her before going in for the first shot. She followed suit, doing double attacks to quickly vanquish the monsters they had found. It felt good to let some of her aggression out, which was another reason she wanted to do this with Ash too.

Of course they had no problems linking! For all his playboy ways and smart assed, vulgar remarks, Ash was a reliable partner to have on the battlefield and most people knew it. They also knew where they stood with him. If one was a hot female, they were getting hit on, though he understood no meant no. If one was a guy, they got heckled until you either beat his ass or became his buddy. It was a great fight, there was nothing like the surge of adrenaline from taking down monsters, never mind the fact that they were also doing the wary travelers who came this way a favor by lessening their chances of getting eaten. Melyssa was showing a lot of aptitude with that Cutlass, she would have been a good warrior to have during the Civil War and all that entailed for that.