Caspian's hands explored the depths of his pockets, head bowed low against cold wind. He sat just outside the SFC, guarding bags and bottles splayed out next to the concrete slab of a bench. Almost a week after the attack on FPMC, he could finally walk without crutches. That was about as much of a victory as he could claim. He couldn't join the Sparring Team's warmup jog, and if it was a drill day, he'd likely have to sit that out too. He would have skipped practice entirely if Moka hadn't reminded him 'an object in motion tends to stay in motion.' It had stuck with her from their tutoring sessions, apparently. But she was right. If he missed one, he might make excuses for the next week, and at that point, why bother coming the week after that?

That, and forcing himself out of his room would do him good. He'd keep his mind occupied. Too busy to think about his father sending him into Condor's blade.

The Sparring Team rounded the corner of the SFC, onto the swath of pavement that funneled into glass doors. Midas and Lazula first, matched even in stride. Moka, a few steps behind. Then everyone else formed a tail he'd usually be toward the back of.

Moka greeted him with a smile across flushed cheeks. He handed over her water bottle, and she drank deeply for a few seconds before bounding back out to the finish line. Seeing the energy in each step, and seeing her greet each member of the Sparring Team with a grin and high five as they finished their warmup made Caspian smile a bit too. It remained through their conversation up to the sparring court, even when the stairs tested his bad leg and Moka had to slow down a bit to make sure he survived the climb. It washed away at their destination.

Cattleya stood just outside.

Her eyes impaled him and ice spread from the wound, into his veins. "There you are!" she exclaimed through a painted grin. When Caspian realized she looked not at him– but through him, to the golden-haired one a couple steps behind, he could breathe again.

"Well hello," Midas returned. He took her in his arms, but as Caspian continued toward the door, he thought he heard apprehension. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to watch you, of course!" she traced his bicep with a finger. "Plus. You look really hot in this outfit." She made sure to make direct eye contact with Caspian before hopping to the balls of her feet and locking lips with Midas just long enough to make everyone around them uncomfortable.

Nothing stirred within him when he saw her. No feelings stirred up from somewhere deep down, no vestigial longing returned from dormancy. He felt nothing– nothing aside from a twinge of bitterness, maybe. He would have even chuckled at her lack of subtlety if the sight of her didn't dredge up the thought of her in Blaise's arms.

But no. There were bigger things to worry about now. He was so far removed from it all he didn't particularly care if Midas was her next victim. From what he'd heard, "Sentinel's Heartthrob" was well equipped to handle himself for the next couple of weeks he was planning to spend with her.

His thoughts whisked him out the door, down the stairs, into the cold and into a worse time. For a second he thought they had been given form, become audible. He hadn't noticed Cole's approach. "Gods, there she is. Striding on in like we actually want her here."

But Cole's glare bore into Lazula instead. Caspian was pulled back to the present and back through the doors of the SFC. He remembered he was at Sparring Team practice. Moka looked between Cole and Lazula for a few seconds, tail swishing back and forth opposite her eyes. She bit her lip, and beckoned for Cole to come closer. He bent over so she could whisper something in his ear.

His scowl softened, but his eyebrows stitched closer. "She did?"

Moka nodded. "Yeah. So, she's okay. We're okay."

"Huh."

The faunus was at Caspian's ear next. "Are you okay? You know, with…" she blinked and looked aside, where Cattleya hung on Midas's arm.

"Oh– yeah, I'm fine," Caspian replied. "Just… thinking about the other day, too. But I'm good."

The glance he risked backfired. Cattleya locked eyes with him one more time before another kiss, and she backed off to let Midas call the team together with a satisfied smirk.

"Alrighty. I know you're all probably tired of running all the same drills, so it's time we do something a little different," Midas announced. "Today is dedicated to training your semblances. Finding new ways to use them, strengthening them, that kind of thing. Since your semblances are all so different it would be kind of a pain in the ass to structure this, so I thought I'd just let you all break off into smaller groups and do your own thing. I'll make the rounds to keep an eye on everyone, and make sure nobody gets hurt too badly!"

"Ooh, semblance training?" Moka repeated, her words joining the growing rumble of team members breaking off into groups. She nodded once at Caspian. "Perfect timing!"

"Yeah. Guess so."

He noticed the Sparring Team fracturing away from Lazula– those who stood to each side quickly, decisively, turning away to pair with anyone but her.

She didn't expect anything else. After all, Moka, Caspian, and Lilly were the only three she'd told about the money, and the only three she planned to tell. She already had the strongest semblance in the league by a mile and a half, so missing out on one training day wasn't a big loss. She eyed the door, considered slipping out and getting in an independent workout, when Caspian walked up.

"Hey, uh… wanna join our group?" he asked. Behind him, Moka turned a friendly smile her way. Cole, surprisingly enough, followed her lead. Aspen's attention was on her Holoband. The first-year, Ashe, looked at the three of them before deciding it must have been okay.

"Sure. Thanks."

"Wait, so Cas?" Moka asked. "How exactly does your semblance work?"

"All I've figured out so far is that it's activated by touch," he explained. "My aura has to make contact with the person I'm mirroring. I just kind of focus in on them when we do make contact, and it works."

The sound of Impetus leaving its sheath drew a few sets of eyes. Cole and Ashe backed off a step, and Aspen looked up from her Holoband. "Come on," Lazula imposed. "Let's see it again."

"Okay," Caspian managed. He unsheathed Undertow, and hard-light bloomed from his armguard. "But go easy, alright? Leg's still not 100%."

"Sure."

Lazula "going easy" still felt like the palm of an Ursa slamming into his shield. But he held it, felt the energy flow into his arm like a torrent of cold water. It coursed past his shoulder, twisted and welled inside his chest and core, and he let the river burst forth through Undertow. Aegis rang, and Lazula had to take a step back to right herself against the blow.

"Damn, nice."

Aspen was next up, offering her forearm. "Hey. Try my semblance, it's a lot of fun."

"It does look fun. How do I activate it?" Caspian asked.

"I just think 'I want gravity to be 20% effective,' or 'I want to triple the gravity's effect on myself,'" Aspen answered. "And then I just kind of do."

"Easy enough."

Caspian tapped her forearm, and for a second saw blue spread across honey, honey spread across blue, the two mixing and melding before fading away. 'Zero gravity,' he thought. And sure enough, his next step sent him to the ceiling– foot over head, head over foot, foot over any semblance of control. 'Twenty percent! Thirty!' and slowly he came to rest back on the ground with all the eyes of the Sparring Team turned his way. He bounded back to his group like a shameful astronaut.

"Dude. I have an idea," Moka proposed. "If you float with Aspen's semblance, and use my semblance to boost yourself, you can fly!"

"Oh, gods," Lazula muttered.

Cole smirked. "I can only imagine this going well."

"Let's do it," Caspian decided. But as he tapped her shoulder and their auras melded, gravity decided to claim him again. He dropped, crashed into her shoulder as she turned to brace him and keep him from landing on his injured leg. He started to apologize, but her laughter drowned it out.

Her giggle rocked both of them as she let him go. "What happened?"

"One at a time, I guess," Caspian noted. "Good to know."

It was at that moment he noticed Cattleya sneaking out the door.

But he was more interested in his semblance. If he could only hold one semblance at a time, he wondered what other limitations it had. Was there a cooldown between uses? Or a limit to consecutive uses? He made his way through the Sparring Team, tapping shoulders and arms. He superheated his palms, turned his skin to a lantern, manifested a spectral copy of himself, and shrunk down to half his size and back. He made it all the way to Midas, Ashe and Moka a step behind. Besides a touch of nausea creeping in, he didn't find any limit to his ability.

"Take his next!" Ashe suggested. "Zap me!"

Midas chuckled in surprise, and looked to his Holoband. "Actually, looks like that'll have to wait. Gotta head out early today." He cocked his head somewhere past them, and raised his voice. "Lazula, could you take over?"

"Me? Sure."

Ashe leaned into him. "Is it your giiirlfriend?"

Caspian and Moka shared a grimace.

As the Sparring Team began to gather in front of Lazula, she could only be grateful Midas handed off the reins with no more than ten minutes to spare. The uncomfortable glances passed back and forth, and glares pointed her way, told her all she needed to know about where she stood with the team. By the time she was through deciphering Midas's haphazard meeting notes, half of her audience already cleared out.

Caspian and Moka hadn't left yet. Luckily, as her brother was the only one she actually needed to speak with. She arrived halfway through their discussion on his new semblance, nodded at Moka first, and looked to him. "Sorry, could I steal Caspian for a second?"

Her tone– casual, but staying hushed so as to not call attention to them– made Caspian uneasy. Even more so when they left the SFC and proceeded in silence to the usual spot on the beach.

Just before the water came into view, Lazula broke the silence. "Congrats on the semblance," she said. "Seems like a good one. You could get a lot of use out of it."

"Oh– uh, thank you," Caspian returned. He picked at his sleeve. "Not sure what I think about it, to be honest. I know it's strong, but… well, you know how a semblance is supposed to be a reflection of its user?"

"Yep. That's the theory, at least."

"Well, what does mine say about me? That I don't have my own personality, and I just sponge it off whoever I'm talking to?" a nervous laugh escaped. "I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too far into it."

"I don't think that's why. Even if you do change a little based on who you're talking to, that's not necessarily a bad thing," Lazula replied. "I'm only ever myself, and look how much good that's done me."

Caspian chuckled again, though he thought it might have been out of place. Lazula didn't seem to mind. She continued.

"For what it's worth, you're more empathetic than I am. Better at reading people. That might have something to do with it." She paused. "I don't know. You're also better at thinking these things over than I am."

A smile worked its way across Caspian's face, even against the biting wind that forced his cheeks stiff. "Thank you," he returned, though since her kind words were so hard to come by, he thought he'd offer some in return. "But by the way, all those people upset with you right now don't know the full story. They only know what they've been told. I think if they knew everything, they'd be a lot kinder to you."

Lazula hardly committed to her shrug. As concrete turned to pebbles, and pebbles turned to sand, she looked to the stormfront creeping over the bay. "It's fine. What they think is up to them. I have bigger things to worry about." She walked almost to the waters' edge, stopped, and briefly scanned the area. "Right now, I have a question. And I want you to answer honestly."

Caspian nodded. Uneasily at first, but he bobbed his way into certainty. "Okay."

"Do you trust dad?"

Caspian looked for an answer somewhere in the coming rain. It was dark. Hazy. He couldn't see the horizon. When he didn't find it in the clouds, he scraped at the sand beneath his boot and decided on an answer of his own.

"I don't know anymore."

"Did something happen to you, too?"

He took a breath in, and nodded on exhale. "When Condor took you, dad was organizing a mission to get you back. He told us we'd be engaging Condor, rescuing you no matter the cost to us. I wasn't in good shape after fighting Python. If I tripped on my way to his office, my aura would have broken. I mean, i-it's not like I didn't think you were worth it or anything, I just…" another deep breath. "He was so ready to send me to my death. If he cared how much danger he was putting me in, it didn't show."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Lazula responded. She searched for more words, but couldn't find them. She settled for a daydream– more of a nightmare, really. Caspian sent off to die for her sake. If Condor really was her equal, Cas probably wouldn't be the only one lost. She shook it from her mind. "Always so many secrets and half-truths. He has some kind of plan. As far as I can tell, it'll happen soon. But we don't even know what it is. We don't know if it's something we actually want to fight for, risk our lives for."

Caspian nodded pensively. Under somber clouds, the lights of the city glimmered. "And Uncle Doug's been acting different lately, too. He's been all irritable and distant. I might just be seeing connections where there aren't any, but it feels like it has to do with the 'plan,' somehow." He put his hands up. "I don't know. I have a bad feeling."

"You're not the only one," Lazula affirmed. She turned her head to him, leaning in a bit and lowering her voice. "'The Apoptosis Project' doesn't mean anything to you, right?"

"No. Doesn't ring a bell. What's that?"

"Just something I overheard." Lazula shook her head. "If dad's plan was in our best interests he'd tell us what's going on, right?"

"You'd think," Caspian answered. "Hard to tell what to believe anymore."

Lazula made a noise in agreement. "Which brings me to my next question. "It's always 'keep Snow safe,' and 'Snow's staying behind.' Do you trust Snow?"

"Yes." Caspian's nod was sharp and decisive. "When we were about to head after you, she refused to let me go. She tried to go in my place. I think she knew dad wouldn't let her, but she was prepared to risk her life for mine. I also don't think she's told us everything, but I trust her. Completely."

"Hm," Lazula noted through pursed lips. "Good to know." She shrugged the tension out of her shoulders and turned halfway toward the SFC. "Well, that's all I had. I think Moka's waiting for you, so you can get back to her."

Daylight poured into Ichigo's window when he started his assignment, but now the moody indigo of stormy twilight hung overhead. His pen jolted, stopped, twirled in his fingers, and jolted again, leaving line after line of complex mathematics on a well-worn notebook.

He set his pen down, and keyed in his final answer. The screen went blank for a couple of seconds, aside from a small loading symbol. Then the homework returned, now with a green "100%" at the top. But just as he leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms behind his head, and glanced out at the corner of the art building he could see from his window, his Holoband pulsed with vibration. He scooted back toward his desk, and his arm settled on it. His eyebrows furrowed and his head cocked, because Mr. Hudson was on the other end of the line. He poked his wrist to answer.

"Hello?"

"Are you alone right now?"

Ichigo slid his headphones to his shoulders. "Yeah, why?"

"I have a job for you. Only accept it on the condition that you tell nobody about this. Okay?"

"This sounds interesting."

"I have, in my possession, two thumb drives," Douglas began. "One contains a complete copy of a standard-issue, quality-controlled Third Generation Organic Android. The second contains a copy of Third Generation Prototype Unit-04's code. Snow's. I want you to compare them thoroughly, see if you can find that Cingulate Code you've been talking about."

Ichigo chuckled through his eager grin. "That sounds… really illegal. What happened to 'Frontline takes its security very seriously?' and all that worry about breaking company regulations?"

A sigh scratched the microphone. "Desperate times, desperate measures. I just need you to compare the two. Can you do that?"

Ichigo nodded, though nobody could see. "Yeah. I'll do it."

"Great. Thank you. Meet me behind the physics building at seven."

The call disconnected.