Damisan laid in bed, unmoving. The elementary, metallic frame of his arms laid beside him on the bedside cabinet, crossed and untouched since their completion. Slowly, Shige-H approached her crushed squadmate and leaned down, placing her hand on him to show that she wanted to talk to him.
"You haven't been to lectures in a few days," Shige-H said just to open a conversation up.
"Didn't feel like it, Tongo made us more than a few points with those endless exercises anyway," Damisan replied with a sorry tone of voice.
"You don't owe him anything. The guys are itching for an opportunity to pick a fight with him and that hick gorilla of his tailing him around, but I don't see that solving anything. You need to show up to lectures, you need to show him you're not afraid," Shige-H advised while nuzzling Damisan's back in solace.
"Show him what? That I'm strong?" Damisan muttered, his voice became raspy and his tone turned defensive.
"You are strong. You've got nothing to prove to anyone. Still, it hurts all of us to see you beat like this. As your friends, we want you to move past this," Shige-H said. Damisan peeked his head, wrapped up in an excessive number of layers of bandages as his cylinder laid beside his bed and the poster he had stapled to it laid torn in the bin by his bedside cabinet.
"Oh, it's just us…" Damisan noted, looking around. "Aren't you missing lectures by wasting your time with me?"
"It's well past the last lecture, Damisan. You've spent the entire day in bed, the fourth day. What you've experienced was shocking and crude and terrible and nobody deserves this sort of abuse and it might take you more than just a couple of days to move past it but you owe it to people who hold you dear to at least try," Shige-H sat down, dragging Damisan's cylinder closer and taking her seat while she picked up his skeletal, metallic frame off the cupboard and examined them. "You and Mana make a nice team, building something like this. Still, it's incomplete."
"Yeah, it's just something to stick on my sides and pretend like I have arms," Damisan sighed. "Apparently, Mana used to listen to someone else's guidance and tinker on something for her father. She's a natural at this, but I don't want her to miss out on her training and studying. It's important that she passes, more so than for any one of us."
"If you care so much, you're not doing any favors by sulking around. It freaks her out even more seeing you like this. You know Mana, she has to help everyone, and it doesn't seem like she knows how to pick you back up," Shige-H replied.
"I guess that's why she keeps on asking if I want to work on those arms further every evening…" Damisan recalled. "Everyone's off somewhere, I'm sorry I made you guys so worried. The last thing I want is for the Stars to fall apart. This group gave me a chance to work with someone and do something meaningful. I was a jerk to overlook that."
"Don't flatter yourself," Shige-H smirked with sad eyes. "I've had about as much to do in shaking the Stars up as anyone. It's because of me that Tomi hasn't been back in her room for almost a week, and I do not know what Endo is doing either."
"Maybe I'll check up on him tomorrow after the lectures?" Damisan sat up.
Shige's face brightened up. As many excuses as she could make about Mana being the one that needed to save Damisan from this gloomy cloud hanging over his head, she needed it just as much. Knowing that Damisan would be back to the lectures and back to working his way up toward completing the prep course and finally set the Stars off to becoming a genuine Allied Ninja squad made Shige-H feel just that much more competent as a leader deep down.
Even if she had an aura of someone who was more perceptive than everybody else and someone who knew what the others didn't, she wasn't immune to gloom and beating herself over things, feeling inadequate and second-guessing herself after all.
"Endo?" Damisan looked up at his friend, walking off the lectures and asking people around where they might have seen his fellow Stars member. With Damisan having already gotten a rep for being a nosy individual and with Stars often being seen hanging out together, as tight of a ring as a donut, nobody blinked twice when Damisan was asking around.
Still, they had that pitying look in their eyes. Everyone saw Tongo abusing Damisan, kicking him around, and using him as one of his puppets. They saw him doing that to both Damisan and Hoshido but those pitying stares somehow washed off of Hoshido, probably because the bruiser just had a habit that was as impressive as it was nasty to brush off beatings and injuries and smile his abuser in the face with deep-rooted sadism that would have made even a stiff oppressor like Tongo freak out a little.
"Hey, it's you. Finally gathered the courage to leave your room, I see. Impressive, with a face like yours, I don't think I'd ever get that kind of guts," Endo looked down from his position of sitting atop of a ring surrounding one of the training grounds and providing bystanders a platform to sit on and observe a sparring session or someone's training from. At the moment the place had been empty, though Endo still found it fitting to brood and stare at the center of the circle of trampled grassland.
"Heh, I don't know what you're on about, I'm gorgeous, can't you see?" Damisan directed both of his index fingers toward the picture of an attractive, mature woman in her swimwear stapled freshly onto his cylinder.
Even Endo couldn't resist tipping the corner of his lips. Acknowledging the fact that his goofy friend had entertained him somewhat and therefore deserved for Endo to hear him out, at least, the apprentice samurai pushed himself off of the platform and landed in front of Damisan, straightening his eyes out and glaring at his slightly hunched comrade.
"What's your deal? I'd have figured you'd have gotten the clue from the way I treat you as my doormat that I'm not into hanging out with you. Or anyone else, for that matter. If the Stars have someone they need out of their way–I'll gladly crush them. If you want a shoulder to cry on, go bother Mana, if you don't care if the shoulder listens or not, you can even try Skaven," Endo stated bluntly.
"Yeah…" Damisan scratched the back of his cylinder, wobbling it around a bit. "It's just that Shige-H has been worried about you. I have to admit, I agree with her that you're not your usual, angry at everything and crude self. You've barely insulted me once this whole time. You're often hot-headed but rarely distant, furious–sure, never self-pitying."
"Has your experience with Tongo given you a new perspective on feeling down? Is that why you're sticking your nose into everybody's business for no reason now?" Endo gritted his teeth, reacting bitterly, but he didn't lash out or try to attack Damisan with petty insults like he'd have done before. Something truly was different with him.
"You know me–I just like to be included in things. That comes double if those things are related to helping a friend in need," Damisan extended his metallic arm frame out from under his raggedy cloak for a bump.
"Just the man I wanted to see!" a sharp, authoritative voice pierced through the serenity of the training grounds during the afternoon when most recruits ran off to get some lunch before their evening training. While the first instinct that Damisan's body fumbled into was to shower him with a layer of cold sweat and try to come as close to goosebumps as his scarred skin tissue could muster, Damisan turned around with an empty heart and an, even more, void mind to face his abuser.
"I guess there are exceptions even to that rule, huh?" Endo said, taking a few steps to stand shoulder-to-shoulder alongside his fellow Stars member as Hoshido and Tongo approached them. On a normal day, Endo would have been the loose cannon to just lash out at them and earn disciplinary sessions for each of them, whether or not they liked it. Now Endo was content just seething in whatever misery he was drowning in.
"Again with your comrades… Makes me wonder why I ever thought it would work out between us with your previous engagements," Tongo sighed, acknowledging the fact that Endo was present to watch Damisan's back this time and that hell would have had better luck freezing over than Endo would have had to turn his back away from the prospect of a good fight.
"Rocket hands…" Hoshido pointed to Damisan and turned to Tongo.
"True, the heavy artillery you were packing must have clouded my judgment at the time. No matter. I'll say it boldly, for I am a blunt man–give me the blueprint for your arms so I can outfit my platoon of S13G3 Units with your superior firepower and you won't be of any use to me. That's as good of a deal as a beetle can get from the links of a tank." Tongo placed his arms behind him as he stared Damisan down from underneath his headgear. The man's lips were as tight as ever, and the wrinkles on his chin betrayed the loathing that the puppet commander felt when talking to Damisan.
"I'm done being involved with you. My friends were right about you, you don't see me or Hoshido as people and your allies or friends. All you see us as is just the same as you see your puppets. We're just tools to you," Damisan declined that offer with both his spoken and his body language at once.
"My puppets? You're delusional if you think you're as useful as a fine S13G3 Unit. Heck, I'd not waste a T001 for a maggot like you either. I see I wasn't blunt enough with you during our drill–you're a shapeless dreg maggot and working for me was the only way a bumblebee turd like you had to accomplish something useful. You're soft, you've got no guts and you'll blow whichever way the wind carries you. Don't think that the feeble customs of warfare of this facility will protect you from me if you try to conceal your design from me–I'll rain hellfire upon your ass until you present it to me wrapped in a white flag," Tongo read it out like citing a national anthem. No man should have had this much dedication toward belittling a fellow man.
"Hey, Tongo, right?" Endo stepped out with his eyes closed and hands inside his pockets, taking subtle breaths. Expected by no one, the apprentice samurai shot his eyes open and drew his arms from inside his pockets, flipping Tongo off from two sides at once. "How's this for arms?"
"There's someone that got moxie. It's only too bad that I've already found someone with a bigger stick. I prefer dogs that don't bark but rip throats over dogs that are all bark," Tongo approached Endo, standing face-to-face with the Stars' swordsman and staring upward, right Endo in the eyes.
"What was that!?" Endo erupted, as oppressed as the swordsman was by the problems he was working through at the moment, his good old self that Stars loved to hate blew the lid off. Damisan had gotten good at reading his less than stable comrade as he had ripped the hand off of his skeletal arm frame and flipped the looping steel wire over Endo to subdue him from breaking the Allied Ninja rules about infighting without permission.
Damisan was fortunate that Endo hadn't put his twin-bladed sword together or coated it in chakra yet, as he'd have cut through Damisan's measly attempts at subduing Endo in a blink. Or perhaps Endo wanted someone to stop him. He wanted it because somewhere deeper down he might have known that what he was doing was wrong.
"Stand down," Tongo barked out to Hoshido, who stepped out and reached to push his ringleader behind him and take the hot-headed swordsman on himself, but Tongo's authoritative call appeared to have defused both trigger-happy brawlers at once. "This is not the battlefield we've chosen nor is this pathetic stump the prize we're after. If we can win only one battle, how about we win the battle that wins us the war?"
"War…" Hoshido mumbled, dragging his thumb across his throat while glaring down to Endo, whose eyes were casting thunderbolts at the hick, ignoring the ridiculous weight and height difference between them.
"War? We're working for the same organization. We're supposed to be allies, not trying to sabotage one another. Why don't we both just do our best, graduate, and work on fulfilling the mission of the Allied Ninja–ensure world peace and stability without the political webs and intrigue getting in the way?" Damisan pleaded one ultimate time as Tongo and Hoshido walked off. One would have thought Tongo disgruntled after finding a fight on his hands rather than submission and the total victory he expected. That was not the case. Tongo marched on with a sense of inevitability and bold acceptance of what he saw as a war between the two factions.
"Delusions of a gutless idiot," Tongo barked out, stopping and turning around. Rooting his feet into the ground like an ancient oak as he struggled against some deeper emotion, wriggling to burst free. "That's right. This is war. Make no mistake about it. War is always waging, war is never-ending, and it is warriors that win wars, not spineless cowards hiding behind hats, too afraid for their own potential to arm themselves properly. When we next meet, I expect you to be wearing something more appropriate. I have a take-no-prisoners policy so I might not be too good with the appropriate protocol for overseeing you making me the arms I'm seeking for."
"You're okay though, right?" Mana touched Damisan's cylinder as if she could feel the fever through it somehow, scanning her friend for any visual sign of injury. Endo's glare behind the magician sharpened as if it had attempted to stab into her back.
"What is it exactly that you are looking for, Mana?" Endo wondered, sitting with his legs crossed on his bed and observing the developing situation of the Stars discussing what they should do about Tongo and Hoshido from afar.
"I want to know if Tongo or Hoshido hurt Damisan again!" Mana turned back to Endo with a confrontational stare as if he was the true enemy here and not the nut job pretending to be a commander of a military platoon that, in reality, was just a bunch of puppets armed to the teeth. After a few seconds of a heated look, Mana realized she was wrong in snapping back like that and her expression softened.
"Why?" Endo asked again. "Didn't you just say that tutor Joshi let you retake that international law test tomorrow? Are you throwing your membership in the Stars away like this?"
Something round and hard-edged got stuck in Mana's throat. It moved neither up nor down, no matter how much Mana tried. Since when had life gotten so lousy that Endo was acting as the voice of reason here? She might have hung around Damisan, tried to scare Hoshido and Tongo off in ways only she knew how to, but she'd be sacrificing the bigger part of her odds at successfully completing the prep course that way. If only she hadn't missed out on so much while struggling for her life in the infirmary…
"That's okay, Mana, Tongo, and Hoshido can't hurt me. They can't. Even Tongo takes the Allied Ninja non-engagement rules seriously. Unless I agree to another exercise, they've got nothing to threaten me with so ace the shit out of that test!" Damisan pumped his feeble, metal arm frame in encouragement of his friend.
"That's incredibly short-sighted, Damisan," Shige-H shook her head with her arms crossed. "There are all manners of ways in Tongo stepping over that edge. What if he convinces a tutor to pit you against him in a War Game? That's exactly why you need to repair your arms as soon as possible and fight back. We know for certain that tutors won't make the odds uneven, so fighting alongside us is your best bet."
"I don't know about that," Mana shook her head. She's been around wicked people for too long not to know what she'd do in Tongo's shoes. "Tongo might care a great deal about the disciplinary regulations, but he's also willing to throw his squad under the bus like they mean nothing. He'll just have Hoshido hurt Damisan and take the fall for him."
"No." Damisan shook his head. "I know Tongo, he cares about discipline differently. Discipline isn't just an annoying barrier to him–it's everything. He won't break those rules nor will he command anyone else to break them."
"It still wouldn't hurt you to upgrade your arms already…" Endo noted. "For just how long do you plan on walking around with those ridiculous matchsticks sticking out?"
"Leave him alone, Endo." Mana shut him down.
"And you… How do we know you're not looking for injuries on Damisan to have an excuse to break the rules yourself? You've made it all too clear for us you don't much care about being an Allied Ninja, you're willing to crush it and throw it away at the sign of the first failure. You're not struggling against the stormy ocean, you're just coasting along and I'm disgusted that Shige-H would even keep someone like that around in her squad," Endo stood up and looked to Mana with a glare, unlike anything the magician had seen from him. It wasn't the guttural hatred he radiated at all times, it was… Disappointment, almost. It stung deep though, deep enough to make Mana get flustered and look away.
Maybe he was right. What exactly were her priorities here with the Stars? Where did the group fit in with the grander plans she had, and where did each individual member fit into all that too? Was she truly going to work as an Allied Ninja until she retires? When she put most of her plans here together, Stars hadn't even been something to consider.
"Hey, why's everyone so solemn?" Skaven wondered, having just entered the room and fallen down on his bed, staring at the ceiling like he always did before the first signs of snoozing hit him, when he would then engage in his ordinary evening routine before going to bed.
"Tongo and Hoshido messed with Damisan again," Shige-H explained it to him.
"As they will until you crush them and grind them into the dirt before you. That's how school bullying works," Skaven shrugged and closed his eyes, trying to see if he felt sleepy yet after the evening training.
"You and I have unique ways of dealing with bullying," Mana sighed and walked back to her own bed, falling on her side. She had ample things to figure out herself. It wasn't like she had much time on her hands either. The prep course graduation exam was just around the corner.
"I can see how Skaven's method might be effective, though I think I like Mana's a bit more," Damisan laughed out and popped off his legs and his arms, placing them beside his bed. It was his way to announce to the rest of the Stars that he wouldn't do what Tongo demanded of him and fight him how the puppet commander intended it. He wouldn't be building another weaponized set of arms and look for a fight.
A maddened shriek played Skaven's nerves like a violin. The Nara wrestled himself out of the sheets. He might have been thankful for the fact that he still had blurry morning eyes and that his hair fell over his face as the sight of a mangled face had greeted him, the specifics of which eluded him because of his limited morning vision. By the time Skaven's body pumped sufficient adrenaline to wake him up for good, Damisan had stuck his head into the sheets and wrapped them around his exposed face.
"My cylinder! My mask! They took it!" he yelled out. "I… I can't leave without it!"
Skaven sighed. His head sunk down with his chin pressing to his chest. In the background cacophony of terrified shrieks and wailing, he slowly turned his head to the right and saw all the Stars having already left the room early in the morning. Some of them hurried off to the early morning lectures, some of them might have hoped to spend that time preparing for the tougher educational trials ahead of them that day.
"Fine," Skaven caved in. "Find yourself a sock or something, let's go get your erotic cylinder back," he grumbled, cracking his knuckles.
"B-But… The rules…" Damisan cried out into the pile of his sheets in an inhuman voice, as if his voice had been changed by exposing his face, though, in fact, it had only been the way he acted without it that had changed.
"They made the mistake of pissing someone who doesn't care about them off," Skaven yawned, longing for a few more minutes of snoozing that the universe still owed him. "Staying in the Allied Ninja won't be what's it's cracked up to be with you wailing all over the room all the time, will it?"
"Th-Thank you!" Damisan nodded a few times, wrapping his head up in a whole heap of bandages. Despite doing well to cover his disfigurement up, the poor guy still trembled and twitched, paranoid about walking around without his cylinder.
"Hey, what are people you've bullied into joining your band for?" Skaven rolled his eyes.