Last light and memories

[ASG1: Azure Door]

There was a pause after the girl's words. When Hokaze didn't reply though, the girl's voice was still quiet but Lumen saw the emotions off her. She wanted to scream out and to rage against them. Not her and Hokaze, the thing that was called "Ideal."

"It was a lie that we would reach level 5. They tricked us. They were only using us. We trusted them. We all worked so hard."

It was a story they had heard too many times. All the way back to the level upper. The lie of Academy city, the lie that "Anyone can become powerful."

"But becoming a level 5 was always based on innate qualities." The girl continued, unknowing of Joule and Lumen's empathy.

She began to cry as she continued "All our hard work was meaningless." Her head fell, like a puppet with a cut string "I had no talent."

Well, she was of a high enough level to reach this point. Not that Lumen could speak to her right now.

Her hand was on her face, as if trying to hold back tears. It moved though as her head rose again, her hand that had been over her eyes pulled aside her bang from her right eye.

"But you're different, aren't you?"

Her "eye" was not natural. While it seemed she could see through it, it would function more like a camera than a true eye. It sparkled in the faint light in the room. Many colours... A prism.

"You left the ambient light too weak for me to use. But by pushing this prism to the limit and adding on my own power on top of it I can fill the room with tiny lasers. Can your companion protect you against all of them?"

Lumen flew into action, calculating even as Hokaze turned to try and dodge away.

"Too late!"

The room was filled with light in that single moment. All the light in the room was reflected within that prism and shot out towards Hokaze. A shotgun blast of light.

Lumen didn't want to see either of them come to any more harm. In a moment of trust, Hokaze gave over part of her brain's processing center to Joule.

Each laser was reflected. Not a single one broke through.

Even as that happened though, Hokaze was moving. She ran towards the girl as she began to fall, the light leaving both her eyes.

"Honestly... you really are incredible."

Those were the girl's last words as she fell. Hokaze was there before she hit the floor though and she cradled her head.

The fight was over now. Properly. Lumen could stop singing.

[ACMI: The Thing You Can't Get Back]

"Producing that much heat in your eye socket is suicidal. So I can't let you hit your head on top of that."

Hokaze spoke the the unconscious esper in her arms.

"Can I ask... how do you two know each other?" Lumen asked at last.

Hokaze glanced up at her.

"Oh, Lumen." She had forgotten about her in her haste but was now calming down. Her head fell and she needed to catch herself again "Sorry, My head's still... from earlier."

The flash of light, Lumen began trying to calm it but it was hard work to do that without damaging anything. She could do it though, healing was a speciality of hers.

Hokaze, even as she was distracted, continued talking to the girl "We're not... Neither of us is strong enough."

There was a pause as Joule made it down to them. Lumen returned to her and she sat by them for a moment.

"It's a long story." After a minute or two, Hokaze said those words "We were in a facility together when we were younger."

"Ideal?" Joule asked.

Hokaze nodded "You've actually been their before. The building that the Queen needed to protect. She used to go there too."

After explaining that, she grew quiet again "It's not really my place to tell her story, but I can tell you a little about her at least."

That first "Her" was about her queen, the second was about the girl before them now.

"Her name is Yumiya Iruka. I saved her life once, when my stay in the hospital was over, she told me that she'd get strong enough to protect someone like I had."

The girl in question lay on the floor, breathing quietly. She had lived, at least.

"There was an experiment there, I don't know what it was about to be honest. The queen looked into it but didn't tell me. It created some monster, I remember... I remember it standing over her. Her hand was covering her eye and blood was pouring down. I struck it, and fought it, trying to buy time for everyone else to escape."

She was lost in the memory as she told the story to Joule.

"The monster could regenerate, and my ability was causing me a lot of damage. A... one of the scientists shielded me with her body when the monster would have killed me. Then one of the other children was able to use their ability to stop the monster."

She paused again but finished "After that, we all went to the hospital. She had only just woken up when my wounds had finally closed and she made me that promise."

And that was it in a way. She had nothing more to say at that moment.

End of chapter.

I finished the fight and covered the flashback chapters in only one chapter, amazing.

Of course, the fact that Junko didn't know very much about it meant that Joule didn't get the full story either.

Also, Merry Christmas. While I didn't have time to write today: I don't write these chapters on the day they come out so I'm fine.