Chapter 20: Summer Break
"You're going down!" shouted Dan.
"No-uh," I yelled back.
I was at Dan's house playing some street fighting game he had on his console. He was a childhood friend of mine. He had brown eyes, long red hair and usually wore a bandana. We were in an intense match.
"BOOM!" yelled Dan in joy as he delivered a KO.
"Ah man!"
"You've gotten rusty," he said.
"Yeah well I haven't had much time to practice," I replied.
"You busy at the academy?" he asked.
"Yes," I sighed.
"I bet with Chifuyu there to constantly push you," he said with a chuckle.
"Yeah it can get rough,"
"I can imagine. At least you have those girlfriends of those to keep you entertained," he said with a smirk.
"Shut up," I retorted, causing Dan to chuckle.
"Have you heard from them yet?"
"No, the holidays just started and most of them are from foreign countries anyways," I replied, though in the case of Charlotte, I doubted that she would be returning home anytime soon.
"Anyways, has anything exciting happened at the academy?" asked Dan.
"Plenty," I replied.
"Like?"
"Well, let's see," I looked down at the floor to collect my thoughts.
"On my first week there a girl who thought I didn't deserve to be there challenged me to a duel for the position of class representative. Then Rin came and we had to fight in an interclass tournament. Then a German girl who was one of Chifuyu-nee's old students came to the academy and slapped me on her first day and I had to face here in a tournament, and on a school trip I got attacked by another IS pilot who was harassing two boys,"
When I looked up Dan had a face of bewilderment.
"All that in the few months you were there?" asked Dan.
"Mhm," I replied.
I had stopped myself before getting into the times where I almost died or was about to be kidnapped by terrorists. Most of it I was forbidden to share but I didn't want to worry anymore people anyways.
"Have you won any IS battles?" asked Dan.
"Yeah, a few," I replied, looking back down at the ground.
I thought back to the first and last mission I had done. I had defeated those terrorists, finally, a win that felt like my own. Sure I had help and I had beaten Laura once with Charlotte's help. But this victory felt different. Even though the Byakushki had given me more strength it felt as if I had gotten stronger. I felt more confident, more sure of myself. And when I beat that IS it felt more earned, more like my own victory, like I led it. The conversation I had with my IS helped me a lot. It clarified my doubts in myself and the world of Infinite Stratos. During that battle I felt my passion for battling more clearly than ever. It was like for the longest time I was chasing it and now I caught it. In that battle, I fought with all my heart because I knew what I was fighting for, to protect and to save. But all wasn't perfect.
I didn't know who those terrorists were or why they were after me. Considering all the preparations they made they had clearly planned to get me and no one had any leads on them. All this immediately after just rediscovering myself. I felt as if I had passed this hill and now I had to survive a jungle. This constantly ate away at me. Sure I was better but I was still a first year with only a few months of IS experience. What could I do to an organization of trained IS pilots? Whenever I tried to talk to Chifuyu-nee about it she would either give vague answers or try to change the subject. I had so many questions and so few answers it pulled me into a pit of worry.
"Hey man are you ok?" asked Dan with a look of worry on his face.
"Huh? Oh yeah sure," I replied.
"You kinda zoned out,"
"Yeah I do that sometimes," I replied with a laugh.
"C'mon lets play another game," I said.
"You're on!" replied Dan more enthusiastically.
I decided to let go of those thoughts. From what I heard, the IS academy was going to increase its security after all those attacks so I should be safe, and besides, my sister was the most powerful IS pilot in the world. As long as she was there, I was safe.
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After a long day Houki had finally reached her home. After catching up with her parents she went into her room to unpack. Upon entering her room she pushed her grey suitcase down and opened it. She began removing all its contents, her clothes, accessories, books. Eventually her hand felt something hard and cold. She raised up a red thick bracelet with lines of gold flowing through it, it was her IS unit. She hadn't properly used it since their battle against those terrorists, only using it if required during class and had altogether stopped wearing it. She opened a drawer and put the bracelet in it before closing it again.
Her father was a kendo teacher and whenever introducing someone to his dojo he would say "I will not teach kendo to those who wish to abuse it for their own selfish gains,". To him, kendo was something sacred, something that should be used to help others, not to win fights or glory. Houki had believed that phrase and swore to stick by it. She always believed that she was upholding that motto but the battle against the Silver Gospel proved otherwise. It was now she realised why she wanted the power of the IS. It was to prove herself important, powerful, worthy of praise. All the reasons her father had warned against pursuing power. She felt bad being the only one in her friend group without an IS because she felt less valuable because of it. She was the weakest from her friend group and all people knew her for was being the sister of Tabane.
But even though she got an IS, and it did make her stronger she still proved nothing. She was only strong because of that IS and she only even got it because she was the sister of Tabane. And when it came time to prove her worth, she couldn't defeat the terrorists or save Ichika or even put aside her ego to save those civilians. She failed as a pilot, as a student of the sword and as a friend to Ichika. She walked away from the drawer and continued unpacking. She didn't feel like she was worthy of an IS unit.
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Lasers fired striking each holographic target and shattering them on contact. Cecilia in her Blue tears stood in the middle of her training room, her 6 drones swarming around her.
"Again!" she demanded and on que dozens more holographic targets spawned around her.
She commanded her drones, maneuvering them around the room and firing into each target with her main body rotating to see all of them.
"Faster!" she muttered to herself, her face tensing up as she increased her firing speed.
It was then, from the corner of her eye she noticed one of her lasers had barely missed one of the targets and crashed into the steel wall. This threw Cecilia out of focus for a second causing her to miss two more of her lasers. Her face tensed up every more and her teeth began to grind against each other. She continued firing away, reducing the holographs to just half a dozen. She fired off one more round of quick lasers, shattering each holographic target. Cecilia's face relaxed as she began breathing rapidly. Just now she had noticed that near the end she had been holding her breath.
"Great job!" called out a voice.
Cecilia turned to her side. Through a glass pane in the room she could see into the spectator room where her maid Chelsea sat watching her. She had rather short reddish brown hair and was dressed in a maid outfit with a leather belt wrapped around her waist.
"I still missed three," yelled Cecilia.
"And they weren't even moving, I have to practice more!"
"Don't you think you should take a break?" asked Chelsea.
"You've been at it for 2 hours already. Maybe taking some time to clear help will help you shoot better,"
"I'm not taking a break until I can take down all the targets in one run without missing three times in a row!" replied Cecilia, her eyebrows tightened up.
"Then I'll take a break and move onto moving targets,"
"Ok, if you wish," replied Chelsea with a sigh.
Dozens more holographs appeared all around Cecilia. Her face tensed up into a glare as she prepared to take them all down. It felt like hell practicing every day for hours but she was the National Representative Candidate of England and she had a reputation to uphold. A reputation which she took for granted, allowing it to be stained by her many losses at the academy. She was Cecilia Alcott, an elite and she was going to make sure everyone at the academy knew that the next term.
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Charlotte walked over to the stove in her kitchen where her stew was boiling. She was dressed in a yellow sundress with a white apron on. She took the lid off and looked inside, observing the colour of the stew inside. Satisfied with the result she placed the lid back on and removed the pot off the stove and placed it onto the kitchen table. The kitchen was rather small with the limited space of room occupied by the kitchen, a table, chairs and the kitchen islands.
"Lunch is ready!" Charlotte called out.
After a few seconds Laura Bodewig walked into the kitchen. She was dressed in a black skirt and a grey blouse with an absent minded look about her.
"Have you had stew before?" asked Charlotte as she removed two bowls from one of the pantries and two spoons from the drawers.
"yes," replied Laura plainly.
Charlotte placed both bowls and spoons on the kitchen table and began placing spoonfuls of stew in them. Once they were both full she sat down at the table but noticed that Laura was still standing looking uncertain. Charlotte motioned for her to sit down and with a startled look Laura sat down at the table.
"You don't need permission from me to sit down. This is your house too," said Charlotte.
"Yes," replied Laura.
They both began eating. Charlotte looked over at the other end of the table where her roommate was sitting. When she first met Laura she wouldn't believe that she would soon be living with her but fate worked in peculiar ways. Charlotte was at the IS academy in her dorm room packing up her suitcase in preparation for the summer holidays. While packing she would frequently glance at Laura who was on her bed staring at the ceiling.
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"What are your plans for the summer?" asked Charlotte.
At this statement Laura turned to her side away from Charlotte.
"I don't know," replied Laura.
"Are you going back to Germany?"
"I don't, know," she replied, a hint of hesitation in her voice.
Charlotte looked worryingly at her roommate. She could tell she was bothered by something and wanted to help but they weren't exactly friends and she didn't want to pressure her into revealing it.
"Well if you want to talk about it you can talk to me," she said.
Laura didn't reply nor show any sign of reacting to her statement. Charlotte decided to turn her attention back to packing.
"I am worried," Charlotte turned back towards Laura who was now turned towards her.
"I don't know if I should go back," Laura's eyes trailed off to the side as she spoke.
"I haven't heard from my superiors and they are really struggling right now because of me. I don't know if I can face them,"
"It wasn't your fault," said Charlotte.
"They were the ones who put the Valkyrie Trace System in you!"
"But it was me who let it go wild," replied Laura.
"They are probably angry with me and if I go back I'll probably be punished. It's strange. I feel like I should go back but I then remember what Instructor said about living for myself and then I don't know. I don't know what else I could do,"
"You could live with me,"
"Huh?" Laura's eyes darted back towards Charlotte.
"I'm staying in Japan too cause I also have some problems with my country. The school gave me an allowance so that I could rent out an apartment so you can live with me, if you want,"
Laura looked with surprise at Charlotte who smiled at her.
"Can I?" she asked.
"Of course," replied Charlotte.
"Thank you," said Laura with a smile.
"When I joined I thought you were annoying but you are nice,"
"Yeah I think we started off wrong but hopefully we can become friends," said Charlotte.
"Yes, that would be nice," said Laura.
And so when summer arrived Charlotte rented out an apartment for them. It wasn't big but it was only temporary so it was enough for them. Though, despite now living together Laura was still quite timid and didn't talk too much making getting closer to her more difficult. Charlotte looked back at Laura and noticed her outfit. It was actually her own outfit as Laura didn't have any clothes other than her academy uniforms and her military uniform so Charlotte lent her some of her clothes. Seeing that it gave Charlotte an idea.
"Hey, we should go clothes shopping this week!" exclaimed Charlotte excitedly.
Laura looked up from her plate.
"But I already have clothes," replied Laura.
"Those are my clothes, you need your own style,"
"My own style?" said Laura.
"Yes, you can choose what clothes you want to wear rather than letting someone else choose for you. It's like what Chifuyu-sensei said about living for yourself,"
At this Laura's eyes lit up.
"That sounds good," she said.
"Great!" exclaimed Charlotte.
"We can invite Ichika and the other girls too, organize a day out, I'll call them now,"
Charlotte rushed out of the kitchen to go call the others. She now felt more excited for this summer.
Author Note: Hey it's been a while. I hope everyone has been having a good New Year and I apologize for not updating the fic sooner. I got caught up and a load of other work and my plate has been quite full as of recent. This coupled with a struggle of how to move the story forward has made updating the fic harder but don't worry, I haven't given up on it. I still have many plans for this fic but it may take longer to get chapters out, I hope you can understand. Thank you also for the support to all those who followed, favourited, reviewed or even just read the story, it definitely helps my motivation. Anyways, I know that this batch of chapters is rather short and not as eventful but I wanted to get these done to set up character conflicts and relations in preparation the next school year at the academy. As of chapter 22, Ichika and friends will be back at the academy and I will continue the story from there. I hope you will enjoy these two chapters anyways and again sorry for the delay. Now to respond to reviews:
TyrantBlaze1997: Thank you for your continuous support. On the topic of why the IS representatives were sent to face off the Silver Gospel I guess in the original series the reasoning makes sense but still feels a little strange that they would entrust it to the National representatives candidates as oppose to like military personnel who have more experience with the IS. On the topic of the last 3 chapters yeah I understand what you're saying. My goal was to make it a sort of reward for him making progress on finding his purpose. Like him becoming more sure of his role in the world of the IS makes him in sync with the Byakushki and I also made it so that the boost in power wasn't too big as well as showed him fighting more confidently. That's what I was trying to build up in the last few chapters. Ichika suffers more loses, (his failure against the VTS, losing in Shoku and then basically becomes the weakest pilot from his friend group) burns out his motivation and enjoyment of IS battles as a whole as he doesn't have much of a goal when it comes to the world of IS so when he is struggling he is unsure of what to do. So when he gains an idea of what he wants to do, that being fight for people it makes him more sure of himself and allows him to push past his struggles. That being said I can see where the execution fell flat and if I were to rewrite the batch I probably wouldn't have included the shift or changed some part of the answers or his goal. I also made the goal a bit vague cause I want to further explore Ichika's conflict with finding his purpose.
As for the fight scenes, yeah writing a battle with many different perspectives is difficult, I'll try to improve on it but I'll probably avoid a multi perspective battle the size of the last battle for the forseeable future. As for Ichika narration being omni-present the narration is more so supposed to be taken as Ichika reflecting on these results like he was writing a book about his life hence the use of past tense. And as for the direction of the story here is were it's really going to start changing from the original. I think for the most part I've already set up all the OG characters with my desired differences so I'm really going to begin developing my own plot now. I may introduce other characters from the OG and maybe some plot points will be taken from the OG but it will be more original writing than this first season and I am building to a grander story. I hope it will make the story more interesting.
Anyways thanks again for reading.