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“Get away from her!”
She gasped as one of the bodies pressed down on her was suddenly yanked away. She heard swears, and limbs scrambled over her head.
“Shit, it’s Tenjoin —”
“Scram, scram, scram —”
A moment later, and she was free of the hands that had pinned her to the ground, the fingers that had yanked on her braids, and she was left alone, curled up and shuddering in the dust on the ground. She blinked rapidly, trying to get the dust from her eyes. Had...had someone saved her? Her body ached from the bruises of being struck and thrown to the ground, both new and old ones reagitated. No one ever came to help her...that wasn’t how Academia worked.
A soft hand touched her shoulder, and she flinched — it immediately moved away.
“Are you all right?” said a soft, surprisingly gentle voice. “Can you sit up?”
She blinked the dust out of her eyes again, hesitating. Was this some new form of trick in an attempt to get the better of her?
As she waited longer, and nothing happened, finally, she decided to sit up. Her uniform was ruined — dusty and torn in places. She would get in so much trouble at her next class. The thought made more tears flood to her eyes.
“Here.”
The soft voice was accompanied by an equally gentle hand, stretched out to her slowly and holding a handkerchief. She looked up, lips parting.
The girl the hand belonged to was perhaps a little older than her, but not by much — still, her face was mature and angled in an attractive sort of way, her long hair brushed neatly against her back. She smiled. It was a strange look, one that she’d never really seen before at Academia.
She cautiously took the handkerchief, eyes flickering over the girl’s blue uniform. She was from the Obelisk Corp — next in line to join the elite force. That was unsettling, when she herself was only in the grunts in Osiris Corp. And she looked...familiar.
“T...thank you,” she said.
The girl smiled again. She smoothed her skirt beneath her so that she could sit down on the cobbled ground with her.
“Do you need to go to the medical ward?” the Obelisk girl asked. “Some of those bruises look bad.”
Fear spiked through her, and she shook her head quickly. Going to the medical ward would require her to answer questions, and eventually, she’d be forced to snitch, and snitching would not only get her in trouble with the ones who had hurt her, but her teachers would look down on her as well. Her high marks at dueling wouldn’t save her if they thought her personality was too soft and kind, not battlefield material. If they thought she couldn’t handle the attacks herself without going to someone for help.
“I’m fine,” she said, though her voice cracked, and she didn’t even convince herself. “You don’t need to trouble yourself.”
The Obelisk girl one waited, quietly, beside her. She didn’t speak for a long time. Then she stood up. And she extended her hand down to her.
“You’re going to need a new uniform before drills, right?” she said. “Come on. I’ll go with you to requisition one.”
She shied back from the hand instinctively, eyes flickering around.
“I...I’ve already had to request two in the last week. They won’t give me another.”
The Obelisk girl’s hand didn’t move.
“Then come with me,” she said. “I’ll find something for you.”
The girl looked up at the Obelisk girl, wary and uncertain. She bit her lip, crinkling her brow.
“Why?” she blurted. “Why are you trying to help me? I mean...shouldn’t you just let me...”
The Obelisk girl blinked. Then she shook her head.
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“Why...why not?”
The Obelisk girl smiled. She stretched her hand out a little further.
“My name is Tenjoin Asuka,” she said. “And I believe in not looking away.”
She waited, even then, and the girl could only stare at her, wide-eyed and uncertain. Was this real? Or was it only a dream?
Slowly, she reached out her hand. When her fingers brushed against Asuka’s, the girl grabbed hold of her, soft but firm, and helped haul her to her feet. She dusted off the girl’s jacket like a mother hen a moment.
“Hitomi,” the girl whispered.
“Hm?”
She tried again.
“Kumi Hitomi,” she said. “My name is Kumi Hitomi.”
Asuka smiled.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kumi-san,” she said. “Now, let’s get you cleaned up, hm?”
It didn’t take long for Hitomi to realize why she recognized Asuka. Only days after their first meeting, she hesitated in a hallway, glancing down to the courtyard below. Asuka stood with her arms folded, her duel disk powering down as another Obelisk boy swore at her and scurried off. Hitomi’s breath caught. She ducked behind a pillar, as though Asuka might look up and see her. Her heart was pounding .
Tenjoin Asuka. She stared down at the student card information in her Duel Disk. A top student, even for Obelisk. Technically and academically advanced. She wasn’t in the Obelisk Force, but she was eligible. Hitomi couldn’t understand why she had refused to join the force, and stayed in the regular corp. She was notorious around the school, as well — adored by many of the girl students, the talk of annoyed whispers from many of the boy students. She spoke up in class, the way Hitomi couldn’t. She excelled in all physical drills, where Hitomi was incapable. And she seemed to actually... care. She’d kept her word when she’d helped Hitomi that day — even though Hitomi was positive she wouldn’t be able to get a new uniform, Asuka had marched straight into the school supplies and come straight back out with a new one.
“If you need anything else, let me know,” she’d said, squeezing Hitomi’s hands.
Hitomi squeezed her eyes shut. She peeked around the pillar once again.
Asuka was still there. Having defeated her opponent, she was talking to another girl. She laughed at something the other girl said, her whole face lighting up. It made the serious, intense girl from before, from dueling, seem so far away. Hitomi felt her face heating up, and she wasn’t sure why.
Asuka’s eyes flickered — they seemed to look up towards the balcony.
Hitomi dove behind the pillar before Asuka could see her, her heart hammering. Before she could think of anything else, she bolted for the door, and hurried away.
This was definitely not supposed to happen. Osiris and Obelisk students weren’t supposed to get put on cleaning details together. There must have been a clerical mistake, or perhaps there was an uneven number of students for this shift, or —
Hitomi’s mind raced, her heart hammering and her throat dry. Asuka only smiled at her.
“It’s good to see you again!” she said, and she sounded like she meant it. “How have you been?”
“I...all right,” Hitomi mumbled. “Um. Where should we start?”
She nodded towards the hallway, and their buckets. They had to clean this whole big hallway — it was mercifully empty, as everyone was in their dorms as instructed, or on other cleaning details.
“Let’s do the windows first,” Asuka said, nodding towards them. “That way if anything gets on the floor, we can wipe it up.”
“Okay!”
Hitomi hurried to the buckets, grabbing one and a washcloth. Asuka seemed to hesitate, and then followed.
For a while, they worked in silence. Hitomi stole glances at Asuka. She seemed focused on her task, tackling it with the same intensity as her dueling. Hitomi’s heart was in her throat. Why was she so nervous?
“Kumi-san?”
Hitomi nearly jumped out of her skin, her heart threatening to expel itself through her mouth.
“Y-yes?” she said.
Asuka had paused in her work, looking at her with a faint uncertainty.
“Am I making you uncomfortable?”
Hitomi felt her cheeks warm.
“W-what? No, of course not. I...”
“Are you sure?”
Asuka dropped her rag into her bucket.
“I feel like I must have scared you, before.”
Hitomi quickly shook her head, waving her hands back and forth.
“No, it’s not that at all! I...I just...”
She bit her lip. Her shoes squeaked when she moved from one to the other.
“I just don’t...understand,” she said. “Why you...stuck up for me.”
She wrung her hands in front of her.
“Because...I mean, I’m a good duelist. Not good enough to be in Obelisk, but good. But even so, I’m not very strong, or assertive, and I’m not an...not an asset to Academia. I’m...not worth the concern.”
She stopped talking when she heard Asuka’s boots clicking over to her. Asuka’s hands dropped onto her shoulders, and Hitomi jumped — but Asuka kept a firm grip on her, eyes fixed on hers.
“That’s not true,” she said. “Not true at all.”
Hitomi’s lips parted, but no sound escaped her. Asuka held her a little more tightly, more reassuringly.
“ All of us are important,” she said. “And we’ll be no stronger by attacking and sabotaging each other.”
Hitomi’s eyes widened. Her mouth opened, but again, no sound escaped her. When Asuka said that, it sounded...genuine. Real. Like she meant it. But could she really? How could...anyone like that really exist in Academia? Ever since Hitomi had arrived here two years ago, excited to finally go, an opportunity she’d never expected before they’d suddenly waived the tuition fees and accepted every single student who applied, she’d been taught that ruthlessness was praised here. That being strong for the upcoming war, the war that only they were trusted to know was coming, was the only asset. If you couldn’t handle what was thrown at you, you couldn’t handle the battlefield, and you were awarded no support.
But Asuka...Asuka was different, wasn’t she?
“Why did you come to Academia?” Hitomi found herself asking.
Asuka’s eyes softened. She let her hands slip from Hitomi’s shoulders.
“The truth is, I came here when my parents died,” she said. “It was part of a program.”
Hitomi nodded. She knew about that program. Academia had started recruiting children in the foster system years ago, setting up a boarding school for a younger student base than had originally been allowed.
“I’ve been here for so much of my life, preparing,” Asuka said. Her eyes grew far away, as she turned to look out the window at the darkening sky. “And no matter what some of them tell us...I know that fighting amongst ourselves is wrong.”
She tightened her hands into fists, and determination drew over her face.
“If we’re going to make a utopia, a place where everyone can be happy, then we can’t do it if we’re always trying to step on each other,” she said. “That’s what I believe.”
She turned to Hitomi, and her eyes returned to the present. She smiled.
“To make a better world for everyone — I think that’s worth fighting for. And I don’t want to have any regrets.”
A cloud broke, letting the last of the light from the setting sun break through and cascade over Asuka’s face. Hitomi drew in a breath — in the light like that, she looked like an avenging angel — a powerful warrior, but one that made Hitomi feel safe . Made her feel like she could follow Asuka anywhere, and she would be all right.
She gripped the end of her shirt and made a promise to herself.
I don’t want to have any regrets, either.
Hitomi’s hands shook as she gripped her Duel Disk, reading the mission orders over and over again.
Selected for Heartland deployment. Report to coordinates AX23-BR67 at 0800 tomorrow morning.
She read them again. And again. And again. The words stopped sounding like words by the tenth time. A hand touched her shoulder, and she flinched in spite of herself.
“I just saw the boards,” Asuka said, and her voice made Hitomi relax. “Congratulations on your selection, Kumi-san!”
Hitomi fought off the lump in her throat, the shake in her hands. She didn’t...didn’t want Asuka to be disappointed in her cowardice.
“Thank you,” she said, turning to face her with a brave face. “Let’s fight hard together for the utopia.”
The brief glancing disappointment in Asuka’s eyes caught Hitomi off guard. Her lips parted. They couldn’t have not chosen Asuka.
But Asuka only smiled, despite the clear disappointment in her eyes, and squeezed Hitomi’s shoulder.
“I was promoted to vanguard,” she said. “We won’t be deployed until the third wave.”
Hitomi’s eyes widened.
“But — but you’re the best!” she blurted. And I’m not , she managed to hold in. How could have they have chosen her for point, but not Asuka?
Asuka’s smile got a little kinder, and she actually blushed.
“Thank you,” she said. “It...it makes me happy to hear you say that.”
Hitomi flushed a deep red. She clipped her Duel Disk back to her arm and clasped her hands behind her back. A flurry of emotions coursed through her — the idea that she could be sent out before Asuka — without Asuka — that she would have to fight in this war alone after all.
“But you should be proud of yourself! Getting selected for the first wave is a huge honor!”
It’s because of you , Hitomi wanted to say out loud. It’s all because you inspired me to work harder, for that beautiful world that you believe in that I didn’t know how to see.
The words were stuck on her tongue. But she couldn’t get them free. She was leaving in the morning for war. She might not come back. She didn’t want to have any regrets. She tried to say them again.
They didn’t come out.
Instead, all she could do was smile.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
Asuka’s smile was a fire that would lead her home, and when Asuka grabbed her hands and squeezed, Hitomi never wanted to let go.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the horrors all over again. It was as though they were embossed against the backs of her eyes. The screams. The fire. The bombs. The woman trying to run with two small children clinging to her hands, dragging her back as they stumbled, before they all three disappeared into flashes of light. The laughter of her fellow classmates when they popped their new cards free from their disks.
“How many did you get?”
“At least twenty.”
“Hah! I got twenty-five! Suck on that!”
She couldn’t breathe. She was going to suffocate, right here, on the smell of fire and burning rubber and the sound of metal grating against metal while children and nonduelists fled, untrained duelists fighting desperately, wildly, untrained.
She remembered the boy who had faced her, the boy who had to be younger than she was, who had yelled at his mom and dad to run while he tried to corner her and hold her back, because his parents didn’t have Duel Disks. She’d won. But she couldn’t press the button.
And even then, before he could run, one of her teammates had done it for her. Had scowled at her and called her a coward before putting the card in his pocket. She hadn’t done anything. Couldn’t do anything.
She was going to throw up.
Hitomi bent against the wall, tucked in the shadows under the hall, away from the courtyard with her fellows, so that no one could see her trembling.
“Kumi?”
She pressed a hand to her mouth to stop the vomit from rising, and whipped around. Framed by the light of the archway leading into the hallway...was Asuka. Relief broke over her face immediately. She hurried over to her.
“Thank goodness — no one could tell me where you were,” she said. “I was afraid you’d...”
Her voice actually cracked as she approached, and her expression grew worried. Hitomi wondered if Asuka could see it in her eyes — the guilt. The regret .
“I wish I had,” came tumbling out of her lips, her body seized by shakes once again.
Asuka’s face went white with horror. She looked over her shoulder at the courtyard, at the happy, laughing students, and then at Hitomi. She stepped inside and took her by the shoulders, and Hitomi felt as though she might shake apart.
“Are you all right?” she said. “What happened?”
Her throat was thick, too thick, but she forced the words out.
“They made us card everyone.”
Asuka looked confused. Hitomi felt like throwing up again. Was Asuka going to belittle her too, if she told the truth?
I want to make a better world for everyone.
This wasn’t the way to make Asuka’s “better world.” The world she believed in. Asuka couldn’t believe in this — if she didn’t believe in fighting amongst themselves, she couldn’t believe in this.
“To make a better world, sometimes there have to be sacrifices,” Asuka said gently, squeezing her shoulders. “There...”
“It wasn’t just duelists. I thought it would just be duelists.”
Please. Understand. Please please please.
That got a reaction. Asuka frowned, her lips parted. Hitomi’s eyes filled with tears as her body shook — she needed Asuka to believe her. If she didn’t...then...
No. Not just believe her. She needed Asuka to leave with her.
“They made us card everyone . Children, the elderly, anyone who ran, anyone who didn’t even have a disk to try and defend themselves. And oh god, the bombs...”
Hitomi shuddered, and when she almost fell back, Asuka tightened her grip on her, holding her steady.
“It was — it was terrible . This can’t be right!!”
I can’t do this again. I can’t fight for this if this is what it means. And I can’t leave you here . I don’t want to — no more regrets.
She gripped Asuka’s arms, and leaned into her, holding her tight. Asuka stilled with confusion, but she didn’t push Hitomi away.
“Leave with me,” Hitomi begged. “Please! I don’t want — I don’t want you to be sent into that, too! I don’t want you to be forced to have regrets!”
Asuka didn’t answer for a moment. Hitomi clung to her, begging, praying .
Then Asuka sighed softly, and held her lightly on the shoulders.
“All right,” she said, in a soothing voice. “I’ll come with you.”
Hitomi met Asuka at the docks at midnight. In the wake of their victory, security was lax throughout Academia. There were no guards at the harbor. The boats were unwatched. Even the lights were all out. They might actually make it.
Hitomi had already gotten into a boat and was disabling the locks on it when Asuka finally met up with her. She carried nothing but her Duel Disk — neither did Hitomi. They’d find a way to survive, one way or another. As long as they got far, far away from this nightmare.
Relief crashed through her when Asuka climbed into the boat with her.
“Do you know how to drive this?”
“No,” Hitomi admitted. “But it can’t be that hard.”
Asuka actually smiled — in the dark, it was hard to see her, but she was still as radiant as ever.
“Don’t worry, I know how,” she said.
They fumbled a moment as they swapped places. Hitomi felt a heat rise to her cheeks when their bodies briefly pressed against each other. Then they were apart again, and Asuka turned on the boat — low, at first, so as not to attract attention. She paused, then, her hands on the wheel, and looked at Hitomi. Her eyes glittered with the hint of stars in the dark.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked.
“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my entire life,” Hitomi said, and she was telling the truth.
For the first time in her life, she felt strong. She felt like she wasn’t trembling to pieces. She was making a choice — a choice that she needed to make. And she didn’t regret it.
Asuka looked uncertain. Like maybe she wanted to argue. But she turned the boat on, and moved it carefully away from the docks, headed towards the mainland.
“How long to the other side?” she asked.
“The ferry took us two hours,” Hitomi said. “I’m guessing this might be a little faster?”
Asuka nodded. They drifted for a while, not speaking, and Hitomi kept looking nervously over her shoulder, waiting to see lights coming on and pursuers after them. Asuka took forever before she flipped the boat into a higher, faster gear, waiting until the island was nearly out of sight before turning to speed and noise.
Then, Asuka looked at Hitomi again.
“Why did you ask me to come with you?” she asked. “You knew...you knew I’ve been here since childhood. That I might turn you in. Why not escape on your own?”
That had always been a possibility. But Hitomi had...had trusted Asuka. And for the first time, the words weren’t stuck on her tongue.
“Because you saved me, Tenjoin-san,” she said. “Because you came to help me when no one else would. I...I know you have a good heart, and you really believe in saving the world.”
She bit her lip, ducking her eyes away from Asuka.
“I couldn’t bear the idea of you...being forced to do what I was. You...I don’t want you to have regrets — you said you didn’t want to have regrets.”
The words were tumbling from her now in a rush. She couldn’t stop them — all of the things she kept down, too afraid to say, were pouring out of her like water.
“I don’t know if you remember, the first time we spoke after we met. Maybe you don’t even remember how we met — it’s been so long since then. But I’ve always admired you. And when you told me how much you believed in this world, and in fighting for a better one, it inspired me. I wanted to be like you. I worked harder. It’s all because of you that I — that I feel like I have the strength to say no. And I couldn’t leave you there to face everything — I couldn’t escape without you. I couldn’t really get away if I knew you were still there, still forced to attack innocent people for a goal that might not even be real. I couldn’t...handle that.”
She finally shut up, tears rolling down her cheeks. Perhaps that was too much? Had she said too much? Asuka didn’t respond for a while — her eyes were fixed ahead of them, on the water in the dark. And then, after a beat, she turned the gear down on the boat. She slowed down, and brought them to a stop. The engine sound died out, and the silence of the ocean, of the stars, surrounded them.
Hitomi’s heart thudded in her chest. Why were they stopping? Had she been wrong after all? Was Asuka going to...turn her in? She forced herself not to look to the sky for helicopters.
And then, slowly, Asuka put her forehead down against the wheel. Hitomi’s heart rose in her chest, eyes widening. She parted her lips, but no sound escaped. For a long moment, Asuka didn’t say anything either. When she did speak, her words were as quiet as the waves.
“Kumi-san...of course I remember the day we met. And the day after. And every other day after that.”
She turned her head against the wheel, her hair falling over her face, and even in the dark, Hitomi could see her smile.
“The truth is, I wasn’t sure if you liked me,” she said, smiling wanly. “You always seemed nervous. I wondered if...if maybe my being around might make things harder for you.”
“That’s not it at all!”
Asuka smiled.
“I guess not,” she said. “The truth is, Kumi-san, you inspired me, too.”
Hitomi’s eyes widened.
“M-me?”
Asuka nodded. She leaned back from the wheel, back into her seat, and looked up at the stars.
“I put on a brave face,” she said. “So that people won’t mess with me. But you had to deal with it, all the time. I saw it, and I only stopped it when I could...but you would always take it. Even if you didn’t fight back, you always got back up, dusted yourself off, and kept walking afterward. I don’t know if...if I had to deal with it all, over and over again, I don’t know if I could do that. I just try to scare it off before I have to deal with it.”
“That’s not true at all,” Hitomi said again, automatically reaching for Asuka’s hand.
Asuka only smiled. She didn’t try to move Hitomi’s hand.
“Academia has been my home for so long,” she said. “I...I know the people there aren’t always good. But I don’t want...I don’t know if I want to believe what you say is true.”
Hitomi nodded, though she felt herself wither inside. She’d never considered that — she was taking Asuka away from her home.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Asuka shook her head.
“You trusted me with your fear,” she said. “At the very least...I can accompany you.”
She bit her lip, then, looking at the ocean. She turned the boat back on.
“I don’t know how far I’ll go. I might go back. But for now, Kumi-san, I’ll go with you. Until I understand.”
Hitomi let her hand slide away from Asuka’s as the boat began to move again. But Asuka reached for it, twining her fingers into it and gripping. Hitomi gripped it back, clinging to her as the boat shot forward again.
“That’s all I can ask,” Hitomi said. “Thank you, Tenjoin-san.”
Asuka shot her another sidelong smile before looking forward again.
“Call me Asuka,” she said.
Hitomi felt a warmth explode over her cheeks, and her hand dug into Asuka’s. She tried to form the word in her mouth, to say her name out loud, but it wouldn’t come — not even with her newfound confidence. So she just held her hand, ducked her head, and whispered,
“Y-you can call me Hitomi.”
They said nothing more as they rode through the dark, the stars twinkling over head and the ocean rocking beneath them. Their hands did not part for the rest of the journey.
As Asuka pulled the boat up carefully to the dock, having approached the mainland with the same slow quiet as they had left the island, Hitomi let go of her hand so she could steer. Asuka stopped and shut off the boat. She didn’t bother tying it off, only climbing out. Hitomi shifted to the seat over to follow, and was almost surprised, somehow, when Asuka turned around and held out both hands to her, to help her out.
Hitomi let Asuka help her climb out — she didn’t want to let go of her hands even once they were on solid ground. Her legs felt a little wobbly, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the fear or the ocean. A smile began to part her lips, as she realized they’d made it — they were standing on ground that wasn’t Academia. A hysterical giggle coiled in her throat.
It died when the spotlights cracked open over them, making them both snap one hand up to shield their eyes and whip towards the stairs from the dock — Asuka’s hand tightened on Hitomi’s, and her body moved almost instinctively a bit in front of her, as though protecting her.
“Tenjoin Asuka and Kumi Hitomi,” a voice boomed, and as Hitomi’s eyes adjusted, she could see the three uniformed Academia soldiers standing on the stairs, Duel Disks raised. “You are both charged with defection. You will come with us quietly, or you will be immediately terminated.”
Asuka made a noise of disbelief. She started to step forward, as though to try and talk to them.
Hitomi’s eyes flashed with the memory of the Academia boy who’d been like her, who’d thrown up when he’d been forced to card someone, who’d tried to go back to his superior officer and tell him that this wasn’t right. She remembered the flash of light, and his horrified, shocked face on the card that fluttered to the ground.
They wouldn’t listen to her. Asuka would become a card. Hitomi would have been the reason she was lost.
She felt Asuka’s hand in hers. She moved forward before she could think about it. Asuka cried out.
“Asuka, run!” Hitomi shouted.
She let go of Asuka’s hand, threw it in front of her to protect her, running forward to draw their attention, trying to get her Duel Disk up. There were three of them and one of her and she knew she could’t win.
But in that moment, her only thought was let Asuka get away.
“Hitomi!!”
Asuka’s voice cut through her life a knife — and then the light encased her. She felt a horrible, fizzy coldness running down her arms and skin and she stopped breathing. Her heart stopped beating.
As long as you get away , she thought, as the world went dark. I will have no regrets.