Akari sits alone in the front room of Serena’s apartment, trying not to feel out of place. Both Serena and her father have been incredibly welcoming for these past few days, but Akari can’t help but feel that she doesn’t deserve such kindness. She feels… well, like she is taking advantage of two kind people — intruding on their home and their personal moments.

  She could go apply for an apartment at the GDF like Baylee had. Stars, Akari could go and sleep in Baylee’s apartment — the other girl had offered, and it’s not like she has any shortage of rooms. And yet, Akari just can’t bring herself to leave this cozy little apartment with its two kind occupants.

  Serena had offered Akari not just a place to sleep, but a home, a home unlike any she had before. This place is no dark room used only to escape the constant yelling of her parents; no, this place is loved and cared for. Every time Akari considers leaving, she thinks about going back to that dark room, to being alone. She’s so incredibly tired of being alone…

  From the hallway, Serena bursts into the room, as bouncy and eternally cheerful as ever. Once, Akari had decided that Serena is just really that happy and excited about the world. She’d looked upon her friend and thought, here is someone happy to be alive. Someone with a much better life then mine.

  Now, Akari had seen behind Serena’s mask, seen the frightened, hurt girl underneath. She would do anything to keep that girl safe: the girl who had taken her in, healed her wounds, and even saved her life. Akari firmly believes that, once, there had been no mask over Serena’s true emotions. Now, though, Akari is determined to make sure that Serena truly is as bubbly as she appears.

  “You ready to go?” Serena asks. As Akari watches, she gathers up her loose hair behind her head and ties it back into a tail. It’s something she’d started to prefer since the incursion zone, likely as her assault state put her hair into a tail by default.

  Akari stands from the couch — and her bed — with a nod. “Ready,” she affirms.

  Serena offers Akari a quick smile, then turns back towards the hallway. “We’re leaving early to meetup with Baylee and the others before school!” she shouts.

  “Okay!” booms Micheal’s voice from the kitchen. “You girls just be safe! I know you’re sentinels and all, but it’s dangerous out there!”

  For just a moment, a flicker of fear passes across Serena’s features. Yes, they both know well just how dangerous it can be.

  “We’ll be safe; love you, Dad!” Serena calls back before turning for the door.

  Akari follows Serena out of the apartment in silence, wondering why no fear had trickled out of her own long-dead heart. Her emotions have been coming back in fits and starts, and the numbness her life had been before meeting Serena is beginning to recede bit by bit. Still, fear isn’t an emotion she’s felt again quite yet. Well, not fear for herself, at least.

  Akari is afraid, just not for her own wellbeing. If she dies, well, that’s just the way of the world — she’ll have many regrets, but she will accept her end. Instead, she’s afraid for Serena and for her other new friends. They’ve seen pain and suffering now, but they haven’t yet seen how bad it can truly get. If Akari has her way, they never will.

  As Serena walks the now familiar path through the skyway, passing other early risers, she turns to Akari with a contemplative expression. “Yesterday, I had a conversation with Troy,” she says, her vivid blue eyes wandering from shop to shop and person to person.

  “You told me that you hate Troy,” Akari comments, walking alongside her and watching her surroundings in a very different way. Akari sees the man with a budge on his hip, likely a holstered weapon, and a woman who looks about herself with wide, paranoid eyes and a frantic expression. Luckily, neither of the two seems interested in Serena or herself, so she just keeps an eye on them.

  “I don’t hate him; he just annoys me. He’s disrespectful,” Serena says, glancing over at Akari, who still watches that paranoid woman to their left.

  Akari’s eyes flick back to Serena’s for a moment before returning to scanning their surroundings for anything or anyone that could be a potential threat. “If he annoys you, why talk to him?” Akari asks although she knows the answer. Serena is Serena, and she just can’t help giving anyone the benefit of the doubt — it’s why she’s so cut up over the man she killed. She’d taken away his potential to turn towards a good life, and she hated that.

  Serena shakes her head, “Sorry, we’re getting off track. What I’m trying to say is that he had a good point. I know we’re special or whatever, but surely, if we had another sentinel team to support ours, it could only mean good things. Maybe we could save more lives that way.”

  Internally, Akari grimaces. The vast majority of the new sentinels, Serena included, had lived soft, gentle lives before becoming sentinels. Honestly, Akari is amazed that her teammates had managed to function in the incursion zone at all, let alone accomplish what they had. It shows that her team members have an amount of grit that most people never gain.

  Another new sentinel team, though? Stars, they’ll probably cause more problems than they solve. Akari will not allow one of her precious team members to be killed defending some newbie while they panic — not even Baylee.

  “They could be useful after a few incursions,” Akari says with a shrug. “Honestly, they should consider increasing sentinel team sizes instead.”

  Serena bites her lip, “That would be a better idea. Just have us train together from the start. I wonder if the number of incursions just doesn’t allow for that.”

  The number of incursions and the number of sentinels, Akari considers. That’s probably why they send so many standard soldiers with us. They can’t afford to augment our team any other way.

  “Still, a joint operation for harder incursion zones feels like a good idea,” Akari says, watching a man to their right scratch aggressively at an itch on his leg. Some kind of illness? Subtly, Akari steers Serena so they don’t pass directly by the man — the other girl doesn’t even seem to notice in her consideration.

  Akari sighs softly, she’ll need to teach Serena about the importance of remaining aware of her surroundings. Serena only really seems to pay attention to where she’s going around half of the time, spending the other half daydreaming or considering some problem.

  Maybe Akari could try to teach the entire team a street survival class? Serena knows some of it from growing up in the slums, but she’d been so sheltered that she hadn’t picked up a lot of the important lessons. Their other teammates are completely hopeless, though. Baylee striding through the slums dressed like some kind of supermodel, while hilarious, isn’t great for remaining covert. Although… Baylee might actually die if she were forced to wear dirty, tattered clothes.

  Serena looks considering, then puffs out a breath. “I wish this kind of deliberation would do any good. It’s not like we can influence the general or the way things are done.”

  “I’m not sure that we need to,” Akari considers, smiling softly as she watches Serena’s eyes stare longingly at a passing coffee shop. She doesn’t stop, probably used to the mindset that she can’t afford such luxuries other than on special occasions.

  “How do you mean?” Serena asks, turning back to Akari once the coffee shop had vanished behind them.

  Akari bites her lip, considering. She doesn’t want to badmouth Serena’s mentor, but it is sort of her fault that the last incursion zone had gone bad to begin with. To be fair, no one had expected a mind flayer, but the way Audrey had handled the entire incursion left something to be desired. It’s like the woman is used to clearing incursions all on her own, and everyone else had just been an afterthought.

  “I believe Kayne can be relied upon,” Akari says eventually. “I just can’t imagine him being caught off-guard like what happened to Audrey.”

  “Yeah…” Serena says, her shoulders drooping. “I keep trying to think the best of Audrey, but it’s hard when she keeps pushing me away. She’s a good sentinel… I just don’t know if she’s cut out to be in charge of others.”

  Seeing Serena looking so conflicted, Akari allows the conversation to fall silent, although she’s happy with the outcome. Serena needs to learn not to be so blindly trusting. Every single person has their own reasons for doing what they do, especially Audrey and Kayne. Other than select people outside the GDF and her own teammates, Akari doubts a single person genuinely cares for Serena’s safety. They will use her up and throw her out the first chance they get, and Serena is too selfless to see through it. So, it will be up to Akari to protect her friend.

  Not long later, the two girls arrive at school, stopping to check in with the GDF guard at the entrance. The man is paying so little attention that he doesn’t even notice Akari’s School ID appearing in a slice of violet light.

  Stepping into the eco-dome, Akari feels a complicated mix of emotions. For so long, this place had been a place of torment. Even with her numbed emotions, she had hated coming here while knowing what was to come. She had barely focused on her studies at all, convinced she most likely wouldn’t survive to adulthood anyway.

  Liora had changed things with her arrival. At first, Akari hadn’t even dared to think that her familiar’s offer was real. Why would a familiar choose her of all people? However, Liora had been steady in her resolve, and eventually, Akari had agreed to the bond. That had been the first moment that she’d begun to genuinely care about her own life again.

  After that moment Akari had actually started to care for herself… it been like a starting pistol for her cousins. They’d pounced on her again and again, every day since the moment Akari made her bond. Not long after that, Akari was forced back into her numbness, the only bit of light in her life being when Liora talked to her.

  And then Serena happened, and finally, Akari felt like the pressures that had been slowly crushing her had begun to lessen. Sure, being a sentinel is far from easy, but Akari found it much preferable to her previous life. Stars, she’d even started to grow from the runt of a child she’d always been!

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Nowadays, Serena stands almost two inches shorter than Akari, and although Serena acts indigent at slowly becoming even more of the shortest one on the team, the fact that she hasn’t grown herself means that she must be fine with it. Honestly, Akari can’t imagine Serena in any way other than a petite girl with a heart of gold. If she’d grown to six feet tall all of a sudden, Akari would still adore her friend; it might be a touch awkward at first, though.

  No, Akari is perfectly fine with Serena at any height, and if the girl likes being small, she’s okay with that. Akari is resolved to protect her regardless.

  That thought causes her to clench her jaw. She’d done such a poor job protecting Serena recently. Yes, she had been the one to insist that Haruto accompany Serena home on Sunday night — getting his agreement afterward — but she should have gone herself as well. She’d been busy trying to convince one of the remaining children to switch orphanages to one on the other half of the slums, where Reaver's presence wasn’t so bad, and she hadn’t wanted to leave just yet. Because of that insistence, Serena needed to kill her first man without Akari to help her. If Akari had been there with her, she would have happily dirtied her own hands to keep Serena’s conscience clean.

  Although perhaps it’s been a good thing that Serena faced that fear all on her own. With Haruto there to protect her and her own combat capabilities, she hadn’t been in any real danger. It’s good for her to learn what kind of monsters men can be and that sometimes… well, you need to treat them like the monsters they are.

  Akari shakes her head. Stars, she’d just thought about Serena zoning out all the time, and now she’s doing the same thing!

  The two had almost arrived at the front of the school, and looking upon those doors causes a pit of dread to form in Akari’s stomach. Her cousins haven’t had a chance to get her alone again yet, what with her team members always around her and her new schedule. But today… today, Akari has to attend one of her old classes — evidently, being a sentinel doesn’t exempt you from all normal learning. This particular class, however, is shared with her cousins.

  Serena steps through the front doors easily, but Akari hesitates, forcing herself to pretend that what she feels swirling in her stomach isn’t fear. No… she doesn’t feel fear for herself anymore — as long as her cousins are no threat to Serena or her other teammates, they don’t matter in the slightest. Squaring her shoulders, Akari strides into the school.

  The halls are still mostly empty at this hour, most students preferring to arrive shortly before class begins rather than arrive early. However, a healthy buzz of conversation permeates the space, filling the halls with life.

  Akari trails Serena like a pet being led on a leash as she moves down the hall, often smiling and waving shyly at people who call out to her. Despite not loving social situations, Serena sure does seem to have made a lot of friends… well, not friends exactly, but friendly people. Akari doubts that any of them would ever do a thing for Serena, despite how much the girl cares about their wellbeing.

  Now that they’re in the school, moving through Serena’s familiar routine — rather than Akari’s routine of showing up just on time for class in hopes of avoiding everyone — Akari begins to feel slightly better. She even begins to feel oddly comforted as a few of the people Serena had introduced her to in the last few days start greeting her as well.

  Akari considers the fact that, for a supposedly shy person, Serena seems to have no qualms checking in on anyone who looks down, and in a high school of this size, there is certainly no shortage of those. People sit in the hallway while waiting for class to start without any friends around them, just scrolling on their phones as if hoping something on their feed will reignite that spark of life within them.

  To most of these, Serena only offers a kind word or two with a smile before moving on. Although, with the most dower of them all, Serena will pause to have a full conversation with the person.

  By the time they’ve finished going around the school and talking to everyone, the sun had truly begun to rise. Inviting beams of warm sunlight shine through the glass of the eco-dome, and chirping birds happily announce the new day.

  Akari and Serena had made their way outside the school once more — to Serena’s favored bench — to wait on the rest of their team. The two wait in amiable silence, Akari just watching the sunlight and the birds while Serena sketches in her notebook.

  As they sit, Akari finds herself watching the people streaming into the school around them. Once, Akari had seen them all as rich, snobby little brats. Kids who hadn’t worked a day in their lives and had everything just given to them. Even still, it’s difficult not to see the others in that light; Silver Ridge is a high school for the rich of the rich, the children of Shinara’s elite. If they’re here, they’re certainly just spoiled, right?

  Slowly, Akari begins to see a different perspective, the perspective she imagines Serena must see when looking upon her classmates. Lumping everyone here into one category of spoiled brat is both unfair and is likely part of the reason Akari had never made friends at Silver Ridge beyond her team members. The truth Akari had never admitted to herself before is that no group of people can all be lumped into one truth.

  When you look at a group at the surface, all you will see are similarities. The expensive uniforms, the shining black shoes, and the immaculately done makeup and hair all point toward her classmates being rich snobs. However, look closer at any one person, and you’ll start to see the ways they break the mold. It isn’t just Serena or the other sentinels in the school. Every person here breaks the mold in their own little way, pieces of individuality shining through.

  As she watches, Akari starts to see the small things people do to make themselves different. A girl more interested in her handheld gaming device then the path in front of her, causing her to nearly trip, a short boy enjoying a private smile as he listens to music through his wireless earbuds, and so many more. None of these people are perfectly stereotypical for their group, and yet somehow move in perfect symbiosis with each other.

  The longer Akari observes, the more fascinated she becomes. Had she really been so focused on herself and her own problems that she’d missed this? It feels like the first person she really saw had been Serena in that dark alleyway. The snobby rich girl nervously smoothing her skirt who’d sat with Akari out in the cold. That had been a wake-up call, and now Akari can finally see what she had been missing, see the beauty of the world, the beauty of life.

  It’s because Akari is watching so closely, that she sees when a group of three girls’ stride into the eco-dome. The three seem to radiate malice, as if — instead of music or drawing — their hobbies are kicking puppies and laughing at pain.

  Great… my cousins are here. Akari thinks, even as she finds herself standing and placing a hand on Serena’s shoulder.

  “Let’s wait inside,” Akari says softly.

  Serena looks up from her drawing to find the three girls heading in their direction before starting with apparent fright. The shorter girl scrambles to tuck her items back into her bag before standing and looking up at Akari. “Hiding?” she asks.

  For a long moment, Akari looks down into Serena’s startlingly blue crystalline eyes. The girl is frightened but determined. If Akari wanted to stand up to her bullies here and now, Serena would stand by her side and face them with her.

  No, Akari thinks. Not now, not while Serena could get hurt.

  Akari nods and, linking arms with Serena, practically tows the girl out of harm’s way. That pit of dread continues to build within Akari as she moves, but she’s firm in her resolve. If her cousins are a threat that even she is afraid of, then she needs to make sure Serena is safely tucked away before confronting them.

  And I will confront them. Today.

  Hours later, Akari sits through her Mathematics class, eyes nervously flicking to the side of the room every few seconds. Her cousins are there, all three of them. They will come to her in the halls as soon as class ends, they always do.

  Wringing her hands, Akari checks the clock in the upper corner of the room. Almost time now. Serena is safely away in a class she shares with Claire, so she’ll be safe. There’s nothing stopping Akari from confronting this problem here and now, to putting a stop to it forever.

  “Liora, are you ready?” Akari asks her familiar.

  Liora, sitting proudly atop Akari’s head, scampers around in a circle in excitement. [Ready!] she responds, perhaps too enthusiastically. Liora had wanted to put Akari’s bullies in their place before they had even formed a sentinel bond.

  Akari smiles softly at her familiar’s enthusiasm. Honestly, she should be excited for this as well, but instead she just feels scared. She grits her teeth, she cannot, will not, feel fear for herself. These girls are a threat to Serena… yes, that’s why they need to be dealt with. Akari is absolutely not afraid of them.

  The bell rings and Akari starts in her seat, she’d been watching the clock, but time had gotten away from her.

  Students begin packing up and heading for the door, many of them having already packed up as the class grew near to ending. Akari takes her time packing away her things, allowing herself to be one of the last ones out of the classroom.

  In the past, she’d done this trying to delay the inevitable. Now, she does it to make sure her cousins have a chance to get out of the classroom before her and assume their regular positions lying in wait.

  Finally, Akari stands and heads for the classroom door. Nerves make her gut swirl, but she isn’t some child. She’s handled more pain than most of the students here can imagine; she can handle this.

  As Akari exits into the hallway, she looks to the side to find her cousins waiting for her next to a nearby janitorial closet. Once, they had needed to force her into it; now, they simply wait for Akari to come and take her beating. Not doing so would make her life harder after all… well, it used to.

  Compared to the mind flayer, they are nothing. Akari reminds herself, even as she hunches her shoulders and slips into the room.

  Her cousins slip in after her, blocking her way to the door and stepping closer — completely unaware of the familiar sliding between the trio to block their access to the door.

  Mako, the ringleader of the three, smiles her twisted smile. “I thought we’d have to force you today, Akari. You’ve been getting a bit big for your skirt recently.”

  Akari’s throat works nervously. “I came here to give you one final warning,” she croaks out. “Leave me and my friends alone.”

  Mako tilts her head, giggling. “Oh, darling. Do you think you’re brave now just because you’re a sentinel? You know you aren’t the only one with powers.”

  Sliding up the sleeve of her uniform, Mako reveals a full sleeve of inky black tattoos. Tattoos that hadn’t worked on Akari… her sygis scar had rendered her immune to other forms of Stygian Mana intrusion. It’s the real reason why her family had cast her out… she’s immune to receiving their magic, and now… she’d taken the magic of the enemy.

  Akari takes a deep, steadying breath. “You misunderstand, Mako. Your powers are far from equal to mine.”

  Akari shifts, blazing with violet light in the small space as she swaps into her assault state. Power burns through her veins — like lightning captured inside her. Her body pushes her to move, to act, to fight.

  A violet-edged sword appears in Akari’s hands, and she takes a threatening step forward. In her assault state, this feels so easy.

  Mako’s tattoos light up with dark power, and the girl surges forward. Not fast enough, Akari thinks, activating her Mediative Focus. All distractions wash away as she steps, almost casually, back to dodge Mako’s punch. Then, levels her blade infused with Soul Sever at her cousin’s throat. Her irises burn violet as she looks into Mako’s frightened eyes.

  “Do you know what my blade can do to you?” Akari asks, inching the edge closer to Mako’s skin, just close enough to draw a line of blood, a small nick on the girl’s soul.

  Mako’s entire body shudders, desperately wanting to pull away from Akari’s blade. “W-What… w-what is that thing?!” Mako demands, her body trembling.

  Akari’s other cousins watch in horror, glancing back at the door where an enlarged Liora blocks their escape.

  “What you feel cutting at your very existence?” Akari asks. “That’s my Dominion Art. You see, my blade doesn’t cut flesh… it cuts souls. I can carve out the very fact of your existence and excise you from the world forever.”

  Akari pushes her blade closer, cutting ever so slightly deeper into Mako’s throat. “How does it feel?” she asks. “To sense your spirit begin to unravel?”

  “Y-You… y-your fucking mad!” Mako screeches, her cries covered by the noise of students all moving through the halls to their next class. “Get that thing away from me!”

  “You will leave me alone from now on. You will leave Serena and the other sentinels alone, too,” Akari demands, her voice eerily calm. “We will never speak to each other again, and we’ll all be happier for it. Understand?”

  Mako nods franticly, doing her absolute best to keep as far away from Akari’s blade as possible. “Yes, whatever you want!”

  Calmly, ignoring the turmoil within her, Akari moves her blade away from Mako’s throat. Only a thin trickle of blood leaks from the wound; her blade hardly touches the physical.

  “You are cursed!” Mako snarls before she and her sisters storm past Liora and out the door.

  “No,” Akari whispers, alone in the janitorial closet. “I’m finally free of my curse.”

  Silently, she shifts back to her rest state and bends down to allow Liora to scamper up her arm and back up onto her head. Then, Akari leaves the closet and sets out to find her next class — one she shares with her friends.