"You think you can get stronger just by training with me for one day?!"
Jin thought of what happened yesterday, he felt ashamed of himself for thinking something that ridiculous, "getting stronger in one day" thing. But at the same time, he felt better that he vented those emotions out to someone. Now, Shin and Jin train on a daily basis, Jin has been learning the basics of sword fighting, but he's trying to find his own sword combat style.
Jin and Shin are practicing to look for openings by dueling, of course, this time, Jin has learned a few things about sword fighting. Jin now uses a basic stance instead of his self-taught, inexperienced, old stance. Jin strikes Shin but Shin blocked it, Shin tried to counterattack but Jin dodged it immediately,
"Very good, Jin" Shin says
Jin is proud of himself for doing that maneuver but, he still has ways to go on his instincts and his striking capability.
'Even though I'm doing great, I still need some work with my strikes' Jin thought.
They continued on, dueling, both of them giving out strikes, it was a stalemate between them, although Shin was going easy on him. By the time they finished dueling, it was nighttime,
"Alright, Jin, this is it for today, let's continue tomorrow and also I can smell food inside the house so I think dinner is ready"
Jin nodded and Shin gave him a hand so he could stand up, they both come in inside the house,
"Eh?!" Mizuki says as he sees Jin, slightly beat up because of the duel he and Shin were doing,
"What happened?!" Mizuki says to Jin, looking worried.
"Me and Shin had a practice duel, but that's just it" Jin replied
"I don't think you guys had a practice duel, look at you, you look beaten up!" Mizuki says as she goes to the cabinet in the living room, containing medical supplies, Mizuki gets medical supplies like bandages from the cabinet and goes back to the kitchen yard door,
"Well, It's nice to know that you're trying to get stronger, but just don't push yourself too hard, kay?" Mizuki says as she applies bandages on Jin,
"Also, you're not a burden to me, so stop thinking like that okay?" She continued while giving him a bright smile
'She knew?' Jin thought
"Y-you knew?" Jin asked
Mizuki nodded,
"Shin told me," she says in a quiet voice.
"So don't ever think about those things again, okay?" Mizuki says to Jin while giving him a cute smile.
"Alright," Jin replied.
During this moment, a siren blared,
"EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY, ALL EXECUTIVE MEMBERS OF ELEAZOR MUST GO TO THE CAPITAL CENTER NOW!!" the Emergency Service says after the loud siren,
"This is bad," Hana says,
"Shin, come with me, Mizuki and Jin, you guys too" She ordered them.
"Wait wh-" Jin says but he gets interrupted as Mizuki grabs his hand and drags him with the group
They all arrived at the capital center, Hana opened the door, where they met the other executive members of Eleazor, the capital center didn't look medieval-like, it looked like the US Supreme Court but a little different.
"Hello Hana, glad that you're here," One of the members says
"Same to you, too, Sven" She replied to Sven, who looked pretty buff and tall, he wears a wolf fur vest and has what seems to be a magic staff with a magic artifact equipped.
"Good to see you again, Shin!" A random woman says as she puts her hand on Shin's shoulder, when Hana sees this, she immediately slaps the woman's hand,
"Owwww!" The woman says as Hana hit her hand very hard.
"Get your hands off my brother, Maiko!" Hana shouted at her,
Maiko looked very beautiful, with black hair like ink and red eyes like blood, her clothing is very princess-like, a black and red colored gown.
"Hey, Hana, don't get too riled up, she was just being playful," A random man says,
Hana calms down and says,
"Okay, I will"
"Thank you and these two seem new, are they your friends, Hana?" The man says.
"Yes, they are," She replied.
"Well, nice to meet you, I'm Takahiro, part of the Toma clan," Takahiro says.
Takahiro looked like a pretty good guy, a little muscular, perfect height, has navy blue hair like the sea and pitch black eyes, he wears a grey jacket with a white undershirt, with a white fur scarf around his neck and square shaped glasses.
"Light blonde hair, with light yellow eyes, Mizuki, are you.." Takahiro says while looking surprised,
"A Shinohara?!" Takahiro shouted.
"Wait, what's the big deal about it?" Jin asked,
"I assume you," A man steps out of the shadow, pointing at Jin,
"Are a dumbass" This man says,
'Okay, this guy is probably the worst out of the whole group here' Jin thought,
Jin then looks at Mizuki, who seemed to look gloomy when Takahiro said her last name. Jin tries to assure Mizuki,
"Hey, you okay?" He asked
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine" She replied
"I'm just gonna head over to the lounge," She continued
"I'll lead you" Jin insisted,
"I can go there myself, thank you for insisting though" Mizuki says and she leaves the meeting room and went to the lounge.
"Alright, shall we start this meeting?" Sven says,
Jin leaves the meeting room as it started, he made up his mind that he's not gonna listen to some boring meeting, instead, he's gonna go comfort Mizuki as he knows that she is feeling sorrowful. Jin opens the lounge door, the lounge wasn't like what you think it is, it looked medieval-like this time, Jin has no idea on how the hell does the meeting room doesn't look medieval-like yet the lounge looked medieval-like, but even though it looked medieval, it looked very cozy. He sees Mizuki in one of the seats near the balcony. He approaches her,
"What do you want?" Mizuki asks him as if she already knew Jin is near her.
"Nice instinct there, Mizuki" Jin complimented her.
"I'm not in the mood to play with you, Jin" Mizuki says while still having that gloomy, sorrow face.
"Okay then how about let's talk" Jin suggested,
"And what do you want to talk about?" Mizuki asked,
Jin sits down next to her,
"What's been bothering you? Don't try to deny it but I can tell that something is bothering you"
Mizuki felt more miserable, as much as she wants to tell Jin, she can't bear the emotional pain.
"It's none of your business, Jin, don't try to meddle" Mizuki denied to answer Jin's questions,
Jin looked at Mizuki with a bittersweet face.
"You know, Mizuki, my family taught me a valuable lesson, that 'you shouldn't bottle up your emotions' and that 'It's okay to cry'."
"Well I don't know h-how would that f-feel..." Mizuki voice shakens as if she's holding back her tears,
"Because I don't even have a family!" Mizuki finally bursted, tears started to come out of her luminous bright yellow eyes.
"M-My family, no, my whole clan, they all got killed by an army! So how can you possibly know what I feel?!" Mizuki shouts at Jin, still her voice shaken as she is breathing shakenly because she is crying.
"I tried to forget it, but once that person brought up my family name, all of it, all of my sorrows, it all came back!"
"So don't tell me this family lesson bullshit!" Mizuki yelled at him,
Jin rushed in and hugged Mizuki tightly
Mizuki hits Jin's chest lightly
"Let go" Mizuki says,
"Sorry, Mizuki, sorry that I was being ignorant earlier."
"I said, LET GO!" Mizuki yells
This time, she hits Jin's firm chest a little stronger and Jin winced but didn't show it to Mizuki because he didn't care if he feels pain, cause comforting Mizuki is his top priority.
Jin didn't let go, Mizuki didn't bother to resist anymore, she started to sob on Jin's firm and gallant chest. After a few moments, Mizuki holded him tightly, hugging him back. She started to mouth the words,
"Jin, suki desu, watashi no koto o ki ni kakete kurete arigatō." (It means Jin, I love you, thank you for caring about me)
As the sun sets down and the moon rising up, Mizuki falls asleep on Jin's chest, Jin sighed,
'Looks like she fell asleep' Jin thought as he smiles at her gorgeous face with her shining bright yellow eyes, reflecting the beautiful full moon
Meanwhile earlier, in the meeting:
"The Shadow Alliance, has declared war on Eleazor." Sven says,
"We must announce this to all the citizens of Eleazor and evacuate them to a safe place" Shin suggests,
"Yes, I agree with Shin on this one," Maiko agrees with Shin's idea.
"Evacuating the citizens and relocating them to a safe place is easy to do" Hana says
"But the difficult part here is, how do we fend their forces off, their soldiers are pretty sturdy, speaking of personal experience."
"Plus their generals too" Takahiro added.
"I know for sure, that Reno is coming." Hana says,
They all sighed,
"Reno is gonna be tough to fight." Takahiro says,
"Yeah" Maiko agrees with Takahiro.
"They have declared war on us, It's time to prepare and fight" Sven says.
"For Eleazor!" They all say in unison.