Hikaru walked away without looking back, her footsteps silent against the grass in that eerie way she managed even while favoring her injured side. I watched her go and wondered when exactly my roommate had become someone willing to die for people she'd barely spoken to.
The answer was obvious, of course. She'd always been willing. That was the Tanaka clan breeding, the generations of warrior philosophy hammered into her bones before she could walk. The only thing that changed was that she now had people worth dying for instead of a family legacy that treated her like defective merchandise.
I checked the time. Four seventeen. Less than two hours until deployment.
My phone had accumulated messages like a dam collecting debris.
