Back in the dark hallways, Leo couldn’t help but clench his teeth and fists in frustration. First, he requested something that was bound to happen in the future, even without his intervention. Then, he went ahead and gave him the payment of Connie’s Refraction! Not only that, he could probably infer the issue regarding her sleep too.

  And he had basically given that all up for free!

  Unable to hold back, he suddenly rammed his head into the wall, surprising Cain, causing him to spin around.

  “Woah! That sounded bad, ya good?”

  His head hurt like hell, but was fine. A line of blood ran over his right eye as he cut his forehead on the stone wall.

  Showing he was fine, he gave Cain a thumbs-up as his head remained glued on the wall.

  “Right…I guess just let me know when you’re done.”

  From his peripherals, he could see Cain standing somewhat distanced from him with his feet facing away. It seemed he felt a bit awkward to see what could be best described as a tantrum.

  How could he get out of this situation? At this point, the Lieutenant was basically holding a knife to his neck. But what did he want? He was just a recruit at this point, with no experience at that!

  He lifted his head and shook it a bit, rattling his thoughts together. First things first, he had to check on Amanda.

  He turned to Cain. “Sorry about that, we can continue on. Please, lead on.”

  A few moments of silence later, they reached a dark brown wooden door. Not as polished as the Lieutenant’s had been, but much better than the average soldier’s barracks door.

  Cain knocked three times on the door.

  A familiar, but tired voice could be heard inside. “Who’s it?”

  Cain said, “I’ve escorted a man named Leo to you. He said he needs to speak to you.”

  “Uh, just a minute!”

  A few noises could be heard inside. It sounded like she was getting things organized.

  “Come in!”

  Leo looked at Cain, who simply nodded. It seemed he’d do the same as before with Teddy.

  He could only sigh as he opened the door.

  Walking in, he saw an abundant amount of floors plastered all over the room. He couldn’t even see the wall at this point, it was as if the flowers. The creepiest part was that they seemed to all turn to face him.

  “Guys! Please! For the love of god! Just stop talking! Please, be quiet for just this conversation, ‘kay?”

  Looking down, Leo saw Amanda sitting at a desk next to her bed.

  Hearing the doors shut, Amanda turned to face him with a bright smile. “Leo! Finally, somebody not Teddy or a flower. Come, sit!” She violently patted the seat in front of her.

  “Ahahaha…Guess I’ll take you up on that.” Wearing an awkward smile, he took a seat.

  Amanda groaned as she glared at the arrangement of flowers surrounding her room. “These blasted plants!”

  At the sound of ‘plant’, the flowers all seemed to reel back as their stems leaned back their capitulum in shock or disbelief.

  She flipped the plants off as Leo made his way to her. “Yeah! I said it! Don’t make me call you weeds next! Now stay quiet for now!” She turned back to Leo, quickly switching back to a smile. “So, whatcha need?”

  “Flowers don’t like to be called…plants?”

  Her expression froze, her eyes visibly dimming. Her voice turned deadpan. “Yeah…apparently there’s this thing in the plant world where flowers think themselves to be the superior being compared to others, even using slurs like ‘sun hoggers’ and ‘late bloomers’...I personally don’t really know what’s going on in plant politics, so to summarize, the flowers hate all other plants. Let them be vegetables, fruits, trees, bushes, vines, it doesn’t matter…If they don’t bloom, then they hate them all the same…They say they hate them because they look disgusting without the petals and are just compensating with their giant statures, taking up all the sunlight from the ones that really matter…”

  “Stop! Stop! I think I kind of get it, but you can relax with that talk…” Not wanting to get involved in this war, he quickly put a stop to her rant. “Anyways, I guess, besides all that, how’ve you been? Teddy bothering you?”

  She shook her head. “Not really, he just occasionally brings in a bunch of flowers to add to this room. He said it’s to train my ability? But personally, I see no issue hearing these brats.”

  ‘Nothing weird, huh?’

  Teddy didn’t seem off besides what happened earlier, but with this new side of him, who knows what’s happening behind the scenes?

  Her face suddenly turned worried. “On another note, are you okay? I saw the fight and your Refraction. Your opponent really messed you up, did you heal properly?”

  Leo nodded. “I’m fine, they did perfectly.” He flung his arms around. “See? All good.”

  “Did Teddy tell you what happened after though? Some idiot tried jumping in to kill you!”

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  ‘Huh? Kill who? Me?’

  Amanda exhaled in frustration. “Judging from that confused look, I guess not. That guard in all white suddenly jumped in and tried killing you when you lost consciousness.”

  “What, why?”

  She shrugged. “No idea. But luckily Teddy just barely appeared in front of you to take the hit. From what I saw, he lost a forearm from blocking that attack! And she aimed at your head with that! The gall!”

  Leo slammed the table in surprise, lifting himself off the chair. “Wait, wait, wait. Teddy protected me? That makes no sense!”

  She tilted her head with a raised brow. “Why’s that so weird?”

  He opened his mouth but stopped. Thinking about it again, he didn’t want to drag her into this problem. He got himself into it, he’ll get himself out. Plus, it’s not like the Lieutenant had done anything bad to any of them yet.

  With that thought, Leo laughed it off. “It’s nothing, it’s just…wasn’t he in the stands?”

  She nodded in excitement. “Right? He was so fast! And he just reattached his arm like it was normal-” She suddenly stopped herself. “But there was something up with Anthony though. When you were unconscious, he got up like nothing was wrong and just walked out. The Lieutenant even told me they’d bring a Mindtap, Leo!”

  Leo waved his hand, already aware of this. “Yeah, yeah. Teddy already told me about it. You’re so behind…”

  “Wha-!”

  As Amanda berated him, he thought back to what she said.

  ‘He reattached his forearm?’

  That absolutely had to be his Refraction, but what exactly was it? Regeneration? It didn’t seem as simple as that. And based off of Connie, their Refractions had a flaw that came with them. Connie’s sleepiness, Amanda bombarded with flower talk, and Patrick unable to move. That begged the question.

  What was his flaw?

  The last time he had used it, he had been in that awakened state so he doubted the flaw was too heavy then. He had to figure this out and find a way to mitigate or remove this lethal weakness.

  A knock sounded from the door, signalling the end of their meeting.

  “Looks like that’s all the time we’ve got.” Leo got up and brushed his clothes down. “I’ll see you after all this, ‘kay?”

  Amanda got up to walk Leo out. “You better make it, what else would I do back here all alone like this?”

  Some of the flowers began shaking their petals, seemingly out of frustration or annoyance. The act caused Amanda to be somewhat disgruntled. “Yeah, can’t forget them…”

  A chuckle escaped his lips at the sight. “At least I know you aren’t too lonely.” He waved as he walked through the door. “I’ll see you later.”

  With that said, he shut the door behind him.

  “Said what you needed to say?”

  Leo nodded. “Thanks for waiting, Cain. Let’s get back to the dormitory.”

  Cain promptly escorted him back, leading them through the same dark hallway as they left the rowdy barracks.

  As they walked though, a thought suddenly popped up in Leo’s mind.

  “Say, Cain.”

  Cain turned to look at Leo. “What’s up?”

  “You probably know what happened between me and Teddy, right?”

  Cain’s head jolted up in surprise.

  ‘Guilty.’

  In a shaky voice, he replied, "Officially, I heard nothing.”

  “There isn’t any way you could help me right?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say there isn’t a way. But at this moment? No, I will not risk helping you. I just met you for crying out loud.”

  With that solid, and pretty understandable answer, he finally reached his dormitory. Bidding farewell to Cain, he entered and walked to his room. He took a deep breath to calm himself before entering the room, the exhaustion of the day kicked in as he collapsed onto his bed, instantly passing out.

  It had been a long day.

  Inside the dimly lit room, Teddy glanced at the drawer where he had stashed Leo’s note. He had wondered what Leo would bring, but never something as valuable as this. Both a Smogborn’s Refraction and their flaw? From what he read, it seemed pretty useful, but nothing too eyecatching, so he easily lost interest in whoever this note referred to.

  Suddenly, a light began blinking.

  Looking at the light on his desk, his communicator was blinking. Confused, he answered to see an unexpected name.

  “Lieutenant Eicholtz, I hope this isn’t a bad time.”

  Teddy adjusted himself. “Not at all, Chairwoman. What could have you contacting me at such an hour?”

  A yawn could be heard through the device. In a dreary tone, she said, “I heard that a trialist visited your quarters. Is there an issue I should be aware of?”

  Teddy rolled his eyes. He had figured as much. She had her eyes and ears crawling everywhere in this city, it was no surprise there would be some of her bugs near him too. He just hadn’t expected her to contact him so soon, or so directly.

  At that moment, he thought back to Lady Wegerer’s exhausted image at their lunch break. He could see why she’s so tired with all this pestering and watching.

  “No, Chairwoman. He simply asked me a few questions before departing, and I believe he visited his companion that I vouched for as well. Other than that, nothing of note had occurred.”

  At some point, the communicator had deactivated, suggesting the caller had hung up.

  Teddy wanted to slam his head into the wall. How did someone like her become a colonel, let alone become the chairwoman? He groaned as rested on his bed

  Teddy sat for a moment thinking. Although she was a lay back as per usual, he couldn’t see any reason she would come and contact him over some random trialist. Not only that, Lady Wegerer was also keeping tabs on him. He never asked out of respect for her, but he couldn’t help to ponder now that the Chairwoman was interested too. Now that he thought about it, even the Children were spectating the trials this time. Was it for a similar reason?

  Grabbing a folder, he checked on the report for Leo. Although his observed abilities were interesting, they weren’t so noteworthy to catch eyes like this. He just couldn’t grasp what drew them towards him.

  They obviously knew something he didn’t. But what?

  A sudden premonition hit him as he began to smile. “Fate, huh? Lady Wegerer, just what are you plotting with the Chairwoman?”

  He fell back into his bed, snuffing out the candle on the desk by throwing his communicator away and let out a big sigh.

  It had been a long day.