-- Aster --

Feeling like, a beat-up can, I collapsed into a chair in the common room, where the rest of the team was trying to relax. The training did not get any better, despite knowing Kerria wasn't purposely trying to screw me up. He was a man obsessed with the sword and was doggedly determined to make me do it. Now that I was actually willing to listen to the man, I found his teachings odd. He was all about big flashy moves and large swings. Something you would expect from a weapon like a Zweihander but not for a roguelike me.

I let out a long frustrated sigh to the room, "I can't do this again."

"Do what again?" James asked.

I made a vague gesture towards the building, "This."

James looked confused as he tentatively asked, "The training?"

Maybe I was being too vague, for them to understand. Maybe this time they will understand if I say it plain. "They're training me wrong again."

"How?" James asked looking lost.

This was not a promising start. "He's not listening and..." I trailed off not sure if I could explain about the constant siren attacks.

"Well...maybe you should listen," James said unhelpfully.

"NO!" I said annoyed, trying to find the right words, "It's not just that. I could use more sword training. It could only help. But..."

"But what?" Bay urged.

"It's hard to explain." You know what they can't help if they don't know what is going on. "I think a siren is fucking with me during the training"

"Seriously Aster?" This time it was Rowan who voiced his disbelief.

"Yes?"

"You're using an outside force that has no reason to screw with you as an excuse for your lack of skill." I couldn't blame him, for his skepticism as it was something that shouldn't be possible.

"NO." I defended myself.

"Then what?" He said with a hard tone.

"Look at first I thought it was the trainer." I began to explain.

"You thought the trainer was a siren?" Bay questioned interrupting me.

I blinked having to switch gears, "No, I thought the trainer was using a skill on me."

"Why would he do that?" James asked.

"I don't know I thought it was for some kind of weird storyline he was going for."

Violet interrupted, "What does this have to do with a siren?"

They were hitting me from all sides and not letting me explain, "If you guys will let me just finish. It will make sense."

I saw Violet smirking as she was about to ask something else when James puts a hand on violets shoulder, to stop her. "We're listening."

I took a deep breath and began, "So, I told you yesterday that he was denying using any skill on me, but every time, and I mean every single time I might have actually got a hit on him or attacked correctly. I was assaulted by a loud high pitched sound, that would cause my hand to spasm or another of my muscles to seize, causing me to stumble, trip up or drop my weapon."

"I never heard a sound," Rowan said skeptically.

"Me neither." Violet agreed.

I shook my head. How could they have heard it if Kerria himself was deaf to it, "I think it was localized or directed or something, but anyway I thought he was doing it and was an amazing actor with how he was denying it. Then I decided to catch him in the act."

"How?" James asked, he appeared to be taking this seriously, which surprised me. Where was this in school?

I flared power into my eyes making them glow, "Eyes, I can see."

"Go on."

"So I watched and the next thing I see is a stream coming from outside the building."

"Why do you think siren?" James asked only for Rowan to answer.

"The sound."

"Exactly!" I said excitedly.

But any hopes they were starting to understand were dashed with James' next question, "But, why would they do this to you?"

I deflated back into my chair, "I don't know. Maybe this is an act of petty revenge for stealing their song."

The room went silent, till James broke it, "You never explained what that meant."

"Oh?" Did I not? "I can show you." Might be best to just show them.

"Ok."

I stared towards James and prepared to push power through and out of my eyes, "Look at me and walk towards me.

To James's credit, he immediately stood and started to walk towards me. The second he made eye contact with me, I pushed the power out of my eyes into his, sending disrupting signals to his brain. I wasn't as skilled as the siren was so I could only flood his entire mind with power. His entire body visibly stuttered locking him up. Because he was walking towards me he began to fall over continuing his forward momentum.

James quickly lost eye contact with me, and right before he hit the ground he stopped right before hitting the ground and appeared to float his body back into a standing position. It was quite impressive. "Owww. That hurt. A lot, my organs and muscles all seized. And that was not pleasant, I thought you were going to sing or something, but what the rot was that?"

Seized his organs, I could only imagine what that felt like, "That was my version of their song."

"But that wasn't a song," Jame said annoyed

I shook my head, "No it wasn't."

He tried to explain what he felt but was having trouble. "It felt and tried to work at the same time."

I winced seeing his real pain, "Sorry, didn't know it would hurt?"

James shook his head, "It was freaky."

"Yeah, now imagine that every time you tried to attack someone."

Jame shook himself and looked at me seriously, "Ok. Let's say I believe you. What are you going to do?"

I really didn't know what I was going to do, except I had to find them first, "I'm going to leave and find them. Make amends or end them. I don't know." Would they even leave it?

"End them? Isn't that a little extreme?" Violet accused.

"They'll come back." I reasoned.

"I don't know Aster. Seems a bit much." Bay commented.

Letting out a tired sigh, "Look. I'm not going through being trained wrong again. If they're gone maybe I can actually get better with the sword, and then he'll teach me some ninja stuff." I said not really believing my own words.

"I thought you said he wasn't a ninja," James commented.

I could only shrug, "Not convinced he isn't."

I decided to get this over with and made my way down to the lobby. Only for Kerria to be waiting for me. What was he even still doing here? Shouldn't he be at home or something this late?

"Running away are we?" Kerria asked with such venom, I physically took a step back.

"No, I just have something to deal with." If he would just let me out it wouldn't take more than an hour to deal with.

Kerria glared down at me, "Outside the training compound?"

"Yes?" I didn't understand why he was being so confrontational.

"Why? You just got here. You don't know anyone. This is just running away." He declared.

Does he really think I'm attempting to run away? "I can't even go outside the training area?"

"No.

"Are we prisoners?" I asked because it was beginning to sound like we were.

"Yes. I believe Edelweiss explained that to you." I couldn't believe he just straight-up admitted to it. I thought for sure he would dance around it.

"I thought he wasn't serious." It seemed like a joke at the time.

"He's always serious."

"Whatever. I still have something to take care of outside." It didn't matter that we were prisoners I still needed to deal with the siren.

"What could you possibly need to deal with?"

"A siren."

The man's jaw dropped, as I stunned him. I was feeling smug when he collected himself, "You expect me to believe a siren is out there and you need to do something with them?"

"Yes?" We had explained we ran into a siren forest on the way here. Did they not believe us?"

"Your excuses are pissing me off. First, you accuse me of using skills. I see the type of person you are. Blaming everyone else for your own incompetence." He accused.

"No, that's"

"SILENCE! If you think I was hard on you before. I am going to show you that you're responsible for your own actions, and not anyone else."

"There is a siren!" I pleaded.

"I don't care you'll have to figure it out."

I tried to go around Kerria but he was too fast for me to pass by, and I was only feeling worse since the days training. Seeing that I wasn't going to be able to just simply walk past him, I began to pull power to fall away, except when I did I felt more powerful than ever before begin to flood into me. If I spoke the words I wasn't sure I would be able to dance along a razor's edge that fine. I was forced to use all my concentration to dissipate the power. That's when Kerria grabbed me. I couldn't even fight back as I fought against myself, even forgetting why I was grabbing the power in the first place. I was just getting myself back under control when Kerria threw me bodily into the tenth-floor common room.

Hitting the floor brought me back to myself, but my body was hurting all over. Especially, on my head where I landed.

"Take care of this incompetent coward. Make sure he knows that his failings are his own and no one else's."

Violet was already over me fixing my concussion.

"If you would just listen..." I slurred out, only for Kerria to slam the door behind him.