Divine punishment

Brotherly Love

After this day, she barely saw One again, she discovered pretty quickly that he was at a way higher spot in this almost sectarian hierarchy then her. Her quite childish hope of getting this matter over with quickly where now completely crushed, but this place wasn't all bad, at least for now. She tried to keep low, but it was growing lonely, everyone was busy but she had not been summoned once for now. The usual training was here obviously but these days it seemed that the higher ups where too busy to spare them a single glance. No training meant more resting and reflecting and she needed that, those last few weeks had been a complete mess and she felt like she hadn't had any time to truly rest. But for once, under the comforting heat of the sun, her back resting against the rough bark of a tree and the wind blowing through her hair, she felt at peace she was alone in the silence of the afternoon... Well not completely alone she could faintly hear the others children playing far away from her, she got used to it afternoons where like this and truly she figured it was good some of them lacked awarness so bad that it allowed them to play and laugh dumbly. Sometime it made her incredibly bitter and some other time she simply found it pathetic, seeing all these children unaware that they are being used as human shield to allow the strongest to fight.

Still it always made her feel weird, she couldn't denied that she had those foolish voices sometime that whispered idiotic ideas, saying that maybe being brainless wasn't so bad and that maybe if she was like them she could die peacefully, without being aware of the selfishness of this world and the doom that awaited her. If she was like them, she could play along instead of watching them from far away, hearing their laugh and seeing their smile as if she was watching it all from behind a window, a screen or even a door, unable to imitate.

Sometime she felt like she was trapped inside her own mind, after the void, nothing would ever been the same she knew that, she kept repeating it to herself over and over everyday when she was still down there, she felt it she felt the blood penetrating her skin tainting her hands forever, she also felt the darkness clinging to her skin and the monstrosity of this place carving it's way in her mind. People usually say humans don't come out of the abyss and she could almost agree, people say she's the exception but she don't quite believe she is, while she came out alive she wasn't sure if what she felt deep down could be described as "human". But in anyway the past had happened and she couldn't do anything against that, she was a whole new person now it was as if she was reborn a new physical appearance, a new state of mind, a new family. But it didn't mean she forgot about her old family, while she knew she couldn't go back there like Two planned to do, she still missed her siblings, and one day she swore to herself that she would visit them again.

But thinking of her sibling did her no good, soon enough the voices of the other children became more and more insufferable, and the feeling of loneliness only grew, enough to make her stand up and rush back inside. Despite joining the group, she never spent time with them, Two was the one she spent the more time with and it was only 3 meeting. All of this was half because of her own habit of staying alone and half because Two was always surrounded with children while Five and Six, who's name she only learnt a few days ago by Two, just always stayed "alone"  not really alone because you would never spot five without six or six without five, but they where quite clearly outcasts. And since she hadn't had a chance to meet One again, she had been staying alone for the past few weeks, and today again she valued her alone time and she clearly needed to get her mind off those contagious thoughts that kept multiplying by the minutes. So she decided to do the only thing that made her calm when she felt irritated, fighting.

Of course Nine didn't picked up a fight with anyone, as much as she wished she had a fighting partner she had decided to stay low, bringing attention on herself right now would only bring them all trouble. So the training room was the best choice, it wasn't the first time she came here and so she knew every equipment and could almost walk in that room with her eyes closed. Her favorite thing to use was the holograms, this laboratory was truly filled with top class scientist, they had the best technology in all Zeleyna, Edrea valued victory in every field therefore she couldn't let Alethea win once, not even in the technology field. And it had advantage, this devices was basically an hologram of herself, the more she fought with it the more it improved to match her level, it was a smart device that kept learning through every fight. But it wasn't the same as it was down there, nothing was because this thing wasn't deadly, there was no thrill no real pain no real blood. It was all training, but it was different from training with Icy, because when she was with him she just knew that if he wished he could slice of her head at any given opportunity and despite the fact that he never did, she still knew he could've and she never took her chance for granted.