Enter The Sandman

The Weakness

The ship slowly starts to lift into the air, but a voice is heard somewhat in the distance.  "Wait!"

Everyone looks to where the voice came from, and I notice Usara running at a high speed towards the shuttle.  "Please, wait!"

The shuttle stops lifting in the air and Usara finally reaches us.  She takes the time to catch her breath, then looks at the general with a serious expression.  "I want to join this operation too!"

The general gets a slightly shocked look on his face and proceeds to say "Well... if you were to join us, you would receive no payroll or mentioning in this assignment.  Is that okay with you?"

Usara nods.  "That's fine... I just wanted to tag along..."

She hops on the ship, and it quickly rises in the air and takes off.  

"Didn't expect to see you so soon again" I say with a small grin.

Usara gains a small blush.  "W-well I just so happened to be in the neighborhood..."

There are some private conversations going on all around, but I notice Rina sitting by herself in silence.

I decide to make my way towards her.  

"Hey..." I say quietly.

She looks at me, and puts on a small fake smile.  "Oh... hey.  Long time no see..."

I start to frown.  "Are you still upset about what happened with Kristy?"

Rina looks downwards at the shuttle floor.  "I guess... I've always kept a straight face through everything I went through... but just when I thought I wouldn't be alone anymore..."

I look at her with confusion.  "What do you mean?  You... have Suiyomi... and you've got your friends too!"

Rina looks up, and puts on another fake smile.  It's obviously fake, due to the tears running from her eyes.  "Remember... back during the Reitia rescue mission... before I was killed?"

"What about it..." I question quietly.

"Remember... I said I didn't want anyone to ever die in front of me again..."

"Oh yeah, I remember that.  That left me curious... what did you mean by that?"

Rina crosses her legs out and extends her arms over her legs.  

"Back when I was a child... I was given up for adoption.  In other words, I've never met my birth parents.  Better yet, I've never even had parents.  You know who they gave me to?  One of the most famous circus dealers on the planet... that man was a psycho.  I was never let free from my tiny two meter cage.  I was rarely allowed to bath, eat, drink, or even move.  The only time I was able to see anything other than a white wall, was when I was put in a large tent to be shown to random people.  I was known as 'the little girl who can grow trees'.  Day after day... I did nothing but grow trees to amuse these random people... if I refused I got several volts for it.  If I rested, same case."

"Wait a minute... I remember in the elemental testing room you seemed to be a little surprised you were the earth element... what's this about?"

"I wasn't surprised... more so it brought back terrible memories, but I didn't want that to be shown.  But anyways, the people had just loved my show.  They treated me like a monkey.  I had grown trees simply to do athletics in them.  I had always gotten several cramps due to me not moving much, either... and you know what the people normally did to get me do to a personal trick for them?  They threw half eaten bananas at me... of course at the time I was grateful.  Eating was such a treasure.  But eventually more and more people stopped coming to see my show... the circus owner blamed me for it.  He decided that if any day had less customers than the one before it, I would receive a hard smack with metal baseball bat for each less customer.  In other words, if there were 700 customers one day, and then 650 the next, I would receive fifty beatings from that bat.  This went on for years... I still remember the total amount of times I received that bat to my body.  257,834 times.  The circus owner could see this wasn't working... so he turned to my friends instead.  Each day I failed to bring in more customers than the last, he would kill one of my circus mates.  In the beginning, most of them were just animals.  But eventually, more and more kids were adopted with me.  My cage started to finally grow larger... I was finally able to relate with people.  I was finally able to talk to people.  But that sick bastard... the only reason he accepted those kids... was so he could kill them if I failed.  He wanted me to become close to them... so I would be forced to work harder to protect them.  But nothing worked.  Each and every single last one of my old friends were murdered by him.  I was alone, all over again."