Dark Light

Chapter 22: Time

Year 1872

The door was closed and Rina let out a tired sigh, letting herself drop to the wooden bench beside the equipment racks on the wall. Haruna was standing in the middle of the equipment room, her arms now crossed in front of her chest.

They certainly hadn't been expecting to wake up with loud bangs on their door so early in the morning, it was a testament to how exhausted Mami and Tomomi were that they were still asleep in the dormitory. Rina had been the first one to spring out of bed and Haruna followed without even knowing what was going on at first. The ones at the door had been a captain and the same shieldmaiden who had accompanied the princess into the fortress the previous morning.

Turns out Claw wanted to inspect the Dark Light weapons more carefully, or so the captain had said. Haruna had been pretty much forced to hand in the halberd, and the shieldmaiden respectfully asked for her claymore and ring under the promise of giving them back to her later in the day. There wasn't really anything they could've done except comply. Haruna was sure she had commented with Claw during that meeting that they needed someone with magical powers to use the halberd, since there wasn't another relic to pair it with. She had no idea whether Claw planned on actually testing the weapons or just inspecting them, though, and neither captain nor shieldmaiden were really answering questions before they left.

- What should we make of this? - Rina asked in a quiet voice, trying to tame her wild bed hair with her hands - Claw could have asked for them yesterday, why now and why like this?

- I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say she's probably been studying what to do ever since the end of our meeting yesterday.

- Do you think she knows we're not telling her everything?

- There's no reason to think that right now. To be honest, in her position I would have taken the weapons much earlier.

The princess then let her arms fall to her sides and walked over to her younger friend, sitting by her side on the bench. There were a few seconds of silence that only made Rina feel more tense.

- We need to be careful around here, with the whole Mami thing and all. - Rina spoke again, and Haruna hunched over her own knees, letting her head drop.

- Yes, and not even just that.

- What do you mean?

- You realize I didn't say a word about your dragon family, right? Or the fact that you came from Genbu.

- So there was a reason for that, is that what you're telling me right now?

- I just don't want to give them unnecessary details that might prove themselves a bad idea later. - Haruna explained - I know Byakko's military doesn't have the most positive history with dragons, and I don't want our conversations with their leadership getting anywhere near the Elysia thing.

- So they don't think we're batshit crazy.

- Precisely. If we ever need to mention your heritage for any reason, we can do that while not mentioning that particular mess somehow. We need them to help us, and we need them to not kill Mami. That's the focus.

- Is that why you didn't say a single word about Tomomi's memory either?

Haruna nodded.

- Again, if it ever proves to be a necessary detail to mention, we can study how to go about that. I have an idea of what an army leadership would see in a person with an eidetic memory, and I sure don't want that for Tomo.

- You think they would want to use her?

- I don't think that, I'm sure of that. It could come back to bite us too. If they ever know about that, we can never have Tomomi say she doesn't remember something to cover our asses with the omissions we have to make about Mami. We need to work as a team, we can't give free information like that to anyone outside of us four unless it's absolutely necessary.