chapter 7

The Sentinels catch the signal leaving the soldiers to guard the house perimeter while they eliminate enemies within their scope. After that, Ariella returns to her sleep sending her subconscious to a pocket dimension she created before on top of her house.

"Siamese come forth."

A twin double end scythe appeared before her, its green and black pigment illuminate coldly under the moon brimming with eagerness to hunt when they notice the lingering killing intent in the breeze.

"You are not here to hunt. Sia and Mese transform into your human form to help me create exist like before."

A black-haired young man and a green-haired young girl that looks alike appeared, they are wearing an identical short yukata, Sia, the young man have a cat mask attach to his head while Mese, the young girl has a dog mask attach to her head.

"Princess!" – Sia and Mese shouted cheerfully while running full-speed towards Ariella which she braces herself for the impact, so they wouldn't fall. Ariella patted both of their head gently glancing at the two masks on top of their head, remembering how they got it.

"You still have the masks I gave you guys."

"Of course, this was the first gift you gave us from our first meeting." – Mese

Ariella hummed softly in response then pulled away from the two's bear hug, she instructed them to their position at creating multiple existing weapons with those materials she pointed at them.

"Let's get started, Mese you're on the lab, all of the materials you may need is over there and tell me if you need more, Sia, you'll be on the tech room, then after Sia is done, she'll give it to Mese to process it then he'll give it to me for finishing touch. That's our workflow, now let's go. We have until five in the morning to finish at least a quarter of this list."

"This will be a long night for us… by the way, princess, what are you going to do as we haven't started yet, so princess has nothing to do." – Mese

"I am always busy."

And with that words, Ariella's subconsciousness teleported on her office where the rest of her secretaries scream in shock which alarmed the guards outside of her office to barge in just to see their General's transparent form is sitting on her chair doing her paper works done. Ariella ignored the commotion happening in her office as her hands move nimbly and her eyes fly across the papers. Signing and marking mistakes here and there for the others to redo it again or investigate the said problems.

The guards that barged into her office silently retreated to their position and the secretaries have calmed down to retrieve their neutral faces and focus the mind to finish all the remaining works. Sounds of the pen moving against the paper as they flutter around her table and finish files towers around her until the said familiar sound and a suffocating stillness enveloped the whole room.

"Call General Rio Linch of Oceania and General Tatsuya Lucius of Asia. ASAP" – Ariella order sternly

"Yes."

In Fort Militias at different sections of a field full of sweaty shouting soldiers doing push-ups, jogging, hand-to-hand combat, training martial arts, and meditating soldiers are confined in soundproof individual rooms. Ariella created it to accommodate numerous soldiers meditating at the same time without disturbance and they can concentrate, these rooms have special feature install in them, it's called hologram illusion. This feature was updated by Ariella and other expert's techno-geek to enhances an illusion of nature by scent, sounds, touch, and sight.

In one of these said rooms, Tatsuya and Rio are meditating silently as an invisible force surrounded them, both of them have reached a bottleneck to complete Phase 1 training. Sweats drop from their temple as they gritted their teeth looking for a way to open the huge gate in front of them that won't seem to budge even a little. It's like there is a force they can't reckon no matter what they do until a knock disturbed their meditation.

Tatsuya calmly opened his cold eyes; he is quite pissed for someone disturbing his training when he was close to a breakthrough. Their General Ariella forbids others from disturbing them except if it's in a dire situation that said people needed to be disturbed by their meditation. He changed into his normal uniform then opening the door seeing his lieutenant standing at the door saluting at him.

"At ease, tell me the problem."

"General Ariella has passed an order to General Tatsuya and General Rio to come to her office ASAP, sir."

"Has General Rio been informed?"

"Yes, sir."

Tatsuya meets up with Rio on the prepared jeep for their ride towards Ariella's office, their General's office has been moved from the Kitakami household to a much more secluded area near Fort Militias. There was a rumor that the location of their General's office was her previous office at the other timeline as she seems to know of it like the back of her hand. It took them ten minutes to arrive, the sentinel guarding the front gate greeted them with salutations then someone guided them towards Ariella.

"You've finally arrived."

"Apologies for our tardiness." – Rio said as he and Tatsuya saluted

"What tardiness? I see that you have two grown exponentially, the mission I'll be giving your team will help you to realize where you are lacking while investigating this one." – Ariella handed them a folder as Tatsuya reach for it then he and Rio read it.

"Before you depart, keep in mind that when you accepted this mission the two of you are not military officers including your teams, no ranks, no orders, no id. Russia is a territory of power-hungry men; I want confirmation if these forbidden experimentations are real or superstitions. Is that clear?"

"Yes, General."

~School Day~

Santiago Lorenzo de Colegio is a mixture of pre-school, elementary, high school, and college. It's well known private catholic school in the Philippines with the best rating and one of the top schools in the whole country. Everyone can enroll in this school whether the student is poor or moderate or rich, as long as they reach the expectations set of the school for them. It's also a very strict school that would torment all bullies and teachers or students who use their money or power in school to hurt the weak. Rules are rules, no special treatment even if the student is rich, smart, a special athletic to the team, or whatever it is, anyone would be punished when they break a rule.

Kim and Ariella were drop off by Alfredo in front of their school gate as other students like them said their farewells to their parents or guardians.

"Take care you two, I'll pick you up after school and Ariella don't forget you have a piano lesson later, okay?" – Alfredo

"I didn't forget Ninong, see you later and drive safely." – Ariella and Kim waved back before entering the school as they were met by a long line of students being divided in each section of pre-school, elementary, and high school. The college students are the only ones that allowed to walk freely without lining up.

"Elementary pupils line up is here and please no pushing, wait patiently for your turn."

"Pre-school kids' parents please line up here."

"High school students behave and no pushing, the line is here."

Ariella felt nostalgic entering the academy she once did, Ariella is like those kids innocently looking around with excitement in their eyes while others are either anxious or nervous away from home all day and meeting strangers. She was once like that, naïve and innocent of the world, with no worries of anything in the world except meeting and making new friends in an unfamiliar place. Ariella sees familiar and unfamiliar faces altogether, she sees her friends from before, she remembers how boyish she once was, and how rebellious she was at that time.

"Arie, do you know what will happen for our first day, especially I'm a transferee?" – Kim

"Every year for the first week of the school day there will be various exams at different categories to assess which ranks the students are. Of course, the exams are taken into consideration for transferees like your brother, so don't worry about it, you'll do fine. The outline ranks at the end of the week are just to let students know where they stand at the moment and work hard." – Ariella

"I see… what's your rank before?" – Kim

"Hmm… if I remember correctly… I'm within top 20 at first then got in at top 10 ranks."

"Wow… that's amazing Arie. I'll study hard from now on to be worthy of being your brother."

"You are already worthy, brother. Studying, ranks and grades is just to teach us how to survive our life, in the real world, outside of these schools' gates and walls it doesn't matter if you are the smartest of your class or section. As long as you proved them you are worthy of such title and you have skills to do your job correctly and efficiently."

"I know, Arie, but I want to have a good head before I enter a cadet academy because I really want to enter the military army."

"Why? What's the reason, brother?"

"Someday I'll tell you." – Kim answered petting her head while smiling down gently at her. Kim's eyes have this far away gaze like his body is the present, but his soul and mind aren't, it's somewhere that it's so far away Ariella can't get near him but at the same get near him. Staff called for their attention with a cough which Kim and Ariella notice as they smiled softly saying their apologies.

"Name and grades please."

"Kim L. Legaspi, Grade 5."

"Ariella L. Lewis, Grade 2."

"What's the relationship between you two?" – ask the staff curiously seeing as their grades are far apart including the age, they don't have the same last name too.

"Ariella is my niece but because of the age gap we become like brother and sister or like a cousin."

"Okay, Kim wear this red button to distinguish transferees' students and those students that are coming back for this school year. Remember you must wear this for the rest of this week, so you won't be put in the wrong category." – warned the staff sternly.