Chapter X

On either side of him, Hannah and Akuma sleep, held up by the edge of the bed while their lower bodies kneel on the floor surrounded by empty plates. Hannah sleeps silently, so quiet that you could hear her dreams in between each breath; Akuma does not, he emits every speck of gas from his lungs through his nose, then inhales until they're full, causing the tanks to creak, then exhales again; more of an irritation than a fly making its rounds around a room. Sao investigates his wounds: they have mostly healed. The cuts in his head and leg have sealed without a trace, and his arm is only slightly bent, nothing unmanageable.

A couple of hours pass; the sun awakes over the horizon and greets the house with a warm hello. The change is enough to stir the pair – Hannah and Akuma – out of their food coma. The first image in their heads this morning are each other's, Sao has already begun the day early, not waiting for natures alarm of in-tune singing from the sky's feathery inhabitants. They are no longer sliding off the bed, instead, perfectly parallel to each other, controlling an equal amount of the bed's territory; a peculiar transition to the too, they lie in an awkward silence, pretending a man never slept in between; a whistle breaks out from Akuma, looking about the room for something, a signal of what to do, this isn't quite his home yet. Hannah, all too familiar with her saviour gone for vast periods of time, has taken the house as her own; no Sao, no issue, she knows the processes of the dirt path by now; at five the local farmers start their trade, setting out to get as far into their field as possible, so that if they are targeted for inspection, they would have an alibi for not answering the door; granted this mattered little to whether the inspectors entered the house or not, it just meant that questions would not be asked; at six the first truck patrol drives past the house, entering Plutus for their daily policing, as they rotate the staff on patrol; eight, the first wave of workers barrel in to Plutus, the biggest indicator it was time to wake, as once the workers came in, the shops would begin to stockpile and not long later, at ten, the shoppers come; like a swarm, they swamp the roads with the vehicles – ranging from fully automated cars, if they're rich, and tiny wagons for the less fortunate – and clog the air with horns and shouting to make way, because they have an unwritten right to supply first and foremost.

Click; the front door creaks open, letting Sao's face sneak through the gap, "Rise and shine." Akuma scarpers towards him, wrapping himself around Sao's torso. 'Woah, watch my arm.' Sao stands underneath the door frame holding three wooden kendo sticks in his left hand. 'When you're up and ready meet me outside, okay?'

'Sure,' Hannah responds, spinning to face the window, pulling the covers over her, now that Akuma wasn't anchoring them down to the mattress.

'And Akuma, you can't go out like that, get changed. Grab something from the wardrobe. Something must fit you in there.'

'Yes, yes, yes,' and with a quick salute, Akuma runs to the wardrobe; Hannah, meanwhile, just starts to sit up. With bountiful choice, Akuma ignores them all, only grabbing the first thing he sees and putting it on. What he saw was a dull grey T-shirt – nothing remarkable, a couple black stripes running down the shoulders, but that's about it – and jogging bottoms which are peppered with red freckle-like spots. Hannah, now managing to stand up, joins Akuma at the wardrobe; Akuma almost left the house, but a hat caught his eye; a heavenly white baseball cap with a gold petal at its front. He rushes to grab it as Hannah reaches into the wardrobe, almost colliding into her arm before skidding back to the door; she only wanted a cleaner version of the cloak she wore on the previous day; it had started to grow on her.

Akuma had already left for Sao by the time Hannah was prepared; poking his head around the corner of the door, 'Hannah, Hannah, Hannah, come on, come on, come on.'

Hannah strolls to the door, no interest in obeying Akuma's request.

Eventually, she makes it to the outside world; Sao and Akuma waiting for her arrival. The three travel to the side of the right side of the house; it was the last on its road, so that left a lot of space for what Sao had planned. There they find a raggedy chalk circle, roughly fifty metres in diameter.

'Catch.'

Sao throws a kendo stick to Hannah. She catches it, mostly to avoid it hitting her, and glances at it in disappointment.

'Why now?' Hannah moans, still wiping sleep from her eyes.

'Because you ate my food, that's why.'

Akuma disrupts her feelings of disappointment with a shriek of joy. 'Finally, I've been waiting all my life for this. I'm finally going to be a hero.'

'Welcome to your first day of training. Every morning the two of you will spar with each other to so I can leave you on your own if I must. Remember this is for your benefit. I'll be watching from the side just in case you get carried away and injure each other.'

Sao directs the two into the circle. Hannah and Akuma are informed that whoever steps outside of the ring is disqualified and loses. With that being the only rule told to them, they get into their positions; Akuma keeps low to the ground, stick pointing forwards; Hannah remains tall, completely disregarding a stance, hoping for Akuma to fail on his enthusiasm.

Sao holds up his left arm straight above him, 'Ready? Begin!' his hand swings down;

as predicted, Akuma pounces without thought; Hannah does not move. He moves at a lightning pace and misses completely, Hannah merely stepping to the side, Akuma's face scraping the floor; if it weren't for friction, Akuma would have lost, immediately.

Gathering himself, he charges anew; Hannah still not moving from her adjusted position; this time Akuma halts as Hannah attempts to step aside again, tripping her with a stretched-out leg; he follows the trip with a swing of his kendo stick; over his head, he sends it crashing back down to Hannah; she manages to block it with a frantic horizontal swing of her kendo stick, then returning the favour with a sweep of her own.

Hannah turns away from Akuma, climbing back onto one knee; Akuma notices; he springs up and uses the kendo stick to get Hannah into a neck hold; She still stands, only choosing to fall on her back; this crashes Akuma into the dirt below; luckily for him, Hannah is thin and light, the reason for which is still hidden from his knowledge; she rolls off her back onto her feet as Akuma remains ground bound; she pauses to gather her breath, her fatigue not allowing for oxygen's natural return to her lungs; Akuma is young, but not dumb – for the most part; He crawls back to his feet and staggers to the other edge of the circle.

At a stalemate, the two almost lock eyes; Akuma's mud eyes that spark determination target Hannah's scarlet rubies in her optical lobes; she does not appear to stare into Akuma's eyes intentionally, Akuma forces it; he makes the third charge, kicking up dust with his bare feet; Hannah readies her kendo stick; Akuma wants to blitz Hannah before she can react, Hannah intends to evade Akuma until he disqualifies himself; they meet in the middle of the circle, locking their weapons; Akuma is young and energetic, while Hannah is only young, her body is not battle-ready, her body is not world ready, her body is failing her; the buckle of her knee sends the two down to the dirt.

Akuma falling over Hannah, dropping his kendo stick. Understanding the futility of her situation, Hannah attempts to end the fight, raising her kendo stick far above her head; Sao, realising the spar's divulgence into chaos, darts towards them; Hannah's eyes remain loosely fixated on Akuma; the stick begins to fall, bringing with it the force of a waterfall; in a final effort, Akuma does what all vulnerable people do, he holds out his left hand to keep the danger away, looking away for anticipating the pain is far worse than the pain itself; instead, he brings a new threat into the fray. His palm begins to spark. An eruption of fire ejects from Akuma's hand. Hannah becomes engulfed in its ferocity to protect. She cascades into the bark of a tree, knocking her out cold with second degree burns all over her face. The cloak protected most of her body. Akuma, too, cascades into a nearby tree, only winding him as his stomach collides with the tree's trunk.

Sao sprints to catch Akuma, then in an instant, leaping to save Hannah. Resting Akuma on a tree, Sao leaves with Hannah, in critical conditions, in his arms. As he runs off, out of Akuma's view, he calls back to him.

'Akuma stay in the house! It's going to be okay, Hannah. Hannah, Hannah, please respond. Hannah, you've got to hold on, okay. Hannah!'

Akuma does not retreat to the house. He does not even move a toe. He just sits there, by the tree, staring at his left hand. He clasps it tightly with his right and begins to hyperventilate. 'Ha-nn-ah…'