The decision

The training day ended right after I came back home to the dorms from the training with Mr. Black. I got myself something to eat from Noelle, who was still up like usual and then I went to bed right afterwards.

Emilia was sleeping by now and so I sneaked into my bed by not turning any lights on and being as silent as possible. I didn't have the chance to talk with her on her decision regarding joining Iris team. But the answer seemed kind of obvious. Still, I wanted to talk it out with her before telling Iris.

Night passed by and nothing happened. It had been a couple days since I last heard the weird voice in my dreams. Not that I missed it or something.

In the morning we were woken up by the alarm like always but instead of preparing for school right away, I decided to have a small chat with Emilia.

"So what do you think about the others and us joining them?" I asked her.

"I have to admit I had my fun yesterday. I think we can synergize and get along well with them. Althaia seemed really nice and we had a great time talking to each other. The two boys were very energetic but besides fighting, I didn't really get to do anything else with them. They came off as decent however. And you looked happy being able to fight with Iris. She may be stronger than you are, but you are clearly putting in all you got against her. So yes, I would say we should join them, if you don't have anything against it", concluded Emilia.

And she was right. I couldn't think of any reason, why we shouldn't join them. The only thing I feared, was that I will not be the one at the front of the team or rather, one of the more notable people in it. Iris and Emilia would be both likely to overshadow me in the near future. But for Emilia's sake and because I felt obligated to Iris, I just had to agree.

I told Emilia my decision, without the doubts I had however. We opted to tell Iris and the rest later in the afternoon lesson.

We started preparing for school after coming to our decision, Emilia was being more cheerful than usual. She seemed excited for the afternoon lesson and training with Iris and the rest again. We had another tasty breakfast and once we finished it, we went to our morning class.

This class was about a topic, which was quite fitting for our current situation. I was sure that this wasn't a coincidence at all. Mr. Black decided to talk about how things would work after the assessment and for what the teams we build are. We would have to get more practical experience than just training at school, so we would have to take on different types of mission. These were the easier ones of course, the school didn't want us to get in danger.

In the military we would have to fight as groups most of the times anyway, so building teams was a good idea to get us used to doing so. It would also lessen the burden on individual students and spread it evenly on the group. Missions would involve stuff like hunting weaker monsters for materials or escorting people to different places. A teacher would also overlook our every moves in the shadows for two reason, one was to protect us and the other to grade us.

Once we finished our first mission, the school would give us more leeway to decide the difficulty and type of our missions. But only if they proved us to be worthy in the first one. So it was quite important for our future path in the school and maybe even in the military. My goal was still getting my own freedom as an adult but doing so required rising up in the military.

Many other students decided to look for teammates after the lesson, but we were a step ahead on them already. If I had to guess, Mr. Black held this lesson because he wanted to put the rest of the class on equal grounds with us. Teaming with people you already know would be a lot easier in the end.

After the lesson we headed for lunch and sat together with Iris. They had invited us to sit on their table, so we gladly accepted. We had a small chat, but I didn't feel like talking about more serious topics at dinner. Iris was also opening up to us and I realized, she wasn't that much different from myself.

The only thing in her head was fighting and training. Those were the only hobbies she had as a kid thanks to the influence of her parents. I might have not been training as long as she did, but I wasn't any less enthusiastic when it came to it.

We headed for the training hall together with Iris after finishing dinner and before we started, I pulled Iris aside to talk with her.

"We made our decision Iris, we will be joining you guys. I think we would make a great team and that we could learn a lot from each other. I don't know if we will join you for a permanent team but at least for the rest of the first year of school. Oh, what is the teams name by the way? I have just been going with Iris team for now", I told her our decision and asked what had been on my mind for a while.

"I'm glad you guys are joining us. You're welcome to stay longer if you wish to do so. We can't choose a name as of right now, Yoru. Haven't you been paying attention in today's class? Mr. Black told us only permanent and official teams can choose one. We can go with Iris team for now however, since I will be the leader anyway. I don't think you have any objections to that or do you?" Iris said with a certain self-confidence.

I had to admit, personality wise she was very well fitted to be our leader. I just nodded and didn't say anything else.

After a while of short silence, we started our today's training….