Chapter Three

 Marino's sleep was not without nightmares. First, it was reliving his father's death.

 Marino remembered it vividly. It had been a factory fire, and his father had gone back in to grab his jacket. Marino was only six at the time. He walked up to the door of the factory and sat down to wait. A while later, he finally heard his father walking toward the door. Marino waited, and suddenly he heard shouting. "Daddy?" he asked, and the factory erupted in fire.

 The next nightmare was seeing his mother's mangled body and the Raider cackling as he killed her. His mother's legs were twisted up over her head, and one of her arms had been torn off. Uemura screamed and cried for Marino, but the Raider turned and hissed in a deep, skin-crawling voice: "Your brother is not here yet. The master has made sure of that." He cackled again, then stopped. His eyes rolled up into his head and snapped back, and the Raider yelled at Uemura to run. Uemura stopped, confused, and then turned and ran. The dream ended, leaving Marino addled.

 The third dream was not a nightmare. A beautiful silver bird was sitting on a boy's shoulder, and the boy turned. Marino didn't see his face, and the dream ended.

 Marino woke up. His blankets were on him, and he had a pillow tucked under his head. He remembered the pillow being there, but not the blanket. He stood, got dressed, and headed out into the kitchen, where Noda was making bacon and eggs. He spoke with her about Koyonagi for a while and stated that he hoped Uemura would get better soon. Noda told him that Koyonagi had left that morning, and she would be back in the afternoon.

 Once they both had their fill of eggs and bacon, Marino spoke with Noda again about his life before his family was murdered. He told her about the time his brother had climbed a tree and nearly broken his neck. Marino's brother was almost 25 now, and he lived in the United States after marrying. He had a child on the way. Marino wondered if his brother knew about the murder yet. Not that he would care. He hated their mother. Why that was, Marino would probably never know. He'd long forgotten his brother's name.

 "Are you alright?" Noda asked, and Marino realized he'd gone silent. "Yeah, I'm good. Just thinking." Marino stood, helped Noda up, and went outside to split some wood for a fire. 

Hours later, Noda dragged Marino outside to a courtyard full of training dummies, targets for archery, and large rocks. Some of the training dummies were stabbed, others burned, others completely destroyed. Marino watched a young boy slice one of them in half, and then he whipped around, cutting off another one's head. It was strange. The training dummies seemed to be…moving. Yes, that was it. One of the dummies picked up a sword and lunged at the boy, but the boy parried so hard the sword flew out of the dummies' hands. Noda saw Marino's puzzled expression and laughed. "That's Uyeno Tomio. He's one of our greatest sword fighters." Marino nodded, listening. "When we were talking, you mentioned something," he said. He turned his head and looked at her. "You said something about—" 

 "Awakenings," Noda finished.

 "Right. What are Awakenings, and does Uyeno have one?"

 "Uyeno's Awakening has yet to appear, and as for the explanation, well, it's kind of a long story."

 "Got anywhere else to go?"

 "Alright, fine. Awakenings were first found about ten years ago, so we don't know much about them," Noda started. "But, what we do know is that they're based on your strength. Plus, the elemental Awakenings, if they're in their own element, they…power up, somehow. Luckily, there are no Earth Awakenings that we know of, so..yeah. Anyways–"

Noda was stopped short by the boy, Uyeno, grinning happily and charging toward her and Marino. The moving dummies were gone. Uyeno started up the hill, a huge grin on his face. Then he saw Marino and frowned. "I know you," Uyeno said. "I saw you in a dream." The boy sounded younger than Marino thought. "Weird. I've never seen you before," Marino said. "You're Uyeno, right?" The boy nodded. "That's my name, don't overuse it!" he joked. A bird flew down and landed on Uyeno's shoulder. Marino stared at it, mesmerized. "Anyways," Noda said. "Marino, we can start your training whenever—Marino?" Marino had stopped listening. The bird sitting on Uyeno's shoulder was silver.