The Void Above - Chapter 9

Kichirou woke up from passing out almost an hour later in a white pod, and began gathering his thoughts. As soon as he finished recalling the events of the day, his mind immediately went to what had happened just prior.

'My arm-!'

Kichirou looked down at his arm, and discovered it was looking good as new. Just then, Kichirou heard a voice.

"Looks like it was never severed, doesn't it?"

Kichirou looked up, and saw a man in a white lab coat standing over him in the pod. He was holding a clipboard, and put the pen in his right hand in his coat pocket, using that same hand to sweep back his brown hair. The glasses on his face accentuated his brown eyes. Kichirou sat up in the pod, before asking the obvious question.

"So these are the recovery pods he they were talking about, huh?"

"Yep, state of the art technology from beyond the stars. They were sent down by the GDA almost immediately to aid the mass amounts of injured people after the cratering."

The man who Kichirou could only assume was a doctor patted his hand against the exterior of the pod.

"You'll need to get used to these if you wanna attend the Charon Military Academy. There won't be any more non-lethal weapons, just these puppies."

Kichirou was caught off guard by the doctor's casual demeanor, but it helped him deal with what'd happened easier.

"If you want, you can leave now. Just don't move the arm around too much for the next couple days, we aren't sure these things are really perfect just yet. Oh yeah, you were here for the exam, right? If you were accepted, you'll see a notice in the mail within 5 days."

Kichirou carefully climbed out of the recovery pod, landing on his feet. He turned back to face the doctor before taking his leave.

"If what you said is true, I hope I'll be seeing you more often."

The doctor broke out into a laughing fit.

"Hahaha! Hopefully you won't be seeing me anymore than you have to, and that shouldn't be very often."

Kichirou laughed a little bit at the doctor's comment, before taking his leave. Kichirou, after wandering around the building for a bit, finally managed to leave the building, where he saw two familiar faces.

"I'm so glad you're alright!"

Gray ran up Kichirou, stopping just short of him.

"We didn't know you'd be out so quick. What kinda magic is in those pod things?"

Just then, Kichirou looked back and saw Victoria standing further back, her left hand holding her right elbow, looking dejected at the floor.

"I'm sorry for everything…"

Gray whispered in Kichirou's ear.

"She's still pretty down about what happened."

Kichirou, thinking it'd be best to make a situation with more time, did all he could.

"Why don't we go get something to eat?"

In a short matter of time, Kichirou, Gray, and Victoria found themselves back at the noodle house where Kichirou and Gray first met.

"Can we get a shoyu pork ramen, house style beef udon and…"

Victoria spoke up.

"I'll get the chicken and pork ramen."

The girl at the counter repeated their order back to them, and Victoria confirmed it. The three went to sit at a booth, waiting for their food. An awkward silence ensued, which Kichirou tried to break.

"Soooo… How'd we feel about that guys?"

Gray decided to answer his question.

"I thought I got to show off my abilities and fighting style pretty well, and even managed to make it to the semi-finals."

Kichirou was the next to answer his own question.

"I didn't have much trouble with anything, but my hand to hand fighting style may have seem weak to the proctor. I only managed to really showcase some experimental techniques in my final match against Victoria."

Both their eyes turned to Victoria, who had been silently listening on up to that point. She stayed silent, and Kichirou did his best to defend her.

"There's no reason for you to feel so down about it."

He leaned across the table to put a hand on her shoulder.

"They said there were recovery pods on standby for this exact reason, so don't beat yourself up about it. They even said that if we get in, we'd need to accept situations like that as commonplace, so it'll probably happen a lot from now on! And…"

Before Kichirou could continue, Victoria began a low giggle.

"Hahaha… yeah, I shouldn't worry too much about it if you're not going on and on about it."

Victoria perked up a bit from before.

"You asked how I felt, right? As the winner, I don't really have much to be worried about, just the people in the other arenas I couldn't see. Nobody even gave me much trouble outside of you two, so I'm pretty confident in my own performance."

The three chatted like that for a while longer, before they were pleasantly interrupted by a waitress.

"Your food is here!"

The waitress placed their food on the table, and the three began to eat their meals, engaging one another in different conversation topics, usually initiated by Gray, until Kichirou got an unexpected notification from UMemo.

"I'm here. Where are you?"

Kichirou felt confused, until he opened the message to discover that, in reality, it was from Jane's account, and his heart sank.

'Oh shit, I totally forgot to tell her I was going out to eat.'

Kichirou typed her a quick reply.

"I went out to go eat with two people I met at the exams, sorry for not letting you know. I'll take the monorail home, okay?"

Kichirou sent the message, and it was only a few moments before he saw an indicator telling him Jane was typing.

"Okay. Let me know sooner next time."

Kichirou quickly went back to conversing with his acquaintances, though he had a lingering sour taste in his mouth due to having forgotten to inform Jane of his situation.

Just then, Victoria suddenly stood up, and began heading for the door.

"I have to go now, hopefully I'll see you guys at orientation."

Gray responded, waving as she left the noodle house.

"Hopefully."

With that, Gray and Kichirou were left sitting in the booth alone, as they had been nearly a month prior.

"I'll be heading out soon as well, Kichirou. Gotta enjoy my time stress-free while I still have it. If I get accepted, I won't have too many days like that left for me, same goes for you."

Kichirou thought back on his relatively short time in Charon so far. It'd barely been a month, but it'd been quite the eventful time for Kichirou. He awakened to some new, mysterious power, learned to fight, and had even become a secret enemy of the government, all within that short amount of time. It was safe to say that Kichirou had never had a stress-free day, not since he'd become a citizen of Charon.

'Yeah… stress-free… Maybe I'll give it a try.'

Kichirou waved his hand as Gray left the restaurant, leaving Kichirou alone, with only his thoughts to keep him company.

'I'm sure I'll be accepted, right? I was pretty confident about the written exam, but I didn't do anything flashy in the combat test. If I didn't do well…'

Kichirou took a deep breath, before attempting to calm down.

'Even if I'm not accepted, I just have to get out of here and never look back. There's so much out there, I'm sure they won't be able to find me if I really try hiding.'

Kichirou got up to leave.

'Well, whatever. What can I do except hope I passed. I don't wanna say goodbye to Jane or those two so soon.'

Kichirou headed for the station, making his way inside, and eventually to the 5th Street terminal, where he'd board the monorail and make his way back to the apartment.