“You want us to forget?” Seren repeated Frerin’s request. “And how exactly do you expect us to do that?”

Hyrin watched for Frerin’s reaction. Obviously, they both understood what he had really meant. Keep your mouths shut. But if he thought they were just going to be done with that, he really had the wrong people in front of him.

“Hm…” Frerin opened several drawers of his desk, as if looking for something. “I thought I had some electrodes here that we could use…” He mumbled casually, as if he were not just suggesting to literally burn away their memories.

“Nice, get me one of those too, I could use a nice shock to the system to erase that jackass humanoid from my brain.”

All three of them swung their heads up at the door, to see captain Harumi stand in the opening. He wore one of the white versions of their uniforms that everyone here seemed to wear, although his right sleeve hung limply down from his elbow down.

Wait. Hyrin got up. From the elbow down? She walked over to him, already reaching out, just to stop herself from touching him at the last moment.

He gave her an amused grin. “Aren’t you paying attention?” He raised his right arm, the upper half of it that magically seemed to have grown back, at least.

“The rest will be back in about an hour,” he told her, flapping the empty half of his right sleeve. “It’s gonna cause a commotion if people find out, though, so we really do need you two to keep your faces shut about it.”

“What…” Seren jumped up out of his chair and ran over to them, protectively placing himself between the Captain and Hyrin.

“What are you?” He asked in a low voice, his arm stretched in front of Hyrin, as if he would somehow be able to stop the Captain from doing anything if he wanted to. Something the Captain instantly made very clear to the both of them by disappearing in front of them and immediately reappearing behind them, flicking his finger against the back of Hyrin’s head.

“Ouch.” She rubbed her head. “That was unnecessary,” she added mumbling.

The Captain burst out laughing. “Really? Felt super necessary to me.” He turned to Frerin. “You prepared what I asked for?”

Frerin glanced from him to Hyrin and Seren and back, and then hesitantly nodded.

“Great, let’s go.” The Captain walked past them toward the door, nodding his head at the both of them to make sure they would follow him.

“Are you sure, Ryusuke?” Frerin ran after them as they walked out into the hallway. “I know your mouth has a mind of its own, but that doesn’t mean you just have to tell them everything. Both of them, especially.”

The Captain shrugged. “Hyrin already did it once and she’d tell Seren about it anyway, so why not?” He put his hand next to his mouth with a little grin. “They have a ‘thing’,” he whispered to Frerin over Seren and Hyrin’s heads.

Hyrin frowned, but didn’t let the Captain provoke her that easily, although she could feel Seren’s eyes burning on her, no doubt wondering what it meant for her not to deny the Captain’s words.

Frerin had to run several times to keep up with the Captain’s pace as he led them into an elevator, to the bottom floor, where Frerin had to use his badge to open a door at the end of a long hallway, just so they could go down one extra staircase, to the real bottom floor.

This floor was a complete contrast to the other ones. There were no white-clad people running around, not a single voice arguing about something Hyrin didn’t really understand anyway. Just a single hallway with several heavy, steel doors. She suppressed the feeling of unease that rose up from within her as they walked through that hallway. The walls seemed thick and strong. Concrete layered and covered with steel plates.

“It’s the one on the left over there,” Frerin told captain Harumi in a small voice. “But if you’re seriously planning on doing this so soon, I’d really like to insist that you at least wait until you’ve fully recovered. The strain on your bod-”

“Will be fine,” the Captain interrupted him, his gaze on the door Frerin had pointed out. “It won’t even be ten yet.”

Frerin’s face contorted, but he didn’t argue. Hyrin couldn’t really blame him. Captain Harumi wasn’t really the kind of person you could have a normal discussion with. He was more the kind of person that did whatever he wanted, no matter what. Especially if he thought it would be amusing or interesting.

Frerin pressed his badge against the keypad next to the door and it beeped three times before it opened ajar. The Captain put his fingers in that crack and pulled it open all the way, as if that door, which was at least twenty centimeters thick, weighed nothing.

Seren and Hyrin both gasped, flinching back. In that room, a life drake was chained to the walls and floor. A shrine class, Hyrin suspected, but at least a five, which meant that it was almost as big as a house class. Its scales had the most beautiful blue color Hyrin had ever seen. That light, cold kind of blue you could see when a glacier breaks apart and crashes into the ocean. A blue close to the color of Seren’s eyes.

“Why are you keeping it here?” She asked softly.

“And why in the water?” Seren asked, looking down at the layer of water that covered the floor. “And why is it so hot in here?”

The drake growled hearing their voices, but it didn’t react the way any normal drake would have.

“Does that answer your question?” The Captain asked, but both of them just blankly stared back at him.

He chuckled. “The water is  just ice that melted from the heat, and the heat is to keep it sedated like that.” He glanced at the horrified look in Hyrin’s eyes. “Trust me, if we didn’t…” he sucked some air in through his teeth, lifting his half regenerated arm.

“Ice…” Seren repeated, staring at the half close, nearly white eyes of the drake. “That the drake created?”

“That’s right.” The Captain slapped him against his back. “A power that could help me a lot, since it will ease the use of my fire.”

“Your fire?” Seren snapped his head to the Captain.

“Oh right,” Captain Harumi chuckled, “you guys weren’t watching earlier.” He glanced at the captured drake for a moment, but then stepped back out into the hallway, followed by Seren and Hyrin.

“Let’s see…” he mumbled to himself. “First, there’s the teleportation, but you’ve seen plenty of that already,” he snickered at Seren. “And there’s this, of course.” He nodded at his half regenerated arm. “Then there’s also this.” He kneeled down, slamming his fist into the floor as hard as he could, creating a dent in that steel about the size of a dinner plate.

He got up. “I just call that Strength,” he said with a sheepish grin.

“And I call that vandalism!” Frerin jumped over to them, rubbing his foot over the dent in their floor. “Who’s going to pay to fix this, huh?” He asked, although Hyrin felt like she could see his eyes twinkle.

“You’re saying I shouldn’t show them my Claw, then?” The Captain asked with a grin and Frerin just grunted in response, although he didn’t sound very convincing.

“Claw is like a slash through the air I can create with both my sword and my hands,” the Captain explained instead. “It’s how I can slice through the hearts of house and skyscraper classes even though my sword isn’t long enough to do that.” He cut his finger through the air, aimed at the wall and a second later, a relatively shallow cut tore through the steel plate.

“Most captains have that one,” he added with a shrug. “Most of them have endless stamina, too. You get that from most brick classes.”

He raised his hand. “This is one only I’ve got, though.” In a flash, that hand caught fire, white hot flames dancing in his palm and over his fingers.

“I call it Arson,” he said with a smug grin. He swung his hand and the fire disappeared. “I usually run it through my sword or any kind of weapon, since it hurts to use it like that. My regeneration can only keep up for a few seconds and then my skin will start burning away.” He blew on his hand to ease some of the heat he must still be feeling. “The burns would heal too in the end, of course, but pain still hurts, you know.”

He turned to the captured drake in the room next to them, not giving them any time to process any of this. “What I wanted to show you today, though, is how I got all these cool powers.”

He walked into the room, his boots splashing in the shallow layer of water. “See, there’s a reason reincarnated people are automatically allowed to enlist in the D.A.F.,” he continued, moving closer to the drake. “It’s because some of us have the ability to do this.”

He glanced at them over his shoulder with a dark look before turning back to the drake. He raised his left hand and carefully, almost gently, placed it on top of the drake’s head.

Hyrin held her breath as she watched the drake’s body twist and contort and start to flow into the Captain’s hand. A red line that she recognized painfully well appeared on his hand, running up his arm, disappearing under his sleeve.

The Captain clenched his teeth. His eyes glowed with that same icy blue color as the drake and the moment the drake disappeared, completely absorbed by the Captain, he closed them and fell to his knees.

“Step back,” Frerin ordered Hyrin and Seren quietly. Hyrin snapped her head up to him, but Seren pushed her out of the room, allowing Frerin to put his shoulder against the door in an attempt to close it. He managed to do so only after Seren helped him.

“Why?” Hyrin asked hoarsely. “He’s about to lose consciousness, we have to help him.”

A damped cry reached them from the other side of that heavy door, followed by seconds of silence and then the sound of creaking and cracking.

“It’s fine, Frerin,” the Captain suddenly let them know, sounding much closer to the door than he had been before. “I’m fine. I could use a serious nap, though.”

Frerin pressed his badge to the keypad and pulled at the door, throwing his entire body back in order to open it as fast as possible.

“Howdy,” the Captain greeted them as the door opened.

All three of them gasped looking into that room. Every inch of it, except for the spot where the Captain had fallen down, was covered in a thick, shimmering layer of ice.

“Pretty cool, right?” The Captain asked, knocking against the ice that covered the wall next to the door. “It’s hard to move on, though, and I don’t think I’ll be able to do it on this scale again.” He held his hand up and the air around it cooled down, forming a layer of frost over his skin. “But I got what I wanted out of it.”

Hyrin’s heart beat in her throat. So, it hadn’t been just her? This was something they were all capable of? How had the Captain been able to do it so casually? As if that horrible, violating feeling barely affected him? Was this what she needed to do, over and over, to get to his level?

He put his thawing hand on her head with a warm smile. “Starting today, you and I can just be honest to each other, okay?”

She stared up at him, and suddenly felt her heart stop.

“Captain…” she uttered. “Your eyes.”

“My eyes?”

“Oh,” Seren added as he leaned in to check them. “They’re blue.”

“Seriously?” Captain Harumi asked, looking at Frerin. The commander of the research facility just gave him a small nod.

“They look pretty, though,” he added with a crooked grin.

The Captain just sighed wearily. “Awesome,” he said dryly. “Guess I’ll be the guy who thinks it’s cool to wear colored contacts from now on.”

Hyrin swallowed. “Does that happen a lot?” she asked reluctantly.

The Captain shrugged and gave her a smirk. “It’s okay. As long as you don’t grow scales or a tail, we can usually cover it up.”