In the residential quarters of the training camp that evening…538Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0X2tgzt6su
Two boys stood in front of the barrack, and there were lively voices coming from inside. They looked up at its wooden facade and exhaled nervously before ascending the steps that led to the building’s porch, the floorboards creaking beneath them. Arminius pushed the door open, allowing a gust of wind to filter the heat out of the barrack formed by the thirty cadets who had gathered under the same roof, but the first thing he and Julien noticed was the damned smell. A layer of mist had formed over their heads from sweat and bodily warmth, circulating around the arched high ceiling, slowly being filtered through the narrow but numerous funnels and vents that lined the building, and it did not help that the smoke and scent of candlesticks thickened the air even further. The two cadets who had just entered the barrack had no idea what to make of it. They had no point of reference for the chaos they were witnessing, as groups of new friends, large and small, sat around the tables and chairs in the centre of the aisle, trying their luck at cards, chess, or anything else that would make them feel more at ease in this strange and unfamiliar environment.
Arminius and Julien continued on their way to their nightly retreat, one after the other, until they arrived at the corner of the barrack, which they had chosen as their place of respite when they first arrived because of its quietness, but they found it pillaged by the voices of strangers squabbling over something. They moved closer and noticed that the same brute who had been humiliated by the major during the induction parade was venting his rage on the furniture around him, arguing with another cadet who sat with his legs kicked up, his face hidden. A mediating cadet approached them and attempted to break up their argument, while a smaller cadet and a giant who was ridiculously tall for his age stood behind him, not wanting to get involved in trouble, with their eyes closed. A fight was bound to break out if no one intervened.
Calenzo slammed his hands onto the table and leaned over the cadet he was arguing with, trying to scare him. “I’m tellin’ ya, I wasn’t d’one at fault! ‘Twas the bastard instructor who got me all riled up!” He placed a fist over his chest, believing that he was always in the right.
Unbothered by his threatening appearance, the other cadet responded to him with an attitude that Arminius found peculiarly familiar. “Yeah, ‘cause he’s an instructor. It’s no wonder you got your ass kicked out.”
“C’mon now, there’s no need for any of this.” Although he did want to see a fight, the mediating cadet was less willing to deal with its aftermath.
Julien tried to ignore the dispute that was going on and slipped by the cadets to return to his bed, but his friend could not, not after hearing the voice of one which sounded like a friend’s. Arminius moved closer to the table after taking off his jacket, and his face lit up in surprise when he learnt the arrogant cadet’s identity.
The Easterner turned his head when he noticed Arminius’s figure appear and did not hesitate to greet him as if they had last seen each other just yesterday. “Ya, Sekiya! (Hey, Sekiya!)” His language caught the attention of the cadets in their little corner of the barrack, who had never heard Southern Seriker being spoken.
Flinching after confirming his identity, Arminius’s eyes widened in shock. “Colt?” He initially wondered why the Easterner would choose to join up with the army, a foreign one no less, but after some consideration of their circumstances, he could fathom the fact that his reason might not be so different from everyone else’s.
Colt’s smile lessened when he noticed the wounds that his former classmate had sustained from the blitz. “You didn’t manage to get away, huh…” The Easterner jokingly commented on the state of the half-blood boy, but he did so with a pinch of awkwardness.
Peering down at his right arm, which was riddled with burn scars from shoulder to hand, and his mutilated fingers, which were clad in armour that he had poorly welded, he let out a slight chuckle. “It’s alright.” Arminius assured him, noticing that he was attracting the stares of his fellow cadets, who had never seen such wounds except for the ones on corpses, when suddenly, a shadow fell over him, and the brute who had switched his target ambushed him.
He was even taller than anyone could have imagined when up close, his frame intimidating most people. “Oi, y’know dis knob?” Calenzo interrupted his comrades’ reunion as he towered over Arminius.
Arminius turned around and looked up at his gleaming eye, but he did not appear even slightly concerned by his figure. “Yeah, unfortunately…” He let out a chuckle when Colt chucked a mug at him. “Arminius Reichner. Pleased to meet you.” With sincerity, the half-blood boy reached out a hand and introduced himself, his unfazed expression seeming to have calmed the brute.
The older cadet furrowed his brow at the shock that his intimidation tactics had failed twice in one evening, but knowing that made him smirk. “Gin Calenzo.” One factor that determined someone's worthiness of his respect was their ability to remain steadfast in the face of danger, and it seemed that Arminius had earned that respect.
They shook hands, and at last, peace was achieved, leaving a lasting impression of the half-blood boy that made everyone in their corner eager to make his acquaintance.
As he moved around the table, the mediating cadet confidently introduced himself before anyone else could. “Since we’re saying all our names, Lev Hayek’s mine.” The second tallest boy in their corner offered Arminius a handshake as well.
His physique was not disproportionate like many boys his age and height. His face was fair and unscarred, indicating that he was conscious of his appearance. Like Arminius, he had features from both the East and the West, though they appeared dissimilar. He had round, expressive, amber-coloured eyes that looked down on Arminius with a hint of childishness just beneath the short fringe of his pin-straight black hair. But despite the playful air he exuded, no one knew for certain whether it was a farce or his true personality, and only the boy who stood before him realised that behind his humble facade could be a mantle of cunning, yet he did not understand why he wanted to hide it.
Arminius returned the gesture and took his hands before offering a slight bow in return, which stunned Lev, who could not initially tell that he was another half-blood, but their introductions were paused when Gin’s curiosity shifted onto another.
The brute marched towards the cadet, who had been hiding on his bunk throughout the entire episode, while pointing at him. “Who’s d’lil one?” Gin halted in front of the reserved boy with his hands on his waist and leaned down, trying to make out his face.
Shyly, Julien came out of the shadow and unsurely poked his head around to find that everyone had turned their eyes to him. “J-Julien Carlstadt…” He said with a timid stutter.
Lev slipped past his comrades and let out a light laugh when he saw Julien sitting on his bed in a feminine posture. “What’s a girl doing in here?” Those were the first words that came to him, and he teased Julien as if he were a younger brother.
The blonde-haired boy blushed as he sprang up, unable to help how he sat, but when he tried to speak up against Lev, his words became stuck in his throat, and he could only stammer, becoming the target of his comrades’ banter when they discovered that he was that easily embarrassed. As his friend’s voice was drowned out by two unrelenting troublemakers, Arminius dragged a chair towards Colt whose legs were still kicked up on the table, and knowing full well that he wanted to speak first, Colt remained silent.
Arminius spun his chair around and sat down, resting his head on his arms, which were crossed over the spine of his seat. “I thought you were going to go home.” His eyes were half open, almost as if he could barely stay awake, when he remembered what Colt had told him not long after they were befriended.
The Easterner sighed and took his legs off the table before stretching his arms. “I sent them a letter so they’ll know that I’m not dead at the very least.” Colt stood up and trod towards the window, where the light from the sun had already set beneath the forest canopy beyond the wooden palisade away from their barrack. “Besides, how could I give up this chance of trying my hand in battle since I’m already here?” He looked over his shoulder and grinned at Arminius.
Certainly, Arminius once felt that it was his goal to fight in battles and to become a hero of war like the legends he had heard about, but he understood that the nature of the world he was raised to believe in was no longer his desire after witnessing a winter of death that followed the blitz he was nearly killed in. Confused, Colt stared at his friend, who was lost in his thoughts about dreams that seemed incomprehensible to him, but he dismissed it and distracted himself with the sight of the forest and the darkening sky that had completely lost its orange hue as formations of birds and clouds glided across the heavens above the brewing calamity.
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