Chapter 7: Preparation I - Expert Candidates and Cripples

Resuming the Akashic System’s awakening process: ...61 ...78 ...99 ...Complete.

     Warning: Unexpected resistance to system integration encountered.

     Response: Removing obstacles to integration.

Restructuring the host’s brain to accommodate the System: ...3 ...11 ...27 ...

     Warning: Proceeding with restructuring will permanently damage the host’s mental integrity.

     Response: Risk deemed acceptable—Continuing with restructuring. 

Continuing: ...65 ...84 ...Complete.

The Akashic System has been awakened. Systems on standby. 

Preparing to repair the host’s mental integrity...

 

Annabelle groaned and opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling. The pristine white surface presented before her eyes was unlike the wallpapered ceilings of her dorm. Silvery moonlight poured into the room from a nearby window, casting the shadows of leafed branches on the alabaster surface.

A headache jolted through her and she winced, holding a hand to her temple. She felt like she was missing something, but she couldn’t even remember what she had forgotten.

She tried to take a deep breath, but air would barely flow through her parched throat and her breath came as a scaly rasp. “Where am I?” she croaked. “I need water.”

She tried to get up like she usually did to get water, but her muscles refused to move. Her joints locked on her and she fell back on her bed with a low thump. “Why can’t I move...?”

Her limbs flounder pathetically.

Her movements woke up someone who had been sitting by her bedside when her flailing knocked against a head. Annabelle froze. She had not expected someone to be in this unknown place with her, much less right beside her.

The person in question sprang up as soon as she woke. Her identity quickly became clear as the moonlight illuminated her face.

“Is that you, Bel? Where am I?” She was cut off from saying anything else when Belevere threw her arms around her in a crushing hug.

“Anne, you finally woke up! I was so worried!”

Of course I woke up, what happened?” A little startled, Annabelle patted her friend’s back comfortingly. But she quickly began slapping her back. “Bel, let go, I can’t breathe!”

“Oh, sorry!” Belevere pulled back and studied her face, looking into her eyes. “Wait, you really don’t remember?”

Annabelle shook her head. “I don’t. I remember fighting you in the tournament...” She trailed off as the bit of the memories of that day—when was it?—came back to her. They fought in the knighting tournament and she defeated Ignar and Terry. And then she fought Belevere, and she was losing...

“...what happened after we went out into the plains? You were beating me... did I win or lose? How long was I out...? I don’t remember—” Annabelle mumbled, cutting off as Belevere turned her back. 

She watched as Belevere left her bedside. Ss she got farther away, the moonlight seemed to dim. Annabelle’s heart pounded. “Wai—” She almost called out for Belevere to not go, but she silenced herself before her friend could notice.

Luckily she did, because Belevere simply poured water from a lidded pitcher into a cup and offered it to her. “Here, you sounded really dry. We can keep talking after you’ve had a drink.”

Blushing a little, Annabelle accepted it and took a sip. The cool water soaked into her throat, clearing her foggy head a little. But even when she finished the cup, the last of her confusion had not gone away.

It was as if she was permanently distracted. She couldn’t bring all of her concentration to bear on anything even if she tried.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself, and handed the cup back to Belevere. “Thank you.”

“Do you want any more?”

Annabelle shook her head. Heedless of what she said, though, Belevere poured her another anyway, so she cupped it in her hands to slowly sip at her own pace. She looked up at her friend. eager to find out what exactly happened.

Perhaps knowing will help clear away some of the fog in her mind. “Can you tell me what happened? I can’t seem to remember very well. In the end, you won, right?”

Belevere visibly hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I won, but only because of your accident. It’s been three days since then. Anne, I was so worried because even though the doctors said you were fine, you wouldn’t wake up!”

“Three days?” Annabelle echoed. “I got into an accident...?”

 Annabelle didn’t know what to think. Whatever accident she had must’ve messed with her brain. She wasn’t dumb either. Brain related accidents that happened to a person when they piloted something usually had something to do with the neural interface. She closed her eyes, fearing the worst.

“So...did you win?” she asked. “Overall, I mean.”

The question was more out of courtesy than anything else. She knew better than anyone except Belevere what kind of state she left Belevere’s mech in. She specifically targeted the parts of her mech that were necessary for smooth functioning, so she knew that it would have been barely able to move. 

If she had realized that she was going to lose and get into an accident, she would have gone easier on her friend.

Belevere smiled at her question. “Of course, I did.”

Annabelle almost choked on her water. The condolences and words of sympathy she had prepared in advance evaporated. “Y-you won? Seriously? You’re not pulling my leg?”

Belevere’s smile turned into an evil grin. “What, you don’t believe me? What happened to our trust? Of course I won. I beat you, so there isn’t anyone I can’t beat, right?”

“How did you beat Jeremiah and Alecto?!”

Belevere tilted her head, still grinning. “What do you mean?”

Annabelle felt her patience running out. “You know what I mean,” she said, frowning. She held her friend’s gaze until Belevere finally sighed relented.

“Alright, you win. I actually wanted to keep it a secret until later, but actually, they said I managed to achieve oversynchronance of almost two hundred percent,” she said, proudly. “After breaking through, handling them was a piece of cake.”

Then she looked away. “Okay, maybe not. I was missing an arm. It was really hard...”

Just as Annabelle thought she couldn’t be more surprised than when she found out her friend won her bracket, Belevere hit her with a piece of news that was even more shocking. Her friend was an expert pilot candidate!

“Congratulations, Bel!” She almost lunged to hug her friend before she remembered she had a cup in her hands. “You even did it while remotely piloting the mech!”

“Wait, what was your neural aptitude again?” Annabelle asked. “I don’t remember. Was it an A?” 

While breaking through from a normal pilot to expert candidate was impressive enough, the feat was easily more impressive depending on the pilot’s neural aptitude.

The higher the pilot’s base neural aptitude, the easier it was to break through into the ranks of experts. People with grade A aptitudes like herself had a disproportionately large advantage.

“Nope! Grade B,” Belevere said, smiling. She raised her index and middle fingers on both hands in victory signs. “Impressive, right?”

The breakthrough rate for grade Bs was less than a quarter than that of grade A’s. That fact made Belevere’s achievement that much more impressive. 

But if even Belevere managed to break through, what did that mean for her?

As much as she tried to hide, it, as much as she was happy for her friend, she couldn’t help but feel jealous. Someone who had always been trailing behind her suddenly stepped into the heavens in a single step.

“Yeah... it’s really impressive.” Annabelle’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You were the one to leave me behind this time.”

She managed a small smile then looked away, trying to hide the complex emotions that were doubtless straining to show through her expressions. Happiness, pride, jealousy, hate. They all melded together to sink to the bottom of her belly.

Hopefully Belevere won’t fault her too much for her feelings.

Belevere rubbed her head. “Don’t feel too down. I’m sure you won’t be too far behind. The doctors said that you can be discharged when you wake up, so I’m sure you’ll be up and running around tomorrow!”

The feeling of Belevere’s soft hands on her head was calming. Her nimble fingers pressed down on her scalp, pressing down in different areas that sent tingles down her spine. “W-wait, Bel. Stop.”

“Fufu~”

That was all Belevere said to her. 

“Ha...s-stop!” A moment later, Annabelle shivered, an unstoppable tremble that shook her from the top of her head to her feet. 

Enough was enough! She shook her head, throwing off Belevere’s hand. “Stop it, Bel. It’s making me feel weird!”

“It’s your own fault for sulking. Did you think I wouldn’t notice what you’re thinking about?” Belevere asked. “It’s okay to be jealous, Anne. You’re not a bad person for having human emotions.”

Annabelle looked at her friend with wide eyes. “How did you know?”

Belevere laughed. “Well, even putting aside how obvious you were being, did you forget how long we've been friends? Can I even call myself your friend if I can’t tell how you’re feeling?”

She winked and Annabelle flushed in embarrassment. Without another word, she turned around and buried her face in her pillow, hiding herself from Belevere’s gaze. The springs on her bed creaked as Belevere got out of her seat and climbed up onto the mattress.

Annabelle tensed when she felt cold fingers touch the back of her neck, all of her hairs standing on end. The fingers began to move, stroking her.

“Let me tell you something since you’re too proud to ever tell me your troubles, Anne. You know, for the longest time, I was jealous of you. I would be lying if I said I didn’t get a little mad when I lost to you,” she said, her voice low, as if she was telling a story to a child.

Annabelle didn’t want to admit it, but Belevere’s voice soothed her and she relaxed a little. “Really?”

The bed creaked again as Belevere leaned her head down next to her ear.

“Yes. But I never let that anger show. Instead, I let that anger grow and I turned it into resolve. Resolve to beat you. Every time I lost, my resolve grew. Every time you lost to someone that wasn’t me, my resolve grew.” 

Belevere was almost whispering now. “Now look. I’m an expert candidate, and a knight despite denouncing the knighting tournament that day. My resolve allowed me to reach such heights. All you have to do is think of me, catching up to me, and soon you’ll leave me behind again. Okay, Anne?”

Annabelle nodded slowly. “I... understand.”

“Good. Now, go back to sleep. Since you’ll likely be discharged tomorrow, it’s going to be a busy day. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here when you wake up.”

Annabelle nodded again and closed her eyes. Belevere began to smooth her hair again. 

However, there was one more question that burned in her mind. “Bel?”

“Hm?”

“I know expert pilots are practically living gods, but you just advanced, right? How did you beat them with such a trashed mech?”

Belevere laughed. “It’s simple. They were tired from all that piloting. It seems that expert pilots get tired at a much slower rate. You know what that means.”

“What?” Annabelle asked. Belevere leaned down and whispered in her ears, her warm breath tickling her. Annabelle almost thought she could feel a tongue.

“I can last all. Night. Long.”

Annabelle rolled away and covered her burning face with her blanket, trying to ignore the girl next to her. Despite her efforts, she still felt Belevere’s every move. Fortunately, Belevere didn’t go any further. Eventually, the fog of sleep in her mind slowly rolled through her mindscape, and she fell asleep under Belevere’s tender touch on her head.

 

“It’s as you say, Lady Odis, she’s really awake. It doesn’t look like anything is stopping her from being discharged.”

A male voice woke Annabelle from her sleep. Through blurry eyes, she saw a small man dressed in a white coat standing by her bed, while the blurry shape of a tall girl with long hair stood beside him.

“Good morning, Anne!” Belevere said. She turned to the man next to her. “Can you tell us what the final results of her checkup were now, doctor?”

Annabelle heard Belevere’s voice and sat up after rubbing her eyes, clearing her vision. Even in her sleep-addled state, she registered that they were talking about her. The doctor, a timid looking man that stood hunched up, didn't answer Belevere’s request. He had been glancing down at the tablet with a black screen that he kept hidden from Belevere.

His expression turned pained when he heard Belevere’s question.

A bead of sweat ran down his temple and he coughed into his sleeve awkwardly, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry, Lady Odis. Even if you’re a knight, I cannot reveal Miss Florent’s medical data to you without her consent. If she does not, you’ll have to go outside while I tell her.”

Both he and Belevere looked at Annabelle. She shifted in her bed awkwardly. While she was used to being stared at while at school thanks to her rank, at least it was mostly on her own terms while she’s dressed in her uniform. Now, though, she was wearing just a hospital robe with almost nothing underneath. 

She finally managed a nod. “Bel should stay. She’s a close friend of mine.”

The doctor gave Belevere a fearful look before he finally revealed what he hid on his clipboard.

After a few security checks for his identity, Doctor Mifuell pulled up the logs containing all of Annabelle’s medical information and expanded it in a hologram for Annabelle and Belevere to see. 

Because the Bureau of Mech Enforcement medical facility was partnered with Arvent Mech Institute, the BME took care of all the health-related matters for students like Annabelle.

As Doctor Mifuell searched through the logs, Annabelle saw all the health records that had accumulated over the years she spent at AMI—things like body weight, height, neural aptitude. 

She rubbed her eyes when she saw the chart for her aptitude, but it scrolled by too fast so she missed it when she looked again. Belevere didn’t have any reactions, so perhaps it really was her seeing things...

Finally, the doctor came to the bottom of the document and opened a folder, bringing up a huge document filled with dense paragraphs of annotated text on the hologram. Annabelle’s eyes blurred at the huge amount of info.

Before she could read anything, though, the doctor closed the whole thing and the hologram blinked out of existence. She looked at him in confusion? “Why did you close it, I didn’t see!”

The doctor flinched. “Ah... I’m sorry. Um, I need you and Lady Odis to sign a disclosure agreement. I-I forgot...”

Next to him, Belevere sighed and a shiver ran through the doctor’s body. Annabelle began to see what was going on. 

For some reason, the doctor was afraid of Belevere. He was being so nervous around her that he even forgot the procedure for releasing medical data. 

On account of her close relationship with Belevere, the doctor was afraid that upsetting her will sour relations with a new knight and future expert. In other words, there was something bad in her medical data that he didn’t want Belevere to see directly before he’s had a chance to calm her down.

Annabelle’s heart sunk to the bottom of her stomach as she thought back to what she thought she saw as the doctor scrolled through her logs: a precipitous drop at the end of her neural aptitude progress graph.

With a shaky voice, the doctor produced a holographic form on his tablet. “S-signing this document will authorize the Medical Center at Arvent Mech Institute to release Annabelle Florent’s medical information to Lady B-belevere Odis...”

With an equally shaky hand, Annabelle signed the document, which then blinked before Belevere.

Please, not my aptitude...

The doctor swallowed hard and submitted the documents. Then, he brought up the medical information again with visible reluctance. He took a deep breath to calm himself before he cleared his throat and, with pleading eyes, began to summarize the report for Annabelle.

“Um, Miss Florent. Investigations show that the reason you fell unconscious three days ago during the Knighting Tournament was due to a malfunctioning data regulator,” he said. “The synchronium overloaded your system and strained it past its limits—”

“Doctor, please. Just tell me if there’s any lasting damage,” Annabelle pleaded, interrupting him. The suspense was too much to bear. 

She had learned about the consequences of a neural interface malfunction many times in her classes. However, the damage that could result ranged anywhere from a slight headache or blackout to permanent brain damage or even brain death.

Doctor Mifuell had effectively said nothing and was just stalling.

Under Belevere’s fierce glare, Doctor Mifuell shrank. The tablet in his hands shook, though the hologram remained steady. “Y-yes ma’am. Our scans have found that there is no lasting brain damage from the malfunction. While you may feel dull and slow for the next few days, it’s the result of your mind recovering from a traumatic experience on its own...”

Annabelle sighed in relief. Even now, the fog in her mind had been worrying her, and to find out that it wasn’t anything permanent was a huge weight off her mind.

But the doctor wasn’t done. “Unfortunately, while your physical brain is practically unharmed, the damage from the synchronium overflow has damaged your ability to pilot a mech. I’m afraid that your neural aptitude has dropped from an A to...” he hesitated, “...to a grade D aptitude...”

Annabelle blanched.