Her head had exploded. Or at least that’s what it felt like. Kiriai lay frozen on the lumpy couch, hoping that if she didn’t move a muscle, the headache would ebb.

“Been in a trance state again, have you?”

The soft whisper made Kiriai grateful. Eigo knew how sensitive she was to noise and movement after one of these sessions. She kept somehow forgetting the horrible aftermath of a trance training session. There had to be a better way.

I am sorry, Kiriai. Trance training is not supposed to cause this kind of pain. A small amount of disorientation isn’t unexpected, but nothing this painful. I will report the problem to the main game AI as soon as I correct my connection error.

Thank you, Yabban. The training AI wouldn’t be able to do that anytime soon, but at least Kiriai could be polite.

She felt gentle hands helping her sit up and cracked her eyes to see Eigo’s concerned face. He pressed a warm mug into her hands. The tea steamed with a pleasant mint aroma but had the bitter hints of something medicinal. At the moment, she would have swallowed road tar if it would ease her headache. Slowly, so as not to jar her head, Kiriai tipped back and gulped down the contents of the mug as quickly as possible without a breath. Sure enough, the bitter aftertaste burned at the back of her throat despite how much honey Eigo had added. Even her slight shudder intensified the throbbing in her skull.

“We need to figure out what’s wrong with this trance training, or you can’t use it anymore,” Eigo said, his voice still a soft whisper as he sat next to her, making the old couch sag even more.

“You’re telling me. And thanks for the tea. What was in it?”

“Isha stocked me with some when I said you’d been having recurring headaches. She knew you wouldn’t remember to take it, but I would,” he said with an unrepentant shrug. “And I have ideas for the next trance training.”

“Ugh. Not going to think about that right now.”

“What were you doing in there, anyway? I thought you planned to train with Sento and Tsuyoi at the dojo for the battle.”

“Give me a minute for the tea to kick in and I’ll fill you in on everything.”

Eigo turned to her with a quizzical look. “Everything? I saw you yesterday. How much could have happened since then?”

Her headache subsided to a dull throbbing as she ordered her thoughts for a moment before speaking.

It took longer than she expected to fill Eigo in. He asked way too many questions as usual.

“So Yabban is a gorgeous woman now? You can see her and talk to her?”

Trust Eigo to focus on the AI’s transformation. He was always fascinated by the AI’s abilities and new talents.

“You’re just like Sento. How is it that both of you can ignore the assassination plot I overheard? And how am I going to get a Rinjin armband?”

Eigo’s joking expression had hardened in an instant. “I am not and never will be like Sento.”

“Whoa, don’t go crazy,” she said, leaning back and holding up both hands. “I meant nothing by it. And besides, he isn’t all bad. You know how much he’s helped me. He is the only scrapper I can trust.”

Instead of responding with his usual easy manner, Eigo just shook his head.

“Kiriai, you have got to stop trusting everyone. Sure, Sento can be trusted to help you, as long as it helps him. Sento puts one and only one person first: himself.”

Kiriai started shaking her head halfway through Eigo’s rant against her scrapper friend. “He’s a good fighter and a good person, at least to me. Why do you hate him so much?”

Eigo didn’t answer. He stared at her and something he saw in her face affected him. He stood, took a few steps away from the couch before spinning back around and staring at her, his expression impossible to read. This wasn’t like him at all.

“Do you like him? As a boy, I mean? Is that what this is? Please tell me this isn’t that!”

Now it was Kiriai’s turn to feel uncomfortable. She dropped her gaze, scrambling for a way to deflect her friend’s attention, but it was too late.

“You do! Kiriai! You can’t. What are you thinking? You know how old he is, how self-centered he is. Did he tell you what part of the hood he comes from? Who his family is?” Eigo’s tall, lanky frame was practically dancing with distress. Kiriai couldn’t get a word in and didn’t bother trying.

“And your grandfather? Oh ancestors, what is he going to say?” Eigo stopped and ran both hands through his pale hair, finally having run out of words.

“He won’t say anything, because there isn’t anything going on between Sento and me,” Kiriai said, but she could hear the doubt in her own tone. “He doesn’t see me like that, anyway.”

Eigo’s bluster seemed to drain out of him and he looked down at her. “And you want him to?”

She gave a weak shrug.

“I told you he’s an idiot,” he said, and then waited until she would look at him. “Kiriai, you can do significantly better than him. He doesn’t deserve you.”

“Can you drop it? If I say anything to him, I could ruin everything, all our training and even the battle itself. And if I don’t, I’m just a coward. So there isn’t anything to discuss. Let’s pretend this never happened and move on.”

Eigo laughed and shook his head, back to his cheerful self. “Have you seen yourself fight, girl? The last thing you are is a coward. It won’t be long before everyone in the hood, even small children and pets, will run away screaming at the sight of the fearsome Scrapper Kiriai.” Eigo was depicting the scene in an exaggerated pantomime until Kiriai had to laugh and let go of the tension that had built up.

Eigo plopped down on the carpet in front of Kiriai, crossed his legs and held up a hand to tick off points. “So let me see if I have this straight. Two phantoms may be plotting to kill the boss, but there’s nothing you can do about it.” Eigo tapped one finger before raising a second. “Yabban is a hot babe who gives you horrible headaches while trying to help you train and is insisting that you watch tons of fights including ones of your future opponents before she will make fake fighting ghosts for you to practice on.” With a flourish, Eigo held up a third finger. “And everything hinges on me helping you get a Rinjin armband so Sento will let you go on the top secret scouting mission with him to Rinjin Hood. Did I get it all?”

Kiriai just nodded, waiting to see where he was going with it all.

“Well, it’s a good thing there’s an extra spot on my family’s scrounger mission into the Wastelands tomorrow, isn’t it?”

Kiriai just stared at him, speechless.