Yakusoku to eiyo - 約束と栄誉

[Shelco]

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Location: Planet New Tokyo, Kusari teikokku

Date: November 4th, 814 A.S.

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With every taken breath, Yukiyama's lungs felt like they would rip themselves apart, the sound of heavy military boots stamping in the dirt and the heavy breathing of soldiers combined with the loud instructions from the Chusa at the front made this exercise as demanding as possible. The heavy equipment everyone was wearing clearly didn't ease this situation up, Yukiyama felt like her body wouldn't be able to cope with the performance the other Shoi's had, even though her fitness seemed all fine, it somewhat shattered her expectations but giving up was no option. It was no surprise that she was rather behind, the last two rows, to be exact, next to her, the very same Shoi who stood in front of her when they were in the academy, what a nice convenience... She didn't want to make it obvious how exhausted she already was but her red face and the constant running sweat down her face originating from her forehead made this way too obvious. Adding on to that, the annoying Shoi next to her quickly snapped his eyes to her every once in a while, bringing a smirk on his face when he saw her struggling. They have already run a few miles, not that she was able to count them, she concentrated on the beautiful landscape they passed, it made the whole exercise a bit more excusing. If this didn't help, because they were running through the wood, which happened quite often, she looked up at the sky and see the clouds without losing track of the way she had to run. Keeping up the speed was mandatory, there were two other Shoi's behind her. If she would stop or slow down now, it would likely cause a collision with them, nothing she can let happen, not with her status, not in this moment. "Just keep running.", she thought and closed her eyes for a moment, it was okay, the way was going straight and the speed was moderate for the moment as well.

"Getting sloppy, Minako?" the Shoi said and looked at her, how could he even be fit enough to keep his idiotic smile at this moment? "Hmpf..." she just made and didn't bother to look at him, instead, however, she opened her eyes again and concentrated on the pain, which was a mistake. Her serious face, she just laid on for a moment, disappeared a keen second later and turned into a face that screamed exhaustion. "Thought so." he said and looked forward again as well. Yukiyama's heart was beating extremely fast and her breath slowly started to get out of her rhythm, her lungs started to hurt even more now and she put on hand against her chest while keeping the speed. It felt just like back in the testing phase, she wished for this to end, it was horrible, the surroundings were no longer a place to distract her from the pain that felt like she would slowly be torn apart from within. The worst was, knowing that the others most likely didn't feel like this, they all seemed to run concentrated, why was she the only one struggling? What made her so bad in this moment and split her from the rest of the group? How long would this exercise go and what would happen if she wouldn't make it? Those questions bounced around her thoughts, not that it would make it all easier. Suddenly, she saw it, the academy, with its fences around, covered by the heads of her front-men, she made it, without even noticing that they would run back already, it felt like a way bigger success than it actually was, as if every challenge in this world would be completed by now, she forgot that things like this were to happen on a daily basis. "Yameru!" The Chusa yelled as loud as he could, to overtone the exhausted breaths of the Shoi's. They all stopped within a second and bent down to lean on their knees, some of them sat down, Yukiyama included. "That's it for this morning, you've earned yourselves a break, Shoi's... more or less." his eyes went over to Yukiyama in this moment, not for long, though. "Get a shower and eat something, in 5 hours each of you is ready for flight training." he turned around and opened the large gate of the academy campus, just as a patrol of Chimaera's flew over the Shoi's, leaving a loud sound of the engines behind that rolled over them like a thunderstorm. With big eyes, most of those, who were not looking at the ground from exhaustion, they looked at the ships passing over them with eager faces, a new spark of courage spawned within Yukiyama.

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