Andrew blinked, as if to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, but he wasn’t the only one surprised. Wendy was in a foul mood, but even she thought Nero’s notes on how Andrew fought Silas were a bit... extreme. Silas, who was on the ground getting treated, suddenly started to get a bad feeling, and even the nurse treating him paused to look towards Nero.
Unfortunately, of them all, only Silas understood what was happening, causing him to smile wryly and with reluctance. What had he done to get a friend who cared for him this much? He really couldn’t handle all this caring. Seriously, he couldn’t.
Andrew did not understand Nero’s motives, but he guessed that maybe he was trying to get him expelled or disqualified, and smirked.
"You think you’re clever? This is an official right, observed by referees. I’m not going to break any rules. Heck, even if I did beat him harder, that wouldn’t really be breaking any rules because the referee can stop the fight if things go too far."
Nero shook his head.
"No, I’m not trying to trick you. Tomorrow when you challenge him, beat him a little harder. Your holding back isn’t winning you any prizes, and it’s not going to convince Silas either. Look at how loudly he yelled my name when he saw me. He’s been holding out because he thought I would save him when I got here."
Andrew studied Nero, and then looked at Silas, unsure of what to make of the situation.
"Whatever, freak," he muttered before turning to leave. As he walked away, Andrew decided to give up on getting Silas’ help. This was a dead end, and it was beginning to affect his reputation as well. The weirdo giving him tips on how to fight Silas was the last straw. Unfortunately for him, what he wanted or did not want to do was never a part of Nero’s considerations to begin with.
Nero didn’t bother Andrew as he left, instead returning to Silas who lay on the arena floor.
"Do we really have to do this?" Silas asked, his voice feeble and slightly shaky as he looked at Nero.
"In tomorrow’s challenge, you better fight like your life depends on it," Nero said as he squatted down to talk to him. "Because if you get out of that fight alive, and you’re not the winner, the training I’m going to give you is going to make you wish you were dead."
Silas smiled wryly, cursing his luck internally.
"Sometimes, you can just help me the easy way, you know," Silas said. "It’s not forbidden, you know."
Nero chuckled.
"You’re right, and the last time I did that, I ended up beating the son of the Commander of the Eastern front," Nero said. "Don’t talk for now, focus on healing up. We’ll talk once you’ve recovered."
The nurse looked at Nero oddly, but did not comment. Wendy also just shrugged, not butting in. She trusted Nero enough to know that he would not act without a purpose.
Fortunately, despite the fact that Silas was bleeding, he wasn’t that badly hurt so healing didn’t take too long. Moreover, since healing injured students was a regular occurrence for nurses in the Battle Arena, they were equipped with the best cards to deal with the kinds of injuries they usually suffered here.
Instead of leaving the arena, they all just went to the mezzanine and sat on some empty seats, far away from a crowd.
"Why is it that every time I see you after a long time, you’re getting beaten up by someone?" Nero asked Silas as he looked at him with an amused smile. "Is it just something about your face? Does it just invite people to punch it?"
Silas shook his head, struggling to come up with an answer for this himself as well. It wasn’t like he enjoyed getting beaten up.
"After everything in Lumina I... I decided that I don’t want to be a push over anymore," Silas said, looking down at his hands, unable to look at Nero. "I... I’ve been through real combat, you know? I... I... I’ve fought real monsters - real enemies. I’ve survived real missions. I’m a real soldier. So when I came to KMA, I really tried. I didn’t give up, I didn’t avoid the training, I did everything they told me to do.
"I thought... I thought I was doing good. When Adnrew came and asked me for help to pass the course, I really felt like my hard work was paying off. People were beginning to notice. But then..."
Silas’ words lingered off, while Wendy and Nero exchanged glances. The beginning of the story wasn’t like what they had expected. It wasn’t like Silas and Wendy were best friends, but they were close enough, and she had tried to help him out but he had never mentioned any of this to her before.
"Then what?" Nero asked.
Silas sighed, shaking his head.
"I don’t know. When he asked me, I was about to say yes, but right at the end, right before I said yes... I threatened me. He told me what would happen if I didn’t agree. That’s when I knew. It wasn’t my hard work that had been noticed - he was just using me. A part of me wanted to agree just to avoid the trouble, but the part of me that didn’t want to be a push over anymore just couldn’t. I just couldn’t agree."
Nero raised both eyebrows, looking at Silas as if he was impressed. This was not how he was expecting the story to have started.
"Standing up for yourself, not bad at all," Nero praised. "This is actually going to be much easier than I thought. I won’t even need to think of additional ways to motivate you. As long as you maintain this mindset, I’m sure I can train you to victory in just a couple of weeks."
Nero even patted Silas on the back, as if he was proud of him.
Silas smiled weakly, looking at Nero who was all pumped up to train him.
"You could have done all that without telling Andrew to beat me up harder," he said, looking at Nero with protest in his voice. "You know I’ve been taking beatings for a whole month? It hurts. It’s not pleasant at all. I mean, yes I was hoping you’d help me out, but that doesn’t mean you have to make my situation worse!"
Nero looked at Silas who was expecting some kind of non-committal response, and slowly his smile faded.
"Wanting to grow... is the right mindset," Nero said slowly, his voice low and filled with a gravity that suddenly pressed on Silas and Wendy’s chests, freezing their breaths. "But expecting to get rescued, hoping that someone will come save you... that is the wrong mindset."
For some reason, both Silas and Wendy felt a silent despair grasp their hearts, seeping into their bodies. If Michelle were here, she would have seen that the aether around Nero was swirling around him once more.
"During my sentence, I had to lead a mission. The members of the team changed from time to time, and there were other teams as well, but I was always leading one of the teams," Nero continued. "While we were together, I made sure my team stayed alive. People got hurt, but I did my best to keep them alive. When I was with them... I did my best, but one day I was separated from my team. By the time I found them again... most of them were dead."
Nero paused, and looked down at his hands, much like Silas had done before. He was not overcome with grief. If Silas or Wendy saw his eyes, they would see clarity. He knew what he was doing. But just because he retained perfect control of his emotions did not mean he could not use his experiences to influence Silas. He needed to change, or else one day he too...
"Then after my missions were over, and I was not team leader anymore, and our fight was over, another of my former team members was killed. I had fought tooth and nail to bring him back alive from our mission, and yet he died in an ambush later on.
"I won’t always be there to save you, Silas. Even if I want to be, I can’t always be there. If you go through life thinking that you don’t need to learn how to fight... if you think that you can always rely on me whenever you face trouble, then one day I’ll be standing at your funeral too.
"So to make sure that doesn’t happen, I’m going to beat these bad habits out of you... one way or another. You want me to do things the easy way for once? If it means that one day you get killed, then unfortunately I cannot. I will take the hard way, and I will make you take it with me. I will take the painful way, the difficult way, the way that makes you think you’d rather be dead, and I will make you take that way with me. So..."
Nero slapped Silas on the back, this time much harder, and looked up at him with a big smile.
"I hope you enjoyed your six month vacation at KMA, because now that I’m here, you won’t be able to take things so easy anymore."
Silas and Wendy were both filled with mixed emotions, mainly because this was very unlike Nero. He had never opened up like this before... he had never shared his thoughts and feelings so sincerely ever before. This was an entirely new side of him.
They could imagine how terrible he must have felt when his team mates died, and they could imagine how that would fuel his resolve. The worst part was, the past six months had genuinely been some of the toughest and most grueling months of their lives, but they knew for a fact that they really would feel like a vacation once Nero started doing his thing.
The reason Wendy was also feeling like that, and not just Silas, was because of the wide smile he was giving her as well.
Suddenly, she regretted coming to the Battle Arena today.