Love is Weak

Chapter 8 - The Mission

Lillian

Keith and I trained more the next day. Slowly, his form improved, and the awkwardness between us dissipated. However, he was quite stubborn and often made sarcastic comments at my advice. I tried to talk to him about controlling his emotions and determination in battle, but he didn't let me finish and charged me instead. While I fought him, I learned that he always incorporated his own emotional agenda into his battles. That was going to have to change.

"Stop fighting with your emotions," I growled as I twirled my blade and charged him.

"I'm not," he said as he sprinted towards me.

I stopped running, deactivated my mask, manipulated my blade into a sword, held it out in front of me, and waited for Keith to notice.

He continued to sprint towards me, and I began to get nervous that he didn't see my blade. When he was within reach of my blade-turned-sword, Keith morphed his own blade into a sword and connected it with mine.

"Thought that would stop me?" He smirked.

I shook my head and closed my eyes. I willed my sword back into a blade, sheathed it, and took a step away from him with my hands up.

"Keith, we've run into this issue all day. You need to fight with less emotion," I said.

"And how am I supposed to do that if I've done it all my life?" He grumbled.

Well, he had a point.

"When you fight, you let your feelings control you, which is probably what got you kicked out of the Garrison in the first place." I gasped and covered my mouth.

He wasn't supposed to know that I knew about that.

"How do you know about that?" He glared at me.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I stared back.

Once again, he proved my point. Keith closed the small space between us, took hold of both my wrists, and shoved them underneath one of his arms before I could protest. He held his blade to my exposed neck and breathed into my face. If he wasn't a head taller than me, I wouldn't have been as afraid, but, as his instructor, I knew first-hand just how dangerous he could be.

"Yes, you do," he whispered threateningly.

With my hands locked under his arm and his body close to mine, I couldn't move without him noticing. Not to mention the blade at my neck. I knew he wouldn't do it, but I did know that if I didn't answer, he'd leave a mark.

"How?" Keith asked, staring into my eyes.

I didn't want to tell him. I wasn't supposed to tell him. He wasn't supposed to know.

"I was there," I said.

His grip loosened. "What?"

"I was there," I repeated.

His grip tightened. "How?" He asked again.

"A mission you're not supposed to know about," I grunted.

"Tell me." Keith pressed the blade into my neck, and I knew it was about to draw blood, but I didn't flinch. I stared back into his eyes.

"Kolivan sent me to earth to meet with Iverson. I was supposed to bring information that there were aliens outside of earth. Since I was half-human, half-Galra, I'd blend right in. I was given a uniform and clearance to become a Garrison student while I completed my mission. After six months, I was an officer, and six months after that, I was promoted to being the youngest commander," I explained quietly. I didn't want to speak too loudly or breathe too hard for fear of actually losing blood to Keith.

"Only you changed your name, didn't you?"

I nodded.

"Commander Lamar," Keith said.

I had taken Kiana's last name as a cover in case someone knew my mother, Anna Kintanara, and recognized my actual last name. Kolivan didn't want me to be distracted from the mission, and frankly, I didn't want to know if I had relatives alive on earth.

"This really isn't the way to hold your Blade Captain or Garrison Commander, rookie. In both organisations, I outrank you." I smirked.

"You didn't even flinch," was all he said as he sheathed his blade and let me go. Keith's cheeks seemed to flush red. From embarrassment or something else, I had no idea, and I didn't want to know.

"'Course I didn't flinch, Kogane. I've spent years being charged by initiates." I brushed it off and fixed my hair. "Where were we?"

"You were insulting my emotions," he grumbled.

I shook a finger. "Not insulting, Keith. I'm bringing up a pattern."

"I'm sure you've never had to develop new fighting styles." He crossed his arms in a pouty manner.

I rolled my eyes. "We're not here to talk about me, so deal with it. You'll learn about my past eventually, but right now I'm here to train you. If you don't want to continue, let me know and I'll gladly leave."

He stared hard at me.

"Given the fact that you're not saying anything, allow me to continue my constructive criticism." I stressed "constructive" whether he'd believe it or not. I didn't really care that his attitude and emotions got in the way of his being able to decipher situations. "Like I was saying, you got kicked out of the Garrison for disciplinary issues, more specifically, a fight with James Griffin."

"How do you know that?" He asked.

"None of your business," I said and pulled out my blade, aiming it at him. "And if you attack me again, you can give up your weapon and never enter a Blade base again."

He grumbled something.

I sheathed my blade. "Anyway, I was around both of you enough to know that he liked to insult you and you liked to physically fight him. You were easily angered, so whenever Griffin insulted you or your family, you fought him. That right there is an example of letting emotions control your battles. In the Blades, that doesn't bode well. Everytime you let your emotions control you, Keith, you miss an opportunity to take out the threat. Not to mention that you have a swift fighting style that doesn't allow you to completely understand your target when you engage."

"So what do you want me to do?" He asked darkly.

"I want you to fight the robot on level one. Don't do it in your usual way. Learn about it first, watch it, let it chase you, whatever, and defeat it in a way you normally wouldn't. A soldier can never let themselves become predictable," I said.

He grunted and activated training sequence one.

I moved to the side of the room to watch him, and I was mildly surprised we even made it to that phase of training. He was making it way too difficult.

When he finished, I forced him to tell me what he learned. He admitted that he hadn't learned anything, but he had succeeded in defeating his threat in a different way than usual.

"Good. That's it for today," I said and left him to himself.