Chapter 13

In the morning there was a voice.
"Wake up! Come on sleepy-head! It's time to get up! Come on! Today's the day! You're in the army now boy! Wake up!" it was Mitsuhiro. What hair-brained scheme did he have this time? Why were they getting up so early in the morning?
"It's Six in the morning! Wake me up in two hours when it's time to get up!" moaned a sleepy Kaleb. But Mitsuhiro insisted that the sleepy boy get up, he grabbed Kaleb's arms, and dragged him out of the bed. Kaleb fell with a thump to the ground
"All right, all right. I'm getting up!" moaned Kaleb. He slowly moaned, and then pushed himself upwards. He blew his hair from out of his eyes, and glanced at his roommate. He stood there for a moment, then blinked. Mitsuhiro stared back at him blankly for a second.
"Are you nuts? What are we up so early for?" asked Kaleb with a yawn. He was tired, they had gone to sleep late last night, and still had about half a week until training started. The training was for them, to get them into shape, and also to find out who the strongest pilots were.

"Well, sure our piloting skills are awesome, and both of us know our basic astronomy and science, but we could both use some practice training. You know, reflexes, reaction time, martial arts, and speed. Soon enough they were running through the cold frosty morning. They hadn't intended to start running, but those girls had tracked the boys down, and were chasing them now! They managed to outrun the girls, and lost them in a forest. Then they circled around and went back to the building. Soon enough Mitsuhiro had picked the lock to the company's nearby gym and weight-room. They worked out all morning. Kaleb had never worked so hard in his life! He breathed heavily, and looked like he was about to collapse. He glanced at his watch and wanted to leave.
"We've been at this for five and a half hours since we woke up, can we stop now?" he whimpered sadly. He knew Mitsuhiro too well.
"Giving up already? We've still got to do fencing!" soon enough they each had a katana blade in their hands. A long Japanese sword. The American glanced nervously at Mitsuhiro for a moment and then spoke up.

"Isn't this kind of dangerous? Shouldn't we be wearing protective clothing?" Mitsuhiro shook his head and grinned.
"Don't you trust me?" he gave a grin, and then raised his sword, he swung down but Kaleb met his blow by swinging his own blade to the left, and then quickly to the right, bashing the other boy's sword to the right, missing him. Mitsuhiro's blade swung wildly to the right, and he lost control of it for a moment or so, which Kaleb used to his advantage, by swinging his own blade back to the right so that he could take another swing at Mitsuhiro. By now the dark-haired boy had regained control of his own blade, and swung low, aiming for Kaleb's feet. The American jumped over the other boy's swinging blade, and came down hard with his own. Mitsuhiro brought his own fully upright, and it made a loud clanging sound as it hit against the blade moving downwards upon him. Both blades vibrated, and Kaleb pushed down, Mitsuhiro pushing up. Kaleb used his own weight to finally weigh down Mitsuhiro's blade, but Mitsuhiro knew he couldn't hold on for much longer, so he withdrew his own blade, sending Kaleb tumbling to the ground, he then stepped upon Kaleb's back with one foot, as if proclaiming victory. The other boy groaned a heavy breathe of air outwards, and then watched as Mitsuhiro drove his own blade into the ground, nearly an inch from Kaleb's ear. Any closer and the impact would have been a serious injury.

"Little grasshopper should learn when to run from large lawn-mowers, and fight ants." Mitsuhiro gave a chuckle, then reached an arm down to help Kaleb up. Kaleb grabbed his arm, and Mitsuhiro pulled him up. They soon put away their swords and went back to their rooms. They both trained for the next three mornings and evenings, and the girls outside grew larger in number. The company didn't understand who all the girls were, nor why they were there. Most of them that just saw signs that read "I love Mitsuhiro" or "Kaleb's the Best" assumed some kind of a film was being made, or that they were crazy people protesting against the company!