To say General Painite was angry was a very gentle way to put it. She was beyond furious, and if she could actually steam it would only add to the aura of fury that was pulsing around her. Her Lieutenant had a very simple series of orders to follow when he was not with her, and yet he had managed to break almost all of them in one fell swoop.

Was it so much to ask?

All she told him to do, if he insisted on gathering energy while she was away, was to not get himself into trouble. No picking fight with any white moon auras. No joining any other Negaverse soldiers on their hunts unless she was there, too. No messing with youma.

And most importantly, the golden rule in their training so far, no killing.

It was strange for her to think about how far she had fallen. How far away from herself she had travelled, and how twisted her mind had become. It was all so easy, once upon a time, for her to hunt and kill freely, and to train others to do the same thing. Now? Now she was not so sure. She had saved lives, even if it had been a bit of a s**t show, and she saw Ekanite as a new kind of hope. Something she’d lost a very long time ago. She could not lose him to Chaos, not like everything else. She had to do everything in her power to keep him from falling to deep, until she could help him. Maybe it would be the last thing she got to do, but in that it could save her, as well.

He was the last light of hope she had.

So when he contacted her in a panic, sounding like he was in the middle of a breakdown, she skipped being worried about him and dove right into sheer anger. Now she was teleporting across town, searching for the area he tried to describe to her in his panic, before finally finding him. The youma was gone. The body was on the ground, dust clinging to its rumpled clothing. Ekanite was sitting with his back to it, shaking, until he felt his General’s aura burst onto the scene. She stomped over to him, reaching her hand for his shoulder.

“What did I tell you about hunting alone? What did I say could happen if you messed with a youma? After everything that happened to you, why would you think you could-”

He turned and got up in one motion, slamming into her chest and wrapping his shaking arms around her tightly. He buried his face into her uniform, and she tensed up, holding her hands out in surprise, as if forgetting how to use them. After a moment, her burning anger simmered, and she wrapped her arms around him as protectively as she could. He wasn’t standing all the way, leaning up on his knees to cling to her, so she was able to lower her face and kiss the top of his head gently.

“It’s okay. Hey. Ekanite, mate. It’s okay. You’re alright.”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t…” Ekanite stammered. Later, Painite would learn that he had been draining energy for his quota, to exceed it so he could show her how well he was doing, when a youma showed up and took advantage of the fallen civilian. He dusted it, but not before it got what it wanted, taking the drained starseed and leaving an empty shell of a body behind. Later, she would assure him that it had not been his fault. And later still, she would double her efforts to keep an eye on him.

Later. But for now, she held on to him.