Coexistence

Calm. Calm. You have to stay calm, Stella chanted internally.

Her mother had just called the death of her comrades—her friends—a relief. Her flames twisted inside her belly with a rage that made her nauseous.

And yet, it was Yui who said something first.

“You killed people,” Yui accused. “Innocent people.” She dug her fingers into the fabric of her scarf. “My brother died because of you.”

Her mother’s face twisted into something harsh and defensive. “I didn’t have a choice. I owed it to the city to fix my mistakes.”

Stella could hardly believe the audacity of her mother’s words. “Mistakes? What mistake could possibly be big enough to support a scheme like this?”

Her mother seemed reluctant to say anything, but Yui wasn’t shy about grabbing her by her blouse, dragging her over the desk and throwing her to the floor. Sakura hit her head and Stella winced, but didn’t step forward to help her.

Yui squatted down next to Sakura who held her head and groaned. “Talk, or I’ll make you,” Yui warned.

Sakura glared at her. “Fine,” she said as she pushed herself up to her knees. “So be it.”

She pressed out the wrinkles in her impeccably ironed dress pants before continuing, “Back when Stella was a baby, she had serious health issues. Her ability to use magic was also hampered, for some reason. She didn’t respond to magical testing like she should have.

“And then, when Stella was just a few weeks away from her first birthday, the doctors said it was unlikely she would survive.” Her mother pursed her lips. “I couldn’t stand the thought that I wasn’t capable of protecting you. So I found another way.”

This was the first time Stella was hearing any of this. Her mother had never mentioned that she had been sickly as an infant, or that she’d been unable to use magic. Their family doctor had also never indicated that she was living in anything but a completely healthy teenage body.

Her mother had always been uncharacteristically nervous when she had a check-up scheduled. Now she knew why.

“That ‘other way’ you found to help Stella wouldn’t happen to have something to do with the dragon, would it?” Yui asked.

Her mother hung her head, and Stella looked down at her in horror. “You…used the energy from the dragon to fix me?”

“It was only meant to be a little,” her mother rushed to explain. “Just enough to heal you and give you the ability to use magic. But when we started transfusing you with its energy, you absorbed much more than we had planned. I haven’t been able to run the right tests to confirm it, but you’ve likely gained much more from the dragon than we know.”

Her mother held her head and sighed. “In the end, you were healed, but it forced Sakai Kousan into an energy crisis. I was responsible for managing the dragon’s energy for the people of Stardust, and I used it for my own selfishness instead. I had to find a way to replenish the lost energy.”

“The Aria,” Yui supplied.

Sakura nodded. “We harvested parts of the dragon’s DNA embedded in its skeleton to create them. I never expected the results would be so…violent. As living beings, they also have a mechanism that helps them avoid releasing too much energy at once, so their energy output wasn’t great either.

“I had planned to shut down the project, but then one of the Aria died during an experiment and released all the energy stored in its body at once. After making such a monumental breakthrough, we decided that fixing the Aria’s nature would be a waste of time and resources.”

“A waste…” Stella trailed off.

Her mother continued as if she hadn’t heard her, “In the end, we switched to the same model that we’re using now: a ‘create and destroy’ energy retrieval structure.”

Her mother seemed to have finally had enough of cowering on the floor and pulled herself to her feet.“Human life might be required to fight the Aria and bear the brunt of their violent impulses, but it’s still proved the most economical way to preserve the future of the city.”

“You’re insane,” Yui said, her voice trembling. “A total villain. I can’t believe that you share even a drop of blood with Stella.”

She covered the bottom half of her face with her scarf and glared at Sakura. “Economical? For the good of the city? For Stella? None of that justifies what you’ve done.”

“You need to stop this,” Stella pressed. “Immediately. The Aria aren’t the mindless beasts that you think, Mom. We met one on our last mission that was capable of human speech—human emotion. You can’t treat them like disposable batteries!”

Stella unsheathed her sword and tilted the blade back and forth in her open hands. “When you gave me this sword, you said I was protecting the city from the Aria. But the truth is much worse. You’ve made me a murderer.“

“That’s not true, Stella. You’re not a murderer,” her mother insisted. “You did what was right. You did what I told you to do.”

“I think,” Stella said slowly. “You need to step down from your position and admit the truth.”

Her mother scoffed. “Oh, really? And who will take my place, then?”

“Me,” Stella said. “Because if you won’t do the right thing, I will. I’ll protect the city, the Aria, the company, the dragon—and I’ll protect you, too.”

If things continued on the way they were, Stella would be forced to watch her mother continue to commit years and years more of needless death. She wouldn’t let her mother ruin herself that way.

“I refuse,” Sakura said bluntly. “It’s my job as your mother to protect you. You, as my child, have no right to disagree with how I do that.”

Stella had just opened her mouth to argue when a guttural screech pierced through the office doors. Alarms blared in response to the cry, and Stella immediately adopted a combat stance.

Even without having to ask, she knew what was coming.

“Get back, Mom! They’re coming!”

Sakura looked as if her mind hadn’t quite caught up to the situation yet, so Stella tugged her by the back of her blouse and whirled her behind her.

Meanwhile, Yui jumped onto the desk and steadied her rifle on her knee. Her eyes were laser focused on the door as she said, “It doesn’t sound like it’s just one.”

Stella gritted her teeth. “You don’t think that all of them broke out of the lab, do you?”

“B-Broke out?” Her mother stammered. “That’s impossible. Do you know just how strong those tanks are?”

“I tried to warn you, Mom. They’re a lot more capable than you thought.”

Her mother’s face hardened and she pushed Stella behind her. “You two fall back. I’ll take care of this.”

“You’re not capable of combat magic, Mom!”

“I don’t care! I’m going to protect you!”

Stella sensed a massive amount of energy growing in front of the office doors. The dread she felt was instant. “Both of you, get down!” Stella pushed her mother to the floor and used her body to shield her as a massive blast of energy ripped through the doors.

Stella looked around frantically and was relieved to see that Yui had also managed to drop to the floor before the blast could reach her. At the same time, she also noticed the hole the blast had drilled into the back wall.

“Sakura…Sakai.”

Stella’s head whipped around. The face of a male Aria was clearly visible through the massive gape in the door. “You will pay…for what you’ve done to us.”

The edges of the hole in the door still had an iron-hot glow, but the Aria didn’t seem bothered as he used his claws to rip it in half.

With their last barrier of defense gone, Stella could see there was definitely more than one Aria. However, from what Stella could recall, it didn’t look like the entire batch that had been suspended in the lab.

Maybe they’d gotten lucky. There was a chance that a portion of the Aria hadn’t fully matured yet and prevented them from making an escape.

There were still half a dozen Aria to survive, but Stella took comfort in knowing they wouldn’t be facing an endless onslaught of enemies.

Stella’s focus snapped back to her mother as struggled to get out from underneath her. “Let me up, Stella,” she commanded quietly. “The one they’re after is me, isn’t it? I’ll distract them so you two can escape.”

Stella maneuvered herself into a kneel and hissed, “No way. I told you, didn’t I?” Her mother stared up at her with wide eyes as she cloaked her sword in fresh flames and lunged at the Aria. “I’m tired of being protected!”

The male Aria she chose to attack parried her sword blow for blow with his claws, but Stella wasn’t shaken by his strength. After all, she was capable of more than swinging a blade.

She was a magic swordsman, after all.

Too distracted by his efforts to parry her blade, the Aria didn’t notice the flames that crawled up his arm until his flesh was being scorched away.

He screeched in pain and, never one to miss an opening, Yui’s rifle went off, and the first shot lodged itself into the Aria’s charred arm. He stumbled back, stunned by the hit.

“Don’t stop shooting!” Stella cried.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, partner!” Yui yelled back.

The other Aria, realizing their leader was injured, circled around him and used their wings to deflect Yui’s bullets.

It was an effective strategy, though it was clear that a couple of them were wounded by at least a bullet or two. But getting hits didn’t matter. What was important was that Yui’s attack scattered their focus and restricted their movements—and it succeeded at that handsomely.

The male Aria glowered at her from behind his pack, and Stella knew that if he hadn’t been incapacitated early on in the fight, they would have had no chance of cutting down the rest.

Fortunately, the quickness of Stella’s sword had outpaced his regeneration, and with Yui’s support, the entire clan of Aria met their bloody end in the span of a few minutes.

That was, except for one—the male Aria who had spoken her mother’s name, and the only one with capabilities similar to Surge’s.

His arm was almost completely regenerated now, and she knew her window to kill him was running out. Even so, she refused to take advantage of his vulnerability.

Stella had told her mother she would protect the Aria; she meant it.

“I’m sorry,” Stella said. She tentatively reached out to touch his handsome face. “I promise this will be the last time that I raise my sword against the Aria.”

Stella had half-expected him to grab her heart and rip it out of her chest as soon as she touched him. For some reason, he didn’t.

“Sakai Kousan has forced you to suffer a lot. But once I take over, that’s going to change. I’ll do everything I can so that we can coexist in peace.”

Her lip wobbled as she smiled. “I promise.”