Under the Veil of Night

Inside a Small Clinic

"Shin, can't you be gentler?" Tommy asked with a pained expression. The doctor before him was bandaging him with such force that it hurt.

The man looked back at Tommy with a big frown on his face. He was a tall man, but rather skinny. His black hair and polite gesture made him look like a handsome scholar, but Tommy knew the truth. His nimble hands moved and continued treating Tommy without any intention to reduce his strength.

"Outside our work, I'm Doctor Shiro, Tommy," the man said with a dark tone.

Tommy shrugged. This was the same man as their school's infirmary doctor. Even though Shiro's day job was to be the doctor to high school kids, he was also part of their group. In the identity as the fourth core member of Fiore Group, he specialized in protecting them from the shadows.

Seeing Tommy's nonchalant expression, he tightened the bandage once more. This resulted in Tommy yelping out in pain.

On the side, Kanae was sitting on the bed with a wry expression. Shiro had already finished treating her and her condition was rather bad. There were nearly no external wounds, but her ribs were slightly broken because of a hard impact to her chest. Besides, she strained her feet because she sprinted so suddenly. Thankfully, it was not too serious.

"You won't feel too comfortable when you're moving," Shiro reminded when he saw Kanae move.

"I know, Doctor," Kanae frowned. She already felt uncomfortable even when she didn't exert any pressure on her chest. It was agonizing and annoying.

"Based on your recovery speed, you need around 10 days to fully heal. After that, you have to train your body slightly to rehabilitate as you tend to move around too much."

Kanae smiled wryly. "You know me the best, Doc."

Shiro nodded his head. He was also the one who made the judgment regarding Kanae's wounds previously. He missed the time by more than one month, so he knew that for some weird reason, Kanae's recovery ability must have improved again.

"You have to retrain your body again. We should hold another intense training session in the near future."

They hadn't trained intensely for quite some time. Kanae still had her normal jogging during PE and martial arts class, but that was not enough to withstand her excessive strain in a fight. They needed more intense training and all to push their limits further.

Jason nodded his head in agreement. "Your skills are getting rusty, Kanae. If our skills are only just at this level, we won't be able to contend against the bigger clans."

The Zone Clan was only at the trailing end of the five big clans. In addition, when they attacked, the clan head and the young master were not present. If those two were present, Kanae might not be able to escape with only light wounds like this.

"They're not that rusty, but it's them who are stronger. We never had any dealings with the big clans before this, so it's impossible for us to have known their strength," Kanae flicked a glance towards Jason. "That is excluding your personal dealing with them."

As the young master, Jason had met with people from the clans a few times, so he was quite familiar with them. On the other hand, the other three didn't have prestigious statuses like Jason, so in the past they didn't have the chances he had.

"So, anything you want us to do, Rei?" Tommy asked.

"After our wounds have healed, we'll arrange an intense training session for several days," Kanae pondered. "Oh wait, in two weeks it's midterm season, so we can only hold it after that."

"That's a good idea," Jason agreed without much thought.

"What about your work, Young Master?"

"I can skip out on most of it just fine. I might not be able to skip the meetings, but the usual work is not a big problem."

Shiro leaned back on the wall. "I'm afraid it's going to be hard for me to ask for a lengthy vacation as they need to find a replacement too. I'll try to ask the school about that."

Kanae nodded her head and leaned back on the bed. She wanted to rest as she was rather exhausted after forcing herself to stay awake and fighting fiercely with the Zone Clan. It was incredibly tiring and her young body would not be able to hold on if she didn't have any rest.

"You three don't have to linger in the school too much. I know you only came because you want to follow me."

Jason looked towards Kanae with a smile. "Who was it that destroyed my previous school, so I had to search for a different one?"

The location of the big fight in August was at the prestigious school. This school was where the descendants of the four big families usually gathered to study. Besides the descendants, only talented young people could get in. Because of the fight, the place was destroyed, and it took a long time to finish cleaning up the aftermath.

After they had finished the cleanup, the four big families decided to build another school with some additional buildings on the same site. As one of the young masters, he participated in the construction and knew about some of the details.

Kanae shrugged. "We never had any dealings with bombs, you should ask the other groups who placed those bombs there and nearly buried us alive."

Tommy shivered when he recalled what happened back then. At that time, he got wounded quite quickly, so he could only watch as the others fought. It was scary yet exhilarating at the same time. The only regret he had was that he did not stand with the others on the frontline.

Even this time, he was being a burden for the others. He got captured easily and then they held him as a hostage. It was a huge humiliation, and he knew that it was a stain that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

"Kanae, I'm sorry for this time."

"It's not your fault, but theirs. Your skill is indeed not up to par, and the incident with your mother is unexpected," Kanae smiled. "So, you shouldn't blame yourself."

Tommy looked towards Kanae as he bit his lips. His sense of guilt still didn't leave him. If not because of him, Kanae wouldn't have gotten hurt, and Jason too wouldn't have got hurt like this.

"It's just a light wound," Jason shrugged when he saw Tommy's gaze on him. "A normal 16-year-old boy is naturally not as strong as the others. You already did great, Tommy."

"But…" Kanae is far stronger than him.

His sentence lodged in his throat as he couldn't bring himself to say it. He felt pathetic, as he couldn't reach the same level as his captain and made a joke out of himself.

"Don't compare yourself to Kanae. She has a natural-born ability for martial arts, so her speed in learning is faster than yours," Shiro said. He also found out that Kanae seemed to grow even stronger as time passed. It was as if a dormant power inside her slowly awakened.

Jason nodded his head. "Even I'm not as good as her with me being the direct lineage, so you should just focus on getting stronger little by little."

Tommy nodded his head. He didn't want to be a burden again in the future. He wanted to stay with them and fight on the frontline. Getting captured and being the bargaining chip for their enemies to threaten his friends was not pleasant.

Shiro cleaned up his tools. "Today is Saturday, so it's a good day for us to rest. I'm sure all of you want to have some sleep, right?"

Jason nodded his head. He recalled his schedule for today and groaned when he recalled that he had a meeting over dinner later tonight. The other party was also someone important, so he couldn't just go and cancel this important meeting.

They were conversing lightheartedly when Tommy's phone suddenly rang.