The mechanical bird in Joshua's hand clicked once—a gear slipping—breaking the suffocating silence.
"Goodbye?" Joshua repeated, the word tasting like ash. "What do you mean?"
Saria saw the look on his face—the confusion, the hurt—and her stony mask cracked. She took a step forward, her hands unclasping.
"It's not you!" she blurted out, her voice losing its forced maturity. "I... I want to play. But my father... he has plans. He says I'm old enough now. That I have wasted enough time on frivolous things."
Her father.
The words struck a chord in Joshua's memory. In the game and the manga spin-offs, Saria's past was shrouded in mystery, but her father was a looming shadow over her origin. He was the one who molded the soft clay of her childhood into the diamond-hard Director of Defense.
A quote surfaced in Joshua's mind, a line that defined Saria's brutal philosophy:
"Don't cry over spilled milk. If you want to fix it, fix it with your own hand."
Joshua's blood ran cold. He looked at Saria—at her trembling lip and the fear in her eyes. This was it. This was the turning point. If she walked away now, she would go into that training and come out as the Saria he knew: powerful, reliable, but utterly unable to express her own heart until it was too late.
He couldn't lose this Saria.
"If I can't see you because you're training," Joshua said, his voice steadying, "then let me train with you."
Saria's eyes widened. "What?"
"Take me to your father," Joshua insisted, stepping closer. "I'll ask him to let me join. If we're both busy with his 'plans,' then we're not wasting time, right?"
For a second, hope flared in Saria's eyes, bright and desperate. But it was quickly extinguished by a darker realization. She shook her head vigorously.
"You can't," she whispered, looking over her shoulder as if her father could hear them. "My father... he isn't like other dads. He's scary. He's strict. His training... it's going to be hard. You're an outsider, Joshua. If you mess up, or if you can't keep up, he might..."
She didn't finish the sentence, but the dread was clear. She didn't want him to be crushed by the weight she was forced to carry.
Joshua grinned, though his heart was hammering against his ribs. He flexed his arm—which, admittedly, wasn't very impressive yet—and thumped his chest.
"Hey, look at me. Do I look soft?"
Saria looked at him skeptically.
"Okay, don't answer that," Joshua laughed. "But seriously, Saria. I help my mom in the workshop every single day. I haul scrap metal, I crank heavy generators, and I dodge flying wrenches. I'm a tough guy. I can handle a little exercise."
"It's not just exercise..." Saria mumbled, but she was wavering. She wanted him there. She didn't want to be alone.
"I'll be fine," Joshua promised, offering her the mechanical bird. "Trust me."
Saria looked at the bird, then at him. Slowly, she took the toy. "Okay. But... don't say I didn't warn you."
The walk to Saria's estate was quiet. As they approached the district where the high-ranking families lived, the playful atmosphere of the park felt like a distant memory. The houses here were cold, geometric, and imposing—classic Columbian brutalism.
Joshua felt the nerves crawling up his spine. To distract himself, and maybe to bring a little color back to Saria's pale face, he nudged her arm.
"So," he quipped, fixing his collar. "Meeting the father-in-law already? I didn't think we were moving this fast, Saria. I didn't even bring a fruit basket."
Saria blinked, tilting her head. "Father-in-law? But we aren't married. Why would he be your in-law?"
Joshua almost tripped. Right. She's still a kid. "It's... never mind. It's an Earth jo—uh, a Columbia joke. Forget it."
They stopped before a large metal gate. It wasn't ornate; it was functional, thick, and intimidating. Saria pushed it open, and they walked into a wide, open courtyard paved with gray stone.
"Father?" Saria called out. Her voice was steady, but her hands were shaking.
At the center of the courtyard stood a man.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and stood with the stillness of a mountain. He had the same white hair as Saria, but his was cropped short and severe. He wore simple training gear that did nothing to hide the dense, corded muscle beneath.
He didn't turn around immediately. He finished a slow, deliberate movement of his arm—a combat form—before lowering his hands.
Then, he turned.
Joshua's breath hitched.
It wasn't that the man was ugly—he was actually quite dignified. It was the pressure.
The moment his golden eyes locked onto Joshua, the air in the courtyard seemed to grow heavy. It was a physical sensation, like walking into high-gravity water. The man didn't look angry; he looked devoid of anything unnecessary. No warmth, no curiosity, only evaluation.
It was the gaze of a man who looked at a spilled glass of milk and felt nothing but the calculation of how to clean it up.
"Saria," the man said. His voice was deep, resonating in Joshua's chest. "You are late."
"I..." Saria stiffened, her posture instantly correcting into a rigid salute. "I brought a friend, Father. He... he wishes to join the training."
The father's gaze shifted from Saria to Joshua. The pressure intensified. It felt like standing in front of a predator that had already decided how to kill you, but hadn't decided if it was worth the calories.
Joshua swallowed hard, his "tough guy" bravado trembling in the face of this absolute aura. But he forced himself to stand his ground. He clenched his fists to stop them from shaking and looked the man in the eye.
"Name?" the man demanded.
"Joshua," he managed to say, his voice surprisingly clear. "Joshua Obsidian."
The man stared at him for a long, agonizing second. His eyes flicked to Joshua's red left eye, then to his blue right eye.
"A Chimera," the man stated, not as a question, but as a cold fact. "And a mongrel."
The air grew so cold it burned.
"A mongrel."
The word hung in the air, sharp and ugly.
Joshua felt a spike of indignation, a natural childish urge to shout back. But almost instantly, a different reflex took over. It was the muscle memory of a previous life—the discipline of a soldier standing before a superior officer.
He didn't flinch. He didn't look down. He didn't let the insult reach his eyes.
Joshua straightened his spine, his chin lifting just enough to show he wasn't cowed, but not enough to be disrespectful. He locked his gaze onto the man's terrifying golden eyes.
"My blood is mixed, sir," Joshua replied, his voice dropping an octave, shedding the tone of a child and adopting a measured, heavy cadence. "But metal is mixed to make alloy. It makes the steel harder. I am no different."
Saria gasped softly beside him, terrified by his boldness.
William's eyes narrowed. The crushing pressure in the courtyard seemed to pause, hovering in a moment of assessment. He hadn't expected the boy to have a backbone, let alone wit.
"Eloquent," William grunted, his face betraying nothing. "But words are cheap. Why are you here, boy? Why do you want to train?"
Because I want to save your daughter from becoming a robot, Joshua thought. Because she deserves to smile.
But he couldn't say that. Not to this man.
"I want to be stronger," Joshua said simply.
William stared at him. The silence stretched, thin and taut as a wire. The man took a slow step forward, his shadow engulfing Joshua.
"Strength," William repeated, testing the word like he was tasting a bad meal. "Every child wants to be a hero. They want to be strong so they can play pretend. But my training is not a game. It is not for burning off energy or impressing friends."
He leaned down, his face inches from Joshua's. The intensity was suffocating. It was a look that stripped away lies—a look that demanded absolute conviction.
"If you waste my time," William said, his voice a low rumble, "I will break you, and I will throw you out. I do not tolerate half-hearted resolve. Do you understand?"
Joshua felt the sweat trickling down his back. This wasn't a dad scolding a kid. This was a drill sergeant assessing a recruit.
Joshua met the gaze head-on. He thought of the broken toy car. He thought of the future catastrophes of Terra. He thought of Saria's eventual stoicism.
"I understand," Joshua said, and this time, he let his true feelings bleed into his voice. "I don't want strength for games. I want to be able to fix what is broken. When things go wrong, I don't want to cry or wait for help."
He clenched his fists at his sides.
"I want the power to solve problems with my own two hands. I want to be the one who decides the outcome."
The wind rustled through the courtyard.
For a long moment, William didn't move. He stared into Joshua's mismatched eyes—the red and the blue—searching for a crack in the armor.
Then, for the first time, the pressure receded.
William straightened up. A flicker of something crossed his face—not quite a smile, but a nod of recognition. The philosophy resonated. It was the code he lived by, the code he intended to drill into his daughter.
Fix it with your own hands.
"0600 hours," William stated, turning his back to them and clasping his hands behind him. "Every morning. Do not be late."
He glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes cold but acknowledging.
"I am Instructor William. You may leave."
He dismissed them with a sharp wave of his hand.
Joshua let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. His knees felt weak, but he forced himself to walk normally toward the gate.
As soon as the heavy metal gate clicked shut behind them, the spell broke.
"Joshua!" Saria grabbed his arm, her eyes shining with relief and admiration. "You did it! I thought... I thought he was going to eat you! I can't believe he agreed!"
She was beaming. The dull, defeated look from earlier was gone, replaced by the vibrant joy of a child who had just avoided a terrible fate.
"We can still hang out!" she cheered, her tail wagging furiously behind her. "We can go to training together every day!"
"Yeah," Joshua managed a weak smile, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. "Together."
He looked back at the imposing concrete walls of the estate.
Instructor William.
The title echoed in his mind. The way the man stood. The calculated movements. The psychological warfare.
A dawn of horrifying realization broke over Joshua.
This wasn't going to be a karate dojo. This wasn't going to be a fun after-school activity.
That man is a military instructor, Joshua realized, his smile freezing in place. And he just accepted me into his boot camp.
He looked at Saria, who was happily skipping down the street, completely unaware that she had just invited her best friend into hell.
"Oh no," Joshua whispered to himself.