Aurora Over a Dead World

"...God, I slept like absolute SHIT last night. Is someone spying on my life?" I drag myself out of bed with a grimace, heading to the bathroom where I take a quick shower and brush my teeth, then make my way to the kitchen to fix something to eat.

"Bet someone’s out there talking crap about my life for me to have slept this badly today." I open the fridge, grabbing whatever looks remotely decent as a meal, and toss it into the microwave, cranking it to max even if it scorches the edges of the food — I’m in a hurry.

"It’s unbelievable. When we sleep well, we wake up early even without wanting to. When we sleep badly, we end up oversleeping and still wake up feeling uncomfortable and completely wrecked." My tail grabs a metal cup and ends up crushing it.

"...Haaa..." My tail releases it and tries to grab another one more delicately while I glance at the clock on the wall.

"Great. I’m going to be late for the academy. Now I’ll just give those pests more reasons to be disobedient." The day already started off like crap. I wonder if I’m going to lose one of my prosthetics today, considering how badly my day began.

"[You’re being very critical today. Did something go wrong? Do you need anything?]" Nexus speaks to me as the microwave beeps and shuts off.

"No..." I feel a mild ache lower down in my body, so I look down and roll my eyes. I realize why I woke up feeling so awful. Honestly, I’m surprised it took me this long to notice.

"Haa... looks like it’s the worst day of being a woman. Damn it!! This had to happen today of all days?"

"[What are you talking about?]"

"I’m bleeding down there, got it!? Like every woman, every damn month."

"[Oh... sorry. I guess that was invasive of me.]"

"It was!! I’m already stressed out. Honestly, I think I’m going to skip the academy today. It’s safer for me and for everyone else." I’m not exactly the most stable person to begin with, let alone on a day like this. I wouldn’t put it past me to knock out the teeth of some student who tried being rebellious today.

"[That sounds terrible.]"

"Yes!! It completely sucks. And it happens with a damn awful frequency..." This reminds me of a joke Nadir made in the past. When I complained to him about it, that bastard said, "If you want, I can solve that for you for the next nine months." When I understood that crappy joke, I hit him. First of all, neither of us is even fertile.

I can’t have children, and he can’t get any woman pregnant either, so I know it was just a joke to cheer me up. But in the moment, stress spoke louder, and I just hit him for the lame joke.

"Who would’ve thought. We have powers, extreme technology, and no one’s learned how to deal with this crap." I open the medicine drawer, grabbing something to help with the aching sensation inside me.

"It’s amazing how there’s NOTHING that fixes this problem. Honestly, it frustrates me deeply."

"[Yes, I’ve noticed. Your level of complaining has gone up considerably compared to normal days. Since you woke up, I’ve already heard more than seven complaints, which is in under thirty minutes...]"

"What did you say!?"

"[It’s interesting, isn’t it?]"

"What the hell is interesting about that?"

"[Many feel distant from humans. Many people like you who have incredible powers end up thinking differently from civilians, feel different, as if they’re no longer human. But your bodies make your humanity clear. You remain human despite everything that distances you from humanity, and this is one of several small proofs of that.]"

"Well... yeah... in that sense, yes. I’m like any other girl. Having powers doesn’t change the fact that I have this biological problem." I grab my meal and head to the table while the underside of my tail opens up and expands, entering my intimate parts through my clothes like a pad.

"[Your prosthetics have support for that?]" Nexus notices as I bite into my food and chew slowly without answering for a while.

"..."

"[...]"

"They do. It’s an adjustment. There’s a space inside for me to put pads that absorb blood into a capsule. Later I have to discard it since it’s just useless blood. After all, there’s no way to deal with this in combat, so obviously I needed a quick solution. My tail has a compartment to handle that and a few other things..." I feel a certain longing for Nadir. He was so affectionate and caring with me in these moments.

It’s been a long time since he last helped me on these days. Normally, he always took care of me and put up with how unbearable I get during them.

"[...It seems very strange to have a compartment for that in your tail.]"

"I got it when this happened on a mission and messed everything up. I had a necessary adjustment made. It helped on a few missions... I think... at least I’m grateful to still be human, very different from a certain Kaira who turned into a solid block." That cube is still being thoroughly studied, and they’ve gotten several new reactions after what I did.

According to what they told me, they discovered the cube is capable of fusing with anything that has technology and has the ability to enhance it. However, they also discovered that this is a choice.

The cube chooses whether or not it wants to join something, and if it doesn’t like it, it detaches quickly. Which means many of the tests end fast because the cube doesn’t like its new "home" and unlinks itself from the chosen object.

"Hey Nexus, you know about the cube, right? What would happen if the cube fused with my prosthetics?" The most aggressive reaction that cube had was with me. No one’s been able to replicate that reaction, even using the same words I did.

"[I don’t know. We don’t have enough data. But the enhancement is excellent. If that cube fused with your prosthetics, it would reinforce them to a level humanity can’t currently achieve.]"

"Sounds cool... even though it’s impossible, since the cube quickly detaches from the object it fused with. I’d just end up crushed by it. Plus, it seems pretty pissed at me. I think it got hurt by my words."

"Haaa... what should I do today..." I clearly shouldn’t go to the academy. I won’t be able to handle being disrespected on a day when I’m this irritable. So I should spend the day at home. Tomorrow I should be a little better. But I have nothing to do besides the academy.

"[Do you want to talk about Nadir? That topic seems to calm you down.]"

"...Whatever. Let’s talk about Nadir then."

...

...

...

"See!! This happened!!" While Zenith skipped the academy due to her problems, Tanya simply decided to "expose" everything she discovered, bringing all the videos Neo gave her to the academy.

Something that is a crime even if she doesn’t know it. The data Neo has is practically stolen from the government and shouldn’t exist, should have already been eliminated. So her spreading this among her classmates is simply wrong, not to mention it violates Zenith’s own privacy.

But of course, none of them know this, and Tanya didn’t even ask if she could show this when she got the videos from Neo. So they all watched the videos of Zenith saving a piece of the island. They spent the several hours that should have been class time watching everything. Since Zenith didn’t show up, she ended up unable to stop it.

"...W-Wow... sh-she really did that..." Eirwen bites her lips, feeling bad about herself, about everything she’s ever said to Zenith and the way she treated her, especially about saying that Zenith would never sacrifice herself for other people in the past.

"...She’s stronger than I expected." Rouge’s reaction is colder and more pragmatic — a natural reaction to seeing that her teacher is absurdly more powerful than she initially imagined. It makes her tail wag in silent respect for her teacher.

"Her ability to manipulate space is simply gigantic. The teacher always seemed a bit strange about her powers and restricts herself a lot. It’s incredible to see her maximum potential, even considering she almost died..." Charlotte praises, more interested in the powers she witnessed, wondering if she can reach that level someday.

"...Wow... the big kitty went through something really tough... she definitely deserves a reward kiss." Edith says this time in a genuinely serious tone about it, as if a kiss were a small reward for someone who did something incredible and sacrificed so much.

Although obviously Zenith would never accept receiving a kiss, so her comment about it would result in punishment from Zenith.

"..." Ashlyn stays silent. But among all of them, she’s the one who feels the worst watching this, because seeing it reminds her that she stupidly accepted a shady deal just to try to gain Zenith’s trust. And in the end, she’s seeing what Zenith is capable of doing for someone, and she feels there’s no chance of her saving Zenith from something to build trust between them. It gives her a painful stab of despair.

"Yeah... I knew you guys had to see this!!... She... isn’t as much of an idiot as I thought..." Tanya decided to show this because she felt strange. She’d been so resistant to the training and to Zenith that seeing her do all of this made her feel childish, stupid, and inadequate.

And as a fragile attempt to make up for her past behavior, and even for her attitude of having attacked Zenith with a heat beam, she decided to show what she discovered to her classmates so they might treat Zenith a little better — even though, in this case, it wouldn’t make Zenith grateful, but rather furious.

"..." They all observe Zenith on the screen, each having different thoughts about what they’re seeing, and reconsidering somewhat their completely uncooperative attitudes that they’ve had from the very beginning and that persist even now.

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