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The sun shone brightly above the training grounds turning the snow to slush. Many of the soldiers left their jackets on the fence surrounding the center ring as they trained.

“Hey, Tornado.” One of the fellow Destu soldiers approached him as training ended.

“Charizo.” He answered as they got their coats from the fence.

“You should try to move up to Kiva rank,” Charizo old him.

“What?” Tornado asked surprised, turning to him.

“You’re obviously too strong for this rank. You could probably be Detumi by now if you tried.”

“I don’t want to advance too fast.”

“It’s not too fast. It’s been over half a year since you joined. You’re not drawing too much attention to yourself anyway. Besides, you won’t get any stronger fighting weaklings like us.”

“You’ve been here longer than I have,” Tornado pointed out.

He laughed. “Some people never advance. I can’t fight, so I can’t improve. I’ll always stay at Destu.”

Before Tornado could question it Umbro walked over. “Come on, we have to go train some more.”

“Ah, okay.” Tornado nodded back to Charizo before he followed Umbro.

Charizo waved, already walking away. Umbro led the way through the woods and turned suddenly off their normal course.

“Hey, that’s not-”

“I need to talk to you about something.” He kept walking until they were out of sight of their usual path before turning back to Tornado. Umbro was very serious as he asked, “what do you think of Durza?”

“Oh, you were thinking about that, too. I think she’s a very good fighter but she’s gotten too used to fighting against fire after all of her training with you. She’s already adjusted to Ember’s style even though it’s so different from yours.” Tornado continued casually, “I was thinking of having her train against Pye for a while.”

Umbro stared. Is he joking with me?

“Is something wrong?” Tornado asked, “You’ve been acting weird.”

“Well, you’re keeping something from me.”

“Oh, that.” Tornado looked away. “When I told you all about my past . . . I left something out. I slipped up about it in front of Durza before but I didn’t want to tell everyone.”

So that was it. And I thought . . . Ha, how could I be so stupid?

“So, why’d you tell Durza?” Umbro smiled guessing the answer before he could say it.

“I told her so she’d stop bugging me about it.” Tornado sighed. “I’m just surprised I was able to keep it a secret for this long. She found out about it around when I first got here.”

“That long?” Umbro laughed. “She must have been dying to find out.”

Tornado laughed too. It was nice to have things back to normal. Whatever had been bothering Umbro seemed to have blown over. They headed back to the usual area and found Durza waiting impatiently.

“There you are!” Durza called as she saw them, “you’re both late!”

“Calm down, Durza,” Umbro called unable to hide his relief, “You two set up the barrier, the rest of us will get started.”

Durza looked at him, confused, but didn’t question it. She was too eager to ask more about Aero. Tornado joined her on the usual path.

“What are you going to do when you see her again?” she asked eagerly.

Tornado hadn’t given that situation much thought. He waited for a moment, considering his answer. “Apologize.”

“Why? It wasn’t your fault for coming here.”

He shook his head. “Before I left . . .” he voice drifted off as he stopped walking.

“What?” She stopped as well. “What did you do?”

“I told her . . . that I loved her,” he explained, “she didn’t say anything back. There wasn’t enough time. I may have ruined our relationship. She probably just though of us as childhood friends.” The idea tore at his chest. “Even if she had felt anything for me she probably hates me for leaving her.”

“There’s no way she’d hate you.” Durza tried to comfort him. “You were obviously very close. Besides childhood friends can fall in love, too.”

She turned away suddenly and walked to the next part of the barrier. She didn’t look up, and was strangely quiet as she worked. Tornado didn’t mind her not asking questions, but he couldn’t feel like something wasn’t right.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” Her answer was short and choppy.

Tornado didn’t pry into it and continued to the next station.

“So-so when did you realize you loved Aero?”

“It was a gradual thing.”

Durza twitched, his answer wasn’t what she was hoping to hear. Tornado gave her another concerned look so she shot another question at him.

“Why did you confess right before you left. You must have thought about doing it before, right?”

“Yeah, but I could never actually do it. The only reason I was able to say it was because of Barren.”

“Barren? What’d he do?” Durza asked, thankful to change the topic a bit.

“He told he I would regret it if I didn’t tell her,” he explained, “I had to tell her. It felt like I would never see her again.”

Durza could tell he was thinking of Aero as his face softened. This version of Tornado was so different from the serious, angry Tornado she saw most of the time. He was always so strained and frustrated, but every time he stared truly thinking of her the softness turned to pain.

“Why do you look so miserable?” she questioned.

“I can’t get her face out of my head. Every final memory I have of her is a crying face. Every time I leave her; every time we’re separated, she cries. I wish I could remember her smiling face for more than just a second. When I try to picture her happy her face changes back to that miserable, pain-filled face. How could I not be miserable when I know I’m the one who caused that sadness? I’m the reason she cried.”

“But you can’t forget about her. She’s waiting for you back there,” Durza insisted, “even if it’s painful, you can’t just forget about her.”

Tornado gave a strained laugh. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll never forget about Aero, not again. If anything, knowing she’s in pain makes it even more urgent that I get back to her.”

Durza nodded staring at him.

“What?” he asked confused by her reaction.

“You’re like two completely different people.”

“Life got a little more serious after I lost my memories. Once I met her again I felt like my old self again.” He laughed. “It’s not really that there’s two of me or anything. I just feel like I don’t have to be anything else around her.”

“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” she explained, “I feel that sort of vibe from people around here. We get so used to hiding everything that even parts of who we are get locked away.”

“Luckily some people seem unaffected.”

They walked into the clearing seeing their friends warming up. It was true. In the small niche Umbro had created they all were able to feel comfortable. They all had their secrets but they trusted one another. Even if they couldn’t tell each other everything their friendships were strong. The Dark Realm may be built on secrets but the Rebel Army was built on trust.