“Please! Franko! Don’t leave my side!”

  “You know I won’t, baby. I’ll come back safe and sound, like I always do.”

  “Franko! They’ll kill you! Nooooo!!!”

  I just couldn’t get how Kalina thought this movie was good. Such a cheesy romcom that totally messes up Franko’s character. I mean, come on, turning a deep and guilty man who always hated killing into an action star who’d blow up a whole submarine just for fun is insane. No respect for the series. I thought coming to see it on opening day would let me see how the crowd loved it, but not a single one looked happy.

  “… I’ve had enough,” a soft voice came from the seat next to me.

  I decided that you know what, she’s right, so I got out of my seat as well.

  Silently, I walked out of the theatre. Looking back, I finally saw the woman who spoke those words to me at the theatre in the light. She was wearing a coat, sunglasses and even a hat. If she was trying to hide her identity, then all she needed left was a facemask. Maybe a scarf? Oh well, it’s not like she was willing to go all the way and dye her hair.

  “Hey,” I started.

  The woman ignored me completely and went on her phone. I could bet she was deciding what to do now that the movie was a bust.

  “Not up for a chat? After that mess of a movie?” I asked.

  She did not look up at me.

  “Hah… That’s fine. I just want someone to talk at for a little while. Get my money’s worth for the movie, ya know? So, if you could listen to me at least until the movie ends, and we’re almost at the climax, I’d appreciate it,” I asked with a slight smile and a wink.

  The woman very slowly nodded. It was out of exasperation more than anything though.

  “Thank you. I really appreciate it. I’ve got a lot to take off my mind.”

  The woman took a deep sigh once she heard that. I could faintly hear crackling from her mouth as she did so.

  “I’m a big brother. Me and my little sister are here on vacation. But earlier, I said something to her I regret, and I ran away from the conversation. I didn’t comfort her, and I left her with our friends and went to watch this shitty movie,” I rambled on.

  “I know I should go back and apologise. And she probably doesn’t blame me for what I said. Someone had to tell her eventually, so I wanted it to be me, since I understood her best. I didn’t expect to feel this bad about it though.”

  I tapped my fingers on my thigh as I thought about what to say.

  “I-“

  “Stop making excuses,” she finally cut me off.

  The woman looked up from her phone. “If you already know what to do, then go do it already. Stop making excuses for yourself.”

  The woman took off her sunglasses and looked me straight in the eye. Her brilliant purple eyes matched her hair.

  “If you’re a big brother, then you need to be considerate of your little sister at all times. She’s not as experienced as you, but she’s also not a baby so don’t coddle her. She understands you, just like you understand her. So go back to her and apologise. If you can’t even do something as simple as that, you have no right to call yourself her brother.”

  “Hah,” I laughed a bit. “You’re right.”

  “Hah…” The woman deeply sighed and her breath crackled.

  “I swear. All big siblings act this way. Why can’t you understand your little sisters?”

  “If you’d like, I can listen to you rant for a bi-“ She cut me off again.

  “No. I’m not someone so pathetic I need to rant to strangers for catharsis.”

  “Ouch,” I grinned.

  “Creep.”

  A person just walked out of the theatre we were watching the movie in.

  “Thanks for letting me rant. As a pathetic older brother, I hope I can do better and earn your approval one day. If we meet again, I’ll bring my little sister along.”

  “I hope she’s better than you.”

  “She is!” I happily said as I walked away.

  She didn’t say anything, but I could bet you she sighed again once I was out of earshot. That’s how she always was.

  Man, what a lucky encounter. I didn’t expect to sit directly right beside her today. I knew she watched Franko Banko: Marine Machine on opening night, but I didn’t know what time or even which movie theatre.

  I wanted to talk to her a bit more, but I knew she would look down on me if I didn’t make up with Machu. Maybe she already was.

  I’d see her again soon anyway. Now that I talked to her, I had met just about every person I knew and loved back then. Other than Suka and Jingyun. Other than them, everyone was here. I’ll make some time to find them after all this, I had an apology to get to.

  ———————————————————————

  “Why!? Why can’t I do it!? Everyone else can! So why just me!?” A little girl cried into her bed.

  Outside of her room, her mother silently listened to her daughter’s cries. She read over the document in her hand over and over again. The words made sense, she understood every sentence, but she couldn’t accept what they said.

  “I’ve tried so many times! I read the textbooks all the time! I work so hard, but how come I can’t do anything!?”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  The little girl’s mother sucked in a deep breath. She couldn’t just stand there and listen to her daughter cry. She had to do something, tell her the truth.

  “Hm? Mami, is that you? H-hold on,” the little girl stumbled over to her door.

  Just as the door opened up, her mother crumpled the paper in her hand and hid it behind her back.

  “M-Machu…”

  Little Machu rubbed her red eyes and forced herself to smile in front of her mama.

  “O-oh! Did the doctor finally tell you the results?” Machu, realising what her mama was here for, grew genuinely excited. “What’s my condition?”

  “I-I…” Seeing her daughter’s smile, Leila grew hesitant. All the resolve she built up rushed away just like that. Her daughter was trying so hard to be strong, she couldn’t bear to ruin the smile on her face.

  “Y-yes. The nice doctor told me allll about your condition. And it’s something very special,” Leila said with a gentle smile, as she walked into her daughter’s room.

  “O-oh!?” Machu followed along behind her mother and sat on her bed with her.

  “Machu, you know that on your power set, you have a Trait, right?” She asked.

  “Yeah! It’s World! The doctor said it was super rare. Is… is it a bad thing?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just that being different from other people can be both a good and a bad thing,” Leila said.

  “Now, you know you’re really good at anything you try, but in exchange, magic is just a tiny bit harder for you,” Leila explained.

  “What!?” Machua exclaimed. “So, how do I get better!?”

  “With a lot of practice, Machu. Everyone starts off bad as a beginner, it’s just that when it comes to you, magic is a little bit harder but everything else is a little bit easier.”

  “… But I don’t wanna be bad at magic. It’s the most important thing in school. I don’t want Naiya and Yoona to leave me behind,” Machua glumly mumbled.

  “Then… You have to find your own path through it. Maybe if the textbooks aren’t working for you, you can make your own spells.”

  “My… my own spells?” She asked with a look of curiosity.

  “Uh-huh. I’m sure you can think up lots of fun spells. I’ll work with you, okay? So, you can still catch up with your friends.”

  “O-okay! I trust you, mami! We’ll make the best spells ever!”

  “I’m sure you will, Machu,” Leila said with a little hesitance, “I’m sure you will.”

  ———————————————————————

  Machua blinked twice. Thinking back on it, mami had to have known. Traits were literally built into the power set that everyone had recorded down. The world must have known what the meaning of having a non-Standard Trait was, otherwise it wouldn’t be so standardised.

  ‘I guess the person I have to blame is me, huh? I can’t really blame mami for wanting to hide it from me. I should have realised sooner.’

  Machua leaned on the balcony of the hotel they were in and sipped her can of tea. She looked to the stars with a languid expression.

  ‘Maybe I did, but I didn’t wanna believe it.’

  Machua took a deep breath in and then sighed it all out. It was the biggest sigh she had ever done. For a second, she went for another one, but stopped herself. She didn’t want to be like Machi, who always had a deep sigh to do.

  ‘Oh, get it together. It’s not so bad. Rasa’s great at magic. He has so many music sheets.’

  Still, though, that meant he must have spent an amazingly long time transcribing them down onto paper. Most of them were spells that she assumed corresponded to his Aspect, but the others were all pretty basic spells. He had to put forth so much effort just to learn the simple fireball.

  [Precision Ignition]

  Machua lit up a small flame from her finger. This was the only fire spell she had ever learned in her life, and she only learned it recently while she was apprenticing in a bakery. To be exact, she could always spurt a little flame if she wanted to, but it was while working as a baker she refined it to the point she could make a perfect creme br?lée.

  ‘That’s where everyone starts at though. Everyone else can do Precision Ignition easily,’ Machua thought.

  As for any other elemental spells, she didn’t have anything. In class, while everyone got a letter grade for those spells, she had nothing. A simple invalid grade. She couldn’t do it, even if others also had no Aspect. At least she was good at every weapon in weapon training class, the teachers would tell her. Every single time.

  Machua changed the view of the balcony into that of City Sicuso. The view in front of the hospital that was on a hill when the sunset was shining its rays on the rest of the City. She loved watching that view while she was sick there, and she often came back afterwards just to watch it again. It was comforting to think she could at least replicate something like this.

  “It’s a nice view,” her own voice came from behind her.

  She turned to see a gently smiling Machia with two cans in his hand.

  “Got you a refill,” he said.

  “Ah,” was all she could say back as she took it.

  Machua looked into her own can. She wasn’t even halfway through it.

  The two silently watched the sunset of another dimension. Machua could hear Machia clearing his throat and trying to force the words from his mouth, but he just couldn’t say it.

  “I’ll wait. I’ll wait as long you need me to,” Machua told him. “I promised myself I wouldn’t ask about your secrets until you told me yourself. So, I can wait a while for this too.”

  Machia stared into her eyes with an insecure look. He tried to say something but then just settled on wryly smiling. It was a weird smile.

  “I’m such a pathetic guy, aren’t I?” He asked.

  “You can’t say that cause you’re calling me pathetic too. If you wanna say it, we have to agree on it. And I don’t. Not if it counts you.”

  “You’re-You’re taking this better than I thought,” Machia eventually stated.

  Machua took a deep gulp of her can of tea, finishing the whole thing. She opened the next one as she spoke, “Plu, Rasa and Carmine did their best to cheer me up. They took me to get some ice cream. Carmine told me she’d beat you up anytime I asked, you know.”

  “I expect that from her.”

  “And Rasa, I feel bad for him. He looked so sad when you left. He probably feels like it’s his fault that happened. Say sorry to him later, okay?”

  “I-I already did.” Machia was slightly taken aback at the statement.

  “Heh.” Machua chuckled a bit. Finally got him flustered. “What did you do after leaving us?”

  “I,” Machia said with a pink tint on his cheeks, “watched Franko Banko: Marine Machine.”

  “You make your sister cry and then you go and watch a movie!? That’s terrible!” Machua exclaimed.

  “Y-you cried?”

  “No! But I wanted to. And that’s what counts.”

  “Hah…” Machia took a breath of relief.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything, about pushing all of it on you so suddenly.”

  “… I accept, but it’s not your fault ya know. Otherwise I have to blame mami too. It’s just how it is right? For the both of us?”

  “It is. But I’m going to-“

  Machua suddenly interrupted, “Did you feel the same way? When you learned?”

  She looked off into the distance again, having sunken back into that solemn mood she had earlier. It was a question she wanted to ask since he first told her about this, but then he ran away, and she got some time to herself to sort things out. She thought it over and over again. How did he feel? Did he feel the same way as me? How did he deal with it?

  To her, when he explained it to her, it felt like he still hadn’t fully accepted it. There was a resentment that laid in his voice, not directed at anyone in particular, but there nonetheless. He was still asking Why. She had to know if somehow he was feeling worse than her.

  “… I had a good teacher who understood what it meant. And he, he took it slow. Showed me everything I could still do. He said he’d dedicate all of his effort to helping me learn magic, no matter how hard it was gonna be,” Machia explained.

  The pride in his voice was obvious. This teacher he had, this teacher he had to have found within the last year. It was clear he admired him. Machua wondered if she ever admired someone that hard before. Other than mami of course. If he found someone that could have made him like that, then she was a little jealous.

  “Sounds like one hell of a teacher.”

  “Yeah, he was.”

  Was. One year was the maximum time he could have spent time with him. Just one year to be taken in and trained, and then all of a sudden his teacher had died.

  Crazy. That’s all she had to say. What a crazy turn of events. His teacher he admired so much died semi-recently, and now he had to pass these teachings on to her. When he didn’t even know them all that well himself. All of a sudden, Machua felt a little sorry for him.

  Machia spoke, his voice filled with resolve, “I know that if he were teaching you, he’d say the same thing. So, Machu, I want to say I’m here with you and I’m going to teach you everything I know. I’m gonna dedicate all my time to making sure you can cast any spell you want. No matter how hard.”

  “Promise?” She asked.

  “Promise,” he answered.

  “Thanks,” Machua lightly said.

  No more words needed to be said. He would teach her magic and she would learn. Just like a normal family does.

  After a little while, Machu grew a little bored with the silence. “Okay, so teach me how you killed that Hellfire Devil whatever or something. It’s like a martial arts spell right? It’s gotta be a Dimension spell.”

  “It is a Dimension spell, but it’s to put it lightly, very far above your level. You’d hurt yourself trying it,” Machia answered with a bit of hesitance.

  “Aw, come on! After that big speech?”

  “Listen. Dimension is an Aspect that thrives at the higher levels of magic. The endpoint is literally making entire other worlds, Planes. You’re not gonna have much Dimension spells for a while.”

  Machua pouted and sulked. “Lame. Then teach me something else.”

  “I guess I could teach you Mental Accel?” Machia ruminated. “No, that’s a bit too dangerous right now. You have to get more used to internal mana control.”

  “Oh, okay. Your baby sister asks for one little spell after your big speech and you say no? You’re terrible. How about that lightning spell?”

  “No, I’ll get in trouble if I teach that.”

  ‘From who!?’ She thought.

  “Then what spells can you teach me?”

  “Hmm…” Machia considered the question with a troubled expression.

  “… You’re terrible.”

  “Hah… I know.” Another deep sigh. Machua probably couldn’t count the number of times he did that when she said something.

  “Okay, I’m gonna announce tomorrow’s a rest day so we can work on this. You’re gonna teach me something.”

  “Wait,” Machia suddenly stated, “Maybe not tomorrow. We should probably finish all our missions first.”

  Machua considered it very briefly, before deciding on a no.

  “I’m the leader. Go unionise or something if you want a break. Or, if you want to work, I guess.”

  Machua turned around and began to take her leave.

  “Fine then. I guess I’ll handle it myself,” Machia said nonchalantly. It was like he was actually gonna do it all by himself.

  “Hey!” She yelled back. “No way you’re doing it without me! I’m coming with!”

  “You’re the leader aren’t you?”

  Machua stopped in her tracks. That was true, it certainly was. But just because she’s the leader doesn’t mean… Ugh, he was right.

  “Guh. Fine, we’re gonna keep working tomorrow, you workaholic. Geez, what the hell happened in the past year?”

  Machia opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t get a word in as Machua continued speaking.

  “Don’t answer that, I’m going to bed. Bye.”

  Machua grabbed the handle of the door and yanked it open. In front of her were 3 people, who had their ears up against the door. Recognising that they were caught, they looked into her disappointed eyes.

  “Get to bed already! We’re working tomorrow! I better see you at the lobby bright and early!” Machua yelled.

  The 3 of them scampered off to their rooms with frightening speeds.

  “As for you, mister! You better come up with something or I’m making Carmine beat the shit out of you.”

  “Hah.”

  “Now, goodbye. And good night!”

  “Oh, Machu. Before you go. Make sure you do your report.”

  “You’re not my mom. Good night!”