Krem hummed a little, contemplative, but also uncertain if he should answer that or go quiet and let Thomas lull back into sleep in the interim silence. Instead, after a breath or two, he quietly said, "There were plenty of people, and I didn't fight too many. Not a lot more than normal, even. Just went harder on it than I had the last two times."

Each one had fallen so conveniently around times when his stress and anxiety and pining for home were the highest--when he'd first arrived, shortly after the other city, and now with everything after KIRIN.

"It was like being home," he said softly. "Training hard, pushing past limits. Fighting the fears out. I'll be bruised for days, but I'm alive."