|Dead Heart| Reaper x Reader

Chapter Eighteen - Careful

The rest of your testing went... unremarkable. If you were to be perfectly honest. All the rest wasn't much more than light exercises that were more compulsory rather than actually needed. It mostly consisted of pull ups, general weapons proficiency tests, and a tad bit of sparring, just to see how much you could dodge.

You, Arturo, and around five other recruits placed top of the trainees, all gathering some kind of attention from the instructors. The rest of the lot either did decent, or mediocre, none of them seeming to have almost any real physical training before they came to talon. Heavens knows how they got in.

All you knew from the moment you left the gym was that you were starved to your core.

Sighing loudly as the large swinging doors set back into place behind you and the other top recruits, you laid your hands behind your head, mind already wandering to what you wanted to eat for lunch.

"Y'all heading to the cafeteria?" Arturo called, trailing just behind you.

A resounding string of confirmations flew back to him, making him adorn one of the biggest shit eating grins you had ever seen.

"Thank god I don't have to go in there alone," you commented, throwing your hands into your sweatpants pockets, "woulda been weird as hell to walk into a full mess hall by myself."

A couple of the guys laughed at this, seeming to share your thoughts.

"Weird? Dude, you beat the shit outta that lard head yesterday, I don't think people will be messing with you all that much," A woman you have come to recognize as Quinn replied, shaking your shoulder with light fervor.

You scoffed jokingly, "Don't really know if that's a good thing, Quinn."

"How? I'd looove to be in your position," she began, leaning back on her heels as you all continued down the hallway to the cafeteria, "No one to bother me, respect from my peers, fear from the weak ones~" she trailed off.

You smiled, only shaking your head as a response, appreciating the playful banter in this otherwise bleak setting.

Before you could even think of opening the quickly approaching double doors to the mess hall, Arturo was way ahead of you, nearly sprinting to his destination. You failed to hold in a laugh at his pure enthusiasm, which he blatantly ignored, as he threw open the entrance, a smug smile plastered onto his face.

"Sure are excited to eat, huh?" Graham spoke, the man being a tall, slightly older, gruff recruit you had met along the way.

Thankfully, you had gotten at least a bit antiquated with Arturo, Quinn, and Graham while the six top trainees, that includes you, were held back in order to talk to Miller. He said he was giving you all a specific regimen to follow that was different from the rest.

The other two men that placed highly weren't much to sneeze at, not that they weren't talented, no, they were just as capable as anyone. They just tended to keep to themselves, much more of the observer types. Either way, they had decided to tagalong with the rest of you, must've thought it'd be better to stick together than to split apart.

"You kidding?" Arturo responded, smug grin on his face while his eyes were half lidded.

Graham only shook his head in response, walking just up beside him so he could hold the door open for the rest of you, earning a quick 'thank you' from everyone.

Walking into the mess hall wasn't as bad as you had expected, sure, you got a quick glance or two, but definitely not something you'd go running home about. You still felt as guilty as ever for what you did to that man, you felt like all eyes were on you, judging you, criticising you. Anxiety was on the rise in your system and it seemed like everything could make you jump.