Three Days Off (Free Read)

 2049 AD

The cold Alpine air barely seeped into Interpol’s reinforced training facility, but Jiro still felt it in his bones.

Not because of the temperature—he’d grown used to that—but because of the silence. No drills. No scheduled sparring. No debriefs. Just him and the hum of overhead lights in a temporary stillness called “leave.”

Three days off. A rare gift. Or a punishment, wrapped in synthetic sheets and a too-clean dorm room.

Jiro sprawled across his bed, arms folded behind his head. A holographic photo hovered over his head: He and Junio, squinting against the Philippine sun, haloed in tropical greens and gold. Another year, another trip to the islands. Another year Jiro wasn't allowed to go.

“Government custody,” he muttered bitterly. “Where vacations are nonexistent.”

Last year was different. An exception. He and Junio trained together, fought together, and got matching sunburns. It was a reward when he became vice captain. But this year, they said no. Something about protocol. Something about boundaries.

Jiro turned over and buried his face into the pillow. Unlike Junio, he didn’t have family connections that guaranteed he could come to his hometown once a year. Life was unfair.

The door chimed.

He didn’t answer.

It slid open anyway.

Three kids walked in—teens, maybe a year younger than him, but they moved like ghosts trained in silence. Identical dark brown hair, sharp eyes that darted around like they were scanning the room for threats. Two boys. One girl.

One boy grinned and nodded to him. “You’re Jiro, right?”

Jiro sat up slowly. “You lost?” He was not in the mood for company. This training facility had many children running around because they were just that: children. He was just about to turn sixteen himself. The governments of the world might want to treat them like soldiers, but everyone here was below the age of eighteen. The youngest would be around seven.

“Nope,” the other one replied, bouncing a practice katana on his shoulder. “Hi, Uncle! We’re new.

From a different team. Thought we’d say hi.”

The girl said nothing. Her eyes were the same pale gold as the sinking sun.

“Do I look like your uncle?”

The three laughed like it was some kind of joke between them. It was definitely not a language barrier. “You wanna come out to the yard?” the first one asked. “We’re doing drills.”

Jiro hesitated. He’d been told not to engage with new units unless cleared. But three days off meant nothing if all he did was sulk in his room. “Yeah,” he said, grabbing his own katana. He was bored. “Sure. Why not?”

Outside, under a blanket of low clouds, they trained on the southern field. Matteo—the first boy— moved like a dancer, graceful and precise. Marco—the other one—was aggressive, his strikes deliberate, almost theatrical. Jiro fell into rhythm easily, parrying, correcting, and adapting.

They were thoroughly trained at a young age, Jiro noted. A decade ago, monsters they called Nephilim emerged and rampaged all throughout the planet. Godzilla had nothing on them. No place was untouched. Jiro knew loss firsthand. His own parents were killed in their quiet fishing village. A couple of years ago, he manifested powers. Later, his younger sister manifested powers too. Not long, Interpol recruited them.

Jiro’s powers were in speed and flight. His sister had the power to control plants. His best friend turned into the Philippine Tikbalang, a horse demon of lore. But they all knew their powers were on borrowed time. 

Children between seven and eighteen manifested powers. They don’t know why or how. It was like a lottery. But all of them lost their powers at age eighteen. They also don’t know why.

The governments and the various churches have trained and hired these children to be Earth’s fighting force. Nothing stopped Nephs, not bullets, not knives. Only the Angel-touched children and their powers did.

Jiro’s grandparents signed him up for the recruitment in Interpol, believing he’d get the best training. Jiro just wanted to exterminate the Nephs, avenge his parents. Couple years ago, he met an equally angry boy just a year older than him. He and Junio had been inseparable since.

These three were triplets. Rare. Jiro has heard of twins and siblings being Angel-touched, but he knew that triplets were rare. The Kapre Twins were hailed as one of the greatest Neph Exterminator pairs because of their kill count. Other twins didn’t necessarily have the same powers. Siblings mostly didn’t. He had a younger sister, and she didn’t have the same powers as he did.

Only then did the “grown-ups” realize that the Kapre Twins had a much higher kill count together than apart. Too bad. They turned eighteen last year, and their powers left. Now his best friend, Junio, was able to beat Tino de Oro’s kill count. His commander said he’d rise to the same position as he was next in line after Junio. Sucks to be him, to be valued only as a kill count.

He observed the three. They were playful but didn’t speak much. Asian but seem to understand multiple languages because Jiro was speaking in Japanese and they seem to understand him.

“You hold it too stiff,” Jiro said to Marco after a flurry of blows. “Relax your grip. You’re swinging like it’s a hammer.”

Marco adjusted, then smirked as their blades locked again. “Better?”

“Much.” He showed the proper way to slide and slash.

Nearby, the girl—Lucrezia—stood still, her hands steady as she threw shuriken after shuriken into a tree trunk. Each one landed dead center. “She doesn’t fight up close?” Jiro asked, panting a little.

“Long-range only,” Matteo said. “Dad doesn’t want her anywhere near the Nephs.”

“Who is your dad?” Because all they told him was their name and that they were triplets. Jiro didn’t even know which team they belonged to.

They seemed to have training, but perhaps not in the government program for long, because they might be skilled, but they were, in a way, undisciplined. They coordinated among themselves, but needed more awareness of their surroundings.

“She’s just as deadly from a distance,” Marco added. “You’ll see.” Before Jiro could ask what that meant, Marco grinned. “Hey, you want in on a live test?”

“Want in on a what?”

“A field mission. Real Nephs. Real risk.”

Jiro blinked. “We’d need clearance—”

But they were already surrounding him. And then—

The world faded.

 

 

***

The air was filled with salt and blood.

That’s what hit his nose first.

Jiro gasped as the sky above him turned from gray to a tropical violet. Ocean waves crashed violently

nearby. Screams—both human and monstrous—echoed across the sand.

They were somewhere in the tropics. He could feel it in the air. It was warm. The air felt different, too.

“Fiji, 2048,” Lucrezia said.

“What the hell—?!” Did she just say 2048? 

“Neph incursion,” Matteo said, tossing Jiro a candy. They each took a candy and ate it. Most Angel-touched children needed a calorie hit to prevent a crash when fighting. “Keep up, J2!”

J2 was Junio’s nickname for him. Was this the triplet’s power? Teleportation? But she said 2048. Jiro was so confused, but he had no time to think.

The mermaids were nothing like the legends. These had black eyes and razored tails and webbed hands sharpened into claws. Their screams cracked the air. Nephs in aquatic form.

Nephilim, as the church called them, were monsters of biblical proportion. They came out of nowhere. Their main goal was to devour humans. 

Training kicked in. He’s fought mermaids, and he’d fought uglies before. This felt like another one of those days. With his lightning speed, he made a beeline for the nearest Neph.

Marco charged, katana slashing cleanly through a serpent-like neck. Lucrezia perched on a rocky outcrop, her shuriken arcing through the air in deadly patterns, pinning one creature mid-scream. They turned to dust upon dying.

Jiro fought back-to-back with Matteo. The boy’s strikes mirrored his own so closely that it felt like sparring with Junio. Although the boy didn’t have Junio’s speed, nor did he have Junio’s powers, this boy held his own. Every motion was familiar. 

Too familiar.

After a particularly brutal takedown, Jiro turned, panting. “Where did you learn that strike?”

Matteo only smiled.

Jiro’s gaze slid to their katanas—identical to his and Junio’s. Same balance. Same markings. Same cross. Custom-made.

“Who are you?”

Marco wiped his blade clean. “We’ll explain. Later.”

They teleported into another part of the island and chased more Nephs. Jiro partnered with Matteo, while Marco teamed up with Lucrezia. Matteo was keeping up with his movements, even teleporting to compensate for his lack of speed. These kids were uncanny. He swore it felt so familiar.

There were about a hundred Nephs. The two pairs were deadly and made quick work of the enemy, saving the locals. When the local Neph Extermination Team stepped up, the four of them left.

The triplets brought him back to the facility just before lights out. The same hallways. The same sterile hum. But everything had shifted.

“What. In. The. World!” Jiro wanted answers. These three were uncanny. He’d get in trouble just for being out of the facility without permission.

The two boys grinned from ear to ear while Lucrezia sighed at their antics. “That was fun.”

“No, it wasn’t!” Jiro knew he could be reckless at times. With his speed, he could get out of the facility and hang somewhere with no one the wiser. These kids were on a whole new level. They could teleport anytime, anywhere. Any. Time.

“I’m hungry!” Matteo complained.

“Me too! Got any of those cheese bombs?” Marco asked.

Jiro frowned. They were all wiped from the excursion. “Why not?” He got up and riffled through his kitchenette. Although there was a cafeteria where he could get food, he preferred to keep snacks in his room for midnight meals. Since fighting burned a lot of calories, they were given a kitchenette in each room.

The little cheese bombs were handmade ahead of time and were kept in his mini fridge. Junio loved his cheese bombs. He turned to the three kids who were sitting on his bed. They started to rifle through his manga collection.

They were huddled over a particularly violent manga where he and Junio used to copy the main character’s stance. It was a fantasy-historical manga. He swore the triplets were speaking in a mix of Japanese, Bisaya, and English.

He served the cheese bombs and mysteriously found sandwiches, chips, and juice boxes littered in his bed. They all sat to eat. He looked at the three of them. “Did Junio put you guys up to this?” They could be a cousin from back home or something. They resembled Junio somewhat.

The three erupted into laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, uncle. Today was fun,” the little girl said. They shared their sandwiches, chips, and juice as they recounted their mermaid extermination.

“Matteo should learn to duck lower and swing wider. Marco, you should be more graceful. Lucrezia, you have to learn to use a knife or sword in case an enemy gets up close,” he said.

“We’ll practice,” Matteo said. The other two nodded.

Before leaving, Lucrezia turned to him, soft-voiced for the first time. “Don’t tell him. Not yet.”

“Why not?” Jiro demanded. Because it all made sense. “He’s my brother. He’ll find out.” He knew they were referring to Junio. These three were related to Junio and they didn’t belong at this time.

Matteo nodded. “Exactly. One day. Just… let this moment be ours for now.”

“Ours?”

Marco reached out, gripping Jiro’s shoulder firmly. He had tears in his eyes. “We just wanted to get to know you, uncle. One day, you’ll understand. He’ll understand, too.”

“I want to ask you so many things.”

Lucrezia shook her head. “It’s not time. One day, it will be.”

Matteo, Marco, and Lucrezia stood side by side, shoulders touching. In a flash of light, they disappeared. Jiro frowned. Who were these mysterious teleporting triplets? They disappeared just like that, leaving only empty wrappers and juice boxes as proof of their existence. 

He was cleaning his room when Junio barged in. “Had a party?”

Jiro tied the full garbage bag. “Something like that. Some kids from a different team came by and said hi.”

“Know them?”

He looked at Junio closely. The resemblance was uncanny. He looked like an older version of Matteo and Marco. “I might. They looked familiar.”

“I didn’t see anyone in the hallway.” Junio picked up the remaining cheese bombs and ate them. “Are they joining our team?”

Jiro shook his head. “I don’t know, but something tells me they’ll drop by again.” He noted the gold cross that was tied to Junio’s katana, the same one tied to Matteo’s katana. “How come you’re early?”

Junio shrugged. “Damaso called. There’s another mission.”

“Let’s go.”

 

 

This story is a mini adventure set in the world of Neph XY. Follow the adventures of Stanzo, Junio and the Triplets! 

Neph XY is on Amazon