He couldn't take his eyes off the girl.

There was the corpse of a boy lying close by, but, even so, it was she who drew the eye. That was because he had a daughter about her age. They didn't look anything alike, apart from that, but it wasn't too hard to imagine his daughter on the ground, covered in blood, in his place.

It was selfish. It was hypocritical. In any case, his body didn't respond to his commands.

Even though he had come here with orders to indiscriminately kill men, women and children. Even though he was a soldier, and this was his job.

To get blood on his hands for the greater good.

Yes, for a just cause. For the good of all... except those who would be dead. Looking into the girl's eyes, misty, glass-like, he found it hard to believe that any of this could bring a better future.

His hands were shaking. Not enough to make the rifle he held slip through his fingers, but close.

How ridiculous. He was only twenty-five, but he'd killed more people than he could count. More than he could even remember. And now he was busy navel-gazing. Shivering like a baby in the middle of enemy territory, where at any moment people with inhuman powers could attack them.

Smash his head in, tear out his heart, every limb, one by one, that and a thousand other possibilities.

And that's just counting the simple, straightforward ones. The ones they could replicate using technology. People of Albion could kill in more esoteric ways and deal out fates worse than death just like that, like the monsters they were.

That was definitely not wrong. They had started a war and despised them, for they were people touched by the divine and they were mere mortals.

Therefore, the natural thing to do was to strike back at them, he couldn't blame his government for making the decision. This was necessary. Even if he didn't have the stomach for it, someone would have to take his place, and that would be good.

And yet... What?

His trembling wouldn't stop. His frozen body was unable to get going again.

Regardless of facts, regardless of logic, regardless of what he was aware of, this was reality carved in stone.

He felt a hand on his back.

He turned around abruptly, raising the rifle, putting his finger on the trigger.

He was about to pull it and unload a hail of bullets on one of his comrades, who had appeared out of nowhere. He felt like a child whose mother had caught him doing something foolish.

"What are you standing here for?" the man muttered to him.

He didn't know his name. In fact, he didn't know half the men he had come to raid the academy with. Not by sight, not personally.

He opened his mouth, searching for an answer. Finding none, he closed it without a word.

He had a better question.

How long had he been standing here, brooding? Being consumed by a sense of guilt that made no sense? In any case, he hadn't found an answer so far, so he wouldn't do it no matter how hard this man pressed him.

No matter how much he longed to explain himself, to justify himself. To himself? Just to himself, really?

Grimacing, he looked away.

"Enough," he answered simply. It was the only thing he could say while being a hundred percent sure he was being sincere.

"Well, come on. We've got work to do. "

Work. What a word to use for something like this.

He looked around, this time his eyes passed over the corpses, focused on the bloodstains everywhere.

His mind focused on the silence of the forest.

Silence, even though a battle was raging. It was absurd, but he had the feeling that the darkness of this forest was judging him.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Do you want to stay here?"

"Do you think this is right?" he asked, unable to resist.

His companion looked surprised. But only for a moment.

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"Those are very dangerous words. "

I know that better than anyone.

"They are words that will not fall on anyone's ears. The only ones who are with us at this time are the dead. Besides, I didn't ask you what the others would think if they heard you. I asked you what you think of this. "

There was a long silence.

"What do you want to hear? "

Answering a question with a question. Such bad taste.

"The truth! Nothing more and nothing less than the truth. "

He put a trembling hand to his face, covering it. He demanded the truth, but he couldn't face himself, let alone the truth he supposedly wanted so badly.

"Do you want the truth? Okay, the truth is you're a bad joke. Are you feeling guilty precisely now? This isn't a special moment, kid. Kids aren't dying because we attacked an academy. War brings death. And worse things than death. And the children don't escape it, no, no, quite the contrary. They are the ones who suffer the most. Do you understand? Even when they escape death, which may be the most likely thing, there is nothing but a life of suffering awaiting them as they watch everything and everyone they love fall and die.

And we are the bastards who create for them that hell on earth. If you didn't understand this truth from the beginning or can't stand it now, you shouldn't have become a soldier in the first place. But, anyway, I'm not going to leave you here. Let's stop wasting time. "

"I have a suicide pill, like everyone else. " He moved his hand slowly down his face, as if groping for something, then dropped it. You don't have to worry about me getting caught.

"It's not about that, you idiot. "

He grabbed her hand and tugged on it. Forcing him to look at him, whether he wanted to or not.

"Then what? "

"We're soldiers. We're family. "

He looked him in the eye for the first time since the conversation had begun.

"How do you stand it? "

"... I don't remember why I stepped forward. I don't remember why I enlisted even though anyone, literally anyone, could have been a replacement for me. I'm not someone special. So, in the lowest moments, what I do is remember my family. "

"What about right and wrong?"

With every word out of his mouth, he felt more and more like a lost child.

His partner, no, his brother smiled sadly.

"I don't remember any of that either. "

***

Up, down, right, left. He had lost his sense of these things, but it was not the same as his sense of direction. At least he could guide himself by the massacres he was leaving behind.

Of course, Desmond wasn't the only one fighting. The war had started again in this forest full of deadly traps. But it was rather difficult to mistake, say, the wounds caused by a fireball or a water spear for those inflicted by a large sword.

And in that forest of death, as he made his way back to school, Desmond hunted his enemies. How could he not feel wild and free, unleashing something he had anticipated for ten long years?

Desmond traveled as he had before, when he went after the sniper. From branch to branch. Never resting his full weight on each one. Bending them, but not breaking them, and jumping again.

Light as air. Quick as a gale.

He saw a few soldiers below him. Stealth might not be his thing, but they hadn't noticed his presence. Yet. Grinning from ear to ear, Desmond jumped down.

He landed by squatting down to soften the impact. They turned to look at him. The closest one only noticed the gun he raised to his eye level. A second before he blew his brains out before he could verbally express his surprise.

Desmond put the pistol away immediately.

He killed a second soldier with a single blow, piercing armor and flesh. The two halves of that dog flew in distant directions. His blood spurted everywhere.

Imperials were heartless monsters. He couldn't expect them to hesitate even if he used one of his comrades as a human shield. Therefore, fear would have to be his weapon. He was good at it. And he wished for it. Oh, how he had wished for this, boy had he.

Desmond ran through that shower of blood. Pouncing on a third soldier like a wild beast.

Like the sniper, he tried to parry the blow with his firearm, seeing himself with no other choice. But he wasn't so lucky. He was left empty-handed. The broken pieces bounced off the ground and were lost out there.

That didn't matter to him, of course. Because in the next instant what he lost was his life.

A wide gash. Desmond watched it collapse as the life flowed out of him.

Collapsing at his feet, as if prostrating before him. His smile grew wider and wider.

He was shot twice in the chest. Desmond staggered backwards and nearly lost his balance. But that was all, he had no wounds.

He had said that two shots from the sniper would have been enough to kill him, and it was. But it had to be from the sniper and in the head. He wasn't that tough, but he wasn't that weak to go down for something like this either.

He raised the pistol and opened fire again.

His pistol was no big deal compared to the firepower they possessed. However, the Imperial soldiers scattered looking for cover, anyway. They weren't used to being shot back. To them using the enemy's weapons.

He missed most of the shots. He did manage to hit one in the shoulder, however, before he ducked behind a tree. That Imperial soldier fell spinning around along with a stream of blood.

With both hands, Desmond plunged his sword into the tree trunk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw it come out the other side and from the head of the soldier who had been hiding there.

Maybe it wasn't the best move. The sword got stuck. He had to pull three times to get it out, so hard that he lost his balance. He managed to regain it by stabbing the sword into the ground.

He then shot off before they could fill his body with bullet holes. Back into the undergrowth. Back into the shadows of the forest. He ran like a panther stalking through the forest until he heard it.

Overcome with fear, they had stopped counting, stopped being careful. That was the moment. As they reloaded.

Desmond emerged from the darkness of the forest with a leap.

A glint like moonlight. The two remaining enemies were dead before they hit the ground.

He had won. Again. And he would do it again and again, as many times as it took. Somewhere deep inside him was taking root the strange conviction that no one could stop him.

The boy, looking nothing like he had then, laughed triumphantly in the field of blood and corpses.