Charging headfirst into the enemy outpost, the blonde boy slung his bullpup-design assault rifle around his arm and immediately took cover behind a black military truck. He huffed and puffed as his back was against the cold metal.
"Huff... Huff..."
Equipped with a black shirt and military pants, the boy cast his blue eyes at his surroundings.
"Huff... A circular cement wall as the outpost's exterior, and an empty space right in the center with only military vehicles parked. Huff... And that tall building with an architectural design mimicking a stone tower up at the front must be where the leader is at. But I still don't know what's the purpose of that small building to the left is. It looks modern and hard to breach judging from the metal wall. Some kind of prison? But no matter, this should be a quick wrap."
"Yes... I can do this. If I take out the enemy leader, then the boss will recognize me, and then—"
"Hope!" shouted an old man through the boy's mic, "What in the world are you doing!? Charging into the base alone like that!"
"I'll cover him," sounded a young woman through her mic.
"Beatrice will keep him in check. That kid..." said another member of the group.
A green-haired woman slammed her back against the same truck Hope was using to take cover and caught her breath. She looked in Hope's direction with an admonishing gaze.
"What kind of stunt are you trying to pull now..." she said in a low tone.
"U-Um, the enemy line has been breached, and..."
"You think because we've broken through their defense, no one will wait for us inside?"
"Uh..."
"Do you have a death wish, kid?"
"L-Look! I'm not a kid! I'm twelve now, okay!"
"So you're a kid. Got it."
"Ugh..."
Beatrice put a finger on her mic and voiced a question.
"Sir, everyone has taken cover behind the enemy's vehicles, but there's no sign of enemy infantries coming after us. What's happening?"
"Yeah, I'm confused too," said Jeremy through his mic. He was hiding behind a jeep with a few other members.
"Shouldn't the Teria soldiers, or whatever that unit is called, attack us by now?" asked Beatrice.
"Do you think that's the last of them...?" asked Inghild.
"Wait. My drone is picking up something on the left-wing. That small white building. Hmm? The roof had collapsed or something. Huh?"
"What is it, Boss?" asked Beatrice.
An old man speaking from his side coughed and then spoke again to his members.
"Don't be surprised by this, but it look like, swords? Red scimitars or something of sort poking out from the building's roof. When I got my drone to fly lower, it seems the... blades are slashing at the building's interior and destroying it, for some reason."
"...I already said to drop the booze, Sir," said Inghild.
"..."
"Whatever that thing is, can we ignore it? Or is the enemy planning something with this... weapon that Boss said," asked Beatrice.
"A new invention wreaking havoc? Now I'm interested," whispered Hope.
"Hey, don't you dare run off to that building." Beatrice hit Hope's arm as she said this.
"O-Ow! The entrance is a glass double door, right? And—"
Boom!
Following the explosion, smoke floated and wafted up into the sky from the white building the old man was referring to, and everyone's attention was pulled towards it.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
"W-What in the world!?" said Jeremy, alerted by the scream, "That sounds like a girl. It came from that building?
"She must be among the civilians trapped inside there by the enemy. I-I'll go check it out."
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"Huh, what for? N-No, wait, Hope!"
Beatrice's hand caught nothing as Hope moved out from the safety of the military truck. Due to his small stature, Hope's feet took him to his location three hundred meters away only in a minute.
"This EX U 552 rifle should be versatile enough in case an enemy pops out," muttered Hope to himself before he went inside the building.
He cast his eyes onto the assault rifle he was holding onto, and various information escaped his lips.
"I brought enough magazines... And should any enemy appear from the corner, I can switch my barrel to semi-auto... yes... I have it with me at my belt... And if a Teria soldier suddenly pops up in front of my face, my already equipped short-distance barrel and NATO standard ammunition should be more than enough to take down one immediately... Ah, but if I have the light machine gun magazine with me, I can switch it with my standard magazine just in case multiple enemies show up at once, and I could switch it out with this pistol, but it's too late to regret it now..."
"Ah wait... the recoil from full auto-fire will just make my aim unstable. I guess pulling the trigger halfway for a single shot burst, in most situations, is more balanced for someone like me."
"Hope! Come back here!!" yelled Beatrice through Hope's mic.
"U-Um, don't worry, I'm just—"
The corridor Hope was in trembled and soon after, he caught a glint of what seemed to be the standard military-issued black EX U 550 assault rifle. As Hope ran across the white corridor, he came across ugly streaks of red blood splattered across the walls and then encountered five dead soldiers in black at the other end.
From the huge holes on their front and back, something went through them? What kind of weapon does this?
Hope questioned himself as he halted at a dead end, rubble blocking his path. He reached out for his mic hastily, and then the fluorescent light illuminating the grim corridor went out.
"E-Ehh?"
"Hope—Is—There—Ing—Answ—Hop—Com—What is goi—"
Garbled voice escaped his mic and he shook his head.
"N-No luck with comms."
As he thought of going back outside, a brief quake struck the building followed by a few shockwave aftereffects that made him stumble to the floor.
"W-What's happening? An earthquake all of a sudden?" said Hope in panic.
Crash!
A gigantic, red curved blade poked out from the rubble blocking the blonde boy's path and he yelped.
"W-What in the world!?"
He took a few steps away from it and ran back where he came from. Just when the poor blonde boy thought the blade couldn't harm him if he distanced himself, the corridor collapsed completely.
"Aaaaaaah!"
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"..."
"Ugh..."
"...What's this?"
Lying down, Hope opened his eyes slowly and put a hand over his head. Blood painted his right palm deep red.
"...It hurts. Ah, where am I?"
Rubble environing him aside, the first thing the boy's eyes were drawn to was the sun above his head and the clear blue sky.
"...I'm outside?"
"Hope!"
Beatrice's voice pulled Hope's attention, and what he saw when he turned around was a multitude of what appeared to be metal blades dyed red, slashing and stabbing at the members of his group.
"W-W-What is that!?"
Hope stood up and then remembered the events happening before he went unconscious—his purpose for being there fighting in the frontline despite being a twelve-year-old kid.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
A little girl's keening sent shivers down Hope's spine and his heart stopped for a moment.
About a hundred meters in front of him was a dark-haired girl, countless blades jutting out awkwardly from her back. These ominous blades itself were a hundred meter long easily—and at that time, the monster was fighting Beatrice and Jeremy.
"What are we looking at here!?" said Jeremy through his mic after he dodged a long, crimson blade that poked at him.
"..."
The other end of the mic was silent.
"Boss, are you there!? There's this kid that appeared from inside the building, and these... things poking out her back. Nikola opened fire and it attacked us!" spoke Beatrice as she fired her assault rifle at the little girl.
The moment her bullets cut through the air, the blades shrieked inhumanly in response and coiled around the little girl hunkered down at the cemented floor. In the next moment, the bullets bounced off them.
"...The blades are protecting her?" whispered Hope.
It was a diminutive detail to those who were fighting, scared of the blades that had hurt their friends, but Hope caught onto it. He cast a quick gaze around him and discovered that six out of nineteen people he knew had their limbs chopped off clean, blood pouring out incessantly from them.
"Huff... Huff..."
Flashbacks after flashbacks flitted into the boy's mind, and he grabbed his head with two hands, eyes bulging out.
"I did not do it, I did not do it. It's not me. It's not me. It's not me. It's not me. H-He did it... He's the one responsible, not me. It was... It was him!!"
The blades coiling around the little girl parted and it pointed at Hope.
"Hic... It's not me."
"Hope, what the hell are you doing!?" shouted Beatrice.
Hope had grabbed his lightweight assault rifle and dashed towards the little girl, his blue eyes only had her within sight. His sympathetic nervous system kicked in, causing the young boy's acuity to shoot up and his reflexes heightened. His blood flow rose, leaving him in a state of fight and flight.
"Hope, all this mess is your fault..." An image of a man in his twenties saying this to him entered his mind. And that was the trigger for the fetters chaining his untrammeled negative emotions in place to shatter.
"Aaaaaaargh!"
Hope halted and aimed his assault rifle at the little girl.
Before he could pull the trigger, a blurry afterimage of one of the red blades floundered him for the shortest moment, before a member of his group was stabbed dead in the heart.
"Nikola!" shouted Inghild.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
The little girl's piercing cry shook Hope once more and his body trembled.
Hope had experienced this, the pervasive fear and confusion slowly engulfing everyone in the area. After all, he was also like her once, crying and flailing his arms, denying the very truth everyone had foisted on his shoulders for him to bear. It was something he could never forget for the rest of his life nor change, no matter how much he rued the outcome—the very person he'd turned into.
Unknowingly, Hope had walked up close towards the little girl, tears streaked his cheeks. By the time he'd realized this, he accidentally dropped his assault rifle and it hit his boot.
"E—Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!" He jumped around in a circle comically while holding onto his foot, not knowing that the little girl had been watching him all along.
The blades didn't give Hope any attention and had only pointed its sharp tips at the other members who were pointing their weapons in the girl's direction.
"U-Ugh.. That hurts..." Hope shook his head and locked eyes with the dark-haired little girl.
"...You had stopped crying," the words escaped his lips.
"..."
The girl didn't respond, but she tilted her head at him ever so slightly, her red eyes gleamed under the sun.