Shaula knows what it’s like growing up in a broken home like that. She feels a feeling of regret doing what she did. She wonders why she should feel bad. She only did what she needed to do. She didn’t start any of this, but she finished it. He continues, tears streaming down his cheeks as he speaks.
“He and I both joined and eventually found our way into the same unit. I was his superior, a sergeant, and he was my officer. No… He was my partner. He always covered for my mistakes, he was always loyal. You saw, didn't you? Did you even notice that he gave his life for my own?"
Tom starts to weep. Shaula can tell that he's truly mourning the death of someone who was like a sibling to him. He wasn't even trying to do something wrong in that moment when Shaula killed him. He was defending his older brother. Even though Tom ran out, Shaula couldn't be angry at her for leaving Yin to die.
How would Yin feel if Tom stayed behind in a meaningless battle and died with Tom? How would he have felt if he had to see Tom die in front of his eyes?
It… it just feels hollow now. Is that how it's going to be when I finally kill the mayor too? When I finally kill that fucking cop who got away with murdering my parents? Are they going to blubber about their family? About their kids?
Shaula grits her teeth. She had heard the old adage about how revenge will not give you what you want. How it's ultimately foolish to seek it in the first place, that it will always harm you in the end.
She never used to believe flowery words like that. She knew in her heart that even if revenge didn't bring her happiness, it would still allow her to finally move forward. It would simply be about her enacting justice, about bringing things to a better ending than the cruel world had ordained.
Yet, in this instance, she feels truly sad. But only for one person. For Yin. Just a bit. He truly ended his life in a selfless act. Yet, his life was still one that supported evil and injustice. She only considers that the man was brought to this point in his life by circumstances that he couldn’t control.
The more the captain spoke about him, the more she thought about her friend Ajax. She would not be friends with him normally. She would not even speak to him if not for that first project they were forced to be together on. People sometimes cannot help but be friends through circumstance alone. Yin must have been like that too.
"You're… you're nothing but a monster." Tom says, in between his tears. At this moment, Shaula knows that he truly misses Yin.
But, she cannot feel any guilt for what she is about to do to him. His words only tell her that he doesn't even grasp what he has done to a whole community. What Yin has done as well.
She won't feel that great about this but she knows she has to teach this man a small lesson before he moves on to the next life.
"I've had enough of your blubbering" She says, her face wholly unsympathetic. Her eyes look colder to Tom than they have ever been.
She decides to start by slicing off Tom's right arm. In a swift motion, she picks up Tom's arm with her left and raises her own right arm. Before Tom can understand what's happening, she slices off her arm at the shoulder.
He screams. He tries to clutch the stump but only burns his left hand. Tears pour from his face and he briefly wishes to fall unconscious from the pain. However, the moment his body decides to take the plunge, he feels a hard burning smack to his cheek keeping him awake.
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"You should know why I did that. That there? It was for the people that you and your men terrorized today. Every person who you let those statue freaks humiliate. Every single man, woman, teenager and fucking child your men arrested. You thought you could convince me that you were just a man given a bad deal in life? Go fuck yourself."
She then continues her same actions with Tom's left arm. He screams again.
"That was for all the people that were terrorized by the guards over the years. For the community that you helped subjugate and destroy. I have a friend, you know? A young draconid girl named Jelli. You know, she's terrified of you? Of your forces? She might have wanted to see me do this to you."
Tom can barely even comprehend her words, but he listens anyway. Her words are all he can focus on to draw his attention away from the fact that he has no arms anymore. The pain is excruciating. Not for a moment does he believe he deserves to face pain like this. After all, he’s an upstanding human commoner who always does what he does for the good of his country.
Shaula then continues with his legs. She doesn't cut them off though, rather, she pulverizes his feet, his calves, his shins, his knees. She smashes them over and over again with her fists, taking out some of her anger on him. Every strike she delivers she screams her wrath. She takes a few seconds to do this as Tom passes out and wakes up again from each fist hitting his legs.
"That was for the people who you killed. They were nothing more than human supremacists, I don’t really care about their lives honestly. I know that they would have simply gone to war or terrorized and humiliated every demihuman they met. But, you didn't kill them for that. You killed them out of gross negligence while simultaneously funding a terrorist group. You really tried to play it off, tried to pretend as if you weren’t responsible for their deaths. You think you could just get away with that? Fuck you." She spits directly into his face.
Tom feels nothing but pain. He wants to ask her to just kill him and get this over with. However, she doesn't do that. She waits next for him for a couple minutes. He's not bleeding out. She's already cauterized her wounds. He's going to die even if she doesn't finish him off, that much is certain. She didn't maim the man in a “clean” way.
Does she want him to learn the error of his ways before he dies? Does she want him to admit his wrongdoings? No. Tom knows at least that much. She wants to kill him for herself. She wants to punish him so that she knows for herself that she is an arbiter of justice. Not just a psychopathic killer. She is just.
If the situation was reversed and Tom had the power to kill her, she knows in her heart that he would not have left things as she had, he would actually do more.
Yet, in this world, she has more power than he does. That is how things have played out. She can only sit there, armless and legless, waiting for this woman to get what she needs from him. Catharsis. She sits beside him, listening to his breathing. It's getting weaker and weaker.
"...I'm not sure if you're even going to understand what you did wrong." She tells him. "Not at this point. But, you know I just couldn't let you off with what you did, right? I at least have to pay you back.”
She sighs as the sounds of clattering metal gets closer and closer.
“See… I don't believe in life after death. Even if gods are real here on this planet, I don't believe that they're as powerful as you all believe them to be. You're not going to heaven, you're not going to hell. All you can do is return to nothing. At least with what I'm doing, you can feel a little of… Well, it's not important to you, is it?"
She stands up and moves to face him directly. She places her hand directly on his forehead.
"Your life… did you truly live it as you wanted to? I'm sure it wasn't what you wished for right? Did you do things right? Well, I suppose you didn't. After all, it ended like this."
Tom closes his eyes.
His head completely melts a moment later.
This is the first time she's killed someone in this manner. Even back on Earth, when she finally did what she needed to do and killed her foster parents in that fire, she never got any bit of closure.
She smiles just a little. If only everyone she killed could leave her feeling this way.