The punch sent her careening across the room and into the wall at the back, blood spewing from her face. I may have put more juice into it than I had intended.
I ran over to where she slumped on the ground, pulled the kunai out of my hand, and held my sword to her chin, threatening to cut her to pieces if she so much as moved.
“It’s my win, Nakama. Open the door.”
“A pyrrhic victory. If you enter that room, you will invite your death.”
“Still trying to talk me out of it?”
“…no. I sense that that would be a fruitless endeavour. Your mind is firmly made up, isn’t it?”
“You’re damn right it is. No matter how hard you try to stop me, I won’t abandon Earth.”
“Even at the cost of those you love?”
“Cost? It’s no cost. I don’t own my friends. They’re not pawns I’m sacrificing for my own gains. They’re my comrades, people who would stay at my side even as I dive into the depths of hell.”
“But it’s you leading them there, is it not?”
“It’s their own will that brought them here. I just paved the way.” I sheathed my sword and offered a hand to Nakama, one which she accepted after a few seconds deliberation. “Your mistake is thinking that you’re the player and your friends are just pieces you move around the board, devoid of their own will. Don’t be the player making decisions for them. Be the Queen opening up new paths for them. That is what it means to lead, Juno.”
Nakama sighed heavily at me, but broke out into a small smile.
“So earnest and forthright. Yokoshima was right to call you a Chuunibyou.”
“Hey!”
“But that’s not to say I don’t understand your point. Though my friends follow me of their own will, perhaps I did dictate their decisions too much. I… simply want to do what I believe is best for them.”
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“You really love them, don’t you?”
“Yes. With all of my soul.”
“Then maybe you and I are more alike than I initially thought,” I admitted. I had long wanted to distance myself from Nakama, insisting that she and I were as opposite as could be. But despite her cowardice, her sadistic nature, and her willingness to harm innocents, I couldn’t help but feel a level of kinship with her.
“I believe much the same,” she replied. “You and I may be ideologically opposed, but fundamentally we are the same. We both care, above all else, about doing what we believe is right for our friends. That much we share.”
Flame were our enemies, that much was undeniably true. Their actions against us were the kickstarter to all of this, and their continued aggression had been a consistent thorn in our sides along the way, but for some reason or another I couldn’t bring myself to hate them.
Their actions were heinous and their ideals selfish, but I couldn’t help seeing echoes of us in them. Could we have become the same as them under different circumstances? I couldn’t say, but I couldn’t deny it either. In many ways, they were too similar to us for me to write the possibility off entirely.
“Why… did we end up so different from one another?” She asked. “If you and I really are so similar, why did our situations turn out so opposed?”
“Who knows? Maybe the whims of fate just treated us differently.”
“Perhaps so… if our positions were switched, would our fates be different? Would you be the misguided villain betraying her species, and I the unlikely hero defending Earth? Could such a reality ever exist?”
“If you want that reality to exist, then make it so. Help us end this war, do what you can to make it right. Your crimes may be unforgivable, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean you’re beyond redemption. Come with us and protect the world you had cast aside. There’s still a way forward yet, you just have to take it.”
“You… show me kindness I cannot rightly say I deserve,” she replied, “but if that is your will, I can hardly refuse. Very well, I shall do what I can to right my wrongs.”
“Great, then let’s g-”
“But I cannot follow you into the chamber of Baal Zebul.” She cut me off as I was about to suggest our teams face down our enemy together, much to my disappointment. “This is a fight only you and yours can fight. It is a job for heroes, and I am no hero.”
I can’t say the answer didn’t put a great dampener on my spirits, but I somewhat expected it. Nakama’s greatest commitment was to the survival of her friends. To openly antagonise Baal would jeopardise that. It would be a betrayal of her very identity.
“That’s your final answer?”
“I’m afraid it is. Best of luck in the ordeal to come, Saki Tachibana. You may yet need it.”
“Yeah… you too, Juno.”
I made my way to the trial door, though I knew in my heart this wouldn’t be our last meeting.