The human brain has a hardwired, inherent, and predisposed nature to find certain stimuli intolerable. It is innate in human nature to flee at the sound of wailing in the night— it’s innate to be repulsed at the smell of diseased flesh. And two years ago, when the first of the thirteen Endbringers arrived, every transmission among the nearly thirty Resonators that perished tried to describe what could not be processed by human senses with the same phrase: “This is wrong.”
He thought he understood what they meant, because he saw it too. He saw the Endbringer the very day he arrived to this godforsaken world.
He remembered clambering out of the arrival pad, woozy even hours after the nanosculpting had finished, and was startled at the sight of a torrent of people flowing beyond the door. He panicked too, of course, as was inherent in human nature. And as he stumbled among them, he found himself in the hangar joining a growing crowd of pilots, staring at the projection shown to them.
Hah…looking back, maybe that was a naive way of thinking about it, believing he saw an Endbringer with his own eyes when the reality was him glaring at a projection. He didn’t truly see its presence— smell its effluvia. Ironic, it’s been two years since his arrival and he still isn’t sure of how to describe what he “saw” that day. He wasn’t sure he was able to.
Now, he had no choice.
“A nightmare.” he said from inside his Slayer. “It looks like the nightmares I’d dream in my childhood.”
“Quite the imagination for a child.”
“Nightmares become worse when you’re sick. When it happens we call them ‘infected dreams,’ but others label them ‘fever dreams’ or ‘night terrors’.”
“Then I suppose I can now understand what others see during their days bedridden.”
“Hah…you’re telling me you’ve never been sick?”
“Never.”
“…………” he sighed. A strong exhale became a whisper that became stagnant wind as silence dragged between them. But he didn’t mind. He considered it a miracle to be able to speak at all.
From the distant skyline, the fate they hoped would never arrive was illuminated under the pale light of the stars; a giant mound of otherworldly flesh, not unlike a front-facing hexagon, a horizon away. Beneath three of the six mirror-like organs dangling from the “vertices” of its body were Outsiders of all sorts.
It swayed those mirrors like a pendulum, and with every oscillation, Outsiders would appear. The ground oozed green light, flashing in tandem with the reflective organs as if calling the creatures from the earth; first Ravagers, then Infectors, and Swarmers enough to litter the earth like ants. Curiously, however, he had seen larger herds of monsters before.
Goosebumps covered his skin, like his body reacting to the initial stages of illness. Maybe, the Slayer pilot thought, it called so few Outsiders because it’s aware it didn’t need them.
It didn’t need them…it just wanted them. It wanted the terror they felt.
“Hah, I’m surprised,” he said, not bothering to hide his quivering voice. “You’d normally be ecstatic about now.”
“I am.” she said without hesitation, but the way she spoke…she enunciated every word. As if careful to follow every rule phonetics had to offer. “I am in ecstasy and awe right now. I am eager and afraid, I’m!…perhaps this is what illness feels like……”
“…Rojin?”
“Will the other redoubts arrive?”
“Or have they abandoned us?”
More than likely Rojin didn’t think such a thing. But he couldn’t help but think— could it be that they, as the unfortunate ones, would be abandoned to the enemy? Perhaps in the name of gathering information, or the more likely option of fear keeping them away……hah…is this pessimism he’s feeling right now?
…or realism?
Even lost in thought, he noticed Rojin’s voice, whether shaking in fear or anticipation, slowly turning into a clear and present tremble. This, at least, he was familiar with.
“Jericho,” she enunciated, “will they come? How long do I—we— have? Tell me, Jericho…”
His mind pondered, but his eyes never left the enemy.
“The Commander is in another Redoubt, but managed to radio in a warning across all ESDF bases hours in advance. I’d heard she was superstitious when it came to Outsiders and I guess that finally paid off…”
“Jericho.”
“I don’t know!” he said, clear and curt. “Unlike everyone else, Desert Oasis is unique in that it sustains itself without any outside help, but that’s at the cost of our isolation. ESDF knows about the attack by now but it could take hours for anyone to get here! Tch— what good is sustainability if we can’t handle ourselves in a crisis?”
“You’re afraid.”
“And you aren’t?”
“My kind were not created to feel fear, this world has had to teach it to me. Even so…”
He looked at the Slayer to his right, the one that glimmered hues of gold and amber even in the dimness of the still night. Dark shades of green and blue traced and filled the armor along its joints and legs, climbing their way up to her eyes— eyes that a moment ago were motionless now literally pulsating with golden light, glowing in tandem to an unknown beat. Even in a situation like this she lets herself slip.
“…even so!” she said, her growing smile audible in his ears. “My jubilation outweighs my fear!”
“Rojin, get a hold of yourself or your antics will get us all killed.”
“Cenotaph, calm down. And Rojin,” he said to the Slayer, quivering in anticipation, “he has a point.”
“Condolences Captain, but we— the entirety of Desert Oasis— are here! We’re all here! Twenty-three Resonators, heralding the beginning of bloodshed! What good will waiting do when we can strike first Jericho!?”
“Fucking REINFORCEMENTS will do us good, you rabid bitch!” spat a separate voice in the radio channel.
“This isn’t a game, Rojin, stand down!”
“I say let her go get slaughtered, at least then we’ll see what we’re up against!”
Screams echoed in Jericho’s ear, cries of verbal abuse assaulting the Resonator next to him. He heard rage, wailing, even choking that sounded like vomit being thrown up and swallowed.
They weren’t wrong…his fellow Resonators. They aren’t wrong to tell the woman next to him not to charge into a meaningless death. But he, and perhaps they too, knew that wasn’t the only reason.
Fear has a way of distorting the mind. Perhaps by prolonging the inevitable they might not have to suffer and die against a nightmare. Maybe this has been a long, long dream— one spanning years that would certainly end before their psyches suffered irreparable damage. If they held on for just one more minute, they would return to the real world, lest their senses carry what was seen, heard, smelled, and felt here into their bodies in the real world. Then they would truly never be able to forget.
But even through the worst of his fevers could he not dream of something so terrible. The Endbringer made that clear enough…and Rojin’s words solidified reality.
“I see…what a wonderful idea.” He heard her smile as the mecha rose completely, arm stretched forward as her palm faced the sky. Glimmering wisps of light collected into it, forming beyond her fingers as the wisps became denser and denser until taking the shape of a weapon she gripped in her hand.
“Havîn,” she said, addressing the spear. “Rogul,” she said, making a fist over her Slayer’s nonexistent heart. “Shall we begin?”
“Rojin!”
As she prepared to jump, the hand of a dark navy Slayer gripped her mechanical body.
“You can’t. Please. Not yet.”
“Then shall we idle here until our deaths?”
Her words caught him off guard. Jericho thought that, somehow, those still pulsating eyes grew softer as the responses of their fellow Resonators grated their ears.
That Endbringer, Tezcacoatl……would such a monster truly wait until reinforcements arrived, however long that may be?
“No that’s— I…”
Will another minute of waiting give them the courage to die? Would the Endbringer change its nature and retreat— or maybe spare them? Beyond the meager comfort of delay…what more could waiting do?
“…I—h-hEY! HEY!”
Without any warning she climbed atop his Slayer, using her spear as a pole-arm to vault onto his back. With the inertia of her landing she plucked the spear out of the ground, spinning and stabbing it right in between the nook of his Flight module to activate it in a single, fell swoop. His thrusters roared, and the two of them launched into the air from the hills overlooking the oasis, distressed voices drowned by the deafening power of the rockets.
“ROJIN!” he screamed. “I BUILT A LIFE HERE— I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND IN THE CITIES! I CAN’T KILL MYSELF FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS!”
“THERE IS NO RUNNING FROM THIS, ‘CAPTAIN’!” she squealed with bloodthirsty glee. “SURVIVAL IS FOR THE DESPERATE! FOR YOUR SAKE— I HOPE YOU FIGHT!”
His bellowing response became but noise as she activated her own Flight module, kicking off of him and climbing into the sky above as he descended in an uncontrolled loop. Her initially swift ascent slowed until stopping completely, giving her ample time to see the sizable army of monsters just beyond the borders of the oasis forest.
Yes, from up here she saw the long hill surrounding the Redoubt, atop of which stood all of her brothers and sisters as they stared at the speck of blinding light that was Rogul. She saw the expanse of viridian forest, the winding azure river pouring life into the earth, and of course, the stars and moon above her, illuminating everything below.
“Ah, you are beautiful,” she whispered to the celestial satellite, “but your light…is not your own.”
She gripped the golden spear, eyes wide in anticipation as burning vermillion light collected at its tip. Her propulsion system was far from weak, but even its heat and light paled in comparison to the growing luminance her spear began radiating. She’d disabled her radio, but didn’t have a hard time imagining what her fellow Resonators were saying. They scurried like children, their panicked and hurried bodies obvious from the sky above, retreating away from the Redoubt hills.
Ah…the sky. She craned her head back to the enemy— what a frightening thing, to see the Endbringer was nearly as tall as her current altitude. How could one fight— let alone destroy— something so big? There was nothing like it in her home world.
“What fear…!” Fire engulfed the weapon in its entirety now, its golden form mingling with the vermillion flames cascading into the sky, drowning out the pure light offered by the heavens.
“I was not created to feel fear— so I must thank you for this, King Mirror!”
The light of the control pads lit up her shaking breaths and the sweat pooled around her bare feet— heat from her spear began evaporating the river, nearly incinerating the treetops. The golden light emanating from her and her Slayer’s eyes pulsated wildly, blinking as quickly as cinder beneath rain.
“We will do it, my lovely Havîn—!!” she said, pulling her arm back in euphoria.
And disabling her Flight system, Rojin had never smiled so wide.
“—let us be the ones to ANNOUNCE THE BEGINNING OF WAR!”
Without mercy, an eruption of force and sound greater than any explosion traveled from the heavenly Slayer; in a fraction of a tenth of a second, concussive waves from the shattered sound barrier sent Rogul diving towards the earth. But not before she saw the fruits her spear had bore.
The armament lost its form, becoming a meteorite of crimson gold that tore open the very sky as it illuminated the desert as clear as on an afternoon day. Perpetual eruptions of white surrounded the weapon— signs of its ever-increasing speed: once, twice, a third, and a fourth time. She heard distant cries as she fell to the earth— cries she recognized originating from both the Outsiders and fellow Resonators.
All of this, her perception of the weapon, the feeling of its heat and force battering her descending body, happened in no less than a second and a half. And in that brief moment of time, she twisted her body, looking at the impact.
It was like sleeping in the deepest cellar, surrounded by blackness, only to awaken and stare directly into the noon sun. The whole of her vision became white. She could see nothing, the white noise ringing in her ears manifesting itself physically in her sight with such intensity it made her retinas feel they’d imploded. But it disappeared just as quickly, replaced with the glorious view of a pillar of obliteration— fire. Sweeping forward across the desert in a literal tidal wave of smoldering ash. The Swarmers couldn’t even be seen from below the orange and red hues thumping like a heartbeat— feeding off of the corpses of the monstrosities, the flames using those lives as fuel to grow brighter and bigger. And grow it did.
The blaze burned beyond the enemy, summoning clouds of soot and smoke that covered the entire view of the distant mountains far beyond Desert Oasis, chasing them like a lunatic attempting to catch the horizon. The tidal of fire spared nothing, not the Ravagers, not Infectors, it swallowed each Outsider like a tsunami swallowed buildings. She saw some of the creatures attempting to climb the loose hanging limbs of the Endbringer only to fall as their muscles burned into embers, brought down to the earth as dust.
And the Endbringer?
She let out a bubbling laugh from inside Rogul— the fire climbed up its limbs in spirals of glowing ash. In the midst of its onslaught, what could be called more devastating than ground zero of a volcanic eruption, the previously unmoving nightmare screeched towards the heavens. Entire chunks of its limbs burned, fires spewing out from injuries on the tentacles falling towards the earth via gravity, but…they began disappearing. In a counter-clockwise spiral the fires began feeding themselves into two of its mirrors, just barely visible from above the soot and smoke.
“Tending to your wound I see,” she squealed, straining to correct her fall, “you were injured…you are not immortal!”
A sudden, powerful force surrounded her Slayer, redirecting her inertia so she moved forward towards the edge of their territory instead of dropping towards the earth.
“That explosion of yours knocked some of the Outsiders over here!” said the dark navy Slayer holding her arm as it flew forward. “I’ll criticize your recklessness later but for now, how injured is it?”
“I know not but blood is blood all the same! As with those vile creatures— it can die!”
As they breached the edge of the forest, Rojin felt the mechanical grip spin her around as they flew forward, and building a massive amount of centripetal force, Jericho sent her flying to the nearest Ravager rising from the earth in an injured daze.
“Havîn!” The golden spear appeared no sooner than the moment she crashed into the creature, impaling its reptilian body and surfing across the desert on its corpse.
“They were the vanguard then, yes?” she asked the Slayer landing beside her.
“These ones were in front of the explosion and didn’t get caught in the blast— but even at this distance they still survived so be cautious!”
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She looked as he gestured towards the massive wall of fire still moving away from the Redoubt, fire born from Havîn attack. She’d never seen so much smoke…except for perhaps the first time she used “Final Day of the Summer Sun”.
“Of course, I-gcht!”
“Rojin!”
She collapsed, holding onto the shoulder she used to throw Havîn. Dizziness overcame her, so much so that she didn’t notice a Ravager climbing atop her.
“gaAHGH!”
“As if I’d let you!”
Before the Ravager could tear into her armor, Jericho sped behind it, grabbing its neck before cutting off the arms in a reverse grip style. Flipping it over to land hard on the ground, it was decapitated before it ever had the chance to retaliate.
“Judicature…is as fast as ever I see…”
“Enough of that!” he said, raising the sword at the now recovered Outsiders charging towards them, the thick dust making visibility difficult. “Retreat into Desert Oasis, that blow took too much out of you.”
“War…does not wait for rest!” she struggled to enunciate, using her spear to prop herself up.
“Don’t argue!—”
The words came out in a punt as a Ravager suddenly collided against Judicature’s blade, the creature flailing its arms as fine and sharp as needles. Jumping over the two of them, Rojin stabbed her spear through the Outsider’s heart, and without turning around yanked it out of place, spinning and hurling it through an Infector’s skull with fatal precision, reappearing in her hand not a moment later.
“You mentioned being sick as a boy, yes Jericho? ”
She didn’t wait for a response, instead launching the spear through another enemy in the hazy distance before it appeared in her hand once more.
“These creatures are merely symptoms. The disease,” she said, pointing to the massive silhouette visible even in the brimstone, “is that.”
“Is it……absorbing the fire? With that injury it can’t call out any more reinforcements…!” he quivered, voice filled with hopeful uncertainty. “We need to hit it with everything we have while it’s idle!”
He sent his coordinates to every Resonator within their Redoubt’s territory, initiating a mass call over the radio. “Jericho to Desert Oasis— I have an idea! The Endbringer is recovering from its injury, I repeat— it’s vulnerable! Those of you with heavy hitting abilities prepare them, everyone else aim for the mirrors absorbing the flames!”
“Jericho, what exactly are you propo-sin-g—ghHAGHH!”
“Rojin, hey! Get a grip— Rojin!”
She collapsed again, this time the pain sounding much more severe. He stood guard in front of her, dissecting any enemy that came close as he looked back to see her mecha’s arm spasming, listening as she grit her teeth through the pain. He stood guard, but in the faint light of the moving tidal wave of fire, her cries were more than enough to mark her as injured prey.
“Hah…damn it all…”
Ravagers approached in a semi-circle, Jericho fighting off several of the beasts at a time as they threw themselves against him in swarms. He held his own for what felt like minutes, becoming a wall to hold back the companion behind him; but protecting a downed Slayer was an admittedly new experience, and those few minutes were all it took to overwhelm him.
“Where are the rest of you?!” he screamed into his radio, sidestepping a Ravager leaping at him from above. “We’re getting mau—!”
“—where do you think!?” interrupted a voice he knew as Holmire. “That thing called out more Outsiders! That thing’s mirrors are calling them out like fucking flies!”
“What!?”
He looked to the distance in horror as he realized it was true. To the right of its hexagonal body, below one of the two “mirrors” absorbing the fire, a third mirror swayed, causing sickening green light to ooze out of the earth, its color standing out from the muted brown and smoggy reds like a sore thumb.
But…it stopped calling them before the battle even started. They weren’t worthy enough to merit such effort, right? And its injury…he thought that would be enough to at the very least stall its ability…so why…why did it start again?
No, beyond that— how was it calling Outsiders from nothing but light?
“…gch! In that case send backup! Rojin’s down and—”
“THERE IS NO BACKUP! THESE THINGS AR-GGHHHAA!!!”
“Holmire! Hey— HOLMIRE ANSWER ME!”
As a brutal Ravager frenzied against his defense, he deigned to look behind him and see it was true. On the hill overlooking the forest of their Redoubt, where once stood every Resonator in Desert Oasis, now showed a place devoid of life. It wasn’t until Holmire’s radio went silent that he noticed the sounds of fighting in the far distance.
Were they…already at such a disadvantage? But the fight just started…
“Kch!”
With a hard shove to its chest Jericho pushed the creature back, attempting to grab the still downed Rojin before a whip-like tentacle wrapped itself around her, dragging her into the fog of dust.
“ROJIN—!”
He dove headfirst into the clouded landscape, giving chase and cutting down waves of monsters as the sight of the girl’s mecha became less and less visible. He considered shooting at the appendage but it was too nimble and thin, he would risk shooting Rogul and blowing apart the remaining armor separating her from certain death.
But chance is chance— better to risk then wait for the guarantee of death. In that moment he smiled, concentrating fire into the palm of his hand. To think that he’d finally understand her logic of striking first…
Breaking hard, he felt his hydraulics strain from the inertia as he took aim at the creature’s slivering thread. Flames crawled up to his fingertips as he narrowed down his target.
But focusing his mind on something that small, in the midst of a massacre, had cost him.
“FUCK!”
He uttered the word in shock as a Ravager took hold of him, pinning him down and wasting no time in devouring his joints and tearing into his neck.
“I hate dirty fighting!” he said, failing to pummel the creature back. At his own cries, more Infectors and Ravagers joined the horde in hysteria, chipping open his armor like tough plastic. How could so many appear in such a short amount of time?!
“Hah, guess I shouldn’t expect anything more from ANIMALS!”
Emblazing the fire in his hand, he shot a concentrated stream directly into the face of an Infector approaching the horde. But almost as quickly as he struck, the frenzying Outsiders cut off his hand— whether because they recognized the threat or because they were in a state of mania.
He tried using his other arm still holding tight to the sword only to meet the same result. His fingers were shredded down to wires from the sandpaper-like skin grating against his body, and the metal from his weapon became jagged and whittled the more the creatures got into a frenzy.
Was it the Endbringer making them act like this? He’d never seen so many Outsiders in such a deranged, wild state. Well, that hardly mattered anymore.
“GCH! A-At least……at least let me see her one more time…”
With his back against the dirt, a Ravager with particularly sharp claws stabbed straight through his lower abdomen, severing the spinal cord connecting his upper and lower body.
“Just one more time…please, let me see her……get oFF ME DAMN IT AAALLLL!!”
In those split seconds, he believed his words had an effect as a tumultuous gale ripped three of the Ravagers off him, while the limbs of the rest of the creatures suddenly stopped moving. No…they were forced to the ground?
“Our Lady has heard your cry, and responded in kind!”
A giant mecha of glistening ivory suddenly swept no less than thirty feet above him, that was probably all a Slayer needed to cleave through flesh as if it were butter. The scattered bodies went limp, and Jericho struggled to lift up his head only to find there was no need.
“Strain yourself not, my friend.” said the glimmering Slayer, landing behind him and supporting his metallic head. “Your valor and selflessness were beautiful, and Our Lady certainly responded to your voice because of it.”
Confusion clouded his panicked mind until two other Slayers landed next to them. One in muted gray but with scintillating buttons, and the other a dull teal.
“Hah……ahahaha! We…we expected you guys to take longer.”
“These ‘weapons’ travel as fast as childrens’ toys from the slums of Old Earth Hiveworld.” responded a reverberating woman’s voice. “But I will admit your armaments carry slightly more power than I imagined. Alas, a stick will be a stick in the end.”
“Second wave incoming!”
“Handle them, I will contact Chelsea to see of the others.”
“W-Wait!”
“Please do not strain yourself.” said the soft voice of the man behind him. “You will disrupt the healing.”
Jericho looked down and sure enough, the hole severing Judicature’s body was slowly repairing itself— the wires and metal from his missing hand and fingers growing in real time, restored to their original forms.
“In regards to Lord Machina, he’s simply…eager.”
“Gotta make up for being so gung-ho last time,” said the teal one, drawing his blade. “Three Infectors. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen Ravagers total. Positions eleven to three o’clock. No visible abnormalities— running simulation. Hey buddy, fill Rebekah and Peter in on that plan you mentioned over the radio would you?”
Plan?…did he mean the mass call to those within the Redoubt’s range, focusing on the Endbringer? Before he could respond, the one called Lord Machina burst forward in a trail of dust, stopping just in the middle of the enormous group of enemies.
“Simulation complete.” Jericho heard through the radio’s click. “Fourth Offensive Module - Omnislash technique: Seven hundred and twenty degrees!”
In a blink of an eye the teal colored Slayer created a vacuum within the dust— a sphere totally deprived of any pollutant save the glint of a blade that disappeared the very moment it shined. Machina held his pose, and as if having asked for permission, the dust blew inward after a pause, followed closely by the limbs and body parts of Ravagers appearing frozen in shock at their death. The Resonator was clouded in dust once more, his single silhouette attesting to the fact he was all that remained.
“My friend,” said the ivory Slayer, the one called Peter. “If I may ask you to tell us about this idea of yours.”
“…you’re right!” he said, coming out of his daze. “But we need to regroup and gather as many people as are still alive.”
“That’ll pose no issue, I’ve received word that Chelsea’s unit is arriving shortly.” said Rebekah, turning towards the still fallen Resonator. “It seems not all of you Desert groundlings are killed so easily.”
----------------------------------------
“Commander I’m begging you.”
I could hear the desperation in my own voice. It sounded doddering— feeble. Far from the way a Slayer pilot should sound. But I had nothing left. “I have to deploy! You need to let me—!”
“Need?” posited the woman drawing a long breath of smoke. “You don’t seem to understand that my decision is final. We’ve sent everyone we can afford to.”
“That’s not true!” I kept insisting, standing my ground against the MPs trying to barricade me from her. “That Redoubt’s taken astronomical casualties and they haven’t been fighting it an hour! I need—!”
“To do what, boy? Get in the way?”
I took a step back, as if her words physically pushed me. The Commander’s stance hadn’t changed since giving her orders to the redoubts and even the tone she spoke with was the same. Right, she stood almost frozen in front of Annika’s workstation, taking in the many visuals from every Slayer in Desert Oasis, fallen or otherwise.
If they were hostile, why was it that her words also felt…familiar. An unwillingness to compromise, yes, but there was a familiarity behind them. A sound within her voice that pointed to the fact she had rejected Resonators even during times of great need.
‘Need’.
Was it Akane…that said the same as I? To constantly choose to subject herself to death— is that where the familiarity in the Commander’s voice stemmed from? The rejection to send Akane?
“I thought our job, our purpose, was to fight and kill these things.” I said, swallowing my pride. “Why is it all of a sudden I’m barred from fulfilling that role?”
“It’s not sudden. You’re a pebble being thrown against a tsunami.”
Hah……of course. I understand now.
“You have less than fifty of the required seventy-two hours of training and nearly died after only two deployments.” she continued with unrelenting truth. “And I needn’t remind you of the results of your spar. If you want to be useful then train; God knows we’ll be short on Slayers after this…”
I understand. Even if Akane did play a part, we were still just cogs in the machine. But not I. I can’t be called a part of it.
Because against the Rogue, Crysfiends, Behemoth, Fire Spirit…even against Senpai, I’d yet to demonstrate any worth. Even here in another world there is no meaning to an edgeless blade.
“The flower does not demand the cloud,” Lia had told me, “only its rain.”
“…even so, I—”
The redoubt’s rumbling interrupted my feeble protest, but I recognized the feeling.
“Go,” ordered the Commander. “Receive them.”
In bitter silence I followed the Commander’s orders, allowing the MPs to escort me back to the hangar proper where the wall detached, and sprinting out of a glacier-colored Slayer came a girl carrying a limp figure in her arms.
“Yukiko?………!!”
Noticing me, the former maid dashed across the hangar, passing to me a body that looked almost like a corpse; hideously burned, disfigured, and with a uniform coated in dry blood. Her lips were charred black as layers of skin peeled over each other to expose the dried muscle. And I recognized her within the moment.
“…Lia……”
“She’s not stable, take her to the medical bay— Annika! Attach Yin’s alloy wire!”
“What happened?!”
“Ifnielis was an overture for the Endbringer, I only returned so she could be stabilized.”
“You’re going back?”
“I have to.” she said, bitterly. Whereas she spoke in a rush mere moments ago, she now almost whispered those words with sullen lull. “That girl’s rage will be the death of her.”
Hanna.
I could feel it through my ability. Feel the strain and worry in Yukiko’s blood from the mere thought of it.
The thought that Hanna’s anger, and its catharsis, would kill her.
A strange metallic wire was attached to Yukiko’s Slayer before she deployed without another word. The next few minutes became a mesh of dull sensations: surgical orders shouted left and right as my legs burst into the medical bay, tubes and wires beginning to cover Lia’s body. I was in a trance, not able to do a thing. It was at that moment I looked to the other two Resonators on the far side of the room, Fiametta and Juans, still in a coma from their last mission. Ildefons had died upon his return then. And had I gone with them things likely would’ve gone worse. That’s what I decided on.
That was my acceptance of this new world.
And yet, selfishly, I couldn’t help but think about this time. If the right answer truly was to stay, then why did I tell myself this world could be different? That I could be different?
Wasn’t that why I gave myself an alias in the first place?
“Why did you do this to yourself?” I asked the unconscious girl surrounded by medical personnel. Her wounds had reopened causing blood to seep down the corners of the table. It looked painful, the red liquid filling and tracing the fibers of her muscles only to overflow, outlining the severity of the damage.
“How do you do it? Why do you fight?…” I whispered desperately. “Lia…”
“Because I’m needed.”
So preoccupied were the medics that they, and even I, failed to notice the girl standing just beyond the entrance to the ward. One that looked as though she could be Lia’s little sister.
“Faylin..?”
“That would be her answer.” She choked, her tiny fists balling up at her sides. Yet she stared straight ahead. “I know because I asked her…right before Miss Lia left our tribe.”
I closed my eyes, a sense of iniquity coming over me. How could I answer to that? Of course we’re needed…but that doesn't help me.
“It makes one of us.” I said, walking past the girl into the dimly lit corridor.
“You mean to say you don’t know why you fight?!”
Her voice made me stop. That babbling little girl that first arrived on the beach for reasons I didn’t know now had such indignation in her voice that I couldn’t help but stop.
“What do you think, Faylin? Is it better to live a purposeless life of your own choosing, or a meaningful one forced on you?”
“I…what do you mean?”
I turned to look at her, her clothing a mix of garments proper and worn rags indicative of her journey. “I mean that since my arrival I’ve only gotten in the way. I’ve gotten nothing from what I’ve been trying to pour all my effort into so give me an answer. If my efforts are all in vain, regardless of what I do, then why throw my life away? Why not just live like I did before— quietly!—without risk!? Why not just leave this fight to everyone else especially—!”
I stopped myself. Stopped as the shock of the realization of my own feelings struck me.
“Especially when I felt so relieved at not needing to fight that thing…look what it did to that Redoubt. I said I’d go, I said I’d fight but even if it’s my responsibility…” I clenched my jaw. “…I don’t want it to be. I want to be useful, and yet when the time finally comes I’m relieved that I’m not. I thought…I was supposed to be different here……”
“Mister Anon…”
I didn’t notice how tense my body had gotten to the point even my toes had curled tightly into a ball. The tension hardly left after slowing myself down with a soft exhale. “It doesn't matter at any rate. The Commander locked Even’s— my Slayer’s— access to deployments until I reach the seventy-two hour training mark.”
Before I could turn my back to her, she once more had made me stop. Magenta eyes filled with a zeal not unlike a Resonator, not unlike Lia’s, met with mine. And unlike the instance at the beach or even a few minutes prior, her voice held neither desperation nor indignation.
“Then I’ll deploy you.” The little girl known as Faylin proclaimed those words with impetus. “I’ll deploy you, and show you the reason why I followed Miss Lia to Skull Beach Redoubt.”