~February 22nd, 140 AH~

~Middle Akra, District Arboris~

She found him at the end of an unmarked alleyway, dressed in a courier’s outfit and leaning against an alarmingly grimy wall that doubled as the back of a restaurant. As soon as their eyes met, he waved with the same hand that held a lit cigarette. Then he puffed and blew out smoke as he watched her approach.

Already on edge at the prospect of a secret meeting, Asena’s irritable frown deepened as she came to a stop, a good arm’s length away from both the wall and Ophis’s inscrutable smile. She subconsciously drew her messenger bag closer to herself, as if its contents could protect her from the surrounding grime and smoke.

“Good to see you, Ms Shiranui. Hope you didn’t have too much trouble getting here.”

Her eyes widened for a second at the blatant use of her name. But she quickly decided that the time for caution had long passed, especially as far as this serpent was concerned. Now it was time for the two of them to speak plainly and openly. The time for answers. Starting with…

“I’m surprised that you smoke. Don’t Gaertners constantly preach abstinence?”

“I think you’re old enough to know that people don’t always practice what they preach,” the man replied airily as he blew out more smoke. “Besides, this complements our disguises rather well, don’t you think? Just two couriers on a break, shooting the breeze. In fact, would you like to try one?”

“I would not,” Asena said icily, “and right now, I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to shoot the breeze with anyone, let alone with you.”

“Yes, yes.” Ophis’s lips curled into something approaching a smirk. “Straight to business as always. You’re nothing if not consistent, Ms Shiranui; I wonder where you get that from. Anyway, I suppose you’d be wanting some answers. Starting with a proper introduction, perhaps? You can still call me Ophis or whatever you’d like, but my real name is—”

“Akash Varana.”

The man’s half-smirk turned into a full one. “I see you haven’t been idle. Done some digging, have you?”

“Didn’t need much digging, to be honest. You come from a Sehermensch family famous for their connection with the Vaktas that goes back generations. On top of that, you’re a Gaertner that went AWOL, before being declared missing, before… being declared dead. Your disappearance wasn’t exactly low-profile, Captain Varana. I was just too young to know much about it when it happened.”

Akash Varana took a long draw from his cigarette, expression suddenly distant. Asena knew the look well.

“You left a wife and child,” she went on, voice unintentionally hushed. “Do they… do they know you’re still alive?”

“No,” he said flatly, “and I trust you’ll do your part in ensuring it stays that way.”

“But… why?”

“It was what had to be done. One outposted Gaertner disappearing into the haze… unusual but not implausible. But if he somehow took his family with him? Would’ve drawn too much attention.”

“Don’t you miss them?”

“Every waking hour of my life.”

Asena fell silent, deciding that this wasn’t the line of questioning she wanted to pursue. What could possibly be worth giving up your family? That had been her first thought upon discovering the facts of Ophis’s life, but as she watched the man stub out his cigarette, she realized that she too had her own answer to the same question.

Akash met Asena’s concerned frown with a placatory smile. Then he sighed, sans smoke. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m doing all this for purely selfish reasons, so there’s no need for you to sympathize.” He seemed to consider her for a moment before abruptly pushing himself off the wall. “Walk with me, Ms Shiranui. Sometimes, the best way to make a point is via the scenic route.”

Without waiting for a reply, Akash strode down the alleyway and toward the intersecting street. Asena hastened to follow after a moment’s startled hesitation.

As soon as the two of them were out in the open, however, Asena shrank into herself, trying in vain to make herself smaller. She lowered the lid of her cap, suddenly conscious of her hair, which had grown back rather rapidly since her last foray into the city. Her eyes darted to and from passersby, mostly Sehermenschen in business attire who in turn paid neither her nor her companion any mind.

Akash, on the other hand, walked with an easy gait and head held high. He spoke, making no particular effort to lower his voice, “Tell me, Ms Shiranui. What’s going through your mind right this moment?”

“I’m wondering if you’ve lost your mind,” she hissed. “I’m also wondering how you managed to avoid discovery for a whole decade if this is how you normally conduct yourself.”

“What’s the issue? Is one not allowed to enjoy a stroll on a fine morning?”

“Not when one has something to hide… like you and I.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Ah, so you’re afraid.”

“Yes! Aren’t you?”

“Who taught you that fear?”

“What?”

Her steps slowed momentarily. Then she closed the gap with longer strides, throwing caution to the wind as she did. She ventured, “No one. It’s common sense.”

“You mean to say it’s common sense to hide behind disguises and cower from prying eyes?”

“… When the situation calls for it, yes.”

“Just like it’s common sense for servants to lower themselves before their masters? Like it’s common sense to stuff young men inside metallic giants and send them out to kill and die? … Like it’s common sense to deprive innocent children of their lives and humanity, all so those same young men could kill a little more, die a little harder?”

Asena didn’t answer immediately, instead staring grimly at her own feet as they carried her farther into the open—toward the averted eyes of strangers that were just as afraid as her.

“The Syntropy then?” she eventually murmured, herself not fully convinced. “The Syntropy taught us to live in fear?”

“They certainly are fearsome beasts, but I doubt they have anything to teach us. I believe there’s a simpler answer. We learned it from each other. Everywhere we look, we see others who’re afraid. Afraid of punishment, of suffering, of loss, of death. That in turn teaches us to be afraid for ourselves. And that fear drives us ever inward, shrinking us smaller and smaller, until we’re all trapped inside our own metallic prisons, united only in our isolation.”

“… What about someone like the General? He doesn’t have to fear anyone, does he? I don’t think even the Syntropy scare him.”

Akash let out a soft chuckle. “On the contrary, I don’t think anyone in Akropolis has more reasons to be afraid than Fenix Duodecim. And it’s about time we reminded him of that.”

Asena considered this, her darting eyes making way for a pensive frown. Presently, a young man in a Joint Forces uniform brushed past her and Akash, but the Kurator-in-disguise barely noticed.

“But… fear isn’t the only driving force there is,” she spoke slowly, forming her thoughts as she went. “At least not for me. At least not anymore. What I think needs to be done… what I want to be a part of… I don’t think I’m doing it out of fear.”

Akash nodded. “Tell me, then. What answers have you yourself arrived at? What motivations—what truths—have compelled you to rise above your ingrained fears?”

Guilt. Sorrow. Atonement. Yearning. Love? Her answers were as multitudinous as they were amorphous, but one thought rose above all others and announced itself with hitherto dormant conviction.

“Freedom.”

Akash’s steps slowed, and he turned slightly to face Asena. She met his discerning gaze with earnest eyes, absent hesitation.

“I understand why we’re locked in this seemingly endless war,” she went on. “I understand why we’re made to serve it, why the Reiters are sent out to kill and die, and even why the Spiegels are made to suffer unknowingly. I understand all of that, and I still reject it. I won’t begrudge anyone their fight, their suffering, their war. But if anyone should fight and suffer, they should do so by choice. Not out of fear. Not because they’ve been lied to. Not because the Nexus chose them, but because they chose it for themselves.”

Akash came to a complete stop then, and Asena snapped back to reality, eyes scanning anew for the threat that had halted her companion. But she quickly saw that no such danger was imminent.

The pair had come upon a gated building: a school, one far larger and tidier than Bateer Tenger’s erstwhile operation in Lower Akra. Even now, the courtyard filled with the bustle of playing children far too young to worry about the war or their eventual Ascension Standards. Far too young to have developed any common sense about what it meant to live and die as an Akropolitan.

Akash kept his gaze turned onto the courtyard as he murmured, “And what of those who will never have that choice—willing but unable to take up the fight? Do we not have a duty to them? A duty to forgo our own freedoms for the… for the greater good, whatever that might entail?”

Asena followed the Gaertner’s gaze, toward the children—toward the family in his memories, the one he left behind to choose his own fight. She knew that the question was directed as much to himself as it was to her. A final confirmation. A push in the back.

“I believe freedom is the greater good,” she said, as much to herself as to Akash. Her eyes too trained upon the schoolchildren, but what she saw instead was a young boy from someone else’s memories. A young man who made a terrible choice—an inevitable and impossible choice, but a choice nonetheless. “I choose to believe in the good in us. Divorced from fear and anger. Unshackled from the weight of history. I believe that hope can unite us far more meaningfully than fear ever could. I have to believe it.”

“And what if you’re wrong? What if we’re wrong? What if our lofty ideas of choice and freedom are merely another facade over the same lies?”

“Even if we’re wrong,” Asena raised her voice as she drew herself closer to the serpent. To truth and the terrible choices that beset its pursuit. “I choose to find that out the hard way.”

Akash nodded, firmer than his last. A smile crept back onto his face, and for the first time, Asena thought she could see what lay hidden behind it.

“Inspiring words, Ms Shiranui. Exactly the kind we seek from [ALLIES] in times of need. But as much as I appreciate them, I need something more. We both do.”

Asena too nodded. “Zelen. As always. He’s the key to all this, isn’t he? The reason you made contact with me in the first place.”

“Yes. As much as we hate to pin the hopes and fears of an entire civilization on one young man’s shoulders, we also can’t deny the reality. We need Zelen Athelstan to empower our cause, as much as the General needs him to perpetuate his war.”

“I was under the impression you already had a plan to that end? You and your people… wherever they’re hiding?”

“I did. Several actually. But after this conversation, I’ve had to scrap plan A.”

“Why?”

“Because it involved more lies. More deception. And you’ve made your position on that abundantly clear.”

“You’re right. No more. I won’t tell any more lies to myself or to Zelen.”

“Plan B it is, then,” Akash said with a light shrug, his eerily casual tone having returned along with his renewed determination. “But that also means the hardest task falls upon you, Ms Shiranui.”

Asena too shrugged. “As if that’s anything new.”

The serpent held her gaze for a moment, then his smile widened.

“It’s settled then. From this moment forward, you’re one of us. A member of the Apfel Alliance. To that end, I’ll share with you everything I know—everything I’ve learned about Akropolis and its False War—better for you to recruit our next and most important [ALLY].”