[Volume 2.5 | Chapter 94: A Return to the Capital (VI)]

Hazard collapsed back into the chair as if his spine had suddenly liquefied. He reached for a water canteen hanging from his belt, unscrewed the cap with fumbling fingers, and proceeded to empty half its contents down his throat with undignified gulps. Some of it missed his mouth entirely, trickling down his chin and spotting his immaculate uniform.

"Sweet merciful Convergence," he moaned, draping himself across the armrests like a discarded marionette. "Why does my face hurt so much? Is talking supposed to be this exhausting? I think I dislocated my jaw mid-speech! They don't prepare you for this in officer training, you know. 'Here's how to lead a charge against entrenched positions,' sure. 'Here's how to maintain morale during a retreat,' absolutely. But no one ever mentions that the real enemy is endless briefings that turn your tongue into sandpaper and make you get lockjaw!"

Pandora watched this display, poorly concealing her irritation.

"With all due respect, General, is excessive talking really what makes you question your career choices? Not the constant bloodshed that has defined this entire conflict?"

Hazard froze mid-grimace.

Pandora Kircheisen, once again, spoke before she could mince her words.

The blond straightened in the chair, and for a brief, startling moment, the family resemblance between him and High General Helen Vessalius became unmistakable.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, I question it. Every single day."

His eyes fixed on some point beyond the office walls.

Perhaps seeing battlefields rather than bureaucracy.

"I question what would have happened if I'd rejected the path expected of every able-bodied Vessalius and devoted myself to chivalry instead. Become a Knight rather than a General. I question whether I could have saved more lives protecting citizens from Crisis Beasts than I've destroyed sending battalions against enemy fortifications. I question every order I've signed that resulted in body bags being shipped home to families who will never understand why their children died in frozen forests thousands of miles away for territorial disputes that will be forgotten in a generation."

He didn't pause to even catch his breath.

"I question whether the Northern Theater was worth the 16,000 Tachyon casualties we've suffered so far. I question whether the Wallachian territories we're supposedly protecting will even exist by war's end or if we're just delaying their inevitable annexation. I question whether the Council of Generals sees soldiers as anything more than colored pins on tactical maps to be moved, sacrificed, and replaced according to statistical models that reduce human lives to numerical values and acceptable loss percentages… And mostly I question whether I'm any better than my sister, who sleeps soundly despite ordering operations with casualty rates that would give most commanders nightmares. At least she believes in what she's doing. I just keep moving the meat grinder forward and hoping peace eventually emerges from the other side."

The silence that followed pressed against their skin like deep-water pressure. Even Siegfried, who had been attempting to dissociate—trying to calculate what transfer to the Pacific Theater would mean for their survival prospects—couldn't ignore Hazard's honesty.

Pandora's expression ached with regret.

"General, I apologize for my presumption. It was inappropriate and—"

Hazard waved her off. He wasn't smiling in his eyes, however.

"Don't worry about it, Lieutenant. Occupational 'hazard' of command, haha. Just don't mention it to Marseille. She'd have me removed if she heard what I just said!"

"You know what you need, Haz-Bear?" Bianca interjected, trying to bring some joy back into the conversation. "Some fun! Real, actual, non-war-related fun!"

"I believe that's our cue to leave," Hazard said. He was grateful for the change of subject. "You're dismissed for today. Consider yourselves on leave until further notice. Explore the capital, enjoy the Winter Festival, do whatever young people do… or something."

Bianca needed no further encouragement, seizing Pandora's hand like it were gold. "Come on, Dora! The snow's waiting! I want to try ice skating and eat those roasted chestnuts and build a snowman and maybe start a snowball fight with those kids we saw earlier and—"

"Private Idrina, this is highly—" Pandora's protest lacked conviction as Bianca pulled her toward the door.

Though… she wasn't entirely opposed to experiencing normal adolescent activities for once.

"You're both completely unbearable," Siegfried muttered, rising from his chair stiffly. "Ze unedle and ze smartass. Perfect companions for my final days of sanity."

Hazard regarded him curiously as the girls disappeared through the doorway. "Not a fan of winter recreation, Eisenberg? Or are you afraid of a little snow?"

Siegfried's eyes flashed; they resembled fresh blood on white ice.

"I hate ze snow. Everything about it."

"Huh, interesting. You struck me as more of a winter kid. Definitely not because of your sunny personality," Hazard quipped. "Such a visceral reaction, though... most people see snow and think of fun and childhood. Maybe monomaniacs of literature, like my good friend Raphae,l associate it with purity or a blank canvas. But it's rare to see someone who hates it, haha."

"Most people are fools," Siegfried replied. "Snow is just full of lies. It conceals. It obscures. It makes everything look clean and pristine when it's all filthy underneath. And in the end, all ze does is kill. It kills plants, animals, people... everything dies, frozen to death in a soft, fluffy white blanket."

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

He paused, realizing he'd said too much. The room had become uncomfortably quiet.

"...Or somezing."

Hazard studied him thoughtfully.

"I never took you for the cerebral type, Eisenberg."

"What ze hell is zat supposed to mean?" He snapped.

"Ahaha, nothing particularly~"

"...For your information, I was always ze 'cerebral' type, even before zat zicke dragged me from ze Canadian lands to serve in a war I never chose."

"That's my sister you're referring to, you know." Hazard's tone remained mild.

Siegfried shrugged indifferently. "If ze high heels fit..."

He turned to leave. He needed to find a shady bartender to hand him a good shot. A strong shot. Multiple shots.

"Eisenberg," Hazard called after him, his tone suddenly devoid of its earlier playfulness. "If you truly believe everything dies in the snow, then I'm sorry. Not just for your experiences, but for the person you've been forced to become."

Siegfried's back stiffened, and a familiar anger began to stir within him. He didn't turn around.

"Zere is nothing wrong with me. Zis is ze world zat's rotten to ze core."

"And despite that, you've excelled in this 'rotten' system. In mere months, you've achieved more than most would in a lifetime. Isn't that a testament to something, at least?"

"Excellence is survival. Nothing more."

"...Just survival, huh? Is that only what drives you?"

Siegfried stopped at the threshold. The air was suddenly heavier, colder, like he was back on the streets in Canada, alone in a world that didn't care.

"Ze desire to survive is all I've ever had. It's all anyone ever has."

The survival instincts of an animal. The cold, rational calculations of a thief on the streets. The primal drive to live, even as the world tries to bury you in a shallow, unmarked grave.

That's all he was.

As the Siegfried of House Eisenberg died that day, he left nothing but the base instincts of a bloodhound behind.

Eating, sleeping, pissing, shitting, stealing, fighting, bludgeoning, and ultimately surviving.

He'd lost the privilege of dreaming of anything other than his next meal.

Whether it'd be food or flesh... it didn't matter.

It was the only reason he was still breathing.

"Then, why did you save Private Idrina and Lieutenant Kircheisen on the second siege of annexed Winnipeg?"

The memory surfaced—a flash of silver amidst a blizzard of blood and gunpowder.

He had been separated from his unit, the entire squad nearly wiped out, except him, after his squad leader made a fatal miscalculation to flank a Sugoroku battalion during the second offensive of the occupied territory.

They rained [Engokus] and [Incendios] from the skies, incinerating Tachyon units after Tachyon units.

One stray meteor-like fireball was about to hit Bianca and Pandora before they could react. He saw, ran, and shielded them both without a second thought. He activated Ironhide and absorbed the brunt of the attack, and while his skin was impervious, the rest of him wasn't. The force of the impact and the explosion was enough to knock him off his feet, and he was sent sprawling, landing in a snowbank with a heavy thud.

He didn't need to do that.

If it were Helen Vessalius analyzing the scene, she would have said the action was illogical. They were low-risk casualties in the grand scheme of the battle, and saving them compromised his own safety for no discernible strategic gain.

But he did it anyway.

Because…

"I saved Pandora and Bianca because our combined capabilities maximize my future survival. Zat's all."

"You called them by their first names," Hazard noted.

Siegfried's face tightened.

"No, I—shit! It's just a slip of ze damn tongue! You're trying to manipulate me! Save them for inspiring doomed charges against Sugoroku fortifications!"

Hazard cringed visibly.

"It's not manipulation to suggest that finding meaning in connection isn't a weakness. Even in war—especially in war—holding onto our humanity is what separates soldiers from mere weapons."

"Maybe I prefer being a weapon! Weapons don't grieve. They don't hope. They just function until they break or become shitty,"

"Is that what happened in Wallachia? Did you break, Siegfried?"

Like a spring suddenly uncoiled, Siegfried whirled on Hazard and grabbed him by the collar of his uniform.

"Ze hell do you know about me, huh?! Who do you think you are, you bastard?! What ze hell would you know about anything?! ZAT'S ALL YOU CAN SAY?!"

He was panting, breath coming in short, sharp gasps, as though he'd just finished a sprint. His hands were clenched so tightly around Hazard's collar that they trembled.

Hazard met his gaze calmly, unflinchingly.

And smiled.

"So, you haven't forgotten how to get angry, huh? I was starting to wonder if your 'I don't give a shit' persona was a permanent fixture, ahaha."

Siegfried stared at him for a long moment, then released Hazard's collar with a rough shove. He turned away, his body tense, coiled like a spring about to snap.

"...Screw you."

Hazard merely fixed up his collar.

"Siegfried, you're one of the most talented soldiers I've ever met. Your battle instincts, your Birthright, and your ability to improvise in combat make you an invaluable asset. But, you are also just a kid. War is not a place for kids, no matter how much talent they possess. War is a place where the most terrible aspects of humanity are put on display, a place where the most terrible things imaginable are done for reasons that seem just and honorable at the time, but later, when the dust settles, and the blood is washed away, all that's left is regret."

Siegfried turned his back on Hazard, a dismissal, a retreat.

"Don't ever believe that it's a better alternative to anything, even hell. Because the battlefield is hell."

That stopped him.

"For every day you spend in hell, you lose a piece of your humanity. Until one day you wake up and realize that there was no point in living at all."

Hazard could have bored holes into the boy's back from how intense his gaze was.

"Cherish those two. They're your humanity, Siegfried."

Siegfried's shoulders rose and fell with a deep, shuddering breath.

"...How?"

An admission of weakness.

Or a plea for help.

"—I'm not strong enough to protect them."

His voice sounded strained, as if the words were being dragged out of him against his will. As if speaking them aloud would make them more real, more undeniable.

"Then I'll teach you to be strong enough to protect those that you cherish."

Siegfried looked over his shoulder. His eyes were wide with surprise, with confusion, with a glimmer of hope, and perhaps, with a hint of fear.

"By learning Ars Magna."

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.