Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 31: A Truth Without Villains

After a few minutes, a team arrived to assess the entire site, and half an hour later, Astrid herself showed up. No matter how busy she is, the threat level demands that strong people get involved even if the threat isn’t here — after all, you can’t gamble on it not being here, because if it is and it goes unnoticed, we’ll have problems.

"So, how did it end up like this?" Astrid asks in a serious tone while I use a towel to finish cleaning all the blood out of my hair.

"I don’t know. I just found traces that that little metamorph freak was around, so I made the best call and crushed everything. You’ll probably need a bigger team to analyze the wreckage and find any remains," I tell her in a cold tone.

"...You did the right thing. The risk of a threat like that being here outweighs the cost of having destroyed this place... I’m not one to question people I know are competent, so I’ll accept your decision. After all, even if you’re just a tutor now, your experience doesn’t vanish." She looks around.

"And are you alright? It’s really rare to see you use your powers like that," she says in a tone devoid of any real concern.

"I’m fine. An attack like this isn’t going to kill me."

"...I see you’ve been quite active. I—" I ignore Astrid and start walking away.

"Are you seriously going to ignore me!?" she says in an irritated tone.

"I already filed the report. I have nothing else to say to you, and frankly, I don’t want to hear anything right now. I can ask Nexus later if necessary, or dig through the files collected from this place."

"...You bitter bitch," she mutters angrily as I head over to Eirwen, who’s sitting in a car talking to a masked soldier jotting things down on a piece of paper.

"Hey, Eirwen, let’s go. We’re done here," I say to her. She looks at me and then bites her lip. She stands and comes over while the soldier gives me a nod.

I start to leave with Eirwen following me. It’s very late at night, and now I’ll have to spend the whole night figuring out what to do about this missing arm, since I don’t have a spare prosthetic.

’Damn... I should have bought a spare prosthetic instead of just repair parts...’

"S-Sorry..." Eirwen apologizes as we distance ourselves from the chaotic scene, pulling me from my thoughts.

"Why are you apologizing? For attacking me? For fighting with me? For running away? Or for my arm?" I list the various reasons she might be apologizing, though I don’t want an apology.

"I-I didn’t think... I didn’t think it would end up like this... J-Just... why did you save me?" she asks nervously as I stop at a red light.

’I want a lollipop... but I need a bath first.’

"Because you were my responsibility. I would have done the same for any of my students or civilians if I saw a situation that was doable and had a chance of working out."

"Besides... an arm doesn’t matter. It’s just a piece of metal. I can replace it at any time." I wish that were entirely true, but I feel it is something unpleasant. It was my prosthetic that I’d had for years. That prosthetic had a lot of history.

"S-Still... I-I messed up—"

"Yes, you messed up. I’m not glossing over it. You messed up badly, but everyone makes mistakes, and with you being a student and me the teacher, that ends up making it part of my responsibility."

"You have room to make mistakes, because I will protect you from the mistake up to a certain point. I really don’t care much that you fought against me or your reaction. It’s just annoying that it ruined a mission."

"But it was something quite small in the beginning. Learn from this failure." She bites her lip again as I move forward through the green light.

"You seem worried about me." I sit down on a bench, talking to her, giving her space so she can speak. I recognize concern when I see it, although I don’t understand why she’s worried about me since she always seemed to dislike me.

"..." She stares at me for a while and then sits on the bench beside me.

"Didn’t you like being saved?"

"...I... didn’t expect to be saved... especially not by you."

"Why?"

"..." I wonder if she’ll open up. There has to be some reason. In her file, Astrid made it clear she’s obedient most of the time, but when she decides to disobey, she causes problems, and now I’ve seen it firsthand. Most of the time she obeyed despite not liking it, but in the most important part, she disobeyed.

"If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I’ll be honest. Your past really doesn’t matter to me, and I’m not going to treat you differently or better just because of some sad little story. We all have problems, and I only care about my own story." I don’t even know my own story well from before I was seven.

"...M-My father... my father was a vice-commander. He led a team specialized in civilian rescues... S-So I grew up having him as an example. He always told me about the importance of saving civilians," she starts to recount, and I see she’s decided to talk about her past.

"M-My life was great, but one day he never came back, and I just received the news that he died..." This explains Eirwen’s financial and practical situation.

"But it wasn’t a monster that killed him... he was killed by the commander who gave the orders after he disobeyed and went to save civilians... The commander who killed him was... was someone like you... pragmatic, cold, someone who seems to not care about anyone."

’I see... so that’s why she disagrees with me, and that’s why she’s telling me this story now... she thinks I’m "different" from that commander.’ I keep listening in silence.

"He was a good man, and he was killed just because he wanted to save lives." When she says that, I think about the past.

’A commander killing a vice-commander, someone similar to Eirwen... ah... yes, I remember that...’ I read reports about it. Who would have guessed that complete idiot was Eirwen’s father.

"I know what happened with your father, and the reason he was killed. Do you at least know it?" When I say that, she looks at me in surprise.

"Y-You knew him?"

"No, but I’m a former commander. It’s obvious I have access to that kind of information. Your father is the type of person we call a ticking time bomb in the military."

"Too much morality, just like you. But do you know a terrible reality of the rescue team? A reality that your father, and from what I see, you, ignored?"

"The civilian rescue team is divided into two divisions. One commanded by the commander, and the other by the vice-commander. The vice-commander is responsible for directly saving the civilians."

"That’s what your father did. Noble work, and we greatly respect people who do that... but your father was an idiot." When I say that, she looks at me with hatred, grinding her teeth.

"Do you know why he was an idiot? Because he only saw his own work. The division led by the commander is the one responsible for killing monsters, protecting the area, and being the shield that defends the division your father commanded."

"But that division has to do this in absolute secrecy, so that civilians don’t have contact with fear monsters or the brutality of battles. It means your father never saw how hard that role is."

"One minute... a single minute costs thousands in financial costs, logistics, and lives. Many of these rescues happened while a dangerous monster was nearby."

"And many times, the commander’s team didn’t have the strength to kill the monsters. They just held them off until a team of strong Kairas arrived at the location — that is, if a team was sent, which sometimes didn’t happen and they were left on their own."

"Do you understand what that means? It means that saving one life is the line between getting everyone killed or leaving someone to die."

"Your father was a ticking time bomb because in 87% of his record, he exceeded the time limit. The commander who commanded everything was very patient, and still gave him extra time."

"The commander who killed your father was a hard and rigid man, but one who understood your father and granted him something he shouldn’t have — time."

"And that time killed many of the friends of that commander you seem to despise. Your father was only a hero because another hero gave him time and protection."

"But do you know something ironic about time? Sometimes it isn’t something that can be given. The mission in question that killed your father was a truly problematic attack with many monsters."

"Not one strong monster, but hundreds of mid-level monsters, which is worse, because protecting civilians and preventing them from seeing so many monsters is absurdly difficult."

"In that type of moment, the time the mission should last is 5 to 10 minutes, and retreat must be the priority. Do you know how long the mission had already taken? 30 minutes. Three times the stipulated time."

"All because your father wanted to save more people. I truly understand him, but with every second that passed, it got harder. The transport vehicles sit idle waiting for everyone. One moment of carelessness would get everyone killed — the military members and the civilians already rescued."

"It’s just that your father was stubborn, just like you, and as commander, that man chose between killing one or letting everyone die." When I say that, Eirwen cries with a mix of hatred and understanding.

"The commander you hate really is similar to me, but he’s better. I wouldn’t have given your father all that time. I wouldn’t have covered his failures. I would have had him expelled from his position."

"I hate unnecessary risks. Don’t think I’m ’nice’ just because I saved you by sacrificing my arm, or that I’m better than the man you despise. So, Eirwen, if we ever work together on a life-or-death mission, what separates your survival from me driving my tail through your chest is merely how many lives will be saved if I do that."

"Never forget what I said. Kaira’s are weapons, and weapons can be discarded if it saves lives. Unfortunately... we’re all replaceable." I stand up, looking at her, and she seems to see a new perspective on life.

"But as long as I can keep you alive, I will. Decisions that extreme aren’t rare, but they take time to lead to life-or-death situations. I understand why you think about disobeying your superiors."

"And I understand your hatred for the one responsible for your father’s death. It’s really complex when you don’t understand the full picture."

"Abandoning people to death seems terrible, but don’t forget that not only the civilians are alive — the people who save them are alive too."

"Honestly, I’m surprised your father survived that long. That commander was truly someone very patient and permissive, and you can be sure your father only lived that long because that man protected him tooth and nail until he couldn’t anymore." I start to walk away.

"The world isn’t as colorful as you want it to be, but it’s not black and white either. Learn to differentiate necessities from something inevitable."

"Go home, and think about this... Nexus, send all the reports about her father to Eirwen. Use Nadir’s access for that." It’s better she see it with her own eyes than me showing or explaining it to her. Let her draw her own conclusions.

I won’t deny her father was a good man, a "hero." But heroes don’t live very long, and the man who killed Eirwen’s father only did what he had to do to prevent everyone there from dying.

’...This reminds me of Nadir...’ I look at my arm. The day I lost my limbs, Nadir was supposed to have left. That idiot came back for me. He could have been left behind there. Despite what I said, I understand Eirwen.

Incomplete information, no apparent reason, a commander who seems harsh and terrible on the surface, no one shows up to explain to the families why decisions like these are made. They just inform them that they died. A terrible failure of communication on our part.