Aurora Over a Dead World

Chapter 44: A Complex Truth to Accept

"...Hmmmm...I can’t move," I say to Eirwen, seeing that even after she dispelled most of the cold, the parts of my prosthetics are still heavily damaged.

"If you want...I can carry you," she says, sitting on the floor.

"I don’t need that. You’re kind of scrawny. I don’t think you can."

"Of course I can!" She comes over to me, turning her back, and then tries to lift me onto it, but when she does, she nearly pitches forward.

"!!?" She looks confused as she tries to move me, managing to recover a little.

"You’re exhausted from using so many vectors for so long. Are you seriously not going to get crushed and die?"

"Y-You’re so heavy..."

"...I’d be offended if it weren’t true." Naturally, I’m heavy. I have all these prosthetics, and there’s also my tail. All of it weighs a lot, to the point that my total weight is 543 kilos.

’It’s surprising that Eirwen can even carry me. I literally weigh a little over half a ton...’ All this weight comes mainly from the material reinforced against vectors. It’s so dense that the weight is naturally enormous, even if it doesn’t look it.

"H-How much do you weigh?"

"Now you’re getting a little too curious."

"..."

"D-Do you want to know how it happened?"

"How what happened?" I ask as she moves me in slow steps.

"H-How I killed people...without meaning to..."

"You’re really needy right now, aren’t you? If you want to tell your story so badly, fine, but I barely know you. Don’t expect much empathy from me. I’ll just listen. Don’t expect pretty words like ’I understand you’ and ’I’m here for you.’ I’m not that kind of person."

"If you’re expecting validation, be quiet and tell your sad story to someone else."

"...Alright...I don’t expect any of that from you, Professor Zenith..."

"Good."

"...It was a few years ago...I was around 14. I asked to take part in a mission to save civilians, and after insisting a lot, I was allowed to respond to an emergency call."

"...I-I was really happy...b-but the person in charge of the mission was just ignoring the wounded civilians and only saving people who were fine..."

"I-I argued with him, and in a moment of losing control, I ended up releasing my power...I-I know I shouldn’t have done it. There were so many civilians there...b-but it was so unfair. He was abandoning so many people who could have been saved..."

"It seems like it’s in your nature to defy your superiors and ruin everything. You should have learned from that and not done the same thing again." She did exactly that with me on our first mission.

"Besides, it’s protocol. You can’t blame everyone for following protocol."

"Save the wounded first? Forget that nonsense. The reality is that protocol says to save those who are well first, or at most those with minimal injuries. It makes no sense for the government to try to save people who are severely injured or in critical condition when they can give that space to a healthy person."

"It’s pretty cold, but if you’re a civilian and you’re wounded, your chances of being saved drop instead of increasing, since protocols only think about maximum efficiency. There are several problems with saving injured people."

"There’s logistics, care, medical teams, and, obviously, there’s the fear they cause and the smell of blood coming from them, which can get in the way," I explain to Eirwen.

"I expected something more, you know, Eirwen? You killed so many people over a stupid mistake. I hope you never forget that. Orders and protocols exist precisely to save the greatest number of people in the shortest possible time."

"If someone is abandoned, it may seem like cruelty, but it’s a necessary cruelty. Every time you question a protocol, you put more lives at risk."

"If you want to complain, all you can do is climb the military hierarchy. Certain positions allow you to open votes for new rules, although I doubt anyone with a sound mind would agree to remove current rules that work well."

"...Y-You know, Professor, you’re...terrible. The worst human being I’ve ever met in my life..."

"Welcome to the real world. When you enter the army, you’ll find people just like me or worse in positions of power. Also, never fight with your superiors on a mission again. Finish the mission first, then complain. That attitude of yours really irritates me."

"P-Professor...have you ever killed civilians by accident?" I don’t know if she’s ignoring what I said because she’s changing the subject.

"Yes." When I say yes, Eirwen looks surprised. She even glances back as if she didn’t expect it.

"Don’t look at me like I was never supposed to make mistakes in life. Let’s face it, we’re people with powers. It’s impossible not to kill people by accident, especially civilians, who are so fragile."

"Once, I broke a girl’s arm without meaning to when I tried to pull her out from under some rubble. That day, I realized how the chip in my brain had made my body stronger, and that was before I had prosthetics."

"So, to a Kairas, a human is like a fragile, brittle bar. If you don’t hold it carefully, it’ll be broken to pieces...and, of course, unlike the core with more stable power, my powers that come from the chip are very unstable."

"I’ve killed civilians, colleagues, and even some superiors by accident during stressful and complicated missions, usually when I had to overuse my powers and they became unstable. Fortunately, the army is quite understanding, though there are people who say we should be imprisoned for these accidental ’crimes.’"

"So, Eirwen, I understand well what it’s like to kill an innocent by accident. It’s not very pleasant...though I never killed as many as you did, so it must be a different weight for the two of us."

"..." She seems crestfallen about something.

"I-I feel so stupid and wicked. What I did is unforgivable..."

"The only person who can forgive you is yourself, because no one else is going to forgive you for it. If you keep playing the victim, you’ll look pathetic and like you’re trampling over the lives you took," I say, in a very pragmatic way, the unavoidable reality.

"Y-You’re terrible at m-motivating others..."

"I warned you well before you started your monologue about your life."

"Why do you have to be so insensitive?! I-I’m trying my best."

"Everyone is. That doesn’t mean they deserve sensitivity. If you want to feel better, find something you think will give you a sense of forgiveness."

"I’ve seen plenty of people start saving more lives in a committed way, all to feel better about themselves. It’s not as selfish as it sounds to save lives to feel good about yourself instead of saving lives because lives deserve to be saved."

"A-And you!? Why do you save lives, then?" she asks, irritated with me.

"To survive. As someone who lived on the streets, I needed it to survive. I never saved people thinking specifically about that in the past. I started saving people because I needed money, status, and help to keep myself alive and to keep Nadir alive."

"Nadir is the same. Life wasn’t as good for us as it is for you, who can study and live safely here, understand? That doesn’t mean I go around criticizing you all the time."

"My reason for saving lives may have been ’selfish,’ but the lives saved can’t question why they were saved, don’t you think? They should just be grateful they were saved and move on."

"All this unpleasant melodrama simply displeases and irritates me most of the time, although it’s great to see the happiness and hope of civilians. I still prefer killing monsters to being part of rescue-related teams."

"..."

"I-Isn’t it safer to save people? Why take risks with an unstable power?" She asks a good question.

"..."

"Because I deeply hate the monsters. Because I hate our world. And because I like breaking things."

"...?"

"When you’re someone full of hatred, killing monsters is liberating. You don’t have to be careful, or seem good, or seem trustworthy. You just need to kill, regardless of the method."

"Ah, but don’t get it wrong. It’s not exactly liking to kill. It’s just the feeling that I have enough control to destroy whatever stands in my way. There’s a difference."

"Seeing monsters being deformed is honestly a disgusting sight, but the feeling of having the power to crush these beasts that threaten humanity makes me feel like I’m part of the small fraction that has control over their own life."

"I hate living like a rat. To me, living on this island hidden from the monsters down below is like living locked up, and I don’t like it." I still haven’t gotten used to living among civilians. It’s very difficult.

"...Why did you tell me that?"

"Because I’m a professor. A professor should guide her students, isn’t that right? If all I have to teach is my experience, talking about it is what can help the most."

"Eirwen, you’re honestly the most...how to put it...forget it. I couldn’t find the word. Well, just think about this."

"You’re not special to me. I’ll say things like this to the other five as well. I’ll guide you, protect you, save your lives when possible, and teach you to survive."

"I’ll do that until maybe someday I recover my position as commander and can go back to participating in missions down below."

"...Don’t you want to learn to live like a normal person? L-Like...live peacefully?"

"...I’m not, I won’t be, and I never was a normal person, so that normal-person life isn’t possible for me."

"My trained body is incapable of living among normal people. I’m a risk to the life of everyone around me. If someday I’m sleeping near a tree and someone gets too close and touches me, I could instinctively blow that person’s head off if I’m not fast enough to analyze the situation in a fraction of a second."

"I’m a ticking time bomb, just like all my rebellious students. Why do you think you don’t see retired Kairas walking around the streets normally? Most avoid it for the same reason I just explained. Training and instinct are things that can’t be erased."

"And you’ll also be like this in the future."

"It sounds like a...difficult life."

"Yes, it is. Now, let’s shut up and move on. I’m dying for my prosthetics to be repaired. Take me to the academy soon because I need help for that, since I can’t move any of them without breaking them completely."