Chapter 19 – Duality

He was alive, which was great and all, but he was in the hands of the enemy, so still looked at his fate through a gloom. Not only that, the unpredictable nature of JD turned from amusing to terrorizing, now that he knew what he was capable of. It wasn’t the same fear he had before, though. It was a dull kind of fear – like he knew he should be scared, but was too tired to care.

His vanished legs were slowly being reformed. He saw the exposed blood vessels form and muscle grow from his thighs. Magic was the basis of everything here. Who needed doctors or nurses? Just get yourself a crazed duck.

‘W-Where am I?’ Kuno asked. ‘Where are we going?’

The rabbitmen turned to JD for the answers. After stabilizing Kuno, they went back to the camp to retreat their stuff, and then got a call from the base camp. A party of Regnum was clearing out the outer camps up north, and they were told to return. The trip would encompass at least five days, but the hard part was Kuno. If JD told the Empire they had captured the second Shitman, they would get a deluxe express-summoning by teleportation. But for some reason, he didn’t speak… neither to the rabbitmen, nor the Empire.

‘We’re going northeast, to our base camp,’ Chompy said, with Hopper continuing: ‘your comrades have been attacking our camps up north. We’re retreating to stop them.’

The rain had stopped already, but although the rabbitmen walked through the softened earth, leaving marks as they went, the mud rose to fill the dents, leaving no trail whatsoever. Although the forest belonged to them, it wasn’t like it abided by their will. Any wonders Kuno had, he filled in with JD. Except for one:

‘What are you? What kind of being are you…JD?’

JD didn’t respond, causing the rabbitmen to feel tense and answer him instead, before things got out of hand again. ‘H-He’s one of the Five Pillars of the Empire,’ Chompy said. ‘He owns one of the legendary weapons of Soji…’

‘What’s that, a Pillar? And I’m not talking about the tall vertical structure of stone, wood, or metal, used as a support for a building, or as an ornament or monument™.’ Kuno said.

After making it out alive, one would think Kuno would be scared to speak so freely, but Kuno couldn’t feel freer. He had already accepted dying, and still had to process he hadn’t.

‘The Five Pillars are the strongest people in the Soji Empire,’ Hopper said.

‘Alright…’ Kuno said. ‘Simple. So what the fuck is he doing here? Why would he be here?’ he began getting pissed at his luck, totally glossing over the fact that he had fought one of the strongest enemies he could’ve faced. ‘Are you kidding me…’ he thought. ‘One step into the enemy zone and I find this motherfucker!?’

‘H-He…’ Chompy said. ‘He-uhh…’ he didn’t feel comfortable talking about JD with him being here, but JD was so zoned out, it didn’t even matter what they said as long as it was not about geese. He still faced forward with an empty look on his face. He could either be lost in his thoughts or drifting through his empty mind. Either way, someone had to answer these questions.

‘The captain likes to do what he wants… which isn’t something the Emperor likes. That’s why he can only go on small trips… far from the capital,’ Hopper said. ‘He had a traumatic experience on the battlefield… and hasn’t been the same since.’

‘Red,’ JD suddenly said, drawing all eyes in. ‘JD saw red, but JD didn’t like red.’

An awkward silence befell the group. Only Kuno mustered the courage to ask: ‘What do you mean, you saw red?’

‘QUAHAHA!’ he laughed, startling the rabbitmen. ‘All red. Wife red, daughter red, grass red, trees red, all red. Only JD not red,’ he said, turning around. Kuno looked him deep in the dark eyes. He didn’t know what it was, but JD’s eyes missed something. They didn’t feel like spheres in a man’s skull, but rather like holes. ‘Empty…’ he thought. ‘The anger I saw earlier is gone… It just an abyss… this guy’s running on autopilot…’

JD put his finger on his temple. ‘But JD is smart,’ he said. ‘If family red, JD turns red too,’ he turned back again, like he just said something mind blowing.

‘His family died in the fall of Akakuni… When the reinforcements found him, he was swimming in the blood of the fallen, having become the man you see here today.’

He didn’t know how to respond to that. ‘A war veteran who has lost his mind… I must’ve triggered him…’

After half a minute of silence, Kuno asked the rabbitmen: ‘why did you guys save me anyway…’

Everyone but JD smiled at Kuno as Chompy dug into his jacket. He pulled out something and showed Kuno. ‘You dropped this,’ he said. It was a match. ‘You could’ve killed us, couldn’t you? But you didn’t…’

The contrast between the rabbitmen and JD was so extreme, Kuno began to laugh. ‘So, you guys decided to save me because I let you live? I-I was too weak to do it… but that doesn’t mean I stopped seeing you guys as the enemy.’

‘We know,’ Hopper said. ‘But none of your peers ever think twice about killing us… Let alone spare us.’

Kuno could imagine Regnum to be like that, and thinking back to the first quest, understood that even good people still mercilessly killed these animal-people, like they had a switch they could turn to make the voices stop. Maybe he still had to harden like them… but the rabbitmen wanted to take that chance. ‘The villagers of Vermillion village weren’t harmed at all…’ Kuno thought. ‘Would the same be true if we were the attackers?’

Kuno just wanted to level, sadly not completely grasping the consequences of the violence that was needed to achieve that. Among the 26 people here, probably only JD understood that perfectly.

‘Would you spare me if I wasn’t the new Shitman…?’ he asked, almost certain about the answer. A lot of things would be different if he weren’t the intestines user.

‘You carry a great privilege, Kuno,’ JD said, his tone turned stern.

Kuno clenched his jaw, swallowing the saliva in his mouth as the rabbitmen got another surge of chills.

‘You’re a double-edged sword…’ JD said. ‘Killing or not killing - both are correct ways to deal with you…’ he gave a sigh. ‘Quah… We actually thought a lot about what we had to do if we found another Shitman on Soji grounds.’

He turned around to look Kuno in the eyes. Kuno didn’t want to see his face right now, but couldn’t look away for some reason. His golden beak, white feathers, the bland look on his face, they were the same but still felt different. The newly made memories had changed everything.

‘The first option was to kill you as soon as possible,’ JD said. ‘The second… was to send you back…’

Kuno’s mind felt numb, but the rabbitmen reacted for him. ‘What!? What do you mean send him back. We need him to fight for us! We need to send him to the capital,’ Hopper said.

‘That’s what the Emperor would want me to do…’ JD said. ‘But JD listens to someone else!’

The rabbitmen widened their eyes, quickly looking over their shoulder to see if anyone heard these dangerous words. ‘Are you insane, captain!?’ Chompy said, already knowing he had a couple screws loose, but never imagining this many. ‘What if he grows just as strong as the Shitman and attacks us!? That’ll be the end of the Empire!’

JD didn’t face Kuno, but still asked: ‘will you destroy the Soji Empire, Kuno?’

‘I-…’ Kuno didn’t know what to say to this behemoth of a question. ‘I…’ the rabbitmen looked at him with glassy eyes, begging without words. ‘I don’t know… I don’t want to be here. This is way too much for me--- You know what, no it isn’t! I don’t want to destroy the Soji Empire, but I don’t want to destroy the Kingdom of Regnum either! I just want to end this war peacefully and go home!’

His left leg had completely returned as he still floated in the sphere.

One – two – three seconds passed and everyone burst out in laughter, JD especially: ‘QUAHAHAHA!’

‘W-What? Why are you guys laughing!?’ Kuno said, but it would take a while for them to finish.

‘JD’s glad he didn’t squish you like little banana pie on the kitchen floor!’ JD said.

‘What the fuck… Who would anyone leave a pie on the floor? You know what? Why am I even questioning the words of this guy?’ Kuno thought.

‘You’re laughing at me because I’m ridiculous, right? I know this bit, you think; ‘haha, this guy thinks he can end the war. Who does he think he is?’’

They wiped their teary eyes, some still laughing. ‘These are tears of joy, Kuno,’ Chompy said. ‘You repeated the words of the Shitman word for word, literally!’

He tilted his neck forward. ‘Wait, what!?’ he said. ‘Why would you have tears of joy? I thought he was a super strong soldier of Regnum who almost destroyed your empire or something…’

‘QUAHAHAHA!’ JD laughed.

‘Destroy our empire?’ Hopper said with a smile.

‘Kuno, he saved it! The Shitman is one of the Five Pillars. He’s the Hero of Soji!’