When he heard the screams, the first thing Desmond did wasn't to think about who had screamed or why.

There was not even a trace of worry because the screams were undoubtedly coming from inside his room, not from one of the rooms to the side or the corridor, and he had seen nothing and nothing had happened to him.

He simply reacted.

In other words, he reached out for the sword, and realized again that it was no longer there.

That made him feel even worse than a moment later, when he realized that it was Amy's voice.

He grabbed the gun and got out of bed.

He used the physical reinforcement in his body, his eyes, so he could react as quickly as possible. Physical reinforcement wasn't his affinity. He was simply better at it than anyone else, because for no one else was it worth relying on such a... not useless, but self-destructive ability.

Every time he used it, he risked destroying his own body, as had happened when he pushed his limits to kill the spider.

That included, of course, his eyes.

If he screwed up, he could cause them to burst and he would be blind and relatively helpless for hours.

That's why even someone who was as sick in the head as he was didn't use it all the time. Only when he felt it was necessary, because the risk was too great.

He could fight with broken bones and torn muscles. But fighting blind was a different story.

Here it was worth it.

He thought so.

But as the darkness of the room took on the clarity of a sunny day, he saw that there was nothing and no one but the three of them.

Amy was sitting on the bed, screaming.

Yes, but she quieted down, swallowing saliva.

She...

Desmond's hands were shaking with adrenaline. He lowered the gun since there was no need for it. That much at least was clear.

It slowly dawned on him.

She had woken up from a nightmare. That was all. He sighed, half out of relief, half out of irritation and let the magic energy that flowed through his eyes like a thunderstorm disperse and disappear.

Darkness returned, but, soon, light took its place again.

For one of the teachers had opened the door. Behind him was another.

It was a female teacher, to be more precise.

"What's going on here?" More of a demand than a question. He supposed he couldn't blame him since everyone was on edge after the tragedy.

Still, he felt a pang of acute irritation. He had been having a nice dream, had been woken up suddenly by horrific screams, and the last thing he wanted now was to have to put up with being yelled at by a guy who fancied himself all too important.

In another situation, that urgency and his shouting would be justified. But at first glance he should know that there was indeed nothing going on here.

It was more like he wanted to rub it in their faces that they could enter their rooms whenever they felt like it. Invade their privacy.

Or maybe he was being uncharitable because he wasn't fully awake yet.

Either way, it was extremely unpleasant.

"Nothing," Christina said, pulling up the covers to cover herself a little more. She wasn't wearing revealing pajamas or anything. But he understood the impulse. "My partner just woke up from a nightmare. That's all. I doubt..."

"I doubt very much that she was the first one," he finished the sentence, cutting her off.

The teacher turned his head to look at him.

As I expected, his expression changed. The subtleties of human relationships escaped him. But fear? There was nothing subtle about that. Not in many of its forms, like this one.

This man had witnessed what he remembered dimly, like a dream.

The slaughter of the Empire's soldiers and the destruction of the spider.

They were animals, so it was natural that they should react in such a way.

That their reaction to a student's insolence would not be the same as if Christina had said it as if he had.

At least that's what he thought he was going to say.

Maybe he had screwed up, as usual, and had spoken out of turn for nothing.

He doubted it, though. Quite a lot.

"All right," he replied dryly, and closed the door.

There were two teachers on patrol. Two, even though all the survivors of the massacre were concentrated in this tower. It seemed a waste.

But he wasn't the one making the decisions, who was qualified to do so, and he wasn't interested in that anyway.

He was only interested in getting back to what the professor had interrupted.

Not to sleep, but to Amy.

Desmond went to turn on the light, but Christina beat him to it. Now that he thought about it, she hadn't said or done anything until the professor showed up. She hadn't even asked what was wrong, worried.

She could see in the dark, and so could he.

Damn it, of course! She had shadow magic under her control. It would be a joke if she couldn't see when and where she was strongest: in the pitch dark.

The odd thing was that he hadn't noticed it before.

Out of bed, they both approached Amy, who was breathing slowly, but hard, hard still. The shadow of her nightmare danced in her eyes.

Christina reached down and took one of Amy's hands in hers, squeezing.

He stood there, feeling out of place because he was. He had no idea what to say. He wanted to say a thousand things, but the gap between what to say and how to say it was too wide.

Besides, he was scared to death of putting his foot in his mouth and making things worse somehow.

It shouldn't have been that big a deal. For his head to be spinning so much.

Amy had simply had a bad dream. He should be able to say anything... But you'd have to be pretty dumb to think it had been just any nightmare when she'd woken up screaming.

It had surely been all too real for her.

"Amy," said Christina, "was it real?"

"Real enough."

"You don't have to tell us anything.... But if you want to talk about it, anything...."

"Anything? You say it like you don't... " Amy swallowed. "As if nothing happened. Just yesterday."

"Oh, that," Desmond said.

He felt like an idiot when Amy looked sideways at him.

"You too? I've killed people. We've killed people. How can you act like nothing happened?"

What are you talking about?, Desmond thought, just thought, because even he was smart enough to realize he should swallow that. You haven't killed a single human being that I know of.

Yesterday we only spilled the blood of animals.

Frankly, he didn't understand how it had affected her so much. This was what they'd signed up for, wasn't it? To kill. What else had she expected?

They had started earlier than expected, because the Empire had forced them to.

But that was the only difference, and a small one at that.

Maybe it was because of what was wrong with him. The missing pieces. But really, no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't understand why she had that look on her face as she looked at him.

Because there was fear in her eyes, now that the remnants of the nightmare had faded as any dream did.

He had expected the nightmare to be about what had happened yesterday.

But he thought it would be out of guilt that he had died to protect her, or, for example, so as not to appear so self-centered, because she herself had been close to death on several occasions. He understood that. That was only natural.

Death was the end of everything, the ultimate fear.

It had taken him too long to give her an answer, for Amy's expression changed again.

It didn't even need to be said, but it was for the worse.

"You don't understand." Amy laughed. "You don't get it, do you? You're so confused you can't even pretend to understand what I'm talking about. How did I think we were similar?"

Desmond swallowed. Then he plucked up his courage.

"No, I do understand you. I don't have nightmares and I never will. I don't feel guilty because I don't think I have any reason to feel that way.... "

"And neither do I!"

Desmond grimaced. It looked like he'd already screwed up. Of course he had.

He should have started any way but that.

What had he been thinking?

"I'm very aware that they are our enemies and they have to die, it's just.... It's just that..."

"We are all affected differently. Me too," Desmond continued, "I'm... uneasy, looking over my shoulder all the time. Even though I'm used to it, I feel... different. Especially since I've lost my sword that's been with me for so many years."

Amy's eyes widened.

"Used to it?"

She had noticed. He didn't want to talk about it, but ignoring her couldn't be good.

Besides, he'd started this, it was his fault, not hers, not anyone else's.

Just as he'd started it, he had to finish it.

"Yes. I've killed before." And human beings, not just animals. "Still, I'm not all right. So don't be so hard on yourself. You'll get over it. You'll get used to it."

He was lying, but that little speech wasn't entirely false.

He felt bad. But that was because his mind was stuck on the people he hadn't been able to save, not the ones he'd killed. And he was anxious, almost, almost hoping for a second chance to prove himself.

Almost.

Amy hadn't reacted as he'd hoped. She didn't have to thank him, get over it all at once or anything like that, but he had expected some positivity. He couldn't say she'd taken it badly, though, but she didn't seem pleased either, by any stretch of the imagination.

It was strange. He didn't know what to think.

Had he said something wrong, when, where, or was it not what he had said, the details, but that he had misunderstood her from the start?

I knew it. I knew it.

He knew he should have left this to Christina from the beginning, who had shown she knew what she was doing by saying so easily what he hadn't been able to articulate even inside his own head.

Yet he'd had to screw it up. Who did he think he was? These two had formed a good impression of him because they had met him in the middle of a war zone.

And that was what he was best at. Hurting, killing.

But from now on they would live a relatively peaceful life, training for four years to become soldiers, maybe less, but going straight to the battlefield. And then what they would be looking for would not be a killing machine, but a friend.

Desmond had never had a friend, but a friend had to understand, right? They had to be there and bring something to the table.

Relationships collapsed under their own weight if they were one-sided.

Yet he couldn't do as simple as comforting a friend who had suffered an all-too-real nightmare. He had tried, he really had tried as best he could, but it was useless and they would eventually realize, and the smiles and the laughter would stop, and they would never look at him the same way again, because his real face was one that even he couldn't look at himself in the mirror, it was wrong, wrong, he had always known there was something wrong, that something was missing, that he was different, different, different, different, but...!

"I don't know if you're telling the truth or if you're lying to make me feel better," Amy said, slowly and after a while. " But thank you."

Desmond stared at her.

After a while he nodded, feeling like a fool, because he was.

There were tears in his eyes.

"Doubt him if you want to," said Christina. "That's your right. But I have no reason to go that far just to make you feel better. No, rather, I'll be honest because I'm that kind of person. I didn't feel anything. Neither that day, nor afterwards. Nor do I feel uneasy. If they come again, I'll just kill them to survive. Or I will fall. It's not worth wasting time thinking about it. That's what I think."

"I see," Amy said, shrinking in on herself.

With every word that came out of Christina's mouth, the more he doubted whether he had judged her correctly. If it wouldn't have been better if he'd gone through with his clumsy attempts after all.

Because it was still clear that Christina knew what she was doing. She just didn't seem to care, that was the problem.

"But you don't have to be like me or Desmond," she continued. "You're no less because of how you feel. Quite the opposite. We're the outsiders. We're the ones who have something wrong with us that we can't make right. When the sun rises, go out and talk to some of the others and you'll see."

"No... It's not that."

Amy looked away and, for some reason, blushed.

His brain was working a hundred miles an hour to keep up with those two and he was proving totally incapable of it, over and over again.

Seriously, why was she blushing? Because it had finally passed and she'd realized that she'd been overdramatizing something that was just her duty, everyone's duty? Or because Christina had hit the nail right on the head?

"No?" Christina repeated, "Oh, I see. You know I'm right, but you don't care. It's true that most people would tell you that the best thing to do would be to become like the two of us as quickly as possible. But I'm not most people. You should hold on to those feelings tightly, even if they make you feel like shit. You know why?"

Amy looked back at her.

"Because you think that's what I need to hear right now."

"You're wrong. Haven't I already told you that I'm an honest person? You should get used to assuming that every word out of my mouth is the truth. I say that because... Soldiers are expected not to feel. We are nothing more than tools, after all. We can only malfunction when we break."

He couldn't say she was wrong, but it was only natural. No one could afford to hesitate in a fight to the death.

Let alone in the war for our existence. So Christina shouldn't talk about the birth of a soldier with sadness and a tinge of melancholy in her voice. Or should she? Instead of regaining his confidence that Christina knew what she was doing, that she was steering the conversation in the right direction...

Desmond ran out of time or desire to think about Amy's feelings.

He thought only of himself, plagued by the feeling that he had needles sticking in his skin, all over his body. Or, worse, insects crawling under his skin. Something like that.

"That's why I think you should hold on to the fear, and the guilt, and the disgust. Because that makes you more human than us. You agree, don't you, Desmond?"

He wasn't sure what Christina had meant about the life of a soldier. Where her feelings were pointing.

But, as to whether she wanted Amy to change or not, that much was clear to him.

She'd made a big deal out of nothing, from his point of view. It made him feel weirder than he was, or maybe aware of how weird he really was, and now he was partly irritated that she wouldn't cut the crap and they could go back to sleep. Because he really needed it.

A terribly selfish and petty part.

Just because he didn't understand her feelings didn't mean he couldn't sympathize with her, want her to feel better, and he did. Both of those things.

But...

"Yes. You're fine just the way you are."

He liked talking to her. Her mere presence made him feel better. He was attracted to Christina because they were similar, it hadn't taken him long to realize that, but, at the same time, Amy appealed to him because she wasn't remotely like him.

Because she was a normal girl and had given him a taste of what it might have been like to be a boy.

Well, normal by his standards.

Amy, like him, had chosen a life like this. A sharp, thorny path, full of sacrifices, that would end in anything but a natural death, in all likelihood.

Still, it was the closest thing to a normal person he had in his life.

And the closest he had ever come to normality.

He'd spent so long living as... How had Christina put it, though she hadn't intentionally referred to him?

As a tool.

He'd spent so long treating himself as a tool that...

"Thank you," Amy murmured. The red in her cheeks had faded.

His own flared as he smiled as if to unconsciously respond to it.

He needed things like this.

He had thought he needed nothing and no one, except for his gun and his sword. That every breath he breathed from now on would be dedicated solely to the accomplishment of his mission.

He hadn't realized that he was missing something, something more, until he reached his hand deep into the hole.

This was a good sign.

Things couldn't have started in a worse way, but they would turn out well since they had a strong foundation. For they were more alike and had a better rapport than he would ever have dared to dream.

Right?

■

"How are you feeling?"

There was a woman in a white dressing gown sitting in front of him with her legs crossed. Desmond was sitting in another small chair, a little too small for him, in fact, and with no back, which meant it was uncomfortable as hell.

That was the first thing that came to his mind. Uncomfortable. I don't want to be here.

And why should he keep quiet? Last night, with Amy, it was something else, but he was here to tell the truth, plain and simple. And it didn't have to be in a nice way.

"This is a waste of time." He took the path of sincerity, therefore.

"It's not healthy to bottle up your feelings. Even if it feels right now, it will wreak havoc on you in the long run. And, perhaps even worse, on the people around you. That's why..."

"I'm sorry. I want to get this over with as soon as possible. I'm not "bottling up" anything. I just don't care about the attack. All I care about is that I'm still alive."

"Even if you're telling me the truth, that in itself is a problem. You must know that, deep down. Because it's not normal at all. That day, you saw so many people die and you killed so many others with your own hands. Your mind, your heart, cannot have come out of that experience unscathed. Unless something worse happened to you. That, for example..."

"Are used to it? That's right. I am."

He didn't want to interrupt her again and again. He had kept his distance from people for ten years, speaking only what was needed and just that, but he had never thought of himself as rude, either.

That... professionalism was important for a soldier, too. At least, he thought it was.

But he felt more uncomfortable than ever. Uncomfortable? No, that was a ridiculous word, compared to reality. He felt like a caged animal in a zoo. As if he was a completely different species from the woman in front of him, and therefore they couldn't understand each other.

The farthest they could get was her pointing her finger at him, laughing, or throwing food at him.

Not literally, of course, but it was close enough.

She wasn't seeing him as a human being. He was nothing more than a patient to her. A broken tool that needed fixing, or maybe not even that, maybe she just wanted to do the bare minimum so she could say she'd done her job and get paid.

Regardless of his feelings, whether he would be better off at the end of it or not, and whether he really needed this therapy.

And he didn't.

This woman... What was her name? He couldn't remember right now, so she wasn't the only one who looked at the other as if he wasn't a human being.

Yes, to Desmond, she was nothing more than an obstacle. Because he didn't really need therapy, it was just a waste of time she could have been spending with Amy, who needed it more than he and Christina combined, easily. Or with literally any other of the survivors.

He was fine. As well as could be expected. He himself acknowledged that he was missing pieces.

That he wasn't whole.

However, the aim of this therapy was to help them get over the attack and get back on their feet as quickly as possible. They didn't need to worry about the survivors giving up the life of a soldier, if not how long it would take them to be ready to fight again, yes.

For, after this, none of them would be able to back down. They would cry out for revenge.

Blood calls to blood, he thought.

Desmond had already lost a lot of important things and had made the effort to get back on his feet, alone, without help. That was why he had come here in the first place, and why he hadn't died many years ago, on the streets, his corpse rotting beneath the sun.

But this woman refused to understand, for some reason. Even though he had made himself clear, in his own opinion. And he didn't care what that reason was.

He just wished she would stop already.

Maybe she had good intentions, after all. In any case, this was a tremendous waste of time for both of them.

"How old were you the first time you killed someone?"

Desmond grimaced. There went his hopes that she would be able to listen to reason. If only he could just stand up and walk away without looking back.... But, while the others may have considered themselves students, not yet soldiers, he'd seen himself as a soldier long before he'd ever set foot in this academy.

Long before he first killed one of the Empire's beasts.

He had been given orders, so he couldn't just walk away like a petulant child without following them. He could only end this prematurely feeling relaxed if she chose to do so, excusing him. Otherwise, he would be going against the orders of his superiors.

They might be stupid orders, but he was a mere soldier, not a decision-maker.

It was his responsibility to make even orders like that work.

No more, no less.

He sighed, resigned, and replied.

"Nine."

"You say this sort of thing doesn't affect you. Yet you answered my question without hesitation, without thinking. Even though it happened so long ago. A decade."

Desmond didn't think it was possible for her to feel any more irritated with the whole situation.

"That's because I don't have to think or hesitate. It happened in the same year that... "

"What happened?"

Shit.

"The Empire attacked. I lost my home, my family, my city. And things that aren't physical. I lost everything. That's why I remember it perfectly, without having to think about it. Because it wasn't long before I was forced to kill someone to survive.

"I see. How was it?"

■

She couldn't tell her the truth.

Shadow magic users had kept more than one secret about their magic. They were not family, unlike all other affinities, it appeared randomly. Or seemingly at random. However, they had all agreed without having to talk about it that some things were better kept quiet.

Like that she could feel the emotions of the people she used her magic on, so deeply that she feared she'd get lost under that alien tide.

Because that also meant that shadow magic wasn't just about the shadows, it was about the soul.

That, of course, was frightening and rightly so.

It was the main reason she was... as she was, after all.

She couldn't reveal that. Compared to what she had claimed to be able to do, to raise the dead, that was nothing. But she didn't need any more attention on her.

Besides, that she had lied to protect Desmond, counting on the fact that the consequences that would eventually befall her wouldn't be as severe as she had described to the boy, that her family's name would protect her, was no excuse for screwing up again and again as if she had nothing to lose.

While all that was true, it didn't mean she couldn't be honest. Unlike last night.

Christina lowered her head.

"Killing them was easy. Physically and mentally. I'm not the kind of person who would agonize over the 'decision' to kill someone who's trying to kill me. I'm not that human, you might say."

"But?" Angela, the therapist, nudged her to continue in a soft voice.

Their feelings forced me to experience what they did.

As she had told Amy, the feelings of guilt and regret were natural. It was something that made them more human and she should hold on to them, because the day she lost them she would have lose something more important than she had dared to imagine.

That was what she sincerely believed. On the other hand, even without the added worry that her magic brought, she wanted to get rid of those feelings.

She wanted to let go of the feelings, but she couldn't, her magic would always force her to.

And, while it might be for the best, she didn't want to become the kind of person who wouldn't feel anything when she killed someone. She had comforted Amy with words full of conviction. But she was divided, really.

It wasn't simple.

Nothing was simple.

But people wanted so badly to see things that way, to see the world through the eyes of a child, and that was the cause of so many problems. Personal and global.

Of course, she wasn't the exception in that respect.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Angela filled the silence, "or if you don't feel ready. You could, for example, try writing it down. You don't have to be in a hurry. One step at a time is fine, as long as that's your pace. Whatever suits you best."

It was a tempting offer, but Christina shook her head.

"I looked into their eyes. I saw the fear etched on their faces. I crushed them just like that, treating them like insects. They died drowning in their own blood. Cursing me to death. And they died regretting having been there. Dying for nothing. I know that... So, thinking about that... Thinking about how I could have ended up the same way if I'd been born on the other side of the world... And how scared they were of me; they wouldn't even look at me like I was human... It's just that I, I don't know how to say it. I don't know."

■

"I don't know," he decided to cut to the chase, rather than continue protesting since, apparently, this woman was too stubborn to throw in the towel, "It happened a long time ago, and it's not a memory worth holding on to anyway, so I don't remember the details. All I know is that it was an accident. I was defending myself; I didn't mean to kill him.

"No, uh, I wasn't asking you about the details. I was asking about what you felt at the time. And what happened after."

"You want to know why I have this mentality, in other words. I know this isn't going to help, but I don't understand why you're treating me like I'm some mystery to be solved. I've known for a long time that I'm not a normal person. But this is normal for soldiers, or am I wrong? Killing without remorse."

The therapist uncrossed her legs.

"No, Desmond. It's not."

"Do you even know what you're talking about? I mean, I know it takes training... to desensitize soldiers. To turn people into real soldiers. But then... I just went down the same path as any soldier a little bit sooner."

He was more defensive than before, even, but at the same time he was unusually meek. He didn't like that mix of confused emotions. Wondering why she had made him feel that way even less.

"I've never killed anyone. I've never been in a fight…" She grimaced. "That I haven't lost before it even started. But I know what I'm talking about when I say it's not normal, Desmond."

Desmond. Desmond, Desmond, Desmond.

Why was she repeating his name so much? What was the point of that? Something else that was getting on his nerves.

"Normally my patients are soldiers, not students. I don't know what ideas you've got, but soldiers, Desmond, come back from war in bits and pieces. Mentally and physically. No amount of training can remove the terrible burden of taking the life of another human being."

"I didn't kill a single person that day. Not a single one." He stood up suddenly, a flame burning in his chest. "They were animals! And I gave them what they deserved!"

■

"Of course, I understand that I did the right thing that day. That... I had no choice, rather. At first, I was overcome with a horrible sense of satisfaction," Amy added very slowly. "I felt I could do anything. But then..."

Amy paused, took a deep breath, even then lingered in silence, trying to gather her thoughts. Which was what she had spent most of the night doing and still hadn't managed to do.

The time she would take during the session would not help her to get things any clearer than before.

She knew that, Angela had surely known that before it occurred to her there.

Still, she sat there, hands in her lap, waiting patiently for him to continue. She wondered if he would be so professional with his other patients or if she was the exception.

I shouldn't think badly of her for no reason. She hasn't even mentioned who I am, or my family.

"Then I became hyper-aware of the blood bathing my body and went into a panic attack. Before long, though, I was killing like it was nothing. I was almost... enjoying is not the right word, but... It was as if I was proving to myself how strong I was. As if that was all other people's lives were worth to me. It made me think..."

About that man, she thought with more venom than she could have imprinted in her voice if she'd said it out loud.

"I didn't know what to feel. As if I was two different people at once, so stark was the contrast."

"And now?"

Angela's soft voice made her feel better. I wish I had a voice like that, she thought vaguely.

She closed her eyes.

"Nothing has changed. I feel like a stranger in my own body. And my teammates are coping so well, on the other hand.... I'm happy for them, of course, but that doesn't help."

"Your partners are peculiar. If you feel inadequate because you can't deal with it in the same way, you should spend some time with the other survivors. Then you'll realize that your experience is the normal one."

Amy traced a small, sad smile with her lips.

"Yes, Christina told me the same thing. But that's not the problem.”

"I'm not saying it's a solution, or even the crux of the problem. Just a step forward. But a single step forward can be a lot when you need it most.

"But I do understand. I understand that this is normality within a profoundly abnormal situation. That it would be more worrying, in a way, if I didn't feel this way. " She put her hands to her head and unconsciously tugged at her hair, pulling out a few strands.

Amy dropped her hands and clasped them in her lap in a hurry.

But the damage was done.

Normally, she would never have allowed herself to act so undignified in front of another person. But she had. Again. Yesterday, with the nightmare and everything that had come out of her mouth afterwards. And now this. Literally pulling her hair out, like an angry child.

Calm the hell down, she told herself. You shouldn't even be here.

"I've thought about whether this life is really for me after all. If I'm... made for this, whether I want to do it or not."

"And what have you concluded?

"I think I'm going to burn and be reduced to ashes soon. But I can't look back. It's the only way left for me. I can't tell you why. So at least I will enjoy this short and violent life for as long as I have left. At least I have good friends. And, who knows, maybe the death that awaits me... won't be a physical death."

■

" Calm down, please," the woman said, motioning with her hand for him to sit down.

Desmond remained standing.

"I am calm. But you're talking as if we and the citizens of the Empire are on the same level. I would understand this treatment if I had been forced to kill Albionese people for some reason, but the people of the Empire aren't human beings, they just happen to resemble us."

"They look enough alike, for whatever reason. Tell me, why did you choose this life? What kind of future do you want?"

■

"I couldn't say," Amy lied. It just seemed like the natural thing to do.

■

Huh? Why the sudden change of subject? This woman was really frustrating, and he didn't understand what the hell she was trying to achieve with this, or how she was going to achieve anything with such a scattered and confused approach.

But what was truly frustrating was that he was allowing her nonsense to get to him.

Why had he gotten so heated over nothing? This wouldn't have been so annoying if he had simply let her words pass through him.

What was wrong with him today?

"I told you. They took everything from me. This is the only way I have. Whether I want to or not, and I do, I'm a soldier. And I will be until I die."

"You've answered who you are, but not what you want."

Desmond snorted.

"I..." Nothing concrete came to his mind. No words, no dreams, not even a fuzzy image with which to conceptualize his ideal future. Because he had never once thought of that.

He had wanted to become a soldier officially and had fought so hard, for so long, for that.

Without realizing it, the starting point had become the finish line.

No. Almost. Just almost.

Did I forget the answer I gave?

"I've come to change everything."

"Change everything? What exactly does that mean?" She stood up. Slowly, her movements overly measured, as if to make the difference between them clear. "Do you want to end this war that has gone on for decades without interruption and looks set to go on for decades more? Do you want to prevent more children from ending up like you? "

That innocent-sounding question, delivered in a casual tone, stabbed into his heart like a dagger.

It hurt.

It hurt in more ways than one.

He couldn't take it anymore. Without a second thought, he turned his back on his "therapist" and hurried out of the room, slamming the door.

Like an angry child.

■

His feet carried him to the bathroom. It was a really appropriate expression because it had been an unconscious decision. In fact, he didn't even remember going into the bathroom.

Even the conversation, no, duel, rather it had been a duel, held with the "therapist" that had only made things worse was slipping from his mind. Leaving only the trace of a growing feeling of anxiety in his chest, which prevented him from breathing properly.

He turned the tap. He scooped up the water that came out in his cupped hands and wiped his face with it, over and over, eyes closed.

He stopped and stared at his reflection in the mirror, water running down his face, hands cupped on the edge of the sink.

He needed to regain his composure.

This woman knew as little about him, despite what she had told him, as he knew about her. Creating a world where children would never grow up the way he had was not the ideal future he dreamed of.

Yes, he knew he was damaged, but not broken. He had turned out pretty well all things considered, and he had nothing to be ashamed of.

He wasn't ashamed.

He wasn't dreaming of any kind of future. He dreamed of a present called revenge.

He dreamed of taking from them everything they had taken from him more.

He dreamed of taking from them everything they had taken from him and more. The whole Empire. He could do it. He might die before he succeeded, but he could do it.

His life was like a raging fire.

He would make the entire Empire burn or he would be consumed in his own flames before then.

In truth, he wouldn't care one way or the other. There wasn't that much difference between what one wanted and what one sought. He could make peace with both endings, therefore.

But, if someday he would complete his revenge.... No, when the day came....

"Maybe she'll come back to me," he told the mirror.