Makita sits in front of the two graves she dug every day. Sometimes it is only for a minute or two, sometimes for hours, but each time she cries
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The hailer makes a soft click as Kyuzo brings it to position; not from its firing mechanism, but simply because the movement makes the gun shift in its placement against his right gauntlet.
He stares down at the survivor and there is a moment where he considers the face of this man who was capable of clinging to a wall while the world fell apart around him in a single 'kast.
He does not feel pity or even empathy. A waste. That's all this is. Another waste of life and limb in a completely pointless, perfunctory epilogue. There is no compassion left in this cold bright war littered with familiar dead.
"I didn't shoot at her," the man pleads. Koba, his name is; Koba, who is dead and doesn't realize it yet. It's important to know the names of the dead. Even when the list becomes too long for them all to be remembered. "I mean - I - I -"
In the end, a person's life is not equal to zero; it always has a value.
It always leaves something behind.
"Mercy!" Koba pleads, finally, too late. "Mercy!"
Kyuzo's eyes do not waver. His finger closes around the hailer's trigger; an explosion of light obscures the man's face but not the sickening sound of what a hailer does to an unarmored man at point blank range.
Kyuzo does not wait to hear Koba fall. He will remember the name; it is all the mercy the man before him deserved. A hand comes up, toggles a switch: "Guardsman Kyuzo to Sorcery Corps -" a burst of static - "this is Kyuzo, come in, Corps ..." He waits for the affirmative, then continues. "I'm groundside with the Major.
"No - nothing she couldn't handle, yet. But she's heading into a 'Gorka zone.
"Just ready a strike team - hailers - and track my position. Have them standing by to drop in."
He pauses to lift his head and take in the surroundings, the fires burning far away and the empty, merciless bone-white world from which the fires sprung.
"... and tell them to be ready for anything."
The switch toggles off and the wind howls through the empty bomb-broken buildings in the comm channel's wake. Kyuzo listens with his head bowed and continues on into the brightness of Nokgorka's war-wounded heart.
He stares down at the survivor and there is a moment where he considers the face of this man who was capable of clinging to a wall while the world fell apart around him in a single 'kast.
He does not feel pity or even empathy. A waste. That's all this is. Another waste of life and limb in a completely pointless, perfunctory epilogue. There is no compassion left in this cold bright war littered with familiar dead.
"I didn't shoot at her," the man pleads. Koba, his name is; Koba, who is dead and doesn't realize it yet. It's important to know the names of the dead. Even when the list becomes too long for them all to be remembered. "I mean - I - I -"
In the end, a person's life is not equal to zero; it always has a value.
It always leaves something behind.
"Mercy!" Koba pleads, finally, too late. "Mercy!"
Kyuzo's eyes do not waver. His finger closes around the hailer's trigger; an explosion of light obscures the man's face but not the sickening sound of what a hailer does to an unarmored man at point blank range.
Kyuzo does not wait to hear Koba fall.
He will remember the name; it is all the mercy the man before him deserved. A hand comes up, toggles a switch: "Guardsman Kyuzo to Sorcery Corps -" a burst of static - "this is Kyuzo, come in, Corps ..." He waits for the affirmative, then continues. "I'm groundside with the Major.
"No - nothing she couldn't handle, yet. But she's heading into a 'Gorka zone.
"Just ready a strike team - hailers - and track my position. Have them standing by to drop in."
He pauses to lift his head and take in the surroundings, the fires burning far away and the empty, merciless bone-white world from which the fires sprung.
"... and tell them to be ready for anything."
The switch toggles off and the wind howls through the empty bomb-broken buildings in the comm channel's wake. Kyuzo listens with his head bowed and continues on into the brightness of Nokgorka's war-wounded heart.
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