Finally Cane Garasu could see the tide of the battle turning in the Multi-talion’s favor.
When a bit earlier a more gigantic version of Tyra’s cyan energy wolf than Cane thought could possibly be created had appeared, the situation had looked quite grim – and not just for the Multi-talion, but for the Flexoid Battalion as well, considering everyone was having their energy drained.
And then, just when it had seemed like there were no chances for survival left, the energy siphoning had stopped, the wolf having disappeared and everything having quieted down. Having taken temporary command of the Multi-talion, Mr. Garasu knew the time to corner the enemy had come, most of the ordinari darkalighters in the area having died already, after all, leaving less than a hundred deviants to deal with.
So Cane led on the Sunbird students and staff members who were part of the force originally commanded by Aguaro Vivaya, inspiring them as best as he could to keep fighting, in the present all villains except for a couple of deviant squads having been destroyed. These last survivors had been beaten, captured and bound for execution as well, but someone’s shout interrupted the people who were about to get rid of them.
(Yuki) ‘STOP!!!!’
Everyone’s attention then turned to Yuki, whose body was mangled and eye was missing, now walking slowly toward the Multi-talion while carrying Tyra in her arms with a completely expressionless face. As confused as Mr. Garasu was as to why Miss Iceflame had taken the body of the highest-ranking Darkalight officer around after seemingly having killed her, he still reached to take the corpse off Yuki’s hands when she drew near him to relieve her of that weight.
The gaze she pierced him with then was filled with a threatening murderous intent the likes of which the Biology teacher had never seen, making him freeze without his student even having to use any actual ice. From there he and the others could only watch in silence while the white-haired beauty walked past all the Multi-talion members to reach the surviving darkalighters, laying Tyra’s body next to them with a sad look on her face.
(Yuki) ‘I’m sorry. There was no other way to stop her. I had to. I had … I had to kill Tyra. But now that all this is over, I think she should be with you.’ – barely managing to get up, she became serious once again and redirected her attention toward the students and staff members who had surrounded the enemy deviants – ‘Don’t kill them yet. I’ve got some unfinished business with these troops.’
Someone calling Cane helped shift his attention away from Yuki who kept on surprising him with her behavior, the Biology teacher turning to the man standing next to him – the Sunbird canteen’s six-armed cook who presently looked completely broken by grief and even had tears in his eyes.
(The Cook) ‘C-Cane, you’ve gotta come. You and Yuki. Aguaro’s calling for you. He … he’s not gonna make it. But before he goes, he wants to talk to you two.’
Focusing on surviving during the battle with Darkalight and ensuring the survival of as many of the Multi-talion members as possible, Cane had all but forgotten about Aguaro since leaving him in the care of the healing deva users. So as shocked as he was by what Yuki was doing, learning that his old friend and trainer’s final hour had come left him more than dumbfounded. It took several moments passing and the cook shaking him hard to help Mr. Garasu come back to his senses and act.
When he became himself again, he ran over to Miss Iceflame to drag her along with him by force, only starting to explain his actions to her when feeling it was impossible to keep hold of a superhuman like her, despite how badly wounded she was.
(Yuki) ‘Where are you taking me exactly, sensei? Away from the darkalighters so the others can kill them?! I won’t let that happen!! Not yet!! There’s something I need to hear from them first!!!’
(Cane) ‘Just come along, Yuki. We can deal with Darkalight later, but right now Aguaro’s dying and wants to see us. So we have to hurry.’
Cane didn’t need to look back at his student to tell she was no less shocked after hearing this news than he himself had been, feeling she had stopped trying to free herself from his grip being indicative enough of how her demeanor had changed.
So overcome by different emotions himself, the Biology teacher hadn’t even realized when he and Yuki had reached the place where Aguaro was lying or how pretty much everyone else had followed them there. Seeing once again how grievous the PE teacher’s wounds were brought Mr. Garasu back to reality, at the same time killing whatever hope of the man’s survival was left in his mind.
The Multi-talion’s leader was still missing the lower half of his right arm, the remainder of that arm how having been bandaged to hide the damage as best as possible, but the same not being valid for his abdomen. It was still torn in half almost completely and covered in so much blood it was impossible to see if even Aguaro’s spine was still intact in order to hold the two halves of his body together.
And despite all that, despite the fact the three healers around him – all of which were students he had taught for years and trained very intensively for the present battle until recently – as well as everyone else already gathered in the area looked heartbroken, Mr. Vivaya still smiled.
In particular, a smile lit his face and brought back some life to his eyes when he saw the two people he had called for had come to him, that smile even widening after they knelt next to the PE teacher.
(Aguaro) ‘I’m not sure how bad I look, but you two … you look like shit. Are you missing an eye, Yuki, or is that just my eyesight becoming as useless as the rest of my body?’
Clearly not having expected a question like that, Yuki couldn’t help but smile as well, Cane noticing she was holding back tears in spite of her smile.
(Yuki) ‘Yeah. I lost it to Tyra.’
(Aguaro) ‘Did you kill her at least?’
Miss Iceflame didn’t answer right away, her smile being replaced by a thoughtful and then guilty expression as she looked aside.
(Yuki) ‘She didn’t leave me any other choice, so I did.’
Hearing that made Aguaro sigh with relief, his smile growing wider as he shouted right after.
(Aguaro) ‘Ha-ha! So you’ve taken out your first Darkalight colonel already, girl? That’s what I call a great start!! Keep that up and kill them all, Yuki!! Now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen, I’m sure you can do it!!’
(Yuki) ‘Why don’t you get up and stop playing dead and then we’ll talk about taking down Darkalight? I can’t take them down alone, you know. I … we … we need you, sensei. How can there be a Multi-talion without an annoying cloner like you leading us?’
The cloner seemed to have reached his limit at that point, no longer being able to keep up the façade of happiness on his face and becoming serious as his breaths became fainter and fainter in synch with the increasing ache in Cane’s heart.
(Aguaro) ‘Well, they’ve got the two of you now, don’t they? You took out the enemy forces’ leader and Cane …’ – Aguaro had only kept his focus on Yuki until then and meeting his gaze proved too much for Cane, the tears he had held back starting to fall from his eyes as he bit his lip – ‘ … I heard you led the Multi-talion to victory just now. Together, you’ve taken out a whole battalion of enemies. How hard can leading my battalion be after that?’
(Cane) ‘I’m not cut-out for any of this war shit, old man, and you know it. You’ve always known it. Why the hell would you pin something like leading the Multi-talion on me? Don’t forget I’ve already got the Omniseers.’
(Aguaro) ‘You’ve led this force longer than I have since the start of this battle, Cane, and you’ve kept them alive and together. And Yuki took out the person I couldn’t beat, so I think … I think you two will do just fine. So can you promise me just one thing?’
(Yuki) ‘Sensei … don’t …’
All of a sudden Aguaro became possessed by some inexplicable force, grabbing hold of one of Yuki and Cane’s arms with his left arm as he stared in their faces.
(Aguaro) ‘Y-you promise me. As the new leader of the Multi-talion and his deputy …YOU WILL KILL DEATHAXE. AND SAVE DECKSTORU.’
Cane couldn’t find the words to answer despite knowing full well what he wanted to say, thankfully Yuki wasting no time to speak on behalf of both of them.
(Yuki) ‘We promise, sensei. WE WILL. But don’t you want to see us doing it? You don’t even have to fight anymore. Just stay … just stay with us and … keep watching …’
The white-haired beauty kept on talking for some time after that, but her PE teacher didn’t answer her anymore. His eyes had already been closed, his last breath – taken.
No matter how much Yuki pleaded, how much she screamed or how much she tried to shake him back to life, nothing worked.
Aguaro Vivaya, Sunbird teacher, leader of the Multi-talion, hero of Deckstoru, was dead.
Eventually Cane somehow found the strength to swallow the tears stinging his face covered with blood and dirt as much as possible and move again, dragging Yuki away from Aguaro’s corpse while watching the others around him cry as well.
Having just been promoted, it was probably expected of the Biology teacher to give a rousing speech to his troops and start checking how all of them were doing. Instead Mr. Garasu fell on the ground next to Miss Iceflame and started crying while still holding on to her.
*
Cane must have lost consciousness due to having become so overwhelmed by his grief, the feeling of a particular type of heat on his face being the thing that woke him up. Opening his eyes, he was blinded by the rays of the sun that had now broken through the clouds covering pretty much all of Old Town until recently.
He even doubted if what he remembered last had happened or had been just in his head, turning around as quickly as he could to search for Aguaro, certain that he would find him alive and laughing about something along with the other Multi-talion members. Instead Cane found the PE teacher’s corpse right where he and Yuki had left it, the only difference being right now a dirty dark blue blanket found somewhere in the rubble was being placed over him. The other change in the Biology teacher’s surroundings was the fact Yuki herself was no longer lying next to him.
Realizing his wounds were currently being healed by one of the three healers from the Multi-talion only came third due to how shocked he was by the previous two realizations, suddenly springing back up in as possessed a state as Aguaro had been in his last moments. Mr. Garasu surprised his student so much that he stopped healing him, Cane paying little attention to that and looking around at the others instead.
Many were still grieving – over both Aguaro and the handful of others who had died – just as many being busy with healing and patching up or being healed and patched up and some still being unconscious. Everyone seemed to be doing well enough, though, so after taking a good look-around, the Biology teacher returned his attention to the healer who had became worried.
(Healer) ‘Sensei, you shouldn’t be moving around like that yet! I’m not even halfway done with healing …’
(Cane) ‘How long was I out for?!’
(Healer) ‘I don’t know. A couple of minutes, maybe?’
(Cane) ‘And Yuki? Where is she?’
The student not giving an answer right away and trying to avoid Cane’s gaze both worried and angered him, so he ended up shaking the young man while grabbing hold of his shoulders with all his strength and shouting in his face.
(Cane) ‘Tell me where she is!!! Right now!!!’
(Healer) ‘S-she … she went over to the darkalighters. Said she wanted to talk to them before deciding what to do.’
Mr. Garasu’s student tried to tell him more after that, but he wouldn’t listen, having already activated his sensor deva to find exactly where Yuki and the darkalighters were. Once their location was pinpointed, the Biology teacher stormed off that way, barely noticing many other people were treating or being treated amid the rubble from both his sides as he moved forward.
Finally, he reached the white-haired beauty, seeing that in the present she was sitting on a small pile of debris with a bandage put over her missing eye and more bandages being wrapped around the less severe wounds on other parts of her body, the more severe ones being either treated with tools or healed via a deva. Three people in total were responsible for ensuring Yuki would survive, Miss Iceflame not paying attention to any of them, however, but instead looking at the still mournful darkalighters surrounded by Multi-talion members while explaining something to them.
(Yuki) ‘When Tyra realized Rukan was a deviant-hating traitor, he called one of your battalion’s ordinari companies to come and save him, using the excuse I had taken control of Tyra when they came to order both of us to be shot to death. Then Tyra started telling them about the things Rukan had done and some soldiers followed her orders, others – his.
Most of them ended up killing each other like this, the rest being finished off by Rukan when they were of no more use to him. Eventually I created an opening for Tyra and she killed him for good, but then we were left to decide what to do with each other.’
(Random Darkalighter) ‘Well, I think we can all see what you decided to do, Iceflame.’
(Yuki) ‘You’re wrong. We knew we had to fight each other, but because I had saved Tyra’s life, she owed me a debt. I made her tell me about her past and what her drive to fight for Darkalight was before we got back to the fighting part. ‘
The member of the troops Yuki was talking to in particular sighed with annoyance then, looking at the now also blanket-covered body of his commanding officer before turning back to her killer.
(Random Darkalighter) ‘The colonel really was very naïve. And too honorable. I’d have taken your head off on the spot, debt or no. So I guess you used the whole sharing of the past as a distraction so you could kill her?’
(Yuki) ‘Wrong again. Tyra even patched me up while she told me her story so we could have a fair fight. But by the end of that story I realized that after everything she had been through, she couldn’t possibly turn her back on either Darkalight or Deathaxe.
So we had to fight to the death from there. I couldn’t bring myself to kill her, though, so I wounded her enough to make her give up.
And even after that … Tyra wouldn’t give up. No matter what.
She totally lost control and started absorbing energy from everyone around her … probably from all of you as well … to become strong enough to kill me.’ – the guilty look Yuki had had on her face every time Tyra was mentioned since reuniting with Cane was now revealed to the Biology teacher’s eyes again, the ice maiden pausing for a moment to suppress that guilt once again before continuing – ‘If I had let her keep going, everyone from the Multi-talion and even the Flexoid Battalion would be dead now. So I killed her.’
(Random Darkalighter) ‘And why haven’t you done the same with us already? Plan to use us to exchange some prisoners with General Deathaxe? No offense, kid, but with low-ranking officers like us …’
Now Yuki got angry, getting up and stepping closer to the enemy troops despite her healing and surgeries being far from over.
(Yuki) ‘No!!! Stop talking about Deathaxe and this war!!! I don’t want to hear any more about that!!! I want to know about you and Tyra!!! And O-Renji Lee!!!
How all of you became a family instead of just a unit!!! And why that family decided to destroy my home and kill so many innocent people!!!’
Everyone from both sides was so shocked by what Miss Iceflame had said during her outburst that none of them uttered even a single word for quite a while. Surprisingly enough, Cane was actually the first to comment on the matter, going over to Yuki, pushing her healers aside and pulling her closer to himself by the arm.
(Cane) ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing, Yuki?! Sitting and chatting with the enemy like everything’s OK?!?!!’
Almost instantly freeing herself from his grip now that some of her strength had returned, the white-haired beauty unleashed a whole barrage of answers to her Biology teacher’s question.
(Yuki) ‘Nothing’s OK, sensei!!! And if we keep going about things as we have until now, it won’t ever be OK!!! Killing off darkalighters as a simple threat like how they’re trying to do with us isn’t going to cut it!!! We have to understand them!!! That’s exactly why I want to talk to these men!!!’
(Cane) ‘There’s nothing to talk about with undead monsters!!! If you won’t kill them, I’ll do it myself!!!’
(Yuki) ‘If I decide there’s no hope for them, I’ll finish them off!!! But before that I need to hear everything they have to say!!!’
(Cane) ‘We promised Aguaro we’ll kill Deathaxe and save Deckstoru!!! And only a few minutes after he’s died, you come to the enemy to negotiate?!?! We should be getting ready to rendezvous with everyone at Dreadblade right now!!!’
(Yuki) ‘In case you haven’t noticed, sensei, no one around here is ready to fight yet. We can rush to the fortress all you want, but if we go as we are right now, we won’t be of much help to anyone!!’
(Cane) ‘So while everyone’s getting better, you’re going to listen to the enemy share stories about their past and decide whether you should kill them based on that?’ – managing to put his anger in check for only a moment, Cane soon continued with much worse comments because of how unacceptable he found Yuki’s behavior – ‘I heard what you told them. You made Tyra tell you about her past as well. And hearing about it probably made your fighting so half-assed that you couldn’t kill her sooner! If you had, more people from the Multi-talion would still be alive!!!’
(Yuki) ‘And so would more darkalighters, which would mean you would still be fighting right now or could even be dead already!!!’
(Cane) ‘I’m not, though, and I’m the one Aguaro entrusted with the leadership of this force. So as its leader I’m ordering you to either kill these bastards or step back while the rest of us do it.’
Cane clenched his fists while he said that to demonstrate his resolve as much as possible, Yuki doing the same as she stepped even closer to him.
Before either of them could say or do anything more, however, the darkalighters intervened, when following the source of the voice he heard then, Mr. Garasu realizing it belonged to the only captain remaining among the survivors.
(Darkalight Captain) ‘You’re really getting carried away there, aren’t you? Fighting over what to do with us … that’s just stupid, even for Deckstoru trash like you. There’s no need to go that far.’ – now both the captain and all his troops looked at Yuki in particular – ‘We’re no different than Colonel Tyra, Iceflame. We’ve all seen the hell of war between ordinari and deviants while we were alive and through Darkalight we were given a second chance. A second chance to fix the shitty state this world’s in.
However little it is … I think just keeping all of you here for this long to not be able to help your friends at Dreadblade has helped our cause enough. So if it’s our time to die again, so be it. At least we might see Tyra and O-Renji then and have some more fun.’
Barely having said that, the captain pressed a button on a device attached to the side of his belt while looking at all his comrades with a smile, Yuki leaving Cane then to throw herself at the darkalighters with a desperate look on her face. Whatever confusion her actions had caused for her Biology teacher, all of that was soon cleared as the last surviving members of the Flexoid Battalion were enveloped in pale green light and energy, after the disappearance of which only a pile of ash was left.
The white-haired beauty had been blasted right back to Cane’s feet by the burst that killed the last enemies in the area, after looking around to make sure no one else had got hurt by the villains’ mass suicide, Mr. Garasu giving Miss Iceflame a hand to get up. Her eye met his then, Yuki looking both distraught and guilty.
(Yuki) ‘They didn’t … they didn’t even want to talk to me. They didn’t even consider there was a chance for us to understand each other.’
Cane put a hand on his student’s shoulder then, trying to make his face exude as much sympathy as possible to comfort the ice maiden – and comforting children was something Cane was never good at, but he now realized he would have to learn to be better. And at not just that, but everything. How else could he live up to Aguaro as the new leader of the Multi-talion?
(Cane) ‘I’m sorry, Yuki, but that’s just the way they are. You’ve seen it more than enough times already. What you’re trying to do … understand and help those from Darkalight who aren’t that bad … it’s very noble, but in the world we live in now, I just don’t think it’s possible.
So why don’t we focus on helping the ones closer to us instead? The ones who Aguaro entrusted to us?’ – he looked at the Multi-talion members gathered around them now, all of them having sympathetic smiles on their faces, to which Cane answered with the same – ‘Everyone here knows I suck at leading and despite the bullshit I said earlier, you’re the one who scored the biggest victory in this battle and since the start of the invasion, so I’ll be relying on you a lot. Could you help me out to keep everyone alive while we finish the job?’
After saying that, the Biology teacher noticed with his peripheral vision that the Sunbird cook had come closer to him and Yuki, turning to him to see he had as stone-cold serious an expression as possible on his face.
(The Cook) ‘We just got word from our guys. Zoran and the rest of Sunbird have reached Dreadblade and the fighting there’s already started.
Saya and the militia army have got the signal as well and have engaged the enemy at Narameya Lor. So I guess it’s just us that everyone’s waiting for.’
Looking over at Yuki by his side next, Cane saw she was doing the exact same thing as him a bit earlier – taking a look at all the comrades she was surrounded by. The more of their faces now so full of trust and resolve she saw, the more confident Miss Iceflame herself became, finally turning to Mr. Garasu again.
(Yuki) ‘I’ll never turn my back on anyone from Deckstoru, but I haven’t given up on helping the darkalighters yet, either, sensei. So you thinking it’s impossible to help any of them … I’ll take you up on that bet. Before we get to that, though, let’s go kill Deathaxe.’
