Ch 42: The First Step.

Hiro fell to his knees.

Cries shrieked through the air. The blood spilled out in a puddle, reaching Ace’s feet as he stood motionless. He thought that by now, watching someone die had lost some of its impact, but when it was someone you knew, it was different. A stabbing, slithering feeling. One he couldn’t process right now.

“Echelon five,” Mira chanted, her silver eyes overflowing.

“Stop.”

The rune circle shattered as she dropped to her knees. Spirit broken by the words.

“I-It’s ok.” His vitality was flowing out before him, yet even in such moments, he was comforting Mira through her violent sobs, with a hand on her head.

Oden’s eyes were staring toward the harsh fluorescent spotlights, but what he was actually looking at was a place far from here.

“I-I’m ready.” His breath was shallow and fleeting.

On his knees, Hiro’s head fell into his hands. Mira’s cries tore into his soul, much harder than any physical wound ever could. He couldn’t bring himself to look at what he’d done. In his mind, conflicting thoughts tugged at each other, rising and falling within his conscience.

“Twelve mages and seventeen warriors. I remember each one. Time has cruelly moved on without them. Everyone’s left me behind. I-I think it’s finally time to join them.”

Mira tore at her robes, but the fabric refused to pull, stringing together like threads. She ground her teeth, tearing until her nails ripped through the strings.

Frantically pressing the wound with the torn fabric, her cries bled out into the pool of blood and tears.

“I-I’ve taken so many lives. A warrior's death is greater than I deserve.”

Ace winced from Mira’s cries. There was something about the scene unfolding before him that he wanted to shrink away and hide from. It was hard to exist in this corridor, to watch it happen. He wanted to close his eyes and cover his ears.

“I was lost, with nothing but the axe on my back, I searched for purpose. But I think I had it all wrong. I felt stuck without purpose, but it was the very search for purpose that I was enslaved to. Mira. I know just how much you hate waking up surrounded by those steep walls. I know how you wake up every day, waiting by the lake for a reason to go. A day to finally come where everyone tells you it’s okay to leave.”

Oden coughed, his body desperately clinging to survival.

“Oden.” Mira wrapped her arms around his bloody armour.

“Serving the Syndicate and being loyal is important, but not as important as being true to yourself. You don’t have to wait for permission. You don’t need other people to agree to help you decide what’s right. Sometimes, it doesn’t have to make sense to anyone but yourself.”

“I-I can’t,” Mira’s silver eyes glistened from her tears. “What if it’s the wrong choice?”

Oden’s right hand ran across Mira’s hair, ever so gently. He didn’t want to taint her beautiful hair with the stains of blood.

“You won’t know if it’s the wrong choice until you make that leap of faith. Don’t be scared. You aren’t shackled by the Syndicate, you’re shackled by your own doubt. So, what if it’s the wrong choice? Don’t be scared to make that fall, if there’s anyone, anyone I know who could stand right back up, it’s the girl I’m always arguing with, standing up for what she thinks is right. Have some faith in yourself. You don’t need permission to leave everything behind. You don’t have to wait for everything to be perfect. You just need to take the first step. Go, Mira.”

Mira’s cries turned to whimpers as the armoured giant’s breath became shallower and shallower.

“I think in another life, I would’ve liked to settle down in the countryside, far from the flames of war. To fall in love and raise a family. To be a father.”

“You were a father! To me, Shell and Snow!!”

“Ah, that’s right. If it wasn’t for finding Shell and Snow in the ashes of Pickett. I would’ve cast my life aside in that battle.”

Oden burst into sudden coughs, his body becoming colder in Mira’s arms.

And now, Hiro advanced through the maze of liminal corridors, tangled wires and fractured walls toward the server room with Ace tailing his steps.

When they reached it, the two now stood in front of the last and greatest challenge of this turbulent operation.

As he gripped the flash drive in his pocket, Hiro was finally facing the cruel fate the world had planned for him. Everything had come down to this very moment.

Akranos. I’m either hacking into you or taking you with me. There’s no other option.