Friendly Offer

Plans, ideas, plots, the last week was filled with nothing but. It had been hard to focus on anything else. Coming to war and meeting friends across the divide complicated what should have been a somewhat simple affair. The notion of killing a bunch of fake people in a world within Yumi’s mind certainly had some reservations, but if asked to choose. It was an easy choice to make.

But that made the whole ordeal more troubling. Hours spent formulating strategies against a woman that might be impossible to plot against. The only thing that made it seem possible was believing that she was still human and fallible. But the woman remained a firm mystery even with a lot of her past revealed now.

None of them knew what her end goal was, not even Yumi got that information out of her. She kept close to Aya and could only help and analyze. In time, like with the others Yumi would figure it out. That was part of the condition, if the last two were anything to go by.

For all of the work that they put into it, little of it proved to be reassuring. It was all speculation and plans based on possible scenarios. With luck, they could make it work out. It became more certain though that it would have been done as a spontaneous matter rather than a well planned one.

None of it mattered to Yuki. He still dwelled more on the reality that he would have to fight Seiji. It didn’t matter to him how much Yumi tried to spin the words to make it sound like it would work out. Or scold him for turning away from reality.

If he could run away from it all, he certainly felt tempted on more than one occasion. But it wasn’t something that he allowed himself to genuinely give into. Everyone else would be fighting knowing what they faced. He couldn’t, wouldn’t abandon them because he didn’t want to relive the past.

Yuki knew that it was nothing like before with Takako, but he couldn’t stop feeling the parallels as the war approached. Those parallels served to dig up unwelcome memories. He remembered how it had changed Hiroshi completely. He couldn’t recognize him anymore, even though he still was supposed to be a friend. Yuki prayed that his friends didn’t go down a similar path. It wasn’t a real world, but it felt real and already affected them in dynamic ways.

None of them were going to be the same from the experience. A simple and presumed short mission into Yumi’s mind had become a grand adventure. At most, they knew Yumi would change from the ordeal, that was the goal of it. But the side effect of joining her was that it changed them all as well.

Who would they be once they left Yumi’s world?

Chapter 533 – Friendly Offer

Change or not, the focus now had to be the war. Yuki stood at the front of his troops, granted to him by Lord Matsushina himself with Aya’s direction. A gathering of more than five thousand men divided up into ten divisions, all reported to him. While he still reported to Aya, once the fighting began it was on him to make the calls.

He swallowed roughly, staring across the field as the enemy troops gathered. Their numbers were seven thousand making it a clear advantage to them. And thanks to Saki’s intelligence, he knew that this wasn’t even their entire force. This was merely what they felt like fielding for the battle. Their reserves ran deeper than their own.

While he watched the sea of red and blue colors from the armor blotting out the landscape he thought back a little to a few of the games he had played. ‘I could be enjoying this more with a top down perspective or being one of those heroes that mows down faceless enemies by the hundreds. Never wanted to be in a RTS for real…’

Waiting for the signal to attack left him with more time to think about the battle to come than he wanted. All of the troops that followed him were fakes he knew, but his mind had some trouble separating that fact from the rest of him. He didn’t want to be sending them to their deaths for this fight encounter.

It wasn’t a pointless battle, that much he knew. He knew the plan and everything about it was sound. Though he wished that Aya went about things differently. It was easier to move pieces around a board and not think about them than it was to actually be in the middle of the blood and sweat. There were other options for the war, but she wanted this fight.

Yuki gripped tightly the hilt on his sword, working up the courage that he needed to kill. The one thing that he refused to do and that Eudokia always scolded him about. He never wanted to fall to those measures. ‘They’re not real…if I just keep my head and don’t let it consume me, change me…I will remain who I am.’ It wasn’t the first time that he had to face those words. But this was the first time that they were being put to the test.

‘The war has to end quickly…I can’t be soft or it’ll just make things worse. Don’t make them suffer…do what you should be doing…’

Counter to the plan, the enemy made the first move. He didn’t know if Seiji was among them. There were two with markings of key figures, Lords possibly, but it was too far to make anything further out. But there was no more time to think.

War began.

“Left and right flanks advance! Center column slow march! Let’s show them that they shouldn't underestimate us!” Giving the battle cry to the troops, he began the ride out on horseback.

The thumping of his heart began to match the rhythm of the marching. All of the previous fighting did nothing to prepare for this. Between only being human and having literally thousands of men around him, Yuki found it to be more nerve wrecking than he expected.

He wasn’t even in a fight yet and it was already making him doubt everything that he did. It quickly attempted to erode the resolve that he had built up. They were all still about a kilometer away, but each step took them closer. The enemy would be upon them soon. ‘Why did I agree to this? This isn’t me…’

Self-doubt poisoned his mind with the drumming of feet in his ears. The horse still carried forward with sweat growing on his back and arms. He questioned everything that led to this path. His mind quickly tried to figure out ways out. It agreed that he shouldn’t be killing even fake people. Everything about this went against who he was.

But he remained on course. His body commanded him forward even with the anxiety mounting. People were counting on him. He had to serve as a symbol and a voice to them all. Yumi needed him to do the task before him. His friends needed him.

The battle between the two raged on as he reached within a hundred meters of the enemy. On the flanks clashing of weapons and screams already echoed completing surrounding him. It became a drowning voice with a familiar tone that he wished that he didn’t know. He was both too young and not to know such voices.

Still at the front of the group, he was the clear and easy target for many of the enemy soldiers. One broke ranks, perhaps sensing the doubt, but they ran out ahead straight for Yuki. He had seconds and only ten meters to make a final decision. Each one of those seconds squeezed tightly in his mind as the soldier approached.

Would he? Would he not? Tick. Tock. One step. Two steps.

Yuki didn’t know the answer.

The enemy screamed only two meters from him with a spear drawn to kill his horse. He needed to do something. He needed to make a decision. He didn’t know what it was. What should be the answer? Who was he?

In the end, he didn’t have an answer. However, it went simpler than he thought. His body had honed instincts that commanded him more than his mind or heart. Pulling the horse out of the line of the attack, he drew his sword quickly to knock the spear out of the way. With the soldier open, he plunged the blade into his shoulder as he passed by.

A spray of blood and the man dropped. The battle roared into the peak with thousands trying to kill each other. Allowing his instinct to carry him, he managed to keep going in the battle. He shouted out formation orders and broad commands, but couldn’t focus only on the scale of the battle with everything clouding his mind.

Bleeding bodies fell in his wake as he charged through lines trying to break up the enemy formation. He needed to keep the enemy from concentrating. Their numbers were only slightly larger, but still enough to overwhelm them in played right, but this battle was running differently. Both commanders seemed to have the same thing in mind.

Before he had time to react, his horse took a spear throwing him off. The only thing that saved him from a broken body was the crowd of soldiers. Even though they looked to capture him, Yuki stabbed them with his off hand and sliced quickly through the enemy wounding them all. They backed off as he heard feet charging him.

Turning to meet his attacker, their swords clashed with a heavy weight of the swing shaking through his body. The sword they used was the same, but it felt so heavy. It seemed impossible to imagine. The longer that he struggled his eyes came to focus and he realized it was one of the two figures he called out from the field before. They came to face him directly.

“You’re a cruel man.”

“What?!” Yuki backed off his defense seeing that it would do nothing and separated to get a better look at the man that taunted him. A tall and muscular man with a confident, strong stance stood before him. He was the sort that others would follow naturally generating a commanding aura.

They clashed again with a flurry of parries and blocks. Even with his size, he still had speed with his strength, though there was some weakness in form and reflexes as though it wasn’t something that suited his preferred sort of style. “It’s you isn’t it?”

“I knew you’d recognize me quickly.”

“A little hard to miss. She wasn’t kidding when she said you had been training hard.”

“It’s important to give yourself to mastery of something.”

“I can see that worked out for you.”

Seeing Seiji now, Saki’s assessment felt understated. In a way, what he saw felt like the ideal that Seiji sought. All of his struggles and commitments to achieving his view of what was perfectly refined before him. It almost felt like cheating. This should have been Yumi’s world and nothing about it should have favored Seiji’s desires. Though that seemed to be what happened. Yuki had trouble believing it was simply a coincidence that created this impressive form.

‘I always felt like I had the edge against him. There was something that held him back.’ Yuki was happy to see his friend again, but Saki was right about him. He couldn’t beat Seiji or even come close to comparing against him. The gap was remarkable.

“So what’s the plan now?”

Seiji charged in taking swings with him. They danced around the battle and made up the sense that they were locked in a stalemate, though he clearly pulled his punches. “Mostly kill time until the withdraw. At least that was the original plan.”

“Original plan? Something change?”

“Yes, when I approached you. You’re still holding yourself back.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You think you’re being kind, by only maiming and wounding, but you’re only being cruel. This is a battlefield, you can’t be showing weakness.”

“You’re the last person I’d expect to be hearing that from.”

“Think about it. The era we live in. Anything more severe than a slash is likely going to be deadly. They’ll die of infection, become unable to work, starve. This isn’t a kind period of time. It sounds cruel and unfeeling to kill, but leaving them to die slow painful deaths is even worse. Grant them a swift death. Let them be a warrior and die one.”

Yuki shook his head as all of the doubts started to cripple his instincts that had been governing him. This didn’t sound like the Seiji he knew. ‘This isn’t him! He wouldn’t be saying this. It’s got to be a trap, a lie! It’s Yumi’s personalities trying to get to me!’

Seiji pressed against the weakening Yuki. “Act like an adult and do what is necessary. Or I’ll kill you here so that you don’t have to keep suffering.”