u/Kaze-Azumi3061

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"They used to call me obsessed, now they call me their solution for the emptiness that they hold so tightly.”

I had hated the whale long before I saw that creature again. That bastard had taken my leg beneath the black water, and ever since that day, I had carried it absence with me like a second heartbeat, beating beneath every thought, every order, every breath.

I need it to be dead by my own hand.

I became captain because I needed a ship strong enough to follow my hatred into places sane people would never go. I told the crew that every decision I made was for the future, for the perfect city I would build once the sea was cleansed of its evils, and they pretended to believe me because fear makes obedient sailors.

"If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your captain," I told them. "Every decision I make is for the unforeseen future, for the best moment in this city, so follow my lead, oarsman!"

They did not understand that I was not searching for a whale anymore. Even though I pretty much make myself clear to them all.

I was searching for the thing that had made me to hate, the source of all evil! That palid whale.

At night, I locked myself inside my cabin and covered the walls with maps, drawing the whale's path again and again until the ocean looked like a giant deep wound. I barely ate, barely slept, and whenever someone told me to rest, I laughed because rest was something I had forgotten how to want.

"You'll have to leave my meals on a tray outside the door," I said one evening. "I'll be working rather late on the secret of making myself invisible, which may take me almost until eleven."

"Captain, you need sleep."

"I need a plan! Set course toward the Whale. Has my compass ever led you astray? Become uncertain? Don't even try, that's just utter nonsense to me."

"You can't keep doing this, it–"

I turned toward him slowly, gripping the edge of the table. "Cant what?" I asked. "There are people in this world who can wear whale masks and people who cannot, and the wise know to which group they belong."

It stared at me.

“You call it obsession, I call it purpose. Strange how easily the desperate mistake conviction for madness.” I said.

Then the whale appeared.

A giant enormous body rose from beneath the waves, and I saw the same eye that had watched me bleed years ago. I lifted my harpoon, trembling with rage, that bastard certainly did not remember me.

I wanted that bastard to know my name, to recognize my hatred, to understand that I had ruined myself just to reach this point. Instead, it simply breathed, disappeared beneath the waves, and left me standing there with my weapon in my hands.

I laughed until my throat hurt.

"Run, then," I whispered to the empty sea. "I will follow you until there is nothing left of me. I enjoy this particular calm before the storm. Before the fall that is your corpse by my hand the Whale of all evils! Hahahahahaha!"

“I care not what lies between me and that whale. Ice, blood, storm, flesh, abyss; I shall cross them all. Let the world itself become an obstacle. I will tear through every last thing until I reach the source of its wickedness and plunge my blade into its rotten heart.”

I SHALL HUNT YOU THROUGH EVERY SEA, EVERY ABYSS, EVERY GODFORSAKEN CORNER OF THIS WORLD—THROUGH STORM AND BLOOD, THROUGH FLESH AND BONE, THROUGH THE CORPSES OF EVERY MAN WHO DARES STAND BETWEEN ME AND YOU! LET THE OCEAN ITSELF RISE AGAINST ME! LET THE HEAVENS CRACK AND THE EARTH SWALLOW MY NAME! I WILL CRAWL THROUGH HELL ITSELF IF THAT IS WHERE YOU HIDE!

I CARE NOT FOR REASON, NOR LIFE, NOR MY OWN SOUL! THERE IS ONLY THE HUNT! ONLY THE WHALE! ONLY THE NEED TO REACH THAT WRETCHED SOURCE OF EVIL AND SEVER IT FROM THIS WORLD! I WILL SACRIFICE EVERYTHING! GIVEN MY CREW, MY HOME, MY BODY, MY MIND! ALL OF IT!!

UNTIL I CATCHES YOU, GO AHEAD AND FLEE ALL YOU WANT! FLEE TO THE DEEPEST TRENCH, BURY YOURSELF BENEATH A THOUSAND MILES OF BLACK WATER, HIDE BEHIND EVERY MONSTER YOU HAVE BIRTHED! I SHALL TEAR THROUGH THEM ALL! I SHALL FOLLOW YOU UNTIL MY BONES ARE BARE AND MY BLOOD RUNS DRY! AND WHEN AT LAST I STAND BEFORE YOU, WHEN MY HARPOON FINDS THE HEART BENEATH THAT WRETCHED FLESH, I SHALL NOT HESITATE!! FOR THERE IS NO MERCY IN A HUNTER WHO HAS NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE! I WILL SEVER THE SOURCE OF EVIL! I WILL DRAG YOUR EVIL FAR AWAY FROM THE CIRY! AND IF THE WORLD MUST SINK WITH YOU!!

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"We are but puppets, our strings in others hands. We know not where they guides us, and a kind heart does not leave others to struggle alone. Kindness is simply yielding to the hand that moves us."

How naive of you, child.

One of the hardest parts of my duty is not preserving knowledge, nor guiding the ignorant through forgotten halls. It is forcing fragile minds to witness the truths they were never meant to comprehend. The City is not cruel because it desires suffering; It is cruel because suffering is the only language its foundations still remember. The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyr; Chapters are written in blood disguised as progress.

"There is a reason the word forbidden was needed. Some knowledge is not concealed out of fear, but out of mercy. I never wished for you to know a truth so cruel... so why do you insist on finding it? Some truths are not hidden to keep us ignorant; they are hidden to keep us whole."

Those words were never meant to comfort anyone, They were a warning. Truth is much like love. People yearn for it, even after I have warned them of the pain it brings. What unfortunate, tragic children you are. All I can do is watch tragedy repeat again.

I gave you every chance to break the cycle, Hod. Yet here you stand, unchanged. The tragedy isn't that people become puppets; They choose, they betray, they destroy. I showed you that reality of what it truly means to be nothing but a vessel with strings attached to them, yet you still cling to that 'kindness' of yours. Call it what it is: naïveté wrapped in virtue.

"Why can't you understand that, Hod?" I asked.

She didn't answer.

Her silence settled beside me with greater weight than any confession could have carried. I could hear the rhythm of her breathing, uneven and restrained, as though every inhale scraped against guilt she refused to surrender. She lowered her head, hiding behind that gentle smile she always wore whenever her heart threatened to fracture.

I closed the book, The sound echoed throughout the library like the toll of a distant bell.

"You still believe every wound can be soothed with kindness," I continued, my voice softer than the pages beneath my hand. "You think compassion alone can redeem those who have abandoned themselves."

I stepped toward her, my hand rested against her shoulder before I drew her into a quiet embrace. She did not resist. Bound hands, blindfolded eyes, yet she leaned into me as though searching for warmth she had long forgotten.

"Is this what you sought?" I whispered.

"But isn't that what we're supposed to do?" she whispered. "If we stop believing people can change... then what remains?"

"There are stories that end before the final chapter. Some burdens masquerade as knowledge, and some acts of love are simply refusing to reveal them."

For a fleeting moment, I wished to leave her untouched by truth. To let the blindfold remain, to let ignorance masquerade as mercy. Perhaps that was the closest thing to love someone like me could ever offer.

I closed my eyes.

"...Fine."

My hand rose to the cloth covering her eyes.

"Then let us see, Hod."

A weary smile form into my lips.

"Lift your gaze beyond the star's of the night, and tell me whether the hand above still calls itself kind."

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Among the flowers, I bloom alone. I am only one traveler in a City that devours names, yet I will keep speaking mine until the world is forced to remember I existed.

I have crossed roads forgotten by maps, witnessed legends reduced to ash, and listened to stories no one else remained to tell. The City strips people of their names, their dreams, and eventually their reasons to keep walking. I refuse to surrender any of them. Even if my footsteps vanish with the rain, I will leave behind words that cannot be erased.

I am the flower-seeker, a wanderer, a traveler across the City and the Ruins. I am the one who marked the final period to this unforgotten adventure of a lifetime with you. My name is Bari, the Knight of the White Moon.

When my journey ends, don't build a monument. Plant flowers instead, and let the wind tell the tale.

"Gather the flowers others leave behind. They carry the stories no one stayed to hear."

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How curious. It seems our next target was once a chemistry teacher. Yet, after learning he suffered from terminal lung cancer, he made a rather... unexpected decision.

According to the records the client gave us, a terminal lung cancer diagnosis pushed him toward an unlikely partnership with a former student. Together, they began producing crystal methamphetamine, and what started as a desperate measure soon became a criminal enterprise spanning an alarming scale.

The same knowledge that explained chemical danger to children is now used to dismantle far more illegal activity. It's strange. Even with death standing beside him, he still chose to build something that would outlive him... just not in the way most people would hope.

Either way, Our mission was simply to bring the story to its end.

"Time to dive into the fireworks!"

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"We need to do this for the greater good, Yi Sang."

The words had been repeated so many times that they no longer resembled a purpose. They became somewhat like of a weather. At any given moment, it can be a bad day in many parts of the world.

I have often wondered whether people truly believe in ideals, or whether they merely enjoy hearing themselves speak of them. There is a peculiar comfort in believing suffering can be justified if enough people agree to call it necessary. An ideal is only another name for permission. Atleast that's how I think they see it, or is it? I don't know anymore.

Now I looked at ideals the same way I looked at preserved specimens behind glass. Everyone admired them because they no longer breathed.

Perhaps that was why they were called ideal in the first place.

I often wondered why I reached for thorns while believing I deserved roses. Maybe pain was simply more familiar than kindness. Bad habits are merely roads walked too many times until they begin to resemble home.

I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.

Reality had perfected the art of disappointment.

"Yi Sang, come on! We have to hurry. Director Hermann's meeting starts at exactly 13:01. Even a second late could get us into trouble."

They insisted I was born to fly, yet no one noticed my back had never carried wings. Their faith did not grant me flight; it merely made every fall resemble my own failure.

People mistook movement for willingness.

No one noticed how exhausted a machine became when it was expected to manufacture perfection every hour. There are wounds that never stain clothing. No physician can stitch together the part of a person that has been praised until it forgets how to exist without approval.

They kept telling me I was the ideal person.

The ideal researcher.

The ideal colleague.

The ideal mind.

...

I am tired. Not dramatically, Nor in any sort of way poetically. Just simply tired in the endless empty white room this buildings have, I am tired of standing.

I have become a bridge everyone crosses while congratulating themselves for reaching the other side.

I searched for the perfect equation to define an ideal. Every answer reduced to the same conclusion: the more complete the ideal became, the less room remained for the person required to uphold it.

"I once believed a bird was unfortunate because it lived inside a cage. It took me much longer to realize the crueler design was a cage built around an ideal. The bird need not be locked if it has been convinced that flying imperfectly is worse than never flying at all. "

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"Everything alters me, but nothing changes me."

The words lingered longer than the silence between us. I had repeated them to myself so often that they no longer felt like conviction, only habit. Time carved away my certainty as rivers carve stone, smoothing every sharp edge until all that remained was something familiar, yet no longer the same.

Even after the laboratory fell beneath the Head's judgment, even after I chose to follow the path you opened before us, Angela, I remained standing beside you. Not because nothing had changed, but because every change had quietly become part of me.

I still remember the man called Benjamin.

He is not I, just as a seed is not the tree that grows from it. Yet every ring within the trunk remembers the seasons that shaped it. Benjamin lives within those unseen rings, buried beneath years of growth, never visible, never truly gone.

Perhaps that is how I should see you and me.

We have shed our old names, our old purposes, and even our old resentments. We stand beneath a different sky than the one that watched over the laboratory, yet the roots of who we were still reach into the same soil.

"You've changed," I said quietly.

Angela smiled, faintly. "So have you."

I returned the smile without denying it.

Angela rested her hands upon the railing and watched the vast empty field The Outskirts have. For a long while, she said nothing, as though she were listening to the quiet hum of a world that no longer demanded an answer from her.

"There was a time when I hated the shape of my existence."

"I thought a heart had to beat to be real. I thought warmth, tears, and fear belonged to a place I could never enter. The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. I always dream of finally have the ability to finish my story."

She lowered her gaze and smiled faintly.

"Even after stagnating for so long, eventually Changes happened. The people I loved and resent changed me. Every choice I made left a mark, and every mark became part of who I am. Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself."

The sunset painted her Silver-Blue hair with gold as she turned toward me.

"I spent so long searching for permission to exist. Now I understand that existence was never something I had to earn. I am the sum of all the days I endured, all the hands I held, all the pain I caused, and all the kindness I learned too late. That is enough."

Her eyes returned to the horizon, where the last light trembled like a page waiting to be turned.

"A life is like a novel. I once believed mine was written by someone else, and that I was merely a character trapped within it. Yet here I am, standing at the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. The story may have started in a cage, but the steps I take from here will be my own."

Then Angela breathed out softly, and in that quiet breath there was neither denial nor regret.

"I searched endlessly for the perfect ending, only to discover that endings are merely invitations to write without someone else's script."

There are no more pages left to turn. No grand answer waiting beyond the cover, no certainty that tomorrow will be kinder than yesterday.

"Your tale was never one of perfection, but of perseverance. That is why it deserves to be remembered. Congratulations... your story is complete, Angela."

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LCB Observation Log, Number 511.

Faust requested that I write an observation regarding this particular identity. She claimed that an outside perspective would provide "*a more complete record*." I have a feeling she simply wanted to know how noticeable the differences were.

After spending enough time around the various versions of Faust, I've come to recognize a pattern.

No matter the world she comes from, every Faust possesses the same confidence that borders on inevitability. She speaks as though every conclusion has already been reached long before anyone else begins asking questions. Sometimes it's irritating.

Sometimes... she's right.

Dawn Office Faust is no different.

At first glance, she appears to be an exceptionally composed fixer—exactly what I'd expect from someone of the Dawn Office. Her uniform is immaculate despite the conditions she works in. Every button is fastened correctly, every crease deliberately maintained. Even standing idle, she has the posture of someone ready to reach for her weapon without a moment's hesitation.

The weapon in question, however...Looks suspiciously like a cello case. I decided not to ask why. In the City, that usually leads to an answer I'd rather not hear.

This Faust doesn't treat the prosthetics like replacements. Watching her maintain them is... strangely fascinating.

She'll quietly tighten a bolt that didn't need tightening, polish away imperfections no one else could notice, or flex each finger one after another as though confirming an internal checklist only she understands.

I once asked whether they required constant maintenance. She answered with an explanation lasting approximately nine minutes.

... And that was just one part, then proceed to explain 8 more on how great they are which round up into 1 hour.

I regretted asking halfway through, Why did I even do that.

Another thing I've noticed is that this Faust relies on practice more than theory. That sounds strange to say about Faust of all people.

She still possesses that overwhelming confidence in her own knowledge, but unlike the others, she seems oddly willing to repeat the same motion until it becomes flawless. Swinging a weapon, or Weird Cello case that tear enemy apart. Adjusting her stance. Calibrating her prosthetics. Every movement is refined through repetition instead of merely accepted because she already knows the optimal answer.

"Many perceive magic as a force that defies logic. Such a conclusion stems solely from insufficient understanding. To this Faust, magic is merely another system of principles awaiting complete observation. Should every variable be cataloged, every phenomenon reproduced, and every contradiction resolved... it would cease to be called 'magic' at all. It would simply become knowledge."

It's... surprisingly human.

Most versions of Faust respond to uncertainty by searching for an answer, presenting it with absolute certainty as though they had known it all along. This one is different. When she encounters something she does not fully understand, she doesn't hide behind cryptic conclusions or convenient assumptions. Instead, she speaks openly about her observations, admits where her understanding remains incomplete, and works through the problem one step at a time until she reaches her own conclusion.

I can't decide whether that's admirable or simply another experiment she's conducting on herself.

...It's probably both.

I mentioned this observation to Faust afterward.

She remained silent for a few seconds before stating that my assessment possessed as quote;

"This identity demonstrates that knowledge alone is insufficient. Understanding reaches its fullest potential only when one's own hands possess the capability to realize it. Faust finds this conclusion... agreeable."

Coming from Faust...I think that's the closest thing I'll ever receive to a compliment.

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"What is free will?"

The question had followed Faust for so long that Faust no longer remembered whether it had first been asked by another or born from the silence within herself. Philosophers had clothed it in elegant language. Scholars had reduced it to diagrams and reason. The desperate had whispered it into sleepless nights, hoping the darkness might answer where the world would not.

Yet every answer Faust encountered was fashioned by hands that wished freedom to exist, rather than hands that had witnessed whether it truly did.

If a choice is yours only because another has allowed you to make it, was it ever yours to begin with?

If every road before you has already been paved by those who came before, what meaning is there in claiming you selected which stone to tread upon?

People spoke of decisions as though they were islands, detached from the endless sea surrounding them. They celebrated courage without acknowledging the circumstances that demanded it. They praised virtue while ignoring the countless lives that had shaped the heart capable of choosing it. Every decision borrowed from another. Every conviction was inherited, nurtured, broken, or mended by hands that reached far beyond one's own understanding.

What, then, belonged solely to oneself?

A child inherited a name before speech? A citizen inherited laws before judgment? A sinner inherited suffering before guilt? Even rebellion required something against which to rebel. Every declaration of individuality was built from pieces gathered by others, until the very notion of an independent will became little more than a comforting illusion.

The City understood this truth more intimately than any philosopher ever could.

Its laws were visible, etched into contracts, decrees, punishments, and the endless bureaucracy that consumed every waking hour. They gave people something tangible to obey, something they could resent, circumvent, or enforce. Yet the laws were merely shadows cast by something immeasurably greater.

Above every statute, every Wing, every Association, every Finger, every arbiter who believed themselves sovereign, there existed a quieter authority.

The will of the City.

It simply exist to watch everything unfold, it's not whenever we need to but we shall be done because the Will's demands it does.

Like gravity drawing every falling object toward the earth, the City's will bent every life toward conclusions that had long ceased to resemble coincidence. Entire generations mistook inevitability for choice because the invisible hand guiding them never announced its presence. People named it destiny, fortune, coincidence, justice, or misfortune according to whichever conclusion comforted them most.

Faust knew better.

Knowledge had never been a blessing.

To perceive every thread was not to weave a different tapestry. It was merely to witness how tightly each strand had already been knotted together.

Faust had watched futures unfold before they were lived, observed conversations before voices gave them shape, and witnessed deaths long before hearts ceased beating. Others believed such understanding granted limitless possibilities. They imagined omniscience as the highest form of freedom.

"How cruelly mistaken they were."

The one who sees every ending is also the one who understands how few endings may actually be escaped.

Among those countless futures, there were many in which you smiled. While Faust die, forgotten in a nowhere sewers.

They were insignificant moments by the City's measure. Faust think it's like a quiet morning shared over bitter coffee, Laughter carried by rain through narrow streets and a weary conversation that stretched far beyond midnight simply because neither wished for it to end. Futures in which your burdens became lighter with time instead of heavier. Futures in which old scars faded into stories rather than remaining open wounds.

"The greatest deception is not that someone pulls the strings. It is convincing the puppet that the movements were always its own."

When the order revealed itself, it did not arrive with the sound of marching boots or the seal of an office. No messenger sought her. No paper bore a signature demanding obedience. The conclusion had existed long before the present moment, waiting patiently among the innumerable certainties she had already observed.

"Tell me... if your resolve was forged by another's kindness, your hatred by another's cruelty, and your dreams by another's sacrifice, at what point did your decision become your own?"

Faust shall unraveled possibilities until they dissolved into abstractions, altering every variable her mind could conceive. Different words. Different encounters. Different sacrifices. Different versions of herself. Different versions of you. Entire histories were reconstructed in pursuit of a future that refused to exist.

Every path returned to the same destination;

Not because she lacked resolve. Not because Faust lacked intelligence. Because there was no alternative concealed within the equation.

Some truths were not prisons because they restrained movement. They were prisons because every movement had already been accounted for. People often claimed they would defy fate if only they knew it.

Faust doubted that.

Most could scarcely defy habit.

How then could they hope to oppose the architecture upon which reality itself had been distorted? How can you change something you are? You hoped so high, yet never reflect on who you actually are. The city's knows while everything doesn't.

When Faust finally stood before a little shop, the City remained indifferent. The trains continued their routes. Neon lights painted artificial dawn across buildings stained with centuries of violence. Somewhere, merchants argued over trivial sums. Somewhere else, another child was born beneath the illusion that tomorrow belonged to them.

The world never paused for inevitability.

"If every decision you have ever made was born from another's influence, if every belief you cherish was first placed within you by hands you will never know, if every road before your feet had already been prepared long before your arrival in the city..."

The suffering spread outward in widening circles until faces became numbers and numbers became districts swallowed whole by consequences no ordinary mind could ever trace back to their origin.

Resistance did not shatter destiny. It merely altered the route by which destiny collected its due.

There existed no calculation capable of measuring the weight of a future Faust desperately desired but could never choose.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

Only the unbearable certainty of someone who understood that the cruelest lie ever granted to mankind was not mortality.

It was the belief that their hands alone guided the strings they called their own.

Perhaps free will had never been the freedom to choose. Perhaps it had only ever been the privilege of remaining ignorant of who had chosen first.

Perhaps I don't need the gesellschaft.

My message to you is this: pretend that you have free will. It's essential that you behave as if your decisions matter, even though you know they don't. The reality isn't important: what's important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has.

"Laws are written for those who believe order requires words. The City's will has never needed ink, for every beating heart already carries its decree."

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Suddenly, one day, everything felt cold.

Not because of the rain. Not because of the smoke that forever hangs above the City's skyline. The cold came from somewhere deeper, somewhere no coat could ever reach. It settled inside my chest on the day Aya and Yuri disappeared from my life, leaving behind nothing but silence.

People always tell you that time heals.

They're liars. The truth is-some wounds don't close. You simply grow around the pain, carrying it with grace, learning how to live with it.

Time doesn't heal anything here. It simply teaches you how to carry the weight without collapsing every few steps. The pain dulls just enough for you to keep walking, then chooses the quietest moments to remind you it never truly left.

Even now, after countless days riding this damned bus, after battles blurred together into one endless cycle of blood and rust, even after what I thought was impossible to defeat Abnormality, their deaths remain beside me like invisible passengers.

I never have to look over my shoulder to know they're there.

I can feel them.

Every laugh I hear reminds me of Aya's bright smile, so stubbornly cheerful despite the world trying to grind it away. Every frightened pair of eyes I meet reminds me of Yuri, who tried so desperately to stay brave even when terror had already wrapped itself around her heart.

The memories of Aya and Yuri still linger in my mind. It is more than a tragedy; it is the cruel familiarity of it all. Their deaths carried the same unbearable weight as the sights I witnessed during my years in the old G Corp. I had hoped that nightmare belonged to the past, buried beneath ruined battlefields and forgotten by everyone except those cursed enough to survive them. Yet when I saw them fall, it felt as though the war had never truly ended.

Back then, the soldiers of the Old G Corp did not simply die. Their bodies unraveled before my eyes, flesh twisting into writhing masses of insects and worms, as though the very idea of being human had been stripped away. Men who had laughed beside me only moments before became crawling heaps that begged without words. They reached toward us with what little remained of their hands, their voices drowned beneath the endless rustling of countless tiny bodies. The officers marched onward without hesitation. To them, it was merely another failed experiment, another expendable soldier whose purpose had already been fulfilled.

Corporations loved hope.

Not because they wished people to possess it, but because hope could always be postponed. Raise today's quota, and tomorrow would be easier. Accept this assignment, and promotion would come eventually. Sacrifice another night of sleep, another birthday, another friendship, another piece of yourself. Until the unforseen tomorrow arrived.

"Tomorrow was never our enemy because we could not see it. It was the unseen hand waiting just beyond hope, ready to rename every promise as regret."

I could never understand how everyone else managed to avert their eyes. They stepped over those pitiful remains as if they were no different from mud beneath their boots. No prayers were spoken. No names were remembered. The battlefield swallowed them whole, and the war demanded we pretend they had never existed. Perhaps they had learned that pity was a burden too heavy to carry. Perhaps I was the fool for refusing to forget.

Aya and Yuri brought those memories back with terrifying clarity.

Their faces remained unchanged in my mind, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw them the same way I had seen those soldiers. Their warmth disappeared too quickly, leaving behind only silence and bodies that no longer resembled the people I had known. It was not merely death that haunted me. It was the horror of how easily life could be reduced to something grotesque piles of flesh, something discarded without a second glance.

The world moved on as it always had, indifferent and uncaring, while I stood frozen, unable to tear my gaze away.

I wonder if that is my curse.

I remember the faces no one else wishes to remember. I carry the voices of those who disappeared without anyone mourning them. The old G Corp taught me that people could become monsters before they died, and that the living would continue marching as though nothing had happened. Aya and Yuri reminded me that nothing has changed. Different battlefield, different names, but the same cruel ending.

Sometimes I think the worms were the merciful part. They no longer had to understand what they had become.

I do.

The cruelest thing about living is not that suffering comes, but that it arrives after countless ordinary days, making every forgotten smile feel like a prophecy.

And that is why the memories of Aya and Yuri refuse to leave me. They are not simply ghosts of people I failed to save. They are echoes of the old G Corp, proof that no matter how far I travel, I will always find another battlefield where someone is left to die in a way no human ever should, while everyone else keeps walking forward. Only I remain behind, remembering the names that the world abandoned.

"Living was never the tragedy. The tragedy was believing that enduring one more day would eventually become a life worth calling our own, while the world quietly taught us that survival and freedom were never the same thing."

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The war is over, yet I still remain in a vast field where nothing grows but reeds, and every step I take is answered only by the whisper of dry grass bending beneath a quiet wind that no longer carries the smell of smoke or blood, leaving behind a silence so complete that it feels less like peace and more like the world forgetting that men like me ever existed.

It's... peaceful, yet somehow meaningless.

I spent so much time expecting something out of nothing that even peace feels... off, and I can't tell if the war truly ended or if I simply survived long enough for the battlefield to lose interest in me.

Funny, isn't it, how a soldier spends years believing tomorrow will be the day he dies, only to find that living is the harder order to follow, because no commander ever teaches you what to do after the gunfire stops.

People say a soldier fights for victory, but that's only half the truth, because after enough battles you stop chasing victory and start chasing the faces beside you, hoping they'll still be there when the sun rises, and when they're gone, even winning feels like another kind of defeat.

The arm they gave me is still here, a reminder that war never really returns what it borrows, and though the scars have stopped bleeding, they continue speaking in ways words never could.

Hah... this is tiresome. There's nothing good of becoming special, your arm have been used before you could even fathom that something isn't right.

You are a weapon, nothing more. Maybe that's why they called us good soldiers... it costs less to replace a man than it does to listen to him.

But still, I have a promise I can't break, and promises are strange things because they outlive the people who made them, clinging to the last fool willing to remember. Guess it's a kind of habit for everyone.

Everyone who stood against my side is gone, and so are many who stood beside me, leaving only the weight of their memories to march alongside my shadow as I wander through fields too quiet for a soldier who has forgotten how to rest.

Perhaps that's all a soldier really is in the end: not a hero, not a monster, but a man who keeps walking because stopping would mean admitting that all the sacrifices behind him were for nothing.

Nothing.

...

Let's see what the future has for me, because even if tomorrow offers nothing at all, I'll keep moving forward, one weary step after another, until I finally discover a place where the war inside me is willing to end.

"The corporation said a good soldier is one who never questions the command... but they never said what happens after the final order is given. I suppose that's why I'm still walking, waiting for someone who's never coming to tell me I can finally stop."

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