Minna sat in the sand, which is what she did whenever she had too many thoughts to bear.
Alone, she held her knees pressed to the fabric of her uniform. Her bare feet dug into the sand. In the day, it's hot and arid. At night, it's cold and damp. With the sunset long dead, only the stillness remained. A breeze pushed towards the shoreline, and black waters rippled. Beyond lay Venezia, across the Adriatic Sea.
She could still taste Mio.
A mouth over hers. The arm pulling her in. Mio's barely cognizant slurs, and Minna's own erratic heartbeat.
Another scene played in parallel: scream tearing through the intercom, the lieutenant's terrified voice: commander, the major was shot down! followed by the sight of a body tucked into a hospital bed, eyepatch removed, hair untied, not moving.
With the death of Kurt Flachfeld, Minna resolved herself to solitude. Never again would she lose herself in another. But, somehow, the sequence had replayed, this time with Mio Sakamoto as its object. They had flown on one too many missions over Romagna, spent one too many a late evenings plotting flight paths at the base in Brittania. Before Minna could recognize the symptoms, it was too late. Suddenly, she was spending nights pinned down by visions of Mio, lost in them, crying the need to take and be taken into her own hand pressed over her mouth.
Oh, it was all benign and innocent, then. She could still look Major Sakamoto in the unpatched eye. The woman who stood at attention before her was a separate entity from the shadow that Minna conjured for herself, at night. It was one thing to fantasize chastely.
But earlier, teeth had met with tongue. Something slid and rolled, soaked in wine. Minna had a choice, and she gave in. Gingerly, she ventured her own tongue, stroked the inside of Mio's mouth. Reality and fantasy were bridged.
Hours later, sick and hungover, Mio had forgotten everything.
Minna couldn't.
Before her, the sea stood infinitely calm, as neutral as the black sky. How many soldiers had perished over its waters? Did their souls ever wash up with the tide, along with strips of metal debris?
Minna did not want to look back. If she did, she would see the base.
Why had Mio turned to her? In her inebriated state, did she simply seize what that her arms could reach? Or, worse – did Mio think of Minna what Minna thought of her?
She hoped it was the former. Already, her own feelings were difficult to contain.
Minna knew what to call such feelings, which bore down on her like the ranks on her shoulders. It was a conflict of interest. According to military code, fraternization – romantic associations between officers – was strictly prohibited. At last, she understood why it was a punishable offence. And why it happened anyhow, in every squadron, across time, throughout both peace and war.
After all, ranks and function aside, officers were only human. You sweat together, run laps around the same dirt perimeter. You bathe in the same naked water. You serve yourself with the same forks and knives in the mess hall. Far from home, soldiers find companionship in each other. Such esprit de corps was not only functional, but essential.
However, to transgress its bounds invited poor management and complacency. Disorder would ripple through the ranks. The function of the unit – and as a result, lives – could be endangered.
If Minna had once thought herself immune to such mechanisms, then Mio had long shattered her illusion. Now, shield blown, strikers down, what was once suppressed spilt forth like blood.
Two deployments had given Minna time to observe her fellow officer. A soldier with natural affinity for the front lines, Mio's steel resolve transmitted to the ranks. Where she lacked in planned strategy, she excelled in intuitive spontaneity. Here was one who did not turn from the enemy, until all ammunition emptied and magic drained! Even as her powers diminished, she offset her handicaps by evading missiles and slicing through cores. What single-minded courage! What devotion to the cause!
It was the very thing which moved Minna that would have Mio dead.
Thus originated fear. It paralyzed, clouded judgment. Ever since the failure of Mio's shield, Minna could not hear the alert siren without a pinch in her heart. In the control tower, while tracking the waveforms of her fighters, Minna's attention would linger on a particular one.
The view of the sea became unbearable. Minna kept still, head pressed against an arm. The tears ran free, as they had so many times before, for a single person.
At times, she cried for herself, and her improper human needs. For the mouth she wanted to hold in hers, the shoulder to grip onto as though for ever. Desires burned, never to be satiated. The sensual abandon shared earlier was but a mistake, a flaw which had bypassed a system of moral and intellectual safeguards.
Other times, Minna cried at her own powerlessness. She cried as though for one already deceased.
Not these tears, not the ranks on her shoulders, not a pointed gun could save Mio Sakamoto. It was too late to transfer the officer to another squadron, one away from the battlefield. Minna could request a re-evaluation of the major's fitness to fly, but the deficits remained subtle. Medical discharge would be highly unlikely. Again, N1K-J Shidens would rumble into life. A scream would tear through the sky. Except, this time would be the last.
Minna sank deeper and deeper into the sand. She became one with its coldness. She was as alone as on the night Pas-de-Calais burst into flames, the first one to ever rouse her naked soul, dead.
Memories continued to resurface. Glimpses of Mio's form, sword brandished, leaping and twisting in the early dawn. Mio beaming, holding up a paper target for Lynette to see, a single clean hole blown through the center. Kneeled by the bed of a homesick Yoshika. Flying extra laps until sundown, until Perrine finally did master that hard right turn.
Could Minna pinpoint a single cause, the particular fraction of a moment when like ended and love began? An image came to mind. Amid dim lights and bleeping monitors, wrapped in a pale hospital gown, Mio had just woken. The wounded officer looked up. Minna could barely breathe. A gleam came over that naked right eye, and it said: I am not afraid of death.
Her shoulders began to shake. In attempt to maintain some semblance of composure, Minna held onto her knees. She pulled them closer and closer until she realized, it only made the shaking worse.
More time had passed. The sea and sky were still as black, but Minna felt somehow better.
The sand had soaked up all her grief.
Her mind became blank, clear. Thoughts flowed, once again, with logical precision. Looking into the Adriatic Sea, which pooled into the Mediterranean before regaining the Atlantic, Lieutenant-colonel Wilcke formulated a plan of action.
If Major Mio Sakamoto were to be shot down, then so be it. She still had nine other witches to attend to. Barkhorn was the next in line for promotion. A form would be filled in and forwarded to Brittania, to request a spare fighter.
The corpse, if retrieved, would be shipped back to Fuso. A military funeral would be held on the airstrip. They would engrave the officer's name on the plaque in the main hall, one more name among the fallen. But that was only procedure, mere logistical detail. There was only one way to do Mio Sakamoto honor.
To take to the skies anew, cannons raised.
Minna stood up, and brushed off her uniform. Then, she tried to slip into her shoes, but there was sand caught everywhere, between her toes and in her clothing. She had no choice but to carry them. She walked back to the base slowly, barefoot.