The first thing Nico felt was pain. Not a sharp, shooting pain or a fierce burning pain, but a dull ache that was spread all through her body. It wasn't demanding any action. If anything, it seemed to demand that she do nothing and continue laying on her… no, wait this wasn't her bed. Her bed was hardly soft, but it wasn't like this. It felt more like she was on the floor. Why would she do that? The aching pushed that thought away. It was quiet out, which was hardly out of the ordinary; Including her, there were only six women living at the convent. Things had been louder when she was a kid, but one way or another many of the sisters had left, and she wasn't sure that she'd ever seen any one new come.

Her nose stung. Something here smelled strange. There was something metallic, mixed with something sweet. It was kind of familiar, but she couldn't quite put finger on it. Had someone spilled something? If they had she needed to clean it up. Was it the- for a moment the aching seemed to get worse- Soldiers that had come from the Empire? Nico frowned. They didn't have many guests, being in a rather remote part of the mountains, but she definitely didn't remember any guests being as rude as they were. Apparently, some borders had changed and they were now part of imperial territory. And that meant all of a sudden they had to pay imperial taxes. What did they even have to tax? About all they had to support themselves was a vegetable garden, a few beehives, and the generosity of the nearby villages.

And did soldiers normally collect taxes?

She groaned. Somehow the pain got worse. Much worse. The smell stung her nose. Was that what happened? Were the soldiers responsible for whatever that smell was? What had they done? Surely it wouldn't be too bad simply for being poor, right? She needed to get up and clean it. That's how it was when there was an issue, wasn't there? It was her obligation, her duty. She only wished her limbs had the same enthusiasm. It seemed to take a full minute or two just to push herself up into a sitting position. It was followed by another surprising effort to even open her eyes.

Her scream tore through the quiet evening.

She was at the entrance to the convent. The battered wooden door hung open, letting in the orange rays of twilight in. She could see the lone dirt road that led across the heavily wooded mountain. Two trucks with the markings of the imperial army were parked not far away. They were unlikely to be moved anytime soon. Two of the soldiers were lying on the ground in front of her. One had a deep cut in his neck. The other had several small perforations in his armor. She would have taken them to be bullet holes, except that on closer inspection, the metal hadn't simply been punched in, but had melted. Their blood had pooled out on the floor. She had lain close enough to it that blood had soaked into her wool dress.

Nico clamped her left hand over her mouth and crossed herself with her right. She worked her mind, trying to figure out what could have happened. Had federation soldiers caught them? Is that why they were killed, but not her? But from the way the soldiers were facing, they had been trying to exit. She tried to hold as still as she could, tried to breathe as little as she could. The minutes ticked by in stillness, but nobody came. She pushed herself to her feet. She had to do something, even if this problem was going to take more than a mop to deal with.

That was when she saw it. Something else soaked in blood. She stooped over, once again cursing how sore her body seemed to be, and picked it up. She cleaned it carefully on the hem of her dress, making a note to herself to clean it more thoroughly later. It was a stone knife, about ten inches long. An artifact more than 1500 years old. Originally owned by a woman who had risked her life time and again to spread the word of God across Europa, now canonized. It was the only item of any true value they had.

It was also supposed to be kept in a glass case in the little storeroom they called their library. Why was it out here? Had the soldiers taken it? Or rather, tried to?

Her head started pounding, but she remembered; they had. She and the sisters ha been willing to give up some of their food, if grudgingly given the circumstances, but taking the knife had been where they had drawn the line. All of them had protested loudly. Even sister Doris, and she never raised her voice. That hadn't exactly gone well for them. One of the soldiers had smashed the butt of his gun against the mother superior's face. They'd led the sisters off to one room at gunpoint, but a few soldiers had led Nico off somewhere else.

She couldn't run, so Nico staggered down the hall as quickly as she could. The knife was slipped into the side of her belt. She tried to focus: which room had they been sent to, exactly? It was the common room, wasn't it? They must be okay. They had to be. They had to. She shoved the door open- wait, no, that was the wrong room. She was still alive. She wasn't even injured, whatever had happened to her. There had to be a chance. The pushed her weight against another door to push it open, only to find it was the wrong one again. She was getting distracted. Sister Magda would scold her for it again if she were there to see it. Nico pushed herself onward. Actually wanting to get scolded was a pretty strange feeling.

She finally got to the room she was really looking for. She didn't need to try shoving anything open. The door was already hanging open. There was sister Doris, quiet but always the first to help when people needed it. There was sister Nora, always a woman of good cheer. Next to her was sister Selma, always trying to look adroit and poised, even if no one was fooled. Sister Magda, strict but never uncaring was in the corner. And there was the mother superior, her face showing only a little swelling from the hit she took earlier. Nico went into the room to check if they were okay, but it was purely a formality.

It was quite obvious they were all dead.

All five of them were slumped against the wall, riddled with bullet holes. Blood, now forming into a brown crust, had run down the wall and pooled up on the floor. Nico's leg banged into something, causing her to pitch forward onto the floor. It was an odd relief, not being on her feet any more. Not having to look at the wretched sight against the far wall. But she couldn't stay there. There was too much work to do. She had no idea what she was supposed to do now, but laying on the floor wouldn't do it. She pushed herself up and looked to see what it was she had tripped over.

It was another imperial soldier. Dead, just like the last two. Four of his compatriots were scattered around him in much the same state. The one in the middle had a helmet with several holes punched in it, each big enough for Nico to stick her finger into. Another, lying on his back, had a hole punched into his armor, right around his heart. It was about three inches across. How could she have come in the room and not noticed that? And what had killed them? What could kill someone like that? And why hadn't it done that sooner?

Nico clenched her fist. It wasn't as if anger was any stranger to her, but this was something else. This went against everything she'd been taught. There had been no compassion, no love for another. Why? What was it worth to them? Life was a gift, and a fleeting one at that. It wasn't something to be taken lightly. To treat someone else like a mere obstacle…

Nico lashed out at the nearest body with her foot. Her thin shoe did little to protect her toes from the solder's armored plates. Another sound tore through the quiet evening, this one a loud yelp. She dropped to the ground, seized the dead soldier's helmet, and did her best to wrench it off his head. It didn't matter if he was already dead; he was going to face punishment. It was only fair, wasn't it? What you did to the least of your brothers, you also did to God. That made his actions horrible twice over, didn't it? He had to answer for it. People had to answer for their sins when…

Finally getting the helmet off, Nico looked down at his face. A young man, not much older than her. Almost friendly-looking. His unnaturally pale face was twisted with terror. He was dead. He was already answering. He had likely died right after the killing. To do something so horrible right before his final judgment meant he could be facing a fate far worse that her foot.

Nico shook her head. What was she doing? Trying to hurt someone just to satisfy her own anger didn't bring her closer to God. It wouldn't bring her any joy. It wouldn't undo anything. She could try again and again until she couldn't stand on her foot anymore, and she'd still be alone. She looked back to the sisters against the wall. The sight still churned her stomach. Even if it wasn't much, there was still something she could do.

She knelt next to sister Magda and placed her hands on her, doing her best to disregard the feeling of dried blood on her fingers and the coldness of the deceased woman's skin.

"Heavenly Father, your servant Magda goes before you today…" When She was done with Magda, she moved on to Selma, then the Mother Superior, then Doris, and then Nora. When she was done she looked to the soldiers. They don't deserve it, one part of her said. No, they don't. But that's not what this is about, another part responded. She went from one soldier to the next, mush as she had with the sisters, although this time her intonation for each sharp and matter-of-fact. After a moment's consideration, she returned to the two soldiers at the entryway.

She let out a sigh after she was done. There wasn't anything else she could do but bury everyone. That wasn't going to be a quick task. There were five sisters, and ten soldiers-

There were ten soldiers who had come. She had only found seven so far. What happened to the other three? They hadn't taken any of the trucks. Were they still here, in hiding? Were they killed by whatever had killed the others? Had they fled into the forest? What if they were what killed the other soldiers? But then why? What had happened? She tried to remember. Three of them had led her away. The other seven had led the sisters into that room.

She took off down the hallway, her limbs recovered enough to let her walk again, eve if she couldn't quite run. She counted off the doors in her head until she got to the bedchambers. One of the doors was hanging open. She looked in and was revolted, though not surprised, to find the last three soldiers on the floor. She was going to have to dig fifteen graves after all.

She tapped her chin, trying to remember. Something had to have happened. The soldiers couldn't have killed themselves. And she had to have gotten from the room to the entrance somehow. She started looking through the room to see if there were any clues. There were a lot of shell casings on the floor, but nothing in the room appeared damaged. There was nothing under the bed. Nothing unusual in the dresser. Nothing under the chair. That was about it. The room was rather small and had little in the way of furnishing.

It was purely coincidence that she saw it. She glanced over her shoulder and into the small mirror hanging over the dresser. There was something on the back of her dress; a long stain of a color she had seen quite a bit that day. The rust brown of dried blood.

She ran her hand over it. Something had split the fabric, but the skin under it seemed intact. It wasn't hurting, either. That was when she got an odd idea. She pulled the knife from her belt and held it flat against her back.

It was the exact width of the cut. One of the soldiers brought it with him. I started yelling at him and then he-

Her reflection changed. It took her a moment to notice. Her eyes had turned from green to red.

She was in the room with the soldiers again. She felt odd. Her mind was hazy, like she was trying to fall asleep and got stuck halfway, although she didn't feel tired. There was an odd warmth coming from around her, as well as a dull pain in her back. She reached back to examine it, and her fingers brushed something sticking out. She wrapped her fingers around it and gave it a quick, firm pull. The pain flared for a moment before fading away. She examined the knife she was now holding. It seemed familiar, though she couldn't recall why at the time. The blade was wet with blood, but a design of curved lines glowed blue across its surface.

She had forgotten the men were still there until they started yelling. She should have understood the words, but the meaning seemed to elude her. She could tell they sounded scared, though. They leveled their guns at her and fired. The shots were dreadfully loud and echoed quite a bit, especially in such a small room. The shots hurt, about like having a handful of gravel thrown at you. She regarded them dispassionately.

Their guns felt quiet. One of them began fumbling for the magazine and yelling at the others. They followed his lead after a moment. They were trying to kill her. The thought was quick and matter-of-fact. It didn't seem to inspire any fear or anger. She had an inkling there was something wrong about that. One of the men, having replaced the magazine in his gun, tried to bring it back up again. He didn't get to fire again.

She jabbed the knife forward. He was well out of arm's reach. It didn't matter. As her arm reached its full length, the light on the knife raced to the tip and shot forward in a beam of light the size of a pencil. It tore through his armor, leaving a hole that glowed red hot around the edge. She repeated the action several more times until he slumped to the ground. One of his companions tried to fire his own gun. The other opened the door and tried to flee. Neither of them got very far.

She looked down at the three men on the ground. There was something she should have been doing at the moment, but like most of the information she should have known, she couldn't seem to recall what. She left the room, making no effort to avoid getting her feet wet on the blood that had started to pool

Nico snapped back to the present, suddenly queasy. She remembered what happened to each of the other soldiers. The five who had tried to attack her after their massacre. The two who had fled. The cold, mechanical way she had gone about it all. What they had done was horrible. They had certainly deserved some kind of punishment. It still made her queasy.

Lord, forgive me.

Author's Note: Yes, this is similar to a concept I used as a joke in another VC4 fic. I came up with it while writing Just A Little Late. This story is going to focus on Nico, her friends Rosetta, Godwin, and Lily, and Odin and Jimmy due to being close with Lily. There are a lot of squad members in VC4 that I like, but I'll have to keep a lot of them in minor roles. Too many characters can make a story cumbersome. Claude et al will have their own role to play. I like Valkyria Chronicles' juxtaposition of real-ish military and fantasy aspects, so that will come up quite a bit. I will, however, do what I can to avoid writing a story about the main character simply steamrolling everything.