I'm probably going to have to keep these Advance Wars chapters pretty short, because unfortunately, I'm running way too many stories at one time. They're all pretty successful, so decommissioning any of them isn't really an option. Then again, this fic isn't going to be anywhere near as long as those powerhouses, so it might make no difference.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and a special thank you to the first reviewers of the fic, Trainalf, koryandrs, and wellhaithar. You're support and feedback is greatly appreciated.

Pain: the body's natural alarm system. It served to warn the person when they were injured, lest they not notice a fatal wound. It let someone know when the action they were performing was a bad idea, by either burning their hand or stinging their nerves. Another of its duties was to awaken someone when they would much rather be resting, and that was the function of pain Ryugeki Suzukai, Private First Class in the Yellow Comet Imperial Army, was experiencing.

Ryu forced his eyes shut in an attempt to return to sleep, but experienced waves of agony, seemingly from every possible point on his body. With the pain adding to his wakefulness, the soldier quickly recalled the dream he had been so rudely awakened from. And oh, what a horrible dream it had been: more of a nightmare really. A mission gone horribly wrong, an unreasonable order, the deaths of Ryu's small 'band of brothers'… needless to say, Ryu was more than happy to be awakened from that dream, even if it was due to physical suffering.

Fully aware that it would be impossible to return to sleep while his body was aching so much, Ryu peeled his eyes open, to be met with a visage of a stark white ceiling, devoid of everything except an equally pale light that reminded him of hospitals. But there was no reason for him to be in a hospital…

Pushing through his pain, not even aware of what was causing it, Ryu sat up in a cot, completely oblivious to how he had gotten there. It was an uncomfortable thing, with a stiff mattress and bland, rough white sheets, just like the ceiling. Once again, the Yellow Comet tank crewman was reminded of a hospital.

His mind felt hazy and unfocused. Everything around Ryu seemed distorted, or bent in a weird way. Believing that it was merely because he had sat up too quickly, Ryu brushed the disturbing effect away, not really wondering what the true cause of it might be.

Ryu's dizzy thoughts were unable to continue as the sound of a door opening to his left interrupted them. Casting his foggy gaze at the source of the noise, Ryu laid eyes on a man who was most certainly a doctor, with the complete doctor package; white overcoat, stethoscope, and a mostly fake, rehearsed optimistic smile. Nevertheless, he had a Yellow Comet military uniform underneath, so that made Ryu a little more comfortable with his presence.

The doctor approached Ryu's cot with a clipboard in hand, with a look that could have only been contrived as pity. "Ah, Private Suzukai: it's good to see you awake, instead of thrashing about in your sleep."

Ryu wasn't sure what the man meant by that, but he shrugged it off, far more curious as to where he was and why. For the moment, he couldn't remember what the last thing he had been doing was.

Getting right to the point, seeing as how Ryu was in no mood for small talk, the doctor sat on a nearby stool and whipped out a pen. "Just a few questions and we'll move onto the debriefing. Full name please?"

Still confused, Ryu opted to answer the questions instead of ask any himself. "Ryugeki Suzukai."

The doctor made a quick swiping motion with his pen, most likely making a check mark. "Date of birth?"

"December twentieth, 661 A.D.A."

The doctor made another check mark, glad to see that his patient still understood that the calendar kept time in years A.D.A.: After Dark Age.

"Country, Region, and city of birth?"

"Yellow Comet Empire, Wutai Northwest Quadrant 4, Osenka."

Another check.

"Mother's name?"

"Shizuka Suzukai."

"Father's name?"

"Heishiro Suzukai."

"Siblings?"

"None."

With one last check, the doctor tucked his clipboard under his arm and rose to his feet.

"Well, you don't seem to have forgotten any of the important things, although it may be beneficial to conduct further tests later. If you'll follow me, I'll take you to the debriefing room."

The doctor leaned over and gently pulled an IV from Ryu's arm: one he hadn't even noticed. He then turned on his heel and slowly walked back towards the door he had come from; giving Ryu time to push through his aches and pains to follow him.

Having finally tossed the white sheet off of him, Ryu noticed that he was clothed in the standard medical patient wear, which was little more than a hospital gown over casual military attire.

Following the doctor out into the hallway, Ryu discovered that he was in fact in a hospital. Well, more of a field hospital really. He could tell it wasn't an official hospital just from the structure itself. There was no concrete or steel in the frame of the building; merely the tough, plastic, collapsible, and most importantly portable material that most field HQ's were made of. It could be set up or taken down within a day.

But Ryu still didn't know why he was here. He couldn't remember being taken to a hospital, or being injured even. Why was he here? Why had the doctor he followed given him such a look of pity? He didn't understand.

But he was about to. This field hospital had windows, and like any window, they reflected things back at the person who looked into it. Ryu saw someone's reflection in a window, someone who looked a lot like him. But it couldn't have been. Ryu had never had such a gruesome scar stretching from the corner of his right eye to the nape of his neck. The reflection couldn't have been him…

Fingers trembling, Ryu slowly raised his hand up to his face, using the window's reflection to stroke the afflicted location, hoping it was nothing more than a trick of the light. But it wasn't. Oh God, it wasn't. His skin was charred, leathery, and rough. More importantly, it was raw, and even Ryu's own gentle touch caused him pain.

In an instant, the young soldier remembered everything. He and his crew, expendable, had been used as a shield on the battlefield. Against a unit far more powerful than they, their orders were to distract the enemy long enough for a rocket volley to end the battle.

Oh yes, they had been successful. They had all done their damned duty. They had thrown their lives away, and for what? Some foolish order? Some commander who had not done enough to ensure that their rockets would have been safe?

For some reason, Ryu no longer saw his reflection in the window. He saw Sakura's barrel, stretched out towards five black Neotanks. He saw his white knuckled hands, gripping the tank's machine gun. He saw his death, in the form of five heavy anti-tank rounds, charging forth to meet him. He saw, heard, and felt a jolt, screeching metal, fire, and screams. It was there, in the window. It was a nightmare, seen in the waking world.

"Private Suzukai? Are you alright?"

Snapped out of his dreary flashback, Ryu turned his shocked gaze towards the doctor who had called him. "How long… how long have I been like this…?"

In a detached factual manner, the doctor flipped through a few pages of his clipboard. "You were injured in battle approximately three days ago; give or take a few hours. "

Ryu briefly considered asking about his crew, but he himself had seen their mangled and charred corpses, when he had miraculously climbed out of Sakura's wreckage alive. He didn't know how on earth he had survived, but he figured it was either a miracle, or, being outside of the tank cabin, he was flung out by the impact before the actual explosion, sparing him. Either way, it was unfair.

"Private Suzukai, we have a lot to talk about. If you could follow me…"

Sonja, daughter of the Emperor, well-renowned tactical genius of Yellow Comet, and recent victim of an assault from a common soldier, sat at her desk in her personal study, nursing a healing bruise just under her right eye. Kanbei had seen fit to send her back to the capital for a while, considering the stress the battle had put on her and her new physical condition, although Sonja knew neither of those things would have affected her command skills.

Holding an ice-pack against the now purple bruise that marred her usually flawless skin, Sonja seethed with indignation. For what purpose could any soldier ever lay a finger on her in such a way? If not for her, many, many more men would have died in the field. Her excellent command had incurred minimal casualties!

But regardless of how angry she was, it was nothing compared to the sheer rage that had overcome her father the moment she was struck. Not that Sonja had witnessed his fury herself, being unconscious and all, but she had heard the gossip among the men as to how Kanbei had nearly killed her attacker on the spot, with his own blade. Only Sensei's intervention had saved that soldier's life… although that intervention required karate chopping Kanbei in the back of the neck (Who knew Sensei was also a martial artist?).

Either way, the soldier had been taken to a field hospital, and Sonja went back to the capital for a few days. Unfortunately, most of her time here would be spent writing condolences to the families of the fallen soldiers. Since all casualties had come from her own division, the sobering task fell to her, and Sonja hated it more than anything.

Despite the fact that she was a proficient commander, Sonja had still directly participated in very few battles. In fact, her only other battle had been with Lash a few months ago, and the casualties there had been minuscule, thanks to the excellent positioning of her troops. She had still been required to write a few condolences, but it was less than fifteen.

This time was different. It was impossible to conquer a fortress like the one Adder had guarded without substantial losses. Well over a hundred of Sonja's men had been injured or killed on the field, leaving her with a far more dreadful task than before.

Of course, she could have delegated this duty to the intelligence branch: one of their more minor duties was informing families of the deaths of soldiers. But that just felt so… heartless. Every message sent to every family was the same, but with a different name plastered onto it. It was emotionless. Cold. And Sonja felt that her soldiers deserved more than that, after all they had done for their country.

So she had spent several hours writing condolence letters for the families of her fallen soldiers, personalizing them so that their families knew that they meant more to the army than just expendable grunts. She had made it through roughly half of the casualty report so far, written up by her Intel experts. She couldn't imagine how grueling their task was, to walk around a battlefield to identify and count their dead comrades. Maybe they just blocked out the pain and sorrow?

Sonja finished another letter for a man named Shingo, who had been one of the first infantrymen deployed on the field. Just after capturing a neutral base, he had been gunned down by an enemy recon unit, although the rest of his squad had escaped unscathed.

Flipping the page, Sonja came across one of the parts she dreaded more than any other. The page was marked, 'Unit Eliminated', meaning that every soldier in a unit was either dead or missing.

Carefully reading through the preliminary report, Sonja discovered that said eliminated unit had been a tank squadron: Squad Seven of the 32nd Light Armor Battalion. All five tanks, destroyed: all twenty crewmen, dead or missing. Every one of their faces stared up at Sonja from the pages of the report, seemingly accusing her of allowing them to die.

Trying to push the morbid thoughts from her mind, regardless of how impossible that was considering the task at hand, Sonja scanned the names of the tank crew. Baek Drosai, killed by an enemy Neotank volley. Shen Woo, killed in exactly the same fashion. Keima Kanzaki, missing in action, and the machine gunner, Ryugeki Suzukai, was missing as well. Neither of the last two's bodies had been found.

Something caught Sonja's attention though, and it took her a few moments to figure out what it was. She didn't know many of her soldiers on a personal basis, but someone on this crew looked familiar…

And then it hit her, just like that fist had earlier. There was a reason this crew looked familiar: a reason why the squad number rang a bell in her mind. It was one of the last units she had commanded on the field during the battle… the very tank crew she had used as a shield for her besieged rockets. That was why this page stood out to her. Why these four men seemed to have even more accusing glares than all of the rest. That was why she recognized the last man in the crew, Ryugeki Suzukai.

In a moment, Sonja understood why she had a terribly painful bruise on her face, and why any soldier could find fault with her command. It was because this soldier had found legitimate fault in her strategy, as he himself was a victim of her mistake.

This meant that there was a mistake in the after action report. Someone labeled as missing was in fact recuperating in a field hospital right now, and Sonja now had a legitimate reason to take a break from her dreadful writing.

"Court-martialed?"

Ryu sat in a small, blank white room, completely devoid of decoration beyond a small metal table and two chairs. Ryu sat in one of these chairs, painfully aware of the scar that marred his face, across from a captain from disciplinary services. He was an older, clean-shaven man with black hair and almost equally dark eyes, with a somewhat crooked nose and tendency to maintain a completely neutral face at all times.

"Surely you didn't expect anything less, Private? You physically assaulted a Commanding Officer, who, I'm sure I don't need to remind you, was also the Emperor's one and only daughter. If not for Sensei's timely intervention, a court-martial would have been the least of your worries."

Ryu had a pretty decent idea about what the captain meant by that. The Emperor's daughter was his pride and joy, the most important thing in the world to him. He would do anything to protect her, or failing that, avenge her. Ryu couldn't think of any incident where the Emperor had used his sword on someone, but he was sure he would have been the first if there had been no intervention.

Even Ryu felt slightly regretful of the whole thing. Slightly. His brain told him that everyone made mistakes, even the genius daughter of Emperor Kanbei. But his gut told him that it shouldn't have happened. Ryu felt, rather he knew, that the death of his comrades could have been avoided: should have been avoided. Someone screwed up, when they shouldn't have. And who was that? Who else could it have been but the CO in charge of that battle?

Still, Ryu had slugged a girl at least two or three years younger than him in the face with all of his might. Regardless of how bitter and angry he was towards her, he still felt a little bad about that.

"What will happen to me after I'm court-martialed?"

With a complete poker face, the disciplinary captain across from Ryu laid down the facts. "You'll be dishonorably discharged, for sure. You definitely won't receive any military benefits. Beyond that, your charges will most likely be left to the higher-ups. I would just pray that the Emperor has more important things to do than attend your hearing. Now, I need you to fill out this paperwork…"

The captain slid a sheet towards Ryu, and handed him a pen. Looking down at it, Ryu saw that it was nothing more than filing for the records, keeping track of a dishonorable soldier. With numb fingers and a heavy heart, the wounded warrior touched the pen to the paper, and began to scribble out his own demise.

Well this was longer than expected… I don't know how many chapters this will be, but the story will probably be a good, decent length. There will be at least five chapters, but chances are that there will be more.

Anyway, I know most of you readers of this story hardly know me, at least not to the extent that the devoted fans of my larger stories do, but if you're interested in having a say so about what story I write next in the future, I have twenty+ future stories in great detail on my profile. Consequently, I also have a poll for leaving your opinion on what you want next. And yes, there is another AW story on there.