Weapons of Mass Destruction

And just when Naomi thought she had seen all the cruelties of the war, she was wrong. Not long after the initial invasion, the Militesi Empire dropped what was probably the strongest bomb ever, the 'Ultima Bomb', and as a result, there were now only three countries in Orience. The Lorican Alliance had been completely annihilated.

A few days later, Naomi was talking to Keito in their usual meeting place in the park on the outskirts of Akademeia where rarely anyone else walked. The date was Aquamensis XXI, the twenty-first day of the second month of the year. Although there were rarely any snow in Rubrum, there was a chilly breeze that morning. "Hi Keito." Naomi said when she arrived at the bench where the two could sit talking for hours. "Our CO is a frickin' jerk." She began. "Oh yeah! Class Zero were officially enrolled as a class today, weren't they?" Naomi was curious how it all had went. "Yeah, and I already hate it." It didn't sound like Keito was up for a positive conversation this time. "One: Our CO beat up Nain. Two: We got to live on campus like you in the other classes." And the complaints kept coming. "Your CO beat up a cadet?" It didn't look like Naomi was really that surprised, but nevertheless it was new to her that a commanding officer would go out and beat a student. "More like thrown into the wall. Then he nearly froze me when I got up to help him. 'Ice Reaper', hmph. He fits that title perfectly." The name surprised Naomi much more than the behavior. "Your CO is the Ice Reaper?" She nearly screamed out. "Yeah, anyone you know?" Keito didn't seem to know the fame of her commanding officer. "He is, like, the most fabled warrior around Akademeia. How can you not know him!?" "I'm not from here, duh. And besides, I have something much more important to tell you." Her eyes suddenly got a much more serious look. "I'm being deployed today." Naomi shouldn't have been surprised by this. She already knew that the Agito Cadets were going to be used as last-resort soldiers, but she didn't know that cadets would be sent out so early. "That's.. not going to be fun. Where are you going?" Naomi's voice was noticeably weaker than normal. "Right off our doorstep: McTighe." Keito didn't sound nervous or afraid at all. Didn't seem to consider that this might be their last conversation, because no one knew who would return and who would not. "And Naomi, I really shouldn't be talking about this, but I know Class First will be deployed in just a few weeks."

Kazuki was training in the arena with Ren. Ren didn't seem to have any problem killing these fake Militesi soldiers, not that Kazuki would expect him to have as back during the initial attack on Akademeia, Ren had stricken down two imperial soldiers without second thought. But Kazuki had troubles even attacking these fake soldiers, who was summoned through some magic he couldn't even name. Kazuki closed his eyes and imagined a fireball, and following the regular spellcasting procedure, he had now cast Firaga RF-II, the strongest 'Fire Rifle' spell developed yet. It consisted of three small fireballs that penetrated armor like a hot knife through butter. Two of the fireballs missed the incoming target, one hit the soldier on his waist, causing him to scream and stop running. Cooperating with Ren, his partner came running in from the sidelines with his katana and delivered a slash that instantly 'killed' the soldier. He fell to the ground and disintegrated, like all the other fake enemies summoned by magic in this arena. "You know, we're going up against a lot worse enemies than foot soldiers. The arena masters haven't taken time to visualize the magitek armors we will meet in the field." Ren exclaimed in the following break. "You keep talking like we are all being sent into the war." was Kazuki's reply. "We are cadets. Remember that, Kazu." Ren took a breath, loosened his sheathed sword and began to draw visualizations of what he said in the sand. "A big percent of the main army was killed during the invasion." He was drawing up some simple stick figures that apparently was the army, and then drew a big X over them all. "I hear they are going to launch an attack to reclaim McTighe today. And even in our first mission to reclaim territory, they will be placing a few cadets." This time the drawing was a circle with the text 'McTighe' inside, and a couple of stick figures on the outside. "And when do you think we will be sent out?" Kazuki asked. "Eh, could be tomorrow, could be never. It all depends on how well the cadets do, and how much we are needed." Ren fastened his sheath in his waist belt again, and began walking to the arena exit. "I'm off to the regular class meeting. Are you coming?" Despite having walked a little away from Kazuki, Ren spoke like they were standing right next to each other, and Kazuki didn't hear all the words, but still replied "No, I'm going to practice fighting alone for a while." "Alright, see 'ya later."

'See you later, Naomi. Wish me luck!' was the last thing Keito said to Naomi before she left for her first official deployment as a cadet together with the rest of the newly registered Class Zero. As Naomi had thought, all of Class Zero wore capes instead of the usual scarves, and one of the members even had a full mantle around him. She thought she recognized him from another class, but that probably wasn't the case. Being transferred from one class to another almost never happened, and when the class in question was Class Zero it was even less likely to happen. Therefore, she concluded he was just another cadet that had chose to wear a mantle. Each and every cadet could choose what to wear for class identification, as long as it was the same color and would be easily visible from all sides. A scarf was optimal, but some chose to wear capes, even though the capes had to be knit in front so the color would be visible, and a few got creative with their identification, wearing for example a hat or something else. The creativity were limited by that the standard uniform had to remain unaltered, so there was no attending to Akademeia in a bright cyan shirt for class identification. A second limitation was that cadets would have to make or buy these other ways of identification themselves, while Akademeia handed the scarves out for free. While all these thoughts circled around Naomi's head, Kazuki sneaked behind her. A light push and a very sudden "Hello" was enough to make Naomi scream out in shock, causing everyone in the corridor to turn to look.

After the incident, Naomi had ran to her dorm and locked the door. She absolutely hated getting attention, and just as much she hated looking stupid in front of people she didn't know. No thanks to Kazuki had both of these happened simultaneously. Not even a minute after locking the door and hiding under her blanket someone tried to open the door, and after realizing it was locked, began knocking. "Hey, Naomi. Sorry for that, I didn't intend to." She didn't feel like answering Kazuki and remained silent. "Naomi? Please answer." And she didn't even feel bad for how him. He sounded genuinely sad, but he could just be. There was no mercy from Naomi Mizutsu today. He kept knocking and shouting for her, but there was no reply. No reply from dorm VII, at least. The door next to his opened, and there came the two 'top' Class First cadets: Satoshi and Mani, otherwise known as 'the magic-obsessed nerd with the messy black hair' and 'the blonde who have slept with half of the guys at Akademeia'. Of course, these were both exaggerations, but weren't very far from the truth. What could be discussed, however, was how the two of them got along so well. The look Satoshi gave Kazuki clearly stated 'What did you do this time' but he didn't say a word. "Finally told her and got locked out?" Mani asked him with a very mocking voice. If she hadn't been his friend, he would have said a thing or two about her love life, but he swallowed the words and only said "I accidently scared her and now she hates me". "So you still haven't told her? Damn, you're so slow." Mani rolled her eyes and turned to Satoshi. "Say something for once. And say something human understandable." Satoshi mumbled something back that only Mani heard. "Why not? Not my fault he is so slow to confess love." Mani complained to him, only to get an angry look back. Kazuki didn't feel like talking with them right now, but he didn't want to just leave them while they were trying to talk to him, so he just stood there for a few moments, wondering what to do. "So, Kazuki… Are you ever going to tell her what you feel?" Mani asked with a voice that was less mocking and more like the voice that could be expected from a friend who actually tries to help. "Can we just not talk about this right now?" He didn't feel like getting love tips from Mani right now, or at any time for that sake. At some point, maybe. But not for the time being. There were nearly ten seconds of silence before Satoshi broke it by asking Kazuki if he wanted to join in on this strategy board game he was playing with Mani. He had no reason to turn the offer down.

'Just what I needed…' Naomi thought for herself after hearing the conversation in the hallway outside. After all the stress these last days, hearing that her own roommate was in love with her wasn't something she wanted to hear. She was way too tired of all this and just went to weep silently under her blanket and eventually fell asleep.

The strategy game turned out to be fun. Even Mani seemed to enjoy it, and usually, she was not the girl for games. The board consisted of a map of a battlefield divided up into paths of tiles, with one character taking up one tile. Satoshi currently had his character in a path in the northern forest, while Mani were the queen of the castle and Kazuki trying to take down said queen. He rolled the dice and got three. He moved his character three steps towards the castle, getting Mani in his range of attack. Of course, she could also attack back when it was her turn. "I use Fire RF-II" And with that, Kazuki removed 55 out of 100 'Mana Points' from his character card, and he would recover 5 each turn. Meanwhile Mani was busy taking 'Health Points' pieces off her character card. Kazuki could have used Firaga RF-II and taken her out, but that didn't seem fun to him, so instead he used this attack so she was forced to flee from the castle and give up her defense bonus. The castle consisted of one big tile that was actually nine tiles in a square combined into one, and that signified a 'capture point' that could be occupied by any character for a bonus, but never two at the same time. One had to be thrown out for the next to take it. Satoshi ruled over a smaller capture point consisting of only one tile in the forest, and that point granted the occupier a line of sight bonus. Perhaps it was meant like the character got better view from climbing up into a tree? But at least, he was camping out there and nobody dared get close because he could attack them without them being able to attack him, if not anyone could roll the dice and get a high number to get close in one turn, that is. "Aw come on, is nobody going to even attempt taking me down?" Satoshi complained. "Don't worry, I'll come get you once I get the 'Avoid' spell." Mani reassured him. To unlock a spell, a character either had to kill another character with the spell, easily stealing all the spells that character had and knocking him or her out of the game, or the easier way, 'betting'. Betting was a complicated thing that took up a player's turn, and easily summarized, there was a dice for each spell to unlock, the dices ranging from three-sided to twenty-sided, depending on what spell. Avoid had seven sides. And for all dices, there was only one side that would gain the user the spell. Avoid was a spell that could be cast at the end of one's turn - like all other spells - and it made the player dodge one attack the next turn, but that didn't include volleys, so for example, if Kazuki attacked her with a Firaga RF, that would be three fireballs, she would avoid one but be hit by the remaining two. But if then Satoshi attacked her, she would not dodge the second spell. Taking down Satoshi was an important task right now, because he was camping out in the forest, betting on spell after spell and he was beginning to build up a dangerous arsenal. But he would lose, because Mani had a plan.

Meanwhile, outside Naomi, Kazuki and Ren's dorm, someone was knocking on the door. Naomi didn't feel like opening until she heard a girl's voice shouting for her. "You in there, Naomi?" It was Keito. She ran and opened the door, and saw that Eito was standing there as well. If he hadn't been there, Naomi would probably have hugged Keito the moment she opened the door, but it didn't feel right when he was right next to her. "You're okay?" She asked instead. "Well, duh. It was only McTighe. The combat itself didn't last more than an hour." Keito hadn't changed the slightest. Either she was strong willed and wasn't affected by the cruelties of war, or she was so cold-blooded she didn't care. Naomi guessed it was a mix of the two. "And how was your first mission under your CO?" Naomi tried to ask, only for Keito to roll her eyes and reply that he hadn't moved his butt out from Akademeia during the entire mission. "Oh, so he didn't beat you up or freeze you alive this time?" And with that, Naomi was mostly in a happy mood again. Her mood swings had only gotten worse lately, but in the little time she had known Keito, she had gained a trust for her and her comrades, especially Eito. There were some members of the class she had only seen in passing or heard about, though, so she didn't know what to think of them. Eito spoke up with a chuckling "Heh, I guess you heard about the 'incident' when we enrolled?" Obviously talking about the Ice Reaper's violent altitude. But after Eito's comment, the mood suddenly became grim as Keito changed the subject. "So, Naomi, about your deployment…" She didn't want to know what came next, but she could guess from how her heartbeat sped up and from the chill that ran down her spine. "Mother told us about Operation Reconquista, and I asked her about who would participate…" Keito looked up and stared directly into Naomi's eyes. She didn't even need to know what Keito said, she had already guessed it. "You're being deployed." Naomi took a few steps back. "But-" She couldn't finish before they were interrupted by a loud cheering from the dorm next, loud enough to penetrate through the sound-isolating magic and be clearly heard. Neither Eito nor Keito seemed affected by this. "There are no buts, Naomi." Eito coldly reminded her. "Neither you nor me can decide when we want to fight or not. None of us will survive this war with clean hands." With this statement, Naomi sat down on her bed. It was true, she wasn't getting out of this with clean hands. She would have to bloody them if she wanted to survive. Naomi began going over fictional scenarios of battle in her head, and when she emerged from her dream world, she saw that she was alone in the room. 'Alone' she thought. 'I'm alone'. That started up another train of thoughts, in which she realized she was really alone: Her parents were dead. Her sister was dead. Her classmates couldn't get her out of this mess, nor could her newfound Class Zero friends. Even her CO wouldn't be willing to defy his orders in order to help her out. Her last thought before getting up from the bed was how she would look down at her hands after this had calmed down. Either she would be dead and wouldn't be able to look at her hands, or they would be dirty and stained in blood. The most terrifying thing about all this was that the blood wasn't going to be hers.

Author notes
So that was it. The second chapter. The reason for this super-late update is that I spent most of the summer visiting my family in Chile, with few chances to write. I hope to get out the next part in less than half the time this one took. Also: I now have an actual thumbnail. Thanks to Kuro-Mai for letting me use her artwork. Look her up on DeviantArt to see the full picture and her other drawings. (Just for the record, the placeholder thumbnail (which I also use as my profile picture) was from a school project last winter.)

Thanks for reading, and I'd appreciate if you could point out grammar mistakes I haven't found. I'm not a native English speaker, so I probably have some mistakes here and there. And even better would be some feedback on my way of writing.

First published: 28.09.2016