The Trial: Journey's End

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

Chapter 49: Through her Own Eyes

...Menowa...Pavilion...

Neia stood from her table along with Albedo, who with surprising tenderness turned the diminutive human girl to face her, and removed the hood enough to undo the gag. She raised the hood enough to see her daughter's eyes for herself, "Ready?" She whispered, to which Neia could only smile in the small way she did when she knew there was only one way forward.

The Guardian Overseer folded her hands over the hood, about to pull it down again. Then on impulse, she looked up to the sky above, white clouds drifted aimlessly, demons flew in the center, circling like vultures. Her hand stopped in mid-motion. She leaned down and whispered into Neia's ear, "Your father watches, and is proud. Whatever happens next, let him see your face."

She then yanked the hood up and off, then threw it in disgust into the center of the floor. With her fists clenched she leaned forward over the table, "My client should face her accusers, enough of this, it's a pointless humiliation now. She has shown clearly enough that she will not hurt anyone simply for the sake of hurting them!"

Countless eyes lingered on the hood, to the point it almost felt like the wearer had been forgotten.

The adjudicator hesitated, unsure of quite what to say or do, Albedo fixed him with a golden eyed stare, and it might have gone on longer, had after a brief whispered conversation, the demoness prosecuting Neia stood and said, "We have no objection to such a minor change."

"Fine, but if she loses control, I will render summary judgement." The adjudicator responded and pointed his gavel at the defense team, "You are taking responsibility for this."

"Of course, guter adjudicator!" Pandora's Actor snapped out as he popped to his feet and bowed dramatically.

He and Albedo then slowly took their seats, Neia breathed a sigh of relief, and shuffled in chains to the podium. Her chains rattled, and she watched Mu'Ulm twitch uncomfortably when she reached her place and looked out over the scene arrayed before her. She looked out over the sea of faces, then up to the sky, where she was sure her father was watching from his private office. 'My voice. Your will.' She thought to herself, then taking a deep breath, she spoke. "Alright, let's do this."

Demiurge eyed her like prey, it was a good look for him, Neia hated to admit it, but he never seemed more himself than when he was ready to make someone suffer. She thought back to the test he'd given her years ago. When he smiled at her, Neia was reminded of the way Remedios had stood over her. The way the once noble paladin had crowed with joy as she'd essentially started carving the Pope to pieces.

Neia smiled sweetly in return. 'I won't make it easy for you.' She thought to herself, and felt sure that Demiurge read that in her face.

"Tell me, General Baraja, how many citizens survived the destruction of Wheaton?" Demiurge asked as if he innocently had no idea.

"A few thousand, mostly those who were wounded or hid. But out of the men, women, and children of the city, there were perhaps four thousand all total. I don't know the exact numbers, never did." Neia answered the question with blunt, military crispness, devoid of any emotion in the answer.

"I see, and how many were combatants?" Demiurge asked bluntly.

"At one point or another, most of them." Neia answered, "A lot of the battle is a blur to me still, I remember flashes, but every time I think I remember it all, it's like there's a new blur beyond it. However it was clear to me that they armed the entire population, creating essentially a suicide city that was going to win or die."

Demiurge cocked his head to one side as if confused, "Are you telling me a ten year old with a sword is considered a combatant?"

"If they're old enough to push it into your guts, and they've got one in hand, yes. I wasn't much older than ten when I killed for the first time, and I guarantee that you can find ten year olds in the Holy Kingdom that turned to killing during Jaldabaoth's invasion. You underestimate human brutality, we may look soft, pink, squishy, but when pushed... we will fight. You want my opinion, we're just different looking demons."

Demiurge pursed his lips at that, then went on, "So you were killing demons then, is that why you ordered the massacre?"

"I never ordered a massacre." Neia answered bluntly.

"Did you not tell them all 'kill, kill, kill...' or something to that effect?" Demiurge pushed sharply.

"Not on purpose, I lost my mind over what I saw inside the academy. Technically I suppose I 'did' give the order..." Neia started to say.

"So you're lying when you say you didn't order a massacre." He pounced on the answer, but Neia did not even change her expression.

"I can only tell the truth as I know it. I never intended everybody to die, I thought it would be just another victory, I'd never lost myself like that before, I'd never done that to so many that way, I didn't know I could." Neia answered calmly, keeping her hands folded together on the podium, she fell quiet, waiting for the next question.

"And the ones you had mutilated, and the prisoners you had beaten to death?" Demiurge pushed at the buttons of the blood soaked black paladin.

Neia answered with cold resolve on her stone face, "I gave the mutilated more than they gave their victims, a fighting chance. I punished them for mutilating the elven slaves, and for using their hands to hold whips. I warned the entire country I was coming, that I would punish them severely if I found those vile practices in force still. If they chose not to listen, then they took responsibility for the consequences. I just happened to be those consequences."

"And the ones beaten to death?" Demiurge asked.

"I never beat anyone to death... well, except for that one soldier in Wheaton." She answered calmly and watched the way Demiurge's lips twitched.

"The masters who were captured and brought to you." Demiurge reminded her.

"I didn't beat them to death, I just gave them to their former slaves. Those slaves chose to beat them to death." Neia shrugged it off impassively. "It may be a vile institution, but... I am compelled to admit in candor that not all were equally bad. There were slaves who protected their masters and the families of their masters because they were treated with loving care. It blurred a few lines for me, I don't deny it. Some it seems were slaves only in name, and those were not harmed when I poured out the bowl of wrath over the Slane Theocracy."

"Were you not responsible for any prisoners taken?" Demiurge asked pointedly.

"I was, and I released the masters and mistresses to the custody of the former slaves. It wasn't for me to decide their fates once released, if the slaves had chosen to spare them, or care for them, then..." Neia shrugged indifferently.

Demiurge kept his frown buried. 'She should have broken... well still, covered in all that blood still, at least she still looks like a monster.' He thought to himself, then he heard the sound of a shuffling paper, and saw Vanysa catch his eye.

He approached her, leaned down, and listened to her whisper.

His smile restored itself, and he straightened up, turned, and approached the podium so that he was standing directly in front of it, then he leaned very, very close.

Neia felt the sweat springing to her skin, a sudden feeling of being trapped overcame her as Demiurge closed the distance, leaning far into her personal space, she felt her breathing quicken, her fingers tense, goosebumps rose on her flesh and her hairs stood on end. She clenched her teeth and only just barely restrained her impulse to growl.

"Did it feel good, Neia, to fucking kill them all?" He whispered the question, and she snapped.

Her tense hands drew up and then slammed down like a hammer on the podium, shattering it.

"NO!" She howled even as her defense team was rising to their feet.

Her voice echoed over the pavilion, and the word gave her defenders and prosecutors pause, and the Black Paladin filled that pause with a desperate cry.

"I hated it all! I didn't want to be or make myself a monster! I never did! It didn't feel good to look at screaming men and women, it didn't feel good to burn Wheaten down to ashes... I never wanted any of those things! I wanted a peaceful world where we could live justly and fairly alongside one another, all of us! Minotaur! Human! Vampire! Elf! Orc! His Majesty showed me the truth, all I tried to do was share that truth...! But what else was I supposed to do?! Someone, anyone, tell me another way?! I had masters and overseers and breakers and mistresses and fanatics dedicated to the old ways so well that they went to war to stop me!" Neia left the place where she stood and walked to the center and yanked her arms out, pulling the chains taut.

"I won't deny what I've done! I won't deny my mistake, that I misused power I didn't even know I had, and that a lot of people who might have lived... died instead. But I never wanted anything but to live my life happy, free, and safe with someone I loved, I was forced by circumstances beyond my power to fill a role... like some storyteller compelling me to act against my wants, for some larger purpose. And so I did what I had to do! But don't ever tell me I wanted any of those things! Don't tell me that! I didn't! I swear I didn't!" Neia's sky blue eyes glassed over as she looked to the far reaches of the pavilion, but it wasn't minotaurs she saw.

Pain stabbed at her brain and she clutched her head again. "Hurts... It hurts..." She managed to whimper out, "When the children of demons and angels have risen in all nations under the reign of god, the World Tree will release Ragnarok to consume the world." She got the words out and slipped to her knees, clutching her skull.

Her brain felt like it was on fire as visions passed before her eyes of an endless horde of monsters sweeping like waves of the sea over the shore.

"Make it stop!" She yowled in pain as tears ran down her face, she'd barely started the words before Albedo snatched up the necklace and moved as fast as the light of a freshly lit torch to fill the darkness. Albedo crouched over Neia and put it over her head, then pulled the girl against her chest and held Neia tight against her chest until the pain finally passed. The necklace fairly glowed with the mana it absorbed.

Except for the mild cries of pain, no other sound broke the stillness.

When it faded away, Albedo got to her feet, and helped Neia to hers, the little pope smiled gratefully up and clinging briefly to Albedo's hand, she mouthed out a grateful, "Thank you, mother."

The Guardian Overseer winked, and stepped away. "Do we need a recess?" The adjudicator asked anxiously.

"No... No, I will continue." Neia said as she straightened herself and was again the larger than life, storied woman of the war years.

"Do you have anything else?" Neia said as she turned her piercing blue eyes on the prosecutors.

"Your witness." Demiurge said flatly to Albedo as he reclaimed his seat.

"Very well, then General Neia Baraja, what were your motives in the course of the events that brought us to this day?" Pandora's Actor asked in his grandiose theater voice.

"Simple. End it all. I was confronted with brutality, so I had to make it worse in order to make it stop. I destroyed Yanana to ensure the South would break without any serious fight later. I destroyed Wheaton because it was housing assassins... I was not in my right mind when I ordered the slaughter, that is all I can say in my defense there. Had I been in my right mind, I would not have given such an order. Though perhaps it did save lives on our side, it was still wrong and it wasn't planned. But my motive at every step of the way was the same, the end of the war and the supremacy of my father's will. Had the Slane Theocracy or their allies fought gently, I would have done the same. Had they abandoned their vile practices as I told them to, I would have imitated General Enri in granting amnesties to keep the peace. But... we saw what happened there. Not that I fault her, she just didn't know what fanatics were really like."

"And you do?" Albedo asked curiously.

Neia answered honestly, "Of course I do, I am one. I won't pretend I'm not. His Majesty IS justice, and I will grind everything in his way to dust and blow it away into the winds if he only gives me the order. You want to know the real difference between my fanaticism and that of say... those who rose against Enri? It's that my fanaticism made room for everybody, but theirs only left room for themselves."

"Do you think of yourself as a monster? Do you think of yourself as guilty?" Albedo asked.

"Look at me." Neia said softly, "I'm... well I'm soaked with blood even now. I can feel the brain matter under my boot still. I see myself as a woman with purpose, and I became what I had to in order to win, except for my loss of control that one time, I say that I did nothing more than what had to be done to bring that nightmare to an end. Now it's over. Am I guilty? I am guilty of a lot of things, and I 'am' the commanding officer, the General of that army, everything that happens is my responsibility."

"The coin stops with me." Neia said coldly, "I was in charge, therefore I was responsible, and having lost control of myself when it was my responsibility to remain in control, that makes me responsible for what happened thereafter. I can offer no defense except that I was under extreme duress. I leave it to the adjudicator and his panel of judges to determine how far either of those have value."

"Do what you will with me, my god's will is done nonetheless." Neia concluded.

"That will be all, reclaim your seat." Albedo said, and the bloody General shuffled in rattling chains to sit between her defenders, and left the court in silence.

'What the hell is Ragnarok...?' Mu'Ulm wondered, 'What the hell just happened with her, I didn't even think she could feel pain? What the hell is a World Tree? Why do I get the distinct feeling I should be very, very concerned about what she just said?"

Little time was given for him to ponder those questions before Demiurge stood up.

"Your honors, if it pleases you, I move that we continue to our closing remarks. I cannot speak for my counterpart, but I intend to be brief." He said with great courtesy in every syllable.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today because of butchery most foul, in violation of her master's orders, in violation the conventions of combat to which she was bound, General Neia Baraja engaged in slaughter on par with demons, true, she is only on trial for Wheaton, but looking at her record from Hoburns to Kami Miyako, where she went, blood flowed whether it should have or not. You have heard from her victims and her survivors, you have heard the analysts speak, you have heard her soldiers and her accusers and her peers. Everything that should be said, has been said. So now I am asking not for you to love her victims, I am asking one thing and one thing only from you."

He slowly walked to the center of the speaking area and pointed with graceful ease to where Neia sat, still stained with blood and grime.

"Call a monster a monster, a butcher a butcher, a war criminal a war criminal. Find her 'guilty' and punish her accordingly. Thank you." He then went and sat down beside his partner, and waited.

Albedo rose to her feet, placed a hand on Neia's shoulder.

"I will likewise be brief, my counterpart was right about one thing, we've heard all that needs to be said, so my closing will be equally brief. We do not deny the nature of the events that took place. But we deny that these events make her a war criminal. A woman pushed beyond all measure, thrust into the fires of war, she became a monster to fight monsters, a demon to fight demons, she did what had to be done, until no more could be done. Yes it is true, she lost control, but we argue that this would not have happened, had the Slane Theocracy not made itself so monstrous that one soul could bear it no longer."

Albedo squeezed the shoulder of her daughter reassuringly, "They forced that poison down her throat, they cannot then complain that it was in her. Her actions were just the fruit of that poisoned tree which 'they' planted for themselves. As her actions and the actions of her army were neither planned nor intended, and as the city itself had determined to fight to the death by arming the entire population, there can be no question that, tragic as it is, she cannot be held to account as if she had organized an intended massacre. I ask only that you understand this, through her eyes, through the eyes of those who suffered at the hands of the Slane Theocracy, and recognize the wrath that was born of her compassion, not her cruelty, and find her for what she truly is... Not Guilty."

She then sat, demurely, waited.

The adjudicator banged his gavel sharply and spoke in a voice as sharp as the crack of his gavel. "Very well, we will deliberate on the matter, and render our verdict." The adjudicator responded, "For now... return the prisoner to... no, return her to Kirakira prison. I suspect it would be ill advised to send her to Last Home."

"Very." Neia said impulsively.

The adjudicator shifted uncomfortably. "Tomorrow then."

"Finally." Neia, Skana, Lakyus, Enri, Gagaran, Keeno, Ainz, Jircniv, Draudillon, Calca, Albedo, Demiurge, Zesshi, and all the watching Empire either said, or thought, as one, no matter where they were.