Chapter 2: Don't you dare join.
"...if you don't want to, then you can always go back home. Where you'll be a powerless victim, swept up by the history books."
Gabriel looked down at her lap in contemplation.
"Or...you can make a difference in the world. Make a difference to a lot of good people," he encouraged, sliding a small pamphlet over her lap and into her view. She grasped it tentatively, her eyes widened by the picture...of the man with the red cross on his helmet screaming over gunfire as he tended to his teammate's wounds.
"Of course, you won't be doing your job in direct fire, at least I hope so. You'll be stationed at medical bases across Japan where you'll attend to your fellow soldier's wounds," he explained. The officer sat on his desk and looked out the window. There was a moment of silence before he spoke.
"It was a helluva thing you did yesterday. Where'd you learn that...?"
The officer was referring to the collateral damage incident near her residential area yesterday, when a large house suspected of hiding militia weapons and plans was blown up, most likely by a corporate spy. The non-professional soldiers who were either downstairs or outside and survived proceeded to get into a brief firefight with the spy and his allies, where they were left with bullet wounds and internal bleeding from the explosion. Gabriel, hearing the explosion as she came home from school, ran into the scene after the spies had left, called emergency services, and began stopping heavy bleeding with improvised tourniquets made from her ripped uniform, and also drained the blood from someone's lungs, allowing him to breathe, albeit still with a hole in his lung.
Gabriel looked up at the officer.
"I'll join," she said, standing and looking up ferociously at the officer's eyes. "I'll join the JSDF Medical Unit."
She clenched her fist. "And I'll make the ones who cut off my MMORPG sessions pay," she thought angrily. Gabriel reasoned that by joining the military she would get access to the free military internet which was cut off to many parts of Japan due to enemy cyber attacks, and would be able to download and play multiplayer games there. However, deep down inside of her unconscious, she was somewhat excited that she would at least be helping people, as gross and physically demanding as it may be. A lot of other people, students and adults alike, were also joining the army in hopes of being able to contribute to the destruction of the enemy invading force, so this at least gave her something to talk; no, more like brag about.
Everyone, except Vignette.
"You...DID WHAT?!," she yelped in shock.
"Urusai," Gabriel moaned. "Do you enjoy hating everything I do?"
She received a quick smack on the back of her head by the fuming purple-haired demon.
"W-W-What if?! W-What if you die out there?!," she chastised.
"You know...you look really cute when you're mad," Gabriel said nonchalantly which caused Vignette to step back and blush confused and angry. "Look. He said I won't be in any danger. I'll be chillin' at the outposts while all these other schmucks go out and fight. Besides what else am I gonna do without internet? R...Read?"
"Well...I'll give you that...," Vignette said, calming down a bit. "You won't be playing video games until six in the morning anymore-"
"Because I'll bring my laptop and hook it up to their internet and I'll play there," Gabriel interrupted confidently, with a determined look in her eyes. This caused Vignette to sigh and slouch her shoulders in defeat.
"And just when I thought you would be joining to help people...," she muttered.
"Oh...I guess there's that too. Silly me."
There was a period of tense silence, as Gabriel waited for Vignette's next move. She fully expected her to barge into the interview room, ignoring the line of applicants, and rip up Gabriel's application in full sight of the officer, but what Vignette said next made her jaw drop.
"Then...then I'm joining too!," she declared, fists clenched to her chest. "So I can keep an eye on you!"
"You're gonna be a medic?!," Gabriel sputtered, worried that she might have to spend her time handcuffed with goody-two-shoes.
"Well...blood makes me sick to the bone...," she replied shakily. "M-Maybe I'll be something else."
"Maybe you can be those people holding the flashing lights as the plane flies past them," Gabriel joked under her breath.
"Something somewhat related to what you're doing, baka," she huffed, arms crossed.
"My my my my...," Gabriel teased with a hand over her mouth. "Worried about your girlfriend contracting AIDS from touching other people's blood? Fufufufu...~"
Vignette growled somewhat seriously. It was as if she had actually considered that to be a possibility for her friend. "I'm joining, so you don't mess everything up over there!" She articulated her sentence with a firm index finger poked at Gabriel's forehead.
"Goodness meee!," Gabriel and Vignette heard to their left. "What are you two arguing about so early in the morning?"
"Raphiel?," Vignette asked. ""What are you doing here? Oh no..."
"Yep!," she replied happily with her arms behind her back.
"I just wanted a normal life...," Vignette groaned tiredly.
