The instant Yoshio walked onto the bridge of the Faithful Soldier, the simultaneous scrutiny of a dozen older and more experienced men and women dashed whatever idle thoughts he might have been having. He listened to the sound of his throat pulsing as he swallowed.
"You asked for me, sir?"
Yoshio celebrated a small personal victory that he had not made an immediate fool out of himself. While it might have occurred to Diana to be promptly saddened by such personal celebration, it did not occur to Yoshio.
Yoshio's eyes flitted over to Captain Liang. The man had fairly distinct characteristics: he was very tall for a Chinese man, with a narrow countenance and pointed, perpetually-glaring eyes. Yoshio was a split-second slow in realizing that Captain Liang was staring right back at him, studying him in turn. Yoshio flinched, and then felt bad for flinching, at which point an endless feedback loop of teenaged insecurity began ravaging Yoshio's thought processes.
"Yes," Captain Liang said. "I'm flattered that My Lord will address me as 'sir,' but I am not your tutor. Technically, I am your subordinate, but I'm sure that if I addressed you as 'sir' the irregularity would only make both of us uncomfortable. I will thus refrain from doing so."
Yoshio nodded hastily. "I-if you don't mind me asking, why did you call for me?"
Chu-Ko Liang raised one sharply angled eyebrow. "Then I take it you would rather stay in the civilian escort chambers? Very well. Lieutenant Irino, if you'd please bring up a list of available evacuation chambers for the Prophet-Prince to spend the duration of the battle—"
"Wait!"
"Yes, My Lord?"
"I will stay."
From the warm sensation in his head, Yoshio knew that he was blushing. Whether it was from embarrassment or the acute irritation that now buzzed in his head, he wasn't sure. All he knew was that Chu-ko Liang was playing with him, and that he, direct matrilineal descendant of Tatsuya Kaname, was a member of the ruling family of mankind, and that all things considered he really shouldn't have had to take Chu-ko Liang's shit.
"Very well," Captain Liang said. At a wave of his hand, a sloped platform extended from the raised platform upon which he stood, watching over the rest of the bridge. Yoshio took the implied invitation and stepped onto the platform.
The bridge of the Faithful Soldier was arrayed around a giant holographic pit displaying the ongoing battle. The captain had direct control over the central display, with each bridge member having smaller personal copies of the display for individual use. Right now, Yoshio could see that the human battle-group was orbiting the sole moon of Blue Frontier, the outstretched finger of Hierocratic expansion in the sector. Blue Frontier was solidly under the Hierocracy's grip, thanks to a strategic combination of intermarriage between Himmelsschloss nobility and the local government and the always-effective threat of "comply or we'll have a battleship captain take a vacation in geocentric orbit above the colony capitol." Thankfully, Blue Frontier's local militia was underdeveloped enough that such threats were still met with compliance. For colonies that had been isolated for close to a century in both space and time before the advent of FTL engines, local cultures and strong nationalistic sentiment tended to make that not the case.
"Sir, the admiral says that we're taking defensive positions around the moon," one of the bridge technicians said. "This ship is to run its boarding parties and then rejoin the main force. Timetables are at your discretion."
Captain Liang nodded once before commencing a barrage of orders. Yoshio knew that most of them were just simple bookkeeping and maintenance, but he still appreciated the thoroughness. Protocol existed so that the important details that kept people from dying weren't neglected.
Most of it, though, was fairly routine business until new dots, colored an angry red, began appearing within the holographic pit, one after another.
"The enemy is three light-seconds outside cannon range."
Scouting drones could only give estimates on the size of the demon force, especially considering that the demons could withdraw or supply troops from their miasma fronts at will. Only at the onset of battle could the true size of the enemy force be properly determined.
Compared to the human force, the demons were a cat against a lion. Captain Liang smiled. "We outnumber them. Lieutenant Okonagi, determine optimal targets for boarding, preferably their larger ships. After that, I want you to get the AI to give us the optimal flight path in and out of the strike zone. Lieutenant Kurosawa, prepare the engines. The firing teams should know their job. I want maximum efficiency. If AIs could do everything, then I would just sit here alone. This is where you prove your worth as human beings."
Yoshio studied the enemy deployments on the holographic display. "This looks to be a scouting detachment, given how small it is. I would not be surprised if they withdrew."
"Then we chase them," Captain Liang said, not missing a beat. "There is nothing but empty space for the hundreds of thousands of kilometers until the edge of this system. Unless they have magic, they have no traps ready, and I am fairly confident that the only person capable of working miracles is on our side."
"It seems risky," Yoshio said. "But I like it."
Yoshio realized that a few of the bridge technicians were giving him curious looks. What was the Prophet-Prince, cradled in the seat of privilege for his entire life, doing out here, on the frontier of civilization, and on the bridge of a warship no less? And what was he doing discussing the battle with the captain of the ship?
Having the decency to be embarrassed, Yoshio blushed. There were no good answers to those questions.
"Ah," Captain Liang said, lips curling into the shadow of a smirk. "I've read your file."
Yoshio's eyes narrowed. "Have you?"
"There is no need to be embarrassed."
As the bridge technicians turned back to the work, Yoshio was busy seething. Focusing on the battle helped to prevent that. He was more mature than this. He was the Prophet-Prince.
"Shift reference frame to this ship," Captain Liang said. On the holographic display, the moon, along with the ships orbiting it, began to accelerate to the back of the display, while the alien ships began zooming in closer. The Faithful Soldier, accompanied by a few other destroyers, was going in for the raiding blitz.
"Fleet battleships are in range and have begun firing."
"Sir, we have our entry and exit courses."
Captain Liang nodded. "Hit it."
The ship drew yet closer to the demons. Now, they had been noticed. White lances of light shot out from the far blackness. Most missed, but one hit the ships' shields, sending rumbles throughout the structure.
Captain Liang, in true starship captain style, gave the appearance of being completely unfazed. "Keep power to the engines and hold your fire."
"Sir, there is visual confirmation of the enemy."
"Display it."
A corner of the holographic display was replaced by a visual feed from the outside of the ship. Most of it was just the empty void of space, but a small, white dot could be discerned in the middle of the darkness.
"Magnify it."
For most of the people aboard the bridge, this was the closest they had been to ever seeing a demon. It was certainly the first time they had ever witnessed the new demons, swollen to monstrous sizes, that now served as the ships of the demon navy. When the news first broke, the idea had seemed absurd to many.
But the enormous pixels and the white robes displayed across the screen were unmistakable. The proportions were horribly off: the thing's stomach was bloated beyond any reasonable size, and the neck was elongated as if a snake had grown out of the demon's throat. It followed no principles of ship architecture or common sense. None of that mattered. It was one of those things from the other side, like magical girls and Incubators that no human being ever really understood, even after centuries of research. But unlike magical girls and Incubators, the demons were not on humanity's side. They were animals, and they wanted every human being alive a slave to despair.
Yoshio felt his chest tightening. Over the course of the past few weeks, the gag reflex had mostly died down, but close proximity to demons always seemed to do strange things to Prophets.
The mahou shoujo and the Armada were the ultimate shields that protected humanity. Hope was nothing but a motivator. Wasn't that right? Years and years of listening to the same words, placed on the same lips time after time again, dulled the edges.
Yet he still believed in those words, didn't he? He placed them on his lips time after time again, telling people that hope remained and that everything would be all right. His older sister believed in those words. Kaname Chiaki was still a child and she believed in those words.
"Launch boarders," Captain Liang said.
The boarding crafts shot out, too small to be targeted by the demon battleship, too small to carry any explosives that could put a serious dent in a ship's shields within the vacuum of space, but the perfect size to carry mankind's most dangerous weapon: a mahou shoujo.
Lasers shot out from the demon's body, targeting the battleship. This time, at the extreme close range, there was little chance that any of the beams would miss. Damage readouts flashed across everyone's holographic displays.
"They're terrible shots," Yoshio muttered. "They couldn't even hit any critical systems."
Captain Liang smirked. "I feel as if you've somehow placed a terrible curse over this entire operation, My Lord. What if they learn? Or adapt?"
"They haven't now," Yoshio said. "They're exactly as fresh as we are. We might as well celebrate while we can."
One of the technicians looked up. "Sir, the demons are preparing another volley."
"Then withdraw the ship."
As the destroyer made its way back into the main force, darkness once again surrounded the ship on all sides. Allies and enemies were once again tiny specks in the distance. Tiny flashes of light were all that denoted the firing of laser cannons.
On the display, the neat fronts of the two forces had mostly disintegrated into a random smattering of extremely spaced-out multi-colored dots, but Yoshio could still see the underlying patterns. Ship AIs usually ensured that geometric advantages were conserved as the ships moved.
The demons near the back of the formation were moving around the bulk of the human force. Yoshio frowned. In an age where starships could look and fire in all directions at once, flanking was hardly a tactical priority.
"Admiral's orders are to press the attack," one of the technicians said.
Yoshio looked over to see Captain Liang with a similarly troubled expression. "Something seems wrong."
"Well," Yoshio said, coughing lightly into his palm, "I cannot remember the last time pressing the attack when 'something seems wrong' was ever a good idea."
"Your input is greatly appreciated, My Lord."
"In theory, it works," Yoshio said, gesturing at the display. "They're moving in between us and the planet, which eventually eliminates all the room they have to get out of our firing range."
"But there is a trap," Captain Liang, said.
"Of course. Until they play their hand, though, there seems to be no immediate danger in hammering them into oblivion from higher orbit."
The battleships of the Armada were equipped with eight heavy laser cannons. While a two-second duration pulse from each one was not individually dealing significant damage to an enemy ship, a stream of pulses over a few minutes would eventually destroy or disable every critical component of a functioning spacecraft. The next issue, then, was avoiding being hit in the first place—the most obvious tactic was to move out of range, at which point targeting computers could no longer account for a ship's acceleration. The textbook way to move out of range was either to fire the engines in the other direction, or randomly accelerate the ship, which decreased the enemy's effective range, especially when sensors were restricted by the speed of light.
The demons could do none of those things. The other direction was blocked by an exceptionally large rock. Random acceleration had no benefit when the other ships were closing in. All they could do was sit there and return fire, which was a losing proposition when they were outnumbered.
If Captain Liang were to open a visual feed on the bridge, they would see twinkling amongst the stars: the firing of dozens of laser cannons, each one delivering enough energy to power a home for a thousand lifetimes or destroy a ship in ten minutes.
Yoshio had only ever read about the military might of the Hierocracy. He had never truly experienced it. When he watched it firsthand, the awe was enough to make him forget about the nausea, anxiety, and doubt. Emotion was on a string pulled by power. As a Prophet, he knew that. They had built an empire on the foundations of divine might and a deity's mandate to rule, so they knew what power and its promise did to human emotion.
Once, when they were both alone and neither knew what to say to each other, Christine had told him about heroes. He knew immediately that she doubted. It was a depressing exercise to consider that there were really no true heroes, that justice was inherently flawed, and that purity had no pragmatic warrants. So he had told her that they didn't need any of those things as long as they had power, which they did.
She had looked at him strangely after that. The words, sweet and seductive as they were, still tasted bad on his lips.
Captain Liang coughed, shaking Yoshio out of his thoughts. "The admiral wants us to slow our advance."
"So he notices something wrong as well?"
"Apparently so," Captain Liang said. "Still, I have to question the decision. We've already walked into the trap, whatever it is. But whatever the trap is, there is nothing the demons can do about the fact that if we just keep moving forwards, they will all die."
Yoshio queried the computer for some statistics. "Our accuracy is at sixty-three percent. That number could be one hundred if we were closer."
Nevertheless, they followed the admiral's orders. Engines were pointed away from the moon, accelerating the ship in the opposite direction. The Faithful Soldier, along with all the other ships in the fleet, began to slow down.
There were five battleships in the sector's defending fleet. While nothing compared to the fleets commanded by the Lord Admirals, five battleships was still a respectable force. These battleships lead the fleet forwards.
Earlier in the battle, three of those battleships had been boarded. None of the escorting demon ships had survived the deep insertion, but the boarding demons had made their way into the ships. Magical girls onboard the battleships were fighting off the demons, but several factors made it such that nobody really knew what their status was. Even with telepathic communication, a boarded ship behaved exactly like a normal ship until the boarders managed to destroy a critical system. Even then, systems were not interdependent on each other, so a ship with destroyed navigational functions could still fire completely normally. And, finally, there was little other ships could do about boarders, being hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart, so nobody really bothered to litter the fleet-wide communications with status updates.
This was why, when several dots indicating human ships began accelerating towards the demons, nobody really knew what was happening for the first couple seconds. The distress signals came one after another. Technicians scrambled to decipher the incoming transmissions. Then, one bridge member turned around.
"The demons have destroyed the engines on several of our ships in a coordinated attack. They have also planted artificial gravity devices on those ships, seemingly reverse-engineered from the drives that generate the fields on starships. They seem to increase the magnitude of the gravitational field strength acting on any objects within the vicinity of the devices."
Yoshio blinked. His mind wasn't whirring. He had mostly figured out the implications when the words "artificial gravity devices" were mentioned.
"Rotate the display so that the direction of the gravitational field is pointed down."
Once that was done, it was blindingly obvious what the demons' plan was. The ships were falling towards the demons, who had arrayed themselves in a bowl to catch them. It was a suicide tactic. Catching their prey would cripple the demons: they were drawing the firepower of three battleships closer and closer into range. The rest of the human fleet would clean them up afterwards. But those ships were accelerating "down," with no ability to dodge, while the fleet was accelerating "up," so they couldn't count on much support. If they did nothing, those ships were doomed.
Yoshio glanced at Captain Liang. Though neither man would ever say it to each other, each of them saw unparalleled confidence in the other's eyes at that moment. Kaname Yoshio had thought that Chu-ko Liang was green and an example of the bad logistics that had resulted in the slipshod composition of the sector's defense fleet, and Chu-ko Liang had thought much the same of Kaname Yoshio. Those perceptions died in that moment.
Captain Liang nodded back at Yoshio. "Reverse engines. We're going in."
Thirty seconds later, several other cruisers and destroyers began following the Faithful Soldier. Similar decisions had apparently been made on their bridges as well.
As they hurled closer and closer to the demons, one of the battleships began taking heavy fire. The majority of the demon fleet was concentrating their fire on one ship, and a minute later, a tiny flash went off in the distance while one of the dots on the display disappeared. Thousands of people were dead, Yoshio thought, and it all amounted to one tiny dot.
He looked at the other dots on the screen and thought of the thousands of people behind those as well—then the demons, and the horde of monsters that was represented there. And for the first time in his life, while thinking about the numbers that lay behind a display, Kaname Yoshio knew with absolute certainty what he was going to do.
Captain Liang was rattling out orders like a machine. "Cut in front of the disabled ships and draw the demons' fire. Send a transmission to the ships who followed us to do the same."
"On it, sir."
"Target the demons firing on the battleships and get me a firing solution."
"Yes, sir. We have a firing solution, sir."
"Guns ready?"
"The gunners have their hands hovering over the big red buttons, sir."
"All cannons, fire at will."
When the demons realized that they had caught unwanted prey in their trap—prey with engines that could still maneuver—their response was not as methodical as it had been when everything had been going according to plan. Demons that were still distracted by their previous prey made easy pickings. A few smaller ships suffered major damage, but not catastrophic. The remaining battleships survived.
Captain Liang was more animated during the battle than Yoshio had seen him be for the past hour. The thrill of ship-to-ship combat, it seemed, was exciting enough to penetrate the calm, self-assured exterior that Yoshio had originally observed. Yoshio thought that he would make a good conductor. His ship was small, but for all the world it seemed like he was directing combat operations on a mighty war machine the size of a dreadnought. Even towards the end of the battle, when they had the demons' throats at their feet, Liang still did not relent. Every five minutes he brought up a list of still-functional demon ships, chose the closest ship on that list, and crossed his arms and tapped his feet until the unending barrage from his ship removed the target from the list.
"Sir, we have a transmission from our boarding party," someone said. "The extraction, ah, is late, sir."
There was silence as the bridge realized that they had inadvertently abandoned their boarders.
"Oh, shit," Yoshio muttered. "Patch them in."
-x-
After the battle was over, Christine found Yoshio in his quarters, lying on his bed. He was holding a small, simple ring up to the light.
"I heard what you did," Christine said.
"Captain Liang did most of it."
Christine, despite the smile that brightened her face, shook her head. "Why does modesty suit people like you so well?"
With a faint click, Yoshio put the ring down on the counter next to his bed. "I don't want to live modestly."
"Oh?" Christine said, raising an eyebrow.
"I have spent my entire life up until this point living modestly," Yoshio said. "And in that time, I have not been of any use to anybody."
Christine looked down for a moment. "You assume that you have to be of use to somebody."
"No. I decide that I want to be of use."
Gently, Christine sat next to Yoshio. "Heroism has no practical value. It's all ideals in the end."
The mattress creaked as Yoshio turned onto his side. Christine had always either seen him poring over a holographic display or a book, deep in thought, looking supremely unsure of himself, or, at the complete opposite pole, with absolute conviction burning in his eyes.
Now he looked at her openly. It was the one time she had seen him be emotive, instead of having the emotion cover what he was. His expression carried a distant longing. With a sympathetic twinge, Christine realized how vulnerable it made him look.
"I thought about what I had said earlier," Yoshio said. "About how we don't need heroes as long as we have power. I think that I've changed my mind."
Yoshio licked his lips to give himself time before he began speaking again. "Heroes were part of my bedtime stories. I heard about them even more as I left childhood, and I believed in them, but once my tutoring began, reality began to interfere. There are still expectations for men, ones that don't exist for non-contracted women. We have to live up to certain standards, and I knew that I didn't. I would never be a hero as a figurehead, so I stopped believing in them. Inside Himmelsschloss' walls, I could only find them in the darkness of the past and the fantasy of my mind.
"Then, I met you. You don't know how to back down, or give up, or surrender. I think pride suits you very well. You are a hero, whether or not you believe it. If nobody else does it, you'll protect the innocent. If nobody else, I trust that you will still have principles. How can I not believe in heroes when one stands before me?"
Christine stared at him and the innocence that opened his face. She was anything but innocent and seeing a child's dreams on a man's face only reminded her of that.
"It's all an act," Christine said, voice breaking. She cast her eyes downwards. In that moment, she did not feel very prideful. "I'm just going through the motions. How does any of it matter when I don't even believe in myself, and I don't believe in what I'm fighting for? What does it matter when every day I ask myself why I still believe so strongly in those fairy tale morals? I am unimaginably lucky that I haven't been tested yet."
Christine didn't move as Yoshio sat up, twisting to look at her downcast eyes. When he placed a hand on her shoulder, she flinched.
"Don't you see?" she said. "Diana's terrified out there, and there's nothing I can do to help her. And I insulted May the first time I met her. There's nothing I can do for anyone."
"You made me believe," Yoshio said. "Do you honestly think that?"
Christine's shoulders were tense under Yoshio's hands. "I—I don't know."
The irony of the situation was almost too much. She had seen vulnerability in Yoshio, born out of his belief in an ideal, and now that same vulnerability was surely covering her own face.
Yoshio's voice was quiet but strong, like the distant hum of a laser cannon firing light into the blackness of space. "I do not care if being a hero is not enough. There's no reason why I have to believe in either heroism or practicality, but not both. Today I saw what daring action, faith in the Goddess, and several dozen laser cannons could do to those demons. The principles and ideals that we hold so greatly only have substance once potency is placed behind them, but once that potency is achieved, there is no reason we need to let go of those ideals. And in the end, we still need heroes. Hope is still a necessity."
At that point, all Christine wanted were answers. She didn't want to argue and was trying her hardest to quell any doubts, so all she asked was, "Why?"
"Because if we have our heroes at our sides and hope in our hearts, it is impossible for us to give up, and in these times, mankind can simply not afford to risk its own will. The slightest chance of surrender is fatal. When we give in, they win, and we die."
Christine's lips twisted into a crooked smile. "So it's just a matter of practicality?"
"Principles are only worth having if they result in good deeds and good ends."
"You sound like a philosopher."
"I've had some tutoring. Religious studies also help."
Christine felt her shoulders relax. Sensing the change in posture, Yoshio turned to look at her. "Do you believe me?"
"I…" Christine said, pausing for a moment to exhale. "I think I do."
"By my standards, that's as good as doing."
Christine smiled. "I wish I could have known you before this war started. Now everything is in jeopardy."
"I will still be here tomorrow," Yoshio said, deadpan tone belayed by the humor in his eyes.
"I know," Christine said. "But I still wish that this war was over."
"Then I am going to do my best to end it."
Christine chuckled. "How?"
"As soon as I can, I will speak with Captain Liang about becoming his first officer. While on the bridge, I noticed that the position was open. I intend on filling in."
Christine stared blankly at Yoshio for some time. The meaning and implications were immediately obvious to her, and, if she thought about it, it made sense for Yoshio to make such a decision. She still didn't know how to react, though.
She finally settled for a slight change of topic. "So how much do you think you can do to end the war?"
"As much as any human being can do," Yoshio said. "That's pride, isn't it? 'The light of the soul burns bright and eternal within each individual heart of mankind, whether or not it is contained in a soul gem, as long as hope is held close and dear. And let it be known to all who hear the holy words from the Prophet's lips, that each light can be used to guide the lost and the despairing to a new and glorious dawn, and that each human being is a shepherd and a savior—for the bond between the soul and the Goddess is only surpassed by the bond between one's soul and the soul of her fellow. And let it be known to all who hear the holy words from the Prophet's lips, that each light can spark and flare into holy fire, a righteous inferno to cleanse that which would seek to corrupt mankind, a burning sword to shield the hope of mankind. As long as that light still burns, every human being is capable of feats just as wondrous as the deeds of the Goddess' Servant.'"
"You sound practiced," Christine said. "Have you said those words before?"
"Yes," Yoshio said. "But this is the sweetest they have tasted in a long time."
Christine nodded before giggling lightly. "Do you remember what you looked like when Diana realized that you were a Prophet?"
"I remember being flashy and gaudy," Yoshio said, frowning. "The lights are only for physical proof. There is practical purpose: in the past, magical girls would be far more easily persuaded by a supernatural person who was clearly not a magical girl than anything else."
"I thought that you would light up," Christine said, stifling more laughter, "when you were reciting the scripture. It seemed fitting."
Yoshio rolled his eyes. "You sound like Diana. Nowadays, glamour effects are rare. My elder sister has only done it in public once or twice, and only on special occasions. I don't know why it happened on that ship. It has never happened to Chiaki."
"Your elder sister," Christine said. "Would you mind if I asked a personal question about her?"
Yoshio shook his head.
"Are you ever envious of her?"
For a moment, Yoshio hummed in thought. Absentmindedly, he picked up the ring from his bedside. "When I was a child, I think I was. I was groomed to be part of the Himmelsschloss nobility, but I am told that I was quiet and reserved. It seems that I was too quiet to ever express resentment for Haruka, who was showered with attention from my mother and father, from the tutors, from everyone. But still, she was very kind to me. She had a soft, warm heart. It has chilled over the years. She is still my sister, but there is iron there now. She has to lead an empire, after all. Guarded by the domed cathedrals that litter Himmelsschloss, I don't think any of us, back then, ever thought that the Hierocracy would come to this. I had thought, only a year ago, that I had resigned myself to the backseat of passive nobility. Maybe I would join the clergy and govern, but it would just be an extension of my childhood. The politics would all be controlled from Himmelsschloss."
"Like you were under the shadow of your family?" Christine asked.
"Yes," Yoshio said. "Have you ever felt the same way?"
"For a while, I did," Christine said. "But then I realized that the concept of McDonnell family honor was what I had always wanted to aspire to—or maybe they molded it into me, but either way, it hardly makes a difference. And even still, it's not like the political elements of my family are concerned with the adventurous parts. They don't care about heroes, so the McDonnell mahou shoujo have to stick together."
Yoshio shook his head sadly. "The Prophets are all theo-political. I fear that my sister will be rather displeased when she hears of my intentions."
"Do you think that she'll do anything about it?"
Yoshio paused to consider the question. "I doubt it. She knows that it would put strain on our relationship, and she respects me enough to leave me to my own devices most of the time."
Christine nodded. "I think that I would like to know her better," Christine said. "The Prophet-Queen has always been a distant figure. Given that we all put so much faith in the Goddess, and she is our closest link to her, I feel knowing her would be the best way to know the Goddess."
"Do I come in for a close second?"
"Well," Christine said, smirking, "what do you know about the Goddess?"
Christine's question had Yoshio's train of thought come to a screeching halt as he turned her words over. Watching him stumble over his own mind was somewhat amusing, Christine thought.
"Here," Yoshio finally said, showing his ring to Christine. "There is an engraving in the inside band. Nobody ever sees it."
"Really?" Christine asked. As she held the ring up to the light, she could indeed see words written in fine print along the inside of the ring, glimmering gently against the metal's golden color. They were the only decoration that Christine had ever seen on one of the things, yet they were hidden from the rest of the world, hardly functioning as decoration at all.
Squinting to make out the words, Christine slowly read, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the Earth."
Christine turned the ring over to see if anything else was written but found nothing. "It sounds like scripture," she said.
"It's not. Well, not the scripture of the Hierocracy."
"What is it, then?"
Yoshio shrugged. "It's an allusion to an ancient, pre-Hierocracy religion that died out with some civil war a couple centuries after the Hierocracy was founded.'
"So how does this answer my question? And why did the Prophet family decide to engrave the scripture of 'an ancient, pre-Hierocracy religion' on their rings? The easiest explanation I can think of makes no sense, because from what history says about Kaname Tatsuya, he was a rather bold man, hardly 'meek'."
"Yes," Yoshio said. "Nobody ever told me what it meant. None of the Prophets were told. Once the Prophet is old enough, the meaning eventually deciphers itself, and in the end, it's nothing but a petty in-joke."
-x-
Before the commencement of the long grind, whatever the grind was, Diana always felt a special kind of dread. Once the grind began, it would wear her down and dull her, which would render her immune—but before then, she was at her most vulnerable.
She sat in her bed, staring at the soul gem that rested in her palms. After the battle, the resultant grief cube surplus had been more than enough to replenish her soul gem, so she watched her soul gem glow, a hollow crystal lantern that shone with hollow light. Her blanket pooled around her ankles, and the ship felt very cold.
Before her stretched the rest of her life, occupied by nothing but the life of a mahou shoujo. She would kill demons; she might become very good at it. But she didn't think she would ever stop being afraid of them.
The logical conclusion came to Diana with a tiny, barely-functional smile: the obvious solution to fear would simply be to kill all the demons.
Her pad and pencil found their way into her hands. She drew without thinking consciously of anything but the technique, a machine set to automatic. Onto the paper appeared images of the demons, robes and pixelated heads at first, but then followed by the multi-jointed arms, and the clay flesh, and the ridged spines. They jostled one another in a twisted amalgamation of bodies and appendages, all of them hungering for something unseen.
The sound of her door sliding open drew Diana's attention. She looked up to see May standing in the doorway. Unlike last time, she walked right in.
"Hey," Diana said, tucking her pad under the pillow.
"Are you all right?" May asked. The words came out surprisingly naturally, without unnecessary pauses or rushing.
"Never been better," Diana said, not a hint of inflection in her voice. "But anyways, speak for yourself. What was that back there, with Christine and the grief cubes?"
May lowered her eyes. "I'm never all right, but I don't see why that has to be the case for you."
"So then, you're the blind leading the blind."
"I…I guess."
"To be fair, though," Diana said, "everyone's stuck in the same shitty boat in the end. Even normal people. Demons are coming for us all, aren't they?"
May fell silent for some time.
"W-why did you want to make me feel better, at the end of the mission?"
Diana shrugged. "I dunno," she said, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. "I'm not exactly the paragon of selflessness. So, when I want friends, I go fishing for sympathy."
When Diana looked up to see if May was smiling, she was met only with a sad, distant look. Diana had not seen many smiles recently.
"You don't seem like the kind of person who would do that."
"I don't?" Diana said, startled by how sharp her voice sounded, biting into her own ear. She bit down on her lip hard, too angry to really care very much about the pain. When she had gathered her composure again, she said, making sure to keep herself under control, "You don't know how desperate I am. I try to please everybody I meet by trying to pull off some sad, pathetic facsimile of people who are actually clever or witty. And I pretend that under everything there's actually a heart of gold, but the truth is nothing's there but more derision."
All May did was continue to stare at Diana, not even looking like she was trying to think of something to say. Diana found that the constant scrutiny wasn't, surprisingly, at all uncomfortable. She was still too preoccupied with other things—how miserably, in her own eyes, she had performed on her first test. The end results of the missionhad been fine but the journey there had been hell itself, and Diana knew, then, that any reassurances she had privately tried to make that we are going to be fine were all lies.
"Y-you tried to be my friend," May finally said.
The idea that the conversation was taking a turn for the decidedly non-preferable occurred faintly, dimly, to Diana, but she blithely plowed on regardless. "Yes, and?" she said. "I've had time to mull things over. Don't feel bad, because there are plenty of better people besides me that you should be able to make friends with."
May flinched, obvious hurt flashing across her face, before she narrowed her eyes and stepped forwards. "How can you say that?" she said, and she didn't seem at all offended at the edges ground into her words. "That it was all a lie? That you would actually lie like that? I-I don't know what's worse, that you'd say that about yourself, or that you'd really do it. I-I thought you were better than that."
"Are you trying to guilt trip me?"
"Yes!"
Then, when she saw the glittering of moisture in the corners of May's eyes, and the lines of anger—not dull anger, the simmering self-disappointed kind that she was feeling now, but hot anger, the kind where May had been wronged and the anger was just a by-product of the hurt—carved as if by a knife into her face, the guilt kicked in.
"I'm sorry," Diana said.
"You're afraid of the demons, right?"
"Yes."
"So you're ashamed of yourself, that you're afraid, because you're supposed to be stronger, right?"
"Yes."
"A-and," May said, taking a breath, "I don't even know what it must f-feel like, being the Servant, but I expect that it would only make things worse."
"Just imagine everything being worse, and you have a pretty good idea of what it feels like."
"I-I wasn't lying before," May said. "None of it gets better or easier. I don't know what everyone else does. I buried it. I-I learned to be as twisted as the other people in the Inquisition. I love combat. I'm doing the Goddess' work, right? Why not enjoy it? So then—then I don't have to spend all of my time being so miserable that I can't even function, like you."
Diana looked up and started laughing.
"W-what?" May asked, cheeks flushing.
"i-I don't know," Diana said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's just the way you say it. We're all fucked, aren't we? That's why the Incubators grant us the wishes—because we can literally think of anything we want, and being a magical girl is still going to turn out to be worse. Or maybe life is the thing that inevitably turns out to be worse, but we're just the ones who have it turn out worst."
"Um, t-that doesn't seem very funny."
"It really doesn't," Diana said. "So, in a development that doesn't really surprise anybody, you're actually miserable all the time."
"Not—not miserable. Just numb."
"I don't think the numbness has set in yet, for me," Diana said. "The dread is at its sharpest. It picks, you know? But I guess, if I can feel it picking me, I'm still—still alive, right? And I'm glad that I am. Death scares me more than anything else."
"I don't know anybody who isn't afraid of death," May said. "Anyone sane, at least."
Diana coughed uncomfortably. "And, uh, I'm sorry that I said those things. I didn't mean them. You don't deserve that."
"B-but," May said, beginning to wring her hands, "y-you said that everything you said was all a selfish act. Even the nice things."
Diana stared at May and was struck by how innocent she seemed, how much like a child. "It doesn't matter."
"Why not?" Her voice was growing hard again.
"I—" Diana said, before she stopped speaking to think, something that, upon reflection, she didn't often do. "Everything boils down to selfishness. But just because I have self-esteem doesn't mean that I don't respect you. And it doesn't mean that—that I don't need you, or want to be your friend."
For a moment, May just stood in silence. When she finally spoke, Diana saw that her breathing was shallow and rapid. "B-but you don't need me," she said. "Nobody ever needs me."
"I do."
"You were doing fine with Christine and Yoshio! I'm—I'm not unique in any way," May said, eyes fixed on the floor. The absurdity of the situation forced Diana to stifle a snort. She had forgotten who had come to whom for the comfort.
"Yes," Diana said, "but back on that ship, you were the only one who tried to talk to me—because in the end, more than anyone else, we're stuck in the same boat, all right?"
"B-but," May said, her breathing growing more steady again. "Is that really true?"
"Yeah."
"I-I think I also need you," May said, finally looking Diana in the eye. "I-I don't think that I was all right before I came here. Sometimes I wasn't afraid of death. I think I am now, though. You—you wouldn't take me dying very well, right?"
"Not in the slightest. We're both part of Team Prophet, right?"
"It's nice to hear that," May said.
"Hasn't anyone ever tried telling you that before?"
"T-they tried to in the Inquisition, after General D'Arco started changing things," May said. "But, apart from people who had worked together for a long time, relationships were strictly professional. Nobody could really be distracted by friends when we they needed to juggle heretic investigations in dozens of sectors at the same time. The only people I ever really got to know were Maria D'Arco and Julia Choi, and-and that's just because General D'Arco wanted to know everyone. But she understood me. I think she knew that the Inquisition wasn't really healthy for me."
"I'm, uh, sorry for waltzing into the obvious social faux pas like a complete idiot," Diana said, "but…what about your parents?"
"I never knew my father. I haven't spoken to my mother in years."
Diana blinked before saying, "Oh, well that's a surprise. So they're not both dead?"
"That—that's not—it's not funny," May said, covering her mouth with her hand and doubling over. "That's terrible. I—I should be so angry at you right now."
"I'm sorry."
"No, it's—it's all right," May said, sitting back straight again. The humor slowly faded from her eyes. "It all happened years ago anyways. It hardly matters now. But, uh, i-it's good to see you acting normally. I didn't really have to ask you if anything was wrong when I walked in and you didn't immediately start being needlessly sarcastic towards me."
"Good to know," Diana said, smiling. "Thank you for showing up."
"I didn't really do anything."
"No," Diana said. "You did. Even if it's not permanent, even if I'll get scared and lonely and gloomy all over again, you'll still be here, right?"
May nodded quickly. "Yes, of course."
"Then thank you, and don't deny it this time."
"All right."
Diana remembered talking to Akira in the engine room. Then, she didn't really understand what the rest of the war was going to be like. But then, fear had still been distant and manageable, while now it roared loud enough to drown out everything else. Fear didn't dominate Akira though, did it, even though she admitted that she had been lonely as well. People like Christine and Yoshio hardly had any time for fear, so she wanted to know how the people who were all too susceptible to its icy grip managed. Akira had managed.
She was the Servant of the Goddess of Hope, wasn't she? Hope was the word engraved on the tallest pillar erected in the hearts of every single citizen of the Hierocracy upon indoctrination. It wouldn't hurt to try having some. Even if the predominantly rational parts of her brain told her that it probably wouldn't get better, pure hope was never based on rationality.
"Hey," Diana said, "do you want things to get better?"
May started lightly in surprise at the unexpected question. "I-I don't know. If it's not going to happen anyways…"
Diana shrugged. "I mean, just considering that our situation is so great in the first place, I realize that it might be considered extravagant for us to want things to get better, just once. And what do we stand to lose by wanting, anyways? What does anybody?"
"I guess," May said. "I-it's just, there was once this time when I would tell you no, I don't care if it gets better, b-because I didn't know if I deserved anything good to happen to me. I think I still catch myself thinking like that."
"Well, you'd better not let me catch you."
"All right, Diana."
Diana felt a telepathic ping from her communicator. Quickly, she read the message and smiled once she was done.
"Hey," she said, "Wanna meet a friend of mine?"
"Huh?"
"She's from the Hearth," Diana said, "and was wondering what I had been up to after the skirmish. Apparently, we're going to be having some time off to spend. Reinforcements are finally starting to pour in from the forts world around Himmelsschloss into the outer colonies, but they sent the ships over understaffed, so there are going to be lots of transfers going on, some of which, coincidentally, involve moving most of the magical girl staff over to the new ships for boarding defense. So, that aside, Akira wants to hang out."
"O-oh," May said. "What's she like? Will she mind?"
"She's cool," Diana said. "She won't mind one bit."
When she smiled, Diana noted, it didn't really make May any prettier, mostly because every time she did so, the motions were always understated and awkwardly executed. Still, though, it was good to see her do it.
"I'll go."
-x-
"You asked for me, my Lord?"
"Yes," Yoshio said, sitting straight-backed in his chair. He had found a room used by visiting heads of state—rooms which he typically liked to avoid—vacated, and had decided to requisition it as his temporary "study," by which he meant that a few of his more interesting texts were scattered about the room. The point, he had told Christine, who had laughed once she had seen the place, was to make a formal setting for Captain Liang. Anything else would be unacceptable. "I am curious. Why did you request my presence on the bridge during the battle?"
"I was interested in your presence aboard my ship, my Lord. It is not every day that I am graced by the presence of a Prophet."
"So you decided to summon me once the battle began, but could not do so any time sooner?"
Liang was silent.
"I've checked the access logs for my file. I can do that, of course, because I am the brother of the highest authority known to humanity, and I have not yet fallen out of favor with the Hierocracy data-keepers. You seem to be especially interested in me, Captain. So, I ask again, now that we are on somewhat equal terms: why?"
Yoshio was too engaged to really consider that he and Captain Liang were butting heads far too often for their relationship to be regarded as anything professional. If Diana had been there, she would have made some snide comment about repressed patriarchal tendencies, but Diana was not there, so Yoshio and Liang were free to wave dicks at their leisure.
Liang sighed. "All right. You want to know the truth?"
"If you would be so kind."
"The motivation was to garner favor with you. If I brought you to the bridge, the worst case scenario would be your incompetence, in which case I could easily shut you up and send you away. But I have read about your studies, and your tutors, and I have examined the psychological profile that the Inquisition has on you."
"Wait, what—"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Hasn't your sister mentioned the profile?"
Yoshio silently fumed, resolving to confront Haruka about the matter later.
"Anyways," Captain Liang said, "in the best case scenario, I saw within you the ridiculous and impossible. Any sane man would think me stupid, or worse, naïve. After all, you have had no experience, which is, in the end, the ultimate deciding factor in success or failure. You revert to your basic levels of practice, which, for you, did not exist until today."
It was Yoshio's turn to be silent.
"You want to be useful," Captain Liang said. "So do us all. Whatever we're devoted to—a loved one, religion, a cause—anybody with the tiniest shred of ambition wants to be useful, whether to themselves or to something greater. You have to ask yourself, my Lord, to what you want to be useful."
"Mankind, of course. Am I not the Prophet, herald of the Goddess, ultimate ally of humanity? What else am I meant to serve?"
Liang shrugged. "Perhaps it is a matter of perspective. You are the Prophet by birth, but the question is—what are you by your acts? If I gave you the vehicle to exercise those acts, I would gain myself a potentially very powerful ally."
Yoshio snorted. "We're allies?"
"Well, we might not like each other very much," Captain Liang said, lips curling, "but if you were forced to ask anyone in the Armada for a favor, who would you ask?"
"Fair enough."
"Well, my Lord," Liang said, crossing his legs, "I'm sure we've established sufficient ground in these proceedings to continue to your actual purpose for calling me here. What will it be?"
Yoshio reached for a ceramic tea pot. "Excuse me," he said, pouring himself a cup. He noted, with some distaste, that he had, first of all, inherited the habit from his sister, and, second of all, that he was doing it solely to calm his nerves. "Would you like some?"
"Please."
Despite his initial trepidation, Yoshio was pleased that his hands remained steady as he poured the tea.
After taking a sip and feeling the warm liquid slosh about in his mouth, Yoshio placed his palms flat against the table. "I would like to humbly request that you accept me as your first officer aboard this vessel."
Liang burst out laughing. It took all of Yoshio's willpower not to demand a more serious response. The task was made more difficult by the fact that dejection was rapidly draining whatever reserves of willpower he had in the first place.
"I'm afraid, my Lord," Liang said, his laughter dying down, "that you will have to do better than that."
Yoshio ground his teeth together. "Please explain." Liang looked to be enjoying himself far too much for Yoshio to not be acutely offended.
"My first officer," Liang said. "I'm sorry, but the irony bites too deep. You must realize the unique position that you find yourself in. Truthfully, there are not very many people in this fleet who can claim to be that much more experienced than you. There are very few people in this fleet who possess the same instincts you do. The only remaining question is whether or not you can lead, and I am willing to invest."
"I don't understand."
Captain Liang sighed, shaking his head. "Please, my Lord," he said, clucking his tongue, "in twelve hours reinforcements arrive. Now, the fleets under the Lord Admirals are still concerning themselves with the defense and the maintenance of order within the sectors most firmly under Earth's control."
"I know that," Yoshio said, cutting Captain Liang off. "It's only been a couple weeks, and we haven't completely mobilized yet. What's your point?"
"Even a veteran of a heretical uprising faces roughly even odds against a demon swarm as a cadet fresh out of an academy does," Captain Liang said. "They are a new and strange enemy. That being the case, the reinforcements are mostly staffed with green officers. I guessed that the vast majority of them would prove amenable to a little re-ordering in the command structure—even the lucky mahou shoujo who got to command the jewel of the incoming fleet."
Yoshio's eyes widened. "A dreadnought? Here?"
"Officially, this frontline defense force is under Lord Admiral Leopold of Mercy's command," Captain Liang said. "While her forces prepared themselves, a relatively smaller contingent was sent forth to bolster us. That is the reinforcement. She sent her fastest, readiest ships, and nothing outruns a dreadnought. The Mercy is still back in the core sectors. We get the Maelstrom, fresh out of Martian orbital dry docks."
Realization slowly dawned on Yoshio. "So…"
"I pulled a few connections," Captain Liang said. "It was much easier to do, given the status of my beneficence's recipient. I feel that you have much, much better things to do than stay on this ship. I, quite frankly, would much rather have a first officer with whom I would not constantly quarrel."
"I—I would be perfectly content with such a position," Yoshio said, before he began furiously backpedaling, "but I will graciously accept—"
Captain Liang waved a hand. "Please," he said. "Enough. You assume command of the Maelstrom effective immediately upon the vessels' arrival in-orbit. Prepare yourself. Don't worry yourself too much about protocol. I'm only a Captain of common blood, not even a mahou shoujo, and my vessel is but a humble destroyer— but you would be astounded at the sorts of things that I can get away with."
"Y-yes."
"Well, then," Captain Liang said, sliding a tiny box over to Yoshio, "with your permission, I will take my leave."
Yoshio swallowed. "Yes."
Liang took a gloved hand from behind his back and extended it. "Sir?"
When grasping the hand, Yoshio made sure that his grip was firm. "I am forever indebted to you, Captain."
Liang's smile was a bit too smug as he slid a small box over to Yoshio. "Very good, sir."
After Liang had left the room, Yoshio opened the box, no longer trying to hide his trembling fingers. Inside were the pins of a Rear Admiral.
Yoshio slid his Prophet's ring off his finger and let it fall to the floor with a tiny clatter. Then he leaned back in his chair and let a wide smile take over his face.
-x-
Diana and May watched from afar as Akira and another Hearth member busied themselves over a holographic video display in the middle of the common room. Video feeds from the ship only showed pale white dots to indicate the incoming battleships, but because the ships were making a pass around Blue Harvest's moon as they joined the fleet, infrastructure satellites got a pretty good view of the reinforcements.
The magical girls and normal human soldiers lining the walls of the room gave Diana fleeting glances, as always. Diana was slowly growing used to them, and the Armada was getting used to her. Everyone had business more personally significant than the newest religious celebrity.
May didn't seem to mind the crowd much, her posture relaxed as she leaned against the wall. "I'm envious," she said.
"Of Akira?"
"She's…happy."
"Well, I have a surprise for her, anyways," Diana said, grinning at May's questioning expression. "You know how she was fangirling about the dreadnought?"
"It makes sense," May said. "Those things have the most complex engine-FTL systems, don't they?"
Diana nodded. "You've heard about Yoshio, right?"
"Rear Admiral Kaname, yes."
"I got a word in to him," Diana said. "I've gathered that for younger Hearth members, working on a Dreadnought is a pretty rare opportunity, so I figured that I might as well help her out."
May smiled. "That's pretty nice of you."
Diana hummed in response. Yeah, she thought. I guess it is.
"So," Akira said, addressing the crowd, "this is kinda the middle of nowhere, so we had to jury rig the projector. I think the thing works, but, we'll see right…"
With a tiny buzzing noise, the projector hummed out.
"…now!" Akira said, beaming. "Now, on the boring ships, they don't have this setup, do they? No, they don't. "
"By the way," Diana muttered. "About what we were talking about earlier with Akira, you two haven't convinced me. I've seen the statistics."
"What?"
"Incubators don't select for lesbianism."
May blinked. "Bullshit."
"I'm not kidding. I asked Mephis in my free time."
May shook her head. "I really don't think that's true."
"Whatever," Diana said.
"Oh," May said. "That reminds me. Remember Feraxis?"
Diana's eyes flicked upwards to the ceiling as she tried to remember. "Yeah. The separatist world?"
"The Inquisition thinks that it'd be a good idea to scout the place out," May said. "And the Armada, for once, agrees. Once we transfer onto the Maelstrom, we're headed out there next. The main miasma front also seems to be shifting towards Feraxis-controlled space."
"Do you have any idea what it's going to be like?" Diana asked.
"This entire sector is…Lyudian," May said. "Culture is very different, I guess. I don't really have that much experience. Some Lyudians are intensely loyal to the Hierocracy, even with their different religion. O-others are not."
A murmur ran through the crowd. "Hey," Diana said, pointing at the display. "Check it out."
Ships began appearing on the display. As they drew nearer, the growing light from their engines heralded their arrival. Given that the ships weren't in battle, they arranged themselves far more compactly than they would be in combat formation, so they could watch as the ships closed in next to each other.
A motley assortment of small, nimble destroyers, planetary bombardment cruisers and larger battleships gradually streamed across the display. Each one shared the same basic design: a long, thin, cylinder, capped on one end with an engine array. Up and down the length of the ships, hexagonal rings had apertures marking the position of the laser cannons. The battleships sported additional curves and ridges to house extra firepower. Diana had read what artists had to say about the structures of the Hierocracy's ships. They were pillars, solid and firm, and now, watching them stream by, one after another, Diana couldn't disagree.
The holographic image flickered for a moment, making Akira frown. For the next minute, the flickering persisted, while the image gradually grew brighter and brighter, blurring the outlines of the other ships.
"Is this stupid thing broken?" she asked, lightly drumming her fingers against the display machine. Abruptly, her fingers stopped moving, and a smile of realization came across Akira's face. "Oh. Oh."
A murmur ran through the crowd. "What is it?" someone asked.
"We gotta switch to another satellite."
As Akira began fiddling with the device, Diana turned to May. "You know what's going on?" May shrugged.
A minute later and the device was back online. "Ladies and gentlemen," Akira said, turning away from her work. "I present to you what I'm pretty sure is…"
This time the image was from a satellite much farther away from the fleet than the last one. It became immediately obvious what the issue had been.
"…the Maelstrom."
The light from the engines, which were only now beginning to dim, was so bright that it obscured the profiles of ships too close to it. Only from a distance was it possible to make out the full size of the dreadnought. But even with a grainy, low-resolution image of the vessel, the Maelstrom still made the jaws of the uninitiated drop.
Akira sidled up next to Diana. "You've never seen one of these beautiful things outside of the videos, have you?"
Silently, Diana shook her head.
"Class IIs have been in service for thirty years, now. It's kinda hard to obsolete 'em."
"Can't imagine why," Diana muttered.
Running down the length of the dreadnought was the same cylinder that the rest of the vessels shared, except much, much, larger. Hearth engineers had dug up FTL drive and engine blueprints only possible on paper because of space and energy requirements and used them to fuel the newest war machine of the Hierocracy. Then, with a fervent worshipping of "superior firepower" that would make Armada gunners blush, the Hearth had stripped everything but the drives and engines from the main body. Everything else had to go in two massive backwards swept wings that jutted out from the sides of the dreadnought, terminating just past the engines. Coincidentally, the wings provided the surface area for a point defense array five times larger than that of a battleship, meaning that a dreadnought only had to park itself in the general vicinity of boarding crafts or fighter swarms to blow them all to hell. It did not matter if the first turret missed, because the other four guns trained on any given target would probably not. In-and-done boarding runs were made that much riskier, and the age of close-range fighters, bigger targets than boarding crafts to accommodate weapons systems but not big enough to have decent shielding, died with the advent of the dreadnought.
Just looking at the profile of a dreadnought was sufficient to deduce the purpose of the main cylinder, and why everything but the drive and engine had been removed. Nestled in the front end of the ship was an aperture, so large that it effectively hollowed out the tip of the cylinder. The basic design of the Winepress laser cannon had not been changed in decades, because it still did what it had to do perfectly fine, and the mere appearance of a Class II dreadnought was still enough to make the smaller heretic fleets surrender on sight.
"You know," Akira said, her voice unusually sober, "what I think when I see one of those and know that it's on my side?"
"What?"
"That we're going to be fine."
-x-
(pew pew space fights)
(imagine me as that guy from the salvation army chilling at the entrance to a department store; you don't have to review, but it'll make everyone feel warmer and fuzzier)