Another day, another blurb. Lieutenant Karst is such a fun character to write from another's viewpoint. Writing from his own viewpoint would be boring, though, because there'd be little conflict, but other characters feeling his might? So awesome. He lets me do explaining (lampshaded to the juvenile Celes) without it feeling like stupid exposition, although I'm starting to (probably incorrectly) get the idea that I could have the Lieutenant break the fourth wall and it not be a surprise.

For all of you who smiled in Chapter 8 at the awesome casualness of the officer at the wounded soldier incident, here's another past reference.

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"So, this plan of yours… just what inspired it?" Celes grunted as he beat back another branch. He was in his standard-issue plainclothes, however much sense that made, as was the Lieutenant. A brown, heavily worn leather jacket – an effect artificially created by laundering it with stones before actual use – went with a blue pair of cloth pants, pants that failed to protect his legs from the brambles and roots in the woods completely. He also thought that they nothing like Gallians.

With a curse, he caught himself on a thorn, and carefully disentangled himself in a few seconds. By the time he looked forward, Lieutenant Karst had pulled meters ahead of him.

"Do you remember the two Gallians who honored Fritz?" the Lieutenant called back. "Would you have shot them on sight?"

Celes started and almost snagged himself on the same thorn again. "Well… no," he said sheepishly. "Sir, you know have trouble shooting anyone."

The Lieutenant raised a fist – there were two Gallian soldiers, one male, one female, kneeling in front of an old cabin. The male was obviously an officer, the female a noncommissioned one with her obviously non-regulation red scarf, but they appeared unalert – in quite the emotional state, actually.

Lieutenant Karst dropped a hand, flattening the fingers: hold fire, be ready. And like that, he crashed through the brush as noisily as he could, startling the Gallians into leaping into a crouch – but Celes, Barnett, and Heinrich marched forward as three faceless Imps, rifles at their hips, covering the Gallians; they didn't dare lose the Lieutenant now, despite their sudden trepidation.

His officer had stopped to let him catch up, and Celes crashed through another thicket, jumped a root, and dodged a trunk to stand in front of him. He panted, but the Lieutenant was as unruffled as ever, tilting his head as he responded. "Jacelern, I know of your weakness – that's why I let your carry that kit of yours with you at all times." The trooper blinked; he was holding a duffel mainly filled with medical supplies. As a concession to the rest of the men who vehemently insisted, he'd stuffed Kell's light carbine, the near axe-like "Francisca", into a box just in case of trouble, although in the end he expected he would have to give it to Lieutenant Karst if it came to that. "You're most useful to me keeping the men intact and their morale high, than as a trooper. At the former role, you excel; in the latter role," he said, gently smiling, "I would have had you shipped out a long time ago."

The reluctant trooper took the news sheepishly. He knew this already, but it was still a bit embarrassing to hear. "Ehhh… well, sir, I guess I couldn't have, even if I had more gut than I do."

The Lieutenant slowly dropped his smile into his normal cool, bored expression as he continued to explain. "By showing compassion, they showed their humanity. And although we can shoot anonymous faces that we have never seen before, to kill a fellow human being is something that only the most depraved can accomplish. When we talked that day, they ceased to be targets, and became friends."

Heinrich knelt in front of the mound of earth, marked with an Imperial semiautomatic rifle and helmet. "Sir, this helmet… it's Fritz's, sir," he let out incredulously. Fritz had hared off alone in the middle of a patrol after a noise in the dark – the Unit had lost him soon after. Coming across his helmet on a mound of disturbed earth told the bad news.

Heart pounding, Celes took the role of clearing the cabin, opening the door, rifle presented ahead of him. What he saw was a sudden callback – bloodstained sheets, discarded compresses, a few capsules of spent Ragnaid – and the scent of death. There were no professional tools, but the former medical student saw enough to know failed first aid when he saw it. He turned back to the Lieutenant, beginning to realize what the Lieutenant might have been getting at. "There are signs of medical treatment inside the cabin, sir."

Irritably, Celes started forward again, Lieutenant Karst in tow. Marberry flooded back into Celes's consciousness, threatening another breakdown, but he plucked the image of that devil scout woman from the previous day and compared it to the long-faced officer that he had encountered long ago, forcibly suppressing any direct images from Marberry from filling his mind. It was a perfect match. "But we met on the battlefield anyways, like you said – do you remember that woman? She was leading those flankers, and quite brutally, might I add. Are you saying that she was perfectly willing to shoot us as 'friends'?"

Celes wanted to draw the carbine and fire it off in frustration after hearing the Lieutenant's infuriating response. "We are friends, Jacelern, but I would expect nothing less: that was a battlefield."

The trooper lunged towards his commanding officer, intending to yank Lieutenant Karst to face him – but he relented, simply slapping his hand against his thigh as he caught up closer with him yet again. "And this isn't going to be? We're Imperials, sir, and they're Gallian civilians. The moment they realize us for what we are –" he shook his excuse for a Gallian jacket sleeve at him – "they'll have bullets in their head before we can say 'don't want to die.' If they don't start this, this battlefield of yours immediately, my name isn't Celestyn!"

The Lieutenant merely quickened his pace. "Would you prefer to be called Faas?"

Celes bit back a wheelbarrow's worth of cursing as they continued to trek in silence. He still hadn't even been told the plan yet.