The story progresses… not much more to say.

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The sun had already begun to set, and Celes was still panting with exertion as he swung Isara's heaviest wrench at the wooden panel stuck around his calf.

They'd crawled into the shade of a hill after their moment of relief, before setting to work on Celes's oversized impediment. Originally, they'd tried using a blade, but a few seconds later it was clear that the wood had aged and shrunken enough to make chopping it off a laughable proposition. Thinking of how Celes had managed to kick through the barrier with only a leg, they decided that it might easily succumb to further blunt abuse.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Already, Celes had shucked off every single other piece of armor that he could, neatly stacking the pieces out of habit. The one piece that was stuck, a greave, needed to be unbuckled from the inside first – and there was no way he could reach it with the wood in his way. Isara's attempts at going from the other side had been stymied by the closed bottom of the armor plate. She watched as sweat stained his fatigues as he braced the panel against a large stone that she'd brought, and swung yet again with the wrench.

Crack. It jumped – along with his leg – but there was no appreciable damage.

"You'd think that after smashing through a floor and a door, we'd be able to detach this thing easily enough," she bantered, wiping sweat from her brow with a bandage from Celes's bag. Her searches for her some cloth of her own had been futile, so eventually he, ever the gentleman, had offered her one. Some part of her wondered if it was the lady who was supposed to offer the knight a scarf, but the squirming in her stomach at that thought led her to suppress that thought.

Celes grunted in response, and swung again. "I think the world's wood supply is angry at us," he joked back. "They're tired of being smacked around."

She giggled, and eyed him impishly, but knew the effect was spoiled by her sincere smile. She put down her own tool on the grass – the next largest wrench – and wrung out the wet bandage. Thinking she ought to help him out – he was the one doing most of the labor, after all – she leaned over and reached for his headband.

His free hand unconsciously shot out to intercept it, bare skin grasping her gloved fingers painfully hard. Gasping, she froze, eyes wide with surprise. "Celes?"

The Imperial cursed, quickly releasing her hand. "I – nothing." His fingers quickly swept across the cloth, so soaked as to leave wetness across the digits at the ephemeral touch, before he realized what he was doing and cursed again, dropping his hand to grasp the metal tool once more and swinging in an attempt to divert the subject.

She tilted her head, thinking of his sensitivity about the scarf, feeling gravity maintain a hold on her soaked-hair. "Grenade?" she asked skeptically.

"Let's just say I got lucky," he grumbled, adjusting his grip again. The band was of little use in its current state, sweat freely dripping straight through. The irritation must have been massive, but he seemed to be doing his best to ignore it.

Lucky to have gotten away with such a clean wound? Isara thought of the blue fireball and cloud of shrapnel created by a Gallian grenade, and failed to see how there was any way that it could only damage the eye. Surely splinters would have made some further marks, or fire would have burned into his face.

She took in a deep breath, pulling herself upright on her knees, doing her best to tower above his sitting form. "Look, Celes, you're doing nothing more than be a pain to both yourself and me. A scar is nothing to be ashamed of. Take a look at me," she said while waving to her own wound – instantly flushing with embarrassment as she realized what else was near her shoulder, but continuing her tirade regardless. "I'll wear this thing for the rest of my life. I won't be prideful of it, I won't be ashamed of it. Now will you please stop acting like such a baby – and…" Failing to finish her sentence, she lunged towards him again, fingers grasping.

He dodged awkwardly, not quite able to get out of range. As she overbalanced purposefully in her lunge, he pulled his encumbered leg with him; the wooden panel swept her off her perch, sending her flying on top of him.

In a detached manner, she noted that she was beginning to develop a habit of doing this, and promised to herself to avoid getting near him in the future.

Too late for now – she was crushed into his chest, hand completely missing its target, coming to settle on the arm he'd hastily thrown between them in self defense, still clasping the wrench. As she scowled into his face, his eye swiveled around, widening with some sort of realization. Right now, though, she was going to get that band off of his head no matter what –

"Smash my head with the wrench, now," he suddenly murmured intensely. For a moment, she was confused, wondering just what kind of sadist he was to ask for that.

Then she tracked her gaze and saw a Gallian soldier crouching on the hill crest a few meters above them, rifle pointed towards them both, aiming but obviously hesitating to act.

In an instant, she understood, grabbing his wrench-laden hand. Briefly, he pretended to struggle – the object waved back and forth – before his hands suddenly flew away from the tool. Her own hand snatched the wrench out of midair, and swung wildly, clipping his brow lightly. In an exaggerated style, he fell limply, eyes rolling back and limbs twitching.

For a moment, she crouched atop his form, and then the soldier was all around her, hastily yanking her away from Celes's body. The solder's rifle tipped dangerously towards Celes's face – Isara lunged towards it, feigning a stumble, and the man's soldier training kicked in, making him safely raise the weapon into the air.

He was shouting placations, words of safety – "Careful, sweetie, what were ya thinking, did he hurt ya?" – as they both withdrew a meter or so away. A few confused seconds passed as Isara did her best to pretend to be a flustered militiawoman, disguising worried glances at Celes's apparently unconscious form as death glares.

Eventually, the soldier – a kind faced Gallian brown-haired man in his forties, if she was any judge – was able to assemble some coherent words. "Damn, girl, what you thinkin'? Jumpin' an Imp wit' yo' bare hands? They be dangerous, ya know!" His voice was in a drawn out accent, a rural dialect; his insignia showed that he was a private from the Gallian Army, the regulars as opposed to the militia.

They'd been late, but popping up now was extraordinarily inconvenient.

His rifle moved; anxiously, she watched it return to an at-ease position across his body. Don't let him shoot Celes. That was key.

Suddenly, she wondered why she cared. At the end of the day, Celes was still an Imperial. She could let this soldier execute him where he lay, and return home to Welkin and Squad 7 in record time.

But if she did that, she was no worse than the original Darcsen of yore, who had greedily only thought of himself until holy Valkyria had rose up to defeat him. Now she was in the same position as Darcsen.

This man had sacrificed a great deal for her. He'd saved her from the brink of death, braved the potential condemnation of her brother, saved her again from the shelling, and finally led her safety in the tunnel. Admittedly, the last one wasn't so much of a factor, but in the end, she had only made it that far because of him.

Darcsen had begun his greed from the ground up. She had already received many favors. If she abandoned Celes, she wouldn't be just as bad as him. She'd be worse.

How could she ever work for Darcsen liberation with that on her conscience? Resolutely, she made the opposite choice.

Continuing the farce, she looked down at her clothes. Stained brown with dirt, she angrily began to brush herself clean, although the knees of her stockings and gloves were hopeless. "I pulled myself out of that tunnel a few hours ago," she started, waving a hand towards the hole in the side of the hill. "Then, about a few minutes ago, this Imp just follows me out – after getting the door stuck on his leg – don't ask, it was a silly sight."

She was able to extract a chuckle from the soldier – good. "I lost my weapon when I escaped in the tunnel – but I thought I could handle one tired Imp encumbered with a door, especially after he took off all his armor." Adopting an expression full of chagrin, she patted at her skirt – specifically the empty holsters for the two wrenches. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go retrieve my tools now," she said arrogantly, striding back towards Celes.

The soldier stayed silent, overawed by this girl in front of him who bent over to snatch up both wrenches. He lowered his rifle his rifle and aimed –

"Just what do you think you're doing, private?" she barked at him, panicking on the inside. "We need him alive!"

Stymied, the soldier shouldered his rifle again. "Sweetie –"

"Don't call me sweetie, that's 'corporal' to you!" she snapped.

For a long moment, he stared at her chest, and it was then that Isara realized she was still in Celes's jacket. Her own uniform – complete with insignia – was buried somewhere far away.

"Yes, I know I don't have my proper uniform," she grumbled at him. "I lost it with my weapon – I was mending it when the shells hit. Damned friendly fire. Fortunately, there was an escape tunnel at hand – I escaped into it before I got turned into so much meat." Lies spouted from her mouth – she hoped enough of them were believable.

"Tunnel?" Obviously her fast talking had worked, as the older soldier looked absolutely confused – and only caught onto an insignificant part of her statements.

"Darcsen towns often have tunnels to avoid hunts, private," she lectured. "Bet you didn't know that, did you?"

"No, I didn't," he said slowly. "Sad, isn't it?"

On any other day, she might have smiled at the sympathy that he obviously had for the persecuted Darcsens. Right now, though, she had a man to save.

She tossed back her wet hair – blast, how was she going to explain that? – and imperiously looked at him from behind her nose, an admirable feat given that he had a good foot of height on her. "Well, my name is Isara Gunther, corporal of the militia's Squad 7." She made the information into a boast. "You?"

"Ralf Macarthy, private of the army's Squad 19," he offered. Ralf was still speaking slowly, mind still trying to process the new situation. Isara was in the same state, but she forced herself to act as if she knew exactly what she was doing.

She squatted down beside Celes's body. His chest rose slowly up and down, unmoving; it was a perfect farce. "Now, private, this man escaped out of a tunnel that I thought was shelled shut," she explained. "Don't you think we should interrogate him? We wouldn't want to have Imps crawling all over Gallia, would we?"

Ralf nodded. "Then let's take him back to our base –"

"No, no, that won't be necessary!" Waving her arms, she hurriedly cut off that train of thought. "Let's just drag him into –"

"I'm sorry, corporal, but if you insist that we not execute him, orders say we take them back." Ralf's face turned stoic. There was no arguing with it; Isara tried anyways, but didn't get very far.

"But –"

"No 'buts', sweetie. Orders are orders." He put his fingers into his mouth and let out a sharp whistle. Even as Isara did her best to protest, several other uniformed figures appeared on other hillsides, jogging towards the three of them.

Even as the soldiers bound Celes and called for a truck – one of them had a radio – Isara stopped trying to argue, and started thinking of how she could rescue Celes from this catastrophe.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

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Uh oh. They're in trouble now…