So, I'm trying to keep up with smaller stories by alternating between them and the big ones. I might make it a personal mission to breathe some life back into the AW fandom if I can, but that could be a lengthy course of action.

There were very, very few times Sonja was ever unsure of what to do. Give her a situation and a little time, and sooner than later she would have a plan to deal with it. This was not one of those times. She was usually capable of predicting the majority of outcomes in any given situation, but she had not predicted Ryu's ridiculous behavior upon returning from his mission yesterday.

He had completely ignored Sonja as she ranted at him for his brazen actions, only to grab a hold of her and call her cute. Cute, of all things! Of all the compliments he could have used, such as intelligent or intuitive or skilled, and he chose cute?

Of course, as much as Sonja ridiculed the particular choice of words, she couldn't deny that they had flustered her greatly. Rarely had anyone complimented her on her looks, usually because most of the people she talked to were soldiers who wouldn't dare say something of such a nature to their commanding officer and the Emperor's daughter.

Of course, Ryu was a soldier, but he was a first as well. What on earth had compelled him to say such a thing, to hold her in such a manner? Logically Sonja could see no reason for it: illogically, she didn't really care. She had quite liked it, if she were honest with herself. To be called cute was something that made her kind of happy, even if she knew she should be appalled that a soldier had interacted with her in such a manner.

These were the kinds of thoughts that occupied her mind as she pretended to pore over a map in the war room of her camp. Of course, that was only one side of the proverbial coin at the moment. While she was flustered over his more bold actions, Sonja was extremely concerned about his mental health. Before Ryu had left on this last mission, he had been quiet and subdued, yet he returned bold, brazen, and, for lack of a better word, risky.

It was a bad sign, by far. She may have been drawing lines that weren't actually warranted here, but Ryu's new attitude likely extended to the battlefield: hell, it had likely originated there. The last thing he needed to be doing was taking insane risks on the field of battle... like performing solo recon on an extremely dangerous enemy installation.

What the hell had happened out there? Sonja had yet to get a detailed after action report from the squad leader, mostly because she had been helping her father coordinate his troops for the actual battle following the recon, but she was determined to get her hands on that information soon. Meanwhile, all she could do was dwell on the minute difference that she had identified earlier even as she ranted at the man.

The side of his helmet had clearly been damaged, though the mark had been supremely smooth, as if something had grazed it. Beyond that, there had been a bullet hole in the torso of his vest. Chances were he had almost been killed, again. What did that make this? The fourth time? Maybe the fifth? First the tank, then the artillery, now these two incidents and whatever else Ryu chose not to tell anyone about...

In hindsight, she should have pulled him from the field the very first time he had cheated death. When did a soldier ever stare death in the face, miraculously survive, and come out of it mentally unscathed? She should have pulled him from the field and had him psychologically evaluated. Instead, she had continued to use him, and whether it was coincidence or a twist of fate, he had stared death in the face again and again and again, like some never ending game of Chicken.

What had that done to him? Was he even sane anymore, after all of this? Sonja couldn't see how he could be, after narrowly escaping his demise nearly half a dozen times. Besides, if his behavior after returning from this situation was any indicator...

She'd ruined him. She'd psychologically destroyed a good man because logic had told her that there was no need to pull him from the field if he seemed OK. This was entirely her fault.

But maybe it wasn't too late. He had snapped fairly recently right? Maybe she could fix it. She wasn't a psychiatrist though... maybe it would have been wiser to call in professional help and leave it to them. But this was her responsibility, her mistake and her soldier. To pass the issue off to someone else and forget about it would have been wrong.

Still, before she made any move to rectify the situation, she needed to know exactly what had happened during the mission. So for now, all she could do was impatiently wait for the after action report from Ryu's squad leader.

Ryu was pretty sure he had lost it. Lost it all really. As he lay alone in the barracks, thanks to the busier lives of every other soldier at the moment, he couldn't help but push his luck in life even off of the field of battle, as he flipped a combat knife repeatedly through the air above him. He was catching it of course, but if he missed even once it had very high potential to stab him in the face or the neck and kill him.

Dangerous and foolish, sure, but at this point it was almost an addiction. Like nothing else could be fun, interesting, or entertaining if it didn't have the potential to kill him. It was sick and twisted, but what the hell was he going to do about it now? He couldn't stop himself.

It wasn't scary now. It was exhilarating. It was thrilling. Death didn't have shit on him. The Grim Reaper could go fuck himself, because he wasn't scared of him anymore. What was the point? If death was going to play a fucking game with his life why bother being scared of the next inevitable attempt?

That may or may not have been crazy. It could have been legitimate insanity, honestly. But he didn't care about that. He only cared about two things right now: his next game of chance and-

"Suzukai?"

-and that girl. Why she was included in his sphere of concern, he wasn't sure, but seeing Sonja made him smile, and not in the way he did when he was playing his game.

"Commander, so good to see you again."

As luck would have it, Ryu's knife was twirling though the air when Sonja entered the building, and with surprising speed and reflexes, she rushed forward and snatched the thing out of the air before it could fall back to Ryu's hand. "What on earth are you doing?! Are you trying to get yourself killed?!"

The scarred man nodded. "Yes, actually."

Sonja glared at his answer. "Suzukai, this is unacceptable! You can't just endanger yourself like this, it's not healthy! Do you really-"

Ryu hooked his fingers through the belt at Sonja's waist, pulling her just a little closer but more importantly stopping her tirade. "Remember when I said you talk too much?"

Sonja pulled herself from his grasp, appalled by Ryu's boldness. "Suzukai, you can't act this way with your commanding officer!"

"Why not? I think you like it anyway."

Truth be told Sonja thought so too, though she refused to admit. "I absolutely do not! Do you have any idea how many charges I could get you with for this kind of thing?!"

For the first time since Sonja had entered the room, Ryu sat up in his bunk. "You could, but you won't, will you Sonja? You've caused me enough grief already, right?"

Suddenly there was a lot of venom in Ryu's voice, and truth be told Sonja didn't know how to respond. The subdued anger in Ryu's tone actually made her take a step back from him, though he was soon on his feet as well. "Right, Sonja? I mean, you got my friends and teammates killed. I'm scarred for life because of you."

Ryu was moving forward, forcing Sonja back, until she had her back to the wall and he was glaring down on her from a few inches away. What the hell was this? What was happening here?

"And of course, I'm pretty sure it's your fault that I'm losing my marbles. Wouldn't you say?"

Sonja was scared in a way she hadn't ever been before. The way Ryu was looking at her was terrifying, even though she couldn't really identify what emotion was in his eyes.

"After doing all of that to me, are you really going to hurt me even further?"

Of course she wasn't. She couldn't bear to cause him even more pain at this point. But why was he doing this to her? He was scaring her, not an emotion she was used to feeling.

Squeezing her eyes shut in fear, Sonja tried to placate the man who had unleashed this side of him seemingly from nowhere. "N-no, I... Ryu please, you're scaring me..."

Just like that, Ryu stepped away from her, and his expression changed entirely to one of regret. It was like a switch had been flipped and that was that. "I'm... I'm sorry. I don't know what came over me, I didn't mean to attack you like that..."

Aside from obvious relief from the now absent pressure, Sonja was even more concerned than she had been before. Was his mental state so bad that he was splitting into different personalities? This was bad. Very, very bad.

"No... you're right. I've put you through so much pain. But that's why I'm pulling you from active duty. I want-"

Suddenly Ryu was back in her face again, firmly gripping her shoulders, though now he only looked alarmed. "What?! You can't do that!"

"But Ryu-"

"The battlefield is all I have left! You can't keep me away from it! Without it I don't have anything!"

Was he so far gone that he needed his 'game' to function? Christ, she knew he had come close to dying on this past mission, twice, thanks to a tank shell nearly blowing his head off and a bullet being stopped barely short of his heart, but just how bad had it all affected him? This was beyond crazy.

"Ryu, you're not thinking straight, you need help!"

Now he was angry again. Furious even. "Don't talk to me about help you bitch! It's your fault I'm like this in the first place!"

Pushing aside that extremely hurtful remark, Sonja tried to get through to this man before he did something crazy. "R-Ryu, I just want to help you..."

"Then what are you going to do about this? If you take away the one thing I care about now what are you going to do to fill that void huh?!"

Clearly, Ryu needed something. Something to hold onto. Sonja needed it to be something other than his ludicrous game with death. "Surely there's something else you care about...?"

Ryu fell silent when Sonja uttered those words, though he stared at her intensely. For someone who was so used to being calm, cool, and collected, Sonja felt unusually awkward under his scrutiny. On the other hand, she had to admit that it was difficult to avoid analyzing his expression. He was quite handsome, even scarred as he was.

Sonja tried to bury that thought immediately, since it was a bad idea to have any thoughts of that nature about a subordinate, especially this one. But why was he being so silent?

"R-Ryu...?"

"You have to stay with me."

"W-what?"

Ryu leaned closer to her, though this proximity was far less threatening and far more embarrassing than before. The eye contact didn't really help. "If you're going to take me off of the battlefield you can't just abandon me. I need something... interesting, to keep me sane right now."

"And that's... me?"

"Yes."

"B-but... what do you expect me to do...?"

"I just want you to keep visiting me. I can't be alone. I don't want to be alone or surrounded by just other soldiers. You can afford that, can't you?"

There was a tone of definite sadness to that question, one that made Sonja feel more guilty than ever before, and that included the time she had endangered everyone getting captured by Sturm. She was completely responsible for this wasn't she? "Y-yes... Of course I can. I won't abandon you: I want to help you Ryu."

There was silence between them after that, at which point Ryu could have been thinking about anything. As for Sonja, she tried not to dwell on the extremely close proximity of Ryu's person to hers, instead trying to imagine what the following weeks may be like. On one hand, it was rather frightening to think about: on the other, it was kind of exciting, though Sonja could not quite place why.

Either way, she had caused this mess, and now it was her responsibility, one that she wasn't going to pass on to anyone else. She was going to undue the damage she had done to Ryu with her own hands, even if it ended up being somewhat unhealthy for even herself.

Short chapters, but a somewhat faster update time. Hooray!