So, this chapter may seem kinda...weird, at least in terms of ideas. But I had it thought out like this for a while, and hopefully it's entertaining at the very least. Also, as a heads-up, I've been having a bit of writer's block just in terms of phrasing things, so updates may slow down slightly. I've got a bit of a safety net, and hopefully it'll last, but I thought I'd warn you just in case.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Previously on The Nine Red Men Incident: the Soldier Chapters: The Soldier, having been taken to an unknown land (Gensokyou) against his will by the wizard Merasmus, encountered a woman (Utsuho Reiuji a.k.a Okuu) who didn't know what America was, causing the Soldier to believe her to be a barbarian. He attempted to fight her, only to find his weapon had been sabotaged by Merasmus to shoot non-lethal glowing orbs (Danmaku) instead of his Mann Co. rockets. In a sacrifice play, he detonated one of his grenades, believing it would result in their deaths. As the grenade was rendered non-lethal as well, he only succeeded in knocking out himself and Okuu. This drew the attention of Rin Kaenbyou (Orin), who discovered their unconscious bodies and wheeled them away to an unknown location.

We now return you to The Nine Red Men Incident: the Soldier Chapters

The Soldier woke up in a strange room. The walls seemed to be made of stone, and the only light he could see was a small lantern, hanging over his head. He attempted to get up, only to find that he was tied to a bed. The knots were good, too, and despite his struggling he couldn't get free, though that didn't stop him from trying. He began to do what he always did in a prisoner situation: yell insults at his captors. "You yellow-bellied cowards! Tying a man down like this without his consent! Was the violence too much for ya, you barbarians? Did you tie me up and then crawl back to your little barbarian huts and cry like little barbarian babies? Good! That's what you should be doing! Because once I'm out of these –rgh- ropes, I'll be coming for you!"

"That won't be necessary," said a voice coming out of the darkness. A small figure stepped into the light, looking no taller than a young girl. She wore a light blue blouse with a white skirt, and had short, violet hair. The thing that stuck out the most about her, however, were the thick, red, tubes that seemed to go between her and a small orb that floated near her, which, upon closer inspection, revealed itself to be an eye.

The Soldier, however, couldn't see any of this, as his helmet had fallen over his eyes during his struggle to escape, so the effect was somewhat lost. "Ha! You may think plunging me into darkness will make me weaker, but I have trained myself to be even more powerful in the dark!" He attempted to move his arms into a fighting stance, but since they were still bound, he simply struggled against the ropes some more. The girl sighed, walked over to the soldier and tilted the helmet back up so he could see. "Ah ha! I knew that would get you to turn the lights on again! Savages always fall for that one!" The girl rolled her eyes, including the floating one.

"I'm sure they do. But we aren't savages."

"Ha! That woman didn't even know what America was! You aren't fooling me!"

The girl tilted her head to the side, a slight smile on her lips. "You always say exactly what you're thinking don't you?"

The Soldier was puzzled. He said, "I don't know why you'd ask that, but yes! Unless I'm thinking about American secrets, you won't get any of those out of me!"

"I wasn't even aware there were any until right now," she said, smiling. The Soldier blanched. She looked at him, confused, and whispered, "take two teaspoons salt and mix well. That's…a cookie recipe?" Then she shook her head and looked back at him. "Well don't worry, I don't really care about those. What I want to know is: why did you attack my pet?" she asked, her gaze intensifying.

"Pet? You mean that barbarianess?" He gasped. "She's your pet? Like a slave? Abraham Linconlog didn't fight the entire southern hemisphere with only his hat and beard just to let slavery still exist! How dare you betray President Lincolnlog!" He struggled against his ropes even harder, managing to have his helmet fall back over his eyes.

The girl propped his helmet up again and looked at him angrily. "That is not how it is. She was my pet before she became what she is. At this point, it simply means she's a very old friend." She sighed. "But you didn't answer the question. Why did you attack her?"

"Because…because she didn't know about America! Which makes her a savage, and thus makes attacking the correct response."

"And you truly believe that? That not knowing about America makes someone a savage?"

"Yes! Nothing you savages say will chance my mind. Until the day I die, I will believe so!" He frowned after this, remembering that he'd been holding his grenade when it exploded. He wondered why he wasn't dead, why a letter hadn't been sent to his parents (Mr. and Mrs. Doe) back home with the official seal and the $10 bereavement bonus.

The girl blinked, then began to smile. "Well I'm afraid I have bad news for you then, Mr. Doe."

"Wha-how do you know my name?" the Soldier growled. "No one knows my name! Not even me! Usually…"

"Because Mr. Doe, I regret to inform you," the girl said, a sad look on her face, "That you are dead."

"WHAT!" he yelled, struggling against his ropes. "You're lying!"

"I'm afraid it's true," she said, shaking her head sadly. "That…um…that…" The soldier thought back to how the woman had said that 'don-mah-cu' was non-lethal, that his grenade would be harmless. "Grenade," she said, continuing, "that you were holding exploded, and killed you."

"That's…there's no way that's true! I-" his face brightened up. "Ha! I should have respawned! That's what happens when anyone on our team dies."

"Mr. Doe, do you know how this 'respawn' works?"

"Well, Engie and Medic explained it at some point. I was too busy lecturing my heads though."

The girl shot him a disgusted look briefly, an image of severed heads sitting on a fence etched into her mind. She coughed and collected herself. "Yes, well, you were, um, out of range of the respawner when you were blown up. As a result, you are simply dead."

The Soldier thought about it. That might be the case but…he refused to believe it. They were tricking him! That must be it!

The girl stared at him, sorrowfully. "I'm afraid this is no trick Mr. Doe. You must accept it. Here, I will prove it to you." She turned around. "I am like a…helper for you, while you're here, to help guide you to where you should go. As such, I can tell exactly what you are thinking at any given moment. Think something for me, Mr. Doe. Something I shouldn't know."

The Soldier frowned. He wasn't quite sure what this so-called "helper" was supposed to be doing. He'd never heard of any religion that had helpers like this. But he decided to humor her, and thought of that time when he was around six, when his mom, in one of her more lucid moments, had made him try on a dress. It hadn't been that bad, he remembered.

The girl snorted, but quickly regained her composure. "You know, there's nothing wrong with liking women's clothing. Though having it forced on you couldn't have been great."

The Soldier remained silent. How could she have known? He hadn't told ANYBODY about that, and there was no way his mom did, so did she…did she actually know what he thought about? She must, but that meant that he…he was dead. He sighed, then gave a small smile. "Then at least I went out in battle. A true soldier's death." His eyes watered, but no tears fell. He took a deep breath to get himself under control. "Well then, 'helper,'" he said, "if I've died, where am I? Why are there no angels? This doesn't seem like heaven."

"It's not," the girl said, matter-of-factly. "This is hell."

"WHAT!" the Soldier yelled, causing the girl to flinch. "WHY?"

"Calm down," the girl said, waving a hand. "This isn't quite like the hell you're thinking of." The Soldier looked at her quizzically. "Yes, this is hell, but it's not hell proper. It's like a testing ground, say."

"Testing ground?"

"Well, you weren't so bad that you were irredeemable, but you did some evil acts. In this place, you can attempt to do good things to make up for them."

"Evil acts!? When did I ever do something like that? I have been the best goddamned man I could ever be! I killed Nazis, for god's sake!"

"Well," she began, holding up a few fingers, "Aside from all the cursing you've just done, you've killed many, many people," she put a finger down, "have been extremely intolerant," she put down another finger, "and you hurt one of my subordinates, which is the one I'm really upset about, honestly."

The Soldier looked angry at this. "Since when has killing traitors and savages been a sin? Or this tolerance crap?"

The girl looked at him skeptically. "Since forever?"

"I don't remember any of that," the Soldier said, thinking back to when his father was teaching him about "the moral fabric of society." Mostly it was just him ranting about how all the immigrants were destroying it and how just rounding them up and sending them back would be the moral thing to do.

"That's," the girl said, before pausing. "Well, to be honest, that's because you had some pretty crappy teachers."

"How dare you say that about my parents! They made me who I am!"

"That was kind of my point," the girl said. "In any case, this is just how it is here. If you improve on those flaws," the Soldier scoffed. "Then you can go back. If you don't, well," she trailed off. "Do you remember the room you died in? That big, hot room?"

"Yes," the Soldier said sullenly.

"Well, if those who arrive here don't improve, we feed them to fires like that. Something needs to keep them burning, after all."

The Soldier frowned. He was suspicious of this "helper" person still. But she was able to know what he was thinking, so she had to be connected to him in some way. Maybe he could just blow up all of the people protecting this place and leave.

The girl snorted. "What, you think we left you with any weapons at all? Of course we didn't. We're not stupid."

Well, the Soldier thought, if this is some sort of afterlife, maybe if he just thought he had one, he could get one, like in those lurid dreams.

The girl sighed. "First, you mean lucid dreams. Second, that's not how it works. If it was, everyone would just try to blast the hell out of everything." She let out a short laugh. "Didn't even mean to do that. Anyway, you're not gonna be able to fight your way out of this one. That would defeat the whole point. "

The Soldier grit his teeth. He was out of options. He didn't want to believe this, this…madness, but he didn't really have a choice. He still didn't fully believe that he was in this "proving ground," or whatever, because he knew he'd been a good man. But he doubted that the girl would let him go if he didn't say he believed it. So he decided to go along with it.

The girl rolled her eyes. "You know, I do know what you're thinking. You don't believe me, even after all this, huh?" She sighed. "Well, I guess it's the best we're going to get. Do I have your promise that if I let you up, you won't attack me?"

"Damn right you do! I don't hurt little girls. Unless they're Nazis, but I never found any of those."

"Right. Well, it's not like you'd be able to hurt me anyway." She walked over to the ropes and untied them, letting the soldier get up. "You might want to get up slowly," she said. "You've been tied down for a long time, so-"

"Ha! A little bit of getting tied to bedposts never hurt anyone," the Soldier said, jumping up. He immediately keeled over, landing on his face. "Gah! Body! Why have you betrayed me!" he yelled.

"Well, I did warn you," she said. She held out a hand. "Need any help up?"

"Bah! You'd just get pulled down if you tried to help me up."

She shrugged. "I doubt it, but fine then. Have fun trying to get off the ground."

The Soldier attempted to push himself off the ground, but his wrists hurt too much to let him stand. His whole body felt sore and numb, and all his attempts to stand up resulted in him falling back down. The girl stood by and watched. "I'm glad you didn't accept my offer," she said eventually. "This is far more entertaining." The Soldier grumbled and attempted once again to get up, only to fail once more. He mumbled something under his breath. "What was that," the girl asked, grinning.

"You know what I'm thinking, don't you?"

"I do, but I want to hear you say it," she said.

The Soldier fidgeted on the floor, then said, "Help me up." The girl's smile widened in fake surprise.

"Why certainly," she reached down, grabbed the soldier by his outstretched hand, and raised him up to a sitting position. "Your legs might give out again, so just stay like this for a bit, ok." The Soldier grumbled. "So now you know, it's ok to ask for help, if you need it."

"Pah," the Soldier exclaimed. "Help is for freeloaders and whiners! Real men don't need help from anyone!" He looked down, sadly. "Which means I'm…I'm a failure! Grrah! I'm sorry teammates, I've let you all down!" He rested his head in his hands.

The girl sighed. "Well, it's a start I guess. I'm Satori Komeiji, by the way. I thought I might as well introduce myself if I'm going to be helping you improve."

The Soldier didn't look up. "Well you already know my name, don't you?"

"True," she said, tilting her head. "But it's still polite to introduce yourself anyway."

The Soldier snorted. "Hmph. Fine then. I'm the Soldier."

"I thought it was-" she began, before getting cut off.

"I know what it is!" The Soldier yelled. "But it was a…mistake. I'm the Soldier, just the Soldier."

"Alright," she said. "Fair enough. Well Soldier," she said, staring directly at him, "Are you ready to earn your redemption?"

Before the Soldier could speak, a girl with dog-like ears and a tail ran in. "Miss Satori, Miss Satori!"

Satori stood up, and put her hands on the excited girl's shoulders. "What is it Miki?" The girl started trying to speak but it mostly sounded like gibberish, so Satori put up a hand. "Calm down, collect your thoughts." As the girl started calming down, Satori's eyes widened. "You're kidding." The girl shook her head vigorously. Satori looked sideways at the Soldier. "Alright, go tell them to wait there and try to keep things under control. I'll be there as soon as I can." The girl nodded and ran off. Satori sighed. "Alright, something's come up, so I'm going to have to leave you here for a bit, but we'll continue this conversation as soon as I get back!"

Before the Soldier could even say: "Wait," she'd left, shutting the door behind her. He tried to run over to it, but fell again. "Damnit legs! You've brought shame on this entire unit!" he said. He pulled himself over to the door, and, stretching his arm up as far as he could, grasped the handle and pulled. Unfortunately, it was locked. He slumped against it. He grit his teeth, and resolved that when his traitorous legs stopped being AWOL, he would charge the door and break it down.

He wished his legs would hurry up.