Disclaimer: I do not own Youjo Senki

Further note: This story's discussion thread is on SpaceBattles Forum's Creative Writing section.

Chapter 3

August 27, 1925, Rhineland military prison

Weiss stepped into the cell, and allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim light. Then he winced. It was painful, seeing such a powerful warrior look so broken. The girl sitting on the prison cot didn't even look up as he entered. Her hair fell forward to hide her eyes, and her shoulders were slumped in defeat. Gone was the insouciant confidence that had animated her every action. Tucking his cap under his arm, Weiss coughed discreetly to get her attention. Slowly, as if every move was painful, she raised her head until he could see the gleam of her eyes beneath her messy hair.

He sighed. "Lieutenant Serebryakov, you can't keep doing this to yourself. This is the third time this month they've brought you in for disorderly conduct. And given what you were saying in public, they could have charged you with sedition and treason. I know you miss the Major, we all do, but throwing yourself away like this is not the answer!"

"Then what is the answer, Captain?"

Getting down on one knee, Weiss looked her in the eyes as he dropped his voice to a soft whisper. "You know the answer, Visha. Even now the rumors are spreading, support is being gathered. All the nearby companies are beginning to grumble, and even civvie newspapers are asking questions. Even the Military Police isn't happy about this. The support for getting the Major out of the hands of the Secret Police is growing every day. We just have to keep things disciplined. Getting into bar brawls, making seditious speeches, this is the sort of thing even our sympathizers among the top brass will be forced to respond to. It can't be much longer Visha, you just have to stay the course."

"Weiss, I... I can't. I know it's the smart thing to do, but someone has to speak out! Someone has to make sure the top brass know they can't keep us quiet! That taking away our orbs doesn't take away who we are!"

Weiss had to keep himself from sighing again. Honestly, sometimes he felt it was a good thing they no longer had their Type 97s.

When the order had come in to turn in their computational jewels pending the investigation, not just for the eight who were with the Major at Brest but for the entire battalion, they had gone along with it because of the Major's standing orders to cooperate. It was only later they had heard that their commander had been delivered into the clutches of the Secret Police. All attempts to communicate with her, or even confirm her status, were denied. Thankfully, the Military Police had been unhappy enough with what they saw as unwarranted interference that their members freely passed on what little they knew. And the little they did know had been bad enough. If they still had the ability, the members of the 203rd would have undoubtedly done something regrettably violent. Weiss was honest enough to admit he himself had been tempted in the moment, but it would have been a disaster in the long run.

Visha knew this as well. She had been deeply involved in setting up the whisper campaign to free the Major. It was just that she wasn't satisfied with whispering.

She must have read something into his sigh, for she spoke. "Leave it be, Weiss. As long as they focus on me, they'll ignore you and the others. The longer you can work uninterrupted, the better."

"That's a rationalization and you know it."

"Still true, though."

"And what would the Major say if she saw you like this?"

A moment of silence, then a soft giggle. "She wouldn't say anything. She'd simply put me through a training exercise that would make me wish I was dead. Probably involving artillery."

The mirth lightened the mood, and Visha spoke up softly. "Who do we have?"

"The 205th are mostly with us. Also a few companies of armor and infantry - mainly from those involved in Operation Lockpick. Trust me, they're not moving the Major from this place without us knowing."

"Do we have enough to storm the prison?"

"Storm it, yes. Escape afterwards, no. Don't be stupid, Visha."

"I'm not. I just want to make sure we can do something if they try to...to... execute her."

"Hopefully it won't come to that. Now," Weiss held out a hand to her, "Come on. They're letting you out early. Seems they've grown tired of seeing your face."

Visha huffed, but she did take his hand and let him pull her to her feet. As they walked out, Visha said in a small voice, "How badly do you think they're hurting her?"

Weiss grimaced. "I won't lie, it sounds bad. But that makes it even more important we keep it together. When we get her out, she'll need all our help to recover from whatever those bastards are doing to her."

September 2, 1925

When considering the question of torture in the abstract, it comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. Is the immediate benefit, an end to suffering, worth the future cost of surrendering your will to your interrogator? From this it follows that it is the job of the interrogator to make the benefits seem well worth the cost in the mind of the victim. Starting from this point, I could only conclude that my interrogators were either utterly incompetent, or they were playing a very long game where they intended to break my will through boredom and frustration.

Well, to be fair, their methods might have been effective when used on an ordinary grunt or an untrained civilian. However, even after what I suspect is around a month, they had yet to move past what for the 203rd would qualify as hard training. Well, alright, so I had subjected my subordinates to the training rather than going through it myself. But if even someone as soft and kind as Visha could go through something like this with a smile, then my own pride would not let me do any less.

That, and I was cheating shamelessly with magic.

The most frustrating part, though, was that there was no need for this. Sure, when the Colonel (who had yet to introduce himself) had first put that fake confession in front of me that first night, I had rejected it instinctively. Confess to crimes that could potentially see me incarcerated for decades? No thank you! It was only later, as I was cooling my heels in my new cell (windowless, check; bare, check; tiny, check; bucket in the corner, check) that I realized I had no real objection to leaving the army. In the end, it was just another job, and even in Japan people had changed jobs when necessary. No, the real issue was the dishonorable discharge that would have accompanied my confession, even if the Colonel had kept his promise that my cooperation would keep me out of prison. Even in a modern, peaceful world a dishonorable discharge was looked down upon. In a nation as militaristic as the Empire, having that on my record would have rendered me effectively unemployable.

So, the next time I had seen my interrogator (after three days of random wake-up calls, strip searches, and short rations) I'd dropped a few broad hints that I wouldn't mind leaving the army, as long as I was could do so with my honor intact. It was the least I could do to please my Emperor.

Yes, that's right, the Emperor. Apparently, the big man himself was most displeased with my actions, and wanted the mass-murdering monster that was me removed from his army forthwith. What a joke! As if the Emperor would deign to notice a lowly Major like myself. No, it was obvious these goons had been sent by some high ranking minister or court official, most likely doing an end run around my allies in Military HQ. I'd called myself all sorts of names when I'd figured it out. It was a classic case of tunnel-vision. I'd been so focused on the threat of all the officers I might have embarrassed, I completely forgot to account for all the diplomats and officials who had been involved in hammering out the armistice, and who now had egg on their faces.

Well, since they wanted to pretend they'd been sent by the Emperor, I'd played along. For the sake of unruffling high-ranked feathers, I was willing to accept a discreet dismissal from the army as long as my resume was not too badly damaged, and I'd indicated the same to my interrogators.

Either I had been too subtle, or their superior was a pig-headed moron who refused to accept anything less than total capitulation. I strongly suspected the hand of Being X behind this absurd behavior, which if true, was quite a come-down for that manipulative bastard. After all, his previous cat's-paw Schugel at least had an intellect to accompany his insanity.

Oh, what's this? They were pulling my head out of the bucket of water. That seemed a bit early - ah, right, I'd been so lost in thought I'd forgotten to keep kicking my legs in seeming desperation. Cue the pretend coughing and choking. What a farce. If they had started with this right off the bat I might have been in trouble. As it is, the minute I realized what I was facing, I'd identified waterboarding as one of the techniques in the enhanced interrogation playbook that I'd used on the 203rd, and I'd started work on an orbless oxygenation spell.

That spell had taken me some days to develop, and only worked for a few seconds at a time. More than enough, considering this was the first day they were resorting to what I would consider a basic tool of enhanced interrogation. They had managed to make me lose track of the date, but I could tell it had been about a month, and they were only now getting around to the water torture. Before this, they'd wasted everyone's time playing with my sleep cycle, strip searches, sexual innuendo, starvation, and mild beatings. At this rate, they might just do something original in about six months.

It seemed my bout of 'passing out' had convinced them I'd had enough for the day. A desultory offer to confess that I desultorily declined. At least the Colonel looked as frustrated as I felt. Small pleasures. I was then lifted by my armpits and dragged off to my cell. I could have walked, but dragging me around seemed to make these thugs feel useful, so I indulged them.

Once I was located in my cell, I sat down in a corner and dropped into my meditative trance. The trance was a side-effect to my experiments with the mental doping spell.

Mental doping could be used to produce a wide variety of useful effects, most notably reflex enhancement, pain suppression, and an incredible combat high - all effects I had leaned on heavily during that very first action that won me the Silver Wings. Subsequent experience with the Type 95 had soured me on the whole idea of messing with my mind with magic. Reflex enhancement was a necessity, but I'd avoided the others. Now though, very careful experimentation with this family of spells had given surprising benefits, including a magical equivalent to a strong dose of caffeine, and a painkiller effect.

The trance was one such benefit - an effect that, when combined with basic meditation, created a restful yet alert state of mind. Not as good as sleep, but it also left me lucid and capable of focusing past the gnawing hunger and fatigue and on my spell equations. Just because these idiots were amateurs didn't mean they wouldn't try something excessive in a fit of pique. The human body was fragile, and I only had a limited set of tools to protect myself. At least the challenge kept me from being too bored. Honestly though, even Visha would make a better interrogator than these clowns.

At some point between juggling spell equations and considering Visha's effectiveness were she to try to interrogate me, I drifted off to sleep. My dreams were strange that day. I didn't remember much, except fragments of something involving Visha and a lot of leather...

September 11, 1925, Berun

"So, the Emperor has finally called off the Secret Police." remarked Zettour.

"Yes," agreed Rudersdorf. "Incipient military revolt can do that. Of course, now we have to figure out some way to restore the morale and discipline that has been shredded by this debacle. It's going to be annoying, even if we were responsible for at least part of it."

"And when will the Major be released?"

"That... might not happen. I'm afraid the Emperor still insists on using her as scapegoat to placate the international outrage over Brest. There's talks of an international tribunal on war crimes."

"An international tribunal... and who will sit on this tribunal?"

"The Francois and the Albish are being named, as the ones who took actual damage during the incident. Among others."

"Are you saying that the Emperor will permit our enemies to sit in judgement of one of our officers?" Zettour's tone had grown increasingly dangerous as he spoke.

Rudersdorf raised a placating hand. "My reaction exactly. Unfortunately, the Emperor has put forth a somewhat logical argument for this action, and it is one that is gaining traction."

"What?!"

"Zettour, you must be aware of how fraught the international situation is. We were tested to the utmost taking on Legadonia and Francois at the same time. Now, we are seeing ultimatums from Albion, America, and the Rus, and the Ildoans are rapidly distancing themselves from us. All of them are worried. All of them are demanding tangible proof that the Empire cannot and will not repeat the disaster at Brest. And a first step would be neutralizing the only person in the world capable of operating something like the Type 95."

Zettour scowled furiously. "I can see where this is going. The Emperor will cloak himself in the camouflage of necessity. To sacrifice a single soldier to protect the lives of potential millions, this is the sort of distasteful choice any leader must make. That the soldier is one that terrifies him, is but one of those coincidences."

"Now now, it's not all doom and gloom. I've been talking to the Foreign Office, and they're going to try and make this tribunal be as wide as possible. While the Francois undoubtedly want Degurechaff's head, the Allied Kingdom hasn't suffered too much at her hands, and most other countries only know her from reports. The other judges, all they will see is a young girl on the stand, not even in her teens. While she might be forced out of service, I doubt they will be too harsh on her."

"How optimistic." Zettour gave a bitter smile. "You have met the Major, haven't you? She has this way of making you forget her age. Normally a good thing, but in this case..."

"Ah. Well. Here's hoping her defense counsel can coach her to take the correct approach..."

September 30, 1925, Rhineland Military Prison

Out of all the things I'd expected in my new life, passing my twelfth birthday in prison hadn't been one of them. Still, at least their farcical attempts at interrogating me had stopped. For the last few weeks, I'd been left almost entirely to myself. I'd been restored to a more comfortable cell, and once more allowed some reading material. I was still forbidden contact with the outside world though. At least the Military Police were kind enough to let me know the date.

I was still working hard on my spell repertoire though. It was always possible they had simply pulled back the previous set of thugs in order to replace them with someone more competent. Plus, it was fun to see how far I could push myself without a computational jewel. One interesting thing I had noticed - even though the prison was supposed to have a platoon of mages on standby, none of them seemed to have picked up on my near constant use of magic. Of course, all the spells I'd tried so far were both weaker than combat standard and internal in nature, but even these should have been detectable at close range. Just to test things, I'd performed my strongest reinforcement while one of the mages had been right outside my door, and he hadn't turned a hair. Was using these spells without an orb making them harder to detect? Something to ponder on.

I was just considering one more round of physical exercises (there's only so much time I could take working on spellcraft) when I heard feet approaching my cell.

"Back up against the wall," came the order.

Once I'd complied, my cell door opened, and in walked... Visha? In handcuffs? I could only gape at my erstwhile adjutant as she stared at me with disturbing intensity while the guard unlocked her cuffs and walked out, closing the door behind him.

Before I could get the first word out, she had closed well into my personal space, and had brought her face inches from my own as her eyes took in every bit of me. "You... you are all right."

It didn't seem a question but, "Yes...?"

All right, now her eyes were filling with tears, to my increasing confusion. "You're all right. I - we - were so worried. We'd been hearing all sorts of awful rumors that the Secret Police were torturing you to try and force you to confess to all sorts of horrible things like treason and murder and... and..."

I could honestly say I was touched, even if she was making a bit of a scene. I took her hands in my own and started rubbing them. "Visha, it's OK, I'm fine. Those clowns couldn't force a kid to confess to stealing candy."

"S-So, they didn't hurt you?"

"More like they spent a month trying and failing to hurt me," I muttered, then immediately realized my mistake as the waterworks looked to start up again. "Lieutenant Serebryakov, cease this foolish behavior. Do I look like someone who's been recently tortured?"

"That's not going to work, Major. You're the one who taught us all the ways to hurt someone without seriously injuring them."

"Yes, well, just take my word for it, these jokers were more likely to hurt themselves than me. Honestly, if this is the state of the civilian arm of our secret service, no wonder we were caught off guard by two declarations of war in two years."

Her laugh still sounded teary, but at least she was laughing. "As expected of the Major," she mumbled, wiping her eyes. Then she reached underneath her shirt, and pulled out... a bar of chocolate. "I know its a few days late, Major, but happy birthday."

"Marry me."

"What?"

"Never mind. Give me that!" In less than a second, I'd snatched the bar from her hand, torn off the wrapping, and taken a big bite. Sweet, sweet, sugary goodness, how I had missed thee.

Once I'd managed to calm down, I turned my attention to a question that had been nagging me. "Visha, why were you in cuffs when you came in?"

That was definitely Visha's I-am-embarrassed blush. "Well, they're still not allowing you to have visitors. So, I made a deal with the watch officer, and I got him to agree the next time I got arrested he'd stick me in the same cell as you. Then I started a bar fight."

I stared. The words 'Visha' and 'bar fight' in the same sentence was creating some kind of logic error in my brain. Then something she said caught at me. "Next time? You mean there were other times?"

"Wellll... I was really upset about your arrest, and I kept complaining about it, and they'd tell me to shut up, and I didn't want to shut up, so I may have ended up getting arrested for disorderly conduct, once or twice. Okay, four times."

"And where was Weiss in all this?"

"Oh Captain Weiss was a lot of help. He really did a lot of work helping me raise awareness of what was being down to you and how wrong it was. And he helped calm me down a bit, or I think I'd have been a lot worse."

So apparently, while my back was turned, Visha had become both a civil rights activist and a juvenile delinquent. Was this what they call the teenage rebellion phase? I certainly don't remember acting like this when I was a teenager!

I was still trying to wrap my head around the image of Visha as a member of one of those shonen high school gangs when I realized she was talking, and in a much more serious tone. "One of the reasons I had to meet with you is... I take it you haven't heard the news?"

"No, I've been cut off. Why, has the war started up again?"

"No, there's been no fighting in months. But the destruction at Brest has been creating a lot of international panic. Everyone is scared the next war will be one where entire cities will get wiped off the map. So there's been an international tribunal formed to investigate the incident and everyone involved... and part of it is going to involve putting you on trial for war crimes."

I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. Anyone who'd paid attention to the Nuremberg trials in my last life will know the whole thing had been driven more by politics than any sense of justice, and this sounded very much the same. If the participants thought it would look better if I was found guilty, then I would be found guilty. It looked like Being X had upped his game after that farce of an interrogation failed to crack me.

"Visha, who all are going to be the judges?"

"According to yesterdays' paper, there will be one judge from each of six countries - Francois, the Allied Kingdom, the Unified States, Waldstatten, the Empire, and Ildoa. With the Rus and several others as observers."

I considered, then decided that a bit of profanity was called for. "Well, I'm fucked."

"What? No! The Albion and Francois will be balanced by us and Ildoa, and the Americans and Walds should be at least somewhat neutral."

"Visha, don't be naive. Do you really think I could have spent a month enjoying the hospitality of the Secret Police if someone high up in our government didn't want me gone? I bet you anything our judge will be in their pockets too. Ildoa will follow the Empire unless they suddenly grow a spine, and America has always been very friendly with the Allied Kingdom. The only one of the lot I can see giving me a fair shake is Waldstatten."

There was a long silence as we both brooded on my impending doom. Then Visha broke out, "So, what do we do about this?"

"What can we do, but see this farce through to the end and hope something gives?"

"Major, that doesn't sound like you at all. You never enter a battle while trusting to luck. You make your own luck!"

I was honestly taken aback at this sudden fire from my usually placid subordinate. "And what do you suggest."

"In a just world, you would be set free. So, if the world refuses to be just, we will have to make our own justice."

I stared. Visha really did not seem to be joking. She had just proposed that she help me break out of prison and go on the lam. Seriously Visha, when did you become such a delinquent?

I, briefly, entertained the thought that this was all some sort of ploy to get me to do something foolish. But no, there's no way Visha would be anyone's choice for such a complicated subterfuge. Besides, all I would have to do is wait until I was officially notified about the trial to see if she wasn't just setting me up with a false tale.

"All right, if we're going to do this, then for starters, keep your voice down. Second,..."

A\N: Several brief time skips, but then the meat of this story happens after Tanya gets free, and I didn't want to spend too much longer on the set-up.