In Human Skin

by Akemi Homura-san

In January, a.t.b. 2010, Empress Marianne vi Britannia, Knight of Two and His Majesty's favoured consort, was assassinated at her residence in the Imperial Villa at Aries. But for Justine and Juliette vi Britannia, her daughters, this proves to be a blessing in disguise... Surrounded by old foes and sheltered by new and unexpected allies, their tale heralds the dawn of a new era.

29. Fortunate Son

Area Six, January, a.t.b. 2015

Back in the early days of their training, when both of them were still girls and their friendship was new and untested, their sparring matches were always hand-to-hand, without weapons. Their erstwhile teacher often chastened them that the body must be as much of a weapon as the blade; and so, without even the shinai or the bokken that preceded live steel in the course of their growth together, both girls once spent many a day beating each other bloody with their bare fists.

I suppose this is nostalgic, in a way, Justine mused, thinking with one chamber while she dodged a blade with another. So narrow was the timing that the knife shaved the ends of a raven lock clean off; like a reed or a willow, she leaned and wove, eyes scanning for an opening. A childhood game we played, for all the mind we paid it then…

Rain-water fell in fat droplets from the canopy on high, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew both that they had an audience, and that it was only partly because Suzaku insisted they spar topless. "Easier to see the blood," she'd argued, and Justine, fondly exasperated, agreed; this match was meant to be a learning experience, after all. Surrounded by murmuring onlookers and sheltered under dense foliage, naked from the waist up and with only a linen wrap to bind her breasts, Justine stepped and lurched through the undergrowth, evading swipe after swipe as Suzaku closed in on her.

The dance was a familiar one, but it was by no means stagnant; every weapon brought something new from her best friend, a new style and sense of movement, a new challenge for Justine to overcome. It was a marvel, really, that sword and spear and knife and fist each made Suzaku into a completely different fighter—a rockslide of a pugilist, an adder of a spearwoman; and with a sword in hand, Suzaku fought as a wildfire made flesh. Justine herself knew that she was nowhere near as versatile a combatant, but that by no means meant she envied Suzaku—fighting, after all, was Suzaku's first love (which made it incredibly easy to see how she wound up involved with a woman who was perhaps the closest to an outright incarnation of violence that any sentient creature could become). Justine worried only that she might prove an adequate challenge herself; but then, their record was basically deadlocked, fifty-fifty.

They broke apart, stepping back a ways, and circled each other. Suzaku channelled a tiger with the dagger in hand, with each slash of the savage-looking blade reminiscent of a large cat's swift paw-swipes. It was a potent style that was every bit as adept as a sword at forcing Justine to mind her spacing, lest she get nicked and therefore lose the match, but without the easy solution of rushing in, past a sword's effective distance. The asymmetry in goals also added another layer of challenge to this: in order to win, Justine had to fully take Suzaku down, while all Suzaku had to do was draw blood.

The objective being, of course, for Justine to learn to use her claws in combat. Just in case.

Ever since her right hand gained its own set of retractable black claws, they'd swiftly gone from a curiosity to an asset, and she made a rule of never using a weapon she didn't fully understand. The material was so strong and so sharp, it turned out, that her claws had yet to fail to cut through practically any metal she tried them on (thickness permitting, of course), up to and including the very same tungsten alloy that a Knightmare Frame's armour was made of—which came very much in handy during the Sutherland retrofit, if she was being perfectly honest. And it accomplished this with minimal resistance—although that was in some part due to the fact that the fact that they were on her fingers rendered concerns regarding the subject of edge alignment more or less moot. The disparity, then, was not nearly so great as it might otherwise have seemed; for though her hands had less reach than the dagger granted Suzaku, beyond the fact that the other girl was just…significantly taller than her, and thus had longer arms for Justine to deal with, her claws were no less dangerous or potent an armament.

"Oi! Why the fuck're we out here if you're just gonna dodge and weave all day?!" Suzaku jeered, a bit of friendly trash-talk according to the particular flavour of her broad, eager grin. "We all already know ya can do plenty o' that! Thought the point of us doin' this was for you to use your claws and shit!"

Justine shook her head. Trash-talk or not, Suzaku admittedly had something of a point there. Yet, nevertheless… "You of all people ought to know that what I'm doing isn't merely dodging and weaving, as you put it, my friend.I'm negotiating a disadvantage."

"Oh ho ho!" Suzaku chortled. "And have y'all reached some mutually beneficial arrangement, then, Hime-sama?"

"Mm," Justine hummed in reply, tilting her head and reviewing her own observations. I suppose the real question is, am I sufficiently acclimated to her knife-wielding style to commit more fully…? I might be. There's only one way to find out for certain, though… She realised, then, that she'd idly been combing her claws through her shortened hair while she considered her options. "I imagine I have. And by the by, it's probably a very good thing indeed, that I cut my hair shorter before you went and did this to it, eh? Well, I had you cut it, but details…"

Suzaku chuckled, drawing her loping strides to a close, adjusting her stance, and baring her combat knife once again, the tiger brandishing her claws anew. "Guess so. Here I come…"

Suzaku shot forth.

Like a bullet from a gun, she leapt for Justine's throat from a dead stop.

The princess took a measured step back.

A clash! A shear!

She'd parried.

"Hmph," Justine mused, leaning on her back foot and giving her claws, currently occupied with her friend's blade, a cursory once-over. "I suppose that answers that question. Let's proceed."

Justine counter-lunged, pouncing toward Suzaku's throat.

Suzaku pulled her arm in, parrying the princess's claws with her combat knife in the nick of time. But Justine didn't hesitate—she followed the first attack with another and another, pressing her advantage ruthlessly. She gained ground as Suzaku gave it, unrelenting and from different vectors, but the blade of the combat knife was there, over and over again. Clash! Clang! Clatter! Like metal on metal, the peals of the princess's claws against Suzaku's knife rang out, much to the enthusiasm of their audience. A wide sweep, a pair of quick slashes, and a stab, each of which Suzaku diverted.

Suzaku seized on an opening. A persistent vulnerability in Justine's defence, popping up whenever she'd committed a little too hard to offence. The tiger lunged, exploiting the opportunity.

Or so she thought…

Precisely what I've been waiting for…

A horrid, screeching, tearing sound ripped through the air, white-hot sparks flying brilliantly to the floor of the sodden forest. A lump of metal careened into the middle distance.

And then Justine's claws were a hair's breadth away from Suzaku's throat.

"Do you yield?" Justine asked, smirking as she spoke.

This close, the dilation of Suzaku's pupils and the heaving of her chest were unmistakable. All the same, she shook her head and laughed. "Good fuckin' show…"

Justine's smirk broadened into a sharp grin as she stepped back, drawing her claws away from her best friend's pulsating throat. "I try…"

"Ha! Just like old times…" Suzaku crowed aloud; then, she came up short. "Actually, weren't ya wearin' your hair tied back before ya had me cut it?"

Justine opened her mouth, and then snapped it shut a moment later. "True enough… Even still."

"Yeah, better not to chance it," her best friend shrugged. "Last thing I need is for your fuckin' wife to be comin' after my head…"

"She wouldn't," Justine refuted with a great deal of conviction. "But she likely would be giving you a very sternly-worded lecture…"

"And fuck if that ain't worse," Suzaku confided, shuddering theatrically. Then she looked down at the knife-hilt in her hand speculatively, before turning to their small crowd of onlookers. "Oi! Sarge! I owe ya a new knife! Don't ya go lettin' me forget it!"

The NCO she'd addressed—Sergeant Collins, part of the Gaunts' retinue—waved his hand in what appeared to be dismissal. After a moment, the man called back, "Consider it a gift!"

Suzaku shrugged and twirled it in her hand with some visible difficulty. "Guess I could do for a li'l souvenir, eh?"

Justine shrugged, ambivalent. "I don't know why you'd be asking me, Suzaku. You of all people ought to know I'm not sentimental in that way…"

"Mm. Suit yourself," Suzaku replied, the picture of insouciance. "More knick-knacks for me, then."

"It certainly seems that way," Justine chuckled, nodding. Then a large, heavy splotch of rain-water fell from on high, directly onto her bare shoulder, making Justine aware of where they were once more. "In the interim, however, I daresay we both ought to see about getting dressed again."

Suzaku sighed heavily, rolling her shoulders. "Ain't no rest for the wicked, eh?"

"Not if we're anything to go by, no," Justine agreed, before turning to where Jeremiah was standing, steady and vigilant and holding her coat, folded in his arms. It was getting less chilly the further north they went, but it remained the rainy season in the temperate climate of the Duchy of Asunción, which meant that when the sun went down, she was glad to have the coat for more than just its water-proofing. Suzaku came after Justine on her way to her knight, close on her heels, even as the crowd began to disperse now that the show that their experimental sparring match had been was over; swiftly, Villetta, princess among women that she was, interceded with some garments for Suzaku's modesty as well, together with what Justine hoped were a slew of new developments. When one was this far from home and this deep behind enemy lines, 'no news' certainly did not equate to 'good news.' Quite the opposite, in fact. "Thank you kindly, Jeremiah. Villetta! What news?"

"We're running low on supplies," her aide-de-camp stated quite bluntly. "A few more days without a re-up and we'll have to start rationing."

"Only to be expected," Justine mused as she stepped into her coat, draping the treated black leather and the metal plates of her pauldrons around the semi-nudity of her torso. She retracted her claws, then, and put her hands into her pockets, where they would stay until she could get her gloves back on. "Frankly, I'm impressed we've managed as well as we have thus far."

"Yes, well, foreseeing this situation coming to pass, I took the liberty of sending word ahead a few weeks ago," Villetta continued, handing Suzaku the last of her clothes to let her put them on. "And late last night, I received word that there's been a development on the home front. The House of Lupin reached out, and they struck a deal with Princess Carmilla."

"The House of Lupin?" Justine parroted, mildly astonished. "So they're smuggling supplies for us?"

"Indeed," Villetta replied, nodding. "There's a small cattle-ranching village just north of the town of San Pedro, and that's apparently where we ought to go to resupply."

Justine furrowed her brow, dredged up the mental dog-ears she'd left on her memory of maps of the area, and did some quick calculations in her head. "That's around five hundred klicks from where we are."

"Five hundred thirty-three, to be precise," Villetta confirmed, folding her arms behind her back. "A full day's march, accounting for the fact that we'll be avoiding the roads, as we have been so far."

"Well then," Justine nodded, duly impressed. But then, Villetta was quite exceptional at her job, and it wasn't as though Justine hadn't known that she would be from shortly after they met at Midway Atoll, back during the Second Pacific War. "I suppose we'd best get a move on. Send ahead that we'll be coming around at night—I don't want us moving out in the open that close to a major population centre. Now, is there anything else?"

"From what we can tell, the rebels' supply routes are beginning to take shape. So far, they've been observed to have aligned rather closely with your predictions, your highness." Villetta didn't look surprised that those words were leaving her mouth, not even slightly. It was jarring, sometimes, just how strongly her people believed in her, even now when all she really had under her belt was a swift ambush, book-ended by a few weeks' worth of bush-whacking. Justine had no illusions that she might fail to rise to the occasion, of course; she knew what she was capable of, and she knew it well. Her skills were one of the few elements of herself that she had absolute confidence in, after all, and what was this but a prime opportunity to show the world exactly why that was? But it remained nonetheless a very heady thing for Justine to come to terms with, that her closest allies'—her friends'—faith in her was this much of a foregone conclusion.

"We've made good time thus far, but from here on out, we'll have to move a bit faster," Justine said at last. "Too soon, and we don't have a target of sufficient impact. Too late, and the rebellious nobles will be sufficiently organised to track us down when we hurt them. It goes without saying that neither option is desirable. We'll need to be in position by week's end; and if Lupin delivers as he's apparently promised, I daresay we're likely to get a few useful allies that'll make the upcoming battles much easier for us. Go and relay the order to break camp. I want us away from here in no more than four hours' time."

"Understood, your highness," Villetta acknowledged with a bow that neither of them would be able to get away with in polite society—much too familiar for prying or unfriendly eyes. The dark-skinned and silver-haired woman then turned on her heel and went off to see Justine's will done.

"Suzaku," Justine prompted.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll go get 'em all suited up and ready to go. Ya can count on me," Suzaku assured her easily. "Let's get rubber to the street, eh?"

"Rubber to the road, Suzaku," the princess huffed fondly. "And yes. Let's."

---

They'd made the march in excellent time, as it happened—picking up the supplies they were almost sorely lacking through a local intermediary whose loyalty to the young head of the House of Lupin and his vast criminal empire was, as far as Justine could tell, beyond reproach. It was almost a seamless process, in fact, thanks in no small part to Villetta's administrative capabilities—to the point where Justine didn't see a need for her input at all. Instead, she'd taken the things she'd specially requested from their distant illicit benefactor, the acquisition of such was likely quite exorbitantly expensive, and brought them with her back to her own tent-pavilion hybrid; and while everything she'd asked for was there, securely-packed and in all but mint condition beyond, there were also a few items that were…not what she'd expected to have been in the packages that they were. It occurred to her that she must have made an error, grabbing more than she'd ordered for herself—she'd half-expected it to be some sort of 'care package' from her wife—but she was still deeply discomfited by the reality of what she'd inadvertently done.

Her field desk was set up, the corpse of the proverbial albatross arranged on its surface before her as she sat behind it, her elbows propped up upon the wooden desk, her hands folded, her fingers intertwined, and Jeremiah standing tall and dutiful at her shoulder, ever-faithful, ever-gallant; they awaited one of their number to join them, now, and as the drapes of the tent entrance were brushed aside to admit a slender young woman with hair that was the same verdant hue as moss, Justine took the opportunity to observe the state her friend was in. She looked well, if a bit harried; Justine speculated that her distress had to do with the very matter she'd sent for the heiress to the House of Rathbone to discuss. But it ultimately mattered little what she speculated; the evidence of her senses would attest one way or another before much longer.

"Lindelle," Justine greeted without mirth or ceremony. She jerked her chin in the direction of the wooden folding-chair Jeremiah had helped her set up for the sake of anyone who might seek her out while they were encamped, and Lindelle, looking supremely wary, got the message, moving to take the seat she'd been offered. "I believe that you are owed an apology—an admission of fault, from me to you."

"It's good to see you, too, Justine," Lindelle said with a wry twist of her mouth, the sarcasm of her response light and not insincere, but unmistakable nonetheless. "But I'm afraid I'm not sure what you're talking about."

Without speaking another word, Justine reached down to the top of the desk, and drew from behind a moderately-sized stack of books a pair of almost featureless white bottles, the kind that chemists used to store prescription drugs. She placed them on the desk, one after the other, and then turned them outwards, so that the names on the tags were displayed clearly to the other chair's occupant.

Rathbone, L.

"You must understand," Justine emphasised, eager to get out ahead of her friend and subordinate's ire, which she was to some degree expecting. "It was not my intention to commit such a grievous invasion of your privacy, and certainly not like this. Though I am nevertheless at fault, for, regardless of the purity of my intentions, the fact remains that I have done this. And so I am sorry."

The silence was thick and tense in the immediate aftermath of Justine's speech, and she took that time to brace herself for her friend's rancour, as the mixture of shock and recognition that could be clearly read in her emerald eyes began to subside. But instead of anger, resignation was the dominant emotion in Lindelle's eyes, as she sighed and sagged a bit in her chair. "It's fine, honestly. What with us spending so much of our time together, all ten of us, it was going to come out sooner or later. Frankly, I'm shocked that we made it out of the academy without that being known… It's not like I went to any extraordinary lengths to keep it concealed, after all…"

"You don't have to tell me if you don't wish to," Justine replied softly, lowering her hands. "I've done quite enough prying already—and frankly, it's none of my business besides."

"No, there's no need for that. I've been meaning for us to get to know one another better anyways," Lindelle refused, shaking her head. "Given that I'm pretty much the head of this unit's medical corps, we'll be working together fairly closely moving forward, so establishing a rapport's pretty much a necessity. I do wish it wasn't under these circumstances, but, well…I suppose it's rather poor form to look a gift horse in the mouth…"

"In the case of this particular horse, at least, I daresay that checking its teeth would have been more than understandable," Justine chuckled lightly. "But, I've an ear willing to bend, if you see the need to tell."

Lindelle shrugged, returning to her previous mien of overt detachment and general fatigue. "I doubt there's really much to tell. My father miscounted how many sons he had, that's all."

"And I trust the discovery of such an error didn't prove too troublesome for you?" Justine asked, a tilt of her head indicating her curiosity. It wasn't common, but every so often, a noble family fixated itself upon using marriage and procreation to advance the status of their house, generally due to some conception of the military as vulgar and unbecoming… Truly, Justine felt as if she might never understand the ways in which the more notably inbred (because of course they were, given that they regularly married only within small circles of families above a certain age bracket and length of lineage) relics of the noble class decided what was and was not acceptable…

"Son, daughter, boy, girl, other…" Lindelle made a dismissive gesture. "For my father, all that was, and remains, little more than window-dressing. I'm his progeny, first and foremost. Now, if I'd said to him I had no intention of pursuing a military career, that would have been a major problem; but it's not like he's some sort of regressive degenerate. So long as I can advance the family and secure the status of my house, he doesn't rightly care who I am—or who I choose to be, for that matter. Ergo, here I am before you, with a medical and surgical education worthy of a King's College degree under my belt to show for it."

"Hm," Justine hummed, nodding contemplatively. "It seems as if it all worked out fairly well for you, then."

"You can say that again," Lindelle replied, her eyes sparkling with mirth. "I've been on blockers for years, ever since the day the miscounting was discovered. I started with the rest the day I decided to apply to Ad Victoriam. According to my father, it was 'a sign I was worthy of the title of Heiress Rathbone.' And it was thanks to the doctor who agreed to get flown out to see me and live at the estate to help monitor my progress that I discovered my interest in anatomy, surgery, and medicine in general."

Justine chuckled, half from relief, that a potentially volatile situation hadn't been the origin of new hostilities between her friends and herself (which she personally felt was a perfectly rational fear to have, and not at all the work of the spectre of her mother who had lingered in the darker corners of her mind for years, but she remained suspicious all the same), and half from genuine joy, that another of her friends had had some measure of happiness in her life up until this point. She eyed the dual bottles again, and with one hand, she reached out and pushed them both closer to Lindelle, sat across the way. "Well, I suppose these belong to you, then. I can have subsequent deliveries marked and given to you directly, if you'd prefer—in the event that there are other sensitive items that are due to be delivered your way…"

Lindelle shook her head, even as she reached out and grabbed hold of both of the white pill bottles, dragging them into her lap with what looked to be a sense of practised ease. "This gives us a good excuse to talk, so I'll just come to you for these kinds of things instead. I've been worrying myself into a rut about whether these would have come with the supply drop, and if so, where they were, so…thank you for that. I should have enough doses in here for the next thirty days all the same, so…"

"Even if no further deliveries are coming our way, we can make time," Justine assured her, standing from her seat behind the desk in a smooth, sweeping motion. "My open door policy stands, of course, and I categorically refuse to neglect any of you—not if I can help it. You all came out to put your lives on the line for me, after all. I'm in your debt—yours, and the others'."

"Nonsense," Lindelle refused, her tone firmer than usual, as she stood up and circled the desk, one hand flying up to land in a heavy clasp upon Justine's pauldron, the moss-haired girl quickly working out how best to hold both of the bottles with her other arm. "With respect, we didn't come out here to do you a favour, Justine. None of us did. We're here because we're your friends—if you must reward us for this, then let that reward be this opportunity you have given us… This opportunity for all of us to prove the truth and depths of our loyalty to you, once and for all. We're behind you, Justine—all of us—and any cause you champion, from now until the end."

Feeling acutely overwhelmed, both by the suddenness of that declaration, and by its nature (making her wonder if the Marianne in her head was still whispering her poison, even after going to ground), Justine tried to deflect with, "Only to the end?"

But Lindelle wasn't letting her have this escape. Her emerald gaze bored into Justine's skull, intense and weighty, and above all else, unshakably, unmistakably, irrevocably sincere. "Until the very bitterest of ends, Justine… And I suppose even beyond, if you haven't managed to tire of our presence yet…"

"Never," Justine replied softly, but vehemently, staring right back at her friend.

Lindelle nodded, as if she'd expected exactly this. She smiled at Justine softly, and let her hand fall from the pauldron as she moved away. "Then as long as you'll have us, we'll be here. Come what may. Just as you would do—have done—for any one of our number. We're here for you, Justine."

Justine nodded, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "Then I shall strive to prove myself worthy of that loyalty."

"That, above all else, is why we're so loyal to you, Justine," Lindelle remarked, her smirk small, but unmistakable nonetheless. "In case you're ever wondering."

"Because I prove myself worthy of it?"

"Because you care enough to try," Lindelle refuted, shaking her head. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an inventory of medical supplies you pulled me away from, and I really do need to get back to it…"

"O-oh! You're free to leave, of course," Justine started; but she recovered quickly enough to gesture towards the flap of her tent with a flourish. "I'll see you all shortly."

"Thank you, your highness," said Lindelle, bowing to the appropriate height before sweeping out of Justine's tent, thus taking her leave.

A moment or two passed in silence, with Justine standing exactly where she was, thinking back on what had just been said as she bared and retracted her claws, flexing her left hand over and over, the custom glove someone under Lloyd's employ had fashioned for her use shifting to accommodate them, while her right reached up to place her first two fingers upon the central ruby of her serpent-engraved silver collar. It was a nervous energy, a particular kind of agitation that she was reflexively trying to bleed off, as a tension began to wind into the space that words were meant to fill. After a while, Jeremiah, who had stood as a silent sentinel throughout the course of the impromptu meeting, but was now watching her openly, stepped forth and called out softly, "Your highness…?"

"I have to tell them, Jeremiah," Justine responded almost immediately. "There's no two ways about it. I have to tell them what it is we're fighting for, what we're working to prevent…just as I told Villetta…"

"…If you think it wise, your highness," Jeremiah sighed, standing at parade rest in the process. "I'll be behind you every step of the way. I am, as ever, your man."

"Gallant Jeremiah, my watchful protector…" Justine chuckled wistfully. "However could I come to doubt the word and integrity of such a true and valiant knight? All these years, you've served me faithfully. I only hope that they shall tell stories of your loyalty…"

"If they do, your highness," Jeremiah said wryly, and she could hear the expression on his face as he spoke, "it will be no concern of mine. Sometimes service is its own reward…"

"Ha. And I'm sure a lover as flexible as Sayoko plays its own part in that," Justine teased, pivoting to behold her teal-haired and amber-eyed Knight of Honour. "Flexible, nimble, dextrous…exotic…"

But Jeremiah, perhaps taking a page or two directly from Lindelle's proverbial book, refused to humour the diversion. "I chose to serve you long before I ever learned her name, your highness."

Abruptly, Justine tore her gaze away from him, her cheeks flushed with flame. "I…!"

Gallingly, her protector elected to take pity on her, and be merciful. "Though, I will admit, she is a definite perk of all of this. As well as connecting with old friends…"

"I get it, I get it, you two haven't actually slept together…" Justine groaned. "I swear, I will never understand just how easy Milly finds it to tease people…"

"With respect, your highness," Jeremiah began, his tone indicating that this was absolutely meant at her expense, "Princess Carmilla has the notable advantage of not being consistently taken off-guard by the concept that other people make her a priority."

"Yes, yes, well, fuck you, too, Jerry…" The princess huffed, her shoulders heaving as she ran a hand through the waves of her raven hair. It really was so much more manageable than it once was, she noticed, now that she'd had Suzaku cut it shorter—even if the choice to grow it out just to tie it up had specifically been an act of rebellion…against a woman who was now dead… Justine considered for a sobering moment that perhaps that wasn't the sort of thing she wanted to have on her mind, lingering about while she was not-so-subtly trying to psych herself up for what was to come… "On the subject of wisdom, I must confess, I am not certain. But what is living, if not an unending grapple with uncertainty? They wish to prove themselves now, as they did before; and I am loath to deny them that chance. I will not deceive them—I have asked that they fight in my name, that I shall safeguard their well-being as surely as I am amble, and that I shall value any sacrifice necessary. If they are to do this—if they are to prove their allegiance—then they shall do this with clear eyes. I have no use for manufactured loyalty: they will know the truth of what they fight for, and why. I will not have them marching into Hell over a lie."

"…If you feel you must do a thing, your highness," Jeremiah began after a brief pause, presumably to gather his thoughts before speaking, "And you truly, genuinely believe it necessary, then that is what you must do."

"'The Queen leads; and thus does she inspire her subjects to follow,'" Justine quoted, recalling a line from a children's book about the brief reign of Boudica, Queen of the Iceni—whom she held to be the historical inspiration for Alwin I, which was one of the more popular academic theories. She gave a heavy sigh, then, and rolled her shoulders, her mind made up, as she turned to face her knight once again. "Well, I suppose there's no time like the present. Let's get a move on, then, shall we?"

Jeremiah smiled softly at her, and nodded. "As you say, your highness…"

---

The camp of the 588th Irregulars was one of the smallest Jeremiah had ever seen—outside of when a force had been separated or otherwise scattered, like when he and Villetta bushwhacked their way across dozens of kilometres before even encountering and linking up with Kewell, patching together the infantry corps as they went, one band of survivors at a time. One thousand soldiers and change were gathered here, barely even a regiment, a patchwork cobbled together from at least half a dozen retinues, and they took up far less space than such a number might have suggested. It was a paltry force, with a grand total of a dozen Knightmares, kneeling proudly around the camp, each right beside the tent of its pilot; and it only appeared even more unequal to the task that lay ahead of them, given that a critical few dozen infantrymen were now missing, Villetta having more or less conscripted them into service as work crews, taking inventory of the supplies they'd just gained—for even such a sorry excuse for a show of military strength as these thousand and change household troops, some of whom were barely more than militia forces for all that they'd been trained how to lug around military-grade hardware, consumed a shockingly largequantity of food and drink over the course of a week.

Still, what few of their already small number were currently visible the moment he followed the girl to whom he'd sworn his allegiance out of her tent snapped to attention at the sight of her; and around the fire they'd built, both to serve as a rallying point for the camp in the event of an attack, and to provide heat against the evening chill—not to mention designating a place for eating and socialising, a central focus to the soldiers' existence, which Princess Justine insisted was necessary for the maintenance of morale—there were seven young women gathered, his liege lady's friends and subordinates from the academy. Theirs was a much more casual demeanour than that of the awestruck soldiers they'd brought to aid the princess, but in their eyes, Jeremiah could see the same intense loyalty that he'd witnessed in the Rathbone girl's gaze mere moments ago, blazing brightly the moment he knew what to look for.

Regardless of all of this, Princess Justine proceeded directly to the vicinity of the fire-pit, her back straight, her carriage erect, her head held high. She drew herself up as they walked, and the act expanded her presence almost instantly. At once, she seemed larger, for all that she hadn't actually changed in size; it was instead the space she took up, then, that seemed to be filled with the force of her personality. This was by no means the first time that Jeremiah had watched his charge do exactly this, but it never failed to make him appreciate the utility of the phrase 'larger than life' all over again. She didn't so much as miss a stride, drawing up into the warm glow of the flame, smiling and nodding towards her friends' scattered greetings, but refusing a seat around the pit when she was offered one.

"Is there something…wrong, Justine?" asked Hecate, her azure eyes searching Justine's own.

"…Not precisely," the princess replied after a moment's pause. "I was hoping to address everyone, but it seems we'll need to wait a little bit while we gather… I have something I must confess to you all, and I daresay I ought not to have kept it to myself as long as I have already… The matter is nothing nefarious, I can assure you of that much; but it is nonetheless something that you all deserve to know…"

Elizabeth and Marika Soresi—who was seated opposite Liliana, herself sat almost flush against her eagle-eyed paramour—looked at each other, and seemed almost instantaneously to come to a resolution. In a moment, the auburn-haired girl stood from her seat, and raised a hand to draw attention towards her. "I'll go track down Lindelle. Sif, can I count on you to grab Villetta?"

Sif, who was seated beside her own paramour, Yennefer, shrugged and gave her own nod. "Sure. I'll tell Odette, too, if we find her on the way…"

"Tell me what, exactly?" came the slightly waspish voice of Odette Rochefort, as she emerged from the greater camp and into the fire-light, with Suzaku slipping in right behind her.

"Justine has something she wants to tell us. All of us," Marika explained, gesturing with a hand. "So in light of that, we're trying to arrange an effort to get everyone currently missing from the fire to head this way so that she can address us all at once…"

"Right, then," Odette sighed, mollified nonetheless. "Sif, you stay where you are. I'll grab Villetta. Lindelle said she'd be here any moment now, so there's no reason for any of the rest of you to go venturing out and possibly scattering yourselves to the four winds…"

Marika made to object. "Odette, there's no need to—!"

"Save it, Marika. I don't want to hear it," Odette interrupted, waving her off. "I was just where they were. I'll be here and back faster than you all can pick your way through this camp in the dark…"

"She has a point," Elizabeth remarked with a shrug. "Sit down, Marika. Let's let Odette be the one to handle this."

"Thank you," Odette huffed; then, without further notice, she slipped back out of the light of the pit, and into the darkness of the camp beyond that central beacon. In the sudden silence, Marika settled herself down again a trifle awkwardly, while Suzaku, seeming to immediately grasp the gravity of the situation in a way that Jeremiah had long since learned to conclude was just an inherent trait of being Kururugi Suzaku, said nothing; and instead of sitting herself, she circled around the pit and came up to Justine's side, a small, yet unmistakable gesture of support that had tensions Justine had hidden deep within her posture easing all at once. Jeremiah was on duty at the moment, and so he did not comment; but it was perhaps needless to say that he approved, nonetheless.

True to her word, it was a scant few minutes before Odette reappeared from the darkness, with both Lindelle and Villetta in tow. Villetta, for her part, raised a quizzical brow in Jeremiah's direction, her hands surreptitiously forming the signs for what is this about?

Jeremiah replied in kind. Miyajima Forward Base.

Comprehension sparked in Villetta's eyes, and she swiftly took the same path Suzaku had, coming up behind the princess, opposite Jeremiah—an aide's position, the side of the sword-hand. A little bit more of a complex matter than usual, given that Jeremiah's charge was capable of using both her hands with an equal degree of precision; but somehow, they'd managed.

Princess Justine took a deep breath, then, and waited for Lindelle to get herself seated and situated, before she stepped forth and began. "I'm afraid that I haven't been entirely…transparent with all of you, up to this point. It is an error that I now wish to take steps to amend.

"Some time ago, it came to my attention that we stand upon the precipice of disaster," she said, her hands flying behind her to be clasped together at the small of her back. "I daresay all of you have at some point borne witness to at least one of His Majesty's speeches on the matter of Britannia's superiority over the other two empires with which we share the world. That somehow Britannia is the only nation to tread a path towards the future, that its victory is assured…

"And I'm sure I don't have to tell you that this is categorically false."

She paused to let the impact settle in on the rest of her friends, just as it had on Villetta, four and a half years ago.

"Britannia's problems, as I understood them at the time, were that the state requires a constant influx of new lands and new peoples. New conquests and fiefdoms to elevate the positions of new nobles…and all of them with new ambitions, new lusts to dominate and lord their status over their fellows, to vie amongst themselves for what scraps of power their imperial master deigns to cast to them from his table," she spoke, her words increasingly thick with disdain for all that the changes in her tone were minute. "It is a manner of keeping the hounds from snapping at each other too much, to turn their aggressions outward, where such designs will not compromise the institutions upon which the state so dearly relies.

"But land, of course, is far from infinite." And here she paused again, swinging her gaze about the firelight, where in the shadows cast by tent and flame, there gathered more and more of the thousand-strong force the princess's friends commanded. "There is only so much of it, after all, for man cannot truly claim to own sea or sky any more than he may claim ownership of the duration of his own existence. It is in all regards a system doomed to failure, practically prima facie. One way or another, if things continue as they are, and we as a nation see fit to carry on as we have been, then Britannia is doomed to burn, drowning in the blood spilt by the ambitions of they who rule her."

There was some disquieted shuffling from beyond the line of where the shadows lengthened, and it became immediately clear that Princess Justine had grasped that her true audience were those out of view, the rank-and-file that she had so fervently sworn up and down to value and never overlook over the years. And when Jeremiah looked at her friends, he saw that the blaze of loyalty in their eyes was as steadfast as it ever was; they were truly ready to delve into the depths of Hell for the princess. No, on some level, all this was of no consequence to them; it was the infantry who needed to hear all of this—who needed to be convinced, to be galvanised…

"Do not mistake me," the princess called out, her tone cracking like a whip. The sheer command in her diction was practically a physical force, and it was only through experience that Jeremiah, as well as, he suspected, the others, refrained from visibly flinching at it. "This is not a call for defection, nor anything so transparently insipid. Vanishingly few are they who may truly and honestly claim to love Britannia more dearly than I, for all those I love exist within it, whether they were born to its legacy, or came to adopt it. In truth, the E.U. and the Chinese Federation are no less doomed than we! The Hemicycle is corrupt and it is bloated, its institutions gutted and impotent, tepid beyond redemption in both thought and deed. That it is ruled by committee necessarily arrests its ability to meaningfully address the needs of those who live under its aegis, and such half-measures continue to compound until its people, knowing not how to be free, may then be led astray, and thus come under the dominion of the very worst, lowest, and most transparently vile of despots: abiding beneath draconian laws, where the ills of society are ascribed to those who might then be sacrificed to the delight of the crowd, no better than barbarians seeking to appease the appetites of their slavering gods. And like locusts, they shall devour their own, until they are no more. Already, there is such a man who rules Europia United—Herman Richtofen is such a monster; but do not doubt for a moment that the trueborn heirs of Napoleon are legion. Toppling him makes way only for another, greater horror to supplant him upon his bloody throne of self-destruction.

"And in distant China, and all those lands who answer to the High Eunuchs who 'advise' their child empress, their corruption is set practically into the very soil. Coffins are their machines of war, and billions are they whose slaughter may be blamed on poor materiel or famine. Children are born, reared, and come to perish in the shadow of squalor which is the yield of centuries of mismanagement. Nearly two and a half thousand years ago, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty united the warring kingdoms and built a grand empire of jade, but in the time since, the petty and the small have taken for themselves pieces of that great legacy, and though they ought to know better—ought to know the duty the ruler owes to their subjects, to rule well and to rule justly, with an even hand, whether it be called noblesse oblige or consent of the governed—they have, like an unscrupulous regent, squandered that inheritance. They squat in the mouldering ruins of bygone kings and declare themselves sovereigns of barren soil. It is beyond contest that the High Eunuchs and the government of which they are the de facto heads have failed their people, those they have sworn to protect; and this, they have done utterly.

"My friends and comrades, my brothers and sisters in arms," the princess declared, her speech—no, her manifesto—picking up steam as she took another step forward, raising her arms as if embracing all the growing audience beneath the shadow of her wings. "The Chinese Federation is rotted from the inside; the E.U. buckles under its own weight. And our beloved Britannia, having run out of fuel to feed its fires, shall consume itself and thus be unmade. In the wake of this unprecedented global collapse, humanity will see such strife and bloodshed as to make the fall of the Roman Empire a historical footnote in comparison. It is a catastrophe from which mankind may never recover, not in thousands of years of darkness hence, as old grievances are given new life, and new tyrants dominate communes of innocents for their own ends. Our histories shall repeat themselves, until human kindness and decency are buried beneath oceans of blood, an avalanche of woe and waste."

Any attitude of grievance was abruptly silenced beneath a pall of discomfiture and dawning dread. Now, the entire camp had gathered to listen, as Princess Justine's voice carried across the distance, and all those in attendance quieted themselves to better listen. She did not deign to raise her voice—for as always, she did not have to. She let the realisation linger for a while, a note vibrating in the air, a thrum of tension, before she opened her mouth to speak once again.

"But we, my friends, are in a position to prevent this."

That utterance had its own weight, and that weight carried it out across the multitude, as if borne aloft by some sort of divine providence. It was a light in the darkness, the spirit of hope glimmering bright, nestled at the very bottom of Pandora's Box.

And Princess Justine owned every moment of it.

"I know how it must seem from where you stand, of course—doubtless, all of you have friends or loved ones who are fain to spin a tale of the lofty promises made to them in exchange for their loyalty, each and every lavish vision of a utopian future, of a paradise, once lost, now reclaimed, reconquered… I know very keenly how well my words may hearken to a lie that their friends died for, and all of it in vain," said the princess, self-effacing and with a hint of deprecation. "Indeed, these words I give to your ears are wind, and you have no cause to trust that I mean them truly. A princess of the realm I may be, but, well…I'm sure we can all agree that the Emblem of Blood showed us just how much a throne-claimant's word is really worth. I ask that you believe me when I say I do not blame you for your disbelief—you are well-qualified, you who have been asked time and again to fight and to perish and to toil to advance the ambitions of others, others who knew not the value of those lives which they have so eagerly spent in the pursuit of glory or power—the petty aims of petty men. Wretched is the parasite who builds his legacy upon the breaking of your backs, who has the gall to take the lion's share of the fruit of your labours as his just due, when he has in fact done less than nothing to prove himself fit to wield the authority he demands of you and yours. It may be said that it is a business between those equal in power, the matter of what is 'right', while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. It may be said, and it may well be true; but it does not erase the legacy of blood that now rises as a tide to drown us all in the horrors that we have reaped. This, I do not ask you to ignore, nor to excuse, nor to forgive. I haven't the right; and I would not ask it of you even if I had.

"That is why I do not promise you anything. Indeed, I value your loyalty too highly to put so paltry a price upon it." Her Highness straightened, placing her hands behind her back again, settling at once into parade rest. "This is a request, and an offer, from me to you. It is a pact, which binds my fate to yours. And if any who stand here gathered, man, woman, or otherwise, believe themselves to be here by obligation and not belief, who are weary of being ordered to bleed on foreign fields for another's ambition, I shall permit them now to leave. I ask only that you choose carefully, for this is the point of no return—from now on, there is no going back. It is the same offer I have made to those you have come here to protect—my friends whose lives I guard as dearly as my own, if not better.

"For those who remain, I offer unto you one creed, and one purpose: that we shall be as one mind, and one flesh, to join our efforts in common cause, for the common good—the good of all of us, and of all that we love and hold dear. The salvation of our world, and its deliverance from the measure of its faults, is an endeavour that begins here, and it begins now." She held up a fist, clenched tight. Jeremiah had to admit, she was a very potent orator, in a manner very much unlike His Majesty. Indeed, Emperor Charles was, as an orator, quite the staunch proclaimer of precisely the same past glories and legacies that Princess Justine was now castigating and rejecting—tales of rebellious heroes of mankind turning their blades against the heavens, and not the armies of mortal souls who struggled through blood and mud in their wake. "We, who are of the 588th Irregulars, have been sent here to be bled, and to perish. We have pricked our foe before, and we have shown them the face of mortal terror. But those whom we face are the spectres of all that we fight against, which has seen fit to doom us with their short-sighted grasping and ill-fated vying, and it is in that self-same spirit that we must break them.

"Cast aside all dreams of hearth and home!" the princess cried, casting the fist away, a splayed hand out to her side. "For they will not serve you here! They have already been sacrificed. We may have been sent here to die, my friends and comrades, my brethren-in-arms, but I promise you that we were dead men already! Our homes sold out from under us, our hearths fit to serve only as charnel-pits! That is the doom that you have inherited, that has been foisted upon us with the sins of our forefathers! The squandered waste, the Stygian river that surges now beyond its banks to drown us all, highborn and low! For if there is any truth of Britannia, it is that you have only that which you can defend, and all that we may wish for ourselves and our children beyond suffering and death shall never be given us, but must instead be seized. Cast aside all dreams of heroism, for the time for heroes has come and it has gone! And when it passed, we alone remained—we, and all our wretched inheritance. The shackle, iron-clad, which seeks to sink us all.

"I say this to you: that at this moment, at this hour, there is only one sin," she declared, bringing her hand around and holding up a single finger. "And that is defeat. There is only one grace, and that is victory. Everything else is little more than noise, the squawking and bleating protests from those who would wring their hands over the means, even when the stakes of failure are this high. The same sort who are given to ask what atrocity they cannot countenance, what price they may not pay, in the face of the end of the world, as if it is a query of consequence, not driven by cowardice and that lofty pride which they extol as moralism. It is the noblest of stridings to survive and to thrive, to fight and to struggle that your loved ones might live to see another dawn; in all the deeds of men, there is no greater valour than that of striving for that cause. Pay no mind to those who would call you 'monsters' for possessing the bravery and the resolve to do what needs to be done, to execute where they would baulk, and in their hesitation, doom us all. Theirs is the luxury of rebuke, which they have only because our labours grant it to them. And though there is no price that is too high for us to pay for the safety, security, and happiness of those dearest to us, I vow that I shall pay it only dearly, and never frivolously; for they are the lives of you who are sworn to me, and they are not my baubles to expend needlessly. For there is one truth that you must know of me above all others: the truth that I protect my own.

"We will storm the keeps of these rebellious highborn, with their dreams of bygone vainglory," said Princess Justine, the finger curling back into a fist as she took an energised step forward. "We shall set their vanities aflame, and we shall punish their trespass with all that we may bring to bear. Of their corpses shall we erect a monument to their ruin, and it shall serve as an example to others, a warning: No. More."

The princess slowly lowered her hand; and in the captivated silence that followed, there was a tense thrum of transfixed energy, a low and persistent hum that lacked the time to settle. And in the wake of this, Jeremiah Gottwald swept his gaze over all that he could survey, the evidence of his senses giving him only enough of a testament to come to a single, startling revelation:

No-one had left.

Of all the faces that he had glimpsed gathering as the princess began what had quickly transformed into a fiery, impassioned speech, each and every one now remained, precisely where he'd seen it, in the tall shadows beyond the reach of the light from the pit.

"No more shall their short-sightedness come without consequence. No more shall their vainglory go unchallenged. No more shall their delusion of impunity be suffered to remain," she hissed, her amethyst eyes catching the light of the blaze and flashing scarlet for a fraction of an instant, pupils narrowed to draconian slits against the livid flame. "The divine right of kings has no bearing on those who defy the Heavens. And in their broken, grovelling ashes, we shall birth our world anew. It shall be a difficult birth, but destruction must precede creation; this world, our world, shall be reborn in fire.

"And when we have risen their hubris on sharpened spikes—when we have bound them to the very justice of Hell itself, their wailing cries a symphony of futility to echo across the firmament—then, and in that moment only, shall I ask your judgement, you who I would rule, if you would deny, after all that I shall show you, after all that we shall come to see together, that I may, with even hand, direct the shaping of this brave new world, forged from the charnel ashes and heat-cracked bones of the old. And if this you do deny on that day, then as the final vestige of the order we have brought low, I shall give you leave to unmake me, and chart your own course beyond the measure of my reach. But all of that must begin here." She pointed sharply to the ground."And it must begin now. I shall command you, and I shall fight with you, alongside you, every wretched, miserable step of the way, if you shall allow it of me. For while there is no glory in what we seek, this path we walk, there is, at the very least, the possibility of a future. To snatch the chance of a better world, for us and for those who shall one day walk in our wake, from the certainty of our own desolation—that is what I propose. And so I ask you now, brave and valiant children of the Holy Empire of Britannia:"

She settled slowly in the space of the pause she had left, easing into parade rest, her hands folded behind her back anew, her expression coldly resolute, her eyes hard and focused, cut and glimmering and in every respect immaculate, like the very same jewels with which they shared a hue. "Have we an accord?"

---

They were on the march again, ever-darker paths through ever-denser trees.

Edmund and his sister, Avery, were in the same unit. They had been ever since their lord's daughter, the Lady Hecate, heiress to the House of Gaunt, called them forth from her family's retinue to follow her and her friends into the depths of rebel territory—and while Avery's face had gone grim at that news, but also accepting of the fatality of their new situation, Edmund had been much more hesitant. But Avery had looked after him since they were children, and what kind of little brother would he be if he abandoned her when the going got tough, when she'd never done anything of the sort to him? If Avery was going to die on some far-flung field, he'd be damned if he'd let her do it without him by her side. They were meant to be a team, after all.

They were sat on opposite sides of the APC, Edmund and Avery—he, a corporal, and her, a master sergeant, for as much as that meant in the ranks of all of Britannia's many outfits of household troops—as, along with twenty-one other soldiers, a driver, and a gunner, they shuddered along in the vehicle through an intensifying thicket of jungle foliage. He clutched his combat rifle closer to him, and though Avery was far less tense in her carriage than he was, she didn't mock or tease as she might have, on occasion, when they were children, but instead nodded understandingly, a silent act of solidarity that only made him feel all that much more on-edge.

They'd grown up on the main Gaunt estate, Gauntlgrym, nestled away in the north of the Homeland and bordering on the Rocky Mountains, which defined the western boundary of the county their local lords ruled over. It was a harsh land, in the foothills of those mountains, so near to the forest that contained the caldera of the dormant super-volcano that had so shaped the tempestuous and wild climes in which both he and Avery had more or less raised themselves, orphans who were wards of the House of Gaunt; but those were threats both he and his sister were familiar with, dangers they knew how to navigate. Really, what good would knowing how to deal with a rousing, hungry bear, or an encounter with a particularly territorial moose, do them against the threats with which the Amazon Rainforest teemed? The ants that stripped the flesh off of any living thing in their path? The buzzing insects carrying lifelong diseases that killed if it was merciful? The large flies which laid their eggs in human flesh until their larvae hatched, and ate their way out? And that wasn't even mentioning the tribes of savages that were said to live here, slavering, mad cannibals and worse…

Edmund gripped his gun again, and wondered if he'd made the right choice, to listen to what their commander, a princess of the realm, said to them, instead of simply grabbing Avery and bolting at the first opportunity. They were in for a penny, in for a pound now, of course, and so it didn't bear thinking about; and intellectually, he knew he was letting his fear and anxiety get the better of him with this line of thought. But it was like he couldn't help himself—the terror was almost primordial in his mind, made up of foes he could not shoot and did not know how to appease, a land that was hostile to him and his, in which they did not belong…

It was grim in the APC, and silent. He'd wager it was like this in many of the other vehicles in their convoy, like a gallows-march, as the creeping dread slithered silently into their minds, more insidious than any blood-sucking mosquito or egg-laying bot fly, and more dangerous and deadly to any of them than any unerring procession of flesh-stripping army ants could ever hope to be…

And then the speakers on the APC crackled to life, suddenly, and all of them immediately bent their ears in expectation of new orders or updates. Anything, Edmund thought, to keep them from the dark and treacherous reaches of their own terrified animal-minds, dominating their silence with primitive urges that would unmake them all, given time.

But instead of any of that, there was the sound of the princess clearing her throat; and in a moment, through the comm unit came strands of song.

"Generals gathered in their mass-es…!"

Edmund and the others sat there, stunned. Every bit as synchronised as ever, he and Avery looked at each other, bewildered by this development.

"Just like witches at black mass-es~!"

In Britannia, differences in class were practically baked into them at birth. The peerage would never stoop to the levels of knowing about commoner music, not when they had their sweeping opera houses and their concert halls; and even a gentleman could not afford to express such an interest, lest they be derided as a 'country bumpkin,' uncultured and crass, undeserving of their station and considered to be little better than the commoners they ruled over. A commoner could learn, of course, but their position could only ever rise so high as being a conductor, or an actor, or perhaps even a director—makers, perhaps,of that same art which was deemed suitable for noble tastes, but almost never enjoyers of the same, not unless you came from some wealthy, swanky merchant family who were nobility in all but blood, only a single opportunistic marriage alliance away from being considered among the lowest rungs of one of Britannia's highest classes in the shape of the ton…

"Evil minds that plot des-truc-tion…!"

Black Sabbath was commoner music, through and through. The guitar was a peasant's instrument, the drums the province of ten-year-olds with more courage than sense, marching unarmed and unmourned into a killing-field. Their most famous song, 'War Pigs,' was a borderline-seditious anthem of the common people, written during the very bloodiest and most ruinously violent days of the Emblem of Blood, where the enlisted infantry of household retinues and even the Britannian army fought and died in droves nearly beyond counting, an entire generation lost as brother slaughtered brother for the ambitions of usurpers and would-be emperors—where even the victors, it seemed, never won for long. The cultural impact of almost half a century of brutal, senseless interregnum could not be overstated, and it was even to the point where now, even forty years later, that song was something of an anthem of men who were fed into the thresher for reasons they didn't understand, and causes they didn't believe in.

To hear a princess of the realm singing it to them, without so much as accompaniment, was beyond bizarre.

"Sor-cer-er of Death's construction~!"

And yet…

And yet it was reassuring, in a way. Rallying.

It was a reminder that this was none of those things. They were given a chance to show that they did not believe in the girl who led them—she was sixteen, and no matter what the law said, no matter the fact that she was married, of all things, she was still little more than a child by his reckoning, and he knew that Avery and the rest all agreed, for what little it was worth—and not one of them took it; she had explained to them the reasons why they were here, why they might progress together, what purpose this war served, both in their lives, as well as in the grander scheme of things.

And more than that, she was asking them to do nothing that she was not willing to do herself.

Every time they set up camp, there was Princess Justine, heaving along with them as they built their tents and arranged the pit. She ate among them, as one of them, taking part in their games if she could, and so far, she'd fought on the front lines alongside them—leading by example.

The song was a reminder that she was confident in them. That she was risking the same things they were, that she was doing so without hesitation, and might even go so far as to do so in their stead, if any of them ever faltered.

"In the fields, the bodies burn-ing…!"

That had come from the speaker, but not only the speaker—a private sitting along with them in the APC (whose name, Edmund recalled, was Michael), a boy as young as their commander, green as grass, and wet behind the ears to boot, who'd been shaking like a leaf until now, raised his voice tentatively, and added his own contribution to the song.

"As the war-machine keeps turn-ing~!"

This time, both Michael and Avery raised their voices to join.

And like that, it was like a dam burst.

The next line, they all belted in unison, for not a common soldier was born in Britannia who did not know it, nor understand the significance of it at least as well as Edmund did.

"Death and hatred to man-kind~! Poisoning their brainwashed mi-inds~! Oh Lord, yeah!"

There was no need for a capella from the princess; they could feel it as well as he, his comrades, as the binding thread that held them all together, across vehicles and across retinues, had them all stamping their feet like the driving drums, slapping their thighs in imitation of the guitar layered overtop it.

"Pol-i-ti-cians hide them-selves a-way~! They only started the-uh war!"

The princess's voice unified them all as she sang, beautiful and mesmerising, driving and powerful in a way that none of them had expected such a high tone to be capable of. Their voices in comparison felt harsh and scratchy…

But it was all they had to give; and hers was not a voice that made them think that that wouldn't be enough…

"Why should they go ou-out to-oo fight~! They leave that role to the poo-oor~! Yeah!"

Thumping and stomping, slapping and head-thrashing. The spirit of camaraderie and common cause that flooded through them all was beyond infectious, binding them all up in the spirit of the song, as if it was some sort of part two to the speech that had so enthralled them around that camp-fire, the sparking and unspoken magic of it, almost. This was less of a blazing bonfire, of course, but the warming coals were no less impactful for their persistent, comforting glow… A tempering after the forging, in a sense.

"Time will tell on their pow-er-minds~! Ma-king war just for fu-un~!"

The voice was thrashing and angry, and Edmund felt it kindling those embers in his breast even as he added his own, that kindling coaxing him to be something…more. Closer to the sort of creature that had a place in the army that her highness envisioned in their place. They were not there yet, of course—but she made them believe that they could be, and perhaps that was enough…

"Trea-ting pe-ople just like pawns in chess~! Wait 'til their Judgement Day comes~! Yeah!"

Every stomping drum-beat was stronger than the last. Every thudding strum of hand-on-thigh was a louder, harsher cry than the one before it. The glow burned ever-brighter, and the fears that had so worked to consume them became sillier and sillier, more and more distant. Every moment clocked by, and Edmund knew that they all felt more than they had a moment ago.

"Now in darkness, world stops turn-ing~! Ashes where their bodies burn-ing~!" came the potent, belting proclamation, as if the song was weaving it into being, and her highness's voice was enough to make it so. Who could help but to wish to be part of that? To be part of that more that her highness was, the more that she believed they could all one day be? What miserable, broken soul could deny the call of such a siren song? "No more war-pigs have the pow-er~! Hands of gods have struck the hou-r~!"

And then, as a chorus, they came together as one, as though they truly were one mind and one flesh, for all that they shared different dreams and different desires, different individuals as part of a single united superorganism.

"Day of Judge-ment, Devil's call-ing…!"

A single stomp, in unison, throughout the thousand and amplified a thousand-fold.

"On their knees, the war-pigs crawl-ing~!"

Another stomp, all at once.

"Begg-ing mercy for their si-ins…!"

And now, two.

"Satan, laughing, spreads her wi-i-ings~! Oh Lord, yeah!"

Together, they echoed the closing of that song—and the princess cackled in time.

It was only fitting, in a sense, Edmund thought. If war was, indeed, Hell—or even worse than Hell, as some maintained—then who better to lead them, who better for them to follow through that crucible, than the Devil Herself, the destroyer-face of the divine?

"Encore! Encore!" cried Michael.

"Yeah, encore~! Encore~!" Avery shouted in solidarity.

And like before, it wasn't long before Edmund found his own throat stinging as he joined his voice to those of his comrades, his brethren-in-arms in the vehicle with him, and indeed through what felt like every vehicle in the convoy, demanding their commander give them another round of song. "En-core~! En-core~! En-core~!"

"Well now~! If you all insist—here's 'Wonderwall'~!"

The uproarious laughter that ripped through them dispelled the last of their primal fears.

And all Edmund could think then was, Perhaps things'll be alright for us in the end, after all…

---

The jovial mood persisted well into the time after they set up camp beneath the boughs of the great and ancient trees of the Amazon Rainforest, distributing supplies, igniting a controlled fire… She'd taken the chance of not setting out a sentry rotation for the night, listening to the instincts that told her that what they'd come here to find would surely find them, and that the situation would need to be handled delicately. To appear weak when they were strong, so to speak—and very little else from a text that, despite its having been quoted time and again to the point of cliché, amounted to nothing all that much more auspicious than an introductory guide to strategy, written for the benefit of idiots and lackwits during the reign of the kings of Zhou, before even the advent of the military reforms that later made the Kingdom of Qin such a force to be reckoned with.

But Justine digressed, her spirits high as they were. She'd been confident, when she opened up the comm unit to broadcast to every vehicle in their convoy, that the song she'd chosen to sing would help to keep morale high and raise the spirits of her increasingly frightened infantry, but even that confidence had thoroughly failed to anticipate the scale of the impact such a song might have. She supposed that while it may have been one thing to understand intellectually exactly how culturally relevant or poignant a song is, it was another thing entirely to feel that significance rumbling through your body, and through the souls of all those she'd promised to lead in their quest for collective triumph. It was…humbling, in a way, and the results of it were evident even now around the firelight, where all these differing retinues, some of which, as Jeremiah had bluntly but accurately stated previously, were little more than militia forces, came together, cognizant of the dangers of their environs, but choosing to embrace their fellows in bravery and not fear… Choosing, in a sense, to believe in her, and all that she had said, and all that she had shown herself to be.

It was not a small thing, this; and not once did it occur to her to do anything except handle it with all the respect and care that it demanded of her, if not more.

She was flipping through one of the books she'd taken from her desk, refreshing herself and all the categories and tags she had on various subjects inside the labyrinth of information she stored in her mind, as the night waxed on all around them, while she'd seated herself upon a heavy wooden crate, using it as a makeshift bench while using the fire for light, in the course of awaiting their guests.

"Are you certain that they'll approach us tonight, your highness?" Jeremiah asked, leaning down to whisper his question into her ear.

"Oh, yes, quite so," Justine replied easily without looking up, eyes still scanning the page. "In fact, they've been tailing us quite diligently for the past…oh, I'd say around ten hours, or so?"

"I still question the wisdom of telling Villetta not to bother with sentry shifts…" Jeremiah grumbled unhappily.

"And as I've told you, Jeremiah," Justine sighed, turning a page in the book. "All sentries will do is make them skittish and hesitant to approach, and that's in the best case scenario. The worst is that someone panics and shoots one of them as they're sneaking up, which will…complicate what needs to happen quite significantly. And so I judged it an assurance worthy of the risk it incurs."

"All the same, your highness, I—!"

Justine silenced her knight, raising a hand. She looked up and swept her gaze across the tree-line, to spot several tell-tale silhouettes forming out of the darkness that surrounded them; she didn't bother to hide the fact that she was grinning, and quite broadly at that. "Well, well, well! Right on time…"

Noticing that they were spotted, the natives paused, spears raised but not readied, seemingly shaken at the prospect that their quarry had seen them before they were ready to strike. Tilting her head to the side, Justine, who was always one to trust her instincts (for they were usually correct even if, every so often, she found she lacked the wherewithal to know precisely how to decipher what she was being told), felt for the correct form of address out of the dozen or so languages she had parked away inside her head, each of them bookmarked in her mental library for immediate access. "Your approach was skilled, hunter-warrior of the River-folk. But your coming was expected. Be at peace, however, for I mean you no harm."

"The Pale-face Speaks," the hunter-warrior in the front said as they approached—and though it was clear that the individual before Justine bore their breasts bare, their hands were coated with pockmarked scars that Justine recognised from photographs of the aftermath of bullet-ant stings, with many dozen such sights seemingly compounded upon one another, marking them as having undergone a masculine initiation ritual common to over half of the tribal nations in the area. Justine recalled in turn that some of the tribes who had at one point previously called the Homeland their home, before the coming of Britannia, had roles that were reserved for a 'third gender', which for some reason she'd never found a definitive explanation on was not accurately comparable with Britannians who discovered themselves outside the gender binary. It was only conjecture, of course, but Justine presumed that she was addressing one such individual who stood before her now.

"I consider it a point of decency, and of prudence, to learn the Speech of those I would speak with," said Justine, closing her book with a muted snap and reaching up to pluck her monocle out of her eye. She handed both to Jeremiah, who was stock-still and tense, and gave him a meaningful look in turn. Please, let me handle this. "But if I have given offence, I can pretend ignorance."

The hunter-warrior, their hair shaved close to their scalp, bared their teeth at her. Justine found a bit of surprise in what she saw: they were not white teeth, not properly, not the way hers were, but they were a lot better than what she'd admittedly been expecting. "The Pale-face is like the black fox. Every word is a trick, every promise a lie…!"

Justine sighed heavily, rolling her shoulders. "Would a Pale-face who lies care to learn to Speak? It is not as if they cannot burn you out of the land that they want. It is not like they cannot send other tribes to steal your children in the night. If a Pale-face wants to take something and hurt you doing it, you who are a hunter-warrior, they do not need to lie. Why would they, when they can simply…take?"

"Who knows why the Pale-face does as it does?" her conversation partner spat back, and privately, Justine knew that her words had struck a chord, for the individual before her did not make to sink the spear they brandished, a beautiful thing of sturdy, engraved wood and tipped with sharp flint, into her breast. "It does not think as Men do. It does not want as Men want. It lusts only for destruction."

"Not 'only,'" Justine corrected mildly.

In the next breath, the point of the spear was at her throat, but no further. It was quite a remarkable degree of control that was currently on display, with how close to her skin (just above the silver collar) it brushed without so much as prickling at it. But Justine knew that she was trying the patience of the person before her, and so instead of goading the individual on, Justine swung her leg back, the ankle of her boot connecting with the crate and sending it popping open.

The hunter-warrior recoiled into a defensive position, spear raised, eyes guarded and vigilant.

Justine raised both her hands and reached back, pulling out one of the items inside the piles of straw meant to protect the crate's contents from damage. In truth, she'd initially thought of the River-folk, as they called themselves in their own tongue, as only the fifth-most likely tribe for her to encounter, but it seemed as though the odds had been quite handily beaten. She pulled forth from it what looked, to her eyes, like it was some manner of poppet; but as she waved it around in front of the hunter-warrior, their eyes widened.

"Where did you find that?!" they snarled a moment later, as they remembered themself.

"Another group of Pale-faces took it from your ancestors some time ago," Justine explained, being careful about how she manipulated the artefact even while she made a show of waving it around. "Then it was put into a great house of stone and sand, where it was shown like a trophy. This, and others like it. But I think it properly belongs to you. So, take it."

Justine threw the poppet-like artefact underhand, and the hunter-warrior's scarred hand lashed out like the head of an adder to catch it out of the air. They brought it closer, and examined it, as if they weren't able to comprehend just what they were holding in their hands, and had to turn it over in their grasp so as to assure themself that it was, in fact, the genuine article.

Which, of course, it very much was.

Plucked right out of the Britannian Museum, even. She made a note to herself to give her personal thanks to Arsène Lupin for that little act of perfidy.

"…Why do you give me this, Pale-face…?" the hunter-warrior asked at last, wary.

"Pale-faces do not always agree with one another," Justine chose to respond, as she moved to fold her hands behind her, at the small of her back. "We fight, just as Men do, and we fight bitterly. That, I must tell you, is how such a thing came to be in your hands once again."

The hunter-warrior scowled at Justine, but it was a pensive sort of scowl. And Justine, knowing that silence was every bit as valuable as clever words in the course of an entreaty or negotiation, if not more so, allowed those thoughts to cross their mind in silence, while Jeremiah—faithful, loyal Jeremiah—remained stock-still, not moving so much as a muscle even as he seemed to almost vibrate with tension by her side.

"…What does the Pale-face want?" the hunter-warrior asked, with what might have been a sigh. It was, to Justine's ears, exactly the sort of surrender she'd been hoping for.

"Call your warriors off," Justine began, lifting her chin slightly as she adopted her mien of absolute command. The cold serenity that she'd become so familiar with, to the point where she barely even realised when she was wearing it anymore, flared in intensity, gently reminding her of its presence. "My own host will not attack, not unless I give them leave."

"…Very well, Pale-face…" they nodded uneasily, lowering the spear slowly.

"Good," said Justine, nodding in turn. Then she swept her arm out, to gesture towards the contents of the crate she'd been sitting upon—one of three or four similar crates that contained items said to be of ascending importance to the culture Justine saw represented before her. There were other crates for other cultures in the area, but she wanted to keep those more or less in her back-pocket for now. She might still find a use for them. "I have other things to share with you, things that rightfully belong to your people. But I have my own needs, you see, and so I wish to bargain with the leaders of your nation for their safe and swift return."

"Just like a Pale-face to hold pieces of our past and use them against us…" they spat.

Justine levelled a supremely unimpressed look at her. "As if you wouldn't do the same with another tribe. Save your accusations and stay your tongue, lest the ants you fling return to bite you instead. What I do here is no more evil than that which Men do to each other…"

The hunter-warrior's face pinched and scrunched as if they'd bitten into a rotten fruit. "Fine, then, Pale-face. Have it your way. You will see our elders, and they will decide whether your tongue hangs."

Justine, passably familiar with a handful of the idioms of the language she was speaking as she was, nodded with a sharp smile of her own. "So be it, then. Now, hunter-warrior, you may lead the way."

They bared their teeth at her once more, but Justine merely raised an eyebrow, and they relented. "A bargain with the elders is a bargain struck between nations. Gather your own nation, Pale-face, and then follow close. The Mother is not kind to Pale-faces that stray from the Winding Paths…"

Justine nodded, and turned to Jeremiah, keeping the hunter-warrior in her periphery as they flashed out a few hand-signals that seemed to have been repeated down the perimetre, and then they retreated into the darkness with all their fellow warriors in tow. "I appreciate your forbearance, Jeremiah."

"Your highness had things well in hand, it seems…" he sighed after a sagging moment, tension that had wound into every aspect of his carriage fleeing in the absence of immediate peril.

"That I did," Justine agreed. Then, she held a gloved finger up to her ear and tapped her comm unit, miniaturised so that it could be more easily concealed, into its active state. "We've made contact with our pursuers. Villetta, Suzaku, grab the rest of our friends. Make sure you all know to pick an escort of no more than ten infantrymen, and to nominate one interim commander each, to keep in contact with us. We'll leave the Knightmares behind while they escort us back to their settlement, but feel free to bring your weapons, so long as you all understand that the intent is largely ceremonial, and we're trying not to need to use them beyond that. Is that clear?"

"Very much so, Justine," Villetta replied promptly and dutifully.

"Fuck this is gonna be borin'..." Suzaku swore.

"The success or failure of our war effort here depends upon the outcome of this meeting," Justine explained, even as a fond smirk stretched her lips. "We suffer a small boredom now in exchange for a hell of a fight later down the line."

"…I'll hold ya to that…" her best friend vowed sulkily.

"I would expect nothing less, believe me," laughed Justine, shaking her head. "We move out in no more than an hour. Less, if it can be managed. The rest, my friends, I leave to you."

"Understood."

"Yeah, what she said."

The lines went dead right then, and Justine lifted her gaze to Jeremiah once again, crossing her arms behind her as she huffed out a bracing sigh. "Well then. Let's get ready to meet the locals, shall we?"

Chuckling ruefully and shaking his head in equal parts relief and incredulity, Jeremiah, who let out his own sigh of relief shortly thereafter alongside a small, somewhat exasperated smile, nonetheless agreed. "As you say, your highness…"