Unbridled rage and pain were behind every shot Ivan took as he gunned down the waves of armored men loyal to the now-dead Shogun. News of Daisuke of Iwasoto’s death would spread soon, but he as well as Kaito and his men would not take any chances. There was no guarantee his forces would fall back immediately once they heard of their beloved Shogun’s demise.

  It was only after he joined Kaito’s forces that the soldiers of the Shogunate finally began retreating. Perhaps it was Ivan’s anger they felt emanating off of him that began to scare them off, or the fact that he was the only man in that building to have experienced war in his lifetime that caused them to back off. Even though they retreated through the many gates and passages of the prison, neither he nor Kaito’s men faltered in their intensity, even as the enemy had their backs towards them. It was Kaito’s love for his nation that drove him, and Ivan’s grief at the loss of a woman who was like an older sister that pushed him.

  The kind of rifle that was in Ivan’s hands was new to him, and he had only been taught how to use it when Kaito and his allies had visited the cell the previous night, but the way he carried and operated it was as if he had been using it for years.

  One by one, Shimajimese bodies fell as they were effortlessly downed by their countrymen, and for one reason or another… Ivan felt joy from it. Each slam to the ground of a dead soldier on the other side hitting the floor pulled him further and further from the dark cloud Manisha’s death cast over him.

  Why did he have to feel bad, even if they were human? They put his friends and innocent sailors in grave danger. They nearly took Anwen’s life. They killed Manisha in the blink of an eye right in front of her young son, now scarred and forever changed. Any momentary pain they felt from being slain was only a small fraction of what he and the other Yeupisians faced and would face.

  The feeling he had gotten from the shooting was so great that he did not realize that his ammunition had run out, his rifle only making clicking noises whenever he pulled the trigger.

  With trembling hands, he had no choice but to fall back. Other soldiers on Kaito’s side also had gone low on ammunition.

  “Shit, I’m all out! Commander Kaito, do we have ammo?”

  “Men with sufficient ammunition, pusheth forward! Maketh a way f'r thy broth'r to replenish their arms hastily!” Kaito cried as he pushed himself in front of Ivan, using himself to make cover for the northerner.

  “Wait… we don’t have extra ammo?” Ivan said, panic threatening to turn him into a fool.

  “Of course not. The plan's at each moment been to grabeth the extra magazines off the deceased ones. This is their gift to us, coequal though those gents square on anoth'r side. Taketh advantage and grabeth t from their utility belts!”

  Ivan glanced up at the wavering fury from the remaining Shogunate forces still inside the prison. Though their numbers dwindled, their onslaught did not cease. Kaito’s men came crashing down, but not at the same rate.

  “Shit. There’s no other way.” he grimaced, before lunging forward, staying ducked below the line of fire. The surge of adrenaline within him was practically indistinguishable from the Reserve in his blood as he stayed low to the ground. Every second mattered as he plundered several dead soldiers of their ammunition. Shots inevitably shifted towards him as the final quartet of living soldiers, standing their ground in defense of the nation that had been kept together and maintained by the all-powerful Shogun, who controlled everything within the Barrier that existed until only days earlier.

  Ivan scrambled from corpse to corpse as beams of Reserve whizzed past his head.

  “Mr. Hout, we haven't did get tempus! Just taketh a magazine f'r yourself and leaveth the rest f'r the oth'rs to fetcheth!” Kaito cried over the faltering sound of gunfire, concerned for his new ally.

  “No way!” Ivan cried with his gaze focused on the hand he stuck in the belt of a once-living samurai. “I’m not going to let any of you guys have to come back if I can help it!”

  As he pulled it into his arms where he carried about a half-dozen other magazines, a hot flash seared the tip of his unprotected right ear. It quickly became a burning sensation—a heat only a Reserve-based projectile could’ve produced. He wanted to scream in pain, but he had made a choice, and he would go through with it. He scrambled back behind the cover of Kaito and his men just as fast he left it and dropped the magazines on the ground for whoever needed replenishments.

  The last opposing soldiers battled intensely, but one by one, they came down just like the others before them. The heavy wind shut the door to the outside with a slam, making it impossible for the last desperate soldier to scamper away from a fight he knew he could not win.

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  “Hold your fire!” Kaito suddenly barked in Shimajimese before any of his men could scathe the final opposing warrior. “That man is important! Look at his uniform—only a man the Shogun can trust wears an armor like that! He has the answer to where the bastard kept his Shinpitekenaishi!”

  In a calmer tone, he repeated the directive to Ivan in Old Yeupisian, which the northerner welcomed with relief. It was this very reason he had come across the ocean. It was relief for him and for his new Shimajimese Royalist allies, a beacon of hope for both nations. A relief that Manisha would never get to feel, but one that he, Anwen, and Stefan would relish on her befalf.

  Kaito ordered for the soldier to drop his gun and kneel, after which they roughly guided him outside of the prison and to the adjoining car park. It took two vans for the convoy and their prisoner to transport them to a place identified by the captive samurai, about an hour’s drive away from the Royal Palace. At first glance, it seemed to be an oddly-placed structure—a heavy metal door in the ground in the middle of a forest, surrounded by concrete. While a rebel soldier bandaged up Ivan's injured ear, his heart hammered in his chest. What Jay had ordered him to bring home all those months ago was right below his feet.

  But as the prisoner unlocked the door via fingerprint scanner and guided his captors into an elevator, no one among Kaito’s entourage believed what they were seeing. It was a vast repository of Utrium, spread out across five different levels. Each level was as large as the Black Shield’s former base in the Marius Mountains, yet the entire complex had only one purpose—to store Utrium. Shelves that were the same height as several men standing atop one another lined the reinforced concrete walls, holding Utrium in just about every single form possible. Utrium bullets, bombs, armor, nuggets of Utrium that were never processed, weaponry that was at least as advanced as the technology lent to the Shield by the Anti-Imperialists of Mars could all be found in the sprawling complex.

  “Didst thee knoweth, Mr Hout?” said he and Ivan explored the place after sending his men to catalogue and document every section of the repository. “How this placeth cameth to beest?”

  “Pardon me? No, I have absolutely no idea.” Ivan shook his head, although he found it hard to believe humans could’ve made it.

  “This wast one of the first places on Terra the men of Titan attempted to conqu'r as parteth of the First Invasion. But those gents apace gaveth up and focused their endeavors on the continent.”

  “Really?” Ivan spoke with authentic curiosity. “Why did they? If they saw how advanced your country was…”

  “Technologically advanc'd, we art. We art the lasteth staying bastion of pre-Invasion human innovation staying in its entirety. But our islands offered those folk dram advantage, being present so far from anywh're else and sore to reap harvests from. So, doth thee knoweth what this teaches us?”

  Kaito didn’t wait for Ivan to answer his rhetorical question, as he lifted his rifle and pointed it at the bound prisoner’s head. Fear was obvious in his eyes as the muzzle faced him.

  “It's yond the real threat doesn't necessarily has't to beest from a far hence landeth. Those gents can beest thy owneth brethren, too.” Kaito said, his brow indicating nothing but disgust at the oppressive Shogun’s underling as he pulled the trigger.

  --

  That dream played in her head over and over again. The one where blood stained the walls of the shoddy southern flat and stench of flesh and iron permeated. Anwen felt all the fear, helplessness and despair of the person from whose perspective she experienced the event, tucked away in a corner with their leg sitting yards away. And as the person’s eyes fluttered close from the blood loss and pain, Anwen always jolted awake, welcomed by the noise of beeping machines and the scent of sterile air. She knew now that this dream was not a dream, but a replaying of a memory from eleven years ago. It was the same one that would cause her to cry in her sleep, but she was aware of its contents now. And with only occasional visits from Ivan, Bhavana, and Rohan, she knew next to nothing of what happened in the cell after she became unconscious.

  “How’s that leg—err, stump feeling?” Ivan spoke on his latest visit to his hospitalized friend, taking a seat next to the bed Anwen lay on.

  The girl pulled the blanket up to her waist, baring her intact right leg and the remains of the left, wrapped firmly with gauze.

  “It’s numb. I still can’t move it around,” Anwen spoke softly, not very optimistic. “There was no blood. The doctors aren’t sure exactly what’s going on, but can you blame them? They’ve never seen someone with Concentrated Initiation before. Everything else is healing up nicely, though.”

  Except for Daisuke, Ivan thought. If he ever got sick or hurt enough to end up in a place like this.

  “Initiation’s a funny thing, you know. You get hurt really bad when you first go through it, but every injury or sickness after that goes by really fast after that. You’ll feel brand new in no time.”

  A smile appeared on Anwen’s face at the sound of the reassurance, but something told her deep down that something still wasn’t alright within Ivan’s mind as she gazed into his eyes.

  “Are you… okay?” she asked. “You don’t seem like your normal self. Even when bad things happen, you bounce right back. But not now. What’s wrong, Ivan?”

  Ivan’s lips took the shape of a nervous smirk.

  “This is tough, you know. Trying to make time to negotiate with the new King while he’s trying to fix his own country up… he’s a nice man, but—

  “Stop.” Anwen snapped like she was giving him an order.

  “It’s the truth, though. Our return to Yeupis will take a little longer—

  “Since when has something like a little delay brought your mood down? There’s something you’re not telling me. These two days since I woke up from that coma, you’ve been acting so weird. Captain Rohan too. And… why haven’t Stefan or Aunty Manisha or Ilias seen me yet? This is too strange to all be happening at once. Tell me, Ivan. What the fuck is going on?”

  Ivan lowered his head, making some distance between him and the bedbound girl. He gave a deep sigh. He had been backed into a corner, one that would be harder to get out of than the rebellion he took part in just days earlier.