“What are you doing?! That’s a minefield over there!” Henry barked angrily, spotting a soldier from another company drive young, inexperienced soldiers ahead into a minefield.
It was one corner of the front lines where there somehow wasn’t any fighting. Despite that, the soldiers were all smirking as they replied, intent on using the fresh batch of newly arrived soldiers for target practice or to clear the mines.
“C’mon, we’re just sending him back to Mommy.”
“We need to make sure they’re not some of those new self-propelled mines, you know? If they make it back, they’re a mine; if they don’t, congrats, they’re all one of us.”
“Come on, it’s just a little prank. They’re odd-colored anyway.”
Odd-colored. People whose skin color, hair color, or eye color didn’t match. They themselves didn’t actually believe these soldiers were self-propelled mines; they simply admitted, with a smile, that they were only doing it because these were people of a different race. They were having fun persecuting someone, openly using it as one of their few ways of having fun on the field of battle.
“You think you can pull pranks like this here? Hell, you think this is a prank to begin with? I’ll report it to the higher-ups. I’m not from your company; I don’t have to stay quiet about this. Try telling that to your battalion commander or an MP.”
He had to go that high up because, much to his amazement, even the captain and vice captain for this company were in on this. The soldiers eyed him with hostility, annoyed that he’d rained on their parade repeatedly.
“Aww, just shut up…!”
“Keep your nose out of our business, Weißhaare! You think you can talk when you’re from the Republic?!”
But their insults only emboldened him.
“Yeah, I’m from the Republic. And that’s how you know that when I say you’re going to regret what you’re doing, I mean it!”
The company captain looked taken aback when Henry shouted right at him. As he inched away from him, startled, Henry thrust a finger at his face. He remembered hearing somewhere that pointing at someone kept them from blending in with a group as a faceless member with no responsibility, instead marking them as an individual who could be taken to task for their choices and actions.
“You—yes, you, First Lieutenant Kareli. Simoni Kareli. I heard you just got married, right?”
“What are you—?”
“Can you tell your wife what you just said to me? Can you boast to her that you chased people from other races until you drove them to get killed by the Legion? And what about when you have children? Can you tell them that Daddy abandoned kids their age to die just because of their race? No, you can’t. You won’t, First Lieutenant. And neither can you, or you, or you!”
He pointed at the faces of everyone present here. Everyone wore the same weird expression people had when their individual thoughts were painted over by the group they were in.
The soldier he’d named and singled out from the group averted his eyes in guilt, his face going red in what might have been anger. The blind anger of being pulled out of the safety of a group and backed down into individuality, where one could be blamed and shamed for their actions.
“I—I just don’t have to tell—”
“Are you stupid?” Henry cut him off mockingly. “You think people won’t find out? It came out when the Republic did it, and the whole country was trying to hide it then. But the world at large found out. So what you’re doing is bound to come to light. Let’s see you, then, when you get called demons for what you did. When you get called inhuman monsters for the rest of your lives!”
He’d started laughing without even noticing it. His lips curled up like a gash cut across his face, and he bared his teeth with a maddened glint in his eyes.
“And even if that doesn’t happen…even if no one else ever finds out, you’ll know it. Everyone else might not know, but you will. So there’s no running from this. The truth will thrust itself before your eyes someday. You’ll do it to yourselves. I—”
Yes, I…I’m part of the Republic, which drove out and slaughtered the Eighty-Six, even when it happened to my stepmother’s family, Claude’s family. I looked away and carried on with my life. And so—
“I’m the same! I abandoned my family. For ten years, I walked around like nothing happened, like everything was fine. But it wasn’t fine—my little brother was still alive. And when I found out, I fell apart. I realized myself that I was scum who’d thrown his brother to the dogs and lived for ten years like I’d done nothing wrong!”
And that’s why Henry couldn’t forgive this. He couldn’t pardon his own sins. He kept blaming himself for the fact that he’d looked away from the expulsion and slaughter.
“So there’s no running from this. In ten years or so, when your children grow up, or when you just see some kid in town, the guilt will come crashing down on you like a hammer. There’ll be no escaping it. You’ll catch up to yourself someday. So stop this, before it comes to that. Before you become like me!”
“F-fine, I get it! Shit!” First Lieutenant Kareli said, looking at Henry with fearful eyes as he angrily stomped on the ground like an outraged child.
“I’m not in the mood anyway after all that shouting. Let’s stop this and not do it again. Satisfied?”
It seemed this attempt to placate Henry was closer to telling him to keep his mouth shut. He then glanced over at the young soldiers.
“…Sorry. Our prank went too far.”
Not that this could be written off as a prank.
As he left, the child soldiers followed. This was their unit, and they had no choice but to follow. One of them turned to look at Henry before they left. He was dark-skinned, with pale-golden hair and bright-colored eyes.
“—Weißhaare.”
Henry froze where he stood. The boy was right, and Henry didn’t get involved to come across as a hero to be thanked, but still.
First Lieutenant Nino, who’d hurried over upon hearing of this altercation and seen it all happen, placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. It was him who’d told Henry about Claude’s phone call, and the two started talking as a result.
“First Lieutenant… I understand.”
“…Yeah.”