novelraw Chapter 48
Chapter 48
Chapter 48
“Ready on the line.”
The 66th Class trainees fired at the dummies I had laid out on the map.
“What the—none of us are hitting!”
“Amon, maybe your arms are still shaking from those push-ups.”
“Belle, you haven’t landed a single shot either.”
“Mine’s defective.”
“Oh, please...!”
“It really is. Oscar loaded it wrong.”
“Belle, let me see.”
I reached out.
With a confident smirk she slapped the musket into my palm.
I raised her weapon, squeezed the trigger, and drilled a neat hole through the dummy’s forehead.
“Now you can’t blame the gun, can you?” Amon called from a safe distance—far enough to dodge if I decided to swing the butt instead of shoot.
“Mago, how are you nailing it? First time for you too, right?”
I couldn’t mention the past life.
As always, the best lie was a half-truth that sent curiosity chasing its own tail.
“I’ve only fired a few rounds myself. The musket’s just that easy—put a couple of shots down-range and you’ll start grouping.”
“Seriously...? I’m not losing to you.”
Competition, not coaxing, was what kept her on the range.
When the drill ended I checked the cube again.
One entire face had locked into place—deep indigo, the color of a moonlit tide.
A true name flickered across the facet, still faint:
EX
Only two letters, but at this pace the rest wouldn’t take long.
I pocketed the cube and went looking for Oscar.
I found him sitting opposite one of the Hybrid Vampires, deep in conversation.
“Oscar, how’s the project?”
“Almost there. The torch-style firework is ninety-percent done.”
He stood to answer, dusting charcoal from his sleeves.
“Didn’t know you were a powder man.”
“Haven’t slept.”
He shrugged like it was nothing.
“Mago, can we talk a minute?”
He caught my shoulder and steered me aside.
“Sure, spit it out.”
“Ms. Lune! We’ll just be a second...!”
“Take your time—I’ll wait!”
The Hybrid Woman answered with a bright smile.
“Hold up, Oscar. What did you just call her?”
“Said we needed to talk—”
“Before that. Her name. You said ‘Ms. Lune.’”
“Yeah, that’s her name—Lune Page. Pretty, isn’t it?”
“Pretty?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Why did you ask?”
“Why wouldn’t I? She’s helping us, maybe even joins the op later. Of course I learned her name. Anyway, about the plan—”
“No. Drop it. You don’t need to know her name.”
“Since when is a name classified?”
“Listen to me, Oscar.”
“No, you listen—”
“Shut up and hear me. She isn’t human.”
“...Come again?”
“Not human. Not beast either. Something in between—slag that doesn’t know what it is.”
“You’re the one who told us that. What I can’t swallow is this: she said you called yourself human. She trusted you, and now you call her slag?”
“I smiled because she was standing right there. You don’t spit in a friendly face.”
“Have you lost your mind? If anyone here should know better—it’s you.”
Oscar’s eyes blazed as he stepped in.
“You grew up a slave, so maybe manners skipped you. Fine. But learning her name is a crime now? Because she’s not human?”
“My past isn’t the issue. I said don’t get attached, that’s all.”
“Who made you the arbiter of my heart?”
He snorted.
“Order me if you want, Captain. I’ll obey—barely. But respect? Never. Not as a superior, not as a friend.”
“Fine. Have it your way.”
“Mago...!”
His soot-blackened glove closed on my collar.
“Want to rip the rank off and go at it?”
“Do that and I’ll still beat you.”
“Then why push this? You don’t understand what we are. Amon, Belle—you’re all the same. Clueless.”
His right hand loosened, the fight draining as fast as it had flared.
It wasn’t simple fear.
He knew helplessness better than anyone.
“If I didn’t have this hand, would Captain Shimena have tried to put me in the Special Task Force? No—white uniform, navy uniform, even if I wore nothing at all... nobody would care. I could die in the gutter, and no one would blink.”
“Oscar, you’ve been up all night. Get some sleep and clear your head.”
“Ms. Lune said she drank vampire blood because she was terrified of the war—so she could spread wings and fly far away. You’ll never understand, but I do. I know that weakness inside out.”
“You’re a soldier who’s sworn your life to the Empire. Elite. Special Task Force. Technical Division, Special Division—whatever. You should be proud—”
“Shut up! Spare me the sugar-coated crap, Mago.”
“Back in the Third Exam at the Training Center—”
“Forget the Third Exam! You just moved me like a chess piece!”
At the shout, Ms. Lune, still watching, muttered, “Damn it.”
The Hybrid Woman looked at Oscar, worry etched across her face.
“Mago, I didn’t know you were like this. ‘Don’t get attached, he’s not human.’ That makes you the same as the Demon King—killing people just because they’re human.”
“Um, could you both please calm down...?”
The Hybrid tried to intervene, but Oscar wouldn’t stop.
“It’s not exhaustion. I’m just... disappointed, Mago. Ms. Lune understood me better than anyone. We haven’t known each other long, but her sincerity reached me. She said she admired how I do what I can, even though I’m not combat personnel. I take back what I said earlier—no, I cancel it.”
“It is exhaustion. You’re tired, that’s why you’re mixing pity with the Hybrid, Oscar. I won’t cancel anything. I’m not finished. Don’t ever speak to me privately again.”
“You bastard, still—”
“Yes, that’s an order! Oscar, from this moment you and the Hybrid—”
“Both of you, cut it out. My head’s splitting.”
Louise’s voice cut across mine.
“It’s week three, week three. I’ve been staring at those pitch-black crow heads all day. I’m the most exhausted here. Both of you—shut up and sleep, please.”
She raked her fingers through her hair as she approached. Today she wore her ponytail high.
“But Louise, am I wrong? Mago started—”
“Everyone’s insane. Out of the 66th Class who enlisted in the middle of a war, who’s normal?”
She yawned and waved the matter away.
“Mago! Mago! I beat Belle!”
Amon came running, his excitement jarring against the tension.
“Five hits to four! I won, I actually—”
He skidded to a stop inches from my face, looked around blankly.
“What’s with the atmosphere?”
“Mago, I won—Amon’s worse than me, right?”
Belle arrived right behind him.
“So who won what?” Louise asked dryly.
“Huh?”
Even Belle sensed the sudden drop in mood.
“Amon, what’s going on here?”
“No idea. I just got here with you...”
“Looks like Oscar and Mago fought. Again. You two have been at it since the Training Center.”
“Yeah, yeah. Same old. Let’s go wash up, Belle.”
Louise scooped Belle up from behind.
“Eek!”
“Let’s go, Miss Belle.”
“Sure thing, Louise! Hey, you smell nice.”
Belle giggled like a child in Louise’s piggy-back, the whole scene absurd as they faded into the distance.
“Damn, now I’m the only one left.”
Amon fidgeted, lost.
“If Kinjo were here he’d mediate. I actually miss that guy today...”
“Anyway, Mago, apologize to Ms. Lune. It won’t fix everything, but still.”
“What was it you wanted to say?”
“What?”
“At the start you said you had something to tell me.”
“Right.”
“Then say it.”
“You said you might use Ms. Lune as bait in the operation.”
“I did.”
“Think again. Sending her in like that is as good as ordering her death.”
“No. The decision’s made.”
“Mago...!”
“That all?”
“No, I’m not done.”
Oscar drew a long, shuddering breath.
“You must’ve seen Ms. Lune a lot during the Red-Light District mission.”
“So?”
“Did—did she have a boyfriend, or a husband...”
“You’d be better off unconscious for a few days. I’ll tuck you in myself.”
“Mago, don’t—”
Amon wedged himself between us, cringing.
* * *
I went to the practice range alone.
Mindlessly poured powder down the musket barrel.
Rammed the lead ball home.
I fired at the training dummy.
Again. And again.
The cube in my uniform pocket squirmed.
The musket was the answer.
Every time I pulled the trigger, a little more of myself came back.
I pulled it out to check.
Three of the six faces were the same color now—
halfway there.
The relic’s name was surfacing.
Before, I could only see “EX.”
Now “RE” had appeared as well.
A weapon whose name begins with RE.
“Revolver...”
Seven shots, no matter the form—sword, axe, bow.
I pictured the seven chambers of a revolver cylinder.
That a revolver could appear here, in Year 607, mattered.
Just as Oscar had copied the Knights’ musket,
someone would soon mass-produce a mundane version of whatever relic was about to be born.
The problem: the only person who could do that was sulking like a child.
“Who are you?”
“Oscar, stop being ridiculous.”
“Ah—! Commander Mago of the 15th, is it not?
The Technical Division is a filthy place where Hybrids loiter;
surely it offends you?
If you’re uncomfortable, I can vanish at once.”
“You’re really pissing me off...”
“So, what business brings you?”
“Oscar, it’s not because she’s a Hybrid.”
“Don’t make me laugh.
You’re the one who told me not to mingle with Hybrids.”
“I had a reason.”
“Yes, yes, of course you did.”
“That Hybrid—”
“You still won’t use her name.
It’s Ms. Lune. Lune Page.
How many times must I say it?”
“Names don’t matter—!”
“Fine, fine.
Hey, Mago. It’s raining.
Let’s go inside.”
Oscar lifted his palm.
Raindrops dotted his skin.
Then a horn.
A horn blast rolled across Headquarters in steady pulses.
We both froze, listening.
“Air-raid alert...”