Arc 2 | Chapter 72: Those Who Deserve Punishment

“But… how?” Emilia asked, blinking wide eyes at V. As much as she knew little about virtual raids, she knew enough to know that ones like this—short-term events, especially those sponsored by corporations—were often given relatively nondescript names, so people

wouldn’t

know which raid they were joining. While she could understand someone potentially recognizing the platform

after

they joined, to know beforehand? That was…

V nodded, his weight shifting from foot to foot. He swallowed, glanced away. “I knew about this platform from message boards and a friend. They were part of the previous raid. They… they felt bad that they weren’t able to change this world for the better.”

“Okay…” That didn’t explain

how

he had known which raid to join, however.

Apparently, V could read her thoughts, and said, “There are ways to figure out when a platform will run again, if you know what to look for.”

That

sounded like something she would say, especially while hacking into a system. Unfortunately, that wasn’t much use. It was a common sentiment of hackers, almost all of whom had a few teachers and idols in common, but even if V

had

heard it from her, hundreds of people had seen her hack during the war.

Factions had emerged during the decades of conflict, and while the strain and tension between those factions had ebbed and flowed, there had been many times when one group or another had withheld important information. Funding for the best willbrands, planes, and mechs. Access to the best supports and bases—everything had been restricted and lacking during the war. Resources were dolled out to the best units, and that environment had inspired a fiercely—toxically—competitive atmosphere. Emilia had forced her way into rival faction’s systems dozens of times, searching for information. Not because it would gain them more fame or funding—they were already the most effective unit by far—but because those withholding information were putting lives at risk.

Once, another division had wandered into a known nest of enemies—something known by several factions, who were withholding their information. They had known for

months

that that area was unstable, some of the most dangerous monsters emerging from the aether to attack anyone who got too close.

The division had gotten too close. Not a single person returned from that mission.

So yeah, V might be quoting one of the impassioned speeches—and occasional lectures—she had given on the topic. There was no way for her to know. Regardless, she certainly understood what he was saying in not so many words, lest the system decide he had cheated, and he should be booted out: he had hacked someone and found the raid he wanted.

“You did that… just to come and try to fix this world?” Emilia asked blankly. That was… kind. Stupid, as well, perhaps, to enter a raid knowing full well how difficult the challenges within it were, but also impossibly kind.

Hopefully, no one tracked it back to him. There could be big, legal consequences for him if they did.

V shrugged. “Someone I care greatly for has strong views on how AIs shouldn’t be treated as less than human. Coming in here and trying to…” He shrugged again, mumbling about how he would have been playing a raid anyways, so he might as well try to do some good.

“That’s really sweet,” Emilia whispered, stepping to the side so she could meet his averted eyes. “I don’t know many people who would do that—not in a raid with rules as intense as this one, anyways.”

A snort escaped V. “Fucking stars, yes. I knew these rules were going to be brutal, but…” He trailed off, a dirty hand running through his filthy hair. Mud from his adventures in the caves coated the ends, flecks of still glistening brown further darkening the already dirty brown locks. Emilia still wasn’t convinced his hair wasn’t blonde, browned by dirt.

“Well,” she sighed, planting her hands on her hips. “Shirt? Finding my friends?”

V blinked at her, asking if they really were her friends as he began pulling his shirt back on.

To Emilia’s great amusement, even he grimaced as he pulled the disgusting thing back on. She was almost tempted to encourage him to toss it and walk around topless. Almost.

“Yeah, I’d say they’re my friends. Or, at least almost friends? It’s a bit difficult to be friends with Key when we can’t communicate much, but I think we’re on our way there?”

“How long have you known them for? Three, four days?”

“Uh… one and a half? Maybe two now?” Granted, she’d been unconscious for the majority of that time, but still! It counted!

Wide blue eyes blinked at her. She blinked back.

“When did you get out of Risen Guard custody?” V asked as they began to walk.

“You first,” she shot back.

V laughed, telling her she was

“extremely petty, War.”

Emilia still wasn’t convinced that

War

was an acceptable nickname, but given the other visitor wasn’t constantly calling her it, she wasn’t going to bother trying to stop him.

“My friend knew what they were looking for in the visitors they let go, so I escaped their holding cells pretty quickly. I hung around with my babysitter for a few days, before the Enclave killed him.” V’s voice cracked slightly on the last bit, his eyes flicking away as guilt rolled off him. “I should have tried to escape him sooner. If I had—”

“He might still be dead,” Emilia cut in, snatching up one of his hands. She gave it a squeeze before beginning to pull him along. They needed to move—needed to figure out what the fuck had happened to the others. “My guard tracked me down after I slipped him. I was already with Key and his friends, and they fought.”

“Is he…”

Emilia shook her head. “Last time I saw him, he was bleeding but alive—his blood created the weapon that created those bubbles that are now… uh… part of our tattoos? Or mine?” It was unclear how her guard and V’s babysitter’s blood had been split between them. “Honestly, I don’t know why he left? I’m almost positive that, injured or not, he could have killed us all.”

“Was he trying to?”

“Oh yeah~” Emilia sighed, debating for a moment the pros and cons of confiding her thoughts in V, before regaling him with the details of that night, as well as her late arrival into the raid. He raised an eyebrow at her late entry, but didn’t ask why she’d risked being so behind.

“His personality changed?” V asked, his arm swinging their joined hands as they walked. She’d noticed it before, but despite the fact that he was noticeably taller than her, he was good at slowing his steps to match her own shorter gait.

Emilia hummed in confirmation. “Yeah? Like, he was quiet but teasing, and mostly nice, then he was… murderous. I’m pretty good at reading people, and it was just so abrupt.”

V hummed his own contemplative sound. “How long were you with him?” he asked, voice already implying that he’d done the math and knew it couldn’t have been long.

“Uh…”

The man shot her an incredulous look, which was patently unfair! She hadn’t actually admitted that she’d only spent a few hours with the man… almost all of which she’d also been unconscious… Still! She was a good judge of character!

Probably.

Maybe.

“Should you

really

be making me second guess my stellar ability to judge people, considering I’ve only known you for a few hours but judged you to be mostly reasonable?”

“Mostly?” V asked, smiling innocently at her.

“I’m reserving full judgment for after you’ve bathed,” Emilia deadpanned, forcing herself not to smile when the man burst out laughing.

“I suppose that’s fair,” he said when his laughter had finally subsided. It was a nice laugh—just as nice as his carefree smiles. Sunshine and stars, given form through happiness and freedom.

She’d done a pretty good job of attaining that sort of happiness, since leaving her past life behind, but compared to V…

“Don’t do that,” V sighed, smile falling into something sadder.

“Do what?” Emilia said, voice coming out far too petulantly for her liking.

“Look at me with envy.”

Emilia blinked back at V. She hadn’t realized she’d been showing her emotions so visibly. Then again, if he did know her, perhaps he had experience reading her…

“Everyone has their own problems,” Emilia agreed, nodding sagely, as though she hadn't just been envying someone she barely knew over their seeming ability to leave the past behind them—or at least to be happy, despite the nightmares she was sure existed there.

Even if he hadn’t served as a soldier on the front—despite his mentions of being active during the war he hadn’t given her any particular details about his service, nor had she particularly see him acting the soldier—everyone who had lived during the war had seen terrible things. Even the youngest, those toddlers who had the barest of memories of the last days of the war, had been able to feel the tension through the adults in their lives.

How could they not? The entire country had known, those last few days, that the end was coming, and they were not going to win. The military brass had practically thrown in the towel, some of the highest-ranking officers disappearing into bunkers that had never been found—or if they had been found, it had never been made public. Most of those who fled had reemerged following the final assault. Emilia had been gone by then, but everyone knew what had happened to them: the Black Knot and the secretive organization that dealt with problem soldiers had tracked them down, and they had never been seen again. Some people assumed they were dead, others that they had been shipped off to the least pleasant of the Free Colonies, a few that they had been locked into bunkers and left to die, more still that they had been forced into indentured servitude—the last was by far the most outlandish idea.

As much as Baalphoria had indentured servants, it was a choice the individual made, in order to pay their debts. The idea that the government could force high-ranking soldiers, who had made selfish decisions at a time when everyone was rioting, assuming the world was going to end?

Emilia shook her head, earning her a confused look from V.

“Ah… just a wandering brain,” she explained, awkwardly scratching the back of her head with her free hand, V’s fingers still firmly wrapped around the other.

V didn’t say anything about her distractibility, however something in his expression softened and Emilia felt her heart squeeze, stupidly. The man didn’t understand just how distractible and obsessive her brain was. Feeling any sort of… anything for him because he didn’t shoot her the annoyed looks Rin and so many of the other people who had been forced to deal with her brain did was insane.

So few people in her life had ever appreciated her for the way her brain ran away with itself. Olivier—eventually, at least. Her ex—as long as it wasn’t interfering with his own plans. Sil, sometimes. Rafe and his brothers and a handful of others. She could see it, even in some of her closest friends, however, the annoyance they at least occasionally felt with her. Some tolerated it, many hated it, forcibly dragging her out of that distraction when they saw it coming on.

As a result, whenever she came across someone who outright

enjoyed

how her brain worked, it was like they pressed a button—a button that read:

keep this person close and safe and learn to love them.

It wasn’t the greatest of buttons. She had hated her ex, and then loved him. Then he had died, and she had mourned and moved on through the war and school. Now, when she looked back through older, colder eyes… she couldn’t deny that something about their relationship may have been wrong. Sometimes, it seemed forced. Sometimes, she let herself be dragged into situations she never would have, simply because

he

was there, urging her on and that little part of her brain that wanted to be loved was screaming at her to keep him happy.

Keep him around—no matter what.

And here, by the start of the war, she’d thought she’d gotten over her childhood trauma and learned to be herself—to stand up for herself and her wants and beliefs and values—no matter who was questioning her, making her question herself.

It was strange, to look back and wonder if she’d been wrong, or if the years and the trauma of the war and death had skewed her memories.

“Wandering again?”

Emilia started back into the present, blinking absently at a pair of doors. When had they reached doors?

“Ah… yes?” she asked, half-smiling, half-grimacing at V. “Sorry.”

The man’s hand tightened around her, just this side of painful. “Do not apologize for your—” He cut off, something strange crossing his face before he was shaking his head and starting again. “Do not apologize for being yourself.”

Emilia blinked at him, wondering what he had been about to say before thinking better of it. A wrong phrasing? Something too personal? Something that he wouldn’t be able to deny was the result of a shared past?

“Shall we?” he asked, nodding towards the doors.

They were smaller than the last set of doors she’d come across, but were still moderately tall—the height of three people, at least. They were also extremely boring, being a bland, dirty black against the cavern’s gently shimmering blues and blacks. The two sections had no decoration, save a handle on each side, each a slightly darker black than the doors.

“I suppose,” she said, glaring at the doors.

“Something wrong?”

She hesitated, swinging their arms between them, V letting her swing them as far as they could go and watching her softly. “Just a bad feeling, is all.”

V hummed, giving her hand another squeeze as she stopped violently swinging them. “I guess we should be careful then, eh, War?”

Emilia glared at his back as he let their hands drop to approach the door.

“One side or two?”

What a silly question—you always open both sides of a door like this. Dramatic and wide, throwing them open without a care in the world, the wind blowing through your hair.

“One,” she said instead, hands already hovering over her {Blood Needles} as V grinned and began pulling a door open.