Leftover Answers

“And that concludes my first year at the South Gate Border Patrol,” closed Eudokia. She glanced around at her audience briefly. The reactions varied from the confused, Saki, to the stoic, Haruo, to impossible to read, Yuki. Not taking the temperature of the area, Eudokia pushed on, starting to open her mouth.

Yuki immediately raised his arm up. “Stop right there, Ayumi. I know I asked you for this and you’d said it was a long story, but if we keep going we’ll never get back to the plot.” He saw the relief in Saki’s face. It wasn’t so much that it was necessarily too much for her to handle, just too much information all at once. There was almost no filter.

He glanced back at someone the others did not see. ‘Be glad we only gave you the abridged version.’

Unseen in the story, Eudokia had gone into enormous amounts of detail covering many of the more mundane aspects of life in the South Gate. It almost felt as though she did the act out of spite for being asked to explain herself. What they received went far beyond an ‘info dump’, it would be better described as an ‘info landfill’.

Ayumi looked around at the others appearing confused for being stopped. Given the information they were given, it was no longer certain that they could believe the expressions she gave them. Was she truly confused or just wanted them to feel that way? It brought up needlessly complex questions for something that should be simple.

“But you wanted to know about how things worked in Atlantis.”

Nodding to Ayumi, he delayed his words to select them carefully. “And I give admission to that. But we just need a better understanding, not a comprehensive history.” He felt like he still failed to get the words he wanted. It made his face twitch a little. Despite it, he pushed on to the next subject. “You can summarize for everyone here the other two years.”

Looking a little dejected by the shutdown, Ayumi darted her eyes around at them. “What about everything that happened? Didn’t you want to know?”

“I’m pretty sure for our current situation, a summary will work.” Yuki found himself sweating a little watching the look on Ayumi’s face. Given her history she did reveal, he felt some of what he saw in her face could be real. She was isolated as a child among adults, forced to lie and trick her way just to be able to fit in and be accepted. It might have been the first time anyone actually was interested in her and listened to her past.

He felt like he stomped all over it, yet it still was for the best. Perhaps it was the pent up desires to share that made her overzealous. Yuki was certain he would never know the answer. So he compromised. “I imagine in the future there’ll come a time when what happened to you in those two years will be relevant to your character development and you’ll get to reveal it then. So just wait.”

Saki leaned over to Yuki. “Careful, we just fixed the wall. We can’t be breaking it again already.”

“Is there really a point in having it anymore?” he shot back, with a quick glance.

Coughing to clear the air, Saki switched back to the matter at hand, for the security of the wall. “Something I’m still wondering. You haven’t mentioned any of those people back there yet. I thought we were going to hear about your time with them.”

“That’s because I did not meet them until my third year.”

Chapter 208 – Leftover Answers

“Keep things short,” Yuki insisted, with his hand up again. He tilted his head over to Saki. “What are you thinking, you almost got her started again!”

“…sorry…I was curious,” she replied, sheepishly.

Ayumi nodded a little roughly, clearly trying to organize her thoughts into something more concise. “A more accurate answer would be that I only know one of them. The rest joined the South Gate after I finished my tour of duty.”

“So they only knew you by reputation?” Saki looked a little surprised. She knew the sort of standing she had from previous conversations, but it never really clicked with her. It never came to her that Ayumi might have been famous.

“Chariton is the only one that I knew before I left. He arrived shortly before I left. So I barely had much interaction with him.” She paused, appearing in thought. “The others, Vangelis and the rest of his team must have joined the South Gate recently.”

“But they know anyway,” questioned Yuki. “You said before, the reason you kept out of the fighting is because they knew you. The real reason is not because of your time at the South Gate, but the title you held after, Captain of the Royal Guard.”

“Mostly,” she agreed, “The events I told you about made my name and squad well known among everyone in the South Gate. Those in the South Gate know me because of my accomplishments before I received that title, but nearly everyone in the military knows me as Captain of the Royal Guard, the one closest to the King.”

“Because of your notoriety, you’ve wanted to keep low. However, I can’t let you just disappear whenever. I understand not wanting to tip your hand, but I’m guessing those that are ordering this aren’t so blind. They’ve probably already figured out that you’re involved. It’s probably difficult to fight against your own people, but if we’re going to fix things I need you to be here.”

Ayumi remained silent for a while. She didn’t reveal much of an expression. The only guess was she thought carefully on her plans and what was at stake. It was clear from the way she moved, she had a strategy, one that didn’t move in line with Yuki’s meddling. She was the expert on Atlantis, but Yuki was the one helping and the one needed. With some reluctance, Ayumi’s expression softened a bit. “Alright, we’ll do things your way.”

“Great! Thanks, Ayumi!” He smiled at her, pleased with a resolution. It gave him hope for a smoother journey.

However, Saki jumped into the conversation with a bit of a tangent. “You’re our age, right Ayumi? You’re not using some trick or anything you learned from that Dareia person to make yourself appear younger.”

A bit of a glare came from Ayumi, but she covered it up quickly. “No, why are you asking? I am about the same age.”

“So you’re saying that you were in the military when you were…”

“Nine, when I joined the academy and eleven when I was assigned to the South Gate.”

“And fourteen when you became Captain of the Royal Guard.” She looked around at the others and they didn’t seem to find it strange. ‘How can I be the only one?! This doesn’t make any sense!’ Saki wanted to punch something for how much they failed to react. When she heard Ayumi start her story, it was the first thing that bothered her. It didn’t make any sense. ‘How can they just accept it?! I’m not weird or strange right?’

“Saki?” questioned Yuki. He leaned over to Saki, still caught up in her thoughts. The look in her eyes of too many questions buzzing around made it almost possible to see all of the tiny ants running around flailing their arms trying to make sense of things. It sort of amused Yuki.

However, when she came back she yelled, “NO!” It was straight in Yuki’s face, enough to make his hair blow over and off his head, nearly.

“I’m sorry!” Yuki reacted out of instinct, not really certain why he apologized. It just seemed to be the right response.

The outburst put everyone a little on edge. Saki quickly caught their suspicious looks and pulled back trying to close back up. “I-I mean…” Her face was a little red. It took a lot of backpedaling and struggling to find her words, but she eventually reached what she wanted. “No!” Or maybe not. It was the looks they gave, they set her off.

“Saki? What’s wrong?”

‘Am I crazy? I can’t be? I’m the only sane one here, right? I mean there’s Yuki that’s delusional, Haruo who never says anything and Ayumi that is too much of a puzzle. I’m normal right?!’

“Um…Saki?” Yuki reached out to place a hand on her shoulder, hoping it would calm her down a little.

Naturally, she jumped, not expecting Yuki. “Huh?” The world she caught herself up in blocked out too many things. “What?!”

“Are you alright?”

“I should be asking you that!” she blurted out, the lack of context only made them look more strangely at her. It made her feel a little self-conscious. “I’m the normal one here!”

“Eh?” Yuki raised an eyebrow trying to understand where Saki was going. “Is something wrong?”

“How can you just stand there and accept everything she said without even finding it odd?!” She flung a hand over to Ayumi, pointing at her evidence. “She’s our age! Our age! You know what that means! How can you just accept that someone her age is in the military and at the top as though it is normal! This is the real world!”

Pushing a little way from Saki, he motioned with his hands for her to calm down. “First of all, we’re sitting, not standing while accepting it.” The joke immediately made her glare at him. He felt the death rays coming off her eyes. It took a while for the blue in his face to disappear. “Child assassins and military organizations using underage girls is a popular trope, it’s not that surprising.”

“…Yu…ki…”

While Saki threatened Yuki, Haruo inserted himself into the foreground once more. “Other parts of the world outside of Japan, children are forced to learn to fight. So it should not be too unusual.” It normally would have been something completely ignored in the chaos, but Haruo’s voice was still very foreign to everyone that they all stopped.

“But Atlantis doesn’t seem like it is in the sort of situation that it is needed.”

“Maybe so, but this is the reality of her world.” Haruo moved his head just enough to put Ayumi in his view, so she looked at him. “I hypothesize based on the facts you’ve presented that there are some external factors involved.”

Ayumi remained quiet on Haruo’s direct inquiry. His move made Saki pull away from Yuki, though her hand still casually tightly clung to Yuki’s tunic. “There’s something else.”

“I think you should answer him, Ayumi,” added Yuki. His eyes were clear with the sign of wanting answers. He no longer wished to be in the dark on matters. He wanted to understand Atlantis.

The reluctant look in her eyes foretold her delay. All eyes were on her though, they expected her to give an answer. “This goes a little deeper than I planned to explain. It goes to the core of the problems currently facing Atlantis. It is the source of all of the things that remain hidden behind masks of contentment and status quo.”

Yuki swallowed a little. He could feel the tension. The tension from Saki’s hand squeezing even tighter on his tunic making it difficult to breathe normally. He lowered a hand to her wrist trying to alert her to her actions.

Surprised, Saki glanced down at Yuki. She saw his face and hand and misread it as a comforting look rather than one pleading to be freed. She smiled a little at him, not understanding.

His eyes widened, confused by her reaction. He tightened his hand around her wrist, though knowing it would mean very little for someone that could snap his neck by accidently having a muscle spasm from sneezing. “…Saki…”

“Yuki…” She still didn’t get the message.

“Saki, you’re choking me.”

“What?!” He destroyed the mood. However, it was exactly what he wanted. She finally realized what she did and released him. “Sorry!”

“It’s fine…” He glanced over at Ayumi, catching sight of her looking annoyed at him. Their little misunderstanding ruined the heavy atmosphere she created. “Sorry, continue with your construction of an ominous prologue to your big reveal.”

Her eyes narrowed, bothered by his sarcasm. The situation forced her to continue regardless. “It’s the law,” she stated, clearly finally getting it out there.

“A law to have children in the military?” Saki incredulously asked.

“It’s nothing so selective as you’re thinking.” It was easy to see where things could go in a moral debate. “It is Atlantis law that all people able to use the power we have to be in the military.”

“Everyone?”

“No matter the age. Once they’re discovered, conscription is mandatory.”

“Makes sense,” commented Haruo. Saki stared at him in disbelief for accepting it. “In a society where people with this power can subconsciously rewrite reality, any government would see it as dangerous keeping them in the public. They would need training to control their power or it’d hurt the public.”

“But still...it’s not right!” Saki’s objection to Haruo’s logic came from a surprising place. She wasn’t actually bothered by it from the moral grounds that most would immediately be. Her eyes focused on Ayumi with pity. It was the life Ayumi had to deal with because of such laws. Prejudice came out of the laws and she suffered because of it. ‘Those laws ruined her childhood!’

“Things now are not how they used to be. The law has been around for centuries even millennia, but only in the last hundred years have things changed.” Her words caught their attention. “Before, the way it functioned was that anyone with the power was required to attend the Academy for training, afterward they were free to do anything. But new amendments were created to the laws placing stricter regulations on us. And the formation of the Omega Division.

“These were all recently done. Twenty years ago, unrest among MPs reached a point of open rebellion. Led by a powerful MP, they threatened all of Atlantis. The Omega Division was formed to combat the threat and put down the rebellion ruthlessly. Using the rebellion as an excuse, the laws were tightened even further to how they are now.”

Ayumi took a pause to see how they took it all. Not even Saki barked a complaint. They just wanted to hear what more she had to say. “The ones behind it are the same men trying to steal the throne for themselves and that want Yuki dead. They’re afraid of us and want to keep us down. They want to keep the power of Atlantis in their hands. The old men of the Atlantean Council. They want someone that they can control as King, a puppet ruler. And at the head of the conspiracy, the former head of the Omega Division, Demosthenes Alexander.”