27 Defend! - Base Trupriv is under attack! (1/2)

The situation over the Base 'Trupriv' is currently great, despite the other enemy outposts being 1 kilometer away and the base is very exposed to invading enemies. While Mark's forces went to hit back directly at Saiju, Two commanders tried to advance to two bases ahead. But they saw the same bunkers aimed at their direction. They thought smart and retreated immediately. They remained on guard of the place for the day, gathering every weapon and equipment they can find, while they still can. With that, they await for new strategies

Back at the Saiju. The girls teleported in the Center, they all fell on their butts as they were sitting when they did. ”Ow... Why are we here?” Ayumi asked. ”I don't want to get all exhausted again, so I teleported nearby” Chiho answered. ”...Wouldn't it be the same? If you teleport us again, you will be exhausted too...” Shu Fang asked. ”Yeah, Chiho. What the hell?” Mariko looked a little bit annoyed. ”Fine. Fine! I'm sorry!” Chiho got irritated and quickly held their hands. Then they finally got into the Inn. As usual, Chiho drops on the floor as she catches her breath. They felt the gazes of the people around them as they check on Chiho. ”A-Are you okay?!” Alice's voice came out to them and they heard footsteps coming near. ”...She's gonna be fine” Shu Fang said as she looked up to Alice. ”...It's just like last time” She added. ”H-Hey! Northern... Y-Your leg...!” One of the people, a bearded man, pointed at Mariko's bandaged legs. Worried about one of their 'power-wielding' heroes being immobilized, the people started whispering with their scared and worried looks. The girls can clearly see how the people looked terrified like they're gonna lose the war already. Mariko spoke up. ”Don't worry about me. A leg missing won't stop me!” She hits her chest with her fist. ”But you won't be the same as before...” A woman said on the corner. ”Yeah, But at least I'm still movin'!” Mariko replied. Despite her answer, the people weren't still convinced. After a while, they went up to their room.

Telling their customers that they will be gone for a while, the three staff went up together with the girls. The girls went to check up Chiho's mother but her room was locked. Suzuka told them that she went up early. ”Say to Gentaro-sama that we're doing fine, thank him for his concern” Suzuka smiled as they all sit on the beds. ”So? What else is the reason you came here? You're not going to rest here, are you?” Haruki asked. ”H-Huh?! What are you talking about?! Are we now not allowed to rest here?!” Mariko shouted. All of them were startled by her shout. ”W-Well... You have that new base you got, right? I thought you'll be resting there so it's easy for you to get right back into battle or something...” Haruki explained. ”Ah. Nope. I prefer to sleep here” Mariko sighed. ”Me too! The beds here are the best!” Ayumi raised her right hands up. ”...I'd say the same...” Shu Fang nodded. They agreed except Chiho, which they quickly noticed. ”How about you?” Mariko asked Chiho. ”Well...” Chiho scratched her cheeks with her finger, looking annoyed. ”I'd say I prefer sleeping over there. I don't want to keep using this exhausting power” She said. ”Well... Let's get our R37... By the way, where is it?” Mariko asked. ”I saw Father driving it” Chiho remembered seeing her father lead an army with their R37. ”Right. So we don't have anything to ride on. C'mon, Let's just use your teleportation” Mariko smiled. ”No way! I feel like dying every time I use that power!” Chiho shouted. ”But you won't!” Mariko shouted louder than her. ”Still! I'd rather walk!” ”Just one more time!” Chiho shouted way louder and Mariko also did. ”...” Chiho looked away and sighed.

As they already heard Gentaro's concern, silence built around them. ”So... How was it?” Alice sparked up a conversation to break the silence. ”Huh? What was it?” Mariko looked at her and asked. ”Your first battle? How did it go?” Alice said. ”Ah, that. Well, things went smooth, no problem... But, You know!” Mariko suddenly got the energy as if she remembered something exciting to tell about. ”I get to scratch that fucking smug motherfucker!” Mariko gestured a stab. ”Right into his fucking cheeks! It felt so good even if it's just a small wound!” She continued. Hearing this made Alice smirk. ”He thought he can rely on his stupid barrier bullshit! Haha!” Mariko proceeds to laugh. ”Hm... serves him right” Alice giggled. From there, the girls told them everything happened. When they were done, Alice asked. ”That... went so unexpectedly well, don't you think? Are they holding back or something?”. Her question seemed to confuse them. ”What do you mean?” Mariko asked. ”Unless this is how war really works... Shouldn't we... like, getting invaded right now? or at least those planes dropping bombs on us?” Alice asked.

”I know right...” Mariko nodded. ”Well... You know how weird they are!” She shrugged with a smile. ”Talking about them... When is Takumi-san will come? I think I remember hearing her say that she'll come here when the war broke out...” Chiho asked. ”Y-Yeah...” Mariko looked at Chiho with open-wide eyes, looking somewhat excited. ”That Takumi...” Mariko looked outside the window. ”Takumi?” Haruki asked. ”Don't you remember?! I got to shoot one of their planes and got to take the pilot alive! And it turns out she's actually friendly!” Mariko reminded them of Takumi. ”A-Ah...” Haruki nodded. ”That Idiot...!” Mariko clenched her fist. ”Things will get a lot better if we can get one of them on our side, don't you think?” Suzuka smiled, imagining their soldiers equipped with more advanced equipment. ”Yeah. She said she would... But I think she's getting cornered there right now... Her friends, well, Shichiro himself too, already know that she's going to be a traitor” Mariko said. ”Or maybe, they're already making their way here... While, like, being chased by her friends!” She started to imagine a scenario. ”Shouting her name and calling her a traitor! Seeing her friends' faces filled with sadness and confusion! Holding back her tears! Apologizing to them! Thinking that it is the right decision! Leaving the people you usually greet! Their smiles no longer! Leaving the place you always see after you wake up! The place you are familiar with! Just for some acquaintances about to lose the war...” She ended it with a clenched fist in her chest, eyes closed. ”Wow... Like, it was a little bit awesome until the last part...” Everyone was amused but Ayumi quickly complained. ”I thought she was thinking that it is the right decision? Why would you say 'Just' for some acquaintance?” She continued.

”Well... I'm talking from the perspective of friendship or something like that... From their perspective, you know... She was loved by the people around her, she showed her love to them in return, and she was considered one of them. And yet, there she is. She betrayed all the trust she had received from them and stabbed them just because she thought it's the right decision...” Mariko explained. ”Well, it IS the right decision. Even if they are your friends, if they think that killing people and stealing their homes away from them is a good idea, then you really have to separate yourself from them, right? I think Takumi knows that already” Ayumi said. ”But sometimes, there are people who just couldn't separate themselves from their friends. Mostly those who had their family destroyed. They had no one left to hang around with but their friends. So they had to stick with their friends even if they have become a horrible group” Haruki said with a serious tone. ”Trust me, I know one person. From my young days...” Haruki clearly saw an image of a certain child with a sweet smile and a bandit in her mind. ”He was my childhood friend... We were really close. I even remembered him confessing his feelings to me...” Haruki blushed a little bit, embarrassed. But held herself together for the sake of telling the story. ”The few days after hanging out with him, We got ourselves some more friends. But then I wondered about his parents. When I asked him once, he didn't gave an answer. I already had the right guess after that. Then later, He suddenly confessed to me. I... kinda liked him back then...” She blushed even more.

”He just has this overwhelming smile... And about his c-confession, well... I...” Haruki started to stutter. ”I...” She couldn't get the words out. ”Hm...Fuhihihi...” Ayumi started to giggle, which annoyed Haruki. Then Haruki crossed her arms and looked away. ”I... I accepted his feelings. We were so happy...” She said. Then as she looked back, her face was serious again. She was about to speak but Mariko spoke first. ”Damn... How the fuck did we get into your story?” She said in an annoyed tone. ”Well... I got to get an example of what I've said...” Haruki scratched her head. then slowly became serious again. ”Let's cut into the chase then... One day, we had to move out. I and that kid were so devastated. But in the end, he remained his smile and say that I shouldn't worry. Because He still have his friends to rely on, and that they will wait for me to return...” Haruki sighed. ”So... What happened to him?” Mariko asked. Her question seems hard to answer for Haruki, as she sighed so deep that they clearly noticed. Then she continued, focused on the floor, trying to imagine the scene into it. ”When my first few days here at Hirashiko, on a certain afternoon. Suzu-chan asked me to get some stuff to another village” ”Ah...” Suzuka reacted to her words. ”That day... I remembered that...” She showed them a sad smile. ”I thought you were sad about the first time I gave you a task... Turns out it was something so deep...” She said. ”Y-Yeah... I'm sorry, I couldn't bring myself to say it back then and gave you the wrong idea...” Haruki scratched her head.

Suzuka was surprised and quickly shook her hands. ”N-No! It's alright! It's no problem! Come on!” She quickly said. Haruki nodded. ”I was on a carriage driven by soldiers that day. Then in the middle of our trip to that village, The soldier spotted a group of bandits with a stolen carriage. The soldiers talked to me about it and said that they were carrying a lot of stolen goods and they should cut their trip and chase after them... I didn't care and totally agreed with them, until I saw his face...” Haruki stops there. They were all sad, except for Mariko. ”Woah! I knew he'll be one of them! Ah... Or I think... all of your other friends?” Mariko asked. ”Yes...” Haruki sighed deep. ”They were all my friends, my good friends, my neighbors... As soon as I recognized his face, their faces started to become familiar... It didn't take long before they were able to immobilize their stolen carriage” Haruki then closed her eyes as to play the scene into her head.

”We got them!” The soldier, who has been throwing the spears at the bandits' stolen carriage, shouted. Haruki managed to flash a surprised look before being shaken by the sudden turn of their carriage. ”Let's go!” Once they made the sharp turn, they stopped the carriage and went out rushing towards the bandits. ”W-Wait!” Haruki shouted out of panic, but she wasn't heard. She wanted to stop the soldiers but she remained in the carriage instead and watched the soldiers clash against the bandits. ”Y-Yusuke...” Haruki started to cry as she watches her childhood friend, desperately fighting for his and his friends' lives. She clenched her fists, hating herself because she couldn't do anything to save her friends. ”Damn you!” Haruki heard her childhood friend's voice, which made her look. ”H-How about this?! You take the goods and we'll run away far! So far you'll never see us again!” Then another familiar voice begged the soldiers. ”H-Hiromi-chan...” Hiromi Azagami. One of her friends. A cheerful and energetic girl. Haruki remembered her as one of her friends who kept their group happy on the day Haruki had to leave them. ”Ah...” Haruki looked at Hiromi, standing beside Yusuke with a slash wound on her right arm. The cute brown hair she used to see is now a dirty, dusty long hair. Her dress was covered with a lot of stitches made with poor skills. There were still some visible cuts and some of them were new. ”You'll go far away?! Then you'll start stealing stuff again?!” A soldier with a rowdy attitude shouted.

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”Don't mess with us! Do you think you stupid bandits will ever change?!” He continued. ”Yeah. That's right. You never change” Another soldier, who's the opposite of the rowdy soldier, agreed. ”You'll move to a new area and start again. So we'll end you right now” His words surprised both Haruki and the bandits. ”W...What do you mean?!” Yusuke angrily shouted. ”We refused to fight already! Why are you still gonna go after us?! Isn't that going to break your rules?!” He continued. ”Shut up you brat!” The rowdy soldier swings his sword as to intimidate him. ”Like we fucking said, you never change! If you get out of imprisonment, then you start again! We had enough of that bullshit and we've decided to just kill you! The world knows about this fucking rule and the banditry is over!” He shouted. His words frightened the bandits, and so Haruki. She remembered hearing that certain topic. ”Come on. We have the Hirashiko Inn's woman waiting. Let's just end them” The calm soldier said as he made a battle stance. ”Heh. Yeah, right. Let's put these fuckers to rest” As the rowdy soldier readies, the other soldiers encircled them. The situation made Haruki very anxious. She can't think of anything else. ”YUSUKE!!!” She shouted the name of his childhood friend as loud as she can. ignoring the incredible pain in her throat she had never experienced, she continued until she was out of breath.

”H-Huh?! What the...!” Yusuke, all of them, got surprised and looked at Haruki's direction. Yusuke stopped on Haruki's image. His face frozen, eyes unsteady, feeling unexpected happiness of hearing a familiar voice. ”Ha...Haruki!!!” Hiromi shouted the name she swore not to forget, the name she wanted to call again for so long. ”Hiromi...” Haruki wanted to shout back her name but only managed to whisper, she no longer had the strength to shout. ”W-What the hell...” A soldier noticed the bandits tears. ”They know each other?” Another soldier reacted. A few seconds of silence built up between them before the rowdy soldier shouted. ”But they're bandits! It doesn't matter if they knew each other! What matters here is their bad deeds and the lives they took!”. His words shook the bandits. Yusuke drops on his knees and loses his grip on his sword. ”Y-Yusuke!” Hiromi quickly crouched beside him. ”We... We never wanted this... We were poor, we had nothing to eat. We had nothing to stay on. If we don't steal things, we'll never be able to eat” Yusuke said on the soldiers. ”Yes. We are all aware of that. Most people who do such things got a horrible past. Having rejected by most people because you are poor, you had no choice but to do what you can to survive. And that is, even the bad things” The calm soldier said. ”But let's not get all the drama here. You have chosen the wrong path. We're putting a lot of lives to rest on killing you” He added.

”How can you make sure we have killed a lot of people?!” One of the bandits asked. ”Aoi-chan...” Hiromi looked back at the smallest member of their group. ”Hah! Don't make me laugh!” The rowdy soldier smirked. ”Look at that carriage and the goods on it! Looks like it was stolen from a rich family!” He pointed at the stolen carriage. The body was pure white, with beautiful black patterns on each side. Totally different from a common carriage. If it weren't for the dust, scratches and some spears stuck around its body, it would have looked really expensive and high-class. ”And of course. Rich families have the army of the country with them as the guards, along with their own. It will be a tough job for common bandits to steal one of their properties. You were different” He continued. ”And how did you know when we-” ”Enough with the fucking questions!” Aoi got interrupted by the rowdy soldier's shout. ”You killed a lot of people and that's it! No one wants you alive! People would REALLY reject you now!” Having enough, he raised his sword up high. Yusuke looked up to his sword. ”Aaah!” The rowdy soldier swings his sword down at Yusuke, but Hiromi blocked his sword with her rusty sword and swiftly pushed him away. ”Gah! You brat!” The rowdy soldier quickly regained his balance and glared at Hiromi. ”If this is really it...” Yusuke said, making them look to him. ”Then we have no choice but to kill again...” He said as he stands up. He picked up his sword. ”We have already told you that we never wanted this kind of life. All you had to do is understand. But you people didn't. We could have changed. We could have been part of the community. Had jobs, or even serve the country” He added.

”You have already gone too far to ask for mercy” The calm soldier said. ”This is not the first time we've asked for forgiveness. We've been doing it since our first act” Yusuke quickly responded. The calm soldier couldn't answer for a second. ”Then why keep up the bandit life after asking for forgiveness?” The rowdy soldier dropped his attitude and asked properly, this surprised the bandits. ”We were hopeless. After our first stunt, we tried changing lives. It was too much to take for us to have this way of life. But people kept ignoring us and we were starving again. You can guess what happened next” Yusuke answered. ”Eh... But I don't give a fuck! My sister got killed by bandit fucks like you! I will never forgive you!” The rowdy soldier shouted as he charged towards Yusuke. ”Kh...!” Hiromi stood in front of him with her rusty sword. ”Out of the way!” The rowdy soldier swings his sword at Hiromi. She blocked his attack but the rowdy soldier quickly grabbed her arm and pushed her aside. Then he quickly swings his sword at Yusuke's neck. ”Urgh...!” Yusuke narrowly avoided the sword by moving back. Hiromi quickly moves by his side. ”We have no choice here, Hiromi. Just like before” Yusuke whispered, making her glance at him. ”Kill them!” The rowdy soldier shouted and the clashes began.

Haruki heard everything from the carriage and just watched them clash while tearing. It would be bad if she stands in the soldiers' way. ”Please... spare them...” Haruki hopelessly wished. It was not long before she heard a laugher. As she looked back, she only saw the soldiers standing. The bandits were on the floor, soaked with their own blood. The soldiers were catching their breath. The rowdy soldier stared at the bodies and clenched his fists. ”Grr...! Let's just go!” He quickly turned back to the carriage and saw Haruki's face, making him avert his eyes. The soldiers quietly rode the carriage. Two of them drove the stolen carriage back to the village. The first few minutes of their trip to another village was silence. Until the calm soldier spoke. ”They...are your friends?” He asked. Haruki didn't bother answering, she was staring at the floor with a sad look. ”I'm sorry it had to be this way” He apologized. ”I can see that they didn't want to have that life. They were led to that path because they had no choice. But we can't do anything. People would like them to be killed if we brought them back. And there's that rule... They are all going to end on the same fate. I hope you understand that” He added. His words made her cry and the other soldier beside her comforts her.

”That's pretty tough...” Chiho said with a sad tone. ”Uuu... Haruki!” Mariko cried out her name. ”W-Woah! Disgusting!” Ayumi quickly moved away from Mariko as she watches her drenched face and runny nose. ”Uuu... Here!” Mariko stood up to hug her. ”A-Ah... T-Thanks, I guess...” Haruki awkwardly laughed. After Mariko calmed down, Haruki spoke. ”That's quite an example, isn't it?!” She laughed. ”Y-Yeah. I really regret doing that poem...” Mariko scratched her head. Haruki laughed and pats her shoulder. ”You should get some rest while you can. We still have to run the Inn” Suzuka stood up. ”Yeah, that's right. They might attack at night. So take rest while you can” Haruki stood up and nodded. ”Then! We'll get going now!” Suzuka bowed and went out. Haruki waved at them before going out. ”Good night” Alice bowed and headed out, closing the door behind her. ”...Are you really that much of a crybaby?” Shu Fang asked with a giggle. ”But!” Mariko turned at Shu Fang, about to cry again. ”...Yes, yes...” Shu Fang thought of not letting her proceed and just agreed. ”Geez! You're a mess!” Ayumi pointed at Mariko. Seeing her disgust, Mariko thought of something. ”Uuu...! Ayumi!!” She ran towards Ayumi. ”Eeeeek! Stay away!” Ayumi ran from Mariko and hid behind Chiho, resulting Mariko bumping her face on Chiho. ”Ah!” Chiho's eyes opened wide. Mariko slowly looked up to Chiho. The threads of her mucus and her saliva made Chiho's body shake. ”Haah...” Chiho didn't know what to do.