15 The Forging
Amidst the deafening roar of artillery shells and the acrid stench of the cratered earth, a soul found itself thrust into a world of chaos and despair. As consciousness unfurled like a fragile petal in a tempest, it struggled to comprehend the relentless horror that surrounded it.
The trenches, those harrowing scars carved into the land, were a labyrinth of fear and uncertainty, of mud and blood. In the heart of battle, where screams of agony harmonized with the symphony of gunfire. One consciousness stood alone bewildered and terrified, a stranger in an unknown war.
That stranger was Stehno, being awoken to the depth of warring conflicts
"Tch, I knew that those deities are actually devils!" She slowly crawled to the wall of sandbags, dragging her torn-off left leg as she maintained her breathing.
"FIRE!! FIRE THE VOLLEY!!"
"ENEMY ARMOR INCOMING!"
"LIEUTENANT, WE LOST CONTACT WITH THE ARTILLERY!!"
Amidst the cacophony of the Grand Guignol theater where violence reigns supreme, Stehno's ears were assailed by the haunting chorus of faint screams and anguished cries.
Wet feet drenched deep in the trench's heat, each fleshless skeleton trembling and clenching teeth.
She wondered if the death of a wretch was the centerpiece. Truly, the fall of a single soldier was only a wrenched leg of the centipede.
Even then, even without the power and strength that she was accustomed to, she clung tenaciously to her rifle, determined to defy the impending narrative unfolding before her.
The French copies no one and no one copies the French, an ironic statement in her mind with a rifle resembling the Lebel Model 1886 rifle she held, revolutionary in its use of smokeless powder, ushering a new age of military rifles, this particular one however seemed to be less finicky, differing in its cartridge, and held one less round.
With unwavering resolve, she cautiously peered over the trench's edge, her weapon aimed forward.
Bullets of retaliation were sent as she shrugged off the dirt, mud, and blood kicked up by the recoil—sisyphean in its effort as her dirty face remained.
"Urghh."
A hostile's lead hit her on the nape. Exhausted, she limped back to the depth of the trench, falling and wobbling from the supporting wood platform until her body thrashed with the muddy soil.
Revolving tracks of steel went over the trenches like it was nothing as they bellowed, a precursor for an offensive to follow suit, rallied by the flooding enemy soldiers who cleaned the battlefield pipes with vigor and bloodlust.
Her body was shot multiple times before she lost consciousness, whomever argued about 'yawing' and ballistic wounds have indeed never been shot before
"... What, am I fighting for?"
Her eyes then yawned once again.
To the same view of the darkened sky and smoke rising from miles away.
"OY! DON'T JUST STAND THERE! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!?"
"KEEP MOVING, PRIVATE!"
She remembered this. An artillery shell would soon hit this area within a few seconds. Back then, she barely realized which resulted in the loss of her left leg and pained muscles as most of her inhumane feat was taken away from her like pocket changes.
Immediately after, she retreated to the backside of the frontline with unwavering eyes.
Discordance of explosions arose in the corner of Stehno's ears, even before any barks of orders could be delivered to the surrounding soldiers.
"So this is the game that we're playing, huh!?"
The goal is to survive, and she already read quite a sum of books that portrayed the terror of war. History is no teacher to any student that studies it, it is merely an effort of broadening understanding and strengthening one's critical judgment.
And so was what she had been doing. To survive as long as possible.
Her existence had become an unending loop of death and rebirth, each demise serving as a rewind button for her life. Yet, within those repeated tragedies, she unearthed precious nuggets of wisdom and gathered a treasury of invaluable information.
Especially in warfare where barely any sane human could go down for a couple minutes of chatting, she concluded that this world was totally different than her original one. Names of countries that she didn't know of, along with strikingly similar yet unique mechanisms behind the rifle she held and the tanks that the enemy possessed.
There was no notable rule to this game, so it was worth it to see how far this narrative could go.
"Still… just what I'm actually fighting for…"
But she still felt like a lost lamb in the wilderness.
It was only on the fifty fifth try where she noticed a monochrome picture on one of her pockets.
It was the picture of her alongside with a boy she treasured the most.
"Ahaha, I guess it took fifty-five deaths for the adrenaline to finally dissipate." Tears flowing, caressing the edge of her smile. "So he is here."
'A strong character is one that will not be unbalanced by the most powerful of emotions' the statement goes, but maybe, it shan't apply to a tender moment.
Had she been sent to an alternate reality where Occam was still alive because she showed a huge disinterest to the deities' offers?
Although, the Occam in the picture looked significantly younger. Is that the reason why she was the only one who was conscripted? Why did she even get conscripted again in the first place?
This timeline doesn't make a lot of sense, but it didn't matter to her.
This cycle can keep on going until she manages to survive for a whole year on the battlefield, gaining some ranks and even commanding her own platoon in the process.
The war ended with two sides of the opposition declaring a political peace to one another. Stehno didn't really know for what reason, as there were barely any media of knowledge procurement and communication in this alternate timeline.
Finally, she could finally go home to where Occam was.
"Minuette City, not a bad name for a place where we live." With her officially ending her service to the country, she was on her way to exit the military base and waited for the transport that sent her to her hometown.
She also already grabbed the letter that was sent to the military for her. The writing couldn't be even more noticeable with every wording within it.
But then, the sound of a haunting siren began to blast all over the military base.
"ATTENTION EVERYONE, THE WAR ISN'T OVER!! I REPEAT! THE WAR ISN'T OVER!!"
Both mens and women soldiers were put into distraught by their former joyous faces. Chaos erupted as soldiers besieged officials, their voices a cacophony of questions and pleas to return to their families.
With no warning, everyone was herded onto the field, where a figure on a high podium delivered a grim proclamation. The war hadn't ended; instead, it had escalated to unprecedented proportions. The former enemy nation, the one that had signed peace treaties with them, had ordered the deployment of numerous atomic-bomb equivalents on cities.
The name Minuette City was mentioned as one of the victims of the bombardment.
"Ahaha…"
Flame of disbelief could be seen on Stehno's entire face. This world might as well not be real, but all those pains and effort she does to stay alive were more vivid than the crackling torch being pushed onto her skin.
This kind of emotion.
It was ten times worse than seeing Occam laying lifeless on the floor within a pool of blood.
Then, time halted its hand. Leaving only the broken Stehno's that wasn't stiff as a mannequin in this unknown yet cruel world.
"Why, why did you do this to me?"
In front of her stood Yujin-no-Mitama, facing open-eyed with his usually never fading smile. The flaming torch on his dorsal hand was the only bright thing in the vicinity, yet it felt colder than ice in this land.
Stehno knew very well of Yujin's status as a deity, that mortal attachment and emotion might as well be indiscernible by his standard. But that smile appeared to be some kind of mockery when it was still placed when her heart is rending on despairing fire.
"If you were given the next chance, would you be able to save him?"
Her pending weight began to break down her calm and emotionless facade.
"I'll do everything to prevent seeing that horrifying sight appearing again in front of my eyes…"
And so, she was sent to another alternate timeline and scenario. From being a merchant, a farmer, a martial artist, a starfarer who pilots a spaceship from planet to planet searching for opportunistic wealth––
All of those hard fought scenarios ended with the loss of her most important person in the world.
In each and every world she was put in, Occam ended up dead.
She was then asked the same question, again and again.
"If you were given the next chance, would you be able to save him?"
And Stehno answered the same thing.
"No matter how many scenarios you throw at me. I will give my all to save him." It was the same pain and tears that she showed everytime. "Even if the universe falls apart and creates a new one in the process, I'll never stop trying to snatch him away from the burning maw of death…!"
And just like that, Stehno was sent to another set of scenarios, waiting for her to realize the futility of her action.
"You're sending her again?" Nobuko asked, showing an expression of concern as she snacks on the giant onigiris on the plate that she was holding. All while watching her very master carefully supervising Stehno's development through a floating holographic screen. "I still don't understand why she needs to suffer that much." Nobuko tilted her head, still munching on her treats.
Within the realm of pitch-black void and shallow water, Yujin-no-Mitama could be seen with his monstrous lower half.
"In the fiery crucible of existence, as steel endures the searing blaze, it becomes a symbol of human resilience." He gestured to Nobuko to ask one of her onigiris. After being given, he leaned forward and gave the treat to the giant frontal mouth of his monstrous lower half. "Tempering steel, like our own trials, burns away impurities, while the cool waters of wisdom forge balance.
"In the end, we emerge sharp and strong, a testament to the alchemy of life's challenges."
"Nope, still no understand!" Nobuko said with a proud smile.
"That individual, Stehno, is a high quality ore. I'm just tempering her soul to make it even stronger using trials and repetition." Yujin brushed his long golden hair back behind his ear. "But not all ores can be tempered in the same way. And as such, my mother took care of the other person with her own method."
"Will you give her one of your 'boons' after all of this?"
Yujin grinned.
"That, only time can tell."
