Chương 126: 48. Strategy 48-3

Second shift: me and Akari. When we took over, Harvey's eyes were crossing with fatigue. He still rattled off wire status, door indicators, and outer hull temperature trends in one breath, talking fast like if he slowed down he'd fall asleep mid-sentence. Roy was seconds away from sleeping on his feet. As soon as he handed over his notes, he literally folded. Akari and I moved to positions near the door. Only one strip of light stayed on. The outside roar kept going.

Inside, it was just breathing and the low hum of the ventilation system. She sat very straight, gun resting across her knees. Like a statue. I'd planned on a silent watch. Three minutes alone with her and I realized that was going to be harder than it sounded. Because Akari's silence came with its own kind of pressure. Not D's kind of pressure—the kind where he just stood there like a wall that had opinions. This was different.

The kind where you knew she was watching, thinking, evaluating—but you had no idea how deep she'd gotten or what she was finding there. She spoke first.

"You look more like a living person after the shower." I nearly choked on my own spit.

"…Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

"More or less."

"Your compliment style is as bad as Maki's."

"I thought that was generous." I stared at her. She stared back. Under the white light, her eyes were still cold—cold like glass that hadn't warmed up yet. But maybe it was just the hour, or maybe I was too tired to keep my guard up properly, but for the first time I thought that coldness wasn't absence. It was the cold of being too awake for too long.

"You've been watching me this whole time," I said. She didn't deny it.

"Yes." Blunt enough to be almost refreshing. I suddenly understood why some people found her unnerving.

"Watching for what?"

"Whether you'd fall apart after the first time the Jäger (Hunter) pinned you down." Her tone didn't shift at all.

"And whether you'd admit it if you did." My mouth twitched.

"…And?"

"You fell apart. You didn't pretend you hadn't." She said it like she was reading from a checklist.

"That's more useful than holding it together."

"That doesn't sound like comfort." Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"It's not."

"I figured." She turned her gaze back toward the door.

"D can take punishment. Roy remembers everything. Lan is steady. But leading people isn't just about charging forward first. Your final call today was right."

"Pulling out of the rainforest?"

"Yes." I was quiet for two seconds.

"You'd already reached the same conclusion?"

"After the second Jäger (Hunter) appeared, it stopped being a question." She said it plainly.

"The academy didn't ask us to kill Jäger (Hunters). So there's no reason to turn ourselves into line items on their performance record." Very her. Cold, precise, and it didn't leave room for comforting illusions. I wrapped my arms around my knees and watched the small status light pulse by the door.

"The academy hasn't broadcast anything since we went in. No announcements, no updates."

"Which means they're either permitting it, or they're watching," Akari said.

"Which is worse?"

"Same either way." I laughed despite myself—short, involuntary.

"You have a real gift for saying unpleasant things that are impossible to argue with."

"You have a real gift for making unpleasant things sound like you're throwing a tantrum."

"Hey."

"Fourteen."

"…That was unnecessary." She actually curved her mouth slightly. Barely there—blink and you'd miss it. But I was certain it wasn't a trick of the light. I had the sudden thought that this person probably wasn't without emotion. Her emotions were just kept somewhere deep, behind several locks, and getting to them required prior authorization.

"So what's next?" I asked.

"Three days. Get everyone back to mobile condition." She said it like reading a schedule.

"When the door opens, you read terrain and call movement. I assess any contact. D takes the front. Maki holds medical and pacing. Jess and Lan cover the flanks. Harvey handles alarms and counter-tracking. Roy manages records and resources. No one drops out." I turned to look at her.

"Is that a formal operating agreement?"

"Yes." She met my eyes.

"You object?"

"No. I just didn't expect you to commit that cleanly."

"Because this isn't the time for testing each other." She paused, then added:"Also, I don't want to drag a captain who's been crying in the shower through another sprint." I went completely still.

"…You knew?"

"The bathroom acoustics are poor." I wanted to die. Not figuratively. The specific kind of wanting to die where you'd like to sink directly into the bunker floor and request the firestorm outside handle the burial.

"You—""I didn't tell anyone."

"That's not the point!"

"Then what is?"

"The point is whether I can show my face for the rest of my life!" She looked at me, and this time she actually smiled—clearly, briefly, without any trace of mockery or cruelty. Just a short, controlled, genuinely present smile.

"Then live better," she said. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. That was completely unfair. Someone who ran at room temperature all day, dropping a line like that without warning—the impact was worse than anything Jess had ever said to me. Jess's insults you could brace for. You couldn't brace for that. The rest of second watch passed mostly in silence. Occasional door lock checks. Occasional outer wall temperature readings. Occasional confirmation that the ventilation was still running evenly.

But the atmosphere had shifted from when we'd first sat down. Not closer, exactly. Something more like a quiet, mutual reclassification. Moving each other into the category of people I can survive the next phase with. In the world we were currently living in, that was about as close to trust as it got. Nothing dramatic happened for the rest of that night. Nobody had a midnight breakdown and announced they were leaving. Nobody turned the mixed sleeping arrangement into a coming-of-age romance.

Harvey genuinely didn't snore, which earned him a brief and entirely involuntary increment of my respect. Jess talked in her sleep—incomplete sentences, maybe thirty percent of which seemed to be directed at me. D rolled over and his shield hit the wall, loud enough to sound like an escape attempt. Roy fell asleep still clutching his notebook, looking exactly like a model student who'd passed out mid-revision. Lan slept lightly, the kind of light that suggested she could be awake in under a second.

Maki finished her third-watch rounds and actually managed to close her eyes against the wall for nearly half an hour. And Akari, after handoff, just kept her weapon close and went quiet, like a shadow that had decided to stay. When I lay back down, the firestorm was still going outside. But something had changed—maybe the rotations, maybe the plan, maybe just having this particular group of broken, difficult, argumentative people still in the same room—and this time, I actually fell asleep.

The last thought I had before going under was embarrassing and entirely un-squad-leader. I was thinking: tomorrow, I hope it's still eight. Even if we fight. Even if we grate on each other. Even if we spend half the day wanting to strangle whoever's closest. Still eight. Because in this forest, you'd think the hardest thing was beating the enemy. But it wasn't. The hardest thing was surviving the first night, waking up the next morning, and finding everyone still there.