Survival and Sacrifice
"First and foremost, Commander-in-Chief, I want to say that we too recognize the importance of raising the survival rate."
Priscilla fiddled with her teacup as she broke the silence. As her words fell, the scattered gazes in the meeting room slowly converged on her.
Captain of the 4th Unit, Priscilla. The white coat draped over her combat gear was impeccably neat, but faint stains lingered at the cuffs—marks that no amount of washing could fully erase. The scent of dried herbs. The tang of disinfectant. The dry crispness of fresh bandages. And, very faintly, the stubborn memory of blood that refused to wash away even after endless scrubs. The smell had followed her since she entered the room. It was the scent of someone who saved lives. And at the same time, of someone who couldn't save them all.
I looked at her.
"Continue."
My voice settled low over the room. Priscilla dipped her head briefly.
"Yes."
She didn't press on immediately. Her fingertips traced the rim of the teacup slowly. Slender fingers. But not weak ones.
In the Sword Clan, "healing" didn't mean quietly bandaging wounds from the rear of the battlefield. It meant stabbing an enemy's throat to save a comrade, carving open an escape route, and standing amid the blood until the end. Priscilla was that kind of person.
"The moment 'survival rate' enters the guidelines, the field starts obsessing over numbers," she said calmly. It was the measured tone of someone who had waded through too many wounded and dead, carefully stating facts without letting emotion bleed in.
"Numbers are necessary."
"Reports are necessary."
"We need to know which unit lost how many, how many they brought back, and where the casualties were heaviest."
She was right. Battlefields don't change on emotion alone. Wishing away death doesn't make it vanish. That's why we need reports. Why we need numbers.
That doesn't make the facts any more pleasant. I hate deaths reduced to digits. But deaths not even tallied in numbers fade even faster from memory.
Priscilla knew that too. So her objection wasn't a rejection of the guidelines. It was a question of what they might twist into once they reached the front lines.
"But, Commander-in-Chief."
Her gaze met mine. The steam rising from her teacup wavered faintly.
"The moment survival rate becomes a number, the wounded can turn from people into burdens."
The meeting room fell silent. Her words were narrow and deep—like her rapier. Not a broad slash, but a precise thrust.
"There are those we can save," Priscilla said. "Those where it's not too late. Those who can hold on to life even if they lose a hand, an eye, a leg."
Her hand lifted from the teacup.
"But there are also those where it is too late." Her voice didn't waver. That made it heavier still. "Those whose breath clings on, but tying them down binds more hands. Those where yielding one stretcher dooms three more behind them. Those who slow the retreat line until the entire living unit is swallowed by the enemy."
No one in the room interrupted. Priscilla was telling brutal truths. Not lies.
The moment when, before a still-breathing soul, you judge it too late. That call dirties anyone who makes it. But someone has to. And usually, the hands left to make it are a healer's.
"On the field, we make those judgments. Who to bandage first. Who to carry out. Who gets the last water. Whose sword to at least recover."
Priscilla paused. The steam over her teacup had nearly vanished. Arthur sat silently before me. Erigallum's smile had faded. Yu remained shadow-quiet, as always. Roën watched the entire room from behind my right shoulder.
"The guideline to raise survival rates is right," Priscilla continued. "But if it's worded poorly, captains and vice-captains on the field won't move to save lives—they'll move to avoid lowering their ratings."
Her words carried weight.
"Dragging the wounded back for the rating turns them into dead weight. An order to 'return alive' becomes an order to 'count the living.'"
She looked me straight in the eye. Courtesy in her gaze. No retreat.
"So I ask: What exactly do you mean by survival rate, Commander-in-Chief?"
Her tone was polite.
I regarded her for a moment. This question was necessary. It could brand as criminal anyone forced to leave someone behind. I had no intention of forging that kind of Sword Clan.
If that were my aim, this entire reform would be flawed from the start.
"Priscilla."
I called her name quietly.
"Yes, Commander-in-Chief."
"I understand your concern."
Gazes in the room turned to me.
"'Return alive' mustn't mean dragging everyone back unconditionally. Nor should saving hands breed more deaths."
Priscilla's eyes shifted ever so slightly.
She didn't reply at once. I waited through the silence. In a Sword Clan meeting, silence wasn't empty time. Sometimes, in that quiet, words found their place.
"Survival rates must become numbers," I said. "But we can't judge by numbers alone."
The recorder's pen scratched softly across paper.
I looked at Priscilla.
"We must consider everything together."
She listened quietly.
"So the 4th Unit will draft the initial criteria for survival judgments."
The room's air rippled faintly. Priscilla's eyes widened a fraction. Erigallum seemed about to speak, then stopped. Roën was already checking that the recorder hadn't missed the order.
"Me?" Priscilla asked.
"Yes." I nodded. "Those who save lives know best what it means to live."
Priscilla fell silent. Her fingertips touched the teacup again. Not anxious fidgeting this time. A touch confirming the weight of the duty handed to her.
Setting criteria meant giving reasons to save someone. And reasons to let them go. The two were inseparable.
Priscilla knew that. Which was why she couldn't answer right away.
"What should the criteria include?" she asked.
I answered slowly.
"Prioritize the next battle over sacrifice."
I wouldn't abandon that standard.
"And."
I met her eyes squarely.
"A clause protecting those who judge the wounded's disposition."
For the first time, Priscilla's expression flickered. Briefly. Unmistakably.
"That clause is essential," I said. "No one who decides to leave someone on the field should return a criminal."
Priscilla couldn't speak. I didn't know how many such stares she'd endured. Why didn't you save them? Why didn't you bring them? Why leave that one and come back? Why bring only their sword?
Those questions scarred a healer's hands for years. Sometimes longer than the ones they saved.
I had no intention of heaping that blame on one person's shoulders alone.
"But that judgment can't be taken lightly," I added. "Nor will we leave the one who makes it to bear the burden alone when necessary."
Priscilla looked at me for a long time. Her eyes had deepened, heavier than before. The defiance wasn't gone—no reason it should be. But just a little... she'd feel the change in me.
"I accept the order."
Priscilla bowed her head.
"The 4th Unit will draft the survival judgment criteria."
"In three days."
"Yes."
"Don't write it alone."
Priscilla looked up.
"Incorporate the 5th Unit's observation data," I said. "Arsel sees battlefield difficulty and enemy density most accurately."
Priscilla nodded slowly.
"Understood."
"Roën."
"Yes, Commander-in-Chief."
Roën's response came instantly, as if waiting.
"Bundle a non-public working draft for the 4th and 5th Units to review together."
"I accept the order."
Quick and precise.
Priscilla lifted her teacup for a tiny sip. The tea must have gone cold. Her face didn't change. The expression of someone who'd seen far colder things.
I waited for the next words. The meeting was just beginning.
Priscilla's objection had lengthened into a real debate.
"Then."
Erigallum raised his hand. More precisely, wiggled two fingers lightly. His demeanor was always like that—casual, loose.
"May I ask something too?"
He was smiling. But his eyes weren't.
"Speak."
"Captain solo breakthrough penalty."
Erigallum said it. The room's air shifted again. If Priscilla's words were about blood and hands, this was about sword tips and feet.
Breakthrough. The word Sword Clan captains uttered most often—and caused the most trouble with.
"That."
Erigallum glanced at his teacup.
"As worded, it sounds like you're telling us to march in neat formation like good little soldiers."
Priscilla set her cup down. Yu's gaze shifted faintly. Arthur remained silent. I looked at Erigallum.
"Is that how it sounded to you?"
"Yes."
No hesitation.
"What if you hesitate in a moment you could exploit?"
He tapped the table lightly with his fingers. Left and right hands out of sync. But it didn't grate oddly. It was his swordsmanship incarnate.
"That gap closes ten times out of ten."
Erigallum met my eyes.
"Sometimes one person has to move on their own to open the path. Isn't that part of a captain's job?"
A few gazes lingered on his words. Some would agree. Sword Clan captains trusted their own blades. Without that trust, they wouldn't rise to the rank. And those who trusted their blades moved first into any opening they saw.
That instinct was right more often than not. Which made it hard. If it were always wrong, banning it would be easy. But sometimes it was right. Sometimes one breakthrough saved the line.
"True," I said.
Erigallum's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Gaps don't wait."
"Exactly."
"A sword like yours, opening paths with mismatched hands—you'd know that best."
Erigallum smiled.
"Can I take that as praise?"
"You can."
His smile deepened a touch. I continued immediately.
"However."
The smile stopped.
"If your unit can't turn the gap you open into a path."
I spoke slowly.
"That's not a breakthrough. It's desertion."
The room quieted. Erigallum's fingers stilled on the table. He was still smiling, but thinner now.
"A captain can lead the front."
"Sometimes must charge first."
"I don't deny that."
"But if your unit can't follow where you go."
"The 'path' you opened is just a gap you passed alone."
Erigallum didn't reply at once. He knew what could be brushed off lightly and what couldn't. That's why he was a captain.
"I've never ordered you not to advance," I said. "Nor to sheath your sword."
"But where you go must become a path."
"A gap only you can pass isn't a frontline road."
Erigallum looked at me for a long time. Then exhaled softly.
"That stings a bit."
"Pain makes it memorable."
He tilted his head slightly.
"You always speak so gently, Commander-in-Chief, but afterward, there's a stab wound. A swordsman who knows the wound learns to dodge a little next time."
"That stings too."
"Memorable as well."
Erigallum let out a short laugh this time. The smile lingered, but his eyes were serious. He understood. At least what I meant to forbid.
"So," Erigallum said. "Not a solo breakthrough penalty, but a penalty for failing to connect the frontline after a solo breakthrough."
"Is that the right understanding?"
"Essentially."
Erigallum said no more. I turned to Roën.
"Have the 6th Unit draft an evaluation for post-solo breakthrough unit entry feasibility."
"Yes."
"Include pre-breakthrough judgment, frontline reconnection after, follow-up unit entry feasibility, and retreat line maintenance."
"I accept the order."
Erigallum leaned back in his chair a bit.
"Workload's piling up."
"Growth usually does."
He didn't respond. That was enough.
Then, a low voice emerged from the room's shadows.
"What about missions with no return?"
It was Yu. His voice wasn't loud. But it weighed the room down heavier.
Priscilla closed her eyes, then opened them. Erigallum's smile vanished. Roën's gaze shifted to Yu. Arthur hadn't moved.
I looked at Yu. Captain of the 8th Unit. Shadow of assassination. Wielder of daggers. Not one who rang out sword cries in open battle, but one revealed only after the enemy's breath stopped.
He sat in the meeting room, yet didn't fully belong. Even right there, avert your eyes a moment, and he'd vanish.
Such a man's words touched darker places than any before.
Missions with no return. They existed. Denying them didn't erase them. Ignoring them in records didn't make them undone. It only made them easier to issue.
That was the problem.
"Speak."
I said.
Yu didn't lift his head. But his voice was clear.
"The 8th Unit has orders that don't assume return."
No one denied it.
"Missions completed only by not returning."
His hands were hidden. Under his coat sleeve, likely near a dagger. Even in the meeting room, he didn't let their position show easily. That was Yu.
"Basing it on survival makes all those missions failures."
Silence descended. Yu's words weren't a mere exception. They questioned the 8th Unit's very purpose.
The front lines could speak of survival. Medical units could set judgment criteria. Breakthrough units could carve paths.
But what of those moving in shadows? Those who mustn't return. To them, "return alive" could be the cruelest order.
I drew a slow breath.
"I know there are days when such orders are unavoidable."
Yu's gaze lifted faintly.
"I won't pretend ignorance."
The 8th Unit's world wasn't one to sanitize lightly in a bright meeting room. I had no desire to cover it with clean words.
"But Yu."
My voice was low.
"Acknowledging no-return missions exist is different from treating non-return as normal."
Yu's eyes met mine. Usually, they didn't linger. But now they were steady.
"Don't conflate the two."
The room's air sank deep.
"I know you're shadows," I said quietly. "But even shadows need a place for heroes to return to."
Yu was silent a long time. Dark, thin, unreadable silence. But not refusal.
At last, he spoke low.
"We'll review it."
"Good."
"Shall I draft the 8th Unit's criteria?"
"Yes."
"I'll submit only to the 1st Unit's vice-captain."
"It'll reach me too."
Yu looked at me briefly.
"It will."
Acceptance.
I asked no more. Tension lingered in the room. But the flow held. For now.
I looked ahead. The coldest seat remained.
Arthur. Captain of the 2nd Unit. Strongest captain besides me. Equal in power to 3rd Unit's Edenkart, but his influence gripped entire battlefields more firmly.
He'd said nothing until now. The silence stretched long. But it wasn't empty. Arthur's silence resembled a blade in its sheath. Unsheathed, perhaps. But not absent.
Frost gathered thinly again on the teacup before me. Not a perfect circle like at first. Fine rime. Meaning he was suppressing emotion.
Arthur wasn't emotional. Which made his emotions heavier.
What would he say...
At last, he spoke.
"You've changed, Commander-in-Chief."
"...What?"
This meeting was going to be a headache.