Maria
On August 1st, 2055, the Siberia War — the greatest conflict in human history — came to a complete end. It had been nearly half a year since the appearance of the SS-rank Gate.
The front lines, of course, erupted into celebration.
Over the past seven years, five million people had died in that place, and far more had been wounded. When word spread that the war that had ground people to dust was finally over, everyone cheered. Countless soldiers boarded trains bound for home.
"So, uh… mind if I finally take that leave I've been putting off?"
"Haa… Fine. The war's over now, so I suppose it doesn't matter."
"Yes!"
Maria was one of those soldiers who rode the wave. On the day Siberia returned to humanity's embrace, she strode straight into her father's tent and slapped down a leave request covering seven years of deferred vacation.
The leave she walked away with was one full year.
Considering everything she had endured over those seven years, it felt almost insultingly short… but for now, she decided it would have to do.
Because Maria had something she needed to do right away.
"I wonder how Haneul is holding up…"
The girl once called the Sword Saint — humanity's hope. The one who had ended the war at least four years early, the hero every soldier who had served in Siberia looked up to with awe.
In the World Government's propaganda, she was nothing short of a superhuman.
A veiled hero who could cleave the sky and part the sea with a single stroke of her blade. An Awakened whose achievements were so staggering that some even whispered she might be a saint descended from heaven to save mankind.
"…"
But Maria, who had spent so long at the Sword Saint's side as both tactical advisor and healer, found it hard to agree with any of that.
She was a girl who needed protecting.
A child who had suffered horrific experiments in her youth, lost people she loved on the battlefield, and in the end ruined both her body and her mind. The world had piled far too much onto those thin shoulders.
And yet, for all that they had thrown that child onto the front lines, the World Government had shown Serena no concern whatsoever once the fighting was done.
"Which is exactly why I have to look after her myself…"
That ash-gray cloak had become the Sword Saint's symbol. But what lay beneath it was not a superhuman — only a sick, dying girl.
Knowing that, Maria couldn't help but feel the urgency clawing at her chest.
Even now, she was sure that girl was still devouring herself from the inside. The dark circles sunk deep under her eyes, those blue irises that had lost their light — they kept rising unbidden in Maria's mind.
That was why someone who normally hated leaning on her father's rank had gone and commandeered an entire military transport.
Unlike the packed civilian flights, the transport flying direct from Vladivostok to Seoul was fast. Maria breezed through immigration and hurried toward Serena's home.
"Miss, you want me to take you all the way out to that neighborhood at this hour?"
"I'll pay whatever you want. Just get me there. Fast."
"It's not about the money — that part of town's dangerous this late! Even if our country's a safe zone, that doesn't mean Gates never show up!"
Only after she flashed more than double the usual fare and her ID proving she was an A-rank Awakened did the cab driver finally agree to go.
She didn't understand why she was acting like this. She was usually so easygoing. She just… felt anxious.
It was the thought of that fragile child — who could shatter at any moment — left alone and neglected for half a year. At least on the front she had been able to check in on her from time to time. Now the idea of how Haneul might be living by herself made Maria's heart tremble with dread.
"Thanks, mister."
The moment she stepped out of the taxi she broke into a run toward the residential streets.
And because of that, she made it in time.
"…Haneul?"
She found a girl collapsed in front of her medicine, moaning weakly with every breath.
An A-rank recovery-type Awakened can work miracles. The kind of power that heals every disease and mends every wound — the sort of ability that belonged in scripture — had saved countless lives on the battlefield.
So Maria set the medicine aside and unleashed her gift instead.
She could not bring herself to drive that maddening drug into the arm of the girl gasping and struggling right before her eyes.
"Help… me…"
"Ugh — just hold on a second!"
She tore off her coat in a rush, gathered Serena against her with one arm, and clenched the pendant at her throat. The three-barred cross of the Russian Orthodox Church drank in the starlight.
What she wished for was this frail girl's peace, and deliverance from her pain.
The third crossbar — the one that symbolized the path of salvation from sin and from humankind itself — began to blaze with radiant light. A sensation like mana draining from her body washed through her as the girl's form was wrapped in starlight.
"Nngh…"
Serena, limp in her arms, nestled deeper into her embrace.
Maria stroked her hair and took the girl's weakly trembling hand in the same hand that still held the cross. She gently parted Serena's fingers and laced their hands together, and the cold of ice itself seeped into her palm.
"It's okay. Everything's okay."
She pressed their foreheads together as she whispered the comfort, and felt her mana pouring out in great, heavy rushes.
And then the miracle that had saved so many in Siberia unfolded for one person alone.
In a dark room where not a single ray of sunlight entered, a tiny sun rose.
Warmth filled every corner. Not the sticky heat of August, but a gentle, comforting glow.
The scrapes from her fall sealed over as if they had never been.
Torn, swollen lips regained their lovely cherry tint.
The dark circles lightened a shade, and eyes that had been empty of life held a faint spark of starlight once more.
Like a withered flower coming back to life, color returned to her pale skin. That deathly white finally began to look like something human.
"…Un…nie?"
"…"
But Maria could not simply smile.
Because the girl in her arms was not looking at her. Those tear-bright eyes were smiling at someone from memory.
"Mmm… so warm… Hold me a little longer…"
Haneul nuzzled her cheek against Maria's chest as she murmured. And Maria knew exactly who she thought she was holding.
Cecilia Eustania.
Commander of the Blue Knights, the Awakened unit made up of experimental children. An S-rank who had wielded her sword to protect them all.
The shield who always charged in first and was always last to leave, no matter the battlefield. And the one who had sacrificed herself in place of everyone else on the day they called the Nightmare of Vladivostok.
Maria knew how much this girl loved her sister. Haneul used to say that her head didn't hurt when her sister was near — that she even slept better with her close.
Which was exactly why she could not leave Haneul like this.
"I missed you, Unnie."
"…I'm sorry."
She gently pushed away the girl trying to burrow deeper into her arms. Half a year of being shut in a corner had left that body so frail it could barely endure even Maria's tender touch.
"I'm not your sister. I'm just… someone who wants to care for you that much."
Only then did those hazy eyes come back to the present. The girl stared blankly at her own hand, glanced once at Maria's face, pinched her own cheek, and then lowered her head a little.
As if disappointed that the person in front of her was not the one she had been hoping for.
But not wanting to let that disappointment show, she snapped her head back up in a fluster — and the sight of it was almost unbearably cute.
"Ah… Miss Maria…?"
"That's right. Far East Army tactical advisor and your personal physician, Maria. It's been a while, hasn't it?"
As if the memory of her own disgraceful state had only just caught up to her, the girl's expression went rigid. Serena's eyes trembled faintly as she hung her head low.
"I'm sorry. And… thank you. You saved my life."
"Don't be. I only did what I was supposed to do."
As she spoke, Maria looked around the room.
It was hard to call it clean overall… but it didn't look like she had given up on tidying entirely, either.
That, at least, was a relief. It meant this child still had some scrap of will left. Things had not gone as badly as the worst-case scenarios Maria had been imagining.
"Yesterday, the Siberia War officially ended. The Gates that had been popping up here and there closed for good."
"That's… good."
"Right? Means I can finally go back to my real job."
Maria was twenty-five this year. She had enlisted at eighteen, so it didn't seem like she had ever held any other kind of occupation… Serena tilted an inner question mark at her and asked.
"Your real job?"
"Mm. I used to be tactical advisor for Northern Army Group B and the Sword Saint's personal physician… but the war's over now."
"Uh…"
"So starting today, I go back to what I was always meant to be doing, don't I?"
Lee Haneul's brilliant mind could hardly miss what that meant. If the end of the war had erased the role of "tactical advisor," then only one title remained.
"I'll be in your care, Sword Saint?"
Unit 201 on the second floor of a tiny studio apartment on the outskirts of Seoul had been my own little sanctuary away from the battlefield.
Until yesterday, when a new neighbor suddenly moved in next door.
"Miss Maria…"
Even someone as catastrophically bad at relationships as me could say with confidence that I knew Maria Gorshkov better than almost anyone.
Maria had a personality that didn't quite suit a healer. Once she set her sights on something, she would drive straight through no matter what stood in her way — more tank on the front line than support in the back.
Which meant Maria was never going to reverse this decision. She had already seen the disaster zone that was my room… for all I knew, she might announce she was cleaning it starting tomorrow.
"Ugh, my head…"
I muttered that and let myself fall limp onto the bed.
It wasn't that I disliked it. The feeling of someone looking after me was always good — as long as it didn't come with that nagging guilt of whether I even deserved something like this.
I want to be loved. I want to be praised. Honestly, hearing everyone on that broadcast call me amazing earlier… it felt good.
So maybe I should try streaming again.
After all, the one thing a former Sword Saint was best at… was cutting monsters down.