A Precious Reunion (2)
Thud.
Senior Sergeant Misty grabbed Sergeant Mueller by the sleeve.
Ha. Fine.
I’ll believe you when you say she only grabbed his sleeve.
“The child is still unconscious.”
“I know.”
“……”
The conversation went no further.
Misty lowered her head and looked away from the landscape. She seemed reluctant to let the view beyond the curtain reach her eyes.
Mueller drew the curtain back.
On the bed lay a small girl. She looked even smaller than she had the first time he’d seen her.
Her hair was damp with sweat, plastered against her forehead, and her lips were so pale they looked white.
Bandages were wrapped tightly around her fingers, and most of the places where nails should have been were simply gone.
Her right leg was braced in a rigid splint, and dark bruises and signs of contamination marked the skin around her neck and arms.
Mueller sat down beside the bed, keeping his face as expressionless as he could.
“...You’re in a dreadful state.”
When Sergeant Mueller spoke, there was no answer.
“I told you clearly not to get tangled up with Lieutenant Weiss... Never thought you’d end up entangled with another Star.”
The girl’s small chest rose and fell, very slowly.
She was still alive.
Yes. For now…
Sergeant Mueller couldn’t define what he was feeling.
Perhaps he was angry.
Angry at the country that had sent a child like this to the battlefield, angry at the one who had sold off another child, and angry at himself for being powerless to do anything at all.
But Mueller denied that he was angry.
In the end, he decided not to give that feeling a name.
Because once he started defining what he felt, there would be no end to it.
He had come here in the capacity of an inspector.
Neither the authority to resent anyone nor the authority to set anything right came with that position.
All he could do was check whether the child in front of him was still breathing. That was all.
“...If you’re alive, answer me.”
As expected, there was no reply.
Asking an unconscious soldier to answer if she was alive—Mueller realized just how stupid he’d sounded.
To hide the grim look on his face, he covered it with one hand.
And then, the next moment.
Chloe Winterland’s eyelids twitched ever so slightly.
At first, he thought it was an illusion.
When they twitched a second time, Mueller’s gaze was fixed on the girl.
When they twitched a third time, the illusion became certainty.
“Military doctor!”
Mueller immediately called out for the doctor, and from beyond the curtain came the sound of someone rushing over at once.
The girl on the bed slowly opened her eyes and rolled them around.
They were hazy, unfocused eyes.
“Winterland.”
The girl’s gaze moved very slowly toward Mueller.
It was so dim that it was hard to tell whether she was looking at him at all, or looking straight through him.
Her lips parted slightly.
She looked as if she wanted to say something, but no sound came out.
“Are you awake? Can you hear me?”
Chloe’s lips opened and shut like a goldfish’s.
The various machines and tubes connected to her body began to blink and emit anxious warning tones.
Beep, beep, beep.
The repetitive sound made Mueller even more uneasy.
I hadn’t known it then, but it seemed False Star really had been very fond of me.
I mean, just look at the fact that there was a piece of Gold-Stone equipment attached to my body—equipment a noble couldn’t even dream of borrowing.
Medicine in this world was horribly poor.
Everything depended on C Magic.
“Stand back!”
The military doctor burst in and shoved the seated Mueller back against the wall, chair and all.
The chair toppled over, and Mueller nearly went down with it, but he understood how serious the situation was and said nothing.
He simply got back to his feet and carefully examined Chloe’s condition.
The doctor checked Chloe’s pupils, pressed two fingers to the side of her neck, and then put his ear to her chest.
And then… he swore.
“Her pulse is weak. Breathing’s shallow too. Prepare C Magic.”
The medics swarmed in.
In an instant, the area around the bed filled with people, and all sorts of equipment came tumbling in after them.
Bandages, medicine, magic stones, thin metal plates, wet cloths, and even magical devices to maintain her temperature.
“Winterland Private, move your eyes if you can hear me.”
Chloe’s eyes did not move at all.
“Respiratory arrest imminent.”
“Secure the airway.”
“Her pulse is dropping!”
“C Magic!”
Cure, as it was called in the imperial common tongue, literally meant healing.
Unfortunately, on the battlefield, healing was not a gentle word.
It forcibly stitched torn flesh together, made a heart that was trying to stop beat again, and pushed blood back through ruined vessels.
It compelled the body to regenerate.
Your opinion didn’t matter. It wasn’t time to die yet. Live. That was the order.
Chloe’s body arched, then jolted up off the bed.
“Hold her down!”
Two medics grabbed her shoulders and arms and pinned her in place.
The leg fixed in the splint was already bucking free, and the bandaged fingers began to spasm.
And then Mueller heard that word.
“Cardiac arrest!”
Mueller did not move. He couldn’t move.
He’d seen plenty of people whose hearts had stopped on the battlefield.
He thought he was already used to death.
But he wasn’t.
Familiarity was an illusion.
Mueller had simply mistaken it for familiarity.
“Again!”
“The circuit’s unstable!”
“Then if we don’t use it, she dies!”
C Magic activated again.
As if reacting, Chloe’s body coughed up blood from the corner of her mouth.
“Breathing?”
“It’s coming back!”
“Pulse!”
“Weak, but we’ve got one!”
The military doctor ground his teeth and kept the C Magic going.
And a long time passed.
Yes. Only after quite a while did the chaos around the bed begin to settle.
The shouted orders gradually died down, and the medics, drained dry, gasped for breath.
Chloe’s chest was rising and falling again.
She lived.
A girl who would likely die again before long, but for the moment, she lived.
The doctor roughly wiped sweat off with his sleeve.
“...That was cardiac arrest just now.”
“……”
Mueller did not answer.
“The blinking a while ago was just the body reacting. It didn’t mean her consciousness had returned.”
“...Why are you explaining that to me?”
“I thought you’d want to know.”
“Is there a chance she’ll go critical again?”
“High.”
“How high?”
“Well. If she makes it through today, let’s call it a miracle.”
Bang.
Something fell near Senior Sergeant Misty’s bed.
It seemed she had tried to get down and check Chloe’s condition herself.
As if she weren’t a patient too.
Tsk.
Mueller clicked his tongue.
“Is her condition caused by the magic stones?”
“That’s one of the causes.”
“...One?”
“Hypothermia, trauma, overuse of magic, ingestion of magic stones... there are more, but listing them all would take too long.”
“Can you save her?”
The doctor fell silent.
Silence was answer enough.
“...Save her.”
“It doesn’t work that way just because you give an order.”
“I know.”
“……”
“Just say you’ll try. Please.”
“I’ll try.”
After Mueller stood up, he turned toward Misty’s bed.
Misty sat on the bed and looked at him.
Her eyes were trembling.
Mueller didn’t know what kind of comfort one was supposed to offer in a situation like this.
Because you don’t have any friends.
Wait, wait, wait. Why are you so angry—!
In the end, Mueller stepped outside the tent.
The wind was cold.
.
.
.
Some time later, Mueller decided to remain in the north for the time being.
It was because he had a perfectly respectable pretext: the report he would have to submit to headquarters was likely to be much longer than expected.
The Flowing Snowy Mountain had stopped moving, the False Star platoon had been annihilated, there were traces of unidentifiable magic usage…
And Chloe Winterland.
He just couldn’t stop thinking about the girl.
Was it because she resembled the Silver Star?
Or perhaps the reason False Star and Ruin Star had shown her favor was...
“Hah...”
His white breath scattered into the air.
“To borrow the expression of fools who still believe in goddesses in an age like this, all fate begins with coincidence.”
“...Huh?”
“I was just talking to myself. By the way, when can I meet Lieutenant Mauer?”
“As far as I know, she’s in the temporary command tent.”
“I was told a meeting was requested as soon as I arrived.”
“It was refused.”
Refused... refused?
Mueller shut his eyes tight.
Why were all the Stars like this?
If he poured out all the complaints he’d built up so far, he could rant for a solid eight hours.
“Was there any message left for me?”
“Well... she said she didn’t like you.”
“Why?”
“She said she didn’t like the fact that you were on friendly terms with Lieutenant Julian Weiss...”
Friendly terms?
Who? Me?
Mueller let out a short, incredulous laugh.
“Tell her we weren’t on friendly terms.”
“Yes, sir.”
He watched the soldier hurry off to pass the message to Lieutenant Mauer, then immediately shoved a hand into his pocket.
He took out a cigarette case and stared at it for a long moment before tossing it straight into the snow.
Much later still, long after that, the girl who had barely been clinging to life in the medical tent finally opened her eyes.
For some reason, she was smiling a very wide smile.
---
