War, Sprawling Without Cease

You and your project will get everyone killed.

And the Northwestern Tundra can't keep us alive forever. The larger our group grows, the more food and energy supplies we need, and the villages that revile us far outnumber the ones that support us.

One season of mossoats, each year... even if we all pitch in for the tilling, how much would we harvest in the end?

Will our fields be destroyed by the Patrol Unit? The guerrillas can easily dispose of them, but the other Infected can't.

You are hastening their deaths.

Our only choice is to leave the tundra. Not for Sami, and not for the barrens... we'll head east, head south, head for warmer places.

How will you survive? How will you allow us all, so numerous, to survive?

The guerrillas save people. The guerrillas sacrifice none but ourselves. Only warriors sacrifice themselves.

But there are Infected in every city and their surroundings, so many more than there are on the tundra.

You permanently protect the north, detesting all that the Infected of the north endure... so you've had little chance to understand the kind of life the Infected of the south have.

Do they live well?

They live miserably.

You want to absorb them.

I intend to unite with them.

When the Empire turns its gaze to the Infected, you will bear the brunt.

I don't want them to unite by my side. No. I want them to unite under one encompassing philosophy.

Philosophy? The Infected are taken as sawdust on the tundra, as slag in the mines, as warnings in the villages, as unknown fuel in the cities.

The tundra Infected are certainly not ignorant nor foolish. We do not cradle fantasy. All philosophies are fantasy before they are put into practice.

On the tundra, there are still mines, patrol forces, foolish and lackadaisical guards. We have places to obtain our resources.

The resources throughout this icy tundra will sooner or later be exhausted, because we have no method of extracting our own.

We have no enduringly mobile nomadic city, no specially qualified Catastrophe Messengers...

Go to the city and we have nothing at all.

We will earn new friends.

Who are your friends?

I recognize your project has merit to it.

But at the same time, it is also nothing special.

How many strategists have died frustrated on the tundra? You speak of it, and I see no reason it could be done, nor on what it would be realized.

Why could the last Emperor make the land tremble? Because he held fast to it, never talking of any wild, far-flung vision. He only walked in steps.

Which you cannot do.

......

Sir!

You say I may be crushed by the armor of Ursus, and I concede that. They will sooner or later turn their attention to us here. There will always come a day when they catch us. None of us can escape it.

'Let them come?' Is that how you approach it, sir?

That the tundra would prepare you better for a battle?

You are seeking a new battlefield?

I'm looking for a chance to win.

As far as so many more Infected are concerned, that's hope. But to fighters like you and me, that's a crossroads. The only crossroads where we can break from our intrinsic strategy.

To wander the tundra, in the end, is still nothing more than a slow death... much like the little life we have left as Infected. I need to repeat this point, over and over, because we're all fully aware of it.

——

Perhaps my daughter is convinced by you.

But I will not be convinced by someone who has never lost hope in the truest sense, who has only ever spouted an empty miscellany of armchair strategies.

......

Talulah? Where are you going?

I'm fine. Just going to check if there are any survivors in the mines.

The guerrillas have already set out, and the village is starting the move too. The army isn't following our tracks, either...

Dad? What's up with you?

*cough*...

Just a normal cough.

——

Is somebody there?

...I know you're all here. You're not with the army. You haven't even broken a twig with your steps.

I mean you no harm. If you're not Infected, I'll leave you be, unless you need assistance...

D—don't come any closer!

Don't move! If you do, I'll shoot!

Ah.

She's—she's Infected! Sasha, my Arts can drive Infected away...!

You can't use your Arts!

Sasha...

G—get out of here already! We were just getting things from the mines... we don't want to kill anyone!

I'll shoot! You'll die!

Sasha... you—when you say that...

......

How long have you gone without eating?

Why do you care?!

We're in the vicinity of a militarized mine. You wouldn't dare light a fire.

...The way you shake makes me think of wheat being sifted.

*whine*...

Hmph.

Don't be scared.

Ah...

You...

It's warmer, now, isn't it.

That's right, I really am Infected.

So that's how it happened.

That's how you found Sasha and Eno... they were never willing to talk about the past.

If we never found them, they would've certainly passed away.

Perhaps, ever since Patriot refuted me, it was the one bit of good I'd done.

So what's happened today, then?

...I was careless with my Arts during training, FrostNova's cloak was hung up nearby, and they spread to it. Now she's out for my life.

And you promised you'd help sew it back up?

To tell the truth, Alina...

Oh, whatever. Give it to me. Knowing you, I'm scared you'd sew yourself to it.

Don't you want to join our group? If we have your gift with words, there's a decently better chance I'll talk Patriot over.

I've told you before, Talulah... My Arts would be useless with the guerrillas.

I can stand the blood, but I don't want the initiative to harm people myself. You'll be facing much more than just the Infected Patrol Unit, soon enough.

I suppose if I had dragged you along... I'd have been bothering you too much.

Ah, you put it that way on purpose, didn't you?

No, I...

Don't remember wrong, now. It was I who wanted to go with you.

And up to now, it's been for one reason. It's because... Talulah, I feel like there's every chance you'd forget.

Forget what?

Forget just what it is you want to do.

I've been striving all this time for the future of the Infected.

That's not what you said, back at the very start.

......

Talulah, we all know people can change.

If bit by bit, we shake ourselves clean of all the things we've persevered with, or if we replace them with something new, then there's a certain point where we realize we just haven't persevered in anything, right?

In a constant battle and with things changing all the time, it's only natural I'd alter my policy. If rigor sets into our thinking, it could very well make us weaker.

And where'd that stubborn part of you go?

——

Do you want to prove that the Infected are just like normal people? Or do you want to prove that normal people are just like the Infected?

What's the difference?

If there's only Infected, then who's even a normal person? Would we want all people to catch Oripathy? Or to cut ourselves off completely from the normal people?

But if there were only normal people, no Infected... then the people who caught Oripathy would be normal people underneath, normal like the people who haven't.

Elders are just normal people, Ancients are just normal people, villagers who all know each other are normal people, and whoever's living in the cities should be normal people all the same.

Talulah, do you want to return to your family?

You're all my family.

No, we aren't.

If we cleared all this Oripathy off our skin... would we be able to go back home?

You and I are of a mind on this. We couldn't.

The tundra, and our lives, have completely changed us. The Infected already have no way of returning to their former lives.

Talulah, do you feel proud of yourself for being Infected now?

Why would you ask?

Because you can cast Arts without a staff? Because our lives are so fleetingly short? Because even though we've gone through so much hardship, we can still persevere and live on?

what reason would you choose?

I don't need to choose any, Alina.

I'm proud just to be an Infected. Because this world still hasn't killed me yet.

And for that matter, we don't need anything to cause us to pursue fairness. We should've been pursuing fairness in the first place, that's why.

And if the world won't give it, we'll just have to take it from it.

Then you really are brave.

You're not laughing at me, are you?

Of course not. How could I?

Mn, well... I feel they're all brave, too. All the people struggling against the fate that's been forced on us.

Then I'm sure you feel—

Hm.

Feel what?

That our fates are just rotten.

Well, obviously.

I don't feel that way, Talulah.

...That's another of your ironic remarks, Alina.

No... what I mean is, the fact I can sit here, talking with you, knowing we have our guards outside the village protecting us—fate has already been very kind to me.

Don't say that. Fate's a jealous one. Talking about those things is just tempting it to take them away.

But I don't believe in fate, Talulah.

Because you can change it?

Because I can't see it.

Talulah, what you can see, what you can touch, those are things you can rely on.

I can see the cloak I'm holding in my left hand. I can see the candlelight, and I can see the needle I'm holding in my right.

I can see the Infected children's smiles, and I can see the white smoke of vegetables, roasting fragrantly, wafting through the air.

I can see the snow melting, and I can see the two moons dancing spry in the clear night sky.

And then there's people who can't see even these.

Talulah, if there came a day when we all left you, would you still be able to fight on?

What do you mean?

It could always happen. If that time came, would you still feel it was worth it to stand against fate?

Would you possibly think, this is just too much? I just can't do anything anymore?

If Patriot's taught me anything, then one lesson comes to mind, from long ago at that.

I wouldn't bow my head.

It sneers at me, and I'll be certain to burn it to ash.

You're a blockhead, Talulah. That, or you're getting old.

Hey!

Only old people get to say that stuff without coming off as naive.

Because if someone's gotten old as old gets and still keeps that outlook all the way, it just means they've gone through far, far too much, to the point the world's left its bitter vestiges on their body, allows them no rest in passing the remainder of their life.

...And they're living in the desert of the past. If it were me, I wouldn't even have the courage to take the first step.

If I were that old and had that much arrogance, I'd be taking the events of the past and stabbing myself with them, every single step I took.

I can't even imagine it. Stuck in the sands of memory, of all the past, how does a person even know they're still moving forwards?

And what kind of resilient spirit does it take to let them make a new first step, unlike any they've made before?

I feel like you've been hinting at someone this entire time.

I've said I know a lot of what he's done, but I still truthfully don't know Mr. Patriot at all. I've never spoken a single word to him.

If you say that's him, well, why not. Let it be him.

If Mr. Patriot...

You're fast to substitute.

Ahem.

Unlike all the old, aged warriors, young people can much more easily forget things, give up on things, forgive themselves.

So you feel like I'm only fighting for all the things I can see? Or, maybe, you're telling me that might not be right?

Compared to the things you'd told me back when we left the village, it's just too shallow.

In just these few short years, you've already become an outstanding leader. But it's not entirely a good thing for you. You can't let yourself stop here, can you?

'If righteousness can only be upheld by greater and greater violence, can it even be called righteous, still? '

Those words have rolled around in my head for years and years, now. For so many years, I've been constantly thinking it over. I probably haven't gotten it straight yet, but I've been thinking it over and over.

Alright, then. Let's throw fate and making stands and all those other words we were talking about out the window. What is it you want to teach us today, Professor Alina?

Hey. Are you that flippant with FrostNova, too?

Don't joke about that. FrostNova'd freeze both our mouths shut.

Taking you for example, Talulah, you wouldn't fight just to defeat what enemies you see, right?

The Patrol Unit, the mine overseers, the drafted soldiers following our trail, the Ursus Minister of Medicine... if you defeated all of these, would we be victorious?

Since all of these are awful things, and so we need to defeat them?

Professor Alina wants me to do battle with things I can't see. How would I defeat them, then?

With things you can promise. Warmth, food, bedding, these are all things you'll be able to touch on some day or other. Think things unlike those.

This battle of ours probably won't bear results. It's likely we have no way to win.

I'm already not that fond of making promises. Things too far away are near as good as me playing tricks.

If we can never win, then should we still fight?

Haven't I asked you before? When that time comes, would you still feel this fate is worth you making a stand against it?

Once this is all over, you won't even be able to so much as see your enemies. You'll share those enemies with all those people who can't see a future.

...And then, that's when the true battle's really just begun.

——

You mention that spirit, those enemies, and those things that carve into ours and the Ursus people's bones.

—The Emperor?

The Emperor's just one form of it.

As long as people won't lay down their blades, this conflict will never end.

I don't quite agree. People taking up their blades to fend off what causes them strife is the just thing to do.

You're not wrong. Honestly, this conflict is the sort that'll never end, in my eyes.

Thanks to Mr. Patriot's blessing, I've read no small amount of Leithanien and Victoria's books. I very much liked what this one person said...

'Our war is a war against the ego. '

It's true, Talulah. As you'll never lay down the swords in your grips—

...So you'll never lay down the needle in your grasp.

And that wraps up our lesson today! There's almost nothing left I can really teach you.

The children should be studying right now. There's some knowledge they should have by tomorrow.

Talulah... Kashchey wanted you to be a sage, but people all make mistakes.

When you fall over, you climb back up. But if he won't let you fall over...

Then all you can do is be a little careful about things.

Same as when you're confronting Patriot. In all honesty, I don't see him and you as two different kinds of people.

You both already believe too strongly in your own ways. I can't let those any of those lively little creatures go around saying things like you're right, and he's wrong.

No, Alina. I can't go and do something I don't even believe in myself.

That's true. It's another one of the tricks with which Kashchey bound you, exploited you.

You're just saying there's no way I can wipe him out, right?

It's a sort of idea, after all. We probably don't have much chance of wiping out an idea...

But I'm still just that bit confident.

Confident in what?

If we're still by your side when that time comes, we'll definitely be able to pull you back.

It doesn't matter what kind of Arts Kashchey had, we'll definitely have a way of breaking them down. There's always something we can do.

In this battle, we'll start from words and language, start from the next moment, start from a facial expression. We'll start from now.

They'll know what mushrooms are safe to eat, how to raise livestock, how to get better a little sooner if you catch a cold.

We'll try and try not to lose.

*chuckle*.

And I believe in you. You will have the chance to talk Patriot over.

I'll just force myself to take that as encouragement.

Mm, I'm done sewing. You can give it to her.

I can tell she really cherishes this cloak. It looks like one the army made. And it's three layers inside, three layers outside. It makes it seem really big.

It probably is an army cloak. That, or it's...

Ah.

......

...Out of all the reasons Mr. Patriot keeps fighting, we just might have found one of them.

Thank you, Alina.

...Wait!

What is it? I'm about to prepare tomorrow's lesson. It's a drawing lesson, so they're all looking forward to it.

I'll bring back two brushes for you, next time.

I mean, what I want to say... what I want to ask is, do you really... not want to get to know FrostNova and the others?

The fighters all know we have a good few Infected teachers, it's just that you've been keeping yourself tucked away, all...

Not right now, Talulah.

Once that Infected common ideal of yours becomes reality, we'll naturally come to know each other then.

And besides, we're all fighters, just on different battlefields. We'll know all about each other sooner or later, won't we?

You're right, Alina. Infected Fighter, Alina.