• Veretia kills so others do not need to suffer. She takes their share of the pain and buries it in herself. She works to forget all the past. She works long and hard, but in the end of the day, her resolve cracks a little more than the day before. The only thing that still keeps everything together was Sephyr. His presence was more than enough to remind her why she still lives.

    Hakugei kills for fun. He does not care who you are, or what you do. He does not remember your face. He doesn’t give a damn what your name is. As long as you can kick and scream, it’s fine for him. Every day, he sinks a little lower into the myriad of darkness. He does not think he can pull himself back up, but Shinji is always there. Shinji is always on the surface, a line attached both of them. Hakugei does not drown, not yet. However he does wonder what would happen if one day, that line snapped. He knows it will.
    Everyday Shinji looks a little more disappointed in him.

    Ravi kills just because. For him there is no reason, no inspiration. He just does it because it is expected of him. He does everything expected of him. Sometimes it feels like his best is not enough. So when that happens, he tries a little harder, and dies a little more, inside. But he still kills. He wakes up everyday expecting to die. Fate loved to laugh at him, it seemed. Every night, he climbs back into bed safe. Ravi is bored of the endless sequence. He wonders if one day, he could just end it. However, every time he fingers that dark crimson eye patch that covered his secret, a voice in his head whispered. No. Not yet.

    He listens to it. For now.


    Sebastian does not kill. No, he prefers to think that he is making advances in science. He commits necessary evils. If he doesn’t do it, someone else is going to have to, and no doubt that person would make a messy blunder of it. Sebastian thinks it takes a certain amount of sheer genius to experiment without causing pain. That’s mercy in his book. He doesn’t waste test subjects either, not that these little…experiments… of his were approved by the council. The council was made of a bunch of honour bound idiots anyways. Who cares about what they thought? They would not know true science if it mooned them. They should be thankful, he thought as he carefully removed the teeth and fingertips from his last failure—a pale form of what used to be an Academy student, that he was using Veltoran soldiers.
    Sebastian wakes up everyday with no conscience at all. That’s happy in his book.


    James kills because one day, he will die. Maybe he will die beside his friend, with bullet holes riddling his uniform. Maybe he will burn to death, and no one will arrange a funeral, because no one knew him. Maybe he will get hit by a truck, and everybody will just walk past his mangled carcass until he began to rot and smell. James does not expect much more that that, after all, he was without a family, and he was a part of the Veltoran army.
    But every day, he wakes determined to wring the most out of life before death claimed him. He certainly was not going to lose to Ian.


    Alexis kills for the dead. It might be a morbid reason for some, but to her, it was perfectly reasonable. Because the dead were gone, and she could kill in their place, act in their stead. She kills so they will rest in peace, knowing that even if they passed away, someone else will always be there. It’s just that simple. She does not give it any more thought than it needs. And before the day is done, it is banished to the back of her mind. Alexis sees no point in figuring these things out. If one doubts why they kill, then they should not be a soldier in the first place.
    Alexis wakes up everyday, knowing that if she died, there were more people to take her place.
    (They were just all dispensable, after all.)


    Tina does not kill. She did once, and found that she’d rather help people not meet that fate. It is always sad when the people you knew for years suddenly stop appearing. But that is the way life works. That’s the way death works as well. With the recent war, more and more were coming to her guild in bloody buckets. Tina calmly arranges what is left of them, and calls the funeral planner. Lately there has been no time for funerals. She has to dig ditches and cram four or five bodies in them. Tina feels no remorse, because the time that she saves can be used to repair others and prevent herself from needing to dig more holes.

    Tina wakes up everyday and recalls what peace felt like. It is important not to forget, so that one day when she does not need to dig trenches anymore, she can laugh in war’s face.