MosesArk Reborn2000
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End of and Era Chapter 29
🕑 Added 2023-07-21 15:48:39 +0000 UTCThis chapter is a bit late, I know. Some things come up while I was writing it, but if all goes well, this should still be up for my early audience on Friday. I have nothing else to say, so enjoy.
Chapter 29: Homefront
Inside an abandoned warehouse's basement, a small group met up to discuss their last operation. Leading them was an older, worn-out Ohgi, no longer wearing a uniform and back to wearing street clothes as he would have back before the Black Knights, before Zero. ‘Well?’ He addresses the woman standing before him and the rest of the group, a fellow veteran of the Black Knight’s glory days, and like him, she had long ditched her uniform though her clothes were dirty, covered in soot and burns while one arm was in a sling.
She took a moment to reply, exhausted not just from their last mission but also from having to escape their chasers before they could even think about returning. ‘We managed to complete the mission, but it cost us.’ Ohgi sighed, having come to expect such news even from operations that succeeded, though it still hurt to know that some weren’t coming back.
‘How many?’ She had been sent with a team of 60 for this, large for their standards as this cell only had around 140 members, but this was deemed important enough to have some levels of redundancy.
‘At least 23 killed that we can confirm, another 11 that might be dead but we’re not sure.’ That wasn't good. There was a reason they didn't bother to carry the wounded as they simply couldn't treat any wounds that were more serious than a broken bone. More than that, they all understood that capture might as well be worse than death as the interrogators always made you spill your guts, so they had to introduce a countermeasure to ensure that no one ever lived long enough to be captured-having their teammates kill those who couldn't be helped.
He had to ignore the worry that came with potentially 11 people giving away their secrets, they could move operations and swap out key members later. ‘The files?’ She handed him a beige folder which he skimmed through, seeing maps, timetables and lists of names. ‘Good. Get some rest…you all need it.’ He saluted the woman who returned the gesture before leaving, most likely heading to a secondary safe-house to rest up before getting back into her normal life.
One of the others with him, a long-time friend and comrade looked over to him. ‘What is even in those files, Oghi?’
He spared the blue-haired man a glance as he placed the folder on the table, opening it up and reading through it. 'Transport routes, timetables for when and where trains and trucks will be passing through.'
‘We’re gonna hit them?’ Someone asked, sounding excited at some action but he shot that down quickly, no point allowing baseless rumors to fly around.
'No, they'll just change the route. We'll plant bugs on them instead, and learn more about where they're going and what they're carrying. It'll serve us better.' He had heard talk about them moving some precious cargo through their neck of the woods, but he didn’t know what. If they could find out that that is.
His thoughts were interrupted by an irritated Sugiyama, ‘And then what?’
He sighed, having had this argument more times than he cared to count, opening his mouth to repeat the facts. ‘Sugiyama-!’
Sugiyama wasn’t having it, slamming his hands on the table, his irritation exploded. ‘No, we can’t just ignore it. then what, Ohgi? All we’ve done is watch and learn, barely striking at so much as patrols!’ He yelled at him, his frustration bleeding into his words. ‘Even when we see something, and can do something about it, we do nothing!’ Even during the Britannian occupation, they had options, limited as they were but now, it felt like all they did was sit on their hands and watch like morons while their people suffered!
Oghi’s eyes narrowed. ‘You know that it’s not that simply-’
‘So what? We just sit back and do jackshit? Where’s your pride, where’s your anger at all of this?’ At that accusation, the man exploded at his subordinate.
‘Enough!’ His yell cut off whatever Sugiyama was going to say, it silenced the entire room as Oghi was a tension breaker, the mediator, he was always the man that calmed things down. it was extremely rare to see him lose his composure but when he did, it wasn’t pretty.
Red in the face, he glared towards his friend, sending a chill down his back as Ohgi growled out a response. ‘You think I like this? That I like walking by as goddamn world police arrest someone just for criticizing the government? I want to pull my gun out and blow their brains out!’ He threw his hand to the side, his pistol within reach and ready to seemingly teleport to his hands, a hand that twitched-itching to use it on something, anything.
‘But do you know what will happen if I do? If I act out?’ He approached the blue-haired man, pushing back with every step he took till his back was to the wall and Ohgi was glaring down at him with a fury that rarely showed itself even if it manifested, but was starting to become more common. ‘They came down not just on us, but the entire district! You saw what happened in Rome, that traitor Suzaku wouldn’t bat an eye ay seeing Tokyo be starved for the acts of less than 10 people!’ He yelled into his face, making the man and the audience watching wince as they all recalled the event, they all saw the reports of looting, riots and bloody murder.
He continued to berate them. ‘We don’t have the luxury of hit-and-run tactics; we can’t hide in the general population! We need to be careful; do I make myself clear!’ Looming over the man, Sugiyama nodded his head.
‘Sur-’ Ohgi stopped him, he didn’t want his friend to agree, he needed his subordinate to follow his orders.
‘I said,’ Getting even closer, enough that the man could feel his heated breath on his face, he asked again. ‘Do I make myself clear, soldier?’
‘Yes, sir…’
'Good, get back to work. I want these reports analyzed down to the letter. Also, have teams be made ready to plant the bugs.' Ohgi turned and left the room.
Line Break
Hours later, after he completed both his work as a rebel, and his rounds at his tutoring job, Ohgi walked through the front door of a home that wasn’t in his real name, but one he still called home. ‘Villetta,’ he called out the quiet home, suspecting that his kids were already in bed, though if not he would have been concerned at it as 10 pm.
‘In the kitchen.’ His wife answered from the kitchen, walking in, he found she left the lights off and was relying on a small lamp to see. Even with that weak light, he could see she was just as exhausted as him as he took a seat opposite from her, leaning into his chair.
‘Busy day?’ He chuckled at that.
‘I don’t think I’ve had an easy day in a while.’ Villetta hummed, not trying to make light of what was true for the both of them as while she was mainly a housewife, that wasn’t easy-not when she was a wanted woman.
‘The mission failed?’ She asked him, having heard that he had been made the leader of a small operation.
‘On paper, it succeeded but that doesn’t mean we didn’t lose people.’ Ohgi replied as they had to move their entire operation to ensure that any would-be captives didn't lead the World Police or Argus to them. Those meant locations, people, passwords and even lines of communication being altered to ensure that they could continue to operate. Part of that was that Sugiyama would be moved up north for the time being.
‘Good thing the kids are already asleep.’ Viletta replied as their 4-year-old and 2-year-old had been put to bed a long time ago. They loved them, but they could be a hassle at the best of times and she could tell her husband was far too exhausted to be able to keep up with them.
‘Things were good while I was gone?’ Ohgi shifted attention away from himself to his wife, who ever since she gave birth to their children, had taken a backseat to their less than legal activities.
‘They were…’ She nearly said good, but things rarely were these days for them. ‘The usual, but we managed to avoid any suspicion.’ They had been taken to their kindergarten which was run by someone that didn't know them but knew enough to keep quiet if they noticed them acting strange. A tall order as many places like it was required by law to keep records of who was there, and those of their parents which made it necessary that they apply with forged ones to protect themselves, and the rest of the kids as the last thing either wanted as for them to be caught in any possible crossfire if they were ever exposed.
Hearing this, Ohgi felt some of the tension in his body leave him. ‘That’s good…it won’t be easy for us to move again. It was hard enough getting those forged papers the first time.’ He recalled when he first realized he'll need them, it was shortly after he watched Damocles launch its dreaded payloads, as the white streaks left in the wakes of the tools that marked the end of the old world slowly dissipated, only to be replaced with frantic and horrified reports of entire cities being wiped off the map, of millions dying without care or mercy.
He knew he was a dead man then, even as he and the rest of the coalition forces were compelled to surrender under pain of complete annihilation.
Taking a sip of the tea that had long gone cold in her hands, Villetta continued. ‘I spoke with some of my contacts,’ Ohgi’s eyes widened in shock and fear which she caught and quickly calmed down. ‘Off the books, Kaname. We met at a hair salon while Henry was getting his haircut.' He calmed himself, ashamed that he hadn’t realized that she would have never done something so reckless without a plan.
Quickly apologizing for his lapse in judgement, he asked the big question. ‘And?’
‘It’s bad, they’re rumors that Kururugi was dispatched to Wales and that something big went down there.' Wales? That was part of the former United Kingdom. It was also a place of high priority for them.
‘That’s close to where Kallen went.’ He muttered, having been informed of it, but nothing else as Kaguya had made it clear a long time ago that she didn’t value his opinions, and after all that had happened, he couldn’t blame her.
‘Yes, I know.’ Villetta nodded. ‘But they don’t know if she was caught. Though I would think that they’re still safe in their mission as no way they’ll keep quiet about it if they managed to find them.’ As harsh as it was, they would have known if Kallen and the rest had been caught as it would have been all over the news, even if it was just the news of their executions as most of them had death warrants already filed for them.
‘They went looking for him over there,’ He stopped there, he didn't know the details, but he wasn't an idiot. He could put the pieces together when Kaguya would authorize such a thing, and would even elements of their European division. ‘If Suzaku was also sent there, it just means that the rumors were true.’ They all knew how much the Grand Inquisitor hated their former leader, and how he was one of the few reasons that he would ever leave his domain for long. He had his misgivings about him, but it wasn’t a fool, he knew that he had been played that night by Schneizel, that betraying their leader was a mistake that cost them close to everything.
‘Do you think that found him?’ Viletta asked, having similar thoughts to the former prince as he had never been her friend or ally, but she couldn't deny that he was more than what she thought he was in their brief time together at Ashford when he had been aware and blackmailed her into compliance. At the very least, he wasn't a horn-dog like so many other boys who she knew starred at her ass, and he had been just as confused and resigned as she had been when they learned that Milly wanted to have a swimsuit café, if only because it meant more work for him.
I can only hope.’
