Chương 1: No Heroes

There are no heroes in war.

'To think I had once thought differently. I was such a fool back then...'

In a time that Sato had felt was so distant, so detached from his current reality, his aspirations were as bright as the afternoon sun. An optimism that shone, unyielding against the darkness of despair.

Or, so he thought.

Ultimately, the light within him wasn't everlasting, but deceivingly fleeting - a moon that had simply yet to wane.

All of Sato's hopes and optimisms were doomed to fade once he learned that war, real war, wasn't the romanticized feat of glory it was always painted to be.

In the end, war was just a means to cultivate the most profound of fears. An event that left one paranoid, shaken, and broken to the core.

As for the battlefield? Such a place was merely where one's morals went to die. They'd be cast aside - shed like molted serpent skin and left to rot on the bloodied mud and rock below.

It was for these reasons that Sato…

'It's all a joke. All of this.'

…found it impossible to believe that heroes could be forged in the crucible of the dead and dying.

Quite the contrary.

Akin to the underworld's influence, those all-engulfing flames served only to melt away the shell of one's humanity. And, from within those molten ashes, a shadow of what once was would emerge: a true monster.

The deep reverb of a distant explosion echoed across the city skyline. That city was Sapporo, its once peace-loving streets and sidewalks now a battlefield trampled by the boots of clashing modern infantry.

Amongst the chaos lay a single man - a man named Sato Katsuro.

"Guess I'm still alive," he mumbled beneath his strained breath. The coarse texture of the cold concrete wall at his back tingled his spine. Each inhalation was strained as the grains of kicked up dust and ash grated against his throat.

Ears - intensely ringing with the fury of a tolling bell.

Within the repeated popping of gunfire, an unnaturally loud thunderclap shattered the heavens.

Then another.

And yet another.

Each was a consequence borne from modern war machines as they carved new scars into the city's flesh.

Eyes - blurred to obscurity and burning with a stinging dryness.

Looming above were titans of glass and concrete, their sleek, modern forms - once molded to perfection - now gnarled beyond recognition. Pillars of blackened smoke belched forth from their frames, spoiling the pale blue afternoon sky.

Nose - crinkled in disgust by the disturbing odor lacing the seaborne winds.

Sato flared his nostrils and took a deep breath. He had hoped to catch a whiff of salt in the air. Yet it wasn't the aroma of the sea that flowed so freely across the wind, rather it was a scent all too familiar - an offensive mix of acrid bitterness and copper.

"Gunpowder and blood," he muttered, then leaned back. But he found no relief. Instead, a jolting sting shot up through his bones and out his fingertips like lightning.

"Ugh. It hurts. It hurts so much..."

Every part of the soldier's body throbbed relentlessly, as though stabbed by a thousand knives. Even so, the physical agony paled in comparison to the horrors ahead.

Sato's armored transport appeared first or, rather, what was left of it.

Now the vehicle was just a worthless heap of scrap and ash. Leaking from the wreckage were dozens of translucent fuel trails. As they made contact with the glowing orange embers below, each transformed into a massive river of serpentine flames.

His comrades were next.

Those with whom Sato had shared the bonds of mutual duty were now reduced to medleys of chunked flesh. Once again, each of his short-lasting friendships were shattered to pieces - all scattered haphazardly across the ground like a bloody confetti.

"This is hell."

Sato's heart sank deep into his chest as he realized what he had to do next.

"I guess I should take a headcount…"

Slowly, the soldier slid his eyes over the ground with great apprehension. His voice was hoarse and heavy with weariness as he listed off the fallen.

"Furukawa…"

"...Endo…"

"...Hori…"

The soldier continued, announcing more of the dead, one by one.

With each name, the world seemed to grow lonelier, darker, and colder. It was as if the weight of isolation were tightening around his neck like a strung noose, choking him as it slithered shut. Every breath was already a conscious struggle by the time he'd finished speaking.

"...and Miura."

Sato bit deep into his bottom lip. The sting of his right canine digging into skin matched the burning frustration he felt inside.

"Well, that's it. I'm the last one left…again."

Gazing over these recently departed souls, a growing sadness ached in the soldier's chest. Yet he did not weep. Once, tears might have sprung from his eyes like a rushing fountain, but now they were bone dry - a forsaken well in the desert of loss.

That's not to say Sato didn't care for the fallen, mind you. It was just that, over the years, the soldier had shared many meals, stories, and hardships with dozens just like them. Only for those journeys of companionship to always end the Exact. Same. Way.

No matter how sturdy their bodies...

No matter how robust their minds…

Sato was always the one left behind.

Sato was the last one standing.

'There's no point in crying or regretting it anymore. No matter what I do, the outcome never changes. I'm just…never strong enough to change things. Never enough to protect who I want to protect.'

The soldier shakily raised his ash-covered hand to view.

"Yet I'm alive. I always seem to survive while everyone else dies."

Sato's voice wavered with a forlorn laugh escaping his chapped lips. He cast his sights toward the blackened sky and smirked.

'Can't say I feel fortunate. What good is living when every new day is a new hell?'

His chest burned brightly inside - the impatience and anger welling within likened to a rising combustion of magma.

"Everything sucks…"

Unlike Sato, his comrades had been spared from the suffering. The ending chapters of their lives was quick, without notice. They had no time to reflect in vain. No time to cry for their loved ones or waste breath cursing their pointless deaths in a senseless war.

"They skipped the hard part… Those lucky bastar-" the soldier began, but his words were cut off by a series of violent, throaty coughs.

Sato recomposed himself with a breath to steady himself - the taste of salted copper coated his tongue as he forced air down his gullet. It scraped down like shards of glass as it traveled.

'I can't keep sitting here complaining. I better get a move on - I'm not dead yet,' he thought and attempted to lift himself up.

The soldier tugged his body upward to no avail.

He gripped a nearby bit of rebar and pulled. Failure once again.

He pushed himself up with his palms, only to fall back into place.

"W-What?"

Bewilderment lit up Sato's face like a flame - he couldn't believe that the body he'd been training for so many years was refusing his commands. Then the realization struck: though he hadn't followed his comrades to a swift afterlife, his body was far from unscathed.

'Another scar to the collection...' Sato thought and glanced down.

His skin was shredded, frayed like a rope worn to threads. Both of his legs were mangled in ways he hadn't thought possible. A pool of crimson spread between them, and a jagged bone jutted from his right shin, resembling a shank of meat waiting to be carved.

'...or maybe a little more than that.'

The fact that he hadn't noticed these injuries until now proved the kind of shock the soldier was in. Though his body was battered and broken, Sato couldn't feel a thing. He shrugged and laughed to himself.

"I'm not walking this one off."

This turn of events was no surprise for Sato; a sudden death had always been part of the job description. What did shock him was his agreement to the mission to begin with. Even on paper, he and his team knew they'd be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice.

"Yet we all nodded our heads. We're fools, aren't we?"

Sato looked to his side in search of a response. But it was one he wouldn't receive, not even from the normally-so-sociable ally at his side.

"You still with me? Tanaka?"

Sato turned his head and was greeted by his friend's face.

Once the picture of health and vigor, it was now a pitiful sight of pallor-sick skin. The beige ballistic armor meant to protect him was pulverized, peppered with fragments of shrapnel. Beneath each surface scar lay another, etched deep into the man's flesh.

But, even so, the damage did little to deter him from being who he truly was. Though the man's body had long gone cold, his expression was filled with the warmth he'd felt in life - the satisfaction one would display from a job well-done.

"Geez... You really are something, you know that? Dying with a smile on your face…"

Sato sighed in disgust and his expression bent into a cringe toward his fallen ally.

"How the hell can you look so happy? How can you be so at peace? You're making me look bad for complaining, you bastard."

Though his tone seemed irritated, there was an undeniable hint of admiration within it. He would never admit it, if asked, but Sato felt nothing but the greatest respect for his fallen friend.

'I really envied that about you. I wish I could find true satisfaction in all of this, too. Maybe I wouldn't be so bitter if I did.'

The soldier held his breath and hung his head low - a brief moment of reflective solidarity to honor the dead.

"Goodbye to you all. Hope the other side's worth it."

The soldier heaved a deeply rooted sigh. When he did speak again, he did so with a trauma-hardened gaze - one that seemed to stare beyond reality.

"That was one hell of a loud sound, wasn't it? No matter how long I'm at this, I can never get used to it."

During Sato's fight to protect truckloads of evacuating civilians, the atmosphere could hardly be called quiet. An orchestra of crackling gunfire, thrumming engines, and ground-shaking explosions had consumed the city limits and the surrounding sea.

Yet, despite the volume, a piercing whistle had dominated the sky. It was the kind that made one's ears curl and vibrated the sinuses.

'Maybe they're finally caring,' was Sato's sarcastic thought at the time. He had averted his eyes upward toward the source. So much did he hope it was the manifestation of something celestial. Something to free humanity from the bonds of their own cruelty.

But the truth was always harsher in reality. After seeing it, Sato's heart sank into his chest, quickly followed by his buckling knees.

"I should have known there'd be no savior for the likes of us…"

That sound wasn't some benevolent deity weeping for mortalkind. No, its origin was far more ominous.

That whistle…

Growing louder, piercing through the chaos...

It was the harbinger of death - an artillery shell.

'To think a single push of a button could end so many lives,' Sato sighed. 'War really is…terrifying'

As he reflected, an encroaching flame crawled ever closer to the soldier. A few moments later, it began to engulf him, scorching his skin, his armor, and his wounds. Sato felt a raspy scream leave his throat, but only the dead were around to hear his cries.

'It hurts... It hurts!'

He'd become a human torch - blanketed in a heat so intense the soldier could feel his blood boiling beneath his skin. Yet, strangely, his body began to feel the coldest it had ever been.

'Someone…help me…' the soldier pleaded into the sky. But only Death stared back, his visage not bearing that of a dark hood and scythe, but dozens of spear-pointed missiles riding upon tails of white-hot propellant.

They were high above the city lines, streaking across the skyline and heading straight for the land he had fought to protect. In a matter of seconds, his sacrifice, the sacrifice of all of his comrades…it would all have been for nothing.

Sato closed his eyes and cursed. 'How could I expect anything different? How could I have expected to make a difference?'

The soldier had always wanted to die a hero…to leave a legacy. But it was all a fever dream in the end.

Sato was no hero. He was delusional. A fool whose life was wasted in the service for others. A fool who would die forgotten and alone.

'I'm such an idiot,' he thought. 'I'm an idiot and…'

A lone tear rolled down his ashen cheek, followed by the rasp of a bitter-filled laugh.

"...I don't want to die…"

***

Sato regained consciousness to find himself in an odd situation.

'It's so dark…'

He blinked, but nothing changed. All around the soldier was the darkest black, as if he had been swallowed whole by a giant beast. His senses strained to pick up any hint of his surroundings, but there was nothing. No sound, no light, no scent – only an oppressive, all-encompassing void.

Sato's pulse quickened, or did it? If the soldier could feel, he knew his every heartbeat would've been pounding against his chest like a drum in the emptiness. He reached out, fingers desperately grasping for something, anything, to hold on to, but his hands met only the same impenetrable darkness.

'Is this it? Am I dead?' Sato scanned the space around him and inwardly snarked: 'So I'm not important enough for a red carpet… But at least some judgment would be nice. Even a pamphlet to get started.'

Indeed, there was nothing.

No reward.

No punishment.

No reincarnation.

Just…nothing. In this space, Sato was the only being in existence; a lonesome speck left to float within the vast void of nonexistence.

'So, is this it? Will I be alone here…forever?'

Sato's life flashed before his eyes. His every choice and his every regret, everyone he'd ever met and everyone he'd ever lost - they all appeared and vanished in front of him like flickering scenes of film.

'I wonder if anyone will remember me? Will I be missed?' After considering it for a moment, Sato shrugged to himself. 'Eh, probably not. Anyone that might've cared is already gone.'

Sadly, there was no one left to mourn him. The soldier had given up everything for the war effort, and the war happily took all that he had to give. It devoured every iota of his being down to the marrow in his bones.

Still, it would be wrong to say what Sato had felt in that moment was sadness or anger. Deep within his chest was a sense of tranquility. The waters that were usually so turbulent within his heart and mind were still - devoid of even the smallest discordant ripple.

For the first time in many years, Sato felt…

'...calm? Am I relaxed…?'

Astonished, Sato drifted in silence for a few moments. It had been so long since he genuinely felt at ease. There was always a looming cloud of despair waiting for him just on the horizon. Always fear waiting around every darkened corner.

But now there was nothing. And though Sato couldn't feel it, he knew he must've worn his most heartfelt smile at that moment.

'That's right. It's over. It's finally over!' the soldier cheered internally. 'And you know what? I could use a vacation! I won't have a care in the world! Not that I'm actually there anymore,' he internally chuckled.

Sato leaned his head back, the warmth of pure satisfaction welling up within his chest. He was fully resigned to his fate, ready to embrace his eternal rest.

'Time for a little R&-'

"-proaching…"

A disembodied voice, faint but clear, broke through the darkness. It was masculine in nature - holding a rough and raspy quality that could only belong to a man of advanced age.

Sato's eyes snapped open and darted from side-to-side in surprise. 'What was that? Is someone out there?'

The soldier shot his eyes in every direction, trying to locate the voice's source. But his efforts were in vain - it seemed to echo across the void, emerging from deep within the darkness in every direction simultaneously.

"Is someone there?" Sato attempted to call out. Though his mouth performed the motions, his throat produced no sound.

'What? I can't speak?'

A quizzical expression painted over Sato's face as he pondered, but the strange voice returned, this time sounding significantly closer.

"-epare…ar…val…heroes."

Sato turned his head toward his best guess of the voice's origin and pondered, 'Someone's out there. Could it be one of my comrades? Or maybe one of my enemies?'

A moment of deliberation passed, and the soldier shrugged.

'Who cares who it is? It doesn't matter either way. Not like they can kill me when I'm dead already.'

Abandoning a vocal response, Sato tried reaching out a hand, only to be halted by a jolt of stabbing pain as it flashed through his chest like lightning.

'What…was that?' the soldier winced.

Almost in response to his question, the sensation returned with a vengeance.

It began as a pinch, a minor irritation, but as time passed, the pain only grew more severe. The pinch became a throb, and the throb became a stab. It wasn't long before Sato's body was transformed into a vessel for the word "agony."

The soldier gritted his teeth, and his head jerked backwards.

'It's like my body's being torn apart from the inside!'

Sato keeled over and curled into a ball. The sensation of serrated needles piercing every atom of his being was a vast understatement. Even the feeling being consumed in a roiling gout of flames was just a stub of the toe in comparison.

'Get it out of me! Get it the hell out of me!' he pleaded, but time just mercilessly ticked on by. The minutes felt like hours as the soldier's body writhed in place.

'Why?! Why do I have to keep suffering?!'

With clenched teeth, he began to claw at his chest, seriously considering the possibility of tearing it out if it meant the suffering would cease. It wasn't long before his mind lost all sense of orientation.

Was his body lifting down?

Was it falling up?

Was he in control of his movements? Or was he a mere spectator doomed to suffer with no end?

Sato couldn't tell anymore.

All he wanted was for things...

'...to end! Please just end! Let it end!'

Luckily, end it did. Several moments after Sato's plea, the searing stab in his chest began to recede in waves. Though slowly, the pain vanished back into nothingness, thumping away with each heartbeat.

'Okay… Okay… It's over. It's finally over…'

Only it wasn't - relief would remain a distant sensation as an odd physical sensation coiled around Sato's leg - one of the only he'd felt aside from the pain.

The soldier shifted his gaze and was confronted by an otherworldly doorway of light. Within its deepening depths, swirling waves of glittering energy danced, each bearing sparkles of strange distortion.

Then, without warning, the pressure around Sato's leg tightened, and the gateway began gradually growing in size. No, it wasn't that the door's stature was growing. Instead, it was as if...

'...it's getting closer?'

A thousand possibilities swam through Sato's panicked mind.

'Where's it taking me? What's going to happen? Should I fight?!' Sato braced his mind and readied his fists, only for that flicker of resistance to fade away like a spent candle.

'No… I'm too tired to fight. Not anymore.'

Sato took another glance at the doorway and sighed in resignation.

'Whatever happens, I won't fight. Not anymore. That will never change.'

But, little did Sato know, he couldn't have been more wrong. Wrong because his end was the beginning. The beginning of a decades-long war that would engulf a world within a fiery struggle for power and survival.

Little did he know, he was about to be dropped right in the middle of it.