act28side

With this in my hand, at least I'm not a completely useless symbol.

Nonsense.

Captain...?

Jessica, it's been five years. In these five years, have you ever once thought about why I picked you as my assistant?

This is Blacksteel we're talking about... There are all kinds of amazing people here. But I still chose <i>you</i>. And not because of that gun you're holding, but because of your tears.

Tears... but tears of weakness can't protect the people behind me.

Tears don't imply weakness. The work we do at B.P.R.S is dirty, tiresome, and dangerous. No one does this kind of work just for the money.

Only someone who's able to empathize with the pain of others can throw herself into a cause for a group of strangers, or a place she barely knows.

Captain... Just when I thought I was completely useless, you brought me into your team.

That was the first time in my life I ever felt appreciated, and I still remember that feeling.

To repay your trust, I would willingly brave hell and high water.

But you shouldn't... You shouldn't walk that path. No one's journey should be to earn someone's else's recognition.

Do whatever it is that you yourself really want to do. Do what truly makes you happy. You don't need anybody's recognition except your own, deep in your heart.

Captain... I... I really want to cry right now...

Then cry. Let your tears flow. No need to hold back.

Woody, your halo is flashing.

You're goddamn right it is. I want to kill you.

You keep saying that war never ends, that all you can do is control it.

But you're wrong. War <i>can</i> be ended. Just not by you.

War is ended by countless ordinary folks. Folks who've been encroached on by it, but like weeds try their hardest to survive.

Everywhere that's ever burned down in the flames of war has always been fixed up by untold numbers of normal folks, trying their best to get back the lives they used to live. Even in the most dire of circumstances.

You should've died on the battlefield. Would've been a much better fate than becoming the war-obsessed madman you are now.

At first, I just wanted to return the bullet to you. But now, I really wanna kill you.

A strong gale lifts up the old man's hat and tosses it into the air.

But he neither looks up nor moves to grab it.

His eyes, not blinking for even a moment, are fixed on the man standing opposite him. All his muscles, from his cheek to his neck, are as tense as can be.

And above his head, his halo is flashing rapidly.

The man opposite him keeps silent for a time, then gradually takes a deep breath. As though it is only through the sound of the roaring winds that he can understand the old man's words.

Well then. Do you know who it is you're going to kill?

Your nemesis? Your friend who betrayed you? Or a complete madman?

None of the above. It's an arrogant dick who looks down on everything.

In his eyes, everything can be weighed on scales. And to achieve his goals, he's capable of sacrificing anything.

...What about you, then? What kind of man will shoot me with that bullet?

An ordinary man.

A ordinary man who lost everything except his anger when you looked down on him.

Very good.

What's so funny?

That finger of yours always yearned to hold a brush, but in the end, you'll use it to pull the trigger. My hands yearned to hold scriptures, but in the end, they'll be drenched in blood.

It's just funny how fate makes fools of us all.

The wind lifts Cliff's coat, revealing both the firearm on his waist and the hand reaching for it.

Through the flurry of snow, he sees Woodrow doing the same.

He suddenly remembers how, all those years ago in Laterano, on the way back to the dorm, a gust of wind blew Woodrow's hat away and carried it into the sky. And for a very long time, it stayed up there.

Years have come and gone, and now that hat in the wind has finally landed back on the ground.

You can see <i>my</i> tears...

But what about them?

Them? Who?

Jessica doesn't give him an answer. She merely looks back at the desolate mine. After the explosion, it looks all the more devastated.

Sir, do you know what that used to look like?

I don't.

Well, I do...

I know there was a time when the energy tower burned endlessly to bring warmth to the residents here.

I know there was a time when that diner never closed. Everyone would gather around the tables over beer and sing to their hearts' content.

I know the winters here are long and cold, but with their dedication and hard work, every last person who lived here filled this place with light and warmth.

Their fierce, brilliant light enveloped every inch of this place to drive out the frigid cold and darkness of the winter nights.

They turned their bustling everyday life into burning red blood, and injected it into this plate frozen by the long winter, giving it life and vitality.

They were people whose path was uncertain, but insisted on walking it nonetheless.

They were people who were cruelly tormented by life here, their necks bent under its weight. Even then, they lived here amid the snowstorm.

They... were people who shed tears, but no one ever noticed.

My tears... can't stand in for their sadness.

The girl raises her gun, and through its sight she sees an array of faces.

Some look confused, some disapproving, some stunned, some dazed. Some are chuckling, some are lamenting.

But their faces are not important. They quickly enter the girl's eyes, and exit them just as fast, never stopping in her heart for a moment.

Instead, a few other faces appear in her mind.

The girl who prayed in the tent.

The woman who scampered away in the snowfield.

The old man who drew his gun in the dark night.

The man who departed in flames.

But my gun will cry for their sorrow.

She raises her arm up high toward the sky, and fires all her bullets in one go.

As the snow thrashes through the air, the empty casings fall to the ground, melting the snowdrifts away with their lingering heat.

The gunshots reverberate in the air for a long time. Before silence returns to her surroundings, the girl's ears catch a faint, feeble sound.

It's the sound of her tears smashing into the earth.

Huff...

Ugh......

You lose.

Sorry, Woody. I chose war. I chose never-ending war.

So... my life is like a bullet. An explosion that can't be stopped. A siege and a defense with no end in sight.

I can't end war, but you can end me.

Only when the last soldier fighting it falls, can the war finally end.

Rupert...

Now there's a name I haven't heard... in a long time.

Thanks, Woody, for still being willing to say that name. Aside from you, there's not a single person who remembers it.

Goodbye...

Cliff closes his eyes and waits for the bullet to tear his forehead apart.

But before that, he hears a ringtone.

He pulls out his communicator, takes a look, and chuckles. Then he puts it back into his pocket.

Who was it?

The military.

Don't worry about it. Go on.

Is it Bolívar... or Victoria?

Nothing you need to worry about, Woody.

Is it Columbia?

Do it!

Another war is about to start, isn't it?

...Where will it affect this time?

A forewarning, perhaps. It's not set in stone.

Give it to me.

Woody, a lot of the things I have on here are just trivial, everyday matters to me. But to you...

They'd be a whole new nightmare.

...Hand it over.