Atria was holding Stella’s hand in the surgery waiting room when Kaguyama and Mitsubi arrived.  Stella’s clothes were stained with Adam’s blood.  Back in his street clothes, Cap paced nervously before sitting down beside Alice.

    Atria looked up as she saw them come in, and then looked down again.

    “They airlifted us here,” Mitsubi said in Japanese.  “How bad is it?”

    “He’s been in surgery for two hours now,” Atria replied.  “They say the bullet nicked his heart.  The plan is to stabilize him and then transfer him to Tokyo so that he can be closer to our base of operations.”  She looked up at Mitsubi and then down again.  “Closer to Stella.”

    Stella started crying.  “I couldn’t protect him,” she sobbed in English.  “I’ve faced literal monsters without hesitation, but when I saw that man, I was just so scared–”

    “He’s an assassin,” Cap said in English.  “I’ve seen plenty of his type in my world.  They’re death personified.  And with the abilities you had from your world long gone, there was nothing you could have done against him.  You’d have to be insane not to have been scared.”

    “And we don’t know who he is,” Atria said.  “One more unknown on their side.”

    Stella wiped the tears from her eyes.  “I can’t put it off any longer.  I’ve got to call Adam’s parents and let them know what happened.”

    “He’ll make it,” Atria said.  “My experience of wounds is that if he was going to succumb, he would have done it by now.”

    Stella closed her eyes.  “They’re not like us, Atria,” she said.  “They’re so much more fragile than we are.”

    “What did she say?” Kaguyama asked in Japanese.  Cap translated.  Kaguyama nodded and turned to Atria.  “She’s right,” he said.  “I saw the footage from that fight of yours a couple of days ago.  That fall you took would have crippled or killed one of us.  That said, my experience of wounds is the same as yours.”

    Atria gave Stella a hug.  “Tell them that right now the prognosis is good, and that if they decide to come to visit him, they should come to Tokyo.”

    Stella nodded and rose, leaving the room.  Atria took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

    “So where’s Mark Gable,” Alice asked.  Cap translated it into Japanese.

    “He stayed back in Tokyo,” Kaguyama replied.  “I think he’s mainly just enjoying not having to pay for the food at the barracks.”

    Atria opened her eyes to see Alice rolling hers as Cap translated the answer into English.  “He really is an asshole,” Alice said.

    The room was silent for a few minutes.

    “This isn’t a sort of waiting I’m accustomed to,” Cap said to Alice.

    “I take it there aren’t a lot of surgeries in your world,” Alice said.

    “Not since I was in the war.”

    Alice raised an eyebrow.  “Which one?”

    “The second big one,” Cap replied.  “Besides getting to punch Hitler, I was at Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and the invasion of Germany.  Lots of wounded then, but this doesn’t feel the same.  You knew if somebody was going to live or die a lot sooner.”

    Alice blinked.  “So, wait, that means that ‘Captain’ is...”

    “My rank,” Cap said.  “Captain, United States Army, 42nd Rangers, commissioned April 7, 1944.”

    “And ‘Infinite’ is...”

    “A nom de plume,” Cap stated.  “Although, I’ve used it long enough that it’s just my name now.”

    They lapsed into silence.

    “They seem okay for now,” Kaguyama said to Atria.  “Can we have a moment in private with you?”

    Atria nodded.  Together with Kaguyama and Mitsubi, she relocated to a nearby corridor.

    “How are you right now?” Kaguyama asked.

    “I’m fine,” Atria said.  “This group is pretty tight-knit, so I imagine once Adam is in Tokyo we’ll be spending most of our time at whatever hospital he’s at.  I’ll need to make sure we arrange access to a private waiting room, and a place for Stella to sleep on site there.  That will leave a skeleton crew back at the base, but what we’re doing doesn’t need all that much support, just security, and the hospital will have plenty anyway, although I’ll probably need to assign a couple of men to Adam’s room regardless.  So–”

    Kaguyama held up his hand.  “We created you.  You don’t need to hide anything from us.  Are you okay?”

    Atria swallowed and shook her head.  “I failed them.  I should have sent them out with an escort, or wearing body armour.  I should have had men in plainclothes providing backup.  I should have created an extraction plan.  This is my fault.”

    “You can’t blame yourself for all of this,” Mitsubi said.

    “I was the officer in command of the mission,” Atria stated.  “The responsibility for what happens to everybody involved is mine.  That is how being an officer works.  That’s how war works.”

    “But this isn’t a war,” Kaguyama said.  “Not yet, anyway.  And you can’t be expected to account for everything.  Even though I wrote you to be the kind of person who would try.”

    Atria chuckled.  “So, you’re saying this is your fault, creator?”

    Kaguyama shook his head.  “I’m saying that you can’t demand the impossible of yourself and expect to succeed.  It may feel like longer, but you’ve been here in this world for less than a week.  Stella told us that it took her at least that long to come to grips with where and what she was, and she didn’t have to worry about any of your problems.  And then you planned this mission in under a day, with a lot of unknowns.  I wrote you to be good, but even you can’t orientate yourself into a brand-new army in that short a time.”

    “I’m an officer,” Atria said.  “It’s my job to be able to perform as a soldier.”

    “I didn’t write you to be an officer or a soldier first.  I wrote you to be a person first.  To be a bit insecure at times, and overconfident at others.  To care deeply about your friends, to make mistakes and learn from them.”

    “I’ve made too many mistakes,” Atria said.  “It’s like you said on the day we met.  I made decisions.  Those decisions had consequences.  Those consequences may have gotten my friend’s – my best friend’s – fiancé killed.”

    “It will be okay,” Kaguyama said.  “At the end of it all, it will all be okay.”

    “I’ve lost every fight I’ve been in since I got here,” Atria said, wiping a tear from her eye.  “I’m getting so tired of losing.”

    “You don’t have to win every fight,” Kaguyama said.  “Just the one that really matters.  And when the fight comes that you need to win, you’ll manage.  It will be okay.”

    “Is that a thing that creators do to their creations?” Atria asked.  “Tell them it will be okay until they start believing it?”

    Kaguyama shook his head.  “Not creators.  But I’m pretty sure it’s what parents do.”

    “I grew up in an orphanage,” Atria said.  “I wish I’d known mine.”

    “We’re standing right here,” Kaguyama stated.  “And my condition notwithstanding, we are not going anywhere.”

    Atria smiled.  “I may need some time to get used to that, Kaguyama.”

    Mitsubi put a hand on Atria’s shoulder.  “We’ve got plenty.”

    They returned to the waiting room to find Stella talking to one of the doctors.  When they finished, she sat down and took a deep breath.

    “What’s the news?” Atria asked.

    “They still have some work to do, but he’s going to make it,” Stella said.  “They hope to be able to transfer him to Tokyo tomorrow or the day after.”

    Atria turned to Kaguyama and Mitsubi and translated the news into Japanese.

    “I’d say ‘thank God,’ but mine’s in Tokyo and he doesn’t seem to want to talk to me,” Cap said in English.

    “I’ll say it for you to mine,” Alice said.  “And Mark Gable can screw himself.”

    Atria sat down and allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief.  Adam would make it – that was something, at least.  But, they still didn’t know who the thief was who had stolen the power orb from her world, who this new assassin character was, or where Daiki Yamato was.  Kaguyama was right.  There were too many unknowns for her to formulate a proper plan.  And they needed one, soon.

NEXT: “Purpose”