Cap held Yuri’s hand and took a deep breath as Atria sat down on the couch across from them. The others had left them alone in the barracks common room for the moment, at least. On the other couch, Kasumi cradled Aquila, who still had her arms wrapped around her knees. Sayori and Yukari had gotten up to stretch their legs and look around the common room.

    “I’ll make sure you get some good rooms in the barracks,” Atria said. “It’s the least I can do for you all after this mess.”

    Cap nodded and lowered his voice. “You’ll want to put Aquila and Kasumi away from everybody else if you can. They can be a bit...noisy.”

    Atria blinked and looked over to where Aquila and Kasumi were sitting. “They don’t seem like the argumentative type.”

    “They’re not,” Cap stated.

    Atria paused for a moment and then said, “Oh.”

    “Well, at least you got here safely,” Yuri said.

    Atria sighed. “That’s...something, I guess. It really feels like amateur hour here. They keep talking about a rematch against Balthazar, but that’s suicide. You can’t take him head-on – you have to get him while his guard is down. And just about every proposal I’ve made since I got here hits a brick wall. Honestly, as much as I wish you were all to safety, part of me is glad Aquila is here. Now I have a ticket home, and I’m really tempted to use it. But, if I did...” She sighed again. “Well, going home just means waiting for the end with Prometheus, and I can’t do that if I can still accomplish something here.”

    “Wouldn’t going home cause you problems anyway?” Cap asked. “I know in my army, they didn’t look kindly on officers just getting up and leaving the battlefield.”

    Atria chuckled. “It really won’t.” She motioned to her pants suit. “Do you see a uniform on me? I sent two letters to my fiancé, Prometheus, right before I came here. The first was a message telling him where I was going and why, and the second was the resignation of my commission. I did things properly, like I always do. I’ve been a civilian since I got here. But that...backfired.”

    Cap cocked his head. “Oh?”

    Atria nodded. “If I was still a lieutenant-colonel, they could have attached to this unit as a foreign officer. But, because I disclosed that I’m not anymore, they made me a civilian contractor instead. So, I’m not allowed to carry a sidearm, or arms of any kind, and I’m not assigned to any combat missions. I get to do intelligence work, and only intelligence work, except for the occasional moment where I get to do something like register you six. Back home, we called people like this ‘intel bunnies’...and it wasn’t a complement. My main job right now is chasing down Balthazar’s creator, and that’s given me nothing but headaches. You have any idea how hard it is to locate the real name of somebody behind an internet alias who probably died at some point in recent past? It’s really hard! About the only thing we know is that Balthazar first appeared on a fan site around four years ago, and the name used by his creator is a fairly common one that appears on several different websites and has been in almost constant use by multiple people. So, about the only thing I’m accomplishing right now is banging my head against a wall.”

    “But they used your procedure for capturing, um, us,” Yuri said. “That’s something, right?”

    Atria shook her head. “That was one of my first proposals, and they used it to catch people who shouldn’t have been caught. But...how shall I put this? The first day working with them was good. They seemed to listen to me, although they were on the fence about my proposal for a covert action attack on Balthazar’s current base. And after that, everything got worse.

    “There are two main groups here other than our kind. There’s the Japanese, who are the people of this country, and this group that works with them called ‘Americans’, who are from some nation on the other side of the ocean. The Japanese didn’t like the proposal for the covert attack, but the Americans did. And, since we had a decent idea of where Balthazar’s base was located at the time, they sent out a team to try it that night. The team got killed, and Balthazar moved his base to some new unknown location. After that, the Americans were angry at the Japanese for not backing them up, and the Japanese got angry at the Americans for going behind their backs. To make matters worse, both sides refused to do a proper lessons learned analysis, and have declared that since the first attempt didn’t work, there’s no point in making a second. And since I’m the one who proposed the attack in the first place...” Atria’s shoulders slumped. “Let’s just say that I’m pretty much shut out of planning now.”

    “I’m sorry to hear that,” Cap said.

    “I’m trying to work with these people,” Atria declared. “I really am, but they keep treating this as some sort of story instead of an asymmetric war. And I just don’t know how to get through to them.” She chuckled. “You know what would have been good here? You and me. I could have worked with you – we would have been a great team.”

    “I think we might have been, on another hub world,” Cap said.

    Atria cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

    “Back when I met Aquila, I was travelling with somebody named Daiki Yamato,” Cap explained. “I was helping him get home to his fiancee. And, he said that he and another version of me had fought together in a war, just like this one, and that version of me had died. And his war was on the same hub world as the version of you Aquila visited.”

    Atria blinked. “So the person who took the other me’s place...”

    Cap nodded. “It’s the sort of thing I would do. I have to admit curiosity about what killed me, though – I’m pretty indestructible.”

    “You would make a good team,” Yuri said with a smile. “I’m picturing it now.” Her smile turned into a grin. “But, just remember, Cap is mine.”

    Atria grinned back. “No worries – I have a fiancé too, and I’m all his.” Her grin faded. “Of course, it’s not like an Atria-Cap team is going to happen here anyway. We’re both on the sidelines – you’re a refugee, and I’m an intel bunny.”

    “Did you get to meet your creator, at least?” Yuri asked.

    Atria nodded. “That wasn’t great either. The author of my story is a man named Junichi Kaguyama, but he has this degenerative mental illness called Alzheimer’s. He was far enough along in it that he was forgetting who I was in the middle of talking to me. Apparently he didn’t finish my story, either. The last five books were written by a friend of the illustrator’s, but he just fleshed out the outline. No insights there. But, I guess I’m okay with it.”

    “Oh?” Cap said. “Why’s that?”

    “There was this incident,” Atria replied. “It happened about four years ago. My best friend, Abel, was on a reconnaissance mission, and he came across a village being attacked by the Paladin Legion. Abel was never the sort to leave innocent people in danger, so he stayed and mounted a defence by himself. He called for backup, but his mech was pretty badly damaged by the time I could be on my way. But, I got there just in time, and together we stopped the attack. Abel got away with just some minor wounds.

    “The thing is – now that I know that my war was a story – the more I think about it, I shouldn’t have made it in time. The Paladin Legion hesitated at a critical moment. I should have gotten there just in time to see him die. But, I didn’t. My creator allowed me to save him, and Abel was with me right to the end of the war.”

    Cap nodded. “That happened a lot to me in my story world. I rescued a lot of people I should have been too late to save. It was as though the author had a finger on the scale, tipping it in my favour.”

    “It’s a kindness,” Atria said. “For all that my world was created to be at war and for me to save it, my creator allowed me to rescue my best friend. I think that’s enough for me.” She leaned forward. “So, you going to tell me why you’re no longer a superhero?”

    Cap took a deep breath as he felt Yuri squeeze his hand. “After we left your world, Balthazar found us. To smoke us out, he burned down a town, with everybody in it. And, if I’d gone to rescue them, he would have confirmed we were there and killed us all. So, I did nothing, and they all died. The only justice I could give them was to say a prayer for their souls over their bodies. After that...well, after that I don’t think I could ever call myself a superhero again.”

    Atria whistled. “That’s horrifying even by the standards of my war. That said, perhaps there’s a silver lining you haven’t considered.”

    Cap stared at her. “And what would that be?”

    “Being a superhero didn’t treat you very well,” Atria replied. “Perhaps you’re better off without it.”

    Cap chuckled. “You’re not wrong about most of that. Let me guess – you read my body language?”

    Atria shook her head and pointed to Yuri. “Every time you mention being a superhero, a certain look crosses her face. It’s the sort of thing you see when somebody a person loves is suffering, and they don’t know how to make it better. You’re very lucky to have her.”

    Cap gave her a wistful smile. “I know.”

    “You may also wish to consider a question,” Atria added. “If you had gone in and gotten yourself and your friends killed, would there have been anybody to remember and say a prayer for all those poor souls who died in the fire?”

    Cap blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that. There would have been nobody.”

    Atria nodded. “I’m not a superhero, and I don’t know superhero-ing. But, I was a soldier, and after fourteen years of warfare, I think I know war pretty well. And, sometimes that’s the only justice that is possible. And if the superhero ethos makes it a blemish on your conscience to preserve yourself so that you can at least say a prayer for the dead when there will be nobody else to do it, then I’d suggest that it’s time to leave it behind, and good riddance to it. But, that’s just me.”

    “Well,” Cap mused, “eighty years was a pretty long time to protect a world as its superhero.”

    Atria blinked. “Eighty years! And now you’ve got my brains melting out of my ears again. Seriously, you people...” She looked over to where Kasumi was still cradling Aquila. “I hope she’s going to be okay.”

    “She’ll get there,” Cap said. “She always does. That Lady Meliana looking like her magical knight just really rattled her.”

    “What’s that about, anyway?” Atria asked.

    Cap shook his head. “I don’t really know the details, truth be told. We’re best friends, but all I know is what she’s told everybody else. She was a real villain in her war, and Lady Atlantia was the last person she killed in it. But, that magical knight’s shadow hangs over her like none of the other people she killed, and I just don’t know why. Kasumi probably knows, but I never pressed it. When Aquila’s ready to tell us, she will.”

    “Well, I’m not going to let anybody send her out unless she’s recovered from the shock,” Atria declared. “I’ve got enough pull to do that, at least.” She stood up. “I’m going to see to your room assignments. Rest up, and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”

    With that, she left Cap and Yuri to watch over Aquila and Kasumi.

    “You’re going to be okay,” Kasumi said quietly. “Everything is going to be okay.”