Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume3 Chapter3 (section)

===Part 2===

They were back in the floating general airport’s control tower.

“No, like I said in my report, we need to majorly rethink the risk presented by the Threat and- no, that is not what I am saying. If you would just look at Document #4495 I uploaded, you will see we must be cautious about using the Pinaka III because…”

Letnahe repeated her explanation again and again over her military smartphone.

President Omotesandou Kyouka shrugged and waited until the call was over.

Meanwhile, the redheaded buns Secretary whispered in her ear.

“Thank you for working such long hours for us. How about I use this time to change your socks?”

“Why? My feet are not swollen yet.”

“It is crucial that you give your feet some rest before you begin to feel it.”

The redheaded buns girl knelt on the floor without waiting for a response.

Kyouka smiled bitterly and lifted one ankle with her long legs still crossed. She could move them to an extent, but she still had difficulty with shoes and socks. This was not a normal Secretary duty, but she was still glad to have a subordinate who went above and beyond in looking after her.

She had not asked for it, but the girl gave her a massage while removing her leather shoes and socks. Her big toe and second toe clenched and unclenched in response to the stimulation to the sole of her foot, but then she heard a heavy sigh. Letnahe must have finished her call because she stuck her phone in her pocket.

The silver-haired brown-skinned wife turned toward Kyouka.

“It’s no use. They insist a special envoy is only supposed to convey their opinion, not present an opinion of her own.”

“I imagine so.”

“How can you just accept this?” Letnahe wrapped her left hand in her right hand and spoke with some barbs in her voice. “You’re the one that said we can’t expect a nuclear attack to work against the Threat.”

“Well, Letnahe-san. You don’t mind if I use your first name as a sign of affection for someone else who knows the truth, do you?” The President smiled while her kneeling subordinate put new socks on her feet. “I said I ‘imagine so’ because I know your higher ups aren’t going to change their plans just because they’ve been given new information. They had decided from the beginning they were going to make a nuclear attack. They would input the launch codes no matter the situation. They could always find some excuse or another: maybe you failed to contact them or maybe there was a mechanical malfunction.”

“But why?”

Letnahe blinked behind her glasses as she did a double take.

A nuclear attack was a big deal. If it succeeded, they might just defeat the Threat at the cost of a great many lives. But if it failed, they would only lose those lives and possibly more. It was a high risk, high return gamble, so surely the Indian Space Force would carefully recalculate everything if the situation changed, right?

Kyouka sighed before answering.

“Because they don’t mind if it fails.”

“Eh?”

“They have a plan ready for if they launch the nuclear attack and it fails. They have the rails set up so they can benefit even then. So they won’t recalculate anything. But they would have a much harder time if it got out beforehand that the attack would fail, right?”

“B-but that doesn’t make any sense! The entire country doesn’t want to commit diplomatic suicide, so why would they choose a path of failure from the very beginning!?”

“Strange, isn’t it?” The President tilted her head like a child. “But the fact remains that the coalition force has continued to take actions that clearly have no chance of success. Even you have noticed how unnatural it looks, haven’t you? The Indian Space Force is not incompetent, yet they are rejecting a plan that makes perfect sense if you think about it for two seconds. Why is that?”

“…”

“Do you want to know the answer? But your curiosity is strange as well,” smoothly continued Kyouka. “You’re an outsider here, so you could wait until you’re safely out of Japan before you puzzle over all of this. Are you worried about your Asian neighbors as a member of the Indian military? Or do you feel responsible as part of the coalition force? But this area is crawling with the real Threat and your allies could launch a nuclear weapon at any moment. To be honest, I doubt all those PR niceties really apply in a situation like this.”

“Well…”

“Do you have some reason why you can’t leave the country and think over it all while sipping at some tea? Hee hee. Yes, sorry. I know you could never do that.”

Letnahe looked up with a gasp.

The demon in a wheelchair smiled up at her like a child and did not hesitate to present the answer.

“Your left hand”

Her tone was innocent and thus precise.

She immediately attacked straight at the woman’s weak point.

“''The ring is sensible enough, but that mobile watch makes no sense. It’s cheap and just not your style. In fact, it’s a men’s watch.''”

Kyouka had mentioned earlier that it was an old model.

It was an antique from over a decade ago and the company had long since stopped supporting it.

Continuing to use it because you liked it did not work in this case. When the company stopped supporting an internet-connected device, it ceased to function. Plus, the military was strict about data management, so a soldier could not just sync something like that with their own phone. In fact, the phone she was carrying was a military model not available to the general public.

Yet she had made it all work.

If she had kept the mobile device functioning without the company’s support and manually solved any security problems that cropped up, then she had to be extremely attached to it. She would not have done that all this time if she simply liked its color or shape.

“''Wearing someone else’s gift on the same hand as your wedding ring is rather impure, don’t you think? But you have a solid reason for doing so.''”

There had been some hints scattered around.

For example, her age.

She had been familiar with the humidity and air quality in Japan in a way that suggested personal experience.

It was also curious that she had followed the President without needing any additional explanations when they discussed Crystal Magic.

Not to mention how she placed such emphasis on breathing.

She had a habit of holding her left hand in her right when feeling nervous, but she did not clutch at her ring when she did so. Her protective charm was something else that she had treated as a valuable and kept on even when she showered.

The President could deduce some things from all that.

“''Your loyalty to the Indian military never really mattered to you.''”

“Stop.”

“''If you had remained in your comfortable home surrounded by your lovely husband and adorable children, you never would have been exposed to the danger of the Threat and a nuclear attack. What happens to Japan is irrelevant to someone living in India, right? Yet you traveled all the way here. To accomplish some other goal.''”

“Please stop!!”

The enigma of Letnahe was all summed up by her left hand. She wore a ring on the ring finger and a mobile watch on her wrist. That unfaithful hand carried gifts from two different people.

The demon stated her conclusion to the other demon.

“''Was Kiyosawa Hadome a friend from your school days? Someone you couldn’t forget even after marrying someone else? And now you wanted to get him away from this deadly place. That is your true purpose here, isn’t it?''”

Letnahe Kurent’s knees gave out like she had taken a shot directly to the heart. A light beeping sounded from her mobile watch. It was a warning about her breathing and heartrate.

“You wanted to stop it from the beginning.”

The silver-haired brown-skinned soldier who had gone to such lengths to externally manage her internal organs had abandoned all of that.

Only Kyouka’s words filled the room.

“You wanted to stop the Indian Space Force’s nuclear attack. Why was it you tried to get a report on our plan? Were you hoping to use your viewpoint as a professional soldier to secretly correct all of our mistakes ''so you could convince them it was not yet time to launch the nuke''?”

The military was the ultimate system of hierarchy where everything progressed according to a complete flowchart of yes or no questions. But that meant a soldier who knew what those questions were could prepare the data like a chess problem in order to keep the nuke from being launched no matter what.

She could prevent it from happening no matter how much the unseen string-puller wanted to hit the launch button based on emotion.

The President sighed softly.

“I don’t think you did anything wrong.”

“…”

“I’m almost jealous of you for living a fulfilling enough life to have to choose between your marriage and your first love. Knowing your desires is a form of guarantee. I know I can trust the current Letnahe Kurent who abandoned her military orders and comfortable family to protect an old memory.”

“How…”

This was not to protect someone or to defeat the Threat.

The soldier got out what little voice she could after having everything revealed and shattered by this teenage girl.

“How can you trust someone as despicable as me?”

“I can trust the purity that brought you this far, biting your lip all the way. Goodness and purity are not always one and the same. And I am much fonder of you for approaching possible death while biting your lip than I am of the powerful who can give a public apology like it is nothing. No matter how terrible a person you might be, I know you will never lie when it comes to Kiyosawa Hadome. Isn’t that right?”

She fell silent.

Letnahe Kurent sat blankly on the floor while covering her face with her hands.

Omotesandou Kyouka knew this soldier was part of the string-pullers. She was the wicked woman who had approached Natlena, set her up as an avenger, and given her a false identity to send her to Second Grimnoah.

But what had she thought when she realized Kiyosawa Hadome was on that ship? How about when she learned he was being attacked by the decoy Threat at that artificial resort in Iceland, or when she learned he was at risk of being killed by the real Threat or a nuclear attack here in Japan?

What if she was one of the string-pullers, but only one of their agents. What if she was not in a position where she could protest such a major decision?

Kyouka placed a hand on her cheek.

“Couldn’t you have taken just Kiyosawa-sensei away with you? Either by knocking him out or drugging him?”

“I couldn’t.” Letnahe sounded like she was casting a curse with her hands still over her face. “I just couldn’t. Taking only Hadome-kun to safety wouldn’t actually save him. I know him. It would utterly destroy him to know so many students had died on his watch. He could never be like us. It would break his heart.”

This anguish was something she had been unable to share with anyone in the military or in her family.

But another wicked woman could help ease the pain as her heart was being crushed by the goodness remaining there.

“Lieutenant Colonel Letnahe Kurent,” whispered Kyouka. “This is a question that can never be answered by sending it to your higher ups and waiting for an answer like normal. But you can find an answer if you take a bit of a detour.”

With both her shoes back on, Kyouka rotated her wheelchair around.

She grabbed the headset from some control equipment.

“All sorts of transmissions are flying around here and I can intercept them with this. But the random number table needed to decrypt them is another matter. Letnahe-san, you would have that table thanks to your position deep in the Indian Navy, wouldn’t you?”

The hands lowered from her face.

The soldier spoke not so much with resentment as with the tone of a sulking child.

“Are you insane? That might save the world, but it would make me a traitor.”

“It would. Which is why this is a request, not a command or a suggestion,” said the President. “But there is a decision you can make that will protect the person you came here to protect. You took the risk of visiting the target of a planned nuclear attack, right? All so you could stop that attack from occurring.”

“Couldn’t you attack me and take it? Maybe you can’t use Crystal Magic anymore, but you have plenty of hounds you could sic on me.”

Still seated on the floor, Letnahe looked over at the redheaded buns girl who was slowly standing up. She was a Grimnoah Crystal Magician and the President had made sure to keep her around during this conversation.

But Kyouka shook her head.

“That might be easier, but I won’t do it.”

“Why not!?”

“Because we are both the type to work from the shadows and we have shared our secrets here. So I will not attack you and make just one of us the villain. If you wish to do this, you must accept just as much responsibility as me.”

The soldier squeezed her eyes shut behind her glasses.

She clenched her teeth and looked up at the ceiling. She looked about ready to stomp her feet in frustration.

“Can you not do it now that your momentum has been stopped?” whispered the President. “Then leave Japan right this instant and leave your old regrets here. The Threat is here and a nuclear attack will soon be launched, so Japan is no place to hang around for no good reason.”

“I am the special envoy sent to provide a message from the coalition force as a whole.”

A quiet jangling sound came from her neck.

But this was not her dog tags. When she removed a thin chain from her neck, flash memory smaller than a tube of lipstick was pulled from her large chest. She displayed her resolve as the wicked woman who wore both a ring and wristwatch on her left hand. She tossed the flash memory to Kyouka while trying to shake free of her doubts by speaking.

“Whatever the Indian military might be planning, a nuclear launch is unlikely to benefit the coalition as a whole, so I must reassess some information.”

“Hee hee. You’re willing to go this far for the first love you couldn’t bring yourself to forget even after getting married and having children?”

Kyouka held a hand to her mouth as she laughed and she did not hesitate to continue from there.

“If this is discovered and the Indian military kicks you out, come to us. Second Grimnoah will hire you. At the very least, you will be closer to the center of the world here than with that coalition force.”

The two wicked women shook hands.

Letnahe knew she could never tell anyone about this and she could never again walk with her head held high.

Nevertheless, there was something in this world she wanted to protect.