🔍
Take a count of the dead and wounded.
It's just as you said. They used us as bait, and a battle ensued.
Are you disappointed, Talulah?
—No.
They had their reasons for doing this, and I also know exactly what they were. Knowing they had a legitimate reason, I couldn't possibly have gotten my hopes up.
...The informant must be executed.
And how should we pick out this traitor, out of all the people that wanted to flee the battlefield?
They betrayed their brothers-in-arms for a moment of peace. If you make excuses for them, you're only putting your warriors in harm's way.
No. They never swore their loyalty to us in the first place.
You want every last person on your team to be absolutely perfect? That's impossible. You won't find a squad like that anywhere.
But the guerrillas—
The guerrilla fighters aren't perfect either.
There are only a handful of people as perfect as you're making them out to be. Everyone else has their own reasons to be here, and only because they are willing to pay the price, but that doesn't mean they've thought it all through.
Stand down, soldier. Don't try to argue with her.
It takes a lot more work to build a city than to destroy one, Mister. Just let them stay.
If there's more than one way for the Infected to survive, I'd rather see all of those ways work out.
Talulah, you can't always try to go about everything without making sacrifices.
Sacrifices...
Is that even up to me to decide?
All of us are prepared for the worst. You can't win without spilling blood.
Heading south will lead to war. I know it, and I am sure you know it too.
The Empire isn't going to sit by and watch the Infected unite and grow into a major force. If everything goes the way you pitched it and the Infected actually manage to take their fate into their own hands, then this war is inevitable.
—You're right.
We need to first let the Infected understand that their lives have meaning.
They don't have an obligation to face anything that comes after that.
You want the guerrillas to fight this war?
Talulah, are you waiting for a war to break out between Ursus and another country, one that you can profit from...?
Or are you trying to sow the seeds of that war yourself?
(Silence)
You don't want to give me an answer.
You should know that any victory you can hope to achieve will bring with it disastrous results.
You're probably right.
But that doesn't mean I'm going to sacrifice any lives.
Are you prepared to bear the tremendous pain to come?
Not at all. Things are bound to be painful, after all.
Do you expect everyone to be so kind-hearted?
I simply have faith that the people of Ursus weren't born selfish and cruel.
Perhaps you'll come face to face with real evil one day.
I've already crossed paths with my old friend a few times.
I sure hope so.
If a soldier swears loyalty to his fellow men only to later betray them for his own profit, I will personally write up his charges.
But if the group of Infected we are dealing with aren't fighting for the same cause as us, what gives us the right to annihilate them? It doesn't make them our enemies.
——
Talulah!
Ngh...!
Please, go on.
There are a lot of people whom I respected. Not for their strength, but for their honesty.
—I can only hope you are one of them.
...I will keep that in mind.
Petrova, where's FrostNova at right now?
...She's still at the mountain pass. She said she's holding the fort there until we finish capturing the city.
Let's rendezvous with them. I need to apologize to her personally.
So... Is that it, Captain?
There should still be at least three garrisons around. We need to take down every last one of them before we can get the supplies out.
All things considered, she made the right decision. The nomadic city doesn't have that much longer of a walk ahead of it.
🔍
Oh, Talulah!
......
Are you in a bad mood, Talulah?
Nope, I'm fine.
...Eno, Sasha.
Do you still want me to use your real names?
...Why do you ask?
It's better to have a name that we can use to protect ourselves when we are so far away from home.
Sometimes, if we don't pick a name for ourselves, we will only ever be called the names others give us.
But you haven't ever given yourself another name.
That's only because I don't want to.
Why? You were just saying we should use different names.
Because... I want to be the same person both inside and out. I want to become someone whose actions represent her beliefs.
So then your current actions are different from your words.
Sasha!
You're right. That's very likely.
That's why I insist on using my name. It's just that the name doesn't really have much meaning to everyone else.
After all, who I am isn't important to any of them. My name is only important to myself.
So what should I call you, then? When you put it like this, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to call you.
——
Sasha, how about I put it this way, then?
I'm just a rebel, just a normal person.
My name? That's not important. No one should remember my name. This name shouldn't become a symbol, and it shouldn't come to have any other kind of power. It's just my name, and it's nothing more than a name.
If you want to call me by a name, you can just call me Talulah for now. When you call me by my name, I'll turn around and look back, but that's all there is to it.
Talulah.
You can call me Talulah too, Eno.
It may be a little too early to tell you two this... but I want to, Sasha.
Go on.
I want you call me Talulah because I want you to think of me as a friend. Good friends like we're all peas in a pod.
Even if I die, you will still remember my name, but not because I did anything special during my lifetime.
I just want you to remember the time we spent together. I want you to remember you once had a friend called Talulah.
But you're killing bad guys. You're fighting them.
The girl who fights shouldn't have a name. Everyone has their own fight. We are all fighters.
Don't hang your head and just follow in the fighters' footsteps. Don't do that!
Not everyone is like Patriot. All of us make mistakes. Look ahead of you, and look at where he's going. You don't just keep your eyes shut and follow whoever that has the more important-sounding title.
The names you remember are your friends' names. The names of the people you spend the most time with.
It's FrostNova who gave you that extra spicy candy but still gritted her teeth and smiled. It's your teacher, who made you that weird vegetable stew. It's Patriot, who will never give up on training you.
They are all your friends, not fighters.
As fighters, we don't have names.
...Talulah, I don't get it.
Well... I want you to trust me because I'm your friend, not because of my position.
Just like all my other friends.
