⚔️ ARC5: What Rises as the Enemy

Fighting was no longer a special event.

Morning comes, and we move.
Night comes, and we fall.
Over and over.

Rubble piles up without being cleared.
Across broken zones, temporary lines are drawn.
Don’t cross. Don’t touch. Don’t think.

That became daily life.

"Damage rate: within projections."
"Advance speed: no issues."
"Losses are being kept to a minimum."

Someone is always reading out numbers.
Somewhere, an evaluation is always being delivered.

There is no anger there.
No impatience, either.

Only rightness, flowing flatly.

We move.
Called, running, firing, returning.
Those who didn’t return are replaced by reports.

Names aren’t used.

Then, one district was cut off.

"From here on, the target is different."

That was the explanation.
That alone was the reason.

Different is a useful word.
You don’t have to think.
You don’t have to compare.

"Negotiation is unnecessary."
"Prioritize suppression over restraint."
"Further losses are a disadvantage to the whole."

Right.
None of it is wrong.

Just before we stepped onto the line,
for the first time, I heard a “voice.”

Not through an amplifier.
Not an order.

Low. Calm.

"Stop your pointless resistance."

It wasn’t shouted.
It wasn’t a threat.

Almost
as if it were concerned for us.

"If you go further, the damage will increase."
"That is irrational for you as well."

...Rational.

At that word, the area went quiet.

"We are not destroying order."
"You are."

Someone’s breath caught.

The voice continued.

"You think you’re doing what’s right."
"But how many have you crushed under that rightness?"

A rebuttal is prepared immediately.

"Unverifiable statement."
"Hostile intent detected."
"Possible emotional manipulation."

A correct process.

But—
something in my chest turned gritty.

That voice
had not been screaming.
It had not been throwing resentment.

It only stated.

"You can’t go back anymore."

For some reason,
those words pierced deeper than any order.

"—Fire."

The command drops.

Light runs.
A bursting sound.
Impact.

The voice cut off.

But—

It didn’t feel finished.

We should have brought it down,
and yet there was no sense of winning.

If anything,
only the feeling remained that we had been “made to choose.”

"Target: elimination confirmed."
"Operation continues."

Correct voices cover everything.

But I understood.

That wasn’t an enemy that appeared by chance.
It wasn’t something born from confusion.

This war,
this world,
this rightness—

will inevitably produce it.

That’s why it won’t end.

War is no longer
a “situation.”

Something with a will
is looking at us.

And that,
I could feel—clearly.

— Lumi🪄💕