The Empire of Reimia (3)

Latro, with a stone-like expression, stood at attention, staring at some point in space. The events of the past few days had blurred together in his mind. He remembered pressing his face into the snow, trying to hide from the damned tracers, firing back at the silhouettes in the darkness, crawling under bullets that could pierce any material. He ultimately decided that it was the amplifiers that had saved him. After the fall and the subsequent loss of consciousness, he automatically switched to camouflage mode, and the "rain" kept him alive. Perhaps that was enough to fool the enemies and their visors, or maybe they just didn't feel like chasing after him. These were the best explanations he could come up with. Either way, he had bet that his chances of surviving the ordeal were higher than those of his comrades, and on that ill-fated day, it had paid off. When he regained consciousness and got up from the cot, he couldn't come to his senses for a long time. The loss of his fingers wasn't perceived at all, nor was what was happening around him. At one point, in the endless jumble of faces, Berwang appeared. Latro's hand darted towards him and pulled a crumpled note from the pocket of his uniform, which he hadn't changed since then. "Thank you for preserving my last message, friend!" he wanted to say, but his throat was so dry that nothing but a croak came out. Then he simply patted his classmate on the shoulder, nodded, took a couple of steps towards the door, but all these maneuvers made him dizzy, and he had to collapse back onto the cot. "W...what?" Parfionora's question pulled him out of his stupor. "A... Yes. The first and the best. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be half the person I am now. I'm sure he left in the style he wanted, remaining true to himself and his principles until the end... But still, his death is a loss for the universe. I won't bore you with clichés about the fleeting nature of our days or about avenging the enemies of the empire, although I could. I'll just say that I'm ready for action. In that regard, nothing has changed.