You are Noel Tiberius di Hazaran, and you have to admit that you’re a little tired of this nonsense. Every single day for more years than you care to think about now has been dedicated to the play and counterplay between yourself and your fellow half-blooded warriors and the Organization that has spent at least the last century experimenting on people like you. Girls and young women with nowhere else to turn, brutally trained and conditioned before being split open and having their insides replaced with flesh and blood taken from man-eating monsters – created, as it happens, by the Organization itself. Used as part of a system to keep the local population controlled and to extract their wealth for services, the need for which was manufactured in the first place, until your deaths. Tortured, emotionally and physically, pushed to the edge of sanity in an attempt to create the perfect warrior.

After the formation of an open rebellion the Organization was seemingly destroyed by its own hubris as it sought to wipe out the enemy its own cruelty had created, it seemed like all you had to do was collect the last holdouts of your kind from around the various nations. But that changed with the arrival of an entire army from a distant continent, sent by the shadowy backers of the same Organization that you rebelled against.

That army quickly seized control of the northern nation of Sakia, right up to the northern borders of Hazaran, using machines of war and artillery well beyond anything you’d ever seen in person. What has followed is a largely asymmetrical war waged in mountain passes and under cover of darkness, with short raids on key locations and fortification of the choke points where the enemy’s armor has to pass in order to invade Hazaran.

“I want to end the war,” you declare. “And I think you both have a chance to help us do that.”

You’re speaking with two representatives of an enemy force, which had been positioned outside the northern border city of Daria. After destroying the supplies they were meant to be safeguarding, which were probably intended to support an eventual siege of Daria, you accepted a surrender for the sake of getting treatment for those wounded in the raid.

“That’s quite a declaration,” captain Klemel tells you with a frown, as sergeant Jargar takes notes. “It sounds like crossing a definite line.”

Lucia, one of your comrades, takes notes as you reply. “It is. But it’s also pursuing the very thing I promised you – repatriation.”

“By ending the war you can send us home quicker.”

“That’s right,” you nod in confirmation. “By defeating the Organization, we can ensure the best outcome for everyone involved – you all get to go home, and our little corner of the world will be free from your faction’s influence and threats.”

“And how many of our fellow soldiers will die?” Klemel presses.
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