Shattering Humanity-Chapter 108: Your Pops Was A Star

The sounds of screaming can be heard around Daisuki, is stuck in pure shock. Blood and a small piece of skull splattered on his brand new 1st Lieutenant patch.

The little girl with torn, blood covered clothes and small dirty feet, is laying motionless.

Unlike Ephesus, he is unconscious but with his brain exposed and the youngest soldier on the dusty foreign ground with the mortal wound, his body is spasming and the sound from his mouth is horrifying nonsense.

Daisuki is wide eyed, mouth agape, and can’t stop watching his friend unwillingly cling on to his painful existence.

Daisuki: "Wha- How....?"

The most glaring difference between Katsu and his father is now exposed.

While looking at the results of unnecessary hatred, and ignorance, from one single shot. Yuzai’s green eyes are at Below Sanpaku, unlike his son that sits Above. His eyes are moving around trying to spot the enemy sniper. He spots the muzzle of a sniper disappearing around a corner of a single story building and sees two men with snipers through the only window not boarded up of the wooden building.

Katsu’s father looks around and all the "less experienced" soldiers are either in poor cover, or still in shock at the unrecognizable 2nd lieutenant, spasming while gurgling his blood.Ephesus’ flailing hands are getting his blood on the closer of his platoon mates watching him suffer.

Yuzai: "Hey, ’Lieutenant’, you gunna just stand there and wait for all of us to get picked off?! Or are you gonna do your job?!?"

He watches as a bullet scrapes Daisuki’s helmet, luckily not as powerful as the .50 that the other sniper is using, and it hits the building, but it doesn’t even make the man flinch.

Yuzai: "Goddamn it! Two hostiles! Broken orange wooden building with the brick entrance! 10 o’clock! Return fire on the wooden structure and the single open window!"

The rest of the platoon starts firing back on the building. Yuzai pulls out his M9 and pops the safety off. Daisuki notices what the corporal is about to do and snaps out of his trance.

Daisuki: "NO!"

Yuzai gives Ephesus’ a Coup de grace to put the poor man out of his undeserving end. Making his body finally go limp and silent with a *BANG* echo that gets mixed with the other return fire.

While closing the distance between the two of them, the oldest of the platoon puts the handgun back into its holster and looks at Daisuki with a disappointed stare. He quickly grabs the lieutenant and pulls him to the cover vehicle, throwing him into the back seat door. The action by a subordinate shocks Daisuki. The real lead militant looks right at his commissioned leader.

Yuzai: "Do us both a favor, when you write the report later on this incident, to save both of us any headaches with the higher ups, just say you, the commissioned officer, ordered the return fire, not me. You didn’t freeze up as the leader of us all, in a high pressure situation or make an embarrassment out of our entire military and..."

He gets up and fires one single round from his M14 at the wooden building 50 yards away.

Yuzai: "...I was just relaying and following your orders. There’s a reason I don’t want to be in your boots, Lieutenant.These moments, are that reason. We shouldn’t even be here in the first place."He looks at the bodies of the first two victims of the ambush and the tears swell.

Yuzai: "And I have a bad feeling about my decision right now."

There is still screaming heard around the urban city blocks with nonstop gunfire echoes. Another friendly platoon soldier, returning counter fire, is badly positioned for cover next to the back of the Humvee. The poor, unfortunate man in his mid 20s gets sniped in the chest by a .50 cal round. The force of the direct hit on the soldier from the insane power of the round leaves a huge hole in him and paints the back of the vehicle red.

Yuzai: "If we weren’t here right now, it would be night time back home and I’d be spending time with my family, watching those cartoons with Katsu. But instead, I’m here, playing the enemy, to men I don’t even know the names of. A little girl is dead because of us being here, D. True soldiers don’t invade and conquer. A true soldier is someone who stands their own cherished ground. Yea, we should help others too, but all that resulted in us being here was the prevention of one adorable little girl’s ability to grow into a beautiful and successful woman."

The soldier next to the victim with a hole through his body stands up and unloads on the wooden building. As soon as the last bullet fires, the sound of a .50 cal rifle goes off again, and the soldier’s ammo-less gun, along with his right arm flies in the air. The unfortunate man’s body begins to spasm from the sheer force of the caliber coming in contact with bone and he stops the ’disturbing dance’ after a few seconds.

Yuzai grits his teeth, looks over the hood, and he sees Richie, still in the driver’s seat and now he is the one stuck looking in disbelief at the dead little girl.

Yuzai: "Richie, get the hell down from the glass window! What are you doin’! It’s like you guys haven’t been in a fuckin’ fire fight before!"

Richie is staring at the 80% headless, blood covered little girl, around Shelly’s age, who clearly struggled in her short life. Just to be in the sights of evil in the end.

Richie: "Shelly...."

Yuzai opens the door from the outside and pulls his friend to the dirt with him. A bullet goes through the drivers side half-down window as soon as they hit the ground. The most seasoned vet looks around. One of his remaining platoon members is taking bad cover and looks at Yuzai. The soldier gets up to join them behind good cover.

Yuzai: "STOP! NO!"

But it’s too late a .50 calibur round goes through the neck of the soldier on the move. The headless body falls and Yuzai watches the head fly through a broken window.

Only 6 soldiers in the platoon left alive.Katsu’s dad looks at the only available window to the building, the cement part of the building. About 50 yards away. The father of a child with exceptional quarterbacking abilities, grabs his hand grenade from his pouch.

Daisuki: "What the hell are you doing? There’s no way you’ll-"

Yuzai: "D1 Center-fielder and I ain’t a bad QB either. Hey, relax, this is life. When there’s a problem, try thinking outside the box and take chances at trying shit. Hopefully the things you took a chance on will set those little dopamine receptors of yours go off, soldier."

Katsu’s father gives two soft playfully slaps with his gloved hand to the younger leader’s face and a smile that would one day become commonly seen for the young lieutenant.

Yuzai leaves the protection of the vehicle, immediately ducks back to cover, and the *BANG* of the Beretta goes off from his target window.

The athletic soldier then pulls the pin, leaves the side protective military jeep and does a hopping "Crow Step", like a professional center-fielder, releasing the explosive towards the open window. It soars through the air at such a perfect angle, that anybody watching would know by its apex that the grenade was going to hit the target. Yuzai quickly jumps over the hood of the Humvee and goes back to safety.

As soon as the grenade flies perfectly through the window, the muzzle retracts but it’s too late for the assailant. An explosion from within the weak cement room makes it collapse in on itself. There are no longer any enemy shots coming from the bullet torn building.

{Back at the sheet metal and wooden plywood entrance of Sanpaku}

The infantry and defense of Takamagahara has their flashlights on, walking through the dark underwater tunnel.

Daisuki is finishing up telling his old war story with Katsu’s father and Shelly’s father as surprise cameos.

Daisuki: "On my first mission as a 1st Lieutenant, out of the 10 brave soldiers in the small platoon, only 6 made it out of the gun fight alive. That included your individual fathers, Katsu and Shelly.When we checked the target building, that was when we saw the bodies of all those civilians."

Katsu is staring down at the ground upset.

Katsu: "So it was my father who made the order to kill all those people?"

Shelly: "Katsu! They were in danger and Sensei just froze at the most inopportune time. Your father is not guilty of those people’s death, neither is Sensei! It’s the evil people who set them up to kill innocent people around them."

Itsuka: "Holy Shit Mr. Daisuki, you were willing to take 300 years in prison, for the penalty of someone else’s orders? That’s actually really respectable."

Daisuki sighs.

Daisuki: "If I hadn’t been such a shitty soldier and done my job like Katsu’s father did, I would have made the same decision anyway. Besides, I really didn’t have any family left at the time, I’m not a scholar, and well, from how much your father talked about you Katsu, Yuzai had so much more to live for than I did.In my mother’s language, his name can mean ’Guilty Warrior’ but I definitely didn’t see him like that. It’s funny, in her language, guilty and courage sound alike so I would call him ’Yuusei’, instead. But he never caught on. Your Pops was a star, Katsu."