Shattering Humanity

[Flashback to Squad 40’s first meeting, after Saku awoke from getting knocked out.]

Shelly(towards Saku): "If you want my honest opinion, your only redeeming quality as of right now is your respectable strength which can help me protect what I cherish most. In return to you, I won’t deny my ’womanly’ instinct to protect your dog, since it’s one of the cutest things I’ve been able to see in a long time. ’Plus, we still have to spar with swords and I’ll admit I’m not fully comfortable in that skillset.’"

[Back to the present Roronora City, the Don Laban, her Homie Hathor, and the Don’s Takamagahara guests are walking passed a familiar urban setting.]

Saku: "You lying bitch!"

Shelly with her hands behind her head, gives an irritated side look towards him.

Shelly: "What are you crying about now?"

Saku: "When you told me you weren’t comfortable with sword fighting, you failed to hide the fact you’re the descendant, reincarnate, or whatever, of the most skilled sword fighting Valkyrie. You just said that shit to get me to stay."

Itsuka, Jormungand, and Drakaina slightly confused at the comically irrelevant realization only Squad 40 would know about.

Shelly: "So? Have you thought, just maybe, I’m not my grandmother from almost one thousand years ago?

I’m myself.

Even if Laban says I do look like her, MY fighting style prioritizes my ability to throw fists, while also using my tooth gripped blade as a defense and as a parry tool. Madame Fryer is my emergency back up since she can float. I use 3 swords when it’s needed, but I fight better when I can feel the connection of my fists to their face, than the vibrations and resistance of swords."

Laban on the left of Saku, side eyes Shelly, annoyed. Remembering how the proven new age Valkyrie not only took Madame Fryer from her, but also achieved "Mach 1", Shelly’s own power level system, and used the butt end of her katana to win the fight.

Dom is looking around aimlessly, and disengaged from the conversation. His eyes widen as if remembering memories.

His head quickly darts left and right. Jormungand and Drakaina are the only two who notice the Izanami Gunner break away from the rest of the group, without a word.

Drakaina: "Uh-!"

Jormungand: "Wait Sis, hold on. Big Bro Dom usually doesn’t do stuff like this."

Drakaina gets a sad, slumped posture.

Drakaina: "Okay, as your real sister, hearing you call that nincompoop ’Big Bro’, physically hurts me."

Jormungand: "I’ll follow him and see what’s up, just let the rest of the group know he had to use the bathroom after too much fast food or something."

With the main group creating distance, focused on Saku and Shelly’s argument, Drakaina reluctantly has no time to argue and allows her cherished little brother to go alone. They give each other a nod and hug, then Drakaina prances to catch up.

Jorm heads down the same street Dom went, and can see his Izanami squadmate walking through the thin city crowd. They make their way into a quiet, empty, and still damaged part of the city. Dom stops at a corner, looking across the street, not moving.

That pause gives Jormungand time to catch up and the young member slowly approaches his superior.

Jormungand: "You look a little lost."

Dom takes a minute and swallows his emotions.

Jorm looks across the street at what Dom is staring at. A burned apartment complex is across the street. The same apartment building that Dom set on fire the night his father died and less than a few hours before Leviathan’s invasion.

Now there is a meteor hole right where Dom’s old floor used to be.

The area of the city is still not rebuilt and with no signs of initiative to do so, Dom seems depressed.

Dom: "Seeing my old home makes me realize, if I hadn’t accidentally set my house on fire that night, and then brought to the police station, I would have died by one of those Iceman meteors. Instead, I have to live with these weird forms of unfair guilt. I’ve killed people, Jorm. I killed men possibly with living family and friends. Those people could still be alive in this city, at this moment.

But if I didn’t do it, Izanami would have been picked off by those snipers.

You and your sister would still be seen as slaves.

Not only that, the guilt of being the reason my mother broke my father’s spirit, mixed with another type of weird guilt from before this apocalypse happened."

Jormungand, not prepared for the actual heavy reasoning behind Dom’s actions, is speechless.

Dom: "Living, knowing that the closest friends I ever had, were innocent victims of an ignorant gang shooting outside of a convenience store. After they were treated differently by the ignorant racism of the store owner, using bullshit excuses to make them wait outside. For both of them to inevitably get shot while I was in the store, buying us snacks after school."

The Gunner takes a deep breath and chuckles as he sits on the curb.

Dom: "If the world around me doesn’t kick my ass, I just end up screwing myself over with stupid mistakes, because I’m me. I was left alive to wonder, ’why was I left alive?’."

He takes a deep breath and pauses, the sounds of the bustling, rebuilt city around them.

Dom: "To be honest Jorm, I really don’t appreciate my life at all. Everyday, we’ve saved people from Hell or killed those aliens, so people can feel safe. I’ve been told a couple times that my actions are appreciated, because someone who does appreciate their existence, managed to survive.

So others are atleast appreciative of my existence. Which is pretty cool, I guess, but does the appreciation from others, matter more than my own appreciation for existing?"

Jormungand(chuckles):"Well that’s an easy one...yes."

Dom turns his head to look at the youngest member and to hear him out, as Jorm sits on the curb next to him.

Jormungand: "If you’re the only one to appreciate your existence, that’s a total of one person most likely doing selfish things. But after helping others, that total number will be more than just one...

...

....

If we’re being open about our lives Dom, when I was born, my own mother was taken from this world, by me. I never got to know her and only know what she looked like from the pictures my dad had. I’ll never know how her voice sounded, because the first outcome I was responsible for in this universe, even if accidental, was killing my own birth giver. When Drakania talks about her happy memories with our mom, to be honest, it makes me feel like complete shit.

Knowing I robbed my sister of more happy memories with our mom. That’s why I try my hardest to make my older sister safe and happy now."

The two young men who both grew up without a mother, look at the sky. SeiõrSnow is falling all around them.

Dom: "My mom abandoned my father and left him alone to take care of my difficult ass. Usually it’s the other way around in the ’ditching parent world’, but I guess my own mother didn’t appreciate my existence either. My pops turned to drinking and he died in a drunk driving accident the same day my friends got gunned down. Which was also the night I set fire to my apartment, just before Levi and the Icemen invaded. I guess, if I had to find a single bright side to that 24 hour stretch, it’s that I didn’t have anybody to worry about these last few years, until I met you guys in Takamagahara."

Jormungand looks at his glove covered open hand, he then closes it into a fist.

Jormungand: "My father saved me by tossing me off his shoulder and diving on my sister to save her during a terrorist attack. Backpacks with lethal explosives placed around the crowd of a championship team’s parade. I only suffered a concussion, but my father saw one of the cowards drop a backpack right behind Drakaina and walk away. Once a single explosion went off somewhere else in the crowd, my dad had just enough time to toss me off his shoulders and then he jumped on Drakaina, to take the blast that killed him. A few of Drakaina’s toes got blown off but she survived because of my dad’s courage."

There is another moment of silence between the two unfortunate young men, both victims of irrational hate.

Dom: "Don’t take this the wrong way lil dude, but the way I see it, your Pop’s sacrifice for your sister, can also be seen like your Mom’s sacrifice to trade her life for yours.If there is a heaven, and if you could ask her, I’m sure she would say she’d bring you into this world 1000 times, in exchange for 1000 of her own lives. That’s how a true loving mother would think...I think."

Jorm thinks about the comparison for a moment and then lets a slight laugh out his nose.

Jormungand: "You really do know how to find a bright side to things, huh? It’s no wonder your in Big Bro Saku’s Division. And aye, if it makes you feel any better, I appreciate you, Big Bro Dom. Even if the girls don’t."

He holds out his human fist and Dom connects the fist bump.

Dom: "Thanks, brotha."

Jorm gives him a friendly back hand to Dom’s chest and points his thumb in the direction they came from.

Jorm: "Let’s go catch up to the rest of the group. I had Drakaina tell them you were taking a massive shit from all that food you ate. Plus, I ain’t trying to make my sister worry more than she already does, haha!"

The two Izanami members stand up from the curb and Dom smiles.

Dom: "Bet."