Chapter 676

"I..." Claire’s eyes flickered as she struggled with the thought. After a long silence, she finally sighed. "I... can’t understand it."

"I see..."

Evenson’s earnest expression immediately fell. Disappointment clouded his face, and his hands slowly slipped from Claire’s shoulders.

He understood where she was coming from.

Claire might be sheltered, naive, and a little too accustomed to staying inside her own comfortable world, but she was still an adult with a firmly established worldview. Expecting a few words of persuasion to overturn beliefs she had held for years was asking too much.

But before Evenson could even lower his hands completely, Claire suddenly grabbed them.

"I may not understand it," she said, "but I know what I have to do now."

That was effectively a yes.

Joy surged through Evenson’s chest. The corners of his mouth lifted before he quickly suppressed the smile.

"If you do this..." His expression turned serious again. "It’s going to hurt."

Doing inhuman things while still thinking of yourself as human. Committing atrocities while desperately trying to preserve your humanity.

That contradiction could become a form of endless self-torture.

Evenson hadn’t expected Claire to willingly accept that pain.

And, more than that, it hurt him to see her choose it.

"It probably will," Claire admitted, pressing her lips together. "But this is my choice."

She took a breath.

"Compared with all of you, I really am naive. Maybe even childish. War... might really be as terrible as you say. Maybe it’s even worse. But the truth is, I still don’t know what it’s actually like."

"Sigh..."

Olesesis twirled a strand of hair around one finger and gave her a mocking smile.

"So you’re planning to keep going until you smash your head against the wall, huh? Careful. If that wall is too hard, you might end up covered in blood. And nobody’s going to pat your head and tell you it’ll be okay."

"That wouldn’t be so bad."

For once, Claire didn’t fire back with one of her usual sharp remarks.

She simply smiled.

"If it hurts badly enough, I’ll accept whatever lesson the war teaches me."

Evenson frowned.

"Why put yourself through that? You already know you might not be able to endure it. Why deliberately choose that suffering? You could walk away now. Wouldn’t that be better?"

"But I want to keep going."

Claire smiled calmly.

"I want to keep going... for you."

"For me?"

Evenson stared at her, genuinely bewildered.

Claire nodded.

"Just as Agent Carter said, to defeat our enemies, we may be forced to abandon our humanity. We may have to become beasts, monsters indistinguishable from the people we’re fighting."

She glanced gratefully toward Peggy Carter. She was deeply thankful that Peggy had forced her to understand what war really meant.

"But when the war ends, we have to reclaim our humanity. We have to become human again."

War could drive people into becoming beasts.

For survival, for victory, for the sake of those they loved, people might be forced to cast aside the parts of themselves that made them human.

But that was precisely the point.

It was something forced upon them.

Once the war ended and the dust settled, shouldn’t they recover the humanity they had been forced to abandon?

Of course they should.

Because if they continued living like beasts after the fighting was over, then eventually they would become no different from the enemies they had defeated.

Even if they destroyed the enemy’s bodies, annihilated their nations, and wiped them from the earth, what would victory mean if the enemy had succeeded in changing them forever?

The dead might still laugh from whatever hell awaited them.

You destroyed our bodies.

But we turned you into us.

You became the perfect heirs to our savagery.

That is the greatest conquest of all.

That was why reclaiming humanity after a war mattered so much.

It was why it could not be delayed.

If the enemy slaughtered prisoners, then they had to swallow their grief and return enemy prisoners safely home.

If the enemy murdered civilians, then they had to maintain discipline and refuse to harm innocents.

That wasn’t foolish mercy.

It was proof.

Proof that they were still human.

Proof that the enemy had not succeeded in changing them.

They hadn’t merely defeated the enemy on the battlefield. They hadn’t merely destroyed their bodies.

They had won the war of the spirit, too.

The enemy could remain monsters.

They would remain human.

And that humanity would never be conquered.

"War begins, and humanity is the first casualty."

Claire took Evenson’s hands in hers and looked directly into his eyes.

"But when the war ends, the beasts must die. Humanity will return."

Her fingers tightened around his.

"The war forced you to throw away your humanity. But when it ends, I want you..."

She paused.

"No. You must find it again."

Her voice softened.

"And when that day comes, I’ll lead the way."

Evenson was speechless.

For so long, he’d thought Claire simply hadn’t seen through him.

She saw the jokes, the carefree attitude, the ridiculous behavior. But beneath all of that was the coldness and darkness he’d carefully kept hidden.

He’d always believed she hadn’t noticed.

But now, with a bitter little smile, Evenson realized the truth.

He hadn’t seen through Claire, either.

She was far stronger than he’d ever imagined.

She was willing to endure the pain of contradicting herself, willing to suffer for the sake of preserving her humanity.

That took an incredible amount of strength.

And she wasn’t doing it for herself.

She was willing to endure all of that because she wanted to help Evenson find his humanity again when the war was finally over.

That was love.

A kind of love he had never expected to receive.

"Claire..."

Faced with that love, Evenson found that he had nothing to say.

So he simply pulled her into his arms and held her tightly.

"Sigh..."

Peggy Carter watched the scene with a helpless smile.

She hadn’t expected this conversation to turn into a public display of affection.

Fortunately, she wasn’t exactly living the single life herself.

Still, standing there while the two of them embraced was painfully awkward.

Peggy quietly opened the door and slipped out.

There were plenty of newly converted Hydra agents downstairs who still needed their brains rearranged.

She could deal with them instead.

At least they didn’t come with romantic complications.

"Cough!"

Peggy had escaped the scene, but the Eredar twins were trapped.

They couldn’t leave without making it obvious, but staying was becoming increasingly unbearable.

Olesesis finally slammed a hand against the table.

Oh, so they’re getting bold now.

Before, they at least knew enough to sneak around.

And now they’re openly flirting and hugging right in front of me?

Do they think we’re both dead?

Salorass quietly tugged at her sister’s sleeve and whispered in Eredar.

"You didn’t catch what that little brat was really saying, did you?"

"Hm?"

Olesesis blinked.

When it came to these sorts of things, her sister had always been considerably more calculating.

She genuinely hadn’t understood.

Salorass curled her lip.

"’When the war ends, the beasts must die. Humanity will return.’"

She gave a quiet snort.

"She was telling us exactly what she plans to do."

"When this crisis is over, it’s going to be her time."

Salorass glanced toward Claire.

"And we’ll be pushed aside."