Chapter 1702 - 236 - Heroes First Campaign (5)

I immediately went over to a nearby water station and started washing my hands. I kept rubbing my palms together beneath the running water, desperately trying to remove every trace of blood from my skin, but most of it had already dried into my palms.

I scrubbed harder, almost as though I could somehow erase what had happened if I just kept washing long enough.

The water continued flowing over my hands, but the stains refused to disappear completely.

"W-What am I supposed to do...?!"

My voice trembled as I stared helplessly at my hands.

While I was still washing them, Morofuji-san suddenly approached me from behind.

"Kaori," she said gently.

"M-Morofuji-san..."

She looked down at my hands and watched me continue washing them even though it was already obvious that the blood wasn't coming off anymore.

"K-Kaori..."

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

The moment those words left my mouth, she suddenly pulled me into a hug.

"It's going to be alright," she said while holding me tightly. "Everything's going to be alright, so please try to calm down."

"I can't do it... I can't..." I muttered as my voice began breaking apart. "And because of that... Ayaka... Ayaka..."

"Please don't worry about that right now," Morofuji-san said as she tried to calm me down. "Everything's going to be alright, and Ayaka is going to be alright too."

Morofuji-san continued comforting me, and honestly, I hadn't expected her to be the one who would do something like this for me.

We hadn't exactly been that close before all of this started, at least not enough for me to imagine that she would suddenly hug me when I was falling apart like this.

Still, I suppose our time training together had changed things between us.

Even though she was now piloting jet planes and fighting in the air alongside everyone else in the middle of this war, she was still part of our group. We ate together, slept in the same place, trained together, and spent practically all of our time around one another.

Naturally, after going through all of that together, some kind of bond had eventually formed between us.

"Kashiwagi-kun, hold her for a moment," Morofuji-san said. "I'm going to check on Ayaka and see how she's doing."

"R-Right."

Kashiwagi-kun stepped forward and took hold of me after Morofuji-san left.

Even he looked shaken by everything that had happened.

I noticed that his sword was covered in blood as well.

"D-Did you kill anyone too, Kashiwagi-kun?"

Kashiwagi-kun looked down at his bloodstained sword for a moment before answering me.

"Yes," he said quietly. "They were attacking me, so I had to defend myself. Besides, this is what I signed up for, so..."

His voice became quieter toward the end, and he seemed almost uncomfortable admitting it aloud.

It was only natural.

I had done the same thing myself, after all.

"How did you feel?" I asked him.

Kashiwagi-kun remained silent for a while, apparently trying to figure out how he was supposed to answer that question.

"I feel..."

He stopped speaking before finishing the sentence.

I waited for him to continue, but he couldn't seem to find the right words.

"Did you feel great?" I asked him directly.

Kashiwagi-kun looked at me, and I could tell that he hadn't intended to admit it himself. Perhaps he was afraid of what it meant if he actually said the truth aloud.

"I did," he finally answered.

His expression remained complicated as he looked away again.

"It felt fucking great... if I'm being completely honest about it."

I lowered my head after hearing those words.

"I..."

My voice became quiet as I struggled to admit what I had been feeling myself.

"I also felt good..."

That was the truth.

After experiencing the fear of taking someone's life, I had also felt something that I was deeply ashamed to admit.

I had felt good after killing them.

That was what frightened me more than anything else.

"I'm afraid of that feeling," I said quietly. "I can't... I can't become someone who's used to doing things like that. I don't want to become that kind of person, and I don't want killing someone to eventually feel completely normal to me."

My hands began trembling again as the memories came rushing back.

"I can't..."

I swallowed hard.

"But because I was indecisive, I... Ayaka got hurt."

My voice started breaking again.

"She might even die because of me..."

I clenched my hands tightly as tears threatened to come out.

"It's all my fault!"

Kashiwagi-kun didn't say anything to comfort me.

He simply remained there beside me.

Perhaps he didn't know what to say, or maybe he understood that there weren't any words capable of making me feel better at that moment. Anything he said would probably sound empty anyway, especially when Ayaka was still being treated inside and none of us knew whether she would survive.

So he simply stayed beside me.

I couldn't blame him for that.

"It's all my fault..."

I lowered my head again and stared at the ground because I couldn't bring myself to look at anyone.

Kashiwagi-kun continued standing there without giving me some meaningless reassurance just for the sake of saying something.

Then, while I was still staring downward, someone approached us.

It was Leon.

"I told you, didn't I?" he said.

His voice was cold and completely lacking the warmth Morofuji-san had shown me.

"I told you that if you're going to hesitate when it comes to killing, then you're eventually going to cause a disaster for the people fighting on your side."

He looked directly at me.

"And that's exactly what happened."

His gaze remained cold as he stared at me.

"I'm sorry."

The words barely managed to leave my mouth.

"Sakai is dead."

The moment Leon said those words, my eyes widened.

For a few seconds, I couldn't even process what I had just heard.

"Natasha can't do anything for her anymore."

"W-What...?"

My eyes widened even further as I stared at him in disbelief.

It felt as though everything around me had suddenly started falling apart, and it was happening so quickly that I couldn't even find a way to stop it.