Chapter 1708 - 237 - The Moral Regret (6)

Kaori's POV

The others told me that I needed to rest, so I eventually listened to them and went to sleep.

Honestly, I was surprised by how easily I managed to fall asleep once I finally lay down.

I had expected my thoughts to keep me awake for hours, especially after everything that had happened, but my body apparently had other plans. I was far more tired than I realized, and after spending so much time crying until I had practically exhausted myself, it was probably inevitable that I would eventually fall asleep like that.

When I finally opened my eyes again, I noticed someone standing beside me.

"Morofuji...san?" I called softly.

Morofuji-san looked down at me.

"Oh?" she said. "Did I wake you up?"

She sounded apologetic, although she also looked like she had been awake for quite some time herself.

"Sorry, I just... can't sleep," she admitted. "For some reason, even though I've been trying to, I can't seem to actually fall asleep."

"You don't have to apologize," I told her.

My voice still sounded tired, and honestly, I did not feel like talking very much yet.

"Where are the other two?"

"They couldn't sleep either, so they went outside for a while," she answered. "You could still sleep some more, you know?"

"I don't think... I'd be able to sleep anymore," I replied.

Even though I was still exhausted, there was something keeping my mind awake now.

"Doctor Natasha said that with enough rest, she should regain consciousness within about a week or two," Morofuji-san said. "Although, it seems like she'll still need some maintenance afterward. Ayaka is really strong, though. She managed to get through all of that."

Ayaka.

The moment she mentioned her name, my chest tightened.

Ayaka had died because of me.

Well, she had almost died because of me.

Thankfully, she had been revived afterward, and they had managed to treat her properly before her condition became completely irreversible. She was alive now, and I knew that was what I should have been focusing on.

Yet knowing that she was alive did not make the guilt disappear.

I still felt responsible for what happened to her.

While I knew that there had been circumstances beyond my control, it was difficult to convince myself that those circumstances somehow erased what I felt.

I kept thinking about what could have happened.

If she had not been revived...

If they had arrived just a little later...

If things had gone differently...

I did not want to imagine any of those possibilities.

"Morofuji-san..." I finally said.

She turned toward me.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," she replied, giving me a small smile.

I hesitated for a moment before finally asking the question that had been bothering me.

"What do you think about people... who have killed other people?"

The moment the words left my mouth, her eyes widened.

Her expression changed almost immediately afterward, becoming much more serious as she looked directly at me.

"If you're asking whether I hate you just because you've killed someone, then stop saying things like that already, Kaori," she said.

I became silent.

I did not know what to say after hearing that.

Morofuji-san continued speaking before I could even figure out how to respond.

"What happens here is a matter of circumstances," she said. "We killed people because it was something we had to do in order to reach our goal of going home. I don't think you'd hate a soldier who fought for our country just because they had killed someone before, would you?"

I shook my head slightly.

I understood what she was trying to say.

At least, I thought I did.

"And although, at this point, I think it's fine for us to believe that it didn't matter," she continued. "As long as we do what we're supposed to do, then it shouldn't matter what happened before. We have a goal, and we're doing what we have to do to reach it. You should think about that instead of continuing to punish yourself over something that happened because we were forced into this situation."

I could not say anything to that.

Her words made sense.

They really did.

Still, something inside me refused to settle down.

I wanted to believe what she was saying because it would have made things much easier. If I could simply tell myself that circumstances were responsible for everything, then maybe I would not have to keep thinking about the people who had died because of us.

Maybe I could convince myself that we had simply been soldiers trying to survive.

Maybe I could tell myself that going home would make everything normal again.

Yet there was another question sitting underneath all of those thoughts, and that question was the one I was actually afraid to ask.

What would happen after we went home?

Would we really be the same people we had been before all of this happened?

That was what frightened me.

We had come here wanting nothing more than to return to our ordinary lives. Going home had been the goal from the very beginning.

But what if returning home did not actually mean returning to the people we used to be?

What if the things we had done here followed us home?

I had killed people.

That fact would not simply disappear because I crossed a boundary between worlds.

I could tell myself that I had circumstances on my side, that we were fighting for our survival, and that the people we killed had been enemies who would have killed us if given the chance.

Those things were true.

At the same time, knowing that they were true did not magically make the memories disappear.

I wondered whether I would still be able to laugh normally when I returned home.

Would I be able to sit with my friends and talk about ordinary things without thinking about what had happened here?

Would I be able to look at people the same way?

Would I wake up in the middle of the night remembering everything?

The thought made my stomach twist.