Difference between revisions of "Reverie (Yuna Kagurazaka)"

Revision as of 01:33, 4 April 2016

Outwardly, Yuna's injuries are fairly minor: a few stabs, a number of cuts, some noticeable bruises, all of which were treated before she was placed in the baths at Hikari Sea Port. A passing observer might wonder why she's sleeping in a hot bath, but beyond that, there seems to be little of concern. The blonde girl simply appears to be sleeping peacefully, if not quite comfortably.

Inwardly, however, matters are far from peaceful, much less comfortable.

... you must slay your own heart ...

Kanmusu and Abyssals do battle on the sea, alongside their allies from the Union and the Confederacy, respectively. For Yuna - the special-duty light cruiser Kagurazaka - what began as another opportunity to help her friends turned into a desperate struggle, and her brain raises it to the level of nightmare, amplifying the sounds of screams and the thunder of explosions. The bomb which sank Kuma holds the potency of a thunderbolt, malevolence and darkness reverberating in the echoes of an unheard shriek of agony.

To truly survive in war, you must slay your own heart ...

She fights to protect them, friends and strangers alike. Nagato, the coolly withdrawn admiral who so rarely shows her warmer side; the quietly vivacious Kuma, bombastic Kongou, even the belligerently foul-mouthed Akebono ... and apart from the kanmusu, there are Rebecca and X and Kotone. Friends or strangers, but allies all; Yuna's resolve as the Savior of Light is not to leave them to suffer at the hands of any enemy, a resolve which overcomes her own reluctance to cause anyone else - even the Abyssals - to suffer. The knowledge that a sunken Abyssal may be reborn as a kanmusu helps give Yuna the strength and will to fight against the terrors from the ocean's depths.

To truly survive ...

But by the same token, Kuma and Natori were lost - perhaps to resurface as Abyssal forces, perhaps lost forever; Yuna has no way of knowing their ultimate fate. In that moment, she knew only that they were lost, in pain and terror, and her fury was stoked to a deadly frenzy. Cannons and torpedoes gave voice to her vengeance, and as the Abyssal transports and escorts were smashed, her anger was barely quenched.

And then Yuna herself was assassinated.

Not fatally, although the loss of her equipment would have doomed her as surely as to lose consciousness in the middle of the ocean; she knew, despite the pain of her injuries, that they were disabling rather than deadly, relatively superficial, easily mended. But as her awareness ebbed ...

Well, you're lucky I have no orders to kill you. Let that be a lesson to you. To truly survive in war, you must slay your own heart before you ever point a weapon at a foe.

Those words echoed in the shadows falling across her mind, and in the depths of her slumber, they resonate still. Pitted against them is only her heart's stubborn, unrelenting light - a conviction that her friends, however close or distant, are a precious, irreplaceable treasure, and that all lives are just as precious because every life is that of somebody else's friend. She cannot kill her heart, because her own friends would grieve for the loss.

They did before, after all, when she came to that same conclusion of her own accord. To cripple and maim her own heart for the sake of waging war ... Yuna tried to do so, when she bore an enlisted rank with the Union, and it was Lia and Ryudia in particular who shook her awake, and guided her back to the path she needed to walk.

... slay your own heart ...

I pray ...

Out of the depths of her memory come the words to fight a memory.

I pray for a heart which shines as bright as the sun. I pray for a heart as clear as a white jewel. I pray for a heart inclined to justice. I pray for a heart which is lovely, without misleading inclinations.

I pray that no matter what happens, No matter who may face me as an enemy, No matter how dark the storm or the night --

"-- I pray that I will not falter ..." Yuna sucks in a breath, her eyes fluttering open as she gasps.

And she begins to cry.