Degurechaff finds him later, hard at work in the command tent with all the lamps lit and stolen enemy papers strewn around him as he does what he’s been trained to do: analyze and plan. He’s not managed to glean much new from them, but the effort has at least helped settle his nerves.
“He’s left for now, sir,” Degurechaff announces as she steps up to his side and rises up on her toes to get a better view of the map he’s laid out. “More enemy camps for us to scout?”
“Yes.” He taps a finger against a marker not far from their current location. “I’m most concerned about this unit; I believe it to be a mage battalion that was called in yesterday.”
“We’ll need to deal with them quickly,” Degurechaff murmurs as she moves around the table to stand across from him. She steps up onto the crate left there to give her some height and leans over the table with a frown, head tilting a bit as she reads their scribbled notations. “If we go dark and do a short night march, we’ll be in place to raid a bit before dawn.”
Erich purses his lips in thought; they’ve only just returned from a raid, and most of their men will be tired. Degurechaff’s plan has some merit, but a battalion of grounded mages…
“How many of your mages will be available?” he asks.
“I can promise two companies,” Degurechaff answers easily. She straightens up and clasps her hands behind her back, meeting his gaze evenly. “If we bring two companies of infantry and two of mages, we can wipe them out before they can muster.”
“Very well.” Attacking is a risk, but leaving the enemy mages alive is more of one. Hopefully everything will go off without a hitch, but he’s not enough of an optimist to truly believe that.
Degurechaff watches him as he stacks the papers back up, her gaze a heavy weight that he doesn’t quite know what to do about. He had been a coward, had run from the confrontation—
“Your soulmate informed me that he is no longer a Shinigami,” she says out of the blue, tone deceptively mild.
Erich pauses and shoots her a look, trying to read her expression. “And what do you think?”
She hums and reaches up to adjust her cap, gaze going skyward for a moment. “I believe he’s telling the truth, sir, though his… manner of leaving is in doubt. He was quite reluctant to speak on it, especially with me.”
He sets the final stack of papers aside with a grimace, wondering what to make of Degurechaff’s words. While ‘not a Reaper anymore’ gives him a bit of hope, the reluctance to speak on why the man is no longer one is… not so hopeful. If the Reaper retired, why not say so?
Every other reason he can come up with is… troubling.
(His soulmate is a Reaper.)
(His soulmate might be a criminal—)
(No.)
(Don’t fixate.)
(He has a raid to enact soon.)
“Sir, if I may say… he seemed… troubled by the way you left,” Degurechaff offers into the silence. She steps down from the crate and moves back to his side, her ice-pale eyes unreadable. “I explained to him that genocide is not such an easily forgiven — or forgotten — thing, but I don’t know how much of that got through to him.”
“Probably very little,” Erich says dryly as he extinguishes the lamps and leads the way out into the night. “Every record my people left indicated that his people were…”
“One track minds, sir? Unwilling to compromise?”
He snorts before he can help himself, earning a flash of amusement from Degurechaff. “Quite.”
“You have my sympathies, sir. You have your work cut out for you if you want to try to make this work,” she murmurs as they make their way through the camp in search of the commanders they want.
“I…” He frowns, gripping his right wrist behind his back and letting a fragment of his attention drift to the continued press of reassurance-trust-loyalty. He wants him with a strength that’s frankly terrifying, even knowing that the man is a Reaper. A small, shameful part of himself wants to let the man just… continue what he’d been doing; taking out Erich’s enemies and making sure Erich sleeps and whatever else he’s doing while he’s out of sight.
(He hasn’t missed the fact that it’s been days since he’s seen a regretful soul, days since he’s heard a Hollow’s roar, days since he’s felt truly threatened by anything but the Reaper himself…)
Degurechaff looks up at him through her lashes, a quiet sort of strength radiating from her, and says, “Even if he’s no longer a Shinigami, sir, his mindset is almost certainly still there. However he was trained, his initial instinct was not to meet you face to face, but rather to wipe out two camps and sneak into our camp while we were asleep. Be careful how much trust you put in him, sir.”
“I know.”
“So long as you do.”
The rest of their trek through camp is made is silence.
(He wishes he had an answer for her.)
(He wishes he wasn’t so weak…)
(Why can’t he just… decide?)
(Coward…)
Erich crouches by a tree, rifle in his hands and his eyes straining in the predawn darkness. Only a few people are moving about in the camp in front of him; all just tired guards clearly wanting their shift to be over with. There’s a sense of laziness about the whole thing too, like they’re so confident in their victory that can’t even imagine a scenario where the enemy attacks.
(He sympathizes.)
(That was almost him a few years ago.)
(And then he learned his lesson.)
He waits. Breathes out his worries and focuses his mind and—
There!
The two guards in his view go down without a sound and a tiny figure rises to her feet and gestures move in.
He repeats the gesture to his men. Slips through the trees on quiet feet. Infiltrates the camp. Directs his men with hand signs and nods, ears straining to catch the first sign of discovery and—
“Enemy! Enemy in the camp!” a Republic soldier shouts.
Hell breaks loose.
He ducks under an enemy lunge. Slams the butt of his rifle into the man’s stomach. Follows through with a kick to the knees. Draws his pistol and fires as the enemy falls. Moves aside as the man’s partner lunges with a snarl, arrays lighting up the air—
A rifle cracks and the second man falls, dead before he hits the ground.
Degurechaff nods sharply and strides off, leaving him to his own job as she returns to the fight.
He holsters his pistol and moves on.
“They’re in the air!” one of his soldiers shouts in warning.
Erich scowls and brings his rifle up, barking “Concentrate your fire on the leader!” before pulling the trigger. Works the action and turns, following the mage’s path, presses strength-sharpness-disruption into his next bullet and fires—
The mage’s barrier shatters like so much glass.
He goes down.
Stays down.
There’s no time to think. He brings his rifle around. Sights on the next mage in line. Presses spiritual power into his bullet and pulls the trigger—
Another down.
More spiritual power. Another mage.
Again. A fourth.
He ducks aside and pulls a stripper clip from his ammo supply. Reloads his rifle and scans the sky, hunting for any airborne mages in range.
“Look out!”
Erich spins, feels an arm around his waist and the drag of wind through his hair, feels his feet leave the ground and closes his eyes as the world blurs—
“Maa, fancy meeting you here!” his soulmate says with a bright grin and a teasing lilt to his voice.
Erich wrenches himself free of the man’s grip. Scans the area and growls at the sight of trees around him and the enemy camp not far away. “Don’t take me from my men,” he snarls, fury overriding fear. He twists his rifle around and jams the butt into the Reaper’s chest, making the man stagger back a step. “Do that again and I’ll cut our link.”
The Reaper laughs, awkward and sheepish, and raises his hands in defense. “Maa, there was someone aiming at your back—”
“Then deal with them instead!” Erich grits his teeth and turns back to the enemy camp, scanning the sky with narrowed eyes. There are only a few airborne dots left, and he’s pretty certain that several of them are friendlies based on movement patterns. He’s confident that Degurechaff’s efficiency will have the sky clear shortly, which means they just need to finish cleanup.
He sets the safety on his rifle and slings it over his shoulder, striding away from the Reaper and back to camp, ignoring the way the man falls in step with him.
He doesn’t have time for this.
If the man wants to show his face, fine.
He’s sure Degurechaff and her men will be more than willing to show the asshole the error of his ways.
He’s tempted to let them.
(Goddamn stubborn Reaper!)