The first thing that returned was the sound. Not the memory-scream still ringing in my skull, but new ones.
Real ones.
Groans of pain. The frantic, hushed voices of people trying to be strong and failing. The clatter of metal on metal, the sizzle of something being cauterized. It was a symphony of suffering.
I slowly opened my eyes.
White canvas swam above me. A tent. I was on a cot, body wrapped in clean, white bandages.
I tried to move, to push myself up, and a full-body ache greeted me like an old friend.
My left leg was a distant, throbbing anchor of pain.
Damn, do all people start using weird explanations to straightforward situations when in pain?
Had few bones broken, lost few liters blood, skin burnt, stabbed by a tree in leg. That's what happened, and I still remember.
Patched up. Great. Thrown back into the factory line.
My arms trembled, threatening to give out.
I remembered my favorite anime character who doesn't give up and tried to get up again.
"Ugh... "
Legs buckled the moment my feet touched the cold, hard ground. I collapsed in a heap, my breath hitching. The world tilted. The sounds of the med-tent sharpened, piercing my ears. My heart began to hammer against my ribs, a frantic bird trying to escape its cage.
"No. No, not now. Not here."
I squeezed my eyes shut, fists clenching in the dirt. I focused on the feeling of the grit under my nails, the coolness of the earth.
"You're not dying. You're on the ground. You're just pathetic."
Forcing a breath in. Then another. Shaky, but deeper.I pushed myself up again, slower this time, using the cot for support. I stood, swaying, my bandaged leg screaming in protest. I was up.
I wish I wasn't. But I had no choice.
I limped to the tent flap and pulled it aside.
The scene outside was organized chaos. In a cavern lit by glowing crystals and bioluminescent moss, beings of metal and flesh worked side-by-side.
Metropian cyborgs with exposed wiring passed supplies to soldiers in tattered royal uniforms from the...wait, I remember...are they from...Yumimure kingdom? Damn...so Odrome is here, after all too? Fuck. Just kill me man. Why did you patch me up?
They were all injured, all exhausted, a makeshift alliance forged in the crucible of survival.
Of course, I thought, a bitter taste in his mouth. The Steel Troops and the Kingdom's army. Teaming up against a common enemy. How… fucking predictable.
I leaned against the tent pole, the weight of it all pressing down on me. I was stuck. Stuck in a war between worlds I supposedly saved as a kid, with no robot cat and a leg that felt like it was filled with broken glass.
"Just perfect," I muttered to the stale cavern air. "Can't even have a proper mental breakdown in peace."
A shadow fell over me, vast and warm.
I flinched, expecting another attack, another monster.
"Shit-!"
I looked up.
And my breath caught.
The dragon looked… older. The scales around its snout were chipped, and one of the majestic blue feathers on its wing was singed black. But its eyes, those intelligent, golden eyes, were the same. They held a deep, ancient weariness that I felt in my own teenage soul.
It lowered its massive head, the heat of its breath a gentle wave against my face.
A low, rumbling voice echoed not in the air, but directly in my mind.
"Long time no see, Warrior."
The title, the one Riruru had used, should have felt good. It felt like an accusation.
And I absolutely despised that.
"Don't call me that," I said, voice hoarse from disuse and screaming. I looked away, down at the dirt. "I'm not a warrior. I'm just… a guy who got lost."
The dragon's snout nudged me, gently. It was a gesture so familiar, so reminiscent of the past, that it almost broke me.
"The scars say otherwise. Both the old ones, and the new." Its gaze drifted to my bandaged leg. "You wear your history on your skin. As do I."
"What do you want?" I asked, the words coming out harsher than I intended. I was tired.
So, so tired.
"To see the boy who stood with me against the darkness. To see if the flame still burns, or if it has been extinguished by this world."
"The flame's out," I snapped, finally looking at the dragon. "It was never my flame to begin with. It was his. Doraemon-.."
I couldn't complete that sentence. My lips bit in frustration of a pathetic man.
The confession hung in the air between us, raw and ugly.
"A tool does not wield itself," the dragon replied, its tone unchanging. "A sword does not choose its target. The hand that held it did."
"My hand was shaking then, too!" My voice cracked. "I was just better at hiding it! I'm not a hero. I'm a… a lucky fraud. And my luck ran out."
I expected the dragon to argue, to give him a pep talk. That's how it always was too. And something I much needed right now to not give up.
....
Instead, it was silent for a long moment, its great lungs sighing.
"Then you are the same as every soldier here," it said finally, its gaze sweeping over the wounded, the weary. "They are all afraid. They are all fighting on borrowed time, with borrowed courage. The only difference is, you remember the face of the one who lent it to you."
The dragon began to turn away, its massive body shifting the very air in the cavern.
"Rest, Nobita. Your war is not over. It has only just remembered you."
And with that, it was gone, leaving me alone with the screams, the silence in my head, and the terrifying thought that the dragon hadn't seen a hero. It had just seen another scared soldier.
And for the first time, that felt… true.
Shit.
"Tch. HEY!"
Don't, you idiot. It's not the right time to play hero.
"THE SWEAT BATH! LET ME TAKE IT AGAIN!"
Too selfish. That's how I am. Too powerless. That's... How I always am too.
The dragon glanced back.
"Follow me"