The headmaster room feels smaller with every breath Irina takes.
The air is stale, thick with powder smoke and damp stone, the walls sweating cold. The lantern on the table flickers, flame bending low as if already tired. Around her, the remaining PPF fighters cluster in tight angles, backs to shelves, knees against overturned desks, rifles braced but idle because there is nowhere clean to fire. Every corridor beyond the reinforced door sounds wrong now: not advancing footsteps, not retreating ones either, but an ugly, waiting quiet punctured by distant bursts.
Irina presses her palm flat against the tabletop, fingers trembling despite her effort to still them. She keeps her voice level.
"Count again."
A man near the door swallows and checks his pouch for the third time. "Seven full magazines. Two partial. Grenades…three."
Another shakes her head. "Medical's gone. We used the last bandage on Mikhail."
Mikhail doesn't look up. His leg is bound with a strip torn from a banner, blood dark and tacky. His jaw is clenched so hard his teeth creak.
Irina exhales through her nose. The smell of oil and old books mixes with sweat and fear, sharp enough to sting. She turns her head slightly, listening. Outside the bunker, the west side explodes again—short, violent bursts, closer now. The rhythm is disciplined. Not panic firing.
They're tightening.
"We can't push out," someone says, voice cracking. "They've got angles on every exit."
Irina's eyes flick toward the ceiling, toward the vents—narrow, stone-lined, cut more for air than escape. She already knows. Too small. Too slow. Traps everywhere.
"Then we hold," she answers. "We force them to come to us."
A bitter laugh escapes from the corner. "With what? They've got artillery outside. Cavalry. Two companies in the tunnels."
The words hit harder than the explosions. Two companies. Underground. She imagines them moving through the dark like water finding cracks, short and compact, rifles tight to shoulders, adapting faster than she wants to admit.
Irina closes her eyes for half a second.
[This isn't how it was supposed to end.]
She opens them and meets their stares, one by one. Faces she trained with. Argued with. Trusted. Earthlings like her—pulled into this place, forced to choose sides, forced to become something harder than they were.
"Listen to me," she says. "We don't break. Not here. If we go down, we go down buying time. Making them bleed."
Another blast shakes dust from the beams. The lantern sputters, then steadies.
Outside, something changes.
A smell creeps in.
At first it's faint—burning cloth, resin, something oily. Then the smoke follows, thin fingers slipping through cracks in the doorframe, through the vent seams. It curls low along the floor, clings to boots, crawls upward.
Irina's throat tightens.
"Smoke," someone whispers. "They're smoking us out."
She moves fast, dragging the lantern lower, trying to judge the flow. The smoke doesn't rush. It pulses. Someone is controlling it, feeding it deliberately.
[Smart. Too smart.]
"Block the vents!" she snaps.
Hands scramble. A coat is shoved upward, then another. The smoke thickens anyway, rolling heavier now, turning the lantern's glow into a dirty halo. Coughs break the silence, sharp and involuntary.
Irina feels heat prick her eyes. Her lungs burn with every inhale.
[They don't care if we hear them. They know we can't see.]
On the west side of the bunker, Comtois—Joon-soo—doesn't stop moving.
The ground here is churned mud and snow, footprints stamped into slurry by boots and hooves alike. The bunker wall looms to his right, blackened by soot, pocked with fresh scars. He ducks as a shot cracks past, splintering bark inches from his head.
He fires without aiming long, muscle memory taking over. The recoil punches into his shoulder, familiar and grounding. Around him, the regiment's infantry advance in staggered lines, bodies low, movements clipped and efficient. Cavalry thunder past behind them, not charging now, but ferrying the wounded back—men slumped over saddles, blood steaming in the cold.
Comtois reloads, breath coming hard.
"Left side!" someone yells.
He pivots, dropping to a knee as return fire erupts from a half-collapsed trench. The PPF there fight like cornered animals, precise and desperate. One of his men goes down, screaming cut short as another drags him back by the collar.
[No space. No clean lines. Just pressure.]
Artillery booms again, farther now—focused on the ravine, as ordered. The earth shudders underfoot, snow sliding loose from branches. The sound rolls over them like a physical force.
Comtois glances toward the bunker entrance, jaw tightening. Smoke leaks from every seam now, dark and oily against the pale stone.
"Someone's inside," he mutters. "Someone clever."
He doesn't need to be told who.
Back underground, Aldo's hands move with methodical calm.
He feeds another bundle into the fire pit—damp leaves, resin-soaked cloth, scraps of oil-soaked wood taken from the tunnels. The smoke pours thick and gray, heavy enough to cling, guided by the crude fans his team rigged from shields and boards.
"Fan slow," he says quietly. "Keep it steady."
They obey without question. There are communication gaps—shouted orders lost in echoes, signals missed—but the system holds. The smoke flows where he wants it, not rushing, not thinning.
Aldo listens, head tilted.
Outside gunfire dips, then surges again. The regiment still engages. 205th is still firing near the headmaster bunker. No frantic volleys. No withdrawal.
[They're holding…]
He adjusts the angle, shoving more smoke toward the main chamber. His eyes sting, but he keeps them open, blinking slowly.
[We don't need to kill them here.]
The smoke thickens, rolling faster now, pushing back against the bunker's stale air. Aldo fans harder, muscles burning.
Inside the headmaster room, panic cracks the discipline.
Coughing turns violent. Someone retches, dropping their rifle. The lantern gutter-flickers as smoke chokes the flame.
Irina staggers, bracing against the table as her vision blurs. Her lungs feel scraped raw. Every breath is a fight.
"We can't—" someone gasps. "We can't stay—"
She knows it's true. Knows it the moment the words leave his mouth.
[He forced the choice.]
Irina wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, smearing soot across her cheek.
"Open the door," she orders hoarsely. "On my mark. We run. Don't stop."
Someone hesitates. She grabs his collar and yanks him close, eyes blazing despite the tears.
"Now."
The door bursts open.
Cold air slams into them, sharp and merciless. They stumble out in a choking wave—and straight into gun barrels.
The ambush is perfect.
Infantry rise from cover like ghosts, rifles already trained. Commands snap. Hands are forced up. Bodies are slammed to the ground, bound before they fully understand they've lost.
Irina drops to her knees, coughing, wrists wrenched behind her. She looks up through watering eyes and sees the line of soldiers, the regiment's insignia, the inevitability of it all.
Smoke still pours from the bunker behind her, drifting skyward like a signal flare.
On the west side, Comtois lowers his rifle as the firing dies.
Silence spreads, uneven and ringing. Orders ripple through the ranks—secure, search, bind. He exhales, shoulders sagging for the first time.
He spots Aldo emerging from the haze, face smeared with soot, eyes calm.
"That was you," Comtois says, disbelief and grudging respect mixing in his voice.
Aldo nods once. "It was efficient."
The colonel arrives soon after, boots crunching over debris, gaze sweeping the scene. He listens, then turns to Aldo, expression hard but approving.
"You ended it," he says simply.
Around them, soldiers murmur. 204th and 205th cluster nearby, exhaustion etched deep but pride flickering through. Someone claps Aldo on the shoulder. Another laughs, sharp and relieved.
Aldo doesn't smile.
Cleanup begins—bodies moved, weapons stacked, fires stamped out. The forest exhales, the chaos settling into aftermath.
Aldo walks past the prisoners, eyes scanning for threats out of habit.
Irina sits bound among them, back straight despite the rope biting into her wrists. Her gaze locks onto him, burning.
"You," she says, voice raw but fierce. "You did this…"
He stops.
She leans forward as far as the bindings allow, eyes blazing.
"You Self-serving…" she spits. "Selfish ! Heartless ! You sold us out and your own fellows…for empty praise."
In English…
The words hang between them, heavier than gunfire.
Aldo meets her stare for a long moment. His face doesn't change. Only his jaw tightens, just enough.
[If I answer, I make it about me.]
He turns and walks on.
Behind him, Irina's gaze follows, murderous and unbroken, as the smoke finally thins and the forest grows quiet.