"So it's just us?" Taura was good, and some of the other fighters here were in her league, but... "If we're it, that's a piss-poor excuse for an army." A few dozen fighters, a few dozen civilians. "Even before we start attacking each other." And General Aguilar and Landel at each other's throats, but that didn't surprise her; neither of them were men who shared power. It was far too like home for that.

Which brought her back to Okita's warning -- far too many death notices, in the last few days, and most of them hadn't sounded quite right. Like someone trying to hide friendly fire as an equipment malfunction, it was obvious and completely counter-productive, but it didn't quite tell her what was happening.

"Maybe it's resilience. Survival, not success." Her nose wrinkled. She'd equated the two, but success had gotten bigger than merely living. Even as the clock ticked down, her horizons got wider. "It would explain the illness."