Backdated: 2nd March 2022
In the end all of those she had spoken to had been right. She hadn't wanted to admit it at first, not really, but time had run out and with it, the soul of the man she had been trying to save was lost. Yes, both senshi and knights hadn't dissuaded her from trying, even in his harshest moments one of the senshi had simply shrugged and advised her he couldn't demand she do anything... But the one overarching truth had been that it had been highly improbable, to the point of impossibility. She had been on a wild goose chase, wandering down dark alleys in the vain hope that maybe she would find the agent who had taken the man's heart and maybe, just maybe, they would still have it with them.
She'd been naïve.
It had been a sobering day to say the least. What had started as a quiet and otherwise uneventful one had disintegrated into chaos as the man in question's vital signs deteriorated rapidly until there was simply nothing left. He had wasted away over the last two weeks, quickly and disturbingly so, until he was simply gone. The nurses and the doctors had done their duty and they expressed grief in their own way but whatever philosophical musings they might have did not reach the young woman as she stared out across the cityscape from the cafeteria.
She could see almost everything from this floor, it should have been a comfort, and yet she hadn't been able to see what she needed...had she?
He would always been looking over them, that was what his family had said to one another when she had wandered passed. He'd go to heaven, he'd see them again when they were ready to join him. All words designed to placate and comfort but she knew that this couldn't be further from the truth. If there was a form of afterlife as souls were reborn, then they wouldn't find him there. He had been taken from them and he would never have another chance.
Disheartening to say the least, but wasn't this the point that some of them had tried to make to her before?
In the end, if the Negaverse managed to acquire that soul and you didn't get it back almost immediately, then it was safe to assume you never would get it back. Instead the only thing you could do was put every possible effort in to the protecting those around you so that they could never get hold of them in the first place. From those knights who opted to provide charity and guardianship to the vulnerable, to those senshi who made it their soul purpose in life to be a thorn in the Negaverse's side.
One couldn't simply save them in a reactive manner, one's greatest chance of success was to be proactive.
Alas, what could she possibly do in these instances when she had no magic and lacked the capacity to be of any real use? She couldn't protect anyone with a lamp, she didn't really know how to throw a punch, and in the end she had spent the start of her newfound career being saved by others from losing her own soul more than once.
She had to be better.
She turned the spoon in her mug around endlessly, lost to her own thoughts and released a heavy sigh. In the end she would need to learn how best to approach these situations and in time this would benefit her and save more lives. The Code had said to her that she should not be the hero and perhaps this was why. She needed patience, she needed to observe, she needed to learn and only then would she be able to prevent this from happening again.
She cast her gaze up towards the currently unseen moon and pursed her lips. She hadn't been able to save this one, but she would save the next.
She promised.
Word Count: 664
