Chapter 561 – Legacy

Chapter 561 – Legacy

The rest of the day came and went, then the Saturday passed as well. Thankfully, days without any happenings aside from John returning to the paperwork mines. Everyone relaxed a little bit, prepared for the tasks they had been assigned. Ted and Chemilia sparred with Rave or Aclysia to get used to their new limbs. Everything was progressing smoothly, including the things necessary for a task John wasn’t looking forward to.

On Sunday John got the note that the clean-up of the White House was completed; the subsequent moves were also close to done. The time for the public announcements had come. A prepared email quickly answered every single interview request he had gotten (and ignored) in the past few days. All he had to do was fill in an accurate time.

It had now been four days, so the rumour machine was running wild. Parts of the truth had leaked already, involved soldiers having been asked, but the entire picture was only stitched together by accident and nobody was quite sure yet. John therefore doubted that he needed to give people more than an hour to arrive; doubtlessly there were teams in all journalistic establishments interested, simply waiting to respond to some sort of lead.

Nevertheless, John gave them a complete hour to gather up. He would also need that time, since his media team had to set up the podium, cables and everything else for their own livestream. It wasn’t John’s style to leave the footage of events he attended to be tinkered with by news organizations without the entire thing also being viewable by the public. Just looking into modern news for ten minutes showed that there was always somebody willing to bend the truth, something seemingly afflicting all sides in every discord.

Not that the Gamer spent a lot of time thinking about that once he was at the White House barrier inside a shelter for construction workers, the kind that was enchanted to be bigger on the inside than the outside. It was comfortably large, honestly enough for a family of two to live in or allow half a dozen people to have a nice talk over a medium sized breakfast table. Originally placed to make work on the reconstruction more easeful on the workers, it was currently being occupied by John to prevent the swarm of journalists outside from descending on him beforehand.

His thoughts were circling around nothing really. With the proximity of the funeral, he was facing the reality of the deaths again. He wasn’t frozen with regret or guilt or anything like that, he had seen so many lives, more than a few related to himself, snuffed out since the start of his journey, he was feeling slightly sociopathic in his almost utter lack of grief. All he felt was somewhat numb at the realization that there were yet more people whose voice he would never hear again.

With him in the room were Rave, the two generals, Eliza and Gnome. His girlfriend was quietly holding his hand and leaving him to his thoughts while rubbing his shoulder. As always, she was taking this a lot better than him. Chemilia and Ted were sitting side by side, stoically with their eyes closed, the tall woman leaning on her husband’s shoulder. Only Eliza and Gnome were quietly speaking to the sound of a pencil scratching over paper.

Everyone else, save Sylph who wasn’t allowed around when important things were about to be revealed, was outside and making sure the press and the public were keeping to their designated area.

“Yeah, I guess that adjustment would look better,” Gnome whispered, as if to respect the silence. Eliza, even quieter, answered and the two continued to talk while John took a deep breath, wondering what it was about the human psyche that made the air feel so much thicker when anticipating a sad event.

“Mister President,” he was pulled from his slow thoughts by a member of the media crew knocking on the doorframe. “We would be ready. We can go live on time.”

“Alright...” John rose from his seat and everyone made their way out of the shelter. “... let’s finally honour the fallen.”

The few names that didn’t trigger any response came from those soldiers whose families, when presented with the choice, had preferred to have their loved ones be buried in a quiet and private ceremony. It had been arranged that they were asked beforehand, John completely respected those that didn’t want to have their fallen family be used in what could be constructed to be a publicity stunt.

Gnome and a few elementalists with an affinity for earth had the questionable honour of closing the graves. When John read the last four names on the list, the soil elemental was right behind him. Abraham’s name echoed out of the speakers; the Gamer took a pause to rest his throat and let all caskets settled.

“We honour the fallen,” John’s breaking voice formed words he wanted to roar into the world. “For now – and forever.”

He turned to look at Gnome, who was gathering herself, then raised her foot and rammed it into the soil. The line drawn by the upheaved patches of dark brown dirt vanished from view as a row of connected stone pillars was created above them. Each pillar functioned as the gravestone of a soldier. Through fine manipulation, the earth spirit etched the name of every fallen, even those who weren’t buried below, into the two-metre tall wall.

Once that task was completed, Gnome turned towards the centre. Instead of four stones for the three generals and the president, she created one large pillar. Terkal and Abraham’s forms were etched standing proudly in the surface of the pillar, with Imerella standing between them, one hand in Terkal’s, the other on Abraham’s shoulder.

It was a biased piece of art in many ways. Most notably, John refused to have Matthew eternalized there with those three, he only got his name engraved into the white stone. That Imerella and Terkal also seemed to have any romantic connection at all was only a very recent development many people wouldn’t know and whose actual viability would never be seen.

‘I really wish I had gotten to know you better,’ John thought, upon seeing the outlines of their faces. The entire structure needed more work, right now it only looked good from a distance; neither John nor Gnome had any more mana to give though and it was good enough for the moment.

“I swear that this monument will remain here for as long as I draw breath,” John stated after turning back to the podium. “I swear that I will bring Sigmund to justice one day. I swear that we will rebuild the White House, and I swear that the Little Maryland will be united again, just as I swear that it will be a highly autonomous being in Fusion. Losing is not the end, even if the wounds are grievous. Even if those close to us get hurt or die, we will get up again. We have to get up again. Just like those fallen before us, we have to do our best to leave behind a world that is better. Let nobody fall in vain. I...”

John’s mouth hung open as if he had something else to say, but no more words ever came. No matter how much he racked his brain for anything to say, all he could think of were common wisdoms and phrases that were equally true and empty. What good would saying any of that do?

“...I can only try to do my best...” he finally muttered into the microphone.

Applause was the last thing he expected as the response.