Chapter 106 The One Behind It All.

Sam only noticed after Zero Three mentioned it. The voice in the video was indeed that of the talking Calamity that killed the Valkyries from the forty fifth base and almost got Five as well.

The first question that came to mind was why? Why did she bother to make a declaration now? Why wait till humanity was on its last leg?

As his mind began analyzing every part of what he had heard, Sam noticed that the young Valkyrie was trembling in the corner of his eye.

"Three?"

Tears began to flow from her eyes as she cradled her head, her face painted with fear and horror. Seeing how she was about to crumble Sam tossed the tablet aside and quickly went to her side pulling her into his arms.

"It's okay." He said. "Everything will be okay."

Soon after he embraced her the young Valkyrie began wailing. Alice watched the scene from behind her desk, the confusion she showed was warranted.

It took a while for Three to calm down. After crying her eyes out she fell asleep leaving Sam to face Alice on his own, and she clearly had questions.

"Sam… what was that just now?" Alice asked, her eyes still on the sleeping Valkyrie.

"Post-traumatic stress disorder. Or PTSD as they call it." Sam said, letting out a long sigh as he picked the tablet again. "Do you have headphones?"

"No, no, no, just stop right there!" Alice waved her hands as her mood suddenly switched. "PTSD? What are you talking about? She is a Valkyrie!"

"Keep your voice down, you'll wake her up." Walking over to where she was, Sam grabbed Alice's arm and pulled her along. "Let's talk in the other room."

The white haired commander looked in the Valkyrie's direction before reluctantly following after him. Once they were alone Sam closed the door and was about to play the video again, however he noticed the look Alice was giving him.

"Listen, Alice, a lot has happened in the past few days."

"That much I can tell." Alice replied, crossing her arms as she glared in his direction. "It seems you forgot to report quite a few things to me."

"It's not that simple…" Sam replied.

"How so? I'm your commander before anything else!" As she spoke, Alice began to gradually raise her voice. "Remind me what's the last mission I gave you? Didn't I ask you to observe the weapons and report to me if you noticed anything strange."

"As I said, it's not that simple!" Sam shouted back.

'This is bad…' he thought. 'This is really bad…'

Everything was going so well in the past few days that he never considered the chance of it going downhill just like that. First they get the message from the enemy and now Alice has seen Zero Three break down. He was at a loss for how he would go about handling the situation.

"Sam, explain yourself…" Alice commanded.

Sam turned to glare at her, however Alice's red eyes didn't falter. Realizing she wouldn't just drop the topic he heaved a long sigh and decided to tell her some of the truth.

"Recently she has been getting nightmares." He said. "Well, it only happened once so far, but from the looks of it she's still affected by it."

"... Nightmares, you say?" Alice's expression relaxed turning from anger to bewilderment.

"It's hard to believe, but that's what happened. It's the reason why I had her sit out the patrol a few days ago."

"So that's what it was about!" Alice's eyes widened, her anger returning. "And? Why didn't you report it to me? As I remember you said you needed her assistance with something. Not only did you submitted a fake report, you also hid such important information! Do you even know how much trouble you're in right now!?"

Seeing how angry she was, Sam couldn't help but stare in silence. After she ended her little rant, he looked her dead in the eye and spoke in a solemn voice.

"As you might've noticed we have more pressing matters to attend to. Like the enemy declaring that they'll wipe us out in the next five days."

"Better watch the way you speak to me, sergeant Sanderson. I'm still your commander."

It didn't seem like Alice

Would back down, and neither did Sam. Ignoring the way she glared at him he played the video once more and listened carefully.

The Nephilim, that's what the female Calamity called her kind, but that didn't matter that much. What caught Sam's attention were the warnings she spoke of as well as how she mentioned something being stolen from them. That alone was enough for him to conclude two things.

"All this time we have been led to believe that the Calamities are nothing but mindless beasts that wanted to wipe out humanity." He paused the video as he spoke. "We learned that's not the case after the last big battle, but did you ever wonder why they never bothered to contact us all this time?"

Alice stared at him, still angry about his insubordination. Still she couldn't help wondering and a second later her eyes went wide as she finally understood what he's trying to say.

"They already did…" she murmured, a chill running down her spine.

That realization had hit them like a brick wall. Everyone had considered the Calamities to be mindless monsters that seeked the destruction of the human race and nothing else, that's where their name came from.

When the talking Calamities appeared for the first time they all wondered why they never made an appearance before, but the real question should've been if that's really the case. An intelligent race capable of coherent communications would at least attempt negotiations before resorting to force, especially if they're technically advanced enough to overpower humanity.

With that thought in mind the most logical conclusion would be that they already have made an attempt, one that ended in failure which led to the apocalypse that massacred most of humanity.

"If we believe what that thing said, something must've happened behind the scenes without the public ever learning about it. It might even be that some of the higher ups in the Resistance had been aware of what's going on and kept it a secret."

Though it didn't sound like a good thing to do, Sam understood that there are many reasons as to why the people in charge would chose to hide the truth. First of all it's simply too much. The chaos that would've resulted from the public knowing about an enemy that can't be defeated wasn't something anyone would want to deal with. The second reason was related to the other thing the Calamity mentioned.

" 'you have failed to return that which you have stolen from us.' " Sam repeated. "I think that says it all."

The Calamities, or the Nephilim to be more accurate, were accusing humans of stealing something from them. Trying to guess what it might be was a waste of effort, all they needed to know is that it's something precious enough for them to start this entire war just to retrieve it.

"Alice… I think we might've been played…" Sam said after a long silence.

"... huh?"

Once again the white haired commander found herself completely dumbfounded.

"We have been fighting a desperate war without even realizing the true reason behind it." Sam said. "To put it simply, someone must've done something to anger those so called Nephilim then manipulated us into fighting them."

"Hey now, Sam..." Smiling wryly, Alice let out a sigh. "This really isn't the time for conspiracy theories."

The way Sam spoke made it sound as if there is some secret group or entity that controlled the world from the shadows and is the one responsible for starting the war.

The truth is that that's exactly what he's alluding to. Whoever it was that caused this war, they were the ones who confronted the Calamities and handled the negotiations then led things to turn the way they're now.

"Alice, after all the deaths and sacrifices, after all we have gone through, what reason would they have to hide the truth from the rest of us?" Sam said.

The more he thought about it the more messed up it sounded. Someone had used all of humanity as a shield just so they could keep what they stole out of the hands of its rightful owners.

It was impossible to guess what it might be, however Sam was sure he had a good idea of who the perpetrator might be.

If what was stolen is valuable enough to eradicate an entire race to retrieve it then it's only natural to assume that the thief would do everything in their power to stop that from happening.

With the world governments having collapsed at the beginning of the war the only suspect left is the organization that emerged to fight back against the Calamities and the person who started it.

"Odin…" Sam said with a grimace. "That basterd is behind it all…"

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