The Rescued Girl

Onogoro Island.

One of the core territories of the neutral Orb Union, it now lay silent in the aftermath of war.

In one corner of the island stood a medical facility directly administered by the Orb Defense Forces.

The air carried the clean, slightly pungent scent of disinfectant, mingling with the salty moisture brought in by the sea breeze beyond the window to create an unusual sense of calm.

In a private room facing east, the girl rescued from the flames of war lay curled up on the bed.

The room was furnished with extreme simplicity.

Pure white walls, a gray floor, a standard hospital bed, and a metal cabinet beside it.

The only color came from the deep blue sea outside, framed into a square by the window.

Sunlight streamed through the glass and cast a bright rectangle across the floor, but it brought not the slightest warmth.

The person on the bed wore loose, slightly faded hospital clothes. The plain cotton fabric clung to her body, outlining a slender frame that had not yet fully grown.

Her smooth dark chestnut hair spread across the white pillow, several stray strands stuck messily to the side of her face.

Her name was Mayu Asuka.

During the hellish Onogoro Island Defense Battle several days earlier, she had been one of the few classified as a "civilian survivor."

Her physical injuries were not life-threatening.

A thick cast held her compound fracture in her left foot in place, suspended from a traction frame at the end of the bed. It sent waves of dull but bearable pain through her.

The cuts across the rest of her body, inflicted by flying stones and splinters, had been cleaned and bandaged, leaving only abrasions covered by gauze.

From a purely medical perspective, her condition was steadily