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.”

His feet connected with the lawn, the blades of grass with their azure tips soft under his steps. The replacement sphere hovered behind him as he walked forward to the clicks of cameras. A hastily placed barrier of polished metal bars separated John’s path to the left from a crowd of onlookers and journalists.

Normally, John’s appearance somewhere would have created some sort of audible reaction, be it cheers or boos. Much like him, it seemed the nation was feeling rather devoid of strong emotions, so he was instead met with silent eyes that followed him. John turned his head to the right, the glasses on his nose, he hadn’t even bothered to put the contacts in today, showing him the caskets resting on pedestals. Inside were the bodies of those that had fallen that day, be it to Sigmund, to John’s forces or to Abraham’s. In the end, they had all died for their convictions in the country, at least the Gamer hoped that had been the motivation for most of them. He had, however, let the bodies of the mercenaries be removed for that reason. They would be buried how their company wanted, should one be found.

There were four particularly important caskets resting right behind the podium mounted with countless microphones. One was sealed shut, a picture of Abraham on the top with a charismatic smile. Every other was open, revealing to the cameras flying around the faces of the three fallen generals.

Next to the fallen president rested his nephew. Knowing what John did, he felt rather torn about having that man lying there, given what unnecessary cruelty he had displayed in his treating of Terkal. However, including even those he knew weren’t squeaky clean was a necessary sacrifice to bring this shattered country together under his leadership.

‘I am politicizing funerals now,’ John thought rather drily. ‘Let’s hope I keep it to symbolism and don’t dive into condemning remarks.’ Then he turned around to look at the other two caskets. Both Terkal and Imerella had only their faces visible. John had seen first hand what Sigmund’s sword had done to the former and the reports he had about the half-liquified state the short lady’s corpse was in had him thankful that he didn’t have to look at it.

“Sorry that I only see you now,” John whispered towards the dead brunette. He hadn’t brought it over himself to look at her before it was necessary. A decision he didn’t regret, but he felt he needed to make the apology for anyhow. They both looked surprisingly relaxed. Deep down, John knew that was just the skilled labour of whoever had put those corpses here. A more esoteric side of him hoped that their apparent peace was with the thought that they could leave their work to John.

That he was crying didn’t dawn on him until a tear stained the red cushion Imerella was placed on. Possession’s vision was as clear as ever, unaffected by the excess fluid running down his cheeks. ‘Sigmund must die,’ John thought, taking off his glasses and cleaning his eyes for a moment. It was a thought of numerous tones that no spoken word could reflect. A matter of fact for the security of his people, burning with hot rage for the wounds marking him personally and cold for the things those he held dearly had lost, but also despairing at the current impossibility of fulfilling that desire.

He left the glasses off and stumbled towards the podium guided only by the sight of the sphere and his girlfriend. The sun burned down on both of them; it was a terribly nice day for a funeral, warm and with an endless blue sky. When his milky eyes appeared on the hovering screens, that made it possible for those at the back to see him in more detail, the shocked murmurs underlined the Gamer’s first words.

“We lost,” he said, leaning heavily on the podium. His emotional calm was blown away, the return to normalcy of the last few days ripped apart like paper as he allowed himself one more outburst to finally get over this affair. His knuckles were white from the grip he had on the edge of the wood, just as his eyes continued to glisten. “We all lost. That is the basic truth of what happened four days ago. The Abyss showed that it can be utterly merciless. One man, with no other desire than to fight an army, threw into disarray any peaceful intentions Abraham and I had through one act of mindless slaughter. All to get a kick no singular challenger could give him.

“I don’t particularly care if this sounds ridiculous, but this is the truth: Sigmund, the black swordsman, attacked this nation and Abraham and I jumped on each other like idiots, only for the Contender to return and continue on his arrogant rampage. He slaughtered whoever he wanted, fought whoever he wanted, and with his final attack, he destroyed the White House. It would have killed me as well, were it not for Abraham protecting me, at the cost of his own life. I got away with the relatively light punishment of being blind, compared to all the soldiers that died that day.”

John placed his phone on the podium, maneuvered the replacement sphere over his shoulder and began reading a list of names, every single fallen soldier that had died that day. He began with the lowest rank, careful to pronounce everything loudly and correctly. To most names, there was a casket that closed its lid and then slowly lowered itself into the already dug grave. Left and right behind the podium, from the fringe towards the centre, and one by one, the soldiers found their eternal resting place in the soil of the guild they had defended.

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.