(Stoic Male) superweapon helps start the post-war baby boom.

With white hair tied back in a ponytail and blood-red eyes, the pale nekomata boy stuck out from endless crowds of wounded troopers.

With his shirt off and covered by bandages, he looked positively aesthetic, the perfect image of a wounded warrior from romance novels. He was quiet and well-mannered, never complaining or screaming out during medical procedures, even when morphine was in such critically low supply.

His snow-white ears wiggled often, and cutely.

While nurses found him enchanting from a distance, they were distressed by the extent of his shell-shock up close.

That, and the fact that his left arm and leg were both made out of gleaming metal.

“Specialist Sasha Sokolov, lately of the Alliance Rangers…” A wrinkled old male nurse picked up the clipboard from the end of his hospital bed and scanned it over, nodding to himself. “All the things we like to see are going up, and the things we don’t are down. Good adjustment to the automail… How are you feeling?”

Specialist Sokolov nodded, sitting up in his bed. “No problems to report. I’m ready for action anytime.”

“Action…” The old human echoed, drawing out a cigarette from his formerly-white coat and lighting up. At least the window of the tiny hospital room was open, letting a fresh ocean breeze roll in, and letting some of the acrid burning smoke back out. “Funny way to put it, son. Won’t be liable to see any ‘action’ anytime soon.”

The white-haired catboy stared, uncomprehending. “But I’m ready for duty. Even at only thirty percent battle readiness, I could be doing something. The Empire’s still out there.”

The nurse shook his head. “Sasha, we’ve been over this… no, it’s not. Not anymore. It’s over.” He glanced down the hallway, which at one time had overflowed with bodies. “I know that’s hard to envision right now, but we won.”

It wasn’t certain how many times he’d said that to himself over the past weeks, but it had no more effect on patient than caregiver.

“I’ll continue to stand by,” Sasha concluded. “Thank you for checking up on me.”

He said that every day, so the nurse gave the expected response.

“Let us know if you need anything.”

He took a big puff and blew it out with a sigh. Once he was out of the room, the old medic flagged down one of the overworked local infernal volunteers. It made sense, given just as many of the troops taking up space in this field hospital were Imperial as came from the Alliance or Unity.

Said hospital was able to serve patients better, now that it wasn’t being shelled.

“Excuse me, can you run a message over to Alliance HQ…?”

-

“Sasha Sokolov?”

His ears perked up, and he looked up from the window to find a cute girl.

“I’m Captain Miki Kurosawa of Her Majesty’s 75th Motor Rifles!” The pink-haired girl snapped to attention. When she did, it looked absurd, despite her blue uniform and beret. She was such a fluff-puff. Even had a girly blue ribbon in her hair under that hat. Yet, the 75th was quite a unit, with a reputation even he’d heard of.

“Ma’am.” Though he was confined to the bed by his orders, Sasha fired off a salute. Miki returned it, allowing him to put that arm down. “The Major spoke of you.”

“Yeah, we were friends. I’m so sorry for what happened.”

Sasha had no reply. He was sorry, too.

The long silence was unbearable for one of them. The pink-haired Captain Kurosawa, every bit as much cat as he was with the tail and everything, shuffled in her combat boots. Her ears wiggled in curious sympathy with his own.

“She made me promise that if anything ever happened, I’d look for you. So until…” She took a deep breath. “Until they find her, I’m here to take care of you.”

Finally, something Sasha could get his aching head around. Until he could link back up with the Major, the Captain was taking command.

“Understood.”

She pulled out an envelope from the pit of her arm. “I’m from a distant village called Lilisburgh, across the sea in Auzapari. As reward for our service, vets like me are getting land grants from our Queen, and well… I wouldn’t know the first thing about farming! But it sounds better than sticking around here. I could use some help, if you’re looking for work. Room, board, three squares a day, a peaceful place for recovery…?”

Though Kurosawa didn’t look any older than Sasha himself, and her manner was friendly and approachable, she was, in fact, a superior officer.

Sasha knew just a few things in this world, and he knew that obeying a superior officer was the only thing that mattered in times of war. He sprang to his feet to show that he was more than ready to travel, even this very second.

“I’m ready for action.”

“A-Action, huh…? Normally, outsiders wouldn’t be welcomed so easily, but there’s also a program… to help with the p-population crisis… It was the only way to get permission...” She tapped her gloved fingers together nervously.

He stared at her, waiting for something that resembled a point.

“S-So, I may have told the mayor that I’d be bringing back… a 'strong, virile man' who can, uh, help with that… you know. By having kids with a lot of the village girls.”

Oh.

“If those are my orders, I can do it.”

“How romantic.” The Captain broke out into red-faced giggles. “I’m a little surprised you, um. You do know how people make babies, right…?”

“The Major showed me. Several times.”

“Hana, what have you done to this sweet, innocent killing machine…” The Captain mumbled underneath her breath for some reason. She cleared her throat. “Good! That’s... that’s good! If you’re, uh, up for making love with a bunch of cute catgirls to save my village, and if you help with like, cows and wheat and farm stuff, on my farm, then you can stay! At my farm!”

A little outside of his usual skillset, but a soldier wasn’t to question his mission.

Thus began the next chapter of his life, though he could have scarcely imagined.