The morning after Okinawa, Kane woke to the stench of smoke and burned metal. Fires still raged across the beaches, sending acrid smoke into the sky. He could hear distant artillery pounding, the dull thuds like the heartbeat of the island itself. Soldiers were repairing what they could, dragging wounded comrades to makeshift triage stations, shouting orders to each other over the roar of distant explosions. And all of them looked to him.
Kane didn't move immediately. He wanted to stay in the shadows, to pretend the day before had been nothing more than a nightmare. But he could hear the young privates whispering his name, asking each other if it was true—that the "boy general" had somehow saved them. He wanted to correct them, to tell them he hadn't saved anyone, that it had all been luck. Instead, he walked through the camp, shoulders slumping under the weight of expectation, forcing a tired smile as he passed.
A Japanese lieutenant approached him, bowing slightly, his voice careful but respectful.
"General Kane… the survivors report that your orders were clear and decisive. Without you, we would have lost the entire northern beachhead."
Kane stared at him blankly. "I… I told them to retreat," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "I wanted to get them out alive. That's all."
The lieutenant blinked. "Retreat? You call that retreat?" He chuckled softly, shaking his head. "No, sir. That… was brilliance. You saw the choke point before anyone else did. You anticipated the enemy. You saved hundreds of lives today."
Kane's stomach knotted. He wanted to scream. He wanted someone—anyone—to tell the truth. But soldiers nearby had already begun gathering around, hungry for direction, hungry for reassurance.
Then the South Korean liaison, Captain Min-Jae Park, appeared, gesturing to a tactical map projected on a portable holographic device. "General Kane, the coalition fleet is attempting a secondary landing at the southern cove. If we can use the terrain to funnel them into the reefs, our drones and Japanese ships can neutralize them again."
Kane leaned over the map, heart sinking. He could see the logic—the choke points, the reefs, the small bays. Every instinct screamed at him to pull back, to abandon the southern cove and save lives. He wanted to avoid another bloodbath. But if he gave the order to retreat, the enemy might bypass the reefs entirely. And suddenly, the fate of the island, of the survivors, rested on him once more.
"Alright," he muttered, almost to himself. "We'll… we'll hold the reefs. Deploy drones in pairs along the southern approach. Japanese destroyers, fall back a mile—cover the channels. Keep the coalition packed."
Captain Park's eyes widened. "Sir… that's exactly—"
"Do it," Kane interrupted, trying to keep his voice steady. "Do it, or we'll all die trying to think too long about it."
Hours later, the secondary assault began. Kane watched from a ridge, flanked by Japanese officers and South Korean commanders, feeling an unfamiliar weight pressing on his chest. The southern fleet moved slowly into the narrow channels, exactly as he'd feared. Drones swarmed like metal hawks, dive-bombing the landing craft. Destroyers fired their massive guns, sending fire and shrapnel across the waters. The beaches erupted into chaos. Soldiers screamed and cheered at the same time, dodging debris and clambering over overturned craft. Kane felt his knees shake. This was real. Too real.
A young American lieutenant, barely twenty, stumbled up beside him. "General Kane… I don't understand. You're risking everyone!"
"I'm trying to survive," Kane muttered, grimacing. "We're all trying to survive. That's all any of us can do."
By nightfall, the second landing had collapsed. Kane's "orders" had been chaos disguised as strategy, improvisation masquerading as genius. Yet once again, the survivors hailed him as a hero. Japanese and Korean officers saluted him, soldiers cheered, and Washington had already drafted a communiqué declaring the "indisputable brilliance of General Kane."
He walked through the camp alone afterward, past smoldering wreckage, dragging bodies from the sand to burial pits. Every cheer, every salute, every newspaper headline pressed like a weight on his back. Kane wanted to hide, to vanish into the shadows of the island, to leave the soldiers to their own devices. Instead, he realized that no one would ever let him.
He was young, inexperienced, terrified—and the world had already decided he was the Iron Alliance's savior.
That night, as he stared at the darkened ocean beyond the beaches, Kane whispered to himself, bitter and exhausted: "I didn't save anyone. I just keep running, and somehow… they think I'm a genius."
And somewhere deep inside, he knew that the war was only beginning—and that every battle would drag him further into a legend he never asked for.