ASAHI NO NISHISEI - Rising Sun Goes West (1)

End of the Holy War

March 3, Evening

Imperial Pavilion, Lithianburg, Crossnellyard Empire 

On the day that the final resistance by Alphon's faction ended, a report from the Western Force on its way home was delivered to the troops that remained in Lithianburg. With the death of the leader, all the fighting that had to be done was over.

"I heard that uncle and Sulligan committed suicide..."

Jettis, who had been informed of the outcome of the battle by an SDF member visiting the palace, told his wife, Levicca, who was watching the sun set in the western sky from the balcony.

"...That's right," Levicca replied curtly.

She never turned her gaze from the sunset.

"I wonder... if this is really the end."

Jettis choked up at her words, as if predicting the future. The impact of this war on the Juperia Continent is too great, and the collapse of the "world order" due to the defeat of the Crossnellyard Empire, the world's largest nation, will have a deep impact on the future history of Terralus. As a harbinger of this, riots and insurrections by the Arabanne people have been occurring widely and simultaneously in the areas controlled by the Indoctrination Army States.

"...Let's not do that, look at what's in front of us now. We must conclude a peace treaty with the Japanese government... We'll be busy tomorrow," Jettis said to his wife, who was basking in the twilight, and went back into the room.

Left alone, Levicca continued to watch the sunset on the western horizon for a while.

. . .

Evening of the same day

Ruins of the Red Cross Hospital, Outskirts of Lithianburg

In a meeting room of the Lithianburg Red Cross Hospital, which was already in ruins and being used as a field hospital by the Self-Defense Forces' medical unit, six medical personnel were seen. They were medical staff belonging to the Japanese Red Cross. Consisting of Godo and Shibata, who had arrived in the capital by the V-22 Osprey with the government-in-exile, of the five medical staff members who had been dispatched the Margraviate of Seannut as the Northern AIDS Investigation Team and had been on the run for a long time due to the outbreak of the war, but finally returned to the capital, four of them, excluding Kanzaki, who is now classified as deceased.

"So... it's HIV-2 after all. But I'm really surprised you survived."

Godo, looking at the report that the Investigation Team had made during their time on the run, nodded as he read through its contents.

"Yes. We were hunted in the Seannut City, and were sheltered for a long time by the residents of the underworld in exchange for treatment of a prostitute suffering from syphilis. At that time, an HIV screening test was conducted at the same time as the treatment. Eight of the 41 people who tested positive were all HIV-2."

The person explaining the situation to Godo was Tokimasa Tahara, a clinical laboratory technician who was a member of the Investigation Team. The topic they were discussing was, of course, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) that had been discovered in this world: HIV, or HIV-2 to be precise, which had been discovered in the body of the Fourth Princess Theopha Rae Anglem five months earlier, and which the Northern AIDS Investigation Team was supposed to be investigating. Originally, the Northern AIDS Investigation Team was scheduled to go to Larmark, a port city in the Margraviate of Seannut, where the outbreak was believed to have occurred.

"We will not know if the person is actually positive or not until we examine blood samples from the positive person in the home country. We were unable to confirm the presence of HIV-1 infected individuals in the screening test..."