Yurui The Cursed One

He was tall, muscular, and athletic-looking, with a neatly trimmed beard and the kind of carefully maintained appearance that made him seem far more put together than most of his squad mates. Today he wore neither his Security vest nor his military trousers. A plain dark shirt stretched across his shoulders instead, accompanied by ordinary civilian pants.

Uden couldn’t help but frown at that. Her gaze lingered on him for half a second longer. She knew he’d done this deliberately just to annoy her.

Janis followed close behind him, looking just as nonchalant as ever. She still wore her hair in the same twin buns high on her head, and at her height, with that solid athletic build barely concealed by the loose tracksuit. The familiar sour look on her face only served to complete the picture that was Janis.

The casual clothes didn’t mean much in Janis’s case. She dressed like this most of the time anyway, much to Uden’s dismay. Uden had tried correcting the habit before, but every lecture only seemed to make Janis dig her heels in deeper.

Eventually, she'd given up trying to force the issue and settled on the same approach she'd taken with Alysa: leave her alone and hope she grew out of it eventually.

Uden's frown deepened. She knew they were doing that on purpose, and that ate away at her a little.

If they haven’t pissed her off enough yet, Marcus entered after them, wearing an aggressively casual-looking blue sweater, paired with tan trousers only a few shades lighter than his skin. Marcus usually had enough sense to avoid provoking her unnecessarily, which meant the decision to arrive dressed like this hadn't been accidental either.

Uden could have bet that Bereth put him up to this. Squad clown as he was, Marcus was never the one to rock the boat with his superiors.

So now that the three of them were openly rebelling. Uden just couldn’t wait to see the rest wearing her regular everyday clothes. Honestly, had the rebellion ended there, she wouldn’t even be that upset about it.

With three of them already turning up like this, Uden was beginning to wonder how much worse the rest would be. At this rate, she half expected the entire squad to stroll in wearing whatever they normally lounged around in off duty.

To be fair, considering what was up ahead, if dress code violations ended up being the worst part of this rebellion, she could count herself lucky.

Narun came next, and for the first time since the door opened, some of the pressure in Uden's chest eased.

He was wearing a full uniform. Finally, someone who cared about proper procedures and regulations. Uden could barely muster herself to hide the smile tugging at her lips when Oba followed from behind him, likewise dressed properly in full uniform. The sight truly warmed her heart.

Johan entered a few steps behind them. There was nothing particularly striking about the man at first glance. Average height, average build, short hair, plain features, and an equally plain sweater and trousers. His face was just as generic as the rest of him, with the only remotely striking feature about him being the rather thick glasses her wore on his nose.

Tomas, who was walking beside him, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. Every feature seemed unusually pronounced, as though he had been designed specifically to stand out in a crowd.

He was tall and lanky, had bright orange hair that was cut into that ridiculous mohawk he stubbornly refused to abandon no matter how much she protested, his deep green eyes were staring off into the distance. His limbs were long enough to make him look disproportionate, and his shoulders were visibly too broad for his build to boot. All in all, combined as a whole package, he stood out like a sore thumb wherever he went.

Had he at least bothered to wear his uniform, Uden might have been willing to call him a good kid. Unfortunately, Tomas was very much not being a good kid at the moment, so any praise would have been undeserved. He probably didn't realize it yet, but Uden's opinion of him had taken a considerable hit. Enough so that he was permanently out of consideration for an officer's position.

Uden shifted her legs beneath the desk. Small things mattered more than people liked to admit. A careless detail here, a bad impression there—someone always noticed eventually. Most of the time, you would never even know who had been watching until they had already twisted the knife inside you back.

Five seconds later Maya appeared, slowly trailing a few good steps behind everyone else.

Uden's irritation sharpened.

Her First Officer wore a loose blue top and pink sweatpants, and unlike the others, she seemed almost embarrassed by it. Her shoulders were drawn inward, her hands clasped behind her back as she entered, her eyes were firmly planted on the ground, avoiding Uden's eyes entirely.

It really hurt Uden more than she would have liked to admit. She already knew that Maya was going to side with her friends, but knowing it and actually seeing it were completely different things.

It didn’t matter. She wasn't going to let it show. Showing weakness right now would only further undermine her position.

Uden leaned back slightly and looked over the group crowding into her office. Seven people were standing in front of her. Five of whom didn’t even bother to dress properly.

Nobody spoke a word as Uden eyed the group with her stern look. Maya shifted uncomfortably, still not daring to look Uden in the eye.

Uden picked up her pen and rolled it once between her fingers.

"I see everyone is dressed for the occasion."

Maya's gaze dropped even farther, and not one person was looking straight at her now.

Uden let the silence stretch, giving them every opportunity to take the initiative. If they truly intended to go through with this, she was perfectly willing to let them dig their own graves.

As it turns out, none of them were too eager to just roll over and die. Oh, if only life was so simple…

They had arranged this entire confrontation on their own, yet somehow Uden was still going to have to be the one to curate the whole thing. If you were going to start the rebellion, the least you could do was take the damn lead.

Uden looked them over once more as if expecting them to change their minds.

"So," Uden said. "Anyone mind explaining to me as to what’s the purpose of the whole squad standing in my office first thing in the morning while out of your uniforms ?"

Uden was very well aware of what was going on here, but she was under no obligation to make it easy for them. If they wanted a revolt, revolt they were going to get, she was just going to make them squirm first.

Bereth's jaw tightened as his face turned more serious. "We're not here to cause trouble."

The whole breaking dress regulation thing suggested otherwise, but Uden allowed him to continue.

“This can’t go on any longer. The line was crossed a long time ago, and the entire squad has already been pushed far beyond its breaking point.”

"Mhm," Uden hums. “And I would assume by entire squad, you do in fact mean the entire squad?"

To her satisfaction, the seven people in front of her squirmed visibly. There it is, if they thought Uden was gonna make it easy on them, they were sorely mistaken.

Uden tapped the pen once against the desk.

“Well ? Cat got your tongues or what ? Speak up.”

And Bereth did.

“I can’t speak for the new girl, as I had never met her, and Alysa, well, Alysa is Alysa, but the rest of us ? Yeah, we are all one unified front. We even got the majority of officers on our side, so there is no need for any debates.“

“Or so you claim.“ Uden replies curtly. “Let’s examine that, shall we ?“

We'll see how you’ll hold up under pressure.

“Marcus ?“ Uden asks almost expectantly.

He shifted uncomfortably before ultimately speaking up.

“I’m with my mates, ma’am,” he replied with all the confidence of a soldier reporting for duty.

Uden suspected the display was as much for everyone behind him as it was for himself. Pretty shrewd. If nothing else, he knew how to set the tone and give the others something to rally around.

Her opinion of him rose slightly. Shame he had chosen to demonstrate that particular quality while rebelling against her. Whatever happened today, Uden doubted she would ever trust him again.

Janis clicked her tongue and shot Uden a look.

“Listen, do we really have to drag this out ? Just sack that useless piece-of-shit vice captain already and be done with it. We don’t need to turn this into a fucking circus.”

Oh, bold this one. A smile tugged at Uden's lips. This was getting interesting.

Bereth looked at her, his face appearing horrified.

There it was. It didn’t take very long for cracks to start forming.

Bereth might have thought this through, but the others clearly hadn't. Most of them had joined on impulse, carried along by frustration and whatever confidence they'd drawn from one another. Now that they were actually standing in front of her, the nerves were starting to show. That was the problem with rebellions like this. They always looked solid in planning phases while everyone were talking among themselves, scheming the whole thing in secret. Once they actually had to go through with it, though ? Well, the bravado disappeared pretty quickly once they realized their own necks were closer to the chopping block than whoever they had conspired to rebel against. Wasn’t the first time, nor would it be the last time the grunts had rebelled against the company, at the end of the day, the house had always won.

To no one's surprise, considering that all you had to do was put a little pressure on the right place, though, and the cracks started forming.

Uden didn't need to break them all at once. She only needed to find the weakest link, push it a little, and the glass house would collapse on their heads.

Rebellions, revolts, uprisings—whatever you wanted to call them, oh, what fickle things they were, especially once the fear had set in. Let's just hope it won’t have to come to that.