The toa of iron slowly ran his hand along the flat of his sword, the leathery inside of his hand feeling the gradual curve of the keen blade. His eyes were half closed, and to a casual glance he seemed to be completely calm.

In reality, any calm he possessed had been replaced by numbing shock.

He was in his room, in a brief rest he had, before plunging back into the growing war effort.

I can’t go back, his mind whispered over and over again. Not after this.

The sword in his hands was his most precious possession; he had born it as a matoran, and also as a toa. It held a great memory…

But its memory had been tainted unchangeably, profaned almost.

I did my duty. I upheld my oath. I lived according to my honor, he reasoned.

And my blade tasted the blood of my friends. The blood of my love.

Could anything, he wondered, remove that from his mind? It was a tear, and one he could not bear. It tore through his heart, his honor, his being.

Was it treachery to do what I did? Would it have been treachery to not do what I did?

Those questions revolved in his mind, and he could not answer them.

I didn’t kill them! He rebuked himself.

You killed your bond with them, you delivered them over to death, his conscience was quick to point out.

I know… was his feeble response. His hand reflexively began to grip, and he blunted the edge beneath his fingers with his power, almost instinctively.

You delivered those you owed loyalty up for death for their desertion.

But, he countered, I owe my county more loyalty.

Athru is not your country. Dinaru is.

The toa almost snarled.

My country is my island! We are no longer part of Dinaru. We are our own. I owe my own my allegiance.

And your country is before your morals?

The question continued, although he neither dismissed it nor answered it. The toa sat in the silence, his features hard.

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For those bemused, this is a write off story of mine, and also is about a character from my upcoming epic, And to the Republic.