A/N: This is a crossover of the impossible: Rome Total War and Vocaloid. Our cute, green-haired girl meets the grizzled Pre-Marius Res Publica Legio Romani, set in the war between the House of Julii and the Gauls (which, as all RTW players should know, will hit you as a player soon enough).
As with all crossovers, do not take this story seriously. When I conjured this bizarre crossover, I have thrown off the gutter any semblance of Vocaloid canon in favor of Roman history as in Rome Total War. Just so that it may work.
Viewer knowledge of history and the Latin language as well as tolerance of implied war crime suggested.
A particular day in early summer, 256 BC.
Most Roman historians would describe that day as the biggest, most heroic battle in known history. Perhaps that was an overstatement on behalf of Roman chroniclers wanting to glorify their faction. The battle fought that day in fact was far smaller than Issus or Gaugamela in terms of participants or casualties, and no amount of valor in battle could top that of the Spartans martyrs at Thermopylae. And yet the historians would still have a point. For the importance of that battle to Rome as a whole and the Julii faction in particular was unprecedented.
The hostility between the Gauls and the Romans was no news. Rome itself did not tolerate barbarians, taking any chance to seize their land, their wealth and womenfolk, and they had responded in kind. The House of Julii in particular had their own personal grudge against those trouser-wearing, unwashed barbarians. It was said that Quintus Julius the Elder, grandfather of the current leader of the family, was captured by the Gauls in one skirmish. Quite appropriately to the war tradition of that day, he got his eyes put out and his head severed shortly thereafter.
The war between the Gauls and the Romans under the command of Flavius Julius the Greater and his Julii family raged long and hard. From their strongholds in Northern Latium of Patavium and Mediolanium, the infamous Lugotorix and his warbands had raided Roman lands many times, once going as far as the outskirt of Arretium, the seat of power of the Julii. The Romans had always repaid those debts in kind, besieging Patavium and Mediolanium for a total of six times. In spite of all the effort and the heavy losses of life and wealth on both side, including Lugotorix' nephew Tancred and Flavius' eldest son Quintus Julius, the war had been all but decisive.
Until today.
One might say the loss of his son had driven Flavius mad, while others suggested that the Roman leader had taken due risk like a general worth his salt should. Abandoning his capital of Arretium to his second son Lucius and a ragtag bunch of untrained peasants, Flavius led what was perhaps the entire Julii army against Patavium again. Being the brave man he was, Lugotorix refused to cower within the stockade, and led his warbands to face his Roman nemesis in person.
It was a close call for the Romans. Twice the Gauls had broken the Roman Hastati, and once sent half of Flavius' Principes running for their life. Flavius himself was injured in battle, his company of bodyguards slaughtered to a man. It was the Roman courage and resolve of the third line Triarii that held the battle in favor of the Julii. Lugotorix himself fell prey to the Triarii's fervor, when one of their spears impaled him from front to back as he led his cavalry charge in an attempt to break them. But unlike the other barbarian tribesmen, instead of routing immediately when their general fell, Lugotorix' men chose to steel their resolve and fought to death to avenge their beloved leader. All but a couple of the Gauls fell that day, bringing with them the vast majority of the Romans.
What happened next was a matter of dispute. With the city of Patavium ripe for plundering before his eyes, plus many of his soldiers demanding blood to avenge their fallen brothers, Flavius could have ordered the entire city massacred in a heartbeat. He didn't, instead ordering the soldiers to treat the people as if they were Romans. To complete his act of chivalry, the Roman noble had Lugotorix buried like a hero.
Many of his men were displeased with such behavior, even during the celebration banquet. In a particular corner of the Roman camp, a couple of surviving Hastati gathered around, drinking, swearing and being quite vocal about their objection.
"Antonius, Kaeso, Titus, Cassius, dead. Aetius and Amulius too. Even Septius and Vestius have bitten the dust," one trooper cried out loud as he took a large swig of wine. "Hell, we have got to be the only ones alive and unscathed out of the whole frigging Century!"
A young and particular hot-blooded Roman he was, swinging his cup with one hand and violently cleaving the air with his other. If not for his meager armor and torn tunic, his posture could have been mistaken for an orator from the Senate itself. One of his mate, an even more furious Roman soldier, was far more unrestraint in his speech.
"And guess what? Our magnificent leader, the prideful Flavius Julius himself, decided to spare this goddamn town, huh?" He said loudly, his voice more or less distorted by alcohol. "Screw him, I'll make those stinking Gauls know we can kill when we want to kill, too!"
His companion, a slightly older Hastatus, looked much more sober and somber. His uptight behavior as well as his heavier armor resembled the conduct and garment of a Princeps. Cautiously he gazed around, as if afraid of some hostile eavesdropper, before returning to his comrades.
"Watch what you are saying, Andronicus, Aurelius," he said with a low whisper. "This is a barrack, not a tavern. Save your protest when we are absolutely out of this first."
"So what?" the Hastatus called Andronicus tossing his cup of wine on the floor with a loud crash, spilling the content on the ground as if testifying his murderous rage. "Flavius Julius can go stop me all he wants, tomorrow I am sinking my blade into a dozen Gauls' guts at the least! Aurelius and I tomorrow will bring at least several scores with us, even if we face the crucifix for it!"
Then he pointed at his somber friend and said.
"And you, Gaius?" his voice was anything but respectful. "If you are so afraid, go home. Real Romans don't forgive or forget."
Gaius lifted his eyebrow in displeasure. He still happened to keep his calm about him, owing to no small part his teetotal take on alcohol.
"You do know you'll get into trouble if our Centurion hears that, don't you?" he said simply.
"Then? Like we'd care?" Aurelius added, his face visibly red from both wine and anger.
"And that, my young men, is the attitude that will kill you one day."
A warm yet stern voice started the trio for all what it was worth. Gaius' words could not have been truer and more timely. As the trio turned back to face the voice, brfore them stood a large, brooding soldier in officer's armor, complete with a fine horse-hair helmet and a fine gladius on his side. No longer a soldier in his prime, his beard and hair mostly grey, his forehead decorated with several deep wrinkles, the soldier nevertheless emitted an aura of stern leadership. Perhaps it was precisely that old age and seniority that had created such a powerful presence. The next thing the three Hastati knew, they were all bowing to the elder soldier.
"Centurion Gnaeus Secundus," greeted Gaius, inadvertently trembling, "What… what has brought you here today?"
"I am in charge of you men," the old soldier answered. "Of course I have to go around and make sure you don't drink yourselves paralytic, even after such a victory."
A sharp glance of his at the two loud-mouthed soldiers suddenly drove a chill up their spines. It seemed to be just a warning, however, as the Centurion's attention turned to the table nearby and the bottle on it.
"But naturally I wouldn't object to a cup or two," he said, sitting down and poured himself a cup of the brown-reddish brew. "Especially when it is imported Thessalonikan red wine."
Another glance from the eagle-eyed centurion at the cupless Hastatus seemed to have sucked all of his will to fight. The soldier quickly bent his neck at the first sight of his commander, his bloodthirsty attitude just now quenched as if it had never existed.
"Centurion, I…"
"Drink first," he said, raising his cup aloft, not even paying attention if anyone was to share his toast. "Let us drink a toast to our great victory against the Gauls, and in remembrance of the noble Quintus Julius Mediolanius."
Quintus Julius was a name the three Hastati had engraved upon their soul. Of the three sons of Flavius Julius, Quintus was the most unsuitable to the life of a politician and best fitted to the military. To him, the military was his family outside his family, his soldiers his brothers, and his conquests devoted to his men. Gaius and Andronicus had both had the chance to drink with the great general, not one, not twice, but three times.
The feeling was reciprocal, as his men loved him as much as he loved them, and were ever willing to fight and die for him. In the end, it was that love for his men that cost him his life. They said that Quintus' death during the doomed battle of Mediolanium was entirely avoidable had he not chosen to guard the rear of the line while his men retreated. It was a crime of the Gaul no one in Gaius' corps would forgive or forget. Thinking so, Andronicus' blood boiled once more, and he spoke in a tone best likening to a ferocious animal.
"Why, Centurion? Why is it that we have the chance to bathe in the Gauls' blood today in General Quintus' name right when our blades are fresh, and yet our most noble Flavius Julius didn't take that chance?" he cried, tears welling in his eyes. "Not to mention… not to mention our brothers! Doesn't he want vengeance? Slaughter?"
For a second, the Centurion did not answer, instead focusing on his drink, leaving Andronicus to grind his jaws in anguish. It was only when he had drained the last drop from the cup that he looked up at his soldiers and said.
"I have told you many times," he said calmly. "Fighting out of hatred is what savages – barbarians – do. It leads to slaughter, more hatred, more slaughter, and then even more hatred and more slaughter… an endless circle. You all are true, civilized Romans – would you instead prefer to sink to their level? And that is not to mention blind rage takes out our greatest strength, that of discipline."
He then stood up and glanced at Aurelius unforgivingly.
"If these ears still served me right, you two are planning to go on a killing spree against the general's order, aren't you? " he said, his eyebrows raised in a fierce way. "Is that what a soldier is not supposed to do in the first place?"
"But sir!" protested Andronicus. "General Quintus…"
"If General Quintus were still alive, he would have probably pardoned the Gauls too," reasserted Centurion Gnaeus.
"But why?" asked Aurelius, suitably annoyed. "With all due respect, you are not him, sir!"
"Well, Aurelius, Andronicus," the centurion said, pouring himself another cup, "I would not think so, if I didn't know of one person the General held dear, the very person who taught him about mercy and compassion."
All at once the three Hastati froze solid. It took the centurion half the cup before one of them could bring himself to speech again.
"Did you say, 'the person the General held dear', sir?" Gaius asked, not being able to hide his excitement or curiosity.
The Centurion took his time to swig the last sip from his cup before speaking again, to the group's eagerness.
"The general called her Miku Hatsune," he finally said. "But I am a Roman like you all, so I preferred to call her Mikua Prima."
"Miku… Hatsune?" repeated Andronicus, removing his helmet so he could scratch his head. "The name sounds too exotic for my taste."
"Where did she come from, sir?" Aurelius also asked. "Greece? Thrace? Parthia? Egypt? Seleukos? Or, by the grace of the gods, Gaul?"
"Neither," the centurion shook his head. "She once mentioned her homeland in a casual conversation… an unknown land of Nihonnia, far, far away from here, even further west than the Sarmartian's easternmost territory. I don't even know if such land exists, I just know that even if it does, we would likely never get there in our life."
"So you have met her in person, sir?" said Gaius.
"I have," nodded Gnaeus. "At the first look at her garment you might mistake her for a common prostitute. She always wore a skirt shorter than our tunic, a long stocking and a sleeveless shirt. Her long hair tied in a twin pigtail constantly veiled over her arms, so that kind of balanced it out."
Taking a short pause to pour himself another half a cup, the Centurion continued.
"But from her hair and eye color alone, you could see she was no ordinary human… no ordinary human that Romans of the Julii and Brutii and Scipii alike have seen. They were completely, unmistakably green, as if a fortune's worth of dye had been invested in both. So was the strange tattoo on her left shoulder, one that read like the letter O an I squashed together. At the first sight, one could mistake her hair for a gorgon's."
"M… monster!" Andronicus exclaimed, nearly jumping aback.
"If she were a monster, then the appropriate word to describe the harlot that is my wife has not yet been invented," chuckled the Centurion. "Apart from her hair color I daresay not one woman in the entirety of Rome could outshine her in sheer beauty."
"But how did noble Quintus find such a woman?"
"More like girl than woman," the centurion corrected. "If she were still alive, she would be a few years younger than you lot. At first I thought she was another exotic bedroom slave the General decided to keep for himself after a campaign, as she began to appear around the camp after the general's first major campaign, ten years ago."
"Did… did you say 'younger than us'?" Gauis asked back, appropriately shocked.
"It was fairly disturbing, but think this way – there is no soldier who had not committed heinous sins during our days, Compared to those sins," he glanced at the two plotters symbolically before continuing, "hauling in a girl barely of age for entertainment was not exactly a terrible deed after all. That seemed all the more logical, since she perpetually stayed in the General's tent at night."
Taking yet another pause for emphasis, the centurion then said blankly.
"I was way wrong, both about her and about the General."
"How so, sir?" the three Hastati asked in unison.
"One late night I happened to cross the general's tent. I expected everything to be quiet and orderly. It was at camp and late night, after all. It was then that I heard something from within, some abnormal sounds. Out of fear for the general's safety, and – I won't lie, some curiosity – I barged in… only to hear what amounted to the finest music I have ever heard."
There was no word that could describe the compete astonishment that had befallen the audience at that point.
"Music? In camp? But how, sir?"
"Even now I am wondering how she could sing in the tent so that those from outside could barely hear a thing while those inside were treated to a feast of music fit for the gods," the centurion shook his head. "It appeared that I was the only person besides General Quintus to have ever heard that voice… a voice so serene, so childlike, so… adorable and yet so energetic and inspiring at the same time. Coupled with the look on her face as she was performing, I know many warlords could have sold cities just to have that girl for themselves."
Taking another sip and leaning against the table to immense further in his reminiscence, the centurion then continued.
"To my astonishment, the general was not looking at her at all. Both his eyes were closed, his chin propped on his hand, completely absorbed in the music and the music alone. At certain points he looked like he was crying from the pure joy."
"I never knew General Quintus had a soft side like that," remarked Andronicus.
"The most miraculous thing, my friends," answered the centurion, "was that I never understand a word she sang. She was performing in a sort of exotic language not known anywhere else in the known world. And yet I myself was brought to tears too… by the songs whose lyrics I don't know."
"If I were the General, screw my wife," remarked Aurelius, "I'd definitely have that girl as my spouse."
"Well, that was not what the General did," the Centurion shook his head in disapproval. "Everytime from then on that I caught them together, I saw the General's looking at Mikua, his eyes filled with anything but courtly love. It was more like the eyes of a friend looking at a close comrade… like how Achilles would look at Patrocles, or Alexander the Great at Hephaistion, however nonsensical that analogy seemed."
Before the audience could suppress their ever-growing astonishment, the centurion swigged another sip of wine and then went on.
"After that campaign, the general decided to bring her to his estate in the outskirt of Ariminium and raised her there. The duties of a governor and general were harsh, and he could not afford to visit her very often. But whatever time he spent with her counted," said the centurion, "Before I knew it, the interaction with Mikua Prima had changed General Quintus completely. From the stern and potentially bloodthirsty and warlike Roman like his father and other brothers, Quintus Julius became the benevolent leader you all know and love. The transition was not overnight, but it wasn't long before the General carried his heart of mercy into battle, to friends or foes alike. The rest, my friend, is history."
There was a pause in the audience as the Centurion stopped his story. And then one detail of the story sank into Gaius with all due suddenness, causing him to jerk up.
"Sir, I thought you said, 'If she were still alive'" he asked hastily. "What happened to her after that?"
"She didn't survive for long, apparently. Perhaps the mortal body can never hold such an amount of awe only gods can attest to. Or perhaps there was some other reason we don't understand," Gnaeus said sadly. "Every time she would strain herself to perform for the General, she lost a bit of her color, permanently. It was barely a year after their first meeting when she was reduced to a mere shell of her former shell, slowly becoming pale like a ghost and tended to run out of breath. Eventually General Quintus discovered it and disallowed her to continue singing while trying to consult the best physicians in the whole of Rome for her. At that stage, though, all of them suggested that even Asclepios reincarnated could not bring this girl life from death..."
"Was… was there no other way?" stammered Aurelius.
"The campaign against the Gauls at least did the general one good thing – he did not have to see Mikua die, not with his own eyes at least. However, the account from the eyewitness in his estate of how she actually died… it was the first time I saw the general cry for real."
Shaking his head, acknowledging the loss as if it were his own, the centurion lowered his voice and continued.
"She just simply disappeared from the world, as if she had never existed, right before the eyes of the best physician the House of Julii could summon. Just like that. The air itself was her grave, and General Quintus' memories her headstone. The last thing the General knew of her was her last words, narrated by one of his slaves later on," pausing a bit to put together his clouded memories, the centurion then recited. "'I am but a program created to make people happy. But you haven't taken me for face value or the joy I brought you. I appreciate everything you have brought me in return, I appreciate your company, I appreciate it all… but my time is up. Arigato Gozaimasu, Quintus-sama'. That's what she was supposed to have said, or so I was told."
"Arigato Gozaimasu, Quintus-sama? What does that even mean?" Gaius asked, appropriately perplexed.
"The gods had abandoned the General on that issue. Even until his death, he never understood what it meant, and neither have I. I don't even understand what she was talking about in its entirety."
For a few seconds nothing could be heard except for the crackling of firewood and the sound of wine flowing through the Centurion's throat.
"Who could have known our General had got such a tragedy…" remarked Andronicus.
"But that has nothing to do with what we are doing here!" Aurelius regained his morale and asked back furiously. "Nice tale, sir, but that doesn't help that our brothers in many graves are crying out for blood and vengeance!"
"Yes, my young men, that is exactly what I am trying to tell you today. If the general were alive, I believe, he would wish not for the slaughter to prolong."
"With all due respect, you aren't the General to know what his wish should be!" protested the stubborn Hastati. "And look at our deads! I mean…"
"Having been a bodyguard for the General for years, I know this better than you," the Centurion shook his head. "With Mikua's demise, the last piece of the general's new mindset was put together. If the death of a seemingly nobody he had just known for a year could have depressed him so, think about if someone more important to him had died. Unfortunately, that was something we take for granted in wars. Those who are armed and want our lives we must cut them down, but those who are not… there was simply no reason and no excuse rather than petty vengeance or looting, none of which is now acceptable. He kept that mindset until the final day of his life. And for that, thousands of innocents in Segesta and Massila and Lugdunum could live rather than died."
"But…"
"That is why by sparing Patavium, noble Flavius was following General Quintus' wishes," concluded Gnaeus. "As for you… I know the last battle had been harsh. But that's life. Killing more would not resurrect those who had died. We will just have to bury our dead and go on."
Slamming the cup on the table, the Centurion's eyes turned back into the stern mood an officer should have.
"I rest my cup and my advice for today," he said. "What you do next is up to you. But there are consequences for everything you do. If general Quintus Julius' will does not ."
And then he left, as though letting his story seep into the mind of the three soldiers still left more or less stoned.
******
Several weeks later, the Roman army marched out of Patavium back to Arretium and the surrounding area, where their families awaited them with open arms.
Some of the survivors of the battle, however, never got the chance. Before handing the town over to the provisional military government, Flavius Julius had a fair number of Roman soldiers who disobeyed his orders to pillage and murder the townsfolk executed. In doing so, he showed the now-Roman citizens that the Legions has discipline, ethics and moral as well as welcomed them to the Roman way of life.
Among the executed there were no records of anyone named Andronicus or Aurelius. Perhaps their guts weren't as large as their mouth in the first place. Perhaps the Centurion's threats did work after all. Perhaps part of them, that of true Romans and all, found the task too cowardly for a soldier.
Or perhaps, it was the tale of a particular green-haired girl that had softened their hearts?