Reincarnated: Vive La France

The road to Paris stretched like a scar across the country, lined with half-dead trees and the ghosts of long-forgotten wars.

The staff car continue across the road.

Moreau sat back in the passenger seat.

He didn't speak.

Not to the driver.

Not to the wind.

His mind was elsewhere among corpses, last screams, broken rifles, and the fresh graves at Ridge Bravo.

He was halfway there when the car slowed.

"Sir?" his driver called. "We've got a roadblock. Military checkpoint. One officer."

Moreau leaned forward.

Standing beside a sandbagged post under a tin awning was a tall man in field grey, silver stars gleaming on his epaulettes.

General Delon.

Moreau frowned. "That bastard."

Because this brought his back to memories two years ago when he thought General Delon purges could have solved the rot in this country.

The driver rolled down the window.

Delon raised a hand, casual, almost warm.

"I'll take it from here," the general said. "Thank you, Corporal."

Moreau stepped out, coat flapping in the wind. "You dragging me back or just waving goodbye?"

Delon gave a tired smile. "Neither. Walk with me. There's a café nearby. Best terrible coffee in the region."

Moreau snorted. "That doesn't narrow it down."

They walked in silence down a side path, toward a half-ruined village.

The café was barely standing roof patched with tarp, windows cracked.

Inside, it smelled of cheap beans and wet wood.

A single woman brewed coffee behind the counter.

She didn't ask questions.

Soldiers had been passing through since '30.

Delon slid into a corner booth.

Moreau sat across, arms crossed.

"You know," Delon said quietly, "two years ago, in Verdun, we sat just like this. You'd lost men to an ambush because of traitors. Inside intel sold your patrol path. I called you in Perrin office, you wanted answers. I remember asking if you still trusted the army."

Moreau's jaw tightened. "And now?"

Delon sighed. "Now I don't even have the confidence to ask."

Moreau stared at him for a long beat. "Why, General? Why must my men die for nothing? Why is it that every time I think I've made a difference every time I train them, push them, shape them into something stronger it resets. Back to zero. Like nothing mattered."

Delon didn't reply.

He looked down at his coffee.

Steam curled above it, but he didn't drink.

Moreau leaned in. "Tell me the truth. Why am I here? Why this little checkpoint in the middle of nowhere?"

Delon looked up.

"I know why this happened," he said quietly. "I know why that family was taken before you could even shake the father's hand. Why the operation was sabotaged from the inside. Why reinforcements came too late."

Moreau didn't blink. "Tell me."

"They wanted the credit," Delon said. "They wanted the tech, the satchel, the recognition. To claim it as a State victory, not a battlefield one. And they wanted to make sure you didn't get too powerful. That's why they delayed reinforcement. That's why they sent Intelligence. They were ready to let you die out there."

The words hit like artillery.

Moreau stood up so fast the chair clattered backwards.

The entire café fell silent.

He slammed his hands on the table, rattling Delon's coffee.

"WHAT FUCKING WRONG HAVE I DONE?!" he roared. "WHAT THE HELL DID MY MEN DO?! WHAT DID THEIR FAMILIES DO TO DESERVE THIS?!"

Delon said nothing.

Moreau's voice cracked. "Thirty-four sons. Thirty-four homes with an empty bed tonight. Over five hundred people wives, mothers, children destroyed. For what?! For some piece of paper and the prestige of Parisian bastards who never held a rifle?"

He stepped back, clenching his fists until his knuckles went white.

"This… this is a fucking game to them. A chess match with real blood. And the pieces that bleed don't get statues. They get buried in mud."

His voice dropped, rough and broken.

"What can I do, General?" he asked. "What can I do to make the pain stop? I trained them. I made them. I bled with them. And now I write their eulogies while some ministry rat sips champagne over their corpses?"

Delon rubbed his eyes with a hand that trembled slightly. "I wanted to say so much, Moreau I had speeches. But I've got nothing now."

He looked old.

Older than Moreau had ever seen him.

The strength in his shoulders was still there, but it sagged now, as if the weight had finally seeped into the bones.

Then he asked it.

"So. What do you want to do next, son? Rebel? Stage a coup? March into Paris and put a bullet in every polished skull?"

Moreau stared at him, breath shallow.

For a long, aching moment, he said nothing.

Because he didn't know.

He didn't know.

Delon read it on his face.

"That's what I thought," the general said gently. "You're a soldier, Moreau. Not a politician. Not a monster. But the rage in you? You're not the only one feeling it."

He leaned forward.

"There's unrest in the army. You've felt it. You've led it. Men don't cry for medals anymore they cry for justice. They follow you because you bleed with them. And that scares the bastards in Paris more than bullets."

He paused.

"The last time the army was this volatile… a short man took control and marched across Europe. You remember him."

"Napoleon."

"Correct. And I'm not saying you are him, or that I want another one. But…"

Delon exhaled.

"…sometimes the fire needs a spark."

Moreau stared.

Delon rose, straightened his coat.

"I can't show you the road, Moreau. I'm just an old relic. But whatever road you take know this you don't walk it alone."

He stepped past Moreau, paused at the door.

"You have more influence than you know. Just… be careful how you use it."

And then he left.

The café was silent.

Moreau sat back down, slowly.

Rubbed his face.

Then stood, walked out into the grey morning.

He didn't return to the car.

Instead, he took the back roads.

And by nightfall, he reached an old military post nestled along the ridge of Lorraine.

An abandoned base, repurposed for transit troops.

Quiet.

Forgotten.

There, with a dim lamp and a borrowed desk, Moreau wrote ten letters.

Each sealed by hand.

Each addressed to men and women of consequence.

Some soldiers.

Some revolutionaries.

Some forgotten ghosts in the military machine who owed him favors, loyalty, or blood.

He didn't include explanations.

Just coordinates.

Just names.

Just a time to meet.

And when he was done, he stood in the doorway of the communications tent, watching the wind roll across the frost-covered fields.

He did not speak.

He simply waited.

And the storm inside him grew louder.