Sophia never really considered getting civilians involved in the fight. She figured the team could hold the line by themselves, and there were issues with getting more people involved who weren’t senshi or knights. “I am unsure we should be broadcasting that much information about us. It may get back to the military. If the JSDF was holding the cats, and is aligned with the Covenant, then they’ll react hostilely to our presence. And even if they aren’t aligned with the Covenant, we aren’t with them, and that poses a number of problems. However, run-ins with the military are sort of unavoidable, and they may know a great deal about us already.”

She pauses for a moment, thinking. “But maybe it would help raise people’s spirits to know that we are fighting for them, and there is some hope. I don’t know…”

She looks back at David, “How did your time in the resistance in California go?”

David paused, hearing the question, but not wholly embracing it. He stared at the girl for the longest time, his eyes burning a deep, radiant blue. "You really don't want to know the answer to that..." he started. "I'll talk about what we can apply here, what we can do differently... but Sophia... don't ask me about California."

Sophia drops the subject, partly because it seemed to be a trigger and partly because the brain zap trick was very unpleasant. However, she takes it things aren’t going so well on the Western front. She gathered that much before when she looked over those documents. Perhaps there would be better times to talk about how things were in the U.S.

She stays pretty calm despite the increase in tension. “Alright, what would you like to apply here? I should mention there’s also the problem that most people wouldn’t be interested. Covenant, Obelisks, war… it’s all considered as something that exists outside of Japan. And I’m unsure whether I’d want to drag civilians into a fight like that if I didn’t have to.” She likes Japan being as idyllic as it is, and saving the world without any recognition was fine by her.

“So what exactly did you have in mind when you came here?”

"I thought... I don't know..." David sighed, shaking his head. "If there was a chance, if there was a way to rally the military and civilians into a coordinated effort, we could take the battle to the Covenant, go offensive, and smash their insurgency to bits." Staring down at his feet, he sighed, a churning, lingering anger surrounding him. "We need to crush them."

“I wouldn’t expect much help from them. Besides, we can do everything ourselves. No one else needs to get hurt in the process,” Sophia responds. She didn’t like leading a bunch of people into a mission, knowing well many of them would die. “If we can actually succeed against fighting the leadership, there wouldn’t be any need for smaller skirmishes against their insurgency, would there? And as far as I know, only other senshi and knights can actually hurt a Covenant member of higher rank.” It would mean less death on all sides.

Sophia winces as he uses the word crush. She somewhat stopped expecting other knights and senshi to have similar views. At the same time, she hopes… maybe… that her knight, another guardian of love and light, may just have the same dreams. “Don’t you think they can be saved?” The question comes out somewhat quietly.

Yinko glanced at Sophia, curling his lips into a frown. She didn't just say that, did she? Did she think he was that cruel? Maybe she should have learned more about Stalin's Russia and the Purges, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, or Augusto Pinochet. A little blood on their hands fighting for humanity was nothing compared to what they had already paid, what the Covenant was charging them day and night. These were the enemy, and you didn't worry about saving them.

Even the Japanese didn't listen to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Who would? A little radiation and collateral damage no greater than months of conventional bombing was pointless. No, it took Stalin declaring war on August 8th, the invasion of Manchuria, and the fear of a brutal Soviet ground war on the mainland to make the Emperor change his mind.

"Do you even know what war is?" Yinko muttered. "If you knew, you wouldn't talk about saving them. It's a business transaction, pure and simple. The bad guy wants what good guy has, and is willing to kill to get it. What's 'saving them' going to offer as revenue? What percentage will their immortal souls return on the market? Their lives, though... you take everything they've got and everything they'll ever have away... Oh yes, they'll listen to that!"

Sophia frowns. However, there's more sadness in her expression than anger. No, this knight wasn’t much like the last one. Also, explaining her outlook on things never tended to yield much in the way of results. She isn’t quite sure what to make of his statements though. War… did she know what it was? She understood it in a conceptual way, and she understood it in as something that caused her to lose both Kenji and Kousuke. The true nature and scope was sort of coming on more gradually though.

However, she couldn’t lose the idea of the other side being people. “One, there are no good and bad people. There are simply just people. Two, all life has value.” Death as transactions isn’t really an idea she could get behind.
“I was told that there was a possibility to save them all… maybe. Wouldn’t that be the best solution? What does death achieve against other alternatives?”

“I guess it hardly matters at this point anyways…” It’s not like she could save those creatures from their corruption. That kind of ability was far outside of her power.