86 - Volume 10 - Chapter 2.4

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A Löwe suddenly appeared in front of Isuka’s Juggernaut.

The fifty-tonne Goliath’s absurd performance allowed it to land from its jump with a silence one would never imagine given its size. It swung the front left of its four thick legs down at him. Since Isuka was too close to its turret, it chose to kick away the unsightly insect instead of shooting it dead.

“Oh, shi—”

Then came the impact.

When next Isuka opened his eyes, he realized he had been knocked out of his Juggernaut and onto the concrete outside. Looking around, he found his Juggernaut toppled over a short distance away, its frame ruptured. A red trail of blood extended from the Juggernaut, leading all the way over to where Isuka was lying.

It was his blood.

…I screwed up.

Sighing, Isuka looked up to the sky, his back resting against the concrete. The thick, water-resistant fabric of his field uniform hid it, but he could feel the inside of his stomach growing hot. His internal organs had ruptured. And there were no military physicians in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, so he couldn’t hope for medical treatment. This was a fatal wound.

A stomach injury wasn’t like a wound to the head or chest. Even if one doesn’t get help, the wound won’t kill that quickly. And he didn’t want to writhe in agony, unable to die in some corner of the battlefield as screams and gunfire echoed around him. Isuka reached for his right thigh to grasp the pistol holstered there…

…but his fingers passed through empty air.

He couldn’t feel the grip of the gun, but worse yet…he couldn’t feel his leg altogether.

Looking down, he saw that under his uniform top, his legs were missing completely.

“…?!”

Turning around fearfully, he saw the missing half of his body spill out of the open cockpit of his toppled Juggernaut. The pistol was just barely in its holster, hanging slightly over a pool of blood littered with his severed fingers, dangling just out of reach.

He couldn’t tell how long he spent lying there dumbfounded. An inappropriate snicker spilled from his lips, and every bit of strength drained from his body. He couldn’t force himself to crawl all the way there. To begin with, his hands were missing fingers anyway, so he couldn’t reliably grip or shoot the gun in the first place.

At this point, he didn’t care if he lived or died.

But this was inevitable, he thought as his dulled sense of pain was beginning to resurface. He’d been a Processor for over three years. He’d tried to keep his squadrons united so he could ensure his own survival, and doing that had consumed the lives of many of his comrades.

So many had died, either to the Legion or by their own hand. Trapped in a battlefield where they were throttled about by the malice of both the Legion and the Republic, their hearts grew haggard and ill from seeing even their fellow Eighty-Six regard them with spite.

And it was all because Isuka had made it so.

And this was the retribution he got for it.

It looked like the rest of the Stiletto squadron was still fighting, though they were on the back foot. They likely weren’t in any condition to come rescue him. He’d either bite the dust here, without any of them knowing…or his squadron would simply be wiped out, and the Legion would take him away as their spoils of war. Whichever it’ll be…

…I won’t get an easy death…

But just then, the monotone world of the rubble’s dull gray and the thin, silvery clouds of the Eintagsfliege were invaded by vivid red.

Isuka turned around reflexively, his eyes catching sight of it. There was a shade of black like the darkness of night had been refined into color. A shade of crimson, redder than blood.

“Nouzen…”

Isuka’s whisper was so quiet that Shin didn’t seem to hear it. But Isuka could see his Juggernaut squat down in the edge of his field of vision. Its cockpit opened, and Shin disembarked, hurrying over to Isuka’s unit. He was so utterly defenseless, even Isuka couldn’t help but worry. If just a single self-propelled mine was nearby, he surely would have died.

He shouldered his assault rifle, which was far too large for his small frame. He didn’t have a pistol, though. Isuka never let him have one because he didn’t want him to take his own life like so many scapegoats before him.

He approached Isuka’s Juggernaut, as silent as the Legion’s own footsteps, and inspected how damaged it was.

Apparently, Shin did it because he’d broken his own Juggernaut. Looking at it, the heavy machine guns on both of its grappling arms were badly damaged. The barrels were bent out of shape, as if he’d bashed them against the enemy. On top of that, his Juggernaut didn’t look like it’d stay properly balanced when stationary. One of its four fragile legs had its joint bent and snapped off.

He’d lost his secondary armaments, and his unit wasn’t capable of normal mobility, so he decided to switch over to another Juggernaut, even if its cockpit was slightly damaged. Unfortunately for him, the cockpit to Isuka’s rig had been wrecked from top to bottom, and the Juggernaut wasn’t operable.

Seeing this, Shin shook his head, and then he realized that the scattered remains of Isuka’s stomach were spilling out of the cockpit. He swallowed nervously, then traced the blood trail, eventually discovering Isuka himself.

His bloodred eyes—their shade of crimson clearer and purer than the blood and viscera spread over the ground—settled on Isuka. On his damaged, severed stomach. On his hands, which had less fingers than they should have had. On the fact that despite it all, he was unfortunately, tragically still alive.

Just like the squad mate he once shot before Shin’s very eyes was unfortunately, tragically still alive.

At first, Isuka was completely prepared to see Shin turn around and leave him to his fate. Isuka had treated him awfully, after all. Why would he save him? And Isuka wouldn’t lower himself to begging for mercy. He wouldn’t, and he didn’t have the right to anyway.

The red eyes fixed on him froze over. As if hesitating, torn by some internal conflict.

What the hell are you doing? Isuka thought bitterly. What’s there to be confused about? I hurt you so much. What other option do you even have if not to abandon me? Just leave me here to die. Go. Hurry up and leave. Begging you for mercy would just be humiliating. Don’t make me do something as pathetic as asking someone I hurt for help…!

But then Shin pursed his lips…

…and drew the pistol from Isuka’s bloodstained holster.

“…What?”

Isuka was speechless for a moment. And then Shin turned the muzzle in his direction. It was shaking slightly but still fixed on his head. On the other end of its sights were eyes full of conflict—fear grappling with a shaky resolve.

He was hesitating. Not over the likelihood of saving him. But over making the heartless choice of shooting him dead without even trying to treat him, even if it was in the name of ending his suffering…

But Isuka’s surprise soon faded away. And in its place, he felt an inexplicable rage. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was angry at, but the emotion clouded his field of vision.

Dammit.

God dammit. This is what I get, huh? This is who I have to see at the very end…

Without Isuka knowing it, a self-deprecating smile played over his features.

God dammit. If this is the punishment I get…

He lifted his right hand, which felt far heavier than it should have, and nudged the exposed bone at the end of his remaining thumb between his eyes.

If you have to do it, aim here.

“You know how to use it, right? Pull the slide…”

Before he could even finish the sentence, Shin pulled the slide back with his small hands and loaded the first bullet into the chamber… Someone really had taught him how to do this. After pulling it as far as it would go, he clicked it back into place.

Whoever taught him to handle a gun probably hadn’t actually trained him to shoot people, though.

“You don’t have to worry about a safety with that one. It automatically cocks the hammer when you load the first bullet. You just need to aim and shoot.”

He said this, of course, knowing that this final part was the hardest. Shin would have to shoot Isuka, who was still alive and stirring, while looking him dead in the eye. The sight of it would likely be seared into his mind. Human instinct naturally loathed the idea of taking another life, making it the most terrifying act imaginable.

But if this dumb kid didn’t do it now, he’d probably be haunted by regret for the rest of his life. The regret of not finishing off this fool who couldn’t even die properly.

“It has space for fifteen bullets. Means you can shoot up to fourteen times and not worry about it. Go on. Shoot.”

“…?”

Shin forced his ragged breaths to calm down, doubt clouding over his unnaturally hard gaze. Isuka shook his head with a pained smile.

“But don’t use that last one on anyone else. The last bullet is for when you’re about to die. That way, you can put yourself at ease. That’s one thing you should never…ever let someone else do for you.”

Shin had to be at least that selfish…or else Isuka, someone who had lived his life in an entirely selfish way, would never rest in peace.

Having said all he needed to, Isuka closed his eyes. Shin could at least do that much. After some hesitation, Shin exhaled, and the atmosphere about him became cold and morose…

Come on, you idiot. Don’t let this get to you.

The first shot missed Isuka by a wide margin and bored into the asphalt to the side of his head. The second shot blew one of his ears off. The fact that he even grazed him on his second attempt was commendable, in a way.

The thought that Shin was going to take him along crossed Isuka’s mind.

How would he remember me, then? He isn’t going to take what I just said and the fact that I gave him a few pointers on how to use a pistol and call that kindness, is he?

For a moment, an inappropriate smile played over Isuka’s lips.

If that’s the case, then he really is an idiot.

He thought he could hear the third gunshot blare out. And that was the last thing Isuka ever heard before his brains were scattered: the final knell of mercy.

The first two shots missed their mark, but the third one hit his forehead, just like he’d asked.

The pistol prioritized mobility as its most important factor, and so its barrel was short, making its accuracy and penetrating force negligible. It may have been a military pistol, but a 9 mm caliber wasn’t always enough to finish someone, so Shin fired another two shots to guarantee the kill.

He’d shot him, just like he was taught, and only then did Shin realize Isuka was no longer moving. Now that his heart had stopped, the blood began pooling. It was a dull red, mixed with something that wasn’t blood.

Shin slowly lowered the pistol and sank to the ground, as if unable to bear the weight of it, though it weighed less than a single kilogram. His body was awash with cold sweat. Realizing he’d held his breath all this time, he finally exhaled, time and again.

“H-haah…!”

But the shaking and nausea he was expecting never came. There was no panic or discomposure. And their absence was what really shocked Shin. Lying before Shin was a fresh corpse, produced by his own two hands. And despite killing another person, it did little to shake him. And that crushed him harder than anything else.

I knew it. I…

His hand unconsciously went to his windpipe. Feeling the fabric of his scarf, he drew his fingers back for a moment and then grasped his throat hard.

Get up. It might not happen right away, but the sound of that gunshot is going to draw the Legion here. Get back in your Juggernaut before that happens. Escape and live. Fight.

Some force of instinctual will, something deeper and more primal than his own will, spurred him to move. He looked up, his bloodred eyes once again alight with the cold intensity of a warrior.

When he got to his feet, the near-900-gram pistol no longer felt heavy to him.

He picked up one of the shards of the Juggernaut lying in the puddle of blood and started to walk off. He turned around at the last second, gazing at Isuka’s expired, discarded remains.

“…Captain.”

He was someone he never held any respect or affection for. The only thing this person ever directed at Shin was unreasonable malice. But the way he never abandoned those who were injured and couldn’t die by shooting them dead… Looking back at it now, Shin could realize this was his way of taking responsibility for his comrades.

Isuka had been so used to it that he made it look casual. He’d finished off so many people that he’d grown accustomed to it. And that was probably because he’d never pushed that responsibility onto anyone else.

Shin could remember that resolve of his.

“I’ll be keeping the pistol…and your duty. Until I meet my end.”

And he’d remember his name, and that final, faint, pained smile he showed.

With that thought in mind, Shin turned his back on him.