86 - Volume 10 - Chapter 2.5

Appendix

He drew the pistol from the holster on his right leg and used his left hand to move the slide. With this one, he didn’t have to worry about the safety. It was a double-action pistol, but pulling the slide back cocked the hammer.

With the power of a string, the slide popped back into place, drawing the first bullet from the cartridge and loading it into the chamber. This series of actions turned the pistol from an 845-gram lump of metal into a tool for manslaughter.

At the end of the barrel were the front and rear sights. By looking between them, he could see the human-shaped targets aligned before it, and he fired casually.

He loosed three shots each, expecting to hit each one. After knocking down five targets, the slide stop popped up. He took out the magazine and stopped shooting. Confirming that the pistol was empty, Shin lowered the weapon.

Shiden, who was leaning against the booth’s partition and peeking in, gave a short, crude whistle of amazement.

“Not bad, Li’l Reaper. Hitting every shot with only a pistol. Impressive shit.”

They were in the training grounds of the Federacy’s Rüstkammer base, the Eighty-Sixth Strike Package’s headquarters. Namely, in the shooting range. Shin ignored her and dropped the empty magazine, moving the slide ahead and loading a new clip. He pulled the slide back to check the chamber, and after confirming it didn’t have a bullet loaded, he spoke.

“…I thought it might have gotten some kind of modification after it got fixed, but I guess not.”

“Mm? Oh…” Shiden nodded and then shrugged.

After the battle with the Morpho, Shin discarded his pistol only for Shiden to retrieve it. When she was picked up by the Federacy, she asked her adoptive guardian to find a workshop that could get this pistol fixed.

“I was thinkin’ about it, though. Like leaving the frame as it is but expanding it to a 40 mm caliber—or adding a full-auto feature.”

So she had considered it. Shin frowned. He wouldn’t have wanted either of those features attached to his gun. True, he was the one who’d discarded it, but he still didn’t like it.

“But it’s not like any of those would be useful against the Legion anyway. This thing’s only good for killing yourself, so I figured ya didn’t need it. B’sides”—the smile suddenly left Shiden’s lips—“for how old it is, it’s pretty well maintained. I could tell it meant a lot to ya, so I thought I’d give it back as is.”

“…”

Hearing this, Shin looked down at the pistol, feeling its familiar weight in his hands. When he was picked up by the Federacy, he and the other members of the Spearhead squadron didn’t have many possessions to their names, but he couldn’t bring himself to part with this gun. Thankfully, despite the Federacy military’s fussy regulations, it shared the same ammunition as their official striker-fired sidearms, so he was able to keep on using it even if it meant putting up with some complaints… So yes, maybe saying he was attached to this pistol wasn’t off the mark.

“I guess it is.”

He’d thrown it away after the fight with the Morpho, using the excuse that it was broken. But thinking back on it now, he figured he should probably thank her for repairing it and returning it to him.

“You have my thanks for both fixing it and giving it back.”

“By that, ya mean yer gonna thank me, but yer not actually gonna say thank you, are ya?”

Shiden said this with a smirk and teasing eyes, but Shin glared at her coldly enough to stop her from prodding him any further. After a pause, she asked:

“Was it a memento from some old squad mate?”

“Was it?”

There was an odd nuance to that reply that prompted Shiden to stare at Shin’s expression. He wasn’t playing coy. It really sounded like Shin didn’t know how to answer. Even though, given that this was from his time in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, he should have received a pistol ages ago.

“I think he hated me. I know I hated him… My having not just Imperial blood meant people kept picking on me.”

“…Oh.”

Shiden suddenly grimaced and growled, which made Shin glance at her. Shiden’s snow-white eye was proof of her partial Alabaster blood, while her other eye was indigo. She had heterochromia, a rare occurrence, and one of her eyes was that of an Alba—the oppressor of the Eighty-Six.

So she’d probably gone through something similar.

This didn’t make Shin feel much affinity for her, but…

“Wait, hold up. If that’s what happened, why’re you acting like a pistol that guy gave you is so important?”

“…I’m not sure. I think I remember saying something about taking over his role.”

The role of finishing off comrades who were injured beyond saving but couldn’t die. And ever since taking that role, he’d never relinquished it to anyone else.

Shin had never had a pistol before then, and once that person died, Shin received and fired this pistol, inheriting that role at the same time. And ever since, he’d used this exact pistol. He’d even discarded it once, only for it to find its way back into his hands.

So when someone asked him why he cherished it, he couldn’t quite come up with a reason. But he could say this—it’d been heavy at the time. It was too large for his hands back then and had a different kind of recoil compared with an assault rifle. A recoil he couldn’t quite get used to.

But at some point, he’d grown accustomed to its weight and recoil and reached the same height as him. Did he catch up to his age, too? Shin didn’t know. He’d never asked him, and he would probably never find out.

“But I think looking at how the captain was back then was what taught me how to shoot this thing… It gave me the resolve to use it. So—”

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.

He didn’t have to direct that kind of consideration toward Shin, but he said those words anyway. That squad captain, with his sarcastic eyes. Shin never knew his full name or his age. And by now, all he could remember were those few words and the expression he’d made in his final moments…