86 - Volume 10 - Chapter 5.5

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Death was inevitable for the Eighty-Six.

They were all bound to perish on this battlefield of certain death sooner or later. They would be killed at the hands of mechanical ghosts. Abandoned by the Republic, which cast them out into a place where they’d be trapped between a minefield and the enemy.

It was a certainty.

But hearing that the Republic had essentially ordered them to march to their deaths, the Processors all fell silent. Having explained the details of their mission, Shin stood wordlessly in front of his squad mates. This base was only a hangar for autonomous drones, and they were in its small, poor excuse for a briefing room. In front of them was a map of the battlefield someone had torn off from somewhere.

Shin’s silence was likely his way of saying that if they had any complaints or grudges to speak of, they could do it now. Even though he wasn’t the one those feelings should be directed at. Knowing this, Saiki spoke up first. Before anyone could vent out their pent-up indignation or inexplicable terror at Shin.

After all, the Republic was so gripped by terror toward the Legion and indignation toward inevitable defeat that they branded the Eighty-Six as pigs in human form. He couldn’t let his comrades act the same as the white pigs.

“Understood. You don’t have to look at him like that, you all. This isn’t a problem. I mean—”

Saiki smiled composedly, feeling everyone’s gazes gather on him, as if to say he was stating the obvious. There’s nothing to fear. Because…

“—even if we die, you’ll be there to take us with you, right, Reaper?”

The bloodred eyes watching him seemed to waver slightly. And seeing that tremor, Saiki spoke with a smile, trying to shoulder at least some of the burden. To make the weight he was bearing that much lighter.

“Then there’s no problem. In fact, it’s not bad at all… Didn’t I tell you? Thanks to you, we don’t have to die alone. Even if we die, we won’t be forgotten… Even after we die, you’ll bring us along. So dying isn’t so bad.”

Yes, death didn’t scare him. He was prepared for it, because he knew that even after death, they’d still be saved. He only had one regret. This cold, severe boy. With that stone-faced, unmoving expression. He could never abandon any of his comrades, even when they were weak and unsightly enough to die and leave him behind.

This boy, who was truly kind at heart and always tried to save others…had no one who would save him. He never sought salvation from others.

In the end, they were nothing but a burden to him. Saiki wished that they could keep fighting by his side, but in the very end, they didn’t have that kind of power.

…I’m sorry.

But Saiki couldn’t put that feeling into words, and that emotion never reached Shin.

Sitting inside his Juggernaut’s cockpit as it waited to sortie, Shin let his mind wander to the aluminum plates sitting in his storage compartment. He was already Resonated with the Para-RAID and could feel his comrades’ strained nerves.

There were small Juggernaut fragments that had the names of dead comrades carved into them. An ever-growing pile of aluminum grave markers he’d etched in place of tombs he wasn’t allowed to dig. He still vividly remembered the captain he’d made that oath with. Her smile and long black hair. And how he saw that black hair stained with her own red blood.

Some had loathed him. Some relied on him. There were those who shunned him and those who reached out to him. And he remembered every single one of them.

They all died. And more are bound to die. Here, in the Eighty-Sixth Sector’s battlefield—where the Eighty-Six live—no one can survive. Every single one of them was bound to die. And even so…

—You’ll be there to take us with you, right, Reaper?

If doing that will be of any consolation to them. Because that’s the only thing he can do. He would take everyone with him, until he reaches the conclusion of his own wish.

Shin looked up, his blood-colored eyes clear and cold. Like they were made of an intense calmness and gelid serenity.

Like a sword of ice, drawn from its scabbard.

Like a heartless reaper, ruling over a crimson battlefield.

It was the operation’s starting time. His optical screen flickered to life, letters flying over it and illuminating the dim, sealed cockpit. Rough letters, matching the poor image quality of the screen. The activation screen of this walking aluminum coffin that was bound to someday become his casket.

<<System Start>>

<<RMI M1A4 Juggernaut OS Version 8.15>>

Looking ahead, he saw the battlefield in the distance was tinted red. Crimson red coquelicots, blooming across the battlefield as far as the eye could see. They burned red with the blood once shed on a skeletal battlefield.

And this Eighty-Sixth Sector, too, was a battlefield that produced skeletons. A battlefield where the Eighty-Six’s corpses went unmourned, where clockwork ghosts prowled. And a day would come when he, too, would join the ranks of the dead.

But until he does. Until he reaches the other side of that battlefield…

A rumbling cacophony mixed into the noise of the radio transmission.