86 - Volume 13 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

THE MOONLIGHT SHINETH

The Harutari reserve position was exactly that—only a reserve position—and the situation there was quite hectic.

When Shin heard that report, still angry despite felling the Morpho, his annoyance deepened further. The fleeing soldiers refused to return to combat, and units that did return refused to cooperate. The Vargus troops who’d joined the position first didn’t trust the fleeing soldiers here, saying that the bastards who’d left their families to die shouldn’t get any supplies. All their demands were inappropriate in this situation, and Shin was frankly sick of it.

He heard a soldier who’d meaninglessly connected to the emergency frequency utter the word monsters into the radio.

“…If we’re monsters—”

What does that make you, then?

You only show off your weakness, show off your stupidity, and make the situation worse for everyone. You’re nothing but harmful. We’d be better off without you.

His ability spotted another Morpho. It was causing trouble, too. Crushing it would be a good idea.

“All units. We go after our next prey. Follow me.”

Besides, these infantry who only knew how to cuss at everyone wouldn’t follow them anyway. Then let them keep hating. If they could gather in numbers the way the Republic had, it would be one thing, but as a minority, they couldn’t do much. Even their hatred was worth nothing.

You’re all too weak.

“Seriously.”

An impact struck his unguarded flank. It was a complete surprise attack, from a position where neither his radar nor ability spotted any hostiles, and even Shin went flying. Shaking his head and looking around, he spotted the Personal Mark of a wolfman—Raiden’s Wehrwolf. Realizing he’d just been kicked, Shin felt all the blood go to his head.

“What are you—?”

“What are you doing?! What, after coming this far, you’ve started thinking you’re God or something?!”

Raiden had upped the Resonance rate somewhat and shouted at the top of his lungs, which made Shin’s ears ring. With Shin silenced by the sheer intensity of his anger, Raiden carried on:

“Just because people call you a Reaper or a king doesn’t mean you need to let it go to your head. In actuality, you get depressed and back down from every little thing; stop thinking like a coward!”

“You—”

But he recalled the words he’d spoken with his own voice.

—A weak Reaper who can’t fight on his own.

“No one here sees you as a Reaper or an ace anymore. If I had to say, you’re more of a stupid dog that doesn’t listen to what he’s told and never learns but has so much power to spare that it only causes trouble for everyone else! So stop throwing your stupidity around like that, dumbass!”

—You keep showing off your stupidity and causing trouble.

I…I’m doing it, too…

Seeing Shin had frozen up, Raiden suddenly flashed him a strained smile.

“—So a dog like you needs your master to hold your leash at all times. Go on—”

Her voice reached him.

She’d been connected to the Para-RAID for some time now, but he’d been too caught up in anger and outrage to notice it—that one and only silver-bell-like voice.

“—Her Majesty’s awaiting.”

She said, with a smile:

“I see you’re listening to me this time, Undertaker. Colonel Vladilena Milizé is resuming her command duties. I’m sorry I made you worry, Shin.”

Her RAID Device could have been taken away, and even if it wasn’t, its settings could have been erased or at least had the data tags with the Strike Package’s commanders, captains, and staff officers removed. It was clear that Zashya’s loyalty in delivering it was significant.

The RAID Device itself wouldn’t have been confiscated, as Zashya would have needed it to stay in touch with Vika and his regiment. She insisted on having a spare one when she had multiple spares—Jonas may have picked up on that, but the situation on the front lines being what it was, he did nothing about it. Perhaps he felt that keeping the Strike Package’s Silver Queen idle at a time like this wasn’t an option.

Jonas himself was currently serving as a staff officer for the western front, gathering and scrutinizing information. Meanwhile Annette acted as a contact point for the group that remained in the base, and Zashya assisted in commanding the United Kingdom dispatch regiment.

Lena was still in the fancy room in the barracks of the military HQ, which had been made into an impromptu command post by now.

“I’m sorry I made you worry, Shin. Although, honestly, are you hanging on?” she asked with a giggle.

Shin clearly was hanging by a thread. The Federacy army was falling apart, and he was getting caught up in it.

“…Lena,” he uttered, his voice like that of a child who just got yelled at.

Her words hit him like a splash of cold water, calming him down. Having come to his senses, he realized how abnormal his thoughts had been so far, which was why he felt so scolded and scared. He shamefully asked himself what he was doing, and he was frightened by the prospect of Lena blaming or growing disillusioned with him over it.

That’s fine, Shin. I wouldn’t get disillusioned with you over that. Because I was wrong, too. I’ve made countless mistakes. I thought I knew reality, that I’ve tasted enough tragedy and cruelty to be smarter than most. And I made mistakes. Many, many mistakes, and I’ll probably stumble the same way going forward, too. I’m the kind of fool who trips over the same hurdles every single time. So even if you failed in a spectacular way, I wouldn’t be one to fault you for it. You realize how much it hurts to fall on your own, so you don’t need me blaming you to feel guilty about it.

“Shin, you were about to make your way to the next Morpho, right?”

She felt him stir slightly. It’s all right, Lena thought, then carried on peacefully. His decision that it needed to be eliminated wasn’t mistaken in and of itself.

“Yes, we do need to remove that enemy if we’re going to ensure a safe retreat. But—do you think you can hunt it down? In your opinion.”

With the current number of troops, enemy distribution, remaining ammunition, and terrain. Did he make that decision after considering all the factors a commander ought to take into account?

Shin closed his eyes for a moment and paused. Lena asked him as squadron leader, and he correctly sensed the implicit trust in that question.

“We can do it.”

“…Colonel Grethe.” Lena requested approval, and her superior officer nodded.

“We’ll support this attack, too. Go on. However, before we do that. Captain.”

“I’m aware. Our top priority is returning to Rüstkammer,” Shin replied, his tone returning to its usual calm sharpness. “But the Morpho is a major obstacle to the 1st Armored Division’s path back to the base, so we will eliminate it. Don’t worry, I’ve calmed down.”

In order to prevent any needless confusion, the 1st Armored Division remained under the command of the staff officers, with Lena only taking command over the Spearhead detachment. Since the detachment was formed by nearby units that had followed Shin, its chain of command and affiliations were a mess. As he listened to Lena’s voice while she rapidly rearranged the detachment, Shin breathed out softly… To think he’d left the chain of command all messed up like this.

“…Raiden, thanks. You helped me.”

He couldn’t switch his Para-RAID settings from Lena, so he used the radio to tell him that.

“You know it.” Raiden scoffed at him. “Lena was going to give you that kick instead, but I stopped her. You should thank me for that, too. You’re lucky I was the one to hit you, because if you’d have been careless enough to shout at Lena, you’d have gotten depressed in the middle of battle and never recovered.”

“…Yeah.”

Looking back at how he conducted himself, he was frightened to acknowledge he’d actually acted that way. The Eighty-Six, his allies—they weren’t fools. Only they were weak, powerless, and better off gone.

And that thought was the very source of the division that angered him so much. He’d made the base, unsightly simplification that the people he marked as different were fools. It was an unconscious self-justification. One that would tell him they were discarding people for self-preservation—making him turn a blind eye to the arrogance, callousness, and narrow-mindedness of discrimination.

But he had that tendency within him just the same.

Them was such an ambiguous word. It could let anyone discard other people, brand them as evil, hostile, and harmful, all for having the one trait that everyone other than oneself had—the fact that they were different.

Without even realizing it, Shin had been doing the same thing the Republic did when it branded him and his comrades as Eighty-Six—the act of stripping away one’s name and face.

Words lied. People lied. And he—he, not anyone else—constantly lied to himself. He kept trying to gloss over his weak, unsightly sides, and he showed off his foolish, intolerant, and cruel base nature like it was a form of justice and love instead.

“That’s right. I am…weak, a coward, and a dumbass.”

He’d said it about himself once before, and he’d forgotten it. When push came to shove, he was foolish enough to forget.

Raiden chuckled. “Looks like you’re back in form… The next one isn’t just your prey. Tachina was pissed that you gobbled that one up on your own, and I was ticked off, too. Focus on recon, you hear?”

“Yeah… Sorry.”

What lay fifteen kilometers ahead was hidden behind the horizon while viewed from the surface, but from high elevation, it should have been visible. And so the two climbed the steps of a church’s steeple on the outskirts of the ruined city, hoping to at least glimpse Neunarkis from afar.

It was an old, steep, worn-out spiral staircase. Yuuto knew there surely wouldn’t be any self-propelled mines lying in ambush atop a steeple in an abandoned church. He let Citri—who nearly stumbled over her feet—go ahead and stood ready to catch her if anything happened.

In the end, none of the girls made it. They all wished to go home, believing they could make the trip. But it wasn’t to be. If only Citri could last one more day, but fate wouldn’t afford her that extra bit of time. Perhaps she should have just given up, but not now, when it was within her reach.

It was a long, steep staircase. Yuuto could make the climb without exerting himself too much, but being on the verge of breaking, Citri was gasping for air. When it looked like she was about to sink to the floor, Yuuto finally reached out to support her, knowing she wouldn’t want this.

“Want me to carry you?”

“No. Let me walk—to the very end.”

But that said, her legs wouldn’t move anymore. So he lent her his shoulder, supporting her weight. The staircase was narrow, and there was hardly enough footing for both of them to stand side by side, but her body was light enough that it wasn’t an issue.

As she gasped for air, her long hair drenched with sweat despite the cold weather, Citri painstakingly climbed up one step at a time.

“…Hey, Yuuto.”

She spoke between labored breaths, her voice thick with pain. She didn’t want to get anyone involved.

“If I tell you to go back, hurry and climb down the steps. If it comes to that, it’ll be too late for me, so don’t say anything and run down right away.”

Don’t get caught up in this. She was so terribly pressed for time that she had to say this. Yuuto pressed his lips together. He could only hope she’d at least last the climb.

As he took the prescribed drugs that would stave off his fatigue and gulped down the terribly sweet liquid rations that would restore the minimum fluids and calories he’d require, Gilwiese prepared to move to his spare unit. As breaks went, this was a travesty.

His unit, overworked from countless battles, had to be serviced, and the front line didn’t give him the time to refuel and reload his ammunition. The newly formed Harutari reserve position was being attacked by Legion from every direction, and the troops were desperately fending them off.

“You don’t have to come to the next battle, Princess. Head back along with the injured soldier.”

“…Y-yes, Brother.” Svenja didn’t retort and nodded, her face clearly exhausted and her lips red from her biting them too much.

She knew she’d only slow him down from here on out, and she lacked the strength to insist and argue.

Gilwiese’s Mock Turtle and the other indigo-colored Vánagandrs were swiftly towed into the maintenance station for service, resupply, and cleaning the mud out from their joints… Though at this point, having their armor tarnished with filth was hardly a concern.

However, the Vánagandr he boarded next was a stainless crimson, like it hadn’t experienced any combat or participated in any battles. Its proud luster looked foreign and out of place in this losing battle, and it made the faces of the defeated soldiers passing by chill with disgust.

His audio sensor picked up on slurs being thrown their way. Damn nobles. Now wasn’t the time to care, though, so he ignored them. On the other hand, the Para-RAID brought a report from the artillery team in the rear. This, by contrast, was something that demanded his attention. The artillery unit was prepared to shoot and commencing suppressive fire.

—Good news. Hearing this, they set out.

“All units, we move out. While those scrap buckets are stopped by suppressing fire, we strike them from the flank.”

The small window carved into the thick stone wall showed the sleet raining outside. Despite the season, it wasn’t a blanket of snow that covered the battlefield and all the death it held, but sleet that melted as soon as it fell, forming black mud.

His hand, touching the stone wall, became covered in dust, his fingers tearing through old cobwebs. A bird perched by the window flew off, leaving filthy feathers in its wake. Something squeaked—perhaps a rat—as it fled.

Citri’s face, pallid and sickly, her complexion pale even compared with the glow of the snow, was the only thing that remained beautiful on this spiral staircase.

“…Yuuto. Listen.” Her peaceful, serene face felt like it was letting him peer into some distant, divine land. “Thank you—for coming with me. For helping me every step of the way. For telling me we’ll go together. I was happy. Really. I’m glad I met you. I—really was happy.”

“…Citri.” Yuuto cut her off with a word.

He couldn’t stand to hear this. If she was speaking this way because he was here with her—if it was his fault that Citri had to say such pretty words at the very end—then he didn’t want to hear it.

“If you actually feel that way, that’s fine. And I do think you really feel that way. But is that honestly what you want to say now?” asked Yuuto.

…I wouldn’t, if I was in your shoes.

He’d heard the cries and lamentations of countless Processors from the Eighty-Sixth Sector, and he’d heard the wailings of the Legion through Shin’s ability. None of them had such pretty words. So he wanted to give her at least this much. He could only bring her to the edge of her true homeland, the place she was born in, so at least—if he couldn’t truly help her, truly save her, then he at least wanted her to have this much.

“I couldn’t do anything for you. So at the very least, I can listen.”

At that moment, Citri turned to face him, and her pale expression crumpled and contorted to that of an infant on the verge of tears.

In the face of the now-headless military police officer and the realization they had no idea where to go, Miel was at a loss. He almost burst into tears the way a younger boy would have. But he was able to endure that urge. He was driven by his pride—the pride of being his father’s son, the man who’d headed to the Eighty-Sixth Sector all on his own. And he knew that Theo—who’d been the same age as him when he was cast out to the battlefield—wouldn’t have cried from this much.

Now’s not the time to cry. It’s too soon to give up. So don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up.

He roughly rubbed away the tears building in his eyes and got to his feet. He grabbed a scoop of earth, wet with the officer’s blood, and stuffed it into his pocket half-unconsciously. This man had protected Miel to the very end, and Miel needed to bring him along. So he’d take this much, at least.

“Miel, the officer—”

“Don’t worry. Let’s keep going! We can still walk, so let’s keep going!”

Miel nodded to his friends, who didn’t let go of the hands of the younger children despite their fear. He looked around—there were groups of retreating troops every which way. If they followed them, they could make it to safety.

Keeping his eyes fixed on one group of soldiers so as to not lose sight of them, he followed. They were a group of kids, meaning they’d probably lose them soon, but there were other units all around for them to follow. They kept moving, comforting some of the kids who were so tired and scared that they eventually broke into tears.

But as they kept moving, they ran into a powerful, pure-white unit. This was a stroke of luck—this was a Feldreß that only one unit in the Federacy army possessed, quite similar to the Juggernaut that Theo had rode in during his time in the Republic. A Reginleif.

The Strike Package!

“Please stop!”

Miel took off his coat and flapped it as he ran into their way and shouted so the howl of the Reginleif’s power pack wouldn’t drown out his voice.

“I’m looking for Theoto Rikka! An Eighty-Six! Do you know him?!”

Miel knew Theo wouldn’t be on the battlefield, of course. But if they knew Miel was an acquaintance of his, maybe they’d be less inclined to ignore and abandon him. He heard a loud clicking of the tongue, and an annoyed voice spoke to him. Theo never told him anything about it, but Miel at least knew that he was an Alba from the Republic; an Eighty-Six would react badly to him.

“Aaah?! I don’t know who that is. Maybe they died already, probably in the Eighty-Sixth Se—”

“No,” a second Reginleif cut the first one off, which made the angered Processor go quiet. “I’ve heard of him. I think he was one of the Reaper’s people from the 1st Armored Division.”

…Apparently, Theo worked under someone with one scary nickname. Miel was surprised, but he kept his expression unmoved, to seem like he already knew.

“Oh, the headless Reaper. In that case…”

The two red optical sensors turned to look at Miel like a pair of lone, crimson eyes.

“…we should probably take him along. He looked really pissed earlier.”

“Hopefully, this helps put him in a good mood… Hey, you kids.”

The Reginleifs’ optical sensors scanned over Miel and the Alba orphans huddled around him.

“We won’t protect you, but we’re willing to take you along. No crying or complaining, though, or we’ll leave you where you stand. Got it?”

Behind them, a transport machine whose name he didn’t know gazed at them with its optical sensors’ artificial gaze.

Words spilled from her trembling lips.

“…I don’t want to die.”

Those words dropped to the cold, freezing stone along with the tears running down her cheeks. They moved like pearls down her pale face.

“I don’t want to die. I’ve never wanted to die. My stepparents, Mr. and Mrs. Muller—they were kind to me. My new little sister, Kaniha, was sweet and adorable. I wanted to live with them, to go to school again, to tell them how grateful I was.”

But she didn’t do it. She couldn’t do any of it.

I’ve only lived with her for one year—would Kaniha remember me? Are my stepparents worried about me, or do they resent me? Do they resent me for lying, for not telling them the whole time that I’m not human anymore, that I got turned into a bomb, a biological weapon?

“I wanted to go back to my hometown, not to this empty place I don’t even know. I wanted to meet everyone again—my mother, my father, my schoolmates, Dustin. I wanted to grow up, to go visit the United Kingdom, where my parents were born.”

To go away, far away, as far as her whims would carry her, to the distance.

I wanted to go there with you.

“I don’t want to die, I don’t…!”

The tears fell. Citri wept, her expression screwed up and her tears streaming freely.

…When Kiki and others left at the very end, they did it so they wouldn’t get the others caught up in their ending—and probably so they could cry where no one would see them. Because they didn’t want this. All this time, they wanted to cry. To scream out that they didn’t want to die. But they couldn’t scream. Their cries reached no one.

As Citri sobbed wordlessly, on and on, Yuuto patiently waited. He told her he could at least listen, and he wanted to grant her this. For all he knew, Citri could explode at any second, but he didn’t care if he got caught up in it.

As the surge of emotions subsided and the sound of her sobbing finally died down, she roughly wiped her tears and pursed her lips. She sniffled one last time, then whispered a thank-you, her voice hoarse.

“I’m fine now… Let’s go.”

The bloodstains came from the corpses of the Bleachers lying on the floor, with the weapon being the now-bent gunstock of the one Ernst was holding. He hadn’t used the gun to shoot them, nor had he used the bayonet, which wasn’t attached, either. He’d beat them repeatedly with the gunstock as a bludgeon until they became still, hitting their bodies until skin tore and blood flowed.

The gruesome sight made Theo freeze. In terms of sheer gore, he’d seen more horrific deaths on the battlefield. But he was witnessing human bodies destroyed by violence that was so insistent and unrepentant, which even murder machines like the Legion didn’t engage in.

And despite that, Ernst simply turned to face Theo with the smile of a father spotted by their child with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Oh, sorry you had to see this. That’s no good—a grown adult lashing out in anger.”

“…!”

“Is Frederica with you, too? I guess she’ll really look down on me after this… Give me a moment—I’ll tidy things up. It wouldn’t do for me to make such a mess and leave the cleanup to someone else, would it?”

Saying this, Ernst casually returned the assault rifle back to its standard grip and tilted it toward the floor, pressing it against the head of an Alba woman lying there—this was Primevére, if he recalled, the Bleachers’ leader. Her head was caved in and bleeding, but Theo could still hear her faint breathing. She was alive. And Ernst had his gun fixed on her head.

“Ernst, uh, wait… You don’t have to kill her!”

The men had all been armed, so while his self-defense was excessive, one could say he’d been compelled to fight back. But none of the Bleachers were moving, so there was no need to hurt them any further. He could just let the Flame Leopards handle the rest.

“True, but there’s no point in keeping them alive, either. Like I said, this is me lashing out.”

“Lashing out…?!”

“After all, nothing matters to me anymore. Nothing. And since nothing matters, well, I do think everyone ought to live as they want to, but when noisy flies buzz in my ear when I’m already in a foul mood, I’m going to crush them. They’re a nuisance, after all.”

As Theo looked at him, stunned, Ernst smiled.

“What, haven’t you noticed? I thought Shin definitely saw it, which is why he dislikes me. Thinking it was just him being a rebellious adolescent makes me happier, as your guardian.”

“…!”

Theo had noticed, of course. He’d frankly always been scared of Ernst on some level. The way he said these things with frightening seriousness, damning everyone, everything, and even himself. Claiming he wished to see himself and the world fall to ruin…with his black, void-like eyes, which saw no value in anything.

But if he showed his true nature off, everything would end. If everyone knew him for the empty monster he was instead of the title he’d been granted as hero of the revolution, the Federacy would completely lose its form. Nothing could be more eerie or scary to oneself and to others than someone who found no value in anything.

But more than anything, Ernst would be branded an unsalvageable monster, a murderer, and Theo didn’t want to see him end up like that.

“Ernst, you can’t. Stop—”

But Ernst wouldn’t turn to look at him anymore. Theo’s words seemed to bounce off him, never reaching the man’s heart. And yet…

Before Theo entered the estate, Frederica had filled him in about the details of what happened and asked him for help. At the very end, she asked him for something. Her voice was desperate, like a child on the verge of tears.

“Theo. Theo, please say it. I know you have no intention of calling him that, but just for now, at this moment, think of it as my words, spoken in my stead…!”

Frederica had lost her birthright, country, and everyone around her. And while it hadn’t been by Ernst’s hands directly, she couldn’t bring herself to call him that. She could not forget nor forgive the deaths of her young knight and her other caretakers. A puppet ruler though she may have been, the people around her still had sworn their allegiance to her as empress.

And so she couldn’t express that she accepted the man who’d killed her family, the leader of the revolution who slew her vassals. Rather than using that title, she called him a paper pusher, and that was likely her way of resisting, of protesting…against herself.

She knew she couldn’t call him by that title, but some part of her did want to. Having ascended to the throne as an infant, she didn’t know the real person’s face. And so she had to resist herself.

If that conflict’s been eating away at Frederica, then why should I, a bystander who’s older than her, who’s never had that kind of conflict, let it stop me?

On that night they expressed their desire to return to the battlefield, Ernst came home despite being busy with work, because he wanted to celebrate the Holy Birthday. He came home with his arms full of pamphlets and reference materials for schools, having taken time out of his busy schedule to consider their futures.

At that moment alone, this firedrake—with his falsehoods and eyes of void—didn’t look like he was lying. And that’s why—

“Just stop it… Dad.”

And then like the word was woven of purest magic—the raging firedrake froze.

“Y-you…”

His hands fell limp, the assault rifle with its gunstock bent slipping from his fingers. It fell bluntly, harmlessly to the floor next to Primevére.

“You can’t say that—that’s not fair…”

His expression crumpled, looking like he was about to burst into tears.

Ernst was the oldest of the adults Theo knew, apparently old enough to have fathered a child who would have been older than Theo. But now he looked at Theo—and at Frederica, watching them from afar—with the expression of a small, lost child.

“I would have liked to have filled that role for you. I know you were left in my care in place of your real parents, but if you could bring yourself to call me Dad, I’d have wanted it. But calling me that now, at this point, in this place… It’s not fair…!”

He slowly covered his face with his hands. His bloodstained hands. His hands, which had still sought to deliver the killing blow to the woman at his feet. The hands his children held on to, just barely stopping him from swinging them down.

“It’s not fair. I can’t betray you. What father would I be if I betrayed two of my own children, trying to stop me together with tears in their eyes? I’m—”

His sobs slipped between his bloodied fingers, along with his tears.

“I’m your dad, after all… I’m not allowed to make you unhappy…!”

At the top of the steeple, the bell that was supposed to be there was gone now, leaving a vast stone floor and large windows covered in sleet. The windows surrounded the whole room, offering a view of all cardinal directions.

Citri approached the window facing west. It was almost dusk, but thick, black clouds blotted out the sunset glow. In the distance, over the empty plains of what would have been Neunarkis, hung a mist full of sleet. She looked out to the distance, her eyes red and puffy from crying too much and her cheeks stained with tears.

“—I always thought that city was like a palace made of moonlight.”

Her hometown. The city, consumed by the Legion, that she longed to return to.

“It was my favorite fairy tale, you know. A prince living in a lunar palace made of the golden light of the full moon. Every night, the spirits of the starry sky that were reflected in the lake would cross a bridge made of a midnight rainbow to meet him.” She turned to face him, smiling through her enfeebled lips and her pale complexion. “If that prince really existed, I’m sure he’d be a lot like you, Yuuto.”

Yuuto smiled despite himself. “…That’s the first time anyone ever said anything like that about me.”

People did say he was like a Juggernaut. A few times, even. They called him a combat machine who had no emotions, like a Legion, a Juggernaut. Because he always looked at things coldly, accepting everything as it was. He was able to survive, but he wasn’t strong enough to protect others, and it always seemed like everyone by his side had a way of dying and leaving him behind. And so without ever letting any of them linger in his heart, he survived the Eighty-Sixth Sector.

“…The first time,” Citri said, giggling. “Then I’ll say it more. Your hair is pretty, like the color of the moon, and your eyes glow like nostalgic fire.”

Citri, blind as she was to Yuuto’s worst traits, kept speaking of him in terms that didn’t fit him, with words so beautiful that they caused him pain. He never tried to shoulder any curses, but being cursed would have been preferable to this. Presented with the cowardly self-effacement, those words felt so much heavier.

Like a beautiful, cruel fairy of the starlit lake.

“I’m the first girl who ever said anything like that about you. So you’ll probably never forget me. I will—”

—be your curse, then.

For a moment, Yuuto closed his eyes. And then he managed something akin to a smile.

“Right. Let’s go together, Citri.”

Citri smiled blissfully. “Thank you.”

Who were those words directed at?

Her slender fingers reached for her hair, undoing one of the ribbons holding it tied together. He accepted the ribbon and, after a moment’s hesitation, kissed the back of her hand. This was his oath, his way of saying—I have accepted your curse.

Citri smiled and, holding that smile, took a step back, then another. This really was the end.

“And let me ask you to do one more thing. Don’t look at what’s about to happen. Don’t look at me.”

I want you, of all people, to remember me as I was. To think of me as pretty.

“…Yes.”

He turned on his heels, like he was shaking free from her gaze. Behind him, he could feel Citri lean out through the window, like she was returning to the heavens. She did it so the stone steeple—and its spiral staircase—wouldn’t crumble before Yuuto could get off.

An explosion rocked the spiral staircase’s gloom, its rumbling traveling through the walls.

Yuuto never turned to look.

They rendezvoused with the remaining force at their gather point in Nakiviki City within the Montizoto territory, then headed northwest before looping back to Rüstkammer. Shin left Undertaker—overused from the trip back—with its designated mechanics, Guren and Touka, and stood in the hangar’s corner. As he sipped on a mug of soup that civilian volunteers from the supply team had given him, Second Lieutenant Perschmann approached Shin.

“It’s good to see you back, Captain.”

“We’ll be deploying again as soon as maintenance is complete. How’s the fortification setup going?”

“It’s finished. I have the map right here, and we’re preparing to distribute data containing it to all Reginleifs. We’ll be handing out copies to the Wulfsrin who’re already in position.”

He spread out the map and began memorizing all the trenches, anti-tank impediments, and artillery positions drawn on it as he asked more questions. The engineers and heavy-machine-gun handlers already retreated. That just left—

“What about Fortrapide City’s civilians?”

“The engineers couldn’t take them along, so we’re having them stay at the base. The city is confirmed empty,” Second Lieutenant Perschmann said.

“We’ve got our families and the little ones all huddled in one place, Captain,” a female Vargus soldier who’d come with her appended.

Many of the Wulfsrin boys, who were in their early teens, were moving about the base as runners and combat-engineer staff. Those younger than that were small children who were of no use on the battlefield, but they had to be evacuated, too.

Or so Shin thought, but then the female soldier coolly continued:

“The little ones are still Wulfsrin. We raised them not to start bawling if a shell lands. Even if the civilians panic, the little ones’ll calm them or at least keep them in one place, so you can rest easy.”

So they weren’t targets for evacuation, but rather in charge of keeping the peace in the shelters. It was only now that Shin thought the tradition of having the Vargus as border guards was a pretty terrible one. Meanwhile, the female soldier started talking in a phony, coquettish manner.

“By the way, Captain, what’s your age range? If you’d like, you could try fooling around with an older woman like me after this.”

She was joking, of course. This was just her way of trying to break up the mood and give this young officer a moment’s reprieve; he must have felt so much stress, exhaustion, and fatigue after hours of fighting and retreating while slogging through mud, with only a defensive battle with no end in sight coming up.

And it worked; Shin snickered. It was only a brief exhaling of air, but he was able to laugh, even if it was a bit forced.

“Sorry, but I have a girlfriend. Try someone else.”

“I did think that someone like you might have a woman, or two, or three, or four. That’s why I said, ‘fooling around.’”

“I only have one, plus it’s one of this base’s commanders. And a queen on top of it all.”

He’d be in trouble if he had a second or a third girl. This made the soldier straighten her back at once.

“Aye, I’ll keep my mouth shut. If I pick a fight with Her Majesty, she might have my head chopped.”

For some reason, Perschmann nodded stoutly next to her, in a way that seemed to say, Wise decision.

Upon returning to the main force, she heard that Dustin was MIA.

Through their long time on the battlefield, the Eighty-Six adapted to keep grief and concerns out of their minds during combat. It was only this warrior’s capacity that kept Anju composed.

“—I see. Roger that, Yuu, Kurena.”

Her grief felt lighter than she expected. And of course, she didn’t feel any anger, either. Yuu and Kurena weren’t responsible for what happened, after all. Nor was she incensed at this world for being so terribly cynical.

She exhaled sharply.

There were no miracles in this world. No salvation to be found. Any salvation that someone—that God—granted was nothing short of unreliable whimsy in the end. And so…

And so…

“I won’t ask you to save him.”

She didn’t know if it was God or fate or whatever else, but she never had and never would find the words to beg with. If all she did was pray for Dustin’s salvation, she’d spend her life bemoaning the fact that she didn’t save him. If she was to rely on miracles, she’d live her life begrudging the fact that her prayers went unanswered.

I refuse to live like that.

I refuse to live my life standing still and waiting for salvation to come to me. I won’t resent what happens, be it from the hand of the world, God, or fate.

Aah, but…

“…Daiya.”

I wish I could have gone with you.

“Dustin.”

I wish you could have returned to my side.

Please. Okay…?

“Come back to me, Dustin.”

As the fighting went on, the routed soldiers were still returning slowly. In between the mud and fallen trees, outstretched hands clad in metal-black uniforms emerged, crying for help.

“—How many of them are there?! It’s not funny anymore!”

With his unit’s legs, the young commander of the armored division kicked away the self-propelled mine disguised as a wounded soldier. The metallic self-propelled mines had different radar readings compared with Vánagandrs. With the support console’s security system and alarms, a Vánagandr was unlikely to mistake them.

Of course, even with the radar, there was a chance of one slipping by and blowing up, but with so many of the scrap monsters around, things were already dangerous enough. Unlike infantry and armored infantry, the armored unit was protected by thick plates that allowed them to brave some risks.

After all…

“Wait. Don’t leave me behind…”

“Stand back, infantry! All these are self-propelled mines—just ignore them!”

The routed soldiers who’d slowed down their pace froze upon hearing his shout. They’d likely heard a comrade’s voice. Or maybe they were just good people who couldn’t bring themselves to abandon someone in need. Indeed, some of the soldiers who turned around had faces, discolored with mud and clotted blood, that looked like they were on the verge of tears.

“…You’re sure they’re self-propelled mines, right? We don’t want to leave someone behind again…”

The commander of the armored division held back the urge to click his tongue… They had to abandon someone. An injured soldier who couldn’t keep going. Another unit who’d stayed back to keep fighting. This made the soldiers reluctant to ignore a voice calling for help…and that drew the self-propelled mines to them.

“Yeah, these are Legion…so you’re not abandoning anyone. There isn’t anyone for you to save.”

The entire front had fallen apart, with retreating troops all over the battlefield. There were many real injured troops left behind. Many people who had no choice but to abandon an injured ally and flee.

And these weapons were made to take advantage and predate on that chaos, on that guilt.

Self-propelled mines, by design, directly targeted good people who tried to alleviate the guilt of betraying their comrades and fleeing.

They embodied malice, mocking those with a conscience and a kind heart, rubbing in the fact that those who didn’t have them were more likely to survive.

…Dammit.

“We’re not going to let you get the better of us, you shitty pieces of scrap metal.”

Cussing at them, the commander of the armored division moved in the opposite direction of the infantry forces heading to the Harutari reserve position, then turned his Vánagandr’s bearings to face the mechanical swarm pursuing them.

The area around Rüstkammer, the Zasifanoksa Forest, was a mixture of conifer and broad-leaved trees—flora that was typical of the Federacy. The past governor of this area had left it mostly untouched, using it as hunting grounds, so it’d grown into a forest with uneven ground interlaced with tree roots and branches that impeded human passage.

They used these natural obstacles, reinforcing them and cutting away any parts that would hinder their defense. They dug trenches that were like scars etched across the soil, setting up anti-tank trenches, pillboxes, and metallic anti-tank impediments.

Through her optical screen, she could catch the morning sun shining down through the treetops and glimmering against the anti-tank impediments. Seeing this familiar forest, which they visited so many times to train, hunt, and fish, changed in this way made Michihi’s heart stir.

Michihi, and all the Eighty-Six for that matter, had no memories of their homeland. But if they could, seeing their homeland turned into a battlefield would no doubt feel like this sort of anxiety.

Seeing precious memories, the places one thought back on, turn into a scenery of death and blood.

It really is scary… This base became a home for us to fall back to. But that’s exactly why…

“Who do they think they are, stomping all over our backyard? This is our base. Our home.”

This was the forest they walked through during march training, where they hunted so many times, went fishing, played around. It was their backyard. They knew every river and valley and incline, how each tree grew, every nook and cranny in this forest.

The forest we lived by for six months is sure to side with us.

The Reginleif squadrons hid in unfamiliar defensive installations set up on the familiar ground of the forest, connected to the Alkonosts and Vargus troops cooperating with them via Sensory Resonance. Somewhere in the trees, Undertaker lay in cover, with Shin carefully listening to the cries of the approaching Legion.

“All units, they’re coming… We engage the enemy first at point 934. One hundred fifty seconds later, the enemy’s advance guard should be in range. It’s probably an armored division.”

Saying this, the Strike Package’s Reaper smiled coldly.

“They’re confident they’ve won, so they’re not even sending out anyone to scout ahead. Let’s beat their smug faces in and send them packing.”

The Vargus troops who weren’t aware of his ability fell to confused silence. Meanwhile, the Eighty-Six, Sirins, and Bernholdt’s unit—which had served at Shin’s side for a long time now—all calmly responded. “““Roger that.”””

They accurately opened fire on the spot he instructed. That was the opening shot of the battle of Rüstkammer base.

The aluminum armor and internal bulletproof fiber was able to stop most of the shell fragments, but not all of them.

“The RAID Device… Yeah, it’s dead.”

The quasi-nerve crystal that served as the core of its features was cut in half by a shell fragment. What’s more, his unit was heavily damaged and out of commission, his assault rifle’s chamber was broken, and his body was aching all over from blows and sprains. He couldn’t hear out of his right ear—the eardrum must have ruptured.

But on the other hand, if the RAID Device hadn’t taken that shell fragment, it would have cut across his neck, killing him. His right leg, where his pistol was holstered, wasn’t on the receiving end of such a miracle, with a fragment painfully embedded into his flesh.

“…I should count myself lucky I still have my pistol, I guess.”

It was no good for fighting the Legion, but it was useful for killing himself. The radio was, as always, useless due to Eintagsfliege jamming. He recovered his knapsack from his unit and began trudging through the unfamiliar Federacy woods.

A thicket rustled, prompting him to turn on his heels swiftly, only to find a seven-year-old girl in uniform. For a moment, he was confused, but then he realized she must have been a Mascot. A symbolic daughter the Federacy employed to keep soldiers from betraying the army. She must have strayed from her unit or perhaps been discarded.

As he froze, she looked up at him, but her small lips didn’t part. Her upward gaze wavered, expressing her emotions, but she couldn’t ask him for salvation. She’d been abandoned, left behind on the battlefield by the soldiers who should have been her family.

But he couldn’t blame them for it. After all—

“…I can’t save you, either.”

I’m weak, and just looking after myself is taking all I have. If I try to help a child, I won’t survive.

So it wasn’t his fault. He had to leave her behind. And he’d already abandoned Citri once—what was another one on the list? He’d already abandoned someone once, so he may as well keep leaving people to their fate. He was a despicable bastard who betrayed Anju’s wish, so he may as well try to live like a coward, only to fail and die.

The girl looking up at him had no pistol on her, nor was she in any shape to wander the battlefield. He looked away from this girl, much weaker and younger than him, his conscience blaming him. He had to look away from the sheer guilt of it all.

After all, I’m…I’m…I am…

Dustin, listen…

But then a voice crossed his mind. A kind, serene voice. A pair of eyes he thought were prettier than the highest spot in the sky.

You’re pure. I know you don’t like cheating.

I…

—So tell yourself you’re doing it for me. And come back.

Am I going to make even those words into a curse? Convince myself that they’re for me? Those words that wished for me to return alive so badly that they tried to shoulder the burden of my shame and cowardice?

Am I going to turn your words, the words of a kind witch, into a curse, too? Am I going to turn those words into a lie just so you won’t hate me?

—You can’t let yourself cheat.

It’s just like you said. I hate cheating and cowardice. I can’t forgive myself for doing that.

—Keep your promise and don’t die.

—Come back to me.

But you said you’ll be there to take me back. That you’ll take me back. Even if I can’t save anyone, even if I abandoned someone once, the least I can do is not make you mourn. To be someone not just I, but someone as kind as you won’t be ashamed of.

Weak as I am, I can at least do that. I can at least strive to do that!

“Come here.” Dustin extended his hand.

The girl looked between his hand and face, confused.

“Come here. We’ll go back together!”

For a second, the girl looked like she was on the verge of tears. She ran over, and he caught her and picked her up in his arms. This would be faster than keeping up with the walking pace of a little girl, and it wasn’t like his pistol would be any good for fending off the Legion. They’d just have to hide, wait for them to pass by, and follow the retreating army.

He couldn’t fight. If the Legion stood in his way, he wouldn’t be able to drive them off. He simply wasn’t strong enough to do that.

But even the weak, despite their weakness, had their ways.

“Just stay quiet for a while, okay? I promise I’ll take you back to safety.”

Because if nothing else, I have to return to safety.

A duck or goose that still unfortunately remembered what it’d been like being tended to by humans approached Yuuto, who beat it dead with a stick and cut it up. Whatever sensibility that would have made him averse to seeing blood after the events of this day had been worn down a long time ago.

He was in the Legion territories, in an area where the Ameise were patrolling and looking about, lured in by the sound of the explosion. Despite this, he returned to the woods to hide and lit a campfire in a small pit that concealed its glow. He used the fire to cook the meat.

This was a method of conserving stamina on a winter battlefield. Or at least, that was his intent. But now that he was all alone, with no one’s voice nearby, he finally realized it wasn’t the only reason.

A crow landed next to him with a flutter. It must have been hungry, so far from the front lines with no humans to provide it with scraps. Yuuto threw it a piece of meat, but rather than eat it and run off, it stayed on the spot, pecking on the ground.

A crow. A scavenger that fed on the flesh of the dead.

“—Hey.”

The crow couldn’t have possibly understood his call, but it cocked its small head curiously like it did.

“Come tomorrow, won’t you go and eat her?”

Or maybe the rats would get to her remains by tonight. And that would be fine, too. He said he’d take her heart along, but he wished her lingering flesh could become sustenance for the birds taking flight or the animals crawling about. Somewhere within that cycle, she’d eventually find her way back to her hometown. She’d be able to see the whole world, just like she wished to.

He didn’t make her a grave. She asked for him not to see her, after all, and Eighty-Six didn’t have graves to begin with.

And she and her friends were Eighty-Six. They kept going, reaching their final destination.

Same as me.

A full day and night had passed, but all ten of the Federacy’s front lines were still locked in combat. A personnel officer from far in the Rüstkammer base told Lena he’d take over for her, so she should get some rest. Lena agreed and turned off the Para-RAID.

The tactical staff officer who was originally supposed to replace her was injured earlier and had to be hospitalized. The fighting had become so severe that stray bullets reached as far as the command post at the back of the defensive line.

She was told to rest, but Lena’s mind was too alert and awake for her to get any sleep. The state of excitement made her body prioritize sending blood to her head, so even her neglected stomach didn’t show any signs of hunger.

But still, eating something small to have at least something in her belly and closing her eyes for a bit would be better than nothing. Having decided that, she picked up TP, which was sitting quietly at the corner of her desk, and walked to the bed in the adjacent room. Having experienced the first large-scale offensive, TP had keenly learned to discern when states of emergency were beginning, and it always stayed by Lena’s side so as to not get separated from her if something happened.

Jonas entered the room, carrying pasted-together, printed-out maps of the Rüstkammer theater and the surrounding combat zones that Lena demanded earlier. At this point, the Federacy’s communication networks were completely jammed due to the large amounts of data that was being transmitted at all times. There were no real-time maps Lena could obtain right now, so having paper maps she could write on was quick and useful.

“The numbers of the surviving units in each sector are unclear at the moment, Colonel Milizé. With combat ongoing, they’ve all been in a hectic state, making it impossible to con— Ah?”

Jonas flinched—TP had pounced at him, hissing in intimidation. TP’s back was arched, and its tail and fur were standing upright, its fangs bared like an angry little lion. It was completely prepared to fight. Jonas, who had no recollection of doing anything to antagonize the small creature, inched away from it, confused.

This absurd sight was so far removed from the tension of a command post in the heat of battle, Lena was taken by surprise and nearly burst out laughing. She looked away, withstanding the urge.

Or rather, Jonas seemed to somehow not realize what he did wrong, but in truth TP was acting exactly as expected. Jonas honestly deserved it.

“TP loves me, so given you harassed me so much, it’s only natural he’d be aggressive around you.”

“Ah…! Still, I understand that you’re unhappy with what happened, but it was by no means harassment…” Jonas seemed offended by the implication and rushed an explanation.

“You say that after forcing a woman away, locking her up in a room, and leaving her confined, anxious, and afraid?” Zashya remarked coldly. “Forget harassment, this is outright abuse. The actions of a pimp, an enemy of all womankind.”

“A pi—?!”

Seeing Jonas turn outright speechless from the accusation, Lena couldn’t help herself and laughed, picking TP up in her arms. Laughing helped pull her mind out of the tension of the battlefield, and she thankfully realized this made her fatigue and hunger rise up to the surface.

“Let’s go, TP. Forget about this bully and let’s sleep together.”

“Meow.”

“I am not a bully…!”

TP suddenly purred. And after getting flustered over something inconsequential for a while, Jonas looked quite exhausted in his own right. Compared with the other three commanders, Lena was single-handedly managing a workload that would have taken multiple staff officers to handle, so her exhaustion was understandable.

As Lena ignored them and made her way to the bedroom, Annette walked over.

“Just give it up, Second Lieutenant. You’re a bully and an enemy to all womankind and a scary person… Here you go, tea. You must be tired; something sweet should wake you up.”

“Thank you, Major… Ugh, it’s bitter! What did you put in this?!”

“Oh, sorry about that,” Annette said, her voice completely monotone and very unapologetic. “I must have mixed up the sugar and the instant coffee.”

“They’re the opposite colors, for crying out loud!” Jonas jabbed, overly serious.

He’d fallen for her prank without even realizing it, which just stood to show how much he wasn’t thinking straight. Smiling sarcastically, Lena gave him one parting remark.

“You need to get some rest, too, Second Lieutenant. I’m sure your master will order you to do so before long.”

And with that said, Lena vanished into the bedroom to take a nap.

The platoons and squadrons—and in some rare cases, even individuals—who’d drifted away from combat in between the retreat and the Morpho bombardments made their gradual return to Rüstkammer base over the course of three days.

There wasn’t a spare moment to put them back in their original units or platoons. After some time to rest, they were organized into impromptu squadrons and sent to whatever spots didn’t have enough hands on deck. Frederica, who’d returned to the command post, started by confirming the safety of missing soldiers whose faces she knew, but soon, she had to be sent to help grasp the situation across the front line.

Yes, Ernst was safe. Despite how important an issue the attack was for the Federacy, no one really paid it any mind right now, because everyone was too busy and tense.

The Reginleif research team members were added to the maintenance crew in the hangar. The infantry and armored infantry who fled to this base were immediately sent out to reinforce the defensive line, and the facility staff members and drivers also joined in. Despite being soldiers, the inventory staff helped unload the injured.

The Eighty-Six told one another stories of how the priest came out of retirement with a rifle in hand, shooting until he ran out of ammo only to eventually pick up a rock and use it to finish off a self-propelled mine. The fact that they could joke even at a time like this was evidence of how combat-hardened they were.

“…But, Captain, if you piece all the stories together, the only way they make sense is if there’s five priests running around.” Bernholdt shuddered at the mental image.

Everyone present laughed. All of them were out of ammo and out of fuel, and they were hiding in a natural basin, hugging their assault rifles. With shell fragments and bullets whizzing over the surface, they couldn’t stand up. Fido returned, loaded with ammo, fuel, and also heated-up combat ration packs, graciously placed there courtesy of the supply team. There was no time for meals during combat, so even if the combat rations went a little cold, it was better than having them unheated.

One Processor boy from another armored division, whose name Shin didn’t know, opened a packet and downed its contents. His face was emaciated and exhausted, since he’d only gotten a few winks of sleep in between maintenance and supply, and he had to keep up his energy with these rations, which didn’t qualify as meals.

“I wish we had five of him. It’d be nice if he split up and we’d have more of him.”

“He won’t, and it wouldn’t.” Mika shook her head.

“If he could do that, he’d be a bigger threat than the Legion,” Raiden added.

Both had weird half smiles on their faces, probably out of fatigue. Still, they were smiling. They joked around and had the energy to laugh.

We can still fight.

Shin finished his modest excuse for a meal just as Fido finished supplying the Reginleifs. He picked up his assault rifle and, while still crouched, somehow managed to slide into Undertaker’s cockpit. New orders came in from Lena. Meaning—

“I guess we can go and see if the priest really split in the fight. Looking forward to it.”

Checking the situation in each position and moving in to help where necessary. This was Shin’s implicit order, and someone—once again, an unfamiliar voice—cackled.

“Roger that. Let’s say we’re heading out to help our splitting, dividing priest, Reaper Captain.”

“He doesn’t need our help; the Legion aren’t enough to take the priest down. The part about him throwing rocks wasn’t made-up, if you ask me.”

A self-propelled mine probably wouldn’t expect to be beaten by something as primitive as a rock. Hearing Shin speak in a pitiful and completely serious voice, everyone else solemnly crossed themselves and brought their hands together in prayer.

And then someone connected to the Para-RAID. The stern voice of their Queen once again reached the battlefield.

“Handler One to all Spearhead detachment units!”

In the midst of the storm of bullets, Shin and the others exchanged looks with a smile. No more confirming the situation. Now they were given the honor of fighting under Her Majesty’s orders once more.

After the military physician ardently refused to prescribe him any more drugs, and his subordinates and the maintenance crew worked together to basically pull him out of his unit, Gilwiese had no choice but to nap.

The situation was reaching a point where he, as regiment commander, had to let his deputy take command for a while so he could rest. This was because they’d recovered the fleeing infantrymen at the Harutari reserve position; as a result, the armored units were given more freedom to act, and the combat engineers and transport units were able to secure open routes, allowing support and supplies to flow properly and the troops to launch counterattacks.

However, the routed soldiers wandered about in places where they didn’t belong, and their confused state meant they didn’t contribute much to the army.

If we could just get them to fight, the armored units—we descendants of armored knights—wouldn’t be overtaken by these lumps of scrap metal.

The state of the battle was gradually starting to swing in their favor. Once he got some sleep, he’d set out to push the enemy back.

Just you watch, Gilwiese thought firmly before fatigue finally pulled his mind into the quagmire of slumber.

“—Get out of the way, you hulking oaf! An oversize dragon like you won’t stand in the way of House Nouzen’s Wild Hunt!”

Still, Dinosauria were the Legion’s trump cards, and they were an opponent that challenged even the Crazy Bones Division—certainly not the kind of unit Yatrai could get away with calling a “hulking oaf,” and yet.

Probably deeming that the time was right to flee, the Legion’s heavy armored units were finally beaten by the Crazy Bones Division. With bloodthirsty laughter and howls, the division pursued the retreating enemies while being conscious enough to avoid straying too far.

They maintained an offensive formation, facing the enemy force, which advanced in a wedge formation, and tearing into them head-on. Having the Harutari formation at their back afforded them freedom of movement. There was no fear of them charging too deep into enemy lines, only for their allies to fall apart, isolating them.

The Azhi Dahāka had very poor fuel efficiency, so getting isolated behind enemy lines was especially fatal for it. Unless its allies’ defensive lines were stalwart, even this man-eating black dragon couldn’t fly freely across the battlefield.

Yes, unlike the fragile, broken Saentis-Historics line, the Harutari reserve formation was stalwart now. And this was because the routed soldiers who came here had cattle guards with guns fixed on them, giving them no choice but to fight. When it was their own lives and the lives of others hanging in the balance, even those cowards fought like hell.

They resisted the metallic surge with all the desperate scurrying of panicked rats, supported by the experience and foolhardiness of old and female wolves. It was brittle resistance, but effective for the time being.

…How things would go on was a question Yatrai didn’t think about and honestly didn’t care to know in that moment in time.

“Lord Yatrai, you’re letting your emotions show.”

“No one’s listening except you, Vice Captain… But I know. I’m just tired, is all.”

Nouzen blood blessed him with robust stamina that most people couldn’t match, but piloting an Azhi Dahāka, with its intense mobility, in such prolonged defensive combat without pause took its toll even on him. As Yatrai sweated from the heat of the cockpit and the excessive amount of adrenaline pumping through his brain, his vice captain seemed to smirk.

“You always were too tall for your own good. There’s a hot shower and cold ale waiting for you when this is all over, so just bear with it a little longer. Or would you rather have me as a way of relaxing yourself?”

“Hey, cut that out,” he replied tiredly.

She’d fought alongside him for as long as he did, so there was no telling how fatigued she was. Or how tired he was, for that matter. Despite that, the maiden, as fair and much more vicious than any courtesan of legend, laughed at Yatrai’s dull reaction, her voice too lovely for the battlefield.

The battle dragged on, and the date and year changed—January 2, year 2151 of the Stellar calendar.

The fighting on the third northern front was finally winding down, and news of that was spreading across the other fronts. The media reported on it as well. Commanders on the other nine fronts encouraged their troops, and soldiers egged on their comrades, saying they only needed to fight a little longer, and then kicked fleeing soldiers—who interpreted the news and improving situation as a sign to try to run again—back into the trenches.

The next day, January 3. Slightly before midday, the fighting in the Rüstkammer theater finally died down as well. The Eighty-Six had been able to defend their new hometown.

As Shin heard the Legion from surrounding sectors also begin to fall back, he breathed a long sigh of relief. Fighting continued to rage all over the western front as a whole, but still.

“Lena, Colonel Grethe, the enemy forces are retreating from the Rüstkammer theater, and there are no signs of them launching another attack. The back of the enemy lines and units in every theater are starting to fall back as well. The battle over the western front should end soon.”

“Roger that. I’ll report it to the higher-ups, Captain… Can you still keep going, stamina-wise? Can we rely on you to gather intel on the enemy movements across the front for a while longer?”

Several days of combat had passed, and despite Shin’s ability being a necessary precaution in case the Legion launched another attack, Grethe’s voice carried a tinge of concern. You can say no if you feel like you can’t.

Shin closed his eyes. Honestly, he’d have liked to get some rest immediately if he could, and he was so fatigued that just closing his eyes now made his consciousness start fading off into sleep. However—

“It’s possible…assuming you could get me something special to motivate me.”

He suggested candy in an offhanded manner, to which Grethe smiled.

“Acceptable terms… You heard us, Colonel Milizé. Could you arrange him a prize?”

Lena was flustered at having the conversation directed at her so suddenly. “Aah, hmm, yes… I’ll kiss you when I get back, Shin!”

…This was spoken through Para-RAID, and not by the Processor himself, so it wasn’t picked up by the mission recorder this time. But hearing Grethe and the staff officers who were listening in stifle their laughter left him perplexed.

The immediate fighting ended, and the Legion were retreating. Anju could only watch with a vast sense of disbelief.

…It’s over?

I survived.

Just that thought made her head spin, like reality was growing distant.

But Dustin’s gone.

But Dustin never made it back in the end.

So why did I survive?

Her warrior’s mind was able to hold on to a sliver of composure, given the end of combat hadn’t been announced yet. If nothing else, all the grief and regret she felt didn’t surge up in the gaping hole torn into her heart.

She opened Snow Witch’s canopy and wobbled out of the machine—a reckless, meaningless act that could result in grave danger, but no one stopped her. And in the end, fighting all over the area died down. There were no stray bullets or shell fragments flying around to shoot through her.

“Anju… Anju!”

That call pulled her out of her thoughts, and she saw Kurena hurrying over. She hopped between broken concrete and fallen trees like a rabbit and sprinted over to her. Some vague part of Anju’s mind pondered that it was dangerous running outside her unit. What if there were unexploded shells lying about?

Kurena grabbed Anju’s hand roughly, pulling her along. She looked like a child about to burst into tears.

“Come! Hurry!”

“Kurena, what’s wrong?”

Her voice came out flat, almost off-key, which seemed to finally push Kurena into crying outright as she pulled her hand.

“Just come with me, quick!”

No, in fact, she’d been crying ever since she hurried over.

“Dustin came back!”

“…!”

The shock made Anju freeze for a second. All the emotions she’d kept bottled up rose to the surface. She pulled her arm out of Kurena’s grasp almost roughly, then ran along the path Kurena had just come from.

The momentum of Anju pulling her arm out of her grasp, coupled with fatigue from the battle, made Kurena stumble back.

“Ow!” she yelped, but her lips were curled into a smile.

Thank goodness… Really, thank God.

Tohru, who was passing by, approached her with a sardonic smile and offered her a hand, which she gladly took.

“All right?”

“Yeah. It’s all right now.”

Both me and Anju.

When Kurena, with her sniper’s eyesight, spotted Dustin, he was still relatively far-off; by the time Anju hurried over to him, he’d just arrived at the gate to Rüstkammer base. The moment he saw her, his dirtied face softened into a smile. But at that point, Anju stopped in her tracks.

“—Dustin.”

She had no idea what to say. She hadn’t been there with Dustin when it happened, and she didn’t go looking for him, either. She prioritized her duties as a commander in the Strike Package over him. So she had no idea what to tell Dustin, who’d come back on his own.

Dustin, however, simply smiled at Anju, who stood frozen before him. It was a carefree smile.

“Anju… I’m glad you’re all right. I only made it because of you.”

“…Eh?”

What does he mean by that? I wasn’t there for him, I didn’t look for him, and I didn’t do anything for him.

“I heard your voice telling me to come back… You wished for it, right?”

“…!”

“That wish reached me. It made me feel like I had to make it back. That’s how I stayed alive and came back here. I may have cheated, I may have been so weak that I had to resort to cheating, but knowing you were waiting for me kept me going… It’s thanks to you. Thanks to your words.”

—So tell yourself you’re doing it for me. And come back.

—Don’t let your purity drive you to death and return to me at all costs.

“I’m back, Anju… I told you, didn’t I? I won’t leave you behind.”

I won’t make you grieve.

“…!”

The emotions surging up filled her heart. She felt something warm run down her cheeks. Unable to manage any words, Anju was driven into her surviving beloved’s chest, holding on to him. Her arms wrapped around his back, and as he felt her silent tears, Dustin thought:

Anju told him to cheat. But she didn’t tell him to abandon others or discard his sense of justice. All she wanted was for him to return alive. All she wished was for him to avoid following that justice, that sense of mission, the arrogant, presumptuous ambition to save anyone and everyone until it drove him off the edge.

Even if he ended up beaten and broken, unable to save anyone. Even if he had to drag himself back, powerless and weeping—she would always accept and take him back.

That’s all she was trying to do.

Once she calmed down, Anju looked down, spotting a small seven-year-old girl who’d been clinging to Dustin’s leg the whole time.

“Who’s this, Dustin?”

“Oh…” Dustin paused for thought, then jokingly picked the girl up. “She’s our daughter. Yours and mine.”

“What are you saying…?!”

She poked him gently, but Dustin was so thoroughly exhausted that it was enough to make him wobble and sit down on the ground. Deciding he was probably fine if he had enough cheer in him to joke around, Anju ignored Dustin and looked at the girl at eye level. Siri, who’d been watching over from afar, deemed the time was right and approached to collect Dustin, throwing him over his shoulder like a sack.

“You’re a Mascot, right?” asked Anju.

The girl nodded timidly… She explained, her voice thin and nervous from speaking to someone she didn’t know, that the nice mister saved her.

“I see. The man is very sweet, but I know you must have been scared on the battlefield. Good on you for being brave… Come here. We’ll get you something warm to eat at our base.”

“…I can come in?”

“Of course.”

The girl looked up at her, surprised, and Anju nodded with a smile. A little Mascot girl, all on her own on the battlefield. Her unit must have abandoned her.

“Dustin—our precious comrade—brought you here, after all. So let’s go back.”

To our home.

“God, what a battle…”

“I’m surprised we made it through alive…”

They had, after all, just experienced both that chaotic excuse for a retreat and days of fighting in a state of confusion, with platoons, battalions, and armored divisions mixed together.

Claude, who nodded at Suiu from the 4th Armored Division, was seated next to Saki, who looked exhausted. They had no idea why the two of them were together, given they were in different battalions, or how they ended up mixed in with the 4th Armored Division.

Looking around the beaten pillbox in the combat-worn forest, they unwillingly noticed the ones in the corner.

“…There’s still Republic people here.”

“We’ve been fighting for days; why haven’t they run yet…?”

Republic refugees were huddled together in the corner, admittedly trying not to get in anyone’s way. They’d been in the middle of evacuation when the front lines fell apart, and they got caught up in the fighting. They somehow managed to get to Rüstkammer’s defensive line, then were recovered and sent into trenches or pillboxes so as to not cause any trouble by loitering about. With all the bullets and shell fragments flying around, many of them couldn’t move deeper into the defensive line.

Up until today, they’d been told to simply remain put and stay out of everyone’s way. Still, it was only a temporary ad hoc solution, and noncombatants couldn’t be left in a frontline base or its trenches.

“The transport staff should arrive to deliver supplies soon, so we can ask them to take those people back.”

“They won’t like it, though. Not that we should care.”

All that talk about new self-propelled mines or suicide-bombing viruses, and the Republic all being traitors. As Claude pondered how they were going to handle them going forward with those ideas, Suiu smoothly got to her feet.

“If the transport staff is coming to collect them, we should probably round everyone up. Bring the ones in the trenches over.”

“Think you can do that? A captain like you is going to have places to be after this, right?”

“It’s cool, er…Claude, was it? You’d rather not talk yourself into trouble while you’re tired as it is, right?”

The fatigue had made him lose his temper in the middle of battle and throw away his glasses, meaning his argent eyes were now exposed. Suiu spoke while sneaking a glance at his eyes. She then shrugged, as if to say there was no choice.

“I am a captain, after all. Leave it to me.”

But regardless, despite her being an Eighty-Six tempered by the battlefield, she was still smaller than a boy like Claude—or compared with Saki, her limbs were petite, and her shoulders were slender. Claude and Saki exchanged a confused look.

“…We just said a captain would have other places to be.”

“And if we just said yes and dropped everything on you, our position would look bad.”

“So with that said…you can leave all the dirty work to us, milady.”

Claude offered his hand in an exaggerated manner, which made Suiu break out in laughter. It felt like the first time in a while that they joked around.

—If you don’t smile, you lose, after all.

Kurena said that once, and Claude thought this rang true. So he was going to laugh, even if he had to fake and force it. He wasn’t going to lose hope, weep, and lament anymore.

He must have looked really funny, because Suiu held her stomach, laughing. She nodded, wiping tears of laughter with a fingertip.

“Wow, that was so dashing, I almost fell for you… All right, I’ll be counting on you, my knights.”

“—You could have called us your Prince Charmings,” Saki said earnestly.

Suiu laughed again.

Rito turned around in surprise, spotting a flash of long black hair out of the corner of his eye.

Milan’s optical sensor followed his gaze, noticing the figure of a girl walking away. Her curly hair flowed down her slender back, and she wore a pair of sturdy boots that were too big for her lanky ankles. Her long hair flowed in the snowy wind as she approached a group of Republic citizens.

Even a girl wouldn’t be that thin after living on the battlefield for as long as an Eighty-Six. And she wasn’t a Wulfsrin girl, either; the Vargus had a bulky skeleton and stature, owing to generations of being soldiers. All the people from the nearby towns had long since evacuated, and since she had black hair, she couldn’t have been a Republic citizen, given they’d expelled anyone who wasn’t Alba.

Which meant she must have been—

He switched on the external speaker and hurriedly called out.

“…You!”

The girl’s gaze alone turned to look at him. Languid, listless blue eyes.

“You’re Actaeon, aren’t you?”

He should have upped the speaker’s volume, so he could warn the Republic people. But he kept it low, like he was scared of them finding out.

The girl came to a realization and smiled at him.

“Oh, you’re Eighty-Six, aren’t you? From the Strike Package.”

Just like me—Eighty-Six.

Different from me—Strike Package.

“Good. I’m glad you get to live on.”

Unlike us, who are going to die. Fated to die, no matter what.

“…!”

“That’s good. So… Please. Just let me do this.”

She smiled. Her blue eyes, so exhausted and resigned, had a twinge of lament to them. She implored him with the empty, mirthless gaze of a witch, even her tired hatred ground to nothing from persecution and fleeing.

“Just say you didn’t see me. Pretend you didn’t notice me. At least let me have—my revenge.”

Revenge against the Republic, which made me into an Actaeon.

Rito gritted his teeth.

“—I can’t.”

He opened the canopy. He didn’t think those words should have been said through a speaker, with his face hidden in his unit.

“I can’t. I don’t want to let you become a killer. Even if this is revenge and you want this, I don’t want you to kill people.”

Like Lieutenant Aldrecht, who became a Shepherd to take revenge; like his ghost, which went around slaughtering the Republic’s people. He’d turned into a murder machine to avenge his wife and daughter and, despite that, froze up at the very end because he never forgot his daughter’s visage.

Rito had no way of knowing what Aldrecht had fought at the very end. Was it grief? Regret? Emptiness? If nothing else, he wasn’t satisfied. He’d discarded his humanity, the peace of death, the hope of going to meet his wife and daughter—but what he gained at the end of it all wasn’t fulfillment and satisfaction.

And he didn’t want that to happen to this girl. He didn’t want her to die with only regret and emptiness and sorrow crossing her mind.

“You’re Eighty-Six, just like me, so I…don’t want you to experience this sorrow.”

The girl’s mouth hung open, and she blinked once, then twice. And then she smiled, as if to say she had to comply. It was their first meeting, but seeing a boy, younger than her, wave her down like they were old comrades caused her to smile at him like an older sister hearing her younger brother make an excuse.

“In that case, stop me from killing them. There’s no time left.”

You kill me.

Oddly enough, he wasn’t conflicted about it at all.

“Okay.”

This is what Cap’n Nouzen always did. Exactly what he did to comrades who were about to die.

He took out the assault rifle his unit had for self-defense, extended the stock with swift motions, and aimed. A rifle’s bullets had faster initial velocity and a heavier weight, making them more reliable than a pistol’s.

He aligned the sights with the girl. She closed her eyes with a smile.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah.”

He pulled the trigger. Shot through the chest from close range, the girl crumpled to the ground with a smile.

And then…

The heat burning through his mind, all the thoughts and perceptions and judgments, everything was blown away.

…Huh?

All the colors he could see changed into a dizzying, haphazard swirl. Dots of white and black filled one side, and then the colors stopped changing. Ah, no, red spread over the speckled ground. Crimson spilled in random patterns over the white of snow. A sharp noise echoed in his ears—he knew this sound, but the blankness in his head kept him from remembering what it was.

Shot through, he tumbled off his unit and slammed on his side into the snowy mud without bearing himself. But at this point, Rito couldn’t tell what was going on. The impact of his fall made him face another direction, and he could see military boots approaching his field of vision. They stopped right in front of him.

He couldn’t look up, but he heard a voice from above. He couldn’t grasp the emotion or meaning of those words anymore.

“Murderer.”

“…?”

i am rito

an eighty-six

so i am not a killer

Hearing footsteps approach from between the broken trees, before Lerche even turned around, her sensors focused on the sound of the voice calling out to her and Ludmila. The footsteps implied the body weighed roughly a hundred kilograms, and it was the voice of a woman. Her voice was oddly upset, and her tone came across as alarmed.

“Y-you two. Are you Eighty-Six…? No, what do I call you? Are you with this boy…?”

“Ah, no, we are not Eighty-Six,” Lerche said and turned around.

If this person assumed the word Eighty-Six was a disparaging one that should not be used, she must have been from the Republic. Having reached that same conclusion, Ludmila turned her head and optical sensor to look at her as well…

“What’s more, the Eighty-Six themselves wear that name with pride. That title is not a mark of shame, but…”

But then Lerche trailed off as the woman came into view. At that moment, Ludmila felt her nonexistent heart freeze over with shock.

The woman was young, short, and slender. But the reason they had calculated her weight as heavier was because someone else was in her arms. Her slender arms, her chest, her cheeks, and even her moon-colored hair were stained with red, and the woman was sobbing.

“I’m sorry. I…I couldn’t save him. I heard his voice, so I knew he was there, so I should have come closer. I couldn’t save him, I didn’t make it, he’s so small, but I couldn’t protect him. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Lerche stood beside Ludmila, her Emerōd eyes as wide as they could be. Ludmila didn’t have a feature that would make her shudder, and yet she trembled, freezing up, and tried to call his name.

“Sir…”

Stop.

Lerche, don’t.

Please don’t remind me of his name, of that fact.

Once… When was it? Yes, it was the previous me. He looked at me with fear. He said he didn’t want to die, that death scared him. In looking at us, this person made that realization. And that put me at ease, the knowledge that this person would not die the way we did.

And yet this person…

“Sir…Rito…”

Having us, birds of death, call his name would only be an ill omen and a disservice. And so Lerche, who had made an attempt to not call people by their names, spoke his name with a dumbfounded expression.

The bird of death that would never call the living by their name called his name—it was clear, without a doubt, that the boy was dead.

Held in the woman’s arms with his skull shattered from a gunshot, its contents, his life, and his personality spilling out—was Rito Oriya’s dead body.

Being nearly half buried in the snow-specked mud turned out to be a blessing. Henry crawled out along with the subordinates who’d hid with him in the same place—the same trenches—for roughly half a day.

“…How many made it?”

First Lieutenant Nino, the company commander who’d sat beside him in the trenches, sighed at that question, his face dirty and emaciated.

“You, me, this boy right here, and about ten troops or so.”

“Me too, for what it’s worth. And seven of my men.” First Lieutenant Kareli wobbled over.

In other words, these twenty or so men were the sole survivors out of two companies numbering four hundred troops in total, the rest either routed or dead.

There was no sign of any Legion or friendly troops in sight as they looked around the battlefield, which was covered in corpses and wreckage.

“The western front—or rather, the Harutari reserve position managed to stave them off. Let’s take this chance to rendezvous with the closest position…”

But then he saw First Lieutenant Nino grimace and the child soldier stiffen. This made Henry pick up on the hints.

“…Right. No position would accept a Republic soldier, would they?”

And though he left it unsaid, they weren’t likely to take in the child soldiers, who were a minority in the Federacy.

First Lieutenant Nino shook his head. “It’s not about you. I doubt anyone’s going to let other units join them at this point. They think everyone but themselves is the enemy… Everyone feels this way now.”

“None of them were willing to rescue or offer covering fire for us…,” First Lieutenant Kareli said bitterly. “And they knew our unit got left behind here.”

But that said, the Legion’s scavenger units, the Tausendfüßler, would come before long. And even if they didn’t, it was only a matter of time until the next Legion offensive began. If they were going to survive, they’d need to return to their army’s territory. And yet…

When the realization hit Henry, he got to his feet. It took a moment’s hesitation, and he had to swallow his guilt, but he steeled himself. His life wasn’t the only one hanging in the balance here, and he didn’t want to make Claude angry anymore.

“Let’s go to Rüstkammer base—the Strike Package’s home base.”

His subordinates eyed him dubiously. First Lieutenant Nino raised an eyebrow, and First Lieutenant Kareli looked alarmed. But Henry carried on, undisturbed. This was one thing he could believe in, even in this situation. Even in a situation like this, Claude and the Eighty-Six who fought alongside him…

“I have a little brother. I’m sure they’ll take us in.”

The president, Ernst Zimmerman, returned to his estate for recuperation, with his vice president taking over his duties, finally making the decision to approve forced conscription. Starting with evacuees from the territories; minorities and serfs who didn’t know how to write their names; people from extremely poor territories; the lower classes of the capital region; and finally, even the wealthy, educated citizens of the capital, who’d been idly watching by while thinking themselves exempt from this duty.

When the first group got drafted, the group after that didn’t act against the law, instead agreeing with it, thinking they themselves were a capable part of the population and different from the weaker, good-for-nothing groups.

And because of this, when it was their turn to be drafted, the group that was conscripted before them and were by now trained soldiers ruthlessly rounded them up, burning with revenge. The new recruits were looked down upon, treated roughly—the ones who were drafted first and the ones who got drafted later held a deep, reciprocal loathing for each other.

Not for the Senate, which decided the drafting; nor the major nobles standing at the top brass of the military. It was the same method the Imperial nobles once used to keep the people under control.

And Ernst couldn’t stop their scheming. His position as president remained unchanged, along with all the responsibilities that came and would come with it, but all the power and authority had been transferred to the vice president, without reverting back to him.

“…That, on its own, is the result of my conduct thus far, so I can understand that.”

Confined to his home under the pretense of recovery, Ernst smiled in his living room, now clean from bloodstains. But despite his house arrest, his maid, Teresa, was allowed to return and was by now the only person to listen to him.

She stood stock-still, her lips pursed, the identical twin sister of his late wife. Looking away from her, Ernst leaned deep into his armchair, sighing. His wasn’t the face of a firedrake that had grown weary of the world, but simply that of a powerless father.

“It may be too late to say it now, but I really don’t think it was necessary. The draft and isolation of the Republic people are unavoidable by now, and I frankly don’t care about it, so let them do that if they must—but I wanted to at least keep my children safe.”

The scales that had once been balanced because nothing was placed on them now held a weight called familial piety, tilting it firmly to one side.

The 1st Armored Division, which was once composed of seven battalions, took losses that required it to be restructured into four battalions. Among the battalion captains, Mitsuda, who led the 5th Artillery-Configuration Battalion, died in battle. And—

“The investigation into the soldier who shot Rito is underway on the back lines.”

Raiden spoke, trying to keep his voice even, and Shin nodded wordlessly. He looked unaffected, but he was actually keeping his lips pursed. Raiden himself had to suppress his own grief and anger, too.

Rito had been like a little brother to them. They never thought he could possibly die, and yet he met a tragic, violent end.

Yes, a gruesome death. Rito did not die in combat. Of all things, it was a human—a Federacy soldier—who killed him. The culprit was one of the survivors of the units that fled during the battle. The woman who’d carried Rito’s body said soldiers from his own unit were the ones who caught the soldier, and they tried to resuscitate Rito but ended up just standing there as it was clear he was beyond saving.

Grethe said that the soldier would be held accountable and punished for his actions. Likely to be executed by firing squad. A Federacy soldier may have killed Rito, but the Federacy military itself did not condone his death.

That was a small comfort for Raiden—Shin likely felt the same way.

“The soldier’s commanding officer sent us an apology letter. Colonel Grethe said we don’t have to force ourselves to read it—”

“An apology, right? I’ll look over it, then.”

Grethe must have read it first, so it probably contained an honest apology and not just excuses, and Shin didn’t feel inclined to coldly turn that down. He didn’t want to use Rito’s death as a reason to treat all Federacy soldiers as a heartless evil. Picking up on Shin’s implicit intentions, Raiden closed his eyes.

“…Right. Let me read it later, too.”

Because honestly, if he was to read it now, he’d just feel hatred toward them. He sighed, trying to vent out the indignation filling his heart, and resumed the briefing.

“The 2nd and 4th Armored Divisions need to have their battalions restructured, too. The 3rd Armored Division will have to be disbanded, and its remaining troops will be organized into the other three divisions.”

The 3rd Armored Division had been hit directly by the first Morpho barrage. What’s more, their division leader, Canaan, was MIA, alongside his Longbow squadron, meaning it was this armored division that took the biggest losses out of the four. Its numbers had been reduced to the point where it couldn’t function as an armored division, and as such, its survivors would have to be used to recover the losses the other divisions took.

However.

“But about the 3rd Armored Division…the survivors from Canaan’s missing group just returned.”

“—I thought this time, I was going to die for sure.”

Canaan returned with the survivors from his squadron—overall, there weren’t enough of them to make up a single squadron. Canaan spoke, his expression exhausted, as the last few soldiers dragged themselves into base. Apparently, they were the final.

As he sat next to his Reginleif, which was so badly beaten that even Shin was shocked he actually made it back like this, he gave a thumbs-up and pointed.

“Plus… I think he was a battalion captain sent over to your group, right? I don’t know what he was doing so close to the front or why he was all alone.”

“Jaeger.”

Turning around, Dustin smiled faintly when he saw the golden-haired and red-eyed boy who’d disappeared with Citri. He’d escaped the Legion territories all on his own, without so much as a pistol. What’s more, he had to trudge through the snowy northern battlefield, needing to avoid his own army’s soldiers since he was considered a deserter. After such a difficult journey, even Yuuto was visibly haggard and exhausted.

And though Yuuto himself probably wasn’t aware of it, his eyes were warped with anger so intense, it couldn’t be translated into clear emotion—it couldn’t even become tears.

“I’m sorry. I got your message, but I couldn’t go.”

“That’s fine.” Yuuto shook his head. “She knew she was making an unreasonable request.”

Dustin nodded in silent understanding. Now he saw that she hadn’t been pointing out or blaming him for his helplessness. She knew it was unreasonable, but she still wanted to meet him—to see him one more time. Even on the brink of death, Citri was still kind and sweet.

“May I…? Should I ask how it went?”

“She went out with a smile. She cried and got scared along the way, but at the very end, she smiled.”

“Really? Then that’s…a good thing, right?”

If, at the very end, she felt like she could punctuate her life with a smile… Dustin couldn’t tell if that was true yet. Perhaps he’d never find the answer for as long as he lived.

Yuuto watched his vague nod with the discerning eyes of a crow before saying, “She left me with a memento.”

But contrary to his words, he didn’t take it out of his breast pocket—a light-violet hair ribbon, same as the color of her eyes. He’d realized that a strand of her long flaxen hair was coiled around it and carefully folded the ribbon up, so it wouldn’t drop.

Dustin looked back at him. Yuuto unconsciously clenched his right hand, the same hand that held on to her one last time, and flashed a slightly provocative smile.

“You can’t have it. I’ll be the one who takes her along.”

I will be your curse, then.

Yuuto did feel he’d be better off with a curse cast on him. Maybe he was wrong to feel this way—and maybe he was right. He couldn’t really tell. And when that curse was placed on him, it was incredibly painful.

But he didn’t want to have that curse lifted.

He’d probably never forget her, for as long as he lived. The girl he didn’t save—and yet who smiled at him at the very end.

Yuuto’s declaration made Dustin crack a pained smile. That went without saying, after all.

“Yeah, you should be. I’m not qualified to do it.”

Not me, who couldn’t—who failed to choose her.

Not me, who chose someone other than her.

“I already have the Snow Witch’s curse on me. The Snow Witch took her aim and shot me down. So I’m not qualified to take Citri’s hand anymore.”

The gentle curse that the kind witch placed on him—a curse that drove him to survive.

Dustin exhaled, chuckling with a hint of contempt. Yes, that went without saying—he didn’t have to go out and announce it. But Yuuto didn’t pick up on that nuance.

“Besides…she left it for you. Because you were the one who was with her in her final moments, and no one else. She decided she’d become your curse to carry.”

Didn’t she?

Yuuto smiled softly. It was a pained smile that stood for the tears he didn’t know how to shed yet.

“…True.”

Words and wishes. Prayers and emotions. All things people directed at one another were curses. They bound one’s legs, keeping them from going on, warping their path forward. They made one take wrong turns, even changing their soul in definitive ways at times.

Could the curses one accepted despite that at least be called love, then?

The Federacy capital of Sankt Jeder couldn’t withstand the worsening public order borne of the clashes between the residents and the evacuees. Destabilizing factors were able to take the president of all people hostage, showing that the capital’s police lacked the teeth to uphold the peace.

And with that pretext, a few divisions were deployed in Sankt Jeder and its outskirts. Among them were the Brantolote archduchy’s Flame Leopard Division and the Nouzen marquessate’s Will-o’-the-Wisp Division. At the same time, the media was being suppressed. Demonstrations, gatherings, and protests were forbidden. There were crackdowns on civilians walking after sundown, with the formal reasons being maintaining blackouts and keeping up the public order.

The citizens felt suffocated by their life being overturned in the space of one night, at the sight of crimson and black uniforms controlling their city, but there was nothing they could do. This wasn’t the police, but the army, and armored divisions at that. Even if they grouped up, unarmed civilians couldn’t fight them off.

And so all they could do was wait, their frustrations building up without an outlet.

But on the other hand, there were those who regarded the majestic sight of armored weapons—heroic, crimson Vánagandrs—lording over Sankt Jeder with a sense of genuine relief. Those who were used to being ruled, who took obeying the dominion of the former nobles as a given.

This meant they didn’t have to do anything anymore. No need to make decisions, to shoulder responsibilities. They wouldn’t have to engage in the tiring, bothersome act of using their own will and responsibilities to lead their lives.

If they did that, the other citizens wouldn’t have to ask them why they wouldn’t act like them. The other civilians wouldn’t call them lazy and good-for-nothing anymore. The other civilians wouldn’t blame them for everyone being unable to live peacefully. They wouldn’t be faced anymore with the powerlessness of having to abandon others.

It would all be so much simpler. So much more peaceful.

We shouldn’t have become the Federacy. We shouldn’t have become citizens.

The Federacy no longer had enough people to send military police to what was, on paper, a backwater evacuee sector. Thanks to that, the people of the Republic didn’t have to live while surrounded by guns. But despite that, the Republic people had to face what was effectively an internment.

The discrimination of the Eighty-Six and the ineffective Republic volunteer soldiers. The wiretaps and the Actaeon. A declaration of independence that almost seemed to have been coordinated with the Legion’s attack.

Suspicions and accusations piled up, leading to the surrounding citizens building up a wall that surrounded the evacuee sector. The Republic’s people were closed up by fences, like livestock, with vigilante corps being established to keep the people from straying outside them. The citizens acted as if by isolating and shutting off the Republic people, they’d be able to excise the calamity that was upon them. That maybe, if they did that, even the Legion would eventually disappear.

Like an attempt to pass the buck. Like escapism.

“…Why did it come to this?”

The Republic people were stunned as they looked up at the fence—a fence built in a hurry, but still much too high. The height of this wall stood for the sheer intensity of the Federacy people’s hostility. The sight of this enmity put in tangible form, thrust before them so blatantly, was a horrifying one. It was the kind of malice that a normal person would hide out of shame, but it was displayed with such brazen, collected indifference that it scared the Republic people into stunned silence.

Everyone around them was, by now, nothing but animals and demons in human form. These weren’t people…and maybe there were no people left across this whole wide world.

“We just wanted to live in peace.… A peaceful life—that’s all we asked for…”

“The Actaeon are all presumed dead, and the Bleachers’ remnants have all been exposed. However, given the state of the war and home front, we will need you three to stay in the military headquarters base.”

In other words, Second Lieutenant Jonas Degen maintained the facade of a cold expression while he kept his regret and conscience suppressed. Having already seen through this mask, Lena, Zashya, and Annette faced Jonas with expressions that were equally as cold.

“We have no problems with you commanding the Strike Package. We will leave the RAID Devices with you, and you are free to contact them daily. We will provide you with any necessary intelligence needed to command the war, including for the Rüstkammer theater, and I will join as a staff officer going forward.”

Jonas kept his eyes fixed on Lena, who remained silent. No matter how she may have felt about it, as a Federacy soldier, Jonas couldn’t allow Lena to do this.

“But we cannot approve your return to the Rüstkammer base. Colonel Milizé, Major Penrose, I’m sure you two are aware of the army’s collapse and how it has caused a decline in the standard of living. More than anything, the fear of being overrun by the murder machines has been weighing on the people, and the civilians are looking for soldiers to vent their frustrations on. We cannot return you to the front lines, in the name of your personal safety.”

And as Republic soldiers, Lena and Annette knew all too well what civilians in search of someone to vent their frustrations on were capable of.

“Commodore Ehrenfried.”

Willem understood with bitter clarity that during the third large-scale offensive, the Federacy military completely lost its function as an organization. The Federacy, its military, and its soldiers all broke apart out of terror, splintering into factions.

The nobility, which once ruled over the people by monopolizing might and violence and kept their vested interests in place through bonds of blood, had been abolished in the revolution. This meant the only thing remaining that kept the Federacy united—the people’s perception of other citizens as their comrades—had been shattered by the citizens themselves.

By now, the Federacy was only a wreckage, a country in name only. A large mass of people that didn’t coalesce into a nation. People who only found fault with one another’s differences, too occupied with scorn, enmity, and suspicion to cooperate—an unsightly aggregate of small, powerless groups.

And the same could be said of the military. It had fractured into groups that hated and saw one another as enemies. Federacy soldiers and volunteer soldiers; Vargus and citizens; former nobles and former commoners; territory folk and city folk; veterans and reservists.

“Commodore, this is my decision. My order, my responsibility, and my crime.”

And with that knowledge in mind, the lieutenant general who commanded the entire western front’s army gave his order. He issued the order to Willem, who’d been relieved of his position as chief of staff earlier and was unable to make that order himself.

It was to ensure that the Federacy soldiers who could not be expected to cooperate, to unite, or to even fight in the same trenches at this point would still carry out their duty to defend the nation.

An order to ensure that they would be able to stave off the Legion invasion in the future, even if just barely.

“Understood? You were not involved in this decision. You objected to your cruel superior and was relieved of your post as a result. Only one commander made the wrong choice in the face of this predicament, and no fault lies with the western front’s army as a whole.”

…And yet Willem thought that was just escapism dressed up as self-sacrifice. Idleness masked as coldheartedness. Resorting to cruelty was the easy way out, and stooping to thinking like this wasn’t something nobles and commanders like them were allowed to do.

“You think this is escapism, don’t you, Commodore?” the lieutenant general asked sharply.

Willem peered back at his superior unintentionally, surprised that he’d read into his thoughts so clearly. The lieutenant general stared directly at him, his crimson eyes burning.

“And that is exactly what it is. This is escapism, an unforgivable act of idleness. Which is why you must fight on.”

The burning, crimson eyes of a Pyrope—a Pyrope to oppose Willem, an Onyx.

“Mock me as lazy and idle, a pathetic old dog who fled his responsibilities. Earn enough merit to do that… I don’t have enough time left, but you still do. Enough time to fight off the escapism, the idleness, the intolerance ruling over this country.”

You, who can recognize foolish escapism for what it is.

Willem closed his eyes, displaying his consent and respect to this old general.

“Yes, sir.”

“No,” Lena replied coldly. “That’s not all there is to it, is there, Second Lieutenant? If anything, this is the real reason.”

An Eighty-Six shooting a civilian, and a young girl at that.

The moment he saw that, that armored infantryman instantly fired on the Eighty-Six. This was the natural reaction of a proud soldier, obligated to defend the weak civilians. He almost felt bad he couldn’t use his heavy assault rifle, since it was dysfunctional after long combat, and had to resort to his spare assault rifle. The 12.7 mm rounds were more than enough to blow the Eighty-Six away, though.

But when the girl’s body exploded the next moment, the armored infantryman realized his mistake. And though he understood what he did wrong, there was no reversing what happened. The Eighty-Six had fired on an Actaeon, which meant he’d only been trying to defend civilians from a self-destructing weapon…and the armored infantryman shot him dead for his efforts.

He killed him, and there was no undoing that. He was a killer, and worse yet, this wasn’t just murder—it was fragging, killing a fellow soldier. And the army hated fraggers above all else.

The soldier couldn’t accept that.

As they pinned him down and blamed him for his actions, he refused to admit anything. I am not a killer, he said. It wasn’t fragging. That Eighty-Six killed a defenseless girl. She just happened to be an Actaeon, and maybe he was only trying to make it seem like she was a threat to justify her death.

So I may have killed him, but it wasn’t a murder, and it wasn’t fragging.

And so before he was handed over to the MPs, the soldier found a chance to give the footage to one reckless war photographer who’d sneaked onto the battlefield. To tell the public that he did nothing wrong.

To tell them all that I saw what I saw, so it only made sense for me to shoot.

The people’s families were taken away, and they were once again placed under a regime of bayonets and military boots. And the reason for that were two defeats in quick succession. The Federacy was, by now, fully surrounded by the murder machines, and they were creeping closer moment by moment, with no one to stave them off. The situation was sheer terror.

And that was why the Actaeon hunts would not die down.

The real Actaeon girls were all dead already, but once someone pointed at another, saying they were infected, no one could stop the people from moving in to expel that person. The government repeatedly announced that there were no new self-propelled mine models or suicide-bombing viruses, but the attacks on evacuees, minorities, families of soldiers, and injured soldiers didn’t stop.

It wasn’t just that excising the rumors was difficult; it was because the idea of a new self-propelled mine or a suicide-bomb virus gave people a justified reason to drive undesirables away. It was a convenient tool for venting their anger in the guise of justice.

A Celena girl whose brother enlisted and died in battle was driven out of school. Families that adopted Actaeon or wiretap children were subjected to verbal abuse and harassment, forcing them to leave town. Minorities lost their homes to arson, and hotels that housed evacuees were subjected to so much harassment that they had to give up and stop running their establishments as evacuation sites.

And that all led to a worsening in the peace, further increasing the citizens’ discontent and anxiety. The Actaeon weren’t enough anymore. The people needed a clearer crime, a more defined evil to pursue. Unforgivable, unsalvageable sinners, a different “other” they could loudly and proudly blame for everything.

Like the Republic, for instance. Or like…

…the elite unit of heroes who’d been saved by the Federacy but failed to prevent this defeat. The ones who hurt people—as wiretaps, as Actaeon, as Legion.

The combat-crazed berserkers born of the Republic, of the Eighty-Sixth Sector.

The TV broadcast framed it as shocking footage—it was the moment Rito shot the Actaeon girl. That moment alone, with no context. It’d been pulled from the armored infantryman’s optical sensor. As Raiden got to his feet, shocked by how the army let this leak, the newscaster continued his report with misguided outrage and elation.

Video evidence of the Strike Package—of Eighty Six—killing an innocent. Divisive evidence that they, too, were enemies.

The Eighty-Six were humankind’s archenemy.

They willingly became Legion, joining the ranks of the murder machines.

They colluded with the Legion as wiretaps.

They turned into Actaeon, killing countless innocent civilians across the Federacy.

And in the midst of combat, they killed civilians. They’d likely killed countless Federacy soldiers thus far. And that’s why the Federacy started losing one battle after another as soon as they appeared.

We lost because of them.

They’re traitors. They turned their backs on humankind, becoming animals intent on hunting us down. The biggest sinners of them all.

…They’re the ones who killed Rito.

It was a Federacy soldier who took his life, and yet the Republic people intentionally overlooked that fact and made themselves the victims. Just like the Republic people, they painted themselves the victims while remaining willfully ignorant of their own crimes.

“…Is this some kind of sick joke?”

Each front’s chief of staff and vice commander—including the western front’s chief of staff, Willem Ehrenfried—were dismissed from their posts one after another. The same reason was given every time: insubordination. All of them were promising generals, either subordinate to or seen as the future successors of their front’s supreme commander.

After pushing away their most promising successors, every single front HQ gave the order.

“Since I’m the Queen of the Eighty-Six, you’re keeping me here in the capital as a hostage so they stay in line. To coerce them to obey the Federacy military’s will, though they’re bound to feel outraged, resentful, and even inclined to rebel.”

With the Eighty-Six becoming both an outlet for the people’s frustration at defeat, and targets of their suspicion and distrust, they could no longer return to the Federacy, nor could they fight alongside Federacy soldiers.

“To keep the Eighty-Six from betraying or opposing you. To ensure they remain your weapon for fighting the Legion, like they have until now. That’s why you’re holding me hostage.”

“…Li’l Reaper.”

He was still annoyed by that nickname even now, but he was used to it. Hearing Shiden call him, Shin turned to her, his eyes fed up as ever. Shiden, however, wasn’t looking at him; instead, she was peering dubiously out the window, at the eastern sky.

“Are those transport planes? Is it just me, or are they different from the ones we usually see?”

It wasn’t even a question of if they were different, since there were no flights scheduled that day. There was no sign of busywork on the base’s runway, meaning they hadn’t received updates on any emergency landings, either.

Shin approached the window, becoming suspicious. The planes really were different, not just in terms of model, but in sheer numbers, too. They flew in a formation of ten aircraft, coming in from the east, where the bases around Sankt Jeder would be.

It seemed they had no business in Rüstkammer, and they were rotating from a good distance away, their flanks turned. The doors to their elongated fuselage opened outward. Shin recognized this structure. These weren’t cargo planes; they were bombers. They had the same mechanism as the bombers that’d gone on a suicide attack on the United Kingdom’s snowy battlefield.

…What were bombers doing there?

Were they preparing to drop bombs so far behind their own army’s front line?

But then a moment later, it dawned on him. And the realization made his every pore open and every hair on his body stand on end.

“—Colonel!”

He connected with Grethe, too annoyed to fiddle with the Para-RAID’s settings. Normally, he wouldn’t contact Grethe directly, instead deferring to her aide to inform her he was looking for her, but now wasn’t the time.

“Captain Nouzen?! Is it the Legion…?”

“No, but this is urgent! Have the entire unit and all the Vargus units called back! Right away!”

She associated the urgency of his words and his direct call with his ability, but Shin cut her off. The fact that she trusted him enough to listen to him despite her confusion was something Shin was sincerely grateful for. They were also lucky that the intermittent Legion attacks that had lasted since their retreat died down last night. This gave the Strike Package time to gather, and Shin wanted to avoid the unit members having to see this in the middle of battle.

“I’ll handle recon in the meanwhile—please take control of the unit as brigade commander before they start speculating or splitting off because of misinformation!”

There were a lot more people this time around compared with back then. Keeping everyone gathered would take experience, skill, and know-how. Being late to handling the initial reaction was something they had to avoid.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiden, who had noticed what he was saying and turned around. She was shouting into the Para-RAID—“gather, group up, tell the others”—while ordering researchers and civilian workers who didn’t have RAID Devices to run. Even the slightest loss of information, even a single person unwilling to share intelligence and work together, could be fatal for what was about to come.

There came the signal for the unscheduled approach of aircraft… He could feel Grethe leave her desk, likely having been informed by the runway’s command tower. He could hear her gasp in disbelief upon looking out the window as she, too, realized what was happening.

“We’re being cut off from the Federacy mainland. The western front… All the Federacy’s fronts are about to be made into the Eighty-Sixth Sector!”

The metallic birds unleashed their explosive entrails. Bombs fell from the sky, raining over the rear of the front line. They plummeted, sticking into the land. They didn’t explode, and this was because they weren’t meant to be dropped down on enemies from overhead.

Dissemination mines.

A weapon that triggered upon detecting a human, a vehicle, or a tank—and, in so doing, hindered the coming and going of military units. And countless of them had been released and laid far behind the Strike Package’s home base at Rüstkammer, the Vargus people’s barracks in Fortrapide City, and the Harutari reserve line.

Just as the Republic once set up walls and minefields to ensure the Juggernauts and their “Processor units” wouldn’t be able to retreat from the battlefield.

Only once the first layer of lines was set—and the western front’s army and all Federacy front armies were blocked from retreating—was the order relayed. As all the unit members stood before her, Grethe did not hide it from them.

Going forward, the Strike Package was to defend the Rüstkammer base to the bitter end. They were not allowed to retreat. The same order was handed down to all units across all fronts. This, of course, led to an outburst of anger and discontent, but with the minefield trapping them on the battlefield, their complaints wouldn’t reach the other side.

They could not return to their peaceful homes.

They would have to fight off the Legion’s invasion to protect the people who cut them off, and the soldiers on the battlefield had no way to survive but to obey their orders and fight. The other side had control of their supplies and way out, while the Legion were charging at them from before their eyes. They didn’t have the means or chance to rebel against their distant homeland.

Their forward path was closed off by the Legion—their backs fenced off by the malice of humankind.

This situation was no different from the Republic battleground once called the Eighty-Sixth Sector.