86 - Volume 7 - Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2 

MIST BLUE 

“We got no response yesterday, after all.” 

Breakfast was presented buffet-style, as was the case in most hotels in the Alliance. True to the cooks’ boastful claims, the food was delicious. They prepared mountains of potatoes right in front of their diners and served them with molten cheese. 

Lena spoke as she brought her last bite to her lips. The sliced potatoes were made from an artificial starch substitute, but the cheese was real and delicious. Confirming the plate opposite hers had the same dish, she nodded to herself in satisfaction. 

“We’ve known there’s a chance the Legion sprang traps to draw out elite units from the United Kingdom and the Federacy… That is to say, you and Vika. And if that’s the case, the victims of the attack on the United Kingdom are…” 

“If nothing else, I think the voice I heard from that unit matches the archived recordings of her voice,” Shin replied from the opposite seat. “I think it’s too soon to jump to conclusions.” 

He had two small mountains of cheese omelets and buttery scrambled eggs laid out before him. Both looked quite appetizing, but while he was attempting to decide which one to try, the chef insisted he was still a growing boy and piled a generous helping of each egg dish onto his plate. 

They were in a rest house usually occupied by gluttonous officers, so the cooks were excited to feed a group of young soldiers—that is to say, growing boys and girls with appetites to match. 

The cooks were quite pleased after everyone ate heartily the other day. They recommended certain types of breads, gave extra servings of piping hot soup, and were constantly occupied with the contents of their trays. 

“Besides, I think it only makes sense she didn’t respond yesterday… I did call out to her with the microphone turned off.” 

They decided to start their interrogation by trying something new. 

“Leave the lighting as it is for now…,” Vika said. “Nouzen, you try speaking to her with the microphone turned off.” 

Standing in the dim light of the interrogation room, Shin furrowed his brows at Vika’s instructions. The fact that he offered no context as to what he was trying to do struck Shin as odd. Similar to how the constraint room didn’t allow anyone inside to see what happened outside, it also didn’t permit them to hear things from its side. If they were to speak to whatever was inside the room, one would need to turn on a designated microphone. 

“What do you mean…?” 

“Think back to the Dragon Fang Mountain operation. As it drew closer to its conclusion, the Merciless Queen showed herself to you… Considering she’s the commander of a base on the brink of falling to enemy hands, that course of action isn’t just illogical. It’s harmful.” 

Shin had been trapped in the magma lake at the bottom of the Dragon Fang Mountain base. He had nowhere to go and was isolated in a tomb of solid rock that even cut off all his communication options. 

With him was a Legion commander whose presence there was beyond abnormal, given that its base was on the verge of being taken down. That place led to nowhere in particular, and any orders it relayed from there would do nothing to help. 

“It could have been a coincidence. She could have been operating on some kind of logic that’s clear to the Legion but doesn’t make sense to humans. But we can’t discredit the possibility of her intentionally showing herself to you. We must confirm that first, and if you truly are what she’s after, then we have to find out why.” 

Was the Merciless Queen being captured by the Strike Package the result of some kind of blunder on its behalf? Or did it intentionally reveal itself to them? And if it did, what was its goal? Would any nearby human nearby have served its purposes, or did it have to be Shin? 

If Shin was the one it sought, was it because he was someone it wanted to capture, or was it because he was the one who saw the message hidden in the Phönix? Was it because he possessed royal blood? Or was it because he was the one who ultimately destroyed the Phönix? 

Or was it that his voice reached the queen because he could hear the Legion’s wails? 

They had to discover the driving force behind the Merciless Queen’s actions and, through that, try to surmise its objective. 

“I can hear the Legion’s voice, but I can’t speak to them… I’m sure I’ve already told you that.” 

“Yes, I’ve heard. But since you can hear the ghosts’ voices, perhaps the Reaper’s voice can likewise reach the ghosts. I believe that’s a natural assumption to make.” 

But the result of that experiment was that the Merciless Queen didn’t respond after all. 

“…The Legion seem to be able to hear my voice… There were a few rare cases where they were able to pinpoint my position. But there was never any actual dialogue between them and me.” 

“Yes. If you could speak to them, maybe you… Er. You wouldn’t have had to fight your brother. But…” 

Lena nodded, gently put her knife down, and pressed a finger to her lips as she remembered what happened the previous day. That white Ameise. For a split second, she thought she saw its moonlike optical sensor… 

“She… I think she was looking at you. Even though she shouldn’t have been able to perceive you.” 

Sensing his bloodred eyes on her, Lena cocked her head. 

“What is it?” 

“You refer to this Legion unit the way you might refer to a person, Lena. Other people call them pieces of scrap metal, but I just realized you’ve never called them any names.” 

Lena blinked a few times at that statement. Now that he’d mentioned it, that was true. But the same held true for Shin. 

“…Be honest. Did it bother you?” Lena asked. 

Calling them scrap metal. Hearing those mechanical ghosts being referred to as something so base. Did having his brother, who was assimilated by the Legion, treated as a monster offend him? 

“I wouldn’t say it bothered me, but…” Shin paused to think. 

He tried to put the emotions and thoughts he didn’t quite have a handle on into some sort of order. He’d apparently decided to stop leaving things vague by saying he didn’t know. Back on the Eighty-Sixth Sector’s battlefield, he didn’t have the time nor the leisure to confront these feelings, and he couldn’t deny that part of him was running away from doing so, too. 

If there was anything he didn’t want to think about or come to terms with, he’d simply ignore it. Pretend it wasn’t there. Because forcing himself to think about it or understand those things wouldn’t change anything anyway. 

One day, sooner or later, he would fall on the battlefield. Such was the fate of all Eighty-Six. Or at least, so he thought… But he survived. And even after he was liberated from the shackles of fate, he still lived while being keenly aware of the looming threat of death. 

He had to come to terms with it, but he continued to avoid it. And that led to the chaos that overtook him in the United Kingdom. And he didn’t want to have that happen again. 

“…I think you’re right. I didn’t want them to be called by those names. Even after he became a Legion, I could only see Rei as my older brother. And Kaie and the others, they were all people I had to take along with me. I couldn’t call the Legion, who were just like them, ‘hunks of scrap metal’ or ‘mechanical ghosts.’” 

Both the Legion who assimilated the war dead and the few units that were still purely mechanical ghosts didn’t strike him as any different. Spirits who wandered for eternity, howling and lamenting all the while. Their cries all sounded the same to him. 

“You’re kind, Shin,” Lena said, cracking a faint smile. 

“…You’ve been saying that a lot lately, but do you think just telling me that is enough, Lena?” he asked with a teasing tone. 

Lena pouted at him. 

“I’m only saying that because those are my honest feelings… And because you never seem to realize it.” 

“Because I don’t think it’s true.” 

“Geez…” 

It was the way he kept grinding himself to dust like this, unconsciously, without even meaning to do it, that worried her so much. Watching him wear himself out pained her heart. 

“…Oh, and about the new equipment we need to check. It looks like the Merciless Queen’s interrogation is going to take some time, so you can focus on the test while Raiden and the rest help…” 

Shin suddenly fell silent, which made Lena chuckle. 

“Shin, you look like a kid who just had his toy taken away.” 

Watching from a few tables away as their operations commander and tactical commander spoke like they were in a world of their own—like a pair of lovebirds—Raiden summed things up. 

“…So in short, it looks like that moron finally made up his mind.” 

He’d told them about how Shin was lost in thought in his room the previous day. It was painfully clear by now what he’d been thinking about, of course. 

“For how obvious it is, it’s kind of amazing it took him this long to decide. Or, well, that he wasn’t even aware of it until now,” Theo remarked, resting his chin on his hand rudely as he carried a fork with a piece of greasy meat to his mouth. 

“I haven’t known them that long, but even I can see it, with both of them. It’s that obvious.” Dustin nodded as he tore a piece of substitute bread. 

A chef left her position behind the counter and walked between the tables with a large plate of sausages (made partially of synthesized meat), offering second servings. At her proposal, they all made space on their already full plates and accepted an extra sausage each. 

Marcel bit into a fresh sausage, which had a satisfying snap to it. It was also quite hot, so he huffed and puffed a bit before chewing, then joined the conversation one gulp later. 

“I’ve gotten used to seeing it by now… But I wouldn’t imagine him like this back at the special officer academy.” 

“Don’t worry; we feel the same way,” said Rito, munching on a fried potato. 

“Given how he was in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, forget being surprised. I never would have guessed the captain could make that kind of face…,” Yuuto said, putting aside an empty bowl of cream soup. 

“What do we next, though?” Dustin asked. 

“What do we do…?” Raiden let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “Well, having him blow his chances would be annoying.” 

“For sure.” Theo nodded. 

“Honestly, this is starting to annoy me,” Yuuto added. 

All four sighed in unison. 

“Guess we’ll have to back him up.” 

The same exchange was taking place from Lena’s side. Anju, Shiden, Annette, Michihi, and Shana were whispering among one another, their table as loaded with dishes as all the rest. 

There were two others who had no desire to take part in this conversation. Kurena was reverently cutting into three layers of pancakes topped with berry compote while Frederica was stuffing her cheeks with honeyed toast, their expressions rather mixed and unsatisfied with the whole affair. The other girls felt bad for them but decided to leave them be for now. 

“I think the problem is that Lena isn’t aware of it yet,” said Anju as she plopped a slice of roasted apple into her mouth. 

“If y’ask me, the fact that Her Majesty still hasn’t noticed is almost impressive,” Shiden said, skewering a still-sizzling piece of bacon with her fork. 

“Especially because Shin’s, well… He’s pretty transparent, too…” Annette sighed as she crunched on a spoonful of cereal served with dried fruit. 

“So,” said Michihi, who sat next to Annette, cocking her head. “What do we do?” 

Shana frowned as the strawberry she bit into turned out to be sourer than she thought and smeared jam over a baguette to soothe her palate. 

“I’d say we just support them, but Lena not making up her mind on how she feels is a problem,” she said. 

“Yeah… But having her run away now would just leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.” 

“I’ll be honest: Their back-and-forth is starting to get pretty annoying.” 

Everyone present, with the exception of Kurena and Frederica, sighed in unison. 

“We should keep an eye on Lena so she doesn’t run away this time.” 

“—My word. All this insistence on romance and desire… Commoners lead such carefree lives.” 

Vika uttered this fed up comment as he watched over both the pair of Shin and Lena and the Eighty-Six cheering them on from the sidelines. He disliked crowded places, so he had his breakfast in his room and came to the cafeteria only to get some coffee afterward. 

At first, it seemed like he was gracefully enjoying the sight, but his words lacked elegance and made clear his distaste for it all. 

His succession rights were revoked. He was feared as the coldhearted Serpent of Shackles and Decay who toyed with the departed. But even still, Vika was royalty. And more importantly, he was the Amethystus—the heir to the Idinarohk extrasensory ability. Regardless of whether he intended to pass on his blood to the next generation, he was forbidden from mingling with those of a different color. 

For as long as he could remember, and before he was even born, his legal wife and several concubine candidates were already decided for him. And that didn’t just apply to him but for all members of the Idinarohk bloodline. 

For the bloodline of the unicorns, something as selfish as one’s romantic feelings held no weight when it came to selecting a spouse. To begin with, romance wasn’t a trait that humanity possessed since antiquity. It was a contemporary concept, borne of modernity, and the United Kingdom valued the old ways. 

And so this bittersweet image of cherubic youth unfolding before his eyes only struck him as dull and irritating… He wasn’t the slightest bit envious of them. 

On the seat opposite him was Lerche. Her hands were cupped around a mug of coffee she’d received. She couldn’t drink it, of course, and only took it out of courtesy. Gazing at him, she parted her lips. 

“Your Highness, should you not, um, finalize your marriage with your fiancée, Princess Yaroslava…?” 

“Shut up, you seven-year-old.” 

“But!” Lerche leaned forward, her hands still grasping the mug. “The fact that you’ve put off the wedding rites for so long torments the princess, Your Highness. She has even come to me, a mere mechanical doll, for advice! She asked me if you find her useless or lacking in any way. She shed bitter tears, like morning dew dripping from an immature rose… I cannot bear to see it, Your Highness.” 

“……” 

Vika fell silent. He knew. His irritation at this unwanted admonishment and a hint of regret left him speechless. 

That girl had been chosen for no reason other than that she possessed the blood of a powerful family within the United Kingdom, a branch of the bloodline of unicorns. She was raised into a wife who would not bring shame to the prince she hoped to marry. Nurtured to be a meek, obedient spouse who would not interfere in matters of government. Bred to be a healthy woman who could brave the challenges of childbirth. 

A seedbed to cultivate the next generation of the Idinarohk bloodline. 

She was not a disagreeable young woman. Quite the contrary. She never uttered a single word of complaint to Vika and was well dispositioned and kind to an almost foolish degree. So much so that she didn’t even find fault with Lerche, who was not only far below her in the pecking order but wasn’t even human. 

But even so… 

“…Shut up.” 

To have her, of all people, tell him to choose another. To have a girl who was identical to Lerchenlied say those words to him…was still too much to bear. 

As he watched over the boys’ and girls’ tranquil breakfast, Sergeant Guren Akino of the Strike Package’s 27th Maintenance Company—the company charged with Reginleif maintenance—heaved a sigh. 

Honestly… 

The maintenance crew aside, this was supposed to be a fun vacation for the brats. 

“How am I supposed to break the news…? Sorry to drop this on ya, but it’s time to get to work, Processors?” 

<<Commence operation.>> 

<<System start, WHM XM2 Reginleif.>> 

<<Mk. 1 Armée Furieuse, activate. System check.>> 

<<Leg harness, coupling confirmed. Complete.>> 

<<Mantle of Fr?ja, operating normally. Link start.>> 

<<Main circuit confirmed—operating normally.>> 

<<Secondary circuit confirmed—operating normally.>> 

Closing the sub-window was meant to communicate that the additional armament had activated properly. Shin let out a single, sharp breath. He was seated in his dark, cramped cockpit, with the optical screen before his eyes being the only source of light. 

The order to sortie had been given. Letters flickered on the additional armament’s holo-window, forming words. 

<<Trajectory, clear.>> 

<<Mantle of Fr?ja, deploying.>> 

“The Valkyries take flight.” 

The Operator smiled faintly as they watched the machine move, graced with fresh mobility by the new armament dubbed the Mantle of Fr ja. That cold, ferocious form of the Federal Republic of Giad’s Feldreß, crafted in the color of polished bone, exhibited performance suited to its namesake—Reginleif, the Valkyrie that heralds death. 

But even so, they would overcome them. For this flock of griffins, this battlefield of mountain and stone was their turf, and they would not be beaten here. 

“Now, then.” The Operator smiled, their faint lips curling up with glee. “Let us be off, comrades. Sprint down our fortress with the nimbleness of a mountain goat and the ferocity of a swooping eagle!” 

<<Operation: Phase One, complete.>> 

<<Commencing Phase Two. Mantle of Fr?ja, disconnect.>> 

After that message, the sub-window flickered out. An explosive bolt triggered, jettisoning the armament that wasn’t visible from within the cockpit. 

And in the next moment, a shock jolted him. 

“…!” 

An impact that was far stronger than Shin had expected—stronger than his unit had ever experienced in a single instant—sent Undertaker reeling. As Shin gritted his teeth over the vibrations that almost made him bite his tongue, a question filled his mind. 

Phase Two? 

Just then, a couple of blips representing two of his unit’s Juggernauts went dark on his status screen. They belonged to… 

“Shana?!” 

“Are those hostiles?!” 

Shin scanned the forest around them with Undertaker’s optical sensor, but there was no sign of any enemy units. However, his consort units’ radars and optical sensors did perceive an enemy unit’s presence, transmitting it to Undertaker’s radar through the data link. 

It was unregistered in the database. An unidentified unit. 

An enemy unit… No, an enemy force. 

This operation was a simple patrol, set to end as soon as they entered enemy territory. According to their premission briefing, no enemy forces had been deployed nearby, and no engagements were predicted. 

Shin racked his brain, then shook his head. The situation on the battlefield was dynamic, ever in flux. Especially on such misty terrain, where the thick fog obfuscated enemy movements. 

At the edge of his vision, he saw a shadow settle between the woods. The moment he noticed it, that shadow shifted its bearings and took cover between the trees, but Undertaker fired a shot after it. 

Converting its velocity of 1,600 meters per second into piercing force, a tungsten spear 30 meters in diameter blasted into the trees the enemy took cover behind, crushing whatever was hiding behind it with a cold rumble. The impact of the warhead was dampened by the trees, but it still resonated with all who witnessed it. 

The enemy’s armor likely wasn’t thick. It was probably similar to the Juggernaut’s and the Reginleif’s. 

But on the other hand, the blips of Shin’s consort units were going out one after another. Over ten had already lost their signal. He squinted as, to his surprise, even Shiden’s Cyclops went out. This may have been an ambush, but the enemy’s force must have been considerable to have done this much damage. 

“—All units.” 

He couldn’t hear these enemies’ howls. So he spoke as he kept a careful eye on the optical screen. 

“The enemy moves at high speeds, but their armor is thin. Don’t worry about their cover and shoot. Don’t count on my scouting, either. Maintain your formation and continue the search—” 

A shadow crossed Undertaker’s feet. It wasn’t in the shape of a headless prowling spider like the Juggernauts. It was that of a large quadrupedal animal—a different sort of unit. 

“…!” 

A moment after Undertaker hopped away, a tremor ran through the ground. A spear of metal that looked like a steel stake stabbed into the spot Undertaker had occupied less than a second ago, sending up a spray of dirt as if the area had been stomped on by a giant. 

A high-frequency lance. 

Similar to the Reginleif’s pile drivers, it was equipped with a detonation mechanism that would drive it into the enemy at close range using explosives. 

“—Ooh!” A voice filled Undertaker’s cockpit. 

Shin narrowed his eyes. The voice belonged to the person in the enemy unit. The Operator spoke with their external speaker on, intentionally so Shin would hear them. It was a beautiful voice, an alto like the ringing of a musical instrument. 

The enemy unit landed, its form dark brown like a wolf’s. The database still displayed it as an unidentified unit. Its exterior was reminiscent of a griffin. On its right shoulder sat a high-frequency lance, glinting like a beast’s fang. Its launching rail reeled back, and the lance returned to its percussion point with a heavy metallic thud. 

It had likely hopped down the cliffs behind the trees. This was a maneuver the Reginleif couldn’t imitate. The Reginleif was a unit that prioritized high mobility, but it was designed for combat on flat terrain, forests, and urban areas. This unit, on the other hand, prided itself on vertical mobility. 

Its two optical sensors—like an animal’s eyes—glinted mockingly at Undertaker. 

“Ooh, you even dodged an attack launched at that timing! I´d heard you can only hear the Legion´s voices, though!” 

Shin narrowed his eyes. Unlike his allies, who hardly knew anything about their opponents, the enemy was well-informed, it seemed. But that didn’t mean much. 

“…Did you think that, just because I can’t hear you, I wouldn’t be able to read your patterns?” 

As instructed during his briefing, Shin shut off his radio communications and remained connected to the other Processors only through the Para-RAID. As such, what he’d just said didn’t reach the enemy’s ears. This wasn’t a response; he’d only muttered to himself. 

“Don’t underestimate me.” 

The Eighty-Six watched the battle unfold in blank amazement. Within the green forested battlefield displayed on their optical screens, two armored weapons were engaged in an almost even battle. 

Yes, they were equally matched. 

And that was what rendered the Eighty-Six speechless. They were all Name Bearers, but Shin stood head and shoulders above them all. By now, their Reaper was capable of single-handedly overwhelming a Dinosauria. 

And someone was matching him. In melee combat, his area of expertise, no less. It was the first time they’d ever seen such a thing. 

And the same held true for the ones aboard the enemy units. They couldn’t believe there was someone capable of matching their heroic princess, Anna Maria, and her spear dance. 

Similar to the Reginleif, the enemy’s unit’s design concept was based around high-mobility combat. It fought with an agility that matched the Reginleif, which boasted combat speeds that would injure any inexperienced Operator. 

The Phönix was faster, Shin thought through his sober consciousness. 

He was operating a Reginleif now, but for most of his seven years of combat experience, Shin piloted a Juggernaut. A slow, clunky unit with performance so pitiful, the Eighty-Six mockingly dubbed it a walking coffin. And Shin was used to engaging the absurdly agile Legion in that weak, sluggish rig. 

So now that he used a unit with performance that matched his opponent’s, he wouldn’t be caught off guard. 

The moment the high-frequency lance was fired at him, Shin charged forward from a squatting position, resulting in the weapon only piercing empty air. As it intersected with the enemy unit, Undertaker swung its high-frequency blade, cutting the firing rail down the middle. Without pausing, he changed the blade’s bearing and slashed at the enemy unit’s torso. 

The griffin dodged by jumping away, only for Shin to pursue it and close the gap. The griffin kicked off the ground again, shooting a wire anchor and reeling it back to supplement its speed. 

The Juggernaut’s long-caliber 88 mm turret was well within firing range, and the pile drivers in its legs meant that just being stepped on by it was a powerful attack. And when Feldreß landed, they needed a moment for their buffering systems and their joints to absorb the impact. As such, despite seeing Undertaker’s charge, the griffin shouldn’t have been able to move at once. 

It shouldn’t have been able to move. 

The griffin sneered at Undertaker fiercely. As it jumped away, it lifted one of its hind legs, which was caught on a tight, extended wire before any of the other legs landed. This made it rotate in place, with that leg as its axis. The wire reached Undertaker and coiled itself around its legs. 

“…?!” 

Undertaker was pulled forward, losing its balance. The other unit had its acceleration curbed by pulling Undertaker in, and the two units collided slightly earlier than expected. Sooner than Shin could react, the enemy stomped down on the blunt back of his high-frequency blade, halting its swing. 

But still, Undertaker’s two front legs caught against the enemy’s curved cockpit block, their tips just barely touching the armor. 

Armament selection, switch. Trigger. 

The pile drivers in Undertaker’s two front legs accurately pierced into the enemy’s cockpit block. And as they did, the enemy’s short-barreled turret, which was pressed against Undertaker’s white armor, howled. 

<<Operation complete.>> 

<<Personal unit, seriously damaged.>> 

<<Surviving consort units: 5.>> 

<<Remaining enemy units: 0.>> 

Watching as the final score was displayed before him, Shin opened the simulator’s canopy. It didn’t list the result of that last enemy he fought, but it probably ended in a mutual kill. Or rather, he was driven to bring their clash to a mutual kill… Or perhaps drove the enemy to it. 

Either way, he left the simulator designed after a Reginleif’s cockpit and leaned against its streamlined chassis, letting out a deep breath. This was a simulator for the Armée Furieuse—the newly completed armament designed for the Reginleif. Putting aside Phase Two—the mock battle they were thrust into—Shin thought. 

It’s gonna be hell until I get used to this… 

He wasn’t accustomed to such intense acceleration. It made him feel like all the blood and organs in his body were being siphoned out, and it was the first time he was exposed to this sort of sensation for such a long time. His five senses were so thrown out of balance that he couldn’t even tell which direction he was facing. 

In the virtual training room adjacent to the simulator, a capsule Shin thought was empty opened its canopy, and another Operator rose from within it. Perhaps in the name of increasing their units’ operability, the Alliance’s Feldreß had control systems that were augmented by being directly linked to the Operator’s nervous systems. 

The cords connected along the Operator’s spinal column and all the way up to their neck were unplugged, their serpentine edges twisting like snakes as they fell limply into the cockpit’s interior. As if following suit, the Operator undid their hair, letting their long black locks flow down to their waist. 

“…I’ve heard you were skilled, but…” 

“The queen is as silent as ever, but it seems bringing him to meet it did have some effect.” 

They looked down at the virtual training room through the glass walls of the meeting room above it. The elderly woman standing next to Grethe spoke. Her long hair was dyed red, and she had the blue eyes of a Sapphira. Her stance was stalwart, as if she were made of steel down to her very core. 

Lieutenant General Bel Aegis. Supreme commander of the Alliance military’s northern defensive forces. She was the woman who had attended the Morpho subjugation council as the Alliance’s representative. 

“The footage from yesterday’s interrogation has been analyzed, and the results show that it moved slightly after Captain Nouzen called out to it. Maybe we can see it as it reacting to him.” 

Ever since the Alliance was formed, it practiced universal conscription. It had never based its army strictly on men, and as such, there was relatively little difference between the mannerisms of men and women in the Alliance. Soldiers, in particular, chose to use brief, concise wording, so as to not overcomplicate delivery of orders. And so it was hard to tell a male soldier from a female soldier just by the way they spoke. 

“…He’s a valuable target for the Legion. That might have been why it reacted.” 

“I’m not telling you to order him to stand right in front of it.” 

“And I don’t plan on ordering him to do that… But if he volunteers, I see no reason to stop him.” 

For a moment, a thread of tension—so strained that it could break with a single touch—hung between the two female officers. 

“Lieutenant General Aegis… Regarding that matter… I find it problematic. She is my subordinate, so I ask that you inform me before any meetings are arranged.” 

“They only came to the Alliance because you Federacy officers insist on saying that… The Alliance is a neutral nation. We don’t support any one side.” 

The sole exception was when it came to fighting the Legion, a common enemy to all humanity. But that wasn’t to say they didn’t have their own opinions. Looking down at the Eighty-Six, Lieutenant General Aegis spoke without even looking at Grethe. Her expression was like that of a strict grandmother looking down at her grandchildren playing in the yard. 

“Colonel, I’m merely speaking to myself right now, but… A few days ago, you confirmed the survival of some small countries to the west of the Republic, yes?” 

The Federacy’s aid expeditionary force was still stationed in the Republic, fighting to retake its northern regions. The United Kingdom’s was likewise stationed in the Republic’s west. Both of them successfully communicated with those countries and were maintaining a steady exchange of information. 

“That country truly is vile. But should we treat them too coldly, they might yield to that mad country in the far west.” 

…So that’s your angle. 

“We’re grateful for your sympathy, Lieutenant General Aegis.” 

A person approached, their military boots clicking against the floor. As they walked, they smoothly undid their hair ribbon with a practiced motion, letting their hair flow down their back like a dark waterfall. 

“I didn’t imagine the most I could do was bring this battle to a mutual kill… You’re quite something.” 

Their fair, alto-like voice had something of an echo to it, perhaps because of the material the walls were made out of. A clear, charming voice that was accustomed to giving orders. The scent of June roses wafted up from their autumn-colored Alliance uniform, which matched their androgynous face. It bore a striking resemblance to Anna Maria, the heroic princess of the Alliance’s independence war, who took to the battlefield clad in male clothing. 

Shin knew the face. When they were briefed on the simulator, this person joined as part of the personnel dispatched to the Strike Package, so he had seen them before. If he remembered correctly, their name was… 

“Allow me to reintroduce myself. I’m Captain Olivia Aegis, your academic adviser with regards to operating the Armée Furieuse… That was a magnificent match just now.” 

“I’ve heard of you, Captain Aegis. I’m Captain Shinei Nouzen of the Strike Package’s 1st Armored Division.” 

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance… Oh, and you can call me Olivia. No need for formalities. I might be older than you, but we’re both the same rank,” Captain Olivia said with a slight head tilt. “Or maybe you’re actually more experienced than I am? I hear the Eighty-Six were drafted at young ages, and you’re treated as a captain since you’re their leader. If I may, how old were you…?” 

“True, ranks didn’t mean anything in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. Truthfully, I’m not sure if it actually counts as part of my active duty.” 

“You don’t have to be so stiff… So how old were you?” 

“…I was twelve. It’s been about six years since I was drafted.” 

“I see… That was rude of me, Captain Nouzen, sir.” 

Olivia saluted in a jesting manner. Looking up at them, Shin cracked a wry smile. Even he could tell Olivia was trying to break the ice. 

“I’ll admit, when they told us we’d be going into simulator training to experience the Mantle’s mobility, I didn’t expect it to turn into a mock battle,” Shin said. 

“Oh? Didn’t they explain it during briefing? In real combat, you’ll likely always have engagements with the Legion after deploying the Mantle. So during this simulation, my Anna Maria and our Alliance’s Stollenwurm assumed the roles of your aggressors.” 

“No, we’ve heard nothing of the sort.” 

“My… What a blunder on my behalf. It seems I neglected to inform you of that part.” 

Olivia turned their eyes slightly, their tone and expression making it clear it was a blatant lie. They were planning to launch a surprise attack to begin with. 

“That final maneuver Anna Maria pulled. You couldn’t have done that if you weren’t perfectly confident that you knew what I’d do. Could you reveal your trick?” 

The way Anna Maria used its wire anchors while landing to entangle Undertaker and close the distance. Adrenaline was said to sometimes give one the impression that time was moving slowly, but this was a judgment call that was put into action within less than a second. It was as if Olivia predicted everything before shooting the anchor. 

“I’m sorry, but that’s classified information. I could expose it to you, but it would only be when and if you become my opponent. When you lose to me and die in battle.” 

“…” 

“I’m joking… It’s the same reason as you. I’m what they call an Esper.” 

Olivia’s blue eyes regarded him with an amused gaze. A uniquely deep shade—a Sapphira’s blue. They were a noble bloodline trait of the Adularia. In other words, a bloodline that had a supernatural ability running in its veins for generations. It was possible that Olivia’s ink-black hair denoted some Jet blood as well. 

“My father’s clan was once a warrior clan in the Rinka region. They had the power of future sight. Over time, the bloodline mixed and thinned. I can only see three seconds into the future.” 

“And that’s how…” 

Olivia’s Stollenwurm, Anna Maria, was a model modified and optimized for melee combat. A fighting style that wasn’t common in present warfare, Shin thought, somewhat blind to his own shortcomings. 

But three seconds in the middle of combat granted a huge advantage. Especially in close-range melee combat, being able to see three seconds ahead could make all the difference. 

As Shin was beginning to consider what he’d do if he had to face this opponent in combat again, Olivia smiled, as if seeing through him. 

“Your face tells me that you’re considering how to beat me next time, Captain. At a glance, you appear stoic and collected, but you’re surprisingly competitive, aren’t you?” 

“…Being on the losing side doesn’t sit well with me.” 

He didn’t harbor any childish illusions of being stronger than anyone else, but…ever since he achieved the position of captain, he’d never relinquished it to anyone. 

“I don’t believe our little sparring match ended in a loss for either side. It was a mutual kill… But maybe that stubbornness is what made you develop that much skill and achieve all that you have. I hear that, in the end, you single-handedly felled that new Legion unit, the Phönix.” 

Shin looked at Olivia sharply, and the Alliance’s captain simply shrugged. 

“The Alliance gathers information on all the other countries,” Olivia said with a smile, and yet there was a hint of annoyance to those words. 

It was as if they were restraining a deep-seated rage. 

“We’re finally beginning to return the debt with the development of the Armée Furieuse, but until now, we’ve been one-sidedly receiving information and technology from the Federacy and the United Kingdom. And though we’re grateful, we’re also honestly a bit irritated by this… There is no honor in receiving handouts.” 

“Goodness gracious, my apologies for intruding while you’re on leave, Colonel Milizé. And thank you for making time despite my sudden request for a meeting.” 

“…Don’t mention it.” 

They were in the bathhouse’s lounge, which was located away from the main building of the resort. The place was furnished in a florid style reminiscent of ancient architecture. With a table colored in Tyrian purple made from synthetic dye between them, Lena exchanged pleasantries with her not-at-all welcome guest. 

A guest wearing the same Prussian-blue uniform she wore. The Republic’s uniform. 

“I’ve heard of your many feats, Colonel. How you helped liberate Republic territories occupied by those metal monsters—and the aid you’ve extended to the Federacy. Wonderful, splendid. You are indeed the warrior goddess our Republic takes pride in. The second coming of the Saint Magnolia.” 

“Those were all thanks to the power of the Federacy and their Strike Package—and the aid from the United Kingdom. And most importantly of all, the credit goes to the Strike Package’s Processors. This isn’t about me, Lieutenant Colonel.” 

“What are you saying? Everyone in the motherland, myself included, knows the truth of it.” 

This middle-aged man with the rank insignia of lieutenant colonel bowed his corpulent form at Lena, who was young enough to pass as his daughter. Apparently, he was a teacher before the Legion War. His round face was fixed in an amicable, sincere smile meant to calm children. 

“The Patriotic Knights were right, after all. So long as they are properly managed by the Republic’s capable officers, even the inferior Eighty-Six can become a viable method for opposing the Legion.” 

Lena’s expression contorted slightly. Again. They’re doing it again. The words kept coming out—words that crushed Lena under the weight of disgust and loathing. Not toward herself but toward others. 

“You are the very personification of it, Colonel Vladilena Milizé. The fact that this unit of Eighty-Six is making unparalleled strides in the Legion War under your command is irrefutable evidence of this.” 

“…!” 

The words impacted her like a blow to the head. This was the ideology of the Patriotic Knights—or the Bleachers, as the Eighty-Six mockingly called that faction. The Republic’s Alba were the superior race, and San Magnolia would not lose so long as they were allowed dominion over the inferior Eighty-Six. 

It filled her with shame and disgust. But the truly horrible part was that she…Lena, of all people…was being propped up as proof of this unrealistic, bigoted nonsense… 

“Ugh…” 

The shock and outrage of it all made her jaw stiffen, but she somehow managed to speak. 

“I will say this as many times as I need to. The Eighty-Sixth Strike Package is a unit that belongs to the Federacy’s military. The child soldiers you call Eighty-Six are citizens of the Federacy and soldiers enlisted in the Federacy military. Me being a Republic soldier doesn’t mean—” 

“Thousands die to make one hero, as they say, Colonel Milizé. Merit goes not to the soldiers but to their commander. The Strike Package has distinguished itself under your command, and so its achievements are naturally yours—and by extension, the Republic’s. We cannot let the Federacy continue to take everything from us. The credit…and the Eighty-Six…will be with us again before long.” 

“The Federacy offered the Eighty-Six asylum from the Republic’s persecution!” 

“The word asylum has a pleasant ring to it, but it does not justify appropriating another country’s property! They can call us inhumane for treating pigs like pigs. But does that mean they can freely take what is rightfully ours?! What an absurd notion!!” 

“The Eighty-Six… They’re not livestock, and they’re not property. They’re human beings! You can’t—” 

Slamming his hand against the desk, he silenced Lena. The lieutenant colonel leaned forward, fixing his glacial stare on her. Desperately. 

“…Please do away with this libel. Everything you’ve just said is propaganda, drummed up by the Federacy to humiliate us. These are not things that ought to leave the lips of a Republic citizen such as yourself.” 

“…” 

I…I am… 

“Please, Colonel. We ask for your cooperation. I do not wish to send my students onto the battlefield. I don’t want to see any of them die.” 

Even at the cost of sending the Eighty-Six to their deaths. Again. 

Aaah… Lena realized, sorrow filling her heart. 

Even now, after all this time, after everything that had happened, the Republic’s citizens did not acknowledge the Eighty-Six’s basic human rights. And she finally realized why they were siding with the Bleachers. 

It was because if they didn’t get the Eighty-Six back, they would have to be the ones to take to the battlefield. 

The system of the Eighty-Sixth Sector was meant to safeguard the Republic’s peace and public order, and they wanted to see it restored. Because if they didn’t, this time it would be them who had to step onto a battlefield of certain death to oppose the Legion. 

And they’ve been using me…me of all people…as proof that this terrible, morally bankrupt system works…? 

Lena sank into the sofa, speechless. Despondence, disappointment, and a sense of vertigo overcame her all at once. 

It’s all because of me. I’m so…shallow. Because of me, those proud warriors are being called pigs in human form again. 

“Colonel, you’re a citizen of the Republic, too. Do you not love your homeland? You can’t possibly suggest we send our innocent children onto the battlefield!” 

The sound of military boots squeaking against the floor disrupted their argument as someone advanced on the lieutenant colonel, close enough to the point where it bordered on impolite. 

“I might not have a homeland, but even I can understand that people feel loyalty to their country. Even if I don’t feel that way myself.” 

Lena stiffened at the sound of that voice. She didn’t think it’d be him. Normally, his footsteps were silent, and she thought he was out in the nearby base. 

“But I do think that sending other people to die for your country and calling it patriotism is too big of a leap in logic.” 

It was Shin, with his usual collected tone and serene gaze. 

“Shi… Captain. Er, I thought you were out training…” 

“We completed our exercise… And when I came back, our Mascot told us you had a strange guest. So I thought I’d introduce myself.” 

Rather than feel relieved, Lena was so ashamed, she wished the ground would open up and swallow her. How much had Shin heard? Did he hear why the man before her, clad in the same uniform as her, was continuing to mock and disparage the Eighty-Six? 

And if he did hear all that, how was he feeling now? 

The lieutenant colonel, by contrast, looked at Shin in puzzlement. He had the expression of a man who had just been barked at by what he thought was an obedient dog. 

“Are you one of the Eighty-Six the Colonel is herding? Seeing you dressed like a human is misleading… This is a conversation between people. Know your place and leave.” 

“Yes, it’s as you said. I’m an Eighty-Six. But… No, because I’m an Eighty-Six…” 

Shin spoke composedly. There was no anger in his words. He spoke as if he was simply stating the obvious. 

“…there’s no reason I should stand by and let you mock me, Republic citizen. Not you nor anyone else.” 

Lena looked at Shin in awe. This was something he had never said before. Up until now, he had simply disregarded all the scorn directed toward him, acting as if he wasn’t bothered by any of it. He would say there was no point in taking offense or responding to anything the white pigs said. Because no matter what he might say, they wouldn’t understand. Because no amount of explaining would make them understand they were wrong. 

Those ignorant pigs may have pretended to be capable of language, but the truth was that they didn’t understand anything they were told. And to an extent, Shin still believed this. But despite that, he wouldn’t put up with these insults any longer. His calm voice and tranquil eyes grimly communicated this. 

“Know your—” 

“I’m well aware of my place, and that’s why I’m talking to you. I’m not livestock, and I’m not a drone component, either… Same as how you people aren’t some superior species. You’re just the ignorant citizens of a republic that died in the large-scale offensive.” 

The lieutenant colonel walked off, spouting vitriol and swearing he’d issue a complaint to the Federacy for this insult. Shin simply watched him walk off, his eyes utterly apathetic to it all. 

“Complaining about a ‘filthy stain’ to a Federacy made up of people representing all hues. Does that man think before he opens his mouth?” 

“…Shin, I’m sorry,” Lena said, hanging her head. 

“No need to apologize. I’ve told you before: The words of people like him don’t get to me.” 

“…” 

Lena’s hands, which rested on her waist, firmly grabbed the hem of the skirt of her Prussian-blue Republic uniform. In this moment, the fact that it was a different color from Shin’s was especially hard to ignore. 

“Still… I’m sorry.” 

“…I won’t stop you if you want to apologize that much, and if you insist you’re no different from the rest of the Republic, I won’t argue… But…” 

Lena looked up, only for her gaze to meet his bloodred eyes. Her crestfallen form was reflected in them, and there was a tinge of sadness and concern in his eyes. They were earnest. 

“You might be a woman of the Republic, but at the same time, you’re the queen of the Eighty-Six. Please don’t deny that. Not now.” 

“My, Shinei… You truly are becoming the image of dauntless masculinity, aren’t you?” 

“Don’t you think that’s rude? I’d stop if I were you.” 

Sitting atop a lion-legged sofa was Frederica, nodding sagely as her crimson eyes glimmered. Next to her, Vika cut into her words, utterly exasperated. The monitor of the mobile terminal in his hands detected his eyes had moved away from it and automatically turned off the hologram it was projecting. 

“I can understand being concerned for Nouzen, especially given what happened in the United Kingdom. But isn’t it about time you stop clinging to your brother so much?” 

“I am merely watching over him!” Frederica retorted grumpily. 

Vika looked at her with slight irritation. He was surprised that Shin could put up with this cheeky Mascot’s whims. They may have had the same bloodred eyes and black hair, but they weren’t actually siblings. 

…And that made Vika wonder. What circumstances brought this girl to the Strike Package in the first place? Vika knew the Imperial army once employed Mascots as well and assumed this girl was the result of some high-ranking noble’s unbridled lust. But why send her to this unit? 

“Well, I suppose eavesdropping any longer would indeed be boorish of me…,” Frederica said, sullenly closing her eyes. “What of Shion and the others? Did our Strike Package emerge safe and victorious?” 

First Lieutenant Siri Shion of the 2nd Armored Division was currently filling in for Shin as operations commander of the Strike Package. Under their command, the Strike Package’s 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions were dispatched to the northern coast’s basin countries. Vika had been watching the reports of their fighting on his information terminal’s news program until now. 

“Eighty percent of their initial objective is complete, by the looks of it. They had to break through enemy lines again, but… Well, given how much of a show the news is making of it, I don’t think there were many losses.” 

“…?” 

“At least as far as the public is concerned, the Strike Package is the Federacy’s trump card for opposing the threat of the Legion. And seeing as the end of the war isn’t even on the horizon, the people would never be allowed to hear anything about them struggling, to say nothing of losing. The Federacy would never be able to maintain morale if they let that kind of news come out.” 

Frederica furrowed her brows, picking up on Vika’s implications. A unit that couldn’t afford to lose—to fail in its duty. In other words… 

“…They must continue being a company of heroes, you say…” 

“The Eighty-Six have multiple factors that make it easy to prop them up as heroes.” 

A history that drew on one’s attention and the strength of the elite. And…tragedy. Even the savior’s name itself would not have gone down in history had he not been sentenced to crucifixion. 

“And what of your unit? Are they doing well?” Frederica asked. 

“The news didn’t report on them, but they’re probably fine. Despite appearances, that woman’s reliable when it comes to completing her objectives… If only she was that capable off the battlefield.” 

“Zashya, was it? I can certainly understand your concerns regarding that one.” 

Zashya was a major of the United Kingdom military who was dispatched to the Strike Package alongside Vika and served as his deputy in running the regiment. With Vika in the Alliance, she took over command in his place. 

She was a petite girl with large, unfashionable glasses. She would trip over herself whenever walking down the corridor and often drop all the documents she was carrying. A timid, unreliable girl who always broke into tears when Vika chewed her out for her blunders. 

Incidentally, Zashya wasn’t her actual name but a nickname he gave her. It meant little rabbit girl, but the Eighty-Six assumed it was her actual name, and so the name Major Zashya remained, even after that misunderstanding was corrected. 

“Still, she did graduate from the special officer academy at the top of her class, one way or another. Practical courses included… But that aside…” 

“…What?” Frederica asked, shuddering at the image of that girl going through officer’s training. 

Vika ignored her and carried on. 

“Worrying over her work after I’d entrusted her with my duties is bad manners for a ruler. I trust her to handle things, one way or other.” 

Frederica fell silent for a moment. Bad manners for a ruler. For a king. 

“But I thought you did not intend to inherit the throne.” 

Frederica was an empress without any territory or subjects. But even so, she intended to act as a ruler would. Until now, she’d fulfilled none of the duties of an empress—and that filled her with regret. A regret she shared with no one. 

“And despite insisting that you won’t be king, you still act as a royal would?” 

Vika cocked his head, puzzled. Why would a girl who wasn’t royalty herself ask him that question? 

“I do. Because I believe that’s how I ought to act.” 

Despite being the busiest of them all, even Shin’s schedule was surprisingly open. Halfway through breakfast, he suddenly remembered he had free time that day and proposed to Lena that the two of them head into town. 

“Assuming you’re free, that is. As a change of pace.” 

“Yes, I’m free; let’s go!” Lena nodded enthusiastically. The gloom that had hung over her head ever since the lieutenant colonel’s visit went flying out the window. 

To reach the town closest to the hotel, they needed to cross the lake. They got on one of the ferries that shuttled passengers, not unlike a tram or a metro, and watched as the red rooftops characteristic of the Alliance’s cities came into view. 

Neither Shin nor Lena chose this city for any particular reason. They bought some sort of cold confection from one of the stalls set up along the main plaza and watched a street performer make his tamed cats dance around. Lena spent a good while staring at a strange, handcrafted doll. 

“…Do you think I could teach TP to do those kinds of tricks? Jump and somersault like that?” 

“TP might be able to do that, but I don’t think you’d be able to train it regularly. You spoil it,” Shin said teasingly. 

“…Hmph,” Lena scoffed. “I do not spoil him. You’re just cold to him. And he still likes you better. It’s not fair, if you ask me.” 

Lena’s miffed reaction made Shin chuckle. Hearing him laugh made her exceedingly happy, and before long, she was giggling, too. There were other Processors who would come to town to relax, and every now and then, the two of them spotted a familiar face in the crowd. 

“Hey, it’s Shin and Lena,” they said. “Check out the fried sweets they’re selling over there.” 

Being a land of trade and commerce, the Alliance’s culture had mingled over many years with the small countries to the south of the mountains. And so the town was quite new and unusual for Lena and Shin, who had grown up and lived in the cities of the Republic and the Federacy. 

Lena in particular was used to the flat terrain of Liberté et Égalité, and so the uneven territories of the Alliance and the city being built on a steep slope was quite the exciting difference for her. 

Many of the people passing by were Caerulea with silver and golden hair and blue eyes. This reminded her of Daiya, a boy whom she never met, who was also apparently a Caerulea. It was he who had adopted TP first. 

“Even back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, they said TP was the most attached to you… He wasn’t called that back then, though. And we didn’t know each other’s names or faces.” 

“At the time, I was wondering when you’d get tired of talking to us and stop Resonating.” 

Looking ahead, she saw Shin put a few picture postcards he bought at a souvenir shop into his bag. Apparently, he was going to give them to his grandparents. His paternal grandfather, Marquis Nouzen, and his maternal grandmother, Marquis Maika. He was keeping in touch with them, but since they’d only been introduced last month, things were still a bit awkward between them. Still, they were all trying to forge a familial bond. 

Two years ago, Shin thought Lena was a naive girl with a bleeding heart who was pretending to be a saint. And as such, he simply called her Handler One. But now things were different. In much the same way, he had avoided meeting his grandparents, and now he was trying to grow closer to them. 

It was a big adjustment for Shin. And seeing him change for the better made Lena happy. But…it also made her feel a bit lonely. 

“Especially after you heard Kaie’s voice, I was…pretty sure you wouldn’t Resonate again.” 

“Honestly…I was a bit scared, and that’s why it took me so long to muster up the courage.” 

“I was surprised. Not by how long it took you, but by the fact that you were the only Handler who Resonated with me again after being exposed to so many of the Legion’s voices from that close.” 

Shin took in the view of the summer skyline, which was as cool as it was radiant. 

“…Looking back on it now, I think it’s a good thing we didn’t push you away.” 

The tone in which he said those words made Lena’s heart skip a beat. Some part of her felt she couldn’t hear the rest of whatever he had to say right at this moment. She wasn’t prepared yet… Her heart wasn’t ready. 

“E-er…” 

“Huh, Nouzen.” A voice suddenly interrupted their exchange. 

It was Marcel. Shin stopped in his tracks, and Lena, whom Marcel apparently didn’t see, came into view. 

“…And Lena. Uh, looks like you were in the middle of something. I’ll, uh, make myself scarce.” 

“…No, it’s fine… Don’t worry about it,” Shin said, cocking his head as he looked at the red-roofed, wooden-framework shop behind Marcel. “That’s a strange store for you to be in.” 

Adorable stuffed animals lined the shop window. Apparently, it was a toy store that focused on the Alliance’s traditional crafts. Marcel, with his sharp eyes and prickly hair, stood out rather oddly between the fluffy plushies of wildcats lining the shelves. 

“Oh, this? I just figured since we got the chance to go abroad, I’d buy Nina a gift. Not like I have any taste for this…,” he grumpily appended, looking around at the various plushies. 

He was apparently torn between buying a few small ones that could sit in the palm of her hand or one of the bigger ones sitting on the shelf—that were as large as several stuffed animals combined but not too unwieldy for a child to carry around. 

After a moment of contemplation, Shin took a bill from his wallet and presented it to Marcel. 

“Let me pitch in, too.” 

Marcel eyed him with surprise for a second, then cracked a smile. 

“Sure. I’ll say it’s from her big brother’s friend… I won’t be specific, so she won’t piece it together.” 

He added that last part in a hurry, recalling certain events. Lena didn’t understand what it meant. 

“…Someday, when things settle down, you should meet her. Eugene kept writing about you in his letters, so their grandma wants to meet you, too. And I’m sure Nina will want to know about you, once she’s old enough to remember. Though, I think it’d be better if you didn’t tell them how it all ended.” 

“Right.” Shin smiled bitterly and shrugged. “I’d like it if she didn’t hear any more bad stories about me.” 

“C’mon… I apologized, didn’t I…? Anyway, sorry for interrupting.” 

Pulling down one of the larger stuffed animals from the shelf, Marcel headed for the cash register. He opened the store’s glass door, and as a bell rang, they heard the clerk’s greeting. 

Lena, who had kept silent…or rather, was forced to stay silent throughout the exchange, asked a question as she watched Marcel leave. 

“Who were you talking about?” 

Nina and Eugene. Those were both unfamiliar names to her. 

“A friend of ours from the special officer academy—and his little sister… Ernst insisted that the Spearhead squadron members all go to different special officer academies, and that’s when I met him.” 

Thinking back, Lena did recall how Shin, Raiden, Kurena, and the rest all seemed to have acquaintances among the soldiers in Rüstkammer and varied Federacy bases. Some of them were soldiers similar in age, and others were older noncommissioned officers who would thank them for saving their lives at one point or another. Lena didn’t know any of those people. 

“Eugene died before the large-scale offensive, and Marcel seemed to know him even before that, so he knew Nina, his sister. I happened to know her, too.” 

“…” 

This was a story she didn’t know, of people she’d never heard of. And once she thought about it, it seemed painfully obvious. It’d been two years since Shin went out on the Special Reconnaissance mission and found his way to the Federacy. He’d spent two years of his life in the Federacy, two years of experiences and human relations. 

It wasn’t just Grethe and Marcel. He had formed bonds with many people Lena didn’t know… Even outside the Eighty-Sixth Sector’s battlefield, he’d tried to live his life. 

A life in the Federacy… A life without Lena. 

And once again, for whatever reason…that feeling filled her with the slightest bit of loneliness. 

“…Why did you come here personally? You’re the chief of staff.” 

“Are you seriously asking me that, Grethe? It was you who reported a Republic officer visiting this place, without informing the Federacy ahead of time.” 

Grethe’s gaze fell on the chief of staff, Willem Ehrenfried, who was seated alone on the sofa with an air of leisurely composure and a thin smile. One of the hotel’s rooms was hurriedly prepared for his visit. 

“I am the one who organized this trip if you recall. Having a cheeky weißhaare trudge into this place would only cause the Eighty-Six undue distress. And so I, in my gracious concern, came all this way to check on the matter.” 

His wording made Grethe raise an eyebrow. A Republic citizen or two wouldn’t bother the Eighty-Six at this point, and Willem knew this ever since the Charité Underground Labyrinth operation. The only one really bothered by it was Lena. 

“So that’s your pretense.” 

“This room’s been swept clean. You can speak freely.” 

In other words, even though this was another country’s facility, they didn’t need to worry about walking into a trap. 

“I’m sure you know this already, but your presence here is classified information. That includes Colonel Milizé’s whereabouts,” Willem said. 

A unit’s assignment and activities were a state secret. An outsider should have had no way of knowing that the Eighty-Sixth Strike Package’s 1st Armored Division was on leave or how long they’d be on leave. To say nothing of the fact that some of them were sent to the Alliance. 

In other words… Grethe narrowed her eyes. 

That lieutenant colonel visited Lena based on information he should not have had access to. Same as how the Legion kept ambushing and attacking the Strike Package, despite its activities being kept under wraps. 

“The lieutenant colonel’s visit proves he has access to this leaked information,” Grethe concluded. 

“And revealing that to us is quite careless of both him and whoever’s backing him. Well, it doesn’t come as a surprise. The Republic’s actual soldiers died ten years ago in defense of their countries. The people running their military now are effectively inexperienced novices.” 

Willem shrugged. 

His aide, who was always at his back like a shadow, wasn’t in this room. 

“Captain Nouzen did a good job of driving the lieutenant colonel away. He left the same day he came… Still, if we pursue him quickly enough, we could catch up to him before he gets home. It’s a long way to the Republic from here.” 

“Talking to it didn’t help any. I don’t get what that queen wants, exactly.” 

As Annette angrily fired off the same complaints the interrogation officers had been repeating for the last two weeks, Shin, who was seated across the table from her, looked at her. They were in a lounge in the same underground base as the interrogation room. 

Also present were Vika and Lena, who were equally bewildered. 

“It told us to come find it because it had something to say, right? So we came on over and caught it, and now it’s giving us the silent treatment? At this point, we might as well pry its central processor open and see if we can pull out its memories that way. This is stupid.” 

“As odd as it may sound coming from me, you’re quite the frightening one,” Vika commented dryly. 

“Its memories don’t lie behind an encrypted program within its central processor but inside its neural network. There’s no telling if we can actually output its memories anyway.” Annette bitterly poked a hole into her own suggestion. 

“What about her mother…? I mean, couldn’t they bring her over to try to convince her?” Lena suggested meekly. 

“She’s bedridden in a hospital.” Vika shook his head. “Disturbing her even a little could kill her. We can’t use someone like that as a hostage.” 

“I…see.” 

“Don’t force yourself to say things that don’t sit well with you, Lena,” Annette told her. “I can tell how hard it was for you to suggest that.” 

Lena dropped her shoulders, and Shin suppressed the urge to sigh. He could tell she wanted to be of use in this conversation, but he didn’t want her to say cruel things while her expression was riddled with guilt. 

…And Lena had been acting strange as of late. At first, he thought it was because of that Bleacher’s visit, but even when he took her to town in an attempt to cheer her up, her anxiety didn’t subside. 

“Your Highness, do you have any idea why the queen’s not talking?” Annette asked him. 

“That’s a difficult question to answer. I’d only spoken to her a handful of times when she was still alive. That message she sent could have just been a trap to lure Nouzen and me in…” 

And there was always the chance that the Merciless Queen wasn’t Zelene to begin with, but they willingly pushed that possibility to the back of their minds. If that was true, it would mean they’d gone to the trouble of capturing it for nothing. 

With that said, Vika furrowed his brows. 

“Or perhaps she intended to share information initially but refuses to share it with us. Her homeland was the Empire, and the Federacy is effectively the country that destroyed it. Even if that’s not the case, Zelene was a soldier. She didn’t favor war.” 

“But she was a soldier…” Shin cocked an eyebrow. 

“Let me ask you, then. You’re a soldier. Do you like war?” 

…Ah. 

“Major Birkenbaum was a soldier, yes… But she only became one out of her hatred for war. Her older brother was a soldier as well, and he lost his life in combat. She said that was her impetus for creating the Legion… And for as cold and reclusive as she was, her face was that of a witch, cursing the world.” 

Turning a glance to Lerche, who stood behind him, Vika shrugged in self-derision. 

“Zelene herself was injured and nearing death at the time, so she was likely quite pressed to act. I can’t imagine she would bring herself to create something like the Legion unless she was fully consumed by the idea… For example, have you realized that none of the Legion’s aerial units are weaponized? That prohibition doesn’t stem from a problem in IFF recognition, if you ask me. It’s because Zelene hated armed aircrafts. That older brother of hers died when a friendly craft accidently fired on him.” 

She probably thought there could be no trusting armed aircrafts or the people piloting them. And she likely hated war because it destroyed her family—and even cut away at her own life. 

“…If she was so opposed to war, then why create the Legion?” 

“Far be it from me to know… Wanting to destroy something out of hatred may not be the most sensible approach, but it happens all too often.” 

Wanting to destroy the world she cursed and reviled, not unlike a witch. 

“That’s the extent of what I understand about her… But perhaps you picked up some kind of clue, Nouzen? If nothing else, your father knew Zelene far better than I did.” 

“No… I don’t think I ever met her.” 

“Nothing, then…,” Vika lamented. 

Annette shrugged grandly, as if to shake up the mood. 

“Well, here’s a weird thought to chew on. Had things happened a bit differently, the two of you could have been childhood friends… And that applies to me, too, come to think of it… Whoa, creepy…” 

“Speaking of friends… Nouzen, what of Fido? I thought it strange when I heard of the one drone the Republic actually did develop, but was it not completed?” 

An odd pause hung between them. 

“…Fido?” Shin repeated the name dubiously. 

He cocked his head at Vika, as if wondering why that name left his lips. 

“Do you not remember that, either? It was the prototype for the artificial-intelligence model your father was researching. I recall him complaining that his youngest son…that is to say, you…named it Fido and wouldn’t agree to have its name changed.” 

It wasn’t the Scavenger Fido but some other Fido. Yet…sadly, Shin couldn’t remember anything of the sort. The most he could eventually uncover in his memory was the faint feeling that there might have been something like it in the past, but he couldn’t remember its name. Maybe it was called Fido, Shin thought, as Annette groaned next to him. 

“Ugh, you mean that weird robot dog, right? I think Shin’s dad called it…Prototype 008… Wait.” Annette suddenly regarded Shin with half-lidded eyes. “You gave your Scavenger the same name? You really haven’t grown out of that crappy naming sense, have you? You’re giving Lena a run for her money.” 

“If you’re talking about TP, I can’t say I appreciate the comparison.” 

“You guys are mean,” Lena muttered to herself sullenly, which both Shin and Annette tacitly ignored. 

“My naming sense is at least better than the way you named things in the Eighty-Sixth Sector,” Annette said, keeping up her argument. “You were going to call it Remarque, right? Maybe you were trying to be cynical, but it’s so roundabout, it just doesn’t make sense.” 

“You say that, Rita, but why did you try to raise a chicken back then? It was a hen, but for some reason, it chased you around like a rooster.” 

“What, are you trying to say it was weird? Chickens are cute. And I enjoyed its eggs up until the large-scale offensive.” 

“………Oh.” 

“What’s with that face?! I’m a better cook than I was back then! Oh, and I didn’t forget about that one time I made you a batch of cookies, and you asked if they were monsters!” 

“…They were sweets, yes, but they were charred black and had three eyes apiece.” 

“Yeah?! Well, at least you recognized them as baked goods! It’s not like you can accurately identify a food after it’s been burned black, right?! You can’t, can you?! Dummy! Idiot! Moron!” 

“…Ahem!” Lena loudly cut their argument short. 

At some point, they’d regressed to the petty squabbles they had as children, but her exclamation made them come to their senses. Shin suddenly realized, in a rush of incomprehensible guilt, that he’d never called Annette Rita in front of Lena before. 

“So what happened to that…Prototype 008, Annette?” 

“…Well, they took Shin and his family to the internment camps, and I never saw it again, no matter how much I looked for it.” 

She assumed it was broken. Either as part of the pillaging or out of some kind of half-hearted game. 

“So it was lost in vain, you say… A pity.” 

Vika shook his head, half in disappointment, half in amusement. Annette looked at him questioningly, to which he shrugged. 

“That one was a different kind of AI compared with the Sirins and the Legion. One developed entirely to be a companion pet. To that end, if it was ordered to fight to defend someone, it would do so. The Legion aren’t human. They cannot fulfill a wish to be friends and companions to humankind. The only ones who would have had the duty to defend people, who could find our place…are those who would see us as friends.” 

“So you’re saying…,” Annette said, her eyes wide with shock, “…we dug our own graves…?” 

“Annette? What do you…?” Lena asked. 

“I mean, that’s what it means! If Shin’s dad had been allowed the time to complete the Fido project… If the Eighty-Six hadn’t been persecuted, the Republic really could have had a war with zero casualties!” 

Ah… 

Lena felt her blood freeze. 

The Republic “loaded” the Processors onto their drones with the pretense of them being information-processing units, and they did it because they couldn’t develop an AI advanced enough to perform fully autonomous combat. Because they couldn’t maintain their defensive front without stripping the Eighty-Six of their human rights and casting them out into the battlefield. 

But if Fido had been completed… If it’d been established as an artificial intelligence capable of autonomous combat… 

“We said we did it because we had to. We turned a blind eye to injustice while knowing we were committing a grave sin. We let millions die only for it all to be exposed, for every other country in the world to denounce us. But all that persecution wasn’t even necessary in the first place. If we’d only done what was right, neither the Eighty-Six nor the Republic’s people would have had to die… It’s… Just what kind…?” 

Annette gritted her teeth bitterly at Lena’s words. Shin kept quiet, worried that anything he might say would come across as an accusation. Even though none of it was Lena’s fault. 

But the two of them couldn’t see it that way. 

“What kind of cruel irony is this…?!” 

The hotel’s guest rooms were all doubles. Raiden roomed with Shin. He was out at a meeting regarding the Merciless Queen but came back a bit sooner than planned, just as Raiden poured himself a fresh cup of coffee from the room’s kettle. 

“Oh, hey, welcome back.” 

“Yeah. Thanks,” Shin said, accepting the mug he handed him and narrowing his eyes in amusement. “You know, Kujo and Daiya, they always used to call you our squad’s mom.” 

“Oh…? Give that mug back; I’ll put a few spoons of mustard in your coffee.” 

“You’ve got mustard handy? You really are the squad mom, aren’t you?” 

“The hell?” 

The two of them wrestled over the mug for a while, albeit carefully enough so as to not spill the coffee. 

“…What are you even doing here this early? There’s still a while before dinner,” Shin asked. 

“I just figured I’d wash my clothes before that shindig on the last day… You should probably do some laundry, too. Wouldn’t want your clothes to be all dirty and wrinkled when it’s go time, right?” 

“Okay, Mom…” 

“Fuck off.” 

Having finished their coffee, the two of them took playful jabs at each other a while longer. The fact that Shin could easily dispatch him in a mock sparring match left Raiden very unamused. 

“…Speaking of, you’ve definitely shaken off that Reaper atmosphere you always had going on.” 

Shin only replied with a questioning glance, to which Raiden responded, sitting cross-legged on his bed with his chin resting on his hands. 

“Especially when it comes to Lena. You’d always call her Handler One, but now you call her by her name. And when you said I’m off and spoke of how you’d show her the sea… I didn’t think the eastern front’s Reaper was capable of it… Oh yeah,” Raiden appended with a smirk. “Don’t use the interrogation as an excuse to run away. Just tell her already.” 

“…Shut up.” 

“If ya need a situation to set the mood, we can back you up. How about a spot with a nice night view…? I guess the last day we’re here would be the best time, though.” 

“Shut up… I was gonna say it last time, but Marcel interrupted.” 

“Still, you’d better do it in a way that makes her happy. Even a blockhead like you can figure that out, right?” 

“…” 

Shin fell silent, which caused Raiden to realize he’d probably played with fire long enough, so he clammed up, too. Shin was…clearly displeased. Like a carefree child who didn’t need to bottle up his emotions. 

“…And now you can even make that sort of face,” Raiden whispered to himself, so Shin wouldn’t hear it. 

He carefully looked up at Shin. 

“What?” Shin asked him grumpily. 

“Nothing.” 

I was just thinking that you really have changed. 

Raiden shooed him out of the room, telling him that the bath was still open so he should go clean himself off. Shin left with a dubious expression. 

Raiden watched the door shut and pondered things. When they first met, he really thought he’d run into the Grim Reaper occupying the body of a boy his age. His expressions, his gaze, the heart beating within him—they had all frozen over. Ground to dust. Chipped. 

But now, that very same boy knew how to smile naturally. Especially since meeting that kindhearted crybaby of a Handler. 

“…Guess it’s not all bad, huh?” 

The country that was supposedly his homeland had ordered him to die. The brother he once cherished nearly murdered him. The battlefield he stood on was closed off by the Legion, and he was forced to bury his beloved comrades time and again. After weathering all of it and more, the only thing he had left was the cold, dead heart of a reaper. 

The malice of humankind and the cruelty of the world had made Shin what he was. 

But at the very end, he was still able to learn that it was okay for him to seek salvation. It was okay for him to dream. He learned that there was still the slightest speck of something that might be called hope within him. That this fetid shithole of a world wasn’t completely irredeemable. 

For the first time in his life, the Reaper had something to live for. 

That name was a curse of sorts. It was a shackle that bound him to the cross he carried—but that cross also fixed him in place. The drive to gun down his brother’s ghost was both a curse and a blessing: an objective that spurred him forward. 

To take all their dead comrades to their final destination. Having that role was what kept Shin from collapsing on the wayside. What kept him going, one step at a time, even one step forward, until the very end. 

But even so… They were the ones who were being saved and supported by him. 

“You’ve saved us plenty of times already… It’s time we let you live your life, man.” 

On his way to the bathhouse, Shin ran into Captain Aegis, who was speaking to the Processors who weren’t participating in the test. Watching the captain’s long black hair sway like a tail, Shin thought of TP, the black kitten Daiya picked up once upon a time. Only its paws were white, like socks. 

At the time, they didn’t give it a name and just called it whatever came to mind. Back then, they thought Lena was just an irresponsible handler of livestock, living smugly in the safety of the walls. 

When had he decided to give her a formal good-bye…? Why had he thought that entrusting her with that wish would be right? Why was it that he placed so much faith in her back then? 

Shin’s eyes suddenly widened. 

“Captain Nouzen. We’re currently considering disassembling it. Its uncooperative nature is only making the option seem that much more viable. Perhaps letting it know of our intent could serve as a bargaining chip…” 

“No.” 

Shin curtly cut off the intelligence section chief’s words. They were speaking in Shin’s room. 

Doing that would be meaningless. The Legion don’t fear death, and threats don’t faze them. 

“Forget that, Section Chief… Let me into the confinement room.” 

Everyone present was rendered speechless by Shin’s suggestion. 

“What are you…?” Lena reflexively started saying, but Shin cut her words short with a look. 

His eyes communicated that he had no intention of doing anything careless. He wasn’t like before, when he thought little of his own death. The section chief exchanged glances with the other people in charge of the room—one in a violet uniform and another in olive drab—before agreeing. 

“Check that the restraints are working as intended. And keep the machine guns primed and ready in case we need to dispose of it. What do you think your chances of getting it to talk are, Captain?” 

“The Merciless Queen went out of its way to reveal itself to me in the Dragon Fang Mountain. It didn’t try to kill me, and it even led Raiden and the others to me. So if my guess as to why it did that is correct…” 

The lock to the confinement room’s gate, which was sealed off by reinforced alloy bolts, came undone. The two-layered doors opened, leaving only the door on the observation room’s side. 

“Leave the Para-RAID on…,” the section chief said. “And don’t get too close. The moment we feel it poses a danger to you, we will gun it down.” 

The gate was made up of thick metal walls and was essentially a long passageway. Shin passed through the door without another word. It closed behind him, after which the door to the confinement room finally opened. He stood at the boundary between the confinement room and the corridor, at a point where the floor’s material changed, as if to demarcate a borderline. 

Noticing his presence, the Merciless Queen stirred like an insect reacting to prey, trying to rise to its feet. But the constraints prevented it from doing so. It was an almost reflexive sort of movement, a mechanical reaction. 

Because, yes, the Legion slaughter all that stand before them. Be they people, cities, countries, or armies, they trample anything in their path without distinction. Such were their instincts. It was the same as how a land mine cared little for the identity of whomever triggered it. They were weapons that killed indiscriminately. 

But in the magma lake of the Dragon Fang Mountain, this Merciless Queen rebelled against those instincts and made no attempt to kill him. It simply crept closer, as if to toy with him. Or perhaps appraise him. But of course, there was always the chance things would have gone another way had he faced it any longer. Had Raiden and the others not gone after it, and had no one been there to stop it, things might have played out differently. 

“I know you can hear my voice, Queen of the Legion.” 

Shin realized bitterly that not having a name to address it by was inconvenient. He couldn’t call it Zelene, because if it wasn’t her, the queen could try to impersonate her. And calling it the Merciless Queen wasn’t right, either. So only being able to give it this moniker struck Shin as irritating. 

Back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, he always viewed names as nothing more than symbols used for the sake of designation. And he always hated his own name for sounding so close to the word sin… 

But two years ago, he didn’t give Lena his name until she asked to hear it. And looking back on it now, he had to wonder how he ever led such a life. 

“You were the one who called for me, weren’t you? Come find me, you said. And I did. So if you have anything to say, I’ll listen. Right here, right now. And if you won’t answer, I’ll leave.” 

It was hard to say they were occupying the same room, since there was a good ten meters between them. But as the Merciless Queen’s moonlike optical sensor stared fixedly at him without blinking, Shin thought he could see a hint of panic in its gaze. 

He’d felt it for seven years. The mechanical monstrosities’ bloodlust. He could sense it seeping through the Ameise’s armor. The constraints creaked heavily. 

Two years ago, he could believe in Lena. A girl he’d never met from within the walls. And he could trust her because he chose to get to know her. To speak to her, to listen to what she had to say… Because they could learn to know each other. 

Had they not conversed, they never would have grown closer. And one can’t trust in someone or something they don’t know. And so he decided to do this, one-sidedly, without trying to test her. 

The creaking of the constraints died down. It raised its white armor ever so slightly, and a faint silvery glow began to seep out of it. Liquid Micromachines. Searching his memory, Shin knew that the Phönix was the only Legion unit confirmed to possess the ability of turning them into butterflies and flying away. 

But there was another unit that he recalled making use of them in some fashion. His brother—the Dinosauria Shepherd. The “hands” that extended from it. The hands that gently reached out to him at the very end… Hands that, like a person’s, could no doubt strangle just as easily as they could caress. 

“I know nothing about you. I don’t know why you called me or even why you’re silent right now. So I want you to tell me, with your own words.” 

The Liquid Micromachines continued seeping out. But just as Shin began to dread they would take a physical form… 

<<Leave this confinement room. Evacuation to observation room advised.>> 

It was like audio being played from an old record. Like the sound of a sentient, inhuman being forcing itself to speak in the human tongue. It was a mechanical voice that was incredibly difficult to make out. 

The voice came from an information terminal that allowed for audio communications, which was set inside the confinement room. It had been activated without anyone touching it, opening a holo-screen full of static noise. The stressing and volume of this static noise was used to produce human words. 

Shin could hear the surprised tumult filling the observation room through the Sensory Resonance coming from the RAID Device sitting on his uniform’s collar. He couldn’t blame them for being shocked. This was probably the first dialogue between a human and a Legion unit in all recorded history. 

He could hear Vika mutter to himself, saying he could see now that it dreaded the idea of killing Shin, even by accident. 

<<Once evacuation is complete, response to queries will commence. Evacuate to observation room. This is a warning.>> 

Shepherds were made by assimilating the neural networks of humans, but there could be no telling how much of their human consciousness and emotions remained. But in that moment, Shin believed he had felt it. 

The Merciless Queen’s indignant rage. 

<<Your resolve to negotiate at the risk of death is remarkable. However, any further attempts to do so will be met with rejection. Remember this.>> 

Lena watched that sight unfold in stunned silence. He wasn’t intentionally exposing himself because he’d expected to die. Lena understood this. But there were hardly any reports of a Legion unit exposing its Liquid Micromachines outside its body and operating them independently. Not in the Republic, Federacy, United Kingdom, Alliance, nor any of the other small countries. 

There were only a handful of similar cases, including the case of the Dinosauria, Shin, and Raiden, and the other reported was Rei. Apparently, this ability wasn’t common to all Shepherds. It was possible that only Legion who were explicitly programmed with the ability, like the Phönix, were capable of this. 

And to that end, they weren’t wary of the possibility of it using its Liquid Micromachines as a means to attack. Perhaps the Merciless Queen just happened to have the ability to use them that way. But normally, Liquid Micromachines weren’t used as weapons, but rather, components of their control system. They didn’t move with the irrational speed the Legion normally had, to begin with. 

It couldn’t see Shin through the light the Liquid Micromachines gave off, but it could tell he was standing on guard. Speaking while carefully trying to ascertain the right moment to get away if need be. And he hadn’t taken one step out of the corridor even before the silvery glow appeared, so he could quickly move to the other end of the corridor if need be. 

He was willing to brave risks for the sake of this discussion, but he wasn’t throwing himself away. He did this for the sake of the future he wished for—to find the means to grasp it. 

And seeing him do it left Lena in blank amazement. It made her realize something. He really…did change. 

Just as Shin returned to the observation room, Liquid Micromachine arms slithered out of the gaps in the Merciless Queen’s armor, as if unable to wait any longer. They weren’t long enough to reach the walls from the Merciless Queen’s position in the center of the confinement room, but as if to compensate for their length, there was a startling number of them. 

Returning to the observation room made Shin’s tense nerves ease up a bit. Maybe that was why the memory of his brother’s hands strangling him—and not just his hands as a Shepherd, but his real hands, too—rose to the surface in all its vivid, chilling horror. It made the color drain from his face for a moment. 

“Are you all right, Nouzen?” Vika asked, noticing the change. 

“Yeah… I’m fine. I just remembered something.” 

Vika likely realized he’d probably suffered some injuries relating to hands, or perhaps he was injured by a Shepherd. 

“You stood before her, knowing she could pry open an old wound. You forced yourself to get her to talk… Even though it was you who insisted there could be no conversing with the dead.” 

“I still think so, even now…” 

The living can never mingle with the dead. That was a rule of nature. No matter how much one wished to speak to them, the rules this world operated on would remain cold and unyielding. 

But at the end of the Special Reconnaissance mission, when he was defeated in the depths of the Legion’s territories… His brother probably saved him. They couldn’t converse, but their voices did reach each other. 

Shin could hear the voices of the ghosts, which implied the opposite could possibly be true, too. But what if conversing with ghosts actually was feasible…but the ghosts simply didn’t transmit their thoughts in a manner Shin could understand? 

The living can never mingle with the dead. But perhaps the ghosts who lingered between life and death, who hadn’t yet crossed the river Lethe, could still reach out to him, who remained tethered to the far shore. 

It was a theory that struck Shin as slightly disturbing, but he wasn’t going to run away from it anymore. 

“I just wanted to do everything I could… If we can get even the slightest bit of beneficial information, we could be one step closer to ending the war.” 

Vika regarded his words with an amused smile for some reason. 

“You want to show her the sea, hmm? I see. So you would spare no effort to that end.” 

“Why do you know about that, too…?” 

“Why would you assume I didn’t know about it…? But never mind that.” 

Upon seeing that the color had returned to Shin’s face, Vika turned in the Merciless Queen’s direction. 

“Are those hands something all Legion who’ve assimilated the neural network of a dead person possess?” 

The microphone was on, of course, and the window was set to transparent. But the queen didn’t answer his question. Vika signaled to Shin with his eyes, who repeated the question. This time, it replied. 

<<Only those who have, even in their final moments, extended their hands in maddened despair, possess this.>> 

It’s like the Legion’s screams, Shin thought. 

Their brains echoed those screams. Their minds twisted into the shapes of their final words, repeating the emotions they felt on the brink of death. Their desires would not die even as their bodies perished and, instead, would manifest themselves as those hands. 

Unsure if it could only hear Shin or if it consciously chose to answer just his questions, the intelligence officers whispered among themselves, so as to be heard over the microphone. The section chief stressed they would need to take precautions against the arms coming out of its armor next time. 

<<One question has been answered. Answer a question in turn, .>> 

The final word it said was exceptionally hard to make out. It was as if mechanical language had been forcibly rendered into sound. But the recorder terminal just barely picked up what it had said. 

Báleygr. 

That was the Legion’s identifier for Shin. 

<<Your name.>> 

Shin shot a gaze at the intelligence staff, one of whom nodded. 

“Shinei Nouzen.” 

He didn’t add his rank and affiliation. The room was shielded from electromagnetic interference. Even if an Eintagsfliege had somehow wandered into the room and tried to function as a relay, the Merciless Queen would not have been able to transmit any information to the Legion. But Shin decided to err on the side of caution. 

The Merciless Queen fell silent for a moment, as if swallowing its breath. 

<<Nouzen. Nouzen. Descendant of the destroyers. Progeny of the Empire´s Ebony General. Query. Why did a Nouzen betray his homeland and defect to the Federacy´s military? Is it because you are a rotegig? Answer.>> 

Rotegig. Red eye. A derogatory term that pureblood Onyxes of noble descent used to refer to children mixed with Pyrope blood. Hearing the Merciless Queen speak that word made the Pyrope information officers in the room harden their expressions in displeasure. But Shin was born in the Republic and raised in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, so the slur didn’t register as offensive to him. 

“I’m not of the Empire.” 

<<Then you are an Eighty-Six.>> 

“…How do you know that?” 

If it was Zelene Birkenbaum, it should have had no way of knowing what an Eighty-Six was. That derogatory term didn’t exist in her lifetime. 

<<For they were weak. For they were brittle. For they were the inferior race expelled from the Republic. Seizing them was simple. Obtaining information from them was simple.>> 

They had means of drawing out information from a seized brain. No… Even a Shepherd couldn’t resist the Legion’s instincts, and perhaps higher directives sent out by commander units. The fact that the Merciless Queen was conversing with them could have very well only been possible because it was cut off from the rest of the Legion’s network. 

“And what’s your name?” 

He’d estimated he understood the principle it was working on. It issued a query, and he answered. Thus, it was his turn to ask a question. And so he asked what he should have opened with. 

For whatever reason, that question made the Merciless Queen tilt its body somewhat. As if confused or perhaps disappointed that its provocation fell on deaf ears. 

<<It is presumed you already know.>> 

“I answered your question… Please answer mine.” 

Upon being asked again, the Merciless Queen swerved its gaze to Vika, who stood beside Shin. 

<<Affirmative. Albeit, unnecessary. Confirm it with the Innocent Olden Serpent.>> 

Vika grimaced for a moment, then heaved a long sigh. 

“So it really is you, Zelene.” 

<<Affirmative.>> 

The Merciless Queen, Zelene Birkenbaum, nodded ever so slightly. Haughtily. With the cruelty of the ice-white moon—a cruelty that befit her identifier. 

<<My name… The name I was known by when I yet lived…was Zelene Birkenbaum. Ranked Major. Researcher. Affiliated with the Imperial Research Institute.>> 

She stressed that it was her name when she was still alive. As if to implicitly emphasize the fact that she was no longer human. 

Slipping out of the loud, boisterous interrogation room, Lena went into the corridor to escape the noise and looked up. This was an underground base, and the sky naturally wasn’t in sight. All she could see was the cold, artificial gray of the ceiling. 

Shin really had changed. When he faced the Republic’s lieutenant colonel, he showed a clear contempt for his malice. He’d fostered bonds with his newly rediscovered family and the people who were by his side and made efforts to maintain those bonds. He went back to calling Annette Rita. He was starting to pick up the bits and pieces of the joy he once knew from the depths of his memories. 

Even with the world being so cold and unwelcoming, even as he had nothing to expect from it… He still looked to the future, seeking to make his dreams come true. 

And Lena thought that was a good thing. She was happy for him, but…she also felt a certain loneliness, as if she was being left behind. And anxiety, as if the ground she was standing on were fading away. 

She thought he was weak, but…in the end, he really was a strong person. Even with all those weak points, and even though he couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, he still had the strength to keep on walking—to reach out and grasp his one desire. 

But that meant a time might come when Shin wouldn’t need her anymore. And the moment she thought of that, a heavy, overwhelming sense of fear came over her. Even if he didn’t yet, he’d definitely realize it someday. That the person he wanted to show the sea to…didn’t have to be her. 

It wasn’t like this before. Two years ago, Shin was still trapped in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. He was fated to die within six months, and all around him were other Eighty-Six, who shared that fate. The only person he had to ask to remember him was Lena. It wasn’t because she was special in some way. She just happened to be the one person Shin knew would live on. 

But now that wasn’t the case anymore. He’d survived the Eighty-Sixth Sector and was freed from that fate of certain death. So were Raiden and the others. He’d lived in the Federacy for two years, forging new bonds with people who wouldn’t leave him behind. 

And so Lena was no longer the only person he could live with. 

But the same couldn’t be said for Lena. She’d only come this far because Shin told her to catch up to him. She could only fight on because she could chase after his shadow. Without Shin, she couldn’t fight. Without him relying on her…she couldn’t pretend she was strong. 

She wanted him to rely on her. She desperately clung to the role of being the one he needed, the one he begged to not leave him behind. She wanted to support him, to guide him… To continue acting out the role of a saint for him, even if it was just a lie. 

The pride I take in fighting at his side is all I have. My precious role of being the one who holds him up. If I lose that… If Shin leaves me… I won’t be able to keep going… And when he does, I won’t be able to do the same… I won’t be allowed to cling to him, to beg that he not leave me behind… 

But so long as Lena was part of the Strike Package, it would keep serving as proof of the validity of the Republic’s “progressive, humane defense system.” Of the idea that the Republic citizens didn’t need to fight. Of the Eighty-Sixth Sector’s battlefield of zero casualties. 

Shin had finally shaken off that illusion, and Lena was worried about becoming the shackle that tethered him to it once more. So she couldn’t cling to him. She didn’t want to hurt him—to weigh him down. 

Because…I’m one of the Republic’s white pigs, after all…