86 - Volume 7 - Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 

FOG BLUE 

“—Oh. There are girls here, too.” 

The final checks for the Juggernaut’s new weapon, the Armée Furieuse, were happening. As Kurena was taking a break after completing one of the day’s checklists, she looked in the direction of the voices coming from behind the container. 

The Merciless Queen, Zelene Birkenbaum, had finally responded to Shin, which meant he spent significantly more time questioning her. Zelene herself made it clear that she wouldn’t speak at all unless Shin was there. As a result, Shin didn’t have the privilege of taking part in the Armée Furieuse’s testing, so Raiden, Theo, Anju, and Kurena ended up covering for him. 

Kurena had turned to face them, but the source of those voices—a group of Alliance soldiers, apparently—didn’t notice her and continued chatting idly. About half of them were Caerulea, with blond hair and blue eyes. 

Just like Daiya. The thought crossed Kurena’s mind. 

“They’re cute. But wow, they let them fight at this age?” 

“I always imagined child soldiers who were forced to fight would be more…you know…like stray dogs—brats who curse everyone and everything.” 

“Well, if the rumors are true, they’re monsters who fight just like those bloodless war machines.” 

“But they’re cute, y’know? Almost normal.” 

“…Tch. That one’s looking… She probably heard us.” 

Some of them awkwardly raised their hand apologetically, while others scratched their heads uncomfortably. They then regarded her with frank smiles. 

“Good luck out there!” 

“Thanks!” Kurena nodded back. 

Right, Shin had his hands full with other work. That was why she and the others had to work hard in his place. But still… 

Her gaze fell on the Prussian-blue uniform sitting between the containers. 

What are you doing, Lena…? 

“Lena’s been acting kind of strange lately.” 

Having spent their childhoods in the Eighty-Sixth Sector’s barracks and internment camps, where there was no real distinction between the sexes, the Eighty-Six had little understanding of the reasoning behind why pubescent boys and girls weren’t allowed to share certain spaces. 

Michihi spoke, taking out the cosmetics she’d bought from the lakeside city. Shana, who had gone with her, as well as Yuuto and Rito, who had tagged along to carry their bags, nodded at her statement. 

Michihi opened a few lipsticks she bought, comparing their shades, while Shana wasted no time in opening a bottle of nail polish and painting her nails. The big event was coming up, and they needed to practice. 

“…Shana, you really don’t need to paint my nails, too,” Rito said. 

“C’mon, you’re cute, Rito… I could just eat you up.” 

“You’re scaring me, Shana…” 

“I figured we’d set the two of them up so they couldn’t run off anywhere, but that won’t work when she’s that anxious. And it looks like Shin’s decided to bide his time for now, as well…” 

Yuuto paused for a moment in contemplation. 

“I think it’s because Lena’s the same as us,” he eventually said. 

“What do you mean?” Michihi asked. 

“Lena lost everything in the large-scale offensive. Her family, her home, all the people she knew in the Republic except for Annette. The Republic was her homeland.” 

She didn’t have a country to call home anymore. No family to protect, nowhere to return to. Nothing to live for…save one thing. 

“…Ah,” Rito whispered. “She’s just like us. All she has is her pride, so without that, she doesn’t know what to do with herself. But there’s one difference… Lena lost everything recently.” 

Her wounds were fresh. They were still fresh, and the slightest touch could very well cause Lena to crumble. 

“Hey, Shin… Did you notice Lena’s been acting kind of weird lately?” 

“Yeah.” 

Cuff links were accessories that acted as fasteners for shirtsleeves that didn’t have buttons. But they weren’t used on everyday uniforms, to say nothing of the panzer jackets commonly worn as flight suits. Shin was worried about his ability to fasten them, so he tried practicing today. As he confirmed that, true to his suspicions, he was terrible at it, Shin nodded at Theo’s questions. 

“Ah, so you did… Ah, shit. I can’t get it off.” 

“Maybe it’s because the Federacy’s cuff links use fasteners…?” Shin wondered aloud. “Anyway, she’s been acting kind of weird even before that, but ever since we got Zelene to respond, she’s been avoiding me outright.” 

He’d noticed she left the interrogation room, and he insisted on chasing after her. He found her standing in the corridor, but she just shook her head and said it was nothing… So he simply told her he was always ready to listen if she had anything to say, and then he left. 

If she wasn’t ready to talk yet, trying to force her to say what was on her mind wouldn’t do either of them any good. Shin knew this from experience. A month ago, they were effectively in the same situation, but the roles were reversed. 

“I did tell her I’d hear her out when she was ready to talk,” Shin said with those thoughts in mind. 

“Huh?” Theo stared at him, dumbfounded. “…Are you sure you’re Shin and not some Legion wearing his skin?” 

“What the hell does that mean?” 

“Well… You’d never be that considerate,” Theo replied, still astonished. 

“…I’ve got a few things to ask you, Theo.” 

Like what his impression of him was, exactly, but Shin managed to stop himself from bringing up that question. After all, he’d been agonized and conflicted so many times before, and every time, Theo and the others always left him be. 

He’d been taking advantage of that attitude of theirs for so long. But now, he was the one who could only stand on the sidelines, not knowing what to say. Now he realized how they felt… So he wasn’t one to talk. 

“…Being left alone until I sorted things out on my own was easier for me. But that only made it harder for everyone else, who had to wait quietly until that happened. Didn’t it?” 

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty! How about putting this on for the big night? Sexy, ain’t it?” 

Despite knocking, Shiden still opened the door without permission and barged into Lena’s room. Spread out on the bed between them were articles of lingerie Shiden bought in the lakeside town. These were, as one might call them, “lucky” panties. Cute, erotic brassieres, corsets, and a chemise and panties, all meant for setting the mood. 

Shiden expected a variety of reactions. Th-this is…shameless! I can’t wear this! or maybe These are your size! Or How do you know my measurements?! Either way, she thought Lena would go red and start stuttering. 

Incidentally, Shiden could estimate Lena’s three sizes just by looking at her. 

But Lena was completely out of it, not even sparing a glance at the black leather garter belt Shiden was holding, nor the silver chains dangling from it. 

“Your Majesty…? What’s wrong?” 

“Huh?” 

“I mean… Your clothes for the final day.” 

“Right…” 

“You’re gonna have Li’l Reaper escort ya, right? So you better doll yourself up even where the sun don’t shine, y’know? I mean…” 

Shiden cracked a vulgar smirk. 

“…who knows? Maybe you’ll figure out a way for him to see ’em, right? Don’t worry; I’ll take Annette out for a night at the bar so you two can have the room to yourselves. Just relax and—” 

Shiden expected Lena to blush and scold her for the risqué joke, but… 

“No… I think Shin might take someone else instead…” Lena hung her head like an anxious child. 

“…Huh?” Shiden didn’t understand what Lena meant. 

“Shin doesn’t need me… After all, I’m…” 

A white pig. 

Lena bit her lip, not wanting to say the words. She didn’t have to be the person at Shin’s side. In the end, she was one of the white pigs who hurt him. So one day, they might grow apart. 

The spot at Shin’s side didn’t have to be hers. 

Picking up on the implication, Shiden sighed. 

“…Your Majesty…” 

She then grabbed Lena’s slender shoulders and forcibly pushed her down against the bed. 

“…?!” 

As the bedsprings creaked beneath her, Lena let out a yelp that was a mixture of shock and fear. TP jumped up in surprise and hissed menacingly before taking cover under the desk. 

Shiden’s expression was simply that bloodcurdling. 

“Shiden…?” Lena asked anxiously. 

“…cut it out.” 

Shiden glared at her with sharp, cold eyes. It was as if her gaze burned with so much fury that it had gone full circle and settled in subzero temperatures. So intense was her rage. 

“How long are you gonna keep drawing lines and pulling back the second something goes even a little wrong? And you call yourself our queen? Sometimes, you gotta pull back. I ain’t gonna argue with that. But you know what?” 

Lena was a commander. Sometimes, she had to order her soldiers to die. That was a line she often insisted on not crossing. A line she didn’t want to cross. And yet… 

“The line you drew between yourself and us doesn’t need to exist. None of us are gonna call you a white pig anymore, so don’t call yourself one and close yourself off behind walls again. How long do you plan on living in the goddamn Eighty-Sixth Sector?!” 

“But I’m from the Republic… The side that hurt you. I hurt you without meaning to… Without even knowing it… And that’s something that’ll never change… It’s all I have!” 

Lena’s shout echoed through the room. Her mother died, assimilated by the Legion during the large-scale offensive. Her father died during his attempt to show Lena the cruel reality of the Eighty-Sixth Sector. Karlstahl, Annette’s mother, everyone—they were all dead. 

She no longer had a family to protect. No home to go back to. And she even lost the pride she gained from fighting alongside Shin. She was obsessed with the idea of him relying on her, and now she couldn’t even play the role of false saint. 

So with all that gone, she had nothing left to build an identity around, with the exception of her roots as a citizen of the Republic. She might have hated those roots to her core, but they were all she had. 

“The fuck is that?” Shiden mercilessly scoffed at Lena’s shout. “Who the hell told you that’s all you have? Do you really think you can lose everything that easily…? Look me in the eyes.” 

Shiden stared hard at Lena, one of her eyes the color of deep indigo and the other as white as snow. That was the origin of her Personal Name, Cyclops. A heterochromia that made it seem like she was blind in one eye from a distance. 

“Both of my dad’s eyes were silver. Not that I’m all that attached to my Alba blood. The heterochromia, I got from my mom. My little sister and I got both of those traits. Wanna know what happened?” 

Silver eyes, the same as their oppressors’. Even during peacetime, their mismatched colors would make them tether on the verge of being cast out as outsiders who didn’t belong on either side. And she was sent into the Eighty-Sixth Sector with those eyes, where everyone built up indignation and stress that were always on the verge of erupting. 

“The same Eighty-Six that the Republic called animals called us monsters in human skin. They called us witches. My sister didn’t live long enough to become a Processor… If I could lose those memories, believe me, I would.” 

Those memories… That very past. 

“But I can’t. It’s in the past. All of it. All my mistakes, the times I was helpless, the moments I regret—and the choices I made. So you can’t lose any of those things, either. You can’t undo the fact that you’re a Republic soldier who fought with us. You can’t ignore the fact that you’re not a white pig. You can’t deny that you’re Bloody Reina, our Bloodstained Queen!” 

Even if she was to lose strength tomorrow. Even if she was to part ways with everyone. The battles she fought to get to where she was today belonged to a past she could never overwrite, not even if she wanted to. 

“Listen, Lena. You might be from the Republic, but you’re not a white pig… You’re our queen.” 

Those words made Lena jerk. It felt like someone told her the same thing before. Those sincere, slightly sorrowful words… As if directed at her, tormented and bound as she was by guilt for never trying to cross the wall between them. When had she heard the sentiment before? 

Please stop making that tragic face. 

“Maybe in the beginning, our relationship was that of a white pig and a bunch of livestock. But we’ve already moved past that, and we want you to move on, too. I’m sure Shin feels the same way… So just go ahead bury that mindset already.” 

“Zelene, I’m asking you one more time. Why did you call me?” 

<<The appeal for investigation was directed at any hostile element that would eliminate the High Mobility type. Special Protocol Omega´s activation trigger was the High Mobility type´s destruction. As such, the recipient of Special Protocol Omega would inevitably be whoever eliminated the High Mobility type.>> 

Having decided that not responding after she’d reacted once would be meaningless now, Zelene began consistently answering Shin’s questions. But she only answered Shin—and ever so rarely, Vika. As such it was still hard to discern what her objective was and whether she actually was willing to share any intelligence with them. 

Lena wasn’t here today, either. Her absence worried Shin, but he decided to swallow that anxiety. 

“…Then why did you call whoever defeated the Phönix?” 

<<Because whoever defeated the High Mobility type would have to be inhuman.>> 

There was a hint of mockery in her tone. As if to say Shin wasn’t human. 

<<For whoever was capable of matching the Legion, who were machines made for slaughter, could not be human. And that is all the truer for anyone who could drive an enhanced unit like the High Mobility type to destruction. Henceforth, they would have great value as a subject of research. A target to be seized. They would hold great value for the fulfillment of the Legion´s—of our—objectives.>> 

And her voice was also full of sinister greed and craving—the desires of a monster who had strayed from the path of humankind. A true killing machine. 

“Lunatic,” someone whispered in a voice thick with contempt. Hearing that word, Shin continued questioning her calmly. 

“To what end?” 

Zelene’s optical sensor swerved toward him. As if drawn by the tone of his voice. 

“Why are you trying to enhance the Legion further? Is it to destroy humankind…? If that’s your reason, why didn’t you kill me back then? Why are you speaking with me right now?” 

There was no enmity in his voice. No hatred. He simply asked that question, with no other emotion behind it. 

“For what purpose did you create the Legion?” 

There was a stark contradiction between Zelene’s words and actions, and Shin assumed it was because she was trying to hide the truth. They had almost forcefully managed to get her to part her tight lips and speak, and they wouldn’t be able to do this again in the future. 

Even if they could repeatedly force her to speak, they wouldn’t be able to trust her. And seeing that she refused to give a straight answer, Shin decided not to give her his complete trust in turn. So he simply asked the more pressing question. The one he most wanted to know the answer to. 

Zelene was silent for a moment. It was as if she was confused, but at the same time, she betrayed a tinge of fear and anxiety. 

<<…Do you…>> 

She was a Legion. And while the Ameise were among the weakest Legion units, they were still killing machines that could mercilessly crush a person under their weight. And even so, she still seemed afraid. 

<<Do you not hate me, Eighty-Six? The Legion has slaughtered your comrades. Made sport of your comrades. Violated your comrades. Butchered your comrades. Does that not inspire hatred within you?>> 

Shin was speechless. She was speaking of his fellow Eighty-Six from the Eighty-Sixth Sector. Yes, to her, they likely seemed to be fragile victims. They all died one after another, as if it was their gruesome, inescapable fate. Cast aside by their country, left without proper command or support, and forced to fight in defective Feldreß. 

All too many of them, more than Shin could count… They died far too quickly, far too easily. And each and every one of them was a precious comrade of his. But… 

“…No.” 

That didn’t mean he hated Zelene—or the Legion. He didn’t. 

Zelene slowly lowered her moonlike optical sensor, as if hanging her head. As if to show her rejection. Her fear… Her regret. 

<<…Terminating responses. All further queries will be rejected.>> 

And from that point forward, the Merciless Queen stopped responding to Shin’s words. 

“Hey, Lena. Shin’s coming over today.” 

Hearing this, Lena looked up from her paperwork. It was morning, and she was in the base preparing for the final stages of the new equipment’s testing. Kurena stood imposingly in front of her, wearing her panzer jacket, both fists poised at her waist. 

“Apparently, he had some kind of argument with Zelene, so he said he’d leave her alone for a while and come help us with the Furieuse testing… Don’t you wanna see him? Lena, all you’ve been doing is hiding from Shin in the hotel. Which is fine by me, to be honest. Gives me more time to spend with him.” 

“…But—” 

Lena met her eyes, and Kurena responded with a challenging glare. 

“Hey. Get ahold of yourself… Ugh, listen. I don’t like that you’re taking him away from me.” 

Kurena advanced on her. Lena was naturally the taller of the two, and this fact was exacerbated by her high heels. But that didn’t matter one bit to Kurena. 

God, this girl is a piece of work. She’s drop-dead gorgeous and doesn’t feel like she belongs on the battlefield at all. She forced herself into our lives and swiped Shin from me in the blink of an eye. I can’t stand her. 

“But I hate the idea of someone other than you stealing him from me. If it’s you, Lena, I…I can accept it. So…” 

He never once looked at me the way he looks at you. He only ever saw me as a comrade, as a little sister. I couldn’t save him, so you have to do that in my place. 

“…pull yourself together already.” 

She kept running from him for fear of being rejected, but when she found out he was nearby, she couldn’t help but seek him out. She wanted to go to him, to cling to him. Realizing this made Lena bite her unpainted lips. 

But I’m from the Republic… I don’t have the right to be by his side. 

Catching sight of the black hair and bloodred eyes she would never mistake, she almost called out for Shin but stopped herself. Thankfully, there was considerable distance between them, and Shin wouldn’t have noticed her unless she yelled for him. 

But then Lena froze in place. 

Standing in front of the massive steel frame of the Armée Furieuse were Shin and an officer with long black hair, wearing the uniform of the Alliance. The two of them were chatting and laughing. They were so close, they were almost touching—a distance that came across as improper for a man and a woman who weren’t lovers. 

The officer chuckled, playfully smacking Shin on the shoulder. One of them had told a joke, apparently. Shin’s back was halfway turned to her, but Lena could still see that he was smiling. A carefree, boyish smile. 

…Shin…has never looked as comfortable with me as he does with her… We’ve never stood so close together… He’s never smiled at me like that… So why does he smile for that…that stranger…? I…I don’t like it… 

At some point, Lena was approached by Guren and Touka from the maintenance crew. Witnessing the same scene as Lena, Guren spoke up. 

“It’s like he’s talking to Alice again… She was a mixed Jet, too, so they look alike.” 

That was an unfamiliar name. 

“Alice?” Lena asked, blinking in confusion. 

“Whoa, Colonel.” Guren took a step back, apparently realizing Lena was there. “What are you doing here?” 

“Who’s Alice?” 

“Oh… Uh. A squad captain from the base I served in, back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. Well, that was years ago, back when Captain Nouzen was a novice who’d just been drafted. When he only around yea high.” 

Guren held up a palm horizontally to his waist, as if to illustrate his height. It seemed too short, even given Shin’s age at the time. 

“So yeah, Captain Aegis looks similar to Captain Alice. It might just be because they both have Jet blood, but they also feel kinda similar—and talk the same way, too. She had long black hair, just like Captain Aegis, and she was beautiful. Thinking back on it, Captain Nouzen was pretty attached to her…” 

“Way to go, genius,” said Touka, driving her elbow into Guren’s ribs. 

She’d probably noticed the color gradually drain from Lena’s face with every word he spoke. Apparently, Touka put a lot of force to the jab, because Guren let out a little groan before falling silent. 

But to Lena, Guren and Touka weren’t even there anymore. 

No… 

A black emotion swirled in Lena’s stomach, but her mind, in contrast, was whited out. Shin’s captain from when he was first drafted probably came across as a very reliable person. He was attached to her, so she must have been a very kind, sweet person. And this lady was similar to her, so maybe Shin saw some of his old captain in her. They were close enough to chat, to joke around, to be casual and relaxed around each other. 

But even so, Lena didn’t want this. Not this. Even if it was the captain he relied on, or someone who looked like that captain, she didn’t want to see Shin look at another woman with an expression he kept from her. 

She didn’t want someone else to snatch him away. And the moment she realized this, she gasped. 

I don’t want someone to snatch him away…? 

She had convinced herself that she didn’t need to be the one to stand at his side. That someday, she would lose her position. And she felt like she didn’t have the right to cling to him and beg not to be left behind. 

So yes, the moment she dreaded was finally upon her. It was time for her to accept reality with dignity and grace. Why, then? Why did this selfish emotion—this desire not to let him slip through her fingers—take root now? 

Watching Lena walk away with the gait of a newborn fawn, Touka glared up at Guren, who stood a head taller than her. 

“I must say, I’m impressed, Guren. I don’t think a single word you told her was something she needed to hear.” 

“Well, sorry…” 

“The colonel isn’t stupid, but even the smartest person can lose their way when it comes to matters of the heart. So knock off the spiteful jokes.” 

“I said I’m sorry… I wasn’t trying to make a joke, y’know.” 

Guren was avoiding eye contact with Touka. He was clearly aware that he’d messed up. The two of them then kept looking at Shin and the Alliance captain as they spoke in front of the Armée Furieuse. Before long, Theo and Raiden joined in, and Shin continued laughing just as he did back then. His expression when he was talking to Captain Aegis and Raiden greatly contrasted the one Lena wore as she walked away. 

“…That little squirt’s already old enough for this, huh?” Guren uttered. 

“I wouldn’t have imagined that awkward kid from seven years ago turning out like this,” Touka agreed. 

He was so sweet and innocent at the time that just looking at him could give you cavities. 

“…I wish Alice could have been here to see this,” Guren muttered. 

“Well, you just told Colonel Milizé that Captain Aegis looks like a lady Shin used to be close to. I can see why she’d feel pressured.” 

“Well, yeah, Nouzen was attached to Alice like she was his big sister or something… But just because they look alike…” 

“…Yeah.” 

Lena was already gone, and the two of them looked in the direction she wobbled off. Honestly, this wasn’t something Lena should have felt even remotely intimidated by. But well… Love has a way of robbing people of sound judgment. 

Lena insisted on going out to check on the new armament despite having no work obligations that day, so when Annette saw her enter the hotel’s lounge with unsteady steps, she was shocked and set down the poetry anthology she’d been reading. 

“Lena, what’s wrong? You’re as pale as a sheet.” 

“Annette…,” said Lena, approaching like a wraith. 

A nearby attendant pulled over a chair, and Lena wilted into it. 

“Shin was speaking to someone from the Alliance… A person named Olivia… He looked like he was…having fun…” 

“Oh… You mean Captain Aegis, the Strike Package’s Armeö Furieuse instructor—not to mention an Alliance ace, a melee-combat specialist, and an Esper who can see the future… I’ve heard it all.” 

Captain Aegis was scheduled to be assigned to the Armored Division, but being an instructor for the new armament meant close involvement with the research teams and, consequently, Annette. The captain also visited the hotel every now and then with packs of candy to give out. 

“I figure they’d have a lot to talk about. Shin’s an ace, a master tactician, and a melee-combat specialist, too, after all… And maybe you haven’t noticed, but Shin isn’t the only person Captain Aegis has been talking to. Raiden, Theo, and even the prince are on that list as well, and they all seem to be getting along quite famously.” 

“Apparently, Olivia looks a lot like Shin’s captain from the first unit he was assigned to back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. Shin’s female captain.” 

“Uh-huh…” 

That was news to Annette, but she felt that bringing up the sex of Shin’s old captain was a little odd. 

“And?” Annette asked, unsure as to what Lena was getting at. 

“What am I going to do…?!” 

“About what?” 

“Shin’s talking to that captain. He’s having fun.” 

“Yes, you said that already.” 

“What am I going to do?!” 

“About what?” 

Lena withered, and she looked like the world was about to end. 

“Olivia’s going to snatch him away from me…!” 

“…Oh.” 

Annette was somehow able to hold back the sigh. She wasn’t sure what Lena would say, but she didn’t think it would be that, of all things… 

Oh, Lena… You don’t even realize how big of a misunderstanding this is… 

But what Lena said next made Annette raise her eyebrows in apprehension. 

“Annette, what do I do? I don’t want her to take him away. I can’t stand seeing them together… But I shouldn’t feel this way. But I don’t want her to steal him!” 

“What do you mean, you ‘shouldn’t feel this way’?” 

“I’m…I’m the reason the Republic still won’t recognize the Eighty-Six’s humanity… I’m the reason they still believe the Eighty-Six belong to the Republic… Me being in the Strike Package is only going to burden Shin, so I don’t have any right to feel that way!” 

“Those bigots can talk all they want. Even without you around, they’d come up with some other asinine reason. The Eighty-Six don’t care about that at all. You’re overthinking this anyway. Burdens? Rights? What the hell, Lena?” 

“Shin would be fine even without me…” 

“But he’d be even better with you. Besides, remember what Shin told you back in the United Kingdom?” 

Annette knew about it since the mission recorder preserved audio. Lena was finally on the verge of tears. 

“…But I’m…I’m from the Republic…” 

Someone had already scolded her for saying this before, and that only made Lena feel worse. Annette knew the guilt Lena was feeling all too well but shrugged it off. 

“That’s right. You’re from the Republic. And? What does that matter? Did Shin say he hated you for it?” 

“…I’m his superior officer.” 

“So what?” 

If their unit was even remotely like a normal military unit, a romantic affair between an officer and her subordinate might have been a sticky situation. But they were an armed squadron of child soldiers who didn’t even undergo official training, and their commanding officer was teenage girl. The Eighty-Sixth Strike Package was anything but “normal.” 

The Eighty-Six never had any sense of a chain of command that distinguished between captains, vice captains, and ordinary members to begin with. They had romantic relationships without regard for any of that, and no one seemed to mind. 

“So…” 

Lena hesitated to finish that sentence, her two hands resting on her lap clenching into fists. Sensing the next sentiment, Annette finally lost her temper and rose to her feet. 

“So what?! Are you going to start looking for excuses to abandon him now? He told you not to leave him behind, and you said you wouldn’t. And now you decide to give up anyway?!” 

Lena was taken aback. It was clear from her pallid expression that her heart had never once given up. 

“That’s not what I meant…!” 

“Maybe you didn’t, but it’s all the same. Stop running around and looking for excuses. If you actually give up on him because of this, then you really will have left him behind!” 

He picked you, so stop being so pathetic. 

That thought burned in Annette’s mind, but she held her tongue. Saying it out loud would have been pathetic in its own right. Still, seeing Lena take Shin away did make her feel like she was the one abandoned. Her own missteps had severed her bond with Shin once before, and the war only drove them further apart… 

But the Shin she grew up with and the Shin she knew now were two different people. They might have been the same person in body and mind, but he had changed too much. Back then, Annette felt something akin to a first love toward her childhood friend, but she didn’t feel that same emotion toward the Shin of today. Still, she couldn’t completely ignore the fact that someone new was occupying the space that used to be hers alone. 

Trace embers flickered in the recesses of her heart. She stared at Lena’s back—at her long silver hair—and couldn’t help but feel that she was the one who belonged at his side. 

“Listen. If you don’t want someone else to snatch him away… If you still feel that way, despite thinking you don’t deserve to be with him… You have to work through your feelings.” 

“I…” Lena opened her lips to speak, then shut them tightly again. 

Some part of her felt she was forbidden from saying the words, but Annette knew. Lena’s truth was written all over her face. But putting it into words would mean admitting it, so Lena couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not yet. 

Annette could sympathize. Taking ownership of those feelings was terrifying. The prospect of rejection was intimidating. To bare your soul, only to be turned away… Lena had every right to be afraid. She had pursued him for so long, had finally gotten close to him. A rejection at this point would be devastating. The mere possibility of it was enough to paralyze her. 

But… 

“Allow me to remind you of something you once told me. If you take your time, the roosters will start to crow. And once they do, any tears you shed will come too late.” 

“She was disappointed with my answer and cut me off. That’s the impression I got.” 

“I agree with that assessment. It was certainly different from her previous provocations. I can only assume those were her true feelings.” 

Poof. Poof. 

The sounds of something whizzing through the air and then impacting the wall filled the room, but it was way too soft and nonsensical to come across as gunfire. Shin and Vika, however, ignored the objects flying across the room and continued their conversation. 

The courtyard in front of the bathhouse had all its sofas moved against the wall by the employees ahead of time, leaving a spacious open area in the middle of the hall, which was now full of aggressive, excited cries of “Go, go!” and “I’ll get you!” 

“Between her message and her attitude, it feels like she’s testing us. Her conditions are destroying the Phönix, and…hating the Legion, I guess? I don’t understand what she wants.” 

“In my opinion, you not hating the Legion wasn’t the problem… Oh.” 

A pair of pillows flying through the air blew away the heavy mood of their conversation. Had the two of them not bent out of the way, the pillows would have hit them square in the face. 

“…Tch, a miss.” 

“Our surprise attack was a dud, huh…? I thought the operations commander and the prince were wide open.” 

Two relatively young members of the Strike Package still stood in a throwing position as they booed in disappointment. They then looked at their silent operations commander and the United Kingdom’s prince before beaming at them. 

“C’mon, you two, play along! …Unless you’re chicken!” 

“Chickens!” 

““…”” 

Shin and Vika looked back at those innocent, reckless boys. Shin was known as the Headless Reaper of the eastern front, while Vika was the infamous Serpent of Shackles and Decay. Both were experienced Processors. 

Excusing this kind of taunt with silence was below them. 

“All right, you asked for it.” 

“Give me your best shot, peasants.” 

And so all hell broke loose. 

“—Wha…?” 

How did Lena feel about Shin? Annette’s question was one Lena didn’t want to think about, but she tortured herself with it anyway. She had to think about it, lest he slip right through her fingers. 

She promised him she wouldn’t leave him behind. That was one promise she could never run away from. Shin silenced his doubts and depended on her, and she couldn’t betray that. 

She’d assumed that nobody would be in the bathhouse at that time of day, which meant there’d be a good chance for some self-reflection. She made her way to the bath, steeling her nerves… 

…only to find herself standing stock-still at the entrance to the courtyard. The reason? She found Shin, Raiden, Theo, and the other Eighty-Six boys collapsed on the marble floor, sunken between small mountains of pillows. 

That wasn’t an exaggeration, either. There were a large number of pillows piled atop one another and strewn across the floor. In addition to the Eighty-Six, Vika, Dustin, and Marcel were also lying motionless on the floor. 

Apparently, they were all fresh out of the bath, since they were dressed lightly and had towels with them. Her eyes traveled across the boys lying in pools of white blood—Er, no, the pillows didn’t look remotely like blood. 

Coming from a house of strict nobles, playtime was at a premium for young Lena, and she had never seen anything like this before. However, it did register as the aftermath of a Far Eastern phenomenon she’d heard about once before: the time-honored tradition of pillow fighting. 

Lerche, who was trying to wake the boys up from the corner of the room, noticed Lena and rose to meet her. Next to her was someone else, who looked at Lena with sapphire-blue eyes. 

“My, if it isn’t Lady Bloody Reina…! Sir Reaper has certainly been caught in a most vulnerable state.” 

“Bloody Reina… Oh, so you’re the famous Strike Package’s commander… My apologies. I am—” The other person attempted to give a self-introduction. 

“—Captain Olivia…!” 

Faced with the one person she wanted to see the least, Lena was only barely able to withstand the urge to take a step back. It would be terribly rude but also quite pathetic. Captain Aegis blinked once, puzzled, but soon regained the composed smile of a mature adult and continued speaking. 

“Yes, Captain Olivia Aegis of the Alliance Military. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Colonel.” 

“Colonel Vladilena Milizé, tactical commander for the Strike Package… Er, there’s no need to stand on ceremony, Captain. You’re not assigned to our unit yet, and you’re older than me. Besides, we’re still in the middle of our scheduled leave, so…” 

Of all the Eighty-Six, only Shin seemed to insist on speaking to Lena formally, which made her dislike it all the more. Yet, while Lena may have been nearly ten years younger than Captain Aegis, she was still a colonel. The captain blinked, taken aback, and then nodded candidly. 

“Very well… Then we can dispense with the formalities. No need to call me Captain.” 

“Yes… Well, um. What happened here, exactly…?” 

Captain Aegis also seemed to be fresh from the bath, gorgeous black locks tied up in the back. The sight of it brushing against the toned neck of a Feldreß Operator struck even Lena as vividly attractive. 

Just then, a startling thought crossed Lena’s mind. 

Olivia didn’t go into the bath with the boys, did she…? 

Lena couldn’t bring herself to voice the question. 

“Well… You see, today’s laundry day.” 

…What? 

It all started when the pillows in the guest rooms were rounded up to be washed. Having spent plenty of time in this luxurious, lakeside hotel and its hot baths, the boys were relaxed but were also starting to show signs of boredom. The hotel’s employees noticed this, of course. 

And so they allowed the boys to do something that they normally wouldn’t have let anyone do with the laundry. The people in charge of the hotel gave their approval, and they let the boys use the courtyard in front of the bathhouse—which had a tall ceiling and no windows—as the arena for this friendly showdown. 

And so the boys’ pillow fight grand melee began, all too suddenly. 

“…And that’s the long and short of it. The hotel staff approved, and the boys knew not to go any further than throwing the pillows. I hope you won’t be too hard on them, Colonel.” 

The pillows were light and had high air resistance, so if they were simply thrown as opposed to being grabbed and waved around, there was little chance of the fabric tearing or the contents of the pillows spilling out. And of course, even a direct hit to the face wouldn’t knock anyone out. 

The boys were lying down like that simply because they’d fallen asleep. The fatigue of the pillow fight compounded with the grogginess that followed them out of the bath, and they were at the point where their body heat was settling down from the steam. Those who grew sleepy left the fray, and before long, all participants in the pillow fight lay defeated. 

Apparently, there were indeed two camps fighting in this contest. Having served as a commander for two years, Lena could tell that much from a glance. Of course, the distinction didn’t make the situation any clearer. 

Realizing the downed boys were in Lena’s way, Captain Aegis went back to waking them up. Each boy was grabbed by the shoulder or the arm and shaken with a casual gesture Lena could never imitate. The moment her hand extended toward Shin, who was lying down at the center of the hall, Lena raised her voice in an uncharacteristic fashion. 

“I-I’ll handle the rest!” 

She was loud enough to wake up a few of the boys sleeping next to her. Captain Aegis paused, visibly surprised, and then gave a relaxed smile. The other boys were one thing, but Lena couldn’t let Captain Aegis act so friendly and unreserved toward Shin. 

Get your hands off him. 

“I’ll wake the rest of them up, so you can head out if you’d like, Captain. Thank you.” 

Lena made a shooing motion, and thankfully, the captain did as suggested. Lena then looked over the chaos of the courtyard. Gingerly stepping between the “corpses,” she carefully approached the sleeping Shin. 

What counted as sleep for Shin was closer to a typical person’s nap, which meant normally he would wake up just by having someone walk near him. As the boys came to, the ones sleeping next to them also stirred, creating a sort of chain reaction. 

Shin, however, was in an unusually deep slumber and wasn’t opening his eyes. Lena sat down next to him and shook him excitedly. 

“Sh-Shin. Wake up. You’ll catch a cold if you sleep here.” 

Some part of her secretly hoped he would stay asleep, though. That way, he’d remain hers. He wouldn’t go anywhere. He’d stay with her. 

Don’t wake up. That way, we can stay together. 

Lena pursed her lips. She’d finally admitted it to herself. She wanted to be with him. Forever, if possible. 

But now Shin was taking steps toward the future, and Lena was afraid he might leave her behind. So many other people loved him, and someday, he might not need her anymore. The shame of what the Republic did weighed on her, and she couldn’t deny that anxiety she felt. 

What if today was the day? The fear of rejection haunted her, and she was on the verge of giving up on her confession. If Shin rejected her, she would lose the will to fight. Her very identity would unravel. 

But even so, she didn’t want to give up. She didn’t want to pretend she didn’t know what her feelings meant, only for someone else to snatch Shin away while she remained complacent. She realized she wanted that least of all. And once she did…she couldn’t lie to herself any longer. 

I don’t want anyone to take him from me. I want him to be mine. So… 

Lena pursed her lips tightly. 

Unable to sleep properly that night, Lena woke up early. She refrained from waking Annette up and quietly snuck out of her room before dawn. Even in the wee hours, there was someone at the hotel’s front desk, and Lena exited the lobby and entered the rose garden, where a carpet of velvety flowers greeted her. 

From there, she went to the courtyard, then down a staircase with a brass-colored railing. At the bottom of the stairs was a vast lake of snowmelt. It was chilly even during the summer, and when there was no wind, it brilliantly reflected the moonlight. 

The ferry that functioned in place of a tram wasn’t working this early. A gentle silence, as if everything had died away, hung between the water’s surface and the starry sky it reflected. 

As Lena stood at the water’s edge, she imagined that the sea might look something like this. But there were no waves since the wind wasn’t blowing. All that moved was starlight—a primordial sea of celestial bodies or perhaps the sea at the end of all things. 

But just as the thought crossed her mind, someone stood at the edge of her field of vision. 

“…Lena?” 

That voice. 

Lena turned around, surprised. 

“Shin…? What are you doing out here at a time like this?” 

“I fell asleep at an odd time yesterday, so I just woke up.” 

Lena took a seat next to Shin on a log bench and then consciously scooted closer to him. She’d somehow stifled her bashful urge to keep her distance. She fumbled for something to say and eventually asked a question that came to mind. She assumed this wouldn’t come across as awkward. 

“Any developments in the Zelene situation?” 

“She hasn’t said anything substantial yet… Honestly, it’s something of a stalemate. She refuses to answer any more of my questions.” 

Shin then paused, as if something had occurred to him. 

“…Actually, yesterday’s pillow fight might have given me an idea about how to move forward with that.” 

“That’s definitely a lie,” Lena jabbed at him, giggling. 

For the first time in a while, she could speak with him naturally. Shin probably told this uncharacteristic joke to break the ice between them. Lena decided to tell a joke of her own. 

“Why not bring Fido along to your meetings with her? Maybe it could communicate better with her somehow. Like, with gestures.” 

“Maybe, but first, he’d need to learn how to stop being so needy,” Shin said with an air of exhaustion. 

Fido threw (what Lena presumed to be) a tantrum when Shin refused to take it on this trip, too. Shin then looked to the ridgelines, where early sunlight was beginning to peek in from beyond the faint mist. 

“…About the Fido my father was researching…” 

The AI, Prototype 008. A mechanical intelligence that was neither Legion nor Sirin. 

“Maybe it’s because they happen to have the same name, but the idea of Fido being the same as that AI got me thinking. Maybe the reason it’s been following me around and obeying me for these past seven years was because it was that Fido all along.” 

According to Vika and Annette, Shin was the one who gave Prototype 008 the name Fido. If that was the case, them sharing the same name wasn’t a coincidence at all. But Shin’s tone wasn’t that of someone stating a theory, but more like that of a child describing what they’d be when they grew up. An insubstantial wish put into words despite the improbability. 

In spite of all the Republic’s faults, the Scavengers’ production plant was still a military facility. There was no way an experimental AI could have found its way there. So Shin could only cling to that wish, describing it as if it was some kind of joke. 

“If we examine Fido’s core, we might actually find that little one,” he said, smiling faintly. “Who knows? Maybe it’ll recognize me, and we’ll talk about how we haven’t seen each other in so long. And if that happens…” 

Shin trailed off, as if hesitating to finish that sentence. The smile left his lips, and his contemplative crimson eyes narrowed momentarily. 

“What is it?” Lena asked. 

“…Nothing. I just thought that if that was to happen, it’d be pretty sad.” 

Lena blinked dubiously. It felt like the direction of what he was trying to say had changed entirely. If he still felt some kind of attachment to that AI, despite not remembering much about it, then the idea that the Fido he knew might have actually been an old friend from his childhood should have been a good one. 

“If Fido is still in there, he’d be completed and sent to fight in place of humans. And that doesn’t sit well with me. Even if the Fido we have now could be improved and retrofitted to combat, I wouldn’t want to make him do that. If something wasn’t made for the express purpose of combat, I don’t want to turn it into an instrument of war.” 

Maybe it wasn’t alive. Maybe it wasn’t human. But that didn’t mean he wanted to send it out to battle in his place. In Lena’s eyes, Fido was the potential key for a true battlefield with zero casualties. But for Shin, it would be sending another comrade—and possibly a childhood friend—to their death on the battlefield. 

“Remember how we left Fido’s remains in the Juggernaut centograph memorial? It was because at the end of the Special Reconnaissance mission, he was destroyed while trying to protect me in battle. I don’t want to see that happen again. I don’t…want to see him die again.” 

Even if he was an awkward, clumsy drone without a shred of human life. 

But it was then that the anxiety once again bubbled up in Lena’s heart, rearing its ugly head. 

Does that apply to me, too? Are you afraid of seeing me die? Or maybe not die, but disappear? Do you still feel that way? 

“Does that apply not just to Fido…? And not just to the Eighty-Six…?” 

His crimson eyes found Lena’s. 

“Is that what’s been bothering you?” he asked. 

Lena stiffened all of a sudden. She froze in place, looking back at him with fear in her eyes. Shin’s lips curled into a clear, sardonic smile. 

“I told you already. If you want to talk, I’m always there to listen… And everyone’s noticed, honestly. Our one and only queen is in a funk.” 

As Lena raised her head in surprise, the first rays of sunlight shone through. The light of daybreak scattered the dark of night and the stars blinking out of the blue sky of dawn. 

And with that sky as his backdrop… 

“As for your question… No, I don’t want any of my allies to die. Nothing would be okay if even a single one disappeared. That’s why I carry them with me. Always. And if possible, I want everyone to be with me until the very end. So if you weren’t around, I… Er. I wouldn’t like it.” 

Those words seeped into Lena’s heart like a gentle rain falling on an arid wasteland. Yes, Shin had said that from the very beginning. Lena was from the Republic, but she was also the Eighty-Six’s queen. She belonged with them. 

Maybe it wasn’t a spot that was reserved for her, but it was still a place she could return to. He said she was allowed to be there. With that same calm, comforting voice that had saved her time and again. 

Aaah. 

I knew it. I really do… 

Shin, on the other hand, felt a tinge of sadness overtake him as he stared at the horizon. Now was, without a doubt, the time to say it. But he still wavered, was overcome with embarrassment, and only managed to blurt out some vague words. 

The thought of Raiden or Theo hearing about this and pestering him was slightly irritating. And the part about him not wanting anyone to die? He would have to take that with him to the grave. 

He’d stumbled over his own words. He’d told her that he didn’t want anyone to die. So she… 

When Annette woke up, she saw that Lena wasn’t in their room. She was exasperated, however, to see Lena join her table during breakfast. That is to say, she didn’t choose Shin’s table. She was still indecisive. 

Or so Annette thought, until Lena spoke up. 

“Annette, I think I’ve finally decided.” 

Seeing Annette’s newly inquisitive expression, Lena fidgeted a little and then continued in a meek whisper. 

“I’m going to…um…tell Shin that I…like him.” 

Annette’s eyes grew wide. She then got to her feet and placed her hands on her friend’s shoulders. 

“That’s great! You finally worked up the courage! Good for you!” 

Lena panicked at Annette’s loud encouragement, but Shin had long since finished his breakfast and gone off somewhere, while everyone else already knew. 

But despite Lena making up her mind, Captain Aegis once again visited the hotel. 

“Now then, children, are you still bored after yesterday?” 

As always, the captain’s voice was as clear as a bell—the voice of someone accustomed to giving orders, who was capable of charming people. 

I wish she hadn’t come, Lena thought, not daring to say that aloud. 

“If so, how about a little underground exploration?” 

“Our holy site, Mount Wyrmnest. And the natural fortress of the United Kingdom, the Dragon Fang Mountain. Both of those names actually stem from the same source.” 

Captain Aegis commentated as they walked through the tunnel, the sound of their military boots echoing against the sleek surface of the cave walls. It was clearly different from a natural cave, but it also clearly wasn’t dug using machinery. It was like walking within the bowels of some massive creature. 

Halfway up Mount Wyrmnest was the entrance to this rock tunnel. Since they were a group of teenagers with more energy to spare than places to expend it, their column soon broke up into groups. Thankfully, the cave was vast enough to accommodate. 

Appending that the prince probably knew of this, Captain Aegis continued the songlike explanation. 

“It was said that the last of the behemoths escaped to what would become the Dragon Corpse mountain range, where the royal house of the unicorns hunted them down. That was why the place was named after the remains of a dragon. The same holds true for Mount Wyrmnest. It was said that the last wyrms made their home in this mountain—hence, Wyrmnest. The wyrm’s nest. Legends say that the remaining wyrms still nest somewhere in these depths.” 

Captain Aegis turned around, heels clicking, and looked up at a tall rock dome and a vast space that were far too large to accommodate a person. The Alliance called this chamber the Hall. No one alive knew for what purpose this place was dug out. 

“Perhaps this vast, underground labyrinth was left behind by those wyrms. Feel free to explore, children. Who knows? You might discover something new.” 

“Not to be a stick-in-the-mud, but there’s no way we’d find anything new here. That story is thousands of years old.” 

“Well, it’s to set the mood for the exploration. I think it’s fun in its own way.” 

With that said, Anju excitedly pulled Dustin by the arm as she went ahead. Dustin was a bit flustered by this, as this was the first time he’d seen her act so assertively. Since they returned from the United Kingdom to the Federacy, he’d taken her out around the Federacy’s cities. Anju wasn’t as familiar with the streets, and he had escorted her as a member of the same unit. 

It wasn’t, well, a date. 

And he got the impression that while Anju didn’t hate him, she didn’t like him, either. So the reason she pulled him away from the column of boys and girls, tugging at him as if to tear him away from the group, couldn’t have been that she wanted to be alone with him. 

He turned around, watching as the row gradually fell apart. Pairs walked off, whispering about the reason for their actions. Raiden, who was escorting Frederica, shot Anju some kind of casual eye signal. That was when Dustin finally realized. 

Raiden, Theo, Shiden, Anju, and the others decided to do this ahead of time, all out of consideration for their sluggish Reaper and Queen. Deciding to play along, Dustin looked around and said casually: 

“Yuuto, if you go that way, there’s a waterfall.” 

“I’ll check it out… Let’s go, Michihi.” 

“All right!” 

As Dustin and Anju were about to go on a branch of the road themselves, Michihi gave a thumbs-up, and Yuuto nodded as they went off. Anju turned around and pumped a fist victoriously, which made him sigh in relief. It went well. 

The two of them broke off from the row and went down a branch in the tunnel, and eventually, they both stopped in place. 

“That was a nice excuse, Dustin.” 

“Glad to hear it… But you know, those two… They were pretty awkward around each other until recently. You think they’ll be all right?” 

“Well, this time, Lena was the one who was acting kind of weird… But I think fussing over every little thing they do is only gonna come off as tactless.” 

Dustin thought he could sense a bit of bitterness to her voice, too. As if to say We’re not that nice, either. 

“I mean, Shin wouldn’t spare poor Kurena a glance even after all this time, so I feel like he needs to earn this. But at times like this, he can be too cautious… Or well, too shy. And then you have Lena getting cold feet…” Anju frowned, as if anxious or frustrated. 

“You really love them, don’t you? Your Reaper and your Queen.” 

“We do. Especially Shin. We’re a bit overprotective of him whenever possible, I think.” 

Although the cave was a tourist attraction, and the visitors’ safety was guaranteed, it still lived up to its name as a labyrinth. There wasn’t anything to light the place up, which made it quite dim, and the path was winding and full of branches. The oddly smooth rock surface had chalcedony mixed into it, which gave it a strange, translucent quality. 

Even though Lena checked the map they were given at every turn, she soon got the feeling that she was gradually getting lost. As they advanced into the tunnels, the Eighty-Six around them were disappearing. Sometimes, it was one of them; another time, it was a pair… And before she knew it, it was just her and Shin. 

“…? Where did everyone go?” Lena cocked her head curiously. 

“They kept branching off, saying they saw something interesting or that they’d race to see who got out first…” Shin shook his head, as if to call this inconsequential. “It feels pretty forced, to be honest.” 

“Apparently, the throne room and the dome are up ahead. You can see the fossil of the behemoth’s skeleton there. We can turn back once we get that far.” 

“Right… We can’t stay here for too long. It feels like we won’t be able to find our way out once it gets dark.” 

There were no lights, and the tunnel felt oddly claustrophobic and scary with its exposed rock walls. Noticing that Lena was trying to hide her anxiety, Shin snuck a glance at her and offered his hand. 

“It’s dark, so watch your step.” 

“Ah… Thank you.” 

Realizing that Shin had seen through her fears, Lena gratefully accepted his hand. He walked ahead, and she followed half a step behind him. This made her realize they both smelled of the same soap. It was the hotel’s original soap, made from uniquely produced oil, and was placed in the bath for all the guests to use. 

The aroma of the soap they used when bathing or when washing up in the mornings was oddly fresh, and she didn’t put on her usual, violet-scented perfume that day. So they both smelled the same. 

They carried each other’s lingering scent. 

And the train of thought kept jumping from one association to another. A lingering scent meant…the morning after. 

Lena felt her face heat up. It was a term she’d only heard of, but the mere mental image of it was too provocative for her. Shin, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice the fact that they shared the same scent, or perhaps he simply didn’t think it was that important, because when she looked up at his face, it was as placid as ever. 

Lena frowned. True, her imagination was running wild on its own and conjuring up all sorts of exciting images, but the fact that she was the only one feeling giddy over this made her feel silly. 

But she was so giddy that she didn’t notice Shin’s own tension over the sound of her heart beating like a drum nor the coldness of his palms. She wanted him to feel the same way she did, and unable to repress those feelings, the words spilled from her lips. 

“Er… I’m sorry about…the way I’ve been acting lately. I made you worry about me.” 

They’d entered the throne room’s dome, which Shin had mentioned earlier. They’d reached their destination before they knew it. The polished rock face was decorated with what appeared to be pleats, which extended up to the dome’s canopy and converged like a spider’s web. It was a grand sight, and just looking up at it made Lena feel like it might pluck her soul away. 

And sunk into the back wall was a massive, sharp, skeletal eye socket, so large that it was hard to believe it truly belonged to a living creature. It gazed into the throne room with a suffocating sort of solemnity, as if lording over them, like a malevolent god in its ancient temple. 

Lena hung her head, as if refusing to meet the bloodred eyes gazing down at her head-on. But without realizing it, she squeezed hard on the hand gripping her. 

“But… It made me happy…knowing you were worried about me. Because…” 

Because… 

He looked down at her with his red eyes. And she realized just how happy being reflected in those crimson depths made her. 

“I…” 

As the two had their exchange… 

“My, could this be…?” 

“This is going better than expected.” 

“What a lovely atmosphere…” 

Anju, Theo, and Frederica looked on from another corridor, whispering to one another. They were hidden behind the rocks of the arched exit, peeking their heads out stealthily. Raiden, Kurena, Shiden, Marcel, Vika, and Annette were in the same spot, divided into camps of boys on the left and girls on the right and looking into what happened under the dome. 

“We gave them all that time, and Lena ends up being the one to say it first? That damn moron.” 

“C’mon, it’s fine, Raiden. You know what they say: All’s well that ends well.” 

“You know what? I don’t like this, after all,” Kurena spat out bitterly. 

“What a coincidence, Kurena. The very same thought crossed my mind not a moment ago.” Frederica nodded gravely. 

“I thought you were adamant about denying your infatuation with Nouzen, Kukumila. Isn’t it about time you come clean?” Vika asked her. 

“Infatu—?! What?! No, I—I don’t feel that way!” 

“Yes, that’s what he meant, Kukumila.” 

“…Your Highness, I, er, think your behavior right now is unbefitting a prince of the lofty United Kingdom.” 

“Kurena, Marcel, Lerche, be quiet. If you don’t, they might hear us.” 

“What?! I merely admonished you, Your Highness! I did not peek, as the others did!” Lerche said in self-defense. 

“Be quiet!” “Shut up, you seven-year-old.” 

“…My shame knows no bounds…” 

Apparently, their conversation the other day had allowed Lena to sort out her concerns. Shin used the darkness as an excuse to hold her hand, resolving to express the feelings he’d kept on hold until she’d gotten over her anxieties. He’d intended to tell her as soon as he took her hand, but an uncharacteristic bout of suspense silenced him. 

After all, they both had the scent of the same soap. 

Perhaps owing to the darkness blocking out his field of vision, his other senses became keener. This made him acutely aware that she smelled of the same soap he had used. And since he didn’t make any footsteps as he walked, he could make out the sound of her silver, silken hair as it brushed against him. The slender palm sitting in his hand felt so much warmer than his today. 

He had decided he would say it when they reached their destination: the domed throne room. He realized he was stalling, but he’d somehow silenced the fear in his mind and steeled his resolve. But before he could do it, she called out to him, he turned to face her, and his mind ground to halt as her eyes locked on his. 

“Because I…” 

Shin stood stock-still as he waited for her next words. Her argent eyes looked up at him, and he realized that seeing himself reflected in them made him happy. 

Suddenly realizing something, Annette spoke up. 

“By the way, Anju, where’s Dustin? I thought he was with you.” 

Those words made Anju bite her lip. He was with her, at least until halfway through the tunnel, but… 

“Dustin, well, er… I was really into exploring the cave, and he might have, er, gotten lost…” 

Anju really did enjoy exploring the cave. She did. So it just…happened… 

The moment the words spilled from her lips, there would be no stopping them, and she strung them together without any fear or resistance. The only thing on her mind was the person before her eyes now. 

“Shin, I…” 

I… 

But just then, the sound of a large stone being stepped on scrambled the atmosphere. 

“Aaaah?!” Lena jolted. 

Even Shin became agitated. Both of them reflexively jerked and tensed up, their eyes turning toward one of the tunnels leading into the throne room. 

“…Is someone there…?” Lena asked shakily. 

Of course, no matter how out of sorts they were, they weren’t going to assume it was a legendary monster said to make its home there. Someone in the shadows was trying to chirp like a cricket or meow like a cat, before eventually appearing from the shadows. It was a tall, silver-haired figure, with hands held in the air for some reason. 

“Sorry. It’s me.” 

Dustin. 

“…” 

Lena and Shin regarded him with silence for one long moment. Shin seldom showed emotions to begin with, but the glare of Lena’s wide emotionless eyes made Dustin flinch outright. 

Put simply, Lena and Shin instinctively froze up, like a pair of deer in headlights, and their mute expressions were terrifying. 

“………D-don’t mind me… Please continue…” 

As Dustin staggered back, multiple sets of hands extended from behind him, grabbing him by the nape of his neck and clothes, and yanked him into the corridor. Without leaving so much as a yelp, Dustin’s tall form was swallowed by the darkness. 

“…” 

Of course, Lena was by no means brash enough to act as if nothing had happened, and Shin wasn’t thickheaded enough to spur her to continue. 

“Um…” 

A heavy silence settled over the two of them, so thick that the only thing Lena could hear was the thunderous beating of her heartbeat in her ears. 

The many hands that had grabbed Dustin pulled him back into a dark, narrow tunnel, where Raiden nearly throttled him. 

“Dustin, you idiot!” 

“The mood was perfect, and you ruined it!” 

“What’s the big idea, you moron?! Why’d you have to show up right at that moment?!” 

“And how could you tell them that, Jaeger?! ‘Don’t mind me… Please continue…’?! Are you dense?!” 

Everyone was understandably infuriated with Dustin for barging onto the scene right before the ultimate payoff. Even Vika, who was often far more eloquent than most, lost his temper. 

Dustin looked around, searching for an ally, but when he saw Anju regard him with a murderous smile… 

…Well…I guess I’m dead. 

…That was the only conclusion he could come to. She was absolutely livid. 

“………Sorry.” 

Despite the rude interruption, Lena’s heart was still beating out of her chest, so some part of her was toying with the idea of simply saying it anyway. Suppressing the bashfulness that would surely overtake her if she was the least bit careless, she steeled her heart. 

“Hmm!” 

Her voice came out louder than she had intended. So much so that it surprised her, and that surprise made her newfound determination crumble away. The words she wanted to say rose up into her throat but refused to go any further. Lena simply opened and closed her mouth fearfully for a few moments before she finally said something else. 

“The, um, Alliance’s captain, Olivia. I see you two talk, well, a lot…” 

Some calm part in her mind whispered in denial. That made her sound like she was jealous. It was shameful, embarrassing… 

No. 

It wasn’t because it was shameful or that it looked like she was jealous. It was because she really was jealous. 

She was jealous of Olivia—and not just her. She was really jealous of so many other people. She was jealous of Anju, Kurena, and the other girls, who, unlike her, were comrades he could rely on when they were out on the front lines. She was jealous of Frederica, whom he treated like a little sister. Of Annette, who was his childhood friend. Of Grethe, who was his trustworthy superior officer. 

She was jealous of Raiden and Theo, who were his closest friends. Oddly enough, she was even jealous of Vika and Marcel, who could speak to him so freely, and Fido, who wasn’t even human. 

She wanted him to rely on her. To be the first person he turned to when he needed someone to speak to. She didn’t want him to look at other people… At other women. 

“Is, um… Is Olivia your type?” 

And what if he said yes? Just imagining it tore at her heart. She was terrified of the answer. And so Lena looked up at Shin fearfully. But in response… 

“What?” 

…Shin simply looked back at her, astonished. It was as if she’d asked him Which of these sweets is your favorite? and then opened a toolbox instead of candy. He couldn’t understand the meaning behind her question on the most fundamental level. 

Lena expected a simple yes or no and had hoped to hear the latter. But what she didn’t expect was his complete and utter confusion. 

“Wh-what do you—? Er…,” Shin mumbled, clearly frazzled. “I mean, I’m aware that many people have those preferences. I knew some people back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector who were—But I’m not… Um… What made you think I am?” 

“Huh…?” 

It suddenly felt like they were having two completely different conversations—as if there was a fork in the road at a critical juncture, and they had traveled down separate paths. And while they both understood that much, they didn’t quite realize who went off track—and where. 

Shin was the first to put two and two together, though. 

“Lena, I think you may have gotten the wrong impression somewhere along the way.” 

“A-about what?” 

“Captain Olivier is engaged. And, um, he’s a man.” 

“I thought something was off about the way you were looking at me, but I didn’t think you’d misunderstand that, of all things.” 

When he heard what had happened, Olivier didn’t get mad, but he chuckled instead. Lena still couldn’t look him in the eye, though. 

The other Eighty-Six returned to the cave’s entrance hall, where they found Olivier reading a book to pass the time. This exchange happened after that. And now when she really put more thought into it, she realized Olivier did look a bit masculine…so long as one didn’t assume he was a woman right off the bat. 

His face was quite androgynous, yes, but his voice was too deep to come across as immediately feminine. His bone structure and musculature seemed masculine as well. And now that her preconceived notions had been shattered, she realized he didn’t have any visible breasts, either. 

“I’m sorry… It’s just that, er, your hair is so long and luxurious, and your perfume smells so nice, so I just assumed…” 

“Right.” Olivier smirked as he ran his fingers through his luscious locks. 

As he did, the scent of roses—the symbols of June—tickled Lena’s nostrils. 

“This perfume was my fiancée’s favorite, so I decided I’d take after her and use it. Operators aren’t allowed to wear rings, so I figured I’d put this on instead. And this hair is my oath to her… You can laugh over how stubborn I’m being.” 

All Feldreß Operators across all countries were forbidden from wearing any manner of rings—wedding and engagement rings included—since they could get in the way of piloting and ultimately lead to injury. 

Still, the idea of donning matching perfumes was one Lena had never considered. But it did strike her as charming, and for a moment, she thought he must truly love his fiancée…before the realization dawned on her. 

It was his fiancée’s favorite perfume. Past tense. He refused to cut his hair as an oath to her. The way he smiled when he called himself stubborn. 

“Captain Olivier, um… Your fiancée…” 

“It was three years ago… The Legion took her away.” 

Lena averted her eyes. The shame suffocated her. She had been so jealous of Olivier’s exchanges with Shin, but… 

“Did you talk to Shin so often because…?” 

Olivier cracked a thin smile. As if an old wound had just been torn open. A ghastly, obsessive smile. 

“Is she still out there? If so, where? I wanted to see if he could find her for me. But I believed asking him during our first meeting would be rude, so I talked to him often and tried to establish a rapport.” 

Lena realized something. It was not his Esper ability that made him so strong, but rather, this obsession. The hair he refused to cut. His beloved’s perfume. A feminine Personal Name: Anna Maria, which likely was not actually inspired by the tale of the warrior princess. 

Shin looked away. The reason he opened his heart to Olivier so easily was because he was once just as obsessed over his brother. 

“If she has been assimilated by the Legion, then it has to be me who puts her to rest.” 

<<Shinei Nouzen. It has already been stated that all further queries would be rejected.>> 

“I heard what you said… But that doesn’t mean I was satisfied with that.” 

Shin stood before the final unresolved question. Zelene’s golden optical sensor gazed at him through the glass of the confinement room’s window. And it was there, Shin thought, that her final craving rested. The optical sensor was artificial and should not have harbored any emotion…but there was a light to it. 

He’d finally realized that, from the very beginning, she was waiting for something—waiting for someone. Ever since she left the message Come find me, not knowing when her words might reach someone or whom they might find. 

“Once before, I asked you why you created the Legion. And I still want to hear the answer to that.” 

But even as he posed the question, Shin believed he already knew the answer. And if he was right, all her silences, the way she seemed to probe and test him, her strange sense of caution…would make sense. 

Had Fido—the AI his father developed—been completed, the Republic may truly have achieved a battlefield of zero casualties. But Shin didn’t like that idea. Even if they did find Fido now and use it to fight the Legion in place of the Federacy’s, Republic’s, and United Kingdom’s soldiers, Shin wasn’t happy about that idea. 

But someone who didn’t know Fido, who wasn’t attached to it, might make a different choice. Had his father, who developed the AI for the sake of befriending people, been forced to pick between mass-producing Fido and sending it out to the battlefield or sending people out to fight, perhaps he would have chosen the former, too. 

And the same held true for Zelene. Or at least, it held true for her when she was still alive and developed the Legion. 

I…wanted you to come back to me. 

Even now, he could hear her final words. The person she called to in her final moments. The brother she lost to friendly fire. The sibling she wished to see returned to her, even as she drew her last breath. 

“You created the Legion to fight in our place…so that war would never again claim a human life.” 

The golden lunar optical sensor focused on Shin intently. The Legion didn’t fear destruction. They didn’t fear death. They were unflinching, obedient machines, bred for war—created to fight in place of soldiers who would otherwise die by the thousands. 

She didn’t create them to kill people. They were never meant to be harbingers of death. 

“And you don’t want anyone to die, even now. That’s why you won’t carelessly relinquish the information you possess. You don’t want another country to try to develop technology comparable to the Legion and use it invade other nations.” 

When he was young, Vika’s one wish was to bring his mother back to life. Shin’s father, though he could hardly remember what he looked like, attempted to develop artificial intelligence that would live alongside humankind. And Zelene, who had befriended them both, likely felt the same way. All she ever wanted… 

“From the very beginning, you were trying to protect people, weren’t you?” 

She didn’t want to see anyone die… Just like Shin. For a long moment, Zelene remained silent. And then… 

<<Query.>> 

Her voice cracked. It was as if she’d attempted to fill it with scorn but failed miserably. 

<<Let us assume you are correct. What will you do then? Forgive us? Will you forgive the Legion, Eighty-Six? After we have slain so many of your fragile comrades? We, who have robbed you of your homeland, your family, and your friends? It could have been us who turned your loved ones against you.>> 

For a moment, Shin was at a loss for words. An emotion bubbled up within him. It had been seven years since he learned that his brother was made into a mechanical ghost—and two years since he’d defeated him. But even now, he didn’t know what to call this emotion. 

“…Yes. That…might be true.” 

He didn’t quite spit out the words. They simply left his lips. He didn’t want to fight him. But he was a Legion. He had been turned into a Legion unit, and if Shin didn’t destroy the mechanical monstrosity that served as his prison, his brother’s soul would likely weep and howl until the end of time. 

This was why Shin couldn’t leave him behind. He had to fight him. 

And the underlying cause was, without a doubt, the restrained Ameise in front of him. It wasn’t a question of possibility. This woman was the one who turned his brother against him. 

<<Resubmitting query. Why do you not harbor enmity toward us? Why do you not harbor hatred? Why do you not resent us? Why do you…insist on forgiving me?>> 

Shin narrowed his eyes. Forgive her? 

“I’m not forgiving you… I never resented you in the first place, and I don’t want to resent you. Doing that would achieve nothing.” 

If one was to ask if he was a broken, maddened man, perhaps he would say that he was. He had lost his family and been denied a homeland, but he didn’t hate the one who took them from him. No normal person could feel this way. 

But even still, he didn’t hate her… He didn’t want to hate her and couldn’t bring himself to. Because he knew. Hating the Alba, resenting the world, loathing the Legion… None of it would bring back what he lost. Hating someone wouldn’t make the Alba, the world, nor the Legion suddenly care about the pain and suffering he’d endured. 

So he didn’t feel any hatred or resentment. Because he knew. He knew those feelings were pointless. Wallowing in them wouldn’t result in anything of substance. 

And besides… 

“Hatred… Resentment… If I chose to hold on to those feelings, I would be no better than the ones who made me what I am.” 

That was his—the Eighty-Six’s—pride. It was the only thing they had to their names since they couldn’t even afford to embrace their negative emotions. At the edge of his field of vision, he could see Lena watching over him, her hands clasped before her chest reverently. 

And it was then that he realized, ever so slightly, the meaning behind her wish. The world and its people aren’t necessarily kind. The world can be cold and cruel. But in that moment, Shin thought that the nightmare he had lived through might not be an accurate reflection of humankind’s true nature. 

He didn’t want to believe that it was. 

He knew all too well just how vulgar people could be, more than he could have ever hoped to know. And the examples of truly admirable human nobility were too few and far between. But if he had to choose between one or the other to be the true nature of humanity, he much preferred to pick nobility. 

And it was because of that wish that Lena posited that the world ought to be a beautiful place. She knew how ugly the world was but refused to acknowledge this ugliness as the natural order. She refused to give up on the world—not as a simple idea she pursued but as a declaration of her pride. 

The worlds they knew may have been different altogether. Perhaps they couldn’t believe in people or in the world the same way just yet. But their desire to never give up—to never grow complacent—was likely one and the same. 

And so this was another thing they couldn’t relinquish. 

“And you’re not looking to be forgiven, either… You just can’t accept the world as it is right now. You couldn’t accept it, and you wanted to change it.” 

She couldn’t accept a world where people had to throw their lives away on the battlefield. Nor could she accept a world in which the Legion she created were the leading contributors to unparalleled bloodshed. 

“You don’t want people to die. You didn’t want that when you were alive, and you don’t want it now. And since that was your earnest wish, you want to stop the war—to stop the Legion. Am I right?” 

A long, heavy silence descended upon the room. But eventually, Zelene, the Merciless Queen, gave her answer. 

<<Yes.>> 

Her voice felt like a long, lamenting sigh. For the first time, her voice struck Shin as truly human. 

<<Yes, you´re right. By now, this all feels like nothing more than a series of terrible mistakes, but… All I wanted was to save people.>> 

Her words of penitence echoed heavily within the partitioned, closed space. The confinement room and observation rooms were demarcated by a borderline of reinforced acrylic plates. And they stood on both sides of this confessional, like a sinner and a priest, as if she was begging for forgiveness. 

And then she said them. The words the Federacy, United Kingdom, and Alliance soldiers had all been waiting to hear. 

<<Very well… I will answer your questions. I will tell you all that I know, as well as the information I sought to relay… But only under one condition. Shinei Nouzen. And Viktor Idinarohk. I will speak only to you two. Everyone else must leave. All recordings—all methods of observation and communication must end. Turn everything off.>> 

Given the importance of the information Zelene offered, her request was far too simple. But upon hearing what she had to say, Vika could only sigh. A long sigh, uncharacteristic of this cold-blooded serpent who rarely betrayed any sign of emotion, if at all. As if what he was feeling was too much to bear. 

“I can’t believe it…” 

He temporarily cut off the microphone to the confinement room and shook his head. Abiding by her demands, everyone but Shin and Vika left the observation room. 

“There really is a way to shut down all the Legion. But…” 

Yes. The Merciless Queen, Zelene, revealed to them the shutdown code for all Legion units deployed across the continent—and the triggering procedure for this code. And yet… Vika shook his head in frustration. 

“Triggering it wouldn’t do anything… Worse yet, if we reveal this to the public, human society could fall apart from the inside.” 

There was only one position from which the shutdown code could be transmitted… An Imperial fortress that was currently nestled deep within Legion territory. 

That wasn’t a critical problem. Even if it was seized by the Legion, they could still retake it. The Strike Package was made explicitly for such purposes, and it would put a definitive end to the Legion War. They could draw forces from other fronts for a concentrated strike. 

The problem lay with the one who would transmit the shutdown code. The only one who could do so was a person with command rights over all the Legion. And to register someone as having that right, they would need to be recognized as being descended from the Giadian Imperial bloodline. 

Specifically, it would require a genetic match. Only those of royal blood could be acknowledged as commanding authorities over the Legion…and six years ago, the Federacy’s military wiped that bloodline out, leaving not a single member of that family alive. The blood of the Imperial family that ruled over the Empire that died ten years ago. The blue blood of the emperor no longer ran through any living human’s veins. 

“If someone could be registered as having the authority to control the Legion, they could very likely control the Legion to do their bidding… This shutdown method is a farce. The Federacy killing the Empire means we’ve lost the means of stopping the Legion, forever.” 

Even Vika felt that this was truly a terrible turn of events. His expression was clearly bitter, and he heaved a sigh as he turned a pensive look on Shin. 

“We’ll disclose the rest of the information Zelene gave us to the three countries’ intelligence bureaus, but we’ll exclude this. Their latest scheme of operations and the location of their production facilities should be enough to tide them over… Agreed, Nouzen?” 

“Agreed.” Shin nodded curtly, steeling his expression and tone. 

He knew his emotions rarely showed on his face. His feelings were somewhat deadened ever since that day ten years ago, when his brother nearly killed him. But in this very moment, Shin was grateful for that. Because he couldn’t afford to let even Vika know the truth. 

The Legion could be stopped. 

It could even be done right now if they were to seize control of the transmission point. 

Shin wished he could clear away all the people around them, as there was no telling what anyone might do. Because Vika didn’t know. Neither did Lena, Annette, nor the other Eighty-Six with the exception of Raiden, Theo, Anju, and Kurena. 

But at least some of the western front’s officers knew. Those who took custody of her and spared her life alongside Ernst. They knew she had survived. How would they react once the information got out? Shin couldn’t predict that… Just as he couldn’t predict what would become of her once all was said and done. 

Frederica. 

The Giadian Empire’s final empress, Augusta Frederica Adel-Adler.