86 - Volume 9 - Chapter 2.5

INTERLUDE

WHERE WAS THE BLUE BIRD ALL ALONG?

“So you’ll be going back to the Federacy tomorrow, eh, kid?”

The heavily injured who had remained hospitalized in the Fleet Countries were being gradually transferred to hospitals in the Federacy. Theo was to be the last transfer. He was scheduled to be moved the following day. His stay in this northern seaside town felt like it had been quite long and, at the same time, like it had passed by in the blink of an eye.

“Yeah… Hmm. Thank you for looking after me for so long…,” Theo said with a light bow.

Ishmael frowned and waved his hand dismissively.

“Cut that out. We’re the ones who ought to be thanking you.”

“But, Captain…”

“I ain’t got a ship to captain anymore, kid.”

“…But you’re a naval captain. I know you’re busy, but you always visit me.”

Ishmael would come carrying roses, which were red to an almost exaggerated degree, and he took advantage of the fact that the hospitalized had nowhere to run to bring local delicacies that the Fleet Countries’ people used to tease tourists.

The first time, he arrived wearing a large sheet, pretending to be a ghost. It was a prank hackneyed enough to get Theo to shout and throw things at him. It was annoying and loud… And Theo was honestly grateful for it. He’d have been so much more depressed had he been left alone. It’d give unwanted thoughts time to run rampant through his mind.

Maybe he’d have been better off if he’d listened to Ishmael and reflected on his words to begin with. On the idea of staying in this world, even after losing the pride you held on to so dearly.

Unable to find the right words, Theo muttered quietly.

“…Can I be honest?”

This was a confession he couldn’t make to any of his friends, not even Shin. He knew it’d make him a burden, and he didn’t want that. Saying the words would be little more than complaining at this point. It would be whining, and he didn’t want his friends to deal with that. But this man…might hear him out.

“I don’t…want to stop being a Processor.”

As Theo spoke, something wet streaked down his cheeks and dripped onto the floor.

“I never wanted war, but I do want to fight alongside them until I have no fight left. I wanted to go with them to the next operation… I hate this. I hate that it has to end like this, with everything still up in the air.”

“…Yeah.” Ishmael nodded deeply.

His emerald eyes were as deep and fathomless as the southern seas. Theo couldn’t remember his father, but his eyes were probably the same color.

“That must be what it feels like. I won’t say I understand how you feel, of course. It’s just not that simple.”

“You do understand. I mean, the Stella Maris—”

“Right. That was her final voyage.”

The damages inflicted on it by the Noctiluca didn’t render that massive ship completely incapable of self-propulsion, but the Fleet Countries lacked the strength to repair it. Just as the Strike Package had been told during the operation, they couldn’t rebuild the Orphan Fleet anymore. They were putting what materials they did have aside for the sake of potentially rebuilding the fleet after the war. But how long could they keep saying that? Even if the war ended, it could take them centuries to restore the fleet to its former glory.

The supercarrier, the anti-leviathan ships, the long-distance cruisers… Their construction wasn’t done by the Fleet Countries’ initiative. It was through the help of the Giadian Empire.

And ship-building techniques were of no use in the Legion War. Neither Theo nor Ishmael could tell how much of that knowledge would be passed down to future generations. It could very well be left uninherited, or perhaps, the Federacy wouldn’t be willing to assist with the rebuilding efforts. The fleet might never be rebuilt at all.

“I stopped being part of the Open Sea clans. That’s how things have been for all those years we’ve been hunting down those pieces of scrap.”

But he still had to live on. To cling to life, so as to not bring shame to those who’d died.

Ishmael did it. And so would Theo. And to that end…

“I hope I find something, too,” Theo said. “Something new to hold on to.”

“You will. And you don’t need to rush. It took me years of searching and wandering. That’s why…when you’re lost, when you have no idea where to go, I’ll be there to hear you out, kid. We’re related, after all. Even if that connection is a thousand years old.”

He’d told Theo much the same thing before the Mirage Spire operation. But this time, Theo smiled sarcastically. He no longer felt the blind, reckless sense of refusal and denial that had been hanging over him at the time.

Frederica once said that people were made up of the blood that ran through their veins, the lands they called home, and the bonds they forged. Those words had truth to them, but at the same time, they were also wrong. People, and indeed the Eighty-Six, couldn’t hold on to their identities alone. They needed a place to return to. People to live beside. Everyone did.

But back then, and even now—they weren’t alone. They had comrades. Theo had Shin, Raiden, Anju, and Kurena. Those comrades were his place to return to, the “bonds” that gave him shape. They defined one another, supported one another.

And even now, when he could no longer fight, he still wanted to believe that he could return to them if he wished it. And that was why he got through each day without losing track of who he was.

Because his comrades allowed him to put his faith in them.

And it was at this point that he realized that Grethe and Ernst—that the Federacy had sought them out, too.

Bonds of blood. Bonds of the land. The things they’d lost.

They could be reclaimed.

Those weren’t things he’d had since birth, like his family or his homeland. Those were things he’d gained at the end of his road. Even if he were to lose them, he could find new things to hold on to and new places to be. He could find someone to lean on during the hardest times. Like this thousand-year relative of his.

“…Thanks, Uncle,” Theo said.

Ishmael furrowed his brow unpleasantly.

“At least call me a big brother. Go on, try saying it.”

Theo smiled. Like a nephew might smile at a distant uncle who was only slightly older than he was.

“Nah.”