CHAPTER 9

VENI, VENI, EMMANUEL

The azure spectacle before him was the product of countless blue butterflies. They spread their metallic wings, the color of lapis lazuli, as they blanketed the fields as far as the eye could see. They were similar to the Eintagsfliege, and just like the Admiral, which they served under, the wings of these Legion units served as solar panels. The Generator Extension type: Edelfalter.

The kaleidoscope of mechanical butterflies looked like fragments of the sky had frozen and flaked away. They kept their forms folded under the darkness of early dawn but suddenly spread their wings out all at once and flew away as if fleeing from the white metallic spider creeping into their territory. Countless gun barrels were planted into the ground like headstones, perhaps the remains of past battles. The shards of lapis lazuli fluttered through the air like flower petals.

On the other side of this field, on top of an eight-track railway, a Legion unit stood like an evil dragon of legend, boasting an incredibly long, menacing body and carrying a gun barrel exceeding thirty meters on its back. Being the greatest weapon employed in the final war against humankind, this railway artillery could be described only as majestic.

Its black armor modules were like a dragon’s scales, and the rails that comprised its barrels were like two spears, turning their backs on the sky. There was a blue optical sensor where one would expect its head to be, glowing ominously like a will-o’-the-wisp. Its six close-range armaments—its 40 mm six-barreled revolving autocannon—wavered in a heat haze generated by its previous shots.

Dwarfing even the Dinosauria, the largest of the mass-produced Legion, with an overall height of 110 meters and a total length of over 40 meters, the massive butterfly towered high into the morning sky. Its wings that seemed to be woven of silver threads—probably the components in charge of cooling it down—sprinkled what looked like stardust into the heavens.

This was the Morpho.

The moment Undertaker leaped over the hill, its optical sensor and Vulcan cannon fixed onto it immediately. It had probably lain in wait even after losing Undertaker’s signal, and its movements were efficient and swift.

But it wasn’t enough.

Undertaker jumped again and stopped suddenly as it landed. Its actuator, which was designed to be sturdy in anticipation of high-maneuver combat, creaked in effort. The Vulcan cannon, which deployed in the direction it should have moved in order to lock its sights on it, couldn’t respond to this sudden action in time.

At the very moment it felt like their gazes intersected, Shin had already locked Undertaker’s sights on it and pulled the trigger of his 88 mm cannon.

Those movements…!

From the other side of the blue glow emitted by the Edelfalter, Kiriya was faced with the sight of the enemy unit maneuvering with the keen agility of a predator on the hunt. He was left astonished. The enemy made a low, diagonal jump to the back, performing a somersault in midair and landing while changing his bearing, then executing a sudden brake as he landed, to boot.

Even Kiriya, who’d piloted his family’s exclusive Feldreß as a descendant to a line of warriors during his lifetime, found it hard to believe there was a human pilot behind those death-defying maneuvers. And in spite of it all, the sights of its 88 mm cannon remained fixed on him the entire time.

The deformed Feldreß moved like lightning, like a white nightmare, like a skeletal corpse prowling in search of its lost head. Below its canopy was the personal mark of a headless skeleton carrying a shovel.

Ah.

Maddened ecstasy mingled with his ice-cold thoughts, and alongside them was a hint of relief.

You made it. You truly were worthy of appearing before me. I expected nothing less.

Kiriya could feel him pulling the trigger. They were separated by two layers of armor and a relative distance of three thousand meters, but Kiriya could sense it vividly.

Anything less than this wouldn’t be interesting.

“…Still too shallow,” Shin whispered, staring at the black smoke issuing from one of the Morpho’s armor modules. The shot hadn’t fully penetrated it. And there was too much black smoke resulting from that impact.

Explosive reactive armor. It was a unique type of armor that reacted to an anti-tank warhead’s explosion by setting off explosives on the armor’s surface. It used the blast to disperse the metal jet generated by the warhead and therefore prevent penetration.

The Legion treasured the Morpho. They ignored orthodox theory, which dictated that heavy artillery normally only had armor thick enough to repel shell fragments, and granted it heavy armor on the off chance it would be exposed to a crippling attack.

Anti-tank warheads were no good, then. Which meant high-speed armor-piercing shells wouldn’t be effective at their usual range, either.

And yet…this was no different from when he had to face off against Löwe or Dinosauria in that walking aluminum coffin.

The enemy’s gaze and malice bore into him. It turned its massive body—which was too heavy to move off the rails—in his direction while its six autocannons rotated toward him as if they had a will of their own.

It was going to shoot. He maneuvered his unit left with movements so reflexive they didn’t travel through his mind as thoughts. A muzzle flash followed immediately after, and machine-gun bullets flicked off the ground to Undertaker’s right. Sparing it a fleeting look as he repeated the procedure, he dodged a second volley and then jumped away as a third one came hot on his tracks.

The six-barreled Vulcan cannon revolved as it fired. While it was capable of unloading a heavy barrage, this rapidly depleted its bullets and caused it to overheat easily. In other words, it couldn’t maintain this rate of fire for long. Undertaker advanced through the momentary lulls in its barrage in a mixture of small, intermittent leaps and emergency brakes that was astounding to behold.

Shin’s calm crimson eyes never wavered even as the heavy roars of the cannons echoed down to his core and the whistling of shells cutting through the wind tore into his eardrums. They simply reflected the faint light of his holo-screen: that steady, artificial glow.

The Republic cast the Eighty-Six out onto the battlefield, and the experience they gained there molded them into readily adaptable, hyper-efficient, battle-hardened warriors—albeit with the occasional quirk. So in the midst of combat, any notion of humanity within these children was dampened. Ironically enough, this made them every bit the emotionless combat machines that the Legion were. Fearing their foes simply wasn’t an option. And this was especially true for Shin, who specialized in hand-to-hand combat as a vanguard.

In order to slip through the blades of his foes and evade their barrage of bullets, Shin required an extreme level of concentration, which made him lose all grip on his humanity. He suppressed all his conflicts, his anguish, his pain and regrets, along with all other unnecessary thoughts, and buried them at the bottom of his mind, leaving them to fade into oblivion. It was easier that way, so whispered a voice from some corner of his hardened heart. That way, he wouldn’t have to think of anything pointless in the middle of battle.

He could forget everything and anything.

It was so terribly…easy.

Some part of him realized the reason behind the madness of this knight standing before him, whose face he’d never known—this ghost, driven crazy by war and slaughter.

How easy would it be…to become like that?

Another lull in the barrage, and Shin changed his line of fire. The Morpho momentarily paused its fire to cool down its machine guns, and Shin shifted his gaze to its left-rear autocannon. The Juggernaut’s system automatically traced his gaze’s movements and locked onto its target, and he squeezed the trigger just as the reticle inverted into red. No matter how solid the Morpho’s armor was, its autocannons couldn’t have been fortified.

Hit with an anti-tank warhead to their mechanical section, the Vulcan cannons dispersed. As black flames billowed forth, lightning streaked through the pale sky. The flock of Edelfalter took off, as if startled away, while Undertaker rushed through the blue flocks and the flames it created.

Remaining distance: two thousand meters. The enemy was within range of his main armament, his 88 mm cannon. At this distance, the battle was in no way different from fighting a Löwe or a Dinosauria. The fact that there was no time to escape once they’d been locked onto held just as true for Undertaker’s 1,600-meters-per-second cannon as it did for the Morpho’s 8,000-meters-per-second railgun.

And once he’d gotten this close, the Vulcan’s fire couldn’t spread out. The Morpho lacked the destructive mobility the Löwe had, and the absurd size of the turret it prided itself on made it that much easier of a target.

Evading the persistent side-sweeping barrage, Shin closed in on it from the left. The Morpho had three cannons on each side, but if approached from one side, its own massive frame prevented it from shooting at the opposite side. With half of its autocannons sealed, it had to increase the rotation cycle to maintain the same rate of fire. One eventually stopped, apparently having run out of bullets, and another overheated, having not received sufficient time to cool down, and burst in a puff of black smoke.

Relative distance: one thousand meters.

Even with the witch’s blood running through his veins, he truly was worthy of being called an heir to the Nouzen name—the last of their line. Watching the white Feldreß take advantage of those momentary lulls that could hardly be called pauses to slip through a near ceaseless barrage of quite literally hundreds of shots per second, Kiriya couldn’t hold back his admiration.

The coolheadedness to dance upon the razor’s edge that separated life from death. And the slyness to seal and shave away Kiriya’s own weapons. And there wasn’t a hint, not even a sliver of fear clouding any of those actions. If he’d been in the Empire—together with him by his mistress’s side—his homeland may have remained as brilliant as it had been in the days of their forefathers.

The strategic decision to capture and utilize this performance by placing it in a commander unit crept into his mind, but Kiriya scoffed at the idea. Capturing a target alive was much harder than burying it and was that much harder when the opponent was as menacing as this.

The relative distance between them was 1,012 meters. He was moving even closer. His judgment was correct; his 88 mm cannon, smaller than the standardized 120 mm caliber, was incapable of penetrating his armor even at this distance. And yet, the reckless way he approached him… It was almost as if he was rushing to his death. It wasn’t brave; it was foolhardy.

Sitting inside Fido’s container, hidden behind a large hill, Frederica watched over the battle with her special ability. When she was in the Empire’s fortress, she saw the Imperial guard’s battles many times, and aside from Kiriya, there were several others among them from the Nouzen clan. But even compared to them all, Shin was exceptional.

The latent prowess passed down through his bloodline and the talent he was born with. Five years struggling against death polished those skills to make him into one of the most skilled warriors in his clan’s history, if not the strongest of them all. Had Kiriya still been alive, even with the four-year gap between them, Shin would have probably still been better.

But Kiriya was not human anymore. He was a weapon, equipped with a powerful 4,000 mm barrel, armor much thicker than the Juggernaut’s, and Vulcan cannons. And for Undertaker, who specialized in close-quarters combat, he was the worst possible opponent.

Undertaker closed their distance, almost literally slipping through the endless curtain of bullets. A single error in judgment, even one maneuver incorrectly executed, would decide the result of this duel. Just watching it made her heart ache with concern.

“…Pi.”

The container rattled as Fido wobbled nervously. Perhaps the faithful Scavenger wished to rush out and help its master in his clash with the giant metallic dragon. Perhaps to expose itself to the enemy’s fire in his stead or to serve as a diversion to create an opening for attack. The only thing stopping Fido from doing that was that it had Frederica to keep safe. Because its one and only master had ordered it to bring her back to the Federacy at all costs.

“…Forgive me.”

“Pi.”

She couldn’t help but smile at how its reaction resembled that of an obedient hound, and then she refocused her “eyes.” She had to see this through, if nothing else.

And then she realized.

The knights of the Nouzen clans piloted special Feldreß, different from the Vánagandrs, and even tuned them up to suit their individual specifications. Meanwhile, the high-speed, lightly armored Reginleif was an outlier Feldreß in the Empire’s and Federacy’s development history, which focused on heavily armored units—high-firepower units.

That held equally true for the unique model piloted by Kiriya. It had thick composite armor, a heavy 120 mm tank turret, and a massive frame and propulsion system to support them. Kiriya’s fighting style was based on employing this heavyweight frame with its high-output power packs to trample his opponents.

And she recalled what the boy who’d died the day she’d met him, Shin’s comrade, had told her.

Do you know about Shin’s legendary zero-point failure?

He tried to get a Vánagandr to jump in a mock battle during combat-maneuvers practice. Got himself disqualified immediately for risky piloting.

But despite it being such an amazing feat of piloting capability, Frederica wasn’t surprised to hear of it. Because she already knew someone capable of it…

She leaned forward inadvertently, trying to focus on Kiriya’s figure reflected in her mind’s eye. Thick armor, capable of blocking the penetration of an 88 mm cannon. A massive 800 mm caliber cannon. An elongated frame capable of supporting them, reminiscent of the form of a dragon. A massive form that required an eight-track railway—four times the number of tracks required for a normal train to move—to withstand its weight.

And still.

This Kiriya was still capable of the same feat…!

“—Shinei, no…!”

A long barrel was indeed at a disadvantage if the opponent got to its side. It was easier said than done, of course… But in most cases, a weapon had to pay for its long range by struggling to rotate in close range. Ironically, this Long-Range Artillery type was entrusted to a weapon system of the opposite attribute. And even if it wasn’t, Kiriya would never let an opponent take advantage of that weakness…

“You mustn’t carelessly get close to him! …Kiri was, originally, an Operator focused on melee combat, just like you!”

The giant dragon danced about. Its countless pikelike legs kicked against the rail, launching half its massive form high into the air like a serpent raising its head. As it reached its zenith, it twisted its body and turned, falling down into the trails on the opposite side like a wave of metal.

Kicked apart by sharp claws and battered with massive weight, the rails’ skeleton—weighing several tons on its own—crumbled, broke apart, and took to the sky. He had destroyed his own means of transportation. Several layers of explosive modules tumbled off his armor. His heavy artillery cannon—never meant to move much at such speeds—likely had its inner mechanisms damaged by this nimble feat.

But in exchange…

…three of its unharmed antiaircraft guns were now turned in Undertaker’s direction.

“Wh—?”

Time ground to a near halt as Shin sensed their line of fire fix perfectly on Undertaker. He was in the center of the cross fire. No matter what direction he tried to move in, there was no escape.

As if to make doubly sure, its 800 mm turret, which had remained still until now, swerved in his direction. Electricity crackled at the base of the turret, as if to show off that its charging was complete. From the pitch-black darkness on the other side of the turret’s bladelike tips, Shin could hear the familiar sound of agony and hatred…

“Shin! Get back!”

And in the next moment, something impacted against the surface of the Morpho’s turret. A fuse set off and burst. Caught by surprise, the massive beast’s turret wavered as further autocannon fire assailed it. Using its remaining left legs and a wire anchor to climb up the hill, Wehrwolf fired at full-auto. The Morpho’s consciousness shifted toward him.

Stay out of this, nuisance.

Its irritation was palpable. With bullets ricocheting off its body, the Morpho’s heavy main armament swerved in Wehrwolf’s direction with ominous churning, growling sounds issuing from its inner mechanisms. Having finished revolving, the turret belched fire in what wasn’t so much a roar as it was a sheer shock wave. Taking a direct hit, Wehrwolf was blown away from the top of the hill. Shin couldn’t tell if Raiden got away in time or not.

In the brief moment that the cannons’ sights turned away from him, Undertaker escaped the Vulcan cannons’ line of fire, but the three machine guns deployed once again, tracking his movements. With eighteen gun barrels and the fire of an arc discharge on his tail, Shin had to retreat to avoid the line of fire sweeping him down from the side. It was the Morpho’s weapon control system. Once it had locked onto the target, its antiair machine guns tracked and aimed at it automatically for as long as their effective radius allowed.

Their relative distance was once again widened to one thousand meters. The three machine guns he’d supposedly conquered and the Morpho’s main armament remained intact.

This…

An icy smile inadvertently played over Shin’s lips.

This…could be checkmate.

But contrary to this creeping thought, Shin’s frozen eyes scoured the situation, busily groping for an avenue of approach as his combat instincts awakened in full force. The Vulcan cannons began revolving again after pausing for a moment to cool down their machinery.

As he fought as if dancing on thin ice, in the span of a moment that felt as long as an eternity… Just as he got into position to shoot, to cut a path to the enemy, at that very moment…

Suddenly.

A new Resonance target connected to his Para-RAID.

The Federacy’s RAID Device was developed based on the quasi-nerve-device data taken from the data tag of the ear cuff model implanted into Shin’s and his friends’ bodies. Their connection-target settings were wiped when their Republic military records were erased, but if they were merely deleted, restoring the lost data wasn’t all that difficult.

Those restored settings were stealthily reinstalled onto the Eighty-Six’s RAID Devices on a playful whim by the researchers. No one from the Republic would ever think to Resonate with them anyway, and no one would notice it was there. It was merely a joke, done in honor of the device’s original developers.

But settings were settings. And given the right conditions, they would still work as intended.

For example, if someone was to set their Resonance targets to all possible recipients in range other than themselves, the Sensory Resonance would activate…

“To all Juggernauts along the fortress walls!”

Shin didn’t recognize the owner of the voice at the time. As the RAID Devices were developed differently, the voice, which would have been perfectly clear under normal conditions, crackled with static and noise.

“Direction 120, distance 8,000, load armor-piercing rounds— Fire!”

In the next moment, the Morpho’s entire body was impacted with explosions. It wasn’t the destructive blasts of 155 mm and 203 mm artillery fire, which would peel away light armor and destroy with just their shock waves. These impacts came from smaller, weaker, low-caliber rounds. But the sheer number of firing lines was astounding. How many cannons did whoever ordered this deploy to shoot such a barrage of concentrated fire? These rapid, low-flying warheads traveling almost parallel to the ground at a speed beyond the perception of human kinetic vision were probably fired concurrently from countless tank turrets.

Having destroyed the tracks—its only means of movement—the sluggish beast could only sit idly by as it was showered with cannon fire. The anti-armor rounds boring into the Morpho weren’t capable of penetrating its heavy armor, but it stiffened as if snapping out of a slumber when the consecutive fire and fragments set off its own reactive armor.

“Resume fire and, in case of a counterattack, dodge at your own discretion! Unidentified unit!”

It was a one-sided, extremely vague query, but Shin somehow realized it was referring to Undertaker.

“You’re trying to close in on it, aren’t you? We’ll hold it at bay, so take the chance to attack!”

Bombardment fire. Its shock waves and flames. The blast issuing from the reactive armor. The countless persistent, heavy flashes and impacts. These all stunned the Morpho’s central processor made of liquid micromachines, blanking out its ground-to-ground antiair radar for a moment. As if aiming for that opening, a short-range missile flew into the sky above the Morpho. The shell’s fuse triggered and burst. Self-forging projectiles rushed down on the Morpho like a rain of spears, penetrating its armor, its remaining Vulcan cannons, and its countless segmented legs.

For the first time, the massive beast lost its balance. Its massive steel body bent back in what looked like anguish and then crashed. Without its legs’ buffering systems softening the impact, the ground quaked with a heavy thud.

“All units, hold your fire! Now’s your chance!”

Shin didn’t need to be told. Just as the missile burst, he spurred Undertaker on at maximum speed. Covering the shortest distance between them in little over ten seconds, he somersaulted as the Morpho turned its railgun toward him in a last-ditch effort, finally reaching the range for melee combat, his field of expertise.

Suddenly, chills ran down his spine like a jolt of electricity.

Reflexively pulling back his control sticks, his unit braked suddenly. It wasn’t foresight or prediction, merely a movement compelled by a feeling his opponent still had a card up its sleeve. Shin didn’t have the time to move any more than that. As his line of sight tipped upward in vain, the footage on his main screen shifted, filling up with silver.

Don’t underestimate me…!

Even as his entire body seethed, mangled by the sudden shower of flames, Kiriya wouldn’t stop fighting. The armor covering his body shivered as he forced in commands to shake off the explosive shell fragments and self-forging fragments biting into his armor.

I can still fight. Even if I have to take them all down with me, I can still—still kill every single one of them!

Why?

An oddly calm voice drifted into his consciousness. It was Kiriya’s own voice from four years ago, when he still had a body capable of maturing. From when, while it had already deepened a long time ago, his voice was still higher than a full-grown adult’s. His voice from four years ago, perfectly unchanged.

Why do you go this far? Why do you fight so much? Why do you…try to slaughter everyone like that? Even your last remaining kinsman, who you’ve never met?

Kiriya laughed, even without lips to curl upward or a throat to produce sound.

Isn’t it obvious? It’s because fighting is all I have left. The only thing available to me is to throw myself headfirst into this burning battlefield. Nothing else remains to quell the emptiness in my core, in what might be called my soul, but the flames of war and endless conflict.

Catching sight of the enemy reflected on his optical sensor, Kiriya swung toward its cockpit. As a countless flurry of side blows (that would no doubt make a saner person flinch) assaulted his flank, he struck at his last kinsman recklessly, as if to say nothing else mattered anymore. Not even his own life.

If it’ll make you…

Those unconscious words bubbled out suddenly, from beyond his seething thoughts.

You, who have nothing, just like me…

If it makes you into what I am, I’ll do anything…

The source of the silvery deluge was the snapping of countless wires. The Morpho’s four wings spread open, their wires reaching out like a silver torrent that rushed forward at lightning speed. From the massive dragon’s perspective, they were strands of hair, but each of the cables was as thick as a child’s arm.

Whipping down, they gouged deep into the ground, perhaps drilling into it with their pointed tips. The dirt flew into the air, skimming the area right before Undertaker, which braked suddenly as it all began to transpire. Mud splashed from the ground, clinging to his right pile driver.

And then—

“…!”

After a purple light flashed before his eyes, shocks ran through Shin’s body. Every single optical screen, holo-window, and gauge in Undertaker whited out. Undertaker was thrown back, staggered by electricity traveling through the ground, and Shin barely managed to prevent the machine from toppling over.

His main screen flickered back to life, and several gauges likewise returned to normal. But the holo-windows wouldn’t recover, and some of the gauges still displayed random figures, their alert lamps lighting up. And as the scent of some of the parts burning up filled his sealed cockpit…

…he looked up to find the Morpho’s countless extended wires creeping in from all directions, with the main body hidden between them. These were wires for close-quarters combat… The Legion were so wary of losing the Morpho, they’d equipped it with countermeasures for every possible scenario.

A tank turret, developed and designed with the intent of concentrating its power to a minimal point in order to penetrate the enemy’s thick armor, was a bad option to blow away the countless wires at once. The uneven grid of wires piercing the ground seemed to possess an irregular pattern, but it actually didn’t have a single gap large enough for the Juggernaut to slip through, and any attempt to tear through them would likely result only in them coiling tightly around him.

“Capacitor overload confirmed… Those are conduction wires. What an ugly weapon…”

The voice on the other side of the line was thick with tension and anxiety. It looked like they hadn’t anticipated this, either.

“Avoid contact with the wires. They’re coursing with the electricity powering that gigantic thing and its railgun. Your weapon and propulsion systems likely won’t be able to take it… This isn’t an obstacle someone like you, who’s focused on close-quarters combat, can conquer.”

Then what am I supposed to do?

He didn’t actually put that question into words, but it seemed the person on the other side nodded.

“In which case—?”

At that moment, the owner of the voice on the other side of the lines seemed to have narrowed their eyes coldly, as a tinge of true, awe-inspiring fighting spirit, as sharp as a blade, filled their voice.

“We’ll do something about this.”

Just then, another missile sailed into the air. Several wires bended and warped like whips, slapping the approaching projectile away from the side. Attacked from both sides, the missile was cut into round slices. But what spilled from within it weren’t solid explosives or rocket fuel, but large amounts of a muddy, highly viscous liquid.

As the liquid dispersed into the air, gravity took effect, causing it to rain down on the Morpho. The Morpho’s black armor and wires were drenched in brown as the liquid clung to them stubbornly.

And then:

“—Five seconds… Two, one… Ignition.”

A timed fuse activated. The combustible liquid caught fire within seconds and flared up.

?!

A silent scream shook the air as well as the Morpho’s own body as the flames began consuming it. It was almost like an odd sort of revenge for the Legion’s previous tactic of smoking them out using fire earlier—a bombardment by way of incendiary bombs. The Morpho writhed, unable to move with its rails destroyed and its legs lost. Its remaining jointed legs missed the tracks and stomped into the ground, sinking into the quagmire beneath as it was incapable of supporting its weight of over one thousand tons.

Unlike humans, who burned to death after being exposed to flames of a few hundred degrees Celsius, the Legion’s body consisted of metal capable of withstanding even this inferno of 1,300 degrees. The thick armor prevented the heat from penetrating the machine’s internal mechanisms, and it didn’t have pilots who would choke from the oxygen burning away.

And still, the human instincts that remained within the metallic dragon made it tremble in fear of the fire. As it burned within the combustible fluid’s flames, the electricity running through the wires petered out. Its circuitry went into emergency shutdown due to exposure to high temperatures, and the sudden exposure to the heat lowered the metal wires’ conductivity. Having lost their ability to conduct electricity, the wires were reduced to nothing but thin cords.

Retracted as the dragon writhed and roared soundlessly, the wires were ejected from the ground one after another, flicking into the air. The flames hungrily lapped at the bluish-purple dawn, reducing everything to chaos. And as that happened, Shin pushed his control sticks forward.

The Morpho’s blue optical sensor swerved in Undertaker’s direction as it leaped toward it as if being launched. Focusing on it, all the wires bore down on it at once, their talon-like tips curved toward their prey as they bore down on it with an arc. Shin looked up to the heavens for a single moment before the wires swung down. They were the same wires that had cut down a guided missile like butter a moment ago.

He could hear someone call for him from the wireless:

“It’s still moving…?! That’s no good! Please! Dodge it!”

…No.

Shin’s crimson eyes perceived each wire as the storm of slashes crashed down on him, each from a different angle and launched at a slightly different time. His concentration reached its peak in a moment that seemed to last forever. He was aware of which wires would stand in the route he would make toward the Morpho—and how to avoid or cut through them. The wires were still burning, their conductivity still lost. And that made them nothing more than a slightly agile enemy.

He took a low, sharp leap forward. The first slash bore down on the silvery Feldreß. They intersected, and the blade it swung at the last second cut through the wire horizontally. The momentum of his landing kept him flying straight forward, allowing him to evade the second slash and cut through it as he did. The third and fourth came at him diagonally from both sides, and he intercepted both from their opposite directions and went on to clear away the remaining spears in quick succession as he rushed forward.

Small-caliber projectiles slipped through the deluge of spear-like wires one after another, forming parabolas as they soared through the sky, their timed fuses bursting in midair. The shock waves generated by the countless blasts occurring below the slashing wires formed an invisible shield that deflected them away from Undertaker.

Undertaker rushed onward under their protection, dodging another slash by using one of the artillery turrets thrust into the ground like grave markers as a foothold to jump into the air. But forcing him into the foolish act of jumping into the air, where he didn’t have the freedom of movement to dodge, was the Morpho’s plan, and it brought down a splitting blow on him.

Yeah… He really is the type I’d never be able to stand.

So Shin thought, recalling an exchange he once had with Frederica.

Such a fundamentally straightforward person is someone I could never put up with. He seems so fixated on flaunting the part of him that’s inherently and irreparably broken, as if to say I’m just as distorted as he is.

It makes me sick.

He fired a wire anchor. As the anchor dug into the Morpho’s burnt armor, Shin coiled it back, descending in what wasn’t a free fall, but a speed that was closer to crashing. With the slash grazing his right blade’s fixture, blowing it clean off, making it the sole sacrifice, he landed on the massive dragon’s back.

“Frederica… Where is your knight?”

He asked her this unnecessary question, because shooting down her knight was her wish and desire. Even if he would be the one pulling the trigger in practice, it was up to Frederica to work up the resolve to commit the deed.

He could feel her shivering beyond the Resonance.

“………Kiri…is…”

For a moment, Frederica saw a vision.

At the front garden of the Adler Holst—the palace of the old Imperial throne, which she lacked the experience to feel nostalgic for—clad in the empire’s black-and-red uniform, stood Kiriya, scolding someone in his usual straitlaced manner.

The subject of his scolding was a red-eyed boy of mixed blood with a similar physique to his own, albeit several years younger, who was ignoring his elder’s prattling with a disinterested expression. That only made Kiriya’s shouting grow even louder, and an intellectual young man in glasses—the boy’s older brother—stepped in to mediate between the two.

It was a sight that had never transpired in reality.

Frederica’s ability allowed her to gaze only at the past and present. Which meant this was nothing but a construct of her wishes, an illusion. But if…if only this war had never happened. If only the joining of the Nouzens’ heir and a Pyrope woman, the mixing of their races, hadn’t been forbidden, leading them to flee to the Republic. If only that tradition hadn’t existed.

If only the Empire had been a bit kinder to its own people, to other countries, to their fellow citizens…

…perhaps this sight would have been possible. And she was the final descendant to the line that could make that happen.

The young empress bit her pink lips.

If that’s the case…I know what I must do from here on.

“Kiriya is…”

Her hesitation lasted for only a moment. Frederica chose not to flee from the resolve needed to kill someone precious to her.

“Behind the main turret. In the gap between the first pair of wings.”

Looking around the back of the massive Legion he had clung to, his gaze fell on a maintenance hatch sticking out of the point she’d designated. Cutting even more wires extending from the root of the wings, he ran past pillars of napalm fire. The Morpho roared, its legs kicking wildly like a centipede that had vinegar poured on it. As it jolted its heavy one-thousand-ton body, its writhing nearly sent the lightweight Juggernaut flying.

“Tch…!”

Spreading out his four legs, he also activated his pile drivers. The piles dug into the Morpho’s armor forcefully, and in exchange for a powerful jolt that made even Shin—accustomed as he was to high-mobility maneuvering—clench his teeth in agony, Undertaker was fixed and stabilized to the machine’s back.

Meanwhile, the Morpho writhed and raged, swerving and turning its turret upward like an animal challenging the gods. It had charged its railgun with more electricity than ever before—enough to be on the verge of rampaging. The shock wave tore through the air as lightning ran through the barrel. Shin’s eyes opened wide as he realized what it intended to do.

Mutually assured destruction.

It was going to take Shin down with it…!

The emotion that rushed through him at that moment was…oddly enough, neither terror nor regret, but overwhelming relief.

So this.

This is the end.

A gentle, far-too-weak bang echoed across the battlefield, silencing all else.

The source of that sound was a pistol’s gunfire. It was far outside its effective range, and even if it had hit, it lacked the power to penetrate the Legion’s armor—a final weapon meant for no other purpose than to end one’s own life.

The Legion instincts that ordered Kiriya to exterminate all possible elements spurred his cracked optical sensor to swerve her way. Likewise, the Juggernaut’s system recognized it as an undefined armed target and zoomed in on it automatically.

Frederica stood there, surrounded by the flock of blue butterflies, with pistol in hand. Her pale lips parted:

“Kiri…”

And at that moment, the metallic dragon undoubtedly gazed at his mistress, his empress.

“Princess.”

His voice was thick with deep, profound relief.

Frederica then lowered the muzzle of the gun slowly and pointed it at her temple.

Why…? Art you not coming to stop me, dear knight of mine? I will die if you do not. I stand here, where the fires of your suicide will claim me. I will extinguish your flames with my own flesh and blood…

“Princess!”

The Morpho’s murderous impulses faded away like mist for a single moment. The thunder running through the barrel subsided.

And in that moment, Shin pulled the trigger.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Fido rushing in and skillfully grabbing Frederica with its crane arm. Not even sparing a moment to throw her into the container, it turned around and sped away with all its might.

Percussion, followed by impact. A high-speed, armor-piercing warhead charged with a massive amount of kinetic energy penetrated the Morpho’s armor and inner mechanisms, frying its central processor with the intensity of heat unique to depleted uranium. The Morpho’s interior burst into flames.

“!”

The Morpho roared as its liquid-micromachine brain boiled and seethed. Shin grimaced as the roar rattled his eardrums. Black flames spewed forth from the gigantic beast, reducing its liquid micromachines to silvery ash. The sight of it reminded Shin of his brother’s death all too vividly. His brother, whose final words never truly reached him before he disappeared. His brother’s disappearing hand, his disappearing words, which Shin failed to grasp in time.

Trapped in the Morpho’s confines, Frederica’s knight wailed. His final words, his hatred for all life, were truly a cry out to the person he had always sought.

Princess.

Princess.

Princess.

I’ve finally met you once again, but…!

“…That’s enough.”

Shin whispered, knowing those words would never reach him. Just as he could never grasp his brother’s retreating, burning hand. Just as his brother’s voice had faded away, never to echo in his ears again.

The dead were the past. There was no changing their passing, and the coming of the future washed them away regardless of one’s desire. The living could never cross paths with them again.

“Even if you linger, nothing will come of it. You’ll get nowhere. So just…disappear.”

At that moment, Shin felt black eyes on him. And the gaze was somehow full of pity.

That’s…just as true for you. You, who, like me, has nothing. No… It’s even truer for you.

After all…didn’t you just try to die along with me?

When Shin came to, that was standing right in front of him. A chill ran through his body. They had the same face. Maybe it was because Shin had never seen his distant relative’s face that he imagined his own in its place, or maybe they truly were that similar. Enough for Frederica to mix the two together as many times as she did.

Or maybe…that wasn’t Frederica’s knight anymore…

Fixing his black eyes—the only thing that set the two apart—on Shin, he sneered cruelly. The color of a new moon. The same color as his brother’s eyes on that fateful night long ago.

Right. You have nothing.

Nothing to protect. Nowhere to return to. Nothing to aspire to or live for. No one to call for in your final hour. Not a one. Not a single…

…reason to live.

The phantom extending its hands gripped his neck. They weren’t his brother’s arms, but they probably weren’t Kiriya’s, either. Those fingers, which were hard from the use of firearms and piloting an armored weapon, were Shin’s own…

The hand gripping his throat stabbed its nails into the scar his brother had carved into it… The only thing he had left of him, the sole proof of his brother’s existence.

The black eyes sneered.

Didn’t you cheat death just to gun him down? Weren’t you kept alive for that sole purpose? So now that you’ve accomplished that…

…you’re unnecessary.

You have no reason to stay alive, no matter where you are.

So why…?

Why are you still alive?

They sneered.

You hoped everything would end once you killed it, didn’t you? You were so sure it would. And in the end, once again…

…you’re all alone.

“…!”

A vision flashed before his eyes. He saw his brother’s retreating back clad in a camouflage uniform, a Juggernaut blown away, and the final expressions of the countless comrades he’d had to shoot dead since there was no saving them anymore.

Why…? Why does everyone…always die…?

And leave me behind…?

The Legion abhorred the idea of secret information leaking in the event of their capture, and so they took many countermeasures to prevent that, such as powerful encryption and blow-off panels. And that held all the more true for the Morpho, their precious ace in the hole. A special sensor detected the fatal damage to its central processor, triggering a self-destruct device via an independent circuit.

It wasn’t triggered with the intent of taking anyone else down with it, but it was a blast from a highly explosive charge powerful enough to obliterate an over-one-thousand-ton Goliath and its thirty-meter barrel. It burned down the flock of butterflies fluttering nearby, scorched the top of Fido’s container as it leaned over Frederica to shield the girl it carried from the blast, and blew Undertaker—still on top of the machine—away like a leaf playing in the wind.

Apparently, he’d lost consciousness for only a brief moment. When he opened his eyes, he could see the dawn sky displayed over his cracked optical screen. Looking up made an odd sense of claustrophobia wash over him, prompting him to push the canopy’s release lever down. He knew there was nothing out there to threaten him, and even if there was, he didn’t much care right now.

Perhaps the frame was bent out of shape, because the canopy was stuck a bit before popping open, but the blue sky that spread out before him felt just as oppressive and heavy as the one he saw through the corrected image displayed through the computer. A shining azure that felt like it could come crashing down at any second, crushing everything under its weight. Shin heaved a deep sigh and leaned his head against the headrest, closing his eyes.

For some reason he felt awfully…tired.

To keep moving forward was his pride. To fight on until their dying breath was the Eighty-Six’s chosen identity, and that was what had carried him this far. But maybe he was simply wandering the first ward’s battlefield, searching for the right place to die after burying his brother. He wished for the mechanical ghosts to put an end to him, a mere ghost who couldn’t even die properly, the way his brother couldn’t.

If only you weren’t around.

That was what his brother had once told him—something countless people had since repeated. But still he lived, because he had the objective of putting his brother’s ghost to rest. He could tolerate and forgive the fact that he lived on because he had to free his brother’s soul. And once he’d lost that, there was no more reason for him to live.

You still have a long life ahead of you.

Those were the final words, the truly final words he’d heard his brother speak. The words of a posthumous separation that came far too late and truly never should have happened. Words that were a parting gift. His brother sincerely loathed to part with him and prayed his future would be a happy one from the bottom of his heart.

But to Shin, that could not have been anything but a curse.

Such a long time. Such a long future he would have to suffer through. He’d never once wished for that. He had truly looked forward to the moment he would face his brother, and it would all end as they took each other out. And despite that…

Brother… Why did you leave me behind again? Why couldn’t you take me with you this time…?!

If only you did that, I wouldn’t have to feel this way…

“Nng…”

Something like a feral growl, like weeping, escaped his lips. He covered his eyes with a hand, feeling something hot coalesce behind his eyelids. But nothing came… Reaper. He’d never once thought that alias to be detestable. He would carry the memories of his departed comrades with him, and he never regretted making the promise to bring them along.

But why…? Why does everyone leave me behind? Why do they leave me all alone…? Why does everyone…so easily…so arbitrarily…disappear…?

He thought he could hear someone cry out, asking to not be left behind. And if he could only say those words himself…would someone, anyone, stay by his side?

He looked to the flaming wreckage of the Morpho. The final resting place of Frederica’s knight. The man he’d never met in his lifetime, who’d been so much like Shin but so unlike him as well. The remains of what had once been a ghost with no blood relations, with no land to call his home, who could exist only on the battlefield.

And at the same time, the ultimate fate of a ghost who, despite having become Legion, always had someone to long for. If Shin were to become Legion, whose name would he call? He had no one to cry out to. And that felt all too…hollow.

Hearing the patter of light footsteps approaching, Shin looked up with annoyance. Running through the scattered fragments of lapis lazuli littering the area, Frederica rested her hands on the edge of his cockpit and peeked inside.

“You look like a cadaver in its casket. It’s incredibly ominous.”

Shin scoffed weakly behind closed eyes. The sealed cockpit truly did feel like a casket, and the scattered remains of lapis lazuli were like burial flowers adorning it.

“…Right.”

“What manner of answer is that, you fool…? When will you stop pushing yourself so hard?”

She tried to smile but made no attempt to hide her red, swollen eyelids or the tear marks that trailed down her porcelain cheeks. Frederica’s shoulders remained perked up for only a moment before she sighed, sagging them again.

“Forgive me… The handgun you entrusted me with…”

Looking down to her small, shivering hands, Shin noticed a large crack running down from the ejection port to the frame ahead of it. It was probably hit with shrapnel. The crack likely extended from the interior of the chamber to the barrel, fatal damage for a gun.

“…Yeah.”

Even after coming as far as the Federacy, this pistol that buried his dying comrades was the one thing he never parted with. But oddly enough, he didn’t feel any particular emotions wash over him now. He took it from her with one hand and chucked it into the distance. The lump of metal and reinforced resin made a dull sound as it landed between the remains of countless blue butterflies. Frederica’s eyes traced its trajectory with surprise.

“…Y-you did not have to throw it away.”

“The cylinder and barrel are cracked, and it’s not a Federacy model, so I can’t have it fixed.”

It was used by the old Republic ground forces, but its model was originally produced by one of the Alliance’s weapon manufacturers. If he was to seriously search, perhaps he could find parts to have it repaired, but he wasn’t that attached to it.

Frederica nervously looked down at where Shin’s pistol had fallen.

“Why…? Was it not the pistol that put your dying comrades to rest? Is it not, then, proof of your bond with them? You needn’t let go of it just because it is broken.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at those hollow words. Bond?

“I don’t mind… In the end, I was only using them as an excuse to return to the battlefield.”

Even as he promised to bring them with him…he merely wandered around, seeking a place to die. They wouldn’t want to be taken on such a pitiful, ridiculous journey with him.

“That’s—!”

Frederica’s expression contorted into a pained grimace as she raised her voice.

“That’s wrong…! You did not shoulder that weight for such a reason…”

“…”

“What was it you just let go of? I cannot help but think…that the promise you made with your comrades, what you felt when you made that oath, pains you right now…”

Transparent droplets trickled down her pale cheeks, reflecting the light of dawn.

“Your heart has frozen over so much, the heat of the emotions you feel for your comrades can only come across as pain. It hurts. But if the pain becomes too much to bear, you need only rely on others… You having no one to help shoulder your burdens is a thing of the past…”

He narrowed his eyes, hearing her speak as if she knew things he’d never mentioned to her. Given her ability, having her see into his past to some extent was unavoidable—Shin wasn’t capable of controlling his own power, either, after all—but hearing her speak like she knew everything was unpleasant.

“…Sneaking a peek again?”

“Fool. It’s because you keep thinking of the departed… You may claim to have let go of them, but you carry them with you still, which is why I can see them. There were so many, but you faced them head-on, never once turning away from any of them… How can you write them off as an excuse, you idiot?”

Wiping her eyes roughly with the knuckles of her clenched fist, she turned to face Fido, which was waiting on them a short distance away.

“Fido, go and retrieve the gun this fool threw away. I’ll help you look, so surely the two of us will find it.”

“Don’t move, Fido. We don’t have the time to waste on that.”

Fido’s optical sensor flickered, as if its eyes were spinning from the conflicting orders. But after giving an inquiring beep, for some reason, it reached out to Frederica, grabbing her by the collar like a kitten and tossing her into the cockpit.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“We’re taking you back, obviously. With this much damage, if new enemies show up, we’ll be in trouble.”

They were still far off, but he could feel Legion who had noticed the disturbance begin moving in their direction. All four of his pile drivers were lost, and warning indicators wouldn’t stop flashing, alerting him that the propulsion system was strained by his unreasonable maneuvers. He may not have cared much about dying, but he had to bring Frederica back. He had to check to be sure of it, but the Federacy military’s main force should be advancing on their position. If he could just avoid combat long enough to regroup with them…

…And then what? It took him only a moment to realize how foolish a question that was. The war with the Legion wasn’t over. It would continue after this. And he would fight on in that war…until the day he eventually lost and died. And as for why he fought… What he had to fight for… That was a question he could never answer. A question he had always subconsciously avoided answering.

What would Eugene say if, at the time, he had answered his question by telling him he was fighting to die? If that was what he was fighting for, it wasn’t Eugene who should have died back then… It was him.

He was pulled out of his brooding when he felt Frederica’s small body hugging him.

“…What is it now?”

“Do not speak to me like that, fool… When we regroup with the main force, take a leave of absence and rest. Or else, soon enough, you will…”

Against his own body—cold from the chill of early morning in the northern climate—Frederica’s had the kind of warmth unique to a child, and that was even more irritating to him. But somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to tear her away from him, and he looked up into the sky. A part of him wished from the bottom of his heart that it would fall on him.

The sun rose, and a flock of butterflies flew away, fluttering their wings as if banished by the morning light. The lapis lazuli wind surged for a moment. A nacre glow filled his field of vision and then scattered upward, as if inhaled by the heavens.

It was said that butterflies, regardless of culture, region, or age, are the symbol of the souls of the departed, returning home—

He’d extended his hand subconsciously, but his fingers naturally caught nothing but air. He could only look up in vain at the blue glimmer fading into the sky…

Sighing once, he activated the cockpit’s sealing system. The canopy closed down. An indicator lit up, signifying the cockpit was airtight. Unlike the Republic’s Juggernaut, the Federacy model’s cockpit was set to protect its pilot from biological/chemical weapons. He reactivated the main system, which had gone into standby mode. The information holo-windows were finally restored and turned on, and the blackened optical screen lit up.

As his optical screen flickered on, it was suddenly filled with crimson light.

Red petals fluttered through the wind. It was as if the lycoris flowers, which had been almost trampled by the flock of blue butterflies, had extended their petals and stamens in a radial pattern, all raising their unique crimson stems at once.

The entire field was filled with the flowers. It was a sea of lycoris growing en masse, dyed in a shade of red characteristic to these flowers, which, depending on the season, were sometimes completely free of petals. As the wind blew through them, they rustled like some kind of inaudible monster. Petals that were torn apart by robotic legs fluttered about ephemerally in the red world that spread as far as the eye could see.

And at some point, she appeared, gasping for air. There stood a girl clad in a blue military uniform, her eyes and hair a brilliant shade of silver.