Chapter 3: To Your Gallant Visage at the Underworld’s Edge

Chapter 3: To Your Gallant Visage at the Underworld’s Edge

CHAPTER 3

TO YOUR GALLANT VISAGE AT THE UNDERWORLD’S EDGE

Half a month had passed since Lena was appointed to the Spearhead squadron.

There were no casualties during that day’s deployment, either, and as had become her daily routine, Lena activated the Para-RAID in a relaxed fashion, Resonating with the Processors.

It was after dinner in Lena’s room. For the past half month, the Spearhead squadron had had zero casualties, despite deploying far more often than most squadrons. That was probably because they truly were an elite unit, made up of seasoned veterans.

“Good evening, units. You all did a great job today, as usual.”

The first thing she could hear was faint noise in the background, weak enough that it would die out should anyone speak to her. It was probably the distant noise of the hangar or the sound of fighting from other Sectors.

“Good evening, Handler One, and good job today.”

The first to answer her was Undertaker, as always. His voice was serene and collected, and in the end, Lena couldn’t find even a sliver of the reason why he’d come to be called by such an ominous alias.

There were several other presences on the other side of the Resonance, and gradually, several more of the squad members proceeded to greet Lena. Wehrwolf the vice captain, the somewhat foulmouthed but well-regarded older-brother figure of the squad. The honest and steadfast Kirschblüte, who would go along with any silly topic that came up in conversation. Laughing Fox, whose kind, effeminate voice stood in contrast to his sharp tongue.

True to his first impression, Undertaker was the taciturn sort and didn’t participate much in conversations outside of official duties, but apparently, everyone was always around him when Lena Resonated with them. There were a few squad members who didn’t connect to the conversation. They must all like Undertaker very much.

“Undertaker. I would like to start with the matter of the delivery date for the supply shipment you requested the other day…”

Listening to the Handler and Shin continue their businesslike exchange, Raiden spent the evening solving a crossword puzzle in a magazine he had picked up. They were in Shin’s room at the dormitory of their worn-out barracks.

Around him were a few others who had made this their gathering place, whiling away the hours, each in their own way. Theo was engrossed in sketching. Haruto, Kurena, and Kaie were playing a card game. Anju was knitting a sweater with some kind of elaborate pattern while Daiya was trying to fix a broken radio. Others were congregating in their rooms or the dining hall, and their chipper voices could be heard from the distance.

As captain, Shin had duties involving reports and other paperwork, so he was given the largest room in the barracks, which also doubled as an office. Raiden would go there to consult him regarding matters involving the squad, and their friends would gradually peek in to pester them. The room had become one of everyone’s usual haunts before long.

Shin, being the room’s owner, didn’t seem to mind so long as he had a place to read. He would remain silent and detached even if people were tending to the cat, quarreling noisily over who won a game of chess, or even belly dancing in front of him (Daiya and Kujo actually had once). Right now, he was (as always) in his room. He was reading a novel—which he’d found in an abandoned library somewhere—while speaking to the Handler. He was lying on the old pipe bed occupying the corner and using its pillow as a cushion. The white-socked black kitten lay sprawled out on his chest, as it did every night.

Looking at this peaceful sight, he took a sip from his coffee mug. It was a blend made from a recipe passed down for generations among the Processors, the Spearhead squadron’s traditional Ersatz Café. It was made from dandelions they grew behind the barracks, making it far tastier than the mysterious black muddy water one would get from synthetic black coffee powder.

…What would the old hag say if I let her taste this? The damn crone was a stubborn stick in the mud who wouldn’t accept any kind of luxury, but coffee was the one thing she was fond of.

Even the production plants in the eighty-five Sectors didn’t do a much better job than the ones in the bases and internment camps when it came to reproducing grocery items. The hag would complain every single morning that the coffee tasted like mud. Is she still grumbling about it, even now? Is she still lamenting what happened to us…?

As if to drown out the Handler’s chime-like voice, the kitten gave a high-pitched meow.

Lena blinked in surprise, hearing a shrill meow cut into her words.

“Was that a…cat…just now?”

“Oh yeah. We keep it as a pet here in the barracks,” Black Dog answered. “The one who picked it up was yours truly, by the way. The tiny thing kept meowing in front of a house that had its roof blown off by a tank shell. Its parents and siblings all got squished, but it survived somehow.”

“And for some reason, Undertaker was the one it got attached to.”

“Undertaker won’t even play with him. It keeps rubbing up on him and begging for attention, but he won’t give it the time of day.”

“I’m not sure if it actually likes him or just thinks of him as a good bed. I mean, look at it now.”

“Yeah, it’s probably ’cause Undertaker never budges an inch when he’s reading. Which means he’d never cling to Black Dog like that, since he’s always loud.”

“Wow, rude! And unreasonable! I demand an apology!”

Hearing them argue and laugh like that brought a slight smile to Lena’s lips. Anyone listening to them now would only hear perfectly normal boys and girls her age. It felt odd that they weren’t here with her.

“What’s the cat’s name?” she asked fondly, and everyone Resonating with her answered at the same time.

“Blackie.”

“Whitey.”

“Calico.”

“Chibi.”

“Kitty.”

“Remarque.”

“For the hundredth time, stop naming it after whatever author you’re reading at the moment! It’s too random! Also, what the hell are you even reading? Get something decent, dammit.”

That last name Laughing Fox added wasn’t an actual name, it seemed. Lena was still confused, though.

“Are there really that many cats there…?”

“Didn’t you hear the story? There’s just the one.”

That answer only left Lena more confused. Black Dog explained concisely:

“It’s a black kitten, but its paws are white. That’s why we call it Blackie, Whitey, and Calico. We don’t actually have a set name for it, so we just call it whatever we feel like at the time. Recently, it learned to just come over if we look its way and say something.”

So that’s why.

“But why not just decide on a name?”

“…Hmm. Well, that’s because—”

After a moment of hesitance, Black Dog seemed to have decided to answer. But the next moment, he cut the link.

Kurena suddenly sat up, as if kicking the chair away, and stormed out of the room. Daiya, who’d been sitting right next to her, went after Kurena. The chair slammed against the floor clamorously.

“…? Did something happen?”

Daiya had cut off his Resonance, and Kurena hadn’t been connected to begin with. Shin spoke to keep up appearances.

“Yes, a rat appeared.”

“A rat?!”

“That one’s a bit too convincing.”

Theo’s whisper hadn’t reached the Handler’s ears. She asked whether they had rats often in the barracks… She was probably scared of them or something, because her voice was surprisingly timid. Giving her a half-hearted reply, Shin gazed at the ajar door Kurena had slammed on her way out.

In the middle of the hallway, Daiya caught up to Kurena, who was breathing in short, heavy breaths, as if trying to reduce the stress she’d accumulated over a long period. Just listening to that voice made her sick. It disgusted her so much, Kurena eventually couldn’t take it anymore. That woman had stolen these peaceful little evenings they had all enjoyed together every day until now. They were such pleasant, precious times, and now…

“Kurena…”

“Why do they keep talking to her?”

“It’s just for the time being. You know that little princess will stop connecting on her own soon.”

Daiya shrugged with eyes so cold, it made his usual mischievousness seem like a lie. It would be the same as always. No Handler was ever able to tolerate being Resonated to the Reaper for long, after all. That girl didn’t know the origin of Shin’s other name yet. She was just fortunate enough to not have had those particular enemies show up yet, but that luck would run out sooner or later.

The heretical Black Sheep that hide among the flock of Legion. Or that was the inspiration behind the name, but by now, the Black Sheep far outnumbered the normal Legion. And even the Shepherd, who was far more dangerous, hadn’t appeared yet, either.

Kurena ground her teeth. She knew that much; she really did, but still…

“Shin should just break her already.” Anger and irritation overwhelming her, Kurena spat spiteful, stinging words. “What’s the point of being this worried over one stinking white pig? They’ve got the sync rate set low, after all.”

“Of course they do. Shin doesn’t break the Handlers because he wants to, you know?”

To properly communicate over the tumultuous sounds of the battlefield, it was standard protocol to set the Para-RAID’s sync rate to the absolute lowest so that only the speakers’ voices could be heard.

Daiya spoke, not as a rebuke but anxiously.

“Besides, can you say that to Shin’s face? ‘I don’t like that woman, so just break her.’ Could you tell him to do that—to his face?”

“…”

Kurena bit her lip. Daiya was right. It was a horrible thing to say. Shin and everyone else, they were more than just her friends. They were her family. And there was no way she could say something that awful to family. To Shin, it became a routine, a part of his day-to-day life. But still…

“I’m sorry… But I just can’t forgive her. They killed my mom and dad. They toyed with them like they were targets at a shooting range.”

It had happened one night during an escort to an internment camp. The Alba soldiers had decided to test where they could hit the prisoners or how much they could endure before dying. They tortured her parents to death, laughing all the while. They sent Kurena’s sister, who was seven years older, to the battlefield immediately after. She had been fourteen—just a year younger than Kurena was now. Her sister, who’d tried to drive away those scumbags, who’d tried to treat her parents’ wounds as their blood dripped from her hands. And in the end, the ones who’d apologized to Kurena and her sister for failing to save their parents were Alba and Celena soldiers.

“The white pigs are all scum… I will never, ever forgive them.”

When the two returned, the conversation had ricocheted from rats to stories about the landscape you could see only on the front lines until finally settling on the topic of a meteor shower Kaie saw once. Daiya gave a brief shrug at Raiden’s inquisitive glance and returned to fixing the radio while Kurena sat down on the floor near Shin and picked up the kitten to play with it.

In truth, it probably didn’t want to play that much, but the kitten had eventually obliged her calls, tottering away from Shin, who had changed his position to allow Kurena to sit next to him. It had plopped off the bed but kept its distance at first while wearing an indifferent expression, before Kurena finally scooped it up.

“—Really, Kirschblüte? Were there really that many shooting stars?”

“More than I could count. It was, I think, two years ago? I looked up, and before I knew it, a few stars were already falling. The whole sky was full of light… It was…such a sight.”

Kirschblüte—Kaie—gave a nod as she began dealing cards in Kurena’s stead. Raiden had seen that meteor shower, too, but at the time, they were all stuck in the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by the remains of enemies and allies alike. Shin was the only one next to him, and both their Juggernauts were out of energy. They had to wait for Fido to find them and couldn’t budge an inch until it did. It certainly wasn’t a beautiful, romantic night they could look back on and laugh about.

Without the artificial light humans brought, the battlefield was enveloped in total darkness at night, the kind of darkness the term pitch-black was made to describe. The landscape was dyed completely black, with the only light coming from the skies above, illuminated as if lit with pale-blue flames; a suffocating, solemn silence blanketed everything. It all produced the apocalyptic illusion that the world had been shattered to pieces and left to crumble, as if it had been set ablaze.

Raiden had thought, at the time, that perhaps dying wouldn’t be so bad if that was the last thing he got to see, and admitting that to Shin was a disgrace he would never live down. Shin had actually scoffed at him. What a prick.

“I’ll probably never see anything like it again… You get shooting stars every year, but it can take decades between meteor showers, and one with that many stars is probably once in a century… Oh, that’s something Sirius (Kujo) told me before.”

“That’s a shame… I wish I could have seen it, too.”

“Can’t you see the stars over there?”

“The city lights are on all night long. We never see the stars at night here.”

“Oh…” Kaie smiled faintly. How nostalgic. “Yeah, that’s what it was like… It’s pitch-black here at night. There are hardly any people, we’re in the middle of nowhere, and they really do turn all the lights off at lights out. So we usually have a great view of the stars. You know how they say ‘a starlit sky’? It’s like that. That’s probably one of the nicer things about living here.”

“…”

The Handler fell silent at Kaie’s words. She likely never expected to hear a Processor, who should be living in a hell on Earth, say they were glad to be where they were. She posed her next question with a meek, almost resolved sort of tone. It was a voice willing to receive all the condemnation and abuse they might throw at her, since it was her responsibility, after all.

“Kirschblüte… Do you…resent us?”

Kaie hesitated for a short moment.

“…Well obviously, being discriminated against doesn’t feel too great, and it’s really, really vexing. Life in the internment camps was terrible, and fighting is always scary. So I can’t help but hate the people who forced this life on us while saying it’s okay to treat us this way because Eighty-Six aren’t even human.”

Kaie continued, preventing the Handler from offering words of remorse or self-condemnation. She wouldn’t accept a canned apology.

“But I do know that not all the Alba are bad people… Just like I know that not all the Eighty-Six are saints, either.”

“Huh…?”

Kaie’s lips curled up in a bitter smile.

“See, I’m an Orienta, so there were all sorts of problems in the internment camps and my old squadrons.”

And it wasn’t just Kaie. Anju had had issues in the past, too…and so had Shin, probably, though he was tight-lipped about it. Those who had Alba blood flowing through their veins or were descendants of the Empire—especially those of noble birth—were persecuted in the internment camps. That lineage was actually the primary reason for their internment. It was probably easy for everyone there to use them as an outlet for their frustrations, and the eastern and southern races were always the minority in the camps.

The Eighty-Six weren’t all innocent victims. The world always sided against the few and turned its back on the weak.

“Anyway, we do know there are good Alba out there, too. I haven’t seen it personally, but some of the others have. So I don’t resent you just for being an Alba.”

“I see… I should be grateful to those people, too, then.”

Kaie sat up, bending her body forward. Even though they were talking via Para-RAID, she still found herself moving as if the Handler were sitting right in front of her.

“I’ve got a question for you, too. Why are you so interested in us?”

Suddenly, an image of flames appeared in Shin’s mind, and he raised his eyes from his book. He’d never attended a bonfire or a burning at the stake, so it was likely one of the Handler’s memories.

“A Processor just like all of you saved me once, in the past…”

Lena recalled that day.

“‘We are Republic citizens. We were born in this country and raised in this country.

“‘Even if no one acknowledges that anymore, that’s exactly why we need to prove it. Protecting the motherland is a Republic citizen’s duty and pride. That is why we fight.’

“The words left behind by the person who saved me. I always wanted to answer those earnest words, and that’s why I…”

“He said he was a Republic citizen and would fight to prove that. And I think we have to answer the words he left behind. Simply sending you to fight without even sparing you a passing glance, without ever trying to get to know you, would be going against that… It’s unforgivable.”

Raiden’s eyes narrowed at those painfully beautiful words. Kaie listened and, after the Handler finished speaking, paused for thought before opening her mouth.

“Handler One… You’re a real pure virgin, aren’t you?”

“Pfft—?!”

They could hear the Handler spit out tea or some other beverage. Everyone Resonated burst out in laughter. Kurena and Haruto, who weren’t Resonated, looked at everyone else with baffled expressions and started laughing, too, after Anju explained what had happened. The Handler girl was coughing, and Kaie, who was shocked at everyone’s response, suddenly went pale.

“…Oh my God, I’m sorry! I got the words confused! I meant maiden ! A real pure maiden !”

One normally wouldn’t mix those two up, and the meaning wasn’t that different anyway. Daiya and Haruto looked like they were just about to die laughing, beating heartily on the tables and walls (Kino shouted an angry “Knock it off, assholes!” from the other side of the wall), and even Shin was laughing, uncharacteristically, his shoulders shaking. Kaie, on the other hand, was gradually becoming more and more panicked.

“I meant, like, you know, the kind of girl who thinks the world’s some wonderful field of flowers, who’s got this perfect, unblemished ideal she’s protecting and, like… What I’m trying to say is…!”

The Handler was obviously blushing and completely stiff.

“You’re not a bad person, okay? So let me warn you right now,” said Kaie, who had somehow calmed down. “You’re not cut out for this job and definitely not someone who should interact with us. We’re not fighting for that kind of noble reason, so you shouldn’t get involved… You should switch with someone else. Before you regret it.”

Kaie said she wasn’t a bad person.

But she never said she was a good person.

At the time, Lena had no way of understanding why that was.

“Handler One to all units. We’ve detected the enemy on the radar.”

On that day, the entire Spearhead squadron was out on a mission, and Lena was in the command room, speaking to them with her eyes locked on the screen.

“The bulk of the enemy offensive is a mixed force of Dragoon types and Tank types, with a company of Anti-Tank Artillery types (Stier) accompanying them—”

“We’ve confirmed their location, Handler One. We’re preparing to intercept them at point 478.”

She had intended to inform them of the enemy position and propose a strategy they should employ but, having been cut off in the middle, was left confused and muttered an acknowledgment.

The veteran Spearhead squadron didn’t seem to need Lena’s assistance very much, and recently, her role was mostly to support them so each member would be able to fully exhibit their talents and skills. She would analyze the enemy’s movements or adjust resupplies so they would reach the right hands at the right time, and she spent her days poring over documents in the filing room for information regarding the squadron’s appointed region.

Recently, she had been repeatedly appealing for permission to use the interception cannon at the back of the Sector. If she could use the artillery cannon, its range would allow her to at least somewhat suppress the Skorpion types’ artillery assaults. It would make battles much easier, but the cannon was a throwaway model—once fired, it needed to be recalibrated and reset. The officers over at the Transport Division weren’t willing to go to that sort of trouble for “a bunch of Eighty-Six,” which meant Lena’s requests were falling on deaf ears. They also said something along the lines of “Isn’t it already all rusted up?”

Just as Lena was remembering that irritating exchange, Laughing Fox spoke.

“Undertaker. Gunslinger is in position.”

“Laughing Fox to Undertaker, third squad, likewise in position.”

Gradually, everyone had gotten into position. It was a perfect interception formation, set as if they knew the Legion’s course. The Spearhead squadron’s Processors always seemed to move as if they were predicting the Legion’s actions. Maybe there was some kind of omen only they could see.

Lena thought she should ask about this once this fight was over. If they were able to implement this method in other squadrons, the mortality rate of Processors during raids should drop drastically. The way priceless information like this was used only in individual areas and never spread out to other squadrons was a huge flaw in this distorted system.

With those thoughts in mind, Lena spoke while examining the first ward’s map she had finally found yesterday.

“Undertaker. Please have Gunslinger change her position. Post her at three o’clock, three hundred meters from her current location. If she hides there, she’ll have the high ground. She’ll be sniping from a ridge, and it should provide a much better field of vision.”

After a moment’s pause, Undertaker responded.

“We’ll confirm its location… Gunslinger, can you see that point?”

“I’ll check—give me ten seconds… Yeah, I can see it. Moving over there now.”

“That position is in the opposite direction from the first squad, who’ll be serving as vanguard. Considering Undertaker’s strategy of causing a disturbance in the enemy forces before engaging units individually, this should create an opening that will deceive the enemy in the early phases of the operation.”

Wehrwolf chuckled.

“So she’ll be bait. For having such a pretty voice, you’ve got guts, princess.”

“…The Tank and Anti-Tank Artillery types aren’t good at changing angles of elevation. They shouldn’t be able to shoot directly at Gunslinger once she’s up there, and if they change their firing position, the surrounding terrain should serve as cover—”

“Don’t get me wrong… It’s a good plan. Ain’t that right, Gunslinger?”

“I’ll do anything if it means helping everyone.”

She answered valiantly, but her voice became much colder when she addressed Lena directly:

“Did you find a new map or something? Must be convenient.”

Lena smiled wryly. This girl, Gunslinger, didn’t seem to like her. She would always disconnect during their daily briefings, and whenever they did talk, she always had a blatantly cold, blunt attitude.

The map Lena was holding had been made by the Republic’s ground forces and was the highly detailed product of painstaking months of combat and reconnaissance. For some reason, it hadn’t been shared with the frontline bases that desperately needed it. The Processors were currently relying on maps they’d found in the nearby ruins, to which they’d added notes and amendments as they used them. Thanks to that, they knew the common interception points and attack routes but weren’t as knowledgeable about the topography.

“Do you want me to transmit it over later?”

It had too much data to transfer during an engagement, when bandwidth was limited, but that wouldn’t be an issue later, when they had time.

Wehrwolf chuckled derisively.

“Sure ya wanna do that? You’d be transmitting military secrets to us Eighty-Six, ‘citizens of inimical character.’”

“I don’t mind. What’s the point of having this information if it’s not being used?”

Those words seemed to take Wehrwolf by surprise. He gave a surprised “Huh” and fell silent. To begin with, it had been an unfiled, unmanaged document until Lena dug it out of a mountain of cardboard boxes. How confidential could it be if no one would even notice if she copied or misplaced it?

The Republic’s ground forces and rear personnel had been driven off the battlefield and annihilated in the opening stages of the war nine years ago, and there was no actual succession of their operations and paperwork. As such, a great deal of their documentation had been orphaned, its whereabouts unknown and unmanaged. Any proper soldier would see how grave of a problem that was.

“Also, you are not Eighty-Six. If nothing else, I’ve never called you that—”

“Yeah, yeah… Tch. They’re coming.”

Lena could feel tension fill the other side of the Resonance. It even felt like some were excited for the battle to begin, probably stemming from their long service or the adrenaline rush of being on the battlefield.

The roar of a cannon, powerful enough to shake even the pit of her stomach, echoed in her ears from the other side of the Resonance.

The battle proceeded swiftly, and the red blips signifying the Legion were gradually disappearing from the map. The Spearhead squadron had cut through a primeval forest in the combat zone in order to detour around and decimate a group of high-firepower, low-mobility Stier. This would also allow them to draw the Ameise and Grauwolf types into the forest, where they could be separated and taken out individually. The dense forest had the added benefit of limiting the Löwe’s maneuverability, as they were incapable of making tight turns. It greatly impacted their field of vision and range of attack as well.

Without enough room to maneuver, the Legion were forced to split into smaller groups and forfeit their numerical advantage. Looking at it from the side, it almost seemed as if the Processors were performing an operation they had long since gotten used to. However, in this kind of battlefield, that was simply impossible.

Evading a shell fired its way, a single Juggernaut—Kirschblüte—dived through the series and went into a dash, trying to aim at a Löwe’s left flank.

A shudder ran through Lena. The Löwe’s position was strange. Judging from the enemy’s deployment, there shouldn’t have been a Löwe there. The Legion were always vigilant, and in that formation, they wouldn’t be able to provide cover for one another. Lena checked the area map in a panic and confirmed the enemy’s advance. It was specified on the area map, but Kirschblüte probably couldn’t see it; as far as she could tell, it was buried under something, hidden from sight—

“Get away from there, Kirschblüte!”

“Huh?”

Lena’s warning came a moment too late. The blip marking Kirschblüte’s unit on the radar screen unnaturally disappeared.

“What is this…?! A marsh?!”

Stuck in her now immobile unit, Kaie shook her head and groaned despairingly. Through the screen, she saw her Juggernaut’s front legs were submerged halfway into the ground. What had looked like a piece of grassland turned out to be a marsh, the kind of soft terrain the badly balanced Juggernaut was the least capable of traversing.

She would have to walk backward to get out. Having reached that conclusion, she gripped the two sticks—

“Kirschblüte, get away from there right now!”

Shin’s warning made Kaie raise her head. Lifting Kirschblüte’s optical sensor, Kaie saw a Löwe standing right in front of her.

“…Ah.”

She was inside the tank turret’s minimum range, so the Löwe instead brandished its front legs. It did so coldly, with the ruthlessness of clockwork that would never stop revolving, no matter how much the person trapped between its gears screamed or begged.

“No…”

It was a weak, faint plea, like a child on the verge of tears.

“I don’t want to die…”

The Löwe moaned as it swung its legs. Fifty tons traveling at high speed decapitated Kirschblüte with a sweeping blow. The Processors had taken to grimly nicknaming the clamshell-type canopy as the Guillotine, since it was badly connected and tended to snap and fly away—along with its pilot—if it took a strong enough impact. And true to that terrible name, Kirschblüte’s canopy disengaged from the rest of the unit.

Another round object flew off in the opposite direction, tumbling down into the ground and rolling away, never to be seen again…

After a moment of horrified silence, bellows and shouts of sorrow and indignation filled the Resonance.

“Kirschblüte…?! God dammit!!!”

“Undertaker, I’m going to collect her. Buy me a minute—we can’t leave her there!”

Shin’s reply was nothing but silence, like a frozen lake in a midwinter night.

“Don’t, Snow Witch… They’re using her body as a decoy. It’s an ambush.”

The Löwe that killed Kaie was still lurking somewhere nearby, waiting to down any enemies intent on retrieving an injured comrade or a corpse. It was originally an established sniper tactic. He could hear Anju’s anguished breathing and a heavy thud as she hit the console in a rage. At the very least, Snow Witch fired a 57 mm explosive shell that enveloped Kirschblüte and its surroundings in flame.

“Kirschblüte, KIA. Fafnir (Kino), go cover for the fourth squad… There aren’t many remaining enemies. Let’s finish this before they can take advantage of Kirschblüte’s loss.”

“Roger.”

The responses, however saddened or enraged, came with the calmness of veterans who had seen their comrades being blown away countless times. It was because they were experienced Name Bearers that the sight of a friendly unit’s blip suddenly becoming a Signal Lost had grown so sickeningly familiar.

They knew all too well that they had to suppress their grief until the battle was over. Otherwise, they’d only join their companions as corpses. Their experience allowed them to detach from their emotions and maintain the coolheadedness they needed to survive. It was the consciousness of humans who had adapted to the madness of the battlefield and degraded into cold, calculated killing machines.

With only a moment’s pause—a single, bitter intake of breath—the swarm of quadruped mechanical spiders resumed their clamorous scurry into the shade of the trees. And like the shambling skeletons of the dead lying in wait under the dimly lit entrance at the underworld’s edge, they wandered about, seeking anyone they could sink their claws into—anyone to strangle and drag down to the same place their fallen companion had gone.

Shortly after, the Legion forces were eradicated. Not forced to retreat, but quite literally eradicated. Feeling that this was the will of the remaining Processors, Lena’s heart filled with sorrow.

It had only been the other day, just the other day, that Kirschblüte had told her about the meteor shower. As Lena remembered Kirschblüte’s prideful words, regret and grief pressed against her heart. If only she’d found this map sooner. If only she’d warned her in time…

“Situation resolved—good work, everyone.”

“…”

No one answered her. They were probably all grieving in their own ways.

“About Kirschblüte… I’m—I’m so sorry. If only I’d been more—”

That moment.

She could feel a deep, terrifying silence radiating from the other side of the Resonance.

“You’re sorry?”

Laughing Fox answered, as if repressing something on the verge of exploding, something creaking behind his otherwise calm voice.

“You? Sorry? What are you sorry for? An Eighty-Six or two might die for all you care, but at the end of the day, you still go home, have your dinner, and go to sleep all safe and sound, right? Stop spouting bullshit with that meek little voice of yours.”

It took Lena a moment to properly process what she’d just heard. Noticing Lena couldn’t think of anything to say on the spot, Laughing Fox muttered a “Listen here, you…” before continuing. This time, he made no attempt to mask his hostility, unqualified bitterness coloring his tone.

“I mean, sure, when we have nothing better to do, maybe we can play along with your little game of pretend. You get to say you never discriminate, never treat us like pigs, that you’re a pure, noble, virtuous person, that it’s all a misunderstanding, and you’re a goddamn saint. Sure, when nothing’s going on, we can stroke your stupid ego, but read the fucking mood! One of our friends just fucking died. We don’t have the time to indulge your bullshit right now, so get a goddamn clue already, you hypocrite.”

“Hyp—”

Hypocrite?

“Or what? Do you think we don’t care that our friend just died? —Oh, that’s right; to you, the Eighty-Six are just the Eighty-Six, after all. We’re inferior pigs who can’t compare to a noble human like you, aren’t we?!”

“Tha—”

Bombarded with one inconceivable accusation after another, Lena’s mind went completely blank.

“That’s not true! I have never…!”

“Not true? Which part isn’t true?! You’re the one safe and sound inside the walls, kicking back while you watch us do all the fighting after your people threw us into this hellhole! You’re blatantly accepting what’s being done to us by sitting there like you’re entitled to comfort! If that’s not treating us like pigs, then what would you call it?!”

“…!”

Lena could feel the Processors’ emotions through the Resonance. Some were indifferent. Others, Laughing Fox included, carried varying degrees of contempt and hostility. And from others, she simply felt resignation. But the one thing they all had in common was that coldness.

“You never called us Eighty-Six? Not calling us that was the only thing you did do! Protecting the state is a citizen’s duty? Answering those feelings? Screw that! Do you think we’re fighting out here because we want to?! You’re the ones who trapped us here! You forced us to fight! You’ve let millions of us die these past nine years, haven’t you?! And you do nothing to stop that and think that if you talk to us all Goody Two-shoes every night it’ll make it all better?! For starters—”

And without a hint of mercy, Laughing Fox ruthlessly gouged into Lena’s heart with what followed. The undeniable proof that Lena, despite trying to treat them like humans, had ultimately seen them as pigs.

“—not once have you ever even asked us our names!”

Her breath caught in her throat.

“Ah……”