Chapter 1: The Mermaid’s Bargain

Chapter 1: The Mermaid’s Bargain

CHAPTER 1

THE MERMAID’S BARGAIN

Despite eventually failing in its task to conquer the largest leviathan nest, the Fleet Countries’ supercarrier was built for expeditions spanning thousands of kilometers. As such, the ship had to be capable of supporting the needs of its thousands of crew members for voyages lasting as long as six months.

This, of course, included the necessities—food, water, clothing, and lodging. But among the facilities there was also a library, a chapel, a gym, and a canteen. An entire base’s functions were loaded onto this hundred-thousand-tonne ship.

And of course, the ship also had its own onboard medical facility.

“I guess the fact that this was a joint operation with the Fleet Countries is the one silver lining here.”

The damaged supercarrier’s massive shadow stood in the nighttime port like a gigantic carcass. Dustin had spoken while tearing his gaze from its dark silhouette in the distance. He stood in the corridors of a military hospital that had been built upon a small hill overlooking the sea and the sprawling port town.

The members who’d been most severely injured during the Mirage Spire operation had been transported and hospitalized here, though the process had only just finished. The others weren’t allowed to visit them yet, and so they remained in the corridor. Those who came to comfort and pick up the wounded had to suppress their frustration at not being able to see them.

Yes, the wounded.

Such as the one who had forced the Noctiluca to retreat and lost his hand in the process—

“The Stella Maris had an operating room and an ICU, too. And the medical examiners were able to treat him just in time, so—,” Dustin started to say.

“I know what you’re trying to say, Dustin. But shut up.” Raiden cut into his words.

His voice was nearing an animalistic growl. Dustin realized it already, but there wasn’t much meaning in trying to gloss over the situation at this point. The Stella Maris’s hospital wing was technologically advanced and well equipped; it had several operating rooms, an ICU, and hospitalization facilities.

With the Orphan Fleet often sailing far away from the mainland to challenge the leviathans, the prospect of returning injured crew members to the land on time wasn’t always a realistic one. The ship’s facilities were built to accommodate for that.

And indeed, Theo was sent to the operating room almost as soon as he was rescued, so despite the severe injury to the artery that extended from his heart to his left arm, he was treated before the situation became life-threatening.

However…

“It feels like… so what ? He still lost his hand, y’know?” Raiden said with a sigh.

“…Sorry.” Dustin hung his head.

“He’ll…probably be discharged because of his injury, right?” Michihi muttered.

“Assuming he doesn’t specifically ask to be discharged, they’ll likely just reassign him to a noncombatant position.”

Marcel was the one who answered her question. Everyone fixed their gazes on him, and without meeting anyone’s eyes, he looked down and continued speaking.

“We’re special officers, and the army invested money in our training. Honestly, they don’t have enough personnel to go around, so they’re paying salaries to new special officers in advance under the condition that they’ll get higher education later down the line. So an injury isn’t a good enough reason to discharge someone… Even if an officer sustains an injury so severe that they can no longer fight, the army will just propose that they stay on as a noncombatant.”

Shin, who’d been his colleague in the special officer academy, wasn’t present, so whoever was aware of Marcel’s injury only knew by hearsay that he used to be a Vánagandr pilot before he was injured and changed posts to a control officer.

“And besides, there are plenty of special officers who stay in the army because they don’t have any other way to earn a living, so they don’t quit unless things get really bad. And, um…with the Eighty-Six, it’s, uh… Well, between the education they gave you as officers and the special treatment you get, the army spent a lot of money on you… So I can’t imagine they’ll just cut you loose that easily.”

“But…,” Anju started hesitantly, but then she decided not to speak.

“He can’t be a Processor anymore,” Dustin said it for her.

No Eighty-Six, not even a Name Bearer, could handle operating a polypedal combat vehicle with only one hand. Armored-weapon warfare required split-second reactions that often made the difference between life and death. It was too difficult to handle piloting maneuvers that required two hands with only one. Especially with the Reginleif, which was specialized for high-mobility combat.

Reattaching his severed hand was a lost cause, since it had sunk under the waves. Which left…

“What about a prosthetic…?” Raiden asked, almost as if clinging to that final hope.

“—I assumed this might come up, so I asked some technical officers from the United Kingdom and the Alliance,” Bernholdt said indifferently. “But neither nation has artificial limbs advanced enough to endure Reginleif combat.”

The great countries to the north and south both boasted highly advanced technology. The United Kingdom could have had artificial limbs based on Sirin technology, and the Alliance had the sensory-coupling technology used in the Stollenwurm.

“The United Kingdom’s prosthetics are built for use in their heavily armored Barushka Matushkas. They’re not responsive enough for use even in a Vánagandr, to say nothing of a Reginleif. The Alliance’s prosthetics are more agile and accurate, but since the Stollenwurm’s piloting system is built around the sensory coupling from the ground up, the technology isn’t compatible with the Reginleif.”

“Captain Olivia has also mentioned the mental strain that technology creates,” Michihi appended. “Most of the Alliance’s citizens are drafted into the military and have nerve-coupling ports implanted into them, so they’re not afraid of having an artificial limb’s operation port set directly in their heads. But for outsiders, such as people from the Federacy and us, it just feels like we’re getting foreign objects put into our bodies, and most people are afraid of going through with it…”

“And even if you went that far, modifying the Reginleif to work with the nerve-coupling system would be too much trouble just for Theo’s sake. Both sides of this would be too hard to pull off.”

“Didn’t the Republic have, um, biological technology or quasi-biological technology or something before the war?” Marcel asked apprehensively. “Could they produce a prosthetic you can move as well as the original or something?”

Before the war, the Republic specialized in research on cultivating and re-creating biological tissue from artificial materials. The quasi-nerve crystals used in the RAID Device were one result of that research.

Putting aside whether Theo, as an Eighty-Six, would be willing to use something created by the Republic, it was an option. But sensing the gazes on him, Dustin shook his head gently.

“If it were before the large-scale offensive, maybe that would have been possible… But not anymore… Not now…”

Many of the researchers and technicians behind the Republic’s technologies had been wiped out during the large-scale offensive. Their records weren’t completely lost, so these technologies could eventually be picked up and perfected. But it wouldn’t happen in the immediate future.

“…”

Whatever anyone could do to help Theo had already been done. There was nothing more, but that didn’t make the situation any easier to accept. Raiden could only settle into melancholic silence.

Eighteen of the Brísingamen squadron’s members had died or gone missing during the battle. Some were caught up in the railgun’s self-destruction, and others failed to escape the naval fortress’s collapse or crashed into the burning sea. Only a handful of them were confirmed dead and had their remains collected. As for the rest, not even a fragment of their units could be dragged out of the ocean.

One among them was the squadron’s vice captain, Shana.

“They say she climbed all the way up to the top floor to snipe down the enemy, and that’s why she failed to get away. Not that she was ever any good at snipin’…”

Shiden was one of the few who’d been rescued on time. Lena came to visit her and remained standing in the entrance to her hospital room, which felt small and cramped, as battleship cabins often did. Shiden was sitting on her bed, bandages wrapped around various parts of her body, and she’d buried her head in her knees. The lights to the cabin were off, and the white sheets were as ruffled as the roiling waves.

“…I guess that’s one way to go.”

Right before Cyclops crashed into the ocean, Shiden’s Resonance with Shana cut off, never to reconnect.

“She said, ‘So cold.’ Those were her last words… She probably bled out.”

“…Shiden,” Lena muttered.

“I think it’s been some four years and change. That’s how long I’ve known her. We couldn’t stand each other at first. We clashed a lot early on. But then all our squad mates started dyin’ one by one, so we had to start getting along whether we liked it or not. In the end, it was just me and her, burying our squad captain. And even then, we kept telling each other to dig the next hole, saying shit like, ‘You’re next.’”

And in that way, through arguing, butting heads, and cooperating through it all, they survived that battlefield of certain death together. They even survived the large-scale offensive and fought their way out of the Eighty-Sixth Sector together with the Federacy’s help.

They survived it all together, and yet…

Shiden grasped at her red, wavy hair.

“If she’d have died back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector…in the battlefield we knew, she’d have still gone where she belonged. I dunno if that’s heaven or hell or whatever, but I’d have rested easy knowing she went there. Even without a grave, she wouldn’t have left a body behind. Even if an animal had gotten to her remains, and she eventually returned to the earth…I could live with that. But…”

Those who die at sea, the sunken ones… Their corpses never surface.

“What happens to those who drown…? Do they go to the same place everyone else does? Will she be there when it’s my time to go…? Or did those leviathans take her away?”

Instead of that stupid, aggravating…and awe-inspiring Reaper?

Lena gently lowered her eyes. She imagined it. The dark depths of the ocean, where no light could reach. The image of Shana’s body being battered and crushed by the pressure, dragged along with the current, and left in the home of terrible, nameless creatures.

Had she died on the surface, her remains would have broken apart, consumed by bloodthirsty animals and swept away by the wind and rain. It was perhaps not all that different.

“I’m sure you’ll meet her there.”

Lena snuck a glance at her. Shiden’s pale left eye, like snow in the shade, seemed to light up in the faint darkness. It looked back at Lena as Shiden gave a short, confident nod.

If they died in the same place, they’d find their way to the same place. If that was something Shiden and the Eighty-Six could believe in, after they’d discarded all belief in God and heaven, then it must be true.

“Because you’re both Eighty-Six. You, Shana, all your comrades—you’ll find your rest in the same place… That’s what I think.”

“…Now then. With regards to the pursuit of the new Legion unit, the Noctiluca, and the Strike Package’s next operation.”

The Eighty-Sixth Strike Package comprised four armored divisions, with each division’s commander supervising the Processors in their group. Shin was the 1st Armored Division’s commander, which was currently stationed in the Fleet Countries. The 2nd Armored Division, which was currently in training in the Federacy’s headquarters base, was commanded by Siri.

The 3rd Armored Division and its commander were currently on leave in the base’s attached school, while the 4th Armored Division and its commander were stationed in the Alliance of Wald at present. Despite the great distances between them, the four captains assembled via the communication lines.

Out of the people hurt in the Mirage Spire operation, only the severely injured could be admitted to the military hospital. Those with relatively light injuries were instead detained in the moored Stella Maris’s medical block.

Shin lay in one of the medical block’s beds. He was injured when he plummeted into the ocean, and perhaps due to lack of blood or having his stamina generally depleted, trying to get up gave him spells of dizziness.

He let out a breath. Siri furrowed his brow in the holo-window that was being transmitted from the information terminal on his own side table, albeit without any intent to find fault with him.

“Before we do that… Nouzen, are you all right? There’s your injury, of course, and Rikka’s situation…”

“…Yeah.” Shin thought to say he was fine, but he reconsidered and shook his head.

Of course, they weren’t all fine. Theo, a comrade who had survived even the Special Reconnaissance mission alongside him, was forced to leave the lines of battle. Though it was due to injury and not death…it was a pain they were constantly aware of, regardless of whether anyone pointed it out. A pain they had to bear.

“I think we’re all pretty shaken up by this. If I say anything that sounds excessive, feel free to call me out.”

“I know how you feel. Even if you know it might happen, even when you think you’re used to it, having a friend leave active duty like this…hurts.”

A boy who shared the same window as Siri nodded. He had dark skin and a slender face. His hair was reddish-brown, and he wore silver-rimmed glasses. This was Canaan Nyuud, the 3rd Armored Division’s commander and the captain of its first squadron: the Longbow squadron.

That Longbow squadron had the same name as the western front’s first defensive unit back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. This boy was its vice captain at the time; its captain perished in the large-scale offensive.

“And it applies all the more when they’re a comrade you’ve been together with for so long. Somewhere deep down, you just take it for granted that they’ll always get out of any scrape… I know that feeling. It’s the same for us.”

This was said by someone in a separate holo-window from the other two—a girl with long red hair tied in a braid. Suiu Tohkanya, the 4th Armored Division’s commander and the captain of its first squadron, the Sledgehammer squadron.

The original Sledgehammer squadron, which was the first defensive unit in the Eighty-Sixth Sector’s northern front, had been completely wiped out during the large-scale offensive, with the exception of its captain. As such, Suiu and her squadron, which was in charge of the second ward, inherited their name.

“That’s why I wanted to give you more time to rest before this conference.” Siri sighed. “But at times like these, the Federacy’s military can’t keep up its act of being nice, patient adults.”

“That’s fine by me. They feel pressed for time—both for this conference and deciding the operation in general.”

The Strike Package had discovered the Noctiluca’s position only this morning. Even if the telegraph to the Fleet Countries was shared immediately with the Federacy, not even a single day had passed yet.

“I guess the bigwigs are just in that much of a panic. The railgun shredded the Republic’s walls and destroyed four Federacy bases in a single day, and now it’s back. I don’t think we can blame them.”

“Let’s compare and adjust what we know about this state of emergency for the time being… The Fleet Countries’ report says the Noctiluca sustained heavy damage and escaped underwater, and its whereabouts have been unknown since. The supercarrier couldn’t pursue it, and the fixed sonar in the Fleet Countries’ territorial waters also didn’t pick up on it, either. It probably hasn’t escaped to the open sea, either, because that’s the leviathans’ turf. Which implies it’s been moving along the borders between the open sea and the territorial waters owned by we humans. Right?”

“Yes… The Fleet Countries sent battleships to look for it instead of the Stella Maris. But…its sound signatures were recorded during the battle. With the conditions lined up just so, they should be able to pick up on it even if it’s gotten pretty far. But they haven’t found it yet.”

Shin furrowed his brow bitterly.

“If only I could have tracked its movement… I’m sorry. I couldn’t move after the operation.”

When he’d heard the other survivors, Theo included, had been collected and brought in for medical treatment, the tension that kept him conscious probably ran out. Everything suddenly went black, and his memories ended there. When he came to, he was in a hospital bed, and the Noctiluca’s voice had disappeared into the distance.

“I’ve heard how badly injured you were. No one’s blaming you. If anything, you’re out of your mind for going to the bridge in that condition.”

“And you got hurt during the operation, so you probably couldn’t walk on your own right after you were injured. You should have stayed in bed if you couldn’t even stand on your own two feet.”

“With the commander doing crazy stuff like that, your subordinates have to pull insane stunts to keep up with you. You should know it causes trouble for everyone else.”

“…”

Shin fell silent, not so much as groaning. He didn’t intentionally do something crazy this time. Siri huffed a long, indignant breath from his nose.

“Anyway, back to the Noctiluca. If we’re allowed a bit of wishful thinking, maybe it just sank and died after the battle.”

“That’s obviously not what happened, though,” Canaan cut into Siri’s words. “It’s more likely it just left the range that Nouzen can hear.”

Siri’s expression became more displeased. Ignoring him, Canaan adjusted his glasses with his middle finger.

“But that said, it’s not likely it could move to the continent’s north, east, or west with that giant gaping hole in its flank. The Legion wouldn’t have bases that far out anyway. It’ll need repairs, and it has to restock its ammunition, too. It probably doesn’t need help generating power, though, what with its nuclear reactor.”

“So that means it needs to find a Weisel and an Admiral somewhere. But except for the Mirage Spire, no other country has reported detecting any of the Legion’s naval bases.”

Based on what Ishmael had told Shin, the other areas of the ocean along the northern shores of the continent weren’t as fit for building naval bases over the water. The distance to the seafloor and the leviathans’ territories made it difficult to establish a base on the same level as the Mirage Spire in those regions.

“So with all that in mind, the Noctiluca has to be hiding somewhere along the continent’s northern coast. And there has to be a Legion production base of appropriate size and scale. So the Strike Package’s next mission is to pursue the Noctiluca and, at the same time, launch a simultaneous attack on multiple production bases.”

“Our objective is to destroy the Noctiluca and gather intelligence. We were also told to prioritize seizing Weisel production parts; especially their control cores.”

The Legion didn’t use human speech, and with the Eintagsfliege covering their territories, they also didn’t use transmission or engage in external relations or trade. The only way of gathering intelligence on them, except for observing their movements in real time, was to capture a production base’s command core and draw information about their production line and other matters.

“We’ll be raiding the Legion so they don’t have time to assume defensive positions, which means we’ll finally be utilizing the new equipment we had to pass off on deploying in the Mirage Spire. The Armée Furieuse.”

The Armée Furieuse—the Reginleif’s new armament. Putting it to use aboard the supercarrier in the last operation was deemed too difficult. After all, the possibility of launching a surprise raid on the Mirage Spire itself was close to zero, considering the very nature of the operation, and so the application of this new equipment was put off.

On top of that, by the time the operation in the Fleet Countries was complete, only Shin’s 1st Armored Division was effectively trained in using it. They couldn’t afford to reveal this new armament to the Legion now over a single base.

“This time, Siri’s group has received appropriate training, and my 3rd Armored Division will be joining as well,” Canaan said. “We’ll be able to attack at least three sites at once… We finished our training as soon as possible and entered our trial period. Colonel Grethe and our tactical commander frowned upon it, but well, we’re used to it. We’re Eighty-Six, after all.”

They hadn’t been given a single day of vacation in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, and despite that, they survived years of battle. Only those who could retrain their fighting prowess without rest were allowed to survive in that environment.

“The 4th Armored Division will stay on leave and remain in HQ as a reserve force, but we’re set to prioritize training over our leave,” Suiu said. “We’re up against the Legion here; we can never predict what might happen. We need to master the Armée Furieuse ASAP.”

“…And because you guys had to bring that up, Colonel Grethe’s been screeching like a banshee… She’s been saying that once the war’s over, none of us are getting discharged until we catch up on our studies and finish all our mandatory subjects.”

Siri’s eyes were distant as he spoke. Apparently, he’d been scolded with Canaan in Suiu’s place, since she was stationed in the Alliance.

“…Well, yeah…,” Suiu said, a thin, ironic smile on her lips. “I appreciate that the Colonel…that the Federacy feels that way. Combat isn’t the only thing that matters.”

“Honestly, since they’ve been having us go to school, I’d like to attend until we finish all the mandatory subjects we left behind,” Canaan said. “It’s been so long that I’d forgotten, but being a student is fun.”

“Even after coming to the Federacy, I had to doubt whether or not the war was actually going to end. But I guess we can’t keep thinking about the possibility of it going on forever.”

Over the last six months, the Strike Package had been dispatched to the countries bordering the Federacy’s fronts. In the same way that Shin and the 1st Armored Division met the Sirins in the United Kingdom and the Open Sea clans in the Fleet Countries, Siri, Canaan, and Suiu had many experiences during their own missions.

They’d had many experiences that would have been impossible for them in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, where they’d been trapped between human malice and an army of the Legion.

“It’ll take us commanders a while to catch up on our curriculum,” Shin said with a bit of a forced smile.

“No kidding…”

“You always find the worst thing to say, don’t you?”

“Let’s leave it at that for now. We can bitch about that all we want once the war’s over.”

The four commanders, as well as the squad captains and their lieutenants, were expected to complete their special officer curriculum on top of the regular one, and none of them had properly finished the former.

Canaan’s eyes wavered oddly behind his glasses as he suggested they return to the topic at hand.

“Since we’re set to seize more than just three bases, the Federacy is planning to send in a few more units. But because the Federacy’s military doesn’t have any spare forces they can extract, the major nobles’ private armies will be requisitioned and incorporated into the operation. That comes up to less than ten regiments, but they’ll be bringing them all in for this operation.”

This made Shin realize that the military’s top brass really were at the ends of their ropes. The Federacy’s military could no longer advance through frontal assaults, which was why the Strike Package had been established. But now they had requisitioned forces from outside the army and were bringing them along with a unit meant to gather intelligence.

This indicated that the military’s top brass felt greatly threatened by the Noctiluca—or rather, by the Legion’s intentions. Or perhaps they had another purpose in mind and were simply hiding it behind the objective of countering the Noctiluca.

Requisitioning private troops and gathering them into a military unit—even if it totaled less than ten regiments—wasn’t something that could be done in the space of a day. This must have been something they’d been planning to do ahead of time.

Perhaps this started a month ago, when Shin had revealed the possibility of stopping the Legion. One of the keys for that objective was the hidden base, so it was likely that they thought of including private armies to augment the Federacy’s lacking forces in the capture of this base.

“Roger. So which base is the 1st Armored Division supposed to attack?”

“Right, it’s in the country you were supposed to visit after the Fleet Countries, Nouzen. The Holy Theocracy of Noiryanaruse.”

The nation stood as the leader of the Aurata-native countries, which were located in the continent’s far northwest. It was a foreign country that was farther than the Republic and several other small countries. It didn’t share borders with the Republic or the Federacy, and its culture and language were entirely different.

It seems the Republic and the small countries to the far west had all been ravaged by the Legion War. Two months ago, the United Kingdom intercepted a transmission that confirmed the continued existence of some nations out in that area. Apparently, in the eleven years since the Legion War began, they fought while surrounded on all sides by the enemy. The Holy Theocracy, located on the northernmost tip of the far west, had been and was currently still battling the Legion in a place known as the blank sector.

The blank sector was a peninsula that had been uninhabited since before the Legion War even began. To that end, several large-scale production bases had been approved for construction there since the early stages of the war.

As a result, the Theocracy’s position in the war was quite precarious. The 1st Armored Division was supposed to assist them before it was dispatched to the Fleet Countries. The Noctiluca’s appearance had somewhat changed their objectives there, but they were still being sent to the same place.

Yes.

Shin narrowed his eyes. The blank sector on the northernmost tip of the continent’s west . Before he lost consciousness on the bridge, Shin could hear that the Noctiluca was headed west.

“It’s been decided that the 1st Armored Division will be going west, where the Noctiluca is most likely to have gone… I hope you get the chance to take your revenge.”

“—I’m sure you realize this, but we can’t have you join the dispatch to the Theocracy, Vika. We have to be wary of letting information that relates to our national defense leak, like your adorable little birds.”

Much like how Lena, as the tactical commander, and Raiden, who had filled in for Shin as operations commander, were busy with the outcome of the operation, Vika had his own duties as a prince of the United Kingdom and a dispatched officer. He’d reported the details of the Mirage Spire operation and made an appeal for assistance in tracking the Noctiluca.

Having concluded the inquiries on that matter, his older brother added that warning, to which Vika nodded in response. He was in his room in the base they were stationed in, in one of the Fleet Countries’ port towns.

The Holy Theocracy of Noiryanaruse. The mad country, Noiryanaruse.

“I know, Brother Zafar. That country’s values clash with ours too much, enough so that we would call it a mad country. A country without the minimal respect for morality is not one we could trust as a friendly nation. I believe the Federacy has no intention of disclosing any details regarding the Sensory Resonance or Nouzen’s ability, either.”

“That’s what I thought… Oh yes, I should warn you about this, too. Just to be on the safe side.”

“I know already. I won’t tell the Eighty-Six the reason the Theocracy is called a mad country.”

Zafar smiled elegantly, as if to say, Very good .

“I’d appreciate it if you could try to use this leave of yours to trade information with the Federacy’s generals. As you’ve so aptly put, the Mirage Spire and the Noctiluca strike me as odd. Oh, and speaking of leaves…”

His older brother, the crown prince, spoke casually, and so Vika expected to be scolded for something minor and ordinary and wasn’t on guard. As such…

“…there’s something you’ve been hiding from me ever since the Strike Package’s leave at the Alliance. Right?”

…this took Vika completely by surprise. Even he, with all his intelligence, was startled by this remark. But without so much as changing his expression—indeed, he was so confident he didn’t so much as furrow a brow or flip a single lock of hair—he answered:

“Of course not. I would never hide anything from you, Brother Zafar.”

The Legion are preparing for a second large-scale offensive and are attempting to modify and improve themselves.

Vika told his father, the king; and Zafar, the crown prince, that this was all the information Zelene had given them. He didn’t tell them about the shutdown method for the entirety of the Legion because it was realistically unusable , and sharing that information would needlessly impact the Federacy’s standing among the other nations of the continent.

He didn’t share this information, not even with them.

Zafar’s smile remained unchanged.

“I see. So you’ve finally learned to hide these secrets you don’t have…even from me.”

“…Brother Zafar.”

“ Thank goodness. You seem to be getting along with the Eighty-Six, at least.”

And yet Zafar looked back at him with an exceedingly happy expression.

“Children rebelling against their parents and older siblings and beginning to prioritize promises with their friends is a sign of growth… In which case, I shall assume you have no secrets to keep from me.”

He would overlook this—out of respect for his precious little brother.

“If the war ends, what do you say to studying abroad in one of the Federacy’s universities? You’ve hardly gone to school during this war, after all. I think you’d do well to enjoy the life of a student once this is finally over.”

A faint, bitter smile found its way to Vika’s lips. It was an expression he only ever showed his father and eldest brother…

You say I’ve matured, Brother Zafar, and yet you continue to treat me like a child.

“Should you and Father permit me to do so.”

Once the war was finally over… What would Shin and the rest of the Eighty-Six do then? The question crossed his mind not so much out of interest but sheer curiosity. When they first came to the United Kingdom, they didn’t have an answer to that question, but what about now?

What would Theo say now that he could no longer stand upon the battlefield in the same capacity as his comrades?

Ending his transmission, Vika powered off his terminal and turned to face the figure who had waited for his conversation to end, never uttering a word.

“…How many times do I have to tell you not to go out and get yourself broken?”

“My shame knows no bounds…”

Having finally reactivated, Lerche was once again missing roughly half her body. This time, rather than being shattered horizontally, approximately half her frame was missing at a diagonal angle. Her cooling and power systems were in a terrible state of disrepair. Her face, modeled after that of a young woman, had part of the skin peeled off. She looked like a drowned corpse that had been picked at by fish.

Looking her up and down, Vika sighed. It would take time to fix this much damage.

“Well, now I have things to attend to once I return to the Federacy, and as you’ve heard, I won’t be participating in the next dispatch, so I do have time. But be sure not to waste too much of it.”

“Your Highness, what happened to the Noctiluca after I—?”

“We dealt it a crippling blow, but it got away. Since you didn’t know that, you’re probably unaware that Nouzen survived the battle. I expect that the list of survivors and deceased is also unknown to you.”

“I—I see. So Sir Reaper…survived. That’s good to know. And what of Sir Yuuto? Sir Werewolf? Lady Snow Witch? The Cyclops Princess…and Sir Fox, who was the last one standing?”

Vika blinked once coldly. He didn’t have enough free time on his hands to go over the status of each and every member, and unlike Shin and Lena, he didn’t know each individual member that well, either.

“For now, don’t mention Rikka’s name in front of Nouzen, Shuga, Emma, and Kukumila.”

“Does that mean…?”

“He’s not dead, but he also didn’t come out unscathed. I’ll put the details and the other casualties in a report and send them to you, so check for yourself later.”

Lerche sighed dejectedly. The Sirins didn’t breathe, but Vika did enable them to express emotion this way.

“I…see. That’s… I’m sure Sir Reaper feels a great deal of anguish…”

“We’ve had a surprisingly large number of casualties this time around. Everyone’s quite broken up over it, Nouzen included.”

“As they would be… That’s very much something that should go unmentioned in front of Sir Reaper, Sir Werewolf, Lady Snow Witch, and Lady Sniper.” Then, with an air of timidness, Lerche added, “Your Highness, I hope that my retrieval wasn’t in any way given priority and that no one’s life was lost as a result…?”

Vika cocked an eyebrow at that question. Something like that would trouble a Sirin such as Lerche.

“That wasn’t the case, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

Changing the order of which victims were rescued first in the name of his own personal feelings would put his position as a leader to shame. Regardless of how he or even the Sirins felt about it, Frederica and the Fleet Countries’ rescue crews placed the Sirins at the bottom of the priority bracket. Lerche being rescued in the process was a thing of coincidence.

“Someone else happened to crash in the same spot you did, so they picked you up with them. I believe it was someone named Saki or some such, from the Thunderbolt squadron. Be sure to thank them if you see them. I’d imagine the two of you together were pretty heavy.”

Apparently, this Saki person had taken a point-blank shot from a rapid-fire gun. They’d been blown away and rolled off the Noctiluca, and as they were waiting for rescue, Lerche’s Chaika had fallen from it, too.

Saki had somehow forced Chaika’s cockpit open before it sank and pulled Lerche’s remains out. Even as the rescue boat picked him up, no one seemed to notice that Lerche was a Sirin. Vika had resigned himself to the fact that Lerche had been lost forever before he heard the report…

Oh yes.

Casting a nonchalant gaze out the window, he appended:

“I’d forgotten to say this, but you’ve done well to return… I will grant you that much.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lerche curl her lips up into a small smile.

“You have my gratitude.”

“…Hmm. Don’t get me wrong, okay? I’m not saying there’s anything bad about this or asking why you’re still alive. I’m really, really happy you made it, but…”

The injured soldiers were accommodated in a large room designated for the hospital’s inpatients. The building was old, but remarkably clean. Sitting on a round chair, Rito fixed a wavering, emotional gaze on the figure who was calmly reclining on the bed.

“I’m surprised you made it out safely, Yuuto.”

“You and me both.”

Safely would hardly sound accurate to anyone who saw his condition without context. Yuuto nodded, wrapped in bandages and his limbs covered in plastic casts. He had severe bruises and several fractured bones, including his rib cage, causing a collapsed lung—which was externally visible.

But even with all that in mind, considering his rig had been smashed by an 800 mm long turret weighing in the hundreds of tonnes, the fact that he was alive at all was nothing short of a miracle. As if to take the blow for him, his Juggernaut had been damaged beyond repair.

“Having your ribs broken on both sides and a hole in one of your lungs is hell,” Yuuto said, his voice as flat as ever and not at all evoking any of that agony. “It hurts to breathe, but it’s not like I can do anything about that. Makes me curse the fact that I survived.”

“Oh, does it hurt to talk, too?” Rito asked apologetically. “Maybe I should have come later.”

“No, it’s good to have you around. Having someone to speak with is a distraction, and you don’t know when to shut up.”

“That felt like an insult,” Rito said with a pout, but he didn’t seem to take any real offense to it.

Yuuto was always taciturn, but today, he was oddly talkative. He probably really did need something to take his mind off the pain. It assailed him with every breath, and one could only resist breathing for so long. And…

“I’m lucky to be alive, so I’d rather not complain. Having a distraction is a huge help.”

…he also needed to take his mind off the emotional pain of losing their dead comrades. Many members from Yuuto’s Thunderbolt squadron were either dead or missing, especially the vanguards. Much like Shiden and the Brísingamen squadron, their squadrons would need to be broken up and reorganized until the next operation. But it was unlikely that Yuuto would recover in time for that.

“…Yeah. But I’d bet breathing still hurts, so I’ll just talk your ear off for now. I’ll tell you what happened while you were knocked out. Oh yeah, the leviathan! I think they called it a Musukura. Tell me what it was like when you get better!”

“…Sorry, I was unconscious underwater when it showed up.”

“Oh right. Then, um… I guess I can’t ask Cap’n Nouzen about it, but I can ask the prince! But I’m assuming he’d think it was too boring to talk about, or like, his impression of it would be weird in its own way… He’d probably say it looked tasty or something. I can imagine the prince making that kinda comment. I suppose I’ll just have to ask the cap’n about it sometime later!”

“…”

Really, he doesn’t know when to shut up. Or it’s more like he’s just so excitable that he ends up going off the rails. And at times like these…it’s exactly what the doctor ordered.

Rito did not possess the shadow of death that seemed to hang over so many of the other Eighty-Six. He could always talk about the next day without a care in the world. He pressed on, confident that he would always live to see tomorrow.

I’m a survivor, too… I survived the Eighty-Sixth Sector, the large-scale offensive… I even survived that climb toward death on the Mirage Spire. I survived. I’m alive. So perhaps, I’ve earned the privilege of thinking about the future…

He thought back to before the operation began—to the captain of the anti-leviathan vessel who had shown him the view of the horizon from the lighthouse. She was the one who’d told him to come visit her again, mere days before she sailed beyond the waves as a decoy, never to return.

His mind went to Shin, who’d told them of how he’d seen the leviathan skeleton when he was younger. It had been a silly, heartwarming conversation that showed Yuuto that even the stone-faced Reaper once had a cute side to him—a side that admired and was enthralled by the sight of a giant monster.

So maybe now, it was all right. Maybe now, Yuuto could also pick up the juvenile, trifling dreams of a childhood he had to discard in the Eighty-Sixth Sector.

“…In that case, let me ask you something as well.”

Rito looked at him curiously. Yuuto gave a small shrug, despite the great effort it took to pull off the gesture.

“About the leviathan skeleton… I’d like to see it for myself next time.”

Next time, he would go there as a simple tourist. Once the war ended… Just like that captain told him to. Her final wish to him.

“And for what it’s worth…a crew member told me that certain types of leviathans really do taste good. They slice fresh ones into little pieces, cook them with fish, and eat them.”

“…They actually eat those things…?”

“Well, they are animals, technically…I think…?”

Yeah, animals that shoot lasers…

“…They count as animals, right?”

“Don’t ask me, Yuuto!”

Upon hearing the loud roar of the ocean tides overtaking the receding sound of heavy machinery, Kurena had realized the Stella Maris had arrived at port. Her Juggernaut’s system was in standby mode. But when a holo-window suddenly appeared in front of her, Kurena—who was squatting inside Gunslinger’s cockpit—sluggishly raised her head.

Checking the window, she saw Frederica standing next to Gunslinger.

“—What?”

Kurena didn’t bother opening the unit’s canopy, instead asking the question curtly through the external speaker. Hearing her booming voice, Frederica froze up.

“…I-it’s just that it’s almost time for the Processors to head out. How about you eat something before that? You’ve been in there for nearly half a day now. Going so long without food will hardly do you well, and your body requires rest. And so—”

“I’ll be fine.”

“But…”

“I said I’ll be fine… So I didn’t eat for a day—so what? In the Eighty-Sixth Sector, there were tons of times where we spent entire days fighting. Stuff like that happened in the Federacy, too. I wouldn’t be here right now if hunger was enough to kill me.”

“Step aside, squirt.”

Someone else was probably standing in her optical sensor’s blind spot, because those last words had been spoken by someone she couldn’t see. Soon after, the canopy lifted up without her triggering it. Someone had input the emergency passcode that all Juggernauts shared and pulled up the canopy’s external unlocking lever.

Kurena reflexively glared ahead, now locking eyes with a figure clad in the same steel-colored flight suit as her. An Eighty-Six girl, one of the platoon captains from Shiden’s and Shana’s Brísingamen squadron. Mika.

“The ship’s dining hall keeps track of those who come in to eat and those who don’t . Every single one of the cooks is anxious because one girl hasn’t shown up at all.”

She shoved a tray of cold food in Kurena’s direction, but Kurena curtly looked away. Mika’s brow twitched.

“Plus—and I know you’re pretending as hard as you can to avoid noticing this fact—we docked ages ago. All the injured soldiers were transported already, and they need to carry the Juggernauts out. All the Processors are preparing to disembark, except for the ones who’ve been hospitalized here… Do I have to spell it out? You sitting there and brooding is getting in the way of their work. And what about the debriefing? Two of your squad’s captains are out of commission, and Raiden has to fill in as operations commander. Meanwhile, you’re here slacking off when you’re not even hurt.”

Kurena could see some familiar faces from the maintenance crew looking over at them from a short distance away. She realized, perhaps too late, that all the Spearhead squadron’s other Juggernauts had already been carried off the ship. They’d likely left her for last out of consideration for her.

And as Mika said, Shin was unconscious, Raiden was filling in for him, and Theo…had been hurried off to surgery as soon as he was picked up. With all three of them gone and Kurena staying in the cockpit, the highest-ranking officers who could handle debriefing were Anju and the 4th Platoon’s captain. She could imagine how difficult that was.

She glared at Mika, seeking to shake off the guilt. As if to tell her to stop saying things that made sense.

“…Go on, say it. This isn’t about me making trouble for everyone else; you just hate me. Go on, say it. Shana’s death was my fault—that’s what you want to say, right?!”

Mika suddenly reached out and grabbed Kurena by her uniform’s collar, jerking her closer.

“That’s what you want me to say,” she said, almost close enough for their noses to touch, the golden irises of her green Aventura eyes glinting with frozen fury. “But I’m not gonna play your game… Shana died because she fought. She chose, on her own, to fight to her last breath. And you don’t get…to take responsibility for that.

You’re just projecting your guilt so you can wallow in self-pity… Letting others heap the blame on you would only give you an easy out. I won’t let that happen.

“Not you. Not when you couldn’t fight in the middle of an operation because you were anxious over Shin going missing or Theo getting hurt. Not you…! What’s your problem?! Shin survived, and so did Theo, dammit! You guys got off easy ! We lost Shana, Alto, Sanna, Hani, and Meryo! None of them are coming back! But we’re still alive, so now’s not the time to sit there hugging your knees!”

Kurena’s golden pupils contracted. My game ? We got off easy …?!

She grabbed onto Mika’s own collar and snarled.

“You call that ‘getting off easy’?! How is that better?!”

Both Theo and me… We Eighty-Six, we’re…!

“Fighting is all we have. We don’t have families or homes or anything else. If we lose that… If we can’t even fight anymore…”

Pride—the final vestige of their identity. Everything else had been taken away by the Republic, and all they had left was their war-forged, battle-tempered, and hard-won pride.

And now…even that was fading away.

“So if that’s gone…what are we?!”

The question never lingered long in her mind, but currently, it was staring her dead in the face. The reality of being robbed of that pride—and having to live on in its absence—was being thrust before her very eyes. She had to confront the fact that a future where they’d have to stop being Eighty-Six could happen to her and to Theo. So how…?

“How can I stay calm…?”

Letting out a childish, all too pathetic whimper, Kurena pushed Mika away and ran. When Mika first grabbed her, she’d knocked away the food tray. Looking down and realizing what she’d done, Mika turned around to find that Frederica was now carrying it in her small hands. Apparently, she’d caught it when Mika had unintentionally pushed it away.