5: Proof of Humanity

The Belial’s right arm went clean through the Laevatein’s chest, spearing the cockpit. The metal shredded with a crunching sound, and shortly afterwards there was a burst of fluid.

“You hampered me to the end, Sagara Sousuke,” Leonard whispered. Yet I was never able to call you a worthy opponent. Despite how hard you fought me, despite how much you damaged the Belial...we never could achieve any kind of mutual respect.

If he could have felt the slightest bit of sorrow at his loss, thought Leonard, perhaps they could have been friends in his new world. And yet he felt nothing; nothing but relief. It was like finally taking out the trash that had been piling up for days.

He withdrew his right arm. The Laevatein slumped to its knees, face pointed upwards, perfectly still. The battle was over. Now all I have to do is wait for the moment when Kaname—when Sofia—completes the changes, Leonard told himself, and then paused to frown. Strange... The sensation of change has vanished. The melody that was once resonating across the world is now gone without a trace. Has something happened?

“Kaname...?” he asked.

At the same time, he noticed it: the Laevatein was demolished and immobilized, but there was no sign of blood or flesh inside the shredded chest cavity. No mangled corpse of the unfortunate operator. There was no one in the cockpit at all.

The battle continued.

Sousuke had the barrel of a simple mini-rocket launcher pointed at the Belial’s undefended hip area. The enemy’s palladium reactor lay just behind the armor torn off earlier by the demolition gun’s attack.

Be in time, Sousuke prayed, hiding right below the Belial amidst the smoke and scattered shrapnel. He was just within the rocket’s firing range, waiting for the right moment, but his current angle was off. He needed the Belial to turn a bit more to the right.

His expenditure of the Laevatein’s head-mounted machine guns hadn’t been an act of desperation. He’d done it for a purpose, which was to blow out a cooling pipe and create a thick fog. In that fleeting moment of compromised vision, Sousuke had opened the hatch, snatched up the disposable rocket launcher, and leaped out of the machine. The Laevatein’s hatch had then closed as it charged forward, purely under Al’s control.

He’d apologized to Al because it had been a suicide charge.

Then, while Leonard had finished off the unpiloted Laevatein, Sousuke had run through the fog, made it to the feet of the stopped Belial, and taken aim with his rocket launcher. For a moment, he thought he heard Kaname’s voice, but he didn’t have time to think about that now. He had only one chance; just one chance to make the shot.

Be in time, he prayed again, knowing that if Leonard noticed him it would all be over. The enemy would leap back and engage its lambda driver, and his tiny little rocket wouldn’t make a dent. He hasn’t noticed me yet. Just turn a little more to the right. Just a little to the right. Hurry...

The machine turned. He’ll know I’m here, Sousuke realized, and then he fired his rocket. Be in time...

The rocket hit and exploded, and the anachronistic shaped charge began its work. The explosive energy entered through the crack in the Belial’s armor, where it then blew through the palladium reactor’s outer shell to expose the fuel system to thousands of degrees of heat. It wasn’t a nuclear fission reactor, so it didn’t explode or melt down, but the plasma that fueled it dissipated, and the escaping heat melted the partition like butter. The overload of electricity then coursed through the Belial’s body, burning out its muscle packages and wiring.

The demon toppled, spitting fire. The world’s greatest fighting machine, the Belial, had been felled by an old-fashioned rocket.

Sousuke stood up silently and tossed the empty launcher aside as he drew his beloved pistol—an Austrian-made Glock 19—from its holster. He moved the slide back and forth to load a 9mm shot into the chamber, then approached the burning Belial.

Another battle continued.

Tessa fired her submachine gun, acting purely on instinct. Its magazine was soon emptied, and the recoil left her hands numb. She changed clips unsteadily, then poked the muzzle back around the corner and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.

A malfunction? she wondered.

“Get down!” From beside her, Sergeant Dejirani pulled Tessa to the ground as the enemy returned fire. Sparks rained down from ricochets grazing past her.

As Tessa ducked down, her eyes strayed to the corner just behind her, noticing a figure lurking beyond. Enemies? she thought, realizing they had come around behind them. We’re trapped. But when did they...

The enemies revealed themselves—three of them—carbines in hand. They were aiming for her. Their leader was a mere two meters away, close enough that she could see his eyes through his goggles. His gaze was cold and hostile.

“Ah...” she said faintly, knowing that there was no place to hide. Then there came a sudden series of shots from close range... But they aren’t aimed at me, she realized. They hit the incoming enemies, who collapsed one after another from shots to the back.

The last of the three turned around to return fire but instead shouted in surprise as Mardukas, of all people, appeared from around the corner. He slammed the enemy with his gun stock again and again, putting all of his strength into the beating. Then he kicked his staggering enemy to the ground and emptied his submachine gun into him.

“Mar—” But before Tessa could even cry his name, Mardukas whipped around to reload with a shockingly smooth motion. Then he turned his fire on the enemies in the other direction.

“Get down!” he shouted, just as the enemy threw something at them. It was a grenade, and it fell between Mardukas and Tessa before rolling along the floor.

Tessa thought about scooping it up, but quickly reconsidered as she wouldn’t have time to throw it back. Her only option was to throw herself on top of it to save those around her.

But before she could do so, Mardukas moved into action. He didn’t throw himself on the grenade, though. “Hah!” He just lifted it up to chest-level with his foot like a soccer player juggling a ball, then batted it back at the enemy with a swing of his gunstock.

A roar rang out down the hall as the grenade exploded, leaving their allies completely unscathed. Not only Tessa, but everyone present was stunned by the incredible feat that Mardukas had just performed.

“What are you staring at?” Mardukas shouted. “Charge!” He fired again to snap his subordinates out of their daze, and they plunged forward into the smoke to rush at their disordered enemies.

Somehow, they’d gotten through the worst of it.

“Captain... I’ve cleared up... the enemies behind us!” Mardukas said, struggling for breath. He was battered, bloody, and openly wounded. His uniform was ripped and shredded too, yet his eyes were shining brightly behind his cracked glasses. She’d never seen him like this before.

“Where... did you learn to do that?” Tessa asked, stunned.

“Ah, d-didn’t really... Purely a matter of instinct...” he mumbled. Perhaps the adrenaline high was dying down, because Mardukas stumbled and had to lean against the wall for support.

A milquetoast, left-brained chess fanatic... That was the image she’d had of him, but now that Tessa thought about it, it’s not as if anyone had ever really said he was clumsy. To think that he had talents in that realm, as well...

“I... beg your pardon,” Mardukas panted. “Let’s hurry, Captain.”

“Right,” she agreed. “But...” Tessa looked up at the ceiling and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. She’d severed her connection to the omni-sphere, but out of curiosity, she reached out to it again. That feeling—the feeling of change—was fading.

“Kaname-san...” she murmured.

Had the changes stopped?

Mao’s battle also continued.

She’d lost both of her arms, and was now pinned to the ground by an undamaged enemy whose 40mm rifle was pressed against her cockpit. Knowing that the next sight she saw would be a spray of her own blood, Mao gritted her teeth in silent anticipation.

But before that could happen, a bar reading ‘IN PROGRESS’ in a corner of her screen switched to ‘COMPLETE.’ It was referring to one of the autonomous anti-air machine guns installed around the missile base, standing about fifty meters away from where she’d fallen. She’d just taken over its control system.

“Execute!” Mao cried out.

《Roger.》

The automatic turret moved by inches, took aim, and fired. Then the 20mm shells from the turret rained down on the enemy machine in front of her eyes.

A hit. A hit. A hit.

The white Eligore stumbled away in a lurching gait, using its rifle as a shield—and after its gun was in tatters, only then did it seem to remember its lambda driver. Having activated that impenetrable shield, the Eligore’s operator threw an anti-tank dagger into the turret, destroying it completely. Then it turned back to Mao’s machine.

“Dammit...” Mao cursed. Insufficient firepower; she’d failed to land a fatal blow.

A pathetic last-ditch attempt, the white Eligore’s pilot seemed to say, its movements radiating frustration and anger. There was no elegance in them now as the enemy machine seized the chest of Mao’s M9 with its bare hands.

“Geh...” she choked, and saw that a lambda driver force field was forming in her enemy’s hands. It was preparing to tear her apart. Is this the end? she was wondering, when suddenly something exploded on the Eligore’s white back. It had taken a hit from somewhere in the distance.

Mao gasped. Clouseau? she wondered. No, that’s not his weapon... It’s too high-caliber. Her infrared sensors were picking something up past the mountains across the valley, three kilometers away. She zoomed in with her night vision mode.

The source of the shot had been a third-generation AS. It was the latest Soviet model, a custom Zy-98 Shadow. Its head was mounted with high-caliber optical sensors, and it carried a large Soviet-made sniper cannon. She’d never seen data for a machine quite like it.

A sniper-type Shadow, Mao pondered. What’s it doing here, alone? What’s its affiliation?

The Shadow fired another shell from its sniper cannon at them, causing the Eligore to toss Mao’s powerless machine aside in order to whip around and block the shot with its lambda driver.

The Eligore’s back was to her now. The combination of fire from the automatic turret and the support shot from the Shadow had dislodged some armor in its side, exposing the core within.

Hurry! Mao howled with effort as she sat her machine up, arched its back, and drove its head into her enemy’s side with all her might. She felt the hard jolt of an impact as the action crushed the electronic equipment in her forehead, but she bulled forward regardless. The enemy machine was completely caught off guard.

Select sub-weapon: Head-mounted machine guns. Point-blank range. “Nnngraaah!” cried Mao, pulling the trigger. The two chainguns activated, releasing a full spread of automatic .50-caliber shots.

The tungsten alloy warheads she’d fired into the enemy machine ricocheted around inside its armor, causing pandemonium. Cables were severed, the frame was pulverized, the control unit crushed to powder, and the power unit shredded.

The ricochets also blew the head off of Mao’s machine and destroyed one of her machine guns. The other followed it a moment later.

Mao’s M9 and the Eligore it was latched onto both fell over, wreathed in black smoke. The destruction of her head-mounted sensors had left her monitors uniformly blacked out.

“Try sub-sensors!” Mao yelled. “Okay, they’re out too...” Grabbing the emergency escape handle attached to her chest’s shock absorber pads with her mouth, she pulled as hard as she could. This activated the explosive bolts and sent the ceiling of her cockpit flying away.

Mao pulled her .45-caliber pistol from its holster and exited her machine. The smoke was thick around her. She tried hard to steady her uneven breath as she looked around.

The enemy machine had fallen on its face next to the devastated M9. With her pistol tight in her hand, she moved carefully forward. The cockpit hatch behind the Eligore’s head is hanging open, she realized. The pilot must have bailed out. Which means— With a gasp, she hid behind her M9’s leg just as bullets began to rain down. The escaped enemy pilot was shooting at her.

Mao leaned forward to return fire and saw a grenade come bouncing along the ground towards her. She took cover just as it exploded, then moved to the other side of her fallen machine to search for her enemy.

She could see them now, running away, dressed in a tight operator’s uniform that revealed the lines of their body. Ah, a woman, Mao thought. I knew it.

Mao was currently right next to the large gate leading into the base, which was bored into the mountain’s sixth station. That’s where the enemy was headed.

Into the nuclear missile base... towards the launch control room, she realized, and knew that she had to pursue. She didn’t have time to revel in her own miraculous survival, but just loaded a new clip into the submachine gun stored in the blown-away hatch.

Speaking of which... Mao paused to look around for the Shadow that had saved her life. It was still standing on the ridge, so far away it was the size of a pea. Mao looked at it through the mini-binoculars she kept in her tactical vest.

The Shadow gave her a salute, brushing its fingers against its temple. Then it slung its sniper cannon over its shoulder and made a movement like a joking little shrug.

No way... she thought.

The Shadow touched its head-mounted antenna and twirled its index finger around, a signal for her to turn on her FM radio. She hadn’t had an open channel during the fight due to the clash of electronic weaponry, but now she put on her radio headset, opened a channel, and waited.

“Well? How’s my timing?” asked a thoroughly smug male voice. It was a voice she thought she’d never hear again.

Oh, God in heaven...

“Guess I just made it in time. Ready to fall in love with me all over again, Big Sis?” Kurz Weber said with all his usual brazenness.

The GRU special forces unit that had come running just as they’d withdrawn from Yamsk-11 had found Kurz there on the verge of death. They’d brought him back from the brink and given him treatment and rehab, a process that still wasn’t quite complete. He’d reunited with Wraith soon afterwards, and just yesterday he’d heard about the plan. After begging Colonel Kiryenko of the GRU and pushing back against his doctor’s objections, he’d been allowed to borrow a sniper-type Shadow and run to the rescue.

In truth, Kurz was in no condition to be in an AS at all. Pain was already racing from the wounds all over his back and his body. Combat maneuvers were out of the question, so sniping from a high vantage point was about all he could do.

Nevertheless, here he was, like the knight in shining armor from right out of a storybook. He hoped his first line would sound dramatic and cool, and that Mao would cry over his miraculous return. Then he’d say, “If you’re ever in danger, I’ll always come running. Even from the next world.”

Now, come on, he thought encouragingly. Cry for me, Melissa.

“You suck,” Mao groaned at him over the radio.

“Huh?”

“I thought you’d taken yourself out nobly, like a real man,” she told him scornfully. “Why are you showing your damned face again? Is this what Wraith was trying to tell us? Yeah, I get it now. Boy, no kidding. What a waste...”

“W-Waste? Don’t be like that, I—”

“Yeah, yeah. You survived. Wow, what a shocker. Satisfied now?”

“What the heck is wrong with you?!” Kurz demanded. Such a cold-hearted reaction... It seemed he was the one who’d ended up with tears in his eyes.

“This place is still swarming with hostile machines. You’re on suppression and support duty. Communication over.” And with that, Mao disappeared into the base.

“Meanie,” Kurz muttered, returning his scope’s magnification to its previous setting and resuming his sniping posture. He could see several standard enemy ASes moving around in various places on the mountain. Kurz sighed and, fighting an indescribable sense of depression, began picking off the remaining hostiles.

The Falke was in pieces, stripped of all its limbs. Clouseau struggled his way out of the cockpit and coughed violently. His broken ribs burned in his chest. He hauled himself to his feet and grimaced, heaving for breath.

I can’t believe it, he thought. I’m still alive.

Did the explosion blow out my ear drum? I can’t hear at all out of my right ear. My vision is red and pulsing too. I can’t move my left arm. I can feel my fingertips, but I think the hand’s broken.

It hurts. It hurts. It really freaking hurts.

I need to get those ears fixed, or I won’t be able to enjoy 5.1 channel surround sound...

I’m out. I’m quitting this stupid business. The minute I’ve recovered, I’m moving to Akihabara and resuming my study of Japanese. Then I’ll become a translator. Amazing days ahead. I’ll make it happen.

“I’m...” he coughed, “quitting!”

Who cares about strength? Who cares about the warrior’s path? Feed it all to the dogs. It’s meaningless.

The more he felt that way, the worse his wounds ached, but this job wasn’t done yet. Clouseau pulled his automatic pistol from his holster and, dragging his injured leg, limped his way to the devastated Eligore.

Fowler lay next to the smoking cockpit, soaked in blood. Clouseau approached him cautiously, kicked away the gun near the man’s hand, and put a finger to his neck: no pulse. Fowler was dead. The anti-tank dagger’s explosion must have sent shrapnel through the cockpit and into his chest. Clouseau had meant to sacrifice himself, yet he had lived, and Fowler had died.

Strength is irrelevant. It all came down to luck. As that thought drifted through his mind, Clouseau felt an indescribable sense of regret sweeping over him. “Sorry, Fowler...”

He looked surprisingly peaceful in death. Almost as if he were sleeping. What did he mean when he said he’d ‘lost’ to some drug-addicted trash? Clouseau wondered, and couldn’t even begin to imagine. What tragedy had he experienced? What motivated him? How had he survived this long? The man’s death meant his story would never be told.

Standing was too painful, so Clouseau collapsed in place and turned on his headgear’s radio. “Uruz-1... here. Fowler’s machine is down and out. My M9’s gone, too. I’m in real trouble... or so I’d like to say, but I think I’ll pull through. Is anyone... else alive out there?”

“Ben. Thank goodness,” Mao’s voice responded. “I managed to clean things up here too. And...” She sniffled and choked. Was she crying? No, surely it was his imagination... “Sorry, I got a little surprise on my end, too... Kurz is alive.”

“What did you say?” Clouseau’s eyes went wide. That idiot survived? How absurdly stubborn...

“The GRU saved him, apparently,” Mao went on. “He’s in a Shadow, holding down the perimeter, so I’m going into the base. I managed to get in touch with Yang, but the enemy resistance on the lower floor is holding them up. I’m heading for the launch room on my own.”

“Alone? It’s not safe.”

“That’s all we have time for,” she insisted. “There’s a woman heading for the launch room. I think she’s going to push the red button.”

“All right,” he said after a pause. “Be careful.”

“Right.” She hung up.

“Dammit!” Clouseau fumed. Just minutes ago, he’d been thinking of quitting this awful business. Yet here he was, cursing his inability to join the fight.

Sousuke’s battle continued.

His breathing was stable and his senses were heightened as he readied his 9mm pistol and approached the flaming Belial.

He could see a human form in the smoke; dressed in his operator’s uniform, Leonard was sitting atop a meter-wide pipe. He was bleeding profusely from a wound in his stomach. Noticing Sousuke’s approach, he turned the revolver in his hand towards him—

A gunshot rang out. Leonard took a hit to the shoulder and dropped his own weapon. It hit the concrete floor with a clang. “Ngh...” he moaned, and his arm fell limply to his side as he stared emptily at Sousuke. He didn’t seem to be carrying any other weapons.

“I saw it,” Leonard whispered ruefully. “I speared your cockpit. That should have been it. Then she would complete the changes, and everything would have ended...” He let out a deep sigh. “Why did things turn out this way? Why must it go on? This just... isn’t right.”

“This was my intended goal,” Sousuke said, his pistol still locked on Leonard. “I just wasn’t sure if I could pull it off.”

“Very impressive,” he said in a muffled, self-recriminating voice.

“Leonard,” Sousuke said, “It was a real gamble that you’d actually fall for this. I honestly don’t know how it worked out so well.”

“I wonder... I suppose Teletha’s message affected me more than I thought. Heh...” As if no longer able to restrain his emotion, Leonard turned his face down to cover it with his hand and laugh.

Or is he crying? Sousuke couldn’t tell.

“She knew about our mother, but she still did all of this,” Leonard continued. “That frail little sister of mine... I thought she was a great fool, but perhaps she was tougher than I ever was,” he whispered as if to himself. “I don’t understand. I just... got sick of everything. For so long, everything seemed so pointless... I thought everyone else was stupid. I knew I was odd. I wanted to be normal. I thought this was the only way to be normal.”

Sousuke said nothing.

“Do you understand? I wanted to be normal.”

“I do,” Sousuke said hesitantly, lowering his gun. “I want to be normal, too. I’ve wanted it for a long time now.” It felt like the first proper conversation they’d ever had. Two men, polar opposites, who at the end of the day wanted the same thing. Call us yin and yang, light and shadow, whatever you want. But on a fundamental level, maybe we’re kind of alike.

A glimmer of life resurfaced in Leonard’s empty gaze. “You can’t ever be normal.”

“Maybe not,” Sousuke agreed.

“I think we’ve finally achieved a hint of mutual understanding,” Leonard mused. “The beginnings of a friendship, just as we’re about to die... Do you think that’s how it will end?”

“No.”

“Thought not.” He grinned.

Sousuke finally realized that Leonard was holding a small remote in his left hand. It was a detonator of some kind... Either for the facility, or for the entire base. He’s going to press it, Sousuke realized. I have to kill him. He forced himself to forget that this was Tessa’s brother, took quick aim at his head, and—

Before he could pull the trigger, a rifle round struck Leonard in the chest. There was a spray of blood, and the detonator fell from his hand.

Sousuke gasped, thinking, My left. Eight o’clock. Halfway up the TAROS dome, around what looked to be the entrance, stood a man carrying a rifle. Sousuke turned and ducked behind cover.

“The major,” Sousuke said aloud. It was Andrey Kalinin, dressed in fatigues and a tactical vest, accompanied by two subordinates. One of the two was carrying a limp girl with long black hair on his shoulder.

“Chidori!” Sousuke yelled as the men began to carry Kaname swiftly towards the underground dock’s exit passage. Sousuke wanted to leap out from cover, but Kalinin’s merciless aim wouldn’t let him.

Why kill Leonard? he wondered. Leonard must have been holding a detonator for bombs attached to the TAROS. Kalinin had shot him to keep him from blowing it up while Kaname was nearby. But if that was the case, Kalinin’s next move must be...

“It’s all over, Major! Let her go!” cried Sousuke, knowing that Kalinin was going to take her with him and make his escape. Perhaps he thought that, as long as he had Kaname, he could always build another TAROS somewhere. Perhaps he had anticipated this from the start.

After coming this far... I won’t lose her again! Sousuke told himself. But “Major! You...!” was all he could say.

You know how I feel about her. You know what kind of person I was back in Afghanistan. Why are you taking her away from me? Why do you always just leave without a word? Why won’t you give me an answer?!

Traitor... He’d never meant that word as strongly as he did in this moment. With gritted teeth, Sousuke set his aim to kill. He fired, but he missed. The man was out of pistol range.

With a few bursts of sporadic counterfire, Kalinin and his men left the underground dock behind. The corridor they’d taken would lead right to the runway aboveground.

Sousuke moved to pursue, but he spared a glance for Leonard, who had fallen nearby. He’d already stopped breathing. Sousuke knew he shouldn’t pity him; Leonard would probably just have found that humiliating.

If you really were trying to blow up the TAROS, I can understand that. I’ve thought before that I’d rather blow her up than let you have her, as well. But wasn’t there more you could have done, like leaving some last words for Tessa? You had so much power, and yet... Leonard, you were a fool. After someone was dead, you always thought of all the things you wanted to say to them. Sousuke hated that feeling.

Get a grip, he told himself. Right now, he had to get Kaname back. Sousuke checked his remaining ammo, then took off after Kalinin and his men.

With her submachine gun pointed straight ahead, Mao moved deeper into the nuclear missile base. In the distance of the dimly lit concrete passage, she could hear the gunshots from the battle being waged by Yang and the others. Her own heavy breathing seemed unusually loud in her ears.

She’d beaten the route to the nuclear weapon control room into her head time and again: compartment eight on floor F. She’d take a few turns along the leisurely sloping pathway and then go down several floors, which would lead her deep underground.

Calm down, she told herself. Don’t be afraid. The enemy force is concentrated below, holding off Yang and the others. That means they’ll be understaffed here. Damn, when did I become so timid? I feel like a scared little girl. How can I be afraid for my life now, after everything I’ve been through?

It’s that idiot’s fault, obviously. What was all that “fall in love with me all over again” nonsense? As if I would ever—

Mao gasped and came to a stop. Enemies around the corner. Two of them. They know I’m here. Diving behind a nearby container, she fired at the one she could see. Her opponent threw a grenade as they collapsed, but they hadn’t pulled out the safety pin. The remaining enemies cringed back as she charged forward, firing on full automatic.

Enemies dispatched.

Nice one, Melissa. Your instincts are still on point. Mao paused long enough to scoop up the grenade rolling towards her before moving on. The deadline that Wraith and the others had predicted for them regarding the launch code deciphering had already passed; the enemy could launch the nukes at any moment now.

Mao passed a sign reading “E-8.” Aware that her destination was nearby, she took the stairs down from there. I hate entering stairwells like this, she thought. I feel so exposed...

Almost there. No traps. Keep moving on down the passage.

She passed by the sturdy iron door that led to the launch control room before attaching a shaped charge to a nearby wall. She knew the door was too sturdy for her to blow it away, and had determined from the updated map Wraith had provided that this was the best place to create a shortcut.

Mao planted the fuse and backed off before she detonated it. The shockwave from the explosion was still like a punch to her gut, but she sucked it up and dove into the smoke, through the hole she’d opened in the wall.

No time left, she reminded herself. Hurry, hurry, hurry...

There were three enemies stationed in the launch control room. One man, standing nearby, was highly panicked from the explosion. She shot him dead.

There was another man in the back of the room. He looked at her, about to shoot, but she quickly took aim and fired first, barely beating him to the punch. The enemy took a 5.7mm round to the chest and collapsed.

The last one was the Eligore’s pilot, still dressed in the tight white AS operator’s uniform that accentuated her hip line. As the woman turned to face her, Mao saw that she was young—maybe in her teens. She had sensible short hair and was wearing glasses. She was also holding a pistol in her right hand, and the thumb of her left was on a large red button on the console panel—the launch button.

Mao opened her mouth, but didn’t tell her to stop. She shot without hesitation. The woman took a hail of bullets and collapsed. But...

Alarms began to blare as the control room’s main screen lit up in red, the word “launch” blinking there in Cyrillic writing. She could hear muffled rumbling sounds from the upper parts of the base.

It’s the nuclear missile’s rocket motor, Mao realized. The launch had begun. “What have you done?!” She cried out. Then she ran up and, kicking the woman’s weapon away, began to work the console. Struggling with her shaky knowledge of Russian, Mao checked the information about the launched missiles.

They’d only deciphered the launch code for one, and that one had just been fired. The second launch code had completed just now. The third one followed. These other two missiles were free to launch, but there was nobody left to push the button.

They’d only gotten off one shot. It was a 5.5 megaton nuclear warhead mounted on an MIRV missile. It had enough power to burn a city the size of Tokyo to cinders.

Where’s the missile headed? What’s its destination? Her answer came immediately and she muttered, “What the...”

The nuclear missile was heading for the Pacific Ocean. Latitude: North 20° 50’. Longitude: East 140° 31’. That’s Merida Island, she realized. In just twenty-four minutes, the nuclear missile would reach Merida Island. She didn’t know how things were going there, but Tessa and Sousuke should have reached it by now. Kaname would be held there, as well.

Is there any way to detonate the missile in flight from here? she wondered next. No... It wasn’t designed for that. Once the missile had been fired, it would annihilate its target in nuclear fire. It couldn’t be jammed or blocked. She couldn’t stop it.

She had to warn Tessa and the others. Mao manipulated the console, searching for a usable satellite channel. The “searching” bar progressed so slowly that she wanted to scream.

“Hurry!” she yelled. That woman could have fired it literally anywhere; why, of all places, would she have chosen Merida Island? “What’s the point of this?” she shouted at the woman, who was lying nearby in a pool of blood. Mao had fired into her mercilessly, so she probably didn’t have long to live.

“Of firing... at Merida Island?” the woman asked.

“Yes,” Mao fumed. “You seem satisfied with yourself, at least!”

The woman laughed haltingly. “The changes... stopped. I felt it inside my machine. He... failed. It’s all her fault...”

“‘Changes?’ ‘Her’?”

“He deserves to disappear... and so does she,” the woman said. “I’m the only one who goes out like this... it’s not fair. What was I lacking? He’s too cruel... I can’t stand it any longer. I’m giving it all to the fire, along with that woman...”

“What in the—” Mao tried to interject.

“Let them burn...” the woman whispered hoarsely. Those were her last words.

They hadn’t taken them all out, but they’d managed to push through the enemies’ resistance to arrive at the underground dock. Perhaps the defeat of the Belial had quashed their morale.

Tessa and her comrades now stood before the giant dome-shaped TAROS. On guard for an ambush, the team split up to surround the dome. There was no sign of Kaname inside; had she left on her own, or had someone taken her? They couldn’t know either way just yet.

They found the remains of the Laevatein and the Belial on the other side of the deck from the TAROS. Sousuke must have come and gone. They called him on the radio but received no response.

And then... Tessa found Leonard. She could only stand there silently in front of her brother, who sat slumped and motionless on top of the large pipe. I always knew he’d end up this way, she thought. But maybe he felt the same way about me. That it would be one of us, or the other. But either way, she’d long been prepared for this outcome.

There was so much she’d wanted to say to him if they ever met again. She’d wanted to beat him black and blue, then puff up her chest and give him a lecture. But there was no chance of that now.

Tessa wanted to cry, and she didn’t understand why she couldn’t. Maybe if she was lucky enough to make it back home and find some semblance of a normal life, she’d have time to process it and grieve.

It would be a painful process. She’d brought about his death herself, after all. Whatever he’d been planning, he was still the only family she had left.

“Captain, message from Mao.”

“From Melissa?” Tessa questioned.

Shinohara had been using a handheld device to check communications in the area when she’d picked up a satellite transmission from Mao. It was a shortwave signal, so there was no vocal component. Just a simple telegram-style warning.

Shinohara showed the message to Tessa. They were on the verge of securing the Afghani missile base, but Tessa didn’t have time to be relieved to learn that Mao was safe. The news she was sending them warned of the worst possible outcome: a nuclear missile would hit Merida Island in twenty-two minutes.

He had to admit it; he had failed. Kalinin had known full well that this outcome was possible, yet he’d still set their odds of victory at ninety percent. The surrounding sea defenses, the island defenses, and the Belial... each had been arranged flawlessly. He’d made no errors, yet everything that could have gone wrong had done so; every plan had ended in failure, and he’d ended up with his back against the wall.

He knew that the nature of battle was that things didn’t always go the way you wanted. And yet he hadn’t been able to stop it; Teletha Testarossa and Sagara Sousuke had grown stronger than he’d ever imagined they might. He hadn’t expected the Tuatha de Danaan to break through his every line of defense and plow almost all the way to the underground dock. That event had forced him to split his ground troops, which had meant his defenses rallied too late. Then not only had that AS, the Laevatein, destroyed every AS it had come across, it had also defeated Leonard, which was a truly shocking result.

Those young people had bested him in a head-to-head fight, with incredible split-second judgment and skill. And Leonard, in a last act of resentment at his own failure, had nearly blown up the facility, along with Chidori Kaname.

But Kalinin couldn’t let that happen. He needed Chidori Kaname. As long as he had her, he could always try again. He couldn’t let her die just to satisfy Leonard’s ego. He’d shot Leonard to death to prevent it, though he still wasn’t sure if the boy had genuinely meant to press the detonator switch or not.

While Kalinin ran up the stairs, one of his subordinates asked him, “Where’s the escape helicopter?”

“Standing by on the runway,” Kalinin answered tersely.

“Right.”

Escape and try again, he urged himself. But was that really the right thing to do? Was that really what he wanted? Of course it is, he insisted. I want this. I can still try again.

It didn’t have to be the ideal world that Leonard had been trying for. Kalinin just wanted to set things right, to give the world the form it was meant to have. He was now the only person who could do so. And if Sousuke tries to stop me, I’ll show him no mercy.

“It’s this way,” said his subordinate. “Hurry.”

They came out onto the camouflaged runway on the surface. A mid-sized transport helicopter was waiting on the runway’s outskirts, its rotors already turning. With the unconscious Chidori Kaname in tow, Kalinin and his entourage hurried to the helicopter’s boarding ramp.

When Sousuke came out on the runway, the first thing he heard was the roar of the turboshaft engine. Kalinin and his men were on that helicopter, and they had Kaname.

Chidori! he thought, and took off running. He was thirty meters away.

A single soldier armed with a rifle stood in the door, shooting at him. Sousuke returned fire, emptying his clip while maintaining his speed. A shot hit one of Sousuke’s shoulder pads, causing him to stagger, but he swapped out his clip and kept firing. He landed a hit on the man in the door, who tumbled out of the helicopter.

The helicopter had begun to taxi. It’s going to take off soon, Sousuke realized. He fired at the tail rotor, but his 9mm gun didn’t stand a chance against a military helicopter. It raised a few sparks, but had no further impact.

Sousuke’s gaze fell on a storage shed at the corner of the runway. There was a ground-mounted cable about three meters long, used for securing parked aircraft. Make it in time, he urged himself, changing the direction of his full-speed charge and running past the shed to grab the cable. The helicopter’s tail began to rise as the machine picked up speed.

Now! With a grunt of effort, Sousuke threw the alloy steel cable into the air. It spun in an arc towards the helicopter, where it made contact with the tail rotor and wrapped around it with a clang. The rising helicopter suddenly pitched and dipped, but didn’t fall; despite its newfound struggle, the sturdy tail rotor kept turning. The helicopter hovered about a meter off the runway, swaying back and forth mid-air.

Sousuke charged for the open starboard entry port, fighting against the powerful downdraft to leap inside. The enemy soldiers within were holding tight to their seats in the unstable craft. Sousuke fired three quick shots into them at close range and pushed through the cabin to find Kaname, who was lying in a seat. She looked dazed, but was trying to get up.

Kalinin was nowhere to be seen. Is he in the cockpit? Sousuke wondered, but dismissed it for now. “Chidori!” he called.

“Sousuke...?”

He ran up to Kaname and sat her up. It was his first time touching her in a year, and thoughts were racing through his mind. At last! “Can you walk?” he asked. “I’m going to get you out of here. Just hang on.”

Running to the back of the cabin, Sousuke manipulated a panel in the wall to open the rear cargo hatch, which slowly began to open. The scenery outside went whirling by as the helicopter continued to dip and spin above the runway.

“What’s going on?” Kaname asked. “Am I still dreaming? I...”

“You’re not dreaming,” he told her. “You’re coming back with me.”

Just at this moment, Kalinin came out from the cockpit with his rifle at the ready.

Sousuke pulled Kaname behind a crate right as Kalinin opened fire. He felt a sudden ache in his back; a ricochet had dug itself halfway into his bulletproof operator’s uniform. The yaw on the ricochet allowed his uniform to stop it, but the hit still resulted in a sharp stab of pain.

“Release the girl and drop your weapon!” Kalinin demanded.

“Not a chance!” Sousuke responded, then poked his pistol out from behind cover to return fire. Kalinin must have known there was no way he would hit from this angle, because he didn’t even bother trying to dodge. The man fired again, blasting off a metal cargo restraint and sending a stack of weapons cases tumbling down at Sousuke.

“Ngh!” These were large cases full of anti-tank and anti-air missiles, about a hundred kilograms in total, and they took on the centripetal force from the spinning helicopter to crush Sousuke against the wall.

Kaname was lying on the floor, looking around her as if still in a daze. “Sousuke? Is it really... you, Sousuke?” she asked.

“Chidori!” Sousuke choked out, but was pinned in place as Kalinin drew nearer to them.

The helicopter shook violently, and its spinning grew faster, sending the weapons cases tumbling out of the open cargo hatch. Kaname suffered the same fate, sliding helplessly down the loading ramp and out of the helicopter.

“Dammit!” Sousuke tried to pursue, but couldn’t; part of the metal restraint was tangled around his leg. While he struggled to shake it off, the helicopter suddenly lurched upward, freely gaining altitude.

He could see Kaname’s body rolling down the runway, which was now moving farther and farther away. “Chidori!” he yelled, kicking and pulling at the metal until he finally got it off. But by then, the helicopter was already meters up and still rising.

After I came all this way, he thought despairingly, fully aware that a jump from this height would kill him. “Nngh!” he groaned as the aircraft began to shake violently.

Sousuke turned to look at Kalinin, who was gripping a seat nearby and glaring at him. The Russian whispered something, but whatever his words had been, they were smothered by the combined roar of the engine and the wind whipping in from the cargo hatch.

The helicopter’s ascent stopped, and it tilted hard to the side. The vibrations around them grew violent as the machine continued to spin. They were in no condition to fight now; the helicopter had lost its balance and was now plummeting to earth, moving farther and farther away from the runway as it plunged towards the base’s north side. The ground was approaching, and the angle was too steep for the helicopter to land on its skids. The rotors tore through trees and broke against rocks as the machine struck the ground.

Just as Tessa arrived on the runway aboveground, she heard a crash from the north, as if from some kind of aircraft. There was a trail of smoke in the air above; this, too, was traveling in a northerly direction.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” said Mardukas, spurring her on. “But for now, we must escape!” There were only twenty minutes left until the nuclear strike would hit. There was no way of knowing if they’d be able to find an aircraft, take off, and get away from the island in time.

Sergeant Dejirani, who was communicating with the crew as he headed for the underground hangar, now reported in. “We found a turboprop aircraft, a King Air we left before! We’re fueling it up now. No time to load it up to full, but it’ll get us to liftoff, at least.”

“That’s fine,” said Tessa. “Bring it up top!”

“Yes, ma’am. But someone beat us there...”

“Another guest?”

“Yes,” Sergeant Dejirani confirmed. “The plane came preloaded with a white tiger in a cage.”

“A tiger?” Tessa didn’t understand. A tiger on a plane? she wondered. Who would have put it there? “Is it dangerous?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“Then we’ll take it with us,” she decided.

“Aye aye.”

A rumble echoed around them as the massive elevator, designed to move aircraft from the underground hangar to the surface runway, activated. This had once been their home, after all. They knew exactly what to do at times like these.

“We need to clear the runway,” said Tessa. “There’s something scattered across it.” About fifty meters down the runway lay a scattering of something that could impede their takeoff. Was it heavy weapons cases? No, wait...

“Kaname-san...?” she said uncertainly. It wasn’t just the weapons cases—Chidori Kaname was lying there, too. Tessa recognized her immediately.

“Captain?” Mardukas said warily.

They hadn’t secured the runway yet. There was a chance that enemies could still be lurking about, but Tessa didn’t care about that right now. Ignoring Mardukas’s warning, Tessa ran up to her friend. “Kaname-san?!” she said urgently, shaking her.

“Ngh...”

She’s breathing, Tessa realized. Thank goodness. Her injuries were limited to scrapes and bruises, too.

“Out of the way, Captain. I’ll carry her.” One of Tessa’s subordinates came running up from behind, picking Kaname up and heading for the elevator. Tessa ran alongside him, calling to Kaname, “Kaname-san, can you hear me? It’s me!”

“Tes... Tessa?”

“What happened?” Tessa asked urgently. “Do you know where Sagara-san is?!”

“Sousuke... saved me...went with the helicopter...” She pointed a trembling finger northward, in the direction Tessa had heard the crash. Black smoke was still rising from that point.

About five hundred meters north, I would reckon, Tessa figured. That was enough to give her the gist of what had happened. Someone—most likely Kalinin—had tried to take Kaname away by helicopter. Sousuke had tried to save her, and had taken the machine down in the process...most likely while still inside it.

“We have to go after hi...” Kaname struggled to get off Tessa’s subordinate’s back, but fell into a coughing fit. Her face was pale.

Tessa put a hand to Kaname’s forehead and found she had a high fever. Aftereffects of using the TAROS? she speculated. It might get worse if we don’t get her somewhere she can rest soon...

“Sagara-san is...” Tessa trailed off, looking in the direction the helicopter had gone. Was Sousuke all right? It was possible he’d been thrown clear on the way. But the worst might have also happened, had he been there when it crashed.

Tessa looked at the time: eighteen minutes left. Did she have time to send someone to find him? To find him, save him, and bring him back here? No, there was no way to make that math add up... Even if they did get lucky enough to find Sousuke and bring him back, it wouldn’t be before the nuclear bomb hit. They’d have no time to take off and get far enough away. They simply wouldn’t.

Tessa called to him on the radio. Now that they were on the surface, communications should be possible. “Ansaz here. Uruz-7, respond! There’s a nuclear strike on the way. We have eighteen minutes left!”

There was no response.

The twin turboprop engine plane taxied out of the large elevator. It was an old-fashioned propeller craft they used to use to carry off-duty soldiers to civilization, be it Guam or Tokyo, from this base isolated in the Pacific.

“Ansaz to Uruz-7, respond!” Tessa radioed urgently. “A nuclear warhead is seventeen minutes away! Uruz-7!”

No response.

The crew were rushing to prepare for liftoff. They removed the pipes from the fueling vehicle and carried the wounded on board as the few who had been delegated to remove the weapons cases from the runway ran back. Mardukas dragged Tessa on board, as well.

“Do you read me, Uruz-7?!” Tessa tried again. “Answer me, Sagara-san!”

“Uruz-7... here,” came Sousuke’s voice through the static.

“Sagara-san!”

“Tessa... I’m glad you’re safe,” he said. “My current location is... near the third radar, I think. Where... are you?”

“We’re on the runway,” she told him. “Kaname-san is safe, and the crew is about to make its escape. A nuclear warhead is heading this way. We have sixteen minutes. Please come quickly!” At his current location, he might just make it. If they waited until the very last minute, and if he started running at full tilt right now, they’d be able to take him on board, and just maybe...

“Negative, Ansaz.”

“What?”

“I’m currently... engaging the enemy,” he said. “I don’t think I can make the rendezvous.”

Sousuke’s battle wasn’t over.

The remains of the burning helicopter lay on its side, shattered pieces strewn everywhere. The crushed drop tank, bent rotors, and detached engine pods were scattered along the ground, putting out smoke.

The dawning sky was beautiful.

Sousuke gave his report to Tessa standing near a sponson, which had been broken neatly in half and was now coated in flames. The static from the radio was severe. He didn’t know why; perhaps it was malfunctioning from the beating it had taken.

“Engaging the enemy?” Tessa replied. “How many are there?!”

“One.” Sousuke stared down at said enemy, holding his final remaining weapon—a combat knife—in a reverse grip.

Andrey Kalinin, holding a knife in a similar fashion, was standing five meters away from him. Blood was dripping down his temple, and his fatigues were charred and bloodstained.

They were both in bad shape. Sousuke wanted to offer a truce and propose running back to Tessa together, but he knew too well what the other man would say.

“Kaname... is she safe?” Sousuke asked Tessa.

“Yes. She’s sleeping now.”

“Make sure you get her back home.”

“Sou—” Tessa started to say something, but stopped. She was a smart woman; tragically smart. She knew that when Sousuke said it was impossible, she wouldn’t be able to convince him otherwise. “Yes... I promise.”

“Thank you. Uruz-7, signing off.” Sousuke turned off the radio and threw his headgear aside; he wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

Tessa had sounded like she was holding back tears. Shouldn’t I have offered her one last kind word? he wondered. No, that wouldn’t do. Knowing Tessa, kind words would just have made things more painful for her.

“Are you finished?” Kalinin asked.

“Yes,” Sousuke told him. “Do you know about the nuke?”

“I heard about it in the helicopter earlier. One of my subordinates was listening in.” Kalinin let out a short sigh. “Sabina did it, I imagine. It was a mistake to place her there.”

“Were you really planning to start a nuclear war?”

“Yes. We were going to start the world over anyway, so we thought it would stave off future trouble if we wiped it all clean first.”

There was something almost boastful in Kalinin’s tone, and Sousuke felt a violent anger rising inside him. Not about the approval of mass slaughter, but because he felt that Kalinin was lying not just to Sousuke, but also to himself.

“Feel free to try to justify yourself to me, if you want,” he invited.

“I imagine that would only enrage you,” replied Kalinin.

“True.”

Some distance away from them, the futilely rumbling engine of the helicopter blew to pieces with a roar, sending its turbine blades flying through the air. Nuts, bolts, and aluminum plating rained down around them.

That was the signal. Through the dust cloud stirred up by the shrapnel, Kalinin began to charge, moving with a speed that seemed unimaginable given his usual slow-yet-purposeful daily deportment.

There was no feint, no attempt to knock him off-balance, no attempt to grab his wrist or shoulder. Kalinin just stabbed at him. The motion was fast, sharp, and straightforward.

Sousuke grunted and moved his head aside just in time to feel the blade whip past his throat. Kalinin followed up with a flurry of widely varied strikes, and Sousuke struggled to even tell what was coming next.

A gesture that, at first, seemed like a lurch and a grab turned out to be Kalinin rushing past him to stab at his back. Sousuke leaped forward into a roll to get some distance and turned to see Kalinin about to kick dust into his eyes. He closed just one eye and slashed at the other man’s leg, but Kalinin changed the course of his kick to whip his foot at Sousuke’s temple instead. Sousuke just barely blocked with his left arm, and the impact felt sharper than that of any kick he’d ever taken.

“Ngh...” he groaned. The kick sent Sousuke’s balance shifting to the side, but instead of fighting it, he went into a roll, followed by another slash. Kalinin dodged it effortlessly, then channeled the momentum of the dodge into a spin and planted the heel of his jungle boot into Sousuke’s side.

“Ngh!” Sousuke’s breath caught in his throat as the world around him dimmed, but he endured the pain and took his battle stance again.

“What’s wrong?” Kalinin taunted. “You can’t do anything without an AS?”

Sousuke said nothing.

“I’ve taught you so many things, but it occurred to me a long time back...”

“What?”

“You have no talent for this.” Instantly, Kalinin’s right hand flashed through the air, thrusting forward like a bullet. Sousuke just managed to dodge, but another strike whipped towards him with the same speed. Sousuke just barely dodged it as well, then tried a counter blow. The dizzying back-and-forth caused sparks to fly.

‘No talent’? I’ve always known that. It hurts to hear it said aloud, but I’ve always known, he thought. I’m not a natural at any of this. Not at brawling, not at sniping, not at piloting an AS. I’m good enough but not the best. There are more gifted people all around; Mao, Clouseau, Kurz... They’re all better than I am. I know that much.

Kalinin probably has superior instincts for this kind of hand-to-hand fighting, too.

“But then...” he said out loud. But then why... Why did you try to make me into a soldier? The only thing I have going for me is my stubbornness in the clutch.

Amidst the dodging, blocking, and enduring, the sun began to rise behind Sousuke. He’d positioned himself with the sun at his back without even realizing it, and now Kalinin was squinting, his vision impeded by the light.

If Sousuke was going to strike, it had to be now. He charged, barely dodging Kalinin’s stab before grabbing the man’s knee and twisting it. He could have run away, but he grabbed Kalinin’s knee anyway, and pulled with all his might.

It wasn’t enough. He’d be stabbed in the back at this rate, but Sousuke didn’t care; he dug his nails in, applying his weight. The pull was similar to the move ‘sode tsurikomi goshi’ in judo.

It was a battle of wills as the two men pushed at each other.

Kalinin lost his balance, but dug deep to try and recover. With a grunt, Sousuke kicked off the ground with all his might. Kalinin lost the fight and fell to the ground. It wasn’t a skilled fall, but more like the kind you’d see in a squabble between children.

Nevertheless, Sousuke wasn’t about to complain as he locked down his opponent’s right arm. Kalinin continued to try and stab at him, but Sousuke mustered all of his strength to hold his knife arm in place as he twisted, again and again. At last, Kalinin’s knife fell from his hand.

The enemy had lost his weapon. Victory was near.

Sousuke strained, then bucked his head backwards to hit his opponent again and again. He just had to make Kalinin vulnerable for a second. He heard the dull sound of the cartilage in the man’s nose breaking.

Anger. Hatred. No mercy for the enemy.

Sousuke moved to sit astride his opponent, using all of his weight to hold down Kalinin’s arms. He adjusted the grip on his own knife and pressed down on the defenseless chest.

The ribs are in the way, he reminded himself. Keep the blade parallel. Do you know where the heart is? You need to use every ounce of power you have and push it in at a diagonal. Eventually you’ll tear through blood and flesh and get a feeling like tearing through steel...

And yet, Sousuke just sat there. The tip of the knife remained still against Kalinin’s chest as he failed to press it in. He tried to do the deed again and again, but the knife wouldn’t move. The blade never reached his heart.

“Ngh... dammit.” Sousuke couldn’t do it. He knew that all too well, and the power that had been coursing through his body just moments ago disappeared suddenly without a trace.

Sousuke released Kalinin, stood up, and backed away. He tried to convince himself to charge in again, but realized he couldn’t do it, took three more steps back, and squatted down.

I can’t kill my own father.

“Do whatever you want,” Sousuke whispered, collapsing back against the shell of the helicopter. He stuck his knife into the ground in front of him and trembled in front of Kalinin.

I’m so tired. So sick of fighting.

As Sousuke sat there, Kalinin slowly stood up. “As I said, you have no talent.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“You’re like a lamb raised among wolves,” Kalinin observed. “You’ve never truly hungered for blood, and you don’t need to eat flesh to survive. You simply imitated what the wolves around you did, because it was the only way for you to survive. Can there be any animal in the world more pathetic, more pitiable?”

“I don’t care,” Sousuke told him.

“This isn’t how you were meant to be. You weren’t meant to become what you are... someone who could best me in a fight. You weren’t meant to be called ‘Kashim’ or ‘Uruz-7.’”

Sousuke had nothing to say.

“There’s somewhere else out there you belonged,” Kalinin went on. “But you can’t go back there now. You destroyed that place yourself.”

What are you trying to say? Why are you saying it? You can’t possibly want to spend this time giving me some hoary old lecture about how I’m not a real soldier, Sousuke thought incredulously. You pity me, huh? You’re saying I should have been a normal man? But I could never be, and now it’s too late.

“And so... I’m going to finish things.” Kalinin picked up the knife and approached him, step by step; he’d started the fight, and he meant to finish it. He could do what Sousuke couldn’t. He had to prove that there was a difference between wolves and sheep.

Kalinin came in close, crouched down, and took a stabbing posture. Slumped against the ruined helicopter, Sousuke just watched in exhaustion. He was ready... but the strike never came.

Kalinin coughed, and a streak of red spilled from a corner of his mouth as the knife dropped from his hand. He fell to his knees and collapsed forward, his back soaked with blood.

Sousuke only now realized there were fragments of metal stuck into Kalinin’s flesh, deep enough to reach his internal organs. It must have happened when they crashed. Was he fighting all this time with those wounds? he wondered.

“Why in the world...”

“Your final... training,” Kalinin said weakly. “I wanted to show you... who you really are.” His large, bloodstained hand grabbed Sousuke by the shoulder. “You couldn’t kill me. Of course you couldn’t. You’re a kind boy.”

“Stop it,” Sousuke replied. The words affected him worse than a slap. I don’t want to hear that. I don’t deserve it. Why can’t you be cruel with me? I won’t be able to stand up again after hearing something like that.

“I wanted... to send you home.” Kalinin sighed deeply, as though the life was draining out of him. “I wanted to go home, too. To Irina... To my child...” He was talking about his late wife. Over ten years ago, she and her unborn child had died of a medical error while he was on maneuvers in Afghanistan.

“Is that why you worked with Leonard?” Sousuke asked. “I can’t believe a man like you fell for that kind of weak-willed fantasy!”

“Did... Did you think I was invincible?”

“Isn’t that what fathers are?!”

Kalinin smiled slightly. Perhaps he enjoyed being called a father. “This is... what all fathers are like under the surface. And realizing that is a sign of growing up...”

“Major.”

“Iki-nasai.” Kalinin said his final words in Japanese. Then the hand gripping Sousuke’s shoulder loosened, and he collapsed.

How many minutes had he sat there, squatting in front of Kalinin’s empty shell? Sousuke heard the distant sound of a propeller craft’s engine and looked up at the sky. The King Air had taken off from the base’s runway with Tessa and the others on board.

Sousuke looked at his watch: ten minutes until the nuclear missile arrived. Flying at full speed, they’d only just make it to safety. They really must have waited for him until the last second.

“Chidori...” he sighed. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but it all came down to those mere ten seconds in the helicopter. He’d burned himself out for a whole year, all for that fleeting moment of contact. He wasn’t even sure if she’d been back in her right mind or not in those moments. The only evidence he had that she was, was the fact that the ‘change’ hadn’t taken place.

Will she be able to be happy now? He hoped that she would. But he’d lost his chance to be sure, to see it happen. It’s fine, he told himself. I did all I could.

He’d left his last will and testament unwritten, and he still didn’t know what he’d have put in it if given another opportunity. There was nothing left that he could do for her.

“Good luck...” Sousuke whispered, gazing at the plane as it disappeared into the rising sun. Then he stood up and, leaving the silent Kalinin behind, ran towards the base. He didn’t expect it to do any good, though. Even moving now was pointless.

And yet he ran.

Iki-nasai. Through the haze of his uncertain memories of the past, long ago, Sousuke felt he’d heard those same words once before. Not ike, “go,” or ikiro, “live,” but a liminal word existing between the two. He wondered why Kalinin had picked that word. But he ran through the light of the early morning, choosing to treat those words as if they had been an order.

He found a passage leading down in a corner of the practice grounds, kicking in the wire mesh door and going through. He reached the bottom of the stairs in thirty seconds, passed through several doors, and ended up near Corridor No. 0.

The Merida Island underground facility wouldn’t be able to withstand the pressure and heat generated by a nuclear warhead on a modern ICBM. Escaping to the sewers or the thermonuclear power facilities on the base’s lowest level would be no better; even if he managed to survive, he’d be trapped under the rubble of the collapsed facility, or drown in the seawater that rushed in after the explosion.

Going underground wouldn’t save him. He was out of options. Sousuke checked the time: seven minutes left.

“Nothing I can do, then?” he said, knowing that he was helpless. He was about to sink to his knees in despair when he saw something at the end of the corridor. There was a large hole in the wall, beyond which was the underground dock where he’d settled things with the Belial.

Oh, right. I forgot about him. Picking through the rubble, Sousuke entered the underground dock. The demolished Laevatein lay there beyond the cables and pipes. It still had its head, so the audio sensors should still be working. He ran up and tried addressing it.

“Al.”

《I thought you were just going to leave me here,》 came the typically casual tone over the external speakers. The cockpit was destroyed, but Al’s core unit was in the stomach. He must have just made it through.

“Do you know about the nuclear attack?” Sousuke asked him.

《I do. I intercepted the transmission from Afghanistan.》

“I see...”

《The MIRV warhead they fired has a payload of 5500 kilotons. It’s all going to hit Merida Island. Even if you took shelter, you couldn’t possibly survive.》

“It seems that way,” Sousuke agreed.

《But I’m satisfied, since I got to get that scrap back for what it did to me at that school.》 Al apparently held a grudge over his loss to the Belial during his days as the Arbalest.

That school... It had only been a year ago, but it felt so far away, Sousuke reflected. Losing to Leonard’s Belial in the courtyard there, watching Kaname be taken away, swearing to her classmates that he’d bring her back... After a long, long journey, it would all end here.

“How many minutes left?” he asked.

《Five.》

“Longer than I expected...” Now that he’d resigned himself, it felt like too long to wait.

Sousuke suddenly remembered the memory chip in his pocket. It had come with the letter from Kudan Mira, and he’d planned to look it over after the operation was done. Unfortunately, he had nothing to play it in. There was a compatible slot for it in the cockpit, but the cockpit had been speared by the Belial’s hand.

“Can you read a memory chip?” he asked Al.

《Searching now. I believe I can. The slot in the cockpit is still functioning.》

Sousuke climbed into the cockpit through a space in the hatch, where the smell of burnt metal and vinyl stung his nose. The master suit he’d typically sat in had been blown away, leaving a barren, empty space surrounded by crushed electronics and cables. He pushed aside the warped frame to reach the box-shaped unit that had just avoided total destruction, pulling out the memory chip to insert it.

“Can you display it?” he asked.

《The sixth panel screen is still working. Displaying now.》

Most of the screens had been destroyed with the rest of the machinery, but a screen about the size of a magazine dangling on his right side was still working. It flickered and lit up, showing the contents of the memory chip. A movie file, eh? Mira’s letter said she’d found this file ‘on the internet.’The file notes contained the date and time it was uploaded, the site it had come from, its size and format. The file name was ‘tokanasosuke_01.’

The resolution was low. There was a lot of static. The sound was mono. Nevertheless, Sousuke ordered it to play.

The first thing he saw was a classroom. It was familiar, but not quite the one that he knew. The view outside the window was also similar, but not quite right. He could vaguely hear the brass band club practicing outside. The calls of the baseball club. The silly laughter of girls in the hall.

It was Jindai High School. The classroom wasn’t 2-4, but the one just above it, 3-4. The view began to move jerkily, swinging to show first the ceiling, then the floor.

“Wait, are you recording already?” said a voice.

“It’s working. See?” replied another.

Then the movement stopped; perhaps the camera had been placed on a tripod. Beyond the static, he could see Kazama Shinji, facing the lens, clearing his throat. “Um, ahem... I don’t know where you guys are or what you’re doing, but I wanted to give you an update. If you see this, give us a call.”

“Hey, how is anyone gonna know who we’re talking to?” someone interrupted from outside the frame. Everyone laughed.

“B-But are you sure it’s okay to say their names?” someone asked. “We’re gonna send this all over the world, right?”

“It’s fine. Anyway, here we go. One, two...” The screen moved again. The students were lined up in front of the blackboard. There were over thirty of them, and Sousuke recognized them all. How could he not?

They all shouted at once, a little bit off time, “Chidori! Sagara! Come home soon!” Then they broke into sporadic laughter, with individual comments like “Let’s try it again” and “No, it’s fine,” standing out here and there.

Kazama came back into frame and winced as he continued. “Anyway, that’s basically the plan. We were hoping you might see this, wherever you are. Okay, who’s first?”

“Teacher! Teacher first!” a crowd of them shouted, followed by whistles and applause.

Kazama left the frame and a woman entered in his place. It was their homeroom teacher, Kagurazaka Eri. She was wearing her usual suit, but her shirt and pants were looser around the stomach than usual.

“Ah... Sagara-kun, Chidori-san. It’s your homeroom teacher, Kagurazaka,” she said. “Are you doing all right? I know it’s been an eventful time, but everyone’s still here and working hard. We’ve got all your things safely stored away, so don’t worry about that.”

“Teacher! Anything else to report?!”

“Ah... well, the truth is, last year, I married Mr. Mizuhoshi. You really helped me seal the deal. Thank you so much.” This was followed by more teasing around her.

“Teacher, there’s more!”

“What? Um... Everyone will have graduated by then, but I’ll be taking maternity leave in April. The baby’s due in June. If you can, please come and see me.” There was a thunderous round of applause. Eri gave the camera a wincing smile before she exited the frame.

“Next! Who’s next?”

“Kyoko, you go.”

“M-Me? Um, um...”

“Kyoko! Kyoko!” they chanted.

Tokiwa Kyoko entered the screen. She’d stopped wearing her hair in braids, it seemed. She looked a little more grown-up, but seemed hale and hearty enough.

“Um... Kana-chan, Sagara-kun,” she began. “As you can see, I’m just fine. I know you’re probably really worried about me, but don’t be, okay? By the way, I’m taking care of Hamski, so he’s fine, too. Graduation is on March third. I hope you can get in touch before then...”

“Yes, thank you!”

“Okay, who’s next?”

“Ono-D, go for it!”

The frame shook. “Huh? Uh, I wasn’t gonna...”

“Oh, that’s right! Ono-D, Ono-D!”

“But...”

“You gotta. You’ve got a lot to say, right? Go say it.”

Sluggishly, Onodera Kotaro entered the frame.

“Just get it out. Say it!”

“Um... I don’t really... darn it.” He dragged his feet, lowered his head, ran his hands through his hair, and finally turned to face the camera again. “Ah, fine. Sagara... I’m sorry,” he said, glancing up at the camera regretfully. “I lost my temper last time we saw each other. Since then, I’ve heard a lot more about what happened and thought it over... and it was wrong for me to blame it all on you.”

There was no teasing this time. Everyone just fell silent and listened to him speak.

“I just felt like... you were hiding things from me. I mean, I know you had your reasons and all. But I felt really left out, you know? That’s why I lost my temper... okay? Sorry. Anyway, that’s the deal. Give me a call if you get back. I’ll be waiting.” Before those around him could react, Kotaro fled the camera’s gaze.

Other students began to come up after that, and each one shared their own short messages for Kaname and Sousuke. It was a long video. There were close to fifteen minutes left, according to the timestamp.

Sousuke looked at the time: one minute until impact.

“I don’t want to die,” he said, his voice breaking as he squeezed the words from his throat. He meant it from the bottom of his heart. “I don’t want... to die.”

I don’t know what’s happening, he thought. His face felt hot. The world turned blurry around him. He didn’t know what was happening. The words came against his will. “I really... I really don’t want... to die...”

Then Sousuke finally realized... I’m crying. Tears flowed from his eyes as he pulled at his hair and began to weep and wail, there in that cramped, burnt-out cockpit with barely any space to move.

I just want fifteen more minutes, he thought in despair. Just fifteen more minutes. Let me watch it to the end. Why can’t you give me that much?

I don’t want to die. I want to go home. I want to go back to that school with Kaname.

I want to go home.

Please, please, please...

“I don’t want... to die.”

《Sarge. Thirty seconds,》 Al said.

“Please...”

《The TAROS was destroyed. I cannot channel your thought patterns to activate the lambda driver.》

“I... I know,” he choked.

Twenty seconds left.

《Before I attempt something, I wish to ask a question. Am I human, or am I a machine?》

“You’re...” It would be easy to say that Al was a machine, but Sousuke couldn’t say that any more. Whatever he was, it was more complicated than that. “You decide that for yourself,” he finally said. “That’s... what all humans do.”

《Thank you.》

There were five seconds left.

“What are you...”

《I’m going to try and do it myself.》

Around the fallen Laevatein, the air warped sharply. It was the power that lay beyond the physical. The power that required a human mediator to activate...

Zero seconds left.

The 5.5 megaton warhead exploded in the air over Merida Island.