2: New World

Once everything was packed up for the night, Nami and the others headed to a nearby bar to celebrate. They treated the laborers they met there each to their favorite drink, drank a lot of Tiger Beer, played music, and made a ruckus. The handful of eccentrics who had actually bet on Crossbow stopped by the bar and congratulated them on the fight.

With the reality of the victory finally starting to sink in, Nami was in high spirits. “Ta-daa, drink up! It’s all on us today!”

“Yeah!!” The whole group, Lemon included, raised their glasses, rosy-cheeked. He’d only met these people today, but they already felt like old friends.

“Boy, Dao looked like a damn clown, falling on his ass like that!”

“The people who bet on him are furious. I saw a few talking about killing him.”

“He was one step away from his coveted Class A rank-up, too. Serves him right.”

They talked, they laughed, they drained their glasses and shoveled in food. The overwhelming nature of the upset had resulted in quite a handsome payout for the team. They’d earned enough to give Lemon his initial investment back, repair the Crossbow’s wrecked portions, and even buy quite a few high-quality new parts.

All was well. The future looked bright. There was no reason they shouldn’t celebrate. Lemon and the crew were belting out old folk songs and military anthems and having a grand old time, stomping on the cheap floorboards.

“Hey, boss! You get some good pictures? You’re gonna win the Peanuts Prize for sure, right?”

“Ahaha! Actually, I was so caught up in the match, I didn’t take a single picture!”

“Then I’ll let you get pictures of my wife! She’s gorgeous, by the way!”

“Ohh?”

The mechanic Ashe interrupted. “Liar. She’s eighty kilos! Gimme a break!”

“It might get you a Raspberry, at least!”

“Isn’t that for movies?”

“Who cares! Another round!”

Some distance away from the laughing and joking friends sat Sagara Sousuke, silent and alone in a corner of the bar, with a glass of mineral water in his hand.

The bar building was a cheaply made one, and its walls were peppered with large holes that had been patched with corrugated iron. The roof was in a similar state, and it probably leaked badly when it rained. Naked light bulbs dangled from the ceiling, and they flickered any time someone in the kitchen used the microwave.

The walls were thin, and decorated halfheartedly with a ragged old poster from some piece of Thai cinema; a replica of a landscape painting whose name she didn’t know; fake flowers and beads. They failed to keep out the sour stench from the adjacent alleyway. It was a pretty bad place all in all, but Sousuke didn’t seem bothered by it.

Nami left the merrymaking group behind and sat down quietly next to Sousuke, leaning back against the wall. “Enjoying yourself?” she asked.

“Affirmative,” Sousuke responded, taking a sip of his water.

“Your English is strange.”

“I hear that a lot.”

Nami laughed, but Sousuke showed no sign of hurt feelings. “You’re Japanese, right?”

“Yes.”

“Japanese Army?”

“No,” he answered. “I wouldn’t be old enough to join a proper military. And Japan does not have an ‘army,’ just an organization called the Self-Defense Force.”

“How’s it different?” Nami wanted to know.

“I’m not sure; apparently it’s a constitutional issue,” he told her. “Because they lost the War.”

“Ahh.” She’d brought the topic up to break the ice, but it was taking her in a more boring direction than expected, so Nami changed the subject. “Where’d you learn to operate that thing, anyway?”

“Afghanistan,” Sousuke answered easily enough. “I started out in a first-generation Savage just like that one. That was six or seven years ago. After that, I traveled, and learned how to operate all kinds of machines. Mid-model Savages, Mistrals, Cyclones, Bushnells, Gernsbacks...”

“Gernsbacks?” she questioned. “You mean M9s?”

“No. Forget I said that.”

Nami looked at him in confusion.

The M9 Gernsback was a cutting-edge AS currently in development by the US military. They were extremely high-spec and extremely expensive, with power and maneuverability far beyond that seen in the second-hand machines that grappled in the Arena. Nami had read estimates of their data in specialist magazines, where even the most conservative speculations made them sound like absolute beasts.

Of course, she thought, a simple mercenary couldn’t have experience in something that cutting-edge. “You mentioned Afghanistan, right?” she said next. “Do they get a lot of Japanese migrants there?”

“No.”

“Then, how’d you end up there?”

“A variety of circumstances.”

“It’s pretty weird, though,” she mused. “You’re clearly the same age as me, but only national militaries would have Savages, right?”

“You’re misinformed,” Sousuke said. “Guerrillas frequently stole Soviet ASes and used them for themselves. I’ve been an operator since the practice started.”

“Oh, really? Wait, guerrillas? What was a Japanese kid doing as a guerrilla in Afghanistan—” Realizing that Sousuke’s eyes were downcast, Nami stopped herself. “Sorry. I’m being kinda nosy, huh?”

“It’s all right,” he whispered, then looked at Nami. “May I ask you a question now?”

“What is it?”

“You’re young. I know this city is exceptional in many ways, but it still can’t be easy to take ownership of an AS. How did you acquire yours?”

It was an understandable question, and she’d been asked it many times before. Since she had no particular reason to hide it, Nami decided to be honest. “I found it, just outside my home village.” It would have been just a year or two ago now, but to her it felt like decades. “It was sitting there on its butt like a dummy, blocking the water to the rice paddies. Diesel was leaking from the tank and doing damage to crops, too. Of course... most everyone in the village was dead or gone by then, anyway.”

“The war?” he asked.

“Yeah. It was kind of a crossroads... government and insurgent armies from different countries, all coming and going. The village got burned and all its resources were raided. The men went off to become soldiers and never came back. The women... they ended up kidnapped and raped by other soldiers, or they went to the city to work to afford food. Kind of the standard deal, I guess.”

“I’m impressed that you survived.”

“I got lucky,” Nami said. “I happened to be on an errand in the next village over when we were attacked. But when I got back...” The scene replayed itself in her mind. She’d thought she was ready to talk about it openly, but quickly realized that she wasn’t.

A wrinkle formed on her brow, and she shook her head, trying to brush off the unexpected resurgence of that lurking nightmare. “That Savage had been left there by the people who burned half of our village to the ground. It had taken some shots here and there, but it could still move, so I took it. The other survivors were pretty strongly against it, but...” Nami looked up at the ceiling. “But I wanted to rebuild the village.”

Those painful memories had never gone away: the faces of the people she knew so well, twisted in desperation; the expressions of despair in people who had no other recourse. “So I came here to Namsac. I mean, I know how little girls in the city usually earn their money... There’s no shortage of poor kids standing on street corners who’ll end up as shredded as old rags before they ever get the money they need. But the Arena changes things. You saw that today, right? If you can do it right, you can make a ton of money. Especially if you rise to Class A.”

“I see,” Sousuke observed neutrally.

“I’m gonna use the money I make here to fix up the spoiled fields and rebuild the roads and bridges,” Nami continued. “I’m sure the people will come back then. But most of all, I want to fix the school I used to go to. That’s my main goal right now.”

“School?”

“Yeah, the only school in the village. Bombs and ASes trashed it and killed my nice teacher, but it was a good school.”

“A good school...” Sousuke whispered. For some reason, he said the words in a melancholy tone, his eyes pointed downward. He seemed to be remembering a world he had once known but could never return to, somewhere far, far away.

“A good school, yeah,” Nami went on. “They even accepted a half-breed like me.”

“You’re half-Japanese?”

“Was it that obvious?”

“Your name did seem unusual,” Sousuke admitted.

“Apparently my father worked for a Japanese trading company or something. I never met him, but my mom told me about him. She died before the village was destroyed, stepping on a landmine.”

Sousuke took a drink, and whispered something in Japanese, but hitonireki was all that Nami could make out. “What?” she asked.

“I was just saying, everyone has a past.”

“That’s a nice saying. I like it.”

“It’s common sense.”

Nami grinned. “Yeah, guess so. Hey, Monsieur! Monsieur Lemon!” Nami cut off the conversation and shouted back to the rest of the gang. “Shouldn’t you be getting back to work? Like maybe start up on your article before you get too soused to write?”

“Aw, c’mon, Nami-san. Don’t pull the plug on us now,” Lemon laughed drunkenly. “Come over here, c’mon.” Now nicely plastered, he raised his glass and beckoned her over. “I’ll start on the research right now! Gimme your me-mur-seants! Nah, kidding! Sorry!”

The men all laughed. “Nice one, monsieur! We wanna hear too! Get her measurements!”

“Nah, can’t do that... I’m too much of a... mentlegen. But Nami-san, that AS? That robot you got... That I wanna hear about. That’s my article. You’ll help out, right?”

“Why don’t you ask Sagara?” she suggested. “I just told him the whole story.”

“Aw, Sagara-kun? No fair! You gotta tell me too! C’mon!” Lemon approached to hang off Sousuke, stinking of booze.

Sousuke just turned away with a scowl. “If you like, but... I wonder if you’ll still remember it by morning.”

The party ended in the middle of the night. Lemon was so drunk that he could barely walk straight, and the mechanic, Ashe, had to escort him to his hotel, while the rest of the crew went their separate ways.

Nami and Sousuke walked most of the way back together. There were fewer people in the entertainment district now, and once they got to a quiet park—it was a bit overrun with weeds—they would have to go their separate ways.

“We don’t have any more fights scheduled this week,” Nami said before they parted. “But we’ve got lots to do, starting tomorrow. We’ll need to buy parts and do maintenance, and you’ve got a lot to learn. Meet me in the hangar before noon, okay?”

“Roger.”

“Okay, good night.” Nami gave him an exaggerated salute, then parted ways with Sousuke and started to walk. She turned back in time to see him disappear into the cheap hotel past the dim street lamps. She had to walk a while longer, as the apartment she was living in was another four blocks south. It was a stuffy old place, but she couldn’t wait to get back. It had been a very eventful day, and Nami was exhausted.

She was far from the entertainment district now, and things were so quiet that the commotion of the day almost didn’t feel real. A dingy taxi drove past her. An old folk song drifted through its open windows, moving farther and farther away. She focused. She sensed someone behind her, and turned around. No one was there. No—

“Dangerous to walk around alone at night, y’know,” said a voice close to her ear. A man had come out of the alley next to the sidewalk and grabbed Nami’s arm. He had a powerful grip, and she couldn’t shake him off.

Nami struggled in shock. She could see the man’s face, distorted with a scar, in the dim light. His voice was sticky and familiar; it was Dao. Either he’d tracked her back from the bar, or he’d set up an ambush. There was a large plaster over his nose, and his head was wrapped in bandages—both injuries from the day’s fight.

Dao wasn’t the only one there. There were three other men—probably his mechanics—helping to surround her. They looked triumphant, as if they’d sprung a brilliant trap on a hundred skilled warriors, rather than randomly accosted a single young girl.

“You really gave it to me today, y’know. It’s time I thanked you. Know what I mean?”

Nami struggled in his grip.

“Oh, right. You had a gun, didn’t you? Where’d you hide it? Was it here? Hmm, or was it here?” He’d already found the small revolver in her cargo pants pockets, but he continued pawing at her backside, her thighs, and her crotch.

“Oh, there it is. Sheesh... A kid shouldn’t be walking around with something like this.” Dao unceremoniously screwed the revolver he’d taken from her into his own pants pocket.

“What is this, revenge for me showing everyone what a loser you are? You really are rotten to the core. You pig!” Nami’s voice trembled, a mixture of hatred, anger, and fear.

A sharp slap stung her cheek. She cried out. And another. She let out a weak groan.

“Let’s lay down some ground rules,” Dao snarled. “Every time you call me a loser or a pig or some disrespectful shit like that, I pop you one. It’s automatic. You piss me off, I hit you. In fact, I get to slap you any time the mood strikes me, even if you don’t say squat. Get it?”

Nami said nothing.

“I said back in the Arena that I don’t like you. But it ain’t really like that. Your neck gets me hot... See? Like this...” Dao grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head toward him. The hairs on her body stood on end as his tongue traced its way up her neck line.

Nami felt her lungs expand and a scream escape her throat.

“Mm, yummy. But don’t worry... That ain’t the end of it,” Dao assured her. “I’m gonna make you mine for real, even if I have to drug you to within an inch of your life.”

“No! I’d rather die—” Another slap. Nami winced in pain.

“Rules are rules, right? Hey, our ride’s here... Get in.” An old van approached, with Dao’s gang inside. As it parked beside them, one of his men immediately opened the door to the back seat.

“Oh, one more thing,” he said. “That bratty operator you hired... I don’t know his name, but I sent someone else after him.”

Nami gasped.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell them to kill him. But... well, if he ends up dead like a dumbass with his head in some cheap hotel toilet, that ain’t my responsibility,” Dao said. “Though I feel bad for the cops. They’re overworked as it is.”

“You asshole! You pig! All he did was fight in the match! He didn’t do anything—” Sure enough, her defiance earned Nami two more blows to the face.

“Sure he did. He did this to me, right? He deserves what he gets. I bet he’s kissing a sticky toilet bowl right now, limbs flailing around, struggling to escape...” The men all cackled at Dao’s words.

Just then...

“Were you referring to me?” They turned to look over at the new voice, and saw Sagara Sousuke standing in the dim light of the streetlamps. “Dao, was it? I’m afraid it’s your friend who’s kissing the toilet right now.”

Dao stared at him, stunned. “What the...”

“Let her go, then get in your van and leave. I have greater priorities right now, so I’d prefer to avoid trouble.”

Dao’s warped face distorted even further as he laughed. “You think you can tell me what to do? You’ve got balls, kid. You shoulda run off while you had the chance...”

He should have, Nami thought. But despite that, she still wanted Sousuke’s help. Wrestling with these contradictory feelings, she shouted, “I-It’s dangerous. You probably should run...”

“I can’t do that. You are my employer,” Sousuke responded, unconcernedly.

Dao addressed his men. “Get him.”

Watching the men approach with knives and steel pipes in hand, Sousuke let out a sigh, long and deep. “I was hoping I’d have an easier time on my first day,” he whispered, preparing himself.

There were four men in front of him, and two in the van. They weren’t carrying guns, but they had knives and bludgeons. Several of them held their knives in a reverse grip, suggesting military training. Others held the pipes like baseball bats, releasing then gripping them with both hands. Your average street punks wouldn’t hold them that way.

Nami knew that much, too. This region had been home to prolonged civil war and border disputes, which meant most of its young men had some training with weapons, and experience with practical killing techniques. This wasn’t like some street fight in an otherwise peaceful country.

But maybe that was why Sousuke’s fight with Dao and his men finished so quickly.

“Die!” Dao shouted.

With moves faster than the eye could see, Sousuke dodged the knife strike, grabbed the man’s wrist, and snatched his weapon away. He twisted his opponent’s arm, locked it behind him, and plunged the stolen knife into his neck.

The men gasped in shock. The knife was sticking out of his neck, fifteen centimeters below the ear, halfway down the blade. There wasn’t much bleeding, and Dao was still alive. His deformed face became further twisted with fear and shock, and his wide-open eyes stared into nothing.

“I’d advise against moving,” Sousuke said to Dao and the others. “His windpipe, his nerves, his carotid artery... I’ve avoided hitting any of them. But the slightest movement in any direction...”

“Erk?!” Dao choked.

“You know, don’t you? The smallest adjustment of my hand, and either you drown in your own blood, or you spend the rest of your life confined to a bed.” Nobody moved a muscle. The tropical air had been hot and humid, but suddenly, it felt ice cold. Sousuke said, “Leave her alone and never touch our team again. Promise me that, and I’ll let you go. This is the best compromise I can offer to the people who killed Rick. Well?”

Dao opened his mouth.

“Promise carefully,” Sousuke warned him. “I don’t want to nick the artery.”

A cold sweat appeared on Dao’s face, and he spoke up hoarsely. “I... I promise. I won’t... mess with her... again...”

“Does that go for all of you?”

The men glanced at each other, terrified, and then spoke up rapidly, all together.

“Yeah, we promise.”

“You win.”

“Let Dao go.”

Sousuke scrutinized them carefully, one by one. But at last, he removed the knife from Dao’s neck. “Go.” He shoved him in the back. Dao tottered forward, and the men held him up and helped him into the car. One of them remained behind, dropping his hips and checking Sousuke for openings. But Sousuke’s guard was perfect as he stared at him intently. There must have been something terrifying in his glance, because the man swiftly backed off.

“Wh-Who the hell is that guy?” the man whispered. “G-Gives me the damned creeps...” With that line, which barely qualified as a parting shot, the men piled into the van. The second the door was closed, they drove off, accelerating towards the Namsac city center.

“Sorry,” Sousuke said to Nami once the taillights had disappeared into the night.

“Wh-Why are you apologizing?”

“I probably should have killed him. Even after that, I don’t think he’ll back off,” Sousuke whispered casually, and Nami thought she saw something different in his expression than before.

If they’d been mere street hoodlums looking for action in an otherwise peaceful city, they would have driven off cursing at him. They wouldn’t have recognized how strong Sousuke really was. But Dao’s men and Nami, all raised in the fires of war here in Namsac, could see it all too well: Sousuke knew what he was doing.

He had extensive experience in real-life combat. He’d killed more than a few people in his time. It was in more than the way he moved and spoke; it was his aura of complete calm when performing such violence. There wasn’t a trace of tension about him, and that, more than anything, was what made his strength clear.

“I dunno,” Nami said, her heart gradually slowing from its kettledrum pace. “They’re pretty stupid, but I think you got your point across.”

“Even so, I’m only one man,” Sousuke said. “There’s only so much I can do by myself.” There was something strangely self-recriminating in his tone.

“I’m understanding you less and less as we go... You sound almost self-defeating,” she observed.

“Do I?”

“But thanks, regardless. You saved me,” Nami said genuinely, and flashed him a carefree smile. Normally she liked to put on a front around others, telling them, “Please, I don’t need help,” but she surprised even herself with the ease with which she’d been able to thank him.

“You are my employer. I have to protect you.”

“Is that all it is?”

“It’s not just that,” Sousuke said. “You’re a nice girl.” He said it with such sincerity that Nami felt her heart skip a beat.

“Huh? Wh-What does that mean?”

“It means you’re a kind person,” he explained. “It occurred to me when you told me your story in the bar.”

“Oh, yeah?” Nami whispered, feeling a little let-down. “Yeah, I really don’t get you. You’re kind of a weirdo.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah. Major weird.”

“I’ve been told that before.”

“I’ll bet!” She let out a big laugh, then said, with a bit of smugness, “Well, it’s dangerous to travel at night. Will you walk a beautiful, delicate girl like me back to her apartment?”

“A beautiful, delicate girl?”

“Got a problem?”

“No, I have no objections to that statement. I’ll walk you there.” Sousuke moved to take the lead, but she curled her arm around his instead.

“Thanks,” she giggled.

“Not an issue.” Sousuke’s reply sounded as indifferent as ever. It was hard to tell if he even realized that she was pressing her chest against his side as he walked Nami back to her apartment, then headed back for his own cheap hotel without further comment. She hadn’t really wanted him to come up with her, but she still felt unsatisfied, somehow.

Ah, well, Nami thought. It had been a busy night, and she was still pretty worked up. She should cool off and get to sleep. She took off her clothes, had a cold shower, then curled up in her small bed in just her underwear and her tank top. A few minutes after the lights went off, the doorbell rang.

Dao’s men again? she wondered timidly as she answered it, with the door chain still on. But the person standing in front of the door was Sousuke. He was carrying his knapsack, a large bag, and various other heavy luggage.

“Wh-What is it?” she asked shakily.

“I was kicked out of my hotel,” he told her. “I need to stay with you.”

“Huh?” Apparently Sousuke had left one of Dao’s men half-dead in the motel bathroom, and when he came back, they had thrown him out.

“B-But... Look, I... I live by myself.” Remembering that she was basically naked, Nami went red and hid behind the door.

“That was part of my consideration as well,” Sousuke responded, unfazed. “Dao and his men could take advantage of that if they decide to try anything. I can serve as your bodyguard. You can subtract the lodging fee from my pay.”

“Um, but still, it feels...”

“You don’t like the idea?”

“I didn’t say that,” Nami protested. “But... it’s kind of weird, right?”

Sousuke nodded silently. “I don’t fully understand, but it appears you don’t want to be alone with me?”

“Huh? Um, no... well, I guess, yeah...”

Sousuke nodded in response to her vague yet flustered ramblings. “Understood. Prepare a change of clothes, then.”

“Huh?”

“We’ll go to Lemon’s place,” he explained. “His hotel is far away, so if anything were to happen, it would be difficult to help him. You come, too.”

“What? Why do I have to—”

“You can stay if you prefer.”

“Oh, fine.” In the end, Nami was forced to fight off sleep while they walked a kilometer through Namsac, all so she could stay in Lemon’s room.

The next morning, Michel Lemon woke from his drunken stupor to find Nami sleeping peacefully next to his bed in her underwear. “Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me!” he muttered. Had he gotten so drunk that he’d propositioned an underage girl?!

Lemon rolled out of bed in a panic, and let out another perfectly reasonable scream when he discovered Sagara Sousuke, who was curled up underneath the bed, and sleeping soundly. His eyes were half open, and he was clutching a knife in one hand.

Once all the misunderstandings had been cleared up, Sousuke, Nami, and Lemon decided to live together in the same hotel room. This was less at Sousuke’s insistence and more at Nami’s; she couldn’t fully get over her fear that Dao’s men would come after her, and Lemon’s hotel was in a nice part of town. In other words, shady types would stand out more here. The fact that the room was comfortable didn’t hurt, either.

“I’m a lovely young lady, after all,” Nami said to Lemon. “And I’m still Catholic, y’know? I can’t room with a guy one-on-one. So I thought if there were three of us, it might reduce misunderstandings.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not into you like that at all.”

“Then you wanna kick Sousuke out so it’s just me and you?” she suggested innocently.

“I don’t want that either.”

“I knew it,” Nami sniggered, “you’re a perv.”

“Why would you say that?!” Lemon asked defensively.

“C’mon, what’s the big deal? It’s only for a little while,” Nami told him. “Anyway, nice to meet ya, roomie. I’m gonna take a shower now.” Then she headed for the bathroom before he could even try to object.

Seeing that Sousuke had silently begun to unpack his own things in the center of the room, Lemon slumped over in disappointment. He’d been planning to stay in this city for over a month, but it seemed he was going to spend the entire time with Sousuke and Nami as roommates.

And so, the three began their life together: when it was time to sleep, Nami took the bed, Lemon had the sofa, and Sousuke hid under the bed.

No one knew quite how things had worked out that way, but they had.

●

Sousuke’s time on the team began in earnest. As for Lemon, though he was acting in the role of sponsor, Nami and the rest of the crew still bossed him around and made him do odd jobs.

Matches at the arena usually happened at night. The busiest times were the weekends, but some of the smaller matches for Class B and below happened on weekdays.

Their team, Team Crossbow, had taken a week to fully refurbish the broken-down Rk-91 Savage and had managed to get it into fairly decent shape. They’d swapped out the worn muscle packages that served as the AS’s muscular system, replaced the pockmarked armor with fresh plates, and renewed the parts of the hydraulic system that were leaking too badly to fix.

They even had enough money to buy paint and give the machine a proper touch-up. But while everyone else was arguing about what color it should be, Sousuke quietly returned from shopping and pulled out two cans of paint.

“What’s that?” Nami asked.

“Watch,” was all Sousuke said. Then he poured the paint and solvent into the trigger airbrush’s cup, affixed his mask and goggles, and began painting the Savage in the hangar before anyone could object. He styled it in matte white, with a deep navy blue reserved for the shoulders, the joints, and the forehead.

Nami, who was eating lunch with the others while they watched him work, looked up at the nearly complete “white Savage” and cocked her head in confusion. “Well, it’s tasteful, but... doesn’t it look a little weak?”

“These were the colors of the last machine I piloted,” Sousuke explained.

“Ahh...”

“It’s not weak at all. It’s in excellent company.”

“Oh... yeah?”

“Yes. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to call it Al Junior,” Sousuke said, and then nodded to himself with satisfaction as he gazed at the white Savage—a “walking frog” dressed up in the colors of a hero. Then he noticed the dubious look of the others and suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. “Is it too strange?” he asked.

“Yeah,” they all replied in unison.

They insisted that they would repaint it, but Sousuke wouldn’t yield. Because it was unusual for such a reticent man to assert himself to this degree, and also because no one else really cared that much about the Savage’s paint job, the group acceded to his whims in the end.

Later on, Lemon whispered to Nami, “He’s got a cute side, huh? Those colors make it look just like the main robot in an anime I saw as a kid.”

“Huh? What was it called?”

“Goldorak.” He was referring to an adaptation of UFO Robot Grendizer, a Japanese anime that had been a big hit in France long before ASes had ever been invented.

“It doesn’t look like that at all,” Nami informed him.

“Y-You think?” Lemon blinked. “Wait, you know it?!”

“We got it over here, too. Anyway, forget the paint job; we’ve got work to do! The next match is tomorrow. We gotta get it perfect before then!” Picking up a wrench in one hand, Nami turned back to the reborn Savage.

They won the next day’s match easily. And the match after that, and the one after that. In less than a month, Team Crossbow had become the talk of Namsac.

Alarms blared, the engine’s roar shook the cockpit, and violent vibrations assaulted him from all sides.

Sousuke could see a close-up of the second-generation AS he was fighting on his screen. It had blocky armor and a slender silhouette, but no proper head; just a small sensor turret that protruded from the body, like you’d see on a tank or an armored vehicle.

The AS—a Mistral II—approached him, swinging its large hammer. Sousuke smoothly moved to the side, dodging the blow by a hair.

He moved his arms and legs as the scenery blurred past. Blinding lights shone above, and the fervent screams of the audience pierced through the gaps in his armor. The machine faithfully recreated the movements he executed on its master arms, sweeping the leg of the Mistral II and causing it to stumble.

Then, as it tried to get its balance, Sousuke grabbed it with his machine’s left hand and pulled the Mistral II down in the opposite direction. With an ease that was almost amusing, he slammed his opponent down on the ground back-first. The hit wasn’t especially powerful, but it had probably done a number on the operator.

While the Mistral II was lying helpless on its back, Sousuke swung his own machine’s melee weapon—a large ax—down at it mercilessly. Despite the name, his ax wasn’t a cutting weapon; it was basically just another hammer.

A grinding sound shook the air around them as white smoke began to pour from the Mistral II’s abdomen. Sousuke had destroyed an important part of the generator, which had immediately overheated and shut down.

“Winner, Crossbow!” The Arena’s crowd cheered at the declaration. The white Savage didn’t respond to their fervor, but just quickly returned to its paddock.

Sousuke could hear the excited voices of Nami and the others through his radio. Great job! You’re the real deal! We’re almost to Class A! and the like.

“Not an issue,” he responded simply, and returned his machine’s output level to ‘idle.’ Not an issue. That was genuinely how he felt; nothing more and nothing less. No matter how much praise Sousuke received, it didn’t affect his emotional state.

I barely even have to do anything, was the main thought on his mind. This was a sport and nothing more. It didn’t reach the feeling of real combat—that sense of being thrown into a perilous environment and fighting for every inch of life, while every second stretched out for eternity.

What am I doing here? he wondered. He’d only fought a few matches, but impatience was already beginning to churn inside him. He didn’t have time for these games.

Even so, Sousuke knew that this was an important step in his fight. He’d come to this town from Tokyo to participate in these games for a reason. It was necessary to get to where he needed to be. He couldn’t even be sure this would bring him to his enemy, but it was his only available lead.

And yet, at the same time, Sousuke found his life here in Namsac strangely comfortable. It came with none of the hardships of his early life in Tokyo. There were no struggles with classical literature or Japanese history. He could put his natural skills as an AS pilot to use without fear of censure. He could live freely, with no stressful missions or overwhelming opponents to disrupt his easy routine.

Then there was his team: Nami, Lemon, Ashe, and the rest of the maintenance crew, who felt more like his allies at Mithril than his friends at school. Of course, he’d enjoyed the company of his school friends, but there was something so reassuringly no-nonsense about the time he spent with Nami and the others.

Their relationships were just so much more logical than the sentiment-based ones that were so important in Japan. Nami was the owner, Lemon was their sponsor, Ashe and the others were the crew, and he was the operator. They had all signed their contracts, and knew exactly what to expect of the others involved. He rather liked this kind of life, and he was surprised to find himself feeling this way so soon after the incident in Tokyo.

“Sousuke, are you listening?” Nami’s voice, coming through the radio, snapped him back to his senses.

“What?” he asked after a moment.

“Hey! Stop your engine already!” she demanded. “Fuel’s expensive, you know?”

“Roger,” he replied. “Shutting down now.” After checking to make sure he’d crossed the parking line in the paddock, Sousuke turned off the Savage’s diesel engine. Then he used the power remaining in its capacitor to squat his machine down and lock the joints into place, before shutting down the control system in accordance with the checklist.

As he opened the hatch and disembarked, Ashe and the rest of the crew gathered around him, brimming with smiles and congratulations. Lemon was holding his camera steadily, taking pictures of Sousuke and the others from the back of the group. He’d been snapping photos of the crowd before, but he’d flown back to their side when the match ended. He must have been passionate about his work.

“Hey, calm down! Clear the way!” Nami pushed past Ashe and the others to take her place in front of Sousuke, then cleared her throat imperiously. “Well done. Here’s your pay for today.”

“Right.” Sousuke unceremoniously took the naked bills that Nami offered him.

“You were pretty cool, y’know,” Nami said with upturned eyes. Then, as if embarrassed by her own words, she quickly withdrew to the back of the paddock.

“She’s head-over-heels, and no doubt about it,” Ashe said several days later, over lunch in the maintenance area.

Ashe had started as a mechanic with the National People’s Army of the former East Germany. The Germanies had miraculously managed their reunion just before unrest in the Soviet Union resulted in a storm of crackdowns that had rocked both East and West in the early 90s. Accordingly, he was one of the people denied work just because he’d been born in the East. He’d had about three days’ experience doing maintenance on the Rk-89s placed with the Warsaw Treaty Organization forces just prior to unification, but that was enough for him to get a job on Nami’s team after he’d made his way to Southeast Asia.

“Who is, for who?” Sousuke asked, feeling confused.

“Nami is, for you.”

“I see. I suppose it’s only natural,” he said casually.

Ashe’s eyes went wide. “What?! You’re pretty confident, kid!”

“My operating skills appear to be far beyond those of anyone else in this city,” Sousuke pointed out. “It’s natural that our team’s owner would hold me in high esteem.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” Ashe said, slumping over. “She’s falling for you, as a girl for a guy. Nami’s pretty popular, you know? She’s got a gutter-mouth and she doesn’t mind hearing guy-talk, but she’s pretty steady about enforcing her boundaries. Members of our crew and guys from other teams have all made passes at her, but she turns them all down. That includes me, of course.”

“That seems unlikely. She speaks to Lemon more often than to me,” Sousuke said, still uncomprehending. The three of them were still living together, but it was Nami and Lemon who did most of the talking. Sousuke was a naturally quiet person, and he only engaged in conversation when he was spoken to first. Nami would sometimes approach him to offer him a snack or a drink, but that was it.

“She just finds Monsieur Lemon easier to talk to,” Ashe tried to explain. “When Nami talks to you, she turns totally blunt. It’s almost bizarre.”

“You don’t think she just dislikes me?”

“Doubtful,” Ashe said with a laugh. “When you’re not around and she comes down to the maintenance area, ‘Where’s Sousuke?’ is the first thing she asks. She wouldn’t do that if she wasn’t into you.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Sousuke mumbled.

“What about you?”

“In what regard?”

“Nami,” Ashe said. “How do you feel about her?”

Ashe’s question caused Sousuke to consider, for the first time, just how he really felt about her. I care for Nami, he decided, and that was probably it. He enjoyed Nami’s company, and making small talk with her and Lemon was relaxing. In the mornings, he found the sight of Nami tying back her hair before they headed for the Arena very beautiful.

But why is that? This question had been eating at him for a while. It was because Nami reminded him of her. She was energetic, uncompromising, and unsparing with her criticism and mockery of Sousuke. She was carefree, and invigorating. Perhaps he’d always had a weakness for such women.

“I care for her,” Sousuke said monotonously. If the women who knew Sousuke heard him say so, they’d probably be angry. But Sousuke didn’t share the religious belief that total fidelity to a single person was a virtue; he’d come out of a world with no time for love and romance.

The battle comrades he’d had before Mithril saw themselves as sailors, and women as harbors: welcome, but interchangeable. He’d kept his distance from his companions’ dealings with women in that regard, but compared to the environment he’d grown up in, his feelings for Chidori Kaname almost seemed a little bit too devoted. After all, the entire reason he’d come here, the whole reason he was fighting, was for her. She was the most important thing in his life. It had nothing to do with ideas about virtue; no one had forced that devotion upon him.

That was why, on that Christmas night, when Teletha Testarossa had asked him the question in the hands of the AS coming down in the parachute, there was only one answer he could give. He still cared for Tessa, too. Then, and now. So, hypothetically... If Nami were to ask him the same question now that Tessa had then, how would he respond?

Sousuke wasn’t sure, and his lack of confidence in the matter surprised him. The fact was, he was finding it hard to recall Chidori Kaname’s face these days, even though it had only been two months. Her smile... the memory that had once been irreplaceably precious to him was blurry in his mind now. He couldn’t remember the color of the shoes she always wore. He couldn’t remember which wrist she wore her watch on.

But those things didn’t matter so much. What shocked Sousuke more was that he couldn’t remember the color of the ribbon she used to tie back her long hair. It was red, wasn’t it? Probably, but he wasn’t quite sure; it might have been yellow. He’d had such a clear memory of that feature for work-related reasons, because he never knew when he’d need to describe her appearance to someone else on the radio. But now, it was gone.

Was it really that trivial? Was it that easy to lose sight of her?

Peering into Sousuke’s silent, thoughtful face, Ashe said, “You made that sound pretty dire. Do you have a girl back home or something?”

“Actually...” he whispered, staring at the oil-stained concrete floor.

Just then, Nami herself entered the maintenance area.

“Hey, there she is.” Ashe pantomimed zipping his mouth closed; it was a sign that the conversation was over.

“Ashe!” Nami called out. “Aren’t you done with lunch yet? Go on, back to work!”

“Yeah, yeah!” Ashe made an exaggerated display of standing up before returning to his AS maintenance.

While Sousuke cleared up their empty dishes, Nami strode up to him. She said, “Here, Sousuke,” then she handed him a sheet of paper, which had been scribbled on in barely-legible handwriting.

“What is this?” he asked.

“A shopping list,” she told him. “We’ve got more work to do today. Go out with Lemon and pick it all up.”

Sousuke silently looked through the list and said, “There are a lot of special AS parts here. You can’t get them in most stores.”

“Huh?” Nami’s brow furrowed. Then she said, “Wait, you haven’t been to the market yet?”

“‘The market?’” Sousuke asked. “No, though I’ve heard of it.”

“You can get it all there,” she told him confidently. “Just head east.”

The presence of the Arena had left Namsac flush with a greater variety of AS parts than even a military frontline base, and the “market” Nami spoke of, nestled in a corner of the city and covering an area about 500 meters wide, was like a symbol of Namsac itself.

It carried AS parts for purchase from all over the world: muscle packages from France; optical sensors from Czechoslovakia; titanium frames from Germany; cooling units from Israel; optical fibers from Japan; core processors from America. There were stalls whose entire frontages consisted of just an AS’s hand. Sousuke also saw message boards scrawled in chalk, listing the various shops’ stocks:

Genuine 1995 GTTO C122 invertebral disk dampener

Stress-tested Savage thigh C-frame, made in China

IFAV standard Rj23 torque converter, almost new

Mixed in with the AS parts were electronics and computer parts from all over the region, as well as a lively DVD and CD trade.

Not everyone buying here was an Arena participant; many were civilians and tourists on the lookout for cheap electronics. He also caught sight of a group of military men, likely from some small developing country. They were awkwardly negotiating with a parts seller through an interpreter, trying desperately to secure some marked-down goods.

“It’s almost like Akihabara,” Sousuke said, reminded of the bustling ‘electric town’ he had visited with his classmate, Kazama Shinji, while living in Tokyo. This market wasn’t as big as that one, but the chaotic atmosphere was highly reminiscent.

“Oh, a friend of mine said he went sightseeing there,” said Lemon, who also raised an eyebrow at Sousuke’s words. “It’s a legendary porn town.”

“You mean electric town,” Sousuke corrected.

“Maybe it was, back in the day. Now it’s full of hentai manga and lolicon games.”

“I don’t know what those are, but I suspect you’re mistaken.”

“You think?” Lemon asked indifferently, and took a bite out of the bright red sausage he’d bought at an open air stall at the edge of the market earlier. “Whew, spicy...”

“I’m impressed that you can eat that,” Sousuke told him.

“Well, it’s also delicious.”

“I’d heard the French only liked the finest foods.”

“That’s a stereotype, like the Akihabara thing before,” Lemon told him. “I’m a junk food man, myself.”

“I see.” Offering no particular opinion about that statement, Sousuke went on with his shopping.

Even after all he’d heard, Sousuke found the market was so much livelier than he could have imagined. To think that AS parts—genuine military hardware— could be purchased this easily...

I’m surprised, he thought. It was like being able to buy attack helicopters and tank parts on demand. Nami had said that if you pulled the right strings, you could even buy artillery and ammunition. You’d never find another town like this in all the world.

When Sousuke had been a mercenary in Southeast Asia—still just two or three years ago—he’d never imagined a city like this could exist. AS parts had been specialized electronics you had to buy through specific arms dealers, and they never came cheap.

Yet now... “Four hundred dollars for a TI gyro?” Sousuke said in wonderment, gazing at the sign in front of a stall.

“Is that expensive?” Lemon wanted to know.

“No, the opposite. The cheapest price I’ve ever seen before was two thousand. That was a year ago, and you had to buy them by the dozen.”

“Wow. That is a lot cheaper, then,” Lemon said, impressed. “Have ASes really become that common? Guess it’s good for the economy, at least.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Sousuke. He found himself remembering the words of Andrey Kalinin, who could be dead or alive right now: Something is wrong with this world. For the first time in a while, those words echoed in his head with a new weight of reality. The speed at which ASes had become commonplace in this world was unreal. Even someone as young as Sousuke could feel it, and that feeling had been especially strong lately.

Compared to the rate at which other weapons systems evolved, the development speed of ASes was excessive. As the former operator of the Arbalest, a state-of-the-art test-type mounted with a lambda driver, Sousuke was especially appreciative of this fact. Witnessing technology on the cutting edge, so far beyond anything anyone here could imagine, gave him a unique perspective on how unnatural what was happening in this market really was.

Why are we in such a hurry? The question nagged at him. He knew this was a common mindset for soldiers in action with no real power to change the world on their own. But Sousuke was vaguely—yet at the same time, it seemed, inevitably—starting to feel like there was some kind of “invisible hand” behind it all.

Maybe everyone in Mithril felt that same sense of wrongness. But it was hard to express, which was why he tended not to bring it up...

His thoughts were interrupted by a rapid electronic beeping. Lemon was taking a picture of Sousuke with his digital camera. “I won’t tell you not to take my picture, but that was a little bit intrusive, wasn’t it?” Sousuke glared at him.

“Heh,” Lemon said with a shrug. “‘Intrusive’ is the only way to take good pictures.”

“Is that your philosophy as a reporter?”

“That’s right,” he boasted. “And I’m partly an artist, too.”

“You can’t create art with that pocket-sized camera,” Sousuke said in irritation.

Lemon laughed in amusement in response. “Maybe if you’re shooting a supermodel in a studio. But if you’re flying around the world, this is a lot more convenient. If I walked around with an SLR, it would be stolen in an instant. Tools are only as good as the use you get out of them, you know?”

“Of course.”

“Three million pixels is more than enough for my brand of art,” Lemon said simply, then turned his eyes keenly to Sousuke. “But I’m curious about your art.”

Sousuke responded with silence.

“Watching your fights has got me thinking... You’re not just some former child soldier,” Lemon theorized. “You’re not a guy fighting to put food on the table. You have a bigger... a more distant goal in mind. I don’t think you’d be able to fight the way you do otherwise.”

Sousuke glanced into Lemon’s eyes. For the first time, he realized that Michel Lemon was no mere happy-go-lucky reporter. The eyes behind his glasses gleamed with intelligence, and keen insight into whatever he set them on.

“The brilliance in your fight goes beyond mere skill,” Lemon continued. “I feel it, as a photographer. What you do is art. That much is obvious, even to an AS amateur like me. And no matter what you yourself might think.”

“You might be right,” Sousuke whispered, as if to himself. “This may be my only method of self-expression, after all.”

It was true. Photos, art, models, music—in Tokyo, Sousuke had met people who used all those things as methods of expression. They did all kinds of activities: satisfying, meticulous, and exciting. But what did he have? Nothing, he’d assumed. But maybe, looked at another way, he did have something.

Combat.

Combat was his one and only form of self-expression. Wreathed in gunfire and destruction, that was the only time Sousuke could really express anything. That’s why she... That’s why, in that moment, Chidori looked... His thoughts turned dark, and something dug at his heart.

“Ah... sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it,” Lemon said hastily. “It’s just...”

That was when it happened. Two police cars stopped in the road behind them, blaring their sirens. The crowds of people coming and going in the market came gradually to a stop to look at the cars.

“Hm?”

Two police officers dove out of each car, and pulled revolvers from their hip holsters. They used their bulletproof doors and engine blocks as shields. They readied their guns... and pointed them right at Sousuke and Lemon.

“Don’t move!” one of the officers shouted.

Lemon, surprised, tried to hide behind a nearby stall, but Sousuke stopped him. “It’s better if you do as they say.”

“Huh? Ah, right...” Lemon froze up in a weak-kneed posture, while Sousuke crouched down with a stoic expression.

The older officer called out to them. “Put your hands up slowly. Turn around, kneel on the ground, and cross your legs. Get it? Slowly, now.”

“Ah... Officer? I’m sure there’s some kind of misunderstanding—”

“Hurry!” the officer barked.

“Right. Slowly, but hurry. I wish you’d pick one...” Lemon grumbled, even as he followed the officer’s orders. Sousuke did so, as well.

Just then, a third police car arrived.

Sousuke and Lemon were already looking at the ground in surrender, so they couldn’t see it from their position, but a man had gotten out of the police car. From ahead of them, the sound of boot heels clicking on the ground approached.

The man wearing them looked down quietly at Sousuke and Lemon. His eyes were sharp and catlike, yet held a dour sort of look. Despite the striking keenness of his gaze, he had massive jowls that seemed to merge his face seamlessly into his neck and shoulders. He was short, with a big belly that protruded over the belt on his hips. A potbellied pig, gifted with a keen intellect and standing up on two legs—that was the impression given off by the uniformed man before them.

“We received a report that two young foreigners committed theft in the market nearby. This information came from a very reliable source,” the man said. His voice was annoyingly high-pitched. “Being able to arrest the suspects this quickly was an unexpected pleasure. But it’s a shame that they happen to be members of a team that’s been tearing things up in the arena lately...”

It was a preposterous story, and completely fabricated. Lemon argued back immediately, shouting at them even as his face remained pointed at the ground, “What the hell are you talking about? When that guy Rick was killed, you didn’t give a damn, so why—mm!” Lemon grunted as the officer grabbed him by the throat.

“Shut your mouth, foreigner. I’m just doing my job,” he said with a mocking smile.

“And who are you, who does that job with such gusto?” Sousuke asked in annoyance.

The man’s purple lips showed a hint of amusement. “No need for you to know, foreigner. Just call me Chief.”

“That’s easy to remember, at least.”

“Another unexpected pleasure.” The chief smirked wider. His long, skinny tongue ran over his protruding front teeth. “But remember this: if you show me any more disrespect—” His shining black boot kicked Sousuke across the face. Then he kneeled down on the ground and bent over, to whisper very quietly in his ear. “—You’ll pay for it. You see, Sagara Sousuke-kun?”