4: Collateral Damage

The M9 lay limply on its smoking right side, on top of the rubble. Sousuke looked down at it, then used his external speakers to address the operator. “Come on out.”

A little while later, he saw a small explosion around the M9’s neck joint, which blew the head off. It was an emergency escape mechanism for when the hatch in the chest portion was locked and wouldn’t open. The loss of the head exposed a narrow escape hatch, out of which the machine’s operator crawled. Despite the destruction of the generator in the abdomen, the cockpit in the chest had remained unscathed, so the man didn’t seem badly injured.

“Dammit,” the operator cursed as he picked himself up on top of the rubble, removing his headgear. He was a man around thirty with a suntan and a goatee. His operator’s uniform looked just like the one Sousuke had worn at Mithril.

Sousuke’s Savage had used up all of its weapons, but there was no way an unarmed human could escape an AS. The man seemed to realize that, too, and showed no signs that he meant to put up a struggle. “I thought you’d gotten desperate and decided to go for a double-suicide... but I guess not. You actually planned it like that? Who are you? How do you know the M9 that well?”

“I’ll ask the questions here,” Sousuke said, then knelt his machine down next to the man. That should be sufficient intimidation. “Tell me who you are and where you got that M9. You can’t exactly buy them on the open market.”

“You really think I’m going to tell you?”

“You really think I’ll accept that answer?” The Savage reached out with its left hand and grabbed the man around the torso.

“Erk...”

“The battle really did a number on my machine,” Sousuke admitted. “It’s hard to regulate the grip strength properly. I’ll try hard not to crush you, but you may lose a few ribs in the meantime.” With the five clumsy fingers latched around him, the man flailed his arms and legs. “It’s hot, I’m sure. One of the defining aspects of the Rk-91 is its old-fashioned cooler system. If you fight hard enough for long enough, the heat from the engine and hydraulics reaches as far as the fingers. If you weren’t wearing that operator’s uniform, you’d probably have third degree burns by now. But even that protection will only buy you a few seconds...”

“I get it, I get it! I surrender! Let me go! I’ll talk!” Cowed by the creeping pressure and heat, the man screamed and flailed his arms. Sousuke released him, and the man fell on his backside onto the rubble, panting. “Dammit... you’re a monster.”

“You were trying to kill me,” Sousuke retorted, “Just be grateful I’m not so eager to return the favor.” While they talked, he ran the machine’s sensors in a brief scan of the area. He was worried about the fact that the chief hadn’t contacted him, even though the fight had ended. If he wanted to finish him off, he could send a new AS to attack at any time, but he hadn’t seen any sign of that being in the plans either.

“Are there any other ASes hidden in the area?” Sousuke asked.

“No. I think it’s just me.”

“That seems incautious.”

“He didn’t think an M9 would lose to a Savage, I’m sure. I sure as hell didn’t.”

“Are you a soldier for Amalgam?”

The man fell quiet for a while at this question, and at last, a self-effacing smile appeared on his lips. “I guess I am now. But at this rate, I’ll probably be fired right away. No... executed, probably.”

“Were you a Mithril soldier?”

“Yes.” The man seemed surprised to hear the name Mithril brought up. “Until just recently. Wait, are you—”

“I was with the West Pacific Battle Group,” Sousuke affirmed. “SRT.”

“No wonder you knew the M9 inside and out... Tuatha de Danaan, huh? I’d heard rumors about that formidable female commander of yours. But that goddamned chief... he never told me I’d be fighting a former comrade.” The man’s voice was hushed with pain. He narrowed his eyes and let out a small sigh.

“Where were you assigned?”

“Mediterranean Battle Group,” the man told him. “Sergeant George Lovelock. I was SRT, too.”

Lovelock. Sousuke had associated with other battle groups, but he didn’t recall the man’s name. That didn’t mean much, though—between the four battle groups and the headquarters division, Mithril’s SRT alone comprised dozens of soldiers. There were more men he didn’t know than men that he did.

The man—Lovelock—asked him, “Do you know Ben Clouseau? He’s a lieutenant who transferred to you guys last year. He was with us before then.”

“I know him well,” Sousuke answered. “What happened to the Mediterranean Battle Group? Why are you piloting an M9 for Amalgam?”

The man paused before responding. “I think the whole group was destroyed. The Aegean Sea Base was ambushed and most of my comrades were killed. I don’t even know how many survived.”

“Why were you spared?”

Lovelock turned his eyes down, his expression pained. Sousuke might as well have asked why he had subjected himself to the indignity of survival. “I happened to be off-base at the time. A simple operation in Basque Country, just running observation with a lone M9. I had just finished and was heading back in a Hercules.”

Basque Country was a region in Spain, an area home to constant acts of terrorism and separatist movements. “Hercules” referred to a C-130 transport craft. Nothing about the story stood out as suspicious; Sousuke had done a number of such missions for the West Pacific Battle Group.

“By the time we got back and realized something was off, they’d already taken the base,” Lovelock continued. “The plane was running low on fuel, so we couldn’t get away. The only runway we could land on was held by the enemy. So the group of us discussed it...”

“And you surrendered?”

“That’s right. I proposed a trade with Amalgam, our lives for that machine.” He glanced back at the trashed M9. “Info on its controls and tactics... all that. Amalgam had data on the M9, but it was all spec-related. The only way to get the lowdown on how it performs in combat is to ask someone who operates one.”

“And the enemy accepted your terms?” Sousuke asked, finding it suspicious.

Lovelock was silent for a moment, staring up into the Savage’s optical sensors. “Yes,” he said at last. His voice broke a tiny bit, and he trembled. “They did. They run exercises too, which means they need ‘aggressors.’ They let me join Amalgam on condition that I play that role and help them gather data.”

“What about the others?” Sousuke wanted to know. “The whole transport surrendered, right?”

“I don’t know,” Lovelock said, after a moment. “We were split up right after we surrendered, and I haven’t seen them since.”

“Are there any other ex-Mithril among the enemy?”

“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“What is the scale of Amalgam?”

“I don’t know that, either. Even if it was an ambush, they still managed to drive Mithril to extinction. They must have much more than just a few isolated regiments.”

“Where are their main bases? What’s their hierarchical structure?”

“From what I know... Bucharest, Tripoli, Corsica, Crimea, Sri Lanka, Yemen. I don’t know where, exactly. The ones I’ve seen personally are a camp outside of Tripoli and somewhere in Ceylon. They weren’t especially grand facilities. In fact... they seemed designed to be dismantled and rebuilt somewhere else at the drop of a hat. I don’t know who sets up the bases, or where they get the money. I doubt even most members of Amalgam know the full scope of it. They’re trying to keep things fluid, and what passes for a command structure is completely decentralized.”

“Like the Internet,” Sousuke mused thoughtfully. The original Internet was a network created in the USA to decentralize the chain of command, allowing it to keep going even in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack. Amalgam had applied that concept to a terrorist organization, and in so doing, achieved a similar longevity.

“Yes,” Lovelock agreed. “If you crush one location, another will take its place. That means it’s fundamentally impossible to grasp the full scale of the organization, or to wipe it out. Nobody actually knows the entire situation. That’s their strength.”

“But that must make it impossible to make decisions,” Sousuke protested. “Without a top to the pyramid...”

“It’s not exactly impossible, but it does happen slowly. I haven’t seen enough to know for sure... but I think Amalgam is a democratic organization. Ironic as hell, isn’t it? It takes them forever to reach a decision and then execute it.”

“I see,” Sousuke finally said. So that’s why they’d sat back and allowed him to guard Kaname in Tokyo for so long; an organization with a faster decision-making process might have struck back hard immediately after the Sunan Incident.

The same could be said for the A21 incident, and the Pacific Chrysalis incident. There was too much about those incidents that didn’t add up when assuming an organization that could make a decision and react quickly. It was incredibly inefficient.

The tradeoff, then, was mitigation of risk. Their plans had been continuously blocked by Mithril. They’d lost valuable personnel and rare machinery over to Mithril, too. With enough careful analysis and questioning, the information they’d given up should have proven fatal... yet after all this time, Mithril still hadn’t gotten a handle on Amalgam. Multiple large-scale plans could end in failure without them suffering a bit as a result.

“I came to Namsac just two days ago. I was in the Libyan Desert Camp until then. Then a man named Kurama came, and—”

“Did you say Kurama?” Sousuke found himself saying.

Lovelock’s brow furrowed. “You know him?”

“A little bit. So he’s here, then?”

“Yeah. He was probably watching this battle. There’s a mountain to the north-northwest. There’s a spectator chamber for the VIPs there—”

Just then, Sousuke got a reading on his infrared sensors. “Hold on.” Bearing: 348. Distance: 3000. Altitude: 85 meters. A small attack helicopter was approaching, probably sent by the chief. He turned the Savage’s sensors towards the target, zooming in as much as he could and straining his eyes, and saw that the helicopter had rocket launchers and machine guns on its stub wings. It was definitely coming to kill Sousuke; the chief must have known he was out of weapons and had no way to fight back.

“It seems we’re out of time.” Sousuke clicked his tongue and revved up the broken-down machine’s engine.

The man looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Just what I said; time’s up.”

Sousuke’s machine extended a manipulator towards the limp M9’s right arm, grabbing its wrist with both hands, and increased the grip strength to full. The Savage used every last inch of its strength to pry the armor plating from the M9’s wrist. With a sound of warping metal, it came off, exposing the interior mechanisms. Sousuke then used the Savage’s manipulator to pull the wire from the wire gun mounted in the M9’s lower arm.

“Hey, hang on,” said Lovelock. “The Savage doesn’t have any more weapons, does it? How are you going to fight them?”

The enemy helicopter was approaching at full tilt. Sousuke stepped his machine to the left and began to whip the wire he’d taken from the M9 over its head, looking like a cowboy in a Western.

“Hide,” Sousuke commanded, and in that same moment, the helicopter entered firing range and launched its rocket.

The large rocket fired from the lotus root-shaped launcher, streaking towards him. The Savage stepped left and then right, throwing off its aim. The rocket detonated nearby. Without even flinching from the force, Sousuke threw the wire at the enemy helicopter above.

The M9’s wire gun was a special piece of equipment meant to help the ten-ton machine move freely in mountainous or urban regions. You could fire the anchor to the top of a sheer cliff and run the machine up the side. Though it was only about ten millimeters in diameter, it was made from a combination of metallic and carbon fibers, and powerful enough to withstand instantaneous force of over ten times the machine’s weight—in other words, one hundred tons.

The wire twined like a living thing around the rotor of the enemy helicopter, and the rest was simple; Sousuke grabbed the base of the wire and pulled with all his might. That was enough to completely throw off the helicopter’s balance, which sent it crashing into the ground with an explosion.

“Still alive?” Sousuke asked, casting his wire aside.

Lovelock climbed out from behind the ruins of the M9. He seemed unsteady from the shock of the nearby explosion. “Yeah...”

“There’s a lot more I’d like to ask you, but we don’t have time. You should—” Sousuke clicked his tongue. It would be one thing in an M9, but the battered old-fashioned Savage was in no condition to carry a person around. Just grabbing Lovelock’s body with the overheating machine could kill him. “—Never mind, just do what you want. Go wherever you need to go to get away.”

The man was even more surprised by this. “You’re letting me go? I don’t understand. Why would you—”

“I don’t have time to deal with you. That’s all.”

“Wait. Are you alone? You don’t have backup coming?”

Finding his words suspicious, Sousuke responded in a clipped manner. “No backup. I’m alone.”

“What? What are you fighting for here, then?”

“I owe Amalgam one. My circumstances are the same as yours; I was off-base, and they slaughtered all my allies.”

The man said nothing.

Sousuke checked his machine’s status: hydraulics were still tanking, and there was only a short time until the cooling system completely crapped out. But it was still better than being out in the open. He’d caught the enemy by the tail, and he wasn’t about to let it go. “They also stole something important from me,” he went on, “and I’m going to get it back.”

“Hey, now... That’s the only reason you’re fighting them?” Lovelock asked. “Are you crazy?”

“The only reason?” The output on the machine’s generator was rising. Sousuke severed connection to the left arm hydraulics, and made a few other adjustments to buy time. Then he said, “It’s enough reason for me. I will retrieve what they stole, no matter what they try. I made a promise.”

Yes, he’d made a promise in that classroom.

He turned back in the direction he assumed the chief was likely to be, and was about to leave the pile of rubble behind, when Lovelock called after him, “I don’t get it! You’re just a mercenary too, aren’t you? We change employers with the winds, looking for the best deal! Isn’t that in our nature?!” For some reason, there was something plaintive in Lovelock’s cry. He seemed to be asking not Sousuke, but someone farther away... or perhaps, asking himself.

“Yes,” Sousuke affirmed. “That is indeed the nature of the wanderer.”

“In that case...”

“But I’m not a mercenary anymore. I’m just a man,” Sousuke whispered, then set his machine running.

Lovelock fell to his knees and shouted something, but Sousuke’s external microphone was in such bad shape, it couldn’t pick up any more of his words.

Michel Lemon and his men, having saved Ashe and the rest of the mechanics, didn’t bother to clean up the dirty cops’ corpses before immediately moving on.

“So, who are you people anyway?” Ashe asked from inside the van, which was currently driving down the unpaved road. The other mechanics had been dropped off on the outskirts of Munamera Village where they’d started, accompanied by a few of Lemon’s subordinates.

“Probably better if you don’t know the details,” Lemon said flatly, then went silent.

Ashe waited patiently for the man to speak again, but when he realized he wasn’t going to, he tried pushing. “I have a right to know what’s going on here. How did you get out of jail? Are you a spy? Have you been lying to us this entire time?”

“It’s true that I lied to you, but I didn’t do it intentionally.”

“Is that supposed to make it all right?!” Ashe demanded.

Lemon furrowed his brow, frowning, as if in pain. “I was looking for a strong team to get me a foothold in the Namsac Arena culture. I ran into you people completely by chance. When I realized Nami wanted me to invest in you, my first thought was to brush her off and find contacts elsewhere. Look... I’m sorry to say it, but you guys looked really weak. That’s about all that I was thinking. But then...”

“Then...?”

“When Sousuke showed up, I changed my mind,” Lemon admitted. “It’s not just what he knew about ASes, but the way he carried himself that spoke to me. He was young, but he’d been in combat. I could tell that much on sight. Anyone could,” he whispered, as a sad shadow fell across his face. The expression was similar to the one he’d worn when ordering his men to shoot the corrupt cops. “So I thought I’d stick around and see how things played out. I figured that, sooner or later, he would bring me closer to the organization I’m after... but I never dreamed he’d be after them, too.”

Ashe could only tilt his head in response to Lemon’s vague words. “I don’t get it,” he finally said. “Who does that make you, again?”

Lemon let out a self-effacing laugh. “I’m with a certain nation’s intelligence agency. Our country distances itself from the likes of Amalgam and Mithril, you see.”

“I still don’t understand, monsieur.” Ashe whispered, and Lemon laughed again.

Sousuke was using every trick in the book to keep moving, but his machine was reaching its limit. The cockpit was lit up like a Christmas tree as it flashed with every alarm light it had. By the time he’d made it to the mountain, where Lovelock had told him the spectator seats were located, the gauges for the machine’s hydraulic system and temperature readouts were far into the danger zones. If he patched up the damage and replaced the lost oil—similar to a human blood transfusion—he could probably get a little more use out of the AS, but he had no time for that right now.

Sousuke stopped his machine and opened the cockpit hatch, pulling down his faithful automatic pistol and a replacement clip from the cockpit rack before he jumped out. The gun was an Austrian-made Glock 19. He’d managed to smuggle it into the country via separate post, and had only just reunited with it two days ago. The pistol didn’t have the greatest firepower in the world, but he didn’t care. It would let him take out several men, and from there he could substitute whatever guns they were carrying.

The mountain containing the spectator seats was located inside an archetypal jungle made up of broadleaf trees. At first, he’d been stumbling around blindly, but his eyes had adjusted by now; he let a few foot soldiers run past as he approached the mountain’s east side, tearing through the dense foliage as he went. He’d memorized a map of the area in advance, and he was familiar with the terrain itself from previous battles in Southeast Asia.

After moving through the darkness for a while longer, he finally caught sight of a large concrete gate built into the slope. It was surrounded by barbed wire fencing on all sides, and illuminated by powerful lights. There were a lot of guards present: Sousuke had brought his Savage pretty close to their hideout, so it was understandable that they’d assume he was sniffing around nearby. He had to act fast, or the guards might even find him hiding out in the brush.

Now, what to do... While Sousuke considered his plan of attack, he saw new movement in front of the gate. A police car from Namsac had arrived, seemingly in something of a hurry. Two officers and a girl got out—the girl was Nami.

Just then, the men he was there to see also arrived from out of the gate, two men surrounded by a small private army. One was the chief, and the other was... him. Kurama. That tall, muscular man, clad in a black coat despite the sweltering Southeast Asian climate.

Kurama had barely laid eyes on Nami when he suddenly yanked her toward him, and pushed his pistol against her chin. “Sagara! Are you watching?” His voice was loud enough to echo around the valley. “I know you’re out there! Come out and drop your weapons, or I’ll kill the girl! You have until the count of ten!”

Nami’s small frame visibly trembled as she looked around at the surrounding jungle. The tropical air was stiflingly humid at this hour, and there wasn’t a single breeze to rustle the trees. The various insects, reptiles, nocturnal birds, and mammals all seemed to hold their breath, looking down on Sousuke where he was hunched in the dark. They almost felt judgmental; so many eyes, designed only to gather external information—like an AS’s sensors—glaring straight at Sousuke’s back, as if to bear dispassionate witness to his fate.

“...Ten!”

Nami was surrounded by the chief and his private guard. Too many to beat all in an instant. But...

“...Nine!”

Kurama was clearly serious. This wasn’t just a bluff. And... he wasn’t sure why, but there was something else gnawing in his gut. Something else that wasn’t right.

“...Eight!”

What to do? He’d never felt this particular sensation before. It was like something... something very bad was about to happen. Something that he couldn’t take back.

“...Seven!”

Seven seconds left. Seven seconds, and no more. What would happen if he came out of the brush now? They’d probably just shoot him. Kurama wasn’t the type to show mercy.

“...Six!”

Each second seemed to drag out longer and longer. Each one felt like a minute, a day, a week, and finally a month. He might be able to save Nami if he went out there. She wasn’t a part of this, and never had been. But Sousuke had no doubt that if he did so, he would be killed—the action would be more than justified, after all he’d done to Kurama. After all the violence he’d survived so far, to hit a dead end here...

“...Five!”

Still, that was no justification for letting Nami die. There was no way he could let them kill an innocent girl, one who had nothing to do with the fight between Mithril and Amalgam. But he couldn’t let himself be killed, either. What would happen if he died? Who would save Kaname? Who would make Leonard and the other members of Amalgam pay?

“...Four!”

He couldn’t die here, not now. He had to do everything he could, use everything he had—skill, experience, stamina, intellect, everything—to save Chidori Kaname from those people. I can only die once that is done, he told himself. Which means I cannot die here.

But then again, the same principle applied to Nami, who had worked so hard to get that scrapped Savage into fighting shape. To rebuild her ruined hometown. To take back her peaceful school. Nami, who had come so close to making her dream a reality. The idea of her journey ending here... that, too, was unacceptable.

But Kurama was making him choose between them. He had enough resources at his disposal right now that Sousuke wouldn’t stand a chance in a fight, and he was starting a countdown he couldn’t possibly turn back. The entire time he stewed over this moral dilemma, Sousuke had been searching for a third option. Some clever way to keep both him and Nami from dying. He ran every possibility through his mind and considered them all with incredible speed.

“...Three!”

No, nothing was coming. There were no options available. At least, nothing he could think of in the three seconds he had left.

Maybe Kurama’s countdown was a bluff. If he just stayed in hiding, the other man might just decide, “I guess he’s not here after all. Maybe I was mistaken,” and leave without killing Nami. No, that wasn’t possible—When a man like Kurama said he was going to shoot, he would shoot. He would never go back on his word with others watching.

What do I do? Is there no other way? Some other way to—

“...Two!”

It was no use. He’d have to come out. Perhaps he could buy himself a little more than those two seconds. Even if there was basically no way to survive what was out there, he could still buy some time. Yes, he’d have to come—

“I’ve changed my mind.” Kurama didn’t bother to call out ‘one.’ Instead, he just shoved Nami away and fired ruthlessly at her back.

Sousuke recognized the gunshot; it was a .45-caliber. Three shots in a row. Each one of them hit, sending a slight convulsion through Nami’s little body. The streaming searchlights illuminating the sprays of red fluid bursting from her back. Kurama wasn’t intentionally avoiding her vital organs, at least as far as he could tell.

Nami didn’t stagger. She didn’t fly forward. Instead, she just sank in place, like a puppet with its strings cut. He couldn’t see her face.

Sousuke sucked in a sharp breath. Only his extensive soldier’s training kept him from crying out. It was instinctive, the honed physical and mental reflexes that prevented him from doing anything that might endanger a mission, no matter what.

Why? Why did he shoot her? Why didn’t he say “one”?

I was going to step out. I was going to, just like that bastard asked. You can’t do that to a person after he’s made up his mind. Don’t you understand how these things work?!

The rise of a scaldingly violent emotion, and the self-restraint to keep it locked down: these two contradictory impulses tore through him, leaving Sousuke on the verge of exploding.

“I feel it! I can sense your anger!” Kurama cried as he slowly raised both hands to the sky, flanked by the chief and corrupt cops with their carbine rifles. They all looked shocked by the sudden event. “You’re not even hiding it! I can tell you really are close. Your desire to kill fills every corner of this jungle. I can tell. Yes, this is what it means to be alive, right? It’s like the air is vibrating around you, Sagara Sousuke!”

Damn you... Silently, Sousuke pointed his automatic pistol, the Glock 19, out from the underbrush at Kurama. Distance... about 100 meters. There was a chain-link fence between them, too.

Can I kill him right now? he wondered. No, it wasn’t possible. It would have been one thing with a rifle, but Sousuke’s weapon was a short-barreled pistol. There was no way he could hit at a hundred meters; pistols just weren’t designed for it. Even if he did pull off a lucky hit, there was no way a 9mm bullet would be lethal at this distance. On top of that, the reason Kurama was wearing that black coat despite the tropical weather was probably because it was the same bulletproof one he’d been wearing the last time they faced off.

There’s no point in shooting, Sousuke decided. I can’t kill him. Plus, the enemy would hear his gunshot and send a few dozen soldiers his way. There was no way Sousuke could escape from that many, once they knew his general direction. He might take about ten soldiers out with him at most, but then he’d be dead. That was why he’d been paralyzed with indecision during the countdown.

“You want to kill me, don’t you?” Kurama asked, louder this time. “You want to come out this instant, don’t you?! No need to hold back. Do whatever you want! If you want to indulge your impressive self-restraint, I won’t object to that either. You can sit and watch from this backwater jungle for the rest of your life! But... I’ll tell you one thing: if you let me go now, I’ll do the same thing to that girl you love so much!”

He meant Chidori Kaname. Kurama knew about her.

“That’s right,” he continued. “I know where she is! You keep coming out of the woodwork to foil my plans, so my first order of business will be to go back there and fuck her brains out. I’ll do what effeminate Leonard and dead Gauron can’t! Then I’ll murder her, like I did with this poor, sad little girl right here! Well, Sagara Sousuke?!”

Sousuke knew that this display was all just for show. Kurama wasn’t some small-time crook; he was a professional, with a well-honed sense of calm, and he was only saying these things to get Sousuke to lose his own. And while Kurama ranted and raved, the enemy would be fanning out their search. Eventually, they’d find and surround him.

But still... Sousuke couldn’t deny that the shooting of Nami and the references to Kaname did indeed affect him emotionally.

Kurama sniffed. “Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t come out for that, would you? But watch this, and you’ll see exactly how heartless I can be.” Kurama moved to fire again into Nami, whose body was lying motionless on the wet ground below.

Sousuke gasped, unable to take anymore. But just as he was about to throw caution to the wind, bullets began to rain down on Kurama and his men from a completely different direction. Countless shots, from assault rifles and submachine guns. There were eight men in the jungle—no, more than that.

The rain of fire mowed down a few of the officers around Kurama, while snipers took out the searchlights. That cloaked the area around the gate in darkness, causing the confused enemy to shout and scream and begin firing in random directions. A grenade came flying from somewhere nearby and hit a parked police car, spreading even more explosions and chaos.

Who are they? Where did they come from? No, he didn’t have time to think about that... Whoever they were, he just had to take advantage of the opportunity they’d created. He had to stop Kurama at once.

Sousuke leaped out of the underbrush and ran nimbly through the broadleaf trees. One of the chief’s personal soldiers, holding a carbine, was standing between him and the fence. He was looking wildly in all directions, shaken by the sudden ambush. Sousuke was within five meters before the enemy even noticed him.

“Hey—”

He didn’t give the man time to fight back. He just strode up, took aim, and fired. Just one shot, right between the man’s eyes—it was easy, at this range. As the enemy slumped to the ground, Sousuke walked right up to him, pressed the Glock against the back of his head, and stole the man’s carbine and spare ammo clips. Checking swiftly to make sure there was a bullet in the chamber, he swapped the rifle’s selector from full automatic to semi.

Around the gate, it was pandemonium. Cries blended in with the gunshots, while clouds of dust from bullet impacts and smoke from burning police cars reduced visibility even more. Sousuke had just gotten around to the gate entrance when two enemy soldiers came running out in a panic. They, too, had let down their guard in all the chaos.

He took them both down skillfully with short two-shot bursts. The first died before he even knew what had hit him; the other died the instant he laid eyes on Sousuke. As he passed over the two dead men on the ground, Sousuke felt a sense of recognition; the first one he’d killed was the man who had struck him in the interrogation room. He didn’t know his name, and would likely never learn it now.

Sousuke crouched behind the nearest obstacle—a police car full of bullet holes sitting at a diagonal—and considered his situation. The attackers seemed to have the overwhelming advantage, due to more than the element of surprise: they also seemed to have better training and tactics than the corrupt cops. They’d set up a perfect “kill zone” in the open space in front of the gate where Kurama and the others had been standing. By forming a semicircle and focusing all their fire in that area, they could take out the entire enemy force in a very short time. It was Tactics 101 for surprise attacks and ambushes.

Sousuke couldn’t possibly approach. He didn’t know if the attackers were friend or foe, but he knew that if he got any closer to the area where Kurama had been, they’d shoot him down indiscriminately.

Ironically, now that he was in the middle of this dangerous shootout, Sousuke’s mind felt perfectly clear: he kept careful stock of the rounds remaining in the gun he’d taken from the enemy; he was able to keep on the alert 360 degrees around him; and he could anticipate the tactics, locations and remaining forces on both sides. All of this, even though just minutes ago, he had felt so at the mercy of emotion.

He was surprised at himself. From the moment he’d come out of the brush until now, he hadn’t given a single thought to Nami, the girl lying out there with a fatal wound as bullets flew around her...

He couldn’t see Kurama from his current location. The man was a professional, and he’d probably realized from the first attack that they were in an ambush situation. He’d have recognized that he was standing in a kill zone, too. If he was still alive, he’d have either run into the crude tunnel behind the gate that led into the mountain, or...

Sousuke heard the roar of an engine and the squeal of tires. He turned and saw, through the thick black smoke, a police car racing down the road. He could just barely make out the back of the head of the tall man in the driver’s seat—and the silhouette of the chief in the passenger seat, too.

Sousuke clicked his tongue. Rather than heading for the tunnel, Kurama had gone in the other direction. He’d found a car that still worked and was trying desperately to escape from this dangerous region. Sousuke spun around, propped his carbine on the hood of the car, moved the selector, and unloaded on full automatic at Kurama’s police car. Holding down the recoiling barrel, he mercilessly kept his finger on the trigger. Past the flicker of the muzzle flash, he could see the shots spark against the enemy car, and the glass of the rear window shatter. Yet the car continued to drive, even picking up speed.

The brush along the road had made it hard to aim. Sousuke expended all his bullets in no time at all, and to no avail; the back of the patrol car receded in his vision, first becoming the size of his fist, then the size of his thumb. He pulled the clip out of his thigh pocket and reloaded quickly, then emptied the magazine once more. The bullets shot from the rifle’s barrel chewed at the car, yet the target continued to grow further away. He loaded his final clip. The car kept on driving, now the size of a grain of rice, now disappearing over the hill...

“Dammit!” There was nothing more he could do. Sousuke let out a soft groan and, at last, relaxed his trigger finger. The patrol car that Kurama and the chief were in was out of range now. Biting back the anger he felt towards himself for having let the enemy get away, Sousuke took shelter behind the car again and thought of his next move. Should he escape, or remain?

While he struggled with his decision, a figure entered his field of vision. It wasn’t a member of the police; the battledress was different. Sousuke pointed his gun at him quickly, but the man held up a hand. “Don’t, Sousuke!” he said. It was Michel Lemon, whom he’d last seen in a dirty cell in Namsac.

The battle was over soon enough. Several police cars were now on fire, spilling black smoke into the surrounding area. With all of the chief’s men either escaped or dead, there was no one left in the kill zone. The attackers came out of the jungle to confirm the results, carefully and cautiously supporting one another as they went. They wore tactical vests with many pockets over black battledress, equipment allowing for the insertion of bulletproof plates. They also wore balaclavas and passive infrared night vision goggles, though these particular versions looked more like large sunglasses.

Their equipment told Sousuke that they were part of a national military or similar organization, and their movements told him that they were very well trained. They kept their guns pointed unwaveringly ahead of them, supported by their core muscles, and they stepped in a special way that kept upper halves perfectly still. The smallest unit was teams of two. Each kept guard in a different direction, and they moved forward with confidence and perfect coordination. When passing beside an ally on the alert, they clapped them on the shoulder. When confirming the body of an enemy on the ground, they approached with utmost caution— especially if they couldn’t see both of the body’s hands.

“What’s going on?” Sousuke asked.

“First things first,” Lemon responded, his tone subdued. He was right, and so they both ran to the open space in front of the now-secured gate. They found Nami immediately, her body sunk into the black bloodstain that had spread across the dirt below her.

Sousuke had seen this sight many times before, but this time, he felt as though an invisible god of death was squeezing his heart. A chill raced up his spine, and goosebumps rose up on his arms: she wasn’t moving. She wasn’t even moaning in pain. She didn’t cry, didn’t blink, didn’t even give him the benefit of a glare or a curse. Nami had no final words to offer.

This wasn’t unexpected. The shots that Kurama had fired had pierced several vital organs—heart, lungs, and aorta. With no more blood flowing to her brain, Nami would have lost consciousness in just a few seconds. Soon after, her body’s functions would have irreversibly ceased. The bullets had probably been hollow points; the impact with which the high-caliber rounds had hit her might have caused her to lose consciousness instantly. He hoped they had, at least.

There was nothing Sousuke could do for her now. It had been over in an instant, that one moment in which he had hesitated...

“How could they...” Lemon whispered in a trembling voice. “How could they...” he repeated, and then, kneeling next to her, let out a low, hushed wail. He set his gun down in the mud, cradling Nami’s limp head as his shoulders trembled. Before long, the trembling had spread to his arms and his head and his legs, until he was shuddering all over.

Sousuke didn’t even make a sound. He just stood there, mulling over the simple words that tumbled and whirled in his disordered mind:

I let her die.

Nami.

I did this to her.

Just one second sooner.

Why didn’t I go out?

Why wasn’t I faster?

I did this to her.

She was innocent.

I let her die.

Nami.

School.

Have to move.

Just one second sooner.

The only option.

I did this to her.

My choice.

I brought this on her.

Unforgivable.

Nami.

I did this to her.

I let her die.

Sousuke wished that he could tremble and cry like Lemon. He wished he could at least lose his grip on the 3.5-kilogram gun in his hands and let it hit the ground. How should he react at a time like this? Rather... what was the natural reaction to have? He knew what it looked like, but none of it came to him naturally.

He could hear the voices of Ashe and the rest of the crew out of nowhere, crying and screaming and cursing at him: Awful man. Why didn’t you save her? Were you just using her this whole time? She was such a good girl. You monster. Say something already. Don’t you feel anything?

But all Sousuke did was stand there, expressionless and still.

Kurama drove the bullet-riddled car south along the winding road, heading towards Namsac. Both headlights were out and there was no lighting on the road itself, but he kept going nonetheless. The cracked windshield was also compromising his vision, so he just punched it out with a fist. The shattering glass flew into the passenger seat, where the chief let out a noise of distress.

“What happened back there?” the chief shouted, still unable to hide his confusion. There was nothing to protect the car from the rushing wind now, and the muffler was hanging on by a thread, so he had to shout to be heard. “My men... my men were all killed! Did Sagara have backup after all?!”

“I doubt it,” Kurama said, pulling out a metal fragment that had lodged itself in a shoulder of his bulletproof coat. “If he had allies, he would have tried to buy time in a more clever way. Besides, the response came too late. They couldn’t have been coordinating.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don’t know yet. They don’t appear to be remnants of Mithril.”

“This is outrageous. Was this all a setup from the beginning? You and your people gave me false information, to make me—” Before the chief could finish his accusation, Kurama grabbed his collar and roughly pulled him toward him. “...Guh?”

“You can’t prove that you’re not working with them, either,” he said in a quiet voice. “But I doubt a conspiracy is required. I’ll find out who those men are, and whether or not they’re working with Sagara, soon enough. It won’t be a serious issue. The reason for all this is much more basic. Absolutely simple. In other words...”

The chief choked out a scream as the powerful hand gripped his throat tightly. “C... Can’t breathe...”

“In other words... those officers that you hired were so incompetent that guard dogs would have been better. They let the enemy get that close? Were they standing around, scratching their asses and yawning? It’s almost impressive incompetence. They’re why I lost so easily in this backwater burg.”

“F-Forgive me, monsieur,” the chief stammered. “But...”

“Listen to me closely, now,” snarled Kurama. “It’s getting under my skin. I’m sick of that little brat showing up all the time, and I didn’t enjoy losing that M9. I didn’t enjoy shooting the girl, either. I’m sure the idea would get a pervert like you hard, but I’m a civilized man, and it nauseates me.”

“I didn’t understand that either. Why did you shoot that girl? It was such a wasteful—”

“It was enough, if it hurt him and made him angry. I’m not some incompetent villain in a cheap police drama. When I say I’m killing someone, I kill them. I’m not honor-bound to a countdown, either. I have a short fuse, as you can probably tell. That’s what I wanted to show him.”

“But—”

“It ensures that he’ll come after me,” Kurama said coldly. “He won’t be able to bear the idea of leaving me alive and on the run. That will save us the trouble of looking for him.”

The chief said nothing.

“We’ll run for now, then make preparations once we’re back in the city. Wherever I am, he’ll be there soon enough. I’ll give him a deadly welcome, and you’ll help me. Understand?” The chief, no longer able to speak, just nodded a few times. Kurama relaxed his grip and released him.

The chief coughed for a few minutes, then glared at him. He wasn’t bothering to hide his hatred now. “Monsieur,” he objected vehemently. “This treatment is a bit harsh, really! I’ve contributed to the organization as well, and I’m in charge of things in Namsac. To treat me like—”

“I’m sorry about that. Your high-pitched squealing was getting on my nerves. And...” As Kurama spoke, he rooted around his coat’s internal pocket, pulled out a cigarette case, and opened it. There he saw a neat line of carrot sticks cut into rectangles. He pulled out one that still seemed moist, and stuck it in his mouth like a cigarette. “...When you talk to a man who’s trying to quit smoking, you need to be careful. We’re always more annoyed than we look on the surface.”

There was no telling if it was still worth chasing them. Kurama might have already left Namsac behind, and gone beyond Sousuke’s reach. But every second that passed between now and his pursuit made it more and more likely that he would lose him.

The roads from the outskirts of Munamera to Namsac coiled like a snake with bowel pain, and the cars left behind wouldn’t be fast enough to catch up to Kurama now. It wasn’t particularly far as the crow flies, but following the roads there would triple the effective distance. The more efficient mode of travel would be to patch up the badly damaged Savage. An AS wouldn’t be bound to the roads, and cutting straight across the treacherous terrain might offset the time for repairs and then some.

They didn’t even have enough time to share how they’d each ended up there. Sousuke proposed the idea to Lemon, and Lemon agreed to it.

Sousuke ran back to the Savage he had left in the jungle, and managed to run it back to the gate. Lemon and the others had already made the preparations and were waiting, and so they were able to speedily patch up the machine. Ashe of the maintenance crew was with them but didn’t even try to help.

In reality, the “repairs” were more about wrangling the damaged hydraulic system back into place with tape, filling it with some unknown oil they’d found in the tunnel, then refilling the fuel tank with some likewise unknown diesel. This kind of reckless treatment wouldn’t have worked in any other kind of AS.

He’d only found one weapon, too. Maybe they’d been bringing it in through the tunnel? He gave the relatively new-looking HEAT hammer an experimental swing, and decided that it would be more than enough. But the Savage, damaged in the brutal fight with the M9, could not be restored to its original best condition. It would be faster to buy a whole new machine than to scrounge up and replace all the parts it would need.

Nevertheless, Lemon and the others spoke up in surprise. “That was enough to get the thing moving again?”

“For a little while, at least,” Sousuke responded listlessly. Under other circumstances, he would spend several minutes boasting about the Savage’s toughness. And he wasn’t the only one... If this machine’s owner were here, she would proudly rattle off a list of the machine’s virtues herself.

But Nami wasn’t here.

They finished the patch-up job quickly. Sousuke, still taciturn, climbed up the kneeling machine and slid into the cockpit. Activate electronics system. Reactivate engine using power left in auxiliary generator. Hydraulics and drive systems, check. Optical sensors, tested. Fire control system... oh, who cares?

“Sousuke.” He heard Lemon calling him over the dicey communications system crackling with static.

“What?”

“I’ll tell you now, while I still can: I’m with an intelligence agency. But meeting you and Nami wasn’t part of my plan, and neither was the fun we had together.”

“I’m sure,” Sousuke agreed. He’d seen Lemon tremble and cry beside Nami’s dead body. It was obvious enough that it hadn’t been an act. But then, what did that say about him, who just stood there saying nothing?

“And I have to ask... are you with Mithril?”

“Former Mithril,” Sousuke said, correcting him. “No longer.” He continued moving his machine as he spoke, closing the cockpit block and locking it in. He began connecting the drive system while staring intently at the hydraulics meter. “I expect you’re an agent with the DGSE or a similar agency. And your allies are the 29 SA or something like it. Am I right?”

The DGSE was France’s Directorate-General for External Security. The 29 SA were the 29th Action Service, an elite special forces unit of the DGSE. They must have been attempting an infiltration on word that Amalgam was involved in Namsac.

“I’m surprised,” Lemon told him. “You could tell all that?”

“Total conjecture. But it doesn’t matter anyway.” Sousuke felt consumed by despair. Apparently, Lemon had saved Ashe and the others from being killed on the police chief’s orders. Sousuke hadn’t expected that at all, although it wasn’t out of nowhere. He’d expected that the chief and Kurama would try to kill Sousuke himself, but he had never dreamed they’d try to kill Ashe and the others so soon.

He knew it would have been impossible for him to come up with a perfect plan without knowing the full scope of the enemy’s motivations, but still felt like a fool for not seeing through their scheme. If not for Lemon’s aid, it wouldn’t have just been Nami; he would have gotten Ashe and the others killed, as well.

Sousuke had thought that he could handle everything by himself, but hadn’t put in the necessary effort to ensure the safety of his companions. Or, one might say, he was so focused on getting clues about Amalgam that he’d grown impatient and arrogant.

The regret was a constant voice in Sousuke’s ear, but still, he didn’t stop moving. It wasn’t lofty virtue or admirable determination that motivated him. He couldn’t even recall the name of the girl he was supposed to be looking for at the moment. He couldn’t even remember her smile. It was just that he just didn’t know what else to do.

If he stopped here, he felt like he would spiral helplessly until he simply disappeared. He had to get Kurama: he had to capture him, torture him, extract information from him. Sousuke couldn’t even remember what he was planning to ask him, or what good it would even do at this point.

Connection complete. Sousuke cautiously increased the engine output and slowly stood the machine upright. It was probably the last time the white Savage—Nami’s beloved Crossbow—would ever stand again.

“Let’s go,” Sousuke whispered, a sad, dark fire burning in his chest.