4: On a Stormy Night

Sousuke’s M6A3 Dark Bushnell descended in freefall through the dark over southern Mexico. It creaked in the buffeting winds, and the cockpit vibrated violently, punctuated by the occasional jolt that came close to breaking his neck. The digital altimeter showed rapid descent, and the meters trembled back and forth as the attitude indicator swirled around and around. His ECS was shut off; the M6A3 had one (though it lacked invisibility function), but it would have been useless in this storm.

The altimeter descended past three thousand feet, and he opened the first parachute: success.

The machine’s descent slowed dramatically, and he opened the second parachute: success.

But just as the lifeline opened overhead, Sousuke found himself buffeted by a strong gust of wind, and the twelve-ton machine tumbled like a ragdoll, lurched through the air, and nearly lost its balance entirely. There were still fifteen hundred feet to go: at this rate, he was going to slam into the ground.

The sudden lurch had caused one of the parachute wires to catch around the M6A3’s torso. Sousuke tried to correct his descent posture, but failed. In a split-second decision, he cut the parachute free. The ground was closing in. Resisting the urge to open the spare parachute right away, he waited one second and then did so successfully.

Another hard gust of wind blew past. He read it properly this time and kept his machine facing upwind, with careful movements of its arms and legs as the ground continued to close in. His gray night vision sensors showed a mountainous region covered in broad-leaved trees.

Three hundred feet left. Two hundred. One hundred. Fifty... Then the M6 was crashing through the canopy and hitting the ground. Sousuke immediately cut himself free of the parachutes before sitting up. Shock absorbent vapor, ejected by his machine’s joints, rolled out into the jungle around him.

His next move was to run a swift, passive sensor sweep of the area: no sign of the enemy. The only heat sources came from the forest’s nocturnal animals, fleeing the steel giant’s sudden intrusion.

Landing successful. “Whew...” Sousuke confirmed all systems were still green, and then let out a sigh.

His M6A3 was currently lying on the jungle floor like a big black lump. The gas turbine engine released a muffled growl under the wind and rain buffeting its armor. He checked his location with the GPS: He was in the mountains, twenty kilometers northwest of the estate.

He’d quickly head south, then switch to silent running once he got within ten kilometers. He’d get as close as he could, and once the enemy detected him, he’d switch to full output and charge. His priority was the three not-yet-activated Codarl types: If he could destroy them before their operators got on board, their lambda drivers would be a moot point. If there really were only three, of course...

Lemon and the others were on standby elsewhere. The moment Sousuke cut them an opening, they’d land their helicopter on the grounds, and deploy infantry to lock the place down.

Of course, it was unlikely that everything would go so smoothly, but it was their only option. They’d considered a plan to descend right on top of the estate as well, but ground-to-air missiles were likely to hit the transport before the drop. A raid from the ocean was equally risky; there was too much visibility from the shore, so anything closer than eight kilometers would be spotted by the enemy’s infrared sensors.

If only I had an M9... Sousuke thought regretfully, as the flexibility of a Mithril M9 would have opened up far more possibilities. Unfortunately, they were in no spot to be picky. If he was detected by the enemy and the Codarl-types managed to activate, they’d have to call off the mission and retreat.

Of course, that would cause the opponent to tighten security even further, and to abandon the estate shortly afterwards. The clue he’d worked so hard to get from Kurama in Namsac would be rendered meaningless, and he’d have to start everything over from square one. Kaname would be out of his reach once more.

But then... is Kaname even in there to begin with? he wondered. Is she even still alive? If she is, and if she’s in that house... does she even still care about me at all? I almost forgot about her in Namsac... That’s what time and distance does. What if she’s with him now? What if she looks at me like I’m a nuisance? What if she looks at me with pity and says, “Just leave me alone?”

Anxieties unrelated to the mission stung at his heart. It was worse than the pain from when Kurama had shot him.

No... I’m tired of all this introspection, Sousuke decided. None of that matters. Here in the moment, what’s my responsibility? Get closer, avoiding enemy detection. Use everything this machine has to offer to achieve my objective.

“Let’s go,” he whispered, and began to move the M6A3 forward. The machine’s control system didn’t answer him... but of course, that was to be expected.

Kaname had done her best to restore it, but the laptop really didn’t have any network function at all. It wasn’t a software issue; the very hardware needed to establish a connection had been removed. After prying into the case itself, that was the conclusion she’d been forced to draw.

But of course they’d removed it. That was the only condition under which they’d give valuable data about Amalgam’s activities to someone like herself, who remained uncooperative despite her surrender. Kaname continued to look for ways to convey her location to someone on the outside, but there was nothing to be found. The Alastor things roaming the grounds outside meant there was no way for her to slip away, either.

She gazed up at the starry sky on the terrace at night, and got her approximate latitude from vaguely-remembered triangulation methods: 15°N, 40 minutes. The mansion contained a rough world map, and she’d checked it for beaches matching that latitude. India, the Arabian Peninsula, or southern Mexico... Probably Mexico, she assumed.

Knowing her current location wouldn’t help her escape, but it did give her a minor feeling of accomplishment. But if I can figure that out this easily, she wondered, why can’t I accomplish another simple task?

Kaname’s next move was to begin wandering the estate, carefully observing things she hadn’t given any thought to before. She hoped she’d find something that would spark an escape plan; maybe there’d be something she could use.

But even if she escaped, what then? Where would she go after that? The thought never left her mind. Yes... Even if I do run away, there’s no place for me to go. But whenever that thought became smothering, Kaname would shake her head and head for the pool. She’d put her swimsuit on and dive in, swim ten laps, and feel a little better.

The people in the house seemed to be noticing the change in her, but Kaname wasn’t especially trying to hide it. A little attitude change wouldn’t alter the fact that the place was a prison.

Then, one day, he came to the house: Andrey Kalinin. He’d airlifted in a third-generation AS that looked to be Mithril’s, went over it with Leonard, and then disassembled it. Kaname had watched it happen from the window.

What’s he doing here? she wondered. Did he betray them, or is he a double agent? The sight of Kalinin had rattled her badly, but over the course of the next few days, she never once had a direct conversation with the Russian. They ran into each other from time to time, but she never knew what to say, and he seemed to spend most of the day outside with his subordinates, anyway.

From the glimpses she caught of their activities, Kaname could surmise that they were reevaluating the grounds’ defenses. Something’s about to happen, she intuited vaguely.

That intuition became a reality on the night of a storm, several days after Kalinin’s arrival. The wind was raging outside, and rain pounded against the windows. The waves crashing on the shore became a chilling roar that echoed through her bedroom.

Kaname was lying in bed reading when Leonard Testarossa stopped by her room. “What do you want?” she asked brusquely.

Usually when she treated him this way, he would just smile and shrug. But tonight, Leonard wasn’t smiling; instead, he just stood tensely in the doorway. “I want you to get your things together,” he told her. “We’re leaving here today. Perhaps tomorrow... Soon, at any rate.”

“Why?”

“Circumstances have changed,” he told her.

“I sure would like to hear how,” Kaname replied, but Leonard didn’t respond. He rarely shared his true thoughts and feelings, and this time would be no different. He just stood where he was, apparently turning something over in the privacy of his mind.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Kaname said coldly, still propped up on her arms in the bed. “Don’t tell me, then. Whatever. Keep treating me like a doll—like a bird in a cage—and then be surprised when I act the way I do.”

“It isn’t like that,” Leonard protested. “It’s just that you don’t need to know these things, and hearing them might upset you.”

“Like I said, a doll.” Kaname stretched lightly. A vague irritation was welling up inside her, and it added a prickliness to her voice. “I’m not like Tessa, you know? I’m not sensible enough to bend to you, just because you’re handsome and smart and rich.”

“She isn’t, either,” Leonard reminded her.

“Yeah, I’m talking about how she used to be,” Kaname retorted. “But if even she’s in full ‘screw you’ mode right now, my behavior can’t be surprising in the least, can it?”

He neither affirmed nor denied her statement.

“Nothing to say to that, huh? Y’know, I’ve been thinking these past couple days... you’re kind of a coward, aren’t you?”

After a long pause, Leonard whispered, in a self-deprecating tone, “Perhaps... perhaps I am.” There he went again, yielding the point with that ‘world-weary genius’ look on his face.

But Kaname stayed on the offensive. “Yeah, I bet you think you’re super cool right now,” she said scornfully. “That whole ‘I know, I’m so tragic,’ act? I bet it works on most people, so you try it on me. Do you really think I’m gonna fall for it?”

“Sharing things with you won’t change your attitude,” Leonard observed.

“Hey, let’s give the boy a prize,” said Kaname with a mocking smile, her voice brimming with sarcasm and reproach. “Is that what the torture’s about: locking me away, taking everything I care about while you watch me and smirk? You think if you keep doing that, someday I’ll give in? Yeah, fine. I’m not made of stone, so maybe someday I will. But even if I did... would that really be what you want?”

Leonard said nothing in reply.

“I remember this total creep in the class next to mine,” Kaname reminisced. “He weighed about a hundred kilos, he was constantly sweating and leering at me and some other girls. I hear he did some real stalkery stuff too, and he brought tons of gross bondage and lolicon books to school. Of course, I don’t know how true all that is... but you know the type. I seriously don’t understand what goes through their minds... But now, here’s the problem: I tried to think about who I’d rather hang out with. That creep, or you. Who do you think I chose?”

Leonard didn’t answer, of course. He just stood where he was, watching her impassively.

“I asked you a question,” Kaname insisted. “Who do you think I chose?”

“I don’t like your tone,” he said evenly.

“Go on, guess.”

“Could we skip the vulgar hypotheticals and continue our conversation?”

“No,” she declared. “Now, this might knock your socks off, but I thought it over all day, and... I realized, I genuinely don’t know. When you boil it down, the only difference between the two of you is your looks. That’s how creepy you’re being right now.

“When Sousuke first showed up at my school, he was pretty creepy, too. But he wasn’t like you, snickering at people behind their backs. He engaged with life in good faith. Always. He never leered at me like you do... like he knew me, like he owned me. He was always... genuine.”

“Enough,” said Leonard, approaching her slowly. His movements were as graceful as ever, but his voice was low and cold. “I’m always genuine.”

“Sure you are,” scoffed Kaname. “You said you love me, right? Was that genuine?”

“Yes.”

“But why? Why do you love me? Could you just explain it?”

“I explained it already,” Leonard told her.

“On the roof of that love hotel? What a load of bunk. I don’t think you even know what love is. That’s why Tessa turned on you too, by the way.” Leonard’s fists clenched tight in his pockets. But Kaname continued, not noticing the change. “You don’t open your heart to anyone. You’re all sarcasm and aloofness, and you only see women as objects. Where does that come from, anyway? Parental neglect?”

Suddenly, Leonard seized her by the shoulders. The delicacy of his build belied a terrifying strength. Unable to fight him off, Kaname found herself forced to the bed. “Look into my eyes and I’ll show you,” he snarled.

“What are you—”

“Look,” he insisted, and suddenly his face was all she could see: his striking features, trembling with restrained violence. Her instincts told her not to look... but she looked, and something lurking deep in his gray eyes, beyond where light could reach, flowed into her mind.

It was a torrent of thoughts; the resonance. Kaname groaned and her back arched, as if she’d been struck by lightning. The images that revealed themselves weren’t vague in nature, like the resonance she’d experienced before; they were violent, harsh, and terrible.

She was surrounded by fire. A flaming hallway. Smoke swirled around her, stung her nose. The flames were gray. A little girl was crying. Gunshots sounded out in sporadic rhythms, and screams echoed in her ears. The house was under attack.

“Take them both to the basement!” the man shouted.

“No. We’ll be found right away!” cried the hysterical woman.

“Jerry and the others will bring backup soon. If we can just hold out ten more minutes... Go, Maria. I’ll hold off the enemies on the south side.”

“Wait, Carl. Stay with me!”

“I can’t. You have to go.”

“Please!”

And yet the man left. The woman continued to hold the two children as she whispered in a voice filled with rage. “He’s always that way. That’s why I...”

Why I cheat.

A grotesque sight flashed in front of Kaname’s eyes: two bodies, entwined on a bed. Ugly voices that made her want to block her ears. It was how the woman always debased herself, whenever the man left for distant tours of duty. In public she played the faithful wife, but behind closed doors...

Leonard had learned about it at a young age, and it was the sight he always saw whenever he closed his eyes.

The gunshots grew closer.

Frightened and choking on smoke, the woman fled to the basement with her children. They climbed down the stairs and headed for the back, behind the piles of wood and gardening tools.

There were gunshots upstairs. A body hit the floor. The feet of unknown men could be heard on the stairs. They were coming.

“Hide,” said the woman, the mother, to her children. She pushed the weeping girl behind a stack of wooden boxes, and piled ragged blankets on top of her. The footsteps were closer now, and there was no time to hide the boy.

The mother’s eyes met her son’s, and Kaname would never forget the expression on the woman’s face: irritation, uncertainty, and a kind of loathing. He knows of my betrayal, thought the woman. He scorns me. He thinks I’m a whore. He looks down on me with his unsettling genius...

“Mom?” the boy said, but the mother didn’t respond.

She was a beautiful woman, but there was something about the way she furrowed her brow and avoided her own son’s eyes that was so raw and gruesome. It wasn’t the hatred in her face; that expression was mild. Instead, it was in the way she just turned her eyes away from him. That was what made her will so final, why it sent destiny spinning off the rails at such speed.

The men were here, and their rifles glimmered black in the light. “Where’s the other child?” one of them asked.

“With my family. Please, don’t hurt me!” The mother grabbed her young son’s shoulders and shoved him in their direction, as if she’d pulled her wallet from her pocket and thrown it at a mugger. The despair and emptiness of that moment... All of his feelings flowed sharply into Kaname and sent her thoughts into a maelstrom. Nothing that happened after this would ever matter again.

It had only been a few seconds, or maybe a few minutes. When Kaname regained consciousness, Leonard had already released her and withdrawn to a chair in a corner of the room.

Lying face-up on the king size bed, she picked herself up. She was still out of breath, and could feel the sweat soaking her back. The rain against the windows sounded especially loud in her ears.

“My sister doesn’t know about it,” Leonard said vaguely.

“But that’s no...” Her throat seized up.

“No what?”

The painful experiences of a sad past... Everyone’s had their share. Sousuke has, and so have I. It’s tragic, but it’s no reason to smirk while you toy with people’s destinies.

As if reading Kaname’s thoughts, Leonard let out a sigh. “I’m sure that’s what you’d say if I’d explained in words like normal people do. Fortunately, I don’t have to do that with you. And now that it’s happened to you, you understand, don’t you?”

He was right. It had happened to her, in a way; it felt like her own memory. Kaname had felt the pain and sorrow as if it were her own, and it made her feel nauseous. She retched a few times, but held back so as not to stain the sheets.

For some reason, she was reminded of a time when, as a child, she’d pulled up a large rock on the riverbank. Underneath it she’d found worms and crayfish and all kinds of ugly things squirming around... A sense filled her, of the shallowness and fraud of it all. Trust, love, friendship, justice... they were just empty platitudes. Humans were vile creatures. Everyone lied. Everyone hid things.

The feeling soaked through her to the marrow of her bones.

“I didn’t tell you to earn your pity,” Leonard said quietly. “I’m not trying to use my trauma to justify my actions, either. I have my ideas, and I act based on those ideas. My decisions are my own; they have nothing to do with my resentment of my mother.”

“But then why...”

“You wanted me to open up,” he told her, “so I did.”

Kaname made no reply.

Leonard stood up and turned his back to her. “Killing is a terrible thing, but the world contains many terrible things,” he said. “Things much more painful than a spouse or parent’s betrayal, rejection, and loss to death; my father was better off not knowing any of it. As the model soldier, the model officer, and the model husband, he died protecting the family he loved—and that he believed to be loyal to him. Dazzlingly and heroically.”

“But...”

“And, well... if it seems that I ‘snicker,’ as you say, at others, then perhaps that’s why,” Leonard mused. “‘I wish I could see the world so romantically’... Something like that.”

“But I don’t understand,” Kaname said, her usual prickliness when dealing with him now gone. “If that’s how you feel, then why do you want me?”

“That’s a good question,” he said, and then headed for the door. Just before he left, Leonard added, “Anyway, hurry up and pack. There’s something I want to show you, as well.”

Just then, the glass in the windows and the furniture trembled, and it wasn’t due to the sound of the storm. It had been a distant explosion.

Things went smoothly, right up until Sousuke got within ten kilometers of the house. He then switched the M6A3 to silent running, and encountered the enemy security system as expected. Counter-ECS radar, infrared sensors, pressure sensors, simple tripwires, and more... The M6’s electronic warfare system could fool most of them, but he’d have to take a long detour to avoid the ECCS. He wanted to get at least two kilometers closer before being detected.

Just as Sousuke was setting his mind to the question of the best course to take, he heard an explosion, and looked up questioningly. It sounded distant, four kilometers to the northeast.

Sousuke stopped his machine where it was in the jungle, and raised the periscope mounted on its left arm above its head. He elongated the telescoping sensor and pointed it in the direction of the explosion above the trees.

In the night sky raging with wind and rain, he could see traces of fire and heat. It must have been a helicopter or other flying craft, taken down by the security system’s surface-to-air missiles.

Lemon and the others? Sousuke hesitated for a moment, then called up his allies on his radio’s encrypted channel.

Michel Lemon responded in a carefree voice, which told him they were still at their standby point. “An explosion? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Sousuke admitted. “I’m trying to find out.”

It wasn’t Lemon who’d been shot down. Who, then? The periscope sensor wouldn’t be enough to tell. There was no way to get more detailed information from a minor sensor designed for close-range urban combat, especially with the storm further reducing visibility.

While Sousuke fretted over what to do next, he saw more motion near the first explosion. This time it was on the ground, where fire illuminated the jungle trees.

The security system’s surface-to-air launchers had been destroyed. Whatever force had just lost their aircraft must have dropped an AS moments before...

“There’s a battle going on,” Sousuke announced.

“What?” said Lemon, clearly surprised. “With whom?”

Cannonfire from various sources flashed in the jungle, and something broke through the canopy to dance in the sky. It was an AS, leaping around in combat maneuvers. After a rather long hangtime, it disappeared from his sight.

“An M9,” Sousuke concluded after playing back the sensor readings with manual magnification. There was no question about it. With that slender silhouette, it had to be an M9 Gernsback. An M9, here, fighting... Whose could it be?

“The remnants of Mithril?” Lemon asked over the radio. As far as they knew, Mithril was the only organization with battle-ready M9s.

“I don’t know,” Sousuke told him, “but I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“Even my M6 could make it this close undetected, and a next-generation M9 should be able to do even better. Mithril knows too much about M9s to be so easily caught.”

Besides, the detailing on the M9 he’d seen was different from that of the Mithril M9s. The sensors on the head, the shape of the shoulders... The armor was also thicker than the M9s he knew, and the movements were a little slower. They lacked the sharpness he associated with the machine.

“Then...”

“The US military.” Another voice broke in behind Lemon’s. This was Colonel Sears, the man who had brought them the M6A3. “Bet it’s the Army. Delta Force’s arm slave unit should have requisitioned the M9 by now; it just hasn’t been revealed to the public yet.”

“What?” said Lemon again. “But what would they be doing here?”

“We were able to find this place. No reason they couldn’t do the same. But it’s too damned reckless...” Sears’s voice cracked with concern for the M9 unit. He was talking about his countrymen, after all.

Still, while it was one thing for Lemon and the others acting on their own accord, it seemed strange for the US military to be attacking one of Amalgam’s bases. Amalgam had enough political power to keep most national militaries off of their backs. He didn’t know what they wanted, or what they were after.

“There are too many unknown factors right now,” Lemon decided. “Sousuke, call off the mission. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“You’re right, but...” It was true that they’d planned to call off the raid if they ran into trouble, but Sousuke remained hesitant.

“But what?” Lemon demanded in exasperation. “Chaos like this will cause the enemy to activate those Codarl-types, right? Even if you get close, there’s no way you can destroy them in time.”

The satellite pictures they’d looked at just prior to the operation launch had made it clear that there were Codarl-type ASes near the estate. Sousuke hadn’t seen them personally, but the footprints seen on the beach after the rain and along the unpaved grounds were distinct from third-generation ASes.

Should he turn back, after all? That would be the smart decision. But she might be inside that estate right now, and if he just turned back...

“Stand by,” he ordered. “I’m going to charge.” That was all the consideration Sousuke gave it. Ever since the incident in North Korea, he’d caught the disease of being illogical. And right now, time was of the essence. If he was going to charge, he had to make it quick.

Sousuke swapped from his silent drive to the auxiliary power unit, and from there, activated the gas turbine engine. “The enemy will be focused on the M9 squadron,” he said. “I might find an opening.”

“Don’t do it, Sousuke!” Lemon shouted over the radio. “It’s too reckless!”

“Don’t worry. If it starts looking bad, I’ll turn back,” he responded. Then, an indescribable anxiety began to fill him, because something was waiting for him there; he could feel it. The rain pelted his machine as he ran it straight forward, breaking through the thick jungle. Branches and leaves scattered, and the engine howled through the air. Sousuke paid only minimal attention to the security network now; time was of the essence.

Chidori... He still didn’t know if she was here. But even if she wasn’t, he might find a clue. And... there was another feeling he couldn’t escape. I think she’s there... I think she’s close by, waiting for me. He couldn’t explain how he knew it. It was like a smell, an instinct totally different from the connection the Whispered shared.

Sousuke’s digital map told him it was two kilometers to the estate. The hilly terrain blocked it from view, but he knew he was almost there. His plan was to charge forward, then run around the estate clockwise, calling her name on his external speakers. Maybe she’d show herself. Maybe she’d call back to him. Then maybe he could grab her, and run away at top speed...

He heard an alarm. Direction: Eight o’clock. Distance: 300. Sousuke cried out, knowing that the M6’s reaction time wasn’t good enough to dodge it. The best he could do was take a defensive stance, turning the machine’s shoulder toward the incoming object.

A hard jolt shook his machine, and the cockpit trembled. Shells flew in from behind him and to the left, releasing showers of sparks as they hit his shoulder armor. His thermal sensors showed the heat signature of a lithe bipedal machine moving swiftly down the slope; in other words, an AS.

I was a fool, Sousuke thought, clicking his tongue as he considered his data on hand. An M9 would have told him the other machine’s type instantly, but this machine’s AI wasn’t that advanced. Still, he knew it was a third-generation—and from that, he could infer that it was a Codarl-type. He hadn’t expected it so soon.

There was no way he could continue with the plan, Sousuke realized. It would take all of his equipment and skill just to get away. Retrieving Kaname was out of the question now. It was frustrating and disappointing, but he’d have to give up.

Another alarm sounded; the enemy Codarl was firing as it approached. Even one of these machines was more than he could deal with. There was nothing he could do to harm it. Sousuke tried to run, making use of the terrain to barely avoid the enemy’s shots. The rain was a torrent around him. Shells landed all around the M6, as if herding it somewhere.

They must feel awfully confident... he thought, firing back a HESH round, partly in desperation. The Codarl stepped out quickly to block the shot in its own unique way; the air in front of it warped, and the shot came to a stop in midair. Then an ear-splitting sound rang out, and the round that should have hit it instead burst into flaming shards.

The lambda driver. That impossible, cheating device. Sousuke knew how foolish it was to oppose it in a normal AS, to a degree that only those who had faced them before could. But... he thought. If he focused on running, he might give it the slip.

Moving his control sticks smoothly, he activated the smoke bombs and chaff loaded in his machine’s back. It opened, shooting out a large number of rockets that burst above his head. The blinding light and smoke they released covered the whole region.

Assuming that would be enough to jam the enemy’s radar, Sousuke switched back to silent drive and charged due north. If he stayed mindful of his enemy’s relative location and distance, he should be able to make it quite far. The other machine was faster, but if he kept running and hiding, using the terrain to his advantage, it should—

He gasped. He’d been a fool. The enemy machine was ahead of him. Distance: 300. They had known just what he would do, and had headed him off. The gray Codarl’s red monoeye glinted as it approached the M6. Then it pointed its large carbine at him, and fired.

Sousuke felt the jolt as the 35mm shell smashed through his machine’s armor. But he could still move. He started evasive maneuvers, and though he knew it was pointless, he tried to carefully return fire. As expected, the usual force fields repelled all his shots.

From just a few steps away, the Codarl drew a monomolecular cutter: it was going to skewer the cockpit. He fired again and again, but the lambda driver force fields continued to block all shots from the front. From the back, though, was another story.

Sousuke watched as a sudden explosion erupted at the Codarl’s back, just after a high-caliber shell hit it out of nowhere. The enemy machine staggered forward, spewing smoke, but the wound didn’t appear to be fatal. It tried evasive maneuvers of its own, diving to the side as it scanned around for the enemy that had ambushed it.

The enemy, a single AS, was right beside the Codarl, and had apparently been hiding behind the hill. A gray M9; it had been a perfect ambush from point blank range. The gray M9 now raised its large monomolecular cutter—a Crimson Edge—and plunged it into the Codarl’s side. There was an ear-splitting screech of metal, and a shower of sparks.

“It can’t be...” Sousuke whispered. That M9 wasn’t from the US Army. It was the E-series; he’d know it anywhere. An E-series M9 with a blade antenna on the head...

With its core now destroyed, the Codarl slumped to the ground. After kicking its remains away in disgust, the gray M9 turned back to Sousuke and spoke through its external speakers. “Yeesh...” It was a woman’s voice. “You looked real sad back there. It was hard to watch, you know?”

Sousuke recognized this voice, too; it was Melissa Mao. She was alive. “Mao,” he said wonderingly.

“Sousuke,” Mao replied, true joy in her voice. “I thought it was you. The way you kept your cool against that Codarl, those moves, and that shotcannon... I wondered if it might be possible, but...”

“See?! Told you so!” came another voice. Sousuke saw another M9 standing on a hill about eighty meters away, holding a large, long-barreled sniper cannon.

“Kurz?” he guessed.

“I knew you wouldn’t die that easy. You big downer!” With that mercilessly taunting tone, there was no doubt—this was Kurz Weber. He was alive, too.

“But what are you doing here?” Sousuke asked next.

“We’d like to ask you the same question, and more... But we’ve got reinforcements to deal with,” Mao whispered, crouching her machine down urgently. “Two Codarls, seven o’clock. Distance: 20. I doubt we’ll get the drop on them. Kurz and I are the only ones here, now. Think we can manage it, Sousuke?”

“Affirmative,” Sousuke responded, working swiftly to mitigate the damage to his own machine. A mixed squadron, two M9s and an M6, against two lambda-driver-equipped ASes: these were pretty bad odds. But... “It’s not an issue. We can take them.”

“Heh heh. We’ll show ’em how the masters do it,” Kurz said.

“Sounds great! Kind of unexpected, but the trio is back!” Mao said.

At last, the M6’s sensors picked up the enemy signatures that the M9s had already done. Bearing: Eight o’clock. Distance: 1500. He had questions for both of them, but they didn’t have time for a leisurely chat right now. First, they had to deal with the immediate enemy.

Mao gave them detailed directives in advance, then said, “Okay, let’s show those pieces of shit how it’s done! C’mon, you bastards! You ready to roll?!”

Kurz and Sousuke answered:

“Any time!”

“Anywhere!”

Then Mao cried out, “Okay, break!”

Their three ASes crouched down before leaping in various directions. The onscreen symbols crossed back and forth as they darted around, firing shells across the night-clad mountains. AS squad tactics were a little like a basketball or soccer match, in that all units weave around the field, moving skillfully and constantly—running, jumping, trying to catch the enemy by surprise. Sometimes flexibly, sometimes forcibly. Combat initiative was like the ball; machines passed and dribbled it, integrating feints. A machine assumed to be a decoy one moment would launch a fatal attack the next.

“Uruz-6, lure Alpha west!” Mao cried.

Kurz answered immediately. “Roger!”

Then, a few seconds later, “Uruz-7, lure Bravo south! How many seconds can you buy me?”

“Fifteen,” Sousuke answered.

“Go for it!”

“Roger!” With that short exchange, they understood each other perfectly.

One year ago, a single Codarl had brought them all to the verge of total destruction. But they hadn’t just been sitting on their hands since then, quaking in fear of the lambda driver. They’d been engaging in rigorous trial and error, testing the theory of fighting an LD-mounted machine... and in Hong Kong they’d formulated a plan that had gotten them just to the brink of destroying one. Since then, they’d acquired the fairy eye—a device that let them perceive the force fields—which further bolstered their simulation knowhow. The result of all of that effort was that Mao and the others no longer saw Codarls as an unbeatable enemy. Two of them at once would still prove extremely dangerous, but it wasn’t a hopeless battle.

Besides, they were together now. Mao, Kurz, and Sousuke were a team that knew each other’s rhythms perfectly when it came to AS squad tactics. On top of that, they probably had the most experience of any team in the world when it came to fighting lambda driver-mounted ASes.

Their skills haven’t diminished in the slightest, I see... Sousuke thought as he watched Mao and Kurz move. Of course, he seemed much slower, riding in an M6 as he was. But there was nothing he could do about that.

Sousuke knew exactly what the other two would do next, and used a few minor tricks to keep the approaching enemy AS at bay. Little by little, he drew the Codarl’s attention to himself. Just as it would think he’d gotten away, he’d turn around and hit it with a fierce rain of shots, along with another AS. Thanks to the real-time data he was receiving through Kurz and Mao’s fairy eyes, he knew exactly when the enemy’s lambda driver field was up.

One of the two Codarls leaped right into the place he’d hoped it would. It closed in on the bait—Sousuke’s M6. He fired his shotcannon in response, and the enemy’s force field deflected it. Kurz’s machine fired, but this too was deflected; the enemy was on guard for attacks from other directions, as well. It would be harder to catch it by surprise than before.

The enemy machine opened fire on Sousuke, and he felt a jolt as the shotcannon he’d been using as a shield split in two. Despite having lost his one weapon, Sousuke shouted, “I’ll do it!” And with that alone, the other two knew exactly what he wanted.

Mao and Kurz ran straight for the Codarl, bathing it in fire. The force field deflected said fire, causing the enemy machine’s attention to focus entirely on the two M9s. Mao and Kurz’s machines got close enough to slam into it, but then sped past at top speed. In that instant, they also threw their weapons high into the air.

From the enemy’s point of view, it must have looked like the two M9s were suddenly unarmed. In fact, these weapons were now in the hands of Sousuke’s M6, which had leaped in a spinning arc to catch them out of the air and land behind the enemy.

The M6, which had been presumed neutralized due to the loss of its shotcannon, was now standing behind the Codarl, two rifles in its hands. “One down,” Sousuke announced, firing both weapons at full blast. There were muffled gunshots and bursts of muzzle flare as 40mm rounds and 76mm shells assaulted the Codarl from behind. They shredded its armor, pulverizing its reactor and cockpit, and nearly split the entire machine in two.

Once the kill was confirmed, Sousuke tossed the rifles back to their proper owners.

“Hah! That’ll show ’em!” Kurz exulted, spinning around as he caught his sniper rifle.

“There’s still one left! You can laugh when it’s over!” Mao reminded them, unceremoniously catching her own rifle and letting out checking shots at the remaining Codarl. The three machines split up, launching into combat maneuvers to keep it on its toes.

The remaining machine was clearly uneasy. Its operator must have started out assuming victory was assured, only to watch his ally shredded in a shocking show of teamwork. What a terrifying trio of enemy machines. They were a force to be reckoned with—he must have realized that at last.

“Can you two handle it?” Sousuke asked, while still engaged in combat maneuvers.

“Think so. Why?” Mao asked.

“I think Kaname is in the mansion,” he admitted. “I want to look for her.”

“Kaname’s in there?!” Kurz said.

“Time is of the essence,” Sousuke told him. “Let me go.”

Sousuke’s M9 had lost its primary weapon, its shotcannon, and couldn’t be of much use here. Mao seemed to have realized that, as she immediately responded, “Understood. Be careful. Once we’ve cleaned up here, we’ll join you.”

“Thank you.”

“Hey, Sousuke! I’ve got a whole lot of questions for you,” Kurz yelled next. “You’d better not die! That’s an order!”

Confused, Sousuke furrowed his brow at his words. “Why an order?”

“Heh heh. I’m a master sergeant now!”

“Really? You?”

“You betcha!”

“They must be severely understaffed...”

Kurz was silent in the face of Sousuke’s observation.

“We really are,” Mao agreed. “Any port in a storm, as they say—”

The Codarl was approaching. The three machines saw a lambda driver shockwave rushing their way, and immediately dodged, splitting into different directions.

“—but this is no time for chit-chat!” she finished.

“Exactly,” Kurz said, as the two M9s began their counterattack. “If you’re going, you’d better go!”

“Good luck, then,” said Sousuke, changing his machine’s direction to make a beeline for the estate.

Tessa, sitting in the control room of the de Danaan, was delighted to hear Mao’s report that they’d met Sousuke. Yet at the same time, there was a twinge of, Ah, of course. She was glad to hear that Sagara Sousuke was alive... very glad. But she knew the reason he was here too well for her heart not to ache in response.

Of course. He’d do anything for her. She recognized her pettiness as being simultaneously amusing and sad, and it came with a certain amount of resigned loneliness. Ah, of course. Of course she means that much to him... But now was no time to get caught up in regret; Tessa had to focus on their plan.

Leading up to this, Tessa had had the de Danaan’s AI, Dana, working at top speed to track Leonard down. She’d been secretly monitoring various countries’ secret services and surveillance systems, and the minute the AI found the slightest trace of a possibility, Tessa investigated it thoroughly with her own eyes.

Soon, suspicious activities in a NATO surveillance satellite got her attention. A few days ago, some small-scale organization had been detected scrutinizing an area in southern Mexico, near the towns of Pochutla and Niquelo. That same organization then, somehow, absconded with a single M6A3 from the US Army and brought it to northern Florida. Seeing Colonel Sears’s name come up as the one who had purloined the M6 made Tessa think that he—Sagara Sousuke—might be involved. The only members of Mithril with a connection to Sears and Courtney were her, Admiral Borda, Mardukas, and Sousuke.

Realizing Sousuke must have picked up a clue caused Tessa to turn her vessel right around and hurry to the south coast of Mexico. The estate had to belong to Amalgam, and Leonard was almost certainly there. Around the same time, she noticed movements in the US Army; under advisement from the CIA, they were deploying a squadron of M9s—recently allocated to the special forces—to investigate the estate in question. She still wasn’t sure how the CIA had gotten information on the estate. It seemed unlikely to her that they could have done it on their own, but...

Mao, locked in combat, contacted her on the radio. “Currently engaged with one Codarl-type. Where’s that cruise missile support?”

“Just fired,” Tessa told her. “Sending you the data now.”

“Understood. That should do it. Where’s Uruz-1?”

“He’s shaken off American special forces surveillance and he’s heading your way. Just be careful.”

“We know. We’ll be fine, Tessa.”

The symbol representing Mao’s machine danced across her front screen, clashing with the enemy machine symbol over and over.

The storm is getting worse, Sousuke thought, readying his spare handgun as the M6A3 Dark Bushnell flew at top speed over the gently rolling hills. If his pre-mission information was correct, there should be no more Codarl-type ASes between him and his destination. He, Mao, and Kurz had taken out two, and one was still fighting; that should be all of them. The next thought he had was, Is that it?!

The first thing he noticed about the estate was the roiling night sea; the next was a large cultivated lot, which had been cut out of the forest before it. The estate stretched for about a kilometer from one end to the other, at the center of which was a white mansion. It was about the size of a Japanese school building, with a tennis court, pool, and gardens surrounding it.

Sousuke had memorized the layout based on satellite images. He had his M6A3’s sensors search for anti-tank or anti-AS mines to the best of its ability, then slipped through the security network and headed for the estate at the center.

“Lemon, do you read me?” Sousuke called to his ally, who was still on standby. Lemon responded immediately, and Sousuke briefly explained about the run-in with his old Mithril comrades.

“I don’t quite get it,” Lemon confessed, “but I guess that’s good news?”

“Affirmative,” Sousuke answered. “We can trust them.”

“Got it,” said Lemon. “I have news, too. A certain someone just made contact, and we’re heading your way to—” A wave of static came over the line. The storm was interfering with transmissions, and someone was filling the area with electronic jamming, as well.

“Heading my way to what?” Sousuke tried again.

“—read me, Sousuke? I can’t be sure, but I—”

“I can’t hear you. Repeat, Lemon!”

“—gets dangerous—standby at next coordinates—”

“I can’t understand you!” Sousuke shouted urgently.

“—spare called—tain—”

“I can’t hear you. What are you talking about?”

“—saying, don’t know what kind of machine—I think—than nothing—”

“Lemon?”

“—red—third—strange—”

An alarm sounded. The 20mm sentry guns that lined the complex were taking aim at him, as part of the unmanned security system that reacted automatically to enemy intrusions. Sousuke gave up on getting the radio to work and focused on the radar readings instead, firing his handgun immediately. Its 25mm shells broke the sentry guns to pieces.

No infantry in sight yet, he thought. No armored cars, either. No, that wasn’t quite right... He did see a few of those human-sized ASes, the Alastors. They came flying out from the brush, firing their arm-mounted .50-caliber rifles at him.

But such simple shells couldn’t even dent the M6’s armor. He blasted one apart with his handgun and sent another flying with a kick. The Alastors that had seemed so terrifying at human scale were nothing before an AS.

Next, Sousuke turned his external speakers on and shouted. “Chidori!”

Where are you?

“Chidori!”

Show yourself...

A black sedan was rushing through the courtyard, driving north along a cobblestone path that cut through the garden.

That car...! Had they decided a helicopter escape was too risky? Sousuke ran his machine in pursuit of the car and fired a warning shot from his handgun. “Stop!” he shouted, but the car didn’t even slow down. He switched the 12.7mm machine gun mounted in his left arm to semi-automatic, and aimed a few careful shots at the hood. His shots struck the engine block, causing the black car’s grill to jet steam. It swayed left and right, then ran up on the curb and came to a halt.

“Hands up! Come out slowly!” As Sousuke gave the order through his external speakers, the door finally opened and the driver came out. His hands were up, and he was looking up at the M6A3 in terror. “Is there a girl in there?” Sousuke demanded to know.

“I... I don’t know,” the driver said, then took off like a frightened rabbit. Ignoring the fleeing man, Sousuke activated his sensors and ran his infrared scanners over the car. There was no sign of a human-like heat signature in the back seat. Given how low the car was riding, though, there had to be a few more people inside. Unless...

Something triggered his instincts. He jumped his machine backwards, shielding his cockpit with both hands as the car exploded. Several hundred kilos of high-performance explosives crammed into the back of the car had gone off, and a powerful shockwave sent fragments flying at supersonic speeds. In human-scale terms, it was as if a grenade had gone off a few meters away.

The explosion blew his dozen-ton machine backwards, and a violent jolt tore through Sousuke in the cockpit. His machine fell end over end, landing on its backside, and went skidding through the garden trees to his right.

It was a trap, he realized: his screen had gone black; his head-mounted sensors were gone; his warning lights were blinking rapidly, and power was dropping. Hydraulic pressure was tanking, and parts of his machine were on fire. Nearly all the drive systems in the arms, which he’d used to shield his cockpit, were down. His cooling device had shut down, too, and his attitude control gyro had taken serious damage. Both his main and auxiliary control systems were severed in places.

Yet if realization had dawned just one moment later, it might have been worse. While trying to recover from the spinning of his head, Sousuke swiftly moved sticks and flipped switches to try and mitigate the damage, activating his spare optical sensors to keep an eye on the area around him. But the spare sensors, which were mounted in the machine’s crotch, had functionality on par with a home video camera; they were only there to give you the most basic outside vision when you’d taken damage. They didn’t even have night vision capabilities.

One way or another, Sousuke realized, I have to get away. He strained the machine’s barely-moving legs and managed to stand up. But the enemy wasn’t about to show mercy; infantry appeared here and there—where had they been hiding?—and fired handheld rocket launchers at him next. The shots were carefully aimed and highly controlled. If he hadn’t been injured, he could have counterattacked with anti-personnel weapons or taken evasive maneuvers, but both options were beyond him now.

The shots hit his machine’s legs, arms, and hips, as well as the armor in front of his cockpit. The M6A3’s chest armor was designed to resist shaped-charge explosives, which kept the rockets’ flaming gas charges from penetrating the cockpit. But they still tore apart his electric and control systems.

Unable to take another step, his M6A3 simply collapsed.

“Lemon. Do you read me?” he called to Lemon via radio, hoping to report his machine’s immobility. “Lemon. I’m—” It was no use. The radio was dead. No choice but to abandon ship.

Sousuke pulled the emergency escape lever, activating the explosive bolts, and blew off his machine’s destroyed head. The action stripped away his cockpit’s ceiling, and he snatched up the small German-made submachine gun stored next to the hatch before pulling the pin from a smoke grenade and throwing it out. Afterwards, the area around his highly-damaged machine’s remains was wreathed in smoke. It wouldn’t be enough to escape if the enemy had any infrared scopes, but it was better than nothing.

Sousuke set one last trap in the burning, ruined machine before crawling out of the hatch and climbing down from there. Just then, he heard a voice. “You’re surrounded,” it said. “Drop your weapon.” Eight o’clock. Thirty meters away. A calm male voice.

Probably the commander of the mansion’s defenses, Sousuke thought. But wait a minute... That voice... Hiding behind the M6’s right arm armor, Sousuke cautiously turned in the voice’s direction.

Beyond the drifting smoke, a man in battledress stood on the roof of the two-story corridor that wound around the building. He was a large Caucasian man, the hair gray both on his head and his face. He had deeply carved features and a piercing gaze, which was currently focused on Sousuke. There was no mistaking him; it was...

“Major,” Sousuke whispered, his eyes opening wide. In that moment, he even forgot to keep on the lookout for other enemies around him.

“I’m reminded of Afghanistan, Sagara Sousuke,” Andrey Kalinin said.

“What...”

“I win again,” he announced calmly. “You wouldn’t have fallen for a trap this simple if you hadn’t lost your heart to that girl.”

“Major? What are you—” Sousuke began to ask, still in disbelief.

“It’s just what it looks like,” Kalinin told him. “I’m a part of Amalgam now, and I will do everything in my power to purge those who interfere with Leonard Testarossa and his organization.”

“Impossible,” Sousuke protested. “You can’t—” It couldn’t be. For the major, of all people, to join the enemy... Was he on some other mission? Pretending to betray them in order to get close to Amalgam’s core?

“You might be thinking I’m here as a double agent,” said Kalinin, anticipating his thoughts. “I’m sorry to inform you, but I’m not: I came here of my own free will, as your enemy. If you resist, I’ll order your death without hesitation. The only reason I haven’t killed you already is because I want information.”

“But why?!” Sousuke cried out.

“You have no need to know,” Kalinin said, with his usual icy demeanor. It was painfully obvious to Sousuke that the man wasn’t going to give him any more answers. And yet...

“Where’s Chidori?” he asked, almost begging. “Is she here?”

“What if she is?” Kalinin returned.

“Let me see her.”

“No. She and Mr. Testarossa are preparing to escape,” Kalinin told him ruthlessly. “The United States Army, Mao’s team, and you... you’ll all be neutralized. But this place is too well known now.”

“Mao’s team?” Sousuke repeated in shock.

“Drop your weapon, Sergeant.” Kalinin raised a hand, and his subordinates all pointed their weapons at Sousuke.

“I would advise you to do what he says.” It was a new voice. Leonard Testarossa appeared behind Kalinin.

Belfangan Clouseau, pilot of the black M9 Falke, had traversed the storm-addled night terrain to approach the place where Mao and Kurz were fighting. He snuck up behind the enemy AS, the Codarl, and shouted, “Fire!”

Mao and Kurz had begun a complicated attack pattern, integrating feints. The ballistic missile hanging in the sky above them, fired by the de Danaan, streaked towards its prey. Clouseau was using all his firepower, making a hard sell from the flank of an enemy that had dodged all their previous attacks. He stuck his monomolecular cutter into the Codarl’s gut, grabbed its arm and threw it. The Codarl went flying, and Mao and Kurz added shots on top of it. The helpless enemy machine was riddled with the follow-up shots while still in the air.

“All done,” Kurz said.

“What’s up with the Americans?” Mao asked Clouseau. He’d been off on his own mission, observing the US Special Forces in combat.

“They seem to have withdrawn,” he replied. “It felt as if they weren’t fully briefed on their target, or the strength of the enemy, either. It’s almost like—”

“Like someone was manipulating them?” she finished.

“Yes,” Clouseau agreed. “There was none of the sense you usually get from special forces soldiers, that feeling of ‘I know exactly what I’m doing.’ A strange kind of hesitance showed in their formations and teamwork.”

“Yeah. I think I know what you mean,” Kurz said. “Like they weren’t trying hard enough... like they thought their orders were unreasonable?”

“Not so much that you’d be able to tell if you weren’t a soldier yourself,” said Clouseau. “But I’d expected a little more determination from them, and they withdrew almost immediately. Nobody wants to fight an operation they don’t understand, I suppose.”

“But then, what’s going on here?” The enemy seemed to be up to more than they’d anticipated... And with too few clues to go by, they couldn’t even speculate what it might be.

“I couldn’t say yet. The colonel seemed to have expected it, though... Now, what happened to Sagara?” Clouseau had heard that he was alive, but hadn’t talked to Sousuke in person yet.

“Oh, well—”

Clouseau interrupted the response with a cry as the alarms in all of their machines began to blare. There were attacks incoming simultaneously from three, seven, and ten o’clock: anti-tank missiles, medium-caliber rounds, and high-caliber artillery shells.

Mao activated her ECM. Kurz fired checking shots in the direction of the sniping, and Clouseau pulled an infrared countermeasure from his machine’s equipment rack and threw it.

“More enemy machines?!” Mao shouted as she entered combat maneuvers, attempting to dodge the missiles.

“Yeah, and three of ’em, at that,” Kurz said, diving behind an obstacle before quickly moving to get the enemy machines back in his sights.

“Be careful! They’re not like the others!” Clouseau warned, readying the carbine mounted on his back. They must have been lambda driver-equipped machines, because they repeatedly and inexplicably deflected his team’s attacks. The enemy should have been able to dodge, but they seemed to want to test their ability to block Clouseau’s team’s shots.

The three machines came charging at them from three directions. Clouseau and his men tracked their force fields with the fairy eyes and dodged as best they could. The enemy machines passed the M9s at blinding speeds before pulling away to a distance, as sparks went flying.

Clouseau felt a heavy jolt and a warning light lit up as the left arm of his machine went flying, cut off at the elbow. He’d been unable to fully dodge the offensive force field, and it had ended up severing the appendage, along with his drive system. The real time data link let him know that Mao and Kurz’s machines were also taking damage; some mild, some severe. Mao’s machine had almost lost its head, and Kurz’s had lost its sniper cannon.

Seconds later, they were facing off against all three machines, which were lined up atop a low hill and glaring down at them. The enemy didn’t charge immediately, suggesting incredible confidence. The three ASes resembled the Codarl’s basic frame, but differed in the details. They had thick upper bodies, and instead of a ponytail-like heat sink, they had a braid-like one running down their backs. They presented a different strength from the Codarls of the past. Their silhouettes were bulky—deceptively so, given their tremendous ferocity and agility. It was akin to the difference between a jaguar and a lion.

Each machine was a different color: Black, white, and red. One carried an oversized monomolecular cutter, one a large Gatling gun, and one a high-caliber sniper cannon. “Welcome, remnants of Mithril. I haven’t seen you since San Francisco,” the central black AS said via external speakers. It was a familiar voice.

“Fowler, eh?” said Clouseau.

“Him again, huh?”

“Looks like he’s really raring to go.” Mao and Kurz both sounded tense.

“I’ve been impressed by your spirit,” Fowler announced grandly, “but it’s time to bring things to an end. This is born neither out of overconfidence nor of underestimating you... I’d simply like to issue a challenge to you at full strength, as a show of respect.”

“Get your head out of your ass!” Kurz let his head-mounted machine guns fly at full automatic, cutting off Fowler’s words. 12.7mm fire rained down on the black AS, but the bullets all whiffed, deflected in a shower of sparks.

“Goodness me. I thought you could at least act like a gentleman on the battlefield, but...” Fowler let out a cold laugh. “You seem to have grown even more boorish. Now, if you’ll kindly get ready...”

It’s coming, Clouseau thought, but he didn’t even need to say it as Fowler and the others’ strange ASes made a leap at their braced M9s.

“It’s been some time, Sagara Sousuke-kun.” Leonard said leisurely, looking down at Sousuke from the roof, where he stood, soaked with rain. There was no mockery in his voice. He merely gazed with a certain melancholy at Sousuke, who was crouched beside the demolished M6.

“Where is Chidori?” Sousuke demanded.

“No interest in me at all?” Leonard returned. “I could cry.”

“Shut up. Where is Chido—”

“Enough,” said Leonard, his voice like ice. “You seem determined to be as unpleasant as possible at all times, even despite your perpetual, appalling ignorance. It’s like you think it’s your right to shout whatever comes to mind. It’s awfully arrogant, don’t you think?”

Who’s the arrogant one here? Sousuke wanted to say, but couldn’t form the words. He had no obligation to justify himself to his enemy, or to debate him. “I don’t care. Give her to me.”

“Goodness me...” Leonard let out a sniff and cast a glance at Kalinin beside him. “...Well? As my head of defense, Mr. Kalium, what do you say?”

“Normally I’d want to take Sagara into custody... but we don’t have time. And Mr. Gold’s squadron will be here soon. I’ve seen no obvious sign of it yet, but...” Kalinin trailed off there so that he could focus on a report he was getting from the earphone in his right ear. “...And there they are. They’re on the move.”

“Showing his true colors, is he?” Leonard narrowed his eyes and turned them towards the sea. Sousuke couldn’t see much from his current position, but he could make out a silhouette—the familiar upper half of the machine he’d never forget: Behemoths. Three of those giant ASes were cutting through the waves, heading toward the estate. Countless transport helicopters flew in the sky above. They probably had more ASes on board.

Amalgam reinforcements? Sousuke wondered. No, that doesn’t seem right... His doubts immediately changed to confirmation. The Behemoth was pointing its massive rifle cannon—its muzzle about 300 millimeters wide—at the mansion. The transport helicopters in the sky began to dip, preparing to land on the property.

“He appears to want a fight,” Kalinin said.

“Indeed,” Leonard agreed. “Let’s shake him off and get going.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, that’s right, you never gave me your answer. What do you intend to do about him?” Leonard asked, looking at Sousuke.

A moment later, Kalinin turned his gaze back to Sousuke. There wasn’t so much as a single fragment of emotion in his eyes. “Shoot him.”

“That’s fine,” Leonard said, turning around. His black trenchcoat—the active bulletproof fabric—fanned out heavily behind him as he disappeared beyond the terrace. He said only one thing as he went: “For now.”

Kalinin ignored him and told Sousuke, “You heard me, Sagara; it’s time to die.”

Sousuke didn’t respond. He’d realized it instantly from his eyes, from his voice... The man was serious, and had no intention of showing him any mercy. There was no double meaning in his words. There was no performance, no act, no hidden motivation. Andrey Kalinin was being serious. This man, who had been like a father to him, now genuinely wanted to kill him. “Wai—” he tried to say, but Kalinin cut him off with a single word.

“Fire.”

The first shot came from a sniper. He’d known the sniper’s position from the start, so he threw himself behind the armor to dodge it. Unbelievable, Sousuke realized incredulously. That really was aimed to kill... The next shots to hit the area around him were also meant to be lethal. Several of them hit the armor of the damaged M6, and sent sparks flying.

“Major!” he cried, but no answer came. No obligation to justify himself to his enemy; Kalinin believed the same thing.

Sousuke hid deeper behind the armor and pressed the switch of the remote control he was holding. The last trap he’d rigged up when the M6 fell activated, and the M6’s remaining fixed weapons—the 12.7mm machine guns, the smoke bombs, the small anti-personnel mines—all fired out randomly, smashing into the ground and blasting the walls of the mansion. Fragments and flashes, flames and smoke, went flying everywhere, throwing the enemy horde around him into a panic. Sousuke ran through the explosions despite the danger. If he could reach the enclosed space of the mansion nearby, he still had a chance of survival.

Right before he jumped through the closest window, he looked up at the terrace to find Kalinin staring back down in his direction, clearly unfazed by the fragments and bullets flying around him.

Are you serious about this? Sousuke asked him with only his eyes.

Kalinin met his gaze head on and moved his lips just slightly. Try and stop me, he seemed to respond.

That was all Sousuke had time for before jumping through the window, with the enemy infantry hot in pursuit. Hanging in the air with the fragments of the glass as he broke through, Sousuke opened fire back at them.

Right now, he had no choice but to fight. If he could only survive...

The transport helicopter roared and shook as it wove around the mountains at low altitude. Lemon continued to encourage the radio technician, but all the tech could do was repeat, “I just can’t connect to the channel! I don’t know why!”

“Is it all right to fly like this?!” Lemon shouted.

“How should I know?!” Courtney shouted back with a grimace.

“We’ll be fine!” Colonel Sears chimed in. “Even if we’re hit by an anti-air cannon, we can do an emergency landing with autorotation! You know the Deadman’s Curve?! We’re hanging just above it, so—”

“It won’t matter if we’re in pieces, will it?!” Lemon yelled back at him.

“Quit your bellyaching, kid!” Courtney bellowed.

“If I’d known we were going to fly this recklessly, I definitely would have objected—” The helicopter shook, nearly causing Lemon to bite his tongue. “...Ngghh, screw it! Don’t blame me for whatever comes of this, then!” Lemon cursed, then cast a glance at the East Asian woman sitting beside him.

The woman, looking pale and nauseous from the rough flight, nodded back at him silently before glancing in the direction of the cargo bay located in the back. “I’m fine,” she told him. “He’s the only one who can use our friend here, anyway.”

“Then if Sousuke dies, what do we do with it... with the Laevatein?!” Lemon wanted to know.

“We toss it out, or destroy it,” the woman said bluntly. Then, speaking into the headset, she said, “You’re all right with that, aren’t you?”

《Affirmative.》The calm reply was delivered briefly in a synthetic voice.

Kaname, surrounded by bodyguards and Alastors, was being led down the hall of the mansion. She could tell the house was surrounded by a maelstrom of combat; the distant sounds of gunfire grew closer and closer, until she could hear the sounds of a second-generation AS engine nearby. It was followed by the rapid fire of machine guns, and more powerful explosions that peppered the estate grounds. The jolts and vibrations toppled furniture and sent broken glass from the windows to litter the floor.

“Where are we going?” Kaname asked. Her escort didn’t respond, but she already knew: the heliport—the large heliport beside the gardens. He was going to take her away. “Has someone come?” she tried again.

Again, the guards did not respond. But another voice did. “It’s him,” said Leonard, appearing from around a corner. Shaking out his soaked black coat, he swiftly strode past her in the manner of a man being pursued.

“Him?” she echoed.

“Yes, him.”

Sousuke... Kaname thought, reflexively coming to a halt. When Leonard seized her by the arm to pull her back into motion, she said, “Let me go.”

“No,” he told her shortly.

She tried to shake him off, but he tightly held on to her arm. His grip was as strong as that of the battle-trained Sousuke’s—no, somehow it seemed even stronger, more determined.

“I... I...”

“If you see him, what then?” demanded Leonard. “You’ll fly into his arms and run away together?”

Kaname found that she couldn’t respond.

“You don’t know, do you?” Leonard continued bitterly. “You’ve turned your back on him once already, and you’re not sure if you can go back to him now. He’s putting his life on the line to find you, yet you’re still hesitating.”

Leonard is right, Kaname realized. He’s here, yet I hesitate. Why aren’t I working harder to shake him off and run towards the gunfire? Don’t I want to see him? Don’t I want to throw myself into his arms? She did. She wanted to see him, to feel his arms around her, and yet...

“You don’t understand it yourself, do you?” Leonard asked, quietly observing her as she kept her eyes silently pointed downward.

At last, they reached the end of the corridor leading to the heliport. One large ECS-equipped helicopter was already there, waiting to take off. The engine roared all around them, deafening.

Are we going to get on that helicopter? Kaname wondered. And then go somewhere else? Somewhere he can’t reach me? It wasn’t what she wanted at all. But then, why was she just letting Leonard drag her along?

While she asked herself those questions, Leonard quietly brought his mouth to her ear and said, “Then let’s make a gamble.”

She gave him a questioning look as he ordered the Alastors and the guards to go on without them. The Alastors immediately moved to the helicopter on cue, but the men hesitated. “Sir...”

“Just go on,” Leonard ordered, and the men acceded, running to the helicopter. Kaname and Leonard remained alone on the edge of the helipad, standing just by the mansion’s door. He unceremoniously removed his black coat and threw it out into the wind created by the helicopter, where it disappeared into the night like a crow taking flight.

Kaname knew that that bulletproof cloth could repel most gunshots and blade strikes. She even knew how it worked, now: it was an “active” bulletproof coat, made by weaving the muscle packages of third-generation ASes—shaped memory polymer several times more advanced than super aramid fibers—with super-miniaturized radar elements. Both when that assassin had come after her and when Sousuke had attacked Leonard, it had stopped all of their attacks. Removing it now was a sign that Leonard was leaving himself defenseless, ordinary.

“Take this,” Leonard said, and held out a pistol. He cocked the hammer, then with practiced movements, he turned it around and offered her the grip. “Take it.”

It was an old-fashioned revolver—a handgun with a revolving cylindrical chamber—made of cold silver, with elegantly carved ornamentation. Kaname was surprised that Leonard had a gun, and that it was the kind you’d see in an old Western... but she was even more surprised by how practiced he seemed when using it.

“Go on,” he urged.

Kaname found herself taking it. “What are you—”

“I said we’d have a gamble, remember? Shoot me.” Leonard stood in the door, blocking her way. “Sagara Sousuke is beyond this door. If you want to see him, you’ll need to shoot me first. I’ll give you thirty seconds. Decide by then.”

“Are you... serious?” she asked hesitantly.

“I wouldn’t joke about something like this,” said Leonard, who sounded serious. “Twenty-five seconds.”

“You really think I won’t shoot you?”

“I did say it was a gamble,” he admitted.

“I could shoot you in the leg,” Kaname mused, “then step over you.”

“An excellent idea. Try it.” Then he added, with a smile, “Ten seconds.”

Kaname readied the gun in one hand. She put her finger on the trigger, and pointed the barrel between his eyes. The layout was easy to visualize: he was out there, just beyond Leonard, fighting. It would be so easy to get there. Just the slightest movement of her finger, and he’d be dead. The man who’d taken so many things from her, who’d tortured her day after day...

Her finger tensed, and her elbow trembled. She hated him; killing him would solve all her problems. This was her first chance—it might be her last. And yet...

“Five seconds,” Leonard reminded her.

Kaname couldn’t shoot him. She would happily smack him, or kick him, or shove him around; she had recovered enough strength of will for those things. She wasn’t exactly proud of it, but she was constantly dishing out that kind of treatment to Sousuke and the other jerk boys of her class.

But she couldn’t shoot him.

Perhaps it went without saying, but this was simply a level of violence beyond what she was comfortable with. On a gut level, Kaname couldn’t mortally injure or snuff out the life of another person willingly. She couldn’t kill. She had no experience in doing so, for one thing, because Sousuke had always afforded her that mercy.

Because she was a girl, because she was a civilian... When the moment presented itself, Kaname wasn’t mentally prepared to kill. She couldn’t be. That was why, even with Sousuke so close, she couldn’t shoot Leonard.

She hated to admit it, but the man had read her like a book. But did he really read me, though? she stopped to wonder. He’s not giving me that smug smile of his, he’s just staring at this old-fashioned gun, and into my eyes...

“Zero. You’re out of time,” Leonard said, very seriously. “I would have fired.”

Kaname was speechless.

“He’s fighting and killing to find you,” Leonard went on. “But you can’t even shoot a ‘pretentious bastard’ like me? I suppose there are limits to your dedication.”

“You’re wrong.” Kaname drew back, weakly gripping the gun.

Leonard reached for her. “Let’s go. I wanted to show you something, remember?”

“I—”

“You’ve lost,” he said ruthlessly. “Come along—”

“Stop...!” she cried tremulously, unable to think. She just tensed up, while trying to shake off the hand he had grabbed...

Please, she thought. I didn’t mean to. Yet, with the muzzle aimed upwards, her finger had tensed for just a second. It was only the tiniest bit, for just a split-second... But it had been more than enough to discharge the cocked, single action revolver, resulting in a single hollow gunshot.

Fire flashed before Kaname’s eyes. Her vision went white, and she felt the dull sting of recoil in her right hand as a spray of blood painted her cheek.

“God dammit!” Kurz cursed. With his spare weapon—a small machine cannon—in hand, he wove through the trees, swearing from inside his cockpit.

He, Mao, and Clouseau were now stuck in a difficult fight as the three lambda driver-mounted ASes, piloted by Fowler and his crew, were overwhelming their M9s. In every respect—maneuverability, power, teamwork—they were unlike any Codarl-types they’d faced before. They didn’t have a single chance to fight back; it was taking everything they had just to stay alive.

The black AS—Fowler’s machine, wielding a monomolecular cutter in each hand—pressed in with close-range attacks. Although typically unparalleled in melee combat, Clouseau seemed completely overwhelmed. Despite having lost one arm and facing an opponent with the lambda driver, the main drive behind Clouseau’s losses appeared to be Fowler’s sheer amount of skill.

The white enemy AS carried two large Gatling guns, and rained down bullets from mid-range. Despite its heavy weaponry, the white machine moved gracefully, in an almost feminine manner. Mao’s machine was forced to spend most of its time hiding behind obstacles to stave off its constant fire. Though she frequently drew the short straw when it came to mission roles, her piloting ability was every bit as good as Sousuke’s. Yet to see her completely helpless... Kurz didn’t know who was operating that white AS, but they seemed to have incredible training.

And then there was that red enemy AS, which was equipped with a sniper cannon—in other words, it was being piloted by a sniper, just like Kurz. During their first interaction, the pilot had shot his own M9’s sniper cannon in half. Kurz hadn’t been using it as a shield; that enemy had been aiming at his weapon. Why, he wondered, bother shooting my weapon when they could shoot my cockpit and finish me right there? Was Fowler so desperate for a little pre-battle conversation that he’d ordered his team not to kill them right away?

No, he decided, the guy wouldn’t care about that. He... that red enemy AS... is playing with me. He saw my long-barrel cannon and knew I was a sniper like him. He shot my gun out of my hands to taunt me.

“Bring it on, then...” he whispered. But at the same time, the skill of the red AS’s operator had left him slightly shaken. It really was incredible.

Kurz wasn’t stupid. He’d been doing some pretty skilled maneuvering, keeping on the watch for sniping shots, when the ambush had come. It shouldn’t be possible to snipe a weapon out of the hands of a third-generation AS engaged in combat maneuvers. Only a handful of operators in the world could handle a trick like that.

Wait, he thought. “No way, it couldn’t be...”

But a new shot from the enemy wiped the speculation from his mind. It was precisely aimed, shooting through the trees to hit a precise point, right where he was hidden behind the rocky slope. The shot tore some armor off the thigh of his machine.

“Ngh!” Kurz choked out, as his AI gave a damage report: The drive system in his right thigh was seriously compromised, which would drop his maneuverability dramatically. It would be difficult to continue combat maneuvers.

At this rate, they were going to lose. He would die helpless and mocked, having been denied a single retaliatory shot.

Kurz readied himself for the next shot... But it never came. Three seconds, then four seconds. Ten seconds passed without a single follow-up attack.

Is he toying with me again? Kurz wondered. But he was wrong; the enemy was withdrawing. Not just the red AS that had driven Kurz to the brink, but the other two as well.

Kurz turned to watch questioningly. Fowler and the others had pulled away without so much as a parting word, disappearing into the storm-raged, night-cloaked mountains.

“They’re leaving. What in the world...?” Clouseau whispered over the radio.

“What would make them do that?” Mao asked, a sense of relief in her voice.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it saved our asses,” Kurz grumbled in frustration.

The battle that had been giving them so much trouble ended with a complete anticlimax.

The men kept up their attacks as they pursued Sousuke throughout the mansion. Their gunfire was merciless, and ricochets pounded the walls around him. It was like the enemy was herding him in a certain direction. The attack rhythm on display... Sousuke knew perfectly well how they’d come to be so well-trained, with such amazing teamwork.

The major... he thought. They were clearly under Kalinin’s command. As a hardened veteran and a commander, he never relied on mind games. Since Mithril operations were usually ambushes based on superior equipment and intelligence, it never stood out, but he always chose the most reliable strategies possible. He rarely used diversions or traps. If a squadron was putting on pressure from the right, it meant that the real threat was going to come from the right. Nothing was left up to chance or improvisation. You had to deploy your forces exactly where you needed them, or they’d be torn apart.

This was all basic strategy, but Kalinin was the master of it in practice. To liken it to baseball, he was the kind of manager who wouldn’t rely on home runs, but go for base hits and stolen bases to slowly run up the score, and immediately relieve a shaky starting pitcher in order to protect their lead.

But simply knowing Kalinin’s habits wouldn’t help Sousuke to turn the tide. The man was clearly trying to herd him to the south half of the mansion, and he had no choice but to let it happen.

Seeing how his enemies moved forced Sousuke to admit it: the major was serious, and there was no way to outthink him. If a fight seemed like a foregone conclusion, Kalinin would see it through exactly as devised. Psychological tactics wouldn’t work on him. He wouldn’t be swayed by overt optimism, or the allure of seizing a quick win. He wouldn’t let his guard down until the moment the battle was over and he was home with a hot cup of tea. If he could win, he would. If he was going to lose, he’d do it with maximum damage mitigation. That was the kind of man he was.

Sousuke was sure that, in that moment, Kalinin had said, “Try and stop me.” But that didn’t mean he was going to make it easy for him.

But why? Sousuke couldn’t understand it. His body reacted instinctively, and kept his shots on target, even as his mind continued to churn over the reveal of Kalinin’s betrayal. Why? Sousuke didn’t think he was that kind of man. He could be cold and quiet and sometimes cruel, but he would never do this. To join them, of all people...

I’m shaken, he realized, and that realization saved his life. I can think about it later. For now, I have to fight.

For now, Sousuke smothered his emotions and then glided along the floor, continuing to fire checking shots with his right hand. When he moved to the next room over, he saw a few grenades roll into the spot he’d been standing just seconds before. They exploded.

A shockwave hit him and white smoke rolled out, turning his already negligible visibility to zero. He considered using the opportunity to exit through a nearby door, but decided against it; the major surely had an ambush waiting for him there.

He ran to the other side instead. As expected, there were enemies waiting there, too. They took aim with infrared scopes and let fire with their submachine guns.

Sousuke moved quickly, but wasn’t in time, and the enemy’s gunfire peppered his body. He felt a dull pain in several locations on his upper left side; hits from a high-caliber handgun. Fortunately, his AS operator’s uniform stopped them all. Had they been rifle shots, he might be dead.

He returned fire immediately, landed a hit to a man’s center mass, but the man immediately withdrew around the corner. They must have been wearing body armor, because all he could hear was soft cursing.

Where is Chidori? he wondered, hiding behind a pile of collapsed bookshelves and looking around swiftly while changing his clip. If she’s here, she’d be in the direction of the heliport, he decided. But how was he going to break through their ranks and get to her when she was surely under heavy security?

Sousuke’s hesitation didn’t last long. He changed his clip and was about to stand up to move again when, suddenly, he was hit with the biggest jolt yet when a wall a few meters away, near where the enemy soldiers were hiding, was blown in. Even at his distance, Sousuke was rocked by the explosion. Parts of the wall went flying, and he was knocked to the ground.

“Ngh...” He groaned, and heard a ringing in his ears. As he sat up, dust and fragments of wall that had landed on his back slid to the ground. A hole had been opened, allowing the salty night air to blow into the room.

That attack just now wasn’t aiming for me, he realized. It had been too powerful. That hadn’t been an infantry munition; it was a blast from an AS, maybe, or a combat helicopter.

When Sousuke peered out the large hole that had formed in the wall, he saw several helicopters circling above. The three Behemoths he’d seen on the ocean before had gotten closer, and were now firing their shoulder-mounted rocket launchers sporadically. They were attacking the mansion.

He’d assumed both sets of forces worked for Amalgam... but then, why were they attacking each other? He couldn’t understand. Between the American raid in the mountains to the north, and now this ambush... just what was going on here?

Sousuke exclaimed wordlessly as a Behemoth fired its machine cannons from the ocean. They shredded a corner of the mansion thirty meters away like confetti, raining fragments and flames down even into the area where Sousuke was hiding.

The motivations don’t matter, he decided. He just had to use the confusion to go after Kaname. If he could break through the enemy forces and make it to the heliport...

Leonard Testarossa lay at Kaname’s feet weakly. He’d fallen on his right side. The puddle of blood was growing wider under his head, staining his wavy silver hair.

“No...” She dropped to her knees. The distant gunshots grew hazy around her, as she peered down hesitantly at Leonard, who was motionless as if asleep. The bullet she’d accidentally fired had dug a deep gash in his forehead.

Is he dead? For a minute, an icy hand grasped her heart. But when she put her trembling fingertips to his neck, she felt a faint pulse. He was still alive. The shot had hit, but the angle had been shallow.

She shook Leonard’s shoulders, realized he wasn’t responding, and looked around for something to help her give first aid. What should I do? Stop the bleeding? Disinfect? Give CPR? She had no idea. She knew all about ASes, weapons systems, communications systems, and artificial intelligence, but no emergency medical techniques came to mind. It was a new reminder of the massive imbalance in her knowledge.

But wait... Kaname thought, and snapped back to her senses. I don’t really have to treat him, do I? If I was just going to shoot him and move on anyway...

Meanwhile, the guards, who seemed to have realized that something was wrong, were disembarking from the helicopter and coming toward her.

I need to run away... and I need to do it now, she thought urgently. There was some distance between the heliport and herself. If I run now, she speculated, they won’t be able to catch me!

“Stop!” one of the guards shouted.

Kaname wanted to turn around and rush into the mansion. She just had to keep running, and cry Sousuke’s name. If I can do that, I know he’ll— But her legs wouldn’t work. It was as if her sandaled feet were glued to the pavement.

Her eyes remained silently locked on Leonard, who was still lying there on the ground, covered in blood and drenched by the rain. His eyes, which were opened just a sliver, gazed up at Kaname where she stood. There was a calmness in them, and at the same time, a tremendous pain.

Is it the pain from the wound, or something else? she wondered, as a new realization seized her. I shot him. I broke the rules. Something about that knowledge kept her standing there. She was pervaded with a sense of guilt, as if leaving now would be akin to shooting him again while he lay there suffering, like spitting on him and running away...

How long had she hesitated? She didn’t know. But the guards were within steps of her now. Their guns were readied and pointed in her direction.

Her hesitation had proved fatal.

“Drop the gun. Now,” a man said, and for the first time, she realized she was still holding the gun that Leonard had given her.

“I...” She backed away instinctively, but her shoulders collided with a thick, burly chest, and she turned to see the towering form of Andrey Kalinin blocking the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.

“I...” she began, and then trailed off.

Kalinin looked at the gun Kaname was holding, then at Leonard lying there on the ground, and a shadow of sadness passed over the Russian’s typically indifferent eyes. But it lasted only a second before he returned to his usual expression, and impassively took the silver gun from her. “We’re leaving,” he told the others. “Take her.”

Kalinin pushed Kaname toward the guards and knelt down beside Leonard. He examined the wound, then whispered something to him. She couldn’t hear what it was.

“Ah...” she sighed. The rain was pouring down hard. The roar of helicopters, gunshots, explosions... Kaname was being dragged through all of it.

Three ASes came to guard both the heliport and the transport helicopter waiting on it from three directions. One was black, one white, and one red. The black one was probably piloted by Fowler, and the white one by Sabina; she didn’t know who was in the red one.

Kaname recognized the models, too: these were lambda driver-mounted Eligores. She’d seen bits of their data on the laptop they’d given her. They were based on the Codarl’s frame, but the generators and drive systems had been enhanced to boost originally inferior electronic weapons to the level of the M9, or possibly even higher.

A guard grabbed Kaname and threw her into one of the helicopter’s passenger seats, while Kalinin brought the injured Leonard on board himself. The helicopter’s engine began to roar, and it slowly lifted off the ground. The three ASes continued their sporadic firing, trading shots with the approaching enemy army. Before long, the three escort ASes also left the heliport and sped away to the northwest as if to follow them from the ground.

Kaname looked down from the window of the ascending helicopter in time to see a man running out to the heliport. Thanks to the raging storm, the fire, the smoke and the dark around them, she couldn’t make out his face, but he had black hair, and a black AS operator’s uniform with red lines. That was all she could see... But it was enough.

“Sousuke?” she said.

The small, vanishing form of Sousuke was shouting something to her. She couldn’t read his lips. But she had a vague idea of what he was saying. It was one simple word: Chidori!

At last, in that moment, she felt regret wash over her; what a fool she’d been. But she couldn’t escape now. Why hadn’t she run away in the first place? Why had she hesitated when she had her chance?

Why—she cast a glance at Leonard being treated in the corner of the cabin—hadn’t she abandoned him and run off? And most importantly, why wasn’t she resisting now? Why wasn’t she crying, shouting, demanding to be released?

The helicopter picked up speed. Sousuke was fading behind the smoke, and the sight of him falling to his knees and pounding the ground shook her to her core.

The Behemoths making landfall on the beach didn’t try shooting at the helicopter. They probably wanted to take either her or Leonard alive.

She was out of options now. She’d be a doll again, docile and compliant, like before...

No... That wasn’t true. She hadn’t managed to meet Sousuke, but there were still things she could do. Things she’d started preparing for over these last few days, even.

Yes, she told herself, even if it’s little by little... Kalinin was discussing something with the cabin’s crew. The other men weren’t looking at her, either. Let’s try it, she decided, and cast a glance at a pistol, which was currently holstered on the hip of the soldier next to her.

Sousuke watched the helicopter fly off. Even after it disappeared beyond the mountains, he continued to gaze into the northwestern sky. It’s no use now, he told himself, and allowed himself one single curse. “Dammit...”

Kaname was on that helicopter. He’d seen her through one of the windows. In truth, all he knew was that it was a small figure with long black hair... but he’d known it was her, gazing back at him.

Chidori, he thought despairingly. There’s so much I want to talk to you about. If you reject me, that’s fine. But I just want to talk to you. That’s why I came all this way...

Sousuke, helpless in the middle of the heliport, was quickly surrounded by soldiers. These weren’t Kalinin’s men, but rather the invaders who had come along with the Behemoths. There were about ten of them in all from what he could see, though he was in the open now, with no way to fight back. An even larger enemy unit fanned out around him, and three Behemoths were still in the ocean. Even if Kurz and Mao were still safe, it would be too dangerous for them to approach. Trying to run now would be a fool’s errand.

Will I never see you again, Chidori? Futility and hopelessness weighed on his shoulders like lead.

“Are you Sagara Sousuke?” a man who appeared to be the enemy commander asked.

Sousuke didn’t respond.

“Drop your weapon,” the man ordered. “There are many things we wish to interrogate you about. But if you would rather die, you might as well do it now. We have special treatment for our hostages.” The soldiers around him let out a low chuckle.

Sousuke looked around slowly at their vulgar smiles, then spat out the words, “Do what you want.”

Just then...

Passing over the mountains hundreds of miles from the heliport, a large helicopter suddenly appeared, its engine and rotors kicking up a wind.

Sousuke looked up in confusion.

It was an MH-53, the large helicopter that Sears had used to bring in the M6. As it came closer and closer, it dipped its port side down and circled.

“Sousuke, get down!” Lemon shouted over the speakers, as a minigun on the helicopter’s port side began to pepper the soldiers on the heliport with fire. The shots sent water spraying as soldiers collapsed and scattered.

They came for me, Sousuke realized. It was a reckless move... The enemy Behemoths would shoot it down immediately. A helicopter with standard armaments stood no chance against a normal AS, let alone a Behemoth.

While fleeing the chaos erupting around the heliport, Sousuke called into his radio. “Stand down, Lemon! Run away! The plan’s a failure!”

The next thing he heard was Courtney’s scolding voice. “Don’t be stupid! At least give ’em a black eye first!”

“I don’t understand what you’re—”

Then suddenly, another voice—a woman’s voice, familiar—broke in, shouting. “Sagara! I’m dropping the Laevatein now! Use it to your liking!”

“The Laeva... what?” he asked, but recognized the voice as belonging to the former Mithril intelligence agent, Wraith.

“The Laevatein!” she yelled back. “That’s what he named himself!”

“From this height?!” one of the cantankerous old soldiers hollered. “Well, don’t blame me if it goes amiss!”

“Just drop it!” Wraith told him, clearly exasperated.

“Fine!”

The helicopter’s cargo hatch was already open, and now some kind of large black lump slid out of it and dropped. It was hard to make out due to the darkness and smoke, but it was probably an AS.

There was a burst of fire as an enemy machine gun landed a few hits on the circling transport helicopter. The tail swung wide, and smoke began to spiral out of it as the helicopter suddenly slowed. All Sousuke could hear over the radio was static and Courtney’s shouts.

He gasped as his comrades’ helicopter passed over his head, tilted left, then right, and was forced to land in the garden on the grounds. There was a deafening roar, and a broken piece of rotor sliced through the air, scattering dust in its wake. Given the nature of their landing, it was possible that those inside were still okay; he wasn’t sure about the two seniors though.

And then, the other object that fell—the unknown AS that Lemon and the others had been carrying—twisted lithely in midair, and landed about ten meters in front of Sousuke’s eyes. It was an extremely smooth landing.

Sousuke watched it quietly. As the water spray cleared, he could see it kneeling there in landing posture. The illumination from the flames around it let him make it out in its entirety.

What is this machine? he wondered.

The rain-soaked armor. The taut, slender silhouette. It was probably a third-generation AS, like an M9, but it more closely resembled his old machine that had been destroyed in Tokyo, Mithril’s only lambda-driver mounted AS... the Arbalest.

It had two sharp eyes just like the ARX-7, but this machine was larger than the Arbalest had been. The arms and legs were thicker and stronger, boasting incredible spontaneous power and strength. There were large cannons mounted on the shoulder armor, too large for a standard AS—yes, more like the heavy equipment you’d see mounted on a tank.

The armor was white. Or rather, the base coloring was white, but had been touched up here and there with red highlights. It was a blood-like red, dark yet burning. While the white-and-blue Arbalest seemed to represent wind or ice, the red on this machine brought fire to mind: the fire of anger; the fire of battle. It was the color of energy, of violence.

Forgetting for a moment that he was on a battlefield, Sousuke just stared up at the machine.

《It’s been a while, Sergeant,》 said a dear old voice from the speakers. It was a male voice, deep and monotonous. It was the synthetic voice of the machine’s AI.

“Is that you, Al?” Sousuke ventured cautiously.

《Affirmative,》 the voice replied. 《But this machine is called the ARX-8 Laevatein. Sergeant Sagara, I request permission to return to battle.》

That’s right, Sousuke realized. I can still fight. I can still pursue, if I’m with him... “Of course,” he said out loud. “Permission granted.”

《I am honored. We’ll discuss the details later. For now, please come aboard.》

The machine, the Laevatein, extended its left hand as several enemies fired at them, and the gunshots sparked as they bounced off its armor. Sousuke climbed into the AS’s hand, then effortlessly climbed around to the machine’s back.

《My new armor has been damaged already, 》 Al lamented. 《I was hoping to make my first sortie in a bit more style.》

“You’re still a chatterbox, I see,” Sousuke observed.

《I’m bored from having had no one to talk to for months.》

“Honestly...” Sousuke sighed. What a snob. He wondered why he’d ever been worried in the first place. That done, he snorted and slid in through the open hatch. The control system was roughly the same as that of an M9 or the Arbalest. He gripped and released the sticks a few times, checking their feel.

The hatch closed. He ran through the startup procedure. Master mode, bilateral angle settings... he completed them all quickly. “Now...” he said.

The front screen displayed information on the enemy infantry units firing at him, and the fact that the massive Behemoth ASes had already noticed him and were entering attack positions. The normal-sized enemy ASes, Codarl-types, were fanning out, too.

《Enemy AS warning. Three Behemoth-types, three Codarl-types. Two platoons of heavily-armed infantry as well.》

It would be too much for any normal AS. Even one Behemoth would be a lot to handle, let alone three. But...

《Would you like to make a little trouble?》 Al asked.

Sousuke took a deep breath and gripped the stick; an elation washed over him that he hadn’t felt in six months. No, maybe not since the fight in Hong Kong... A feeling of omnipotence that transcended logic ran through his body, and the machine’s hidden power responded to that. Since leaving Tokyo, he had had so many difficult fights, been reliant on such unreliable machinery... But now, he could challenge them on even footing.

Six of those incompetent enemy machines? he mused. That’s perfect. It’s time for a bloodbath. The machine, its AI, and his own blood began to surge with that indomitable will to fight. “All right,” he said to Al. “We’ll clean them up in three minutes.”

《Three minutes appears impossible. Perhaps four minutes, twelve seconds.》

“Oh, shut up,” Sousuke snarled. “Let’s go!”

《Roger, Sarge.》

They began. Dashing across the ground like a sword of fire, the Laevatein leaped at the enemy.