86—EIGHTY-SIX, Vol. 11: Dies Passionis

10.11

D-DAY PLUS TEN

“Never imagined we’d end up going back to the Republic.”

“Pretty crappy as triumphant homecomings go, right?”

It was dawn. As the battlefield’s night sky began to melt into cerulean darkness, the Processors shuffled their feet as they finished their pre-sortie briefing. They were in one of the Federacy western front’s FOBs, which was mostly occupied by an armored unit engaged in mobile defense.

Support the evacuation of your own persecutors, the Republic. Despite having been ordered to fight to defend Republic citizens, the child soldiers didn’t betray any displeasure or concern in their expressions. In fact, they were chatting, using it as a reason to crack jokes and laugh out loud as they spoke of the aid mission before them.

“I mean, it’ll be the second time we save the Republic, if you count the large-scale offensive.”

“Whoa, we’re awesome. Imagine saving your own abusers twice. We’re fucking saints, man.”

“For us at the Lycaon squadron, it’ll be our third time, so I guess that makes us angels.”

“Right, that was your first assignment.”

“Good on you.”

“Good job, Archangel Michihi.”

“You think the Republic’s people are gonna actually change this time around? Maybe show a bit of gratitude for once?”

“Wish they’d act a bit more proper, like Lena and Dustin, you know?”

“Nah.”

“Snowball’s chance in hell of that.”

“Man, talk about a crappy trip.”

The child soldiers went on without a single hint of displeasure, concern, or even anxiety at how the war’s tables had been turned against them. They chatted and joked, laughing everything off.

“We meet again, Captain Nouzen! Where’s that cheeky sycophant of yours today?! Come to think of it, I never did ask for her name!”

The very incarnation of the color red, standing there with bloodred hair, a crimson dress, a ruby tiara, and punctuated with a scarlet cape—or as she was otherwise known, the mascot of the Brantolote archduchy’s Myrmecoleo Free Regiment, Svenja Brantolote—spoke to him with animated excitement.

“…”

Looking away from her, Shin directed his attention to the Myrmecoleo Free Regiment’s commander, Major Gilweise Günter. Shin wasn’t lacking in sleeping hours, but it was still early morning. Frederica, he could have dealt with, but he wasn’t in the state of mind to handle a shrill child.

“I hear that despite being a raiding unit, they even had your Free Regiment stationed on the front lines?” he asked, holding up a hand to push away the small girl’s head as she drew on him, shrieking.

Gilweise nodded, moving his princess away with a surprisingly crude hold.

“Thanks to the chief of staff’s efforts, their surprise attack ended with minimal losses, but that’s not to say there were no casualties,” Gilweise replied.

The two of them were currently standing on the western front’s
current front lines, the Saentis-Historics line’s third formation. The place originally had pillboxes, concrete anti-tank impediments (dragon’s teeth), and anti-tank gun platforms. With the front lines falling back, these were reinforced with a hastily prepared but thick field of scatterable mines.

In addition, they’d brought in iron scaffoldings, which they fashioned into anti-tank impediments and a row of anti-tank guns. There were more pillboxes made of reinforced concrete being presently built. They were trying to set up the minimal fortifications that a reserve formation would require as quickly as possible. Such work was in progress across the Saentis-Historics line.

Infantrymen were set up as the primary force across the formation, while the armored units—which included the Myrmecoleo Free Regiment—were setting up the second line. The western front’s primary strategy remained unchanged even after falling back: mobile defense. It stood as a testament to how important the armored forces were to the Federacy.

“The Free Regiments of other fiefdoms have been attached to the other fronts, as well. I think you and your Strike Package are the only force left that’s still functioning as a raiding unit.” Having said that, Gilweise’s smile waned. “Last operation, the Princess discovered that Mass Driver tower. And despite that, we couldn’t intercept it in time. That regret’s been eating away at us. It’s…frustrating.”

“…Yes.”

Shin and his group felt like they’d failed to stop this in time, too. They saw a Mass Driver over a month ahead of Svenja and Gilweise, after all. During the Mirage Spire operation—and during the Strike Package’s very first deployment in the Charité Underground Labyrinth operation. If they could have predicted the satellite missiles, if they could see this cataclysm coming as far back as then…

Shin actively suppressed the emotions surging up in him again, but Gilweise keenly noticed it and furrowed his brow.

“…Are you all right, Captain? With the situation having changed this much, you have to be feeling the strain. Your Queen in particular.”

“Yes… But we’re trying to keep our feelings out of this. We’re in the middle of an operation.”

Shin sighed once. Some of the Processors who had only recently recovered from their injuries were capable of piloting a Reginleif, but not quite well enough to handle combat. So instead of fighting, they served as pilots for control officers and tactical commanders.

From a distance, Shin could see one such unit, Saki’s Grimalkin, close its canopy—with Lena inside. Incidentally, the brigade’s commander, Grethe, was piloting a Reginleif on her own, with Marcel being her unfortunate partner.

Saki reported preparations were complete. With those words as his switch, Shin shifted gears, looked up, and replied coldly.

“I’m aware of what you’re saying… I’m fine.”

First light dawned in the sky, and with it, the operation began.

“Commencing launch. Armée Furieuse—fire!”

With the aid of the Mantle of Frigga, the Reginleifs landed behind the lines of the Legion facing off against the western front’s forces. A force of the Strike Package’s 4th Armored Division touched down first.

“Suiu Tohkanya, Banshee, successfully touched down. Maintaining control of the area.”

At the same time, the Federacy’s main force launched an offensive. They began eliminating the Legion forces around the high-speed railway, securing the rails all the way up to phase line Aquarius, located sixty kilometers off reference Point Zodiacs on the western front.

And in that gap…

“Here we go! Catoblepas, sallying forth!”

Canaan’s 3rd Armored Division passed through the gap. Following after them was the Strike Package’s 2nd Armored Division, who were charged with securing the road to the Republic.

“We’ll start by clearing the way to the ninety-kilometer point, phase
line Capricorn, and escort the 4th Armored Division. Artillery unit, strike at the enemy’s face!”

Svenja suddenly cried out in alarm from the gunner seat, prompting Gilweise to jolt in the cockpit. The Myrmecoleo Free Regiments weren’t currently in combat, but they were certainly in the middle of an operation.

“Brother! I forgot to ask for that Mascot’s name again!”

“…Oh…”

Gilweise shrugged. That was her problem? Besides, her forgetting to ask wasn’t relevant here; if she’d asked it like that, Shin wouldn’t have answered.

“Princess, please, next time we meet them, be polite and ask her for her name yourself instead of the captain.”

The Federacy military’s forces were able to retain up to the thirty-kilometer point, phase line Pisces. Canaan’s 3rd Armored Division reached as far as the two-hundred-twenty-one-kilometer line—phase line Libra—and Siri’s 2nd Armored Division cleared the way to the three-hundred-kilometer point—phase line Cancer.

Only ninety kilometers remained to the Republic.

“All right, Nouzen, you handle the rest!”

“Right.”

Shin and Lena’s 1st Armored Division entered combat. They began cutting a path through the Legion territories, on their way to the edge of the Republic’s eighty-five Sectors, to the Gran Mur wall along the Eighty-Third Sector. The phase line close to the four-hundred-kilometer point—Aries.

Their ranks were made up solely of Reginleifs and Scavengers, with no other vehicles following them. At worst, they would have to walk back, so they didn’t bring the slow, sluggish Vanadis.

The expedition force worked in tandem with them, going out to the Gran Mur to greet them and opening the way for them from the other side. They secured the three-hundred-sixty-kilometer point, phase line Taurus, and continued their march.

The Gran Mur was coming into view. As Undertaker and the Reginleifs sprinted along, under the glow of the autumn morning, the first train bound to the Republic from the Federacy sped by.

“May I ask something, Major General? All of the Republic’s refugees were told beforehand to gather in the Eighty-Third Sector, right? Then where is that smoke coming from?”

“They lit the document vault in the Twenty-Fourth Sector’s government office on fire.”

As commander of the relief expedition force, Major General Richard Altner was in a command post in Point Sacra, in the Eighty-Third Sector’s former Ilex city high-speed rail terminal. In order to ensure they could be protected by the minimal forces remaining in the Republic, the Republic’s full population had been moved to the Eighty-Third Sector and the three sectors surrounding it in accordance to their departure time.

The Eighty-Third Sector was an industrial area, and those scheduled to leave on the second day were to spend the night in abandoned barracks or in the Eighty-Third Sector’s bunkhouses.

However, like Grethe commented, standing from the city hall, which had been converted into a makeshift command post, one could see a pillar of smoke rising from across the cityscape.

Richard was standing before a large table littered with paper documents and maps, with the rest being projected in holo-windows. Keeping his lone eye fixed on the holograms, which he could switch off at a moment’s notice, Richard spoke with a sarcastic snort.

“They’re doing the same thing in the First Sector. Apparently, there was so much paperwork to dispose of that they couldn’t get rid of it all
in time for the evacuation. They said it’ll take them until just before the last train on the third day… Must be hard, being a country that relies on paper documents.”

“They aren’t burning any incriminating documents along the way, are they?” Grethe asked.

“We wouldn’t let them get away with that. We copied all the important things when we saved them last year. The Republic government asked that some essential documents be transported with them, so we let them take the originals for those.”

Richard pointed ahead to a group of transport trucks driving off, loaded with building materials.

It was the first morning in an operation set to continue nonstop for three days. All the high-priority Federacy military noncombatants had left on the first train earlier. They would now be tasked with loading the Republic citizens onto the evacuation trains set to make round trips for the operation’s duration.

At this point in time, the evacuation of politicians, high-ranking government officials, and the old nobility living in the First Sector was completed without issue. Celenas living in the Second to Fifth Sector as well as generals and field officers were boarding the train or waiting for the next one.

“And there were documents mixed in with those originals. Like, for example, Eighty-Six personnel files.”

“We had those sent back to the Federacy in the name of investigation. Those files are a treasure to us; we wouldn’t let the Republic damage them, no matter what.”

This was proof that would tell the other countries of the Republic’s evil and the Federacy’s merciful justice.

One of the Eighty-Six they were discussing, Shin, stood silently behind Grethe, a bit disgusted with the dirty reality these two adults were speaking of. He wished they’d have at least tried to smooth over the truth of what they were saying. And at the same time, he was relieved he didn’t come here with Lena.

Averting his gaze from them, he looked out the window, where a
train was leaving the departure platform. The rails then switched, allowing the next train to slide into the platform.

Under the guidance of the Federacy military police, soldiers and military officers crammed into the train, washing into the cars like a flood. On the opposite platform, meant for disembarking at the Republic, another train just arrived, empty after unloading its refugees in the other country. It was waiting for the rail to switch over. Towing several dozen cars alone, this train would soon carry off an untold number of refugees later.

Meanwhile, the square in front of the Ilex terminal was lined with parked buses that spewed out countless people who were now waiting for their train. They, too, were Republic officers, dressed in Prussian-blue uniforms. These were the generals and field officers, scheduled for the morning to noon trains—meaning right now.

Under the guard of Republic soldiers—likely the company officers who would be evacuating in the next afternoon and evening trains—they passed through the empty plaza and silently entered the station.

They were leaving behind the citizens they were meant to defend, not sparing a glance at the quarrels that were breaking out between the abandoned citizens and the guarding soldiers.

By contrast, upon reaching the platform, the aging officers began complaining about the crowded trains, which they’d never experienced before. Shin couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for the Federacy’s MPs, who were forced to expressionlessly ignore their complaints.

“The Republic soldiers get to evacuate ahead of everyone else,” Grethe said, looking in the same direction as Shin. “They shouldn’t be allowed to complain about anything.”

“I’ve heard a few complaints in the morning trains,” Major General Altner huffed. “They were displeased that they didn’t get any luxury trains.”

Absurd. Now wasn’t the time to act spoiled, and they had no right to raise complaints at another country’s army to begin with.

“The most we did was give the politicians their own car. If they have any other demands, we don’t care. We’re not here to offer them a
pleasant, comfortable trip. We let them have trains we could otherwise be using to ferry our personnel and Vánagandrs. If they have complaints about their reception or the order they’re leaving, they’re welcome to stay here.”

“So they’ve been complaining about the order, too…”

“Yes, they have. The government officials and former nobles ran off on the first trains. They left before the citizens could notice and set the officers so they’d leave when the refugees could see them. They made them into scapegoats—diverting the anger of the citizens, who were pushed down the line, to them… I guess they’ve gotten used to shifting the blame to others.”

Same as how the army once forced all the anger and resentment that should have been directed at them onto the Eighty-Six. The government made the military officers look like they were “hurrying to abandon and leave the citizens behind.” An obvious enemy…making it so the citizens’ anger would be fixed on them first. That way, the high officials would stay out of sight and away from the public’s anger.

“So I can only hope the high officials find someone they can pin all their anger onto. Like their Patriotic Knights, for instance.”

The pureblood, pure-white San Magnolian Patriotic Knights—a group that advocated for the Federacy to return the Eighty-Six so they could be used for the Republic’s national defense. They demanded that the duty of defending the country, which the Federacy had levied onto the Republic citizens, be returned to the state it was in before the large-scale offensive. Their mantra earned them support from the public.

Shin and his friends called them the Bleachers. Their efforts had all failed, and they lost all support; not only were the Eighty-Six not returned to the Republic, but now another Legion offensive also forced them to abandoned their land. And in this evacuation, the Bleachers…

“They ended up evacuating with the high officials, huh?” Grete asked.

“Unlike the Republic’s military, which is incompetent but not powerless, the high officials are both useless and weak. That means it’s easy to blame them, especially when they’re close by and in sight.”

Hearing this, Shin felt terribly dejected. He was disgusted—not by them, but with himself. How could he have once insisted that the world and humankind weren’t beautiful? He thought he’d seen all the ways humans could be unsightly, but there was so much ugliness still hidden from him.

But he was realizing that now no one was going to hide those ugly truths from him—he wasn’t a child anymore.

“As you can see, you were wise not to bring Colonel Milizé along. If the citizens were to see her, who knows what they might say?”

To her, this was her homeland. This city was part of her country, and these Alba were her compatriots. Hearing them throw those insults at her now, when the country was falling apart, would surely carve deep scars into her heart.

With that said, Richard turned his eye to Shin.

“But the same holds true for you Eighty-Six. I didn’t imagine they’d be sending the Strike Package of all people to help the Republic. The motherland must be really pushed against the wall if they resorted to this.”

As Richard then glanced at her with his sole eye, Grethe shrugged casually.

“The Strike Package’s role is only to help support the retreat. Managing the lodgings and guiding the refugees is the Republic administration’s job. And the MPs are in charge of guiding them onto the trains. If anything happens and we have to interact with them, we can have the Nordlicht squadron handle it. They won’t be in contact with the citizens, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

The Federacy’s army would only have minimal involvement with the Republic’s evacuation. They had neither the duty nor authority to assign, command, or coerce another country’s citizens into anything. The Republic’s citizens weren’t the Federacy’s people. Federacy soldiers could go as far as resorting to force in order to evacuate their own civilians to safety, but they didn’t and couldn’t extend the same treatment to Republic citizens.

But with the situation of the war being what it was, they wanted to
prioritize the safety of their noncombatants. The soldiers, the Republic military’s logistics, communications, transports, and military-police divisions all left on the first trains.

“But Colonel Wenzel’s opinion aside, I’d like to hear what you think of this, Captain Nouzen… Feel free to speak your mind with no reservations. I’ll listen to anything you have to say.”

Are the Eighty-Six displeased with having to save the Republic? Shin paused for thought before giving his answer.

“Given we only have seventy-two hours for this operation, we can’t afford to waste time on needless arguments and friction. In that regard, I think positioning us so that we don’t make contact with the Republic’s citizens makes sense.”

“…Hmm?” Richard raised an eyebrow, looking surprised.

Shin carried on indifferently—like he was truly and honestly disinterested, his voice reflecting how little he cared about the Republic.

“I have nothing more to say. No complaints. This is a mission, and we are soldiers. That’s how we decided to return to the Republic… This is the choice we were allowed to make. So…”

So…

“I never wanted to or would have chosen to take revenge on the Republic’s people in the first place. Ever since I was in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, I cared that little about them, and now I care even less. I don’t want to save them, but I don’t want to see them die, either. So staying as uninvolved with them as possible is good enough for me.”

He no longer harbored any anger toward them—or resentment, or scars.

“We’re not going to let them get in the way of our lives anymore—not even in memory.”

The clock display in the optical screen of Tohru’s Reginleif, Jabberwock, showed that it was past noon. It was time for the Republic’s low-ranking officers—company officers and their families—to board the train.

The Legion didn’t launch any invasions past the Gran Mur. Nor did
they invade the Eighty-Third Sector or the three sectors surrounding it. Both Shin’s preliminary scouting of the area and the expedition force’s Vánagandr patrols indicated today was nothing but a peaceful autumn afternoon.

And yet Tohru saw something that disturbed that sight: incessant arguments breaking out in the plaza of the Ilex terminal. Between civilians and soldiers—or between soldiers and the administrative officers guiding the evacuation. Republic citizens turned on their own, arguing nonstop.

The company officers guarding over the plaza began their evacuation, with a makeshift fence built around the white flagstone plaza and the administrative officers taking over for them. The inside of the plaza was full of soldiers in Prussian-blue military uniforms, and the outer rim of the plaza had civilians in casual clothing clinging to the fence and hurling insults.

There was only one gate to the plaza, and both sides of it were lined with mounds of travel bags. One young officer standing there had a thick album he was carrying chucked into the pile, and he angrily started shouting at the gatekeeper who threw it away.

They had a mere seventy-two hours to evacuate millions of people. For three days, trains would be arriving one after another, only to leave packed with people. This meant there was no place for luggage.

The civilians were only allowed to take what was on their person, and they were told ahead of time not to bring any luggage. But the people insisted on bringing their belongings over and were forced to discard them here, hence the mounds of bags.

The album the young man was carrying was callously discarded. And in all likelihood, it was a precious memento. It was possible this album was his only remaining memoir of his family.

The young man lashed out, crying, but the gatekeeper, a youthful administrative officer, also looked so troubled and taken aback that he was on the verge of tears.

Tohru watched on from within Jabberwock. He didn’t watch because he wanted to help them evacuate. The Federacy army wouldn’t and wasn’t even allowed to interfere with the evacuation save for guiding the refugees onto the train. He was simply left with nothing else to do,
because the operations commander, Shin, was away at the temporary command post. So he decided to watch the evacuation.

Even still, just having a single Reginleif standing silently nearby was enough to strike some fear into the refugees. In the end, the young officer threw a glance at Jabberwock for no discernible reason and gave up on his album. The administrative officer, on the other hand, bowed his head in thanks.

It’d happened a few times before, and seeing him bow his head to him felt very strange.

“…Besides, why are the white pigs bickering like this when things are this bad? It’s pathetic.”

He heard another shout, another cuss tear through the autumn sky. This time, it came outside the plaza, where the civilians, who were waiting for their turn to board the train, were seated. Voices shouted out from there, crying out for reproach and criticism.

“Why do you get to board the train first? Why do the soldiers get to go first? We supported you, and even before the large-scale offensive, you never did anything! You never beat the Legion!

“You never protected us, your citizens!”

A heavy banging sound on the fence silenced the shouting. A hand snaked through the fence’s gaps, grabbing one screaming civilian by the collar and pulling them closer. It was a soldier from inside the fence. He was a soldier who was about to flee first and leave behind the defenseless citizens, but he shouted loftily just the same.

“—You’re the ones who didn’t fight!” he bellowed, his argent eyes burning with unsuppressed rage and hatred. “Not during the large-scale offensive or afterward! You forced all the fighting onto us! You had us protect you while you were running around and screaming like chickens with their heads cut off! While we were dying out there, you just complained, and even when the Federacy showed up, you evaded conscription! You call us useless?! You people never fought or helped anyone! You were just burdens!”

They grappled and cussed. Silver-haired citizens argued with soldiers who shared their same colors. The unsightliness of it all filled Tohru’s
heart with a bitter emotion. Before the operation started, Kurena said that the Eighty-Six didn’t have to be the ones put through this.

The white pigs would force any problem onto someone else, even on their fellow white pigs.

If it suited them, the white pigs could make anyone, even their own, into a pariah, stripping them of any camaraderie of fraternity.

They had no intent whatsoever of shouldering the burden of trouble or injury, of combat or death, and they’d happily thrust that burden onto someone or anyone else. And even when they did, they would act like victims, irresponsibly demanding their rights.

It was…unsightly.

Back in the Eighty-Sixth Sector, he resented the white pigs and disdained them even more. And he still did. But the way the white pigs were acting right now was simply too unsightly. Too wretched.

They weren’t even worth his scorn.

“This is weird. When they get this bad, it feels stupid to even hold a grudge against them.”

As they excused themselves from Major General Altner’s presence and walked through the noisy command post, Shin suddenly directed a question at the other three operations commanders, who’d been resonating with him via the Para-RAID for the duration of that conversation.

“I know what I said earlier… But shouldn’t you have said something, too?”

“Oh, uhh, yeah… I mostly felt the same way,”
Suiu replied.

“We’re good so long as they’re out of our sights. We don’t want to save them, but that doesn’t mean we want them to die, either.”

“Besides,”
Canaan said,
“for us—I mean, the Eighty-Six outside you guys from the Spearhead squadron—this is actually nothing new, Nouzen. When we fought in last year’s large-scale offensive, it meant directly protecting the white pigs. And this time, the Republic’s people won’t have any choice but to fight. With the war getting this bad, if they come crying to the Federacy for mercy, I don’t see them getting
treated much better than they treated us. And honestly, that’s probably punishment enough for them. Serves them right, too.”

“Agreed, but…don’t say that when Lena, Annette, or Dustin can hear you.”

“Oh, of course. I wouldn’t want a certain somebody lopping my head off with a shovel or another certain somebody accidentally shooting a missile at me.”

That second “certain somebody” must have been referring to Anju. Come to think of it, Shin never did throw a can of open paint or a cream pie at Dustin. Someone suggested they’d use their leave in October as a chance to throw something at him.

…But then again, remembering it only to say they’d do it later felt like a bad omen, so Shin figured they should at least splash him with a bucket of cold water once they were done with this mission.

“Oh, yeah, that reminds me, Nouzen. Let Raiden and the others splash you with some water. The operation’s already started, but at least let them baptize you before the retreat begins.”

“Yeah…sure. Not doing this feels like a death flag, and with the colonel piloting a Reginleif alongside us, it feels like an extra big death flag. If anything happens, it’ll weigh on my conscience. And the colonel’s, too,” said Shin.

“Shuga and the rest were gonna do it during your leave, but I’ll let them know the schedule’s been moved up,”
Siri said.
“We’ll splash water on the guys who hooked up on our side, too. Kind of pisses me off.”

Shin fell silent. He didn’t know they’d been planning to do the same thing to him, too. Plus, Siri might have said too much of the truth at the end there.

“…Just leave Lena out of this,” Shin complained, hoping for at least that much.

“Oh, obviously. What are you saying? We know better than that.”

“Scrawny girl like her. What if she catches a cold? The poor thing.”

“Besides, I think the colonel went through enough baptism as it is, like a while back…and during the large-scale offensive,”
Suiu said with a sardonic smile, her tone slightly bitter.

“Anyway, let’s get back on track. It actually felt pretty good back then. The white pigs acted like they were the superior species and we were inferior, but with the Gran Mur broken, they were powerless. If we weren’t there to protect them, the Legion would crush them to bits, and they were too stupid to even see that and kept squealing… It felt good. Served them right on the one hand, but on the other hand, knowing their lives were completely in our hands was pretty fun.”

They could abandon them or save them as they fancied. If they insulted them, they could magnanimously overlook it or take offense to it and toss them out to the Legion. It was that kind of…

“…How do I put it? We always had the power to toy with them however we wanted, but we didn’t. It made us feel almighty. It was fun.”

The dark joy of being the strong dominating those around them.

“For two months, we could abuse that privilege as much as we liked. Long enough to get tired of it. So I think we could do without having to feel that way anymore.”

“…”

“So we’ve been wondering if your group is fine with that, since you never had that chance to vent it out.”

“I could actually ask you the same question, Siri. You got sick of protecting the white pigs and went to set up base somewhere else on your own… Are you cool with this?”

As the other two asked him that, Siri seemed to have shrugged. During the large-scale offensive, he hated the idea of being under Lena’s—under the Republic’s command—and set up a position commanded by him in the southern front.

“Well… Like you said, back then, the idea of dying to protect the white pigs didn’t sit well with me. That’s why I refused to work under Colonel Milizé… Hmm, but now—”

“—at this point, it honestly feels like all the anger’s kind of gone.”

Rito and the members of the Claymore squadron didn’t like the idea of fighting under the Republic during the large-scale offensive,
preferring to enter Siri’s command rather than Lena’s. So for Rito and his squadron’s members, this would also be their first time fighting to directly protect the Republic’s civilians.

Rito was under the 1st Armored Division’s 2nd Battalion, which was stationed outside the Gran Mur. They were deployed in a narrow, long formation along both sides of the high-speed railway.

The Claymore squadron in particular was deployed near phase line Aries—in other words, the strip directly beside the Gran Mur. They were currently in charge of guarding the strip while the other squadrons finished supplying.

That said, the Legion didn’t show any signs of attacking yet, so for now, they just needed to watch the Republic’s refugees get loaded onto the train like livestock, which wasn’t much of a problem for them.

“I mean, I haven’t forgiven them for what they did to us at all… I probably never will.”

The things they did to us. Families killed, homelands stolen, comrades forced to fight to exhaustion and death.

They’d stripped them of their freedom and rights, scarred their hearts so deeply that they couldn’t look to the future without being filled by paralyzing fear. The truth was that Rito and his comrades, and indeed all the Eighty-Six, shouldn’t have needed to go through so much suffering and anguish to regain their wishes and futures. And the ones who’d forced them into this position were these people.

So Rito would never, ever forgive them—cry and beg though they might, nothing would absolve them of that sin. Even if they changed their ways, Rito would probably never accept the possibility of the Republic regaining some modicum of happiness. Even now, he believed they deserved to be scorned to their last breath, to regret and suffer and live wretched lives.

But he didn’t want to push them into that fate with his own hands. After all…

“They already punished themselves on their own. Back in the large-scale offensive.”

…the Legion’s onslaught had slaughtered their families and taken
their homes away. They were all crushed, mercilessly and gruesomely, by that surging metallic tidal wave. And it ended with the Republic vainly falling to ruin once.

After the Gran Mur fell, the Republic’s survivors had to wait two months for the Federacy’s army to come to their rescue. They spent days trapped inside the walls, being crushed by despair with nowhere to run.

However, the Republic’s citizens brought those two months of despair on themselves. This was the outcome of a decade of closing themselves in a small, sweet dream, looking away from the reality of war and losing the ability to defend themselves.

Rito and the Eighty-Six didn’t have to deliver any more despair on them.

“We don’t even need to take revenge on them ourselves. They paid the price for their own ineptitude—their own stupidity and irresponsibility—for doing nothing for so long in the large-scale offensive. But even after that, they didn’t repent at all. So…now they’re picking up the tab for that, too.”

A train full of refugees passed them by and disappeared into the distance. It was a simple formation that included freight cars meant for livestock, which cared little for the comfort of those boarding them. The refugees had to be packed into those cars like luggage, ignoring the possibility some of them might end up injured in the process.

The memory of his younger self being forced to go through the same experience crackled like noise in Rito’s heart.

He felt like he should think it served them right, but he didn’t. But at the same time, he couldn’t overlap his younger self’s pained image with them. Because after all…

“They won’t repent even after this. They’ll keep saying someone else is guilty for not helping them, just like they always do. They’ll keep putting themselves through terrible things, and it’ll always be their own fault. So I don’t need to take revenge on them.”

If they won’t show any regret or penance, let them keep driving themselves to sorrow. And they’ll never escape that fate.

“And we don’t need to force ourselves to remember them, either. We can let go now.”

Just like how Tohru watched the argument on the terminal, Kurena was watching it nearby, from inside Gunslinger. She got out of her Reginleif, eyeing the Republic civilians’ argument—not out of glee or curiosity, but to come to terms with her emotions.

She watched, listened, and sighed softly.

…Really?

This was what she’d been so scared of for so long? These people looked so weak and insignificant now. Like scared dogs, howling pathetically.

She always thought she was the one trapped by them. But the ones who were really trapped were the white pigs.

They wouldn’t even face what they really feared: the Legion menacing them. They only looked away—both from the Legion and their fear of them. And the outcome of that was the Gran Mur. The internment camps. The Eighty-Sixth Sector and the Eighty-Six.

They killed so many people to build those stupid walls, but they only went that far to lie to themselves. In the end, the Republic never really came face-to-face with how terrifying the Legion were. Not even now. And even at the very end, they wouldn’t face them.

They kept on looking away from the threat, and now they had no idea how to handle it. And so they were prisoners to this threat. Even now, they couldn’t take a single step on their own.

And they couldn’t even see it was their doing that made them like this.

The Republic army’s defeat at the start of the war. The Gran Mur’s fall. And who was at fault for that? It was the Eighty-Six; it was the army, who wouldn’t protect them; it was the civilians, who sat idly by and did nothing.

Every single time, no matter what, someone else, anyone else—everyone but themselves—was at fault.

Living your life that way may have been easy…but living like that also meant they wouldn’t ever find a way out of their troubles.

“Yeah,” Kurena whispered, watching them. “I’m fine. I’m…all right now.”

I’m not afraid anymore. I might hate the Republic’s white pigs, and I’ll never forget what they did to me, but I’m not afraid of them anymore. What I was really afraid of were my scars—my younger self, who couldn’t protect my parents, my sister, and all my comrades. Of my own inability to free myself and my friends from our troubles.

But not these stupid white pigs, who can’t defend themselves but won’t stop lamenting the injustices done to them.

They didn’t have any power she needed to dread. And now that she knew this, she might never forgive them, but she didn’t need to care about them ever again.

“I’ve always fought with Shin and the others to survive so far. I’m strong, and I know it—so you people?”

You insignificant, powerless white pigs.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

The walls bordering the Eighty-Sixth Sector were all destroyed during the large-scale offensive, only leaving a few buildings and viewing platforms. Set on one of those was Snow Witch, and Anju was currently resting against its armor and looking out into the walls.

Trains heading to and from the Federacy passed by. Rows of vehicles in black metal coloring—transport trucks and the Vánagandrs guarding them—drove along both sides of the high-speed rail tracks. They bravely traveled under the tipping sun, guarding the trucks loaded with precious equipment and supplies that had to be returned to the Federacy.

Intermittent explosions could be heard in the distance, coming from the Eightieth Sector’s area. This was the sound of plastic explosives set by combat engineers going off. If the Gran Mur’s remains were left untouched, a Morpho could take cover within the eighty-five Sectors. To that end, the Federacy had the walls closest to it demolished.

Her clear blue eyes moved along the autumn sky, overlooking the view of the city. She could see rows of production and power plants standing like metallic, artificial mountains. Those weren’t there when Anju last saw the place as a young girl. And beyond them was a group of gray, uniform residences, all built densely together.

The square in front of the terminal was apparently being used as a truck yard, though it was once an industrial block before Ilex converted it into this form. The place was likely more chic before the Legion War, but in the decade afterward, the place was neglected, leaving behind only a square of white stone and cracked flagstones.

“…”

Did she want to come back here? Well, not really. It didn’t feel like a homecoming, and she didn’t feel much nostalgia, either. This was just the country she was born in. It was flat in comparison to the Eighty-Sixth Sector and how overrun it was with greenery, and by now, she was more used to Sankt Jeder in the Federacy and its neighboring cities.

So if she had any home to go back to, by now, it was…

Anju whispered with a smile.

Fare thee well, the land where I was only born.

“Good-bye… The place I live in, I want to be in… The place I call home isn’t here.”

The old lady’s school, where Raiden had hidden in his youth, was in the Ninth Sector—slightly to the north of the administrative wards’ center and quite far from the Eighty-Third Sector, which was on the brink of the southeast.

Since this could be the last time they’d ever see this place, Raiden thought he could take some pictures for the old lady, Lena, and the other Alba. But disembarking his unit and descending onto the wayside of the Eighty-Third Sector now, Raiden could see that going that far would be impossible.

Maybe taking pictures around here would be better than nothing?
he thought, aiming his digital camera around the abandoned streets.

It was a distorted cityscape, and looking at it pained the heart. There were still traces of fighting on the streets, likely from during the large-scale offensive. Ruins of buildings lay along the road in terrible condition, with prefabricated buildings lined up together in a cramped, squalid mess in their place.

These facilities had been made to accommodate the Republic’s citizens, who went from having much vaster territory into confined lives within the walls.

The old lady’s school was in the Ninth Sector, which was a relatively affluent residential area that was more spacious than this. And based on what Lena and Annette said, the First Sector prioritized maintaining the scenery over accepting refugees. Its residents forbade the building of high-rises, even during the war. Despite the countless refugees bemoaning their deplorable living conditions.

The way the war warped the Republic didn’t just stop at the Eighty-Six.

Unable to conjure up the motivation to snap a photo of this small, melancholic public park, Raiden lowered his camera, only to find one of his squadron members there.

“Claude?”

It was the captain of the 4th Platoon, Claude Knot. The dusty wind toyed with his red hair, and his argent eyes, hidden behind his glasses, looked up at the way the sun hit a statue that’d originally been a sundial.

Hearing Raiden’s call, Claude glanced at him and blinked.

“Raiden… Oh. You taking photos for the old teacher lady?”

“And Lena and Annette—and the priest. Might be the last time we see this place. What about you?”

“Yeah… Figured I’d give this place one last look.”

Those weren’t words Raiden expected to hear from Eighty-Six discriminated by the Republic. As Raiden stared at him, surprised, Claude looked away.

“My big brother was a Handler.”

“Huh?” Raiden asked, stunned.

“My big brother was born from my father’s first marriage, and unlike me, he was Alba. And he was a Handler. For the squadron Tohru and me were in before the large-scale offensive.”

Those two had been in the same unit since even before the large-scale offensive. Maybe that was why their Personal Names, Jabberwock and Bandersnatch, were based on monsters from the same fairy-tale author.

Either way, Raiden shuddered. An Eighty-Six younger brother, commanded but never supported by his Handler—his unforgivable older brother. A relationship that must have been terrible for both parties.

“He knowingly became your Handler?”

“My big brother, he… I didn’t know it was him at the time. He introduced himself with a different name. I mocked him for it back then. Some crazy Handlers out there actually ask Processors for their real names…”

He mocked him, not knowing that he was looking for his younger brother, who’d become an Eighty-Six. Looking for Claude.

“…Your brother and father, are they—?” Raiden asked.

Claude’s answer came with a sigh. Like all his strength was draining from his body along with the air leaving his lungs.

“I don’t know…”

“…”

“He was connected to the RAID Device during the large-scale offensive, but when I looked for him, I couldn’t find anything, so…”

And so he ended up never meeting his brother and father, who remained within the eighty-five Sectors. Never truly meeting the Republic they were a part of.

He didn’t think this country was his home. But still, he wanted to see the land he was born in one last time.

“This could be my last chance to ever look at it, so I figured I should.”

The destination of the trains ferrying the Republic refugees was the Berledephadel City terminal, located in the Federacy’s southwest. The place was considered the gate to Sankt Jeder, and the tracks coming from the Eaglefrost route and the Kreutzbeck City terminal to the north and the Eaglebloom route and the Kirkes City terminal to the south converged there. Since this was a city where visitors from other countries came in, it was pretty and ostentatious for an old Imperial city.

Another refugee train arrived at the beautiful station building. It was the train for lower-ranking soldiers and was the first one to accommodate captain-class officers. And mingled between the soldiers clad in Prussian-blue uniforms disembarking the train was one twelve-year-old boy.

It was a suggestion made from a humanitarian standpoint, and more practically speaking, it was made to abate the guilt of the soldiers and officers for escaping first. Once every few trains, one car would prioritize war orphans. The officers, of course, prioritized their own children and families, and so there were really only a few such cars—a truly apologetic number.

And one of those cars carried the children from the boy’s orphanage. Apparently, a soldier his father used to be colleagues with arranged for orders from above to have them picked up, which is how he ended up here. He also said that because of this, they’d be taking him on that train, too, so he was thankful.

They were on different trains, so that person wasn’t around right now. The boy hurried off the train, along with a group of Republic civilians, who were angry at the uniformed Federacy soldiers telling them to hurry up.

The train was emptied out soon enough, and after a long inspection of the cars, it began moving to the track switch. With only its driver inside, the train switched over to the opposite track and took off toward the Republic again.

As he left the station building, which was fashioned like a cathedral
with multiple stained-glass windows, he was greeted by rows of transport trucks parked in front of the terminal. There weren’t enough of them, though, and there were still refugees from the train prior sitting on the pavement. Stretching ahead of them was a beautiful plaza that extended into the main street, its sidewalk deserted due to the evacuation and its roadside trees untrimmed.

Or so it seemed at first glance, but the boy realized that all the trees in sight were in fact artificial ones, and he swallowed nervously. The tree standing at the heart of the plaza was a monument, its trunk large, thick, and colored a metallic silver. Its leaves were shards of glass. The light shining down diagonally from the autumn afternoon sun passed through the leaves, casting a different color from each one, producing a light show that shone mystically like a kaleidoscope.

Similar trees were lined up along the main street as roadside trees. Set into the pavement were “fallen leaves” that would never fade in color. What the boy was seeing now were trees without the light hitting them. Polished frosted glass shaped like fruit dimly glittered in the faint sunlight.

This was a town meant to greet foreign visitors, designed by the old Empire to show off its dignity. Overwhelmed by the coercive magnificence before him, the boy stepped down into the plaza, looking around in a fidgety manner.

“Ah, there you are. You come over here for now.”

Someone pulled him by the arm, gently dragging him out of the row of refugees. Looking up, he saw a young Republic soldier clad in its steel-colored uniform. He had golden, light-brown hair and jade-colored eyes, and he looked to be a few days older than him.

The boy blinked at him. For some reason, the young man’s other hand, which wasn’t holding on to him, was missing its wrist. His left sleeve was folded over.

“Hey. It’s been two months, right?”

“…Mister.”

It was the Eighty-Six boy who told him a bit about his father, who’d died in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. The one who told him to believe in his
father, because he did the right thing. Those were words no one else but his mother would tell him.