-This is Urzu 7
His voice was taught choking on the smoke and the smell of the wreckage.
-My preset location is near radar number 3. Yours?
-SAGARA-SAN!
He could hear the emotion in her voice.
-Tessa, I'm glad you're ok. He managed.
-We're on the runway, Kaname-san is fine we are getting out of here! Nuclear strike in 16 minutes! Get here as quickly as you can!
-Negative, Ansuz. Engaged in combat with the enemy. Linking up is impossible if you want to get out alive. Go...now!
His battle was not over.
There was Kalinin. Standing amongst the wreckage of the fuselage, rotor blade and fragments of the metal exterior.
- Are you finished with the transmission?
- Of course.
Somewhere behind them, one of the heli's engines exploded, and the area was showered with fragments of turbine blades, screws and torn pieces of aluminum alloy casing.
The explosion was like a sign. A cloud of smoke covered the area temporarily, and Kalinin used that to
rush towards him. His movements had been almost sluggish until then, but at that moment his speed was incredible. There were no feints, no clever techniques, no flexible use of wrists and shoulders - just the point of his knife, coming straight at him.
He barely had time to move his head, and he felt the blade swish past his throat. This stab turned into a slashing attack faster than he could imagine. He thought that his opponent would try to grapple him, but instead he was aiming at his back. Sousuke dodged and jumped away, to get a little distance, and the enemy looked like he was going to kick up the dust at him. Sousuke closed one eye and tried to aim for his opponent's leg, but instead of kicking up dust Kalinin's leg came at his temple. He blocked it with difficulty - but not completely. The impact on his left hand, that was blocking the kick, was probably the most powerful he had ever received in hand to hand combat. He staggered, barely managed to right himself, and tried to slash his opponent. Kalinin dodged the attack without difficulty, and with the same movement the heel of his jungle boot struck Sousuke's side.
- You really have no talent for this Sagara.
- What is that supposed to mean old man?
-I know I'm weak and have no talent for this already. You're not telling me something I don't already know. Mao, Clouseau, Kurz they all have superior abilities. The only thing I have is my will to survive.
He charged at Kalinin barely avoiding a well placed slash, the sun was in the old Russian's eyes and this may be the only chance he has left. He grapples him almost preforming a sode-tsuri-kom-goshi (a judo maneuver) The enemy dropped his weapon. This was it victory was close. He began headbutting him several times to create an opening for himself. CRACK- his nose is broken. Still on his enemy's back, locking his hands, Sousuke reached for the knife that he still had, and stabbed at the man's defenseless chest. He struck a rib, and remembered that he had to hold the blade horizontally.
Sousuke remembered where the heart was - he only had to push the blade in, and almost felt the sensation of serrated steel piercing flesh and ripping apart arteries...
But he just couldn't do it. He couldn't kill the only man he had ever viewed as a father.
-That's why I said you have no talent for this.
He takes the blade from his chest and slowly begins to get up. Sousuke retreats a few paces.
- You're a lamb, brought up by a pack of wolves. You don't need blood, you've no taste for flesh, but you still pretend to be a wolf, because if you didn't, you would die. Is there a more twisted and sorrowful existence?..
- Like I know...
- You shouldn't have to do this. You shouldn't have become the man that could drive me into a corner.
Not Kassim, or even Uruz seven, no... You should have been a normal boy with a normal family- but no you destroyed that for yourself.
Kalinin takes the blade from his chest and brandishes it in front of Sousuke.
-I'm going to do what you couldn't.
-It doesn't matter we're both going to die here anyways.
He painfully walks towards Sousuke, but the stab he was awaiting never came. Instead, Kalinin coughs up huge amounts of blood and drops the blade before falling to his knees. Shrapnel was piercing through his broad back and into his internal organs. Yet he continued to fight.
-Why?
-It was my last chance to...train... I wanted... think... about what you are...
Sousuke bent down to hear his words, blood soaked through and through, Kalinin had one last reprieve in him.
-I knew you wouldn't stab... you were always a gentle child, I just wanted to...go back... to get you and Irina and the child...
-That's why? That's why you destroyed Kaname's life? MY LIFE?
-You thought I didn't have flaws?
-THAT'S WHAT A FATHER IS!
-A father is it? Kalinin smiles briefly and reaches up to take hold of Sousuke's shoulder.
-Ikinasai
At this the hand that was gripping Sousuke's shoulder looses that spark of strengthen and falls limply to the ground. The sound of the turboprop engine taking off struck out of his ruminating, he doesn't know how long he's been sitting there. Weakly he peers at his watch. 10 minutes left until the nuclear strike and his eminent death. If the plane flew quickly enough it should make it to the outer rim of the safe zone just in time.
-Chidori
There were so many things he wanted to tell her, to see if she was okay, to hold her and take her back to Jindai High just like he had promised. But in the end he had said horrible things to her and thrown her from a helicopter. Typical. 15 seconds inside of a helicopter after chasing her for more than a year.
-I hope she can be happy after this, from now on.
It was his hearts deepest wish at that moment, but he had no way of knowing, not now or ever. He sighed and picked himself up off the ground and took off twords the base knowing deep in his heart there was no hope.
-Ikinasai
The words became an order, the last words from his "father's" true heart.
He found one of the entrances to the base in a corner of the manoeuvring grounds. Kicking down the wire mesh gate, he jumped down the staircase - it didn't even take him thirty seconds. Turning several corners and passing several doors, he suddenly found himself standing in corridor the warhead on that ICBM, the underground structures of Merida would not withstand the heat, or
the shockwave of the detonation, even if he ran to the drainage facilities at the very bottom of the
underground base. Even if he somehow managed to survive the initial impact, the structures would
collapse, and ocean water would flow in, drowning him. Either way led to the same result. It was futile
trying to hide underground, and there didn't seem to be any methods of escape.
He looked at the watch. Seven minutes.
- Nothing I can do, eh...
It seemed to be futile. He sat on the floor of corridor zero, thinking, and then noticed a large hole in the wall. On the other side was the dry dock, where he settled his score with the Belial. Then a thought struck him like a bolt of lightning.
-I forgot about AL!
He trecks through the rubble to find where he had left the Laevatein, acessing the damage he sees that the head unit is practically intact and undamaged.
-His hearing functioning should be sound.
-Al?
-I thought you were going to leave me this way.
The cockpit had been destroyed, but Al's core unit was in the abdomen. The manoeuvre had been
dangerous for him, but he had survived.
- You know about the nuke?
- Yes, I do. I had been monitoring the transmission from Afghanistan.
- Right...
- It is a MIRV design, with each warhead carrying a nominal charge of 550 kilotons in TNT equivalent,
all of them targeting Merida. It is impossible to take refuge on the island.
- Yeah, isn't it...
-How much time left?
- Approximately 5 minutes and counting.
-Shit, it seems so long.
-Indeed Sergeant.
It was then he remembered the letter he had written to Kaname expressing everything he didn't have the courage to tell her face to face.
-At least she'll be able to read that now.
-Define "that."
-A letter of goodbye to Angel.
-By Angel do you mean Miss Chidori-san?
-Yes Al.
-Do you love her Sergeant Sagara?
-I suppose I do Al.
-Do you want to meet her no matter what?
-I would if I could. How much time left?
-One minute.
-I don't want to die without meeting her.
This overwhelming thought flooded every parameter of his being.
-I... don't... want.. to die.
His voice sounded different, somehow not his own, and his throat felt funny and tight. His face grew hot and he felt something- not blood- running down his face. He finally realised what was happening. For the first time in his life that he can remember, he is crying, genuinely sobbing.
- ...sergeant. Thirty seconds left, - said Al.
- No... don't want to...
- The TAROS is destroyed. It is also impossible to use the Lambda Driver.
- ...I... know...
Twenty seconds.
- I want to try something, but first I want to ask. Am I human, or machine?
- You... It would be simple to say that he was... but that was simply no longer the case. He was a much more advanced being than that. Decide it for yourself. People... do that.
- I am grateful.
Five seconds.
- What are?
- I'll try it by myself.
The air around the Laevatein, lying in the middle of the room, started vibrating.
Zero.
The equivalent of fifty-five megatons of TNT detonated in the sky above Merida island.