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Chapter 35 – Breaking Point V.5
Interlude
His right-hand sword to my left hip.
A left-hand swoop on my upper arm.
Fake-out sweep at my feet, followed by a breakneck thrust at my abdominal region.
A nonstop combination of slashes and stabs; twenty six—no, twenty seven, eight, nine—and counting.
Jumps.
Cancels.
Jump cancels, move cancels.
Oh the number of cancels...
Give me a break, 13.
Honestly.
You've peeled enough scrap metal out of my virtual Senjutsuki.
I can't even rely on wearing you out; you're showing zero signs of slowing down.
What the hell is taking Aniki so long anyhow? He sure is taking his sweet time, ain't he.
Grunting to myself—
Here it comes.
To react, I guard my left flank.
And immediately counterattack the blow to my right arm.
Ignore the leg-sweep feint, instead lift my sword and rifle to defend my center.
The resulting blowback drives me a few hundred yards into the backwoods, knocking me against the flaming forestry as I get dragged behind my feet.
Not that it's any time to sigh in relief.
Not when the nonstop combo is coming right up.
. . .
. . .
. . .
Forty one—for anyone curious.
He finally stepped back after swinging his swords at me forty one fucking times, not once relaxing his pace.
(Valkyrie-04)
Looks like someone's in the middle of a new paint job. You're being pummeled black and blue, 07.
'Need a hand?' taunts a familiar voice.
(Valkyrie-07)
Easy for you to say.
I huff at her dig.
As antagonizing as her tone is, it's nonetheless an honest relief to hear from Munakata-san again.
(Valkyrie-07)
You done chopping wood yet?
It's tough, but I'm somehow managing to keep the conversation alive all while exchanging swipes and repelling 13's quicks.
Well—I say exchanging, when it's really just a one lane exchange.
If only Kashiwagi hadn't gotten too eager and overstepped her designated perimeter, we'd be sitting in a much better position right now.
Munakata-san's trap has gone to waste, with no chance of success between our army of two strong.
We'd had to scratch our original attack vector, where I had to fence him within this circle of fire and limit his movements while 04 planted some of our cannon artillery into remote landmines. All Kashiwagi had to do was act like she was firing at 13, when really she'd be walking him into the booby trap without him knowing any better.
Like lamb to the slaughter.
I had since used a good chunk of our cannons when I improvised and made her fallen Senjutsuki a quasi-landmine, yet we failed to eliminate him even then.
I still think it was a pathetically needless act of sacrifice, 09. How many times had I warned her to get on the move every time she'd given away her twenty...
Anyhow, this changes nothing.
The outcome remains the same.
In its place we've to resort to using my Shiranui to lure him into a makeshift death trap.
I've ended up being the lucky decoy all because I'd gotten a touch too trigger happy the moment I noticed 13's halberd stuck in Kashiwagi's frame, practically announcing my location as I fired away.
Damn it, Kashiwagi—what's so difficult about sticking to the plan?
(Valkyrie-04)
Do you want the honest answer, or the answer you'd rather hear?
Speaking of 04's booby trap.
To translate: 'No, I'm not in position yet,' huh?
Even so, I'm almost tempted to hear her fib if only to have something to hold on to. A what's the word—hope.
(Valkyrie-07)
Give it to me straight, doc. Why're you wasting your time on chitchat, anyhow—
I cut my rhetorical question short, just in the nick of time to crouch outside the arc of a heavy swing from the top left.
A swing that slices clean both my Mount Pylons, and even as my sub-arms fall earthward, even before they hit the ground, 13 restarts his assault.
He must be determined as hell not to ease up—not until I'm out of commission.
(Valkyrie-07)
Hey 04, you wouldn't happen to have a G-bomb by chance, would you?
(Valkyrie-04)
A G-bomb, you say? Are we that desperate now?
'Just a few more hours, 07. Though at this rate, we might pull a win if you hold your own for the rest of the match.'
*Clang—
Thrown off by Munakata-san's attempt at being a clown, 13 damn near knocks the weapon out of my sword-hand.
(Valkyrie-07)
To hell with it, then.
'You're up, whether you like it or not.'
While it might seem as though I'm placing her in the hot seat, the truth is, I've known that Munakata-san has been in position for a short time now. I'd played along with her dragging it on (more likely than not so that she might get a kick out of seeing how long she can jostle me without pushback), though I myself had to set the location in turn.
It's not the perfect setting, and I don't know if it would be enough to reel 13 in, but. Here goes nothing—
. . .
. . .
. . .
That was—well executed.
If I do say so myself.
As was Munakata-san's reaction speed as anticipated.
I hadn't been able to find timber, or maybe a boulder, or anything of size for that matter, that might convincingly make it look like I'd lost my footing, so it honestly worried me for a second that 13 wouldn't take the bait as soon as I faked a moment of vulnerability.
I had apparently worried over fuck-all.
Our enemy surface pilot, Valkyrie-13, truly could not see anything but what's directly in front of him.
As skillful with the Senjutsuki as he is impulsive.
Driven by instinct, emotion—only to lose sight of all else.
No different from Narumi and Taira-san.
The memory of them in this hive is enough to make the back of my neck itch—
Wait a damn second.
He's—
13 is...
After all that from Munakata-san.
How is he still standing?
(Valkyrie-13)
I've asked myself the same about you over a hundred times.
Fight me fair and square... or stay the fuck down, to me roars his Senjutsuki.
Are?
I must've whispered out loud in the open, not that I'd ever meant to. Yet I must've, to deserve a rather lukewarm reply from 13.
He sounds tense though, for a nice change. Are we getting into his head? He must've spat that out unconsciously as well.
Khh.
Nee-chan, I'm still not seeing what you see in him...
Sure, he's a one-of-a-kind pilot, the likes unlike any other Eishi before or since.
Though that hardly changes the fact that, once he stands up from the wing seat, steps out of his plug suit and back into the real world, the other 13 (his alter-ego, or lack of an ego, at that) would resurface, spirit still in tatters for whatever god-forsaken reason.
A broken body heals in time—the same can't be said about a broken spirit, however...
Onee-chan, have you so soon forgotten Nagamichi-san, and how Operation Lucifer had shattered his ego...?
Though he not once shared the truth with anybody.
Not even with us, after all our years alongside each other as Dellingrs—we had meant nothing to him in the end.
You... hadn't been able to save him... from taking his own life...
Nee-chan might be considering this a second chance, trying to redeem herself—by pushing her weight on 13.
What's this about my weight? You calling me fat?! You're heavier, last I checked!
I never said! The hell gave you that idea?!
And scram!
Although, even if the spirit were to miraculously find a path to redemption, that spirit, I daresay wouldn't be one and the same.
People—don't change. We just—don't.
We—don't?
We don't.
However.
To change is to grow, and to outgrow ourselves, it wouldn't be hyperbole to say that the only way is to kill the person you are now.
To lose your old self completely—you must be broken down.
To the base of your very core.
The heart of your very being.
Only then could you give birth to a new, changed you.
So long as you come back.
So long as you—come back.
And.
Survive.
Sur—vive...
Say—don't baby birds have to crack their way out of their eggshells, collapse their world as they know it, to be born into our world? As do butterflies—to hatch from their cocoons?
All by themselves.
The amount of courage, not to mention willpower, that must need—to venture into the vast unknown.
All to grow—to rise and fly.
To find their spirit anew.
To—break free.
What're you saying, Ryuu-nii?! Kill him?! Must Keru-niichan kick the bucket to find redemption?!
I don't know, bakaniki. Stop taking me word for word.
Read between the lines sometimes.
Maybe he might, but know that the only reason I'm playing along is because you said he might change our lives.
You and your motormouth... Why do you always have to stick your nose in everyone's business?
I couldn't care less if I'd never end up getting along with him, and him with me. If what your intuition tells you unfolds to be remotely true.
If 13 could somehow.
Some way.
Find a means to turn fate—
If it means—protecting you.
I'd do.
I'd give up.
Any—thing.
Like pick a fight I've no chance of winning, for instance, armed with nothing but trust in Onee-chan's conviction.
Because while I personally expect all this will amount to nothing. That this will downright end in one form of failure or another.
It's still worth trying.
There's still some worth in the act of trying.
In taking a shot—however dark it may be.
The worst that could happen—is that I'd miss.
But I already know I'd miss, so I might as well take the shot.
Who'd care if I do miss? What's there to lose if I miss?
Everything... that's all...
Just—everything...
Snap out of it.
*Ping.
Ow—right.
If anything else, winning this virtual simulation has never been the aim.
Growing—is.
And.
This is just the way I see it, so take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt.
13 has to break himself free from whatever it is that's weighing him down—and what better way than by yanking him to the brink of his breaking point?
Either he rises above his limit, or falls short of it.
And the truth is, I need him to rise above.
Which might be a good thing for him in the first place. My reasons on the other hand are a bit more self-serving.
And more plain, and more simple.
And.
And above all—a matter of life or death.
It's for Onee-chan's sake.
For what little time I sense she has left.
Though I've yet to mention anything to her.
Of these foreboding dreams that replay over and over in my sleep.
Of rich blue waters that stretch as far as the eye can see.
The salty ocean breeze, air so humid I can taste it in my nostrils.
The rushing sound of crashing waves—
From here on do my dreams transform into haunting nightmares.
For monsters by the thousands then break the surface and emerge from the raging seas.
They trample Onee-chan, along with other faceless soldiers, decimating all that dare move.
Their blood then gathers like the rising tide, soaks everything from shore to shore, drowning everything in plain sight.
And in the blood-drenched ocean floor I hear a song—a soundless melody steeped in Onee-chan's voice, echoing in a falling crescendo.
Hers.
One among the many voices lost at sea.
These—dreams, that are not mere dreams...
I've shared with her many, many life stories. Stories of both people we know and don't.
But I've not once told this specific story to my twin...
Her story is the one lone story I'll be taking to my grave.
She's better off not knowing her own personal fairy tale.
At the risk of straying for a bit—
Ever since I can remember, I've had—visions, similar—all throughout my life.
Mama, papa.
I remember being taken under Aniki's wing, being placed under a microscope ever since I'd revealed the details of these mysterious mental imageries to Kouzuki-hakase when we were first transferred.
How she knew about me—beats me.
For a groundbreaking experiment of hers, or something to that effect.
Those early days felt more like a criminal interrogation now that I recall it.
She once mumbled rapidly to herself back then (she does that quite often) about something something quantum causality, though her entire spiel went way over my head as a kid.
In return for my cooperation, she had given me and Onee-chan a place to call—home.
Taira Shinji-san.
Narumi Takayuki-san.
Dellingrs.
Squadron 8.
All I know is that—without fail, one after another, it all falls into place just like I would picture in my head.
There was a while in the past when I wasn't alone, believe it or not. There had been others—exactly like me, within the Special Task Force.
Some were better at controlling their, uh, talent. Kind, even, enough to help me out with mine. Though none of us had ever learned how to suppress it any.
Yet they left.
Culled for no reason other than the sands of time had run dry.
No one at present remains who has a clue.
No one but the Professor, her sister the Doctor, Yashiro Kasumi, and Aniki. And I guess I should mention Onee-chan, though that should be a given. 'Don't forget me!' I bet she just yammered.
Everyone else looks at me funny when I even begin to try to describe these sensations.
The A-01 Regiment.
Squadron 207A.
Quantum Causality, huh.
I've since developed a vague, elementary understanding of the concept, all thanks to Motoko-sensei's mentorship. Not that the knowledge has done me any good.
It's more like false sense of knowing, you know.
A surefire way to lower your guard.
I knew, yet I could not alter, the fate that had befallen my family, friends, and even enemies. And not long from now—it'd be Onee-chan's turn to go...
What good is knowing if nothing I do could alter the outcome?
All it has done is made me lose them twice, and over and over again with every episode that flashes before me. As if suffering through it once isn't painful enough as it is.
I mean, I do glimpse other moments as well. A number of other moments, as a matter of fact.
Or would it be more appropriate to call these moments quantum causalities instead?
Some glad, some sad.
Some embarrassingly painful moments, some moments painfully embarrassing.
None however leave a mark as black as death, thus are the final moments heaps more impressionable than all the rest.
(Off the side—I wonder if 13's training squad are any aware of the gifts they might have. I've noticed that most, if not all, in the Regiment seem to have it to some degree.)
I'd hate to break it to the Professor—that there is one big gaping loophole in her designs. In how quantum causality has so far proven to be hopelessly immutable.
Like how I had absolutely no way of avoiding the Type-65 PB Knife that 13 tossed at my foot though I'd seen it beforehand.
The future—is predestined.
So I've learned... yet never admitted to Kouzuki-hakase... for fear that she might lose interest and find no further use in sparing Onee-chan's life...
But the naked truth is that.
It isn't enough that we could briefly sneak peeks into several different versions of the parallel outcomes.
I feel as though I've tried out every possible action in a million different lifetimes, only to arrive at the exact same ending a million times and one.
And... they haven't even been just bad end endings...
Rather... plain dead ends.
Our future—is locked in.
Fuck cause and effect.
The effect is predetermined.
And no amount of cause could affect the effect.
However which way I interpret and study the causalities—the resulting effects remain unchanged as certain as the devastation after a BETA invasion.
All roads lead to one end.
What the Professor needs is to find—a key—to unlock the offshoot routes, to reach alternative endings.
Don't you question Kouzuki-hakase, Ryuu-nii! I'm sure she's already calculated for that loophole.
. . .
Not again...
I've told you to get lost, Hakase-worshipping bakaniki...
You're derailing my concentration, and heaven knows I need it all to keep 13 at bay.
And who or what's supposed to fill the loophole anyhow?
He—13?
He's the key?
Don't make me laugh...
I almost feel like shit for the lab rat the Professor ultimately Frankensteins, though even Frankenstein's monster never had to endure this level of responsibility.
I say 'almost' because there's a chance it might be me.
(Did I nail it? While I don't know how the experiment would go exactly—the mad scientist Dr. Frankenstein is the closest image I've imagined the Professor to be.)
This burden of knowing.
This curse of wisdom.
Is much too heavy for a human heart alone to bear... And the resultant creation is supposed to endure this how many folds more?
All I could think of is how maddening that would be.
Know what—I'd bet all my worldly belongings that the first thing they'd lose is their sanity.
Niigata—
Niigata.
I'd almost left out Niigata.
That's the extent of what I could perceive.
The end of the line, for some reason.
Where all the dreams come to a halt.
Though I'm not entirely confident how that should be interpreted. It drives even the know-it-all scientist at a loss for words, for once.
Well, I do have an inkling that I'd rather leave buried in the sand.
Not that it holds any significance, anyhow.
What does to me is Onee-chan.
To say it outright: my sister—doesn't deserve that ill-boding vision.
She deserves to live.
Even if quantum causality says otherwise.
To hell with predestination and predetermination.
I can't reverse fate, but.
But!
Though I can't, I might be able to find someone else who can.
And if no human alive on Earth can, I'll take it a notch further, raise hell and—and I'll make a lifelong nemesis out of this fucked up world we live in.
There's no erasing all the dirt I've done to reach this far.
I've spilled far too much blood with these hands to turn back now.
I promised them.
I—swore... to them...
What I would murder for that dream to be just that—nothing but a simple dream... A byproduct of my overactive imagination...
That's a risk I can't afford to take, however.
Enough of this dreadful talent I somehow inherited.
If Onee-chan wholeheartedly believes 13 could change our lives, alter these dreams, I'd take those odds, no matter how slim, and throw my bets in alongside hers.
Although...
I had naively believed it'd be so straightforward, but turns out I'm not up to the task.
It doesn't shame me to confess that the plan had been kiboshed from the get-go, the instant the Professor decided to butt in and shuffle the rosters.
How'd she find out about this practice session anyhow?
Not to mention I had slightly miscalculated, I mean vastly underestimated, 13's handle of the Senjutsuki, even after taking into account how well we've all progressed with the XM3.
We're still outclassed.
Heavily outmatched.
Since it has come undone, I suppose I could share how I had hoped this battle would've gone down. I can gloss over the part where Aniki had flopped his role, so I wouldn't even mention that he did too flop.
Talk about a letdown, Aniki—
*Crackle.
Guh, karma bit me back almost instantly.
Actually, forget karma; a burning branch fell off a tree and knocked me back to reality.
It's my turn to be a letdown.
Much as I hate to snip this thread partway, the fight is still, kinda ongoing, you know?
Fuck it—this thread is getting snipped either way, so.
I had hoped to help offer 13 a fighting chance—errr, I mean a chance to fight.
I mean, there's no question that he could fight.
God no—there's no question that he could fight.
But will he fight.
Whatever it is he's fighting for.
Whatever it is he stands for.
When the moment of truth comes knocking at his door, would he fight for what he stands for?
Maybe he doesn't stand for anything in the first place.
Maybe he has yet to find something worth fighting for.
Or maybe it's as simple as realizing.
Remembering.
All he might need is his moment.
It is blatantly apparent from Onee-chan and my eyes' that, as it was with the late Nagamichi-san, 13's worst enemy right now is—
His own self.
And like I'd told Onee-chan: 13 can't help her, to say nothing of anyone at all, if 13 can't help himself.
Nothing too sinister was in mind.
Just a good ol' fashioned beatdown was in order, and Aniki was supposed to slowly slaughter his allies one by one in front of his eyes.
Nothing kindles the human spirit like the flames of combat.
Even dying embers can come back to life if you stoke the firepit well enough.
Characters of myths and legends have been known to be born out of a moment of truth, yeah?
That's precisely what I'd hoped to simulate—13's very own moment of truth.
How's that for an opportunity for growth.
Let's see him break free out of that one.
Cut me some slack, everything in this simulation is artificial anyhow.
And it's backfired miserably on us anyhow, so no foul done.
Too medieval?
Nah.
I'm 17. Were you expecting something more elaborate?
Why're you lying again, Ryuu-nii...?
Lying? How could you tell?
You scratch your neck every time you lie...
It's almost like you're implying I've yet another buried purpose; that I'm actually trying to help 13 out.
Don't get me started...
Tell you what though, Onee-chan.
Having gotten this off my chest, you must know that he'd have his own reasons for fighting in this alien war. I honestly doubt this passing encounter of ours would be his first concern, if we are any concern at all.
Still.
Still, though—intuition aside, how exactly might he change our lives again?
It's—fuzzy as hell, but I'd said it before and I'll say it again: his lot is yet as dark as the day we first met him. And I'd never before seen someone I couldn't perceive.
Whatever it is the damn Professor is using me for—doesn't work for squat on 13.
Faint, perhaps, but non-existent? It shouldn't even be possible.
To borrow their words—Yashiro Kasumi's, and Kouzuki-hakase's, I mean.
He's got bad news written all over him. If you ask me.
Besides, let's be real.
We're mere passers-by. Probably roadblocks, far as he's concerned.
Even so... Onee-chan... in the off-chance your intuition were amiss this one time...
Even without your new friend...
Even if he might not in the end unravel to be whom you want him to be...
Even if he'd turn his back on you just as the rest of the world had.
That'd never change the fact.
That I'd still have your back.
That I'd still come sprinting.
Just like you've sang, even though you've done so in jest.
You know me all too well...
At the first sign of trouble.
No matter what.
No. Matter. What.
With all my being—
I'd come sprinting.
The second fate dares spirit you away—
(Valkyrie-07)
—!
Nee-chan?
Onee...chan.
She's.
. . .
(Valkyrie-04)
Oi, Ryuu. Where're you off to now?
No.
(Valkyrie-04)
Change of plans? Hey now. Take it easy, slow down and talk to me, will you.
I.
I—do realize that Munakata-san is trying to tell me something. Though for some reason, I can't honestly comprehend most of her words. They're coming off as nothing but garbled gibberish. Or radio interference.
(Valkyrie-07)
H–hold your position, 04.
'Don't step out of line, else he might get us both. We'll come up with another plan of attack and—'
And then what, exactly?
He has foiled one plan after another.
We're being backed into a tight fucking corner.
(Valkyrie-07)
Do you copy that.
. . .
(Valkyrie-07)
04, do you copy.
. . .
Why—isn't she responding.
Is my piece of shit radio busted?
Is her piece of shit radio busted—
Ah, there she is.
Or so should've gone my short-lived relief.
For a voice did come over the comms line following my call, but it's not that of Munakata-san's. It is instead of First Lt. Suzumiya's; none other than Valkyrie-Mum herself.
Which could only mean—one thing.
(Valkyrie-Mum)
Valkyrie-04's power core has been destroyed, she has therefore been eliminated.
'God...damn...' I drive my foot deeper into the accelerator.
It's all my fault I hadn't answered her before time ran out.
Time.
Timing has—always been.
My bane...
As though the hand that's writing my life story has forever decreed that I'd never make it in time when it counts.
Tch.
As I'd zoomed past the woods approaching mach speed, some trees still lit on fire, every single one of them nothing but blurs of crimson and evergreen, there'd been but one picture I could form in my mind.
Nothing else but that.
Onee-chan's in danger.
(Valkyrie-04)
Sigh~. I'm not holding a grudge or anything, Ryuu, buuut—your sister's on the other team. You know, in case you've forgotten.
(Valkyrie-Mum)
Shush, Munakata-chui. The dead aren't supposed to talk. I'm cutting your radio out.
For the life of me, I still can't hear whatever's being said across the intercom.
After all I've mocked 13 for being.
Go ahead and say it—I'm nothing but.
A hypocrite.
One that would give up—everything.
Everything.
For what I stand for.
Author's Note:
I've been told by some readers that some chapters tend to be missed/overlooked when multiple chapters are posted within the same day, so I will from here on be placing a short delay instead of past simultaneous releases to provide a window for readers to catch up with each chapter.
Stay tuned for Chapter 36 on Sunday, April 28th!