"86th District," Western Theater

August 3rd, Stellar Year 2146

Lev Aldrecht was the man who replaced Tohka Keisha. Following the destruction of her Squadron, the previous head mechanic of Halberd Base had gone to work under the Federacy's expeditionary force. Or so Grethe had said to Shin during one of their regular reports, and with far too much enthusiasm. She had focused primarily on the talent of the young engineer who now studied under her, and not at all on the twenty-four deaths that pushed her to do so.

Aldrecht was an old man with shoulder-length hair of a faded, colorless off-white shade. Wearing aviator shades and a tense frown, his face formed a mask of disapproval as he regarded Shin's new Juggernaut.

"I can't, Lowell," he said with a heavy sigh. "My conscience won't allow it. Six times now I've removed the limiters from some cocky kid's Juggernaut, and six times I've seen them die. Not to the Legion - to themselves."

Shin thought back to that first battle five days ago. It was tight confines in that parking garage, a dozen Legion within thirty yards of him at most. He'd had to move by predicting their actions a second in advance. The machine simply wasn't fast enough for him to rely on reactions alone. He had fled down the ramp, and that was when his Juggernaut was destroyed. It was too straight a path, without cover or turns, no verticality to exploit, and the Ameise had caught up with his slow Feldress all too easily.

Aldrecht continued.

"These things try to kill their pilots enough as it is. It's not just that they have no armor; it's how they operate at the most basic level. The stabilizers are crap and there's no G-force mitigation. Piloting normally will batter your organs around. Push too hard, and things get rearranged. I've seen Processors vomit blood after hard battles. Taking off the limiters only makes it worse. For Christ's sake, even the crash harnesses fail on these things. Your safety belt can kill you, and if that isn't ironic, I don't know what is."

Shin considered the best way to tell Aldrecht that he had heard this exact spiel before. Grethe had pretty much said all this to him word-for-word when he asked her to remove the limiters on his then-new Reginleif.

In a feat of parallel engineering a historian would probably find fascinating, it seemed like the Juggernaut and Reginleif were designed at roughly the same time into roughly the same battlefield role: highly mobile spider tanks that made the health of their pilots the lowest priority. The Reginleif might have more armor and a better engine, but it and the Juggernaut both shared the same tendency to kill their operators before they had even reached the battlefield.

That meant Shin was already thoroughly aware of the intricacies of working with a limit-removed Feldress. But how was he supposed to explain that to Aldrecht without completely breaking his cover story?

"Standard operation already burns the candle at both ends for these things," the mechanic said, continuing his tirade in the unending way that seemed common to all wizened old men. "Take off the limiters, and it gets that much easier to crack your actuators in half like china plates. One mistake: you forget to hit the clutch before you go neutral, or you give it too much gas at the wrong gear, or even just flick the drive-stick too hard… and it won't just stall out. A dozen parts will snap instantly. You'll be dead in the water, and I'll get to bump my count to seven instead of six."

Aldrecht gave a slow shake of his head as he looked the Juggernaut over.

"So, no, Lowell, I won't remove the-"

"I vouch for him, Lev," said a third voice, cutting in.

They turned and saw Theo walking into the hangar, the light of the noonday sun at his back. He was carrying a small, battered metal case in one hand and a paintbrush in the other.

"Dunno how or why, but Lowell's actually a pretty damn good pilot. Took to it like a fish to water. He only needed two hours to figure out how to move. Takes most people two days."

Aldrecht looked slowly between Shin and Theo. He shook his head.

"Even you don't take the limiters off of Laughing Fox, Rikka."

"No, I don't, because I'm not crazy. But trust me, Lev. If Lowell thinks he can handle it, he probably can."

The old mechanic's weathered frown grew deeper and sterner.

"I'm going to have a whole lot more work to do," he grumbled. "I'll have to replace parts after every single mission… re-tune it every week… or maybe I'll just requisition a whole new Juggernaut for every one he's going to break. And he will break them if he pushes them that hard."

Theo laughed. "That's the real reason you're giving him such a hard time, isn't it old man?"

"I'm almost sixty. Keep putting more stuff on my back and sooner or later it's gonna break."

"Let's hope it's later then," Theo said amicably.

Aldrecht grumbled some more, then went to go get his tools.

Theo walked past Shin and up to the new Juggernaut, newly built for him after his old one was destroyed. The desert-khaki paint was entirely without scratches or rust. The untarnished metal caught a shine beneath the hangar lights. Its pristine condition did not inspire confidence. If anything its freshness made it look even more fragile, like some kind of cheap toy.

Theo set his case on the ground at the Juggernaut's feat, crouching down to undo the clasps. He pulled the lid open, revealing ten different colors of industrial paint, each in resealable cans.

"Dunno if you know, Lowell, but a few years ago there was a soldier from the Empire who visited the 86th District."

Shin froze. Theo did not notice. He was in the process of unsealing all his paint cans, one by one.

"I can't remember his real name anymore, but I remember his Personal Mark just fine. 'Dullahan.' Like the headless horseman. You know, he was actually the reason us 86 started using Personal Marks."

Shin shook himself back to alertness, pushing back that shock of paralyzing cold that seemed to be endemic to all mentions of the brother he no longer knew.

"Said it was his country's tradition that every soldier who survived twelve battles, or earned twelve kills, earned a Mark. A name and symbol unique to them. Well, sure enough, the 86 picked up the idea too. 'Name Bearers' became a thing; people who lived long enough or fought hard enough to earn their Mark.

"It seems like a really simple idea, right? Makes you wonder why we didn't pick it up on our own. But I guess we had our hands too full with staying alive to worry about stuff like that."

Theo finished opening the last can, the lids stacked in a neat tower beside him. He looked back at Shin, twirling the brush dexterously in his hand.

"Am I boring you yet? Point is, I'm pretty sure you killed at least a dozen Legion the other day, so I'm here to paint your Mark."

Theo's steady stream of conversation lapsed into silence. Shin realized he was waiting for a response. He also realized that, during both of these conversations he hadn't actually said a single word in response.

Theo seemed to realize it too. He scratched at the back of his head, smiling sheepishly. "You know, I feel like the whole Squadron's made a habit of, well… talking at you for minutes on end, even if you don't actually respond. Does that get annoying?"

"It's alright. I enjoy listening."

"I figured you had to, if you put up with it this long. Somehow I don't think you'd be very shy about telling us to fuck off if you felt the need. But you haven't yet, so I guess we're not abusing you too badly."

Shin smiled at that, just slightly. Theo grinned as if given a standing ovation.

"You're good people. All of you," Shin said.

Theo's grin was bright but short-lived, becoming something slight and gentle that wasn't quite a smile, but couldn't exactly be called anything else.

"So what do you wanna do for your Mark? Any ideas?"

Shin didn't have to think about it for very long. As far as he was concerned, there was only one choice available to him. He described it as best he could. Theo nodded along, offering no comment until the very end, after Shin had finished.

All he said was,

"You're a weird guy, aren't you?"

Shin couldn't really argue with that.

—

Hi, I guess.

I can think of a dozen reasons why this is a waste of time. Ink and paper too. Even if you were still alive, I doubt you'd bother to read this letter. You'd probably laugh in my face for being sentimental and make up some other dumbass nickname for me. But I suppose it doesn't actually matter too much what you would think, because I'm not writing this for you. This is pure selfishness on my part.

We never said a proper goodbye. I told you I would talk to you tomorrow, but that was a lie. The day after, you went off to fight. Then you died, and that was it. I think about that a lot. Over and over again while I stare at the ceiling every night. I regret a lot of things in my life, but never saying goodbye to you is high on the list. You would call me stupid if you were still here. You'd tell me to get over it and move on, and remind me that we only knew each for a few months at most.

And all that is true. I am stupid, and we didn't know each other long. I tell that to myself all the time, but it doesn't make the regret go away. I don't know why. I wish it would. But I've spent enough time in my thoughts circling around it, and all it's done is exhaust me. So I'm hoping that if I write this down it might clear it out, once and for all.

Goodbye, Shiden.

I was glad to know you.

—

August 7th

The battle is going well. Better than well. Perfectly. Shin and Raiden operate on two separate channels. The first is shared between the Squadron's officers, the Captain and platoon leaders, Milize as Handler One. The second is for the two of them alone. There, Shin has raised the resonance threshold on his Para-RAID to about fifty percent. His normal level is five percent; low enough that nobody connected to him can hear the Legion. But at fifty, Raiden can hear them all too well.

Through the link, Shin feels the break of sweat on the Captain's forehead as Raiden takes in the weight of their desolate screams, their pleas for help, their regrets, their mourning. The sweat is cold. His body is racked with chills and violent shivers Shin feels by proxy. A consequence of hearing the speaking dead. Shin had forgotten how much time it took to get used to it. But they've practiced for this over the last few days. The condition is uncomfortable for Raiden, but not debilitating. More importantly, hearing their voices means knowing their positions.

".:Wehrwolf!:." Milize cries, panic in her voice. ".:Over a dozen signatures have just woken up, they're coming from-:."

".:Laughing Fox! Wheel east, two hundred meters. Sirius, fall back one hundred meters. Falke, push against the northern front. Black Dog and Gunslinger, support them:."

Milize is clearly confused. She tries to keep up with Raiden's steady stream of commands and warnings, but her technology simply can't give her the information quickly enough. Most of it's jammed by now anyway, the Eintagsfliege thick and swarming in the air. Shin can practically feel the questions churning in her mind. The hows and whys. But she must know that now's not the time to ask. She switches gears with remarkable quickness, letting Raiden take control over the close-range tactics as she keeps tabs on the wider scope of the battlefield.

".:Wehrwolf, Spearhead is being pushed to the west. Glaive is already engaged there. If we keep moving in this direction, both Squadrons will be pincered between Legion forces:."

".:Roger that Handler One. We'll redirect:." Raiden says, then adds offhandedly, ".:thank you:."

".:You're welcome!:."

Shin is on the rooftops. As he leaps from the top of one shattered office tower to another, he hears the call for Sirius - Kujo's Juggernaut, and his platoon alongside him - to retreat, and he knows what they're retreating from. A strike force of a dozen Grauwolves is pushing hard down the street, backed by two Lowes on fire support. It's a driving lance of an offensive, impossible to resist directly.

But Kujo only has so much room to run before they collide with Glaive Squadron. There, they will find themselves stuck against the anvil as the hammer comes down.

But Shin will not let that happen. He moves like oiled lightning. Without limiters his Feldress is almost as fast as the Reginleif he is used to, the movement of its joints explosive and powerful with smooth alacrity. His hands work the sticks with supernatural dexterity. The Feldress leaps into open air from the roof of a high tower, and for a weightless moment seems to hang there over the rubble-strewn street, before he fires anchors to the buildings across, and flies.

A painted symbol on the Juggernaut's flank catches the light; a headless skeletal knight wielding a shovel. The white shades of bone are dull and unreflective in the midday sun.

Undertaker lands, skidding across the concrete roof, sparks spraying. The Juggernaut comes to a stop and Shin waits. The voices grow louder as the Legion comes closer.

.:You lied to me:.

.:You said you would save me:.

.:I'm going to die:.

.:It's all your fault:.

.:I hate you:.

Shin grits his teeth and clenches his hands into fists, wringing and relaxing them in turns until he is ready. And he is, just as they come rushing down the street like a silver tide.

Raiden is the only one who knows he's here, what he plans to do.

".:Don't die, Shin:." he says on the private channel.

Shin nods.

He fires.

Undertaker strafes down the length of the building, jumping from roof to roof, roaring a steady stream of machine-gun fire that rips into the Grauwolves' flanks. Three die in as many seconds before the rest have seen him. The Lowes behind open fire. Rocket-pods take aim and launch their payloads, and Shin is a blur of death in motion.

Limit-removed joints give a stressed cry as Undertaker jumps, exploding forward like a cannonball into the center of the formation. The building detonates behind him in a flash of flame, but he is in the air and soaring, and the pressure-wave at his back only propels him faster.

It's not ground he touches down with, but the body of another Grauwolf, spearing the barrel of his protruding cannon into it, ripping through its steel body. He squeezes the trigger and blows into shards. He rips the cannon free, turns and fires, blowing away another.

He dodges the flurry of high-frequency blades flying down around him. One skims the paint off his front leg. Another shears a window through the cockpit's aluminum plating. A third nearly spears the fuselage until he twists the drive-stick and the blade goes into another dragoon instead.

He ceases to be Shinei Nouzen. He becomes hands and motion. He is the moment of death itself as the Legion fall, one by one by one. He is the wind through the breach of his cockpit, cool and pleasant on his face, blowing back his hair. Undertaker is a spinning wheel of gunfire, machine-guns blazing in all directions, and the Legion drones all die in an expanding circle around the Juggernaut, prostrate and kneeling on their segmented silver legs.

Two more cannon shots come down upon him, the Lowes heedless of their own allies engaged in combat. The Juggernaut is already gone by then. Two 120mm shells destroy only the last of the Grauwolves, and Undertaker has already melted back into the ruins. For ten seconds the gunfire stops. Tension like electricity buzzes in the hair, thickest around the torn, shredded corpses of the Grauwolves. The Lowes stand silently. Their turrets whir, scanning the surrounding ruins, searching for the threat.

Undertaker bursts from the alley.

The battle has gone perfectly.

Spearhead doesn't just fight well. They fight flawlessly. They cover angles for each other with the thoughtless precision of experience. Threats are taken and divided between themselves before anyone has had to say anything at all. They're calm and collected under fire, with an implicit trust in their own abilities. The battlefield is their home. They walk its halls without fear.

"It happens a lot, you know," Raiden had said once, what felt like ages ago but couldn't have been more than a few weeks. "Half your Squadron gets wiped out. Or three quarters of it, or sometimes everybody except you. And when people start dropping in a fight, it's everyone still standing who's gotta pick up the slack. Do that five times in a row… ten… twenty-five… and soon enough, picking up slack becomes second nature. We're all used to pulling weight, our own and then some. It was actually a problem at first. Twenty-four lone wolves don't exactly make a pack. But we got used to it."

And yet sometimes even when you do everything right, things still go wrong.

Kujo's platoon has retreated as ordered. They've redirected south to keep clear of Glaive's path, rejoining with Theo's platoon in the process. Laughing Fox and Artemis fire anchors to the top of an overlooking building, raining fire to clear a path for them to run through.

Artemis, he will later learn, was piloted by a girl named Mina.

When Shin finishes off the first Lowe with one shot to the rear exhaust and another to the canopy, he expects the second to be aiming at him.

It isn't. It's aiming at the two Juggernauts on the distant rooftop instead, like somehow it knows it won't be able to hit Shin, and so has chosen to deal damage in the only way it can before it's killed. Shin notices too late. The two Juggernauts, preoccupied by a different fight over a hundred meters away, don't notice at all.

The calculus is instantaneous.

It's across the street, a distance of thirty yards or so. He doesn't have an angle on the canopy or underbelly from here, and he's only got one cannon shot left. He can't destroy it in time to stop it from firing. If he shoots it anyway, it might get the drone's attention onto him. Or it might do nothing at all, and he'll have wasted his only way to kill the thing. Shouting a warning will be too little too late. What can he do to protect them?

Nothing.

He can do nothing.

The cannon fires.

Two Para-RAID signals wink out.

.:You did this:.

.:Killed them:.

.:Murderer:.

Shin shoves the drive-stick forward. He slams the gas pedal. Limit-removed joints cry out. Something cracks. The engine whines, stutters, wheezes - stabilizes. Undertaker explodes into furious motion. At last the Lowe turns to him, cannon glinting in the light. Its coaxial machine-gun roars and Undertaker makes no move to dodge. Bullets pierce the cockpit. Shin is hit but can't tell where. He can barely even feel the impact, much less the pain. The forward view-screen is shattered in a spray of glass across his face. He squeezes his eyes shut a moment before the shards slice skin. Shin is blind both inside the Juggernaut and out, but his movement does not cease.

Undertaker jumps as the Lowe's 120mm cannon shatters the earth beneath the Feldress. He fires anchors by instinct and wraps the wires around the drone's turret, reels in. Shin feels the impact of the Juggernaut's legs on hardened steel, feels the beast buck underneath him, and he angles down the gun until the barrel is pressed against the canopy, and he squeezes the trigger and the pulse of recoil rocks through his entire body. The blast is deafening even through his earplugs, like a sheer wall of sound crashing against his skull.

The drone shudders.

It dies.

And so too, a hundred meters away, crushed against his seat by a shell of shattered metal, swallowing back a tide of blood like thick liquid rust, does Theo.

—

Hey.

I know this is gonna go over your head. I don't care. You're dead. You have no choice except to listen.

For a long time, I never put much stock in the existence of an afterlife. It was the opposite. I hated the idea. I was disturbed at the thought that life might never end. I always believed that death would be the reward. The long rest at the journey's end. The final purity. For people like me, death is redemption. No matter what you've done or to how many people… it all comes to balance after you're gone. I took a lot of comfort in that belief. I still do.

If there is an afterlife, then I will never rest. The balance will never be evened. I'll carry my sin for all eternity.

Theo died today. You never had the chance to meet him, and I never told you about him. I guess I can do that now. He was short, with blond hair and green eyes. He was a sarcastic, feisty asshole, and he was extremely kind to me. He was the first member of the Squadron I met, although I didn't know it at the time. He painted my mark for me again. Gave me my Undertaker back. And now he's dead.

And as they pulled his body from the ruins, I started to think about death, and what death means. I wondered, then if maybe I would be able to endure eternity if it meant you and Theo could get another shot across the rainbow. I still can't say I believe in an afterlife, just like I can't say I believe in God or angels or the devil. Not in karma or valhalla either. But I want to believe in right and wrong. It would be wrong for you two to just end like this. It would be wrong for you not to get a second chance somehow. Especially after everything life has done to you.

If there is an afterlife for you, then there's one for me too, and I will carry my sin forever. Maybe that's exactly the way it should be. It would be just as wrong for my punishment to end in one short cycle. It would be right for the world to take more from me than just one pound of flesh. It should take until there's nothing left of me at all. Maybe that process will stretch from this life to the next, and the one after. So be it. Maybe I'll never rest, but I never deserved to rest in the first place. Asking for an ending is pure selfishness. I realize that now.

In the meantime, to talk about things that actually matter… Raiden is going to put me in command of Theo's platoon.

Mina survived, but she's in bad shape. When Kujo pulled her out of the rubble, there was a slice through her thigh that went almost to the bone. She was unconscious. She was so pale, like all the blood had already drained out of her, and we all thought she had to be dead already. But somehow she was still alive. Even now, she's still hanging in there. Milize has arranged for a list of medical supplies to be flown into base, blood bags at the top of it. A doctor too. We might be able to save her.

But even if we do, she won't be in fighting shape. That means Theo's platoon is still down by two, with its leader is dead. Someone has to fill the seat. Newest member of the Squadron or not, I'm the most qualified to do it. At least, that's what Raiden says. I don't know if I'm cut out to lead anything. All my life I've followed orders, not given them. But I'll do what I can.

I refuse to let anyone else die.

—

August 10th

With his back to the fence that ran the perimeter of the rooftop, arms crossed, Shin watched the sun melt into the horizon. The cloudless sky glowed in shades of orange, scarlet, and azure blue. The ruins burned like brass towers in the light. In the courtyard below and behind him, a bonfire crackled noisily. A pillar of smoke rose to the sky. It carried the rich smell of roasting meat. A boar had been hunted earlier today. The Squadron was roasting it in celebration.

Mina was going to make it, or so said the doctor Milize had sent; a young Alba girl about the same age as the rest of them, a trainee from Solis Novem. The Squadron had been angry about it at first. Most of all Kujo, who had taken responsibility for the life of the small-framed Processor girl who'd nearly died alongside her platoon leader. He had grabbed the Alba by the shoulders and shook her angrily, demanding to know why they didn't send someone more experienced.

Though a man a foot taller and eighty pounds heavier had her by the shoulders and was thrashing her back and forth, Annette Penrose had been unafraid. She had simply said that there was nobody more experienced. She had been working in labs since she was toddling in diapers. Technical labs mostly, she admitted, but biomedical as well, and a scientist had to be nothing if not well-rounded. She promised to let Kujo kill her himself if she let Mina die.

"If I can't save one girl after everything my father did to educate me, then I don't deserve to live in the first place."

She had spoken sarcastically, like there was no reason to doubt her abilities. But it had been a promise all the same, and in the end, the promise had been unnecessary.

Now the Squadron celebrated. Down below, a game of soccer had broken out, although they didn't have goal-nets or even a proper field to play on. They had a choice between the flat but hard concrete of the runway, or an irregular, lumpy patch of grass and soil riddled with rocks.

Shin gathered by listening that the aim of the game was pretty much just to kick the ball around for as long as possible before someone else stole it from you. Close enough to real soccer, he supposed. The two most athletic members of the Squadron, Kujo and Raiden, would have no-doubt excelled down there, but neither of them were present. Kujo was in the hospital, with Mina and Penrose.

And Raiden was here.

"You really think it's a good idea?" he asked.

The Captain of Spearhead sat on the concrete lip a few feet to Shin's left, looking pointedly toward the sun as it fell toward the western horizon.

"If Theo had heard their voices like you and I did, he would have known the Lowe was there. He could have jumped from the roof or killed it first. But he didn't know. He died because of the secrets I kept."

Raiden shook his head. "You can't take responsibility for that, Shin. War is chaos. I could hear the voices too, and I probably heard that Lowe's voice with the rest of them. I should have warned him. I could have warned him." He clenched his hand into a fist, and Shin saw from the corner of his eye that he was shaking.

Shin sat down on the concrete beside him. He put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Raiden looked at him, and then away again. Shin dropped his hand back to his side.

"If I show them the voices and teach them how to listen to them, it won't happen again."

Raiden nodded slowly.

Behind and below, the base's front double-doors burst open, and Kujo's loud, oddly musical voice bellowed out, "The queen has returned! All must bow!"

Shin turned around to see the tall boy pushing Mina in a wheelchair out onto the courtyard. The girl in question seemed mortified at all the attention suddenly being put onto her, fidgeting with one braid of her pleated brown hair. It was hard to tell from this distance, but Shin also felt like she might be oddly pleased by it too.

Meanwhile, all the other members of the Squadron had done exactly as Kujo ordered, dropping their soccer game, their conversations, and falling to one knee with hands pressed to chest in salute.

""""""Long may she rein!"""""" said several people.

"""God save the queen!""" said a few others.

Mostly they just cheered. Then Penrose stepped out into the middle of the applause and struck a bow.

"Yes, I am magnificent, I know," she said, to which the Squadron gave her a chorus of playful boos and jeers. "Jeez. Tough crowd."

Raiden was looking back them too, over his shoulder, as a small, gentle smile played across his scarred face, green eyes glimmering.

"How do you feel about the Alba, Shin?" he asked.

Shin had another look at the base's newest addition. Penrose had settled into a chair by the bonfire, Kujo sitting next to her, and Mina next to him. Even Shin's ears couldn't catch their conversation from this far away, but it was warm and animated. Penrose told a joke and Kujo leaned back in his chair and laughed loudly, his hands over his belly, and the Alba girl flashed a satisfied, slightly smug grin.

Penrose wouldn't be here long if he had to guess. She was a personal friend of Milize's, and came here on a favor. But in the short time she had been here, the Squadron seemed to take well to her.

He looked back to Raiden.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been pretending to be one of them for awhile now. You were living with them for a little bit too. You've seen what they're like when they don't have Colorata to antagonize…" his voice trailed. He seemed to think about it for awhile.

"And you definitely know it goes both ways. When you first got here, Kurena wasn't the only one who hated 'William Lowell.' She wasn't the one who hated him most, either, even if she was the most open about it. Hell, she probably wasn't even in the top five. I mean, she's Kurena. I don't even know if she's capable of hate like that. But some of the others? Like Kuroto? My God dude, there's a reason you didn't meet half the Squadron those first few days."

Raiden smiled distantly. He wasn't looking at Shin as he spoke, but forward, toward the setting sun, like his eyes were chasing it over the horizon line.

"You gotta understand, for as long as we've been alive, all we can really remember about the Alba is that they tortured us, stole from us, raped us. Our older brothers and sisters might have remembered living lives in the Republic… but us? If we even have those memories at all, they're very, very distant. Hate is the only emotion we have for Alba. The only emotion we've ever had."

"Is it the same for you too?" Shin asked, frowning slightly. Raiden had done a lot for him since he joined the Squadron: standing up for him on his behalf; showing him kindness. Shin had never once thought Raiden hated him, even when he still believed he was an Alba.

"Me? Well, I guess I'm a little different. When I was younger, back when the relocations first started, I was given shelter by this old Alba schoolteacher. She was the kindest woman you'd ever meet. Also a massive bitch too… but she kinda had to be, to keep us and herself alive when we were going through all that. So I know for myself that not all Alba are the same. But most of us weren't that lucky."

"Who's… ready… to… EAT!" Daiya shouted down below. He was standing beside the roasted boar with his carving knife raised high in the air, like a knight bringing up his sword to rally the troops. Anju stood beside him with her hands clasped together, the very picture of a noble lady-in-waiting. Although the boar's-blood spattered across her apron added an… interesting contrast.

A chorus of whoops and hollers was the answer to Daiya's question.

"Kurena had her parents killed by Alba guards back in the internment camps. They tied them to a post in the middle of the shooting range, and used them for target practice. They laughed as they bled to death, and when her older sister ran to try and save them, they laughed at her too. That's the only memory Kurena has of the Alba. The whole reason she took up shooting was so she could get revenge in the exact same way. A lot of the Squadron's got similar stories to tell."

Shin listened to him the same way he always did: with the deep, attentive silence of understanding. Raiden paused for a long time, single seconds turning into tens, tens almost to a full minute, but Shin did not speak to fill the quiet. He waited for Raiden to find his words.

"When I saw that I was getting an Alba under my command, I was worried to hell and back. For your sake and my Squadron's. But more than that, I got a headache. Thinking about how I was going to integrate an Alba in with everyone else and keep the unit from either lynching him or completely falling apart… man, that shit tired me out. I was sure it was gonna be a nightmare."

He looked over at Shin and grinned.

"But then you got into that shooting contest with Kurena, and smiled at her even after everything she said to you, and I think that got some people to warm up to you a little bit. Not a lot. Didn't change anything instantly, but it did move the needle a bit. Then there was that boxing match with Kujo. Then the rumor got out about how you joined us in the first place, that thing with Theo and the foot-ball prick, and that moved the needle too.

"And eventually, after a bunch of these little shifts forward, I think a lot of us just realized one day that, holy fuck, maybe not all Alba are total assholes. Maybe we're even friends with one of them."

"But I'm not actually an Alba," Shin said.

"No, but she is," he said, and quirked his head at Penrose, still sitting by the fire, now with a heaping plate of tender boar-meat set on her lap. "Milize is too. And you know something… I don't think the others would have given them a chance if not for William Lowell."

Raiden pointed a finger at him.

"You said that you've been lying to us."

Shin felt his hands clench reflexively. His chest tightened.

"And I guess, by definition, you have been," Raiden said with the slow, flowing cadence of an ongoing thought, built word by word. "You did tell us a fake name, and you have been wearing a fake face. That definitely falls into the category. But, I mean… have you really lied to us? In any way that counts?"

"Yes," Shin grated. His voice was cold and jagged and sharp like ice.

Raiden actually laughed at that. It made Shin feel slightly ridiculous, and some of the tension sloughed right off him, like the laughter had broken it.

"Shoulda guessed you'd say that. I won't argue with you too much about it, but I do want to say… Maybe some lies are okay. Maybe they can even help.

"If Milize knew the truth about you, she'd be grateful for your help. And Penrose down there is laughing it up and smiling, but the only reason she can be here in the first place is because 'Will' convinced the Squadron that maybe it's not a total waste of time to give an Alba a chance. You think they'd ever have accepted her without that? Hell, I don't even think they would have let her work on Mina if not for you… then she and Theo would be dead."

He let the words hang for a long moment. The wind picked up, loud on the wide-open rooftop, and for the course of that long moment it was the only sound either of them could hear.

"Do you see what I mean?" he asked.

Shin thought he might have. He let himself think on it, overcome with reflexive denials, with anger and confusion he did his best not to give into. Emotions rocked over him in a bewildering wave. At the end of it he found, to his astonishment, that he wanted to believe what Raiden said. He wanted to agree. He didn't know if he could, but he-

A cold explosion struck the back of his head.

Shin fell forward off the lip, sprawling across the concrete floor, as from behind and below a victorious cry rose up. An expanding puddle formed around him - cold water streaked with bits of bright yellow rubber.

"Hey! I got him! I ACTUALLY GOT HIM!"

Shin jumped to his feet and whirled back toward the fence, fingers shooting through the wire-mesh as if to rip clear through it.

Haruto waved up at him from the courtyard, in one hand a red water balloon, in the other, a bucket containing several more.

"HEY! CAPTAIN SERIOUS AND LIEUTENANT BROODY-PANTS! GET THE FUCK DOWN HERE!"

At the tail end of his sentence, he threw another balloon. Shin took a step back as it struck the fence where his face had been, exploding in a spray of cold water raining down the front of his jacket.

Raiden, the traitor, only laughed.

"Leave me alone!" Shin shouted down at him.

"No!" was Haruto's grinning reply, as he threw another balloon.

Shin believed there was no way he could hit the same target three times in a row. Not from this distance. It must have been forty yards or more from the roof to the courtyard. It was way too long a distance for someone to throw something with that much consistent accuracy.

Shin realized, as he was struck in the face by the ice-cold shock of a quarter-liter of water contained in fragile pink rubber, that he could not have been more wrong.

Raiden laughed again. Shin kind of wanted to murder him.

Shin pulled back from the fence, escaping the line of fire as another two balloons splattered against the wire-mesh. He wiped water out of his eyes and scowled.

"Hey, so, there was kind of like, a point to this conversation at one point, wasn't there?" Raiden said with easy humor. "I think I remember. You wanted to tell the others about your ability before you officially take command of Theo's platoon. It's a good idea. I agree with it. We should talk about it sometime soon."

"Not now?"

"Obviously. Right now it's time for you to get revenge."

Raiden turned swiftly toward the door.

"C'mon, follow me. I know where they keep the super soakers."

—

Hello Shiden.

When I write these letters, sometimes I feel like I really am talking to you again. God only knows why. If we were actually talking, we might start on something serious, but in five minutes we'd be too busy insulting each other to get anywhere productive. In ten minutes we'd start a fistfight, and in twenty minutes we'd have forgotten why we wanted to talk in the first place. The fact that I can even get to subjects like this proves I'm not talking to anyone but myself.

But it still feels like I'm reaching you somehow.

When I was younger, I never had trouble telling people I loved them. I loved my parents, so I would say it to them. I loved my brother, and whenever I felt like telling him that, I would. Back then it didn't take strength for me to say I love you. It does now. It's like the words themselves carry a weight my tongue can't lift. Even if I want to, I just can't say them.

But I can write them down at least. That doesn't come easily either. I thought and re-thought this letter a hundred times before I actually sat down to write it. And even now, just by writing these sentences, I can tell I'm stalling to avoid the point.

I think I love these people, Shiden.

Tomorrow, I'm going to tell them everything. Not just about the voices, but my name, my country, my past. I'll tell them as much as they want to know. I think I'm scared. More than scared. Terrified. I have a rubber band tied around my wrist to keep my hands from shaking as I write this letter. I'm scared, but I'm ready, too. If I had spoken up sooner, Theo would still be alive. If I don't tell them now, someone could die later. I won't let that happen. I have come to realize that I'm a coward, and I've let my fear control me.

But if it's for their sake, then maybe I can be brave.

And just so you know,

I think I loved you too.

—

Grethe Wenzel was about half a hundred miles away from Spearhead base. She had just reached the summit of her hike at the same time that Shin and Raiden burst out the base's front entrance with bright orange water guns in their hands, spare rifles strapped cross-wise to their backs, all fully loaded - only to be met with a withering barrage of water balloons from all sides. They went down fighting, resilient to the bitter end.

The Lieutenant-Colonel stood high on the mountain, a few feet from a granite ledge. She was facing eastward, toward home and the darkening sky. She was watching the clouds bleed from orange to black as the light of the sunset left them. She was reflecting to herself how poorly she had done.

At everything really, though she thought of the mission first.

Ernst had framed the expedition as a diplomatic venture wrapped in layers and layers of intrigue. From outside appearances, this was a rescue mission for a lost soldier whose signal had resurfaced somehow after two years and seven hundred kilometers. Those who were involved in the guts and bones of the operation understood just how much more complicated the truth could be.

The President's expression had been full of distaste as he said this. He had shared that there were times when he would see the growing dishonesty in this barely-founded nation, and he would see the path it would eventually take, falling into the same traps of lies upon lies that had caused the Empire to fester, and he would wish to wipe it all away.

But the reality of politics did not allow for honesty.

The nobles financially supporting the expedition were kept in the dark on its true objective. If they had known that the missing soldier's signal had originated from the location of the old Republic each noble house would have insisted on attaching their own courtiers to the mission. A race would have started between them to each carve out their own little sphere of influence in the newly rediscovered nation.

As far as they understood, the expedition was a publicity stunt. The Federacy had been on the backfoot with the Legion ever since its formation. There had been no time at all to rest after the end of the civil war. Depleted on manpower, supplies, and organization, they were relentlessly thrust straight into another massive conflict.

Understandably, this had been devastating for the morale of the general citizen. But if the military could stage an expedition so far into Legion territory, for a rescue mission at that, the moral victory would re-inspire patriotism in the citizenry. Books would be written. Movies made. Interviews would be conducted. Heroes would arise from a war that, so far, had only claimed victims. It would rally the populace once more around the war effort.

This was all true, but it was still a lie by omission.

Only those embarking on the journey itself were told the truth in full. The travelers, some three-hundred strong, had each been hand-chosen by the military council for their discretion above all else. They alone knew the expedition's true task: to establish contact with the Republic, which could well be the only other nation on the planet that had managed to survive the Legion. This was a mission more important than any other.

Grethe understood this perfectly. She considered herself a rational woman; a clever woman; an intelligent woman. She knew how to get a job done, and she had felt perfectly capable of completing this one in the most efficient way possible.

At least, she had at first.

At some point that must have changed, and her advisers knew it. An hour earlier she had been in the war tent, standing over a map of the 86th District that had been fully completed by SHADE-equipped outriders a month ago. It had been their task since then, and they'd sat idly by ever since. She had been drinking a cup of coffee that represented the last week's worth they still had in stock, and she'd been arguing with officers in threadbare uniforms who all demanded to know why the expedition had been sitting on its ass for so long when their objective was right in front of them.

Grethe didn't have an answer for them.

She could give them a thousand and one reasons why it would be a terrible idea to break cover right now, with the Legion mounting a full-scale offensive and the expedition not even reaching two hundred able-bodied fighters. She could tell them that if they made contact with the Republic now, there was a substantial chance they would believe the Federacy was responsible for the attack itself, and any chance they might have had at diplomacy would be irrevocably destroyed.

They accepted that well enough, but when they asked her why she hadn't made contact a month ago, there was no truth she could give that could possibly satisfy them.

So she hadn't given them the truth. She told them Shin had needed time to infiltrate the Republic before a diplomatic venture stirred up their workings, and the diplomats had needed all the information he could give them. A bald-faced lie.

Certainly, the Republic had been a black box when they first arrived, but well before Shin had even stepped foot inside the walls the expedition had managed to put together a complete picture of the nation's inner workings. A combination of testimony from the 86 outside the walls, and a thorough hack of the obsolete fiber-optic terminal in Halberd base, had shown her all the diplomats would need to know before beginning their half of the mission.

The opportunity had been prime, everything they had come here to do less than a hundred miles away.

But Grethe had held them back anyway.

She had done it for Shin's sake, so he could have time to find his brother, and to see what peace could be without the specter of idle guilt hanging over him. All her planning and conjectures had made perfect sense to her at the time. But now all she saw were tangled, serpentine, self-destroying machinations disguised as sense.

Shin had not found his brother. In fact, he had renounced the search for him altogether, in a voice filled with a kind of shaky relief that broke Grethe's heart. If it had ended with just that, she might have stood on this mountain ledge for a different reason altogether, her mind at equilibrium instead of turmoil, balanced by the knowledge that she had done right by him.

But it hadn't ended there.

After all her efforts to see him at peace, he had gone to war again. She had gambled the mission on which everything else turned for the sake of a broken boy she had come to love.

She had gambled and lost.

Grethe watched as the last light of the sunset died below the horizon and the clouded, starless sky grew as black as oil. She took a long, deep breath, held the air in her chest until it burned, and released it as a sigh.

All was not lost. For as long as the expedition survived, the mission was not over. Her failure was not final. Her objectives would be harder to accomplish now, and the situation would only grow worse the longer the expedition had to endure out here. Supplies were now low enough that they had begun to ration out the non-necessary commodities, like coffee and cigarettes, and it wouldn't be long before they started doing the same for food.

Things had gone poorly - she had done poorly. She wouldn't deny it. But even if her advisers' confidence was shaken, the soldiers under her command were still loyal to her, and although their resources were dwindling, they were far from exhausted. She had not been idle these last two weeks. What felt like a lifetime ago, she had promised to equip all the Juggernauts of Halberd Squadron with SHADE units. The promise had died with them, but Grethe's plans had not.

Yesterday she had finished work on the last of four dozen Reginleifs. Each was now fully retrofitted, equipped with coolant tanks in the place of their cannons and pipes running down the lengths of their limbs. Each was painted a sheer midnight black. If they struck on a night like this, without even moon or starlight, they'd be all but invisible to the naked eye, nor would they show on radar, thermal, or infrared sensors. They would be swift, deadly, and untraceable.

She reflected on the brother Shin had come here to reunite with. Shourei came to this place as an exile from the west, far from home with no chance of coming back… not unless he acted boldly. Very boldly. According to Halberd, Rei had done exactly that. A revolutionary before a turncoat, he had traveled to the bases of damn near every Squadron outside the wall. He had given them hope for a better life; a strong and undeniable hope for which no cost was too great to bear. With that, Rei had rallied thousands of disparate, isolated groups beneath one banner.

Grethe pondered on the value of hope, and the power one could wield if they were the bringer of it. She continued to stare eastward toward the ink-black sky, where the Legion swelled in relentless numbers, forming a tide that would swallow the Republic if left unchecked. Every army had a leader. Shin often spoke of Legion drones with superior intelligence to the rank and file, units that had been created from the harvesting of fully intact brains. They often formed the center of Legion movements, coordinating strategy and tactics. When one fell, it threw the entire force into disruption.

She thought, then, about her stealth-equipped Reginleifs, which could pass through enemy territory undetected, strike, then melt back into the darkness. She thought about how long-tailed serpents were killed in all the old myths:

By cutting off the head.