In the late afternoon, Raiden and Shin sat on the rocky shore of a lake where Spearhead Squadron stopped to bathe and eat. The two young men were draped only in threadbare blankets around the waist, allowing the sun and breeze to do most of the work of drying them. With Theo cooking dinner, and the girls preoccupied with their own washing elsewhere, it was the first time the two of them had been alone since the skirmish that morning.
It said much of their mutual trust that even with most of their skin bared, Shin permitted Raiden to sit mere inches from him. Some comrades now lost had speculated that the Reaper, their angel of Death, would be cold to the touch; but Raiden could now dispel that myth, for he was even close enough to feel a faint warmth from the very living flesh and blood by his side.
"You've discovered that Black Sheep carry an energy you can feed on, haven't you?"
"…I have."
The question was direct and unflinching, as Raiden knew Shin respected; and the quiet answer was just as blunt. For all the Vice Captain had already been sure of the answer, its confirmation sent a lurch to the pit of his stomach.
"But—how? Your power has never affected Fido, or your Juggernaut, or any normal kind of machine. …That can only mean the Black Sheep—"
"Have life inside them. Or at least, a fragment of it." Shin released a pensive breath before glancing sideways at Raiden, the faint curve of a painfully sad smile on his lips. "I didn't want any of you to have to know… but I should have realized you of all people would easily figure it out. I'm sorry."
For a brief moment Raiden considered throwing up, but food was really too scarce to be wasted like that.
"My god, Shin. Even setting aside all the other implications of what that means—what you did after the battle today—"
"I freed them. Knowing what I know now, it was something I needed to do." Scarlet eyes shifted away guiltily. "Apart from my other need."
"That's the part I'm worried about, for your sake," Raiden shot back. "The rest of us have heard more than enough of the Legion's voices through you to know the kind of hell that is. It's bad enough getting it like that, but actually taking any part of those tortured souls into your head—"
"It's not that different. If anything, it's easier, because there's nothing truly conscious in the Black Sheep… but there isn't nearly as much inside them."
Reading between the lines of Shin's words, Raiden decided he was most definitely going to throw up later, after he'd gained whatever nutritional value was possible out of Theo's cooking.
"And… Shepherds?"
Shin visibly flinched and averted his face.
"Come on, Shin. You know you have to tell me. Before we left the Eighty-Sixth District, you never preyed on the Legion like you did this morning. That has to mean you didn't know you could until…"
"Until my brother surrendered what was left of his life to me." The Reaper closed his eyes, somberly tilting his face up toward the sun. "You're right… He's with me, Raiden."
Those four soft words explained so very much—and there was no need for Raiden to make even a single comment on it. Shin already knew he understood as well as anyone could. After five years of haunting and hunting one another, his brother's ghost was at last not simply put to rest, but made a part of him forever… whatever the consequences might be.
"…They'll be coming for us," Raiden observed gravely instead. "Even if a few of those scout units hadn't escaped earlier, the rest of the Legion would already know we're in the area."
A flat, dark smile twisted across Shin's mouth, but it did not reach his lightless eyes as he opened them. "You're forgetting one thing. It isn't just energy I take… even from them."
So that's how, Raiden reflected with a heart-sinking wonder, recalling Shin's uncanny reactions and astounding single-handed kill count in the battle that morning. The memories he harvested from his brother, and even from the Black Sheep, were not just echoes of the mortal lives those wretched souls had once lived; it was also knowledge from their existence as Legion. It seemed unthinkable that a human mind could even process such an alien form of machine-data, but somehow Shin was now able to, and it was informing his tactics and responses. In effect, he was gaining inside knowledge that made him as nearly able to predict the Legion before they acted as any organic being could.
Raiden shook his reeling head. "Shin, even now, if you think you can just take out any Legion we run into by yourself—"
"Not forever, obviously. We're still going to run out of ammo within a matter of days. But until then, I now have the means to at least get us farther than we ever hoped before." A pensive hesitation. "And the truth is that taking the offensive and hunting them could get me farther, before…"
In the faltering end of that incomplete sentence, the Vice Captain felt every ounce of the weight within the Reaper's fear of himself. Shin had always kept their comrades blissfully ignorant of that burden he carried, but he'd never been able to fool the one man closest to him. Raiden couldn't guess whether the fear was valid, but either way, it was damaging enough that his friend carried it like an open wound; and so, as was the hallmark of their relationship in private, he addressed it as directly as everything else.
"But it's not enough, is it?"
Shin started at those words, raising hooded scarlet eyes in which lurked surprise and a rare flicker of vulnerability.
"We haven't lost anyone since Haruto. You must be so hungry it hurts… and even if it helps a little, you can't tell me whatever scraps of life you harvested from those Black Sheep were really enough to nourish you." Raiden casually leaned back on the heels of his hands, gazing toward the setting sun. "So you should take what you need from us now."
The horrified disgust that filled Shin's expression had been all too easy to anticipate. In his own eyes, the Reaper was a monster who possessed no more humanity than what he stole from others—rather than the compassionate and faithful guide Spearhead had always known. Although he knew their loyalty, he would never truly be able to understand it, because he was incapable of seeing himself as they did.
"I could never do that," Shin breathed, squeezing his eyes shut with a hiss of self-loathing. "You know what I do to my… my victims. I learned to accept reaping the dying, but taking any of your lives—"
"It's not all or nothing. We know you are capable of taking just a little at a time." Raiden smirked as Shin's eyes opened to stare at him incredulously. "For your information, the rest of us talked it over before we ever set out on this mission. We all agreed this would be the best way."
"But taking your lives apart, piece by piece…!"
"That's the point, though. None of us are going to be alive for much longer."
The Reaper's flinch at that reminder, the fleeting glimpse of pain in his eyes, was the most purely human thing Raiden had ever seen. He pressed on quickly, fully aware of the necessary cruelty in his words.
"You acknowledged it yourself. Now that they know we're here, the Legion will track us. Even with your powers on our side, they're going to wear us down in skirmishes until our ammunition is gone, or just overwhelm us—and then the only thing we can ask of you is what you gave to all the rest. It's not a question of if, but only how soon. We've all accepted that." Raiden shrugged with a fatalistic calm. "But what matters to us is helping you carry the memories of our fallen comrades as far as you possibly can. Honestly, it's the one reason we still have for going any farther at all. So if giving you a few pieces of the lives we're going to lose anyway can help you fulfill your promise, and take Spearhead Squadron to its final destination… then let us at least have that."
In the burning silence that followed, as their gazes locked, Raiden lifted his hand between them. His upturned palm was extended to Shin, expectant and fearless.
Ever so slowly, Shin's trembling right hand reached out to him; and for the briefest of moments, their fingers touched.
