Chương 7: Chapter 4 - I am Legion, for We Are Many
Jolted awake by a ring from her portable terminal notifying her of a new e-mail, Lena sat up and stretched. She'd left the information terminal on, its holo-screen displaying a paused image from a gun camera feed, and on the terminal itself lay a sea of papers, combat logs she had printed out.
The sunlight streaming through the curtain of her east-facing room was bright. Putting on a thin, transparent gown that hung from her clothes rack and brushing her fingers through her hair, Lena got out of bed. Opening her e-mail client, she saw the message was from Annette.
The Revolution Festival is coming up next month, right? Let's go pick party dresses together on our next day off.
After a brief pause to think, she punched in a short reply and hit SEND.
Sorry! I've been a bit busy lately. Invite me again some other time, okay?
A reply came immediately—
You're blowing me off a lot lately, Lena.
—followed by yet another e-mail.
Devoting yourself to the Eighty-Six like this won't do anyone any good, you know.
Lena turned around for a moment. Behind her were the Spearhead squadron's combat logs, which she'd tried to make some progress analyzing yesterday. She had meticulously gathered the badly scrawled together mission reports and the Juggernauts' mission recorder data files. The patrol reports were, for whatever reason, as empty as ever, but putting those aside, it was a veritable mountain of gold, a real treasury of information regarding anti-Legion tactics.
This would help everyone survive. It would be useful. She was sure of it.
Sorry.
"—Why not go?"
Shin replied indifferently, answering the idle conversation they were having over the Sensory Resonance while servicing the assault rifle he usually stored in Undertaker's cockpit. They'd taken to chatting during the report, technically when they should have been out on patrol.
It was early afternoon, and Shin was in his room in the barracks. The kitten, which he'd locked out of the room to prevent it from toying with the rifle's parts, scratched at the door desperately.
"But what if a raid happens in the middle of the party?"
Lena seemed terribly dissatisfied. It was very much like her to be so overly serious, if not too inflexible.
"Nothing in particular will happen."
"I'm surprised they can even hold a party in the middle of a war."
"I'm sure there are battles going on in some Sector or another out there. Whatever happens inside the walls doesn't influence what goes on out here."
He pulled out the cam pin and removed the bolt from the carrier group, placing the parts on a cloth he'd spread out. Assault rifles weren't effective against most Legion, but they did have their uses. There could come a time when this would be the only weapon available to him, so leaving it untended wasn't an option.
"I think you should go. Your analysis is appreciated, but there's no reason we should be monopolizing your personal time, Major."
Lena fell silent at those words.
"Is what I'm doing unnecessary, by any chance…?"
"Not at all. Your assistance is greatly appreciated."
Those were his honest feelings. Shin wouldn't say or do something just to stroke a commanding officer's ego.
"In the end, we only know the front lines. Having the perspective of an educated officer and data analysis coming from an outlook with a grasp on the whole situation is priceless."
"…That's good to hear."
"But that said, you don't have to spend all your time on us."
He could sense Lena pouting on the other side of the line. Removing the extractor pin, Shin continued speaking in his usual monotone.
"If you keep your mind on the battlefield too much, you'll end up like me."
Lena sighed, unable to tell whether those words were serious or his idea of a joke. Either way, she was left without much motivation.
"So you joke around sometimes, too, Captain Nouzen… Fine, I understand. I'll try to enjoy myself while I'm there. I'm sure I'll be having the time of my life between the stupid party and the high heels and dress."
Having answered his joke with a jab of her own apparently earned her a laugh from Shin's side.
"The Revolution Festival, was it? Right, there was something like that back then, wasn't there?"
"Do you remember anything about it?"
Shin was silent for a moment.
"I think there were fireworks? In a park with a fountain, in front of the palace."
Lena raised her head in surprise.
"That's right! That's the Presidential Palace Luñè, in the First Sector… Did you use to live in the First Sector, Captain?"
The First Sector's residential block had been an affluent neighborhood since the days of the monarchy, and its inhabitants were all families that had lived there since ages past… But Celena families, who were venerable noble houses, seemed to be its primary residents.
Colorata inhabitants were a rare sight there, even before everything changed nine years ago.
Maybe she had passed by Shin without realizing sometime in the past. That thought left Lena with a lonely feeling in her heart.
"I don't really remember, but probably with the rest of my family… I can remember my brother walking with me somewhere, holding my hand."
Lena had to hold back a gasp. She did it again.
"I'm sorry…"
"…What for?"
"That was insensitive of me. Last time, too… I mean, your family and your brother…"
"Oh…"
In contrast to Lena's discouraged tone, Shin sounded rather curt.
"I don't mind. I hardly remember anyway."
Shin should have been fairly young when he was separated from his family. Or perhaps five years of fighting for his life through the flames of war had consumed even those precious memories.
For a moment, the image of a child standing still, having lost his way back home on the field of battle, flashed in Lena's mind.
"—He said he had to live and come back. Come back to you."
She tried to recall and convey the words Rei had left behind and etched into her memories as accurately as possible. Lena spoke while holding the image of Rei saying those things in her mind. Sensory Resonance conveyed their voices to one another via their consciousness, and when Resonating, they could tell what the other felt as if they were facing each another.
She hoped her memories of Rei might come across, even if Shin had forgotten. His visage and voice remained in Lena's heart still.
"He said, with so much love in his eyes, that you'd probably gotten bigger. I could tell how much you meant to him. Your brother really, honestly…wanted to come back to you."
"…It'd be nice if you were right."
His reply came after a pause and carried a certain wavering, a shiver, as if he hoped she was right but knew without a doubt that things weren't so.
"Captain…?"
Shin didn't respond, and Lena fell silent, realizing he didn't want to discuss the topic any further. The only thing that disturbed the silence was the faint sound of metallic rattling. The sound eventually grew louder, culminating in a very particular, familiar clack. Lena tilted her head in surprise.
"Captain, are you disassembling a rifle, by any chance?"
Shin seemed to hesitate for a second.
"…Yes, I am."
"I thought you were on patrol right now."
Silence.
Realizing why the patrol reports were always so lacking, Lena sighed heavily. And yet somehow, the Spearhead squadron's reaction time was always extraordinarily fast. She never did ask how they could always tell where the Legion were, even faster than the radar could pinpoint them.
"If you think the patrols are unnecessary, then I suppose they are… And the same holds true for the rifle."
The Eighty-Six weren't allowed to carry firearms of any kind.
"I believe you're using them because you have to, so I have no intention of judging you for this…but do keep them maintained and in good shape."
"…Thank you."
Not expecting to hear that tone coming from Shin, Lena blinked in surprise.
"Did I…say something that unusual?"
"No… I just thought you'd be angrier about this, Major."
Hearing him express his surprise, Lena found her gaze wandering. True, when she'd just been assigned, she would nag Shin about submitting his reports and may have made a habit of complaining about how her colleagues in headquarters scoffed at the regulations.
"That's not really… I don't mean to be a straitlaced stickler for regulations and prohibitions that don't have much meaning to them. Like I've said, you're the ones in the position to decide what's necessary or unnecessary to survive on the battlefield, and I intend to respect your decisions."
Someone like me, who's never known the battlefield, has no place to argue with you. That bitter thought momentarily crossing her mind, Lena shook her head and set her train of thought back on track.
"At any rate, I suppose even spare weapons you find lying around require maintenance. The Republic's assault rifles are terribly heavy. People in the eighty-five Sectors hate having to carry them around, let alone practice using them."
The standard model used by the Republic military employed high-caliber, full-size rifle bullets, and as such was made entirely out of sturdy metal alloy. This was done on the assumption they might have to fight armored opponents, but as a result, the rifles were exceptionally heavy.
Shin was, oddly enough, rather surprised.
"Heavy? Really?"
Lena was taken aback by how genuinely shocked he sounded, but then it occurred to her: Yes, of course. He is a boy, after all. That realization made her terribly awkward and self-conscious. Because, well, yeah… She'd never spoken to a boy alone for so long.
"…Major?"
Sensory Resonance transmitted the feelings one might read on another's expression, and from Shin's perspective, it was as if Lena had suddenly blushed without warning.
"I-it's nothing. Ah, hmm…"
Abruptly, the atmosphere on Shin's side of the Resonance became extremely tense. She could sense Shin had risen to his feet silently, his gaze fixed somewhere far away. The static that always rumbled in the distance like a continuo felt as if it had become just a bit stronger.
"Captain Nouzen?"
"Please get ready for battle."
Lena turned her gaze to the information terminal in search of an alert, but it remained as silent as ever. Shin's words, however, were crystal clear.
"The Legion are coming."
Having Resonated with Shin ahead of time, Lena had participated in the strategy meeting. Shin concisely but accurately detailed everything from the enemy's numbers to the way their forces were divided and deployed, down to the estimated route they would charge through. Seeing the sheer amount of detail he provided left Lena utterly astonished. Did his interception strategies always include information that was so accurate and thorough?
The meeting continued, and as it did, Lena proposed a few different options. Her suggestions were eventually accepted, and the operation commenced after a concise overview of the strategy they would apply.
"The main force is presumably a mixed platoon of Grauwolf types."
Each unit was stationed at a different spot in the area they designated as their kill zone in order to ambush the Legion. Lena reported the enemy's unit composition—the only detail they were hazy about, oddly enough—inferring it by cross-referencing the radar and records of past battles.
"Judging from their production rate and maintenance efficiency, Tank types should be scarce due to us destroying so many of them during the last battle. That said, I find it hard to believe they would adopt a strategy that would place the Anti-Tank Artillery types in the front."
The Stier were lacking in terms of mobility, and their anti-tank self-propelled shells were rather poorly armored, making them viable only in ambushes. Having been designed similar to tanks, Stier had similar weaknesses—the same weaknesses humankind had tried to eliminate since the invention of the treadmill tank.
"Anti-light-armor rounds may not be effective on the Tank types, but Dragoon types are comparatively lightly armored and can't rely on covering fire from the Long-Range Gunner types. If we take out the Scout types quickly, we should be able to render them helpless."
"Wehrwolf to all units. I just confirmed it by sight. The major's prediction was spot-on."
Raiden, who had just returned from a recon run, confirmed Lena's words. His tone went beyond admiration and into astonishment.
"I mean, you keep talking about production rate and maintenance efficiency… Do you even sleep at night, woman?"
Shin cut into their conversation abruptly.
"Major. Could you cut off your Para-RAID for this mission?"
"Huh?"
"We'll be fighting a unit of Grauwolf types in an urban area, which should result in melee clashes. We'll be coming in close contact with the enemy. Staying Resonated with me with this many…around is dangerous."
Every word Shin uttered was in perfect Republic tongue, but she couldn't piece together what he'd just said. What did Shin just say?
With this many Black Sheep around?
"If you want an explanation, I'll give you one later. Cut off your Para-RAID."
She realized perfectly well that there was no time for explanations when they were on the verge of battle, but being told to abandon her duties for no good reason made Lena reflexively become defiant.
"The other squad members are still connected to you, and with the Eintagsfliege's jamming, wireless transmissions may not work if anything happens. I will not cut off my connection."
She denied his request grumpily. Shin seemed to want to say something, but having seen that the Legion had gotten far too close, he swallowed his words.
"…For what it's worth, I warned you."
Leaving Lena with that bitter parting remark, Undertaker rose to his feet.
The fighting was as hectic as Shin had said it would be, with friend and foe exchanging places in the blink of an eye. Lena glared at the radar, which was struggling to display the unit blips under the pressure of the electronic jamming, while she pressed one hand against her ear. What is this? The noise was horrible. It wasn't coming from her room, so it must have been what Shin was hearing on the battlefield. But what was making this sound?
A red blip, representing an enemy unit, was approaching a blue blip, which stood for a friendly. It was Undertaker. Shin's unit. On the faraway battlefield, the red blip was approaching Shin, pressing in on him in what was truly arm's reach as the two points of light crossed on the radar screen—
An unfamiliar voice echoed with bloodcurdling clarity inside Lena's ears.
"—Mommy."
It was an empty, hollow plea, like the final, faint gasp of a dying person. As Lena stood frozen in place, the whispering continued, repeating that single word that had been drained of all its nostalgia and emotion in the face of the boundless totality of death.
"Mommy. Mommy. MomMY. MomMy. MOmMy. MoMMy. moMmy. MomMY. MOmMy. MomMY. MoMmy. MOMMY. mommy. MomMy MoMMy moMmy. mommy. MomMy MOmMy. MomMy. MOMMY. MomMy moMmy mommy. MOmMy. MomMy. MOMMY. MomMY MOmMy—"
"Eek—?!"
Every hair on Lena's body stood on end.
She tried plugging her ears with her hands, but the sound, emanating from the Sensory Resonance, ignored those fruitless efforts. That dying wail assaulted her again and again, calling out to its mother. The word had lost all semblance of language, degrading into a series of utterances, into noise. That dying breath mercilessly repeated in her ears, its persistence matched only by how broken it was.
A scream from the pit of her stomach blew away the voice crying for its mother, but it was only replaced by other moans of similar tone, worming their way into her consciousness in rapid succession.
"Help me help me help me helpme helpme helpME HELPme hElpmE HelPme Helpm—"
"It's hot It's hot It's hot It'shot It'shot It'SHoT it'shot It'sHOT IT'Shot it'ShOt."
"No… No… NoNoNoNONONOnononononononOnONo."
"Mama, mama, mama, mama, mama MaMAMamaMaMamAmA."
"I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I don't want to die Idon'twanttodie Idon'twanttodie Idon'twanttodie IDon'TWaNtTodiE idoNtwanTtOdIe."
"N-no… NOOO—!"
The screams of agony crushed her thoughts and reasoning. Somewhere among the endless cycle of moans, she could hear Shin's voice.
"Major, cut the link! Major Milizé!"
The boy's usually composed demeanor was uncharacteristically tense, but it failed to penetrate the wall of panic in Lena's mind. She plugged her ears as hard as she could, curling up in fear and screaming to drown out the voices, but it was to no avail. And just as she thought her sanity would snap under the force of the dying choir—
"Tch."
—clicking his tongue in frustration, Shin severed the Resonance. The otherworldly moaning instantly stopped.
"............…Ah…"
Lena raised her head fearfully and hesitantly removed her hands from her ears… Total silence. She was completely cut off from the Processors.
Lena gazed at the dim control room blankly, breathing heavily with her eyes wide. Apparently, she had fallen off the chair in her panic, because she was sitting on the floor.
What…was that…?
That wasn't any of the Processors. It wasn't any of them, and there were far too many, a countless number chanting. And within that cadence of suffering, she'd heard someone familiar. It was…
—I don't want to die…
"…Kirschblüte… Kaie…?"
Just as he cut the Resonance with Lena, the "herd" of Black Sheep began swarming around Shin, who squinted in pain at the incessant storm of wails and shrieks. The majority of the enemy force were Grauwolf types, and having to cleave his way through them in a flurry of slashes with the high-frequency blade, which sliced through their thin armor like butter, made him take too long to sever the connection with his Handler.
Countless shrieks, wheezes, and groans all coalesced into a cacophony of palpable anguish that shook Shin to his core and threatened to rupture his eardrums. But the trade-off was that, at this distance, one could hear each individual voice clearly, and Theo was the first to realize it through his Resonance with Shin.
"Holy shit, no… That was Kaie just now…!"
Shin could feel several people gasp in horror, and within a moment, the line exploded in an uproar.
"Kaie…?! Those sons of bitches took her…?!"
"God dammit… Didn't Anju cremate her…?"
While his comrades lamented their friend's fate, Shin focused on the countless weeps, trying to trace them back to "Kaie." This was an impossible feat for the others, who were Resonating only thanks to the Para-RAID, but Shin, being an original, could do it. It didn't take long to find what he sought, and before long, he knew its distance and direction. What he had just performed was an act even more precise than finding a needle in a haystack, a feat that transcended the five senses.
Kurena was closest to the target.
"Gunslinger. Direction 060, distance 800. There's a group of fifteen. She's at the front row, second Grauwolf from the right."
"…Roger."
Kaie's voice, which continually wept that it didn't want to die, cut off the moment the shot connected. It was an army of the dead, of ghosts that lingered and could not move on until they were destroyed.
Still within that endless spiral of wails that threatened to crush his very soul, Shin heaved a single sigh of pity.
"So now it's a grudge match, huh…?"
An army of ghosts that could not move on until they were destroyed. As if wishing to pass to the place they should have gone.
He'd suddenly realized that the Handler girl probably wouldn't Resonate with him again…and was exasperated with himself for thinking it a shame.
Just as he cut the Resonance with Lena, the "herd" of Black Sheep began swarming around Shin, who squinted in pain at the incessant storm of wails and shrieks. The majority of the enemy force were Grauwolf types, and having to cleave his way through them in a flurry of slashes with the high-frequency blade, which sliced through their thin armor like butter, made him take too long to sever the connection with his Handler.
Countless shrieks, wheezes, and groans all coalesced into a cacophony of palpable anguish that shook Shin to his core and threatened to rupture his eardrums. But the trade-off was that, at this distance, one could hear each individual voice clearly, and Theo was the first to realize it through his Resonance with Shin.
"Holy shit, no… That was Kaie just now…!"
Shin could feel several people gasp in horror, and within a moment, the line exploded in an uproar.
"Kaie…?! Those sons of bitches took her…?!"
"God dammit… Didn't Anju cremate her…?"
While his comrades lamented their friend's fate, Shin focused on the countless weeps, trying to trace them back to "Kaie." This was an impossible feat for the others, who were Resonating only thanks to the Para-RAID, but Shin, being an original, could do it. It didn't take long to find what he sought, and before long, he knew its distance and direction. What he had just performed was an act even more precise than finding a needle in a haystack, a feat that transcended the five senses.
Kurena was closest to the target.
"Gunslinger. Direction 060, distance 800. There's a group of fifteen. She's at the front row, second Grauwolf from the right."
"…Roger."
Kaie's voice, which continually wept that it didn't want to die, cut off the moment the shot connected. It was an army of the dead, of ghosts that lingered and could not move on until they were destroyed.
Still within that endless spiral of wails that threatened to crush his very soul, Shin heaved a single sigh of pity.
"So now it's a grudge match, huh…?"
An army of ghosts that could not move on until they were destroyed. As if wishing to pass to the place they should have gone.
He'd suddenly realized that the Handler girl probably wouldn't Resonate with him again…and was exasperated with himself for thinking it a shame.
It took Lena until sunset to muster the will to reactivate the Para-RAID.
Ever since then, every time she tried to connect, a surge of fear assailed her along with a wave of nausea, and by the time she finally managed to make the call, night had fallen—nearly time for lights out at the base.
She timidly thought that calling this late might be a bother but raised her head to push that thought away. She knew that if she put it off now, she would probably never Resonate with them again. She would keep pushing it to the next day, using the same excuse over and over.
Conscious of her hastening breath, she inhaled deeply and activated the Para-RAID. Thankfully, the person she was contacting hadn't retired to bed yet. The call connected immediately. She Resonated with one person—and that person only. He was the one who'd told her to cut off the link, and he was also the one who'd warned her that staying Resonated would be dangerous. She thought he was the right person to ask.
"…Captain Nouzen."
She could faintly feel Shin open his eyes.
"It's Milizé. Um, are you free now?"
There was an odd pause before he spoke. And for whatever reason, she could faintly hear the sound of water running ever since she connected.
"…I'm taking a shower at the moment."
"H-huh?!"
Lena had never heard herself screeching this hysterically. Flushing red up to her ears, Lena had trouble thinking of anything to say, her thoughts going back and forth in flustered circles. It was a different sort of panic compared to this afternoon, but she somehow managed to pull herself together and squeeze out the words.
"I-I'm sorry. Yes, of course, it's this late, after all… I-I'll end the call now."
Shin's voice was, predictably enough, composed to an almost cheeky degree.
"I don't mind, but I'll be going to sleep after this. If you have anything to ask, you can ask me now. If you don't mind, of course, Major."
"V-very well, then… In that case…"
All things considered, Lena's father had died when she was young, and she'd never had any brothers, to say nothing of a lover. This situation was a touch too stimulating for her chaste heart, and she was helplessly aware of her burning cheeks as she opened her mouth to speak.
"Ah… How did the battle go? Did anyone get hurt or…killed…?"
"We're all fine. Is that what you called me for…?"
"No, but…"
Even for elites like them, there were no guarantees when fighting the Legion. Especially not in the midst of those horrific screams… She couldn't hold back the terrifying thought they'd all died while engulfed by that noise and that maybe there would be no one to Resonate with.
"Captain… What were those voices I heard back there…?"
As soon as the question left her lips, she felt a terrible chill in the pit of her stomach. The static she'd always heard in the background of the Resonance, that beat in continuo, like the rustling of leaves in the depths of the forest, like the sound of distant traffic. She now realized it was the distant echo of that mass of screams and moans. She'd finally realized why Shin was called the Reaper and why every Handler that worked with him was petrified. This was the reason.
"What are they…?"
"…"
For a moment, all she could hear was the patter of water.
"There was once a time when I failed to die."
A dull, distant pain flashed across Lena's neck. A dim, heavy feeling of constriction. As if something were strangling her. It was coming not from Lena's own neck but rather from the Sensory Resonance… In other words, from Shin.
"No, I probably did die that day. And I can hear the voices because I'm the same as them… The voices of the ghosts, of the dead who linger, without disappearing."
"Ghosts…"
She remembered talking to Annette about her father's accident. About how if one increased the RAID Device's nerve stimulation to its theoretical maximum and Resonated with the consciousness of the world itself, with something in the abyss, there would be no coming back.
But then, what if all those who died went back to that world? To the abyss? Perhaps those who had nearly died, those who had nearly fallen into the abyss…could connect with whatever was down there, just like how the Para-RAID connected humans. Could they, for instance, connect with those who had died and fallen into the abyss? Those who yearned to return to the bodies they'd once inhabited…? Could they connect with ghosts?
But something didn't add up. Because those were…
"…The Legion…right?"
She'd heard the voices the moment the Grauwolf types had approached, and Shin had said something along those lines before the battle started.
"The Legion are ghosts, too. They lost their reason to exist as weapons once the Empire fell, so they wander, burdened with the dying will of their creators… An army composed of the ghosts of a dead country."
"…So the reason you can always tell when the Legion are coming…"
"Yes. It's because I can hear them. I can tell if they start coming closer. I can always tell, even when I sleep."
"Wait just a moment…!"
Lena cried out. He made it sound trivial, but there was no way it was that simple. He could tell when they were getting closer—? Even the closest enemy base should have been unbelievably far away. Who knew how many Legion could be in that range?!
The voices of the ghosts—that distant sound of traffic, of rustling. The Para-RAID was set to a low sync ratio, so it could pick up only the speaker's voice and the sound of their body movements. The only other things it could detect would have to be loud enough to reverberate against the body. If Lena could just hear it as a faint rustling…what did this stirring she'd always heard when she Resonated with Shin sound like to him?
"What can you hear right now, Captain? How far away is it, and what does it sound like…?"
"I don't know the exact distance, but I can hear every Legion within the Republic's old borders… Though, when they're far away or move in a group, I can't tell them apart individually."
It was a world that defied all description. Even if, individually, they came across only as whispers, it was every single Legion on every front. And he felt it, every single moment of every day. Even when he was asleep.
"Isn't it…hard for you?"
"I'm used to it. It's been a long time."
"How long…?"
He didn't answer. Lena decided to move on to the next question.
"Second Lieutenant Kaie Taniya. I heard her voice back there. Was it because she…um, became a ghost?"
It was still hard for her to process, much less articulate. Her common sense was getting in the way of that. There was a brief silence. The sound of the water stopping. The feeling of wet hair being brushed up.
"I've heard the Republic estimates the war should end in two years at most. Is that right?"
"Y-yes… How did you know?"
She nodded, taken aback by the change in topic. She thought the Processors weren't informed, so as to not inspire any needless hope in them.
"Theo heard it from the captain he told you about, and I heard about it from him… The Legion's central processors have a life span built into them, and they should shut down in a little under two years, correct?"
"…Yes."
The Legion's central processors had a structure diagram based on a mammal's central nervous system to create liquid nanomachines. They indeed had processing power rivaling that of a large mammal's cognitive abilities, but they were also integrated with a fixed time limit and a program that would erase that structure diagram.
"When I heard about it from Theo, it all started making sense. At first, even if I could hear the Legion's voice, it was just jumbled noise. But after a certain period of time, I started hearing people's voices mixed in with them. I had an idea of how it happened, but until then, I didn't know why they did it."
She could feel hair being wiped with a roughness a woman would never even think to attempt and the indistinct rustling of fabric. And irritatingly enough, she could even tell how starchy and stiff the fabric was.
"If their central processors' structure was gradually being lost, all they'd have to do is replace it with the structure diagram from something else… And there were plenty of available substitutes, after all."
"…No, it can't be."
"Yes. The most developed central nervous system of all mammals. The human brain."
The image that came to mind made Lena sick to her stomach. It went beyond grotesquerie—it was utter defilement of human dignity—but Shin's voice remained as composed as ever.
"To be exact, I don't think it's the brain itself as much as it is a copy of it. If they used actual brains, they'd rot before long, and casualties don't leave bodies behind, in most cases. Corpses with minimal brain damage are rare, I suppose. And in practice, we run into multiple Legion who share the same voice fairly often. Kaie is probably still out there, somewhere."
A clockwork ghost, perpetually replaying that poor girl's final moments like an incessant music box.
"So we call them ghosts, but I think they're different from what people consider souls. Maybe calling them vestiges of one's existence would be more accurate. Even if they carry someone's consciousness, it's impossible to communicate with them. And since they replicate the brain at the state it was postmortem, they only ever cycle through thoughts the person had on the brink of death."
"Black Sheep…"
"Right. Black Sheep, possessed by the ghosts of the dead, that hide among the rest of the Legion… The White Sheep."
Even if it entered into a state of decay after death, the human cerebrum was still the most developed among all mammals. Its high cognitive ability was probably greater than what the Legion's central processors were originally capable of. So left with the choice between that and having their structure diagram wiped, the Black Sheep, possessed by the wails of the dead, continued to rise in number.
There was a hint of mercy in Shin's voice. These mechanical ghosts had lost their country, their reason to exist and fight, and were reduced to devouring corpses in order to fight and die in the name of that last will.
"…I think I can kind of understand why they're attacking the Republic."
"Huh?"
"They're ghosts. They linger even though they shouldn't, and they can't move on until someone destroys them. I think they want to move on and attack other, fellow ghosts so they can move on together."
"Fellow…ghosts…?"
Whose ghosts? He was referring to someone who was still alive but became inhuman. Did he mean the Eighty-Six, who were dead as far as society was concerned?
"I mean the Republic. Didn't it die nine years ago…? Is there a single value from those on the five-hued flag that the Republic still maintains?"
For how quiet they were—no, because of how quiet they were—those words rang all the more bitter. Freedom and equality. Brotherhood and justice and nobility. Does a country that interns and discriminates against humans for no justifiable reason, that caused the deaths of untold millions without even a sliver of shame…have a right to adhere to that national creed?
The Republic had died years ago, by its own hand. It died the moment its citizens decided to prosecute their brethren. Perhaps Shin could hear this voice, too… The voice of the giant ghost of the Republic that hadn't yet realized it was already dead.
Having lost all words, Lena fell silent. After leaving Lena to her moment of pause, Shin spoke. With that same detached tone as ever, he declared the fact he knew to be true.
"You're going to lose this war, Major."
You, he said. Not we.
"…What do you mean?"
"Like I've said, the Legion are at no risk of shutting down because of their central processors. As far as I've seen, the Legion's numbers may not be growing, but they're not shrinking, either… But what about the Eighty-Six? How many of us are left?"
Lena couldn't answer. She didn't know. The Republic didn't keep track of those statistics.
"I think that in two to three years, we'll all be gone. The people in the internment camps aren't allowed to reproduce, and most of those who were infants when the internment happened have died by now."
The adults all died within the first three years of the war. Those who agreed to enlist died on the battlefield, and those who didn't were sent to the Gran Mule, where they worked in forced labor so rigorous and harsh it almost seemed like it was designed solely to work them to death. They all perished, leaving behind only the elderly and the sick, who all passed away over these nine years.
"…Why did…the babies die…?"
"Do you know how high the mortality rate among infants in an environment without medical care becomes…? When I was in the internment camps, almost none of the babies survived the first winter. I'm pretty sure it was the same everywhere else. And any that survived were probably sold off."
"Sold off?"
"Yes, some of the soldiers and the Eighty-Six sold them for profit. I'm not sure if it was for straight-up money or for goods, though."
Immediately realizing the implication, Lena felt all the color drain from her face. In other words, there were citizens in the Republic who, despite despising the Eighty-Six as pigs, had used those pigs' babies as slaves or lived by having those infants' organs transplanted into them.
And that left only the children. They were being sent to the battlefield, and very soon, none would remain as well.
"The Legion's numbers aren't diminishing. But the Eighty-Six will go extinct soon. And when we do, will you Alba fight? When you don't know how to fight, when none of you knows the battlefield, after you shoved conscription and war expenditures on the Eighty-Six…would you be able to keep fighting after we're gone?"
You wouldn't— She could tell there was a faint smile on Shin's lips. It was different from a victim's sneer that laughed at a much-deserved punishment. It was a smile that mocked an unsightly creature that only kept its eyes fixed on its own benefit and shut itself off from reality, lingering in transient peace until it eventually lost the means to defend itself.
"If no one will volunteer to fight, you'll have to resort to compulsory conscription. But a democratic country can only do that when the enemy is right in front of them, and by the time that happens, it'll be too late… The fact that it can't reach a decision until the situation has already become critical is modern democracy's greatest flaw."
The veritable catastrophe easily came to mind. Faced with that nightmarish image, Lena shook her head in protest. There was no basis for her denial; she simply couldn't accept the truth thrust before her, the doom awaiting them in just a few years.
"B-but the number of Legion we've observed has definitely been decreasing! They've already been reduced to half of what they were a few years ago—"
"To the extent of what you can observe, correct? You have no way of confirming anything about the Legion that lurk in the depths of the contested zones, where the Eintagsfliege's jamming is constant… True, the Legion on the front lines have diminished, but that's only because they don't need to deploy any more than that. All they have to do is launch attacks that gradually wear us down, and the rest can hang back in the rear. And their numbers are only growing, even now."
That pattern of behavior could mean only one thing. They were preserving and reinforcing their troops. Eventually, they'd stop this war of attrition and go on a general offensive to shatter the Republic's defensive lines in one fell swoop.
"But the Legion couldn't have had the intelligence to come up with a strategy tha—"
"They shouldn't have had it. And that's the other reason you'll lose."
In contrast to Lena's increasingly panicked demeanor, Shin's was, as always, calm to the point of rudeness.
"Even if dead bodies with their heads intact are rare, this is a battlefield where corpses are left uncollected. A battlefield where millions have died. The Legion must have gotten their claws on more than a few… And a human mind can easily come up with the idea of bolstering its forces before going on the offensive. So what would happen if the Legion became equally intelligent?"
"…!"
The Black Sheep. Legion that had adopted the brain structure of humans, which, even in a decayed state, was still more far efficient than their central processors had ever been. So what would happen if they acquired brains that had only just died and had not yet decayed?
"We call those Legion Shepherds. The Legion were originally just soldiers acting on preprogrammed commands, but the Shepherds can lead them. They're the ghosts' commanders. We've already encountered a few of them, and forces led by them are so much harder to beat than those that aren't. There's simply no comparison."
"Wait. So this isn't theoretical—they actually exist? So does that mean you can—?"
"Yes, I can tell them apart by their voices. The commanders' voices are especially clear, so I can distinguish them even within an army. There are a few dozen on every front, and here in the first ward—there's one."
For a moment, Shin's voice grew much darker. Right, just like the time he'd told her with the coldness of a drawn blade that he was looking for his dead brother. A presence of chilling, sharp madness.
Lena was terrified. The Republic would fall to ruin, disarmed and helpless due to its own foolishness. It had used up the millions of lives it sent onto the battlefield to be dragged down by the ghosts of the Eighty-Six they never allowed to be buried.
"B-but…"
The words slipped through her lips before she even noticed.
"That's only if you die within the next few years… Right?"
She could feel Shin blinking a few times.
"That's…true."
"Then we simply have to defeat the Legion before that happens. If we had all of you… Wouldn't it be possible with the Spearhead squadron, who can tell where the Legion will attack?"
If we had the elites who'd survived fight after fight against the most dangerous of Legion and came back relatively unscathed…
"If we could get the necessary personnel, equipment, and time, it should be possible, yes. That's true for all wars."
"Then let's win this war! I'll…do everything I can, too."
She wanted to say that she would fight with them but realized that was probably more than she deserved.
"I'll put every effort into making sure you win. Whether it's analyzing the enemy's movements or coming up with strategies, I'll do anything I can…and I'll try to make it so the same happens across all the other fronts."
If they could track the enemy's movements, it should be possible to create a strategy to keep them in check. That would definitely be in the Republic's interest. It shouldn't be too hard to explain that to Command and have it applied to other squadrons as well.
"You end your service this year, right, Captain Nouzen? In that case, you have to keep winning until then… Let's survive this war. Both of us."
Shin smiled wryly. It had a faint, gentle feeling to it.
"…Yes. Let's."
Severing the Resonance with Lena, Shin walked back through the darkness of the slumbering barracks to his room. Entering the dimly lit space, he looked at his own moonlit image reflected in the window's glass. He had worn that blue scarf to battle, but he couldn't sleep with it on, of course. He'd planned to turn in right after the shower, so the faint-blue fabric that always covered his neck above his battle-worn uniform wasn't there.
His physique seemed scrawny at first glance but was, in fact, tempered by years of rigorous life on the battlefield, and his throat bore a scar that encircled his neck in a red line. That line wasn't straight but jagged and blood colored—the red remnants of vascular congestion, as if his head had once been wrung off and then stitched back into place.
Shin calmly reached out his hand and gently touched the scar on the neck of his reflection.
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