Citri spoke, drawing her shoulders in. They were hiding in a crypt in the premises of an abandoned church sitting on the border between the Miana and the Nareva territories.
“I’m sorry, Yuuto. I didn’t mean for things to turn out like this. Neither did the girls who caused the bombings.”
Just this morning, the radio reported that another Actaeon girl blew up somewhere. Hearing the tragedy repeat itself, Citri and the Actaeon girls were all disheartened.
“We just wanted to go home before we died. To leave our new homes, so we don’t hurt anyone. That’s all we wanted; we didn’t mean anything else, and it turned out like this… So many people ended up dying because of us…”
Kiki carried on, looking like she was on the verge of tears.
“M-maybe we should have…killed ourselves. If this had to happen, maybe we should have all just ended it back when the Federacy took us in. That way, other people wouldn’t have had to die because of us. We knew that already, but—”
Yuuto cut her off, shaking his head.
“I know you didn’t want this. The information just didn’t get there in time. It’s not your fault.”
Federacy soldiers were much more diligent than the lazy Republic Handlers he knew ever were, and that had lulled Yuuto into forgetting the possibility the report wouldn’t be passed on. Grethe and the staff officers they worked with normally didn’t make light of the Eighty-Six, always listening to their reports and their opinions. And so he’d assumed all Federacy soldiers acted the same way.
Even though they made it clear that they only saw Eighty-Six as capable hunting dogs and nothing more.
But hearing Kiki’s guilty whispering, Yuuto paused for thought and continued.
“You know how Shepherds…how Legion commanders are often based on Eighty-Six?”
Kiki blinked dubiously. “…Yeah.”
“The Legion were able to overcome their set lifespans because they used the Eighty-Six as a base. Then doesn’t that mean all the Eighty-Six ought to have killed themselves before the Legion took them in, so as to keep the war from dragging?”
Kiki looked at him in stunned amazement. Citri gulped. Yuuto carried on, his eyes dropped in thought. His crimson, flame-like eyes seemed to shine from their very depths.
“If someone was to tell me that, I wouldn’t agree with them. I wouldn’t think it’s right, just rolling over and dying for the sake of all humankind.”
And so this wasn’t Citri and the other girls’ responsibility, either. Nor did Yuuto think it was his fault for fleeing the Federacy without saying anything. He wasn’t going to tell the girls they were at fault for not killing themselves, that their very existence was a threat to everyone around them and they ought to be locked up until they die.
Passing judgment on another… Yes, deciding someone’s life for another—
“It isn’t the right thing to say. At least, that’s what I think.”
✦ ✦ ✦
The Legion were doing more than just pressuring every front, looking for unskilled units to tear into and break through.
<<Unit composition for all Federacy fronts analyzed—shifting operation to second phase.>>
The Legion were originally made to substitute rank-and-file soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and junior officers, and even the commander units controlling the unified network of the entire Legion army didn’t necessarily have the brain structures of high-ranking officers and commanders.
But among them was the Supreme Commander unit No Face, a Shepherd with the personality and memories of Republic Colonel Václav Milizé, a high-ranking commander. And he knew the blow that would lead the enemy army to collapse didn’t have to be achieved through direct violence.
<<Prioritized target set. Focus on encampments with a majority of Republic soldiers. Encampments with a majority of reservists. Encampments with a majority of minority troops. In parallel, commence long-distance bombardment of rear areas.>>
✦ ✦ ✦
Spanning the entirety of the Legion territories were train tracks capable of supporting their fourteen hundred tonnes of weight. The Morpho’s mechanical, clawlike legs screeched over the newly built tracks as they made their way toward the Federacy’s ten fronts.
One among them was known by the call sign Nidhogg. It was the same Morpho unit that had stalled the train during the Republic evacuation operation, and whose fire heralded the fall of the Republic. After being shot down by the Kampf Pfau, it was rebuilt in the month that followed, and it was now headed to its new theater of war in the Federacy’s western front.
And its last words were:
It’s our turn. Our turn. It’s our turn.
Yes, it had the dying scream of an Eighty-Six. One who deliberately chose to become a Shepherd to take revenge on the Republic, to become a mechanical ghost occupying a murder machine’s control unit.
His hatred was intense enough to cast his life away, and simply burning the Republic people alive was not enough to quell it. Its bloodlust had not yet been satisfied.
It reached its firing point, fixing its sights on the designated coordinates. Nidhogg was informed as to what lay in those coordinates. An impulse akin to laughter filled its Liquid Micromachine brain.
It’s still our turn.
Our turn for revenge, for victory, for slaughter. We can go, right? I can get started, right? It’s still our turn. From now on, it will always, always be our turn. Right?
✦ ✦ ✦
Multiple Morpho appeared in the region surrounding the Federacy’s territory. Its fire went past the firmly constructed front lines and the reserve formations built behind them, striking the supposedly safe, peaceful cities and villages with 800 mm shells.