“…Captain Nouzen.”
Shin realized that he must have really been visibly angry if a foreign soldier, Olivia, had to call out to him.
“Captain Olivia. I…”
As a soldier from another army, Olivia wasn’t under Shin’s command, and despite them both being the rank of captain, Olivia had been an officer for longer, to say nothing of him being older and an adult. Not that he was far enough in age to be his father…but he was like an older brother or cousin and, therefore, someone Shin could complain to.
“What should I do? I’ve been sitting still, waiting for this to resolve itself and for her to come home, but that hasn’t happened. It’s getting worse, in fact. I feel like I should have ignored orders to begin with and gone to take her back. Do I have to obey these orders all the time because I’m a commander, a soldier? I want to go save her, but if I do that—”
Me, as operations commander, as a commanding officer, as a soldier, as the leader of the Strike Package’s Processors… But Lena’s not here, and I want to go take her back…
“Does growing up and not being a child mean…nothing goes your way, and you can’t do anything about it?”
Hearing Shin’s truly childish question, Olivia replied concisely:
“Yes.”
His blue eyes looked hard and cold.
“Being an adult means you stop being a child under the protection of grown-ups. It means having things you need to protect that aren’t just your own well-being. It means you have to take responsibility for more things. It means you don’t just live for yourself, and that when you need to make sacrifices for your choices, you’re not the only thing you might have to sacrifice.”
“…”
Just like that one-eyed major general, who’d done everything in the name of the Federacy, of the mission, of not letting child soldiers become killers. He took on that task, even though it meant leaving his wife and children behind. And he did it with the intent of entrusting the future his wife and children would live in to the Federacy military—to Shin and the Strike Package.
I want to tell him that I am a soldier. He was the one who told me to live properly.
“And yes, the reason you don’t know what to do right now is because you understand the weight of your responsibilities. Because you’re weighing the outcomes of your choices. You care for Colonel Milizé, and you care for your comrades, and you know you have responsibilities to follow…and on top of all that, you know you can’t expose Colonel Milizé to danger. You’ve already made your choice, knowing now is the time to wait and protect the place she will return to.”
“…But.”
He couldn’t tolerate it anymore. He couldn’t help but feel there must be a way to make sure everything went well for both Lena and the Strike Package, and he couldn’t tolerate the fact that he couldn’t find it.
“Captain, you saw the previous operation. There isn’t always an ideal choice that makes everything turn out right. Sometimes, your only option is to pick the one choice that doesn’t have the worst possible outcome.”
And sometimes, things came to the point where you simply had to accept that there were losses you couldn’t recoup. He thought back to the Hail Mary Regiment, who’d lost their friends and their homes over and over until they couldn’t take it anymore. He thought about their female commander and those boys whose names he never knew.
They couldn’t take it anymore, and their actions led to catastrophe. They neglected to make the choice that didn’t have the worst possible outcome, and they charged down the most terrible path.
…I thought the worst of them.
Only now, when he was backed against the wall himself, did he realize that. He didn’t want to lose anymore. To not have anything taken away from him again, and having to put up with that impulse, hurt so much.
It only hurt so badly because he cared so much.
As Shin hung his head, Olivia regarded him with a strained smile.
“But all that said, you still need to vent your anger, right? Honestly, next time, you should do something to let off steam before you get that bad… For the time being, I got you permission to do some brawling practice in the maneuvering grounds. We can go for a round now, if you’d like.”
Managing something akin to a smile, Shin said jokingly, “I see. I’ll use your chest for that one, then, Captain.”
Olivia’s smile deepened. “That’s some odd nuance… Just letting you know, I’m not as good with antipersonnel combat as I am in armored combat. I’ll have First Lieutenant Shuga come along—”
“Raiden won’t be enough. You’ll need one, maybe two more people.”
Shin mockingly said something quite rude about Raiden despite his absence, only for Raiden to suddenly walk over and tell him bluntly, “Figured you’d say that, Shin…so I asked your beloved priest to come over and join in.”
Shin looked past him, shuddering, and saw him—the priest—looking less like a person and more like a grizzly bear that’d forgotten to hibernate, flexing his bulky, muscular arms.
Shin felt very overwhelmed all of a sudden.
✦ ✦ ✦
Rito and the others could clearly see that Shin had a lot of pent-up frustration from Lena being in custody following the Actaeon affair. So perhaps as a way to let off some steam, Shin started having a friendly hand-to-hand brawl with Raiden, Olivia, and for some reason, the military priest, much to the shock and surprise of even the Eighty-Six.
The priest being a monster was nothing new, but Raiden was going all out, and Shin was definitely more savage than they’d seen him during training. Olivia fell out of the running first, antipersonnel combat not being his forte, but the boys and girls who’d gathered around to watch saw him off with calls of “Good fight, Captain!” and “I’m surprised you challenged the cap’n to a fight when he’s in such a crappy mood.”
“…But man, the cap’n’s really in a foul mood today… Vice Cap’n Shuga’s putting up a good fight, even if he has the reverend helping him,” Rito grumbled, taken aback.
“Mmm, this is some interesting stuff they’re up to. Maybe I can help ya if honor allows it, Li’l Werewolf!” Shiden stepped up to the plate, chanting a line from a movie she saw at a film festival the other day, and joined the match. Raiden jumped up and charged Shin in tandem with her, rushing past the priest. At this point, Shin’s expression took on a shade of clear anger.
“We’re supposed to join in here, right?”
“Come on, let’s go, Marcel!”
“Me too?!”
And so Tohru, Claude, and Marcel also entered the fight, and with Marcel instantly getting knocked out, the battle became a four-on-one. But despite that, eventually, the eastern front’s Reaper was able to defend his honor and beat all of them back, and it didn’t even completely exhaust Shin. He was gasping for air, though.
The priest, who had moved strictly to defense once Shiden joined in, asked:
“Did you calm down some?”
“Yes. Cleared my head, for the time being,” Shin replied, wiping away sweat with his sleeve.
Tohru fell over and demanded Shin get them drinks, with Shiden pumping her fist and voicing her agreement.
“You’re asking me to brew you tea? Me? Of all people?”
Shin really did seem to have relaxed a little, because he was able to joke like usual. Raiden patted him on the back of the head from behind.
“Just don’t outright state you’re going to mix up the sugar with the salt.”
“No, with cornstarch.”
“I mean don’t play with food, moron. The way things are now, the guys in Supplies will have your head.”
Seeing this, Rito, who’d mostly kept his voice down as an onlooker so far, whispered:
“That’s actually not that bad. It’ll turn to, like, tea jelly.”
“That might have actually tasted nice, if it wasn’t Captain Nouzen making it…,” Michihi, who approached them, said with a strange half smile.
“…Maybe we should have Yuuto try it and tell us how it tastes when he comes back.”
Yuuto, who’d entrusted the information on the Actaeon with the Republic and left with those girls. He, who was now a fugitive on the run from the Federacy military and the police.
He knew this would happen, which was why he didn’t tell a soul and departed by himself, taking all the responsibility for it on his own. And yet…
Michihi smiled softly. “Yes… When he comes back.”