After that, the officer told me he’d handle the paperwork, so all I had to do was sign a document saying I intended to enroll in the military academy, and then I headed home.
Of course, I knew the whole thing sounded too good to be true. I made sure to read through the documents carefully, in case I was unknowingly signing my life away. But no matter how many times I checked, the papers said, more or less, that I agreed to attend school at the military academy. That was it. Nothing shady. I could breathe easy.
For peace of mind, I also asked why we’d be getting paid just for being enrolled.
The answer? Students who entered as pilot candidates also served as test pilots. So basically, while we were getting used to the mechs, we would also be helping to work out the kinks and do some debugging.
That was real work. Of course they’d need to pay us.
There was a chance the academy I’d be going to would be more of a testing ground disguised as a school, but even so, I doubted that a real, uniformed military officer would lie to a kid just to lure him into going there.
And if he had… Well, I wasn’t just some kid. If push came to shove, I wasn’t about to go down quietly.
With that determination burning quietly inside me, I returned to our run-down apartment (thirty years old, two rooms and a kitchen, forty thousand yen a month, and no guarantor needed). We’d been living here ever since our so-called relatives had sold our family home out from under us.
“I’m back!”
And now, my next challenge awaited—convincing my little sister, Yuna.
“Welcome back… How did it go?”
Yuna was dead set against me joining the military, and I could hardly blame her. From her perspective, I was throwing my own future away just to make sure she could keep studying and live a normal life.
If the roles were reversed, I would object, too.
However, the truth was, my decision to enlist wasn’t entirely for her. It was because I’d judged that if I didn’t join the military now, we wouldn’t be able to live a halfway decent life in the future. It was for both of us.
That was what I’d planned to say to convince her, but I had a better card to play this time. Something I hadn’t even expected!
“I passed the exam. I’ll be joining the military starting next year.”
“…I see.”
Did her eyes just go dark? Hold on, there’s no need to panic yet.
“B-but listen!”
The last thing I wanted was to see her upset, so I hurried to explain the good news.
“I’m listening…”
My cheerfulness must have told her something was off. Yuna seemed curious now, and her eyes lit up again, prompting me to continue.
“I’m not going in as a regular soldier. I’m enrolling in the military academy first!”
“The military academy…?”
Apparently, she didn’t know much about it. That made sense, though. I hadn’t, either.
“Basically, it’s a school for training future officers. Graduates aren’t grunts—they’re treated as officer candidates. They even get a high school diploma. And that’s not all! Since the test piloting counts as military service, I’ll get paid just for attending!”
“…You’d be an officer candidate? That means you won’t be sent to die on the front lines?”
“Y-yeah.”
Wow, she had really been bracing for the worst. Though I guess if your sole surviving family member said he was off to join the military, even a kid like Yuna would do a little research.
And that research had probably told her that a fresh recruit with no high school education and no backing would quickly end up as cannon fodder.
Normally, she would’ve been right. In fact, I’d already prepared myself for that outcome. It hadn’t come to that, though, because apparently, I had an affinity with magicite—and an unusually high one.
“Huh?” Yuna’s eyes widened when I mentioned it. Yep, I knew the feeling.
I had never told her the results of my physical exams before. I mean, who would, unless something was wrong? I’d never seen her results, either. At most, our parents would just say, “Everything looks fine.”
Anyway, it turned out that even with advances in artificial magicite research, only one in a thousand people could actually pilot a mech. That was how rare it was.
Even Yuna never would’ve imagined that her ordinary big brother was among those one-in-a-thousand talents. Not that I’d known, either. When the officer first told me, I’d been more shocked than she was now.
But putting that aside—
“Mechs are incredibly valuable, but the pilots who can actually control them are even more so. That’s why if a kid with aptitude wants to enlist, they usually send them to the academy first, to make sure they get the knowledge and survival skills they need.”
“H-huh…”
Still stunned, Yuna was obviously trying to process the fact that her boring, run-of-the-mill brother was actually a rare gem. It felt a little sneaky to keep talking while she was dazed, but I figured there was no reason to stop while I was on a roll.
“Also, since I’ll be attending the academy, I’ll have to live in the dorms they manage. I’ll be moving in there at the start of the new school year. And of course, you’ll come with me.”
“What? We’re moving?”
“Yeah. For security reasons and all that. It won’t affect your elementary school, since you’re graduating soon, but it will mean you’ll end up going to a different middle school than we originally planned.”
“So I’ll go to a school near the new place?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry you’ll have to leave your friends behind, though…”
At that age, friends were everything. And the new school, being run by the military, would mean starting over from scratch socially. Unlike her, most of her classmates would probably be from military families or have some other sort of connection.
Yuna was smart, charming, athletic, and had top-notch grades. But because she was so perfect, she might stand out—in the wrong way. I didn’t want to imagine her being isolated.
What would I do if that happened? I could endure anything, except the thought of her suffering through that. Still, we couldn’t survive if I didn’t enlist, so staying here wasn’t an option. But what if that choice made her miserable?
“Well, I’m fine with it.”
Just as I was spiraling into a pit of anxious hypotheticals, Yuna casually cut through it all with a single sentence.
“…You are?”
“Yeah. Well, because…”
“Because what?”
“I already figured we’d have to move when…you know, Mom and Dad died.”
“…Ah. Right. Yeah.”
Normally, kids like us would have been handed off to distant relatives. If that had happened, Yuna would’ve had no choice but to transfer schools, so she’d probably made peace with that the moment our home was taken from us.
The truth was, I was the weird one. I’d seen through our greedy relatives, suspecting them of just wanting the money our parents left behind, and during the funeral, I’d made a beeline for a company executive who’d come to apologize on behalf of our parents’ employers. I’d practically begged him to find someone we could pay to act as our legal guardian—just on paper—until we were in the clear. After that, I’d rented an apartment close to home that didn’t need a guarantor and gotten us the hell out of sight before those relatives could pull anything.
They’d eventually figured out where we were living, but by then, we had a guardian on record, and our relatives no longer had any legal angle to interfere. That didn’t mean I could drop my guard completely, but…yeah. Anyway, enough about that.
The important thing was that I was going to the military academy, and Yuna was coming with me. She understood the risks, knew she might end up isolated, and was still willing to go to a different middle school. That was all that mattered.
…And if she really did end up lonely or unhappy, I’d do something about it. As her older brother, that was my job. But for now, that was just a hypothetical. For all I knew at this stage, she might even end up super popular. In fact, that seemed the more likely outcome!
Yeah. Let’s go with that. Worry but don’t overdo it.
After all, ancient texts—or maybe just common sense—say you shouldn’t smother a growing girl.
“All right! Then I’m counting on you to help with the move. I’m thinking we should do it right after your elementary school graduation.”
In other words, before our good-for-nothing relatives tried to butt in again.
“Oh, right. Your middle school graduation is before mine. Got it. I’ll start packing.”
“Thanks!”
Yes! Mission accomplished—Yuna was on board!
Feeling like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, I decided to treat her to a rare dinner out, just the two of us.
After dinner, we ordered dessert, and it was then that Yuna gave me a pointed little reminder: “I’m happy we got to eat out together, but from now on, let’s make sure we stick to a budget, okay?”
Fair enough. But I hoped she’d let me off the hook this once.