“I can’t begin to say how grateful I am.”

  The Imperial Knight had been stealthily equipped with a supersonic shuttle package to ferry the heavy Seventh Princess into combat; though only Djibril knew that Maya had been a willing co-conspirator. Sometimes it paid to have connections.

  “Leave these insects to me!” As Iris began to charge a second Graviton Cluster shot, more Akebachi poured forth from their hive. Djibril, Charlotte, and Laura moved to her defense.

  “Go, Ichika!” He hesitated, worried about overextending again, but Laura’s voice spurred him on.

  “Cover me! I’m going to get Houki back!” His eyes gleaming with determination, he chased after the girl.

  “Welp,” Charlotte sighed as she watched him go. “Looks like we drew the short straw.”

  “You know it.”

  “It always seems to turn out that way.”

  “Yeah. But that’s a soldier’s duty. To fight when they’re ordered to.”

  Their comrades were fighting somewhere out there. But all they could do was believe in them. If Ichika was going to go on ahead, the best they could do for him was to make sure not one pursuer made it through.

  “So let’s do this!” At Charlotte’s cry, the battle was rejoined.

  ◇

  “Ah, you’re here.” Off in the distance, the girl in red greeted Ichika.

  “What are you really after?” he asked, not with the rage of before but with a controlled enmity.

  “...My dream.”

  “Your... dream?”

  “No. Our dream. IS are machines built to fulfill their pilots’ dreams.”

  Memories drifted, unbidden, to the surface of Ichika’s mind. The pale girl in his own dream. The more he recalled, the more she and the girl in red looked alike.

  And—fulfilling dreams. Who was this girl, that she would believe so firmly?

  “You already know the answer, don’t you? Somewhere deep down inside.” She smiled faintly. “I am a dream. The power she dreamed of. The future she never stopped dreaming of.”

  “That can’t be the answer Houki chose!”

  The girl slipped the visor from her face. Behind it were eyes just like Houki’s when she was young. No, not ‘just like.’ She was the younger Houki.

  “I am the first IS, Akatsuki. The power she first touched. The power to surpass all within this world. And—”

  As if to finish her sentence, her twin blades slashed downward. Metal clashed on metal, sparks flew as Yukihira Nigata rose to parry.

  “The alternative. the replacement that can finally make you hers!”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Ichika saw Akatsubaki’s IFF identifier change to Akatsuki. Not as a transformation. But as an awakening. The IS Akatsuki, finally reunited with its master, awoke from its long slumber.

  “I exist to make you hers, to eliminate all who would interfere!”

  Ichika had known, or at least could recite the fact, that IS had some sort of AI installed. But something able to take on a life of its own like this was more than just a machine. So just what was an IS, anyway? He didn’t have time to wonder now. Slash after slash rained down on him from Akatsuki as he was pressed back.

  “Ugh...!” A swift parry left Ichika disarmed, Yukihira Nigata spinning from his hand. And then, Akatsuki struck again.

  “Become hers, Orimura Ichika.”

  She was smiling. There was a smile on the girl’s face. A dispassionate smile. Neither cold nor warm as she gazed down at him.

  “So...” Something inside him welled up in anger. “So what if that’s true?!”

  Ichika raised his hand to block the incoming blow. He could hear his armor split. Feel his flesh rip apart. The point of her katana had stopped just in front of his eyes. No. His hand had stopped it.

  “Aaaargh!” Sheer millimeters of respite, bought with his own left hand. Before he lost even that, he wrapped his right arm around the girl.

  “Let me go!” Caught in his grasp, she began to panic, firing off bursts from the Ugachi cannon mounted on her shoulders.

  “Let’s see who can hold out longer!”

  “Wh—?!”

  With his arm still around her, he soared higher and higher into the skies, his wings of light tearing at her as the Ugachi shots slammed into him.

  “Stop! Stop! STOP! ...Stop it!”

  “No, Houki!”

  At the point where the heavens’ blue faded into black, the two IS exploded.

  ◇

  Ugh...

  Groggily, Houki opened her eyes. The blinding white sand of her memories, her soul... Blue sea and sky, white land. She wandered the shore aimlessly.

  “I...”

  Then she remembered. Remembered what she’d done.

  I... It’s all because I wanted to be strong... Akatsuki. The IS she’d been given. The ‘ruler’ of all IS. With the power to dominate any other. With it, she had challenged Chifuyu’s IS, Kurezakura. In the end, Chifuyu was left too beaten to even move, Kurezakura fatally damaged. And when Houki had realized what she had done, her memories had been sealed away. By Tabane.

  “What have I done...”

  Chifuyu disappeared from the history of IS. And it was her fault. She tried to run away from the responsibility. Tried to twist it. Tried to deny it. Her own weakness made her want to throw up. There was no way to pay for what she’d done. No way to redeem herself.

  “I... I don’t...”

  She didn’t deserve to be saved. Not by Ichika. Not by her friends. Not even by Akatsuki.

  “I can’t...”

  She wanted to disappear. To vanish. For the world to never have to see her puny, scheming self again. For herself to never have to see her puny, scheming self again.

  “Don’t run away.” She heard a voice. Ichika’s voice. “Don’t run away, Houki.”

  Ichika, beaten and battered, his IS Byakushiki pounded into scrap, settled to the ground, Akatsuki still in his arms.

  “I’m here for you, Houki.” He forced a smile to his face even as blood gushed from his wounded hand. Not just his hand. His entire body was a mess of cuts and wounds. Yet still, he smiled. “There you go.”

  Laying the unconscious Akatsuki on the sand, he closed Byakushiki.

  “I-Ichika...” Houki’s eyes filled with tears at the sight of him. “Why... Why would you go so far for me?”

  She turned away, unable to watch him like that any longer.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” He stepped forward. “Because you’re you, Houki. Not because you’re someone strong, or someone important. Because you’re you.”

  Again, he stepped forward, and slowly held out his hand. As she felt it brush her cheek, she finally turned back to him.

  “Ichi... ka...”

  “What’re you crying for?”

  “Shut up...”

  Houki could feel the tears well up. But if he could smile for her. If he could say it was because it was her. She... She could smile back. Even with tears in her eyes.

  “Welcome back, Houki.”

  “Ahh... I’m back, Ichika...”

  Beside them, Akatsuki, its mission complete, began to fade away.

  [Her dream is fulfilled...] Unknown to anyone, a smile came to Akatsuki’s face. Whether by its programming or its own will, none could know. [Yet still, I... I’m happy. I can finally say I’m happy.]

  Having found itself, it faded into light.

  And thus ended the Akatsubaki Incident.

  Chapter IV: Respite in a Doomed World

  “Owwww!”

  Two days since the battle. Ichika lay in his bed at IS Academy, his wounds bandaged tightly. Today, his nurse was Tatenashi.

  “Jeez. Quit squirming. You’re a man, aren’t you?”

  “Listen, I’m telling you, it hur— Nnngh!” It wasn’t just his left hand. His entire body was battered. They may as well have just dumped a bucket of antiseptic over his head instead of trying to swab it on.

  “Sounds like it’s time for your nanomachine injection.” Tatenashi, in a nurse’s outfit, smiled while holding up a syringe. Normally, the appearance of an angel all in white to tenderly care for him would have a grin plastered over Ichika’s face, but all he could manage was a grimacing smile.

  “Can’t we skip that? It really hurts.”

  “Of course not. You’re just feeling it working!”

  “Ugh...” Ignoring his complaints, Tatenashi made a quick three injections. He was so badly wounded that the normal one injection wouldn’t be enough.

  “There we go. Good boy.” Nurse Tatenashi smiled as she finished the injection, her miniskirt riding up as she leaned forward.

  “In thirty minutes or so, I’m going to see hell again...” Ichika shivered in anticipation of the pain that would soon wash over him, and Tatenashi sighed at his complete failure to notice.

  “Speaking of which.” Sitting down on the bed, she glanced sideways at him. As his heart turned a backflip, Tatenashi took the chance to run a finger along his lips. “Ichika.”

  “Y-Yes?”

  The worried look on her face made him nervous as she spoke seriously, “Promise me. Promise me you’ll never do something like that again.”

  “Well...”

  He’d do it over and over again for his comrades. She knew that. And that’s why she insisted.

  “What hurts you, hurts us. Do you want that to happen?”

  “Ahh...” Ichika wasn’t the type to argue with gentle admonishment from his elders.

  “Rest well, then. If you’re a good boy, I may just come back again.”

  “Haha...”

  Tatenashi disappeared with a smiling wink, leaving Ichika alone with his worries.

  “.........”

  He’d realized what IS really were now. But he still didn’t know what Tabane was really after or what her motivation was. How would he handle something like this? How would he handle himself? Would anything slow down the global IS arms race?

  “Ugh, jeez.”

  Worrying about it might not help anything, but that didn’t mean he could stop himself. Can we really trust IS with our lives? He remembered what Akatsubaki—no, Akatsuki, had said. That an IS acted on its pilot’s wishes. That it had kidnapped Houki in order to fulfill them. Could he really trust his life to something like that?

  He looked down at the gauntlet on his right wrist. Tell me, Byakushiki. Just what are you?

  The pale girl in his own subconscious. Was it just Byakushiki? Or the archetype of all IS? Ichika didn’t know. But he couldn’t help but wonder.

  ◇

  Even two days on, Houki was still barricaded in the kendo dojo, meditating. She’d said the time had come where she needed to face her own weakness.

  I’ve always been running away. From my own weakness. From my own immaturity. And now there was nowhere left to run. She wouldn’t let herself run away anymore.

  “You’re still worried about that?” As she opened her eyes, she saw Ling leaning against the wall with her arms folded. It was a pose she took often, but today it looked different to Houki. “What’s your problem? How long are you gonna keep staring at me like that?”

  “Um... Well...” Straight to the gut. Ling was nothing if not direct.

  “Anyway, though. You’ve seemed really gloomy lately.”

  “Wha—”

  “Like something’s really weighing on your shoulders. Yeah, that’s it.” Ling shifted her arms to behind her head nonchalantly as she continued. This was more than enough for Houki.

  “How rude!”

  “Not trying to be. I’m just curious, you know? Isn’t your IS gone?”

  “Ahh...”

  Both Akatsuki and Akatsubaki had disappeared. Without them, she was just another average student. But... She didn’t mind.

  “I don’t care. I can’t run away from my strength or my weakness anymore.” Houki was determined.

  Seeing it in her face, Ling smiled. “Mhm. Well, good luck with that.”

  Waving, Ling left the dojo. As Houki watched her friend leave, she was grateful for the concern. That’s right. I’m not alone. She now realized that that was true strength.

  ◇

  “Hmm.” Iris frowned to herself as she scanned through a magazine outside Ichika’s door. Well, it sounded good when I read it the first time, but... I’m not so sure now...

  The headline of the article: ‘Must-read tips for nurses! Spice up your checkups with these!’ That said, this wasn’t Iris’s day to take care of Ichika, so she was in her IS Academy uniform rather than a nurse’s uniform.

  All right. Double-check one last time...

  ‘The way to a guy’s heart? Never let him know how hard you’re trying’

  ‘Make it so you without making it about you’

  ‘He wants a nurse, not a doctor’

  “Umm... Ummmmm.” Unable to work up the nerve to knock, she buried her nose back in the magazine for a triple-check. As she did, the door suddenly opened, catching her directly in the face. “Ow!”

  “Hm? Alice?! Are you okay?!” Ichika was under strict orders for bed rest, but she’d caught him sneaking out.

  “Ichika! What are you doing?!”

  “Well, uhh...” Mumbling an excuse, he slouched back into his room. Before the door could close, Iris slipped in after him. “Jeez, c’mon!”

  “What, you have a problem with me being here?”

  “That isn’t the problem, Alice. Just, guys and girls shouldn’t sleep together after they turn fourteen. That’s just common sense.” Ichika was sure he’d heard that from Houki at some point. He patted Iris’s head as he led her back out into the hall.

  “H-Hold on! Wait! What about your hand! Shouldn’t it be bandaged?!”

  “Ah...” A guilty look washed over Ichika’s face. Seizing the opportunity, Iris grabbed him by the wrist.

  “You... You’re completely fine! Ichika, did you learn some kind of healing magic?!”

  “Well, umm...” As Ichika mumbled, trying to avoid eye contact, Iris continued to push him.

  “What about here, then?!”

  She pulled up Ichika’s shirt and examined his bare skin. His wounds, so deep just recently, had completely vanished. The healing nanomachines may have been effective, but they weren’t that effective. There wasn’t even a fading scar left on him. It was less as if he’d healed, almost more as if he’d been repaired.

  “.........”

  “Answer me, Ichika! Who... Who are you?!” The shock and anger on her face told him that he couldn’t make any more excuses.

  “To be honest, Alice...”

  “Mm?”

  “I... I don’t think I’m a normal person.”

  “What?!”

  “Don’t tell anyone else what I’m about to say,” he answered reticently. “But this isn’t the first time I’ve healed so quickly from serious wounds.”

  “Ah! Some sort of cybernetic fusion with your IS? But...”

  Ichika shook his head, unwilling to go that far.

  “I don’t know. But. Byakushiki isn’t normal. I’m not normal. There’s no way a normal human would be able to shrug things like this off. So... I... I need to talk with Chifuyu. She has to know something about Byakushiki and me.” Again, he patted her head. “That’s a secret, okay?”

  His smile alone was nearly enough to make steam come out of her ears.

  “It’s safe... between the two of us...”

  “Yeah.” He forced a smile to his face. Neither of them knew that a third had been eavesdropping.

  ◇

  “Mmm-hmm-hmhmm~♪ Mm-mm-mmm-hm-mmm~♪”

  Somewhere in the deep, deep blue between sea and sky, Tabane happily hummed to herself.

  “The time has come, Chichan.” Her finger poked at thin air, and around her, a 360-degree panoramic display opened tracing the status of every IS worldwide. “Time for the swan song!”

  Her palm extended to the heavens, and the indicators turned as one from blue to purple.

  “Activate IS Murasaki.”

  A single phrase spread across the display, [CODE VIOLET ACTIVATED.]

  The end had begun.

  ◇

  “Chifuyu. I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  In the secret complex underneath IS Academy... Ichika stepped from the long, dark hallway leading to the operations room, to find Chifuyu reading through some papers.

  “Ichika. What’s up?” She didn’t seem shocked to see him, even though he had strict orders for bed rest. In fact, she didn’t even turn her chair to face him. There was a coldness there that he couldn’t quite place his finger on.

  “Aren’t you surprised, Chifuyu?”

  “.........”

  She’d acted as if the changes in his body were completely expected. The healing—rather, repair of his wounds. His unnaturally-heightened senses. And, more than anything, his uncanny synchronization with his IS. As incredible as it was, it was all being taken as a matter of course.

  “You must know something,” he said.

  “‘Something’?”

  Chifuyu pushed away the stack of papers and stared up at the blank, featureless ceiling.

  “Probably everything you want to know.” She still didn’t turn to face him. He couldn’t read her expression. “Or maybe...”

  “Hm?”

  “Maybe more than you want to know.”

  “......?!” There was already a mountain of things he wanted to know. Ichika shivered as he realized that the truth went even deeper, that there would be no turning back.

  “Are you ready to find out?” She finally turned and looked at him, her stare as sharp as a blade.

  “I...” He’d never intended to push it that far. Curious or not, when it was put to him like that, he wasn’t ready. As if to remind him how childish his decision to bother her with it was, Chifuyu turned her eyes back to her papers. “Chifuyu, I...”

  “Enough talk.” Ichika fell silent for a moment which seemed to last forever. And then, just as he was working up the courage to speak again, the door opened behind him.

  “Mm? Aren’t you being a bit too strict with him, Chichan?” The voice was as playful as could be, but something about it terrified Ichika deep down inside.

 

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