Chapter 57 – In This Dark Sea of Stars, Regret It Until You Are Dust!

"Steshia - !"

Merry's scream tore across the void.

An instant later, the great bulk of Flode - its body riven with the molten hole - was engulfed in a sphere of brilliant white light as its internal circuits ran away.

"Steshia... san...?"

Inside Arden's cockpit, Letaria stared at what was in front of her. Blank. Still.

It had happened in a single instant. And in that instant, something in the deep of Letaria's magic stirred - a violent, unprecedented disruption, like nothing she had ever felt. The world became crystalline and perfectly clear. Fury and grief and raw, exposed emotion pulled the trigger, and the boundary between her own soul and Arden's systems began to dissolve. Her limbs merged into the machine's frame. The sensation of herself and the Makina becoming completely, absolutely one - terrible and total - poured through every nerve in her body like a raging flood.

-- But from far behind the fireball, a single fast-moving signal came streaking in.

A vigilante corps identification code.

"-- Sorry I'm late. Looks like it worked out, though."

A low, weighted voice cut into the line.

"Sergeant Major - !"

At Aland's shout, Retta swung around as though snapped back from the edge of despair.

It was Ethan - one of the corps' oldest veterans - in his heavy-frame machine Ribast. Cradled carefully in its powerful arms was an escape pod, ejected from Flode at the last possible instant before detonation.

"Well, well. Is that a fortification-defense weapon? Escado-standard frame, no question. Were those people planning a war?"

Ethan kept his gaze fixed on Restful's massive form and quickly brought Retta and Aland to him.

"I-I thought I was dead... I nearly knocked on the gates of the next world..."

Through the escape pod's life support systems, Steshia's voice came through - weak, but unmistakably alive.

"You - ! You're alive?! You absolute - don't scare people like that - !"

Retta's voice cracked from relief into tear-soaked fury in an instant.

"I... I'm so glad... I really am..."

On the other end of the comm, Merry had completely lost the fight against tears. But Ethan's Ribast was already calm, already repositioning.

"Retta - Steshia is yours. Take her and fall back. Merry, you too."

Ethan worked the Ribast's heavy arms with careful precision and passed the escape pod containing Steshia to Retta's machine with deliberate gentleness. Retta took it as though it were made of glass - tight, and steady.

"Wait, Sergeant Major! My machine's firepower - it might be enough to land a real hit on that thing!"

Merry pushed back with everything she had. Ethan answered her with the facts, and with a task that mattered more.

"I saw that barrage. Its effective range far exceeds your maximum. If it aims directly at you, you don't survive it. ...But you have the firepower. Take the remaining members and form a final defense line further back. If we fail here, the next move is yours. ...Get ready to put a shot through it."

Not a single gap in the assessment. The judgment of a tactician.

A brief, heavy silence. Then Merry pressed her lips together, and answered deep and steady.

"...Understood. All units, we're pulling back!"

At Merry's order, Retta with Steshia held close, Aland, and the remaining members all reversed at once and began pulling out from the battlefield at full speed.

The red-black monster - Restful - had seconds remaining before its next elimination action.

"Grain. Your machine is in pieces. Stand down."

From the cockpit of the headless Shuel, Grain replied to Ethan's words with an unyielding, almost amused sound.

"Not an option, Ethan. In a situation like this - what kind of acting captain shows the enemy his back?"

Two veterans staring down a death line.

But at the center of it - the storm building inside Letaria had already reached a place no one around her could reach.

"Heheh... heheheh..."

Her laughter filled Arden's cockpit.

But the pressure living inside that sound was on a different level from anything before. In the light of the displays, Letaria's eyes had taken on a fierce, vivid gold - burning, blazing. Arden's entire system was in complete synchronization with her brainwaves, and the machine's thrusters erupted in violent plumes of deep violet.

"Grain, Ethan-sama. ...I am going to end this. You abominable god of destruction - I cannot forgive you for what you have done!"

Letaria fixed her gaze on Restful head-on.

"For laying a hand on my dear friend - in this dark sea of stars, regret it until you are nothing but dust!"

As though answering her fury, the deep-violet Makina drove straight for Restful with savage force.