86 Eighty Six Chapter 5

[ … words ]

After his entire squadron was wiped out, he fled from pursuit in the ruins of the city. It was getting dark, and it was snowing outside.

Choosing an abandoned library as a hideout, Shin allowed himself to take a short nap, leaning against the juggernaut’s finely scratched hull, which had appeared during his year of service. We had to wait until dawn.

A little 12-year-old boy can’t help a cold winter night. The walls of the library were thick and completely unharmed, and Shin climbed into the farthest windowless room of the archive, where he was now wrapped in a thick blanket. The Legion’s machines combed the ruins for a while, but soon began to retreat to avoid being trapped in the snow without power. At dawn, it will be possible to reach the base safely. However, it seemed to Shin that before that, he had to be found by a scavenger, whom he gave the name of Fide. He had been following him since the last squadron, but what explained this strange affection, Shin couldn’t say.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of his own name, and he opened his eyes abruptly.

It wasn’t like the voices of ghosts that began to sound after death. It wasn’t so much a sound as a feeling. He hadn’t experienced it in quite some time.

Shin stepped outside as if under hypnosis.

There was a curtain of snow outside, and the cast-iron and ash-stone ruins were almost white. Countless snowflakes swirled silently in the air, falling and falling, turning into snowdrifts and repainting everything around them in their color: the city, the ruins, and even the darkness of the night itself. This quiet snowstorm was so beautiful that it seemed to cleanse even the soul.

He moved along the city street, buried in snow and debris, leading to the central square.

On the far side of the square, a ruthlessly ruined church with two bell towers appeared. In front of her, in the snowy haze, the remains of something huge were blackened.

It was a juggernaut that looked like a skeleton that had fallen apart on the move.

The cockpit canopy was torn off. A faded image of a headless skeleton rider could still be seen on the rumpled hull.

Shin walked over to the juggernaut, sinking into the snow every now and then, and peered into the cockpit.

— … Brother…

If he had been asked how he knew it was his brother’s juggernaut, he would not have been able to answer. I just knew, for no reason. It was a fait accompli.

In the cockpit, as in a snow-covered dungeon, lay his brother. He couldn’t say anything to Shin, the bone-naked body was missing a head.