12 The Eve of the Final Battle 5

"Autonomous Defense Satellite Umbrella II. Final adjustments complete."

"Captured unit's pseudo-processor operating normally. Ready for deployment at any time."

Harold nodded approvingly as reports came in one after another.

Harold's fleet had significantly reduced in number compared to its original strength.

He had known from the beginning that the time available to mobilize defense forces unaware of the Laitera Project would not be long.

The excuse that the Third Fleet was preparing an assault on the Second Fleet would have immediate effect, but a cursory investigation would quickly expose its flaws.

Of course, he had prepared contingencies to compensate for the shortfall in combat strength.

Numerous technologies developed by Harold, kept secret from other fleets, were at his disposal.

Overlight Jammers were one such system; the reuse of captured units as ASIDs was another.

Additionally, there was a large mobile weapon system designated Antares.

The interception satellite Umbrella II has just reported in.

The technology, years ahead of other fleets, will compensate sufficiently for numerical disadvantage.

Morale is the decisive factor.

They are at the threshold of fulfilling their wish.

The Harold Fleet will be fighting with the desperation of the dying.

If sacrificing oneself can buy time, they have already resolved to do so without hesitation.

Yet this is simultaneously a complete expenditure of all savings accumulated over eight years—no, since the initiation of the Laitera Project.

Technological reserves, human resources—everything is poured into this.

For Harold, this was a gamble with no margin for failure.

"...No, even if we hold back now, the outcome remains unchanged."

If the Laitera Project succeeds, information can be sent to the past.

From the past's perspective, future prediction becomes possible.

If that information becomes the entirety of one’s memory, even a simulated time leap may not be impossible.

Altering the past—this is the reward for those participating in the Laitera Project, and the reason for their participation.

Without this capability, the Harold Fleet would vanish like dew on the guillotine.

A guillotine—such a relic of outdated times, if one existed at all.

“The Laitera Project will soon be complete.”

Approaching the homeworld from which humanity first departed, using conventional navigation.

There, an immense distortion in spacetime will be leveraged to enhance the precision of etheric communication with the past.

Theoretically, distance should not matter if time remains the same—no matter how far apart, it should pose no issue.

“The other fleets do not know our destination. Even if they did, they could not catch up.”

The time required to catch up would be sufficient for the Laitera Project to reach its final stage.

Defensive equipment is fully prepared.

Even a small fleet, if properly deployed, could hold the line long enough to withstand an entire fleet—provided the time was sufficient.

Time.

Several measures are in place to secure the final moments.

Thus, success is assured.

"It should succeed as the first time jump experiment did."

Harold’s statement is incorrect.

At least according to official records, the first time jump experiment failed.

Shirley and Frederica’s predictions were partially correct, partially wrong.

The first time jump experiment was not led by Harold—rather, by his uncle, the one who copied the Yumi-ka Note.

The theory and apparatus were built upon the contents of the Yumi-ka Note.

The result was catastrophic.

One ship was pierced with a massive hole, nearly sunk.

At that time, all researchers involved—including Harold’s uncle—perished.

There, Harold himself had also participated.

He too was cast into the void of vacuum and perished.

That was all that had occurred in that accident.

Then who, exactly, was he that stood here?

"Almost there. Soon I’ll see you again…!"

A metallic fragment hanging at his chest.

That was the only thing proving Harold’s presence had not been a mere illusion.

There was no past Harold wished to alter.

The claim that the Laitera Project could foresee the future and change the past was nothing more than a pitch for funding and personnel.

Whether either was possible mattered little to Harold.

What mattered to him was acquiring the technology to leap through time.

And observing once more the entity that would appear there.

A brief mention of the obscured past.

The first time-leap experiment had succeeded.

The subject had been Harold Byron.

He had traveled back in time for just sixty seconds.

What he saw as he reversed sixty seconds—research staff moments away from跨越ing time.

And the appearance of an ASID from an unknown space.

It took the form of a human.

It wore pure white armor.

It held a spear with a distorted, twisted tip.

It carried a cannon longer than its own height.

An existence that evoked the end simply by being seen.

It raised its arm.

That single motion erased all staff members who should have succeeded in the time jump one minute later.

The very one meant to embody it was swallowed by the vacuum.

Just as suddenly as it appeared.

The ASID vanished.

As if it had manifested solely to disrupt the time jump.

Harold was captivated by the entity that had slaughtered all his comrades.

Obsessed with a being unknown even by name.

What exactly was that?

How did it appear?

The more one thinks about it, the deeper the mystery becomes.

Eimi's Notebook.

There was an abundance of knowledge unknown to Harold—yet not a single mention of the ASID Harold had witnessed.

The unknown even the great ancestors could not comprehend.

I want to see you again. If possible, capture you—observe.

On the contrary, it had not appeared since then.

Then formulate a hypothesis and prove it.

If acquiring technology akin to temporal leaping were the condition.

How one determines it is unclear—but if that is the case.

Just recreate it once more.

The theory behind the first time jump experiment resided in Uncle's mind. It could not be said that Harold fully understood it.

Above all, replicating the same method presented too many obstacles.

Without understanding the cause of that accident, experiments based on the same theory were not permitted.

Conducting an experiment of that scale underground, without support from the fleet, was impossible.

Thus, Harold devised another approach.

A different method of temporal displacement.

Drawing from his own experience, the possibility of transmitting information to the past via etheric communication.

The Laitera Project was merely a means to that end.

Harold's true objective lay beyond that—once the Laitera Project was completed, once temporal displacement technology was secured.

He hoped, perhaps, that the enigmatic ASID would appear again.

Even if that failed, within a cycle that could be repeated infinitely, he might one day succeed in meeting it through repeated experimentation.

That was Harold’s wish.

What he had first envisioned was, without question, an ideal for humanity.

Thus, he dedicated himself to the military and volunteered for the dangerous experiment of temporal displacement.

That encounter distorted his purpose.

The inherited flaw in Byron’s blood had steered him off course.

“If it fails… then Mio Shōgō.”

The Laitera Project’s greatest vulnerability.

Should she refuse cooperation, continuation becomes impossible.

Ether generated by a single, highly purified soul.

At present, her involvement is the only viable path forward.

Harold offers her the means to alter the past.

Mio provides the essential elements Harold requires.

This is the foundation of their cooperation.

Each holds what the other needs—neither can betray the other.

"...I wish her next incarnation would listen to us as readily as this one does."

If Mio’s reasoning holds, the moment her wish is fulfilled, the entity known as Higashiō Mio will cease to exist.

Yet the Queen’s child will be born from another.

Capture that one as well.

Raise it among humans, as before.

Or simply seize it without question.

But the swiftest method—would be to break the promise.

Let the original course proceed unaltered, without preserving Kusano Rei.

Then, as before, Kusano Rei will die, and Higashiō Mio will be born.

Still, Harold had, in his own way, grown fond of Mio.

Enough to grant her wish, perhaps.

“Living without purpose is too harsh for this world.”

The Laitera Project’s mantra, to Harold now, is mere surplus—yet it is also his truth.

If tragedy can be reduced, that would be better.

Even if tragedies arise unnoticed—pursuing the greatest happiness through the greatest common denominator would be sufficient.

It was an excessively mechanical notion: that even if some individuals did not benefit, the whole would be better off than equally miserable.