14 Shooting Down the Stars 3

He grasps the Long Sword.

A blade modeled from the end of the first Terminus, according to legend, from the distant past.

He cannot claim to have mastered its full capabilities, but this sword has shared hardship and joy with him since the beginning.

It will be fine.

He knows he is not alone.

‘…huh.’

A laugh.

The sound of Edelweiss, unspoken and unheard by any other.

‘That I would rely on someone else.’

When did words, naturally spoken, become the language of people?

The opposition, starting with the unicorn faction, resists yet remains stained by it.

Ah. Surely.

Edelweiss thinks the soul remembers a time when their ancestors still bore flesh bodies.

They have changed continuously, to survive.

But deep within, perhaps somewhere—still wished for something unchanging.

Whether their future changes constitute regression or evolution.

Edelweiss does not know.

But they have come to realize the change does not seem to be something they dislike.

『That person exists nowhere else but here.』

The surroundings are utterly still.

Only faint waves of distant combat resonate.

One lone figure. Protecting her daughter.

『You chose this path, Jin.』

A crimson glow ignites across their entire frame.

The warrior who pushed themselves to the brink of death—facing a foe who struggles to match them.

Undoubtedly a formidable opponent.

Perhaps the strongest Edelweiss has ever faced.

Yet that was precisely what was desired.

『The seat of guardian. I have no intention of abandoning it.』

For eight years, they yielded it to Jin—yet the first guardian remains their own conviction.

Such a chance to contest it never arose—until now.

Challenges a foe greater than oneself without flinching.

Jin did so against himself.

Risked his life to protect his daughter.

『I shall prove it by rescuing—Lady Mio.』

The single eye glimmers.

His resolve is no less than that.

To show it.

Though unspoken—personally, Edelweiss finds the warrior known as Higashi Jin quite admirable.

After all, among the Terminus people, no one matches her in combat.

To abandon a potential training partner like this—such an option does not exist.

Increase Reactor output, easily kick aside Lombardia-class armor.

Etheric light flares as Edelweiss accelerates.

And with that momentum—delivers a full-force double kick to Antares’s flank.

A strike that saves Jin from his precarious position.

Ignoring the disparity in size and weight, she sends him flying.

Edelweiss maintains a rigid focus on Antares, her attention entirely fixed on the opponent before her.

Jin reacts instantly, issuing a warning.

"Small one incoming!"

Her head snaps to the side, as if struck.

Her single eye locks onto the lance—a ferocious predatory fish twisting through the obsidian void.

She deflects the incoming barrage with her Long Sword.

‘Got away with it.’

She might have sustained unexpected damage had she not been prepared.

A faint trace of relief flickers across Edelweiss as she glides to Jin’s side.

‘Is he insolent?’

Her one eye flickers as she stares at Mio, still captive.

The message is clear: she is furious.

‘First, we rescue Lady Mio.’

"Ah... Lady Mio?"

Jin hesitated at the unfamiliar address, but Edelweiss did not respond. She moved forward without pause.

『Let's go!』

That meant, leave the vanguard to me.

Jin was more accustomed to leading the advance, so he would have preferred to shift positions.

But that was impossible.

Even if he asked Edelweiss to cover him with her Long Sword, he could not imagine how she would do it.

Thus, this formation was inevitable.

The enemy held Mio as a hostage.

That had been the concern—yet Mio herself had resolved it.

『Oto... Jin!』

"Mio! Are you unharmed?"

Hearing her voice again after so long.

Emotions surged in his chest, threatening to spill as tears.

He held them back. Not yet.

Mio held hers too.

Here, Jin was present.

That was proof enough.

He is made to realize, with stark clarity, that he has been nothing more than intoxicated by a sense of tragic grandeur.

Someone is desperately striving for him like this.

The self who had been ready to abandon everything—unable to escape the self-loathing so profound it verged on death.

"Safe! But Tōya-kun...!"

"East Valley-kun?"

Why is he here? The question forms, unspoken.

Only he is moving now.

He had believed everyone else was trapped in a captive consciousness—perhaps too hasty a conclusion.

"Destroy the Laitera!"

Mio shouted.

Details don’t matter.

The words to convey to Jin are not the right ones now.

The necessary truth is the way forward.

Only Mio can convey it now.

"Even if we change the past, that future isn't certain. So if we destroy Laitera now, we can stop everything!"

Mio’s reasoning, ironically, reached the same conclusion as Harold.

The alteration of the past has undoubtedly begun. Yet— it has not yet been completed.

An utterly strange state, as if past and future had reversed.

The past is being determined in the future, not the other way around.

And simultaneously, this truth leads to another.

‘That’s why he still can’t kill me!’

Mio’s hypothesis rests on the fact that I remain unharmed now.

If I were unnecessary, Harold would have eliminated me without hesitation.

The fact that he hasn’t means I am still required.

Those two pieces of information from Mio granted Jin a certain relief.

He did not know how a world altered by past changes would unfold.

He had considered the worst: that the current state might persist.

But now, a way to overturn that exists.

In a sense, the situation has returned to square one.

Break through Harold. Destroy Laitera.

And reclaim Mio.

But there is a time limit.

How much of the past alteration will be completed.

Or whether, by prolonging time, Laitera's core will halt due to ether deficiency.

These details are known only to Harold.

‘I see.’

Edelweiss spoke, then severed one of Antares’s legs with the Long Sword.

Though she held back the force, still the vibration was enough to breach Antares’s ether coating.

Even at high output, this offered Edelweiss no significant advantage.

Queen-class, two thousand lammy. Twice Edelweiss’s capacity.

Yet its volume was nearly ten times greater. Distributed evenly, that meant only one-fifth the coating strength compared to Edelweiss.

Harold compensated by biasing the coating distribution.

But he could not keep pace.

Even if Mio’s movements were unrefined, there was no difference between her and Edelweiss—neither could easily read the other’s motions.

Jin noticed it too, watching.

Harold was struggling with that weapon.

Assault Frames were no longer the same class of unit they once were.

Even an ace could not master it without difficulty.

Once that became clear, the opening was apparent.

Harold’s skill was not lacking.

He had never seen it firsthand, but the shipyard differed—there was no doubt he was an ace.

That was precisely why he understood.

‘Monstrous. You are too. And you there, humanoid.’

The one who had always turned his back on other pilots could not even step into Jin’s shadow.

‘Out of curiosity—why did you give up on the Kusakabe Command? No. That’s not right. Could you really give up? If you don’t destroy Laitera, the scene you’ve seen could be replaced in reality.’

Harold’s words, meant as a light provocation.

If the opponent hesitated even slightly in piloting, that was the hope behind them.

"Why? How could you give up?"

They struck precisely at Jin’s most vulnerable point.

"You—say that to me?"

The assault intensified.

The focused Ether Rifle fired several rounds. Without a millimeter of error, each impact struck the same location, severing another limb.

Harold thought, this is like stepping on a tiger’s tail, and turned the tail—the head of the Antares’s largest weapon, the massive Ether Cannon—for counterattack.