Chapter Text
"What happened back there?" Ernst asked them back on the base. His voice was filled with worry.
Silence.
No one of the four wanted to talk about it.
After some long, tense minutes, Raiden sighed.
Damn Shin. He always left him the worst things to handle.
"That voice Shin heard during the battle… She was... Major Vladilena Milize. Our former Handler."
"Were you… close?" Ernst asked, dubious.
"Close?" Kurena replied "I wouldn’t say that…"
"She tried. She used to call us every night to talk with us about random things. It was pretty annoying" Theo complained, but his voice sounded somewhat stuffy.
“He isn’t being sincere” Ernst realised quickly.
"She wasn’t that bad. She did care for us. She even sent us fireworks that time…" Anju’s eyes went to the floor, and she hugged herself with one arm.
"And she saved us that time" Raiden added "The first day of the Special Mission."
"She even went against the rules. I didn’t think she had it on her" Theo chuckled sardonically.
"And now she’s gone…" Anju whispered
"Yeah…"
"It feels like it's been a while since we lost one of us…" Raiden commented, downcast
"One of us?" asked Kurena, upset "She was not. She didn’t even step on the battlefield."
"No? She fought until the end in her own way, didn’t she, Kurena-chan?"
"But she didn’t have the courage to end it right" she retorted.
"End it right?" Ernst interrupted. He tried to not show it, but he had a terrible feeling…
"A single bullet in her head. That’s how we used to do it in the Eighty Six Sector."
Goddess . He never stopped learning new ways in which the Republic was a god forsaken mess.
"Or maybe she was taken by surprise…"
"Anyhow, now we have to take her out" concluded Theo, closing his eyes.
"It will be hard on that idiot…"
"Why?"
The four of them glared at him.
Raiden sighed again.
"Didn’t you hear yesterday’s mission recording?"
"Theo-kun…"
"Shin was the closest to her" explained Raiden "Some of us didn’t answer her calls, but Shin always did it. They even talked alone at night, or randomly during the day. And…"
"‘We’re going ahead, Major,‘ that's what he said, right?"
"Yeah…"
"At the end, she was the only one Shin-kun could trust himself…"
"What are you talking about?"
Heavy silence again.
"Shin…" Kurena began explaining with a soft, unsure voice "Shin has always been our Reaper. He was the one to put the dying to rest, and he never allowed anyone to share that burden. He’s always the one who survived, so he’s also the one who carried the memory of the dead. But that meant… in the end, there would be no one left to carry his memory."
"Probably the only reason why Shin-kun could keep going forward was because he trusted himself, his memory, to the Major. If he died… at least the Major would remember him. His existence wouldn’t be forgotten."
"But she is gone now… He has no one again." Theo added, bitterly.
"He will go back to how he was in the Eighty Six Sector, when he fought his brother." Raiden concluded, his brow frowning "Yesterday made it clear."
"What do you mean?"
They all stared at Ernst again.
"Our voices won’t reach him…"