by Shouji Gatou
AS in English
noun, Military
Word Forms: Arm Slave, Assault soldier, AS
/ahmsleiv/
Definition: from “armored mobile master-slave system”
-Kenkyusha New English-Japanese Dictionary, 5th Edition
Arm Slave /armslave/
Definition: A humanoid machine roughly 8 meters tall that serves as an armed and armored assault weapon. Developed in the late 1980s.
Assault soldier.
AS.
-Iwanami Kojien Dictionary, 4th Edition
Prologue
“You got it, Sousuke? We need 2,000 sheets of A4 paper.”
Chidori Kaname stood before the door to the teachers’ office. Against the casual clamor of a high school after class, her tone was sharp and serious. She had black hair that went all the way down her back, accented by a red ribbon, and there was a glint of determination in her eyes.
She wagged her finger at the student before her. “The paper comes in packs of 500, so we need to sneak out four in total. Got it?”
“Understood,” the boy in the high-collared uniform—Sagara Sousuke—responded concisely. His own expression was blank and slightly stiff; his mouth a tight, disagreeable frown. His eyes, sharp and penetrating, were focused on the door to the teachers’ office.
One last time, Kaname and Sousuke reviewed their operation.
“You know where the paper is stored, right?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he replied shortly. “Next to the copier in the back of the room.”
“And what was the plan we agreed on?”
“You’ll start up a conversation with the teacher closest to the copier, Mr. Sayama. While he’s distracted, I’ll steal the paper. Then we withdraw with due haste.”
Kaname folded her arms and nodded in satisfaction. “Yes, excellent. Remember, if the teachers had gotten us the right info in the first place, we wouldn’t have ended up with 2,000 misprinted pamphlets. The student council have a right to recoup our losses. Justice is on our side.”
Rather than argue with her tortured logic, Sousuke turned the conversation elsewhere. “What if you fail to monopolize Mr. Sayama’s attention, and he sees me?”
She groaned. “Do something so he doesn’t see you, then!”
“Do something? All right. I’ll do something.”
“Perfect. Okay, Sousuke! Let’s go!”
Kaname stepped into the teachers’ office with Sousuke behind her. Shooting friendly hellos to the teachers she recognized, she made her way to the beat-up black-and-white copier at the back of the room. Next to it sat her social studies teacher, a man in his early 40s.
“Hey there, Mr. Sayama!” she chirped.
“Well hello, Chidori. What can I do for you, eh?” Mr. Sayama’s chair squeaked as he turned.
Kaname positioned herself between him and the copier corner, presumably blocking Sousuke from sight. “I just have a little question about yesterday’s class.”
“Oh? That was on ancient India, I think...” Mr. Sayama trailed off. “What is it, eh?”
“Okay, so I was wondering...” Kaname began, “why did Chandragupta II have such a weird name?”
Her teacher laughed. “What a silly question. Well now, you see, it refers to the Gupta Empire, which—” he went to explain. But before he could get any further, there was a pop like a firecracker. Thick white smoke began to billow from behind where Kaname was standing.
“Huh?!” She tried to turn around and look, but the smoke was everywhere, cutting visibility to zero.
“What’s going on, eh? Hey... someone!” Mr. Sayama shouted through coughing from somewhere nearby. The smoke had quickly filled the room, and all the teachers were now in hysterics.
“What’s going on?!” Kaname lurched to a nearby filing cabinet for support, also coughing and struggling to breathe. Just then, someone grabbed her arm. “S-Sousuke?!”
“We’ve done what we came for,” he told her seriously. “It’s time to pull out.”
“Hey!” she protested.
Sousuke had emerged from the smoke, holding the packs of paper under one arm. He grabbed Kaname’s hand with his free one, and sprinted with her toward the office door. It was just then that the sprinklers activated, catching the room in a downpour.
“H-Help!”
“Fire! Earthquake! Flood!”
“My... My word processor!”
Cutting past the screams of panicked teachers all around them, Sousuke and Kaname flew out the door. They made it as far as the skyway to the northern building before they stopped.
“We should be safe now,” Sousuke panted.
Both of them were drenched from the sprinklers. Kaname wrung out the hem of her skirt, her eyes hollow and exhausted. “Wh-What in the world did you...”
“I used a smoke bomb,” he said evenly.
“You did what?”
“You told me to do something. Eliminating visibility allowed us to retrieve the paper without being seen. It was much more effective than your crude diversion tactic,” Sousuke explained. “Now, we just need to fake a call claiming responsibility from a terrorist organization like the IRA or the Japanese Red Army, and we’ll be able to completely divert suspicion—”
Slam! A right hook from Kaname sent Sousuke spinning to the floor. For about three seconds, he lay there motionless. Then, suddenly, he sat up again. “That hurt.”
“You shut the hell up!” Kaname yelled. “You... You war-obsessed pathological downer! Do you not realize that you ruined the paper? You know, the whole reason we did this?!” She rubbed one of the now limp, dripping packs in his face.
“It should be usable after it dries,” he protested.
“Don’t you dare try to excuse this!” she fumed. “I can’t believe your stupidity! I don’t care what kind of awesome mercenary AS pilot you are, you won’t get anywhere without basic common sense!”
“Hmm...” Sousuke fell silent, his expression intense, greasy sweat forming on his brow.
Through the fog of her rage, Kaname managed to see that his feelings were hurt. He had probably meant well, she realized, in his own ridiculous way... But that innocence just made the situation even more frustrating.
Oh, for the love of... Kaname clutched her head in her hands.
Sagara Sousuke had spent his childhood in war-torn regions overseas; he had no concept of how to act here, in a peaceful country like Japan. His inability to behave according to others’ expectations—and vice-versa—made him a constant source of trouble for everyone around him.
He’s stupid—incredibly stupid! was the schoolwide consensus about Sousuke.
Ugh... Why must I have this worthless freak in my life? Tell me, God, she lamented. But naturally, no answer came.
Well... the truth was, she already knew why. There was a reason she hadn’t written off his pain-in-the-ass self a long time ago. She had a responsibility to look after him, to explain things to him, to smooth over any chaos he caused. And she had a very good reason not to hate him.
Sousuke had entered her life through a set of very complicated circumstances.
Yeah. That’s right... It all came rushing back to her.
Sagara Sousuke wasn’t war-obsessed or worthless. Take him out of this peaceful setting, and he’d snap into a first-rate soldier. He was part of a real organization; he had comrades-in-arms. Kaname knew about all of it, thanks to one particular incident—the one that had brought them together.
The terrible danger she found herself in, the undeniable feelings that had blossomed between them, and the sprawling mystery whose scope remained beyond her comprehension... Everything that had come from that incident now formed the reality of the daily life they shared.
That’s right, Kaname remembered. It all started about a month ago...
1: Mission to School
15 April, 2137 Hours (Local Time)
80 km southeast of Khabarovsk, Soviet Union
Just kill me, the girl thought. The car jostled her back and forth as it bounced over the rugged terrain. Over and over, fresh mud from the slushy dirt road splattered on the windshield. In the headlights, visions of shadowy pine trees rose out of the darkness, then vanished. She looked into the side mirror and saw a face.
It was a pale face, chewing on her thumbnail like a woman possessed—her own face. Strange, she thought. Why do I look like that? I thought I was more tan from tennis club... But then, how long had it been since she last went to practice—a week? A month? A year?
Never mind, she told herself. It doesn’t matter. I’ll never make it back. I wish he’d just kill me.
“We’re almost there,” the middle-aged man at the wheel shouted. He wore a stiff coat over a military uniform. “The mountains are a few kilometers from here. We’re going to get back to Japan.”
Liar, she thought. You’re lying. We can’t shake them in a car like this. They’re going to catch me, strip me naked, drug me, lock me back in that awful water tank... That deep, dark, empty place... They’ll ask me all those bizarre questions, over and over again. I’ll beg and I’ll scream, but they won’t let me out.
“I’ll do anything! Just let me out!” I’ll cry, but they won’t hear me. Not even I will hear me. And little by little, I’ll keep breaking down.
My only fun will be biting my nails. That’s the only thing I can do, after all... I’ll become nobody, nobody whose only fun comes from chewing on nails... Nails are so good... It’s best when they hurt, best when they bleed... Bleedy bloody melty mails, nails, nailsnails snailsnails...
“Stop it!” The man slapped her hand away.
The girl, who up until then had been silent, in a trance, at last began to speak in a quavering voice. “Let me bite them. Or kill me. L-Let me... bite... or kill... kill, k-killkill kill...” She sounded like a broken cassette player.
The man’s face twisted in pity. He breathed out a curse for the men who had put her in this state. “Disgusting. The cruelty of it... Bastards!”
The man jerked the wheel in anger. Just then, he saw a flash of light behind him. It brushed over his speeding jeep and continued on past. He had enough time to think—that was a rocket. Then, deluged by a wall of roaring flames and hit by a hammer of a shockwave, he saw the whole world around him go red.
The windshield shattered, raining glass down on the two of them. The jeep spun out of control and skidded sideways. It hit a bump in the road, catapulted into the air, and flipped end-over-end through the fire.
The girl was thrown clear through the passenger-side window. If she had breathed in to scream just then, the swirling flames around her would have burned her lungs; she would have died on the spot. Unfortunately, she had lost even the will to do that.
Trailing smoke through the empty air, she plowed through the undergrowth, hit the muddy snow shoulders-first, then rolled like a ragdoll for three meters before finally coming to a stop.
For a while, she just lay there, a puppet with its strings cut. Then, her muddled consciousness cleared. She lifted her heavy head high enough to make out the damaged jeep. It was upside-down now, chassis bared to the night sky, back wheels spinning futilely.
She tried to pick herself up, but she couldn’t move her right shoulder. Maybe it was broken, or dislocated—strange how she didn’t feel any pain. She crawled her way to the remains of the jeep. She found the man, covered in blood, lying just beyond the crushed outer frame.
“Take this,” came his words, eventually—barely audible, and spoken from lips covered in red foam. With a trembling hand, he held out a CD case. “Keep going... south...” For some reason, his eyes were filled with tears. “Hurry... run a...” he managed. And that was the end.
His tear-stained eyes remained half-open, his face locked in an expression of grief. She didn’t know why he had been crying. Was it because he was in pain? Because he was afraid of dying? Or because...
Very slightly, her dulled instincts began to stir. She picked herself up on her shaky legs, took the CD case, and began to walk. She stepped with one mud- and blood-caked bare foot, then the other. She had no idea which way was south, but she would keep going, just as he had told her. Chewing on her brittle thumbnail, dragging her sluggish feet...
She could hear a helicopter approaching: the sound of the rotors churned through the air. The shrill engine growled and the air intake roared. The wind it kicked up made the forest around her rustle and hiss.
She looked up, and saw a gray attack helicopter rising from the pines; its frame was pocked and worn, like a gnarled old tree. She found it very ugly.
“Halt!” came a warning through the helicopter’s speakers. “Stop, or we’ll shoot!”
But the girl didn’t stop. She didn’t even think. She just kept walking.
The voice spoke again, this time a little muffled. “Where does she think she’s going?”
The autocannon in the helicopter’s nose flashed with fire. The shell slammed into the ground to her right. A spray of mud hit her, and the girl pitched forward.
“That’s what you get for being a naughty little girl,” the voice taunted.
She tried to pick herself up with her still-working arm. This time, she felt a shockwave from her left. The force rolled her over to face the sky. She let out a feeble moan.
“You’d better be careful,” the voice warned.
Another shell, then another, burst the ground nearby. Battered about by the force of the impacts, the girl struggled, squirmed, and writhed in the freezing mud. She heard laughter from the speakers, as if a few of them were in there, mocking her. Struggling for breath, the girl continued to crawl forward.
“Aw, poor little thing. All beat up, and still trying to r—” The voice froze up suddenly, leaving the only sounds the roar of the engine and the rotors booming out over the forest.
After a moment, the voice from the helicopter spoke again, this time sharp and urgent. “It’s an AS. I’m taking us hi—” That was as far as the pilot managed.
A squeal of shredding metal and a spray of sparks had erupted from the attack helicopter. The girl looked up, and saw something sticking out of its nose. It was a massive knife—a throwing knife, as long as a person was tall. Its red hot blade was buried deep in the machinery, sending sparks flying.
The helicopter was out of control. It zigged and zagged wildly before, at last, its nose dipped, and it began to plummet toward the girl. She had neither the time nor the will to escape. She was rooted to the spot, watching as the lump of metal came to consume her vision.
Just then, flying in from the corner of her eye, an enormous figure appeared. It strode over her, put itself in the helicopter’s path, planted its feet and spread its arms.
The helicopter continued its fall. There was a collision—shards flew, showering the ground around her. The ear-splitting grinding of gears sang a cacophony, together with the whirling of turbines.
She looked up, and saw the figure’s upper torso holding the helicopter aloft by its crumpled front half. Its back was arched as it strained against the weight, and steam jettisoned from its arms, its back—all of its joints.
Then, still clutching the helicopter in a death grip, the figure began to walk. Each step it took was a slushy stomp, displacing piles of muddy snow. Then, once it reached a safe distance from the girl, it hurled the helicopter into the forest. The craft’s battered remains exploded as they hit the ground.
Silhouetted by the rising flames, the figure—about eight meters tall—turned to face her. It was humanoid, powerful without looking slow. It had long legs and a pinched waist; a broad chest, and powerful arms. Its armor plating had a roundish cast to it, and the head looked like a person in a fighter pilot’s helmet. A gun, resembling the sort typic
ally wielded by human soldiers, was strapped to its shoulders, and it wore a backpack clearly modeled after the human-sized kind.
“Arm... slave...” the girl whispered.
The massive machine—the arm slave—began to walk back toward her. “Are you hurt?” the humanoid weapon asked. The voice was measured and male. “You were pretty close to the helicopter, so I used an ATD. My shotcannon would have been too powerful.”
When she failed to respond, the arm slave knelt down, placed a hand on the ground and dipped its head. It felt like a scene from a fairy tale—the gray giant, kneeling to the broken princess.
With a sound of rushing pressure, the arm slave’s torso split open. The girl watched, stunned, as a soldier appeared from a hatch behind the neck. The appearance of the arm slave’s operator reminded her vaguely of a ninja; he was dressed in a black piloting suit and wore a light, compact headgear.
He jumped down to her side, holding a first-aid kit. He looked East Asian, and he was young—the boy soldier, she thought to call him. He seemed not much older than she was, but he had none of a teenager’s air of immaturity or shiftlessness.
Disheveled black hair, piercing eyes, a furrowed brow, and a mouth drawn in a tight frown... “Does it hurt anywhere?” he asked.
She was a little surprised to hear him speaking Japanese. She said nothing.
“You do speak Japanese, don’t you?” he asked.
Uncertainly, she nodded. “Are you with him?” she asked eventually.
“Yes,” the boy soldier affirmed. “We’re from Mithril.”
“Mithril?”
“A secret military organization,” he explained, “not affiliated with any country.”
She fell silent once more, and the boy soldier began patching her up. Waves of pain washed over her and over her, and her breathing became ragged. She eventually spoke again, her shoulders jerking up and down from trembling. “He’s dead.”
“It appears so,” the boy soldier agreed.
“He died trying to get me out.”
“That’s the kind of man he was.”
“It doesn’t make you sad?” she asked.
