Aubade Force Part 2
Unit 5 arrived at the place that once was the Defense Dome where TAKABA’s headquarters stood. Now, it was nothing more than a desolate ruin.
The barren expanse of the vast ruin was unchanged. In the distance, the remnants of large buildings loomed, battered by time. Only the underground sections of the dome retained any semblance of functionality.
This place had long been a site where transferees would occasionally appear, and in the past, it had been under the control of the Murders.
There was no sense of nostalgia.
Back then, survival was the only priority. The voice of Asia had been a chance encounter, and it had led to his meeting with Master. When he opened the doors to the scrapyard to try to survive, he found Unit 5 there waiting for a partner.
He could still see the wreckage of the Keres Mantis-class Murder he had defeated. Seeing the wreckage, Kou remembered the moment he opened it to extract the A-Spinel from its remains.
Moving cautiously, alert to his surroundings, he advanced toward the designated coordinates. If the records were accurate, all that remained there were more remnants of structures—hardly a place where any large-scale traps could be concealed.
Still, he remained vigilant.
Landing and transitioning to walking mode, Unit 5 advanced cautiously. Roller dashing was more suited for covering long distances and high-speed battlefields than urban environments, high-speed movement increased the risk of toppling if struck.
「Well, you’ve arrived.」
A voice came over the comms. It was a low, gravelly tone—Castor.
In the distance, emerging from the shadow of the ruined buildings, appeared a Corvus.
The heavily damaged Corvus had undergone extensive modifications by Vasa. What was once the skeleton of a Huckebein, captured and re-engineered by Albert, had been reborn as a heavily armored machine.
This version of the Corvus, customized for Castor, maintained its mobility while transforming into an extreme heavy-armor unit. Its appearance resembled a knight clad in thick, impenetrable armor. The design philosophy clearly prioritized the protection of Castor, the supreme commander. In its hand was an experimental blade, a prototype of Gram, once owned by Yuzuki. The thick blade glinted with a dull sheen.
「Is Hyoue-san safe?」
「I haven’t killed him. Look over there. There are plenty of uses for excellent Development Engineers.」
Castor gestured to a separate pile of rubble that had likely been another structure. Lying face-down among the debris was the fallen form of Hyoue’s Accipiter.
Its reactor had been surgically destroyed with a precise strike, leaving the thrusters and flight systems on its back shattered.
Kou’s heart sank in shock. Destroying only the reactor from behind with such precision—it was a feat that could only be achieved with an overwhelming difference in skill.
Could Castor truly be that powerful? Kou wondered to himself, a chill running through him.
Castor was the kind of man capable of such a surprise attack, employing both exceptional tactics and precision. His machine, based on the Huckebein, boasted top-tier maneuverability. In close-quarters combat, it outclassed even Unit 5.
「I want proof that he’s alive.」
「Hmm? I’d rather avoid letting him say too much, but I’ll let you talk for a brief moment through my channel.」
The Accipiter’s main reactor had been destroyed, leaving it powered only by a minimal reserve battery via its MCS. That level of power was enough to maintain communications, but the inability to contact Hyoue directly was likely due to Castor’s interference.
「Kou-kun, is that you?! Don’t worry about me! Just run! You can’t beat him—he’s…」 Hyoue’s voice cut off abruptly before he could finish.
「Let’s not spoil this duel with unnecessary distractions, I want a fair fight.」
Castor said this his lips curling into a faint smirk.
「Fine. I’ll end this by taking you down.」 Kou replied coldly.
Unit 5 lowered its stance, shifting into a combat-ready posture.
The Corvus followed suit, drawing its sword—a weapon once wielded by Chiba Yuzuki.
「Think you can do it?」
Neither had any intention of engaging in a ranged battle. The distance between them was less than ten kilometers—far beyond the reach of their swords but close enough for both the Corvus and the Lanius to close the gap in a matter of moments.
The Corvus, clad in layers of armored muscles many times denser than that of the Lanius, resembled a suit of intricately bundled, reinforced cables. Against such a structure, the D-Rifle had limited effectiveness. Similarly, Castor’s MP Rifle, likely developed by Vasa, lacked the power to eliminate Lanius before it could close the gap.
Both machines advanced. The Corvus adopted a middle guard stance, while the Lanius lowered itself into a draw stance, its blade ready to be unsheathed.
The postures of these humanoid weapons mirrored their pilots’ mastery and synchronization with their respective machines—a culmination of relentless optimization.
The Corvus cast off its cape with a flourish as its pilot let out a battle cry, the machine surging forward with blinding speed.
「Kou!」
The twisted visage of madness behind the voice—that was Shuji. Kou’s former senior and friend, and also his benefactor.
Kou’s eyes widened in shock.
The Corvus unleashed a lightning-fast slash, its enhanced armored muscles delivering a strike of unparalleled precision and force.
The speed of the Corvus strike was too great for Unit 5’s iai draw to counter effectively.
Thus, Unit 5 abandoned the idea of a counter-slash. Instead, it raised its drawn blade in an attempt to block the incoming strike.
The Corvus, undeterred, swung through. Whether Kou’s block would succeed or not didn’t matter—the iai technique had an inherent disadvantage, the very act of drawing the blade created a time loss that could be used to counter it.
The sound of metal shattering echoed across the ruins.
Unit 5 failed to deflect the strike completely. The left-side visor of its head was torn apart, and the protective goggles were destroyed. Behind the shattered visor, the twin cameras that served as Lanius’s left ‘eye’ were exposed—one of them rendered inoperative.
「Well now, to take that slash head-on without faltering… You’ve grown, Kou.」
「Stop imitating Shuji-san, you’re not him, Castor.」
That had been close. His breath caught for a moment, and his thoughts nearly froze. What saved him was the memory of Aimer’s words—the principle of fudōchi. It steadied his resolve. His body responded instinctively, and Unit 5 followed suit.
「You don’t seem particularly surprised. Did you suspect something?」
「Not really.」
He hadn’t imagined it was Shuji’s body—but now, it made sense.
Both Hyoue and Yuzuki had been deeply shaken by this. In their state, they wouldn’t have been able to fight. Kou now understood why.
「Fudōchi—sekka no ki. Someone reminded me of that.」
Do not falter, no matter what. Respond instantly and decisively.
Aimer and Master must have anticipated this moment, perhaps guessing Castor’s identity from this place and Yuzuki’s and Hyoue’s defeats. It was now clear why Hyoue and Yuzuki had been defeated so easily. The reason for their loss was undoubtedly the form Castor had taken.
Who could cut down a long-lost family member or lover without hesitation?
「Still obsessed with books? How many times did I tell you to spend that time swinging a sword instead?」
「So Shuji-san’s memories and experiences remain intact, huh? I knew it was a possibility but it doesn’t make it any less revolting.」
He understood, intellectually, that what stood before him was not Shuji. And yet, fighting against someone who looked like his mentor, his benefactor, made him hesitate. Kou couldn’t even be certain he could bring himself to strike.
「Exactly. You understand, don’t you? You have no chance of winning. You couldn’t beat me in the dojo, not even once.」
Castor’s words sent a chill through Kou.
It was the unvarnished truth.
Unit 5 retreated, putting distance between them. Kou didn’t sheath his blade but instead assumed a hasso-no-kamae stance.
「Nothing to say? I suppose not, since the outcome is already clear.」
There was a crucial difference between being able to defend and being able to counterattack.
In a pure swordfight, Kou was at an overwhelming disadvantage.
「But this isn’t a duel of swords. This is a silhouette battle.」
Piloting a Silhouette and swordsmanship were fundamentally different disciplines, even if the finesse of the latter often influenced the former. The Fennel OS was both highly advanced and exceptionally responsive—perhaps even too much so.
The monitor flickered as the visual feed distorted. One of the cameras had been taken out. Fortunately, the other remained operational. Kou silently thanked Hyoue, who had insisted on designing the main cameras with a unique four-lens configuration, two pairs of binocular systems.
「An unusual design—four lenses.」
Castor suddenly remembered, as though recalling an old memory. This was a signature feature of the early Lanius prototypes.
「Exactly. Losing one camera won’t cause significant problems.」
Kou remembered asking Hyoue why he had chosen this unusual structure.
While redundancy against failure was an obvious reason, Hyoue had explained that the design reflected his unyielding defiance—a tangible symbol of the will to endure and survive the battlefield no matter the odds.
The motif for Unit 5’s design drew inspiration from a legendary warrior. Its body, a gleaming black and gold, featured a unique left eye with two pupils—an homage to a feudal lord who once defied the ruling powers in an attempt to seize control of the Kanto region.
According to legend, even after the lord’s head was displayed on a pike, it continued to bellow defiantly, demanding its body back and calling for another battle. This tale of indomitable fighting spirit inspired Hyoue to incorporate that same energy into the unit’s design.
「Your field of view must be narrower now. Shall I make my move? Just like always, I’ll start.」
「Do as you please.」
Seeing Castor’s gloating smile, Kou spat back powerlessly. His words carried no weight.
Back in their dojo days, Shuji had always been the one to move first. While it was common wisdom that waiting for the opponent’s move to counter effectively (go no sen) was vital, an overreliance on countering often turned into a losing strategy.
In silhouette combat, the movements of the machine were intrinsically tied to the pilot’s will. Every action reflected the pilot’s intent, and both combatants now sought to read the other’s next move.
AN:
The Huckebein, initially introduced as a prototype unit, has evolved into something worthy of its role as a nemesis machine. Captured by Albert, analyzed, and reconfigured, the Corvus underwent significant modifications after sustaining critical damage in the P336 Fortress Area, where it lost an arm and suffered heavy damage from encounters with Panjandrums and other unmanned weapons.
For the sake of the pilot’s safety, Vasa overhauled it into a high-mobility, heavy-armor machine. The skeletal Huckebein became the Corvus, equipped with a combination of armored muscles and hardened plating, making it a powerful, resilient combatant.
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