“Hah… hah… hah…”
Kenyya and Kaguya arrived at the edge of the Slums.
“No way… no way!!”
What Kaguya saw were blood-soaked corpses.
People crushed by rubble.
Many were beyond recognition.
Kenyya, seeing the scene, stood frozen, unable to speak.
“What the hell is this?”
He had never seen such a sight.
He had seen corpses on the internet, with mosaics, and even those had made him feel sick.
But the scene before his eyes now was too vivid.
Too red, too real.
“Ughhh!”
The smell of gunpowder, the smell of smoke.
The stench of death pierced his nostrils, and Kenyya threw up.
The cheerful old lady who always smiled at him, the stern-faced old man who greeted him every morning.
The children who adored Kenyya like an older brother, always asking him to play!
They were all dead there.
“What the hell, why… why did this happen…”
Then, another gunshot rang out.
Wiping his dirty mouth, he looked up, and his face turned pale.
“That’s… the Orphanage!”
Where he had slept and played with the children every day.
Kenyya desperately tried to move his trembling legs forward.
Kaguya, her eyes filled with tears, understood what she had to do and moved her feet as well.
They ran towards the Orphanage.
It was as if his mind and body had become separated, and he couldn’t move properly.
The Orphanage was crushed.
And in front of it were trembling children lined up, and an old woman holding them.
In front of them were two KOGs.
“Attention, Resistance! We’re giving you a warning. Surrender now, or all the children here will die!”
The voice coming from the giant megaphone was a woman’s.
Ymir Earthgards. One of the Empire’s princesses.
Kenyya, out of breath, saw it.
For a moment, he couldn’t understand what was happening, but when he heard the voice, he understood what was about to happen.
“Stop… hey, stop it.”
With a breathless voice, Kenyya understood what he was seeing.
Because the machine guns on the KOG’s shoulders were pointed at the children.
And it began.
“3, 2, 1”
A countdown to death.
“Stop it, please stop!!”
Kenyya’s scream, and the children who heard it, looked at Kenyya.
Takeru, who was actually lonely and always pestered Kenyya to play.
Midori, who ate her meals on Kenyya’s lap, always spoiled.
And Azusa, the little girl who cried every day and called Kenyya Papa, holding his hand.
Reaching out their hands towards him, as if asking for help.
“0. Goodbye!”
Along with the sound of gunshots, they were pierced by lead bullets.
“Uwaaaaaah!!!”
“No, Kenyya! No!!”
Kaguya hugged Kenyya, who was about to rush to the children, and stopped him.
“Everyone! Kaguya! Let go!”
“No, Kenyya. Please. You can’t… we have to run now.”
Kenyya’s gaze was fixed on the children who had been shot.
Some of them were still breathing.
“Big brother…”
Their hands were reaching out towards him.
If he treated them now, they might be saved.
Everyone was reaching out to him.
Their hands were reaching out, asking for help.
He had to grab them quickly, he had to hold them and reassure them.
“They’re like cockroaches, so persistent. We have to exterminate them properly.”
But his hands wouldn’t move.
With another gunshot ringing out.
“A… a… aaaaah!!”
“Kenyya!”
“Nnnn!!”
Kaguya desperately covered Kenyya’s mouth as he screamed on the spot.
She desperately pulled Kenyya away and slowly escaped from the scene.
Tears welled up in their eyes, their eyes were bloodshot as if they were bleeding.
The girl still walked straight, while the boy trembled, as if in a daze.
What separated the two was the difference in resolve and experience.
One had already experienced hell, while the other had enjoyed peace.
He knew.
He thought he knew.
That this world was hell, but he still didn’t understand.
That life could be lost so easily.
That the peace he had enjoyed until yesterday was a fragile peace on a thin thread.
“I thought I sensed something… well, whatever, let’s go, Jillian.”
“Yes!”
…
“Father!”
“You’ve come!”
Isshin and the others were waiting in the warehouse.
Kaguya and Kenyya arrived there.
Isshin hugged Kaguya.
Kaguya was relieved that her father was safe, but she quickly pulled away and asked about the situation.
“Isshin-san. Please lend me a KOG. I’m going to… kill them.”
“Kenyya-kun…”
As soon as the explanation of the situation was over, Kenyya asked Isshin.
That meant he was going to fight.
“I still didn’t understand. About this world. About war.”
His fist was clenched tightly, and he was trembling.
But Kenyya was calm, more than he could believe.
He was in a daze, repeatedly asking himself why.
The conclusion he reached was only one.
“I thought it wasn’t good to kill people. But now, I only feel like I want to kill them.”
Kenyya was consumed by anger.
In his peaceful world, he had learned that revenge was wrong, that retaliation was wrong.
That’s what he was supposed to have learned.
But.
Even now, if he closed his eyes, he could see the hand that had reached out to him, the hand he couldn’t grasp.
The children’s screams, the blood, the eyes losing their light.
That’s why he wanted to kill them, Kenyya was controlled by that impulse.
“I can’t hold back anymore, only with their deaths. For everyone who died… for Azusa… I can’t face them.”
“Kenyya…”
Kaguya grasped Kenyya’s hand.
She held his hand so tightly it hurt.
“…I understand. Go. Kenyya-kun.”
“Father!”
“Unleash that anger. Revenge is wrong? No one who says that seriously exists in this country… not among the Japanese!”
Isshin’s strong words.
Looking around, the soldiers were also looking at Kenyya with burning eyes.
As if to tell him that they felt the same way.
“We have been robbed. Our country, our families, our loved ones. And we still haven’t gotten them back… so, go! Kenyya-kun.”
“Yes.”
Kenyya was about to head towards the KOG with trembling legs.
Isshin approached and strongly tapped Kenyya’s shoulders with both hands, bringing his face close.
“But, don’t forget one thing.”
Isshin strongly tapped Kenyya’s chest, tapping hard to make him remember.
Just like that time, the night Kenyya first rode a KOG and killed a person.
“What’s inside you, remember it.”
Kenyya had been coming here every day.
Not just to protect Kaguya, but also to protect the people here.
He had vaguely come to have such a feeling.
Had he become attached? That was right.
Living together, eating together, laughing together, sleeping together.
Spending those days together, everyone treated him like family.
It was comfortable.
He wondered if this was what a close family was like.
He felt like the children who adored him as an older brother were his younger brothers and sisters.
And he saw the old men and women who took care of him as his mother and father.
Everyone laughed together over small things.
He felt that this was what a family was like, that it was something so warm.
That’s why he wanted to protect them.
That’s why he hated those guys so much that he wanted to kill them.
“This isn’t a battle to kill. It’s a battle to protect. What do you want to protect! What is still alive!”
Kenyya, who had the flames of revenge in his eyes.
But with those words, the flames wavered.
At the end of his gaze, was a girl, trembling, holding Kenyya’s hand tightly.
A girl with red, swollen eyes, who had been looking at Kenyya with worry.
Seeing that, Kenyya remembered.
Why he had come to this world, what his purpose was in this world.
(Kaguya…)
Kenyya remembered.
The one thing he had inside him.
“Regulate your breathing. Take a deep breath, and clear your head!”
“…Yes.”
The blood that had been rushing to his head because of anger began to circulate.
The blood carried oxygen throughout his body, calming Kenyya’s mind.
That’s right, remember.
Why did I come to this world, and why did I decide to fight in this world?
“I’m sorry, Isshin-san. I’ve calmed down a bit, and I remembered. The reason I came to this world is… to protect! Everyone, and”
Kenyya looked at Kaguya.
He continued his words while looking straight into her eyes.
“You.”
Isshin nodded, seeing that.
He was alright now, this boy was not controlled by anger.
He was in control.
He could turn the energy of anger into power.
If he could remember that there was one important thing in his heart supporting him, then he would be alright.
“Go, Kenyya-kun. It’s been serviced.”
And Kenyya boarded the KOG.
He gripped the control stick tightly, quietly storing his anger.
Where he was going now was undoubtedly a battlefield.
His life was in danger, he could die.
Kenyya, who was just a high school student, a shut-in in a peaceful country.
But now he was different, he understood and was aware of the meaning of this power.
If.
If there was a reason why he came to this world, then maybe it was.
‘To fight.’
To resist the unreasonable.
His eyes held the flames of anger.
“I’m going. Isshin-san, everyone. And Kaguya.”
His burning eyes showed not a trace of fear.
“KOG, start up!”