Collapse, the Ordinary Daily Life of the Valkyries

No one cares about me——

In this sea of ​​grass, I feel like I am about to disappear along with this summer.

But before that,

"You, squatting in a place like that is not safe—"

A woman's voice came from behind.

"well……?"

"Oh, there's nothing good to say. You're just a little kid, and you insisted on squatting in the bushes. You better be careful, you almost got kicked away just now."

The woman pointed at me with an unhappy look on her face.

What? I can't help but feel a little angry.

I am the fourth tallest in the class, not a little kid.

"Kicked away? —Kicked away by whom?"

"Fool, it's obvious. I'm the only one here besides you. Who else can you be with but me?"

The woman said confidently, crossing her arms.

"Never mind. It's fate that I met you here. How about chatting with me for a while? My name is Cangqi Qingzi, what's yours?"

The woman extended her hand, as casually as if she were talking to an old friend.

Of course there was no reason to refuse. I said my name, "Tono Shiki," and held the woman's icy hand.

It was a pleasure chatting with this woman.

This person didn't take what I said as "childish talk".

She listened attentively, like a friend.

I talked a lot—about everything.

Things like family matters, a large family with a long history, how annoying it was to talk about etiquette and behavior, how strict my father was, and so on; I also had a younger sister named Qiuye, who was very obedient and always followed me around; the house was very big, with a yard that looked like a forest, and I always played with Qiuye and friends, and so on - all of that.

It was as if I had a fever and I talked a lot.

"Ah, it's that time.

I'm sorry, Shiki, I have some things to do, so let's stop here for today."

The woman stood up and was about to leave.

Thinking about being alone again, I feel really lonely.

"See you tomorrow then. I'll be waiting for you here. Go back to the ward and listen to the doctor's instructions."

"Ah——"

The woman said this as if it was a matter of course, and then left.

"See you tomorrow—?"

Tomorrow we can speak the same way as today.

very happy.

Since I opened my eyes after the accident, for the first time, I felt like a normal person again.

In this way, going to the grass every afternoon became my daily homework.

Calling this woman Aoko would make her angry.

She seemed to hate her own name.

After thinking about it, I somehow felt that she was very great, so I just called her "Teacher".

No matter what I say to the teacher, she always listens seriously and can always solve my problems with just a few words.

I became depressed because of that accident, but thanks to my teacher, I gradually returned to my normal self.

Even if I was still surrounded by those scary graffiti, as long as I could talk to the teacher, I wouldn't feel that scared. So even though I didn't know who she was, maybe she really was a teacher at school.

But, it doesn't matter what happens.

It's really a pleasure to be with the teacher. That's all I need to know.

"Hey, teacher, I can do this."

Wanting to scare the teacher a little, I used the fruit knife I got from the hospital to cut a tree in the grass.

The graffiti that looked like a line cut through it, and the tree was severed at the root.

"It's amazing, isn't it? He can cut through any part of the area where you can see the line-like graffiti so easily. No one else can do that."

"Shiki—!"

Pah! A blow hit his face.

"teacher……?"

"Just now, you were too rash to do that." The teacher looked at me with a very stern look.

…I don’t know why, but I knew I had just done something very wrong.

The teacher's face is scary, and my own face hurts

Suddenly I felt like crying.

"Yes - I'm sorry." I didn't know when it started, but I had been crying.

"————Shiki."

Warm feeling.

"Don't say sorry. Although Shiki did something that deserves a reprimand, it wasn't Shiki's fault." The teacher squatted down and held me in his arms.

"But, Shiki. If no one comes to teach you a lesson now, there will definitely be irreversible consequences in the future. So, I won't say sorry. Even if Shiki hates me, I still have to teach you a lesson just now."

“…Well, I don’t hate teachers.”

"...Is that so? That's great...it seems like meeting you is truly some kind of fate."

Then the teacher asked me about my graffiti. Knowing that I could see the line drawings, the teacher hugged me tighter.

"...Shiki, you saw something that you shouldn't see casually.

"Everything in this world, as long as it exists, has a part that is vulnerable to decay. For us, who know that it will eventually break, we can see it as incomplete because it will always break. What you see with your eyes is the end of everything, in other words, the 'future' of everything being broken."

"Is it seeing... the future?"

"Yes, I saw a future where everything was 'dead'. — You don't need to know any more clearly. If you ever join this world, you'll definitely understand the reasoning."

"Teacher, I don't quite understand what you are saying."

"Ah—then don't try to figure it out. Just understand one thing: never cut those lines lightly.

——Your eyes take the existence of all things too lightly.”

"--Well, if you say so, then I won't do it. But why does my chest hurt so much? I'm sorry, teacher. I won't do that again."

"That's great. If you keep thinking like this, you will definitely be happy in the future."

Having said this, the teacher let me go from his arms.

"But, Sensei, it's really unsettling to keep looking at that kind of graffiti. Those lines will tear if you touch them, and it wouldn't be fun to have all these tattered things around me all the time."

"I can think of a way to solve this problem—that's exactly why I came here."

He let out a long sigh, and suddenly looked like he was about to laugh out loud. The teacher felt happy for some reason.

"Shiki, I'm going to give you a special gift tomorrow so you can return to your normal life."

The next day was also the seventh day since I saw the teacher.

The teacher came over with a big suitcase in one hand.

"Here, put these on and the weird graffiti will disappear." The teacher handed over a pair of glasses.

"But my eyesight is not bad."

"Okay, okay, just put it on. It doesn't have a prescription anyway."

The moment when the teacher forced me to wear glasses.

"Wow! That's amazing! That's amazing, teacher! All the line drawings are gone!"

"Of course. I stole the 'Demon Eye Killer' from my sister and added Aoki Aoko's work to create this rare pair of glasses. You can't not cherish them."

"...Well, I'll definitely cherish it! But, teacher, you're really amazing! You can erase all those annoying lines. It's like magic!"

"Of course I am a magician."

With a smug smile on his face, the teacher put the suitcase on the ground.

Miscellaneous: Random Thoughts

"Recall it now!"

The voice from the Siegfried System echoed in his mind.

That wasn't an encouragement directed at a single unit, but a command to all units in battle.

Ikki sensed the sound that sent signals directly to his brain, bypassing his ears, while driving his Markerf. The jet-black machine, a mass of fighting spirit, charged forward.

"You are pilots who have undergone hypnosis training for one hundred and fifty units. As long as you fully adhere to the optimal combat pattern extracted from the R field, you will definitely win."

In order to arouse the fighting spirit, the system played the lines that every pilot has heard a million times.

The R-area, also known as the Reptilian Brain, is located at the very bottom of the human brain. This area governs the most primitive instincts and is also the source of all attacks and hostility.

The pilot's ultimate mission, it seems, is to activate the R-Field during combat. Developed through hypnosis and repeated training, the R-Field unleashes all the aggression and violent desires a pilot possesses. This surge of impulses transforms in the cerebellum into a desire to connect thoughts with the body's sensory areas.

This means that, because the mind is filled with the desire to destroy the opponent, to achieve this desire, one is single-mindedly focused on exerting all one's limbs, sharpening all five senses. Then, the most suitable battle pattern naturally emerges from the tens of millions of battle patterns infused into the unconscious brain, and the body acts accordingly.

Ikki's Unit 11 lunged forward for about fifty meters, building up enough pressure on his knees before releasing it with a single breath—leaping upward. The jet-black machine, its arms brimming with a 1.5-ton guided assault rifle, touched down on the rocky ground a dozen meters above. The dust kicked up, scattering grains of dust across the machine's surface with a resounding thud, feeding Ikki's skin.

It felt like it was actually my own body standing in the middle of the dust.

One could even clearly feel how cold the trigger of the assault rifle was as he gripped it.

——I am Unit 11.

This strong intention promoted his integration with the body.

——Unit 11, that’s me.

Then, it galloped. Through the perfect combination of an ultra-hard alloy frame and soft steel, this gallop maximized the high mobility of the machine's limbs and skeleton.

"Confirm the positions and distances of each aircraft. Odd-numbered aircraft move forward, even-numbered aircraft spread out."

As the system's commands echoed, information about the specific route, enemy numbers, enemy types, confirmed enemy attack patterns, and the corresponding standards for each machine rushed through his mind. This feeling filled him with a surge of excitement that made him want to shout out loud. This was, in fact, correct. It was proof that both the machine and the system had truly become one.

But he clenched his teeth and didn't really make a sound. He could feel his pulse beating at both temples.

The most urgent task at hand was to defeat the enemy. The nine remaining combat-capable units all obeyed the system's orders and advanced towards the remaining enemies.

The battlefield was a small outlying island southwest of the main island, an artificial landmass constructed specifically for engaging the enemy. During battle, the energy generated by the main island's reactor would form two concentric defensive walls called wave barriers. The landmass they were currently on was the "battle zone," trapped between these two wave barriers. They desperately pushed the enemy into this zone. This way, even if a fierce battle raged within the battle zone, the chance of damage to the main island would be greatly reduced.

—Now, there's only the enemy and us here. Even if we cry out, "Let me out," the adults on the island won't do something as foolish as dismantling the wave barrier. Even to their own children.

This fear completely wiped out the "strange feeling" brought about by the integration of the pilot and the body.

For example, this abnormally long arm is not his own arm; for example, the joints in his body cannot perform this kind of movement; for example, he is not such a huge being - just a little bit of this strange feeling means that the battle will be delayed, that he will be defeated by the enemy, and that he will not be able to return alive.

The most important thing was to accept it. Accept this state, accept who you were right now, accept this dark machine that mimicked the human body and always reminded you of a reptile. Think of all of this as belonging to you.

If this cannot be achieved, as the literal meaning suggests, the body will not even be able to "open its eyes".

Ikki had seen many pilot candidates who, when they first boarded the machine, would curl up into a ball with their eyes tightly closed, like a newborn baby, not even moving.

He himself had no such problem. Ever since he first boarded this machine, he had endured every strange sensation and accepted it. Now, he even took in the machine's field of vision with ease. The "goat's eye," with its 280-degree field of vision, was just that. Even if he could still see over his shoulder while looking straight ahead, what did it matter?

As Ikki galloped, he zoomed in on a portion of his Goat Eyes vision, creating an "Eagle's Eye" that could see two hundred kilometers ahead. It was as if a telescope had appeared in the center of his field of vision. About a kilometer ahead, Unit-1 (Markeins) and Unit-3 (Markdrei) engaged in close combat, leaping into Ikki's sight with a ten-thousand-words scroll. At the same time, he confirmed that the incredibly beautiful object was there.

While its head and arms resembled humans, it otherwise bore no resemblance to humans. Its face reminded one of some exotic mask, but it was unclear whether it was actually a face. It could simply be tentacles.

It was even larger than the mecha we were piloting, nearly as long as a thirteen-story building. However, this massive body lacked any legs, and simply floated silently in the air.

Crystals grow from its back in all directions, shimmering with a breathtaking golden glow. If you get closer, you can see a rainbow of light within that golden glow! It's like gathering all the gems in the world, giving them life, and radiating a brilliant light.