Chapter 54 – Can You Hear Me, Letaria. You Have Come Far.

A void that swallowed light. Moving as though through a dark sea, multiple Makinas threaded their way between the drifting debris.

"Everyone, push forward! There is not a moment to spare!"

At the head of the formation, Letaria's Arden blazed deep violet. Behind it came Steshia, Retta, Aland, and several of Merry's handpicked vigilante corps elites, thrusters trailing faint light through the silent void.

"-- The rest are following behind us, but the bulk of our strength is still back in Seldia."

Merry's voice came through the comm, mapping the situation as it stood.

If and when they identified the enemy, what forces might be waiting there was anyone's guess. Committing the corps' full strength here would leave Seldia itself exposed. So Merry had left the majority of their forces in the city along with Zein and the other freelancers currently in Seldia - there was no ruling out the possibility that other raiders would seize on the chaos to move against the settlement.

"Still, though. Why would the captain go in alone? Those unmanned machines were genuinely dangerous, not going to lie."

Retta's voice carried a mixture of frustration and worry.

"I know, right. He's not the type who goes charging off to take the glory for himself, not normally."

Steshia matched the sentiment in her usual easy tone, but the anxiety underneath it was plain.

"I don't understand it either. But... he carries too much on himself. He may have been shouldering all of this alone from the start. ...Dr. Ichinosei, who's close to him, was in a terrible state - she kept saying, 'Maybe I wasn't reliable enough, maybe he pushed himself too hard because he was worried about me...'"

Merry's words described the state Milea had been in during the comm call before they'd launched.

Letaria was remembering it too - the sight of Milea that she'd seen in the moments before departure.

"Grain going off alone without a word - part of that is probably my fault."

On Arden's display, Milea had her face turned down beneath her fringe and her expression couldn't be read. But her voice had been faintly unsteady.

"He wanted to end this whole unmanned machine business himself, with his own hands, if it was at all possible. He probably has for a long time. The reason he kept pushing so urgently for the limiter releases, demanding more output from the machine - that was what it was for. I'm certain of it now."

Milea paused, then looked up through the screen and met Letaria's eyes directly.

"Letaria, there is going to be combat ahead. ...Honestly, I didn't want to send you into any more of this - not when the questions around Arden's systems are still unresolved. But... I am counting on you."

(Milea... I am all right. I can do this.)

She was still turning it over when a man's voice cut abruptly into the comm.

"Hey, what's going on with you, miss? Spacing out in a tense situation like this - not like you. Where's that usual energy?"

Aland's voice was half exasperated, half genuinely concerned. Letaria snapped back.

"N-no, it's nothing...! I am operating at my absolute usual standard, I assure you!"

"-- All units, quiet. I have a faint beacon. ...Encrypted frequency, corps standard. It's him - that's the captain!"

At Merry's voice, every sensor in the formation locked to a single point.

"He's in there... Please, please still be in one piece..."

Steshia's quiet, prayer-like words hung in the comm.

And in that instant, Letaria's vision went white for one brief, silent flicker.

"-- Can you hear me, Letaria. You have come far."

The voice arrived directly in her mind, without warning.

Not a human voice. Not a transmission. Something that pressed itself into the neural pathways of her brain with no intermediary - androgynous, luminously clear.

"W-what is this...?! This voice - you are - from that time - !"

Letaria cried out before she could stop herself.

"Letaria?! What's happening - can you hear something? Our sensors aren't picking up anything - !"

Merry's alarmed voice reached her ears, but Letaria had nothing left with which to respond to it. The voice in her head was growing clearer, more deliberate, pressing each word into place with ceremony.

"-- Lunect Protocol, transitioning to final sequence. Resonance unit 'Arden', and compatible subject 'Letaria'. The final evaluation test will now commence --"

It was exactly the same voice - the one that had reached into the dark of that void and questioned her about possibility.

The storm rising from the depths of the abyss was about to engulf them all.