Vengeance Is Mine Read Free

armor-type exoskeleton. His name was Hidehiko Gado, and he was the biological son of the general commander, Nagamasa. He had a pale face with hollow cheeks, with a long, thin face and glasses. He looked like an academic who was always shut up in research labs that didn’t get any sun, or perhaps a librarian.
    Next to him was an Initiator named Kokone. At training the day before yesterday, Hidehiko had rubbed her shoulders, lifted her chin, and stared at her profile entranced. It looked like he had feelings for his Initiator beyond that of a partner or family member.
    Looking at Hidehiko, Rentaro couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Even in just these last few days that the civil officer troops had spent training together, Hidehiko’s clumsiness was apparent. It wasn’t just that he passed down orders slowly—he seemed to lack the ability to make decisions, and Rentaro didn’t feel any confidence or dignity from the man’s orders.
    Even now, as he held his partner Initiator’s shoulders, he looked like he was desperately mumbling a prayer. He was probably praying that the SDF would win and that he would not have to take his turn.
    Behind adjuvant leader Rentaro was the president of the Tendo Civil Security Agency, Kisara Tendo, and her partner, Tina Sprout, who was holding an antitank rifle almost as tall as she was. And then there was the president of the Katagiri Civil Security Agency, Tamaki Katagiri, and his little sister, Yuzuki Katagiri. Also waiting were Rentaro’ssenior disciple in the Tendo Martial Arts, Shoma Nagisawa, and his partner, Midori Fuse. They were all filled with nervousness, and they were holding their weapons at the ready so they could rush out and fight at any time.
    And right next to Rentaro was—
    “Rentaro, do you think the self-defense force will win?” Rentaro stole a sideways glance at Enju Aihara’s profile, her nervous face staring far out over the horizon.
    Even as Rentaro felt impatient, he closed his eyes firmly and tried to change his thinking. Right now, he could not prioritize Enju. He had to prioritize what they were doing.
    How much time had passed?
    The gunfire slowly grew sparse, and the voices of the Gastrea faded. And then abruptly, both of those sounds disappeared.
    On the flat plain in front of him spread darkness that seemed to absorb the stillness of night. Agitation spread noisily, like ripples, among the civil officers. Rentaro overheard people saying:
    “Hey, what happened?”
    “Who won?”
    “Someone go look.”
    Rentaro felt a sudden tap on his shoulder and turned around to see Shoma looking at him with a grave expression on his face. “What do you think, Satomi?”
    “I don’t know… But thinking about it rationally, the self-defense force probably won.” Rentaro stopped talking and looked up, into the darkness. “Right now, I can’t hear the voices of the Gastrea or the sound of the cannons. It’s probably because they drove the Gastrea away.”
    He had said that mainly to make himself feel better. Then, he looked at Hidehiko Gado. “Hey, you. Why don’t you try sending a flare up to headquarters to sound things out?”
    The oval-faced company commander shook his head like there was no way he could. “None of the other squads are doing that, are they? We can’t act arbitrarily on our own!”
    Rentaro was about to protest that they should do it
because
no one else was doing it but then shook his head. This man’s thinking was so different from his own that it didn’t matter what Rentaro said.
    Suddenly, Tina, who had been peering into the darkness quietly this whole time, murmured quietly, “Big Brother, someone’s coming.”
    “You can see them?” Rentaro asked. Then, he remembered that Tina was an Initiator with the Owl Factor in her body. Her eyes had the ability to amplify even the tiniest bit of light and project it onto her field of vision.
    “Yes, there are people walking this way. And it’s not just one or two of them.”
    Before long,