Editing BlazBlue:Spiral Shift - Hyokujin no Eiyu (section)

===Part 3===

Jin, Grimwood and the others returned to the base just before the sun went down and the forest was enclosed in darkness.

Here and there in the base, generators powered by seithr were working with a low hum, providing minimal lighting to the tents and serving areas. The iron frames that held the dirty white light bulbs were quite rusty from exposure to the wind and rain and looked as if they had been here for years.

Jin and the others returned to their tents, receiving thanks and praise from the fleeting soldiers who had escaped with them, and even more gratitude and praise from their comrades who had heard their stories after that.

Feeling a little fed up with the different welcoming mood from when he arrived, Jin ducked into the dark and quiet tent and turned on the white light.

As he took off his gloves, which were stained with dirt and blood from the enemy soldiers, he thought he could finally take a break, but this time Jin was met with compliments from the soldiers of the 9th squad.

"That was amazing earlier, Lieutenant Kisaragi!"

As soon as he put down his gun, one of the soldiers ran up to him with a glow on his face and a hint of excitement, but then another one grabbed Jin's shoulder with a friendly smile, a far cry from the daytime.

"I've never seen such a powerful Ars Magus before ...I apologize for having been so rude."

"...No, You don’t need to worry about it. And besides, I was helped a lot by your leader a while ago. It's thanks to you all that I came back mostly unscathed from my first battle."

It was uncomfortable to suddenly be praised openly. The words came out as a way to gloss over the issue, but what Jin said was the undeniable truth.

Grimwood's troops were excellent. In a battlefield where you never know what tomorrow will bring, Jin thought he may have been lucky to be assigned here.

The two soldiers who spoke to him smiled tantalizingly and shook their heads.

“No, it's my pleasure. It's very encouraging to have someone like Lieutenant Kisaragi as the captain's adjutant."

“Adjutant?”

Jin couldn't help but ask back at the unexpected appearance of the word.

This made the soldiers roll their eyes rather puzzledly.

“After Captain Grimwood, the next highest in rank is you, Lieutenant Kisaragi. Wouldn't that be obvious?"

The other soldier, who had been fiddling with his gun a little off to the side as if something was bothering him, looked up and said.

“Now that you mention it, that’s right.”

Jin was less impressed and more convinced.

He hadn't paid much attention to their ranks because he wasn't interested in them, but as he recalled, Karenjina said she was a corporal. He didn’t remember asking the other three what their ranks were, but if they didn't say, it must mean that they were lower than Karenjina.

(So that's what it means.)

Jin looked at Karenjina, who was untying her equipment.

Perhaps she was also concerned about this, and soon their eyes collided. Karenjina frowned in a sullen manner and turned away.

“I'm going to wash my face.”

She spoke that over her shoulder, then quickly got out of the tent.

Grimwood arrived at the same time.

"Oh, the food's ready. Make sure you eat well after you get some rest."

As he spoke, he placed his favorite weapon, the large axe, in a corner of the tent. Jin walked up to it.

"Grimwood. There's something we need to talk about..."

The slight hush in his voice was to let him know that it was a confidential conversation. Grimwood immediately sensed this and looked at the back of the tent.

“Do you want to go inside?”

“No, preferably..."

He wanted to get rid of all eyes except for Grimwood. This time, the soldiers sensed his intentions and emptied the tent so that they could eat dinner. If this flexibility was also a tribute to his earlier achievements, then it was worth to defeat that rock giant.

The entrance to the tent that had been shoveled closed back up with a heavy thud and they waited for the outgoing soldiers to leave for a good minute.

In the meantime, Grimwood sank his strong body into a simple chair.

The tents assigned to each of the squads were too spacious for two people to occupy, no matter how big they were. A lonely ambiance hanged in the air.

“I told the commanding officer to gloss over the earlier matter.”

“Is that so? Thanks, that saves me some trouble.”

Jin replied briefly to Grimwood's words. The case in question was Yukianesa. As the name implied, a Nox Nyctores is a unique weapon. It was not a good idea for anyone to know that a new recruit was carrying one. Jin asked him to keep it under wraps and Grimwood said he understood and will assume responsibility for it.

But Jin's talk was a different topic.

There was no one in the vicinity of the tent. After looking around him once more, Jin placed a hidden object in front of Grimwood.

It was a stone block half the size of Jin's face. A yellowish-gray stone with fine black sand in it. Grimwood could see what it was at a glance.

“Is this a piece of the giant from earlier?”

“Yes.”

“How did you get this...?”

He looked down at the lump of stone lying on the table.

"This was created by a non-Librarium Ars Magus."

Ars Magus is a kind of artificially created form magic that uses seithr to create various phenomena. In order to activate it, you need to have an aptitude for it, as well as something called a "Grimoire".

It is also the Librarium that gathers and manages the countless number of Grimoires in one place. The number of Grimoires managed by the Librarium is enormous and for this reason, it is sometimes sarcastically referred to as thr "Library" by rival organizations such as Sector Seven.

In other words, most of the Ars Magus in the world are under the control of the Librarium.

The fact that other Ars Magus are being used in the civil war suggests the possibility that Ars Magus are being developed somewhere that is not under the control of the Librarium. There is a fear that the technology of Ars Magus owned by the Librarium may have been leaked, or one can imagine a more sinister scheme.

With all this in mind, Jin turned his sharp gaze to Grimwood.

"When you first heard the explosion, you said 'those idiots'. What did you mean by that?"

It wouldn't make any sense to try to trick this guy or probe him in a roundabout way. It would only put him on unnecessary alert. Determining that, Jin asked the question too directly and straightforwardly.

“...You are indeed the owner of a Nox Nyctores."

His mouth twisted into an indescribable shape that was both bitter and amusing, then Grimwood grabbed the stone block that Jin had placed infront of him.

Suddenly, he put a lot of strength into his hand and crushed the lump of stone as if it were a glass ball. He had a tremendous grip.

“It seems that Mr. Commander was not aware of the Nox Nyctores... am I right? Jin, 'who' is the one who sent you here?"

The way he shrugged his shoulders caught Jin's attention. It was as if he had found something he shouldn't have.

Jin scowled. If Grimwood knew 'who' sent him here, then would it be inconvenient for him?

"I'm the one asking the questions. Answer it."

He said as if he was thrusting words at him.

Instead of answering, Grimwood dropped his gaze. He opened his stone-crushing hand lightly and fragments of sand spilled from between his fingers onto the desk.

Grimwood did not answer. The silence clearly meant that there were some circumstances.

Should he have asked again? Just as Jin was about to open his mouth, the cloth at the entrance of the tent was pulled open.

“Grimwood. There's a transmission for you from Yabiko.”

The one who got inside was Karenjina, the petite woman with brown skin and dreadlocks. Grimwood immediately stood up.

"Yabiko. Okay."

Jin chased after him, his voice slightly hoarse, as he made his way out of the tent without hesitation.

“Wait, we're still talking!”

"Headquarters's on the line. Do not interfere."

Quickly turning around, Karenjina blocked Jin's path.

As he was leaving the tent, he thought he saw Grimwood looking at him for a moment, but in the end, the muscule packed captain left without saying a word.

The heavy cloth at the entrance came down, and now Jin was left alone in the tent with Karenjina.

Grimwood's heavy footsteps moved further away.

As he listened, Jin glared at Karenjina, who looked up at him as if she was looking down at something annoying.

Looking back at the cold ice green eyes undauntedly, Karenzina lifted the edge of her lips sarcastically.

"That Art you just used. Is that the 'Nox Nyctores'?"

She said, somewhat mockingly. Her hands rested on her smoothly curved hips, her eyes fixed on the pale scabbard in Jin's hand. She gave him a depreciating look.

"You've brought in some pretty extravagant stuff, but using a person from the Duodecim... It seems even a privileged family like the Kisaragi family can be used as 'guinea pigs'.”

"Guinea pigs? What are you talking about?"

He didn't know what Karenjina was talking about. When Jin frowned and clouded his voice with doubt, Karenjina raised her eyebrows up in mockery.

"Didn't you realize it yet? What a pity. You're just like those noblemen around here who flaunt their great power conceitedly."

“I don’t understand what you are getting at. What are you trying to say?"

There was a dark feeling of pent-up resentment in the way Karenjina spat out her words at him.

He well understood the fact that she was accusing him of being a member of a prestigious family and she made it clear that she felt ill will towards people of that kind. However, just because of that, it doesn’t mean Jin could just be convinced with her taking it out on him as an individual. That was a different matter.

“The lab animals are getting high and mighty is what I am saying. It's really annoying that they're forcing their 'nuisance' onto our troops."

Saying this as if spitting it out from the bottom of her heart, Karenjina glared at Jin without hiding her aggressive tone.

It was not even a matter of shunting. He was no different than being directly accused of being an abomination.

Jin was not so gentle as to try to keep a calm attitude after being told so much. He was going to let some of it slide, but it was frankly unpleasant for him to have to go on like this forever.

“You seem to be trying to irritate me, which is annoying. If you don't like me, that's fine. Don't talk to me."

"How can a recruit be so high and mighty? Are you saying that the Duodecim are more important than a bunch of rogue mercenaries? Or do you already feel like a superior?"

“I don't mean to, but I'm not going to play along with your paranoia either. Are you really that unhappy that you were forced out of your position as second-in-command? If you don't want to be despised as a mercenary, you should learn a little more about the military organization.”

"Wha-!?"

Karenjina raised her voice, her dark skin flushed with red. She took a big step forward and tried to grab Jin's chest, but just as she was about to do so, a different hand reached out from her side and pulled her away.

"Hey, hey, hey. You two need to calm down."

It was Honoka who half-heartedly and forcefully stepped in between Jin and Karenjina, who were staring at each other. Jin didn’t know where he’d been before and come to think of it, he couldn’t find him until now. As he pushed the chests of his two superiors apart until they were barely out of reach, Honoka looked from side to side and smiled wryly.

“You can't have a fight on base. We're all in the same squad after all, right?”

Honoka, while repeating the last bit many times over, tried desperately to persuade the immature adults to calm down. Jin had no choice but to put his unsettled emotions in check when that boy, who was probably much younger than him, said that.

Karenjina seemed to think the same way and with a bitter expression on her face, she reluctantly stepped aside.

“It's not like we were fighting."

She said this in an attempt to disguise her lack of decorum, her arms crossed as if she was holding her taut chest.

Sighing, Karenjina slipped past Honoka with a supple gesture, then headed for the place where Grimwood had been a moment ago. She stopped in front of a chair and looked down at the pile of sand and pebbles scattered on the table.

It was the remnants of the stone that Grimwood had crushed moments ago.

“...You were asking the Captain about this earlier if I recall correctly?"

Unclasping her crossed arms, Karenjina softly spoke up.

Her voice was quiet. She looked down at the small pile of sand with an indifferent gaze and dug her finger into it, taking a scoop in the palm of her hand.

"This is some experimental Ars Magus."

The sand spilled from Karenjina's hands and fell again onto the table. Jin's eyes blinked. It was just as he thought. Hearing the faint sound of his breathing, Karenjina turned around with a thin smile on her face.

“You're not so stupid after all."

She said that with a girlish softness, rather than the stiff, masculine voice of a soldier. This must have been the real tone of Karenjina's voice. It was a throbbing voice that suited her well.

"I don't know how they make Seithr Beasts, but the Librarium gives it to “them” as new weapons. To the stupid nobles, to specific."

Said Karenjina, who had stopped behaving in her stiff demeanor,as she crumbled the pile of sand with her fingers. With a cold glare, she flicked a small piece of the stone with her fingertips and rolled it around as if this object holds height to her.

"Those fools use it with glee. They think they're the chosen ones, without thinking about how dangerous what they've been given is."

The nobel people who were born and raised in this area come here on a regular basis to take advantage of the hunting grounds, to build up their military prowess. Without merit, there is no promotion. So if they were given special weapons for that purpose, who wouldn't use them on the battlefield? After all, they are coming to this base to earn merit. In the first place, those who truly want to participate in the war as soldiers and fight for the Librarium are the troops that will be sent to a more proper battlefield.

“Of course, there are times when the new weapon will produce unexpected results, but most of the time it doesn't. Sometimes it'll just kill lots of people and other times it's..."

"...taken by the enemy."

A murmur spontaneously escaped from Jin's mouth as he scooped up the muddled end of Karenjina's words. 

Karenjina didn’t say anything, but her closed lips spoke affirmation.

Subconsciously, Jin clicked his tongue.

“Just as I expected, that giant was originally an Ars belonging to the Librarium, wasn’t it? But, It was used by the Ikaruga Federation...”

As a result, the rock giant summoned by the unofficial Ars Magus lost control and went berserk.

Perhaps one of the several bright red blotches on the ground at that time was the casters who had summoned the giant. Whatever the actual situation was, the fact of the matter lied in how more than a few people had died in vain thanks to that annoying "new weapon".

Karenjina brushed the sand off her fingertips and leaned over the table.

"The Library and Ikaruga guys are both the same. They don't give a damn about human life."

She must have encountered scenes like today's one many times. Probably the other soldiers of the 9th squad, and Grimwood as well.

"This is not a 'battlefield'. It's a 'testing ground' for those idiots."

There are enemies, there are allies and there are reasons to fight. There is no better place than the lively battlefield to test a large-scale new weapon such as new Ars Magus. It is also a good place to get data on the actual situation, to see how much damage the weapon will cause to the enemy and the allies.

(So this will continue to be the "worst" battlefield with no progress or retreat?)

It was a hunting ground for noblemen to earn achievements and a testing ground to measure the results of weapons development.

Therefore, no matter how hard you fight, the war situation will not move. There is no need to move it. In fact, it is "meaningless" if it is moved. Jin gripped the scabbard of Yukianesa in his hand tightly to the point it could break if it were a normal scabbard.

(Then why was I assigned here?) Jin asked himself.

At least it was not to change the situation at this base. They were not expected to be a force to be reckoned with in order to win the battle and push deeper into Ikaruga.

If that is the case.

(...Yukianesa.)

Finally, Jin understood what Karenjina meant by "guinea pig" earlier.

It is not Jin himself who was being sought after. It is Yukianesa, Jin's personal possession. 

The purpose of this research was to find out how powerful the Nox Nyctores sword would be on the battlefield, and whether it would be able to withstand actual use as a weapon. Jin guessed the purpose was to investigate such things.

That's why Jin was sent to the "testing ground" instead of the "battlefield. That was probably, no, that was the reason.

Jin chewed on his lips in secret. He felt a lingering twinge of annoyance.

He hadn't originally intended to stand on the battlefield for anything. Jin hadn't become a soldier for the sake of the Librarium, nor for a sense of righteous indignation and definitely not for justice, but because the Kisaragi family, who raised him, demanded it.

So he had no intention of playing a leading role in dramatically changing the situation of the civil war. But he didn’t want to be made into a clown playing a farce. More importantly, he was uncomfortable with the idea that someone unknown would be using this sword.

“Anyway, I don't want to die 'cus I'm caught up in your aristocratic complacency. Just remember that."

Once again, with hostility and rejection in her voice and eyes, Karenjina said in a biting tone.

Jin remained silent, but stared back at the brown-skinned female mercenary with an unsettling look in his eyes. The information he was able to get out of her was useful, but that doesn't mean he was going to accept this attitude. In between Karenjina and Jin, who were once again creaking the air, Honoka dropped his shoulders and sighed like he was fed up.

"Now, now. Corporal Karenjina Parsett, I'll pretend that I didn't hear you say anything 'rebellious' against the Librarium, so why don't we make up now?”

Honoka may have meant to soothe the situation, but his comment was even more offensive to Karenjina. The word "rebellious" was particularly wrong.

Karenjina, who steeply lifted the corners of her eyes, glared at Honoka as if he was her enemy. But before she said anything, things were brought to a close by another voice.

"Just as he said. Leave it at that."

Karenjina raised her eyes at the calm, powerful, and deep voice. Grimwood had come back through the entrance of the tent. As soon as she saw Grimwood, Karenjina turned her head in an uncomfortable way and her tone faltered.

"I'm sorry, I... I was out of line."

She bowed lightly to Grimwood, not to Jin, with whom she had been arguing and walked quickly out of the tent.

“She’s not a bad girl, but she's a mercenary, She's got a lot on her plate. Don't be offended."

“I don't really care about ......."

Jin answered in a composed tone, without any excess facial expressions.

Yes, there was no need to worry about it. All he had to do is do the work that was required of him in the way that was required of him. That is all.

There was nothing anymore left for him to do in his life but this.

She bowed lightly to Grimwood, ignoring Jin and walked quickly out of the tent.

“She’s not a bad girl, but she's a mercenary, she's got a lot on her plate. Don't be offended."

“I don't really care about it."

Jin answered in a composed tone, without any facial expressions, without a hint of emotions.

Yes, there was no need to worry about it. All he had to do is do the work that was required of him in the way that was required of him. That is all. There was nothing anymore left for him to do in his life but this.



After becoming aware of what this base was, it was still the “worst” frontline base in the world.

Attacks from the Ikaruga Federation took place at morning and night. Sortie orders were issued as many times a day as needed.

Whenever that siren sounded, Jin took his weapon and went into the forest to engage the so-called "enemy soldiers". Then make up a winnable battlefield and retreat.

He had become accustomed to working as a "hound" through repetition.

As many battles as he had, Jin had shown his outstanding strength to the members of the 9th squad, and his strength had built a certain amount of trust between him and the members of the 9th squad.

But Karenjina was different.

On the battlefield and at the base, she did not acknowledge Jin. She never accepted him. She never looked at Jin the way she looked at her friends. Jin also didn't want to try to repair his frayed relationship with her. If she didn’t want to be acknowledge him, then that is fine. If she didn’t want to accept him, then that is also fine. In Jin's opinion, it had nothing to do with the fighting.

Karenjina and Jin mutually felt the same in that regard.

However, there was still something concealed in her heart. At the bottom of it something was obvious, but how could he trust someone who wouldn't show it to him?

The people around them became accustomed to the stinginess of their relationship before anyone else tried to mediate between them. Occasionally, there was an exchange of sarcasm, and there were also voices raised in frustration. However, They weren’t obsessed with trying to completely eliminate each other, and before they knew it, many days passed...

Before he knew it, Jin's life at the frontline base had lasted more than a month.