Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume20 Chapter 5 (section)

===Part 1===

“Quenser.”

“Are you ready to go, Princess?”

Two people spoke quietly in the darkness.

They were on the way to the Island Nation. The fleet was completing their final maintenance checks while hidden within a ship scrapyard in Southeast Asia.

The Baby Magnum was completing its final tune up as well.

Once that work was complete, they were headed straight to the Island Nation.

The Princess showed him the hand she had hidden behind her back. Or more accurately, the small box she held in it.

“Here.”

“?”

“In the Island Nation, you give chocolate on Valentine’s Day.”

“Oh?”

“Girls give it to boys there!!”

“Gweh!? Why are you attacking me with the corner of the box like that!? Stop shoving it against me!”

The Princess didn’t answer and continued attacking him with her eyes squeezed shut.

But that aside…

“Yahoo!! This is handmade, isn’t it!? Anything handmade by a girl is cause to celebrate if you ask me!!”

“Anything!? This is supposed to special, Quenser!!”

“?”

“(Oh, but I can’t tell him girls give it to the boy they l-l-l-l-like. There’s just no way. But he won’t understand if I don’t because he doesn’t know the Island Nation traditions!)”

Rejoicing Quenser tore off the wrapping paper and began devouring the chocolate with the ferocity of someone starved for flavor after so long with nothing but flavorless rations.

The Princess stared in disbelief when he did this right in front of her.

“Quenser…” she said.

“Hey, I have to eat it while I have the chance,” he said in his usual flippant way. But then he lowered his voice and took a more serious tone. “I might not be coming back alive from this one, so I don’t want to leave anything undone.”

“…You’re right.”

The Princess narrowed her eyes.

This really was not the time for something like this. Neither of them said so, but they still shared the moment together. Quenser could hardly have complained if he got stones thrown at him for this, but that was why he wanted some time to smile together while they still could.

He knew she had to feel the same. She had to know now wasn’t the time, but she had still neatly wrapped up the small box. He didn’t know what meaning that held for her, but she may have been afraid of ending up dead all alone in her empty cockpit.

“Quenser, what will you do now?”

“We’ll see.”

“People think Objects are terrible things that will destroy the world. Even though we were fighting to protect everyone.”

Quenser only smiled vaguely.

He couldn’t bring himself to say that was wrong.

At this point, he didn’t have the willpower left to continue hiding the environmental destruction by Objects theory from the Pilot Elite.

Plus, Quenser himself had killed a certain mother. He had repeatedly stabbed her to protect the Legitimacy Kingdom home country of Paris.

The Princess had only been one cause among many, but it had been one-on-one for Quenser. Setting aside whether or not his actions had been justified, Cheddar Affinity would not have died if he hadn’t been there.

He would have to live out the rest of his life with a child resenting him for the loss of his mother.

“Well…”

“…”

The Princess was a Pilot Elite. He couldn’t pretend to understand how this made her feel.

But he had come to the battlefield dreaming of being an Object designer. This new direction for the world had robbed him of his dream.

So she wanted to hear his answer.

She hoped to find something there to help her.

However…

“I’m sure I’ll be doing something related to Objects. I don’t care what anyone says – I just love them too much.”

The ever-expressionless Princess actually blinked twice in surprise.

“Sure, I’ll have to see how people view Objects and what position they hold in the world,” he said, unfazed. “But I’m not going to let the ghosts of some dead terrorists decide that for us all. So let’s end this silly world war and decide for ourselves what Objects will be in the new world. I’m hoping it’ll be something we like.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t stand how the world sees Objects as villains now, right? Then let’s start from there. Let’s destroy all of this and create a new era where everyone’s thankful for Objects. I don’t know what actual work they’ll do – could be construction and could be garbage disposal – but let’s create a peaceful age of Objects so we can walk up to those so-called experts insisting Objects would destroy the world and give them the finger.”

“…Yes.”

With the softest of sounds, the Princess rested her forehead against Quenser’s chest.

And she spoke in a vanishingly quiet voice.

“I would like that too.”

“Then let’s do it. Someone pulled the trigger on all this to accomplish who-knows-what, but this is still our lives. If we want to do something, we should just do it.”

Time seemed to stop for a while after that.

They might not have the chance for any of that.

They might all die in the upcoming battle.

[[Image:HO_v20_BW6.png|thumb]]

But no one had the right to deny them this moment.

Eventually, the Princess pulled her head away and spoke quietly.

“And don’t forget, Quenser.”

“?”

“When someone gives you Valentine’s Day chocolate in the Island Nation, you have to give them a gift worth three times as much on White Day.”

“What kind of loan shark holiday is that!?”

The Princess held a hand to her mouth and giggled when the boy jumped in surprise.

In that rare moment, her icy expression melted.

“You had better repay me, Quenser.”

“Sure…”

Ordinarily, making promises now might have been a bad idea.

They shouldn’t have been creating extra causes for regret.

But.

Quenser Barbotage couldn’t help but smile as he responded.

“You got it. It’s a promise.”