The med bay smelled of antiseptic and the faint copper of spilled blood. The machines around the pod sighed in slow, pitying repetitions under a single humming strip of light. Inside the pod, Youri lay half dead. Somewhere much further away, he was floating in the gray, empty place where he always ended up after the machine let him go, and he was not alone there.
"You sure are heartless," Alto said, its words sharp as broken glass.
"Well, that's because you took it," Youri answered, drifting through the empty space.
"Do you even know how many you killed? Billions. Trillions, maybe." The voice said it flatly, almost bored, with the kind of cruelty that had long since grown used to the arithmetic of ruin. "So what do you want from me now? You know you're running out of time."
"It's not like I have a choice," Youri said, and his reply slipped out of him like ash. "I'm just an empty husk. Or so they say."
There was a pause, dark and almost amused. "This time, I'll take your liver. You can thank me later. Now you can drink to your heart's content."
Youri managed something like a humorless shrug. "I guess you're not that bad after all."
"Get out of here," Alto said. "It's time to go back to your hell." And with that, it pushed him back toward the light.
"He's awake!" a nurse called from the hallway. "Tell the General!"
A few minutes later, the door hissed open, and Leonora came in like a storm dressed as a woman. The pod hatch lifted, and Youri blinked against the light like a man surfacing through cold black water.
"It's sad to see you wake up," she said.
"Thank you, General. I appreciate it." His voice had that crooked calm in it, apology and provocation braided together.
"Quick on your feet, aren't you?"
"It's not my first time. Don't worry." His smile was a small and broken thing.
She pulled off one of her gloves and dropped it onto his chest, the oldest way there was to make a request like the one she was about to make. "I have something to ask of you," she said, and she did not bother with pleasantries. "I challenge you to a duel."
He looked down at the glove and let out a breath that held tired amusement and resignation in equal measure. "Do I have a choice?"
"You can use a Royal Knight unit, since you have no authorization for your own." She offered the terms as though they were a mercy.
"You know you could get hurt," he said, cocking his head.
"Perhaps. Are you afraid of dying?"
The question hung between them, heavier than any armor, and his answer was a truth that should have sounded like relief. "Listen, lady. I'm missing half my organs and more than a few other things. Death would be a blessing for me."
For a flicker, her expression softened. "Finally, something we agree on. Fine. Have it your way. But don't come crying to me when you get hurt." She turned for the door. "Your unit is ready. We can begin as soon as you deploy."
Space above Ynok felt thinner than usual, as if the stars themselves were leaning in to watch. The Royal Knights were arrayed like a dozen bright spears across the black, and in the center of them the Phantom's cockpit glinted like a dark jewel.
"My lady, the Phantom is fully loaded and ready for battle. We're praying for your victory."
"Thank you. Don't worry. He's piloting a normal unit, so he isn't untouchable." Her voice hardened. "No matter what happens, nobody interferes. Understood?"
"Yes, my lady." The answer was formal, but there was dread threaded through it.
"The other unit has deployed. The duel begins in thirty seconds."
On the bridge, the crew watched the countdown like a heart monitor. "Are they really going through with this?" someone asked, disbelief and a small, perverse hope mixing in his voice.
"Once the General decides on something, she sees it through to the end."
They watched the distance between the two machines shrink, and then the Phantom blurred, faster than the eye could follow. "There they go! Wait — where did the General go?"
"That's the Phantom's ability," an older pilot said, and his voice trembled with respect. "It moves so fast that no normal unit can detect it. Even the Royal Knights can't track it properly."
"Then what is D7 doing? He's just standing there. He isn't moving at all."
"So he's dead meat?"
"Don't get ahead of yourself. He isn't a god pilot for nothing."
The Phantom reappeared out of nowhere like a blade drawn from shadow. It cut, and every sensor on the bridge went white. "There she is! She cut him!" Then the readings cleared, and a gasp ran around the room. "Wait — he survived? He only lost an arm! I could have sworn she cut him in half!"
"You could barely see it," the older pilot said quietly, "but at the very last second he pushed her blade toward his left. This guy is good."
On the screen, Youri's damaged Orbiton was moving now, but not toward the Phantom. "What is he doing? Why is he going that way? Is he trying to run?" A shout went up as the Phantom flickered into existence again right behind him. "Look! She appeared again! He has no chance — that's going to hit him head-on!"
But then the whole picture changed, as if someone had rewritten the stars. Youri had not been running. He had put the system's sun at his back, and when the Phantom came out of its blur, it came out straight into the glare. "She fell into his trap! She can't see him — he used the starlight to blind her!" And by the time the Phantom's sensors had recovered, Youri's remaining arm was raised, and the barrel of his rifle was pointed directly at her cockpit. "The gun — he has it pointed at the General!"
"No, look closer," the older pilot said, and he was almost laughing. "She laid a trap too. The laser units. They're pointed at him."
For a long moment, neither machine moved. Then a thin, incredulous laugh came through the open channel, raw and exhausted. The tension on the bridge broke all at once.
"What do you say, General?" Youri asked, his voice carrying a broken kind of humor. "Why don't we leave it at this?"
She let out a long breath, and something in her posture loosened. "I admit I underestimated you. Youri Kronos, you may be a piece of shit, but you have my respect as a warrior."
"You knew the lasers were there the whole time, didn't you?" he said, half accusing and half grinning.
"I may seem like a genocidal maniac," she said, and the confession cut softly, "but even I don't want unnecessary bloodshed."
"I just want something to drink, that's all," he said, and he sounded almost small.
"You are one strange man, Youri Kronos." There was heat in her voice when she said it, and something underneath it that sounded a great deal like reluctant care.
They returned to Fansilia in the brittle light of the aftermath. The city breathed as though it were exhausted. Leonora's rank still sat on her shoulders like an uneven weight. "Everyone, thank you for your service," she told the crew in the hangar. "The mission is over. You are free to return to your personal lives until the next deployment."
Outside, the car was waiting, and Anna was beside it. "Welcome back, my lady."
"It's good to see you, Anna."
A motorbike engine thrummed behind them like a living thing, and Youri pulled up alongside the car with his helmet under his arm. "Hey, General. I never actually got your name." It was a joke, clumsy and sincere at the same time.
Anna stepped between them without a sound. "Is this man bothering you, my lady?"
"No, it's alright." Leonora opened the car door and let the moment be small and human. He did not wait for her to answer the question; he just grinned, pulled his helmet back on and called over his shoulder, "Well then, see you at Marta's," and drove off into the night.
"Let's go, Anna," Leonora said softly once he was gone. "That was a long mission."
Anna's hands settled on the wheel, and her eyes found Leonora's in the mirror. "Oh, my lady, there's one more thing. Your father has requested a meeting with you."
Leonora's expression closed like a door. "Father? It'll be another marriage proposal, probably. Is he waiting at the house? I really don't want to deal with this tonight."
"I'm sorry, my lady, but I was given strict orders to take you there."
"Don't worry about it. Let's just get it over with."
Outside, the city held its breath, and the stars watched without saying anything. Between the two of them — a woman who could cut through whole fleets and still be undone by small things, and a man who had tasted annihilation and only wanted a drink — a fragile and dangerous peace had settled. Both of them walked off toward obligations that were not going to wait.