It is the assessment of this council that the JSDF and the Japanese government should be folded into the broader ARC and UCF government, respectively, until such a time that Japan is capable of governing itself, in alignment with humanity’s goals in service of God and Mankind. As a formal resolution, let it be known that, as of this day, unto such a point, the nation once known as Japan, or Nippon, will be fully assimilated into the UCF as a subject colony of the central government of Axis Mundi. God Bless the UCF and the Way of the Sword.
UN resolution to assimilate Japan into the broader UCF empire, UCF 332, USA 2108
Point Valley, San Antonio, Texas, Axis Mundi, Earth, UCF 02/16/454, 1231 hours
Approximately six weeks later
「あなた、ご飯はできたてだよ。」
Eyes closed. Warmth and light on her face. Flechette lies in the San Antonio sun, savoring the pull of Earth gravity, the dry heat of the desert breeze. She counts her breaths.
In.
Out.
One.
She opens her eyes and looks towards the blinding sky. In another life, that wild blue yonder would be inverted, and the Earth itself the ceiling of her world. She recalls the many bright hours, laughing with Tang in the mess hall, as she would look out through the immense expanses of ferroglass, opening to that great blue marble above. Flechette counts another breath.
In.
Out.
Two.
Stretching out through a leisurely quarter-second, before climbing to her feet, Flechette turns to the voice that had called across the yard only a moment ago.
“Yes, Mom. I’m coming.”
“Hanabi-kun, a package came in for you today. I left it by the entryway.” Flechette’s father, Watchman, tends to bristle at his wife calling Flechette the child-nickname. But Watchman is away, on orders. The eternal sentinel. So for now, her mother, Aiko, regresses to the old nickname, easier for her tongue than the foreign shapes of Flechette.
Hanabi. A gentler rendition of the name chosen for her. Flechette idly chews her meatloaf while imagining the kind of world that might contain that alternate, gentler self. A dulled knife.
“Huh? Oh. Thank you. I’ll, uh, get to it later.” Flechette catches her mother’s eye, and immediately fills with shame. The look of pity and pain reflected back at her makes her stomach turn. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not weak. Flechette scowls involuntarily, and Aiko averts her eyes, embarrassed.
Lunch progresses mostly in silence. Warm, mostly comfortable silence. But silence all the same. After being away for so many years, Aiko’s daughter, her precious firework, is back home. A laureled and celebrated soldier, an eldest son worth carrying on a family legacy. And yet, here she is, the war-angel pilot, the warrior, the multimillion-dollar human weapon, who leveled mountains and shattered battlefields with her very stride, rendered into a small, grieving shape. Too broken and awkward to be able to carry a conversation with her mother. Her shoulders tremble with a weight her mother will never know. Can never really know.
Aiko, more loving than brave, breaches the silence.
“Hanabi-kun… I’m… I’m sorry about your… friend.”
Flechette stiffens, almost imperceptibly. As if Watchman is lecturing her again. She rises to go.
“W-wait!”
“What.”
“I just… You know you can talk to me. You can talk to me…”
The acknowledgement of her suffering is too much. It’s too much. A low roar begins to burn through Flechette, threatening to rise into something her mother does not deserve.
“Can I, mom? What could I possibly say to you that you would understand?”
The double meaning is not lost on her mother, and it hits her like a slap to the face. Her mother winces, looks as if she is about to cry. Flechette’s anger immediately bottoms out into crushing guilt. Regret, her new companion.
“Mom I— I’m sorry— I didn’t mean…”
Her mother doesn’t face her. Her voice carries hurt, and, worse, kindness.
“I’m not stupid, you know. I know I am not as good at English as you or… your father.” She speaks the title as if handling a bomb.
“But I’m not stupid. I understand things. And… I can help you. Let me help you,” she pleads.
Flechette stands unmoving, fists clenched. One. Two. Three. The smallest bead of blood trickles from the bite of her nails into her palm.
I am in the VENUS. I am safe. I am the blade’s edge. I am the blade’s edge…
“I’m sorry. Thank you for your generous offer. I’ll be fine. I’m going to go to my room now.”
“Hanabi—”
“That’s not my name.”
“Hanabi!”
Flechette looks at her mother coldly. All of the pain, threatening to rise like bile, hardens into a cold ingot of lead.
“Woman. You may address me by my name or my rank.”
Aiko stares at her, stunned, before remembering her place. Remembering the protocols burned into her memory through the only real teacher.
“Yes, of course, Flechette,” she responds, hastily.
“I am going to my room.”
“…Okay. I’m— I’m sorry. Don’t—”
“I won’t forget my package by the door.”
“…Okay.”
As Flechette walks down the hallway to her bedroom, she hears the quietest whimper of her mother weeping. Flechette looks at the bloody arcs in her palm. I am the blade’s edge.