* * *
(...Where am I...?)
She lifted heavy eyelids slowly.
Her body still felt wrong — not quite her own, slightly adrift.
An unfamiliar ceiling came into view.
Not stone. Not wood. A smooth, metallic-looking material that wasn't quite cold — strange to the eye, but not unpleasant. The bedding was soft, but somehow too uniform, like cloth conjured rather than crafted.
"...Where was I again..."
Her memory stirred. The exile. The battle in the night sky. The mechanical doll.
(...Am I actually alive?)
She pulled herself upright. On a small table in the corner of the room sat something that appeared to be a meal.
"...What is this."
A vessel unlike any she'd seen. A soup in a color she'd never encountered. And something square that might have been bread.
(...Like a prisoner's ration...)
No proper table. No servants. Just food, set before her.
But the smell drifting from it was, against all expectation, deeply appetizing.
"...It smells rather good."
She raised a spoon to her lips with some hesitation.
— It was perfectly fine.
"...Not bad. I suppose."
She told herself she was being gracious. The second bite came. Then the third. Even Letaria, raised on fine cuisine, had to admit — quietly, to herself — that this was decent.
(...But there's something too even about it. Too consistent.)
The taste was not poor. It was quite good.
It was simply too perfectly calibrated.
"...At least it doesn't appear to be poisoned."
She finished, stood, reached for the door — and in that instant —
Shh.
The door slid sideways without a sound.
"—?! Wh-what?! The door moved by itself—?!"
Not magic. Not a Golem. The door simply moved.
(...This place is wrong. Something is very wrong here.)
* * *
Out in the corridor, things were stranger still.
Metal walls. Light that came from no flame. A passage that stretched on without end.
(...This isn't a prison, is it...?)
Unease gathered in her chest. They had said she would be protected. But there was a pressure to this cold, orderly place that she couldn't quite name.
Then, at the edge of her vision, something soft appeared.
"...A plant...?"
A small pot sat at the end of the corridor. A single spot of green in a world of metal and geometry.
Letaria stopped without meaning to.
(...There were plants like this in my world too...)
Something tightened, very quietly, in her chest.
At that moment —
"Good morning."
A voice, from behind her.
She turned. The young man from yesterday — Grain, captain of Seldia's Vigilance Corps — stood there.
"You've got the translator on. Good. Yesterday must have been rough. How are you feeling?"
"...Adequately. And — where exactly is this?"
"Seldia's isolation ward. A place to keep temporary custody of people whose identity can't be verified."
(...Somewhere I can't leave. That's what he means.)
Grain continued.
"I have some questions about yesterday's battle. Would you be willing to get in that machine again?"
"...The mechanical doll?"
"Not the real thing. A simulator."
"...A sim-u-la-tor?"
The word meant nothing. She tilted her head.
"A training device that simulates combat. Same feel as the real machine, but controlled and safe."
"...So you want me to play at mechanical dolls again?"
"...In essence, yes."
"And it won't hurt? Yesterday I was rather thoroughly thrown about."
"...It won't hurt. It's safe."
(...A combat Makina running Trace Mode, and she walked away saying 'it hurt a bit'...)
Grain's private astonishment did not reach Letaria's ears.
* * *
The simulator room was stranger still.
Rows of cockpit-shaped machines. Glowing panels on every wall. Lines on the floor she'd never seen before.
"...This is truly a training room?"
"It is. Please take a seat in one of those."
She climbed in carefully.
(...It won't go haywire again, will it...?)
The machine hummed to life. Her vision shifted into a simulated space.
"Beginning now."
* * *
The floor seemed to vanish.
"—?! Am I falling?!"
At first, she understood nothing.
"W-wait — is it moving again?! I'm not doing anything—!"
But —
(Something's coming—!)
The moment instinct fired, her body moved on its own.
She dodged the incoming strike by a breath.
The standard machine's Trace Mode matched her movements and filled in the gaps.
"I — is this right...?"
The movements were graceless. And yet the results were sharp. She barely understood what she was doing. Still, the score kept rising.
Beams came at her. She evaded by instinct alone.
Then —
"End of session."
Her vision returned.
Letaria caught her breath and looked around.
"...How did I do?"
Grain was staring at the score readout. He hadn't moved.
"...This is —"
"Did I do something wrong?"
"...This is ace-class performance. Rarely seen even in the regular military."
"...Ace? That means impressive, does it?"
"...Yes. Very."
Letaria tilted her head.
"I didn't do anything particularly special. I simply felt something and moved. Like this —"
She demonstrated with her hands and body, somewhat proud without knowing quite why.
Grain watched in silence.
(...No hits registered. No attacks at all — does she simply not know how to fight, or is something else happening here...? Either way. This is not ordinary.)
He had written the score down before he could think better of it.
Then —
Shh.
The door opened.
"Very good. Excellent, in fact."
A new scent came into the room with her.
Grain looked up.
"Dr. Ichinose. What brings you here?"
The woman wore something like a white coat. Sharp eyes. A brightness behind them that suggested she found the situation entertaining.
"I've been watching the combat data from yesterday. The moment this score came up, I knew."
Her gaze moved to Letaria.
"You were the one piloting that old Makina."
Letaria stood a little straighter.
"...And you are?"
The woman smiled.
"Milea Ichinose. Head of weapons development, Syn-Fibra Corporation. I'll be looking into you a little further, if you don't mind."