And when the city finally fell completely silent, the second dreadnought descended onto the landing pad by the crane.
The ship’s hatch opened slowly.
White light burst out from within.
For a second, it felt like the night itself stepped back from that glow.
And then she stepped out.
Admiral Lissa Hartvale.
Her red uniform burned in the cold glare of the floodlights, like a piece of sunset that had fallen onto a battlefield by mistake. Gold epaulettes and medals caught the reflections of the city’s fires. The chains of her orders clinked softly—short, sharp, like a warning.
She walked calmly. No escort. No hesitation.
That’s how people walk when they don’t need to prove they’re in command.
Step. Another step.
The space marines stood still like statues.
She stopped.
Right in front of Blindy, who was still standing in the middle of her path, frozen after Zeros’s sudden “landing.”
The admiral looked at him. Without blinking. One second. Another.
And in a cold, diamond-cut voice, she said:
“Citizen… may I?”
Blindy blinked. Turned. Looked at her. Swallowed so loud
even the space marines heard it.
“…Y-yes, mom.”
Awkward silence. The kind where it feels like if someone dropped a needle, they’d hear it from orbit.
A wave of collective horror rolled across the galactic broadcast.
Somewhere, billions of viewers did a mental facepalm at the exact same time.
Blindy twitched.
“Ma’am! I mean—yeah—ma’am!—not mom—MA’AM!”
Taichō’s shoulder servo twitched—
even the machine couldn’t handle that level of awkward.
Admiral Lissa Hartvale raised an eyebrow.
Just slightly.
But it was enough to make the very air around them stand at attention.
“Conduct yourself,” she said calmly.
And, stepping past him, she moved on. Blindy stood there, not breathing.
Jackie leaned toward Dick and whispered:
“Jeez… that idiot’s either in love…
…or his brain still hasn’t booted,” Dick finished quietly.
He shook his head.
“Baby… that’s just unbelievable.”
He pointed at Blindy.
“This ‘genius’ just—
just called the Iron Lady ‘mom.'”
Dick let out a thoughtful sigh.
“I’d… uh…
walk straight into a fire from the shame.”
Lissa walked up and stopped in front of Zeros.
She clasped her hands behind her back and, narrowing her eyes slightly, looked at him.
“Hm… so we meet again.
KAI—RE—LIN.”
Shiori’s mouth fell slightly open.
Dick, Jackie, and the Author—along with trillions of radio listeners—knew that story.
Once, Zeros—back when he still called himself Kairelin—took contracts from all kinds of factions. And one time, he got a contract on her. To kill Lissa Hartvale. To stop her rise.
But that last contract…
he never completed.
Zeros let out a faint, uninterested grunt.
“Looks like you made admiral…
Not bad, Lissa.So what do you want from me?”
The space marines snapped upright and raised their weapons.
The admiral didn’t even turn her head—she just lifted her hand.
The gesture was brief.
The soldiers froze.
The weapons lowered… but the readiness stayed.
“Every time something catastrophic happens,” she said calmly, “your name shows up in the reports.”
She tilted her head slightly.
“What are you calling yourself these days?
Zeros?”
She took a step back and shifted her gaze to the others.
It lingered on Airi.
Then on Taichō.
“I only need one thing from all of you.”
She turned and slowly gestured across the ruined city.
“Order.”
Her voice turned colder.
“Look around you. You bring destruction with you. Chaos.
And then the Federation is the one that has to clean up the aftermath.”
She turned back.
“That needs to end.”
Dick slowly got up and took half a step forward.
“With all due respect, Miss Hartvale… this time, they’re not to blame.”
He spread his hands.
“Well… not directly. We all just got dragged into this.
Whether we wanted to or not.”
He paused briefly.
“The fight in orbit? Not us. The chaos in the city? Also not us.”
He scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
“The space… blob… uh… that… yeah, not us either.”
He sighed, then added:
“Actually—the cosmic shitstorm…”—he caught the admiral’s look and snapped upright— “…I mean… the cosmic apocalypse, was stopped by those two.”
He pointed at Zeros and Blindy.
“As weird as that sounds.”
Lissa was about to say something when Airi suddenly burst out laughing.