The Black Knight's Revelation

The Black Knight screamed, "This can't be! How could it be the same Dracore!" The interior of the laboratory descended into chaos in an instant. The scene on the monitors defied any rational explanation. An undetected Dracore—and it was aiming its weapons at its own allies.

"According to the Defense Agency's report, only a single Dracore was deployed to the site!"

"Then what the hell is that...? Did we have some unknown unit we weren't told about?"

"We're verifying it now! But according to all records, there is no—!"

Amid the researchers' rising panic, only Hideo remained silent, staring intently at the screen. Deep in his eyes there was no trace of unfamiliar fear—only cold, absolute certainty.

"...I know that thing."

"Doctor?"

"It first revealed itself ten years ago during the Hokkaido dimensional collapse. That's when it received the codename Black Knight as a named entity."

Every breath in the room stopped at once. Hideo kept speaking.

"At the time, we had nearly succeeded in suppressing the invasion. The Outer numbers were under control and dimensional interference was stabilizing. But… after that thing appeared, everything collapsed. We initially believed it was terrorism or an internal betrayal, but later the truth became obvious."

"…A named entity? Are you saying that thing is an Outer?"

"More precisely, it's an Outer fused with a Dracore. It absorbed the unit, mimicked it, and infiltrated us in disguise. We learned for the first time that Outers could do something like that… back then."

His voice sounded closer to a confession than an explanation. With a pale expression, Hideo stared at the screen and quietly delivered his conclusion.

"In any case, that is not a Dracore. It's an Outer. And one possessing considerable intelligence…"

The moment those words left his mouth, the air in the control room grew oppressively heavy. One researcher asked cautiously.

"…Then what should we do about Yuto and Luna? Leaving them on site seems far too dangerous, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠doesn't it?"

Hideo fell silent for a brief moment, then reached out and connected directly to the comms equipment himself.

"Yuto, can you hear me?"

After a short pause, a signal tone echoed inside the cockpit and the line connected.

"What you're currently facing is an Outer wearing the shell of a Dracore. And it's no ordinary specimen."

Hideo's voice was quiet yet resolute.

"Withdraw immediately."

2.

Withdraw immediately…

Father's words made me unconsciously tighten my grip on the control yoke until my knuckles turned bone-white.

Black Knight. According to the setting, it was Luna's sworn enemy. But this was the first time I had ever seen it. It had never appeared in the anime.

To be exact, I had been dragged into this world before that storyline even began.

I didn't even know how the original story ended. Which made this unfamiliar development an absolute mess of variables.

…Distance secured. We can escape right now.

Even as I thought it, my gaze dropped downward. The cockpit of the allied Dracore lying crumpled between the ruined buildings had been completely crushed.

It was probably dead. Someone whose name I didn't even know—someone who had fought beside me for only a brief time.

The thought made my chest feel heavy. Watching a person's death unfold right before your eyes was, naturally, mentally devastating.

But I had to face reality. Steel my heart. I pulled the control yoke.

And the instant I tried to pull back—

"…Are you going to run?"

Luna's voice rippled through the cockpit like a quiet wave.

"…What?"

"Are you going to run away? Right here. Right now."

My body froze. Luna's voice was ice-cold. Thin, sharp, and layered with deep murderous intent. The emotions flowing through our Coupling were even more raw. This wasn't the desire to save anyone or to survive. It was pure, unfiltered bloodlust—the urge to kill the enemy before her.

Murderous intent boiled inside Luna.

I swallowed hard and tried to keep my voice as rational as possible.

"…Then what do you suggest? You want us to fight that thing right now?"

"If we miss it now, we might never see it again."

Her words felt almost hypnotic. The emotion behind them was so genuine it threatened to shake my own resolve just by listening.

"Luna. Are you sane? If we fight it alone, we have zero chance of winning."

"I know that. But… this is still our chance. I… don't want to let it go. If it disappears now, who knows when it'll show up again. It's already been more than ten years!"

I couldn't find words. I had never seen Luna this defenselessly consumed by emotion—neither in reality nor in the anime. She had always been playful, always composed. Now she trembled like a desperate child.

A violent whirlpool of feelings. If I let myself get dragged in, it would be over. I would collapse right along with her.

I let out a quiet breath.

"…Snap out of it, Luna. We've already done enough. All the civilians have been evacuated. Our primary objective is complete."

A heavy silence filled the cockpit.

"It's time to pull back."

It wasn't that I felt at ease. But it was still too early to risk everything. No one would blame us in this situation.

I pulled the yoke again, gently. I tried to rotate the Dracore to trace a withdrawal vector, but the movement was sluggish. Something inside the machine was resisting.

"…Luna?"

I didn't need her to speak. I could tell. The sudden increase in the Dracore's weight wasn't just from damage. It was the signal that Luna, the Bottom, refused to withdraw.

The Top sets direction and movement, but the Dracore's true mobility only manifests when the Bottom fine-tunes every detail. If Luna rejected balance, the machine became nothing more than a stiff puppet.

"…You know staying here any longer is dangerous."

I spoke carefully, but her feedback was heavy and deep—like she was silently gripping the core of the Dracore and refusing to let go. She wasn't ready to leave.

I tightened my grip on the yoke, closed my eyes, then opened them again. How was I supposed to explain this? Saying "the machine is malfunctioning" would be a lie. Saying "Luna doesn't want to leave" felt too simplistic.

In the end, I told the truth.

"…Luna is refusing to move the Dracore. Her desire not to withdraw is so strong that the unit itself is resisting."

Silence stretched across the comm line. Then came a quiet sigh.

Father spoke directly to Luna next.

"…Understood."

Luna finally nodded. It surprised me. Perhaps the bond between them ran deeper than I had imagined.

Thanks to that, the Dracore finally began moving according to my will. A sigh of relief escaped me.

But that was exactly when it happened.

A faint, trembling voice cut into the internal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠comm channel. I frowned. The recognition code showed it was a distress signal from the allied Dracore that had been hit earlier.

I had thought its cockpit was completely destroyed… but it was still alive?

It was a woman's voice. Desperation bled through the sobs.

Luna must have heard it too; a wave of emotion crashed over me through the link. But it wasn't rage toward the Black Knight. It was hesitation. Turmoil. Even Luna was shaken by the situation.

I clenched my teeth. The tension that had begun to ease snapped tight again.

…What do I do now?

Right as I wavered, the Black Knight began to move once more. Its eerily sleek frame shifted with heavy, deliberate motion, tracing a slow but certain arc. Its head turned as though locking onto a target, and its entire body followed, pivoting toward the fallen Dracore.

Then its arm rose slowly. With the grinding of torn pavement, the black machine planted its feet, stabilized, and lifted its rifle again.

There was no haste, no hesitation. It was a mechanical, refined movement—like a single polished command to finish the enemy.

The aim was unmistakable. It was pointed at the very Dracore that had just sent the distress signal.

I sucked in a sharp breath.

It was still alive. Still breathing inside there—

"Yuto. Are you just going to stand by and watch?"

Luna's voice was eerily flat, almost devoid of tone. But the sensations pouring through our Coupling were completely different—burning, seething anticipation. An excited breath like someone finally taking a proper inhale. A faint tremor woven through it all. Curiosity and fear, expectation and desire. A chaotic storm of emotions.

"…No."

I answered through gritted teeth, biting my lip until it hurt. Power surged into the hand gripping the yoke. My joints ached as the Dracore's interface responded across my entire arm.

As if shoving every last scrap of hesitation out of my body, I thrust forward. The machine shuddered. A powerful vibration pierced the gap in my doubt and flooded the cockpit. The Dracore lifted its head like something waking from deep sleep.

Footsteps that crushed the earth. At first the heavy frame slid forward, then Luna's feedback joined mine. The response spread along the link—the will to fight. When that current enveloped my whole body, the Dracore finally regained its true mobility and accelerated.

3

"Evacuate immediately. All control room personnel are to withdraw at once."

The researchers began moving at the order, but someone quickly asked,

"Doctor… what about the Origin?"

A red marker blinked on the security panel in the corner of the room. The very first Dracore, sealed in the deepest part of the laboratory.

Silence fell. Hideo closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head.

"…It's valuable research data, yes. But people come first."

His voice was firm, yet regret lingered beneath it. In a way, it was part of his wife's legacy.

"We abandon the Origin. Right now, saving the living takes priority."

It was an emergency decision. With no clear countermeasure, Hideo's only option was to minimize loss of life.

But at that exact moment, one machine icon began racing across the map. A sharp trajectory. It was accelerating straight toward the enemy.

"…Yuto and Luna's Dracore is closing in on the Black Knight."

At the controller's report, the monitor drew the course of Yuto's unit intersecting with the black machine. Hideo urgently opened a channel.

"Yuto! What the hell are you thinking?!"

Hideo's face went rigid, as if the breath had been knocked out of him.

"…It was alive?"

He turned to recheck the position of the unit previously marked unsalvageable. The cockpit had been destroyed. The signal had cut out. If the pilot was truly still alive, the situation had changed completely.

Even so, he couldn't allow Yuto to take that risk.

"Yuto, no. Come back. Rescuing that survivor is a job for another—"

But the words never reached their destination.

Hideo's lips pressed into a thin line.

"…Luna."

It had been Luna. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠She was the one who had severed the line.

4

"You'll get scolded by Father if we go back, you know?"

"…You're the one who closed the channel."

"But you didn't reopen it either, did you?"

I had nothing to say to that. She wasn't wrong.

"Yuto, I'm surprised. I honestly didn't think you'd actually choose to fight."

"…It might be your fault."

"Maybe?"

Luna brushed it off with a light, laughing tone, but I couldn't smile. At the same time, a strange heat bloomed inside my skull. It felt like some emotional circuit was quietly creaking under strain.

As Luna's feelings dug deeper, the order within my own emotions began to unravel. I couldn't even tell anymore where the urge to save them had originated—whether it had been mine from the start or something that had flowed from her.

Had I always been this overflowing with justice? Or was this distortion created by the Coupling itself?

I had always believed I was a rational person. But right now, something about me was clearly wrong.

And at the center of that wrongness was Luna. Only now did I begin to understand why Coupling with her had always left me uneasy in some corner of my heart.

Normally I wouldn't have needed to voice my inner thoughts. But I couldn't hold back any longer.

"…I think I understand now. Why Coupling with you never felt right."

"…Huh?"

My words came out cold, stripped of emotion to a degree that surprised even me. Luna must have felt it; I sensed her flinch beyond the cockpit.

"…Do you hate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it that much?"

Her voice trembled slightly. The delicate quaver of her emotions reached me through the link. But I gave no answer.

Instead, I remembered what it had been like Coupling with Yuzuki. The way our senses had overlapped so fluidly, how her thoughts had flowed into me until she felt like an extension of myself. Every ounce of control had belonged to me. The machine had moved like liquid according to my will.

Luna was different. Rebellious. Full of resistance. Her emotional feedback constantly interfered, blocking me from taking center stage. She even pushed her feelings with near-threatening intensity, turning piloting into an emotional battlefield.

This wasn't the Coupling I wanted. Luna was too willful, too defiant. In a word, she was a troublesome woman.

The realization made me angry. I shoved the control yoke forward even harder.

"Yuto…? Ngh… W-wait… What are you—"

Luna sounded flustered as she sensed something was wrong, but I no longer listened. The Black Knight had already swung its rifle toward us. That pressure instead sharpened my mind into cold clarity.

Luna's emotions, her past—none of it mattered right now. What mattered was reacting before the enemy and moving first.

Therefore, the single thing I needed most in this moment was one thing only: a submissive woman who would answer my will.

"Hng…? Yu-Yuto…?!"

In that instant, the synchronization rate that had stalled between us began to climb. Luna trembled violently at the sudden change, but I ignored it, unleashing every emotion I had suppressed and pressing down on her with raw dominance.

Finally, my will pierced straight through the core of the machine, overturning every current in its path.