86 -Eighty Six- Ep. 11: Here We Go

It is October 30, 2148. Kurena opens her eyes in her Juggernaut cockpit as Theo and Anju say that their Juggernauts won’t move. Shin tells the others to hide behind their Juggernauts. Raiden calls out to Kurena if she’s still okay and Theo shares Shin’s advice. She crawls out of her now unmovable Juggernaut. Raiden says they got him too and wonders if this is the end. The four of them hide behind their Juggernauts, firing at the approaching Legion where they can. Shin meanwhile is still in his Juggernaut and defeats a Legion unit. Fido throws itself in the way of an attack, gets struck and collapses. Shin launches his Juggernaut into the air. After the battle, Shin tends to Fido, and leaves his box with his mementos of his colleagues next to it. Raiden asks him if he’s sure this is how he wants to handle this and Shin says it’s the least he can do as they can’t take Fido with them. Shin’s Juggernaut is the only one that still moves and they only have limited ammo, fuel and food remaining. Anju attaches the last Scavenger unit to the Juggernaut. They decide to take shifts on who will pilot, with Kurena volunteering to go first. Raiden says if they run into a Legion unit the one piloting at the time will fight it which Shin says he is fine with. Later, the Juggernaut walks across a field. The four not piloting sit or rest in the Scavenger. Shin tells Kurena to stop, spotting a cave nearby. They head inside and wait as it starts raining and a group of Legion units walk by. Once the rain stops they continue on. Kurena thanks Shin for enabling them to avoid the Legion. Anju says there were a lot of them and Theo asks if it’s just him or are they seeing more lately. Raiden thinks they are getting closer to the Legion’s base. They soon reach a village and take a break at an abandoned elementary school. Anju brings up the fact that Kurena must have never gone to school when she fails to recognize it. Kurena thinks they should sleep here tonight and Shin agrees. The five of them walk through the halls and Kurena comes across a classroom with things still written on the chalkboard. Anju asks her if she can read it and Kurena says no, but it looks like they were having fun. Raiden sits at one of the desks and says it brings back memories. Anju pretends to be the teacher calling out for Raiden who eventually says “here.” She does this with the others and Kurena in particular gets excited about it. Later, the five of them break up some old chairs outside to use for firewood and soon start a fire. Theo pulls out a notebook to use for the fire but decides against burning it once he sees someone’s writing in it. Kurena pulls out a piece of candy to eat; it’s the last one that had been left for them by Aldrecht. The next morning Kurena has some fun jumping on a tire obstacle course. Raiden thinks they’ll be lucky if their fuel lasts the day and says their fun hike is at an end. He shouts out saying they’re leaving. Anju says it’s her turn to pilot. Kurena says they graduated school in a single day and Theo and Raiden joke around with her about it. Eventually the Juggernaut reaches a lengthy wall forcing them to keep along a path beside it. Shin says they should keep going forward. Soon after he tells Anju they should switch. She says her shift wasn’t supposed to be over until lunch, but he claims to be bored. The others laugh at this; they hadn’t expected to have so much free time. Anju tells Shin he should’ve brought a picture book as she swaps places with him. Theo tells Kurena she’s on watch and she tells him to take her place. Shin cuts the wire connecting the Scavenger to his Juggernaut and attacks the wall, causing a large portion of it to collapse and separate him from the others. He says the one piloting fights. Raiden says he knew this from the start and Shin claims there’s a Legion unit they won’t be able to dodge. Anju says this isn’t fair; he shouldn’t do this to them. Shin tells the others to keep going and that they won’t find them in the forest for a while. He says to keep going and they’ll reach a point where the Legion’s voices disappear. Raiden and Theo try to climb over the destroyed parts of the wall to no avail. Theo questions if Shin’s going to be a decoy. Kurena says they’re all going together and he can’t leave them to go by himself. Shin turns off the Para-RAID and Raiden calls him an idiot.

Later, Shin takes on a large number of Legion units in his Juggernaut. He is able to hold his own until blasts start striking from the sky. Nearby, Theo, Kurena and Anju insist to Raiden that they come along with him and not let Shin be by himself. Shin senses an ultra long range cannon, the one that attacked before. He senses someone’s voice, who claims to kill everyone who threatens the princess. More blasts strike close by. A Legion unit comes up close to Shin’s Juggernaut. Shin believes they are after his head. The others approach Shin’s Juggernaut as it is thrown up into the air. Raiden yells at Shin to look at him as he fires. Shin opens his eyes, hearing the voices of the others and says they’re all fools; they can’t beat the Legion with their weapons. The nearby Legion unit tears open the Juggernaut’s cockpit. A group of humanoid mines start running towards the others. They are able to shoot down some, but one of them blows up near Theo, who passes out. More explosions soon go off. Shin says they really are fools as we see all of the others passed out on the ground. Shin asks whose name he will call out when he’s part of the Legion. The setting flashes back to several weeks prior, October 13, 2148. Lena arrives at the Spearhead Squadron base via a transport plane. Upon walking by the hangar she encounters Aldrecht, whom she confirms her identity to. He asks her what she’s doing out here, being on house arrest. Lena says this gave her the time to visit the front lines. He asks if it’s to be along with the next group to be executed and we see the replacement members of the squadron being photographed nearby. Aldrecht says he heard the rumors that she’s a weirdo and tells her to go see it, although they didn’t leave much behind. He says he’s been watching the kids go off on their last march for a long time but has never seen a handler come out here. He tells her how he is an Alba, but with his wife and daughter being Eighty Sixers dyed his hair and went with them. He volunteered for service, hoping to get their rights back but both died on the battlefield. He says he asked Shin if he ever heard a Legion calling his name but was told no, which made him feel a bit better. He’ll see them once he’s on the other side. He says he always tells the squadron he’s an Alba before they go on their special recon mission. He says they are free to hate the Alba and kill him if it makes them feel better, but nobody ever does. So he’s still here. Once finished talking to him, Lena looks at a large structure where the squadron had their photo taken. She then walks around the area including the chicken coop, showers, mess halls and eventually the bedrooms, finding Shin’s. She sees the cat in the hall and thinks back to when they told her about it. She follows the cat to the recreation room where it is clawing at a desk drawer. She opens it up, finding a pig ball inside which she gives to the cat. Under it she also sees a book which contains Theo’s pig drawing of her in it. The drawing has messages written on it from the last remaining Spearhead Squadron members. Raiden’s message says if she actually went through the trouble of finding this, she’s a real dumbass. Theo’s message says he put down everyone’s names as she’d cry if she couldn’t tell who people were. This spurns Lena to find a photo also left in the book and a guide from Theo identifying who is who. Kurena’s message says to take care of the cat. Anju says they hadn’t decided on a name for it yet and to give it a cute one. Tears start coming down Lena’s face. She heads outside, standing on a train track. Shin’s message says if one day she makes it to their final destination, would she please leave flowers? Lena has an angry face as she looks at the sunset. She says she can keep walking forward. They believed that about her until the very end. Lena picks up the cat and says let’s go, and asks what she’s going to name it. She says she’ll fight until the moment fate finally comes for her. We cut to Shin’s face as someone calls out to him. We then see Shin as a boy sitting in a room with his brother, who tells him sorry that he kept calling him and made him come all the way here. Boy Shin shakes his head. Rei holds up a book and drops it, which changes his appearance so he is dressed up like a knight. Boy Shin takes his hand and they walk off together. In the present, Shin’s body is laying on the ground, his head obscured.