Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter18 (section)

===Beretta’s Journal===

She tricked me! Damn, the earthquakes haven’t stopped and the clinic has mostly collapsed. I found Rose Francisca in the hidden room just like Rosetta said I would. She is lying in the mayor’s truck in front of the clinic while we wait for the others to load in so we can head back.

But they might not make it in time. I saw light from the black dragon’s Word Particle Cannon only 3 miles away from the village. The occasional artillery fire I hear must mean the Germans are still fighting back nearby. But that will only last a few more minutes.

Will we make it in time?

I have a lot of reasons to worry. Especially because Rose Francisca got me good at the very end there. She was trying to take her own life in that hidden room. She lay collapsed on the bloody floor of the half-collapsed room, so I dragged her out and bound her wrist to stop the bleeding. But it wasn’t good enough. I didn’t really know what I was doing and I couldn’t fully stop the bleeding. Tying my scarf around her wrist only got the scarf soaked with blood.

I should have brought Rosetta with me.

I can’t believe this.

What in the world am I doing?

Phillip is dead and I’m feeling down, so how did I get caught up in all this? There’s something wrong with this. I mean, wasn’t the dragon attack supposed to happen on August 3?

What is going on?

The only thing I managed to get out of the clinic was Jack McWild’s letter I gave her. It was unopened.

What does that mean? Why did she want to die? Did she think we wouldn’t come back to save her? If so – if that really is why – it might mean she doesn’t trust me as her daughter. A Knight Striker is supposed to protect people. I want to believe it was because they fought or because they had been apart for more than a decade. I want to believe it wasn’t anything I did.

<Rose Francisca is breathing shallowly, but her breaths are gradually growing further apart. She is still bleeding.>

I touch her forehead.

<Her skin feels so cold.>

I can’t let her die. If I placed my coat over her and held her, would it help keep her warm? No, this is due to the blood loss, so that wouldn’t help. I don’t know what to do at times like this.

<The black dragon roars and I hear an explosion.>

The German army was just defeated.

Damn.

This is just like that earthquake, isn’t it? There’s nothing we can do. We can only wait and see if our luck holds out or if we die. Does that mean we’ll die here, myself included?

How lame. Really, why did I come running here?

<Two lights are approaching from the road leading to Autun.

They are headlights.

But they are far larger than the headlights of the village trucks.>

What is going on?

<While I watch, it approaches and comes to a rapid stop right in front of me.

It is a large trailer truck.

It’s the one carrying Sourire. The driver’s side door opens and the German soldier I argued with earlier hops out and speaks to me.

“I have brought a Grösse Panzer capable of stopping the dragon. Climb in.”

Then the passenger side door opens and a girl steps out.>

It is Rosetta. I know it is. Who else could it be? But why?

<She smiles in the moonlight and speaks over the dragon’s roar.

“This is just how it works sometimes. Right, Lady Beretta?”

And as if to continue from there, more lights arrive from the direction the trailer truck came from. Those are Herlde’s trucks. But they are not alone. I can see vehicles from Autun as well.>

What kind of magic am I witnessing here?

Well, for now, I need to leave Rose Francisca with Rosetta.

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