Editing City Series:Volume6d Chapter8 (section)

===Part 9===

A single low noise filled a deep cylindrical pit.

It came from the walkway at the very top of the Babel Cannon base inside Tristan.

<Lowenzahn sits in front of the base.>

She sat on the Babel Cannon’s control panel. The same control panel with the hole left by Tragisch on its left side.

She was not alone. Heiliger with his two prosthetic arms stood in front of her.

“The evacuation of Hamburg is mostly complete…but Neue Kaiser has yet to return.”

“Does Captain Hellard intend to wait forever for the lieutenant’s return to Hamburg?”

“Are you saying he is dead?” asked Heiliger, his head lowered.

“Yes, unfortunately,” replied Lowenzahn. “And he taught you so much.” She smiled and changed the subject. “Anyway, your incompetent commander failed to capture the Messiah last year and allowed her to escape this time. What’s my punishment?”

“…”

“You need to set an example. And only the second-in-command has the right to punish the commander.”

“What are you suggesting I do? I was there when you were born.”

“I have my reasons for this.” Lowenzahn got down from the control panel, her feet sounding on the floor. “Listen carefully. Neue Erde’s Ober Beweisen boosts Tristan’s power.”

“–––––!?”

The hem of Heiliger’s coat swished as he turned toward her.

She did not look back his way and took a step forward.

“Connect me to the machine beyond the glass above this control panel and Neue Erde becomes a piece of Tristan and not just a piece of me. Did you know that?”

“Is that what you want as a punishment? To be made into a component for Tristan?”

She took another step. And another.

“You do know the Allies are planning to send anxiety Tons into Germany, right? What if I told you that would begin a scenario leading to the end of the world?”

“A scenario?”

She did not answer that question.

She only pulled a memo pad from her pocket.

“I have something neat to show you: the true purpose of the Panzerpolis Project.”

She handed that to Heiliger and took another step.

He viewed the memo pad that had a pale gray cover.

Its edges were filthy and worn. When he opened it…

“The prophecies.”

“Yes. That contains all of my prophecies…and my corrections to them.”

“What does that matter?”

“Think about it. What if I wasn’t really the one to prophesy them? What if I just copied them from somewhere else and tried desperately to correct them as things changed?”

He frowned and viewed the memo pad again. He noticed the date on the very first page.

“1926.”

“The year my mother died. The mother who you, Graham, and Bertecht fought over before losing to my father.”

She took yet another step, arriving in front of the railing. The wind from below blew at her hair.

“My mother apparently made a promise with the four of you long ago. A promise very similar to one in the Unreif Germane.”

“…”

“She wanted you to remain true to yourselves.”

He looked up from the memo pad to view her.

She did not look back. She kept her hands on the railing.

“If you are still keeping that promise, then the world will correct itself. If you read that through to the end, you will know all too well what is about to happen to the world. And why I must be made a part of Tristan.”

“Lowenzahn.”

She looked back with confusion on her face.

He looked her in the eye.

“Are you saying these prophecies were made by…?”

“Yes, they were made by my mother.”

“By Frobel!?”

“Yes. Because I wasn’t a prophet. Because I was just an ordinary girl.”

She didn’t hesitate to respond and she leaned back against the railing.

He fell silent and she smiled at his unreadable expression.

“I told Hellard I was through lying, so I’ll tell you the truth.” She took a breath. “Before my mother died, she left all her future prophecies with me. She told me it was my duty to ensure they came true. She said that would save the world and it would ensure everyone took good care of a weak and sickly girl like me.”

“I don’t believe it…”

He rubbed his other hand through his gray hair.

“You don’t have to believe it, but Graham and Rose both knew about this.”

“…!?”

“They tried to do something to change it and failed. They fought back against destiny and failed to change anything. They fought to protect people and only ended up hurting people. …But what will you do, Heiliger?”

He did not answer her.

He remained silent.

Seeing that, she relaxed her expression. She sighed and leaned even more against the railing.

“Again, you don’t have to believe me. I know you’ll play your role either way.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“My mother said so. She said Heiliger Karlsruhe is a man who will obey the destiny assigned to him. Check those prophecies. They even predict you losing your wife and daughter.” She smiled bitterly. “She told me not to tell you about it even though I knew it was coming. She said telling you would throw destiny off track and bring ruin to us all.”

She looked away from him and faced forward to view the control panel.

She looked through the glass window installed on the wall above the control panel. It was 1 yard wide and 2 yards tall.

“My mother also prophesied that I would go in there.”

“And you want me to do it?”

She shook her head.

“No. She wasn’t that cruel to you. That’s the one thing she didn’t ask of you. …Read that memo pad, Heiliger. Then you will understand everything.”

She swayed her upper body away from the railing behind her.

She doubled over and sank down.

“Sigh.”

Then she stood back up and leaned back again.

“I’m so tired.”

She kept leaning until she started to tilt backwards.

“So tired of guiding everything toward the answers my mother gave me.”

She did not stop her tilt.

She moved past the railing, her long braided hair trailing after her.

Her body slipped fully past the railing and her legs followed her into the abyss.

“Lowenzahn!”

Heiliger reached out his hand, but she did not grab it.

She simply fell. She looked back up just once, meeting Heiliger’s gaze and smiling.

Her braid came undone and her hair spread out in the air.

The long hair slowly drew out a spiral as it spread and fell.

He grabbed the railing and started to call out to her as she fell.

But…

<Lowenzahn disappears from view.>

<Heiliger stands alone in front of the control panel.>

He raised his sweaty head.

“An Erklärung!?”

No one answered him, so he took a look around.

There was no one here. Only him.

He quickly looked down to his hand, but the memo pad Lowenzahn had given him was no longer in Tragisch’s hand.

“…”

He took a deep breath in and out. He gathered the tension in his body as he took another look around. He let out a gradual sigh, but still he saw no one.

“Lowenzahn.”

His voice was drowned out by a sudden low noise.

The deep, low noise came from the Babel Cannon base in front of him.

He reflexively jumped a step back and then saw a memo pad sitting on the control panel. It was the same one Lowenzahn had given him before.

“It can’t be…”

Sweat dripped from his brow to his chin.

He slowly looked up to the glass window above the control panel.

Through the glass, he saw thick metal and plastic pipes lined up like internal organs.

He did not see Lowenzahn there.

But he did see something odd growing from between the forest of pipes: a hand.

It was a slender feminine right hand. The full forearm and hand stuck out from the slight gap between two pipes to reach toward the glass surface. The skin was pale and glossy like waxwork.

That was Lowenzahn’s hand. When he saw it, his body crumpled below him.

“–––––!”

He had to place his hands on the control panel to stay standing. The edge of the panel dented in with a dull metallic sound and the memo pad fell to the floor, but he did not look down.

His eyes were glued to Lowenzahn’s hand held out toward the glass surface.

Something odd sat in its palm: an ear of wheat.

She held a single ear of golden wheat.

Deep sounds began to fill his surroundings, causing the wheat to vibrate slightly.

Tristan was having its power boosted.

Heiliger opened his mouth among the deep rumblings.

“I see.”

He viewed the wheat not with anger or sorrow, but with a smile.

But that smile was not just an ordinary smile. His eyebrows drooped and he hung his head while he smiled.

He repeated the same words as even more rumblings permeated his surroundings.

“I see…”

He placed his prosthetic left hand on his right shoulder, looked down, and saw the memo pad on the floor.

Tristan gave an even louder cry in front of him, but he ignored that and said one more thing no one else would ever hear.

“Must everything I love vanish before my eyes?”

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