Editing BlazBlue:Calamity Trigger Part 1 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 1===

A flurry of hurried footsteps echoed through the high, arched white ceiling. Everyone was shouting warnings and orders to attack. Catch the intruder, kill them, don't let them get any further. The voices, rather than sounding resolute or fierce, were strained with a more desperate tone, vividly portraying the dire situation.

With white hair and eyes of different colors—one green and one red—he was a striking figure. Clad in a sturdy black suit, he wore a striking scarlet coat over it.

(They sure do come in droves…) He thought with a hint of frustration, then let the broad, thick-bladed sword that had slung over his shoulder dangle from his hand. 

He had no intention of hiding. In fact, if they found him and attacked, he preferred to meet them head-on. Sneaking around wasn't his style. If he was going to be conspicuous, he might as well do it in the flashiest way possible, so that one day, just hearing of his arrival would send them running.

Though, he thought, it was probably unrealistic to expect such a convenient outcome.

Soon, five or six men in blue and white uniforms rushed in, guns drawn. They hadn't noticed him yet, and when they saw him, the first few faltered. But he didn't stop. Bursting into a sprint, he charged straight forward, swinging his sword in a wide arc.

"Stop! Or we'll shoot!" The warning was meaningless. The uniformed men aimed their guns and fired simultaneously. A deafening roar echoed through the corridor. However, immediately after, he swung his raised sword with great force.

"Uraaaaaaaah!" The sword released a black, ominous wave that soared through the air, swallowing all the approaching bullets and completely obliterating them. The wave surged forward with the speed of fire, engulfing the uniformed men who were about to fire their next shots and blowing them away in a single breath.

With a roaring sound like a whirlwind, the men were knocked back and slammed into the wall. The wall cracked heavily under the impact.

Just one strike. With that alone, all the men who had bravely raised their guns to confront the intruder lost consciousness and collapsed in the hallway.

"...You knew you were going to be taken down, so why the hell did you show up? Idiots."

It was all so anticlimactic. As he glanced at the fallen soldiers in their uniforms, the man, wielding a large sword, immediately began running down the hallway.

He couldn't afford to waste any more time here. His destination was the deepest part of the facility, the lowest level.

From the end of the hallway, more soldiers in blue and white uniforms appeared. They shouted as they took aim with their guns or drew their swords. There were more of them this time, but it didn't change his approach. He charged straight in, brushing aside everything in his path. 

One after another, the limp bodies of the soldiers in their uniforms tumbled across the hallway, security systems were completely destroyed, and even the doors, which had been shut tight, were chopped down and reduced to scrap metal.

He hadn't snuck in quietly at all. He'd kicked down the guards at the door and burst right in. As if to proudly display his strength and leave a deep mark, he had rampaged through the facility, destroying everything in his path, advancing deeper and deeper. Whatever stood in his way, he cut it down. With such violent strides, he pressed on, and on, and on…

And what he eventually reached was a deep, underground hall, beyond the long, long lift, which opened up like a gaping mouth.

...It was a world entirely different from the corridors and rooms he had passed through so far. 

The air was different. The temperature was different. 

The walls, ceiling, and floors were all covered with metal-like panels, and above the vast space, a glass-walled small room overlooked the hall. Beneath it, heavy machinery was lined up, and before these machines stood a strangely large device, silent and imposing.

There was no one there. The people who should have been here had probably evacuated upon hearing the alarm. And the people who should have rushed here had already been scattered by the white-haired intruder.

Step by step, he advanced towards the massive device that dominated the center of the chamber.

The strangeness clung to his body.

It felt as though the very air was saturated with an instinctual unease—something that warned of a sense of wrongness, as if this place were from a different world altogether. But to him, it was familiar.

He had visited places like this many times before. He couldn't count how many facilities with the same structure and hidden underground devices he had visited. Every time, the purpose was the same. To destroy these enormous devices.

He walked forward, his feet firmly planted on the floor. 

What was this thing for? How many of the people who worked here even understood its purpose?

Every visit brought with it the same thorny question.

What did they think they were accomplishing, coming down to this gloomy, underground place day after day, fiddling with these flickering instruments whose purpose they didn't understand?

When he reached the edge, he glared at the device. The machine, constructed from silver metal, loomed so high it was almost impossible to see the top. It was as deep and vast as it was tall. The central part, the one he looked down upon, was circular.

This was the "cauldron."

[[File:BB_CT1_025.jpg|frameless|right]]

Now, multiple metal plates overlap to close the mouth of the device, but if they open, the inside is like the crater of a volcano. A fiery, lava-like substance swirls, burning fiercely as if it intends to swallow anyone who dares to look inside.

But what swirls within is neither lava nor flame.

It is another world. A distortion in the fabric of reality, a place where humans should not be. The other side of a gaping rift. The outside of the world's shell, a place that should never be seen, never entered.

The metal device he looked down upon was the one controlling and interacting with this "cauldron." A device to touch the otherworldly realm - the Boundary - that humans were never meant to reach.

He had been traveling the world, destroying these "cauldrons." And now, as he stood there, gazing at it, there was no sense of nostalgia or emotional attachment.

With no more hesitation, he sheathed his sword and extended his right hand toward the device. He muttered something under his breath—the same destructive words he had spoken countless times before. The words awakened the dormant power in his right arm, and the power sparked a blue light in his arm.

In the blink of an eye, the amplified light filled the room and he hurled it with full force toward the device. The next moment, the gate to the other world, which had been sealed deep underground, was blasted away, along with the vast chamber that surrounded it, leaving no trace behind.

Akitsu, the 9th Hierarchical City, the branch of the Novus Orbis Librarium. 

The facility that stood at the center of the city had collapsed due to an attack by someone, and the entire city was in turmoil due to the commotion.

A white-haired man in a red long coat was quietly trying to leave the city. His work here was done. There was no need to stay longer. 

In stark contrast to his flashy actions inside the facility, he took a winding path outside, avoiding the main streets and selecting the darkest, least noticeable exit. If he were to be found by the uniformed guards in the city, he would have no choice but to fight them off. That would be troublesome.

He passed through a rusty iron gate and headed toward the port further ahead. A passage beside it would lead him outside. At that moment, a faint scent of roses brushed his nostrils.

"You're like a stray dog with nowhere to go," came a voice, coolly mocking him. He stopped in his tracks and turned around, looking up at a nearby streetlamp. 

At the top of the simple lamp, which split at its end, stood a girl. She looked to be just past ten years old, though her youthful face was illuminated by the dim light, and her red eyes held an intelligence that seemed far beyond her apparent age.

It didn't really matter where he was going. As long as it was Kagutsuchi, it wasn't far from Akitsu. He glared fiercely at the spot where the girl had disappeared, then began walking toward the next destination.

A few days later, his name was publicly listed as a wanted criminal across the world. Ragna the Bloodedge. That was the name of the most-wanted criminal in history, known by the alias "Grim Reaper" and carrying the highest bounty ever offered.