Editing BlazBlue:Phase Shift 4 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 1===
In a conference room in the Mage's Guild.

The line of long, thin windows was covered with thick curtains, hiding the wide nighttime expanse of Ishana from view. The room was dimly lit by orangish-white lights in its four corners, but the only other light source illuminating the people gathered within was the clear sphere floating in the center. As large as a human head, it shed pale white light as it was used to project images of various locations around Ishana.

There were six people surrounding this glowing white ball. The glamorous woman wearing a triangular purple hat, Nine. The woman whose lovely platinum blond hair peaked out from beneath the hood of a white robe, Trinity Glassfille. The werewolf in the prime of his life who had crammed his brawny body into a high-class shirt and vest, Valkenhayn. The cat-type beastkin, with his two tails swaying behind him and his right eye hidden beneath an eyepatch, Jubei.

Then, the man who wore the hood of his long coat low over his eyes to hide his face in shadow, Terumi... and the man clad in white with an equally white mask whose whole being oozed intimidation, Hakumen.

It was the night two days after Take-Mikazuchi fell on Ishana. Terumi, being the only one who hadn't been teleported along with the Black Beast and Take-Mikazuchi, had just gotten back in town this morning. This was the first time all six of them had been together in one place since they had taken shelter in the Kaka Clan village.

"Weapons powered by Take-Mikazuchi's core..."

Looking beyond the orb that was standing in for a normal screen to look at Nine, who had just finished explaining her plan, Jubei whispered like he was mulling it over. His tails swayed slowly behind him.

"But no matter how many fragments you break the core up into, they'll never pack the same punch as Take-Mikazuchi, right?"

"Of course not. If I were to make Take-Mikazuchi-class weapons, even a tough beastkin like you would get blasted to a million pieces if you tried to wield one."

Saying something very frightening with a nonchalant expression, Nine crossed her arms under her chest.

The orb in the center of the room was showing an image of the wasteland of debris that the Ishana town scape had been reduced to. Take-Mikazuchi had still been lying atop it all this morning, but they had just managed to send it to a different dimension after a full day's work making adjustments.

"Naturally, we're going to be losing out on some firepower, but what I'm going to make won't be a plain-and-simple weapon like Take-Mikazuchi. I'm going to create weapons that need to be wielded in the hands of people. They'll be more powerful the more skillful their wielder is, and in turn, they'll let the wielder make the most of their own skill. You'd agree that there's a big difference between an amateur swinging around a legendary sword and a master wielding a wall decoration, right? A sword's sharpness isn't everything."

About to continue her speech, Nine cast her gaze across the faces of the people gathered with her, and her eyes met Trinity's for a moment. The sharp light in her eyes dimmed a bit as Trinity flashed a tiny smile at her, and she breathed out a light sigh.

"The weapons I'm going to make from Take-Mikazuchi's core will be special. If we stick with the sharpness metaphor, they'll be able to out-cut any legendary sword in the world. So long as the right people are wielding them, they should bring plenty of firepower to the table."

By 'the right people,' she meant people with far higher battle prowess than the average person.

Obviously, the ones she had in mind were the five people in the room with her. The five people she had personally selected to help her.

"The thing is... I do need to get your input about one problem I have."

Nine's tone of voice got markedly less confident.

"It'll take me half a year at the very least to make weapons that are worth anything, but we predict that the Black Beast will most likely make it here in about four months."

It was just a prediction at the end of the day, but no matter what, those two extra months were going to be too long to fit into a margin of error.

An anxious wrinkle cut across Valkenhayn's brow as he scratched his chin.

"So then the weapons will come too late..."

"Not necessarily. I want you all to do everything you can to slow the Black Beast down and buy me time."

With a shake of her head, Nine requested the cooperation of everyone present. Speaking in an exceedingly calm voice, she neither ordered them to do it nor did she beg them for help.

Jubei, Trinity, and Valkenhayn all gave their assent like it was the only logical course of action, but Terumi had something to say. Leaning on the wall in a shadowy part of the room, he made his opinion known without much delicacy.

"What, are you insane? You want us to slow down the Black friggin' Beast? If that's supposed to be a joke, I ain't laughing."

"It wasn't a joke. I am in fact quite sane, and serious too. If we're going to defeat the Black Beast, we're going to need weapons made from Take-Mikazuchi's core, but they're not going to be ready in time if we keep letting the Black Beast run free like we have been."

That was an immutable fact, and one that all of mankind had to accept, not just Nine's crew.
If the Black Beast made it to Ishana and wiped out the Mage's Guild and Orbis Librarius Normas' Joint HQ, Ishana would be obliterated, their last hope of standing against the Black Beast would be lost, and humanity really would have to start counting down their last few days before extinction.

"It's all over if Ishana falls. I need to create something we can use to oppose it before that happens."

In order for that to happen, they had to do something to delay the Black Beast's arrival in Ishana.

"...How convenient."

The atmosphere of the room trembled ominously as Hakumen mumbled to himself.

Everyone turned their eyes and their attention to his tall, stark-white body.

Nine's eyebrows shot up in surprise. Just as Terumi had said, slowing down the Black Beast's advance was an insane, reckless idea, and surely Hakumen knew that too. Nine couldn't imagine that white-masked man would ever bluff or bluster.

Of course, she was right: Hakumen hadn't spoken up to act tough.
"I spoke with Jubei about this not long ago. If we meet that creature in battle on this island, deploying troop formations and utilizing artillery will prove difficult, which will inevitably lead to intolerable losses. We were contemplating whether there was no way we could intercept it somewhere on the continent, before it made it to this island... before it crossed the sea."

As Hakumen spoke, Jubei flicked his tails again and stared into the orb with a glimmer in his eye.

"We did some spit-balling. You know how the Black Beast can come up out of the ground from any cauldron in the world? And then it disappears again after it’s caused some mayhem. Not many people know about the cauldrons, so they think it just appears outta nowhere, but there is actually a pattern to it. If ya follow the trail of all the cauldrons it's used so far, you'd probably be able to guess which one it's using to get to Ishana."

At Jubei's request, Nine pulled up a map on the orb. It was a map only used in Ishana, one where Ishana Island was located in the center and the nearby continent and islands were drawn in around it.

Dozens of red dots were scattered over the surface of it, each one indicating the location of a cauldron.

"The beast is heading roughly northward from this point, making for Ishana. If it's planning to go straight to Ishana, then, barring any major detours... it's really only got three ways to go."

His cat arms were too short, so Jubei pulled one of the swords from his back and used the tip of the scabbard to trace the Black Beast's path, and a red line drawn by magic followed in its wake.

With a complicated look on his face, Valkenhayn watched with great interest as he drew out the path of a calamity.

"But it would be difficult to reliably determine which one the Black Beast will appear from next with only these cauldrons to go off of. If we guess incorrectly while trying to deploy a large army, we'll just tire out the troop. Have you thought of a way to narrow it down?" 

"More or less, yeah. Can't guarantee it'll really do the trick, though."

Jubei frowned with his cat lips and Hakumen took over for him.

"No matter which route it chooses, there are several cauldrons that it certainly has to pass through. We station our armies there and engage it the moment it appears."

"All our previous observations show that the Black Beast has to appear on the surface once every now and then following a certain period of time, like it's coming up for air. Based on the distance between these cauldrons, we should be able to catch it in a guaranteed ambush."

A powerful glint flickered in Jubei's eye.

The information they had on the Black Beast was gained by dint of a staggering number of sacrifices. Even still, they couldn't cut to the heart of the Black Beast problem; all they knew was what route it would take. They still didn't have any idea how to actually take it down. If the scrap of a lead that those sacrifices had secured for them could become a flickering light of hope for a brighter future, Jubei was ready to do whatever it took to make that happen.

"Of course, I don't think we've got any shot at actually standing toe-to-toe with it right now. We'd all be finished for sure if we tried to do something like that, but I think we can at least be enough of a thorn in its side to buy some time before it makes it here."

It was quite the reckless plan, but it was the only one Jubei had.

"Can we really do something like that..."

The words escaped Trinity's mouth in a mournful whisper. Trinity wasn't the only one to have her doubts: Nine, Valkenhayn, and even the one who had had the idea in the first place, Jubei, were all short on confidence too.

Nevertheless, Jubei kept his head raised high, looking across the floating orb and the map to sweep his unwavering gaze across the faces of everyone in the room.

"Three times I've fought against the true body of the Black Beast. Can't say I survived thanks to raw skill, but I did survive. If I'm still alive, that means I can still fight."

Jubei knew that he had been incredibly lucky. Ever since the Black Beast appeared, Jubei had lost so many people dear to him that it made his head spin. Countless people who wanted to fight but didn't have the strength to carry on had died wallowing in regret.

Keeping them in mind, he could at least push his fear aside while standing in this conference room.

"My swords can cut through Seithr. Magic and Ars Magus can do some damage to the Black Beast, and Hakumen even took one of its heads off."

Jubei took a single, deep breath before calling his comrades to action, putting his entire being into four words.

"We've gotta do this."

They didn't have the luxury of looking for a better option. They had a little time left, but not as much time as they needed.

Nine's face went stiff, as if she was challenging him.

"How much time can you buy that way? One month. Even if I have to trade my life for it, I swear that we will do it."

Hakumen answered, his voice not faltering for even an instant. There was no doubt that he wasn't being cocky. In fact, it was the opposite: he knew now, before ever drawing his sword, that they wouldn't be able to hold out longer than a month no matter what they did.

Even if they did manage to catch the Black Beast like they thought they could, Jubei and Hakumens' plan wouldn't succeed without casualties.

Without a doubt, a lot of people were going to die, and at the same time, they would lose valuable combat power. Even knowing that, Nine nodded deeply and firmly.

"Understood. I'll leave it to you. In the meantime, I'll complete these weapons even if I have to will them into existence."

If she couldn't finish them in time, it would mean the end of Ishana, then the end of the world shortly after it.

Nine placed a single black marker on the map indicating the location of the cauldron at the furthest edge of the continent. That meant it was also the cauldron closest to Ishana. Before the Black Beast could cross over to Ishana, it would almost certainly have to pass through this cauldron.

"Five months from now, when the Black Beast materializes out of this cauldron, will be the moment when we make our last stand."

Nine's words were a needle of fierce determination that carved the resolve to do what they must into their hearts.