Editing City Series:Volume3b Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 1===

Rin experienced the somewhat tight-pulsed doze of just before waking.

She had entirely lost consciousness before, but now she was dreaming.

The dream filled the back of her mind in just an instant of her doze.

The images in one’s brain felt no different from reality and this dream of hers felt especially realistic.

This dream was playing back her memories of the past.

This specific past was from the night the dragons had flown.

At one point during that night, she had been lying on the ground.

She had been collapsed in the courtyard of Hung Hom’s thermal power station with Nein Engels flying in the night sky.

Unlike in reality, her past self was conscious in the dream.

“…?”

She opened her eyes and found her body collapsed near the center of the courtyard.

…''Why am I here?

Her memory was gone, so she tried to recall it all in her dazed mind.

She remembered as far as the attack that had hit her from behind after breaking through the wall.

…''I let my guard down.

She tried to prop herself up on her right arm, but all strength left it.

It was broken.

In an undeniably pathetic movement, she collapsed shoulder-first to the ground.

“…Ugh.”

Strangely, there was no pain. Her body was tense and her sense of pain had numbed over.

…''I can’t believe this.

She gasped for breath while lying face-down and she focused on different parts of her body once more.

Perhaps due to her body armor, she had not been too badly injured. She only felt an ache in her ribs.

It seemed she could move her left arm.

Her left leg felt numb from the shin down, but it seemed she could move it too.

She could not move her right leg from the knee down.

She had not looked at it, but she still knew why.

She could feel something lying on top of her right thigh.

It was likely a pile of concrete.

Since she could not feel the lower leg, it had probably been crushed.

“Is it broken? …No, or did I lose it?”

As soon as she spoke, intense pain shot through the leg.

…''!

It was the pain of the bone, flesh, and tendons snapping in the knee.

The pain crawled up her body while crisscrossing like a net.

The pain refused to even let her pass out.

“…Kh!”

She gathered strength in her left hand and clawed at the gravel.

And she got up.

“Phew.”

She breathed out and looked back.

What she saw was exactly what she had expected to find.

A piece of a nearly fifty centimeter thick wall of reinforced concrete was crushing her leg.

She chose not to look at it any longer.

An unpleasant sweat poured from her entire body.

A salty, visceral smell reached her nose.

…''This isn’t good.

Even she could tell she was on the verge of panic.

She was about to lose physical and mental stability.

She needed to gather her thoughts.

“Calm down,” she said while trying to catch her breath

…''The enemy.

“I need to defeat the enemy.”

She chanted that line under her breath over and over.

Finally, her vision brightened and her eyes focused once more.

She gradually caught her breath and spoke those magic words again.

“Defeat the enemy.”

As if to answer those words, she spotted a shotgun on the ground in front of her.

The collapsible stock was bent, but it looked otherwise unharmed.

“…”

She reflexively reached out for it, but it was too far away.

Her crushed leg restricted her movement.

Then pain raced through her again.

“…!”

But she did not stop reaching out.

Her left hand and left leg clawed at the gravel as if trying to crawl forward.

Suddenly, the concrete pinning her right leg moved.

She heard moving rubble and a much more unpleasant sound.

It was a bloody snapping sound.

“!?”

For an instant, her body was pierced by a sensation better described as scorching heat than pain.

She did not have it in her to think about what had just happened.

She still felt excess weight below her right knee, but the connection must have weakened because her range of movement had increased slightly.

She moved forward.

She reached out her hand and tried to grab the shotgun.

In that instant, a military boot cut into view and kicked the firearm away.

“…Eh?”

She blankly looked up and saw a man standing there.

“Fei!”

The Galgallin in mirrorshades looked down at her.

She reflexively reached for the handgun in her body armor’s inner pocket.

“Don’t bother. That will have no effect on me.”

The deep voice stopped her.

Fei looked to the concrete crushing her leg.

“You will not last five minutes after losing that much blood. Would you like for me to finish you off? Answer me.”

His emotionless tone of voice brought Rin fully to her senses.

She used just her left arm to lift her body.

“Do you not remember me?”

“I have no memories of you.”

He opened his right wrist and a mortar stuck out.

Rin knew all too well how powerful the heat rounds it fired were.

“Are you serious?”

“…”

“Why? Why do this!?”

“To restore heaven.”

He briefly glanced over at the shotgun he had kicked away and he said just one more thing.

“I will eliminate the enemy.”

Rin’s shoulders drooped when she heard that.

She gave a heavy sigh.

“I thought I could take care of the misunderstanding…if our paths ever crossed…”

And…

“Why?”

Fei did not reply.

He simply looked at Rin’s face and she looked straight back up at him.

“There is nothing I wish to remember.”

“!”

In the instant he aimed the mortar again, his large form was knocked to the side.

…''What!?

A gunshot from behind seemed to answer her question.

The roaring of a motorcycle engine joined it.

“Boss!”

With that cry, Kouga charged into the courtyard on a motorcycle.

The roar of the engine sounded all the louder as it echoed off the buildings.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rin saw Fei slowly standing back up.

Kouga was driving in from straight ahead.

“Boss! Take my hand!”

He intended to snatch her up as he passed by.

She looked to Fei.

He was already standing and he was staring at the spear of light stabbed into his right arm.

That anti-demon round could slay a tiger, but it had done little damage to the Galgallin.

The spear had stabbed deep into the right arm of his custom body, but he had not shed a single drop of blood.

His expression gave no hint of injury either.

He looked ready to begin fighting immediately.

If she was to run, this would be the time.

…''What should I do!?

Her hesitation was interrupted by Kouga’s shout.

“We can try this again later!”

She reacted by pulling the handgun from her body armor’s pocket.

The Colt New Service was a .45 caliber which focused more on impact than penetrative power.

When it fired an anti-demon round, it provided little rotation and the spear of light would fly in a completely straight line.

Rin aimed it at her own right leg and she fired.

She severed her right leg at the knee.

At the same time, Kouga scooped her up and continued on with a one-handed accelerating turn.

The motorcycle spun around while throwing gravel everywhere.

“Boss! Your leg!”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Saying that was the most she could manage.

She supported herself by clinging to the raised back of the backseat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fei looking her way.

…''Fei.

She did not speak her thought aloud.

He briefly seemed to sway and then he grew more distant.

The motorcycle had started away.

He did not pursue.

Instead, he pulled out the spear of light sticking into his right arm.

It was a casual action.

He then threw it toward Rin and Kouga as they fled.

“!”

It was an accurate throw.

The spear flew straight toward the motorcycle as it escaped on a curved trajectory.

Kouga had tilted his body in the direction they were headed, so he had not noticed the danger.

…''I have to go to so much trouble for him.

She managed to think that in her hazy mind and she raised her New Service in one hand.

She fired.

The gunshot rang out and the recoil knocked her hand from the grip.

The spear of light she fired collided with the one Fei had thrown and cancelled it out.

A solid sound shook the air.

“!? What was that, boss!?”

Rin did not have the strength to answer.

The New Service was hanging from her finger by the trigger guard, so she picked it up and looked at it.

The ejector rod had bent.

It must have broken when she had been crushed by the wall, so she was surprised it had worked at all.

…''And this isn’t actually mine. Dad isn’t gonna be happy.

With that carefree thought, she placed the New Service back in her pocket.

The motorcycle made it behind one of the buildings by taking a sharp turn around the corner.

She braced herself and clung to the back of the seat to make sure she was not flung off by centrifugal force.

This speed would normally have been nothing to her, but her body had grown far too weak.

…''I can’t believe this.

She closed her eyes and felt an intense urge to sleep.

However, that would be a dangerous slumber.

She knew that, but she still gave into the temptation.

It was not tension, pain, or even the fear of death that ruled her body.

It was nothing more than a heavy exhaustion.

And as soon as she closed her eyes and gave herself over to that peace, reality demanded that she wake.



“…Hm?”

Suddenly remembering when she had woken in the middle of the night before, Rin opened her eyes.

It was now daytime. Her vision was still not clear, but she could sense the light.

It took her an awfully long time to realize the white fog before her eyes was the color of the ceiling.

…''This isn’t good. I’ve been sleeping so long that my body’s grown dull.

She smiled bitterly and heard a set of slippered footsteps rushing down the hallway.

…''Is that a nurse? Do they know I woke up?

“Are you awake!?”

The young nurse who entered the hospital room could not hide the joy in her voice.

Rin nodded and tried to get up.

“Don’t force yourself. You probably won’t be able to move much yet. You slept for eight days, after all.”

“Eight days?” Rin asked in a scratchy voice.

She remembered checking the calendar on the bottom of the clock face when she had woken during the night before.

“But didn’t I go to sleep on…the seventeenth?”

She dug back through her memories and looked at the clock on the wall.

The display that had said June 17 now said June 24.

There were only six days until Hong Kong was returned to China on June 30.

On that night, an Earth Serpent would likely be activated and it would destroy the entirety of Hong Kong.

…''Oh, no!

Shocked, Rin forced her body up.

Her back, stomach, and thigh muscles let out a scream and the nurse hurried over.

“Please don’t move! You’re seriously injured!”

Without listening to the nurse, Rin looked to the clock with strength filling her gaze.

She then spoke the same words she had thought just before having that dream.

“I’ll take action once this exhaustion leaves me, huh? Well, that certainly took a while.”

“Eh?”

She sighed without answering the nurse’s confusion.

And she had a certain thought.

…''If I’m up against a Galgallin with a full custom body, I guess I have no choice but to fight fire with fire.