Editing City Series:Volume2 Chapter 7 (section)

===Part 2===

Amon and Klausl ran.

They had reached Westminster Cathedral.

They ran across the open area the bazaar had been held in, passed through the main entrance that sat wide open despite the late hour, and ran down the hallway to the sanctuary.

They did not have much time left and it was all over if they did not make it.

Amon cursed his lack of wings.

…''Dammit!

If he had them, he could move more quickly and he would have the power to fight as a demon.

He felt that he was still a hindrance to himself.

“Amon, what is it?” asked Klausl.

He turned toward her and found her running alongside him with her usual expression.

She was a bit out of breath and she smiled at him.

“It’ll be okay. Let’s do our best!”

He smiled bitterly at her words and faced forward. They were approaching the door to the sanctuary.

He had a feeling that he would reach the conclusion of it all beyond that door.

Would it be death?

…''Will it really?

It was very unlike him to question death like that.

To find the answer, he kicked open the wooden door in front of him. There was little resistance, so it flew open with a solid sound.

“…!”

A large space welcomed him in.

The atmosphere was very different from during the day. The dark dome contained a deep dark pressure. It was a cloudy night, so no light entered through the skylights.

At the center of the candlelit sanctuary was a large hole that looked like a bottomless pit. Two giant chains rose from its depths.

Beyond the hole was the sanctuary’s altar. The altar was dyed slightly red by the candles’ flames and a man sat on it.

It was Valeath.

He held a drawn sword that shined in the candlelight.

“So you’re here.”

When he saw Amon, he slowly stood. He moved silently, but the presence accompanying the motion carried an impact on the level of the earth shaking.

Amon received Valeath’s presence head on. He also shouted back to deflect that presence.

“Why do you want to bring down heaven!?”

Valeath looked upwards without answering the question. Amon followed suit and looked to the sanctuary ceiling.

He saw the large hanging bell and the hammer to hit it.

The hammer glowed red in the candlelight and it had a strange machine attached.

It was the size of a human head and it had vacuum tubes, cords, and a strange antenna. Overall, it somewhat resembled a flower. Like vines, the cords extending from it continued straight down with the chains and vanished into the darkness.

Valeath and Amon both lowered their raised heads and their gazes met.

“!”

Amon was directly pushed back by the other man’s murderous aura, but someone supported him from behind. It was Klausl.

“It’ll be okay.”

As she spoke those quiet words, the floor began to shake.

“What!?”

“Amon! The chain!”

He looked in the direction she indicated and saw the thick chain connecting the hole to the ceiling beginning to move down. The series of ellipses large enough for him to pass through clearly picked up speed as it moved further and further down.

“It is almost midnight. It is time for the Babel Cannon to be fired.”

The sounds of the pipe organ and the bell would reverberate through the deep pit. The resultant sound would grow as the voices of London’s monsters resonated with it and it would all be fired toward heaven.

Millions of monsters’ voices would be concentrated into a single blast to destroy the chapter title pages protecting heaven.

Heaven would then lose its balance and fall down on London.

“Once the bell rings twelve times, London will be destroyed. And in exchange, the knowledge of heaven will escape to the human world.”

Amon listened to Valeath and looked up at the hammer on the ceiling. The metal device slowly moved according to the movement of the chains. It gradually pulled back and built up power.

“If the bell rings twelve times, it means London and I have lost. That’s a lot of responsibility.”

As he spoke, Amon moved his legs to circle around on the right and toward Valeath. He heard Klausl’s footsteps following him. They gave him an odd sense of calm.

…''It’ll be okay, hm?

He Opened that thought so she could read it. He kept his eyes on Valeath and tensed his body. He snapped his suspenders with his fingers and created a rhythm.

But then…

“?”

He detected an odd scent.

It did not belong in this building. The sanctuary only smelled of stone, of the night air, and faintly of machinery, but a scent he knew all too well mixed in.

It was the smell of alcohol.

“It can’t be!”

He quickly stopped and turned around. He was a little panicked because this smell of alcohol was mixed with the fragrance of blood.

His gaze moved past Klausl and to the sanctuary entrance.

Something strange appeared there.

It looked like a person, but not quite. Its right arm ended partway down and looked like something had bitten it off. Its head lay on its side.

It was Moyla.

Her face was completely unrecognizable. Her head was twisted perpendicular to the floor, the front looked like a peeled tomato, and it looked like it could fall off at any moment with how much it shook with her movement.

Either from the wine spilled from the bottles or some other liquid, her dress was stained pure red.

“She can still move!?”

Amon shouted out with pure revulsion in his voice and the bell rang.

The great noise was accompanied by deep music bursting from underground.

The noise was intense.

The wave of sound could easily be called a physical impact.

As if that had been her cue, Moyla ran straight forward.

She made no wasted movement. Most of her body had been destroyed, but her feet kicked solidly off the floor and brought her to Amon and Klausl.

She was fast.

Amon, the primary cause of her injuries, grimaced.

“Geh. This is pretty bad.”

The bell rang again.

A moment later, Moyla jumped toward him. Heavy with a variety of liquids, her dress waved behind her.

She flew quickly through the air.

Amon tugged on Klausl’s hand and escaped along the hole’s railing. A red flower landed on the spot he had just vacated and a chop of the hand smashed the railing in a spectacular fashion.

The sound was great enough to be heard over the bell.

The sound must have scared Klausl because she frantically ran alongside Amon.

“That was intense.”

“Don’t point out the obvious.”

The two of them moved back and turned the corner. The straightaway felt long, but they were just one corner away from where Valeath was.

The bell rang for a third time.

Klausl looked up at Amon with her brow furrowed worriedly.

He tried to decide what expression to give her, but finally Opened a thought.

…''We’ve got to do something, don’t we?

Now he was pointing out the obvious, but she nodded and the two continued to flee.

Moyla pursued with long strides.

Pulled by Amon’s hand, Klausl reached into her apron skirt as if searching for something.

“Hey! What are you doing!?”

Just as he shouted at her, the bell rang for the fourth time. Moyla charged headfirst toward them as if driven on by the sound.

“!”

Amon reached for Klausl and tried to pull her toward him, but she looked over her shoulder at him. She gave a closed-eyed smile as if telling him not to worry.

“Hey!” he shouted in surprise.

In that instant, Moyla’s shoulder collided with Klausl.

The slender back in front of Amon’s eyes bent and the blonde hair flew through the air. A complex metallic sound passed from inside her body and out her back.

It was a sound of destruction.

What had caused it?

That was simple.

He could tell at a glance. Moyla’s left hand had pierced through Klausl’s back. That was all.

The red-nailed fingers were surrounded by wires and small gears. Those were the parts that made up Klausl.

“…!”

Amon opened his mouth wide and tried to shout something, but he only managed to inhale and no voice came out.

The bell rang for the fifth time.

Klausl moved a little in front of Amon. Her slender arms wrapped around Moyla’s body.

He saw a match in her hand. It was a waterproof match used for cooking.

“You mustn’t let yourself smell of alcohol.”

Her trembling voice spoke kindly to Moyla and lightly struck the match. Even amid the din of the bell and pipe organ, the quiet scraping sounded clearly in Amon’s ears.

The sound briefly hung in the air, a flame lit, and a soft aroma filled the area. It was a sweet aroma often smelled when cooking. It was the aroma of meat cooked in wine.

Moyla’s entire body was immediately enveloped in flames.

“…!”

The back of the burning red dress jumped up.

The flames rose along her entire body, her head, and her mangled face.

She pushed at Klausl’s arms, let out a wordless cry as if afraid of the flames, and swung her body around.

Klausl was removed from her, starting with the left arm.

The bell rang for the sixth time.

Klausl leaned back against the railing and just barely managed to remain standing.

Moyla seemed to perform a crazed dance next to her.

The dead could not feel pain, but the nerves controlling her muscles still functioned. Burning her body caused those nerves to burst and she lost control of her body.

Her sickly white skin turned to keloids which then burned away along with her other wounds.

Her right arm ended at the elbow and her left arm was wrapped in flames, but they both moved as if swimming to gather in air. Her lungs must have been burning. The arms pounded on and broke the railing.

Now nothing supported her.

But as she became a mass of flames, she walked aimlessly forward and seemed to beg for air.

The bell rang for the seventh time.

Her foot stepped out past the edge of the hole.

As if called by the sound of the bell, she collapsed forward. Her arms and legs seemed to be swimming as she fell into the abyss. She fell into the hole that produced the pipe organ music.

As a flower illuminating the darkness, she slipped down.

For a while, an unpleasant sound of something being chewed to pieces came from far below.

That may have been why the eighth ring of the bell seemed somewhat hesitant and awkward.

Klausl stared down there. She supported herself on the railing while looking down to the bottom of the hole.

Amon held her in his arms and supported her.

He held her tight as she could not stand due to the hole in her gut.

And he cried her name.

“Klausl!”

She looked up at him with her eyes still closed.

As a doll she may not have felt pain because her expression was the same as always. However, her clothing was scorched by flames and covered in Moyla’s drying blood.

Worst of all was the gaping hole from her stomach to back. Wires and chains dangled down from it, something like mercury dripped down like raindrops, and small nuts sprinkled out.

The shaft that acted as her backbone seemed to have broken, so everything below her waist was unsteady and swayed just like a doll.

She felt sadly fragile in his arms.

He tried to say something, but stopped when her hand touched his cheek.

“You finally called my name.”

His lips trembled.

“I…I…”

“Please don’t apologize,” she said.

He swallowed the words.

After a short delay, the bell rang for the ninth time.

“I decided on my own to do this for you. It would be too tragic if you apologized.”

She smiled just as all strength left her lower body. The full weight of the doll filled his arms.

The end was near, but she did not stop speaking.

“I’m worried about you. You always blame yourself for everything.”

“Don’t talk!”

“You try to act cold and push others away, but you still get so desperate when something happens to me.”

Her hands grabbed his right arm.

“?”

He was confused, but he did not fight it. He reached his right hand in the direction she led it.

His hand touched the hole in her stomach. He felt the soft and warm skin inside her torn clothing and then his hand began to enter her body.

He wrapped his left arm around her back and she wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight as if embracing him.

“…”

The next thing he knew, his right hand had entered her body through the hole in her stomach.

His hand slowly buried itself in that manmade body.

First just the fingers and then up to the wrist.

She gasped as he moved his fingers and she pressed her body into his arm.

“Nn.”

A metal component touched his fingers. It was not cold. It was a hard object with an almost damp warmth to it. He guessed it was a rim.

But that was not what he was looking for.

He reached further inside her.

A quick tremor ran through her body.

“Ah.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Deep in my stomach…I felt… No, don’t worry about it. Keep going.”

[[Image:City_v02_269.jpg|thumb]]

He silently nodded.

Sometimes he came across something wet and sometimes he came across something sharp and he searched through her body. He lifted his hand inside her stomach, scraped along the inside of her ribs, and moved toward the chest.

By that time, his arm was in up to the elbow.

“Hh.”

Each time he touched a component, she would let out a small breath, but it only lasted a moment.

Just as the bell rang for the tenth time, strength filled her hands.

“Nn.”

Her face flushed all the way to the ears and she clawed at his jacket as she endured something and spoke.

“That’s…it. You’re…touching it.”

His hand grabbed the object within the left side of her chest.

“I’ll be taking this.”

She slowly nodded.

With a sound much like spilling coins, he pulled out his right hand.

“Ahhh!”

She pulled back from him as if from recoil and grabbed the railing behind her again. She then raised her head and forced a smile.

The smile on her slightly flushed face looked somehow satisfied.

He looked at her face and then down at what he had pulled from her body.

He held the red gear said to be her heart.

“…”

She may not have been able to speak any longer because she faced him and asked an Opened question.

…''How strange. Why am I smiling?

He was taken aback by her voice and slight smile.

This was the same situation as in his nightmares. It was the same smile he had seen on his mother and Eilen.

…''How can you smile? What are you trying to say?

Had she seen his question? She gave him the biggest smile he had ever seen and replied with her own words.

…''See you…again someday.

She threw herself backwards and fell down as if pursuing Moyla.

Amon stretched out his hand, but he could not reach her.

“Klausl!”

His yell did not reach her either. All that remained was the gear in his right hand and…

“Revenge.”

Valeath’s voice reached him from directly behind.

“!”

Amon began to turn toward the man who had approached at some point.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a silver arc filled with intent to kill.