Editing City Series:Volume6c Chapter4 (section)

===Part 1===

Hazel thought she was decent at the organ.

…''If only the AIF entrance exam and training included music.

She had that thought while playing the antique organ in front of her.

The notes reverberated through a small church that could only hold around 40 people. The place was old, but the roof was sturdy and it had pews and a pulpit. But since this was a Heidengeist village, there was no cross or icons.

When she saw a chalkboard in one corner of the deserted church, she realized the place was used for Sunday school.

And she played. In addition to the Unreif Germane, she played older nursery rhymes like the Harvest Hymn or Moonlit Forest. She had no sheet music set up on the organ. She did not play by reading music.

…''I can play it from memory after hearing it a few times.

She played a song she had learned just a bit ago after hearing it played by a woman with the Titel of Lehrer.

…''She seems strict, but I also feel like I’ve met her before.

She looked about five years older than Hazel.

Her most notable traits where the eyes kept shut behind tinted glasses and the soft-looking blonde hair falling to the back of her knees. The shut eyes gave her a somewhat expressionless look and Hazel guessed that was what made her look so familiar and strict.

…''I shouldn’t judge people by their appearance.

She nodded and got a note wrong.

She briefly panicked, but then remembered she was alone in the church. To refocus her mind, she stepped on the foot pedal a few times to send air into the organ and began playing at a higher volume.

She did not remember how many songs she had played in a row.

She simply shut her eyes and played.

She mimicked Lehrer.

Of course, Lehrer had not only kept her eyes shut while playing. They had been shut when Hazel and Berger met her in the central square, when she had taken them to Pale, when she had shown them to a vacant house near the square they could stay in, and when she had brought Hazel here when Hazel asked if there was anything she could do to help.

She could walk, talk, and point at things without opening her eyes because she was a Buster. Her job was to read and destroy Lives.

Hazel could read Lives as well. Up to an octave of nearly a million.

But she could not do it so constantly.

To her, that felt like the barrier between being a Greenhorner and being a full-fledged Tuner or Buster.

“I can’t see them like that.”

She got another note wrong as she said that, but it no longer bothered her.

Instead, she was bothered by what she had been told in that nightmare.

“A Messiah who only fights for the present.”

That would mean…

“They can’t see past this war.”

…''What will I do once the war is over?

She had been asked the same thing five years ago. She had been asked to describe her future plans in class.

…''What do I want to do in the future?

She finished one song and the music came to a stop.

A dove sitting on a ceiling beam and shaking in the music suddenly flew down into the church, scattering white feathers inside the somewhat shadowy building.

Hazel slowly removed her hands from the keys.

She placed her right hand over her left shoulder. The brand she was given at the Heidenheim was still there. It would never go away unless she tore away the skin itself.

“I hadn’t considered it.”

She silently removed her tensing hand and held her left hand to her chest instead.

She had a card in the breast pocket there.

She pulled it out to reveal the Wheel of Destiny card.

…''I know how it began and I know why we’re involved, but…

“What do I want out of this?”

And…

“What kind of power do I need for that?”

…''I need to know what I want to do after the war to know what kind of power I want.

Seeking the result before the method felt contradictory, so she could not speak that part aloud.

She didn’t know the answer.

After a beat, she shook her head.

She resumed playing to distract herself.

She played the Unreif Germane.

That song told the tale of the Messiah who had appeared to unify Germany.

That woman had appeared in this world, led a dragon and some Strikers, and unified an ununified Germany.

…''How did that fight go?

The music sped up. And sped up some more.

Her fingers moved across the keys, the music followed, and it all grew denser. And denser.

She pressed down her foot to send air into the organ.

She stepped down for a louder sound.

And she played. She pressed down on the organ’s keys to play. A festival was underway outside. Everyone was dancing and laughing. They were enjoying themselves. This space was cut off from the war. This place should not have existed.

But there was still a war being waged inside her.

“…”

She pressed hard on the keys.

She made no mistakes. Just like when practice swinging her sword, she was more accurate when pouring more force into the movements.

She played with accurate movements, seeking each new key in turn and pressing it.

She continued onward with perfect accuracy and void of mistakes – hoping to reach the answer in the final note.

She played.

And just as she prepared to play the very end, an image burst into her vision.

The large church door sat open to allow the music to reach everyone outside.

A chalkboard on legs stood next to the entrance, presumably for Sunday school.

“Oh…”

A pair of small children, perhaps a brother and a sister, stood in front of the chalkboard.

The older brother was writing on and drawing a waterfall and river on the chalkboard while saying something to the younger sister.

He spread his arms and mimicked holding some kind of stick.

He was teaching her.

He was telling his sister about how he went fishing at a nearby river, or maybe that he planned to.

This was a small school.

The scene linked directly to the question filling Hazel’s mind.

What did she want to do after the war?

“…”

She realized her hands had stopped on the keys.

She had stopped playing while watching the siblings enthusiastically discussing something in front of the chalkboard.

But she felt no desire to start playing again. Her mind was focused on her vision more than her hands.

The brother was using the chalkboard and his gestures to teach his sister something. He had turned this into a small school.

“Is that my answer?”

She smiled bitterly when she noticed she said that out loud. And she continued in her thoughts.

…''This has been bothering me since I was arrested in ’37, hasn’t it?

When her class had been asked about their futures, her friend had confidently opened up about her dream, but Hazel had been unable to come out and say she wanted to be a teacher before the soldiers had burst into the classroom and taken her away as part of the Heidengeist purge.

…''I couldn’t find an answer back then. Just like in my nightmare.

She was attending her college’s education department now, but a war was on. Dreams did not come true during war.

Then she gasped in realization.