Editing City Series:Volume8b Chapter14 (section)

===Aoe’s Continued Sight Mode: In DT Castle===

'''<Aoe’s Over Reload>

Time passed and the countdown overhead reached 20.

Aoe swung his fist.

He had to shatter the wall and rescue Yuo just like Akalabeth wanted.

If he failed to shatter the wall, it was all over.

If that happened, it would mean he did not believe in his power.

And if Yuo refused to leave, it was also all over.

If that happened, it would mean he had failed to understand her anxiety and fear.

He needed power and a knowledge of her.

Once he had both, he would finally reach the starting line for the strongest power.

He suppressed the impatience telling him to hurry as he threw his left fist and used that to throw his right fist.

Impact.

He saw the defense shield cry out, endure, and glow.

He could see Yuo past that glow. He wasn’t looking at anything else anymore.

“Yuo.”

He punched the wall separating her from him. To shatter it, to destroy it, to break it open.

He had once eliminated her anxiety and fear.

<So I can do it again.>

With that thought, he swung his fist.

The impact rang loud.

Light scattered and sound burst.

Yuo was wrinkling her brow on the other side of the wall. Worriedly. She held her breath with the anxious look of someone wondering what was going to happen.

She could hear the impacts. He could tell that. But she was still in Board Mode. Her expressions were enough to tell. The worried look on her face before had been far too perfect.

So he threw another punch. To tell her an Over Reload couldn’t properly appreciate the sound it made.

His flying fists produced noises from the right and the left.

He rapidly spun side to side, his shoulders shaking and his feet braced. His breath escaped amid the noisy barrage.

“Ha!”

The remaining time was down to 19 seconds.

Just then, he saw a window open above Yuo’s head.

<Why?>

He answered her question with three simple words.

“I don’t know.”

He threw his left fist as soon as the right one landed.

He opened his mouth and sucked in a breath. Sweat dripped down his cheek and then flew into the air from his vigorous movement.

He ignored that as he launched his right fist again. And his left too. He wasn’t stopping.

He put his hips behind the actions and made sure to extend his knees too. The bottoms of his feet slid back and forth from the full power strikes.

The amount of scattering sweat grew and the remaining time dropped to 18 seconds.

He saw Yuo open her mouth just a bit.

<Why do this? Who are you?>

<Mr…Aoe?>

Seeing that impersonal way of addressing him made him shout back on reflex.

“Shut up!”

He saw her shoulders shake and he slammed his right fist into the wall.

“If I could explain it in words, I would have done so already!”

He slammed his left fist into it too.

17 seconds.

“Damn!”

He threw his left. The impact traveled back up his arm and rattled his neck.

But the wall would not break.

He looked at his fists. Those fists could not break down this wall. He understood that, grimaced, and he threw another punch.

An unpleasant sound came from his left fist when it landed.

16 seconds.

He groaned and frowned a bit. But he kept his eyes dead ahead with all emotion gone from his face.

Because he had seen the change to Yuo’s expression when his fist produced a breaking sound.

Her brow unwrinkled and her eyes widened in slight surprise.

Her eyes were unfocused because she had yet to regain her sight.

But those unfocused eyes were still looking at him.

Her lips trembled as she moved them and spoke through her window.

<Stop this! You don’t have to do this!>

She lowered her head.

<Please stop.>

She forcefully shook her lowered head.

<nowiki><I</nowiki> don’t know who you are beyond a name.>

Those words briefly stopped his fists. He pulled back his broken fist and sucked in a deep breath.

15 seconds.

She repeated herself as he stopped moving.

<Please stop.>

He started to lower his gaze when he saw the window.

<Should I stop?>

With that thought, he stopped his moving gaze. He saw Yuo’s expression below the floating window.

Tears were spilling from the weakly closed eyes on her hanging head.

The tears floated in midair thanks to the shield’s inertial control.

But that wasn’t all. He also saw strength in her gaze.

'''<Aoe’s Over Zoom>

14 seconds remaining.

He realized her expression had changed after the unusual sound from his left fist.

She would tremble and her expression would change whenever he breathed or made any kind of sound at all.

Board Mode couldn’t do that.

Over Reloading couldn’t provide those real-time changes.

He nearly smiled as he moved his lips to confirm it.

“Did you switch to Sight Mode?”

He realized she had taken an interest in him.

“If so…”

<nowiki><I</nowiki> have no reason to give up!>

13 seconds.

Yuo’s window opened.

<What do you mean?>

He did not respond. He threw his right fist like that was all the answer she needed.



'''<Aoe’s Over Zoom>

12 seconds remaining.

Aoe held his breath and thought while throwing his fists. And he vocalized his thoughts.

“Damn.”

He pulled back his right fist.

“The killing power?”

He threw the fist forward.

“The power of a Plus dropout?”

He felt the impact and readied his left fist.

11 seconds remaining.

“I was so arrogant for someone whose fists can’t even break this puny wall.”

It would not break.

The defense shield was powered by the energy that Babel extracted from the ley lines. That meant it had near unlimited power and with no upper limit.

But Aoe faced the shield and tensed his eyebrows.

'''“Can my fist…”

He slammed his fist against it. With great speed and no hesitation.

'''“…break a divine barrier!?”

He punched, increasing his speed and making the movements more compact.

Each punch carried the force he normally reserved for a finishing blow.

10 seconds.

The shield shined and shook before his eyes. The barrage was turning the entire thing into a glow panel. But the light was greatly distorted where he was concentrating the blows.

He stared at that distortion and through the wall.

Yuo was there.

'''<Aoe’s Over Zoom>

He noticed her hands were moving.

She had lost her sense of touch, so this had to be an automatic action born of instinct. She wasn’t trying to move – her conditional reflexes were kicking in.

9 seconds remaining.

Her wandering arms were now held up by her right shoulder.

Her fingers moved as if trying to tangle something around them.

Her hair was down at the moment, so there was no ponytail there.

But Aoe knew what the action meant.

She always did that when she was worried.

8 seconds remaining.

<Has she always had that habit?>

She was in Sight Mode without her sense of vision, so she could not see his window.

So she did not answer his question.

Her face shook with worry. The set of her eyebrows, eyes, and mouth said she didn’t know what to do. He had seen this expression on her long ago, when he had first met her.

<That means she was worried when I first ran into her behind the school.>

He realized that had been their starting line.

At the time, he had told her to come with him and she had done so.

<Was I already trying to eliminate her anxiety back then?>

He gasped and looked up as he realized he knew the source of her anxiety. It was something all Minus people had.

<Anxiety about the Plus world.>

7 seconds remaining.

She was clearly worried right now.

<Is that because I am asking her to leave the city?>

When he had first met her, she had not given up, but she had been anxious.

So she had answered his call and eliminated her anxiety within the Plus world.

Her anxious behavior told Aoe this Yuo was the same.

<Does that mean no one from the Plus world has ever called out to this Yuo?>

It was the Plus world’s job to eliminate Minus anxieties.

Aoe scattered sweat as he slowly opened his mouth and formed a question there.

“Hey, Yuo? Are you afraid of the Plus world outside the city?”

She jumped in response.

6 seconds remaining.

He immediately pulled back his left fist and asked something else.

He chose his words carefully because this was what mattered most.

“Has anyone ever asked you to join them in the Plus world?”

She trembled and lifted her head slightly.

Her fingers squirmed by her right shoulder as she gave an answer.

<…>

The window was blank.

But she did shake her head.

Without her sense of touch, the movement was exaggerated and her body shook within the floaty lack of inertia.

But Aoe smiled slightly when he saw her no.

“Ha!”

But the smile didn’t stop there

5 seconds remaining.

The joyful twisting of his cheeks grew greater and greater.

It grew to a full, toothy smile.

“Is that so?”

He clenched his left fist. Blood dripped from the back of his hand, wetting his middle and index fingers.

But he managed to form a fist.

“Then I know the answer.”

'''“Yuo.”

He slammed his right fist in at the same time.

The impact rang loud.

“You can make this choice!”

'''“I don’t care if you’ve forgotten doing it before.”

“You just have to do it again! And if it will let you choose…”

'''“I will say the same thing again.”

“To make sure the resignation won’t beat you!”

4 seconds remaining.

He spat out a breath and sent his left fist in. And he raised his voice.

“Come to me! Come to the sound of my Plus fists!”



[[Image:DT02_201.jpg|thumb]]

'''<Aoe’s Over Zoom>

'''“You can find your rightful place as a Minus person here!”

His voice rose to a roar and Yuo raised her tearful face.

She opened her voiceless mouth.

<B-but! What is a Minus person supposed to do after leaving here!?>

She shouted her will on the window.

<It didn’t work for my dad or the others! What can I possibly do if I leave!?>

He knew the answer, so he raised his right fist and shouted it.

“What can you do!? That one’s easy!”

He released his will along with his clenched right fist.

'''“You sing the song of the forward march!”

<…!?>

3 seconds.

Aoe’s Text made Yuo tremble and he found the result of his punching.

'''<Aoe’s Over Zoom>

At just one point on the wall, the light distortions created by his punching intersected. That distortion should not have existed if the defense shield were constructed properly.

He wondered what that meant and Akalabeth explained from behind him.

“That is the sign of our hypocrisy. It gave her the chance to choose to leave even if we used her as the vessel.”

Aoe smiled at that. And clenched his right fist.

'''“Come to me!”

He called to Yuo with his Download Text.

He looked to Yuo’s face as he swung his right fist with all his might.

'''“Maybe you fear the outside world. Maybe it makes you anxious.”

When she heard that, she frowned and the hands by her right shoulder stopped moving.

She shook her head just a bit.

But her unfocused eyes were looking right at him.

2 seconds remaining.

Her eyebrows drooped and she opened her mouth like she wanted to say something.

Her shoulders rose and fell, her mouth opened, and she failed to speak several times.

She wanted to say something, but she was also waiting for him to say something.

Seeing that, he spoke to her.

He produced a Text using the words he had once spoken to her.

'''“I…”

Her trembling stopped when she heard it.

'''“I will put all your worries to rest for the rest of your life!”

His fist and its spear emblem crashed audibly into the wall.

'''“Yuo!”

The voice of his will struck the hypocrisy point and Yuo nodded with her tearful face distorted by the barrier.

<––––!>

It was more of a reflex than part of her will.

With only 1 second remaining, her hands left the position that indicated anxiety.

She only had the sounds to go on, but she moved her hands.

There was only one thing she sought now: his fist.

As soon as her slender hands touched the inside of the wall, the clock reached 0.

'''<Aoe’s Sight Mode has updated>