Editing BlazBlue:Calamity Trigger Part 2 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 3===
When he opened his eyes, the area had been raining for some time.

The soil under his face was wet and smelled suffocating. But more than that, the smell of burnt wood was lingering around, and he almost coughed from the non-existent smoke in the area.

The fire was out. The rain must have put it out.

In Ragna's hazy vision, the unrecognizable, unsightly form of the church, which had been roaring and burning just a while ago, remained.

"Too late... rain..." Powerless lips trembled in a voice that could not be heard.

The white wall where he used to throw mud balls and get scolded was nowhere to be seen. Neither was the pointed roof, nor the simple cross that stood on top of it, nor the small skylight that allowed the morning sun to enter.

Only a few charred, pillar-like sticks were standing here and there, looking forlornly at the sky.

The rain must have been falling for a long time. Ragna's body, rolling on the ground, was completely soaked, his clothes were heavy with absorbed rainwater, as if his whole body was being pressed down by something.

He couldn't move his arms or legs. His body was cold and his senses were distant, and he wasn't sure if he was alive or dead.

Ragna's right arm was missing. He was blown away without knowing why by a shadowy man who attacked the border. There was a deep stab wound on his back. It was a wound inflicted by Ragna's younger brother, who was standing next to the shadowy man, with a sword.

Those were the only two major wounds, but how much blood had been lost while he was unconscious? How much of his life had Ragna lost while the church burned down and the rain extinguished the fire?

It was not all due to the rain that his body would not move or that he had no sensation. Even if it had not rained, Ragna's body would not have moved, and sensation would not have been left.

Like the embers smoldering at the edge of the charcoal being extinguished by the rain, Ragna's life was about to be extinguished.

He felt that it was over.

The church was burned down. The sister was dead. His younger brother and sister were taken away... and eventually Ragna's life would be lost.

''(Sister, Jin, Saya!)''

The call remained in his heart. There was not even the strength left to engrave it on his lips.

He was going to die. Without knowing anything, without being able to do anything. While being stained with blood and dirt between the rain and mud, he would die as he was taken away.

Prompted by the sensation that seemed to be crawling up from his fingertips, his eyelids slowly closed... at that moment. Suddenly, the rain moved away.

"How unsightly." A voice was heard. It was a woman's voice. He didn't recognize it. But that voice gave Ragna a little strength.

''(Who is it?)''

That question made Ragna lift his eyelids. He couldn't move his neck or chin, but his eyeballs moved. Rolling his eyeballs in their sockets, Ragna searched for the owner of the voice.

She was there.

Right next to Ragna's turning head.

Wearing thick-soled shoes and a black dress with fluttering hem, a girl was standing with a large bat umbrella. She was about the same age as his younger sister. She looked a little over ten years old. The ribbon that stood upright, tying up her long golden hair, looked like rabbit ears.

The rain was gone because Ragna's head was under the shadow of her umbrella.

"Shall I watch you die like this? It's lonely to die alone, isn't it?" Whether she was serious or joking, the girl with the umbrella spoke to Ragna in a calm tone.

Ragna could only respond to that question with a faint breath. However, he did not avert his eyes.

He couldn't bear to be in grief, cry out, or despair in front of this child. He didn't want to die while being pitied.

How long had they been doing this, exchanging glances and staring at each other? The girl's eyes were a deep red color that suited the silhouette of the rabbit-eared ribbon. The crimson eyes eventually asked.

"Or do you want an arm to stand up?"

"Uh... wha...?" His throat reflexively trembled, squeezing out a voice.

The girl nodded.

"You've lost it, haven't you? Here... you can get anything you want if you wish." The girl's voice was both teasing and cold. 

Not understanding what she was saying, Ragna just glared at the girl. If he could get anything he wanted, what would he want? Such a thing crossed his mind in a corner of his dull thoughts.

''(...I want power.)''

He thrust his fingertips, which had not moved even a bit, into the wet soil.

''(I want power... power that no one can beat.)''

He wanted the power to rush to the sister's aid and protect her.

He wanted the power to bring back his deranged brother's consciousness.

He wanted the power to keep anyone from touching his unconscious sister.

He wanted the power to keep anyone, anything, from being taken from him.

If he only had that, he could have protected them. He should have been able to protect them.

Ragna's hand clenched the soil tightly. His nails were about to peel off and he felt a dull pain. The pain revived his senses.

His lost right arm was hot. His stabbed back was hot. The breath and blood he exhaled were hot.

Regret and powerlessness were hot inside him.

Suddenly, he heard a sound like a beast's growl in his ear. The moment he realized it was his own breath, Ragna's body suddenly disappeared.

"What?" 

In that instant, he didn't understand what had happened. But when he saw the girl's shoes, which should have been in front of him, suddenly rising, he somehow understood.

The ground under Ragna collapsed and broke, swallowing him.

There was nothing he could do about the sudden fall, and Ragna fell into the abyss.

While feeling instinctive fear at the fall as if being sucked in, Ragna heard the girl's voice whispering the moment he fell.

"Besides, whether you wish it or not, fate will not change." The girl's voice was the last thing Ragna heard, and he lost consciousness in the fall.

Consciousness returned not long after the fall. But whether that consciousness was the real world or a dream, Ragna couldn't tell.

The first thing he recognized was darkness. It was pitch black all around, and only the hard ground was something he could trust. Trying to get up, he rubbed his hand on the ground. From the sensation, it seemed to be soil or rock.

''(Damn it...)''

He couldn't get up because he had no strength. He was already missing one arm to support his body on the ground. There was no way he could lift his body, which was heavy and unable to move.

Even so, he couldn't just lie there, and Ragna clung to the ground with his remaining arm and dragged his body forward. He didn't know what was in that direction. He didn't know if he should've moved forward. But he couldn't just lie there without doing anything.

That girl had said, "If you wish, you can get it."

''(Anything is fine... any form is fine.)''

That was what he wanted.

Forward, forward. In the darkness where he didn't even know if there was an end, he crawled forward.

Ragna soon reached a wall. It seemed that his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, and he could see that there was a dirt wall there.

Something strange was protruding from that wall. Was it a statue? Or... a corpse? It was a black mass that had completely dyed everything while taking the shape of a human body. 

The body was in the shape of a man. It looked as if he was kneeling on the ground, drooping his arms limply beside his body. But that black body had no head. From the middle of the neck up, it looked as if a sharp blade had been used to cut it off in a single stroke.

It was a grotesque object. But for some reason, Ragna couldn't take his eyes off it. 

Again, he heard something like a beast's growl. This time it was not the breath he exhaled. It echoed deep in his ears, as if a hallucination.

"...Power."

This is the one who will give it to me.

Thinking this, Ragna stretched out his remaining hand while crawling on the ground. The moment his fingertips touched it, the black headless object suddenly collapsed, turning into black sand or mist. As it was, it swallowed Ragna without giving him a chance to breathe.

Ragna's body and consciousness were instantly snatched away by the black particles. And once again, he lost his memory.

When he felt stillness and opened his eyes next, Ragna's body had a right arm. However, it was not an arm with a human-like color that he originally had. It was black... a pitch-black arm, like the darkness that had gushed out at that time had been woven and solidified.

And Ragna's right eye, looking down at that arm, had changed to a sinister red.

Seeing the black arm, the rabbit-like girl taught Ragna.

"That's good. That is the Azure Grimoire. It should lend you power that surpasses anything. But be careful. That is not your arm. It is not the real you. So never think that the Azure Grimoire is your own power."

After obtaining a new arm, Ragna's life was no longer as peaceful as it had been when he was in the church.

In place of the sister, a beastkin took over as Ragna's guardian. He was only as tall as Ragna's waist, and his two-tone black and white fur gave him the appearance of a bipedal cat. His large eyes were red, and the tail extending to his back was forked at the tip.

His name was Jubei. When Ragna heard that name for the first time, he doubted his ears.

Jubei was the name of one of the Six Heroes who fought against the Black Beast in the Dark War. He had heard many stories and anecdotes about his exploits from the sister. He had heard them much more richly than old tales and lullabies.

When he learned he was the real Jubei, one of the Six Heroes, he felt surprised and admired him. He felt a little proud when he heard that the Six Heroes were old friends with the sister.

But in reality, the life that began under Jubei... was so harsh that any envy was blown away somewhere.

"Guhoah!"

Blown away by an impact that was like being gouged out along with a dull sound, Ragna crashed into a tree trunk that should have been several meters behind him and stopped. When he fell face down on the ground with a thud, green leaves that had fallen from the impact rained down on him as if pitying him.

Several years had passed since Ragna had been attacked at the church, fell underground, survived, and began living with Jubei. It was several years of harsh training under Jubei.

He learned the art of fighting, the skills and knowledge to survive in the forests and mountains, the history of the world, and the current world situation. And about how to use the black right arm - the "Azure Grimoire."

Among them, fighting techniques were particularly strict and thorough... and sometimes he was gleefully beaten day and night.

Even now, he was in the middle of such sword training. He was given a sword and told to show him a single strike, but he was brilliantly challenged by Jubei's two small branches, and as a result, he was defeated by a powerful kick.

"Oh, damn it! You're hopping around!" Brushing off the leaves, Ragna jumped up and slammed the ground with his fist, revealing his irritation. Beside him, a practice sword given to him by Jubei was rolling around.

It was unadorned and very ordinary, but it was real, not blunt. If the tip grazed, it could even brush off the tip of a cat's hair, and it should be easy to cut down a small branch.

"Are you hurt, Ragna?"

A small figure came through the bushes, which were warped by Ragna's body. It was Jubei, a large bipedal cat and Ragna's master. He glanced at his disciple's face without any disturbance in his posture.

His expression looked cheerful for no reason, and Ragna sat down and looked up at his teacher sullenly.

"You should have warned me a little before you did that. You just blew me away."

"What are you talking about? I've been quite lenient. If I were serious, it wouldn't be training for you." Jubei laughed and shrugged his shoulders, as if Ragna had just told a joke. Ragna couldn't continue, so he groaned and kept silent.

As expected of one of the Six Heroes, Jubei was very strong. Over the past few years, Ragna had been training desperately to catch up with him, but just when he thought he had gotten closer, Jubei was somehow farther away, and he didn't feel like he was catching up at all. He no longer thought that he might be able to become as strong as this little cat man.

Recently, he had been struggling to narrow the gap between himself and his master, which he finally realized was too big. But no matter how many times he was reminded and made aware of his own abilities, there was always impatience and eagerness inside Ragna. It was an emotion that was always stuck inside Ragna, and it always tormented him. If he were to give it a name in simple words, it would be "hatred."

Training after training, discipline after discipline. Through all of it, Ragna had never forgotten about that night when everything was taken from him.

"...Hey, master." Trying to stand up, he stopped once, and leaned his back against the tree trunk while sitting with one knee raised. Jubei calmly watched the situation, wagging his tail leisurely.

"What is it, Ragna?"

"When will I be able to go and crush the NOL?" The tone of the question was disguised with a casual, everyday one, but deep down, there was an anger that threatened to burn up at any moment.

Without realizing it, Ragna's hand was clenched with such force that it seemed to be cutting into his palm.

After being taken away from the church, Jin seemed to have been taken in by a family called the Kisaragi family and was living as an adopted child.

The Kisaragi family was said to be a noble class called the "Duodecim" belonging to an organization called the Novus Orbis Librarium. He didn't remember the details, but in any case, he was being educated to become a soldier as the child of a prestigious family.

On the other hand, Saya's whereabouts after being taken away by the NOL were unknown. All that was known is that she seemed to be hidden in the center of the organization... or so it seems.

All of this information was what he had heard from Jubei.

In between training with Ragna, Jubei would occasionally slip out, no one knew when he had the time, and run around here and there for investigations.

According to Ragna's only source of information, the name of the shadowy man who attacked their church was Terumi. He was one of the Six Heroes like Jubei, and currently belonged to the NOL under a different name and status.

As a result of taking in the story about that church incident, Ragna had come to the following conclusion. It was the Novus Orbis Librarium that took the church, the sister, Jin, Saya, and everything from Ragna...

Terumi and Jin both had the existence of the NOL behind them. If the NOL retrieved Saya, then it was also the NOL that made such a cruel decision in search of Saya.

It was difficult to hold many grudges. Each one was dispersed and became fragmented within themselves. That was why Ragna bundled the hatred within him under the name of the NOL. With just that one, he could move with hatred as much as he wanted.

"It's still too early. Do you wanna die for nothing?" Jubei sighed and answered bitterly. 

Ragna knew his master would say that. They had repeated this exchange many times. But even so, he couldn't help but ask. He wanted to shatter that target of hatred as soon as possible, not even a second sooner.

"I know I can't beat you yet, Master, but I've gotten a lot stronger, haven't I!? Those NOL guys aren't gonna stand a chance against me, even if they come at me all at once!"

Unable to swallow his anger, Ragna punched the tree trunk he had been leaning against, and stood up with that momentum. When Ragna stood up, he looked down at Jubei. The red cat eyes that looked up at him from below showed deep understanding, but also sternly watched his disciple.

"If you can't defeat me, you won't be able to crush the NOL."

"But-"

"'You won't know until you try'?" 

Suddenly, a third voice cut into the conversation between Ragna and Jubei.

At the same time, a rose-scented breeze blew around. What appeared was a graceful girl with long golden hair tied with an upright ribbon. It was the vampire Rachel Alucard, the girl who appeared before Ragna in the pouring rain at the ruins of a burned-down church.

The sight of the girl in a gorgeous black dress standing against the backdrop of the forest, where the seithr was thick and the air was gloomy, was truly mismatched and strange.

But she didn't care about such a thing, and when she closed the bat umbrella she was holding, she made a gesture as if she was sitting in the air. In response to that movement, the familiar, which was the bat umbrella, changed its shape and became a relaxed sofa, receiving the noble princess.

Leaning on the black sofa that appeared in the forest, Rachel chuckled and laughed at Ragna teasingly.

"There are many things in this world that you can know without even trying. It might be something too complex for your limited mind to understand." 

What she said was probably correct, but Ragna's irritation quickly grew at her utterly condescending tone.

"How do you know if you haven't even tried it!"

"Because you're weak." Rachel immediately responded with the sharpness of a knife.

Beside her, a red rubber ball-like familiar, Gii, jumped up and busily flapped its wings while laughing mischievously.

"Weak, weak!"

"Huh!?" 

"Eek!" As Ragna stepped forward with a frightening expression, Gii easily dodged and hid behind the sofa where Rachel was sitting.

Letting out a disappointed sigh at the pathetic familiar's scream, Rachel rested her cane on the sofa. She lightly placed a finger on her white cheek and gave another disappointed sigh to the other person standing in front of her.

"All you can do is vent your anger on such a small creature. With that fragile spirit and body of yours… you'll be easily devoured." As if telling a ghost story to scare a child, Rachel narrowed her red eyes and whispered. She wasn't good at inducing fear. Ragna frowned while taking half a step back, intimidated by the eerie aura that Rachel exuded more than the content of her words.

"Devoured?"

"By your right arm." 

Told so bewitchingly, Ragna reflexively turned his gaze to his right arm. From the middle of his upper arm, his arm was dyed jet black, not the color of a human arm. On top of that, a belt-shaped seal was wrapped around it in a spiral pattern.

Rachel and Jubei called that arm the Azure Grimoire.

A grimoire was a key necessary to use Ars Magus, and although it was called a book, it didn't necessarily take the form of a book. Ragna's arm, while taking the form of a human arm, was said to be a grimoire, not an arm.

It was too difficult a story for Ragna, who didn't understand the concept of Ars Magus in the first place, but the precautions that Rachel and Jubei repeatedly said were ingrained in his head, beyond understanding.

Never think of the Azure Grimoire as your own power.

It is merely a grimoire, not your own arm.

Ragna, honestly, did not understand what that meant. But from the overly sincere appearance of his two guardians, he understood that it was something that should never be viewed optimistically.

Jubei spoke to his disciple, who was staring down at his black arm, in a gentle yet strong tone.

"You have to become stronger, much stronger. So that you can walk on your own with your own power. So that you can carve out a path without relying on that right arm."

"When will that be?"

It wouldn't be a matter of today or tomorrow. Next year, the year after next. No, it was still far away. He was deeply aware of his own weakness.

Jubei laughed cheerfully at Ragna, who had become sullen. It was a pleasant laugh that didn't contain any sarcasm, and it had the power to instantly blow away the darkness that clouded Ragna's heart.

"That depends on your efforts. Now. The break is over. Next, I'll attack you, so try to dodge everything!" Saying that, Jubei snatched the sword from Ragna's hand. The tip of the sword flashed and scattered a few strands of Ragna's hair. In an instant, Ragna's blood ran cold.

"Hey, you're kidding, right!? Are you trying to kill me!?"

"Don't worry, I'll stop before you die. Now, let's go!"

"Whoa, wait, wait, please wait, Master!"

The sound of the wind mercilessly cutting through the air ran left and right. If he stopped, he wouldn't get away with it. Ragna desperately dodged the sword that was swung down vertically and turned around, fleeing from the spot like a rabbit.




In a forgotten warehouse on the outskirts of the upper layers of Kagutsuchi, the 13th Hierarchical City, Ragna stretched out his right arm, as if offering it to the moonlight that seeped in through the gaps, and gazed at it.

"The Azure Grimoire..."

It had the form of a human arm itself, and he could make it move in any way he wished with his own will, yet it was a black mass that wasn't his own arm. 

It felt like it had been a long time since he spoke that name.

It was said to be the strongest grimoire.

Ragna had been helped by the power of this grimoire several times, and he certainly thought it was worthy of being called the strongest.

The destructive power it could unleash was so merciless that Ragna couldn't bring himself to use it unless he was cornered to a great extent.

When he used it, something surged up. Perhaps it could be called a destructive impulse. Something that seemed like himself but not himself overflowed from within him and seemed to swallow him up.

"You'll be devoured."

He recalled those words that Rachel spoke sometime ago.

This arm was said to be both a grimoire and a mass of seithr. That seithr constantly drained life force from the surroundings and sent it to Ragna.

Thanks to this, Ragna had acquired the convenient ability to quickly recover from injuries, but as a result, he had been given the troublesome trait of unconsciously absorbing the life force of others when he stayed in the same place with someone for a long time.

He wondered what would happen to him if the grimoire's owner was "eaten" by that life-force-absorbing seithr.

What came to his mind was Arakune, the monster he saw in the sewer a few hours ago. Litchi, the doctor who also approached the Boundary, had said it was the transformed body of a researcher who had gotten too close to the Boundary.

''(Will I... become like that someday...?)''

Ragna threw the black arm on his lap and looked at it through the gaps in his closing eyelids.

''(Well... it doesn't really matter.)''

If he could crush the NOL and settle everything with his brother, his sister, and the man named Terumi. Then, it didn't matter if he became a demon or a monster. Once everything was settled, that's when Ragna would lose everything.

''(I'm sleepy...)''

He had to sleep and regain his strength. Tomorrow would be busy.

It was very quiet here. He could clearly hear his own breathing, which was gradually deepening.

''(Come to think of it... I feel like this happened before...)'' Ragna thought vaguely as he drifted to sleep. 

''(Have I been to Kagutsuchi before...?)''

He didn't think so. But strangely, he could smoothly map out the route from the upper levels to the branch in his mind.

It was a strange feeling. He must be half-dreaming. Thinking that, Ragna closed his eyelids.

As his vision closed, Ragna exhaled deeply. And before even a minute had passed, he began to breathe regularly, his chest rising and falling in sleep.