Editing BlazBlue:Phase Shift 1 Chapter 5 (section)

===Part 3===

Mages' Guild——Cathedral.

A place where Mages' Guild's ceremonies were held, including the Ten Sages' canonization. It was also a facility that continued to witness the long history of the Mages' Guild in this land. For those reasons, the Cathedral was also said to be a symbol indicating the Mages' Guild itself.

Positioned on a section of the academy's courtyard, its appearance was a small building made of white stone. But in reality, the construct had a lot of hidden space underground.

In the circular council room located in the Cathedral's underground, all the members of the Ten Sages on duty had been assembled due to the emergency. 

Although it was all members, the number of people was less than ten.

Uniformly wearing dignified robes and large triangular hats, they, accompanied by quiet tension, were surrounding a round table with a strange pattern.

Of course, the figure of Nine who had been summoned by the conveying magic just a while ago was also among them.

"Everyone must have noticed already... Seithr is flowing into Ishana."

The emergency meeting began with a dignified, heavy tone of voice from a man acting as chair for the meeting.

Encircled by magic lights which were floating in midair, the Ten Sages held their breath.

Anybody was aware that seithr had begun to foul Ishana's air. But the question was how the seithr was getting in.

The chair continued.

"You must all remember Nine's report that a tear was forming in part of the barrier. It appears the seithr is coming through that tear."

At those words, several of the Ten Sages murmured in low tone.

Last night, the Ten Sages had also gathered like now. Then, a report from Nine was established regarding the tear in the barrier. But last night, as there had been no seithr getting in or any indication of it, the decision was made to postpone the restoration and investigation of the cause.

The female Sage sitting across from Nine knocked away her chair trying to stand up.

"What's the cause of the influx? In last night's report, there wasn't even a mention of seithr flowing from the tear...!?"

"Ishana's atmosphere should have been clean enough to force back seithr. It's unthinkable for it to have changed in one night!"

The Ten Sages unanimously shouted about the baffling matters.

Hearing this, Nine was absolutely silent as she looked downward.

Nine knew. She knew why seithr had increased in force in one night and covered Ishana's atmosphere.

There was a hole in the barrier; and the power that could prevent seithr getting to Ishana's air was gone.  What had been holding back seithr was neither the barrier nor the pure atmosphere. It was a completely different factor.

(Celica...)

Her younger sister was born special. Somehow, she had never caught a cold or even been ill. From before she could speak, she had been able to use healing magic. She possessed an abnormal life force.

The strange physical constitution of Celica, who only specialized in healing, had a special characteristic of restraining seithr's activity just by existing.

The theory on how she could do it was unknown. Because Nine had never thought to clarify it, she also shouldn't be able to prove it now. Naturally, the Ten Sages didn’t even know about Celica's physical constitution.

The only thing clearly known was, preventing the seithr influx was the result of Celica's idiosyncrasy affecting Ishana's atmosphere. Then, for seithr to be flowing meant that Celica had already left the island.

(Where did you go... Celica.)

Nine grasped her fists tightly above her lap.

Yesterday night, it had already grown very late when she returned home. Because she thought Celica would have been asleep, Nine didn't check her room and went to bed. She hated herself for it.

Last night, Celica must have already gone from the house.

If she could, she would immediately rush out of here and then proceed to find Celica. However.

"If we leave the seithr as it is, the barrier we have been protecting until now would become a lid and the whole island would be filled with seithr. If such a thing happened... the dense seithr would notify the Black Beast about our existence, and that monster would appear on the island."

The elderly woman who was the most senior among the Ten Sages spoke in a heavy voice.

Seithr was a portion of Black Beast, its vanguard, and also passage. In other words, when a location had seithr, it was assuredly a place that was at risk of the Black Beast appearing.

While seithr spread throughout the world, Ishana was the only exception. However, that exception was over now.

Trying to follow the elderly woman, other Sages opened their mouths one after another.

"If the Black Beast appears, this island will be helpless. We must restore the barrier at once, and stop the influx of seithr!"

"The threat is not just the Black Beast. If mankind comes into contact with dense seithr for a long period of time, bad effects would occur in their mind and body. Think about the potential of a massive outbreak of seithr poisoning too!"

"Restoring the barrier will take too much time. Removing the barrier temporarily and forming it again is more..."

"Ridiculous! That's the same as stripping the island naked. If it's done poorly, disturbing elements from outside would get in!"

"Still, the seithr density in Ishana is even higher than that found outside of the island."

"Even if we form the barrier again or restore the current one, during the time it takes, the people of this island will continue to be exposed with seithr. I wonder if there's nothing we could do to deal with the islanders right now."

If the barrier doesn't get closed, the seithr density on the island will continue to rise. But while the barrier is being closed, there would be potential for the Black Beast to sniff out the dense seithr and appear.

Currently, Ishana was confronting a crisis it had never encountered before.

The meeting was flooded with several claims; the way forward still couldn't be seen.

Toward it, Nine quietly formed her hands to fists; the mouth, that had remained fastened until then, opened.

"Restoring the barrier and disposing seithr are urgent duties that only we, the Ten Sages, can do. Neither of them can be given priority. We have to divide the Ten Sages into two groups, simultaneously taking measures. ...Immediately."

It wasn't the right sort of situation to crowd the desk and continue arguing.

With those cold, calm words, the room fell uniformly silent.

Everyone was considering if that was feasible. No matter which one they did, the strengths of everyone in this room were needed.

But finally, the chair made a fist and spoke.

"Indeed. I shall take it upon myself to restore the barrier. Nine, you are in charge of eliminating seithr."

"...Yes."

While leaving her chair, Nine nodded.

Nine also understood it wasn't a simple task. For everything to be resolved, a considerable amount of time would be needed. It would be already too late to chase after Celica.

Even so, Nine couldn't let herself abandon her duty int he face of this situation.

Because in this island, in this town, there was a home to whic Celica could return.

Under the command of the chair, the low number of the Ten Sages held, even at the best of times, was even further reduced as they were divided into two groups. Then, in order to neutralize and remove the seithr that was filling the island, Nine ran toward Ishana's town.







The Ten Sages were hurriedly leaving the Cathedral. Kazuma had been watching from the academy's hallway while resting his chin on his hand by the window frame.

Usually, many students would be walking back and forth through the hallways. As today was a holiday, it was quiet since nobody had a reason to be here. Unexpectedly in the uninhabited hallway, the sunlight pouring through the windows was warm.

In the vicinity of the Cathedral visible from the window, nobody could be seen anymore.

With such a critical situation in which it wouldn't be strange for the Black Beast to appear any moment, they must have thought that no person would purposely go into the Cathedral. All the members of the Mages' Guild who usually stood guard had also left in order to assist the Ten Sages.

Looking at it from here, the Cathedral was quite small, and very lovely. Seemingly having nothing to do with the magnificent organization Mages' Guild, it also looked like a chapel in the corner of a public park.

"If it's really like that, I'd be more willing to approach it."

While removing the hand which held his chin above the window frame, Kazuma raised the edges of his lips to make a bitter smile.

Appearing to be harmless, the deeper he went, there was bound to be strong barriers to protect it.

Nonetheless, it was laid out by humans in the end. There was no way an object that was made by human hands couldn't be broken by another human's hands.

"Well then. Guess I should I go."

Dutifully closing the opened window, Kazuma put both hands in the pockets of his trousers and started walking.

It was then when there was a noise of shoes hitting the hallway.

With a seemingly faint fragrance fluttering about, a short figure of a person appeared from one of the stairway's landings.

A bright colored robe which completely covered the entire body from head to toe; stunning platinum blonde hair overflowing from her crown. Big round eyeglasses, and clear green pupils behind it.

"Where are you going?"

To the voice that was like sickeningly sweet sugar candy, Kazuma vigilantly showed a smile.

"...I see you've come, Trinity Glassfille-san."