Editing BlazBlue:Phase Shift 4 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 3===

Nine gave the sword in a blue scabbard, Mucro Algesco: Yukianesa and the twin guns, Arcus Diabolus: Bolverk to Seven and Three of the Ten Sages, respectively.

Yukianesa used the element of ice, so it was a perfect fit for Seven, who was better at controlling water than anyone else and who had some skill with swords. Three preferred magic that affected wide areas all at once, so the long range and high rate of fire of the guns was tactically advantageous in her hands.

As the survivors of the force that had returned on the brink of decimation were sorting out the living and the dead, soldiers, armaments, provisions, and other military necessities from all around the world were brought into Ishana. Ishana's clean air started to smell more and more like iron rust with each passing day as the final confrontation loomed. The largest Ars Magus Corps in history was formed up, and even Ishana's hill was being used to create alchemical weapons.

Around the time Jubei, Valkenhayn, and Hakumen's wounds healed (which happened much faster than any humans would have), Hakumen suddenly called a meeting of Nine, Celica, Trinity, Jubei, Valkenhayn, and Terumi.

They gathered in a room that was a little too snugly packed with miscellaneous items to be called a conference room, a peaceful room that smelled of flowers and black tea. The wooden table they sat at had a white cup of herbal tea for everyone, and someone had quickly set out a plate of crackers garnished with jam.

The place they had gathered in wasn't a Mage's Guild establishment: it was Trinity's workshop. Hakumen was no Mage's Guild employee, and he thought going through their procedures was far too much trouble, so Trinity had offered up her workshop.

Compared to their usual wide, dimly lit conference room, Trinity's bright, cramped little workshop let everyone relax a little. When they were all gathered, Hakumen opened his invisible mouth.

"I have a proposal. This is about how we will fell the Black Beast."

As he cut straight to the point with his severe and grim opening topic, Nine's face immediately went serious. She had just been discussing the very same thing with the Joint HQ while organizing the troops, but no one there had been able to come to any sort of agreement.

Leaning over the table, Nine looked across at Hakumen with a fierce glare.

"I'm interested. By all means, go on."

Nine was glad that they weren't in a Mage's Guild conference room.

Their conference rooms were soundproofed so that no conversation would ever leak beyond their walls, but the Mage's Guild being what it was, there were countless people who would be doing their best to overhear your conversation, no matter who you were, where you were, or what you were talking about. If what Hakumen was about to propose was realistic and practical, it would be conceivable that someone might have overheard it and taken it to a Joint HQ meeting with them. Such scoundrels wouldn't be able to pull tricks like that at Trinity's workshop, and this room was protected by a barrier just as strong as any Mage's Guild conference room.

Everyone gathered, not just Nine, was waiting expectantly for Hakumen to continue, so he grabbed the scabbard of his nodachi that was as long as a person and thrust it forward. One of the Nox Nyctores causality weapons, Interfectum Malus: Ookami.

"First, I need to make one thing clear: even with the Nox Nyctores, if humanity faces down the Black Beast head on, we will lose."

A weighty declaration. Emphasizing this immutable truth with Ookami, he took the relaxed atmosphere right out of the room.

Nine's eyebrows shot together in a furrow.

"For the record, the power you'll feel when you use it on the battlefield will be on a whole other level to the power you felt when you were swinging it around at the Mage's Guild to calibrate it. The Nox Nyctores exist purely to kill the Black Beast. When you stand face-to-face with the Black Beast, both its power and its associated burden will skyrocket."

"That goes without saying. I am not claiming any dissatisfaction with these weapons."

"Then what are you getting at?"

Nine flipped her hair as she started to get irritated with Hakumen, who hadn't gotten to his point yet.

With a slight movement of the neck, Hakumen turned his face to Nine.

"The Nox Nyctores are strong, but no matter how strong a weapon might be, it serves no purpose if the one wielding it cannot endure the Black Beast's onslaught."

As someone who had faced the Black Beast in the flesh just half a month ago, his words carried dreadful weight.

One of his comrades on that battlefield, Jubei, hung his head as he crossed his arms.

"...I get what Hakumen's saying. I couldn't fight like I wanted to by the end there, after all."

"There's more to it. Without a doubt, the beast has become wise. We cannot outwit it with weapons alone."

Valkenhayn's usual grim expression contained the gravity of his recent experiences as he lowered his chin.

He knew that this wasn't the sort of problem that could be solved with a good enough weapon. No matter which people or what weapons they gathered, it wouldn't be enough. The Black Beast existed on an entirely different level.

Cowed by the sudden change of atmosphere mixed with the pressure of an unfamiliar battlefield, Trinity quietly listened to the words of those who had lived through that fight. Next to her, Celica listened with a serious face and rapt attention while she made little cracking sounds with the jam-coated crackers she was continuing to eat. Standing behind her as naturally as if she was Celica's shadow was Nirvana.

"So? Are you going to make any suggestions today?"

Exposing her voluptuous thighs as she shifted her legs, Nine tapped the table with her finger to hurry the conversation along.

Hakumen placed Ookami lengthwise on the table and started giving an answer.

"Do you remember the cave we found underground near the Kaka Clan village?"

"You mean the one we found near the subway line～"

Following Trinity's lead after she raised her hand and softly answered Hakumen, Celica got a little excited as she spoke up.

"I remember. That really pretty one, right? Didn't you say it was like the planet's antibodies or something..."

"Indeed. That place had a power to eliminate seithr within its area just like your own, Celica. The Black Beast is essentially a large mass of seithr, so it would lose considerable strength if we were to lead it there." "How're you gonna do that when there're no cauldrons anywhere near there?"

Sitting close to the wall and leaning back and forth in his chair, Terumi chimed in with little more than passing interest.

In response, Trinity pulled up her personal map. It wasn't as big as the one in the Mage's Guild, but it showed Ishana, the nearby continent, and all the major cities on them. It was at least ten years old, however, so it showed the names of many cities that no longer existed as well.

"The closest cauldron to Ishana is this one right here. The Kaka village is..."

"Right 'round here."

Trinity drew a circle in red pen around the location of a cauldron, then Jubei reached in from her side and pointed out the next location. Using the red pen again, she drew a triangle around that point.

Peaking over her shoulder, Celica's mouth opened in surprise.

"They're pretty far away..."

Celica summed it up well.

It would be more than a stretch of the imagination to say that the cauldron where the Black Beast would likely show up last and the Kaka village were close to each other. They might have looked relatively close on the map, but even leading a pursuing human army that far would have been unrealistic, to say nothing of the Black Beast. Furthermore, the Kaka village was unfortunately relatively far inland, practically in the opposite direction of Ishana from the perspective of the final cauldron.

"At the very least, leading it that far on foot is impossible. Even traveling in motor vehicles would be unrealistic. At that distance, magic would be the only viable option..."

Hakumen nodded to Valkenhayn's words.

"Indeed. We will use teleportation magic. We teleport the Black Beast to the cave as it appears from the cauldron, then lay waste to it."

"Hold on."

Nine interrupted Hakumen with a tone that indicated that she was far from on board with this plan. She took her hand off of her chin and stared him down with a sharp glint in her eyes.

"This place you're talking about has no seithr, so you think that if we can get the Black Beast there, it'll be seriously hampered. I understand that well enough. The idea of teleporting the Black Beast there is interesting, too. It's going to be impossible though."

“Is distance the reason?"

"It sure is."

Hakumen and Nine went back-and-forth from across the table.

"Teleportation takes you a shorter and shorter distance the more mass you add. If you tried to teleport something as big as the Black Beast all the way from that cauldron to that cave, all of the Ten Sages working together wouldn't be enough to pull it off."

If it was something that all of the Ten Sages together couldn't do, then even adding all the rest of mages in the Mage's Guild to the equation wouldn't make much of a difference.

Nevertheless, Hakumen answered immediately.

"Then where would you need to start from to reach the cave?"

"Huh?"

She hadn't expected him to ask something like that. Nine was visibly taken aback, but she put her expression back in order after a moment.

"Well... if it was just me alone, I could probably only make it from within walking distance of the Kaka village, but if we assumed all of the Ten Sages were working together on this... maybe from about here."

Nine lit a bright light on her fingertip and drew a circle on the map.

The paper didn't burn even though she touched it directly, and Hakumen, Celica, Trinity, and Valkenhayn all looked down at the circle on the paper at once. The circle was much bigger than any of them had expected, but it was still obviously not somewhere they could reach from the cauldron. And yet...

"...I'm not sure how much distance this is in reality, but for the Black Beast, it's not all that far. Hakumen-san?"

After some brief thought while lightly touching her chin with her hand, Celica looked up with a clear thought in her mind. Hakumen nodded lightly to indicate that he was listening.

"I can handle that. If it works out, we might win, after all."

"Wha- hold on just a minute!"

Like she was trying to wedge herself between Celica and Hakumen as they looked at each other, Nine raised her voice in a panic.

"Don't you two go deciding things on your own. Hakumen, just who do you think you're trying to rope into this?"

From beneath the shadow of her big, triangular purple hat, she glared with unconcealed fury at the expressionless white mask.

Quietly returning her gaze with indifference, Hakumen answered.

"We will have Celica lead the Black Beast into teleportation range."

Faster than he could get the words out, Nine slammed the table and stood up.

"Huh!? Don't screw with me, you want a repeat of last time!? And there was an ambush already set up back then, plus we need a certain amount of prep to use teleportation, so she'd need to lead it all the way there you know!? What do you mean, just lead it into teleportation range? Are you telling Celica to go play tag with the Black Beast!?"

Even at the best of times, they were dealing with a genuine monster boasting atrocious destructive power and devious cunning to boot. She looked like she was about to climb over the table and throw a punch, so Jubei and Trinity came in from her left and right and put their hands on her in the hopes of soothing her rage a bit.

"Hey, cool it."

"Let's just hear him out first～"

But before those two could manage to calm her down, Celica stood up straight as an arrow.

"Listen to me, Onee-chan. I actually already talked to Hakumen-san about this, and I was the one who suggested that I lead the Black Beast along."

"I don't care whose idea it was, I won't let you! Do you want to die!?"

"It's not like that. I've been thinking of something other than standing in front of the Black Beast with Hakumen-san and the army people to lure it away."

Pressing her fingers on the edge of the table, Celica looked straight at Nine.

Normally when Nine got emotional and lost her cool like this, Celica would be yelling right back at her, wondering if they were having a conversation or a simple sisters' fight. Today, however, Celica maintained her composure. More specifically, her bearing showed that she had nothing but calm, tranquil resolve in her heart. She took one comforting glance at Hakumen before beginning her sincere speech.

"I haven't told you this yet, but remember when a piece of the Black Beast teleported into Ishana with Take-Mikazuchi? In that moment, I don't know how it happened, but I went inside of the Black Beast."

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"Inside it..."

Nine asked with a severe expression on her face.

Everyone else in the room reacted much like Nine, looking at Celica with surprise mixed with a little curiosity, save for Hakumen, who was the only one who already knew this fact. Even Terumi, still sitting by the wall, was no exception.

"Yeah. And... I found Ragna in there."

Jubei gasped in shock, and Nine once again could not hide her astonishment from Celica.

"We didn't get to spend much time together, but Ragna seemed to be doing something specific inside the Black Beast. Something that he could only do from there."

"So... are you implying that you want to enter the Black Beast and lead it into position from there... Celica-san?"

Confused anxiety clouded Trinity's beautiful green eyes as she threaded her white fingertips over her chin.

Celica didn't nod. Instead, she tilted her head and tried to think of the right words to express herself.

"No, not really that exactly... more like, I could put it in a state where it could be led? That's how Hakumen-san put it, anyway. I'll go inside the Black Beast, find Ragna and get him to help me, then look for the Black Beast's heart."

Celica unconsciously clenched her hand so tightly that it started shaking as she laid out her plan. Her small fist didn't show that she was trying to put on a brave face: it proved how strongly she wanted to do anything she could.

Supplementing Celica's awkward explanation, Hakumen picked up where she left off.

"The Black Beast came about by means of flesh and a heart. If those two components are not eliminated simultaneously, it will not fall. If viewed from the opposite perspective, that means that the beast can be vanquished if we strike down both at once. If we interfere with the heart somehow, it will turn its attention inward. It will forget all about going to Ishana, and it may even bite at simple bait, allowing it to be lured away."

"And by 'simple bait,' you must mean..."

Large numbers of people and unspoiled establishments or buildings were the perfect bait for tickling the Black Beast's base instincts.

Valkenhayn couldn't help but think about the day that Take-Mikazuchi had fallen on Ishana, groaning.

"Heh, I get it. If you scrape up every poor sap who thinks he can fight and shove 'em in the Joint HQ Army, you'd have a force way bigger than the number of people still hanging out in Ishana. A stupid, bloodthirsty monster would obviously come running for the one that has the most prey."

Leaning his chair so far back that it creaked, Terumi looked like he was having a blast, a thin smile spreading across his face.

Hakumen picked Ookami up off the table and returned it to his back as he put more vigor into his voice.

"If we can disrupt the Black Beast from the inside out, we will be able to lead it into teleportation range. We will have all the Ten Sages work together to teleport the Black Beast directly above the cave, thereby incapacitating it, and from there we strike the heart from the inside as we strike the body from the outside... and put an end to this."

That was the plan Hakumen had been thinking up for the decisive battle ever since Celica told him that she had gone inside the Black Beast and found Ragna.

From the existence of an 'inside' of the Black Beast, to the beast being composed of 'flesh' and 'heart' components, to the efficacy of the cave's power against the beast itself, not a single piece of this information was proven with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, Hakumen's words had something that went beyond meticulously recorded and calculated data: they were facts of life. Just like how air is air and water is water, the concepts that Hakumen founded his plan upon carried a sort of gravity that put them beyond reproach. Nine, Trinity, Jubei, and Valkenhayn could all tell that, if everything went according to plan, they really would be able to defeat the Black Beast. They knew it was true by intuition rather than logic, as if the very words coming out of Hakumen's mouth themselves were showing them the path to victory.

Nine bit her lip but kept her silence, thinking hard about something. Noticing Nine, Trinity gracefully raised her hand.

"You say that Celica-san needs to get inside the Black Beast, but how would we make that happen? And surely you have some way to safely get her out, don't you?"

Her gentle, composed question was intended to slow the conversation down a little before they all separated their emotions from their sense of duty too much. Trinity certainly wasn't one of the ones in danger of doing that, though.

Before Hakumen could respond to her sweet voice, Jubei looked over at her with anguish apparent on his face.

"I got a way to get her in. My clan has this sword, called the 'Time Killing Blade,' Hihiirokane... it's got the power to cut through a body and a soul at the same time."

The feet of Terumi's chair clattered to the ground when Jubei said the name of the sword, but no one paid him any mind. Or, at least, no one let it show on their face if they did pick up on it.

"That sword would be able to cut through the Black Beast's spirit, which might make it possible to get inside it. Never tried it though, so I dunno how it'd actually work."

He couldn't say it would work for certain, but then again, hardly anything was certain with the Black Beast. It wouldn't do them any good to split hairs over every uncertain detail; they had to just play every card they could.

"Where's that sword now? Do you have it, Jubei-san?"

Celica asked with hope sparkling in her eyes.

Jubei shook his head no, but he didn't seem very despondent about it.

"It's in storage in a certain place. I know where it is, so I can easily go and get it."

"There's no problem, then. Jubei-san can make an entrance for me."

Celica gave a big nod. Just as it seemed like every problem had been solved…

"Please wait a moment. How are you going to get out, then?"

Reigning in Celica before she got carried away, Trinity brought up what she considered to be the main problem at hand again.

Celica nodded at that question too.

"Don't worry, I'm sure I'll just naturally return to the outside world when you defeat the Black Beast. Even if I don't, Nirvana can just get me out. That's what she did last time."

Nirvana's hands could physically touch and interfere with seithr, so she could rip open the Black Beast from the inside and bring Celica back out. That was something she had already proven. With her hands, it was possible that she really could attack the heart from the inside and the flesh from the outside.

Just as the conversation seemed to be drifting toward that idea…

"Do we really have to put this all on Celica again...? Can't the six of us handle one little monster without her?"

Nine couldn't hold back her bitterness and pain anymore.

Trinity and Jubei's expressions both went dark at the same time. Nine wasn't the only one who would have loved to keep Celica off the front lines, if only there were any other way.

Hakumen's words came down like a cut from a sword.

"Thinking that we cannot fight the Black Beast without Celica A. Mercury is a false assumption: The truth is that we can only fight it because we have her."

"That's a fallacy..."

She could hardly get the words out. Nevertheless, Hakumen's words stuck in her chest.

She didn't want to use her little sister like a tool, and she didn't want to put her in danger, but she knew that if they went to battle without Celica, their chances of victory would become yet another uncertainty.

Victory would become an unlikelihood, if anything.

Celica shot away from the table like a speeding bullet. She scurried around the cramped room and took Nine's lovely cheeks in her hands, lifting her head up to look her in the eyes. Nine's cheeks were as smooth as ever, but they had become noticeably sunken recently.

"I don't want to have to use Nirvana's last resort. I'd much rather we all do everything we can do and win this fight together. I wouldn't be even a little bit happy if we could only beat the Black Beast and restore peace after everyone I love had already died."

She understood what Nine was feeling. If Celica were in Nine's position, with all her abilities and everything, she wouldn't want to send her little sister out onto a battlefield either.

Nevertheless, Celica stared her older sister down with assertive eyes, having to look up at Nine because she was taller.

"You guys are all always looking out for me. If I go inside the Black Beast and give this plan everything I've got, I can do something to make all that trouble worth it for you. And that's not the only thing..."

"Do you not understand just how dangerous of a situation this is going to be?"

"I do understand. But, I mean, I am your little sister, you know? I'm a mage, and I'm Nine of the Ten Sages' little sister."

Her big, wet soil-colored eyes held a profound strength as she gazed straight ahead. She had the same fierce look in her eyes as Nine, who intimidated everyone in the Mage's Guild.

"Someone has to do this, and since I'm the only one with the power to do it, I want to do my part. If I back out of this and we lose... if we can't beat the Black Beast after all, then I'm just going to end up dead anyway, you know?"

Nine's eyes trembled at the word 'dead.'

Nine put her hands on Celica's, which at this point were less so 'holding' her cheeks and more so 'gripping' them.

"...Of course I know that."

How many times now had her stubbornness lost out to Celica's stubbornness? Even Nine understood the situation they were in here. No matter how hard she wracked her brain, she would always come to the same conclusion: that this was their best plan. They had no more military assets waiting in reserve beyond what they currently had, they had nowhere they could retreat to, and they wouldn't have the strength to stand back up and try again if they lost this fight. This would be their last battle, and they had to play every card in their hand.

However, Nine was hesitating precisely because this was the end, and it was Hakumen's words that steeled her emotions.

"You do not have to put your faith in anything or anyone else. You do not even have to accept or approve of this. But, you must believe in your sister and Ragna the Bloodedge."

"...Ragna..."

Nine's whispering voice died in her throat, and she let go of Celica's hands.

Sitting back down heavily in her chair, she crossed her long legs over one another and crossed her arms beneath her chest.

"...First things first, we retrieve Hihiirokane. While we're waiting for that, I'll talk to the Ten Sages about the teleportation thing."

Nine spoke with a clear, rational voice, bouncing all the things they would have to do in preparation around in her head, before draining her cold herbal tea in one gulp.