Editing City Series:Volume3b Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 3===

Destroyed.

That single word described the state of Akira’s apartment.

It was not that the entire apartment building had been destroyed. Her home – that is, her room – was the only one destroyed.

She noticed as soon as she unlocked and opened the door.

Light from the window reflected off the white porcelain fragments and rounded glass shards covering the old wooden flooring of the small kitchen.

The pieces of blackened boards in the shadows on the floor had originally been the cupboards and the toppled pillar by the wall was the refrigerator with its door torn off.

There was also graffiti spray-painted on the walls, broken lights, and every other kind of destruction imaginable.

“What…is this?”

As she muttered those words in the entranceway, the Lives remaining in the room stroked her cheeks.

Attracted by the outside wind, those residual Lives tried to escape the room. Their Word Color was the dark red of molten metal and the Tempo following that red was a loud, racing pulse.

These were Lives of hatred.

“With Lives this dense, several people must have done this.”

She weakly nodded in acceptance of what had happened.

“Because I’m a Nein Engel…they thought I was a part of my brother’s group.”

…''They were taking revenge.

She also remembered the Lives of the patients staring at her in the hospital lobby.

Those had been lighter than the hatred left here, but they had still contained hostility.

“…”

She placed a hand on her chest to contain her rising pulse.

The Lives of hatred were disturbing her own Live.

She took two, then four deep breaths.

“This kind of thing happens all the time.”

As soon as she gave that emotionless comment, she noticed someone standing right next to her.

She had not expected them there.

“!?”

She was shocked to find how defenseless she was and she reflexively reached for the Device at her waist.

She turned around and swiftly brought the person into view.

“My landlord?”

That was exactly who was there.

The middle-aged woman wearing a green dress was the landlord of Akira’s apartment and she peered into Akira’s room.

“Are you okay, Akira?”

“Yes, I’m fine. But…”

“That’s some rotten luck.”

“Yes, it is. …But who did this and why?”

“It’s unthinkable what happened to your room.” The landlord closed her eyes and gave a sympathetic nod. “I think it was the night two days after that new Divine Punishment War. That would be five days ago. A group showed up as they were preparing to flee to the mainland because of what happened to Hong Kong. …I think there were about twenty of them.”

“And they did all this?”

“I was shocked when I noticed the next morning, but I can’t tell you exactly what happened.”

“I suppose not.”

As she responded to the landlord, Akira realized her Live was oddly still.

…''I’m trying to ignore the emotion of anger.

She felt bad doing this to the landlord, but she could see the woman’s Live.

She could not read it, but she could hear and see the Live coming from her body and that told her what emotions she was feeling.

The landlord’s Live was currently playing fast and yellow.

It was a Live of panic.

…''She’s lying.

To be sure, Akira checked on the main entrance’s doorknob.

There was no sign of damage to the lock or of the doorknob being replaced.

Someone had led the destroyers into her home.

…''This kind of thing happens all the time.

She accepted it with that thought.

She ignored the landlord who was continuing to talk next to her and she stepped into her own room.

She switched on the light out of habit and heard a sound much like tearing paper come from the ceiling.

The broken light had short-circuited.

“Well, you still have power here. …What will you do, Akira?”

“Maybe I should leave.”

“No, you can stay if you want. …We’ll be leaving this city, too.”

“Then what will happen here?” Akira turned around with a hand on the door leading to the living room in the back. “What will happen to this apartment?”

“Britain bought them all. They didn’t pay very much, though. …Still, I think we’ll be using that money to move to the mainland.”

“…”

Akira said nothing in response, but the landlord continued speaking.

“You probably haven’t heard, but the only things functioning in the city center are the emergency hospitals, the Yard, and some slight distribution of supplies. Everyone else has fled to the shelter in the New Territories.”

“They all fled?”

“Yes. The state set up a shelter – really just a tent city – in the New Territories twenty kilometers from here. There’s apparently a distribution center there, too.”

“…”

“VIPs from Britain and other countries are supposedly using that as their base. …You hear all the planes flying around, right? People are moving to other countries and that shelter is the only place where you can arrange for a flight out.”

“You’re running-…moving away, aren’t you?”

“Yes. My son and his wife have already gone there and we’re thinking of settling down in Broad City – Shanghai now that it’s been liberated. …The resident of the next room over and the Ban family down below are all doing the same.”

“This is the only place I have… Could I maybe stay?”

“That’s fine by me.” The landlord’s Live remained unchanged, but her tone grew brighter. “Think of it as making up for what happened to your room. At the very last, no one’s going to complain about someone living here for the week until Hong Kong is returned to China. If you like, why not move down into the Ban family’s room?”

Akira replied with silence.

“…”

She turned the doorknob and opened the way to the living room.

As soon as she did, she lost her sense of sight.

“…!?”

At first, she did not know what it was before her eyes.

It was darkness.

But it was not actual darkness. Light from the window was definitely filling the room.

That meant she was seeing Lives with a black Word Color that had the same density as darkness.

“No…”

She instinctually drew back.

Drawn by her movement, the Lives filling the living room flowed out.

She pressed her shoulder against the side of the door so they would not touch her.

She squeezed her wings shut, crossed her arms tightly, and held her own body.

She saw the pitch black stream at her feet swell up like a swarm of snakes and swim outside.

…''That’s an amazing amount of chaos.

The Word Color resembled the detonation of a Discord Bomb and its Tempo was not uniform. The Word Color that looked like darkness was probably formed from a variety of Word Colors packed together in the small room.

She could not see the individual emotions.

It was a disturbing mixture of Lives.

However, the room slowly came into view as they flowed outside.

“Is everything okay?” asked the landlord behind her.

…''If everything was okay, there wouldn’t be any Lives like this left here.

She hung her head and glanced inside the room. The living room had doubled as her bedroom, but it was now utterly destroyed.

Books, glass shards, and scraps of cloth were strewn across the floor and the walls were covered in lacquer spray graffiti of colors reminiscent of internal organs.

These were the scars of revenge.

Akira sighed.

“I need to clean up.”

She took a step forward while ignoring all of the worried-sounding comments from the landlord behind her. She walked toward the back of the room where some of the darkness remained.

Her feet felt like lead weights.