Editing City Series:Volume3b Chapter 4 (section)

===Part 3===

The afternoon had arrived, but the blue sky still retained its color.

Below it, a tank was stopped in the center of the destroyed Nathan Road.

That Grant from the Yard belonged to the General.

The brightly decorated vehicle was not even idling as it sat there watching a young man facing away from it.

That young man, Gunmal, held Nein König in his flesh-and-blood left hand.

“The weather sure is nice today. You can see the sky perfectly.”

He gave a triumphant snort.

“If the coast wasn’t so badly damaged, I’d invite Akira to the beach. …Right?”

He looked back and a bit up.

The General sat on the Grant’s turret.

The old man frowned and rested his head on his hand.

“In five days and a bit, Hong Kong will be returned to China. You need to worry about gettin’ a visa before worryin’ about the beach.”

“I don’t really care. If I have to choose between being treated like an illegal immigrant and the beach, I’ll choose the beach.”

“How ‘bout you look around you before sayin’ that?”

Gunmal did as he was told.

This part of Nathan Road was near where he and Akira had fought Fei and J-Gun. It had also been hit by the earthquake and tsunami caused by the destruction.

Most of the buildings were much shorter than before.

There was no one on the road, so his vision was clear.

Once he saw all that, he nodded.

“This place was destroyed pretty good, wasn’t it?”

“That isn’t all.”

The General sighed.

In addition to the city’s damage, the ground itself was torn up for about two hundred meters in front of Gunmal.

Shimmering heat rose from the damaged earth.

This destruction was new.

“Just because you run across a monster is no reason for goin’ that far.”

“Don’t blame me, old man. It’s my first day on the job.”

Gunmal showed off his armband. The green plastic armband said “Cleared” in white.

“The four Earth Burns really disturbed the ley lines around here, so without Akira…”

“Askin’ for your help might’ve been the biggest mistake of my life.”

“Stop flattering me.”

“Is that so?”

The General sounded annoyed and he looked down to his pocket.

Gunmal noticed the motion.

“Are you worried about the call from that guy?”

“More or less.”

“So Rin left the hospital and Akira’s emotionally unstable, hm?”

“The two of them are searchin’ around the city, but knowin’ Rin, they won’t find her.”

“You sound like you know where she is.”

“Of course. I know where all the young girls go.”

“Then where’s Rin, you dirty old man?”

“Well… Probably in somethin’ of a secret base of hers. Injured animals tend to go into hidin’ until they can make a comeback.”

Gunmal nodded at the old man’s answer.

“She’s going to heal herself between now and Hong Kong’s return to China?” He looked to his own right hand. “Customizing her body would be the only way, but can she complete a surgery that major in time?”

“I don’t know. From Hong Kong, she’d probably have to get a complete rearrangement of her Live in Shanghai or Detroit’s virtual network. The question would be how well equipped her secret base is and whether it’s still up and runnin’.”

“Rewriting the data in the human genome, huh? At best, it would take three days hooked up to the network. Although she might be able to shorten that by routing through London to more easily convert her body’s Live into text data.”

“Either way, that isn’t a surgery a normal woman should go through.”

One of the tank’s crew shouted from inside it.

“General! We have a reading to five o’clock!”

Based on the direction the tank was facing, five o’clock was south-southwest, or looking down Nathan Road toward the sea.

The General and Gunmal looked in that direction.

The eight lane road had four lanes in each direction and most of the buildings on either side had collapsed, but the walls where still quite large compared to a human.

Something even larger than those walls was moving.

A white mountain could be glimpsed behind one of the collapsed buildings.

“A white tiger, huh?” said Gunmal without really checking. “Comparing it to that building, it must be around twenty meters tall.”

The General’s eyebrows moved in response.

“A tiger? That’ll be the biggest one today.”

“I hate these Live disturbances that grow as they devour the city.”

“Is this any time to complain? Oh, that thing’s got an Octave of 1,600,000.”

“So it’s two buildings’ worth of disturbed Lives?”

Gunmal thought for a moment.

“Compare that to the amount of destruction on the overhead map. We’ll probably be done here once I defeat this one.”

“You make it sound easy. Hurry up and finish it off before it comes runnin’ this way.”

“Sure thing.”

Gunmal swung Nein König without looking that way.

“Ah.”

He placed that simple Live reverberation inside Nein König.

It was an impressive Live.

It had a low Tempo that moved like a wave and rumbled in one’s gut.

Its Word Color was the gray of metal.

He amplified it within Nein König and sent it racing out.

“!”

The quiet Live of his voice burst out as a roar too great to read.

The Word Color of the light made it look like a giant line of steel.

Its destination was a building looking down on the white form.

The metallic Live pierced through the building and destroyed it.

That was only the beginning.

The light burst from within the building that still had its first four floors.

A bestial cry shook the air from beyond the building, but Gunmal’s Live consumed even the beast’s roar.

It pierced through everything.

The rumbling sound resembled a giant piece of ice falling into the ocean.

The steel-colored light devoured both the building and the beast behind it.

However, it did not end there.

Three buildings of the same height were destroyed behind the tiger.

They were annihilated.

Not even their Lives remained.

There was only rubble and shimmering heat.

“That should do it.”

“Y’know…”

“I held back. Honest.”

Gunmal’s tone was light and the General looked away from him.

He looked to the earth torn up in a different direction.

“Bustin’ sure has gone a long way in Europe.”

“But Tuning hasn’t. And it looks like it hasn’t here either, maybe due to the Divine Punishment Wars. Most of the material about it has been lost, hasn’t it? Not as much as in my homeland, though.”

The General smiled bitterly.

“If more of it were left…I could’ve been a better teacher than I am.”

“Hm? For Rin and Akira, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“…”

“Gunmal. Didn’t you stop by Akira’s place?”

“Yes… But I might as well not have.”

“Why didn’t you actually meet her?”

“It didn’t seem like the right time. The ocean still hasn’t calmed down, after all. If I’m gonna ask her to the beach, we’ve at least gotta be able to swim.”

“Pervert.”

“You’re one to talk when you always bring up Akira in every conversation. Are you into younger women or something?”

“I’m not about to get turned on by a girl who could be my granddaughter. It’s just that my wife keeps insistin’ I look after Akira.”

“Your wife? Does she know Akira?”

“No.”

“Then what are you talking about, old man? Was there some glitch in your brain?”

“Don’t blame me. That’s just how women are.”

The General nodded and sighed.

The old man rubbed the scar on his cheek and looked back to the young man.

“It’s not time to meet her yet? …You’re soundin’ like a prophet.”

“A prophet? I’m not a Tuner.”

“True. There’re the Lives of Yin, Yang, and space-time above normal Bustin’ and Tunin’.”

“It sure would be convenient to draw out the Live of time and read the future.”

“It wouldn’t be that easy for Hong Kong at the moment.”

“Are all of the commands and books left by the emperor really gone?”

“All of that stuff was lost durin’ the Fifth Divine Punishment War.”

“The Fifth Divine Punishment War, huh?”

“A lot happened then.”

Gunmal nodded and looked up at the General.

“A lot, huh?”

His eyes turned to the scar on the General’s cheek.

He then stopped moving.

“I’ve been wondering.”

He fell silent.

“…”

His expression was unusually stiff.

He paused to breathe and then he spoke quietly.

“I’ve been wondering about something.”

“About what?”

“The official story is the original version of that giant Tune Emblem was made for local destruction.”

“Yes.”

“But what was it really made for?”

Gunmal’s eyes turned to the tank the General sat on.

He frowned and sighed.

“I guess that isn’t something to talk about in public.”

“I can tell you a little bit.”

“?”

“This has been repeated again and again and even this age has been overwritten countless times.”

“Is that supposed to be a hint?”

“You just have to worry about the present.”

“So I’m not supposed to worry about the past? There’s no way a young guy can do that.”

“It’s your loss. …A real shame after the last Hu went a little overboard and destroyed our old system. That produced a new system.”

Gunmal stuck out his tongue.

“System? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Some people fight because they don’t understand.”

Gunmal tilted his head and the General twisted his mouth into a slight smile.

He then peered inside the tank and gave the crew some instructions.

The tank started up immediately.

Its engine roared to life and it began to idle.

“Hey, at least tell me one thing!” shouted Gunmal.

“What is it?”

“If my previous prediction is correct, then you’re actually Akira’s father, aren’t you?”

“…?”

The General frowned for once and looked to Gunmal.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because of that scar on your cheek…and because you’re the only person in Hong Kong whose Live I can’t read.”

“And the rest is your prediction? Didn’t you see Akira’s family grave?”

“Oh, that’s right. …Come to think of it, she saw her father die. I guess I was wrong.”

Gunmal scratched his head.

“It was a good guess, though.”

With that comment and a bitter smile on his lips, the General turned around.

In that instant, someone descended onto the idling Grant’s secondary weapon, a 70mm machinegun.

The wind blew through.