Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter19 (section)

===Beretta’s Write Bring: Entry in Heavy Barrel Sourire’s Memory Bank===

<You can never understand how huge that black dragon is until he’s standing right in front of you.

His face alone is nearly 20 yards tall and he’s charging toward me while knocking trees down. The collisions with the trees injure his scaly black skin, but he instantly regenerates and heals.

All the research books I’ve seen say dragons are the strongest creatures and I have got to agree with them.>

Crap!! I’ve gotta dodge this.

I jump into the mountain. Sourire stands 9 yards tall, so the trees are on obstacle for me as well. But since the trees also slow down the dragon, the pressure is far less than if I were running along the road.

I’m running while down below the canopy of threes. And I jump from time to time.

<Conifer leaves scatter as Sourire soars up into the moonlit night sky.

The black dragon’s face is so close behind me I could swear he was within arm’s reach.>

I twist my body partway around in midair and fire homing shots from the six divine cannons on my back.

<The soaring projectiles are metal arrows that require the least amount of emotion to fire.>

I don’t check if they hit. With an opponent this big, there’s no way I can miss. My accuracy has got to be 100%. Instead of watching that in satisfaction, I need to make sure I hit the ground running.

<nowiki><I</nowiki> land in the forest.>

Hell, yeah. Time to run. I have pretty nice legs, if I say so myself. Both ability-wise and appearance-wise.

<The leaves rustle to my right.>

Did the black dragon’s foreleg drop down there? Looks like he’s trying to divert me to the left.

But I continue going straight. This way takes me to Herlde’s mountain road and the small shrine at the top of the mountain. That shrine produces a sound outside of the audible range for humans, but the dragon hates it. This should be a little easier if I can get within range of that.

Come to think of it, we could have just evacuated the villagers there. Why did the mayor send them to Autun instead?

<Trees fall to my right in a chain reaction. One knocks over the next, like dominoes.

One of them falls out head of Sourire to block my path.>

It’s in the way, so I prepare the spear in my right hand while I run and thrust it out to the front with a twisting motion. I get a powerful blow in on the trunk while it’s still falling.

<The large tree splinters through the air from the spear strike. I hear that along with the black dragon inhaling behind me.

Within the intermittent but never-ending song of booming footsteps and snapping trees, the raw sound of inhalation sounds much longer, heavier, and more powerful than everything else, filling me with tension.>

Damn. And I might have been able to do something if I could use the Over Emblem.

This Write Bring is incomplete. It might be due to the child in my- no, blaming this on someone else won’t help anything.

The biggest problem is that…yes, I’ve grown indecisive when it comes to Heavy Barrels…no, when it comes to fighting.

I am lacking something and that something is needed to make the final decision here.

Would self-confidence be the best word for it?

Without that, I want to do something but I don’t know if I should.

I want to scream.

<nowiki><I</nowiki> can see the scene behind me in my wide-range vision.

The black dragon is running like a wolf while felling the forest’s trees and pursuing me.

The shape of his mouth would best be described as a smile.>

Are you enjoying this!?

Is pursuing your prey fun? Oh, that’s right. You can fly, but you’re making a point of chasing me on foot.

But why don’t you slaughter me with a single attack?

I kind of get it. You lost to Sourire once before. That’s it, isn’t it!?

<After breathing in, the dragon closes his mouth.

He curls his back a bit while running, raising his wings and the horn-like fins on his back.

The ends of the black wings and fins glow with a white light.

That is the light of his Dragon Particle Cannon.>

Geh.

<White light surges toward heaven from the wings and hundreds of fins on his back. The hundreds of white curves rip through the dark night as individual destructive lights. They ascend, curve around, and will finally fall.>

Just like my six divine cannons, huh? Damn, I can’t escape this while inside the forest.

I run. I sprint.

But my legs are heavier than I imagined.

My emotions and willpower are not enough. The Heavy Barrel draws out its power in response to my emotions and it is the strength of my willpower that determines if I can control that. Simply yelling isn’t enough, but simply remaining calm isn’t enough either. Those were the two tricks to piloting a Heavy Barrel, but I wasn’t handling either one well right now.

<A downpour of light plummets from high in the sky.>

Dammit, no one told me he could fire so many at once.

This thing is way more powerful than the rumors said. I was going to have to jump for it, even though that was a gamble. I crouched down for a split-second and then performed a huge leap to accelerate myself outside the range of destruction.

I jumped.

<nowiki><I</nowiki> soar through the empty air.

The light explodes on impact behind me and the ground shines as bright as the sun.

The cacophony never seems to end as it roars on and on like a waterfall. The dragon continues running while absorbing all of the hits to himself to make the light part of himself once more. His silhouette stands out in the backlight from the ground and then he rises up into the night sky so the moonlight shines behind him.

He roars and inhales.

Time for a second Dragon Particle Cannon.>

I had a feeling!

<The next inhalation only takes a moment. He takes aim at airborne Sourire and opens his mouth wide.

Then he fires. The light is thicker than a standard Dragon Particle Cannon to make sure he slays his prey. That makes the light less dense, but it is spread out enough to envelop even a small enemy.>

I’m not letting this happen. I fire only the right ones of the six divine cannons on my back. Then I twist around.

<The firing and recoil of the divine cannons alters airborne Sourire’s course similar to a blow from the side. But I’m knocked out of my midair position.

A moment later, I hear the sound of sizzling air while the dispersed Dragon Particle Cannon grazes Sourire’s foot.>

Ow, ow. That feels just like stubbing my little toe, but I’ll manage. I can adjust my attitude to land on my feet. Just like I did when jumping into the old man’s courtyard and when I jumped over Phillip’s shoulder.

I twist around to bring my legs below me and place my center of gravity below my hips.

<But the movement is insufficient.>

Oh, no! Is my willpower really not enough!?

<Sourire lands while tilted slightly sideways from fully upright. My momentum knocks down a few trees while I roll on out of the forest and stop on the mountain road.

But that road is no longer a road.

The collapse from the multiple earthquakes caused the road itself to slide down into the forest below, creating a ravine instead. This explains why the mayor did not choose to bring the people to the mountaintop shrine.>

I was tricked! Wait, but by who? No, this isn’t the time for that. I need to get up and start running or that dragon-

<Something casts a shadow from the moonlight in the sky.

Something enormous passes by overhead, shaking the atmosphere enough to produce a rumbling. It lands awfully slowly about 30 yards ahead of Sourire.

That giant form is the black dragon. The force of its landing causes more of the ground to collapse and slide down.>

I’m screwed. He knew this road was out and he chased me here.

Oh, no. This is bad in more ways than one. Like, really bad. And the worst part is that I might die, which would mean-

<The black dragon advances while kicking up his right leg.>

I raise my shield and brace for impact!!

<The attack did not provide much pain for the intensity of the blow. This great weight – the 20 tons of a Heavy Barrel – is somewhat softly and rapidly accelerated at the instant of impact and blown away in the name of inertia.

The next thing I know, Sourire is airborne.

Sourire flies in a parabolic arc and the dragon opens his mouth and aims for it.

I do not sense a Dragon Particle Cannon. It tries to smash me with those rows of yellow fangs instead.

But that never happens. The mountain road crumbles further below his feet.

He staggers and I see white smoke rising from below him. That is the gas that burned down the inn.

Sourire continues flying toward the village’s entrance.>