Editing City Series:Volume3a Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 4===

[[Image:City_v03a_033.jpg|thumb]]
Akira fell to her knees while surrounded by countless colors of cats.

“Maybe I split it up too much. This is too much noise.”

She had Tuned the ''Qinghu'', but to ensure that the proper Live and the disturbed Live did not reflexively echo off each other, she had split off every 10,000 Octaves into a separate kitten.

“With forty-four of them, I bet a cat-lover could barely contain themselves. …Come here. Good boy.”

She reached out a hand and a green cat approached from the group.

It mewed sweetly and she pet its head.

“…”

She was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief and look up into the sky.

The moon was out in the deep night sky.

The sky over England’s Aerial City – London contained a door to the heaven that had been destroyed during the previous world war. Hong Kong was still British territory because it had yet to be returned to China, so the same door was opened in its sky.

“But you can’t see the chapter title pages and celestial dome even in the moonlight.”

She lowered her gaze and looked down the road.

Far, far down the road, the men in Yard uniforms were looking her way and slowly approaching.

She could faintly see their Lives.

Most of them had the yellow Word Color of praise. Some red was mixed in because of the newcomers who had gotten too worked up during the earlier gunfire.

It may have been even less common than the red, but she did see the purple of doubt.

…''Not bad for a Nein Engel.

A Nein Engel was a hybrid between an angel and a human.

But Akira was not bothered by those doubtful Messages.

“That’s right, isn’t it?”

The cats she had unraveled from the ''Qinghu'' tilted their heads at her question.

She smiled bitterly at the action.

A brief dull pain raced along her back.

She touched it and could tell she had been nicked when charging underneath the ''Qinghu'' earlier.

The injury was not on either of her two large wings. It was on the inside of those wings.

…''On one of the small deformed wings. I can’t believe it.

Deformities were common in Nein Engels. As a Seraph Nein Engel, she should have had six wings, but four of them had grown in far too small. They were so small that the average person would not even notice them.

…''Looks like it’s stopped bleeding, so I guess I’ll get it treated later.

That was when she heard what sounded like stone being struck.

“…!?”

That was the sound of a Live being destroyed.

She looked up in surprise and saw a man in midair.

“What?”

Before she could wonder what was happening, the man fell to her feet.

A dull sound and a wet sound reached her ears.

“Blood!?”

The dark red substance spreading along the road came from a terrible wound. She ignored the quickly fleeing cats and ran over to him.

He had messy hair and wore intellectual glasses. He seemed to be in his late twenties. If they had not been stained with blood, his clothes would have been very nice. Lastly, he held the remains of a Device.

As soon as she saw the shape of the Device, Akira realized who the man was.

“Gunmal!?”

She shouted the kind of Urban Name used by Busters and Tuners and she lifted him into a sitting position.

There was no mistaking it.

She had never met the man before, but she had seen him in the newspapers a few times. Despite working as a Buster, he had revealed his Wild Name to the public. That real name he hid with the Urban Name of Gunmal was…

“Hong Kong’s greatest Buster, J-Gun Maldrick.”

Tuners rearranged Lives to change objects’ forms and fix them, but Busters destroyed Lives to destroy objects and remake them. Busters created the Devices used in Tuning and Busting and all Busters were expert fighters.

“Why is Hong Kong’s greatest Buster on the verge of death!?”

J-Gun’s eyes opened at her question.

His weak eyes briefly showed a hint of surprise.

“I can’t believe this. Even after destroying space itself, I can’t escape the Nein Engels.”

“Eh!?”

Despite her obvious confusion, J-Gun gave a smile at being released from his exhaustion and closed his eyes. As he did so, his lips moved.

“Someone, please call…”

“Call!? Call who!?”

“They can…Hong Kong’s destruction… They can…our home…”

His voice and his Live shrank and diminished.

“I’m sorry, Genius.”

With those words as her sign, Akira raised her Device.

…''Will I make it in time?

“I am Hong Kong’s greatest Tuner.”

She reminded herself of that, took a deep breath, and pressed the tip of the spear against J-Gun’s chest.

A moment later, she thought she felt her mind waver.