Editing City Series:Volume3b Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 4===

Five hours went by.

Cleaning the room proved extremely difficult.

First of all, Akira had no cleaning supplies.

The vacuum cleaner had been thrown through the living room window and onto the balcony and the broom seemed to have been used as a weapon to destroy the room.

“Humans are so uncivilized.”

However, that light joke was not going to change the situation.

The resident of the neighboring room had apparently moved to the mainland, so she finally decided to enter that room through the window and borrow their cleaning supplies.

“Getting ready is a job in and of itself.”

As she began to clean, she noticed a few things.

“The city’s Live is so calm.”

There were barely any Lives being emitted even in the shopping district.

She could tell that by looking out the window.

Most of the stores there had no merchandise on the shelves. There was only the occasional shop with stocked shelves and the owner would be sitting alone by the street, looking bored.

“The channels of distribution have been cut off, haven’t they?”

She moved her gaze to the road down below.

There was dried mud and a thin coating of white powder on the asphalt.

She initially thought it was sand, but it was not.

It was salt.

The seawater had come this far.

When the dragons had flown, Hong Kong’s land had been torn away in the four cardinal directions and seawater had flowed into the crust.

“Liquefaction, hm?”

There had been a large near-field earthquake and a hole five kilometers deep. The after effects had been devastating.

The coastal areas had collapsed like a landslide and then a thirty meter wall of water had crashed into it all.

“That’s probably what happened to most of the missing.”

As soon as she said that, she heard the air trembling in the distance from another airplane.

She ignored it and resumed cleaning her room.

She had already carried out or swept out the bed, the bedding slashed with a blade, the broken bookshelf, the torn books, and all the broken glass.

“I can’t believe this…”

There was no strength in her voice as she removed the broken lightbulbs.

“What happened to my sanxian and photo?”

She could not find the sanxian her father had given her or the only photograph she had of her family.

She cleaned every nook and cranny of the room and checked every splinter of wood and scrap of paper, but they were nowhere to be found.

…''Were they thrown out the window?

The vacuum cleaner had been caught on the balcony, but the photo and sanxian may have fallen to the road.

…''And if they did…

“I’d never find them.”

She sighed and walked to the kitchen holding a lightbulb that was really only the socket.

She threw it in a trash bag and drank some water.

Fortunately, the water purification plant was running, so the water was still clear.

She brought her mouth directly to the tap and drank the water.

“That’s a huge help.”

She took a breath and relished the cold dampness in her fairly dry mouth.

She worked to refresh her mood.

…''I’ll find the photo and sanxian eventually.

She told herself to think positively and her eyes stopped on the water flowing down from the tap.

“I haven’t done that in a while.”

She normally did some Tune Education with water every morning, but she had not done it even once since being hospitalized.

…''So it’s been a week.

“If I don’t keep practicing, I’ll never be like mom and the others.”

She opened up the tap even more and the water forcefully struck the sink.

The refreshing sound of impact rang throughout the kitchen.

As she listened to it, Akira grabbed the spear Device from her waist.

She unfolded the collapsible spear with practiced motions.

After a single metallic sound, the spear was complete.

It was a little long to swing around in the kitchen and she held it under her arm.

“…”

She breathed in, closed her eyes, and…

“Oh, you Lives with an Octave of 160,000, you laughter of flowing water. Can you hear my Live?”

She made her Wind Up.

She called in the Lives with the usual method and sang her own Live.

Hers began with “la”.

It had a white Word Color and a loud, gentle Tempo.

She created a Message with it.

The Message combined the spilling water with a flying bird.

“…!”

She completed it all in an instant.

The water falling from the tap became a colorless bird.

It was a dove.

Its Live was dense for its size, so it had little of the water’s amorphousness.

It stepped up onto the edge of the sink and chirped.

“Good, good.”

Akira smiled.

“Just like always.”

She stroked the dove’s head and walked toward the entrance.

She stopped after three steps and threw open the door.

Several doves would fly from there every morning.

Anything transformed with Tuning would go where it could regain its original form.

The doves created from water Lives would always fly toward the sea.

This one was no different.

“Now, it’s time to leave.”

She gestured out the door and the dove flew that way.

It flew from the sink and flapped its wings well despite them hitting the wall.

Its flapping wings sounded loudly as it took a midair turn toward the main entrance.

It flew right past Akira’s eyes…and it burst.

“!”

The water scattered everywhere.

What had been a dove distorted and fell apart as if it had been hit by a rock.

She heard a sound just like pouring rain and water flew through the apartment hallway.

“Kyah!”

Akira’s legs and the hem of her skirt were wet.

The water was cold.

This was the blood of the dove she had created.

The dove was dead.

“…”

With the Device in one hand, she looked to her wet clothes and the wet hallway.

“What just happened?”

There was no need to ask; she already knew.

“I messed up…the Tuning?”

That was the only explanation, so she nodded.

“I can’t believe this. …I guess I’m a little rusty.”

She took a breath.

“I’ll take it a little more seriously this time. Yes.”

She shut the front door and held the Device tight in her hand.

Her eyes turned to the water pouring from the tap.

The water was the same as always.

It flowed the same as a week before and it contained the same Live.

…''So why did I fail?”

Her expression was stiff as she asked herself that.

“I can’t believe this…. What could it be?”

As soon as she said those words, she began Tuning once more.

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| Forward to [[City_Series:Volume3b_Chapter_3|Act 3]]
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