Editing City Series:Volume3b Chapter 7 (section)

===Part 5===

Clouds covered Hong Kong.

Below them, the rain had let up and the wind had calmed.

The typhoon had not left Hong Kong. The city had merely entered the calm eye of the storm.

Compared to the clouds circling so intensely in the sky, the night looked heavy and still.

The weight of the night darkly filled Akira’s room through the window.

Inside, Akira and Gunmal’s viewpoints and gazes had returned to their original positions.

Akira was wearing her Nein Engel shirt and she sat in Gunmal’s lap.

She held the sanxian the children had brought for her.

Her father had given it to her as a memento.

Her fingers were strumming it and her voice was singing.

“彼街通天地 

“墜朝地仰雲 

“昇夜空謳月 

“惟望再笑君”

She sang the Flight Song.

She finished the mere four lines of the song and the sanxian grew quiet.

Both of them let out a sigh and Akira spoke.

“I think it’s been ten days since I sang. …I used to sing up on the roof a lot.”

“I know. I saw your Live too.”

“Yeah.”

“Can you hear the Lives now?”

She cleared her ears a little and shook her head.

“No.”

But she gave a small smile.

“But I think I’m going to go.”

“To where your brother is?”

“No. That isn’t what I meant.”

“?”

“I’m going to go find the answer… The answer to a lot of things.”

“But Akira, you can’t Tune, so…”

He sounded worried, but she cut him off.

“You have something too, don’t you? You showed it to me. You have something you’ve always, always trusted in…even if you try to cut it away from yourself.”

With that, she stood up and began to walk.

She walked to a corner of the room where Gunmal’s things were piled up.

Hidden by the travel bag and attaché case, were two objects wrapped in black cloth. They were both about as long as Akira was tall.

She grabbed one of them.

The object inside was metal.

It was surprisingly light and she could stand it up on the floor with only one hand.

Then she took a breath.

After a moment, she untied the cloth wrapping.

In the darkness of the night, the black cloth fell away like an empty shell and a pale light filled the room.

What stood on the floor in front of her was a spear-shaped Device.

The hilt was rounded and long.

The blade was wide to better produced Lives.

The giant spear’s overall mold resembled a musical instrument.

“It’s pretty…”

“Kouga brought me the one you forgot in the hospital.”

“And you Busted it to remake it?”

“Yeah. Look, this one actually has a blade.”

She looked as instructed and saw a single-edged blade on the end of the spear.

She briefly gasped at the light of the large blade.

“The one I made for myself has a single-edged blade too.”

“Are you going to kill someone?”

“That’s not the point,” he said quietly. “To protect and to hate are two sides of the same coin.”

“You really are strong.”

“It was a certain woman that taught me that.”

“Eh?”

“That winged woman never rejected her own power no matter what happened.”

“…”

“I just wish I’d met her sooner.”

“Thanks.”

Akira removed her hand from the cloth wrapping and let it fall the rest of the way to the floor.

It made a soft sound.

The Device had been precariously balanced on the floor, but now it started to tilt.

She reached out while holding her breath and grabbed the metal hilt.

The roundness of the cold metal caused her pulse to race.

But she did not let go.

After a few seconds, her hand got used to the feeling.

She wrinkled her brow a little, let out a breath, and spoke to Gunmal.

“Hey, don’t you think we would make a good team? That’s the point of these two Devices, isn’t it? The two blades make a single whole.”

“…”

“What are their names?”

“That one is Wild Königin and mine is Wild König.”

As soon as he said that, a distant sound reached them from the direction of the ocean.

It sounded like a great mass of metal had been dropped onto the ground.

It was the low sound of shellfire.

“That’s the old man’s tank, isn’t it?”

“!? So the battle’s started!?”

“No. He’s going to Hong Kong Island…on a boat, looks like. The tank is on the boat. That was probably the sign that he’s leaving.”

“Let’s go, Gunmal.” Akira’s voice was quiet and weak. “Everyone’s…waiting.”

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