Editing City Series:Volume6e Chapter6 (section)

===Part 6===

Hazel’s vision returned.

She was on Tristan’s launch pad and she could see the tower, the dome, and the sky trapped within.

A black blade-like ship was flying toward her from the right.

She saw another color in the sky to the left.

A line of white cloud was ascending into the sky surrounded by the dome’s light.

At the tip of the cloud, she saw what looked like a blade splitting the sky.

“Sylphide!”

Sylphide answered her by turning its nose toward her.

The tilting of its nose changed the shape of its shockwave before the shockwave vanished entirely.

It had entered fully inertial cruising mode.

Its turn transformed into a sharp reflection partway through. After turning its nose her way, it shot toward her along with the air gathered around it with its inertial control. The air pushed out of its way shook and rumbled.

It sped up even more.

Its blue shape instantly passed by overhead, leaving a wind in its wake.

Its rumbling continued on toward Erlkönig approaching from the right.

Erlkönig fired homing rounds from its three rear Power Points. The white bullets were freezing rounds.

The bullets curved toward Sylphide, so Sylphide drew its pair of swords and took a certain action.

It accelerated.

It poured on even more speed.

The blue dragon used its speed to slip between the homing rounds.

The freezing rounds lost their target and exploded behind it, producing a white mist. Sylphide ignored that and continued its charge.

It charged straight toward Erlkönig.

Erlkönig immediately performed an evasive roll.

It rolled right from Sylphide, spun around above Sylphide, and swung its two swords toward Sylphide as they passed each other.

In that instant, Sylphide made a compact leftward roll.

Erlkönig’s swords were swinging in from the left, so Sylphide’s fangs crashed into them with the force of its rapid spin.

They shattered.

With a metallic impact, shards of light scattered across the sky.

Erlkönig rolled again into an escape route.

Sylphide suddenly shifted its inertial cruising into reverse. It redirected its forward momentum to the rear.

It reversed to stick with Erlkönig as it tried to roll away.

Erlkönig had already veered off course, so now it was about to pass above the launch pad.

That was when Hazel spoke some Aerial Words.

<The Messiah fights alongside the dragon and destiny.>

Berger shoved a Size C Phlogiston Tank into the back of Gelegenheit’s hilt. That brought the total up to 20. Gelegenheit looked more like a spear now and it produced a black blade measuring more than 80 yards long.

The Messiah’s Aerial Words made the blade grow denser and longer.

The black blade-like silhouette was about to fly over Berger’s head.

He sent Gelegenheit’s cutting power toward that supersonic action.

One of Erlkönig’s wings was severed and the rest of the ship bounced in the sky.

Sylphide caught up and spun its bow to the front.

The black and blue ships arrived half a mile away from the launch pad in just two seconds.

Their paths crossed.

Erlkönig sent glowing swords from its back end and Sylphide swept them aside with its own swords.

Sylphide flew in and tore into Erlkönig with the pair of fangs emitted from its front end.

Ether light ran through Erlkönig and then light exploded from its back end.

A deafening boom rang out just as seven contrails burst from the middle of Tristan.

Those were Erlkönig’s mass production models. They initially spread out and then attacked with enough force to deal with the threat. The seven ships charged toward the lone blue ship floating in the sky.

Hazel took action while watching that from the launch pad.

She raised Rein König and ran forward. Her watch said it was 2:57 AM.

…''3 more minutes!

Her heavy breathing sucked in the chilly night air while she gathered strength in her legs and shifted her run into a sprint.

She arrived alongside Berger while he added another Phlogiston Tank to Gelegenheit and then she moved out ahead of him.

Schweitzer was up ahead and Lowenzahn stood at the top of the door.

She continued sprinting forward and noticed Lowenzahn looking down at her.

Schweitzer was watching her too.

They opened their mouths at the same time and spoke Neue Erde and Der Held’s Aerial Words.

<Stars spread across the light-scattered sky.>

<The future is limited, but I will not look to it.>

Schweitzer ran forward, seemingly pushed onward by the Texts, and Berger rushed up by Hazel’s side to meet him.

Schweitzer readied his prosthetic arm.

<Excellence is determined in the sky above.>

<The past is unlimited, but I will not listen to it.>

He shouted with his metal fist raised.

“Why would you try to block her will!?”

<Do not compare your height to others.>

Berger moved in front of Hazel as if to block Schweitzer’s words from reaching her.

<nowiki><I</nowiki> will break it all and throw it out.>

He hopped a step forward with Gelegenheit at the ready. He shoved two Size C Phlogiston Tanks into the bottom of the hilt.

<All power is lost before them.>

Schweitzer shouted toward the growing black blade.

“Maybe it is all a lie! But!”

<We can redo it all.>

Hazel realized she and Berger had been surrounded by spatial barriers.

<The heights are for the soaring dragon.>

Lines of ether resembling bluish-white threads began to form 50-yard walls around them.

Nevertheless, she looked to Berger’s back and did not give up on running.

She leaned forward and kicked off the metal ground to keep moving.

She heard Schweitzer’s words.

“But she asked something of me.”

<The New World is a world that will not be lost.>

Past Berger’s back and outside the barrier, Schweitzer was sticking his biological left arm toward her. His eyes were directly on her.

He clenched that hand into a fist.

“She asked me to believe her no matter what lie she told.”

With those words, the barriers were complete.

<The depths are the foundation of the earth.>

In that instant, the ether inside the barriers came to a stop.

All light faded from her Messiah eye and the black blade vanished from Berger’s Gelegenheit.

<The New World is a world where nothing is lost.>

Then Schweitzer held his prosthetic arm and triggered its striking staff. An empty cartridge was ejected from the arm.

<The Hero defends the new world.>

A new barrier formed to surround running Berger and Hazel.

<But destiny has declared…>

He pointed his left thumb down to say “be destroyed”.

“Can you stop the millennium wheel behind us now that it has begun to turn once more!? Can you stop her lies!?”

Hazel listened to his shout.

She thought about herself, about someone much like her, and about the person by her side now.

So in the instant the interior of the barrier was crushed, she looked at Schweitzer.

When their gazes seemed to audibly crash together, she raised her voice.

“What are you trying protect!? The lies!? Or…”

[[Image:City_v06e_265.jpg|thumb]]

<…that all forms, colors, sounds, and wills will be lost.>

''I know it isn’t that,'' she thought before continuing.

“Or the will of the person who told the lies!?”

A pair of Aerial Words flashed just as she got the question out.

<The Messiah has destiny on her side.>

<Destiny will not abandon the Messiah.>

Their devices had been forcefully stopped, but they were restarted with a Beweisen. Gelegenheit resumed functioning.

The unstoppable black blade sliced through the barrier.

With a sound like shattering ice, the blue ether barrier split and burst.

While Berger made his follow through with Gelegenheit, Hazel raced past him.

Schweitzer stood in front of her. He was frowning and clenching his teeth.

He clenched his metal right fist enough to make a metallic noise and then raised it.

“I…!”

<nowiki><I</nowiki> do not want to lose all that.>

Hazel chose to ignore what he said. She raced in at full speed, her boots pounding on the metal ground.

His fist flew straight toward her.

Unshaken, she raised Rein König, crouched down, and slipped below the fist.

Just as the attack whizzed over her head like a bullet, she swung Rein König forward with both her hands gripping its hilt tight. It was the exact motion she had done in practice countless times.

The white curve sliced through the wind and severed the metal arm at the shoulder.

When she heard the slicing of metal, she knew she had done enough. She threw herself forward and kept running.

She heard the last line of Lowenzahn’s Aerial Words.

<nowiki><I</nowiki> do not want to lose any of that!>

Hazel nodded and saw an image of the past for one brief moment.

She saw the overhead view of a river flowing through a forest at night, she saw the pair of small villages built alongside it, and then even that disappeared.

But she said nothing.

Her vision returned as she ran into the door sitting open before her.