Editing City Series:Volume1 Chapter 7 (section)

===Part 7===

At 3:35 PM, Else saw a single unique dot appear on the radar. It approached much faster than the previous ones.

Something resembling joy overpowered any fear of the unknown.

“Here it is! That black fighter craft is approaching from the east-northeast on our right!”

“Else, could you call it something other than ‘that black fighter craft’? That’s a pretty long name.”

“That’s right. And mention the direction first.”

“Shut up. Try to imagine what it’s like from my perspective.”

“And you try to imagine what it’s like from ours.”

“Hey, you two,” cut in Walter. “I see it. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Else looked up and did indeed see a single contrail approaching from the right at tremendous speed.

The enemy fighter showed up on the radar and the other dots began to move.

“Huh? The small fries are running away.”

“The sun’s about to set, so they must want to avoid losing control. Also…”

“Also?”

“Those Soldat can’t keep up with this battle.”

Walter’s voice was filled with blatant joy and Paul sighed next to him.

“We’ve got no choice. Let’s fly down into the city. We still don’t know how that weapon works.”

“If you mean the Lanze, I have it.”

She had kept the bullet in her pocket in case it could be some help. It was something like a good luck charm.

Walter glanced her way.

“Let me see it later.”

“Sure.”

Even as she spoke, her vision grew lower and building roofs grew up from below.

The Kaiserburg had dived to fly through Berlin at extreme low altitude.

The scenery rushed backwards at blinding speed.

“W-wait! We’re gonna hit that! Wah!”

A large white and rectangular building grew in front of her. She recognized it from somewhere, but she did not have time to dig through her memories.

The white wall filled her vision.

…''Oh, no!

An instant later, the Kaiserburg turned left at a right angle. It appeared to slide sideways as it flew just above the cars on the road.

It was fast.

…''We avoided it?

They had to have been moving three or four hundred kilometers an hour, so that had taken incredible piloting skill.

Lines of apartments, stores, and other buildings flew by from left to right too quickly to see anything but their color. There was no time to watch them pass.

“Look out!”

“Don’t worry. We avoided the Zeughaus back there. Right, professor?”

“Sorry, but I’m gonna hit this one.”

“Eh?”

Immediately afterwards, an impact reached them from the left and the view out the window briefly grew white. Something like dust filled the air outside. It was smoke. They had crashed into some kind of building.

“Wah!”

Else’s seatbelt dug painfully into her shoulder and she squeezed the armrests with all her might. A dull vibration ran from her butt and up her back. It refused to go away, so it had to have been a large building.

Instead of a rumbling, the ship was surrounded by repeating sounds of splitting stone. What were obviously pieces of stone pillars flew by and almost struck the window.

“Wah, wah, wah, wah! You’ve gone too far now!”

“It’s not my fault – whoa, that was close! This was an accident!”

“Hmm. This is a lot of fun.”

After one final tremor, they broke through a giant wall.

The Kaiserburg continued moving and pierced straight through the entire structure.

The view outside the window quickly cleared and the city streets were visible once more. Their speed had only dropped a little and the people in the building probably had no idea what had hit it.

“Don’t get carried away!”

Else looked at the electric display showing the ship’s damage. Its overall surface temperature had risen because the external paneling’s emblems had activated to neutralize the impacts.

…''This thing’s sturdy.

But her admiration was immediately followed by a realization.

The building they had avoided had been the Zeughaus and they had moved left before hitting this building. That meant…

“Wait! We just hit the University of Berlin, didn’t we!?”

“Yeah, it really pains me to damage my alma mater.”

“You didn’t just damage it! You downright destroyed it! And I’m still enrolled there!”

“Shut up. It’s a national school, so it was built with my taxes. I can destroy it a bit if I want.”

“What do you mean ''your'' taxes!? You just destroyed a hundred times more than you paid!”

“Yeah, he’s got a long way to go. I would’ve destroyed 1500 times what I paid.”

“You be quiet!”

She looked down and found the dot for the fighter was almost right in front of them, but all the city apartments around kept them from seeing it out their window.

“What can we do in this city!?”

“The city actually works in our favor.”

“Eh?”

“That’s right. From what we’ve seen, that fighter is meant for close-range combat or mid-range when it uses that weird lance. All these obstacles will keep it from making quick attacks and flying off.”

“In its current form, the Kaiserburg can fire four homing or guided shots at once. The obstacles don’t matter to us.

Walter turned back with a smile.

“Although I’m sure he’s thinking pretty much the same thing.”

The enemy fighter was nearly right in front of them.