Editing City Series:Volume6c Chapter6 (section)

===Part 9===

Hazel awoke with a start, finding someone was holding her. Someone was doing to her what she had been doing a moment before.

Someone was protecting her and she knew who.

“Berger…”

She saw his sunglasses in front of her.

“Hi.”

He nodded and stood up with his arms around her hips.

Her vision rose and she saw Lowenzahn standing behind him while Bermark readied Freischütz.

With a gust of wind, a large shape landed nearby: “Hardest Wolf” Pale Horse.

He took a crouching fighting stance and faced Jeanne who stood in the distance.

“Three against four, huh? I didn’t realize a confrontation of the leaders could be so much fun.”

Hazel reached around to Berger’s back while listening to Pale Horse.

Berger’s coat had three holes in the back.

The warm liquid leaking from those holes got on her fingers.

“Berger…”

“Don’t make a fuss. They were 9mm, so they didn’t make it through the flesh. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Berger raised Gelegenheit in his left hand and surveyed his surroundings. That was enough for the three other than Lowenzahn to take a step back.

Lowenzahn held her left chest and frowned a little.

“So destiny hasn’t abandoned the Messiah?”

“Why the panic? You’re sweating, Miss Geheimnis Agency Commander.”

Berger laughed. And without warning…

“Hazel.”

Hazel looked up at him when he unexpectedly called her name.

“Hazel Mirildorf, can you hear my voice?”

“I-I can.”

“Are you still thinking about what you want after this war?”

That reminded her of what had happened when she was playing the organ in the Village of Pardons. She had stopped playing while watching that brother and sister.

…''Can I trust what I felt then?

She wasn’t sure, but she could say one thing for sure.

“Y-yes, I will try to find an answer. I always will!”

“In that case.” Berger pointed Gelegenheit’s pommel toward Lowenzahn. “Listen up. That woman’s as much of a liar as I am. You’re the only one here on the other side of the wall. The Geheimnis Agency and the rest of us aren’t looking past the war. We’re not trying to find an answer – we’re trying to find a way to win. But you…”

“?”

Hazel gave him a questioning look before he continued.

“Hazel, you’ve worried over this enough. So just think on one thing now. What was it you originally wanted to do? Go back to that point and I’m sure you’ll find what the Messiah should do.”

Hazel reflexively held her sword against herself and also held the card in her breast pocket.

Berger’s arm around her hips gave a squeeze and she nodded.

That small nod was enough for him to smile.

“Geheimnis Agency Commander Lowenzahn Naylor, the world’s second best liar has a question for you! Does the Geheimnis Agency think their Messiah belongs only to Germany!?”

Lowenzahn reacted to that one. Her eyebrows rose.

“At this point…”

“Shut up! I don’t want conditions and excuses! Hazel is trying to figure out how to use her power. She wants to choose a power she can use toward the things she wants to do after saving the world and use to make the world a better place. …Do you have an answer for her!?” yelled Berger. “Hazel! It’s probably about time you chose. You saw the city, didn’t you? That’s war. This is scorched earth. Can you hear the Lives of destruction, Hazel!? That is what it means to lose something and to sacrifice something, Hazel Mirildorf! But what will you do afterwards?”

Hazel gasped.

…''Why?

“Why?”

…''Why are you always asking me these questions?

Nothing answered her thoughts.

This was not the Aerial City – it was burning and collapsing Cologne. So her thoughts would not reach him.

But she realized that Lowenzahn had come to a stop for some reason.

“U-um…”

Feeling uneasy, Hazel tried to say something.

But she was cut off by a straight line of roaring noise that broke through all of the sounds of bursting bombs and flying bombers.

The deafening roar tore apart the sky. Hazel recognized it, so she looked up in the direction it had come from: north. She saw what was tearing through the sky there.

“Eh!?”

It looked like a large black shadow. A metal box was dropping from overhead.

It landed in the courtyard before she managed to realize it was the RB-21’s container.

The boom of it landing hit her in the gut, whipped up the heated wind, and sent a tremor through the ground.

“That idiot!”

When the container skidded toward them, tearing up the schoolyard’s dirt, Berger shouted an insult and Lowenzahn clicked her tongue. Lowenzahn hesitated but only for a moment.

“So destiny is even more broken than the prophecies!” she shouted, leaping backwards. “It is time we withdrew.”

Not long after, Berger made a leap of his own while carrying Hazel. Pale followed suit.

The green metal container skipped through the spot they had just vacated while spinning a bit. It crushed the motorcycle and kept going. It only stopped after noisily breaking through the metal fence at the end of the schoolyard.

Berger landed with Hazel in his arm and she viewed their surroundings from the safety of his black coat. The Geheimnis Agency had left.

“They sure are good at running away for Neue Kavaliers.”

Berger’s complaint drained Hazel’s tension and she took another look around. There were no human Lives around.

…''Is the nightmare over?

“What’s with you, Hazel? You look awfully relieved.”

She started to say something in response, but then he shoved her to the side, sending her rolling.

She heard the roar of wind, but this wasn’t just any wind. It was a constant thing, like a tornado.

“Get down!”

Berger stayed low and ran toward the container.

The container’s exterior sparked and then bent in as if making a panicked response to his approach. Some great force had crashed into it from the outside.

That force continued. The exterior bent further, leaving several indentations as if from giant fists, and sparks flew.

“Is that artillery!?”

Hazel looked up to find a new enemy was approaching.

A blue Heavy Barrel and a red Heavy Barrel both had their Over Emblem fully activated. She had briefly seen these Heavy Barrels that now passed by over the schoolyard. They were flying toward where the RB-21 was making a wide turn.

This explained why the RB-21 couldn’t land.

The blue Heavy Barrel raced through the sky, targeting the container with the rifle it held at the hip.

Then it swung the rifle to send a sweep of gunfire across the schoolyard.

Hazel saw the color of destruction fly toward the schoolyard as several distinct lines.

Those were the flying bullets of a Heavy Barrel machinegun.

“––––!?”

She held her sword at the hip.

A stray shot was flying toward her on a collision course.

A hit would kill her instantly. It wouldn’t leave anything behind. The same was probably true of Pale standing behind her.

She had to do something about it. With her own power.

Her abilities were quite high for a Greenhorner. She had five defense cards and her sword was the latest model developed by the US army.

…''Where do I see this going afterwards?

She would save herself and Pale, exchange a nod with Pale, and then join Berger. There might be more to do before that.

That thought made her smile a little.

Her focus allowed her to perceive the incoming destruction in the form of a bullet.

“––––!”

With a shout, she thrusted her sword forward and produced a defense field.

The force of the sword thrust and the timing of the activation transformed the defense field so it had a sharp point. That point crashed straight into the 88mm shell.

With a solid noise, the destructive power shattered and the pieces radiated outwards along the umbrella-like shape of the defense field.

The shell tore into the schoolyard as tiny fragments.

“!?”

That scattershot carried a residual shockwave that destroyed the school building behind her.

She quickly looked back to find a classroom’s worth of the two-story concrete building’s first and second floors had been crushed and blown away along with plenty of dust.

Instead of rejoicing in her own survival, Hazel panicked and thought back to a certain memory.

She recalled why it was she had stopped while playing the organ.

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