Editing City Series:Volume6d Chapter7 (section)

===Part 9===

Neue Kaiser froze in place.

Schwarz Löwe also froze halfway through getting up.

Hazel didn’t move either.

The three of them preserved their silence and stillness, but after the span of three breaths, something other than them moved: the forest.

The birds in the dark forest squawked and took flight. And not just from their immediate surroundings.

“Eh!?”

Hazel looked up into the sky where so many specks were flying around in a frenzy it looked like someone had thrown a fistful of sand. Their voices were loud, hoarse, and incessant. Birds were flying from the forest covering all the mountains surrounding them.

The flapping of their wings and the rustling of the shaken trees drowned out all other noise.

Hazel could see the Lives of fear and panic. The birds were trying to escape something.

…''But what?

She saw the answer in the northern sky beyond the soaring birds.

A dark river flowed through the sky. The river was far larger than the one of birds and it stretched for far longer.

Hazel had seen this before – last year in Cologne.

When a thousand bombers flew together, they would create a single silhouette from a distance.

“The bombing of Hamburg.”

Her words seemed to push Neue Kaiser to action.

The white Grösse Panzer took solid steps past her and Schwarz Löwe. It approached its own sword stabbed into the edge of the field.

Schwarz Löwe got up as well.

Hazel turned toward it and saw it kneeling with the secondary cockpit hatch opening.

Schwarz Löwe said nothing. Neither did Neue Kaiser.

Neue Kaiser reached its sword and pulled it from the ground. Then it slowly turned around, pointed the sword toward Hazel, and spoke.

“Why do you insist you will not run away and why do you protect destiny?”

Hazel kept her protective position in front of Schwarz Löwe as she answered the question coming from beyond the blade.

“Because that is my way.”

“Even if you lack the strength to back it up? Are you okay with dying as long as you can protect someone else?”

“I have no intention of dying. But I don’t want to lose anyone else either.”

She worked to calm her breathing, lowered her head, and got the words out the best she could.

“I don’t want to lose anyone, so I will not run away and I will not let them die!”

As soon as she was finished, Neue Kaiser swung down its sword.