Editing City Series:Volume6d Chapter6 (section)

===Part 1===

Lehrer had led Hazel to the piles of tires Hazel had climbed earlier. They sat atop two lower piles near the wall.

The larger piles hid them from the road, so no one could see them. However…

“They will know we escaped in this direction, so they will have us surrounded before long,” explained Lehrer, undoing the bandage on Hazel’s foot.

“How are we going to escape?” asked Hazel.

“We use Sylphide.”

Hazel looked up to see Sylphide could not descend thanks to the barrage of antiair gunfire.

She watched the blue shape circling in the distance.

“It’s adorable how you can see its uncertainty in how it’s flying, but can it get to us?”

“We aren’t far from the waterway. It is about 20 yards wide, so we can have Sylphide fly in at supersonic speed and stop above it. Once the shockwave blows away the enemies, we make a run for it.”

The waterway was situated lower than the ground, so the Sylphide would end up below them if it stopped there.

Hazel nodded.

“We don’t have time to get inside, so we just climb onto the roof?”

Just as she asked that, she felt a sharp pain like a needle sticking into her right foot.

“––––!”

“Don’t give me that look. I only removed the rock.”

Hazel wiped away the tears and Lehrer rubbed her head with a troubled smile.

Lehrer looked between the wound on Hazel’s foot and her spear leaning against the tires.

“Hey…could you show me your Tuning?”

Hazel said yes, reached out, and grabbed the spear. It was a German military close-range spear Device that Lehrer had stolen from the base. Its balance was completely different from the sword she was used to.

She held the somewhat heavy spear vertically with the blade pointed down and held the shaft near the base of the blade.

Then she looked to the other woman, whose heterochromatic eyes carried such a calm expression.

There was so much she wanted to say and she could even find the words right away, but she wasn’t sure where to start.

…''Um.

While she thought, Lehrer smiled and spoke instead.

“Don’t worry. I used to be you, but I’m not anymore. You will become me and overwrite me. So don’t be afraid, my former self.”

“Th-then it really was Sylphide buried below Alfheim? And…”

Lehrer nodded.

“Yes, I slept for a thousand years. I actually wanted to sleep a while longer and P. Wagner was considerate of that…but I was dug up in ’39 all the same.”

“Then it’s true what the Geheimnis Agency’s commander told me?”

“Yes. I learned the truth when I was captured in Cologne in my version of ’42. And…Berger was supposed to be captured tonight.”

Hazel gasped and took a look around.

She could hear Schwarz Löwe fighting in the distance, but Lehrer shook her head.

“Don’t worry, Hazel. He will not be captured.”

“H-how can you know that?”

“You don’t know it?”

…''I…

She thought for a bit and clamped her mouth shut. All she had to do was nod. And while she tried to figure out something more to say, Lehrer asked a question.

“How are your parents?”

Hazel considered who this was she was speaking to, so she looked her in the eye when she answered.

“They are doing well. Dad is the same as ever, but he’s secretly supporting the AIF. Mom doesn’t say anything about it, but um, she’s really good at making tea.” She took a breath. “Maybe I’m full of myself, but I feel like they’re mostly just worried about their daughter fighting in the war.”

“I see. I think you’re right about that.”

The sounds of antiair fire and trucks combined in the distance. Beyond that, they could hear the clanking of a metal machine, the booms of cannon fire, and the clangs of metal shells being deflected.

Schwarz Löwe was fighting.

Hazel listened to the many sounds of combat and focused on the Device in her hands. She regulated her breathing and collected the Lives within her. She found her tone, which was pure, complex, and difficult to speak.

“All you Lives within me – the single scream of the Wild Name that makes me who I am. Can you hear the voice of my Lives?”

The Lives used her voice to permeate her body. She transferred them to the Device and she shook the instrument-like weapon to set up a resonance. Then she released her voice exactly as she wanted it.

“Ah.”

Her voice gently stretched out, slowly curved, and yet seemed to always move forward.

She could feel her Lives inside the Device.

Then she shut her eyes and stabbed the blade into her own throat.

The Lives in the blade resonated with the ones in her body and the correct ones won out.

They shook, vibrated, pulsed, and thought. A sense more accurate than touch felt them moving from her throat to the rest of her body.

“…!”

After goose bumps raced across her skin, she pulled out the blade. She was dripping with sweat, but the thornlike sensation inside her was disappearing. She looked down to her foot to see it was bloody but it no longer hurt.

She wiped off the spear tip with her coat’s sleeve.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. …Are you okay? You didn’t overfocus?”

“I think I’m fine. I am tired…but I can manage one more good run.”

They both sighed and Lehrer spoke first.

“Then how about we get going? Sylphide is getting bored up there.”

“How much has it healed?”

“The decay was bad. Its self-repair has got it barely flying again, but the two upper Kunst Eyes are beyond repair and the three lower ones are only beginning to repair.” She narrowed her eyes. “But you have something else to ask, don’t you? About my relationship with him and many other things.”

“Y-yes. So how about just one for now?”

“Ask away.”

Hazel hesitated for a moment.

“How…old are you?”

“Oh? Planning to hold it over my head how much younger you are? I used to be your age too, you know?”

“I-it’s not about that. I just…”

“I’m only kidding. I am 26. I arrived in the past at 21 and only spent a year there. I woke back up in ’39, so add 4 years to get 26. If only I had slept two more years. Then my age would round down to 20.”

She smiled a little at that and Hazel had to smile too.

“So don’t worry. Even if you go through a whole loop, you can still be younger than him,” said Lehrer. “And don’t forget, Hazel. You and those around you have so many choices you can make. You always have and you always will. You are not a Panzerpolis component created solely to keep the cycle going.”

“…Right.”

“But you can only make one decision when the time comes, so consider your options and then make your own choice.”

Lehrer stood up from her pile of tires and Hazel got down from hers.

Lehrer pulled a metal tube from her pocket. It was an inch thick and about half a foot long. She held it up in her right hand like the Olympic torch and used the inner elbow and her left hand to cover her ears.

“Cover your ears. This will call it to us.”

Hazel quickly did so and Lehrer hit the switch.

With an almost silly sound, a blue ball of light was launched skyward, leaving a trail of white smoke.

“Now it should come to us.”

There was joy in Lehrer’s voice and she turned away from Hazel.

Hazel gasped when she saw her back.

There was a diagonal slash there. It started at her right shoulder and traveled down to the center of her back. Her clothing was torn, blood was leaking from it, and she was soaked a dark red down to her hips.

“Don’t let it bother you. You would be too exhausted to move if you healed me…and I was prepared to not be fighting my best with something as unfamiliar as a spear.”

“Th-there wasn’t a better weapon? I though the Messiah used a sword.”

“That’s the thing. Every time I see a sword, it reminds me that he left me a letter telling me to stop fighting and took my Rein König with him.”

Hazel lowered her eyebrows at that and chose not to say what she wanted to say.

“That’s why I want to avoid using any kind of sword,” said Lehrer as she began walking.

“Found them!” shouted some soldiers from behind them.

Those voices pushed Lehrer into a run. Hazel watched her footing as she too began to run.

Their footsteps fused into a single tempo.

Hazel noticed some heat in her Messiah eye.

…''Lehrer is activating my Messiah.

<The Messiah seeks the wind’s help.>

After that Beweisen, Lehrer readied her spear out ahead. She spun it vertically with just her right hand in the narrow road between the piles of tires. The slow but heavy rotation sliced the wind with the blade and produced a sound of shaking air.

Another sound dropped from the sky in response: the sound of the wind, of something slicing through the air.

…''Sylphide.

The roar of the wind rushed in from the north, which was to their left.

At the same time, some soldiers with their backs to the river railing up ahead raised their guns.

Lehrer thrust the spear straight ahead with just one hand.

“Ah.”

A single tone raced out toward the blue shape flying in from behind the soldiers.