Editing City Series:Volume3a Chapter 10 (section)

===Part 3===

Destruction and rebirth went hand in hand.

This was a standard law, but it normally took a good bit of time.

It could take years, decades, or even centuries for green to return to war-torn land or for a destroyed city to be rebuilt.

However, the battle Akira and Gunmal fought was different.

J-Gun would send out a Live as if swinging a baseball bat and Gunmal would negate it.

Gunmal did not use his own Live.

He would strike the ground with his Device and amplify the Live of the “striking sound” that produced.

And when their colliding Lives broke apart, Akira would Tune them.

She would Tune them into hounds or large birds and sometimes swords or spears.

And sometimes when Gunmal tore the ground away, she would simply remake it into a “wall” that would block their opponent’s attacks.

It was Genius’s job to destroy what Akira’s Tuning created.

The light she fired with each swing of her sword easily pierced through the Tuned animals.

Once destroyed by her light, the animals would immediately return to their original forms.

The torn ground would return to normal and the weaponized air would stabilize.

The cycle of destruction and rebirth was stuck on repeat.

Each time, their aim grew more accurate and their speed increased.

They had a clear division of offense and defense.

Unless they broke through their opponent’s defenses, they could never harm them, so all of their attacks had been focused on the defender.

J-Gun’s Live did not expand as a sphere. It was a direct attack produced by swinging down his Device.

Gunmal would swiftly “break” it.

Akira would send her Tuning after Genius.

Genius’s beam of light would shoot toward Akira’s Tuning.

The cycle sped up.

J-Gun attacked, Gunmal defended, Akira Tuned, and Genius fired light.

That sequence grew tighter as it continued.

J-Gun – Gunmal – Akira – Genius.

It gradually grew faster and reached tremendous speed.

Attack, defense, attack, defense, and then attack once more.

It accelerated further.

Light mixed in with the Tuning and Busting.

On the fourteenth cycle, something changed: Akira.

When Gunmal “tore apart” the air and produced a Live, she stuck the tip of her spear in it and Tuned it.

“Oh, you Lives swimming in the 440,000 Octaves around me! You cries of the dirt and excitement of the wind! Can you hear my Live!?”

The Tempo of her “la” was a long and somewhat low andante.

The Tempo rang thrice.

It reverberated nicely through her Device and she focused her feelings.

She sent her Message into the Live and completed her Tuning in approximately three seconds.

She created a normal-sized white tiger. It was not as large as the Qinghu because it had a greater Live density.

“Oh? You’re trying something bigger, are you? Since it’s a tiger…”

“This isn’t the time for lame jokes.”

“Tch.”

Akira smiled bitterly.

“Let’s settle this!”

She sent the white tiger running forward.

Unlike the previous Tunings modelled after small animals, Genius’s light did little damage despite piercing through the tiger. The light was so sharp it simply broke through without breaking apart the dense Live.

The tiger charged in and Genius moved back a little.

“Gunmal!” shouted Akira.

Without responding, he “tore apart” the air.

“Oh, you Lives running through the 240,000 Octaves around me! You roars of the wind! Can you hear my Live!?”

She quickly Tuned that Live to produce a bird that flew after the tiger.

“Go!”

Just as the bird flapped its wings, the tiger pounced on Genius.

“…!”

With a shout that could be interpreted as a scream or a cry of focus, Genius jabbed her sword into the tiger’s face.

After a short delay, light raced out from the within the tiger. Genius had likely stabbed the beast and then fired the light from inside.

The white tiger audibly burst.

Akira noticed claw marks on Genius’s cheeks and arms.

She was bleeding.

As a fellow woman, Akira felt a little guilty for harming her opponent’s face.

…''Sorry.

But it was not over.

The bird born from the torn air flew toward Genius.

It charged toward her feet, so even a direct hit would not be fatal.

Akira had no intention of taking the other woman’s life; she just wanted to reach Double Lee.

The bird raced through the air and Genius’s movements were too slow.

“…”

She tried to raise her sword again while looking at her wounds as if she found them unbelievable.

…''She won’t make it in time.

But just as Akira realized that, someone else moved: J-Gun.

And he did not use his Busting.

He fired light from his Device.

“!”

That light had the same qualities as the light Genius fired.

It was less powerful than his Busting, but it was sharp and fast.

It instantly sliced through Akira’s Tuned bird and the creature scattered into the wind.

“My brother exchanged Lives with you in a Live Session!?”

It was only natural for Gunmal to be surprised.

J-Gun, a Buster, had fired a Cherub’s light. And while he had previously been mechanically using his Live to attack, he had done this to protect Genius.

The cycle was broken.

The first to begin anew was not Akira, Gunmal, or even J-Gun.

It was Genius who had already started to raise her sword overhead.

She briefly glanced over at J-Gun and then stepped forward.

She swung down her sword and the light wrapped around it.

“Seaaaah!”

Her voice shook the air despite not including her Live and her light reached Akira in an instant.

“!?”

…''It’s cold?

A strange sensation raced through various parts of Akira’s body.

It was entirely different from the pain she had predicted.

…''Am I just imaging this? Did it not hit me?

But then the pain arrived.

Her feathers scattered and her right side split open.

“…!”

She instinctually squeezed her eyes shut.

A deep and sharp pain stabbed through her body as if a thick pin had been driven into her spine. Her heart skipped a beat when the fingers holding her side sank deeper than her skin.

“Akira!”

She opened her eyes at Gunmal’s voice and saw a wall in front of her.

…''Why is there a wall?

Then she realized why.

It was not, in fact, a wall. It was the ground. She had collapsed without even noticing.

“Kh.”

She groaned and got up.

Ahead, she saw the Device she had dropped.

Beyond it, she saw J-Gun and Genius preparing their second attack a distance away.

…''Not good.

She moved the hand from her side and reached for the Device.

The bloody hand looked like a stranger’s.

To wipe away that feeling, she squeezed the Device tightly in her hand.

And she got up on her knees.

She tried to force her breathing into order so she could Tune, but then she heard a voice.

“You don’t have to fight here.”

It was a horribly cold yet kind and calm voice.

“…Eh?”

She looked up just as Gunmal tapped her shoulder with Nein König.

As soon as he did, a blue Live burst out of her and scattered.

“!?”

Before she could ask what had happened, she found the answer: the pain had vanished from her.

He had Busted the pain Lives in her body to destroy them.

“Thanks.”

He had already lowered the Device a little and faced their opponent.

He had gone completely expressionless.

The look there made her forget her pain, sent a chill down her spine, and yet still showed some emotion.

She had never seen this look on his face before.

“I’ll deal with those two,” he said.

…''Can you do that?

He did not answer her question, but he did speak.

“If the Earth Burn is activated, call me. …I’ll give you your next chance.”

…''How?

“?”

“How…can you do that?”

He still did not answer. He only stepped forward with lowered Device in hand.

She looked up at his back and prepared her own Device.

She closed her eyes, calmed her breathing, and gathered Message of “herself” that her Live was singing.

…''It’s really disturbed.

Maybe because of the blood loss, its Tempo was quick yet weak. And she was more than just injured. There was an odd Message in there, too.

…''I’m surprised by Gunmal.

Strangely, it was not a bad feeling.

She did not know what to call this Message, but she felt it would be a shame to Tune it away.

…''But I need to hurry up and heal myself.

She was driven to do that by the blood that had reached her thigh and the enemy’s movements.

She could tell even with her eyes closed that J-Gun and Genius had both begun to move.

Meanwhile, Gunmal was not revealing his Live.

He was defenseless.

However, she did not panic.

“Oh, you Lives within me. You shouts that form my Wild Name. Can you hear my voice?”

She released her Live.

“La.”

It was a gentle yet vivid Tempo and Word Color. It was her own Live that she remembered from long ago.

She sang a Live with some pointed bits.

She amplified her own Live in her Device and felt it reside in the spear tip.

Immediately afterwards, she plunged the spear into her own chest.

The Live, its Message, its Tempo, and its Word Color all echoed through her body.

It was not quite a wave, not quite an impact, not quite a ripple, not quite a vibration, and it covered her with goose bumps.

However, it cooled some of the unpleasant heat covering her.

“!”

She opened her eyes, stood up, and pulled the Device from her chest.

In that instant, a massive Live exploded before her eyes.

Gunmal fought by amplifying a Live of destruction without using any kind of preliminary Up.

She heard him shout.

“Go!”

The exploding Live blew away all other sounds, so she may have imagined hearing his voice.

Still, she obeyed it.

She looked up slightly, took two or three steps, and flew.