Editing City Series:Volume3b Chapter 7 (section)

===Part 4===

There once was a certain boy.

But Akira did not know how long ago that “once” referred to.

And before even reaching that question, she did not understand what she was seeing and hearing at the moment.

“Eh? This was a little sudden. …What’s going on?”

She looked around and found darkness.

She tried holding out her hand, but she could not see it.

This was pure darkness, so she began to panic.

“…Oh, no. Gunmal was embracing me from behind…and then…”

She trailed off from there.

…''And then I found myself in this darkness?

A certain fact rang in her mind as if to answer her.

There once was a certain boy.

That fact stabbed deeply into her mind.

Only then did she realize what she was seeing and hearing.

“This is Gunmal’s Live.”

She tried closing her eyes, but the surrounding darkness remained unchanged. It really was pure darkness.

…''I’m directly seeing this with my mind. …This is like a replaying of his memories.

She could not possibly have a body here.

Once she understood that, light appeared in the darkness.

Far, far ahead, a horizontal line of light appeared like the sun appearing behind the horizon.

And with that light as the horizon, the expanse of the sky appeared above and the expanse of the ground appeared below.

Both expanses contained an awkward stream.

A few wave-like motions filled them both and they approached above Akira’s head or below her feet. A closer look showed these waves of the sky and earth were not like the waves formed in water. Thousands or even millions of domino-like blocks drew out the sky and earth and those blocks created the waves as they fell over.

And these dominoes formed more than a flat plane.

Whenever they seemed to crawl vertically like caterpillars on a wall, they would produce clouds or buildings. Whenever they seemed to tilt diagonally, they would form rivers or slopes.

A few of the blocks fell from the sky and become wind just before reaching the earth.

“Gunmal’s Live is a lot like a pop-up book.”

Meanwhile, the stream of dominoes passed by Akira’s vision.

In that instant, she felt the wind.

“!”

She sensed the wind’s Live, something she had not done in what felt like a long time.

She felt a chill.

…''There’s no doubting it now.

“Gunmal is showing me his Live.”

She spoke her thought aloud and the position in which she stood grew clear.

The sky was visible overhead and a small village was visible below.

She was positioned high in the sky.

“That won’t do. I can’t see anything from up here.”

She relaxed her mind to keep herself from worrying.

An odd sensation shook her mind to its core.

Deep in her mind, she felt like fingers were tickling her inside her stomach.

“Ah.”

A voice escaped her mind.

…''Oh, no. The sensation from reality is getting mixed in.

“Something incredible must be going on outside of my mind right now…”

She twisted her mind to reject the somehow pleasant sensation.

She then relaxed herself in a different way. Instead of leaving herself defenseless, she cleared her ears and closed her eyes to place herself amid the silence.

That was the correct decision.

“…”

The next thing she knew, she was standing in a strange world.

The remnants of an unfamiliar village spread out before her eyes.

She saw broken pillars, crumbled walls, scattered roofs, twisted and broken roads, and things that were so smashed their original forms had been lost. Gathered altogether, they created the ruins of a village.

She was standing in the center of it all.

“!?”

She knew this scenery.

…''This is the same as the final Live that J-Gun showed me. So am I seeing this through Gunmal’s eyes!?

Her question was answered by seeing a boy standing in front of her. He looked to be seventeen or eighteen and he had the same hair color as Gunmal.

This was J-Gun when he had been a boy.

Two Devices had fallen at his feet.

One was simply cracked and the other was shattered.

“…”

J-Gun picked up the fragments of the shattered one and spoke.

“Our Devices lie in the center of the war. …Brother, which one of us will succeed the Maldrick family?”

And…

“My Device shattered after clashing with yours.”

J-Gun pulled a ring from his pocket and looked to his younger brother’s face.

After a pause, he smiled a little.

“It’s fine. Like this, they won’t even find the bodies buried in graves. …People who wish to live together didn’t need deadly Busters or Tuners in the first place.”

J-Gun threw the ring into the ruins and said more.

“Don’t end up like me.”

As soon as he said that, the footage changed.

As Gunmal, Akira stood in a large stone blacksmith workshop.

It was dark inside.

Gunmal’s gaze was positioned a little higher than in the ruins.

That gaze looked gently across the workshop, looked down about a step ahead, and stopped.

A stone pedestal sat there.

A single Device sat on the pedestal: Nein König.

“…”

Gunmal’s right hand grabbed Nein König’s hilt.

The hand was still made of flesh at this point.

He stared intently at the bladeless sword.

“I won’t need to use my Wild Name now that I’m leaving my family.”

He slowly moved Nein König to his left hand.

He placed his right hand on the stone pedestal and raised Nein König in his left.

He kept his eyes on his right hand the entire time.

At that point, Akira realized what he was about to do.

…''Gunmal!?

Her mind cried out just as he swung Nein König down.

“Ah.”

He placed a bit of his Live inside the Device.

It was amplified inside and gained a calm Tempo.

In place of a blade, a brave, steel-colored Live burst from it.

With a heavy strike, a curve of steel raced out.

Before her mind could reject the image, Gunmal had Busted his right hand with Nein König.

There was a solid sound and pain.

The pain reached Akira’s mind as well.

“!?”

The pain resonated in her mind and created a Live resonance.

Gunmal’s Live – which included his memories and abilities – burst inside Akira.

It was hot.

And with that sensation, the image being shown to her blacked out for a moment.

It was cold.

Gunmal’s Live felt hot as it burst within her mind, but the exterior of her mind felt cold in comparison.

With that movement of heat, she felt her mind returning to reality.

She was waking up.

Her mind hesitated to do so and she quickly yet thoroughly experienced his Live inside her before it cooled.

“…Nn.”

With a quiet voice, she experienced Gunmal.

What remained inside her body was a thought he sent her and it began with a certain sentence.

She spoke that sentence aloud.

“There once was a boy named Logan Maldrick, hm?”

She smiled bitterly and her mind returned to reality as she asked a question.

“Does that boy…still exist?”