Editing City Series:Volume6c Chapter6 (section)

===Part 3===

Their battle had left the long Borderson mountain road and continued on toward burning and smoking Cologne.

The BMW motorcycle raced along with Pale in the sidecar and Hazel on the back.

The way ahead opened up as they arrived on major road. Hazel looked back.

“We’ve lost them! Is this where we’re supposed to meet Corelle?”

“Not yet. We need to reach the T-intersection up ahead. Once there, Corelle’s RB-21 is supposed to drop Schwarz Löwe’s container and then land further on to pick up you and Pale.”

“But she still isn’t here,” added Pale and Hazel nodded.

…''Did something happen to her? I hope she’s just running late.

The motorcycle continued driving despite her worries. There was a school to their right. They accelerated alongside its fence.

That was when she noticed Berger’s back tremble in surprise.

An armored truck was rushing toward them from the other end of the T-intersection up ahead. It was on a collision course and wasn’t slowing down.

“They’re still after us!? Hang on!!”

Berger shouted that warning immediately before turning the motorcycle right as sharply as he could.

The next thing Hazel knew, the school’s gate was right in front of them. It was metal and painted black.

They accelerated. And…

<Destiny opens closed doors.>

The gate was instantly sliced through and the motorcycle broke through the scrap metal.

“!!”

Hot winds blew around the schoolyard.

No one was around at night and the turbulence from the bombing formed a whirlwind in this more open space.

Berger drove them through there to create an opening back to the road.

He shifted the 750cc BMW down a gear and tried to kick off the sandy ground, but that was when a color reached Hazel’s eyes. But this red was not from the Lives of the heat hanging in the air.

…''A person!?

Gunfire flew their way. Past Pale in the sidecar on the right, gunfire meant to confirm the bullet speed shot from behind a tree at the edge of the schoolyard. The bullet holes traveled across the schoolyard’s sandy ground like the footprints of someone running toward them.

These were not submachinegun rounds. This was a machinegun.

“–––––!”

Hazel immediately swung her sword.

As a Greenhorner, she did call to the Lives. She only focused her mind on a shout while using a card.

…''I have trained in the Ups used by Tuners and Busters…

But that had never gone well for her. Whether she tried Tuning or Busting, the Lives were never transformed or destroyed the way she wanted.

The Lives would waver and that was it.

“––––!”

She raised her voice in her sword’s inherent tone to sync the sword’s Lives with her voice pattern. That made the sword shake her own Lives and activate.

The five cards attached to the sword burst, starting from the bottom one. Five empty cartridges were also ejected.

Air pressure similar to wind was launched from the sword’s tip.

The sand to the right of the motorcycle was blown away and a large arc was gouged into the ground. That gouge followed the motorcycle’s movement. A protection field was formed from the sword tip.

Sparks flew from the surface of that field and Hazel held the sword tight to bear with it. Directly above the gouged ground, a bullet hit the invisible wall just past the tip of the sword, bursting into embers.

“!!”

She kept the sword steady.

Then Berger pulled a submachinegun from between the sidecar and motorcycle and opened fire.

He fired the bullets by eye and they tore apart Hazel’s protection field from within.

“Hey! Why would you break that! I could have kept it up for another 20 seconds!”

“The enemy’s bullets are going to last longer than that!”

She saw sparks fly from behind the tree at the corner of the schoolyard and someone was sent sprawling to the ground.

“Ooh, you hit them! Now that’s a miracle!” shouted Pale.

A few silhouettes jumped down from the roof of the two-story concrete school building.

There were four in all. They wore Geheimnis Agency Army Division uniforms, but those uniforms had no sleeves or legs to cover up their prosthetic arms and legs.

Instead of jumping down for a free fall, they kicked off the school’s wall to increase their falling speed and change direction.

They landed in the windy schoolyard with positions that surrounded the motorcycle and they hit the ground running to maintain those positions.

Their Lives looked somewhat faded to Hazel’s eyes. That was a unique trait of prosthetic-using Steel Masters like them.

A moment later, Pale stood up from the sidecar and slapped Hazel’s shoulder.

She looked back in surprise.

“Wh-what was that for?”

“Go on, girl. You get to Corelle first!”

…''Eh!?

Pale also slapped Berger’s shoulder.

“Pretend to circle toward the back entrance and then make a braking turn to the left. I’ll toss the girl outside then.”

“Wh-why me?” asked Hazel in a cracking voice.

“Because they’re after Pale and you, Hazel Mirildorf,” answered Berger. “I’m sure of it.”

“But their Messiah has got to be more valuable to them than me.”

“That’s right. You’re the last one we can let them get their hands on here, Hazel.”

But Berger brushed Pale’s hand off his shoulder.

Pale frowned and looked at Berger.

Berger squeezed the throttle to accelerate and responded without turning toward Hazel in the wind.

“But this girl is going to fight alongside us, Pale.”

“Don’t-”

Pale tried to say “don’t be ridiculous” but was cut off by Berger’s smiling voice.

“She’ll make an excellent shield. Since they can’t shoot her.”

Hazel elbowed him in the back. She knew he wasn’t serious, but…

…''Why is he like this?

She tossed a card behind her and struck it with her sword.

That set up a thin barrier that blew away an approaching enemy.

Pale sighed in frustration and blocked some incoming bullets with his metal right hand.

18 shots’ worth of sparks flew. Just as the enemy’s rapid-fire barrage ended, Pale threw a backhand blow with his right hand.

“!”

The massive prosthetic fist hit the soldier in his hips just as he threw away his empty submachinegun and tried to draw his sword. His face twisted in surprise more than pain and his hip broke with a metallic sound, sending him collapsing to the ground.

Only two remained.

Berger sank down in the motorcycle and applied the brakes.

Their surroundings ground to a halt and the pursuing soldiers staggered as they tried to stop too.

“Morons.”

Berger fired all his submachinegun’s remaining bullets into the soldier trying to straighten back up to the right.

The enemy reacted so quickly Hazel gasped. He made a rotating defense, guarding with his prosthetic arm. He deflected the bullets and moved on ahead.

He ran.

But Berger hopped down from the motorcycle even faster than that.

“Pale, you take the one on the left!!”

Pale hopped out of the sidecar and Hazel scrambled down from the back. She crouched low and followed after Berger but shifted a bit to the side.

Now that she was out of the motorcycle, she found herself surrounded by heat and wind. She could see Cologne Cathedral in the distance.

“…”

A large dark shape hovered in the sky and a deep noise descended from it, but she couldn’t focus on that right now.

Berger approached the enemy ahead of her. He ducked low to avoid the enemy’s right prosthetic arm and grabbed that arm from below with both his own arms.

Berger tugged on the soldier’s arm, pulling him to the right, and spinning him toward Hazel to place the soldier on his own back. He jerked his hips up and pulled forward with the arm passing over his shoulder.

He threw the soldier so the man flipped around in an arc and slammed headfirst into the ground.

The full weight of the soldier’s mechanical body bore down on his neck, resulting in a dull sound.

He bounced and then rolled a few times before coming to a stop.

He did not move, but Hazel could see his pale Lives pulsing. He was not dead.

Relieved by that, she realized Berger was looking at her. The movement of his eyes told her what he wanted to say.

…''He wants me to leave this open area and hide behind the school’s wall.

Crossing the fence behind the school would get her to the road they needed to reach.

“–––––!”

A scream from the left was accompanied by the loud cry of breaking metal.

''What was that?'' wondered Hazel as someone flew by overhead.

They slammed into a tree growing in front of the school. The following dull sound was that of a human body falling to the ground.

Pale’s attack had defeated the last soldier.

“You fight rough,” said Hazel as the battle ended for now.

She sighed and kept low to follow after Berger. She couldn’t relax until she was behind a tree with her back against the school’s wall.

But…

<The Fatherland’s roads are never ending.>

She sensed a powerful presence from the abandoned motorcycle behind her.