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Owari no Chronicle:Volume2 Chapter 29

2015-10-05T21:40:46Z

128.177.161.163: /* Chapter 29: The Dragon’s Contract */ undid my undo and some typo fixes.

==Chapter 29: The Dragon’s Contract==
[[Image:OnC_v02_0399.png|thumb]]
''Move

''To ask

''Is to oppose those who will not give an answer

Izumo crossed swords with Fafner in the forest.

“Honestly, why do I have to waste my time fighting you?”

He swung his large light-emitting sword toward Fafner.

Just before the blade of light struck, the black half-dragon dissolved into the shadows of the trees and disappeared.

Immediately afterwards, Izumo felt a disturbance in the air behind him and he leaped.

He leaped forward.

With a single footstep in the grass, he jumped about four meters forward. The instant his foot landed, he sent a strike toward the shadow behind him as if turning around.

Before the sword arrived, the giant black form disappeared into the shadows once more.

“Damn,” muttered Izumo.

He ran, hoping to find somewhere without shadows, but he was in the forest. No matter where he went, there were shadows at arm’s length.

To the right, he heard someone treading on a stone.

“!”

Izumo swung V-Sw to the right.

At the same moment, writing appeared on V-Sw’s console.

“Wrong.”

Izumo looked and saw nothing to the right.

Then what had that footstep been?

V-Sw sliced through empty air and the light leaking from its blade illuminated the area. That bluish-white light showed a fist-sized stone on the ground.

Fafner had rolled it here. He had most likely done it as a decoy just before sinking into the shadows.

Izumo clenched his teeth.

He had already attacked and missed. It was now his opponent’s turn.

He had to evade. Right, left, front, and back. Izumo had several options and he chose one:

Down.

He threw himself to the ground as if letting V-Sw’s swing pull him down.

The instant his jaw struck the grassy ground, a mass of high pressure swept by overhead. It was Fafner’s Cowling Sword.

That spherical power struck the trees to the left and they exploded. A total of twelve trees were destroyed all at once. A pit was created in the forest and the fibrous sound of the trees snapping rang out.

Izumo got up.

However, a kick struck his gut. The blow had skimmed the ground and shot up at the last second.

By the time he felt the pain, his body was already flying through the air.

“…!”

As he flew to the side, Izumo stuck a foot against the ground and gained control. He took two long strides and stopped his momentum by pressing his back against a thick tree.

Before he could catch his breath, he heard a roaring of air behind him.

“Oh!” he cried as he jumped to the left.

He turned around and saw Fafner swinging his Cowling Sword horizontally from the shadows behind the tree trunk Izumo had been leaning up against. The shimmering surrounding the sword sliced through the trunk at Izumo’s waist level and blasted the air upwards.

The tree fell.

Scattered leaves flew about below the moonlight with a sound like a receding wave.

As the leaves fell like snow, Izumo moved back. He faced Fafner.

They were four paces apart. Izumo would need to take a step before his attack would reach. Also, the bottom half of the sliced trunk remained between them. It was an obstacle for Izumo, but it meant nothing to the half-dragon who could travel through shadows.

Izumo let out a breath and Fafner lowered the tip of his Cowling Sword.

“Are you giving up, descendent of 10th-Gear and Low-Gear?”

“Oh? I’m surprised you know that.”

“Knowing one’s enemy is only natural. …But why do you fight for Low-Gear? From what I have heard, you should be fighting for 10th-Gear.”

“Why would you think that? Tell me what it is you’ve heard.”

Fafner paused for a beat before answering.

“Supposedly, your defensive divine protection was given to you when your mother died. It is your divine protection as a descendent of the gods of 10th-Gear.”

“You’re well informed. But I think there’s one thing you don’t know.”

“What?”

“You don’t know why people are given that divine protection.” He smiled bitterly. “Divine protection is not passed down with the bloodline or anything. …It’s meant to let you leave that family.”

As he spoke, Izumo pointed the tip of V-Sw toward Fafner. With a smile on his lips, he looked toward the destroyed trees in the surrounding area.

“I will swing this Cowling Sword once. …And then I will win.”

Fafner took a defensive stance.

And at the same time, a voice rang out. That distant voice came from the grassy plain beyond the forest.

As that voice filled the wind, travelled a great distance, and soared through the sky, they heard it.

Izumo knew who it belonged to.

It was Sayama.

Sayama’s voice sounded strongly throughout the concept space which had become a battlefield.

“Everyone!”

He began by addressing the people there. And Izumo heard his words continue.

Sayama spoke the words only he could.

“Let me say it here. …The surname Sayama indicates a villain!”

Boldman and the other members of UCAT who had begun a firefight within the forest heard a voice cutting through the trees. Sayama’s voice also came from the communicators on their necks.

“After sixty years, the true negotiations will take place here.”

As she wrote healing charms in the shadow of a tree, Ooki raised her head to listen.

“Listen, everyone! Prepare yourself for battle! Fill your magazines and blades with questions of condemnation and fill your armor with voices of protest. Expressing your thoughts with those is how we will negotiate tonight. …Listen up, everyone!”

As she performed maintenance on an overheated rifle, Sibyl listened to the sound coming from her communicator.

“Ahead, ahead, go ahead! These people are trying to return to the past! Grab them by the collar and drag them here!”

As she flew just under the upper wall of the concept space, Kazami heard a voice rising up toward her.

“I, Sayama Mikoto, use my authority as the representative of Team Leviathan to make this announcement. The Leviathan Road begins here. We will not give in to any power. We are right and we are wrong. And…we will see this through to the very end!” He took a breath. “This is my first order: all members are to bring them here even if you have knock them out to do so. Bring them to a world where these words will get through to them. Kick those reclusive writers out of the darkness where they are bound by writing!”

Kazami looked down at the winged soldiers moving toward her.

Standing on the grassy plain were a white mechanical dragon surrounded by shimmering heat and a boy and girl wearing white armored uniforms.

The boy held up a sword, took a breath, and asked a question.

“Where is your answer?”

Kazami opened her mouth.

She gave a single answer.

The ends of her eyebrows rose and she smiled.

“Testament!”

As Sayama faced Fafnir Custom on that grassy field, he heard the responses to his will.

Testament.

In the forest, in the wind, and in the sky, dozens of voices replied with that holy word.

Tes. Tes. Tes. We bind a contract here.

As those numerous contracts washed over him, Sayama walked forward.

He stared at the white mechanical dragon before him, sped up his pace, and accelerated. The girl lined up next to him.

They ran forward.

Fafnir Custom also ran.

The color white approached. The ground rumbled and a great roar was heard. And with that before him, Sayama turned to Shinjou. She nodded with a powerful expression while holding her Cowling Staff in hand. She was saying, “Let’s go.”

In lieu of saying Testament, Sayama nodded back. He looked at Gram in his left hand. A green light ran through the metal plate added to the surface of the blade. Writing appeared there.

He could not read that writing, but he understood what it meant. It said power.

Sayama poured his true strength into his left arm. He felt pain, but that proved this was real. Sayama swung up Gram, placed his right hand on the hilt, and swung it down.

The mechanical dragon had already arrived close enough.

It struck.

With a sound like shattering glass, a white armor plate flew into the night sky.

The mechanical dragon’s body slid to the side and the air moved.

The battle truly began.

As Izumo listened to the distant sounds of battle, he muttered as if to himself.

“V-Sw, don’t go to your third form. Let’s go like this.”

“Are you ready to go?”

“Of course,” replied Izumo as he held V-Sw up at stomach height.

He held the blade horizontally and leaned forward. The light from V-Sw’s rear thruster grew stronger.

But Fafner did not move from his position directly in front of Izumo. He lowered his hips a bit, but did not take a defensive stance.

“What is it, half-dragon?”

“So you plan to use the acceleration of that sword’s thruster to attack before I can pass through the shadows?”

Izumo frowned.

Fafner filled the silence with his voice.

“I am a fighter, too. You announced your attack just now, so I will announce mine as well. I will avoid your initial strike and take your head from behind.” Fafner nodded. “The victory you predicted will not come.”

“Is that so?”

Izumo prepared himself by lowering his hips and taking a breath.

And then he moved.

“!”

[[Image:OnC_v02_0409.png|thumb]]

It was just a single strike.

Izumo threw his body forward and swung V-Sw horizontally. He swung it toward Fafner.

There was an explosion.

White light shot from the back of the blade. It accelerated at the same moment.

The afterimage of the light drew a giant arc and the sword picked up more speed.

It moved at high speed, swept up the wind, sliced through the air, and flew as the light grew even stronger.

“Go!”

That low horizontal strike was meant to reach Fafner even in the final moments of trying to escape below.

As it approached, Fafner sank down.

Izumo was impressed.

…''This idiot really intends to do this seriously.

He twisted his body while giving a small whistle. The follow-through motion of his body accelerated further and Izumo pressed the trigger on the grip.

An additional light was produced. And this time it came from the blade side. This white light far surpassed the quantity and quality of the accelerating light coming from the back of the blade. This light blasted forward.

This was a giant blade of light. The giant sword extended more than ten meters.

The acceleration from the back of V-Sw’s second form was not meant to drive the blade into an opponent. It was meant to counteract the recoil of this strike. Nevertheless, all the strength in Izumo’s body was necessary to swing the blade now.

Izumo twisted his entire body and shouted while swinging the sword forward.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!”

But in the forest which could be clearly seen in black and white due to V-Sw’s blade, he saw Fafner’s wings swing up and then down.

He heard a roar.

The half-dragon accelerated downwards into the shadow of the torn tree trunk.

In that instant, V-Sw’s blade of light sliced through Fafner.

However, it was too late. Only a portion of the half-dragon was sliced off: his wings.

Those black wings were severed at the base and flew through the air. His body of shadow disappeared down below.

He had escaped into the darkness.

“…!”

Izumo continued swinging V-Sw as if trying to slice through the air.

Fafner felt pain stabbing into his back, but he knew he had won.

He quickly ascended in the darkness. It felt similar to swimming.

He could not see outside from the darkness. Inside, there was nothing but darkness. To leave was to give his body physical form once more.

But he had a certain level of freedom such as in the distance he travelled.

Fafner recalled the promise he had made. He had promised to appear behind his enemy.

That enemy would be swinging his large Cowling Sword and working to control his stance.

After swinging that heavy weapon, he could not immediately stop it.

Fafner had won. This boy born between 10th-Gear and Low-Gear had brought 6th-Gear under Low-Gear’s control two years prior and he held that Gear’s Concept Core. Fafner felt the loss of his wings was a small price to pay for defeating a foe such as that.

Fafner ascended. He was targeting that enemy’s back. He would appear from the shadows of the trees. This forest was puny compared to 1st-Gear’s forests, but it would serve as a stage to defeat this enemy.

He exited.

Fafner jumped from the shadow and to the surface.

He heard silence. While surrounded by the remains of the shadow, he rose into the air and looked forward.

And he found nothing at all.

The forest had disappeared. The forest that created his precious darkness was gone.

Fafner gasped.

“!?”

The forest was gone. The back of his enemy was not before his eyes.

''This isn’t right,'' thought Fafner as the moonlight washed over his back. ''What happened?

He looked around and saw what was so wrong. That area had definitely been a forest.

However, all of the trees within ten meters had been felled at the height of Fafner’s waist. The cut was sharp, but the trees above the cut had been blown into the distance where they had struck the surrounding trees.

The area was now a clearing.

And Fafner saw something in one corner of the clearing.

A giant Cowling Sword lay on the ground. This was the enemy’s sword which was labeled V-Sw on the side. It had lost all light and the cowling had closed. At the base of the sword, words appeared on a console.

“This is fun.”

Once he read those words of enjoyment, Fafner realized something.

He realized that he had his back to the moonlight.

He looked at his feet. There was a shadow there.

In the middle of that supposedly empty clearing was someone’s shadow. The moonlight to his back had created that shadow.

Who was casting that shadow?

It would be the person who had swung the Cowling Sword and cut down all the surrounding trees Fafner could use to escape.

It would be the person who had cast aside the Cowling Sword he could not stop in time and who had turned his back to the moon.

Fafner heard a voice from behind him.

“Turn around.”

Fafner gnashed his teeth and…

“Oh…!!”

He spun his body with his Cowling Sword in hand. He attacked behind him at high speed while ignoring the pain in his back.

A single young man stood there.

Before Fafner’s sword could reach him, his right fist slammed into the half-dragon. The blow struck the tip of his angular jaw. That was the best place to send vibrations through to rattle his brain.

Before he could speak, breathe, or even feel the impact, everything turned black.

Brunhild heard the sound of different attacks.

From nearby, she heard repeated noises of metal clashing.

From far away, she heard continuing gunfire and clashing swords.

It had all started and accelerated with Sayama’s words.

…''The current situation is…

She did not know. She had her hands full pursuing her opponent.

Siegfried would occasionally attack. He targeted the ground at her feet and trees along her path to slow her down or stall her.

''How cowardly,'' thought Brunhild. ''Why won’t he fight me seriously?

She felt as if he were evading her questions.

…''He is trying to buy time until the other battles are over.

From the point of view of the Leviathan Road, they could ignore their connection and treat this as just one of many battles. Whichever side won, all of the battles would need to be stopped.

Brunhild clenched her teeth and wondered if he could not tell how seriously she was taking this.

“Is this also part of your atonement?”

He did not want to hurt her.

Brunhild looked forward as she ran.

Approximately ten meters ahead of her, the forest came to an end and a grassy field opened up.

She decided to end this there.

She stopped attacking and began her preparations.

She gathered strength in the hand holding Requiem Sense.

As she ran between the trees and created loud footsteps, Brunhild rested the scythe on her shoulder.

She pointed the tip of the blade toward the sky. And she made up her mind. She was only ten meters and a few paces away from the field. She used that distance, speed, and hesitation to open the entire underworld.

She ran through the forest and passed by Siegfried.

She made it ahead of him for the first time. As Siegfried looked outside the forest, he shouted something at her.

But she could not hear it.

Brunhild hung her head down and charged out into the field.

“————”

The moonlight felt bright.

She treaded on the grass and heard a damp footstep. But what she heard even more clearly was the sound of Requiem Sense slicing through the wind by her ear.

Brunhild took action. As if bending her body over, she swung the blade forward and down from her shoulder.

“Open, gate of the abyss! Open wide here where one can look up into the heavens!” she shouted while the blade stabbed down into the ground.

At the same moment, light appeared behind her shoulders and above his head. The light took the form of a rift.

As she followed a portion of the light with her eyes, Brunhild continued to speak.

“Come forth, wielder of the scythe!!”

By the time she turned around, it had already appeared.

A grim reaper about a dozen meters tall was wrapped in a cloak of bluish-white light and wore an undecorated mask. It was impossible to tell if the face behind that blank mask belonged to a man or a woman or if they were elderly or young. Death was impartial to all.

This was the crystallization of the power contained within 1st-Gear’s underworld. This grim reaper of enmity held a giant scythe in its hands and swung it down.

The blade flew toward Siegfried.

As he ran out of the forest, he prepared to receive the blade as if being struck by a counter. This attack had much more mass than the previous ones. He could not receive it so easily.

And so Brunhild assumed Siegfried had to be surprised.

But what she actually saw was different.

Siegfried’s eyebrows rose and he shouted toward her.

“Nein!”

Brunhild raised her head at his scolding tone and looked up.

And she realized something: she was not being lit by the moonlight.

“…!”

She turned around and found a giant mass of white.

It was Fafnir Custom.

As the mechanical dragon fought, he had ended up moving toward her.

The auxiliary vision devices installed on his body noticed her and glowed red.

A roar rang out so loud it sounded like the earth’s crust being smashed.

At the same time, the mechanical dragon’s entire body worked to brake.

But the impact travelling through the ground and the wind blowing through the air both assaulted Brunhild. Her footing grew unsteady, her body was scooped up, and she flew through the air. She was thrown toward the forest and toward Siegfried.

Just as she realized she had been blown through the air, she noticed the grim reaper floating in the night sky.

The blade it swung down was going to strike her as she flew by.

It came. That almost 10 meter blade swung down to cut through everything in its path. She would be sliced in two.

“!”

Just as she thought she would die, someone suddenly grabbed her waist from the side.

…''Eh?

Before she could wonder what had happened, her vision rotated around. Her body was flung to the side with great strength.

She flew through the air.

And then her right shoulder struck the grass.

She felt pain and was confused as to what had happened, but she asked another question first.

“Why!?”

Brunhild placed her arms in the grass and got up.

She forcefully raised her head and looked forward. A tall figure wearing black stood in the path of the grim reaper’s rotating scythe.

It was Siegfried.

He stood facing the hand that had swung down toward him.

And she saw his face.

A clear smile could be seen in his sharp eyes and the connected corners of his mouth.

The tip of the scythe reached his left hand.

Brunhild watched the point of the attack she had sent and watched his smile. She opened her mouth but the word “why” would no longer come. The word that came directly from her heart was…

“No!” she cried. “No!!!”

And as she shouted, Brunhild saw it.

She saw the answer to her words.

After exchanging attacks with Fafnir Custom, Shinjou saw it.

Just before the grim reaper’s scythe brought death to Siegfried, it stopped in midair.

“…Ah.”

That tall man in black stood in the field. The giant bluish-white blade had stopped one meter to his right. It had been stopped by a woman standing between him and the blade.

That woman was tall enough to reach Siegfried’s shoulders.

She had her back to Shinjou and she was the same slightly transparent bluish-white as the grim reaper.

This woman had come from the underworld. Shinjou knew her name.

The giant dragon facing her spoke that name quietly.

“…Princess Gutrune.”

She turned toward them. She let go of the blade and turned her entire body toward them.

The grim reaper and its blade disappeared above her head. After seeing that, Gutrune looked toward them. Below her soft-looking hair, her eyes bent and a smile appeared on her lips.

With that soft smile, a royal of a ruined world quietly looked at them all.

She looked at the soldiers in the forest, the winged races in the sky, and the white mechanical dragon in the field.

After looking around at all of them, she made an action as a member of the royal family.

She gave a quiet bow.

Shinjou could only stand there dumbfounded, but she heard a single voice. It came from the main in black standing next to Gutrune. That old man lowered his arms, clenched his fists, and trembled as he spoke.

“Why…?” He took a breath. “Why did you save me again!?”

Gutrune did not turn toward him. She merely lowered the ends of her eyebrows and nodded while still smiling.

And then it ended.

The princess’s body scattered into bits of light and dissolved into the scythe blade stabbing into the ground.

No one moved.

The wind washed over the field and the shadows of the grass shook in the moonlight.

But a single quiet and high-pitched noise could be heard.

It was the chirping of a bird.

Brunhild looked over. She looked over at Siegfried’s pocket as he hung his head down.

A small bird’s head poked out.

“————”

The bird looked up at the moonlight and tilted its head.

It chirped quietly, moved from the pocket, and stood up on Siegfried’s collar.

And it looked at her. It spread its wings, flapped them, and flew toward her.

It was an unskilled flight that was more a glide than anything and it only lasted a few meters.

However, the bird arrived at her shoulder almost instantly and landed on the black cloth there. It hopped up, changed direction, and peered at her wide-open eyes below the three-cornered heat.

“Ah…”

A small voice escaped Brunhild’s mouth and a small black shadow stood before her.

It was the black cat.

His yellow eyes looked up at her face and the small bird on her shoulder. Finally, he opened his mouth.

“Brunhild… What do you want right now?”

Brunhild was unable to answer.

She hung her head down, placed her hands on her face, opened her mouth wide, and let out a voice.

She cried out with a loud, loud voice.

She cried and continued to cry.

Hagen nodded within Fafnir Custom.

He did not know the truth of 1st-Gear’s destruction.

But Gutrune had bowed when she appeared via Requiem Sense.

That was all that mattered.

He was surrounded only by the sound of wind. Everyone had stopped moving.

''Is it over?'' wondered Hagen.

The discomfort within him had grown stronger and more distinct.

Was it going to end here?

''No,'' denied Hagen within Fafnir Custom.

Like this, it would all return to how it was.

…''I cannot let this have such an uncertain ending.

There was something he needed to gain. This was something he could only gain by facing his enemy and settling this.

This was something they had lost when 1st-Gear was destroyed and that they had been unable to pass on to Fafner and the others.

Without that, it would all end up the same as before.

But this battlefield was done for and his body was reaching its end.

Was it hopeless?

Hagen lowered his primary vision devices slightly and looked forward.

A single boy stood there. The holy sword Gram hung down from his left hand. He was the one in charge of the Leviathan Road.

He looked up at Hagen.

His eyebrows were raised and his lips were held closed. He held Gram tightly and would not let go. His feet were spread wider than his shoulders, his hips were lowered, and he waited. He waited for Hagen to act.

He was waiting.

“…”

Hagen definitely saw him and he asked a question to the boy.

“A conclusion reached through emotions can be overturned when one forgets one’s emotions. Is that what you think?

“Yes,” said the boy with a nod.

Hagen nodded using Fafnir Custom’s body.

“Boy, if you win, you will change this world. In a way, that will mean destroying this world. Are you prepared to do that?”

Before the boy could respond, Hagen spat out further words.

“Think carefully before answering. An insincere answer and an insincere contract are not worthy of destroying the world. What is needed is trust worthy of destroying the world. Do you understand? That is what it means to be sincere.”

“I do understand. The word sincerity is a heart like the sun formed from words.<ref>The Japanese word for sincerity (誠意) can be broken down into the kanji used here to mean words (言), formed (成), from (立), sun (日), and heart (心).</ref> …And I will show you that here.”

A stir ran through everyone there. The girl standing next to the boy gave a look of surprise. She spoke a question to the boy and Hagen knew why.

...''Girl, that is because you are right.

And…

…''I want to win.

While continuing to look toward Hagen, the boy spoke to the girl.

“Please come with me, Shinjou-kun.”

And then he turned his straightforward words toward Hagen.

“I saw the past, I will fight in the present, and I am sure the future is with us. In that case, we should be thinking the same thing.”

“Then let me say one thing: Make sure not to alter what you gain here or go against that promise. Youth who takes on the role of the villain, can you promise me you will resolve everything here?”

“Testament!”

As the boy shouted out that word, Fafnir Custom began to move.

<noinclude>
===Notes===
<references/>
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|-
| Back to [[Owari_no_Chronicle:Volume2_Chapter_28|Chapter 28]]
| Return to [[Owari_no_Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari_no_Chronicle:Volume2_Chapter_30|Chapter 30]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume2 Chapter 29

2015-10-05T21:03:46Z

128.177.161.163: Undo revision 284952 by Multipartite (talk)

==Chapter 29: The Dragon’s Contract==
[[Image:OnC_v02_0399.png|thumb]]
''To move

''And to ask

''Is to oppose those who will not give an answer

Izumo crossed swords with Fafner in the forest.

“Honestly, why do I have to waste my time fighting you?”

He swung his large light-emitting sword toward Fafner.

Just before the blade of light struck, the black half-dragon dissolved into the shadows of the trees and disappeared.

Immediately afterwards, Izumo felt a disturbance in the air behind him and he leaped.

He leaped forward.

With a single footstep in the grass, he jumped about four meters forward. The instant his foot landed, he sent a strike toward the shadow behind him as if turning around.

Before the sword arrived, the giant black form disappeared into the shadows once more.

“Damn,” muttered Izumo.

He ran, hoping to find somewhere without shadows, but he was in the forest. No matter where he went, there were shadows at arm’s length.

To the right, he heard someone treading on a stone.

“!”

Izumo swung V-Sw to the right.

At the same moment, writing appeared on V-Sw’s console.

“Wrong.”

Izumo looked and saw nothing to the right.

Then what had that footstep been?

V-Sw sliced through empty air and the light leaking from its blade illuminated the area. That bluish-white light showed a fist-sized stone on the ground.

Fafner had rolled it here. He had most likely done it as a decoy just before sinking into the shadows.

Izumo clenched his teeth.

He had already attacked and missed. It was now his opponent’s turn.

He had to evade. Right, left, front, and back. Izumo had several options and he chose one:

Down.

He threw himself to the ground as if letting V-Sw’s swing pull him down.

The instant his jaw struck the grassy ground, a mass of high pressure swept by overhead. It was Fafner’s Cowling Sword.

That spherical power struck the trees to the left and they exploded. A total of twelve trees were destroyed all at once. A pit was created in the forest and the fibrous sound of the trees snapping rang out.

Izumo got up.

However, a kick struck his gut. The blow had skimmed the ground and shot up at the last second.

By the time he felt the pain, his body was already flying through the air.

“…!”

As he flew to the side, Izumo stuck a foot against the ground and gained control. He took two long strides and stopped his momentum by pressing his back against a thick tree.

Before he could catch his breath, he heard a roaring of air behind him.

“Oh!” he cried as he jumped to the left.

He turned around and saw Fafner swinging his Cowling Sword horizontally from the shadows behind the tree trunk Izumo had been leaning up against. The shimmering surrounding the sword sliced through the trunk at Izumo’s waist level and blasted the air upwards.

The tree fell.

Scattered leaves flew about below the moonlight with a sound like a receding wave.

As the leaves fell like snow, Izumo moved back. He faced Fafner.

They were four paces part. Izumo would need to take a step before his attack would reach. Also, the bottom half of the sliced tree trunk remained between them. It was an obstacle for Izumo, but it meant nothing to the half-dragon who could travel through shadows.

Izumo let out a breath and Fafner lowered the tip of his Cowling Sword.

“Are you giving up, descendent of 10th-Gear and Low-Gear?”

“Oh? I’m surprised you know that.”

“Knowing one’s enemy is only natural. …But why do you fight for Low-Gear? From what I have heard, you should be fighting for 10th-Gear.”

“Why would you think that? Tell me what it is you’ve heard.”

Fafner paused for a beat before answering.

“Supposedly, your defensive divine protection was given to you when your mother died. It is your divine protection as a descendent of the gods of 10th-Gear.”

“You’re well informed. But I think there’s one thing you don’t know.”

“What?”

“You don’t know why people are given that divine protection.” He smiled bitterly. “Divine protection is not passed down with the bloodline or anything. …It’s meant to let you leave that family.”

As he spoke, Izumo pointed the tip of V-Sw toward Fafner. With a smile on his lips, he looked toward the destroyed trees in the surrounding area.

“I will swing this Cowling Sword once. …And then I will win.”

Fafner took a defensive stance.

And at the same time, a voice rang out. That distant voice came from the grassy plain beyond the forest.

As that voice filled the wind, travelled a great distance, and soared through the sky, they heard it.

Izumo knew who it belonged to.

It was Sayama.

Sayama’s voice sounded strongly throughout the concept space which had become a battlefield.

“Everyone!”

He began by addressing the people there. And Izumo heard his words continue.

Sayama spoke the words only he could.

“Let me say it here. …The surname Sayama indicates a villain!”

Boldman and the other members of UCAT who had begun a firefight within the forest heard a voice cutting through the trees. Sayama’s voice also came from the communicators on their necks.

“After sixty years, the true negotiations will take place here.”

As she wrote healing charms in the shadow of a tree, Ooki raised her head to listen.

“Listen, everyone! Prepare yourself for battle! Fill your magazines and blades with questions of condemnation and fill your armor with voices of protest. Expressing your thoughts with those is how we will negotiate tonight. …Listen up, everyone!”

As she performed maintenance on an overheated rifle, Sibyl listened the sound coming from her communicator.

“Ahead, ahead, go ahead! These people are trying to return to the past! Grab them by the collar and drag them here!”

As she flew just under the upper wall of the concept space, Kazami heard a voice rising up toward her.

“I, Sayama Mikoto, use my authority as the representative of Team Leviathan to make this announcement. The Leviathan Road begins here. We will not give in to any power. We are right and we are wrong. And…we will see this through to the very end!” He took a breath. “This is my first order: all members are to bring them here even if you have knock them out to do so. Bring them to a world where these words will get through to them. Kick those reclusive writers out of the darkness where they are bound by writing!”

Kazami looked down at the winged soldiers moving toward her.

Standing on the grassy plain were a white mechanical dragon surrounded by shimmering heat and a boy and girl wearing white armored uniforms.

The boy held up a sword, took a breath, and asked a question.

“Where is your answer?”

Kazami opened her mouth.

She gave a single answer.

The ends of her eyebrows rose and she smiled.

“Testament!”

As Sayama faced Fafnir Custom on that grassy field, he heard the responses to his will.

Testament.

In the forest, in the wind, and in the sky, dozens of voices replied with that holy word.

Tes. Tes. Tes. We bind a contract here.

As those numerous contracts washed over him, Sayama walked forward.

He stared at the white mechanical dragon before him, sped up his pace, and accelerated. The girl lined up next to him.

They ran forward.

Fafnir Custom also ran.

The color white approached. The ground rumbled and a great roar was heard. And with that before him, Sayama turned to Shinjou. She nodded with a powerful expression while holding her Cowling Staff in hand. She was saying, “Let’s go.”

In lieu of saying Testament, Sayama nodded back. He looked at Gram in his left hand. A green light ran through the metal plate added to the surface of the blade. Writing appeared there.

He could not read that writing, but he understood what it meant. It said power.

Sayama poured his true strength into his left arm. He felt pain, but that proved this was real. Sayama swung up Gram, placed his right hand on the hilt, and swung it down.

The mechanical dragon had already arrived close enough.

It struck.

With a sound like shattering glass, a white armor plate flew into the night sky.

The mechanical dragon’s body slid to the side and the air moved.

The battle truly began.

As Izumo listened to the distant sounds of battle, he muttered as if to himself.

“V-Sw, don’t go to your third form. Let’s go like this.”

“Are you ready to go?”

“Of course,” replied Izumo as he held V-Sw up at stomach height.

He held the blade horizontally and leaned forward. The light from V-Sw’s rear thruster grew stronger.

But Fafner did not move from his position directly in front of Izumo. He lowered his hips a bit, but did not take a defensive stance.

“What is it, half-dragon?”

“So you plan to use the acceleration of that sword’s thruster to attack before I can pass through the shadows?”

Izumo frowned.

Fafner filled the silence with his voice.

“I am a fighter, too. You announced your attack just now, so I will announce mine as well. I will avoid your initial strike and take your head from behind.” Fafner nodded. “The victory you predicted will not come.”

“Is that so?”

Izumo prepared himself by lowering his hips and taking a breath.

And then he moved.

“!”

[[Image:OnC_v02_0409.png|thumb]]

It was just a single strike.

Izumo threw his body forward and swung V-Sw horizontally. He swung it toward Fafner.

There was an explosion.

White light shot from the back of the blade. It accelerated at the same moment.

The afterimage of the light drew a giant arc and the sword picked up more speed.

It moved at high speed, swept up the wind, sliced through the air, and flew as the light grew even stronger.

“Go!”

That low horizontal strike was meant to reach Fafner even in the final moments of trying to escape below.

As it approached, Fafner sank down.

Izumo was impressed.

…''This idiot really intends to do this seriously.

He twisted his body while giving a small whistle. The follow-through motion of his body accelerated further and Izumo pressed the trigger on the grip.

An additional light was produced. And this time it came from the blade side. This white light far surpassed the quantity and quality of the accelerating light coming from the back of the blade. This light blasted forward.

This was a giant blade of light. The giant sword extended more than ten meters.

The acceleration from the back of V-Sw’s second form was not meant to drive the blade into an opponent. It was meant to counteract the recoil of this strike. Nevertheless, all the strength in Izumo’s body was necessary to swing the blade now.

Izumo twisted his entire body and shouted while swinging the sword forward.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!”

But in the forest which could be clearly seen in black and white due to V-Sw’s blade, he saw Fafner’s wings swing up and then down.

He heard a roar.

The half-dragon accelerated downwards into the shadow of the torn tree trunk.

In that instant, V-Sw’s blade of light sliced through Fafner.

However, it was too late. Only a portion of the half-dragon was sliced off: his wings.

Those black wings were severed at the base and flew through the air. His body of shadow disappeared down below.

He had escaped into the darkness.

“…!”

Izumo continued swinging V-Sw as if trying to slice through the air.

Fafner felt pain stabbing into his back, but he knew he had won.

He quickly ascended in the darkness. It felt similar to swimming.

He could not see outside from the darkness. Inside, there was nothing but darkness. To leave was to give his body physical form once more.

But he had a certain level of freedom such as in the distance he travelled.

Fafner recalled the promise he had made. He had promised to appear behind his enemy.

That enemy would be swinging his large Cowling Sword and working to control his stance.

After swinging that heavy weapon, he could not immediately stop it.

Fafner had won. This boy born between 10th-Gear and Low-Gear had brought 6th-Gear under Low-Gear’s control two years prior and he held that Gear’s Concept Core. Fafner felt the loss of his wings was a small price to pay for defeating a foe such as that.

Fafner ascended. He was targeting that enemy’s back. He would appear from the shadows of the trees. This forest was puny compared to 1st-Gear’s forests, but it would serve as a stage to defeat this enemy.

He exited.

Fafner jumped from the shadow and to the surface.

He heard silence. While surrounded by the remains of the shadow, he rose into the air and looked forward.

And he found nothing at all.

The forest had disappeared. The forest that created his precious darkness was gone.

Fafner gasped.

“!?”

The forest was gone. The back of his enemy was not before his eyes.

''This isn’t right,'' thought Fafner as the moonlight washed over his back. ''What happened?

He looked around and saw what was so wrong. That area had definitely been a forest.

However, all of the trees within ten meters had been felled at the height of Fafner’s waist. The cut was sharp, but the trees above the cut had been blown into the distance where they had struck the surrounding trees.

The area was now a clearing.

And Fafner saw something in one corner of the clearing.

A giant Cowling Sword lay on the ground. This was the enemy’s sword which was labeled V-Sw on the side. It had lost all light and the cowling had closed. At the base of the sword, words appeared on a console.

“This is fun.”

Once he read those words of enjoyment, Fafner realized something.

He realized that he had his back to the moonlight.

He looked at his feet. There was a shadow there.

In the middle of that supposedly empty clearing was someone’s shadow. The moonlight to his back had created that shadow.

Who was casting that shadow?

It would be the person who had swung the Cowling Sword and cut down all the surrounding trees Fafner could use to escape.

It would be the person who had cast aside the Cowling Sword he could not stop in time and who had turned his back to the moon.

Fafner heard a voice from behind him.

“Turn around.”

Fafner gnashed his teeth and…

“Oh…!!”

He spun his body with his Cowling Sword in hand. He attacked behind him at high speed while ignoring the pain in his back.

A single young man stood there.

Before Fafner’s sword could reach him, his right fist slammed into the half-dragon. The blow struck the tip of his angular jaw. That was the best place to send vibrations through to rattle his brain.

Before he could speak, breathe, or even feel the impact, everything turned black.

Brunhild heard the sound of different attacks.

From nearby, she heard repeated noises of metal clashing.

From far away, she heard continuing gunfire and clashing swords.

It had all started and accelerated with Sayama’s words.

…''The current situation is…

She did not know. She had her hands full pursuing her opponent.

Siegfried would occasionally attack. He targeted the ground at her feet and trees along her path to slow her down or stall her.

''How cowardly,'' thought Brunhild. ''Why won’t he fight me seriously?

She felt as if he were evading her questions.

…''He is trying to buy time until the other battles are over.

From the point of view of the Leviathan Road, they could ignore their connection and treat this as just one of many battles. Whichever side won, all of the battles would need to be stopped.

Brunhild clenched her teeth and wondered if he could not tell how seriously she was taking this.

“Is this also part of your atonement?”

He did not want to hurt her.

Brunhild looked forward as she ran.

Approximately ten meters ahead of her, the forest came to an end and a grassy field opened up.

She decided to end this there.

She stopped attacking and began her preparations.

She gathered strength in the hand holding Requiem Sense.

As she ran between the trees and created loud footsteps, Brunhild rested the scythe on her shoulder.

She pointed the tip of the blade toward the sky. And she made up her mind. She was only ten meters and a few paces away from the field. She used that distance, speed, and hesitation to open the entire underworld.

She ran through the forest and passed by Siegfried.

She made it ahead of him for the first time. As Siegfried looked outside the forest, he shouted something at her.

But she could not hear it.

Brunhild hung her head down and charged out into the field.

“————”

The moonlight felt bright.

She treaded on the grass and heard a damp footstep. But what she heard even more clearly was the sound of Requiem Sense slicing through the wind by her ear.

Brunhild took action. As if bending her body over, she swung the blade forward and down from her shoulder.

“Open, gate of the abyss! Open wide here where one can look up into the heavens!” she shouted while the blade stabbed down into the ground.

At the same moment, light appeared behind her shoulders and above his head. The light took the form of a rift.

As she followed a portion of the light with her eyes, Brunhild continued to speak.

“Come forth, wielder of the scythe!!”

By the time she turned around, it had already appeared.

A grim reaper about a dozen meters tall was wrapped in a cloak of bluish-white light and wore an undecorated mask. It was impossible to tell if the face behind that blank mask belonged to a man or a woman or if they were elderly or young. Death was impartial to all.

This was the crystallization of the power contained within 1st-Gear’s underworld. This grim reaper of enmity held a giant scythe in its hands and swung it down.

The blade flew toward Siegfried.

As he ran out of the forest, he prepared to receive the blade as if being struck by a counter. This attack had much more mass than the previous ones. He could not receive it so easily.

And so Brunhild assumed Siegfried had to be surprised.

But what she actually saw was different.

Siegfried’s eyebrows rose and he shouted toward her.

“Nein!”

Brunhild raised her head at his scolding tone and looked up.

And she realized something: she was not being lit by the moonlight.

“…!”

She turned around and found a giant mass of white.

It was Fafnir Custom.

As the mechanical dragon fought, he had ended up moving toward her.

The auxiliary vision devices installed on his body noticed her and glowed red.

A roar rang out so loud it sounded like the earth’s crust being smashed.

At the same time, the mechanical dragon’s entire body worked to brake.

But the impact travelling through the ground and the wind blowing through the air both assaulted Brunhild. Her footing grew unsteady, her body was scooped up, and she flew through the air. She was thrown toward the forest and toward Siegfried.

Just as she realized she had been blown through the air, she noticed the grim reaper floating in the night sky.

The blade it swung down was going to strike her as she flew by.

It came. That almost 10 meter blade swung down to cut through everything in its path. She would be sliced in two.

“!”

Just as she thought she would die, someone suddenly grabbed her waist from the side.

…''Eh?

Before she could wonder what had happened, her vision rotated around. Her body was flung to the side with great strength.

She flew through the air.

And then her right shoulder struck the grass.

She felt pain and was confused as to what had happened, but she asked another question first.

“Why!?”

Brunhild placed her arms in the grass and got up.

She forcefully raised her head and looked forward. A tall figure wearing black stood in the path of the grim reaper’s rotating scythe.

It was Siegfried.

He stood facing the hand that had swung down toward him.

And she saw his face.

A clear smile could be seen in his sharp eyes and the connected corners of his mouth.

The tip of the scythe reached his left hand.

Brunhild watched the point of the attack she had sent and watched his smile. She opened her mouth but the word “why” would no longer come. The word that came directly from her heart was…

“No!” she cried. “No!!!”

And as she shouted, Brunhild saw it.

She saw the answer to her words.

After exchanging attacks with Fafnir Custom, Shinjou saw it.

Just before the grim reaper’s scythe brought death to Siegfried, it stopped in midair.

“…Ah.”

That tall man in black stood in the field. The giant bluish-white blade had stopped one meter to his right. It had been stopped by a woman standing between him and the blade.

That woman was tall enough to reach Siegfried’s shoulders.

She had her back to Shinjou and she was the same slightly transparent bluish-white as the grim reaper.

This woman had come from the underworld. Shinjou knew her name.

The giant dragon facing her spoke that name quietly.

“…Princess Gutrune.”

She turned toward them. She let go of the blade and turned her entire body toward them.

The grim reaper and its blade disappeared above her head. After seeing that, Gutrune looked toward them. Below her soft-looking hair, her eyes bent and a smile appeared on her lips.

With that soft smile, a royal of a ruined world quietly looked at them all.

She looked at the soldiers in the forest, the winged races in the sky, and the white mechanical dragon in the field.

After looking around at all of them, she made an action as a member of the royal family.

She gave a quiet bow.

Shinjou could only stand there dumbfounded, but she heard a single voice. It came from the main in black standing next to Gutrune. That old man lowered his arms, clenched his fists, and trembled as he spoke.

“Why…?” He took a breath. “Why did you save me again!?”

Gutrune did not turn toward him. She merely lowered the ends of her eyebrows and nodded while still smiling.

And then it ended.

The princess’s body scattered into bits of light and dissolved into the scythe blade stabbing into the ground.

No one moved.

The wind washed over the field and the shadows of the grass shook in the moonlight.

But a single quiet and high-pitched noise could be heard.

It was the chirping of a bird.

Brunhild looked over. She looked over at Siegfried’s pocket as he hung his head down.

A small bird’s head poked out.

“————”

The bird looked up at the moonlight and tilted its head.

It chirped quietly, moved from the pocket, and stood up on Siegfried’s collar.

And it looked at her. It spread its wings, flapped them, and flew toward her.

It was an unskilled flight that was more a glide than anything and it only lasted a few meters.

However, the bird arrived at her shoulder almost instantly and landed on the black cloth there. It hopped up, changed direction, and peered at her wide-open eyes below the three-cornered heat.

“Ah…”

A small voice escaped Brunhild’s mouth and a small black shadow stood before her.

It was the black cat.

His yellow eyes looked up at her face and the small bird on her shoulder. Finally, he opened his mouth.

“Brunhild… What do you want right now?”

Brunhild was unable to answer.

She hung her head down, placed her hands on her face, opened her mouth wide, and let out a voice.

She cried out with a loud, loud voice.

She cried and continued to cry.

Hagen nodded within Fafnir Custom.

He did not know the truth of 1st-Gear’s destruction.

But Gutrune had bowed when she appeared via Requiem Sense.

That was all that mattered.

He was surrounded only by the sound of wind. Everyone had stopped moving.

''Is it over?'' wondered Hagen.

The discomfort within him had grown stronger and more distinct.

Was it going to end here?

''No,'' denied Hagen within Fafnir Custom.

Like this, it would all return to how it was.

…''I cannot let this have such an uncertain ending.

There was something he needed to gain. This was something he could only gain by facing his enemy and settling this.

This was something they had lost when 1st-Gear was destroyed and that they had been unable to pass on to Fafner and the others.

Without that, it would all end up the same as before.

But this battlefield was done for and his body was reaching its end.

Was it hopeless?

Hagen lowered his primary vision devices slightly and looked forward.

A single boy stood there. The holy sword Gram hung down from his left hand. He was the one in charge of the Leviathan Road.

He looked up at Hagen.

His eyebrows were raised and his lips were held closed. He held Gram tightly and would not let go. His feet were spread wider than his shoulders, his hips were lowered, and he waited. He waited for Hagen to act.

He was waiting.

“…”

Hagen definitely saw him and he asked a question to the boy.

“A conclusion reached through emotions can be overturned when one forgets one’s emotions. Is that what you think?

“Yes,” said the boy with a nod.

Hagen nodded using Fafnir Custom’s body.

“Boy, if you win, you will change this world. In a way, that will mean destroying this world. Are you prepared to do that?”

Before the boy could respond, Hagen spat out further words.

“Think carefully before answering. An insincere answer and an insincere contract are not worthy of destroying the world. What is needed is trust worthy of destroying the world. Do you understand? That is what it means to be sincere.”

“I do understand. The word sincerity is a heart like the sun formed from words.<ref>The Japanese word for sincerity (誠意) can be broken down into the kanji used here to mean words (言), formed (成), from (立), sun (日), and heart (心).</ref> …And I will show you that here.”

A stir ran through everyone there. The girl standing next to the boy gave a look of surprise. She spoke a question to the boy and Hagen knew why.

...''Girl, that is because you are right.

And…

…''I want to win.

While continuing to look toward Hagen, the boy spoke to the girl.

“Please come with me, Shinjou-kun.”

And then he turned his straightforward words toward Hagen.

“I saw the past, I will fight in the present, and I am sure the future is with us. In that case, we should be thinking the same thing.”

“Then let me say one thing: Make sure not to alter what you gain here or go against that promise. Youth who takes on the role of the villain, can you promise me you will resolve everything here?”

“Testament!”

As the boy shouted out that word, Fafnir Custom began to move.

<noinclude>
===Notes===
<references/>
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| Back to [[Owari_no_Chronicle:Volume2_Chapter_28|Chapter 28]]
| Return to [[Owari_no_Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari_no_Chronicle:Volume2_Chapter_30|Chapter 30]]
|-
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</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume2 Chapter 28

2015-10-05T20:55:20Z

128.177.161.163: /* Chapter 28: Their Confirmation */

==Chapter 28: Their Confirmation==
[[Image:OnC_v02_0373.png|thumb]]
''That is something very valuable

''Unavoidably valuable

''Incredibly valuable

What Sayama had thrown was an internal hard disk for a laptop computer.

A single phrase was written on the surface in black paint: localized bomb.

When he threw that hard disk as hard as he could, it of course flew through the air. When it struck the light fired by Fafnir Custom, it was closer to the dragon than Sayama and Shinjou.

An explosion was created five meters above the ground and twenty meters in front of Fafnir Custom.

It began with a light.

The grass of the plain undulated as if struck by that light.

And then everything burst apart.

The impact and the destruction split the night apart and created a great noise.

The light was power. The sound was pressure. The wind blew and washed away everything.

The power produced at the center of the explosion had a set 5 meter radius of destruction.

The light roasted the air, but it accelerated and spread out as it rose. The afterimage of it all was blasted into the wind, the earth, and the clouds in the sky.

Fafnir Custom was swallowed up by white light and vanished.

There was a great roar.

But the true sound came afterwards.

It was a white bubbling sound. The sound of everything in range being fried was carried by the wind and flew up into the air. The sound and the wind accelerated and torn pieces of grass danced through the air.

The clouds visible in the moonlight vanished and that rising sound and wind created a low noise when they struck the inner wall of the concept space.

Everything blasted up into the sky and a reverberation spread out from there.

Amid the earth and wind blowing through the trees of the forest, both UCAT and 1st-Gear got down on the ground and watched the destruction.

Ooki and Sibyl saw Ooshiro Kazuo take a step forward next to them.

Amid the roaring noise and wind, Ooshiro reached out his hands as if to grab something.

“Miyokooooo!!”

And…

“Sachiko, Emi, Sachi, Nanae, Hanako, Jane, Ellie, and Resolution Girl Lundgren!!”

“You mustn’t go there, Ooshiro-san! You can’t bring them back!”

Ooki and Sibyl held Ooshiro back. As the noise disappeared into the sky, Ooshiro hung his head down and cried.

“That’s rough,” said Itaru as he walked up. He brushed away some pieces of grass raining down from above. “Well, he was probably lonely. Miyoko is the name of my dead mother…”

“I see. So that’s why he would always play those games late into the night,” said Sibyl.

“Yes,” replied Itaru with a sigh. And with a serious expression, he added, “But I won’t forgive him.”

In the forest where Siegfried and Brunhild exchanged attacks, they perceived the explosion from the light and wind it produced.

The trees around them shook and a great light lit them from the side.

Brunhild glanced over toward the grassy plain for an instant.

What had happened? She knew the answer, but had to focus on the enemy before her eyes.

She looked forward once more and focused on the tall figure running next to the trees.

It was Siegfried.

When faced with him, Brunhild swung the scythe without letting the flowing trees distract her.

She cut space itself. A bluish-white bow and arrow stuck out from beyond the bluish-white light that opened.

A two meter archer made of light held the bow and arrow. The shot he fired immediately became multiple arrows that flew toward the target. The arrows of light weaved through the trees, produced a wind, and flew at high speed.

In response, Siegfried spread pieces of paper out in both his hands. Those memo-like white rectangles had a single word written on them: Schild.

Siegfried threw those papers into the air and they came to a stop around him. The arrows then struck the papers.

Repeated high-pitched sounds exploded out and Siegfried was wrapped in light.

But he was unharmed. He swept away the light and continued running.

In response, Brunhild ran after him and thought.

…''Why?

That was the question she had asked herself so many times over the past sixty years. That was the question that had grown within her over the past few days. That was the question she would never receive an answer to without asking him directly.

…''Why?

It had all begun there and that was where it would end. But Brunhild could no longer ask with words.

''Why?'' she asked by swinging the scythe.

''Why?'' she asked by producing the spirit of a warrior.

''Why?'' she asked by attacking.

''Why?'' she asked all the harder.

Why? Why had had things turned out like that? Why had he done that? Why had things turned out like this? Why? Why?

Her thoughts produced actions and her attacks grew more rapid as her questions accelerated.

She ran, jumped, approached, fell back, and threw the power of the question “why?” at him.

She thought of that small bird which could not fly. She thought of that injured bird.

She thought of the school. She thought of her birthplace.

She thought of those important to her, of herself, of having her head rubbed, and of what she had lost.

She thought of everything and asked “why?”

They left the forest.

Even as they entered that moonlit field with the wind blowing across it, the two of them continued to run.

Why?

Brunhild hung her head down and swung the scythe.

She thought. She thought of everything and of the question she had for it all. Why?

Why could she not get an answer? And she thought of the people who should have given the answer. She thought of everyone, the birds, the forest, the wind, and the sky.

“Why did it all have to be destroyed!?” cried Brunhild as she swung the scythe.

Her legs brought her across the field and into the next forest.

Sayama wondered why he was here.

He could see a vast stone hall that was fifty meters square. The roof was around twenty meters from the floor. It reminded Sayama of some kind of hangar, but he also wondered where exactly he was.

He remembered embracing Shinjou and being blown away by an explosive blast.

In his wisdom, he had intended to immediately stand up, lift Shinjou up, and receive a word of thanks. However, when he looked down to see Shinjou in his arms, he realized he had no body.

Only his sight existed, so this had to be the past.

He looked around and realized the walls of the hall were cracked and shaking. An intermittent vertical shaking ran through the building.

And a battle was being played out in the center of that shaking.

The battle was between the white mechanical dragon known as Fafnir and a young man.

The stage of this battle was the stone altar in the center of the hall. Pieces of white stone were scattered atop that platform of identically colored stone. And a gray-haired old man in black clothes was collapsed below that stone. A golden decoration had fallen next to his head, but he was no longer moving.

The only movement came from the young man and Fafnir.

Fafnir swung his upper body as if trying to climb on top of the white altar.

His clawed right front foot swung forward.

The young man stood atop the altar as the mechanical dragon’s claws approached. He had his back turned to Sayama, but he was wearing black clothes and held a sword almost two meters long.

He was Siegfried.

He tried to swing the sword upwards from the right.

He could not avoid Fafnir’s attack from his position.

While prepared to receive the dragon’s strike, he had made his way up to the dragon and targeted his throat.

“!”

Sayama thought he saw Fafnir’s claws strike Siegfried.

But they had not.

Siegfried took a step back, but it was not an attempt to evade. He had been pushed back.

Sayama had been unable to see it before, but a woman stood in front of Siegfried. This woman who wore crimson clothing was Gutrune.

She leaned against Siegfried and collapsed. A single giant claw mark was visible along the front of her body. It looked similar to a cut from a large sword.

Gutrune collapsed atop the altar. She rolled on her side and stopped moving.

''What is this?'' thought Sayama.

A voice cried out as if to answer him.

It was the mechanical dragon.

As if it had realized something, that white mechanical dragon suddenly turned its head toward the ceiling and roared.

It was a great “gah” sound. That voice that could be taken as surprise or grief reverberated throughout the entire room. The hall shook. The rumbling of this cry joined the already existing shaking and loosened the bonds of the stonework.

The ceiling began to fall.

And below it, Siegfried took a new action.

He swung the large sword and pierced the giant dragon’s throat.

It was a single strike.

The sound of the slice erased all of the vibrations.

All that remained was movement.

The armored panels and moving parts making up Fafnir’s throat were smashed to pieces. The newly made opening left Fafnir’s core exposed. This was the reactor within his throat.

The sword was stabbed halfway inside it.

The reactor could no longer function.

“————”

Amid the surrounding vibration, Siegfried pulled out the sword with a suppressed breath.

Just as the sword’s blade was exposed, Fafnir’s body lost all power.

The metal front legs fell, the jaw fell, and the entire body collapsed to the floor while smashing the altar.

The stone of the ceiling continued to fall.

The shaking continued.

And Siegfried kneeled down.

He placed the sword by his side, and reached for Gutrune who was collapsed at his feet.

He picked her up and embraced her.

And as he did, Fafnir spoke from where he had collapsed on the floor.

“Is it over?”

“You regained consciousness?” asked Siegfried as he placed a hand on Gutrune’s belly.

“Yes. It seems I caused you a fair bit of trouble, Siegfried. Did the holy sword Gram serve its purpose?”

Fafnir’s primary vision devices used their red light to look at the sword Gram at Siegfied’s feet before turning toward Siegfried himself. He removed his red-stained hand from Gutrune and looked at it.

The color staining his hand caused him to grimace.

Fafnir said, “The king began sealing off this world and it was already heading toward destruction. I thought this was my only choice. I tried to neutralize the out-of-control Concept Core inside my reactor.”

“But the Concept Core produced a rejection reaction. Was its output too great while out of control?”

Fafnir nodded.

Siegfried sighed and looked toward Gutrune in his hands.

“She took that blow for me…”

“Siegfried, can you take the princess with you? If you take her to your Gear, you might be able to save her.”

Siegfried began to nod.

But then something touched his cheek.

Sayama watched as nothing but vision. While Siegfried embraced her, Gutrune reached her bloody hand out toward him.

“No,” she said. The shaking coming from the floor would occasionally bring a bitter look to her face. “Hey, Siegfried. Will your Gear accept us?”

He nodded and she smiled.

“Then I need to tell everyone that. That is my duty. You go ahead. Take Gram and create land we can live in.”

“But,” said Siegfried.

Fafnir stood up.

The mechanical dragon swayed weakly but still looked at Siegfried.

“Please go. If you do not steal our power, nothing of this world will remain. Due to the king’s guidance, 1st-Gear is currently sealing itself off by eternally shrinking. The concepts have been normalized now, but the world has already gone too far in the negative direction. It can no longer be stopped. This world is done for.”

Fafnir turned toward the top of the altar. An old man was collapsed there and buried below stone. The mechanical dragon hung his head.

“This is our job. …Now, go. I will watch over the king to the end. That is the least I can do as a traitor.”

Siegfried nodded and turned to Gutrune in his arms.

That woman with red hair closed her eyes while smiling.

Siegfried placed his lips on hers.

A few seconds passed.

After he moved away, Gutrune opened her eyes and nodded. She stood up and propped herself up against the altar.

“There is a gate deep in the royal palace. Wait on the other side. Set the exit to a location important to you.” Gutrune smiled. “Wait there. I am sure everyone will be able to be together once more.”

Siegfried stood up and nodded.

He looked over and realized the light had left the eyes of the white mechanical dragon.

Siegfried gave a bow and parted ways with that dragon.

And with Gram in hand, he turned his back to Gutrune.

“Tell them I destroyed 1st-Gear. Tell them the king, the wise man, and you fought valiantly for 1st-Gear, but were defeated.”

“But that is a lie. …My father destroyed this world. And all so he would not be hurt anymore.”

“But if you tell them that, the people of your Gear will have been betrayed by their ruler,” said Siegfried. “Gutrune, you fulfill your role as a member of the royal family and I will fulfill my role as the invader. You three lost to me and I escaped with Gram. …I will prepare a 1st-Gear reservation for those who accept defeat. And those who cannot accept defeat can hate me and pursue me.”

“And you think that will allow most of 1st-Gear to evacuate?” A bitter laugh rang out. “Go, Siegfried, you foolish invader and hypocritical foreigner. …I always hated you.”

“And I you,” he replied as he began to walk away.

His walk became a run and his black-clad form disappeared into a staircase.

The great hall continued to crumble. Amid it all, Gutrune sighed, moved from the altar, and began to walk.

She placed a hand on the king’s face. His face was thin and his eyes were closed as if sleeping.

Gutrune placed her left hand on her stomach and climbed down from the altar.

She leaned up against the giant dragon’s collapsed body as she walked out of the hall.

As Sayama watched her, he heard a song.

He recognized it. It was the hymn Silent Night.

Her back moved away. She walked and grew more distant.

The ceiling slowly bent and finally completely collapsed.

Sayama awoke from the past.

“…”

For an instant, he did not know where he was.

It was a small moonlit clearing a short distance into the forest. The trees were rustling in the wind and the air was hot. Sayama determined not much time had passed since the explosion.

After being blown away in the blast, he was lying on his side in the underbrush while embracing someone.

In the center of his vision, a familiar face looked up at him in his left arm.

It was Shinjou.

The ends of her eyebrows were lowered slightly and confusion could be seen in her black eyes.

“Thank you,” she said in reference to something. “H-hey, did you see that?”

She had seen it, too. He nodded and Baku hopped over to her shoulder. He then nodded in reference to the images of the past they had seen.

“That was the truth,” muttered Sayama before looking behind him.

Something he had seen in the past was there. An almost two meter sword was stabbing into the ground.

“So those memories were yours, holy sword Gram.”

In response, a small light ran across the sword’s surface. It looked like a pulse. The sword looked alive.

And they then heard a voice.

“Yes, I am Gram. Only Gram. I have done nothing worthy of the title ‘holy sword’.” It paused for a beat. “This year, I turned 60 in Low-Gear years, but I have spent most of that time asleep.”

Amid the moonlight and the windy forest, two figures were in a tree near a cliff.

They were both girls.

The first was a tall girl with black hair bound in the back. She lay atop a thick branch with her legs crossed. She wore a black summer coat over a thick black shirt and brown slacks.

On the branch below her was a long-haired girl sitting with her legs together. She had a black stole over her shoulders and her slightly swaying legs were almost entirely hidden by a long black skirt.

The higher girl looked toward the forest. She watched the sparks and explosions bursting in that deep darkness. She also listened to the noises.

“Now, then. Which side do you think will win, Shino?”

The girl called Shino twisted her neck upwards and showed a bitter smile to the other girl.

“I do not know. …Are you curious, stepsister Mikoku?”

“No, not really. I am sure our stepfather Hajji already knows how this will end. There is nothing the information broker Hajji does not know.”

“True, but the Leviathan Road has begun, hasn’t it?” Shino heard an explosion. “Wow! This has gotten flashy.”

“This is likely the end for the City faction. Fafnir Custom’s lifespan is running out. …Sixty years is a long time.”

“Yes,” agreed Shino as she swung her legs.

Mikoku closed her eyes as she felt the vibration coming through the tree trunk.

“That song again, Shino?”

“Yes. There was another explosion, right? When I hear the tones of gunfire, I feel like I am going to lose myself.”

“The more you come to places like this, the more out-of-place tones you hear in your head.”

“Yes,” agreed Shino as she muttered a portion of the hymn playing in her heart. “All’s asleep, one sole light, just the faithful and holy pair.”

Mikoku nodded with her eyes still closed. She crossed her arms even further.

“Silent Night. …The holy child is born tonight, hm?”

Below the moonlight, Sayama stood while holding Shinjou. He grabbed Gram’s hilt with his right hand and pulled it from the ground.

“You are light…”

“I am almost entirely hollow inside. However, the interior construction has had its area expanded seven thousand times by the writing. Most of that is filled with hardening and sealing words.”

“I see.”

Sayama lifted Gram up in his right arm and tried swinging it.

It sliced through the surrounding heat and produced a whistling noise. It seemed to weigh three kilograms and that weight was evenly distributed. He had called it light before, but Sayama realized he was wrong. It was well balanced. It felt as if the sword’s center of gravity was changing within his hand. It felt so easy to use, he was sure he could use it no matter how he swung it.

Sayama carried Gram in his right hand and looked to Shinjou who he held in his left arm.

Shinjou was looking up at him. When their gazes met, she quickly looked down.

“Y-you managed to retrieve Gram.”

“Why are you averting your gaze?”

“Eh? Oh, um… Did you hear what I said to Fafnir Custom earlier?”

“No, not at all,” honestly answered Sayama.

“Oh. If you say that, Sayama-kun, then you must have heard…”

“Shinjou-kun, it seems you are somehow mistaken about me.”

Sayama tilted his head and heard a voice from his right hand.

“Sayama and Shinjou?”

It was Gram. Sayama’s eyebrows moved when he heard that low voice. Shinjou also looked down at it. As did Baku.

But before they could say anything, Gram spoke.

“This world is governed by Low-Gear, correct?”

Sayama nodded. It seemed Gram had indeed been sleeping.

That meant they needed a common understanding of the situation. With that in mind, Sayama opened his mouth.

“Yes. Currently, we have begun postwar negotiations with the survivors of the other Gears.”

“I see,” said Gram. “So during my nineteen years of sleep, the world has decided to apologize.”

“Nineteen? Are you sure you do not mean sixty years? I thought that was when you were put to sleep…”

“I cannot answer that. I made a promise to the one who woke me,” said Gram. “You said your names are Sayama and Shinjou, did you not? …What do you want from here on? Do you seek the past you do not know?”

Sayama felt a slight squeezing in the left side of his chest at that question.

If he continued with the Leviathan Road, he would end up facing the past which had created that pain.

But Sayama said, “What I want is pain. And the meaning of that pain.”

“Do you mean you will not deny the ending of the Gears carried out by your ancestors? You will not deny all that which began with the evil committed by my brief master, Siegfried?”

''I suppose it does,'' thought Sayama silently.

He would learn of the past of his family in the form of pain, but that was something he had to learn. After all…

…''That is where I can get serious.

He did not need permission from anyone. He wished to be in that place himself. And so he nodded.

“Yes. I will not deny it or reject it. That is what I want.”

“I see. Then listen, boy bearing the surname Sayama.” The sword paused for a moment. “Boy, you are a collection of ignorance who still knows nothing and has been told nothing. Prepare yourself. If you wish for me here, you will doubt yourself in the future. You will learn you are the descendants of great criminals.”

“…Great criminals?”

“The meaning of that is something you must desire and obtain for yourself.”

“What an irresponsible thing to say.”

“If you desire it to a cruel extent, it will save you. So do not force the duty of answering onto me. This is my belief as a resident of 1st-Gear which holds the concepts of writing: writing was created from a desire to leave behind what is in one’s heart. …This is the same. If you desire it in your heart and want to give it form, then take action.”

“If I win here tonight, do you think I will receive my answer to this pain?”

“Yes,” said Gram. “Your pain related to 1st-Gear will disappear. However…”

“However?”

“You will only see a portion of it. It will only be the beginning. Prepare yourself. Once you stand at the entrance, you cannot back out until you have seen it all to the end. You will see the development of history that began with us,” he paused, “and ends with that girl. You will see the history of how everything came to an end. You will see the ending chronicle.”

“Shinjou-kun…? Why?”

“She is the key that binds it all together. …You will learn why so long as you continue to fight.”

Through the arm holding Shinjou, Sayama could feel her gulp.

And Sayama realized he had gulped at the exact same moment.

“What will you do, boy? Do you still wish for this!? Do you still wish to use me to cut away the pain of 1st-Gear!? If you truly wish for this, I will become your holy sword!”

As the sword spoke, Sayama saw movement on the battlefield.

Through the forest in the center of the field, the wind blew away a shimmering in the air.

And where that shaking of the atmosphere disappeared, a giant form became visible.

“That is…”

Fafnir Custom.

The weapons on his surface were gone, but the primary armor panels were unscathed as that white mechanical dragon stood up. The heat exhaust points across his body were fully open. Steam and a shimmering of the air rose from every part of his body.

The white mechanical dragon prepared himself for battle. The defensive shutters over his red eyes opened and he stared straight forward. His gaze was likely fixed on Gram in Sayama’s right hand.

''I see,'' thought Sayama. ''That is the first opponent of my pain and my first target to get serious against.

And so Sayama opened his mouth. He turned toward the girl in his arm.

“Shinjou-kun.”

He took a breath. He recalled his grandfather’s words and spoke.

“I think I will try becoming a villain.”

Shinjou raised her head within Sayama’s arm.

She saw his sharp eyes narrow slightly as they looked down at her.

She asked him a question to confirm what he meant.

“You mean…like Siegfried-san?”

She received silence as an answer. He said nothing but still looked at her.

Shinjou felt her heart beat and trembled slightly.

“Are you going to do it no matter what?”

That was what he desired. She knew that. What she had told Fafnir Custom earlier was definitely true. However, when he said it directly to her, it produced more words from her.

“I don’t want you to take all the blame onto yourself.”

“But I am wrong and that is what I wish to do.”

“But…!”

As Shinjou raised her voice, Sayama lightly tapped her waist.

He seemed to be telling her to calm down and she blushed.

Shinjou looked up at Sayama. Their gazes met. He looked away as if conflicted.

This was the first time she had seen him do this, so she felt a bit confused and tilted her head.

And he spoke.

“Then…will you come with me, Shinjou-kun?”

Shinjou could not react to the words of the boy before her eyes.

She knew what he meant. She simply wanted to hear more of his words and to be absolutely sure.

And so she asked, “What do you mean?”

Sayama frowned and looked back at her.

“You are right and I am wrong. So…I want to have you with me.”

“…”

[[Image:OnC_v02_0397.png|thumb]]

Shinjou was at a loss for words. Sayama gently released her body.

After moving back a bit, Sayama stretched out his left hand which was covered in black armor.

He said nothing more.

It was now her turn to answer. She wanted to give a frank answer to his roundabout manner of speaking. She smiled and grabbed his hand.

“So do I,” she answered simply. “So do I!”

And then they both turned toward their opponent. They turned toward the white mechanical dragon taking an offensive stance in the middle of the grassy plain.

Meanwhile, Fafnir Custom was using all of his senses where he stood in that field with the dirt exposed.

Something felt off about his entire body. That sensation could be seen as a premonition or a warning.

When he received the visual information of his mechanical sight, he felt a deviation between himself and Fafnir Custom.

That deviation advanced with time and signified his demise.

That deviation created a gap in his consciousness.

His body had withstood the damage of that blast. However, his consciousness was beginning to waver.

''Please hurry,'' thought Hagen.

He was no longer consciously operating the machine. Attitude control and visual correction were being carried out based on his past actions and the records that were recorded within Fafnir Custom.

Straight ahead in the center of his vision, two figures stood in a forest clearing.

They were a boy and a girl wearing white uniforms. The boy stood next to the girl and moved Gram to his left hand.

The girl picked up her staff which had fallen nearby and held it in her right hand.

They were the ones who wanted to resolve everything.

That girl who had tried to come up with an answer had not been alone after all.

…''I want to win.

Hagen nodded in his heart. He hurriedly interfered with Fafnir Custom’s movements with his own will. He optimized the various actions being taken based on his memories and records.

He made sure that giant white body could act at maximum effectiveness when the time came.

He fully opened the cooling systems. He let the lubricant for the moving parts flow freely.

He used the full output of the operation reactor and the weaponry reactor.

And he released all of the weapons.

He determined it would take five minutes before it would all be ready, but Hagen did not care.

He let the machine take a step forward.

<noinclude>
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|-
| Back to [[Owari_no_Chronicle:Volume2_Chapter_27|Chapter 27]]
| Return to [[Owari_no_Chronicle|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Owari_no_Chronicle:Volume2_Chapter_29|Chapter 29]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume2 Chapter 27

2015-10-05T20:10:17Z

128.177.161.163:

==Chapter 27: Longing for Right and Wrong==
[[Image:OnC_v02_0353.png|thumb]]
''What is a longing heart?

''It is a heart that is impatient yet waits

''It is a heart containing a contradictory strength

Fafner intercepted the UCAT members coming from behind.

He was not positioned behind Fafnir Custom in the grassy field. He was in the forest even further back.

That stage was more advantageous for him. He was a half-dragon whose entire black body possessed the information of “darkness”. To a certain extent, he could move freely through darkness and shadows. He could travel through them.

He charged toward the UCAT assault team that arrived first.

His enemy was a group of four people wearing white armored uniforms, but Fafner was not afraid. He used his wings to move horizontally at high speed.

As he advanced, the enemies did not hesitate to cast aside their guns and draw short swords from their waists.

While noting that they had been well trained, Fafner crashed into an arbitrary one of them.

All half dragons were at least two meters tall. Their bodies were covered in armor-like shells and wrapped in the giant muscles that allowed them to fly with their wings. By accelerating with those wings, they could produce an impact rivaling a giant stone.

Fafner slammed into the man with his left shoulder.

A great crushing sound could be heard.

That man’s body grew distorted and flew through the air. He was not even able to let out a scream.

Fafner used the recoil to kill his inertia and then he turned clockwise to the right.

A horizontal strike from a short sword came from one man to the left.

The man targeted Fafner’s belly which was the weak point of his giant body, but Fafner was not worried.

He used the motion of his rightward turn to throw a roundhouse kick with his left leg. He was targeting the man’s side. He targeted the same location the enemy was targeting on him.

But his rotation was not going to make it in time. The enemy’s short sword was going to arrive.

In an instant, Fafner flapped his left wing forward.

Wind exploded from behind as if pushing the left half of his body forward. His body rotated at high speed as if it had been struck.

“!”

He knocked away the enemy’s short sword with his left hand and slammed his left foot into his side.

The man doubled over and flew.

Instead of stopping his rotation, Fafner made a full rotation. He turned his back on his enemies for an instant and swung his right arm backwards. A third man’s face ran right into the path of that backhand.

His hand struck.

The slight vibration Fafner felt through the shell on his right fist was the sound of this man’s teeth and jaw breaking.

But the fourth man targeted Fafner’s body now that it had been left wide open.

The man held his short sword in both hands and ran forward as if planning to tackle the half-dragon. He held the hilt in his right hand and the bottom of the hilt with his left.

''An excellent stance,'' thought Fafner with a nod.

Fafner looked up at the sky which was partially obstructed by the trees of the forest.

The moon was out. Fafner felt that arc of light which had not existed in 1st-Gear was in the way.

“But I will use it. As the mother of shadows, it will help us dispel our grudge.”

He lowered his gaze. The fourth man had arrived directly in front of him.

Without rushing, Fafner placed his right foot down at his opponent’s feet.

That was where the man cast a shadow amid the moonlight. Fafner placed his right leg up to the thigh into that shadow.

His stance moved lower than his enemy’s blade. The man’s eyes opened wide.

“Wha-…!?”

''This is nothing worth crying out over,'' thought Fafner as he swung his elbow to sweep the man’s feet up as he passed by.

The man rotated around in the air and collapsed to the ground. Just as his shadow disappeared, Fafner’s body returned to normal.

Fafner only had to slam his heel down on top of the collapsed man to have eliminated all four.

“Are more enemies on their way?”

As he looked around with questioning eyes, he spotted movement in the forest. A group of white shadows was scattered out at a distance of approximately fifty meters. They were troubled by 1st-Gear’s defensive line and could not advance further. Occasionally some people such as that group of four would make their way forward, but Fafner would swiftly intercept them.

''This battle may end here,'' thought Fafner as he moved forward.

He was moving toward the battlefield.

And just as he did, he spotted new movement.

A single white form suddenly charged forward from the group of enemies.

Guns and spells were fired at this figure, but this did not slow its momentum. In fact, it accelerated as it charged straight toward Fafner.

…''What is that?

Fafner narrowed his eyes and watched it.

It was a young man from UCAT. It was the same young man Fafner had fought in the clearing earlier. The data Fafner had seen said he was the heir to the Izumo family. He held a giant Cowling Sword in both hands as a shield.

“Hyohhh!”

He closed the gap between him and Fafner while letting out a strange cry.

Fafner’s 1st-Gear comrades panicked when they realized where the young man was headed. The fired at him more and more, but it did not work for some reason.

''What is going on?'' wondered Fafner as he placed a hand on the Cowling Sword at his waist.

This was a human opponent. He may have had an excellent physique, but he was not covered in hard shells like Fafner.

Fafner watched.

The young man’s body was almost entirely covered with something. It was white and looked like armor. It was perfectly defending against their attacks. Assuming it was a new weapon, Fafner shouted to his comrades.

“Listen! Target Low-Gear’s new weapon!”

And Fafner observed this approaching young man.

The new weapon he was wearing was a frilly women’s apron.

The apron’s chest and sleeves had large writing on them. Fafner’s own knowledge was only enough to tell him it resembled Low-Gear writing, but the meaning reached his mind via an image.

The writing on the chest said “sturdy” and the writing on the sleeves said “hard”.

Once he realized that, Fafner pointed at the enemy and shouted out once more.

“Target that idiot!!”

Izumo cleared the distance in the forest with tremendous speed as he ran with that impregnable defense.

Sayama and Kazami ran behind him while Boldman commanded the cover fire.

Repeated metallic noises could be heard coming from the surface of Izumo’s armor.

“Who would have thought Sf-kun’s apron would come in handy like this… I suppose she did say it was her combat apron.”

Sayama was perfectly calm, but Kazami’s eyebrows drooped.

“Um,” she began. “A-are you okay, Kaku!? I hear a lot of harsh impacts!”

“Wa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!”

“It is no use, Kazami. He is taking so much gunfire it is rattling his brain. Once this happens, he will never recover…”

“There are some jokes you shouldn’t make!!”

Just as Kazami began strangling Sayama as they ran, an explosion struck Izumo directly.

“!”

Sparks, an explosive noise, and an explosion of air came afterwards.

A spray of metallic noises burst out as the apron was smashed to pieces.

The shockwave created a white ring of water vapor around Izumo that burst out in every direction. However…

“That ain’t gonna cut it! Battlefield cooks are invincible!!”

Izumo’s body was unharmed.

He had lost the apron, but the armored uniform below it had writing as well.

The words “very sturdy” had been written upside down in magic marker.

“Looks like reducing the number of moving parts was worth it!”

Izumo charged forward. His armored uniform had grown even harder, so it did not have the softness needed to move. However, he was still plenty fast when moving in a straight line. He shouted toward the underclassman he saw approaching out of the corner of his eye.

“Go, Sayama! Go where you have to go!”

They cleared the forest. Fifty meters ahead was a white mechanical dragon.

That dragon was at least thirty meters long and its back was to them. Izumo charged forward without hesitation.

“V-Sw! Second Form!” shouted Izumo as he ran.

He twisted his upper body backwards.

He squeezed the button on his Cowling Sword’s grip.

The back of V-Sw’s thick blade opened up. The armor plate sank down and a linear thruster appeared.

At the same time, V-Sw’s blade changed form. The cowling forming the blade was stowed away as if it had come apart. Pure light appeared as if slowly rising out from the gap.

Izumo poured strength into his grip on the sword.

V-Sw contained 6th-Gear’s Concept Core. It was a combination of an energy weapon named Vajra and an energy entity named Vritra. It had to be used with care. He only opened it up to attack in emergencies.

And Izumo knew that this qualified.

''I can do this,'' thought Izumo as he tightly clenched the grip.

As if in response, the sword’s will spoke on V-Sw’s console.

“Our prey is there.”

In the next instant, an explosion of light occurred behind V-Sw.

It was a jet used to propel the sword.

Using the twist of Izumo’s body as an axis, that very thick blade of light targeted the mechanical dragon while accelerating quickly.

It should have been a direct hit.

However, that high pressure blade was obstructed by something and it was deflected through the air with a great roar.

“…!?”

Izumo rotated his body to the right by using V-Sw as a fulcrum as it swung horizontally.

He leaped about five meters to the right while remaining parallel to the forest.

He looked toward the location he had just been in. His shadow still remained there.

“A half-dragon that can pass through shadows!”

A giant black body stood in the moonlit field. His winged form was surrounded by black shells, skin, and clothes.

“Fafner!”

Fafner the half-dragon held his Cowling Sword while standing up from the shadow.

“Perfect. I was hoping for an opponent to keep things interesting.”

Sayama and the others did not turn back toward Izumo and Fafner who had moved off to the side.

They continued running on and on. A giant mass stood fifty meters ahead of them.

That white mechanical dragon was easily thirty meters long and seven meters tall. It was walking forward at about the same speed as they were running.

They had to hurry.

Sayama quickened his pace and let out a breath. 1st-Gear’s winged unit was quickly dropping down toward them.

Seeing those approaching shadows in the sky, Sayama spoke to Kazami behind him.

“Enemies are coming from above. Please cover for me.”

“Why do I have to?”

“During the battle at the Imperial Palace, you came down from the sky, didn’t you? And you attacked from the sky when fighting that giant knight earlier. …Kazami, you have the power to live up to your name, do you not?”<ref>The first kanji of Kazami means wind.</ref>

Sayama watched the movements of the flying enemies as he spoke.

Kazami’s response came after a short delay. It came in the form of a question to confirm something.

“Sayama. …You understand, don’t you? Right now, you are trying to reach the peak of this battle. Are you prepared? Are you prepared to lose something and to take something from someone else?”

“Are you?”

“I…have shot an enemy and driven them to suicide. That is something you and she have not done. The battlefield is not a kind place.”

“I see.” Sayama sucked in some air and spoke. “Is that why you left flowers by his remains? Is that also why you did so every day?”

“!”

Kazami’s presence stiffened behind Sayama.

“D-don’t be ridiculous! I didn’t leave any flowers!”

“The chrysanthemums left for the werewolf had a horizontal scrape across the stem. If you had the flowers sticking out of your rucksack while transporting them, the zipper would scrape them like that.”

Sayama lowered his body down and charged further forward. Without turning around, he gave one last request.

“Kazami, please cover for me.”

Kazami slowed her pace. She clenched her back teeth, brought her eyebrows together, and stopped running.

“Kh.”

She ground her teeth together and looked up into the sky.

She was about thirty meters from Fafnir Custom. If she slowed down, she could not catch up to the giant dragon moving ahead of her.

She took a breath and stopped altogether.

She could see the winged soldiers gathering in a formation in the air. Their bows were targeting Sayama who had run ahead.

Kazami looked down. There she saw the light of the console on G-Sp2, the Cowling Lance in her right arm.

“Kazami? Are you not feeling well?”

After looking at that display for a while, she closed her eyes. She forcibly opened her mouth while still clenching her teeth.

“Why do boys insist on showing off?”

“Because it is cool.”

“Thanks for the valuable input.”

Kazami sighed and raised her head.

The ends of her eyebrows rose to their proper position and strength entered her eyes.

She looked into the sky. The enemy forces were here, but Kazami looked beyond those wings flying through the sky.

She looked at the moon.

While staring up at that pale arc of light, Kazami opened her mouth.

“X-Wi!” she shouted and a noise came from her back.

It was a metallic noise. At the same moment, words scrolled across her wristwatch.

—'''Light is power.

As if in response to those words, light grew from the backpack she wore.

A flapping noise was heard.

That cry that blew the air away was accompanied by the appearance of yellow wings of light. They began as an emission but came together in a solid form in the next instant. Two sharply angular wings of light with an effective range of two meters stabbed up toward the heavens.

That light sliced through the wind, created an emission of light, and sucked in the wind.

The light filled with a tension of power and emitted a high-pitched noise.

As the moonlight washed over the wings of light, the sound grew even higher pitched and ultimately exceeded the audible range.

Wind appeared behind her.

“…!”

Kazami gathered strength in her back.

The pressure of her shoulder blades told X-Wi in her backpack what its job was.

And that job was to flap.

The wings beat at the air.

With a sound similar to an explosion, the wind roared at Kazami’s back.

She leapt high into the sky.

Kazami danced up into the air with a trajectory suggesting she had been shot upwards rather than jumped.

By the time she took in another breath, her vision saw nothing but the sky. She had reached the moonlight.

The winged enemies below her had lost sight of her and were confused.

Kazami checked to make sure the wings on her back had spread out. And then she rotated herself upside down in midair. She oriented her head downwards, pointed G-Sp2 toward the surface, and removed the long, narrow shield on her left wrist.

The action took a single instant. Kazami attached the shield along the bottom edge of the spear’s tip. And just as the shield covered up the blade…

“G-Sp2! Go to your second form!”

As she spoke, the Cowling Lance transformed.

First, the curved back of the handle rose up. Next, the grip stuck out from the base of the tip to the left of the console. At the same time, the cowling on the butt of the spear opened and a heat ejection point stuck out.

[[Image:OnC_v02_0367.png|thumb]]

And finally, white light appeared deep in the dragon’s maw-like split between the cowling of the tip and the shield attached to the bottom. That visible commotion of light was the true form of G-Sp2 contained within the cowling.

The spear was a large rifle.

“10th-Gear’s holy spear Gungnir. It’s a bit impressive compared to your bows and arrows.”

Kazami held the curving handle under her right arm and grasped the grip with her left hand.

She placed her finger on the trigger. She already knew exactly who her enemy was.

She could see the moon below her feet in her upside-down vision.

She smiled.

And while smiling, she flapped her wings. She flew straight down.

Shinjou gave no response to Fafnir Custom.

She trembled. Her legs trembled. Her teeth chattered slightly

But she moved. Slowly, very slowly, she sank down and reached a hand toward her feet.

Her Cowling Staff, Ex-St, had fallen there.

From what she could see, it had not bent or broken. When she touched it, she felt the chill of the metal.

Shinjou embraced Ex-St as if taking in that chill.

She stood up and weakly aimed Ex-St. That was her answer. It was her definite answer.

And a voice arrived from directly in front of her.

“Why?” asked Fafnir Custom as he stopped walking.

Shinjou shook her head at his calm tone of voice.

“I think you all are simply wrong.”

And so…

“I will not accept defeat against someone who is wrong like that.”

''What am I saying?'' wondered Shinjou.

She had nowhere to run. A single strike from the dragon would be enough to kill her even if he held back. However…

…''I am not despairing.

She felt meaning in the words she had spoken.

Fafnir Custom lowered his body.

“Is that so?” he said. “I do not see how we could be wrong. We are simply trying to take back what is ours.”

Shinjou glimpsed his main cannon in his mouth. Light had already appeared deep in the round muzzle.

Fafnir Custom spoke a number.

“Five.”

Shinjou knew what that number meant, but she could not run. She spread her legs as wide as her shoulder width and faced the dragon.

She recalled certain memories: the final expression of that werewolf, the remains of her comrades, and…

A single boy.

“I…” began Shinjou. “I know someone who is truly wrong. I know someone who attacks others and lives on.”

Shinjou recalled the back he had shown her. She recalled that stance as he prepared to fight. But…

“He is different from you. He…knows that he is wrong. And that scares him. It scares him so much he is willing to stifle himself.”

For some reason, she drew excess power from her body.

“Four.”

She continued speaking.

“He wants to be wrong. Unlike you. He thinks what it would be like if he was right, but he does not want to be right. And when comparing himself to me…”

She took a breath.

“He said I am right.”

Her words were rooted in the depths of her memories.

“Three.”

Shinjou thought about him and about herself.

“You all are wrong. You are wrong and in the wrong way. Unlike him. He tries to be wrong in the right way. And that is why I will not accept defeat against you!”

A small “ahh” leaked out of her mouth.

“Two.”

She had to choose whether to pour strength into her fingers or not.

“His way of being wrong is the only one I will allow! And…”

Shinjou told herself to fight. Just as he desired the battlefield, she too had to desire it.

She had to be with him. She had to do more than just watch his back.

She was not choosing presented options or being given a course of action. She would be here because she personally desired it.

She had a perfectly good reason: she would be his opposite.

“And I will wield my power while remaining right!!”

“One.”

Using that spoken number as her sign, she squeezed the trigger with all her might.

As light shot from her staff, Fafnir Custom let out a cry.

“Zero! Your attempts are futile!”

The mechanical dragon’s main cannon fired light.

A giant light flew silently. The line of light Shinjou fired struck that light of writing which possessed the weight of mass. It pierced through the center of the thick light and bore a hole through it.

A clear sound rang out.

The front of the dragon’s blast swelled and expanded like an umbrella. It exploded.

The dragon’s attack had been destroyed, but that was all Shinjou had managed.

The mechanical dragon let out a roar that reverberated throughout the heavens and the earth. He fired a second blast.

“…!”

The second shot of dragon light swallowed up Shinjou’s attack and instantly doubled in size.

Shinjou saw the light expand before Fafnir Custom’s eyes and continue toward her.

The massive light flew toward her in a slight arc.

Shinjou stood in its path, but she did not falter. She clenched her teeth and stared straight forward.

That mass of power was trying to destroy her. The silhouette of the mechanical dragon was visible beyond it.

“————!”

She shouted someone’s name.

And then that person appeared before her eyes.

That person’s back entered in between Shinjou and the light.

He took something from his pocket and threw it toward Fafnir Custom. It looked like a rectangular case.

Immediately afterwards, he slowly turned toward her.

He was a boy with sharp eyes and Baku sitting on his shoulder. His mouth moved amid the roar of the dragon’s approaching light.

“I missed you, Shinjou-kun.”

He took her in his arms, wrapped them around her, and embraced her.

Shinjou did not hesitate to wrap her arms around him and embrace him.

In the next moment, a gigantic explosion occurred in the space between them and Fafnir Custom.

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===Notes===
<references/>
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