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City Series:Volume3b Chapter 2

2015-06-27T00:28:30Z

85.218.237.213: Fixed a typo, hopefully in the right way.

==Act 2: Progress of the Seven Word Song (7:18)==

===Part 1===

A week had passed.

It was noon on June 23 and Akira was walking through the lobby of a large hospital in Hong Kong’s Kowloon district.

She wore a new Yard uniform and a new spear Device hung at her waist.

She and her clothes were completely unharmed.

She had been hospitalized ever since the day of Hong Kong’s destruction.

In addition to her broken wing, she had apparently cracked her ribs at some point. She had been more passed out than asleep when she had been brought in, so she had not noticed at the time. However, she had received a few large-scale Tune treatments before she woke up.

The female Tuner doctor who had treated her had spoken to her when she had woken.

“You were lucky.”

And…

“You received good first aid and the General ordered us to give you top priority above the other injured. Your wing will be as good as new, so you should thank the people who brought you here.”

Despite the harshness of the doctor’s words, they had not included a sharp Live.

Akira had shrunk down on the bed and smiled bitterly.

The doctor had stroked Akira’s wings.

“I didn’t say it was wrong. Of everyone I treated, your injuries were the worst.”

The woman had added “Aren’t you glad?”, which had made Akira shrink down even further.

She was happy to be released from the hospital, but more because she could leave than because she had recovered.

As she walked through the lobby, she saw the conspicuous white of bandages here and there. Most of the patients in the hospital were surgery patients.

Also, she felt their eyes on her.

“…”

She thought they were curious looks at first, but they were not. Their Word Color was a pale red and their Tempo was faint but heavy.

These were Lives of hostility.

Their weak but definite presence shocked her.

When she turned around, the humans and Glossolalians standing or sitting in the lobby all looked away.

The Lives of hostility vanished, too.

None of them were looking at Akira.

She bit her lower lip and turned toward the hospital’s main entrance.

She spotted a small shop to the side of the large glass doors.

There was no one working there.

She stood in front of the shop and looked around, but there really was no sign of a clerk.

“Maybe because it’s noon?”

She tilted her head and checked through the pockets of her uniform’s coat.

She felt some change.

She intentionally rattled the coins around so everyone around her would know she was setting them on the counter and she reached for the newspaper rack.

She noticed something once she prepared to choose one.

“These are the only ones?”

There had always been dozens of different papers put out every day, but there were only six today.

They were printed only in black and red, so they lacked their usual ambition.

She grabbed the paper she always saw in the Yard and then she walked off.

While opening the newspaper, she opened the glass door with her fingertips and stepped outside.

The clear sunlight illuminated her body and the blowing wind seemed almost too perfect.

Something was wrong.

This was not Hong Kong’s usual light and wind.

“But that couldn’t be.”

She lightly shook her head as if she did not want to accept something.

However, the changes could be clearly seen. The cityscape visible from this central Kowloon hospital had grown shorter and the outlines of collapsed buildings were clearly visible even in the distance.

…''There’s no smoke or heat created by people.

As her gaze moved south along the Kowloon Peninsula, she noticed the city’s shadow growing narrower. When the Earth Burns had ascended, they had torn into the east and west sides of the peninsula.

These were the scars left by those Earth Burns.

“I can’t believe this.”

After making sure there was no one else around, she let her shoulders droop.

She sighed and continued walking.

This was close to her apartment in Mong Kok. It was just far enough to finish reading the newspaper by the time she arrived home.

She looked down to the paper in order to fill the time and she read the headline on page one: Ripples in the Relationship between Britain and China.

''The transformation of Hong Kong and restoration of heaven has been called the Sixth Divine Punishment War. China has placed all blame on Britain, but Britain is denying all responsibility. There reasoning is as follows:

''・This incident was a terrorist act committed without the knowledge or approval of the state.

''・Hong Kong is still British territory, so it is none of China’s concern what happens there. Even if Hong Kong is moved to heaven, it does not change the size of Britain’s territory, so there is nothing for other nations to accuse them of.

''・If anyone in China can confirm heaven’s state now that Hong Kong has been transformed, Britain will allow them to investigate.

''・And if any Chinese were harmed in Hong Kong, Britain wishes to apologize and is prepared to provide any appropriate compensation requested.”

…''I see.

“They handled that well,” muttered Akira.

Britain was clearly reacting after the fact and there were slight contradictions in their statements, but they had found a logical escape route.

“No matter how many people died, they were British citizens, so this will be handled as a domestic British issue.”

If heaven was restored, their souls could be saved.

It was a rough method, but…

“It’s all they have.”

It was because their methods looked a lot like a sudden accident that everything was progressing with ex-post-facto approval.

There had been too much political pressure to act out in the open from the beginning. No matter how noble their goal might be, they could not drive out the people living in the city and obliterate such a vast area of land.

“So it only works because Britain is prepared to stand their ground and argue their case. And if Britain denies responsibility here…”

Rin had already predicted the next ceremony. And even if that ceremony created the metal element Earth Serpent that would carry the rest of the land to heaven, Britain would be able to argue their way out of it in the same way.

…''Who thought up this plan? My brother? Or Huang Daquan?

As she pondered that, she flipped to the second page of the newspaper. What she saw written there depressed her.

The headline read, “The Number of Victims is Enormous”.

''Number of Victims: Dead – 600,000. Seriously Injured – 1,300,000. Missing – 800,000.

''Lost Land: Hong Kong Island and 70% of the Kowloon Peninsula.

''Total Damages: An estimated 69 billion HKD (and still rising).

“This is like the result of a war. …These numbers don’t feel real at all.”

…''If you include the areas outside the city center, Hong Kong’s total population was about five million, wasn’t it?

More than half of that had been affected. At least one in eight had died and one in two or three had been otherwise harmed.

…''Was this all part of their calculations?

Even long ago when their family had all been together, her brother had talked about restoring heaven and had researched the issue.

And his method was exactly what Akira had always wished to do: sending out a dragon.

“So he beat me to it. What a shame.”

Her voice was light, but her expression was stiff. She remembered what her brother had said on the night the dragons had taken flight.

He had said the following about Hong Kong’s destruction:

“That is reality.”

She bit her lower lip as she thought about what that meant.

She heard several airplanes flying by far above her lowered head.

“…? Things have gotten a lot louder since I was hospitalized.”

…''Well, it’s an emergency, so there’s bound to be a lot they have to do.

With that thought, she crumpled up the newspaper, threw it to the ground, and kicked it.

She saw Mong Kok’s shopping district up ahead.

That was her home.

Or it should have been.

===Part 2===

Hong Kong Cave was dead.

After the Sixth Divine Punishment War in which most of Hong Kong had been destroyed, a five-day investigation by the Yard and investigators from various nations had not found a single Nein Engel there.

All they had found were the newly-abandoned ruins.

However, the air began to move in that pit that now lacked even those investigators.

The surface was sunny and the air was warm.

That warm air flowed down into Hong Kong Cave and gained a damp, green smell as it came into contact with the darkness.

It sank into the pit and slowly gathered at the bottom as if piling up, but instead of becoming air, it rotated and whirled around the spring at the lowest level.

It created a slight wind.

That wind contained gentle warmth.

Two people let that wind wash over them on the edge of the spring.

One was a large man wearing a combat jacket the same color as the shadows accumulated on the lowest level.

In contrast, the other was a six-winged Nein Engel wearing a white coat that reflected light even in those same shadows.

They were Fei the Galgallin and Double Lee the Seraph.

These were the Nein Engels who had caused the Sixth Divine Punishment War.

Neither of them moved.

Fei remained standing and Double Lee remained sitting on the edge of the spring. They simply stared silently up into the shadows of Hong Kong Cave.

They could not see the light of the surface from three kilometers deep.

Since the creation of the hole, a number of structures had been created to cover everything up and hide the residents from the outside.

Still, they stared intently upwards.

Double Lee was the first to move.

He opened his mouth and said something.

That something was a question.

“Is Genius still not done?”

“There were a lot of rooms on that floor. It will take some time on her own.”

“She only has to place charms for the final ceremony in the four cardinal directions, but I guess that isn’t easy with such a large space.”

“It is necessary, so she has to do it.”

Double Lee looked down and laughed bitterly at Fei’s clear tone, void of all cruelty or concern.

“Ha ha. It’s been a week since most of Hong Kong was sent to heaven, so it’s sad that what you consider ‘necessary’ still isn’t complete.”

“Should we hasten our preparations?”

“I would really hate to rush this and make a mistake. But anyway, it looks like we can turn Hong Kong Cave into the site of the final ceremony by the end of the day. As for the remaining week…”

“We must stop anyone who would get in our way before the night Hong Kong is returned to China and we must acquire J-Gun Maldrick’s most powerful Device.”

Double Lee gave a small shrug.

“Sorry for making you wait this long. It took me an entire week to make the charms to use here which slowed down the setup for J-Gun’s Device.”

“That was unavoidable. Just like President Huang’s death, everything is a race against time. And, Double Lee, you have not slept much for the past few days, have you?”

“Because I’m still too inexperienced. If I had more power, I could have cut out the need for these extra preparations.”

“You do have power.”

“Not as much as you think I do. Just to start up the dragons, I needed the Tune Emblem and a powerful Device.”

“…”

“Yin and Yang lie at the foundation of Tuning and Busting. Ancient Tuners and Busters could easily draw those out from light and darkness. Not only that, but they could even play the Lives of time and space. But look at the modern Tuners and Busters.”

He fell silent and thought for a moment.

“Even I need Master Huang’s blood to obtain the power of Yang.”

“That is because of the Death Techno. Approximately seventy percent of the information related to Tuning and Busting was destroyed during the World Wars and the Divine Punishment Wars, so sending out dragons is worthy of praise in the present time.”

“That’s a nice consolation.”

“It is not a consolation; it is a relative evaluation,” readily corrected Fei. “You are growing faint of heart. Do you feel bad about destroying most of Hong Kong?”

“Of course not. My parents did something far worse.”

“Unfortunately, I have no detailed information on your parents.”

“Are you sure about that? …Fei, do you know the Flight Song?”

Fei nodded.

“That city connects heaven and earth. …It is the most well-known song in this city.”

“Yes, and it was created right here. Whenever a book introduces the Flight Song, it always has a picture of humans standing by this spring and looking up. Just like we were doing earlier.”

With that said, Double Lee once more looked up toward the heavens. Fei looked in the same direction.

“Can you see down here, Fei?”

Double Lee’s question was a simple one.

Fei’s answer was also a simple one.

“It would be a problem if I could not.”

The Galgallin had customized the majority of his body, so he stated that as if it were obvious.

On the other hand, Double Lee smiled bitterly and lowered his gaze.

His eyes turned from heaven and stopped on the monument next to the spring.

That mossy stone monument was engraved with the Flight Song.

Double Lee confirmed via Lives that Fei had turned in the same direction.

“Don’t you find it interesting?”

“The Flight Song?”

“Yes.” He nodded. “Fei, I have long thought about this song’s meaning. I thought and thought and thought.”

“I am aware. When President Huang first met you, that was the first thing you asked about.”

“I see you’re remembering old times again.”

“President Huang smiled and did not answer, but did he tell you in the end?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And you will not tell us?”

Double Lee lightly answered through body language.

He narrowed his eyes, twisted his lips a little, and simply smiled.

He finally opened that smile and produced some calm words that he seemed to have prepared in advance.

“Some things are best left unknown.”

“…”

The two fell silent.

Double Lee stood up and walked over to the monument carved with the Flight Song.

He arrived after one, two, three steps and reached out a hand.

He could be heard peeling moss away and he lowered his head.

His next words were directed toward the stones paving the ground.

“If you think about it carefully, it is a simple matter. …Why doesn’t Hong Kong truly connect heaven and earth like the song says?”

“Because the Divine Punishment Wars created a gap between the humans and the Glossolalians.”

“Between the humans and the Glossolalians?”

“The humans crated Hong Kong Cave because they feared the Glossolalians. If not for that fearful avoidance, this place would not exist and neither would we as we are…or I as I am.”

“I see. An excellent guess.”

“That is the general opinion of all historians for the past century.”

“Even that last part? …I can’t imagine you without your customized body.”

“I only know this version of myself.”

“Archs RDC Security Division’s Active Duty Section 1 Commander and Division Commander…Fei Garland. When customizing your body, you received a Psyche Outer surgery and lost all of your memories. But…”

“My past remained.”

“Could you not kill her? I looked into it. Her Urban Name is Rin, but her Wild Name is Feng Ling. She’s a detective who made a name for herself as one of the Yard’s searchers, but she’s also a Tuner. Comparing her history to yours, your old self would have met her well before five years ago. And…when you parted ways, she was not even twenty.”

“How strange. You know more about me than I do.”

“She would know even more. …So could you not get rid of her…no, of your past?”

“Could you?”

“I’m the same as you. In more ways than one,” said Double Lee. “And so is Hong Kong.”

“?”

“No one can erase the past. And in its prediction of the coming future – to return to our previous topic – the Flight Song does not match up with Hong Kong’s past.”

“We already discussed this.”

“What the historians think does not matter. I don’t care that they believe the song was created and sung as some faint hope for the people being sealed below the earth.”

He laughed quietly, and…

“Such ridiculous sympathy.”

He looked up and his expression changed slightly.

[[Image:City_v03b_061.jpg|thumb]]

“Genius is here.”

A quiet flapping reached them like the spilling of sand.

A four-winged female Nein Engel descended down the center of the pit.

It was Genius.

“Were you waiting long?”

She landed on the spring. The tips of her toes sank into the pure water and she vibrated the wings extended both up and down in order to remain afloat.

She looked down but could not see the bottom of the spring. The bottomless hole looked like a gaping maw below her.

“Double Lee… You’ll perform the final ceremony here, won’t you?”

“Yes. I will drive the Baton into the water right where you are standing.”

“So the metal element dragon lives in the depths of the earth. …This is going to be destructive.”

“If I only had more power, I could have used a more peaceful method.”

“Peaceful destruction?”

“That’s not a very nice way of putting it. …But regardless, I had to send the four elements in advance to start up the metal dragon. I have no choice but to follow those fundamental rules.”

Double Lee laughed bitterly with no harshness in his expression.

Fei asked Genius something without looking away from Double Lee.

“How are your preparations going? …The preparations other than the charms.”

“J-Gun is working in the workshop below the Archs RDC building and the building is entirely empty. The contract is working perfectly.”

“Master Huang did a good job of setting everything up. We informed them in advance this land would be blown away, but in exchange for letting us go through with it, we gave them a portion of what we own in the foreign markets, not Hong Kong’s market.”

“A good decision,” said Fei without turning away from Double Lee. “Double Lee, you said that, when the Flight Song predicted the coming future, it did not match up with Hong Kong.”

“Eh? What are you talking about?”

Genius tilted her head and Double Lee smiled a little.

“That is what we were discussing. …So what about it, Fei?”

“How do you view President Huang’s instructions that continue to match up with Hong Kong even after his death?”

“They are the formula to reach the answer.”

“The answer? Is your answer the restoration of heaven?”

“Do we have anything else?”

“I am not talking about us. I am talking about you personally.”

“What about for you personally? Or for Genius personally? …No, not just that. That is what it was for Master Huang as well. And in the end, that objective is the one thing bringing us together.”

“I see. And you are fine with that?”

Double Lee’s answer made it sound like it was a stupid question.

“What else could there be?”

He also looked Fei in the eye.

For an instant, a metallic tone sounded in reality. The Lives of their gazes had collided.

Fei seemed to have lost to that sound because he looked away. His gaze wandered a bit before stopping on the Flight Song monument next to the spring.

“Double Lee,” he said. “You know everything, you have great power, and you desire something that we don’t more powerfully than we do anything. But you never try to fit in with us and people would likely call you…”

He thought for a moment.

“Pitiable.”

Fei went on to add that he did not understand that kind of emotion.

No one said anything after that.

Double Lee and Genius did not agree with or deny it.

The wind simply blew.

===Part 3===

Destroyed.

That single word described the state of Akira’s apartment.

It was not that the entire apartment building had been destroyed. Her home – that is, her room – was the only one destroyed.

She noticed as soon as she unlocked and opened the door.

Light from the window reflected off the white porcelain fragments and rounded glass shards covering the old wooden flooring of the small kitchen.

The pieces of blackened boards in the shadows on the floor had originally been the cupboards and the toppled pillar by the wall was the refrigerator with its door torn off.

There was also graffiti spray-painted on the walls, broken lights, and every other kind of destruction imaginable.

“What…is this?”

As she muttered those words in the entranceway, the Lives remaining in the room stroked her cheeks.

Attracted by the outside wind, those residual Lives tried to escape the room. Their Word Color was the dark red of molten metal and the Tempo following that red was a loud, racing pulse.

These were Lives of hatred.

“With Lives this dense, several people must have done this.”

She weakly nodded in acceptance of what had happened.

“Because I’m a Nein Engel…they thought I was a part of my brother’s group.”

…''They were taking revenge.

She also remembered the Lives of the patients staring at her in the hospital lobby.

Those had been lighter than the hatred left here, but they had still contained hostility.

“…”

She placed a hand on her chest to contain her rising pulse.

The Lives of hatred were disturbing her own Live.

She took two, then four deep breaths.

“This kind of thing happens all the time.”

As soon as she gave that emotionless comment, she noticed someone standing right next to her.

She had not expected them there.

“!?”

She was shocked to find how defenseless she was and she reflexively reached for the Device at her waist.

She turned around and swiftly brought the person into view.

“My landlord?”

That was exactly who was there.

The middle-aged woman wearing a green dress was the landlord of Akira’s apartment and she peered into Akira’s room.

“Are you okay, Akira?”

“Yes, I’m fine. But…”

“That’s some rotten luck.”

“Yes, it is. …But who did this and why?”

“It’s unthinkable what happened to your room.” The landlord closed her eyes and gave a sympathetic nod. “I think it was the night two days after that new Divine Punishment War. That would be five days ago. A group showed up as they were preparing to flee to the mainland because of what happened to Hong Kong. …I think there were about twenty of them.”

“And they did all this?”

“I was shocked when I noticed the next morning, but I can’t tell you exactly what happened.”

“I suppose not.”

As she responded to the landlord, Akira realized her Live was oddly still.

…''I’m trying to ignore the emotion of anger.

She felt bad doing this to the landlord, but she could see the woman’s Live.

She could not read it, but she could hear and see the Live coming from her body and that told her what emotions she was feeling.

The landlord’s Live was currently playing fast and yellow.

It was a Live of panic.

…''She’s lying.

To be sure, Akira checked on the main entrance’s doorknob.

There was no sign of damage to the lock or of the doorknob being replaced.

Someone had led the destroyers into her home.

…''This kind of thing happens all the time.

She accepted it with that thought.

She ignored the landlord who was continuing to talk next to her and she stepped into her own room.

She switched on the light out of habit and heard a sound much like tearing paper come from the ceiling.

The broken light had short-circuited.

“Well, you still have power here. …What will you do, Akira?”

“Maybe I should leave.”

“No, you can stay if you want. …We’ll be leaving this city, too.”

“Then what will happen here?” Akira turned around with a hand on the door leading to the living room in the back. “What will happen to this apartment?”

“Britain bought them all. They didn’t pay very much, though. …Still, I think we’ll be using that money to move to the mainland.”

“…”

Akira said nothing in response, but the landlord continued speaking.

“You probably haven’t heard, but the only things functioning in the city center are the emergency hospitals, the Yard, and some slight distribution of supplies. Everyone else has fled to the shelter in the New Territories.”

“They all fled?”

“Yes. The state set up a shelter – really just a tent city – in the New Territories twenty kilometers from here. There’s apparently a distribution center there, too.”

“…”

“VIPs from Britain and other countries are supposedly using that as their base. …You hear all the planes flying around, right? People are moving to other countries and that shelter is the only place where you can arrange for a flight out.”

“You’re running-…moving away, aren’t you?”

“Yes. My son and his wife have already gone there and we’re thinking of settling down in Broad City – Shanghai now that it’s been liberated. …The resident of the next room over and the Ban family down below are all doing the same.”

“This is the only place I have… Could I maybe stay?”

“That’s fine by me.” The landlord’s Live remained unchanged, but her tone grew brighter. “Think of it as making up for what happened to your room. At the very last, no one’s going to complain about someone living here for the week until Hong Kong is returned to China. If you like, why not move down into the Ban family’s room?”

Akira replied with silence.

“…”

She turned the doorknob and opened the way to the living room.

As soon as she did, she lost her sense of sight.

“…!?”

At first, she did not know what it was before her eyes.

It was darkness.

But it was not actual darkness. Light from the window was definitely filling the room.

That meant she was seeing Lives with a black Word Color that had the same density as darkness.

“No…”

She instinctually drew back.

Drawn by her movement, the Lives filling the living room flowed out.

She pressed her shoulder against the side of the door so they would not touch her.

She squeezed her wings shut, crossed her arms tightly, and held her own body.

She saw the pitch black stream at her feet swell up like a swarm of snakes and swim outside.

…''That’s an amazing amount of chaos.

The Word Color resembled the detonation of a Discord Bomb and its Tempo was not uniform. The Word Color that looked like darkness was probably formed from a variety of Word Colors packed together in the small room.

She could not see the individual emotions.

It was a disturbing mixture of Lives.

However, the room slowly came into view as they flowed outside.

“Is everything okay?” asked the landlord behind her.

…''If everything was okay, there wouldn’t be any Lives like this left here.

She hung her head and glanced inside the room. The living room had doubled as her bedroom, but it was now utterly destroyed.

Books, glass shards, and scraps of cloth were strewn across the floor and the walls were covered in lacquer spray graffiti of colors reminiscent of internal organs.

These were the scars of revenge.

Akira sighed.

“I need to clean up.”

She took a step forward while ignoring all of the worried-sounding comments from the landlord behind her. She walked toward the back of the room where some of the darkness remained.

Her feet felt like lead weights.

===Part 4===

Five hours went by.

Cleaning the room proved extremely difficult.

First of all, Akira had no cleaning supplies.

The vacuum cleaner had been thrown through the living room window and onto the balcony and the broom seemed to have been used as a weapon to destroy the room.

“Humans are so uncivilized.”

However, that light joke was not going to change the situation.

The resident of the neighboring room had apparently moved to the mainland, so she finally decided to enter that room through the window and borrow their cleaning supplies.

“Getting ready is a job in and of itself.”

As she began to clean, she noticed a few things.

“The city’s Live is so calm.”

There were barely any Lives being emitted even in the shopping district.

She could tell that by looking out the window.

Most of the stores there had no merchandise on the shelves. There was only the occasional shop with stocked shelves and the owner would be sitting alone by the street, looking bored.

“The channels of distribution have been cut off, haven’t they?”

She moved her gaze to the road down below.

There was dried mud and a thin coating of white powder on the asphalt.

She initially thought it was sand, but it was not.

It was salt.

The seawater had come this far.

When the dragons had flown, Hong Kong’s land had been torn away in the four cardinal directions and seawater had flowed into the crust.

“Liquefaction, hm?”

There had been a large near-field earthquake and a hole five kilometers deep. The after effects had been devastating.

The coastal areas had collapsed like a landslide and then a thirty meter wall of water had crashed into it all.

“That’s probably what happened to most of the missing.”

As soon as she said that, she heard the air trembling in the distance from another airplane.

She ignored it and resumed cleaning her room.

She had already carried out or swept out the bed, the bedding slashed with a blade, the broken bookshelf, the torn books, and all the broken glass.

“I can’t believe this…”

There was no strength in her voice as she removed the broken lightbulbs.

“What happened to my sanxian and photo?”

She could not find the sanxian her father had given her or the only photograph she had of her family.

She cleaned every nook and cranny of the room and checked every splinter of wood and scrap of paper, but they were nowhere to be found.

…''Were they thrown out the window?

The vacuum cleaner had been caught on the balcony, but the photo and sanxian may have fallen to the road.

…''And if they did…

“I’d never find them.”

She sighed and walked to the kitchen holding a lightbulb that was really only the socket.

She threw it in a trash bag and drank some water.

Fortunately, the water purification plant was running, so the water was still clear.

She brought her mouth directly to the tap and drank the water.

“That’s a huge help.”

She took a breath and relished the cold dampness in her fairly dry mouth.

She worked to refresh her mood.

…''I’ll find the photo and sanxian eventually.

She told herself to think positively and her eyes stopped on the water flowing down from the tap.

“I haven’t done that in a while.”

She normally did some Tune Education with water every morning, but she had not done it even once since being hospitalized.

…''So it’s been a week.

“If I don’t keep practicing, I’ll never be like mom and the others.”

She opened up the tap even more and the water forcefully struck the sink.

The refreshing sound of impact rang throughout the kitchen.

As she listened to it, Akira grabbed the spear Device from her waist.

She unfolded the collapsible spear with practiced motions.

After a single metallic sound, the spear was complete.

It was a little long to swing around in the kitchen and she held it under her arm.

“…”

She breathed in, closed her eyes, and…

“Oh, you Lives with an Octave of 160,000, you laughter of flowing water. Can you hear my Live?”

She made her Wind Up.

She called in the Lives with the usual method and sang her own Live.

Hers began with “la”.

It had a white Word Color and a loud, gentle Tempo.

She created a Message with it.

The Message combined the spilling water with a flying bird.

“…!”

She completed it all in an instant.

The water falling from the tap became a colorless bird.

It was a dove.

Its Live was dense for its size, so it had little of the water’s amorphousness.

It stepped up onto the edge of the sink and chirped.

“Good, good.”

Akira smiled.

“Just like always.”

She stroked the dove’s head and walked toward the entrance.

She stopped after three steps and threw open the door.

Several doves would fly from there every morning.

Anything transformed with Tuning would go where it could regain its original form.

The doves created from water Lives would always fly toward the sea.

This one was no different.

“Now, it’s time to leave.”

She gestured out the door and the dove flew that way.

It flew from the sink and flapped its wings well despite them hitting the wall.

Its flapping wings sounded loudly as it took a midair turn toward the main entrance.

It flew right past Akira’s eyes…and it burst.

“!”

The water scattered everywhere.

What had been a dove distorted and fell apart as if it had been hit by a rock.

She heard a sound just like pouring rain and water flew through the apartment hallway.

“Kyah!”

Akira’s legs and the hem of her skirt were wet.

The water was cold.

This was the blood of the dove she had created.

The dove was dead.

“…”

With the Device in one hand, she looked to her wet clothes and the wet hallway.

“What just happened?”

There was no need to ask; she already knew.

“I messed up…the Tuning?”

That was the only explanation, so she nodded.

“I can’t believe this. …I guess I’m a little rusty.”

She took a breath.

“I’ll take it a little more seriously this time. Yes.”

She shut the front door and held the Device tight in her hand.

Her eyes turned to the water pouring from the tap.

The water was the same as always.

It flowed the same as a week before and it contained the same Live.

…''So why did I fail?”

Her expression was stiff as she asked herself that.

“I can’t believe this…. What could it be?”

As soon as she said those words, she began Tuning once more.

<noinclude>
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.2em; border-collapse: collapse;"
|-
| Back to [[City_Series:Volume3b_Opening|Afternoon Section - Opening]]
| Return to [[City_Series|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[City_Series:Volume3b_Chapter_3|Act 3]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 3C Chapter 74

2015-06-20T23:22:50Z

85.218.237.213: Fixed a typo.

==Chapter 74: Attackers and Defenders of the Wall==
[[Image:Horizon3C_0349.jpg|thumb]]
''What keeps you from thinking

''That the preparation is the most fun?

'''Point Allocation (Result-Focused Thinking)

People formed ranks and travelled along the path south of Magdeburg and upstream of the Elbe River. The warriors wore a mix of M.H.R.R. and P.A. Oda uniforms.

The five thousand man assault unit kept a battalion of one thousand high-speed mobile shells in the lead.

They were marching for the downstream side of Magdeburg.

The mobile shells in the lead were all from the Holy Knights’ Steel Association brand. The unique white high-speed style shells had rounded corners and the Klassisch Kunst acceleration spell of their rear accelerators were idling.

Their footsteps rang loud and their raised guns and spears dully glowed.

The sky was covered in clouds.

Due to the dark clouds rising from K.P.A. Italia in the south, clouds had begun to cover M.H.R.R. from the south as evening had turned to night.

The great noise of raging water filled the darkness from downstream the dammed river. The mobile shells were upstream, but the Elbe’s width was fluctuating and a few waves were beginning to arrive from downstream.

The one who seemed to guide them all was a demonic man wearing a black M.H.R.R. uniform.

He was Katsuie. With Narimasa alongside him, he raised his deep voice as he ran.

“Shuuuuut the hell uuuuuup!”

His voice was loud enough to be heard over the raging river that was beginning to flow backwards. The following men repeated his cry.

“Shuuuuut the hell uuuuuup!”

The sunglasses-wearing man glared over at the demonic man running next to him.

“God, you’re annoying.”

The following men repeated him as well.

“God, you’re annoyiiiiiing!”

“Narimasa, you son of a bitch!!”

“Narimasa, you son of a biiiiitch!!”

“Shut up, Shibata! And shut up, the rest of you! Anyway, um, everyone stop!”

After a mixture of “Shaja!” and “Testament!”, the land warriors stopped their advance and lined up in step.

“Now, then!”

Katsuie turned his back on Magdeburg to face the others. The raging Elbe was to his left, Magdeburg’s south gate was far behind him, and he loudly clapped his hands once.

Next to him, Narimasa spread his knees, crouched down, and raised a hand toward the others.

“Okay, just stay where you are. Let’s see… this annoying upperclassman is going to tell you a bunch of stuff, so listen or whatever.”

“Dammit, don’t you have any motivation at all!? Look!”

Katsuie opened a large ''insha kotob'' for them all to see.

“Lady Oichi sent me this worried divine mail! It says, ‘Master Katsuie and everyone else, please do your very best so none of you get hurt’! Isn’t she a skilled writer!?”

“Not in the slightest! Isn’t that the hiragana font the Protestants made!?”

“What!? It only looked like crap when you used it because it was your writing! You just don’t get it! Besides, she was even kind enough to mention all of you small fries as ‘everyone else’!”

“Are you picking a fight with the rest of us? …And don’t all of you get all teary-eyed over it!”

“Oh?” Katsuie twisted around and looked down at Narimasa. “It looks like you only count as ‘everyone else’ to Lady Oichi. Doesn’t it, Naru Naruuuu?”

“G-god, you are the worst superior imaginable!”

“What’s wrong with this?” Katsuie placed a sheathed Kamewari over his shoulder, turned back to the others, and continued. “I learned a lot about the river bottom from fishing around here and when I gave Hashiba that information, I got this plan back. …If we fail here, it’ll count as Hashiba’s failure.”

“You just made it clear who wants to look out for Hashiba the most, you know?”

“The boss, right? And anyway, you worry about her too, don’t you?”

“She can push herself too hard.”

The others nodded in agreement with Narimasa, so Katsuie nodded back.

“Do this right, everyone. …This is the plan desperately thought up by the person I have to be defeated by eventually. If we can’t complete this, it’ll mean the struggle between Hashiba and me is only on that level.”

He then pointed Kamewari behind him where the water was beginning to press up against Magdeburg’s outer wall. The metallic sounds of the dam ships bumping into each other sounded like distant thunder, but he commented on that noise.

“The dam sure is shaking. …Anyway, Magdeburg has a height difference from its upstream end to its downstream end. In another ten minutes, the downstream end will be five meters deep, but by then, the defensive barrier will have reached its limit and been destroyed thanks to the water and a few other tricks of ours. We’ll use that to conquer the inside of the city, but Hexagone Française will arrive afterwards. To make sure we can actually leave, our limit is about fifteen minutes, so make sure you clean up the inside in that time.”

“What? Didn’t you say we could break the wall in five minutes back at the earlier meeting? Did you lower the average time because you aren’t confident we can do it?”

“Don’t be stupid. They’ve started working against us.” Katsuie clicked his tongue. “One of them has good instincts. Probably Musashi’s secretary. They took the defense spell systems set up along the river bank and moved them to the second story of some nearby houses. They alternatively put them either high or low. Do you get what that means?”

“Yeah. Instead of sitting in a straight line, it crisscrosses. It’s weaker to attacks from the side, but it has some flexibility to a direct push.”

“Oh, is that how it works? …Hey, everyone, if you cram your head full of little facts like this small fry, you’ll never move up in the world. You need to live in the big picture like me.”

“D-damn you!”

“Shut up.” Katsuie waved a hand dismissively. “This means they’re taking this seriously and that sounds good to me. Right!?”

Another mixture of “shaja” and “testament” reached him.

Their responses brought a smile to the corner of his mouth.

“That’s what I like to hear,” he commented. “Okay! Don’t any of you forget that Lady Oichi was worried for you!”

Are you listening?

“Don’t waste your life! It may be an easy job, but when you die, make sure you do something useful first! Just in case, by some coincidence on a universal scale, Lady Oichi were to come across your grave, make sure you died in a way you can tell her with pride!”

“Shaja!” “Testament!”

They all nodded and held their weapons straight up. Then the man on the left end of the front row looked up in the sky and gave a shout.

“A sword in the right hand, the Testament in the left!”

The others yelled the same thing.

“A sword in the right hand! The Testament in the left!”

This time, the woman on the right end of the front row cried out.

“Courage in the right sword, justice in the left Testament!”

“Courage in the right sword! Justice in the left Testament!”

From there on, they all shouted in unison.

“Victory in the right courage! Tolerance in the left justice!”

“Peace in the right victory! Blessings in the left tolerance!”

“Protection in the right peace! Eternity in the left blessings!”

After a cry of “shaja” or “testament”, they took a breath. Next, they all looked into the sky and gave a roar.

“A sword for protection! The Testament for eternity!!”

“Testameeeeeent!!” “Shajaaaaaa!!”

They all prepared their weapons and Katsuie opened his mouth.

“All right! The water hasn’t reached us yet, but the barriers downstream are apparently sparking! …Mobile shell unit! Form three groups to attack in waves! Open the gate just as Hashiba instructed! From there, the solid and the nimble begin an urban battle in the submerged city!”

He gave one last order.

“Let’s finish this up in fifteen minutes!!”

Those inside Magdeburg held a strategy meeting with a sign frame opened in the center of the cathedral plaza. It displayed a map of Magdeburg that extended more north to south than east to west.

First, Naruze stood at the orchard on the southern end of the map.

“This orchard forms a slope from the outer wall to the river, doesn’t it? It has some hills and our Technohexen unit can stick it out firing from the sky, so I’d like to ask anyone who can’t fly to fire from the western wall.”

She swept a borrowed spear across the map’s orchard and a red line appeared along its path. She was indicating that they would concentrate their fire to stop the warriors advancing from the southern gate.

“We’ll guide them. Instead of driving them toward the outer wall, we’ll send them to the river.”

Guericke then raised his hand.

“Guiding them to the outer wall would take them along the western side where there are more hills, so it would be more difficult for them to advance. Wouldn’t it be best to fight them there instead of by the river?”

“More hills means it’s harder for us to target them. The outer wall is kind of like a mountain. And once the enemy has climbed the mountain, what do you think they’ll do when they realize they have a hilly way down to the northern urban area? Since there isn’t a set path, they’ll split into small units and move toward the city separately. Then the gunfire from the outer wall won’t be able to keep up.”

Naruze used the spear to indicate the path along the river.

“We’ll use our concentrated fire to keep them from the outer wall as much as possible. In the worst case, the high-speed mobile shells will rush in at quick but subsonic speeds, but they’ll be like sitting ducks on a straight path. We can fire horizontally at them from the city’s buildings. Once the water rises enough, the mobile shells will be out of the fight, but that will mean the lighter fighters who can travel through the mountains are coming. Those will be from P.A. Oda.”

Naruze continued from there.

“When that happens, those of us who can fly will fire on them from above. I’d like permission to use explosion spells.”

Guericke’s eyebrows moved at that.

“Those are the tactics of the anti-nonhuman mountain unit.”

“It’s officially known as the anti-witch unit, right? My father was a part of it.”

After Naruze sharply gave just the main points, Guericke finally nodded.

“You have permission.”

“Judge. I’ll be asking you to print my summer works, so make sure you’ve reconstructed by then.”

Only those behind Guericke saw him clench a fist in celebration behind his back.

“But…”

This new voice belonged to Tomoe who looked at the interception formation Naruze had drawn.

“There are only a little over twenty Technohexen while the enemy is led by an assault unit of five thousand with twenty five thousand staying back to secure their escape route. With a difference in numbers that great, we should assume they’ll make it to the city pretty quickly.”

“And then it will be an urban battle.”

Futayo spoke up from the city portion of the map and she addressed what she held in her hand.

“I am very grateful for the repairs to Tonbokiri.”

“Thankful,” added Tonbokiri which now had Western decorations.

Using the spear, Futayo drew a line between the city and the orchard.

“I and Magdeburg’s three hundred crossdressing warriors will be waiting here to slow the enemy’s advance along with the gunfire from the city. And on top of that…”

She looked to one corner of the plaza where Neshinbara sat on the ground, leaning up against a bench. He was covered in oil and dirt and he waved a hand her way.

Futayo nodded.

“While we buy some time, the noncombatants will be evacuated to Magdeburg’s transport ship in the nature park behind the cathedral. I would also like to ask that the hemispheres and other equipment are taken aboard. Once our defense line and the loading of the equipment is complete…”

She drew a line along the river.

“We will release the defense barriers bordering the Elbe River. By then, the water will likely have already flooded a fair bit, but by letting the water in ourselves, we can stop the enemy from advancing too far.”

In other words…

“We will flood our enemies along with Magdeburg and escape on the transport ship.”

They would submerge Magdeburg themselves.

After hearing that plan, it was the silver god of war on the north end of the map who nodded in agreement. Anne leaned forward on its shoulder.

“Yes, and we can escape to the Hexagone Française fleet arriving from the west. They will protect us. I’m not sure I like the idea of flooding the city, but when the other option is having it destroyed, I supposed it’s the better one. …Can we estimate how long until that happens?”

“We can.” Mazarin opened a ''signe cadre'' from where she stood next to Anne. “In approximately ten minutes. Thanks to the adjustments to the defense barriers by Musashi’s secretary, M.H.R.R. is likely expecting a full flood after ten minutes, so they will probably try to break through then.”

“But we will do it for them ahead of time? That will only confuse the enemy at first, but since we know the flood will come early, we can arrange our personnel and secure our escape routes accordingly. If you are one of the fighters and anything happens to you, you can escape west from the city walls. Hexagone Française will protect you.”

They all nodded and one of them, Masazumi, stood up. She then looked to Naruze and Futayo.

“As vice president I leave all immediate decisions to you two. The only remaining problem is the Musashi and our idiot.”

“My foolish brother will be here. As will the Musashi.”

Kimi crossed her arms while leaning against one of the plaza’s trees.

“Isn’t that right, Naruze?”

“Judge. Margot is with him, so they’ll definitely be on their way here. As for the Musashi…”

Naruze pointed to the northern sky with her spear.

“Hashiba gave a new warning against cruising here. Isn’t that right, Asama?”

“Yes,” said a long-haired figure walking from the cathedral.

It was Asama. She had changed into her shrine maiden outfit and several sign frames followed her around. She gave a sigh and then raised a hand toward Masazumi.

“I somehow managed to pick up the records from just before the divine transmissions were cut off. Hashiba did send a warning to the Musashi. Simply put, they said ‘we’ll be mad if you fly’.”

“Heh heh. How silly. If they say that, of course they’re going to fly.” Kimi looked at Asama and then the northern sky. “Horizon already tried to go save my foolish brother, so if you try to stop her here, she’ll definitely be coming.”

“My theory is Hashiba was trying to provoke them.”

“Go to sleep, nerd. We all know you’re half dead after rearranging those barriers.” Kimi took a step forward. “Heh heh. My foolish brother is coming, so is Horizon, and we’re about to go to Kantou. This should be a fun trip, but…”

She turned back to Neshinbara who was still sitting.

He nodded toward her sharp gaze.

“We already went over it, so you say it yourself, Aoi Sister-kun.”

“Judge.” She took a breath, shook her shoulders, and looked across everyone there. “Boys and girls of Musashi, once the city begins to flood, make sure to withdraw and come here. Don’t even think about waiting for my foolish brother or protecting the city. After all…”

After all…

“As soon as the Musashi arrives and takes us onboard, we will leave for Edo even if my foolish brother is not with us.”

“W-wait, Kimi!”

Someone frantically spoke up when they heard that.

It was Asama.

Asama quickly walked over to Kimi.

…''We’ll leave Toori-kun and the others behind?

She knew what Kimi meant. If waiting would place the entire Musashi in danger, they would have to leave even Toori behind.

''That also means leaving Mito, Mary, and Tenzou behind, but…

…''It’s a lot like Kimi to take on that role by only mentioning Toori-kun.

''But,'' thought Asama. ''Are you really okay with that, Kimi?

She took a few more steps toward the girl.

“Um, Kimi?”

But after moving that close, she realized something.

Kimi’s lowered right hand was clenched so tightly it was growing pale.

…''Ah.

The girl was acting composed, but she was not. She was holding back and suppressing something to keep control of herself.

After taking a deep breath and gently moving her shoulders up and down to calm herself, Kimi spoke.

“What is it, Asama?”

She was smiling and she added a quiet sigh of a laugh.

“Don’t worry. Even if that does happen, Mitotsudaira’s mother, Anne over there, and the rest of Hexagone Française will protect them. So…we won’t be abandoning them. We’ll only be leaving them here. Right?”

Hearing that, Asama mentally lowered her shoulders in relief.

…''I can only say that this is a lot like Kimi.

After all, when she said “don’t worry” or “right?”, she was not speaking to anyone. Unless she said “Asama” or “you” afterwards, she was speaking to herself.

And so Asama asked a question to see just how little her childhood friend had changed.

“Kimi, aren’t you worried about Toori-kun and the others?”

Kimi’s smile shook a little, but…

“I am. But a woman who doesn’t trust in you is nothing but a bother.”

“Then…”

Asama placed her own hand over Kimi’s clenched right fist, looked the girl in the eye, and pulled on her hand.

“Let’s wait together as long as we can, okay?”

Kimi initially resisted to having her hand taken, but then she acquiesced. She gave her hand to Asama.

“C’mon now. Two girls holding hands in public?”

“If I’m not holding your hand, I have a feeling you’ll try to be the last one to withdraw or even return here.”

“Heh heh. That’s really not fair, you know? You shouldn’t assume other people would do what you’re thinking of doing.”

“S-stop saying things like that!”

Had Kimi angered her to make it easier to hold her hand and keep her from letting go?

While wondering that, Asama squeezed Kimi’s hand. She then looked around and saw Magdeburg’s men and crossdressers nod her way. The commander lightly raised his hand.

“We will do our utmost to defend until Musashi’s king can return… Oh, dear. I’m sounding too manly.”

The crossdresser laughed bitterly and the rest laughed along with him. Anne did the same from the shoulder of the silver god of war sitting in front of them. She made even the god of war shake a little in laughter before speaking.

“Sister of Musashi’s chancellor? I also have a brother, but I wonder if I can really say I’m the ‘same’.”

She looked to Asama and to the hand holding Kimi’s hand.

“Make sure not to let go of that hand.”

“Eh? Oh, right. Judge.”

“Eh? Oh, dear. This well-endowed shrine maiden just agreed to become one with me! She wants us to bring our bodies together!!”

''Please shut up,'' thought Asama as she glared at the idiot’s wiggling sister.

Suddenly, a noise reached them from the south.

The heavy sound as if from something striking stone sounded again and again. Everyone there brought up their guard as soon as they heard it.

“The enemy is here,” said Anne. “Just ten more minutes. It’s time to show our endurance.”

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 3C Chapter 73|Chapter 73]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 3C Chapter 75|Chapter 75]]
}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 3C Chapter 72

2015-06-16T23:11:53Z

85.218.237.213: Typo fix.

==Chapter 72: Wolf of the Audience Chamber==
[[Image:Horizon3C_0307.jpg|thumb]]
''What falls from the sky

''And reverberates across the earth?

'''Point Allocation (Howl)

Rudolf II was thrown out into the sky at over five hundred meters up.

His opponent had let go of the hammer chain binding him, so he was tossed into the sky just like the hammer throw.

Still, he had more than thirty swords piercing him, two hammers embedded inside him, and a lack of all four limbs. Almost his entire body had been smashed by the many impacts, but…

“Ha haaaaa!”

He laughed in the female form he thought had the most beautiful smile. He had broken through the tower’s outer wall and he had reached the same height as the tower’s roof.

...''Is that what this was!?

“Did you think you could make me feel pain by throwing me down from this height!?”

It was nonsense. Even if he did strike the ground after his fall, it would only last an instant.

He could not feel pain in an instant and the great fall would crush his body within the chain, allowing him to almost entirely regenerate. Most of his body would be turned to bloody smoke and he would be freed from the chain.

He would have regenerated before his enemy could descend from the tower.

That meant he only needed to leave before she reached the surface. The time had come and there was no point in redoing the battle on the surface now that they had both seen what the other had to offer.

His enemy had essentially helped him leave, so…

“Ha haaaa!”

He laughed and laughed and then realized his vision was blurring.

He did not know why that was, but he did reach a certain conclusion in his heart.

…''It was no use!

In the end, it had been no use. He had managed to achieve something close to perfection in a female form, but that body contained none of the pain one needed to be human.

He was only a doll. He had a human form, but he was not human. And…

…''It was no use.

As he began to fall, something left his feminine eyes and spilled down his feminine cheek. However, that overflowing substance and all else lost to the speed of his fall and scattered in the wind.

He saw the color red spreading out from the tower.

It was blood. The bloody smoke was spreading out into the air as if to embrace him and soothe him. It seemed to burst from the fissure of blossoming light in the tower and it pursued him.

In that instant, he saw a light. Below the cloudy night sky, a light suddenly jumped out from the tower.

Someone broke through the bloody smoke, scattering it, and chased after him.

He saw silver hair glowing in the pale light rising from the surface and he saw who had leaped down toward him while turned to the side to slip past him.

“The silver wolf!?”

The silver wolf jumped quickly into the night sky. She held a chain tied to one of the ring’s corner posts beyond the gaping hole in the tower.

“Toh.”

As soon as she passed Rudolf II, she pulled on the chain.

She moved back toward the tower with great force. She then let go of the chain, never slowing even as she threw herself into empty space.

“…!”

The straight line attack knocked Rudolf II back toward the tower.

She used a longsword. The thick blade stabbed into the back of his head from the neck and came out between the eyes.

It pierced the medulla oblongata, severed the nerves, and caused an instantaneous tremble in his body.

Mitotsudaira maintained her momentum as she charged toward the tower, carrying Rudolf II with her.

But after recovering, Rudolf II smiled.

“You fool! The break in the tower is up above! Are you going to fall with me!?”

And…

“That instantaneous attack isn’t going to hurt me!”

Mitotsudaira did not care.

She had no intention of returning to the tower through the broken wall. She was trying to use her diagonal trajectory to collide with the metal tower. And she would use the process that followed to achieve her true goal.

“I will provide you with pain!”

First, she pulled two chain fragments from her pocket and stuck them in her ears.

They were earplugs.

After cutting off the surrounding noise, the silver wolf crashed into the tower’s wall with the sword still piercing through Rudolf II.

As soon as her parabolic course along the wall hit that wall, she pulled the sword from him. But the instant that wound began to fill in, she kicked him against the wall to flip him upside down.

“This is the spot!!”

She followed the sensation of the previous wound to stab the blade back in at a sharp angle.

She pierced his medulla oblongata.

At the same time, her feet landed on the wall.

She stood on that wall with the sword sticking straight toward it.

Then came the instant in which Rudolf II’s upside down body trembled from his nerves being severed.

“————”

That was when Mitotsudaira stuck the tip of the sword against the metal wall.

“…!!”

As the sword tip scraped against the wall at maximum speed, she ran vertically down the five hundred meters.

An intense metallic sound screeched through an area outside of Magdeburg.

The persistently swelling metallic scraping played the tall tower like the string of an instrument.

Those watching the tower from below covered their ears.

“…!?”

They could not even hear their own voices and the idiot spread his fingers and held them out as if surrounding two spheres.

“…!?”

When all the others glared at him, he fell to his knees.

Meanwhile, Naito trembled.

…''Wow.

The sound was beginning to trace along her feathers. It both tickled and itched.

…''I know what this is.

Oriotorai had done it really loudly during class the other day.

…''It’s like nails on a chalkboard!

Mitotsudaira continued her downward run with sparks and scraping following behind her.

She was oriented perpendicular to the ground, so the surface was located directly ahead.

It was a five hundred meter distance.

She held the longsword’s hilt and the blade was stabbed through the upside down M.H.R.R. Emperor.

That enemy had yet to recover. When it had lasted an instant, the sensation had not felt like pain, but…

…''What if I drag it out!?

The swelling bitter noise came from the space between the wall and the sword pressed against it. She had earplugs made from the broken chain, but…

“How about this!?”

Rudolf II fluttered skyward from halfway down the sword stabbed horizontally through the back of his head.

And then he seemed to lose control of his body.

“Ah.”

She faintly heard a voice, Rudolf II’s voice. Beyond the sparks and surging noise, his voice rose countless times, was cut off, and occasionally trembled.

“Ah! Ahhhh! Abh…ra…aaaa….ra! Ra! Brrraaraaa!!”

Each time he spoke, his body raged. He was only a torso and head with no limbs, but he would flail around and transform into something else.

However, that transformation was broken. He would gain a woman’s head with a man’s torso, the left side would not match the right, half of his face would be something else, and something like tears scattered from him.

“Ahhhh…kaaaah!!”

His tongue extended from his mouth like a snake and his body shook again and again like a fish.

He could not control it.

It did not matter what he intended or what he thought. The sword was pumping metal vibrations directly into the nerves that controlled his entire body. The foundation of every single nerve was being torn at from within rather than without.

It filled him with pain.

The method was simple. His divine protection regeneration had only let him feel it for an instant, so she had made sure it would continue.

His divine protection was automatic and had a number of resistance patterns built in. The pain of severed nerves should have been instantly shut down and so would anything that sent constant pain to his nerves.

Anything perceived as pain would be shut out, so he could feel no pain.

…''But what if something not perceived as pain is amplified and kept constant?

Rudolf II had no sense of pain, but his mind still controlled his body and his heart and other organs were autonomously controlled. That meant his nerves had to be functioning. Those nerves could not receive any external pain, but they would actively respond to anything from within. That was how he lacked a sense of pain.

In that case, if a vibration was created inside his nerves, he would receive it as an active pain.

His body was out of control, but not because of any external force. The vibration within his nerves was causing him to shake his own body.

He would be unable to move as he wished and he would feel a vague surprise and trembling.

…''Altogether it creates a feeling that makes him want to call out for help!

His divine protection would likely shut out an electrical or spell attack. This only worked by stabbing him through with a blade and extending the instantaneous tremble with a vibration much greater than mere sound.

His muscles shook on their own and writhed about uncontrollably.

“Ahhhh!”

His entire body undulated, his eyes opened wide, and his tongue stuck out into the air.

“Ahhhh…ra…aaaaaahhhhh!!”

He was crying. He was feeling something that made him want to tell her to stop and to forgive him. Faced with his raging body, he seemed to want to reject everything.

He looked like a child throwing a tantrum at himself.
“—————”
But Mitotsudaira sped up.

Mitotsudaira ran down the tower wall with the night’s sky washing over her.

She played the five hundred meter metal string with her sword pick.

She continued on.

She shot her own body toward the ground below.

Once, twice, thrice, she added a quick burst of speed.

With each acceleration, Rudolf II’s body hopped up. He would contract and extend, bend and straighten, and transform into more and more different forms. He was searching for the optimum solution.

He could no longer control his body. His mind had to be in a scorching state, but his divine protection was still trying to protect him. That transforming protection sought the optimum form for the damage he was taking. A few times, he swelled up and burst before rapidly narrowing and twisting back down.

“————!”

But he never found a fixed form. His body would change, rearrange, come apart, and constantly transform.

…''But there won’t be an optimum!

After all…

…''This vibration was never expected!

When his own body was shaking him from the inside, there was nothing his divine protection could do. Unless he eliminated himself, this situation would never be resolved.

And Mitotsudaira had a thought about the tearfully raging M.H.R.R. Emperor.

…''I think your parents must have cared for you quite a bit.

They may never have struck him and they may have treated him differently from others, but the divine protection they had given him did not give up trying to save him even as he was being harmed by himself.

With each step another attack, she ran and she swung her body forward and downward.

At the three hundred meter mark, the blade tip broke.

She pressed further down and the broken blade produced an even nicer sound than before

…''Oh, dear.

''If I had known it would sound this nice, I would have done this sooner.

The chain-wrapped mass of flesh hopped even more spectacularly, but that was also a representation of the sound. She had taken music classes in Musashi, but she quite liked them and had good grades in them. Since her voice was on the higher end, she was often paired with Tomo and her powerful voice, but she had never expected to come across such a nice instrument here.

Each time she accelerated, the sound grew even nicer, so she decided to accelerate.

“Lrr…”

Her voice escaped to join the sound. It was the growling of a wolf.

“Lrr… Lrr…garrr…”

That growling was the origin of the word Loup-Garou.

The silver wolf began to sing as she played her instrument below the night sky.

The wonderful sound carried through the night.

“Lrr…rrr…rrr…”

The swelling, leaping sound coincided with her actions. Whenever she accelerated, it would cry out and sparks would decorate the air.

She was moving.

And then she saw the view from the tower.

She saw villages, forests, rivers running through them, and…

…''That’s Magdeburg!

To the north, a large city was thickly besieged. She saw many lights in the city, countless fires flickered outside its walls, and shadows of ships could be seen in the sky.

Her classmates were there and the Musashi would soon be returning there.

''That is where we will be going,'' she thought.

“Lrrooo…”

The voice that escaped her throat no longer had the breaks that followed a nice tempo. This came from a wolf’s instincts to call its packmates.

“Lrooo…oo…oo…ooo…”

Her throat trembled as she released that joyous call.

She gave another quick burst of additional speed as the howl shook her entire body.

Her movements left even the wind behind now. She passed the two hundred meter mark, but she started making repeated jumps forward and downward.

She passed the one hundred meter mark almost immediately, covered half of that, and found she could only see the ground.

At that point, Rudolf II’s body gave an extra strong shake.

However, this was not the uncontrolled movement brought on by the vibration. His entire body shook as if bringing itself into order and regaining control.

This was the final resistance of the emperor’s divine protection as it tried to escape this.

Mitotsudaira responded to Rudolf II’s resistance by letting go of the sword.

She used both hands to thrust the sword forward and downward.

For just a moment, the sword scraped itself against the wall as if taking autonomous control, but that did not last long. It soon decelerated and Rudolf II began to regain control.

Mitotsudaira gave a jump, but she was no longer running vertically down the wall. She turned her head downward as if diving down the wall.

She continued onward.

She extended and released her body to make a great downward leap, but she immediately shrank down in midair, rotated around, and positioned her feet toward the ground.

Her feet were targeting the decelerated sword. Specifically, the side of the blade.

“You did this to me earlier, didn’t you?”

She hit the blade with the same technique Rudolf II had used before: a dropkick.

Given even more momentum than before, the longsword scraped into the wall and let loose a scream that seemed to tear into the air.

Rudolf II’s body lost complete control.

This sudden blast after the moment of recovery was just too much for him to bear.

“…!!”

Mitotsudaira saw him bite the tongue that had extended to give a cry of rejection

And he had taken a female form befitting that suicidal action.

“Are you admitting you’re feeling pain!?”

He was experiencing something worse than death. That was what it meant.

“An emperor must not kill himself!!”

She forcefully accelerated the sword stabbing through him so it moved downward.

His head was split in half from the medulla oblongata, including the tongue he was trying to bite.

The sword came free.

The halved head began to paste back together, starting from the neck, but Mitotsudaira did not stop there.

She grabbed the falling sword’s hilt and swung it straight upwards.

The blade sliced him in two, from his recovered head to his crotch.

“I will save your life!!”

Mitotsudaira sliced the emperor in two with enough force to cut through the chain as well.

She tossed him away.

His two halves were quickly thrown apart where they slammed into the ground and burst. But as soon as the flesh exploded, the emperor’s divine protection kicked in.

Rudolf II’s entire body turned to the regenerating bloody spray.

The sword shattered and the chain broke, but…

“—————”

With the flying bloody spray in the background, the silver wolf kicked off the wall in a leap.

She rotated around and landed with the tower behind her.

All of the bloody smoke gathered together and whipped up the wind.

At the same time, the surrounding forest exploded. The birds and beasts frozen in fear of all the noise and the wolf’s howling had begun to move once the great reverberation vanished.

An overflowing number of birds flew up toward the cloudy sky.

While listening to the countless flapping sounds, animal cries, and distant howling from the forest and while sensing the spiraling wind of regeneration on her skin, Mitotsudaira slowly lowered her arms and cried out.

“Victory!”

Mitotsudaira took a breath. Around her, a large whirlwind carried a dark bloody mist through the night, but the moisture did not reach her and she could not smell it. Rudolf II was likely in the process of regaining his form.

She also heard some footsteps from a short distance away. They came from the two women who had been at the tower’s entrance.

“Master Rudolf!”

When she heard the tone of their calling voices, Mitotsudaira decided to leave Rudolf II to them.

But there was one thing she had to do first.

…''Here it is.

A memo on parchment had fallen among the scraps of uniform found between the chain and sword on the torn ground.

That memo was from Carlos I, chancellor of M.H.R.R. from two generations ago.

Mitotsudaira picked it up.

“…?”

She saw a naked form lying on the grassy ground.

It was Rudolf II, but…

…''A girl?

This was not the male form she had first seen. It resembled the form he had completed during their battle, but it was still different. The girl lying unconscious there looked a little softer and a little less solid.

Had the emperor’s divine protection provided him with the optimal female form during the battle?

Or…

“Was he really a woman…but was forced to take a male form at a young age to become emperor?”

''I’m reading too much into this,'' she thought. ''But,'' she also thought.

“——————”

''Well, it doesn’t really matter,'' she concluded with a shake of the head. He would be the one to decide what form he took from here on.

He had confirmed that he could feel pain and had therefore become a child of man.

So…

…''I’m sure he’ll choose the form he actually wants and not one he feels forced into.

As a knight, she bowed toward the sleeping emperor.

The two women ran past her.

“Master Rudolf!”

She turned her back on their voices and faced forward.

The others were there.

Mitotsudaira looked to the others as if she had not seen them in a long while.

One of them rushed forward.

“My king.”

She smiled at him as he scratched his head, looked directly at her, and approached.

Suddenly, she remembered slamming him into the wall during the battle.

“You really saved me?”

“Why was that a question?”

''Oh, that’s right,'' she thought. While wondering how to explain, she took a step forward to hand him the memo. And as she got closer, a familiar scent reached her nose.

“…”

She fell to her knees and her mind went dark.

Her tension left her and she passed out.

Asama sighed after receiving word via Magdeburg’s M.H.R.R. Protestants.

She faced forward and spoke into the plaza in front of the cathedral.

“A night bird spirit just delivered a letter from outside the city. Apparently…um, Toori-kun and the others have acquired Carlos I’s memo.”

She was speaking to Masazumi who sat next to her on one of the plaza’s benches.

'''Vice President:''' “Sounds like they did a good job. Was that Mitotsudaira’s doing?”

'''Asama:''' “According to Naito, Mito tore Rudolf II to pieces in a locked room, jumped humming from a great height, sliced him in two, turned him to mincemeat, and had him reincarnated as a beautiful girl.”

'''Mal-Ga:''' “Yeah, that’ll happen.”

'''Righteousness:''' “Eh?”

They were sharing their communications with the Germans, so Asama looked forward and saw them frowning to each other. The silver god of war and Anne were silently looking her way from the center of the plaza. Asama decided to ignore all of them and she had something more to say.

'''Asama:''' “It seems Rudolf II has ‘retreated’ along with his bodyguards. After Toori-kun received the memo from Mito, he gave it to the Reine des Garous, so their mission from Hexagone
Française is complete. They are apparently headed this way, but…”

'''Vice President:''' “Hexagone Française is set to arrive at 7:30, but that isn’t long since it’s already a quarter after. It may be best for them to stay put in that southern region.”

'''Wise Sister:''' “What if they get ‘protected’ while they take their time there? And you know what else? We’re in trouble, too. Even if Hexagone Française is on the way to give her paramour a beating, a woman mustn’t neglect her own protection. …Are there anti-air defenses set up around the city? Can you tell us, nerd?”

'''Novice:''' “I had that checked a moment ago. An anti-air and anti-ground defensive barrier are set up around the cathedral. It covers the city walls with a focus on the river side. The output devices have copies of the Testament loaded at each crucial point, so they should be fairly obvious. …I’d say it can stop something of around Dragon-class. Instead of reflecting the damage, it redirects it.”

'''Mal-Ga:''' “That’s quite a bit of power. Is that because the cathedral contains the bodies of Otto I and his wife?”

Asama looked to the cathedral. Its two spires had the roof removed and Testament copies were loaded into the cone shape.

…''There’s an umbrella of ether above.

She could see it quite well with Konoha, her prosthetic left eye. It redirected rather than reflecting, so the fluid light flowed down from the center of the umbrella.

Ones shaped like vertical walls were located around the outer edges of the city, but…

'''Mal-Ga:''' “That will work well against big targets, but the flow will stall wherever it’s hit, won’t it? Do they have wiper spells to keep objects from sitting on them and do the wall ones harden instantaneously?”

'''Novice:''' “They do in the most important spots. However, the hardening walls leave gaps, so they’re supported by the front and back of the redirecting waterfalls. I expect they’ll hold up to any projectiles.”

“So,” he continued.

'''Novice:''' “The only question is how M.H.R.R. will react to Hexagone Française’s entrance.”

…''It’s like a negotiation of power.

Asama gave a mental nod.

This was a form of negotiation between two powerful nations with their obligations and futures on the line. They hesitated over, relied on, used, and enforced the guidelines of the Testament descriptions.

“Hm? What is it, Asama? Why are you squeezing your boobs between your arms? Do you want me to shove my hand in between!? Do you!? You do, don’t you!?”

She ignored the wiggling crazy person. Also, the three hundred crossdressers on the other end of the park were doing curls with metal dumbbells and shouting, “We’re not going to let you win! Bigger! We need bigger busts!” Although she was fairly sure that was strengthening their pecs, not increasing their bust size.

At any rate, she heard a rumbling of the air far to the west and Tomoe turned in that direction.

“So the Hexagone Française fleet has exited stealth mode to let us know they’re approaching.”

''Yes,'' thought Asama with a sigh of relief.

“…?”

She then thought she heard a sound.

Asama glanced in the direction of the sound.

It was to the southwest.

…''Did I just hear something like a wave in the distance?

She heard it again.

“————”

It was definitely from the southwest. As she looked more closely in that direction, Tomoe reacted first and the silver god of war named Palais-Cardinal raised its head. Tomoe frowned.

“Hashiba’s strategist is Takenaka, isn’t it? That was an oddly quick decision.”

Before Tomoe had even finished speaking, the sound reached them more clearly.

Countless overlapping metallic sounds combined into something resembling a wave. It sounded like it was all welling up from the ground.

“To the east!”

The eastern earth had moved on the Elbe’s opposite bank. Or so it seemed.

In reality, the siege troops had moved all at once.

They were moving south toward the bridge leading to Magdeburg’s south side. And they were not alone. The warriors to the north, south, and west were moving as well.

“————!!”

They raised their voices as one, created countless metallic sounds, and began to march.

As the earth rumbled, the cathedral’s stained glass and the shutters on the nearby houses shook.

The great noise roared and the movement of the thirty thousand warriors looked like the movement of the earth itself. They surrounded the city from every direction with no gaps and they created tremendous sound and motion.

'''Vice President:''' “Eh? Wait a second…”

Asama looked at the clock. The M.H.R.R. Catholics were supposed to attack at eight o’clock, but…

“Wait! It’s still 7:20! Isn’t this forty minutes early!?”

'''Righteousness:''' “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll tell you what I can see from Righteousness’s shoulder.”

Yoshiyasu’s divine transmission described the source of the sound.

'''Righteousness:''' “The thirty thousand M.H.R.R. warriors surrounding Magdeburg are all preparing to attack. An assault unit of five thousand has already split away from the main group. They will probably rush in to combat range in ten minutes.”

The enemy was moving before the announced time. Asama trembled at that fact.

…''W-wait a second. Um…

“It’s 7:20, right? Even if Hexagone Française arrives in ten minutes, the siege troops will be coming in at the same time, so…”

The M.H.R.R. Catholics would begin the Sack in the time it took for Hexagone Française to deploy their troops after arriving.

“If that happens, um, it should end up like this.”

Asama typed out what would happen and showed the others.

“It’s 7:20 right now, so…”

'''Ten minutes from now (7:30): Hexagone Française arrives in Magdeburg

'''Same time: M.H.R.R Catholics begin Sack of Magdeburg.

'''Twenty-five minutes from now (7:45): Hexagone Française deploys their troops and attacks siege troops?

'''Same time: M.H.R.R. Catholics complete Sack of Magdeburg.

“As things stand, Hexagone Française won’t make it in time!”

Neshinbara then spoke.

'''Novice:''' “The siege troops’ five thousand man assault unit contains one thousand using high-speed mobile shells. Given the state of modern high-speed battles, they will probably conquer a city the size of Magdeburg in fifteen minutes, even if you add in the time it takes to cross the city walls.”

If the Sack was beginning in ten minutes, that was a total of twenty-five minutes away.

The Sack would be over by the time Hexagone Française attacked.

“Wh-what is going on!? Why is the enemy starting earlier than their already early start!?”

Asama wondered if she was just too honest. This may have been how the negotiation known as war worked.

Everyone fell silent, but Adele finally typed out a message.

'''Flat Vassal:''' “Did they learn their reinforcements from K.P.A. Italia would make it?”

'''Novice:''' “Even if they did, there’s no need to start immediately and get themselves caught in a pincer movement between Magdeburg and Hexagone Française. But…what in the world is this? Do they think the early start will give us less time to prepare and weaken our pincer movement? Or is this a suicide attack focused on the overall benefit?”

They all exchanged a glance, but none of them had an answer.

However, Tomoe stood up and looked across all of them.

“Regardless, the battle is beginning. M.H.R.R’s thirty thousand siege troops are here early. That’s all we need to know. If it’s going to take Hexagone Française twenty-five minutes to attack…”

Then…

“We have to hold out until then somehow or another. …We have ten minutes to prepare! Hurry! It’s time for the kind of resistance fight I love so much!!”

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 3C Chapter 71|Chapter 71]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 3C Chapter 73|Chapter 73]]
}}
</noinclude>

Owari no Chronicle:Volume14 Chapter 7

2015-06-14T21:23:22Z

85.218.237.213: Two typo fixes.

==Chapter 7: Voice of the Just One==
[[Image:OnC_v14_0251.png|thumb]]
''Say your answer

''You say

''Your answer in your calling

The sky was an infinite expanse.

To fly, one only needed acceleration.

An increase in speed increased the resistance from the thick atmosphere.

It felt like digging through piled-up snow.

One spoke with acceleration there and it allowed movement in any direction.

If airspace was seen as a place of invisible resistance, then everyone there was a resister.

And Heo was currently resisting that sky.

Her body was in high-speed mobility form.

Her wings were half closed and she flew toward the heavens as if leaning back.

She made a large turn in the great heights to shift from a vertical rise into a descent.

An enemy pursued her from behind.

A stream of bullets flew her way and she was cutting through them with her turn.

After rotating around, she needed to get behind the enemy.

…''But I’m so heavy.

She was already moving quickly and the turn was a fight against her inertial weight.

The great speed increased her weight several times over.

Her body shook from the air resistance and she could only hear a great roar in her ears.

Her frame creaked and she lightly hopped through the gaps in the wind.

She was moving at blinding speed.

She thought her entire body would be knocked down into her belly that was pointed toward heaven.

She had used 5th-Gear’s concept to set forwards as “down”, but that did not eliminate the inertial forces of the turn.

The wind captured her body and tried to drag her into its raging stream, but she resisted.

She was constantly resisting.

She viewed herself as a blade sticking into a muddy stream and she sliced through the turbulent air.

“Nn…”

Her wings were blades and her body was the helm.

She read the course of the wind, kept it from carrying her away, and cut sharply into it so she did not collide with it.

Her upwards momentum made it difficult to obtain downward thrust, but…

“Nn…!!”

As she leaned backwards, the tips of her wings caught the air.

She rode that air and turned.

She saw the pursuing bullets scatter into the sky above.

Immediately afterwards, her senses detected a certain presence.

Alex had just shot up past her.

Their relative speeds meant their passing truly only lasted an instant.

The red light of acceleration was undoubtedly flying in search of greater heights.

This meant it was her turn to pursue.

At the same time, she heard Harakawa as his body shook from the centrifugal force.

“Heo, let’s go after him!!”

“Right!” she replied.

She bent back her jaw, extended her back, and brought air to her lungs.

“Nn…!”

She kicked at the air like it was water and instantly oriented herself upwards.

The sky was there and the points of starlight acted as the backdrop for the residual light of the accelerators.

That was Alex.

She pursued him. She used the centrifugal force of her three-dimensional turn to launch herself skyward.

Her acceleration had a target: herself and her other self.

“Here we go!!”

She threw herself forward.

Her enemy fired a barrage behind him and their relative speeds made it a wall of accelerated bullets.

She did not care.

She reached out a hand to pinpoint the locations of the destructive projectiles with her fingertips.

And she avoided them.

She shot forward, turned, and folded up her wings to slip through the straight lines and attacking smoke.

When she struck the air, it turned to spray and her body shook as if to keep her from making any minor adjustments to her movement.

But she knew one way of controlling that shaking.

She could accelerate forward to eliminate it.

And she did so.

While slipping through the roaring barrage, she chose acceleration as her way of ensuring proper control.

Now the shaking only came from the tail end. It was nothing but speed to push her onward.

She wished to reach even greater heights. Barrage or not, she simply wanted to continue upwards.

The heavens could be found nowhere else, so she accelerated.

She seemed to be showing off her acceleration to the surface.

She tore through the cold air in pursuit of the red acceleration light up ahead.

She saw the red light turn toward the western sky.

Threads of mist trailed from the tips of the mechanical dragon’s wings and those moonlit threads made their way to the white tower reaching toward the heavens.

Her enemy had chosen Babel’s surface as their battlefield.

That battlefield was a vertical drop off from fifteen kilometers up.

Those still on the surface could see the light.

While providing first aid for Hiba’s wound, Mikage saw two powers rapidly dropping from the heavens.

She also saw the white tower rising high into the sky.

The pair of powers dropped toward that tower’s surface.

The powers drew lines.

Those twin beasts drew two white lines through the night sky.

They were vapor trails.

The two of them repeatedly intersected and dropped down.

They would sometimes separate, make a circuit of the tower, collide on the other side, and then collide again on this side.

The white trails would occasionally swell out.

…''That’s their acceleration.

That battle had reached speeds Susamikado could not hope to match.

Heo wished for the speed and Harakawa provided it.

Even the initial speed of gravitational acceleration meant nothing to them as they descended.

“Don’t worry,” muttered Mikage.

She was speaking to the white and blue dragon of the two machines accelerating toward the earth.

“Don’t worry!”

After all…

“You’re the one that defeated Black Sun!!”

Alex flew along Noah’s armor on his way down to the surface.

He was using his full strength.

Threads of mist trailed from every leading point on his armor and his own movements left an afterimage behind them.

But something was catching up to and biting at the white trail behind him.

It was Thunder Fellow.

His enemy had kept her position behind him, he could not shake her, and she was using her speed to catch up.

''What an absurd enemy,'' he thought.

Alex knew Noah.

He had lived inside it.

The layout of its surface portion was contained in his memories, so he knew where the walls and corridors were.

His enemy on the other hand knew nothing.

But despite knowing nothing, she was fearlessly pursuing him.

It would be easy to call it reckless.

It would be difficult to call it courageous.

But Alex instead thought of her as insane.

If she was reckless, she would back off once she made a mistake.

If she was courageous, she would keep her distance from a battlefield that put her at such a disadvantage.

But she readily flew into this place.

She had acceleration and flight.

She had movement and mobility.

She simply trusted in those powers and attempted to surpass him.

And so he accelerated.

He slipped through the gaps in the residences and actuators on Noah’s surface, split the narrow air, flew along Noah’s armor, and threw on even more speed.

He was entirely focused on his flight.

He seemed to be saying he was the one that belonged above this nostalgic battlefield.

But he heard something from the rumbling of the air that refused to leave him.

His rear sight could see it.

Thunder Fellow had stumbled over a rise in Noah’s surface residences.

But despite stumbling, the dragon did not flee.

It remained on the same path, pursuing Alex.

It only had to accelerate to make up for the lost speed and it relied on its strength to continue its flight.

…''Such…

He spoke aloud.

“Such a villainous and inelegant flight!!”

He had to defeat this enemy.

He could hear a crying voice from the surface.

Those were Tatsumi’s tears.

Who had made her cry?

No, he knew the answer. There was a single obvious reason for her tears.

…''Because my justice was lacking!!

No matter the reason, no matter the interpretation, and no matter the emotions, the power of justice had to silence a child’s tears and send them on to the next sequence.

It did not matter if they were crying over their own crimes and what they had lost.

“Justice is what rids the world of even those tears!!”

Alex remembered when he had wished to be a hero.

Heroes were what had rid him of his tears when his parents had not returned and he was left all alone.

Someone had told him that heroes only existed on TV.

But that was wrong.

That nonsense reasoning was what only existed on TV.

Heroes could exist in reality.

…''It’s just that everyone else gives up!

One only had to say a certain phrase – one little phrase – no matter the circumstances and even in public.

“I wish to keep others from crying!”

Once he said it, he would be able to act on it.

And so he did act on it and he fought.

He raised his speed and pointed his cannons toward his pursuing enemy.

“Enemy! Will you obstruct my justice!?”

But his enemy kept coming.

The blue and white mechanical dragon seemed to be racing more than flying.

It stacked acceleration on top of acceleration like a young bird flapping its wings in order to reach the sky.

The blue and white dragon flew swiftly across the Top-Gear construction.

It was fast.

As if pressing in on and distorting the air, it shot forward and nearly into arm’s reach.

“————!”

As soon as he realized his enemy was alongside him, Alex heard a voice.

“Why!?”

It was a girl’s voice, Heo Thunderson’s voice.

She asked her question with strength behind her voice.

“Why?”

Her question reached him.

“Why do you try to keep others from crying!?”

“That should be obvious!!”

Alex had his body rush forward and downward.

“That is where my justice lies!”

Heo thought to herself while placing her body on the forefront of her speed.

…''That’s wrong!

Her thought of rejection was directed at Alex’s words.

She felt exhausted, as if she were running out of oxygen.

Her moving parts were tense and she felt she would lose control and trip if she relaxed her focus.

She had run full speed all this way with this unfamiliar battlefield as her track.

The great exhaustion of her tension was also exhausting Thunder Fellow.

But her thoughts were clear.

She was flying. She was clearly in flight.

Her confidence that she was in a position of absolute freedom brought clarity to her and her opponent’s wills.

And that allowed her to make a statement she normally could not have.

…''That’s wrong!

Her mind raised a powerful rejection to the justice Alex spoke of.

“Justice is keeping people from crying? That…that can’t be right!”

After all…

“Whenever I cried I kept crying!!”

Yes. That was how it had always been for her.

But Alex gave her an answer from the forefront of the wind.

“That is because there was no justice around you!!”

His dignified statement gave Heo a thought.

…''That may be true.

''But,'' she also thought.

There was a word in her heart that she was not sure if she could call “justice”.

“Then…”

She waited the span of a breath before shouting.

“Then why was I able to run again!?”

She accelerated as if pulled onwards by the question.

She bit at the bearer of justice, demanding he give her an answer.

“No one ever stopped my tears!”

She had only had a single truth.

She yelled what she could call her past experience.

“Instead, everyone gave me a certain something!”

“And what was that!?”

That was an easy question to answer, so she released the words in her heart like a bullet.

“The ability to choose for myself! It was nothing more than that!!”

Her cry was immediately followed by approaching darkness.

The metal darkness appearing overhead was Noah’s lower armor.

There was a vast hangar below the armor and it was located quite near the ground.

Heo thought she knew what it was.

…''Noah’s mechanical dragon launch zone!?

It was two kilometers long and at least five hundred meters wide.

The thin, flat exit was located straight ahead.

The ground was visible past that exit and there was less than a kilometer until she reached it.

“…!”

She had already run around a dozen kilometers from the top of the massive tower.

She had flown the entire way with a focus on acceleration.

If she did not begin an ascent immediately after leaving the exit, she would crash into the ground before she could rid herself of her speed.

She gasped for just a moment.

Her body was approaching its limits from the exhaustion of the run, so…

…''Shouldn’t I slow down here to avoid crashing into the-…

But that was when she saw Alex’s acceleration light grow in front of her.

He had added on more speed.

“————!”

He had eloquently told her what he intended to do.

If he moved ahead and left the exit, she would lose sight of him in an instant.

Lagging behind was dangerous and the greater the distance between them, the greater that danger.

She realized she could only pull up closer to him, but…

…''No.

Her next words seemed to reject her own timidity.

“I can’t just pull up closer to him. I have to pass him!”

She breathed in.

Her body was growing stiff.

She briefly shrank down, thinking this would be her final run.

And she suddenly raised her hips, directed all of her acceleration backwards, and blasted it all out toward the sky.

“Here I go!”

She launched herself forward.

Two speeds raced through the two kilometer tunnel.

Both of them had already broken the sound barrier.

The large tunnel’s ceiling was thirty meters high.

For a mechanical dragon, a light jump would hit it.

The only options for those two speeds were horizontal or straightforward movement.

The leading speed, Alex, fired on Thunder Fellow who was pursuing him.

The enemy had approached too much for this great speed.

Thunder Fellow passed by the homing bullets before their homing capability could kick in.

Alex could not rely on bullets here.

The only effective attacks were the lightning from the pairs of secondary cannons on his left and right sides.

His red lightning pursued Thunder Fellow with quick whip-like motion.

Thunder Fellow fired bluish-white lightning from his own secondary cannons.

Amid the darkness, atop their speed, and below their straight down trajectory, the two machines fired barrages of light and accelerated to evade.

They swung to either side as if being knocked back and they tilted their bodies until they were very nearly scraping against the floor.

“…!”

Each time either one locked on, they would fire their lethal attacks.

They never let up.

Their enemy’s attacks would fire, approach, and arrive too close to know for sure they could avoid it.

“————!”

And they would fire their own attacks.

The bright lightning intersected between them and the world exploded with light.

They left the noise and explosions behind.

Theirs was a world of speed, shadow, blue, and red.

Even the scattering fragments of the floor and ceiling were left behind.

They accelerated.

They accelerated to the very limit.

But Alex saw something.

The enemy was gradually approaching behind him.

''Impossible,'' he thought.

The ground was approaching from below.

Alex accelerated without fearing a collision with that solid ground.

He had no intention of going easy on her, and yet…

…''Why is she catching up!?

That was when he realized Thunder Fellow was leaning forward.

…''What is that?

That was not the pose of someone who simply did not fear crashing into the ground.

“Does she see the surface as her goal!?”

The enemy was not even looking at him. She had even stopped firing on him.

Heo Thunderson, the girl who had combined with Thunder Fellow, had most likely made a certain decision: she would run and win.

Her goal was the surface and he was only a fellow runner.

…''She’s insane!

Alex filled his heart with the desire to accelerate and clenched his metal fangs.

…''Does she see this high-speed battle as no different from a footrace!?

However, she was not looking his way.

She was only looking at what she had decided was her goal.

She was looking in a straight line.

Thunder Fellow accelerated as they entered the second half of the tunnel.

This second half was the last spurt.

Thunder Fellow broke through the air it was pushing forward and its blue and white form appeared to shake.

Alex’s calculations told him she would pass him in an instant, so he attacked.

He did what he needed to as a fellow runner on this battlefield.

And he did not go easy on her.

He forcibly rolled his body and pointed his belly toward the ceiling.

“Here goes!!”

Turned upside down, he raced along the ceiling.

This was a dangerous decision.

Unlike the launch zone’s floor, the upper surface was covered in piping and air conditioning ducts.

And it was all wrapped in darkness.

But Alex had decided that would be his floor.

He needed to fly along there to fire from the multi-shot container on his back.

At this speed, his homing bullets were left behind before they could recognize the enemy, but what would happen if he scattered bullets from the ceiling?

A wall of bullets would appear before Thunder Fellow as it flew along the floor.

This would work given their speed and the low ceiling.

Alex could see the shadows of the pipes and outcroppings below him. He also saw internal communication antennae.

If he hit any one of them, he would be blown away.

But he would not hit them.

Justice would not hit them.

He preserved himself by flying just barely out of the way.

He stayed on a straight line while slipping past it all.

The wind and noise of his passing caused the antennae, deactivated lights, and other ceiling structures to split and burst.

Shards of glass fell like rain and reflected the lightning that the two of them continued firing.

''It’s like the ocean spray,'' thought Alex. ''Such a pleasant scattering.

The tunnel’s exit was visible up ahead.

Immediately afterwards, the enemy arrived.

The enemy sank down in order to pass him.

And she did so from directly behind him.

There was less than fifteen meters of space between Alex and the floor, but Thunder Fellow was trying to slip through that gap.

Both mechanical dragons were about ten meters tall, so they would have to hug the floor to prevent a near miss.

But despite moving at supersonic speeds at that altitude, Thunder Fellow sank even further down.

…''She really is insane!!

His enemy had cast aside her fear.

She was only looking at her goal and that fact sent a chill to Alex’s mind.

…''Can justice not get through to her?

As if to answer him, Thunder Fellow accelerated even further.

Alex’s scans confirmed that Thunder Fellow threw more acceleration behind itself while flying only fifteen centimeters off the floor.

She was coming and not from the side.

She was coming straight in as if to face him. She wished to unmistakably overtake him.

She had done more than say it all came down to speed.

Her flight had thrown away everything except for speed.

This was a time of battle, and yet she was fighting through speed alone.

''In that case,'' thought Alex as he gave his response.

He fired the bullets from his back.

“———!!”

Not even his own ears heard the attack name.

All sound was swept behind them as the barrage flew backwards as if he had overturned a bucket.

He scored a direct hit.

The scarlet flames looked like a line of light.

The object they had struck was moving so quickly that the explosion was deflected and stretched out.

Alex saw his enemy beyond the multiple flashing lights that resembled firecrackers.

It was a mechanical dragon’s silhouette.

It appeared after pushing through the light and smoke.

Just to make sure, Alex fired on it.

The red lightning swept through the air, split open the exploding light, and tore into the shadow.

The twin lightning strikes tore through the silhouette which was trying to break free of the smoke.

Both red lightning bolts struck, electrical discharges and sparks flew, and the shadow shook.

“!!”

It finally collided with the floor.

That collision during their high-speed fall caused it to bounce high.

That was when it broke free of the smoke.

…''It isn’t Thunder Fellow!?

Alex instead saw a collection of framework that closely resembled a mechanical dragon.

“Did she throw forward one of her other frames as a shield!?”

Confused, Alex looked more closely and saw something slip below the normal cruising frame that had bounced up and stabbed into the ceiling.

The blue and white silhouette moved forward.

“Thunder Fellow!”

Alex then saw Thunder Fellow’s opened mouth turned his way.

The dragon’s roar tore into everything.

It closely resembled a racer’s cry of effort.

“————!!”

The roar then produced light.

At the same time, the bluish-white main cannon tore through Alex.

Heo saw the attack hit.

She had defeated her other self. She had defeated that high-speed flight-style heavy mechanical dragon that advocated justice.

Beyond the explosion of light, his armor was blown away and smashed to pieces.

…''I won…

''I won?

Her dumbfounded heart quickly sapped all strength from her body.

She entrusted everything to the speed she was riding.

“…”

She started to breathe a sigh of relief, but…

“Look again!”

Harakawa’s voice awoke her senses.

Before she could ask what he meant, she saw it and heard Harakawa explain it.

“We didn’t hit him!”

Fragments flew their way from beyond the destructive light, but they had not been smashed from his body.

“He purged his armor to use it as a shield! He shot it toward us like a bullet!”

The result was clear.

She felt the great pressure of a presence behind her.

That was her enemy.

He had purged his armor and instantly circled behind them.

A few pieces of the destroyed armor had taken the main cannon blast, deflected it, and produced a smokescreen of light.

The few remaining pieces flew their way like shells.

“————!!”

They collided with her.

The enemy’s armor struck her right shoulder, left arm, lower chest on both sides, right stomach, right upper leg, and left lower leg.

It hurt as bad as a hit from a hammer.

Before she could think, she had flown out of the tunnel.

She was thrown out into empty air and she had lost control due to the armor shells.

She rotated in three dimensions and saw the sky for just a moment.

In that moment, the color red filled the center of her vision.

That was Alex’s main cannon.

The now lighter mechanical dragon let out a roar.

“…!”

And it slammed Heo straight into the ground.

The battlefield on the moonlit earth was filled with something that shined.

A giant tower sat at the center of the wide field and the light falling on the ground there was the moonlight reflected off of wreckage. The wreckage came from dolls.

Those white, humanoid forms were strewn across the ground after having been destroyed in every way imaginable.

Some just lay there, some had been skewered, some had large gouges torn from them, and some had been crushed.

There was a pattern to their destruction.

First, the wires connecting their joints were cut and then bullets or explosives were fired or shoved into the entrances and exits for those wires.

The technique required high precision and speed.

But more dolls yet remained. Nearly three digits’ worth surrounded the tower from a distance.

Their gazes were all focused on one point.

A few figures stood in front of the tower, protecting its entrance.

They were maid automatons and the central one had a machinegun floating to either side of her.

Counting the red-haired one wielding the machineguns, there were three.

Injured maids were sleeping in the coolers placed behind them.

They no longer had handguns floating around them.

Their only weapons were knives with chipped blades and their other guns.

The one on the left opened her mouth.

She had lost her right shoulder and she spoke to the red-haired automaton.

“I will create a diversion, #8-sama.”

“No, you will not.”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> used her gravitational control to swap out ammunition belts while giving that dignified response.

A case hung down from the ammunition belt she dragged from the cooler.

The case fell to the ground, now empty.

But #8 looked around regardless.

“The enemy is numerous, but if we avoid any unnecessary attacks and focus our efforts…”

As soon as she said that, the maid to her right, whose left hand was destroyed, narrowed her eyes and spoke.

“Here they come!”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> turned in that maid’s direction and saw the forest shaking.

A moment later, a wall of wind reached her.

New dolls appeared, seemingly born from the forest surrounding the plain.

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> frowned.

“More of them?”

“No,” said the maid to her right with a shake of her head. “They are not the only ones coming.”

There was also a giant figure.

A giant doll appeared, towering above the trees of the forest.

This was one of the same large dolls that had approached Japanese UCAT on the night of the Army’s attack.

The doll held a giant sashimi knife in each hand and it was nearly ten meters tall.

This was a remote-controlled doll the size of a god of war.

“————”

<nowiki>#8</nowiki> calculated out the enemy’s strength and compared it to their own.

“I see.”

The other two automatons turned toward her.

“#8-sama?”

She nodded and responded while closing her shared memory

“You two retreat along with those behind us.”

“Why!?”

The answer was simple.

“My duty is to protect.”

“W-we can also-…”

“No,” said #8 to cut them off. She looked back and forth between the other two. “My duty is to protect my master. You have yet to find your masters, so go. I desire to remain here. That is what I have determined.”

Her words were accompanied by a great sound from the sky.

She looked up and saw two mechanical dragons flying along Babel’s surface.

The automatons’ eyes saw exactly what happened.

Thunder Fellow was hit by Alex’s main cannon and fell into the southern mountain range.

That mechanical dragon was Team Leviathan’s greatest individual strength, but it had been shot down.

The automatons on the left and right froze when they saw it, but #8 did not.

Expressionless, she took a slow step forward.

The two now behind her frantically turned her way, so she addressed them.

“What does it matter if the mechanical dragon was shot down? My master is still safe. And…”

She nodded.

“While they may fall to the earth, none of those around us will remain there.”

“————”

“Now,” she said. “Go. You are in the way of my and my master’s master-servant relationship.”

She closed her eyes as she spoke and a slight pause followed.

Before long, she heard footsteps on either side behind her. They were stepping on the grass and moving away.

She heard them grab the coolers, but she heard nothing after that.

She had already rushed out to the battlefield.

Heo could not breathe.

She tried to move her belly to breathe, but the air would not enter her lungs.

She was lying on her back, but she did not know if she could move.

She simply trembled while facing the night sky.

She remembered the shaking and shock to her body.

She also remembered the fear.

That shaking and emotion reminded her what had happened.

She had purged her armor to reduce the force of the main cannon blast.

She had fallen, but in the instant of the crash, she had forcibly changed the direction in which she “fell” and avoided a direct hit with the earth.

The last thing she had seen was the forest slope and she did not know what had happened to her afterwards.

She sighed.

Long ago, her shoelace had come untied as she ran the hundred meters and she had tripped.

Just like now, she had not known what had happened to her and the shock had left her mind blank.

At the moment, she could tell the trees around her had all fallen, shimmering heat and thin smoke rose from her body, she had removed most of the armor that could be thought of as her clothes, and…

…''There’s light.

Overhead, a red light in the heavens was slowly growing in intensity.

She did not understand what was happening, but she knew for certain that she would die if that red light continued to grow.

The word “death” easily came to mind.

She had accepted that word of ending because she no longer understood anything.

…''It’s over.

She felt tears in her eyes and she felt like none of her would move, but this was not due to the fall.

…''I lost.

She had given it everything she had, but it had not been enough.

She had rejected her opponent’s justice, but she had not defeated him.

She felt her speed had not been enough to overtake him.

A single thought entered her mind.

…''There’s no point in moving anymore.

So she did not move.

It was not that she thought nothing of the red light that would soon be sent her way.

“But I lost…”

So there was nothing she could do.

But then…

“Heo.”

She heard a voice.

“Heo Thunderson.”

At first, she did not know whose voice it was and she briefly did not even realize it was her name being called.

But as soon as she realized both who the voice belonged to and whose name it was, the voice called again.

“Can you hear me, Heo Thunderson?”

It was Harakawa and she responded to him.

“Y-yes.”

She forcefully took the breath she had been previously unable to take.

“Wh-what is it?”

“Well,” he gently replied. “Are you going to die, Heo?”

“Eh?”

It shocked her that someone else – even someone so close to her – had guessed so perfectly what she was thinking.

“H-how did you know that?”

“Then listen carefully, Heo.”

“Okay,” she said just before she heard his next words.

“Get up.”

Harakawa was stretched out on top of the upside-down pilot’s seat.

He was being held there by gravitational control, so the grass and the distant forest looked upside down to him.

His legs were placed up on the console and his arms were behind his head in a pose of relaxation.

“Do as you wish, Heo,” he said.

“A-as I wish…?”

He understood why she was so confused.

She was an active girl. She did not wish for a simple life like he did.

That active side of her gave her many things and expanded her world, but simplicity had its own strengths.

…''If you’re knocked down, you can live on in your simplicity and you don’t think too much of it.

Both happiness and unhappiness were averaged out and you avoided both.

But Heo was different. She had harsh ups and harsh downs.

“This goes beyond bipolar disorder. You could probably call it the UCAT disorder.”

“Wh-what are you talking about!?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

And he had a thought: ''What does it matter if you lose once or twice?

He did not say it out loud, but he did say it in his heart.

…''Some people can’t even accept the challenge. Compared to that, what’s so bad about losing?

She had not died.

Yes.

“Thunder Fellow and I stayed at the controls during the crash. We removed just the frame which made the whole thing more pliable and let most of the impact escape. Most of the armor was stripped away, but we protected everything necessary for flight and attack and the frame isn’t even scratched.”

Which meant…

“If you want to fly, you can fly. If you want to die, you can die. You can just as easily choose either action.”

“B-but…”

''Don’t worry about it Heo Thunderson.

…''This is a race.

''Your enemy outdid you in the previous match, but that was on his battlefield.

“Hey,” he asked. “What is your justice, Heo Thunderson?”

“Well…”

She hesitated to answer but finally spoke.

“Why do you always ask me so many questions?”

“That’s simple. I don’t have the answers, so that’s my form of justice, Heo Thunderson. That’s why I only ever ask someone who can reach the answer on their own.”

“Eh?”

“I won’t say it again. Don’t forget it.”

With that, he sat up and operated the communicator.

“Can you hear it?”

“H-hear what?”

''I’ll tell you.

“The ridiculous song of the ridiculous people seeking your justice.”

After some static, she heard a song arriving over the communicator.

The American UCAT members were singing as they continued to fight.

“Can you hear it? That’s the American national anthem, ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.”

She heard the song they sang to encourage themselves.

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light

“What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?

“Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,

“O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?

“And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

“Gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there.

“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

Heo saw something.

In the winter sky directly in front of her, the northern end was brighter.

She saw a certain light beyond the red light of death.

It was the North Star.

She remembered the meaning that star held for her.

…''Once…

Once, a mechanical dragon had ascended toward that star.

That dragon had a heart and that was exactly why he had gone mad.

In the very end, he had asked her name and she had replied with the name of happiness.

…''I answered him.

''So,'' she thought.

“If I have my own brand of justice…”

She got up.

“If I do…!!”

She could not complete this lying down.

“It is not to keep people from crying!!”

She filled her body with strength and shook her own aching body.

“It is to ensure everyone’s happiness by watching over them and holding out your hand…”

She opened her mouth and filled her lungs with air.

“But letting them choose everything for themselves!!”

With that shout, she heard a voice.

“On your mark.”

It was a precious voice.

“Get set.”

It was the precious voice of someone precious.

“Go ahead!”

Just after he gave her a mental push forward, the red light in the heavens shot down towards the earth.

But just before it did, Heo flew.

She escaped the light of death and flew toward the center of the heavens.

She flew toward the star there.

Thunder Fellow ascended.

Alex realized his enemy had recovered.

His red main cannon scorched the air and swept across the earth, but its target was no longer there.

The blue and white mechanical dragon ascended along a spiraling path that seemed to wrap around the afterimage of the red light.

…''So she’s coming!

He opened the multi-shot container installed in his body and fired the bullets.

However, the enemy seemed to forcefully swing her body around as she bent the air and flew.

She rotated through the bullets, leaned back, and yet…

“———!!”

Her direct ascent made the space between them meaningless.

So Alex wished to continue their battle.

He lit up his accelerators.

From here on, having speed only put him on an even level with her.

The battle would occur in the heavens above.

Their speed had already turned every point in those heavens into an aerial battlefield.

A dragon’s flight negated all distance.

The dragon below exposed its body in its ascent as if negating any time created by the distance between them.

Alex used all his strength to climb the slope into the heavens, but the pursuing blue and white form caught up in an instant.

…''Well done!

“So this is your justice!”

He understood.

He had heard his enemy’s earlier shout.

…''Happiness.

Then what was happiness to his other self?

“————”

He looked across the heavens during his direct ascent.

He had a clear view.

The chill and shadows of night spread out in all three hundred sixty degrees and created a vast emptiness, but…

“Is it to bathe in this frigid freedom, Heo Thunderson!?”

Heo did not answer.

She simply displayed her speed and her ascent along a gouging arc.

She seemed to have grown even faster than before.

…''No.

Before, they had been fought as they descended.

But this was different.

If they forgot to ascend, they would fall. If they did not constantly desire speed, they could not even remain where they were.

Heo Thunderson saw that as entirely natural.

She flew with even greater speed than when they had been falling. Her flight here was a fight against gravity and…

…''Has she gone insane in her resistance!?

“No… Have you gone insane in your own happiness, Heo Thunderson!?”

They exchanged cannon blasts as their speeds collided and separated.

The bullets that missed their mark drew long arcs through the night sky.

The escaped speed became arcs of water vapor that decorated the night sky.

It was much like a high-speed dance.

They would approach their enemy but then move away to avoid that enemy’s attacks.

There was evasion and attack.

The flying lightning strikes were like outstretched hands.

The rolling scissors used to avoid them were much like turns.

All the while, the two dragons raced up into the night sky.

The earth was visible down below.

They saw the night of this planet, this country, this mountainous region, and the surrounding cities.

There was light, there was flickering, there was movement, and people lived there.

The moonlight created a clear division between earth and sea and a different country’s lights were visible beyond that sea.

This was a world with nothing to hear and everything to see.

The two mechanical dragons intersected their attacks and evasions in that world.

All the while, they ascended.

Their paths created a double helix which connected the earth below to the heavens above.

There was a single sound there.

It was a song.

A girl’s voice sang a song of fluttering stars with her own meaning in mind.

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light.”

She accelerated.

“What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?”

White spray filled the sky and formed an arc.

“Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight.”

“Her rising power carried her into the heavens.

“O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?”

She stared directly at her enemy.

“And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air.”

She was catching up.

“Gave proof thru the night that our flag was still there.”

She moved in to capture him.

“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave.”

It all came down to acceleration.

“O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

Heo pursued Alex through a sky of absolute freedom.

Heo attempted to fulfill her promise.

It was a one-sided promise. She had carved it into her heart when she had parted ways with a certain giant mechanical dragon.

…''“Become like these people”.

“So I will stop you!”

She could see the blue and red mechanical dragon directly in front of her.

She let her body shake as she accelerated right up to him.

“…!”

Her thoughts no longer formed words.

She was too focused.

Her mind was filled with a list of words that did not qualify as language.

It was like a song created from a mix of emotion and memory.

She had heard before that sprinting finalists would enter a state near unconsciousness as they ran.

And if so, why did they run?

Because they wanted the result?

No. The goal was not the running. Running was something that only occurred while running.

In that case, why did they run as their consciousness faded? And why was she running now?

She did not know.

She did not even understand her current state.

She simply felt freedom in the pleasure of flight.

A mechanical dragon flew beyond the current of air ahead of her.

She heard a song in her heart as she reached out toward that dragon.

…''He is calling.

He was calling and calling.

In this high-speed space where all things could go hand in hand, she was being called by the power that could bring the flower of destruction into bloom.

The flying bullets could not catch up and her reflecting defense was not enough.

Her speed was now as much a part of her as her own body.

Even her spirit was only a requirement needed to step onto the battlefield.

''I can arrive there, but you are calling me to battle you there.

''So it is my wings’ duty to answer your call.

''The answer awaits there.

''Our answer, which is not a conclusion, awaits us there.

…''It is waiting.

Heo no longer used her mind to think.

She let her mind scatter and simply felt. She sensed what the answer was.

And in the direction she wished for, she saw the stars, the sky…

“————”

And her other self.

Alex forced himself through evasive action.

His body creaked and the wind roared.

However, his pain was rewarded by his enemy vanishing from before his eyes.

But just as he thought he had escaped, he realized the blue and white dragon was in the space behind him.

“————!?”

She fired on him.

He avoided it.

He turned around and ascended.

But no matter what action he took, he could never see his enemy.

“————”

She was always behind him.

He could feel it in the air currents. He could feel the pressure of a great flying object circling behind him and calmly ascending.

“H-…”

He just about asked “how”, but his answer did not come in words. It came only as speed.

“!”

He was blown away by a shockwave.

Thunder Fellow had rapidly approached and used its gravitational control to slam its shockwave into him.

That attack used speed itself as a weapon.

Knocked away, Alex twisted around and regained control.

But by then, Thunder Fellow was already behind him.

“…!”

He heard Thunder Fellow saying something in a quiet voice.

It was a song.

He could not quite make it out, but it was definitely a song.

That song hit him.

As he was knocked away, he was hit again and again.

“————!!”

It would not stop.

In their spiraling ascent, the mechanical dragon was knocked into the heavens above.

Soon, an especially strong blow hit his belly.

“…”

He bent back and saw the heavens.

He saw a star there.

When he looked down, the blue and white dragon was charging up at him.

Its speed was now a straight line.

It almost seemed to be heading toward the star behind him.

…''But I can’t afford to lose.

“To see my justice through to the end…”

He took a breath and opened his main cannon mouth.

“…I cannot abandon anyone to their tears!!”

He then heard a girl’s voice from below.

“You don’t know how people can stand back up in those situations!”

“Those are the words of the powerful!!”

He saw his other self speed up as if on reflex.

His other self left the planet of man behind and instead accelerated toward the lonely star in the sky.

He was nothing but one point in between.

Without listening to his words of protest any longer, that incarnation of acceleration continued on its collision course.

That speed let out a roar.

“I am not powerful! I just have times when I get a little bit stronger!”

And…

“The power that lets me do that…is my justice!”

Alex fired regardless.

His mind told him he had hit, but all he saw was a sharp arc of water vapor slicing through the sky.

Thunder Fellow flipped around in an evasion.

There was no fake, trick, feint, or strategy behind it.

His other self simply used her strength to force her way through.

She would detect the instant he fired and used her overwhelming thrust to evade.

A moment later, Alex realized she had collided with him.

He also heard a voice.

“What’s wrong with crying when you want to?”

He could feel his consciousness leaving him from the impact.

“If you do that, someone is sure to reach out to you.”

Alex suddenly remembered long ago when a girl who had always been strong had cried for the first time.

What had he done then?

…''I took her hand.

He had had a different body back then, but…

…''Will you still stop crying if I take your hand with this mechanical body?

If so, then his justice was…

“Is it the same, Heo Thunderson!?”

A deep impact seemed to answer him.

He saw a white line. He saw a single vapor trail flying toward the star in the center of the night sky.

He fell as he watched it leave.

“————”

He spread his wings to tell the girl on the surface that he was okay and to see off the girl rising into the heavens.

He spread his great wings to say that he was here.

And then he lost consciousness.

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