Editing City Series:Volume2 Prologue (section)

===Part 2===

The fog covering the river split apart.

It parted like white double-doors opening to either side and it flowed onward.

A boat slowly travelled down the gorge between the foggy cliffs. The boat was loaded with something large covered in a blue sheet and a young man sat on top of that cargo.

The young man was a minister.

He slowly approached on the boat and his form grew clear in the darkness.

He uncomfortably rubbed his very short blond hair. His overall casual aura may have been due to how he wore his minister’s outfit with the collar open or due to the round sunglasses he wore in the middle of the night.

His narrow eyes were smiling beyond the sunglasses.

Gloss stepped forward as if replying to that smile.

“Who are you?”

That question was accompanied by what sounded like metal panels piling up. The noise came from the boat.

“!”

Jonathan sensed motion, but when he turned toward it, he no longer saw anyone on the boat. He only saw the blue sheet and the cargo.

He looked up just in case and, to his surprise, he found the young man.

The young man was in London’s foggy night sky.

He and his black minister’s outfit parted the fog as he leaped. He lightly and casually jumped the five meters from the boat to the wharf. He had made the jump with no running start and from poor footing.

Then he landed.

His feet made no noise as they contacted the ground, but another metallic sound came from inside his clothes. He seemed to be carrying something inside them and he was now about three steps in front of Gloss.

The distant ringing and music from Westminster Cathedral had stopped.

The young man looked up into the night sky as if to check on the lingering tone.

“…”
Suddenly, he looked at Gloss. Their eyes met and he raised his right hand to waist height as if in greeting.

“Are we enemies now that I’ve come ashore?”

As Jonathan heard that line, he also saw the young man’s naturally raised hand.

He Overrode the young man’s movements to see if he had overlooked anything.

The young man’s right hand held a shotgun.

“Gloss!”

“Too late.”

Just as Jonathan shouted and the young man muttered quietly, the shotgun fired.

With a great sound of destruction, a head-sized hole appeared in Gloss’s stomach.

What had previously filled that hole splattered across the concrete of the wharf.

“I hate angels and god just as much as monsters.”

Jonathan prepared to run over to Gloss while listening to the young man’s kindly spoken words.

The young man must have sensed Jonathan’s intent because he turned toward him with the shotgun still aimed at Gloss. His sharp gaze literally restrained Jonathan.

“…!”

He could not move.

Simply being looked at was restricting his movements, even though he was a Hard Wolf who had once faced a tank in the Great War.

Jonathan watched as Gloss Dis-Selfed. Still not sure what had happened to himself, the angel collapsed and used an arm to support himself on the wooden box behind him. However, he could not support his body with most of his abdomen gone, so his elbow slipped from the edge of the box and he fell into a sitting position with his wings still spread to the side.

The second shotgun blast sounded out.

Gloss’s head and a portion of the box were blown away.

They were both smashed to pieces.

What remained of his body trembled with the slight vestiges of life and then suddenly vanished.

The angel’s feathers and the pieces splattered on the concrete all turned to ash just like burning paper. The faint scattering aroma was the smell of a burning angel.

Jonathan said nothing. He simply watched what happened before him.

But the young man did not bother watching Gloss go through the special process of Ashing. He was not looking at Jonathan either.

The narrow eyes beyond his sunglasses were looking straight forward. He stared directly ahead with the sharpness of targeting something.

Jonathan slowly moved his eyes in pursuit of the young man’s gaze.

He found two new people standing there.