Editing City Series:Volume6a Chapter6 (section)

===Part 4===

Hazel was shaken awake.

Her shoulders ached, her back ached, and her hips ached. She worked her woozy mind to figure out why.

…''I hit them all while rolling along the roof.

That made sense to her.

She could still feel her body with her eyes closed, so she could tell she was lying on some kind of hard surface. She also felt some artificially-heated air across her entire body, which meant…

…''I’m naked.

She was wrapped in some fairly hard cloth, but…

…''Those are my removed clothes.

Her thoughts helped her mind come back into focus. And a single question arose as that happened.

“Where am I!?”

Driven by a desire to see, she opened her eyes and sat up.

The blue sky surrounded her.

It was such a beautiful blue.

But she was not seeing it through a window. She was seeing it directly from a point high in the sky.

Nothing obstructed her view of that azure expanse and the white clouds floating in it.

“…?”

Confused, she held a hand in front of her face.

She could not see her hand. She quickly moved her head to look at her sitting body, but she could not see that either. She only saw the white clouds rushing by below.

Her vision was moving forward at a rapid clip.

The speed was incredible.

…''This is what I saw on the base earlier.

Just as she thought that, her vision grew fixed in place. She could only see straight ahead no matter how she moved her eyes.

She shut her eyes out of instinctual fear of the speed.

But she could still see the sky. Her vision had entirely left her control.

“Am I seeing what someone else is seeing?”

Then she heard a noise.

It was the wind. It rang awfully loud and incessantly in her ears. It produced a deep and deafening rumble behind her.

That was the sound of something tearing through the wind.

She was knocked over by the speed and noise surrounding her.

Her back touched the floor. She was lying down now, but her vision remained the same.

She felt around the floor to gather up her clothing and crossed her arms over her stomach to hide her body from the sky. As a Werecat, lying on her back was a symbol of defenselessness and submission.

But even in that pose, she held her own body, hid her shoulders, and raised her defenses.

She opened her mouth and muttered something that not even she understood.

Her trembling voice was just about to end its meaningless words when something else arrived.

[[Image:City_v06a_227.jpg|thumb]]

A giant twin-fuselage warship erupted with white spray as it appeared from the white sea below.

“!?”

Before she could even scream, lights flashed at a few points along the ship’s surface.

A barrage of light filled her vision in an instant.

Then she felt intense pain in her right eye.

It felt like someone had grabbed her eyeball and twisted it.

“Nooooooo!!”

She screamed more from disgust than pain and she squeezed her eyes shut while writhing on the floor, but her vision remained unchanged. She could see the sky and the approaching barrage of destruction.

She rubbed at her eye, which must have been sufficient because the pain suddenly left her.

That was when it all began.

The floor shook. It was a subtle thing, but it was reminiscent of a rapid heartbeat and it helped wake Hazel up.

Her mind heard a certain rhythm. Space itself was shaken by that world-altering rhythm known as an Erklärung.

<The Wind lives in a world of speed.>

…''Eh?

The response to her frozen thoughts was clear.

<The Wind lives in a world of speed.>

The owner of her current vision was speaking. It was speaking the Erklärung that would change the world for its purposes.

<No one can keep up with its flight.>

The movement of her vision changed in an odd way.

It all slowed down.

The incoming barrage, the shredding of the clouds, and the sky’s movement all slowed to a crawl.

<Time comes to a stop as the Wind blows.>

“What does that mean?” she tried to say.

But she could not. Her mouth moved too slow. She had already started to wonder about her slowed mouth by the time it finally opened to form the very first syllable.

…''Time is slowing down?

<Only willpower can keep up with the Wind.>

Everything she could see had slowed and she could even count the number of shots in the barrage. There were 64 glowing bullets.

It all moved slow as could be.

<The Wind passes through the barrier to fly ever onward.>

The shaking of the floor now felt like the gentle rocking of a boat.

And she sensed something like an emotion in those waves.

…''Joy?

She no longer bothered asking why. Because the slowed flow of time gave her plenty of time to gather all her memories together.

Whose eyes was she seeing through?

Why had that blue craft saved her when she fell from the roof earlier?

Why was her vision not obeying her instructions?

She had a lot of questions, but she knew one thing for sure.

…''Is…

She gulped, but only mentally. Her body was too slow to keep up.

Even her physical senses felt like they belonged to someone else now.

But she still formed words in her mind to figure out what was happening.

…''Is my eye a part of this blue craft?

She was probably inside the cockpit right now. This craft had reproduced the Kaiserburg’s ability to transform, so it had taken her inside while evolving.

“…”

<After passing the barrier, the Wind soars further and further.>

She was past the barrage now. Her vision was now filled by the twin-fuselage ship with six Schwerts jutting out of its stern.

That ship felt like an obstacle to her.

Her vision was staring straight ahead, just like it had for a while now.

But the controller of her vision was not looking at the twin-fuselage ship there.

It was looking past the ship to view the azure sky.

…''Do you want to keep going?

Just as she silently asked that, the controller of her vision ended the slowing of time.

<Everything returns to the rapid current of the heights.>

The clouds, the wind, the noise, the impacts, and even the sky combined within their speed to form a single phenomenon – the phenomenon known as flight.

Glowing swords stabbed in from either side up ahead.

The owner of her vision unleashed a roar. The engine loaded in the back cried out as it was pushed even further.

Her vision shot forward and accelerated in the wind.

That was when Hazel recalled the name Bermark had mentioned before and she instinctually sensed what it meant.

She understood the meaning of the name Sylphide.