Editing City Series:Volume6d Chapter6 (section)

===Part 4===

The light scattered and the pair at the center of it all finished swinging their weapons and moved away from each other, both unharmed.

Lehrer viewed the acceleration cloud left behind by Schwarz Löwe in the distant sky.

“I never imagined I would end up fighting a descendant of the Maldrick family.”

Alfred Maldrick said nothing. He just kept his distance and kept his weapon at the ready.

Lehrer took a breath, used her spear as a staff to prop herself up, and viewed Alfred.

“You really want me dead, don’t you? And after I slept for a thousand years in Sylphide to see all of you again.”

“Whoever you might be, you are currently stalling for time.”

Alfred took a step forward and she stayed put.

“I have one warning for you,” she said.

He took another step toward her.

“Next month, on August 23, the Allies will bomb Germania. When they do, they will send anxiety Lives back into Tristan, hoping to destroy it.”

Alfred lifted Rein König’s tip just a bit.

“Fight hard. And make sure to preserve the wheat fields of prosperity for future generations, you Neue Kavaliers who once fought a great calamity with me and then escaped a further calamity.”

With that, she readied her weapon again.

Alfred responded by entering a sprint. He closed the gap between them and entered striking range in no time.

He amplified his “ah” within Rein König, transforming it into a white Live light.

The light accumulated within raised Rein König’s blade, illuminating the two of them.

Lehrer took a defensive stance against the white light, but then she wobbled like something had hit her.

Something like a quiet sound of destruction followed.

She managed to remain on her feet and had some slight surprise on her face.

But she calmed her expression in no time and gave a confident nod.

Her heterochromatic eyes faced forward and viewed the attack approaching her.

As the white attack approached, she did something other than dodge.

She slowly turned her gaze to the southern sky where Schwarz Löwe was leaving.

She stopped even looking at Alfred. Her eyebrows contained only a gentle strength.

“–––––”

She removed her hands from the spear, so it lost its balance and started to fall over.

Alfred’s attack launched its destructive power a moment later.

But it was directed at the ground next to her, not at her herself.

The rubble shattered, the road split, and the glowing white slash tore a hole 5 yards across into the pavement.

The wind blew, the noise rang out, and Alfred froze just after swinging Rein König down.

He wasn’t even looking in Lehrer’s direction.

“Who asked the Kaiser Schwert to cut down an unresisting corpse?”

His question coincided with Lerher’s falling spear hitting the waterway railing about halfway up its shaft. The weight of the blade on top caused it to spin around and fall toward the water.

It produced an audible splash as Alfred looked to Lehrer standing next to the railing.

Her expression had lost its strength and she stood there like a doll with the left chest of her purple uniform stained with blood, but the same color of stain had freshly formed on her left side.

There was a small hole in the cloth there.

That was a bullet hole.

“Who interrupted our duel with a bullet?”

Alfred turned back toward the trucks shining their headlights on the two of them.

“That would be me.”

The headlights outlined a female silhouette wielding a Walther. It was Lowenzahn.

Schweitzer stood behind her.

“Why, Lowenzahn?” asked Alfred.

“You were getting a little chummy with your enemy there. This isn’t your personal battlefield, lieutenant.”

He started to say something in response but stopped himself.

Lehrer slowly and weakly sat down on the railing.

She kept her hand on the railing and her eyebrows drooped for a sleepy expression.

Alfred gave one more glance Lowenzahn’s way before turning toward Lehrer.

Three long strides were all it took to arrive within arm’s reach.

He could tell her eyes were already unfocused.

He looked expressionlessly down at her and spoke a single world.

“Sorry.”

She raised her head a bit in response. She looked up at him with the light already fading from her eyes.

Instead of looking down at her, he pulled his chin back to view her directly.

Their gazes collided head on and something seemed to click together.

After a few seconds, Lehrer’s lips formed a voice too quiet to make out.

“Hazel?”

Alfred silently stood up when the name she spoke wasn’t his.

He said nothing at all.

But Lehrer smiled while facing him.

That smile shook as her body slowly began to collapse. The right arm propping her up on the railing gave way and the rest of her sank down.

As her slender body bent, the bleeding from her chest and side increased.

But her face was still turned toward Alfred. Her face had gone pale, but she was still smiling.

“Unlike me…you asked Berger to join the AIF.”

She collapsed atop the railing. She doubled over and blood left her mouth when she exhaled.

But those bloody breaths still formed words.

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“The thought never even occurred to me.”

Still smiling, she shut her eyes.

And without warning, she fell back into the waterway.

Her gentle momentum spread her arms so it looked like she was trying to embrace the sky as she fell backwards toward the water.

When her legs were about to slip off of the railing, white smoke wrapped around her falling body.

Then she Altered.

Her purple uniform swelled out and burst and a cat fell from within.

The gold-furred cat was soaked with blood as she fell into the deep waterway.

The splash was horribly small. The cat sank below the surface before bobbing back up to the surface.

The current caused the cat to slowly rotate so her tail was pointing forward.

By the time she spun back around, her blood-and-water-soaked body was already being swept away.

She no longer moved as the current took over.

Only Alfred was close enough to the railing to watch her go.

He watched until the cat disappeared below the collapsed bridge before he faced forward again.

The railing there was covered in a lot of blood.

He expressionlessly clenched both fists until they turned white.

His right hand held Rein König and his left hand’s middle finger wore a red stone ring.

No one spoke to him.

The sound of the water flowing rang much more clearly in his ears than the blaring alarms.