Editing City Series:Volume6c Prologue (section)

===Part 3===

The faint purple tint to the eastern sky told of the approaching dawn.

A dragon-like shape floated above the vast expanse of clouds.

The great shape was painted pitch black and it was formed from eight smaller shapes. Each one of those smaller shapes was a massive aerial ship measuring 300 yards long and 50 yards wide.

From front to back, there were three ships, two ships, and three ships lined up. They were all linked together by layer after layer of thick metal frames.

A long tube was almost sloppily attached atop the ships, running back to front.

That was a Babel Kanone.

Its barrel had a diameter of at least 10 yards and a length of more than half a mile.

The eight ships supporting it in the sky were a lot like a crouching dragon.

The eight ships combined to form the Gard-class Babel Kanone equipped Requiem.

The #1 front central ship had been destroyed by the AIF in ’39 and another year had been necessary to reconstruct it, but it had not received a scratch ever since it parted ways with the earth.

A girl stood on the deck of the #2 front aircraft carrier.

She was a pale girl with long, soft hair blowing in the wind. She wore a decorated dress, but there was something odd about her.

She was faintly transparent.

That unstably transparent girl stared up into the western sky.

There was nothing visible there, but she had a somewhat sulky look on her face. After a while, her face lit up with pure joy.

“Bigger brother! And Alfred too!”

Four points of light were visible far to the west. At that distance, it would take 20 minutes to arrive even by aircraft.

But she smiled and released an Erklärung.

<The Requiem march welcomes you home.>

At the same time, the Requiem began to move.

The girl spread her arms on the deck and turned left toward the west.

The Requiem followed her action with a turn that was much too fast for such a massive structure.

The ship groaned from the inertia and the Babel Kanone strained. The sturdiness of the metal materials was nearly irrelevant when it came to the relationship between great weight and powerful inertia.

Too much inertia would cause it to break apart.

The straining and groaning of metal reverberated through the sky. But…

<The Requiem song will not be disturbed.>

The girl murmured those words and twisted her body ticklishly.

The #7 and #8 ships’ frames began to transform as they strained at the back of the port and starboard sides. The metal transformation emblems activated as ether flowed into them. The frames that supported the ships tightened to distribute the inertial force.

Wind blew from the rear and side engines, accelerating the turn.

To negate the remaining inertia, frames across the Requiem were bound together or spread apart and the exterior armor for the Babel Kanone bent enough to lift up somewhat. The inertial negation emblems across the ship glowed as they entered overdrive.

The girl slowly, slowly swung her arms around. The entire process took only 12 minutes.

The girl smiled and looked to her hands.

“I’m getting the hang of it now.”

“You really are,” said a woman’s voice behind her.

The girl smiled and did not bother looking back.

“You think so too, Lillie? I’m just so talented, aren’t I?”

“Yes, I cannot imagine a more suitable home for Graham and the others.”

The voice walked up alongside the girl. It belonged to a woman of later middle age with her frayed black hair tied back. She wore the blue coat of the Geheimnis Agency Navy Division over a blue dress, but she still had to hold her shoulders against the chilly wind.

The woman, Lillie, let out a white puff of laughter as she looked up into the western sky.

The four Grösse Panzers had approached enough to make out the shape of their limbs.

“Germany should be safe with you and Graham protecting us from here.”

“Yes. And since you feel so safe, how about you attend that wedding in the Borderson village I mentioned before? They sent you and Alfred invitations, didn’t they? They haven’t held a wedding in three years and it is only an hour by car from Cologne, so why not leave things here to us?”

“I haven’t been to Borderson since my sister died.”

“Ever since the village lost their leader, they have been hoping for a visit from a Neue Kavalier with a connection to Borderson. With Borderson gone, so many of the northwest’s Neue Kavalier have left our Geheimnis Agency.”

“Which is why Graham and you are protecting Cologne to show the local Neue Kavaliers the importance of the Agency, yes?”

“Correct you are. Maybe we could have gotten a prophecy if Frobel was still alive.”

Rose’s words cast a shadow over Lillie’s face.

“Do those prophecies come true, though? What about the one given to you and Graham?”

“You mean Lowenzahn’s prophecy, don’t you? The ones not from the Unreif Germane that she gave to individuals.”

Rose seemed to be contemplating her own words as she looked straight up.

Lillie moved behind her and wrapped her arms around the short girl’s shoulders.

Lillie’s arms passed right through Rose’s body and she felt nothing.

But Lillie still spoke.

“Why must our commander – Lady Frobel…no, all of the Naylors – force that sort of destiny onto all of you?”

“They have not forced it onto us. I made a promise with Frobel more than 20 years ago and Lowenzahn asked a few years back, so I responded. This is what my bigger brother and I wanted. It’s the same for you, isn’t it? This is the destiny we must fulfill, without letting Der Held, Kaiser, or the others know.”

Rose placed her hands on Lillie’s right hand as the woman pretended to hold her shoulders. Her hands sank into Lillie’s hand, but she shut her eyes.

“My body is gone and I have become the circuitry at the core of this ship. This ship is me now, so I can appear anywhere on it. The real me is no more.”

“…”

“But that also means I can stay with the rest of you. I can spend more time with my bigger brother, my big brother, and Alfred.”

“But isn’t that the Requiem our commander prophesied?”

“I will not lament. My bigger brother and I are working on the issue. We don’t know what exactly will happen to us, so we think maybe we can find a solution.” Rose opened her eyes. “We think anyone can turn the Nibelung in a positive direction.”

She saw the four Grösse Panzers arrive overhead.

They whipped up a wind that swept across the deck.

Rose removed her hands from Lillie’s hand and raised them to greet the men.

“Hey, Lillie, what do you think of my bigger brother?”

“Eh?”

“When the head of the Telmetz family died, wasn’t he the one who rescued you, left your sister in Borderson, and paid for your schooling? Are you the same person you were back then?”

Lillie looked up and Rose continued.

“I hope you are. Unlike for the rest of you, the events of 20 years ago feel so recent to me. It’s all so vivid and I barely have to work to remember it. But…”

“But?”

“I think that’s just how these things work. How I feel about Alfred, how you feel, and my brothers’ quarrels must be such trivial matters to the world as a whole, but…but I’m sure someone will remember it all just like I do.”

Rose looked away from Lillie to watch the Grösse Panzers begin to descend.

Lillie hummed a song.

''The party begins and the village dances / The dragon roars and the knights gather

''The bride weeps uncrowned / Her words go unsaid and he never arrives

''Thus she is alone / She weeps and sleeps in this land

“The Unreif Germane’s 6th Section of the Ending God. That is the current prophecy,” said Rose. “Lowenzahn said it refers to the capture of the Messiah. She also said the time had finally come for the prophet to remain in this land.”

Rose stretched her hand high overhead.

The Kaiser had landed nearly within arm’s reach and it nodded toward her.

She responded with a smile.

“Welcome back.”

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