City Series:Volume6d Chapter6

Chapter 6: The Ruin Leaps

7/24/1943 20:18 – 22:46

U-um

Sorry

Please don’t hurt me too much

Just because this used to be your body

The Messiah and the Knights

When the Messiah unified Germany, she gathered skilled fighters and diplomats from across Germany to form a combat unit. Their primary strength came from the regional lords and mercenary warriors.

Germany did not have a king at the time, so there was no basis for a system of knights and they became knights of the Messiah instead.

The Messiah and the knights first met when she descended to Alfheim with the one-armed young man and the dragon and defeated a lesser dragon along with some warriors who happened to be in the area.

At the time, attacks by dragons and other monsters produced by Live disturbances, various types of Live diseases, and rampant anxiety had forced the regional lords to fight back against the symptoms in their territories. The knights felt the need to fight as a group but could not do so until someone arrived who would cross the regional boundaries and lead them all, so they readily named themselves the Messiah’s knights once she arrived.

Part 1

Lehrer had led Hazel to the piles of tires Hazel had climbed earlier. They sat atop two lower piles near the wall.

The larger piles hid them from the road, so no one could see them. However…

“They will know we escaped in this direction, so they will have us surrounded before long,” explained Lehrer, undoing the bandage on Hazel’s foot.

“How are we going to escape?” asked Hazel.

“We use Sylphide.”

Hazel looked up to see Sylphide could not descend thanks to the barrage of antiair gunfire.

She watched the blue shape circling in the distance.

“It’s adorable how you can see its uncertainty in how it’s flying, but can it get to us?”

“We aren’t far from the waterway. It is about 20 yards wide, so we can have Sylphide fly in at supersonic speed and stop above it. Once the shockwave blows away the enemies, we make a run for it.”

The waterway was situated lower than the ground, so the Sylphide would end up below them if it stopped there.

Hazel nodded.

“We don’t have time to get inside, so we just climb onto the roof?”

Just as she asked that, she felt a sharp pain like a needle sticking into her right foot.

“––––!”

“Don’t give me that look. I only removed the rock.”

Hazel wiped away the tears and Lehrer rubbed her head with a troubled smile.

Lehrer looked between the wound on Hazel’s foot and her spear leaning against the tires.

“Hey…could you show me your Tuning?”

Hazel said yes, reached out, and grabbed the spear. It was a German military close-range spear Device that Lehrer had stolen from the base. Its balance was completely different from the sword she was used to.

She held the somewhat heavy spear vertically with the blade pointed down and held the shaft near the base of the blade.

Then she looked to the other woman, whose heterochromatic eyes carried such a calm expression.

There was so much she wanted to say and she could even find the words right away, but she wasn’t sure where to start.

…Um.

While she thought, Lehrer smiled and spoke instead.

“Don’t worry. I used to be you, but I’m not anymore. You will become me and overwrite me. So don’t be afraid, my former self.”

“Th-then it really was Sylphide buried below Alfheim? And…”

Lehrer nodded.

“Yes, I slept for a thousand years. I actually wanted to sleep a while longer and P. Wagner was considerate of that…but I was dug up in ’39 all the same.”

“Then it’s true what the Geheimnis Agency’s commander told me?”

“Yes. I learned the truth when I was captured in Cologne in my version of ’42. And…Berger was supposed to be captured tonight.”

Hazel gasped and took a look around.

She could hear Schwarz Löwe fighting in the distance, but Lehrer shook her head.

“Don’t worry, Hazel. He will not be captured.”

“H-how can you know that?”

“You don’t know it?”

…I…

She thought for a bit and clamped her mouth shut. All she had to do was nod. And while she tried to figure out something more to say, Lehrer asked a question.

“How are your parents?”

Hazel considered who this was she was speaking to, so she looked her in the eye when she answered.

“They are doing well. Dad is the same as ever, but he’s secretly supporting the AIF. Mom doesn’t say anything about it, but um, she’s really good at making tea.” She took a breath. “Maybe I’m full of myself, but I feel like they’re mostly just worried about their daughter fighting in the war.”

“I see. I think you’re right about that.”

The sounds of antiair fire and trucks combined in the distance. Beyond that, they could hear the clanking of a metal machine, the booms of cannon fire, and the clangs of metal shells being deflected.

Schwarz Löwe was fighting.

Hazel listened to the many sounds of combat and focused on the Device in her hands. She regulated her breathing and collected the Lives within her. She found her tone, which was pure, complex, and difficult to speak.

“All you Lives within me – the single scream of the Wild Name that makes me who I am. Can you hear the voice of my Lives?”

The Lives used her voice to permeate her body. She transferred them to the Device and she shook the instrument-like weapon to set up a resonance. Then she released her voice exactly as she wanted it.

“Ah.”

Her voice gently stretched out, slowly curved, and yet seemed to always move forward.

She could feel her Lives inside the Device.

Then she shut her eyes and stabbed the blade into her own throat.

The Lives in the blade resonated with the ones in her body and the correct ones won out.

They shook, vibrated, pulsed, and thought. A sense more accurate than touch felt them moving from her throat to the rest of her body.

“…!”

After goose bumps raced across her skin, she pulled out the blade. She was dripping with sweat, but the thornlike sensation inside her was disappearing. She looked down to her foot to see it was bloody but it no longer hurt.

She wiped off the spear tip with her coat’s sleeve.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. …Are you okay? You didn’t overfocus?”

“I think I’m fine. I am tired…but I can manage one more good run.”

They both sighed and Lehrer spoke first.

“Then how about we get going? Sylphide is getting bored up there.”

“How much has it healed?”

“The decay was bad. Its self-repair has got it barely flying again, but the two upper Kunst Eyes are beyond repair and the three lower ones are only beginning to repair.” She narrowed her eyes. “But you have something else to ask, don’t you? About my relationship with him and many other things.”

“Y-yes. So how about just one for now?”

“Ask away.”

Hazel hesitated for a moment.

“How…old are you?”

“Oh? Planning to hold it over my head how much younger you are? I used to be your age too, you know?”

“I-it’s not about that. I just…”

“I’m only kidding. I am 26. I arrived in the past at 21 and only spent a year there. I woke back up in ’39, so add 4 years to get 26. If only I had slept two more years. Then my age would round down to 20.”

She smiled a little at that and Hazel had to smile too.

“So don’t worry. Even if you go through a whole loop, you can still be younger than him,” said Lehrer. “And don’t forget, Hazel. You and those around you have so many choices you can make. You always have and you always will. You are not a Panzerpolis component created solely to keep the cycle going.”

“…Right.”

“But you can only make one decision when the time comes, so consider your options and then make your own choice.”

Lehrer stood up from her pile of tires and Hazel got down from hers.

Lehrer pulled a metal tube from her pocket. It was an inch thick and about half a foot long. She held it up in her right hand like the Olympic torch and used the inner elbow and her left hand to cover her ears.

“Cover your ears. This will call it to us.”

Hazel quickly did so and Lehrer hit the switch.

With an almost silly sound, a blue ball of light was launched skyward, leaving a trail of white smoke.

“Now it should come to us.”

There was joy in Lehrer’s voice and she turned away from Hazel.

Hazel gasped when she saw her back.

There was a diagonal slash there. It started at her right shoulder and traveled down to the center of her back. Her clothing was torn, blood was leaking from it, and she was soaked a dark red down to her hips.

“Don’t let it bother you. You would be too exhausted to move if you healed me…and I was prepared to not be fighting my best with something as unfamiliar as a spear.”

“Th-there wasn’t a better weapon? I though the Messiah used a sword.”

“That’s the thing. Every time I see a sword, it reminds me that he left me a letter telling me to stop fighting and took my Rein König with him.”

Hazel lowered her eyebrows at that and chose not to say what she wanted to say.

“That’s why I want to avoid using any kind of sword,” said Lehrer as she began walking.

“Found them!” shouted some soldiers from behind them.

Those voices pushed Lehrer into a run. Hazel watched her footing as she too began to run.

Their footsteps fused into a single tempo.

Hazel noticed some heat in her Messiah eye.

…Lehrer is activating my Messiah.

<The Messiah seeks the wind’s help.>

After that Beweisen, Lehrer readied her spear out ahead. She spun it vertically with just her right hand in the narrow road between the piles of tires. The slow but heavy rotation sliced the wind with the blade and produced a sound of shaking air.

Another sound dropped from the sky in response: the sound of the wind, of something slicing through the air.

…Sylphide.

The roar of the wind rushed in from the north, which was to their left.

At the same time, some soldiers with their backs to the river railing up ahead raised their guns.

Lehrer thrust the spear straight ahead with just one hand.

“Ah.”

A single tone raced out toward the blue shape flying in from behind the soldiers.

Part 2

Lehrer’s Bust attack counteracted Sylphide’s shockwave and cleared a path.

With a roar, the powerful wind was split by her spear and flew to either side.

The tire stacks on the sides of the road were blown backwards like leaves in the wind.

The storehouses’ front walls were broken through and their roofs pulled away.

Bolts audibly popped off and walls noisily crumbled.

“Hurry!” shouted a voice ahead of Hazel while the wind blew her hair.

Her response was drowned out by the wind.

The road alongside the waterway was about 5 yards wide. When she emerged from behind the destroyed storehouses, she saw a collapsing bridge to her right and a road to her left. There was no sign of the enemy.

She ran.

Lehrer beckoned her over from near the railing ahead.

“I’ll be right there!” answered Hazel as she saw something in the sky that shouldn’t have been there.

A white streak of cloud floated in the night sky to the east. She hadn’t noticed that before.

The cloud instantly stretched out toward her. It was closing the distance with unbelievable speed.

Some Aerial Words shook the air.

<The Elf King descends upon a new world.>

The cloud was being drawn out by…

“Sylphide!?”

The craft resembled a black blade. Unlike Sylphide, it had no upper cockpit and thus a slimmer silhouette. Hazel recalled the name of the craft Lowenzahn had said had launched from Germania.

…The Erlkönig.

It was still a fair distance away, but it sprayed physical metal bullets toward Lehrer.

Its aim was true, so Lehrer was forced to intercept the incoming bullets with her Bust power.

The white light launched from her spear shattered the metal projectiles.

But inertia carried the fragments toward Hazel behind her.

Hazel could avoid them if she kept running and moved behind Lehrer.

But that was when Hazel realized her coat’s pocket felt unusually light.

…Eh?

A weight had vanished from the bottom right side of the coat, so she looked down.

She saw a white ampule case falling from the pocket as the coat flapped in the wind.

She reflexively caught the case out of the air.

“Hazel!” yelled Lehrer.

That shout made Hazel stop where she was and she saw the supersonic scattershot of bullet fragments flying her way. Countless powerful red Lives were about to reach her.

“!”

She couldn’t scream and she didn’t look away. She started to dodge, hoping she could somehow make it.

She moved her feet left, hoping to bring herself behind Lehrer.

Then a wall shot up to protect her.

The blue wall was Sylphide. Her eyes reflexively widened when she understood what this meant.

…You belong to Lehrer!

“Stay away!!”

Her shouted request was not obeyed. The metal scattershot crashed into Sylphide.

The metal screamed in protest. Sylphide was pierced by bullet fragments that were more like thin needles than spears. With a light sound like breaking bone, the fragments broke out the other side on either side of Hazel.

The bullets flew past her on pure inertia, like fish leaping from the water.

“Why?”

<The Wind is the Messiah’s guardian dragon.>

Hazel’s question was answered by some Aerial Words and then the blue craft suddenly ascended.

Erlkönig was trying to fly westward at an altitude of about 100 yards.

The blue Sylphide shot up toward the black Erlkönig and crashed into it like it was stabbing into it from below.

With a loud crash, the Sylphide’s tip pierced the Erlkönig’s belly.

The black craft stalled with its rear tilting downwards and began to fall, but the blue craft could not keep up with its momentum. The pressure on the Sylphide’s tip from the rapid forward thrust and downwards momentum was too much for its frame and it bent in half like a papercraft.

The two ships fell, twisted and tangled. They fell westward, toward the waterway past the collapsed bridge.

They soon vanished behind that bridge.

Sounds reminiscent of breaking stone and shattering glass tubes rumbled off into the distance.

“Ah…”

Hazel let out a dazed breath and looked forward to Lehrer.

Lehrer kept her back turned and raised the spear in her left hand.

Her eyes were turned toward where Sylphide had fallen, but…

“I should have known. Of course Neue Erde would send Erlkönig.”

After that resigned comment, she looked back over her shoulder to Hazel.

When their eyes met, Hazel lowered her head and squeezed the ampule case in her right hand.

“Sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it. Sylphide chose to defeat Erlkönig. And you told it to stay away because you knew you could take care of yourself, right?”

Hazel did not nod, but Lehrer said “that’s right” and sat down on the ground. Her butt touched the ground and she folded her legs underneath her with her back still to Hazel.

“It looks like I was more naïve than you.”

She collapsed. Toward Hazel.

Hazel rushed over and placed one arm around Lehrer’s back and the other under her shoulder to prop her up.

Then she looked down at the woman’s body.

A jagged piece of metal a foot long was stabbed into the left chest of her purple uniform.

Lehrer opened her mouth and blood spilled from her lipsticked lips, but she still spoke to Hazel.

“Not getting my Bust attack out quickly enough was my mistake. And Sylphide didn’t save me.”

“Stop talking!”

“Which means Sylphide decided you deserve the Messiah eye more.”

Part 3

Her voice was drowned out by two much louder sounds.

The first was a group of trucks approaching from the left.

The second was a gust of wind descending after crossing the bridge on the right.

That wind came from Schwarz Löwe.

Hazel turned to see the black Grösse Panzer landing on the other side of the bridge.

“Hazel, he is here for you.”

Lehrer smiled and pulled the metal out of her own chest. It was a foot long and it returned to bluish-white ether light and vanished after bouncing off of the pavement scarred by the shockwave.

Lehrer straightened up in Hazel’s arms and stood up.

“Go on ahead, Hazel.”

“No!”

As soon as Hazel stood up, she heard a loud, dry sound from her right cheek.

Lehrer had slapped her.

She reflexively held a hand to her cheek, more out of surprise than pain. She could feel the warmth in her cheek.

“Hazel,” said Lehrer. “Sylphide is not dumb enough to choose its own death. And I am not inexperienced enough to need your concern. Sylphide will recover and I will escape here alive. Because-”

Then Lehrer started coughing. She held a hand to her mouth and turned away from Hazel.

That brought her slashed back into view. Hazel decided to ask the question that had occurred to her while reading that picture book in the document room.

“Tell me, Lehrer! What were you about to say!?”

…Because…what?

“Why did you sleep for a thousand years to reach the present day? Was it to see Berger? Or was it to save me?”

Lehrer gasped and looked back when she heard that.

“…”

But then she smiled and shook her head. She did not say anything more.

Instead, she gave Hazel a shove toward the bridge.

“No! Wait! We can both go!” shouted Hazel just before Lehrer swung her spear between the two of them. Light trailed behind the spear.

With a roar, the road was split by a fissure 3 yards wide.

“…!”

The roar of weapons fire arrived from the sky at the same time.

Bermark Nein was pursuing Schwarz Löwe.

She heard Schwarz Löwe standing up and she heard Berger’s voice.

“Hazel! Jump!”

The sounds of Grösse Panzer movement rang loud. She looked back to see Schwarz Löwe dodging the enemy shots flying toward the bridge while flapping its wings and running her way. With arm outstretched.

He intended to scoop her up and take flight.

Schwarz Löwe’s footsteps approached and its black hand moved ever closer. She could see the shells hitting behind it.

At 3 yards away, Hazel’s body was lifted from the ground to land on Schwarz Löwe’s hand.

Its right hand snatched her away in midair.

“Lehrer!”

She felt the pressure of the accelerating metal hand holding her, but she still reached her hand out ahead.

Lehrer looked back in slight surprise on the other side of the ditch she had created.

“Jump!” shouted Hazel. “Hurry! We can both leave here!”

Hazel’s words brought some definite doubt to Lehrer’s face, but then she glanced down at the ditch she had made.

“…”

She nodded with her eyes close and then took a step toward Schwarz Löwe.

Hazel smiled and clung to Schwarz Löwe’s thumb with one arm while reaching her left hand even further out.

But…

“!?”

Lehrer turned back around on reflex. Like she had noticed something.

“Lehrer!?”

Hazel gave a panicked shout toward the woman’s back and then saw the problem.

A row of trucks was driving up from the narrow road Lehrer had turned toward.

The truck headlights were far brighter than the outdoor lights and warning lights and a silhouette could be seen highlighted by them.

That was Alfred Maldrick with Rein König held high.

He was running toward them with the clear intention of attacking Hazel in Schwarz Löwe’s hand.

Lehrer spun her spear around to block his attack.

A roar rumbled out and bright light filled Hazel’s vision.

A moment later, Schwarz Löwe dodged out of the way of the light and began its ascent.

Hazel’s hand failed to grasp anything in the light.

She shouted something, but her voice was drowned out by the Panzer’s ascent and the Busting shout coming from the surface.

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.

“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.

Part 5

A large field existed in the mountain night. It had once been covered by the forest that still surrounded it, but the trees had been cut down and cleared away. It stood atop a flat hill about 100 yards across, a few stumps remained, and an unmaintained mountain road led to it.

At one corner of the field, a large silhouette kneeled below a large tree sticking out from the forest.

A pair of wings grew from its moonlit black back. It was the Grösse Panzer named Schwarz Löwe.

Schwarz Löwe was at the very edge of the forest where it wouldn’t be noticeable from the sky at night.

Two people could be seen in the grassy area next to Schwarz Löwe. Hazel was seated atop a sundried stump, sobbing and wiping away her tears, and Berger was healing her foot.

He had concluded the cotton in the first aid kid wasn’t enough and instead wiped her foot clean with a pile towel and disinfectant. He commented on the cut to her right big toe.

“It is healing, but your tension and the freshness of the wound are the only reasons you aren’t feeling any pain. Once it dries, it will hurt every time you move your foot. …Hey, don’t get scared and pull your foot back.”

She shrugged and gave in, sticking her right foot out toward him.

He once more grabbed the bottom of her foot about halfway up and cleaned off each of her toes. There was an occasional stiff pain, telling her she had several smaller nicks on her foot too.

But beyond that, it also felt ticklish to have a cloth rubbing at her nails and toes with more strength than she could have managed. She had been crying a moment before, but now she was afraid she would start laughing.

“First you suppress tears and now you suppress laughter? It’s always something with you, isn’t it?”

“B-but…but Lehrer…”

“Come to think of it, I’ve been in this position before.”

She thought about it and quickly realized what he meant, but he gave the answer first.

“When we first met, I put some sandals on your feet. Did it tickle then too?”

“No, it didn’t back then. …I’m surprised you still remember that.”

“You remember it too.”

She nodded just once. She did indeed remember it well.

…I wonder if Lehrer remembered it?

“Um, Berger?”

“What?”

“Why did the Messiah sleep for a thousand years?”

“Why do you think?”

Before she could consider it, Berger finished cleaning off her foot.

“Your hand,” he said and she held out her right hand.

Her coat’s sleeve was rolled up to the elbow and the arm was stained red from when she had bandaged her foot. He rubbed with the towel to clean off the dried blood. It smelled of disinfectant alcohol and she felt the chill of it taking effect.

While he cleaned off her right arm in what felt a lot like a massage, she thought about his question and spoke her thoughts aloud.

“According to the Geheimnis Agency…the world continues to repeat the last thousand years and hasn’t made any progress.”

“And it sounds like keeping that loop going is your job, Hazel. According to Lehrer anyway.”

They exchanged a glance at this first exchange of information. They both looked a bit surprised.

…Did she tell him everything?

“I see.” He nodded. “Sounds like we both know Lehrer’s identity and most everything else too.”

“Yes. The only thing I don’t know is why Lehrer chose to sleep for a thousand years.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, his left hand grabbed her jaw.

“Don’t move. You have blood on your cheek.”

That was from Lehrer’s slap.

Him rubbing that dried blood off with the towel reminded her of Lehrer, which nearly made her cry again. But she couldn’t even open her mouth with his firm grip on her jaw.

He responded to her with a look of disinterest.

“So the thing that baffles you most is yourself? Join the club, Hazel.”

She gave him a puzzled look as he finished cleaning off her cheek and tossed aside the towel.

Then he grabbed both her cheeks.

“~!”

He tugged on them and they stretched surprisingly far. He even moved his hands up and down.

“So you want to know why she slept for a thousand years to wake up in our time?” He took a breath. “Remember what her Titel is, Hazel Mirildorf.”

She gasped.

…Oh.

“Isn’t that all you need? Besides, we don’t even know if she’s really dead.”

He tugged down hard on her pinched cheeks, forcing her to nod.

“I see. So my answer was good enough for you. Makes sense since I’m the second best advice-giver in the world.”

He let go and her cheeks snapped back to normal.

“Hyah!”

She held her cheeks and poked at them, feeling how heated and elastic they were. Fortunately, they didn’t seem to have been stretched out permanently.

She felt a tiny prick of pain on the inside of the right elbow she had bent to touch her cheek.

She cocked an eyebrow curiously and straightened out her right arm to see the medical charm on the inside of the elbow had come off. The injection site below was a bit red and swollen from all her running around.

She noticed his eyes on that spot.

“Did you bring the ampules?”

“Yes, but only one.”

They both spoke at once after she gave that answer.

“Then you take it, Hazel.”

“So let’s each take half.”

They both felt confident in their answers, but then they noticed what the other had said.

After a moment, Berger frowned in the moonlight.

“What possessed you to give the world’s stupidest answer?” he asked.

“Because we both need to leave this country. I’m not wrong.”

“I’m the one who isn’t wrong. Do I need to strip you and make you cry again?”

“You’re welcome to try, but I warn you I will win in the end.”

She looked him dead in the eye with eyebrows raised.

He started to say something, stood up, and said something else instead.

“Hey.”

“What is it?”

“The effect would be greatly weakened if we only took half. Maybe we could leave, but we might end up in a coma or have half our body blown away. Why do you want to leave that badly?”

“So I can return again.” She pulled the Wheel of Destiny card from her coat pocket and showed it to him. “I don’t think Sylphide is dead, so I will leave the country and then return to Germania with Pale, Corelle, you, and the rest of the AIF.”

She thought of Lehrer and the Geheimnis Agency commander as she continued.

“I’ve made up my mind. No matter what happens, I will not let anyone go through such an unpleasant experience again.” She gave a deep nod, more to convince herself than anything. “I won’t let anyone think they have no choice but to endure it.”

She stopped there. She could see Berger tilting his head.

He sighed, looked away from her, and brushed a hand through his hair.

“There’s no convincing an idiot they’re wrong, is there?”

But he held out his right hand.

“Give me the ampule. I’ll go first and you can have the rest.”

“Are you serious?”

She was legitimately surprised by this and he gave her a cold look.

“Why do women get so suspicious when you do what they want? Would you prefer I refused?”

“S-sorry.”

She remained seated with her knees up as she pulled the ampule case from her coat pocket. He took it from her outstretched hand, opened it, and let the moonlight shine on the contents.

“Not broken this time. Good job.”

He pulled the syringe out with his right hand, removed the cover from the tip, and artlessly injected half of the contents into his neck.

He quickly pulled it out to ensure no blood flowed back into the cylinder that still contained half the serum.

“Here.”

He placed it in the ampule case and handed it back to her.

“It’s kind of creepy seeing you do what you’re told,” she said.

“Do I need to inject it into those needlessly big boobs?”

“No, thanks.”

She politely refused and then injected the ampule’s contents into her inner right elbow.

She suddenly felt a tremor running along her spine. Her body tensed for just a moment and the needle wouldn’t come out.

“–––––”

But then it came out. She frowned a bit.

“Seems like it works.” Berger wiped the sweat from his brow. “We’re both carrying only half of it in us. If we leave Germany, there will be some kind of change to our bodies.”

“But we can both leave, right?”

“We can. And then…we can give this all a lot of thought and return to Germania with the AIF.”

He sat down in the grass, placing his eyes a level below Hazel on the stump.

“Hey, Hazel. Can you do one thing for me?”

“What’s this all of a sudden?”

“Fix your gown.” He tugged on the bottom of the hospital gown she wore. “If you don’t hold it in the back of your knees when sitting with your knees up, people can see-”

She knew what he was getting at, so she hit him in the face with the ampule case she was holding.

Part 6

A single contrail hung in the sky above the Hamburg base. It drew a straight line to the south.

Below the cloud, lights were gathered around a waterway bisecting the base. The white lights were different from the warning lights.

They revealed the waterway to be badly damaged. The concrete sides were broken and the bottom was torn apart and spewing mud, but the water itself flowed cleanly around the wreckage.

The lights from above shined on something like a bridge. That was the border with the outside of the base. The large fenced bank at the end of the waterway was half destroyed and something like a long T-shaped bridge lay there with its bottom end soaking in the water.

That was actually the wreckage of a blue and a black aerial warship.

Both were 30 yards long and they had similar designs.

The black one spanned the waterway like a bridge and was motionless.

The blue one was stabbed into the black one’s belly.

Combat engineers moved around and shouted to each other in the light.

A large silhouette joined them in the light.

The enormous green Grösse Panzer was Karl Schmitt.

A woman climbed down from his shoulder, spoke with a nearby combat engineer, and gave Karl instructions via hand signal.

Large trucks equipped with wires and suspension equipment arrived after him and lined up alongside the waterway.

They worked with Karl to first lift the black craft.

A Grösse Panzer transportation truck arrived with additional cargo space installed and drove to the center of the light.

Everyone was on the move.

Except for the one person who remained motionless.

The woman in a Geheimnis Agency uniform was Lowenzahn. There was no one in her immediate vicinity as she brushed a hand through her hair and watched the recovery of the two aerial warships.

Then someone walked up behind her.

“Hellard?”

Her eyebrows bent into a smile as she looked back to find…

“I apologize for not being who you wanted to see.”

The pencil-thin elderly man in a Geheimnis Agency uniform was Bermark Vier.

He held a hand to his chest and bowed before taking a look around. There was no one else close by.

“I sent Sir Elrich and Sir Witzmann to the old headquarters like you wanted.”

“So the usual process.” Lowenzahn breathed a sigh of relief. “They will learn the truth, but they can’t bring it back with them. They can, however, leave if they manage to survive all of the battles the Messiah fought.”

“We forced this upon them, but I imagine those eternal students appreciate a further opportunity for learning.”

“Probably so,” said Lowenzahn, turning back toward the two aerial warships. “Sending in Erlkönig may have been a mistake. I’m not cut out for this kind of work.”

“I cannot say much of anything since I did not see what happened.”

“Where is Captain Hellard? Have you seen him?”

“I did earlier. He, Sir Heiliger, and Sir Müller are preparing to evacuate Hamburg before the Allied bombers arrive. He fears a repeat of the tragedy at Cologne.”

“And the lieutenant who also witnessed Cologne is doing something else entirely.”

She pointed into the sky with her eyes still on the aerial warships.

There was a contrail there.

Bermark’s eyebrows raised slightly when he looked to the sky.

“Did he pursue the Messiah on his own?”

“Bermark, how much does your brother understand the lieutenant?” She lowered her pointing hand. “The woman named Eryngium Ilfheim said she didn’t want to run away and she was killed to protect Dog Berger, who tried to let her run away. She was 21 at the time, the same as the Messiah now. What do you make of this?”

Bermark’s answer was simple.

“I am a soulless Sein Frau, so I cannot answer that.”

“But your brother did not go with him. Your brother is superior, Bermark.”

Her words were interrupted by a loud splashing and mechanical noise.

Karl had descended into the waterway. His large silhouette moved in the lights. The combat engineers on his arms attached padded wires to Erlkönig.

Lowenzahn saw the wires supporting Erlkönig go taut.

“Bermark. Rapidly build a repair line for Erlkönig and Sylphide in Germania’s 3rd level factory district. You should be able to repair Sylphide using the parts recovered from the North Sea and the undamaged parts of this one, so do whatever it takes to have them both repaired by the 23rd.”

“Fräulein, I can understand with Erlkönig, but Sylphide might turn against us.”

“But when the Nibelung turns and Hazel Mirildorf arrives in the past, she needs more than the one-armed young man with her, doesn’t she? We must have Sylphide ready for her.” She smiled bitterly. “Hazel Mirildorf will come to Germania on the 23rd. Probably to stop the Nibelung. But I will make sure she keeps it turning. Because that is the only way to preserve this world.”

“I see. Then I will keep Sylphide deactivated and stored in the shielded isolation room on Germania’s lowest level. In that emergency isolation room that can only be reached by taking a VTOL craft down through 18 barriers.”

Karl grabbed Erlkönig’s belly and began lifting it, producing a metallic sound,

With the assistance of the wires and his colleagues, his arm slowly lifted Erlkönig. But his arm stopped shortly thereafter.

Then the people supporting Sylphide from the bottom of the waterway got to work.

The lights turned toward Sylphide. The blue craft wasn’t just bent in half – it had damage and corrosion in places. However…

“It still looks clean. Does that show how well it was cared for? This is awful, really. This is the first loop when Sylphide and the Messiah were reborn in the modern world.”

“How does it usually work?”

“In the past worlds, the Messiah disappeared somewhere along with the one-armed man. Once Sylphide’s reactor died and its self-repair function died along with it, it was buried where it rotted away. There wouldn’t have been anything to dig back up. Only some poorly-made plans left below Karlsruhe land as Ober Geheimnis.” Lowenzahn nodded and turned away from the waterway. “The world is approaching destruction. I must reveal the true meaning of the Panzerpolis Project tonight.”

“Protecting Hamburg comes first. That is always how it begins, isn’t it?”

“Yes. The bombing of Hamburg is a test for the bombing of Germania on August 23. It will also scare the military into increasing the output of the dome and further boosting the Vaterlands.”

“The only real difference from the previous loops is the Allies will be using this bombing to acquire intel on an air route to Germania they can use for their ACBS loaded with the new bomb developed on the data we gave them.”

“It will all work out if I can use my Beweisen to capture the Messiah on the 23rd and if that ACBS arrives on schedule.”

“Yes, it will all work out,” she repeated to herself before walking off.

She looked to the east where a white umbrella of light could be seen near the horizon.

“Things have changed, but tonight I will make the necessary corrections and then stop lying to everyone. Bermark, tell everyone tomorrow that the final prophecy is the 1st Section of the Moonlight. I’m sorry,” she said. “But I’m going to use you for my lies. After I enter Tristan, I imagine Captain Hellard will ask how I made my prophecies if my Ober Beweisen is used to boost Tristan.”

“What should I tell him?”

“That’s simple. Lie and tell him I can make prophecies on my own – no machines necessary.” She couldn’t look Bermark in the eye as she walked past him. “I need one other person to lie for me too. I need someone to convince the others that the destruction of the world refers to the collapse of Germany from the anxiety Tons, not to the Nibelung.”

“Would that be Sir Heiliger?”

“Yes. It would be too difficult for everyone otherwise. The more the Geheimnis Agency works to protect Germany, the harder I must work to have Tristan extract the Spacetime Tons. Meanwhile, the Allies will be sending so much anxiety our way. If we play our role, the Allies play theirs, and the Messiah plays hers, the Nibelung will continue turning. That is the natural outcome and I will respect that.” She sighed and stopped walking. “We are only trying to protect those close to us, but our presence causes the enemy to wield a great power against us. That is exactly what happened to Graham and Rose.”

She pulled a small piece of paper from her pocket. The folded paper held an ear of golden wheat.

She stroked the wheat with her finger while repeating a line from the 1st Section of the Moonlight.

“A wall separates the pair, hm?”

She looked up into the sky where a white contrail cut across the dark night sky.

Part 7

The first in the forest clearing to react to the approaching threat was Schwarz Löwe.

It was kneeling and something like a pulse began to sound from its stomach.

The next reaction came before the first mechanical heartbeat was over.

A white light appeared in its sight devices.

By then, Berger had noticed something was up while Hazel threw small rocks and such at him.

“Hey, Haz- gwoh!?”

A larger rock hit him in the jaw and he nearly fell over.

Then Hazel also noticed something was odd about Schwarz Löwe, so she dropped the rock she held.

“Ah! L-look, Berger. Schwarz Löwe is doing something.”

He clearly wanted to say something to her, but they didn’t have time.

He turned toward Schwarz Löwe and directed his gaze toward the metal stomach the pulse was coming from.

“It’s reacting. The experimental Eingeweide device installed in it is reacting to its original owner’s approach.”

He was proven right when something dropped from the sky.

With a blast of wind, a deafening roar, and the color white, something was now standing on the field.

“Neue Kaiser!?”

Hazel’s words were answered by the pressurized wind of its landing racing across the field.

A white Grösse Panzer now stood on the field.

Its metal body produced a wind. That wind carried the scent of the summer grass and night dew, the chill of the night, and the smell of metal and oil.

It all raced past Hazel and hit the forest.

The trees shook, the leaves rustled, and the sleeping birds and other animals took flight, began running, and made lots of noise.

Hazel wasn’t sure how to react, so she turned toward Berger. However…

“Berger?”

He was gone. She frantically looked left and right, hoping to find him.

“Where are you looking? I’m up here.”

He was up on Schwarz Löwe’s secondary cockpit. He had just opened the hatch and he was glaring at Neue Kaiser.

She followed his gaze to view Neue Kaiser as well.

The large Grösse Panzer had six wings on its back and held a sword. It remained entirely motionless with its Panzer Kleid blowing in its own wind. The moonlight palely shined on the movable white armor installed over its armored clothing.

Someone stood on the shoulder armor.

Berger looked up at the person and asked a question.

“Why are you here, Alfred?”

“For answers. About 8 years ago and about the Messiah’s purpose.”

The wind carried his scratchy artificial voice over the long distance between them.

He slowly raised his left hand in front of his chest, placed his right hand over that, and pulled the red-stoned ring off of his left hand’s middle finger.

Then he slowly held his right hand out to the side and tossed the ring away with a flick of his wrist.

He threw it toward Hazel.

The red gleam flew in straight line and hit the edge of the stump she had been sitting on earlier. It bounced up about 2 yards with a light clink.

But it landed back down on the stump. The red gleam settled down near the very center of the tree rings.

“You too, Berger,” said Alfred.

Hazel looked to Berger.

He gave Alfred a furious look but then nodded.

He removed the red pendant from his neck, the chain making a quiet jangling.

With the pendant in his hand now, he did not hesitate to throw it toward Hazel.

She frantically held out her hands and caught it.

…So…

She wasn’t sure what to do, so she tried saying something.

“Um.”

“Don’t move.”

“Just watch.”

She was cut off by a pair of responses. After some hesitation, she sat back down on the stump. Then Berger called out to her.

“Hazel.”

“Y-yes?”

“What will you do? 8 years ago, I tried to let Eryngium run away and I lost her.”

After the shortest of moments, she shook her head.

“You should know my answer. It hasn’t changed.” She took a breath and placed a hand on her chest. “I don’t want to run away.”

“That’s what I thought.” He narrowed his eyes and then turned back toward Alfred. “Alfred, do you want to see the answer we reach?”

Alfred did not respond.

That silence bothered Hazel, so she turned to observe him.

She found him looking at her.

…Eh?

But after her reaction of surprise, he looked away.

He narrowed his eyes, turned back toward Berger, and asked a single question.

“Have you been training?”

After a pause, Berger answered the simple question.

“I have.”

“I see.”

Alfred nodded, shut his eyes, and descended toward the secondary cockpit. He intended to Schreiben into the Panzer.

Berger slipped into his own secondary cockpit and his voice reached Hazel from beyond the hatch.

“Don’t worry, Hazel Mirildorf. 8 years ago, I thought I was the best in the world at everything.”

After the span of a few breaths, Schwarz Löwe raised Gelegenheit and Neue Kaiser spread its wings and raised its sword Werkzeug.

The two Panzers stood at opposite ends of the battlefield and drew lines in the ground behind them with their weapons.

“Between these lines, the past 8 years never happened,” said Neue Kaiser.

They would not fight in a way that would cross those lines.

“Let’s get to it then,” said Schwarz Löwe.

The two of them took the first step of a full-speed sprint at the exact same moment.

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