City Series:Volume6d Chapter2

Chapter 2: The Ruin Begins

7/24/1943 05:06 – 15:10

Time knows everything

Both what I remember

And what I don’t

Geheimnis Agency Personnel

Lowenzahn Naylor (Geheimnis Agency Commander)

Sofort Leser and Geheimnis Agency Commander. Mother is Frobel. Father is Lowenheit.

Heiliger Karlsruhe (Geheimnis Agency Lieutenant Commander)

Transferred from the military in ’42, becoming the commander-in-chief. Lost his brother Graham and Sister Rose at Cologne in ’42.

Hellard Schweitzer (Geheimnis Agency Air Force Division Captain)

Wielder of Eingeweide arm Der Held. Went to high school with Berger. Father is Bertecht.

Bermark Vier (Geheimnis Agency Air Force Division)

Automaton and wielder of Eingeweide handgun Freischütz. Schweitzer’s lieutenant.

Alfred Maldrick (Geheimnis Agency Army Division Lieutenant)

Pilot of Eingeweide Grösse Panzer Neue Kaiser and wielder of Werkzeug Rein König. Went to high school with Berger and cut down Eryngium 8 years ago.

Bermark Nein (Geheimnis Agency Army Division)

Alfred’s subordinate and a Sein Frau. Vier’s older brother. Joined with two Grösse Panzers.

Karl Schmitt (Geheimnis Agency Army Division Chief)

Joined with a large Grösse Panzer and uses a double Drache Kanone as his primary weapon.

Wife is Army Division Deputy Chief Jeanne.

Herbert Müller (Geheimnis Agency Air Force Division Chief)

A plump elderly man. Adopted Lowenzahn on Graham’s orders.

Lillie Telmetz (Geheimnis Agency Navy Division Chief)

Uses the Eingweide harp Mondnacht. Friends with Jeanne and helped Graham in the past.

Konrad Elrich (Geheimnis Agency Development Division Chief)

An old scientist with a passion for research. Superior of Marsch Gant who developed Eingeweide devices.

Galue Witzmann (Geheimnis Agency Intelligence Division Chief)

A kind-looking old gentleman. But will do anything to acquire intelligence.

Part 1

Light crept into the sky as dawn approached.

That sky hung over a forest enshrouded in shadow.

The hills and mountains were all covered with green trees.

The only areas of ground devoid of trees were near the several rivers running through the lower part of the forest.

There was a single point in the forest where those rivers gathered together.

The dirt ground was exposed over a wide region there. There was a large hole in the middle of that land. The bowl-shaped hole was filled with the water flowing in from the rivers.

With a diameter of a mile and a half, it qualified as a large lake.

Something like a tower jutted up from the center of the lake.

The morning light revealed the tower to be a giant barrel.

The barrel rose from what looked like a metal island.

The barrel was jet black, as was the large metal island. Both were terribly cracked and split, revealing a metal frame that resembled ribs.

The morning sun appeared over the horizon.

Its light illuminated the tower and island from behind.

The tower’s shadow stretched westward across the water, climbed the slope that formed the edge of the hole, and reached the land beyond.

A slender woman stood at the far end of the shadow.

Her long frayed brown hair blew in the wind. She wore a Geheimnis Agency Navy Division coat, but she wore a blue dress below that.

Her left shoulder supported a harp that curved forward from there. The harp was a yard long, but it did not overbalance her.

She was motionless.

The shallow wrinkles of her face were not smiling.

The breaths leaving her mouth were made white by the early morning chill.

Her breaths formed a beat.

She let out a longer white breath to mark a change.

After a second, third, and fourth beat, the change revealed itself.

Her breathing grew subtly quicker and subtly stronger.

The individual breaths joined together to form their beat and her eyes suddenly moved.

She looked up into the sky.

The colors of night still lingered there. The morning wind blew the thin clouds from east to west, fluffing them up thicker and whiter.

A white circle floated up in the center of the morning sky. That was the morning moon.

The moon left behind traces of the early morning light as it looked down on the woman.

Sound left the harp resting on her left shoulder.

It produced sound without her needing to strum it.

A single loud, clear tone dyed the morning air.

The note raced out and the surface of the lake rippled.

Another note rang out.

Then another. And another. More and more notes played, but they were all the same note. This did not qualify as music.

Altogether…

“Ober Text: 6.4 million Tons!” shouted the woman.

She looked down at the many ripples running along the surface of the water, crashing into each other, and creating more waves. The size and intensity of the ripples was changed by the notes being played.

She watched that motion and opened her mouth to say more.

<The Moonlit Night never wakes.>

The waves grew.

<The Moonlit Night allows a different power to dance.>

The waves grew even more.

<The Moonlit Night seeks a different power.>

The waves swelled up like a tower. Eight waves sucked up the water from the large hole to grow tall.

The weight towers of water trapped air within them and curved up into the sky while maintaining a thickness of around a dozen yards. They reached a height of more than 300 yards with water audibly spraying from them.

And they roared.

The high-pitched cry of a wild animal erupted from the ends of the eight water currents. Animal faces had formed there. They opened mouths like protruding beaks, bared watery fangs, and grew two long horns behind their heads.

These were dragons.

The eight dragons danced wildly.

<The Moonlit Night cannot be stopped.>

Just as it looked like the dragons were twisting around, they crashed into the edge of the large hole one after another.

They crashed into the mouth of a river flowing into the hole.

The dragons destroyed and broke the land there to fill in the river mouth.

With the sound of breaking rock, the water pressure attacks tore apart the ground and carried rock.

Roars rang out with an eight-beat tempo. They whipped up the wind, sent spray into the air, and shook the forest sky with the sounds of impact, scaring the morning forest birds into flight. The birds’ chirping protests were drowned out by bestial roars. One corner of the forest morning was ruled by those animalistic movements.

A great boulder shattered.

The large pieces rolled into the hole and fully blocked up the mouth connecting the river to the hole.

The dragons stopped there.

<The Moonlit Night leaves by setting in the west.>

With those words and a note from the harp, the dragons twisted toward the woman. All eight raised their heads and looked down at her.

She looked each of the eight in the eye and without warning…

“…”

She silently held a hand out toward them.

The wind moved in response. So did the dragons. The rightmost of the eight blew out the air bubbles inside it and moved its snout toward the offered hand.

The dragon’s breath smelled like cold water.

Its beak-like mouth opened and revealed a forked tongue as big around as an arm.

The tongue moved like it had a mind of its own and licked the woman’s hand.

The tongue passed above her hand, producing some spray, and a small fish landed in her hand.

The woman looked surprised.

“Oh, dear. You need to take this one with you.”

The dragon nodded, stuck out its tongue, scooped up the fish, and brought the fish into its watery body.

Then the dragons whipped up the wind while turning toward the river.

They flew in arcs that crossed the border of the hole, diving into the river. They produced the roar of eight waterfalls and a mist flew into the air.

But that only lasted a moment.

By the time the waterfall roar was gone, so were the dragons. All that remained was the mist they had produced.

“…”

The woman sighed.

She heard a flapping sound behind her like someone was rapidly flipping through a book.

She gasped and looked back.

There was movement in the forest. Some bushes were rustling.

Part 2

“…?”

The woman frowned and adjusted the position of the harp on her left shoulder, but she didn’t speak a word.

Instead, she heard a voice from the bushes. A woman’s high-pitched voice.

“Sorry. Did I surprise you, Lillie?”

The bushes parted and a woman in a black military uniform stepped out. She brushed her brown hair back with a hand and stopped in front of the bushes.

The two women faced each other. The first to speak was the one holding the harp – Lillie.

“Jeanne? What brings you here?”

“I saw those dragons on my way to Hamburg, so I decided to have Karl stop and pay you a visit on my own. You can see his Drache Kanones above the forest there, can’t you?”

Lillie looked and sure enough. She also nodded at the mention of Hamburg.

“On your way for an audience with the Messiah I heard was captured about two hours ago? In exchange for data on our Wort Bombe.”

“Affirmative. What about you? Are you headed back to the North Sea once you finish your once-a-month cleaning here?”

Lillie thought for a moment and then nodded.

Jeanne sighed at the slight head movement.

Then she explained the meaning of her sigh.

“Lillie. Maybe I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this, but you should really try to forget.”

“Could you say that if you had lost your husband?”

“Yes, I could.” Jeanne did not hesitate. “I can’t live alone, so if I lost him, I would have no choice but to find a replacement.”

“I can hear you with my new hearing devices, you know?” rumbled a mechanical voice from beyond the forest. That was Jeanne’s husband Karl.

Jeanne shrugged and stuck out her tongue a little before turning toward the forest.

“I’ll never even look at another man as long as you’re still alive.”

“I appreciate it.”

Lillie shut her eyes and placed a hand on her chin.

“I envy you, Jeanne,” she said. “But I didn’t even try to keep him – keep them – alive. I even helped them die, really. Because I knew they would die and did nothing to stop it.”

“You make it sound like his and Lady Rose’s deaths were predetermined.”

“What if they were?” asked Lillie, opening her eyes.

There was no doubt in the eyes she directed straight toward Jeanne.

“I’m sorry, Jeanne, but there is one thing I can’t tell you because of a promise I made with them. You know my Mondnacht here was made from my tears, right? When I created it, I lost the ability to ever again cry like my little sister, but…”

She took a breath.

“I made the decision because of a promise I made with them. I didn’t want to ever worry them by letting them see me cry.”

“…”

“If I keep that promise, I can’t do what you suggested. So even if this is no more than self-condemnation and even if it’s my punishment for hesitating…”

She lowered her head. She could not cry. The ability did not exist inside her.

Jeanne asked a question instead.

“Do you need something before you can let yourself give up? Have you still not found whatever it is? Even after having your dragons search the wreckage for so long?”

“I think Rose’s red gem must be somewhere. I found Silber Löwe, but nothing could be recreated from its Studio. …It was modified to work as Heiliger’s personal Panzer, wasn’t it? That wreckage really was all that remained. Only the wreckage of what had once been a dragon.”

Jeanne started to say something in response. She raised her right hand as if to pat Lillie on the shoulder despite being too far away and she opened her mouth.

“––––––”

She pressed her lips together and then bit the lower one.

She shook her head while Lillie’s downcast eyes couldn’t see. Her short hair swayed.

Then she faced forward and cleared her throat quietly. She spread her legs a bit and crossed her arms before speaking.

“Listen to us wasting the day away discussing our personal affairs. We really are getting old.”

Hearing that, Lillie raised her head and lowered her eyebrows a bit.

“Is that what it means?”

“What kind of reaction is that? You’re supposed to agree and laugh about it.”

“I’m sorry. It didn’t sound like that kind of thing.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s the spirit that counts.”

Jeanne raised her right hand to face height and pointed at Lillie.

“I’ll tell everyone you left for the North Sea.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me. Protecting you has been my job since our school days. Well, that and to drag you out from behind your guardian Graham.”

“And my job was to clean up after your almost daily battles over ‘honor’ and to smooth things over with the teachers.”

“She still does that, by the way,” said the distant mechanical voice.

“Eavesdropping is the mark of a cowardly man,” replied Jeanne with a smile. Then she looked to Lillie again. “Did you visit the Village of Pardons? Then why not pay it a visit soon? Your sister visited the village a lot with Borderson’s Melda. The place is beautiful this time of year thanks to all the wheat fields around.”

“That might not last long. I hear the military is really cracking down on Heidengeists now. As an outlet for all the country’s anxieties,” said Lillie. “But maybe that’s a reason to go now. Before it’s lost.”

Jeanne nodded and turned around. She took a few steps before looking back over her shoulder.

Lillie was still standing there, so she spoke to her.

“Are you sure you don’t want to meet the Messiah?”

“I feel like I would say something nasty if I did.”

“Hm? Why’s that?”

The answer was so quiet it was nearly drowned out by the nearby river.

Lillie wrapped her arm around her harp like she was embracing it.

“If what we have now is the result of the Unreif Germane and the prophesies, then the ancient Messiah and the current one are two people I can never, ever-”

“Don’t say it.”

Cut off by Jeanne’s words, Lillie turned around.

Jeanne said nothing to the woman’s back. She only nodded and faced the forest again.

Jeanne kept a blank expression as she walked back into the bushes and the forest beyond.

Part 3

Two old men walked through a forest.

The one on the right, who was tall, skinny, and bald, spoke with his hands in his suit’s pockets.

“This feels just like a real forest, Elrich.”

The one on the left, Elrich, responded with his hands in his lab coat’s pockets.

“And whose fault is that, Witzmann? As much as it looks like a forest, this is actually that secret passageway in the old HQ. That HQ was built on top of a castle and the ether conversion device built below that castle has gone berserk, recreating tactile History Tons to show them as fake dragons and even the scenes and situations from the historical records.”

Elrich watched as Witzmann plucked a leaf from a nearby tree and held it up.

It was a bright green broadleaf. He flicked it through the air with his long finger, where it hit Elrich in the nose and spiraled down to the ground.

Witzmann wiped the sweat from his brow and touched a nearby tree.

“So you’re saying this forest is a recreation of the History Tons known to the old HQ – or the castle below it? If an ether conversion device is remaking the castle’s Tons into this…then in a way, this forest is real.”

“Correct. The castle used to extract Germany’s Tons from the ley lines and recreate dragons, but now it has gone berserk and is recreating everything related to the dragons in the Messiah’s time: the ridiculous monsters, the locations, and the time.”

“You thoroughly researched how these spaces are made back when the Geheimnis Agency was started, didn’t you?”

Elrich nodded and looked up into the sky while walking through the underbrush.

He could see the blue sky past the forest’s leaves and branches.

“That wasn’t easy. We started out on the beach back when we joined 23 years ago, didn’t we?”

“How long did it take us again? Because we don’t have any spatial conversion techniques.”

“Three weeks. We fought on the beach, in the dark, in the caves, and in the castle courtyard. …I heard it created a dark underground passageway for those Maldrick and Schweitzer kids when they joined four years ago.”

“They set a new fastest time, didn’t they? The castle’s device can only show people images with ether, so it was fairly helpless against Der Held’s ether annihilation and Maldrick’s ether destruction.”

“Now is not the time to be praising those kids. We don’t have any techniques like that, so escaping this space is going to take a lot of doing.”

With that, Elrich walked out ahead and looked back at Witzmann who wasn’t following.

“What now? If you aren’t coming, I’ll leave you behind.”

“That isn’t south. Who was it that said we might find a road or homes if we head south?”

“That was me.” Elrich clicked his tongue. “And you’re the one with the watch. Fine, which way is south?”

Elrich stopped and turned around to see Witzmann checking his pocket watch. He compared the watch to the sun in the sky and then turned his narrowed eyes toward the forest trees to his left.

“That way. Let’s hope this takes us out of the forest.”

“This really is going to take a lot of doing. The most we can do is survive until the castle stops recreating its records.”

“If only it wouldn’t recreate such a wide space for its limited records.”

They started walking again.

Their feet rustled the thick underbrush.

“This is a dense forest. I can already tell it will be sweltering once the sun is higher in the sky.”

“This is what the forests were like back when the Messiah was uniting Germany.”

“True enough.” Elrich wiped away his sweat with his lab coat’s sleeve. “The beach we saw 23 years ago was a recreation of the records of the Messiah defeating a North Sea dragon. The dragons Maldrick and Schweitzer saw in the darkness 4 years ago were a recreation of when the Duke of Saxony challenged her to clear an underground labyrinth as a test. …All German Neue Kavaliers must go through something the Messiah experienced.”

Elrich looked up as he walked. He could see bits and pieces of the sky through the branches and leaves.

Witzmann brushed aside a branch in the way and Elrich ducked below it.

They still couldn’t see anything but forest ahead of them. Only an ocean of green.

“Hey, Elrich. Can I ask you something out of the blue?”

“What is it?”

“What do you think the ruin coming in August actually is? The war is going back and forth and everyone’s anxiety continues to grow, but what could cause ruin on a global scale?”

“All I can think of is the Tristan going haywire. If all the boosted Vaterlands go nuts along with it, the effect will spread to the world’s ley lines and that would cause largescale destruction on the surface.”

“But that would only destroy the surface of the earth. That’s trivial when you look at the world as a whole. The world is going to end in some way that doesn’t even leave History Tons behind. What could even do that?”

He took a breath.

“Our intelligence network has already learned that the Allies have created a ley line reversal Tune Emblem for use against Tristan. They based it on data received from the AIF’s destruction of a Vaterland back in ’39. They plan to occupy all of the Vaterlands around the world and use the Tons they’ve prepared to send the flow of ether back toward Tristan to destroy it.”

“What Tons have they prepared?”

Witzmann parted the underbrush before answering.

“Anxiety.” He took a breath. “There’s plenty of that going around these days. …Oh, there’s a road.”

Elrich was about to say something more, but he stopped when Witzmann mentioned a road. Instead, he only repeated the word “anxiety” under his breath and turned to see what Witzmann was looking at.

The forest opened up.

A road cut by from left to right, leading up a hill slope.

The light of the sun managed to pass through the forest trees to reach them.

“I would love to find a sign. Then I could estimate when this record takes place,” said Elrich before hearing a distant animal cry.

It was an unfamiliar cry and very loud at that. No ordinary animal could make a sound so loud.

Elrich sighed.

“The old HQ’s recreations are always missing one element, aren’t they?”

“They recreate the surrounding environment and the monsters. However…”

“They do not recreate the Messiah or the Neue Kavaliers who fought them. Whoever is taken into the record has to play that role themselves.”

“That must be a dragon over there. But more than that…”

Witzmann trailed off as he crouched down.

Elrich frowned and started to ask what that was about.

But a sudden change came over his expression.

“Sword fighting?”

Witzmann nodded as several metallic crashes echoed in from the distance.

The dragon roared again in response.

“Someone is fighting the dragon.”

“I thought that part wasn’t recreated!? This is only supposed to be the dragon, the time, and the place!”

Witzmann held out a hand to silence Elrich before he slowly stood up and faced forward.

He could see the road at the end of the forest and a grassy hill.

Something climbed to the top of the hill from the other side.

The giant green shape was a beast measuring at least 50 yards long.

It spread its large wings, raised its tail, and ran atop its four legs.

“A dragon.”

But it wasn’t alone. Someone climbed the hill with the dragon.

The woman had long blonde hair and wore a white cloak. She held a sword in one hand and ran alongside the dragon. A young man wearing a contrasting black cloak ran up from behind her with a sword in his hand as well.

The young man had only one arm.

The white and black people evaded the dragon’s fangs and kept running.

Elrich blankly muttered something other than their names.

“The Messiah and the one-armed young man!?”

Part 4

A low-ceilinged room contained the murmurs of a hundred people.

This was the mess hall at the Geheimnis Agency’s Hamburg Base. Most of the tables were full even though it was well into the afternoon.

None of the people in black Geheimnis Agency uniforms were up and walking around. They all remained at the tables, whispering to each other.

Empty plates sat in front of them all. They had finished their meals but not gotten up. The reason they hadn’t left could be found at the center of the mess hall. Everyone tried to feign indifference, but they were all stealing curious glances over their shoulders.

The mess hall’s center table was rectangular and seated eight. Currently, just two people were seated across from each other there: Heiliger and Hazel.

Heiliger wore a black uniform, had gray hair and a gray beard, and crossed his prosthetic arms atop the table.

Hazel wore the kind of surgical gown found at hospitals with a black Geheimnis Agency coat draped over her shoulders. The Wheel of Destiny card in the breast pocket was her only personal possession.

She had done nothing but talk without touching the meat pasta on her plate.

She gesticulated and made sure to direct her entire face upwards so she wouldn’t have to direct her eyes up at the man who was looking down at her.

She wiggled her right arm to indicate a flowing river and caught sight of something like a small brown stain on the inside of her elbow. That was a medical charm. She frowned when she saw it.

“Does that bother you, Miss Mirildorf?” asked Heiliger. “The injection of German Tons, I mean.”

Hazel quickly raised her head again.

“No,” she said, but did hang her head a little, her eyes landing on his chest. “Well, it does a little.”

“Have you been chattering away to distract yourself from that?”

His tone made it clear his question was only rhetorical. She raised her head to find him looking back at her without any shift in posture. His expression remained calm too.

…This man effectively commands the Geheimnis Agency right now.

“General Karlsruhe?”

“Yes? Shall I regale you with tales of your father as a change of pace? Just like you told me all about my daughter who happened to be a classmate of yours.”

“No…I doubt my father would want me to intrude on his past.”

“That sounds like him. Tell me, does he still raise his right hand like this when he has to think about something and finally gives an answer?”

Hazel recognized the way Heiliger twisted and raised his prosthetic right hand.

She even laughed a little and held a hand over the Wheel of Destiny card in her breast pocket.

“Thank you for your concern. I feel a lot better now that I’ve laughed some.” She kept her smile. “But should the Agency’s second in command really be showing me around the base and sharing a meal with me? You’ve more or less told me where I need to go to escape.”

“It’s perfectly fine. You are free to go wherever you like in the base and even send letters to your parents. The letters will be censored by the base’s post room I showed you earlier, of course.”

“Why are-”

Heiliger cut off her question.

“You were injected with German Tons in this base’s medical room while you slept last night.”

“So you think I can’t escape? What about the serum I brought with me?”

“You expect me to believe you would save yourself with the serum you brought for someone else? And if you did try to share it with him, its effectiveness would drop and the German Tons would be back in just a few weeks. Then you would be forced to return.”

“…”

“We have already finished examining that serum and it will be transported to the bottom level of our Germania HQ for storage by the end of the day. You have nowhere to run, so we simply expect you to make the intelligent choice.”

“And if I still try to run?”

“We will do everything we can to stop you. You are our pet cat, not a stray.”

When she grasped his meaning, Hazel’s shoulders drooped and some resignation entered her voice.

“But I think it’s wrong to give your pet an injection while she’s asleep.”

“After capturing you, we slipped a sedative into your food to help you relax. The doctor said you ate well and slept right through having your clothing changed and receiving your injection.”

This was the first she had heard of that, so she cleared her throat and straightened the position of her butt on the chair.

She wasn’t wearing anything other than her choker below the surgical gown she had worn for her examination that morning, so she felt vulnerable. She pulled the collar of the coat together.

Heiliger sighed when he saw that.

“After your examination tomorrow, you will be sent back to Germania and I can show you around Tristan. That enormous fortress will be your new home.”

That turned Hazel’s focus toward the site of the injection on her right arm.

She still felt a stiff pain when she bent the arm, proving that something critical had been done to her.

…I didn’t even know it was happening.

If she left Germany now, she would automatically Ash.

She wasn’t sure what to think about that.

…It still doesn’t seem real.

But there was one thing she could believe in.

…Berger.

She couldn’t believe it took her this long to remember.

She had gotten so worked up talking, but now her mind rapidly cooled.

“Are you not feeling well?” asked Heiliger.

“It’s not that. Um…do you know what happened to Berger after all that?”

He froze in place for a moment.

He clearly wasn’t sure why she would be asking. The Lives she saw coming from him were the yellow of confusion and had a quick staccato tempo.

But he managed to respond after taking a breath.

“You mean the one-armed young man who is always with you? The Wild Hund?” He had a troubled but somehow relieved look on his face. “What if…what if the Geheimnis Agency were to capture him? He too has been injected with German Tons, so he cannot leave the country. So our commander hopes to convince him to join us. Most likely, she will try that when he comes to rescue you.”

“Because you think I’ll join you if Berger is with you?”

“We must do whatever we can in the month until the ruin arrives in August.”

She did not see the color of falsehood in his words. He was serious.

…There is only one month until then. But on the other hand…

“Do you really think you can capture him?”

“Like I said while showing you around the base, the Allies will not help him. When he comes to rescue you, he will be on his own. But this base is defended by Neue Kaiser, Der Held, our commander’s Neue Erde, and the Fünf Leithammels leading the air force and army divisions. What can a single Wild Hund do?”

“What if I work to help him?”

“The Kaiser Schwert will try to kill you. He told me as much when he brought you in last night.”

Her heart skipped a beat and she straightened her back while looking around. She saw no sign of the young man who had grabbed her arm in the library last night. Heiliger must have realized what her action meant.

“He is in the sky right now. He said we need to be prepared to save the world on our own.” He took a breath. “He wouldn’t listen if I told him to stop, so I must ask that you do not try to escape. And…I also hope I can convince you to fight alongside us when destiny comes to rescue you.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

She was surprised at how reflexively the answer came from her.

She paused for a moment, wondering if she should say the rest.

…But…

“If I did that, he would call me spineless.”

“This divinely-named man sounds like trouble.”

“He is, but so am I. I mean, I can’t seem to figure out how to look at this from your point of view.”

She took another look around.

The men in black uniforms were all looking her way, but they would briefly look the other way when she turned toward them.

She heard a wave of surprised gasps and groans as she cast her gaze around the mess hall.

“Why am I the Messiah?” she asked.

This was one thing she didn’t understand. The question was more directed at herself than at the others here.

….Are they saying I have the ability to lead all these people?

She pulled on the coat and gripped the Wheel of Destiny card through it.

“I can’t be your puppet ruler. I’m no more than a Tuner.”

“Do you know what your Messiah eye’s Ober Beweisen does?”

His question kept her from saying more.

She saw him resting his prosthetic arms on the table with the fingers intertwined.

His eyes were closed and his expression blank.

“You should still have a power you aren’t aware of. The power of your Ober Beweisen.”

“And I can become the Messiah by using that power? Are you saying the Messiah eye’s Ober Beweisen can save the world from the ruin the newspapers keep talking about?”

“We trust in the prophecy saying as much.”

Heiliger’s deep voice rang through the mess hall. At some point, all the other whispering had stopped.

Amid that heavy silence, a single unified movement shook the air.

Everyone in the mess hall nodded in response to Heiliger’s claim.

Hazel almost failed to regulate her breathing.

She held her right hand up to her right eye – the Messiah eye.

“In that case, I will be faced with a choice when I learn what that power is. I will have to choose between being the Messiah or being a simple AIF soldier.”

“The choice should be obvious. The Messiah will save the world, but what can a simple AIF soldier save?” asked Heiliger. “Will you choose the Allies or Germany? No, the real question is whether you will choose yourself or the world.”

They were interrupted by a pair of hands clapping twice.

That set the mess hall’s air in motion and led Hazel to turn toward it.

A skinny person stood in the mess hall’s entrance behind her.

Hazel recognized the woman in a Geheimnis Agency dress uniform.

“The Geheimnis Agency Commander.”

“Yes, the name is Lowenzahn Naylor. The prophet has come for you, Messiah Hazel Mirildorf.”

Lowenzahn’s eyebrows were angled just a smidge in anger, but there was still a smile on her lips as she beckoned Hazel over.

“Being here will only cause unnecessary anxiety. Come with me alone. I have something important to tell you. Then I will place my role on your shoulders. …So come.”

She beckoned and continued without the smile.

“Hurry.”

Part 5

A battle was underway.

Elrich muttered to himself while hearing clashing swords and a great beast’s roars.

“Why was the Messiah recreated? Has the castle’s device gone even more haywire?”

“That I can’t say. But if this was done intentionally, I can only imagine it was Bermark’s doing. Opening the underground passageway is always his job.”

“Are you saying we weren’t closed in here just to lock us away? If this was on our commander’s orders, then could this be something she wanted us to see while also preventing us from digging into any further secrets?”

“She may be testing us. If we want to learn the secrets related to the Messiah, we must first fight alongside the Messiah.”

They heard more sword fighting and Elrich changed the subject.

“Do you remember what the Unreif Germane says? When the Messiah descended to Alfheim along with the one-armed young man, she encountered a dragon and slayed it with the help of two Neue Kavaliers who came running to her aid.”

“I get what you mean. And take a look at the Messiah’s sword.”

Elrich did so. He recognized the sword the Messiah was wielding up on the hill.

“Rein König!?”

The Messiah gave a shout.

The white sword she held amplified the note and converted it into an impact of pure white light.

That was Busting. The destructive impact gave a roar as it crashed into the dragon’s right shoulder.

The dragon roared as well.

“But our Messiah is a Stimmer, isn’t she?” said Elrich.

“The past records of the Messiah say she was a Buster. It’s a question of regeneration or destruction, I suppose. Which is a big difference.” Witzmann scratched his head. “I doubt I can slay a dragon with the Messiah at my age, but I might as well give it a try.”

Witzmann kept his eyes on the hill where the Messiah and the dragon fought while he pulled a notepad and a fountain pen from his pocket.

He suddenly walked forward as if drawn toward the battle.

He kept walking while drawing a complex emblem in the notepad. He rapidly drew out several emblems, tearing out and throwing away the page each time he finished one.

The discarded pages gathered in midair and linked together when they made contact.

Around a dozen pages were attached by their top and bottom edges, creating something like a long, thin sash.

But that sash was still as light as paper, so it flew through the forest air.

A moment later, he reached his left hand behind him and grabbed the end of the paper strip. He pressed his thumb against the emblem at the very end of the strip and the entire thing stretched straight out into a solid sheet.

“Hm. It might curl too much to the upper right.”

When he swung the long sheet of paper, it easily sliced through the leaves and branches in its path.

It was a sword.

It had all happened in an instant. He spun the paper sword around and held it out in front of him. Then he used the pen in his right hand to add more writing to the surface of the paper sword. He had a smile on his lips.

Elrich jogged to catch up with him.

“I see you aren’t rusty at all. I’m less confident in your stamina, though.”

“I’m two years younger than you.”

“You should listen to any warnings your elders give you.”

Elrich pulled a single earphone out of his lab coat’s inner pocket, inserted it in his ear, and stuck the cord inside his lab coat. After doing something with his hands inside his coat, music began playing from the earphone.

“You got that working?” asked Witzmann, still drawing emblems on the paper sword.

“Japan beat me to the punch. It’s a personal Erklärung weapon that uses a different process than the Eingeweide. The Japanese call it a Rhythm. It’s apparently an ancient technology over there, but I’ve never liked how it feels. I’ve remade this one a bit, but I’m still not a fan.”

Elrich began to sing his Text.

Righteousness is worthless / Wickedness is worthless

Truth is worthless / Lies are worthless

But if you enjoy them

You can consume the world four times as quickly

<Elrich – Crusher High Rhythm – Take – Wide Range Activation – Hit.>

He rolled up his lab coat’s sleeves and emitted a vibration from the palms of his spread hands. A 2yd diameter area around his palms shook like shimmering heat, producing sounds like tearing flesh.

“I have to admit it’s pretty nice for something thought up by Asians.”

“It lacks originality,” said Witzmann, piercing his paper sword with the tip of his pen.

Bluish-white flames erupted from the gaps between the pieces of paper forming the sword.

The different flames linked together and burned the air without burning the paper.

Swinging the sword drew out a scarlet afterimage and all the leafy branches touched by the fiery arc were reduced to ashes.

“Pretty well-made, don’t you think?”

“Pretty cliché, you mean. I think you’re the one that needs more originality.”

Elrich smiled a little and Witzmann looked back to smile as well.

The forest ended directly ahead of them and two people were fighting an intense battle against a dragon up on the hill.

The one-armed young man used his sword to battle the dragon’s claws. The Messiah girl used her Rein König to battle its fangs.

Metal clashed, dragon wings whipped up the wind, the great beast’s feet crashed against the ground, and its maw roared.

Sounds and movements intersected while the two old men viewed the Messiah.

“Her face.”

She had a unique trait. One they recognized from someone else.

They were focused on her eye color.

“Her eyes are the same color as Hazel Mirildorf’s!”

“Nothing can surprise me at this point!” shouted Elrich, running forward with his hands carrying a rhythm of crushing.

The short old man in a lab coat burst from the forest with his white coat flapping behind him.

Witzmann also raced forward with a fiery afterimage in his hands. He leaned forward and let the sword tip graze the ground as he ran.

The sword tip’s radiant heat drew out a scorched trail along the hill’s green grass.

He accelerated, whipping up the wind in his pursuit of the lab coat leading the way.

They never slowed their pace.

They ran toward the dragon they were both staring at. And toward the one-armed young man and the Messiah.

The Messiah swung Rein König. She raised her voice and a white light shot out.

She appeared oblivious to the old men’s presence as she fought.

Elrich held his fists at the ready and Witzmann bent over to swing his sword up from below.

That was when the Messiah held her sword aloft and called the name of a certain wind.

At the same time, something appeared from beyond the hill and carried the wind into the sky above.

It was blue and had a 30yd knife-like silhouette.

Elrich and Witzmann noted that silhouette as they approached the dragon.

“So everything is the same. Except that this Messiah is a Buster?”

“The past Messiah had the power to destroy and the present Messiah has the power to regenerate.” Elrich smiled with just his lips when he said “destroy”. “Why did our commander give another country data on something as destructive as the Wort Bombe? Why doesn’t the current Messiah have the power to destroy? I feel like those two questions are connected.”

They ran.

They ran in from behind the Messiah, Elrich on the left and Witzmann on the right.

“!?”

Surprise and a hint of joy appeared on the Messiah’s face as they passed by her and made their first strikes against the dragon as it prepared to slash with its claws.

Their heat and crushing were joined by a line of wind flying in from the sky.

Part 6

The slowly setting sun’s light fell on the forest and painted a mottled pattern on the unpaved road below the trees. A single set of tire tracks had been dug into a mountain road barely big enough for a car.

A wooden sign on the side of the road gave the name of this land: Borderson.

Climbing the mountain road led to a wheat field on a hill and then back into the forest.

The roar of a motorcycle shook the forest.

Berger drove his BMW 750cc with the sidecar attached.

He shifted gears with his new prosthetic left arm.

The motorcycle remained below the branches for a while, but without warning, it emerged into the open.

In that clearing, the mountain road vanished and was replaced by the entrance to a small village.

He braked by letting the motorcycle slide to the side. The tires dug into the sand and slid until it stopped, pushing the sidecar out ahead of it.

“Here I am. It’s been a full year now, hasn’t it?”

He looked ahead to the gate into the village.

The gate was formed from a wooden arch with a mossy stone wall on either side of it.

The gate was closed.

He saw two colors out in front of the gate. The gold and purple were from the same woman.

The gold was her long hair rippling gently in the wind. The purple was the uniform of an AIF company officer.

The eyes below her blonde hair were shut, but they were directed toward Berger through her tinted glasses. Her eyebrows were flat and her mouth showed no sign of a smile or protest.

She stood in front of the old, discolored gate with her arms crossed.

Her red lipsticked lips opened to speak.

“You called me here from the village’s only telephone, but I don’t recall receiving any orders from the AIF.”

“I’m not here for you as an AIF member,” said Berger atop the rumbling motorcycle. “I’m here for you as a Buster.”

“And?”

“Hazel was captured. I know she was taken to the Geheimnis Agency’s Hamburg Base. I’m about to go rescue her with Scwharz Löwe, but it’s too much for me to handle on my own. Help me, Lehrer.”

Lehrer did not bat an eye in response. She only tilted her head a bit.

“Is she really that important?”

“Do I really need to answer that?”

Their exchange of questions was followed by silence.

The only sounds were the leaves rustling in the breeze and the rumbling of the motorcycle.

A rooster crowed once from the direction of the village.

Then a solid sound joined it. The sound of feet on dirt. Lehrer had pulled herself away from the gate and started walking.

She uncrossed her arms and brushed her hair back.

The solid soles of her boots stepped on the dirt, crushed the grass, and trod on pebbles for seven steps.

At the center of the village square, she looked up into the sky with her eyes still closed.

The blue afternoon sky was found there.

It could be seen all around from between the forest and the gate. Quickly blowing clouds decorated the blue on their path from east to west.

Lehrer viewed the sun setting in the west and spoke into the sky.

“The color of the sky remains unchanged by all the wars we fight. Same for the color of the clouds and the wind.” She spread her arms. “Berger, why not live in this village with the rest of us? This village doesn’t change either. It doesn’t care what the people of this world do any more than the sky above does. If it is destroyed, it will be destroyed, but if it will live, it will remain as it is. Isn’t now the best time to cut your losses?”

“No, thanks,” said Berger. “That wouldn’t be cutting my losses – it’d be dodging responsibility. And…if my gut instinct is right, you have to go save Hazel. It’s just who you are.” He pointed at her. “In fact, you already intend to. But…you just wanted to mess with me first.”

“You sound awfully confident in your assessment. Did you think you had read my mind?”

“I know all too well what it feels like to be toyed with by a mischievous cat. It only just happened to me half a day ago.”

“I see. Then I have a question for you: what do you think you can say to get me to go with you?”

“Well…”

“I have just one hint, but it’s a big one: call my name.”

Lehrer’s tone was light and Berger nearly responded on reflex.

“…”

But he crossed his arms instead.

His expression had changed. The amusement was gone and his brow was wrinkled.

“Yes, think about it,” she said. “That is the correct starting point. You know now isn’t the time to speak without thinking, don’t you?”

“You’re right,” he said. “You’re exactly right. If my gut instinct is right, you couldn’t be more right. Doing this without thinking would be an insult to how long you’ve been waiting.”

Lehrer smiled a little.

“Yes, think about how I am here, how I can be here, and how that connects back to everything you have seen: the Berlin Conflict, the Sylphide Incident, and everything else.”

Berger didn’t even nod this time.

He leaned forward and rested his elbow on the motorcycle’s tank, as if to say he understood all that. He rested his cheek in his right hand, held his left hand to his head, and glanced over at Lehrer.

She had lowered her gaze to view him through closed eyes. She kept her hands clasped in front of her hips.

She stood there silently with the sunlight casting her shadow on the ground.

She was waiting for him to speak.

“…”

He straightened up and his lips moved to say something, but he didn’t go through with it.

He looked away from her.

His lips again tried to speak, but no voice emerged. Those words weren’t what he needed to say. This was the hesitant silence of knowing the right answer but not knowing if he should actually say it out loud.

Every time he silently said something, his options narrowed.

Finally, his gaze met hers again. When he saw her closed eyes, a flicker of anger flashed across his face.

A moment later, his lips began to speak a woman’s name.

“Haz-”

But he stopped partway through.

He looked forward and saw her smiling.

That smile got him to speak a certain Urban Name as his answer.

“Lehrer.”

He breathed a hesitant sigh toward the ground and finished his answer.

“That’s your name now.”

He stopped there and watched her with no excess intensity in his gaze.

She opened her mouth a bit and deepened her smile when she heard that name.

She showed off her white teeth and nodded.

“Yes.” Her eyes bent in a smile. “That is correct.”

She nodded again as something fell from her right eye and down her cheek.

The sparkle that caught the sun and fell to the ground was a tear.

But that was the only one.

She did not bother wiping away the wet trail it left and walked forward. Her footsteps rang loud as she approached Berger. His gaze followed her as she made the dozen or so necessary steps without any hesitation.

She stopped next to the motorcycle, removed her shaded glasses, and put them in her breast pocket.

Then he saw her open her eyes.

Her left eye was a brown feline one, but her right one was a blue human one. Both were bent in a smile.

“I will summon the guardian dragon slumbering in the mountains. And in the meantime…” She smiled. “I have something important to tell you: Hazel is no longer qualified to be the Messiah.”

“…What?”

“Everything has fallen out of sync with the previous cycles. It all began when I chose to go to sleep within the Sylphide. And it truly changed last year when Hazel chose to return to America from Cologne and begin working as a Tuner. Just like I had hoped she would.”

Tension filled Berger’s face.

“What are you talking about? What does Cologne and being a Tuner have to do with being qualified to be the Messiah?”

“I imagine the only people who know the truth are me, Pale and M. Schrier who I explained my predictions to last year, and the Geheimnis Agency’s commander. That commander is working very hard right now to not betray everyone, to not disappoint them, and to make sure the Panzerpolis Project can fulfill its true purpose. Because destiny has gone off the rails.”

She took a breath.

“All because Hazel chose the path of regeneration over the path of destruction back at Cologne.”

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