City Series:Volume6e Chapter1

Chapter 1: The Promise Activates

8/23/1943 07:01 – 14:43

I can stop the Wheel of Destiny

And start a global revolution

That would mean not getting another try at the past

But

Is that the right thing to do?

Part 1

Hazel came to.

…Hwuh?

That noise came from her mind.

Her body sat up just fine, but her mind was still woozy.

She could see a bright light, she was wrapped in a light pink blanket, and a gentle milky scent came from the blanket.

Clarity gradually returned to her mind.

She was sitting atop a bed.

This was a small wooden room. It had little furniture and the bright morning light shined in through the window to her left.

“You seem to be doing well. You slept through the whole night, so are you feeling better now?”

The sudden female voice made Hazel jump.

Her mind was fully awake now.

She turned to the right, wondering who this was, and saw a woman standing in front of the sink on the wall. She held a baby and Hazel recognized her.

“Eryngium?”

“I thought I recognized you from our wedding last year. You were with the guest Lehrer invited.”

Eryngium narrowed her eyes below her long brown hair and the baby in her arms cooed.

“I’m getting this girl some breakfast right now, so give me a second. Sorry if it’s cold in here.”

That last comment made Hazel look down at herself.

She was naked.

She shrieked and pulled up the blanket. Eryngium laughed with her back turned.

“Don’t worry. I had my husband spend the night with the neighbors, so it’s just me and the kid here. Okay?”

Eryngium scooped a spoonful of steaming oatmeal from a pot sitting next to the sink. She put it in her mouth first, chewed a few times, and then fed it to the baby.

Hazel held her knees below the blanket while watching it all even if Eryngium had her back turned. And then…

“You’re with the Allies, aren’t you? You call yourselves the AIF, right? Lehrer suddenly disappeared about a month ago…so are you here to clean up after that? Or are you using our village as a shelter?”

“The latter. Sorry.”

And…

“Excuse me, but what day is it? You said I slept all night, right?”

“It’s the 23rd. Around 7 in the morning I think.”

“Thank you. I really did sleep all night, didn’t I?”

Hazel shrank down in the bed and thought to herself.

…These villagers don’t know what we’re fighting for.

History would come to an end tomorrow, the 24th, at 4:42 AM.

Stopping the Wheel of Destiny and allowing history to continue would likely allow the damaged Spacetime Lives to reconnect to the future Spacetime Lives they still couldn’t see.

When that happened, the revolution carried out before the connection would be applied to the entire world, greatly rewriting the Spacetime Lives so everything fit together.

…Without the Wheel of Destiny, the Messiah never would have appeared in Germany.

This would change her and those around her, but it would also change Eryngium and others like her.

…But they won’t lose anything. Things will only change.

She shook her head at the word “only”. The AIF couldn’t think up a way to avoid that and the Allies had thrown it all out as made-up nonsense.

There was nothing she could do.

She sighed, lowered her knees, lifted up the blanket, and looked at her body.

When she touched between her breasts, she felt a twinge of pain and realized something.

“E-excuse me. Was I wearing a pendant?”

“Check the side table.”

She looked to her right as told.

A black string choker, the Wheel of Destiny card, and a pendant on a gold chain sat on the wooden bedside table.

The pendant’s locket sat partially open, giving a glimpse of the red stone ring inside.

Hazel breathed a sigh of relief and picked up the pendant. However…

“Oh.”

The pendant was broken.

The locket part opened and closed just fine, but the red stone that decorate the outside had broken. The stone now had a hole in the center and pieces had fallen out, revealing the locket portion below.

“Is that a good luck charm? Because it saved your life. You were fortunate, so you won’t even have a scar.”

Hazel nodded, assessed the damage she had taken, and shuddered.

She felt some tension and reached a hand to the brand on her shoulder.

Then she realized something else.

She knew something important about this woman.

…Eryngium should have a scar. But not like this brand.

She didn’t know the details, but it had to be true. So she relaxed her tense body and sighed.

…I can’t just sit here trembling.

Just then, she heard a quiet voice from Eryngium.

But it wasn’t Eryngium’s voice. It was a smaller voice that couldn’t even pronounce anything correctly.

She looked over to see a small round hand waving over Eryngium’s shoulder.

That was the baby’s hand. The small palm stuck up toward the ceiling and repeatedly closed and opened.

“There, there,” said Eryngium, turning toward Hazel and swaying gently side to side.

She began to hum a lullaby and Hazel breathed a sigh of relief.

…I can’t keep fearing scars.

She had another thought while viewing Eryngium.

…If possible, I hope this doesn’t change afterwards.

She knew that was only self-righteous selfishness, so she reached her right hand to the side table and grabbed the choker.

The black string was somewhat damp.

But that didn’t prevent her from tying it. She reached for her neck, placed the choker around it, and looked back to the side table.

If the Wheel of Destiny card was here…

“Excuse me. Do you have the clothes this card was in?”

“They’re hanging out to dry. It’s supposed to rain again starting this afternoon, so I wanted to get that done sooner rather than later.”

“Thank you. I would have liked some underwear sooner than this, though.”

Eryngium smiled bitterly.

Hazel looked up and saw the baby had calmed down at Eryngium’s chest.

That small face without a full head of hair was drifting off to sleep.

“Oh, sorry. I’m hogging the bed, aren’t I? Do you need to let that child sleep?”

“Don’t worry about it. Or were you planning to hang around the house in the nude?”

“N-no, I thought I could maybe borrow a shirt or something.”

“Unfortunately, my figure isn’t as nice as yours. I’ve been getting a little saggy of late.”

“Oh,” was all Hazel said, looking out the window and deciding not to press further.

It was the sunny period between two rainstorms and there was enough of a wind to occasionally rattle the window.

…The laundry should dry quickly like this.

She heard the bed creak. Before she realized that meant Eryngium had sat next to her, she felt a small voice and a tickling sensation on her neck.

The touch to such a sensitive spot made her jump. She turned around in a hurry to find the baby in Eryngium’s arms reaching for the choker on her neck.

She managed to hide her surprise and noticed the baby had two feline eyes.

…Eryngium said she’s a girl, didn’t she?

Hazel looked her in the eye and shook the end of the choker’s string that stuck out some.

The baby reached out, trying to catch it.

“My, my. You must have an unusual scent.”

Eryngium pulled the baby a bit away from the choker and then commented on its black color.

“But plain black is unusual for a girl like you. Does your partner like black?”

Hazel held a hand to her throat and looked to Eryngium.

She knew the exact look on her face: brow furrowed and lips pressed firmly together.

…Does she remember Berger?

She did not.

She hadn’t realized who he was at the wedding last year and Hazel had been able to make some good guesses from the way Berger acted and the things he said. Hazel looked the other woman in the eye.

“He…” She nodded and unfurrowed her brow. “Yes, he dresses all in black and I should see him later today.”

…His Tune healing finished the other day, so his right leg has fully recovered.

She had ended up entering Germany before he came to, so she hadn’t spoken with him for about a month. She would be reunited with him…

“On the outskirts of Germania. He will have black wings and a black sword. And I…I will be wearing this choker, whether I’ve turned into a cat or turned back.”

“I see.” Eryngium gave a satisfied smile and casually stopped the baby from grabbing the black string and putting it in her mouth.

Hazel watched the exchange before asking a question of her own.

“Eryngium, do you not like black?”

“I know it is supposed to be bad luck. But at the same time, it can be used to hide so many things. Important things that you don’t want people to find.”

Eryngium’s gaze turned toward the bottom of the side table. The bottom of the table was a box with a glass door and several things were line up within.

Hazel realized what they were.

“Black disks.”

Part 2

Hazel saw 12 black disks contained in paper cases in the bottom part of the side table.

She gulped and silently looked up.

She saw Eryngium staring at the 11 disks without smiling.

“Those were the only things I had with me when I arrived in this village. Unfortunately, the village doesn’t have a player, so I can’t play them. You can have them if you are interested.”

“No, I couldn’t possibly take them from you.”

“But they would be better off with someone who can play them.” Eryngium suddenly bent her eyes and eyebrows into a smile and nodded. “The mayor said you are Stimmer. I suppose you wouldn’t need music from a disk if you can access the Texts of reality at any time.”

“N-no, it isn’t about that.”

…Besides, I still don’t have an Ober Beweisen Text.

The Messiah’s Ober Beweisen could read any and all Lives, but that wasn’t necessary yet.

…It’s needed only if we can’t stop Neue Erde’s Spacetime Lives extraction and the world must go through another loop.

She didn’t see herself ever using her Ober Beweisen, so she changed the subject. She checked the titles written on the thin shoulder of the black disks.

“You even have Handel’s oratorios. Which include his Messiah.”

The title most closely related to her was the 8th from the left. That made it 4th from last.

Eryngium looked to the same thing.

“Who knows what would happen if you sang that one in Germany right now.”

She smiled bitterly and Hazel smiled bitterly back. Then Hazel noticed the title to Messiah’s right.

“Destiny.”

“Sometimes I feel like these 11 disks were important to me in some way. You see, I lost all my memories before I arrived in this village. All I have from my life before that are these disks.”

She held the baby in just her left arm and used her left hand to open the glass door on the side table.

She shifted the disk cases one by one from left to right and she sang along to the rhythm of her nails on the paper cases.

Below the wind blowing through our fatherland, the freeshooter feels a tailwind on his back

Below the tragedy, the emperor sings a requiem

Below the moonlit night, the messiah captures destiny

A lone hero marches into a new world

Hazel tilted her head at Eryngium’s lyrics.

“Do you think it is the hero who will arrive in a new world, not the Messiah?”

“The Messiah saves the current world. The new world is the world beyond that. The Messiah can guide us there, but I feel like the first person who sets foot in that new world will be known as a hero.”

Then she shut the side table’s glass door, stuck her right hand in her pocket, and pulled out something small and red.

She held it out for Hazel to see.

“A red gem!?”

Hazel’s right hand reflexively reached toward the side table for the pendant with the broken red gem.

“Why do you have a gem just like the one that was in this pendant?”

“I don’t know. But you were shot because you stopped to protect a pair of children, right? Last year, when a giant aerial warship crashed about 50m east of Borderson, those children said they wanted to go check out the crash site. The adults were against it, of course.”

“And they found that there?”

“I never saw the wreckage because there were too many soldiers around, but Lehrer accompanied the children and she said the pieces were scattered across a radius of about 10 miles. She said they found this in the valley east of Borderson.”

Eryngium stopped there and tilted her hand. The gem slid from her palm.

Hazel quickly reached out and caught it.

She held it between her fingers and let the sun shine through it, but she still couldn’t see completely through it. It had some highly dense material in it.

…It really is the same as the one in the pendant.

“Please take that. The children wanted you to have it as thanks for saving them and to make up for the broken pendant…and because they wanted to give a present to someone who reminds them so much of Lehrer.”

Hazel kept her eyes on the gem.

The presence seated next to her stood up with a sigh of relief. She heard one and then another step on the wooden floor before another question.

“That pendant was important, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Hazel nodded a very deep nod. “Someone very important left it in my care.”

Part 3

Light carved a diagonal line through the darkness.

That light came from the floor. A stairway covered in anti-slip strips and green glow panels continued ever downward. However, the faint green light was only enough to indicate the location of the steps, not to illuminate the entire stairway space.

Two people descended those series of faint lights.

The two sets of footsteps were very different.

One was loud and hesitant and the other was light and unwavering.

The hesitant set hung back a bit and asked a question in a deep voice.

“How far are we descending, Bermark? We have been doing this for nearly an hour now.”

“Until the old HQ is satisfied. Yes, I may be more than a century old, but that makes me a newcomer compared to this place’s millennium of history. When anyone other than its leader, emperor, or commander attempts to approach, it will make us go through a lot of trouble.”

“Could I shorten the space using my Der Held power?”

“I am afraid to say Germany’s millennium has featured several barrier masters with the Titel of Schallmauer Zerstörer. Do you really think such a common power could affect the true nature of this place, Captain Schweitzer?” Bermark took a breath. “And do consider what I told you on the way here about Germany’s destiny tonight.”

“The Nibelung, you mean? You said it is all connected to that. Which I find hard to believe.”

“Believe it or not, the Allies will launch their ACBS at Germania tonight and the fräulein will state her Ober Beweisen from within Tristan. Everything is falling into place.”

“Everything you say has to be painfully accurate, doesn’t it?”

“That is how it has always been.”

Schweitzer’s footsteps and presence changed when he heard that.

His footsteps grew louder and his presence grew as solid as a rock.

“If so, then all of this must be correct just as it always has been, Bermark.”

“Indeed it is.”

“But then where did Lowenzahn’s prophecies come from?”

“She told me to tell you that she can prophesy without relying on an Eingeweide device.”

Bermark’s response was answered by the solid crash of metal slamming into the unseen wall.

The footsteps stopped, the metal reverberated, a few beats passed, and Bermark finally asked a question.

“Have you calmed down now? Where does this impatience come from? Why not trust the message the fräulein left for you? She is a Sofort Leser, so she followed her own prophecies.”

“Just like Stimmers and Busters, Sofort Lesers can read someone’s Tons by touching them. And if they want to, they can pass their own Tons on to the other person.”

“What about it?”

Schweitzer took one step down the stairs as he answered.

“But whenever she had something truly important to convey, she was always extremely talkative.”

“That is very flimsy reasoning.”

“But it’s that talkative Lowenzahn I believe in. If her prophecies really did come from someone else, then I must determine whether or not she really wanted to go through with them. I must know what is truly accurate there.”

“Do you now?” Bermark nodded in the darkness. “It is true none of this world’s mistakes ever really go away. They merely grow more concentrated as the cycle continues. Just like you, my only desire is to add just one new accurate fact to the all the previous ones.”

Schweitzer’s footsteps took one more step down and then stopped.

His powerful presence stopped moving down the stairs and the skinnier presence ahead of him stopped as well.

“Is something wrong, Captain Schweitzer?”

“That’s my line, Bermark. Look ahead.”

The skinny presence made another footstep and a rustling of cloth.

The green lights leading down had ended.

The stairs didn’t go down any further. Instead, a pair of green glow panels decorated a double door. Bermark viewed it with the faint green light illuminating him.

He looked across the square landing with each side the width of the door.

“The castle has already accepted you? That is a surprise.”

‘You don’t sound surprised.”

A heavier footstep descended onto the landing.

The green light revealed a large man with a large prosthetic arm. It was Schweitzer.

“Maybe it decided I wasn’t worth tricking since I’m prepared to check over everything so carefully.”

“I have no will of my own, so I can never reach this place on my own. Just like my brother needs the Eisen Ritter Project to use an Ober Emblem, I can only use an incomplete Beweisen and Ober Beweisen.”

Schweitzer sighed at that and raised his prosthetic right arm.

“You are correct that it is your will that rules this place – not your strength.” He looked to his aide just once before viewing his prosthetic arm. “Thank you for earlier. I was getting impatient and I nearly relied on the Titel I inherited.”

“So what will you do now? Your Titel of Schallmauer Zerstörer means nothing from here on in. You have been following the same path as before, so I do not see how you can change anything with your strength or will.”

“Bermark.”

Schweitzer cut off his aide.

And he viewed Bermark while smiling with only his eyes.

“Why not just come out and say it? You’re asking if I intend to complete in a few hours all the work that Hazel Mirildorf put into changing her own destiny.”

He smiled bitterly and reached into his pocket.

He pulled out a small key.

“Lowenzahn left this with me. Did you know that?”

“I was the one she left her clothing with when she entered Tristan. I had my guesses when the key was not with her things.”

“Good grief.” Schweitzer inserted the key in the keyhole at the seam between the two sides of the double door. “A woman who tells you to believe her lies yet gives you the key to the truth and a Sein Frau who obeys that woman while simultaneously defying her.”

He turned the key, heard a click, and saw the door shake a bit.

Instead of pulling out the key, he pushed open the left side.

The right side opened with it. And quickly at that.

Nothing but white light spread out before his eyes.

Part 4

The light came from a large domed stone room. The walls were all covered by meter-long plates and all of those plates were emitting bright light.

Schweitzer stepped into that light and narrowed his eyes.

“This looks a lot like that room below Munich.”

The main difference was the lack of any cold storage tanks on the floor.

He walked forward and slowly opened his eyes to view the plates on the walls. The plates below Munich had been plans for Ober Geheimnis, but these were…

“The Unreif Germane.”

“This was once a lab used to recreate the Messiah’s history and search for the dragon. This is the control center for the surface facility and it can be used to recreate any history related to the Messiah.”

Bermark’s footsteps rang loud as he caught up from behind.

Schweitzer held a hand to his forehead and took a look around while waiting for his aide to arrive by his side.

His eyes stopped on a point near the floor, not the ceiling.

A desk made of brass panels sat in the center of the room.

He walked toward it. With each step, his eyes adjusted more to the light.

By the 17th step, they had adjusted enough for him to clearly see the skinny writing desk, the chair, and the black leather hardcover book sitting on the desk.

“Is that a journal?”

“Its former owner and its current owner must want you to read it.”

“I see.”

Schweitzer nodded and grabbed the journal with his biological hand.

It was thick and heavy.

He could see the black leather was dried and crumbling at the edges of the cover.

Something appeared to have been written on the cover in gold leaf, but too much had come away to read it.

He held his prosthetic right arm up in front of his chest and placed the journal on that in lieu of a desk.

He lifted the hard cover and opened it.

He found a titlepage with brown discolored edges. The page contained the year at which the journal began.

“1919. The year before my father died, the previous war ended, and the Geheimnis Agency got its start.”

He lowered his head somewhat to read the name written below the date.

It was a woman’s name. He frowned when he saw the last name.

“Frobel Nay- wait, is that her maiden name? It has been erased. Ilf-”

“Ilfheim. The same last name as a friend of yours. A lot of half-Heidengeists from the Alfheim region have that name, so Sir Lowenheit chose to keep Frobel’s identity a secret. I imagine only a few other than me knew.”

Schweitzer groaned a response to Bermark’s explanation.

“There was Heidengeist blood in the very core of the Geheimnis Agency?”

“Do not worry. Many in the agency have an Ilfheim somewhere in their family tree, but Heidengeist blood vanishes after a few generations. Our tests told us the Fräulein had human Tons. The only Ilfheim trait remaining would be the hair color she shared with Lady Frobel.” He took a breath. “So to put it another way, the Geheimnis Agency did not contain Heidengeist blood – it contained their will. Their will to watch over the country’s history and bind its protectors with promises.”

Schweitzer clenched his teeth and flipped the page.

The next two pages were blank save for a single line in the center of the left one.

“To ensure the following prophecies are upheld…”

He took a breath before finally reading the rest.

“I will leave destiny in the hands of my daughter who will one day take command. And I will have her promise to protect that destiny.”

Part 5

A single shadow was cast in a small clearing in the forest at the entrance to the Borderson village.

There was only the one shadow, but two people stood there. One was Lillie with a black coat wrapped around her and her shadow cast on the ground. The other was an old man in a white linen shirt and pants.

The woman stood with her back to the gate at the village entrance and spoke without turning the old man’s way.

“As scheduled, I will deal with this village myself come 4 o’clock. You can do whatever you want after that.”

“Thank you for your tolerant decision, Lady Lillie.”

“Forget it. More importantly, mayor, what did you think of the Messiah when she came to pick up Rein König?”

“When I went to check on her during the day, she was apparently out helping our people in the field. Do you know what happens when an amateur tries to help weed during the rainy season?”

“They trip and get all muddy. Ellis did that a lot.”

“Precisely. But she didn’t even bother cleaning up before leaving the village with Rein König and some rain gear.”

Lillie turned toward the mayor, viewed his face, and softened her expression just a little.

“You’re smiling, mayor.”

She smiled bitterly and silence fell between them. Stillness spread across the clearing, but it was soon broken.

Several decidedly unnatural sounds reached them from the mountain. They recognized the rumbling sounds.

“Armored trucks,” said the mayor.

That was exactly what appeared on the mountain road. The three Geheimnis Agency Navy Division armored trucks were designed to cross rivers and their rubber tires slid as they came to as top in the clearing.

Lillie nodded their way and they flashed their headlights to respond.

The front command truck’s door opened and a girl wearing the armband of an aide stepped out.

She ran over to Lillie, the puddles splashing below her feet.

“Lady Telmetz! The target has escaped toward the eastern Essen region!”

“She hopes to take a freight train straight to Germania, doesn’t she? Essen is less than an hour’s drive. Did you tell the army stationed in Essen to bolster railroad security?”

“I did!”

“Then we should be fine.”

Lillie rubbed the girl’s head. The girl narrowed her eyes, but lost the smile when Lillie slapped her on the shoulder. She turned to the mayor, saluted, and returned to the command truck.

Lillie listened to the girl’s footsteps as she faced the mayor and opened her mouth to say something.

“…”

Her mouth stayed open but no words came.

Her raised-eyebrow face saw the mayor holding out two bottles. They were the same thing he had given her to drink last night.

“These are the last two unopened bottles. They should have been returned ages ago.”

After a pause, Lillie nodded and took just one of the bottles.

“Give the other one to someone you trust more than me.”

And…

“Remember this: if destiny plays out as our commander foretold, then the world’s ruin will begin tomorrow morning at 3 and it will end at 4:42.”

“Ruin?”

“It is this world’s unavoidable destiny. Whatever the Messiah might try to do and whatever we might do to try and stop her, the world will change at 4:42. Because that is when the ruin occurred every other time.”

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