City Series:Volume6e Chapter6

Chapter 6: The Promise Soars

8/24/1943 02:49 – 02:58

I will run

Run forward

I don’t have to think about anything else

Only running forward

Part 1

Several powers crashed together simultaneously between Hazel and Lowenzahn.

The wind roared and the pulse beat. Hazel’s wristwatch said it was 2:49 AM.

…Only 11 minutes until the Allies’ time limit.

She was not concerned about that. She pressed Rein König against the floor, held its hilt, and opened her mouth.

<The Messiah’s destiny clears the way.>

Berger’s black slash grew thicker and shattered Schweitzer’s spatial barrier.

Higher than the rest, Lowenzahn stuck her hands in her pockets and opened her mouth.

<The New World protects the hero.>

The shattered spatial barrier regenerated. Gelegenheit’s black blade caught on the barrier and they both shattered.

Hazel looked to Lowenzahn. The ether reproduction of the woman stood at the top of the door.

“That’s only a speaker for Aerial Words.”

But Hazel shook her head.

…But there is still a will forming it.

She couldn’t tell if the increased morale of those below was just a coincidence or not.

But there was one thing she knew for sure. If a will was forming that image…

…Neue Erde is still alive after becoming a component for Tristan.

She started to say something more, but then Berger looked her way while shoving a new Phlogiston Tank into Gelegenheit.

“Hazel! Keep those Texts coming!”

“They aren’t drinks at a beer hall!”

She shouted back and looked to the Geheimnis Agency commander atop the door.

And she heard that woman open her mouth and speak some crucial words.

“Eingeweide heart Neue Erde – Ober Beweisen.”

Part 2

When Hazel heard Lowenzahn’s Text, she gasped and raised her voice.

“No way! She’s already activating her Ober Beweisen!?”

In lieu of a response, the dome grew brighter and the air shook.

Something was moving and that rumble was the answer to Hazel’s question.

She gulped and saw Berger click his tongue.

“Neue Erde is activating her Ober Beweisen early to prepare for the peak of the reversed power!” he said bitterly. “I bet she’s going to increase the power gradually and carefully instead of trying to do it all at once. That way she can prevent the anxiety from scattering Tristan’s Lives.” He took a breath and suppressed a slight tremor in his voice. “She’s planning to drag out her Ober Beweisen until the moment of ruin!”

Hazel realized what he meant and learned just how serious Lowenzahn was.

“She’s going to keep singing until the last moment?”

…Because she’s looking past 3 AM and believes the wheel will keep turning.

And…

…That means she thinks they can beat us!

That thought made her gulp.

Everything around her shook, but not because of a shockwave or quake. The shaking was in the very ether that traveled through the ley lines and formed all things.

For a moment, everyone felt out of sync with themselves.

“…!?”

Hazel suddenly looked to the ground below.

…Eh?

She was supposed to be standing atop Tristan, but now she was in the sky.

Her field of view was unusually high and wide. She was looking down on the world from nearly a mile up.

She saw a river running through a forest below.

Two adjacent cities existed on the river’s sandbank.

A few of the houses had their lights on, revealing the shape of the walled cities in the night.

She realized something while viewing the cities.

“They look so old.”

The cities were made of stone and wood, like something in a medieval painting.

Her vision remained in the sky as she looked down at them.

But her senses told her that this was not just a false vision.

Her sense of sight picked up the lights and shadows, her sense of hearing picked up the sound of the wind, and her sense of smell picked up the scent of the river. It was all real.

She realized what those two cities had to be.

“This is Berlin’s past – when it was still a pair of fortress cities. That was in the 17th century, wasn’t it?”

She had seen Berlin like this in the German Lives’ memories found inside Berger.

She understood why she was seeing this moment from Berlin’s past.

…The overloading has begun and the Spacetime Lives are being extracted in response.

The view of the cities vanished. The cities, the walls, and the buildings vanished like she was watching a film in reverse. The forest grew and the cities became villages.

History was playing out in reverse.

“Has the extraction of the Spacetime Lives begun!? Is it moving even further back than the 17th century!?”

Then the entire scene below her disappeared.

She gasped and found Tristan and the dome in front of her.

She could feel the sweat soaking her body.

She looked around to see Berger, Schweitzer, the Neue Kavaliers, and the soldiers were all motionless.

Confusion Lives hovered around them all. They were all holding their breaths and unsure if they should move.

Hazel realized they had all seen the same thing.

She gulped while focusing on something that bothered her.

She could no longer hear anything at all from Germania below.

Before, she had heard the many deep sounds of the battle being fought to support her, but all of that had vanished. She only heard the blowing of the wind.

“Did everyone down there see that too? No, I bet everyone in the world did.”

She felt nearly certain of that when another sound reached her: Tristan’s distorted pulse.

…That means she really thinks we can’t stop her!

“We will stop you!”

Hazel raised her eyebrows and reflexively clenched her teeth.

She forcefully raised her head to view Lowenzahn above the door.

But Lowenzahn held her right hand to her left chest and did not look down at Hazel.

She kept her eyes on the sky. And just as Hazel was about to speak to her, her lips moved.

The pulse was like a deep drumbeat providing the tempo for her words.

Part 3

In a world actively having its past stolen – in a world where no one could speak or even move – one woman’s Aerial Words rang loud.

<The future is limited, but I will not look to it.>

Tristan’s power boost was pushed to new heights.

<The past is unlimited, but I will not listen to it.>

The pulse pounded.

<I will break it all and throw it out.>

Tristan tremored.

<We can redo it all.>

An indistinct groan left Tristan and synced with the pulse.

<The New World is a world that will not be lost.>

The pulse and the groan harmonized and sped up.

<The New World is a world where nothing is lost.>

The Text traveled through the ley lines to reach the entire world.

<But destiny has declared…>

The Text pierced the voiceless earth and sky.

<…that all forms, colors, sounds, and wills will be lost.>

The Lives that resonated with the Text left the ley lines and were rapidly pulled toward Tristan.

<I do not want to lose all that.>

The Text gathered so many Lives while rising to a shout.

<I do not want to lose any of that!>

Part 4

Lowenzahn was answered with a roar.

All around Hazel, the Geheimnis Agency knights raised their voices and resumed fighting.

Schweitzer and Berger also resumed their battle in the center, like the chains binding them had been broken.

She heard Berger’s voice.

“Hazel!”

But she was still staring blankly up at Lowenzahn.

Lowenzahn was only a translucent specter, but she performed dance steps in time with the pulse surrounding them all.

She had already shut her eyes and her lips were moving to whisper her Ober Beweisen Text.

Hazel repeated that Text to herself.

“I do not want to lose any of that.”

…She’s motivated by the same thing we are.

“Hazel!” shouted Berger.

His sharp voice snapped her out of her revery and she saw a shape flying in from the right.

A black, blade-like ship was approaching from as high in the sky as the dome allowed.

That was Erlkönig. The black aerial warship had shaken free of the RB-21 attempting to pursue it.

It accelerated along an arc in the sky and turned its nose toward Hazel.

The two glowing swords emitted from its nose had already been swung forward. The sword tips sliced through the wind and left a trail of white cloud.

As soon as she noticed Erlkönig’s approach, Hazel felt an odd sensation in her right eye.

Her vision was acting up. The Messiah eye had already gone red and was rapidly heating up.

…Eh?

She found her left and right eyes were seeing different things.

The right one only saw the color red.

She ignored the image coming from her left eye and poured all of her focus into the red light seen through her right eye.

She felt like she was stealing someone else’s vision and that sense was growing stronger.

Her left eye’s view was swallowed up and colored by the right eye’s red light.

She gasped and held her right hand in front of her right eye, but she couldn’t see the hand.

She saw a low-ceilinged room. The room had a circular floor and ceiling and it was lit by red lights.

Several black pipes ran along the floor before reaching her.

She could not see herself.

But she realized her expression made no sense.

Erlkönig was approaching fast and her eyebrows were crumbling in a way that suggested tears, but she had a smile on her lips. She heard Berger’s voice from beyond the red vision.

“Hazel, does that mean what I think it does?”

“Yes!”

Her body fully recalled this familiar sensation.

The resurrected memories spread from her right eye to the rest of her and she felt the wind on her skin.

She could tell what she sensed was underground. It was trapped, but it was waiting to move.

It was waiting for her.

…And I’m waiting for you!

So she raised her voice.

“Can you hear me, Sylphide!?”

<The Messiah has not forgotten the wind.>

Part 5

There was movement in the deserted underground hangar.

The wind was moving.

The blue ship had been resting on a raised platform, but its rear end suddenly lifted. It silently rose from the platform, causing the air to move and creating a wind.

The heavy wind slowly swept across the inside of the underground hangar.

The ship finished floating from the platform.

The tubes plugged into its lower surface popped out and clattered to the floor.

A pulsing sound surrounded it. Something like throbbing blood vessels covered the walls around it.

But Sylphide ignored it all and paused in the air for a moment.

Small lights ran through the emblems decorating it. The lights moved from nose to rear – from wings to body. The lights seemed to confirm the ship’s shape before gathering back at the nose.

The sensory devices for a Schreibener were all gathered in a single black line on the nose.

The lights all ran through that line before vanishing inside.

At the same time, the Kunst Eyes on either side of the nose emitted pale white light behind it. The light was briefly radiated in all direction before narrowing down and forming a pair of Schwerts. They were 20 yards long, stopping just before reaching the room’s wall.

Then Sylphide lifted its nose.

It slowly tilted vertically like a pillar supporting the ceiling.

A moment later, it emitted its Text into the air.

<The Wind…>

The swords pulled back behind it were rapidly swept forwards.

<The Wind is the dragon that serves the Messiah!>

With a tearing sound, the metal ceiling was easily sliced through.

At the same time, the windy pressure of ascent produced a roar and the Sylphide broke through the already broken metal.

Then it rolled and accelerated.

It used a quick slash to slice through the next barrier, breaking the seal.

The blue power passed through the metal door that had blossomed open like a flower. It produced more destruction as it repeatedly accelerated.

The blue ship focused everything on flying straight up.

The broken barriers triggered alarms that drowned out Tristan’s pulse, but even those wails were left behind as Sylphide broke through 18 consecutive barrier doors.

It ascended rapidly through the pit.

The nose was directed toward the surface and the sky beyond.

It rolled with delight as it worked to escape this underground space.

After freshly awakening from its slumber, Sylphide poured all its strength into the ascent.

Part 6

Hazel’s vision returned.

She was on Tristan’s launch pad and she could see the tower, the dome, and the sky trapped within.

A black blade-like ship was flying toward her from the right.

She saw another color in the sky to the left.

A line of white cloud was ascending into the sky surrounded by the dome’s light.

At the tip of the cloud, she saw what looked like a blade splitting the sky.

“Sylphide!”

Sylphide answered her by turning its nose toward her.

The tilting of its nose changed the shape of its shockwave before the shockwave vanished entirely.

It had entered fully inertial cruising mode.

Its turn transformed into a sharp reflection partway through. After turning its nose her way, it shot toward her along with the air gathered around it with its inertial control. The air pushed out of its way shook and rumbled.

It sped up even more.

Its blue shape instantly passed by overhead, leaving a wind in its wake.

Its rumbling continued on toward Erlkönig approaching from the right.

Erlkönig fired homing rounds from its three rear Power Points. The white bullets were freezing rounds.

The bullets curved toward Sylphide, so Sylphide drew its pair of swords and took a certain action.

It accelerated.

It poured on even more speed.

The blue dragon used its speed to slip between the homing rounds.

The freezing rounds lost their target and exploded behind it, producing a white mist. Sylphide ignored that and continued its charge.

It charged straight toward Erlkönig.

Erlkönig immediately performed an evasive roll.

It rolled right from Sylphide, spun around above Sylphide, and swung its two swords toward Sylphide as they passed each other.

In that instant, Sylphide made a compact leftward roll.

Erlkönig’s swords were swinging in from the left, so Sylphide’s fangs crashed into them with the force of its rapid spin.

They shattered.

With a metallic impact, shards of light scattered across the sky.

Erlkönig rolled again into an escape route.

Sylphide suddenly shifted its inertial cruising into reverse. It redirected its forward momentum to the rear.

It reversed to stick with Erlkönig as it tried to roll away.

Erlkönig had already veered off course, so now it was about to pass above the launch pad.

That was when Hazel spoke some Aerial Words.

<The Messiah fights alongside the dragon and destiny.>

Berger shoved a Size C Phlogiston Tank into the back of Gelegenheit’s hilt. That brought the total up to 20. Gelegenheit looked more like a spear now and it produced a black blade measuring more than 80 yards long.

The Messiah’s Aerial Words made the blade grow denser and longer.

The black blade-like silhouette was about to fly over Berger’s head.

He sent Gelegenheit’s cutting power toward that supersonic action.

One of Erlkönig’s wings was severed and the rest of the ship bounced in the sky.

Sylphide caught up and spun its bow to the front.

The black and blue ships arrived half a mile away from the launch pad in just two seconds.

Their paths crossed.

Erlkönig sent glowing swords from its back end and Sylphide swept them aside with its own swords.

Sylphide flew in and tore into Erlkönig with the pair of fangs emitted from its front end.

Ether light ran through Erlkönig and then light exploded from its back end.

A deafening boom rang out just as seven contrails burst from the middle of Tristan.

Those were Erlkönig’s mass production models. They initially spread out and then attacked with enough force to deal with the threat. The seven ships charged toward the lone blue ship floating in the sky.

Hazel took action while watching that from the launch pad.

She raised Rein König and ran forward. Her watch said it was 2:57 AM.

…3 more minutes!

Her heavy breathing sucked in the chilly night air while she gathered strength in her legs and shifted her run into a sprint.

She arrived alongside Berger while he added another Phlogiston Tank to Gelegenheit and then she moved out ahead of him.

Schweitzer was up ahead and Lowenzahn stood at the top of the door.

She continued sprinting forward and noticed Lowenzahn looking down at her.

Schweitzer was watching her too.

They opened their mouths at the same time and spoke Neue Erde and Der Held’s Aerial Words.

<Stars spread across the light-scattered sky.>

<The future is limited, but I will not look to it.>

Schweitzer ran forward, seemingly pushed onward by the Texts, and Berger rushed up by Hazel’s side to meet him.

Schweitzer readied his prosthetic arm.

<Excellence is determined in the sky above.>

<The past is unlimited, but I will not listen to it.>

He shouted with his metal fist raised.

“Why would you try to block her will!?”

<Do not compare your height to others.>

Berger moved in front of Hazel as if to block Schweitzer’s words from reaching her.

<I will break it all and throw it out.>

He hopped a step forward with Gelegenheit at the ready. He shoved two Size C Phlogiston Tanks into the bottom of the hilt.

<All power is lost before them.>

Schweitzer shouted toward the growing black blade.

“Maybe it is all a lie! But!”

<We can redo it all.>

Hazel realized she and Berger had been surrounded by spatial barriers.

<The heights are for the soaring dragon.>

Lines of ether resembling bluish-white threads began to form 50-yard walls around them.

Nevertheless, she looked to Berger’s back and did not give up on running.

She leaned forward and kicked off the metal ground to keep moving.

She heard Schweitzer’s words.

“But she asked something of me.”

<The New World is a world that will not be lost.>

Past Berger’s back and outside the barrier, Schweitzer was sticking his biological left arm toward her. His eyes were directly on her.

He clenched that hand into a fist.

“She asked me to believe her no matter what lie she told.”

With those words, the barriers were complete.

<The depths are the foundation of the earth.>

In that instant, the ether inside the barriers came to a stop.

All light faded from her Messiah eye and the black blade vanished from Berger’s Gelegenheit.

<The New World is a world where nothing is lost.>

Then Schweitzer held his prosthetic arm and triggered its striking staff. An empty cartridge was ejected from the arm.

<The Hero defends the new world.>

A new barrier formed to surround running Berger and Hazel.

<But destiny has declared…>

He pointed his left thumb down to say “be destroyed”.

“Can you stop the millennium wheel behind us now that it has begun to turn once more!? Can you stop her lies!?”

Hazel listened to his shout.

She thought about herself, about someone much like her, and about the person by her side now.

So in the instant the interior of the barrier was crushed, she looked at Schweitzer.

When their gazes seemed to audibly crash together, she raised her voice.

“What are you trying protect!? The lies!? Or…”

<…that all forms, colors, sounds, and wills will be lost.>

I know it isn’t that, she thought before continuing.

“Or the will of the person who told the lies!?”

A pair of Aerial Words flashed just as she got the question out.

<The Messiah has destiny on her side.>

<Destiny will not abandon the Messiah.>

Their devices had been forcefully stopped, but they were restarted with a Beweisen. Gelegenheit resumed functioning.

The unstoppable black blade sliced through the barrier.

With a sound like shattering ice, the blue ether barrier split and burst.

While Berger made his follow through with Gelegenheit, Hazel raced past him.

Schweitzer stood in front of her. He was frowning and clenching his teeth.

He clenched his metal right fist enough to make a metallic noise and then raised it.

“I…!”

<I do not want to lose all that.>

Hazel chose to ignore what he said. She raced in at full speed, her boots pounding on the metal ground.

His fist flew straight toward her.

Unshaken, she raised Rein König, crouched down, and slipped below the fist.

Just as the attack whizzed over her head like a bullet, she swung Rein König forward with both her hands gripping its hilt tight. It was the exact motion she had done in practice countless times.

The white curve sliced through the wind and severed the metal arm at the shoulder.

When she heard the slicing of metal, she knew she had done enough. She threw herself forward and kept running.

She heard the last line of Lowenzahn’s Aerial Words.

<I do not want to lose any of that!>

Hazel nodded and saw an image of the past for one brief moment.

She saw the overhead view of a river flowing through a forest at night, she saw the pair of small villages built alongside it, and then even that disappeared.

But she said nothing.

Her vision returned as she ran into the door sitting open before her.

Part 7

She ran.

She ran through the darkness, broke through another door, and found a lit corridor just like Witzmann had said she would.

The place was deserted. She focused all her attention on her vision, ignoring all the sounds around her.

There was a door ahead, so she swung Rein König to break through. She didn’t need an Up. Her heightened will and her experience from battling Lillie let her Tune with just her words.

She didn’t know what it was she said.

But a piercing power emerged from the corridor’s thin air.

The power raced out and broke through the door, revealing the space on the other side.

It was another corridor with another thick door at the end.

A man stood to the side of that door. The tall, skinny elderly man wore a Geheimnis Agency Air Force Division combat coat. It was Schweitzer’s aide.

She felt bad that she couldn’t remember his name.

He faced her and bowed. The hand he held toward the door held a pistol.

She heard his voice with her will, not with her hearing that had faded away thanks to her intense concentration.

“Eingeweide gun Freischütz – Ober Beweisen.”

<One body gathers everything inside it. Another releases everything into the world. Which will you watch over? Which will you abandon?>

The muzzle flashed, but no bullet emerged.

Instead, Hazel saw a power. It flew toward the door and destroyed it.

But instead of destroying it in an ordinary fashion, all the screws and rails used to construct the door came apart in an instant. The door became no more than a few metal panels and other components and collapsed away from him.

Hazel bowed toward the elderly man as she ran by. She passed through the collapsing door in just three steps.

The door past it had been dismantled as well, so she ran through the gap that created.

She found a large space beyond.

The tall cylindrical space was the core of Tristan.

She found herself on a walkway crossing a seemingly bottomless pit.

… Neue Erde is here!

She saw a pillar running through the center of Tristan. There was a control panel where the walkway reached the pillar and a window was installed on the wall above that.

“That must be it!”

The sound returned to her ears then.

She heard Tristan’s pulse and a deep tremor of the air. They both rang loud like a shouting voice.

But she did not fear those sounds. She ran forward with Rein König ready in her right hand.

The window was right in front of her. The metal and plastic tubes on the other side were pulsating to show the massive device was reaching the height of its activity.

Something odd stuck out from the artificial veins that twisted around like serpents.

Hazel confirmed it was a woman’s hand.

The right hand had its palm up and an ear of golden wheat sat in that palm.

She leaped, raised Rein König in her right hand, and slammed it directly into the window.

The tip shattered the glass and pierced the metal pipes to stab deeper.

She felt it reach something.

Then she raised her voice to return the target’s Lives to normal.

“Ah.”

There was no hesitation in her voice.

…Because she’s so much like me!

Rein König’s blade shined bright, that light burned the pipes, raced across the control panel, and accelerated along the outer surface of the giant metal pillar.

She reached out her left hand and grabbed the outstretched right hand, pressing down on the ear of wheat.

“That’s enough. This can end.”

She sent her thoughts into Rein König, trusting it would reach the woman.

“This nightmare can finally end!”

Light exploded inside Tristan.

Everything was ending.

Part 8

August 24, 2:58 AM.

The protective dome of light covering Germania suddenly disappeared.

At the same time, two surges of bluish-white light raced across Tristan’s surface armor.

They were answered by one last gentle beat of its pulse followed by silence.

The pulse’s reverberation lingered for around 10 seconds before vanishing into the night sky.

Then Tristan and the shield facilities built in the four cardinal directions all went dark. The red lights of emergency power switched on instead. The red lights shined for a bit before vanishing as well.

The silence from the massive structure was followed by the seven black aerial warships losing control and stalling in midair. They whipped up the wind as they crashed outside the city and stopped moving.

Tristan and its defenses had lost all power, as had the control system that provided structural support.

The massive structure could not support its own weight without that.

It creaked and groaned before it began to collapse.

The cross looming tall in the night slowly began to fall.

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