Akashic Knight *******
“Shamal, I need you to do me a favor.” … “…Vita, you…” “Say no more. Please. I’ll leave it to you.” … “…Vita, can I ask you one last question?” “Hmm?” “…are you really doing this just for Hayate?” … “…nee, Shamal.” “What?” “…the number of people we’ve sworn to protect…it got really bloated all of a sudden, didn’t it?” ******* It was a myth even in the old forgotten times of Al-Hazard. They called it
Anarkhaxus,
the Cosmic Devourer. It drifted through the remote interstices between dimensions; in the deepest, most distant and unexplored recesses of inter-dimensional space. A blind over-god, hoping to stumble upon a gap leading to a dimension ripe for consumption. Upon stepping out of inter-dimensional space, it would prey upon the nearest inhabited planet, erasing all life and all energy with its power beyond comprehension. After rendering the planet a barren husk devoid of even the possibility for life, it would return to its blind wanderings, traveling endlessly and aimlessly until another meal comes within reach. It is not evil, for it does not show the slightest hint of awareness or intellect. It simply exists, and its existence is committed to the unmaking of all living things. Was Anarkhaxus the end of Al-Hazard? The tomes, of course, would not answer that question. It had started as a bean-shaped celestial body, suddenly claiming a spot in the sky above Mid-Childa. As it grew ominously brighter and larger, it attracted the attention of whole teams of astrologists and astrophysicists. The former worried about its unnatural trajectory, for it could not be called an orbit unless it was ridiculously wide. The latter worried about its composition, for it was not made of rock or metal but of seemingly dead organic matter. When it became obvious that it was moving on a straight collision course towards Mid-Childa, TSAB went into action. It could not be destroyed. As long as a single particle of it remained, it rapidly regenerated and returned to its colossal size and inexorable course. Not even the prized weapon of TSAB, the Arc-en-ciel, could ensure its irrevocable destruction. The planet’s population was evacuated, leaving only the Bureau’s armed forces watching the impact from orbit. They could only watch in hapless horror and fascination the end of the planet that, for so many years, had been the undisputed center of all universes. The living meteor fell, spelling thus Mid-Childa’s doom. The impact itself was devastating; an object of such massive size triggered calamitous natural reactions. Earthquakes and tsunamis wracked the lands. Volcanoes long rendered inactive by magic or natural processes roared back to life and flooded the planet with lava. Ashes swallowed the sky, cloaking the entire planet in darkness. Lightning roared and struck the moaning earth like the scourge of god. And in the midst of Armageddon, it cried. The doom of worlds cried, for it had been denied its meal. The measly animal and plant population left behind after the evacuation could not sate its hunger. It would not leave this dimension until it was satisfied. Those watching from geo-stationary orbit watched in indescribable horror as the beast revealed its true form. It was not shaped like a bean.
It was shaped like a fetus. It grew, and grew; a stillborn child, its size beyond colossal. Its massive, grossly misshapen head covered the whole stretch of the sky. It encompassed the entirety of the horizon, as far as ten kilometers away. It could not stand, or even walk on all fours. It merely crawled; its gross, bloated body squirming like a caterpillar as its encompassing bulk traversed the ravaged land. Blind as it was, it still had perceptive capabilities. It was naturally drawn towards life in all its forms. The thing stretched one of its stump-like hands towards the sky. Fingers too small and stubby in proportion to the size of the hand wriggled and squirmed as if hoping to reach something in the distance. Only too late did they realize it was pointing towards the ships in orbit. Like warts bursting out of the palm of its hand; blobs of flesh were fired like meteors, streaking upwards through the atmosphere at escape velocity and rendering half of TSAB’s fleet into wreckage in a matter of seconds. That was just the beginning. The higher-ups called it war, but the mages risking their lives knew better. It was
extinction. *******
“Zafira!” “Get away! Vita, get away—” ******* The first to die was Zafira. Crushed beneath a single of Anarkhaxus’ fingers, squashed like a miserable cockroach by the hand that made an entire world shake every time it fell upon the barren earth. It was slow. Astoundingly slow. But a single sway of its hands could create hurricanes wilder than anything its planet itself could muster. The mightiest bombardment spells only created miserable wounds that healed in a matter of seconds. Its only weakness—if it could be called a weakness—was that it put excessive emphasis on its own preservation. It only took a risible amount of damage, nowhere near close to what it would take to truly destroy it, for Anarkhaxus to go into a kind of torpor, in which all offensive actions ceased and he entirely focused on self-regeneration. The only reason it had no annihilated them all yet was because of regular use of Arc-en-ciel. Even if they miraculously killed that thing, Mid-Childa was lost. Vita solemnly watched the colossal shape from within TSAB’s remaining base of operations: the crumbling ruins of former central Cranagan. The sky over her head roared a warning of the looming doom. Black raindrops painted a canvas of melancholy over the fallen megalopolis. The alarm would blare in a matter of minutes. Soon, they would sortie once more, like lemmings rushing towards the cliff. Maybe this time it would truly end. At this point, it would be merciful. *******
“Fate, you have to get out of there! It’s coming!” Admiral Chrono Harlaown shouted through the Comm. Link. “I have to cover their retreat! I’ll provide bombardment support from here until they get out!” High in the sky,yet not high enough to look down on the massive fetus head, Fate T. Harlaown blasted the horrible thing with successive castings of Plasma Smasher. “Fate-chan, the hand! The hand’s making a swipe!” “Not yet! Not yet, Nanoha-chan!” “Fate-chan, the hand!!!” Nanoha’s shouted was a shrilly, high-pitched cry that came not from her lungs, but from her heart frozen by terror. “NOT YET!” Fate roared with hopeless defiance. “Shirou’s still in there—” The massive hand, large as mountains are tall, swiped the space in front of its face, its wrist dragged over the ground while its open palm swatted away everything in its way. Fate was not struck by the hand, for her infinitely smaller body fit through the gaps between the monstrosity’s stubby fingers. That did not make much of a difference. ******* Fate was caught in the ferocious, overheated gales created by the friction between the hand and the air surrounding it; consumed and ripped apart by the mother of all maelstroms. They never found her body. There probably was nothing to be found. They could only fight in small skirmishes. The moment they left the barrier surrounding their encampment, they would be locked in combat not only against Anarkhaxus, but against the primeval weather as well. The ash-laden sky was choking and oppressive, and it made their throats feel like they were on fire after minutes. Furthermore, the place was stuffed to the brim with radiation from dozens of Arc-en-ciel shots. It was truly a hopeless battle in the worst of all battlefields. But the option was allowing Anarkhaxus to prey on more planets. *******
It opened its mouth. And its mouth was the gate to oblivion. Aerial mages, so many of them, filled the sky with the cacophony of their screams as they were sucked into the maw of pure darkness. As the abomination inhaled more and more deeply, even those mages rooted to the earth found themselves pulled into the all-consuming vortex. “Gaaaaaah—Graf Eisen!” Striking the hard rock with the Device’s drill tip, Vita resisted the vacuum solely by her grip on the weapon; the rest of her body flailing helplessly in the air. “Guh…argh…! Don’t fail me now, Graf Eisen!” A whip-like weapon, section of a blade connected by wire, latched itself to the hammer’s head. “Signum!” A distance away, the Knight of the Sword held to her Device for dear life as well. Vita’s hammer had become the lifeline for two people. Seconds became lifetimes. The two knights clung to their Devices with everything they had. Even when loose rocks and those less fortunate struck their bodies, Vita and Signum resisted and refused to let go. Even if the pain made them want to scream; even if it felt like their arms would be ripped apart, they refused to let go. They resisted, even as the rock they relied on began to relent. Vita’s eyes widened as the head of her weapon began to vibrate. She could feel its hold on the rock loosening. “No!” She gasped out. “No, no, no, no, no!” Anarkhaxus had almost closed its mouth! “We’re almost there! You’ve almost done it, Graf Eisen!” But the weapon could not defeat simple physics. ‘It seems…that the weight of two might be too much.’ Vita’s horror-stricken eyes shot in the direction of the flailing Signum. The rose-haired Knight returned the attention with the stern, commanding gaze of a martial leader. ‘You must protect our Master, Vita.’ “No! Signum, you don’t have to…!” She could not finish the sentence, for she knew those were hollow words. One life, or two lives—the decision was obvious. She could not say anything; she could not do anything. Vita watched in silence as the leader of the Wolkenritter was swallowed by the darkness. ******* The loudspeaker announced the call to battle. The Devourer of Worlds stirred again after its latest bout of rest. Vita’s eyes were hollow and inexpressive as she flew out of the barrier and towards the core of madness. Her grasp on her weapon was almost whimsical; Graf Eisen could slip out of her hands any second now. She was not the only one: her poise was the constant among the remaining forces of TSAB. They were all tired: tired of fighting, tired of losing, tired of suffering and tired of watching others die pointlessly. No matter what they did, no matter how hard they fought, the result was always the same. What difference does it make, then? Why could not they just stay in the encampment and wait for the end? Because the flame of defiance in their souls, albeit flickering, was still there. Even if Mid-Childa was lost, countless planets remained. Planets bursting with life; planets where their friends and loved ones awaited; planets that put their prayers and hopes on them. The lives of them mages had become completely worthless; they were like pebbles thrown at a fortress wall. But the lives of those who relied on them; the lives of those who counted on them; for their lives, for their futures, they had to keep fighting. Even if it was hopeless. A symphony of magical explosions echoed throughout the field of death. Anarkhaxus was huge and slow; for the whole of a minute or two the mages would be able to attack unhampered. This time, however, swords would not rain upon the horizon-spanning face like twigs poking a mountain. “Emiya…” Vita whispered. He was still alive. Of course he was still alive. She had always protected him, true to her oath as a knight. Even if she had to drag him out of the battlefield while he kicked and screamed. Even if every single death hardened his heart a little bit more. Even if he no longer smiled. Even if he no longer could look straight at Nanoha and Hayate. Even if his lips whispered Fate’s name whenever he allowed himself an hour or two of sleep. He was still alive, so he fought. And Vita watched his back. But not this time. Not anymore. Hayate and Nanoha had exhausted their Linker Cores after one too many S-rank and greater spells. They would need to rest at length, and Vita had demanded Shirou to stay by their sides and rest as well. Expectedly, the sword-maker had stubbornly refused, not accepting the idea of others fighting and dying while he placidly slept. Vita had Shamal slip drugs in his food. He would sleep through this fight. She had promised, had she not? That she would die before him. “WHURAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!” Her battle cry made no sense. The whole world made no sense anymore. Where had those peaceful, happy days gone? The times when the major cause for stress where Shirou’s and the Aces’ ridiculous harem antics and people treating her like a child? So she cried. And she screamed. And she swung her weapon over and over and over again, so many times; as many as she had precious memories. Its organic body was like steel, and her Device was losing the battle of hardness, but Vita did not stop. She could not stop. She flew and weaved around body-shredding gales and building-sized meteors of flesh, and she struck the colossus until she could do so no more. And every time she struck, she remembered Zafira. She remembered Signum. She remembered Fate and Erio. Subaru and Ginga. Levi, Stern and Dearche. Nove and Sieglinde. Arf and Einhart. She remembered the tears of those left behind. She remembered the heart-wrenching sight of Chrono Harlaown, the sternest man she had ever known, collapsing in pitiful sobs upon learning of the Materials’ demise. She remembered Teana’s and Caro’s tears. Vivio’s and Yuuno’s. Sakura’s and Miura’s. Wendi’s and Cinque’s. Rin’s and Nanoha’s. She remembered Hayate’s. Her precious, most beloved Mistress. Each and every single tear she shed was a stab in Vita’s soul. For them, for the smiles they have lost, Vita fought relentlessly, like she had never fought before. Her hammer crashed against the colossal body until it shattered, and even after that she used the broken thing to stab the monster again and again, drawing countless, pitifully small wounds. She fought long after the retreat order was issued yet again, maybe even hoping the Arc-en-ciel would put an end to her hopeless struggle. But the firing order was never issued, so she just collapsed on the ground; the gigantic fetus head looming over her and covering her view of the sky. “Stupid…Chrono…” That idiot would not fire as long as there was a single person there, but it was a matter of time before pressure from the worthless bastards at the top made him do it. Just like everybody else, his heart had already hardened after one too many losses. She glanced at the colossus of flesh. Could it even tell her insignificant presence before it? Did it even matter? “Huh…so this is it for me,” she muttered; her voice barely a whisper. “This sucks.” The huge thing shifted as if in unease. Maybe…it was confused by the missing Arc-en-ciel shot? Was it even capable of such thoughts? “How…how can we beat you, you ugly freak baby?” She spoke to the abomination as it began to squirm forwards. In a minute or two it would simply crush her with its titanic body. “Is there a power…in this universe…capable of beating you…?” She guessed, it would have to be something at the same level as this beast; a power capable of threatening an entire world. Something like the Jewel Seeds, perhaps…? Ah, but those were gone for good, were they not? The one Shirou was holding probably would not be enough. “…maybe that ‘Sword of Rupture’ Emiya talked about. The sword of that goldie. Yeah, that would probably do the trick…” she mused pointlessly, probably just aiming to fill her last moment with a placid monologue. Her right arm feebly raised the broken, useless form of her device. The hammer head was long gone, and the pole threatened to break apart in any second. “…we weren’t…enough this time, Graf Eisen. We can’t…” She gritted her teeth, mentally cursing herself for allowing the tears to escape her eyes. “…we can’t break this thing…!” Shame. It was shameful. She was the Knight of the Hammer, Vita! There was supposed to be nothing she could not destroy! But she couldn’t dent this thing! It was too large, too powerful, and she was just…pitiful… “The power…to destroy this thing…if there’s someone…something…that can destroy this thing…” Her eyes were squeezed shut, but that would not stop the tears. Her jaw tightened, but that could not stop it from trembling as the doom of her world crawled towards her. “…please…I beg of you…please…” She did not think as far as ‘saving the universe’. She merely thought of Hayate, of Shirou, of Shamal and all her precious people. She just wanted them to smile again. “…I’ll do anything…! I’ll give anything, so, please…!” She just wanted to give them back those wonderful days. “Please stop this thing!!!”
Your existence. She blinked. She saw only the looming flesh of Anarkhaxus’ face.
The price is the entirety of your existence. “Wha…?” Darkness. *******
She saw darkness. And in the midst of the darkness, she saw a single white spot of light. A tremulous, feeble star in the midst of the void. It was not the powerful star of creation preceding the birth of heaven and earth. It was the very opposite—the core of all which exists; the origin of all things and phenomena; the Root of All Things glimmering defiantly against the void which threatened to render all into oblivion. Vita saw only this, but it was enough. Just from watching that lovely star, she understood everything which needed to be understood. She understood where she was, the nature of the one which contacted her and the terms of the ‘contract’ offered to her. She understood her part in the transaction, and what the contractor would turn her into in return. She understood the nature of the ‘power’ being offered, as well as the cost to be paid in exchange for that power. Her existence would be reduced to that of a ‘cleanser’. She would only exist when and where her existence was required, to fight things like that monstrosity. A cosmic problem-solver created solely to remove threats to the universe. Whether they were extradimensional overgods like that Anarkhaxus or magi trying out a reckless and dangerous experiment to reach the Root, she would be dispatched to eliminate them without discussion or hesitation. She would be an executioner at the orders of the most unforgiving and alien judge and jury. A Knight of Akasha. She would become like that star. Forever alone, but connected to all. Forever beyond the reach of the world, but watching over it until the end of time. Vita remembered her very vague memories of her previous Masters before Yagami Hayate. Yes, it would be a lot like that, only much worse, and this time without end. A fighting machine at the orders of an unfathomable mistress. Hayate… …Nanoha… …Emiya… …everyone… “…hmph.” Memories of peaceful days. Memories of brothers in battle. Memories of laughter. Memories of happiness. Her life began when she met Yagami Hayate. Those days, those memories, were her everything. Her whole life was those lyrical days. “Bring it.” ******* Her body was bursting with power, but her body remained weak and her Device broken. “Graf Eisen.” “
Wiederherstellung.” Power flowed into the weapon, and Vita realized that, just like her, Graf Eisen had changed at a fundamental level. As matter came into being to replace the lost parts, it flowed like liquid mercury before coming into the proper shape. It was completely different from how the Recovery spell worked before. How much power had she spent restoring her Device? Virtually nothing. “Power won’t be a problem,” she concluded with some satisfaction. No, the issue was her body. It was too tired, too weak. Even at her best, she would be hard pressed to handle the amount of power she had been infused with. It was precisely as her new boss had intended. She would be removed from this world as swiftly as possible. This would be her last battle as herself, Vita of the Wolkenritter. “Then let’s make the best of it! Our counterattack begins now, Graf Eisen!” She declared, extending her free hand before her. “
Schwalbefliegen.” Four sphere of iron appeared in the gaps between her fingers. “Eat metal, freak! Oryaaaaaa!!!” Hammer met iron, and the four spherical bullets covered the distance to the stillborn titan at supersonic speed. The ensuing explosion almost blew Vita off her feet. “Whoa! Holy shit!” Four craters the size of three-story buildings further marred the irregular right cheek of the abominable fetus-thing. Vita whistled at the sudden power boost, even if it was far from enough to end the monster. As if recognizing the presence of a threat, Anarkhaxus’ face began to swell in countless spots like warts, just like his hands many times before. “Fuck that, we’re out of here.” She took to the sky just before the barrage started. With agility and reflexes she had never had before, she navigated her way out of a pandemonium of thousands of bullets of flesh, the smallest as large as a basketball and the largest the size of Hayate’s house in Misaki. “Let’s try something bigger, Graf Eisen!” “
Kometfliegen.” A ball of metal twice the size of her head floated in front of her. “Oraaaaaaaa!” The missile struck the gargantuan creature’s face, boring through the flesh thanks to the friction heat it had accumulated in its brief flight before exploding in a gory burst of dead tissue right above Anarkhaxus’ flat and black upper lip. It was an explosion that would have forced a TSAB cruise ship to dock for serious repairs. Of course, it was not enough. Anarkhaxus opened its colossal mouth. “Like hell you’re gonna suck me, you rotten fuck,” Vita cursed. “Graf Eisen! Let’s stuff that freak’s trap!” “
Sternfliegen.” It was gigantic; taller than the highest building Vita had ever seen. “Holy crap, can I even push this thing?” “
Ja, doch.” “Haha! You got that right! Let’s do this!” With a roar, Vita began to spin so as to gather momentum, at the same time the hammer grew in size. “Goooooooooo—!!!!” They did not get to shoot the huge iron ball, for Vita noticed the flicker of light in the midst of the dark pit that was Anarkhaxus’ mouth. “Defense—!” It was magical energy in its raw form. The collective accumulation of energy claimed from the many mages it had slain to this point. The white cannon swallowed the iron ball and Vita equally, drowning her screams within the deafening roar of the unleashed energy as it split the sky. Sixteen seconds and just over ten kilometers later, Vita’s back struck the ground with a sickening thud. “Guh! Fuck!” When did she start cursing so much? Cadet language had really stuck to her. She squeezed her eyes shut with a trail of blood almost snuck into her left eye. It trailed past her nose and touched the left corner of her lips before dripping on her same-colored Barrier Jacket. She had been saved by the full power of her
Panzerschild and the conveniently-placed iron ball which took most of the brunt of the beam for her. “Alright, enough messing around; it was fun while it lasted, but…!” Her entire body complained when she struggled to get back on her feet. The power was immense, but her body simply could not take any more! “Tch…argh! Haa…haa…haa…Graf…Graf Eisen…” She stumbled the moment her feet were forced to handle the weight of her body. Taking hold of the weapon in a two-handed grip, she moved her left leg forward and placed most of her weight on it while letting the hammer head hang behind her. She took a deep breath before raising the Device over her head. “…it’s time to die, Eisen.” “
Zerstörungsform.” The hammer grew. Longer, wider; the double round heads becoming a single octagonal head with a drill on one side and a rocket exhaust on the other. The weight of the whole thing made it lean backwards. The grip grew until the tip collided with the ground some meters ahead of Vita. “Spin!” The hammer roared as the drill began its rotation. The rocket boost from the back kept it from falling to the ground behind the small knight. “Spin! Spin, spin, spin! Spin like you’ve never spun before! This is our last howl, Graf Eisen! Take all of my power and
SPIN!!!” Faster, faster, more intensely; the heat from the friction mixed with the heat from the exhaust and created an inferno behind Vita’s back. “This is
not enough! This is not the limit of our power!
Faster!” Faster, even faster; much faster than it had ever spun. The mechanical sound of the spinning challenged the sound of flames for the title of loudest cacophony in this battlefield of madness. “
Not enough!!! Zerstörungshammer is
not enough!!! This will be our greatest spell, Graf Eisen!!!!
Become the drill that will shatter the Universe!!!!!” The crack of lightning. The heat released by the rotation energy accelerated the surrounding particles and broke the dielectric constant of the air around it. Lightning flashed from the drill tip towards the ground like the mythical hydra’s heads, taking whole chunks of barren rock with each strike. The air around the hammer was forcefully dragged into the rotation. Vita had become the center of a magical storm; the eye of a terrible hurricane of magical might. “
Not enough!” She roared. “
NOT ENOUGH!!!!!” She gritted her teeth, uncaring of the flames burning her back and the gales rocking her body from every direction. She was like a raging volcano, unmovable and ready to explode. The rotating drill began to change color. It was not only the heat surrounding it that made it incandescent; the white light had gradually shifting towards a deep red. At the same time, the shape of the drill began to distort, swirling and twisting like an uneven desert mirage. It was not only the air was being dragged into the rotation. The drill’s speed had transcended the realm of physical possibility. It ignored friction and all magical and mechanical limits.
The drill spun so fast it was pulling the surrounding space-time along with it. Light and all forms of electromagnetic radiation became part of the maelstrom as local reality began to be pulled as well. “Howl, Graf Eisen!!!
The last howl that heralds the end of the world!!!!!” For once, Anarkhaxus’ skulking slowness acted as a weakness. Even if it had chased after Vita following the beam attack, it was simply too slow to cover ten kilometers no matter how astoundingly huge it was. Vita no longer felt anything. Her back was a carbonized mess, but she did not feel it. Her timpani had shattered long before the shrilling sound of the drill’s rotation had surpassed the limits of human hearing. There was only her mind, shaper than ever before, and the maelstrom of power surrounding her and gathering around the tip of her hammer’s drill.
You were right, Hayate. There is nothing in this universe I cannot destroy. She gathered her strength and gripped her hammer as tightly as she could. She did not hear the sizzling of the flesh of her palms being cooked by the overheated metal pole. “
GÖTTER…!!!” A moment of perfect clarity. The world stopped around her. Perfect silence. Perfect peace. Her mind evoked the smiling face of Emiya Shirou.
I leave her to you now, Emiya. “
—DÄMMERUNG!!!!!” The hammer fell, tracing a vertical line that split the sky and the horizon in identical halves. It was a wound upon the tapestry of reality; the very thing she would fight to prevent from that day onwards. The wound opened, but no blood came out. Outside of the reality defined by Akasha, there is only the void. The air cracked. The earth ceased to be. Such concepts no longer existed. Everything became void. The split in reality spread into a maelstrom of unraveling that denied the existence of anything else. Mid-Childa, and the universe, would not end on that day, but that little knight and her hammer would show them their inevitable fate. The final conclusion. The end of the road. The perpetual state of ceaselessness and nothingness. The emptiness devoid of meaning where that single light shone. Emiya Shirou had once told her a tale of a person with the power to see ‘lines’ and ‘dots’ that represented the end of existence. ‘Cutting’ those lines or ‘stabbing’ that dot allowed that person to destroy anything and everything. Vita, formerly of the Wolkenritter, realized this was it. An imposition of ‘the end of all things’ on a ridiculous scale and without any semblance of control or definition. Then again, she had never been a very elegant person. ******* Emiya Shirou and Yagami Hayate were the first to arrive to the empty battlefield, soon followed by the whole brunt of the remaining TSAB forces. Not a single person capable of moving could afford to stay still and simply wait for news. They had all seen it; that terrible, beautiful magic that defied comprehension. Even from almost a hundred kilometers away, all the way at the last encampment on Mid-Childa, they had seen the magnificent nothingness that consumed the monster, Anarkhaxus, until there was absolutely nothing left. The sensors did not detect any signature and in any case, his monstrous regeneration would have restored it by now if there were something left of it. While people all over the dimensions administrated by TSAB celebrated their continued survival, it was an awed, confused and stunned Emiya Shirou who desperately looked for answers. Who did that? Who unleashed that terrible, incredible and inexplicably nostalgic power? He still could not believe he had slept through the latest sortie; apparently he was far more tired than he had thought. However, all names had been verified, all deaths had been confirmed. Who stayed behind and finished the battle? A distance behind, Hayate watched her last remaining family member, Shamal of the Wolkenritter, as she helped her best friend Takamachi Nanoha land gently on flat ground. Hayate looked at the blond healer with a mixture of sorrow and relief. She had lost her other two knights, Signum and Zafira. That was the sacrifice they had to make, and they were not the only ones who had lost loved ones to the abomination from beyond space. From now on, they would have to heal those wounds and face the future as family, just the two of them. The three women cautiously followed Shirou, mostly because Hayate and Nanoha were still recovering and could not move at his relentless pace. He had seen the initial arc of light that preceded the unraveling of the world, and assumed the center of that arc would be the source of the power unleashed and the location of the person behind it. He was right. There was a single person there. All bodies that were not recovered by TSAB were consumed by the colossus or unraveled by that unfathomable power. The person seated on the ground and leaning against that irregularly-shaped boulder could only be their savior. Shirou fell to his knees, blind and deaf to the others’ slow approach. She was dead.
He did not recognize this person. Her eyes were already closed. A line of long-dried blood split her dirtied face unevenly. She wore an unusual dress; not the kind of thing he would expect as a Barrier Jacket. Maybe she had been into frills. And red. Her hair, crimson like her clothes, was tied in two carefully-made braids. Her right arm rested on the long shaft of what he guessed had been her device. The head was broken, but he could tell it was originally a double-headed hammer. He also realized this Device was capable of using Belkan-type cartridges. She was small. So, so small. Hers was not the appearance of a mighty warrior or a peerless mage. Who was she? What kind of life had this girl lived, that led her to develop such power? To sneak into the ranks of TSAB to fight Anarkhaxus? To sacrifice herself to save them all? “Shirou…” Nanoha spoke softly, respectfully, mindful of the presence of the dead. “…who is she…?” Hayate shook her head. She thought she knew every mage worthy of note in TSAB, but this girl was a complete unknown to her. She glanced at Shamal, who shook her head as well. Somehow, Shirou knew that would be the final answer. He knew that nobody would recognize her or remember her. They would not find her in the archives, and any research Yuuno and Tohsaka made afterwards would remain inconclusive. She would remain forever a Jane Doe. But not to him. “She’s a hero,” he said, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “That’s who she is.” Hayate and Nanoha fell to their knees on both sides of Shirou to get a better look of the girl. Nanoha placed a hand on her beloved’s right shoulder, for she instinctively could tell that Shirou was looking at this fallen girl in a wholly different, unique way. She was the embodiment of his dream. To many dimensions, she would be a nameless savior. To Emiya Shirou, she would be an irreplaceable treasure that would steady his steps and reaffirm his selfless beliefs. But Takamachi Nanoha could not hate this nameless girl. Even if her beloved Shirou ended up following her path, she had nothing but the utmost gratitude to this unknown martyr. “She…” Hayate said as she carefully leaned forward and parted a lock of red hair covering the middle of the girl’s face. “…she has a beautiful smile.” Shirou closed his eyes, for he could no longer contain his tears. He knew. Of course he knew. It was the most beautiful smile; the same smile he saw the day he died and was reborn. The same smile he always strove to realize within himself, every single day. The smile of one who has found salvation in saving another. It was truly the most beautiful smile. “…aah.”
Attachment 4942 ‘Mission...accomplished.’ *******
Akashic Knight – END
Originally Posted by Daneel Rush
Reply With Quote
