1.3:

"Do you know her?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe. Are those guns?"

"Yes. Big ones. I think we should run. You're in no state for combat yet."

"What about them?"

"You tell them, you have the amplifiable vocal cord, not me." Said the girl, as she turned and started running away.

She was surprisingly quick for her size, Chelsea thought.

The mysterious stranger seemed to have recovered from her shock and started loading the weapons again, however. Chelsea decided to warn her two comrades, before following Riley's advice and worked her unsteady legs as fast as she could.


"WATCH OUT!"

She heard the mechanical scream just as she detected the scent of gunpowder in the air.

And Mine just had enough time to see a barrage of projectiles of all shapes and sizes barreling toward her before Tatsumi in his Teigu form rammed into her. He wrapped his arms around her, and picked her up fireman-style before kicking off the ground just moments before the explosions.

Despite herself, Mine could still feel her heart jumped.

Chelsea! She thought, as the giant rushed her away from a flurry of fireballs. If she gets caught in this, she'll be dead for real. At least, it seemed the bitch was focusing on them and didn't shoot at Chelsea. She tried to scream out to Tatsumi to check on their friend, but found her voice drowned out as he zig-zagged his way across the canyon, ammunitions raining down left and right beside them, the air itself shook with the bombings, kicking up a cloud of dust, until finally, after what felt like an eternity, the barrage stopped.

Only for a very large, very toothy, very bear-like giant dog-thing to charge through the fog straight at them. Tatsumi, for his part, already drew his weapon and ran straight at the beast.

Mine could see the shadow of someone running away toward the city. But there was no time to worry about that.

Because from afar, her optic picked up the shape of the Jaeger herself, chasing after the stumping, retreating figure of her reconstructed friend.


Damn, Seryu silently cursed. Her moment of hesitation had cost her the element of surprise. The evildoers had time to react, and now the supposedly-dead woman was running away. And while cleansing evil from this world was her mission, this mystery was too much to ignore: if it was what it first appeared to be, they must have found a Teigu that could bring back the dead. Such a powerful, unheard of weapon could not be allowed to be in the hands of the villains. She must bring that woman back at all cost for questioning and examination. So after sending Koro to stall the two fighters, she took chase after the redhead. Her target had a head start, but she looked injured, and Seryu was confident in her own superior mobility.

Using her grappling hook, the soldier quickly closed the distance between them. The girl kept tripping by herself only made her job easier.

One thousand and one hundred meters. She could line up a shot from here, but blowing someone to smithereens would make interrogating them significantly harder.

Eight hundred. She took a look at the fight behind her. There was too much dust to tell.

Five hundred. There was no place for her to use her hook. No matter, she could catch up on foot.

Three hundred. She could tell that the two-on-one fight was still going on. Koro was strong, he should be able to hold the two of them off for a while longer, until she secured this woman. Then they could hold off the two devils together until reinforcements arrived.

Almost there. She could take a disabling shot from this distance. One didn't need legs to talk. She did. The heavy caliber bullets hit the redhead's left legs right around the knee, sent sparks flying, and her target tumbling down.

An artificial body. Seryu thought. She should have expected this: after all, the only thing left of the woman was the head. No matter, she got her target.

Then, pain blossomed.

She watched as a glowing projectile sped away, having torn through her left side. The energy bullet from the pink head's Teigu had found its mark. The impact sent her stumbling down, just a dozen meters away from the not-dead woman.

Seryu quickly used her arms to prop herself up and turned around. Koro was still fighting Icursio. But the woman had broken away and was running toward her, gun in her hands.

Though Seryu had to admit that scoring a hit from that distance was impressive.

Better deal with this one quick, she thought. Her injury was not quite severe, at least not immediately. She was bleeding heavily, her skirt had turned crimson from her own blood, but she could still hold on until the Captain arrived.

She hoped.

The Jaeger had finally stood up and started advancing toward the fallen redhead. Her target was shaking, trying desperately to crawl backwards. Despite the situation, Seryu allowed herself to laugh triumphantly at that: the sign of an evildoer crouching in fear before justice. If only Captain Esdeath could see that.

Just in case, she shifted her arm into Judgment number five. The giant drill spun threateningly as she held it up and pointed it at the woman. She forced out the words, the pain was getting more and more intense, and speaking was getting harder:

"I saw you. You were cut up into pieces. How? How can you..."

She never had the chance to finish, as a second shot from the other rebel woman hit her right shoulder. Weird, she didn't even feel the pain as her entire right arm got ripped out of its socket. Shit, she couldn't use number five's range attack function without her right arm. She thought about Esdeath's brilliant smile. She always cared a lot for her subordinates, Seryu would worry her a lot if she saw her like this.

What a weird thing to think about, she thought.

She glanced back at the fight behind. That simple movement was hard, the muscles in her neck screamed in protest as she did so. The fight seemed to be over: Koro's giant shadow was nowhere to be found, and the armored assassin was running toward her direction too. The armored warrior must be Tatsumi. How dare the boy betray Esdeath and join forces with Night Raid? It would hurt the Captain badly – no doubt, but no problem, she would be there to console her.

Hah, no matter. She still had some weapons left. She lifted her left arm up and...

Dropped it down?

Seryu tried to move her head. She couldn't. She tried to kick into the ground to spring up, but her legs felt like lead. She tried to activate the hidden weapons still inside her. Nothing. Her muscles failed to move.

She even tried to use the Final Judgment, the bomb inside her skull, but her jaw could not find the force to click the trigger.

So Seryu laid there in total silence, save for her ragged breathing, which was getting shorter and shorter, she idly noted.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the red-headed woman, the woman who was supposed to be dead, approaching. She was holding something in her hand. An empty vial.

"I was never much a fighter, in my last life or this one." She heard the woman said. Her voice was distant, despite her being so close. "But trickery was my forte. And this body is fully equipped with the tools for that."

Hah, sorry I've failed you, Captain. Seryu thought. So there she was, bleeding out in the middle of nowhere, completely alone. She saw the other devils arriving, plus the blonde child from earlier. She thought about her father, her mentor, her savior, the ones who had died under their hands. She thought about Captain Esdeath, her kind smile, her care for the Jaegers, her worries for them.

She wanted to see Esdeath again. She didn't want to die here.

And with that, the world broke apart.


He realized something was going wrong when Riley suddenly collapsed.

The next thing was a blinding flash of blue light, and Mine's scream.

When the light died down, Seryu was gone. And the pink haired girl was not where she was just a moment ago. Tatsumi frantically looked around for her, and found the girl dozens of meters away. She was thrown back, but otherwise seemed fine. Chelsea was just as confused as he was.

Then, Riley swore before she even stood up.

"Well, fuck. Didn't expect that."


They didn't even have time to listen to the Rakshasa's full story. He took off before Esdeath even finished giving her order.

Stupid. Run thought. To confront Night Raid alone like that was reckless. Surprise factor or not, that was taking unnecessary risks.

With his Teigu, he was the fastest of them, so he would go ahead and give her aid as soon as possible. The former teacher just hoped that he wouldn't be too late. The ruins were not too far away from the city, it shouldn't take him much time to get there. Already, he could see smoke rising in the distance.

And... a flash of blue light going away from the ruins?

It stopped somewhere just outside the ruins. Run decided to investigate it first. So he slowly descended as he got closer.

And he found the prone form of his colleague, battered and unconscious, lying face-down on the ground. She was pale and bleeding, her breaths were shallow, and her entire right arm was missing, including parts of her shoulder.

The Jaeger didn't think before he picked her up and made a rush back to the city.


"How's the process, Professor?"

"It's an extraordinary material, unlike anything we've ever seen before. Incredible toughness and tensile strength, the inner layers are stronger than anything we've ever found. It also exhibits some temporal and spatial warping effects. We tried to look into the inner parts, but the readings were... abnormal. It doesn't seem to follow the laws of physics that we know. The wing itself as a whole has telekinetic effect: small objects will levitate slightly off the ground when placed nearby."

"All of that is fascinating, but can you tell me how are you going to make a weapon out of it, and when?"

"We've tried to fuse the material with different substances, to very limited success. The outer layers, when broken down with heat and pressure and mixed with metal, the results didn't exhibit any special characteristic compared to the base metals, except increased toughness in some cases."

"What about Orihalcon?"

"We haven't tried that, sir, it's too valuable to use carelessly."

"Worry not, Professor. We can melt down some of those unused Teigu if needed."

"Sir...?"

"Do you have any objection?"
"No, sir, we'll get a prototype for testing as soon as possible."

"Excellent, I expect more from you in the future, Professor."


"How did she got out of there in this state?" Esdeath said.

"I don't know. We need to wait until she wakes up." Run answered. If she wakes up, he thought.

They both stood and watched over the sleeping form of their comrade. Wave and Kurome had paid her a visit earlier, but both had excused themselves.

The town's doctors had done their job, but he wasn't sure if that would be enough. He'd rather move her to the capital, but with her injuries, traveling that far might be too dangerous.

"And you didn't find any trace of Night Raid?"

"I was too busy getting her here. When I came back, all that left was the destroyed ruins."

"So much potential, almost wasted." His boss sighed. He could see a hint of worry on her face, but still, her comment bothered him.

To see a human as nothing more than their strength, it was yet another symptom of the diseases that plagued the Empire.

Run took another look at the sleeping young girl. She looked so peaceful here. A stark contrast with the manic grin she wore into battle, as she tore mercilessly into the enemies of the Empire – or "enemies of Justice", as she would put it.

A girl with that much drive and conviction, twisted so much by the festering illnesses.

Run sighed again. Sometimes, he wondered if it would have been better if he joined the other side instead.