July S.1178
Haliask, North Ambira
The weather was freezing below zero outside tremendously as the cloudy gray sky became darker in color with the extremely freezing weather out there. A young red-headed girl came running through the streets with food on a trash can lid. Fearing that she was being caught in the snow and ice, being careful not to slip on the ground and fall to her medical supplies. She ran her way inside the old shack that has been sitting there for decades now.
"O-Okay, mama, papa..." She laid them down on the table, both of them were sleeping very ill and unconscious. "I know you can't wake up and see us, but I brought as many things as I can to keep you alive."
She picked up a wooden spoon on the table, she started putting the food in their mouths as she started feeding them one-by-one each. Their expressions never changed, Xaria had hoped that they were recovering.
"..." Xaria was quiet, too quiet looking at them. "I know you can't answer me. You two are in so much pain. I don't have the mira to save your lives."
She continued feeding their unconscious but painful bodies, almost like they were in a very deep coma. "S-So, when you wake up. Please praise me and don't praise him. He will likely look at you differently rather than someone he biologically loves, okay?"
They never shook nor responded back to their daughter, as Xaria feed their motionless and paralyzed mouths with warm food she burned on a fire pit outside. Someone came through the door. "W-Who is there! Show yourself!"
"Relax, Xaria." The bespectacled boy came through the old wooden door in. "It is me again, oh... I see that you are helping our last dying breaths of our family?"
"This is between me and them, not you!" She frowned at him and went back focusing on feeding them more. "They will be alive, they can't die. Why can't you see that? They are sick. You are smart. Make medicine for them to survive, not let them die! Are you braindead?"
"Xaria..." Georg came and placed his cold hand on her left shoulder, widening her eyes, his face came close to her left earhole. "Let us not waste anymore time with this charade. For I have a plot twist to this narrative you are doing here, they are dead. And you are just pretending that they are alive to hide your grief everyday at school."
"I-I am not pretending..." Xaria had tears rolling down her cheeks. "G-Georg, they are alive. My friend Sara... She thinks they are alive deep down inside. That their souls are etched in their bodies."
"You can't keep telling me they are dead! They are still alive." She frowned more angrily towards him while she cried. "Don't make me cry! I am more human than you! You... You just don't want them to wake up at all!"
"And why should I wake them up, Xaria?" Georg gave her an eerie stare. "They are in a coma, if Aidios was here, she'd told us the truth. Remember how we use to play at Church playground nearby, Denver would always tell us how Aidios of the Sky holds us both dear at heart. You can tell that she has no faith in humanity, it needs to be controlled rather than to be killed. Just look at our parent's and their lifeless bodies. I feel sorrowful for them as I pretend, but not enough to disallow my theory no less."
"Y-Your theory?" Xaria was looking even more confused than ever. "G-Georg, you've been my brother for years on these crazy theories. Can't you act sane and understand the real situation here! This is your family! Not an experiment!"
"You have to look at both ends and decide what matters here than yourself! It's easy to lose than to look at stuff completely out-of-the-ordinary!" She argued further at him even farther. His expression still didn't change on his face.
"Please, you got to believe me." Xaria tried to knock some sense into this thick skull. "You can't be braindead and tell me that this is Aidio's idea of humanity than you claim to be! There maybe a chance that you could be wrong and she is right! Don't do this!"
"..." Georg didn't reply and instead just walked away, slowly letting his hand off of her. "I am ashamed that you have not died, Xaria."
Xaria wasn't sure what he meant but he continued. "But my parents deserved to die. I killed them to prove that you were my experiment."
He opened the door suddenly and made his way outside in the horrible weather again. "I did so in secret because I wanted to present to them how passionate I was to keep showing you my theories on humanity, my brainpower outsmarted everybody at your school that I let you be bullied for. That I suspended myself to remain homeschooled here by myself, forever."
"Therefore, Xaria. You had to witness their deaths to make your mind blank. To let it be controlled by manipulators to prove why humanity is wrong. That Aidios has set the wrong idea to her plan here in this world. It needs a different resolution than the one she imposed. And someday, I might find that plan. Maybe when I leave North Ambria to discover what the world is made out of my own desires."
He laughed evilly as he left, Xaria fell down to her knees as more tears left her eyes. "No... No... This can't be true. Why would he want me alive? I thought he didn't want a family. I thought he wanted to leave humanity's own preposition to him... Wait, why am I saying this? I'm not braindead and foolish like him! I must wake up. I must-"
The ground was shaking and suddenly she found herself getting up, realizing everything was shaking as well. "What is going on here? Mama! Papa!"
Suddenly, an explosion wave happened, and soon Xaria had to run away fast on the streets. She noticed her parents laying on their beds were salinized by the salt that came by when she saw a massive tower sprung up hugely. She couldn't find her brother anywhere, and she was scared. She was very scared of herself. She was about to die.
"Georg!? GEORG!?" Xaira screamed his name as crowds of people were running away fast from the gigantic salt structure. She soon found a familiar face. "Sara!"
Sara Valestein saw Xaria and grabbed her hand while they were running. "Come with me! We need to go to where my father is! He knows where he can take you to safety!"
"But what about Georg! I need to find him, Sara!" Xaira cried as she was stubborn not to leave her brother behind.
"I-It is too late for that!" Sara Valestein discovered the Northern Jaegars Corps and her adoptive surrogate father over there as well. "There they are! Don't move or act funny. It's a death sentence on their book!"
As they came to the camp where she was covered by her towel and escorted by Jaegars, Colonel Valestein kneeled down and looked at the red-headed girl.
"I take it you know my daughter..." Colonel Valestein asked her curiously to her. "What is your name, young woman?"
"M-My name Xaria. Xaria Weissmann." She was in tears and in a state of huge panic right now. "I'm scared. I'm scared. What is happening back at home right now?"
"It's been ruined by what appears to be Salt Pale, the Septian Church should be showing up right now to investigate." Colonel Valestein took her to her camp. "Come with me... You will be safe here with my daughter since you know her so much."
"I don't get it, who caused this so-called... 'Salt Pale' anyway!?" Xaria frowned as she shouted at him angrily. "I wanna know the answer pronto!"
"We don't know the answer, this could be caused by Aidios or someone else." The good Colonel sighed as they arrived to the nearest Jaegar camp in the north province of Erebonia. "We must stay here for now, I will go back into my tent to write my next log. Sara, keep an eye on her okay?"
"Yes, father." Sara looked back at Xaria right now and she comforts her. "Hey, don't feel angry or sad. At least you survived."
"But my friends and family, they were vanquished by that... Thing!" Xaria shouted angrily at Sara for it. "Someday, when I grow older, I will find the true perpetrator behind this! Somewhere in the name of law! I know it! I'll someday get to the bottom of this!"
"I'm sure you will one day leave our camp and find out soon." Sara looked at her passionate expression on her face. "But let's get some rest, maybe we can talk about your passions later. Don't feel stressed, okay? It's okay to feel angry over an unexpected loss when sadness is high."
"O-Okay..." Xaria came inside her tent and fell asleep next to Sara now. "Georg... I hope you are alive somewhere."
Many Years Later...
Erebonian Prosecutor's Office
She picked up the phone from her office desk, regarding the tragic news that has happened in Hamel. "I see... So the Jaegars, they were equipped with Liberlian weaponry?"
The answer turned out to be yes in that case. "Very well. I shall take this case to the matter of the Erebonian Military Court. Surely, their tribunals shouldn't be that long of a hassle. I've studied so much during my years in Law School really. Lawyer jokes aside."
"Yes... I will make sure the Erebonian Court of Appeals upholds Rudolf Arundel's capital punishment." Xaria frowned sternly at that name as she was about to hang up the phone. "He will pay dearly of igniting the tragedy that accosted so many lives. I don't think relations between my country and Liberl will be ever so positive."
"Until I get a chance to return to North Ambria, I will ensure that I find the perpetrators of the Salt Pale Incident there." Xaria continued further as she spoke over the phone. "I may take cases in Calvard, Crossbell, Ored, and Leman. But my primary focus is getting the cold case back on hand, I heard the Septian Church has been investigating the whole area under lockdown for years."
"Right, right, I see..." Xaria was about to hang up the phone as she heard knocks on the door. "I appreciate this call, I have to go now. May Aidios bless your soul."
"Come on in." She called him in, sooner or later, a man with green hair with a crossbow walked inside her office with a frown. "Yes? What is the meaning of this?"
"Hello, I take it your name is Prosecutor Xaria Weissmann." The man in green wanted to clarify first. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kevin Graham of the Fifth Gralsitter Dominion. And on behalf of the Septian Church, we would like to make a proposal for you based on the judgement against one of your family members."
"M-My family members? What in Aidios's name brings a Gralsitter to my door?" She frowned even more so to him.
"Well, as you can see here..." Kevin sighed as he continued to explain. "Your brother, Georg Weissmann... Our sources tell us he is alive."
"He is!?" Xaria widened her eyes in surprise. "O-Oh my goodness, could you please tell me where he is right now!"
"Unfortunately, that's where the bad parts sets in." Kevin frowns back at her with a scowl. "I, of course, have come to you under declaration by the Church."
"W-What?" Xaria looked too confused by this.
"Your brother has become a member of the Society, our sources tell us he has become a man known as 'The Faceless'." Kevin continued as he explained the whole thing to her. "We know he is the one responsible for Hamel, that he is after the Liber Ark with Aureole situated inside of it."
"That thing must not be on his hands, and unfortunately, we have ensured the Church has righteous judgement imposed on your brother's heresy against our cause." Kevin presented her the details of excommunication by the Septian Church. "Ms. Weissmann, it would be my privilege that as the Fifth Gralsitter, our eternal judgement on Georg is death. But to ensure the legality of this decision, realizing that you are also one of his surviving family and a high prosecutor of the law, we have decided to make you sign this declaration to fulfill the judgement."
"G-Give me this damn paper!" She snatched the paper off of Kevin's hands and she picked up.
"A-As you wish, Prosecutor." Kevin gave it to her. "P-Please, it's a privilege."
"W-What..." Her eyes widen and the papers sent by the Church were evidence of her brother's crimes/sins. "He did this against Liberl... Those poor people."
"...Then do you understand now?" Kevin frowned back at her completely. "We want you to sign this in the aftermath of the Liberlian coup d'etat that just happened a year ago. We have only one shot at this before he gets there on time, maybe months at least."
"And... If you feel like you regret making this decision, you are free to prosecute me without any action with the Church." Kevin looked down as he sighed now. "If you think what I did has wronged you in the name of the law, you have the right blame me. The clergy can understand that."
"V-Very well, if that is what that bastard has become." Xaria closed her eyes as she now realized, she picked up the paper and signed his death warrant. "He will die exactly the way I wished it could've have happened back in North Ambria. I was going to assume prosecution for Alan Richard's involvement in Liberl, but I decided to withdraw from this case entirely. From now on, Kevin Graham, you are free to do what the Church has sent you to do in Liberl for."
"W-Why, thank you Ms. Weissmann. It's my pleasure!" Kevin smiled as he loaded his crossbow now. "I should go and find Estelle Bright, daughter of the legendary brigadier General Cassius Bright. Her life could depend on me."
"Do what you can to make those people safe and ensure that they are in good standing." Xaria looked Kevin Graham with a serious expression. "Whatever heinous crimes my brother is doing right now, you must put a stop to it no matter what."
"Go with Aidios's blessing, ensure that the righteous path is built by me... Not him." She frowned sternly back at Kevin.
"I sure will, I won't let you down Prosecutor!" Kevin was about to leave until he was called.
"Father Graham, one last thing before you go..." Kevin turned his head around back to see her. "When you have finished off my brother, come back to me to explain the full-nature of his sins to me and how I may decide to put whatever legal action I have against you depending on the nature of his demise."
"Believe me, it had better be good or else." She threatened formal sanctions against Father Graham.
"...You have my word." Kevin walked away and so the story of Trails in the Sky SC was on.
"Now then..." She picked up her briefcase as she was prepared to leave Erebonia. "Time to take up a case in Calvard. It should only take me at least a month to get there, I can't leave any criminals there to await my fair share of justice now do I?"
She left the room with a determined expression on her face; her airship ready. "...It's time to get to work."
To Be Continued...