Her name was Nanoha Takamichi, nineteen-years old and member of a tactical combat training group of the Time-Space Administrative Bureau.
The Time-Space Administrative Bureau was an interdimensional security force tasked with the protection of various parallel worlds. It was militaristic in organization and Nanoha could be considered one of its most defining members whose magical capacity had reached the (S+) grade. However, on assignments outside of the Time-Space Administrative Bureau, a limiter was set to maintain her magical capacity to a double AA standard.
It was made as a safety precaution due to how damaging magic could be in parallel worlds where the existence of magic did not exist.
Earth, Nanoha's home world was one such case. With a population in the billions, the existence of magic was said to be only found in less than a handful of individuals. It would just so turn out that Nanoha had been included in that handful of individuals ever since she had been a child. In which case, she'd been recruited by the Administrative Bureau after the events of the Jewels Seeds and Lost Logia in her adolescent years.
A magical disturbance had been detected by the Administrative Bureau on the Magicless world of Earth, there, it was assumed that a remnant Jewel Seed or a stolen Jewel Seed had been left behind in the past incident.
Jewel Seeds were gem-like crystals that possessed tremendous magical power that could fuel the spells of large-scale destruction machines. Alternatively, if they were left behind in the environment, they could spawn monsters from the magical contamination. In a world such as Earth who was ill-equipped to deal with such dangers, Nanoha had been sent to intervene. As Earth was her home world, she had even more reason to resolve the issue.
Nanoha looked at the spot on the map where her inter-space transporter was supposed to have had deposited her off.
A pink dot indicated her location within a small screen mounted over her wrist.
Her current location was somewhere within Eastern Europe, just off the borders of Germany. Of course, it was set to deliver her away from any populated cities to avoid any unwanted attention, but that was the least of her concerns.
Damaged buildings.
Cold bodies.
Death.
Ruin.
Nanoha's expression hardened the more she explored the area. It was supposed to have had just been a small rural town with a population of less than five-hundred, but right now she couldn't see anyone still left alive.
She paused for a moment and tried to send back a message to the Time-Space Administrative Bureau. However, her transmission device appeared jammed and was only playing back radio static. Regardless, she'd try to leave a message.
"Nanoha reporting," she spoke curtly as required by protocol. "The effects of the magic surgency on Earth appears to show signs of a violent Jewel Seed reaction. Enemy unknown, current casualties…" she began counting the corpses that she could see in her view. "Roughly a hundred or more. Beginning operations."
She couldn't let anymore people die.
She wasn't as young as she had been before. Death was something that she'd been forced to be able to cope with, but there was no way that she could keep herself calm.
No one deserved to just die.
It wasn't right.
Nanoha paused in order to examine one the deceased bodies. It was mangled in several places as if it had been bitten by animals, but in other places such as the neck, it looked like it had been cut clean off. That wasn't the work of an animal or monster, but a human.
Similar decapitation kills were prevalent in the area around her.
Some of the bodies were greyed, their lips blued, but others were still fairly fresh.
The perpetrator couldn't have had gotten far, give or take a couple of hours.
Nanoha stood up on her feet, her eyes narrowed into the distance.
No matter who she was chasing at this moment, logically speaking, there was no way that she wouldn't be able to catch up. To begin with, the enemy had no idea that he or she was being targeted, meaning that they wouldn't be cautious of covering their tracks.
She began running, following a trail of destruction and ruin.
Another reason that Nanoha knew that she'd catch up was the simple fact that she was following a guided path. In terms of cycling or any other event, the one at the forefront of a race always took the brunt of the resistance. In other terms, if one was traversing through a jungle, the progress of the lead individual cutting through vines would be slower than those moving behind him.
She was the pursuer, and her target was the prey.
After years of training, her body had long since become used to strenuous physical exertions. The fact that the area was devoid of life only helped her close the distance faster due to the augmentation of her magic.
She jumped from left to right, her strides longer than five meters and her speed matching that of most standard vehicles. Her long brown hair tied into a side pony-tail on her head flicked back violently in the wind.
The scenery quickly shifted from the decimated rural village to a more populated town.
Nanoha pursed her lips, urging herself to pick up the pace.
The corpses lining the path forward were only growing in number, and soon enough, she'd reach a city.
The amount of destruction whoever was attacking these people could cause in a more populated zone was not lost on Nanoha.
Faster.
A dull light shone from her magical gear known as Raising Heart which had both supportive, and offensive abilities. In this case, a sheen of transparent white magic created a film around her body and propelled her forward by double her current speed.
She reached the city area in only a couple of minutes before moving to a high building for a better vantage point.
People. She could finally see people.
In the middle of her vision, she could see crowds of civilians aimlessly walking though the open streets. Something about them was 'off.'
No one was speaking to each other, and the scent of rotting flesh was the only smell permeating in the air rather than gasoline or industry-made products.
Nanoha scanned the city, and faltered for a moment when she noticed people hiding within the buildings, seemingly afraid to step outside and get noticed. However, that couldn't be the case. Perhaps they had seen the man responsible for all the killings that she'd seen and were just holed up in their apartment rooms utterly terrified.
It was a more likely case.
After all, Nanoha knew that Magic didn't exist on high levels on Earth. Assuming that everyone acting 'weird' on the streets was being affected by magic, why could she not sense the use of a Jewel Seed which was theorized to have had remained on Earth? The magic emitted from using one could be clearly discerned just from testing the frequency of the mana present in the air.
So, if it wasn't magic, then what was going on?
She couldn't understand the situation, but maybe some kind of magic spell that she'd never seen before was currently being used?
In any case, her priority was finding the one responsible for what she could clearly see was a mass genocide.
Raising Heart shifted into Shooting Mode, the staff-like heart-shaped device developing two prongs for stability and opening up to a sleek muzzle.
Nanoha set herself up just over by the edge of the building and began surveying the city through her magically enhanced scope.
As a veteran of numerous magical related incidents, she'd notice right away if anything was worth her attention and react accordingly.
A tracking-like monitor flashed in her gaze, looking for any signs of activity. It flashed red moments later which indicated the use of magical energy. The only thing that Nanoha could think of which would have magical energy large enough to be detected in the area was a single object.
The Jewel Seed?
Nanoha quickly swerved her aim to look just passed the alley of two buildings roughly two kilometers away from her.
There.
She finally saw it.
There was a man with short red hair tapered near the top, and wearing a sturdy black combat vest with matching pants. In his hands were two swords, one a pale white and the other a deep dark.
He was tall, far taller than her by far with a pair of auburn-coloured eyes that seemed to stand out regardless of the distance; they were piercing in their clarity.
However, she couldn't forgive them.
How could they look so free of guilt or remorse while in the midst of murdering others?
The swords of black and white cut into the flesh of the citizens and lopped off heads with an efficiency better than any bullet. Limbs were uprooted from their joints, cut loose by sharpened edges that struck again and again with little pause.
It was hard to watch.
The people swarming the man in a futile resistance to attack him were dying in droves, but somehow the people had forgone their fears and hurled themselves at danger anyway. From a certain perspective it may have had been admirable, but what Nanoha was watching was basically just suicide.
Blood arced up into the air, splattering over the ground in red mottle-like clumps.
No more.
She could imagine piercing screams echoing out as the dull thud of heads rolling sent shivers down her spine.
No more!
It didn't matter how oddly the citizens seemed to be acting, the man was killing them without any hesitation. She couldn't let this murderer continue for any longer.
"Raising Heart,"
Her magic swelled from within her, converging on a point over the muzzle of her weapon as a pink magic circle manifested beneath her.
Divine Buster.
One of Nanoha's most proficient skills.
A long-distance bombardment spell with explosive damage and barrier-piercing ability. Coupled with her magical reserves, she could easily level a city based on the control of her output. Moreover, her allies had always criticized her when it came to this certain spell with a single descriptive phrase.
'A lot of power.'
Hardly anything she shoots with this could survive in tact, and she didn't plan on making any exceptions. The only down side was charge time, but she could fire quicker with less power, but the damage would be reduced.
Her eyes narrowed.
Reducing power, minimizing explosive radius.
The magic circle around her dimmed.
There were too many people crowded around the man.
Precision was everything.
A small ball formed at the center of her aim, no bigger than a dime but dense enough to pierce through even the strongest of barriers.
Her finger fell over the trigger, her sights locking onto the man's form.
He hadn't noticed her.
The distance was too far.
Yet why did she feel as if she was begin stared at?
She shook her head.
Now wasn't the time for any hesitation.
Fire.
The recoil forced her back, but she'd fired her weapon enough times to remain focused on her target.
From the moment that she had fired and pulled the trigger, the magic bullet streaked through the air and crossed the distance in an instant. However, just before collision with the target, something happened that Nanoha was unable to discern.
A flash of light, the sound of metal grating against metal.
Nanoha was forced to shield her eyes from the brightness.
When she looked back, rather than a downed target, the man was still standing while bleeding from a puncture wound on his leg.
Her mouth dried in disbelief. Her Divine Buster had been weakened to reduce the spread of its explosion, but it was still considerably powerful. Only something like a Lost Logia should have had been able to withstand it, but from the smoke still coming off of the man's swords, he'd deflected the shot at the last moment and mitigated the impact somehow.
What kind of weapons were those?
It didn't matter right now.
Seeing an opportunity, the enraged citizens of the town directly surged towards the man who was forced to quickly retreat.
He entered a building and hurriedly shut the door behind him.
Damn it.
She lost sight of him.
Nanoha augmented herself with magical power and directly leapt to the location two kilometers away by using Raising Heart as a spring board and shifting it into flight mode.
She soon landed on top of the building where the man was taking refuge, but quickly faltered before she could even try to enter the building and apprehend her enemy.
What the hell was going on?
From a distance, the 'citizens' appeared to be regular people, and they still did, but no no!
"Help! I-It hurts!"
Nanoha reacted fast and shot without thinking. However, the 'citizen' that she'd shot in the stomach acted as if nothing had happened.
A woman's throat was directly bitten into as she continued to scream for aid. However, her scream only attracted more of the crazed citizens to attack her and feast on her flesh.
Nanoha's eyes dilated, the pallor of her skin turning pale as she backed away and tripped on her feet, landing on her butt.
T-These things weren't human.
Or perhaps they were before, but not anymore.
Nanoha had seen many things in her life, but watching a woman get torn to pieces and eaten alive was a first.
These weren't people, they were monsters.
She felt her body grow weak, but her training kicked in and forced her to remain calm.
She sucked in a breath, her chest heaving up and down before her breathing stabilized. Placing her hands beneath her, she pushed off of her palms and stood up on her feet. There were far too many things going on right now that she had no idea about.
This was Earth.
This was definitely her Earth, but she'd never seen or heard anything like these things before.
It had to be the work of magic. That was the only explanation that she could come up with.
Her hands were trembling, a shiver travelling down her spine as she realized the severity of the situation. These monsters weren't just here, but if her previous vantage point was anything to go by, they occupied almost the entire city.
How many people had been affected?
It was difficult for her to even picture it.
Was this really the work of the Jewel Seed? There was no way it ever had this sort of function.
She pursed her lips, her brows knitting together before her expression fell.
The woman who had just been screaming for help, whose limbs had been torn off and scattered on the ground, suddenly stood up on half-eaten legs. Different from before, the woman's skin had greyed, and there was no life in her eyes. She joined the rest of the undead.
Nanoha swallowed before looking towards the roof entrance of the house that she was trying to enter.
If the monsters that she saw in front of her where what she had considered 'citizens,' then what did that mean for the person that she had shot?
Oh God.
She felt sick, guilt eating away from within her, but she couldn't just run away from the problem.
She calmed herself and soon entered the building to look for the man inside.
It didn't take her long to locate the man.
She just followed the blood stains on the floor until she entered a dim-lit room illuminated only by the light of a window where the man sat beneath.
He was right there, staring at her with an unflinching gaze, his eyes dim, almost weary like he had been walking through hell. A hand was pressed to his leg to quell the bleeding on his left thigh.
"If you were trying to kill me, you should have aimed higher." The man almost sounded cynical despite talking about his own life. Still, there was a persistence and determination in his gaze that in no way resembled anything a homicidal murderer should have had possessed.
"Sorry," Nanoha had no other words to express her remorse other than an apology with her head bowed.
The man looked at her up and down, before easing his expression.
"It's fine. You aren't the first magus who's tried to kill the Second Magus Killer," the man grunted while trying to maintain an upright position. "Granted you were probably the closest. I didn't expect an attack from over two kilometers away."
Nanoha's complexions paled further.
"Sorry," Nanoha repeated again, the terms that the man had used completely going over her head in her fluster. "I-I really didn't know. I-I thought you were killing people."
The man sighed wearily.
"It's alright. If you're talking about the people, I tried to save as many as I could but this city is done for just like the earlier town."
Nanoha kept silent as the man spoke, but finally could no longer keep herself quiet.
"What are those things?" She asked softly. The man seemed like he already knew what they were dealing with.
"Ghouls," the man said curtly. "They're what's left of a human after a Dead Apostle feeds on their blood."
"Dead Apostle?" Nanoha blinked at the man as she heard the unfamiliar term.
The man looked at her strangely for a moment before shaking his head. Evidently, this wasn't the time to explain anything too thoroughly.
"No time. Just know that if any of the ghouls outside bite any normal humans, the number of ghouls will spread like a disease." The man pushed himself up onto his feet and hobbled to a different window on the opposite side of the room. "I was trying to bar them from getting to the airport on the west side of the city, but have now failed. If any of them manage to board a plane and get out of the country towards a populated city, you can imagine the result for yourself."
Nanoha's eyes narrowed. She couldn't let such a thing happen.
Watching the man in front of her, Nanoha could feel his sincerity and desire to help others. Recalling that she'd shot such a man over misunderstanding left her inwardly bitter about herself.
She'd thought that she had matured in her years in the Time-Space Administrative Bureau, but it seemed that she'd been too full of herself.
"Is there any way to stop them?"
The man looked at Nanoha and assessed her as his gaze lingered on Raising Heart.
"Aim for the head," the man soon advised. "I can't stay here much longer. If we can't stop them from reaching the airport, we have to at least destroy the planes while the other Enforcers secure the perimeter."
Blood leaked from the man's leg, something that Nanoha did not fail to notice.
"You can't leave in your condition," she said worriedly.
The man remained determined; his gaze steady. "I have to save as many as I can."
The man wasn't lying.
Nanoha could tell by the concern on his face. The man did not intend on giving up despite the danger to himself. However, how long had he been fighting these ghouls for?
The man looked exhausted. He was panting for breath, his hands trembling, and pieces of his clothing heavily torn.
"You need rest," she couldn't help but try to dissuade him. If he went out now, what could he, normal human, do against those ghouls in such a condition? Magic may be able to help, but running into a human that could use magic on Earth was the same as looking for a needle in a stack of hay.
It was improbable.
The man shook his head. "I may look exhausted, but that's only physically. I still have a few tricks left up my sleeve, but this injury is going to take some time to heal."
Nanoha tried to look at the severity of the man's wounds but balked when she saw the skin noticeably repairing itself at a slow rate.
"I told you had a few tricks," the man smiled wryly. "Now if you aren't trying to kill me anymore, I have to get ready to leave for the airport."
Nanoha opened and closed her mouth, but she realized that nothing that she said would convince the man to give up.
In which case, she quickly came to a decision.
"I'll help," she stated. Healing or not, the man did not look to be in a condition to fight all the way to the airport.
The man considered her words, yet ultimately came to a decision after recalling the wound that he had taken to the leg. "Fine. If you have anything strong enough, I'd like you to shoot the planes."
Nanoha nodded. She had the ability to do what the man was asking of her.
In the next moment however, the man scratched the back of his head.
"Sorry, this might be little sudden, but now that you're helping, is there any way for you to get me there? I won't be able to move fast enough while my leg heals."
"Raising Heart," Nanoha called out. Her weapon shifted into a flatter form while hovering in the air. "You can ride on this."
The man stared at her weapon for a moment, before simply nodding his head and making his way over to sit on top. "Let's go. We don't have time to waste," he said.
"Right, but even if I shoot down the planes, what exactly are you planning on doing?" Nanoha pursed her lips. "Isn't it safer if I just left you here and did it on my own?"
"I told you I have my ways. Just trust me on this one," the man looked at her earnestly, causing a part of her to feel self-conscious. It didn't help that he appeared similar to her in age.
"Fine," she relented while turning her gaze away mostly out of guilt. When faced with the reality that she'd tried to kill someone so selfless, there was no way that she could meet his gaze with a straight face.
"Let's go."