A.N.: This chapter follows Lumi's PoV
Screams echoed inside the building. Tables and chairs flew up to the air while the humans ran away, stepping on each other to try to stay away the furthest from the invader.
"¡La Diabla Blanca!"
She heard them screaming things at her, certainly weren't nice ones. They added to the sounds of a fierce mecha battle outside.
How different it was from the 30 years visiting the planet, after the visions started.
During this time, she started learning about humans, mingling with them, eating their food, listening to their songs, reading their poems, listening to their hopes and dreams. No one would suspect a cute, young human female with a large parasol, admiring the view.
English, Chinese, Japanese, German, they weren't difficult to learn, especially for someone as long-lived as her. She didn't choose those languages randomly; they belonged to the largest nations that were developing getter technology. Since countries that spoke this language apparently called Spanish weren't developing getter technology, she ignored. Not that it wouldn't make any difference at that moment.
It was her duty as the Priestess of Shinkai being a guardian of peace and prosperity. She would try to convince them to give up any research on getter rays and maybe even persuade them to join the Sun Empress's realm. Peace would reign in the universe once again.
Five years ago, her wishes for a peaceful resolution of the issue went down in flames when her empress's ship fired at the human one. She still didn't understand how it happened, even if she saw with her own eyes. The Sun Empress lost face in the Council, allowing the Red Emperor escalate tensions by launching dozens of orbital strikes at human cities that had the slightest trace of getter technology.
She failed. War exploded. If the Getter Entity came to that planet, the heavens would burn.
For now, all she could do was walk forward, bringing fear to human hearts.
Life is sacred. The rule of Shinkai applied to humans as well; they didn't deserve to die, even if the Red and Titanium Emperors thought otherwise. It echoed in her mind, while she heard a muffled explosion coming from outside.
She saw a woman massaging her broken ankle. It was probably stomped in the confusion. She glanced at her. The thought of touching her with her hands and restore her health passed through her mind.
The woman screamed and dragged herself inside a room.
Aeons as the Priestess of Shinkai made me spoiled. She thought, as she kept her stern look.
She had to live a lie right now: "La Diabla Blanca", the monster coming from the depths of the space to bring death to humans.
A man tried to toss a fire extinguisher at her. Another tossed a chair. A third one tossed a table. She picked each object with one of her tentacles and tossed it in the ground. The humans ran away.
A last man advanced at her with an ax, screaming profanities.
She didn't even glance at him. One of her tentacles touched his cheek.
The man fell unconscious to the ground. The tentacle grabbed the ax midair, before it could fall over him.
Given the classrooms and libraries, that building was a center of learning; it didn't deserve to be stained with blood. But she needed to feed on that monstrous image, thus she tossed the ax forcefully against a wall. Some humans nearby got the message and screamed, running away.
Humans are bolder in spite of their low technology level. They have a penchant for cruelty and amazing feats. Each time the peacekeeping expeditions found and confiscated getter reactors, they were more efficient and better built than the ones before, within months of difference. And now they had a functional getter machine. Scary and awe-inducing. General Umbrais couldn't stop praising them for their tenacity. She could see why them demanded their elimination.
Was their ability to adapt related to the getter rays? What if they were cultivating them like a garden?
Lots of civilizations in the universe had been influenced by the getter rays, including the Shinkailites in the past. But never enough to summon the Entity.
Was it worth violating the rule of Shinkai to stop the Entity?
The Council decided so.
She needed to commit the sin and end this problem right now.
Would it end? Or would it just delay the Entity for a bit more?
She would learn the answer in time. Now, she needed to find those two children. It was a big building. They could've gone anywhere.
She heard a shot.
One of her tentacles picked the bullet midair.
Another shot, another tentacle picked it again.
She looked at the source of the shots: a round man with a moustache held a smoking gun, pointed at her. His eyes were as wide as saucers; even from that distance, she could see the sweat running through his face. It was a miracle he even managed to shoot at her.
The paradoxical ability of humans to go forward even when paralyzed was something that few races in the universe could emulate. And yet, even a random human could do it.
Lumi narrowed her gaze when she realized there was something different with that human. He seemed to wear a uniform, which meant he probably was a security guard, with access to useful information.
He could help me. She thought as her red eyes locked with his dark brown ones.
As if reading her mind, he turned around, running away, screaming for his life. He even tossed his gun aside.
Lumi unleashed her tentacles. No matter how fast he could run, she was faster. One tentacle wrapped around his knee. As it dragged him back, he struggled, trying to grab whatever he could: a garbage can, a potted plant, a fallen chair. He even scratched the floor, as more tentacles grabbed his leg and arms. She made sure to not touch his skin.
The tentacles put him upside down, on the same level as her eyes. The man had tears in the corner of his eyes. He must've been thinking of his family in what were supposed to be his last moments.
She could only let the lie continue.
Four more tentacles came out of her jellyfish cap. They touched the man's eyelids, opening them as wide as they could. As the poison entered his body and traveled through his blood, Lumi flashed her eyes red.
In a matter of seconds, Lumi saw that man's entire life flash before her eyes: from the childhood at a poor part of the city, from his marriage to a cashier and how they struggled to feed their two kids. It flashed in her mind like a succession of pictures, until the until reaching the present.
She saw him sat down in a room, with lots of cameras. He watched how a lot of people entering the building to find shelter, while he talked on the phone with someone, maybe his superiors. Those two blonde kids were in the crowd. Then, she saw the blonde kids climbing the escalator and then helping to barricade the door in the restaurant at the top of the building.
The man's eyes rolled at the back of his head, unconscious. Lumi put him in the ground. Maybe he would live to see how it ends.
Now, she needed to continue the hunt. Using her tentacles to climb the escalators, she arrived in front of the restaurant at the last floor.
It had a glass door, so she could see it barricaded with whatever they could spare to: tables, chairs, brooms, kitchen utensils. From the cracks, she could see people hidden behind fallen tables, some with knifes and pans in their hands.
They were all scared. But destiny couldn't wait for them.
Six rings glowed around the edges of her dress. She used her tentacles to pick them up. Water started to flow through them; it kept flowing faster and faster, making it hum louder and sharper, like an electric drill.
With one single slash of her six water rings, the glass and the objects used to barricade the door fell to the ground, shredded to pieces.
It didn't even whip up a cloud of dust.
She returned her rings to her dress. Using her tentacles to remove the larger debris, she entered in their final hideout.
A group of humans started to remove the barricades that were built in the other entrances. Others decided to slowly approach her and fight, with whatever sharp object their hands could wield.
One touch of her tentacles and they fell down before they could hurt themselves.
No other human dared to approach her again. She just hoped that her target didn't leave again.
While searching for them, she stopped to look at the glass window. It gave her a panoramic view of the city.
She realized that in her haste she didn't bring a communicator with her. She had no idea of how her team was faring against the enemy human mech. All she could hear were the noises of explosions and metal bending outside. But even so they were silent for a moment, enough to bother her.
Thus, she decided to take a closer look.
A city among the mountains. During her travels, she never had the opportunity to go the continent the humans called South America. That city mixed a sprawling city with a refuge in the mountains, mixing modern styles with others that were at least 300 years old.
Maybe she should have visited there before the battle, that she waged, could deface it.
She couldn't see her team from that angle, maybe-
Something perforated her skin.
No pain, just small discomfort. It was like a knife cutting through butter. She glanced down and saw a blue spot opening around a knife in her abdomen.
She glanced aside and saw it was her target who did that to her.
Her expression betrayed mild surprise.
Blonde, tall, with a star-shaped pupil, invisible to most people; it had a black shine to it.
His teeth gritted as his glare became sharper and sharper.
He twisted the knife. Twice. Her blue entrails flowed out, making a mess around the area. Then he tried to plunge it deeper in her body, almost plunging his hand inside.
She just kept staring at him. It didn't hurt, but the boy really wanted to feel like he was hurting her.
Only a hurt person had such stubbornness.
Her mother was the corpse she saw earlier, crushed by a piece of concrete, right?
So, the boy hated her.
Understandable.
The boy finally realized his efforts were in vain. His expression turned into distress. From the corner of her eye, she could also see his sister. Same blonde hair, with a side ponytail and also a star-shaped pupil. She had a beautiful face for a human; that meant nothing when terror took it over.
That moment, Lumi realized something: she had seen them before, not in her visions, but in person.
Ten years ago, in the Japanese city of Tokyo, clad in a school uniform, holding a parasol in her hand to hide her jellyfish cap, she was admiring the sunset at one of its harbors. In the other side of the margin, humans were building a facility to house a getter reactor. From her estimations, it'd be ready in four years. Beside her, she could see a poster of a certain Dr. Saotome listing all advantages of getter energy.
Foolish idea. She thought, after sighing.
She noticed a mother and her two children were nearby looking at the sea. Her entrails shuddered.
It was them. She could've ended this issue that day, instead of the current day. Would she able to kill a child in front of her mother?
No need to answer that.
As the boy slowly walked back, she used her tentacles to block their escape routes, by tossing whatever was close to her.
The boy hugged the girl as they both panicked, while Lumi's tentacles picked the rings in her dress.
As the water turned into a deadly saw, the siblings could feel they were in grave danger as her gaze locked into a despondent expression.
She wouldn't paralyze them. She needed to suffer the entirety of her sin. Her mask, however, cracked; her lips and eyebrows twitched; her hands, useless for war, clenched into fists to block herself from using them to heal.
May the ones braving the Great Journey somehow forgive me.
She closed her eyes and moved her tentacle forward, slowly and heavily, while the whirring of the rings became sharper.
A loud sound of glass cracking.
Lumi opened her eyes and saw something: two six-pointed stars glowing green flying at her!
A.N.: Just a small note, the "Great Journey" she mentioned isn't quite the same as from Halo, it's the one Ai also saw two chapters ago. The title is a reference to a song with the same title from Harumaki Gohan.
