Sixty-One

Rose took a knee. Not due to respect for the fallen male, but a mixture of pain and mental tiredness. She felt drained as she allowed herself to reach the ground. Her sword disappeared and she held the remaining mana orb with both hands as she fully focused on healing, blocking out the world.

The mechanical outer shell of a mecha opened as Elsa Mont jumped out, feet stumbling onto the ground. Her vision shook momentarily before she quickly ran to Rose's side and crouched down before her.

She furrowed her brows and looked at the state of her friend. Everything was beginning to look more shapely but, well, there was the burnt right hand.

". . .are you alright?" She asked.

Rose took in a breath and opened her emerald eyes. For a moment, she took in that there was still fighting around them—though both side's soldiers left them alone. She smiled.

"I'm fine. My body's 80% healed."

Elsa rolled her eyes and sat besides her.

"You don't look fine. Your arm is still burnt as all heck. How long have you been fighting, anyway?"

Rose opened her lips.

Then paused.

"I've always been fighting," She said as energy rushed into her through the mana lines at her fingertips.

It suddenly occurred to her that she had always been fighting. Of course, there had been moments of quiet somberness as she enjoyed the world, but, since she had awoken anew, the pressure to reach Alos had mounted and kept her trekking. No matter what, that instinctual need had weighed her down.

It didn't feel right. It felt like her base existence was to fight.

Elsa narrowed her eyes and turned to her, looking down at the girl who was a head shorter than herself. "You need to rest."

"I will. When we enter Alos."

"You—ugh."

At that time, just when Elsa was close to an outburst, a slowly healing tail flapped as a dragonian stepped before them.

"Samuel has moved to end the war," Lilias spoke as she gripped her blades; which had returned back to their normal forms. Her crimson eyes looked around them. The crumbling shacks. And the scattering of soldiers still unaware of how everything had largely already ended. "I will go pick off the rest."

Rose watched as the girl left immediately after her words. The battlefield renewed with twirling twin-swords.

Elsa sat besides her. Grimacing slightly at the massacre around them. Lilias was slicing through Walker's men like butter. On that note, however, she spoke and eyed the man in the distance whose figure shook as a laser beam was maintained in front of him.

It was a rather sad, sorry, sight.

"You're not going to talk to him?" She asked, "Walker, I mean."

"No," Rose replied, her focus on checking the current state of her functionality. "I have no reason to speak to him. This was merely a stepping stone."

— — —

Sweat dripped from his forehead as Paul Walker's hand bled. The blue laser had etched its way until it was deep within. Even as three rings glimmered, nothing he did could stop it. Essentially, he was guaranteed to die.

Anger boiled inside of him as he gazed at the battlefield.

His men were being picked off left and right by the dragonian and his eyes fell upon the body of his son.

"Dammit," He cursed. Wishing he could smoke a cigarette at this moment.

Certainly, Chase had been nothing more than an orphan he adopted from the streets after realizing the boy had awakened a Gear, but that was his loyal, powerful, son.

"Dammit," He cursed once more.

He couldn't summon his spirits. The mana creations he had dutifully acquired and imprinted on himself were useless at this moment. They needed mana to be summoned. Yet, the intensely blue laser currently in front of him was sucking up and eating every piece of mana around him. Even if he could summon them, he didn't doubt that they would be engulfed as well.

"Dammit," He cursed again.

Now, even the soldiers couldn't help because. . .a swordsman sliced his way through them until he stood before Walker.

A yell of pain escaped Walker's lips as a blade slashed through his hands, dismembering them from his body. He stumbled and blood spilled.

Then.

The unstopped laser shot straight through his chest and exploded against the ground as a wave of mana ripped and lashed out.

Paul Walker screamed even more and fell upon one knee.

Yet. He didn't die. No. Blood spilled but he didn't immediately die. In seconds, there were already signs of skin and tissue beginning to repair themselves.

"To not immediately die after that ripped through you? That's Gene Advancement for you." The swordsman nodded. Holding one weapon while two more were sheathed at his waist.

Walker coughed blood, shaking to stand with glaring eyes. For a moment, he looked at the two hands on the floor, then grimly glanced back at the perpetrator. "You're a bastard, Samuel."

The swordsman gazed at him as azure hair blew.

"We're all bastards in this world," Samuel replied, "How is it, Walker? Do you feel the pain I felt when you separated us?"

Paul Walker frowned. Even as he was dying. He was composed.

"What do you mean?" Walker asked, "I gave you that dagger. I can help you find her again."

A pad blinked up as an image came to view from the swordsman's wrist. It was a picture of a young girl with hair tinted green-blue and eyes like the sky.

Samuel shook his head.

"I already found my sister, Walker. She's in Alos."

The slum lord's eyes jumped. He stumbled back as blood pooled from both his lips, regenerating limbs, and chest. "You—how long have you known?!"

Was it since the start of his help? Or had Brian contacted him some time after? No. No, wait—

"It can't be—" Walker backed away, eyes full of fury. He suddenly realized what the words of the man meant. "You came out of the city and waited—bidding time to betray and kill me just when I set out to take over the red district!? Was you slaughtering my men on the first day all part of your act!?"

Samuel Gardner smiled at the accusations.

He raised a hand and on his palm was a badge. A metallic badge, blue, with a white insignia etched upon it: A circle with a needle-like image piercing from the bottom edge to the midpoint. Then, around it were three smaller circles that resided within the larger one. Finally, an horizontal line crossed through the latter.

"You—"

Walker took a step back, eyes bulging, as the swordsman stepped closer to him. It all made sense now. He had been foolish. He had never had a chance. Not one bit. Even this swordsman had been planted before Alos's invasion.

"You're—you're a Reap—"

Samuel slashed his weapon and the head of the Slum Lord rolled. He flung his sword and the blood splattered onto the ground as he turned.

"Sleep well."

He sheathed his blade and walked away.