*
"Were you able to sleep?" (Arin)
"No... How did you do it?" (Sariel)
"I transformed and stayed up all night." (Arin)
"Should have known you'd have a trick or two..." (Sariel)
The sky was still a deep blue under the precarious transition of night and morning. The chilly night air had already left, but the skies were still humid and cold, leaving white puffs wherever they exhaled. The government issued everyone to stay inside their own homes, in this era of abundance the houses were all one to three floors high and occupied their own plot of land. In other words people were spread out as much as humanely possible, they had calculated well and embedded their intentions into housing development. This way if an explosion were to strike anywhere, less people will be caught up.
"They're using people as bait..." (Sariel)
"Less will die this way." (Arin)
"Isn't that... Wrong? They changed who will die and who won't." (Sariel)
Arin speaks softly, her tone remaining neutral. As if her voice was trained not to give away any emotion.
"Then, did the people who were initially going to die and were now saved, did they deserve to perish for going about their daily routine?" (Arin)
Businesses and public transport had also closed down, the earth now seemed desolate with only essential workers going out and about. The occasional humming and drumming of helicopter blades brushed by, a newly established network of logistics from a few zones away meant to deliver food and water. Resources are abundant, people are abundant. That was the message Arin was getting. The government is expecting humanity to survived due to its sheer numbers.
If large batches of human die, it would only affect the law of magical girls to give them stronger warriors. In other words, they didn't care if people died or survived, they planned to spread them out to ostensibly lower casualty rates and observe the next development, only taking action once it's too late. Should she reveal it to Sariel? She instantly arrived at 'no'. Sariel was already picking up on things on her own, she shouldn't be too surprised later. Arin could only arrive so quickly due to her experiences and understanding of human psyche.
Understanding laws and rules were like breathing air to her. Finding loop holes, deciphering intentions of these rules, they all arrive like second nature. The law of magical girls was no exception, under the assumption that it awakened more magical girls when humanity faces disaster, it's akin to a natural force of preservation ensuring humanity would never be extinct.
'What a baseless assumption... The law hasn't been pushed to the limit, humanity hasn't yet faced extinction.' (Arin)
"Then... What was right thing to do? If we evacuate them now, perhaps we can save a little more-" (Sariel)
"We do our best. The current arrangements is the government's best efforts of reducing deaths. Our duty is to hunt down the heavenly king's soldiers before they harm anyone." (Arin)
{Swap}
Sariel had many qualms in the current situation, but her trust in Arin was firm. Arin was right, moping around wouldn't help anyone. Doing what little they can achieve right now, would at least prevent a few more casualties. Yet again, she felt her heart was saved.
***(Yggdrasil)
457 389. 457 390. 457 391.
Just how many pawns did they accumulate? As a computational entity, Yggdrasil found it more trivial than breathing to keep track of the number of enemies she's killed. Trace after Trace, varying from E to C grade, even a B grade or two. Elite enemies that have purportedly developed intelligence just to perish from their hubris. Her essence, her sliver of authority wrestled from Eterna allows her to sense the whereabouts of all Traces on earth. Whenever they spawn, they die. Wherever the enemy sends scouts, they die.
The standard deviation in the amount of time it took to slaughter the enemy was uniform, they were trying to extract information from her by seeing how fast she killed each Trace at each location. They were looking for her main body, not understanding that her main body's location did not matter in the slightest when it came to operations. As for the massive tree at residential zone 2A...
The tree did not exist within the bounds of reality. It had no mass nor did it obey any laws, when excavation tools were unable to lift any small piece of it above the ground, it was the same as pushing against the border of the universe. It didn't budge. In terms of arcane and mysticism, it 'does not exist'. The enemy would have to be there in person to notice it, and knowing how prudent they were, this would never happen. If they had simply checked human news channels earlier, they would have noticed it quite easily, but it was now easily flooded with news about the spontaneous explosions.
Naturally, it was referring to the aftermath of the battles between the new Yggdrasil and the unfortunate Traces that got found by her.
"Found you...!" (Ledaine Termina)
Silence, a world of silence engulfs the entire planet, as if all the air had been absorbed. Splotches of crimson red spread in the sky, painting the death of a magnificent being. Within a few moments, the atmosphere was filled with an eery unsettling mist, making anyone who saw it have their skin crawl.
"So you did. Heavenly king. Consolidation of authority has reached 10%." (Yggdrasil)
"11%. That was all I needed for you to be defeated. A deity's power is infinite, hacking their existence and gaining that 1% makes all the difference.
What do you think? Humanity's doomed, consider jumping ship~?" (Ledaine)
A suited figure speaks from the void. He is not physically present, but his intentions carry through an unknown medium. A highly intelligent being, this wasn't a fight from the start, but a poaching tactic. She had proved herself different from the other humans, had proven herself transcendant.
"My devotion is to my master. You'd have to kill me first." (Yggdrasil)
"I can't have you work if you're dead..." (Ledaine)
His words dripped with venom, he snarks back. No doubt, every plan that was foiled simply fed itself into the next plan, a never ending stream of fate laying in his palms. It twists and ebbs as if responding to his whims.
"{Cocytus}, you are not leaving my grasp! " (Ledaine)