"And so, the Street Knight vanished"
~Inganock's 2nd Year, December. Upper Tier~
...Tick Tock. The sound of a clock.
...Tick Tock. The fantasy echoes.
"Why?"
"Why did you...?"
"I did this so much." "For you."
"And you refused me? My beloved Crack Chrome?"
The distorted multi-armed humanoid one size larger than a human shouted.
Whether he wanted it or not, she let out the Voice of Panic.
It was a blade that destroyed the intellect of the spirit.
However.
"Stop."
"You must stop this."
"I will make a new thread."
"If you let me stab you with it."
"Only I can give you my love."
666 invisible nerve cords of spiritual manipulation and physical manipulation closed in.
No human could evade it coming at the speed of lightning.
No one could evade the simultaneous embrace of the multi-arms.
However.
"I..."
"Will..."
"Save you..."
"Take it from me."
"What good is a brat who stands behind you and says nothing?"
The embrace simultaneously shoots out the 666 nerve cords onto the target.
The nerves of the whole body are instantly taken over at the speed of lightning.
With the power to pierce through even chrome steel armor.
However.
There was a scream. It was angry. Furious even. Before was the form of a beautiful young girl, but now was the arrival of a fantasy humanoid with a machine clock on its back. Originally, it was a Critter not meant to specialize in combat. But even if that were the case, they were something humans cannot overcome.
No human can do anything about it.
Intangible deaths were something that cannot be killed.
Critters were absolute. They were made that way, and that was how those things were born as. That was the manifest destiny of the city of Inganock, set by the clown that dances on the edge of everyone's vision. Yes, him. He was not here. He wondered how long ago it was since "he" no longer saw the clown. When was it that he was surrounded by even more madness, not even aware that what he was supposed to see was gone? Was it before or after the 666 nerve cords were shot? He didn't know. Tick Tock, there was nothing he could understand just like how humans cannot overcome a Critter.
However.
The "she" behind the swift "him" was not a human.
"I'll take you away again, Street Knight!"
"I can't hear you."
"All your pain, your sorrow, your confusion, your fear, everything!"
"Then...what about the Blue Sky?"
"I will wrap and heal you, wrap and wrap until you break then I will wrap and heal you again only to wrap and wrap to break you. Wrap, wrap, heal, heal, break, wrap, heal, break, heal, wrap, break, heal, wrap, break, kil, love, love, love, love, love, kill you!"
"...your voice. It has reached me.
You weren't fast enough. One second, no, two seconds."
He listened for it.
He heard it.
His "hearing", sensitized by the Phenomena Equation, comprehended the Critter!
Critter Marionette cannot be destroyed. Critters were always absolute, something that cannot be destroyed by humans. But yet, if something could destroy it, it was neither human nor a life. It simultaneously shredded all of the 666 nerve cords which infinitely diffused beyond 666 and continued to maintain its body. Yes, "he" was able to "hear" and comprehend all of the information.
No human could have done it.
Neither could any living form.
However.
The "she" standing behind was not human, but at the same time...
"Critter Marionette."
"Why?"
"When you lose your hands, you are but an automaton."
"Why?"
"Surely, humans can also control you just as you do with others."
"Why?"
"So that is why..."
"Why!"
"You are here right now."
The shadowy "him" who dashed through the streets faster than anyone else reached out with his right hand.
Strangely, all of the 666 nerve cords turned into a spear of lightning in his right hand, turning towards the deformed humanoid Critter that was about to attack him.
Hand and hand, as though they were touching one another.
Hand and hand, as though it was what it yearned for.
However...
The "She" that stands behind the swift "Him" stretched out with her hand.
Shattering the deformed humanoid form.
With the giant clock face towering from behind it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The hand that extended from "behind" "him" shattered Critter Marionette's core, something that was invulnerable to anything regardless of whether it was an attack from a super heavy sword or the Cracking Effect. It was an inhuman steel shadow, a bladed hand that shatters fantasies.
That would be what would be described by any who saw this.
"He", the Street Knight, was different from the bladed hand. His were steel hands. This was different. He stared at the hands that of a translucent white color.
These were hands from someone behind him.
The white hand of someone he desired.
Exposed to the screams of Marionette's Voice of Panic as it was being destroyed, the chrome-composed "he" stood there without having his spirit crushed.
He watched as the white hand pierced through the Critter's body.
He watched as the white hand tore through the 666 nerve cords.
And.
After that, only an embedded piece of the pitiful automaton remained.
It was the core. It was that of a small clock.
It was a finely crafted item brought over from the foreign Seikyou that was sometimes seen in cities before the abominable Revival. A beautifully, decorated silver pocket watch.
A small clock.
What remained was its obsession and feelings for time.
"Time..."
He mutters.
"He" picks it up with his hand.
...Wait!
That moment, the voice behind him became faint.
It was as though everything was set up from the start.
"He" held it in his hand.
"He" stared at it.
Ah, and then, everything started to play out to him.
Clock. Who was he in the past? The Street Knight. No. Prototype Upper Tier Solder #001? No. He was something else from sometime much, much further back in time. The time. The clock. The time on the clock ticked madly. 2 years ago. The Great Duke's Experiment. He observed. He observed. He observed. He laughed. He observed. He laughed. He observed. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. He observed. Ia. Ia. The time. The time. Tick Tock.
The sound of a clock.
Ran throughout his brain.
It rings.
"What?"
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
"This is..."
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
"The time..."
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
"One second, two seconds..."
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
...the "she" behind him desperately whispered something to him.
...but his hand never lets go of the clock.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
~Inganock's 3rd year, a certain month. City skyscraper~
...And so, the Street Knight vanished.
...Leaving only behind a legend.
Oona the Monochrome Hand's investigation was difficult.
The last information she had about the Street Knight was him secretly going up to the upper tiers and destroying a group of mass-produced prototype Upper Tier Soldiers, and rumor has it he was the only terrorist who stepped foot into the viceroy's official residence. The information she got from paying a large sum of money to deal with aristocrats nearly drowning in Death Drug were delusions and rumors with no credibility whatsoever. They were ramblings of madmen more false than the whispers of a female nightingale.
Since then, any information obtained about the Street Knight were inconsistent. For instance, some say he talked to people reconstructing the tiers. Some say he spent a night with a beautiful woman who underwent the most expensive plastic surgery in the city. Others say he adopted a child as designated by the city administration, or that he was in a fight with a madman who was a Phenomena Equation user calling him the "Wandering Murderer".
None were connected.
They didn't connect to one another.
What became of the Knight's disappearance, of them wandering in the city, escaping from the management department? Where was the evidence that the city administration was actually acting under the orders of the upper tiers? What became of Jid's death, or that of some of the lower tiers Runners, as well as the "gravesite" in the abandoned district? And why did he kill the Red King, Dragon?
...why?
It was then that he returned as a Knight who hunted the city's threats one by one, rumored to have been produced by the upper tiers which lay hidden in the gaps of many rumors. He took countless mass-produced Upper Tier Soldiers and had countless of them sacrificed while hunting down powerful Monsters and, sometimes, even temporarily repelling small Critters.
In one of his hands was a Seikyoan clock.
And then, one day.
He suddenly vanished.
This was after exterminating the Monsters of case B in the 8th tier's 11th district.
And he disappeared.
It was said he disappeared after having a talk with Master Iru.
The Street Knights' whereabouts from then on were unknown to the public.
Or perhaps, he may have been a fairy tale that people passed down as hope in this cruel city.
But that didn't happen.
He didn't become such a thing.
The Street Knight simply vanished. The blade that protected the people was gone.
There, people had the one and only "fairy tale" to replace him.
It was a steel figure that could change into all colors.
Its name was Kikai.
Steel shadows that were not human.
Bladed hands that can shatter fantasies.
The city's only hope which brought "beautiful things" to the people...
"What even is a beautiful thing?"
Oona shrugged her shoulders.
The 3rd year of Inganock. The morning on the city skyscrapers.
She had gotten used to teaching the black cat, who still couldn't learn how to run properly in the city's shadows and survive. The street corners were filled with "salarymen" who commuted to work, city employers who lived relatively wealthy in the city's upper tiers, and street vendors who catered to them. Oona was crying in the rain with a nostalgic feeling.
She was squinting with nostalgia.
It was an insectoid fantasy human that looked familiar. A cute-looking Duke. He had always worked in the name of being her underling. Yes, even more when he went after the Street Knight. She remembered him as a good man, always doing the things he was told to do and doing stuff he say he wouldn't do. Now he was already dead. She didn't remember when it happened, but she knew he had died. It wasn't uncommon for squatters to be street vendors but Oona's eyes squinted when she stared at a man with an insect-like face that she thought would never see again.
In the midst of that hustle and bustle, she paused for a little.
She whispered a word while remembering the face of her underling, someone who was far more beautiful, far stronger, and far more of a man than the fairy tales of the city. Naturally, no one responded to the words though there was a four-legged city employer who seemed to be a Tauros that tilted her head.
And.
After that.
There you are, miss!
She heard someone's voice.
She could feel the voice of a man with a bug face that couldn't have been there.
Suddenly, Oona turned around.
"Duke...?"
She spoke the dead man's name.
She saw the man who had vanished.
A slender body yet was tougher than any chrome.
They had light-pigmented skin. Was it artificial skin like that of the prototype Upper Tier Soldier #001?
The Street Knight?
No. That man vanished. He vanished by himself.
"Highness Agent."
Oona spoke another name instead.
This was one of the rumors, about the one who had a noble's crest on his face. It was said that they were a machine soldier who carried a watch in one of his hands that was appointed by the Great Duke himself as his subordinate, someone who was given enhancements on part or greater than those of the Upper Tier Soldiers. They were an upper-tier hound that, with a single word from the Great Duke himself, would slaughter all obstacles in the including killing off a single plate from the lower tiers.
He was the Great Duke's blade who began to replace Dragon as the reigning Death King.
That's why...
"You were off, Duke."
With just a look...
"I'm sorry to say this, Duke."
Taking notice of their profile...
"I'll be damned. It was the wrong one."
...briefly.
...she said in the middle of the pouring rain.
End
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