The Death of Guernica Vandham

The skin of the ouroboros now glowing bright pink. A punch sent the moebies into the air, while it leapt towards it. As the moebius did a sit up mid-air, the ouroboros appeared behind it and smashed it back into the ground. Dust rose at the collision point, blocking our view of his status. The others watched the battle. Guernica was breathing heavity. Red grass tiled their battle location, while taller grass, the top of its tip looked like grain, glowing dark blue, less concentrated than the red. Mountains surrounded the area.

The ouroboros landed as the moebius walked out of the dust. "Hahaha! Pretty good! Weeell, what a tough'un. Enough. We'll say I lost this one, yeah?" What dark-blue flows through the moebius then now flowed orange or bright yellow. He pat dust off his right shoulder while walking towards the ouroboros.

"Who is he talking to?" Mio questioned, to which Noah answered, "No idea. But..."

The moebius laughed so hard as if his lungs were falling out, as he continued, "Got a parting gift for you. Don't worry, there's plenty to go round."

He looked up into the sky, eyes projecting red laser as the moebius strip/infinity symbol glows bright red against the dark misty sky, so bright the surrounding mist glowed dark red. Red particles seemed to flowed into it. From a ledge afar, at the other side of the mountain, a red-suit humanoid with a purple core in its chest that we seen earlier from the Homecoming, presumably a moebius untransformed, watched the sign afar. At an even further place, beside a standing rock, another red-suit moebius watched the sign. A humanoid with several strips of red flowed from his/her arms, and some in his/her torso, long hair against the fog-ridden sky, had no difficulty seeing the glowing red, like a satellite. Around the sky, we could see some sparkles of electricity in the thick clouds.

Back at the battlefield, as the moebius strip flared, he told them: "And now, the whole world will be your enemy." The others looked at the symbol, nothing they could do to prevent it. "I wonder how your lives will turn out. I'll enjoy watching you." He gripped his left hand before teleporting away, transforming into purple particles that evaporated without a clear direction. Purple fog emerged where he evaporated from.

Steam rose from the ouroboros skin, and an emergency sound that symbolizes core overheating can be heard. "Who in the... Who even was that...?" Noah questioned the identity of the moebius. Reaching their maximum, The ouroborus disappeared in blue particles, while Noah and Mio, separated, reappeared as blue particles and strips materialized them mid-air, faling to the ground thereafter. They looked at their hands, then glanced at each other.

Eunie first saw their transformation, exclaimed: "N-Noah!" Lanz followed her glaze. Lanz asked as they ran towards him: "W-was that... Was that you guys just now?"

From the other direction, the mondo guy and the hammer girl ran towards Mio, "Mio, what's happening here? What's going on?"

Mio herself was confused, "I... don't..."

Eunie suddenly reacted with a gasp, sending anxiety signal to everyone. Eunie, Lanz, the hammer girl, and the mondo guy went into defensive stance, pointing their weapons at each other.

Guernica was walking step by step, each step more difficult than the last one, hands covering his wounds: "Hold it right there! You guys... Put away your weapons. You aren't... You're not enemies... now..."

"We're not?" The hammer girl questioned.

"Then..." Before the mondo guy could asked for more, Guernica made an action that resembles spitting blood into the air, as he kneeled, fell forward onto the ground. Mio, concerned, ran towards him as Noah followed; the rest followed behind, weapons unsheathed.

Mio and Noah, each holding one side of Guernica, laid his back on the ruins of the manual robot he controlled earlier, before taking a step back, knelt-sitting¹ before him.

"Thanks..." He put his hands onto the glasses he was wearing and took it off. The glasses, so huge it covered his forehead, a few centimeters thick, and the protruding of the glasses like one that would be wore by a scientist. Below it revealed a face old with wrinkles, a huge nose, moustache around his mouth and chin up to his ears. Two thick scars made a cross on his face, intercepting between his eyes, above his nose. He was wearing an eyepatch that covered his left eye.

Everyone was shocked by his facial features: "His skin's all wrinkled."

"Yeah." By now, Lanz and the others already sheathed their weapons.

To which Guernica replied, "Haha. It's called getting old, this."

"Old?" Noah and the others seemed not to heard of the phrase before.

"Well... Must be your first time, huh. Seeing a human... like me, I mean." He scanned the group. Speaking without stopping seemed to burnt his wound, "Urg..." He groaned in pain as he tilted his head backwards and closed his eyes to soften the suffering. Mio was concerned, moved a bit forward, but didn't take any actions thereafter.

He continued: "Well then. Looks like my plan was a success."

Eunie prompted: "What plan?"

"You six... You're now Ouroboros. Check the Flame Clocks in your Irises. Do they look different to you?" They looked at each other, Eunie and Lanz, Mondo guy and hammer girl. Noah gasped before Mio, her looking at him.

"Ah! Huh. Now you mention it..." He turned to face Mio, the ouroboros symbol flaming in his right eye. Mio exclaimed, "Our Flame Clocks have changed shape?!"

"You see it? That's the Ouroboros Ring. Guess I did good... entrusting this power to you..." Mio sighed. Guernica focused on her term symbol located on her neck. "That mark there... Late tenth term, eh? Three months left. Till your Homecoming - that about right?"

She put her hands up, as if to touch the term symbol, but put it down.² "As for the rest of you... You're probably about 2 years off, right?"

Having a clearer look at the term symbol, let's update our belief. The term symbol wasn't comprised of an outer diamond and inner diamond. Instead, it had five diamonds with a single dot at each of the diamond center. Except for the center, the other diamonds had a long tail that lay parallel to one side of the central diamond, forming what one called an outer central diamond. Hence, the original central diamond we'll called the inner central diamond. Followed by a dot in the center. The parallel line description don't changed. Mio only had the central dot red; while the others had the inner central diamond and the central dot red.

"Ahhh..." Guernica breathed out, "Me? I've been alive sixty years. Or should I say sixty terms, by your counting. Yeah. I've been alive six times longer than you lot. This is how people are really meant to be."

Black fog fills the darkens sky, itself already brighter than since they fought Moebius. "Listen, folks... That's not all. There's still... something else that needs to be done." As he breathed out, his chest droop down, his head tilted forward. "You guys... You wanna survive?"

He forced his head up to meet eye contact with the others, "Live on? Hold the torch?"

Mio haven't considered it deeply, turned to look at the other direction, as if feeling guilty about it. "You kids don't need to be fighting each other. Not... any more. But... that doesn't mean you get to relax. From this moment on, those Moebius bastards are never gonna leave you alone. Because now, kids... You share a common destiny. They'll hunt you constantly, relentlessly, without rest."

The sky brightens again as he spoke. Except for the cliffs, we could see trees without much leaves; those leaves left were grey. Vines climbed rocks at certain places.

"Even so... There's one place that might give you a chance: Swordmarch. The land pierced by a great sword. You gotta find our hope... Our City... It's the only way you're gonna defeat the real enemy... And reclaim what was lost..."

Behind the hammer girl stood a pinkish Nopon, wearing a white hat, with a wok attached to her back.³ Some yellow glowing fluid like blood vessels of the wok constantly flow outwards, the "window" lined the outer circumference of the wok.

"The way the world, and life... should be. And listen." Yellow particles start floating out of Guernica, his skin lightly illuminating. As he spoke, more and more of the particles got released. "Don't give up. Ten years? You kids deserve better. The only thing that can change all this... is the will of Ouroboros... You kids, and you alone..." With his last phrase, he totally particlize⁴. Only his shirt remained, no husk. Yet, even his shirt glowed yellow after he particlize.

Mio and the others looked as his particles floated up into the sky. She stood up, drawing her flute out from her back pocket. Noah saw her action without doing anything. Eunie looked at her: "Hey. Is she..."

Lanz: "Yeah. An Agnian off-seer."

The melody played as she brought it to her lips. Noah, reminiscing, reached for his flute, stood up, while the agnians watched him joined her.

Mio opened her eyes and looked in his direction upon hearing a different melody, withdrawing her flute a second later. Noah missed her melody, opened his eyes and sent an affirmative nod to play together. Mio then continued.

Both of them closed their eyes and concentrated on the melody. All floated particles, yellow or red, changed blue in the process. Guernica's shirt now lay flat on the ground, of course emanating blue particles. So too the soldier's husks located around the battlefield. Even the black fog could not dim the lights the blue particles emanated.

Lanz reminisced: "Mwamba..."

Eunie: "So close to making it..."

The agnians sighed.

As their joint melody came to an end, Mio looked to Noah with grateful eyes, "Thank you. For doing this with me."

"Well... This is what we're meant to do. To send on the voices of the departed, is an off-seer's purpose..."

Mio's memories: By a cliffside overlooking the evening sky, rocks protruding in the distance. Miyabi stood beside Mio and told her, "To send on the voices of the departed is an off-seer's purpose..." Blue particles rose into the air around them.

Back in the moment, perhaps it reminded Mio of what she don't want to reminisce, quickly nodded and ended the topic: "Right."

Lanz discussed with Eunie for a while and signaled to Noah, "We're leaving. Noah, Eunie." The he walked off, Eunie behind him.

Noah turned to look at him, asking, "What's up?"

Both paused and looked at him, Lanz explaining: "The mission's over. We've got an obligation. Need to report the sitch."

The mondo guy walked up a distance behind Mio and agreed, "As do we. Time to withdraw. Mio, Sena."

Mio was still stuck in the hopes of Guernica, immediately turned to them and proclaimed, "Huh? But..."

The mondo guy snapped, "'But', what?"

Mio breathe out, "Come on, Taion. Don't be rude."

"It's hardly the time for pleasantries." He pushed his glasses up as he explained, "We lost a great many of our comrades. We have to inform those still in the Colony."

Lanz, complaining: "And we're any different? If you snuffheads hadn't come charging in..."

Taion was heated up with Lanz, "Indeed? Well, why don't we settle this here, right now?"

Eunie agreed, "Yeah, bring it! I reckon I could go for some payback!"

As Lanz moved forward, Noah moved up, his hand held up to block his trajectory, "Lanz." Lanz looked at him.

"Yeah?"

"That's enough."

"What d'ya mean?!" Lanz and Eunie weren't satisfied with his reply.

"There's no point."

Lanz raised his voice: "Seriously?!"

Noah looked at Mio, putting down his hands, "Before, when she and I transformed, I felt her thoughts... or maybe her memories. There were so many. And then they were a part of me. There were so many different fragments... Hard to tell them apart. But even then... I understood. She's..."

Mio was looking down, probably around the ground where Noah's feet was. "She's lost a lot fighting us... Keves too away so much. She's experienced a lot of grief."

Lanz: "Transformed... You mean... the big'un?"

"Yeah," Noah nodded and looked at him.

Mio looked towards them, "I felt it as well. Your grief... It was like mine."

Taion rebutted, "Yeah, well..."

Mio didn't let him finished, turned to look at him, raising her voice to cut him "And in one of those memories...!"

"Mio..."

"Is something that could be our fault." Mio's voice filled with anxiety. "That's what it's like... in war, I suppose." She turned away, facing down, couldn't met Taion's visual contact.

"Hm" Taion turned, pushing his glasses (again!!!)⁵

Riku walked forward and asked, "So, what is plan from here? Sun kind enough to show face, but will hide again if this drag on."

The cooking pot Nopon flapped its wings, letting her jump up the height of Sena's head twice. "True, true! Time is wasting itself."

Noah made the decision, "You're right. Let's go. A lot's happened, but that seems best. You made the right decision, Lanz. Sorry. For confusing things." The surrounding already turned bright.⁶

"Ahh, don't worry 'bout it." Lanz shook his head.

"Mio, shall we leave it at that?" Taion prompted.

"Um. Yeah."

Then turned to face Lanz, "There you have it. I sincerely hope for your safe return."

Lanz: "You take care too. Take care not to die in a ditch somewhere, that is." Then he walked off past where Taion was, Eunie followed behind. That's the direction to Colony 9.

Taion speak from the tip of his vision, at Lanz, "The next time we meet, it will be as enemies. Don't forget that." Lanz paused his step, Eunie turned to look at Taion.

Lanz waved his arms in the air, "Hah! Don't worry, I've got a good memory," and continued walking off with Eunie. Sena saw them off.

"Hmph." (breathing out from his nose hard). Taion then walked in the opposite direction, Sena followed, Mio still standing still.

Noah looked at Lanz and Eunie for a while, where Taion and Sena already behind him. He took the step first, past Mio, whom quicken her step to not face him. A short distance and they both slowed and stopped, turned and looked once more at each other. She was already looking at him. In a moment, she turned away first, took steps to her group, and he followed a moment later.

Maybe what just happened was like the sea of mist surrounding them, appears in the break of dawn, but as the sun rise, disappeared into inexistence.

A blue flame clock levnis, half-filled, its eyes shone bright red against the misty sky. It looked like Colony 9, but one can't recognize. Where its wheel was located, a bridge stretched toward a ground, allowing entry into the levnis. The flame clock levnis had its right arm resembles a beam cannon, one extremely huge. Barriers were set up beside falloffs. We could see one barrack, two tents, each with one or more table. An oil lamp was seen under both tents. The street lights were still turned on. Soldiers were chatting, walking around, or in their post.

The commander of Colony 9: "It's the enemy... The enemy's approaching." Faceless soldier, triggered, turned to look at his direction. Those sitting down stood up. Their Irises, including the commander's, glowed red. So red that the orange screen covering their eyes could not cover its glow. "Our sworn enemy..."

Behind the commander, a Moebius with a huge helmet, and a "W" stuck on top of its forehead, stood with his arm crossed. He probably hijacked their mind as long as the red in their irises don't go away.

Footnotes:

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1: If you know how Japanese sit before a low table in the past, it looks like a knelt, but perhaps not exactly.

2: An extra description of Mio. She had a core at her chest, diamond shaped, split upper-left-half magenta, lower-right-half cyan.

3: Riku had a sword-like structure attached to his back.

4: pronounced "particle-lize".

5: The snuff with this genius pose.

6: We could see undergrowth with red leaves growing below trees, which one couldn't clearly describe how it looks except one single flexible trunk with long leaves shaped like a ship sticking out of its trunk.