"Target eliminated."

11 pulls her nanoblade from the Demonic Entity’s body. It is a strange creature, stout and short and with a beard so long it touches the ground. It’s difficult to believe a creature like this is capable of harming humans, but if the S-M-S says so…

> Civilian target located inside building, 11.

>

> Secure and rescue immediately.

"Understood."

11 marches towards the house. As she passes the bearded creature, it lets out a low moan, and she stops.

It sounds like a word. A name, even.

11 looks carefully at the creature. It has a face of a man, with a great big nose and bushy eyebrows that bring to mind the image of Santa Clause.

Colors flirt in front of 11's eyes. She blinks them away. Crouching down, she reaches into the creature's beard and takes out the vial inside it. Then, not stopping to think, she cracks it open and pours the silvery liquid onto the creature's stomach.

The S-M-S is quick to pick up on the action though.

> State your intentions, God Gier 11.

"None." 11 tosses the empty vial away and strides into the spider-infested house without looking back.

The room stinks of death. 11 scans for the source and finds it. There, over by the corner, a boy is being devoured alive by a nest of albino spiders.

11 cuts the air at supersonic speeds, blowing apart the house with the force of a single swing. Spiders are flung into the walls, splattering into polka dots. 11 slashes again and the ceiling is gone. Rain pounds into the exposed room, washing the boy's oozing wounds. 11 makes her way over the spider-carpeted floor. Are few are still determinedly clinging onto life, but 11 squishes them under her heels as she passes.

The boy is lying on his stomach. 11 nudges him with the tip of her sword so that he’s facing sideways. Even mutilated, his features are youthful. Fifteen, most likely. But given the extremities of his wounds, he likely won’t make it to sixteen.

"Heart rate and blood pressure are plummeting." 11 sticks to the facts and nothing else. It's easier this way. "Chances of survival less than five percent."

> Stabilize and move on.

11 heats up her nanoblade until it glows. She presses it against the boy’s wounds, making them sizzle. He doesn't scream. Once the most serious wounds have been cauterized, 11 moves on. Turning to the door, she notices one of the spiders is still alive and twitching. It’s many times larger than the rest she's seen, and instead of white fur covering it, the creature is coated in a fine layer of dark black fur.

With 11 watching, the spider’s stomach expands into a balloon, then bursts open. Black goop sprays everywhere and from within it, a woman emerges.

It’s the woman from outside, the one 11 has already cut in half.

> Demonic entity identified.

>

> Damage Output Lev-

"Yea, yea."

11 steps up to the spider woman, brandishing her sword. "Who cares."

The woman staggers back from 11, screaming in terror. "Please! Spare me! I-I-I’m on my last life!"

“Like I said.” 11 swings fast. "Who cares."

The woman cries out as her belly opens. She collapses, clutching her insides like a beggar keeping his coins from scattering.

“Y-you,” she gasps at 11, “are a monster.”

11 raises her sword up for the finishing stroke.

The demon's courage fails and she starts to weep. “I have a brother,” she says, tears rolling over her yellow eyes. “He's called Ae’ran. If you kill me, I’ll never be able to save him. I’ll never see him again.”

“You will,” 11 says, "once I've killed him too."

Outside, the rain is thinning. Stormclouds part to let light shine on the abandoned village.11 hops across the thatch roofings until she reaches the building with the other human inside. Without fanfare, she stomps through the roof and lands in the web-covered room.

Hanging inside the largest web is the other human civilian. He’s wrapped up inside his cocoon with only his face showing like he’s in a sleeping bag. He will have looked snug, if it isn't for his swollen eyes and purple lips.

11 cuts him down. The boy falls with a solid thud, before rolling into a cluster of spider eggs. 11 steps across the sticky floor. With the tip of her sword, she carves the cocoon open. As the webbing falls away, the boy’s limbs flop out limply. His skin floods with color as veins pop along the bulging muscles.

The boy's eyes snap open. He gasps, his whole body heaving as he gulps in air.

11 scans him for injuries, finds them to only be minor, and starts to go.

“H-hey...!”

She turns back. “What?”

“You…” The boy clearly wants to say something but seems to have forgotten it. He swallows, his massive adam’s apple bobbing. “I thinks... I know you.”

11 nods, waits for him to go on, to issue her a directive to follow.

“You saved me. From headquarters. I was thrown in water.”

“I don’t remember that,” 11 says. “But if you say so.”

The boy shakes his head. It’s like watching a wrecking ball pivot on rounded shoulders. “Who are you?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“A God Gier. Mark II, Reaper-Type, Unit 11.”

“Reaper…? A-Are you Blood Devil?”

“If you say so.”

“But I was attacked by Blood Devil that day.”

“Is there something you’d like me to do, sir?”

The boy looks lost. He's frowning as if not able to make sense of 11’s words. “Where am I?”

11 scratches a map onto the floorboards with the tip of her sword. “You're quite far from the nearest city. Follow this road and you should have a decent chance to make it to civilization.”

The boy stares at the perfectly drawn map, a blankness in his eyes.

"Here," 11 sighs. "I’ll draw out the path for you." She scratches a set of simple instructions, including where his companions are located, including the bearded one. At the end, she signs it off with her name. "Now if you don't have anything more you'd like me to do, I'm going to leave."

“Aiya… no. Chi… nen.”

She stops. Blinks. “Sorry, what?”

The boy has his head down and is reading the instructions on the floorboards. He doesn't pick up on 11's surprise, and only looks up to thank her.

“I shall find you after all is done to thanking you proper,” he says gratefully. “You live in Kesrock, yes?”

"Uh...huh," 11 says but she isn’t listening to him. She’s reading back what she wrote.

Scratched in sharp letters, the name stands out like a blazing firework.

Aiyano Chinen.

“I don't… know who that is supposed to be.” 11 flicks her sword over the name, correcting it to God Gier 11. “I must’ve been thinking about something else when I did this.”

“I do not understand,” says the boy. “You not want me to know real name?”

“No, I mean yes. Forget it. I miswrote, that's all.” She lifts the sword onto her back, where the nanoparticles in her suit form a pair of pincers to grab it. "That is all," she says with finality before leaving the boy for good.

By the time she's made it out of the village, 11 gets another ping.

> Located massive amounts of D.E. and human causalities.

>

> Unable to determine exact numbers.

>

> Provide aid immediately. Sending coordinates…

The location is in the mountains directly north, not far.

> There’s something else too, 11, strong electromagnetic waves characteristic of Arcadian technology.

>

> Be on the lookout for enemy combatants.

11’s GPS updates to show other monsters, massive Demonic Entities the sizes of buildings. But their blips pale in comparison to the even larger one behind them. Gradually, that target is moving south, towards 11 and the human civilization behind her.

11 checks the sky. It is clear. Drawn across the vast open blue is a rainbow, bright and full of hope.

"Be there soon", 11 says, digging her heels into the slushy ground and pushing off into a sprint, as if she can outrun the light if she tries hard enough.

11 reaches the twin mountains in less than half a day. Walking through the canyon leading into the mountains, she keeps feeling something nagging at the back of her mind. She’s already scanned through the entire contents of her memory files, hoping to find the source of the discomfort, but she keeps hitting a wall. Trying to get around this wall is like trying to climb glass, so it's no exaggeration to say 11 is somewhat distracted as she trudges through the snow, and doesn’t notice the body until she's tripped over it.

God Giers are designed with grace and beauty at the forefront of mind, but that doesn’t stop 11 from letting out a shriek as she faceplants into the snow.

“What… the hell?”

Getting up, 11 spits out a mouthful of ice and looks back to see a half-buried body.

"Oh."

Carefully, she reaches back and nudges the body with her foot.

"H-hello?"

The man jerks upright and screams.

11 screams back.

The man erupts out of his snowy grave, looking wildly around before trying to flee. He gets three steps before tripping over his own feet and going down again.

11, now recovered, catches up. She goes to grab the man's arm but the flesh is so raw it comes right off. 11 falls back, horrified, and watches as the man struggles up again.

This time, he makes it ten feet before collapsing again. And this time he stays there.

11 wipes her bloody hand onto the snow, and then goes over to help the man.

Unfortunately, her scanners show he’s beyond saving, so no messages come from above instructing her to treat him.

Actually, now that 11 thinks about it, she hasn’t heard a single peep from the S-M-S since setting foot between these icy walls of the canyon.

The man is trying to say something but his face is in the snow. 11 flips him over, touching only his fleshiest places to prevent hurting him more.

The man exhales a long breath. He’s staring up at the sky, his eyes empty. His skin is porcelain, showing a roadmap of blue veins underneath.

“Warn the King,” the man says, squeezing the words out between barely visible puffs of air. “The beast… folk… the wall. The wall has fallen.”

“How many of you are left?” 11 asks, trying to direct his jumbled speech. “What is the status of the enemy?”

The man’s eyes flicker towards 11 but she knows he doesn’t see her. He coughs, then leans his head forward like he’s trying to say something, only to cough again.

“Forget it,” 11 tells him, leaving him in the snow. “Just rest. You've done well.”

“Wait. Please.”

11 turns back. The man is reaching into his tattered furcloak. “Please.” He takes out a small hand-bound notebook. “There’s someone… you must give this to.”

11 looks at the book, then at the man. “Who?”

“Her name… is Cathra Stelias.”

The name rings familiar but 11 can’t place it to a face just yet. She kneels down into the snow and takes the man’s hands. They are frostbitten so badly she can feel bones snapping.

“I’m sorry,” she says, “but I don’t know who that is.”

The man gives a ghost of a smile. “Me… neither, aye? Tough luck.”

Wind blows across the canyon, carrying with it a long hollow note like the call of a whale. Upon hearing it, the man suddenly comes alive. He grabs 11 and clamps the book between her palms.

“Get this to Cathra,” he wheezes, squeezing 11’s fingers. His eyes are wild, darting around in his head. “You must find her. It’s the last thing…” A violent cough seizes him and he curls up, spattering blood all over the snow.

“The last thing Sir knight said to me,” he manages at last. "Before he went and been the hero, aye."

Then the man closes his eyes, and doesn't open them again.

“Wait,” 11 says, “I still have no idea about any of the things you’ve just said. Who is Sir knight? Where does Cathra live?”

Silence.

“Do you at least have any directions?” 11 presses. “You have to tell me specifics or else I can’t carry out the task.”

The man’s chest rises, then falls. His lips part, but no more words come between them.

Then, with snowflakes gently blowing across the canyon, he dies.

11 makes her way through the canyon. Flipping through the book, she’s greeted with a two-page spread of a forest. It’s drawn with only charcoal, which gives the picture an eerie, filmy feeling. She leaves through some more pages, finding scenes that are familiar to her.

A statue of a woman, a market square, a shopfront.

11 wonders if this book belongs to the dead man. He claimed to have received it from a Sir knight, but who the hell is that supposed to be?

Eventually, 11 lands on the page of a girl. She stops to study it.

It’s like a scene in a movie poster. A lone girl stands at the edge of a cobblestone bridge, leaning on the barrier while she gazes out at the river. There is a sadness in her eyes, almost like she’s holding back tears. Long hair flows freely behind her, and she has one hand up to tuck a strand behind her ear. There are two swords strung at her waist, shown through the folds of her cloak as the wind sweeps it aside.

It is me.

Truth be told, it can really be any God Gier or any girl really. But 11 somehow knows for certain it is her.

And then she remembers being on that bridge, overlooking a winding river with fish darting under its surface. She remembers the person who drew her. She sees him now, standing behind the very book she is holding, tracing the lines of her body with his charcoal.

11 shuts the book, derailing the train of thought before it can reach its destination.

“Mother,” she says out loud, her voice echoing against the icy walls of the canyon. “Update my GPS and mission parameters, please. I suspect there’s been a change in civilian casualty count but I haven’t received any updates for a while now.”

She waits for a reply. She gets nothing back. Not a ping or a message or anything.

“Mother?”

Radio silence. It’s only then that 11 thinks to check her surroundings. the canyon is made up of two towering walls of dark ice. Walking over to the right one, 11 places her hand against the ice. She can feel centuries of cold and frost layering the flat stone. She can see it, a dark-colored material underneath ten feet of white, so flat and long it looks like a runway for zeppelins.

Wait a second. Runway?

11 looks closer, pressing her nose against the ice.

Impossible. The stone is too smooth. Normal rock formations cannot look like this.

It's not even rock.

Reaching back, 11 unclasps her nanoblade. The metal gleams off the ice, blue on white.

Sweat starts to run down 11's spine. Her chest is aching, the Nuclear-powered Core inside spinning.

There's only one way to know for sure.

With a swipe, she cleaves apart the ice. Thunder claps through the canyon as the wall cracks open like the surface of an egg. 11 steps back from the chunks of ice crumbling away from the stone behind it.

Just as she suspected… it isn’t stone.

When the powdered snow has thinned so that 11 can see, she steps up to the chasm she’s made in the ice wall and peaks through.

What she sees freezes her to the core.

Under the ice wall is another wall, one made of black metal. It curves gently from top to bottom, and running horizontally across its middle are rows of foggy glass panes.

Windows. Of a ship.

11 drops her sword.

There, on the very bottom of the steel behemoth, are words. They have almost been entirely eroded away, but the ice has kept the first two letters intact.

And it is these two letters that tell 11 everything.

E.H.

“Eternal Heaven,” she whispers, her voice shaking. “It’s one of the Super Carriers.”