Chapter Text
After another long day, Harley finally returned to his room. He could always return earlier, because he wasn't a fighter, so he didn't need to attend training as often as the rest of the 17th Platoon, like Layfon or Felli.
Still, he was tired. Not tired in the physical sense, rest or sleep wouldn't make this better. Tired as in psychical sense.
Other students could pretty much envy him. He wasn't fighting, he was only a DITE mechanic, his job surely is as easy as using your Kei. Too bad, other people look like they just can't understand the fact that adjusting the DITEs for military artists can be stressful too.
What if something doesn't work? What if the DITE is too weak? What if it's not adjusted accordingly?
What if? What if? WHAT IF!?
"Harley, are you in there?"
That was Nina, the 17th Platoon leader. Since he couldn't just ignore her like that, the boy got up and opened the door, hoping that his look wasn't revealing his overthinking.
For once, he wished that maybe Nina came here to talk? Like friends often do? Everything, just not the DI–
"I was wondering if you could maybe fix my DITE? I think I accidentally released too much Kei and it broke." She said, breaking all of Harley's hopes.
Don't get me wrong, he absolutely loved his job, and definitely preferred this over fighting with contaminoids. If others just understood that he had too much responsibly put on him.
He noticed that Nina was still in front of him. He didn't answer her question after all, but before he could say anything, Layfon was suddenly here too.
"I've got a call from Mr. President. Zuellni disappeared!"
"Huh!? Zuellni's gone!? Where could she go!?"
While a stressed conversation was going on between Nina and Layfon, Harley noticed something the other two didn't. Felli's Nen'i. It was going somewhere and he decided to follow it, nimbly avoiding the two talking.
"Uh, Felli? Where are you guiding me?",
But there was no response, which was weird. Even though Felli doesn't talk much, she would answer this kind of question. He was following the pink petals until he reached the outskirts of the city. Then he saw it.
The Aurora.
While it was as beautiful as one could imagine, its presence wasn't normal. But Harley didn't have time to think it through, because soon he felt getting lifted up and he saw Aurora getting closer to him.
What happend surely wasn't something he expected. He thought that he would meet a contaminoid, or that he would simply die. Instead, somehow, he was inside the Aurora, and he was standing steady and sound.
The thing he didn't understand, why was he here? Why here? Why him? Why?
Then, several screen alikes have appeared around him. They weren't attached to anything, they were just… flying.
While this wasn't the most shocking thing, the next one absolutely was. The 'screens' turned up and let me tell you, he was expecting everything, but this. He saw his friends, fighting with contaminoids. All of them, Nina, Layfon, Sharnid, Felli. Their leader had a broken DITE, she was struggling with fighting. Felli obviously couldn't use her Nen'i for battle. Sharnid's long-distance DITEs definitely weren't prepared for this one contaminoid. As surprised as Harley could get he even saw Layfon having some problems.
But then all hell broke loose, just as the monster hit Sharnid with its claws. There was blood.
Everywhere.
They were all doing good in earlier battles? When did it went the wrong way!?
He heard Nina's panicked scream. As composed as she tried to be, she couldn't for the sake of god, stay focused when her friend was lying dead not even 10 meters away.
When Nina got distracted with Sharnid, Felli got distracted with her. And that led to another loss. The poor girl was literally crushed by the insect. The petals around suddenly disappeared, signaling a big injury, or more probably death of Nen'i user.
Harley didn't even notice when tears gathered in his eyes and slowly started dropping on the floor… or whatever he was standing on anyways.
He didn't get it. Why was it happening? Why were they losing!?
"Stop it! Why are you showing me this!?"
But his cries weren't heard. Or were purposely ignored.
Then he heard the most shrieking scream he had ever heard. It was filled with so much agony and terror that Harley had to cover his ears.
Oh boy, how he wished he hadn't looked at what happend, but unfortunately curiosity took over. When he saw it, he felt himself scream but he just didn't care.
Nina was literally cut in half . The cutting line was perfectly under her ribs, he could even see half of her liver, stomach and also some intestines. And a hell ton of blood everywhere .
"N-no… no! It didn't happen! It couldn't happen… right!? They are all alive! T-this wouldn't happen…"
Harley stumbled on his words, clearly not making any sense. His vision was slowly getting blurry as he didn't notice Layfon also getting slayed. He just couldn't look at this point.
"W-why would this happen? Why can't we just live in the normal world!? No contaminoids? Normal cities? Fresh air to breath!? Why can't we just live like that!?"
That got Aurora's attention. Well, maybe not the Aurora itself but a certain Fallen One . But Harley couldn't care less now.
"Why!? I wish we could live normally! Before any of this happend, before contaminoids started existing, when we still had fresh air! Please! "
Oh, how he wished he wouldn't say that.
Just as if talking to genie, the world around him spins around, disorientating itself. There was some kind of maniac laugh around, but Harley was busy thinking.
What is happening now!?