Shattered Skies: The Morning Lights

CHAPTER 52: A Breath Away from Hell

Chapter 52: A Breath Away from Hell

-VERTEX ONE: 15.556984-

Azabu-Juuban, Minato Ward, Tokyo

"I know you're all scared of Dead End, b-but... but I have things I need to tell you about them, things they don't want you to hear...!"

Instincts could be dangerous things, Sakura Kinomoto reflected as she shouted the words of her speech, rehearsed to the last word. Being a hundred and fifty meters tall at the moment and deathly embarrassed about it, her instinct was to make no noise and get the job done as fast as possible, then shrink back to normal size and hide under her covers until everyone in all the worlds forgot about Kaiju-Sakura. Though it screamed at her, she refused to give into that instinct. No matter how much she hated being recognized—or even looked at—when she used the BIG Card, that was the whole point this time: get out, be seen, and make noise as loud as possible.

They had Dead End's attention now, she was sure of that. From the street far below her came distant, periodic snap-pop noises and flashes of multicolored light, the signs of her fellow Tigers engaged with the Death Busters. From her perspective, it was like an ant colony putting on a tiny fireworks show. Letting them be was for the best; the others had their parts which they were trusted to play, just as they trusted Sakura to play hers...

She swallowed heavily and drew a Card. Eyeing the four crystal spires planted around the district, Sakura called out to it as she tapped the now giant-sized Sealing Wand's beak against the equally massive Card's surface: "Take down those spires! THUNDER!"

THUNDER was one of the more intimidating Cards even at normal scale, a snarling leonine creature composed entirely of crackling blue-white electricity. At more than a hundred times its regular size, she couldn't blame the people of Azabu-Juuban if they were to start panicking right about then. The great beast galloped across the skyline at tremendous speed, aimed straight as an arrow at the southeast spire, the closest one to her. Its passage played havoc with the city's electrical systems: windows, traffic signals, street lamps, and all flickered on and off like strobe lights. It roared for joy as it dove through the spire and out the other side, reducing it to a cloud of ash. Only that cloud and the deep pit left by its foundations remained. "Don't worry!" said Sakura, chancing to stray from the script a bit. "I know THUNDER looks scary, but it's a friend and it's here to help! You won't have to be frightened of the monsters or these spires anymore..." KRAKOOM, and there went the second spire. "Because we're going to take them down! All of us in the Morning Lights are always fighting against Dead End, wherever they show up! So please, stay safe inside your homes while we do our thing!"

Her mind raced. Nanoha said that she would know right away when she had accomplished the goal of Phase Two; until then, she was to get out as much of the speech as she could. One more deep breath, and: "Sailor Moon wants you to know that Dead End is... is an army made up of evil forces from many different universes, not just this one. It's led by someone called Joker." A hundred meters away and to the northwest, the third spire disintegrated. THUNDER made a sharp turn down Route 319, homing in on the last one, planted in the ruins of the bypass just across the district border. In her thoughts, she bid it to hurry, for the moment of truth was fast approaching. "Joker is a terrible monster, he's made countless people suffer and he needs to be stopped. That's why we're here." Spire number four was down. Sakura called the Card back, anticipating the much bigger storm about to be unleashed with a mixture of excitement and dread. Praying that Nanoha's intuition was correct, she wet her lips and spoke: "But as strong as Joker is... he's not really in cha—"