Chapter 27

The supernatural, mystical forest was consumed in flames, turning to ash and then changing into many motes of lights as the cataclysmic pillar failed to maintain its form, and it collapsed, scattering in its final moments. The tertiaries that were not consumed by the Grand Slam’s blast began to fray as Mistletoe underwent annihilation, disappearing along with it. Having brought that much destruction, that much death, that much barbarity, the pillars, in their dying moments, disappeared with a fragility that almost seemed to evoke a sense of beauty by design. “” Looking down on the pillars scattering below her, Alma bit her lip. She thought that if she didn’t do that, she wouldn’t be able to hold on. Exactly what she wouldn’t be able to hold on to, she couldn’t say. She could not hide it anymore. There was no stopping it. The tears were welling up and overflowing from her eyes. If this pain in her heart was the price of victory, then she would rather rip it out and be done with it. The terrible sapling that had been pulsing in her breast had disappeared without a trace. Natalie had taken it away. But she had not taken Alma with her. It was because she understood that now that she was weeping so terribly. But no matter how much she cried, the tears would not stop. “” Rusalka could hear it over the speaker: Alma’s sobbing voice. She understood painfully well that there was no joy for victory in those tears. She had been there to follow Natalie, ensuring she reached Mistletoe. And she had been there to support Alma, ensuring her Grand Slam would reach its intended target. And she had been there, providing assistance so that humanity would gain the chance to live for another day. “” Guiding her battered and broken Deus ex Machina, she gradually descended for an emergency landing as she looked up in the sky. Even though she was in the air herself, she was looking up to the sky high, high above her. To a place far beyond, where she could not reach no matter how far she stretched her hands, to the other side, where so many of her comrades had gone before her. Rusalka quietly stretched out her hand. Reaching out without heed to the tears running down her cheeks. Her fingers unable to grasp anything. But there was one undeniable truth: Humanity had defeated Mistletoe. That was the end of the battle that would in later days come to be known as the Battle of Weihnachten.