A few moments ago….
"So… where did it all go wrong?" Zero asks himself as he looks at the computer screen in front of him. On the rooftop of the High City Skyscraper, ready with a long scope sniper rifle, Zero stood there with his black dyed hair brushing against the cold breeze.
He had thought of a thousand scenarios of how Elle could have survived a hijacked plane while her 'little sister' would have died, and planned in every way about how to save both the sisters but…
"Who is Annabeth?" He asked as his eyes kept staring at the silver-haired girl protecting Elle.
"Where is Elizabeth's little sister?" He spoke with a confused expression as he observed the scene happening in the airplane. And what shocked him most was…
"What is that red stone doing over here? It hasn't even been the first Cataclysm yet… just what is going on?" He spoke with disbelief as he looked at the Demons.
Each stone holds a Demon General's dead remnant. Once a Demon General dies of old age, his soul is trapped in a special stone found in the valley of the dead. That stone becomes their new home, through which they are supplied with enough power to be reborn into this world sooner or later.
It's like a virus that keeps infecting more and more victims. Once someone's infected it sends their soul temporarily to the dimension where the demon general is, and from there onwards they begin a struggle against the demon general. And what's left outside is a mindless creature that instinctively keeps attacking more and more people to join them.
"How are they supposed to get out of there….?" Zero thought before taking a shooting position with the rifle he had in his hand. He could have waited for the chance with which Elle could escape from there but now, Zero could not waste anymore time depending upon his past knowledge about the sisters and began preparing to shoot.
"Blood sacri… no… since we are dealing with Demons here… then… Sigh… " Zero concentrated on the centre of the airplane and planned his trajectory as he took a small deep breath…"Spirit Summon: Astraea" and his eyes turned greenish silver.
-Snipe
He took a magic shot with half of the power of summon. The bullet created an air slash following its trajectory and then…
-Slash
The plane was cut in half and gradually separated and..
-BOOOOMMM!!
The plane itself blasted into two parts from the point of division. Zero looked at those sisters, dumbfounded at the turn of events. Their eyes seemed like they wanted to know what exactly was going on.
Anna then smiled a bit before jumping off the plane with her sister from the opening and Zero looked at her actions with a serious expression as he looked at a demon following Anna. He then watched Anna about to sacrifice herself in order to protect Elizabeth; however, Zero wasn't happy with this development at all.
He then closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them again with the maximum concentration he could muster.
-Snipe
He shot a bullet he created a while back and filled it with spirit magic
-Snipe
He shot a bullet made up of magic, containing a message for Annabeth.
-Snipe
He shot another bullet
-Snipe
-Snipe
-Snipe
-Snipe
-Snipe
-Snipe
Zero… wanted to save everyone. He wanted to make sure each and every passenger from the plane survives… however… this unexpected development changed everything. Just how many things he thought he knew… were wrong…?
-Snipe
'Breathe in… breathe out…' he calmed himself down as he took more and more shots
-Snipe
-Snipe
After a dozen shots, he saw Elle and Annabeth's cocoon falling down in the ocean. No one else survived the attack… except Annabeth and Elle. Everyone else in that flight was dead.
'I must hurry,' he thought as he threw the rifle and jumped down the building immediately. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew staying here would only increase the number of problems and propel the whole thing into a direction where he did not want it to go.
'Enchantment,' he thought as he applied mana into his legs and hands and then slid down the skyscraper's glass walls, cracking them into pieces.
After he jumped down, he waited till he saw a rooftop of a building right in front of him. He propelled himself against the glass wall of the skyscraper at that point and jumped with all his might.
-CRACK!!!!!!!
The glass shattered, leaving the trail where Zero jumped. Zero, meanwhile, was in the air, making a trajectory towards the building's top before reaching it and then moving forward as fast as he could.
From there, he jumped from one building to another hurriedly. His expression was getting more and more complex as he kept concentrating towards the Lake where Elle and Annabeth landed.
It's not just for the sake of using them that he was doing it, but also because…
...
In the previous timeline, a year before Zero died…
-Cough cough
In a completely destroyed land where a battle just took place, Elizabeth was standing, barely holding on, on the bodies of a dozen Royal Parasites. Her health was deteriorating and she would die in a few moments. She had just fought a hundred parasites by herself and after exhausting all her powers and life force, she had finally prevented the extinction of the residents of Planet Vermillion's original ones.
"Where are the others?" I asked with a crying face as I observed Elle dying right in front of my eyes. On finding Elle missing and a battle going on in this particular region of the city, I had immediately rushed towards this region, but in the end all I found was this scene in front of me.
"It's too late Reaper. I have exhausted my life force. There is no way you can save me," Elle spoke as she looked at me with a wry smile. Still trying to find a solution with all my wits, but no matter what I did, I couldn't reach a conclusion.
"Did you know I had a sister?" She continued speaking without paying any attention to my desperation.
"The reason that I continued to move forward was to someday find a miracle to bring my sister back into this world. Idiotic, isn't it? But because of that one wish I kept living on. It was a fool's dream, but that kept me going…" She spoke weakly and I looked at her face as tears began flowing from her eyes and mine, too.
"Reaper… can you fulfil my impossible wish?" She looked at Zero's eyes and his eyes widened in a complex of emotions as she smiled before speaking,"Save my sister, Give her a life. Give her a life that she deserved… she had suffered too much in her life… can you… bring my dead sister back?"
"I-"
Before I could mutter even a single word, Elle was gone from this world. I looked at her dead body with a blank expression, as I couldn't help but wonder what I should do now. That day I lost a friend. It had been a long while since I lost my last friend and to be honest… I was still not used to this.
"It hurts…" I spoke as my heart was breaking, but still I braced myself before taking her into my arms and getting out of here. "I will… try." I spoke as I kept walking forward without looking at Elle.