Re:Turning to Y(o)u(ki)

"MIU STOP! PLEASE STOP IT'S ME! IT'S YUKI!" 0319 begged.

But she did not hear his silent plea. Her hand dropped, and the inferno fell to the ground. City blocks were razed in milliseconds, and the shockwave of incineration roared towards the platoons of automatons. 0319 trembled in absolute horror as the wave of death howled and consumed him, wiping his metal frame from existence.

Everything went black.

“Prepare for Rainfall!”

Yuki’s soul awakened in a new G.A.K.I. unit that was already deploying within another dropship. It was still in Sapporo. Murderous fire was still raging below, but Yuki could see the massive crystal tower glistening in the inferno.

Then he saw the bolt of pink dashing through the sky like a bullet. Strange, smoking streaks of light and stone were chasing Her. Her. He knew her. He. Not “it” but he. He knew who he was. But then there was an explosion and the entirety of the dropship was ripped from its molecular makeup.

Before Yuki’s scream of pain could even formulate, his soul was already in another unit that was falling through the sky above the battle. Left trigger incinerates <<NO>> Right trig-STOP!!!

“Nooooo!” Yuki screamed as his head overwhelmed the synthetic demands of code that were driving his mechanical form to kill Her.

He could see her in the distance, firing beams of pink light in every direction as the strange beings closed in on her.

“Miu!!” Yuki screamed.

He was so focused on her combat that he did not even register the fact that she was now flying directly towards him. Supersonic winds pulled him into the vortex of her flight and he was consumed by the burning lights.

Then he was another unit on the ground. He came into awareness as the scream finally formed. All-consuming agony sent him to his knees. He was G.A.K.I. Unit 0788 and he needed to survive. Miu’s screams of rage echoed out over the terror as black shards of abyssal rage began to fall all around the battlefield. Yuki watched the shards strike the other G.A.K.I. units and immediately turn them into obsidian statues.

Yuki hid beneath a crystallized awning as he watched Miu slam into the ground with the two massive beings ensnared in the entanglement of her burning lights. Neither of the beings screamed or cried out, but the static spasms of their light tendrils told Yuki they were suffering. Fire danced within their writhing crystal bodies, and Miu seemed focused on those flames.

As she roared, she slammed them into the ground again and again until their bodies began to crack.

“You thought you could never break! But I found a way to shatter your shards and reduce you to nothingness!! Greet your death and scream forever as The Aether consumes you!!!” Miu shouted as the black rain intensified.

Her body was coated in the blackness but it had no affect on her. The two creatures immediately began to seize and lock as their glowing tendrils were dimmed and turned to black stone. With every rain drop, more of their light was extinguished. One of the magical creatures reached up in desperation, but strange glyphs of violent mysticism formed over Miu.

“Greet your death screaming!!!” Miu commanded as the black consumed her prey.

Then her right arm rose and her glowing fist clenched. Blue flame swirled out from the glyphs and bound itself to her hand, which swung down into a cataclysmic punch that instantly shattered both of her victims into thousands of small flecks of lifeless dust.

Before Yuki could speak, Miu was exploding back into the air. Other G.A.K.I. Units arrived and began firing their incendiary rounds.

“No! Stop!” Yuki shouted as he turned his guns on the other automatons.

“Please help!! I can’t stop!!” a nearby unit begged.

“What?!” Yuki asked.

“I’m not a machine!! Something is very wrong!!! I was homeless in Osaka! This isn’t right! I’m-“

The unit was struck by a round of human military weaponry and was ripped in half. Its blue Manu-Crystal implants started to fade.

“I was a person. I… was… a person… I was…” it glitched then faded.

Yuki’s body twitched as its protocols tried to convince him to resume attacking, but instead, his shaking metallic hands reached out to touch the body of the fallen automaton.

When his glowing fingertips touched the unit’s fading Manu-Crystal implant, everything glitched.

>>Personnel activation not approved<<<<

((Help me!! I’m trapped in here!!!))

>>Undocumented Manu-Crystal connection<<

>>>>Manu-Crystal Shattering Initiative: Commenced<<<<

“What?” Yuki asked as explosions lit the sky above him.

His gaze briefly turned upwards, just as the automaton in his hands exploded as well. Yuki fell backwards in shock as the remnant chunks of metal, conduit, cabling, and crystal all fell limp.

“What is happening?” Yuki asked as he tried to crawl back.

The ground began to vibrate. Yuki looked up once more to see colossal pillars of purple flame tearing across the mountainsides and striking every dropship. Hundreds of military craft exploded as new barriers of purple light surrounded the battle. Miu was in the center of it all, arms extended as she hovered hundreds of meters in the air.

“Incenerate them all and give me shelter!!” Miu commanded.

Yuki hid once more as he watched every dropship vanish into darkness. More and more black rain was falling. Everything was being consumed in abyss and flame.

Then it was over.

There were no more drop ships. No more flying magical stone beings. Every remaining soldier and automaton was turned to stone and shattered, save for Yuki. Synthetic harp cries echoed in the air as the pillars of flame encircled the entire district in new magical barriers. Far ahead, Miu lowered then fell to the ground.

“Miu…” Yuki whispered.

The black rain stopped, the fires faded, and silence blanketed Sapporo once more. Yuki dared to move. Left trigger- ((No))

Yuki’s body twitched and bent as he fought the programming. He would not harm Miu. As his metallic body limped towards the direction she had fallen, the only protocol in his mind was to make sure she was alive and okay.