Catch

"A-a-a-a!" A piercingly shrill female voice resounded.

The girl in a kimono desperately tried to break free from the threads created by Lucy, but it was beyond possible. Her Eden Technique was unique, much like any of her weapons. They were powerful and incredibly costly, but her workshop was on the battleship, so many of her weapons were here, including the thread set.

Most of Lucy's Eden weapons were built on the principle of accumulating the owner's strength into the weapon and releasing accumulations of Eden in unique "Weapon Techniques". The threads worked similarly but had a significantly higher threshold for control. The Eden they absorbed was so abundant that the ratio of how much it took from the body versus how much the body replenished leaned toward the former—many perished because of this.

Struggling to rise, Zigfaer watched. His body left a huge dent in the wall from the collision with the cross. His Crystal on the chest was damaged, but it was merely his outer shell. His eye suffered too, forcing him to observe himself through surveillance cameras to assess the situation accurately.

Suddenly, he noticed four masks moving towards him—unbelievably fast. Even his artificial intelligence couldn't detect these objects. One of them attempted to destroy Zigfaer's chest Crystal completely, but he managed to shield it with his hands, which were instantly broken, leaving dents, making them increasingly unresponsive to his commands. Another mask headed for Dali, but the titan didn't feel much damage.

Regardless, the mask managed to slow down the titan, who was striving to get closer to Zigfaer with all its might. The guardian robot also tried to approach Dali, but it was quickly knocked down, completely detaching its legs. The masks, exhibiting incredible speed, astounded Zigfaer with their resilience. He tried to transmit more data to the central hub to preserve his consciousness from the "silence", avoiding a situation like what happened recently when Lucy's memory failed during repair, reverting him to settings pre-expedition...

He witnessed how quickly these masks were destroying his body. When the central crystal in Zigfaer's chest eventually cracks, his consciousness will fade for a while until a new body is picked up. But before completely losing control of the situation, Zigfaer wanted to do something. He decided to encase this girl in iron walls. The gates, the walls he had recently lowered, would be raised back. He already saw through the cameras nearby knights in titans, along with numerous other warriors who could replace him on this battlefield.

"She must be caught! If you can't, destroy her!" Zigfaer's voice echoed upon the hangar's opening.

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" Yui struggled to draw even a single cross, but the threads were compressing her entire body. To the very tips of her fingers.

Her eyes changed color during the face change, but now they watched as hundreds of titans surrounded her, while walls at the hangar exit sprouted new Eden Shields.

"I'm such a fool to have been caught so naively!"

Although Zigfaer fell, four titans placed walls, the size of a girl, around her. Creating a dome from inside and outside, it had an Eden shield. Due to this, Melodia began to weaken until she disappeared completely. The masks, these strange human-like faces, still floated but were slowing down increasingly. Despite inflicting numerous damages, both on ships and titans.

Suddenly, one of the masks began to crack. The melody of the violin filled the hangar, black cracks covering the entire mask. It transformed from a human face into a round, small dot. Some managed to react and attempted to strike the dot with swords and bullets. But the black lines formed by the mask outlined yet another person. It was a strange little girl holding a closed umbrella. When her body gained color, her eyes shone gold, and darkness from her body formed her clothes. The girl opened the umbrella, and at that moment, as if some energy along with the sound of a lone violin stopped all attacks at once.

It happened in less than a second. The titans stopped, as did many projectiles. Only when the umbrella shifted slightly, projectiles, as well as swords, changed their trajectory towards the rotation of the umbrella in the girl's hands.

Quickly approaching Yui, the girl with the umbrella lowered it. Many knights were weakened but attempted to stop her. As the umbrella began to spin and alter the attack trajectory, they repeatedly failed to strike the girl.

When the girl's slender fingers with the umbrella touched the golden thread, it began to disappear. The thin thread snapped, freeing Yui, who immediately fell to her knees.

"Elsa, forgive me!" Yui looked older than the young girl with the umbrella but feared her.

"It's okay. Where are your faces, Yui?" The girl with the umbrella looked around, waving the umbrella so that not a single attack reached them.

"There's another senior officer on board!" The faces flew to their mistress on their own.

The girl with the umbrella looked at Yui in surprise, then waved the umbrella towards the titans. A strong wind generated by the umbrella's movement almost toppled the titans.

"Don't worry, I got what we need and encountered no one along the way," the girl smiled. But suddenly, it felt like someone grabbed her heart. Her head felt an incredible pressure. It was Eden - that's what she felt. Strong, dense, with an incredible amount of energy, making her tremble and bend. Her golden eyes wavered, but she managed to stand.

Not only did she feel it, but the entire battleship did. The battleship's Eden shield had just undergone an incredible external load, and the source of this was Lucy and her "Small Masterpiece" - Tuden Spear. A small spear struck out into space. It hit straight for the violinist but never reached her.

The spear kept trying to break through a strange, invisible protective field; it kept intensifying, consuming space around the tip. The melody of the violin ceased pressing on the entire ship, and the violinist tried somehow to withstand this attack.

When she saw this spear, she realized something terrible: this person was a senior officer, and he was enveloped in the attire of a very formidable enemy - Lucy, along with her weapon, ranked second in strength on the battleship. Some even considered her stronger than Arlok. But the violinist was horrified; she felt Eden with her entire being. She realized the wretchedness of her situation, but most of all, she worried about the plan. The less she suppressed the battleship from the outside, the stronger it became inside...

"Werner didn't anticipate this!" Her hairstyle began to mess up, her appearance showing extreme fatigue.

At that moment, Lucy remained unrelenting; she only expended the power of her weapon. She had only one "small masterpiece" with her, but even it amazed with its power. Lucy continued to swing her sword, cutting incoming monsters to pieces.

"I can't believe my eyes," "Do" thought to herself.

The spear was approaching her, and Lucy was about to destroy all creatures around her. The violinist protected Melodies, but now all her strengths were directed towards protection, which wouldn't last long.

"Lucy, are you breaking the battleship's shield?" Kai made the girl stop. The final swing that destroyed the last monster made the girl finally turn her attention to the violinist.

Her play became fast and aggressive, but she still didn't stop, although Lucy no longer felt the violinist's power on her. Lucy prepared to strike with her sword when suddenly something exploded to her right. Two girls swiftly, incredibly swiftly, approached her. A sword strike towards them didn't change their position; this attack didn't reach them.

But suddenly, around three strange objects appeared in front of the faces of the two girls. These objects had a rounded shape, and inside, a strange little crystal floated. When the objects split, three threads appeared in front of the girls. But the fan and the umbrella managed to save their owners.

The two girls tried to attack Lucy, but at that moment, they saw with their own eyes an enormous accumulation of Eden.

"Incredible power!" Yui said, it was incredibly difficult for her to stand, as if all of Eden were directed solely at her, but she immediately suppressed Lucy for all three of them.

The girl with the umbrella looked at "Do", amazed by the power of Tuden Spear, about to break the violinist's defense, and she would die. The umbrella tip aimed at Lucy, who immediately covered herself with her left hand, forming a small shield.

But suddenly, the girl with the umbrella changed her target to the spear. A strange black, small hand reached for the spear. Sounds of an organ playing filled the surroundings; Lucy felt danger. She reached out, and the spear appeared in her hand, and whatever was pressing on the violinist's defense disappeared. But the violinist didn't rejoice; she knew one thing - there was another senior officer here, Nebel.

"Yui!" she shouted, and the power of the violin flowed towards "Fa".

But at that moment, a whip engulfed the kimono-clad girl's neck and, with a sharp movement, pressed her neck. The girl with the umbrella clicked her tongue and struck towards the whip. Out of nowhere, another figure appeared in the same attire as Lucy. But just as the girl with the umbrella viciously turned and attacked, Lucy's spear aimed for her back. The girl's body disintegrated into hundreds of black lines; soon she appeared a little further away, and the spear flew past her.

"Trash!" Nebel's shoe touched the face of the defeated girl in the kimono.

But at that moment, when he wanted to say something else, the sound of the violin became incredibly strong, pushing Nebel away. At that moment, Lucy tried to strike, but the girl with the umbrella protected the violinist, grabbing the sword with bare hands.

The violinist suddenly appeared in front of Nebel; releasing the violin, she delivered a couple of palm strikes, pushing Nebel a couple of hundred meters away from "Do". When she grabbed the violin again, the girl with the umbrella disintegrated into hundreds of lines and appeared close to the sisters. By enclosing all with the umbrella, the tip of the umbrella began to absorb the trio, leaving only a point in space, which, devoid of a source of power, quickly dissipated.

"We need to talk, Nebel!" Lucy glared at the doctor. He raised his hands and walked towards the hatch.

"Madam, someone has infiltrated the storage..." After the words from the captain's booth, Nebel and Lucy exchanged glances...