Emilia, who still had no idea what had happened, was carried through the air by Little Unicorn, tossed about by the shockwave. Her pointed ears drooped in fright from the deafening noise and blinding white light.
Once Little Unicorn steadied herself in midair, Emilia was just about to turn and ask after Luvia when she saw Shade, eyes tightly shut and falling headfirst from the sky, brush past them as he plummeted below.
At that moment, the Elf Girl, her eyes wide, felt something within her soul shatter completely.
"Roar!"
Without pausing, the Black Dragon God flying above the Sacrificial Ground raised its head toward the sun once more. Then it spewed black light down at the city below, aiming directly for where Shade's body was falling.
"Neigh!"
The trembling Young Little Unicorn raised her glowing horn toward the unavoidable beam. Behind the vacant-eyed Luvia, a transparent figure with long hair appeared above them, her face full of sorrow as she extended a finger toward the descending light.
"Meow!"
"Meow~"
That sorrowful cat's cry seemed to spread throughout all of Moon Bay in that instant. Amid the rubble of Belinder Manor beneath the Sacrificial Ground, Little Mia suddenly leaped from Tifa's arms, clamped her teeth around the half of the Philosopher's Stone that had fallen before Shade, then threw back her head and howled at the sky.
The cry scattered the clouds overhead and shook the already restless earth. Even the rumbling caused by the god's attack was calmed by that single feline cry.
But Emilia, riding the Unicorn, felt the cry most deeply. The armor she wore actually detached itself from her body after the cat's cry. Its separate pieces turned into more than a dozen golden streams of light, faster even than the black beam, and joined the