"Your mistress should be frozen by now."
Hoshino held Miss Schwarz close for warmth and spoke in a tone so calm it was almost a declaration. That deathly tone made Schwarz frown. She stood up, broke free from Hoshino's embrace, and prepared to rescue her mistress.
"But I know the person on the other end of the call. Miss Ceylon's safety shouldn't be a concern."
She paused, nearly torturing Schwarz to death.
"You know her?"
"I don't know Rita well, but I know the organization behind her very well. If she habitually slaughtered innocents, she would've been expelled from the Immortal Blades long ago," Hoshino said unhurriedly.
"That armor should be the Silver Moon set. Your mistress should currently be trapped in an ice prison."
"..."
Schwarz did not speak immediately. She did not lose her composure.
After a long while, she asked coldly, "You know this woman so well that I'm beginning to suspect you're putting on an act together. To be honest, I still haven't dismissed that suspicion."
"You're welcome to suspect me."
Hoshino said helplessly, "She can freeze an entire city with her armor, and I can snap your neck right here. Why would I need to put on an act?"
Politicians and ordinary people would accept that reasoning.
But she was an assassin, part of the security force. She had always judged others under the assumption of guilt.
"Only when one can't refute something logically does one try to disprove it through motive."
Schwarz's answer was hard and cold. Hoshino was still smiling as she reached out and touched Schwarz's chin. Rather than respond, she sighed naturally. "Such a good child, nearly turned into a paranoid wreck by this world."
No matter what she said, Schwarz still felt that the shrine maiden was insincere. She was