Kitty Killer Isn't So Cold

At that moment, the dark Fallen Angel Halo faintly gleamed with dazzling light, like the blazing sun behind black clouds, like a fierce fire within black smoke... For the first time, she had fired because she wanted to shoot. The first feeling to fill her heart was confusion and anger. Along with the Halo and Light Wings that had taken physical form for the first time, Nana, who had never fired the [Fifth Shot], let the muzzle blast scatter the black mist clinging to her Halo and wings.

It was mist dispersed and blown away by a thunderous roar. For the first time, the Sarkaz Sorcery that had tormented Nana every moment lost its effect.

Number Seventy-Seven stood before her target as her complete self for the first time.

Contrary to what Nana had believed, she could not achieve her goal. At the end of the corridor was a staircase leading upward, and beyond that gate, she had merely entered a corner of a room... Loken Williams had avoided Number Seventy-Seven's fifth shot by staying in the elevated "observation deck" at the far end of the room. All five rounds in the gun had missed.

The assassin, carrying no more Etch Round shells, tossed aside the gun she had picked up... Then, in the corridor stained with dried blood, the girl opened her equipment case and took out the WA2000, which also had a five-round capacity.

Yet when the girl raised her own gun, the Halo and wings that had shone so brilliantly suddenly dimmed, becoming covered in black mist once more. The abrupt fading of the Law's power turned Nana's face deathly pale... Kitty Killer had to hold her rifle and gasp for breath several times before recovering.

When she looked up again, Williams had vanished from behind the glass of the High Table.

But... his voice came from the broadcasts all around her... Along with it came the chaotic, heavy footsteps behind her... the sounds of mercenaries rushing at full speed.

[So... you are the legendary Number Seventy-Seven...]

Ignoring Williams, Nana activated her Witchcraft again. Ink-dark smoke once more filled the entire building... The footsteps that had been connected in a single stream behind her immediately dissolved into a confused tangle of falling bodies...

Yet this seemed to have no effect on Williams at all. He continued in an orderly fashion, proposing something as though he had no emotions whatsoever:

[Shall we talk?]

PS: I forgot today's illustration...

Though the Seaborn arc was still many years away—the current year in this book was around 1090—it was also one of my favorite storylines in Arknights... Well, that was something that happened after Nana kicked the Doctor awake.

Rosemary's Embrace: Hesitant Responsibility

There was no sound in the pitch-black, mist-filled room, save for Williams talking to himself:

[Don't want to respond... is that it... While I have more or less grown accustomed to this kind of reaction, I would not advise you to keep it up.]

[An ICA traitor gave me a great deal of information. As the executor, you should have noticed that your mission is far more difficult than it appears... One hundred thousand Lungmen Dollars are simply not worth what you must do, yet you still came here...]

[My usual business logic cannot explain why you insist on such an unprofitable deal. After all, assassins are not supposed to have such things as "sunk costs."]

[So I began contacting people to investigate from eight this morning. After eliminating every possibility, including interference from competitors... I concluded that the reason driving your actions could not be those superficial commercial factors.]

[In business, competition often results in what is known as a "lose-lose" situation, or even one where multiple parties lose... A company is not an individual. As an organization made up of many subjective individuals, I cannot guarantee that every unit truly works together. People betraying us for personal gain, or simply working for outsiders from the beginning, are perfectly normal occurrences... We do not know one another's goals, and can only probe inefficiently within our own limited perspectives.]

[But things are different now. The two of us speaking are independent individuals... We can negotiate. We can talk... If we know each other's objectives, we can understand one another and find a solution acceptable to both sides before reaching a "lose-lose" situation where neither of us can accomplish our goals.]

[If you remain silent, I do not know what you want, but I know you intend to ruin my plans... So do not remain silent. State your objective. Even if it is the most superficial mission you can see, I still have room to negotiate... After all, there is currently no evidence that we are enemies.]

[Of the Bruce family, aside from Andy Bruce, who died of late-stage Oripathy at eighteen hundred yesterday, the others all still retain vital signs.]

[What do you think? Will you continue to remain silent, ICA assassin Number Seventy-Seven?]

Obviously, even though Williams was a target Nana had resolved to kill, the calmly spoken words of the highly educated man seemed to possess a persuasive magic... The young assassin, heading toward the laboratory according to her memories, even felt persuaded for an instant. But she did not stop walking, merely allowing her Witchcraft-altered voice to ask:

"Return the Bruce family to me, and this ends here."

[...I see. So you truly are acting for irrational reasons... Then your persistence makes sense... But in a negotiation, I have my bottom line as well... Even if I return the Bruce family, it will only be after the experiment is fully complete.]

"If you won't listen, I'll beat you all flat... Kill you, and everything will go back to normal."

[...I need to explain something regarding that thought. Though I do not know where you are or what you are doing right now, there is a ninety-percent chance that you are aiming your second gun at me... So I will be direct. Killing me cannot interfere with the experiment itself...]

[Loken Watertank possesses Columbia's most advanced automated equipment... Minimizing outside interference and the role of supervisors while cultivating the most powerful war caster, one untroubled by Oripathy, is itself part of the project.]

"Then I'll kill you and destroy the entire laboratory."

The assassin's cold words silenced the mist for a moment. Then Williams spoke in a tone as though he had realized something:

[...I see. That is what you think... Half an hour ago, that might have been a reasonable condition. But not now... All my preparations are complete. The experiment has entered its final stage... Your commotion at the administrative building checkpoint was considerable, so I had no choice but to abandon the preliminary adjustments to the experimental subjects and proceed directly to the formal modification...]

[Oh, I am not shirking responsibility. I merely hope you will listen rationally until I have finished... The laboratory has already entered the main procedure. If you casually destroy the equipment, every numbered test subject on the automated medical system will die, and your own mission will fail as well... Yes, that is what worries me. No one gets what they want. That would be complete failure.]

The moment he finished speaking, a string of footsteps suddenly appeared beside Williams, making cold sweat break out all over his body.

A black-haired Fallen Angel wearing a bloodstained white coat appeared before him. Without her wings and Halo, she looked like an utterly ordinary girl... One hand held a rifle aimed at the experimental equipment beyond the one-way glass behind him, while her other handgun was aimed at Williams.

At the caster's will, the mist between them opened up a space, allowing Nana to see the scene beyond the observation room... Though the broadcasts had not carried it, this room could clearly hear the roar of electric drills and saws, as well as the children's crying and screams... Eight mechanical arms were doing something to Colt, who was strapped down, while the other two Little Cats loudly called the name of their brother, who had stopped moving.

"...You call this 'room for negotiation'? Isn't Colt already dead?! Stop that machine right now!"

"I can't. At this stage, the procedure will not stop, even if you kill me... Also, his brainstem and spinal cord should already have been fully extracted. That is to prevent the crystallization disease from spreading... They are not dead... Or rather, what exactly counts as being alive?"

Seeing Williams act as though he had given up, Nana immediately pulled the trigger of her handgun. The middle-aged man clutched his thigh and collapsed with a cry.

As the black-haired Fallen Angel, seemingly having investigated beforehand, grabbed him and first verified the surgical Terminal through fingerprint and iris scans before beginning to operate the machine, Williams pressed down on his wound to stop the bleeding. Though he sucked in breaths of pain, his tone remained calm:

"As you... can see... I deleted my own permissions, specifically to... prevent circumstances like this... The cultivation of Originium Organs relies on the Bruce family's Originium Arts for stabilization, until the final Subject Number Five... Matilda Bruce... She is the experimental subject guaranteed to succeed... She will become... the strongest war caster..."

"She never asked you to modify them..."

"Insufficient permissions" kept appearing on the screen. Nana watched the mechanical arms next door rotate the hospital bed fixed onto the wheel by one position. As Kevin also entered anesthesia, Nana no longer wanted to wait and raised her rifle at the glass...

But almost simultaneously, Williams, who had been sitting on the floor, seemed to press some button on the console. A wall panel beside the control room unfolded, revealing five upright cultivation tanks... The tank marked [00] had already been laid down, and its glass was completely black.

And the brains and neural components inside the other two tanks... made even Nana, who considered herself accustomed to bloody sights, stop moving.

"I still advise you not to do that... The entire automated system for the operating table is self-regulating and coupled... If one step goes wrong, the entire system will lose power... Ah... As industrial design, it has no system redundancy, which seems like the designer's mistake... But yes... that was intentional too... Want to try it, assassin?"

Just as Nana recovered from her shock and turned her gun toward Williams, an electronically synthesized voice suddenly came from the side panel that had just risen.

[...Th-this voice... is that Nana?]

"Kate?"

The woman's voice drew the assassin's attention, and even Williams showed surprise for the first time:

"...You actually can..."

"Shut up!"

Kicking Williams away before he could say anything else, Nana slung her rifle over her back and stepped closer, unsure what to do:

"...Kate? You... can still see me... But..."

But how did you recognize me?

Before Nana could finish, the tank before her continued speaking in a current-like, synthesized voice... Or rather, the voice moved beyond the electronic synthesis stage and began to sound in Nana's mind in Kate's real voice:

[It really is Nana... Well, I lost my body, not my glasses. And perhaps because I was previously taken away for experiments... Though I cannot adapt to that strange organ either, after becoming like this, my Originium Arts seem to have been strengthened instead... I can directly sense your thoughts like Mia can... I can even achieve Empathy like Mother... Though that uncle behind you really is inhuman when it comes to treating people like people, his technical skill really does seem first-rate~]

A gentle current of air brushed tears from Nana's cheeks. The young assassin did not dare look directly at the life-support tank... No matter how lightly Kate made it sound in Nana's mind, Nana had no idea what she was supposed to do next.

Had the mission failed?

Kate had become like this... but she could still talk to her?

Did this still count as being alive?

Or, just as Williams himself had said... what exactly counted as being alive?

Should she make Matilda, the last intact person on the operating table, her protection target?

But if she did that, Kate, who was currently being kept alive by machinery, would...

As Nana's mind shook for several seconds, the fourth tank lit up and revealed its contents... Colt's puzzled "Huh?" even sounded in Nana's mind, but Kate seemed to communicate with her brother instantly. The boy who had been so noisy earlier now seemed to have returned to the shy manner he had shown when they first met.

[...Seeing you suffer so much makes me feel guilty instead... Sorry for dragging you into this...]

"...What do you mean, dragging me into it... Kate, how can you be so calm about this!?"

[...Because I cannot really have much of an intense reaction anymore...]

Williams watched the Fallen Angel responding to the samples' lingering Originium Arts as though she could speak with them, his eyes nearly splitting with rage.

Within his vision, the Halo above the Fallen Angel girl's head, like dark clouds and mist, began to twist as if changing frequencies... It seemed to be searching for a waveform, like something being smelted into shape—a crown.

At that moment, the disbelief in Williams's eyes was even more frenzied than Nana's had been when she first saw the sample maintenance tanks... His experience and knowledge quickly confirmed the situation.

Witchcraft—Sarkaz.

Judgment—Sankta.

With that unmistakably Feline appearance, she could only be a Chimera... And as a Chimera, capable of connecting directly to other living beings through Originium Arts... even to the lingering emotions of biological remains, while manifesting as a Black Crown...

"You are... you are the finished product of that legendary project..."

"Shut up!!"

Just as Nana prepared to pull the trigger for the second time, a hand suddenly grabbed her within the assassin girl's vision...

"Kate?"

[Nana, you can't kill him... Doesn't the Ministry of Defense still need his research? Many people need him and his research... If you kill him, then we samples... and Mia, whom he says will definitely survive, will become those people's targets...]

[You couldn't protect all of us even when we could run on our own. Much less now that we have become like this.]

It was Colt, who had remained silent until now... After hesitating for a while, the boy turned his face away...

How strange. He no longer even had something that could be called a face, so why could she still see what he and Kate looked like... Was this the Bruce family's Originium Arts?

[Sorry... The priest and the nun... We couldn't help at all...]

"The priest... sooner or later, it would have happened... I knew that..."

The priest had ultimately walked toward destruction, solely because a kind man had remained true to his own path.

Nana had never considered things like that before... But now, only one sentence remained in her heart.

"But this isn't fair..."

Whether it was the children crying in the laboratory or the priest who had taught her how to live... they should never have suffered like this. Why were the people willing to show her kindness never treated kindly by life?

As Nana continued to hesitate, the fifth sample tank began receiving its contents as well.

The rifle in her hands had long been ready, but Nana did not even know where to point its muzzle... In the end, she turned her back on the laboratory, refusing to watch Matilda suffer.

In Nana's heart, the children and Kate and Cole were equally important. Though the twins had somehow been declared "dead" during the surgical procedure... weren't they still right before her eyes?

Kate was even comforting her with words like [It can't be helped], while Cole held her around the shoulders... They were alive... If she fired, would she be saving people, or killing them while they were still alive?

Nana no longer knew what to do.

[Go help Mia.]

This time, it was a man's voice.

"...Andy?"

[I agree with Williams... Since there is no way to resist anyway, didn't you just set yourself a random goal and end up accomplishing nothing? Then let Williams do it. Let Mia become the strongest war caster.]

"Dear, you can't say that. It is true that we cannot resist, but Nana came to save us out of kindness... What right do you have to blame her?"

"...Cole..."

The translucent phantom lying against her shoulder gently embraced her. Nana could feel the other's helpless, sobbing voice.

[...How can one person fight against a sudden Catastrophe... Trying to stop it without preparation will only leave you crushed to pieces... Colt and Kevin told us what happened at the church... If we had known that so many people would die for us, perhaps we would have agreed to Dr. Williams's request from the very beginning.]

"...Then... don't your own lives matter?"

[...Isn't this tragedy the sorrowful result of forcibly confronting the violence of an entire city?]

"So... Cole thinks... it would be better to do nothing?"

Hearing Nana's question, the ghostly Feline woman hugging the assassin girl wore a strange expression:

[No... We did act... We did everything... Andy had worked independently all these years, but Loken Watertank had bought off the entire city, forcing Andy to hide everywhere just to find work. Even earlier, we repeatedly rejected their invitations... After learning of Dr. Williams's plan, our entire family tried several times to leave this city, but the truth was that we were still surrounded by Loken Watertank's influence... In the end, we lacked the strength and fell into our current fate...]

[But... we did everything...]

[Did nothing...]

[Those who did not do anything...]

[Those who did not even know whether they should act...]

[Wasn't that you, Nana?]

Suddenly... the phantom embracing her seemed to melt, turning into thick, bubbling sludge like scalding asphalt.

The horrifying shapeshifter rolled and boiled... Then it became a Sankta with a Halo above her head... It had Nana's own appearance.