Kitty Killer Isn't Very Cold

Even the church hurt as if something had been stuffed into her heart!

Could she do nothing but cry?!

Oh? Wasn't she crying too?!

Then do something else! Heal!

Like those heroes from television, books, and stories, strong enough to support everyone!

Fight! Destroy!

Turn pain into a roar!!

Just like everyone had taught her!!

Matilda was only a child, after all. At the very end, what she saw... was the killer who had refused to save her before, yet had killed her entire family.

What could a child understand?

She merely waved her hand in anger, on instinct... but that terrifying power instantly gathered...

It was her first time wielding such immense power. The moment Matilda waved her hand, she regretted it... Her hand had touched blood once again... and the dazed girl saw her suffering family shaking their heads at her.

She understood no principles, knew nothing of so-called sacrifice, knew nothing of pain, and understood absolutely nothing about death... Yet the girl suddenly understood what regret was.

Only now did she realize that the other person had been holding her tightly... and that person... was already covered in wounds.

But... the steadily flowing blood was something the girl had only seen at the church...

Was Nana hurt... because of her?

Why had this happened?

Hadn't she... gained powerful strength?

Why couldn't she become someone like "Father"... No, it would be better if she did not become someone like him.

Then, dazed—or perhaps simply compliant—the girl was held in the other person's arms... Matilda began confirming it with her Arts.

Soul, will... anything was fine, as long as it was something similar... It really was Sister Nana.

She really had come to save her.

"Mia, we can go home now."

The last remaining sister said that to her. Her mother waved to her at her side, the sister who made her sweet pastries smiled and stroked her head... Her brothers... ah, were they hiding? Were they embarrassed because they had cried from the pain in front of her just now?

Were the painful things... over?

It was just that... looking at the wound she had caused, Little Cat reached toward Nana... but did not know where to begin.

In the end, Mother tore off a strip of cloth from Sister Nana's clothes and crudely wrapped it around her left eye, which had become an empty hollow.

Matilda began sobbing again...

Her head hurt, her heart hurt... Seeing the hollow where Sister Nana's eye had been... made her own eyes hurt too...

"It's okay... It's all right... As long as Mia wakes up."

Sister Nana's smile was as gentle as ever, while Matilda looked toward Sister Kate, floating beside them... If it was Big Sister, she should know what she ought to do.

After receiving her little sister's plea for help, the big white cat floating in the air pondered for a long while. Only as Nana carried Matilda through the ruins step by step did Kate finally speak.

[At a time like this, Dad's style would definitely call for a long lecture full of grand principles... But he's exhausted and doesn't want to come out, and you definitely wouldn't understand if he lectured Mia using his methods... So let's skip the lecture.]

[Mia wants to comfort Nana, right? You want to apologize? Suddenly attacking her was indeed wrong, Mia... But violence, well... How to use it is something you still have plenty of time to learn.]

[So, back to Nana herself... She's really a person full of mysteries~ Very alluring, isn't she? Mom and I originally thought we'd never see you again...]

[But we never expected we could communicate through Originium Arts like this... Our power can actually transcend even death. It's unexpectedly romantic... Of course, dying hurts a lot, so Mia, be careful in the future. If you accidentally die again next time, who knows if there'll be anyone to save you?!]

Watching her sister make faces at her like she was grabbing ghosts with both hands, Little Cat shrank deeper into Nana's embrace.

Wait, wasn't her sister actually a ghost now?

The sudden realization sent Matilda's thoughts flying out beyond the universe again, and the girl's expression as she looked at Nana grew even more blank.

That worried Miss Killer... Though she had interrupted the process at the most appropriate point according to her own understanding... Looking at her like this... could her head still be damaged?

Thinking so, Nana draped her slightly damaged white coat over Little Cat, then looked toward the groups of combat personnel gradually closing in from afar... Nana smiled at Matilda, but the hand behind her back had drawn a pistol.

"...Things may get a little bumpy next... If you feel uncomfortable, be sure to tell me as soon as possible..."

[...She's smiling... but it still feels painful, doesn't it? Right... Nana's pain is flowing over through Originium Arts... And if you can soothe Sister Nana's pain, Mia, perhaps you'll feel much better too.]

Not knowing whether she should nod or shake her head, Matilda puffed out her cheeks slightly in Nana's arms... Sister Kate had been talking about things she did not understand at all since earlier, so the girl let out a pained whimper.

Misunderstanding the child's distressed sound, a certain killer quickened her pace.

"...We're going home..."

[...She says it as if we still have a home to return to... Yes, she means taking you back to her home... But in order to save us... Nana lost her own home too. She has nowhere to go...]

Looking at the confused gaze of the youngest sister in the family, Kate wished she could stuff herself into her sister's body just to comfort that person who did not understand the situation at all and was even preparing to fight the military...

What had the Bruce family done to deserve this?

Was it because, just as Mother said, she had never lived a normal life before?

The Feline who could only clearly feel people's hearts after death sighed... Then she looked at her sister, who understood nothing.

[Come on~ Do it with me~]

"Nana... Sister..."

The sudden voice from her arms startled Nana. The killer immediately drew back the foot she had stepped out with and returned to the shadows of the ruins.

Miss Killer first tested the child's temperature in her arms, then carefully examined the wound extending from the back of her head all the way down to her tailbone...

"What is it, Mia... Does it hurt? I'm sorry... I'll take you to see a doctor right away afterward... Bear with it a little longer... It'll be over soon..."

"Sister Nana... I don't hurt... Sister Nana is hurting... Sister Nana's pain... is flowing into my heart..."

"Huh?"

The killer, already prepared to fight with everything she had, heard the child's inexplicable words that seemed to carry a trace of teasing. This time, she truly went blank for quite a while.

But immediately afterward, the child in her arms reached up and wrapped her arms around Nana's neck.

"Sister Nana... has no memories... right... Mom, my sisters, and my brothers... even Dad... are all with Sister Nana..."

"I... don't understand... Is this also the Bruce family's Originium Arts?"

"Sister Kate said it isn't ours. It's Sister Nana's Originium Arts..."

Mine?

Nana's thoughts immediately turned to the Witchcraft that devoured death... And supposedly... the one served by those who used that Witchcraft also swallowed the pain of their kin... then used the flames of that hatred to answer the enemies who harmed their kin.

But Nana's knowledge could not be applied to herself at this moment... She was different from the "Demon King" in the records... She hated no one and would not answer anyone.

She was merely a vessel.

She only hurt because she had always been holding pain within herself.

She missed her potted plant friend... If she hugged it, she probably would not feel as constrained as she did when hugging Little Cat.

Changing positions, Nana put away her weapon and held the child who had lost everything because of her hesitation with both hands.

"I... don't hurt."

"You're lying. Sister Kate said so... She said you don't even know where your pain comes from, so of course you don't know that you're hurting."

Seeing that the little one seemed to be in fairly good spirits, Nana helplessly curled her lips into a smile.

"So?"

"Um... Mmm... Mom seemed to have taught us... Painful things, sad things, frightening things... If you really don't know how to deal with them... then you can only learn to endure them.

"But Sister Nana has no memories and doesn't know how to endure, so her heart is full of pain, and it's all overflowing over to me..."

Rubbing against Nana's chest, Little Cat spoke softly as if she were sleepy.

"Sister Kate said Nana is afraid... Afraid of the memories of living together with us... I don't know what could be frightening about memories that lasted only three days. Weren't they all very happy memories... But since Nana is afraid, let's defeat it together... Eh... How do we do that..."

Looking at the child in her arms who seemed truly able to speak with the dead, Nana seemed to see through her that family who had changed her once more.

As if it were an illusion, Nana could no longer tell whether what she was seeing was Originium Arts or merely her own imagination... Cole appeared at her side, holding the now-quiet Matilda, then gently kissing one of Nana's cat ears.

Was it an illusion?

But her cat ear really did seem to have touched something...

[Legend says... there is a magical plant that can finally make those unable to face their memories become brave... Though saying this may seem terribly selfish... but...]

[...Could she become your Rosemary?]

Taking the child "Cole" handed over, the weight in her arms seemed to become real once more... Nana, one eye covered by a temporary bandage, looked at the sleeping child and could not help whimpering like a child herself.

After collecting herself and bringing her reason back online, Nana forced the thoughts of venting her rage and killing her way through an entire street back into her mind.

She could not do that. Apart from her potted plant, she now had a child to care for.

This was the continuation of the contract...

It was proof that it was not that person who had been greedy, but that she herself needed to make up for her mistakes.

Miss Killer pulled herself together and opened the mission combat record she had kept closed all this time.

"Let's begin. A new mission."

PS: All right... Nana, who had begun to doubt whether she was seeing hallucinations, had finally been comforted by Mrs. Cole and regained her sanity.

Next came... well, what followed.

It was hard to say whether what came next would be an ace killer or John Wick... But as long as the problem could be solved by killing people, and the enemy was not some vague thing like "this land" or "the continuation of civilization," Nana could probably handle it quite well...

After all, the first volume had been a plot-forced death for Nana... How was someone who had discovered the situation that very day supposed to deal with a conspiracy that had been planned for at least fifteen years...

PSS: So, today's picture.

PSSSS: I originally wanted to post some spicy pictures to lighten everyone's mood, but after thinking about it, I decided not to test the limits of moderation... Cute ones should work just as well, right? White cats deserve cuddles, and pink cats deserve cuddles too. That is what counts as healthy.

Rosemary's Embrace: 021 Rookie Killer × Super Agent √

Leytonson City was bathed in brilliant sunlight today, yet for some unknown reason, clouds of smoke and gunpowder had begun drifting through the sky.

An explosion in the old district late at night, a chain-reaction traffic accident on the highway in the morning, and a massacre at the parish church in the afternoon... As the number of victims steadily increased, the organizations involved grew more serious, and the nature of the incidents became increasingly vile, the public could not help becoming worried...

Just as the police chief pounded his chest on television and guaranteed that City Hall had enough armed forces to protect every Columbia citizen, as people throughout the city watched police set up roadblocks intersection by intersection, military convoys drove onto the highway, and Armored Huntsmen transports deployed at every district entrance and exit with warning lights flashing...

An event suddenly occurred that made the Columbia state government, Catastrophe messengers, and every Leytonson citizen—whether public servants or not—feel their hearts sink.

At dusk that day—5:45 in the afternoon.

Catastrophe inspection posts throughout Leytonson City detected an "earthquake"-type Catastrophe with a depth of zero, originating at Loken Watertank Experimental Park.

After the city experienced a powerful main quake of magnitude seven, followed by several anomalous Aftershocks, the Columbia Department of Defense finally determined that it had been caused by large-scale Originium Arts.

The President, the Ministry of Defense, the governor, and the local National Guard immediately announced their intervention in the incident.

At the same time, Contingency Contract and more than twenty-five Columbia partner organizations "once again" submitted evidence to the Columbia government that Loken Watertank was conducting illegal experiments, and this time they brought a "witness" onto the press conference stage.

The elderly messenger named Outcast recounted the crimes she had "seen" at Loken Watertank Experimental Park and revealed evidence for everything.

[...And the reason I can stand here and expose these innumerable crimes to the world is the result of another colleague from Contingency Contract—a doctor determined to save those innocent victims—fighting with all her strength.]

[To protect that colleague and the rescued victims, please forgive me for being unable to announce their names here. But I believe Columbia's laws will certainly deliver a fair judgment in this case.]

[Contingency Contract has now deployed our partner organizations' landships outside Leytonson City. We will ensure that the brave doctor who exposed this incident, so full of blood and evil, returns as a hero to the city where she lived.]

"So basically, with third-party organizations watching, I no longer need to worry about the military tearing off the mask and directly attacking to seize this child?"

[Although several generals who funded Loken Watertank are doing everything they can to demand the retrieval of Fi... Um... the retrieval of little Matilda... The entire country is watching this place now. In addition, the Rhodes Island Landship's optical equipment is livestreaming the entire process of you bringing this child out of the ruins... While you used the fog to buy time, our people successfully moved into position as well... Not ICA, but people from our own faction. You can relax a little now, Killer... No, "Agent" Number Seventy-Seven.]