The Technology Minister's Unauthorized Reinspection, Chaos Magic's Sorrowful Resonance

The sound of footsteps was exceptionally clear in the deathly silence of Zero Storage Room.

Natasha's fingertips unconsciously traced the metal casing of the listening device as she breathed very softly.

The footsteps stopped in front of the Archive Cabinet.

There was no unlocking, no touching, only a long silence.

Natasha frowned. She increased the sensitivity of the Probe, and a faint hissing sound came through the headphones.

"Everyone, get out."

A woman's voice, low but carrying an undeniable authority, spoke. It was Wanda.

"Madam Minister, according to regulations, night patrols must be conducted with at least two people present..." A hesitant, unfamiliar male voice rang out; it was the night guard.

"I said, get out." Wanda's voice didn't rise, but in Natasha's earpiece, the indicator light representing the energy spectrum flickered uncontrollably, flashing a Scarlet.

The guard's voice faded away. Then came two hurried footsteps retreating into the distance, followed by the heavy echo of the lead door being locked again from the outside.

The warehouse was once again filled with deathly silence.

And Wanda.

Natasha adjusted her posture, leaning slightly forward. The show was about to begin.

She thought Wanda would immediately take action, using her unreasonable magic to forcibly break the seal. But she didn't.

Wanda just stood there, motionless.

Time passed slowly, so slowly that Natasha began to think she, too, was just a silent mime.

"... Why?"

A very soft, almost whispered question came through the earpiece.

The voice no longer carried the usual coolness of the Technology Minister; instead, it carried a hollowed-out weariness and sorrow.

"On the ruins of Sokovia, for the forty-first time..."

Natasha's pupils suddenly contracted.

She heard Wanda's voice trembling, as if she was trying hard to suppress something.

"... those bullets... passed through your spine and hit me."

"It hurts a lot."

"Every time, it hurts so much."

A suppressed sob came through the earphones, like a wounded Beast licking its wounds in a deserted corner.

Natasha held her breath. She couldn't understand the broken words, but she could hear the pain within them, a pain powerful enough to burn everything.

This is not acting.

This is true.

Wanda was speaking to an empty Archive Cabinet, or rather, to the vague, ethereal secret about Lynn inside.

You lied to me.

You've lied to me time and time again.

"You say it's a TVA conspiracy, a false memory Anchor... but this feeling can't be wrong."

As she spoke, the energy spectrum curve on Natasha's listening device began to fluctuate wildly. It wasn't a violent burst of energy, but a resonance at an extremely high frequency, like the lingering echo after a string has been plucked.

Scarlet, Chaos Magic was emanating from Wanda's body in wisps, but it didn't attack anything; it simply enveloped the cold Archive Cabinet sadly and gently.

They seemed to have their own lives, trying to smooth out the cold, sharp metal edges of the cabinet, futilely searching for that once-familiar scent.

"I saw it... inside the Chip, I saw it..."

Wanda's voice grew increasingly broken, tinged with sobs.

"They tied you to the rack, over and over again..."

"Your blood has dried up, your bones are broken, you've turned to ash..."

Why didn't you tell me?

"You'd rather let that madwoman Hela know, or that monster Jean know, than tell me?"

By the end of the questioning, she was sobbing uncontrollably.

Natasha listened quietly, her face expressionless, but her eyes gleamed with the sharp glint of a hunter spotting his prey.

Sokovia. Forty-first. Pierced by a thousand bullets. On the rack.

Keywords rapidly combined and collided in her mind, sketching a dark profile of Lynn that she had never touched upon before.

He faked his death more than twice.

He survived forty-one, or even more, "executions".

Wanda was a witness to all of this, and even the cause of it.

This is their deepest bond, and also their most fatal weakness.

Natasha lightly tapped the "record" button on the control panel, preserving the audio recording filled with energetic vibrations and a hidden sob.

She knew that all the junk information Lynn had fed her through bureaucratic procedures was a joke in the face of this recording.

He wanted to drown a needle in a flood.

But he hadn't anticipated that Wanda would personally hand the needle to him.

Wanda's emotions seemed to have reached their peak, and the resonance of the Chaos Magic had also reached its zenith. In the images transmitted back by the Probe, the entire Zero Storage Room was shrouded in a thin layer of Scarlet Mist, and a layer of blood-red frost had even condensed on the cold metal walls.

But the next moment, that energy, powerful enough to tear reality apart, receded like a tide, disappearing completely.

Wanda's crying stopped.

She simply leaned quietly against the Archive Cabinet, like a lost child who had finally found a tombstone to lean on.

"I know you're still lying to me," she said in a voice only she could hear. "It's okay, I'll uncover the truth myself."

After speaking, she straightened up and wiped away the tears on her face. When she turned to face the lead door, her face regained the cold and aloof expression of the Technology Minister.

She pressed the internal Communicator.

"Routine inspection complete, everything is normal. Open the door."

The lead door opened, and the guards outside looked at her tremblingly, not daring to speak.

Wanda didn't even glance at them and walked straight away.

The headphones fell silent again.

Natasha slowly removed her headphones, holding the Microchip containing the recording between her fingertips and playing with it under the light.

Her cold eyes were reflected on the surface of the Chip.

This thing is a key, and also a knife.

Should she confront Lynn directly? No, that's a poor strategy. Lynn will only use more lies and rules to evade the issue, and might even use it to revoke the Inspectorate Authority she finally obtained.

Give it to Hela? That woman only has conquest and destruction in her mind. She would lead the Undead Fleet to raze the Department of Technology to the ground. This is not what Natasha wants to see.

So...

Natasha's gaze drifted to another direction in the office building.

That was the temporary office area for the newly established Multiverse Crisis Response Special Envoy.

The woman named Jean Grey was equally powerful and equally possessive of Lynn, but she was more arrogant Hela and more unpredictable than Wanda.

Use the secret of one madman to expose another madman.

Natasha's lips finally curled into a cold smile. She carefully placed the Chip into an encrypted container disguised as a cufflink, stood up, straightened her uniform collar, and walked towards the door.