The dreadnought brought them as close to the oasis as it could safely manage, and the helicopter would handle the rest. They sat as seven, but not fully eight, in the fuselage, the ocean below passing by in a blue blur.

(Gamagoori) "Finally got enough leg room, at least. Is it still at REVOCS, Inumata?"

(Inumata) "Correct. Ah - t-thank you for planting the tracker on it before we left, Ryuko. I wouldn't want to trigger the bomb."

"Yeah." she murmured, her eyes firmly glued on the screen in her lap. Blinking like twin strobe lights, their destination, and the terror's location. It was still nestled safely within its prior den. None wished to approach that doomed perimeter.

"… You know. This is gonna be our last mission together." murmured Nonon, a wave of familiarity striking her. "We better get all our secrets out."

"As if." Inumata shook his head. "Without the leviathan here, it would be no fun at all."

"I can say one for him." Ryuko grinned. "Does that count?"

(Gamagoori) "It really shouldn't - but drastic times call for drastic measures."

(Nonon) "What if we did something different? Some real juicy shit. Maybe you get to ask someone something."

"A wonderful idea." smirked Satsuki, steepling her fingers and looking to the six like a hungry dog looks at a steak.

(Nui) "Ooo! What if we got to ask one question, and they have to answer it truthfully?"

Satsuki was in good company with that couturier. Her eyes gleamed with anticipation, in timing with the one.

"Let's start, then." said Satsuki, grinning fiercely at imminent humiliation. "Who would like to start? A single question, to anyone you would like."

"I got a good one." grinned Nonon. Her eyes fluttered between the other six, so as to not reveal her target until it was too late.

"I still need to think of mine." muttered Gamagoori. "I'd say let the conductor go first."

(Sanageyama) "Agreed."

(Nui) "Ooo! She has such a wild gleam in her two eyes!"

Ryuko's eyes widened in horror as the conductor turned to her, the devil ready to be summoned from its pink-haired portal.

"Ooo. I think Ryuko looks like a juicy target."

"Do tell, Nonon." Satsuki's grin grew by the moment.

"W-What would you e-even want to ask me, anyway? You should be asking Satsuki!" Ryuko's cheeks grew as pink as the executioner's hair. "You should ask Satsuki if -"

"- now now, let the conductor speak."

Across Nonon's face grew the same smirk from that breakfast. "Hey, Ryuko. When we were still at the bunker, you and your boyfriend spent a lot of time together, huh?"

"Y-Yeah. So what? That's just normal couple stuff." grunted Ryuko with clenched teeth and closed eyes.

(Nui) "Ooo! She's blushing like a stuffed pig!"

(Satsuki) "The expression - never mind."

(Nonon) "But you guys usually used his or your room for it, right? And you were always super quiet."

(Ryuko) "D-Did you try to listen in on us?!"

(Satsuki) "A conductor must have highly tuned ears, after all."

(Sanageyama) "Like a hawk, and as keenly tuned as a bat. A pin could drop and she would hear it."

(Nui) "Or an obsidian jackhammer! Chug-chug-chug!"

(Gamagoori) "Let her ask the question, already."

Nonon laughed. "But one night, you guys went somewhere else. You went aaaalllllll the way to the back of the bunker, right?"

(Ryuko) "You've already asked two questions! Jeez…"

(Satsuki) "If you don't hurry, Nonon, there won't be enough time for anyone else."

(Nonon) "I'm trying to build up to it!" She shook her head. "So, my question is - for real this time - what were you guys really doing back there? I bet it must have been real loud, if you wanted to hide it like that."

Ryuko's cheeks burned so fiercely, she might burst in to flames and be saved from the torment regardless. Her eyes darted about and found only the heat of every gaze in the accursed fuselage on her, waiting on her every word.

"… He - my boyfriend just - wanted to -" she sputtered out, desperately attempting to buy time for her lie. " - just - wanted us to do it somewhere new. That's all."

"Ryuko. Do not make a mockery of this game with such an obvious lie." The sisterly shark was a ruthless hunter.

"I…" Her fingers drew in to pretzels, and sweat drew down her brow. She had never imagined she would need to relay this tale. "… I, asked him to… if we could... try roleplaying."

The fuselage erupted in to laughter.

"My, my." said Nonon, shaking her head. Ryuko stopped, thinking that were enough to catch the trend of it. Nonon held her hand out. "Oh no, no, I'm sorry! I shouldn't interrupt."

"A-And so - I played the part of - a bad Ryuko, and I asked him to spank me. Once! Only once - that was the only time we ever did anything like that."

The fuselage erupted in to laughter, and even Ryuko stifled it some at the absurdity of the situation.

"I'll help drive the heat off of you, Ryuko," said Satsuki, holding her hand out to comfort her sister.

"It's the least you could do," murmured Ryuko, leaning back and not knowing if she were safe or only given a brief reprieve.

"Nonon."

It was a wonder the conductor did not shriek. Her cheeks matched her hair, as she turned to meet the shark's gaze. If Satsuki were executioner, this was the French Revolution. Her fingers were steeped with pleasure, as if she might eat cake at any moment.

"I would like to ask you something, quite carefully."

"L-Like about my music? That's easy - I - I mean really embarrassing!" said Nonon, turning her eyes to the windows.

"No, no. It's a question that has been on my mind, for quite some time." The woman was putting on a masterclass in embarrassment. "Ah - I should add some context, for our lovely Nui, here."

"Ooo! Context!"

(Satsuki) "When we were at Honnōji, I ran a contest a month before this year's Tri-City Raids. Whoever could write the most poetic praise of me would win a uniform I had once worn."

(Gamagoori) "What a narcissist." Gamagoori shook his head and grinned.

(Sanageyama) "They ranged from bargain bin to designer, for a term our couturier may be familiar with."

(Satsuki) "They were quite amusing. But there was one I found odd - it was a crown jewel among the rest, but when Nonon read it out, she said it was anonymous. It was quite a disappointment, given how well-written it was - but she threw it in to the trash."

(Ryuko) "Good thing you didn't put it in the shredder, though."

Nonon's eyes widened in horror as she saw Satsuki's fingers dig through one of the drawers at the front of the cockpit, and pull a crumpled sheet of paper forth.

(Satsuki) "Now, Nonon. My question is - would you prefer I read this out loud, or would you like to?"

(Sanageyama) "What's got you so tense, Nonon?" he said, attempting to look over Satsuki's shoulder. She swept the letter close to her chest as if it were a precious artifact.

The conductor sensed there would be no escape. She would be cornered, mercilessly, the sister taking revenge for the sister with the red streak in her hair. She had always bent easily in Satsuki's hands.

With some difficulty, Nonon pushed out a slow gesture to herself, taking gently the precious letter as she clenched back her embarrassment.

(Satsuki) "What luck you were the one who read it out loud that day."

(Nonon) "I - a-a friend submitted it for me! She stole it out of my desk!"

(Satsuki) "A likely story. Did she write it?"

(Nonon) "O-Of course not..." Shaking her head and closing her eyes, her cheeks clenched as she mustered up the last of her energy in the words that felt as if they were her last.

"Dear Lady Satsuki." Her teeth grit and her jaw clenched. "Ever since I first saw you, I can't help but think of you every day, and my dreams have been a constant, wonderful paradise. Whenever I go to sleep I think of your beautiful, stoic face, and whenever I wake up I think of your immense radiance. Your eyebrows frame your face like an angel; your black hair waves about you as if it's a flag marking the most beautiful woman in the world."

She slumped limply against the fuselage. The curiosity of all but Ryuko, Gamagoori, and Satsuki, was growing by the second.

(Satsuki) "Go ahead. Read the last lines."

A high-pitched whimper escaped Nonon, like a flute tuned flat. "H-How stupid would you have to be to not know who wrote it, a-anyway?!"

(Inumata) "Lady Satsuki - I still do not understand the point of this."

(Sanageyama) "She is as red as an apple."

(Nui) "She's fit to blow!"

(Satsuki) "Now, now. This is a direct order, Nonon - read the last lines of the letter."

Nonon sank in her seat, her fingers quivering. "…I would do anything if it meant I could share a single kiss with you, but if you see fit to grant it, I'll settle for an outfit your blessed body has touched."

She closed her eyes. "Love, Nonon Jazakure."

The couturier gasped, not expecting the squadron to contain two women with the same persuasion.

"You really sure you want that kiss, now?" grinned Ryuko, more than happy to turn the tables on the taunting conductor. "She's always like this, you know. She loves embarrassing people. Especially her number-one fan."

Nonon was limp in her seat. "T-This game sucks!"

"Now, now." said Satsuki, shaking her head. "It was only proper to turn the tables back upon you. Come and give me the letter back, Nonon."

With weak legs, Nonon stood and strode to the woman, handing the letter back with weaker fingers. She turned around -

"I didn't tell you to sit." said Satsuki, grinning like a hyena. "Come here, Nonon."

Nonon's eyes widened as she turned, quivering and blushing as Satsuki gestured her back with a single finger. The conductor was a snake charmed. She felt Satsuki place a single hand upon her right cheek, a pale white against sheer pink, underneath her hair and parting softly her bangs. Not a figure in that fuselage was deaf to the sound of the conductor's heart pounding like a mallet.

Closer and closer, Satsuki drew her face, pulling the conductor in unison, until -

- she planted a single kiss on the conductor's quivering lips, then just as quickly pulled her in for a deeper second.

"J-Jeez." murmured Ryuko, averting her gaze, as all but one eye in that fuselage were.

"Ooo! Lesbians!"

- Satsuki pulled away with a flush face and a deeper smile, and as she opened her mouth to speak -

"I-I love this gaaaaameee!" shouted Nonon, which was followed by the sound of a thudding body.

The conductor had fainted. The six, trimmed from eight, burst in to laughter in a raucous harmony, with not a dry eye to be seen in the helicopter that had so quickly turned romantic.

After a long pause and allowing her cheeks to cool alongside her laughter, Satsuki placed her head on her right hand.

"A shame. She won't be able to hear the other questions."

(Ryuko) "She's also safe from them, you know. Maybe you need to wake her up."

(Satsuki) "Now, now. She's quite cute when she's sleeping. Had anyone planned to ask her a question?"

(Inumata) "Before that, yes, but I wouldn't want to have to follow that." Inumata smirked, shaking his head with a laugh. "That may take the peak."

"Now, now." said Gamagoori, dragging the conductor up and placing her on the seat beside. "There's plenty of good questions to be asked - like mine." His eyes flickered to Inumata's, almost threateningly, with a fierce grin on his face.

"Do tell." The shark was back on the hunt again, with a kraken in tow.

"O-Oh dear." Inumata muttered. "I - imagine Sanageyama must have something particularly good."

"No, no." Gamagoori shook his head. "I know when a story doesn't smell right. Now - when you got arrested for the hacking of those banks, a few years back - I read the papers. They said you got sold out by someone in your inner circle."

"A-Ah, yes." Inumata murmured, suddenly with red cheeks. "That - is what they said, correct. An anonymous tip."

Gamagoori's smile grew wide, knowing his throw had landed on a bullseye. "What's the real story behind that? You did it as a solo gig - there shouldn't have been anyone in your inner circle."

"…a-ah. Yes. Quite." sighed Inumata. With a wave of his fingers he bid the fuselage to silence, a mixture of laughter and embarrassment seeking to sprout. "That…is correct, Gamagoori."

"Even Satsuki and I don't know what happened with that. You didn't say much about it to anyone besides the lawyer we got for you."

"What a criminal!"

Inumata laid his head back against the wall. "Yes. I - when I was fifteen, I was the one responsible to hacking in to some thousands of UFJ bank accounts, laundering nearly a billion yen - or ten million dollars - through a variety of proxies. I was very thorough, of course, and as you note, my tracks were quite spotless. My own parents were not aware of what had occurred until the police came crashing down at my door."

"There was no one to sell you out, then?"

Inumata shook his head. "Merely a story created to cover for the prosecution of the - innocent, unfortunately - man that took my place as prime suspect. " He pinched his temples, barely about to suppress laughter. "When - I was a second-year at Honnōji, at the time, and there was quite a… How should I describe her? A young girl, who - I thought - was my age. She enjoyed computer science as much as I did, and she was very beautiful."

"- you didn't." laughed Gamagoori, readying to unleash the full bellow.

"And I, in a foolish bid to impress her, a socially awkward teenager at the time -"

- the helicopter filled with cackling, even Inumata's -

"- asked her - 'Would you like to go out with the man who hacked in to the UFJ?' - and before I had said another word, she slapped a set of handcuffs on me."

- the entire fuselage cracked with that same laughter, bellowing in a true comradely display.

(Gamagoori) "You're fucking serious, aren't you?"

(Ryuko) "THAT'S what your lawyer had to work with?"

(Satsuki) "My - my fucking god -"

(Nui) "What a retard!"

"The boy thought with his penis, and ruined a perfect crime." said Sanageyama, shaking tears of laughter out of his eyes.

"Unfortunately so." said Inumata, laughing alongside the rest. "Or perhaps, fortunately. It did lead to my recruitment."

The laughter died down as they waited for Inumata's question. With an exaggerated display of horror, he turned to Sanageyama, and the oak instantly shook like a leaf.

"Sanageyama, Sanageyama." said Inumata, shaking his head. "You shared quite a wonderful secret with me, during the day you skipped class, four months ago."

"I - yes." muttered Sanageyama, knowing there was no escape. The red sun rose in his cheeks. "I - requested that I be excused from the meeting that day, as I had - a personal matter to attend to."

"Another dick joke." said Ryuko, shaking her head ruefully. "Did you try to fuck someone from Cultural Appreciation?"

(Sanageyama) "N - No. It would be an abuse of authority to attempt - sexual relations - with a club member."

A wave of familiarity struck Ryuko.

(Inumata) "Oh, no, no. This trip was outside of school grounds."

"I - Inumata. That was told to you in full confidence!" said the oak, rustling like a twig. A stifled laugh went around, where all eyes were wide and awaiting.

"Shall you tell it, or I?" grinned Inumata.

Sanageyama sank like a disgraced warrior in his seat. "… Come, then. I shall relate it - and you will sling your arrows of humiliation against me with all your might."

(Inumata) "You haven't even said what it is yet."

(Satsuki) "Only five minutes left, Sanageyama. If you're not quick enough, I'll allow two questions to be asked on the way back."

A deep breath passed, and filled Sanageyama's lungs. His face was a stone tablet, splashed with pink sides, like a cut of steak served for the six.

(Sanageyama) "… I attended the - grand opening of a new cafe. A meet-up, of sorts."

(Ryuko) "That's it?"

(Sanageyama) "A - ganguro cafe."

Immediately Nui let out a ferocious cackle, screeching like birds being burned alive in a shoebox. The others, not catching the strange term, were confused.

"Gan…guro?" muttered Ryuko. "What's that?"

(Nui) "Ooo! It's when women paint their faces orange or black, with ugly pink lips! What a shameful fetish! Your dick must have been dropped on its head!"

"The joke is far less funny if you explain it." said Inumata, relevantly. "It would be best to look it up in your own time."

"A delayed humiliation, then. I - shall not be ashamed for what I am attracted to." said Sanageyama with a face that said he was.

"I'll ask a question to everyone!" said Nui, preening and bouncing. A series of protesting groans went out, and Satsuki shook her head ruefully as she waved the couturier down.

"I did save all of your lives, you know! Only one person needs to answer!"

"... What is it, Nui? Perhaps I'll allow it." said Satsuki, knowing the child was insatiable.

"One of you broke my toilet!" preened Nui, her eye darting between her targets like a laser.

Five figures, one unconscious, and four conscious, fell in to demoralized confusion. The couturier was investigating a crime with no evidence left, and yet, one wide man's expression confessed his guilt as if he had shouted it openly.

"Ooo! Context! When Inumata-mata, Outcasty, and I came back to my home, I found out the toilet was clogged with shit! Literal shit!"

A pained laugh for the hard-boiled detective.

"And it couldn't have been you!" said Nui, pointing like a madwoman to Ryuko. "Or Nononononon! There's no way you could fit a load like that!"

"It - must have been the leviathan." said Gamagoori, his expression porcelain. "Probably - probably - must have gone before you noticed. He - must have left his guard post."

"It was like a brown serpent! I thought a bear broke in, Gama-goo-goo-dolls!"

"Or a behemoth." murmured Ryuko, catching the trend of the conversation.

A weak laugh cracked from Satsuki, which was soon followed by the uproar of the others. The dirty humor roused the five to their longest bout yet, tears of laughter flushing down their cheeks, the couturier shaking her tiny fists like an imp as she stared deeply at the criminal.

"I'll - cover the costs." muttered Gamagoori, averting his gaze as the most embarrassed yet. "Not the first time I've done it."

"I thought it was odd you were in there for so long." said Sanageyama, laughing dishonorably.

After what seemed centuries of laughing, the fuselage fell to silence, and passing the baton, Nui pointed to Ryuko-ko.

"Jeez." Ryuko shook her head, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. "I think I'll go with..."

Inumata stifled a shriek as he saw the red streak turn to him, double jeopardy for the pardoned man. A wide grin arose across Ryuko's face, already knowing her target to be fruitful.

"Wanna talk about that examination you did?" preened Ryuko. "Outcast said you found something really interesting."

"A-Ah." muttered Inumata, no less embarrassed than the first round. "It - it would be an invasion of medical privacy to divulge that."

"You've already invaded it enough," said Satsuki, steepling her fingers hungrily. "Perhaps it'll save our lives again. Go ahead, Inumata."

"It - it is terribly, terribly, terribly embarrassing for the man. Are you certain that is the question you wish to ask?"

"Definitely." grinned Ryuko, Inumata's pink reflecting in her eyes. "Go right ahead."

"I..." Sweat drew down his brow, and his breath came as pants. "... F-Fine. He - I was examining him, of course. A variety of sensors were hooked in to his brain, some wireless, some not, so as to allow me to take his neural patterns even with the armor on."

"A momentous day." muttered Sanageyama. "One that will live in infamy."

"Y-Yes." said Inumata as he scratched his neck. "In - a - admittedly, ill-advised bid, I was attempting to determine how sections of his brain reacted under imagination. I foolishly asked him to imagine holding Ryuko, as I assumed it would be quite familiar to him - "

"- he didn't." bellowed Gamagoori, preparing for the full ruckus again.

"That obsidian was painted white!"

"No, no, nothing of the sort," laughed Inumata, the embarrassment shifting from himself to the leviathan. "Simply that - the blood rushed from his brain to underneath the suit, we realized instantly what had occurred, and we did not make eye contact for the rest of the day."

A laugh burst through the rest, both nostalgic and eager for their comrade to return.

"Told you it'd be a good story." grinned Ryuko, leaning back and shaking her head.

"As he told me, he had imagined you wearing a set of orange pajamas."

Satsuki's eyes shot open. "Excuse me?"

"Uh, nothing, nothing, nothing!" sputtered Ryuko, flailing her arms as her cheeks seared the same color of the red streak. "Let's - um - Sanageyama is next, Sanageyama is next!"

"I - never mind. I do not wish to know." murmured Satsuki, holding her hand out. "Unfortunately, we're at the island. We'll have to finish this some other time."

As if on cue, Nonon sprung weakly to life, flailing slowly in a romantic haze.

"I had a really good dream…" she grinned as she leaned back.

"It was - never mind." murmured Satsuki, shaking her head. The conductor might faint again if she told her the truth, and it could always wait until after.

She turned her gaze to the windows. The island below was fast approaching. There were trees and fields of lush grass, forests like thick sheets of green, shrubbery dotting the landscape.

The helicopter hovered, for a moment, to allow the seven to stand and view the landing zone, cutting back the untamed grass in a circular wind. Hills of shadowed vegetation under the night sky rolled in waves, beyond to where the sand bar that bordered the oasis lay, a thin yellow line that separated green from blue.

In the midst of the clearing where they soon landed, there was a single enclosure. The rectangle jutting out could not have been more out of place, a single door with a single keypad, concrete and metal, that likely led underground to where the last of the loyalists had fled.

The seven shot from the helicopter's back doors. Six stood as an unbreakable line at Satsuki's back, sweeping their vision and searching for an ambush, but found nothing but silence, with untamed vegetation rustling.

Satsuki took the lead of it as she pressed on to the door, placing gently her fingers at the keys.

"Zero - five - zero - nine."

The portal buckled down and sank under the combination. They threw themselves to the top step just as quickly, the hall downward thankfully wider than it had first appeared. Concrete walls turned to metal, which flanked stairs they rushed down, none wishing to be caught in a pincer there.

They came to a wider chamber with glass and blue floors, translucent walls covered in electronics, dim tubes providing the light above and below. They stole stealthily yet swiftly across the room, past the bins of red strands, surgeon's tables, vitals monitors for cargo pilfered from orphanages and cribs. Nui shuddered as she recognized her true birthplace, and peered with one eye at the tables that lined the walls like hospital beds.

"They'll know we've arrived." muttered Satsuki. "The last of them are here, likely in wait with Life Fiber infused girls."

"… We can't do anything to help them, right?" said Nonon. "They - they don't have strands to cut, anymore, but…"

"Only put them out of their misery." said Ryuko as they came to the next keypad. "The infusion rate is probably high enough now, that…"

"… We cannot hold back." said Satsuki, closing her eyes. "They won't hesitate to kill us. As Ryuko says, the best we can do for them is to put them out of their misery."

"Ooo…" murmured Nui, sympathetic but violent.

Satsuki placed her fingers at the keys again. "Zero, one, sixteen."

The door ahead, which took half the wall with it, peeled back like a curtain, and gave way to a corridor. It twisted like a serpent, yawning to the left. Satsuki looked to the walls of this hall, along which were glass tubules like containment pods, strung along the walls and packed tight. They were silent, but contained grisly occupants.

Within these miniature prisons and like a child in a mother's womb, hung red, humanoid figures, formed of Life Fibers.

Before Satsuki had taken another step; the fetuses banged like caged animals against their restraints - the glass prisons shuddered and burst, and instantly the beasts within leaped to the floor and blocked the path of the seven. Cracked and shattered glass rained as the same spectacle repeated further down, like puppets pulled on a string as they began to rush to the seven, mangled and chaotic spawn of hundreds.

"They're - sentient!?" shouted Inumata.

"Kill first - questions later!" shouted Satsuki, clashing and slicing the beasts as five rushed to join her. There was no time for questions or answers in that inferno of blades, that hacking and slashing of Specters and Fibers that met over stained glass in the midst of that corridor.

The seven carved, slashed, lashed, stabbed, conducted, sliced, ripped their foes to shreds; they found them to be far weaker than expected, pushing back the red line with an unbreakable one led by a stroke of white. There were yarn and strands being hacked to bits, guiltless violence enacting corpses, upon which the seven trampled, the symphony catching stragglers at the back as the red zombies threw themselves limply on to the blades.

The seven carved a red path and painted the walls a new color, splashing a wave of crimson as they surged, slashing as seven - and eleven extra - figures down the corridor. There were pods bursting at their backs, streaming a necromantic horde that was desperately attempting to quell the tsunami rushing through the hall, swarming them with new abominations that wilted beneath the whirlpool of swords and scissor. The chaotic spawn were suicidal; they offered no resistance but their bodies, their strands coating the squadron in a berserk haze, whose boots and heels stomped mangled corpses and trampled through red carpets.

An ocean was being drilled in that incubating corridor, the seven's Specters an untold power none could hope to match as they carved a way through. Not a single inhuman figure would stand in that hall once they had left it. The loyalists were truly desperate to use such vermin.

So ferocious did the seven fight in this blaze that Satsuki felt the whole bunker may fall beneath them the same -

- and just as quickly, their spree of violence came to an abrupt end.

They had smashed through each pod, and the entire floor behind was a chaotic rug. Strength counted more than numbers in that undead corridor. The symphony had reverberated through the walls, just as it had in the Tri-City Raids only a week prior, and left a wake of red strands as if a tornado of knives had cut through it.

Still drunk with battle-rage, Satsuki ran down the corridor and came to the next door, a red haze and sheathe in her eyes.

"Wait - Lady Satsuki." said Inumata, taking a moment to pant and catch his breath, where his holograms were in eerie sync. "That - is highly unusual, is it not?

Stopping suddenly, Satsuki wheeled, her face a feral snarl and a bitten animal.

A wave of realization struck her expression. She became pensive, but was still ready to erupt at any moment.

"… It is." She panted, wiping her face clear. "Why would they not use the girls?"

"Maybe they ran out of them capturing Outcast." muttered Nonon. "They're on their last legs. They're not experiments like - Nui, right?"

"Don't be silly, Nonononononononononon. They didn't look human!"

"No." grunted Ryuko. "That's - precisely it. They weren't human."

Inumata's eyes widened in revelation.

"… The purpose was not to create Life Fiber infused humans. Even - no. Of course it would be that. The infants were merely a stepping stone for this, but even a child needs time to grow before it can harness the full strength of Fibers -"

(Ryuko) "- unless it's already completely made of it. That's why she kept trying to push the infusion rate higher - to attempt to make them as strong, but as sentient as needed."

(Sanageyama) "An army that can be produced in a factory."

"We must hurry." said Satsuki, her breath caught in her lungs. "An outfit is far easier to weave than the kidnap of a child - if the time is anywhere near similar, an experienced couturier can create a uniform in hours."

"S-Still. Why lure us here, then? We would've never found this place without them telling us."

"We shall kill first, and ask questions later."

Ryuko nodded, a wave of familiarity striking her. "Agreed."

With no gentle step, Satsuki came to the third panel, which was set along the door like the others.

"Ten thirteen."

As it had with the others, the door opened, to a wide room like the others. A putrid scent immediately attacked their senses; Satsuki stepped forward first, and a piercing gasp left her as they saw her glance right. With wild eyes she rushed down the chamber, shoving instruments and pods aside like the wind, slashing what few foes still remained, and as the six pursued, she shouted a single order back;

"Do not look right! Rush through this - very quickly! Do not look right!"

The six ran with pinched noses, Satsuki running like a feral dog after the next door that lay at the end of the putrid chamber. They felt that the floor at the sides of the room gave way, a deep ditch of steel dug like a canal on both ends; the left, filled with discarded red strands, and none wished to disobey the leader and discover what discarded mass lay at the right.

But Nui was attacked by this horrific scent, like a hundred corpses, and tried as she had to resist, she could not help but look to the source -

- and found the metaphor to be literal. Her cheeks tinted green and her eye clenched shut, wishing she had not seen the sight of these redder heaps and bones, discarded in the valley that extended down the right wall. A shriek passed her lips.

"What did I say?!" shouted Satsuki, smashing her fingers against the keypad like a mad woman; the door opened, painfully slowly, and each hurtled to be the first to exit the death chamber.

Then they were through again, and frantic as the rest passed by her, Satsuki threw shut the great steel door behind.

"I - I don't feel so good…" panted Nui. The images she had seen would fill her nightmares.

"No - no one else saw that, correct? Please - do not look at that. When we leave - after our victory - close your eyes, and I will lead each of us across that awful hall." said Satsuki, still panting as she desperately tried to push the images out of her mind. An odd gratitude overcame her that the leviathan had not left evidence so terrible as that.

"I-I got a good idea of what it was by the smell…" said Nonon, anger clenching her teeth. "W-We need to fucking kill every last REVOCS employee in this bunker. Torture them, if we can."

"A-Agreed." grunted Inumata, who had caught the trend of it. "T-Thank you, Lady Satsuki, for telling us not to look right. I can't imagine how horrific a sight that must have been."

"It - It was. We must keep going - to keep my mind away from that - terrible memory, if nothing else." said Satsuki. At any moment she thought she might vomit, so putrid was the scent that wafted persistently through the thin slits of the door. "Another - door, ahead."

"Four six - eight three. This is the last code they gave us." said Inumata, his cheeks ready to tint green from his imagination alone. Satsuki, nodding and entering the combination, pushed onward both in gait and mind, through to the next room.

A second gasp left her lips as she passed, and as the six behind rushed to her, their eyes widened in horror and amazement as well.

They had come to what was assuredly the final room, a flattened area that was a mile across and a mile long, the entire enclosure bathed in that rainbow light. At one end of the chamber, a red serpent formed of Life Fibers was slithering, as long as a dozen men stood head to toe, and wide enough that there were sixteen figures upon it. Ghastly eyes of piercing yellow stared back from fabric tightly woven, and its fangs hung from a lipless mouth.

The right seven figures were revealed as it turned. They were men and women who had wrought the beast to life, through the samples they had taken from the terror, and their own research.

But the left nine figures were even more shocking.

"Aha! I thought you would come - Satsuki, Ryuko, Gamagoori, Inumata, Nonon, Sanageyama, and the mangled mongrel Nui!" preened a rainbow-haired figure, her legs swept over the body of the creature.

The appearance wracked havoc on the seven's senses. Their anger mixed with confusion; their eyes widened, and fingers at their weapons tightened and curled.

A cruel laugh emit from Ragyo at seeing the seven flustered so, still sans their leviathan.

"What a pale imitation." said a figure who sat at Ragyo's left, with long black hair, thick eyebrows, and a strong jaw. "Fortunately, she won't be alive for long."

"Agreed." said a figure at this mirror's left, black bangs, and a red streak like a waterfall in her hair. "They really do look like shit."

The rest of these mirror images fell silent, and looked in deference to the mother that commanded them. A masterwork painter could not have woven a more convincing imitation. The seven were staring back at themselves; even their uniforms were the new appearances.

"Then - the Ragyo I killed..." panted Ryuko.

"An illusion, Ryuko, but a wonderful test! You truly believed you had killed me, did you not? It bled the same as any human, and spoke much the same!"

"The experiments." muttered Satsuki.

Knowing herself to be the beacon for the six, she strode ahead of the line, gesturing for them to keep their eyes trained on her back, where her hands now laid in a natural display. "What were you intending to do with the - experiments?" As she spoke, her fingers pointed down the line right-to-left, assigning each a number to which the phantoms would not be privy.

Herself, zero. Sanageyama, one. Inumata, two. Nonon, three. Gamagoori, four. Nui, five. Ryuko, six.

Inumata caught the trick immediately, and in a low whisper relayed it to the others.

Appearing not to catch it, Ragyo laughed, narcissistic and drunk on her own power;

"Mere test runs! The world need not be conquered by military might, though your leviathan has presented a wonderful opportunity!

It will be quite an easy task to kill the seven of you - and so wonderful are these imitations, bound to my will, that the Nudist Beach terrorists will be none the wiser until you've butchered them to the last man! Without their troublesome organization around, there will be no stopping the march of REVOCS corporation around the planet. The ability to replace any life I wish with that of a perfect servant - and when I command the sleepers to awaken, there won't be a target in the world we cannot have assassinated."

"That," she preened, reaching to the illusory Ryuko and pressing her fingers deeply within her top, roughly against her breasts, "and far more pleasurable uses. I shall finally have a daughter that obeys."

Rage boiled through Ryuko's veins, the hated countenance a demonic presence that was entreating her, baiting her as the devil tempts man, to erupt in to one blow and fall beneath the serpent's great fangs, which dripped ominously with green. A tether bound the seven together, tighter than any red strands, than any bit of fashion could. Their expressions matched in a berserk eruption, and they felt then the anger the leviathan must have felt in that moment.

If they had worn a Kamui, there was no amount of attunement that would stop the demon from swallowing them whole.

"And with the serpent - why, the newest Elite Five will not even have to fight the rest of you, without your -"

From behind the seven began a tremendous shaking, an earthquake of stomps, hurtling and smashing through the entrances they had already opened -

"Clear! Clear!" shouted Satsuki, and the seven shot off and scattered before the entrance to the arena -

- and from within that entrance leaped a familiar terror - its spinning maw drilled a section clear cut of crimson through the serpent, and unhinging its jawless features it ripped its monstrous foe by its neck, smashing it like a log against the wall.

The sixteen figures fell from the serpent; they shot to their feet just as quickly. Yet nine figures were too slow to dodge; a tremendous set of claws were the last sights the last researchers, the illusory Ryuko and illusory Outcast saw in life, dead in an instant and like a mangled heap.

The leviathan threw the serpent and caught it by its tail, then smashed it against the wall again; a thunderous roar escaped its maw and filled the cavern, and now, the seven heroes were off again and to their respective foes - Ryuko, with Ragyo.

"It - it tore the tracking device off?!" shouted Inumata, his desperate hallucinations smashing with the phalanx of his mirror, a fiendish battle in rending strikes, a dozen knives against a dozen knives.

"You can't have expected that to work!" shouted Gamagoori, his tendrils defensive around Nonon at his back, lashing open a score of wounds on to his own image.

"The leviathan has returned, and he clashes with the Mizuchi!" shouted Sanageyama. He and his mirror clashed in a flurry of disappearing and reappearing katanas, a swift battle of reactions as each sought to block - and phase - and gouge through their foe's center, the cloak billowing about him with all the intensity of the sun in the inferno of blades collecting at the center of that nationalistic tear.

The entire chamber filled with simultaneous orchestras, two competing beats that strived for dominance, a flurry of wind and symphony that cancelled each other like two waves clashing at a divided bay.

"Ooo! You even gave her the right eye patch!" preened Nui, slicing and dicing with all the demonic vigor, a flurry of dual scissor blades her clone was helpless to block against. "I wonder if you can dodge a stab wound, too!"

"Outcast! Keep the serpent away from our battle!" shouted Satsuki over the calamity, her face lit with sparks just as much as her mirror's. In a monsoon of blows and white tatters they circled and clashed, rending in a white, blue, green and red blur so swiftly a dozen strikes erupted in the time of one. They swept and slashed underneath and through, the flashing of the one and three blades clashing, screaming as they met.

The leviathan did not speak, but seemed to roar in answer. The claws ripped through the air, seeking to bring the serpent within range of the horrific grasp, to bring it within range of the gaping teeth to rend and tear. It was a terror set to rip the world asunder in the blows it cratered against the belly of the beast, tearing Life Fibers in a tatter like acid rain, the air a crimson cloud as the two beasts thrashed in a lash of tail, fangs, claws, and teeth.

And the most tumultuous battle of all, Ryuko and Ragyo's, daughter against mother. In a ripping of blades and hailstorm of spikes, Ryuko strived to impale the twisted heart of the ghoul who wove in and about every strike, and Ryuko was slicing faster and faster by the second. In chipped nails and chipped obsidian they fought in a hellish display of blows, the most violent performance of all ringing out at a volume as titanic as the one the leviathan and serpent were creating aside.

They clashed in a tornado of gray tatters and jade rage, revolving around the center of the arena; Ryuko's dripping blades spattered blood and gouged deeper and deeper within the voluminous gray robe, flurries of blows Ragyo was helpless but to dodge against. But in spite of the handicap of the first blow, the robe's durability was quickly gaining Ragyo the advantage. She had taken enough punishment to kill a dozen women, and like a shrouded nightmare she still stood, blood and Life Fibers spraying from her body, and as Ryuko drew her blades clear through her torso -

- Ragyo ripped her by her neck and threw her to the wall, and she was among her with a rush and a gigantic bound. Incising and as ferocious as a shark she trapped Ryuko within the hellish strikes, and now it was Ryuko on the defensive, seeking desperately an escape from the wall she was now forced against. A hailstorm of missiles erupted from her shoulders - but missed just as easily, and Ragyo's cruel laughter sung with each gash she carved out of Ryuko's Specter.

And at the other end of the arena was a battle no less vicious, the two white sharks snarling, their two outfits weaving and flashing about them in a blur of white, blue, green, and red streaks.

Their faces and uniforms' eyes were lit by the fireworks of sparks, sweat and blood soaking them to their ankles; a blue gauntlet against blue, Satsuki's sword constantly aflutter and swapping rapidly between three and single pronged variants. She was seeking to trap her foe's blade within the transformation, to pierce the internals of the mirror image. They fought along the wall in a tatter of white fabric and white rage, carving a line of hellish strikes against the enclosure cutting clear through the material.

The illusory Junketsu's eyes swept underneath every single strike. The illusory Junketsu's wearer swept underneath every single strike.

Their glancing blows painted their faces in blood, and Satsuki shot after her mirror and pincered her just as ferociously, her strikes breaching her foe's guard and shoving her further and further back. Before the prey had realized it, it had been backed against the wall, and Satsuki drew her blade back -

- and suddenly swept to the right, narrowly avoiding a crush from the serpent's tail. Underneath the unexpected aid the clone escaped her double's trap, and it was a certainty she would not fall for the same trick twice.

And if the student body presidents' battles had been violent, the leviathan and serpent were genocide. The leviathan had gripped the serpent by its neck, smashing it open against the wall, yet the former sluggishness still carried through; the serpent wove its lithe body between the claws, and in a fell swoop sunk deeply its fangs against the leviathan's back, black blood and deeper venom spurting. It thrashed stupidly and wildly for an instant, precious moments that allowed the bite to dig deeper, and the tail of the snake grew closer and closer, constricting like a thick rope around its foe's torso. The wild, desperate animal writhed against the restraint, and like quicksand it only drew the lasso tighter around its torso. In a moment of feigned stupidity, it lodged its claws underneath and threw the rope around its neck, where the tail now sought to snap the spine that lay within the demonic monstrosity -

- the maw tore and drilled a hole clear through; with a hissing shriek the serpent released its grip, and now the terror was free again, a gaping wound cut through the internals of the serpent like a bullet exits a man's skull.

"Dog, dog! Pathetic, pathetic!" shouted Inumata, a strew of mangled holograms and torn bodies at his feet, his knife crusted in blood. It was two armies meeting on the battlefield, and when a man went down he did not get back up underneath the stomping boots and whirling blades. A hundred men had already died in a deathless battle, and as Inumata caught sight of one mirror in particular, a familiar arrogance twisted his eyes.

"My god! You've only taken the appearance of the Specter, not the power, mongrel!"

- though it would be easy to mistake it, given the two samurai beside. An odd property had occurred with the presence of two phase-katanas, like the differing polarity of magnets; a phased blade could only be blocked by a phased blade, a corporeal by a corporeal. In a whirlwind of cloaks and red suns they clashed and countered, their swords flashing to and from twin existences like a strobe light tuned far too violently. Their pain and sweat was drowning their cloaks in a blood-coated mess, Life Fibers strewn, a red waterfall against their faces and hardened features, bellowing as their swords screamed; just as quickly they separated from each other, neither wishing to be the first to strike again, two samurai circling and whirling in a red streak.

In a single flourish, Sanageyama ripped the cloak from his back -

"To hell with honor! One! Nui!"

- and before his mirror image could realize his plan, the cloak was thrown against his foe's face. Writhing like a body bag filled too soon and thrashing, desperately attempting to put some distance between him and the oni in human form brought to ruin him, he backed away -

- and the point of a keen scissor entered his heart through the back just as a second impaled him through the front. His lungs and throat filled with fake blood and true Life Fibers, gargling a putrid mix as Sanageyama and the couturier sliced vertically - and now the illusory image was truly ready to be executed.

"Ooo! Gotta go, Sanage-ge! Hope that was the right one!" preened Nui, whirling to face her own foe that had been hot at her heels.

If the performance of every other fighter in that cacophonous arena was violent, this was truly vicious; a flurry of dual blows against the walls of the arena, her heels kicking up a gallon of blood and spikes like nails seeking to pin her dwarven foe, and with Sanageyama now at her foe's back, the demonic image was forced to adopt defensive maneuvers in a battle that required offensive, her dual blades near set to shatter underneath such horrendous might.

"Four! Nonon!" shouted Gamagoori, his behemoth pinned against the floor underneath his tendrils and coated in crimson paint; the full orchestra sprang to life at Nonon's back as she surged forth. Gamagoori craned open his double's ears, entreating him to hear every last note -

- and his opponent's head burst open like a split water balloon, filled with blood and fraudulent brain matter for whatever mental capacity that horrific beast held.

"Uhhh - five, Nui!" shouted the illusory Nonon, sweeping her vision wildly, the behemoth rushing to her with a gigantic bound, but the only reply -

- was one-half of a scissor thrown through the air, pinning her skull to the wall like a horrible stalk growing from her head.

"Ooo! I love this system, Sat-Sat-Satsuki!"

Now, Gamagoori turned his vision to more pertinent matters, the battle of the two phalanxes at his back and threatening to engulf him at any moment. He saw that Inumata was as a guerilla fighter, his illusions scattering and diverting as shooting figures, the analyst heartened mightily at seeing the victory of the other battles.

"Gamagoori! The true dog still breathes out of sync! Two!"

- in the next instant Gamagoori's tendrils plucked the true fake from the crowd, biting a score of wounds on the analyst's double. Thrown in to shock by the sudden counter, the snap of his neck was the last sound he heard in life.

Yet on the other end of the chamber was a battle appearing to go far poorer. Satsuki's double was rapidly cornering her against the wall - the pressure of the ferocious blows pushed Satsuki further and further back; the spectacle had been repeated from the opposite end, and as her opponent drew her blade back and thrust with all her might-

- the illustrious student body president shot to the left again; the blade pierced clear and stuck within the metal, and before her mirror realized the risky, maniacal trickery of the woman -

"Junketsu! Beam!"

- a score of lasers reduced the blade to ash, and in one fell swoop Satsuki lopped the head from the detestable creature's shoulders.

With a smirk, she glanced to the five, rushing to her, and held up her fingers in the shape of a zero. She ran to Ragyo and Ryuko at the other end of the chamber, deftly rolling underneath the titanic battle of serpent and leviathan, that judging by the score of wounds each were sporting, was near set to come to an end.

But inexorably, the serpent had gained the advantage. It was dragging the leviathan around like a cloth sack, the desperate animal trapped between its fangs and tail. In a flash, it swallowed the terror whole, spikes off its back and all; its throat and stomach bulged with the thrashing of that leviathan, but just as suddenly, its cargo went rigid, like a corpse in its digestion.

Satsuki shook her head ruefully.

"You should have never let him inside."

From within the serpent's stomach shot the same obsidian spikes from the leviathan's carapace, rending the snake to a pathetic display of mortal fabrics, slicing and tearing as the terror's telekinesis opened a path of skin. Red strands sank, and became limp. The spikes shooting forth were obsidian stalactites within that cavern, and as one narrowly missed Ryuko, Ragyo, seizing the opportunity, ripped her by her neck - her nails impaled clear the chest of the rebellious upstart -

"What nice eyes you have." grunted Ryuko, and a smaller storm of spikes gouged Ragyo's eyes, drilling to the tunnels of her skull and leaving a mangled white flood. Screeching underneath blinded and searing pain, Ragyo thrashed as a drowning woman; Ryuko gripped her hair and smashed her skull against the floor, dual blades twisting between her fingers as she butchered deeply Ragyo's back.

The spectacle on display was the most torturous and violent yet. Again, and again, and again, her rage carried in to the shattered remnants of Ragyo's skull, spikes being driven further and further against her brain, drilling like surgical instruments and finding a bloodier core to the demonic harlot -

- and in one fell swoop, Ryuko's blades acted as the zipper to the skin of the woman's back. Mangled, gasping, shrieking, screaming, red heap of muscle, fat, flesh, hair, bones, all met in a refuse pile pooling at the base of REVOCS' finest president.

Then, once more, silence fell over the bunker of Ragyo.

The seven were coated in blood, stepping over their own corpses. A distinctly unreal quality was present in this chamber, to see one's own carcass, mangled, torn, gashed, and dead, but to see it through one's own eyes.

There was no more fight to be had. The leviathan, the obsidian terror, was strung from head to demonic toe in it, bathed in crimson, given a fresh coat.

The seven were panting, feral, but breathing, calming.

And at last, after what seemed centuries of pause, the eight, now truly eight, met again, in the center of the death soaked chamber. Their breathing was ragged, slowly adjusting, the victimless murders weighing in the exhaustion on their faces.

"Nonon." said Satsuki, fingering her bruises ruefully. "A final melody, for a final victory."

With a gentle arm, she pulled Nonon to her, caressing her back with blood-soaked fingers. She pressed her lips along the conductor's -

- the thud of a falling body.

Nonon had fainted again.

"... What an adorable woman." said Satsuki, shaking her head. "Regardless, this should be the end of them. If the true Ragyo is dead, then ownership of REVOCS shall pass to Ryuko and I, after a short, easily rigged investigation. The eight of us are safe."

"Not… necessarily." muttered Inumata, panting and pensive. "It - is possible one merely managed to guess the number correctly, or the Ragyo was another illusion."

"…right." murmured Gamagoori, suddenly pensive as well. "And there's not any way to tell."

Satsuki shrugged her shoulders. "Fortunately, there is. Bring the corpses of each here - Ryuko, bring Ragyo, and your loyal dog."

Slightly perplexed, the seven separated, then dragged the corpses that were their own - but not their own - in to a line at the center of the chamber.

"… Uh. Here, boyfriend." muttered Ryuko, attempting to pet the obsidian terror as it strode beside her. "Do you smell something, Hachikō?"

The beast, hanging its maw low, came to the first corpse, that of Satsuki's. By the judging of its quivering, chattering teeth, it appeared to sniff.

"…of course." said Inumata, shaking his head. "It won't eat Life Fibers if it doesn't need to - even this fraudulent sort. That was why it did not eat Ragyo's head."

The beast came to the next, that of Nonon's. It passed inspection, and it strode eagerly, as if it could understand the whispers behind it.

Sanageyama's, fraudulent.

Gamagoori's, fraudulent.

Ryuko's, fraudulent.

Inumata's, fraudulent.

Nui's, fraudulent.

Then, as it came to Ragyo's, it dipped its maw.

Every eye in the chamber - all thirteen - were trained on it.

"… C-Come on. Eat it." said Ryuko, incredulous at cheering on the cannibalism. "She - probably tastes good. See? You can come back, n-now…"

With its head it pushed the corpse to Ryuko, as if offering a romantic gift.

"… Uh. You can - have it. I'm - not hungry." she muttered. There was a strange level of cognizance to the creature, that housed the man who had shared so many meals and had so much food stolen from him by the woman.

But this time, Ryuko did not want him to give her some of that.

The beast's claws scooped the limp body between its shattered and bloodied claws, and in one fell swoop dropped the carcass straight in the infinite abyss, like a man might drop a fish in to water.

There had never been more applause for a cannibal in human history.