"That... That depends on what you're asking, right? Maybe I don't even know."

As she watched Ram catch her breath, clearly grateful for the drink she had been given despite her attitude, Uni realized she could take some satisfaction in the knowledge that Ram had misunderstood her. For while Ram's life was indeed something Uni needed, the information Uni wanted from her wasn't necessary. It was, after all, just a want. The only thing she needed from Ram was her continued breathing, no more or less. Even so... It wouldn't hurt to get whatever she could out of Ram before she informed her of the cruel truth, if that would even prove necessary. Maybe she would show her sister up completely and get Ram to willingly provide the information without having to resort to that at all.

As it happened, Uni was realizing she was curious about more than she had thought she would be, now that the chance presented itself. Ever since she had come to Lowee, Uni was starting to feel more and more like her view of the world was lacking. It was time she changed that.

"Are you done?" Uni spoke coolly to her prisoner. Her instincts told her that she should be doing much more than simply standing here and letting Ram catch her breath, but right now, she was fighting that. She was creating her own instincts, wasn't she? Not the ones she had developed after watching her sister and observing Kei for so long.

The brunette Candidate let out a shaky breath. She offered a weak smile to Uni.

"I-I'm kinda hungry too..."

Uni closed her eyes. She had expected as much. She felt a familiar twinge in her spine, an impulsive nerve wanting to react and follow what she "knew" was the "correct" response for the situation. Stuff something down the girl's throat. Taunt her. Remind her who was in charge. Things straight from her sister's rulebook. She could almost hear her sister's voice, whispering instructions into her ear. It would be so easy to do it Noire's way. So natural. So right.

The CPU Candidate opened her eyes.

"Don't push..." She stopped herself. This was not what she wanted. This was not what she was fighting for. In fact, she had a better idea. Rather than get in Ram's face, why not try something else? Something her dear sister would never try at that? Taking a deep breath of her own, Uni roughly pulled over a chair and sat down, much to Ram's surprise. She raised a hand to the tied down girl, looking almost sympathetic — but that had to be an act. "I imagine you must be starved. How about this? For every answer you provide that satisfies me, I'll double the amount of food I'm going to give you when we finish our talk. And no, the amount isn't 'zero,' before you try to play with my words. I'm not a sadist."

Despite her situation, or perhaps because of it, Ram's eyes widened at Uni's offer, her mouth falling open as she silently mouthed it to herself, as if she couldn't believe her ears. She didn't know how long it had been, but it felt like it had been ages since she'd last had something to eat. Even if Uni was offering her something incredibly small to start with... If Ram gave Uni enough answers, then surely that amount would turn into something that might sate her hunger, right? It might even give her the strength she needed to escape from here... Even if Uni expected that from her, it didn't matter. It was her only chance — she had to take this. If Uni was going to use her, she was just going to use Uni right back.

She needed to warn everyone... She had to protect them...! She had to protect Rom...!

Watching Ram think it over, Uni couldn't help but feel pleased with herself. The girl was looking hopeful. This was perfect. It might make the girl cocky. It might make her think if she gave Uni enough information, she could get enough food to give her the strength she might need to fight back against her captor. She couldn't possibly think that Uni wouldn't anticipate that, could she? Surely, a fellow CPU Candidate would understand that emotions like that could only hinder her chances at survival...

"Well...? What're you... What're you waiting for? Ask your questions already!"

Uni's eyes lit up. For a brief moment, she felt... something. Anger? Disappointment? Whatever it was, it was stuffed away immediately, far away, down into the depths of her soul, along with everything else that could get in the way of her goal. She couldn't afford distractions.

"I knew you'd see it my way, Ram." Uni offered the pixie a hollow smile. Ram returned it with a defiant look of her own, and this made Uni pause. Ram... Ram knew exactly what Uni was doing, didn't she? So then why...? Uni shook her head, standing up and placing a hand on the edge of the table. It didn't matter, really. Ram wouldn't be able to do anything about her situation. Uni was evolving, even now, and Ram would be wise not to underestimate her. Her sister had done that for all of Uni's life, and Uni was going to show her soon enough what a mistake that was. "Let's start with an easy one. What are the names of your sisters?"

Ram gaped at her.

"T-That's... Is this a trick?!"

Uni quirked a brow.

"So you aren't that hungry after all. Okay. I guess I don't need to worry about sharing my food with you."

Ram, taken completely off guard — just as Uni had wanted — quickly did her best to regain her bearings, a difficult thing to do considering that she was still just as tied to the table as she had been a few moments ago. If Uni was going to give her easy questions like that, then she would be stupid not to answer them!

"R-Rom and Blanc! Rom is my twin sister and Blanc is my older sister...!" Though she supplied more information than had been asked of her, just the knowledge that she would be given food based on her performance seemed to give her the strength to push forward — for with that strength would come the strength to get out of here. If she could please Uni enough, maybe Uni would let down her guard, and then... "That's good... Right?"

"It is." Uni nodded, genuinely surprised that this tactic was having such an immediate result. True, Ram might have thought she could do something about Uni from right under Uni's nose, but Uni would just show her, now wouldn't she? "Next question. Between you and Rom, which of you is the older..."

For a few minutes, Uni fed Ram simple questions, questions that she knew the answer to before she had even come to Lowee, and Ram eagerly answered them to the best of her ability. These questions gave Uni no new information, but they hadn't been asked with that purpose in mind — rather, they were meant to lower Ram's guard. After a certain point, Uni was certain Ram would break. She had seen prisoners of her sister break plenty of times, after all. Uni was just breaking Ram in the opposite direction. She was breaking Ram in, so to speak.

Now it was time to push a little.

"Why do you stay with Lowee?" Uni asked this new question as soon as Ram answered her previous one, delivering it in the same rhythm and with the same pacing as the previous ones had been. For her part, she showed no changes, despite the fact that she had just changed the context of this "conversation" between captive and prisoner drastically. She suspected that this child of a CPU Candidate would give her some nonsensical answer — considering Lowee's position in the world, she sincerely doubted she was capable of anything else — but for her purposes, this was necessary.

The fact her grip on the edge of the table tightened ever so slightly as she awaited Ram's answer was purely coincidence.

Ram had been expecting a question she could just answer without thinking, as she had been able to the previous ones. She had slowly started to think less and less about the questions and more and more about just answering them, so that she could get what she wanted out of doing so. Her mouth had already been open, but upon hearing Uni's question, she closed it.

"Huh?" This question, though... This one had to be a trick. Frowning, the smaller CPU Candidate pursed her lips. She had to have earned enough food by now that answering this question wrong wouldn't hurt too badly, though maybe the truth was still what Uni wanted here. This whole "conversation" had been really weird. Still, what harm would the truth do, right? "Lowee is where my sisters are, of course I-"

"So you're saying you would blindly follow your sisters no matter what? That you aren't capable of thinking for yourself, or for your nation?" This time, Uni didn't keep up the pace of their previous back and forths. For some reason, though she had been sure this had just been part of her procedure (a procedure she was developing as she went along, of course), Ram's answer genuinely upset her. It was unlike her (or at least so she told herself over and over again... a certain Oracle might say otherwise, at least to herself anyway), and in turn, that upset her that much more. Faced with the knowledge that she was still being hindered by unnecessary things like this... She needed to eliminate the source of these emotions so that this didn't happen again — so that it couldn't happen at the worst possible moment.

Ram stared at the black haired girl for a moment. She hadn't been told she had answered "wrong," but that didn't seem like it had been a satisfactory answer either... She wanted to just answer this stupid kidnappers questions and get her food already, but the way she was talking to Ram now was really annoying her...

"I didn't say that." Ram finally decided to spit out a spiteful answer like that. Uni's change in demeanor had done a blow to her rising strength, strength that had been built off of the promise of the food that awaited her at the end of this series of questions, and she was quickly realizing how hard it was to breathe again. "None of that is happening... Stupid. You didn't ask 'Would you stay with your sisters if all of this dumb stuff happened?', you asked about now, so that's... how I answered..."

The black haired CPU Candidate let go of the table, taking a step back. She lowered her gaze — strangely, she felt... relieved by this answer. She should have stopped right there and left when she realized just how relieved that answer made her feel.

That was a mistake.

Of course. Of course it was like that. It was simply an issue of Uni's wording, that was all. Ram had never had to deal with that sort of thing, after all, with Lowee content to sit in its little portion of the world. Such matters were likely the sort of thing that would never cross her mind, despite the fact that they were matters that made up Uni's entire worldview. There was no way that a little girl like this would ever have to think about what Uni's life essentially revolved around. She had been blessed with the luck, or "luck" anyway, of having a coward for an older sister. Someday, maybe she would see just what Uni was talking about once the other nations came for Lowee... Or maybe it would happen from within, as it had with Planeptune. As it would soon happen with Lastation.

She shook her head. None of that mattered to Uni now. Really, it didn't matter to her at all. This had still been a valuable learning experience. She may have gotten worked up over nothing, but she could still take that knowledge and apply it to changing herself for the better in the future.

"Fair enough." Uni took a deep breath. She felt calmer now. At least she told herself she did. This wouldn't be a problem at all... And yet, as though the shadowy figure of her sister was lurking just over her shoulder, judging her, Uni straightened herself — as if she was trying to defy someone who wasn't even there. Even as she spoke, trying to regain her composure, the damage was done — it was like she could feel her sister's eyes on her back, with Kei's just below them. All her life she had done what she had been told... Now she was falling apart and she had barely even begun to set out on her own... Was her goal lost to her before she had even taken the first true steps...!? Ironically, it was this twisted way she berated herself that was quickly turning into her downfall — this mindset of hers that she was wrong to "feel" things. Little did she know, this had all been the plan of another all along... not that it would do her any good to know now. "Then I can assume, should that ever happen... For example, let's pretend your older sister was out of the picture. Maybe mine had her assassinated. Your twin sister, Rom, decided that she wants to kill you to take the land for herself, running it into the ground in the process. Obviously you wouldn't stand by her then. Would you?"

Uni was confident in the answer she would receive. After giving such a grim example to the innocent little pixie, there was no doubt in Uni's mind that Ram would see the error of her ways. Blood, water, it didn't matter; it was all painfully thin. The only people a person could trust were those truly worth trusting, those that one added the trustworthiness to themselves, and those people had nothing to do with blood. Those people were people like... Kei, for example.

"Would I...?" Uni frowned as Ram spoke up, interrupting her thoughts, speaking almost in a drowsy, sing-song sort of voice. Looking at the Candidate, Uni saw that Ram had closed her eyes, a strangely thoughtful expression crossing her features. She was even smiling. This was not at all the reaction Uni had expected to elicit from her. Already, Uni felt something hot in her veins, and the girl hadn't even given her a proper answer yet. The girl opened her eyes. She looked... confident. Uni took a step back once more. She felt as though she were the one strapped to the table and Ram was the one who had tied her down, looking at the girl like this. "I would. Nothing Rom could ever do would make me leave her."

The heat in her veins began to boil. If it had been anyone else, Uni wouldn't have cared... If it had just been some regular citizen, this would have been nothing. The masses weren't expecting to know or understand any of this. In Uni's ideal world, they weren't to even be involved except to fight as soldiers. That was the point. But this was a fellow CPU Candidate. This was someone who knew what happened when sisters, CPUs and CPU Candidates, didn't get along, and should have known firsthand what that meant. Ram should have understood her...!

Someone intelligent in her position might have made a note of that. Someone observing her just then might have pulled her aside and explained to her that what she wanted may not have been answers at all, but something else entirely... But there was no one else here. Uni was alone right now. She had been made this way and she was making herself all the more that way. This was her fate. This was part of the path she had taken...

This was...

... infuriating!

"You're lying!" She couldn't help herself. Leaning over the side of the table, Uni practically leaped onto Ram, pinning the girl's sides with both of her arms despite the fact that she was still as strapped down as she had been from the moment Uni had put her there. Uni's red eyes were wide, her lips twisted into something totally unlike those of the calm interrogator that had been present only a few moments ago. "You have no idea what you're talking about! You're just a... just a little pixie! You're speaking like you know what it's like to see it happen, but if your sister was betraying everything you've ever known, betraying all of Cruptindustri, then of course you would try to stop her! You'd devote your life to it, wouldn't you...?!"

Ram simply turned her head, closing her eyes. It was an incredibly dismissive response, and she must have known it could only serve to upset Uni even more. Even if she didn't know it, it still certainly happened all the same.

"She's still my sister. If she was doing that, if she really wanted me gone... There's a reason for it. A reason I can do something about... Or maybe I reason I..." Ram lowered her voice. As upset, as damnably emotional as she was feeling with each passing moment, Uni could still tell... Ram was speaking as though she did know. Forming a glare of her own, Ram turned to look at Uni — forcing the Candidate to once more feel as though it was her strapped to the table rather than Ram. It was maddening. "Even if she didn't want me anywhere near her, even if she told me she hated me every single day, even if she was ruining Lowee, I'd stay with her. I-I... I'd want to help her! Isn't that what sisters are supposed to do?"

Somewhere, deep down, a small part of Uni — part of her that she had stuffed down into the deepest, darkest depths long ago, spoke up. "Yes." this voice said. "That is what sisters are supposed to do." But over the roar of the rest of the things swirling around within Uni, that which had been pushed down and down and down for from as long as this voice had been to as recently as this very day, it was not heard. Over the roar of the things that Uni as she was now had been bottling up, the Uni of long ago was silenced once more.

What happened next went by in a flash.

Uni stepped away. Her breathing was unsteady, but she was doing her damnedest to will it to a calm pace again. She would not be taken in by this child and her ignorance. She was supposed to calm and collected, she was supposed to be efficient... For this little pixie child to rile her up, it was simply disgraceful... And in reveling in this disgrace, recalling the words of her mentor and her sister as well, she could only get even more riled up. Ram tried to talk to her, tried to calm the situation, tried to explain herself further, but she only made it worse.

Conflicting feelings bubbled up inside of Uni. Emotions and knowledge built up over years conflicting with the desire to rebel, the desire to be different from that which she so wanted to stop. Uni realized that she couldn't handle this on her own. Ram was still talking to her and Uni didn't know what to do. She needed help... She had failed...

She had to do this herself.

She could still do this herself.

Even if it meant sinking to her hated sister's level... There was a way.

There. A twinkle... no, something else. A glint of metal shone in the darkness. To Uni, it was what she had deemed "help." To Ram, it was something else. Something as far from "help" as possible.

It was a gun. Uni was always armed, after all, so it made sense she had something on her — something she could pull out in a shamefully emotionally charged moment. She probably had ten more somethings on her between her clothes and her inventory, maybe even more.

Ram's concern was no longer in her potential food. It was apparent now that food might never be an issue again.

Pleading. Crying. Begging.

Who was pleading? Who was crying? Who was begging?

It didn't matter.

All was silent soon enough.

A flash of light. A deafening bang. A scream.

That was all it had taken to calm the storm.

The pixie's wings had been plucked.

The CPU Candidate didn't dare look at what she'd done. She'd never seen it up close before. Not even giving it a moment's consideration, with warm, red liquid dripping off of her arm, she dropped her weapon, she flung it away, and she ran. Even now, she found little peace with herself. Part of her wanted to feel proud of what she had done. She felt she should feel proud of herself. This had been inevitable, hadn't it? Just one more stone to step on on the path towards her goal... Yet in doing this... Had she become no better than that which she sought to rid the world of...? Or had that too been an inevitability...?

As she passed a window, out of the corner of her eye, she wondered if that had been her own reflection she had seen... or her sister's.

Lesser of two evils indeed.

"Ram...?"

Rom raised her head. Inexplicably, she felt alarmed for some reason, to the point that she had even whispered her stupid sister's name for no reason. There was never a reason to say her name, after all. Neptune, or the stupid girl who was claiming to be Neptune, had disappeared a few moments ago. Maybe it had been more... or maybe it had only happened a second ago. She had been acting nice, as though the whole world wasn't ruined all because of her, but it was obviously just an act. That was all everything was. Anyone who wasn't honestly showing what they really felt, showing how they only cared about themselves... They were liars, acting just to get more and more and more!

As she tried to recall it... Rom realized that barely remembered that now. Her conversation with that Neptune person, that person then leaving her alone in this smashed up clothing store... Everything was starting to blur together.

She still knew this much. She clung to it, like some sort of twisted life saver in a sea of confusion.

This was all Neptune's fault. All of it was Neptune's fault. It all came back to her. Her and everyone else... But Neptune especially...

Why was it like this? Why had they all done this? What had she ever done to deserve this? She didn't deserve this! They did! They all deserved to pay...! Didn't they...!?

Rom knew she should try to get up. She had to move. Let Neptune die for her. Let her sister kill the zombie again. Rom could happily get out of here and get strong. She could come back and destroy Blanc.

... Was there even a point to it, though?

Even if she wanted to live... If all of those people were still around... All of those weak and selfish people who only cared about ruining her life... They'd just ruin everything again, wouldn't they?

Maybe... Maybe that wasn't...

The girl swallowed. She fought back the urge to vomit again... or maybe it was the urge to do something else altogether.

Regardless of all of that stupid stuff... One thing she did know was that something felt wrong. Something had changed. It had been sudden and it was unlike anything she had ever felt before, but she just knew it. Something bad had happened.

She just didn't know what it was.