"Told my men not to intervene even if they are raving mad about losing a stupid bet, so it's just us for now. Who are you two?" Her eyes went to Rita's scythe, then to Stalker Carbon. "Schicksal Valkyries, I presume? And that mecha dog swiping information here and there would make a great present for Jackal."
"I would strongly advise against it," Rita interjected, now holding her scythe upside down with her hand resting on the tip of the handle, "Not if you want your friend to be reduced to a carbonised heap of bones with the missing residue not being fit for a proper cremation. For you see, our mecha equipments have backdoors that lead to self-destruction — and by it, I mean a deadly explosion — if tampered with."
"Oh, please, save your breath," the woman said, with a sneer, "I'm not very fond of Jackal, but if she's genius enough to hack into Heliopolis' data to prove that she can work there, if she can hack the human brain and briefly reverse the Honkai infection, and if she can defuse a Catapult Honkai beast while dissecting it alive, I'm pretty certain that your miserable scraps of metal here is nothing to her."
Rita studied the woman for a moment. "I believe that we did not properly introduce ourselves. I am Rita Rossweisse of Schicksal. Pleasure to make your acquaintance, miss..."
"Raven. I work for no one in particular."
"Lovely! I feel like we would make a formidable pair if–"
"Drop it. I don't like the snobs chasing after the upperclassmen for higher ranks, especially those who think they can look at others with their aristocratic nostrils. You look like that kind of chick to me."
"You–" Rita took a deep breath and her smile returned. "I thought showing politeness would smother the lack of courtesy of the suburbs. But in the end, if two people cannot make a decent conversation without disparaging remarks, then this ipso facto shows that there is one of them buying time from it."
Raven frowned, but just before she could shoot a glance behind her, Bianka struck her with an uppercut. Raven staggered back from the sharp pain before receiving an electric shock in the back. She collapsed like a corpse on the floor. Her hood fell back, revealing a woman with short dark gray hair. Nagamitsu smirked at Rita and Bianka, waving around her new electroshock gun.
"Finally a golden opportunity to use this! Let's get of here, kids!"
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.
Morning came and England refound its joviality, and Nagamitsu was among one of those people having a great time.
"Rita, now I see why you said you're gonna get gray hair before your mid-twenties," Nagamitsu laughed, half-focused on the road ahead.
Rita sighed and distracted herself by gazing outside while the car passed by the London streets rife with fancy boutiques and old-fashioned cafés. Bianka looked pale as if she were about to hurl what she had eaten the day before. Nagamitsu was a great scientist, but not a great driver.
Nagamitsu glanced in the rear-view mirror and adjusted her glasses. "Bianka, our team came up with a combat simulation system tailor-made just for you. In short, we fixed multiple 3D cameras to cover the simulation room — oh, by the way, it has a soundproof and fireproof insulation, so don't worry — and everything will be constantly monitored." As she spoke, her hands left the steering wheel and artfully moved around as if they were talking. "...for the cameras, we made a calibration program to: number one, determine how far a real object is from the camera; two, mark the axes and planes of a human target in motion, which will help calculate your estimated trajectory; and, of course, three, to measure the real time distance between you and the simulations created. With these data, our AI generating the Honkai beasts will learn from your attacks, predict your next move and plan how to counter-attack using its simulations."
"It looks like you're more trying to kill her than help her," Rita interposed, with a scoff.
"You got it backwards, Rita," the scientist reassured with a laugh. "Think of a seed that has not yet germinated. Each failure or success record received from Bianka's training is a drop of water and a lick of sunlight. Which means, for the first record you add a root — which I call 'parent node' —, and with more records, you'll get the sprout and the leaves — or 'child nodes' — forming. The more records you get, the bigger and brighter the tree is. Therefore, the smarter the AI becomes at breaking down her habits and at challenging her. A real tree grows and its imperfections are hard to correct, but an AI's tree — or its neural network, if you prefer — adds weights and biases that are adjusted in the ending flow. Bianka's strength is off the charts for her current level; we can't train her with the other Valks. She needs some special treatment like all triple S-rankers, except that she will be exposed to more sophisticated technology."
"Is it weird that I somehow understood your complicated engineer stuff?" Bianka said at the back.
"I'm flattered. 'Brevity is the soul of wit.' So what do you say, dear?"
"Umm... Sorry, but I agree with Rita. If your old simulation system malfunctioned once and produced the Ganesha instead, I don't think you should create another one with 'more sophisticated technology'. You might accidentally kill someone now. Dr. Murata pressed charges against you with full evidence but nothing much happened."
The scientist stopped smiling and silence fell in as she slowed down the car. "That's because I got a backing from the Overseer," the scientist admitted with a grave tone, "I'm the one who modified the system that day, and for a good cause." The tone shifted to a maniacal laugh and her hands returned to the steering wheel. "I wonder how Himeko Murata never studied the material used to generate simulations but straight up questioned the material that built the impenetrable fake dome. Guess what! Both are made with the same kind of material. Right, Rita?"
Rita hesitated. Answering would make her admit to Bianka that she had been an idle spectator during the Ganesha incident, one who knew how to disintegrate the fake dome.
She rested her head against the window and her breath briefly fogged up the glass.
"What do you know about it?" Bianka suddenly asked her.
Rita wished she could avoid that question.
"The main material used to make all simulations is called... the soulium," she said, with her voice shaking a bit, "It is an... element that was secretly added... to the periodic table. No one outside Schicksal... should know about this."
"The soulium can adapt, recreate and regenerate," Nagamitsu added, "It can also be programmed to disappear if certain conditions are met. For example, the old simulation system allowed the Honkai beasts to battle against Valkyries inside the holographic dome. The Honkai beasts cannot step out of the dome, and even if they do, they will degenerate."
Bianka took a moment to digest it. "So that explains why the Ganesha immediately disappeared when it broke the fake dome. But... why would you endanger our lives? And, Rita, now that I think about it, if you already knew about the soulium, why didn't you help us?"
The maid did not answer nor look at her mistress who was sitting next to her. Her eyebrows creased and her hands clenched into a fist. She could not apologize. Not in front of Nagamitsu who was also one of Otto's pawns anyway.
"Here's a more shocking revelation, Bianka," the scientist continued, "Rita is the servant of two masters– no, three, actually! There's you, Ragna... and the Overseer. Among the three, who do you think stands on a pedestal?"
"The Overseer, I guess?"
"Correct! Rita cannot disobey him even if it means being in conflict with her two other masters. In her defense, she's only a maid who serves. In my defense, I did what I did to test your raw strength since we're not allowed to hold extreme experiments on lower rank Valkyries. We masked it as an accident. The Ganesha was programmed to only attack you. When I saw that deadly resolve in your eyes, I wanted to turn the system off, but the Overseer was against it."
The car parked in front of a tall glass building, a research center in England owned by Schicksal. When the engine stopped, Nagamitsu turned to look at a silent and ruminating Bianka.
"Some sacrifices need to be made for the future of humanity," the scientist said, feeling willfully misunderstood, "I don't want you to get hurt, of course. We all come to Schicksal for a purpose. Mine is to help humanity progress with scientific discoveries. Your maid's task is to serve. And I hope you know your reason to be among us."
Bianka nodded, though she was still avoiding eye contact. "I understand. Thank you, Doctor."
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The simulation room was a Honkai beast factory and the mistress was beset by a horde of them. She dashed forth with her lance, jabbed one, two, three, four flying ones code-named "Cassiel" and flung them at the Knight-class beasts. The shrieks and yelps echoed in the white room and the floor was dirtied with a dried fluorescent pink fluid. She fell them one by one, and if she was not satisfied with their final plea, she would stab them over and over again, lift their weakened bodies and throw them against her new generated enemies. Ten minutes in her nonstop rampage, her vision started to blur, her chest was heaving and her lance felt heavier. Her stamina was terrible. Before she embraced the floor from exhaustion, the simulation system was powered off and all the Honkai fluid mess along with the beasts disappeared.
The door opened and her maid rushed in with a towel and a bottle of water. To the maid's surprise, her mistress completely ignored her and walked out of the room without a word. Worried, the maid followed her mistress outside but stopped when she saw her talking to Nagamitsu and to the Overseer over a holographic call.
Is she mad at me? Should I apologize? She got severely hurt that day... I was only following orders... Amber was there... It's not really my fault... Maybe if I just cook something delicious for her she'll forgive me... That's right! She's very gullible and easily submits to food! The maid noticed that she was biting her nail and sighed. She peered in the hallway and realised that Bianka had already left without her.
Rita was a spy without any emotional attachment. She could easily backstab people while blindly following orders.
It should not have hurt her.
But it did a little bit.
That evening, Bianka left her dinner untouched.
Rita knocked at her closed door a few times, but she did not expect much. Half an hour later, Bianka came out of her room and sat at the dining table face-to-face with Rita.
"The Overseer was in a good mood even when he heard about our failed mission. He told me that I'll be sent to more 'secret' missions with you until I become more street-smart."
"I see..." Rita breathed. "Do you want me to... reheat your food? Your spaghetti has cooled off."
"I don't care anymore. Do whatever you want."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Do whatever you want!"
Rita swallowed. "Alright... I'll reheat your dinner. Tell me if you want to eat something else."
Bianka deeply exhaled. She wanted to stay mad. She felt betrayed. She wanted to dislike Otto for putting her life and the lives of her friends at risk. But then, she reminded herself that it was Otto who had brought her to Schicksal from the orphanage. The food, the clothes, the dormitory, the academy... Everything was a gift from the Overseer, and she was heavily indebted to him. She convinced herself that he had a fair reason for using her. Of course, why would he hurt her without cause? It was a necessary trial. She needed a cast-iron mind and body to go on a real battlefield in chaos. Thinking that the Honkai would get weaker over time was just wishful thinking.
She watched her maid turn on the microwave.
The Overseer's words took precedence over hers, and Rita simply followed orders. But she just stood idle while I almost got killed. She knew about the soulium and how to save us, Bianka thought.
It was a necessary trial, she then reminded herself.
Her maid's back was turned as she did the dishes. Bianka wanted to hate her for pretending to care.
But was Rita really pretending?
Bianka peeked over the notebook that her maid left open on the table. She saw some random food doodles in the corners of the page and a recipe written with some details encircled with red ink. She quietly flipped the pages and saw more recipes, with highlights on her favorite desserts. Inside the hardcover of the notebook, Rita had written down: "The perfect dish can only come from the perfect formula. I will become the perfect cook in Schicksal for you". For whom?
For me, Bianka answered in her heart.
Of course Rita cared. It was not the notebook that had to remind her.
She stood up and timidly approached her maid. When the words failed her, her body acted before she could think. Rita was surprised when she suddenly received a back hug and almost dropped a plate.
"I'm sorry."
The sound of running water stopped and there was total silence for a moment save for the beeps of the microwave once the timer was over.
"Me too."
The maid turned around and returned the hug.
