Chapter 9
The journey back to the iron fleet's base was uneventful except that the storm had gotten more intense than before. After they put their equipment away, they decided to head to their version of the docks they called "the restoration harbor," or just "the harbor" for short. After which, they decided to give Fubuki a full tour of the base, but before they could start they heard heavy breathing the rapid footsteps. As they turned in the direction of the footsteps a girl around Bismarck's height, but looked like she was as old as Nagato came into view. She had short blonde hair, wore a white lab coat, had glasses, and looked very disheveled. As she ran towards them she was mumbling something, it sounded like, "I've done it, I've done it."
As the girl finally came to stop in front of Bismarck, panting as if she had run a marathon for the first time.
Bismarck, surprised by her sudden arrival asked, "Oh, Dr. Eva, what are you doing here?"
"Finally decided to come out your lab eh," Z-4 asked cheekily?
As Dr. Eva waved her hand dismissively at Z-4's remark, she made eye contact with Bismarck and said, "I've finally done it, I finally figured out how to reverse the effects of the curse." Before she could talk about her discovery more thoroughly, she caught sight of the red glow Fubuki was emitting who had now ducked behind Z-4 to hide out of nervousness. "That glow," she inquired about, moving aside Bismarck, who left the room. "Could it really be her, is she here?" Her face perked up with joy after asking her question.
Z-4 then moved out of Dr. Eva's way so that she could see Fubuki more clearly. As Fubuki and Dr. Eva looked each other in the eyes, Fubuki tried to give a smile and waved to her, greeting her with a simple, "Hello."
Dr. Eva's smile turned from anticipation to almost maddening glee, "I can hardly believe my own eyes, it's really you, the one Exatior spoke of, his chosen one, and now you're finally here." After saying all that, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself down before saying, "sorry about all that, I'm just really excited that it's finally happening."
"That what's gonna happen, am I missing something, I probably am aren't I since Exatior was kindly stingy with the information?" Fubuki asked, kind of annoyed that Exatior apparently only told her surface level information.
Dr. Eva nervously chuckled, "well that's kindly how he is, he'll…" she was about to give her best possible explanation before being suddenly cut off by Bismarck who had just returned with a book in her hands.
"Sorry you two but that is gonna have to wait for another time," she apologized. "Fubuki, this is the book I told you about earlier, the one that would explain your sudden red glow," she pointed out further by lightly tapping the book with one of her fingers.
Fubuki, who had for the moment forgot that she was still brightly glowing red went over to Bismarck's side, noticing something that looked like a bookmark sticking out the top, but most of her attention was in the book itself since it looked quite old. "Whoa," Fubuki uttered as she carcassed the book's surface with her hand, getting a good feel of it's slightly dusty and worn hard plaster hide, "this book looks almost a hundred years old." She said, still in awe.
Bismarck chuckled, "you're close, it's actually around a hundred and fifty years old," she explained. "It contains most of the information regarding our history and culture, all the way back to the ancient times, even when before the book was written."
"And the part that you've marked," Fubuki mentioned pointing to the bookmark that she saw before. "Is that the part that would explain what's happening to me now?"
"Yup," Bismarck confirmed, "unfortunately it's written in our language, so I'm gonna have to translate the inscriptions for you," she stated. Opening up the book to the page she marked, the page was almost completely covered in ancient ink inscriptions with a small picture of a human figure with the same kind of glow as Fubuki on the top right of the page. "Now," Bismarck started to speak again, "before I can properly explain your current phenomenon, I'm gonna have to tell the history behind it." Bismarck patted Fubuki on the head sensing her growing concern, "don't worry, this story has a happier ending to the last story I told you. Are you ready?"
Fubuki nodded in agreement and scooted closer to Bismarck's side getting a good look at the open book, eager to hear the tale Bismarck was gonna tell her next.