"Growing up, my parents worried about me. They were concerned that I was never outgoing enough to speak up in school, and it worried them that my days consisted of school, archery practice, homework, and then bed.
But the truth was, how I spent my high school years never really bothered me. If people were going to judge me based on what I chose as my priorities, then they were not worth the time to get to know. I was never the kind of person to force myself on other people in order to become friends.
That belief was only cemented when I found the people I knew were my new family. We should never have to put ourselves out there to find human connection, because our connections with other people are formed by what we see. I don't claim to believe in fate, but I do believe that we don't meet the people we choose to surround ourselves with for the rest of our lives by mere chance." —Sonoda Umi
Pausing outside the door to her conference room, Nozomi brushed back a strand of stray violet hair that had fallen out from her braid. She half turned her head, feeling inexplicably reassured by the fact that Eli was only a few paces behind her.
"Remember," Nozomi murmured to her in a low voice, "President Tenjoin may try to use his position to intimidate you. He doesn't know you personally, so I expect him to attempt to bully an answer out of you. I know it's not in your nature to back down from people like him, but a reaction is likely what he's hoping for. If he asks you anything, leave it to me to answer him."
Eli nodded, her cerulean gaze serious. "Okay."
She knocked once on the door before she turned the handle.
Nozomi had forgotten just how imposing the district ruler of Osaka was until she spotted him sitting in an armchair, conspicuously close to the seat that belonged to her. She fought the frown that twitched at the side of her mouth, knowing the man had chosen that particular seat for a reason.
"Good afternoon, Toujou-sama," he addressed her, standing up and holding out a large hand in greeting. "I appreciate your hospitality, especially being able to meet me on such a short notice." Behind his oily voice, she could hear the thinly-veiled satisfaction that underlined his words. She saw him noticeably turn his head towards Eli as he looked past her shoulder.
The flash of recognition in his eyes was unmistakeable—even though it lasted perhaps a fraction of a second—before he buried it under a look of mild, disassociated interest. "And who might this be?" he asked her in a spuriously curious tone that didn't fool her at all.
There's no doubt about it. He knows who she is and why I brought her with me. The realization still struck her like a dagger, even though the fact itself was in no way surprising to her.
Her lips twitched into a smile as Nozomi faced him. "Ah. She's one of my information specialists. I'm sure you can appreciate my need for additional security at this point in time, President Tenjoin. I hope that this doesn't inconvenience you?" she asked him sweetly.
The gleam of irritation in his eyes told her that it did, but he had no grounds to stand on and he knew it. "Of course," he said, offering her his hand again. "Why don't we sit down?"
Nozomi met Eli's gaze in a slight, brief turn of her head and gave her a barely-perceptible nod before she took his offered hand. Taking the cue, Eli found herself a spot across the room from them and settled herself in a chair unobtrusively, plugging in her laptop to a wire in the corner of the room.
Trusting that she had the capability to deal with whatever President Tenjoin had brought with him, Nozomi turned her full attention back to the older man sitting in front of her. "So what would you like to discuss with me?" she asked him serenely. Two can play at this game. He knows I know why he's here.
"Oh, I think you know why," he replied off-handedly, before a more serious, portentous tone entered his voice. "We've discussed this before, but I think it's time we revisited the topic of the railgun module. I'm sure that given… ah, recent developments, you can see why I felt the need to readdress it with you."
She gave him a small, emotionless smile. "I can appreciate the sentiment, but unfortunately, my answer hasn't changed."
He stared intently at her, an interrogative look lurking in his dark eyes as though he could glean her intentions off her facial features alone. Nozomi could not be a hundred percent sure of what was going through his head at the moment, but she was fairly sure that he was trying to decide whether she was serious at the moment or not.
Finally he raised a suspicious eyebrow at her, the features on his face unsure of how to completely arrange themselves. "Even though you're aware of the discussion that's currently going on in your district?"
"I am," she told him smoothly. "However, I don't necessarily see why that should change my answer in regards to your proposal."
Tenjoin made an effort to fight back a derisive laugh. "Toujou-sama, are you saying you don't take into consideration the opinions of the people who live in your district?"
"I would never claim that," she said, the corner of her mouth quirking into a practiced half-smile. "But as I'm sure you can understand, what the majority of the citizens want isn't necessarily synonymous with what the right thing to do is."
The older man leaned forward in his armchair until the rim of his monocle caught the afternoon sunlight filtering through the windows. "Ah yes. I forgot. How is your new law coming along? Have you convinced the citizens of your district to see that it's the right thing to do to give those victims citizenship rights?"
Nozomi met his words with stony silence, hearing the derision in his tone and knowing exactly why he had chosen to bring up that particular point.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eli flinch very slightly at the mention of the policy in question. Instinctively, she knew that at the moment, both of them were thinking about everything that had happened since its announcement that had led them both up to where they were sitting now.
"I don't see what that has to do with our current discussion," she replied delicately.
Tenjoin caught onto her less-than-friendly tone immediately as he sat back with a faint smirk. "You see, Toujou-sama," he told her, as though she didn't know better, "your public image is important. Have you considered that if you approve this railgun module, the citizens of your district might be more receptive to your idea?"
Taking a small breath, Nozomi looked at him in the eye, staring into his beady, chestnut gaze with her emerald one. "Unfortunately, the two aren't mutually exclusive, President Tenjoin," she said calmly. "Wasn't it you who told me that you wanted to use the railgun module to create a new world order? Even if it isn't your intention, I'm sure that it's in the interests of more than a few people to use it to eliminate the victims of Edenra."
She hadn't wanted to call him out on his motives specifically, but he had left her no choice. Tenjoin knew exactly where he wanted to go with this particular conversation, and he hadn't come to her district to hear her tell him no.
To Nozomi's surprise, the man smiled at her. It was genuine—in the sense that he completely believed in what he was going to say next. "I see you're still as naïve as ever, my dear." He crossed his fingers together as he sat forward slightly. "Has it crossed your mind that your father and I developed this plan after years of debate? Why would it be the path that we've chosen if it wasn't the most beneficial for the people that live in our districts?"
She had wondered when Tenjoin was planning on bringing up her father. It was inevitable, and although it was a topic of conversation that she had mentally prepared herself for, Nozomi still felt the familiar empty ache in her chest at the mention of him. Why? she asked herself for what felt like the thousandth time, before she dismissed it. She could wonder about her father's intentions for the rest of her life, and no matter how long she looked, she knew she would never find an answer.
Giving the other district ruler a dry smile, she sat up a little straighter. "It has, as a matter of fact," she informed him lightly. "But you may have also noticed that my father and I are different people. Has it crossed your mind that though we both want what's best for the citizens that live in Tokyo, we may have a different opinion on how to create that future?"
Nozomi did not expect the older man to miss gravity of her words and she was not disappointed when she caught the spark of irritation in his dark eyes.
"Is that why you choose to put your trust in people who have no right to any of the information you choose to share with them?" he challenged her. Behind his perfunctory tone, his impatient frustration at her lack of agreement gleamed. There was absolutely no doubt in her mind as to whom he was referring to, but in the process of trying to throw her, he had revealed a little too much information.
He's talking about Eli, of course. Not only am I sure he knows who she and what she does, it's clear that someone must have also told him about the the time we've spent together.
While the most recent development in their relationship was still—to the best of her knowledge—unknown to him, Nozomi knew that for him to deduce that much from whatever information he had been receiving from her district, he had to have been receiving it for months.
"No, actually," she corrected him delicately. "I believe it was also you who told me that I should pay a visit to the outer districts of this city so that I could better understand the situation at hand? Contrary to what you might have been told, I don't choose to share information to anyone I don't think needs it. If there's a cause for you believe otherwise, then I'm afraid I don't like what you're implying."
She had caught his momentary slip-up and they both knew it, as Nozomi watched him suppress an ugly look in an attempt to remain diplomatic. In no hurry for him to come up with a response to her words, she fiddled with her long braid on purpose, carefully averting her gaze under the pretense of giving him privacy to compose himself.
When she looked up next, she found that the contrived politeness of his features had been replaced with something that she could only describe as self-righteous annoyance. He stared at her for a few seconds before standing up abruptly; the motion surprised her, but Nozomi swiftly followed suit.
"You might think that it's still appropriate for you to be playing your little games, Toujou-sama, but the citizens in your city have already spoken," he growled at her. For some reason, the sudden, too-smooth, rational condescension grated against her nerves worse than his earlier oily petulance. "Politics isn't about creating whatever fairy tales you may have been told when you were growing up, but about what the most practical solution is to the problems that present themselves to you. You may not agree with me now, but you'll come to regret that. With or without your support, I will begin the construction of the railgun module next spring." He pretended to check the watch on his large wrist. "That leaves you roughly six months to come up with a solution of your own. Let's hope that you'll still have the authority to present me with that solution when the time comes."
He swept past her in his way to the door; beckoning to his pair of bodyguards on the way, he slammed it shut behind him.
Nozomi narrowed her eyes after him, unaware of the slight tremble in her limbs until she heard Eli come up beside her a few minutes later. Willing herself to calm down, she took a breath in an attempt to calm the hammering pulse in her skull. She turned to face the blonde, a bitter chuckle rising to her lips. "So, what did you think of President Tenjoin in person?"
Eli frowned, and Nozomi knew the momentary lapse in her control hadn't gone unnoticed. However, she was grateful for the fact that Eli didn't immediately press her for an explanation, deciding to humour her instead.
"He doesn't really intimidate me that much more than your advisors," she said slowly, "though he clearly has more resources than I've given him credit for."
Nozomi nodded once. "As we just confirmed."
Furrowing her brows, Eli crossed her arms. "He wasn't trying to record your conversation just now, but he's still obviously getting his information from someone. I'm sure he knows that it's impossible for him to do so remotely, but then, that would mean…" She trailed off, clearly unwilling to voice the thought aloud.
Nozomi finished her sentence for her. "I know. I've suspected for some time that someone close to me has been providing him with the information he wants. But with everything that's happened, I haven't had the time to investigate it properly." The corner of her mouth twitched slightly. "Though I'm not sure it would be a good idea to investigate most of the politicians in this city, at any rate."
"Why not?" Eli asked her. "It wouldn't be hard."
"No," Nozomi agreed, "but as you may have noticed, President Tenjoin didn't intend to let that fact slip on purpose. It was accidental. He knows that as well as you or I, and he may very well cut off that route of communication before we have the chance to investigate it properly. He may not look it, but unlike the businessmen he's been using to conduct his business for him up until this point, he would have been careful not to let that particular trail lead directly back to him. I'm sure he's already thought of a contingency plan for this very scenario, and the effort may not be worth it. After all, to him, I've never been 'right' when it comes to politics, so anything I've done up until this point has been insignificant to him." She shook her head once, breathing out an amused snort. "It just amuses me that after four years, he finally has doubts about his ability to manipulate me into doing what he wants."
Eli's blue eyes were hard—like cut sapphires—as she looked straight at her. "No, he doesn't," she said. "He knows exactly who and what you are. In fact, he's counting on it. It was never about you being right or trustworthy. The way he spoke to you—to him, it's always just been about how to best use you in his game. You are a predicable piece on his board, and he's trying to use that to his advantage. He said that this wasn't the first time you've discussed this, so from the first time you said no, he knew he wasn't going to talk you into anything. That's why he's done all this. It's because he's realized that—if he can't convince you by threatening or intimidating you, he's going to have to change the conditions in Tokyo so that you have no choice but to agree."
Nozomi stared at her, her heartbeat suddenly pounding against her sternum as cold goosebumps prickled her skin.
For perhaps the first time, she realized how incredibly perceptive Eli was. While that perception was sorely lacking in a few departments, the knife edge of intuition in her chest told her that she was right.
Taking a few steps closer to her, Nozomi took a deep breath before breathing it out slowly. "You're right." A small, genuine smile quirked at the corners of her lips as she lightly rested her forehead on Eli's shoulder. "It's a shame that none of my actual advisors have the audacity to tell me something like this without fear of some sort of repercussion."
Eli hummed softly as she looked down. "I've just dealt with too many people who act exactly like him over the years." Her voice hardened as she went on. "But that doesn't diminish the gravity of what he intends to do."
"I know," Nozomi told her gravely. "The only way that I can conceivably tell him no without him interfering in this city again is if we come up with a solution on our own in that time."
I… don't know if that's possible. We've had eight years to think of something, but no one's come forward in all that time with solution.
The thought instilled a vague ache in the region of her abdomen. It was a situation that was entirely out of her control, and she knew it. The Ceresis were a problem that scientists and researchers had spent the last eight years searching for an answer to, and Nozomi knew that there was absolutely nothing she could say or do to speed up that process.
She let out a sigh that was part regret, part resignation. If I had done things differently, would we be running out of time now? She knew it was another question that would never have an answer, but she couldn't help it. While she could not deny that Tenjoin's answer to the Ceresis was indeed a solution, she knew that it was not a prospect she wanted to see in any capacity.
The futures we want are different. Even if he means to eliminate the Ceresis, who can say who—or what—he intends to eliminate after that? Even if it costs me more than I'm willing to sacrifice, I can't let his idea of the future become a reality.
When she finally met Eli's aquamarine gaze with her own green one, Nozomi understood all too well the emotions in her blue eyes. She wasn't the only one standing in the room with something to lose if Tenjoin's plans indeed came to fruition, and knowledge of that fact only served to increase the stakes that were already towering high above her head.
She was surprised once more when Eli reached for her hand, taking it gently. Though the contact warmed the skin of her cold fingers, it made the chill at her core stand out, slick as wet ice. "I know a certain someone who's been working on a solution for the past few years," Eli murmured grimly. "We just have to hope she'll be able to come up with one before the six months are up."
Umi unlocked the door of Maki's laboratory and immediately coughed. A faint haze clung to the lights and there was condensation beading against the walls, forming small puddles on the cement floor. The metallic tang of Namidite invaded her sense of smell as she looked around, spotting the redhead in her laboratory gear bent over the corpse of a Ceresis on one of her gurneys, complete with a set of thick rubber gloves and a face mask.
Shutting the door behind her and descending the small flight of steps, she held a hand over her nose and mouth as she approached Maki's workspace. "What… are you doing?"
Maki jerked her head up from what she was doing as she groped around the stainless steel surface for a scalpel. "Oh. It's you."
Setting her bow and arrows down on an unoccupied table, Umi frowned. "Who did you think it was?"
Her friend snorted as she went back to what she was doing. "I don't know," she muttered sarcastically.
Umi pulled out a chair from one of the computer desks and sat down on its edge, unsure if she wanted to know what Maki was working on or not. "You're still annoyed at Eli, aren't you?"
Maki threw her head back and gave a short, bitter laugh. "Who told you I was annoyed?"
Sitting back a little further in her chair, Umi raised an eyebrow. "You are a terrible liar," she remarked.
Slamming down the scalpel in favour of a different, larger blade, Maki snorted again. "For the record, Umi, I don't care what Eli does with her own time. I've already told her what a shitty idea I think—no, I know—it is, so if she's not willing to listen to me, what can I do? Unfortunately, you know as well as I do that I have no control over whatever crappy decisions she chooses to make."
Umi shook her head once. Despite everything that had happened and everything that she had seen, she still had had a hard time believing that what she had learned a few days ago was really happening.
She had met Maki at the gates of the university campus a few days ago, intending to drop something off for Kotori that the brunette had forgotten. It was already autumn, and Kotori had left her jacket at her apartment. Umi did not like the prospect of her fiancée walking home in the morning after her shift with just her scrubs in October, so she had volunteered to go fetch it.
As she was handing Maki the coat, something else caught her eye. A block or two away from the campus gates, Eli was standing near a streetlight, her distinctive blonde hair highlighted in the setting sun against the orange leaves of the trees behind her. Umi had inhaled sharply when she recognized who was with her—it was Toujou.
But instead of the stiff, upright posture she had come to associate with her blonde friend, Umi realized that Eli seemed relaxed—at ease, even—with the district ruler beside her. They were standing far too close to each other for the conversation to be about anything substantial and as she had continued to watch, she saw Toujou reach out and take Eli's hand. The fact that Eli did not flinch away from the contact—as Umi had expected her to do—and returned it, instead, spoke silent volumes, and she heard a low growl from beside her.
Umi half-turned to find that Maki had also swivelled her head around to look at what she was staring at, and she had grimaced inwardly at the positively dangerous look that was creeping over the redhead's features. Before she could react appropriately, though, Maki had strode forward—the crunch of autumn leaves underneath her heels was loud enough to attract the attention of both Eli and Toujou as the two of them looked around.
Maki stopped a few feet away from them, one accusing finger already in the air as she pointed it at Eli. "You—Her—" she spluttered, evidently unable to form full sentences at the moment.
Umi caught up with her before she could say or do something that would inevitably end in her arrest, although she was sure that there was no hiding the blank surprise on her own face.
A small, amused smile had played at the edges of Toujou's mouth. "Good evening, Nishikino-san."
Maki ignored her, turning to face Eli instead. "You can't be serious about this."
To Eli's credit, she didn't back down in the face of the redhead's anger. "This doesn't have anything to do with you," she replied.
"Uh huh. So when exactly were you planning to tell us about 'this'?" Maki had challenged her, ignoring Umi's warning tug on her sleeve as she gestured behind her to include her in the use of the word 'us'.
"You know that the moment I do, I'm picking a fight that I'm neither responsible for nor want to have," Eli stated dryly. "Did you really want to know about this?"
Whatever personal feelings she had about the situation at hand, Umi could admit that Eli had a point, as Toujou laughed softly at her response.
"And I believe that that's my cue to leave," the violet-haired woman said delicately. She raised a hand in a wave as she walked the few feet back to the car that was waiting for her. "Good luck, Eli," she called over her shoulder before she stepped into the vehicle.
Umi had watched it turn a corner and disappear from sight before she turned around to find her two friends staring at each other, disgusted disbelief evident in Maki's amethyst gaze and annoyed resignation in Eli's blue one.
She held up a hand between them as she finally let go of Maki's sleeve. "Look, I know there are things that need to be straightened out, but can the two of you not do this here, at least?" she implored.
Since the ensuing argument, Maki had blatantly refused to speak to Eli except to make jabs at her new relationship status—and Umi did not foresee that changing anytime soon. She sat back on her chair again as she watched Maki look around her workspace for something else, and decided to change the topic. "So what are you doing?" she repeated.
Maki snorted again as she sat back on her chair with a thump, irritation still colouring her features as she put down her surgical knife. "Someone has to be responsible around here," she muttered darkly. "Honoka's lab finally got back to me with the Namidite I wanted her to modify, so I decided to try it out on this." She pointed at the Ceresis lying on the gurney in front of her.
Umi glanced around them. The small puddles of water on the floor glittered innocently back at her and she could still smell the metal in the air. "Is that why this place is a mess?"
"Stop lecturing me, Umi. There was no other way for me to test it, so why wouldn't I use this room?"
"What exactly are you testing?" Umi asked her, staring at the greying, decomposing body of the Ceresis on the gurney before her.
Maki let out a long-suffering sigh. "Remember when I told you a few weeks ago I found something in those sprays that I thought might work? I sent my data back to Honoka's lab to see if she could modify them into something that would be viable for us to use, so she's just sent back what she came up with—along with a few new samples for me to test this damn thing on." She pointed empathetically to a large, black canister sitting in the corner of the room.
Now that the topic had been brought up, Umi did remember her redheaded friend saying something about discovering something new in her experiments. More often than not, however, the science involved was far over her head and though she would never admit it out loud, she often paid less attention than she should have whenever Maki discussed her work. "The sprays?" she inquired, furrowing her brows as she got up from the chair to inspect the dead Ceresis more closely. "You mean the sprays that are marketed for Ceresis hunting?"
The physician nodded. "Yeah, those." She took in Umi's skeptical look and shrugged. "I know you've told me they're pretty worthless in terms of actual use, but I ran some experiments with them anyways." She picked up a lab notebook lying on a chair near her and flipped through it as she spoke. "They're not useless because their concentration has been calculated wrong. They're useless because they're diluted way too quickly by the air—especially if it's raining or windy—to do what they're supposed to do. So I asked Honoka if she thought it was possible to condense the aerosol into something more substantial that wouldn't be compromised so easily by the environment."
"So, like snow?" Umi wasn't completely sure she followed Maki's train of thought, but the redhead's explanation would certainly account for the amount of precipitation that was currently clinging to the floor and walls of the laboratory.
"A little denser than snow," Maki corrected her, "but yeah, something like that." She brandished her surgical knife again as she replaced her notebook. "This is probably the first time in years Honoka's been bothered to finish something on time because she's so excited, but I suppose we'll find out if she's actually done her work properly this time."
Umi looked over her friend's shoulder, watching her make a lateral incision on the Ceresis's chest with her knife. The tentative elation in Maki's voice had been subdued, but it had been there. In the eight years that she had known the redhead, she could not recall one time when Maki had been anything more than moodily determined when it came to discussing her work.
It was a topic that she knew was sensitive to her, and Umi knew that the past was not something Maki liked to discuss. Her investment into the Ceresis was personal, and she respected that. Giving Maki a wide margin of space to deal with her feelings around the topic might not have been the healthiest way for her friend to cope with the magnitude of the reality that she had to live with, but Umi also knew that Maki would never have let her pity her in any way, shape or form.
That wasn't what she was looking for. That wasn't what any of us were looking for.
Umi was well aware of the fact that Maki, at least, had channeled her hurt, frustration, and bitter sense of betrayal into her work. It had seemed like a terrible, cruel paradox at the time, because the more Maki dwelled on her work, the more she was reminded of what had happened to lead her up to that point to begin with. But Maki had been determined, and Umi knew there was nothing she could say that would not somehow belittle how she felt.
So for her to sound this anxious about what she's about to find, she must think she finally has an answer. For her sake, and the sake of everyone else, I hope that she does. Umi did not think that Maki had let herself entertain the thought of finally solving the problem that her father had created just yet, and she held her tongue as she watched the redhead work, knowing that anything she said at this point would only serve to be a distraction.
Her amber eyes widened as the careful incisions in the corpse of the Ceresis revealed disintegrating flesh that was strangely uniform. Neither of them said a word as Maki continued to take measurements and the occasional sample, dropping them onto petri dishes.
Both of them jumped when a ringtone cut through the silence. Umi spun around, spotting Maki's cellphone vibrating on top of one of the computer desks.
"Get that for me, will you?" her friend asked her, peeling off several layers of gloves as she put down her surgical instruments.
Umi made her way over to the desk, and she read the name on the phone's display quickly before she picked it up and handed it over. "It's Honoka," she told her.
Maki rolled her eyes before she answered the call, sitting back down in her chair. "Yes, it's me, Honoka," she said irritably into the phone as she picked up. "No, I'm not done my analysis of the results. Are you sure you did everything properly?"
Shaking her head, Umi had been about to find something else to occupy herself with when Maki gasped; jerking her head back in the direction of her friend, Umi watched the colour slowly drain from her face as she listened to what the other woman was saying on the other end of the phone.
Maki listened for a long time before she spoke. When she did, several long minutes later, her voice was a croak. "And you're positive that this happened on all your samples?"
Dread bounded through Umi's veins at the tone of the redhead's voice as she stood there, unsure of what was happening but knowing that whatever it was, she would not like. The last time that she remembered Maki's voice sounding that way, she had been the person on the other end of the phone on the night that Eli had been attacked.
"You did what?" The knuckles of Maki's hands turned white as she spat the words out as though they were thorny barbs. "Honoka, why the hell would you—" Her fingers crept up to press against her face as Maki half-buried her head in one hand, dragging in a slow, ragged breath. "Okay. Okay. Lock up the samples you have, and don't breathe another word of this to anyone else, do you hear me?"
As Maki hung up, Umi noticed that her hands were trembling. She tossed the phone back onto the desk with a clatter before she stood up, clenching the fingers of both hands into fists, her work abandoned.
"What happened?" Umi demanded, fighting the trepidation in her own voice.
Maki looked at her underneath dark red bangs as she started to pace. "Remember how I told you Honoka was the one who made the modifications to the Namidite spray?" When Umi nodded numbly, she continued. "Well, she was also the one that proposed that the best way to distribute this would be by air, because developing something that we would manually have to inject or distribute one by one would defeat the purpose of what we were trying to do. I agreed with her, but I wanted to make sure that what we were developing would be harmless to us. You know, normal humans. And since she wasn't busy, Honoka volunteered to run those tests."
Umi stared at her, confused, because the explanation in redhead's words was contradicting the anguish on her face. "And so…"
"So I let her," Maki went on flatly. "I figured she couldn't do that much harm, because I was the one dealing with the Ceresis samples. But somehow, she got herself some samples from some Edenra victims, from who knows where. She didn't tell me beforehand that she was going to include those in her tests, but she did."
Still unsure of what point Maki was trying to make, Umi took a step closer to her, cognizant of the anxious way her friend was pacing. "I don't understand," she said slowly. "Is it not a good thing that she thought to include the Edenra victims in the tests?"
Finally, Maki looked at her in the eye, her amethyst gaze conflicted and bitter. "Yeah," she ground out. "But in the process, she found that the victims of Edenra react to what we've developed the same way as the Ceresis do." Her last words were poignantly quiet.
For a moment, Umi did not understand what she was trying to say, and it took her several heartbeats to put what Maki had told her with the conversation she had just heard together.
The realization hit her in the chest like a physical blow. "No…" she whispered.
The redhead tilted her head back slightly, her gaze hard and lifeless as she continued. "That's not all. Honoka's already told her lab manager about the results." She paused, sucking in a breath as she relaxed her hands, before shaking her head slowly. "If I had more time, I might've been able to come up with something that didn't affect the Edenra victims, but I know her manager. She won't be able to keep this quiet—and to be honest, why should she?" Maki half-snorted, half-laughed, the sound caustic as acid sludge. "She doesn't have anything to lose. In fact, the fact that we've found something that'll get rid of the victims living in the outer districts will be nothing but a bonus to her."
Umi felt the fingers of her hand tighten around her bow that she had left on the table beside her, but the invisible enemy in front of her was not one she could fight. The back of her knees bumped against the seat of the chair she had been sitting on earlier as finally, Maki stopped pacing long enough for their eyes to meet, the same monstrous, fevered agony etched onto their faces.
Slowly, Umi focused on the redhead's features, finding her burning amethyst gaze as they looked at each other. When she opened her mouth to say the thing that she knew they were both thinking, her voice did not sound like it belonged to her.
"What are we going to tell Eli?"