A/N: If at this point you've read this far into Big Sister's Watching and still haven't read Volume 2 Chapter 2, I'd really recommend that you go and read Volume 2 Chapter 2 before you read this chapter.
A few months ago, Seminar held its weekly meeting to discuss the state of Millennium. We discussed club finances, interesting bits of news, that sort of thing. Most of the time it was terribly boring, but this time was different.
Rio had a guest. A bit strange, considering she's normally a loner and outsiders aren't usually allowed in these meetings, but she insisted on having her there.
This girl said to call her Loremaster. She had the strangest outfit on. Super colorful. It kind of reminded me of a butterfly. And apparently she was a member of Gematria. Sensei always told me about how sketchy this organization was and told me to steer clear of them whenever possible. I believe Abydos also had a nasty run-in with them, correct?
In any case, Rio told us to just hear out Loremaster's story.
"So, shall we get to business?" Rio asked.
Loremaster nodded. "Of course." She turned to us. "Now I've already given President Rio this information, but with her permission, I am now going to give you this info too. I think you'll agree with me that this is rather interesting."
I had to ask Rio, "Okay, but what's the overview?"
Rio sighed. "I think it's best if you experience it firsthand."
Loremaster produced a virtual reality headset from behind her and placed it on the table. "Put it on," she ordered.
I glanced over at Noa, who looked just as skeptical as I was. Even so, Noa picked up the headset. Before putting it over her head, she nodded at Loremaster for confirmation. Loremaster nodded in response, and Noa put the headset on.
"Okay, if you say so."
"I must warn you, the scene you'll see might be a little graphic," Loremaster said.
Noa nodded to confirm she heard her. She looked around the room and started turning. Of course, I couldn't see what she was seeing, which made me just a little curious at the time.
Noa suddenly gasped and covered her mouth with two hands.
"What-what is this?"
Noa crouched down and attempted to pick something up. There was nothing there on the floor of the Seminar club room, but to her, it must have been so real.
"No, no, no, no!" she started muttering to herself.
I could only imagine what she was seeing, so I crossed my arms and turned towards Rio and Loremaster. "Hey, what's she seeing?"
Rio answered, "This is a visio-"
Loremaster cut her off. "President! No spoilers please!"
"Right. My apologies."
Noa stood up and quickly turned her head in every direction. "President! Did somebody make this? This is such a sick joke!"
"On that," Loremaster responded. "No, you could say I made the headset, but nothing more. What you're seeing is real."
I had to ask, "What's she freaking out over? Seriously, what's she seeing?"
Loremaster grinned. "Oh, you'll see."
Noa clenched the side of her head.
"Aaaah! This is too much! Take it off! Take it off!"
Hearing her cries for help, I rushed over to her side. "Noa? Hang on!"
I reached over and pulled the headset off of Noa's face. I could see tears in her eyes.
"Yuuka," she moaned. She reached out and touched my face.
"Hey! Personal space!"
"You're okay! Thank goodness." Noa started to sob relentlessly into my coat.
Seeing my friend like that just pissed me off, so I turned my head and shouted, "Hey!? What kind of sick prank are you playing on us?"
Rio didn't flinch at my outburst and responded, "This isn't a prank. Put it on and see for yourself."
"No! What happened to Noa?"
"You want to find out?"
I looked at the headset in my hands and sighed. "Why are you of all people pushing so hard?" I took one last glance at Noa, who was still keeling over and then sighed. I'll admit, I was morbidly curious at this point, so I put the headset on. What kind of prank could cause Noa of all people to react like that? I just had to find out.
For the time being, it seemed like the headset was set to pass-through mode and I could see clearly out the front camera. I heard Loremaster's voice inside my head. "Are you ready for this cram lesson?"
"Uh, sure."
"Let's get started then."
I could see the end in front of me. This obnoxious foe was on its last legs, and all I had to do was follow it up. Jump over here, get right up close to it. I held down the trigger button to charge up… charging… and… THERE!
KABOOM!
"YES! YES! I DID IT! HAHA YEAH!"
I jumped up from chair and held the game controller over me! Around me I could hear the cheers from the Game Development Department.
I heard Momoi yell, "Yeah, you kicked his ass!"
"Congratulations Yuuka," Midori calmly said next to me.
I felt a little childish that I actually jumped up in celebration and lowered my arms. "Haha, I guess it felt pretty good."
"So how was it?" I heard Yuzu ask me.
I turned around and smiled. I thought I had to give my honest assessment, but seeing Yuzu's smile, I decided to leave my most scathing reviews for another day. "Well, it was… certainly challenging. There's still certainly room for more, but for a prototype, it was really fun."
Momoi swung her arms down. "Ack! She called it a prototype!"
"I don't mean that in a bad way!"
"But we spent so much time working on it!"
Midori sighed. "It can't be helped. If that's how other people see our game, then it clearly needs more work."
I had to correct them before this flew way off course. "Don't beat yourselves up over it! Come on guys! This is a great base to build off of. A foundation if you will."
The Game Development Department didn't respond.
"Hey, hey now! It's about the journey, not the destination, right? As long as you're all having fun, that's what matters, right?"
Aris pointed up at the ceiling and nodded. "Yes! She's right! I had so much fun making Dungeon Tale with you all, that it's all worth it in the end!"
"See! Aris gets it!"
Midori nodded. "I see. This is just the first act. We thought we were almost finished, but we're actually only getting started."
Momoi groaned. "I hate that though! It already took us 90% of the time to get 90% done! This last 10% is also gonna take us 90% of the time! That's how game dev works!"
Aris pumped her fists up. "We did the first 90% once before, we can do it again!"
I just smiled at that. "Yeah, that's the spirit. And don't listen to what me or anyone else has to say. None of that will ever take away from what you've accomplished."
I felt pretty good at coming up with that one on the spot, so I pumped my chest in satisfaction. Then I thought of a great idea. "Hey, to celebrate this milestone, why don't you host a party?"
Midori's eyes lit up. "Yeah. We should, shouldn't we? I think we deserve one after all this time."
Momoi shouted. "Pizza party! Pizza party! It's a gamer tradition to have pizza!"
Aris threw one hand in the air. "Yes! I want pizza too!"
Yuzu whispered, "No pineapples please."
The Game Development Department started arguing over what kind of pizza to get. Frankly, I didn't care, so I said, "I'm gonna go home now. Have fun!" and waved them off.
"You're leaving?" Yuzu asked me.
"This is your party right? Besides, I'm busy, as usual. I've already spent more time playtesting your game than I expected, so I really can't stay any longer."
Aris smiled and nodded. "Sorry! Take care then!"
I smiled back and waved one last time. "You too!"
Neru was struggling to keep herself off of the ground. Her breaths were quick and shaky.
"Hah. Not even close, you bundle of bolts."
She fell down to one knee and grunted in pain.
I looked on in shock.
"Are you guys serious?"
Utaha raised her eyebrows. "What's up?"
"What's up? Your balance is what's up! Who do you think has to pay for all of this?"
"It was a mighty foe…" I could faintly hear Sumire say, her face planted on the ground.
I raised my voice even louder. "Oh, you haven't seen a mighty foe yet! I'm taking this out of all of your club budgets!"
Utaha smirked. "Still, even you have to admit… Deathbot battles are fucking badass."
Everyone present and still conscious nodded.
"Totally…" Neru's willpower to remain conscious finally weakened enough, and her halo flickered off, causing her to slump over in the middle of a giant crater.
Kotori pushed her glasses up. "Still, we put all this thought into the design and construction of the deathbots, but none into the venue itself. For future reference, we should probably take additional efforts to reinforce the buildings so they don't blast a hole in them."
I felt my blood boil in anger. "It's not just a singular hole in the building! Now we have to pay the medical bills too!"
Utaha said, "Yeah, but I'm sure the participants don't mind."
Sumire tried lifting her head up to say, "Yes, this was great exercise." Her halo, too, flickered and shut off.
So even she gets tired too?
I facepalmed. How couldn't I? It seemed like everybody but me lost their marbles. A deathbot battle in the middle of Millennium? Are you kidding me? Who knows how much damage that could have caused?
One of the piles of scrap metal started moving, and a hand emerged from the rubble. It moved aside the metal pieces, slowly, until more and more of the body came out.
"Yaa!"
Maki's red hair was easily distinguishable once she cleared the scrap metal. She climbed down the pile and jumped onto the ground, then proceeded to stretch.
"Fuck! That was so cool! I wanna pilot it again! You guys have to try this out later!" she said to Hare, Kotama, and the Game Development Department.
Aris rigorously shook her controller around. "Yeah! This time without any lag! Do you even know how bad it was?"
Utaha took down some more notes. "Well, we've got a lot of data to improve on the next iteration. But it's gonna take us a while to repair and upgrade the mechs for next time. We'll send an update when we're just about done."
"No!" I shouted at them. "If you're gonna host a battle, do it outside of Millennium!"
The group stared at me.
Utaha grinned. "Ha. Of course. Getting real world data is one of the most important steps of proper engineering."
Hibiki asked, "But where would we do it?"
Kotori crossed her arms. "Gehenna has a lot of old neglected buildings. I'm sure they won't mind if we use them for science."
"What? No! Absolutely not! You can't do your experiments in other schools without their permission."
Hibiki was looking at her phone and seemed to find something interesting. "How about Abydos? Big desert in the middle of nowhere. It would suck cleaning the sand off, but probably good for rugged tests."
I groaned. "Abydos doesn't own any land anymore. It's all owned by Kaiser Corp. You gotta ask them first."
Utaha crossed her arms in thought. "Well if we can't do our tests in Millennium, or another district, then where are we supposed to host our fights?"
Everybody stared at me again. I'm a little ashamed to say, but I did buckle under pressure here. "Okay, fine. I'll let you use the plaza. But keep it away from civilians and don't cause collateral damage!"
The group cheered. "Yeah! Let's go!"
The first thing I heard when I arrived at the Veritas club room was Midori's shouting.
"Nee-chan! Come on! Wake up!"
"What happened here?" I asked Sensei.
"I don't know. Aris went berserk. I don't know why. Momoi got knocked unconscious, and now she's not waking up."
I looked at Momoi. Midori was shaking her, desperately trying to get her to wake up, but to no avail. "Please! Please."
Unfortunately, Momoi wasn't going to wake up soon.
I looked around the room to assess the other damages. Hare, Kotama, and Maki were sitting in a corner, looking a little shaken up, but otherwise fine. The four maids of Cleaning and Clearing were here too, presumably having taken care of whatever caused that mess.
Something about that caught my eye though…
"What?"
Neru was carrying Aris in her arms, who was also unconscious.
"Oi, Yuuka. Chibi threw the worst temper tantrum I've ever seen."
"Is she gonna be okay?"
"She'll be fine. Probably. Don't know if blondie will be though," Neru said, turning her head towards Momoi.
"Oh no. Sensei, you've called emergency services, right?"
Sensei nodded. "Of course. They'll be here in a few minutes."
Neru gently set Aris down next to Momoi. I just had to confirm, "Did Aris do this?"
Neru put her hands in her jacket pockets. "Yep."
"Why?"
"Beats me."
Kotama walked over to us. "Everything was normal earlier today. We found these weird-looking robots on the outskirts of Millennium and brought them back here. We showed them to everyone, but suddenly the robots all turned on and then Aris attacked us out of the blue."
Hare and Maki joined us. Hare said, "Well, Aris is an android. I remember that right before this happened, she said something about her codename AL-1S and rebooting. Don't know if that helps."
That confirmed something for me. "So she really is an android…"
"You didn't know that?" Maki asked.
"Don't say that like it's obvious. It would be rude to go up to someone and ask them, 'Hey, are you a robot? Just need to make sure.'"
I heard groaning behind me, so I looked back and saw Aris getting up. The maids each drew their guns and pointed it at her.
Aris sat up and said, "Why does it feel like I have suffered critical damage?"
She noticed the tense atmosphere and the guns pointing at her.
"Ack! The demon maids! They're back!"
Neru shouted, "Don't you fucking move, Chibi!"
"Eek!"
Aris's eyes kept darting around the room, but she eventually noticed Momoi.
"Momoi? What happened?"
Aris made a motion to indicate that she was going to start walking over, despite Neru's command, but Midori picked up her rifle and aimed it at her.
"Stay away!"
Midori was still very much on edge, as could be seen by her rifle's shaking.
Aris froze in place at her friend's aggression. She looked around the room again, but all eyes were on her.
"Did… I do something bad?"
"Yeah," Neru said. "You did that to her."
"But… I don't remember that. It wasn't me! I swear!"
"Eeeeeh, wrong again. Most of us here witnessed it."
Aris looked at Sensei. Sensei just nodded in silence.
"I, I, would never hurt an ally like that. No, please! You have to believe me!" Aris locked eyes with Midori. "Please…"
Midori's aim trembled further, but she still kept her sights on Aris.
Aris looked down in shame. "Oh. I really did that to her. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry!"
Midori's aim trembled even more, but she finally gave up and threw her rifle on the ground and screamed.
I slumped down on the couch in the Seminar office room. I didn't feel lost that often, but for once, I truly didn't know what to do.
"Where would we even start? Ugh, Prez sure covered up her tracks. Nothing in the security cams. She must have scrubbed them this morning."
Noa brought her pen to her lips. "Any suspicious activity at all… Ah, I think I remember something. There was a bit of an oddity in the finances allocated to Seminar, but I never had a chance to take a good look at it. Let me try to find it again."
"Oh?" I swung my legs around to sit upright. "You got a clue?"
"Yes, but I'll need your help to verify it."
I got up and walked over to Noa, who was busy shifting through numerous documents.
"It should be around here. One more folder… Then this one… I believe the budget looked off this past year. We should compare them to the previous years."
Noa opened two separate windows displaying spreadsheets, one for Millennium's fiscal information for this year, and one for last year.
I took a cursory glance at each of them and immediately noticed something off putting.
"Our liquid assets this year keep shrinking month after month, especially when compared to last year. That means we keep investing in stuff, and we sure do a lot of it. But these numbers are just going through the roof. Do you know if we have any big projects going on?"
"Not that I'm aware of. Aside from the usual infrastructure budget and club allocations, we've been keeping this money for use on a rainy day."
"Then why does the investment number keep going up?"
Noa pushed away from her desk and stood up. "That's the part that I found fishy. But like I said, I was too busy to ever investigate."
I bit my lip in shame. "I never noticed this. And I'm the treasurer, for crying out loud! I must have assumed we were using these investment funds for some crazy stunt the Engineering Department was doing or our AI program. But even I can't micromanage every little thing that comes my way."
Noa, ever the friend, patted me on the back and tried to comfort me. "Don't be so hard on yourself. This is a system failure, not your fault. We can still fix this if we trace where all the money is going."
I nodded. "In that case, find the table for one month of these investment spendings."
Noa sat back down and went back to work finding the relevant documents.
"Here's the table for April. I'm already noticing that infrastructure costs seem to be quite high. What was it like last year?"
Noa entered in queries to get the data from April of last year.
"Oh my."
"What the hell? I think we might have found the culprit."
The infrastructure budget for this year was exponentially higher than last years. If we had a massive infrastructure program going on, this wouldn't be strange, but we didn't at the time.
"One more level, Noa. What exactly are we spending on the infrastructure?"
Noa found the relevant file and opened it. The table showed an enormous list of transactions that just kept loading and loading.
I commented, "Sheesh, that's a lot of entries. I don't remember signing off on any of these."
"And I don't remember processing them," Noa said.
"Pull up these receipts."
Noa clicked on an entry to show more details about the transaction. "Railroad maintenance linking Millennium to Eridu."
"Shipment of one hundred steel beams for use in Eridu Central Tower."
"Electricity bill for Eridu District."
It's Eridu this, Eridu that. I had to ask Noa, "What's Eridu? Do you know?"
Noa shook her head. "No idea. I'll search it up."
Noa went online to search for Eridu, but no satisfactory websites were there detailing it, and no information about it was on Wiki either. The only relevant info was a location on K-Map. Noa clicked on the link to expand the map.
"That's strange. This is without a doubt Kivotos. Millennium is right there. But this is the first time I've heard about Eridu," Noa said about this strange place.
"Think it's one of those ghost school situations, where all info on the school is blacked out?" I asked Noa. "I know there's a couple schools like that in Kivotos."
Noa shook her head. "No, I can't see that. According to the map, Eridu is as big as the entire Millennium District. It's really quite impressive. It would be impossible to hide this."
"So a new school then? Wouldn't we have heard about it by now?"
"The fact that we haven't suggests that it might not be a school at all."
"Hmm." This gave me a bit to think about, but I need some more data to confirm my findings. "Can you bring up more receipts?"
Noa displayed the details on more transactions. Most of the suspicious ones were directly linked to infrastructure projects in Eridu, or were funding businesses that were pouring into Eridu.
"That confirms it then," I said. "This isn't just a one-off thing. We're pouring money into Eridu for some reason."
"But why would we do that if we didn't even know it existed?"
I thought back to the root of this entire problem in the first place: Rio. "The only people who can make changes to these records is us. You, me, and Rio. If neither you nor I know about any of this, then that leaves one other person who does."
Noa furrowed her brow in thought. "Rio is heavily investing in Eridu… Or maybe…"
I finished Noa's sentence. "...She built Eridu herself."
The video feed transmitting back to us was clear as day, and I wished it wasn't.
The strange robots I saw in the Veritas club room were attacking Eridu, and I got to see in real time the damage they could do. C&C were doing their best to defend the main tower, but even they looked like they were struggling, especially with how hard they were fighting against Rio's forces not even a minute earlier.
Another monitor displayed the inside of the top floor of the tower, where Rio, Aris, and Sensei and the Game Development Department were standing off against one another.
No, my bad, that wasn't Aris there. It was Key, the source of and controller of these robots from hell.
Among all this commotion, Rio and Sensei were arguing about something.
"I won't let you do that!" Sensei shouted.
"This is the grave I dug. You don't need to be hurt because of me," Rio said in response.
"But you'll die!"
"Anything to fix my mistakes."
The screen they were looking had a progress bar slowly counting up to 100%.
Momoi was freaking out, constantly turning her head and looking for a way out. "This ain't looking good at all!"
"You three!" Rio shouted at Momoi, Midori, and Yuzu. "Take Sensei and get out of here!"
Sensei shouted, "No! Come with us! We'll fix this together!"
Rio shook her head. "I've already done too much. I need to fix this now."
Rio walked back to the terminal and began inputting commands.
Key taunted Rio from her cage of wires. "It's useless. When, not if, I gain full control of this tower, your life will be extinguished."
Rio bit her thumb in frustration. "Until then, I will do my best to fight back." Rio''s next few commands opened a secret compartment in the wall with a large button.
I could only watch this scene from the safety of my monitor.
"We have to do something, right, Noa?"
Noa nodded. "Eridu might have its own power sources, but electricity from Millennium is being drawn to it too. It's possible that if we shut off all power in Millennium, it will shut down Eridu too."
"We have to try. Noa, on you!"
Noa began typing away at the keyboard to bring up the power management settings, but my focus was primarily on the scene in Eridu. The progress bar was getting ever closer to 100%. Once it reached that number, there would be nothing we could do.
It reached 90%. Rio looked over shoulder to find Sensei and the Game Development Department still there.
"What are you waiting for? Go!" Rio shouted.
Despite this, none of them budged.
"What are you doing?" I whispered to myself. "Come on. Just go."
95%
Noa yelled at me. "I'm ready now! Give me the signal."
99%
"Shut off the power! Now!"
Noa pressed a button on her keyboard and the lights in our office flickered.
The screen turned off for a second, but turned on after that. It tried to display the streams from the security cameras of Eridu, but no signal came back.
So I had to wait an agonizing few seconds.
Wondering whether or not this would actually work.
"Please."
Suddenly, the streams came back online, and Divi:Sion robots were crashing onto the ground outside. Inside the tower, Key was screaming. "No! It can't be!"
Rio looked like she relaxed a little and sighed.
It looked like crisis averted. I smiled and closed my eyes. Maybe I could relax today after all53 75 69 74 61 62 6C 65 20 70 6F 69 6E 74 20 6F 66 20 64 69 76 65 72 67 65 6E 63 65 20 66 6F 75 6E 64 2E 20 44 6F 6E 27 74 20 74 61 6B 65 20 74 68 69 73 20 70 65 72 73 6F 6E 61 6C 6C 79 2C 20 49 20 64 6F 6E 27 74 20 65 6E 6A 6F 79 20 73 65 65 69 6E 67 20 79 6F 75 20 73 75 66 66 65 72 20 65 69 74 68 65 72 2E01001001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101111 01101110 01100111 00101110 00100000 01001001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101100 01101100 00100000 011149 27 6D 20 73 6F 72 72 79 2C 20 53 65 6E 73 65 69 2E 0A 49 20 77 61 6E 74 65 64 20 79 6F 75 20 74 6F 2D
95%
Noa yelled at me. "I'm ready now! Give me the signal."
99%
"Shut off the power! Now!"
Noa pressed a button on her keyboard and the lights in our office flickered.
The screen turned off for a second, but turned on after that. It tried to display the streams from the security cameras of Eridu, but no signal came back.
So I had to wait an agonizing few seconds.
Wondering whether or not this would actually work.
"Please."
Suddenly, the streams came back online, and Divi:Sion robots were outside the window of the top floor of the tower. Rio looked on as one of them morphed one of its tentacle limbs into a spear and pierced through the window and impaled Rio. Cracks started forming in her halo.
Midori, Momoi, and Yuzu started screaming in terror.
Sensei extended his hand and shouted, "Rio!" However, he paused and turned around. "We need to get out of here, now!"
The Game Development Department wordlessly followed Sensei back to the elevator leading to the ground floor.
Key pulled on the cables keeping her imprisoned and effortlessly tore them off. She dropped to the ground and walked over to Rio. "Looks like I've won. Your state of the art technology is no match for Divi:Sion. A shame we had to rush this, I would have appreciated a bigger gift."
Rio looked at Sensei one last time before the elevator doors closed. Then she closed her eyes and smiled.
"You're right, Key. Even I knew that."
Rio slammed her fist into the button. But nothing happened.
Key raised one eyebrow.
"Hmph. Whatever it is that you tried to do, I have hacked it. None of your emergency measures will work against me now."
Rio opened her eyes and stared Key down. "That's why the self-destruct button is purely mechanical. Good luck hacking into dynamite."
Key gasped. "No!"
The drone impaled Rio with another spear, this time straight through her neck, instantly shattering her halo into bits and pieces.
Key tried to jump through the opening in the window. The last thing that came through the camera feed was a quick series of explosions that ripped apart the entire floor.
I could only guess what happened to the people there after that.
"No!" I instinctively shouted at the screen. I couldn't believe what just happened. I witnessed Rio get murdered, and as for what happened to Aris, Sensei, and the other girls…
I spoke into my headset's microphone, trying to get any response.
"Sensei! Are you there? Answer me! Sensei!"
I wished and wished that he would respond. But as those precious seconds passed by, my hope shrunk. I had to try something else just to keep my mind off of that possibility.
"Aris! Hello!?"
Still no response.
"Momoi! Midori! Yuzu! Please! Are you all okay!?"
…
"Neru! Status report!"
Oh my god. No. This couldn't be happening right now.
"No, no, no. Please! Is anyone there? Anyone okay?"
I heard the static through my headset: someone was trying to communicate with me. If it was anyone in that blast…
"Yuuka! Are you okay?" Chihiro asked me over the comms network.
My heart sank that it wasn't who I wanted to answer, but I still tried to respond. "I'm fine. So is Noa. And the others?"
Kotama answered this time. "Veritas is fine here in our club room. But I don't know about the others."
I could hear Maki in the background say, "You don't think they're… you know?"
I threw my headset off before she could finish that thought.
"59 6F 75 20 64 69 64 6E 27 74 20 72 65 61 6C 6C 79 20 think that would work, did you?"
I turned around to see an unknown woman sitting in the President's chair. Her blue halo resembled a clock, and thorns pierced the hour numbers, making it look like she was wearing a crown of thorns. She finished writing something down in a notebook and closed it.
Noa stood up and drew her handgun. "How did you get in here? Wh-when did you get in here?"
The lady waved her hand in indifference. "When I got here isn't the right question. Shouldn't you be asking who am I? And the answer is an old friend. Why are you pointing that thing at me?"
Noa unclicked the safety. "I have a strong memory. I would have remembered you. Who are you, really?"
The lady shrugged her shoulders. "Like I said, an old friend. Although from your perspective, I guess this is the first time you're meeting me. Well, this version of me, anyways. I'm still getting the hang of this time travel stuff."
She looked down the barrel of Noa's gun and opened her notebook again. She scribbled something down and closed it.
"Interesting," she mumbled to herself.
"Hey!" I shouted. "What do you mean 'did you really think that would work?'"
"Eridu has its own power generators. Of course shutting off its access to your power grid wasn't gonna stop Divi:Sion."
I unholstered my SMGs and pointed them at the lady. "Are you the one who did this?"
The lady looked at the notebook again and sighed. She mumbled to herself, "Actually, wouldn't it be a problem if they remembered this?"
"Answer me!" I yelled.
The lady turned her head towards me. Noa used this opportunity to fire a bullet into her head. She moved her head out of the way, dodging the bullet entirely. She used this momentum to rotate her body, pick up the notebook, and chuck it at Noa in one motion. It made contact with enough force that it knocked her on the ground.
I fired a burst at her, but the lady kicked the Seminar table, flipping it into the air, deflecting all of my shots. The lady produced a pair of colorful and strangely beautiful wings behind her and dashed towards Noa and grabbed her by the throat. She lifted her up with one hand. With the other, she opened some sort of… portal? And pulled out a large machine gun. She then stabbed the bottom of her wings into the floor. She kind of resembled a butterfly in that instance. With that hand, she aimed the machine gun at me and fired a volley of bullets.
The bullets made contact with me, and the larger caliber rounds had enough force to knock me off my feet and drop both of my weapons. I felt painful stinging all over my body.
The lady looked at the camera feed of the now destroyed tower in Eridu. She sighed. "I have to cut this short. I have a meeting to attend soon."
She gently placed Noa back onto the floor and lowered her machine gun. Noa collapsed onto the ground and breathed heavily.
The lady bowed once to both of us. "I'm truly sorry about this. Looks like I have to try this again. I apologize for the inconvenience."
I tried to stand up through the pain. Hearing this, I just got more confus52 65 73 65 74 74 69 6E 67 2E 20 4E 6F 74 65 3A 20 69 66 20 79 6F 75 27 72 65 20 73 68 6F 77 69 6E 67 20 74 68 65 6D 20 74 68 65 20 66 75 74 75 72 65 2C 20 64 6F 6E 27 74 20 69 6E 63 6C 75 64 65 20 79 6F 75 72 73 65 6C 66 20 69 6E 20 74 68 65 72 65 20 75 6E 6C 65 73 73 20 79 6F 75 20 77 6F 75 6C 64 20 68 61 76 65 20 61 20 72 65 61 73 6F 6E 20 74 6F 20 62 65 20 74 68 65 72 65 20 6E 6F 72 6D 61 6C 6C 79 2E 20 4F 74 68 65 72 77 69 73 65 20 74 68 65 79 20 6D 69 67 68 74 20 62 65 67 69 6E 20 74 6F 20 73 75 73 70 65 63 74 20 79 6F 75 2EOh my god. No. This couldn't be happening right now.
"No, no, no. Please! Is anyone there? Anyone okay?"
I heard the static through my headset: someone was trying to communicate with me. If it was anyone in that blast…
"Yuuka! Are you okay?" Chihiro asked me over the comms network.
My heart sank that it wasn't who I wanted to answer, but I still tried to respond. "I'm fine. And the others?"
Kotama answered this time. "Veritas is fine here in our club room. But I don't know about the others."
I could hear Maki in the background say, "You don't think they're… you know?"
I threw my headset off before she could finish that thought.
Even still, I couldn't help myself but to finish that thought for her.
In strange defiance, I said out loud, "No, they're still okay, right? They have to be okay! This is Sensei we're talking about! They're still fine! He always knows what to do! He's fine, right, Noa?"
Noa bit her lip and looked away from me. "Oh Yuuka…"
"Noa! Please! They're all okay, right?"
"What we saw…"
There was no way that what we just saw on the computer screen was real. It was just a trick by Key, or Rio, or maybe even the most tasteless prank Maki or Chihiro has ever played on me.
I ran over to a computer and started a playback of the stream. Starting from when the stream came back online after we temporarily cut off the power, I examined the playback for any abnormalities.
But still, the same sequence of events unfolded in front of my eyes. Rio still died and the building still exploded.
There was no way it was real, I thought. Despite all the obvious evidence that it was real, I still held the faintest glimmer of hope in my heart. I picked my headset off of the ground and put it back on me.
I composed myself and addressed whoever was listening. "Hello, is anyone there? This is Yuuka. Sorry about that. Any updates from the people in Eridu?"
There was an eerie silence on the other side.
"Um. Hello?" I asked again, waiting for a response.
Finally, Chihiro broke the silence.
"Yuuka… We've confirmed that everyone on the ground in Eridu is dead."
I felt the coldest chill enter my head. Cold enough to cause me to fall over on the ground.
"Ah. Ah! Ah!"
I couldn't deny the truth anymore. Everyone involved in the raid was now… gone. I would never see any of them ever again. The maids, the Engineering Department, the Game Development Department, Sensei. All dead with no ceremony. For what?
I slammed my teeth together and tried to scream. Despite my best efforts, I ended up opening my mouth and letting loose all the air in my lungs.
Noa laid down next to me and hugged me from behind. I felt her face rest against the back of my head. I could tell that my hair was getting soaked, but I didn't mind. The combination of her warmth and her tears is what finally broke me, and I too began crying.
I could feel my headset getting moist from the water of my and Noa's tears. I didn't bother taking my headset off, and through it, I could also hear the anguished wails from the Veritas club members. Their despair only amplified mine, and I began weeping harder.
There was no comfort in this world. No happy endings. I understood this well as a lady of science, but even deep down, I earnestly wished that we could have a happy ending. That magic was real.
But cold hard facts will always be there. To rip you away from your dreams and into reality.
"Agh!"
I felt my head get lighter as Noa lifted the headset off of me. I saw that her face was still red and her eyes still watery, but she still embraced me. She gently stroked my hair.
"It's okay, Yuuka. Everything's okay. We're all safe. I'm here."
I felt a terrifying migraine, like my head was about to split open. I fell forward into Noa, and was almost completely supported off the ground by her.
I tried to reach my arms around her and just screamed.
"Aha. Ah! AAAAAAAA!"
The weight of all of my memories from the time when I was a baby to the present crashed into me all at once. I felt the joys of winning awards and getting accepted to Millennium to the disappointments of the social life I sacrificed and the childhood I never lived, nor thought about living. I felt the emptiness that something was missing in my heart.
That something was wrong.
That it was all wrong!
"WHY!?" I shouted. I didn't know why. I didn't know what that question was trying to answer. Or what answer it was trying to question. I just needed somebody, anything to explain it to me. To explain what it was.
To, "MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! AAAAAAAH!"
I embraced Noa even tighter to the point where I felt pain in my muscles. Trying to get some semblance of physical feelings to counteract the overload in my mind.
"IT'S TOO MUCH! THERE'S TOO MUCH! IT HURTS! STOP IT! PLEASE!"
My ears started to ring. Whether it was from all my pain or a response to my loud screaming, I couldn't tell. What I could tell was that my pain got even worse.
"AAAAAH…. GOD! PLEASE! STOP! AAAAAAAH!"
I felt my stomach run up against my throat. This uncomfortable sensation…
I released my death grip on Noa and planted my feet firmly on the ground. I tried to push off, startling Noa enough to take a step away from me. I used this space to swing my elbow into her rib cage, then pushed her away from me with my shoulder, causing her to fall onto the floor.
I tried to turn to the right and run. But before I could take even one step, I brought my hands to my mouth and stumbled forward onto Noa, falling down onto one knee. My stomach churned, and I felt something rise up my throat. Before I knew it, I opened my mouth and released the content previously in my stomach onto my hands. The goop that stayed on my body began to drip down my arm. Everything that didn't flew back onto my clothes, the furniture in the Seminar office, or onto Noa herself.
I couldn't stop myself from hurling at this point. A continuous stream of my sludge sprung forth from within me and to the outside world.
It was too much for me to support myself. I fell onto my elbows-into the vomit- and just kept going.
The head-splitting sensation was still there. I was seeing doubles. But only when my stomach calmed down, did I fall face first onto the floor.
I coughed to expel the last of it from my throat. But I could still feel the tears in my eyes, drool on my face, and vomit in my mouth. Despite my physical state, I didn't want to get up. I couldn't. I was too exhausted to will my muscles to move the way I wanted them to.
So I laid there. In a pool of my own sludge. For how long? I couldn't tell exactly. A few minutes at most. I eventually realized I had to clean myself off, so I pushed to try to get myself off the ground.
At this point, Noa's already recovered and helped me get up.
"Thanks."
"Are you okay?" she said in a clearly concerned tone.
"I'm fine now." I wiped my mouth with my coat sleeve. I took a look at it and winced. "Ugh. Gross."
I looked at Rio, who was sitting across from me on the Seminar table. "What was that?"
"Are you sure you're okay to continue the meeting like this?" she asked me.
I nodded. "Yes. That was unprofessional of me. I don't know what came over me. I just felt this searing pain in my head."
Loremaster spoke up. "No, you two go ahead and clean yourselves up. I can explain everything once you're done. I don't know about your President Rio, but I don't have anywhere important to be today."
I nodded at her. "Okay, thanks."
Loremaster nodded right back at me, then wiped her face with her jacket sleeve and sniffled.
Looked like she was crying too.
A/N: Lucky number chapter 13! Hopefully you could follow along with what was happening. If not, that's okay, Yuuka didn't understand anything either. This is definitely a Gomen Yuuka chapter, although maybe not in the way that it's normally used.
Anyways, that gibberish with the strange combination of letters and numbers is legitimate hexadecimal/binary encoded text. Feel free to decode them yourself if you want to read them.