What She Wanted To Do
" Can't we at least talk about this?" Kousuke tried to get through to the blonde woman despite her not sparing him the slightest glance. She was focused on her own work.
" There is nothing to talk about. I told you from the start that if things reached this far I'm going to move." She stood up from her chair, cradling a certain device akin to futuristic goggles.
Kousuke bit on his lip as she turned around to walk away only for him to block her way. " Move." His look held hers, still, he didn't budge an inch. He instead folded his arms in front of his chest, his tall frame towering over her.
" What if I say no? What if I tell you I'm not giving you access to the computer to do what you're planning to do?"
" Are you threatening me?"
" I'm just stating facts here. I'm the owner of Kamiya Crafts, and I'm allowed to do what I want in here."
Eva's eyes then flashed dangerously at him he almost had to gulp down. " I want to remind you that I don't need your permission to access your mainframe, I can control this whole building with a simple touch. I'm just being polite here. Whether you like it or not, I'm borrowing your computer." Seeing his lack of response, she promptly brushed past him.
Kousuke pursed his lips into a thin line at the sound of the door swooshing open before the words stuck in his throat finally spilled out. " Why can't you ask us for help? Why can't you trust us? Evangeline!" He shot his head back at her, staring at her back as she halted by the threshold.
" I can't trust you. Not when it comes to Mizel. So I'm doing this on my own."
" Oh no, you're not." A voice caught them by surprise. Mirai was leading the rest of their friends up to them.
" What in the world is your security doing Kousuke?" Eva grumbled seeing all of them walking up to her. Mirai stood right before her, her eyes fell on the device in the blond's hand momentarily then back to the red eyes.
" You want to face him on your own?"
" Is it wrong that I want to stop him before any casualties happen?" She answered with a question of her own.
" Is that what you really want?"
" Move aside, Mirai."
The blunette ignored her. " Is this your answer?"
" I said move aside!" She shouted out, trying to dart past her but the older woman stood in her way.
" Not a chance. You're not doing this on your own. Mizel is important to all of us. And you're not his only sibling you know."
" Then why didn't you stop it?!" She cried out, her bangs covering her eyes as she held the gadget tightly, almost hugging it. " Why did you allow them to take him away? Why didn't you say a word to us?" Her eyes shot back at the brown ones, burning with anger and fury. " Why didn't you protect him? He was supposed to be your sibling too!"
Mirai's lips pursed into a thin line, remembering their last interaction. " I don't need your help! I will stop Mizel on my own! You just can sit back and watch it like years ago!"
" Hold on, that's going too far!" Just as Kirito stepped up to face her, a snap resounded through the room. When Mirai came to, she realized her hand was held high and Eva's cheek was glowing red.
" That's right… I made a mistake years ago…"
" I will be waiting for your return."
As she ground her teeth, a tear fell down her cheek. " I should have insisted, I should have put more feelings into those words, maybe they would have convinced him then. Maybe they would have reached. But I didn't. And I still regret it to this moment!" Eva looked up at her in puzzlement, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
" I shouldn't have let go." Mirai held her hands up in front of her, they were shaking vigorously as she recalled the last hug she gave him. " I should have trusted him more, even if he couldn't trust himself. That's way…" Her hands balled into fists as she looked up at Eva. " You don't have to make the same mistake I did, Eva. You don't have to do what you think you must do, but what you believe you should be doing."
" Huh?"
" Eva, you may think that you have to stop him, that you need to put an end to him as his sister. But what do you want to do? What does your heart tell you to do now?"
Eva looked down at the device in her hands. What did she want to do? What her heart was telling her to do? It was a simple answer. It was so easy to figure out yet so hard to speak out loud. It didn't feel right. She knew it was selfish and far-fetched and no one would ever approve of it. However, that was what she wanted to do.
" What's it Eva? What's it that your heart tells you?" Mirai's hands landing on her shoulders startled her, the brown eyes boring into hers, as though trying to unveil her deepest thoughts.
" I… I can't…" She couldn't possibly put the whole world in danger just for her own wish. It was bigger than her, bigger than Mizel, she had already decided that. " I can't do it…"
" You can!" Mirai told her as she held her closer into a hug. " You're his sister, his closest sister. If you don't believe in him then who will do that? If anyone should know better, it's you."
Eva bit on her lip, her determination wavering at those words. " I don't want… I don't want to hurt him… I don't want to fight him… I don't want to end him, even if he's the way he's now. I want to help him… but, there is no way to do so now. He won't come back, he would never come back!"
" You're wrong." At that, the blonde snapped up to look at Professor Oozora as she joined them along with William, a serious and stern look in her eyes.
" You didn't see him back in Takuya-san's office." Eva pushed herself away from Mirai and wiped away her tears. " He's not coming back again. He's not the same as before. The Mizel we know is forever gone."
" Then, can you explain to me how you're still standing here right now? Enlighten me."
" Huh?" Eva blinked at her.
" Eva, the power surge tempered with each and every device in Japan, except for a single one. Your AI ship. It was never damaged, never had any data deleted from it."
" Well, I don't believe a ship created by you would be easily ha-"
" Oh no, believe it. The security I put on your AI ship was never enough to protect you from that virus." Haruka took off her glasses and she squinted down at Eva. " We've been studying the traces we found in your AI since then, and with the data you provided from the attack in Tunisia, I was finally able to confirm it. Those were Mizel's, his original traces, not the virus."
" Eh?" Now not only Eva was befuddled, but all of the present there looked up at the woman, demanding she further explain.
" It's maybe because of the bond you both share, but the moment your AI was about to be attacked, the security protocol was rewritten immediately to defend against the virus."
" Was… rewritten…" Red eyes widened at that revelation.
" No matter what that Black Mizel says, his origin is still the Mizel we know. That's what Jessica-kun confirmed to us. And most importantly, that's why he protected you." William spoke as he stepped towards her. " Mizel is still somewhere in there. We may be able to help him. And the key to that is you, Eva-kun." He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. " We promise you Eva, this time for sure, we'll save Mizel. So, we need your help."
A few minutes later, they were all gathered around Goliath's main computer while William was going through some codes and scripts.
" Jessica and the rest of the Fire Sweets members went back to that madman's house and retrieved his computer," William said as he pulled a few tabs before of them, showing them a few program scripts. " It took hard work, but with the Hackers Army's help, we managed to recover all of his data and figured out what he had done. Basically here is the guise of it all. He captured Mizel's main program before it was deleted, and using an original program called Easter Egg, he cultivated it again to recreate him, albeit, as a virus that follows orders. It seems to have taken two years to cultivate the AI again with his limited resources but, half a year ago, Black Mizel escaped to the infinity net, traveling around it and preparing for his attack."
William took in a deep breath and faced Eva. " The thing you should know is, Easter Egg is still Black Mizel's core to this very moment. It may be possible to extract Mizel, but it will be hard. Black Mizel won't go down without a fight."
" And we can't fight him," Elie pointed. " You said the infinity net is under his mercy. Which means the moment we send our LBXs there, they will go boom in a matter of seconds."
" True. That's why, we need your help Eva-kun." His eyes glinted with determination as he spoke this time.
" Using the safety protocol we found in your AI, we could protect your LBXs against Black Mizel's hacking," Haruka told her.
" That way, we can fight him!" Ban caught on to it quickly, eager to jump to action soon.
" Not so fast!" Mirai held one arm before him. " The problem isn't yet solved. How can we extract Mizel's main program?" She looked up at her mother.
" I'm working on a vaccine program, with William-kun's help, we expect to finish it up soon. But we need to capture Black Mizel first," she said looking from William to the rest of them. " That's what we will have your LBXs doing, hold him in place even if for a moment."
" That begs the question of how will we be able to lure him first?" Kousuke pointed out and Haruka pushed up her glasses.
" I'm afraid we need to have a bait."
" Huh?"
" I see," Eva mumbled," and that would be me."
" Eh!" Everyone cried out in surprise at her words.
" It's the only logical way, right? For the only threat to Black Mizel right now…"
" … Is the only one who has authority to get into Mizel's main program. Your bond." Haruka continued for her. " Although whether Black Mizel is aware of this bond or not is yet debatable. And I wouldn't say that you could hack past Easter Egg but…"
" If I try that, it will disturb him and prompt him to find the source of the attack to eliminate it." Eva tapped her chin. " So I can definitely lure him into Kamiya Crafts' network."
" Then we can deal with the rest!" Shouted Hiro enthusiastically.
" Wait! It's still dangerous for her!" Elie cried.
" Right. What if Black Mizel managed to hack your AI instead?" Jin turned to her, his eyes begging her to think things over.
Eva looked down at the Nerve Gear in her hand and clutched it tightly. " I need to confront him. I know it's risky, and I'm maybe afraid of what may happen but…" Her red eyes found Elie's. " I'm not the only one afraid here. Mizel needs me, and as his sister, I need to do what I can to save him."
Hearing those words, Elie had no choice but to swallow whatever disapproval she had left and held Eva's stare. " Then you should make sure you're there to welcome him back."
Eva had a small smile and nodded her head. " I will do it from inside the infinity net, you guys must ready yourselves as well," she told her friends and attempted to leave only for a hand to stop her.
" Wait." She whirled her head, only to see Mirai staring at her defiantly. " I'm going too."
That single phrase took her by surprise. " I'm afraid there is only one ticket," she said holding up the device in her hands.
" We brought spare ones just in case," William interjected, " you know, if we reached you late and you had already dived, we would need to go after you."
" If you're both going then count me in!" Hiro joined in quickly. " You're not the only ones who need to confront him. I, as well, need to apologize too, for not being able to do anything for him."
" Hiro…" Mirai's look went soft as she saw her brother's determined expression. " You have nothing to blame yourself for. You didn't know."
" I didn't know but I should have known. I realized something was wrong with you and Mom. I should have said something to him too, I should have spent more time with him… I was his big brother as well. "
Eva's eyes flicked between them both before sighing. " Alright, if you want to tag along, then it's fine. But let's get ready quickly. We hardly have any time before N City is wiped off the world's map."
Nodding their heads, both siblings entrusted Kirito with their LBXs and followed her as she rushed out of the main control room and to the control pod test room of Goliath.
" We need to get ready as well," stated William firmly as he embarked on typing on his keyboard again. " Kirito-kun, please set the scanner. I will be injecting the security protocols as we get ready to launch the LBXs to the infinity net."
Kirito gave a nod before he began tinkering with the round device.
" What takes priority now is the vaccine program." Haruka reminded him.
" Don't worry, I can work on them at the same time. Meanwhile the rest of you, get ready to move." The twinkle of his eyes didn't dwindle even with all the pressure he was sustaining. " We'll save everyone back in N City."