"The time of our crusade is upon us. Gawain, awaken the instrument."
Tendrils of lightning lashed against Proto-Zero's skin, forcibly dragging her towards the edges of consciousness while a contraption around her face suppressed any ensuing scream. Metal cuffs restrained Proto-Zero's limbs from subsequently thrashing about. Induced sedatives slowed any form of coherent thought. When Proto-Zero's eyes shot open to take in the cylindrical chamber which her body writhed within, the searing electricity abruptly halted, ceasing the woman's agony as her muffled cries turned into a muzzled whimper. For every gasp she desperately attempted to draw beneath her breathing mask, only a smidge of genuine reprieve would actually flow into her battered lungs.
The translucent solution that pervaded her containment tank made it almost impossible to perceive anything beyond its glass exterior. And all endeavours towards recalling why she was even here quickly led to a gaping chasm within her memory, leaving Proto-Zero with only the 'name' she had been branded with.
She eventually spotted movement outside of her cramped cylinder. The motion of two silhouettes. Proto-Zero tried to shriek under the confines of her breathing mask, but the woman's frantic motions were only rewarded by another arc of lightning which whipped her back like a scourge of flagellation. Immediately dreading any further physical retribution, Proto-Zero ceased all manner of pointless resistance, and impotently watched while two tall figures took shape before her chamber. One donned a hooded robe over their slender frame. The other wore an attire of armoured midnight as she carried a crowned helm under one arm, leaving a head of elegant dark-blue hair unbound by any obstruction.
"The subject has been primed for the Remembrancers' indoctrination ritual," the robed individual formally stated, their features concealed behind a silky, translucent veil. "But... is this truly necessary, Knight-Commander Lancelot? Surely, an alternative is-"
The anonymous figure's subtle concerns were silenced by a raised hand from their armoured companion. "Spare it your sympathy, Gawain," Lancelot exclaimed, scoffing. "If you would prefer to have it be aware of what its fabrication entailed, you are welcome to do so." When Gawain gave no manner of response other than to turn their hidden face away, the captor in pitch-black obsidian focused her pupils back onto Proto-Zero's floating body. "Humanity's bio-artistry is adorably primitive," the Knight-Commander whispered sweetly, rapping her knuckles on the containment tank's reinforced glass. "Nonetheless, the Illuminati's gift to us is one that I shall happily include in our armoury."
Lancelot subsequently withdrew her gauntlet to playfully twirl a strand of azure around one finger.
"Rejoice, Proto-Zero," she said, now acknowledging the woman whom they treated akin to purchased goods, "for you have been pulled from the Great River's depths to be granted the privilege of following my direct command." The saccharine tone that permeated Lancelot's tongue only hastened the rising thumping within Proto-Zero's chest. And judging by her captor's growing grin, Proto-Zero's fear was anything except unnoticed. "... Your apprehension perplexes me. Do you not realize what our Artificers have imparted to you? I shan't expect your feeble mind to be anything but rudimentary. Regardless, a small level of gratitude should not be impossible for even the likes of you."
Their golden locks now fluttering from an evident breeze, Gawain continued to cast their sights away from Proto-Zero's chamber while another dose of tranquilizers flooded the helpless woman's nervous system. "... Will she not require a name?"
Lancelot looked at them incredulously. "A weapon has no need for one," the armoured woman sweetly uttered, now turning on one heel to face a cylindrical tank with her uncaring back. "Proto-Zero carries only one purpose. A single mission that shall fuel its soul until the time of its inevitable demise." As she caressed the crowned helmet she held in one arm, Lancelot declared her elegant departure through a series of clanking footfalls. "It shall conquer the world from which its worthless corpse was dug up from. And once Terra Prime is wiped clean of Humanity's rot... it shall be free to accompany the rest of its damnable species under the foundations of our destined paradise."
Hearty delight accompanied Lancelot's conquering footsteps, further deepening the growing chasm inside Proto-Zero's blank mind while the sedatives began to overpower her completely. She fought to keep her eyes open utilizing whatever strength she could miraculously muster. But in the end, all of Proto-Zero's resistance only led into a swirling, unbreakable stupor.
Shinonome Aiko's eyes immediately opened to gaze into a stretch of overwhelming pitch-black.
Freezing sweat dotted her pale-white skin, drenching the woman's bedsheets in salty moisture as she lurched forward in her bunk bed.
Surrounded by a submarine cabin's choking darkness, Aiko clutched on to her shoulders with a pair of trembling hands, physically subduing herself until the pounding of a cursed heart forfeited its frantic momentum. Once the beating within her ribcage eventually transitioned into a steady pulse, Aiko tentatively reached for her bedside drawer, and activated its built-in lamp. The summoned illumination casted a dim, yellow beacon amidst Aiko's assigned quarters, allowing her watery eyes to settle a pair of pupils atop the smartphone which laid right next to her pillow. An ensuing tap of its screen displayed the current time.
Judging by the exhibited numbers, precisely 38 hours had elapsed since Lanfen was escorted into the submarine's Intensive Care Unit.
Seeing the Adaptor's blood-soaked body while she laid on top of a medical gurney had left a permanent mark on Aiko's retinas. Whenever the woman tethered on the brink of slumber, what Aiko witnessed purely because of her own damnable curiosity would repeatedly reiterate itself underneath her eyelids. Thus, as soon as Aiko herself had been discharged from the med-bay's care, she made the unfaltering decision to step into the I.C.U., and stand by Lanfen's recovery pod for hours on end. One-sided conversations would periodically arise between them at random intervals. And yet, Aiko remembered nothing about what she even uttered outside of the objective fact that she had spoken at all.
Naturally, this drew eventual concern from the crew, necessitating an order from Commander Genjuuro himself for Aiko to return to the cabin which had been prepared for her and Lanfen. The room itself provided a generous level of clearance for merely two people. But when only Aiko herself inhabited their personal quarters, its wide space ironically accentuated just how deserted it turned out to be.
Aiko held up a handful of her daily medicine while her back slumped against the cabin's metal interior. Intending to lock her wandering mind on a single task to occupy herself, Proto-Zero wiped away her teardrops before she downed a number of pills one-by-one. Some were ingested without a fuss. Others took more effort than she usually required. Neither honestly mattered. Because once Aiko accomplished the routine of storing her medicine capsules back inside her drawer, she slipped back into her damp blankets, and began gazing at the bed that lied on the other side of the room. Her wrist-mounted multi-tool sat on the cabin's table with its power switched off, occluding any bothersome messages as a living experiment huddled beneath a lamp's comforting light.
A knocking on the door subsequently snagged Aiko's attention. A voice resounded afterwards. "Aiko?" The gentle tone from beyond the entrance surely belonged to Tomosato Aoi. "... Aiko, are you awake?" The pale woman ruminated about remaining silent simply to avoid an undesired conversation. Unfortunately, these thoughts only lasted until the bridge operator explained the reasoning behind her visit. "Lanfen is awake." Aiko's half-covered eyes widened into plates in an instant. "I just thought that you might want to know. And since the doctors say that it's fine to see her, why don't you... come out and pay her a visit?"
A pair of bare feet made contact with the floor within a heartbeat.
Paying no heed to the freezing metal under her soles, Aiko's body threw itself towards the door.
Her fingers were only centimeters away from the entrance's control panel when the woman suddenly halted right in her tracks.
After prohibiting her trembling fingertips from proceeding any further, Aiko sucked in a quivering breath, and drew one foot's worth of distance away from the cabin's door. Every ounce of consolation which initially arose from Tomosato's words slowly bled away into cold, leaden culpability, weaving a tendril that bound the woman's hands until she remembered the lives Aiko had personally snuffed out. They were the souls of a dozen humans. Denizens of a world which had blissfully remained ignorant of what sailed beyond its quarantined solar system. Among the slew of names who were murdered without a face for her to associate with, there was but one whom Aiko could recall, and it was "Cynthia Jiang Kai-Ming."
Cassandra Jiang Lanfen's very own flesh-and-blood.
Aiko swallowed the words she wished to utter before the pale woman dropped onto her knees in front of the room's entrance. The floor was akin to a bed of icy nails. And yet, Proto-Zero submitted her bare skin to their vicious biting without any form of resistance whatsoever. "... I intend to see Lanfen at another time, Tomosato," she stated without hesitation, garnering audible surprise from her colleague on the other side of the door.
"Are you sure about this, Aiko?" were the only words that Tomosato chose to say.
Slowly turning her head towards the coat rack above her room bed, Aiko pursed her lips at the scarf which Lanfen had gifted her while it hung right next to Komichi's lucky charm. Merely gazing at the apparel's black-and-white cloth from under a concealing fringe of silver reminded Aiko of just how little she deserved its embrace, for she was - after all - the one who had irreversibly torn apart a pair of sisters. The monster who had planted an Adaptor on the self-destructive road towards revenge. "It's fine," Aiko reassured her, ironically borrowing a phrase that Lanfen herself often used. "Nevertheless, I will thank you for taking the time to inform me. I'm sure you must be busy."
Ensuing silence floated between her and the bridge operator for what could only be described as an eternity. "Alright then," Tomosato quietly said, "just let us know if you need anything, okay? Fujitaka and I will be on the bridge as usual."
Sensing no more muffled words from beyond the room's door, Aiko listened on to her colleague's fading footsteps until their clacking vanished into the proverbial void along with Aiko's own self-inflicted restraints.
Once every form of noise surely died out around her, Proto-Zero released a breath she did not even know she was holding, and allowed a stream of fresh tears to crash onto the flooring.
Aiko subsequently hauled her pathetic self off the floor and dragged her feet towards the nearest available bed. Such an endeavour turned out to be harder than it should have been when Proto-Zero's eyes refused to cease their constant crying. Intending to put a stop to them utilizing any method other than her bare hands, Aiko approached the base of her bed, and rummaged through her uniform's coat while it lied forgotten on the ground up until now. All she required from the discarded apparel was a single piece of tissue. But the moment Aiko's hands slipped inside its pockets, her prying fingers instead caught the sensation of a sturdy, thumb-sized item which she held no memory of storing within her uniform.
Ensnarled by her growing curiosity, Aiko retrieved the object, and delicately held it beneath a lamp's revealing light.
It was a memory drive.
The very same one that Lanfen gave to her on a Christmas morning. The item which apparently contained archived information about her younger sibling, Jiang Kai-Ming.
Cursed ichor froze within Aiko's veins at the sight of an object she had completely overlooked due to the burdens of the past two days. Proto-Zero swore she had left it behind at their apartment in Yamaku. And yet, here it was, sitting in the palm of a trembling hand as its figurative weight outnumbered the load of its actual mass tenfold. Unable to decide an immediate choice of action regarding the drive she carried, the woman's golden eyes began drifting over to the smartphone on top of her damp blankets.
Whatever possessed Aiko to retrieve her phone, she could not give it a name. But it was the sole reason she proceeded to grab Yuki's Christmas gift just so she could insert the thumb drive into one of its available slots. Suffused with burning inquisitiveness by this point, Aiko accessed the drive's stored contents, and copied them directly over to her smartphone's memory card through the acceptance of a prompt. All this occurred within the timespan of precisely 1 minute. When Aiko eventually heard a confirmatory ring, a single fingertip hovered over the device, and stabbed into its touch-screen, bringing up holographic projections of the first four images that sat within a newly-created folder.
The subsequent holo-projections contributed to the room's dim lighting, almost slicing their way through the surrounding shadows while a quartet of photographs manifested before Aiko's widening eyes.
Every picture contained a young, shining girl within them. A child who had only recently turned 17-years old. A girl who no doubt received the love she deserved from the only family she had left in her life.
And it was all because of Aiko's own two hands that she was forever consigned to the grave.
Fixating her pupils on to the images of times long past, Aiko's fingertip moved of its own accord as it swiped from one photograph to another, summoning photo after photo of a dead girl's recorded life until it eventually concluded with the image of a birthday dinner between Kai-Ming and Lanfen. The brimming smile which Aiko witnessed on Lanfen's expression was one she had yet to see in-person up until now. A sight that Proto-Zero found herself entranced by after a single, momentary glance. Even so, Aiko knew one fact to be true within the depths of her sinful heart, and it was how Proto-Zero carried no right to be the recipient of such a smile after every murder she had perpetrated over the course of one bloody evening.
By the time she received her scheduled dinner tray, Lanfen's body had recovered to the point of allowing its limbs to move without any sensation of numbness whatsoever. Submitted remarks from the medical-bay's personnel refrained her from making any extensive maneuvers for at least 2 days. Obviously, that was an optimistic estimation. Keeping herself in line with the doctor's orders nonetheless, Lanfen wolfed down her meal while a pair of wireless earbuds provided the woman with a means to occupy her auditory senses.
Soft rhythmic tunes graced her ears like droplets from a modest drizzle of rain, establishing a personal sanctuary around the Adaptor for her to recover within. The music originated from a small, square-shaped device which sat atop the room's bedside drawer. Komichi's gifted micro-player. As the item rested itself against a black-and-white belt-buckle, Lanfen paused halfway through her food, and started perusing the text messages she had received from the Adaptor Corps' other Wielders. Tachibana was the swiftest out of the six women to deliver a letter. Not that it surprised Lanfen in any way, of course. She was mostly taken aback by the enthusiastic verbosity of her colleague's message.
Lanfen also made sure to draft up a birthday greeting for Yukine once every received text had been gone over. Recent events made hitting the "Send" button far more difficult than one would expect. Still, Lanfen could not bring herself to ignore a special occasion such as somebody's birthday. When a reminder from Akatsuki's message of all sources dutifully went out of its way to point out how a gesture like this could mean the world to someone, Lanfen swallowed the bundled hesitation inside her throat, and thumbed her smartphone's touchscreen. The readied text was then sent halfway across the globe without another wasted second.
The Adaptor placed an emptied tray aside after scarfing down the remaining half of her dinner, allowing Lanfen to slowly hold up the corpse of a battered, silver pocket-watch. Five twitching fingers secured themselves around its cracked, chrome casing. Resonating pianos and howling saxophones filled her ears. Through the tap of a micro-player's holo-interface, Lanfen lowered her tunes to the bare minimum. An ensuing change in volume gave way for her to hone in on the flames which flickered in the woman's only working eye, all while its pupil took in the vein-like cracks on a chronometer's ruptured dial.
"Luckily for you, she's always been standing right by your side."
Lancelot's words had been ricocheting off her cranium's ringing walls ever since the Commander departed from the room with Professor Elfnein in tow.
There was absolutely nothing to obscure such a straightforward statement. Even then, Lanfen still couldn't believe the implications behind its honey-coated syllables.
Be that as it may, the Adaptor refused to let herself be spun into disarray by the identity of Kai-Ming's killer. By drawing in a practiced breath, Lanfen dampened the proverbial fires within her left eye, and carefully settled Aiko's broken pocket-watch on top of her blanketed lap. In every instance she chose to recall the night where Lanfen first crossed blades with Lancelot, she would always remember witnessing one spectral entity first and foremost: A flame of retribution. The same vengeful inferno which throbbed within Lanfen's pupils. Lancelot possessed a radiance incomparable with any sensation the Adaptor herself had ever felt. And everything it implied only sent shivers through Lanfen's brown skin.
"You know," Yuki suddenly spoke up from the farthest corner of the room, "you're lookin' pretty chipper for someone who just had a run-in with the grim reaper."
Her teammate's off-handed remark fished out an amused scoff from the Adaptor and little else. While the recovery room's ceiling lights buzzed over their heads, Lanfen looked towards the nearby table, and noticed how Yuki was pouring out her fourth serving of pitch-black coffee. Lanfen withheld any comment she carried on her tongue only because the woman clearly needed the caffeine. "Being asleep for nearly two days has its merits," Lanfen dryly replied, combing several fingers through her disheveled hair. "Besides... I've got too much on my shoulders by now to start having second thoughts again about why I became a Wielder."
Yuki chugged an entire mug's worth of coffee in one go before she wiped her mouth clean using a uniform's navy-blue sleeve. "Not gonna let anythin' stop you, huh?" she mused with her back still facing the Adaptor. "I guess an attitude like that just comes with wearing a 'Gear. Can't say I'm surprised in the slightest."
A second tap of a micro-player's holo-interface silenced Lanfen's music entirely. It simply didn't feel right for her to hold a conversation with a pair of running earbuds. Their ambient tunes weren't doing anything to soothe her mind right now anyway. Having spent the whole afternoon lying in bed after providing every slice of information she was willing to give in relation to their enemy, Lanfen now counted on S.O.N.G. as an organization to narrow down what Lancelot aimed to accomplish with the SG-r04's extracted information. Any speculations surrounding the true intent behind the Candidate murders weren't leading anywhere decisive, pushing them to focus only on what they knew so far.
Once Yuki had concluded her business with the room's half-empty coffee pot, the ponytailed woman dropped onto the chair next to Lanfen's bed, and flipped open her wrist device's built-in communicator. While the Adaptor herself felt out her right eye's medical shield, Lanfen took a peek at the forming holo-display on top of Yuki's multi-tool, and quickly spotted the contents of a letter that was still being finalized. Yuki made no real effort to conceal the recipient's listed surname nor its intended destination as she continued editing the digital draft.
The letter was clearly meant for Komichi's parents.
Noticing the ensuing twitching within her sword-hand, Lanfen clicked her tongue before she switched on her phone again, and started scrolling over to a written conversation from almost two days ago. Lanfen then narrowed in on one particular message she received from Yukine and used the archived text to recall a promise she had very nearly forgotten about.
"Look out for Yuki whenever ya can. Even if Yuki insists she's alright, just be there for her."
After gazing into the message's Japanese letters for a full, unbroken minute, Lanfen placed her smartphone beside a broken pocket-watch, and awkwardly cleared her throat. "... Yuki?" The woman's words got her teammate to glance over one shoulder with multiple fingers now hovering still above a wrist device's holo-keyboard. "Since there's no better time than now... I want to tell you something." Lanfen paused. "Only if you're willing to hear it, that is."
Yuki raised one brow and weakly shrugged her shoulders. "Go ahead," she said, dismissing the holographic display which projected from her arm-mounted multi-tool, "it's not like we have anythin' else to do right now anyway. I'd call Tomosato over for a card game, but I'd rather not lose any more of my salary to her, if ya catch my drift."
Lanfen's scarred chest tightened ever so slightly. Her windpipe struggled to choke out the woman's desired syllables. She was essentially gargling cold, rusted needles. "... I wanted to say that I'm sorry," she stated, digging several fingernails straight into her palms, "both for running off on my own... and nearly getting myself killed." At this point, the memory of being on the receiving end of a firearm's barrel was impossible to wipe away from Lanfen's mind. "I can't excuse myself for letting it happen. Not when it would have... only caused more trouble for everyone. Especially for you and Aiko."
Her teammate abruptly halted the Adaptor's words with a raised palm. "... It's fine, 'Fen. Really," Yuki tried to insist, her voice suddenly now a hush whisper. "There's no need to get so sappy when-"
"I'm saying this because I want to help you, Yuki," Lanfen declared, thrusting her words forward like an unstoppable spear. "As your teammate, as your junior, and as your friend... it would only be right of me to give you the same helping hand that you, Aiko... and Komichi... gave to me after I lost my sister." She promptly observed the black-and-white belt buckle that sat on a bedside drawer, and subconsciously felt out the silenced earbuds Lanfen still wore. "... Even if Lancelot is still somewhere out there, that doesn't mean I should just ignore what you're going through all by yourself."
Freezing, palpable silence swelled between the two women. Unsure of what to say next, Lanfen pursed her chapped lips, and hesitantly waited for Yuki to formulate any sort of response.
The soft creaking of metal eventually announced her teammate's continued motions. While the Adaptor remained silent, Yuki leaned her raddled form against the bed's metal railings, both hands now gripping tightly onto her own shaking legs. The ponytailed woman silently fought to maintain her laidback grin. Her right foot frantically tapped onto the metal flooring. Evidently failing in her soundless attempt to bottle up whatever brewed inside of her, a familiar pitter-patter soon resounded in the air as Yuki wiped away at her face with the back of one hand.
"Should you really be saying that, 'Fen...?" she suddenly questioned. "Did you already forget? I'm not entirely blameless either," Yuki continued, shaking her head with an empty, bitter laugh. "If I hadn't told you to go and find Lancelot. To stop her for good... all because that bitch killed Komi'... there's a good chance you wouldn't be lying in med-bay right now."
Recalling their conversation from a while ago on the ship's observation deck, Lanfen straightened her back, and briefly closed her remaining eye for a surge of confidence. "I won't deny anything that happened after we had lost Komichi. Even so... it was my decision in the end to face Lancelot on my own, Yuki." The Adaptor's sword-hand twitched at her side again. This time, Lanfen brushed off its insistent aching, and concentrated a single pupil's attention on her despondent teammate. "My mistakes are my own. And as long as those we care about are cheering us on from the other side... I intend to make up for my faults however I can, whenever I can."
Yuki subsequently drew in a shaky breath before she let out a brief but genuine chuckle. "Honestly..." Having fully regained her typical wit, Yuki turned towards the awaiting Adaptor, showcasing the fresh stains which now marked her reddish cheeks. "... I'm startin' to wonder what went on in that noggin of yours while you were out cold," she steadily told Lanfen, flicking away one last stray teardrop. "You've... You've been acting almost like a whole different person ever since ya climbed outta the grave, ya know?"
"It's what Komichi would've wanted," were the words she desired to say back outright.
Instead, the Adaptor held back her tongue, and shared a moment of faint laughter alongside her teammate.
Somehow, Lanfen had a feeling that Yuki knew exactly what she refused to utter anyway.
Lanfen didn't understand where this instinct originated from. But she didn't question it either.
Eventually, both women realized how there was truly nothing else to add to the conversation. So, Lanfen lifted up one of her bandaged hands, and held it towards Yuki, wordlessly proposing the habitual bumping of fists which her upperclassman never failed to do since their days in Lydian Academy. Yuki merely smirked at the Adaptor's initiative before she completed the gesture through the tender contact of their bare knuckles. Obviously taking into account of Lanfen's physical state, Yuki promptly withdrew her outstretched hand, and wrapped a pair of warm arms around the one-eyed Adaptor. Lanfen couldn't find a way to respond to this other than to allow Yuki to maintain their embrace for as long as she needed.
An electrical ringing from the entrance later announced a visitor's arrival.
Clearly unaware of whoever had chosen to come by, Yuki pulled herself away from Lanfen, and faced the room's parting door to see Kazanari Maria standing right outside in the medical-bay's empty corridors. She was the Wielder of Airgetlam. Japan's current protector. And the oldest member of the Adaptor Corps. Lanfen summoned an arm from her side in order to salute her senior, only for Maria to politely halt the gesture through a smooth wave of one hand. Next to Lanfen, Yuki used a uniform's navy-blue sleeve to clean up the obvious, lingering tear stains on her own face.
"Forgive me if I was interrupting anything important, Cassandra," the tall woman said, stepping inside the recovery room for its entrance to automatically close behind her. "I was hoping to see how you were doing, so I thought I'd drop by for a few minutes while the situation allows it."
A part of Lanfen honestly wondered if it was worth taking a trip to med-bay over contacting her through a video transmission. "... I'm alive, that's for sure," she muttered plainly, momentarily staring at the bandaged bruises that Maria did not seem to be bothered by even in the slightest. "All things considered, the situation couldn't be any better," Lanfen added, lowering her head into a slight bow, "and I only have you to thank for keeping everybody safe in my absence."
"Just make sure to not push yourself too much, yeah?" Yuki pointed out, throwing a teasing grin at Maria. "The last thing we need is for your wife to come flying all the way from Europe just because of a little mess-up during an operation."
After acknowledging both women's words with a confident and unbreaking smile, Maria stepped over to one side of Lanfen's bed, and gracefully placed herself on a vacant seat. She then crossed one leg over the other and drew a curious glance at the monochrome belt-buckle on top of the room's bedside drawer. "Professor Elfnein gave me a brief rundown just now on what you informed her," Maria slowly explained. "All of it... must be a lot for you take in, isn't it?"
A single purple eye directed itself towards the cicatrix underneath Lanfen's collarbone.
"You could say that," she said, almost to the point of complete nonchalance. "Besides... it's not like every other Wielder hasn't gone through something similar." When Maria promptly looked at her with unspoken confusion, Lanfen elaborated on her point with utmost delicacy. "Fine gave Yukine, Kazanari, and Tachibana their powers. The F.I.S. did the same for you, Akatsuki, and Tsukuyomi. So, if I'm going to live up to my duty as a Symphogear-Wielder-" Komichi's words to her on the door to the afterlife briefly echoed within the rear of Lanfen's mind. "-I'm going to have to take my curse... and somehow turn it into a miracle."
The monochrome Adaptor's flowery syllables departed from her lips without any attempt to hold them back. Lanfen knew that she couldn't declare anything else in response to Maria's concerns. But when both Yuki and Maria proceeded to gaze at her with clear, silent wonder, Lanfen's next sentence ended up shifting into an awkward, stupefied mess. Her abrupt fumble garnered an honest smile from Maria, and a round of genuine applause from Yuki, all while Lanfen scratched the back of her neck in complete and utter embarrassment. After dedicating a few minutes to recollect herself, Lanfen gazed down on the pocket-watch which sat on her blanketed lap, and began shifting her mind onto another person whom she held dear to her heart.
"Maria, would you mind... if I asked a favour from you?"
The older woman accepted Lanfen's inquiry without complaint. "What is it?" she said, still smiling from her junior's dramatic declaration.
Lanfen drew in a practiced breath before she slid her freezing fingertips over a chronometer's shattered casing. "I want to arrange a meeting with Tachibana as soon as she's available. I... need her advice regarding a matter I'm trying to solve."