However, she couldn’t have possibly done it alone. Raftania was just a girl. There was no way she could have found her mother’s killer solo, much less steal a prototype weapon to murder him with. And the prime suspect was, without a doubt, the girl who’d remained steadfastly by her side from days two through four and who’d inspired enough adoration from Raftania for the latter to refer to her as “Ms. Annette.”
“Yo, that Ensign Mercier guy?” Annette grinned happily. “He was a lot like me. I had him pegged for a cold-blooded killer right away. He came to the beach on that first day of our vacation to assess his next victim.”
It was unclear how, but Annette had figured it out. She’d sensed the danger they were in.
However, that still wasn’t an answer.
“You could have just told me.”
If she had, he would have reacted promptly. And if Klaus had been operating from the get-go, he could have uncovered Mercier’s crimes with ease.
“But you didn’t, and to the contrary, you invested quite a lot of effort. You went out of your way to help arrange the wedding in order to earn Raftania’s trust and incite her to take revenge. Why did you go to all that trouble?”
“……………”
Annette stopped in her tracks and turned around.
They’d put a fair amount of distance between them and the partying girls now. Annette’s eyes were fixed on her teammates, who had linked arms and were dancing for no reason in particular. “I found my limits, yo. I couldn’t beat Monika.”
Back when Monika betrayed them, she’d beaten Annette half to death.
Immediately thereafter, Annette’s mental state had been highly unstable—so much so that right after she woke up, she sneaked out of the hospital in order to make an attempt on Monika’s life.
It was the first time in Annette’s life she’d ever hit a wall like that.
“Sara convinced me to go looking for a path forward. So I gave up on killing people myself. I figured it out, yo—I can get other people to do my killing for me.”
That was the answer she’d arrived at.
It was a bit too sinister for it to really be called maturation. Upon finding her limits, she found a new method of achieving her ends.
“So I ran a little experiment. I dug into Raftania’s background and found that she had a reason to hate the killer, so I said what I needed to get her to murder him.”
“………”
“The plan was a huge success, yo. All I did was help her out a bit, and she totally killed him.”
“……………”
“And you know what? My conscience doesn’t hurt one bit.”
Klaus nodded. He didn’t doubt it. It was going to take a lot more than that to give Annette pause.
However, he was surprised.
There was a hint of something akin to unease in Annette’s voice.
“…What do you think of me, Bro?”
“Hmm?”
Annette turned toward him. “The killer had free access to all those weapons being made at the naval base, and he used them to kill the locals. That’s the exact same path I’m heading down.”
She was referring to the island’s serial murders.
All of the killings had been carried out with inventions Mercier had developed in the secret lab. Mercier himself was the one who used them, but Klaus understood what Annette was getting at.
To build a weapon was to unleash evil onto the world.
If she kept heading down this road, her malice would disseminate.
“Will you keep liking me, even if I get worse and worse?”
Her voice had a faint tremble to it, and Klaus had to stifle a noise.
He was getting a glimpse of emotions that Annette had never had before.
Apprehension. Worry. Unease. Anxiety. Fear.
It reminded him of the loss she’d suffered. Back when she met a black cat in a back alley, her attempts to look after it had ended in disaster. Now that he thought about it, that tragedy also had its roots in a group called the “Discourse on Decadence” selling guns to gangsters.
Now the pain from that failure and that loss were introducing her to the concept of fear.
Perhaps it was unlike her, but it was only unlike the old her. When Klaus realized the changes she’d undergone, he couldn’t help but give her a big nod.
“The truth is,” he said softly, “your plan was to have Raftania die, wasn’t it?”
“Yep,” Annette replied unashamedly. “I didn’t need her anymore.”
Once Raftania sank alongside the pirate ship, no one would ever know that Annette had been involved.
That, too, was part of the scheme Annette had drawn up for her vacation.
She’d gathered up sulfur at the hot springs to create gunpowder with. She’d researched the ocean currents. She’d gotten the girls away from the ship and had set up a device to force it to set sail. And she’d tampered with the cannons so that a single girl could fire them on her own.
According to Lily, Raftania’s first reaction to seeing the pirate ship had been, “You mean she was tellin’ me the truth?” Annette had told her about the ship in advance. And about the cannons, too.
“But the others threw a wrench in that plan.”
“………”
“There’s your answer right there. No matter how wicked you get, we’ll always be there to catch you.” Klaus laid a hand on Annette’s back. “Don’t be afraid of changing. The world is awash in pain, and it needs you to evolve.”
When he told her that, Annette broke into a joyful smile and wrapped her arms around him. “I knew there was a reason I loved you, Bro!”
“I know you do, so could you get off? You’re heavy.”
“That’s why I’ve got a gift for you. Power anew for your team!”
“……………”
She let go of Klaus’s neck and stuck her tongue out as she made her reveal.
“I’ve already planned them all out, yo:
“Paradise Lost.
“Daughter Meanest.
“A Dream Play.
“April Fools’ Day.
“Contrarian.
“Veneer.
“The High Plain of Heaven.
“I put everything I’ve got into them, and they’ll take the others’ talents to a whole other level.”
Klaus knew what that power was called.
In the final battle of their mission in the Fend Commonwealth, Lily had used it to overpower White Spider.
Those were the Last Codes—weapons imbued with Annette’s malice in order to make it easier for others to kill.
Annette intended to use the navy’s secret laboratory to complete them.
Klaus couldn’t have asked for better news. He’d spent his vacation plagued with doubt. The girls were still far from experienced, and he had major concerns about leaving them on their own. He was terrified at the prospect of losing one of his pupils.
Annette’s proposal was the perfect thing to assuage his fears.
“When was it?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“Hmm?”
“When was it that you started caring about the rest of Lamplight?”
“They’re toys, yo. That’s all the others are to me.”
Annette turned and looked back at the rest of the team still enjoying their barbeque. They were having trouble controlling the grill, and they shrieked and shuddered as its flames surged out of control.
As Annette watched them, her right eye gleamed. “But,” she said.
“They’re my absolute favorite toys—my Knickknacks.”
An emotion rose up inside Klaus, and it left him at a loss for words.
Annette had always been the most difficult to handle of the girls. The things she said made little sense, and he could never predict what she was going to do. In terms of how many problems she caused, she had the rest of the team beat by a country mile.
Now that very same girl was giving Lamplight the best present imaginable.
…I guess this is what they mean when they talk about the joy that teaching brings.
It was a feeling he’d never experienced until he met the girls, and it filled him with certainty.
Lamplight could overcome any hardship they faced. Even if they were scattered to the winds.