However, Deck wasn’t the only one hurt. Several of the Genesis Army agents who’d been standing beside him were wounded, too. Erna could see them bleeding from their legs and shoulders.
A miniature bomb had just gone off—the kind strong enough to harm anyone nearby.
“Ooh.” Nike sounded impressed. “Blowing up your allies now, are we?”
Erna understood exactly what it was Annette had done.
There was only one opportunity she’d had to plant that bomb in advance.
“…You gave radios rigged with explosives to our allies?”
“All the officers here are my own personal bombs, yo!”
Annette admitted it like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Back at the beginning of their time with the Knights of Valor, Annette had upgraded all the officers’ radios. That must have been when she loaded them full of blasting powder. Now Annette could use the remote in her hand to indiscriminately blow up their holders and anyone else in the vicinity.
There were fifty Knights of Valor officers there, and every last one of them had one of her special radios.
The Knights of Valor members screamed. One of those bombs going off could easily prove fatal for the owner, and all it took was one look at the way Deck was writhing in agony for them to realize Annette wasn’t messing around.
“If anyone tries to get rid of their radio—”
Annette knew what they were about to do, and she beat them to the punch.
“—I’m detonating theirs first, yo.”
She beamed happily and held her remote aloft.
Everyone in the hall shuddered at Annette’s declaration. The Knights of Valor trembled as the horror of what they had in their pockets slowly dawned on them, and the Genesis Army agents surrounding them scuttled back to the lecture hall’s walls.
“If you don’t let the two of us go, I’ll set off every bomb in the room.”
Annette’s demand sent yet another stir through the room.
In her eyes, there was no such thing as allies and enemies. There was only her and people who weren’t her. She had every intention of slaughtering the Knights of Valor and Genesis Army alike.
It was a profoundly effective way of getting out of their predicament, but—
No… This isn’t the way…
Despair took hold of Erna.
The girl standing beside her was a monster that defied comprehension. There was no way Erna could ever have controlled her. They’d been at a welcome party being thrown on their behalf, and Annette had been coming up with a way to turn their own allies into bombs.
“You’re one hell of a sicko,” Nike said with an impressed smile. “This is a nasty bind you’ve got me in. I might live through all those bombs going off, but most of my agents would eat it. And if I order them to leave the hall, that’d give you two an opportunity to escape.”
“This is me in peak form.” Annette held her remote up with pride. “I’m not scared of getting wickeder and wickeder anymore.”
When the mask was off, that was who she truly was.
There, in that moment, Erna had no idea how to process that revelation.
The one person who did welcome it was Nike, who combed back her hair and licked her lips. “Oh, I love it. That’s the kind of chutzpah I like my enemies to have.”
“Your compliments mean nothing to me, yo.”
“That’s why it’s such a shame you overlooked something. It’s a common mistake for people who think they’re the center of the universe to make.”
“Hm?”
“You forgot to read the room.”
Nike’s voice was little more than a whisper.
“So long as I survive, then nothing else that happens in this country matters.”
Her eyes told the whole story—that the lives of her agents and her countrymen meant nothing.
It was a deranged thing to believe, yet Nike’s subordinates didn’t so much as flinch. They just quietly kept up their guards and tacitly accepted Nike’s position as basic common sense.
“Oh yeah, now you’re talking,” Annette said with a smile. “That’s not the only trick I’ve got up my sleeve, you know. I’ve got a special one that’ll make you go splat.”
“Well, let’s see it, then. As the Genesis Army’s head honcho, I have the legal right to execute people without a trial. I think I can handle your worst.”
“Oh hey, I’ve got that, too! I use my own laws.”
“I like the cut of your jib, kid. What do you say we hit up a nude beach some time?”
“Who wants to see your old lady bits, yo?”
“Oh, you wound my delicate pride. I might just break down in tears.”
Nike’s bloodlust kept on surging, and Annette grinned at her, undaunted.
However, Erna could intuit the truth. Annette couldn’t win. Not even she could fight off a foe as inhuman as Nike.
“Now that we’ve taken this chance to hit it off—”
Nike extended a hand toward Thanatos to demand a weapon.
“—it’s time I carried out your sentence in accordance with the law.”
Erna squeezed Annette’s hand.
If Erna was going to die here, then she at least wanted it to be by Annette’s side. Erna had closed herself off from the other girl back in her initial days with Lamplight, yet Annette had embraced her from day one.
The more Erna held Annette’s hand, though, the fiercer her desire to live became.
“Save me…”
A cry spilled out from the back of her throat.
“Save me…Teach…”
The first name that sprang forth was her bedrock, the person she was certain could turn the situation around. However, she knew he wouldn’t come. The girls had sworn to carry out their current mission themselves.
The next name to come was someone incredibly precious to her.
It was someone who’d supported her and Annette like an actual older sister would. Someone with a smile full of love who always patted their heads.
“Save me…Big Sis Sara…”
A feather fluttered across her field of view.
A large, handsome, dark-brown feather.
Across from her, Nike shifted her gaze away from Erna and Annette.
Erna turned to look in the same direction.
There, standing on the shattered windowsill, was a girl, smiling. The large hawk who’d just flown under the lecture hall ceiling came and perched on her shoulder.
“Hey, Miss Erna. Hey, Miss Annette. I missed you two.”
She’d grown so much taller, she was barely recognizable. She’d done away with her trademark newsboy cap, bringing the contours of her roundish face into full view. She was wearing her hair in an asymmetrical style, perhaps to emulate her mentor, and her eyes that had resembled those of a small woodland creature now brimmed with a confidence befitting her age.
“Meadow” Sara beamed from atop the windowsill.
It was a reunion that had been over a year coming, and Erna felt a tear trickle down her cheek.