“Be rational! If we get separated here, we’ll never find each other again!”
“She... She’s sick. She’s not in her right mind—”
“Look out!” Lemon dove at Sousuke and knocked him to the ground, at almost the same time they heard gunshots all around them.
Sousuke looked up, startled, as gunshots echoed throughout the hall. Enemy soldiers had come in through the south entrance and were now firing at them. He could tell that they were about 100 meters away, but couldn’t pin down how many there were.
“I guess they caught up with us,” he observed to Lemon, realizing the degree to which he’d let his guard down. Cursing his own foolishness, Sousuke returned fire with his carbine. There was no sign he’d hit anyone; it was too dark, and they were too far away. He couldn’t even be fully sure of their position.
“We’d better get going,” suggested Lemon.
“Right!” Sousuke agreed. While firing a few suppression shots with one hand, he threw an incendiary grenade with the other. There was a flash and an explosion that created a wall of fire and smoke between them and the enemy soldiers. That should blind their night vision goggles and infrared scopes, he thought.
Lemon was trying to help Tessa up, despite his injured leg. Sousuke ran over to them, hefted Tessa onto his back, and made a beeline for the nearest exit.
“Hurry!” he urged them, as more gunshots came from another direction. The enemy soldiers were surrounding the hall. “Lemon, do you know the way?”
“This way.” They exited the hall with Lemon taking the lead, hurrying north at the T-intersection. But Sousuke stopped, hesitantly.
“What are you doing?! They’re coming!” Lemon shouted back at him.
Sousuke looked down the hall’s other direction. The light from his Maglite revealed new footprints on the dust-covered floor. Kaname’s footprints... he thought. If I run off at full speed, I might just catch her...
“Sousuke?!” Lemon shouted again.
Should I leave Tessa and Lemon behind to pursue Kaname? Sousuke wondered. The direction she’d gone in would be swarming with enemies by now. Chasing her now would be reckless, he reminded himself. From the way Leonard had talked, they were unlikely to kill her, at least... Meanwhile, it would probably be impossible for Tessa and Lemon to escape without him. They might let Tessa live as a useful information source, but Lemon would be killed for sure.
But Kaname... I only just found you again... “Dammit!” Sousuke shouted, his heart fighting against his head. At last, he shook off the powerful yearning, turning around to run back to Lemon. If I go after her now, I’ll just end up dead, he told himself. His best option was to run away with the other two. I’ll get another chance to save her, he reasoned. Out loud, he asked, “This is the way?”
“Most likely,” answered Lemon. “If we climb up a staircase on the northern side, she said that we should come out on the surface on the other side of the plant.”
Sousuke fired at an enemy peeking at them from around the corner. While trying to keep the opposition in check as much as possible, he headed for the back door of the facility.
Kaname felt quite sure about what she’d done. She’d killed Sousuke. She’d killed Tessa. She was entirely convinced she’d shot them to death.
Poor Sousuke and Tessa... Thinking about them caused her chest to ache. But while it was a painful and sad thing in principle, the truth was that she didn’t need them anymore. Shallow sham friendship and tragic sham lover, she reminded herself. What good would it do to keep going through the motions? They’d be pressing the world’s reset button soon either way, so none of these deaths or events really mattered. Nothing mattered, except her own survival.
But first, she had to find out what exactly was going on.
Leonard Testarossa of Amalgam... He must have known this would happen. He’ll have already been laying the groundwork, she reasoned. The earlier her—the person she’d been just ten minutes ago—might have refused to cooperate with him unconditionally.
But now, it’s different, she told herself, because I finally understand his exceedingly simple solution. It was the same mission that Sofia had entrusted to her. She knew at long last that she was the only one who could save the world, and her understanding of that noble mission filled Kaname’s heart with pride.
After walking alone down the wide corridor for a while, she ran into a man; it was Leonard. He was sitting at the center of the hallway, legs crossed, on an old folding chair.
“Did you wait long?” she asked him.
“Not long at all,” Leonard told her with a smile. “It seems you’ve finally awakened.”
“Yeah. Sorry it took so long.” Smiling back at him, Kaname walked up to Leonard and imperiously took his collar in both hands to bring him up to a standing position. “Is everything ready?” she asked.
“Almost,” Leonard told her. “I’ve been working at it for six months now.”
“Shall we, then?”
“As you wish, my lady.”
“I’m a little cold,” she suggested, and Leonard quickly took off his crimson coat and put it over her shoulders. “Thank you,” she said modestly. “You’re very kind. You won’t be rough with me again?”
“There’s no need for that now, is there?”
“No, I won’t be selfish anymore,” she told him, knowing that there was no longer any need to fight it. Together, they walked further down the hallway to where his troops were waiting for them.
They were carrying her roughly down the hall as they ran, which might have been why Tessa woke earlier than expected. She seemed woozy at first, but quickly recovered to the point of insisting that she could walk.
“Are you sure?” Lemon asked, cautiously.
“Yes,” Tessa told him irritably. “What with your injury, you’re worse off than I am, anyway. But where is Kaname-san?”
“She left without us,” Sousuke said, running down the exit hallway. “I don’t know what’s going on, but she definitely wasn’t in her right mind. What happened in there?”
“Well...” Tessa hesitated.