Let's go back in time a little.
Separated from Oakley, Joanne was close to panicking.
The collapse of the rock, Oakley’s fall… In the span of just three seconds, he had vanished into the dark.
At his side, Alex immediately suggested they go after him, but Joanne, connected to Oakley more deeply than anyone, slowly realized there was a way to turn this situation to her advantage.
“Uh… we’re not gonna go after him?” Alex asked.
“No. Leave him,” Joanne replied calmly.
“We finally got a shot at taking down Stella-sama, and you’re not gonna help senpai!? We might still make it in time, y’know!?”
She could feel a distant, sinking crisis, a tremor of fear and pain at the edge of her perception.
Sensing her beloved in such danger, Joanne felt her very soul shiver. Karatena had done far more work than she’d ever expected.
“The Raid Unit is wiped out. The Hidden Insect Corps is wrecked beyond recovery. We’ve done enough damage. We’re pulling out,” she said.
“Eeh!? That’s the total opposite of what you were saying before…”
“It’s fine. For Oakley, this is probably the worst thing that could’ve happened… but for me, this is the best chance I could ask for.”
Stella Belmont possessed a barrier that nullified physical attacks and absorbed magic.
On top of that, no matter how many times she was reduced to chunks of meat, she would revive instantly with healing magic. Their shot at victory was a one-time thing, and without Oakley, they had no way to crack her.
But what Joanne wanted even more than Stella’s head was something else: Oakley Mercury, battered, broken in some underground pit, pushed so far he might lose his memory.
After their organ exchange, Joanne had come to share a faint link to him, a sense for his emotions, blurred but present.
The bond wasn’t equal. She had accepted all of him. Oakley, however, had rejected her.
To reach the small, closed world Joanne dreamed of, she needed Oakley’s wholehearted cooperation.
With the iron will he had now, dragging him over to her side was nearly impossible.
But if, instead, he lost his memories and the residue of that organ exchange seeped deeper into him…
If she could reshape him into someone who shared her ideals…
That future was far closer to the one she wanted.
Stella could wait for another day. For now, she needed to spread one message far and wide: that Oakley had annihilated the Raid Unit and the Hidden Insect Corps.
She could retrieve him later. For someone with only one life to live, that man was far more tenacious than any executive. He’d survive. He always survived.
In fact, she wanted him to suffer for a while. This disappointment, this hollow, sinking despair…
You’re going to carve it into yourself, Oakley. If you don’t, then the defeat I swallowed that day and the resolve I forged with it will all have been for nothing. This is your punishment for keeping secrets from me. For trampling over what we shared that night, and over my feelings. If you’d really told me everything… I would’ve followed you anywhere.
Joanne turned on her heel and started back the way they came, heading for the surface.
“We’re regrouping with Stella and getting out of these tunnels,” she said. “I’m not getting buried alive in here.”
“Eeeh…? I seriously don’t get this at all…” Alex muttered.
Later, once they linked up with Stella and Whip, Joanne and the others confirmed it: The Jade Occupation Operation had failed exactly as expected.
Most of the Hidden Insect Corps that had gone to secure the underground was dead, and no one knew what was happening on the surface. Whip’s voice shook as she said it, on the verge of tears.
Joanne added another blow on top of that and told Stella and Whip about Oakley’s betrayal.
“There’s one more reason the Jade Occupation went sideways—”
Oakley Mercury had turned traitor.
Why there’d been no contact with the surface team. Why poison gas had flooded the tunnels.
She laid all the blame on him. The news that their loyal Oakley had betrayed them rattled Whip to the core. Even Stella, who was usually quiet and expressionless, let a shocked sound slip from her lips.
“Lies… That’s impossible. That man… betrayed Stella and Aros-sama…?” Stella whispered, voice trembling.
“Quit joking around… That’s a nasty joke, Joanne-chan. There’s no way that’s true… Oakley-chan did so much for the fall of Daskel, and now you’re telling me he suddenly betrayed us…?” Whip babbled, eyes wide and glassy.
“He attacked me,” Joanne snapped. “That man came at me swinging! Told me it’d be ‘fun to see your face when you finally realize you’ve been played,’ or some crap like that!”
She slammed her heel down.
With a sound like the world cracking, the ground underfoot simply gave way. The shock set the whole area trembling like a localized quake.
Whip froze, drenched in sweat, overwhelmed by the sheer killing intent behind Joanne’s performance.
Then, as if suddenly remembering it, Joanne glared at the scrap of Oakley’s flesh fused to the ring finger of her left hand and bit it off. She chewed once, twice, and swallowed it down.
“On top of that, the bastard made sure to erase my meat chunk, too! I’ve got no idea where he is now!” she shouted.
Of course, she hadn’t crushed it earlier precisely so she could keep it safe for later by sending it to her stomach, but Stella read it as something else.
As a pointed jab at herself for putting blind faith in Oakley all this time.
Her shoulders shook, and she bowed her head, as if holding back something heavy and raw.
Was she always this good an actress? Alex thought, watching Joanne with a mix of awe and unease.
“Joanne-chan,” Whip whispered, “where’s Oakley-chan now?”
“No idea. He ran down into the tunnels, so I chased after him but… Come to think of it, what happened to Karatena?”
“She didn’t regroup with you?” Whip blinked.
“Don’t tell me those two got caught up in that cave-in just now…?”
“Tch, so that’s how it is! Hey, Whip, you can use Milk-chan to track them, can’t you?” Joanne snapped.
“It’s way too dangerous to send her down there right now!” Whip yelped, waving both hands. “We’ve already got poison gas and cave-ins to worry about. There’s no way I’m just tossing one of my clones in there like it’s nothing!”
“If we don’t at least recover the bodies, Pawk can’t drag the truth out of them with his magic. This is the worst…” Joanne muttered.
Neither Whip nor Stella had the faintest idea that Joanne of all people had suddenly become an expert at acting; they simply stared at her, stunned.
“Anyway, forget chasing Oakley. We’re pulling out. Let’s link up with Celestia,” Joanne said.
At her left hand, new flesh squirmed and pushed out as she calmly regenerated the finger that had once borne Oakley’s flesh, as if casting him off. She made a point of projecting the air of someone who had already lost all interest in him, and started up the ladder.
Of course, there was no universe in which Joanne had stopped caring about Oakley. Not before this. Not now. Not ever. He was, and would remain, the one person she loved more than anyone.
Once they’d gathered up the survivors of the Hidden Insect Corps and climbed out to the surface, a solid wall of white loomed up to block their way.
In reality, it was just an obscene blizzard, but even for a group of high-ranking cultists, it was the kind of weather that made you hesitate to step forward.
Stella, who’d barely had a chance to cut loose underground, tilted her head back with a faint frown. As if to vent her pent-up frustration, she unleashed a superheated beam straight into the sky.
A white-hot pillar bored up into the storm, gouging a vast circle through the clouds and forcing open a hole in the heavens.
But Stella’s power only subdued the weather for a handful of seconds. Like a film rolling in reverse, the gap in the sky sealed itself over, and the blizzard howling above Jade thickened again, swirling down around the city with renewed fury.
“Celestia-chan’s weather control isn’t working…!?” Whip cried.
Before anyone could answer, a human figure came hurtling out from the direction of the old castle, like a bullet spat from a gun.
They smashed into the cliff face with a sickening impact, then slid down and crumpled against the rock. It was Celestia, her body a map of cuts and bruises.
“Celestia-chan!” Whip called.
“Joanne, Whip… You’re both here… Good,” Celestia rasped. “Perfect timing. The operation is canceled. We need to withdraw the entire force immediately!”
“What happened?” Joanne asked, her tone deceptively calm.
“Giather Cormode’s summoned beast has seized control of the weather from me!” Celestia snapped. “Cress Walker and the other high-ranking Orthodoxy will be here any moment! We must retreat at once!”
She gritted her teeth so hard it sounded like her molars might shatter, beautiful features twisted in sheer frustration.
“The worst part,” she spat, “is that Oakley Mercury betrayed us! That man slaughtered Gerugoroi and the entire Raid Unit! That’s where everything started to go wrong!”
She stamped her heel into the snow in impotent fury.
Behind her, Joanne pressed her lips together, trying to smother the little thrill that ran low in her belly. Her man had taken down Gerugoroi and the Raid Unit. The pride that flared in her chest was almost indecent.
Oops. That won’t do. I’m supposed to be furious right now, she reminded herself.
Even so, she couldn’t quite iron the edges out of her smile as she fell quiet and let the conversation flow around Celestia’s orders.
“So these are all the believers who survived?” Celestia asked at last.
“The Hidden Insect Corps has… just over ten survivors,” Joanne answered coolly. “In my judgment, returning to the branch and regrouping is the only sensible option.”
“Fortunately, the enemy seems intent on holding their defenses rather than pursuing us,” Celestia said. “Let’s head back immediately. They won’t chase us far.”
Compared to what had happened at Metasim and Daskel, the Jade Occupation was never truly a do-or-die mission that had to succeed at any cost.