**Netherlands Coast - Morning**
Rens's voice came out stuttered and trembling, each word requiring visible effort as his eyes fixated on Carmilla's missing hand. "U-uhh, M-Miss C-Carmilla, I just s-saw your h-hand now!! W-what happened?"
His face had gone pale, genuine terror flickering across his delicate features. The pink-haired boy took an unconscious step backward, his hands clasping together in that nervous gesture that seemed to be his default state. His eyes were wide, darting between Carmilla's face and the stump where her left hand should have been, wrapped in synthetic bandages that did little to hide the reality of the injury.
Carmilla glanced down at her missing hand with the kind of casual acknowledgment someone might give to a scraped knee. She flexed the remaining fingers of her right hand around her cigarette, smoke curling lazily into the morning air. "Ohh, you noticed now," she said, her tone carrying neither distress nor particular concern. Just stating a fact.
Tess stepped forward slightly, her tall frame casting a shadow across Rens. Her voice emerged cool and serious, professional in that way that suggested military training or extensive combat experience. "Well, you already informed about those attacks."
It wasn't a question. She stated it as fact, her scarred face showing no particular emotion beyond mild interest in how this information would be received.
Rens's head whipped toward her so fast his pink hair swung across his face. "W-wait, what!?" His voice rose in pitch, shock overriding his usual careful speech patterns. "I-I didn't— nobody told me about—"
"I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you about it," Tess interrupted, though her tone suggested she wasn't particularly sorry. More like acknowledging an administrative oversight rather than expressing genuine regret.
Rens's shoulders slumped, his entire posture deflating. "N-n-no, i-it's fine, I m-mean that's u-useful anyway—" He forced the words out despite his stutter intensifying, trying to salvage the situation, trying to be helpful, trying not to be a burden.
Carmilla reached out with her remaining hand and patted his back, the gesture somewhere between maternal and patronizing. "Well, kiddo, don't downplay yourself, you know. You know many locations—" She paused, her analytical mind already moving to the practical concerns. "Well, Rens, you know the location, right?"
Rens paused.
The pause stretched for one second. Then two. Then three.
Carmilla froze mid-pat, her cigarette halfway to her lips. Her expression shifted from casual confidence to dawning realization to barely suppressed frustration. "Don't say you don't know about Valenora."
Another pause. Rens's face was doing something complicated cycling through guilt and fear and apologetic distress all at once.
Carmilla's voice took on an edge of exasperation. "Oh god, I thought you'd be more useful—"
Two voices cut through her complaint simultaneously, overlapping in their defense but carrying completely different qualities.
"Lady Carmilla, let him continue first!" Eve's voice was gentle,warm and protecting.
"Let him finish." Tess's voice was flat, serious, carrying authority that brooked no argument.
Rens noticed the difference , his nervous mind cataloging it even through his distress. *They both are protecting me,* he thought, his internal voice slightly steadier than his spoken words. *However, the tone is different. Miss Eve said it with a kind voice, like an older sister. But Miss Tess... she acts like she's protecting me, not like an older sister though, but someone special. What does that mean?*
The thought made his face flush slightly, confusion mixing with something else he didn't want to examine too closely.
Carmilla's expression shifted, guilt creeping in around the edges of her analytical mask. Her remaining hand moved to rub the back of her neck an awkward gesture with only one hand. "Umm, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that."
"No!!" Rens's voice came out louder than intended, making him flinch at his own volume. "I-it's my fault, I didn't continue, I'm s-sorry—" He took a breath, forcing himself to explain despite Carmilla's intense stare making him want to disappear into the ground. "U-uhh, I-I k-know the location, b-but—"
His voice trailed off as Carmilla's eyes bored into him, waiting, and the fear of disappointing her made his throat tight.
"—they're under Nazi control."
Carmilla froze again. Not because of Rens this time, but because the implications crashed down on her like a physical weight. Her cigarette dangled forgotten from her fingers, ash growing long and threatening to fall.
*Nazi control,* her mind churned through the ramifications. *That means military presence, checkpoints, surveillance, patrols. That means we can't just walk in. That means we need to fight our way through, or sneak through, or find some third option that doesn't exist. That means the mission just got exponentially more complicated.*
*And I have one hand. And a team that includes a traumatized synthetic being, a girl who hates that synthetic being, a nervous sixteen-year-old boy who looks like he might cry at any moment, and a woman who try to aura farm. This is going to go so well.*
Tess's voice cut through Carmilla's spiraling thoughts, curious but not particularly concerned. "Well, you have a plan for anything?"
The question hung in the air. Carmilla's mind, which usually operated with clockwork precision, calculating probabilities and contingencies and backup strategies, came up completely empty.
She took a long drag from her cigarette, buying time, then exhaled slowly. "Let's eat something first?"
The suggestion came out more as a question than a statement, her tone carrying uncharacteristic uncertainty.
Angela's internal monologue ran cold and analytical, her thoughts crystallizing into sharp-edged observations. *Look like she doesn't know what to do, huh?*
Her gaze moved across the group Carmilla with her missing hand and cigarette, Tess with her scars and professional calm, Rens with his nervous energy and obvious fear, Eve with her synthetic concern and hidden surveillance.
*Either way, I need to prepare for these three. And Eve...*
Angela's thoughts paused on the synthetic woman, on the complicated tangle of emotions that came with thinking about her. *I don't know if I should believe you or not. You're still a robot though. I feel like I care about you, but the truth is just I'm using you.*
She took a mental pause, examining that statement, prodding at it like a sore tooth.
*Right?*
The question mark at the end felt significant somehow, suggesting uncertainty where she wanted there to be absolute conviction.
Angela's voice emerged flat, cutting through the uncomfortable silence. "Where do you want to eat?"
Carmilla seemed relieved to have a concrete question to answer. "Well, I believe we can eat in a nearby restaurant."
Rens's voice brightened slightly, that nervous smile appearing on his face the kind of smile that looked both hopeful and terrified of rejection. "I-I know a restaurant, i-if you want to come t-then—"
"Well, why not," Tess said simply, her tone carrying finality. Decision made. Discussion over.
Carmilla's analytical mind caught something in that exchange, in the way Tess had agreed immediately without any of her usual assessment of tactical considerations or security concerns. *Well, look like Tess is soft for Rens. Perhaps.*
Her thoughts drifted backward through time, accessing memories with that enhanced recall her Blessed abilities provided. *When I first assigned Rens as Tess's assistant, after me and William went back to my town... that was what, six months ago? And Tess had been all business then, treating Rens like equipment she needed to maintain. Professional distance. No personal attachment.*
*But what happened in these six months, huh?*
The question lingered, unanswered. Carmilla watched the way Tess positioned herself slightly closer to Rens than tactical necessity required, the way her eyes tracked him with that particular quality of attention that went beyond professional responsibility.
*Whatever. Maybe I'll know later.*
She stubbed out her cigarette on the dock railing, leaving another small black mark, and gestured for them to follow.
They began walking, a strange procession through the morning streets five people who barely knew each other, heading toward an unknown destination, searching for something that might not exist, pursued by forces they didn't fully understand.
---
**Nazi Border - Checkpoint Seven**
The scene shifted abruptly, jumping hundreds of kilometers to where the Netherlands met Nazi-occupied territory. The border checkpoint was a study in efficient brutality
concrete walls topped with razor wire, guard towers with automated turrets, multiple layers of fencing, and surveillance equipment that covered every angle.
The checkpoint itself was a massive gate system, wide enough for vehicles but currently closed, the heavy metal barriers painted in the red and black of Nazi imagery. Flags hung limply in the still air. Guards in crisp uniforms moved through their duties with mechanical precision, their faces showing the blank professionalism of people who'd learned not to think too much about what they were doing.
And there, hiding in bushes about fifty meters from the checkpoint, were Ravina and Ignis.
Ravina's voice came out loud despite their precarious position, carrying across the distance with her usual complete disregard for stealth. "Well, can you tell me why we're here?"
Ignis, crouched beside her with his face pressed against the dirt, made a sound that might have been a groan or might have been a suppressed scream of frustration. His voice came out muffled and annoyed. "You forgot, didn't you?"
"Forgot what?" Ravina's tone was genuinely confused, as if the past several hours had simply vanished from her memory.
Ignis lifted his head slightly, dirt clinging to his cheek, his dark eyes burning with the kind of irritation that came from dealing with someone who made your life exponentially more difficult through sheer obliviousness. "We're broke now. When we were leaving, we forgot to take the money. And those hotel people—" His voice took on a sharp edge. "—they took it all and called us thieves."
"Oh," Ravina said, as if this were mildly interesting news rather than a catastrophic failure of planning.
"And the annoying part?" Ignis continued, his voice rising despite the dangerous proximity to armed guards. "You killed them. You killed the hotel staff. And now we have to run."
Ravina's face brightened with sudden recollection, and she playfully punched Ignis's shoulder with enough force to nearly knock him over. "Oh, silly me! I forgot things, don't I?"
Ignis stared at her, his expression cycling through disbelief, fury, resignation, and something that might have been hysterical amusement at the sheer absurdity of his situation. Then, despite everything, he smiled. It was a strange smile dark, calculated, carrying an edge of something dangerous.
"I have an idea," he said.
---
The Nazi guards at Checkpoint Seven were having a boring morning. The same routine they'd performed thousands of times
checking documents, scanning faces against databases, waving through approved travelers while detaining suspicious ones for further questioning. The assistant robots that worked alongside them moved with even more mechanical precision, their synthetic faces showing no expression as they processed paperwork and monitored sensors.
One of these robots a standard security model with generic features and the emotionless demeanor common to all government-issued machines was checking its station when its optical sensors registered movement.
Two figures emerging from the bushes. Walking directly toward the checkpoint. Not running, not hiding, just approaching with casual confidence that immediately triggered threat assessment protocols.
The robot's systems identified them: one tall woman, one teenage male. Both fitting descriptions from recent criminal alerts. Probability of match: 87%.
It raised the alarm.
Sirens wailed. Guards spun around, weapons rising. The automated turrets in the towers activated, their targeting systems locking on.
Then they opened fire.
The sound was tremendous automatic weapons fire mixed with the deeper boom of mounted cannons, creating a wall of noise that echoed across the border zone. Bullets and energy blasts converged on the two figures from multiple angles, a concentration of firepower designed to overwhelm any human target.
But Ignis had already moved, grabbing Ravina's body and pulling it in front of him like a shield.
The rounds struck her hundreds of them in the space of seconds, tearing through synthetic fabric and biological tissue with devastating effect. Her body jerked and spasmed under the impact, blood spraying, flesh tearing, bones breaking.
Ravina's scream cut through the gunfire, high and outraged. "This is your idea?! You brat! I thought you'd protect me!"
Ignis's voice came from behind her, surprisingly calm given the circumstances. "Well, you have insane regeneration! You won't feel anything!" He paused as another burst of fire hammered into her. "And I paid for that hotel, so be happy!"
"FUCK YOU, MAN!" Ravina's voice was getting weaker as the damage accumulated faster than her regeneration could process it.
But they were moving forward. Slowly, painfully, using her body as a living shield, Ignis pushed them both toward the checkpoint. The guards kept firing, kept pouring rounds into Ravina's body, but they couldn't stop the advance.
Ignis's flames ignited around his free hand, and he threw bursts of fire at the guard towers, forcing the soldiers to take cover. The automated turrets kept firing, their programming not including self-preservation, but several were damaged by direct hits.
They reached the gate the massive metal barrier that should have stopped them.
Ignis threw Ravina's body at it.
The impact was tremendous. Her body, already riddled with bullets and barely holding together, struck the reinforced metal with all the force of Ignis's enhanced throw plus her own considerable mass.
The gate buckled. Dented inward. But held.
"Again!" Ignis grabbed her regenerating body
flesh already knitting back together, holes closing, bones resetting and threw her again.
This time the gate's hinges screamed in protest. Metal groaned. Structural integrity warnings flashed on the checkpoint's monitoring systems.
Ravina, despite everything, was laughing. A wild, manic sound that suggested she'd completely lost touch with sanity or had never had it in the first place. "This is the worst plan ever! I love it!"
Ignis threw her a third time.
The gate exploded inward, torn from its moorings by the repeated impacts. But as it fell, it triggered something a final defensive measure built into the checkpoint's design.
Explosives hidden in the gate's frame detonated.
The blast was enormous, far larger than should have been necessary for a border checkpoint. Someone had over-engineered the defenses, had decided that if intruders got this far, the appropriate response was to kill everything within thirty meters.
The explosion consumed the gateway, the nearby guard posts, several soldiers who'd been too close, and most of the assistant robots. Fire and shrapnel expanded outward in a killing sphere.
Ignis and Ravina were thrown forward by the blast, their bodies tumbling through the air, carried by the shockwave into Netherlands territory. They hit the ground hard, rolled, and ended up in a tangled heap about forty meters beyond the obliterated checkpoint.
Alarms were wailing now not just at this checkpoint but across the entire border network. The explosion had triggered emergency protocols. Within minutes, reinforcements would be mobilized. Helicopters, drones, ground units. The full weight of Nazi border security descending on their position.
Ignis pushed himself up, his ears ringing, his vision swimming. Burns covered his exposed skin where the blast heat had touched him. But he was alive. Still functional.
Beside him, Ravina's body was in worse shape one arm bent at an impossible angle, her face half-burned, her clothes mostly gone. But even as he watched, the damage was reversing. Flesh regenerating, bones straightening, skin regrowing.
They scrambled into nearby bushes, diving for cover just as the first response helicopter appeared in the distance.
They lay there, breathing hard, surrounded by leaves and dirt, listening to the chaos behind them sirens, shouting, the crackle of fires still burning at the checkpoint.
Ignis managed to speak first, his voice hoarse. "We survived. Somehow."
Ravina, her face still half-regenerated and looking grotesque, grinned with the half of her mouth that was functional. "We're Blessed though."
"Still," Ignis replied, watching the sky where more helicopters were converging, "we could have been eaten. Blessed doesn't mean invincible."
The sound of approaching vehicles grew louder. They pressed themselves flatter against the ground, trying to become invisible, trying not to breathe too loudly.
---
**Nazi Regional Command - Berlin Office**
The phone call came through on a secure line, the kind that bypassed normal communication channels and went directly to leadership. In a sleek office overlooking Berlin, a young man with long black hair sat at an expensive desk, listening to the panicked voice on the other end.
"—explosion at Checkpoint Seven two intruders massive damage requesting immediate—"
"Alright, I understand what happened," the young man interrupted, his voice calm and controlled, showing none of the panic from the caller. "If needed, eat those Blessed."
The voice on the other end paused, shocked. "Sir?"
"You heard me. Deploy the specialist units. Authorization code Delta-Seven-Seven. Consume them if capture isn't possible." He said it casually, like ordering coffee. "We need to maintain deterrence. Can't have random Blessed thinking they can just walk through our borders."
"Understood, sir. Delta-Seven-Seven confirmed."
The line went dead.
The younSeven who was, despite his youth, the Nazi Regional Coordinator for Border Security set down the phone and leaned back in his chair. His office was modern, minimalist, all clean lines and expensive materials. Large windows showed the Berlin skyline, the flying trains crisscrossing above the city, the orderly grid of streets below.
He was alone in the office. Or so he'd thought.
"So," he said without looking at his visitors, his voice taking on an amused quality, "tell me
who are you? Are you a famous model I failed to recognize? Or maybe a porn actor?" His gaze flicked to the second figure. "And your bodyguard is... well, quite handsome."
The two visitors had entered without announcement, without any of the security protocols being triggered. They'd simply appeared in his office as if they'd always been there and he was just now noticing them.
It was nityen who wear wore a white dress shirt and black pants—simple, elegant, expensive without being ostentatious. His long blue hair with red eyes caught the light from the windows, and something about his posture suggested both casualness and coiled readiness.
Nityen smiled, the expression carrying amusement and something sharper underneath. "Well, I'm neither of them," he said, his purple eyes gleaming. "However, I know you're the Nazi's new leader. So tell me—" His voice dropped slightly, taking on an edge. "—shall we discuss this here, or would you prefer another place?"
The second figure it was Hariharan, wearing a perfectly tailored suit that somehow made his burned face look distinguished rather than damaged—studied the young man with his mismatched eyes. One pupil was perfectly focused, the other slightly dilated, giving him an unsettling appearance.
"Let's continue this game, shall we?" Hariharan said quietly, his hand resting casually on the sword at his side.
The young man's amusement didn't fade. If anything, his smile widened. He stood slowly, moving to the window, looking out at Berlin below. When he spoke, his voice carried genuine interest rather than fear.
"A game. Yes, I suppose that's what this is." He turned back to face them, his long hair catching the light. "Very well. Let's play."
His hand moved to a button on his desk—not to call security, but to activate something else. The office's walls shimmered, and suddenly the space felt larger, distorted, as if reality itself had hiccuped.
"But I should warn you," the young man continued, his expression shifting into something darker, more genuine. "I don't play games I'm not confident I can win."
---
**Restaurant - Netherlands Coastal Town**
The restaurant Rens had led them to was small and unpretentious the kind of local place that tourists rarely found and locals protected jealously. It had maybe fifteen tables, all wooden and worn smooth by decades of use. The walls were covered in old photographs and memorabilia from the town's fishing history. It smelled like coffee and baking bread and something savory that made Angela's synthetic stomach react with programmed hunger signals.
They'd secured a corner table, somewhat isolated from the other patrons. Carmilla had insisted on a position that let her see both the entrance and theprobably old habits from S.O.W. training, probably.
Eve sat with her hands folded on the table, her crimson eyes studying the menu with that intense focus she brought to everything. But her mind was elsewhere, churning through what Angela had revealed about the surveillance device, about Carmilla's deception, about trust and betrayal and the complicated web they were trapped in.
Angela sat across from her, outwardly calm but internally calculating. Her gaze kept drifting to Carmilla, to Tess, to Rens, cataloging behaviors and probable loyalties and potential threats.
Carmilla was on her fourth cigarette of the hour, ignoring the "No Smoking" sign on the wall with the kind of privilege that came from not caring about social rules. She was studying something on her phone, probably maps or intelligence reports or whatever other data she had access to through S.O.W. channels.
Tess sat beside Rens, her tall frame making the chair look small. She'd positioned herself so she could see the room but also keep Rens in her peripheral vision protection instinct that operated on such a deep level she probably wasn't even aware she was doing it.
Rens himself was fidgeting with a napkin, folding and refolding it with nervous energy, his pink hair falling into his eyes.
The waitress came an older woman with tired eyes and a professional smile, speaking Dutch that Eve's translator chip rendered instantly. They ordered food that none of them particularly wanted, going through the social ritual because it was expected.
As the waitress left, Carmilla finally looked up from her phone. Her expression was troubled, her remaining hand clenching and unclenching around her cigarette.
"We have a problem," she said quietly.
Everyone's attention snapped to her immediately.
"What kind of problem?" Tess asked, her voice already shifting into tactical assessment mode.
Carmilla turned her phone so they could see the screen. It showed a news report video footage from Checkpoint Seven, showing the aftermath of the explosion. Smoke, fire, destroyed vehicles, bodies being carried away on stretchers.
"Two Blessed individuals just forced their way through the Nazi border," Carmilla said. "They caused massive damage. Killed several guards. Triggered every alarm in the system." She paused, her jaw tightening. "Which means Nazi security is now on high alert. Every checkpoint will be reinforced. Surveillance will be tripled. And anyone trying to cross will be treated as a potential threat."
Angela's mind worked through the implications. "So our job just got harder."
"Exponentially harder," Carmilla confirmed. She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray with more force than necessary. "We need to move fast. Before they implement full lockdown protocols. Before they bring in specialist units designed to handle Blessed threats."
"How fast?" Tess asked.
"Tomorrow night at the latest. Maybe sooner."
Eve's voice emerged quiet but clear. "Do we know who the two intruders were?"
Carmilla shook her head. "No identification yet. Just descriptions one tall woman, one teenage male. Both survived the blast, both disappeared into the Netherlands. Nazi forces are hunting them now."
Something about those descriptions triggered recognition in Eve's memory banks, but she couldn't quite place it. *One tall woman, one teenage male. Why does that seem familiar?*
Their food arrived then, the waitress setting down plates with practiced efficiency. Nobody moved to eat immediately. The tension at the table was too thick, the weight of their situation pressing down on all of them.
Finally, Rens spoke up, his voice still stuttering but carrying surprising determination. "I-I can help. I know p-people who can g-get us into Nazi territory. Smugglers. They won't be ch-cheap, but they can do it."
Carmilla looked at him with renewed assessment. "How reliable are these people?"
"V-very. They've been operating f-for years. Never l-lost anyone."Rens said with gasp
"Never lost anyone they've admitted to," Angela muttered.
Tess's hand moved to rest on Rens's shoulder brief, reassuring. "If he says they're reliable, they're reliable."
The gesture wasn't lost on anyone at the table. Carmilla's eyebrows rose slightly. Angela's expression remained neutral but her internal calculations adjusted. Eve noticed but filed the information away for later analysis.
"Alright," Carmilla said finally. "Contact them. Set up a meeting. We need to move on this immediately."
Rens nodded, pulling out his phone with shaking hands.
As they finally began eating, each lost in their own thoughts about what came next, none of them noticed the figure watching from across the street.
A woman with white-blue hair, her pale eyes fixed on their table, her expression unreadable.
Astraea had found them.
And she wasn't the only one looking.
Valenora was getting closer. But so was everything else.