"Name."
"Chiaki."
"An Easterner?"
"Yes."
Sakura was quite surprised. Including the person who called herself Chiaki, almost everyone present was from the Far East.
Three Easterners meeting in Australia?
Lin pulled off Chiaki mask, revealing a pretty face with a strained expression. She forced a friendly smile, but in front of the two fiercely composed soldiers, she looked like a trembling rabbit.
Her lifeless, light grey long hair and thin, muscle-less figure showed that this person had spent years hiding in this dark place.
"Why did you infiltrate the Fire Moth intranet?" Lin questioned her bluntly. He had already used his helmet to take over the system here and destroy all the leaked Fire Moth data.
"Uh, about that, would you believe me if I said it was an accident?"
"..."
"Fine! Fine! Don't look at me like that!" Chiaki immediately stopped her mouth from blurting out bad jokes. She gave a compensatory smile, "Actually, a few months ago, I found traces of your contact with the Security Bureau's intranet in Shenzhou. I followed the clues, found the contact address, and finally managed to enter the intranet by fabricating a Security Bureau identity to initiate contact."
The hacker made it sound easy, but in reality, it took her over four months from discovery to intrusion. If the intranet's defenses hadn't suddenly relaxed, she might not have been able to get in that quickly.
Afterward, she fabricated a soldier identity, MSA-999, which allowed her free access to the intranet, and the backdoor was never used again.
"Say, you guys aren't going to silence me, are you... I, I remember that the way you deal with informed personnel in your database is just to prevent them from accessing Fire Moth. There shouldn't be any exceptions, right?" Chiaki asked, forcing a laugh when she saw Lin silently contemplating.
Lin gestured for Sakura to release her hand and replied coldly: "No."
"Phew, that's good..."
"Sakura, take her away."
"Huh? Wait, what are you going to do!"
Before Chiaki could react, Sakura struck the back of her neck with a hand-chop, causing her to instantly lose consciousness.
...
When she woke up again, she had been moved from underground to an unfamiliar location that looked like the interior of an aircraft cabin, though the facilities here looked quite sci-fi.
Lin was sitting opposite her, quietly watching her as she slowly came to.
"...Where am I?"
"On a transport plane heading to the Australian 19th Branch," Lin answered her, then calmly began to explain, "From now on, you are officially MSA-999, reporting directly to Mei, Head of the R&D Department at Fire Moth Headquarters."
"Wait a minute? What does this mean? I've been recruited?"
Chiaki mind worked quickly. She immediately grasped the current situation. From the data in the Fire Moth database, she knew they had recently gone through a difficult battle and were short on personnel. It was highly likely she hadn't been let go but was being "employed."
"Yes."
"No! I don't want to join Fire Moth, which is always on the front lines fighting the Honkai! I want to enjoy life properly before the Honkai destroys the world. I don't want to die so fast!" Chiaki looked at Lin with teary eyes. "Can you really bear to see a pretty girl like me die on the battlefield?"
"First, you don't have the authority to say 'no.' This is the price for invading Fire Moth. According to previous regulations, you should actually be imprisoned in the Deep End."
Sakura brow subtly twitched when she heard the words "Deep End."
"Second, you are employed by Fire Moth as a research and technical staff, not a soldier. You will not go to the front lines."
"Third," Lin said indifferently, crossing his arms, "In terms of beauty, Sakura is prettier than you, and she is a frontline warrior."
"Lin."
Sakura couldn't help but call out to Lin. When Lin turned his head, he asked, "What is it?"
"...Nothing."
...
"My cute Little Seven, just let me see, just one peek."
"No, Lin said that if Elysia gets a first time, she will definitely want a second time."
"What exactly has Lin been teaching you?"
Elysia was frustrated with the unyielding young woman. The young woman covered her helmet, cautiously preventing Elysia from touching it. This scene seemed inexplicable to the other squad members, as this newly joined girl seemed very familiar with their Captain, yet they had never seen her before.
Except for that familiar helmet.
"But... Little Seven, you are getting cuter and cuter, unlike Kevin, who is becoming more and more like Lin." Elysia gently patted the young woman's helmet, smiling kindly. "It's strange, isn't it... Everyone is becoming the person they used to hate, yet no one thinks it's bad."
The former Kevin had once said that even Lin had a brief period of cheerfulness during high school.
Kevin hadn't elaborated on what Lin was like back then, but Elysia guessed that those were probably Lin happiest and most emotional days.
Since Elysia met Lin, the person she saw was already the current Lin. He reverted to the way he was before meeting Kevin within the short span of a few months after joining Fire Moth.
And Kevin, now also a grim-faced person, constantly preoccupied, was mostly seen from behind.
In the few years since joining Fire Moth, Elysia had witnessed many changes, most notably in people.
Everyone stood behind the cordon they once refused to cross, looking back at their former selves, severing ties forever.
That's why she didn't want to change. She wanted to be "Elysia" from start to finish, to show those who had changed that she was still here, that even as time flew by, some things remained constant.
Even a sliver of warmth would suffice to provide some solace to these warriors.
"Because Lin said that the process of a human becoming more mature is not about gradually becoming cold," the young woman said softly at this point. "True maturity should be about becoming gentler."
"...Pfft."
Elysia burst into laughter, then doubled over with laughter.
The squad members were used to it. Their Captain always found something inexplicably funny. Since she didn't look ugly when she laughed, they were accustomed to it.
"Lin always has such a rigid way of raising children. Little Promi is the same, and so are you. Couldn't he use a more subtle expression?"
"I think, there is no problem."
"There really is no problem. The problem lies only with us who have already grown cold, right?" Elysia smile held a layer of complexity. "Little Seven, you must become a gentle person, a gentle person like Lin..."