Leaning against the cabin of the transport plane with her eyes closed and her blade in hand, the pink-haired girl's fox-like ears twitched. She cast a sidelong glance toward the cockpit.
"Wouldn't it be better to let the plane fly on autopilot? Why do we have to go pick up that monster?"
"Shh, the higher-ups want us to monitor her while we're at it..."
"Monitor? How are we supposed to monitor a monster like that? It feels more like they're sending us to our deaths. Look at those ears—not human at all..."
"Alright, stop talking. Nothing's happened yet, has it? She's doing it for humanity..."
"For humanity?! Haven't you heard that her squad's mission isn't to fight the Honkai, but—"
Suddenly, the suppressed conversation in the cockpit became inaudible. It wasn't because they realized Sakura was eavesdropping; it was because Sakura had placed her headphones over the beast ears on top of her head and started listening to some rhythmic music to drown out the voices.
The superior hearing provided by these ears wasn't always a good thing.
But Sakura wasn't listening to the music; she was staring blankly at her hands in exhaustion.
"For humanity. The existence of Chrysalis Squad is a necessity, at least for the majority of humanity."
Mei's indifferent words echoed in her heart, causing her to unconsciously tighten her fists.
Killing for her sister, killing for herself, killing for humanity... what else would she kill for in the future?
Hands that appeared long and beautiful to others, with slender and well-proportioned fingers, were in her eyes monster claws stained with blood and mutation.
Lately, she would dream of many bizarre sights. She would transform into a giant beast with elytra, with countless feathers falling before her vertical pupils like raindrops of uncertain color—sometimes red, sometimes yellow. She soared through the sky with abandon, only to suddenly fall into a swamp, unable to escape... unable to struggle... until her consciousness blurred, and when she regained it, she saw herself devouring... the bodies of people.
The dreams were becoming more frequent. She was starting to lose track of what was real and what was fake. A sidelong glance in the mirror showed her as a monster covered in scars.
The words of those people weren't wrong. She was a monster. After that surgery... no, long before that surgery, she already was one.
Sakura clutched her head. The surrounding light had somehow become viscous, like a swamp, a mire, a cage...
...
Back at HQ, Sakura walked numbly off the transport plane. Hidden gazes flickered over her and the ears on her head from time to time. They thought she hadn't noticed, but her sensitivity to such gazes made her feel as though she had fallen into a dungeon full of steel needles.
The sunlight on the sea was also piercingly bright. She pursed her lips and buried her head, walking into HQ as if trying to flee to her room.
"Who exactly are you?"
Just then, a questioning voice made Sakura stop. She recognized it as Elysia voice. Elysia rarely used a severe tone to question others; her role had nothing to do with interrogation. By comparison, she was better at coaxing information out of people.
Why did she sound somewhat angry today?
Sakura hesitated for a moment but still walked toward the source of the voice.
Rounding a corner, Sakura saw Elysia and Mobius cornering a person. Their expressions were quite grave, while the other person wore a nonchalant smile, seemingly with no intention of answering.
That person... eh?
At first glance, Sakura was stunned by the person's face. Then, she felt a sense of familiarity. She had actually seen the top and bottom halves of Lin face separately. Now, her memory resurfaced. After observing with a frown for a while, she dug out the fragments from the depths of her memory and pieced them together.
...Lin?
"Relax, you're being a bit extreme." Lin raised his hands with a light smile to soothe the two women whose eyes were now full of hostility. "I'm Lin. Surely you can't fail to recognize me?"
"Heh... aside from being highly similar in being fake-innocent and annoying in certain ways..." Mobius let out a cold laugh and turned to ask, "What do you think?"
Elysia stared at Lin expressionlessly. Her face said it all. She was friendly to everyone, even those imprisoned in the Deep End. But she could not smile at an unknown creature that might have occupied her friend's body.
"This is indeed troublesome... but I have a way to prove it."
Lin wagged a finger and said in a teasing tone to the suspicious Mobius, "Lady Snake, your 'time of the month' is always in the middle of the month, and it's a bit painful."
Mobius froze for a few seconds. She was about to protest the name "Lady Snake" when she heard the rest of the sentence. Her eyelid twitched.
"...How do you know that?"
"Naturally, I was keeping track of the time. You think the Motherwort tea that appeared on your desk during that time every month was put there by Klein?"
Mobius thought about it carefully. Indeed, for the past two years, every month during that period of extreme irritability, there would be a cup of tea on her desk morning and night. And when Lin was away on missions, it seemed to be missing.
"Wait a minute." Elysia was momentarily dazed by the topic. She stared at Lin. "If you are Lin, you should remember a pact between Lin and me."
"...Ah, sorry. It's been so long I forgot. Can I put on a helmet now? By the way, where did my helmet go?"
Elysia found it hard to believe that this flippant man was the compassionate Lin, but after hearing her words, he had remembered their pact in less than a second.
If he wasn't Lin, how could he know the content of the pact? If he wasLin, what was going on with his current self? Had he truly split a personality due to excessive stress, as Mobius suggested?
As Elysia fell into a stalemate of thought, Lin eyes lit up, and he waved behind them: "Sakura!"
Sakura, who had been carefully eavesdropping nearby, was about to bolt when her gaze was caught. She walked out from behind her cover, feeling stiff. For some reason, she recalled the last time in the lab when she and Lin had passed each other in silence.
She didn't yet understand the situation, but based on what this man said, he was Lin, right?
"It's been a while! Just back from a mission? Good work." While she was flustered, Lin walked over with a smile and patted her shoulder. "Remember when I said I'd visit your home? If you're free, I think we could go now..."
"Ah? Um..." Sakura head was spinning. She had never seen Lin so enthusiastic. Plus, the person's face made it easy to feel good about them; she was even a bit afraid to look into his eyes. "That... I can't go back..."
"Why? Oh~ because of Rin, right? It's fine, both of my c—"
Slap!
Mobius slapped Lin face to prevent him from saying something outrageous.
"I was wrong. He's no longer just annoying; he's ready to be a pure-blooded creep," Mobius said to Elysia with a cold expression.