For the final mission, our eyes move to the perspective of Katie and her comrades, including her father, Azazel, and her new partner, Natalia. Having arrived right to the front of the facility leaving nothing but levitating steam in their wake, the guards couldn't help but turn their heads to the entrance. Both jerking in surprise at the infiltrators, the charge for the plasma could be heard before their heads were easily sliced clean off, with not so much as blood spurting out between the two.
The glimpse of the Blade seen by Azazel before it disintegrated, Katie nodded to her dad, running ahead with Natalia by her side, leaving Karlo behind without hesitation. As always, standing alone in the dirty winds moving in tandem with the chaos of a different world, he could only look down at the corpses of these men.
Maybe it was the way these claws spread over his fingers that gave him memories of that time before, or maybe not, but kneeling over these forgotten names, without heads to identify them as people… he could remember that time as clear as day. Taking off that bloody mask to disguise him as a Crow, a time where he couldn't produce tears for the victims he deemed so irrelevant, but now, despite not knowing their names, he could feel it streaming down his cheeks.
Hands together, palms touching against one another, as he uncrossed his legs and began to rise from the seated stance he'd previously taken, ascending to look over their graves as his hands reverted to stay by his body's sides. Without so much as a word spoken between the living and the dead with a parting of lips, Azazel turned away and continued on his vast journey, wiping away the tears from his red eyes and revealing that determined grimace with squinted eyebrows pointing downward at the eyeballs.
"I need to talk with my daughter."
…
Katie's fingers entangled around the ivory handle of her specialized Blade spun around, cutting through bodies like paper, watching as entrails littered the air with droplets of blood as mere afterthoughts. Even as they fired on and on, just a simple spin for the blade to direct onward was destined for their infantile attempts at rebellion to end with their arms falling off their chests' sides or their heads flying to the side. It was almost as ways as cutting through bread with a butter knife.
"Come on!" Beckoned Kate to her female companion sprinting behind her, jumping over mutilated corpses.
Squelching footsteps resounding as if there were pieces of flesh attached to her feet, the swing Natalia turned her head, she could spot the bloody prints she made as her soles implanted, in a continuous cycle, against that floor below. It was only right for her to think back to that church, just a simple kick, the door crushing their bodies, leaving only a painted scarlet in her wake.
She shook herself out the sins of her past, reminded of the events of the present with the click of a rifle, staring down the barrel. In just another split-second, not only had the firearm slapped against the floor, but with a cleave as simple as the one Katie had thrown, he'd fallen to the ground without a bottom half, intestines sprawled out and innards oozing. Ridding enemies from their path, cutting them away with such ease, without so kidney as an inch of visible remorse visible from the calmed movement of gripped fingers, as the way her legs moved started to slow, she remembered a time she was so merciless. Standing over crushed bodies, bones so small they could resemble that of an animal's osseins, even now, though the actions she took weren't her own, she could remember it as clear as day.
That time in the Old World when she so ignorantly named herself the Plague, commanding a merry band of murderers by the name of the Murder of Crows, simply assembled to bring righteous correction to the injustice of the Requiem Emperor's tyranny.
'Makes me sick.'
Just as she was about to reach her hand out and touch the shoulder of her black-haired partner, a single jolt had electrocuted her finger's tip, yanking back to where she now stood, awaiting as her eyes locked to the target ahead, for she and Katie had now spotted an identical enemy. The face they held gave a reaction to Kate, a scoff heard exiting her lips, cracking her neck to the side, she exhaled carefully... followed by the smoothest inhalation. Sucking in the remnants of life energy scattered throughout the air as a byproduct of their presence filling this previously space behind her teeth had expanded the range of her Vita by tenfold.
The tip of the Blackened Blade glistened as if the sun's golden rays were reflecting off to shine into the enemy's eye, the way she ran ahead with such determination in her eyes, Nat could feel her hair wisp past her eyes before she could even gasp. For even despite the speeds her partner had moved at, she managed to take a look at that aura imprisoning her heart, having entangled her soul in its strings, for its shape had taken the chaotic form of a fire-breathing dragon...
'It's the same as when we fought.'
The enemy may have been especially fit with technologies that would've rivaled the feats of anyone else if they'd come, but unfortunately, the one was Katie, not to mention... she was in front. Clashing blades with the wannabe ninja revealing blades from the slits in their all-black suit was nothing more child's play, for she had sparred against she who held the highest spot at the peak of the realm of supremacy. Such feeble creatures were, not only beneath her but deserving of punishment, no matter how divine or corrupt it was or wasn't in the eyes of the beholder, as she cut apart those she deemed unfit to live, there was no doubt... she could feel that ecstasy building up more and more with each passing second she swung her sword.
But there was one variable she had ignored, and it was the fact that she could barely see, for her eyes were obscured by the blood of her victims, as was the longer nature of the darker katana. The more she cut apart those self-proclaimed sinners, the dirtier she became, but did it matter to anyone but her? It was like a wash, bathing in the droplets of insides as they sprayed out from within to cleanse her as if praise were raining down on her. While her Detective father had his justice at this time, there was no doubt about it, this was hers.
He pulled down the mask shielding his lips, tears squeezing out his eyes' corners, those teenage cries, desperate for a chance at survival reached the ears of his tormentor.
"S-SPARE ME!! I J-JUST WANTED THE MONEY, I-I DIDN'T WANNA HURT ANYONE, HONEST!!"
But those eyes of hers saw through his deception, for while her face stood hidden by the darkness pouring out from the machinations of her heart, there remained only visible thing as she stood tall over his defeated body. In his chest, he could feel his lungs tightening, like bones were aching- as if at any point, the rib cage would fall apart too but a shell of its former self.
Her eyes, formerly reflecting the colors of the sky which held the infinite potential for whatever laid beyond that azure landscape, had now turned as bloody as the chunks that dirtied her outfit. As she raised her left hand tightening her grip around the Blade, it was destined to rid him of his life, for this was her justice. The end of an unjust life brought to judgment at the hands of the Crow's kin.
It was almost as if she were falling, still atop that mountain with that robed Master by her side, waiting for the sun to rise as they continued their training through the morning's emerging twilight. Maybe in that past, she believes herself to be a better person than who she originally was, with crossed legs beside that woman, the one who'd taught her so much. Sensations of superiority, experiences of enlightenment; there was this emboldened voice emerging from inside her very soul, as if a resemblance of her inner conscience calling out to her, telling her, "This is my destiny."
That was the undeniable truth she accepted atop Everest, being who she was, changing what she felt, strengthening her core, and now, she was here. Besides everyone yet again, stronger and better than ever, right? But as that stroke halted its continuous movement, the shadows cleared, and the lights became visible. The cowering man whimpering for his life hadn't realized his tears were mere byproducts of the events he currently underwent, for they made nothing in the grand scheme of the Founder's plot, however, there was something that couldn't be shaken off; a sickness that couldn't be cured with any specialized vaccine.
The self-realization courtesy of the brain's awareness of its reversion… to a former self it despised more than anything.
'Is this what they say every day? Me crying and begging for everything while I whimpered for them not to continue… and even so, they did, without care for me, as if I was just a tool for their agitation?'
Those were the questions running through her mind without fail, like a government factory producing money for the sake of the economy, there held no end to these questions, for just as Satoru had experienced earlier unbeknownst to her, the world turned white. She was now bare to it all: the fruits of her labor, the effect of her cause.
The clink of the Blade hitting the ground sent Natalia to wince, closing one eye then reopening after but another second's passing, running on over with a cry as she realized her partner's descent to her knees,
"Katie!" Worriedly yelped the girl as Nat's arms snuck around the kneeling Katie, tears streaming silently down her pale cheeks, without sobs exiting pink lips, a shaky exhalation following instead.
"No matter how hard I try, I can't stop myself from regressing to the thing I'm best at... destroying others for the sake of myself," Katie cried into her friend's chest, but as she wept and wept, there was the shadow of an appearing man from around the corner, beginning to kneel as he revealed his face.
His commanding whispers sent a nod to her head, leading his daughter's body into his muscled arms, holding her close to his chest, blue eyes scanning around, he lifted her as tall as his arms could go. For Natalia had fled, and the mission resumed, but even so, as time accelerated, there was no halting the regression of the psyche, the acknowledgment that no matter how hard you tried or how long you persisted, you were still the same.
To Be Continued.