Spy Classroom - Volume 8 - Chapter 1.1

Chapter 1

Rearing

Klaus grimaced at his restraints. They’d been constructed with cutting-edge CIM technology, and they were impressively sturdy. Not only was he being confined in a detention room, but he could also barely move his arms.

Klaus wasn’t pleased about the situation, but even he had to admit that it was the right call for the CIM to make. They wanted his help capturing the Serpent members who’d been involved in the royal assassination, but they couldn’t afford to give him any sort of unilateral trust, especially not after “Flash Fire” Monika had just come straight out of his inner circle.

He could help, but only on a short leash.

It was hardly the most equal set of terms, but Klaus had no choice but to accept them. Several of Lamplight’s members were recuperating at a CIM-controlled hospital, making them hostages in everything but name.

Klaus wasn’t allowed to leave his room. It was locked from the outside, and they’d confiscated all his weapons. He had a bed and a toilet, and they fed him and sent a doctor to check up on him, but he didn’t have access to a newspaper. Unsurprisingly, they also prevented him from having any contact with his team.

In short, he was cut off from being able to do just about any spy work.

“My, how the tables have turned.”

When Amelie visited the room, her voice was dripping with sarcasm.

Amelie—that was to say, “Puppeteer” Amelie—was in charge of Belias, the counterintelligence team that answered directly to the CIM’s senior leadership and had been facing off against Lamplight as of late. She was a woman in her late twenties with a Gothic outfit and heavy bags under her eyes. The frills adorning her dress were in stark contrast with the grim air she carried herself with.

“Now it’s your turn to behave yourself under my supervision.”

“What, are you still holding a grudge?” Up until just a few days prior, Klaus had been holding Amelie’s agents hostage and forcing her to obey his orders. “This is no time to be acting childish. We both need to let bygones be bygones.”

“How awfully convenient for you.”

“It’s for your own good. I haven’t forgiven you people, and I’d be perfectly happy going right back at your throats.” Klaus took a seat on the chair beside him. “The only reasons I’m going along with this are out of respect for Monika’s wishes and because I think you can be useful.”

“Heh. Bold words for a man with a mangled leg.”

With a thin, mocking smile, Amelie cast her gaze down to Klaus’s left thigh. That was where he’d been shot during his duel with Monika. Due to how much he’d been using it since then, his wound had gotten even worse.

Thanks to Amelie’s keen powers of observation, she could tell just how far Klaus was from being able to fight in peak form.

“Rest assured we have no problems making ourselves useful as long as you return the favor.” She sat down on the chair across from his. “Tomorrow evening, a representative from Hide is coming to see you.”

“In person?”

Hide, the CIM’s senior leadership, was a group shrouded in mystery. They were Amelie’s direct superiors. Klaus had been trying to make contact with them for ages, and it looked like he was finally getting his wish.

“These are extraordinary circumstances. Even I’ve only seen his face once before. Together, we’re going to hold a strategy meeting on how we intend to capture White Spider.” After Klaus nodded in assent, Amelie shot him a biting look. “Before that, though, there’s something I need to know.”

“What’s that?”

“Meadow’s statement just now. Was that made in earnest?”

She was doubtless referring to when Sara had said she would defeat White Spider. It was a daring claim, and it had been highly out of character for Sara to make it.

“I imagine so,” Klaus replied without a moment’s hesitation. “I don’t doubt her conviction. She wants to save Monika. The two of them were mentor and mentee, and to be honest, it was such an effective setup it gave me concerns for my job security.”

“I see.”

“That said, I can’t deny that I’m worried about her ability to pull it off.”

It sounded harsh, but Sara was still working on hitting her stride. Klaus had the utmost confidence in her talents, but at present, it was hard to draw favorable comparisons between her and the others.

What’s more, there was another major concern weighing on his mind.

“There’s something eerie about White Spider.”

“Eerie? That’s a rather abstract way of putting it…”

“From what I’ve seen of him, the man is a loser through and through. There’s no dignity to anything he says or does, and as much as he likes to wail about how he’s going to kill me, he doesn’t hesitate to flee as fast as his legs will carry him the minute it looks like things are going south for him.”

Klaus had encountered White Spider on three occasions.

The first was in the Galgad Empire, when White Spider killed Guido. The second was in the Din Republic, right in the middle of the incident with Annette’s mother. And the third was in the United States of Mouzaia, right after Klaus finished apprehending Purple Ant.

By all accounts, the man was highly skilled—yet for some reason, the impression of him as a loser was impossible to shake.

“The things Serpent’s been doing here in Fend… They don’t track with what I know about him.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“If I described it as being like a glass of water with a single gram of paint in it, would that help explain it?”

“I assure you it would not.”

“Well, that’s fine. The point is, Sara said that she was prepared to do it. I’m going to choose to believe in her.”

Klaus would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried, but he’d chosen to take a gamble on them, and he intended to let that gamble ride. The girls had grown in ways he never would have imagined. Not even his famed intuition could have prepared him for how suddenly and how radically they would improve.

There was a certain delicacy to the way Amelie lowered her tone. “Are you certain about this?”

“Hmm?”

“I respect your position, I sincerely do. But if those young ladies want to apprehend White Spider, they’re going to run into a serious obstacle.”

There were hints of embarrassment flitting in and out of her expression. It was unlike her.

Klaus asked her to explain herself.

“I believe it goes without saying that we aren’t going to arrest those three. I imagine you would object if we did.”

“Of course. That’s a basic prerequisite for my cooperation.”

“And rightly so. However, we can’t exactly allow them to roam about freely, either.”

“………”

“Aside from Belias and Hide, the rest of the CIM’s operatives believe that ‘Flash Fire’ Monika was the one who assassinated Prince Darryn. And they know that she used to belong to Lamplight.”

Klaus wasn’t happy about it, but that was what Monika wanted, so that was the way things were. By passing herself off as a Serpent member and taking the heat for everything, she’d prevented the situation from getting even more out of hand.

By the sound of it, though, her doing so had given rise to some new problems.

“As a result,” Amelie said apologetically, “most of the CIM holds Lamplight in extreme contempt.”

After tasting freedom for the first time in three days, the girls found themselves staring down an unexpected roadblock.

When the room they were confined in got unlocked at around one in the afternoon, they immediately rushed out. Their first order of business was to track down White Spider’s whereabouts. They’d already decided what their initial move was going to be, and time was of the essence. Every second mattered. The three of them marched confidently down the hallway.

When they got to the entrance, though, they were greeted by a shrill female voice.

“Ah-ha-ha, you punks really thought we’d just let you waltz on out of here?!”

A woman dressed in a suit charged at them from around the corner. She was clutching a spherical device in her hand, and she held it up as though showing it off.

“Absolute Reverb.”

“““________!!”””

The girls reflexively braced themselves, but their defenses were useless against the attack. A thunderous peal blared out from the sphere. It felt like their ears were going to split open, and the noise traveled right through their heads and rattled their brains. If they’d taken even a second longer to clamp their hands over their ears, their eardrums might well have burst.

None of them were able to stay upright, not after taking an attack like that. All they could do was crouch on the floor and try to endure until the noise went away.

“We invented this little baby to use against terrorists,” the woman boasted once she stopped her audio onslaught. “Stings, doesn’t it? Ha-ha!”

Sara stared back at her in blank shock.

Wh-what is this woman’s problem?!

Using a sonic weapon on someone the moment you met them was an act of absolute lunacy.

The woman’s hair was buzzed almost down to the skin. You rarely ever saw haircuts that short, even in the city. For her outfit, she was wearing a double-breasted suit adorned with a collection of badges. She appeared to be in her late twenties.

She gave the girls a contemptuous look as she introduced herself. “Say hello to one of Vanajin’s aides-de-camp, ‘Swordsmith’ Miné! I’m only gonna say that once, so make sure you remember it, handmaids!”

Her tone was chipper, but there was something oddly combative about it.

Sara and Lily couldn’t help but exchange a glance and a surly “Oh, you’re with them…”

Vanajin was the CIM’s largest counterintelligence unit, and Lamplight didn’t like them one bit. They were the ones who’d locked the girls in there in the first place. They were also the ones who’d taken Sara and Lan hostage.

Undeterred by the girls’ naked animosity, Miné continued on. “I’m here to keep an eye on you punks. I’ll be with you twenty-four seven, and don’t you forget it!”

“Keep an eye on us? What are you talking about?”

“Ah-ha-ha, we’re not just gonna let a bunch of Flash Fire’s old teammates wander around free! Do you handmaids seriously not get that?!”

Sara immediately picked up on what was happening.

The vast majority of the CIM’s spies were unaware of the truth about Monika. There was no way they were just going to let the Lamplight girls run free.

“What the hell are you comin’ at us for?” Sybilla said, rising to her feet and getting up in Miné’s face. “The way I heard it, we’re supposed to be helpin’ each other. The whole idea was that Lamplight and the CIM would work together to take down White Spider—”

“Ah-ha-ha, sounds like someone let their ego run away with them,” Miné replied, not backing down. “We need help from you people like we need a hole in the head.”

With her smile unbroken, she held up her spherical weapon.

Once again, that same thunderous roar blasted out. The sonic assault made the girls feel like their heads were going to explode.

“You’re just Bonfire’s little handmaids. We know better than to expect you to accomplish anything,” Miné mocked them after shutting off the sound waves.

Drool dribbled from Sara’s mouth. There was nothing she could do but groan unintelligibly. Beside her, Sybilla and Lily were suffering the same.

That single attack had rendered them completely helpless. Despite their three-to-one advantage, Miné had completely overpowered them.

“The only reason for keeping you people alive is my orders from the top.” Miné’s voice cut through the ringing in their ears. “If you wanna try to shake me, be my guest. All of Vanajin will come together to end you. Ah-ha-ha. And just for the record, if you thought I was strong, my boss is a hundred times stronger.”

Sybilla quietly clicked her tongue. “Tch…”

Through their gasps, Sara and Lily talked her down. “We need to back down for now, Miss Sybilla.” “Yeah, we gotta just take it on the chin.”

At the moment, getting into a fight with the CIM would be a bad move. The cards were stacked against them.

Lily put on her most amiable smile. “We read you loud and clear, Miné. I’m a big believer in doing what the strong say. I’m happy to go along with your terms. And if you need your boots licked, just say the word.”

“Ah-ha-ha. Glad you know your place.” Seeming quite pleased with that, Miné extended her foot Lily’s way.

Lily pretended not to notice and went on. “As a matter of fact, there’s actually somewhere I was hoping you could take us.”

Humiliating as it was, they had little choice but to operate under the CIM’s supervision for now. If they wanted to reach their first destination, they were going to need the CIM’s help getting there.

On the state hospital grounds, there was an odd ward surrounded by multiple layers of fences.

The majority of the patients there were either CIM agents or spies those agents had captured, and the others were politicians and members of royalty whose ailments hadn’t been made public. It was a ward designed for patients who, for whatever reason, couldn’t use normal hospitals.

That was where Lily had asked Miné to take them. The CIM were the ones who managed the secret ward, and that was where a large number of Lamplight personnel and affiliates were being held.

When they got there, Miné gave them the rundown on the other girls’ conditions.

“Cloud Drift is doing her rehab, so she’s out on a monitored walk.”

“Cloud Drift” Lan was the sole surviving member of Avian. She’d never received any proper treatment after getting attacked by Belias, but now she was on the mend.

“And you won’t be able to see Forgetter. As a matter of fact, her room is completely off-limits.”

“Huh?” Sybilla asked. “What’s up with Annette?”

“She’s awake, but she got agitated and started lashing out. They had to handcuff her to her bed like a wild animal, ha-ha.”

When Monika betrayed them, she broke Annette’s ribs and beat her half to death.

Annette’s hospital room was visible from where they were, and Miné pointed out where it was. It was up on the fourth floor. There was a tiny open window, likely for ventilation reasons, and the sound of metal clanging against metal was audible from within.

Lily and Sybilla grimaced at their teammate’s inhumane treatment.

Sara let out a quiet groan as well. “………” She’d brought her hawk along, and she stroked his head.

Miné grinned in amusement at their reactions, then continued her explanation. “Someone you can see is Fool. She’s badly injured, though.”

Sara and the others decided to head to her room—that was, Erna’s room—first.

Miné led them there, and inside, they found Erna fast asleep.

In order to help Monika during her battle against the CIM, Erna had dived into a rain of bullets. By disguising herself as an ordinary civilian and intentionally letting herself get hit, she’d bought Monika time to take a breather. It was a distressing act of self-sacrifice…but if not for her, Monika likely would have died.

All else being equal, she would have come under heavy fire for having assisted Monika, but Amelie had pulled some strings and protected her.

“Leave the rest to us, ’kay?”

When Sybilla stroked her teammate’s cheek, Erna let out a contented “Yeep…” in her sleep.

The girls decided to let her get her rest and left her some fruit as a get-well present before departing the room.

As they made their way to the final hospital room, Miné frowned. “Now, Daughter Dearest has been giving the nurses all sorts of headaches.”

Sara, Lily, and Sybilla all cocked their heads in confusion. That was surprising to hear. Of all the girls on the team, Grete was rarely the one causing problems.

“Her body’s practically breaking down, but she refuses to rest. And that’s after she got held for over ten days with basically no food. Ah-ha-ha, the stupid girl can’t even see how dire her situation is.” Miné clicked her tongue in annoyance. “Can you lot talk some sense into her? I’m not happy about it, but I’m under strict orders to keep you all in good health.”

When Miné told them that it would be faster for them to just see her for themselves, the girls quickened their pace toward Grete’s room.

Lily threw open the door. “Is everything okay in here, Grete?”

“You’re here!” Grete immediately spotted them from atop the bed, and her whole face lit up.

However, it was the trio coming into the room that was really in for a surprise. The entire area around the bed was packed to bursting with papers. Each and every sheet was completely full of fountain pen scribbles, and the bedside table had a newspaper, a map of Hurough, and a radio on it. By the look of it, Grete was copying down every bit of information she could get her hands on.

Lily rushed over to her teammate and gently scolded her. “Wh-what do you think you’re doing? You need to get some rest!”

“This is more important. Right now, analysis is the only thing that I’m good for…”

Clearly, Grete was hard at work sorting through the mass of intel. Had she forced the nurses to bring her all that paper and all those pens?

“Th-that’s actually a big help,” Sara said, standing beside the bed as she broached the main topic. “To tell you the truth, Miss Grete, we actually came to get your advice.”

That was the main reason they’d come to visit.

For all their talk about how they were going to capture White Spider, the girls had quickly gotten stuck. With how massive Hurough’s population was, tracking down a single man was all but impossible. They didn’t even have any leads.

In the end, the three of them had all come to the same conclusion.

“Bottom line is, I dunno what the hell we’re supposed to do.”

“…Just as I expected.” Grete gave them a warm smile. “I’ve been collating information in order to pass it along to you.”

“That’s our tactician for ya,” Sybilla said. “I always feel better knowin’ you’ve got our back.”

The three of them promptly gathered around the bed.

“Please, tell us how we can catch White Spider.”

“I have two suggestions I’d like to put forth.” Grete pointed at the map spread out on the bed. “The first is to go to Monika’s last known location, the town of Immiran, and search the entire area.”

Sara and the others nodded. That made perfect sense.

After her fierce fight against the CIM, Monika headed for a small town to the southeast of Hurough. That town was called Immiran, and that was where the hideout of an Inferno member named “Firewalker” Gerde was located. Monika had been heading there to use it as a safehouse.

A merry voice echoed out from a corner of the room. “Ah-ha-ha! My people already picked that area clean!” Miné laughed in amusement. “We found a burned-down building and what looked like the aftermath of a fight. But there was neither hide nor hair of Serpent anywhere around it! And we have no idea where that wretched Flash Fire is, either!”

Apparently, Klaus had already sent the CIM in to investigate. However, the heavy rain that started falling just after the whole thing went down had washed away any tracks or odors there may have been to find.

Grete seemed unperturbed by Miné’s presence. “I see. If they failed to find a corpse, then there’s a possibility that Serpent made off with Monika. Without any clues to follow up, though, it might be best to leave the search to the CIM.”

It was a logical decision. Considering how unfamiliar they were with the area, searching around at random was unlikely to turn up much of anything.

“I believe we should bet on the following possibility.”

When she went on, her voice rang with striking confidence.

“Around the time of Prince Darryn’s funeral…we can capture White Spider when he comes to kill the boss.”

Sara blinked.

She was having trouble processing the suggestion. It felt like there were some logical leaps being made.

Sybilla was similarly bewildered, and she cocked her head in confusion. “Huh? What makes you think White Spider’s gonna attack the boss?”

“As far as I can tell, White Spider has a peculiar obsession with him, and the boss is both injured and restrained. That presents an opportunity that White Spider wouldn’t pass up, as far as I can tell. I believe the odds are quite good.”

They thought back to what they’d heard the man say after their mission in Mitario.

“Next time, though, you’re dead. You’re getting to be a real pain in Serpent’s butt. Seriously, we’re gonna kill you. I’m done with this brute-force nonsense. I’m gonna look at every angle, work through all the details, and come up with a plan that’ll put you down for good.”

Outlandish as the statement was, his voice had been filled with unmistakable hatred.

Lily was the next to raise her hand. “What’s this about a funeral?”

“The administration announced that they would be holding it four days from now. It’s going to be a massive ceremony with guests from all across the world and over two thousand attendees. During the event, the boss’s protection will be thinner simply by necessity.”

Lily and the others had spent the last three days locked up, so all of this was news to them.

Prince Darryn’s funeral.

The official position was that the killer had been located and no longer numbered among the living, so they wanted to hold the funeral as soon as possible. Prince Darryn had held a lot of international pull. The assassin’s bullet threatened that, so Fend wanted to throw a huge event mourning him packed with foreign royalty and dignitaries in order to show the world that the Commonwealth was still strong.

Having another assassination take place there would demolish their reputation, and that was the one thing they absolutely couldn’t afford.

Miné nodded. “Yeah, with big shots coming from across the world, you can bet that there’ll be spies trying to worm through the cracks! Our counterintelligence teams will be working overtime! Ah-ha-ha, not that we have any responsibility to keep Bonfire safe in the first place!”

The CIM had no choice but to pull together the police and their domestic agents in order to guard against terrorism. In other words, it was going to be dead easy for White Spider to go after Klaus.

“Ohhh,” the three of them said in understanding once they’d had it all spelled out for them.

There was no evidence that White Spider would actually come, of course, but it was far likelier than the odds of them stumbling into him while running aimlessly around the city.

“N-now that we have that figured out, we can come up with a strategy. You’re a genius, Grete!” Lily grabbed Grete’s arm and shook it up and down. “Let’s bet everything we’ve got on the funeral and start making a plan!”

“There’s just one thing…one big concern I have about after we find him.” In contrast to Lily’s, Grete’s expression was downcast. “And if anything, it’s the biggest problem of all…”

Her voice was grave. There was one piece of her analysis that she had yet to share with them.

“I’m worried about the way that people around him keep seeming to turn traitor.”

Sure enough, Klaus’s mentor Guido had betrayed Inferno—and White Spider was the one who shot him dead. White Spider was also the man who’d been manipulating CIM traitor Green Butterfly, and he was the one who’d hunted down Lamplight traitor Monika.

“For one, there are still a lot of questions around how Monika double-crossed us over such a short time frame.”

“You’re right. It all happened too fast,” Sara agreed.

Not even the other Lamplight members had noticed that Monika was in love. The fact that someone had sniffed it out in an instant and leveraged it to make her turn traitor was a feat that took some genuine talent.

“Here’s what I’m worried about.”

Grete paused, hesitant to voice her concerns aloud.

“I fear that White Spider…may well have a unique ability to get his enemies to turn traitor.”

“““_____________!!”””

The three girls’ eyes went wide.

There was certainly a logic to Grete’s deduction. There were people in Serpent’s ranks with abilities that bordered on superhuman, like Purple Ant and the way he took nearly three hundred normal civilians and transformed them into assassins. It made perfect sense that White Spider could have an ability that defied all common sense.

It was a soul-crushing realization to come to.

“What do you mean?” Lily asked, staring at Grete in shock. “Are you saying that someone else is going to double-cross us, too?”

Assuming that White Spider really did have that power, how had he used it to date?

By getting a member of the CIM’s leadership to turn traitor, he pushed Belias to attack Avian and Lamplight.

By isolating Monika from the team, he’d forced her and Klaus into a duel to the death.

Those two betrayals had cost Lamplight dearly.

As the girls wrestled with this revelation, they noticed that Grete’s hands were shaking.

“I’m scared… So scared I can’t get to sleep at night…”

“Miss Grete?”

“If someone in the CIM joins Serpent’s side, the boss’s life will be in danger. I don’t even want to imagine it, but…” Hesitant to speak the words aloud, Grete bit down on her lip, then bit it again. “…if they pump poison gas into the room he’s being held in, then not even the boss will be able to do anything!”

It was all too easy to picture the scene.

Not only was Klaus wounded, but he’d been stripped of both his freedom and his weapons. Even he was only human. If he got sealed in a room with deadly gas, he would die.

Behind them, Miné scoffed. “A traitor in the CIM? Ah-ha-ha, that’d never happen!”

However, she was being overly optimistic.

“Please, you have to protect the boss…,” said Grete. Lily was the closest to her, and Grete squeezed her hands in desperation. “I’m not a fool. I know that I would just make things worse if I left the hospital in my current state. So please, I’m begging you… Keep the boss safe in my stead…”

Tears spilled from her eyes and dropped onto her papers.

Grete had poured herself into those reams. She’d packed them full of countermeasures for every eventuality she could think of.

Then all the strength drained from her body.

“Miss Grete?!”

Sara hurriedly caught her before she could fall.

Grete had already fallen into a restful sleep, relieved that she’d done her part.

The girls didn’t say much as they exited the hospital.

Seeing their wounded comrades had filled them with a renewed sense of responsibility, but it had also given them a keen sense of how much danger they were in. Once again, they were confronted with the reality of just how ruthless their foe was.

This was the man who’d destroyed Inferno by getting “Torchlight” Guido to turn traitor.

This was the man who’d secretly manipulated the CIM by winning over one of its leaders.

This was a professional assassin who’d already taken out Prince Darryn.

That was far from an exhaustive list, but even just those three were miracles beyond anything the girls would have been capable of achieving. It occurred to them now just how ignorant they had been to say that they were going to defeat him.

In the end, it was Sybilla who finally spoke up to try and raise their spirits. “L-look, at least we’re not goin’ in empty-handed here! Monika gave us that hint, remember?” She thumped Sara and Lily on their backs. “We’ve got code name Insight—the best pinch hitter anyone coulda asked for.”

Before they set out for Fend, Lamplight had come up with a plan.

“Huh? Who’s Insight?” Miné asked from behind them, but they ignored her. All of them had sworn not to reveal any information about Insight aside from their name.

Sara shook her head. “But even so, calling them in without a strategy won’t do us any good.”

They couldn’t discuss details with Miné present, but Insight wasn’t some superstar who could just swoop in and solve all their problems for them. They needed to devise a plan first, and they couldn’t afford to put any more on Grete’s shoulders.

“W-well, let’s start by looking out for traitors!” Lily said. Her voice rang with anxiousness. “White Spider might try to get a new mole. Let’s work together and try to find out what we can. If one of the CIM agents guarding Klaus changes sides, that’d be a disaster.”

Grete had warned them to be wary of new traitors, and Lily had the right idea. That seemed like the logical place to start—

“Ah-ha-ha, you seriously think I’m going to let you go root around like that?!”

—but their babysitter Miné was having none of it. She let out another chipper laugh as she shut them down. “Like hell I’m going to let you poke and prod at our internal affairs when all you’ve got is flimsy speculation! The only job you handmaids have is to hunker down and not cause any trouble!”

“………!”

It boiled their blood, but they weren’t exactly surprised. There was no way Miné was going to give them carte blanche to investigate whatever they wanted.

Sybilla shot Miné a scathing look, but that was the extent of what she could do. Considering their position, getting into a fight with the CIM would be foolhardy.

We don’t have enough…

They were boxed in on all sides with no way out. They couldn’t even figure out what the next move they needed to make was.

Not enough intel, not enough personnel, not enough talent, not enough anything.

White Spider’s power was terrifying, and their time limit was tiny. They couldn’t meet up with Klaus. The CIM members around them were being completely unhelpful.

But…if we keep dawdling like this, then what’ll become of Miss Monika? What’ll become of the boss?

Panic ran through Sara.

If they didn’t capture White Spider, they couldn’t save Monika.

If they didn’t stop him, Klaus was going to die.

She understood all that, but she couldn’t find a way forward.

The problem is, we don’t have anyone we can turn to…

She clenched her fists in frustration.

As they stood there loitering helplessly in front of the hospital, Miné’s radio buzzed. She had a message coming in.

After she held the radio to her ear and listened for a moment, her lips curled into a sneer. “Ah-ha-ha. I’ve got even more bad news for you.”

She sounded oddly amused by the fact.

As for the girls, though, they’d had about all the bad news they could take.

“Oh, what a laugh. What was that you just said? Something about working together? Well, that’s a pity! Turns out, your own teammates aren’t interested in getting on the same page as you!”

Her tone was taunting. “What’re you talkin’ about?” Sybilla asked.

“It’s killing time for me and the boys.” Miné lifted the breast of her jacket to show off the gun holstered within. “‘Forgetter’ Annette just broke out of the hospital.”

While Klaus and Amelie were in the middle of trading information, one of Amelie’s agents came rushing in with a furious look on their face and quickly summarized the situation: “Forgetter” Annette had vanished from her hospital room.

The Lamplight girls were free to do whatever they wanted, but what they weren’t allowed to do was to run around without their babysitters. According to Amelie’s agent, all the CIM personnel in the area were searching for Annette.

For Klaus, the whole situation came as a surprise. He hadn’t been allowed out to visit Annette in the hospital, so he had no way of foreseeing this.

He inhaled sharply. “…This is not good.”

“No, it isn’t.” Amelie nodded. “It’ll be a Vanajin unit that’s tracking her down.”

“I see. Well, you need to call them off.”

“I know. Those people have a violent streak. If one of them ends up shooting Forgetter—”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Klaus needed to quickly clear up Amelie’s misunderstanding. “I’m concerned that Annette will kill them all.”

“I beg your pardon?” Amelie replied, but Klaus was being dead serious.

Klaus had predicted that losing to Monika would cause Annette to go feral. She’d never experienced a setback like that before, and there was an evil hidden away in her heart that made one’s blood run cold. This was the first time she’d ever been given such a harsh catalyst, and the ensuing chemical reaction was liable to explode.

Now that he thought about it, perhaps Monika had been trying to bring out Annette’s latent talent. However, the girl was such a black box that even Klaus was hesitant to poke too hard.

“What in the world even is that young lady?” Amelie asked. “She completely destroyed one of my men. With only one hand, Disintegrator Doll has been relegated to desk duty for the foreseeable future.”

“Look, I made the call to make a forceful move.”

Klaus was the one who’d given her the order to ambush the Belias aide, and Annette had accepted the assignment and completed it with ease. However, the really scary part was how she’d taken the severed hand and stomped on it with a smile on her face.

“But there’s a lot even I don’t understand when it comes to her.”

That was the honest truth.

“All I know is that this world of ours is broken, and she’s a person—a very scary person—who’s adapted to that fact.”

Some might describe her as being twisted to her core, but Klaus didn’t want to use those words. However, it was hard to know what words to use to assess a girl who was willing to kill without hesitation or compunctions.

“You need to send Lily, Sybilla, and Sara after her posthaste.”

“It sounds like that would be for the best, yes.” Amelie nodded and quickly relayed instructions to that effect to her agent. Her ability to make quick decisions without needing a protracted explanation spoke to wisdom. “I take it the three of them know some method they can use to stop Forgetter. Just for my own edification, what exactly might that—?”

“Oh, they don’t know anything.”

“What?”

“I haven’t told the girls about Annette’s character yet. They have no idea how vicious she is.”

“………” Amelie gave him a reproachful look. “Then how exactly do you expect them to stop her?”

She could glare at him all she liked, but Klaus stood by his call. It wasn’t his place to thoughtlessly share Annette’s private details. That was a decision he’d made not as a spy, but as her mentor. Annette herself had gone out of her way to keep her true nature hidden. Both when killing her mother and when attacking the problem customer at her restaurant job, she’d kept her teammates in the dark about what she was doing.

Klaus shook his head. “It’s the only option we have.”

It would be a different story if they were prepared to let him out of his room, but he knew better than to ask for that.

Amelie frowned, not at all convinced. “Are you sure you aren’t placing too much trust in your subordinates?”

“Oh…?”

Amelie had spent a fair amount of time interacting with the girls. Perhaps her keen powers of observation had given her a cause for concern that Klaus hadn’t picked up on yet.

“It’s something I’ve been wondering for some time. You clearly think highly of your pupils, but have you forgotten what happened just the other day?”

“What are you talking about?”

“One of your students betrayed you. You failed them as a mentor.”

Klaus had no rebuttal for the truth Amelie had just confronted him with. In failing to stop Monika, he had completely and utterly let her down, both as her boss and as her teacher.

“What I’m suggesting,” Amelie went on, her tone still just as biting, “is that Monika’s betrayal might very well be enough to break the girls’ bonds.”

Annette’s escape came as a huge shock to the CIM.

Not only had her arms and legs been bound, but because of the nature of the CIM-controlled hospital ward, its security was second to none. Sneaking in from outside and escaping from within both required a key and a special password. Unless you had a CIM escort, that was the only way you could get into or out of the building.

No one had ever escaped like that.

“Okay, first of all!!” Sybilla shouted as they raced down the streets of Hurough. “Is Annette even okay to be gettin’ up and walkin’ around?! I thought she was—”

“Supposed to be on strict bed rest, yeah!!” Lily shouted back. “But if anyone’s gonna ignore that and just up and leave, it’s Annette!!”

As soon as Miné filled them in, the three of them flew out of there like bats out of hell. After doubling back to the hospital to grab Annette’s bedding, Sara gave it to her puppy so they could track Annette by scent. They knew she couldn’t have gotten far from the hospital, so they narrowed their focus to the nearby alleyways.

It was still early afternoon at the moment, and the city was packed with people. One would imagine that a girl walking around in a hospital gown would draw a lot of attention. Despite that, the Lamplight trio couldn’t seem to find her.

There were a couple reasons why they needed to track her down ASAP.

First off, the CIM had no patience for fugitives. There was a real danger they would do as Miné suggested and gun Annette down. Then there was the matter of how heavily injured she was. If her wounds got any worse, it could be life-threatening.

Miss Annette…

Sara turned her thoughts toward Annette’s mental state and picked up the pace in impatience. Sara had made a big mistake, and she knew it. She regretted not having paid more attention.

As they continued through the crowd, the puppy running in front of Sara did an abrupt pivot.

“Mr. Johnny’s picked up on something!”

The puppy in question bounded forward toward the entrance to a nearby piece of public infrastructure. It was facing the main road, but there was something unsettling about how dark it was, like an ominously gaping maw.

“It’s the subway!!”

Hurough was home to the fastest metro system in the world. It had initially been built with steam locomotives that billowed smoke, but nowadays, those had been replaced with electric trains, and their tracks were spread all throughout the city.

“Clever thinking, Annette,” Lily said as she sped up and charged inside. “She wanted to escape, so she went underground.”

The stairs leading down were poorly lit, and the farther down they went, the more distant the sun’s light grew. The ventilation system appeared to be working fine, yet the air grew thick and choking all the same. It felt as though the sooty air was going to wreck their lungs.

Surely, Annette wasn’t actually going to get on the train.

When they got to the very bottom of the long staircase, they found a door marked STAFF ONLY. It should have been closed, but they could see that it was ever-so-slightly ajar.

The puppy nosed his way into the opening, and the girls followed along after him.

“These are the emergency tunnels,” Miné said, sounding audibly impressed as she brought up the rear. The subway had walkways that ran parallel to the tracks designed to be used for maintenance or in case of accidents. Annette was taking advantage of that to get around.

The girls borrowed the emergency flashlights from the wall and hurried onward.

After a few minutes of running, Sybilla shined her flashlight on the hallway floor. “I see blood!”

Sure enough, there were red stains, dark enough that they were difficult to see without the light.

“Dammit, she knows she’s not supposed to be up and about! She’s probably keeled over somewhere down here—”

Right as Sybilla raised her voice, the subway train came blaring by. A terrible roar echoed through the hallway as a mass of metal thundered right next to the walls. The bright subway cars cast the entire walkway in light.

At the back of the group, Lily let out a small gasp.

There in the darkness, Annette was sitting on the ground with blood spilling from her lips.

Her back was resting against the concrete wall, and her eyes were closed. More dots of blood were dripping onto the ground.

“Miss…Annette…?”

As soon as the subway passed them by and the hallway grew quiet again, Sara called out.

“Your wounds have all opened up. We need to get you back to the hospital.”

When she pointed her flashlight’s beam at Annette, Annette’s eyes snapped open.

She was alive. She’d been in better shape when she fled the hospital, but her condition must have deteriorated over the course of her escape.

Something about her feels different right now…

Sara gasped a little.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Sybilla began heading over to her. “Hey, whoa, are you okay?”

When she did, Annette rose to her feet and swung something resembling a whip at the walkway floor.

Violent sparks lit up the maintenance passage.

““________!!””

Sybilla and Lily leaped backward. They bumped into Sara, who let out a cry as well.

In her hand, Annette was holding a thick electrical cable.

Not only had she stolen a knife, but she’d also used it to cut up the corridor’s wiring. The live wire jutting out from within the insulation sent out small sparks as it short-circuited.

“Don’t worry about me, yo.”

This wasn’t Annette’s usual voice. It was completely devoid of emotion.

The sparks flying from the cable lit up her face as she stood there in the dark.

“I just need to go kill Monika real quick.”

Sara felt a chill dance across her fingertips. Her breath caught in her chest, like she’d just been doused in ice-cold water.

The “Forgetter” Annette she knew always wore an innocent smile. As long as she didn’t say too much, she came across as downright cherubic. She was an oddball, sure, and she caused more than her fair share of problems, but at the end of the day, she was an adorable girl whose very presence soothed their souls.

However, the being that stood before them now was utterly alien to Sara.

“Lily… Sara…” Sybilla’s voice trembled. “She wasn’t kiddin’ just now… She’s out for blood…”

She, too, had noticed that there was something wrong with Annette.

Sara and the others had always sensed that something was a little different about Annette. They’d spent enough time completing missions together to know that she was keeping some sort of secret.

However, none of them expected it to be something so extreme.

This was the side of Annette she never showed to the others—the fact that she got rid of anyone who dared hurt her. Even Monika.

Miné took a step forward and reached inside her jacket. She was about to pull her gun. “Wait!” Lily cried as she grabbed her.

They needed to talk Annette down, and fast. If they didn’t, Miné would shoot.

“Miss Annette.” Sara had the closest relationship with her, so she called out first. “Miss Monika is our friend, remember? I know she attacked you, but I’m sure she had a good—”

“What is a friend anyway?” Annette was unmoved. “You’ve never been more than playthings to me, yo.”

“………”

“Don’t get in my way. Just turn around.”

A terrible feeling of emptiness struck Sara. It felt like someone was clamping down on her throat.

There were no falsehoods in Annette’s words. All those times Annette had spent laughing and smiling with them, it had been because she enjoyed being there. Shallow concepts like emotional bonds had never been a part of it.

To her, anyone who drew her ire was a target for elimination.

It didn’t matter if it was Klaus, or if it was Sara, or Sybilla, Thea, Grete, Erna, Lily, or Monika. If she didn’t like someone, she was prepared to take their life without a second thought.

Hers was the ultimate case of egotism, yo.

There was a great evil inside her that she’d once kept hidden behind her angelic smile, and now it stood directly in their way.

Sara had no idea how to get through to her. They were at an impasse.

The first one to waver was Annette.

“Rgh!!”

Visibly pained, she swayed on her feet and spat up a mouthful of blood.

“Annette!” Sybilla cried.

As soon as she took a single step forward, though, Annette righted her posture and lashed out with her cable. Sybilla froze. Annette had no intention of letting them get anywhere near her. It was obvious that she needed medical attention, but she was uninterested in their concern.

Sybilla winced and shrank backward. With how linear the corridor was, not even her impressive reflexes would allow her to close that gap.

Lily bit her lip and took a step forward of her own. “Y-you know what, you’re right. And I’m gonna help you kill her.”

“The fuck?” Sybilla said with a look of shock.

Sara, on the other hand, picked up on what Lily was doing. She didn’t actually mean what she was saying. Her plan was to offer empty promises to Annette in order to convince her to come back to the hospital.

“If you want to kill Monika, you’re gonna need help. What do you say? Why don’t we go get you patched up? You don’t know where she is, right? I can help you look for her, so—”

“Spare me the cheap lies, Sis,” Annette spat. “Do you seriously still think I’m just some dumb kid?”

“________!!”

Lily let out an ashamed gasp. The frigid, lightless void in Annette’s eyes made it clear that her gambit was poorly chosen. Annette had dodged her dishonesty with ease.

“I don’t get it, yo.”

Annette cracked her electrical cable in frustration.

Sparks flew from the wires as they rubbed against each other, casting her face into stark relief against the darkness.

“I don’t get why you’re trying to stop me! What are friends even for? Why is it so wrong for me to kill people?!”

She swung the cable like a child throwing a tantrum, sending sparks scattering every which way. They flew against the ceiling, against the walls, and against the floor. The air itself was singed.

“Why am I different from everyone else?! Why do I keep having to hide that?!”

The sparks flew.

“It makes me feel trapped, yo!! Everything I see, I hate!!”

The sparks flew.

“When I grow up, will this red redness stop covering everything?!”

Redness?

Sara had no idea what to make of Annette’s words. However, there was no sense trying to draw inferences from them. The world Annette saw was hers and hers alone. The rest of them had no ability to perceive it.

Annette was beyond their ability to comprehend.

She was trying desperately to tell them something. She was screaming out, revealing who she really was and fighting through her pain in order to get those terrible emotions out of her body.

However, Sara was powerless to do anything but stand there.

Beside her, Sybilla and Lily were in the same boat. All they could do was stare at Annette. And even if the rest of the Lamplight girls had been there, nothing would be different. Not even Thea with all her mastery of negotiation or Grete with her vast ingenuity would have been able to get through to Annette.

After all, how could you engage with someone whose only outlet for their impulses was murder?

“Ah-ha-ha, looks like you’re out of ideas,” Miné called dryly. “I’m not sure I totally follow, but that thing is out of its mind. Go ahead and stand back. I’ll use Absolute Reverb to lock her down, then shoot her dead.”

““No!”” Sybilla and Lily pleaded, but Miné simply arched her eyebrow. “What, you’ve got some idea for how to convince her?”

Upon seeing that the girls had no answer to that, she let out another one of her trademark laughs.

“You people are all talk.” She gave them a toothy, mocking grin. “You say you’re going to beat White Spider, but how’re you planning on doing that, huh?! Go on, I’m waiting! Look at you people; you can’t even talk down your own teammate! Ah-ha-ha, what a bunch of losers!”

Lily bit her lip. “………”

“You worthless little handmaids need to stay in your lane!”

Miné reached for her sonic orb, and Lily and Sybilla tried to stop her again.

Then they all heard a new set of footsteps coming from down the walkway. More CIM reinforcements. Once they got there, they were sure to back Miné up and attack Annette.

They had a deadline, and it was fast approaching.

If they didn’t intervene, Annette and the CIM were going to murder each other.

I can’t let that happen.

Fear swallowed up Sara’s heart as she envisioned the worst-case scenario.

The way things were going, Annette was going to die.

However, the new problems that would arise if they helped her escape were self-evident.

I can’t let Miss Annette die. I can’t.

She needed to find a solution.

However, nothing Lily and Sybilla said had gotten through to Annette. All their attempts at mediation had ended in failure. The question was, who could converse with someone who existed outside the bounds of reason, who normal logic didn’t apply to…

“_____!!”

The moment it all clicked into place, Sara quietly sucked in a breath.

Her resolve was firm.

She began walking toward Annette and her electrical cable. After readjusting her newsboy cap, she sucked in another breath, this one big enough to fill her lungs all the way up. Sybilla and Lily urged her to stop, but she ignored them and kept on going.

“It’s okay, Miss Annette.”

She put on her very best smile.

“You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

For a brief moment, Annette opened her mouth in bewilderment.

That was all Sara needed.

“I’m code name Meadow—and it’s time to run circles around them.”

As she charged forward, she brought her full talents to bear.

Her animals had been hiding down on the tracks, and it was now that she gave them their orders. There was a hawk, a pigeon, some mice, and a dog—the full menagerie Sara had at her disposal. They leaped out of the darkness and moved to surround Annette.

“?!”

Annette was off guard, and she froze.

At that moment, Sara finished closing the gap. Annette tried to resist, but Sara slipped through her hands and pinned her from behind in an embrace.

“Everything’s okay now.”

She stroked Annette’s head and hugged her tight.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, I promise! There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Get off me, Sis,” Annette roared. “I’m not afraid, yo! I just don’t get it, that’s all!”

The nuzzling from all the animals must have really spooked Annette, as she’d already dropped her cable. She wriggled and squirmed to try to escape Sara’s arms. It was incredible how strong she was when she was lashing out.

“I hate it! It makes me sick! It’s so red! It’s so red, and I hate it!”

Again, she was saying things that only made sense to her.

“You people are trying to trap me! To put me in a cramped little cage!”

Her rage was intense.

“And even if you don’t! Someday, you’ll start seeing me as a bad person and end up killing me!”

She was practically screaming, and she’d been doing so for so long that her voice grew hoarse. She gasped for air.

All the while, Sara continued hugging her without letting up.

“We’re not going to put you in anything, Miss Annette!” she shouted back, her voice resolute. “Even if you’re a bad person, and even if you kill people, that’s no reason for us to reject you.”

“Then what exactly do you want me to—”

“You don’t have to change a thing!”

Sara touched Annette’s cheek.

“No matter how bad of a person you are, I’ll always accept you.”

“What?” Sybilla and Lily yelped in bewilderment.

Sara didn’t let up in her embrace. She bit down on her lip as though in prayer and refused to let Annette go. Her pets did the same, snuggling up to Annette and practically clinging to her.

The thing was, Sara knew.

She knew that when you were dealing with someone that words couldn’t get through to, the first thing you needed to do wasn’t to win them over. And it wasn’t negotiating with or reprimanding them, either.

The first thing you needed to do was affirm them.

As soon as Sara realized that words weren’t getting through to Annette, the answer came to her immediately. If anything, this was her area of expertise. She was the one who’d opened her heart to her hawk, her pigeon, her mice, and her dog, and she knew that you had to start by accepting them. You had to start by taking in every part of them. Getting them to answer commands was a problem for later.

That right there, that was Sara’s specialty—the one thing she truly excelled at.

Slowly but surely, Annette stopped resisting.

“It…”

A faint whisper tumbled from her lips.

“It’s okay for me to be a bad girl?”

“It’s totally fine. You and me, we can find a way for you to keep being a bad girl together.”

Sara gently brushed her hand through Annette’s frazzled hair.

Eventually, Annette rested her weight against her. Before long, Sara heard the steady breathing of sleep. Her eyes were closed. Just like Grete earlier, her body had hit its limit.

Lily and Sybilla rushed over and let out loud gasps.

“She calmed down? For real?”

Miné’s eyes went wide with disbelief at the radical transformation. She didn’t know Annette well, so it was hard to blame her for her shock. When Annette wasn’t raging, she looked like an adorable little angel.

That said, Sara had been treading on thin ice there. One wrong move, and Annette would have killed her.

She felt like she was burning up. Sweat cascaded down her body. Blood was coursing rapidly through her veins, and she didn’t need to check her pulse to know that her heart was pounding a mile a minute.

Spurred on by her racing heartbeat, she spoke up.

“We’re not worthless.”

“Huh?”

“Please take back what you said earlier, Miné. You called us ‘worthless little handmaids.’ But we have someone who believes in us.”

Sara stared at her, and Miné stared back blankly.

However, Sara wasn’t actually mad at her. The only reason she’d been able to save Annette was because Miné’s words had reminded her of something important she’d once been told.

“You have to figure it out. What sort of ideals do you have as a spy? How do you want to fight? What kind of life do you want to live?”

She held her second teacher in great esteem, and her second teacher had given her an assignment.

“Now I finally know what kind of spy I want to be.”

Without averting her gaze from Miné, she spoke with conviction.

“I’m going to be Lamplight’s guardian—a spy who never lets any of her teammates die.”

Her mind was set.

To her, there was something more important than successfully completing missions or fulfilling her duty as a spy.

As she softly pressed her face against Annette’s back, she took a moment to wonder how Monika would react if she heard Sara’s answer.