The girl held horizontally in her arms was excessively soft and light.
So light... it even gave Su Yuzu the illusion that the girl in her arms wasn't real, but a bionic doll made for some special play.
Sitting on the edge of the bath, Su Yuzu held the girl on her lap.
The girl in her arms had almost lost her core temperature. In [Operator Development], Zero's status was constantly jumping on the edge of 'Critical'.
Only... the destination of the jumping wasn't health.
But—
Death.
Su Yuzu let the girl's head rest on her shoulder.
The girl's crimson eyes reflected the outline of that black gear.
That black gear, which once crushed Mihou Sakai's life, now... might be the only medicine to save Zero.
But... Su Yuzu didn't know how to use it.
Directly stuff it into the girl's mouth?
Into the wound?
Or somewhere else.
Does this kind of thing not have an instruction manual?
Wait... instruction manual?
Su Yuzu suddenly associated something.
The best instruction manual in this world, isn't it herself?
With a slight movement of consciousness, Su Yuzu directly stored that black gear into her Material Inventory.
Hum—
In the Material Inventory, the icon of the black gear emerged.
At the same time... Su Yuzu suddenly felt as if the center of her chest had been gently pricked by an invisible needle.
Su Yuzu immediately and vigilantly checked her physical and mental status.
After not detecting any abnormalities, she gently tapped open the icon of that black gear.
[Trial Aberrant Activation Device - II.]
[An activation connection device capable of repairing a life form into an Aberrant posture within ten minutes.]
[Activation Method: Call upon the darkness hidden deep within the heart.]
[After the activation device is awakened, place it towards the life form that needs repairing.]
Su Yuzu took the black gear out of the Material Inventory.
Terms and attributes related to Aberrants were often obscured by ■■■ characters; Su Yuzu was already used to it.
But, the activation method is... call upon the darkness hidden deep within the heart?
At a time like this, how was she supposed to awaken the darkness deep within the heart of this girl who had completely fainted and lost her consciousness?
Or perhaps... Su Yuzu suddenly recalled the situation where Mihou Sakai was forcibly implanted with this so-called Aberrant activation device for the second time.
Su Yuzu believed that with her care, consideration, and constant psychological counseling toward Mihou Sakai, Mihou Sakai shouldn't be that gloomy.
In other words... the activator and the user didn't need to be the same person?
Su Yuzu understood now.
She held the black gear on the tip of her scabbard, her crimson eyes gazing at it.
"However... this thing wouldn't happen to be some kind of trap, waiting for me to awaken it, and then directly polluting me into an Aberrant, right?"
Su Yuzu recalled that black gear in the laboratory which was directly smashed to pieces by the Little Rabbit with a single strike of her healing staff.
If she was careful, there shouldn't be any problem.
Moreover... when that thought arose, a trace of disdain and contempt suddenly skimmed through Su Yuzu's heart.
It was an indescribable feeling.
It was like... that living Throne inside her hollow chest was laughing loudly... laughing that she would actually give birth to such a ridiculous thought.
"Is that so?"
Holding the sword flat with her right hand, Su Yuzu looked at the black gear balanced on the blade's tip and closed her eyes.
"Call upon—"
"The darkness hidden deep within the heart."
What is the darkness deep within her own heart?
A pretty face exactly the same as Su Yuzu's gradually emerged in the darkness.
A slender... impoverished figure of a girl appeared, standing in the darkness, looking down at her with a gaze bordering on cold contempt.
Clang—
The room door was closed.
Crash—
The cake in her hands fell all over the floor.
Whoosh—
The girl who saw her from afar, whose pretty face was smiling and talking just a moment ago, immediately turned from sunny to cloudy, picking up her heavy luggage and turning around to leave.
Just because... she saw her.
"Temporarily forget the reason Soga Yura did this."
"No..."
"Don't even need to forget."
"No matter what the reason was... as long as she recalls that kind of scene, Su Yuzu feels her breath choke and her teeth clench tight."
Anger?
Hate?
"No..."
"Su Yuzu... will never hate Soga Yura."
This is a promise, and also an oath.
But—
Endless sadness spread from the bottom of the girl's heart.
Hum—
The black gear she balanced on the blade tip seemed to be activated and began to spin crazily.
Behind Su Yuzu... it seemed as if shadows were about to climb up the walls; huge, pitch-black shadows wanted to devour everything.
Including that figure of Soga Yura standing before her.
Just like what she saw when she broke through to the First Sequence, it was entangled by black spreading thorns, lifted up, and presented before her.
Hum!!!
Just because of the girl's sorrow.
The rotation speed of that black gear had already surpassed the fear Soga Ishikawa Kiyomi exuded when facing death directly.
No... it couldn't be described as surpassing.
It was a crushing defeat.
Accompanying that spread of sorrow, Hiss—!
The originally stable high-speed rotation of the black gear began to tremble rapidly, as if it could not bear the weight... and was about to shatter.
In a laboratory far away.
Parameters suddenly began to jump continuously on the blue light screen.
"What is happening!?" A man's questioning voice.
The lazy woman stood up abruptly, constantly typing on the keyboard and adjusting parameters. "The Type-II activation device on Zero has been awakened."
"This... how is this possible..."
"What?" The man looked at the large pile of flying parameters, not understanding at all, but he could feel the researcher's disbelief.
"The Type-II activation device is completely different from the first generation."
"It needs extremely strong negative emotions to be awakened; it was a big gift we prepared for Su Yuzu."
"But... it has actually been awakened now."
The woman looked nervously at the screen. The jumping parameters and values became more and more numerous, larger and larger... she felt increasingly panicked.
A large number of bright red warning characters began to appear on the blue screen.
The progress bar also began to turn into a bright red color.
"The Type-II activation device can no longer support that kind of negative emotion."
"Is it that Zero was captured by Keigunen Private Academy, and that bunch at Keigunen Private Academy is using the Type-II activation device to conduct experiments?"
This was the only possible logical explanation the woman could give.
Inside the bathroom—
Hiss!!!
The gear had rotated at such high speed that it emitted a sharp whistling sound. Su Yuzu opened her eyes.
Accompanying the receding sadness in the girl's heart, the rotational speed of that whistling black gear also slowly decreased, released from the crisis of shattering.
Su Yuzu looked at that gear.
Regardless... it should count as activated now.
Holding the tachi, she carefully moved that spinning gear close to the terrible, hideous wound on the back of the girl in her arms.
Su Yuzu watched as that gear, like a magnet about to contact an iron block, squeezed directly into the girl's wound.
For some reason... the nimble trajectory of that gear even gave Su Yuzu the illusion that it was fleeing.
Then—
Just as that gear squeezed into the girl's wound.
"Gu—"
A nearly broken sound was suddenly squeezed out of the throat of the Aberrant girl in Su Yuzu's arms.
The fair, thin legs locked by heavy shackles arched up along with it.
She wanted to struggle, but was firmly pinned down by the shoulders and thighs by Su Yuzu.
"Wu!!!"
Trembling.
Only a weeping... nearly soundless hissing remained in the bathroom.
The terrible injury on the girl's body grew granulation and tender skin at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Clatter—
The girl's arched legs fell.
The iron chains of the shackles locked on the girl's ankles collided with the ground again.
The terrible, hideous wound disappeared completely. The newly born tender soft skin was almost no different from the surrounding skin, except for being a little bit whiter and more tender.
She lay on Su Yuzu's shoulder, her chest twitching spasmodically, as if she had completely lost movement.
But, Su Yuzu could see that accompanying the girl's twitching, the girl's chest slowly began to rise and fall again, restoring normal breathing.
[Ding—]
[Congratulations on unlocking a new achievement: Abyss of Malice.]
[Congratulations on obtaining a new Aberrant: Zero.]
[...]
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