UX-19 II, Undisclosed Location
New Vicky, Ketsurui Military Sector
Far, far beneath one of UX-19 II's snowswept acropolises, the ancient ruins themselves hardly recognizable under the world's near-permanent blizzard, sat a Star Army Intelligence installation of immense scope. Snowy Neko bustled about within it alongside black-uniformed analysts and operatives, manning their garrison posts and preparing expeditions out into Mishhuvurthyar space. There was a prison on this planet, too. It was one of the most secure places in the whole Empire—probably even more so than Vicky itself—having never been blemished by war or traitorous machinations.
One particular elevator there carried someone new. It traveled fast and quiet into the depths of the planet's crust, still moving far beyond after it passed the 300th subbasement listed on its volumetric interface panel. Even within SAINT, secrecy was compartmentalized and projects hidden; only the Director themself truly knew.
Within the lift stood a raven-haired Neko with black fur on her ears, whose straight locks fell long behind her back and framed her tan face. Her Type 35 uniform was black, too, as were all of the uniforms here, and was worn with its front flap folded down and pinned into a lapel that revealed a sciences green lining on its reverse facing. Four tall, invariably alabaster Neko guards in white subzero parkas flanked the officer at four points and held C Module Type 33 carbines at the ready.
Taii Shiro Ichiko kept her green eyes closed for the ride, hands fixed together behind her back.
"Nobody's going to see you for a long time," she recalled the operative saying, his words as clear in her digital mind now as they were back at The Pit.
Ten Days Ago
Ouchi Prison, Planet Kotori
"You hear me, Shiro?" spat a chalky gray-skinned Nekovalkyrja, standing there so casually in her black bodysuit across from Ichiko. No table separated them. Just two metal seats and four Neko in a dimly-lit little box. The operative's watery red eyes darted up to meet Ichiko's from under chin-length off-white hair while she unwrapped a bit of crimson silk cloth from her knuckles. Two others just like her shoved Ichiko down hard into a chair. They kept their grip tight on her shoulders, even after she sat.
"Back into the hole where you belong!" the woman predicted, sounding as mean as she looked.
Ichiko's belly burned and ached. At least they'd spared her pretty new 'synth-tube fresh face. The assault she'd endured far from prevented her from speaking, though. It'd just been for the operative's pleasure, it seemed.
"This is not what I was promised," Ichiko said coldly and directly. She sounded almost threatening, her regular demeanor unfettered by the woman across from her—or her lackeys. "Records clearly prove my loyal conduct and clear mindset. Being punished for the mutiny against me is—"
A fist from one of her captors crossed Ichiko's right cheek, shutting her up like it was intended to.
"You think it's because of the mutiny?" the darkling agent cracked from her spot, hands coming off of her hips to approach Ichiko again. She slid a hand close to the nape of Ichiko's neck and grabbed stiffly at the woman's silky black mane to turn her face upward. "No. It's because of," she began, repeatedly prodding Ichiko's forehead with her index finger, "that-damned-monster you kept hidden in your head!"
Shiro Ichiko-shoi winced at each poke-joined syllable. Her face was was beginning to form a bruise from the earlier blow, now. Not even a Neko could withstand another valkyrie's strength without being left a mark.
"How about that, Shiro?" the woman in command here asked. It was obviously rhetorical because she tightened her grasp and raised her free hand to strike again. Ichiko shut her eyes.
"Hold," came a fresh voice—another woman's—calm and low and serpentine. Though it wasn't loud, the voice's aristocratic tones were clear and halting enough to make the operative interrogating Ichiko reel and turn to face their source with her hands ready and splayed out like claws. Ichiko could feel the two assistants holding her tense up.
"And who the fuck are you?" the operative who'd been making friends with the scientist asked.
"I am Shosa Saiga Noriko," the newcomer answered from beside another man in black panels. The sleeves of her Type 35 verified her statement on its surface, and his were the same. "Shiro-shoi is now under the authority of the Research, Investigations, Supply, and Extraction Directorate. You and your assistants will leave now, Juni."
Noriko had dark brown hair that she wore in a bun and a delicately noble face. Taller than a Neko, too. The man with her stood at about the same height and had a broad, strong chest. His full blonde hair was wavy and slicked back away above his face, which was dominated by a straight, triangular Nepleslian nose that came to a keen point. Both of them had human-type ears and that made them an especially odd duo. The gray-skinned warrant officer in her plain SAINT bodysuit examined them both with furious eyes.
"Like hell we will!" she barked after a time. The intensity of her unblinking stare failed to break as she cut loose. "Where's Ogai-shosa? I don't take orders from the likes of your kind! Get out of my fac—"
"Tsk tsk tsk tsk," Noriko chided, interrupting the Juni before she could continue ranting like the thuggish fool from Special Personnel Projects that she was. The blonde man stayed silent. "Little Ogai-san is tending to his project, and I'm sure would like to keep it that way. Unless you give us cause to extend Shida-bucho's mandate beyond Shiro-shoi, here. RISE desires nothing more than to take the lead on Project Leviathan—sooner rather than inevitably."
The Juni's countenance was frozen in its anger, still agape as it held on to the words it intended to screech.
"You do understand me, don't you?" Noriko demanded more than asked.
Noriko was understood.
The trio of interrogators departed with haste, slamming the door in final protest behind them. The two remaining SAINT newcomers looked into one another's eyes for a few seconds; Noriko and her counterpart may have been having a word telepathically or just sharing the kind of moment that partners often share during the course of their work. Soon, though, the Nepleslian man grabbed the empty metal chair, faced it backwards toward Ichiko, and sat in it with his arms crossed over its backrest.
"Our apologies, Shiro-shoi," he said with what seemed like a genuine smile. Noriko retreated into half-darkness to lean on a wall behind him. "The promise that was made to you still stands. In fact, your exemplary work for the project thus far has impressed your value upon the Hera Group in a big way."
Ichiko said nothing. She didn't smile or scoff. She didn't thank the Nepleslian officer who was trying so hard to play nice with her. He was still SAINT and she'd dealt with both his kind and the departed Juni's for years. The battered science Neko's shoulders just remained frozen in the same comfortless shrug they'd been in when she expected another slap.
"Come on, now, Taii," he added, placing emphasis on the incorrect statement of Ichiko's rank. "I know you're feeling empty right now and we can help with that. Oh how we can fix that. Just hear us out.
"Of course, should you accept our offer, nobody's going to see you for a long time."
Ichiko relaxed some, looking back and forth between the two SAINT officers who'd stopped the sadistic debriefing. Her eyes settled on the Nepleslian's, that wide, creepy grin of hers forming from ear-to-ear. She liked how "Shiro-taii" sounded in her head.
UX-19 II, Subterranean Laboratory
Mishhuvurthyar Activities Division
Ichiko's elevator finally halted somewhere kilometers below UX-19 II's surface and its doors slid open with a quiet hiss. The two Snowy Neko in front of her parted to let her through, showing off her eerie smile to the assembled technicians and research scientists that waited in the vast lab just beyond. Ichiko's eyes popped open at a start before she stepped out.
The guards who'd come with her fell into formation in tow, all four striding in lockstep with the Taii. Her new research cadre remained at attention, watching her as she walked across this primary chamber with a bounce in her step. They saluted when she passed, though that didn't last long.
"Stop that!" Ichiko ordered as she continued on her path. "You show more respect to me through the fruits of your work! Get back to it!"
That was that.
She already felt a swelling in her chest as she approached a big security door along the main lab's rear bulkhead. It'd been almost two weeks without that sensation of fullness! With a wave of her hand, the four guards dispersed and stood rigid in pairs on either side of the blast shutter Ichiko was about to open. It was a simple matter getting in: all she had to do was press her palm on a volumetric panel and the gates parted for her like they would for few others.
A small antechamber surrounded her as she was shut inside, and another security door opened when the one behind her was locked again. In through it Ichiko proceeded, finding a place that seemed empty and dark. Thick transparent Zesuaium windows formed a glass cube in the center of the room, inside which seemed to be nothing at all. Doubtlessly, more security measures were fixed in place and hidden from sight. Yamataian engineers cut no aesthetic corners, after all. Not even for unseen secrets like this.
Ichiko smiled, though she hadn't stopped, but the grin was no longer of weird and unsettling proportions. She truly felt it now. Whole again—and with her own lab, no less! Though that mattered less to her than the ghost that inhabited the prison in front of her.
"I am here, now," she greeted warmly to the nothingness. The nothingness failed to respond for a while, so she moved closer to the transparent metal holding cell and pressed her right hand against it. And still no reply came.
"MEGAMI, please lower the Psionic Signal Controller's intensity," Ichiko ordered, having already wirelessly accessed the area's control readouts during her time inside. "Only three one-hundredths of a grade less should do the trick."
The installation's computer obeyed without question. Ichiko's hand remained against the cool glass, condensation frosting around it after so long. And then the frost flared up even further, expanding around the place where her hand lay.
Opposite, a slick, dark tentacle seemed to materialize against the glass. It looked sloppy and slick as the appendage and the monster it was attached to revealed itself to the world. Ichiko's eyes lit up even more, sparkling with what could only be gratitude.
"Hello, friend!" she said happily as a tear formed at the edge of her eye and rolled down across her cheek. "Tell me of your journey here."
It was oily black and long in body. And it was Taii Shiro Ichiko's job to finish the research she'd started on it.
New Vicky, Ketsurui Military Sector
Far, far beneath one of UX-19 II's snowswept acropolises, the ancient ruins themselves hardly recognizable under the world's near-permanent blizzard, sat a Star Army Intelligence installation of immense scope. Snowy Neko bustled about within it alongside black-uniformed analysts and operatives, manning their garrison posts and preparing expeditions out into Mishhuvurthyar space. There was a prison on this planet, too. It was one of the most secure places in the whole Empire—probably even more so than Vicky itself—having never been blemished by war or traitorous machinations.
One particular elevator there carried someone new. It traveled fast and quiet into the depths of the planet's crust, still moving far beyond after it passed the 300th subbasement listed on its volumetric interface panel. Even within SAINT, secrecy was compartmentalized and projects hidden; only the Director themself truly knew.
Within the lift stood a raven-haired Neko with black fur on her ears, whose straight locks fell long behind her back and framed her tan face. Her Type 35 uniform was black, too, as were all of the uniforms here, and was worn with its front flap folded down and pinned into a lapel that revealed a sciences green lining on its reverse facing. Four tall, invariably alabaster Neko guards in white subzero parkas flanked the officer at four points and held C Module Type 33 carbines at the ready.
Taii Shiro Ichiko kept her green eyes closed for the ride, hands fixed together behind her back.
"Nobody's going to see you for a long time," she recalled the operative saying, his words as clear in her digital mind now as they were back at The Pit.
Ten Days Ago
Ouchi Prison, Planet Kotori
"You hear me, Shiro?" spat a chalky gray-skinned Nekovalkyrja, standing there so casually in her black bodysuit across from Ichiko. No table separated them. Just two metal seats and four Neko in a dimly-lit little box. The operative's watery red eyes darted up to meet Ichiko's from under chin-length off-white hair while she unwrapped a bit of crimson silk cloth from her knuckles. Two others just like her shoved Ichiko down hard into a chair. They kept their grip tight on her shoulders, even after she sat.
"Back into the hole where you belong!" the woman predicted, sounding as mean as she looked.
Ichiko's belly burned and ached. At least they'd spared her pretty new 'synth-tube fresh face. The assault she'd endured far from prevented her from speaking, though. It'd just been for the operative's pleasure, it seemed.
"This is not what I was promised," Ichiko said coldly and directly. She sounded almost threatening, her regular demeanor unfettered by the woman across from her—or her lackeys. "Records clearly prove my loyal conduct and clear mindset. Being punished for the mutiny against me is—"
A fist from one of her captors crossed Ichiko's right cheek, shutting her up like it was intended to.
"You think it's because of the mutiny?" the darkling agent cracked from her spot, hands coming off of her hips to approach Ichiko again. She slid a hand close to the nape of Ichiko's neck and grabbed stiffly at the woman's silky black mane to turn her face upward. "No. It's because of," she began, repeatedly prodding Ichiko's forehead with her index finger, "that-damned-monster you kept hidden in your head!"
Shiro Ichiko-shoi winced at each poke-joined syllable. Her face was was beginning to form a bruise from the earlier blow, now. Not even a Neko could withstand another valkyrie's strength without being left a mark.
"How about that, Shiro?" the woman in command here asked. It was obviously rhetorical because she tightened her grasp and raised her free hand to strike again. Ichiko shut her eyes.
"Hold," came a fresh voice—another woman's—calm and low and serpentine. Though it wasn't loud, the voice's aristocratic tones were clear and halting enough to make the operative interrogating Ichiko reel and turn to face their source with her hands ready and splayed out like claws. Ichiko could feel the two assistants holding her tense up.
"And who the fuck are you?" the operative who'd been making friends with the scientist asked.
"I am Shosa Saiga Noriko," the newcomer answered from beside another man in black panels. The sleeves of her Type 35 verified her statement on its surface, and his were the same. "Shiro-shoi is now under the authority of the Research, Investigations, Supply, and Extraction Directorate. You and your assistants will leave now, Juni."
Noriko had dark brown hair that she wore in a bun and a delicately noble face. Taller than a Neko, too. The man with her stood at about the same height and had a broad, strong chest. His full blonde hair was wavy and slicked back away above his face, which was dominated by a straight, triangular Nepleslian nose that came to a keen point. Both of them had human-type ears and that made them an especially odd duo. The gray-skinned warrant officer in her plain SAINT bodysuit examined them both with furious eyes.
"Like hell we will!" she barked after a time. The intensity of her unblinking stare failed to break as she cut loose. "Where's Ogai-shosa? I don't take orders from the likes of your kind! Get out of my fac—"
"Tsk tsk tsk tsk," Noriko chided, interrupting the Juni before she could continue ranting like the thuggish fool from Special Personnel Projects that she was. The blonde man stayed silent. "Little Ogai-san is tending to his project, and I'm sure would like to keep it that way. Unless you give us cause to extend Shida-bucho's mandate beyond Shiro-shoi, here. RISE desires nothing more than to take the lead on Project Leviathan—sooner rather than inevitably."
The Juni's countenance was frozen in its anger, still agape as it held on to the words it intended to screech.
"You do understand me, don't you?" Noriko demanded more than asked.
Noriko was understood.
The trio of interrogators departed with haste, slamming the door in final protest behind them. The two remaining SAINT newcomers looked into one another's eyes for a few seconds; Noriko and her counterpart may have been having a word telepathically or just sharing the kind of moment that partners often share during the course of their work. Soon, though, the Nepleslian man grabbed the empty metal chair, faced it backwards toward Ichiko, and sat in it with his arms crossed over its backrest.
"Our apologies, Shiro-shoi," he said with what seemed like a genuine smile. Noriko retreated into half-darkness to lean on a wall behind him. "The promise that was made to you still stands. In fact, your exemplary work for the project thus far has impressed your value upon the Hera Group in a big way."
Ichiko said nothing. She didn't smile or scoff. She didn't thank the Nepleslian officer who was trying so hard to play nice with her. He was still SAINT and she'd dealt with both his kind and the departed Juni's for years. The battered science Neko's shoulders just remained frozen in the same comfortless shrug they'd been in when she expected another slap.
"Come on, now, Taii," he added, placing emphasis on the incorrect statement of Ichiko's rank. "I know you're feeling empty right now and we can help with that. Oh how we can fix that. Just hear us out.
"Of course, should you accept our offer, nobody's going to see you for a long time."
Ichiko relaxed some, looking back and forth between the two SAINT officers who'd stopped the sadistic debriefing. Her eyes settled on the Nepleslian's, that wide, creepy grin of hers forming from ear-to-ear. She liked how "Shiro-taii" sounded in her head.
UX-19 II, Subterranean Laboratory
Mishhuvurthyar Activities Division
Ichiko's elevator finally halted somewhere kilometers below UX-19 II's surface and its doors slid open with a quiet hiss. The two Snowy Neko in front of her parted to let her through, showing off her eerie smile to the assembled technicians and research scientists that waited in the vast lab just beyond. Ichiko's eyes popped open at a start before she stepped out.
The guards who'd come with her fell into formation in tow, all four striding in lockstep with the Taii. Her new research cadre remained at attention, watching her as she walked across this primary chamber with a bounce in her step. They saluted when she passed, though that didn't last long.
"Stop that!" Ichiko ordered as she continued on her path. "You show more respect to me through the fruits of your work! Get back to it!"
That was that.
She already felt a swelling in her chest as she approached a big security door along the main lab's rear bulkhead. It'd been almost two weeks without that sensation of fullness! With a wave of her hand, the four guards dispersed and stood rigid in pairs on either side of the blast shutter Ichiko was about to open. It was a simple matter getting in: all she had to do was press her palm on a volumetric panel and the gates parted for her like they would for few others.
A small antechamber surrounded her as she was shut inside, and another security door opened when the one behind her was locked again. In through it Ichiko proceeded, finding a place that seemed empty and dark. Thick transparent Zesuaium windows formed a glass cube in the center of the room, inside which seemed to be nothing at all. Doubtlessly, more security measures were fixed in place and hidden from sight. Yamataian engineers cut no aesthetic corners, after all. Not even for unseen secrets like this.
Ichiko smiled, though she hadn't stopped, but the grin was no longer of weird and unsettling proportions. She truly felt it now. Whole again—and with her own lab, no less! Though that mattered less to her than the ghost that inhabited the prison in front of her.
"I am here, now," she greeted warmly to the nothingness. The nothingness failed to respond for a while, so she moved closer to the transparent metal holding cell and pressed her right hand against it. And still no reply came.
"MEGAMI, please lower the Psionic Signal Controller's intensity," Ichiko ordered, having already wirelessly accessed the area's control readouts during her time inside. "Only three one-hundredths of a grade less should do the trick."
The installation's computer obeyed without question. Ichiko's hand remained against the cool glass, condensation frosting around it after so long. And then the frost flared up even further, expanding around the place where her hand lay.
Opposite, a slick, dark tentacle seemed to materialize against the glass. It looked sloppy and slick as the appendage and the monster it was attached to revealed itself to the world. Ichiko's eyes lit up even more, sparkling with what could only be gratitude.
"Hello, friend!" she said happily as a tear formed at the edge of her eye and rolled down across her cheek. "Tell me of your journey here."
It was oily black and long in body. And it was Taii Shiro Ichiko's job to finish the research she'd started on it.
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