After Kari was dragged back to the small laboratory, they restrained her for almost half the day. Neither Dr. Gene nor Erica put her into the tank. However, they had bound her arms and legs again to the metal gurney, as though she was James Bond, awaiting the laser torture to begin. Although they waited with increased armed personnel until Admiral Hackman's return, several of them were growing impatient.

She could tell by their fidgeting and the many restless legs that the wait for their commanding officer's return was excruciating. They couldn't make it anymore obvious that they were uncomfortable around her, especially after she almost killed one of their own.

"Wow. The mood's getting real tense, huh?" Kari remarked, causing some of the armed men to inch for their firearm.

"Kari, you hurt a man so badly he ended up in a coma. Don't you feel any hint of remorse?" Erica asked.

"He was trying to rape me," she said, eliciting from the scientist a sharp gasp. "His buddies were on lookout duty, too. So, you tell me. Was I supposed to just take it?"

"Shut up over there. Doc, don't even listen to her. She's making shit up," one man said.

"Erica, you're probably the one with the most senses here. Do you really think this is the way to go about it? By keeping me trapped here?" Kari asked.

Dr. Gene stopped what he was typing up and glanced up at his colleague. The woman was conflicted, Kari could tell as much. She just needed to push her buttons a little more.

"Step out of the room, Erica. Go get some air," he urged, and she ultimately acquiesced for him to replace her in front of Kari. This scientist was less interested in humoring her. Gazing into his eyes, she found little humanity for anyone viewed as an experimental subject. He must have seen the same thing in hers.

Without a word, the man turned to head back to his seat.

"I want to know where Rocky is. My anthem," Kari said.

Before Dr. Gene could even glance over his shoulder, the same soldier interjected with a scoff.

"Bitch, you don't get to make demands here," he said.

"Oh." She paused, then asked again in a more taunting tone, "Where's my anthem?"

"Why the fuck aren't we icing her yet?" he asked his five other companions.

"Admiral wants to run some tests or something," one of them said. "He should be back soon. Maybe grab a smoke break outside or something."

Having been talked down, the guy went for the door. His hand lingered on the knob for a few seconds until he finally decided to turn the lock instead.

"Hobbs, what are you doing?" another soldier asked.

"Relax, man." The man named Hobbs approached Kari slowly, hands tight on his holster.

When Dr. Gene noticed, he stood up to try and stop him.

"Don't get any closer to her!" Gene implored.

While much larger than the scientist, the military man walked forward unabated. The others in the room appeared to have little interest in stopping him either.

"You did a real number on my buddy," Hobbs said.

"Well, he's not dead yet." Kari shrugged.

"Mikey. His name is Mikey. Tough son of a bitch, that guy. What you did to him, he didn't deserve that."

She stifled a laugh.

"What's so funny?" Hobbs clenched his jaws.

"Kari, don't antagonize him!" Dr. Gene couldn't budge the larger man no matter how hard he tried.

"Well, you said he was a tough son of a bitch. But when I was beating him up, Mikey was crying like a little bitch—"

Hobbs pushed past Dr. Gene to slug Kari across the face. It had been a while since she tasted iron on her tongue. Pain used to terrify her, then it only became a nuisance, but recently she began to welcome it like an old friend.

"You keep fucking smiling, bitch!" He drew his gun, but the door swung open and startled him from making another strike.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Admiral Hackman stormed in, appearing much less enthused than when he left.

"Nothing, Admiral. Just making sure Subject 09 isn't trying to break out." Hobbs quickly stowed away his pistol.

"Alright, I want everyone out. Everyone." The commanding officer's stern order kicked both his subordinates and the scientist to get a move on. Once they were gone, he rubbed his temple, evidently frustrated with something.

This was about the most quiet Kari had gotten since being taken out of the tank.

"When I got back, I was briefed that you hurt one of my men. The man you put in a coma has a wife and two sons waiting for him to come home," Hackman said.

"You should send a letter," Kari replied as a matter of factly.

"A what?" He squinted at her, leaning forward ear first.

"A letter." She did him the courtesy of doing the same in case he didn't hear her. "Telling them that he won't be coming back. Whatever experiments you have planned, you better get it over with. Because the next opportunity I get to escape, I'm taking it and not looking back."

Already frustrated beyond words could describe, Kari's words seemed to have crossed the line for Hackman, who fetched a syringe from one of the cabinets

"As you wish." He injected the cool liquid into her arm.

Kari awoke, lying on her back and gasping for air. She had a pounding headache. Above her was a modular ceiling with deep grooves between each panel and faint white light beaming down at her. The walls and floor were the same, all uniform.

The last thing she remembered was being injected with something.

Partway up one side of the wall, a rectangular window revealed itself and several people in lab coats behind it. Admiral Hackman and Dr. Gene were among them.

"What the fuck did you do to me?" Kari shouted, receiving her own echo in response before an answer came.

"I'm glad you're eager to move forward with the experiments. If you're panicking about the injection, don't worry. It was so that we can move you without risking another personnel," Hackman said.

"You got some balls thinking I'll just go along with your experiments!"

Dr. Gene replaced Hackman at the microphone. "What we have observed is that magical girls almost certainly die in one of two ways. Monsters make up the greatest percentage. You're always fighting them and that carries the inherent risk of being killed by them. The other we have only recently just learned, and you happen to be very familiar with it. Magical girls can kill other magical girls. Then where does that leave mankind? How do we fight back?"

"You're full of shit. You have something that could take us out. It's what you shot me with, isn't it? If you're looking for a way to kill magical girls, I'm willing to bet whatever you're running low on those slugs, huh?" she said.

Their lack of an answer was enough of an answer.

Magical girls could definitely be injured. Sergeant Ogata's gunshot, the stab wound from Iori… If Kari were to lose enough blood just like anyone else in human form, then it was game over.

"Wait a minute." Kari came to the realization at last. "Don't tell me you're experiments are—"

"To find out how to kill the likes of you in magical girl form." Hackman nodded to someone out of view.

Two panels on the ground opened. Kari prepared herself for whatever was going to come out to try and kill her, however, what emerged was a magical girl strapped to a table. She had short black hair, and the gaunt cheeks were a sign she hadn't eaten well recently.

Dr. Gene's voice came through the speakers again. "Before you is a freshly minted magical girl at level 1. Subject 07 is a seventeen year old girl from Kansas. She had been given the death penalty for four first-degree murders at a slumber party."

"What? You want me to kill her?" Kari walked over to the girl who was wide awake and panicking.

"Please, don't!" the girl pleaded. "They're lying! I haven't killed anyone. I just woke up here like this!"

This girl wasn't lying, and Kari didn't even need a second guess. It was always in the eyes. Take one life, and the next becomes easier. Eventually, it becomes like stepping on ants. Whoever she was didn't have it in her, so the people upstairs were clearly lying.

"We just want you to take her out of form. Don't even think about trying anything funny." Just now, Hackman sounded like he was daring her to.

"I'm not interested in doing anything. If you want to wait all day, then I have all the time in the world trapped in here. Do you?" Kari taunted.

Hackman and the scientists spoke privately for a few seconds while the girl continued to beg Kari for help.

"You wanted to know if your anthem is alive? We'll allow you to meet him on the condition that you follow through with this experiment," Dr. Gene said.

There was no telling if they would hold up their end of the bargain. She just needed an opening, and Erica Thurman was her key to escaping. After the cosmic monster, after Flare, and now regular human beings… They were all trying to control her in some form. It was time to play the same game.

"Good enough for me," Kari said, then jumped onto the table to sit on top of the girl's chest.

"No, no, no! Please, I don't want to die! I just want to go home and— auughh!" The words lodged at the base of her throat the second Kari wrapped all ten fingers around it.

Tears rolled down the magical girl's eyes as Kari choked the life out of her. Even while she wasn't transformed and injected with whatever they gave to suppress most of her strength, she was still stronger than an average human.

Eventually, the magical girl turned blue. Her form dropped, leaving behind a normal, unconscious girl.

"You can stop now," Dr. Gene said, but Kari ignored him.

No longer in magical girl form, the girl's throat was softer now and her neck easier to snap.

"I said, stop!" His scream came so much louder that the speakers feedback with a shrill pitch.

Sighing, Kari let go and stepped away for the table to drop back into the floor. Like a class in session, the people upstairs were furiously scribbling into their papers and typing into the keyboards.

The girl that Kari was made to torture was brought back up conscious and in her magical girl form a few minutes later. And each time, she was asked to hurt her in different ways. The girl eventually started crying through it all, and Kari decided she had had enough.

But not out of mercy.

"I want to see my anthem already!" Kari growled, leaving the unconscious girl alone.

Two people behind the window disappeared, and a moment later, the door to the room opened. One woman carted in a glass tank like a small fish aquarium, but with a computer on top. Rocky was inside, who beamed upon seeing her.

"Kari! Partner, I'm so glad you're okay!" Rocky started ugly crying, smearing tears and snot onto the surface of the glass container.

Seeing Rocky alright brought Kari to tears she had long thought dried up. She was overcome with relief to find him alive.

"Glad you're okay, too." Kari smiled warmly. "They haven't done anything weird to you, have they?"

"They've been taking my blood a lot for whatever good that will do. It's not like it could be donated to anyone that isn't another anthem!" He rubbed the side of his arm, which she now saw had a bandage where he was jabbed.

"What about injections? They put anything in you?" she asked.

He shook his head.

Even with Rocky by her side, Kari wasn't able to transform. There was like a wall between them, one that couldn't be broken by sheer force of will alone. Someone had mentioned inhibitors.

"It's worth asking, but do you have any idea if the incursions are still going on? How many more seraphs are there?"

"Two incursions and two seraphs left," Rocky answered. "We're so close to ending the apocalypse, but still so far. There's something you have to know… I'm not sure how accurate it is, but I felt a new magical girl was born in Okinawa! You don't think—"

"Think what?" she yelled at the tank.

It was as though Rocky's voice had stopped transmitting entirely. When Kari tried grabbing the tank to break it open, the accompanying man pressed an electrified baton to her chest and stunned her. They quickly retreated out the door.

Another magical girl? Okinawa? It couldn't be—

The girl behind Kari snapped awake, but she was no longer in the mood to hurt her. She hatched another idea.

"Relax, I'm not going to hurt you anymore," Kari said.

"You're… not?"

"You have a name?" she asked.

"I'm… Christine," the magical girl said, her fear still very much palpable.

"Christine, you know why they locked you up?" Kari walked over to the side of her head before continuing. "I don't mean the whole torture you experiment thing. I mean how you're in magical girl form and I'm not. It's because those guys up there aren't afraid of you. That's why they pumped me full of that injection so that I can't transform."

"Now that you mention it… I haven't been injected with anything yet…"

The men and women behind the window had a look of confusion on their faces.

"What is she doing?" Hackman asked someone in the room first, then moved the microphone closer to his mouth. "Kari, what are you doing?"

"It just so happens I know how you can get stronger. Strong enough to break out of this place. Not a lot of magical girls know this, but I do. Like killing monsters, you grow stronger by killing other magical girls. Aren't you tired of being weak?" Kari crushed Christine's metal restraints with what residual strength she could muster.

Above them, Hackman began barking orders to get his people moving.

"What are you trying to tell me?" Christine hesitantly asked.

"You killed a bunch of people at a slumber party, right? What's one more? Kill me, take my points, and level up. Grow strong enough to break out of here. Just promise me you'll take revenge for me, too. That's all I ask," Kari said, then walked over to the other side to break the second restraint.

"I-I told you, that wasn't me! Why won't anyone believe me? I can't— I don't want to kill you!" she cried.

"You have to. For the both of us. It's going to be hard, but everything will be okay. I promise you that."

Christine broke the metal cuffs that were made brittle, but it was Kari who led the girl's hands to her throat. But there was little effort in it. She was hesitating. Hackman and a group of his soldiers barged into the room a second time.

"Subject 07, stand down! Step away from 09!" the admiral ordered.

"I can't do it… I can't do it…" Christine repeated tearfully.

"You have to!" Kari urged. "You can finally be free!"

That was the impetus for Christine to tighten her grip. Freedom. What they all wanted was to be truly free. Her magical girl strength was finally putting in the effort to squeeze Kari to death, then—

A single gunshot went off.

Hackman was the one who held the smoking gun.

The fingers around Kari's throat weakened, and she was able to breathe again. Warm blood landed on her face when Christine coughed. The color in the young girl's eyes started fading and was replaced by tears.

"Am I… free?" Christine asked, choking on her own blood and falling limp against Kari.

"You will be soon," Kari whispered, then slowly lowered Christine to the ground. She was still breathing. The shot hadn't killed her, only knocked her out of magical girl form.

That confirmed it for Kari. Whatever special ammunition they had couldn't kill a magical girl, but it did render them unconscious. And going off of the enraged admiral's demeanor, he didn't like it one bit that she forced him to waste another precious bullet.

As more soldiers entered the room, Kari wiped the blood from her cheek, got to her knees, and put both hands behind her head. They formed a perimeter around her, and Hackman moved in to check Christine's pulse.

"I'm starting to think you aren't the good guys." Kari sneered.

"Bring in Subject 10," Hackman ordered the people above.

"Admiral, Subject 10 killed the last three—"

"Bring her up to this room. Now!" he ordered again, his voice leaving no room for negotiations.

Kari backed away and watched as they carried Christine away, then exited the room themselves to leave her alone again. A hole opened up at the center, and like with the last one, something was being raised up by a platform.

However, the one that emerged wasn't chained or bound like Christine. She was in human form and dressed in a hospital gown, too. The fiery tips at the end of her long, black hair were the most telling and recognizable trait.

"How you doing, hot stuff?" Kanae flashed a smile, but it was just a thin veneer.

"Look at you. How does it feel being caged like a rat, too?" Kari asked.

"Oh, I'm livid. But being trapped has given me a lot to think about. Did a little soul-searching. Found god, rejected god. You know, all that good stuff. At the end of the day though, I realized something… I miss my massage chair. I miss sunbathing at the beach and drinking a nice cold frappe. Which is why I'm saying this out loud so those fuckers up there hear me. When we get out of here, Kari— help me kill them nice and slowly, okay?" She extended a hand.

Although Kari had no intentions of taking it, the nut job grabbed her hand instead to shake like they were the best of friends.

"When you're done with your reunion," Hackman began, "it's time to recommence with—"

Everything lurched to the right. Kari would have lost balance was it not for Kanae holding her hand. An alarm sounded again, but in a much more frantic manner. Upstairs, Hackman had forgotten to turn off the microphone.

When an armed personnel reported to him, Kari and Kanae heard everything.

An incursion had spawned all over the ship, and they were under attack by a seraph— by Jormangandr.