“You can’t make the transaction?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Rita banged her hand on the table with an enraged expression. The man on the other side of it merely scowled at her in return.

“I advise you not to do anything stupid,” he warned calmly. “And it’s as I said, this transaction is not valid anymore. Your brother has already been acquired by someone else.”

She clenched her fists, “Who is it? I’ll take him back from them.”

The man sighed. “Why don’t you ask the person in question yourself? They have left an escort in our establishment exclusively for you,” he said and Rita widened her eyes, forcing herself to calm down.

A sickening feeling rose in her stomach; something was wrong. Someone bought her brother, not for his Nirvana Skill, but her. She was the one being targeted.

‘Why would… no,’ she clamped down on her thoughts. She had no choice, regardless. “Bring me to those people,” she spat to the slave dealer before her and he smiled jeeringly.

“They are right behind those doors, diligently waiting for you,” he replied and she bit her lip. With one last glare at the man, she turned around and exited the private meeting room.

When she walked out, she was swiftly surrounded by a group of men in light armor. The man who stood at the forefront gave her an emotionless stare. “Follow,” he uttered and turned his back to her. He began to head for the building’s exit and Rita could only comply; escape was impossible.

“Where are you taking me?” She tried to ask confidently, but the anxiety she felt inside couldn’t be hidden as much as she had hoped.

The guide answered her question without even looking at her, “Zone 1.”

It took her a short moment to fully understand the implications of that revelation. Plateau Zero’s map was divided into numbered Zones, with each possessing specific departments. Such as Zone 3 and 6 which dealt with human trafficking and prostitution, or Zone 12 for gambling.

Zone 1, however, was reserved for Kratos’ headquarters and the residence of one person alone.

‘Bora… Quaso…’ Rita silently sputtered in shock-ridden dread, before it was quickly overtaken by pure fury. She tightened her fists until they whitened and considered making a run for it. She had heard plenty of times of what happened to the women who caught that frivolous pig’s attention.

‘Should I run…?’ The thought crossed her mind for a second, but she immediately chastised herself for it. Not only did she have no chance to defeat her ‘escort’, but she would also be cementing her little brother’s fate in stone.

Without a choice, she followed indignantly, desperately trying to clear her mind of what was going to happen to her.

* * *

At the same time, Hans strolled through the streets of Zone 6, idling about until Rakna gave them the signal to move. He was taking the same route for the third time when something blinking in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

He stiffened and glanced at the Eion pill bug blinking dangerously fast. Despite himself, the author couldn’t help but be apprehensive. If he understood correctly, the speed at which it was blinking could only mean one thing.

With a stealthy frown, he raised his head and gazed forward, filtering out the irrelevant faces of the crowd until his eyes locked onto the target of his search. His eyebrow twitched when the tale of the individual opened up to him.

Hans exhibited a terrible amount of self-control as he continued to walk unperturbed, going as far as passing right next to the man, with barely a meter separating them. The author narrowed his eyes a bit before approaching the shadows of an alley.

“Be alert,” he spoke up, to both the small automaton hidden under his clothes as well as the moving shadows on the ground. “That Zasha… is an Eighth-Ascent Scorpion,” he uttered and the darkness twisted as if startled. “He is heading back to Zone 1, Xiorra.”

* * *

Rakna’s expression twitched as he heard Hans’ warning through Eye of Symphony. ‘He really had to come out now… A level 800 Nine-Tailed Scorpion, huh? That’s bad,’ he thought grimly. ‘I couldn’t find him yesterday and he reappeared now? Is it a coincidence? Regardless, I can’t stop now.’

“{I’m not sure that is wise…}” Fray remarked. “{At this rate, there is a high chance you will have to fight the Scorpion after killing Bora. Not to mention, the result of such an encounter aside, it will attract the attention of the entire Plateau. The whole of Kratos’ forces will hound you down. There probably aren’t many people here higher than level 700, but there are hundreds of Fifth Ascents and lower capable of overwhelming you.}”

‘Why do you think I made that deal with Cura?’ Rakna retorted as he stepped on the edge of the roof he was standing on. He looked down and spotted Rita being led to Bora’s residence. He then eyed one of the Arena’s entrances where the shark-man was probably awaiting his cue.

‘I lose my mask willingly in exchange for half the credits he got to do it. In addition, I agree to forfeit and fight him outside of Zero, and he helps me distract Kratos from both Hans and myself.’

“{I still don’t understand that part, honestly,}” Fray uttered. “{Why would he agree? There’s almost nothing in it for him, if anything at all.}”

‘It’s simple. That guy was fighting for the sake of it,’ Rakna answered matter-of-factly. ‘If I had to guess, his only goal is to get stronger. That’s it. And he most likely wishes to fight unique people like me so he can feed King Gulon with various types of ‘food’. So, I promised him a fight. And he even gets the bonus reward of battling Kratos itself. To him, it must sound like a suitable challenge.’

“{…should I praise or criticize you? You have a frightening flair for scouting eccentric people…}

The masked therian snorted at that and slowly began to draw Sonata. He focused on the group of guards surrounding Rita and squinted his eyes when he saw that they were turning into a pretty isolated intersection, “It’s time to move. Eye, execute it.”

With that single command, Eye of Symphony began using the entirety of its processing power, the lenses flaring like never before.

[| Executing Protocol Blackout. Booting Up Programs… T-Minus 1278 Until Completion. |]

Without wasting time, Rakna lifted Sonata and threw it. The sword whistled through the air and planted itself on the ground in front of Rita.

“Wha--?!” One of the guards almost shouted when a suffocating wave of soul power erupted from the weapon. It condensed itself into a sphere within which Bora’s men had their minds shut down.

In the span of a blink, their eyes emptied and their bodies eased up to an unnatural extent. It was as if they had suddenly lost consciousness and were made to stand by a puppeteer’s strings.

Before Rita could even react properly, a shadow swiftly landed in front of her with a hand on top of the embedded sword’s hilt. The brown-haired girl opened her mouth wide as she recognized the figure as they straightened themselves.

“Ranka…?”

The masked woman glanced at her, the purple ellipses as daunting as ever, but she also couldn’t help but remember the enchanting face hidden under it.

“Check your Holographic Lens,” Ranka bluntly said, breaking the girl out of her daze.

Rita unconsciously did as she was told, the other party’s voice containing that much authority in it she couldn’t even hope to refuse. Then, she turned on her HL, and a message was immediately projected into her eyes. It was a prompt to open a file.

Without awaiting her input, however, it opened on its own and revealed a map with multiple spots marked by a circle from which bubbles of text were attached. Amidst those, one stuck out more than any other.

“The bigger one is where your brother is kept,” Rakna informed her and Rita trembled.

“How do you…?”

“That’s not important,” he retorted calmly. “You’re lucky they didn’t lock him up somewhere too close to Bora and just decided to dump him into an auction house’s ‘storage’. You can easily go and save him this way.”

“W-wait!” Rita interrupted him. “There’s no way I can save him alone! A-and what if Bora threatens his life if I don’t go to him now?!”

“Who said you were going alone?” Rakna replied with a tilt of his head, his tone sounding as if she had just said something stupid. “And who said you were not going to him?”

“Eh…?” Rita blinked in confusion.

“Cura Arlan is waiting for you near Elevator 05 of the Arena. He will be the one to help you. He will also be freeing other captives across Zero; the other locations marked on the map I just sent you are slave houses. In exactly twenty minutes, rescue your brother and do your best to help the rest as fast as possible. I don’t expect you to do anything else. Just free them, and they can leave at their own prerogative or run amok. It doesn’t matter.”

‘That’ll be plenty of distraction. I’m just hoping that Eva will not mess up whilst trying to take control of the Plateau once she can dispatch her Adjudicators,’ Rakna added silently.

“But… why are you doing this?” Rita muttered and took a hesitant step back. She lowered her head and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood, “We can’t fight Kratos… this is suicide, Ranka…”

Rakna raised an eyebrow at her. “So, you prefer to become a plaything for that pig?”

“If it means saving my brother…!”

“It won’t,” he instantly denied it and she shook as if she had taken a blow. “I know those types. Did you not hear what I said? Your brother was dumped at an auction house. Bora doesn’t care about your pleas. Once he’s done with you, the boy will be sold and he’ll get his money back. Then, your brother’s life will be an equally miserable one. No, it will be even worse; he’ll live in a world where his beloved sister is no more.”

Rita paled more and more with each word; tears were already pooling in her eyes.

“…and what am I supposed to do?” She croaked out weakly. “Mom and dad died… I was supposed to be the one to protect him and I failed him one too many times… what can I do if not sacrifice my life for him? That’s all I have…”

“You fight,” Rakna responded snappily, pulling out Sonata from the ground at the same time. Rita looked up at him with tears falling down her cheeks. “Even if you’ll die, you fight. Even if your life is tied to another, you fight. If you love your brother, and he loves you in return, the last person to ever wish for your sacrifice is him. So, don’t betray him!”

The therian’s uncharacteristic shout coldly echoed and Rita shivered.

“Some are lucky, some are not. But today, I embody your hope,” Rakna added and took off his mask in front of her. “So, accept it,” he declared and to Rita’s shock, the beautiful appearance of a taciturn woman gradually crumbled. Robotic nanites morbidly melted her flesh and reshaped it.

Horrifyingly and astonishingly, she watched as Ranka’s body warped and copied her own features to the last detail. Even her clothes were reflected perfectly down to the last detail.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” Rita’s inconceivable clone commanded with the exact same timbre of voice as her. “These bastards are starting to resist my Soul Scourge, so scram already.”

After saying his piece, Rakna used Sonata’s Whisperer and pushed Rita through the air out of the encirclement of the mind-controlled men. When the dazed girl felt the air carry her as if she was gliding, she didn’t even try to resist it.

She watched with a knot in her throat as Ranka took the place where she was standing, effectively replacing her so flawlessly that the guards wouldn’t notice anything once they recovered from the soul-driven mind control.

Rita gritted her teeth as she saw the eyes of the escort start to clear up, and after breathing in, she steeled her expression and stared at the map she had been given. Her eyes lingered on Ranka for a moment more before she leaped over a building and rushed in the direction of Cura Arlan.

‘Stay safe,’ she prayed in her heart as she distanced herself from her latest friend and savior.