The Result

Everything was over...

The rising sun had set once more. After running for an entire day, Bianka finally dared to stop for a short rest.

Under the twilight glow, the highway shimmered with an orange light.

Bianka leaned against the edge of a tunnel, her head tilted up, staring blankly at the sunset.

Or perhaps, she was looking into the distance.

Her unmutated hand rested on her other arm. The rough, uneven texture sent a pang of bitterness through her heart.

Involuntarily, her hand clenched. Her fingertips dug into the seams of the armor on that arm, the urge to rip it off stronger than ever.

But as she applied force, a sharp pain snapped her back to her senses.

This was a part of her...

A wave of exhaustion, born from accepting her fate, drained her of all strength. She slid down the tunnel wall, slumping to the ground.

She was a monster now... a monster who could kill and eat people at any moment...

She couldn't protect anyone. On the contrary, she might end up killing the very people she wanted to protect...

Maybe she should just die right now... die a quick and clean death. That would be best for everyone...

But the moment the thought appeared, an intense fear of death surged from the other consciousness within her. Its strong resistance was so powerful it almost threatened to seize control of her body.

Bianka understood a desperate truth. It seemed she couldn't even kill herself...

So all she could do was run... run to a place where no one could find her, a place where everyone would forget her... If only she could die alone...

Bianka silently hugged her legs, curling into a ball.

The setting sun cast its last rays on everything in the world, but Bianka hid in the tunnel, and the twilight passed her by.

Her thoughts grew more and more chaotic. She began to imagine what everyone would do after she disappeared.

It probably wouldn't make much of a difference, would it?

Overseer Otto would create a better "Bianka" to appear in the MOTH. Everyone would surely prefer that beautiful, confident, and much stronger "Bianka."

She had become a monster, unworthy of anyone's thoughts. The farther everyone stayed away from her, the better.

A helpless smile touched Bianka's lips. As she smiled, she buried her face in her knees.

A small tremble quickly turned into quiet sobs. Loneliness and darkness descended upon her at the same time, enveloping her.

She was scared... she had always been scared of being alone... scared of loneliness.

But she was even more scared of destroying everything with her own hands. So she had to be alone, had to walk the rest of her path by herself.

The afterglow faded. The sunset officially declared the end of the day.

Bianka suddenly looked up. The sky was already dotted with stars.

It was a full moon today...

Bianka stared blankly at the round moon in the sky. On the first night of her conscious existence, the moon had been just as round.

So that's how it is... Bianka wiped away her tears, then raised her hands toward the moon.

A monstrous claw and a young girl's delicate hand came together. Bianka lowered her head and whispered to herself.

"Bianka... happy one-month birthday..."

After standing still for a full three seconds, Bianka opened her eyes and turned, walking into the unlit tunnel.

She hadn't gone far enough... she needed to go farther.

"Rita... I hope we... never meet again..."

---||---

"Otto! I think I've become an idiot!"

After a commotion in the lab, Otto rubbed his temples and sent Kallen away.

Gu Chu had returned to the base with Himeko and the others. He had been surprisingly cooperative. Even though he was irritable during the car ride, he hadn't actually killed anyone for fun as he had threatened.

It was likely a sense of pride at play, a disdain for losing face over such weaklings.

Aside from looking like he wanted to murder everyone, Gu Chu had behaved quite well. He had even managed to eat a meal in the cafeteria without incident...

Heaven only knew how long Otto's heart had stopped when he learned that Theresa and Kallen had taken that guy to the cafeteria.

I need to find something for Gu Chu to do, and quickly... Otto immediately scoured the mission board on [Spark] and found several high-level annihilation commissions for him.

Zombie hordes, high-level Honkai Beasts, he prepared them all. Then, without a moment's delay, he arranged a private car and plane to pack Gu Chu off to various parts of the world.

Fu Hua had undergone his surgery. Although she hadn't woken up yet, her vital signs had returned to normal.

Rita was awake, but she needed to stay in the infirmary for a few more days of observation.

On the surface, she seemed unchanged, still smiling and greeting everyone. She didn't ask any questions or take any action to resolve the questions in her heart.

But Otto noticed that she was spending a long time on various websites on [Spark], and she didn't linger on any single post for long. It was obvious she was purposefully gathering information.

Yes, she wasn't even pretending. She was practically telling Otto that she was looking for something.

Or rather... someone.

[ARC City Missing Person Notice: Bianka, 16 (approx.), female, blonde hair, blue eyes...]

[—Dead or alive.]

Looking at the new D-rank commission on [Spark] and its ridiculously high reward, Otto couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

Perhaps he had misjudged... Was the bond between Bianka and Rita already that deep?

After dealing with all the troublesome matters, Otto finally had some time for himself. He stood on the twelfth basement floor, looking at the people of various sizes in the cultivation pods.

The question he had posed to Gu Chu was his own question as well.

Was everything in this world a script? A coincidence? Or was it fate?

Fatalism... this idea had taken deep root in his heart from the moment Shu had told him about the "plot." After all, each of their personalities was so similar to their "original" selves; in fact, there was almost no difference.

But he wasn't worried about something as boring as whether he was real. He had always scoffed at nihilism. If this wasn't living, then the very definition of reality was an unsolved mystery.

He was just worried about the existence of something like a "historical corrective force."

That was what he feared—something that could appear at any time and screw over the entire world.

So, he had tried to take control of the so-called "original plot."

He tried to seize all the defining power over the character of "Bianka" from the original story, while being careful not to let her deviate too much from the original.

Then, through slow guidance, he let her gradually stray from the "Durandal" of the original plot.

When Rita appeared, Otto had once thought he had failed, that the world truly did have a corrective force.

But in his impromptu plan, Bianka had taken that step. Completely unaware, she had, against all odds, stepped out of "Durandal's" shadow.

The experiment can end here, Otto told himself.

Although he still couldn't prove whether a world corrective force existed, Otto had confirmed that even if such a force existed, it was on a different dimension from his current one.

Either fate didn't exist, or his resistance was also a part of fate. Either way, it meant Otto could now act as he pleased without worrying about sudden retaliation from a world corrective force.

If it existed, then no matter what, everything would lead to the plot Shu had shown him. It had nothing to do with him, so he could do whatever he wanted. He certainly wasn't going to short-change himself.

And if it didn't exist...

Otto pressed a red button. Instantly, all the cultivation pods hummed to life.

[Hibernation program initiated—all test subjects frozen.] A robotic voice confirmed Otto's cold decision.

He descended from the high platform, turned, and entered the laboratory in the farthest corner of the twelfth basement floor.

He looked at the giant cultivation pod, a completely different model from the ones outside, and spread his arms.

Then doesn't that mean we just have to try harder?

What if... success is in our hands?

(End of Volume VI: Divergent Fronts)