Chapter Text
Beep.
Doff your mind, cover your eyes, cloak your body.
The City is cruel, so says the masses. In its darkest corners, treachery and violence fester; anarchic Backstreets where life is cheap and meaningless. At its brightest heights, corruption and exploitation rule; ever-imposing corporate Wings where life is expensive and meaningless. And all in between, in every walk of life, suffering is the only consistency. Tragedy is witnessed, acquiesced, and anticipated, until numbness envelops the populace. Families disappear, and nobody cares. People Distort into monstrosities as their psyches are ripped apart, and nobody cares.
A child is abandoned, and nobody cares.
Beep.
A book will fall off the shelf in front of you. Read it, and recite it backwards.
A man who does not care finds her. Unfortunately for her, something bigger than him does care. At the bidding of his god, the man brings the child to his home. She is given something more important than food or shelter or clothing. She is given a purpose. Since the day she was gifted her pager, it never left her grasp. It was, after all, the only thing she ever needed to follow. Everything the device said, all of its Prescripts, came true. Every time the child obeyed it, the man found in his empty heart just enough praise to spurn her on.
Beep.
Your hands the hammer, smash the tapestry 73 times.
In time, she was allowed to wander the sprawling House she found herself in, and only then did she realize its true nature. Her faith, the faith of the Index, was the only power that could survive here. This was a place where the formality of the Thumb eroded, where the loyalty of the Middle meant nothing, where the artistry of the Ring had lost its spark, and where the freedom of the Pinky was held for ransom. She had been brought to a House of Spiders, inhabited by predators spun into a trap more intricate than even they could ever understand.
Is it a surprise, then, that the child became one of them?
Beep.
Greet everyone today with a wave. Kill every third person to not return it.
Is it because the City is cruel to its core that its rhythms, too, are sadistic? Or is it because its denizens resign themselves to cruelty as a means of getting by? Do the voices of their lament reach so far into the sky that even the radio waves are molded by meaningless violence? Are the pager's beeps the voice of some deity beyond the pain of their reality? Or is it the recycled screams of billions? Perhaps the child once pondered these things, but as they did not serve the Prescripts, she eventually abandoned them.
Beep.
Reject the voice in the light, procure your yearning now and forevermore.
Yes, she abandoned thinking, beyond interpreting those cryptic messages. She abandoned eating, except when the device allowed her to sustain herself. She abandoned socializing, too occupied with her tasks to learn how to hold a conversation.
Although, the child could not stop daydreaming. She could not stop craving. She could not stop wanting friends. She could not stop wanting a father. But the Prescripts were good, and righteous, and if she too was good and righteous, surely they would guide her towards her will. As they always had.
Beep.
Hunt and wear the dazzling colors, slay all who oppose you. 341 seconds.
That man had always spoken fondly of his daughter. A daughter who was away at the moment, her and her twelve friends on a journey across this immutable City. That journey would bring her back, one day soon, to perfect her. The child thought if the man could love one daughter, he could love another. If she did well enough on this mission, he would have to acknowledge her, beyond the shallow lines fed to him by his device. If she killed, if she deceived, if she served the rest of the 'family' and helped her "big sis" reach her potential, it would make her useful. It would make her impossible to throw away.
Beep.
Dash your body upon the empty self.
She failed.
In that climatic moment, before the sword that could sever reality itself, she faltered. The quiet boy with the hidden temper, the one who'd addressed her in fleeting formalities and pitying glances, turned his sword on her and slashed her legs. A strike that'd normally be easily avoided left her immobile, and while the child wondered why her device did not warn her of this treachery, she saw that boy dive headfirst into the steel inferno. He was consumed, cut smaller and smaller until there was not enough space between the slashes for even his memory. Even still, she attempted to drag herself into oblivion, but only managed to exhaust herself before being overtaken by the pain.
Beep.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
She drifted in sleep a while. She revisited her memories, and found in them no happiness. There was the excitement of being wanted by someone, anyone. There was pride in her faith, which had led her to heights that even her master was not able to achieve. There were moments of hope, even, as that man gave her his empty smile and taught her how to serve his god. But those moments never did last, and they never did amount to anything, and the depths of her yearning were never requited. She had no happiness at all, only the assuredness of fate that could not be denied.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Perhaps that is why, when she awoke in that hospital bed, she mistook her own heartbeat for that device. Or, perhaps that is why her first question was not the fate of her master, or her House, but of the beeper that had left her grasp.
"The Apprentice who was captured alive in the House of Spiders… Sora. She has regained consciousness."
We'd only just wrapped up the funeral ceremony for the LCE employees who'd been killed during the raid on their department a few days ago, and already there was more work to be done. Most of the Sinners went about their own business, or were "volunteered" for research, but a few — Ryōshū, Don Quixote, and Faust — joined me to check on the House of Spiders' only survivor.
The place Hohenheim led us looked less like a recovery ward and more like an interrogation chamber. The room was sparsely furnished, with only a single chair in the corner opposite the bed. The medical equipment surrounding the bed was similarly meager, but functional. It seemed the only real investment in here went into the glass window, thick and re-enforced.
Before Hohenheim could open the door, I stopped and turned to Faust. <That girl's an E.G.O. user… Is it safe for us to go in there?> I ticked.
"Manager Dante is concerned about the potential danger the Apprentice could pose," she relayed, with that ennui that she has whenever I asked an obvious question.
Hohenheim spoke while continuing to nonchalantly enter the code on a keypad. "Upper management was similarly concerned, which is why she's been placed into asylum with relatively cheap equipment. However, I've postulated that she should be no threat with her Prescript delivery device confiscated. Effloresced E.G.O. is, after all, weaponry in some way created from the mind, and the Prescripts are the thing which her mind entirely revolves around."
Before I could pry further, Hohenheim had opened the door and was ushering us inside. As if confirming his theory, the Apprentice sat on the edge of the bed without the clanking chains that she'd had every other time we'd encountered her. She'd been taken out of the standard outfit of an Index Proxy, and instead now wore a dress shirt, pants, and hooded jacket, and work boots standard of the LCE uniform. Without her cape billowing around her, it was suddenly obvious how thin she was.
Almost immediately, she jumped to her feet to greet us. She waved with both hands, as if they were still bound together. "M-mister Hohenheim! And big sis Yoshihide! I've been good, sitting here like I was told… So um, c-could I get my beeper back now?"
Hohenheim's expression hardened. Even the electricity coming off his E.G.O. gear seemed to intensify.
"The return of your confiscated device is contingent on your ongoing cooperation, a condition as of yet unfulfilled."
"But without it, how am I supposed to…" Sora trailed off, as if that sentence had no definitive ending.
Faust took a step forward, regarding the Apprentice curiously. "She was captured alive for the extraction of information, yes? Faust does not imagine she'd prove uncooperative, how far along is the progress of extraction?"
"It hasn't quite yet begun," Hohenheim responded. "All available personnel have been fully engaged in analyzing the documents and items discovered in the House of Spiders. Which has, regrettably, left me with the burden of evaluating this specific miscreant."
"Is overly formal nicety akin to that of a schoolgirl another one of your weaknesses, Hohenheim?" Faust coyly joked, in that way she did with her fellow researcher.
"I have no such weakness, but I likewise have very little patience for this one's particular form of prying. She is always asking questions about the facility, or about her device, or about both at the same time, somehow. Her stutter, while only a minor annoyance on its own, combines with the tone of her voice to make her most unenjoyable to listen to, especially as she prattles on about everything except useful information."
As he continued on his tirade, Sora's excitement noticeably dimmed.
"I just wanted to know more about your research… When I'm sent somewhere by the Prescripts, I s-see all these things, but I never get to learn what they are or what they mean…"
Hohenheim's expression did not falter, growing a bit harsher even. "Let me remind you of your current position. You are the only survivor of the House of Spiders. That survival is not an accident; is the result of a calculation, made on the part of Limbus Company. "Expected gain", as the term goes. If I may speculate, upper management was interested in a highly competent and resolute individual who not only has recent knowledge of the House of Spiders, but capability to use Shin, Mang, and effloresced E.G.O. together."
"Should you continue to play the part of an indecisive temperamental child, however," he continued, gesturing towards her, "the company may reassess your worth, or lack thereof. And I cannot imagine that reassessment will result in anything other than immediate disposal."
Hohenheim was skilled in wielding his words like a weapon, but these felt less like his ordinary stinger, and more like the spirals we'd seen in action recently. He was drilling deep into Sora, seemingly circling just around her heart.
"If you would like to talk about technology, perhaps we could discuss the myriad of more invasive procedures we could use to get the information we need out of you? Truth serums, hypnosis, all manner of methods utilizing Distortions or Abnormalities, and, of course, extraction and scanning of your brain would all be so much more efficient."
The Apprentice's eyes were stuck to the ground now, as if she couldn't bear to look at us. "I w-would like my beeper now," is all she had to say.
Hohenheim nodded, as if resigned, and turned towards the exit.
"Perhaps you, Manager Dante, can push her in the right direction. I don't quite seem to be myself today…"
He was murmuring more to himself than us by the time he stepped out of the room. "No, disregard that. That too was a rather foolish thing to say..."
His behavior was understandable. The LCE had barely finished laying its dead to rest, and his job was to care for someone who'd killed so many of them. If he didn't get to shut down and wallow in grief, why should Sora?
Still, we had to try to communicate with her. But giving her the beeper back could prove troublesome…
Before I could think of what to do, someone, quite unexpectedly, stepped in front of me and stood over Sora.
"B-big sis Yoshihide?" Ryōshū's presence alone made the Apprentice perk up, just a bit.
"You. You're young, but not that young. S.U." As if to confirm her judgment, Ryōshū lit another cigarette.
"Um… S.U.?" Sora asked, finally looking at her.
"Stand up," Ryōshū translated. "I saw you go toe to toe with a Color, and you weren't half as scared."
Obediently, the girl's back straightened. "I had nothing to be s-scared of. The Will was with me… I knew it would make sure I was okay."
"Didn't you lose that fight?" Ryōshū asked, the exact question that popped into my mind.
"But I survived!" As her voice pitched up, a sort of glassiness came over her eyes. "I made it back home. A-and even when the Prescripts told me I had to fight you… "
Ryōshū's expression hardened. It still wasn't clear how conscious she was during her rampage at the House of Spiders.
After a moment, she spoke again. "You'll have to decide. Yourself, right now. Cooperate, or die."
Sora's eyes widened into circles. "It's not that I d-don't want to help, big sis. But I don't know if that would be… the right thing to do."
To anyone else, I'm sure it'd be an easy answer. But for Sora… was she really that reliant on the Prescripts?
<Think about it like this. If you help us, and you stay alive, you might be able to get your beeper back. That means you can keep following your Prescripts, right?>
"The Manager is correct," Faust interjected. "You are no good to this 'Will' of yours dead. The most logical option, should serving the Prescripts be your highest priority, is to make yourself useful to us."
"Surely thine curiosities might be answered through your cooperation…?" Don Quixote suggested, pitching in as best she could.
Even hearing that, the Apprentice still didn't seem able to make up her mind. But under her breath, I could barely hear her muttering to herself.
"The W-will of the Prescripts has always aligned with my own…"
Out of that cliche apparently came her decision.
"And I want to help big sis, so… if you have a use for me, Yoshihide, I'll do whatever you ask."
Despite the outcome, Ryōshū's expression remained nonplussed. "You didn't choose. You put the burden on me. What if my use was to S.Y.N.C.?"
"Serve… yesterday…?" The Apprentice tried to decipher.
"Snap your neck completely," Ryōshū corrected.
"Oh." Sora didn't flinch. "If that's what you really want…"
Sora without hesitation presented her neck, as if asking Ryōshū to snap it. Before she could seriously consider it, I got Faust to call Hohenheim back in.
"I assume the prisoner has been successfully persuaded? Or, at the very least, won't be causing any problems?" he asked.
Ryōshū shrugged. "Seems Glasses will listen to me, at least."
"Do you have to c-call me that..?" Sora wondered aloud.
Taking Ryōshū's words as enough of a guarantee, Hohenheim reached into the pocket of his lab coat. When he produced a small, pristine device, Sora's eyes immediately lit up.
"I am giving you this in case of any emergencies-" he began, but the his words were cut off by her jubilant laughter. She snatched the beeper quickly, and the second it was back in her possession, the chains around her wrists and neck appeared once again. Despite the massive gilded bindings that suddenly weighed her down, she seemed as happy as could be, murmuring to the device in her hands.
"For your information, Manager," Hohenheim whispered, now right beside me, "Though I have yet to decipher the encoded transmissions coming to her device, I did find a way to block the signal itself. If you ever wish for me to temporarily remove this block, do let me know."
I nodded, my biggest concern having been answered. That did lead me to wonder, though…
"You may now be asking yourself why I am even returning such a device to our prisoner." Hohenheim began, answering my budding question in advance. "Firstly, I do believe I've just proven my theory on the manifestation of her E.G.O., which confirms several other hypotheses that I've been contemplating for some time now. And secondly, I am… familiar with the type of distress caused by a sudden severance from that which one centered their entire life around. Seeing as she will be working alongside us, I do believe this will lead to the best outcome for all involved."
Before I could even begin to scrutinize that, he cleared his throat and turned to the rest of the group. "Now then, let us head to the House of Spiders at once. The task we need the prisoner's insight for begins there."
Sora followed behind us as we walked. She suddenly much better resembled the cooperative and meek girl that we'd first met in the rubble of the LCE headquarters. I tried to ignore the fact that she was the cause of so much of that destruction as we made our way as a group back to the House of Spiders.