The sensation struck Niko the moment she stepped out of the sweets shop, almost causing her to drop the iced coffee she had purchased. She didn't, instead forcing her body to stay calm and relax, lest her reaction give herself away to whomever was watching. She walked slowly, deliberately, occasionally checking the reflection of the city skyline in the windows of the shops she passed, never once catching sight of her unseen tail. Whoever they were, they were uncannily good at keeping their presence concealed.
As she snuck around to the back entrance of Angelica Bears, Niko had no idea if she had managed to shake her tail or not. She had taken the long way, cutting through several busy intersections and back alleys alike, hoping to lose them. With the sensation of being watched refusing to leave her until the moment she had closed the back door, she had to ask; had she lost them or not? Was the lingering sensation proof that her tail had been watching right until the very end, or just her paranoid mind playing tricks on her?
The elevator doors closed, and it wasn't until Niko had stepped out, hearing her footsteps echo on the tiled floor of the basement level, that her breathing calmed itself. "I'd never have guessed that
you of all people would have decided to go for a stroll," Asami Saki said, greeting Niko as she returned to base. "That's unlike you. What if someone were to notice 'Hijiri Kanna' walking around in broad daylight?"
"It wasn't my choice," Niko replied. "Assassin was getting uppity; told me I had been inside for too long and that my body needed the vitamin D. What about you?" Saki cocked an inquisitive eye in Niko's direction as she asked "What are you doing here? Don't you have classes Thursday afternoons?"
"It's Friday, Niko," Saki said, crossing her arms over her chest. "I don't have classes on Friday, remember? Assassin was right; you
do need to get out more often if you're starting to lose track of what day it is." Niko refused to dignify Saki's comment with any more answer than an absentminded nod of her head. "At any rate, we need to talk."
"Funny, I was about to say the same thing to you." Wakaba Mirai may have been Saki's right hand, but when it came to keeping the machinery of the Pleiades Saints ticking, it was Niko that Saki came to, and no one else. The walk to Niko's workshop was long, winding, but both girls knew the way. "Before Assassin kicked me out, we were going over some data I had been collecting on the performance of our Soul Gems; how frequently and how efficiently we're using our mana, things like that."
"You found something out of the ordinary, didn't you?" Saki asked; there wasn't any other reason Niko would have brought the topic up. "What was it?"
"Last night I was finally able to get some real-time data on how the regeneration module I was working on plays out, and the results aren't looking the way I'd hoped." Saki had been lucky, having avoided any major injury in her fight with the bow-using girl last night; but she knew Mirai and Satomi hadn't escaped so easily. "I don't know if it's as good an idea as I thought it would be. The data showed a considerable uptake in mana usage at the point of regeneration. Wakaba's data in particular has me worried. Even though her injuries were less severe than Usagi's, the mana cost to her Soul Gem was greater."
"That's not good, is it?"
"It depends on what future data looks like," Niko said. "There's a chance it's just a fluke, and we'll start to see their mana usage level out once their Soul Gems are used to the module, but if not it could be a sign that the module is doing more harm than good. Wakaba already has a lower pool of mana than Usagi, on top of Rider taking more out of her than Archer takes out of Usagi. If worse comes to worst, I might have to disable the module entirely for Wakaba, before the regeneration causes her to..." Niko didn't dare finish her sentence, and Saki didn't dare finish it for her. Standing before the large, double-wide doors of Niko's private workshop, finishing that sentence didn't feel
right. "If it proves to be a problem for you or Misaki, let me know. How your Soul Gems react to the module will let me know whether I should keep it active or not."
Saki nodded. "
What about the homunculus? Umika told me last night that you think her magic wore off. What does that mean for us going forward?"
"It means we'll have to keep a close eye on
her, to make sure the work that's already been done wasn't for nothing. In case of another relapse, I've given her permission to make whatever alterations she sees fit. As long as
she is combat-worthy, and manages to stay alive until Caster can complete his work, that's all we really need from
her."
"You sound rather nonchalant about the whole thing," Saki said. "You know what will happen to
her once Caster is finished. I thought you'd be a little more concerned about the fate of your alleged masterpiece." As if she could ever call
her a masterpiece.
She was just the first attempt that hadn't been a failure, after all.
"I know that the work I've done has been leading up to this moment," Niko replied. "If Caster is successful, then everything I've done will have been for that purpose. Besides, you were the one that loved
her, not me. I'm just doing the job you asked me to do."
"And you really don't have any complaints with everything I've asked you to do so far?"
"I'd be lying if I said I was okay with the things we've done."
With the things she had done. "But that's just human nature. In truth, I lost the right to complain about my work a long time ago. Now, I'm just doing the only thing I'm any good at."
Saki turned, saying to Niko as the two parted ways "At any rate, I'm glad you're as good at is as you are. It's... Been difficult, I know; for all of us. But we're almost there. We will see
her again, and when we do it will have been thanks to you."
"Thanks to me," Niko repeated the words to herself as Saki turned the corner and vanished. She snorted, saying softly "As if." Assassin soon appeared beside her master, handing a bottle of orange juice to her. "Now with added vitamin D," Niko said, taking the bottle from Assassin and drinking. "You really do think of everything, don't you?"
"I figured keeping you outside for any extended period of time would be a fool's errand," Assassin said. "So I thought I might at least find another way to get your body the nutrition it requires."
Niko finished her orange juice without complaint, stuffing the empty bottle into the pocket of her hoodie once she had finished. "Assassin, let's go over the data we collected last night one more time," Niko said. "I want to see if there are any calibrations I can make to the regeneration module that'll make it less mana-intensive when Wakaba uses it."
"As you wish, master."
The pair turned their backs on the tall, double-wide doors and made for Niko's workshop. Niko knew she could never turn her back on what she had done; what lay behind those double-wide doors. To think otherwise was just her mind playing tricks on her, like it had earlier when she thought she was being followed.
