Research

„I’m sorry. You’re probably hurt now, because of me. And after everything you did for me.”

Tears started welling up in her eyes.

“No, it’s fine, really.”

“I don’t believe you. I’m not blind. I’m sorry.”

Before the situation could devolve any further, I started humming the melody of the song she played on our way back to base, gently strumming across her hand in rhythm.

Takako quickly calmed down, before anything could escalate.

“Like I said, I’m fine. You don’t need to feel sorry for that.”

I didn’t mean to lean on her current vulnerability, but my curiosity got the better of me.

“What did you mean about him being a terrifying, though? Did he do something to you?”

“Not directly to me. I was deemed as combat capable enough to not need to undergo any special programs. But I saw the other children’s faces whenever he was around, and how they cowered in fear when he got angry once. He also made us fight when we first got control of our Traumata.”

She briefly held her thought, seemingly blanking on what to say next.

“It’s alright, take your time.”

“But he was also the one who came up with the dress, and that worked for a while to stabilize me, as long as it stayed unharmed. You saw what happened otherwise. There were a lot of people afraid of me throughout my life, but Doctor Wada is the only person I genuinely fear. I doubt there’s much else I can tell you, but I could grant you access to the internal archive.”

I simply nodded at her offer, before I was made aware of the visiting hours seemingly ending by the four guards outside storming in and forcibly dragging me out of it.

I was led back to my quarters and had nothing to do, except for considering the things Satoru could have done on his business trips.

Laying on my bed, I lost myself in thought, and began drifting asleep.

There it was again. The feeling I had been missing for the last five days finally returned, but with it also came the endless snowscape filling my mind back up.

I looked around, almost getting blinded by the snow. The ground below me began slipping. Before I knew it, I was caught inside an avalanche, with me as its cause.

I descended rapidly, an already burning structure sticking out of the snow. As the masses of snow crushed down on it, the already brittle pillars supporting it from below were dragged down the mountain. With them, the entire, massive structure followed.

I lost consciousness, awakening in the same snowscape I just stood in, large pieces of rubble now scattered throughout, just as all the times before. I knew where this was going.

The last words they had ever said to me reverberated through my mind. “Du bist unser Ein und Alles, Laura."

Instinctively, I began digging through the snow. My hands nearly froze off, before a strange warmth heated them back up from within me. I could finally achieve what I had failed to do back then. I could find them, inside all the rubble and the masses of snow.

I toiled away for what felt like days, finally uncovering my mother’s face. As I scraped away the snow beside it, I quickly found my father beside her. They were both completely motionless, yet a large smile had formed on both of their faces.

I reached in to hug them one last time, after all these years. Finally, I could feel their touch one more time, the one thing I couldn’t manage to do back then. I would have done the same thing I did now, though. I lay down next to them, enjoying the last moment we could ever spend together just a little while longer, until the cold flooded back through my body.

I closed my eyes, and woke up back in my bed.

I was freezing, yet my entire body was warm. A few gentle tears of achievement rolled down my face, almost freezing while trickling toward the mattress.

On my desk laid an ID with a note attached to it, reading:

“You can thank Araki for giving me this a while back. Good luck.”

From the handwriting, I assumed Takako had it delivered to me. I picked up the card and removed the note, revealing a sketched-out map for where to find the archives.

I can’t work with this at all. Maybe I should have told her before. Maps just don’t make sense. I’ll manage.

Assuming it was the next morning, Araki wouldn’t return to work for another week at least. So I still had nothing to do, with Takako still recovering.

The door opened just as I wanted to leave, and an actually unarmed agent stood in front of me for once.

“Miss Wada, I’m here to accompany you to the archives on Commander Matsumoto’s behest. If you would do me the honor of leading you there, of course.” Like all agents directly under her command, they held a deep bond of mutual respect with her. Just like when I first met her.

We walked for a while, with me quickly losing track of where we were going in this labyrinth of bright white corridors. I’d never get used to this.

We arrived at a door leading into a room filled with filing cabinets reaching up into the at least five-meter-high ceiling. At the other end of the room, a secure door with a card scanner was practically begging for me to open it. The agent left the me unattended in the room, closing the door behind him as he left.

I was now all alone, on my search to at least find a hint towards an answer to my questions.

The door gave in to my demands as I scanned Araki’s card, revealing only a few, much better organized, white pillars with words written on them.

I hurried toward the Pillar reading Hiroshima, remembering what Araki had said about five years ago.

The walls slid open with the touch of a finger, illuminating the entire filing system at the same time.

There were probably thousands of files inside the pillar, but one entire section stood out specifically. It was called Project Utsuro.