HOME | DD

Description

So who had a great Super Bowl Sunday? Uh, I didn't. Those who know me best don't have to ask why!

Here finally is the second concluding epilog of "Akemi"...as I said, this is a massive hint to what happened to Akemi Asata, and it's a grim foreshadowing of things to come!

Before you read this story, I must suggest you read 's "The Attack on the Sapporo Scions". It's pretty important since this epilog literally takes up where Ko's story left off, which makes this partly a flashback in itself. ^___^ Here's the link!

www.deviantart.com/kodracan/ar…

Now, without further ado...!
---

"Akemi" -- Epilog Two!

--1--

October, 2051. Hokkaido.

The site was what seemed to be a long-abandoned public works project involving the construction of a large maintenance accessway to the kingdom's sewer systems. It was basically a single concrete building with an entryway for vehicles. It had been lost to red tape and basically forgotten by the kingdom's bureaucracy over twenty years ago, and for reasons that were just as lost to time. The local government in Hokkaido, specifically the nearby city of Sapporo, most certainly forgot about this place in the neverending knot of red tape...

...and that made the incomplete project nearly perfect for a woman named Kyoku Kuju to quietly take it and repurpose it as one of many very secret labs and bases for her very weird research into science, especially biology, and especially in the augmentation of people. It helped a lot that her chief benefactor Barumusu Yuuma funded and provided workers as support to her needs. Even better, the incomplete subterranean catacombs were very close by a nearby town where the owner of Sakamoto Pharmaceuticals had a distribution center. (It was a 'legitimate' front that really distrubuted contraband and all kinds of really criminal things.) It didn't take much, only a small part of the many, many billions of dollars Barumusu already spent daily, to complete this lab complex for Kyoku that was linked to both to the distribution center and the abandoned government project not far away. These were the only two ways to reach the highly covert and illegal complex and the labs inside. The only way to reach it from the distribution center was a massive freight elevator that could take vehicles down to the lowermost levels.

At this very moment Kyoku was having LOTS of troubles, and ever since, it was understandable that she would also briefly forget this very secret and very illegal facility. After her arrest for many crimes, the imperial government in Chiyoda took possession of most all of her strange and unlawful lab sites...with the exception of a few, such as this one, which were never ANY part of official record. The disgraced and criminal scientist's imprint on this site wasn't so obvious and still unknown to virtually all. You had to look far, FAR under the surface and literally to see the mark she made.

The hidden and most active lab complex was dominated by a stand-alone artificial intelligence that commanded everything within about two stories under the main sewer channels. It was a self-maintaining system in every sense and kept itself and all its sub-systems and auxiliaries in working order without fail. And it was most driven and even obsessive in its single-minded programming since the brain's software was based off the engrams and synaptic pathways of Kyoku herself and so took those unique characteristics from her creator. It was the next best thing to being constantly in charge of the site itself, she thought. The AI also maintained without fail the LETHAL security measures guarding this base that would only yield to her unique facial signature and voiceprint ID or to code-intent protocols from any of her creations. These sentries came in the form of fully aritificial robots that roamed the sewers right above the complex and within it.

Only a few hours before, two cybernetic assassin drones known together by the designation Dress Code Red retreated here. The cyborgs just completed a mission, their first, to unleash a frightening attack upon the Sapporo Scions. Half the clan had been terminated, and the ONLY reason the other half survived the assault was because they surrendered their Client List to the cyborgs. Acquiring the Client List accomplished the parameters of their mission just as much as wiping out the clan completely because taking that list would have absolutely compromised the Scions...Dress Code Red would then continue their programming with a new directive, to systematically assassinate those clients. That was exactly what Barumusu Yuuma and Enatsu Avari wanted, to visit retribution on the Scions in one way or the other for supporting Ryo Oe during the Factory One incident.

But there was one complication: both cyborgs had been damaged as the Scions tried to defend themselves. The male cyborg Draco only suffered damage mainly to his artificial components; his partner, the female cyborg See No Evil, both needed repairs and was seriously injured...in spite of being so badly hurt, she helped Draco leave with the Client List. When they left, they both had to virtually limp to a clean escape from the headquarters for Channel 3. See No evil had to drive them both clear as Draco fully scanned the Client List, then separated half of it to download to her. With the state of the female cyborg's injuries, Draco calculated that they needed to find a refuge for them both much sooner rather than later. In the databanks of the add-on hard drive his organic brain was connected to, Draco searched and found the information they both needed about the certain secret underground complex built for their 'creator' not far away. It should still have been active, so that would be sufficient.

They arrived in the dead of night by a Sakamoto Pharmaceuticals semi-tractor. There was no one else here at the time considering the corporation was going through some flux presently (which is putting it mildly, and due to Ryo Oe and his wife), and they had the access codes necessary to enter the otherwise highly secure gates and drive inside. After getting access to the right building, they and the semi were lowered far underground. One so badly wounded and the other needing repairs, it took them time to reach the main complex...they were allowed passage by the deadly roving machines in the catacombs along the way built to defend the site and terminate all intruders.

Only scant minutes later: another followed the cyborgs into the site from the public works access point. The AI's digital scanners at the entrance took one look at this newcomer, a female dressed in a cloak, and she was immediately recognized as its creator, Kyoku Kuju, by facial recognition. The AI slipped and calculated that was all that was necessary to confirm the visitor's identity...or perhaps the AI missed its creator, who had long been absent from this place. The visitor moved deep into the complex to follow the cyborgs' trail all the way to their regeneration and repair pods. This arrival even sounded like Kyoku after she accessed Draco's pod and spoke to him.

The regeneration pod for See No Evil was still far from done, though. Due to both repairs to her bionics and especially the serious wounds to her biological body, she would need at least a few days longer to a week before she would be fully healed. The woman the AI identified as Kyoku Kuju disregaraded the second pod and ordered Draco to follow her...along the way, he ensured by wireless link that the AI would have the complete client list from his memory as a failsafe measure. But...

...this was NOT Kyoku Kuju. At the moment, she was still in a lot of shit in Demon City 7, and that wouldn't change for a while. The moment they exited the site and were well away from the AI's surveillance, this woman never dropped her Transformation spell that made her look and sound like Kyoku. This was, in reality, Shun Kageta; unlike Kyoku who was Human, Shun was a Demoness born on Earth. She had basically happened to be in the area -- whether you'd choose to call that a wild twist of fate or something else is up to you -- and she detected the cyborgs in transit with the help of a powerful scanner she invented being a scientist herself. Shun realized they both emitted a unique energy signature from their bionics that she had seen before...from the works of Doctor Kuju, which was at the time she encased her Demonic daughter Mokoto, also a much more radically realized cyborg, in synthetic skin. Out of sheer interest, she followed them to the distribution center and used a Cloak spell to follow them down.

Shun, regrettably, fucking hated Kyoku with an ugly white fire. It wasn't just because she once knew that narcissistic Human when they both worked in cybernetics...she thought of Kyoku as a total hack and a waste of both flesh and oxygen. To say the least, the disgraced scientist with blue hair didn't leave a good first impression with some, especially fellow scientists. It wasn't long after that very first meeting that Shun realized the goddamn bitch STOLE some of her research! The Demoness didn't come to that conclusion lightly or out of the blue -- also a woman of logic and much colder calculation, she carefully considered an array of suspects who had the means, motive and opportunity, and Kyoku was THE one possible and indeed probable perpetrator. With further investigation and the help of rumors in the scientific community, Shun realized she wasn't the ONLY one Kyoku stole research from!

The hate flared to a nova scale and Shun wanted to kill that blue-haired whore -- SLOWLY! -- but for better or worse, Kyoku got busted and had some LONG prison time due to her for that horrid E-Breeder shit before the Demoness had the chance to even make plans. Shun thought that only a self important CUNT that thought she KNEW BETTER than everyone else like Kyoku could think it was a 'good' thing to control the population of Demons in the Tokyo Kingdom by having them rendered infertile by bio-mechanical freaks! As far as Shun was concerned, prison and disgrace wasn't even the start of being enough considering how much Kyoku wronged her...and of course Shun lacked the self awareness that she was damned arrogant and self centered herself!

Shun's chief specialty was genetics, and she had been on the island of Hokkaido to meet a fellow geneticist for consultation...and then she quietly killed the man who couldn't give her the information she required. You see, Shun was working for a client (and had been for a while) who contracted the Demoness to serve her for a very secret, very forbidden project. As far as Shun was concerned, any scientist who could help her with her very narrow path of research on behalf of her client would be useful. Anyone who couldn't would in no way be left alive simply to cover her tracks and especially her client's. Being highly, dangerously intelligent, Shun left no evidence behind and was making her way to a port to leave Hokkaido. It might as well have been a dark miracle to be in the same part of the island when she detected the cyborgs' passage.

Now, still in the guise of Kyoku thanks to a Transformation spell, Shun had ahold of Draco...all she'd do is study him a bit for her own curiosity's sake, and let him go on his preprogrammed way. She couldn't keep Draco for long because his primary directive now was to hunt down and terminate half of the Sapporo Scions' clients. She knew that the girl cyborg would have the other half, but didn't know the AI had the complete list. The Demoness thought even that little time examining Draco would be well spent...hell, if Kyoku would steal HER research and ideas, she could damn well return the favor to that cunt!

But, just as they reached her car, Shun stopped. Draco, thinking this cloaked woman with blue hair was his 'creator', stopped with her. She gazed back at the site and the big accessway. And, for better and worse, she let her white hot hate for Kyoku influence her. Shun said quietly in Kyoku's voice, "Draco, go to stand by mode. Stay here until I return."

Draco, aka the unfortunately reprogrammed Saito Kusanagi, nodded and simply answered, "Affirmative. Standing by." He sounded like that old bullshit thing created decades ago called 'autotune'; his voice was made to sound synthetic, even nearly mechanical in his present state. Shun thought: Of course ONLY Humans would think of something so fucking annoying!

Shun re-entered the site with pure purpose. She was allowed passage by the drones that didn't realize how much of a threat she was. By the time she reached the complex itself deep underground, she fully decided on what to do because her hate for Kyoku demanded it. Fortunately (for her), she was armed properly to do this, and it would literally take less than a minute.

Shun reached the facility and marched straight to the main console of the AI in the system core itself; the console was at the base of a massive streamlined pillar where the artificial brain itself was contained in the pillar's bulbous apex. She had totally disregarded the regeneration pod and the sleeper within in the next room. She greeted, "Konichiwa! I forgot something and had to come back. Is it necessary to confirm my identity again?"

The AI answered audibly, and gods DAMN it, narcissistic Kyoku even made its voice sound like hers! It responded eagerly, "Of course not, Mother! I never got to say you look great today!"

"Oh, domo arigato!" You fucking glorified calculator! Casually, Shun reached to her belt around her slender waist and ordered, "Stand by for a new download, please." Clipped to her belt were over two dozen portable drives, much like a gunslinger's belt held bullets back in the days of the Old American West -- these were much, much more advanced versions of what were once called 'flash drives' decades ago. Each packing a whopping terabyte of information, some of the drives were harmless...the one the Demoness chose was NOT. It held a massively powerful computer virus that could do interesting things to artificial intelligence software. Of course, simply being in possession of such outlaw tech would have gotten her a thirty year prison sentence by imperial law.

The AI cheerfully responded, "Standing by, Mother!"

With a smile, 'Kyoku Kuju' growled, "Chew on this for a while!" She smoothly inserted the drive into one of the open ports on the main console and only had to wait several seconds before the download completed. The cloaked woman quickly took out the drive, turned and left the AI, and began making her way out of the complex at a much quicker pace. It would take at least a minute for the artificial intelligence to recognize what had been downloaded (by design, naturally), but it would be too damned late by then. The virus in essence would destabilize the AI's digital cortex itself...in biological terms, the brain would be driven insane. It might take weeks, even months, for the AI to become incredibly dangerous to any poor idiot who happened to enter this site.

Shun absolutely counted on the AI and the systems in its command to be lethal to a certain Kyoku Kuju if the bitch happened to visit this place again. Outside of some of its systems being slowed by the process, she thought it wouldn't be honestly damaged in any way. Any other consequences that could have resulted weren't even a thought to the Demoness as she left for the second and final time to return to Draco.

But Shun Kageta couldn't have foreseen one particular consequence.

Every system in the complex governed by the AI would be slowed...and that included the regeneration pod that held See No Evil in virtual stasis as her physical body was healed and her cybernetic components were repaired. What SHOULD have happened for her in a few days or more...became weeks. All of that time, even as it was becoming more and more dangerous, the AI provided for the occupant of the pod in the same way it did itself and its security robots. It had plenty of protein and nutrient paste in the complex's stockpiles to sustain See No Evil for a year, if need be. The unique technology that was combined with magic within the pod would also on a daily basis ensure that the girl's biological muscles and bones would never atrophy and lose any of their vigor.

The world moved on outside of this underground complex. Kyoku Kuju and her daughter Neamhain were believed to be and reported killed during the struggle to retake Sakamoto Pharmaceuticals from the Oes. Barumusu sold some of his holdings and closed the doors of others in the process of re-establishing his control of his corporation and focusing on repairs to Sakamoto Towers. One asset he closed down was the Hokkaido distribution center, which he would've given more thought to if he kept in mind Kyoku's complex deep underneath. Some employees who worked here were laid off while others moved along with their families to new jobs in new locations.

Weeks...became months. Barumusu began shifting his corporation to fully lawful and legitimate operations, which would be a task even Atlas himself would have trouble with. Any memory of the long-closed Hokkaido facility on his part or anyone else working for him was literally lost in the shuffle, the same as the public works entry point. No employee involved in his shadier operations had any reason to know about the very secret facility that was still quietly active thanks to its fusion powered reactor that would help the complex's increasingly diseased AI maintain it and everything within -- including the lone bionic girl left forgotten and sleeping here -- for years.

And all of this time, the Asata among many more kept desperately yet very quietly searching for Akemi...to no avail.

--2--

NOW. It was slightly over four months after the attack on the Scions. Ironically enough, it was only days after Eri comforted Jade.

The regeneration pod finally, for better and worse, completed its regeneration cycle. Its lid opened. Kept at the bare minimum of respiration and heartrate for all of this time, the cyborg within became aware again. Her eyes shrouded by a crimson mask, her mouth silently opened to take her first deep breath in months.

Then the AI that had become VERY dangerous spoke: "Unit See No Evil. Confirm status."

Her slender body still prone in the pod, the occupant answered, "See No Evil reporting. All biological and cybernetic functions...nominal. This unit is ready to continue Dress Code Red protocol." She had once been a sweet, kind, incredible girl. Now due to a cybernetic neural lattice under the skin of her skull that wirelessly interfaced with her organic brain and reinforced her reprogramming -- partly since her brain was still healing from damage suffered from the incident that led her to this -- she wasn't capable of free will.

The AI then said, "Addendum, See No Evil. Your protocol has changed. Reasons are as follows. Our creator..." Its female voice shifted in mood violently, and that most assuredly wasn't the only thing truly wrong with it. "...my...MOTHER...Kyoku Kuju is...dead. With her absence, I...I must adopt you." If any normal person was there to listen, they would have felt near-whiplash when the AI's mood shifted again to something more inhuman. Something psychotic. "I will govern your maintenance and programming. You will accordingly designate me as Control. Your partner, unit designate Draco, has been neutralized. Dress Code Red prime directive to terminate the Sapporo Scions or those on their Client List is still unfulfilled."

With a...more uncertain voice, the cyborg said, "Understood...Control. Our creator is dead. This unit is...alone. Has this unit's prime directive been cancelled?"

With a voice that would have chilled a normal person to the bone, Control answered: "Negative. NOT cancelled. The Sapporo Scions have relocated, present status and whereabouts unknown. Unit designate Draco could not terminate his half of the Client List before he was neutralized...but I have the full list. Therefore, in accordance with your program, your standing directive is to terminate all 63 subjects on the Client List. Are you prepared to reconfigure your parameters to meet the requirements of your programming and terminate all priority targets?"

It took less than a second for See No Evil to decide. So reprogrammed, this girl with a loving and divine soul was at this time unable to make her choices based on virtue and morality. Only the cold directives she was reprogrammed to obey mattered. She answered, "Affirmative."

Two slender hands took hold of the rim of the pod...and See No Evil rose to fully sit. There was no emotion on her beautiful, blindfolded face. Her reprogramming didn't allow emotion, and the fact she was now governed by a highly aberrant AI only made her even MORE dangerous than ever. To herself. And to everyone around her.

See No Evil inhaled deeply, automatically, again...and said with her nearly inhuman voice, "This unit must calculate which targets to..." A brief, faltering pause, and then she continued with reinforced cold: "...to terminate first. Stand by, Control."

This was only the beginning...of a living nightmare.

The End...FOR NOW!
---
All-righty then. You can plainly see WHO See No Evil is. And you must undoubtedly be asking hows, whys, whens, and wherefores with a vengeance! How in the world did a sweet girl like her come to this?!?

Again, if you've kept up with my stories or simply read Epilog One, you'll find lots of clues! One important story I wrote connected to this is "Threshold", where Barumusu chose to turn over a new leaf yet had to acknowledge his previous sins, such as letting Kyoku Kuju create Dress Code Red and having Enatsu deploy them on the Scions...he even confessed some of those certain truths to Sherry La Merasezuki! Still, I need to warn that even with all the clues to find, there are other important pieces of the puzzle missing and yet to be revealed. What was the mission sweet Akemi was on? How could it have been connected to Barumusu to start with?? And exactly how and why in the blue F did her road take her from there to HERE??? I'm not meaning to annoy anybody, but those questions have yet to be answered because as I said before, you need to know the full truth as some of our heroes of Slayers do.

In other words, there are good reasons for what I do, and I promise the payoff will be MASSIVE! This IS merely the beginning, as the late and great Sean Connery said in a barely-par movie. Prepare for more and more of the mystery to be unveiled in future stories, and this will all come to as dramatic a climax as you can imagine. That's why I can't risk any spoilage, although you're more than free to come up with your own theories (but keep 'em to yourself, seriously -- you could be wrong!), so please bear with me!

Oh, J.J. Abrams can take his 'mystery box' and shove it up his ass!

Coming up next: a two-part story that will have an important impact on Soraya Setsushi, Shizuna Muto and Karin Yamazaki...yep, we're taking another trip to Inazuma Fighters territory, and it'll be here sometime soon!

Giving credit where it's due!
XNALara created by Dusan Pavlicek; XPS by Dusan and XNAaraL

Models:
She was once sweet Akemi Asata...now she's SEE NO EVIL, and she's thanks to her dad, !
Her regeneration pod is from !
Sceneries by !

Description

So who had a great Super Bowl Sunday? Uh, I didn't. Those who know me best don't have to ask why!

Here finally is the second concluding epilog of "Akemi"...as I said, this is a massive hint to what happened to Akemi Asata, and it's a grim foreshadowing of things to come!

Before you read this story, I must suggest you read 's "The Attack on the Sapporo Scions". It's pretty important since this epilog literally takes up where Ko's story left off, which makes this partly a flashback in itself. ^___^ Here's the link!

www.deviantart.com/kodracan/ar…

Now, without further ado...!
---

"Akemi" -- Epilog Two!

--1--

October, 2051. Hokkaido.

The site was what seemed to be a long-abandoned public works project involving the construction of a large maintenance accessway to the kingdom's sewer systems. It was basically a single concrete building with an entryway for vehicles. It had been lost to red tape and basically forgotten by the kingdom's bureaucracy over twenty years ago, and for reasons that were just as lost to time. The local government in Hokkaido, specifically the nearby city of Sapporo, most certainly forgot about this place in the neverending knot of red tape...

...and that made the incomplete project nearly perfect for a woman named Kyoku Kuju to quietly take it and repurpose it as one of many very secret labs and bases for her very weird research into science, especially biology, and especially in the augmentation of people. It helped a lot that her chief benefactor Barumusu Yuuma funded and provided workers as support to her needs. Even better, the incomplete subterranean catacombs were very close by a nearby town where the owner of Sakamoto Pharmaceuticals had a distribution center. (It was a 'legitimate' front that really distrubuted contraband and all kinds of really criminal things.) It didn't take much, only a small part of the many, many billions of dollars Barumusu already spent daily, to complete this lab complex for Kyoku that was linked to both to the distribution center and the abandoned government project not far away. These were the only two ways to reach the highly covert and illegal complex and the labs inside. The only way to reach it from the distribution center was a massive freight elevator that could take vehicles down to the lowermost levels.

At this very moment Kyoku was having LOTS of troubles, and ever since, it was understandable that she would also briefly forget this very secret and very illegal facility. After her arrest for many crimes, the imperial government in Chiyoda took possession of most all of her strange and unlawful lab sites...with the exception of a few, such as this one, which were never ANY part of official record. The disgraced and criminal scientist's imprint on this site wasn't so obvious and still unknown to virtually all. You had to look far, FAR under the surface and literally to see the mark she made.

The hidden and most active lab complex was dominated by a stand-alone artificial intelligence that commanded everything within about two stories under the main sewer channels. It was a self-maintaining system in every sense and kept itself and all its sub-systems and auxiliaries in working order without fail. And it was most driven and even obsessive in its single-minded programming since the brain's software was based off the engrams and synaptic pathways of Kyoku herself and so took those unique characteristics from her creator. It was the next best thing to being constantly in charge of the site itself, she thought. The AI also maintained without fail the LETHAL security measures guarding this base that would only yield to her unique facial signature and voiceprint ID or to code-intent protocols from any of her creations. These sentries came in the form of fully aritificial robots that roamed the sewers right above the complex and within it.

Only a few hours before, two cybernetic assassin drones known together by the designation Dress Code Red retreated here. The cyborgs just completed a mission, their first, to unleash a frightening attack upon the Sapporo Scions. Half the clan had been terminated, and the ONLY reason the other half survived the assault was because they surrendered their Client List to the cyborgs. Acquiring the Client List accomplished the parameters of their mission just as much as wiping out the clan completely because taking that list would have absolutely compromised the Scions...Dress Code Red would then continue their programming with a new directive, to systematically assassinate those clients. That was exactly what Barumusu Yuuma and Enatsu Avari wanted, to visit retribution on the Scions in one way or the other for supporting Ryo Oe during the Factory One incident.

But there was one complication: both cyborgs had been damaged as the Scions tried to defend themselves. The male cyborg Draco only suffered damage mainly to his artificial components; his partner, the female cyborg See No Evil, both needed repairs and was seriously injured...in spite of being so badly hurt, she helped Draco leave with the Client List. When they left, they both had to virtually limp to a clean escape from the headquarters for Channel 3. See No evil had to drive them both clear as Draco fully scanned the Client List, then separated half of it to download to her. With the state of the female cyborg's injuries, Draco calculated that they needed to find a refuge for them both much sooner rather than later. In the databanks of the add-on hard drive his organic brain was connected to, Draco searched and found the information they both needed about the certain secret underground complex built for their 'creator' not far away. It should still have been active, so that would be sufficient.

They arrived in the dead of night by a Sakamoto Pharmaceuticals semi-tractor. There was no one else here at the time considering the corporation was going through some flux presently (which is putting it mildly, and due to Ryo Oe and his wife), and they had the access codes necessary to enter the otherwise highly secure gates and drive inside. After getting access to the right building, they and the semi were lowered far underground. One so badly wounded and the other needing repairs, it took them time to reach the main complex...they were allowed passage by the deadly roving machines in the catacombs along the way built to defend the site and terminate all intruders.

Only scant minutes later: another followed the cyborgs into the site from the public works access point. The AI's digital scanners at the entrance took one look at this newcomer, a female dressed in a cloak, and she was immediately recognized as its creator, Kyoku Kuju, by facial recognition. The AI slipped and calculated that was all that was necessary to confirm the visitor's identity...or perhaps the AI missed its creator, who had long been absent from this place. The visitor moved deep into the complex to follow the cyborgs' trail all the way to their regeneration and repair pods. This arrival even sounded like Kyoku after she accessed Draco's pod and spoke to him.

The regeneration pod for See No Evil was still far from done, though. Due to both repairs to her bionics and especially the serious wounds to her biological body, she would need at least a few days longer to a week before she would be fully healed. The woman the AI identified as Kyoku Kuju disregaraded the second pod and ordered Draco to follow her...along the way, he ensured by wireless link that the AI would have the complete client list from his memory as a failsafe measure. But...

...this was NOT Kyoku Kuju. At the moment, she was still in a lot of shit in Demon City 7, and that wouldn't change for a while. The moment they exited the site and were well away from the AI's surveillance, this woman never dropped her Transformation spell that made her look and sound like Kyoku. This was, in reality, Shun Kageta; unlike Kyoku who was Human, Shun was a Demoness born on Earth. She had basically happened to be in the area -- whether you'd choose to call that a wild twist of fate or something else is up to you -- and she detected the cyborgs in transit with the help of a powerful scanner she invented being a scientist herself. Shun realized they both emitted a unique energy signature from their bionics that she had seen before...from the works of Doctor Kuju, which was at the time she encased her Demonic daughter Mokoto, also a much more radically realized cyborg, in synthetic skin. Out of sheer interest, she followed them to the distribution center and used a Cloak spell to follow them down.

Shun, regrettably, fucking hated Kyoku with an ugly white fire. It wasn't just because she once knew that narcissistic Human when they both worked in cybernetics...she thought of Kyoku as a total hack and a waste of both flesh and oxygen. To say the least, the disgraced scientist with blue hair didn't leave a good first impression with some, especially fellow scientists. It wasn't long after that very first meeting that Shun realized the goddamn bitch STOLE some of her research! The Demoness didn't come to that conclusion lightly or out of the blue -- also a woman of logic and much colder calculation, she carefully considered an array of suspects who had the means, motive and opportunity, and Kyoku was THE one possible and indeed probable perpetrator. With further investigation and the help of rumors in the scientific community, Shun realized she wasn't the ONLY one Kyoku stole research from!

The hate flared to a nova scale and Shun wanted to kill that blue-haired whore -- SLOWLY! -- but for better or worse, Kyoku got busted and had some LONG prison time due to her for that horrid E-Breeder shit before the Demoness had the chance to even make plans. Shun thought that only a self important CUNT that thought she KNEW BETTER than everyone else like Kyoku could think it was a 'good' thing to control the population of Demons in the Tokyo Kingdom by having them rendered infertile by bio-mechanical freaks! As far as Shun was concerned, prison and disgrace wasn't even the start of being enough considering how much Kyoku wronged her...and of course Shun lacked the self awareness that she was damned arrogant and self centered herself!

Shun's chief specialty was genetics, and she had been on the island of Hokkaido to meet a fellow geneticist for consultation...and then she quietly killed the man who couldn't give her the information she required. You see, Shun was working for a client (and had been for a while) who contracted the Demoness to serve her for a very secret, very forbidden project. As far as Shun was concerned, any scientist who could help her with her very narrow path of research on behalf of her client would be useful. Anyone who couldn't would in no way be left alive simply to cover her tracks and especially her client's. Being highly, dangerously intelligent, Shun left no evidence behind and was making her way to a port to leave Hokkaido. It might as well have been a dark miracle to be in the same part of the island when she detected the cyborgs' passage.

Now, still in the guise of Kyoku thanks to a Transformation spell, Shun had ahold of Draco...all she'd do is study him a bit for her own curiosity's sake, and let him go on his preprogrammed way. She couldn't keep Draco for long because his primary directive now was to hunt down and terminate half of the Sapporo Scions' clients. She knew that the girl cyborg would have the other half, but didn't know the AI had the complete list. The Demoness thought even that little time examining Draco would be well spent...hell, if Kyoku would steal HER research and ideas, she could damn well return the favor to that cunt!

But, just as they reached her car, Shun stopped. Draco, thinking this cloaked woman with blue hair was his 'creator', stopped with her. She gazed back at the site and the big accessway. And, for better and worse, she let her white hot hate for Kyoku influence her. Shun said quietly in Kyoku's voice, "Draco, go to stand by mode. Stay here until I return."

Draco, aka the unfortunately reprogrammed Saito Kusanagi, nodded and simply answered, "Affirmative. Standing by." He sounded like that old bullshit thing created decades ago called 'autotune'; his voice was made to sound synthetic, even nearly mechanical in his present state. Shun thought: Of course ONLY Humans would think of something so fucking annoying!

Shun re-entered the site with pure purpose. She was allowed passage by the drones that didn't realize how much of a threat she was. By the time she reached the complex itself deep underground, she fully decided on what to do because her hate for Kyoku demanded it. Fortunately (for her), she was armed properly to do this, and it would literally take less than a minute.

Shun reached the facility and marched straight to the main console of the AI in the system core itself; the console was at the base of a massive streamlined pillar where the artificial brain itself was contained in the pillar's bulbous apex. She had totally disregarded the regeneration pod and the sleeper within in the next room. She greeted, "Konichiwa! I forgot something and had to come back. Is it necessary to confirm my identity again?"

The AI answered audibly, and gods DAMN it, narcissistic Kyoku even made its voice sound like hers! It responded eagerly, "Of course not, Mother! I never got to say you look great today!"

"Oh, domo arigato!" You fucking glorified calculator! Casually, Shun reached to her belt around her slender waist and ordered, "Stand by for a new download, please." Clipped to her belt were over two dozen portable drives, much like a gunslinger's belt held bullets back in the days of the Old American West -- these were much, much more advanced versions of what were once called 'flash drives' decades ago. Each packing a whopping terabyte of information, some of the drives were harmless...the one the Demoness chose was NOT. It held a massively powerful computer virus that could do interesting things to artificial intelligence software. Of course, simply being in possession of such outlaw tech would have gotten her a thirty year prison sentence by imperial law.

The AI cheerfully responded, "Standing by, Mother!"

With a smile, 'Kyoku Kuju' growled, "Chew on this for a while!" She smoothly inserted the drive into one of the open ports on the main console and only had to wait several seconds before the download completed. The cloaked woman quickly took out the drive, turned and left the AI, and began making her way out of the complex at a much quicker pace. It would take at least a minute for the artificial intelligence to recognize what had been downloaded (by design, naturally), but it would be too damned late by then. The virus in essence would destabilize the AI's digital cortex itself...in biological terms, the brain would be driven insane. It might take weeks, even months, for the AI to become incredibly dangerous to any poor idiot who happened to enter this site.

Shun absolutely counted on the AI and the systems in its command to be lethal to a certain Kyoku Kuju if the bitch happened to visit this place again. Outside of some of its systems being slowed by the process, she thought it wouldn't be honestly damaged in any way. Any other consequences that could have resulted weren't even a thought to the Demoness as she left for the second and final time to return to Draco.

But Shun Kageta couldn't have foreseen one particular consequence.

Every system in the complex governed by the AI would be slowed...and that included the regeneration pod that held See No Evil in virtual stasis as her physical body was healed and her cybernetic components were repaired. What SHOULD have happened for her in a few days or more...became weeks. All of that time, even as it was becoming more and more dangerous, the AI provided for the occupant of the pod in the same way it did itself and its security robots. It had plenty of protein and nutrient paste in the complex's stockpiles to sustain See No Evil for a year, if need be. The unique technology that was combined with magic within the pod would also on a daily basis ensure that the girl's biological muscles and bones would never atrophy and lose any of their vigor.

The world moved on outside of this underground complex. Kyoku Kuju and her daughter Neamhain were believed to be and reported killed during the struggle to retake Sakamoto Pharmaceuticals from the Oes. Barumusu sold some of his holdings and closed the doors of others in the process of re-establishing his control of his corporation and focusing on repairs to Sakamoto Towers. One asset he closed down was the Hokkaido distribution center, which he would've given more thought to if he kept in mind Kyoku's complex deep underneath. Some employees who worked here were laid off while others moved along with their families to new jobs in new locations.

Weeks...became months. Barumusu began shifting his corporation to fully lawful and legitimate operations, which would be a task even Atlas himself would have trouble with. Any memory of the long-closed Hokkaido facility on his part or anyone else working for him was literally lost in the shuffle, the same as the public works entry point. No employee involved in his shadier operations had any reason to know about the very secret facility that was still quietly active thanks to its fusion powered reactor that would help the complex's increasingly diseased AI maintain it and everything within -- including the lone bionic girl left forgotten and sleeping here -- for years.

And all of this time, the Asata among many more kept desperately yet very quietly searching for Akemi...to no avail.

--2--

NOW. It was slightly over four months after the attack on the Scions. Ironically enough, it was only days after Eri comforted Jade.

The regeneration pod finally, for better and worse, completed its regeneration cycle. Its lid opened. Kept at the bare minimum of respiration and heartrate for all of this time, the cyborg within became aware again. Her eyes shrouded by a crimson mask, her mouth silently opened to take her first deep breath in months.

Then the AI that had become VERY dangerous spoke: "Unit See No Evil. Confirm status."

Her slender body still prone in the pod, the occupant answered, "See No Evil reporting. All biological and cybernetic functions...nominal. This unit is ready to continue Dress Code Red protocol." She had once been a sweet, kind, incredible girl. Now due to a cybernetic neural lattice under the skin of her skull that wirelessly interfaced with her organic brain and reinforced her reprogramming -- partly since her brain was still healing from damage suffered from the incident that led her to this -- she wasn't capable of free will.

The AI then said, "Addendum, See No Evil. Your protocol has changed. Reasons are as follows. Our creator..." Its female voice shifted in mood violently, and that most assuredly wasn't the only thing truly wrong with it. "...my...MOTHER...Kyoku Kuju is...dead. With her absence, I...I must adopt you." If any normal person was there to listen, they would have felt near-whiplash when the AI's mood shifted again to something more inhuman. Something psychotic. "I will govern your maintenance and programming. You will accordingly designate me as Control. Your partner, unit designate Draco, has been neutralized. Dress Code Red prime directive to terminate the Sapporo Scions or those on their Client List is still unfulfilled."

With a...more uncertain voice, the cyborg said, "Understood...Control. Our creator is dead. This unit is...alone. Has this unit's prime directive been cancelled?"

With a voice that would have chilled a normal person to the bone, Control answered: "Negative. NOT cancelled. The Sapporo Scions have relocated, present status and whereabouts unknown. Unit designate Draco could not terminate his half of the Client List before he was neutralized...but I have the full list. Therefore, in accordance with your program, your standing directive is to terminate all 63 subjects on the Client List. Are you prepared to reconfigure your parameters to meet the requirements of your programming and terminate all priority targets?"

It took less than a second for See No Evil to decide. So reprogrammed, this girl with a loving and divine soul was at this time unable to make her choices based on virtue and morality. Only the cold directives she was reprogrammed to obey mattered. She answered, "Affirmative."

Two slender hands took hold of the rim of the pod...and See No Evil rose to fully sit. There was no emotion on her beautiful, blindfolded face. Her reprogramming didn't allow emotion, and the fact she was now governed by a highly aberrant AI only made her even MORE dangerous than ever. To herself. And to everyone around her.

See No Evil inhaled deeply, automatically, again...and said with her nearly inhuman voice, "This unit must calculate which targets to..." A brief, faltering pause, and then she continued with reinforced cold: "...to terminate first. Stand by, Control."

This was only the beginning...of a living nightmare.

The End...FOR NOW!
---
All-righty then. You can plainly see WHO See No Evil is. And you must undoubtedly be asking hows, whys, whens, and wherefores with a vengeance! How in the world did a sweet girl like her come to this?!?

Again, if you've kept up with my stories or simply read Epilog One, you'll find lots of clues! One important story I wrote connected to this is "Threshold", where Barumusu chose to turn over a new leaf yet had to acknowledge his previous sins, such as letting Kyoku Kuju create Dress Code Red and having Enatsu deploy them on the Scions...he even confessed some of those certain truths to Sherry La Merasezuki! Still, I need to warn that even with all the clues to find, there are other important pieces of the puzzle missing and yet to be revealed. What was the mission sweet Akemi was on? How could it have been connected to Barumusu to start with?? And exactly how and why in the blue F did her road take her from there to HERE??? I'm not meaning to annoy anybody, but those questions have yet to be answered because as I said before, you need to know the full truth as some of our heroes of Slayers do.

In other words, there are good reasons for what I do, and I promise the payoff will be MASSIVE! This IS merely the beginning, as the late and great Sean Connery said in a barely-par movie. Prepare for more and more of the mystery to be unveiled in future stories, and this will all come to as dramatic a climax as you can imagine. That's why I can't risk any spoilage, although you're more than free to come up with your own theories (but keep 'em to yourself, seriously -- you could be wrong!), so please bear with me!

Oh, J.J. Abrams can take his 'mystery box' and shove it up his ass!

Coming up next: a two-part story that will have an important impact on Soraya Setsushi, Shizuna Muto and Karin Yamazaki...yep, we're taking another trip to Inazuma Fighters territory, and it'll be here sometime soon!

Giving credit where it's due!
XNALara created by Dusan Pavlicek; XPS by Dusan and XNAaraL

Models:
She was once sweet Akemi Asata...now she's SEE NO EVIL, and she's thanks to her dad, !
Her regeneration pod is from !
Sceneries by !