Bella spent a long time watching from Red Square, working through every angle she had—divination, sixth sense, every instinct she had. The answer kept coming back the same: she could get in and get out in one piece, but getting in without being detected was a different problem entirely.
So how was she supposed to get in?
She ran through her magical options one by one. None of them worked. The sensor equipment capable of detecting superhuman ability was everywhere, and it was sensitive. If magic was out, technology was her only option.
She called Natasha.
Within three hours of their last call, this was already the second time she'd reached out. Natasha picked up before Bella could get a word out.
"Are you bored today? I know we're close, but there's no need to call me this many times in one day. Once a day is enough—any more and I start getting sick of it."
Bella hesitated. "So... about that. Natasha, could I possibly borrow your stealth suit?"
A long pause from the other end. "Isn't that the classic move? Boy likes girl, finds an excuse to borrow something—so there's a reason to return it, a reason to meet again. Usually it's an umbrella. Or a book. You're borrowing a stealth suit. Points for originality, I guess."
"I actually need it," Bella said flatly.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Not just an excuse?"
"Not just an excuse."
"Fine. Where are you going? There's a tracker in the suit—I need to disable it first."
Bella glanced left and right like someone about to confess a crime. She lowered her voice. "The Kremlin."
Natasha made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. "You're not doing anything bad, are you?"
"I'm just retrieving a document. I promise—not a single person gets hurt." Bella laid it out plainly and clearly.
Natasha wasn't the type to lower her moral standards the moment she fell for someone. She seemed easygoing, but her convictions ran deep. She had killed more people than she could count, and she could still lift Thor's hammer. Her character was stronger than most people who'd never pulled a trigger.
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "The problem is... I'm at home. You're still in Moscow. How do I get it to you?"
Bella had already worked that out. "Easy. Go to my room. Inside my wardrobe, I've drawn a two-way object transfer array. Disable the tracker, then drop the suit in."
Ten minutes later, she slipped into a secluded corner, activated the array she'd drawn on the spot, and pulled the suit through from afar.
She found a quiet restroom in a government office building and changed. The suit was built for Natasha's proportions—not a perfect fit, but it would do.
She activated the optical camouflage and the background reflection panels. She vanished into thin air.
The sensation was entirely different from magical invisibility. Bella tested herself near two sentries, drifting just within their field of vision. Nothing—no response, no alarm from the superhuman detection equipment. She straightened up and walked forward.
Soldiers on patrol, government workers moving between offices—they passed within arm's reach without the slightest awareness of her presence.
She didn't let the technology make her careless. She still gave way when she needed to.
Her speed and agility were far beyond any normal person, and barriers that would stop ordinary infiltrators were nothing more than a brief pause for her. Unlike the Invisible Man—whose mistake had been relying too heavily on invisibility and not accounting for momentum—Natasha's suit was engineered to remain undetectable even through rapid movement.
So this is what it feels like. Bella fell in behind two government workers and tracked them straight to the archive corridor—where she hit her first real obstacle.
A T-shaped junction. The long corridor branched off into Archive Rooms One through Six on both sides. At the center of the horizontal passage, a guard sat at a desk less than ten meters from the nearest door—every archive room within his direct line of sight. No phone, no newspaper—just focused attention and a clear view of everything.
Even invisible, she couldn't open a door without anyone noticing. A door swinging open on its own, in an otherwise empty corridor, with no one in sight—that was a problem that didn't need solving twice.
She backed out of the T-junction and summoned O'Rin into the adjacent hallway.
"Over there—see the guard? Get close. Don't let him see you. I need his attention somewhere else."
O'Rin drifted into position and plucked two notes on her shamisen.
The guard froze. He turned slowly in his seat, the color draining from his face. The corridor behind him felt colder. The melody—mournful, dirge-like, rising from no visible source—sent a crawl up his spine and made every hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
While he was staring at the wrong end of the hallway, Bella pushed open the door and stepped inside.
The archive room was completely dark. She hadn't brought a flashlight, and the documents were stacked in towering, haphazard columns. This was going to take time.
Outside, the guard was losing his composure. He knew perfectly well how many people had died within these walls over the centuries. The more you knew about the Kremlin's history, the less eager you were to be alone in it at night. A shot of vodka might have helped—but this was during work hours.
O'Rin's lament curled through the corridor without a source, without a direction, impossible to locate. He searched and searched and found nothing.
Ethan Hunt and Benji Dunn arrived at the archive corridor to find the guard in open distress—shifting constantly in his seat, like a man sitting on nails, sweating through his collar.
Ethan had no idea what to make of it.
Pursuing their own lead—tracking a missing nuclear authorization document, with a disappeared Russian intelligence officer as their primary suspect—they needed the Kremlin's identity records to complete their picture.
They pressed back against the wall and waited for the guard to stabilize. When he finally seemed to breathe again, they began their approach.
They didn't have anything as clean as a stealth suit. Their method was considerably more involved.
Benji produced a small device, pressed a microphone attachment to the wall, and activated a dripping water simulation.
Drip. Drip.
The guard launched off his chair like a man who'd been electrocuted, gun drawn, sweeping the corridor with both hands on the grip, eyes darting in every direction.
He fixated on the utility room at the far end. He was absolutely convinced something was about to emerge from it.
Ethan and Benji stared at each other. All that from a dripping sound?