The moment Kal'tsit spotted Warfarin hunched over and entirely wrapped up in her own little world, her chest loosened just a fraction. If this chaotic Vampire was out here doing chores, it usually meant the immediate, life-threatening danger had rolled over.
But a second later, Kal'tsit's face went entirely rigid. Her gaze locked onto the heavy black vinyl bags resting right next to Warfarin—the exact, unmistakable body bags the Babel landship used for casualties. The heavy truth hit her like a physical blow: Warfarin wasn't just clearing debris; she was actively digging graves.
The usual goofy, totally unbothered smirk was completely wiped from the Vampire's pale face. Instead, her features were tightly strained as she fiercely muttered a string of incoherent thoughts to herself, her low voice barely carrying over the shattered concrete.
"Did... did someone actually sacrifice themselves?" Jeanne murmured, walking up behind Kal'tsit with the rest of the group. Her eyes instinctively tracked the relative sizes of the black bags. "Looking at the shape of that smaller bag, that casualty couldn't have even been an adult. Has the fighting here gotten so bad that even kids are getting caught in the crossfire?"
Hearing Jeanne's grim thought, the elite operators felt their expressions darken. The Babel landship was home to a good number of dependent children, and if an assault had actually breached the inner corridors, it was statistically impossible for there to be only a single casualty.
"Keep an eye on Theresa," Kal'tsit commanded quietly, gently handing the physically drained Sovereign over to Jeanne's supportive grip. "I'm going over there to figure out exactly what this idiot is rambling about."
Kal'tsit deliberately softened her footsteps as she approached the digging site. She hadn't called out immediately because her analytical eyes had already picked up a few glaring contradictions. For one, that polished wooden coffin sitting in the dirt was a piece of personal furniture Warfarin had explicitly requisitioned for her own quarters.
Everyone in the medical wing knew the eccentric Vampire used that coffin as her literal bed—a stubborn nod to ancient Sarkaz bloodline traditions. Given how fiercely protective she was of her sleeping arrangements, dragging it out here meant she was prepping a high-profile burial. But for whom?
"I told you! I explicitly told you idiots not to stick your noses into this war!" Warfarin's voice suddenly cracked with a massive surge of raw, choked-up emotion. She sounded like a devastated soul mourning the tragic, untimely loss of her closest companions.
Hearing the deep agony in her voice, Kal'tsit's face darkened another shade.
"You stubbornly insisted on throwing your lives away, so what on earth was I supposed to do?!" Warfarin fiercely drove her iron shovel back into the packed earth, her face cast in deep shadow as she completely ignored the world around her. Her attention was so hyper-focused on the dirt that she remained entirely oblivious to Kal'tsit looming directly behind her. "I'm just a medical doctor! I didn't have the physical power to tie you down! If you guys were entirely bent on committing suicide, how could I possibly stop you?!"
Listening to the desperate, heartbreaking monologue, Kal'tsit felt her stomach sink. At this point, even with her vast intellect, she couldn't definitively guess who was resting inside those heavy vinyl bags.
But given the visual evidence, the terrifying possibility that the casualties were the Doctor and little Amiya loomed massively over her thoughts. Who else inside the Babel hierarchy possessed enough personal weight to drive Warfarin into a public, emotional breakdown like this?
"And to top it all off, you bastards still owe me a monumental sum of money!" Warfarin suddenly cried out, her voice spiking in pitch. "Now that you've gone and died, who am I supposed to collect my debts from?! I mean, sure, the actual currency doesn't mean a damn thing to me anymore, but do you have any earthly idea how I felt the exact second I got the news of your deaths? I—"
Wait... Kal'tsit frowned slightly, a brief flicker of clinical confusion cutting through her dread. The Doctor or Amiya owed her money? That didn't align with basic financial reality. While the tactical commander was absolutely the type of chaotic degenerate who would borrow funds to fuel a terrible habit, little Amiya was an impeccably behaved, responsible child.
Furthermore, what could a child even buy inside the landship that required borrowing money? Everything the young Cautus needed was directly provided by either herself or Theresa. Money within Babel's internal economy was purely a token system used by operators to purchase optional luxury goods—like a cold bottle of premium beer or a bag of imported sweets.
Wait... unless it was the Doctor borrowing? Kal'tsit's blood pressure spiked dynamically at the mere thought. That shameless tactician was notoriously incapable of saving a single coin. If Amiya ever managed to scrape together any allowance, that unhinged commander would immediately swindle it away, forcing Kal'tsit to physically corner her by the collar to drag the stolen funds back for the child.
The sheer, overwhelming urge to commit physical violence surged within Kal'tsit's chest. Her patience shattered, and she prepared to bark a harsh demand to force Warfarin to explain the structural damage to the landship—
"—Do you know how absolutely, wildly ecstatic I am right now?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Warfarin suddenly flung her shovel into the dirt, spinning around with a look of pure, unadulterated joy. She was practically vibrating with a level of frantic excitement that only manifested when a person's most loathed, insufferable enemies had finally kicked the bucket.
The sudden, psychotic heel-turn left Kal'tsit momentarily paralyzed, wondering if the corpses in the bags actually belonged to Theresis and a younger version of himself.
Having completed her shallow trench, Warfarin stood proud, facing away from the two body bags as she pointed a triumphant finger at the sky.
"Who told you bastards to steal my favorite candy when we were kids, huh?! Do you know what kind of territory this is? This is the main arterial roadway! Every single Babel deployment has to drive right past this exact spot! I am burying you lowlifes right here so you don't get a single second of peace even in the afterlife!"
As Warfarin continued her passionate, incredibly unhinged victory speech, the suffocating weight instantly lifted from Kal'tsit's chest.
The dead weren't Babel personnel at all. They were clearly hostile Blood Demons commandos who had participated in the assault.
The historical timeline perfectly checked out: the only individuals old enough to have physically stolen candy from a young Warfarin while surviving into the modern era were ancient, pure-blooded Blood Demons. Anyone else would have simply died of old age centuries ago. And Kal'tsit knew for a factual certainty that neither she nor Theresa possessed the sheer, embarrassing lack of dignity required to steal sweets from a toddler.
Before Kal'tsit could even formulate a word, Warfarin grabbed her shovel again, putting a renewed, incredibly energetic swing into her stride, her voice laced with heavy, local slang.
"You complete and total [Sarkaz Profanity] actually lived long enough to see this day! I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you [Victorian Slang] back in the day that you were a bunch of absolute degenerates..."
Kal'tsit stood perfectly still in the shadow of the debris, quietly deciding that it was medically unsafe to interrupt a Vampire currently experiencing a profound, euphoric manic episode. Her decades in the Victorian metropolises hadn't gone to waste either; her mastery of local street curses was remarkably accurate.
However, as Kal'tsit's analytical gaze settled back onto the heavy bags, she noticed something peculiar. The structural contours of the vinyl material didn't sag like organic flesh and bone. Instead, the shapes were jagged, rigid, and completely solid—resembling heavy blocks of masonry rather than bodies.
Don't tell me... Kal'tsit's eye twitched. Did those invaders actually demolish my private office wall, and this lunatic is using the literal construction rubble to simulate a mock funeral for her childhood rivals? Surely... surely nobody is that pathologically petty?
"Hey, Warfarin! The Doctor told me to ask if you're finally done playing around out here? She wants to open a couple of bottles of wine to celebrate the victory! You know Kal'tsit has her on a strict zero-alcohol ban, so we need to chug it down fast before she—Kal'tsit?! You're back?"
Before Kal'tsit could even clear her throat, a frantic voice cut through the courtyard as a familiar figure dashed around the ruined corner.
It was Closure, the chief of the Engineering Department. Even within the eccentric ranks of Babel's elite, this particular Vampire was considered a complete anomaly, famously possessing a structural obsession with heavy machinery oil that far outweighed her biological interest in actual blood.
The absolute second the name 'Kal'tsit' echoed across the courtyard, Warfarin's entire body went completely rigid. She froze mid-swing like a stray dog caught with its muzzle buried deep inside the kitchen trash can.
"Indeed. I just pulled up to find that our home has been thoroughly dismantled," Kal'tsit replied, her voice dropping into a flat, terrifyingly even register as she offered Closure a calm nod, completely ignoring the shivering statue that was Warfarin.
"Wait, wait! Hold on a second!" Warfarin squeaked, trying to subtly shuffle her boots backward to blend seamlessly into the shadows of the concrete wreckage.
"Step forward, Warfarin," Kal'tsit commanded, her hand snapping out to clamp firmly onto the Vampire's shoulder before she could take a second step. Her grip was ironclad, her smile radiant yet entirely devoid of warmth. "Before we step inside, I believe you are going to give me a highly detailed, comprehensive lecture on the exact sequence of events that transpired during my absence. What exactly happened to my front gates?"
(Fumina: Sorry for no updates yesterday and today's late update. I had to go on a trip.)