Chapter Text
To Kiyo’s surprise, she woke up to the Training Team being reopened. She had also been placed under London, who was back to acting as the Captain of the Training Team. If Griffin had any objections, he either chose or forgot to make them known.
The duo met in the Information Team’s department, Kiyo fiddling with her new orange armband that bore an ‘H’. “T-Training’s pretty chill,” London told her with an uneasy smile. “Though, um, we have quite a few HEs and we might end up with two Tools if the Manager opens Security early. Then it’s not so chill. I guess.” He frantically shook his head. “N-no, I mean — We’ll definitely handle it! We’re the Training Team!”
Kiyo could not hide her doubt. “I’ll… trust you on that then. What Abnormality was assigned to us today?”
“I haven’t received the documents; let’s go take a look for ourselves.” They walked towards the first containment chamber and checked the plaque. There was no image of the Abnormality, but the rest of its information was present.
T-02-43
TETH
SPIDER BUD
“Oh, it’s her!” London sounded genuinely happy, much to Kiyo’s confusion. “A-ah, there’s nothing to worry about with Miss Bud. She’s just really protective of her babies, so as long as you don’t step on them you’ll be fine. She’s also the one Acacia’s new E.G.O. came from.”
She thought back to his suit and shuddered as she recalled its hungry stare. “That’s wonderful,” she said flatly, no enthusiasm to be found in her voice whatsoever. “I’m going to be spider food before this loop ends, aren’t I.”
London suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look at him. “Absolutely not! Now repeat after me: ‘No Insight, Prudence Two!’”
“Uh—”
“‘No Insight, Prudence Two!’”
“…‘No Insight, Prudence Two’.”
“There you go!” London looked way too pleased with himself. “That’s the secret to surviving Miss Bud, and don’t you forget it!” He clapped his hands then turned and went back to the main room, leaving Kiyo standing awkwardly in the hallway.
“Geez, he’s seriously slipping.”
She overheard some nearby clerks gossiping. Wanting to listen in, she pretended to be really interested in a stain on the wall. “That’s not very nice,” someone else said. “It’s not the Captain’s fault.”
Another clerk huffed. “Yeah, go blame Twilight! It’s all thanks to his training that he’s gone completely haywire.”
“Wait, but the Captain always says Star trained him?”
“It’s definitely just the dementia kicking in.” She saw the clerk twirling a finger near his temple. “Like, imagine saying someone survived Twilight’s training. You’d be giving way too much hope to the newbies.”
“Regret over there seems to be doing well.” Kiyo leaned closer to the wall to cover up her initial flinch, acting even more invested in the rust. “She just hasn’t gotten over her massive Feather Syndrome.” She disguised an annoyed sound with a hum, reaching out to touch the wall. (Now she had rust on her finger, yay! Hopefully tetanus was curable with K Corp’s antiseptics.)
“Ugh, but have you met the new Red Eyes? He’s sooo much worse. ‘Oi clerk, move this’, ‘Oi clerk, carry that’ — Like, I have a callsign, you know?”
“We all have callsigns, idiot.”
“Anyway, is Regret okay? She’s just been standing there staring off into space.”
“See! I told you Twilight breaks people!” The clerks left, bringing their gossip with them.
Kiyo wiped her hand against her pants as she contemplated the conversation. London was trained by Griffin? She could not picture it and definitely agreed he would have long snapped if it were the case. Or perhaps Griffin trained him at first and Eva took over, so he considered Eva his mentor rather than Griffin? Regardless, it seemed that his outburst earlier was an ongoing issue if even the clerks were keeping track. She should be careful too, she told herself.
After stopping by the toilet to wash her hands, Kiyo headed to the freezer to look for something to feed Spider Bud with. Going off the name it had to be a spider, so she started looking for any bugs. She found a steak, some chicken breasts, and giblets, but no bugs. Thinking for a bit, she decided to take the bag of giblets, reasoning that they would be smaller and easier to consume.
On the way to its chamber, she thought back to what London made her say. No Insight was simple enough to follow; all she had to do was not perform Insight work. What did he mean by ‘Prudence Two’, though? Did he mean she needed a Prudence rating of two, or did she need more than two? Her Prudence was exactly two the last she took the virtues test, and London did not make her take it at all before leaving her. She came to a stop before its chamber, fidgeting with the bag of giblets.
Well, if London did not stop her, it probably meant she met the requirements?
Kiyo stepped inside, squinting her eyes to try and see anything in the heavy darkness that permeated the air. She could hear something skittering about, moving away frantically from wherever she stepped. When she finally laid eyes on what was in the middle of the room, she froze out of instinct.
A large black mass covered in coarse hairs hung from the ceiling, multiple red eyes all focused on her tracking every moment she made. Its crimson gaze pierced through the darkness, but as she held its stare she found her breathing begin to slow, the initial fear she felt eventually melting away to nothing. “Hi?” She waved to what she assumed was the titular Spider Bud. “I’m Kiyo, your new caretaker. I’ve brought food, see?” She held up the bag, and its focus shifted to it. “I’ll just dump it out on the floor, nice and slow…”
She knelt down and opened the zipper, allowing the giblets to tumble out of the plastic and onto the floor with soft thuds. The ‘floor’ shifted, and she soon realised what she thought was just a carpet was actually a sea of small spiders, eagerly covering every inch of the frozen meat. A few crawled up the bag and into her sleeves causing her to quickly drop the bag and try to shake them out, but she quickly stopped when she realised Spider Bud’s gaze on her had intensified. After much deliberation, Kiyo chose to roll up her sleeves and gently push the spiders off her, shuddering as her fingers brushed past the arachnids. One stubborn spider kept clinging on, digging its fangs into her skin and eliciting a loud curse from her. She managed to sweep it off right as the work chime went off and she made a beeline for the exit.
Leaning against the now closed door, she rolled up her sleeve and grimaced upon finding her forearm covered in many tiny swollen bites — and they itched like hell. She tried to fight the urge to scratch them, pinching them through the fabric to relieve some of the itch, but it became too much to bear and she ended up scratching with full force. By the time she was done, her nails were coated in blood and her arms were bleeding profusely.
“Oh wow,” a clerk passing by did a double take, “first time with the Spider, eh?”
“What makes you think so,” Kiyo snapped, the pain from her freshly-created wounds further testing her patience.
“Easy there freshie,” he snickered. “All the veterans say it gets better the more you get bitten. Still, you should head back to the main room and get that patched up before it gets infected or something.”
“Gee, thanks,” Kiyo grumbled as he walked away with a smug grin. She pulled down her sleeves and arched her back, feeling her bones popping as they shifted back into place. Right as she was about to leave, there were metallic clicks coming from behind her and she turned to see a Doubt lumbering towards her, its single red eye pulsing with every step it took. Kiyo gritted her teeth and reached for Regret, drew it with one swift motion, then rushed forwards with the mallet raised.
Of all the times an Ordeal could show up, it had to be right after she finished getting turned into an arachnid chew toy and being mocked by a clerk. Whatever, she thought to herself, all she has to do now is smash this bastard to bits.
“Agent Kiyo to suppress Doubt in the Information Team department.”
She could barely hear the intercom over the sound of metal scraping against metal. A heavy-handed downwards smash pulverised the spike-arm swiping in her direction. The robot stumbled as its centre of gravity suddenly shifted, allowing her to follow through with a golf swing aimed squarely at its head. Its head broke off with a loud snap of cables and joints, and its body swayed before collapsing to the ground into a heap of scrap. One down, but that was not enough to quell her anger.
The intercom repeated its message, this time successfully being heard by Kiyo. She looked up and tightened her grip, heart beating quicker with excitement at the thought of another kill and started sprinting towards Info. She would take this one down with a single swing, she fantasised with glee.
The Doubt was still alive by the time she arrived, wandering aimlessly with fresh blood dripping off its arms. Kiyo whistled to draw its attention, skidded to a halt before it, then used her momentum to pivot and slam the full weight of Regret into its body. That sent the Ordeal crashing into the nearby wall, its body breaking in half on impact. It twitched once, twice, then went still. As her breathing finally calmed, she made a mental note that the humanoid Ordeals (thankfully) did not seem to work off zombie rules.
“You seemed rather excited when you destroyed that Doubt,” Griffin’s arrival made her fumble with putting Regret away. “Don’t bother hiding it. I saw the entire thing.”
“I-I just felt good having done my job,” she spluttered, but Griffin silenced her with a raise of his hand.
“If that were the case, you wouldn’t have outrun London on your way here.” Kiyo co*cked an eyebrow and turned around, gasping in shock when she spotted London bent over relatively far behind with his hands on his knees, heaving and panting as he tried to catch his breath. “I’d advise you to skip the excuses and just admit what we both know — we don’t have all day.”
Kiyo sighed in defeat. “Fine. It felt really good killing the stupid machines. I don’t know why I felt that way though. And,” she snapped her head towards him, “don’t say I’m ‘starting to become like everyone else’ or whatever.” The bites were starting to itch again now that the adrenaline was wearing off. “I just got bitten several times and I’m on the verge of biting my arms off to stop the itching!”
Strangely, Griffin had a satisfied look on his face. “On the contrary, those thoughts are good while you’re wearing Regret.”
It took a bit until she recalled his words from their first training session. “Wait, is that what ‘syncing’ with my E.G.O. meant? Wanting to kill things?”
The veteran’s satisfaction was overridden with annoyance. “And here I thought you were finally capable of figuring things out on your own. I’m not gonna help you with this one,” he grumbled. “This is one of those things you can’t be guided through; you’ll only understand once you do.” Griffin suddenly seemed to remember something else and turned back towards London. “Speaking of understanding — Oi, London!” Kiyo found herself observing his reaction, the way his shoulders stiffened and he immediately shot up into a salute. “Where’s her virtues test? It’s well past the deadline for submission.”
“S-so sorry,” London sounded a bit more stable than earlier, much to her relief. “I’ve just been so busy preparing the clerks for Noon that it slipped my mind entirely.”
Noon? “Whatever,” Griffin rolled his eyes, “it’ll be your head that Yesod and Malkuth will be after if you don’t get it done by day’s end, not mine. Luckily for you, they probably won’t roast you too hard as long as you don't send her to another fussy Abnormality like Der Freschütz or Spider Bud.”
“W-well,” both Kiyo and him broke out in a cold sweat, “about that!”
There was a brief flash of gold in his eyes, but Griffin opted to just scowl. “I heard nothing,” he said flatly, turning on his heel with a hand pressed against his temple and walking away. “I also never ran into either of you.”
Kiyo and London stood there in awkward silence, neither sure of what to say next. Thankfully, the intercom crackled to life and barked a single order:
“Agent Kiyo to perform work with Theresia.”
“Theresia?” Kiyo tilted her head in confusion. “What’s that? Is the speaker broken? I didn’t hear a work type.”
London seemed strangely relieved. “You got a pretty good Tool for your first time!” He exclaimed. “You should be able to find it in Info. All you have to do is turn it on and wait for the manager’s order to turn it off.”
Kiyo narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you sure that’s all? It sounds way too simple.”
“Well, there is a small little quirk about it, but you can’t do anything about that since it’s an order from the higher ups.” London patted her on the shoulder and gave her a thumbs up. “You can do it!”
An old-school ballerina music box sat on a table before Kiyo, a thin layer of dust coating its exterior. She grasped its edges carefully as she shifted it about for an examination, making sure not to touch the brass winding key.
It was deceptively heavy, owing to the body being made of metal with solid wooden feet. Its centre was also made of the same wood, intersecting intricate brass engravings lining all four sides. The ballerina had one leg up and her arms raised, balanced on one foot in a classic ballet pose. There were brown stains all over the device, with one stain looking unnervingly similar to a pair of bloody handprints.
Kiyo swallowed nervously and tried to avoid paying it too much attention. All she had to do was turn the key and wait for the Manager to give the green light to leave, she reminded herself. That meant the Manager had to know what he was doing and how to keep her from harm.
Right?
The internal clockwork clicked noisily as the key was turned and the music box whirled to life as soon as she released it, though unlike what she expected the ballerina did not move. Music filled the room, the tune foreign yet familiar to her. Melancholic notes lulled her into a sense of security, and she allowed her mind to wander…
“Good afternoon, Miss Kiyo. How are your studies?” Joseph closed the door behind him, glancing at the television. Kiyo scrambled to switch it off, but it was too late. “Still watching the live Smoke War coverage, I see? You’ve been obsessed with this program since sunrise.”
“N-no.” Kiyo lied poorly and looked down in shame. “I was just, um, taking a break? I totally studied earlier.”
Her butler gently ruffled her grey hair, taking a moment to examine the tips. “Hm, perhaps we could extend this break. You could use a light trim before summer comes around.”
Kiyo perked up at the suggestion. “Okay!” She replied eagerly and ran out the door with Joseph following close behind. Once they made it out the front door, the pair waited for the chauffeur to arrive which did not take long: he was always on time for both arrival and departure, regardless of the weather or circ*mstances.
They arrived at the family’s usual salon to a mostly empty shop. The hairdresser greeted them a little too eagerly for her tastes, ushering her into one of the seats near the back. As one of the assistants came over to drape a smock across her shoulders, Kiyo overheard Joseph speaking to someone. Their tones were hushed, and from where she sat she could not see who the other person was.
“I mean it, someone should really do something about it.”
“Even if there was someone to ‘do something about it’, it won’t magically solve all our problems. It’d still take weeks or months to clean up the physical remains, and what about the refugees?”
“Leave them for the Fingers, duh. No way they’re going to be let back into a Nest after this fiasco. Oh — don’t give me that look. It’s not like you’re a stranger when it comes to getting your hands dirty.”
“I’d advise you to watch your tongue—”
“—Plunging your daggers into the backs of innocents, watching your targets choke on their own spit as poison courses through their veins, indulging in the light in their eyes fade away as they take their last breaths—”
Kiyo stumbled away from the music box, clutching her head in her hands. The once soothing tune was now more akin to nails on a chalkboard, each note tearing through her skull as if threatening to split it apart.
There was only one way to soothe her pain.
The doors of Theresia’s chamber burst open and Kiyo stepped out into the hallway, Regret trembling slightly despite her tight grip on its handle. Her breathing was laboured, the pain at the base of her neck throbbing with every exhale. With blown wide eyes, she scanned the corridor for anything to relieve the growing pressure oh god someone help her she needs help—
She began shrieking at the top of her lungs, trying to drown out the remnants of Theresia’s screeching melody. Her legs moved of their own accord as she started running in no particular direction. The combination of screaming and exercise strangely did help with the pain, but only by the slightest amount. So she kept going, wandering aimlessly throughout the facility and completely blind to her surroundings. Kiyo did not know how much time had passed before she collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath. Her vision finally focused enough for her to realise she was in the Control team’s department, accompanied by a fretting London and a curious Acacia.
“What, ran out of things to do so you decided to give everyone front row seats to your karaoke practice?” Acacia picked his ear, curiosity giving way to frustration. “We could hear you from all the way up here, you know. You didn’t have to grace us with your presence.”
London fiddled with his pistol, avoiding eye contact with either of them. “I’m so sorry,” he mumbled. “I should have been on standby for suppression in case the Manager didn’t remember how Theresia worked, but I was so busy preparing for Noon—”
Kiyo dug a knuckle into her temple, trying to knead out the last few aches from the music box’s effect. “That’s the second time you brought up Noon,” she grumbled, slowly getting back on her feet and dusting herself off. “How bad is it if you’re spending all this time preparing for it?”
“Well,” London rubbed the back of his neck, “it really depends on which Noon we get today, but most of them are super deadly for clerks. Mass clerk death makes Angela and the other veterans mad, so it’s better to have them ready for the Ordeal if possible. Prevention is better than cure, after all.”
“Wait, there’s going to be another Ordeal today?” Acacia was clearly frustrated, but Kiyo did not share his distress — she found herself actually craving the possibility of another fight, much to her confusion.
London blinked, taking a while to realise the pair genuinely did not know. “O-oh, we didn’t explain Ordeals very well, huh.” The look they had told him everything he needed to know. “Hah… Griffin’s methods strike again. Okay, here we go.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, we Agents don’t really know much about Ordeals. But what we do know are their names and that they can show up multiple times a day. The highest we’ve had so far is four times, but we can’t say for certain if that’s the maximum. So until that gets disproven, we’ve decided to call each category by a time of day. The ones that tend to show up first are Dawns, those that show up second are Noon, third is Dusk, and last is Midnight. Doubt is a type of Dawn, and we should be expecting a Noon soon-ish. So it’s super important you guys avoid all doors until the Noon appears!” He added hastily, almost like an afterthought.
Acacia snorted. “Doors of all things? Whatever, I’ve got better things to do.” He turned and left, grumbling a few curses under his breath.
“Okay,” Kiyo replied, deciding to just wait and see for herself what his warning meant. “Staying away from doors sounds simple enough. Anyway, I’m going back to work.” She was about to leave when London grabbed her sleeve and handed her a clipboard. “What’s this?”
“Your virtues test! Sorry it took me this long to get it to you.” He offered her a pen, which she took and used to start filling in the questions. “If it’s any consolation, you won’t have to fill it up anymore after all your virtues hit five: the Record Team’s Sephirah will take over from then on.”
She nodded absentmindedly, focused on the task at hand. Thankfully it felt like it took less time to fill in all the questions with every new test, and she was done in a handful of minutes. London did a very quick scan through the whole stack of papers then marked out her current virtue levels, impressing her with his speed. It did not last long when she saw her virtues remained the same: a Fortitude and Temperance level of three, and a Prudence and Justice level of two. “Uh, is this a processing error? I was expecting something more after… well, everything.”
London shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, Kiyo. Sometimes your virtues do improve, but we aren’t allowed to raise the level. It’s something both Record Team and Training Team agreed on, although I wasn’t around when that decision was made.” He thought for a bit. “Eva might know the reasoning behind it, if you really want to know.”
Kiyo shook her head. “It’s fine, I don’t really think it’s important. I’ll get going now,” she once again turned to leave, “so see you around, London.”
“Don’t forget what I said!” He called out to her from behind. “Stay away from doors!”
